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A 


DICTIONARY    OF   THE    BIBLE 


COMPRISING    ITS 


ANTIQUITIES     BIOGRAPHY,    GEOGRAPHY, 
AND    NATURAL    HISTORY. 


EDITED 


BY  WILLIAM  SMITH,  D.C.L.,  LL.D., 

KI.ITOK  OF   THE    DICTIONARY    OF    "  GKKKK    AND    ROMAN    ANTIQUITIES."    ''  BIOGRAPHY    AND    MYTHOLOGY, 

AND    "OROGRAPHY." 


IN  THEEE  VOLUMES.— VOL.  III. 
RED-SEA— ZUZIMS. 


LONDON: 

JOHN    MURRAY,    ALBEMARLE    STREET. 
1863. 

The  rigid  of  Trrtr,.  rved. 


< 1 


.<JL 


DIRECTIONS  TO  BINDER. 


Plate  I.,  Specimen  of  Uncial  MSS.  to  be  placed  between  pages  1710  and  1711. 

Plato  II.,  Specimens  of  British  and  Irish   MSS.  to  be  placed  between  pages 
1712  and  1713. 


LONDON:   1'iiiNTED  BY  WILLIAM  CLOWES  AM>  .SONS,  LIMITED, 
AND  <;HAUIXG  CROSS. 


LIST    OF    WRITERS. 


INITIALS.  NAMES. 

H.  A.  Very  Eev.  HENRY  ALFORD,  D.D., 

Dean  of  Canterbury. 

H.  B.  Eev.  HENRY  BAILEY,  B.D., 

Warden  of  St.  Augustine's  College,  Canterbury ;  late  Fellow 
of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge. 

H.  B.  Eev.  HORATIUS  BONAR,  D.D., 

Kelso,  N.  B. ;  Author  of  'The  Land  of  Promise/ 

[The  geographical  articles,  signed  H.  B.,  are  written  by  Dr.  Bonar:  those  on  other  subjects, 
signed  H.  B.,  are  written  by  Mr.  Bailey.] 

A.  B.  Eev.  ALFRED  BARRY,  B.D., 

Principal  of  Cheltenham  College ;  late  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge. 

W.  L.  B.     Eev.  WILLIAM  LATHAM  BEVAN,  M.A., 
Vicar  of  Hay,  Brecknockshire. 

J.  W.  B.     Eev.  JOSEPH  WILLIAMS  BLAKESLEY,  B.D., 

Canon  of  Canterbury ;  Vicar  of  Ware ;  late  Fellow  and  Tutor 
of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

T.  E.  B.       Eev.  THOMAS  EDWARD  BROWN,  M.A., 

Vice-Principal  of  King  William's  College,  Isle  of  Man  ;  late 
Fellow  of  Oriel  College,  Oxford. 

E.  W.  B.     Ven.  EGBERT  WILLIAM  BROWNE,  M.A., 

Archdeacon  of  Bath ;  Canon  of  Wells ;  Eector  of  Weston- 
super-Mare  ;  Examining  Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  Bath 
and  Wrells  ,  Chaplain  to  Her  Majesty's  Forces. 

E.  H.  B.      Eev.  EDWARD  HAROLD  BROWNE,  B.D., 

Norrisian  Professor  of  Divinity,  Cambridge ;  Canon  of  Exeter. 

W.  T.  B.     Eev.  WILLIAM  THOMAS  BULLOCK.  M.A., 

Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts. 

S.  C.  Eev.  SAMUEL  CLARK,  M.A., 

Vicar  of  Bredwardine  with  Brobury,  Herefordshire. 

F.  C.  C.       Eev.  F.  C.  COOK,  M.A., 

Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to  the  Queen ;  one  of  Her  Majesty's 
Inspectors  of  Schools ;  Preacher  to  the  Hon.  Society  of 
Lincoln's  Inn ;  Examining  Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of 
Lincoln. 

G.  E.  L.  C.  Eight  Eev.  GEORGE  EDWARD  LYNCH  COTTON,  D.D., 

Lord  Bishop  of  Calcutta  and  Metropolitan  of  India. 

J.  LI.  D.      Eev.  JOHN  LLEWELYN  DAVIES,  M.A., 

Eector  of  Christ  Church,  Marylebone ;  late  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge. 


IV 


LIST  OF  WRITERS. 


INITIALS.  NAMES. 

E.  D.  EMANUEL  DEUTSCH,  M.K.A.S., 

British  Museum. 

G.  E.  D.      Eev.  G.  E.  DAY,  D.D., 

Lane  Seminary,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

W.  D.          Rev.  WILLIAM  DKAKE,  M.A., 

Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to  the  Queen ;  Hon.  Canon  of  Worcester; 
Eural  Dean  ;  Vicar  of  Holy  Trinity,  Coventry 

E.  P.  E.       Eev.  EDWARD  PAROISSIEN  EDDRUP,  M.A., 

Prebendary  of  Salisbury;  Principal  of  the  Theological 
College,  Salisbury. 

C.  J.  E.       Eight  Eev.  CHARLES  JAMES  ELLICOTT,  D.D., 
Lord  Bishop  of  Gloucester  and  Bristol. 

F.  W.  F.     Eev.  FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FARRAR,  M.A., 

Assistant  Master  of  Harrow  School  ;  late  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge. 

J.  F.  JAMES  FFRGUSSON,  F.E.S.,  F.E.A.S., 

Fellow  of  the  Eoyal  Institute  of  British  Architects. 

E.  S.  Ff.      EDWARD  S.  FFOULKES,  M.A., 

late  Fellow  of  Jesus  College,  Oxford. 

W.  F.          Eight  Eev.  WILLIAM  FITZGERALD,  D.D., 
Lord  Bishop  of  Killaloe. 

F.  G.  Eev.  FRANCIS  GARDEN,  M.A., 

Subdean  of  Her  Majesty's  Chapels  Eoyal. 

F.  W.  G.     Eev.  WILLIAM  GOTCH,  LL.D., 

late  Hebrew  Examiner  in  the  University  of  London. 

G.  GEORGE  GROVE, 

Crystal  Palace,  Sydenham. 

H.  B.  H.      Eev.  H.  B.  HACKETT  D.D., 

Professor  of  Biblical  Literature,  Newton,  Massachusetts. 
E.  H — s.      Eev.  ERNEST  HAWKINS,  B.D., 

Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's ;  Secretary  of  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts. 

II.  H.  Eev.  HENRY  HAYMAN,  B.D., 

Head  Master  of  the  Grammar  School,  Cheltenham ;  late 
Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Oxford. 

A.  C.  H.      Ven.  Lord  ARTHUR  C.  HERVEY,  M.A., 

Archdeacon  of  Sudbury,  and  Eector  of  Ickworth. 
J.  A.  H.       Eev.  JAMES  AUGUSTUS  HESSEY,  D.C.L., 

Head  Master  of  Merchant  Taylors'  School ;  Preacher  to  the 
Hon.  Society  of  Gray's  Inn ;  Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's  ; 
Bampton  Lecturer  for  1860. 

J.  D.  II.      JOSEPH  D.  HOOKER,  M.D.,  F.E.S., 
Eoyal  Botanic  Gardens,  Kew. 


LIST  OF  WRITERS. 


INITIALS.  NAMES. 

J.  J.  H.       Eev.  JAMBS  JOHN  HORNBY,  M.A., 

Fellow  of  Brasenose  College,  Oxford  ;  Principal  of  Bishoi3 
Cosin's  Hall ;  Tutor  in  the  University  of  Durham. 

W.  H.          Kev.  WILLIAM  HOUGHTON,  M.A.,  F.L.S., 

Eector  of  Preston  on  the  Weald  Moors,  Salop. 
J.  S.  H.       Eev.  JOHN  SAUL  HOWSON,  D.D., 

Principal  of  the  Collegiate  Institution,  Liverpool ;  Hulsean 
Lecturer  for  1863. 

E.  H.  Eev.  EDGAR  HUXTABLE,  M.A., 

Subdean  of  Wells. 
W.  B.  J.      Eev.  WILLIAM  BASIL  JONES,  M.A., 

Prebendary  of  York  and  of  St.  David's;   late  Fellow  and 

Tutor    of    University    College,    Oxford  ;    Examining 

Chaplain  to  the  Archbishop  of  York. 

A.  H.  L.      AUSTEN  HENRY  LAYARD,  D.C.L.,  M.P. 

S.  L.  Eev.  STANLEY  LEATHES,  M.A.,  M.E.S.L., 

Hebrew  Lecturer  in  King's  College,  London. 
J.  B.  L.       Eev.  JOSEPH  BARBER  LIGHTFOOT,  M.A., 

Hulsean  Professor  of  Divinity,  Cambridge ;  Fellow  dl 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge;  Examining  Chaplain  to 
the  Bishop  of  London. 

D.  W.  M.     Eev.  D.  W.  MARKS, 

Professor  of  Hebrew  in  University  College,  London. 

F.  M.  Eev.  FREDERICK  MEYRICK,  M.A., 

One  of  Her  Majesty's  Inspectors  of  Schools ;  late  Fellow 
and  Tutor  of  Trinity  College,  Oxford. 

Oppert.        Professor  OPPERT,  of  Paris. 

E.  E.  0.       Eev.  EDWARD  BEDMAN  ORGER,  M.A., 

Fellow  and  Tutor  of  St.  Augustine's  College,  Canterbury. 
T.  J.  0.       Ven.  THOMAS  JOHNSON  ORMEROD,  M.A., 

Archdeacon  of  Suffolk;  late  Fellow  of  Brasenose  College, 
Oxford. 

J.  J.  S.  P.   Eev.  JOHN  JAMES  STEWART  PEROWNE,  B.D., 

Vice-Principal  of  St.  David's  College,  Lampeter  ;  Examining 
Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  Norwich. 

T.  T.  P.       Eev.  THOMAS  THOMASON  PEROWNE,  B.D., 

Fellow  and  Tutor  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Cambridge  ; 
Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  Xorwich. 

H.  W.  P.     Eev.  HENRY  WRIGHT  PHILLOTT,  M.A., 

Eector  of  Staunton-on-Wye,  Herefordshire;  Eural  Dean; 
late  Student  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford. 

E.  H.  P.      Eev.  EDWARD  HAYES  PLUMPTRE,  M.A., 

Professor  of  Divinity  in  King's  College,  London ;  Examining 
Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  and  Bristol. 

E.  S.  P.        EDWARD  STANLEY  POOLE,  M.E.A.S., 
South  Kensington  Museum. 


VI 


LIST  OF  WRITERS. 


INITIALS.  NAMES. 

R.  S.  P.        REGINALD  STUART  POOLE, 
British  Museum. 

J.  L.  P.       Rev.  J.  L.  PORTER,  M.A., 

Author  of  '  Handbook  of  Syria  and  Palestine/  and  *  Five 
Years  in  Damascus.' 

C.  P.  Rev.  CHARLES  PRITCHARD,  M.A.,  F.R.S., 

Hon.  Secretary  of  the  Royal  Astronomical  Society;  late 
Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge. 

G.  R.  Rev.  GEORGE  RAWLINSON,  M.A., 

Camden  Professor  of  Ancient  History,  Oxford;  Bampton 
Lecturer  for  1859. 

H.  J.  R.      Rev.  HENRY  JOHN  ROSE,  B.D., 

Rural  Dean,  and  Rector  of  Houghton  Conquest,  Bedfordshire. 

W.  S.  Rev.  WILLIAM  SELWYN,  D.D., 

Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to  the  Queen ;  Lady  Margaret's  Pro 
fessor  of  Divinity,  Cambridge  ;  Canon  of  Ely. 

A.  P.  S.       Rev.  ARTHUR  PENRHYN  STANLEY,  D.D., 

Regius  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  and  Canon  of 
Christ  Church,  Oxford;  Deputy  Clerk  of  the  Closet; 
Chaplain  to  His  Royal  Highness  the  Prince  of  Wales ; 
Examining  Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  London. 

C.  E.  S.       Rev.  CALVIN  E.  STOWE,  D.D., 

Professor  of  Sacred  Literature,  Andover,  Massachusetts. 

J.  P.  T.        Rev.  J.  P.  THOMPSON,  D.D., 
New  York. 

W.  T.          Most  Rev.  WILLIAM  THOMSON,  D.D., 
Lord  Archbishop  of  York, 

S.  P.  T.       S.  P.  TREGELLES,  LL.D., 

Author  of  '  An  Account  of  the  Printed  Text  of  the  Greek 
New  Testament.' 

H.  B.  T.      Rev.  H.  B.  TRISTRAM,  M.A.,  F.L.S., 

Master  of  Greatharn  Hospital. 
J.  F.  T.       Rev.  JOSEPH  FRANCIS  THRUPP,  M.A., 

Vicar  of  Barrington ;  late  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Camb. 
E.  T.  Hon.  EDWARD  T.  B.  TWISLETON,  M.A., 

Late  Fellow  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford. 
E.  V.  Rev.  EDMUND  VENABLES,  M. A., 

Bonchurch,  Isle  of  Wight. 

B.  F.  W.      Rev.  BROOKE  Foss  WESTCOTT,  M.  A., 

Assistant  Master  of  Harrow  School ;  late  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge. 

C.  W.  Rev.  CHRISTOPHER  WORDSWORTH,  D.D., 

Canon  of  Westminster. 
W.  A.  W.     WILLIAM  ALDIS  WRIGHT,  M.A., 

Librarian  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge ;  Hebrew  Examiner 
in  the  University  of  London. 


DICTIONARY 


OP 


BIBLICAL  ANTIQUITIES,  BIOGRAPHY,  GEOGRAPHY, 
AND  NATURAL  HISTORY. 


KED  SEA 
RED  SEA.     The  sea  known  to  us  as  the  Red 

Sea  was  by  the  Israelites  called  "  the  sea"  (D*n, 
Ex.  xiv.  2,  9,  16,  21,  28;  xv.  1,  4,  8,  10,  19; 
Josh.  xxiv.  6,  7 ;  and  many  other  passages)  ;  and 
specially  "  the  sea  of  suph"  (f|-1D"D_V  Ex.  x.  19  ; 
xiii.  18;  xv.  4,  22;  xxiii.  31 ;  Num.  xiv.  25;  xxi. 
4  ;  xxxiii.  10,  11 ;  Deut.  i.  40  ;  xi.  4 ;  Josh.  ii.  10 ; 
iv.  23;  xxiv.  6;  Judg.  xi.  16;  1  K.  ix.  26;  Neh. 
ix.  9  ;  Ps.  cvi.  7,  9,  22  ;  cxxxvi.  13, 15 ;  Jer.  xlix. 
21 ).  It  is  also  perhaps  written  JIB-ID  (Zco6fi,  LXX.) 
in  Num.  xxi.  14,  rendered  "  Red  Sea"  in  A.  V. ; 
and  in  like  manner,  in  Deut.  i.  1,  fj-ID,  without 
D\  The  LXX.  always  render  it  T\  tpvQpb.  6d\aarffa 
(e'xcept  in  Judg.  xi.  16,  where  P]-1D,  214>,  is  pre 
served).  So  too  in  N.  T.  (Acts  vii.  36  ;  Heb.  xi.  29) ; 
and  this  name  is  found  in  1  Mace.  iv.  9.  By  the 
classical  geographers  this  appellation,  like  its  Latin 
equivalent  Mare  Eubrum  or  M.  Erythraeum,  was 
extended  to  all  the  seas  washing  the  shores  of  the 
Arabian  peninsula,  and  even  the  Indian  Ocean  :  the 
Red  Sea  itself,  or  Arabian  Gulf,  was  6  *Apd0ios 
K6\iros,  or  'ApajStKbs  K.,  or  Siniis  Arabicus,  and 
its  eastern  branch,  or  the  Gulf  of  the  'Akabeh, 
Ai\aj/iT7js,  "EXavirrjs,  'EAai/mKOS,  ic6\Tros,  Sinus 
Aelanites,  or  S.  Aelaniticus.  The  Gulf  of  Suez 
was  specially  the  Heroopolite  Gulf,  'Hp(aotro\ir-ns 
K6\iros,  Sinus  Herodpolites,  or  S.  Herodpoliticus. 
Among  the  peoples  of  the  East,  the  Red  Sea  has  for 
many  centuries  lost  its  old  names  :  it  is  now  called 
generally  by  the  Arabs,  as  it  was  in  mediaeval  times, 
Bahr  El-Kulzum,  "  the  sea  of  El-Kulzum,"  after  the 
ancient  Clysma,  "  the  sea-beach,"  the  site  of  which 
is  near,  or  at,  the  modern  Suez.*  In  the  Kur-an, 
part  of  its  old  name  is  preserved,  the  rare  Arabic 
word  yamm  being  used  in  the  account  of  the  passage 


RED  SEA 

of  the  Red  Sea  (see  also  foot  note  to  p.  1012,  infra 
and  El-Beydawee's  Comment,  on  the  Kur-dn,  .vii, 
132,  p.  341  ;  and  xx.  81,  p.  602)> 

9     7 

Of  the  names  of  this  sea  (1.)  D*  (Syr.  LXLt  and 
•   v 

—  the  latter  generally  "a  lake;"  Hierog. 


YUM  A;    Copt.  IOJUL;    Arabic, 


signifies 


"  the  sea,"  or  any  sea.  It  is  also  applied  to  the 
Nile  (exactly  as  the  Arabic  bahr  is  so  applied)  in 
Nah.  iii.  8,  "  Art  thou  better  than  populous  No, 
that  was  situate  among  the  rivers  (yeortm),  [that 
had]  the  waters  round  about  it,  whose  rampart 
[was]  the  sea  (yam},  and  her  wall  was  from  the 
sea  (yarn)  ?A 

(2.)  P)-1D"D^  ;  in  the  Coptic  version,  cbjOJUL 
CIJ£,pI.  The  meaning  of  suph,  and  the  reason 
of  its  being  applied  to  this  sea,  have  given  rise  to 
much  learned  controversy.  Gesenius  renders  it  rush. 
dj  sea-weed.  It  is  mentioned  in  the  0.  T.  almost 
always  in  connexion  with  the  sea  of  the  Exodus. 
It  also  occurs  in  the  narrative  of  the  exposure  of 
Moses  in  the  1&*,  (yeor}  ;  for  he  was  laid  in  suph, 
on  the  brink  of  the  yeor  (Ex.  ii.  3),  where  (in  the 
suph}  he  was  found  by  Pharaoh's  daughter  (5)  ;  and 
in  the  "  burden  of  Egypt  "  (Is.  xix.),  with  the  dry 
ing  up  of  the  waters  of  Egypt  :  "  And  the  waters 
shall  fail  from  the  sea  (yam),  and  the  river  (ndhdr} 
shall  be  wasted  and  dried  up.  And  they  shall  turn 
the  rivers  (ndhdr,  constr.  pi.)  far  away  ;  [and]  the 
brooks  (yeor}  of  defence  (or  of  Egypt  ?)  shall  be 
emptied  and  dried  up  :  the  reeds  and  flags  (suph) 
shall  wither.  The  paper  reeds  e  by  the  brooks  (yeor), 
by  the  mouth  of  the  brooks  (yeor},  and  everything 


»  Or,  as  some  Arab  authors  say,  the  sea  is  so  named 
from  the  drowning  of  Pharaoh's  host  ;  Kulzum  being  a 


derivative  of 


Ojj. 


this  signification  :  or,  accord 


•ng  to  others,  from  its  being  hemmed  in  by  mountains, 
from  the  same  root  (El-Makreezee's  Khitat,  descr.  of  the 


b  Its  general  name  is  "  the  Sea  of  El-Kulzum  ;"  but  in 
different  parts  it  is  also  called  after  the  nearest  coast,  as 
"  the  sea  of  the  Hijiiz,"  &c.  (Y&koot,  in  the  Moajam). 

e  Yamm  signifies  a  bahr  of  which  the  bottom  is  not 
reached.    Bahr  applies  to  a  "  sea"  or  a  "  great  river." 
VOL-  III. 


d  Gesenius  adds  Is.  xlx.  5,  quoted  below ;  but  it  is  not 
easy  to  see  why  this  should  be  the  Nile  (except  from  pre 
conceived  notions),  instead  of  the  ancient  extension  of  the 
Red  Sea.  He  allows  the  "  tongue  of  the  Egyptian  sea 
(yam}"  in  Is.  xi.  ]5,  where  the  river  [Nile]  is  ndhdr. 

e  Heb.  ni"lJJ,  rendered  by  the  LXX.  a^i,  ax«,  tLo 
Greek  being  derived  from  'IIIK,  an  Egyptian  word  de 
noting  "marsh-grass,  reeds,  bulrushes,  and  any  verdure 
growing  in  a  marsh."  Gesenius  renders  rnjf,  pi.  ni"iy, 
"  a  naked  or  bare  place,  t.  e.  destitute  of  trees  .  . .  . ;  here 
used  of  the  yraasy  places  on  the  banks  of  the  Nilo :  bui 

3  T 


L010 


RED  SEA 


sown  by  the  brooks  (yeor)  shall  wither,  be  driven 
away,  and  be  no  [more].  The  fishers  also  shall 
mourn,  and  all  they  that  cast  angle  into  the  brooks 
j/eor)  shall  lament,  and  they  that  spread  nets  upon 
the  waters  shall  languish.  Moreover  they  that  work 
in  fine  flax,  and  they  that  weave  net  works  (white 
linen  ?)  shall  be  confounded.  And  they  shall  be 
broken  in  the  purposes  thereof,  all  that  make  sluices 
[and]  ponds  for  fish'*  (xix.  5-10).  Suph  only  occurs 
in  one  place  besides,  those  already  referred  to  :  in 
Jon.  ii.  5  it  is  written,  "  The  waters  compassed  me 
aJiout,  [even]  to  the  soul  ;  the  depth  closed  me 
round  about,  the  weeds  (stiph)  were  wrapped  about 
my  head."  With  this  single  exception,  which  shows 
that  this  product  was  also  found  in  the  Mediter 
ranean,  suph  is  Egyptian,  either  in  the  Red  Sea,  or 
in  the  yeor,  and  this  yeor  in  Ex.  ii.  was  in  the  land 
of  Goshen.  What  yeor  signifies  here,  in  Is.  xix., 
and  generally,  we  shall  examine  presently.  But 
first  of  suph. 

The  signification  of  ?j-1D,  suph,  must  be  gathered 
fiom  the  foregoing  passages.  In  Arabic,  the  word, 
with  this  signification  (which  commonly  is  "  wool  "), 
is  found  only  in  one  passage  in  a  rare  lexicon  (the 
Mohkam  MS.).  The  author  says,  "  Soof-el-bahr 
(the  soof  of  the  sea)  is  like  the  wool  of  sheep. 
And  the  Arabs  have  a  proverb  :  *  I  will  come  to  thee 
when  the  sea  ceases  to  wet  the  soof,'  "  i.  e.  never. 
The  f|-1D  of  the  D*,  it  seems  quite  certain,  is  a  sea 
weed  resembling  wool.  Such  sea-weed  is  thrown  up 
abundantly  on  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea.  Fiirst 
says,  s.  v.  P|-1D,  "  Ab  Aethiopibus  herba  quaedam 
supho  appellabatur,  quae  in  profundo  maris  rubri 
crescit,  quae  rubra  est,  rubrumque  colorem  continet, 
pannis  tingendis  in?ervientem,  teste  Hieronymo  de 
qualitate  mans  rubri  "  (p.  47,  &c.).  Diodorus  (iii. 
c.  19),  Artemidorus  (ap.  Strabo,  p.  770),  and  Aga- 
tharchides  (ed.  Miiller,  p.  136-7),  speak  of  the  weed 
of  the  Arabian  Gulf.  Ehrenberg  (in  Winer)  enu 
merates  Fucus  latifolius  on  the  shores  of  this  sea, 
and  at  Suez  Fucus  crispus,  F.  trinodis,  F.  turbinatus, 
F.  papillosus,  F.  diaphanus,  &c.,  and  the  specially 
red  weed  Trichodesmium  erythraeum.  The  Coptic 
version  renders  suph  by  shari  (see  above),  supposed 
to  be  the  hieroglyphic  "  SHER  "  (sea?).  If  this  be 
the  same  as  the  sari  of  Pliny  (see  next  paragraph), 
we  must  conclude  that  shari,  like  suph,  was  both 
marine  and  fluvial.  The  passage  in  Jonah  proves  it 
to  be  a  marine  product  ;  and  that  it  was  found  in  the 
Red  Sea,  the  numerous  passages  in  which  that  sea 
is  called  the  sea  of  suph  leave  no  doubt. 

But  t]-1D  may  have  been  also  applied  to  any  sub 
stance  resembling  wool,  produced  by  a  fluvial  rusk, 
Mich  as  the  papyrus,  and  hence  by  a  synecdoche  to 


such  rush  itself.     Golius  says,  s.  v. 


>  on  the 


authority  of  Ibn-Maaroof  (after  explaining 

by  "papyrus  herba"),  "Hinc  <£.i»j^,  Jai*    [the 

cotton  of  the  papyrus]  gossipium  papyri,  quod  lanae 
simile  ex  thyrso  colligitur,  et  permixtum  calci  efficit 
tenacissimum  caementi  genus."  This  is  curious  ; 
and  it  may  also  be  observed  that  the  papyrus,  which 
included  more  than  one  kind  of  cyperus,  grew  in 
he  marshes,  and  in  lands  on  which  about  two  feet 


this  is  unsatisfactory.  Boothroyd  says,  "  Our  translators, 
after  others,  supposed  this  word  to  signify  the  papyrus ; 
hut  without  any  jus  t  authority.  Kimchi  explains, '  Aroth 


RED  SEA 

in  depth  of  the  waters  of  the  inundation  renraineJ 
(Wilkinson's  Ancient  Egyptians,  iii.  61,  149,  citing 
Pliny,  xiii.  11,  Strab.  xvii.  550);  and  that  this  if 
agreeable  to  the  position  of  the  ancient  head  of  the 
gulf,  with  its  canals  and  channels  for  irrigation 
(yeorim?),  connecting  it  with  the  Nile  and  with 
Lake  Mareotis ;  and  we  may  suppose  that  in  this 
and  other  similar  districts,  the  papyrus  was  culti 
vated  in  the  yeorim:  the  marshes  of  Egypt  are 
now  in  the  north  of  the  Delta  and  are  salt  lands. — 
As  a  fluvial  rush,  suph  would  be  found  in  marsh 
lands  as  well  as  streams,  and  in  brackish  water  as 
well  as  in  sweet.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  a  low 
marshy  place  near  the  ancient  head  of  the  gulf  is  to 
this  day  called  Ghuweybet  el-Boos,  "the  bed  of 
reeds,"  and  another  place  near  Suez  has  the  same 
name;  traces  perhaps  of  the  great  fields  of  reeds, 
rushes,  and  papyrus,  which  flourished  here  of  old. 
See  also  PI-HAHIROTH,  "  the  place  where  sedge 
grows"  (?).  Fresnel  (Dissertation  sur  le  schari 
des  E'gyptiens  et  le  souf  des  Hebreux,  Journ. 
Asiat.  4*  serie,  xi.  pp.  274,  &c.)  enumerates  some 
of  the  reeds  found  in  Egypt.  There  is  no  sound 
reason  for  identifying  any  one  of  these  with  suph. 
Fresnel,  in  this  curious  paper,  endeavours  to  prove 
that  the  Coptic  "  shari "  (in  the  yam  shari)  was  the 
Arundo  Aegyptiaca  of  Desfontaines  (in  modern 
Arabic  boos  Fdrisee,  or  Persian  cane)  :  but  there 
appear  to  be  no  special  grounds  for  selecting  this 
variety  for  identification  with  the  fluvial  shari ; 
and  we  must  entirely  dissent  from  his  suggestion 
that  the  shari  of  the  Red  Sea  was  the  same,  and 
not  sea- weed :  apart  from  the  evidence  which  con 
troverts  his  arguments,  they  are  in  themselves  quite 
inconclusive.  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson's  catalogue  of 
reeds,  &c.,  is  fuller  than  Fresnel' s,  and  he  suggests 
the  Cyperus  Dives  or  fastigiatus  (Arabic,  Dees}  to 
be  the  sari  of  Pliny.  The  latter  says,  "  Fructicosi 
est  genus  sari,  circa  Nilum  nascens,  duorum  fere 
cubitoram  altitudine,  pollicari  crassitudine,  coma 
papyri,  simileque  manditur  modo"  (N.  H.  xiii.  23, 
see  also  Theophr.  iv.  9). 

The  occurrence  of  suph  in  the  yeor  (Ex.  ii.,  Isa. 
xix.)  in  the  land  of  Goshen  (Ex.  ii.),  brings  us  to  a 
consideration  of  the  meaning  of  the  latter,  which  in 
other  respects  is  closely  connected  with  the  subject 
of  this  article. 

(3.)  "ifcj  (Hierog.  ATUR,  AUR ;  Copt. 
IA.pOj  I<Lp(JU,  Memphitic  dialect, 
Sahidic),  signifies  "  a  river."  It  seems  to  apply  to 
"  a  great  river,"  or  the  like,  and  also  to  "  an  arm  of 
the  sea;"  and  perhaps  to  "  a  sea"  absolutely;  like  the 
Arabic  bahr.  Ges.  says  it  is  almost  exclusively  used 
of  the  Nile ;  but  the  passages  in  which  it  occurs  do 
not  necessarily  bear  out  this  conclusion.  By  far  the 
greater  number  refer  to  the  sojourn  in  Egypt :  these 
are  Gen.  xli.  1,  2,  3, 17, 18,  Pharaoh's  dream  ;  Ex.  i. 
22,  the  exposure  of  the  male  children  ;  Ex.  ii.  3,  5, 
the  exposure  of  Moses;  Ex.  vii.  15  seqq.,  and  xvii. 
5,  Moses  before  Pharaoh  and  the  plague  of  blood ; 
and  Ex.  viii.  5,  7,  the  plague  of  frogs.  The  next 
most  important  instance  is  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah, 
already  quoted  in  full.  Then,  that  of  Amos  (viiL 
8,  comp.  ix.  5),  where  the  land  shall  rise  up  wholly 
as  a  flood  (yeor]  ;  and  shall  be  cast  out  and  drowned 
as  [by]  the  flood  (yeor)  of  Egypt.  The  great  pro 
phecy  of  Ezekiel  against  Pharaoh  and  against  all 


est  nomen  appellativum  olerum  et  herbarum  virentjum. 
Hence  we  may  render,  '  TLe  marchy  [sic]  medowe  [sic]  ' 
the  mouth  of  the  river,'  &c. 


RED  SEA 

Kgypt,  where  Pharaoh  is  "  the  great  dragon  that 
lieth  in  the  midst  of  his  rivers  (VIS?),  which  hath 
said,  My  river  CHN?)  is  mine  own^  and  I  have  made 
[it]  for  myself"  (xxix.  3),  uses  the  pi.  throughout, 
with  the  above  exception  and  verse  9,  "  because  he 
hath  said,  The  river  ("|fc*)  [is]  mine,  and  I  have 
made  it ;"  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  Pharaoh  would 
have  said  of  the  Nile  that  he  had  made  it,  and  the 
passago  seems  to  refer  to  a  great  canal.  As  Ezekiel 
was  contemporary  with  Pharaoh  Necho,  may  he 
not  here  have  referred  to  the  re-excavation  of  the 
canal  of  the  Red  Sea  by  that  Pharaoh  ?  That  canal 
may  have  at  least  received  the  name  of  the  canal  of 
Pharaoh,  just  as  the  same  canal  when  re-excavated 
for  the  last  time  was  "the  canal  of  the  Prince 
of  the  Faithful,"  and  continued  to  be  so  called. — 
Year  occurs  elsewhere  only  in  Jer.  xlvi.  7,  8, 
in  the  prophecy  against  Necho;  in  Isa.  xxiii.  10, 
where  its  application  is  doubtful ;  and  in  Dan.  xii. 
5,  6,  where  it  is  held  to  be  the  Euphrates,  but  may 
be  the  great  canal  of  Babylon.  The  pi.  yeorim, 
seems  to  be  often  used  interchangeably  with  yeor 
(as  in  Ez.  xxix.,  and  Nah.  iii.  8) ;  it  is  used  for 
"  rivers,"  or  "  channels  of  water  ;"  and,  while  it  is 
not  restricted  to  Egypt,  especially  of  those  of  the 
Kile. 

From  a  comparison  of  all  the  passages  in  which 
it.  occurs  there  appears  to  be  no  conclusive  rea 
son  for  supposing  that  yeor  applies  generally,  if 
ever,  to  the  Nile.  In  the  passages  relating  to  the 
exposure  of  Moses  it  appears  to  apply  to  the  ancient 
extension  of  the  Red  Sea  towards  Tanis  (ZOAN, 
Avaris),  or  to  the  ancient  canal  (see  below)  through 
which  the  water  of  the  Nile  passed  to  the  "  tongue 
of  the  Egyptian  sea."  The  water  was  potable  (Ex. 
vii.  18),  but  so  is  that  of  the  Lake  of  the  Feiyoom  to 
its  own  fishermen,  though  generally  very  brackish : 
and  the  canal  must  have  received  water  from  the 
Nile  during  every  inundation,  and  then  must 
have  been  sweet.  During  the  height  of  the  inun 
dation,  the  sweet  water  would  flow  into  the  Red 
Sea.  The  passage  of  the  canal  was  regulated  by 
sluices,  which  excluded  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea 
and  sweetened  by  the  water  of  the  canal  the  salt 
lakes.  Strabo  (xvii.  1,  §25)  says  that  they  were 
thus  rendered  sweet,  and  in  his  time  contained  good 
fish  and  abounded  with  water  fowl :  the  position  of 
these  lakes  is  more  conveniently  discussed  in  an 
other  part  of  this  article,  on  the  ancient  geography 
of  the  head  of  the  gulf.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  Pharaoh  of  Moses  was  of  a  dynasty  residing 
at  Tanis,  and  that  the  extension  of  the  Red  Sea, 
"  the  tongue  of  the  Egyptian  Sea."  stretched  in 
ancient  times  into  the  borders  of  the  land  of  Goshen, 
about  50  miles  north  of  its  present  head,  and  half 
way  towards  Tanis.  There  is  abundant  proof  of 
the  former  cultivation  of  this  country,  which  must 
have  been  effected  by  the  canal  from  the  Nile  just 


RED  SEA 


1011 


S  The  Mohammadan  account  of  the  exposure  of  Moses 
is  curious.  Moses,  we  read,  was  laid  in  the  yamm  (which 
is  explained  to  be  the  Nile,  though  that  river  is  not  else 
where  so  called),  and  the  ark  was  carried  by  the  current 
along  a  canal  or  small  river  (nahr),  to  a  lake,  at  the  further 
end  of  which  was  Pharaoh's  pavilion  (El-Beydawee's  Com- 
m&nt.  on  the  Kur-dn,  xx.  39,  p.  595,  and  Ez-Zamakhsheree's 
Comment.,  entitled  the  Keshshdf).  While  we  place  no 
dependance  on  Mohammadan  relations  of  Biblical  events, 
there  may  be  here  a  glimmer  of  truth. 

h  Reland  (Diss.  Miscell.  i.  87,  &c.)  is  pleasantly  severe 
oa  the  story  of  king  Erythras ;  but,  with  all  his  rare  learn 
ing,  he  was  Ignorant  of  Arab  history,  which  is  here  ot  cue 


mentioned,  and  by  numerous  canals  and  ditumels 
for  irrigation,  the  yeorim,  so  often  mentioned  with 
the  yeor.  There  appears  to  be  no  difficulty  in 
Isa.  xix.  6  (comp.  xi.  15),  for,  if  the  Red  Sea  be 
came  closed  at  Suez  or  thereabout,  the  siiph  left 
on  the  beaches  of  the  yeor  must  have  dried  up  ant1 
rotted.  The  ancient  beaches  in  the  tract  here 
spoken  of,  which  demonstrate  successive  elevations, 
are  well  known.s 

(4.)  T)  fpvOpa  OdXaarcra.  The  origin  of  this  ap 
pellation  has  been  the  source  of  more  speculation 
even  than  the  obscure  suph  ;  for  it  lies  more  withir 
the  range  of  general  scholarship.  The  theories  ad 
vanced  to  account  for  it  have  been  often  puerile,  and 
generally  unworthy  of  acceptance.  Their  authors 
may  be  divided  into  two  schools.  The  first  have 
ascribed  it  to  some  natural  phenomenon ;  such  as 
the  singularly  red  appearance  of  the  mountains  of 
the  western  coast,  looking  as  if  they  were  sprinkled 
with  Havannah  or  Brazil  snuff,  or  brick-dust  (Bruce), 
or  of  which  the  redness  was  reflected  in  the  waters 
of  the  sea  (Gosselin,  ii.  78-84)  ;  the  red  colour  of  the 
water  sometimes  caused  by  the  presence  of  zoophytes 
(Salt ;  Ehrenberg)  ;  the  red  coral  of  the  sea  ;  the  red 
sea-weed ;  and  the  red  storks  that  have  been  seen 
in  great  numbers,  &c.  Reland  (De  Mare  Rubro, 
Diss.  Miscell.  i.  pp.  59-117)  argues  that  the  epithet 
red  was  applied  to  this  and  the  neighbouring  seas  on 
account  of  their  tropical  heat ;  as  indeed  was  said 
by  Artemidorus  (ap.  Strabo,  xvi.  4,  20),  that  the 
sea  was  called  red  because  of  the  reflexion  of  the  sun. 
The  second  have  endeavoured  to  find  an  etymological 
derivation.  Of  these  the  earliest  (European)  writei  s 
proposed  a  derivation  from  Edom,  "  red,"  by  the 
Greeks  translated  literally.  Among  them  were  N. 
Fuller  (Miscell.  Sacr.  iv.  c.  20)  ;  before  him,  Sca- 
liger,  in  his  notes  to  Festus ;  voce  Aegyptinos,  ed. 
1574;  and  still  earlier  Gen ebrard,  Comment,  ad  Ps. 
106  ;  I'.ochart  (P/taleg,  iv.  c.  34)  adopted  this  theory 
(see  Reland,  Diss.  Miscell.  i.  85,  ed.  1706).  The 
Greeks  and  Romans  tell  us  that  the  sea  received  its 
name  from  a  great  king,  Erythras,  who  reigned  in 
the  adjacent  country  (Strab.  xvi.  p.  4,  §20  ;  Pliny, 
N.'H.  vi.  cap.  23,  §28  ;  Agatharch.  i.  §5 ;  Philostr. 
iii."15,  and  others):11  the  stories  that  have  come 
down  to  us  appear  to  be  distortions  of  the  tradition 
that  Himyer  was  the  name  of  apparently  the  chief 
family  of  Arabia  Felix,  the  great  South-Arabian 
kingdom,  whence  the  Himyerites,  and  Homeritae. 
Himyer  appeal's  to  be  derived  from  the  Arabic 
"  ahmar,"  red  (Himyer  was  so  called  because  of  the 
red  colour  of  his  clothing,  En-Nuweyree  in  Caussin, 
i.  54)  :  "  aafar  "  also  signifies  "  red,"  and  is  the 
root  of  the  names  of  several  places  in  the  penin 
sula  so  called  on  account  of  their  reiness  (see 
Mardsid,  p.  263,  &c.) ;  this  may  point  to  Ophir: 
$oii/i£  is  red,  and  the  Phoenicians  came  from  the 
Erythraean  Sea  (Herod,  vii.  89).  We  can.  scarcely 
doubt,  on  these  etymological  grounds,1  the  con- 


utmost  value,  and  of  the  various  proofs  of  a  connexion 
between  this  Erythras  and  Himyer,  and  the  Phoenicians 
In  language,  race,  and  religion.  Besides,  Reland  had  a 
theory  of  his  own  to  support. 

1  If  we  concede  the  derivation,  it  cannot  be  neld  that 
the  Greeks  mistranslated  tne  name  of  Himyer.  (See 
Reland,  Diss.  Miscell.  i.  101.")  It  is  worthy  of  mention 
that  the  Arabs  often  call  themselves  "  the  red  men,"  as 
distinguished  from  the  black  or  negro,  and  the  yellow  or 
Turanian,  races:  though  they  call  themselves  "  the  black," 
as  distinguished  from  the  more  northern  races,  whom  they 
term  "  the  red ; "  as  this  epithet  is  used  by  them,  whro 
thus  applied,  as  meaning  both  "  red  "  and  "  white." 

3  T  2 


1012 


KED  SEA 


flexion  between  the  Phoenicians  and  the  Himyerites 
or  that  in  this  is  the  true  origin  of  the  appdlatior 
of  the  Red  Sea.  But  when  the  ethnological  side  of 
the  question  is  considered,  the  evidence  is  mucl 
strengthened.  The  South- Arabian  kingdom  was  { 
Joktanite  (or  Shemite)  nation  mixed  with  a  Cushite 
This  admixture  of  races  produced  two  results  (as 
in  the  somewhat  similar  cases  of  Egypt,  Assyria.. 
&c.) :  a  genius  for  massive  architecture,  and  rare 
seafaring  ability.  The  Southern  Arabians  carried 
on  all  the  commerce  of  Egypt,  Palestine,  and  Arabia, 
with  India,  until  shortly  before  our  own  era.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  insist  on  this  Phoenician  character 
istic,  nor  on  that  which  made  Solomon  call  for  the 
assistance  of  Hiram  to  build  the  Temple  of  Jeru 
salem.  The  Philistine,  and  early  Cretan  and  Carian, 
colonists  may  have  been  connected  with  the  South- 
Arabian  race.  If  the  Assyrian  school  would  trace 
the  Phoenicians  to  a  Chaldaean  or  an  Assyrian 
origin,  it  might  be  replied  that  the  Cushites,  whence 
came  Nimrod,  passed  along  the  south  coast  of 
Arabia,  and  that  Berosus  (in  Cory,  2nd  ed.  p.  60) 
tells  of  an  early  Arab  domination  of  Chaldaea,  before 
the  Assyrian  dynasty,  a  story  also  preserved  by  the 
Arabian  historians  (El-Mes'oodee,  Golden  Meadows, 
MS.). — The  Red  Sea,  therefore,  was  most  probably 
the  Sea  of  the  Red  men.  It  adds  a  link  to  the 
curious  chain  of  emigration  of  the  Phoenicians  from 
the  Yemen  to  Syria,  Tyre,  and  Sidon,  the  shores 
and  islands  of  the  Mediterranean,  especially  the 
African  coasts  of  that  sea,  and  to  Spain  and  the 
far-distant  northerly  ports  of  their  commerce;  as 
distant,  and  across  oceans  as  terrible,  as  those  reached 
by  their  Himyerite  brethren  in  the  Indian  and 
Chinese  Seas. 

Ancient  Limits. — The  most  important  change  in 
the  Red  Sea  has  been  the  drying  up  of  its  northern 
extremity,  "  the  tongue  of  the  Egyptian  Sea." 
The  land  about  the  head  of  the  gulf  has  risen,  and 
that  near  the  Mediterranean  become  depressed. 
The  head  of  the  gulf  has  consequently  retired 
gradually  since  the  Christian  era.  Thus  the  pro 
phecy  of  Isaiah  has  been  fulfilled :  "  And  the 
Lord  shall  utterly  destroy  the  tongue  of  the 
Egyptian  sea"  (xi.  15);  "the  waters  shall  fail 
from  the  sea "  (xix.  5) :  the  tongue  of  the  Red 
Sea  has  dried  up  for  a  distance  of  at  least  50  miles 
from  its  ancient  head,  and  a  cultivated  and  well- 
peopled  province  has  been  changed  into  a  desolate 
wilderness.  An  ancient  canal  conveyed  the  waters 
of  the  Nile  to  the  Red  Sea  flowing  through  the 
Wadi-t-Tumeylat,  and  irrigating  with  its  system  of 
water-channels  a  large  extent  of  country ;  it  also 
provided  a  means  for  conveying  all  the  commerce 
of  the  Red  Sea,  once  so  important,  by  water  to  the 
Nile,  avoiding  the  risks  of  the  desert-journey,  and 
securing  water-carriage  from  the  Red  Sea  to  the 
Mediterranean.  The  drying  up  of  the  head  of  the 
gulf  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  chief  causes  of 
the  neglect  and  ruin  of  this  canal. 

The  country,  for  the  distance  above  indicated,  is 
no~y  a  desert  of  gravelly  sand,  with  wide  patches 
about  the  old  sea-bottom,  of  rank  marsh  land,  now 
called  the  "  Bitter  Lakes "  (not  those  of  Strabo). 
At  the  northern  extremity  of  this  salt  waste,  is  a 
small  lake  sometimes  called  the  lake  of  Heroopolis 
(the  city  after  which  the  gulf  of  Suez  was  called 
the  Heroopolite  Gulf) :  the  lake  is  now  Birket  et- 


RED  SEA 

Timsah,  "  the  lake  of  the  Crocodile,"  and  is  sup 
posed  to  mark  the  ancient  head  of  the  gulf.  The 
canal  that  connected  this  with  the  Nile  was  o/ 
Pharaonic  origin.1*  It  was  anciently  known  as  the 
"  Fossa  Rcgum,"  and  the  "  eanal  of  Hero."  Pliny, 
Diodorus,  mid  Strabo,  state  that  (up  to  their  time) 
it  reached  only  to  the  bitter  springs  (which  appear 
to  be  not  the  present  bitter  lakes,  but  lakes  west 
of  Heroopolis),  the  extension  being  abandoned  on 
account  of  the  supposed  greater  height  of  the  water* 
of  the  Red  Sea.  According  to  Herod,  (ii.  cap.  158) 
it  left  the  Nile  (the  Tanitic  branch,  now  the  canal 
of  El-Mo'izz)  »t  Bubastis  (Pi-beseth),  and  a  canal 
exists  at  this  day  in  this  neighbourhood,  which 
appears  to  be  the  ancient  channel.  The  canal  was 
four  days'  voyage  in  length,  and  sufficiently  broad 
for  two  triremes  to  row  abreast  (Herod,  ii.  158  ; 
or  100  cubits,  Strab.  xvii.  1,  §26;  and  100  feet, 
Pliny,  vi.  cap.  29,  §33).  The  time  at  which  the 
canal  was  extended,  after  the  drying  up  of  the 
head  of  the  gulf,  to  the  present  head  is  uncertain, 
but  it  must  have  been  late,  and  probably  since  the 
Mohammadan  conquest.  Traces  of  the  ancient 
channel  throughout  its  entire  length  to  the  vicinity 
of  Bubastis,  exist  at  intervals  in  the  present  day 
(Descr.  de  I'figypte,  E.  M.  xi.  37-381,  and  v.  135- 
158,  8vo.  ed.). — The  Amnis  Trajanus  (Tpa'iavos 
TTOT.  pt.  iv.  5,  §54),  now  the  canal  of  Cairo,  was 
probably  of  Pharaonic  origin  ;  it  was  at  any  rate  re 
paired  by  the  emperor  Adrian ;  and  it  joined  the 
ancient  canal  of  the  Red  Sea  between  Bubastis  and 
Heroopolis.  At  the  Arab  conquest  of  Egypt,  this 
was  found  to  be  closed,  and  was  reopened  by  'Amr 
by  command  of  'Omar,  after  whom  it  was  called 
the  "  canal  of  the  Prince  of  the  Faithful."  Country- 
boats  sailed  down  it  (and  passed  into  the  Red  Sea  to 
Yembo' — see  Shems-ed  Deen  in  D&cr.  de  YE'gypte, 
8vo.  ed.,  xi.  359),  and  the  water  of  the  Nile  ran 
nto  the  sea  at  El-Kulzum ;  but  the  former  com 
merce  of  Egypt  was  not  in  any  degree  restored ; 
the  canal  was  opened  with  the  intention  of  securing 
supplies  of  grain  from  Egypt  in  case  of  famine 
n  Arabia  ;  a  feeble  intercourse  with  the  newly- 
mportant  holy  cities  of  Arabia,  to  provide  for  the 
wants  of  the  pilgrims,  was  its  principal  use.  In 
.H.  105,  El-Mansoor  ordered  it  to  be  rilled  up  (the 
Khitat,  Descr.  of  the  Canals),  in  order  to  cut  off 
supplies  to  the  Shiya'ee  heretics  in  El-Medeeneh. 
it  does  not  flow  many  miles  beyond  Cairo, 
but  its  channel  is  easily  traceable. 

The  land  north  of  the  ancient  head  of  the  gulf  is 
plain  of  heavy  sand,  merging  into  marsh-land 
near  the  Mediterranean  coast,  and  extending  to  Pa- 
estine.     We  learn  from  El-Makreezee  that  a  tradi- 
ion  existed  of  this  plain  having  been  formerly  well 
ultivated  with  saffron,  safflower,  and  sugar-cane, 
nd  peopled  throughout,  from  the  frontier-town  of 
El-'Areesh    to    El-'Abbaseh    in    Wadi-t-Tumeylat 
see  EXODUS,  THE,  Map;   The  Khitat,  s.  v.  Jifdr-, 
omp.  Mardsid,  ib.).     Doubtless  the  drying  up  of 
he  gulf  with  its  canal  in  the  south,  and  the  de- 
)ression  of  the  land  in  the  north,  have  converted 
his  once  (if  we  may  believe  the  tradition,  though 
we  cannot  extend  this  fertility  as  far  as  El-'Areesh) 
lotoriously-fertile  tract  into  a  proverbially  sandy 
nd  parched  desert.    This  region,  including  Wadi-t- 
Tumeylat,  was  probably  the  frontier  land  occupied 
in  part  by  the  Israelites,  and  open  to  the  incursions 


k  Commenced  by  Sesostris  (Aristot.  Meteor,  i.  14;  Strab.    by  Darius  Hysfasj  is,  and  by  Ptol.  Philadelphia. 
L  arid  svii.;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  vi.  29;  Herod,  ii.  158;  Diod.  i  Encyc.  Brit.  art.  'Epvpt.' 
I  33)  01  by  Necho  II.,  most  probably  the  former;  continued  j 


Ser 


EED  SEA 

of  the  wild  tribes  of  the  Arabian  desert;  and  the 
ye£r,  as  we  have  given  good  reason  for  believing,  in 
this  application,  was  apparently  the  ancient  head  of 
the  gulf  or  the  canal  of  the  Red  Sea,  with  its  ye£rim 
or  water-channels,  on  which  Goshen  and  much  of 
the  plain  north  of  it  depended  for  their  fertility. 

Physical  Description. — In  extreme  length,  the 
Red  Sea  stretches  from  the  Straits  of  Bab  el- 
Mendeb  (or  rather  Ras  Bab  el-Mendeb)  in  lat. 
12°  40'  N.,  to  the  modern  head  of  the  Gulf  of 
Suez,  lat.  30'  N.  Its  greatest  width  may  be  stated 
roughly  at  about  200  geographical  miles;  this  is 
about  lat.  16°  30',  but  the  navigable  channel  is 
nere  really  narrower  than  in  some  other  portions, 
groups  of  islands  and  rocks  stretching  out  into  the 
sea,  between  30  and  40  miles  from  the  Arabian 
coast,  and  50  miles  from  the  African  coast.  From 
shore  to  shore,  its  narrowest  part  is  at  Ras  Benas, 
lat.  24°,  on  the  African  coast,  to  Ras  Bereedee 
opposite,  a  little  north  of  Yembo',  the  port  of  El- 
Medeeneh  ;  and  thence  northwards  to  Ras  Mo 
hammad  (i.  e.  exclusive  of  the  Gulfs  of  Suez  and 
the  'Akabeh),  the  sea  maintains  about  the  same 
average  width  of  100  geographical  miles.  South 
wards  from  Ras  Benas,  it  opens  out  in  a  broad 
reach  ;  contracts  again  to  nearly  the  above  narrow 
ness  at  Jeddah  (correctly  Juddah),  lat.  21°  30', 
the  port  of  Mekkeh  ;  and  opens  to  its  extreme  width 
south  of  the  last  named  port. 

At  Ras  Mohammad,  the  Red  Sea  is  split  by  the 
granitic  peninsula  of  Sinai  into  two  gulfs:  the 
westernmost,  or  Gulf  of  Suez,  is  now  about  130 
geographical  miles  in  length,  with  an  average  width 
of  about  18,  though  it  contracts  to  less  than  10 
miles:  the  easternmost,  or  Gulf  of  El-'Akabeh,  is 
only  about  90  miles  long,  from  the  Straits  of 
Tiran,  to  the  'Akabeh  [£LATH],  and  of  propor 
tionate  narrowness.  The  navigation  of  the  Red 
Sea  and  Gulf  of  Suez,  near  the  shores,  is  very 
difficult  from  the  abundance  of  shoals,  coral-reefs, 
rocks,  and  small  islands,  which  render  the  channel 
intricate,  and  cause  strong  currents  often  of  un 
known  force  and  direction  ;  but  in  raid-channel, 
exclusive  of  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  there  is  generally  a 
width  of  100  miles  clear,  except  the  Daedalus  reef 
(Wellsted,  ii.  300).— The  bottom  in  deep  sound 
ings  is  in  most  places  sand  and  stones,  from  Suez  as 
far  as  Juddah  ;  and  thence  to  the  straits  it  is  com 
monly  mud.  The  deepest  sounding  in  the  excellent 
Admiralty  chart  is  1054  fathoms,  in  lat.  22°  30'. 

Journeying  southwards  from  Suez,  on  our  left  is 
the  peninsula  of  Sinai  [SiNAi] :  on  the  right,  is  the 
desert  coast  of  Egypt,  of  limestone  formation  like 
the  greater  part  of  the  Nile  valley  in  Egypt,  the 
cliffs  on  the  sea-margin  stretching  landwards  in  a 
great  rocky  plateau,  while  more  inland  a  chain  of 
volcanic  mountains  (beginning  about  lat.  28°  4' 
and  running  south)  rear  their  lofty  peaks  at  in 
tervals  above  the  limestone,  generally  about  1 5 
miles  distant.  Of  the  most  important,  is  Gebel 
GhArib,  6000  ft.  high ,  and  as  the  Straits  of  Jubal 
are  passed,  the  peaks  of  the  primitive  range  attain  a 
height  of  about  4500  to  6900ft.,  until  the  "  Elba" 
group  rises  in  a  huge  mass  about  lat.  22°.  Further 
inland  is  the  Gebel-ed-Dukhkhan,  the  "  porphyry 
mountain  "  of  Ptolemy  (iv.  5,  §27  ;  M.  Claudianus, 
see  Miller,  Geogr.  Min.  Atlas  vii.),  6000  ft.  high, 
about  27  miles  from  the  coast,  where  the  porphyry 
quarries  formerly  supplied  Rome,  and  where  are 
•some  remains  of  the  time  of  Trajan  (Wilkinson's 
Modem  Egypt  mid  Thebes,  ii.  383)  ;  and  besides 
these,  along  this  desert  southwards  are  "qaarries  of 


KKU  8JUA 


1013 


various  granites,  serpentines,  Breccia  Verde,  slates, 
and  micaceous,  talcose,  and  other  schists  "  (id.  382 }. 
Gebel-ez-Zeyt,  "  the  mountain  of  oil,"  close  to  the 
sea,  abounds  in  petroleum  (id.  385).  This  coast 
is  especially  interesting  in  a  Biblical  po.nt  of  view, 
:'br  here  were  some  of  the  earliest  monasteries  of 
the  Eastern  Church,  and  in  those  secluded  and 
barren  mountains  lived  very  early  Christian  hermits. 
The  convent  of  St.  Anthony  (of  the  Thebais), 
Deyr  Mar  Antooniyoos,"  and  that  of  St.  Paul, 
Deyr  Mar  Bolus,"  are  of  great  renown,  and  were 
once  important.  They  are  now,  like  ail  Eastern 
monasteries,  decayed ;  but  that  of  St.  Anthony 
gives,  from  its  monks,  the  Patriarch  of  the  Coptic 
church,  formerly  chosen  from  the  Nitrian  monas 
teries  (id.  381). — South  of  the.  "Elba"  chain,  the 
country  gradually  sinks  to  a  plain,  until  it  rises  to 
the  highland  of  Geedan,  lat.  15°,  and  thence  to 
the  straits  extends  a  chain  of  low  mountains.  The 
greater  part  of  the  African  coast  of  the  Red  Sea  is 
sterile,  sandy,  and  thinly  peopled;  first  beyond 
Suez  by  Bedawees  chierly  of  the  Ma'azee  tribe. 
South  of  the  Kuseyr  road,  are  the  'Abab'deh ;  and 
beyond,  the  Bisharees,  the  southern  branch  of 
which  are  called  by  Arab  writers  Beja,  whose  cus 
toms,  language,  and  ethnology,  demand  a  careful 
investigation,  which  would  undoubtedly  be  repaid 
by  curious  results  (see  El-Makreezee's  Khitat,  Descr. 
of  the  Beja,  and  Descr.  of  the  Desert  of  Eydhab  ; 
Quatremere's  Essays  on  these  subjects,  in  his  Me 
moir -es  Hist,  et  Geogr.  sur  VEgypte,  ii.  pp.  134, 162 ; 
and  The  Genesis  of  the  Earth  and  of  Man,  2nd 
ed.  p.  109)  ;  and  then,  coast-tribes  of  Abyssinia. 

The  Gulf  of  El-'Akabeh  (f.  e.  "  of  the  Mountain- 
road")  is  the  termination  of  the  long  valley  of  the 
Ghor  or  'Arabah  that  runs  northwards  to  the  Dead 
Sea.  It  is  itself  a  narrow  valley  ;  the  sides  are  lofty 
and  precipitous  mountains,  of  entire  barrenness ;  the 
bottom  is  a  river-like  sea,  running  nearly  straight  for 
its  whole  length  of  about  90  miles.  The  northerly 
winds  rusr  down  this  gorge  with  uncommon  fury, 
and  render  its  navigation  extremely  perilous,  causing 
at  the  same  time  strong  counter  currents ;  while 
most  of  the  few  anchorages  are  open  to  the  southerly 
gales.  It  "  has  the  appearance  of  a  narrow  deep 
ravine,  extending  nearly  a  hundred  miles  in  a  straight 
direction,  and  the  circumjacent  hills  rise  in  some 
places  two  thousand  feet  perpendicularly  from  the 
shore"  (Wellsted,  ii.  108).  The  western  shore  is 
the  peninsula  of  SINAI.  The  Arabian  chain  ol 
mountains,  the  continuation  of  the  southern  spurs 
of  the  Lebanon,  skirt:  the  eastern  coast,  and  rise  to 
about  3500  :ft,  while  Gebel  Teybet-'Alee  near  the 
Straits' is  6000  ft.  There  is  no  pasturage,  and  little 
fertility,  except  near  the  'Akabeh,  where  are  date- 
groves  and  other  plantations,  &c.  In  earlier  days, 
this  last-named  place  was  (it  is  said)  famous  for  its 
fertility.  The  Island  of  Graia,  Jezeeret  Fara'oon, 
once  fortified  and  held  by  the  Crusaders,  is  near  its 
northern  extremity,  on  the  Sinaitic  side.  The  sea, 
from  its  dangers,  and  sterile  shores,  is  entirely  des 
titute  of  teats. 

The  Arabian  coast  outside  the  Gulf  of  the  'Akabeh 
is  skirted  by  the  range  of  Arabian  mountains,  which 
in  some  few  places  approach  the  sea,  but  generally 
leave  a  belt  of  coast  country,  called  Tihameh,  or 
the  Ghor,  like  the  Sheelah  of  Palestine.  This  tract 
is, generally  a  sandy  parched  plain,  thinly  inhabited ; 
these  characteristics  being  especially  strong  in  the 
north.  (Niebuhr,  Descr.  305;  Wellsted.)  The 
mountains  of  the  Hejaz  consist  of  ridges  running  pa 
rallel  towards  the  interior,  and  increasing  in  heio-M  as 


1014 


RED  SEA 


they  recede  (Wellsted,  ii.  242).  Burckhardt  remarks 
that  the  descent  on  the  eastern  side  of  these  moun 
tains,  like  the  Lebanon  and  the  whole  Syrian  range 
t-ast  of  the  Dead  Sea,  is  much  less  than  that  on  the 
western ;  and  that  the  peaks  seen  from  the  east,  or 
land  side,  appear  mere  hills  (Arabia,  321  seq.).  In 
clear  weather  they  are  visible  at  a  distance  of  40  to 
70  miles  (Wellsted,  ii.  242).  The  distant  ranges 
have  a  rugged  pointed  outline,  and  are  granitic ;  at 
Wejh,  with  horizontal  veins  of  quartz  ;  nearer  the 
sea  many  of  the  hills  are  fossiliferous  limestone, 
while  the  beach  hills  "  consist  of  light-coloured 
sandstone,  fronted  by  and  containing  large  quan 
tities  of  shells  and  masses  of  coral"  (Wellsted,  ii. 
243).  Coral  also  "  enters  largely  into  the  compo 
sition  of  some  of  the  most  elevated  hills."  The 
more  remarkable  mountains  are  Jebel  'Eyn-Unna  (or 
'Eynuwunna,  Mardsid,  s.  v.  'Eyn,  "Ovvri  of  Ptol.), 
6090  ft.  high  near  the  Straits ;  a  little  further  south, 
and  close  to  Mo'eyleh,  are  mountains  rising  from 
6330  to  7700  ft.,  of  which  Wellsted  says,  "The 
coast  ...  is  low,  gradually  ascending  with  a  mode 
rate  elevation  to  the  distance  of  six  or  seven  miles, 
when  it  rises  abruptly  to  hills  of  great  height,  those 
near  Mowilahh  terminating  in  sharp  and  singularly- 
shaped  peaks  .  .  .  Mr.  Irwin  [1777]  .  .  .  has  styled 
them  Bullock's  Horns.  To  me  the  whole  group 
seemed  to  bear  a  great  resemblance  to  representations 
which  I  have  seen  of  enormous  icebergs"  (ii.  176; 
see  also  the  Admiralty  Chart,  and  Miiller's  Geogr. 
Jfm.).  A  little  north  of  Yembo'  is  a  remarkable 
group,  the  pyramidal  mountains  of  Agatharchides  ; 
and  beyond,  about  25  miles  distant  rises  J.  Radwa. 
Further  south,  J.  Subh  is  remarkable  for  its 
magnitude  and  elevation,  which  is  greater  than 
any  other  between  Yembo'  and  Jiddah  ;  and  still 
further,  but  about  80  miles  distant  from  the  coast, 
J.  Ras  el- Kura  rises  behind  the  Holy  city,  Mekkeh. 
It  is  of  this  mountain  that  Burckhardt  writes  so 
enthusiastically — how  rarely  is  he  enthusiastic — 
contrasting  its  verdure  and  cool  breezes  with  the 
sandy  waste  of  Tihameh  ( Arabia,  65  seqq.}.  The 
chain  continues  the  whole  length  of  the  sea,  termi 
nating  in  the  highlands  of  the  Yemen.  The  Arabian 
mountains  are  generally  fertile,  agreeably  different 
from  the  parched  plains  below,  and  their  own  bare 
granite  peaks  above.  The  highlands  and  mountain 
summits  of  the  Yemen,  "  Arabia  the  Happy,"  the 
Jebel  as  distinguished  from  the  plain,  are  preci 
pitous,  lofty,  and  fertile  (Niebuhr,  Descr.  161)  ; 
with  many  towns  and  villages  in  their  valleys  and 
on  their  sides. — The  coast-line  itself,  or  Tihameh, 
"  north  of  Yembo',  is  of  moderate  elevation,  varying 
from  50  to  100  feet,  with  no  beach.  To  the 
southward  [to  Juddah]  it  is  more  sandy  and  less 
elevated:  the  inlets  and  harbours  of  the  former 
tract  may  be  styled  coves;  in  the  latter  they  are 
lagoons"  (Wellsted,  ii.  244). — The  coral  of -the  Red 
Sea  is  remarkably  abundant,  and  beautifully  co 
loured  and  variegated.  It  is  often  red,  but  the  more 
common  kind  is  white ;  and  of  hewn  blocks  of  this, 
many  of  the  Arabian  towns  are  built. 

The  earliest  navigation  of  the  Red  Sea  (passing 
by  the  pre-historical  Phoenicians)  is  mentioned  by 
Herodotus.  "  Sesostris  (Rameses  II.)  was  the  first 
who,  passing  the  Arabian  Gulf  in  a  fleet  of  long 
vessels,  reduced  under  his  authority  the  inhabitants 
of  the  coast  bordering  the  Erythraean  Sea ;  pro 
ceeding  still  further,  he  came  to  a  sea  which, 
from  the  great  number  of  its  shoals,  was  not  navi 
gable;"  and  after  another  war  against  Ethiopia  he 
tot  up  a  stela  on  the  promontory  of  Dira,  near 


RED  SEA 

the  straits  of  the  Arabian  Gulf.  Thiee  centuries 
later,  Solomon's  navy  was  built  "  in  Eziongeber 
which  is  beside  Eloth,  on  the  shore  of  the  Red  Sea 
(Yam  Suph),  in  the  land  of  Edom  "  (1  K.  ix.  26> 
In  the  description  of  the  Gulf  cf  El-'Akabeh. 
it  will  be  seen  that  this  narrow  sea  is  almost 
without  any  safe  anchorage,  except  at  the  island 
of  Graia  near  the  'Akabeh,  and  about  50  miles 
southward,  the  harbour  of  Edh-Dhahab.  It  iy 
possible  that  the  sea  has  retired  here  as  at  Suez, 
and  that  Eziongeber  is  now  dry  land.  [See  EZION- 
GEBER  ;  ELATH.]  Solomon's  navy  was  evidently 
constructed  by  Phoenician  workmen  of  Hiram,  for 
he  "  sent  in  the  navy  his  servants,  shipmen  that 
had  knowledge  of  the  sea,  with  the  servants  of 
Solomon."  This  was  the  navy  that  sailed  to  Ophir. 
We  may  conclude  that  it  was  necessary  to  transport 
wood  as  well  as  men  to  build  and  man  these  ships 
on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  the  'Akabeh,  which 
from  their  natural  formation  cannot  be  supposed  to 
have  much  altered,  and  which  were  besides  part  oi 
the  wilderness  of  the  wandering  ;  and  the  Edomites 
were  pastoral  Arabs,  unlike  the  seafaring  Himyerites. 
Jehoshaphat  also  "  made  ships  of  Tharshish  to  go 
to  Ophir  for  gold :  but  they  went  not,  for  the  ships 
were  broken  at  Eziongeber"  (1  K.  xxii.  48).  The 
scene  of  this  wreck  has  been  supposed  to  be  Edh- 
Dhahab,  where  is  a  reef  of  rocks  like  a  "  giant's 
backbone"  (  =  Eziongeber)  (Wellsted,  ii.  153),  and 
this  may  strengthen  an  identification  with  that 
place.  These  ships  of  Jehoshaphat  were  manned  by 
"  his  servants,"  who  from  their  ignorance  of  the  sea 
may  have  caused  the  wreck.  Pharaoh-Necho  con 
structed  a  number  of  ships  in  the  Arabian  gulf,, 
and  the  remains  of  his  works  existed  in  the  time  oi 
Herodotus  (ii.  159),  who  also  tells  us  that  these 
ships  were  manned  by  Phoenician  sailors. 

The  fashion  of  the  ancient  ships  of  the  Red  Sen, 
or  of  the  Phoenician  ships  of  Solomon,  is  unknown. 
From  Pliny  we  learn  that  the  ships  were  of  papyrus 
and  like  the  boats  of  the  Nile  ;  and  this  statement 
was  no  doubt  in  some  measure  correct.  But  the 
coasting  craft  must  have  been  very  different  from 
those  employed  in  the  Indian  trade.  More  precise 
and  curious  is  El-Makreezee's  description,  written 
in  the  first  half  of  the  15th  century,  of  the  ships 
that  sailed  from  Eydhab  on  the  Egyptian  coast  to 
Juddah:  "  Their  'jelebehs'  (P.  Lobo,  op.  Quatre- 
mere,  Memoires,  ii.  164,  calls  them  'gelves'), 
which  carry  the  pilgrims  on  the  coast,  have  not  a 
nail  used  in  them,  but  their  planks  are  sewed  to 
gether  with  fibre,  which  is  taken  from  the  cocoa- 
nut-tree,  and  they  caulk  them  with  the  fibres  of 
the  wood  of  the  date-palm  ;  then  they  '  pay '  them 
with  butter,  or  the  oil  of  the  palma  Christi,  or  with 
the  fat  of  the  kirsh  (squalus  carcharias;  Forskal, 
Descr.  Animalium,  p.  viii.,  No.  19).  .  .  .  The  sails 
of  these  jelebehs  are  of  mats  made  of  the  ddr._i- 
palm  "  (the  Khitat,  «  Desert  of  Eydhab  ").  One  of 
the  sea-going  ships  of  the  Arabs  is  shown  in  the 
view  of  El-Basrah,  from  a  sketch  by  Colonel  Chesney, 
(from  Lane's  «  1001  Nights').  The  crews  of  the 
latter,  when  not  exceptionally  Phoenicians,  as  were 
Solomon's  and  Pharaoh  Necho's,  were  without 
doubt  generally  Arabians,  rather  than  Egyptians 
— those  Himyerite  Arabs  whose  ships  carried  all 
the  wealth  of  the  East  either  to  the  Red  ^  Sea  or 
the  Persian  Gulf.  The  people  of  'Oman,  the 
south-east  province  of  Arabia,  were  among  the  fore 
most  of  these  navigators  (El-Mes'oodee's  Golden 
Meadows,  MS.,  and  The  Accounts  of  Two  Moham 
medan  Trcve"'**  of  the  Ninth  Century}.  It  was 


1016 


El-Basrah.     Fiuin  a  Drawing  by  Colonel  Chesney. 


customary,  to  avoid  probably  the  dangers  and 
delays  of  the  narrow  seas,  for  the  ships  engaged  in 
the  Indian  trade  to  trans-ship  their  cargoes  at  the 
straits  of  Bab  el-Mendeb  to  Egyptian  and  other 
vessels  of  the  Red  Sea  (Agath.  §103,  p.  190;  anon. 
Peripl.  §26,  p.  277,  ed.  Miiller).  The  fleets  appear 
to  have  sailed  about  the  autumnal  equinox,  and 
returned  in  December  or  the  middle  of  January 
(Pliny,  N.  H.  vi.  cap.  xxiii.  §26;  comp.  Peripl. 
passim).  St.  Jerome  says  that  the  navigation  was 
eytremely  tedious.  At  the  present  day,  the  voyages 
are  periodical,  and  guided  by  the  seasons ;  but 
the  old  skill  of  the  seamen  has  nearly  departed, 
and  they  are  extremely  timid,  and  rarely  venture 
far  from  the  coast. 

The  Red  Sea,  as  it  possessed  for  many  centuries 
the  most  important  sea-trade  of  the  East,  contained 
ports  of  celebrity.  Of  these,  Elath  and  Eziongeber 
alone  appear  to  be  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  The 
Heroopolite  Gulf  is  of  the  chief  interest:  it  was 
near  to  Goshen  ;  it  was  the  scene  of  the  passage  of 
the  Red  Sea ;  and  it  was  the  "  tongue  of  the  Egyp 
tian  Sea."  It  was  also  the  seat  of  the  Egyptian 
trade  in  this  sea  and  to  the  Indian  Ocean.  Heroopolis 
is  doubtless  the  same  as  Hero,  and  its  site  has  been 
probably  identified  with  the  modem  Aboo-Kesheyd, 
at  the  head  of  the  old  gulf.  By  the  consent  of  the 
classics,  it  stood  on  or  near  the  head  of  the  gulf, 
and  was  68  miles  (according  to  the  Itinerary  of 
Antoninus)  from  Clysma,  by  the  Arabs  called  El- 
Kulzum,  near  the  modern  Suez,  which  is  close  to 
the  present  head.  Suez  is  a  poor  town,  and  has 
only  an  unsafe  anchorage,  with  very  shoal  watei. 
On  the  shore  of  the  Heroopolite  gulf  was  also 
Arsinoe,  founded  by  Ptolemy  Philadelphus :  its  site 
has  not  been  settled.  Berenice,  founded  by  the 
same,  on  the  southern  frontier  of  Egypt,  rose  to 
importance  under  the  Ptolemies  and  the  Romans ; 
it  is  now  of  no  note.  On  the  western  coast  was 
also  the  anchorage  of  Myos  Hormos,  a  little  north  j 
of  the  modern  town  El-Kuseyr,  which  now  forms  j 
the  point  of  communication  with  the  old  route  to 
Coptos.  On  the  Arabian  coast  the  principal  ports 
are  Mu'eyleh,  Yembo'  (the  port  of  El-Medeeneh), , 
Juddah  (the  port  of  Mekkeh),  and  Mukha,  by  | 


us  commonly  written  Mocha.  The  Red  Sea  iu 
most  parts  affords  anchorage  for  country-vessels 
well  acquainted  with  its  intricacies,  and  able  to 
creep  along  the  coast  among  the  reefs  and  islands 
that  girt  the  shore.  Numerous  creeks  on  the 
Arabian  shore  (called  "  shuroom,"  sing.  "  sharm,") 
indent  the  land.  Of  these  the  anchorage  called  Esh 
Sharm,  at  the  southern  extremity  of  the  peninsula 
of  Sinai,  is  much  frequented. 

The  commerce  of  the  Red  Sea  was,  in  very 
ancient  timeo,  unquestionably  great.  The  earliest 
records  tell  of  tht  ships  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Phoe 
nicians,  and  the  Ar?bs.  Although  the  ports  of  the 
Persian  gulf  received  a  part  of  the  Indian  traffic 
[DEDAN],  and  the  Himyerite  maritime  cities  in  the 
south  of  Arabia  supplied  the  kingdom  of  SHEBA, 
the  trade  with  Egypt  was,  we  must  believe,  the 
iHQst  important  of  the  arifcient  world.  That  all 
this  traffic  found  its  way  to  the  head  of  the 
Heroopolite  gulf  seems  proved  by  the  absence  of 
any  important  Pharaonic  remains  further  south  on 
the  Egyptian  coast.  But  the  shoaling  of  the  head 
of  the  gulf  rendered  the  navigation,  always  dan 
gerous,  more  difficult ;  it  destroyed  the  former 
anchorages,  and  made  it  necessary  to  cany  mer 
chandise  across  the  desert  to  the  Nile.  This  change 
appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  main  causes  of  the 
decay  of  the  commerce  of  Egypt.  We  have  seen 
that  the  long-voyaging  ships  shifted  their  cargoes 
to  Red  Sea  craft  at  the  straits ;  and  Ptolemy  Phila 
delphus,  after  founding  Arsinoe  and  endeavouring 
to  re-open  the  old  canal  of  the  Red  Sea,  abandoned 
the  upper  route  and  established  the  southern  road 
from  his  new  city  Berenice  on  the  frontier  of  Egypt 
and  Nubia  to  Coptos  on  the  Nile.  Strabo  tells  us 
that  this  was  done  to  avoid  the  dangers  encountered 
in  navigating  the  sea  (xvii.  1,  §45).  Though  the 
stream  of  commerce  was  diverted,  sufficient  seems 
to  have  remained  to  keep  in  existence  the  former 
ports,  though  they  have  long  since  utterly  dis 
appeared.  Under  the  Ptolemies  and  the  Romans 
the  commerce  of  the  Red  Sea  varied  greatly,  in 
fluenced  by  the  decaying  state  of  Egypt  and  the 
route  to  Palmyra  'until  the  fall  of  the  latter).  But 
even  its  best  state  at  this  time  cannot  have  been 


1016       RED  SEA,  PASSAGE  OF 

such  as  to  make  us  believe  that  the  120  ships 
sailing  from  Myos  Hormos,  mentioned  by  Strabo 
(ii.  v.  §12),  was  other  than  an  annual  convoy. 
The  wars  of  Heraclius  and  Khosroes  affected  the 
trade  of  Egypt  as  they  influenced  that  of  the 
Persian  gulf.  Egypt  had  fallen  low  at  the  time  of 
the  Arab  occupation,  and  yet  it  is  curious  to  note 
that  Alexandria  even  then  retained  the  shadow  of  its 
former  glory.  Since  the  time  of  Mohammad  the  Red 
Sea  trade  has  been  insignificant.  [E.  S.  P.] 

BED  SEA,  PASSAGE  OF.  The  passage  of 
the  Red  Sea  was  the  crisis  of  the  Exodus.  It  was 
the  miracle  by  which  the  Israelites  left  Egypt  and 
were  delivered  from  the  oppressor.  Probably  on 
this  account  St.  Paul  takes  it  as  a  type  of  Christian 
baptism.  All  the  particulars  relating  to  this  event, 
and  especially  those  which  show  its  miraculous  cha 
racter,  require  careful  examination.  The  points  that 
arise  are  the  place  of  the  passage,  the  narrative,  and 
the  importance  of  the  event  in  Biblical  history. 

1.  It  is  usual  to  suppose  that  the  most  northern 
place  at  which  the  Red  Sea  could  have  been  crossed 
is  the  present  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Suez.  This  sup 
position  depends  upon  the  erroneous  idea  that  in 
the  time  of  Moses  the  gulf  did  not  extend  further  to 
the  northward  than  at  present.  An  examination  of 
the  country  north  of  Suez  has  shown,  however,  that 
the  sea  has  receded  many  miles,  and  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  this  change  has  taken  place  within 
the  historical  period,  doubtless  in  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecy  of  Isaiah  (xi.  15,  xix.  5;  comp.  Zech. 
x.  11).  The  old  bed  is  indicated  by  the  Birket-et- 
Timsah,  or  "  Lake  of  the  Crocodile,"  and  the  more 
southern  Bitter  Lakes,  the  northernmost  part  of  the 
former  probably  corresponding  to  the  head  of  the  gulf 
at  the  time  of  the  Exodus.  In  previous  centuries  it 
is  probable,  that  the  gulf  did  not  extend  further  north, 
but  that  it  was  deeper  in  its  northernmost  part. 

It  is  necessary  to  endeavour  to  ascertain  the 
route  of  the  Israelites  before  we  can  attempt  to 
discover  where  they  crossed  the  sea.  The  point 
from  which  they  started  was  Rameses,  a  place  cer 
tainly  in  the  Land  of  Goshen,  which  we  identify 
with  the  Wadi-t-Tumeylat.  [RAMESES  ;  GOSHEN.] 
After  the  mention  that  the  people  journeyed  from 
Rameses  to  Succoth,  and  before  that  of  their  de 
parture  from  Succoth,  a  passage  occurs  which 
appears  to  show  the  first  direction  of  the  journey, 
and  not  a  change  in  the  route.  This  we  may  rea 
sonably  infer  from  its  tenour,  and  from  its 'being 
followed  by  the  statement  that  Joseph's  bones  were 
taken  by  Moses  with  him,  which  must  refer  to  the 
commencement  of  the  journey.  "  And  it  came  to 
pass,  when  Pharaoh  had  let  the  people  go,  that  God 
'ed  them  not  [by]  the  way  of  the  land  of  the  Phi 
listines,  although  that  [was]  near ;  for  God  said, 
Lest  peradventure  the  people  repent  when  they  see 
war,  and  they  return  to  Egypt:  but  God  caused 
the  people  to  turn  [by]  the  way  of  the  wilderness 
of  the  Red  Sea"  (Ex.  xiii.  17,  18).  It  will  be  seen 
by  reference  to  the  map  already  given  [vol.  i.  p. 
598]  that,  from  the  Wadi-t-Tumeylat,  whether 
from  its  eastern  end  or  from  any  othti  part,  the 
route  to  Palestine  by  way  of  Gaza  through  the 
Philistine  territory  is  near  at  hand.  In  the  Roman 
time  the  route  to  Gaza  from  Memphis  and  Heliopolis 
passed  the  western  end  of  the  Wadi-t-Tumeylat,  as 
may  be  seen  by  the  Itinerary  of  Antoninus  (Par- 


KED  SEA,  PASSAGE  OF 

they,  Zur  Erdkunde  d.  Alt.  Aegyptens,  map  vi.), 
and  the  chief  modern  route  from  Cairo  to  Syria 
aasses  along  the  Wadi-t-Tumeylat  and  leads  to 
aza  (Wilkinson,  Handbook,  new  ed.  p.  209). 
At  the  end  of  the  second  day's  journey  the 
camping-place  was  at  Etham  "  in  the  edge  of  the 
wilderness"  (Ex.  xiii.  20;  Num.  xxxiii.  6).  Hera 
the  Wadi-t-Tumeylat  was  probably  left,  as  it  is 
cultivable  and  terminates  in  the  desert.  After  leav 
ing  this  'place  the  direction  seems  to  have  changed. 
The  first  passage  relating  to  the  journey,  after  the 
mention  of  the  encamping  at  Etham,  is  this,  stating 
a  command  given  to  Moses  :  "  Speak  unto  the 
children  of  Israel,  that  they  turn  [or  '  return  '] 
and  encamp  [or  '  that  they  encamp  again,' 
rn  JQB^J  before  Pi-hahiroth,  between  Migdol 
and  the  sea,  over  against  Baal-zephon"  (Ex.  xiv.  2). 
This  explanation  is  added :  "  And  Pharaoh  will  say 
of  the  children  of  Israel,  They  [are]  entangled  in 
the  land,  the  wilderness  hath  shut  them  in "  (3). 
The  rendering  of  the  A.  V.,  "  that  they  turn  and 
encamp,"  seems  to  us  the  most  probable  of  those 
we  have  given :  "  return  "  is  the  closer  translation, 
but  appears  to  be  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the 
narrative  of  the  route  ;  for  the  more  likely  inference 
is  that  the  direction  was  changed,  not  that  the 
people  returned :  the  third  rendering  does  not  ap 
pear  probable,  as  it  does  not  explain  the  entangle 
ment.  The  geography  of  the  country  does  not 
assist  us  in  conjecturing  the  direction  of  the  last 
part  of  the  journey.  If  we  knew  that  the  highest 
part  of  the  gulf  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus  extended 
to  the  west,  it  would  be  probable  that,  if  the 
Israelites  turned,  they  took  a  northerly  direction, 
as  then  the  sea  would  oppose  an  obstacle  to  their 
further  progress.  If,  however,  they  left  the  Wadi-t- 
Tumeylat  at  Etham  "  in  the  edge  of  the  wilderness," 
they  could  not  have  turned  far  to  the  northward, 
unless  they  had  previously  turned  somewhat  to  the 
south.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Pharaoh's 
object  was  to  cut  off  the  retreat  of  the  Israelites : 
he  therefore  probably  encamped  between  them  and 
the  head  of  the  sea. 

At  the  end  of  the  third  day's  march,  for  each 
camping-place  seems  to  mark  the  close  of  a  day's 
journey,  the  Israelites  encamped  by  the  sea.  The 
place  of  this  last  encampment,  and  that  of  the 
passage,  on  the  supposition  that  our  views  as  to  the 
most  probable  route  are  correct,  would  be  not  very 
far  from  the  Persepolitan  monument.  [See  map, 
vol.  i.  p.  598.]  The  monument  is  about  thirty 
miles  to  the  northward  of  the  present  head  of  the 
Gulf  of  Suez,  and  not  far  south  of  the  position 
where  we  suppose  the  head  of  the  gulf  to  haA-e 
been  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus.  It  is  here  neces 
sary  to  mention  the  arguments  for  and  against  the 
common  opinion  that  the  Israelites  passed  near  the 
present  head  of  the  gulf.  Local  tradition  is  in 
its  favour,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  local 
tradition  in  Egypt  and  the  neighbouring  countries, 
judging  from  the  evidence  of  history,  is  of  very 
J  little  value.  The  Muslims  suppose  Memphis  to 
I  have  been  the  city  at  which  the  Pharaoh  of  the 
Exodus  resided  before  that  event  occurred.  From 
opposite  Memphis  a  broad  valley  leads  to  the  Red 
Sea.  It  is  in  part  called  the"  Wadi-t-Teeh,  or 
i  "  Valley  of  the  Wandering."  From  it  the  traveller 
reaches  the  sea  beneath  the  lofty  Gebel-et-Takah,« 


»  lu  order  to  favour  the  opinion  that  the  Israelites  took  been  changed  to  Gebel-'Atakah,  as  if  signifying  "  the 
the  route  by  the  Wa"di-t-Teeh,  this  name,  Gebel-et-Tdkah  i  Mountain  of  Deliverance ;"  though,  to  bave  this  signi- 
(lo  whici  it  is  difficult  to  assign  a  probable  meaning),  has  j  fication,  it  should  rather  be  Gebel-el-'Atakah,  th« 


RED  SEA,  PASSAGE  OF 

which  rises  on  the  north  and  shuts  off  all  escape  in 
that  direction,  excepting  by  a  narrow  way  along 
the  sea-shore,  which  Pharaoh  might  have  occupied. 
The  sea  here  is  broad  and  deep,  as  the  narrative 
is  generally  held  to  imply.  All  the  local  features 
S3em  suited  for  a  great  event ;  but  it  may  well 
be  asked  whether  there  is  any  reason  to  expect 
that  suitableness  that  human  nature  seeks  for  and 
modern  imagination  takes  for  granted,  since  it 
would  have  been  useless  for  the  objects  for  which 
the  miracle  appears  to  huve  been  intended.  The 
desert-way  from  Memphis  is  equally  poetical,  but 
how  is  it  possible  to  recognise  in  it  a  route  which 
seems  to  have  had  two  days'  journey  of  cultivation, 
the  wilderness  being  reached  only  at  the  end  of  the 
second  day's  march?  The  supposition  that  the  Israel 
ites  took  an  upper  route,  now  that  of  the  Mekkeh 
caravan,  along  the  desert  to  the  north  of  the  ele 
vated  tract  between  Cairo  and  Suez,  must  be  men 
tioned,  although  it  is  less  probable  than  that  just 
noticed,  and  offers  the  same  difficulties.  It  is,  how 
ever,  possible  to  suppose  that  the  Israelites  crossed 
the  sea  near  Suez  without  holding  to  the  traditional 
idea  that  they  attained  it  by  the  Wadi-t-Teeh.  If 
they  went  through  the  Wadi-t-Tumeylat  they  might 
have  turned  southward  from  its  eastern  end,  and  so 
reached  the  neighbourhood  of  Suez ;  but  this  would 
make  the  third  day's  journey  more  than  thirty  miles 
at  the  least,  which,  if  we  bear  in  mind  the  com 
position  of  the  Israelite  caravan,  seems  quite  in 
credible.  We  therefore  think  that  the  only  opinion 
warranted  by  the  narrative  is  that  already  stated, 
which  supposes  the  passage  of  the  sea  to  have  taken 
place  near  the  northernmost  part  of  its  ancient  ex 
tension.  The  conjecture  that  the  Israelites  advanced 
to  the  north,  then  crossed  a  shallow  part  of  the  Me 
diterranean,  where  Pharaoh  and  his  army  were  lost 
in  the  quicksands,  and  afterwards  turned  south 
wards  towards  Sinai,  is  so  repugnant  to  the  Scripture 
narrative  as  to  amount  to  a  denial  of  the  occurrence 
of  the  event,  and  indeed  is  scarcely  worth  men 
tioning. 

The  last  camping-place  was  before  Pi-hahiroth. 
It  appears  that  Migdol  was  behind  Pi-hahiroth,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  Baal-zephon  and  the  sea.  These 
neighbouring  places  have  not  been  identified,  and 
the  name  of  Pi-hahiroth  (if,  as  we  believe,  rightly 
supposed  to  designa^  a  reedy  tract,  and  to  be  still 
preserved  in  the  Arabic  name  Ghuweybet  el-boos, 
"  the  bed  of  reeds  "),  is  now  found  in  the  neighbour 
hood  of  the  two  supposed  sites  of  the  passage,  and 
therefore  cannot  be  said  to  be  identified,  "besides 
that  we  must  not  expect  a  natural  locality  still  to 
retain  its  name.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the 
name  Pi-hahiroth,  since  it  describes  a  natural 
locality,  probably  does  not  indicate  a  town  or  other 
inhabited  place  named  after  such  a  locality,  and 
this  seems  almost  certain  from  the  circumstance 
that  it  is  unlikely  that  there  would  have  been  more 
than  two  inhabited  places,  even  if  they  were  only 
forts,  in  this  region.  The  other  names  do  not  de 
scribe  natural  localities.  The  nearness  of  Pi-hahi 
roth  to  the  sea  is  therefore  the  only  sure  indica 
tion  of  its  position,  and,  if  we  are  right  in  our 
supposition  as  to  the  place  of  the  passage,  our 
uncertainty  as  to  the  exact  extent  of  the  sea  at 


form  deviating  from  general  usage.  Et-Takah  and  'Atakah 
In  the  mouth  of  an  Arab  are  widely  different. 

b  The  LXX.  has  "  south,"  instead  of  "  east"  The 
Heb.  DH£,  lit.  "  In  front,"  may,  however,  indicate  the 
whole  distance  bet  ween  the  two  extreme  points  of  sunrise, 


KED  SEA,  PASSAGE  OF       10H 

the  time  is  an  additional  difficulty.  [Exoous,  THE 

Pl-HAHIEOTH.] 

From  Pi-hahiroth  the  Israelites  crossed  the  sea. 
The  only  points  bearing  on  geography  in  the  ac 
count  of  this  event  are  that  the  sea  was  divided  by 
an  eastb  wind,  whence  we  may  reasonably  inter  that 
t  was  crossed  from  west  to  east,  and  that  the  whole 
Egyptian  army  perished,  which  shows  that  it  must 
have  been  some  miles  broad.  Pharaoh  took  at  least 
six  hundred  chariots,  which,  three  abreast,  would 
have  occupied  about  half  a  mile,  and  the  rest  of  the 
army  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  taken  up  less  than 
several  times  that  space.  Even  if  in  a  broad  forma 
tion  some  miles  would  have  been  required.0  It  is 
more  difficult  to  calculate  the  space  taken  up  by 
the  Israelite  multitude,  but  probably  it  was  even 
greater.  On  the  whole  we  may  reasonably  suppose 
about  twelve  miles  as  the  smallest  breadth  of  the  sea. 

2.  A  careful  examination  of  the  narrative  of  the 
passage  of  the  Red  Sea  is  necessary  to  a  right  under 
standing  of  the  event.  When  the  Israelites  had 
departed,  Pharaoh  repented  that  he  had  let  them 
go.  It  might  be  conjectured,  from  one  part  of  the 
narrative  (Ex.  xiv.  1-4),  that  he  determined  to  pur 
sue  them  when  he  knew  that  they  had  encamped 
before  Pi-hahiroth,  did  not  what  follows  this  imply 
that  he  set  out  soon  after  they  had  gone,  and  also 
indicate  that  the  place  in  question  refers  to  the 
pursuit  through  the  sea,  not  to  that  from  the  city 
whence  he  started  (5-10).  This  city  was  most 
probably  Zoan,  and  could  scarcely  have  been  much 
nearer  to  Pi-hahiroth,  and  the  distance  is  therefore 
too  great  to  have  been  twice  traversed,  first  by 
those  who  told  Pharaoh,  then  by  Pharaoh's  army, 
within  a  few  hours.  The  strength  of  Pharaoh's 
army  is  not  further  specified  than  by  the  statement 
that  "  he  took  six  hundred  chosen  chariots,  and  [or 
'  even ']  all  the  chariots  of  Egypt,  and  captains 
over  every  one  of  them"  (7).  The  war-chariots 
of  the  Egyptians  held  each  but  two  men,  an  archer 
and  a  charioteer.  The  former  must  be  intended  by 
the  word  D^?C^,  rendered  in  the  A.  V.  "  cap 
tains.'1  Throughout  the  narrative  the  chariots  and 
horsemen  of  Pharaoh  are  mentioned,  and  "  the  horse 
and  his  rider,"  xv.  21,  are  spoken  of  in  Miriam's 
song,  but  we  can  scarcely  hence  infer  that  there  was 
in  Pharaoh's  army  a  body  of  horsemen  as  well  as  of 
men  in  chariots,  as  in  ancient  Egyptian  the  chariot- 
force  is  always  called  HTAR  or  HETRA,  "the 
horse,"  and  these  expressions  may  therefore  be 
respectively  pleonastic  and  poetical.  There  is  no 
evidence  in  the  records  of  the  ancient  Egyptians 
that  they  used  cavalry,  and,  therefore,  had  the 
Biblical  narrative  expressly  mentioned  a  force  of 
this  kind,  it  might  have  been  thought  to  support 
the  theory  that  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus  was  a 
Shepherd-king.  With  this  army,  which,  even  if  a 
small  one,  was  mighty  in  comparison  to  the  Israelite 
multitude,  encumbered  with  women,  children,  and 
cattle,  Phavaoh  overtook  the  people  "  encamping  cy 
the  sea"  (9).  When  the  Israelites  saw  the  oppressor's 
army  they  were  terrified  and  murmured  against 
Moses.  "  Because  [there  were]  no  graves  in  Egypt, 
hast  thou  taken  us  away  to  die  in  the  wilderness  ?  ' 
(11).  Along  the  bare  mountains  that  skirt  the 

those  of  the  two  solstices,  and  hence  it  is  not  limited  tc 
absolute  east,  agreeably  with  the  use  of  the  Arabs  in  every 
case  like  the  narrative  under  consideration. 

c  It  has  been  calculated,  that  if  Napoleon  I.  had  ad- 
vanoed  by  one  road  into  Belgium,  in  the  Waterloo  cam 
paign,  his  column  would  have  been  sixty  miles  in  len^tn. 


1018       UED  SEA,  PASSAGE  O^ 

valley  of  Upper  Egypt  are  abundant  sepulchral 
grottoes,  of  which  the  entrances  are  conspicuously 
seen  fiom  the  river  and  the  fields  it  waters:  in  the 
sandy  slopes  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  are  pits 
without  number  and  many  built  tombs,  all  of 
ancient  times.  No  doubt  the  plain  of  Lower  Egypt, 
to  which  Memphis,  with  part  of  its  far-extending 
necropolis,  belonged  politically  though  not  geogra 
phically,  was  throughout  as  well  provided  with 
places  of  sepulture.  The  Israelites  recalled  these 
cities  of  the  dead,  and  looked  with  Egyptian  horror 
at  the  prospect  that  their  carcases  should  be  left  on 
the  face  of  the  wilderness.  Better,  they  said,  to 
have  continued  to  serve  the  Egyptians  than  thus  to 
perish  (12).  Then  Moses  encouraged  them,  bidding 
them  see  how  God  would  save  them,  and  telling 
them  that  they  should  behold  their  enemies  no 
more.  There  are  few  cases  in  the  Bible  in  which 
those  for  whom  a  miracle  is  wrought  are  com 
manded  merely  to  stand  by  and  see  it.  Generally 
the  Divine  support  is  promised  to  those  who  use 
their  utmost  exertions.  It  seems  from  the  narra 
tive  that  Moses  did  not  know  at  this  time  how  the 
people  would  be  saved,  and  spoke  only  from  a  heart 
full  of  faith,  for  we  read,  "  And  THE  LORD  said 
unto  Moses,  Wherefore  criest  thou  unto  me?  speak 
unto  the  children  of  Israel,  that  they  go  forward : 
but  lift  thou  up  thy  rod,  and  stretch  out  thine 
hand  over  the  sea,  and  divide  it:  and  the  children 
of  Israel  shall  go  on  dry  [ground]  through  the 
midst  of  the  sea"  (15,  16).  That  night  the  two 
armies,  the  fugitives  and  the  pursuers,  were  en 
camped  near  together.  Between  them  was  the 
pillar  of  the  cloud,  darkness  to  the  Egyptians  and  a 
light  to  the  Israelites.  The  monuments  of  Egypt 
portray  an  encampment  of  an  army  of  Rameses  II., 
during  a  campaign  in  Syria ;  it  is  well-planned  and 
carefully  guarded :  the  rude  modern  Arab  encamp 
ments  bring  before  us  that  of  Israel  on  this  me-  j 
morable  night.  Perhaps  in  the  camp  of  Israel  the 
sounds  of  the  hostile  camp  might  be  heard  on  the 
one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  the  roaring  of  the  sea. 
But  the  pillar  was  a  barrier  and  a  sign  of  deliver 
ance.  The  time  was  now  come  for  the  great  deci 
sive  miracle  of  the  Exodus.  "And  Moses  stretched 
out  his  hand  over  the  sea :  and  the  LORD  caused 
the  sea  to  go  [back]  by  a  strong  east  wind  all  that 
nighl,,  and  made  the  sea  dry  [land],  and  the  waters 
were  divided.  And  the  children  of  Israel  went 
through  the  midst  of  the  sea  upon  the  dry  [ground]  : 
and  the  waters  [were]  a  wall  unto  them  on  their 
right  hand,  and  on  their  left"  (21,  22,  comp.  29). 
The  narrative  distinctly  states  that  a  path  was  made 
through  the  sea,  and  that  the  waters  were  a  wall 
on  either  hand.  The  term  "  wall "  does  not  appear 
to  oblige  us  to  suppose,  as  many  have  done,  that 
che  sea  stood  up  like  a  cliff  on  either  side,  but 
should  rather  be  considered  to  mean  a  barrier,  as 
the  former  idea  implies  a  seemingly-needless  addi 
tion  to  the  miracle,  while  the  latter  seems  to  be  not 
discordant  with  the  language  of  the  narrative.  It 
was  during  the  night  that  the  Israelites  crossed, 
and  the  Egyptians  followed.  In  the  morning  watch, 
the  last  third  or  fourth  of  the  night,  or  the  period 
before  sunrise,  Pharaoh's  army  was  in  full  pursuit 
in  the  divided  sea,  and  was  there  miraculously 
troubled,  so  that  the  Egyptians  sought  to  flee 
(23-25).  Then  was  Moses  commanded  again  to 
stretch  out  his  hand,  and  the  sea  returned  to  its 
strength,  and  overwhelmed  the  Egyptians,  of  whom 
uot  one  remained  alive  (26-28).  The  statement  j 
is  so  explicit  that  there  could  bo  no  reasonable  l 


RED  SEA,  PASSAGE  OF 

Joubt  that  Pharaoh  himself,  the  great  offender 
was  at  last  made  an  example,  and  perished  with 
his  army,  did  it  not  seem  to  be  distin:tly  stated 
in  Psalm  cxxxvi.  that  he  was  included  in  the  same 
destruction  (15).  The  sea  cast  up  the  dead  Egyp 
tians,  whose  bodies  the  Israelites  saw  upon  the 
shore. 

In  a  later  passage  some  particulars  are  mentioned 
which  are  not  distinctly  stated  in  the  narrative 
in  Exodus.  The  place  is  indeed  a  poetical  one,  but 
its  meaning  is  clear,  and  we  learn  from  it  that  at 
the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  sea  there  was  a  storm 
of  rain  with  thunder  and  lightning,  perhaps  accom 
panied  by  an  earthquake  (Ps.  Ixxvii.  15-20).  To 
this  St.  Paul  may  allude  where  he  says  that  the 
fathers  "  were  all  baptized  unto  Moses  in  the  cloud 
and  in  the  sea"  (1  Cor.  x.  2);  for  the  idea  of 
baptism  seems  to  involve  either  immersion  or  sprink 
ling,  and  the  latter  could  have  here  occurred :  the 
reference  is  evidently  to  the  pillar  of  the  cloud : 
it  would,  however,  be  impious  to  attempt  an  expla 
nation  of  what  is  manifestly  miraculous.  These 
additional  particulars  may  illustrate  the  troubling 
of  the  Egyptians,  for  their  chariots  may  have  been 
thus  overthrown. 

Here,  at  the  end  of  their  long  oppression,  deli 
vered  finally  from  the  Egyptians,  the  Israelites 
glorified  God.  In  what  words  they  sang  his  praise 
we  know  from  the  Song  of  Moses,  which,  in  its 
vigorous  brevity,  represents  the  events  of  that  me 
morable  night,  scarcely  of  less  moment  than  the 
night  of  the  Passover  (Ex.  xv.  1-18:  ver.  19  is 
probably  a  kind  of  comment,  not  part  of  the  song). 
Moses  seems  to  have  sung  this  song  with  the  men, 
Miriam  with  the  women  also  singing  and  dancing, 
or  perhaps  there  were  two  choruses  (20,  21).  Such 
a  picture  does  not  recur  in  the  history  of  the  nation. 
Neither  the  triumphal  Song  of  Deborah,  nor  the 
rejoicing  when  the  Temple  was  recovered  from  the 
Syrians,  celebrated  so  great  a  deliverance,  or  was 
joined  in  by  the  whole  people.  In  leaving  Goshen, 
Israel  became  a  nation ;  after  crossing  the  sea,  it 
was  free.  There  is  evidently  great  significance,  as 
we  have  suggested,  in  St.  Paul's  use  of  this  miracle 
as  a  type  of  baptism  ;  for,  to  make  the  analogy  com 
plete,  it  must  have  been  the  beginning  of  a  new 
period  of  the  life  of  the  Israelites. 

3.  The  importance  of  this  event  in  Biblical  his 
tory  is  shown  by  the  manner  in  which  it  is  spoken 
of  in  the  books  of  the  0.  T.  written  in  later  times. 
In  them  it  is  the  chief  fact  of  Jewish  history.  Not 
the  call  of  Abraham,  not  the  rule  of  Joseph,  not  the 
first  passover,  not  the  conquest  of  Canaan,  are  re 
ferred  to  in  such  a  manner  as  this  great  deliverance. 
In  the  Book  of  Job  it  is  mentioned  with  the  acts  of 
creation  (xxvi.  10-18).  In  the  Psalms  it  is  related 
as  foremost  among  the  deeds  that  God  had  wrought 
for  his  people.  The  prophet  Isaiah  recalls  it  as  the 
great  manifestation  of  God's  interference  for  Israel, 
and  an  encouragement  for  the  descendants  of  those 
who  witnessed  that  great  sight.  There  are  events 
so  striking  that  they  are  remembered  in  the  life  of 
a  nation,  and  that  like  great  heights  increasing  dist 
ance  only  gives  them  more  majesty.  So  no  doubt, 
was  this  remembered  long  after  those  were  dead 
who  saw  the  sea  return  to  its  strength  and  the 
warriors  of  Pharaoh  dead  upon  the  shore. 

It  may  be  inquired  how  it  is  that  there  seems  to 
have  been  no  record  or  tradition  of  this  miracle 
among  the  Egyptians.  This  question  involves  that 
of  the  time  in  "Egyptian  history  to  which  this  event 
should  be  assigned.  The  date  of  the  Exodus  ao 


REED 

oordiug  to  different  chronologeis  varies  more  than 
three  hundred  years  ;  the  dates  of  the  Egyptian 
dynasties  ruling  during  this  period  of  three  hundred 
years  vary  full  one  hundred.  The  period  to  which 
the  Exodus  may  be  assigned  therefore  virtually  cor 
responds  to  four  hundred  years  of  Egyptian  history. 
If  the  lowest  date  of  the  beginning  of  the  xviiith 
dynasty  be  taken  and  the  highest  date  of  the  Exodus, 
both  which  we  consider  the  most  probable  of  those 
which  have  been  conjectured  in  the  two  cases,  the 
Israelites  must  have  left  Egypt  in  a  period  of  which 
monuments  or  other  records  are  almost  wanting. 
Of  the  xviiith  and  subsequent  dynasties  we  have  as 
yet  no  continuous  history,  and  rarely  records  of 
events  which  occurred  in  a  succession  of  years. 
We  know  much  of  many  reigns,  and  of  some  we 
JHII  be  almost  sure  that  they  could  not  correspond 
to  that  of  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus.  We  can 
in  no  case  expect  a  distinct  Egyptian  monumental 
record  of  so  great  a  calamity,  for  the  monuments 
only  record  success  ;  but  it  might  be  related  in  a 
papyrus.  There  would  doubtless  have  long  re 
mained  a  popular  tradition  of  the  Exodus,  but  if 
the  king  who  perished  was  one  of  the  Shepherd 
strangers,  this  tradition  would  probably  have  been 
local,  and  perhaps  indistinct.*1 

Endeavours  have  been  made  to  explain  away  the 
miraculous  character  of  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea. 
It  has  been  argued  that  Moses  might  have  earned 
the  Israelites  over  by  a  ford,  and  that  an  unusual 
tide  might  have  overwhelmed  the  Egyptians.  But 
no  real  diminution  of  the  wonder  is  thus  effected. 
How  was  it  that  the  sea  admitted  the  passing  of  the 
Israelites,  and  drowned  Pharaoh  and  his  army? 
How  was  it  that  it  was  shallow  at  the  right  time, 
and  deep  at  the  right  time  ?  This  attempted  ex 
planation  would  never  have  been  put  forward  were 
it  not  that  the  fact  of  the  passage  is  so  well  attested 
that  it  would  be  uncritical  to  doubt  it  were  it 
recorded  on  mere  human  authority.  Since  the  fact 
is  undeniable  au  attempt  is  made  to  explain  it  away. 
Thus  tne  school  that  pretends  to  the  severest  criticism 
is  compelled  to  deviate  from  its  usual  course  ;  and 
when  we  see  that  in  this  case  it  must  do  so,  we  may 
well  doubt  its  soundness  in  other  cases,  which,  being 
i  differently  stated,  are  more  easily  attacked.  [R.  S.  P.J 

REED.     Under  this  name  we  propose  noticing 
the  following  Hebrew  words:  agmon,  gome,  'aroth, 

and  lianeh. 


REED 


1019 


1.  Agmon 


K  :     KP'LKOS, 


,    (J.iicp6s, 


TeAo$ :  circulus,  fcrvens,  refrenans]  occurs  Job 
xl.  26  (A.  V.  xli.  2),  "Canst  thou  put  agmon" 
(A.  V.  "hook")  into  the  nose  of  the  crocodile? 
Again,  in  xl.  12  (A.  V.  xli.  20),  "out  of  his 
nostrils  goeth  smoke,  as  out  of  a  seething-pot  or 
agmon"  (A.  V.  "caldron").  In  Is.  ix.  14,  it  is 
said  Jehovah  "  will  cut  off  from  Israel  head  and  till, 
branch  and  agmon  "  (A.  V.  "  rush").  The  agmon 
is  mentioned  also  as  an  Egyptian  plant,  in  a  sentence 
similar  to  the  last,  in  Is.  xix.  15  ;  while  from  Iviii.  5 
we  learn  that  the  agmon  had  a  pendulous  panicle. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  agmon  denotes  some 
aquatic  reed-like  plant,  whether  of  the  Nat.  order 

d  While  this  article  is  going  through  the  press,  M. 
Chabas  has  published  a  curious  paper,  in  which  he  con 
jectures  that  certain  labourers  employed  by  the  Pharaohs 
of  the  xixth  and  xxth  dynasties  in  the  quarries  and 
elsewhere  are  the  Hebrews.  Their  name  reads  APEKIU 
or  APEBUI,  which  might  correspond  to  "  Hebrews "  i 
.  but  his  nnJing  them  still  in  Egypt  under  I 


Cypernc.eae.  or  that  of  Grammecie.      The  term  is 
allied  closely  to  the  Heorevr  zgam  (D3X),  which, 

sr-f 

like  the  corresponding  Arabic  ajam  (^^1),  denote? 

a  marshy  pool  or  reed-bed.8  (See  Jer.  li.  32,  for 
this  latter  signification.)  There  is  some  doubt  as  to 
the  specific  identity  of  the  agmon,  some  believing 
that  the  word  denotes  "  a  rush  '*  as  well  as  a 
"  reed."  See  RosenmtHler  (Bib.  Bot.  p.  1  84)  and 
Winer  (Realworterb.  ii.  484).  Celsius  has  argued 
in  favour  of  the  Arundo  phragmitis  (Hierob.  i. 
465)  ;  we  are  inclined  to  adopt  his  opinion.  That  the 
agmon  denotes  some  specific  plant  is  probable  both 
from  the  passages  where  it  occurs,  as  well  as  from 
the  fact  that  kdnek  (!"l3p)  is  the  generic  term  for 
reeds  in  general.  The  Arundo  phragmitis  (now 
the  Phragmitis  communis],  if  it  does  not  occur  in 
Palestine  and  Egypt,  is  represented  by  a  very  closely 
allied  species,  viz.  the  A.  isiaca  of  Delisle.  The 
drooping  panicle  of  this  plant  will  answer  well  to 
the  "  bowing  down  the  head  "  of  which  Isaiah 
speaks;  but,  as  there  are  other  kinds  of  reed-like 
plants  to  which  this  character  also  belongs,  it  is 
impossible  to  do  more  than  give  a  probable  conjec 
ture.  The  expression  "  Canst  thou  put  an  agmon  " 
into  the  crocodile's  nose?  has  been  variously  ex 
plained.  The  most  probable  interpretation  is  that 
which  supposes  allusion  is  made  to  the  mode  of 
passing  a  reed  or  a  rush  through  the  gills  of  fish  in 
order  to  carry  them  home  but  see  the  Commen 
taries  and  Notes  of  Rosenmiiller.  Schultens,  Lee, 
Gary,  Mason  Good,  &c.  The  agmon  of  Job  xli.  20 
seems  to  be  derived  from  an  Arabic  root  signifying  to 
"  be  burning  :  "  hence  the  fcrvens  of  the  Vulg.  —  The 
Phragmitis  belongs  to  the  Nat.  order  Graminaceae. 
2.  Gome,  (K»j  :  irdireipos,  pip\ivos,  e'Aos  : 
scirpeus,  scirpus,  papyrus,  juncus),  translated 
"rush"  and  "bulrush"  by  the  A.  V.,  without 
doubt  denotes  the  celebrated  paper-reed  of  the 
ancients  (Papyrus  antiquorum),  a  plant  of  the 
Sedge  family,  Cyperaceae,  which  formerly  was 
common  in  some  parts  of  .Egypt.  The  Hebrew 
w6>d  is  found  four  times  in  the  Bible.  Moses  was 
hid  in  a  vessel  made  of  the  papyrus  (Ex.  ii.  3). 
Transit  boats  were  made  out  of  the  same  material 
by  the  Ethiopians  (Is.  xviii.  2)  ;  the  paper-reed  is 
mentioned  together  with  Kdnek,  the  usual  gen^i  ie 
term  for  a  "  reed,"  in  Is.  xxxv.  7,  and  in  Icb  viii. 
11,  where  it  is  asked,  "  Can  the  papyrus  plant  grow 
without  mire?"  The  modern  Arabic  name  of  this 


plant    is    Berdi 


According  to  Bruce 


the  modern  Abyssinians  use  boats  made  of  the 
papyrus  reed  ;  Ludolf  (Hist.  A0thiop.  i.  8)  speaks 
of  the  Tzamic  lake  being  navigated  "  monoxylis 
lintribus  ex  typha  praecrassa  confertis,"  a  kind 
of  sailing,  he  says,  which  is  attended  with  con 
siderable  danger  to  the  navigators.  Wilkinson 
(Anc.  Aegypt.  ii.  96,  ed.  1854)  says  that  the  right 
of  growing  and  selling  the  papyrus  plants  belonged 
to  the  government,  who  made  a  profit  by  its  mono- 


Rameses  IV.,  about  B.  c.  1200,  certainly  after  the  latest 
date  of  the  Exodus,  is  a  fatal  objection  to  an  klentificatloi; 
with  the  Israelites. 


5  ~ 


frutices     arundinotum. 


1020 


REED 


poly,  and  thinks  other  species  of  the  Cyperaceae 
must  be  understood  as  affording  all*  the  various 
articles,  such  as  baskets,  canoes,  sails,  sandals,  &c., 
which  have  been  said  to  have  been  made  from  the 
real  papyrus.  Considering  that  Egypt  abounds  in 
Cyperaceae,  many  kinds  of  which  might  have 
served  for  forming  canoes,  &c.,  it  is  improbable 
that  the  papyrus  alone  should  have  been  used  for 
such  a  purpose  ;  but  that  the  true  papyrus  was  used 
for  boats  there  can  be  no  doubt,  if  the  testimony  of 
Theophrastus  (Hist.  PL  iv.  8,  §4),  Pliny  (H.  N. 
xiii.  11),  Plutarch  and  other  ancient  writers,  is  to 
be  believed. 


Papyrus  ctntiquoruin. 


From  the  soft  cellular  portion  of  the  stem  the 
ancient  material  called  papyrus  was  made. 
"Papyri,"  says  Sir  G.  -Wilkinson,  "are  of  the 
most  remote  Pharaonic  periods.  The  mode  of 
making  them  was  as  follows:  the  interior  of  the 
stalks  of  the  plant,  after  the  rind  had  been  removed, 
was  cut  into  thin  slices  in  the  direction  of  their 
length,  and  these  being  laid  on  a  Hat  board  in 
succession,  similar  slices  were  placed  over  them 
at  right  angles,  and  their  surfaces  being  cemented 
together  by  a  sort  of  glue,  and  subjected  to  a 
proper  degree  of  pressure  and  well  dried,  the 
papyrus  was  completed  ;  the  length  of  the  slices 
depended  of  course  on  the  breadth  of  the  intended 
sheet,  as  that  of  the  sheet  on  the  number  of 
slices  placed  in  succession  beside  each  other,  so 
that  though  the  breadth  was  limited  the  papyrus 
might  be  extended  to  an  indefinite  length." 
[WRITING.]  The  papyrus  reed  is  not  now  found 
in  Egypt ;  it  grows,  however,  in  Syria.  Dr.  Hooker 
saw  it  on  the  banks  of  Lake  Tiberias,  a  few  miles 
uorth  of  the  town :  it  appears  to  have  existed 


KEE1) 

there  since  the  Jays  of  Theophrastus  and  Pliny, 
who  give  a  very  accurate  description  of  this  in 
teresting  plant.  Theophrastiis  (Hist.  Plant,  iv. 
8,  §4)  says,  "The  papyrus  grows  also  in  Syria 
around  the  lake  in  which  the  s  .veet-srented  reed  is 
found,  from  which  Antigonus  used  to  make  cordage 
for  his  ships."  (See  also  Pliny,  N.  H.  xiii.  11.) 
This  plant  has  been  found  also  in  a  small  stream 
two  miles  N.  of  Jaffa.  Dr.  Hooker  believes  it  is 
common  in  some  parts  of  Syria :  it  does  not  occur 
anywhere  else  in  Asia  ;  it  was  seen  by  Lady  Callcott 
on  the  banks  of  the  A  nap  us,  near  Syracuse,  and  Sir 
Joseph  Banks  possessed  paper  made  of  papyrus  from 
the  Lake  of  Thrasymeue  (Script.  Herb.  p.  379). 
The  Hebrew  name  of  this  plant  is  derived  from  a 
root  which  means  "to  absorb,"  compare  Lucan 
(Phars.  iv.  136).b  The  lower  part  of  the  papyrus 
reed  was  used  as  food  by  the  ancient  Egyptians ; 
"  those  who  wish  to  eat  the  byblus  dressed  in  the 
most  delicate  way,  stew  it  in  a  hot  pan  and  then  eat 
it  "  (Herod,  ii.  92  ;  see  also  Theophr.  Hist.  Plant. 
iv.  9).  The  statement  of  Theophrastus  with  regard 
to  the  sweetness  and  flavour  of  the  sap  has  been 
confirmed  by  some  writers ;  the  Chevalier  Land- 
olina  made  papyrus  from  the  pith  of  the  plant, 
which,  says  Heeren  (Histor.  Res.  Afric.  Nat.  ii. 
350,  note),  "  is  rather  clearer  than  the  Egyptian  ;" 
but  other  writers  say  the  stem  is  neither  juicy  nor 
agreeable.  The  papyrus  plant  (Papyrus  anti- 
quorum)  has  an  angular  stem  from  3  to  6  feet 
high,  though  occasionally  it  grows  to  the  height  of 
14  feet ;  it  has  no  leaves ;  the  flowers  are  in  very 
small  spikelets,  which  grow  on  the  thread-like 
flowering  branchlets  which  form  a  bushy  crown  to 
each  stem ;  it  is  found  in  stagnant  pools  as  well  as 
in  running  streams,  in  which  latter  case,  according 
to  Bruce,  one  of  its  angles  is  always  opposed  to  the 
current  of  the  stream. 

3.  'Aroth  (JTny:  TO  &xi  rb  x\(apov  7rai/c)  is 
translated  "paper-reed"   in   Is.    xix.   7,   the   only 
passage  where  the  pi.  noun  occurs ;  there  is  not  the 
slightest  authority  for  this  rendering  of  the  A.  V., 
nor  is  it  at  all  probable,  as  Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  230) 
has  remarked,  that  the  prophet  who  speaks  of  the 
paper-reed  under  the  name  gome  in  the  preceding 
chapter  (xviii.  2),  should  in  this  one  mention  the 
same  plant  under  a  totally  different  name.    "Aroth" 
says  Kimchi,  "  is  the  name  to  designate  pot-herbs 
and   green   plants."     The   LXX.   translate  it  by 
"  all  the  green  herbage  "  (comp.  1PIK,  Gen.  xli.  2, 
and  see  FLAG).     The  word  is  derived  from  'drdk, 
"  to  be  bare,"  or  "  destitute  of  trees ;"  it  probably 
denotes   the   open   grassy   land   on   the   banks   of 
the  Nile ;  and  seems  to  be  allied  to  the  Arabic  'ara 
5  --  . 

(f\j£.},  locus  aperius,  spatiosus.    Michaelis  (SuppL 

No.  1973),  Rosenmiiller  (Schol.  in  Jes.  xix.  7), 
Gesenius  (Thes.  s.  v.),  Maurer  (Comment,  s.  v.). 
and  Simonis  (Lex.  Heb.  s.  v.),  are  all  in  favour  ol 
this  or  a  similar  explanation.  Vitringa  (Comment, 
in  Isaiam)  was  of  opinion  that  the  Hebrew  term 
denoted  the  papyrus,  and  he  has  been  followed  by 
J.  G.  Unger,  who  has  published  a  dissertation  on  this 
subject  (De  Dl"iy,  hoc  est  de  Papyro  frutice,' von 
der  Papier-Staude  ad  Is.  xix.  7  ;  Lips.  1731,  4to.). 

4.  Kdneh  (HJp :  Ka\afj.os,  Ka\a/u.i<rKos,  /caAck 

,   ayKtav,   £vy6s,    irvQ^v :     culmus. 


*>  "  Conseritur  bibula  Memphitis  cymba  papyro." 
c  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  Vulg.  undei  Blood  the 
torra. 


REED 

yalamus,  arundo,  fistula,  statera),  the  generic  name 
cf  a  reed  of  any  kind  ;  it  occurs  in  numerous  pas 
sages  of  th?  O.  T.,  and  sometimes  denotes  the 
"stalk"  of  wheat  (Gen.  xli.  5,  22),  or  the 
"branches"  of  the  candlestick  (Ex.  xxv.  and 
xxxvii.);  in  Job  xxxi.  22,  kdneh  denotes  the  bone 


REED 


1021 


Ancidt,  tonax. 

of  the  arm  between  the  elbow  and  the  shoulder 
(os  humeri}  :  it  was  also  the  name  of  a  measure  of 
length  equal  to  six  cubits  (Ez.  xli.  8,  xl.  5).  The 
word  is  variously  rendered  in  the  A.  V.  by  "  stalk/' 
"branch,"  "bone,"  "calamus,"  "reed."  In  the 
N.  T.  KaXa/j.os  may  signify  the  "  stalk"  of  plants 
(Mark  xv.  36  ;  Matt,  xxvii.  48,  that  of  the  hyssop, 
but  this  is  doubtful),  or  "  a  reed"  (Matt.  xi.  7, 
rii.  20;  Luke  vii.  24;  Mark  xv.  19);  or 
"measuring  rod"  (Rev.  xi.  1,  xxi.  15,  16);  or  a 
"  pen  "  (3  John  13).  Strand'^or.  Palaest.  28-30) 
gives  the  following  names  of  the  reed  plants  of 
Palestine: — Saccharum  officinale,  Cyperus papyrus 
(Papyrus  antiquorum),  C.  rotundus,  and  C.  escu- 
lentus,  and  Arundo  scriptoria ;  but  no  doubt  the 
species  are  numerous.  See  Bove  ( Voyage  en 
Palest.,  Annal  des  Scienc.  Nat.  1834,  p.  165) 
"  Dans  les  deserts  qui  environnent  ces  montagnes  j'ai 
trouve  plusieurs  Saccharum,  M  ilium  arundinaceum 
et  plusieurs  Cype'rac<5."  The  Arundo  donax,  th 
A.  Aegyptiaca  (?)  of  Bove'  (Ibid.  p.  72)  is  com 
mon  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  and  may  perhaps  be 
"the  staff  of  the  bruised  reed"  to  which  Senna 
cherib  compared  the  power  of  Egypt  (2  K.  xviii 
21 ;  Ez.  xxix.  6,  7).  See  also  Is.  xlii.  3.  The  thick 
stem  of  this  reed  may  have  been  used  as  walking- 
staves  by  the  ancient  orientals ;  perhaps  the  mea 
suring-reed  was  this  plant ;  at  present  the  drj 
culms  of  this  huge  grass  are  in  much  demand  foi 
f  shing-rods,  &c. 

Some  kind  of  fragrant  reed  is  denoted   by 
word  ktneh  (Is.  xliii.  24;  Ez.  xxvii.  19  ;  Cant,  iv 

14s),  u«  more  fully  by  keneh  bosem 


see  Ex.  xxx.  23,  or  by  kdneh  hattob  Cl'lBn 

er.  vi.  20  ;  which  the  A.  V.  renders  "sweet  cane," 
nd  "  calamus."     Whatever  may  be  the  substance 
enoted,  it  is  certain  that  it  was  one  of  foreign 
mportation,  "from  a  far  country"  (Jer.  vi.  20), 
5ome  writers  (see  Sprengel,   Com.  in  Dioscor.  i. 
ii.)  have  sought  to  identify  the  kdneh  bosem  with 
;he  Acorus  calamus,  the  "  sweet  sedge,"  to  which 
hey  refer  the  itdXa/jios  apw/j-ariK^s  of  Dioscorides 
i.    17),    the    Kd\afji.os    euciSrjs    of    Theophrastus 
Hist.  Plant,  iv.  8  §4),  which,  according  to  this 
ast   named    writer   and    Pliny   (N.    H.   xii.   22), 
brmerly  grew  about  a  lake  "  between  Libanus  and 
mother  mountain  of  no  note ;"  Strabo  identifies  this 
with  the  Lake  of  Gennesaret  (Geog.  xvi.  c.  755, 
ed.  Kramer).     Burckhardt  was  unable  to  discover 
my  sweet-scented  reed  or  rush  near  the  lake,  though 
e  saw  many  tall  reeds  there.     "  High  reeds  grow 
ilong  the  shore,  but  I  found  none  of  the  aromatic 
reeds  and  rushes  mentioned  by  Strabo "  (Syria,  p. 
319);  but  whatever  may  be  the  "fragrant  reed" 
ntended,  it  is  certain  that  it  did  not  grow  in  Syria, 
otherwise  we  cannot  suppose  it  should  be  spoken  of 
as  a  valuable  product  from  a  far  country.    Dr.  Royle 
•efers  the  /cct\o/tos  apo)fjia.riK6s  of  Dioscorides  to  a 
species  of  Andropogon,  which  he  calls  A.  calamus 
aromaticus,  a  plant  of  remarkable  fragrance,  and  a 
native  of  Central  India,  where  j£  is  used  to  mix  with 
ointments  on  account  of  the  delicacy  of  its  odour 
see  Kitto's  Cycl.  Art.  "  Kaneh  bosem  ; "  and  a  fig. 
of  this  plant  in  Royle's  Illustrations  of  Himalayan 
Botany,  p.  425,  t.  97).     It  is  possible  this  may  be 
the  "  reed  of  fragrance  ;"  but  it  is  hardly  likely 
that  Dioscorides,  who,   under   the   term    ffyjoivos 
gives  a  description  of  the  Andropogon  Schoenanthus, 
should    speak  of  a  closely  allied  species  under  a 
totally  different  name.     Still  there  is  no  necessity 
to  refer  the  Keneh  bosem  or  hattob  to  the  icd\afjLos 
a.pd>fj.aTiK6s  of  Dioscorides  ;  it  may  be  represented  by 
Dr.  Royle's  plant  or  by  the  A  ndropogon  Schoenanthus, 
the  lemon  grass  of  India  and  Arabia.         [W.  K.] 


Andropogon  tclatenanUtut. 


1U22 


REELAIAH 


REELAFAH  (rPjn  :  'PeeXt'as: 
One  of  the  children  of  the  province  who  went  up 
with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  2).  In  Neh.  vii.  7  he  is 
called  RAAMIAH,  and  in  1  Esd.  v.  8  REESAIAS. 

KEE'LIUS  ('PeeXias).  This  name  occupies  the 
p.ace  of  BIGVAI  in  Ezr.  ii.  2  (1  Esd.  v.  8).  The 
list  in  the  Vulgate  is  so  corrupt  that  it  is  difficult 
to  trace  either. 

EEESAI'AS  ('Priffaias  :  Elimeus).  The  same 
as  REELAIAH  or  RAAMIAH  (1  Esd.  v.  8). 


REFINER  (fftV  ;  *OVD).  The  refiner's  art 
was  essential  to  the  working  of  the  precious  metals. 
It  consisted  in  the  separation  of  the  dross  from  the 
pure  ore,  which  was  effected  by  reducing  the  metal 
to  a  fluid  state  by  the  application  of  heat,  and  by 
the  aid  of  solvents,  such  as  alkali*  (Is.  i.  25)  or 
lead  (Jer.  vi.  29),  which,  amalgamating  with  the 
dross,  permitted  the  extraction  of  the  unadulterated 
metal.  The  term  b  usually  applied  to  refining  had 
reference  to  the  process  of  melting  :  occasionally, 
however,  the  effect  of  the  process  is  described  by  a 
term  c  borrowed  from  the  filtering  of  wine.  The 
instruments  required  by  the  refiner  were  a  crucible 
or  furnace,*1  and  a  bellows  or  blow-pipe."  The 
workman  sat  at  his  work  (Mai.  iii.  3,  "  He  shall 
sit  as  a  refiner  "),  as  represented  in  the  cut  of  an 
Egyptian  refiner  already  given  (see  vol.  i.  750)  : 
he  was  thus  better  enabled  to  watch  the  process, 
and  let  the  metal  run  off  at  the  proper  moment. 
[MiNES;  ii.  368  &.]  The  notices  of  refining  are 
chiefly  of  a  figurative  character,  and  describe  moral 
purification  as  the  result  of  chastisement  (Is.  i.  25  ; 
Zech.  xiii.  9  ;  Mai.  iii.  2,  3).  The  failure  of  the  means 
to  effect  the  result  is  graphically  depicted  in  Jer. 
vi.  29  :  "  The  bellows  glow  with  the  fire  (become 
quite  hot  from  exposure  to  the  heat)  :  the  lead 
(used  as  a  solvent)  is  expended  :  f  the  refiner  melts 
in  vain,  for  the  refuse  will  not  be  separated."  The 
refiner  appears,  from  the  passage  whence  this  is 
quoted,  to  have  combined  with  his  proper  business 
that  of  assaying  metals  :  "  I  have  set  thee  for  an 
assayer  "  §  (Ib.  ver.  27).  [W.  L.  B.] 

REFUGE,  CITIES  OF.  [CITIES  OF  RE 
FUGE.] 


RE'GEM  (Dri  :  "Payefj.  ;  Alex.  'Peytp  :  Re- 
gom}.  A  son  of  jahdai,  whose  name  unaccountably 
appears  in  a  list  of  the  descendants  of  Caleb  by  his 
concubine  Ephah  (1  Chr.  ii.  47).  Rashi  considers 
Jahdai  as  the  son  of  Ephah,  but  there  appear  no 
grounds  for  this  assumption. 

RE'GEM-MEL'ECH  (^>D  Dri:  'ApjSecrefy 
6  Pa<ri\e6s  ;  Alex.  'Apfaffea-ep-o  /3.:  RogommelecK]. 
The  names  of  Sherezer  and  Regem-melech  occur  in 
an  obscure  passage  of  Zechariah  (vii.  2).  They 
were  sent  on  behalf  of  some  of  the  captivity  to 
make  inquiries  at  the  Temple  concerning  fasting. 
In  the  A.  V.  the  subject  of  the  verse  appears  to  be 
the  captive  Jews  in  Babylon,  and  Bethel,  or  "  the 
house  of  God,"  is  regarded  as  the  accusative  after 


*  "133  A.  V.  "  purely,"  but  more  properly  "  as  with 
alkali." 

J  *n?  c  PI?;. 

d  "1-13.  The  term  ^V^?  °°curs  twice  only  (Prov. 
svii.  3,  xxvii.  21 ;  A.  V.  '•  fining-pot").  The  expression 
in  Ps.  xii.  6,  rendered  in  the  A.  V.  "  furnace  of  earth,"  is 
of  doubtful  signification,  but  certainly  cannot  signify  that. 


REHABIAH 

the  verb  of  motion.  The  LXX.  take  '  the  king* 
as  the  nominative  to  the  verb  "  sent,"  considering 
the  last  part  of  the  name  Regem-melech  as  an  ap 
pellative  and  not  as  a  proper  name.  Again,  in  the 
Vulgate,  Sherezer,  Regem-melech,  and  their  men, 
are  the  persons  who  sent  to  the  house  of  God.  The 
Peshito-Syriac  has  a  curious  version  of  the  passage  : 
"  And  he  sent  to  Bethel,  to  Sharezer  and  Rabmag ; 
and  the  king  sent  and  his  men  to  pray  for  him 
before  the  Lord  :"  Sharezer  and  Rabmag  being  asso 
ciated  in  Jer.  xxxix.  3,  13.  On  referring  to  Zech. 
vii.  5,  the  expression  "  the  people  of  the  land  " 
seems  to  indicate  that  those  who  sent  to  the  Temple 
were  not  the  captive  Jews  in  Babylon,  but  those 
who  had  returned  to  their  own  country ;  and  this 
being  the  case  it  is  probable  that  in  ver.  2  "  Bethel  " 
is  to  be  taken  as  the  subject,  "  and  Bethel,  i.  e.  the 
inhabitants  of  Bethel,  sent." 

The  Hexaplar-Syriac,  following  the  Peshito,  has 
"Rabmag."  What  reading  the  LXX.  had  before 
them  it  is  difficult  to  conjecture.  From  its  con 
nexion  with  Sherezer,  the  name  Regem-melech  (lit. 
"  king's  friend,"  comp.  1  Chr.  xxvii.  33),  was  pro 
bably  an  Assyrian  title  of  office.  [W.  A.  W.] 

REGION-ROUND-ABOUT,  THE  (r,  ™- 
pixvpos}.  This  term  had  perhaps  originally  a  more 
precise  and  independent  meaning  than  it  appears  to 
a  reader  of  the  Authorized  Version  to  possess. 

In  the  Old  Test,  it  is  used  by  the  LXX.  as  the 
equivalent  of  the  singular  Hebrew  word  hac-Ciccar 
("133H,  literally  "the  round"),  a  word  the  topo 
graphical  application  of  which  is  not  clear,  but 
which  seems  in  its  earliest  occurrences  to  denote 
the  circle  or  oasis  of  cultivation  in  which  stood 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  and  the  rest  of  the  five  "  cities 
of  the  Ciccar"  (Gen.  xiii.  10,  11,  12,  xix.  17,  25, 
28,  29  ;  Deut.  xxxiv.  3).  Elsewhere  it  has  a  wider 
meaning,  though  still  attached  to  the  Jordan  (2  Sam. 
xviii.  28  ;  1  K.  vii.  46  ;  2  Chr.  iv.  17  ;  Neh.  iii.  22, 
xii.  28).  It  is  in  this  less  restricted  sense  that 
ixwpos  occurs  in  the  New  Test.  In  Matt.  iii.  5 
and  Luke  iii,  3  it  denotes  the  populous  and  flourish 
ing  region  which  contained  the  towns  of  Jericho  and 
its  dependencies,  in  the  Jordan  valley,  enclosed  in  the 
amphitheatre  of  the  hills  of  Quarantana  (see  Map, 
vol.  ii.  p.  664),  a  densely  populated  region,  and  im 
portant  enough  to  be  reckoned  as  a  distinct  section 
of  Palestine — "  Jerusalem,  Judaea,  and  all  the  ar- 
rondissement h  of  Jordan  "  (Matt.  iii.  5,  also  Luke 
vii.  17).  It  is  also  applied  to  the  district  of  Gen- 
nesaret,  a  region  which  presents  certain  similarities 
to  that  of  Jericho,  being  enclosed  in  the  amphi 
theatre  of  the  hills  of  Hattin  and  bounded  in  front 
by  the  water  of  the  lake,  as  the  other  was  by  the 
Jordan,  and  also  resembling  it  in  being  very  thickly 
populated  (Matt.  xiv.  35  ;  Mark  vi.  55  ;  Luke  vi. 
37,  vii.  17).  [G.] 

REHABI'AH  (Hj3rn  in  1  Chr.  xxiii. ;  else 
where  -inurn:  'Pa/3l<*;  Alex.  'PaojSili  in  1  Chr. 
xxiii. ;  'Paa&las  1  Chr.  xxiv.,  'Pafi'ias ;  Alex.  'Pao- 
0ias  I  Chr.  xxvi. :  Rohobia,  Rahabia  in  1  Chr. 


HSD. 


The  passage  may  be  rendered,  "  as  silver,  melted  in  a  work- 
shop,  flowing  down  to  the  earth." 

t  Keri,  Dfl  E'NO. 

The  A.  V.  adopts  an  incorrect  pnr.ctuation, 
1H3,  and  renders  it  "a  tower." 

h  Thus  Jerome—"  regiones  in  circuitu  r^r  quas  mediuf 
ordanes  fluit." 


BEHOB 

>cxvi.).  The  only  son  of  Eliezer,  the  sou  of  Moses, 
Mid  the  father  of  Issh-ah,  or  Jeshaial  (1  Chr.  xxiii. 
17,  xxiv.  21,  xxvi.  25).  His  descendants  were 
numerous. 

RE'HOB  (lini  :  'Pac£/3  :  Rotob}.  1.  The 
father  of  Hadadezer  king  of  Zobah,  whom  David 
smote  at  the  Euphrates  (2  Sam.  viii.  3,  12). 
Josephus  (Ant.  vii.  5,  §1)  calls  him  Apaos,  and 
the  Old  Latin  Version  Arachus,  and  Blayney  (on 
Zech.  ix.  1)  thinks  this  was  his  real  name,  and  that 
he  was  called  Rehob,  or  "  charioteer,"  from  the  num 
ber  of  chariots  in  his  possession.  The  name  appears 
to  be  peculiarly  Syrian,  for  we  find  a  district  of 
Syria  called  Rehob,  or  Beth-Rehob  (2  Sam.  x.  6,  8). 

2.  (*Poc£#.)  A  Levite,  or  family  of  Levites,  who 
eealed  the  covenant  with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  11). 

[W.  A.  W.] 

EE'HOB  (nrn).  The  name  of  more  than  one 
place  in  the  extreme  north  of  the  Holy  Land. 

1.  ('Padft  ;  Alex.  'PowjS  •  Rokob.}*  The  northern 
limit  of  the  exploration  of  the  spies  (Num.  xiii.  21). 
It  is  specified  as  being  "  as  men  come  unto  Hamath," 
or,  as  the  phrase  is  elsewhere  rendered,  "  at  the 
entrance  of  Hamath,"  i.  e.  at  the  commencement  of 
the  territory  of  that  name,  by  which  in  the  early 
books  of  the  Bible  the  great  valley  of  Lebanon,  the 
Bika'ah  of  the  Prophets,  and  the  Buka'a  of  the 
modern   Arabs,    seems   to   be  roughly   designated. 
This,  and  the  consideration  of  the  improbability  that 
the  spies  went  farther  than  the  upper  end  of  the 
Jordan  valley  (Rob.  B.  R.  iii.  371),  seems  to  fix 
the  position  of  Rehob  as  not  far  from  Tell  el-Kady 
and  Banias.     This  is  confirmed  by  the  statement 
of  Judg.  xviii.  28,  that  Laish  or  Dan  (  Tell  el-Kady} 
was  "  in  the  valley  that  is  by  Beth-rehob."     No 
trace  of  the  name  of  Rehob  or  Beth-rehob  has  yet 
been  met  with  in  this  direction.     Dr.  Robinson  pro 
poses  to  identify  it  with  Hunin,  an  ancient  fortress 
in  the  mountains  N.W.  of  the  plain  of  Huleh,  the 
upper   district   of  the   Jordan  valley.     But   this, 
though  plausible,  has  no  certain  basis. 

To  those  who  are  anxious  to  extend  the  boun 
daries  of  the  Holy  Land  on  the  north  and  east  it 
may  be  satisfactory  to  know  that  a  place  called 
Ruhaibeh  exists  in  the  plain  ofJerud,  about  25  miles 
N.E.  of  Damascus,  and  12  N.  of  the  northernmost 
of  the  three  lakes  (see  the  Maps  of  Van  de  Velde  and 
Porter). 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  this  Rehob  or 
Beth-rehob  was  identical  with  the  place  mentioned 
under  both  names  in  2  Sam.  x.  6,  8,*1  in  connexion 
with  Maacah,  which  was  also  in  the  upper  district 
of  the  Huleh. 

Inasmuch,  however,  as  Beth-rehob  is  distinctly 
stated  to  have  been  "  far  from  Zidon  "  (Judg.  xviii. 
28),  it  must  be  a  distinct  place  from 

2.  ('PaojS:    Alex.  'Po«£:  RohoV),  one   of  the 
towns  allotted  to  Asher  (Josh.  xix.  28),  and  which 
from  the  list  appears  to  have  been  in  close  proximity 
to  Zidon.     It  is  named  between  Ebron,  or  Abdon, 
and  Hammon.     The  towns  of  Asher  lay  in  a  region 
which  has  been  but  imperfectly  examined,  and  no 
one  has  yet  succeeded  in  discovering  the  position  of 
either  of  these  three. 

3.  ('PoaC;  Alex.  'Poaj/3:  Rohob,Rochob.')  Asher 
contained  another  Rehob  (Josh.  xix.  30)  ;   lark  the 
situation  of  this,  like  the  former,  remains  at  present 


REHOBOAM 


1023 


"  Targum  Pseudojon. 
aad  Samaritan  Vers, 


,  i.e.  TrA-aretai,  streets; 


unknown.  One  of  the  two,  it  is  difficult  to  saf 
which,  was  allotted  to  the  Gershonite  Levites  (Josh 
xxi.  31  ;  1  Chr.  vi.  75),  and  of  one  its  Canaanit<> 
inhabitants  retained  possession  (Judg.  i.  31).  ,  The 
mention  of  Aphik  in  this  latter  passage  may  imply 
that  the  Rehob  referred  to  was  that  of  Josh.  xix.  30., 
This,  Eusebius  and  Jerome  (  Onornasticon,  "  Roob  ") 
confuse  with  the  Rehob  of  the  spies,  and  place  fcur 
Roman  miles  from  Scythopolis.  The  place  they 
refer  tc  still  survives  as  Rehab,  3^  miles  S.  ot 
Beisan,  cut  their  identification  of  a  town  in  that 
position  with  one  in  the  territory  of  Asher  is  obvi 
ously  inaccurate.  [G.] 

KEHOBO'AM  (DJDrn,  "  enlarger  of  the 
people  " — see  Ex.  xxxiv.  24,  and  compare  the  name 
EvpvSii/uios :  'Pofiod/j. :  Roboam},  son  of  Solomon, 
by  the  Ammonite  princess  Naamah  (1  K.  xiv.  21, 
31),  and  his  successor  (1  K.  xi.  43).  From  the 
earliest  period  of  Jewish  history  we  perceive  symp 
toms  that  the  confederation  of  the  tribes  was  but 
imperfectly  cemented.  The  powerful  Ephraim  could 
never  brook  a  position  of  inferiority.  Throughout 
the  Book  of  Judges  (viii.  1,  xii.  1)  the  Ephraim ites 
show  a  spirit  of  resentful  jealousy  when  any  enter 
prise  is  undertaken  without  their  concurrence  and 
active  participation.  From  them  had  sprung 
Joshua,  and  afterwards  (by  his  pkce  of  birth) 
Samuel  might  be  considered  theirs,  and  though  the 
tribe  of  Benjamin  gave  to  Israel  its  first  king,  yet 
it  was  allied  by  hereditary  ties  to  the  house  of 
Joseph,  and  by  geographical  position  to  the  terri 
tory  of  Ephraim,  so  that  up  to  David's  accession 
the  leadership  was  practically  in  the  hands  of  the 
latter  tribe.  But  Judah  always  threatened  to  be  a 
formidable  rival.  During  the  earlier  history,  partly 
from  the  physical  structure  and  situation  of  its 
territory  (Stanley,  S.  $  P.  p.  162),  which  secluded 
••t  from  Palestine  just  as  Palestine  by  its  geogra 
phical  character  was  secluded  from  the  world,  it  had 
stood  very  much  aloof  from  the  nation  [JoDAH], 
and  even  after  Saul's  death,  apparently  without 
waiting  to  consult  their  brethren,  "  the  men  of 
Judah  came  and  anointed  David  king  over  the  house 
of  Judah "  (2  Sam.  ii.  4),  while  the  other  tribes 
adhered  to  Saul's  family,  thereby  anticipating  the 
final  disruption  which  was  afterwards  to  rend  the 
nation  permanently  into  two  kingdoms.  But  after 
seven  years  of  disaster  a  reconciliation  was  forced 
upon  the  contending  parties ;  David  was  acknow 
ledged  as  king  of  Israel,  and  soon  after,  by  fixing 
his  court  at  Jerusalem  and  bringing  the  tabernacle 
there,  he  transferred  from  Ephraim  the  greatness 
which  had  attached  to  Shechem  as  the  ancient 
capital,  and  to  Shiloh  as  the  seat  of  the  national 
worship.  In  spite  of  this  he  seems  to  have  enjoyed 
great  personal  popularity  among  the  Ephraimites, 
and  to  have  treated  many  of  them  with  special 
favour  (1  Chr.  xii.  30,  xxvii.  10,  14),  yet  this 
roused  the  jealousy  of  Judah,  and  probably  led  to 
the  revolt  of  Absalom.  [ABSALOM.]  Even  after 
that  perilous  crisis  was  past,  the  old  rivalry  broke 
out  afresh,  and  almost  led  to  another  insurrection 
(2  Sam.  xx.  1,  &c.).  Compare  Ps.  Ixxviii.  60,  67,  &c. 
in  illustration  of  these  remarks.  Solomon's  reign, 
from  its  severe  taxes  and  other  oppressions,  aggra 
vated  the  discontent,  and  latterly,  from  its  irre 
ligious  character,  alienated  the  prophets  and  pro- 
voked  the  displeasure  of  God.  When  Solomon's 


b  Here  the  name  is  written    in   the  fuller  form  o 

aim 


1024 


REHOBOAM 


strong  hand  was  withdrawn  the  crisis  came.  Reho- 
ooain  selected  Shechem  as  the  place  of  his  coronation, 
probably  as  an  act  of  concession  to  the  Ephraimites, 
and  perhaps  in  deference  to  the  suggestions  of  those 
old  and  wise  counsellors  of  his  father,  whose  advice 
he  afterwards  unhappily  rejected.  From  the  pre 
sent  Hebrew  text  of  1  K.  xii.  the  exact  details  of 
the  transactions  at  Shechem  are  involved  in  a  little 
uncertainty.  The  general  facts  indeed  are  clear. 
The  people  demanded  a  remission  of  the  severe  bur 
dens  imposed  by  Solomon,  and  Rehoboam  promised 
them  an  answer  in  three  days,  during  which  time 
he  consulted  first  his  father's  counsellors,  and  then 
the  young  men  "  that  were  grown  up  with  him, 
and  which  stood  before  him,"  whose  answer  shows 
how  greatly  during  Solomon's  later  years  the  cha 
racter  of  the  Jewish  court  had  degenerated.  Reject 
ing  the  advice  of  the  elders  to  conciliate  the  people 
at  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  and  so  make  them 
"  his  servants  for  ever,"  he  returned  as  his  reply, 
in  the  true  spirit  of  an  Eastern  despot,  the  frantic 
bravado  of  his  contemporaries:  "  My  little  finger 
shall  be  thicker  than  my  father's  loins.  ...  I  will 
add  to  your  yoke;  my  father  hath  chastised  you 
with  whips,  but  I  will  chastise  you  with  scorpions" 
(i.  e.  scourges  furnished  with  sharp  points  •).  There 
upon  arose  the  formidable  song  of  insurrection,  heard 
once  before  when  the  tribes  quarrelled  after  David's 
return  from  the  war  with  Absalom  : — 

What  portion  have  we  in  David  ? 

What  inheritance  in  Jesse's  son  ? 
To  your  tents,  0  Israel ! 

Now  see  to  thy  own  house,  0  David  ! 

Rehoboam  sent  Adoram  or  Adoniram ,  who  had  been 
chief  receiver  of  the  tribute  during  the  reigns  of  his 
father  and  his  grandfather  (1  K.  iv.  6 ;  2  Sam.  xx. 
24),  to  reduce  the  rebels  to  reason,  but  he  was 
stoned  to  death  by  them ;  whereupon  the  king  and 
his  attendants  fled  in  hot  haste  to  Jerusalem.  So 
far  all  is  plain,  but  there  is  a  doubt  as  to  the  part 
which  Jeroboam  took  ii  these  transactions.  Ac 
cording  to  1  K.  xii.  3  ae  was  summoned  by  the 
Ephraimites  from  Egypt  (to  which  country  he  had 
fled  from  the  anger  of  Solomon)  to  be  their  spokes 
man  at  Rehoboam's  coronation,  and  actually  made 
the  speech  in  which  a  remission  of  burdens  was 
requested.  But,  in  apparent  contradiction  to  this, 
we  read  in  ver.  20  of  the  same  chapter  that  after 
the  success  of  the  insurrection  and  Rehoboam's 
flight,  "  when  all  Israel  heard  that  Jeroboam  was 
come  again,  they  sent  and  called  him  unto  the  con 
gregation  and  made  him  king."  But  there  is  rea 
son  to  think  that  ver.  3  has  been  interpolated.  It 
is  not  found  in  the  LXX.,  which  makes  no  mention 
of  Jeroboam  in  this  chapter  till  ver.  20,  substi 
tuting  in  ver.  3  for  "  Jeroboam  and  all  the  congre 
gation  of  Israel  came  and  spoke  unto  Rehoboam  "  the 
words,  KOI  f\6.\fifffv  6  \abs  irpbs  rbv  jBaenAca 
'Poj8oo;u.  So  too  Jeroboam's  name  is  emitted  by 
the  LXX.  in  ver.  12.  Moreover  we  find  in  the 
LXX.  a  long  supplement  to  this  12th  chapter,  evi 
dently  ancient,  and  at  least  in  parts  authentic,  con 
taining  fuller  details  of  Jeroboam's  biography  than 
the  Hebrew.  [JEROBOAM.]  In  this  we  read  that 
after  Solomon's  death  he  returned  to  his  native 
place,  Sarira  in  Ephraim,  which  he  fortified,  and 
lived  there  quietly,  watching  the  turn  of  events, 
till'  the  long-expected  rebellion  broke  out,  when  the 


*  So  hi  Latin,  scorpio,  according  to  Isidore  (Origg.  v.  27), 
b  "  virga  nodosa  et  aculeata,  quia  arcuato  vulnere  in  corpus 
uifligitur  "  (Facciolati,  B.  v.). 


REHOBOAM 

Ephraimites  heard  (doubtless  through  his  o\n. 
agency)  that  he  had  returned,  and  invited  him  to 
Shechem  to  assume  the  crown.  From  the  same 
supplementary  narrative  of  the  LXX.  it  would 
appeal-  that  more  than  a  year  must  have  elapsed 
between  Solomon's  death  and  Rehoboam's  visit  to 
Shechem,  for,  on  receiving  the  news  of  the  foimer 
event,  Jeroboam  requested  from  the  king  of  Egypt 
leave  to  return  to  his  native  country.  This  the 
king  tried  to  prevent  by  giving  him  his  sister-in-law 
in  marriage:  but  on  the  birth  of  his  child  Abijah, 
Jeroboam  renewed  his  request,  which  was  then 
granted.  It  is  probable  that  during  this  year  the 
discontent  of  the  N.  tribes  was  making  itself  more 
and  more  manifest,  and  that  this  led  to  Rehoboam's 
visit  and  intended  inauguration. 

On  Rehoboam's  return  to  Jerusalem  he  assembled 
an  army  of  180,000  men  from  the  two  faithful 
tribes  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  (the  latter  transferred 
from  the  side  of  Joseph  to  that  of  Judah  in  con 
sequence  of  the  position  of  David's  capital  within 
its  borders),  in  the  hope  of  reconquering  Israel. 
The  expedition,  however,  was  forbidden  by  the  pro 
phet  Shemaiah,  who  assured  them  that  the  separa 
tion  of  the  kingdoms  was  in  accordance  with  God's 
will  (1  K.  xii.  24):  still  during  Rehoboam's  life 
time  peaceful  relations  between  Israel  and  Judah 
were  never  restored  (2  Chr.  xii.  15;  IK.  xiv.  30). 
Rehoboam  now  occupied  himself  in  strengthening 
the  territories  which  remained  to  him,  by  building 
a  number  of  fortresses  of  which  the  names  are 
given  in  2  Chr.  xi.  6-10,  forming  a  girdle  of 
"fenced  cities"  round  Jerusalem.  The  pure  wor 
ship  of  God  was  maintained  in  Judah,  and  the 
Levites  and  many  pious  Israelites  from  the  North, 
vexed  at  the  calf-idolatry  introduced  by  Jeroboam 
at  Dan  and  Bethel,  in  imitation  of  the  Egyptian 
worship  of  Mnevis,  came  and  settled  in  the  southern 
kingdom  and  added  to  its  power.  But  Rehoboam 
did  not  check  the  introduction  of  heathen  abomina 
tions  into  his  capital :  the  lascivious  worship  of 
Ashtoreth  was  allowed  to  exist  by  the  side  of  thu 
true  religion  (an  inheritance  of  evil  doubtless  left 
by  Solomon),  "images"  (of  Baal  and  his  fellow 
divinities)  were  set  up,  and  the  worst  immoralities 
were  tolerated  (IK.  xiv.  22-24).  These  evils  were 
punished  and  put  down  by  the  terrible  calamity  of 
an  Egyptian  invasion.  Shortly  before  this  time  a 
change  in  the  ruling  house  had  occurred  in  Egypt. 
The  21st  dynasty,  of  Tanites,  whose  last  king, 
Pisham  or  Psusennes,  had  been  a  close  ally  of  Solo 
mon  (1  K.  iii.  1,  vii.  8,  ix.  16,  x.  28,  29),  was 
succeeded  by  the  22nd,  of  Bubastites,  whose  first 
sovereign,  Shishak  (Sheshonk,  Sesonchis,  2ou<ra/a/*), 
connected  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  with  Jeroboam. 
That  he.  was  incited  by  him  to  attack  Judah  is 
very  probable :  at  all  events  in  the  5th  year  of 
Rehoboam's  reign  the  country  was  invaded  by  a 
host  of  Egyptians  and  other  African  nations,  num 
bering  1200  chariots,  60,000  cavalry,  and  a  vast 
miscellaneous  multitude  of  infantry.  The  line  of 
fortresses  which  protected  Jerusalem  to  the  W.  and 
S.  was  forced,  Jerusalem  itself  was  taken,  and 
Rehoboam  had  to  purchase  an  ignominious  peace 
by  delivering  up  all  the  treasures  with  which  Solo 
mon  had  adorned  the  temple  and  palace,  including 
his  golden  shields,  200  of  the  larger,  and  300  of  the 
smaller  size  (1  K.  x.  16,  17),  which  were  carried 
before  him  when  he  visited  the  temple  in  state. 
We  are  told  that  after  the  Egyptians  had  retired, 
his  vain  and  foolish  successor  comforted  himself  by 
substituting  shields  of  brasp,  which  w*ce  solfunuly 


REHOBOTH 

borne  before  him  in  procession  by  the  body-guard, 
as  if  nothing  had  been  changed  since  his  father's 
time  (Ewald,  Geschichte  des  V.  I.  iii.  348,  464). 
Shishak's  success .  is  commemorated  by  sculptures 
discovered  by  Champollion  on  the  outside  of  the 
great  temple  at  Karnak,  where  among  a  long  list 
of  captured  towns  and  provinces  occurs  the  name 
MekhiJudah  (kingdom  of  Judah).  It  is  said  that 
the  features  of  the  captives  in  these  sculptures  are 
unmistakeably  Jewish  (Rawlinson,  Herodotus,  ii. 
376,  and  Bampton  Lectures,  p.  126 ;  Bunsen, 
Egypt,  iii.  242).  After  this  great  humiliation  the 
moral  condition  of  Judah  seems  to  have  improved 
(2  Chr.  xii.  12),  and  the  rest  of  Rehoboam's  life  to 
have  been  unmarked  by  any  events  of  importance. 
He  died  B.C.  958,  after  a  reign  of  17  years,  having 
ascended  the  throne  B.C.  975  at  the  age  of  41 
(1  K.  xiv.  21 ;  2  Chr.  xii.  13).  In  the  addition  to 
Jie  LXX.  already  mentioned  (inserted  after  1  K. 
xii.  24)  we  read  that  he  was  16  years  old  at  his 
accession,  a  misstatement  probably  founded  on  a 
wrong  interpretation  of  2  Chr.  xiii.  7,  where  ^ie  is 
called  "young"  (i.e.  new  to  his  work,  inuxpe- 

rienced]  and  "  tender-hearted  "  (217"1p,  wanting 

in  resolution  and  spirit).  He  had  18  wives,  60 
concubines,  28  sons,  and  60  daughters.  The  wisest 
thing  recorded  of  him  in  Scripture  is  that  he 
refused  to  waste  away  his  sons'  energies  in  the 
wretched  existence  of  an  Eastern  zenana,  in  which 
we  may  infer,  from  his  helplessness  at  the  age  of 
41,  that  he  had  himself  been  educated,  but  dis 
persed  them  in  command  of  the  new  fortresses 
which  he  had  built  about  the  country.  Of  his 
wives,  Mahalath,  Abihail,  and  Maachah  were  all 
of  the  royal  house  of  Jesse :  Maachah  he  loved  best 
of  all,  and  to  her  son  Abijah  he  bequeathed  his 
kingdom.  The  text  of  the  LXX.  followed  in  this 
article  is  Tischendorfs  edition  of  the  Vatican  MS., 
Leipsic,  1850.  [G.  E.  L.  C.] 

RE'HOBOTH  (JYQrn  ;  Samar.  HUTTI : 
tvpvxwpia ;  Veneto-Gk.  at  nAoTe?at :  Latitude). 
The  third  of  the  series  of  wells  dug  by  Isaac  (Gen. 
xxvi.  22).  He  celebrates  his  triumph  and  bestows 
its  name  on  the  well  in  a  fragment  of  poetry  of  the 
same  nature  as  those  in  which  Jacob's  wives  give 
names  to  his  successive  children: — "He  called  the 
name  of  it  Rehoboth  ('  room,')  and  said, 

•  Because  now  Jehovah  hath-made-room  for  us 
And  we  shall  increase  in  the  land.' " 

Isaac  had  left  the  valley  of  Gerar  and  its  turbulent 
inhabitants  before  he  dug  the  well  which  he  thus 
commemorated  (ver.  22).  From  it  he,  in  time, 
"  went  up  "  to  Beersheba  (ver.  23),  an  expression 
which  is  always  used  of  motion  towards  the  Land  of 
yromise.  The  position  of  Gerar  has  not  been  defi 
nitely  ascertained,  but  it  seems  to  have  lain  a  few 
miles  to  the  S.  of  Gaza  and  nearly  due  E.  of  Beer 
sheba.  In  this  direction,  therefore,  if  anywhere, 
the  wells  Sitnah,  Esek,  and  Rehoboth,  should  be 
searched  for.  A  Wady  Ruhaibeh,  containing  the 
ruins  of  a  town  of  the  same  name,  with  a  large 
well,b  is  crossed  by  the  road  from  Khan  en-Nukhl 
to  Hebron,  by  which  Palestine  is  entered  on  the 
South.  It  lies  about  20  miles  S.W.  of  Bir  es-Seba, 


KEHOBOTH,  THE  CITY      1025 

and  more  than  that  distance  S.  of  the  moft  probable 
situation  of  Gerar.  It  therefore  seems  unsafe  with 
out  further  proof  to  identify  it  with  Rehoboth,  as 
Rowhiy??  (in  Williams'  Holy  City,  i.  4b5),  Stewart 
(Tent  and  Khan,  202),  and  Van  de  Velder  (Me 
moir,  343)  have  done.  At  the  same  time,  as  is 
admitted  by  Dr.  Robinson,  the  existence  of  so  large 
a  place  here  without  any  apparent  mention  is  mys 
terious.  All  that  can  be  said  in  favour  of  the 
identity  of  Ruhaibch  with  Rehoboth  is  said  by  Dr. 
Bonar  (Desert  of  Sinai,  316),  and  not  without  con 
siderable  force. 

The  ancient  Jewish  tradition  confined  the  events 
of  this  part  of  Isaac's  life  to  a  much  narrower  circle. 
The  wells  of  the  patriarchs  were  shown  near  Ash- 
kelon  in  the  time  of  Origin,  Antoninus  Martyr, 
and  Eusebius  (Reland,  Pal.  589)  ;  the  Samaritan 
Version  identifies  Gerar  with  Ashkelon ;  Josephus 
(Ant.  i.  12,  §1)  calls  it  "  Gerar  of  Palestine,"  i.  e. 
of  Philistia.  |_G-] 

RE'HOBOTH,  THE  CITY  (TJJ  faiTI,  i.  e. 
Rechoboth'Ir;  Samar.  nUMI;  Sam.Vers.'  pBD  • 
'Poo>j8<i>  ftir6\is ;  Alex.  'PowjSws  :  plateae  cwitatis). 
One  of  the  four  cities  built  by  Asshur,  or  by 
Nimrod  in  Asshur,  according  as  this  difficult  pas 
sage  is  translated.  The  four  were  Nineveh  ;  Reho- 
both-Ir ;  Calah ;  and  Resen,  between  Nineveh  and 
Calah  (Gen.  x.  11).  Nothing  certain  is  known  of 
its  position.  The  name  of  Rahabeh  is  still  attached 
to  two  places  in  the  region  of  the  ancient  Meso 
potamia.  They  lie,  the  one  on  the  western  and  the 
other  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Euphrates,  a  few 
miles  below  the  confluence  of  the  Khobar.  Both 
are  said  to  contain  extensive  ancient  remains.  That 
on  the  eastern  bank  bears  the  affix  of  malik  or 
royal,  and  this  Bunsen  (BibelwerK)  and  Kalisch 
(Genesis,  261)  propose  as  the  representative  oi 
Kehoboth.  Its  distance  from  Kalah-Sherghat  and 
Nimrud  (nearly  200  miles)  is  perhaps  an  obstacle 
to  this  identification.  Sir  H.  Rawlinson  (Athen 
aeum,  April  15,  1854)  suggests  Selemiyah  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  Kalah,  "  where  there 
are  still  extensive  ruins  of  the  Assyrian  period," 
b^t  no  subsequent  discoveries  appear  to  have  con 
firmed  this  suggestion.  The  Samaritan  Version 
(see  above)  reads  Sutcan  for  Rehoboth  ;  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  the  name  Sutcan  should  be  found 
in  connexion  with  Calah  in  an  inscription  on  the 
breast  of  a  statue  of  the  god  Nebo  which  Sir  H. 
Rawlinson  disinterred  at  Nimrud  (Athenaeum,  as 
above).  The  Sutcan  of  the  Samaritan  Version  is 
commonly  supposed  to  denote  the  Sittacene  of  the 
Greek  geographers  (Winer,  Reahcb.  "  Rechoboth 
Ir  ").  But  Sittacene  was  a  district,  and  not  a  cit/ 
as  Rehoboth-Ir  necessarily  was,  and,  further,  being 
in  southern  Assyria,  would  seem  to  be  too  distant 
from  the  other  cities  of  Nimrod. 

St.  Jerome,  both  in  the  Vulgate  and  in  his 
Quaestiones  ad  Genes im  (probably  from  Jewish 
sources),  considers  Rehoboth-Ir  as  referring  to 
Nineveh,  arid  as  meaning  the  "streets  of  the  city." 
The  reading  of  the  Targums  of  Jonathan,  Jerusalem, 
and  Rabbi  Joseph,  on  Gen.  and  1  Chron.,  viz., 
Platiah,  Platiutha,  are  probably  only  transcrip 
tions  of  the  Greek  word  ir\are7ai,  which,  as  found 
in  the  well  known  ancient  city  Plataea,  is  the  <  xact 


b  Dr.  Kobinson  could  not  find  the  well.  Dr.  Stewart 
found  it  "regularly  built,  12  feet  in  circumference,"  but 
"  completely  filled  up."  Mr.  Rowlands  describes  it  as 
'•  an  ancient  well  of  living  ami  good  water."  Who  shall 
tittle  on  testimony  so  curiously  contradictory  ? 

VOL.  HI. 


In  his  Travels  Van  de  Velde  inclines  to  place  it,  or  at 
any  rate  one  of  Isaac's  wells,  at  Sir  Isek,  about  six  milee 
S.W.  of  Beit  Jibrin  (Syr.  and  Pal.  ii.  146). 

The  Arabic  translation  of  this  version  (Kuehnen) 
adheres  to  Uie  Hebrew  text,  having  Rahabeh.  d  -MedineJi. 

'6  0 


102(5     REHOBOTH  BY  THE  RIVER 

equivalent  of  Rehoboth.  Kaplan,  the  Jewish  geo 
grapher  (Erets  Kedumim),  identifies  Rahabeh-malik 
with  Rehoboth-bv-the-river,  in  which  he  is  possibly 
correct,  but  considers  it  as  distinct  from  Rehoboth- 
Ir,  which  he  believes  to  have  disappeared.  [G.] 

RE'HOBOTH  BY  THE  RIVER 


:  'Poa>/3&0  —  in  Chr.  'PufiajQ  —  rj  irapa  iro- 
;  Alex.  'Poa>|8a>0  in  each  :  de  fluvio  Rohoboth  ; 
Rohoboth  quae  juxta  amnem  sita  est}.  The  city  of  a 
certain  Saul  or  Shaul,  one  of  the  early  kings  of  the 
Edomites  (Gen.  xxxvi.  37  ;  1  Chr.  i.  48).  The 
affix,  "  the  river,"  fixes  the  situation  of  Rehoboth 
as  on  the  Euphrates,  emphatically  "  the  river  " 
to  the  inhabitants  of  Western  Asia.  [RiVER.] 
The  name  still  remains  attached  to  two  spots  on 
the  Euphrates;  the  one,  simply  Rahabeh,  on  the 
right  bank,  eight  miles  below  the  junction  of  the 
Khabur,  and  about  three  miles  west  of  the  river 
(Chesney,  Euphr.,  i.  119,  ii.  610,  and  map  iv.), 
the  other  four  or  five  miles  further  down  on  the 
left  bank.  The  latter  is  said  to  be  called  Rahabeh- 
malik,  i.  e.  "  royal  "  (Kalisch,  Kaplan),*  and  is  on 
this  ground  identified  by  the  Jewish  commentators 
with  the  city  of  Saul  ;  but  whether  this  is  accurate, 
and  whether  that  city,  or  either  of  the  two  sites 
just  named,  is  also  identical  with  Rehoboth-Ir,  the 
city  of  Nimrod,  is  not  yet  known. 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  limits  of 
Edom  ever  extended  to  the  Euphrates,  and  there 
fore  the  occurrence  of  the  name  in  the  lists  of 
kings  of  Edom,  would  seern  to  be  a  trace  of  an 
Assyrian  incursion  of  the  same  nature  as  that  of 
Chedorlaomer  and  Amraphel.  [G.] 

RE'HUM  (D-irr  :    'Peoi5/i  ;    Alex.  ' 


Rehum}.  1.  One  of  the  "  children  of  the  province" 
who  went  up  from  Babylon  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr. 
ii.  2).  In  Neh.  vii.  7  he  is  called  NEHUM,  and  in 
I  Esd.  v.  8  ROIMUS. 

2.  (R*um.}  "  Rehum  the  chancellor,"  with 
Shim&nai  the  scribe  and  others,  wrote  to  Artaxerxes 
to  prevail  upon  him  to  stop  the  rebuilding  of  the 
walls  and  temple  of  Jerusalem  (Ezr.  iv.  8,  9,  17, 
23).  He  was  perhaps  a  kind  of  lieutenant-governor 
of  the  province  under  the  king  of  Persia,  holding 
apparently  the  same  office  as  Tatnai,  who  is  de 
scribed  in  Ezr.  v.  6  as  taking  part  in  a  similar 
transaction,  and  is  there  called  "  the  governor  on 
this  side  the  river."  The  Chaldee  title, 


beel-te'etn,  lit.  "  lord  of  decree,"  is  left  untranslated 
in  the  LXX.  Ba\rcfyi,  and  the  Vulgate  Beelteem  ; 
and  the  rendering  "  chancellor  "  in  the  A.  V.  appears 
to  have  been  derived  from  Kimchi  and  others,  who 
explain  it,  in  consequence  of  its  connexion  with 
"scribe,"  by  the  Hebrew  word  which  is  usually 
rendered  "  recorder."  This  appears  to  have  been 
the  view  taken  by  the  author  of  1  Esd.  ii.  25,  6 
•ypatyaiv  ra  irpoffiriirrovra,  and  by  Josephus  (Ant. 
xi.  2,  §1),  6  irdvTa  TO  Trparr6/j.fV(t  ypAfytav.  The 
former  of  these  seems  to  be  a  gloss,  for  the  Chaldee 
title  is  also  represented  by  BeeA/refyios. 

3.  ("Paov/j.  :  Rehum.}  A  Levite  of  the  family  of 
Bani,  who  assisted  in  rebuilding  the  walls  of  Jeru 
salem  (Neh.  in.  17). 

4.  ('Peoifyt.)  One  of  the  chief  of  the  people,  who 
signed  the  covenant  with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  25). 


REMALIAH 

5.  (Om.  in  Vat.  MS.:  Rheum.)  A  priestly 
family,  or  the  head  of  a  priestly  house,  who  went 
up  with  Zevubbabel  (Neh.  xii.  3).  [W.  A.  W.] 

RE'I  p}n  :  'Priffti  b  Rei}.    A  person  mentioned 

(in  1  K.  i.  8  only)  as  having,  in  company  with 
Zadok,  Benaiah,  Nathan,  Shirnei,  and  the  men  o' 
David's  guard,  remained  firm  to  David's  cause  when 
Adonijah  rebelled.  He  is  not  mentioned  again,  nor 
do  we  obtain  any  clue  to  his  identity.  Various 
conjectures  have  been  made.  Jerome  (Quaest.  Hebr. 
ad  loc.)  states  that  he  is  the  same  with  "  Hiram 
the  Zairite,"  ».  e.  Ira  the  Jairite,  a  priest  or  prince 
about  the  person  of  David.  Ewald  (Gesch.  iii.  266 
note},  dwelling  on  the  occurrence  of  Shimei  in  the 
same  list  with  Rei,  suggests  that  the  two  are 
David's  only  surviving  brothers,  Rei  being  identical 
with  RADDAI.  This  is  ingenious,  but  there  is 
nothing  to  support  it,  while  there  is  the  great 
objection  to  it  that  the  names  are  in  the  original 
extremely  dissimilar,  Rei  containing  the  Ain,  a  letter 
which  is  rarely  exchanged  for  any  other,  but  appa 
rently  never  for  Daleth  (Gesen.  Thes.  976,  7).  [G.] 

REINS,  i.  e.  kidneys,  from  the  Latin  renes. 
1.  The  word  is  used  to  translate  the  Hebrew  JIV^S, 
except  in  the  Pentateuch  and  in  Is.  xxxiv.  6,  where 
"  kidneys  "  is  employed.  In  the  ancient  system 
of  physiology  the  kidneys  were  believed  to  be  the 
seat  of  desire  and  longing,  which  accounts  for  their 
often  being  coupled  with  the  heart  (Ps.  vii.  9, 
xxvi.  2  ;  Jer.  xi.  20,  xvii.  10,  &c.). 

2.  It  is  once  used  (Is.  xi.  5)  as  the  equivalent  of 
,  elsewhere  translated  "  loins."  [G.] 

REK'EM  (DJ71  :  'Poic6v,  'PojS^ie  ;  Alex.  'Po/c^u  : 
Recem).  1.  One  of  the  five  kings  or  chieftains  of 
Midian  slain  by  the  Israelites  (Num.  xxxi.  8  ;  Josh. 
xiii.  21)  at  the  time  that  Balaam  fell. 

2.  ('?€*<{/*;  Alex.  'Po/cJ/i.)  One  of  the  four 
sons  of  Hebron,  and  father  of  Shammai  (1  Chr.  ii. 
43,  44).  In  the  last  verse  the  LXX.  have  "  Jor- 
koam  "  for  "  Rekem."  In  this  genealogy  it  is  ex 
tremely  difficult  to  separate  the  names  of  persons 
from  those  of  places  —  Ziph,  Mareshah,  Tappuah, 
Hebron,  are  all  names  of  places,  as  well  as  Maon 
and  Beth-zur.  In  Josh,  xviii.  27  Rekem  appears  as 
a  town  of  Benjamin,  and  perhaps  this  genealogy 
may  be  intended  to  indicate  that  it  was  founded  by 
a  colony  from  Hebron. 


REK'EM  (D£n  :  perhaps  KaQav  ical 

Alex.  'Pace}*.  :  Recem}.  One  of  the  towns  of  the 
allotment  of  Benjamin  (Josh,  xviii.  27).  It  occurs 
between  MOZAH  (ham-Motsa)  and  IRPEEL.  No 
one,  not  even  Schwarz,  has  attempted  to  identify 
it  with  any  existing  site.  But  may  there  not  be 
a  trace  of  the  name  in  Ain  Karim,  the  well-known 
spring  west  of  Jerusalem  ?  It  is  within  a  very 
short  distance  of  Motsah,  provided  Kulonieh  be 
Motsah,  as  the  writer  has  already  suggested.  [G.] 

REMALrAHOrT^DV.  'Portias  in  Kings 
and  Isaiah,  'Pofj.f\ia  in  Chr.  :  Romelia}.  The  father 
of  Pekah,  captain  of  Pekah'iah  king  of  Israel,  who 
slew  his  master  and  usurped  his  throne  (2  K.  xv. 
25-37,  xvi.  1,  5  ;  2  Chr.  xxviii.  6  ;  Is.  vii.  1-9, 
viii.  6). 


a  The  existence  of  the  second  rests  but  on  slender 
foundation.  It  is  shown  in  the  map  in  Layari's  Nineoek 
ttfud  Babylon,  and  is  mentioned  by  the  two  Jewish 


authorities  named  above  :  but  it  docs  not  appeal  in  tht 
work  of  Col.  Chesnej. 
*  Reading  ^  for  y. 


REMETI1 


REM'ETH  (Htn  :  'Pe^/ms  ;  Alex.  ' 
Uaifieth}.  One  of  the  towns  of  Issachnr  (Josh.  xix. 
21),  occurring  in  the  list  next  to  En-gannim,  the 
modern  Jenin.  It  is  probably  (though  not  cer 
tainly)  a  distinct  place  from  the  RAMOTH  of  1  Chr. 
vi.  73.  A  place  bearing  the  name  of  Rameh  is 
ound  on  the  west  of  the  track  from  Samaria  to 
Jenin,  about  6  miles  N.  of  the  former  and  9  S.W. 
of  the  latter  (Porter,  Handb.  348  a  ;  Van  de  Velde, 
Map).  Its  situation,  on  an  isolated  rocky  tell  in 
the  middle  of  a  green  plain  buried  in  the  hills,  is 
quite  in  accordance  with  its  name,  which  is  pro 
bably  a  mere  variation  of  Ramah,  "  height."  But 
it  appears  to  be  too  far  south  to  be  within  the  terri 
tory  of  Issachar,  which,  as  far  as  the  scanty  indica 
tions  of  the  record  can  be  made  out,  can  hardly 
have  extended  below  the  southern  border  of  the 
plain  of  Esdraelon. 

For   Schwarz's   conjecture    that  Rameh   is  RA- 
tfATHAiM-zOPHiM,  see  that  article  (p.  999).    [G.] 

KEM'MON  (fiisn,  i.  e.  Rimmon:  'Epc/w/wfr  :• 

Alex.  'Pf/jLfji.<i}Q  :  Remmon).  A  town  in  the  allotment 
of  Simeon,  one  of  a  group  of  four  (Josh.  xix.  7) 
It  is  the  same  place  which  is  elsewhere  accurately 
given  in  the  A.  V.  as  RIMMON  ;  the  inaccuracy  both 
in  this  case  and  that  of  REMMON-METHOAR  having 
no  doubt  arisen  from  our  translators  inadvertently 
following  the  Vulgate,  which  again  followed  the 
LXX.  [G.] 

REM'MON-METH'OAR  (1Khl?n  flBl,  ».  e 
Rimmon  ham-methoar  :  'Pe/Afjuavad  M.aQapao£a 
Alex.  'Pff^/jLuvafi  paQapifji  :  Remmon,  Amthar).  A 
place  which  formed  one  of  the  landmarks  of  the 
eastern  boundary  of  the  territory  of  Zebulun  (Josh 
<ix.  13  only).  It  occurs  between  Kth-Katsin  and 
Neah.  Methoar  does  not  really  form  a  part  of  the 
name  ;  but  is  the  Pual  of  "1S<K  to  stretch,  anc 
should  be  translated  accordingly  (as  in  the  margin 
of  the  A.  V.)  —  "  R.  which  reaches  to  Neah."  This 
is  the  judgment  of  Gesenius,  Thes.  1292a,  Rodigcr 
Ib.  149  la;  Fiirst,  Handwb.  ii.  512a,  and  Bunsen 
as  well  as  of  the  ancient  Jewish  commentator 
Rashi,  who  quotes  as  his  authority  the  Targum 
of  Jonathan,  the  text  of  which  has  however  been 
subsequeatly  altered,  since  in  its  present  state  i 
agrees  with  the  A.  V.  in  not  translating  the  word 
The  latter  course  is  taken  by  the  LXX.  and  Vul 
gate  as  above,  and  by  the  Peshito,  Junius  and  Tre- 
mellius,  and  Luther.  The  A.  V.  has  here  furthe 
erroneously  followed  the  Vulgate  in  giving  the  firs 
part  of  the  name  as  Remmon  instead  of  Rimmon. 

This  Rimmon  does  not  appear  to  have  been  knowi 
to  Eusebius  and  Jerome,  but  it  is  mentioned  by  th 
sarly  traveller  Parchi,  who  says  that  it  is  called  Ruma 
'ieh,  and  stands  an  hour  south  of  Sepphoris  (Zunz' 
Benjamin,  ii.  433).  If  for  south  we  read  north,  thi 
is  in  clobo  agreement  with  the  statements  of  Dr.  Robin 
son  (£.  R.  iii.  110),  and  Mr.  Van  de  Velde  (Map 
Memoir,  344),  who  place  Rummdneh  on  the  S 
border  of  the  Plain  of  Buttauf,  3  miles  N.N.E.  < 
Seffurieh.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to  see  how  th 
can  have  been  on  the  eastern  boundary  of  Zebulun 
Rimmon  is  not  improbably  identical  with  th 
Levitical  city,  which  in  Josh.  xxi.  35  appears 
the  form  of  Dimnah,  and  again,  m  the  parallel  Iis1 
of  Chronicles  (1  Chr.  vi.  77)  as  Rimmono  (A.  V 
RIMMON,  p.  10436).  [G.] 


REMPHAN  1027 

REM'PHAN  ('Pf/j-Qdv,   'Pe<f>di  :    Rempham. 
:ts  vii.   43)  :    and  CHIUN    (|-1>3  :    'Paifdv, 

0/j.Qa,  Compl.  Am.  v.  26)  have  been  supposed  to 
>e  names  of  an  idol  worshipped  by  the  Israelites  in 
he  wilderness,  but  seem  to  be  the  names  of  two 
dols.  The  second  occurs  in  Amos,  in  the  Heb. ; 
he  first,  in  a  quotation  of  that  passage  in  St.  Ste- 
)hen's  address,  in  the  Acts :  the  LXX.  of  Amos  has, 
lowever,  the  same  name  as  in  the  Acts,  though  not 
written  in  exactly  the  same  manner.  Mach  diffi- 
ulty  has  been  occasioned  by  this  corresponding 
occurrence  of  two  names  so  wholly  different  in 
ound.  The  most  reasonable  opinion  seemed  to 
>e  that  Chiun  was  a  Hebrew  or  Semitic  name, 
ind  Remphan  an  Egyptian  equivalent  substituted 
>y  the  LXX.  The  former,  rendered  Saturn  in 
,he  Syr.,  was  compared  with  the  Arab,  and  Pers. 


the  planet  Saturn,"  and,  according  to 


\ircher,  the  latter  was  found  in  Coptic  with  the 
same  signification ;  but  perhaps  he  had  no  authority 
or  this  excepting  the  supposed  meaning  of  the 
Hebrew  Chiun.  Egyptology  has,  however,  shown 
that  this  is  not  the  true  explanation.  Among  the 
breign  divinities  worshipped  in  Egypt,  two,  the 
god  RENPU,  perhaps  pronounced  REMPU,  and  the 
goddess  KEN,  occur  together.  Before  endeavouring 
to  explain  the  passages  in  which  Chiun  and  Rem 
phan  are  mentioned,  it  will  be  desirable  to  speak, 
on  the  evidence  of  the  monuments,  of  the  foreign 
gods  worshipped  in  Egypt,  particularly  RENPU  and 
KEN,  and  of  the  idolatry  of  the  Israelites  while  in 
that  country. 

Besides  those  divinities  represented  on  the  monu 
ments  of  Egypt  which  have  Egyptian  forms  or 
names,  or  both,  others  have  foreign  forms  or  names, 
or  both.  Of  the  latter,  some  appear  to  have  been 
introduced  at  a  very  remote  age.  This  is  certainly 
the  case  with  the  principal  divinity  of  Memphis, 
Ptah,  the  Egyptian  Hephaestus.  The  name  Ptah 
is  from  a  Semitic  root,  for  it  signifies  "open,"  and 
in  Heb.  we  find  the  root  PIHS,  and  its  cognates, 

"  he  or  it  opened,"  whereas  there  is  no  word  related, 
to  it  in  Coptic.  The  figure  of  this  divinity  is  that 
of  a  deformed  pigmy,  or  perhaps  unborn  child,  and 
is  unlike  the  usual  representations  of  divinities  on 
the  monuments.  In  this  case  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  introduction  took  place  at  an  extremely 
early  date,  as  the  name  of  Ptah  occurs  in  very  old 
tombs  in  the  necropolis  of  Memphis,  and  is  found 
throughout  the  religious  records.  It  is  also  to  be 
noticed  that  this  name  is  not  traceable  in  the 
mythology  of  neighbouring  nations,  unless  indeed 
it  corresponds  to  that  of  the  TldraiKot  or  TlaTCUKoi, 
whose  images,  according  to  Herodotus,  were  the 
figure-heads  of  Phoenician  ships  (iii.  37).  The 
foreign  divinities  that  seem  to  be  of  later  introduction 
are  not  found  throughout  the  religious  records,  but 
only  in  single  tablets,  or  are  otherwise  very  rarely 
mentioned,  and  two  out  of  their  four  names  are 
immediately  recognized  to  be  non-Egyptian.  They 
are  RENPU,  and  the  goddesses  KEN,  ANTA,  and 
ASTARTA.  The  first  and  second  of  these  have 
foreign  forms  ;  the  third  and  fourth  have  Egyptian 
forms :  there  would  therefore  seem  to  be  an  especially 
foreign  character  about  the  former  two. 


*  The  LXX.  here  combine  the  Ain  and  Rimmon  of  th 
A,  V.  into  one  name,  and  make  up  the  four  cities  of  th 
p-o«p  by  inserting  a  ®a\\d,  of  which  there  is  no  trace  i 


the  Hebrew,  but  which  is  possibly  the  Toehen  of  1  Cltt, 
iv.  32— in  the  LXX.  of  that  passage,  0o*tA«t. 

3  U  2 


1026     KEHOBOTH  BY  THF  v 

KENPU/pronmniced  REMPU  (?)  »  is  represented 
as  an  Asiatic,  with  the  full  beard  and  apparently 
the  general  type  of  face  given  on  the  monuments 
to  most  nations  east  of  Egypt,  and  to  the  RFBU 
or  Libyans.  This  type  is  evidently  that  of  the 
Shernites.  His  hair  is  bound  with  a  fillet,  which  is 
ornamented  in  front  with  the  head  of  an  antelope. 

KEN  is  represented  perfectly  naked, holding  in  both 
hands  com,  and  standing  upon  a  lion.  In  the  last 
particular  the  figure  of  a  goddess  at  Maltheiyyeh  in 
Assyria  may  be  compared  (Layard,  Nineveh,  ii.  212). 
From  this  occurrence  of  a  similar  representation, 
from  her  being  naked  and  carrying  corn,  and  from 
her  being  worshipped  with  KHEM,  we  may  sup 
pose  that  KEN  corresponded  to  the  Syrian  goddess, 
at  least  when  the  latter  had  the  character  of  Venus. 
She  is  also  called  KETESH,  which  is  the  name  in 
hieroglyphics  of  the  great  Hittite  town  on  the 
Orontes.  t  This  in  the  present  case  is  probably  a 
title,  nK^Jjp :  it  can  scarcely  be  the  name  of  a  town 
where  she  was  worshipped,  applied  to  her  as  per 
sonifying  it. 

ANATA  appears  to  be  Anaitis,  and  her  foreign 
character  seems  almost  certain  from  her  being 
jointly  worshipped  with  RENPU  and  KEN. 

ASTARTA  is  of  course  the  Ashtoreth  of  Canaan. 

On  a  tablet  in  the  British  Museum  the  principal 
subject  is  a  group  representing  KEN,  having  KHEM 
on  one  side  and  RENPU  on  the  other :  beneath  is 
an  adoration  of  ANATA.  On  the  half  of  another 
tablet  KEN  and  KHEM  occur,  and  a  dedication  to 
RENPU  and  KETESH. 

We  have  no  clue  to  the  exact  time  of  the  intro 
duction  of  these  divinities  into  Egypt,  nor,  except 
in  one  case,  to  any  particular  places  of  their  wor 
ship.  Their  names  oceur  as  early  as  the  period  of 
the  xviiith  and  xixth  dynasties,  and  it  is  therefore 
not  improbable  that  they  were  introduced  by  the 
Shepherds.  ASTARTA  is  mentioned  in  a  tablet 
of  Amenoph  II.,  opposite  Memphis,  which  leads  to 
the  conjecture  that  she  was  the  foreign  Venus  there 
worshipped,  in  the  quarter  of  the  Phoenicians  of 
Tyre,  according  to  Herodotus  (ii.  112).  It  is  ob 
servable  that  the  Shepherds  worshipped  SUTEKH, 
corresponding  to  SETH,  and  also  called  BAR,  that 
is,  Baal,  and  that,  under  king  APEPEE,  he  was  the 
sole  god  of  the  foreigners.  SUTEKH  was  probably 
a  foreign  god,  and  was  certainly  identified  with 
Baal.  The  idea  that  the  Shepherds  introduced  the 
foreign  gods  is  therefore  partly  confirmed..  As  to 
RENPU  and  KEN  we  can  only  offer  a  conjecture. 
They  occur  together,  and  KEN  is  a  form  of  the 
Syrian  goddess,  and  also  bears  some  relation  to  the 
Egyptian  god  of  productiveness,  KHEM.  Their 
similarity  to  Baal  and  Ashtoreth  seems  strong,  and 
perhaps  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  they 
were  the  divinities  of  some  tribe  from  the  east, 
not  of  Phoenicians  or  Canaanites,  settled  in  Egypt 
during  the  Shepherd-period.  The  naked  goddess 
KEN  would  suggest  such  worship  as  that  of  the 
Babylonian  Mylitta,  but  the  thoroughly  Shemite 
appearance  of  RENPU  is  rather  in  favour  of  an 


»  In  illustration  of  this  probable  pronunciation,  we 
may  cite  the  occurrence  in  hieroglyphics  of  RENPA  or 
RANP,  "  youth,  young,  to  renew  ;"  and,  in  Coptic,  of 

thejupposed  cognate  p£JUUll)    pOJULTU*   S. 

a    year;"    so    MENNUFR,    Memphis, 

juiejutqi,  aiso  xjienfie, 
axenqi,  s  jmejmqe,  JULH&G,  M^. 

i>i<s,  mid  UN-NUFR,  "0M<pts. 


REMPHAN 

Arab  source.  Although  we  have  not  discovered  a 
Semitic  origin  of  either  name,  the  absence  of  the 
names  in  the  mythologies  of  Canaan  and  the  neigh 
bouring  countries,  as  far  as  they  are  known  to  us, 
inclines  us  to  look  to  Arabia,  of  which  the  early 
mythology  is  extremely  obscure. 

The  Israelites  in  Egypt,  after  Joseph's  rule,  ap 
pear  to  have  fallen  into  a  general,  but  doubtless  not 
universal,  practice  of  idolatry.  This  is  only  twice 
distinctly  stated  and  once  alluded  to  (Josh.  xxiv. 
14 ;  Ezek.  xx.  7,  8,  xxiii.  3),  but  the  indications 
are  perfectly  clear.  The  mention  of  CHI  UN  or 
REMPHAN  as  worshipped  in  the  desert  shows  that 
this  idolatry  was,  in  part  at  least,  that  of  foreigners, 
and  no  doubt  of  those  settled  in  Lower  Egypt.  The 
golden  calf,  at  first  sight,  would  appear  to  be  an 
image  of  Apis  of  Memphis,  or  Mnevis  of  Heliopolis, 
or  some  other  sacred  bull  of  Egypt;  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  we  read  in  the  Apocrypha  of  "the 
heifer  Baal "  (Tob.  i.  5),  so  that  it  was  possibly  a 
Phoenician  or  Canaanite  idol.  The  best  parallel  to 
this  idolatry  is  that  of  the  Phoenician  colonies  in 
Europe,  as  seen  in  the  idols  discovered  in  tombs  at 
Camirus  in  Rhodes  by  M.  Salzmann,  and  those  found 
in  tombs  in  the  island  of  Sardinia  (of  both  of  which 
there  are  specimens  in  the  British  Museum),  and 
those  represented  on  the  coins  of  Melita  and  the 
island  of  Ebusus. 

We  can  now  endeavour  to  explain  the  passages 
in  which  Chiun  and  Remphan  occur.  The  Maso- 
retic  text  of  Amos  v.  26  reads  thus: — "  But  ye 
bare  the  tent  [or  'tabernacle']  of  your  king  and 
Chiun  your  images,  the  star  of  your  gods  [or 
*  your  god '],  which  ye  made  for  yourselves."  In 
the  LXX.  we  find  remarkable  differences :  it  reacts : 
Kal  oj/eA.c£j8eT6  rty  ffKyvfyv  rov  MoA&x»  Kal  rb 
Hffrpov  rov  0eoD  vp.wv  'Vaifyav,  rovs  rvirovs 
avrav  otis  firoi^ffarf  eavToIs.  The  Vulg.  agrees 
with  the  Masoretic  text  in  the  order  of  the  clauses, 
though  omitting  Chiun  or  Remphan.  "  Et  portastis 
tabernaculum  Moloch  vestro,  et  imaginem  idolorum 
vestrorum,  sidus  dei  vestri,  quae  fecistis  vobis." 
The  passage  is  cited  in  the  Acts  almost  in  the  words 
of  the  LXX. :— "  Yea,  ye  took  up  the  tabernacle 
of  Moloch,  and  the  star  of  your  god  Remphan, 
figures  which  ye  made  to  worship  them "  (Kal 
av€\dfifT€  rfyv  CTKTJV^V  rov  MoA.2>x»  Ka^  r^  &o~rpov 
rov  deov  vfj.S>v  'PejU^av,  rovs  rinrovs  ovs  eiroii)- 
aare  irpoffK.vvtiv  avrois).  A  slight  change  in  the 
Hebrew  would  enable  us  to  read  Moloch  (Malcam 
or  Milcom)  instead  of  "  your  king."  Bevond  this 
it  is  extremely  difficult  to  explain  the  differences. 
The  substitution  of  Remphan  for  Chiun  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  verbal  criticism.  The  Hebrew  does 
not  seem  as  distinct  in  meaning  as  the  LXX.,  and  if 
we  may  conjecturally  emend  it  from  the  latter,  the 
last  clause  would  be,  "  your  images  which  ye  made 
for  yourselves:"  and  if  we  further  transpose  Chiun 
to  the  place  of  "  your  god  Remphan,"  in  the  LXX., 

DDta  H13D  riX  would  correspond  to  MD  DN 
}V3  D3^n/X ,  but  how  can  we  account  for  such  a 
transposition  as  would  thus  be  supposed,  which,  be 
it  remembered,  is  less  likely  in  the  Hebrew  than  in 
a  translation  of  a  difficult  passage  ?  If  we  compare 
the  Masoretic  text  and  the  supposed  original,  we 
perceive  that  in  the  former  D^D/tf  JV3  corre 
sponds  in  po&lwon  to  DD^n^K  2DD,  and  it  doea 
not  seem  an  unwan-antable  conjecture  that  |V3 
having  been  by  mistake  written  in  the  place  of 
by  some  copyist,  D3*O/X  was  ^^>  trans- 


KEMPHAN 

posed.     It  appeal's  to  be  n>>re  reasonable  to  rea 
"  images  which  ye  made,"  than  "gods  which 
made,"  as  the  former  word  occurs.    Supposing  thes 
emendations  to  be  probable,  we  may  now  examin 
the  meaning  of  the  passage. 

The  tent  or  tabernacle  of  Moloch  is  supposed  b 
Gesenius  to  have  been  an  actual  tent,  and  he  com 
pares  the  <TKI]V))  lepd  of  the  Carthaginians  (Dioc 
Sic.  xx.  65;  Lex.  s.  v.  JTH3D).  But  there  i 

Borne  difficulty  in  the  idea  that  the  Israelites  carrie< 
about  so  large  an  object  for  the  purpose  of  idolatry 
and  it  seems  more  likely  that  it  was  a  small  mode 
of  a  larger  tent  or  shrine.  The  reading  Moloc 
appears  preferable  to  "  your  king ;"  but  the  men 
tion  of  the  idol  of  the  Ammonites  as  worshipped  i 
the  desert  stands  quite  alone.  It  is  perhaps  worth 
of  note  that  there  is  reason  for  supposing  tha 
Moloch  was  a  name  of  the  planet  Saturn,  and  tha 
this  planet  was  evidently  supposed  by  the  ancien 
translators  to  be  intended  by  Chiun  and  Remphan 
The  correspondence  of  Remphan  or  Raiphan  t( 
Chiun  is  extremely  remarkable,  and  can,  we  think 
only  be  accounted  for  by  the  supposition  that  th 
LXX.  translator  or  translators  of  the  prophet  hac 
•Egyptian  knowledge,  and  being  thus  acquainted  with 
the  ancient  joint  worship  of  Ken  and  Renpu,  sub 
stituted  the  latter  for  the  former,  as  they  may  have 
been  unwilling  to  repeat  the  name  of  a  foreign 
Venus.  The  star  of  Remphan,  if  indeed  the  pass 
is  to  be  read  so  as  to  connect  these  words,  wouk 
be  especially  appropriate  if  Remphan  were  a  pla 
netary  god ;  but  the  evidence  for  this,  especially  as 
partly  founded  upon  an  Arab,  or  Pers.  word  lik 
Chiun,  is  not  sufficiently  strong  to  enable  us  to  lay 
any  stress  upon  the  agreement.  In  hieroglyphics 
the  sign  for  a  star  is  one  of  the  two  composing 
the  word  SEE,  "  to  adore,"  and  is  undoubtedly 
there  used  in  a  symbolical  as  well  as  a  phoneti 
sense,  indicating  that  the  ancient  Egyptian  religion 
was  partly  derived  from  a  system  of  star- worship ; 
and  there  are  representations  on  the  monuments  ol 
mythical  creatures  or  men  adoring  stars  (Ancient 
Egyptians,  pi.  30  A.).  We  have,  however,  no 
positive  indication  of  any  figure  of  a  star  being  used 
as  an  idolatrous  object  of  worship.  From  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  mentioned  we  may  conjecture 
that  the  star  of  Remphan  was  of  the  same  character 
as  the  tabernacle  of  Moloch,  an  object  connected 
with  false  worship  rather  than  an  image  of  a  false 
god.  According  to  the  LXX.  reading  of  the  last 
clause  it  might  be  thought  that  these  objects  were 
actually  images  of  Moloch  and  Remphan  ;  but  it 
must  be  remembered  that  we  cannot  suppose  an 
image  to  have  had  the  form  of  a  tent,  and  that  the 
version  of  the  passage  in  the  Acts,  as  well  as  the 
Masoretic  text,  if  in  the  latter  case  we  may  change 
the  order  of  the  words,  give  a  clear  sense.  As  to 
the  meaning  of  the  last  clause,  it  need  only  be 
remarked  that  it  does  not  oblige  us  to  infer  that 
the  Israelites  made  the  images  of  the  false  gods, 
though  they  may  have  done  so,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
.golden  calf:  it  may  mean  no  more  than  that  they 
adopted  these  gods. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  whole  passage  does 
not  indicate  that  distinct  Egyptian  idolatry  was 
practised  by  the  Israelites.  It  is  very  remarkable 
that  the  only  false  gods  mentioned  as  worshipped 
by  them  in  the  desert  should  be  probably  Moloch, 
and  Chiun,  and  Remphan,  of  which  the  latter  two 
were  foreign:  divinities  worshipped  in  Egypt.  From 
this  we  naay  reasonably  infer,  that  while  the  Israelites 


KEPHAIM,  THE  VALLEY  OF  1029 

sojourned  in  Egypt  there  was  also  a  great  stranger- 
population  in  the  Lower  Country,  and  therefore  that 
it  is  probable  that  then  the  Shepherds  still  occupied 
the  land.  [R.  S.  P.] 

REPHAEL  C^NQT:  'PaQafa:  Raphael).  SOD 
of  Shemaiah,  the  firstborn  of  Obed-edom,  and  one 
of  the  gate-keepers  of  the  tabernacle,  "  able  men  for 
strength  for  the  service"  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  7). 

RE'PHAH  (PIS'] :  'Paf-fi :  Rapha).  A  son  o 
Ephraim,  and  ancestor  of  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun 
(1  Chr.  vii.  25). 

EEPHAI'AH  (n»B") :  'Pa<pd\ ;  Alex.  'PaQaia : 
Raphaia).  1.  The  sons  of  Rephaiah  appear  among 
the  descendants  of  Zerubbabel  in  1  Chr.  iii.  21. 
In  the  Peshito-Syriac  he  is  made  the  son  of  Jesaiah. 

2.  ('PaQaia).    One  of  the  chieftains  of  the  tribe 
of  Simeon  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  who  headed  the 
expedition  of  five  hundred  men  against  the  Ama- 
lekites  of  Mount  Seir,  and  drove  them  out  (1  Chi-, 
iv.  42). 

3.  One  of  the  sons  of  Tola,  the  son  of  Issachar, 
"  heads  of  their  father's  house  "  (1  Chr.  vii.  2). 

4.  Son  of  Binea,  and  descendant  of  Saul  and  Jo 
nathan  (1  Chr.  ix.  43).     In  1  Chr.  viii.  37  he  i? 
called  RAPHA. 

5.  The  son  of  Hur,  and  ruler  of  a  portion  of  Je 
rusalem  (Neh.  iii.  9).    He  assisted  in  rebuilding  the 
city  wall  under  Nehemiah. 

REPH'AIM.  [GIANTS,  vol.  i.  6876.] 
BEPH'AIM,  THE  VALLEY  OF  (pDJJ 
V)  Koi\as  TUV  Tirdvuv,  and  rS>v  IV 
ydvTo>v\  K.  'PaQaeifji ;  in  Isaiah  <f>dpay£  <rrfpfd), 
2  Sam.  v.  18,  22,  xxiii.  13;  1  Chr.  xi.  15,  xiv.  9; 
Is.  xvii.  5.  Also  in  Josh.  xv.  8,  and  xviii.  16, 
where  it  is  translated  in  the  A.  V.  "  the  valley  of 
the  giants"  (777  'Pcupaeiv  and  'E/JLCK  'PaQaciv}. 
A  spot  which  was  the  scene  of  some  of  David's 
most  remarkable  adventures.  He  twice  encoun- 
ered  the  Philistines  there,  and  inflicted  a  destruc- 
,ion  on  them  and  on  their  idols  so  signal  that  it 
rave  the  place  a  new  name,  and  impressed  itself  on 
!he  popular  mind  of  Israel'with  such  distinctness 
hat  the  Prophet  Isaiah  could  employ  it,  centuries 
fter,  as  a  symbol  of  a  tremendous  impending  judg 
ment  of  God— nothing  less  than  the  desolation  and 
"estruction  of  the  whole  earth  (Is.  xxviii.  21,  22). 
PERAZIM,  MOUNT.] 

It  was  probably  during  the  former  of  these  two 
ontests  that  the  incident  of  the  water  of  Beth- 
ehem  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  13,  &c.)  occurred.  The 
'  hold  "  •  (ver.  14)  in  which  David  found  himself, 
eems  (though  it  is  not  clear)  to  have  been  the 
,ave  of  Adullam,  the  scene  of  the  commencement 
f  his  freebooting  life ;  but,  wherever  situated,  we 
eed  not  doubt  that  it  was  the  same  fastness  as 
hat  mentioned  in  2  Sam.  v.  17,  since,  in  both 
ases,  the  same  word  (m-Wtpil,  with  the  def. 
rticle),  and  that  not  a  usual  one,  is  employed, 
'he  story  shows  very  clearly  the  predatory  nature 
f  these  incursions  of  the  Philistines.  It  was  in 
harvest  time"  (ver.  13).  They  had  come  to 
arry  off  the  ripe  crops,  for  which  the  valley  was 
roverbial  (Is.  xvii.  5\  just  as  at  Pas-dammim 
1  Chr.  xi.  13)  we  £nd  them  in  the  parcel  of 


There  is  no  warrant  for  "  down  to  the  bold"  in  A.  V. 
ad  it  been  7JJ   "down"  might  have  been  added  witJi 


1030  REPHAIM,  THE  VALLEY  Ofc' 

ground  full  of  barley,  at  Lehi  in  the  field  of  len- 
tiles  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  11),  or  at  Keilah  in  the  thresh 
ing-floors  (1  Sam.  xxn'i.  1).  Their  animals11  were 
scattered  among  the  ripe  corn  receiving  their  load  of 
plunder.  The  "  garrison,"  or  the  officer*  in  cnarge 
of  the  expedition,  was  on  the  watch  in  the  village  of 
Bethlehem. 

This  narrative  seems  to  imply  that  the  valley 
of  Rephaim  was  near  Bethlehem  ;  but  unfortu 
nately  neither  this  nor  the  notice  in  Josh.  xv.  8 
and  xviii.  16,  in  connexion  with  the  boundary  line 
between  Judah  and  Benjamin,  gives  any  clue  to 
its  situation,  still  less  does  its  connexion  with  the 
groves  of  mulberry  trees  or  Baca  (2  Sam.  v.  23), 
itself  unknown.  Josephus  (Ant.  vii.  12,  §4)  men 
tions  it  as  «*  the  valley  which  extends  (from  Jeru 
salem)  to  the  city  of  Bethlehem." 

Since  the  latter  part  of  the  16th  cent.d  the  name 
ttas  been  attached  to  the  upland  plain  which  stretches 
south  of  Jerusalem,  and  is  crossed  by  the  read  to 
Bethlehem — the  el  Buk'ah  of  the  modern  Arabs 
(Tobler,  Jerusalem,  &c.,  ii.  401).  But  this, 
though  appropriate  enough  as  regards  its  proximity 
to  Bethlehem,  does  not  answer  at  all  to  the  meaning 
:f  the  Hebrew  word  Ernek,  which  appears  always 
X)  designate  an  inclosed  valley,  never  an  open  up- 
and  plain  like  that  in  question,6  the  level  of  which 
.'s  as  high,  or  nearly  as  high,  as  that  of  Mount  Zion 
itself.  [VALLEY.]  Eusebius  (Onomasticon,  'Pa- 
Qaelv  and  'EyucfcpcK/jaefyi)  calls  it  the  valley  of  the 
Philistines  (icoi\as  a.\\o<pv\wv},  and  places  it  "  on 
the  north  of  Jerusalem,"  in  the  tribe  of  Benjamin. 

A  position  N.  W.  of  the  city  is  adopted  by 
Fiirst  (ffandwb.  ii.  3836),  apparently  on  the 
ground  of  the  terms  of  Josh.  xv.  8  and  xviii.  16, 
which  certainly  do  leave  it  doubtful  whether  the 
valley  is  on  the  north  of  the  boundary  or  the 
boundary  on  the  north  of  the  valley ;  and  Tobler, 
in  his  last  investigations  (3tte  Wanderung,  202), 
conclusively  adopts  the  Wady  Der  Jasin  (W. 
Makhrior,  in  Van  de  Velde's  map),  one  of  the  side 
valleys  of  the  great  Wady  Beit  Hanina,  as  the 
valley  of  Rephaim.  This  position  is  open  to  the 
obvious  objection  of  too  great  distance  from  both 
Bethlehem  and  the  cave  of  Adullam  (according  to 
any  position  assignable  to  the  latter)  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  2  Sam.  xxiii.  13. 

The  valley  appears  to  derive  its  name  from  the 
ancient  nation  of  the  Rephaim.  It  may  be  a  trace 
of  an  early  settlement  of  theirs,  possibly  after  they 
were  driven  from  their  original  seats  east  of  the 
Jordan  by  Chedorlaomer  (Gen.  xiv.  5),  and  before 
they  again  migrated  northward  to  the  more  secure 
wooded  districts  in  which  we  find  them  at  the  date 
of  the  partition  of  the  countiy  among  the  tribes 
(Josh.  xvii.  15;  A.  V.  "giants").  In  this  case  it 
is  a  parallel  to  the  "  mount  of  the  Amalekites "  in 
the  centre  of  Palestine,  and  to  the  towns  bearing 
the  name  of  the  Zemaraim,  the  Avim,  the  Ophnites, 
&c.,  which  occur  so  frequently  in  Benjamin,  [vol. 
i.  p.  188  note.]  [G.] 


REPHIDIM 


KEPH'IDIM  (DHBV.  'PaQtSlv).  Ex.  xvii.  1, 
8  ;  xix.  2.  The  name  means  "  rests  "  or  "  stays  ;" 
the  place  lies  in  the  march  of  the  Israelites  from 
Egypt  to  Sinai.  The  "  wilderness  of  Sin  "  waa 
succeeded  by  Rephidim  according  to  these  passage?, 
but  in  Num.  xxxiii.  12,  13,  Dophkah  and  Alush 
are  mentioned  as  occurring  between  the  people's 
exit  from  that  wilderness  and  their  entry  into 
the  latter  locality.  There  is  nothing  known  of 
these  two  places  which  will  enable  us  to  fix  the 
site  of  Rephidim.  [ALUSH  ;  DOPHKAH.]  Lepsius' 
view  is  that  Mount  Serbdl  is  the  true  Horeb,  and 
that  Rephidim  is  Wady  Feiran,  the  well  known 
valley,  richer  in  water  and  vegetation  than  any 
other  in  the  peninsula  (Lepsius'  Tour  from  Tliebet 
to  Sinai,  1845,  pp.  21,  37).  This  would  account 
for  the  expectation  of  finding  water  here,  whicnj 
however,  from  some  unexplained  cause  failed.  In 
Ex.  xvii.  6,  "  the  rock  in  Horeb"  is  named  as  the 
source  of  the  water  miraculously  supplied.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  language  used  Ex.  xix.  1,  2,  seeme 
precise,  as  regards  the  point  that  the  journey  from 
Rephidim  to  Sinai  was  a  distinct  stage.  The  time 
from  the  wilderness  of  Sin,  reached  on  the  fifteenth 
day  of  the  second  month  of  the  Exodus  (Ex.  xvi.  1), 
to  the  wilderness  of  Sinai,  reached  on  the  first  day 
of  the  third  month  (xix.  1  ),  is  from  fourteen  to  sixteen 
days.  This,  if  we  follow  Num.  xxxiii.  12-15,  has 
to  be  distributed  between  the  four  march-stations 
Sin,  Dophkah,  Alush,  and  Rephidim,  and  their  cor 
responding  stages  of  journey,  which  would  allow  two 
days'  repose  to  every  day's  march,  as  there  are  four 
marches,  and  4x2+4=1  2,  leaving  two  days  over 
from  the  fourteen.  The  first  grand  object  being 
the  arrival  at  Sinai,  the  intervening  distance  may 
probably  have  been  despatched  with  all  possible 
speed,  considering  the  weakness  of  the  host  by  reason 
of  women,  &c.  The  name  Horeb  is  by  Robinson 
taken  to  mean  an  extended  range  or  region,  some 
part  of  which  was  near  to  Rephidim,  which  he 
places  at  Wady  esh  Sheikh,*  running  from  N.E.  to 
S.W.,  on  the  W.  side  of  Gebel  Fureia,  opposite  the 
northern  face  of  the  modem  Horeb.  [SiNAi.]  It 
joins  the  Wady  Feiran.  The  exact  spot  of  Robin 
son's  Rephidim  is  a  defile  in  the  esh  Sheikh  visited 
and  described  by  Burckhardt  (Syria,  &c.,  488)  as 
at  about  five  hours'  distance  from  where  it  issues 
fi  om  the  plain  Er  Raheh,  narrowing  between  abrupt 
cliffs  of  blackened  granite  to  about  40  feet  in  width. 
Here  is  also  the  traditional  "  Seat  of  Moses  "  (Robin 
son,  i.  121).-  The  opinion  of  Stanley  (S.  and  P. 
40-42),  on  the  contrary,  with  Ritter  (xiv.  740,  741), 
places  Rephidim  in  Wady  Feiran,  where  the  traces 
of  building  and  cultivation  still  attest  the  import 
ance  of,  this  valley  to  all  occupants  of  the  desert.  It 
naiTows  in  one  spot  to  100  yards,  showing  high 
mountains  and  thick  woods,  with  gardens  and  date- 
groves.  Here  stood  a  Christian  church,  city  and 
episcopal  residence,  under  the  name  of  Paran,  before 
the  foundation  of  the  convent  of  Mount  St.  Ca 
therine  by  Justinian.  It  is  the  finest  valley  in  the 


b  This  is  the  rendering  in  the  ancient  and  trustworthy 
Syriac  version  of  the  rare  word  n*H  (2  Sam.  xxiii. 
13),  rendered  in  our  version  "  troop." 

c  Xetsib.  The  meaning  is  uncertain  (see  vol.  ii.  353  note). 

d  According  to  Tobler  (Topographic,  &c.,  ii.  404),  Goto- 
wycus  is  the  first  who  records  this  identification. 

e  On  the  other  hand  it  is  somewhat  singular  that  the 
modern  name  for  this  upland  plain,  B&ka'ah,  should  be 
the  same  with  that  of  the  great  enclosed  valley  of  Leba 
non,  which  differs  from  it  as  widely  as  it  can  differ  from 


the  signification  of  Emek.     There  is  no  connexion  be- 
tween  Btik'ah  and  Baca :  they  are  essentially  distinct. 

»  On  this  Lepsius  remarks  that  Robinson  would  have 
certainly  recognised  the  true  position  of  Rephidim  (i.  e. 
at  Wady  Feiran),  had  he  not  passed  by  Wady  Feiran 
with  its  brook,  garden,  and  ruins — the  most  interesting 
spot  in  the  peninsula— in  order  to  see  Sarbut  el  Chadem 
(ibid.  p.  22).  And  Stanley  admits  the  objection  of  bringing 
the  Israelites  through  the  most  striking  scenery  in  the  de 
sert,  that  of  Feiran,  without- any  event  of  importance  u 
mark  it 


BESEN 

whale  peninsula  (Burckhardi,  Arab.  602 ;  see  also 
Robinson,  i.  117,  1 18).  Its  fertility  and  richness  ac 
count,  as  Stanley  thinks,  for  the  Amalekites'  struggle 
to  retain  possession  against  those  whom  they  viewed 
as  intrusive  aggressors.  This  view  seems  to  meet 
the  largest  amount  of  possible  conditions  for  a  site 
of  Sinai.  Lepsius  too  (see  above)  dwells  on  the  fact 
that  it  was  of  no  use  for  Moses  to  occupy  any  other 
part  of  the  wilderness,  if  he  could  not  deprive  the 
Amalekites  of  the  only  spot  (Feiran)  which  was  inha 
bited.  Stanley  (41)  thinks  the  word  describing  the 
ground,  rendered  the  "  hill "  in  Ex.  xvii.  9,  10,  and 
*aid  adequately  to  d?scribe  that  on  which  the  church 
of  Paran  stood,  affords  an  argument  in  favour  of  the 
Feiran  identity.  [H.  H.] 

KES'EN  ({D1]  :  Aaere'/x,  AaeHj :  Resen)  is  men 
tioned  only  in  Gen.  x.  12,  where  it  is  said  to  have 
been  one  of  the  cities  built  by  Asshur,  after  he 
went  out  of  the  land  of  Shinar,  and  to  have  lain 
"  beticeen  Nineveh  and  Calah."  Many  writers  have 
teen  inclined  to  identify  it  with  the  Rhesina  or 
Rhesaena  of  the  Byzantine  authors  (Amm.  Marc, 
xxiii.  5 ;  Procop.  Bell  Pers.  ii.  19  ;  Steph.  Byz. 
sub  voce  'Pfffiva),  and  of  Ptolemy  (Geograph.  v. 
18),  which  was  near  the  true  source  of  the  western 
Khabour,  and  which  is  most  probably  the  modern 
Ras-el-ain.  (See  Winer's  Realworterbuch,  sub  voce 
"  Resen.")  There  are  no  grounds,  however,  for 
this  identification,  except  the  similarity  of  name 
(which  similarity  is  perhaps  fallacious,  since  the 
LXX.  evidently  read  |DT  for  |D1),  while  it  is  a 
fatal  objection  to  the  theory  that  Resaena  or  Resina 
was  not  in  Assyria  at  all,  but  in  Western  Mesopo 
tamia,  200  miles  to  the  west  of  both  the  cities 
between  which  it  is  said  to  have  lain.  A  far  more 
probable  conjecture  was  that  of  Bochart  ( Geograph. 
Sacr.  iv.  23),  who  found  Resen  in  the  Larissa  of 
Xenophon  (Anab.  iii.  4,  §7),  which  is  most  cer 
tainly  the  modern  Nimrud.  Resen,  or  Dasen — 
whichever  may  be  the  true  form  of  the  word — must 
assuredly  have  been  in  this  neighbourhood.  As, 
however,  the  Nimrud  ruins  seem  really  to  repre 
sent  CALAH,  while  those  opposite  Mosul  are  the 
remains  of  Nineveh,  we  must  look  for  Resen  in  the 
tract  lying  between  these  two  sites.  Assyrian  re 
mains  of  some  considerable  extent  are  found  in  this 
situation,  near  the  modern  village  of  Selamiyeh, 
and  it  is  perhaps  the  most  probable  conjecture  that 
these  represent  the  Resen  of  Genesis.  No  doubt 
it  may  be  said  that  a  "  great  city,"  such  as  Resen 
is  declared  to  have  been  (Gen.  x.  12),  could  scarcely 
have  intervened  between  two  other  large  cities 
which  are  not  twenty  miles  apart ;  and  the  ruins  at 
Selamiyeh,  it  must  be  admitted,  are  not  very  ex 
tensive.  But  perhaps  we  ought  to  understand  the 
phrase  "  a  great  city  "  relatively — i.  e.  great,  as 
cities  went  in  early  times,  or  great,  considering  its 
proximity  to  two  other  larger  towns. 

If  this  explanation  seem  unsatisfactory,  we  might 
perhaps  conjecture  that  originally  Asshur  (Kileh- 
Sherghat*)  was  called  Calah,  and  Nimrud  Resen ; 
but  that,  when  the  seat  of  empire  was  removed 
northwards  from  the  former  place  to  the  latter,  the 
name  Calah  was  transferred  to  the  new  capital. 

»  Redslob  (Die  Alttestamentl.  Namen,  86)  maintains 
that  Reubel  is  the  original  form  of  the  name,  which  was 
corrupted  into  Reuben,  as  Bethel  into  Beitin,  and  Jezreel 
into  Serin.  He  treats  It  as  signifying  the  "  flock  of  Bel," 
a  deity  whose  worship  greatly  flourished  in  the  neigh 
bouring  country  of  Moab,  and  who  under  the  name  of 
Mobo  had  a  famous  eanctuary  in  the  very  territory  of 


REUBEN 


1031 


Instances  of  such  transfers  of  name  are  not  utifre- 
quent. 

The  later  Jews  appear  to  have  identified  Resen 
with  the  Kileh-Sherghat  ruins.  At  least  the  Tar« 
gums  of  Jonathan  and  of  Jerusalem  explain  Resell 
by  Tel-Assar  ("ID^H  or  IDN^Hj,  "  the  mound  of 
Asshur."  [G.  R.J 

BESH'EPH  (51KH :    Sapcfy  ;    Alex.  'Pao-e> 
Reseph).    A  son  of  Ephraim  and  brother  of  Kephah 
(1  Chr.  vii.  25). 

BE'U  (-Ijn:  'Payav  in  Gen.,  'Paydv  in  Chr.: 

Reu).  Son  of  Peleg,  in  the  line  of  Abraham's  an 
cestors  (Gen.  xi.  18,  19,  20,  21;  1  Chr.  i.  25).  He 
lived  two  hundred  and  thirty-nine  years  according 
to  the  genealogy  in  Genesis.  Bunsen  (Bibelwerk) 
says  Reu  is  Roka,  the  Arabic  name  for  Edossa,  an 
assertion  which,  borrowed  from  Knobel,  is  utterly 
destitute  of  foundation,  as  will  be  seen  at  once  on 
comparing  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic  words.  A  closer 
resemblance  might  be  found  between  Reu  and  Rha- 
gae,  a  large  town  of  Media,  especially  if  the  Greek 
equivalents  of  the  two  names  be  taken. 

BEU'BEN  (I2-1NT:  'Pov/3rii>  and  'Pov^v , 
Joseph.  'Povfiri\os  :  Pesh.  Syr.  Rubil,  and  so  also 
in  Arab.  vers.  of  Joshua  Ruben),  Jacob's  first 
born  child  (Gen.  xxix.  32),  the  son  of  Leah,  appa 
rently  not  bom  till  an  unusual  interval  had  elapsed 
after  the  marriage  (31;  Joseph.  Ant.  i.  19,  §8), 
This  is  perhaps  denoted  by  the  name  itself,  whether 
we  adopt  the  obvious  signification  of  its  present 
form — reu  ben,  i.  e.  "  behold  ye,  a  son !"  (Gesen. 
Thes.  12476) — or  (2)  the  explanation  given  in  the 
text,  which  seems  to  imply  that  the  original  form 
was  ^3JJ3  ^IJO,  ran  beonyi,  *'  Jehovah  hath  seen 
my  affliction"  or  (3)  that  of  Josephus,  who  uni 
formly  presents  it  as  Roubel,  and  explains  it 
(Ant.  i.  19,  §8)  as  the  "pity  of  God"— cAcoj/  rov 
&€ov,  as  if  from  ^N3  ^l&O  (Fiirst,  Handwb.  ii. 

344a).a  The  notices  of  the  patriarch  Reuben  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis  and  the  early  Jewish  traditional 
literature  are  unusually  frequent,  and  on  the  whole 
vgive  a  favourable  view  of  his  disposition.  To  him, 
and  him  alone,  the  preservation  of  Joseph's  life  ap 
pears  to  have  been  due.  His  anguish  at  the  disap 
pearance  of  his  brother,  and  the  frustration  of  his 
kindly  artifice  for  delivering  him  (Gen.  xxxvii.  22), 
his  recollection  of  the  minute  details  of  the  painful 
scene  many  years  afterwards  (xlii.  22),  his  offer  to 
take  the  sole  responsibility  of  the  safety  of  the  bro 
ther  who  had  succeeded  to  Joseph's  place  in  the 
family  (xlii.  37),  all  testify  to  a  warm  and  (for 
those  rough  times)  a  kindly  nature.  Of  the  re 
pulsive  crime  which  mars  his  history,  and  which 
turned  the  blessing  of  his  dying  father  into  a  curse 
— his  adulterous  connexion  with  Bilhah — we  know 
from  the  Scriptures  only  the  fact  (Gen.  xxxv.  22). 
In  the  post-biblical  traditions  it  is  treated  either  as 
not  having  actually  occurred  (as  in  the  Targum 
Pseudojonathan),  or  else  as  the  result  of  a  sudden 
temptation  acting  on  a  hot  and  vigorous  nature  (as 
in  the  Testament  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs] — a 


Reuben.  In-  this  case  it  would  be  a  parallel  to  the  title 
"  people  of  Chemosh,"  which  is  bestowed  on  Moab.  The 
alteration  of  the  obnoxious  syllable  in  Keu&eZ  would,  on 
this  theory,  find  a  parallel  in  the  Meribboai  and  Esh&oal 
of  Saul's  family,  who  became  Mephi&fjfceto  and  Isb- 
bosheth. 


1032 


REUBEN 


parallel,  in  some  of  its  circumstances,  to  the  mtngue 
of  David  with  Bathsheba.  Some  severe  temptation 
there  must  sui'eiy  have  been  to  impel  Reuben  to 
an  act  which,  regarded  in  its  social  rather  than  in 
its  moral  aspect,  would  be  peculiarly  abhorrent  to 
a  patriarchal  society,  and  which  is  specially  and 
repeatedly  reprobated  in  the  law  of  Moses.  The 
Rabbinical  version  of  the  occurrence  (as  given  in 
Targ.  Pseudojon.}  is  very  characteristic,  and  well 
illustrates  the  difference  between  the  spirit  of  early 
and  of  late  Jewish  history.  "  Reuben  went  and 
disordered  the  couch  of  Bilhah,  his  father's  concu- 
bina,  which  was  placed  right  opposite  the  couch  of 
Leah,  and  it  was  counted  unto  him  as  if  he  had 
lain  with  her.  And  when  Israel  heard  it  it  dis 
pleased  him,  and  he  said  '  Lo !  an  unworthy  per 
son  shall  proceed  from  me,  as  Ishmael  did  from 
Abraham  and  Esau  from  my  father.'  And  the 
Holy  Spirit  answered  him  and  said  '  All  are 
righteous,  and  there  is  not  one  unworthy  among 
them.' "  Reuben's  anxiety  to  save  Joseph  is  repre 
sented  as  arising  from  a  desire  to  conciliate  Jacob, 
and  his  absence  while  Joseph  was  sold  from  his 
sitting  alone  on  the  mountains  in  penitent  fasting. 

These  traits,  slight  as  they  are,  are  those  of  an 
ardent,  impetuous,  unbalanced,  but  not  ungenerous 
nature ;  not  crafty  and  cruel,  as  were  Simeon  and 
Levi,  but  rather,  to  use  the  metaphor  of  the  dying 
patriarch,  boilingb  up  like  a  vessel  of  water  over  the 
rapid  wood-fire  of  the  nomad  tent,  and  as  quickly 
subsiding  into  apathy  when  the  fuel  was  with 
drawn. 

At  the  time  of  the  migration  into.  Egypt0 
Reuben's  sons  were  four  (Gen.  xlvi.  9  ;  1  Chr.  v.  3). 
From  them  sprang  the  chief  families  of  the  tribe 
(Num.  xxvi.  5-11).  One  of  these  families — that  of 
Pallu — became  notorious  as  producing  Eliab,  whose 
sons  or  descendants,  Dathan  and  Abiram,  perished 
with  their  kinsman  On  in  the  divine  retribution  for 
their  conspiracy  against  Moses  (Num.  xvi.  1,  xxvi. 
8-11).  The  census  at  Mount  Sinai  (Num.  i.  20, 
21,  ii.  11)  shows  that  at  the  Exodus  the  numbers 
of  the  tribe  were  46,500  men  above  twenty  years 
of  age,  and  fit  for  active  warlike  service.  In  point 
of  numerical  strength,  Reuben  was  then  sixth  on 
the  list,  Gad,  with  45,650  men,  being  next  below. 
On  the  borders  of  Canaan,  after  the  plague  which 
punished  the  idolatry  of  Baalpeor,  the  numbers 
had  fallen  slightly,  and  were  43,730;  Gad  was 
40,500  ;  and  the  position  of  the  two  in  the  list  is 
lower  than  before,  Ephraim  and  Simeon  being  the 
only  two  smaller  tribes  (Num.  xxvi.  7,  &c.). 

During  the  journey  through  the  wilderness  the 
position  of  Reuben  was  on  the  south  side  of  the 
Tabernacle.  The  "camp"  which  went  under  his 
name  was  formed  of  his  own  tribe,  that  of  Simeon  d 
(Leah's  second  sou),  and  Gad  (son  of  Zilpah,  Leah's 
slave).  The  standard  of  the  camp  was  a  deere 
with  the  inscription,  "Hear,  oh  Israel!  the  Lord 
thy  God  is  one  Lord  ! "  and  its  place  in  the 
march  was  second  (Targum  Pseudoj&n.  Num.  ii. 
10-16). 

The  Reubenites,  like  their  relatives  and  neigh 
bours  on  the  journey,  the  Gadites,  had  maintained 

b  Such  appears  to  be  a  more  accurate  rendering  of  the 
word  which  in  the  A.  V.  is  rendered  "  unstable  "  (Gesen. 
l'ent.  Sam.  p.  33). 

c  According  to  the  ancient  tradition  preserved  by  De 
metrius  (in  Euseb.  Praep.  Ev.  ix.  21),  Reuben  was  45  years 
old  at  the  time  of  the  migration. 

A  Reuben  and  Simeon  are  named  together  by  Jacob  m 
Gen.  xMli.  5 ;  ant'  there  is  perhaps  a  trace  of  the  coa- 


REUBEN 

through  the  march  to  Canaan,  the  ancient  calling 
of  their  forefathers.  The  patriarchs  were  "  feeding 
their  flocks "  at  Shechem  when  Joseph  was  sold 
into  Egypt.  It  was  as  men  whose  "trade  had 
been  about  cattle  from  their  youth "  that  they 
were  presented  to  Pharaoh  (Gen.  xlvi.  32,  34),  and 
in  the  land  of  Goshen  they  settled  "  with  their 
flocks  and  herds  and  all  that  they  had  "  (xlvi.  32, 
xlvii.  1).  Their  cattle  accompanied  them  in  their 
flight  from  Egypt  (Ex.  xii.  38),  not  a  hoof  was 
left  behind;  and  there  are  frequent  allusions  to 
them  on  the  journey  (Ex.  xxxiv.  3 ;  Num.  xi.  22  ; 
Deut.  viii.  13,  &c.).  But  it  would  appear  that 
the  tribes  who  were  destined  to  settle  in  the  con 
fined  territory  between  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Jordan  had,  during  the  journey  through  the  wil 
derness,  fortunately  relinquished  that  taste  for  the 
possession  of  cattle  which  they  could  not  have 
maintained  after  their  settlement  at  a  distance  from 
the  wide  pastures  of  the  wilderness.  Thus  the  cattle 
had  come  into  the  hands  of  Reuben,  Gad,  and  the 
half  of  Manasseh  (Num.  xxxii.  1),  and  it  followed 
naturally  that  when  the  nation  arrived  on  the  open 
downs  east  of  the  Jordan,  the  three  tribes  just 
named  should  prefer  a  request  to  their  leader  to  be 
allowed  to  remain  in  a  place  so  perfectly  suited  to 
their  requirements.  The  part  selected  by  Reuben 
had  at  that  date  the  special  name  of  "  the  Mishor," 
with  reference  possibly  to  its  evenness  (Stanley, 
S.  4"  P.  App.  §6).  Under  its  modern  name  of 
the  Belka  it  is  still  esteemed  beyond  all  others  by 
the  Arab  sheepmasters.  It  is  well  watered,  covered 
with  smooth  short  turf,  and  losing  itself  gradually 
in  those  illimitable  wastes  which  have  always  been 
and  always  will  be  the  favourite  resort  of  pastoral 
nomad  tribes.  The  country  east  of  Jordan  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  included  in  the  original  land 
promised  to  Abraham.  That  which  the  spies  exa 
mined  was  comprised,  on  the  east  and  west,  between 
the  "  coast  of  Jordan  "  and  "  the  sea."  But  for  the 
pusillanimity  of  the  greater  number  of  the  tribes  it 
would  have  been  entered  from  the  south  (Num. 
xiii.  30),  and  in  that  case  the  east  of  Jordan  might 
never  have  been  peopled  by  Israel  at  all. 

Accordingly,  when  the  Reubenites  and  their 
fellows  approach  Moses  with  their  request,  his 
main  objection  is  that  by  what  they  propose  they 
will  discourage  the  hearts  of  the  children  of  Israe/ 
from  going  over  Jordan  into  the  land  which 
Jehovah  had  given  them  (Num.  xxxii.  7).  It  is 
only  on  their  undertaking  to  fulfil  their  part  in 
the  conquest  of  the  western  country,  the  land  of 
Canaan  proper,  and  thus  satisfying  him  that  their 
proposal  was  grounded  in  no  selfish  desire  to  escape 
a  full  share  of  the  difficulties  of  the  conquest,  that 
Moses  will  consent  to  their  proposal. 

The  "  blessing"  of  Reuben  by  the  departing  Law 
giver  is  a  passage  which  has  severely  exercised 
translators  and  commentators.  Strictly  translated 
as  they  stand  in  the  received  Hebrew  text,  the 
words  are  as  follow : f — 

"  Let  Reuben  live  and  not  die, 
And  let  his  men  be  a  number"  (i.  e.  few). 

As  to  the  first  line  there  appears  to  be  no  docbt, 


nexion  in  the  interchange  of  the  names  Li  Jud.  viii.  1 
(Vulg.)  and  ix.  2. 

e  It  is  said  that  this  was  originally  an  ox,  but  changed 
by  Moses,  lest  it  should  recal  the  sin  of  the  golden  calf. 

f  A  few  versions  have  been  bold  enough  to  render  the 
Hebrew  as  it  stands.  Thus  the  Vulgate,  I -uther,  De\V"etUi 
and  Bunsen. 


REUBEN 

but  the  second  line  has  been  interpreted  in  two 
exactly  opposite  ways.  1.  By  the  LXX. : — 

"  And  let  his  men  e  be  many  in  number." 
This  has  the  disadvantage  that  1SDD  is  never 

employed  elsewhere  for  a  large  number,  but  always 
for  a  small  one  (e.g.  1  Chr.  xvi.  19  ;  Job  xvi.  22; 
Is.  x.  19;  Ez.  xii.  16). 

2.  That  of  our  own  Avrth.  Version: — 

'•  And  let  not  his  men  be  few." 

Here  the  negative  of  the  first  line  is  presumed  to 
convey  its  force  to  the  second,  though  not  there 
expressed.  This  is  countenanced  by  the  ancient 
Syriac  Version  (Peshito)  and  the  translations  of 
Junius  and  Tremellius,  and  Schott  and  Winzer.  It 
also  has  the  important  support  of  Gesenius  (Thes. 
968  a,  and  Pent.  Sam.  p.  44). 

3.  A  third  and  very  ingenious  interpretation  is 
that  adopted  by  the  Veneto-Greek  Version,  and  also 
by  Miehaelis  (Bibel  fur  Ungelehrten,  Text),  which 
assumes  that  the  vowel-points  of  the  word  VHD, 
«'  his  men,"  are  altered  to  VflE,  u  his  dead  "— '  " 

"  And  let  his  dead  be  few  "— 

as  if  in  allusion  to  some  recent  mortality  in  the 
tribe,  such  as  that  in  Simeon  after  the  plague  of 
Baal-Peer. 

These  interpretations,  unless  the  last  should  prove 
to  be  the  original  reading,  originate  in  the  fact  that 
the  words  in  their  naked  sense  convey  a  curse  and 
not  a  blessing.  Fortunately,  though  differing  widely 
in  detail,  they  agree  in  general  meaning.11  The  bene 
diction  of  the  great  leader  goes  out  over  the  tribe 
which  was  about  to  separate  itself  from  its  brethren, 
•in  a  fervent  aspiration  for  its  welfare  through  all  the 
ricl:  s  of  that  remote  and  trying  situation. 

Both  in  this  and  the  earlier  blessing  of  Jacob, 
Reuben  retains  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  family, 
and  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  the  tribe,  together 
with  the  two  who  associated  themselves  with  it, 
actually  received  its  inheritance  before  either  Judah 
or  Ephraim,  to  whom  the  birthright  which  Reuben 
had  forfeited  was  transferred  (1  Chr.  v.  1). 

From  this  time  it  seems  as  if  a  bar,  not  only  the 
material  one  of  distance,  and  of  the  intervening 
river  and  mountain-wall,  but  also  of  difference  in 
feeling  and  habits,  gradually  grew  up  more  sub 
stantially  between  the  Eastern  and  Western  tribes. 
The  first  act  of  the  former  after  the  completion  of 
the  (xniquest,  and  after  they  had  taken  part  in  the 
solemn  ceremonial  in  the  Valley  between  Ebal  and 
Gerizim,  shows  how  wide  a  gap  already  existed 
between  their  ideas  and  those  of  the  Western  tribes. 

The  pile  of  stones  which  they  erected  on  the 
western  bank  of  the  Jordan  to  mark  their  boun 
dary—to  testify  to  after  ages  that  though  separated 
by  the  rushing  river  from  their  brethren  and  the 
country  in  which  Jehovah  had  fixed  the  place 
where  He  would  be  worshipped,  they  had  still  a 
right  to  return  to  it  for  His  worship  —was  erected 


REUBEN 


1033 


e  The  Alex.  LXX.  adds  the  name  of  Simeon  ("  and  let 
Symeon  be  many  in  number  ") :  but  this,  though  approved 
of  by  Miehaelis  (in  the  notes  to  the  passage  in  his  Bfbsl 
fur  Ungelehrten),  on  the  ground  that  there  is  no  reason 
for  omitting  Simeon,  is  not  supported  by  any  Codex  or 
any  other  Version. 

h  In  the  Revised  Translation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  or- 
the  Rev.  C.  Wellbelovcd  and  others  (London,  1857)  the 
passage  is  rendered — 

*  May  Reuben  live  and  not  die, 
Though  his  men  be  few." 


in  accordance  with  the  unalterable  habits  of  Bedouin 
tribes  both  before  and  since.  It  was  an  act  iden 
tical  with  that  in  which  Laban  and  Jacob  engaged 
at  parting,  with  that  which  is  constantly  performed 
by  the  Bedouins  of  the  present  day.  But  by  the 
Israelites  west  of  Jordan,  who  were  fast  relinquish 
ing  their  nomad  habits  and  feelings  for  those  of  more 
settled  permanent  life,  this  act  was  completely  mis 
understood,  and  was  construed  into  an  attempt  to 
set  up  a  rival  altar  to  that  of  the  Sacred  Tent. 
The  incompatibility  of  the  idea  to  the  mind  of  the 
Western  Israelites,  is  shown  by  the  fact,  that  not 
withstanding  the  disclaimer  of  the  2J  tribes,  and 
notwithstanding  that  disclaimer  having  proved  sa 
tisfactory  even  to  Phinehas,  the  author  of  Joshua 
xxii.  retains  the  name  mizbeach  for  the  pile,  a  woi'd 
which  involves  the  idea  of  sacrifice — ».  e.  of  slough* 
ter  (see  Gesenius,  Thes.  402) — instead  of  applying 
to  it  the  term  gal,  as  is  done  in  the  case  (Gen. 
xxxi.  46)  of  the  precisely  similar  "  heap  of  witness." l 
— Another  Reubenite  erection,  which  for  long  kept 
up  the  memory  of  the  presence  of  the  tribe  on  the 
west  of  Jordan,  was  the  stone  of  Bohan  ben-Reuben 
which  formed  a  landmark  on  the  boundary  between 
Judah  and  Benjamin.  (Josh.  xv.  6.)  This  was  a 
single  stone  (Eberi),  not  a  pile,  and  it  appears  to 
have  stood  somewhere  on  the  road  from  Bethany 
to  Jericho,  not  far  from  the  ruined  khan  so  well 
known  to  travellers. 

No  judge,  no  prophet,  no  hero  of  the  tribe  of  Reu 
ben  is  handed  down  to  us.  In  the  dire  extremity 
of  their  brethren  in  the  north  under  Deborah  and 
Barak,  they  contented  themselves  with  debating  the 
news  amongst  the  streams  k  of  the  Mishor ;  the  distant 
distress  of  his  brethren  could  not  move  Reuben,  he 
lingered  among  his  sheepfolds  and  preferred  the 
shepherd's  pipe 1  and  the  bleating  of  the  flocks,  to 
the  clamour  of  the  trumpet  and  the  turmoil  of 
battle.  His  individuality  fades  more  rapidly  than 
Gad's.  The  eleven  valiant  Gadites  who  swam  the 
Jordan  at  its  highest  to  join  the  son  of  Jesse  in  his 
trouble  (1  Chr.  xii.  8-15),  Barzillai,  Elijah  the  Gi- 
leadite,  the  siege  of  Ramoth-Gilead  with  its*  pic 
turesque  incidents,  all  give  a  substantial  reality  to 
the  tribe  and  country  of  Gad.  But  no  person,  no 
incident,  is  recorded,  to  place  Reuben  before  us  in 
any  distincter  form  than  as  a  member  of  the  com 
munity  (if  community  it  can  be  called)  of  "the 
Reubenites,  the  Gadites,  and  the  half-tribe  of  Ma- 
nasseh  "  (1  Chr.  xii.  37).  The  very  towns  of  his 
inheritance — Heshbon,  Aroer,  Kirjathaim,  Dibon, 
Baal-meon,  Sibmah,  Jazer, — are  familiar  to  us  as 
Moabite,  and  not  as  Israelite  towns.  The  city-life 
so  characteristic  of  Moabite  civilisation  had  no  hold 
on  the  Reubenites.  They  are  most  in  their  element 
when  engaged  in  continual  broils  with  the  children 
of  the  desert,  the  Bedouin  tribes  of  Hagar,  Jetur, 
Nephish,  Nodab ;  driving  off  their  myriads  of 
cattle,  asses,  camels ;  dwelling  in  their  tents,  as 
if  to  the  manner  bora  (1  Chr.  v.  10),  gradually 
spreading  over  the  vast  wilderness  which  extends 

An  excellent  evasion  of  the  difficulty,  provided  it  be 
admissible  as  a  translation. 

1  The  "  altar  "  is  actually  called  Ed,  or  "  witness''  (Josh 
xxii.  34)  by  the  Bedouin  Reubenites,  just  as  the  pile  of 
Jacob  and  Laban  was  called  Gal-ed,  the  heap  of  witness. 

k  The  word  used  \iere,peteg,  seems  to  refer  to  artiikia. 
streams  or  ditches  for  irrigation.  [RivKB.] 

1  This  is  Ewald's  rendering  (Diehter  des  A.  B.  i.  130) 
adopted  by  Bunsen,  of  the  passage  rendered  in  the  A.  V 
"  bleating  of  the  flocks." 


1034    KEVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

from  Jordan  to  the  Euphrates  (v.  9),  and  every 
day  receding  furthe  and  further  from  any  com 
munity  of  feeling  01  of  interest  with  the  Western 
tribes. 

Thus  remote  from  the  central  seat  of  the  national 
government  and  of  the  national  religion,  it  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  Reuben  relinquished  the 
faith  of  Jehovah.  "They  went  a  whoring  after 
the  gods  of  the  people  of  the  land  whom  God  de 
stroyed  before  them,"  and  the  last  historical  notice 
which  we  possess  of  them,  while  it  records  this 
fact,  records  also  as  its  natural  consequence  that  the 
Reubenites  and  Gadites,  and  the  half-tribe  of  Ma- 
nasseh  were  carried  off  by  Pul  and  Tiglath-Pileser, 
and  placed  in  the  districts  on  and  about  the  river 
Khabur  in  the  upper  pail  of  Mesopotamia  —  "  in 
Halah,  and  Habor,  and  Kara,  and  the  river  Gozan" 
(1  Chr.  v.  26).  [G.] 


EEU'EL  (K-ljn:  'Payovfa  :  Mahuel,  Raguel}. 
The  name  of  several  persons  mentioned  in  the  Bible. 

1.  One  of  the  sons  of  Esau,  by  his  wife  Bashe- 
math  sister   of  Ishmael.      His   sons   were   four  — 
ftahath,  Zerah,  Shammah,  and  Mizzah,  "dukes" 
of  Edom  (Gen.  xxxvi.  4,  10,  13,  17  ;  1  Chr.  i.  35, 
37). 

2.  One   of  the   names  of  Moses'  father-in-law 
(Ex.  ii.  18)  ;   the  same  which,  through  adherence 
to  the  LXX.  form,  is  given  in  another  passage  of 
the  A.  V.  RAGUEL.     Moses'  father-m-law  was  a 
Midianite,  but  the  Midianites  are  in  a  well-known 
passage  (Gen.  xxxvii.  28)  called  also  Ishmaelites, 
and  if  this  may  be  taken  strictly,  it  is  not  impossible 
that  the  name  of  Reuel  may  be  a  token  of  his  con 
nexion  with  the  Ishmaelite  tribe  of  that  name.  There 
is,  however,  nothing  to  confirm  this  suggestion. 

3.  Father  of  Eliasaph,  the  leader  of  the  tribe  of 
Gad,  at  the  time  of  the  census  at  Sinai  (Num.  ii. 
14).     In  the  parallel  passages  the  name  is  given 
DEUEL,  which  is  retained  in  this  instance  also  by 
the  Vulgate  (Duel}. 

4.  A  Benjamite  whose  name  occurs  in  the  gene 
alogy  of  a  certain  Elah,  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the 
tribe  at  the  date  of  the  settlement  of  Jerusalem 
(L  Chr.  ix.  8).  [G.] 


RE'UMAH  (nD-150  :  'Pei^o;  Alex. 
Roma).  The  concubine  of  Nahor,  Abraham's  brother 
(Gen.  xxii.  24). 

KEVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN  ('A7ro/c<£- 
A.u^ts  'laaavvov  :  Apocalypsis  Beatl  Joannis  Apo- 
stoli}.  The  following  subjects  in  connexion  with 
this  book  seem  to  have  the  chief  claim  for  a  place 
in  this  article  :  — 

A.  CANONICAL  AUTHORITY  AND  AUTHORSHIP. 

B.  TIME  AND  PLACE  OF  WRITING. 

C.  LANGUAGE. 

D.  CONTENTS  AND  STRUCTURE. 

E.  HISTORY  OF  INTERPRETATION. 

A.  CANONICAL  AUTHORITY  AND  AUTHORSHIP. 
—  The  question  as  to  the  canonical  authority  of  the 
Revelation  resolves  itself  into  a  question  of  author 
ship.  If  it  can  be  proved  that  a  book,  claiming  so 
distinctly  as  this  does  the  authority  of  divine  in 
spiration,  was  actually  written  by  St.  John,  then 
no  doubt  will  be  entertained  as  to  its  title  to  a  place 
in  the  Canon  of  Scripture. 

Was,  then,  St.  John  the  Apostle  and  Evangelist 
the  writer  of  the  Revelation  ?  This  question  was 
first  mooted  by  I>bnysius  of  Alexandria  (Eusebius, 
H.  E  vii.  25).  The  doubt  which  ho  modestly 


and 


REVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

suggested  has  been  confidently  proclaimed  in  mo 
dern  times  by  Luther  (  Vorrede  aufdie  Offenbai*ungl 
1522  and  1534),  and  widely  diffused  through  his 
influence.  Liicke  (Einleitung,  802),  the  mosi 
learned  and  diligent  of  modem  critics  of  the  Reve 
lation,  agrees  with  a  majority  of  the  eminent  scho 
lars  of  Germany  in  denying  that  St.  John  was  the 
author. 

But  the  general  belief  of  the  mass  of  Christians 
in  all  ages  has  been  in  favour  of  St.  John's  author 
ship.  The  evidence  adduced  in  support  of  that 
belief  consists  of  (1)  the  assertions  of  the  author, 
and  (2)  historical  tradition. 

1)  The  author's  description  of  himself  in  the  1st 
22nd  chapters  is  certainly  equivalent  to  an  as 
sertion  that  he  is  the  Apostle,  (a)  He  names  himself 
simply  John,  without  prefix  or  addition — a  name 
which  at  that  period,  and  in  Asia,  must  have  been 
taken  by  every  Christian  as  the  designation  in  the 
first  instance  of  the  great  Apostle  who  dwelt  at 
Ephesus.  Doubtless  there  were  other  Johns  among 
the  Christians  at  that  time,  but  only  arrogance  or  an 
intention  to  deceive  could  account  for  the  assumption 
of  this  simple  style  by  any  other  writer.  He  is  al?o 
described  as  (6)  a  servant  of  Christ,  (c)  one  who  had 
borne  testimony  as  an  eye-witness  of  the  word  of 
God  and  of  the  testimony  of  Christ— terms  which 
were  surely  designed  to  identify  him  with  the 
writer  of  the  verses  John  xix.  35,  i.  14,  and  1  John 
i.  2.  He  is  (cH  in  Patmos  for  the  word  of  God 
and  the  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ :  it  may  be  easy 
to  suppose  that  other  Christians  of  the  same  name 
were  banished  thither,  but  the  Apostle  is  the  only 
John  who  is  distinctly  named  in  early  history  as 
an  exile  at  Patmos.  He  is  also  (e]  a  fellow-sufferer 
with  those  whom  he  addresses,  and  (/)  the  autho 
rised  channel  of  the  most  direct  and  important 
communication  that  was  ever  made  to  the  seven 
churches  of  Asia,  of  which  churches  John  the 
Apostle  was  at  that  time  the  spiritual  governor 
and  teacher.  Lastly  (<JT)  the  writer  was  a  fellow- 
servant  of  angels  and  a  brother  of  prophets — titles 
which  are  far  more  suitable  to  one  of  the  chief 
Apostles,  and  far  more  likely  to  have  been  assigned 
to  him  than  to  any  other  man  of  less  distinction. 
All  these  marks  are  found  united  together  in  the 
Apostle  John,  and  in  him  alone  of  all  historical 
persons.  We  must  go  out  of  the  region  of  fact  into 
the  region  of  conjecture  to  find  such  another  person. 
A  candid  reader  of  the  Revelation,  if  previously 
acquainted  with  St.  John's  other  writings  and  life, 
must  inevitably  conclude  that  the  writer  intended 
to  be  identified  with  St.  John.  It  is  strange  to  see 
so  able  a  critic  as  Liicke  (Einleitung,  514)  meeting 
this  conclusion  with  the  conjecture  that  some  Asiatic 
disciple  and  namesake  of  the  Apostle  may  have 
written  the  book  in  the  course  of  some  missionary 
labours  or  some  time  of  sacred  retirement  in  Pat 
mos.  Equally  unavailing  against  this  conclusion  is 
the  objection  brought  by  Ewald,  Credner,  and  others, 
from  the  fact  that  a  promise  of  the  future  blessed 
ness  of  the  Apostles  is  implied  in  xviii.  20  and  xxi. 
14  ;  as  if  it  were  inconsistent  with  the  true  modesty 
and  humility  of  an  Apostle  to  record — as  Daniel 
of  old  did  in  much  plainer  terms  (Dan.  xii.  13) — 
a  divine  promise  of  salvation  to  himself  personally. 
Rather  those  passages  may  be  taken  as  instances  of 
the  writer  quietly  accepting  as  his  just  due  such 
honourable  mention  as  belongs  to  all  the  Apostolic 
company.  Unless  we  are  prepared  to  give  up  the 
veracity  and  divine  origin  of  the  whole  book,  and 
to  treat  the  writer's  account  of  himself  as  a  mere 


KKVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

fiction  of  a  poet  trying  to  cover  his  own  insignifi 
cance  with  an  honoured  name,  we  must  accept  that 
description  as  a  plain  statement  of  fact,  equally 
credible  with  the  rest  of  the  book,  and  in  harmony 
with  the  simple,  honest,  truthful  character  which 
•.s  stamped  on  the  face  of  the  whole  narrative. 

Besides  this  direct  assertion  of  St.  John's  author 
ship,  there  is  also  an  implication  of  it  running 
through  the  book.  Generally,  the  instinct  of  single- 
minded,  patient,  faithful  students  has  led  them  to 
discern  a  connexion  between  the  Revelation  and 
St.  John,  and  to  recognise  not  merely  the  same 
Spirit  as  the  source  of  this  and  other  books  of  Holy 
Scripture,  but  also  the  same  peculiarly-formed 
human  instrument  employed  both  in  producing 
this  book  and  the  fourth  Gospel,  and  in  speaking 
the  characteristic  words  and  performing  the  cha 
racteristic  actions  recorded  of  St.  John.  This  evi 
dence  is  set  forth  at  great  length,  and  with  much 
force  and  eloquence,  by  J.  P.  Lange,  in  his  Essay 
on  the  Connexion  between  the  Individuality  of  the 
Apostle  John  and  that  of  the  Apocalypse,  1838 
(  Vermisc/de  Schriften,  ii.  173-231).  After  inves 
tigating  the  peculiar  features  of  the  Apostle's  cha 
racter  and  position,  and  (in  reply  to  Liicke)  the 
personal  traits  shown  by  the  writer  of  the  Revela 
tion,  he  concludes  that  the  book  is  a  mysterious 
but  genuine  effusion  of  prophecy  under  the  New 
Testament,  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel, 
the  product  of  a  spiritual  gift  so  peculiar,  so  great 
and  noble  that  it  can  be  ascribed  to  the  Apostle 
John  alone.  The  Revelation  requires  for  its  writer 
St.  John,  just  as  his  peculiar  genius  requires  for 
its  utterance  a  revelation. 

(2)  To  come  to  the  historical  testimonies  in 
favour  of  St.  John's  authorship : — these  are  singu 
larly  distinct  and  numerous,  and  there  is  very 
little  to  weigh  against  them,  (a)  Justin  Martyr, 
circ.  150  A.D.,  says : — "  A  man  among  us  whose 
name  was  John,  one  of  the  Apostles  of  Christ,  in  a 
revelation  which  was  made  tc  him,  prophesied  that 
the  believers  in  our  Christ  shall  live  a  thousand 
ears  in  Jerusalem  "  (Tnjph.  §81,  p.  179,  ed.  Ben.). 
(!>)  The  author  of  the  Muratorian  Fragment,  circ. 
170  A.D.,  speaks  of  St.  John  as  the  writer  of  the 
Apocalypse,  and  describes  him  as  a  predecessor  ol 
St.  Paul,  i.  e.  as  Credner  and  Liicke  candidly  inter 
pret  it,  his  predecessor  in  the  office  of  Apostle, 
(c)  Melito  of  Sardis,  circ.  170  A.D.,  wrote  a  treatise 
on  the  Revelation  of  John.  Eusebius  (H.  E.  iv. 
26)  mentions  this  among  the  books  of  Melito  which 
had  come  to  his  knowledge;  and,  as  he  carefully 
records  objections  against  the  Apostle's  authorship, 
it  may  be  fairly  presumed,  notwithstanding  the 
doubts  of  Klenker  and  Liicke  (p.  514},  that  Euse 
bius  found  no  doubt  as  to  St.  John's  authorship  in 
the  book  of  this  ancient  Asiatic  bishop,  (d)  Theo- 
philus,  bishop  of  Antioch,  circ.  180,  in  a  contro 
versy  with  Hermogenes,  quotes  passages  out  of  the 
Revelation  of  John  (Euseb.  H.  E.  iv.  24).  (e}  Ire- 
naeus,  circ.  195,  apparently  never  having  heard  a 
suggestion  of  any  other  author  than  the  Apostle 
often  quotes  the  Revelation  as  the  work  of  John 
In  iv.  20,  §11,  he  describes  John  the  writer  of  th< 
Revelation  as  the  same  who  was  leaning  on  Jesus 
bosom  at  supper,  and  asked  Him  who  should  betraj 
Him.  The  testimony  of  Irenaeus  as  to  the  author 
ship  of  Revelation  is  perhaps  more  important  than 
that  of  any  other  writer :  it  mounts  up  into  the 
preceding  generation,  and  is  virtually  that  of  a  con 
temporary  of  the  Apostle.  For  in  v.  30,  §1,  when 
he  vindicates  the  true  reading  (666)  of  the  numbei 


KEVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN    1035 

>f  the  Beast,  he  cites  in  support  of  it  not  only  the 
>ld  correct  copies  of  the  book,  but  also  the  oral 
«stimony  of  the  very  persons  who  themselves  had 
seen  St.  John  face  to  face.  It  is  obvious  that 
'renaeus'  reference  for  information  on  such  a  point 
;o  those  contemporaries  of  St.  John  implies  his 
jndoubting  belief  that  they,  in  common  with  him 
self,  viewed  St.  John  as  the  writer  of  the  book. 
Liicke  (p.  574)  suggests  that  this  view  was  possibly 
groundless  because  it  was  entertained  before  the 
earned  fathers  of  Alexandria  had  set  the  example 
>f  historical  criticism  ;  but  his  suggestion  scarcely 
weakens  the  force  of  the  fact  that  such  was  the 
belief  of  Asia,  and  it  appears  a  strange  suggestion 
when  we  remember  that  the  critical  discernment 
of  the  Alexandrians,  to  whom  he  refers,  led  them  to 
coincide  with  Irenaeus  in  his  view.  (/)  Apollonius 
(circ.  200)  of  Ephesus  (?),  in  controversy  with  the 
Moutanists  of  Phrygia,  quoted  passages  out  of  the 
Revelation  of  John,  and  narrated  a  miracle  wrought 
by  John  at  Ephesus  (Euseb.  H.  E.  v.  18).  (g}  Cle 
ment  of  Alexandria  (circ.  200)  quotes  the  book  as 
the  Revelation  of  John  (Stromata,  vi.  13,  p.  667\ 
and  as  the  work  of  an  Apostle  (Paed.  ii.  12,  p.  207). 
(h)  Tertullian  (A.D.  207),  in  at  least  one  place,  quotes 
by  name  "  the  Apostle  John  in  the  Apocalypse " 
(Ado.  Marcion.  iii.  14).  (f)  Hippolytus  (circ.  230} 
is  said,  in  the  inscription  on  his  statue  at  Rome,  to 
have  composed  an  apology  for  the  Apocalypse  and 
Gospel  of  St.  John  the  Apostle.  He  quotes  it  as 
the  work  of  St.  John  (De  Antichristo,  §36,  p.  756, 
ed.  Migne).  (;')  Origen  (circ.  233),  in  his  Com 
mentary  on  St.  John,  quoted  by  Eusebius  (H.  E. 
vi.  25),  says  of  the  Apostle,  "  he  wrote  also  the 
Revelation."  The  testimonies  of  later  writers,  in 
the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  in  favour  of  St. 
John's  authorship  of  the  Revelation,  are  equally 
distinct  and  far  more  numerous.  They  may  be 
seen  quoted  at  length  in  Liicke,  pp.  628-638,  or  in 
Dean  Alford's  Prolegomena  (N.  T.,  vol.  iv.  pt.  ii.). 
It  may  suffice  here  to  say  that  they  include  the 
names  of  Victorinus,  Methodius,  Ephrem  Syrus, 
Epiphanius,  Basil,  Hilary,  Athanasius,  Gregory, 
Didymus,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  and  Jerome. 

All  the  foregoing  writers,  testifying  that  the 
book  came  from  an  Apostle,  believed  that  it  was  a 
part  of  Holy  Scripture.  But  many  whose  extant 
works  cannot  be  quoted  for  testimony  to  the  au 
thorship  of  th«  book  refer  to  it  as  possessing 
canonical  authority.  Thus  (a)  Papias,  who  is  de 
scribed  by  Jrenaeus  as  a  hearer  of  St.  John  and 
friend  of  Pcly<;arp,  is  cited,  together  with  other 
writers,  by  Andreas  of  Cappadocia,  in  his  Com 
mentary  on  the  Revelation,  as  a  guarantee  to  later 
ages  of  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  book  (Routh, 
Reliq.  Sacr.  i.  15  ;  Cramer's  Catena,  Oxford,  1840, 
p.  176).  The  vaJue  of  this  testimony  has  not  been 
impaired  by  the  controversy  to  which  it  has  given 
rise,  in  which  Liicke,  Bleek,  Hengstenberg,  and 
Rettig  have  taken  different  parts.  (6)  In  the 
Epistle  from  the  Churches  of  Lyons  and  Vienne, 
A.D.  177,  inserted  in  Eusebius,  H.  E.  v.  1-3,  several 
passages  (e.  g.  i.  5,  xiv.  4,  xxii.  11)  are  quoted  or 
referred  to  in  the  same  way  as  passages  of  books 
whose  canonical  authority  is  unquestioned,  (c)  Cy 
prian  (Epp.  10,  12,  14,  19,  cd.  Fell)  repeatedly 
quotes  it  as  a  part  of  canonical  Scripture.  Chry- 
sostom  makes  no  distinct  allusion  to  it,  in  any 
extant  writing ;  but  we  are  informed  by  Suidas 
that  he  received  it  as  canonical.  Although  omitted 
(perhaps  as  not  adapted  for  public  reading  in 
church)  from  the  list  of  canonical  books  in  the 


1036    REVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

Counci.  rf  Laodicea,  it  was  admitted  into  the  lis 
of  the  Third  Council  of  Carthage,  A.D.  397. 

Such  is  the  evidence  in  favour  of  St.  John's  author 
$hip  and  of  the  canonical  authority  of  this  book.  The 
following  facts  must  be  weighed  on  the  other  side. 

Marcion,  who  regarded  all  the  Apostles  except 
St.  Paul  as  corrupters  of  the  truth,  rejected  the 
Apocalypse  and  all  other  books  of  the  N.  T.  which 
were   not   written   by  St.  Paul.     The  Alogi,  an 
obscure  sect,  circa  180  A.D.,  in  their  zeal  against 
Montanism,  denied  the  existence  of  spiritual  gifts 
in  the  Church,  and  rejected  the  Revelation,  saying 
it  was  the  work,  not  of  John,  but  of  Cerinthus 
(Epiphanius,  Adv.  ffaer.  1L).     The  Roman  pres 
byter   Caius   (circa  196  A.D.),   who    also   wrote 
against  Montanism,  is  quoted  by  Eusebius  (H.  E. 
iii.  28)  as  ascribing  certain  Revelations  to  Cerin^ 
thus :  but  it  is  doubted  (see  Routh,  ReL  Sacr.  ii. 
138)  whether  the  Revelation  of  St.  John  is  the 
book  to  which  Caius  refers.     But  the  testimony 
which  is  considered  the  most  important  of  ail  in 
ancient  times  against  the  Revelation  is  contained 
in  a  fragment  of  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  circa 
240  A.D.,  the   most   influential  and  perhaps  the 
ablest  bishop  in  that  age.    The  passage  taken  from 
a  book  On  the  Promises,  written  in  reply  to  Nepos, 
a  learned  Judaising  Chiliast,  is  quoted  by  Eusebius 
(H.  E.  vii.  25).      The  principal  points  in  it  are 
these : — Dionysius  testifies  that  some  writers  before 
him  altogether   repudiated    the    Revelation   as  a 
forgery   of  Cerinthus;   many   brethren,  however, 
prized   it  very  highly,  and  Dionysius  would  not 
venture  to  reject  it,   but  received  it  in  faith  as 
containing  things  too  deep  and  too  sublime  for  his 
understanding.      [In  his  Epistle  to  Hermammon 
(Euseb.  H.  E.  vii.  10)  he  quotes  it  as  he  would 
quote  Holy  Scripture.]     He  accepts  as  true  what 
is  stated  in  the  book  itself,  that  it  was  written  by 
John,  but  he  argues  that  the  way  in  which  that 
name  is  mentioned,  and  the  general  character  of 
the  language,  are  unlike  what  we  should  expect 
from  John  the  Evangelist  and  Apostle ;  that  there 
were  many  Johns  in  that  age.     He  would  not  say 
that  John  Mark  was  the  writer,  since  it  is  not 
known  that  he  was  in  Asia.     He  supposes  it  must 
be  the  work  of  some  John  who  lived  in  Asia  ;  and 
he  observes  there   are   said  to  be   two  tombs  in 
Epbesus,  each  of  which  bears  the  name  of  John. 
He  then  points  out  at  length  the  superiority  of  the 
style  of  the  Gospel  and  the  First  Epistle  of  John 
to  the  style  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  says,  in  conclu 
sion,  that,  whatever  he  may  think  of  the  language, 
he  does  not  deny  that  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse 
actually  saw  what  he  describes,  and  was  endowed 
with  the  divine  gifts  of  knowledge  and  prophecy. 
To  this  extent,  and  no  farther,  Dionysius  is  a  wit 
ness  against  St.  John's  authorship.     It  is  obvious 
that  he  felt  keenly  the  difficulty  arising  from  the 
use  made  of  the  contents  of  this  book  by  certain 
unsound  Christians  under  his  jurisdiction ;  that  he 
was  acquainted  with  the  doubt  as  to  its  canonical 
authority  which  some  of  his  predecessors  enter 
tained  as  an  inference  from  the  nature  of  its  con 
tents  ;  that  he  deliberately  rejected  their  doubt  and 
accepted  the  contents  of  the  book  as  given  by  the 
inspiration  of  God ;   that,   although   he   did   not 
understand  how  St.  John  could  write  in  the  style 
in  which  the  Revelation  is  written,  he  yet  knew 
of  no  authority  for  attributing  it,  as  he  desired  to 
attribute  it,  to  some  other  of  the  numerous  persons 
who  bore  the  name  of  John.    A  weightier  difficulty 
writes  from  the  fact  that  the  Revelation  is  one  of 


REVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

the  books  which  are  absent  from  the  ancient 
Peshito  version ;  and  the  only  trustworthy  evidence 
in  favour  of  its  reception  by  the  ancient  Syrian 
Church  is  a  single  quotation  which  is  adduced 
from  the  Syriac  works  (ii.  332  c)  of  Ephrein 
Syrus.  Eusebius  is  remarkably  sparing  in  hi? 
quotations  from  the  "  Revelation  of  John,"  and  the 
uncertainty  of  his  opinion  about  it  is  best  shown 
by  his  statement  in  H.  E.  iii.  39,  that  "  it  is  likely 
that  the  Revelation  was  seen  by  the  second  John 
(the  Ephesian  presbyter),  if  anyone  is  unwilling  to 
believe  that  it  was  seen  by  the  Apostle."  Jerome 
states  (Ep.  ad  Dardanum,  &c.)  that  the  Greek 
Churches  felt,  with  respect  to  the  Revelation,  a 
similar  doubt  to  that  of  the  Latins  respecting  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Neither  he  nor  his  equally 
influential  contemporary  Augustine  shared  such 
doubts.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Chrysostom,  Theodore 
of  Mopsuestia,  and  Theodoret  abstained  from  making 
use  of  the  book,  sharing,  it  is  possible,  the  doubts  to 
which  Jercine  refers.  But  they  have  not  gone  so 
far  as  to  express  a  distinct  opinion  against  it.  The 
silence  of  these  writers  is  the  latest  evidence  of  any 
importance  that  has  been  adduced  against  the  over 
whelming  weight  of  the  testimony  in  favour  of  the 
canonical  authority  and  authorship  of  this  book. 

B.  TIME  AND  PLACE  OF  WRITING. — The  date 
of  the  Revelation  is  given  by  the  great  majority  of 
critics  as  A.D.  95-97.  The  weighty  testimony  of 
Irenaeus  is  almost  sufficient  to  prevent  any  other 
conclusion.  He  says  (Ado.  ffaer.  v.  30,  §3): 
"  It  (i.  e.  the  Revelation)  was  seen  no  very  long 
time  ago,  but  almost  in  our  own  generation,  at  the 
close  of  Domitian's  reign."  Eusebius  also  records 
as  a  tradition  which  he  does  not  question,  that  in  the 
persecution  under  Domitian,  John  the  Apostle  and 
Evangelist,  being  yet  alive,  was  banished  to  the 
island  Patmos  for  his  testimony  of  the  divine  word. 
Allusions  in  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Origen 
point  in  the  same  direction.  There  is  no  mention 
in  any  writer  of  the  first  three  centuries  of  any 
other  time  or  place.  Epiphanius  (Ii.  12),  obviously 
by  mistake,  says  that  John  prophesied  iu  the  reign 
of  Claudius.  Two  or  three  obscure  and  later  autho 
rities  say  that  John  was  banished  under  Nero. 

Unsupported  by  any  historical  evidence,  sorae 
ommentators  have  put  forth  the  conjecture  that 
the  Revelation  was  written  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Nero.  This  is  simply  their  inference  from  the  style 
and  contents  of  the  book.  But  it  is  difficult  to  see 
why  St.  John's  old  age  rendered  it,  as  they  allege, 
mpossible  for  him  to  write  his  inspired  message 
with  force  and  vigour,  or  why  his  residence  in 
Ephesus  must  have  removed  the  Hebraistic  pecu- 
iarities  ,of  his  Greek.  It  is  difficult  to  see  in  the 
>assages  i.  7,  ii.  9,  iii.  9,  vi.  12,  16,  xi.  1,  any- 
;hing  which  would  lead  necessarily  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  Jerusalem  was  in  a  prosperous  condition, 
and  that  the  predictions  of  its  fall  had  not  been 
fulfilled  when  those  verses  were  written.  A  more 
weighty  argument  in  favour  of  an  early  date  might 
>e  urged  from  a  modern  interpretation  of  xvii.  10, 
f  that  interpretation  could  be  established.  Galba 
s  alleged  to  be  the  sixth  king,  the  one  that  "  is." 
'n  Nero  these  interpreters  see  the  Beast  that  was 
vounded  (xiii.  3),  the  Beast  that  was  and  is  not, 
he  eighth  king  (xvii.  11).  For  some  time  after 
sero's  death  the  Roman  populace  believed  that  he 
vas  not  dead,  but  had  fled  into  the  East,  whence 
e  would  return  and  regain  his  throne :  and  these 
nterpreters  venture  to  suggest  that  the  writer  of 
he  Revelation  shared  and  meant  to  express  the 


REVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

absurd  popular  delusion.  Even  the  able  and  learned 
Renas  (T/ieoL  Chret.  i.  443),  by  way  of  supporting 
tb.s  interpretation,  advances  his  untenable  claim  to 
the  first  discovery  of  the  name  of  Nero  Caesar  in 
the  number  of  the  beast,  666.  The  inconsistency 
of  this  interpretation  with  prophetic  analogy,  with 
the  context  of  Revelation,  and  with  the  fact  that 
the  book  is  of  divine  origin,  is  pointed  out  by 
Hengstenberg  at  the  end  of  his  Commentary  on 
ch.  xiii.,  and  by  Elliott,  Home  Apoc.  iv.  547. 

It  has  been  inferred  from  i.  2,  9,  10,  that  the 
Revelation  was  written  in  Ephesus,  immediately 
after  the  Apostle's  return  from  Patmos.  But  the 
text  is  scarcely  sufficient  to  support  this  conclusion. 
The  style  in  which  the  messages  to  the  seven  Churches 
are  delivered  rather  suggests  the  notion  that  the 
book  was  written  in  Patmos. 

C.  LANGUAGE. — The  doubt  first  suggested  by 
Harenberg,  whether  the  Revelation  was  written  in 
Aramaic,  has  met  with  little  or  no  reception.  The 
silence  of  all  ancient  writers  as  to  any  Aramaic 
original  is  alone  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  sugges 
tion.  Liicke  (Einleit.  441)  has  also  collected  in 
ternal  evidence  to  show  that  the  original  is  the 
Greek  of  a  Jewish  Christian. 

Liicke  has  also  (pp.  448-464)  examined  in  minute 
detail,  after  the  preceding  labours  of  Donker-Cur- 
tius,  Vogel,  Winer,  Ewald,  Kolthoff,  and  Hitzig, 
the  peculiarities  of  language  which  obviously  dis 
tinguish  the  Revelation  from  every  other  book  of 
the  New  Testament.  And  in  subsequent  sections 
(pp.  680-747)  he  urges  with  great  force  the  dif 
ference  between  the  Revelation  on  one  side  and  the 
fourth  Gospel  and  first  Epistle  on  the  other,  in 
respect  of  their  style  and  composition  and  the 
mental  character  and  attainments  of  the  writer  of 
each.  Hengstenberg,  in  a  dissertation  appended  to 
his  Commentary,  maintains  that  they  are  by  one 
writer.  That  the  anomalies  and  peculiarities  of 
the  Revelation  have  been  greatly  exaggerated  by 
some  critics,  is  sufficiently  shown  by  Hitzig's 
plausible  and  ingenious,  though  unsuccessful,  at 
tempt  to  prove  the  identity  of  style  and  diction  in 
the  Revelation  and  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark.  It  may 
be  admitted  that  the  Revelation  has  many  sur 
prising  grammatical  peculiarities.  But  much  of 
this  is  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  it  was  pro 
bably  written  down,  as  it  was  seen,  "  in  the  Spirit," 
whilst  the  ideas,  in  all  their  novelty  and  vastness, 
filled  +he  Apostle's  mind,  and  rendered  him  less 
capable  of  attending  to  forms  of  speech.  His 
Gospel  and  Epistles,  on  the  other  hand,  were  com 
posed  equally  under  divine  influence,  but  an  in 
fluence  of  a  gentler,  more  ordinary  kind,  with  much 
care,  after  long  deliberation,  after  frequent  recol 
lection  and  recital  of  the  facts,  and  deep  pondering 
of  the  doctrinal  truths  which  they  involve. 

D.  CONTENTS. — The  first  three  verses  contain 
the  title  of  the  book,  the  description  of  the  writer, 
and  the  blessing  pronounced  on  the  readers,  which 
possibly,  like  the  last  two  verses  of  the  fourth 
Gospel,  may  be  an  addition  by  the  hand  of  inspired 
survivors  of  the  writer.  John  begins  (i.  4)  with  a 
salutation  of  the  seven  Churches  of  Asia.  This, 
coming  before  the  announcement  that  he  was  in 
the  Spirit,  looks  like  a  dedication  not  merely  of  the 
first  vision,  but  of  all  the  book,  to  those  Churches. 
In  the  next  five  verses  (i.  5-9)  he  touches  the  key 
note  of  the  whole  following  book,  the  great  funda 
mental  id^s  on  which  all  our  notions  of  the  go 
vernment  of  the  world  and  the  Church  are  built ; 
tile  Perse  n  <>r'  Christ,  the  redemption  wrought  by 


KEVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN     1037 

Him,  His  second  coming  to  judge  mankind,  the 
painful  hopeful  discipline  of  Christians  in  the  midst 
of  this  present  world  :  thoughts  which  may  well  be 
supposed  to  have  been  uppermost  in  the  mind  of 
the  persecuted  and  exiled  Apostle  even  before  the 
Divine  Inspiration  came  on  him. 

a.  The  first  vision  (i.  7-iii.  22)  shows  the  Son 
of  Man  with  His  injunction,  or  Epistles  to  the  seven 
Churches.  While  the  Apostle  is  pondering  those 
great  truths  and  the  critical  condition  of  his  Church 
which  he  had  left,  a  Divine  Person  resembling 
those  seen  by  Ezekiel  and  Daniel,  and  identified  by 
name  and  by  description  as  Jesus,  appears  to  John, 
and  with  the  discriminating  authority  of  a  Lord 
and  Judge  reviews  the  state  of  those  Churches, 
pronounces  his  decision  upon  their  several  cha 
racters,  and  takes  occasion  from  them  to  speak  to 
all  Christians  who  may  deserve  similar  encourage 
ment  or  similar  condemnation.  Each  of  these  sen 
tences,  spoken  by  the  >  Son  of  Man,  is  described  as 
said  by  the  Spirit.  Hitherto  the  Apostle  has  been 
speaking  primarily  though  not  exclusively  to  some 
of  his  own  contemporaries  concerning  the  present 
events  and  circumstances.  Henceforth  he  ceases  to 
address  them  particularly.  His  words  are  for  the 
ear  of  the  universal  Church  in  all  ages,  and  show  the 
significance  of  things  which  are  present  in  hope  or 
fear,  in  sorrow  or  in  joy,  to  Christians  everywhere. 

6.  (iv.  1-viii.  1.)  In  the  next  vision,  Patmos 
and  the  Divine  Person  whom  he  saw  are  gone. 
Only  the  trumpet  voice  is  heard  again  calling  him 
to  a  change  of  place.  He  is  in  the  highest  court  of 
heaven,  and  sees  God  sitting  on  His  throne.  The 
seven-sealed  book  or  roll  is  produced,  and  the  slain 
Lamb,  the  Redeemer,  receives  it  amid  the  sound  of 
universal  adoration.  As  the  seals  are  opened  in 
order,  the  Apostle  sees  (1)  a  conqueror  on  a  white 
horse,  (2)  a  red  horse  betokening  war,  (3)  the 
black  horse  of  famine,  (4)  the  pale  horse  of  death, 

(5)  the  eager  souls  of  martyrs  under  the  altar, 

(6)  an  earthquake  with  universal  commotion  and 
terror.     After  this  there  is  a  pause,  the  course  of 
avenging  angels  is  checked  while  144,000,  the  chil 
dren  of  Israel,  servants  of  God,  are  sealed,  and  an 
innumerable  multitude  of  the  redeemed  of  all  nations 
are  seen  worshipping  God.     Next  (7)  the  seventh 
seal  is  opened,  and  half  an  hour's  silence  in  heaven 
ensues. 

c.  Then  (viii.2-xi.  19)  seven  angels  appear  with 
trumpets,  the  prayers  of  saints  are  offered  up,  the 
earth  is  struck  with  fire  from  the  altar,  and  the 
seven  trumpets  are  sQunded.  (1)  The  earth,  and 
(2)  the  sea  and  (3)  tne  springs  of  water  and  (4) 
the  heavenly  bodies  &/e  successively  smitten,  (5)  a 
phgue  of  locusts  afflicts  the  men  who  are  not 
sealed  (the  first  woe),  (6)  the  third  part  of  men 
are  slain  (the  second  woe),  but  the  rest  are  im 
penitent.  Then  there  is  a  pause:  a  mighty  angel 
with  a  book  appears  and  cries  out,  seven  thunders 
sound,  but  their  words  are  not  recorded,  the  ap 
proaching  completion  of  the  mystery  of  God  is 
announced,  the  angel  bids  the  Apostle  eat  the  book, 
and  measure  the  temple  with  its  worshippers  and 
the  outer  court  given  up  to  the  Gentiles ;  the  two 
witnesses  of  God,  their  martyrdom,  resurrection,  as 
cension,  are  foretold.  The  approach  of  the  third  woe 
is  announced  and  (7)  the  seventh  trumpet  is  sounded, 
the  reign  of  Christ  is  proclaimed,  God  has  taken  His 
great  power,  the  time  has  come  for  judgment  and 
for  the  destruction  of  the  destroyers  of  the  earth. 

The  three  preceding  visions  are  distinct  from  on« 
another.  Each  of  the  last  two,  like  the  longei 


1038    REVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

one  which  follows,  has  the  appearance  of  a  distinct 
prophecy,  reaching  from  the  prophet's  time  to  the 
end  of  the  world.  The  second  half  of  the  Revela 
tion  (xii.-xxii.)  comprises  a  series  of  visions  which 
air  connected  by  various  links.  It  may  be  de 
scribed  generally  as  a  prophecy  of  the  assaults  of 
the  devil  and  his  agents  ( =  the  dragon,  the  ten- 
horned  beast,  the  two-horned  beast  or  false  prophet, 
and  the  harlot)  upon  the  Church,  and  their  final 
destruction.  It  appears  to  begin  with  a  reference 
to  events  anterior,  not  only  to  those  which  are 
predicted  in  the  preceding  chapter,  but  also  to 
the  time  in  which  it  was  written.  It  seems  hard  to 
interpret  the  birth  of  the  child  as  a  prediction,  and 
not  as  a  retrospective  allusion. 

d.  A  woman  (xii.)  clothed  witn  the  sun  is  seen 
in  heaven,  and  a  great  red  dragon  with  seven 
crowned  heads  stands  waiting  to  devour  her  off 
spring  ;  her  child  is  caught  up  unto  God,  and  the 
mother  flees  into  the  wilderness  for  1260  days. 
The  persecution  of  the  woman  and  her  seed  on 
earth  by  the  dragon,  is  described  as  the  consequence 
of  a  war  in  heaven  in  which  the  dragon  was  over 
come  and  cast  out  upon  the  earth. 

St.  John  (xiii.)  standing  on  the  seashore  sees  a 
beast  with  seven  heads,  one  wounded,  with  ten 
crowned  horns,  rising  from  the  water,  the  represen 
tative  of  the  dragon.  All  the  world  wonder  at  and 
worship  him,  and  he  attacks  the  saints  and  prevails. 
He  is  followed  by  another  two-horned  beast  rising 
out  of  the  earth,  who  compels  men  to  wear  the 
mark  of  the  beast,  whose  number  is  666. 

St.  John  (xiv.)  sees  the  Lamb  with  144,000 
standing  on  Mount  Zion  learning  the  song  of  praise 
of  the  heavenly  host.  Three  angels  fly  forth  call 
ing  men  to  worship  God,  proclaiming  the  fall  of 
Babylon,  denouncing  the  worshippers  of  the  beast. 
A  blessing  is  pronounced  on  the  faithful  dead,  and 
the  judgment  of  the  world  is  described  under  the 
image  of  a  harvest  reaped  by  angels. 

St.  John  (xv.,  xvi.)  sees  in  heaven  the  saints 
who  had  overcome  the  beast,  singing  the  song  of 
Moses  and  the  Lamb.  Then  seven  angels  come  out 
of  the  heavenly  temple  having  seven  vials  of  wrath 
which  they  pour  out  upon  the  earth,  sea,  rivers, 
sun,  the  seat  of  the  beast,  Euphrates,  and  the  air, 
after  which  there  is  a  great  earthquake  and  a  hail 
storm  . 

One  (xvii.,  xviii.)  of  the  last  seven  angels  carries 
St.  John  into  the  wilderness  and  shows  him  a  har 
lot,  Babylon,  sitting  on  a  scarlet  beast  with  seven 
heads  and  ten  horns.  She  is  explained  to  be  tha<: 
great  city,  sitting  upon  seven  mountains,  reigning 
over  the  kings  of  the  earth.  Afterwards  St.  John 
sees  a  vision  of  the  destruction  of  Babylon,  portrayed 
as  the  burning  of  a  great  city  amid  the  lamentations 
of  worldly  men  and  the  rejoicing  of  saints. 

Afterwards  (xix.)  the  worshippers  in  heaven  are 
heard  celebrating  Babylon's  fall  and  the  approaching 
marriage-supper  of  the  Lamb.  The  Word  of  God  i 
seen  going  forth  to  war  at  the  head  of  the  heavenly 
armies :  the  beast  and  his  false  prophet  are  taken 
and  cast  into  the  burning  lake,  and  their  worship 
pers  are  slain. 

An  angel  (xx.-xxii.  5)  binds  the  dragon,  t.  e.  the 
devil,  for  1000  years,  whilst  the  martyred  saints 
who  had  not  worshipped  the  beast  reign  with  Christ. 
Then  the  devil  is  unloosed,  gathers  a  host  against 
the  camp  of  the  saints,  but  is  overcome  by  fire 
ft-om  heaven,  and  is  cast  into  the  burning  lake  with 
tne  beast  and  false  prophet.  St.  John  then  witnesses 
the  process  of  the  f;nal  judgment,  ar.d  sees  and  dc 


REVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

scribes  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth,  and  tht 
lew  Jerusalem,  with  its  people  and  their  way  of  life. 
In  the  last  sixteen  verses  (xxii.  6-21)  the  angel 
solemnly  asseverates  the  truthfulness  and  import 
ance  of  the  foregoing  sayings,  pronounces  a  blessing 
on  those  who  keep  them  exactly,  gives  warning 
of  His  speedy  coming  to  judgment,  and  of  the 
nearness  of  the  time  when  these  prophecies  shall  be 
fulfilled. 

E.  INTERPRETATION. — A  short  account  of  the 
different  directions  in  which  attempts  have  been 
made  to  interpret  the  Revelation,  is  all  that  can  be 
given  in  this  place.  The  special  blessing  promised 
to  the  reader  of  this  book  (i.  3),  the  assistance  to 
common  Christian  expeiience  afforded  by  its  pre 
cepts  and  by  some  of  its  visions,  the  striking  imagery 
)f  others,  the  tempting  field  which  it  supplies  for 
ntellectual  exercise,  will  always  attract  students  to 
this  book  and  secure  for  it  the  labours  of  many 
commentators.  Ebrard  reckons  that  not  less  than 
eighty  systematic  commentaries  are  worthy  of  note, 
and  states  that  the  less  valuable  writings  on  this 
nexhanstible  subject  are  unnumbered,  it  not  innu 
merable.  Fanaticism,  theological  hatred,  and  vain 
curiosity,  may  have  largely  influenced  their  compo 
sition  ;  but  any  one  who  will  compare  the  necessa 
rily  inadequate,  and  sometimes  erroneous,  exposition 
of  early  times  with  a  good  modern  commentary 
will  see  that  the  pious  ingenuity  of  so  many  cen 
turies  has  not  been  exerted  quite  in  vain. 

The  interval  between  the  Apostolic  age  and  that 
of  Constantine  has  been  called  the  Chiliastic  period 
of  Apocalyptic  interpretation.  The  visions  of  St. 
John  were  chiefly  regarded  as  representations  of 
general  Christian  truths,  scarcely  yet  embodied  in 
actual  facts,  for  the  most  part  to  be  exemplified  or 
fulfilled  in  the  reign  of  Antichrist,  the  coming  of 
Christ,  the  millennium,  and  the  day  of  judgment. 
The  fresh  hopes  of  the  early  Christians,  and  th« 
severe  persecution  they  endured,  taught  them  to 
live  in  those  future  events  with  intense  satisfaction 
and  comfort.  They  did  not  entertain  the  thought 
of  building  up  a  definite  consecutive  chronological 
scheme  even  of  those  symbols  which  some  moderns 
regard  as  then  already  fulfilled  ;  although  from  the 
beginning  a  connexion  between  Rome  and  Antichrist 
was  universally  allowed,  and  parts  of  the  Revelation 
wen>  regarded  as  the  filling-np  of  the  great  outline 
sketched  by  Daniel  and  St.  Paul. 

The  only  extant  systematic  interpretations  in  this 
period,  are  the  interpolated  Commentary  on  the 
Revelation  by  the  martyr  Victorinus,  circ.  270  A.D 
^  Biblwtheca  Patrum  Maxima,  iii.  414,  and  Migne's 
Patrologia  Latina,  v.  318 ;  the  two  editions  should 
be  compared),  and  the  disputed  Treatise  on  Antichrist 
by  Hippolytus  (Migne's  Patrologia  Graeca,  x.  726). 
But  the  prevalent  views  of  that  age  are  to  be  ga 
thered  also  from  a  passage  in  Justin  Martyr  (  Trypko, 
80,  81),  from  the  later  books,  especially  the  fifth,  of 
Irenaeus,  and  from  various  scattered  passages  in  Ter- 
tullian,  Origen,  and  Methodius.  The  general  antici 
pation  of  the  last  days  of  the  world  in  Lactantius, 
vii.  14-25,  has  little  direct  reference  to  the  Revelation 
Immediately  after  the  triumph  of  Constantine, 
the  Christians,  emancipated  from  oppression  and 
persecution,  and  dominant  and  prosperous  in  their 
turn,  began  to  lose  their  vivid  expectation  of  our 
Lord's  speedy  Advent,  and  their  spiritual  conception 
of  His  kingdom,  and  to  look  upon  the  temporal 
supremacy  of  Christianity  as  a  fulfilment  of  the 
promised  reign  of  Christ  on  earth.  The  Roman 
emp  re  become  Christian  was  regarded  no  longer  as 


REVELATION  OF  ST.  JOHN 

the  object  of  prophetic  denunciation,  but  as  the 
scene  of  a  millennial  development.  This  view,  how 
ever,  was  soon  met  by  the  figurative  interpretation 
of  the  millennium  as  the  reign  of  Christ  in  the  hearts 
of  all  true  believers.  As  the  barbarous  and  here 
tical  invaders  of  the  falling  empire  appeared,  they 
were  regarded  by  the  suffering  Christians  as  fulfil 
ling  the  woes  denounced  in  the  Revelation.  The  be 
ginning  of  a  regular  chronological  interpretation  is 
seen  in  Berengaud  (assigned  by  some  critics  to  the 
9th  century),  who  tieated  the  Revelation  as  a  his 
tory  of  the  Church  from  the  beginning  of  the  world 
to  its  end.  And  the  original  Commentary  of  the 
Abbot  Joachim  is  remarkable,  not  only  for  a  farther 
development  of  that  method  of  interpretation,  but 
for  the  scarcely  disguised  identification  of  Babylon 
with  Papal  Rome,  and  of  the  second  Beast  or  Anti 
christ  with  some  Universal  Pontiff. 

The  chief  commentaries  belonging  to  this  period 
are  that  which  is  ascribed  to  Tichonius,  circ.  390  A.D., 
printed  in  the  works  of  St.  Augustine;  Primasius, 
of  Adrumetum  in  Africa,  A.D.  550,  in  Migne's  Pa- 
trologia  Latina,  Ixviii.  p.  1406  ;  Andreas  of  Crete, 
circ.  650  A.D.,  Arethas  of  Cappadocia  and  Oecu- 
menius  of  Thessaly  in  the  10th  century,  whose 
commentaries  were  published  together  in  Cramer's 
Catena,  Oxon.,  1840;  the  Explanatio  Apoc.  in 
the  works  of  Bede,  A.D.  735  ;  the  Expositio  of 
Berengaud,  printed  in  the  works  of  Ambrose ;  the 
Commentary  of  Haymo,  A.D.  853,  first  published 
at  Cologne  in  1531  ;  a  short  Treatise  on  the  Seals 
by  Anselm,  bishop  of  Havilberg,  A.D.  1145,  printed 
in  D'Ache'ry's  Spicilegium,  i.  161  ;  the  Expositio 
of  Abbot  Joachim  of  Calabria,  A.D.  1200,  printed 
at  Venice  in  1527. 

In  the  dawn  of  the  Reformation,  the  views  to 
which  the  reputation  of  Abbot  Joachim  gave  cur 
rency,  were  taken  up  by  the  harbingers  of  the  im 
pending  change,  as  by  WiclifFe  and  others  ;  and  they 
became  the  foundation  of  that  great  historical  school 
of  interpretation,  which  up  to  this  time  seems  the 
most  popular  of  all.  It  is  impossible  to  construct 
an  exact  classification  of  modern  interpreters  of  the 
Revelation.  They  are  generally  placed  in  three 
great  divisions. 

a.  The  Historical  or  Continuous  expositors,  in 
whose  opinion  the  Revelation  is  a  progressive  his 
tory  of  the  fortune.*  of  the  Church  from  the  first 
century  to  the  end  of  time.  The  chief  supporters 
of  this  most  interesting  interpretation  are  Mede, 
Sir  I.  Newton,  Vitringa,  Bengel,  Woodhouse,  Faber, 
E.  B.  Elliott,  Wordsworth,  Hengstenberg,  Ebrard, 
and  others.  The  recent  commentary  of  Dean  Alford 
belongs  mainly  to  this  school. 

6.  The  Praeterist  expositors,  who  are  of  opinion 
that  the  Revelation  has  been  almost,  or  altogether, 
fulfilled  in  the  time  which  has  passed  since  it  was 
written ;  that  it  refers  principally  to  the  triumph 
of  Christianity  over  Judaism  and  Paganism,  sig- 
oalised  in  the  downfall  of  Jerusalem  and  of  Rome. 
The  most  eminent  expounders  of  this  view  are  Al- 
•.asar,  Grotius,  Hammond,  Bossuet,  Calniet,  Wet- 
otein,  Eichhorn,  Hug,  Herder,  Ewald,  Liicke,  De 
Wette,  Diisterdieck,  Stuart,  Lee,  and  Maurice.  This 
»6  the  favourite  intei-pretation  with  the  critics  of 
Germany,  one  of  whom  goes  so  -far  as  to  state  that 
Oie  writer  of  the  Revelation  promised  the  fulfilment 
of  his  visions  within  the  space  of  three  years*  and  a 
h*lf  from  the  time  in  which  he  wrote. 

c.  The  Futurist  expositors,  whose  views  show  a 
strong  renction  against  some  extravagancies  of  the 
two  preceding  schools.  They  believe  that  the  whole 


REZEPH 


1039 


book,  excepting  perhaps  the  first  thuee  chapters, 
refers  principally,  if  not  exclusively,  to  event*  which 
are  yet  to  come.  This  view,  which  is  asserted  to 
be  merely  a  revival  of  the  primitive  interpretation, 
has  been  advocated  in  recent  times  by  Dr.  J.  H. 
Todd,  Dr.  S.  R.  Maitland,  B.  Newton,  C.  Maitland, 
I.  Williams,  De  Burgh,  and  others. 

Each  of  these  three  schemes  is  open  to  objectior. 
Against  the  Futurist  it  is  argued,  that  it  is  nc,. 
consistent  with  the  repeated  declarations  of  a  speedy 
fulfilment  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  book 
itself  (see  ch.  i.  3,  xxii.  6, 7/12,  20).  Christians,  to 
whom  it  was  originally  addressed,  would  have  derived 
no  special  comfort  from  it,  had  its  fulfilment  been  al 
together  deferred  for  so  many  centuries.  The  rigidly 
literal  interpretation  of  Babylon,  the  Jewish  tribes, 
and  other  symbols  which  generally  forms  a  part  of 
Futurist  schemes,  presents  peculiar  difficulties. 

Against  the  Praeterist  expositors  it  is  urged,  that 
prophecies  fulfilled  ought  to  be  rendered  so  pei-spi- 
cuous  to  the  general  sense  of  the  Church  as  to  supply 
an  argument  against  infidelity ;  that  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  having  occurred  twenty-five  years  pre 
viously,  could  not  occupy  a  large  space  in  a  prophecy ; 
that  the  supposed  predictions  of  the  downfalls  of 
Jerusalem  and  of  Nero  appear  from  the  context  to 
refer  to  one  event,  but  are  by  this  scheme  separated, 
and,  moreover,  placed  in  a  wrong  order ;  that  the 
measuring  of  the  temple  and  the  altar,  and  the 
death  of  the  two  witnesses  (ch.  xi.),  cannot  be 
explained  consistently  with  the  context. 

Against  the  Historical  scheme  it  is  urged,  that 
its  advocates  differ  veiy  widelv  among  themselves  ; 
that  they  assume  without  any  authority  that  the 
1260  days  are  so  many  years ;  that  several  of  its 
applications — e.  g.  of  the  symbol  of  the  teivhorned 
beast  to  the  Popes,  and  the  sixth  seal  to  the  con 
version  of  Constantine — are  inconsistent  with  the 
context ;  that  attempts  by  some  of  this  school  to 
predict  future  events  by  the  help  of  Revelation  have 
ended  in  repeated  failures. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  stated  that  two  methods 
have  been  proposed  by  which  the  student  of  the 
Revelation  may  escape  the  incongruities  and  fallacies 
of  the  different  interpretations,  whilst  he  may  derive 
edification  from  whatever  truth  they  contain.  It 
has  been  suggested  that  the  book  may  be  regarded 
as  a  prophetic  poem,  dealing  in  general  and  inexact 
descriptions,  much  of  which  may  be  set  down  as 
poetic  imagery,  mere  embellishment.  But  such 
a  view  would  be  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the 
belief  that  the  book  is  an  inspired  prophecy.  A 
better  suggestion  is  made,  or  rather  is  revived,  by 
Dr.  Arnold  in  his  Sermons  On  the  Interpretation  of 
Prophecy :  that  we  should  bear  m  mind  that  pre 
dictions  have  a  lower  historical  sense,  as  well  as  a 
higher  spiritual  sense ;  that  there  may  be  one  or 
more  than  one  typical,  imperfect,  historical  fulfil 
ment  of  a  prophecy,  in  each  of  which  the  higher 
spiritual  fulfilment  is  shadowed  forth  more  or  less 
distinctly.  Mr.  Elliott,  in  his  fforae  Apocalypticae, 
.  622,  argues  against  this  f  rinciple ;  but  perhaps 
not  successfully.  The  recognition  of  it  would  pave 
the  way  for  the  acceptance  in  a  modified  sense  of 
many  of  the  interpretations  of  the  Historical  school, 
and  would  not  exclude  the  most  valuable  portions 
the  other  schemes.  [W.  T.  B.] 

REZ'EPH   (PlVV.   T]  'Pa^e.s,  and 


a  The  Alex.  MS.  exhibits  the  same  forms  of  the  namt 
as  the  Vat.;  but  by  a  curious  coincidence  interchange., 
viz.  'Pa<f>f0  in  2  Kings,  'I  a<f>ei<r  in  Isaiah. 


1040 


REZIA 


Resepli).  One  of  the  places  which  Sennacherib  men 
tions,  in  his  taunting  message  to  tLjekiah,  as  having 
been  destroyed  by  his  predecessor  (2  K.  xix.  12; 
Is.  xxxvii.  12).  He  couples  it  with  Haran  and 
other  well-known  Mesopotamian  spots.  The  name 
is  still  a  common  one,  Yakut's  Lexicon  quoting 
nine  towns  so  called.  Interpreters,  however,  are 
at  variance  between  the  principal  two  of  these. 
The  one  is  a  day's  march  west  of  the  Euphrates, 
on  the  road  from  Racca  to  Hums  (Gesenius,  Keil, 
Thenius,  Michaelis,  SuppL~)  ;  the  other,  again,  is 
eo-st  of  the  Euphrates,  near  Bagdad  (Hitzig).  The 
former  is  mentioned  by  Ptolemy  (v.  15)  under  the 
name  of  'Pi}<rd<j)a,  and  appears,  in  the  present  im 
perfect  state  of  our  Mesopotamian  knowledge,  to  be 
the  more  feasible  of  the  two.  [G.] 

KEZ'IA  (K»yj  :  'Paffid:  Resia).  AnAsherite, 
of  the  sons  of  Ulla  (1  Chr.  vii.  39). 


REZ'IN  (PV"):  'P«rtV,  'PaaffffAv:  Rasin). 
1.  A  king  of  Damascus,  contemporary  with  Pekah 
in  Israel,  and  with  Jotham  and  Ahaz  in  Judaea.  The 
policy  of  Rezin  seems  to  have  been  to  ally  himself 
closely  with  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  and,  thus  strength 
ened,  to  cany  on  constant  war  against  the  kings  of 
Judah.  He  attacked  Jotham  during  the  latter  part 
of  his  reign  (2  K.  xv.  37  )  ;  but  his  chief  war  was 
with  Ahaz,  whose  territories  he  invaded,  in  com 
pany  with  Pekah,  soon  after  Ahaz  had  mounted 
the  throne  (about  B.C.  741).  The  combined  army 
laid  siege  to  Jerusalem,  where  Ahaz  was,  but 
"could  not  prevail  against  it"  (Is.  vii.  1  ;  2  K, 
xvi.  5).  Rezin,  however,  "  recovered  Elath  to 
Syria"  (2  K.  xvi.  6);  that  is,  he  conquered  and 
held  possession  of  the  celebrated  town  of  that  name 
at  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akabah,  which  com 
manded  one  of  the  most  important  lines  of  trade  in 
the  East.  Soon  after  this  he  was  attacked  by  Tig- 
lath-Pileser  II.,  king  of  Assyria,  to  whom  Ahaz  in 
his  distress  had  made  application  ;  his  armies  were 
defeated  by  the  Assyrian  hosts;  his  city  besieged 
and  taken;  his  people  carried  away  captive  into 
Susiana  (?  KIR)  ;  and  he  himself  slain  (2  K.  xvi.  9  ; 
compare  Tiglath-Pileser's  own  inscriptions,  where 
the  defeat  of  Rezin  and  the  destruction  of  Damascus 
are  distinctly  mentioned).  This  treatment  was  pro 
bably  owing  to  his  being  regarded  as  a  rebel  ;  since 
Damascus  had  been  taken  and  laid  under  tribute  by 
the  Assyrians  some  time  previously  (Rawlinson's 
Herodotus,  i.  467).  '  [G.  R.] 

2.  One  of  the  families  of  the  Nethinim  (Ezr.  ii. 
48  ;  Neh.  vii.  50).  It  furnishes  another  example 
of  the  occurrence  of  non-Israelite  names  amongst 
them,  which  is  already  noticed  under  MEHUNIM 
[313  note;  and  see  SISERA].  In  1  Esd.  the  name 
appears  as  Daisan,  in  which  the  change  from  R  to  D 
seems  to  imply  that  1  Esdras  at  one  time  existed  in 
Syriac  or  some  other  Semitic  language.  [G-] 

REZ'ON(fin:  'Eo-pecS/x:  Alex.  'Pa^cov  :  Razori). 

The  son  of  Eliadah,  a  Syrian,  who  when  David  de 
feated  Hadadezer  king  of  Zobah,  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  a  band  of  freebooters  and  set  up  a  petty 
kingdom  at  Damascus  (1  K.  xi.  23).  Whether  he 
ivas  an  officer  of  Hadadezer,  who,  foreseeing  the 
destruction  which  David  would  inflict,  prudently 
escaped  with  some  followers  ;  or  whether  he  gathered 
his  band  of  the  remnant  of  those  who  survived  the 
slaughter,  does  not  appear.  The  latter  is  more 
probable.  The  settlement  of  Rezon  at  Damascus 
could  not  have  been  till  some  time  after  the  dis- 


RHEGIUM 

astrous  battie  in  which  the  power  of  Hadadezej 
was  broken,  for  we  are  told  that  David  at  the  same 
time  defeated  the  army  of  Damascene  Syrians  who 
came  to  the  relief  of  Hadadezer,  and  put  garrisons 
in  Damascus.  From  his  position  at  Damascus  he 
harassed  the  kingdom  of  Solomon  during  his  whole 
reign.  With  regard  to  the  statement  of  Nicolaua 
in  the  4th  book  of  his  History,  quoted  by  Josephus 
(Ant.  vii.  5,  §2),  there  is  less  difficulty,  as  there 
seems  to  be  no  reason  for  attributing  to  it  any 
historical  authority.  He  says  that  the  name  of 
the  king  of  Damascus,  whom  David  defeated,  was 
Hadad,  and  that  his  descendants  and  successors  took 
the  same  name  for  ten  generations.  If  this  be  true, 
Rezon  was  a  usurper,  but  the  origin  of  the  story 
is  probably  the  confused  account  of  the  LXX.  In 
the  Vatican  MS.  of  the  LXX.  the  account  of  Rezon 
is  inserted  in  ver.  14  in  close  connexion  with  Hadad, 
and  on  this  Josephus  appears  to  have  founded  his 
story  that  Hadad,  on  leaving  Egypt,  endeavoured 
without  success  to  excite  Idumea  to  revolt,  and 
then  went  to  Syria,  where  he  joined  himself  with 
Rezon,  called  by  Josephus  Raazarus,  who  at  the 
head  of  a  band  of  robbers  was  plundering  the 
country  (Ant.  viii.  7,  §6).  It  was  Hadad  and  not 
Rezon,  according  to  the  account  in  Josephus,  who 
established  himself  king  of  that  part  of  Syria,  and 
made  inroads  upon  the  Israelites.  In  1  K.  xv.  18, 
Benhadad,  king  of  Damascus  in  the  reign  of  Asa, 
is  described  as  the  grandson  of  Hezion,  and  from 
the  resemblance  between  the  names  Rezon  and  He- 
zi^n,  when  written  in  Hebrew  characters,  it  has 
»jeen  suggested  that  the  latter  is  a  corrupt  reading 
for  the  former.  For  this  suggestion,  however,  there 
does  not  appear  to  be  sufficient  ground,  though  it 
was  adopted  both  by  Sir  John  Marsham  (Chron. 
Can.  p.  346)  and  Sir  Isaac  Newton  (ChronoL  p. 
221).  Bunsen  (Bibelwerk,  i.  p.  cclxxi.)  makes 
Hezion  contemporary  with  Rehoboam,  and  probably 
a  grandson  of  Rezon.  The  name  is  Aramaic,  and 
Ewald  compares  it  with  Rezin.  [W.  A.  W.] 

RHE'GIUM  ('Pfoiov:  Rhegium).  The  men 
tion  of  this  Italian  town  (which  was  situated  on  the 
Bruttian  coast,  just  at  the  southern  entrance  of  the 
straits  of  Messina)  occurs  quite  incidentally  (Acts 
xxviii.  13)  in  the  account  of  St.  Paul's  voyage  from 
Syracuse  to  Puteoli,  after  the  shipwreck  at  Malta. 
But,  for  two  reasons,  it  is  worthy  of  careful  atten 
tion.  By  a  curious  coincidence  the  figures  on  its 
coins  are  the  very  "  twin-brothers "  which  gave 
the  name  to  St.  Paul's  ship.  See  (attached  to  the 
article  CASTOR  AND  POLLUX)  the  coin  of  Bruttii, 
which  doubtless  represents  the  forms  that  were 
painted  or  sculptured  on  the  vessel.  And,  again, 
the  notice  of  the  intermediate  position  of  Rhegium, 
the  waiting  there  for  a  southerly  wind  to  carry  the 
ship  through  the  straits,  the  run  to  Puteoli  with 
such  a  wind  within  the  twenty  four  hours,  are  all 
points  of  geographical  accuracy  which  help  us  to 
realise  the  narrative.  As  to  the  history  of  the 
place,  it  was  originally  a  Greek  colony:  it  was 
miserably  destroyed  by  Dionysius  of  Syracuse : 
from  Augustus  it  received  advantages  which  com 
bined  with  its  geographical  position  in  making  it 
important  throughout  the  duration  of  the  Roman 
empire  :  it  was  prominently  associated,  in  the  middle 
ages,  with  the  varied  fortunes  of  the  Greek  emperors, 
the  Saracens,  and  the  Romans:  and  still  the  modern 
Reggio  is  a  town  of  10,000  inhabitants.  Its  distance 
across  the  straits  from  Messina  is  only  about  six 
miles,  and  it  is  well  seen  from  the  telegraph  statioc 
above  that  Sicilian  town.  [J.  S,  H.j 


KUESA 

RHE'SA  ('Priffd :  Resa\  son  of  Zorobabel  in 
the  genealogy  of  Christ  (Luke  iii.  27).  Lord  A. 
Hervey  has  ingeniously  conjectured  that  Rhesa  is 
no  person,  but  merely  the  title  Rosh,  i.  e.  '*  Prince," 
originally  attached  to  the  name  of  Zerubbabel,  and 
gradually  introduced  as  an  independent  name  into 
*he  genealogy.  He  thus  removes  an  important 
obstacle  to  the  reconciliation  of  the  pedigrees  in 
Matthew  and  Luke  (Hervey's  Genealogies,  &c.,  Ill 
114,  356-60).  [GENEALOGV  OF  JESUS  CHRIST, 
675a;  ZERUBBABEL.]  [G.] 

KHO'DA  ('P68T) ;  Rhode],  lit.  Rose,  the  name 
of  a  maid  who  announced  Peter's  arrival  at  the  door 
of  Mary's  house  after  his  miraculous  release  from 
prison  (Acts  xii.  13). 

RHODES  ('Po'Soj;  Rhodus).  The  history  of 
this  island  is  so  illustrious,  that  it  is  interesting  to 
see  it  connected,  even  in  a  small  degree,  with  the  life 
of  St.  Paul.  He  touched  there  on  his  return-voyage 
to  Syria  from  the  third  missionary  journey  (Acts 
xxi.  1).  It  does  not  appear  that  he  landed  from 
the  ship.  The  day  before  he  had  been  at  Cos,  an 
island  to  the  N.W. ;  and  from  Rhodes  he  proceeded 
eastwards  to  PATARA  in  Lyjia.  It  seems,  from  all 
the  circumstances  of  the  narrative,  that  the  wind 
was  blowing  from  the  N.W.,  as  it  very  often  does 
in  that  part  of  the  Levant.  Rhodes  is  immediately 
opposite  the  high  Carian  and  Lycian  headlands  at 
the  S.W.  extremity  of  the  peninsula  of  Asia  Minor. 
Its  position  has  had  much  to  do  with  its  history. 
The  outline  of  that  history  is  as  follows.  Its  real 
eminence  began  (about  400  B.C.)  with  the  founding 
of  that  city  at  the  N.E.  extremity  of  the  island, 
which  still  continues  to  be  the  capital.  Though  the 
Dorian  race  was  originally  and  firmly  established 
here,  yet  Rhodes  was  very  frequently  dependent  on 
others,  between  the  Peloponnesian  war  and  the  time 
of  Alexander's  campaign.  After  Alexander's  death 
it  entered  on  a  glorious  period,  its  material  prosperity 
being  largely  developed,  and  its  institutions  deserving 
and  obtaining  general  esteem.  As  we  approach  the 
time  of  the  consolidation  of  the  Roman  power  in 
the  Levant,  we  have  a  notice  of  Jewish  residents  in 
Rhodes  (1  Mace.  xv.  23).  The  Romans,  after  the 
defeat  of  Antiochus,  assigned,  during  some  time,  to 
Rhodes  certain  districts  on  the  mainland  [CARIA, 
LYCTA]  ;  and  when  these  were  withdrawn,  upon 
more  mature  provincial  arrangements  being  made, 
the  island  still  enjoyed  (from  Augustus  to  Vespasian) 
a  considerable  amount  of  independence.*  It  is  in 
this  interval  that  St.  Paul  was  there.  Its  Byzantine 
history  is  again  eminent.  Under  Constantine  it  was 
the  metropolis  of  the  "  Province  of  the  Islands."  It 
was  the  last  place  where  the  Christians  of  the  East 
held  out  against  the  advancing  Saracens;  and  sub 
sequently  it  was  once  more  famous  as  the  home  and 
fortress  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John.  The  most 
prominent  remains  of  the  city  and  harbour  are 
memorials  of  those  knights.  The  best  account  of 
Rhodes  will  ~^t  found  in  Ross,  Reisen  auf  den 
Griech.  Inseln,  iii.  70-113,  and  Reisen  nach  Kos, 
Halikarnassos,  Rhodos,  &c.,  pp.  53-80.  There  is  a 
^ood  view,  as  well  as  an  accurate  delineation  of  the 
coast,  in  the  English  Admiralty  Chart  No.  1639. 
Perhaps  the  best  illustration  we  can  adduce  here  is 


KIBLAif 


1041 


one  of  the  early  coins  of  Rhodes,  with  the  conven 
tional  rose-flower,  which  bore  the  name  of  the  island 
on  one  side,  and  the  head  of  Apollo,  radiated  like 
the  sun,  on  the  other  It  was  a  proverb  that  th« 
sun  shone  every  day  ii  Rhodes.  [J.  S.  H."J 


Coin  of  Rhodes. 

RHO'DOCUS  ('Po'So/cos :  Rhodocus}.  A  Jew 
who  betrayed  the  plans  of  his  countrymen  to 
Antiochus  Eupator.  His  treason  was  discovered, 
and  he  was  placed  in  confinement  (2  Mace.  xiii. 
21.)  [B.  F.  W.] 

RHODUS  ('P6Sos :  Rhodus'),  1  Mace.  xv.  23. 
[RHODES.] 

RIBA'I  (vjn :  'Pifid  in  Sam.,  'Pefre ;  Alex. 


in  Chr. :  Ribai).  The  father  of  Ittai  the 
Benjamite  of  Gibeah,  who  was  one  of  David's  mighty 
men  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  29  ;  1  Chr.  xi.  31). 

KIB'LAH,  1.  (r6l-in,  with  the  definite  article : 

Brj\db  inbothMSS.:  Rebld).  One  of  the  landmarks 
on  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  land  of  Israel,  as 
specified  by  Moses  (Num.  xxxiv.  11).  Its  position 
is  noted  in  this  passage  with  much  precision.  It 
was  immediately  between  Shepham  and  the  sea  of 
Cinnereth,  and  on  the  "  east  side  of  the  spring." 
Unfortunately  Shepham  has  not  yet  been  identified, 
and  which  of  the  great  fountains  of  northern 
Palestine  is  intended  by  "  the  spring "  is  uncer 
tain.  It  seems  hardly  possible,  without  entirely 
disarranging  the  specification  of  the  boundary,  that 
the  Riblah  in  question  can  be  the  same  with  the 
Riblah  in  the  land  of  Hamath "  which  is  men 
tioned  at  a  much  later  period  of  the  history. 
For,  according  to  this  passage,  a  great  distance 
must  necessarily  have  intervened  between  Riblah  and 
Hamath.  This  will  be  evident  from  a  mere  enume- 
•ation  of  the  landmarks. 

1 .  The    north   boundary  :    The   Mediterranean, 
Mount  Hor,  the  entrance  of  Hamath,  Zedad,  Zi- 
phron,  Hazar-enan. 

2.  The  eastern  boundary  commenced  from  Hazar- 
enan,  turning    south :    Shepham,   Riblah,   passing 
east  of  the  spring,  to  east  side  of  Se?  of  Galilee. 

Now  it  seems  impossible  that  Riblah  can  be  in 
the  land  of  Hamath,0  seeing  that  four  landmarks 
occur  between  them.  Add  to  this  its  apparent 
proximity  to  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 

The  early  Jewish  interpreters  have  felt  the  for?e 
of  this.  Confused  as  is  the  catalogue  of  the  boun 
dary  in  the  Targum  Pseudojonathan  of  Num .  xxxiv. , 
t  is  plain  that  the  author  of  that  version  considers 
'  the  spring  "  as  the  spring  of  Jordan  at  Banias, 
and  Riblah,  therefore,  as  a  place  near  it.  With 
this  agrees  Parchi  the  Jewish  traveller  in  the  13th 
and  14th  centuries,  who  expressly  discriminates 


*  Two  incidents  in  the  life  of  Herod  the  Great  con- 
lected  witL  Rhodes,  are  well  worthy  of  mention  here. 
When  he  went  to  Italy,  about  the  close  of  the  last,  Repub 
lican  struggle,  ae  found  that  the  city  had  suffered  much 
from  Cassius,  and  gave  liberal  sums  to  restore  it  (Joseph. 
Ant.  xiv.  14,  $3).  Here  also  after  tne  battle  of  Actiuru. 

VOL.  in. 


;  but  the 


ue  met  Augustus  azd  secured  his  favour  (ib.  xv. 

b  Originally  it  appears  to  have  stood  ' 
'Ap  has  now  attached  itself  to  the  preceding 
Sen-^a/u.  a  p.    Can  this  be  the  ARBELA  of  1  Mace.  ix.  2  ? 

c  If  Mr.  Porter's  identifications  of  ZeJad  and  Hatsa? 
«^nan  are  adonted  the  difficulty  Is  Increased  tenfold. 

3  X 


1042 


RIDDLE 


Between  the  two  (see  the  extracts  in  Zunz's  Ben 
jamin,  ii.  418),  and  in  our  own  day  .1.  D.  Michaelis 
(Bihel  fur  Ungelehrten  ;  Snppl.  ad  Lexica,  No. 
2313),  and  Bonfrerius,  the  learned  editor  of  Euse- 
bius*  Onomasticon. 

No  place  bearing  the  name  of  Riblah  has  been 
yet  discovered  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Banias. 

2.  Riblah  in  the  land  of  Hamath  (ikn  once 


,  «.  <?.  Riblathah  :  •  Aej8A.a0a  in  both  MSS.  : 

Reblatha}.  A  place  on  the  great  road  between  Pa 
lestine  and  Babylonia,  at  which  the  kings  of  Baby 
lonia  were  accustomed  to  remain  while  directing 
the  operations  of  their  armies  in  Palestine  and 
Phoenicia.  Here  Nebuchadnezzar  waited  while  the 
sieges  of  Jerusalem  and  of  Tyre  were  being  con 
ducted  by  his  lieutenants;  hither  were  brought  to 
him  the  wretched  king  of  Judaea  and  his  sons,  and 
after  a  time  a  selection  from  all  ranks  and  condi 
tions  of  the  conquered  city,  who  were  put  to  death, 
doubtless  by  the  horrible  death  of  impaling,  which 
the  Assyrians  practised,  and  the  long  lines  of  the 
victims  to  which  are  still  to  be  seen  on  their  monu 
ments  (Jer.  xxxix.  5,  6,  lii.  9,  10,  26,  27  ;  2  K. 
xxv.  6,  20,  21).  In  like  manner  Pharaoh-Necho, 
after  his  successful  victory  over  the  Babylonians  at 
Carchemish,  returned  to  Riblah  and  summoned  Je- 
hoahaz  from  Jerusalem  before  him  (2  K.  xxiii.  33). 

This  Riblah  has  no  doubt  been  discovered,  still 
retaining  its  ancient  name,  on  the  right  (east) 
bank  of  the  el  Asy  (Orontes),  upon  the  great  road 
which  connects  Baalbek  and  Hums,  about  35 
miles  N.E.  of  the  former  and  20  miles  S.W.  of  the 
latter  place.  The  advantages  of  its  position  for  the 
encampment  of  vast  hosts,  such  as  those  of  Egypt 
and  Babylon,  are  enumerated  by  Dr.  Robinson,  who 
visited  it  in  1852  (Bib.  Ees.  iii.  545).  He  de 
scribes  it  as  "  lying  on  the  banks  of  a  mountain 
stream  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  and  fertile  plain 
yielding  the  most  abundant  supplies  of  forage. 
From  this  point  the  roads  were  open  by  Aleppo 
and  the  Euphrates  to  Nineveh,  or  by  Palmyra  to 
Babylon  ....  by  the  end  of  Lebanon  and  the 
coast  to  Palestine  and  Egypt,  or  through  the  Bukaa 
and  the  Jordan  valley  to  the  centre  of  the  Holy 
Land."  It  appears  to  have  been  first  alluded  to  by 
Buckingham  in  1816. 

Riblah  is  probably  mentioned  by  Ezekiel  (vi.  14), 
though  in  the  present  Hebrew  text  and  A.  V.  it 
appears  as  Diblah  or  Diblath.  The  change  from  R 
to  D  is  in  Hebrew  a  very  easy  one.  Riblah  suits 
the  sense  of  the  passage  very  well,  while  on  the 
other  hand  Diblah  is  not  known.  [DIBLATH.]  [G.] 


RIDDLE  (rnVl  :    ofrj-y/ta,  7rp^j8\7j^o  :  pro- 

blema,  propositio}.  The  Hebrew  word  is  derived 
from  an  Arabic  root  meaning  "  to  bend  off,"  "  to 
twist,"  and  is  used  for  artifice  (Dan.  viii.  23),  a 
proverb  (Prov.  i.  6),  a  song  (Ps.  xlix.  4,  Ixxviii.  2), 
HII  oracle  (Num.  xii.  8),  a  parable  (Ez.  xvii.  2),  and 
in  general  any  wise  or  intricate  sentence  (Ps.  xciv. 
4;  Hab.  ii.  6,  &c.),  as  well  as  a  riddle  in  pur  sense 
of  the  word  (Judg.  xiv.  12-19).  In  these  senses 
we  may  compare  the  phrases  ffrpo(p^  \6y(at>, 
GT-poQal  irapafioXuv  (Wisd.  viii.  8  ;  Ecclus.  xxxix. 
2),  and  irepnrXoK^  \6yoov  (Eur.  Phoen.  497; 
Gesen.  s.  v.},  and  the  Latin  scirpus,  which  appears 
lo  have  been  similarly  used  (Aul.  Gell.  Noct.  Att, 

*  The  two  great  MSS.  of  the  LXX.—  Vatican  (Mai)  und 
A-leZ.  —  present  the  name  as  follow:  — 

2  K.  xxiii.  33,  'AjBAaa  ;  Ae/3Aaa. 
XXV.    6,  'I 


RIDDLE 

yii.  6).  Augustine  defines  an  enigma  to  be  an) 
"obscura  allegoria"  (de  Trin.  xv.  9),  and  points 
out,  as  an  instance,  the  passage  about  the  daughter 
of  the  horse-lefcch  in  Prov.  xxx.  15,  which  haa 
been  elaborately  explained  by  Bellermann  in  a  mo 
nograph  on  the  subject  (Aenitjmata  Jlebraica,  Erf. 
1798).  Many  passages,  although  not  definitely 
propounded  as  riddles,  may  be  regarded  as  such, 
e.  g.  Prov.  xxvi.  10,  a  verse  in  the  rendering  of 
which  every  version  differs  from  all  othens.  "The 
riddles  which  the  queen  of  Sheba  came  to  ask  of  So 
lomon  (1  K.  x.  1,  i^A-fle  TTfipda-ai  avrbv  eV  alviy- 
uaffi ;  2  Chr.  ix.  1)  were  rather  "  hard  questions  " 
referring  to  profound  enquiries.  Solomon  is  said, 
however,  to  have  been  very  fond  of  the  riddle 
proper,  for  Josephus  quotes  two  profane  historians 
(Menander  of  Ephesus,  and  Dius)  to  authenticate  a 
story  that  Solomon  proposed  numerous  riddles  tc 
Hiram,  for  the  non-solution  of  which  Hiram  was 
obliged  to  pay  a  large  fine,  until  he  summoned  to 
his  assistance  a  Tyrian  named  Abdemon,  who  not 
only  solved  the  riddles,  but  propounded  others 
which  Solomon  was  himself  unable  to  answer,  and 
consequently  in  his  turn  incurred  the  penalty.  The 
word  alvi-y^a.  occurs  only  once  in  the  N.  T.  (1  Cor. 
xiii.  12,  "  darkly,"  eV  aiVfy/mrt,  comp.  Num.  xii, 
8;  Wetstein,  N.  T.  ii.  158);  but,  in  the  wider 
meaning  of  the  word,  many  instances  of  it  occur  in 
our  Lord's  discourses.  Thus  Erasmus  applies  the 
term  to  Matt.  xii.  43-45.  The  object  of  such  im 
plicated  meanings  is  obvious,  and  is  well  explained 
by  St.  Augustine :  "  manifestis  pascimur,  obscuris 
exercemur"  (de  Doct.  Christ,  ii.  6). 

We  know  that  all  ancient  nations,  and  especially 
Orientals,  have  been  fond  of  riddles  (Rosenmiiller, 
Morgenl.  iii.  68).  We  find  traces  of  the  custom 
among  the  Arabs  (Koran,  xxv.  35),  and  indeed 
several  Arabic  books  of  riddles  exist — as  Ketab  al 
Algaz  in  1469,  and  a  book  of  riddles  solved,  called 
Akd  al  themin.  But  these  are  rather  emblems  and 
devices  than  what  we  call  riddles,  although  they 
are  very  ingenious.  The  Persians  call  them  Algaz 
and  Maamma  (D'Herbelot,  s.  v.  Algaz).  They 
were  also  known  to  the  Ancient  Egyptians  (Ja- 
blonski,  Pantheon  Aegypt.  48).  They  were  espe 
cially  used  in  banquets  both  by  Greeks  and  Romans 
(M tiller,  Dor.  ii.  892  ;  Athen.  x.  457  ;  Pollux,  vi. 
107;  A.  Gell.  xviii.  2;  Diet,  of  Ant.  p.  22),  and 
the  kind  of  witticisms  adopted  may  be  seen  in  the 
literary  dinners  described  by  Plato,  Xenophon, 
Athenaeus,  Plutarch,  and  Macrobius.  Some  have 
groundlessly  supposed  that  the  proverbs  of  Solo 
mon,  Lemuel,  and  Agur,  were  propounded  at  feasts, 
like  the  parables  spoken  by  our  Lord  on  similar 
occasions  (Luke  xiv.  7,  &c.). 

Riddles  were  generally  proposed  in  verse,  like  the 
celebrated  riddle  of  Samson,  which,  however,  was 
properly  (as  Voss  points  out,  Instt.  Oratt.  iv.  11) 
no  riddle  at  all,  because  the  Philistines  did  not 
possess  the  only  clue  on  which  the  solution  cw,ld 
depend.  For  this  reason  Samson  had  carefully  con 
cealed  the  fact  even  from  his  parents  (Judg.  xiv.  14, 
&c.).  Other  ancient  riddles  in  verse  are  that  of  the 
Sphinx,  and  that  which  is  said  to  have  caused  the 
death  of  Homer  by  his  mortification  at  being  unable 
to  solve  it  (Plutarch,  Vit.  Horn.}. 

Franc.  Junius  distinguishes  between  the  greater 
enigma,  where  the  allegory  or  obscure  intimation 


2  K.  xxv.  20,  Ae/3Aa0a  ;  Ae/3Aada. 

„      21,  "Ps/SAafla;          „ 
Jer.  Hi.  9.  10,  26.  27,  Ae£Aa0i.  ia  both. 


RIMMON  1042 

supposed,  even  as  far  back    as  Irenaeus,  .tie  name 
Adreti/os  to  be  indicated.    A  list  of  the  other  verj 
numerous  solutions,  proposed  in  different  ages,  ma« 
where  the  difficulty  is  concentrated" in  the  peculiar  use  j  be  found  in   Elliott's   Horae  Apocalt/pticae,  from 


RIDDLE 

\g  continuous  throughout  the  passage  (as  in  E/.. 
xvii.  2,  and  in  such  poems  as  the  Syrinx  attributed 
to  Theocritus)  ;  and  the  lesser  enigma  or  virai 


of  some  one  word.  It  maybe  useful  to  refer  to 
or  two  instances  of  the  latter,  since  they  are  veiy 
frequently  to  be  found  in  the  Bible,  and  especially 
in  the  Prophets.  Such  is  the  play  on  the  word 
("a  portion,"  and  "  Shechem,"  the  town  of 
Ephraim)  in  Gen.  xlviii.  22  ;  on  T)¥JD  (mdtzor, 
"  a  fortified  city,"  and  D^"1VJD,  Mizraim,  Egypt) 
in  Mic.  vii.  12  ;  on  *]$&  (Shaked,  "  an  almond- 
tree"),  and  ^K>  (shakad,  "  to  hasten"),  in  Jer.  i. 
11;  on  nJD-V1?  (Dwnah,  meaning  "  Edom  "  and 
"the  land  of  death"),  iu  Is.  xxi.  11 ;  on  ^W? 
Sheshach  (meaning  "  Babylon,"  and  perhaps  "  ar 
rogance  "),  in  Jer.  xxv.  26,  Ii.  41. 

It  only  remains  to  notice  the  single  instance 
of  a  riddle  occurring  in  the  N.  T.,  viz.,  the  number 
of  the  beast.  This  belongs  to  a  class  of  riddles 
very  common  among  Egyptian  mystics,  the  Gnostics, 
some  of  the  Fathers,  and  the  Jewish  Cabbalists.  The 
latter  called  it  Gematria  (i.  e.  jeca/j-erpia)  of  which 
instances  may  be  found  in  Carpzov  (App.  Grit.  p. 
542),  Reland  (Ant.  Hebr.  i.  25),  and  some  of  the 
commentators  on  Rev.  xiii.  16-18.  Thus  J^rlJ 

TT 

(ndchdsli),  "  serpent,"  is  made  by  the  Jews  one  of 
the  names  of  the  Messiah,  because  its  numerical 

value   is   equivalent   to  PPE^D ;    and   the   names 
-  •   T  7 

Shushan  and  Esther  are  connected  together  because 
the  numerical  value  of  the  letters  composing  them 
is  661.  Thus  the  Marcosians  regarded  the  number 
24  as  sacred  from  its  being  the  sum  of  numerical 
values  in  the  names  of  two  quaternions  of  their 
Aeons,  and  the  Gnostics  used  the  name  Abraxas 
as  an  amulet,  because  its  letters  amount  nume 
rically  to  365.  Such  idle  fancies  are  not  unfre- 
quent  in  some  of  the  Fathers.  We  have  already 
mentioned  (see  CROSS)  the  mystic  explanation  by 
Clem.  Alexandrinus  of  the  number  318  in  Gen. 
xiv.  14,  and  by  Tertullian  of  the  number  300  (re 
presented  by  the  letter  T  or  a  cross)  in  Judg.  vii. 
6,  and  similar  instances  are  supplied  by  the  Testi- 
monia  of  the  Pseudo-Cyprian.  The  most  exact 
analogies,  however,  to  the  enigma  on  the  name  of 
the  beast,  are  to  be  found  in  the  so-called  Sibylline 
verses.  We  quote  one  which  is  exactly  similar  to 
it,  the  answer  being  found  in  the  name  'Iijo-oCy 
=  888,  thus:  1  =  10  +  ?j  =8  +  a  =  200  +  o  =  70 
+  v  =  400  +  s  =  200  =  888.  It  is  as  follows, 
and  is  extremely  curious  : 

>}£ec  o-apKO<£>6pos  6vTrjrol<;  6ju.otovfx.evos  ev  yfj 
Te'<r<repa  (^wi/rjei/ra  <£f'pei,  TO.  8'  wfxava  6V  aura! 
fitVcrwi*  acTTpayoAaji/  (?),  apifyxbi/  8'  o\ov  e{ 
OKTta  yap  /u.oi'aSa?,  bVcras  5e»caSa?  e:rl  TOVTOIS, 

OUl/O/U.0. 


With  examples  like  this  before  us,  it  would  be 
absurd  to  doubt  that  St.  John  (not  greatly  removed 
in  time  from  the  Christian  forgers  of  the  Sibylline 
verses)  intended  some  name  as  an  answer  to  the 
Dumber  666.  The  true  answer  must  be  settled  by 
the  Apocalyptic  commentators.  Most  of  the  Fathers 


a  In  this  passage  H  is  generally  thought  that  Sheshach 
is  put  for  Babel,  by  the  principle  of  alphabetical  inversion 
bnown  as  the  aVibasli.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  passages 
fcbove  quoted  are  chiefly  instances  of  paronomasia.  On 


which  we  have  q.uoted  several   of  these  instant 


(Hor.  Apoc.  iii.  222-234). 
RIM'MON  (|iB-1 : 


[F.  W.  F.] 
:  Remmori).   Rim 
mon,  a  Benjamite  of  Betroth,  was  the  father  of 
Rechab  and  Baanah,  the  murderers  of  Ishbosheth 
(2  Sam.  iv.  2,  5,  9). 


EIM'MON 


Remmari).     A 


deity,  worshipped  by  the  Syrians  of  Damascus, 
where  there  was  a  temple  or  house  of  Rimmon 
(2  K.  v.  18).  Traces  of  the  name  of  this  god 
appear  also  in  the  proper  names  Hadad-rimmon 
and  Tabrimmon,  but  its  signification  is  doubtful. 
Serarius,  quoted  by  Selden  (De  dis  Syris,  ii.  10), 
refers  it  to  the  Heb.  rimmon,  a  pomegranate,  a 
fruit  sacred  to  Venus,  who  is  thus  the  deity  wor 
shipped  under  this  title  (compare  Pomona,  from 
pomum).  Ursinus  (Arboretum  Bibl.  cap.  32,  7) 
explains  Rimmon  as  the  pomegranate,  the  emblem 
of  the  fertilizing  principle  of  nature,  the  personified 
natara  naturans,  a  symbol  of  frequent  occurrence 
in  the  old  religions  (Bahr,  Symbolik,  ii.  122).  If 
this  be  the  true  origin  of  the  name,  it  presents  us 
with  a  relic  of  the  ancient  tree-worship  of  the  East, 
which  we  know  to  have  prevailed  in  Palestine. 
But  Selden  rejects  this  derivation,  and  proposes 
instead  that  Rimmon  is  from  the  root  D-ll,  rum, 
"  to  be  high,"  and  signifies  "  most  high  ;"  like 
the  Phoenician  JElionn,  and  Heb.  fl^y.  Hesy- 


chius    gives  'PO//.&S,    6 


Beds.     Clericus, 


Vitringa,  Rosenmiiller,  and  Gesenius  were  of  the 
same  opinion. 

Movers  (Phoen.  i.  196,  &c.)  regards  Rimmon  ar 
the  abbreviated  form  of  Hadad-Rimmon  (as  Peor 
for  Baal-Peor),  Hadad  being  the  sun-god  of  the 
Syrians.  Combining  this  with  the  pomegranate, 
which  was  his  symbol,  Hadad-Rimmon  would  then 
be  the  sun-god  of  the  late  summer,  who  ripens  the 
pomegranate  and  other  fruits,  and,  after  infusing 
••into  them  his  productive  power,  dies,  and  is  mourned 
with  the  "  mourning  of  Hadadrimmon  in  the  valley 
of  Megiddon"  (Zech.  xii.  11). 

Between  these  different  opinions  there  is  no  pos 
sibility  of  deciding.  The  name  occurs  but  once, 
and  there  is  no  evidence  on  the  point.  But  the 
conjecture  of  Selden.  which  is  approved  by  Gesenius, 
has  the  greater  show  of  probability.  [W.  A.  W.] 

KIM'MON  (i:iGTl,  i.e.  Rimmono: 
Remmono}.  A  city  of  Zebulun  belonging  to  the 
Merarite  Levites  (1  Chr.  vi.  77).  There  is  great 
discrepancy  between  the  list  in  which  it  occurs  and 
the  parallel  catalogue  of  Josh.  xxi.  The  former 
contains  two  names  in  place  of  the  four  of  the  latter, 
and  neither  of  them  the  same.  But  it  is  not  im 
possible  that  DIMNAH  (Josh.  xxi.  35)  may  have 
been  originally  Rimmon,  as  the  D  and  R  in  Hebrew 
are  notoriously  easy  to  confound.  At  any  rate  there 
is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  Rimmono  is  not 
identical  with  Rimmou  of  Zebulun  (Josh.  xix.  13), 
in  the  A.  V.  REMMON-METHOAR.  The  redundant 
letter  was  probably  transferred,  in  copying,  from  the 
succeeding  word  —  at  an  early  date,  since  all  the  MSS. 


the  profound  use  of  this  figure  by  the  prophets  and  otbei 
writers  see  Ewald,  Die  Profjhetcn  d.  Alt.  Bund.  i.  4H ! 
SteiDthal;  Urtpr.  d.  Spracke,  p.  23. 

3X2 


1044 


KIMMON 


appear  to  exhibit  it,  as  does  also  the  Targum  of 
.Joseph.  [G.] 

RIM'MON  (fl^n  :  'Epw/j-cad  ;  Ale;:.  'Vefiutai  ; 
'Pe/iua'j' ;  Remintni).  A  town  in  the  southern  por 
tion  of  Judah  (Josh.  xv.  32),  allotted  to  Simeon 
(Josh.  xix.  7  ;  1  Chr.  iv.  32 :  in  the  former  of 
these  two  passages  it  is  inaccurately  given  in  the 
A.  V.  as  REMMON).  In  each  of  the  above  lists  the 
name  succeeds  that  of  AIN,  also  one  of  the  cities  of 
Judah  and  Simeon.  In  the  catalogue  of  the  places 
reoccupied  by  the  Jews  after  the  return  from 
Babylon  (Neh.  xi.  29)  the  two  are  joined  (flft")  \*$  ; 

LXX.  omits :  et  in  Remmori),  and  appear  in  the 
A.  V.  as  En- Rimmon.  There  is  nothing  to  support 
this  single  departure  of  the  Hebrew  text  from  its 
practice  in  the  other  lists  except  the  fact  that  the 
Vatican  LXX.  (if  the  edition  of  Mai  may  be  trusted) 
has  joined  the  names  in  each  of  the  lists  of  Joshua, 
from  which  it  may  be  inferred  that  at  the  time  of 
the  LXX.  translation  the  Hebrew  text  there  also 
showed  them  joined.  On  the  other  hand  there  does 
not  appear  to  be  any  sign  of  such  a  thing  in  the 
present  Hebrew  MSS. 

No  trace  of  Rimmon  has  been  yet  discovered  in 
the  south  of  Palestine,  true,  it  is  mentioned  in  the 
Onomastic&n  of  Eusebius  and  Jerome;  but  they 
locate  it  at  15  miles  north  of  Jerusalem,  obviously 
confounding  it  with  the  Rock  Rimmon.  That  it 
was  in  the  south  would  be  plain,  even  though  the 
lists  above  cited  were  not  extant,  from  Zech.  xiv. 
10.  where  it  is  stated  to  be  "  south  of  Jerusalem," 
and  where  it  and  Geba  (the  northern  frontier  of 
the  southern  kingdom)  are  named  as  the  limits  of 
the  change  whicn  is  to  take  place  in  the  aspect  and 
formation  of  the  country.  In  this  case  Jerome,  both 
in  the  Vulgate  and  in  his  Commentary  (in  Zech. 
xiv.  9  seqq.),  joins  the  two  names,  and  understands 
them  to  denote  a  hill  north  of  Jerusalem,  appa 
rently  well  known  (doubtless  the  ancient  GIBEAH), 
marked  by  a  pomegranate  tree — "  collis  Rimmon 
(hoc  enim  Gabaa  sonat,  ubi  arbor  malagranati  est) 
usque  ad  australem  plagam  Jerusalem."  [G.] 


RIM'MON  PA'REZ  (}T  3  fb")  :  "Pe^v  ta 
pe's).  The  name  of  a  march-station  in  the  wilder 
ness  (Num.  xxxiii.  19,  20).  Rimmon  is  a  common 
.name  of  locality.  The  latter  word  is  the  same  as  that 
found  in  the  plural  form  in  Baal-Perazim,  "  Baal 
of  the  breaches."  Perhaps  some  local  configuration, 
such  as  a  "  cleft,"  might  account  for  its  being  added. 
It  stands  between  Rithmah  and  Libnah.  No  place 
now  known  has  been  identified  with  it.  [H.  H.] 


RIM'MON,   THE  ROCK 

y  TT€Tpa  rov  'Pe/i/xcoi/  ;  Joseph.  ireTpa  'Poa  :  peira 
cujus  vocabulum  est  Remrnon  •  petra  Remmori). 
A  cliff  (such  seems  rather  the  force  of  the  Hebrew 
word  sela)  or  inaccessible  natural  fastness,  in  which 
the  six  hundred  Benjamites  who  escaped  the  slaugh 
ter  of  Gibeah  took  1'efuge,  and  maintained  them 
selves  for  four  months  until  released  by  the  act  of 
the  general  body  of  the  tribes  (Judg.  xx.  45,  47, 
xxi.  13). 

It  is  described  as  in  the  "  wilderness"  (midbar), 
Aat  is,  the  wild  uncultivated  (though  not  unpro- 
4ictive)  country  which  lies  on  the  east  of  the 
central  highlands  of  Benjamin,  on  which  Gibeah  was 
situated  —  between  them  and  the  Jordan  Valley. 


a  In  *wo  out  of  its  four  occurrences,  the  article  is 
omitted  both  in  the  Hebrew  and  LXX. 


RINNAH 

Here  the  name  is  still  found  attache  vl  to  a  village 
perched  on  the  summit  of  a  conical  chalky  hill, 
visible  in  all  directions,  and  commanding  the  whole 
country  (  Rob.  B.  R.  i.  440). 

The  hill  is  steep  and  naked,  the  white  limestone 
everywhere  protruding,  and  the  houses  clinging  to 
its  sides  and  forming  as  it  were  huge  steps.  On 
the  south  side  it  rises  to  a  height  of  several  hundred 
feet  from  the  great  rav-ine  of  the  Wady  Mutyah  ; 
while  on  the  west  side  it  is  almost  equally  isolated 
by  a  cross  valley  of  great  depth  (Portar,  Handbk. 
217;  Mr.  Finn,  in  Van  de  Velde,  Memoir,  345). 
In  position  it  is  (as  the  crow  flies)  3  miles  east  of 
Bethel,  and  7  N.E.  of  Gibeah  (Tulcil  el-Ful}. 
Thus  in  every  particular  of  name,  character,  and 
situation  it  agrees  with  the  requirements  of  the  Rock 
Rimmon.  It  was  known  in  the  days  of  Eusebius 
and  Jerome,  who  mention  it  (Onomasticon,  "  Rem 
mon")  —  though  confounding  it  with  Rimmon  in 
Simeon  —  as  15'  Roman  miles  northwards  from 
Jerusalem.  [G.J 


RING  (nV3B  :  5a/cTu\tos  :  annulus).  The 
ring  was  1'egarded  as  an  indispensable  article  of  a 
Hebrew's  attire,  inasmuch  as  it  contained  his  signet, 
and  even  owed  its  name  to  this  circumstance,  the 
term  tabbaath  being  derived  from  a  root  signifying 
"  to  impress  a  seal."  It  was  hence  the  symbol  of 
authority,  and  as  such  was  presented  by  Pharaoh 
to  Joseph  (Gen.  xli.  42),  by  Ahasuerus  to  Hamaii 
(Esth.  iii.  10),  by  Antiochus  to  Philip  (1  Mace.  vi. 
15),  and  by  the  father  to  the  prodigal  son  in  the 
parable  (Luke  xv.  22).  It  was  treasured  accordingly, 
and  became  a  proverbial  expression  for  a  most  valued 
object  (Jer.  xxii.  24;  Hagg.  ii.  23  ;  Ecclus.  xlix.  11). 
Such  rings  were  worn  not  only  by  men,  but  by 
women  (Is.  iii.  21  ;  Mishn.  Sabb.  6,  §3),  and  are 
enumerated  among  the  articles  presented  by  men 
and  women  for  the  service  of  the  tabernacle  (Ex. 
xxxv.  22).  The  signet-ring  was  worn  on  the  right 
hand  (Jer.  I.  c.).  We  may  conclude,  from  Ex. 
xxviii.  11,  that  the  rings  contained  a  stone  engraven 
with  a  device,  or  with  the  owner's  name.  Numerous 
specimens  of  Egyptian  rings  have  been  discovered, 
most  of  them  made  of  gold,  very  massive,  and  con 
taining  either  a  scarabaeus  or  an  engraved  stone 
(Wilkinson,  ii.  337).  The  number  of  rings  worn 


Egyptian  Rings, 

by  the  Egyptians  was  truly  remarkable.  The  same 
profusion  was  exhibited  also  by  the  Greeks  and  Ro 
mans,  particularly  by  men  (Diet,  of  Ant.  "  Rings  "). 
It  appears  also  to  have  prevailed  among  the  Jews 
of  th-  Apostolic  age;  for  in  Jam.  ii.  2,  a  rich  man 
is  described  as  xpfff'oSctKTuAios,  meaning  not  simp.y 
"  with  a  gold  ring,"  as  in  the  A.  V.,  but  "  golden- 
ringed"  (like  the  xPvff<>X*LPi  "golden-handed"  of 
Lucian,  Timon,  20),  implying  equally  well  the  pre 
sence  of  several  gold  rings.  For  the  term  gdlil, 
rendered  "  ring"  in  Cant.  v.  14,  see  ORNAMENTS. 

[W.  L.  B.] 

RIN'NAH  (n3") :  'Aj/a  ;  Alex.  'Pavvdv  : 
Rmnd).  One  of  the  sons  of  Shimon  in  an  obscure 
and  fragmentary  genealogy  of  the  descendants  of 
Judah  (1  Chr.  iv.  20).  In  the  LXX.  and  Vulgate 


IlIPHATH 

he  is  made  "  the  son  or  Hanan,"  Ben-hanan  fc«ing 
thus  translated. 

RITHATH  (nB-y.  'P«£a0;  Alex.  'P^ae  m 
Chr.  :  Riphatk\  the  second  son  of  Corner,  and  the 
brother  of  Ashkenaz  and  Togarmah  (Gen.  x.  3). 
The  Hebrew  text  in  1  Chr.  i.  6  gives  the  form 
Diphath,*  but  this  arises  out  of  a  clerical  error 
similar  to  that  which  gives  the  forms  Roclanim  and 
Hadad  for  Dodanim  and  Hadar  (1  Chr.  i.  7,  50  ; 
Gen.  xxxvi.  39).  The  name  Riphath  occurs  only 
iu  the  genealogical  table,  and  hence  there  is  little 
to  guide  us  to  the  locality  which  it  indicates.  The 
i«ame  itself  has  been  variously  identified  with  that 
of  the  Rhipaean  mountains  (Knobel),  the  river 
Rhebas  in  Bithynia  (Bochart),  the  Rhibii,  a  people 
living  eastward  of  the  Caspian  Sea  (Schulthess), 
and  the  Ripheans,  the  ancient  name  of  the  Paphla- 
gonians  (Joseph.  Ant.  i.  6,  §1).  This  last  view 
is  certainly  favoured  by  the  contiguity  of  Ash 
kenaz  and  Togarmah.  The  weight  of  opinion  is, 
however,  in  favour  of  the  Rhipaean  mountains, 
which  Knobel  (Volkcrt.  p.  44)  identifies  etymo- 
logically  and  geographically  with  the  Carpathian 
range  in  the  N.E.  of  Dacia.  The  attempt  of  that 
writer  to  identify  Riphath  with  the  Celts  or  Gauls, 
is  evidently  based  on  the  assumption  that  so  im 
portant  a  race  ought  to  be  mentioned  in  the  table, 
and  that  there  is  no  other  name  to  apply  to  them  ; 
but  we  have  no  evidence  that  the  Gauls  were  for 
any  lengthened  period  settled  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  Carpathian  range.  The  Rhipaean  mountains 
themselves  existed  more  in  the  imagination  of  the 
Greeks  than  in  reality,  and  if  the  received  etymo 
logy  of  that  name  (from  {mrai,  "  blasts  ")  be  correct, 
the  coincidence  in  sound  with  Riphath  is  merely 
accidental,  and  no  connexion  can  be  held  to  exist 
between  the  names.  The  later  geographers,  Pto 
lemy  (iii.  5,  §15,  19)  and  others,  placed  the  Rhi 
paean  range  where  no  range  really  exists,  viz.,  about 
the  elevated  ground  that  separates  the  basins  of  the 
Euxine  and  Baltic  seas.  [W.  L.  B.] 

RIS'SAH(nEH:  'Pe<rcrc{:  Eessa~).  The  name, 
identical  with  the  word  which  signifies  "  a  worm,'^ 
is  that  of  a  march-station  in  the  wilderness  (Num. 
xxxiii.  21,  2'J).  It  lies,  as  there  given,  between 
Libnah  and  Kehelathah,  and  has  been  considered 
(Winer,  s.  v.)  identical  with  Rasa  in  the  Peuting. 
Itiner.,  32  Roman  miles  from  Ailah  (Elah),  and 
203  miles  south  of  Jerusalem,  distinct,  however, 
from  the  "Pri<r<ra.  of  Josephus  (Ant.  xiv.  15,  §2). 
No  site  has  been  identified  with  Rissah.  [H.  H.] 


E1VER 


1045 


RITH'MAH  (HDrp:  'Pafla^S:  Rethmd).  The 
name  of  a  march-station  in  the  wilderness  (Num. 
xxxiii.  18,  19).  It  stands  there  next  to  Hazeroth 
[HAZEROTH],  and  probably  lay  in  a  N.E.  direction 
from  that  spot,  but  no  place  now  known  has  been 
identified  with  it.  The  name  is  probably  connected 

5  __ 

with  Dn"J,  Arab.  ,»J>'j,  commonly  rendered  "juni 

per,"  but  more  correctly  "  broom."  It  carries  the 
affirmative  H,  common  in  names  of  locality,  and 
found  especially  among  many  in  the  catalogue  of 
Num.  xxxiii.  [H.  H.] 

RIVER.     IB  the  sense  in  which  we  employ  the 


word,  viz.  for  a  perennial  stream  of  considerable 
size,  a  river  is  a  much  rarer  object  in  the  East 
than  in  the  West.  The  majority  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Palestine  at  the  present  day  have  probably  nevei 
seen  one.  With  the  exception  of  the  Jordan  and 
the  Litany,  the  streams  of  the  Holy  Land  are  either 
entirely  dried  up  in  the  summer  months,  and  con 
verted  into  hot  lanes  of  glaring  stones,  or  else  re 
duced  to  very  small  streamlets  deeoly  sunk  in  a 
narrow  bed,  and  concealed  from  v'»«?  by  a  dense 
growth  of  shrubs. 

The  cause  of  this  is  twofold :  on  one  one  hand 
the  hilly  nature  of  the  country  —  a  central  mas? 
of  highland  descending  on  each  side  to  a  Iov3r 
level,  and  on  the  other  the  extreme  heat  of  the 
climate  during  the  summer.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  in  ancient  times  the  country  was  more  wooded 
than  it  now  is,  and  that,  in  consequence,  the  evapo 
ration  was  less,  and  the  streams  more  frequent :  yet 
this  cannot  have  made  any  very  material  difference 
in  the  permanence  of  the  water  in  the  thousands 
of  valleys  which  divide  the  hills  of  Palestine. 

For  the  various  aspects  of  the  streams  of  the 
country  which  such  conditions  inevitably  produced, 
the  ancient  Hebrews  had  very  exact  terms,  which 
they  employed  habitually  with  much  precision. 

1.  For  the  perennial  river,  Nahar(^\T\3).  Possibly 

used  of  the  Jordan  in  Ps.  Ixvi.  6,  Ixxiv.  15  ;  of  the 
great  Mesopotamia!!  and  Egyptian  rivers  generally 
in  Gen.  ii.  10 ;  Ex.  vii.  19  ;  2  K.  xvii.  6  ;  Ez.  iii.  1 5, 
&c.  But  with  the  definite  article,  han-Nahar, 
"  the  river,"  it  signifies  invariably  the  Euphrates 
(Gen.  xxxi.  21:  Ex.  xxiii.  31:  Num.  xxiv.  6; 
2  Sam.  x.  16,  &c.  &c.).  With  a  few  exceptions 
(Josh.  i.  4,  xxiv.  2,  14,  15;  Is.  lix.  19  ;  Ez.  xxxi. 
15),  nahar  is  uniformly  rendered  "river"  in  our 
version,  and  accurately,  since  it  is  never  applied  to 
the  fleeting  fugitive  torrents  of  Palestine. 

2.  The  term  for  these  is  nachal  (^Hp),  for  which 
our  translators  have  used  promiscuously,  anu  some 
times  almost  alternately,  "valley,"  "brook,"  and 
"river."     Thus  the  "brook"  and  the  "valley" 
of  Eshcol  (Num.  xiii.  23  and  xxxii.  9)  ;  the  "  val 
ley,"  the  "  brook,"  and  the  "  river"  Zered  (Num. 
xxi.  12;  Deut.  ii.  13;  Am.  vi.  14)  ;  the  "brook" 
and  the  "  river  "  of  Jabbok  (Gen.  xxxii.  23 ;  Deut. 
ii.  37),  of  Arnon  (Num.  xxi.  14;  Deut.  ii.  24),  of 
Kishon  (Judg.  iv.  7  ;  1   K.  xviii.  40).     Compare 
also  Deut.  iii.  16,  &c.b 

Neither  of  these  words  expresses  the  thing  in 
tended  ;  but  the  term  "  brook "  is  peculiarly  un 
happy,  since  the  pastoral  idea  which  it  conveys  is 
quite  at  variance  with  the  general  character  of 
the  wadys  of  Palestine.  Many  of  these  are  deep 
abrupt  chasms  or  rents  in  the  solid  rock  of  the 
hills,  and  have  a  savage,  gloomy  aspect,  far  removed 
from  that  of  an  English  brook.  For  example,  the 
Arnon  forces  its  way  through  a  ravine  several  hun 
dred  feet  deep  and  about  two  miles  wide  across  the 
top.  The  Wady  Zerka,  probably  the  Jabbok,  which 
Jacob  was  so  anxious  to  interpose  between  his  family 
and  Esau,  is  equally  unlike  the  quiet  "  meadowy 
brook  "  with  which  we  are  familiar.  And  those 
which  are  not  so  abrupt  and  savage  are  in  their  width, 
their  irregularity,  their  forlorn  arid  look  when  the 
torrent  has  subsided,  utterly  unlike  "  brooks."  Un- 


This  reading  is  preferred  by  Bochart  (Phaleg, 
III  10),  and  is  connected  by  him  with  the  names  of  the 
town  Tubata  and  the  mountain  Tibium  in  the  N.  of  Asia 
Minor. 


b  Jerome,  in  his  Quaestiones  in  Gevtesiv*,  xxvi.  19, 
draws  the  following  curious  distinction  betwe«»  a  valley 
and  a  torrent :  "  Et  hie  pro  valle  torrens  scriptus  «tt 
ntmqtMm  enim  in  valle  invenitur  puteus  aquae  mvut,." 


104(5 


RIVER  OF  EQYFT 


ibrtiinawiiy  ottr  language  does  not  contain  any  single 
word  which  has  both  the  meanings  of  the  Hebrew 
nachal  and  its  Arabic  equivalent  wady,  which  can 
be  used  at  once  for  a  dry  valley  and  for  the  stream 
which  occasionally  flows  through  it.  Ainsworth, 
in  his  An~iotations  (on  Num.  xiii.  23),  says  that 
'<  bourne"  has  both  meanings;  but  "  bourne"  is  now 
obsolete  in  English,  though  still  in  use  in  Scotland, 
where,  owing  to  the  mountainous  nature  of  the 
country,  the  "  burns  "  partake  of  the  nature  of  the 
wadys  of  Palestine  in  the  irregularity  of  their  flow. 
Mr.  Burton  (Geog.  Journ.  xxiv.  209)  adopts  the 
Italian  fiumara.  Others  have  proposed  the  Indian 
term  nullah.  —  The  double  application  of  the  Hebrew 
nachal  is  evident  in  1  K.  xvii.  3,  where  Elijah  is 
commanded  to  hide  himself  in  (not  by)  the  nachal 
Cherith  and  to  drink  of  the  nachal. 

3.  Yeor   O'lfcO),   a   word    of   Egyptian   origin 
(see  Gesen.  Thes.  558),  applied  to  the  Nile  only, 
and,  in  the  plural,  to  the  canals  by  which  the  Nile 
water  was   distributed   throughout   Egypt,   or  to 
streams  having  a  connexion  with  that  country.     It 
is  the  word  employed  for  the  Nile  in  Genesis  and 
Exodus,  and  is  rendered  by  our  translators  "  the 
river,"  except  in  the  following  passages,  Jer.  xlvi. 
7,  8  ;  Am.  viii.  8,  ix.  5,  where  they  substitute  "  a 
flood  "  —  much  to  the   detriment  of  the  prophet's 
metaphor.     [See  NILE,  vol.  ii.  p.  539  6.] 

4.  Yubal  (?2V),  from  a  root  signifying  tumult 
or  fulness,  occurs  only  sis  times,  in  four  of  which 
it  is  rendered  "  river,"  viz.  Jer.  xvii.  8  ;  Dan.  viii. 

2,  3,  6. 

5.  Peleg  (37B),  from  an  uncertain  root,  probably 

Connected  with  the  idea  of  the  division  of  the  land 
for  irrigation,  is  translated  "  river  "  in  Ps.  i.  3, 
Ixv.  9;  Is.  xxx.  25;  Job  xx.  17.  Elsewhere  it  is 
rendered  "  stream  "  (Ps.  xlvi.  4),  and  in  Judg.  v. 
15,  16,  "  divisions,"  where  the  allusion  is  probably 
to  the  artificial  streams  with  which  the  pastoral 
and  agricultural  country  of  Reuben  was  irrigated 
(Ewald,  Didder,  i.  129;  Gesen.  Thes.  11036). 

6.  Aphik  (p*BK).    This  appears  to  be  used  with 

out  any  clearly  distinctive  meaning.  It  is  probably 
from  a  root  signifying  strength  or  force,  and  may 
signify  any  rush  or  body  of  water.  It  is  translated 
"  river  "  in  a  few  passages  :  —  Cant.  v.  1  2  ;  Ez.  vi. 

3,  xxxj.  12,  xxxii.  6,  xxxiv.  13,  xxxv.  8,  xxxvi.  4, 
6  ;  Joel  i.  20,  iii.  18.     In  Ps.  cxxvi.  4  the  allusion 
is  to  temporary  streams  in  the  dry  regions  of  the 
"south."  [G.] 

EIVER  OF  EGYPT.  Two  Hebrew  terms 
are  thus  rendered  in  the  A.  V. 

1.  D*nVp  "1H3  :  iroTCtytbs  AiylnrTov  :  fluvius 
Aegypti  (Gen.  xv.  18),  "the  river  of  Egypt," 
that  is,  the  Nile,  and  here  —  as  the  western  border 
of  the  Promised  Land,  of  which  the  eastern  border 
was  Euphrates  —  the  Pelusiac  or  easternmost  branch. 


,  ifora/Jibs  Aiyvirrov,  'PivoicSpovpa,  pi.  : 
torrens  Aegypti,  rivus  Aegypti  (Num.  xxxiv.  5  ; 
Josh.  xv.  4,  47  ;  1  K.  viii.  65  ;  2  K.  xxiv.  7  ;  Is.  xxvii. 
12,  in  the  last  passage  translated  "  the  stream  of 
Egypt").  It  is  the  common  opinion  that  this 
second  term  designates  a  desert  stream  on  the 
border  of  Egypt,  still  occasionally  flowing  in  the 
valley  called  WadM-'Areesh.  The  centre  of  the 
is  occupied  by  the  bed  of  this  torrent,  which 
flows  after  rains,  as  is  usual  in  the  desert  valleys. 


RIVER  OF  FGYPT 

The  correctness  01  this  opinion  can  only  be  decided 
by  an  examination  of  the  passages  in  which  the 
term  occurs,  for  the  ancient  t7-ansiations  do  not  aid 
When  they  were  made  there  must  have  been 
great  uncertainty  on  the  subject.  In  the  LXX. 
the  term  is  translated  by  two  literal  meanings,  01 
perhaps  three,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  7113  can 

be  rendered  ' '  river,"  and  is  once  represented  by 
Rhinocorura  (or  Rhinocolura),  the  name  of  a  town 
on  the  coast,  near  the  Wadi-1-Areesh,  to  which  the 
modem  El-'Areesh  has  succeeded. 

This  stream  is  first  mentioned  as  the  point  where 
the  southern  border  of  the  Promised  Land  touched 
the  Mediterranean,  which  formed  its  western  border 
(Num.  xxxiv.  3-6).  Next  it  is  spoken  of  as  in  the 
same  position  with  reference  to  the  prescribed  bor 
ders  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  (Josh.  xv.  4),  and  as 
beyond  Gaza  and  its  territory,  the  westernmost  of  the 
Philistine  cities  (47).  In  the  later  history  we  find 
Solomon's  kingdom  extending  "from  the  entering 
in  of  Hamath  unto  the  river  of  Egypt"  (1  K.  viii. 
65),  and  Egypt  limited  in  the  same  manner  where 
the  loss  of  the  eastern  provinces  is  mentioned : 
"  And  the  king  of  Egypt  came  not  again  any  more 
out  of  his  land:  for  the  king  of  Babylon  had  taken 
from  the  river  of  Egypt  unto  the  river  Euphrates 
all  that  pertained  to"  the  king  of  Egypt "  (2  K. 
xxiv.  7).  In  Isaiah  it  seems  to  be  spoken  of  as 
forming  one  boundary  of  the  Israelite  territory, 
Euphrates  being  the  other,  "  from  the  channel  of 
the  river  unto  the  stream  of  Egypt"  (xxvii.  12), 
appearing  to  correspond  to  the  limits  promised  to 
Abraham. 

In  certain  parallel  passages  the  Nile  is  distinctly 
specified  instead  of  "  the  Nachal  of  Egypt."  In 
the  promise  to  Abraham,  the  Nile,  "  the  river  ot 
Egypt,"  is  mentioned  with  Euphrates  as  bound 
ing  the  land  in  which  he  then  was,  and  which  was 
promised  to  his  posterity  (Gen.  xv.  18).  Still  more 
unmistakeably  is  Shihor,  which  is  always  the  Nile, 
spoken  of  as  a  border  of  the  land,  in  Joshua's  de 
scription  of  the  territory  yet  to  be  conquered : 
"  This  [is]  the  land  that  yet  remaineth :  all  the 
regions  of  the  Philistines,  and  all  Geshuri,  from  the 
Sihor,  which  [is]  before  Egypt,  even  unto  the  bor 
ders  of  Ekron  northward,  [which]  is  counted  to  the 
Canaanite"  (Josh.  xiii.  2,  3). 

It  must  be  observed  that  the  distinctive  character 
of  the  name,  "  Nachal  of  Egypt,"  as  has  been  well 
suggested  to  us,  almost  forbids  our  supposing  an 
insignificant  stream  to  be  intended ;  although  such 
a  stream  might  be  of  importance  from  position  as 
forming  the  boundary. 

If  we  :infer  that  the  Nachal  of  Egypt  is  the  Nile, 
we  have  'to  consider  the  geographical  consequences, 
and  to  compare  the  name  with  known  names  of  the 
Nile.  Of  the  branches  of  the  Nile,  the  easternmost, 
or  Pelusiac,  would  necessarily  be  the  one  intended. 
On  looking  at  the  map  it  seems  incredible  that  the 
Philistine  territory  should  ever  have  extended  so  far; 
the  Wadi-l-'Areesh  is  distant  from  Gaza,  the  most 
western  of  the  Philistine  towns ;  but  Pelusium,  at 
the  mouth  and  most  eastern  part  of  the  Pelusiac 
branch,  is  very  remote.  It  must,  however,  be 
remembered,  that  the  tract  from  Gaza  to  Pelu 
sium  is  a  desert  that  could  never  have  been  culti 
vated,  or  indeed  inhabited  by  a  settled  population, 
and  was  probably  only  held  in  the  period  to  which 
we  refer  by  marauding  Arab  tribes,  which  may 
well  have  been  tributary  to  the  Philistines,  for 
they  must  have  been  tributary  to  them  or  to  the 


11  EVER  OF  EGYPT 

•Egyptians,  ou  account  of  their  isolated  position 
:«id  the  sterility  of  the  country,  though  no  doubt 
maintaining  a  half-independence.8  All  doubt  on 
this  point  seems  to  be  set  at  rest  by  a  passage,  in  a 
Hieroglyphic  inscription  of  Sethee  I.,  head  of  the 
xixth  dynasty,  B.C.  cir.  1340,  on  the  north  wall 
of  the  great  temple  of  El-Karnak,  which  mentions 
"the  foreigners  of  the  SHASU  from  the  fort  of 
TAKU  to  the  land  of  KANANA  "  (SHASU  SHA'A 
EM  SHTEM  EN  TAKU  ER  PA-KAN'ANA, 
Brugsch,  Geojr.  Tnschr.  i.  p.  261,  No.  1265,  pi. 
xlvii.).  The  identification  of  "  the  fort  of  TARU  " 
with  any  place  mentioned  by  the  Greek  and  Latin 
geographers  has  not  yet  been  satisfactorily  accom 
plished.  It  appears,  from  the  bas-relief,  represent 
ing  the  return  of  Sethee  1.  to  Egypt  from  an  eastern 
expedition,  near  the  inscription  just  mentioned, 
to  have  been  between  a  Leontopolis  and  a  branch  of 
the  Nile,  or  perhaps  canal,  on  the  west  side  of 
which  it  was  situate,  commanding  a  bridge  (Ibid. 
No.  1266,  pi.  xlviii.).  The  Leontopolis  is  either 
the  capital  of  the  Leontopolite  Nome,  or  a  town  in 
the  Heliopolite  Nome  mentioned  by  Josephus  (Ant . 
xiii.  3,  §1).  In  the  former  case  the  stream  would 
probably  be  the  Tanitic  branch,  or  perhaps  the  Pe- 
lusiac  ;  in  the  latter,  perhaps  the  Canal  of  the  Red 
Sea.  We  prefer  the  first  Leontopolis,  but  no  iden 
tification  is  necessary  to  prove  that  the  SHASU  at 
this  time  extended  from  Canaan  to  the  east  of  the 
Delta  (see  on  the  whole  subject  Geogr.  Inschr.  i. 
pp.  260-266,  iii.  pp.  20,  21). 

Egypt,  therefore,  in  its  most  flourishing  period, 
evidently  extended  no  further  than  the  east  of  the 
Delta,  its  eastern  boundary  being  probably  the  Pe- 
lusiac  branch,  the  territory  of  the  SHASU,  an  Arab 
nation  or  tribe,  lying  between  Egypt  and  Canaan.  It 
might  be  supposed  that  at  this  time  the  SHASU  had 
made  an  inroad  into  Egypt,  but  it  must  be  remem 
bered  that  in  the  latter  period  of  the  kings  of  Judah, 
and  during  the  classical  period,  Pelusium  was  the 
key  of  Egypt  on  this  side.  The  Philistines,  in  the 
time  of  their  greatest  power,  which  appears  to  have 
been  contemporary  with  the  period  of  the  Judges, 
may  well  be  supposed  to  have  reduced  the  Arabs  of 
this  neutral  territory  to  the  condition  of  tributaries', 
is  doubtless  was  also  done  by  the  Pharaohs. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  specification  of 
•i  certain  boundary  does  not  necessarily  prove  that 
the  actual  lands  of  a  state  extended  so  far ;  the 
limit  of  its  sway  is  sometimes  rather  to  be  under 
stood.  Solomon  ruled  as  tributaries  all  the  king 
doms  between  the  Euphrates  and  the  land  of  the 
Philistines  and  the  border  of  Egypt,  when  the  Land 
of  Promise  appears  to  have  been  fully  occupied 

a  Herodotus,  whose  account  is  rather  obscure,  says  that 
from  Phoenicia  to  the  borders  of  the  city  Cadytis  (probably 
3aza)  the  country  belonged  to  the  Palaestine  Syrians ; 
from  Cadytis  to  Jenysus,  to  the  Arabian  king;  then  to  the 
Syrians  again,  as  far  as  Lake  Serbonis,  near  Mount  Casius. 
A.t  Lake  Serbonis,  Egypt  began.  The  eastern  extremity 
ef  Lake  Serbonis  is  somewhat  to  the  westward  of  Rhino- 
colura,  and  Mount  Casius  is  more  than  halfway  from  the 
latter  to  Pelusium.  As  Herodotus  afterwards  states  more 
precisely  that  from  Jenysus  to  "  Lake  Serbonis  and  Mount 
Casius"  was  three  days' journey  through  a  desert  without 
water,  he  evidently  makes  Mount  Casius  mark  the  western 
boundary  of  the  Syrians ;  for  although  the  position  of 
Jenysus  is  uncertain,  the  whole  distance  from  Gaza  (and 
If  Cadytis  be  not  Gaza,  we  cannot  extend  the  Arabian  ter 
ritory  further  east)  does  not  greatly  exceed  three  days' 
journey  (iii  5.  See  Rawlinson's  edit.,  ii.  398-400).  If  we 
adopt  Capt.  Spratt's  identifications  of  Pelusium  and  Mount 
we  must  place  thtoi  much  nearer  together,  and 


RIVER  OF  EGYPT 


104- 


(1  K.  iv.  21,  comp.  24).  When,  therefore,  it  ia 
specified  that  the  Philistine  territory  as  far  as  the 
Nachal-Mizraim  remained  to  be  taken,  it  need  scarcely 
be  inferred  that  the  territory  to  be  inhabited  by  the 
Israelites  was  to  extend  so  far,  and  this  stream's 
being  an  actual  boundary  of  a  tribe  may  be  explained 
on  the  same  principle. 

If,  with  the  generality  of  critics,  we  think  that 
the  Nachal-M  ./raim  is  the  Wadi-l-'Areesh,  we  must 
conclude  that  the  name  Shihoi  is  also  applied  to  the 
latter,  although  elsewhere  designating  the  Nile,b  for 
we  have  seen  that  Nachal-Mizraim  and  Shihor  are 
used  interchangeably  to  designate  a  stream  on  the 
border  of  the  Promised  Land.  This  difficulty  seems  to 
overthrow  the  common  opinion.  It  must,  however, 
be  remembered  that  in  Joshua  xiii.  3,  Shihor  has  the 
article,  as  though  actually  or  originally  an  appella 
tive,  the  former  seeming  to  be  the  more  obvious 
inference  from  the  context.  [SHIHOR  OF  EGYPT  ; 
SIHOR.] 

The  word  Nachal  may  be  cited  on  either  side. 
Certainly  in  Hebrew  it  is  rather  used  for  a  torrent 
or  stream  than  for  a  river  ;  but  the  name  Naehal- 
Mizraim  may  come  from  a  lost  dialect,  and  the 


parallel   Arabic  word  wadee, 


,  though  ordi 


narily  used  for  valleys  and  their  winter-torrents, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Wadi-l-'Areesh  itself,  has  been 
employed  by  the  Arabs  in  Spain  for  true  rivers,  the 
Guadalquivir,  &c.  It  may,  however,  be  suggested, 
that  in  Nachal-Mizraim  we  have  the  ancient  form 
of  the  Neel-Misr  of  the  Arabs,  and  that  Nachal  was 
adopted  from  its  similarity  of  sound  to  the  original 
of  Ne?\os.  It  may,  indeed,  be  objected  that  NetAos 
is  held  to  be  of  Iranian  origin.  The  answer  to  this 
is,  that  we  find  Javan,  we  will  not  say  the  lonians, 
called  by  the  very  name,  HANEN,  used  in  the 
Rosetta  Stone  for  "  Greek"  (SHAEE  EN  HANEN, 
TOI2  TE  EAAHNIKOI2  FPAMMASIN),  in  the 
lists  of  countries  and  nations,  or  tribes,  conquered 
by,  or  subject  to,  the  Pharaohs,  as  early  as  the 
reign  of  Amenoph  III.,  B.C.  cir.  1400.c  An  Iranian 
and  even  a  Greek  connexion  with  Egypt  as  early  as 
the  time  of  the  Exodus,  'is  therefore  not  to  be 
treated  as  an  impossibility.  It  is,  however,  re 
markable,  that  the  word  NetAos  does  not  occur  in 
the  Homeric  poems,  as  though  it  were  not  of 
Sanskrit  origin,  but  derived  from  the  Egyptians  or 
Phoenicians. 

Brugsch  compares  the  Egyptian  MUAW  EN 
KEM  "  Water  of  Egypt,"  mentioned  in  the  phrase 
"  From  the  water  of  Egypt  as  far  as  NEHEREEN 
[Mesopotamia]  inclusive,"  but  there  is  no  internal 


the  latter  far  to  the  west  of  the  usual  supposed  place 
(SiN,  town).  But  in  this  case  Herodotus  would  intend 
the  western  extremity  of  Lake  Serbonis,  which  seems 
unlikely. 

b  There  is  a  Shihor-libnath  in  the  north  of  Palestine, 
mentioned  in  Joshua  (xix.  26),  and  supposed  to  correspond 
to  the  Belus,  if  its  name  signify  "  the  river  of  glass/'  But 
we  have  no  ground  for  giving  Shihor  the  signification 
"  river ;"  and  when  the  connexion  of  the  Egyptians,  and 
doubtless  of  the  Phoenician  and  other  colonists  of  north 
eastern  Egypt,  with  the  manufacture  of  glass  is  remem 
bered,  it  seems  more  likely  that  Shihor-libnath  was  named 
from  the  Nile. 

c  We  agree  with  Lepsius  in  this  identification  ( Ueber 
derNamen  der  Jonier  aufden  Aeg.  Denkmatern,  Kb'nigl. 
Akad.  Berlin).  His  views  have,  however,  been  com 
bated  by  Buusen  (Egypt's  Place,  iii.  603-6061),  Brugsch 
(Geogr.  Inschr.  ii.  p.  19,  pi.  xiii.  no.  2),  and  De  Rons! 
(TomUtaa  d'sihmtt,  p.  43). 


1048 


RIZPAH 


evidence  la  favour  or  his  conjectural  identification 
with  the  stream  of  Wddi-1-  Areesh  (Geog.  Inschr. 
i.  54,  55,  pi.  vii.  no.  303).  '  |_R-  S-  P-3 

RIZTAH  (H2V1  :  'Pto^S  and  'PeV^o  :  Jo 
seph.  "fa.tff<ba  •  fiespha),  concubine  to  king  Saul, 
and  mother  cl  his  two  sons  Armoni  and  Mephi- 
bosheth.  Like  many  others  of  the  prominent  female 
characters  of  the  Old  Testament  —  Ruth,  Rahab, 
Jezebel,  &c.  —  Rizpah  would  seem  to  have  been  a 
foreigner,  a  Hivite,  descended  from  one  of  the 
ancient  worthies  of  that  nation,  Ajah  or  Aiah,a  son 
of  Zibeon,  whose  name  and  fame  are  preserved  in 
the  Ishmaelite  record  of  Gen.  xxxvi.  If  this  be  the 
case,  Saul  was  commencing  a  practice,  which  seems 
with  subsequent  kings  to  have  grown  almost  into  a 
rule,  of  choosing  non-Israelite  women  for  their  in 
ferior  wives.  David's  intrigue  with  Bathsheba,  or 
Bath-shua,  the  wife  of  a  Hittite,  and  possibly 
herself  a  Canaanitess,b  is  perhaps  not  a  case  in 
point  ;  but  Solomon,  Rehoboam,  and  their  suc 
cessors,  seem  to  have  had  their  harems  filled  with 
foreign  women. 

After  the  death  of  Saul  and  occupation  of  the 
country  west  of  the  Jordan  by  the  Philistines, 
Rizpah  accompanied  the  other  inmates  of  the  royal 
family  to  their  new  residence  at  Mahanaim  ;  and  it 
is  here  that  her  name  is  first  introduced  to  us  as 
the  subject  of  an  accusation  levelled  at  Abner  by 
Ishbosheth  (2  Sam.  iii.  7),  a  piece  of  spite  which 
led  first  to  Abner's  death  through  Joab's  treachery, 
aud  ultimately  to  the  murder-  of  Ishbosheth  himself. 
The  accusation,  whether  true  or  false  —  and  from 
Abner's  vehement  denial  we  should  naturally  con 
clude  that  it  was  false  —  involved  more  than  meets 
the  ear  of  a  modern  and  English  reader.  For  amongst 
the  Israelites  it  was  considered  "  as  a  step  to  the 
throne  to  have  connexion  with  the  widow  or  the 
mistress  of  the  deceased  king."  (See  Michaelis, 
Laws  of  Moses,  art.  54.)  It  therefore  amounted 
to  an  insinuation  that  Abner  was  about  to  make  an 
attempt  on  the  throne. 

We  hear  nothing  more  of  Rizpah  till  the  tragic 
story  which  has  made  her  one  of  the  most  familial- 
objects  to  young  and  old  in  the  whole  Bible  (2  Sam. 
xxi.  8-11).  Every  one  can  appreciate  the  love  and 
endurance  with  which  the  mother  watched  over  the 
bodies  of  her  two  sons  and  her  five  relatives,  to  save 
them  from  an  indignity  peculiarly  painful  to  the 

a  The  Syriac-Peshito  and  Arabic  Versions,  in  2  Sam. 
iii.,  read  Aua  for  Aiah—  the  name  of  another  ancient 
Hivite,  the  brother  of  Ajah,  and  equally  the  son  of  Zibeon. 
But  it  is  not  fair  to  lay  much  stress  on  this,  as  it  may  be 
only  the  error  —  easily  made  —  of  a  careless  transcriber  ;  or 
of  one  so  familiar  with  the  ancient  names  as  to  have  con 
founded  one  with  the  other. 

b  Comp.  Gen.  xxxviii.,  where  the  "  daughter  of  Shua," 
the  Canaanitess,  should  really  be  Bath-shua. 

«  Saul  was  probably  born  at  Zelah,  where  Kish's  se 
pulchre,  and  therefore  his  home,  was  situated.  [ZELAII.] 

d  TT12,  2  Sam.  xxi.  6.  e  p'^H,  has-Sak. 

*  1, 


;2).  ROBBER:  — 

1.  Tfl2,  part,  from  T?2,  "rob;"  TrpoyojuevW  ;  vastans 

2.  P"}3.  part,  of  f]B,   "  break  ;"    \ot*6*  ;    latro  : 
Mlc.  ii.  13.T"  breaker" 


etpirayij,    pTra^ara  ;  rapnae. 
from  p^S,  "break;"  afitxta;  dilaceratio. 
,  from  *n&?,  "waste;"  oAeflpos;  rapinae. 
;    praeda  ;     "  prey,"    "  spoil. 


KOBBERY 

whole  of  the  ancient  world  ^see  Ps.  Ixxix.  2  ;  Horn. 
//.  i.  4,  5,  &c.  &c.;.  But  it  is  questionable  whethei 
the  ordinary  conception  of  the  scene  is  accurate. 
The  seven  victims  were  not,  as  the  A.  V.  implies, 
hung ;"  they  were  crucified.  The  seven  crossef. 
were  planted  in  the  rock  on  the  top  of  the  sacred 
bill  of  Gibeah  ;  the  hill  which,  though  not  SauJt 
native  place,c  was  through  his'  long  residence  there 
so  identified  with  him  as  to  retain  his  name  to  thf 
latest  existence  of  the  Jewish  nation  (1  Sam.  xi.  4 
&c.,  and  see  Joseph.  B.  J.  v.  2,  §1).  The  whol* 
or  part  of  this  hill  seems  at  the  time  of  this  occur, 
rence  to  have  been  in  some  special  manner  d  dedicated 
to  Jehovah,  possibly  the  spot  on  which  Ahiah  the 
priest  had  deposited  the  Ark  when  he  took  refuge  in 
Gibeah  during  the  Philistine  war  (1  Sam.  xiv.  18). 
The  victims  were  sacrificed  at  the  beginning  of 
barley-harvest — the  sacred  and  festal  time  of  the 
Passover — and  in  the  full  blaze  of  the  summer  sun 
they  hung  till  the  fall  of  the  periodical  rain  in 
October.  During  the  whole  of  that  time  Rizpah 
remained  at  the  foot  of  the  crosses  on  which  the 
bodies  of  her  sons  were  exposed  :  the  Mater  dolorosa, 
if  the  expression  may  be  allowed,  of  the  ancient 
dispensation.  She  had  no  tent  to  shelter  her  from 
the  scorching  sun  which  beats  on  that  open  spot 
all  day,  or  from  the  drenching  dews  at  night,  but 
she  spread  on  the  rocky  floor  the  thick  mourning 
garment  of  black  sackcloth  e  which  as  a  widow  she 
wore,  and  crouching  there  she  watched  that  neither 
vulture  nor  jackal  should  molest  the  bodies.  We 
may  surely  be  justified  in  applying  to  Rizpah  the 
words  with  which  another  act  of  womanly  kindness 
was  commended,  and  may  say,  that "  wheresoever  the 
Bible  shall  go,  there  shall  also  this,  that  this  woman 
hath  done,  be  told  for  a  memorial  of  her."  [G.] 

ROAD.  This  word  occurs  but  once  in  the 
Authorised  Version  of  the  Bible,  viz.  in  1  Sam. 
xxvii.  10,  where  it  is  used  in  the  sense  of  "raid" 
or  "  inroad,"  the  Hebrew  word  (D5J>Q)  being  else 
where  (e.  g.  ver.  8,  xxiii.  27,  xxx.  1,  14,  &c.)  ren 
dered  "  invade"  and  "  invasion." 

A  Road  in  the  sense  which  we  now  attach  t« 
the  term  is  expressed  in  the  A.  V.  by  "  way  "  and 
« path."  [G.] 

ROBBERY.'  Whether  in  the  larger  sense  of 
plunder,  or  the  more  limited  sense  of  theft,  sys- 


3.  D^¥,  Job  xviii.  9 ;  Su^i/res ;  sitis.  Targum,  with 
A.  V.,  has  ".robbers;"  but  it  is  most  commonly  rendered 
as  LXX.,  Job  v.  5,  sitientes. 

4.  "l^K* ;  Arjo-njs ;  latro :  from  "1*1^,  "  waste." 

5.  nDJ^ ;  ex^pos;  deripiens;  A.  V.  "spoiler." 

6.  235  ;  KA.e7T7Tjs ;  fur ;  A.  V.  "thief." 
(3.)  ROB:— 

1.  TT2  ;  StapTTacJio ;  depopulor. 

2.  7T5  ;  d(|)aipea) ;  violenter  aufero. 

3.  *l-iy,  "  return,"  ••  repeat ;"  hence  in  Pi.  surrov^nd 
circumvent  (Ps.  cxix.  61)  ;  TrepiwAcuciji/ai ;  circumplecti ; 
usually  affirm,  reiterate  assertions  (Gca.  p.  997). 

4.  )Op,    "cover,"    'hide;"   itrepvifa ;   o#/#o  (Ges 
p.  1190).  T 

5.  nDK^ ;  fitapTrac^oj ;  diripio. 

j      6.  DDK^  (same  as  last) ;  npovo^tm 

7.  335;  KXsjrTw  ; ,/umr ;  A.  V.  "steal. 


nCBBERT 

teraaticelly  organized,  robbery  has  ever  been  one  ot 
the  principal  employments  of  the  nomad  tribes  of 
the  East.  From  the  time  of  Ishmael  to  the^prescnt 
day,  the  Bedouin  has  been  a  "  wild  man,"  and  a 
robber  by  trade,  and  to  carry  out  his  objects  suc 
cessfully,  so  far  from  being  esteemed  disgraceful,  is 
regarded  as  in  the  highest  degree  creditable  (Gen. 
xvi.  12;  Burckhardt,  Notes  on  Bed.  i.  137,  157). 
An  instance  of  an  enterprise  of  a  truly  Bedouin 
character,  but  distinguished  by  the  exceptional  fea 
tures  belonging  to  its  principal  actor,  is  seen  in  the 
night-foray  of  David  (1  Sam.  xxvi.  6-1  '2),  with 
which  also  we  may  fairly  compare  Horn.  II.  K. 
204,  &c.  Predatory  inroads  on  a  large  scale  are 
seen  in  the  incursions  of  the  Sabaeans  and  Chal- 
daeans  on  the  property  of  Job  (Job  i.  15,  17);  the 
revenge  coupled  with  plunder  of  Simeon  and  Levi 
'Gen.  xxxiv.  28,  29)  ;  the  reprisals  of  the  Hebrews 
upon  the  Midianites  (Num.  xxxi.  32-54),  and  the 
frequent  and  often  prolonged  invasions  of  "  spoilers" 
upon  the  Israelites,  together  with  their  reprisals, 
during  the  period  of  the  Judges  and  Kings  (Judg. 
ii.  14,  vi.  3,  4;  1  Sam.  xi.,  xv.  ;  2  Sam.  viii.,  x.  ; 
2  K.  v.  2  ;  1  Chr.  v.  10,  18-22).  Individual  in 
stances,  indicating  an  unsettled  state  of  the  country 
during  the  same  period,  are  seen  in  the  "  liers-in- 
wait"  of  the  men  of  Shechem  (Judg.  ix.  25),  and 
the  mountain  retreats  of  David  in  the  cave  of  Adul- 
lam,  the  hill  of  Hachilah,  and  the  wilderness  of 
Maon,  and  his  abode  in  Ziklag,  invaded  and  plun 
dered  in  like  manner  by  the  Amalekites  (1  Sam. 
xxii.  1,  2,  xxiii.  19-25,  xxvi.  1,  xxvii.  6-10,  xxx.  1). 

Similar  disorder  in  the  country,  complained  of 
more  than  once  by  the  prophets  (Hos.  iv.  2,  vi. 
9  ;  Mic.  ii.  8),  continued  more  or  less  through 
Maccabaean  down  to  Roman  times,  favoured  by 
the  corrupt  administration  of  some  of  the  Roman 
governors,  in  accepting  money  in  redemption  of 
punishment,  produced  those  formidable  bands  of 
robbers,  so  easily  collected  and  with  so  much  diffi 
culty  subdued,  who  found  shelter  in  the  caves  of 
Palestine  and  Syria,  and  who  infested  the  country 
even  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  almost  to  the  very 
gates  of  Jerusalem  (Luke  x.  30;  Acts  v.  36,  37, 
xxi.  38.)  [JUDAS  OP  GALILEE  ;  CAVES.]  In  the 
later  history  also  of  the  country  the  robbers,  or 
sicarii,  together  with  their  leader,  John  of  Gischala, 
played  a  conspicuous  part  (Joseph.  B.  J.  iv.  2,  §1  ; 
3,  §4;  7,  §2). 

The  Mosaic  law  on  the  subject  of  theft  is  con 
tained  in  Ex.  xxii.,  and  consists  of  the  following 
enactments  :  — 

1.  He  who  stole  and  killed  an  ox  or  a  sheep,  was 
to  restore  five  oxen  for  the  ox,  and  four  sheep  for  the 


ROGELIM 


1049 


2.  If  the  stolen  animal  was  found  alive  the  thief 
was  to  restore  double. 

3.  If  a  man  was  found  stealing  in  a  dwelling 
house  at  night,  and  was  killed  in  the  act,  the  homi 
cide  was  not  held  guilty  of  murder. 

4.  If  the  act  was  committed  during  daylight,  the 
thiel'  might  not  be  killed,  but  was  bound  to  make 
full  restitution  or  be  sold  into  slavery. 

5.  If  money  or  goods  deposited  in  a  man's  house 
were  stolen  therefrom,  the  thief,  when  detected,  was 
to  pay  double  :  but 

6.  If  the  thief  could  not  be  found,  the  master  of 
the  house  was  to  be  examined  before  the  judges. 

7.  If  an  animal  given   in  charge  to  a  man  to 
keep  were  stolen  from  him,  »'.  e.  through  his  negli 
gence,  he  was  to  make  restitution  to  the  owner. 
FOATli.1 


There  seems  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  law 
underwent  any  alteration  in  Solomon's  time,  as 
Michaelis  supposes  ;  the  expression  in  Prov.  vi.  30, 
31  is,  that  a  thief  detected  in  stealing  should  restore 
sevenfold,  i.  e.  to  the  full  amount,  and  for  this  pur 
pose,  even  give  all  the  substance  of  his  house,  and 
thus  in  case  of  failure  be  liable  to  servitude  (Mi 
chaelis,  Laws  of  Hoses,  §284).  On  the  other  hand, 
see  Bertheau  on  Prov.  vi.  ;  and,  Keil,  Arch.  Hebr. 
§154.—  r  Man-stealing  was  punishable  with  death 
(Ex.  xxi.  16;  Deut.  xxiv.  7).  —  Invasion  of  right  in 
land  was  strictly  forbidden  (Deut.  xxvii.  17  ;  Is.  v. 
8  ;  Mic.  ii.  2). 

The  question  of  sacrilege  does  not  properly  come 
within  the  scope  of  the  present  article.  [H.  W.  P.] 

ROBOAM  ('Poftocifji:  Roboam),  Ecclus.  xlvii. 
23  ;  Matt.  i.  7.  [REHOBOAM.] 


ROE,  ROEBUCK  (»3V,  tzebi  (m.)  ; 

tzebiyyah  (f.)  :  SopKas,  86pic<ov,  SopicdSiov  :  caprea, 
damuld).  There  seems  to  be  little  or  no  doubt 
that  the  Heb.  word,  which  occurs  frequently  in  the 
0.  T.,  denotes'  some  species  of  antelope,  probably 
the  Gazella  dorcas,  a  native  of  Egypt  and  North 
Africa,  or  the  G.  Arabica  of  Syria  and  Arabia, 
which  appears  to  be  a  variety  only  of  the  dorcas. 
The  gazelle  was  allowed  as  food  (Deut.  xii.  15, 
22,  &c.)  ;  it  is  mentioned  as  very  fleet  of  foot 
(2  Sam.  ii.  18;  1  Chr.  xii.  8);  it  was  hunted  (Is. 
xiii.  14  ;  Prov.  vi.  5)  ;  it  was  celebrated  for  its 
loveliness  (Cant.  ii.  9,  17,  viii.  14).  The  gazelle 
is  found  in  Egypt,  Barbary,  and  Syria.  Stanley 
(8.  fy  P.  p.  207)  says  that  the  signification  of  the 
word  Ajalon,  the  valley  "  of  stags,"  is  still  justified 
by  "  the  gazelles  which  the  peasants  hunt  on  its 
mountain  slopes."  Thomson  (The  Land  and  the 
Book,  p.  172)  says  that  the  mountains  of  Naphtali 
"  abound  in  gazelles  to  this  day." 


SaztUa  Arabica. 

The  ariel  gazelle  (G.  Arabica ;,  which,  if  not,  a 
different  species,  is  at  least  a  well  marked  variety 
of  the  doi-cas,  is  common  in  Syria,  and  is  hunted 
by  the  Arabs  with  a  falcon  and  a  greyhound ;  the 
repeated  attacks  of  the  bird  upon  the  head  of  the 
animal  so  bewilder  it  that  it  fails  an  easy  prey  to 
the  greyhound,  which  is  trained  to  watch  the  flight 
of  the  falcon.  Many  of  these  antelopes  are  also 
taken  in  pitfals  into  which  they  are  driven  by  the 
shouts  of  the  hunters.  The  large  full  soft  eye  ol 
the  fazelle  has  long  been  the  theme  of  Oriental 
praises.  (W.  H.] 

EO'GELIU  (B^P :  'Pa>7eAA€iAi.,and  so  Ale*. 


1060 


EOHGAH 


ROMAN  EMPIRE 


though  ouce  'Puyttei/j.  :  Rogdiiri).  The  residence  I 
of  Barzillai  the  Gileadite  (2  Sam.  xvii.  27,  xix.  31; 
in  the  highlands  east  of  the  Jordan.  It  i>s  men 
tioned  on  this  occasion  only.  Nothing  is  said  to 
guide  us  to  its  situation,  and  no  name  at  all 
resembling  it  appears  to  have  been  hitherto  dis 
covered  on  the  spot. 

If  interpreted  as  Hebrew  the  name  is  derivable 
from  reyel,  the  foot,  and  signifies  the  "  fullers"  or 
''  washers,"  who  were  in  the  habit  (as  they  still 
are  in  the  East)  of  using  their  feet  to  tread  the 
cloth  which  they  are  cleansing.  But  this  is  ex 
tremely  uncertain.  The  same  word  occurs  in  the 
name  EN-ROGEL.  [G.] 

ROH'GAH  (nann,  Cethib,  narn,  AV»: 

'Pooyd  ;    Alex.  Ovpaoyd  :    Rooifa).     A-n  Ashen  te, 
of  the  sons  of  Shamer  (I  Chr.  vii.  34). 

EO'IMUS  CPof/*os).  REHUM  1  (1  Esd.  v.  8). 
The  name  is  not  traceable  in  the  Vulgate. 


ROLL  (HP  ;  Ke</>a\iY).     A  book  in  ancient 

times  consisted  of  a  single  long  strip  of  paper  or 

parchment,  which  was  usually  kept  rolled  up  on  a 

stick,  and  was  unrolled  when  a  person  wished  to 

read  it.      Hence   arose  the   term   megillah,  from 

galalf  "  to  roll,"  strictly  answering  to  the  Latin 

volumen,  whence  comes  our  volume  •   hence  also  the 

expressions,  "  to  spread"  and  "roll  together  ,"b  in 

stead  of  "  to  open"  and  "  to  shut"  a  book.     The 

full  expression  for  a  book  was  "  a  roll  of  writing," 

or  "  a  roll  of  a  book"  (Jer.  xxxvi.  2  ;   Ps.  A/7  ; 

Ez.  ii.  9),  but  occasionally  "  roll  "  stands  by  itseli 

(Zech.  v.  1,2;  Ezr.  vi.  2).     The  Kf(pa\is  of  the 

LXX.  originally  referred  to  the  ornamental  knob 

(the  umbilicus  of  the  Latins)  at  the  top  of  the  stick 

or  cylinder  round  which  the  roll  was  wound.     Th 

use  of  the  term  megillah  implies,  of  course,  the  ex 

istence  of  a  soft  and  pliant  material  :  what  this  ma 

terial  was  in  the  Old  Testament  period,  we  are  no 

informed  ;  but  as  a  knife  was  required  for  its  de 

struction  (Jer.  xxxvi.  23),  we  infer  that  it  was 

parchment.     The  roll  was  usually  written  on  one 

side  only  (Mishn.  Ei-ub.  10,  §3),  and  hence  the 

particular  notice  of  one  that  was  "  written  withii 

and  without"  (Ez.  ii.  10).     The  writing  was  ar 

ranged   in  columns,  resembling  a  door  in  shape 

and  hence  deriving  their  Hebrew  name,c  just  a. 

"  column,"  from  its  resemblance  to  a  columna  o 

pillar.     It  has  been  asserted  that  the  term  inegillat 

does  not  occur  before  the  7th  cent.  B.C.,  being  firs 

used  by  Jeremiah  (Hitzig,  in  Jer.  xxxvi.  2)  ;  an 

the  conclusion  has  been  drawn  that  the  use  of  sue 

materials  as  parchment  was  not  known  until  tha 

period  (Ewald,   Gesch.  i.   71,  note;  Gesen.  Thes 

]>.   289).     This  is  to  assume,  perhaps  too  confi 

dently,  a  late  date  for  the  composition  of  Ps.  xl. 

and  to  ignore  the  collateral  evidence  arising  out  o 

the  expression  "  roll  together  "  used  by  Is.  xxxiv 

4,  and  also  out  of  the  probable   reference  to  th 

Pentateuch  in  Ps.  xl.  7,  "  the  roll  of  the  book," 

copy  of  which  was  deposited  by  the  side  of  the  ar 

(Deut.  xxxi.  26).    We  may  here  add  that  the  tern 

fn  Is.  viii.  1,  rendered  in  the  A.  V.  "  roll,"  moi 

correctly  means  tablet.  [W.  L.  B.] 


ROMAM'TI-EZ'ER  OW  ^DD 

fcp  ;  Alex.  'Pa>,ue,u0i-e£ep  in  1  Chr.  xxv.  4,  tor?. 
.eO-/j.ie£fp  in  1  Chr.  xxv.  31  :  Romemthiezar}. 
ne  of  the  fourteen  sons  of  Heman.  and  chief  of  thf 
4th  division  of  the  singers  in  the  reign  of  L"avid 
1  Chr.  xxv.  4,  31). 

ROMAN  EMPIRE.  The  history  of  the 
oman  Empire,  properly  so  called,  extends  over  a 
eriod  of  rather  more  than  five  hundred  years,  viz. 
•om  the  battle  of  Actium,  B.C.  31,  when  Augustus 
ecame  sole  ruler  of  the  Roman  world,  to  the  abdi- 
ation  of  Augustulus,  A.D.  476.  The  Empire,  how- 
ver,  in  the  sense  of  the  dominion  of  Rome  over  a 
arge  number  of  conquered  nations,  was  in  full  force 
nd  had  reached  wide  limits  some  time  before  the 
onarchy  of  Augustus  was  established.  The  notke? 
f  Roman  history  which  occur  in  the  Bible  are  con 
ned  to  the  last  century  and  a  half  of  the  common- 
realth  and  the  first  century  of  the  imperial 
nonarchy. 

The  first  historic  mention  of  Rome  in  the  Bible 
s  in  1  Mace.  i.  10.  Though  the  date  of  the  founda- 
iou  of  Rome  coincides  nearly  with  the  beginning 
f  the  reign  of  Pekah  in  Israel,  it  was  not  till  the 
>eginning  of  the  2nd  century  B.C.  that  the  Romans 
leisure  to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  the  East. 
Vhen,  however,  the  power  of  Carthage  had  been 
ftectually  broken  at  Zama,  B.C.  202,  Roman  arms 
,nd  intrigues  soon  made  themselves  felt  throughout 
Macedonia,  Greece,  and  Asia  Minor.  About  the 
year  161  B.C.  Judas  Maccabaeus  heard  of  the  Ro- 
nans  as  the  conquerors  of  Philip,  Perseus,  and 
Antiochus  (1  Mace.  viii.  5,  6).  "  It  was  told  him 

'  how  they  destroyed  and  brought  under  their 
dominion  all  other  kingdoms  and  isles  that  at  any 
ime  resisted  them,  but  with  their  friends  and  such 
is  relied  upon  them  they  kept  amity  "  (viii.  11  ,  12). 
n  order  to  strengthen  himself  against  Demetrius 
:ing  of  Syria  he  sent  ambassadors  to  Rome  (viii. 
17),  and  concluded  a  defensive  alliance  with  the 
senate  (viii.  22-32).  This  was  renewed  by  Jona 
than  (xii.  1)  and  by  Simon  (xv.  17  ;  Joseph.  Ant. 
xii.  10,  §6,  xiii.  5,  §8,  7,  §3).  Notices  of  the  em 
bassy  sent  by  Judas,  of  a  tribute  paid  to  Rome  by 
the  Syrian  king,  and  of  further  intercourse  between 
the  Romans  and  the  Jews,  occur  in  2  Mace.  iv.  11, 
viii.  10,  36,  xi.  34.  In  the  course  of  the  narrative 
mention  is  made  of  the  Roman  senate  (rJ>  fiovtev- 
rypiov,  1  Mace.  xii.  3),  of  the  consul  Lucius 
(o  viraros,  1  Mace.  xv.  15,  16),  and  the  Roman  con 
stitution  is  described  in  a  somewhat  distorted  form 
(1  Mace.  viii.  14-16). 

The  history  of  the  Maccabaean  and  Idumaean 
dynasties  forms  no  part  of  our  present  subject. 
[MACCABEES  ;  HEROD.]  Here  a  brief  summary 
of  the  progress  of  Roman  dominion  in  Judaea  will 
suffice. 

In  the  year  65  B.C.,  when  Syria  was  made  a 
Roman  province  by  Pompey,  the  Jews  were  still 
governed  by  one  of  the  Asmonaean  princes.  Aristo- 
bulus  had  lately  driven  his  brother  Hyrcanus  from 
the  chief  priesthood,  and  was  now  in  his  turn  at 
tacked  by  Aretas,  king  of  Arabia  Petraea,  the  ally 
of  Hyrcanus.  Pompey's  lieutenant,  M.  Aemilius 
Scaurus,  interfered  in  the  contest  B.C.  64,  and  the 


b  Jn  the  Hebrew,  KHB  (2  K.  xix.  14)  and 
xxxiv.  4):  in  the  Greek,  avwrvamiv  and 
(Luke  iv.  17,20). 


3  (I 


(A.  V.  «  leaves,"  Jer.  xxxvi.  23).  HitziE 
maintains  that  the  word  means  "leaves,"  and  that  Ihe 
megillah  in  this  case  was  a  book  like  our  own,  consisting 
of  numerous  pages. 


ttOMAN  EMFIKE 

fl*xt  year  Pompey  himself  marched  an  army  into 
Juu<.ea  and  took  Jerusalem  (Joseph.  Ant.  xiv.  2, 
3,  4 ;  B.  J.  i.  6,  7).  From  this  time  the  Jews 
were  practically  under  the  government  of  Rome. 
Hyrcanus  retained  the  high-priesthood  and  a  titular 
sovereignty,  subject  to  the  watchful  control  of  his 
minister  Antipater,  an  active  partisan  of  the  Roman 
interest?.  Finally,  Antipater's  son,  Herod  the  Great, 
was  made  king  by  Antony's  interest,  B.C.  40,  and 
confirmed  in  the  kingdom  by  Augustus,  B.C.  30 
(Joseph.  Ant.  xiv.  14,  xv.  6).  The  Jews,  however, 
were  all  this  time  tributaries  of  Rome,  and  their 
princes  in  reality  were  mere  Roman  procurators. 
Julius  Caesar  is  said  to  have  exacted  from  them  a 
fourth  part  of  their  agricultural  produce  in  addition 
to  the  tithe  paid  to  Hyrcauus  (Ant.  xiv.  10,  §0). 
Roman  soldiers  were  quartered  at  Jerusalem  in 
Herod's  time  to  support  him  in  his  authority  (Ant. 
xv.  3,  §7).  Tribute  was  paid  to  Rome,  and  an  oath 
of  allegiance  to  the  emperor  as  well  as  to  Herod 
appears  to  have  been  taken  by  the  people  (Ant. 
xvii.  2,  §2).  On  the  banishment  of  Archelaus, 
A.D.  6,  Judaea  became  a  mere  appendage  of  the 
province  of  Syria,  and  was  governed  by  a  Roman 
procurator,  who  resided  at  Caesarea.  Galilee  and 
the  adjoining  districts  were  still  left  under  the 
government  of  Herod's  sons  and  other  petty  princes, 
whose  dominions  and  titles  were  changed  from  time 
to  time  by  successive  emperors:  for  details  see 
HEROD. 

Such  were  the  relations  of  the  Jewish  people  to 
the  Roman  government  at  the  time  when  the  N.  T. 
history  begins.  An  ingenious  illustration  of  this 
state  of  things  has  been  drawn  from  the  condition 
of  British  India.  The  Governor  General  at  Calcutta, 
the  subordinate  governors  at  Madras  and  Bombay, 
and  the  native  princes,  whose  dominions  have  been 
at  one  time  enlarged,  at  another  incorporated  with 
the  British  presidencies,  find  their  respective  coun 
terparts  in  the  governor  of  Syria  at  Antioch,  the 
procurators  of  Judaea  at  Caesarea,  and  the  mem 
bers  of  Herod's  family,  whose  dominions  were  alter 
nately  enlarged  and  suppressed  by  the  Roman  em 
perors  (Conybeare  and  Howson,  Life  of  St.  Paid, 
i.  27).  These  and  other  characteristics  of  Roman 
rule  come  before  us  constantly  in  the  N.  T.  Thus 
we  hear  of  Caesar  the  sole  king  (John  xix.  15) — 
ofCyrenius,  "  governor  of  Syria  "  (Luke  ii.  2) — of 
Pontius  Pilate,  Felix,  and  Festus,  the  "  governors," 
i.  e.  procurators,  of  Judaea — of  the  "  tetrarchs 
Herod,  Philip,  and  Lysanias  (Luke  iii.  1) — of"  king 
Agrippa"  (Acts  xxv.  13) — of  Roman  soldiers, 
legions,  centurions,  publicans — of  the  tribute-money 
(Matt.  xxii.  19)— the  taxing  of  "the  whole  world" 
(Luke  ii.  1) — Italian  and  Augustan  cohorts  (Acts 
x.  1,  xxvii.  1) — the  appeal  to  Caesar  (Acts  xxv.  11). 
Three  of  the  Roman  emperors  are  mentioned  in  the 
N.  T. — Augustus  (Luke  ii.  1),  Tiberius  (Luke  iii. 
1),  and  Claudius  (Acts  xi.  28,  xviii.  2).  Nero  is 
alluded  to  under  various  titles,  as  Augustus  (2e- 
j8a<TTo';)  ind  Caesar  (Acts  xxv.  10,  11,  21,  25; 
Phil.  iv.  2£),  as  u  Kvptos,  "  my  lord  "  (Acts  xxv. 
26),  and  apparently  in  other  passages  (1  Pet.  ii.  17  ; 
Rom,  xiii.  1).  Several  notices  of  the  provincial 
administration  of  the  Romans  and  the  condition  of 
provincial  cities  occur  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's 
journeys  (Acts  xiii.  7,  zviii.  12,  xvi.  12,  35,  38, 
xix.-  38). 

In  illustration  of  the  sacred  narrative  it  may  be 
well  to  give  a  general  account,  though  necessarily 
a  short  and  imperfect  one,  of  the  position  of  the 
inperor,  the  extent  of  the  empire,  and  the  ad- 


ROMAN  EMPIRE 


1051 


ministration  of  the  provinces  in  the  time  of  our 
Lord  and  His  Apostles.  Fuller  information  will  ba 
found  under  special  articles. 

I.  When  Augustus  became  sole  ruler  of  the  Iio« 
man  world  he  was  in  theory  simply  the  first  citizen 
of  the  republic,  entrusted  with  temporary  powers 
to  settle  the  disorders  of  the  state.  Tacitus  savs 
that  he  was  neither  king  nor  dictator,  but "  prince" 
|Tac.  Ann.  i.  9),  a  title  implying  no  civil  authority, 
but  simply  the  position  of  chief  member  of  the 
senate  (princeps  senatus).  The  old  magistracies 
were  retained,  but  the  various  powers  and  preroga 
tives  of  each  were  conferred  upon  Augustus,  so  that 
while  others  commonly  bore  the  chief  official  titles, 
Augustus  had  the  supreme  control  of  every  depart 
ment  of  the  state.  Above  all  he  was  the  Emperor 
(Imperator).  This  word,  used  originally  to  designate 
any  one  entrusted  with  the  imperium  or  full  mili 
tary  authority  over  a  Roman  army,  acquired  a  new 
significance  when  adopted  as  a  permanent  title  by 
Julius  Caesar.  By  his  use  of  it  as  a  constant  prefix 
to  his  name  in  the  city  and  in  the  camp  he  openly 
asserted  a  paramount  military  authority  over  the 
state.  Augustus,  by  resuming  it,  plainly  indicated, 
in  spite  of  much  artful  concealment,  the  real  basis 
on  which  his  power  rested,  viz.  the  support  of  the 
army  (Men vale,  Roman  Empire,  vol.  iii.).  In  the 
N.  T.'the  emperor  is  commonly  designated  by  the 
family  name  "  Caesar,"  or  the  dignified  and  almost 
sacred  title  "Augustus"  (for  its  meaning,  comp. 
Ovid,  Fasti,  i.  609).  Tiberius  is  called  by  impli 
cation  yyejjifiw  in  Luke  iii.  1,  a  title  applied  in  the 
N.  T.  to  Cyrenius,  Pilate,  and  others.  Notwith 
standing  the  despotic  character  of  the  government, 
the  Romans  seem  to  have  shrunk  from  speaking  of 
their  ruler  under  his  military  title  (see  Merivale, 
Horn.  Empire,  iii.  452,  and  note)  or  any  other 
avowedly  despotic  appellation.  The  use  of  the  word 
6  Kvptos,  dominus,  "  my  lord,"  in  Acts  xxv.  26, 
marks  the  progress  of  Roman  servility  between 
the  time  of  Augustus  and  Nero.  Augustus  and 
Tiberius  refused  this  title.  Caligula  first  bore  it 
(see  Alford's  note  in  /.  c. ;  Ovid,  Fast.  ii.  142). 
The  term  &a(ri\€vs,  "  king,"  in  John  xix.  15,  1  Pet. 
ii.  17,  cannot  be  closely  pressed. 

The  Empire  was  nominally  elective  (Tac.  Ann.  xiii. 
4)  ;  but  practically  it  passed  by  adoption  (see  Galba's 
speech  in  Tac.  Hist.  i.  15),  and  till  Nero's  time 
a  sort  of  hereditary  right  seemed  to  be  recognised. 
The  dangers  inherent  in  a  military  government  were, 
on  the  whole,  successfully  averted  till  the  death 
of  Pertinax,  A.D.  193  (Gibbon,  ch.  iii.  p.  80),  but 
outbreaks  of  military  .violence  were  not  wanting  in 
this  earlier  period  (comp.  Wenck's  note  on  Gibbon, 
I.  c.).  The  army  was  systematically  bribed  by  do. 
natives  at  the  commencement  of  each  reign,  and  the 
mob  of  the  capital  continually  fed  and  amused  at  the 
expense  of  the  provinces.  We  are  reminded  of  the 
insolence  and  avarice  of  the  soldiers  in  Luke  iii.  14. 
The  reigns  of  Caligula,  Nero,  and  Domitiau  show 
that  an  emperor  might  shed  the  noblest  blood  with 
impunity,  so  long  as  he  abstained  from  ofl'ending 
the  soldiery  and  the  populace. 

II.  Extent  of  the  Empire. — Cicero's  description 
of  the  Greek  states  and  colonies  as  a  "  fringe  on  the 
skills  of  barbarism  "  (Cic.  De  Rep.  ii.  4)  has  been 
well  applied  to  the  Roman  dominions  before  the 
conquests  of  Pompey  and  Caesar  (Merivale,  Rom. 
Empire,  iv.  409).  The  Roman  Empire  was  still 
confined  to  a  narrow  strip  encircling  the  Mediter 
ranean  Sea.  Pompey  added  Asia  Minor  and  Syria, 
Caesar  added  Gaul.  The  generals  of  Augustus  over- 


1052 


KOMAN  EMPIRE 


ran  the  N.\V.  portion  of  Spam  and  the  country 
between  the  Alps  and  the  Danube.  The  boundaries 
of  the  Empire  were  now,  the  Atlantic  on  the  W., 
the  Euphrates  on  the  F..,  the  deserts  of  Africa,  the 
cataracts  of  the  Nile,  and  the  Arabian  deserts  on 
the  S.,  the  British  Channel,  the  Rhine,  the  Danube, 
and  the  Black  Sea  on  the  N.  The  only  subsequent 
conquests  of  importance  were  those  of  Britain  by 
Claudius  and  of  Dacia  by  Trajan.  The  only  inde 
pendent  powers  of  importance  were  the  Parthians 
on  the  E.  and  the  Germans  on  the  N. 

The  population  of  the  Empire  in  the  time  of 
Augustus  has  been  calculated  at  85,000,000  (Meri- 
vale,  Rom.  Empire,  iv.  442-450).  Gibbon,  speak 
ing  of  the  time  of  Claudius,  puts  the  population  at 
120,000,000  (Decline  and  Fall,  ch.  ii.).  Count 
Franz  de  Champagny  adopts  the  same  number  for 
the  reign  of  Nero  (Les  Cesars,  ii.  428).  All  these 
estimates  are  confessedly  somewhat  uncertain  and 
conjectural. 

This  large  population  was  controlled  in  the  time 
of  Tiberius  by  an  army  of  25  legions,  exclusive  of 
the  praetorian  guards  and  other  cohorts  in  the 
capital.  The  soldiers  who  composed  the  legions  may 
be  reckoned  in  round  numbers  at  170,000  men.  If 
we  add  to  these  an  equal  number  of  auxiliaries  (Tac. 
Ann.  iv.  5)  we  have  a  total  force  of  340,000  men. 
The  praetorian  guards  may  be  reckoned  at  10,000 
(Dion  Cass.  Iv.  24).  The  other  cohorts  would  swell 
the  garrison  at  Rome  to  fifteen  or  sixteen  thousand 
men.  For  the  number  and  stations  of  the  legions 
in  the  time  of  Tiberius,  comp.  Tac.  Ann.  iv.  5. 

The  navy  may  have  contained  about  21,000  men 
(Les  Cesars,  ii.  429  j  comp.  Merivale,  iii.  534).  The 
legion,  as  appears  from  what  has  been  said,  must 
have  been  "  more  like  a  brigade  than  a  regiment," 
consisting  as  it  did  of  more  than  6000  infantry 
with  cavalry  attached  (Conybeare  and  Howson,  ii. 
285).  For  the  "  Italian  and  Augustan  bands " 
(Acts  x.  1,  xxvii.  1)  see  ARMY,  vol.  i.  p.  114. 

III.  The  Provinces. — The  usual  fate  of  a  country 
conquered  by  Rome  was  to  become  a  subject  pro 
vince,  governed  directly  from  Rome  by  officers  sent 
out  for  that  purpose.  Sometimes,  however,  as  we 
have  seen,  petty  sovereigns  were  left  in  possession 
of  a  nominal  independence  on  the  borders,  or  within 
the  natural  limits,  of  the  province.  Such  a  system 
was  useful  for  rewarding  an  ally,  for  employing  a 
busy  ruler,  for  gradually  accustoming  a  stubborn 
people  to  the  yoke  of  dependence.  There  were 
differences  too  in  the  political  condition  of  cities 
within  the  provinces.  Some  were  free  cities,  i.  e. 
were  governed  by  then-  own  magistrates,  and  were 
exempted  from  occupation  by  a  Roman  garrison. 
Such  were  Tarsus,  Antioch  in  Syria,  Athens,  Ephe- 
sus,  Thessalonica.  See  the  notices  of  the  "  Poli- 
tarchs"  and  "Demos"  at  Thessalonica,  Acts  xvii. 
5-8.  The  "town-clerk"  and  the  assembly  at 
Ephesus,  Acts  xix.  35,  39  (C.  and  H.  Life  of  St. 
Paul,  i.  357,  ii.  79).  Occasionally,  but  rarely,  free 
cities  were  exempted  from  taxation.  Other  cities 
Wfc/e  "  Colonies,"  i.  e.  communities  of  Roman  citi- 
Z3ns  transplanted,  like  garrisons  of  the  imperial 
city,  into  a  foreign  land.  Such  was  Philippi  (Acts 
xvi.  12).  Such  too  were  Corinth,  Troas,  the  Pisi- 
dfan  Antioch.  The  inhabitants  were  for  the  most 
part  Romans  (Acts  xvi.  21),  and 'their  magistrates 
delighted  in  the  Romiin  title  of  Praetor  (arpa- 
T"ny&s),  and  in  the  attendance  of  lictors  (pafiSovxoty. 
Acts  xvi.  35.  (C.  and  H.  i.  315.) 

Augustus  divided  the  provinces  into  two  classes, 
(1.)  Imperial,  (I;,)  Senatorial ;  retaining  in  his  own 


ROMAN  EMPIRE 

hands,  for  obvious  reasons,  those  provinces  TV)  eve 
the  presence  of  a  large  military  force  was  neces 
sary,  and  committing  the  peaceful  and  unarmed 
provinces  to  the  Senate.  The  Imperial  provinces 
at  first  were — Gaul,  Lusitania,  Syria,  Phoenicia, 
Cilicia,  Cyprus,  and  Aegypt.  The  Senatorial  pro 
vinces  were  Africa,  Numidia,  Asia,  Achaea  and 
Epirus,  Dalmatia,  Macedonia,  Sicily,  Crete  and  Cy- 
rene,  Bithynia  and  Pontus,  Sardinia,  Baetica  (Dion 
C.  liii.  12  \  Cyprus  and  Gallia  Narbonensis  were 
subsequently  given  up  by  Augustus,  who  in  turn 
received  Dalmatia  from  the  Senate.  Many  other 
changes  were  made  afterwards.  The  N.  T.  writers 
invariably  designate  the  governors  of  Senatorial 
provinces  by  the  correct  title  of  avdviraroi.  pro 
consuls  vActs  xiii.  7,  xviii.  12.  xix.  38).  [CYPRUS.] 
For  the  governor  of  an  Imperial  province,  properly 
styled  "  Legatus  Caesaris"  (IIpco-jScuTTjs),  the  word 
'Hyf/jL(&v  (Governor)  is  used  in  the  N.  T. 

The  provinces  were  heavily  taxed  for  the  benefit 
of  Rome  and  her  citizens.  "  It  was  as  if  England 
were  to  defray  the  expenses  of  her  own  administra 
tion  by  the  proceeds  of  a  tax  levied  on  her  Indian 
empire  "  (Liddell,  Hist,  of  Rome,  i.  p.  448).  In  old 
times  the  Roman  revenues  were  raised  mainly  from 
three  sources :  (1.)  The  domain  lands ;  (2.)  A  direct 
tax  (tributum)  levied  upon  every  citizen  ;  (3.)  From 
customs,  tolls,  harbour  duties,  &c.  The  agrarian 
law  of  Julius  Caesar  is  said  to  have  extinguished 
the  first  source  of  revenue  (Cic.  ad  Alt.  ii.  xvi.; 
Dureau  de  la  Malle,  ii.  430).  Roman  citizens  had 
ceased  to  pay  direct  taxes  since  the  conquest  of 
Macedonia,  B.C.  167  (Cic.  de  Off.  ii.  22 ;  Plut, 
Aemil.  Paul.  38),  except  in  extraordinary  emer 
gencies.  The  main  part  of  the  Roman  revenue  was 
now  drawn  from  the  provinces  by  a  direct  tax 
(itriv<ros,  (j>6pos,  Matt.  xxii.  17 ,  Luke  xx.  22), 
amounting  probably  to  from  5  to  7  per  cent,  on 
the  estimated  produce  of  the  soil  (Dureau  de  la  Malle, 
ii.  p.  418).  The  indirect  taxes  too  (TC'ATJ,  vecti- 
galia,  Matt.  xvii.  25  ;  Dureau  de  la  Malle,  ii.  449) 
appear  to  have  been  A  cry  heavy  (ibid.  ii.  452, 
448).  Augustus  on  coming  to  the  empire  found 
the  regular  sources  of  revenue  impaired,  while  his 
expenses  must  have  been  very  great.  To  say  no 
thing  of  the  pay  of  the  army,  he  is  said  to  have 
supported  no  less  than  200,000  citizens  in  idleness 
by  the  miserable  system  of  public  gratuities.  Hence 
the  necessity  of  a  careful  valuation  of  the  property 
of  the  whole  empire,  which  appears  to  have  been 
made  more  than  once  in  his  reign.  [CENSUS.]  For 
the  historical  difficulty  about  the  taxing  in  Lukt 
ii.  1,  see  CYRENIUS.  Augustus  appears  to  have 
raised  both  the  direct  and  indirect  taxes  (Dureau 
de  la  Malle,  ii.  433,  448). 

The  provinces  are  said  to  have  been  better  go 
verned  under  the  Empire  than  under  the  Common 
wealth,  and  those  of  the  emperor  better  than  those 
of  the  Senate  (Tac.  Ann.  i.  76,  iv.  6 ;  Dion,  liii. 
14).  Two  important  changes  were  introduced  under 
the  Empire.  The  governors  received  a  fixed  pay, 
and  the  term  of  their  command  was  prolonged 
(Jos.  Ant.  xviii.  6,  §5).  But  the  old  mode  of 
levying  the  taxes  seems  to  have  been  continued. 
The  companies  who  farmed  the  taxes,  consisting 
generally  of  knights,  paid  a  certain  sum  into  the 
Roman  treasury,  and  proceeded  to  wring  what 
they  could  from  the  provincials,  often  with  -the 
connivance  and  support  of  the  provincial  governor. 
The  work  was  done  chiefly  by  underlings  of  the 
lowest  class  (porti tores).  Those  are  the  publicans 
of  the  N.  T. 


EOMAN  EMPIRE 


UOMANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE     1053 


Ou  the  whole  it  seems  Doubtful    whether   the    tions  for  the  relief  of  the  infirm  and  poor,  no  societies 

for  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  mankind 
from  motives  of  charity.     Nothing  was   done   to 


wrongs  of  the  provinces  can  Aave  been  materially 
alleviated  under  the  Imperial  government.  It  is  not 
likely  that  such  rulers  as  Caligula  and  Nero  would 
be  scrupulous  about  the  means  used  for  replenishii  g 
their  treasury,  The  stories  related  even  of  the 
reign  of  Augustus  show  how  slight  were  the  checks 
on  the  tyranny  of  provincial  governors.  See  the  story 
of  Licinus  in  Gaul  (Diet,  of  Gr.  fy  Rom.  Biog.  sub 
voce),  and  that  of  the  Dalmatian  chief  (Dion,  lv.). 
The  sufferings  of  St.  Paul,  protected  as  he  v,  as  to  a 
certain  extent  by  his  Roman  citizenship,  show  plainly 
how  little  a  provincial  had  to  hope  from  thu  justice 
of  a  Roman  governor. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  discuss  the  difficult  ques 
tion  relating  to  Roman  provincial  government  raised 
on  John  xviii.  31.  It  may  be  sufficient  here  to 
state,  that  according  to  strict  Roman  law  the  Jews 
would  lose  the  power  of  life  and  death  when  their 
country  became  a  province,  and  there  seems  no 
sufficient  reason  to  depart  from  the  literal  interpre 
tation  of  the  verse  just  cited.  See  Alford,  in  I.  c. 
On  the  other  side  see  Biscoe,  On  the  Acts,  p.  113. 

The  condition  of  the  Roman  Empire  at  the  time 
when  Christianity  appeared  has  often  been  dwelt 
upon,  as  affording  obvious  illustrations  of  St.  Paul's 
expression  that  the  "  fulness  of  time  had  come " 
(Gal.  iv.  4).  The  general  peace  within  the  limits 
of  the  Empire,  the  formation  of  military  roads,  the 
suppression  of  piracy,  the  march  of  the  legions,  the 
voyages  of  the  corn  fleets,  the  general  increase  of 
traffic,  the  spread  of  the  Latin  language  in  the 
West  as  Greek  had  already  spread  in  the  East,  the 
external  unity  of  the  Empire,  offered  facilities  hi 
therto  unknown  for  the  spread  of  a  world-wide 
religion.  The  tendency  too  of  a  despotism  like  that 
of  the  Roman  Empire  to  reduce  all  its  subjects  to  a 
dead  level,  was  a  powerful  instrument  in  breaking 
down  the  pride  of  privileged  races  and  national 
religions,  and  familiarizing  men  with  the  truth  that 
"  God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  "  (Acts  xvii.  24,  26).  But  still 
more  striking  than  this  outward  preparation  for  the 
diffusion  of  the  Gospel  was  the  appearance  of  ardeep 
and  wide-spread  corruption  which  seemed  to  defy 
any  human  remedy.  It  would  be  easy  to  accumu 
late  proofs  of  the  moral  and  political  degradation  of 
the  Romans  under  the  Empire.  It  is  needless  to  do 
more  than  allude  to  the  corruption,  the  cruelty,  the 
sensuality,  the  monstrous  and  unnatural  wickedness 
of  the  period  as  revealed  in  the  heathen  historians 
and  satirists.  "  Viewed  as  a  national  or  political  his 
tory,"  says  the  great  historian  of  Rome,  "  the  history 
of  the  Roman  Empire  is  sad  and  discouraging  in  the 
last  degree.  We  see  that  things  had  come  to  a 
point  at  which  no  earthly  power  could  afford  any 
help ;  we  now  have  the  development  of  dead  powers 
instead  of  that  of  a  vital  energy"  (Niebuhr,  Lect. 
v.  194).  Notwithstanding  the  outward  appearance 
of  peace,  unity,  and  reviving  prosperity,  the  general 
condition  of  the  people  must  have  been  one  of  great 
misery.  To  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  probably 
one-half  of  the  population  consisted  of  slaves,  the 
great  inxquality  of  wealth  at  a  time  when  a  whole 
province  could  be  owned  by  six  landowners,  the 
absence  of  any  middle  class,  the  utter  want  of  any 
institutions  for  alleviating  distress  such  as  are  found 
in  all  Christian  countries,  the  inhuman  tone  of 
feeling  and  practice  generally  prevailing,  forbid  us 
to  tnmk  favourably  of  the  happiness  of  the  world 
in  tne  famous  Augustan  age.  We  must  remember 
that  "  there  were  no  public  hospitals,  no 


promote  the  instruction  of  the  lower 
thing  to  mitigate  the  miseries  of  domestic  slavery. 
Charity  and  general  philanthropy  were  so  little 
regarded  as  duties,  that  it  requires  a  very  extensive 
acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  the  times  ta 
find  any  allusion  to  them  "  (Arnold's  Later  Roman 
Commonwealth,  ii.  398).  If  we  add  to  this  tint 
there  was  probably  not  a  single  religion,  except  the 
Jewish,  which  was  felt  by  the  more  enlightened 
part  of  its  professors  to  be  real,  we  may  form  some 
notion  of  the  world  which  Christianity  had  to 
reform  and  purify.  We  venture  to  quote  an  elo 
quent  description  of  its  "  slow,  imperceptible,  con 
tinuous  aggression  on  the  heathenism  of  the  Roman 
Empire." 

"  Christianity  was  gradually  withdrawing  some 
of  all  orders,  even  slaves,  out  of  the  vices,  the  igno 
rance,  the  misery  of  that  corrupted  social  system. 
It  was  ever  instilling  feelings  of  humanity,  yet  un 
known  or  coldly  commended  by  an  impotent  philo 
sophy,  among  men  and  women  whose  infant  ears 
had  been  habituated  to  the  shrieks  of  dying  gla 
diators  ;  it  was  giving  dignity  to  minds  prostrated 
by  years,  almost  centuries,  of  degrading  despotism ; 
it  was  nurturing  purity  and  modesty  of  manners  in 
an  unspeakable  state  of  depravation;  it  was  en 
shrining  the  marriage-bed  in  a  sanctity  long  almost 
entirely  lost,  and  rekindling  to  a  steady  warmth 
the  domestic  affections ;  it  was  substituting  a  simple, 
calm,  and  rational  faith  for  the  worn-out  supersti 
tions  of  heathenism;  gently  establishing  in  the  soul 
of  man  the  sense  of  immortality,  till  it  became  a 
natural  and  inextinguishable  part  of  his  moral 
being"  (Milman's  Latin  Christianity,  i.  p.  24). 

The  chief  prophetic  notices  of  the  Roman  Empire 
are  found  in  the  Book  of  Daniel,  especially  in  ch. 
xi.  30-40,  and  in  ii.  40,  vii.  7,  17-19,  according  to 
the  common  interpretation  of  the  "  fourth  king 
dom  ;"  comp.  2  Esdr.  xi.  1 ,  but  see  DANIEL.  Accord 
ing  to  some  interpreters  the  Romans  are  intended  in 
Deut.  xxviii.  49-57.  For*  the  mystical  notices  of 
Rome  in  the  Revelation  comp.  ROME.  [J.  J.  H.] 

EOMANS,    THE    EPISTLE   TO   THE. 

1.  The  date  of  this  Epistle  is  fixed  with  more  ab 
solute  certainty  and  within  narrower  limits,  than 
that  of  any  other  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  The  fol 
lowing  considerations  determine  the  time  of  writing. 
First.  Certain  names  in  the  salutations  point  to 
Corinth,  as  the  place  from  which  the  letter  was 
sent.  (1.)  Phoebe,  a  deaconess  of  Cenchreae,  one 
of  the  port  towns  of  Corinth,  is  commended  to  the 
Romans  (xvi.  1,  2).  (2.)  Gaius,  in  whose  house 
St.  Paul  was  lodged  at  the  time  (xvi.  23),  is  pro 
bably  the  person  mentioned  as  one  of  the  chief  mem 
bers  of  the  Corinthian  Church  in  1  Cor.  i.  14, 
though  the  name  was  very  common.  (3.)'  Erastus, 
here  designated  "  the  treasurer  of  the  city"  (ot/co- 
v6ftos,  xVi.  23,  E.  V.  "  chamberlain  ")  is  elsewhere 
mentioned  in  connexion  with  Corinth  (2  Tim.  iv. 
20  ;  see  also  Acts  xix.  22).  Secondly.  Having  thus 
determined  the  place  of  writing  to  be  Corinth,  we 
have  no  hesitation  in  fixing  upon  the  visit  recorded 
in  Acts  xx.  3,  during  the  winter  and  spring  following 
the  Apostle's  long  residence  at  Ephesus,  as  the  occa 
sion  on  which  the  Epistle  was  written.  For  St.  Paul, 
when  he  wrote  the  letter,  was  on  the  point  of  carry 
ing  the  contributions  of  Macedonia  and  Achaia  to 
Jerusalem  (xv.  25-27\  and  a  comparison  with  Acts 
xx.  22,  xxiv.  17,  ana  also  1  Cor.  xvi.  4  ;  2  Cor.  viiL 


1054     ROMANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE 

1,  2,  ix  1  ff.,  shows  that  he  was  so  engaged  at  this  j 
period  of  his  life.  (See  Paley's  Home  Paulinae,  en. 
li.  §1.)  Moreover,  in  this  Epistle  he  declares  his 
intention  of  visiting  the  Romans  after  he  has  been  at 
Jerusalem  (xv.  23-25),  and  that  such  was  his  de 
sign  at  this  particular  time  appears  from  a  casual 
notice  in  Acts  xix.  21. 

The  Epistle  then  was  written  from  Corinth  during 
St.  Paul's  third  missionary  journey,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  second  of  the  two  visits  recorded  in  the  Acts. 
On  this  occasion  he  remained  three  months  in 
Greece  (Acts  xx.  3).  When  he  left,  the  sea  was 
alrrady  navigable,  for  he  was  on  the  point  of  sailing 
for  Jerusalem  when  he  was  obliged  to  change  his 
plans.  On. the  other  hand,  it  cannot  have  been 
late  in  the  spring,  because  after  passing  through 
Macedonia  and  visiting  several  places  on  the  coast 
of  Asia  Minor,  he  still  hoped  to  reach  Jerusalem  by 
Pentecost  (xx.  16).  It  was  therefore  in  the  winter 
or  early  spring  of  the  year  that  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  was  written.  According  to  the  most  pro 
bable  system  of  chronology,  adopted  by  Anger  and 
Wieseler,  this  would  be  the  year  A.D.  58. 

2.  The  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  thus  placed  in 
chronological  connexion  with  the  Epistles  to  the 
Galatians  and  Corinthians,  which  appear  to  have 
been  written  within  the  twelve  months  preceding. 
The  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  was  written 
before  St.  Paul  left  Ephesus,  the  Second  from  Mace 
donia  when  he  was  on  his  way  to  Corinth,  and 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  most  probably  either 
in  Macedonia  or  after  his  arrival  at  Corinth,  i.  e. 
after  the  P]pistles  to  the  Corinthians,  though  the 
date  of  the  Galatian  Epistle  is  not  absolutely  certain. 
[GALATIANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE.]     We  shall  have 
to  notice  the  relations  existing  between  these  contem 
poraneous  Epistles  hereafter.     At  present  it  will  be 
sufficient  to  say  that  they  present  a  remarkable  re 
semblance  to  each  other  in   style  and  matter — a 
much  greater  resemblance  than  can  be  traced  to 
any  other  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles.     They  are  at  once 
the  most  intense  and  most  varied  in  feeling  and  ex 
pression — if  we  may  so  say,  the  most  Pauline  of  all 
St.  Paul's  Epistles.     When  Baur  excepts  these  four 
Epistles  alone  from  his  sweeping  condemnation  of 
the  genuineness  of  all  the  letters  bearing  St.  Paul's 
name  {Paulus,  der  Apostefy  this  is  a  mere  caricature 
of  sober  criticism  ;  but  underlying  this  erroneous 
exaggeration  is  the  fact,  that  the  Epistles  of  this 
period— St.  Paul's  third  missionary  journey — have 
a  character  and  an  intensity  peculiarly  their  own, 
corresponding  to  the  circumstances' of  the  Apostle's 
outward  and  inward  life  at  the  time  when  they  were 
written.     For   the   special   characteristics   of  this 
group  of  Epistles,  see  a  paper  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  in  the  Journal  of  Class,  and  Sacr,  Phil., 
lii.  p.  289. 

3.  The  occasion  which  prompted  this  Epistle, 
and  the  circumstance?  attending  its  writing,  were 
as  follows.     St.  Paul   had  long  purposed   visiting 
Rome,  and  still  retailed  this  purpose,  wishing  also 
to  extend  his  journey  to  Spain  (i.  9-13,  xv.  22-29). 
For  the  time  however,  he  was  prevented  from  car 
rying  out  his  design,  as  he  was  bound  for  Jeru 
salem  with  the  alms  of  the  Gentile  Christians,  and 
meanwhile  he  addressed  this  letter  to  the  Romans, 
to  supply  the  lack  of  his  personal  teaching.  Phoebe, 
a  deaconess  of  the  neighbouring  Church  of  Cenchreau, 
aras  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Rome  (xvi.  1,  2), 
and  probably  conveyed  the  letter.    The  body  of  the 
Epistle  was  written  at  the  Apostle's  dictation  by 
Tertius  fxvi.  22);  but  perhaps  we  may  inter  from 


BOMANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE 

the  abruptness  of  the  final  doxology,  tl  at  it  was 
added  by  the  Apostle  himself,  more  especially  as  we 
gather  from  other  Epistles  that  it  was  his  practice 
to  conclude  with  a  few  striking  words  in  his  own 
hand-writing,  to  vouch  for  the  authorship  of  the 
letter,  and  frequently  also  to  impress  some  important 
truth  more  strongly  on  his  readers. 

4.  The  Origin  of  the  Roman  Church  is  involve*! 
in  obscurity.  If  it  had  been  founded  by  St.  Peter, 
according  to  a  later  tradition,  the  absence  of  any 
allusion  to  him  both  in  this  Epistle  and  in  the 
letters  written  by  St.  Paul  from  Rome  would  admit 
of  no  explanation.  It  is  equally  clear  that  no 
other  Apostle  was  the  Founder.  In  this  very 
Epistle,  and  in  close  connexion  with  the  mention 
of  his  proposed  visit  to  Rome,  the  Apostle  declares 
that  it  was  his  rule  not  to  build  on  another  man's 
foundation  (xv.  20),  and  we  cannot  suppose  that  he 
violated  it  in  this  instance.  Again,  he  speaks  of 
the  Romans  as  especially  falling  to  his  share  as  the 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  (i.  13),  with  an  evident  re 
ference  to  the  partition  of  the  field  of  labour  between 
himself  and  St.  Peter,  mentioned  in  Gal.  ii.  7-9. 
Moreover,  when  he  declares  his  wish  to  impart 
some  spiritual  gift  (xdpiff/jLO)  to  them,  "  that  they 
might  be  established"  (i.  11),  this  implies  that 
they  had  not  yet  been  visited  by  an  Apostle,  and 
that  St.  Paul  contemplated  supplying  the  defect, 
as  was  done  by  St.  Peter  and  St.  John  in  the  ana 
logous  case  of  the  Churches  founded  by  Philip  in 
Samaria  (Acts  viii.  14-17). 

The  statement  in  the  Clementines  (Horn.  i.  §6) 
that  the  first  tidings  of  the  Gospel  reached  Rome 
during  the  lifetime  of  our  Lord,  is  evidently  a  fiction 
for  the  purposes  of  the  romance.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  clear  that  the  foundation  of  this  Church 
dates  very  far  back.  St.  Paul  in  this  Epistle  salutes 
certain  believers  resident  in  Rome — Andronicus  and 
Juuia  (or  Junianus?) — adding  that  they  were  dis 
tinguished  among  the  Apostles,  and  that  they  were 
converted  to  Christ  before  himself  (xvi.  7),  for  such 
seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  passage,  rendered 
somewhat  ambiguous  by  the  position  of  the  relative 
pronouns.  It  may  be  that  some  of  those  Romans, 
"  both  Jews  and  proselytes,"  present  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost  (oi  €iriST]fjLovvT€S  'Papaioi,  'lovSatoi  re 
Kal  Trpofffavroi,  Acts  ii.  10),  earned  back  the 
earliest  tidings  of  the  new  doctrine,  or  the  Gospel 
may  have  first  reached  the  imperial  city  through 
those  who  were  scattered  abroad  to  escape  the  perse 
cution  which  followed  on  the  death  of  Stephen  (Acts 
viii.  4,  xi.  19).  At  all  events,  a  close  and  constant 
communication  was  kept  up  between  the  Jewish 
residents  in  Rome  and  their  fellow-countrymen  in 
Pales  tine  by  the  exigencies  of  commerce, in  which  they 
became  more  and  more  engrossed,  as  their  national 
hopes  declined,  and  by  the  custom  of  repairing  regu 
larly  to  their  sacred  festivals  at  Jerusalem.  Again, 
the  imperial  edicts  alternately  banishing  and  recall 
ing  the  Jews  (compare  e.  g.  in  the  case  of  Claudius, 
Joseph.  Ant.  xix.  5,  §3,  with  Suet.  Claud.  25)  must 
have  kept  up  a  constant  ebb  and  flow  of  migration 
between  Rome  and  the  East,  and  the  case  of  Aquil* 
and  Priscilla  (Acts  xviii.  2  ;  see  Paley,  Hor.  Paul.  c. 
ii.  §2),  probably  represents  a  numerous  class  through 
whose  means  the  opinions  and  doctrines  promulgated 
in  Palestine  might  reach  the  metropolis.  At  first 
we  may  suppose  that  the  Gospel  was  preached  there 
in  a  confused  and  imperfect  form,  scarcely  more 
than  a  phase  of  Judaism,  as  in  the  case  of  A  polios 
at  Corinth  (Acts  xviii.  25),  or  the  disciples  at 
Ephesus  (Acts  xix.  1-3).  As  time  advanced  and 


ROMANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE 

better  instructed  teachers  arrived,  the  clouds  would 
gradually  clear  away,  till  at  length  the  presence  of 
the  great  Apostle  himself  at  Rome,  dispersed  the 
mists  of  Judaism  which  still  hung  about  the  Roman 
Church.  Long  after  Christianity  had  taken  up  a 
position  of  direct  antagonism  to  Judaism  in  Rome, 
heathen  statesmen  and  writers  still  persisted  in  con 
founding  the  one  with  the  other.  (See  Merivale, 
Hist,  of  Rome,  vi.  p.  278,  &c.) 

5.  A  question  next  arises  as  to  the  composition 
of  the  Roman  Church,  at  the  time  when  St.  Paul 
wrote.  Did  the  Apostle  address  a  Jewish  or  a 
Gentile  community,  or,  if  the  two  elements  were 
combined,  was  one  or  other  predominant  so  as  to 
give  a  character  to  the  whole  Church?  Either 
jxtreme  has  been  vigorously  maintained,  Baur  for 
instance  asserting  that  St.  Paul  was  writing  to 
Jewish  Christians,  Olshausen  arguing  that  the  Ro 
man  Church  consisted  almost  solely  of  Gentiles. 
We  are  naturally  led  to  seek  the  truth  in  some  in 
termediate  position.  Jowett  finds  a  solution  of  the 
difficulty  in  the  supposition  that  the  members  of 
the  Roman  Church,  though  Gentiles,  had  passed 
through  a  phase  of  Jewish  proselytism.  This  will 
explain  some  of  the  phenomena  of  the  Epistle,  but 
not  all.  It  is  more  probable  that  St.  Paul  addressed 
a  mixed  Church  of  Jews  and  Gentiles,  the  latter 
perhaps  being  the  more  numerous. 

There  are  certainly  passages  which  imply  the 
presence  of  a  large  number  of  Jewish  converts  to 
Christianity.  The  use  of  the  second  person  in  ad 
dressing  the  Jews  (chaps,  ii.  and  iii.)  is  clearly  not 
assumed  merely  for  argumentative  purposes,  but 
applies  to  a  portion  at  least  of  those  into  whose 
hands  the  letter  would  fall.  The  constant  appeals 
to  the  authority  of  "  the  law  "  may  in  many  cases 
be  accounted  for  by  the  Jewish  education  of  the 
Gentile  believers  (so  Jowett,  vol.  ii.  p.  22),  but 
sometimes  they  seem  too  direct  and  positive  to 
admit  of  this  explanation  (iii.  19,  vii.  1).  In  the 
7th  chapter  St.  Paul  appears  to  be  addressing  Jews, 
as  those  who  like  himself  had  once  been  under 
the  dominion  of  the  law,  but  had  been  delivered 
from  it  in  Christ  (see  especially  verses  4  and  6). 
And  when  in  xi.  13,  he  says  "  I  am  spealung  to 
you — the  Gentiles,"  this  very  limiting  expression 
"  the  Gentiles,"  implies  that  the  letter  was  addressed 
to  not  a  few  to  whom  the  term  would  not  apply. 

Again,  if  we  analyse  the  list  of  names  in  the 
16th  chapter,  and  assume  that  this  list  approximately 
represents  the  proportion  of  Jew  and  Gentile  in  the 
Roman  Church  (an  assumption  at  least  not  impro 
bable),  we  arrive  at  the  same  result.  It  is  true 
that  Mary,  or  rather  Mariam  (xvi.  6),  is  the  only 
strictly  Jewish  name.  But  this  fact  is  not  worth 
the  stress  apparently  laid  on  it  by  Mr.  Jowett  (ii. 
p.  27).  For  Aquila  and  Priscilla  (ver.  3)  were 
Jews  (Acts  xviii.  2,  26),  and  the  Church  which  met 
in  their  house  was  probably  of  the  same  nation. 
Andronicus  and  Junia  (or  Junias  ?  ver.  7)  are  called 
St.  Paul's  kinsmen.  The  same  term  is  applied  to 
Herodion  (ver.  11).  These  persons  then  must  hare 
been  Jews,  whether  "  kinsmen "  is  taken  in  the 
wider  or  the  more  restricted  sense.  The  name  Apelles 
(ver.  10),  though  a  heathen  name  also,  was  most 
commonly  borne  by  Jews,  as  appears  from  Horace, 
Sat.  I.  v.  100.  If  the  Aristobulus  of  ver.  10  was 
one  of  the  princes  of  the  Herodian  house,  as  seems 
probable,  we  have  also  in  "  the  household  of  Aristo 
bulus  "  several  Jewish  converts.  Altogether  it  ap 
pears  that  a  very  large  fraction  of  the  Christian  be 
lievers  mentioned  in  these  salutations  were  JewsL 


KOMANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE    1055 

even  supposing  that  the  others,  bearing  Greek  anl 
Latin  names,  of  whom  we  know  nothing,  were 
heathens. 

Nor  does  the  existence  of  a  large  Jewish  element 
n  the  Roman  Church  present  any  difficulty.  The 
captives  carried  to  Rome  by  Pompeius  formed  the 
nucleus  of  the  Jewish  population  in  the  metropolis 
"ROME].  Since  that  time  they  had  largely  in 
creased.  During  the  reign  of  Augustus  we  hear  of 
above  8000  resident  Jews  attaching  themselves  to  a 
Jewish  embassy  which  appealed  to  this  emperor  (Jo 
seph.  Ant.  xvii.  11,  §1).  The  same  emperor  gave 
them  a  quarter  beyond  the  Tiber,  and  allowed  them 
the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  (Philo,  Leg.  ad 
'aium,  p.  568  M.).  About  the  time  when  St. 
Paul  wrote,  Seneca,  speaking  of  the  influence  of  Ju 
daism,  echoes  the  famous  expression  of  Horace  (Ep. 
i.  1,  156)  respecting  the  Greeks — "  victi  victoribus 
leges  dederunt"  (Seneca,  in  Augustin.  de  Civ.  Dei> 
vi.  11).  And  the  bitter  satire  of  Juvenal  and  in 
dignant  complaints  of  Tacitus  of  the  spread  of  the 
infection  through  Roman  society,  are  well  known. 

On  the  other  hand,  situated  in  the  metropolis  of 
the  great  empire  of  heathendom,  the  Roman  Church 
must  necessarily  have  been  in  great  measure  a 
Gentile  Church  ;  and  the  language  of  the  Epistle 
bears  out  this  supposition.  It  is  professedly  as  the 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  that  St.  Paul  writes  to  the 
Romans  (i.  5).  He  hopes  to  have  some  fruit  among 
them,  as  he  had  among  the  other  Gentiles  (i.  13). 
Later  on  in  the  Epistle  he  speaks  of  the  Jews  in  the 
third  person,  as  if  addressing  Gentiles,  "  I  could 
wish  that  myself  were  accursed  for  my  brethren, 
my  kinsmen  after  the  flesh,  who  are  Israelites,  etc." 
(ix.  3,  4).  And  again,  "  my  heart's  desire  and  prayer 
to  God  for  them  is  that  they  might  be  saved  "  (x.  1 , 
the  right  reading  is  virep  avr&u,  not  inrep  rov  'I<r- 
pcrJjA.  as  in  the  Received  Text).  Compare  also  xi.  23, 
25,  and  especially  xi.  30,  "  For  as  ye  in  times  past  did 
not  believe  God  ...  so  did  these  also  (i.  e.  the  Jews) 
now  not  believe,"  etc.  In  all  these  passages  St. 
Paul  clearly  addresses  himself  to  Gentile  readers. 

These  Gentile  converts,  however,  were  not  for 
the  most  part  native  Romans.  Strange  as  the  pa 
radox  appears,  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that 
the  Church  of  Rome  was  at  this  time  a  Greek  and 
not  a  Latin  Church.  It  is  clearly  established  that 
the  early  Latin  versions  of  the  New  Testament  were 
made  not  for  the  use  of  Rome,  but  of  the  provinces, 
especially  Africa  (Westcott,  Canon,  p.  269).  All 
the  literature  of  the  early  Roman  Church  was 
written  in  the  Greek  tongue.  The  names  of  the 
bishops  of  Rome  during  the  first  two  centuries  are 
with  but  few  exceptions  Greek.  (See  Milman,  Latin 
Christ,  i.  27.)  And  in  accordance  with  these  facts 
we  find  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  names 
in  the  salutations  of  this  Epistle  are  Greek  names ; 
while  of  the  exceptions,  Priscilla,  Aquila,  and  Junia 
(or  Junias),  were  certainly  Jews  ;  and  the  same  is 
true  of  Rufus,  if,  as  is  not  improbable,  he  is 
the  samp  mentioned  Mark  xv.  21.  Julia  was  pro 
bably  a  dependent  of  the  imperial  household,  and 
derived  her  name  accordingly.  The  only  Roman 
names  remaining  are  Amplias  (i.  e.  Ampliatus)  and 
Urbanus,  of  whom  nothing  is  known,  Vut  their 
names  are  of  late  growth,  and  certainly  do  not  point 
to  an  old  Roman  stock.  It  was  therefore  from  the 
Greek  population  of  Rome,  pure  or  mixed,  that  the 
Gentile  portion  of  the  Church  was  almost  entirely 
drawn.  And  this  might  be  expected.  The  Greeks 
formed  a  very  considerable  fraction  of  the  whole 
people  of  Rome.  They  were  the  most  buy  and 


1058    ROMAMS.  EPISTLE  TO  THE 

adventurous,  and  also  the  most  intelligent  of  the 
middle  and  lower  classes  of  society.  The  influence 
which  they  were  acquiring  by  their  numbers  and 
versatility  is  a  constant  theme  of  reproach  in  the 
Roman  philosopher  and  satirist  (Juv.  iii.  GO-80,  vi. 
84 ;  Tac.  de  Orat.  29).  They  complain  that  the 
national  characer  is  undermined,  that  the  whole 
city  has  become  Greek.  Speaking  the  language 
of  international  intercourse,  and  brought  by  their 
restless  habits  into  contact  with  foreign  religions, 
the  Greeks  had  larger  opportunities  than  others  of 
acquainting  themseive  with  the  truths  of  the  Gospel : 
while  at  the  same  time  holding  more  loosely  to  tra 
ditional  beliefs,  and  with  minds  naturally  more 
enquiring,  they  would  be  more  ready  to  welcome 
these  truths  when  they  came  in  their  way.  At  all 
events,  for  whatever  reason,  the  Gentile  converts  at 
Rome  were  Greeks,  not  Romans :  and  it  was  an  un 
fortunate  conjecture  on  the  part  of  the  transcriber 
of  the  Syriac  Pefhito,  that  this  letter  was  written 
"  in  the  Latin  tongue,"  (rVKDI"!).  Every  line  in 
the  Epistle  bespeaks  an  original. 

When  we  enquire  into  the  probable  rank  and 
station  of  the  Roman  believers,  an  analysis  of  the 
names  in  the  list  of  salutations  again  gives  an  ap 
proximate  answer.  These  names  belong  for  the 
most  part  to  the  middle  and  lower  grades  of  society. 
Many  of  them  are  found  in  the  columbaria  of  the 
freedmen  and  slaves  of  the  early  Roman  emperors. 
(See  Journal  of  Class,  and  Sacr.  Phil.  iv.  p.  57.) 
It  would  be  too  much  to  assume  that  they  were 
the  same  persons,  but  at  all  events  the  identity  of 
names  points  to  the  same  social  rank.  Among  the 
less  wealthy  merchants  and  tradesmen,  among  the 
petty  officers  of  the  army,  among  the  slaves  and 
freednien  of  the  imperial  palace — whether  Jews  or 
Greeks — the  Gospel  would  first  find  a  firm  footing. 
To  this  last  class  allusion  is  made  in  Phil.  iv.  22, 
"  they  that  are  of  Caesar's  household."  From  these 
it  would  gradually  work  upwards  and  downwards  ; 
but  we  may  be  sure  that  in  respect  of  rank  the 
Church  of  Rome  was  no  exception  to  the  general 
rule,  that  "  not  many  wise,  not  many  mighty,  not 
many  noble  "  were  called  (1  Cor.  i.  26;. 

It  seems  probable  from  what  has  been  said  above, 
that  the  Roman  Church  at  this  time  was  composed 
of  Jews  and  Gentiles  in  nearly  equal  portions.  This 
fact  finds  expression  in  the  account,  whether  true 
or  false,  which  represents  St.  Peter  and  St.  Pa  al  as 
presiding  at  the  same  time  over  the  Church  at 
Rome  (Dionys.  Cor.  ap.  Euseb.  H.  E.  ii.  25 ;  Tren. 
iii.  3).  Possibly  also  the  discrepancies  in  the  lists 
of  the  early  bishops  of  Rome  may  find  a  sol  ation 
(Pearson,  Minor  Tkeol.  Works,  ii.  449 ;  Bu  asen, 
Hippolytus,  i.  p.  44),  in  the  joint  Episcopate  of 
Linus  and  Cletus,  the  one  ruling  over  the  Jewish,  the 
other  over  the  Gentile  congregation  of  the  metro  polis. 
If  this  conjecture  be  accepted,  it  is  an  important  testi 
mony  to  the  view  here  maintained,  though  w  e  can 
not  suppose  that  in  St.  Paul's  time  the  two  elements 
of  the  Roman  Church  had  distinct  organizations. 

6.  The  heterogeneous  composition  of  this  Church 
explains  the  general  character  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans.  In  an  assemblage  so  various,  we  should 
expect  to  find  not  the  exclusive  predominance  of  a 
single  form  of  error,  but  the  coincidence  of 'lifferent 
and  opposing  forms.  The  Gospel  had  here  to  contend 
not  specially  with  Judaism  nor  specially  with  heathen 
ism,  but  with  both  together.  It  was  therefoi  e  the  bu 
siness  of  the  Christian  Teacher  to  reconcile  the  opposing 
difficulties  and  to  hold  out  a  mating  point  in  the  j 
Gosvei.  This  is  exactly  what  St.  Paul  does  in  the 


ROMANS   EPISTLE  TO  THE 

Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  what  from  the  circum 
stances  of  the  case  he  was  well  enabled  to  do.  He 
was  addressing  a  large  and  varied  community  which 
had  not  been  founded  by  himself,  and  with  which  he 
had  had  no  direct  intercourse.  Again,  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  letter  was  specially  written  to  an 
swer  any  doubts  or  settle  any  controversies  then 
rife  in  the  Roman  Church.  There  were  therefore 
no  disturbing  influences,  such  as  arise  out  of  per 
sonal  relations,  or  peculiar  circumstances,  to  derange 
a  general  and  systematic  exposition  of  the  nature 
and  working  of  the  Gospel.  At  the  same  time  the 
vast  importance  of  the  metropolitan  Church,  which 
could  not  have  been  overlooked  even  by  an  unin 
spired  teacher,  naturally  pointed  it  out  to  the 
Apostle,  as  the  fittest  body  to  whom  to  address 
such  an  exposition.  Thus  the  Epistle  to  the  Ro 
mans  is  more  of  a  treatise  than  of  a  letter.  If  we 
remove  the  personal  allusions  in  the  opening  verses, 
and  the  salutations  at  the  close,  it  seems  not  more 
particularly  addressed  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  than  to 
any  other  Church  of  Christendom.  In  this  respect 
it  differs  widely  from  the  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians 
and  Galatians,  with  which  as  being  written  about 
tne  same  time  it  may  most  fairly  be  compared, 
and  which  are  full  of  personal  and  direct  allusions. 
In  one  instance  alone  we  seem  to  trace  a  special  re 
ference  to  the  Church  of  the  metropolis.  The  in 
junction  of  obedience  to  temporal  rulers  (xiii.  1) 
would  most  fitly  be  addressed  to  a  congregation 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  imperial  government, 
and  the  more  so,  as  Rome  had  recently  been  the 
scene  of  frequent  disturbances  on  the  pail  of  either 
Jews  or  Christians  arising  out  of  a  feverish  and 
restless  anticipation  of  Messiah's  coming  (Suet. 
Claud.  25).  Other  apparent  exceptions  admit  of  a 
different  explanation. 

7.  This  explanation  is  in  fact  to  be  sought  in  its 
relation  to  the  contemporaneous  Epistles.  The 
letter  to  the  Romans  closes  the  group  of  Epistles 
written  during  the  second  missionary  journey.  This 
group  contains  besides,  as  already  mentioned,  the 
letters  to  the  Corinthians  and  Galatians,  written 
probably  within  the  few  months  preceding.  At 
Corinth,  the  capital  of  Achaia,  and  the  stronghold  of 
heathendom,  the  Gospel  would  encounter  its  severest 
struggle  with  Gentile  vices  and  prejudices.  In  Ga- 
latia,  which  either  from  natural  sympathy  or  from 
close  contact  seems  to  have  been  more  exposed  to 
Jewish  influence,  than  any  other  Church  within  St. 
Paul's  sphere  of  labour,  it  had  a  sharp  contest  with 
Judaism.  In  the  Epistles  to  these  two  Churches 
we  study  the  attitude  of  the  Gospel  towards  the 
Gentile  and  Jewish  world  respectively.  These 
letters  are  direct  and  special.  They  are  evoked  by 
present  emergencies,  are  directed  against  actual  evils, 
are  full  of  personal  applications.  The  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  is  the  summary  of  what  he  had  written 
before,  the  result  of  his  dealing  with  the  two  anta 
gonistic  forms  of  error,  the  gathering  together  ot 
the  fragmentary  teaching  in  the  Corinthian  and 
Galatian  letters.  What  is  there  immediate,  irre 
gular,  and  of  partial  application,  is  here  arranged 
and  completed,  and  thrown  into  a  general  form. 
Thus  on  the  one  hand  his  treatment  of  the  Mosaic 
law  points  to  the  difficulties  he  encountered  in 
dealing  with  the  Galatian  Church,  while  on  the 
other  his  cautions  against  antinomian  excesses  (Rom. 
vi.  1  5,  &c.),  and  his  precepts  against  giving  offenc? 
in  the  matter  of  meats  and  the  observance  of  days 
(Rom.  xiv.),  remind  us  of  the  errors  which  he  had 
to  correct  in  his  Corinthiar  converts.  (Coin]  ar 


KOMANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE 

1  Cor.  vi.  12  ff.,  and  I  Cor.  viii.  1  ft'.)  Those  in. 
junctions  then  which  seem  at  first  sight  special, 
appear  not  to  be  directed  against  any  actual  known 
failings  in  the  Roman  Church,  but  to  be  suggested 
by  the  possibility  of  those  irregularities  occurring  in 
Rome  which  he  had  already  encountered  elsewhere. 
8.  Viewing  this  Epistle  then  rather  in  the  light 
of  a  treatise  than  of  a  letter,  we  are  enabled  to 
explain  certain  phenomena  in  the  text.  In  the 
received  text  a  doxology  stands  at  the  close  of  the 
Epistle  (xvi.  25-27).  The  preponderance  of  evi 
dence  is  in  favour  of  this  position,  but  there  is 
respectable  authority  for  placing  it  at  the  end  of 
ch.  xiv.  In  some  texts  again  it  is  found  in  both 
places,  while  others  omit  it  entirely.  How  can  we 
account  for  this  ?  It  has  been  thought  by  some  to 
discredit  the  genuineness  of  the  doxology  itself :  but 
there  is  no  sufficient  ground  for  this  view.  The 
arguments  against  its  genuineness  on  the  ground 
of  style,  advanced  by  Reiohe,  are  met  and  refuted 
by  Fritzsche  (Rom.  vol.  i.  p.  xxxv.).  Baur  goes 
still  farther,  and  rejects  the  two  last  chapters  ;  but 
such  an  inference  falls  without  the  range  of  sober 
criticism.  The  phenomena  of  the  MSS.  seem  best 
explained  by  supposing  that  the  letter  was  circu 
lated  at  an  early  date  (whether  during  the  Apostle's 
lifetime  or  not  it  is  idle  to  inquire)  in  two  forms, 
both  with  and  without  the  two  last  chapters.  In 
the  shorter  form  it  was  divested  as  far  as  possible 
of  its  epistolary  character  by  abstracting  the  per 
sonal  matter  addressed  especially  to  the  Romans, 
the  doxology  being  retained  at  the  close.  A  still 
further  attempt  to  strip  this  Epistle  of  any  special 
references  is  found  in  MS.  G,  which  omits  <=V  'Pcfyt?? 
(i.  7),  and  TO?S  fv  'Pcfyt?;  (i.  15),  for  it  is  to  be 
observed  at  the  same  time  that  this  MS.  omits  the 
doxology  entirely,  and  leaves  a  space  after  ch.  xiv. 
This  view  is  somewhat  confirmed  by  the  parallel  case 
of  the  opening  of  the  Ephesian  Epistle,  in  which 
there  is  very  high  authority  for  omitting  the  words 
tV  'E<£eo-<p,  and  which  bears  strong  marks  of  having 
been  intended  for  a  circular  letter. 

9.  In  describing  the  purport  of  this  Epistle  we 
may  start  from  St.  Paul's  own  words,  which,  stand 
ing  at  the  beginning  of  the  doctrinal  portion,  may 
be  taken  as  giving  a  summary  of  the  contents : 
"  The  Gospel  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation 
to  every  one  that  believeth,  to  the  Jew  first  and 
also  to  the  Greek :  for  therein  is  the  righteousness 
of  God  revealed  from  faith  to  faith"  (i.  16,  17). 
Accordingly  the  Epistle  has  been  described  as  com 
prising  "  the  religious  philosophy  of  the  world's 
history."  The  world  in  its  religious  aspect  is 
divided  into  Jew  ar.d  Gentile.  The  different  posi 
tions  of  the  two  as  regards  their  past  and  present 
relation  to  God,  and  their  future  prospects,  are  ex 
plained.  The  atonement  of  Christ  is  the  centre  of 
religious  history.  The  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  is  the  key  which  unlocks  the  hidden  mysteries 
of  the  divine  dispensation. 

The  Epistle,  from  its  general  character,  lends 
itself  more  readily  to  an  analysis  than  is  often  the 
case  with  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  The  body  of  the 
letter  consists  of  four  portions,  of  which  the  first 
and  last  relate  to  personal  matters,  the  second  is 
argumentative  and  doctrinal,  and  the  third  prac 
tical  and  hortatory.  The  following  is  a  table  of  its 
contents : — 

Salutation  (i.  1-7).     The  Apostle  at  the  outset 

strikes  the  keynote  of  the  Epistle  in  the  expressions 

".Galled  as  an  apostle,"  "  called  as  saints."    Divine 

irace  is  everything,  human  merit  nothing. 

VOL.  J!L 


KOMAKS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE     1057 

I.  Personal  explanations.    Purposed  visit  to  Rcifc 
(..8-15). 

II.  Doctrinal  (i.  16-xi.  36). 

The  general  proposition.     The  Gospel  is  the 
salvation  of  Jew  and  Gentile  alike.     This 
salvation  comes  by  faith  (i.  16,  17). 
The  rest  of  this  section  is  taken  up  in  esta- 
Wishing  this  thesis,  and  drawing  deductions 
from  it,  or  correcting  misapprehensions. 
(a)  All  alike  were  under  condemnation  before 
the  Gospel : 

The  heathen  (i.  18-32). 
The  Jew  (ii.  1-29). 
Objections  to  this  statement  answered  (iii. 

1-8). 
And   the   position    itself    established   from 

Scripture  (iii.  9-20). 

(6)  A  righteousness  (justification)  is  revealed 

under  the  Gospel,  which  being  of  faith,  not 

of  law,  is  also  universal  (iii.  21-26). 

And  boasting  is  thereby  excluded  (iii.  27-31). 

Of  this  justification  by  faith  Abraham  is  an 

example  (iv.  1-25). 
Thus  then  we  are  justified  in  Christ,  in  whom 

alone  we  glory  (v.  1-11). 
And    this   acceptance    in    Christ    is    as    uni 
versal  as  was  the  condemnation  in  Adam 
(v.  12-19). 

(c)  The  moral  consequences  of  our  deliver 

ance. 

The  law  was  given  to  multiply  sin  (v.  20, 
21).  When  we  died  to  the  law  we  died  to 
sin  (vi.  1-14).  The  abolition  of  the  law. 
however,  is  not  a  signal  for  moral  license 
(vi.  15-23).  On  the  contrary,  as  the  law 
has  passed  away,  so  must  sin,  for  sin  and 
the  law  are  correlative ;  at  the  same  time 
this  is  no  disparagement  of  the  law,  but 
rather  a  proof  of  human  weakness  (vii. 
1-25).  So  henceforth  in  Christ  we  are  free 
from  sin,  we  have  the  Spirit,  and  look  for 
ward  in  hope,  triumphing  over  our  present 
afflictions  (viii.  1-39).' 

(d]  The  rejection  of  the  Jews  is  a  matter  of 
deep  sorrow  (ix.  1-5). 

Yet  we  must  remember — 

(i.)  That  the  promise  was  not  to  the  whole 
people,  but  only  to  a  select  seed  (ix.  6-1 3) 
And  the  absolute  purpose  of  God  in  sc 
ordaining  is  not  to  be  canvassed  by  man 
(ix.  14-19). 

(ii.)  That  the  Jews  did  not  seek  justification 
aright,  and  so  missed  it.  This  justifica 
tion  was  promised  by  faith,  and  is  offered 
to  all  alike,  the  preaching  to  the  Gentiles 
being  implied  therein.  The  character  and 
results  of  the  Gospel  dispensation  are  fore 
shadowed  in  Scripture  (x.  1-21). 

(iii.)"  That  the  rejection  of  the  Jews  is  not 
final.  This  rejection  has  been  the  means 
of  gathering  in  the  Gentiles,  and  through 
the  Gentiles  they  themselves  will  ulti 
mately  be  brought  to  Christ  (xi.  1-36). 

III.  Practical  exhortations  (xii.  1-xv.  13). 

(«)  To  holiness  of  life  and  to  charity  in  gene 
ral,  the  duty  of  obedience  to  rulers  beir.fc, 
inculcated  by  the  way  (xii.  1— xiii.  14), 

(6)  And  more  particularly  against  givm6 
offence  to  weaker  brethren  (xiv.  1-sv.  13N,. 

3  y 


J058     ROMANS,  EPISTLE  TO  THE 

IV.  Personal  matters. 

V»)  The  Apostle's  motive  in  writing  the  lette 
and  his  intention  of  visiting  the  Roman 
(xv.  14-33). 

(6)  Greetings  (xvi.  1-23). 
The  letter  ends  with  a  benediction  and  doxolog 

(xvi.  24-27). 
While  this  Epistle  contains  the  fullest  and  mos 
systematic  exposition  of  the  Apostle's  teaching, 
is  at  the  same  time  a  very  striking  expression  of  h 
character.    Nowhere  do  his  earnest  and  affectionate 
nature,  and  his  tact  and  delicacy  in  handling  un 
welcome  topics  appear  more  strongly  than  whe 
he  is  dealing  with  the  rejection  of  hi»  fellow-coun 
trymen  the  Jews. 

The  reader  may  be  referred  especially  to  th 
introductions  of  Olshausen,  Tholuck,  and  Jowett 
for  suggestive  remarks  relating  to  the  scope  auc 
purport  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 

10.  Internal  evidence  is  so  strongly  in  favour  o 
the  genuineness  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  tha 
it  has  never  been  seriously  questioned.  Even  th 
sweeping  criticism  of  Baur  did  not  go  beyond  con 
derailing  the  two  last  chapters  as  spurious.  Bu 
while  the  Epistle  bears  in  itself  the  stronges 
proofs  of  its  Pauline  authorship,  the  external  testi 
mony  in  its  favour  is  not  inconsiderable. 

The  reference  to  Rom.  ii.  4  in  2  Pet.  iii.  15 
indeed  more    than    doubtful.      In   the    Epistle  ot 
St.  James   again  (ii.   14),  there  is  an  allusion  to 
Deryersions   of  St.   Paul's  language   and   doctrine 
which  has  several  points  of  contact  with  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  but  this  may  perhaps  be  explainec 
by  the  oral  rather  than  the  written  teaching  of  the 
Apostle,  as  the  dates  seem  to  require.     It  is  not 
the  practice  of  the  Apostolic   fathers   to  cite  the 
N.  T.  writers  by  name,  but  marked  passages  from 
the  Romans  are  found  embedded  in  the  Epistles  of 
Clement  and  Polycarp  (Rom.  i.  29-32   in  Clem. 
Cor.  c.  xxxv.,  and  Rom.  xiv.   10,  12,  in  Polyc. 
Phil.  c.  vi.).     It  seems  also  to  have  been  directly 
cited  by  the  elder  quoted  in  Irenaeus  (iv.  27,  2, 
"ideo  Paulum  dixisse;"  cf.  Rom.  xi.  21,  17),  and 
is  alluded  to  by  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  Diogne- 
tus  (c.  ix.,  cf.  Rom.  iii.  21  foil.,  v.  20),  and  by 
Justin  Martyr  (Dial.  c.  23,  cf.  Rom.  iv.  10,  11, 
and  in  other  passages).     The  title  of  Melito's  trea 
tise,  On  the  Hearing  of  Faith,  seems  to  be  an  allu 
sion  to  this  Epistle  (see  however  Gal.  iii.  2,  3).     It 
has  a  place  moreover  in  the  Muratorian  Canon  and  in 
the  Syriac  and  Old  Latin  Versions.     Nor  have  we 
the  testimony  of  orthodox  writers  alone.  The  Epistle 
was  commonly  quoted  as  an  authority  by  the  heretics 
of  the  subapostolic  age,  by  the  Ophites  (Hippol. 
adv.  Haer.  p.  99,  cf.  Rom.  i.  20-26),  by  Basilides 
(ib.  p.  238,  cf.  Rom.  viii.  19,  22,  and  v.  13,  14), 
by  Valentinus  (ib.  p.  195,  cf.  Rom.  viii.  11),  by 
the  Valentinians  Heracleon  and  Ptolemaeus  (West- 
cott,  On  the  Canon,  pp.  335,  340),  and  perhaps  also 
by  Tatian  (Orat.  c.  iv.,  cf.  Rom.  i.  20),  besides 
being  included  in.  Marcion's  Canon.     In  the  latter 
part  of  the   second   century   the   evidence  in  its 
favour  is  still  fuller.     It  is  obviously  alluded  to  in 
the  letter  of  the  churches  of  Vienne  and    Lyons 
lEuseb.  H.  E.  v.  1,  cf.  Rom.  viii.  18),  and  by 
Atheiiagoras  (p.  13,  cf.  Rom.  xii.  1 ;  p.  37,  cf.  Rom. 


i.  24)  and  Theophilus  of  Antioch  (Ad  Autol.  p.  79, 
cf.  Rom.  ii.  6  foil. ;  p.  126,  cf.  Rom.  xiii.  7,  8) ;  and 
is  quoted  frequently  and  by  name  by  Irenaeus,  Ter- 
tullian,  and  Clement  of  Alexandria  (see  Kirchhofer, 
Quellen,  p.  198,  and  esp.  Westcott,  On  the  Canon, 
passim). 


ROME 

II.  The  Commentaries  on  this  Epistle  are  very 
numerous,  as  might  be  expected  from  its  imj/ort- 
ance.  Of  the  many  patristic  expositions  only  a  few 
are  now  extant.  The  work  of  Origen  is  preserved 
entire  only  in  a  loose  Latin  translation  of  Rufinus 
(Orig.  ed.  de  la  Rue,  iv.  458),  but  some  fragments 
of  the  original  are  found  in  the  Philocalia,  and  more 
in  Cramer's  Catena.  The  commentary  on  St.  Paul's 
Epistles  printed  among  the  works  of  St.  Ambrose 
(ed.  Ben.  ii.  Appx.  p.  21),  and  hence  bearing  the 
name  Ambrosiaster,  is  probably  to  be  attributed  to 
Hilary  the  deacon.  Besides  these  are  the  exposi 
tions  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles  by  Chrysostom  (ed. 
Montf.  ix.  p.  425,  edited  separately  by  Field),  uj 
Pelagius  (printed  among  Jerome's  works,  ed.  Val- 
larsi,  xi.  Pt.  3,  p.  135),  by  Primasius  (Magn.  Bibl. 
Vet.  Patr.  vi.  Pt.  2,  p.  30),  and  by  Theodoret  (ed. 
Schulze,  iii.  p.  1).  Augustine  commenced  a  work, 
but  broke  off  at  i.  4 :  -it  bears  the  name  Inchoata 
Expositio  Epistolae  ad  Rom.  (ed.  Ben.  iii.  p.  925). 
Later  he  wrote  Expositio  quarundam  Propositionum 
Epistolae  ad  Rom.,  also  extant  (ed.  Ben.  iii.  p.  903). 
To  these  should  be  added  the  later  Catena  of  Oecu- 
menius  (10th  cent.)  and  the  notes  of  Theophylact 
(1 1th  cent.),  the  former  containing  valuable  extracts 
from  Photius.  Portions  of  a  commentary  of  Cyril 
of  Alexandria  were  published  by  Mai  (Nov.  Patr. 
Bibl.  iii.  p.  1).  The  Catena  edited  by  Cramer 
v!844)  comprises  two  collections  of  Variorum  notes, 
the  one  extending  from  i.  1  to  ix.  1,  the  other  from 
vii.  7  to  the  end.  Besides  passages  from  extant 
commentaries,  they  contain  important  extracts  from 
Apollinarius,  Theodorus  of  Mopsuestia,  Severianus, 
Gennadius,  Photius,  and  others.  There  are  also  the 

reek  Scholia,  edited  by  Matthai,  in  his  large  Greek 
Test.  (Riga,  1782),  from  Moscow  MSS.  The  com 
mentary  of  Euthymius  Zigabenus  (Tholuck,  Einl. 
§6)  exists  in  MS.,  but  has  never  been  printed. 

Of  later  commentaries  we  can  only  mention  a 
ew  of  the  most  important.  The  dogmatic  value 
"  this  Epistle  naturally  attracted  the  early  re- 
brmers.  Melancthon  wrote  several  expositions  of  it 
Walch,  Bibl.  Theol.  iv.  679).  The  Commentary 
f  Calvin  on  the  Romans  is  considered  the  ablest 
>art  of  his  able  work.  Among  Roman  Catholic 
vriters,  the  older  works  of  Estius  and  Corn,  a 
.apide  deserve  to  be  mentioned.  Of  foreign  anno- 
ators  of  a  more  recent  date,  besides  the  general 
ommentarSes  of  Bengel,  Olshausen,  De  Wette,  and 
leyer  (3rd  ed.  1859),  which  are  highly  valuable 
ids  to  the  study  of  this  Epistle,  we  may  single  out 
he  special  works  of  Riickert  (2nd  ed.  1839), 
ieiche  (1834),  Fritzsche  (1836-43),  and  Tholuck 
5th  ed.  1856).  An  elaborate  commentary  has  also 
een  'published  lately  by  Van  Hengel.  Among 
English  writers,  besides  the  editions  of  the  whole 
f  the  New  Testament  by  Alford  (4th  ed.  1861} 
nd  Wordsworth  (new  ed.  1861),  the  most  im- 
ortant  annotations  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
•e  those  of  Stuart  (6th  ed.  1857),  Jowett  (2nd 
d.  1859),  and  Vaughan  (2nd  ed.  1861).  Further 
formation  on  the  subject  of  the  literature  of  the 
pistle  to  the  Romans  may  be  found  in  the  intro- 
uctious  of  Reiche  and  Tholuck.  [J.  B.  L.J 

KOME  ('Pc6/«7,  Ethn.  and  Adj.  'PW/J.CUOS,  'P«- 
in  the  phrase  ypa^ara.  'Pca/uLaiitd,  Luke 


xiii.  38),  the  famous  capital  of  the  ancient  world, 
situated  on  the  Tiber  at  a  distance  of  about  15 
iles  from  its  mouth.   The  "  seven  hills  "  (Rev.  xvii 
which  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  ancient  city 
and  on  the  left  bank.     On  the  opposite  side  of  ths 
.M ver  rises  the  tar  higher  ridge  of  the  Janiculum. 


ROME 

Here  from  very  early  times  was  a  fortress  with  a 
suburb  beneath  it  extending  to  the  river.  Modern 
Rome  lies  to  the  N.  of  the  ancient  city,  covering 
with  its  principal  portion  the  plain  to  the  N.  of  the 
seven  hills,  once  known  as  the  Campus  Marti  us, 
and  on  the  opposite  bank  extending  over  the  low 
ground  beneath  the  Vatican  to  the  N.  of  the  ancient 
Janiculum.  A  full  account  of  the  history  and 
topography  of  the  city  is  given  elsewhere  (Diet, 
of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Geogr.  ii.  719).  Here  it  will  be 
considered  only  in  its  relation  to  Bible  history. 

Home  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Bible  except  in  the 
books  of  Maccabees  and  in  three  books  of  the  N.  T., 
viz.  the  Acts,  the  Epistle  to  the  Komans,  and  the 
2nd  Epistle  to  Timothy.  For  the  notices  of  Rome 
iu  the  book:)  of  Maccabees  see  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

The  conquests  of  Pompey  seem  to  have  given  rise 
to  the  first  settlement  of  Jews  at  Rome.  The 
Jewish  king  Aristobulus  and  his  son  formed  part 
of  Pompey's  triumph,  and  many  Jewish  captives 
and  emigrants  were  brought  to  Rome  at  that  time. 
A  special  district  was  assigned  to  them,  not  on  the 
site  of  the  modern  "  Ghetto,"  between  the  Capitol 
and  the  island  of  the  Tiber,  but  across  the  Tiber 
(Philo,  Leg.  ad  Caium,  p.  568,  ed.  Mangey). 
Many  of  these  Jews  were  made  freedmen  (Philo, 
I.  c.}.  Julius  Caesar  showed  them  some  kindness 
(Joseph.  Ant.  xiv.  10,  §8  ;  Suet.  Caesar,  84). 
They  were  favoured  also  by  Augustus,  and  by 
Tiberius  during  the  latter  part  of  his  reign  (Philo, 
/.  c.).  At  an  earlier  period  apparently  he  banished 
a  great  number  of  them  to  Sardinia  (Joseph.  Ant. 
xviii.  3,  §5;  Suet.  Tib.  36).  Claudius  "com 
manded  all  Jews  to  depart  from  Rome "  (Acts 
xviii.  2),  on  account  of  tumults  connected,  possibly, 
with  the  preaching  of  Christianity  at  Rome  (Suet. 
Claud.  25,  "  Judaeos  impulsore  Chresto  assidue 
tumultuantes  Roma  expulit ").  This  banishment 
cannot  have  been  of  long  duration,  for  we  find 
Jews  residing  at  Rome  apparently  in  considerable 
numbers  at  the  time  of  St.  Paul's  visit  (Acts  xxviii. 
17).  It  is  chiefly  in  connexion  with  St.  Paul's 
nistory  that  Rome  comes  before  us  in  the  Bible. 

In  illustration  of  that  history  it  may  be  useful  to 
give  some  account  of  Rome  in  the  time  of  Nero,  the 
"Caesar  "  to  whom  St.  Paul  appealed, and  in  whose 
reign  he  suffered  martyrdom  (Eus.  H.  E.  ii.  25). 

1.  The  city  at  that  time  must  be  imagined  as  a 
large  and  irregular  mass  of  buildings  unprotected 
by  an  outer  wall.  It  had  long  outgrown  the  old 
Servian  wall  (Dionys.  Hal.  Ant.  Rom.  iv.  13;  ap. 
Merivale,  Rom.  Hist.  iv.  497) ;  but  the  limits  of 
the  suburbs  cannot  be  exactly  defined.  Neither  the 
nature  of  the  buildings  nor  the  configuration  of  the 
ground  were  such  as  to  give  a  striking  appearance 
to  the  city  viewed  from  without.  "  Ancient  Rome 
had  neither  cupola  nor  campanile  "  (Conybeare  and 
Howson,  Life  of  St.  Paul,  M.  371 ;  Merivale,  Rom. 
Emp.  iv.  512),  and  the  hills,  never  lofty  or  im 
posing,  would  present,  when  covered  with  the 
buildings  and  streets  of  a  huge  city,  a  confused 
appearance  like  the  hills  of  modern  London,  to 
which  they  have  sometimes  been  compared.  The 
visit  of  St.  Paul  lies  between  two  famous  epochs 
in  the  history  of  the  city,  vis.  its  restoration  by 
Augustus  and  its  restoration  by  Nero  (C.  and  H. 
i.  13).  The  boast  of  Augustus  is  well  known 
"  that  he  had  found  the  city  of  brick  and  left  it  o 
marble"  (Suet.  Aug.  28).  For  the  improvements 
eJFected  by  him,  see  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Geogr 
ii.  740,  and  Niebuhr's  Lectures  on  Rom.  Hist 
ii.  177.  Some  parts  of  the  city,  especially  the 


ROME 


1050 


"V>rum  and  Camp  is  Martins,  must  now  have  pr^- 
ented  a  magnificent  appearance,  but  many  of  the 
rincipal  buildings  which  attract  the  attention  of 
modern  travellers  in  ancient  Rome  were  not  yel 
milt.  The  streets  were  generally  narrow  and 
winding,  flanked  by  densely  crowded  lodging-houses 
insulae)  of  enormous  height.  Augustus  found  it 
lecessary  to  limit  their  height  to  70  feet  (Strab. 
r.  235).  St.  Paul's  first  visit  to  Rome  took  place 
>efore  the  Neronian  conflagration,  but  even  after 
he  restoration  of  the  city,  wbioh  followed  upon 
hat  event,  many  of  the  old  evils  continued  (Tac. 
Hist.  iii.  71  ;  Juv.  Sat.  iii.  193,  269).  The  popula- 
ion  of  the  city  has  been  variously  estimated  :  at  haif 
i  million  (by  Bureau  de  la  Malle,  i.  403  and  Meri- 
ale,  Rom.  Empire,  iv.  525),  at  two  millions  and 
upwards  (Hoeck,  Rdmische  Geschichte,  i.  ii.  131  ; 
3.  and  H.  Life  of  St.  Paul,  ii.  376  ;  Diet,  of  Geogr. 
i.  746),  even  at  eight  millions  (Lipsius,  De  Mag- 
nitudine  Rom.,  quoted  in  Diet,  of  Geogr.}.  Pro 
bably  Gibbon's  estimate  of  one  million  two  hundred 
housand  is  nearest  to  the  truth  (Milman's  note  on 
Gibbon,  ch.  xxxi.  vol.  iii.  p.  120).  One  half  of  the 
wpulation  consisted,  in  all  probability,  of  slaves. 
The  larger  part  of  the  remainder  consisted  of  pauper 
citizens  supported  in  idleness  by  the  miserable  sya- 
;em  of  public  gratuities.  There  appears  to  have 
aeen  no  middle  class  and  no  fiee  industrial  popu- 
ation.  Side  by  side  with  the  wretched  classes  just 
mentioned  was  the  comparatively  small  body  of  the 
wealthy  nobility,  of  whose  luxury  and  profligacy 
we  hear  so  much  in  the  heathen  writers  of  the  time. 
^See  for  calculations  and  proofs  the  works  cited.) 

Such  was  the  population  which  St.  Paul  would 
find  at  Rome  at  the  time  of  his  visit.  We  learn 
from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  that  he  was  detained 
at  Rome  for  "  two  whole  years,"  "  dwelling  in  his 
own  hired  house  with  a  soldier  that  kept  him" 
(Acts  xxviii.  16,  30),  to  whom  apparently,  accord- 
ng  to  Roman  custom  (Senec.  Ep.  v. ;  Acts  xii.  6, 
quoted  by  Brotier,  ad  Tac.  Ann.  iii.  22),  he  was 
bound  with  a  chain  (Acts  xxviii.  20  ;  Eph.  vi.  20  ; 
Phil.  i.  13).  Here  he  preached  to  all  that  came  to 
him,  no  man  forbidding  him  (Acts  xxviii.  30,  31 }. 
It  is  generally  believed  that  on  his  "  appeal  to 
Caesar "  he  was  acquitted,  and,  after  some  time 
spent  in  freedom,  was  a  second  time  imprisoned  at 
Rome  (for  proofs,  see  C.  and  H.  Life  of  St.  Paul, 
ch.  xxvii.,  and  Alford,  Gr.  Test.  iii.  ch.  7).  Five 
of  his  Epistles,  viz.  those  to  the  Colossians,  Ephe- 
sians,  Philippians,  that  to  Philemon,  and  the  2nd 
Epistle  to  Timothy,  were,  in  all  probability,  written 
from  Rome,  the  latter  shortly  before  his  death 
(2  Tim.  iv.  6),  the  others  during  his  first  impri 
sonment.  It  is  universally  believed  that  he  suffered 
martyrdom  at  Rome. 

2.  The  localities  in  and  about  Rome  especially 
connected  with  the  life  of  St.  Paul,  are — (1.)  The 
Appian  way,  by  which  he  approached  Rome  (Acts 
xxviii.  15).  (See  APPII  FORUM,  and  Diet,  of 
Geogr.  "Via  Appia")  (2.)  "The  palace,"  or 
"Caesar's  court"  (rb  irpairdapiov,  Phil.  i.  13). 
This  may  mean  either  the  great  camp  of  the  Prae 
torian  guards  which  Tiberius  established  outsida 
the  walls  on  the  N.E.  of  the  city  (Tac.  Ann.  iv.  2 ; 
Suet.  Tib.  37),  or,  as  seems  more  probable,  a  bar 
rack  attached  to  the  Imperial  residence  on  the  Pa 
latine  (Wieseler,  as  quoted  by  C.  and  H.,  Life  of 
St.  Paul,  ii.  423).  There  is  no  sufficient  proof 
that  the  word  "  Praetorium "  was  ever  u&td  to 
designate  the  emperor's  palace,  though  it  .i-  used 
for  the  official  residence  of  a  Roman  governor  (Jehu 

3  Y  2 


10(50 


ROME 


xriii.  28;  Acts  xxiii.  35).  The  mention  of  "Cae 
sar's  household"  (Phil.  iv.  22),  confirms  the  notion 
that  St.  Paul's  residence  was  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  the  emperor's  house  on  the  Pa 
latine. 

3.  The  connexion  of  other  localities  at  Rome  with 
St.  Paul's  name  rests  only  on  traditions  of  more  or 
less  probability.  We  may  mention  especially — 
(1 .)  The  Mamertine  prison  or  Tullianum,  built  by 
Ancus  Marti  us  near  the  forum  (Liv.  i.  33),  de 
scribed  by  Sallust  (Cat.  55).  It  still  exists  beneath 
the  church  of  S.  Giuseppe  del  Falegnami.  Here 
it  is  said  that  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  were  fellow- 
prisoners  for  nine  months.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  discuss  the  question  whether  St.  Peter  was  ever 
at  Rome.  It  may  be  sufficient  to  state,  that  though 
there  is  no  evidence  of  such  a  visit  in  the  N.  T., 
unless  Babylon  in  1  Pet.  v.  13  is  a  mystical  name 
for  Rome,  yet  early  testimony  (Dionysius,  ap.  Euseb. 
ii.  25),  and  the  universal  belief  of  the  early  Church 
seem  sufficient  to  establish  the  fact  of  his  having 
suffered  martyrdom  there.  [PETER;  vol.  ii.  805.] 
The  story,  however,  of  the  imprisonment  in  the  Ma 
mertine  prison  seems  inconsistent  with  2  Tim.,  esp. 
iv.  11.  (2.)  The  chapel  on  the  Ostian  road  which 
marks  the  spot  where  the  two  Apostles  are  said  to 
have  separated  on  their  way  to  martyrdom.  (3.)  The 
supposed  scene  of  St.  Paul's  martyrdom,  viz.  the 
church  of  St.  Paolo  alle  tre  fontane  on  the  Ostian 
road.  (See  the  notice  of  the  Ostian  road  in  Caius,  ap. 
Eus.  //.  E.  ii.  25.)  To  these  may  be  added  (4.)  The 
supposed  scene  of  St.  Peter's  martyrdom,  viz.,  the 
church  of  St.  Pietro  in  Montorio,  on  the  Janiculum. 
(5.)  The  chapel  "  Domine  quo  Vadis,"  on  the  Appian 
road,  the  scene  of  the  beautiful  legend  of  our  Lord's 
appearance  to  St.  Peter  as  he  was  escaping  from 
martyrdom  (Ambrose,  Ep.  33).  (6.)  The  places 
where  the  bodies  of  the  two  Apostles,  after  having 
been  deposited  first  in  the  catacombs  (/cotjuijT^jpio) 
(Eus.  H.  E.  ii.  25),  are  supposed  to  have  been 
finally  buried — that  of  St.  Paul  by  the  Ostian 
road — that  of  St.  Peter  beneath  the  dome  of  the 
famous  Basilica  which  bears  his  name  (see  Caius, 
ap.  Eus.  H.  E.  ii.  25).  All  these  and  many  other 
traditions  will  be  found  in  the  Annals  of  Baronius, 
under  the  last  year  of  Nero.  "  Valueless  as  may 
be  the  historical  testimony  of  each  of  these  tradi 
tions  singly,  yet  collectively  they  are  of  some 
importance  as  expressing  the  consciousness  of  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries,  that  there  had  been  an 
early  contest,  or  at  least  contrast,  between  the  two 
Apostles,  which  in  the  end  was  completely  recon 
ciled  ;  and  it  is  this  feeling  which  gives  a  real 
interest  to  the  outward  forms  in  which  it  is  brought 
before  us,  more  or  less  indeed  in  all  the  south  of 
Europe,  but  especially  in  Rome  itself"  (Stanley's 
Sermons  and  Essays,  p.  101). 

4.  We  must  add,  as  sites  unquestionably  connected 
with  the  Roman  Christians  of  the  Apostolic  age — 
(1.)  The  gardens  of  Nero  in  the  Vatican,  not  far 
from  the  spot  where  St.  Peter's  now  stands.  Here 
Christians  wrapped  in  the  skins  of  beasts  were  torn 
to  pieces  by  dogs,  or,  clothed  in  inflammable  robes, 
were  burnt  to  serve  as  torches  during  the  midnight 
games.  Others  were  crucified  (Tac.  Ann.  xv.  44). 
(2.)  The  Catacombs.  These  subterranean  galleries, 

*  1.  avTi  (Matt.  ii.  22). 

2.  xwpeiV  (Mark  ii.  2). 

3.  TOTOS  (Luke  ii.  7,  xiv.  22;  1  Cor.  xiv.  16). 

4.  Troff  (Luke  xii.  17,  where  the  word  room  should  be 

printed  in  italics). 

5.  Suifioxos  (i.  e.  z  successor,  Acts  xxiv.  27). 


ROOM 

commonly  from  8  to  10  feet  in  height,  and  from  4 
to  6  in  width,  and  extending  for  miles,  especially 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  old  Appian  and  No- 
mentan  ways,  were  unquestionably  used  as  places 
of  refuge,  of  worship,  and  of  burial  by  the  early 
Christians.  It  is  impossible  here  to  enter  upon 
the  difficult  question  of  their  origin,  and  their  pos 
sible  connexion  with  the  deep  sand-pits  and  subter 
ranean  works  at  Rome  mentioned  by  classical  writers. 
See  the  story  of  the  murder  of  Asinius  (Cic.  pro 
Clucnt.  13),  and  the  account  of  the  concealment 
offered  to  Nero  before  his  death  (Suet.  Nero,  48). 
A  more  complete  account  of  the  Catacombs  than 
any  yet  given,  may  be  expected  in  the  forthcoming 
work  of  the  Cavaliere  G.  B.  de  Rossi.  Some  very 
interesting  notices  of  this  work,  and  descriptions  of 
the  Roman  catacombs  are  given  in  Burgon's  Letters 
from  Rome,  p.  1 20-258.  "  De  Rossi  finds  his  earliest 
dated  inscription  A.D.  71.  From  that  date  to  A.D. 
300  there  are  not  known  to  exist  so  many  as  thirty 
Christian  inscriptions  bearing  dates.  Of  undated 
inscriptions,  however,  about  4000  are  referable  to 
the  period  antecedent  to  the  emperor  Constantine  " 
(Burgon,  p.  148). 

Nothing  is  known  of  the  first  founder  of  the 
Christian  Church  at  Rome.  Christianity  may,  per 
haps,  have  been  introduced  into  the  city  not  long 
after  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost  by  the  "  strangers  of  Rome,'' 
who  were  then  at  Jerusalem  (Acts  ii.  10).  It  is 
clear  that  there  were  many  Christians  at  Rome 
before  St.  Paul  visited  the  city  (Rom.  i.  8,  13,  15, 
xv.  20).  The  names  of  twenty-four  Christians  at 
Rome  are  given  in  the  salutations  at  the  end  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans.  For  the  difficult  question 
whether  the  Roman  Church  consisted  mainly  of 
Jews  or  Gentiles,  see  C.  and  H.,  Life  of  St.  Paul, 
ii.  157  ;  Alford's  Proleg.  ;  and  especially  Prof. 
Jowett's  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans,  Ga- 
latians,  and  Thessalonians,  ii.  7-26.  The  view 
there  adopted  that  they  were  a  Gentile  church 
but  Jewish  converts,  seems  most  in  harmony  with 
such  passages  as  ch.  i.  5,  13,  xi.  13,  and  with  the 
general  tone  of  the  Epistle. 

Linus  (who  is  mentioned,  2  Tim.  iv.  21),  and 
Clement  (Phil.  iv.  3)  are  supposed  to  have  suc 
ceeded  St.  Peter  as  bishops  of  Rome. 

Rome  seems  to  be  described  under  the  name  of 
Babylon  in  Rev.  xiv.  8,  xvi.  19,  xvii.  5,  iviii.  2, 
21  ;  and  again,  as  the  city  of  the  seven  hills  (Rev. 
xvii.  9,  cf.  xii.  3,  xiii.  1).  See  too,  for  the  interpre 
tation  of  the  mystical  number  6fiS  in  Rev.  xiii.  18, 
Alford's  note,  I.  c. 

For  a  good  account  of  Rome  at  the  time  of  St. 
Paul's  visit  see  Conybeare  and  Howson's  Life  of  St. 
Paul,  ch.  xxiv.,  of  which  free  use  has  been  made  for 
the  sketch  of  the  city  given  m  this  article.  [J.  J.  H.] 

ROOF.    [HOUSE.] 

ROOM.  This  word  is  employed  in  the  A.  V. 
of  the  New  Testament  as  the  equivalent  of  no  less 
than  eight  distinct  Greek*  terms.  The  only  one 
of  these,  however,  which  need  be  noticed  here  is 
irpa>TOK\i<ria.  (Matt,  xxiii.  6;  Mark  xii.  39;  Luke 
xiv.  7,  8,  xx.  46),  which  signifies,  not  a  "  room  " 
in  the  sense  we  commonly  attach  to  it  of  .1  chambei, 

6.  irpwTo/cA.io-t'a  (chief,  highest,  uppermost  room.    Sec 

above.) 

7,  ova-yaioi/  (an  upper  room,  Mark  xiv.  15,   l.'i/rt 

xxii.  2). 
tt    TO  un-eppwor  (the  upper  room,  Acts  i  131. 


ROSE 

but  the  highest  place  on  the  highest  couch  round 
the  dinner  or  supper-table — the  "  uppermost  seat," 
as  it  is  more  accurately  rendered  in  Luke  xi.  43. 
[MEALS.]  The  word  "seat"  is,  however,  generally 
appropriated  by  our  translators  to  /cafle'Spa,  which 
seems  to  mean  some  kind  of  official  chair.  In  Luke 
xiv.  9,  10,  they  have  rendered  r6iros  by  both 
"  place  "  and  "  room." 

The  UPPER  ROOM  of  the  Last  Supper  is  noticed 
under  its  own  head.  [See  HOUSE,  Vol.  I.  p. 
838.]  [G.] 

KOSE  (rfe-V3n,  chabatstseleth:  xpivov,  &vQos ; 
Aq.  KC£A.V|  :  flos,  liUum}  occurs  twice  only,  viz. 
in  Cant.  ii.  1,  "  I  am  the  Rose  of  Sharon  ,"  and'  in 
Is.  xxxv.  1,  "  the  desert  shall  rejoice  and  blossom 
as  the  Rose."  There  is  much  difference  of  opinion 
as  to  what  particular  flower  is  here  denoted.  Tre- 
mellius  and  Diodati,  with  some  of  the  Rabbins, 
believe  the  rose  is  intended,  but  there  seems  to  be 
no  foundation  for  such  a  translation.  Celsius 
(Hierob.  i.  488)  has  argued  in  favour  of  the  Nar 
cissus  (Polyanthus  narcissus).  This  rendering  is 
supported  by  the  Targum  on  Cant.  ii.  1,  where 
Chabatstseleth  is  explained  by  narkos1  (DlpID).  This 
word,  says  Royle  (Kitto's  Cyc.  art.  "  Chabazze- 
leth"),  is  "  the  same  as  the  Persian  nargus,  the 

Arabic  (j«as»O,  which  throughout  the  East  indi 
cates  Narcissus  Tazetta,  or  the  polyanthus  nar 
cissus."  Gesenius  (Thes.  s.  v.)  has  no  doubt  that 
the  plant  denoted  is  the  "  autumn  crocus  "  (Col- 
chicum  autumnale}.  It  is  well  worthy  of  remark 
that  the  Syriac  translator  of  Is.  xxxv.  1  explains 
chabatstseleth  by  chamtsalyothof  which  is  evidently 
the  same  word,  m  and  b  being  interchanged.  This 
Syriac  word,  according  to  Michaelis  (Suppl.  p.  659), 
Gesenius,  and  Rosenmiiller  (Bib.  Bot.  p.  142),  de 
notes  the  Colchicum  autumnale.  The  Hebrew  word 
points  etymological ly  to  some  bulbous  plant;  it 
appears  to  us  more  probable  that  the  narcissus  is  in 
tended  than  the  crocus,  the  former  plant  being  long 
celebrated  for  its  fragrance,  while  the  other  has  no 
odorous  qualities  to  recommend  it.  Again,  as  the 
chabatstseleth  is  associated  with  the  lily  in  Cant.  I.e., 
it  seems  probable  that  Solomon  is  speaking  of  two 
plants  which  blossomed  about  the  same  time.  The 
narcissus  and  the  lily  (Lilium  candiduin)  would  be 
in  blossom  together  in  the  early  spring,  while  the 
Colchicum  is  an  autumn  plant.  Thomson  (The 
Land  and  the  Book,  pp.  112,  513)  suggests  the  pos 
sibility  of  the  Hebrew  name  being  identical  with  the 

riM 

Arabic  Kkubbaizy  (y\>A_--  or        jlxaL),    "  the 

mallow,"  which  plant  he  saw  growing  abun 
dantly  on  Sharon  ;  but  this  view  can  hardly  be 
maintained :  the  Hebrew  term  is  probably  a  quadii- 
literal  noun,  with  the  harsh  aspirate  prefixed,  and 
the  prominent  notion  implied  in  it  is  betsel, 
bulb,"  and  has  therefore  no  connexion  with  the 
above-named  Arabic  word.  Chateaubriand  (Iti 
neraire,  ii.  p.  130)  mentions  the  narcissus  as  grow 
ing  in  the  plain  of  Sharon  ;  and  Strand  (Fior. 
Palaest.  No.  177)  names  it  as  a  plant  of  Palestine 
on  the  authority  of  Rauwolf  and  Hasselquist ;  see 
also  Kitto's  Phys.  Hist,  of  Palest,  p.  216.  Hillei 
(llierophyt.  ii.  30)  thinks  the  chabatstseleth  denotes 
some  species  of  asphodel  (Asphodelus] ;  but  the 


KOSH 


1081 


hngerlike  roots  of  this  genus  of  plantu  do  not  well 
accord  with  the  "  bulb  "  root  implied  in  the  original 
word. 

Though  the  Rose  is  apparently  not  mentioned  in 
he  Hebrew  Bible,  it  is  referred  to  in  Ecclus.  xxiv. 
L4,  where  it  is  said  of  Wisdom  that  she  is  exalted 
'as  a  rose-plant  (o>s  fywra.  j>6Sov}  in  Jericho" 
comp.  also  ch.  1.  8 ;  xxxix.  13  ;  Wisd.  ii.  8). 
Roses  are  greatly  prized  in  the  East,  more  espe 
cially  for  the  sake  of  the  rose-water,  which  is  in 
much  request  (see  Hasselquist,  Trav.  p.  248).  Dr. 
looker  observed  the  following  wild  roses  ii  Syria: — 
Rosa  eglanteria  (L.},  R.  sempervireni,  (L.),  It. 
Henkeliana,  R.  Phoenicia  (Boiss.),  R.  seriacoa, 
R.  angiistifolia,  and  R.  Libanotica.  Some  of  theso 
are  doubtful  species.  R.  centifolia  and  damascene 
are  cultivated  everywhere.  The  so-called  "  Rose 
of  Jericho "  is  no  rose  at  all,  but  the  Anastatica 
Hierochuntina,  a  cruciferous  plant,  not  uncommon 
m  sandy  soil  in  Palestine  and  Egypt.  [W.  H.] 

EOSH  (B>K"I:  'Pds:  Ros}.-  In  the  genealogy 
)f  Gen.  xlvi.  21,  Rosh  is  reckoned  among  the  sons 
>f  Benjamin,  but  the  name  does  not  occur  else 
where,  and  it  is  extremely  probable  that  "  Ehi 
and  Rosh"  is  a  corruption  of  "Ahiram"  (comp. 
Num.  xxvi.  38).  See  Burlington's  Genealogies, 
.  281. 

KOSH  (B>fch :  'P«s,  Ez.  xxxviii.  2,  3,  xxxix.  1 : 

translated  by  the  Vulg.  capttis,  and  by  the  A.  V. 
chief,"  as  if  G^fcO,  "  head").  The  whole  sentence 
thus  rendered  by  the  A.  V.  "  Magog  the  chief  prince 
of  Meshech  and  Tubal,"  ought  to  run  "  Magog  the 
prince  of  Rosh,  Mesech,  and  Tubal ;"  the  word 
translated  "  prince  "  being  &OKO,  the  term  usually 
employed  for  the  head  of  a  nomad  tribe,  as  of 
Abraham,  in  Gen.  xxiii.  6,  of  the  Arabians,  Gen. 
xvii.  20,  and  of  the  chiefs  of  the  several  Israelite 
tribes,  Num.  vii.  11,  xxxiv.  18,  or  in  a  general 
sense,  1  K.  xi.  34,  Ez.  xii.  10,  xlv.  7,  xlvi.  2. 
The  meaning  is  that  Magog  is  the  head  of  the  three 
great  Scythian  tribes,  of  which  "  Rosh  "  is  thus  the 
first.  Gesenius  considers  it  beyond  doubt  that  by 
Rosh,  or  'Ptas,  is  intended  the  tribe  on  the  north  of 
the  Taurus,  so  called  from  their  neighbourhood  to 
the  Rka,  or  Volga,  and  that  in  this  name  and  tribe 
we  have  the  first  trace  of  the  Russ  or  RUSSIAN 
nation.  Von  Hammer  identifies  this  name  with 
Rass  in  the  Koran  (xxv.  40;  1.  12),  "  the  peoples 
Aad,  Thamud,  and  the  Asshabir  (or  inhabitants)  of 
Rass  or  Ross."  He  considers  that  Mohammed  had 
actually  the  passage  of  Ezekiel  in  view,  ami  that 
"Asshabir"  corresponds  to  Ndat,  the  "prince" 
of  the  A.  V.,  and  &pXovra  of  the  LXX.  (Sur  les 
Origines  Russes,  Petersburg,  1825,  p.  24-29).  The 
first  certain  mention  of  the  Russians  under  this 
name  is  in  a  Latin  Chronicle  under  the  year  A.D. 
839,  quoted  by  Bayer  (Origines  Russicae,  Com 
ment.  Acad.  Petropol  1726,  p.  409).  From  the 
junction  of  Tiras  with  Meshech  and  Tubal  in  Gen. 
x.  2,  Von  Hammer  conjectures  the  identity  of  Tiras 
and  Rosh  (p.  26). 

The  name  probably  occurs  again  under  the 
altered  form  of  Rasses,  in  Judith  ii.  23 — this  time 
in  the  ancient  Latin,  and  possibly  also  in  the 
Synac  versions,  in  connexion  with  Thiras  or  Thars. 
But  the  passage  is  too  corrupt  to  admit  of  any 
certain  deduction  from  it.  [RASSES.] 

This  early  Biblical  notice  of  so  great  an  empirt 
is  doubly  interesting  from  its  being  a  solitary 
inskuico.  No  tithor  uaone  of  any  modern  nation 


1062 


ROSIN 


occurs  in  the  Scriptures,  and  the  obliteration  of  it 
by  the  A.  V.  is  one  of  the  many  remarkable  varia- 
tions  of  our  version  from  the  meaning  of  the  sacred 
text  of  the  Old  Testament.  For  all  further  in 
formation  see  the  above-quoted  treatises  of  Von 
Hammer  and  Bayer.  [A.  P.  S.] 

ROSIN.  Properly  "  naphtha,"  as  it  is  both  in 
the  LXX.  and  Vulg.  (vatyGa,  naphtha),  as  well  as 
the  Peshito-Syriac.  In  the  Song  of  the  Three 
Children  (23),  the  servants  of  the  king  of  Babylon 
are  said  to  have  "  ceased  not  to  make  the  oven  hot 
with  rosin,  pitch,  tow,  and  small  wood."  Pliny 
(ii.  101)  mentions  naphtha  as  a  product  of  Baby 
lonia,  similar  in  appearance  to  liquid  bitumen,  and 
having  a  remarkable  affinity  to  fire.  To  this 
natural  product  (known  also  as  Persian  naphtha, 
petroleum,  rock  oil,  Rangoon  tar,  Burmese  naphtha, 
&c.)  reference  is  made  in  the  passage  in  question. 
Sir  R.  K..  Porter  thus  describes  the  naphtha  springs 
at  Kirkook  in  Lower  Courdistan,  mentioned  by 
Strabo  (xvii.  p.  738) : — "  They  are  ten  in  number. 
For  a  considerable  distance  from  them  we  felt  the 
air  sulphurous;  but  in  drawing  near  it  became 
worse,  and  we  were  all  instantly  struck  with  ex 
cruciating  headaches.  The  springs  consist  of  several 
pits  or  wells,  seven  or  eight  feet  in  diameter,  and 
ten  or  twelve  deep.  The  whole  number  are  within 
the  compass  of  five  hundred  yards.  A  flight  of 
steps  has  been  cut  into  each  pit  for  the  purpose  of 
approaching  the  fluid,  which  rises  and  falls  according 
to  the  dryness  or  moisture  of  the  weather.  The 
natives  lave  it  out  with  ladles  into  bags  made  of 
skins,  which  are  carried  on  the  backs  of  asses  to 

Kirkook,  or  to  any  other  mail  for  its  sale 

The  Kirkook  naphtha  is  principally  consumed  by 
the  markets  in  the  south-west  of  Courdistan,  while 
the  pits  not  far  from  Kufri  supply  Bagdad  and  its 
environs.  The  Bagdad  naphtha  is  black"  (Trav. 
ii.  440).  It  is  described  by  Dioscorides  (i.  101)  as 
the  dregs  of  the  Babylonian  asphalt,  and  white  in 
colour.  According  to  Plutarch  (Alex.  35)  Alex 
ander  first  saw  it  in  the  city  of  Ecbatana,  where 
the  inhabitants  exhibited  its  marvellous  effects  by 
strewing  it  along  the  street  which  led  to  his  head 
quarters  and  setting  it  on  fire.  He  then  tried  an 
experiment  on  a  page  who  attended  him,  putting 
him  into  a  bath  of  naphtha  and  setting  light  to  it 
(Strabo,  xvii.  p.  743),  which  nearly  resulted  in  the 
boy's  death.  Plutarch  suggests  that  it  was  naphtha 
in  which  Medea  steeped  the  crown  and  robe  which 
she  gave  to  the  daughter  of  Creon  ;  and  Suidas  says 
that  the  Greeks  called  it  "  Medea's  oil,"  but  the 

Medes   "  naphtha."      The  Persian   name  is  \^fC\ 

naff) .  Posidonius  (in  Strabo)  relates  that  in  Baby 
lonia  there  were  springs  of  black  and  white  naphtha. 
The  former,  says  Strabo  (xvii.  p.  743),  were  of 
liquid  bitumen,  which  they  burnt  in  lamps  iriotead  of 
oil.  The  latter  were  of  liquid  sulphur.  [W.  A.  W.] 

RUBIES  (C»te,  peniyyim -,  DWJB,  peninim  . 
Ai0ot,  A.  7ro\uTe\6?y :  cunctae  opes,  cuncta  prc- 
tiosissima,  gemmae,  de  ultimis  finibus,  ebor  anti- 
quurri),  the  invariable  rendering  of  the  above-na*ned 
Hebrew  words,  concerning  the  meaning  of  which  there 
is  much  difference  of  opinion  and  great  uncertainty. 


RUFUS 

"  The  price  of  wisdom  is  above  peninim  "  ( Jol 
xxviii.  18 ;  see  also  Prov.  iii.  15,  viii.  11,  xxxi.  10). 
In  Lam.  iv.  7  it  is  said,  "  the  Nazarites  were  purer 
than  snow,  they  were  whiter  than  milk,  they  wer« 
more  ruddy  in  body  than  peninim."  A.  Boote  (Ani- 
mad.  Sac.  iv.  3),  on  account  of  the  ruddiness  mc;u- 
tioned  in  the  last  passage,  supposed  "  coral "  to  be 
intended,  for  which,  however,  there  appears  to  be 
another  Hebrew  word.  [CORAL.]  J.  D.  Michael* 
(Suppl.  p.  2023)  is  of  the  same  opinion,  and  com- 

5  -- 

pares  the  Hebrew  PI 3}  3  with  the  Arab.  ^JJ,  "» 

branch."  Gesenius  ( Thes.  s.  v.)  defends  this  argu 
ment.  Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  601)  contends  that 
the  Hebrew  term  denotes  pearls,  and  explains  the 
"  ruddiness "  alluded  to  above,  by  supposing  that 
the  original  word  (-1D"1N)  signifies  merely  "  bright 

in  colour,"  or  "  colour  of  a  reddish  tinge."  This 
opinion  is  supported  by  Rosenmuller  (Schol.  in 
Thren.},  and  others,  but  opposed  by  Maurer  (Com 
ment.}  and  Gesenius.  Certainly  it  would  be  no 
compliment  to  the  great  people  of  the  land  to  say 
that  their  bodies  were  as  red  as  coral  or  rubies, 
unless  we  adopt  Maurer's  explanation,  who  refers 
the  "ruddiness"  to  the  blood  which  flowed  in  their 
veins.  On  the  whole,  considering  that  the  Hebrew 
word  is  always  used  in  the  plural,  we  are  inclined 
to  adopt  Bochart's  explanation,  and  understand 
pearls  to  be  intended."  [PEARLS.]  [W.  H.] 

RUE  (-n-fiyavov :  rutd)  occurs  only  in  Luke  xi. 
42 :  "  Woe  unto  you,  Pharisees !  for  ye  tithe  mint 
and  rue  and  all  manner  of  herbs."  Th?  rue  here 
spoken  of  is  doubtless  the  common  Ruta  graveolens, 
a  shrubby  plant  about  2  feet  high,  of  strong  me 
dicinal  virtues.  It  is  a  native  of  the  Mediterranean 
coasts,  and  has  been  found  by  Hasselquist  on  Mount 
Tabor.  Dioscorides  (iii.  45)  describes  two  kinds 
of  ir-fiyavov,  viz.  IT.  bpsiv&v  and  tr.  Kfiir€vr6v, 
which  denote  the  Ruta  rnontana  and  R.  graveolens 
respectively.  Rue  was  in  great  repute  amongst  the 
ancients,  both  as  a  condiment  and  as  a  medicine 
(Pliny,  N.  H.  xix.  8  ;  Columell.  R.  Rus.  xii.  7, 
§5  ;  Dioscorides,  I.  c.).  The  Talmud  enumerates 
rue  amongst  kitchen-herbs  (Shebtith,  ch.  ix.  §1). 
and  regardf  it  as  free  of  tithe,  as  being  a  plant  not 
cultivated  in  gardens.  In  our  Lord's  time,  how 
ever,  rue  was  doubtless  a  garden-plant,  and  there 
fore  titheable,  as  is  evident  from  our  Lord's  words; 
"  these  things  ought  ye  to  have  done."  The  rue  is 
too  well  known  to  need  description.  [W.  H.] 

RU'FUS  ('PovQos :  Rufus)  is  mentioned  in 
Mark  xv.  21,  along  with  Alexander,  as  a  son  ol 
Simon  the  Cyrenean,  whom  the  Jews  compelled  to 
bear  the  cross  of  Jesus  on  the  way  to  Golgotha 
(Luke  xxiii.  26).  As  the  Evangelist  informs  his 
readers  who  Simon  was  by  naming  the  sons,  it  is 
evident  that  the  latter  were  better  known  than  the 
father  in  the  circle  of  Christians  where  Mark  lived. 
Again,  in  Rom.  xvi.  13,  the  Apostle  Paul  salutes  a 
Rufus  whom  he  designates  as  "  elect  in  the  Lord  " 
(fK\fKrbv  fv  Kvpiy),  and  whose  mother  he  grace 
fully  recognises  as  having  earned  a  mother's  claim 
upon  himself  by  acts  of  kindness  shown  to  him.  It 
is  generally  supposed  that  this  Rufus  was  identical 


R  IheChald.  "H  (Esth.  i.  6),  which  the  A.  V.  renders 
white,"  and  which  seems  to  be  identical  with  the  Arab. 


some  understood  to  mean  "mother  of  pearl,"  or  the  kinc* 


durr,  "  pearls; 


durrah.  "  a  pearl."   '*  by  i 


of  alabaster  called  in  German  Perlenmutterstein. 
LXX.  has  irtwivos  Ai'0os.   See  Gesenius,  and  Wi 
Keaiw.  i.  71). 


The 


RUHAMAK 

with  the  one  to  whom  Mark  refers  ;  and  in  that 
case,  as  Mark  wrote  his  gospel  in  all  probability 
it  Rome,  it  was  natural  that  he  should  describe 
to  his  readers  the  father  (who,  since  the  mother 
^vas  at  Rome  while  he  apparently  was  not  there, 
may  have  died,  or  have  come  later  to  that  city) 
from  his  relationship  to  two  well-known  mem 
bers  of  the  same  community.  It  is  some  proof 
at  least  of  the  early  existence  of  this  view  that,  in 
the  Actis  Andreae  et  Petri,  both  Rufus  and  Alex 
ander  appear  as  companions  of  Peter  in  Rome. 
Assuming,  then,  that  the  same  person  is  meant  in 
the  two  passages,  we  have  before  us  an  interesting 
group  of  believers  —  a  father  (for  we  can  hardly 
doubt  that  Simon  became  a  Christian,  if  he  was  not 
already  such,  at  the  time  of  the  crucifixion),  a 
mother,  and  two  brothers,  all  in  the  same  family. 
Yet  we  are  fro  bear  in  mind  that  Rufus  was  not  an 
uncommon  name  (Wetstein,  Nov.  Test.,  vol.  i.  p. 
634)  ;  and  possibly,  therefore,  Mark  and  Paul  may 
have  had  in  view  different  individuals.  [H.  B.  H.] 

RUHA'MAH  (niDrn  :  7?A.67jyU6Vij  :  misericor- 
diam  consecuta).  The  margin  of  our  version  renders 
it  "having  obtained  mercy"  (Hos.  ii.  1).  The 
name,  if  name  it  be,  is  like  Lo-ruhamah,  sym 
bolical,  and  as  that  was  given  to  the  daughter  of 
the  prophet  Hosea,  to  denote  that  God's  mercy  was 
turned  away  from  Israel,  so  the  name  Ruhamah  is 
addressed  to  the  daughters  of  the  people  to  denote 
that  they  were  still  the  objects  of  His  love  and  tender 
compassion. 


RUTH 


1063 


RU'MAH  (ilD-n  :  'Pov^d  ;  Alex.  'Pvpa  ;  Joseph. 
'ABovpa:  Ruma).  Mentioned,  once  only  (2  K.  xxiii. 
36),  as  the  native  place  of  a  certain  Pedaiah,  the 
father  of  Zebudah,  a  member  of  the  harem  of  king 
Josiah,  and  mother  of  Eliakim  or  Jehoiakim  king  of 
Judah. 

It  has  been  conjectured  to  be  the  same  place  as 
Arumah  (Judg.  ix.  41),  which  was  apparently  near 
Shechem.  It  is  more  probable  that  it  is  identical 
with  Dumah,  one  of  the  towns  in  the  mountains 
of  Judah,  near  Hebron  (Josh.  xv.  52),  not  far 
distant  from  Libnah,  the  native  town  o£.  another 
of  Josiah's  wives.  The  Hebrew  D  and  R  are  so 
similar  as  often  to  be  confounded  together,  and 
Dumah  must  have,  at  any  rate,  been  written  Rumah 
in  the  Hebrew  text  from  which  the  LXX.  trans 
lated,  since  they  give  it  as  Remna  and  Rouma. 

Josephus  mentions  a  Rumah  in  Galilee  (B.  J. 
iii.  7,  §21).  [G.j 

RUSH.     [REED.] 

RUST  (flpuffis,  16s  :  aerugo}  occurs  as  the 
translation  of  two  different  Greek  words  in  Matt. 
vi.  19,  20,  and  in  Jam.  v.  3.  In  the  former  pas 
sage  the  word  Ppaxris,  which  is  joined  with  <Hjs, 
"  moth,"  has  by  some  been  understood  to  denote 
the  larva  of  some  moth  injurious  to  corn,  as  the 
Tinea  granella  (see  Stainton,  Insecta  Britan.  iii. 
30).  The  Hebrew  (Is.  1.  9)  is  rendered 


Aquila  ;  comp.  also  Epist.  Jerem.  v.  12, 
airb  lov  Kal  Pta/j.d.TUi',  "  from  rust  and  moths  " 


VA.  V.  Bar.  vi.  12).  Scultetus  (Exerc.  Evang.  ii. 
35,  Crit.  Sac.  vi.)  believes  that  the  words  fffys 
K&l  PpSjffis  are  an  hendiadys  for  a-^s  ftpcaaiKav. 
The  word  can  scarcely  be  tcxken  to  signify  "  rust," 
for  which  there  is  another  term,  16s,  which  is  used 
by  St.  James  to  express  rather  the  "  tarnish"  which 
overspreads  silver  than  "  rust,"  by  which  name  we 
now  understand  4  '  oxide  of  iron."  BocDcrtv  is  no 


doubt  intended  to  have  reference  in  a  general  sens* 
to  any  corrupting  and  destroying  substance  that 
may  attack  treasures  of  any  kind  which  have  long 
been  raftered  to  remain  undisturbed.  The  allusion 
of  St.  James  is  to  the  corroding  nature  of  16s  on 
metals.  Scultetus  correctly  observes,  «•  aerugin* 
deformantur  quidem,  sed  non  corrumpuntur  nunu 
mi ;"  but  though  this  is  strictly  speaking  true,  th« 
ancients,  just  as  ourselves  in  common  parlance, 
spoke  of  the  corroding  nature  of  "rust"  (comp. 
Hammond,  Annotat.  in  Matt.  vi.  19).  [W.  H.] 

RUTH  ( JVn :  "PovQ :  probably  for  D-IIT),*  "  a 
friend,"  the  feminine  of  Reu).  A  Moabitish  woman, 
the  wife,  first,  of  Mahlon,  secondly  of  Boaz,  and  by 
him  mother  of  Obed,  the  ancestress  of  David  and  of 
Christ,  and  one  of  the  four  women  (Thamar,  Ranab, 
and  Uriah's  wife  being  the  other  three)  who  are 
named  by  St.  Matthew  in  the  genealogy  of  Christ. 
[RAHAB.]  The  incidents  in  Ruth's  life,  as  detailed 
in  the  beautiful  book  that  bears  her  name,  may  be 
epitomised  as  follows.  A  severe  famine  in  the  hind 
of  Judah,  caused  perhaps  by  the  occupation  of  the 
land  by  the  Moabites  under  Eglon  (as  Ussher  thinks 
possible),*  induced  Elimelech,  a  native  of  Bethlehem 
Ephratah,  to  emigrate  into  the  land  of  Moab,  with 
his  wite  Naomi,  and  his  two  sons,  Mahlon  and 
Chilion.  At  the  end  of  ten  years  Naomi,  now  left 
a  widow  and  childless,  having  heard  that  there  was 
plenty  again  in  Judah,  resolved  to  return  to  Beth 
lehem,  and  her  daughter-in-law,  Ruth,  returned 
with  her.  "  Whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go,  and 
where  thou  lodgest,  I  will  lodge ;  thy  people  shall 
be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my  God:  where  thou 
diest  I  will  die,  and  there  will  I  be  buried  :  the 
Lord  do  so  to  me,  and  more  also,  if  aught  but  death 
part  thee  and  me  ;"  was  the  expression  of  the  unal 
terable  attachment  of  the  young  Moabitish  widow 
to  the  mother,  to  the  land,  and  to  the  religion  of  her 
lost  husband.  They  arrived  at  Bethlehem  just  at 
the  beginning  of  barley  harvest,  and  Ruth,  going 
out  to  glean  for  the  support  of  her  mother-in-law 
and  herself,  chanced  to  go  into  the  field  of  Boaz,  a 
wealthy  man,  the  near  kinsman  of  her  father-in-law 
Elimelech.  The  story  of  her  virtues  and  her  kind 
ness  and  fidelity  to  her  mother-in-law,  and  her  pre 
ference  for  the  land  of  her  husband's  birth,  had  gone 
before  her  ;  and  immediately  upon  learning  who  the 
strange  young  woman  was,  Boaz  treated  her  with 
the  utmost  kindness  and  respect,  and  sent  her  home 
laden  with  com  which  she  had  gleaned.  Encouraged 
by  this  incident,  Naomi  instructed  Ruth  to  claim 
at  the  hand  of  Boaz  that  he  should  perform  the  part 
of  her  husband's  near  kinsman,  by  purchasing  the 
inheritance  of  Elimelech,  and  taking  her  to  be  his 
wife.  But  there  was  a  nearer  kinsman  than  Boaz. 
and  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  have  the  option 
of  redeeming  the  inheritance  for  himself.  He,  how 
ever,  declined,  fearing  to  mar  his  own  inheritance. 
Upon  which,  with  all  due  solemnity,  Boaz  took 
Ruth  to  be  his  wife,  amidst  the  blessings  and  con 
gratulations  of  their  neighbours.  As  a  singular 
example  of  virtue  and  piety  in  a  rude  age  and 
among  an  idolatrous  people  ;  as  one  of  the  first-fruits 
of  the  Gentile  harvest  gathered  into  the  Church  ; 
as  the  heroine  of  a  story  of  exquisite  beauty  and 
simplicity;  as  illustrating  in  her  history  the  woilr- 
ings  of  Divine  Providence,  and  the  truth  of  the 


a  Some  think  it  Is  for  JTl&n,  "  beantv." 
b  Patrick  suggests  the  famin?  in  th«  (toys  o?  GJ.l33i3 
(Judg.  vi.  3,  4.i. 


1064 


RYE 


saying  that  "  the  eyes  of  the  Lord  arc  over  the 
righteous ;"  and  for  the  many  interesting  revela 
tions  of  ancient  domestic  and  social  customs  which 
re  associated  with  her  stoiy,  Ruth  has  always 
held  a  foremost  place  among  the  Scripture  cha 
racters.  St.  Augustine  has  a  curious  speculation 
on  the  relative  blessedness  of  Ruth,  twice  married, 
and  by  her  second  marriage  becoming  the  ancestress 
of  Christ,  and  Anna  remaining  constant  in  her 
widowhood  (De  bono  Viduit.}.  Jerome  observes 
that  we  can  measure  the  greatness  of  Ruth's  virtue 
by  the  greatness  of  her  reward — "  Ex  ejus  semine 
Christus  oritur"  (Epist.  xxii.  ad  Paulam}.  As  the 
great-grandmother  of  King  David,  Ruth  must  have 
flourished  in  the  latter  part  of  Eli's  judgeship,  or 
the  beginning  of  that  of  Samuel.  But  there  seem 
to  be  no  particular  notes  of  time  in  the  book,  by 
which  her  age  can  be  more  exactly  defined.  The 
story  was  put  into  its  present  shape,  avowedly,  long 
after  her  lifetime.:  see  Ruth  i.  1,  iv.  7,  17.  (Ber- 
theau  on  Ruth,  in  the  Exeg.  Handb. ;  Rosenmiill. 
Proem,  in  Lib.  Ruth  ;  Parker's  De  Wette  ;  Ewald, 
Gesch.  i.  205,  iii.  760  sqq.)  [A.  C.  H.] 

KYE  (DIOD3,  cussemeth:  £0,  o\vpa  :  far, 
vici(t-)  occurs  in 'Ex.  ix.  32;  Is.  xxviii.  25:  in  the 
latter  the  margin  reads  "  spelt."  In  Ez.  iv.  9  the 
text  has  "fitches  "  and  the  margin  "rie."  There 
are  many  opinions  as  to  the  signification  of  Cus- 
scineth;  some  authorities  maintaining  that  fitches 
are  denoted,  others  oats,  and  others  rye.  Celsius 
has  shown  that  in  all  probability  "spelt"  is 
intended  (Hierob.  ii.  98),  and  this  opinion  is 
supported  by  the  LXX.  and  the  Vulg.  in  Ex.  ix. 
32,  and  by  the  Syriac  versions.  Rye  is  for  the 
mosf  part  a  northern  plant,  and  was  probably 
not  cultivated  in  Egypt  or  Palestine  in  early 
times,  whereas  spelt  has  been  long  cultivated  in 
the  East,  where  it  is  held  in  high  estimation.  He- 
vodotus  (ii.  36)  says  the  Egyptians  "  make  bread 
from  spelt  (curb  oAupcW ),  which  some  call  zea."  See 
also  Pliny  (ft.  ff.  xviii.  8)  and  Dioscorides  (ii.  Ill), 
who  speaks  of  two  kinds.  The  Cussemeth  was  cul 
tivated  in  'Egypt ;  it  was  not  injured  by  the  hail 
storm  of  the  seventh  plague  (Ex.  I.  c.),  as  it  was 
not  grown  up.  This  cereal  was  also  sown  in  Pales 
tine  (Is.  /.  c.),  on  the  margins  or  "headlands"  of 

the  fields  (ifl/OS)  ;  it  was  used  for  mixing  with 

wheat,  barley,  &c.,  for  making  bread  (Ez.  I.  c.). 
The  Arabic,  Chirsanat,  "  spelt,"  is  regarded  by  Ge- 
Benius  as  identical  with  the  Hebrew  word,  m  and  n 
being  interchanged  and  r  inserted.  "  Spelt"  (Tri- 
ticum  spelta)  is  grown  in  some  parts  of  the  south 
of  Geiinany  ;  it  differs  but  slightly  from  our  com 
mon  wheat  (T.  vulgare).  There  are  three  kinds  of 
spelt,  viz.  T.spelta,  T.  dicoccum  (Rice  wheat),  and 
T.  •wnococcum.  [W.  H.] 


s 


SAB'AOTH,  THE  LORD  OF  (Kfytos  <ra- 
BawQ :  Dominus  Sabaoth}.  The  name  is  found  in 
the  English  Bible  only  twice  (Rom.  ix.  29  ;  James 
v.  4).  It  is  probably  more  familiar  through  its 
occurrence  in  the  Sanctus  of  the  Te  Deum* — "Holy, 
Holy,  Holy,  Lord  God  of  Sabaoth."  It  is  too  often 

»  Can  it  be  this  phrase  which  determined  the  use  of  the 
-.  e  Devon  as  a  thanksgiving  for  victories  ? 
b  For  the  passages  which  follow,  the  writer  is  indebted 


SABBATH 

considered  to  be  a  synonym  of,  or  to  have  some  con 
nexion  with  Sabbath,  and  to  express  the  idea  of  rest. 
And  this  not  only  popularly,  but  in  some  of  oui 
most  classical  writers.1*  Thus  Spenser,  Faery  Queen, 
canto  viii.  2  : — 

"  But  thenceforth  all  shall  rest  eternally 
With  Him  that  is  the  God  of  Sabaoth  hight  : 
0  that  great  Sabaoth  God,  grant  me  that  Sabaoth's 

sight" 

And  Bacon,  Advancement  of  Learning,  ii.  24: — 
.  .  .  sacred  and  inspired  Divinity,  the  Sabaoth  an<l 
port  of  all  men's  labours  and  peregrinations."  And 
Johnson,  in  the  1st  edition  of  whose  Dictionary 
(1755)  Sabaoth  and  Sabbath  are  treated  as  the 
same  word.  And  Walter  Scott,  Ivanhoc,  i.  ch.  11 
(1st  ed.): — "a  week,  aye  the  space  between  two 
Sabaoths."  Bat  this  connexion  is  quite  fictitious. 
The  two  words  are  not  only  entirely  different,  but 
have  nothing  in  common. 

Sabaoth  is  the  Greek  form  of  the  Hebrew  word 
tsebdoth,  "armies,"  and  occurs  in  the  oft-repeated 
formula  which  is  translated  in  the  Authorised  Ver 
sion  of  the  Old  Test,  by  "  Lord  of  hosts,"  "  Lord 
God  of  hosts"  We  are  apt  to  take  "  hosts  "  (pro 
bably  in  connexion  with  the  modern,  expression  the 
"heavenly  host")  as  implying  the  angels— but 
this  is  surely  inaccurate.  Tsebdoth  is  in  constant, 
use  in  the  0.  T.  for  the  national  army  or  force  of 
righting-men,c  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in 
the  mouth  and  the  mind  of  an  ancient  Hebrew,  Je- 
hovah-tsebdoth  was  the  leader  and  commander  of 
the  armies  of  the  nation,  who  "  went  forth  with 
them"  (Ps.  xliv.  9),  and  led  them  to  certain  vic 
tory  over  the  worshippers  of  Baal,  Chemosh,  Mo- 
lech,  Ashtaroth,  and  other  false  gods.  In  later 
times  it  lost  this  peculiar  significance,  and  became 
little  if  anything  more  than  an  alternative  title  for 
God.  The  name  is  not  found  in  the  Pentateuch, 
or  the  Books  of  Joshua,  Judges,  or  Ruth.  It  is 
frequent  in  the  Books  of  Samuel,  rarer  in  Kings, 
is  found  twice  only  in  the  Chronicles,  and  not  at 
all  in  Ezekiel ;  but  in  the  Psalms,  in  Isaiah,  Jere 
miah,  and  the  minor  Prophets  it  is  of  constant 
occurrence,  and  in  fact  is  used  almost  to  the 
exclusion  of  every  other  title.  [G.] 

SA'BAT  (Sa^ciy;  Alex.  2a^or:  Phasphat). 
1.  The  sons  of  Sabat  are  enumerated  among  the 
sons  of  Solomon's  servants  who  returned  with  Zoi  o- 
babel  (1  Esd.  v.  34).  There  is  no  corresponding 
name  in  the  lists  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. 

2.  (Safrrr:  Sabath.)  The  month  SEBAT  (1 
Mace.  xvi.  14). 

SABATE'AS  (SapaTaios  ;  Aif;x.  SajSySarams  : 
Sabbatheus).  SHABBETHAI  (I  Esd.  ix.  48  ;  comp. 
Neh.  viji.  7). 

SAB'ATUS  (2o0a0os  :  Zabdis).  ZABAD  (1 
Esd.  ix.  28  ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  27). 

SAB'BAN  (2aj8aj/i/os :  Banni).  BINNUI  1 
(1  Esd.  viii.  63  ;  comp.  Ezr.  viii.  33). 

SABBATH  (D21B*,  "a  day  of  rest,"  from 
J"D£;,  "  to  cease  to  do,"  "  to  rest  ").  This  is  the 
obvious  and  undoubted  etymology.  The  resem 
blance  of  the  word  to  JDfc?,  "  seven,"  misled  Lac- 
tantius  (Inst.  iii.  14)  and  others;  but  it  does  not 
seem  more  than  accidental.  Bahr  (Sijmbolih,  ii. 
533-4)  does  not  reject  the  derivation  from 


to  the  kindness  of  a  friend. 

c  JTlfcOV.    See  1  Sam.  xii.  9,  1  K. 
Burgh's  Coticordance,  p.  1058. 


19,  and  jsasTJffi  ui 


SABBATH 

but  traces  that  to  31t^,  somewhat  needlessly  and 
fancifully,  us  it  appears  to  us.  Plutarch's  associa 
tion  of  the  word  with  the  Bacchanalian  cry  <ra.$ol 
may  of  course  be  dismissed  at  once.  We  have  also 
(Ex.  xvi.  23,  and  Lev.  xxiii.  24)  jirQfc^,  of  more 
intense  signification  than  T\y& ;  also  p*"OK'  nUK*, 
u  a  Sabbath  of  Sabbaths"  (Ex.  xxxi.  15,  and  else 
where).  The  name  Sabbath  is  thus  applied  to  divers 
great  festivals,  but  principally  and  usually  to  the 
seventh  day  of  the  week,  the  strict  observance  of 
which  is  enforced  not  merely  in  the  general  Mosaic 
code,  but  in  the  Decalogue  itself. 

The  first  Scriptural  notice  of  the  weekly  Sabbath, 
though  it  is  not  mentioned  by  name,  is  to  be  found  in 
Gen.  ii.  3,  at  the  close  of  the  record  of  the  six  days' 
creation.  And  hence  it  is  frequently  argued  that  the 
institution  is  as  old  as  mankind,  and  is  consequently 
of  universal  concern  and  obligation.  We  cannot, 
however,  approach  this  question  till  we  have  ex 
amined  the  account  of  its  enforcement  upon  the 
Israelites.  It  is  in  Ex.  xvi.  23-29  that  we  find  the 
first  incontrovertible  institution  of  the  day,  as  one 
given  to,  and  to  be  kept  by,  the  children  of  Israel. 
Shortly  afterwards  it  was  re-enacted  in  the  Fourth 
Commandment,  which  gave  it  a  rank  above  that  of 
an  ordinary  law,  making  it  one  of  the  signs  of  the 
Covenant.  As  such  it  remained  together  with  the 
Passover,  the  two  forming  the  most  solemn  and 
distinctive  features  of  Hebrew  religious  life.  Its 
neglect  or  profanation  ranked  foremost  among  na 
tional  sins;  the  renewed  observance  of  it  was  sure 
to  accompany  national  reformation. 

Before,  then,  dealing  with  the  question  whether 
its  original  institution  comprised  mankind  at  large,  or 
merely  stamped  on  Israel  a  very  marked  badge  of 
nationality,  it  will  be  well  to  trace  somewhat  of  its 
position  and  history  among  the  chosen  people. 

Many  of  the  Rabbis  date  its  first  institution  from 
the  incident*  recorded  in  Ex.  xv.  25;  and  believe 
that  the  "  statute  and  ordinance"  there  mentioned 
as  being  given  by  God  to  the  children  of  Israel  was 
that  of  the  Sabbath,  together  with  the  command 
ment  to  honour  father  and  mother,  their  previous 
law  having  consisted  only  of  what  are  Called  the 
"  seven  precepts  of  Noah."  This,  however,  seems  to 
want  foundation  of  any  sort,  and  the  statute  and 
ordinance  in  question  are,  we  think,  sufficiently  ex 
plained  by  the  words  of  ver.  26,  "  If  thou  wilt 
diligently  hearken,"  &c.  We  are  not  on  sure  ground 
till  we  come  to  the  unmistakeable  institution  in 
chap.  xvi.  in  connexion  with  the  gathering  of  manna. 
The  words  in  this  latter  are  not  in  themselves 
enough  to  indicate  whether  such  institution  was 
altogether  a  novelty,  or  whether  it  referred  to  a 
day  the  sanctity  of  which  was  already  known  to 
those  to  whom  it  was  given.  There  is  plausibility 
certainly  in  the  opinion  of  Grotius,  that  the  day 
was  already  known,  and  in  some  measure  observed 
as  holy,  but  that  the  rule  of  abstinence  from  work 
was  first  given  then,  and  shortly  afterwards  more 
explicitly  imposed  in  the  Fourth  Commandment. 
There  it  is  distinctly  set  forth,  and  extended  to  the 
whole  of  an  Israelite's  household,  his  son  and  his 
daughter,  his  slaves,  male  and  female,  his  ox  and 
Ins  ass,  and  the  stranger  within  his  gates.  It  would 
seem  that  by  this  last  was  understood  the  stranger 
who  while  still  uncircumcised  yet  worshipped  the 
true  bGod;  for  the  mere  heathen  stranger  was 


•  Vide  Patrick  in  loc.,  and  Selden,  DeJure  Nat.  ct  Gent. 
ill.  9. 

*  Vide  CJrotius  in  loc.,  who  rel'eis  to  Abon-ezra. 


SABBATH  106£ 

not  considered  to  be  under  the  law  of  the  Sabbath 
In  the  Fourth  Commandment,  too,  the  institution 
is  grounded  on  the  revealed  truth  of  the  six  days 
creation  and  the  Divine  rest  on  the  seventh ;  bul 
in  the  version  of  it  which  we  find  in  Deuteroncm} 
a  further  reason  is  added — "and  remember  that 
thou  wast  a  stranger  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and 
that  the  LORD  thy  God  brought  thee  forth  with  a 
mighty  hand  and  by  a  stretched-out  arm  ;  therefore 
the  LORD  thy  God  commanded  thee  to  keep  the 
Sabbath  day"  (Deut.  v.  15). 

Penalties  and  provisions  in  other  parts  of  the 
Law  construed  the  abstinence  from  labour  prescribed 
in  the  commandment.  It  was  forbidden  to  light  a 
fire,  a  man  was  stoned  for  gathering  sticks,  on  the 
Sabbath.  At  a  later  period  we  find  the  Prophet 
Isaiah  uttering  solemn  warnings  against  profaning, 
and  promising  large  blessings  on  the  due  observ 
ance  of  the  day  (Is.  Iviii.  13,  14).  In  Jeremiah's 
time  there  seems  to  have  been  an  habitual  viola* 
tion  of  it,  amounting  to  transacting  on  it  such  an 
extent  of  business  as  involved  the  carrying  bur 
dens  about  (Jer.  xvii.  21-27).  His  denunciations 
of  this  seem  to  have  led  the  Pharisees  in  their 
bondage  to  the  letter  to  condemn  the  impotent  man 
for  carrying  his  bed  on  the  Sabbath  in  obedience  to 
Christ  who  had  healed  him  (John  v.  10).  We 
must  not  suppose  that  our  Lord  prescribed  a  real 
violation  of  the  Law ;  and  it  requires  little  thought 
to  distinguish  between  such  a  natural  and  almost 
necessary  act  as  that  which  He  commanded,  and 
the  carrying  of  burdens  in  connexion  with  business 
which  is  denounced  by  Jeremiah.  By  Ezekiel 
(xx.  12-24),  a  passage  to  which  we  must  shortly 
return,  the  profanation  of  the  Sabbath  is  made  fore 
most  among  the  national  sins  of  the  Jews.  From 
Nehemiah  x.  31,  we  learn  that  the  people  entered 
into  a  covenant  to  renew  the  observance  of  the  Law, 
in  which  they  pledged  themselves  neither  to  buy 
nor  sell  victuals  on  the  Sabbath.  The  practice  was 
then  not  infrequent,  and  Nehemiah  tells  us  (xiii. 
15-22)  of  the  successful  steps  which  he  took  for  its 
stoppage. 

Henceforward  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  Sabbath 
being  neglected  by  the  Jews,  except  such  as  (1  Mace, 
i.  11-15,  39-45)  went  into  open  apostasy.  The 
faithful  remnant  were  so  scrupulous  concerning  it, 
as  to  forbear  fighting  in  self-defence  on  that  day 
(1  Mace.  ii.  36),  and  it  was  only  the  terrible  conse 
quences  that  ensued  which  led  Mattathias  and  his 
friends  to  decree  the  lawfulness  of  self-defence  on 
the  Sabbath  (1  Mace.  ii.  41). 

When  we  come  to  the  N.  T.  we  find  the  most 
marked  stress  laid  on  the  Sabbath.  In  whatever 
ways  the  Jew  might  err  respecting  it,  he  had 
altogether  ceased  to  neglect  it.  On  the  contrary, 
wherever  he  went  its  observance  became  the  most 
visible  badge  of  his  nationality.  The  passages  of 
Latin  literature,  such  as  Ovid,  Art.  Amat.  i.  415 ; 
Juvenal,  Sat.  xiv.  96-106,  which  indicate  this,  are 
too  well  known  to  require  citation.  Our  Lord's 
mode  of  observing  the  Sabbath  was  one  of  the  main 
features  of  His  life,  which  His  Pharisaic  adver 
saries  most  eagerly  watched  and  criticised.  They 
had  by  that  time  invented  many  of  those  fantastic 
prohibitions  whereby  the  letter  of  the  command 
ment  seemed  to  be  honoured  at  the  expense  of  its 
whole  spirit,  dignity,  and  value :  and  our  Lord, 
coming  to  vindicate  and  fulfil  the  Law  in  its  rail 
scope  and  intention,  must  needs  come  into  collision 
wi>i\  these. 

l>.toic  proceeding  to  any  rf  the  more  curiouu 


1066 


SABBATH 


questions  connected  with  the  Sabbath,  such  as  that 
of  its  alleged  prae-Mosaic  origin  and  observance,  it 
will  be  well  to  consider  and  determine  what  were 
its  true  idea  and  purpose  in  that  Law  of  which 
beyond   doubt  it   formed  a  leading   feature,   and  ', 
among  that  people  for  whom,  if  for  none  else,  we 
know  that  it  was  designed.     And  we  shall  do  this  ; 
with  most  advantage,  as  it  seems  to  us,  by  pur-  j 
luing  the  inquiry  in  the  following  order : — 

I.  By  considering,  with  a  view  to  their  elimina 
tion,    the   Pharisaic   and   Rabbinical    prohibitions. 
These  we  have  the  highest  authority  for  rejecting, 
as  inconsistent  with  the  true  scope  of  the  Law. 

II.  By  taking  a  survey  of  the  general  Sabbatical 
periods  of  Hebrew  time.    The  weekly  Sabbath  stood  ! 
in  the  relation  of  keynote  to  a  scale  of  Sabbatical 
observance,  mounting  to  the  Sabbatical  year  and  ; 
the  year  of  Jubilee.0     It  is  but  reasonable  to  sus-  ' 
pect  that  these  can  in  some  degree  interpret  each  j 
other. 

III.  By   examining    the    actual    enactments  of 
Scripture  respecting  the  seventh  day,  and  the  mode 
in  which  such  observance  was  maintained  by  the 
best  Israelites. 

I.  Nearly  every  one  is  aware  that  the  Pharisaic  ' 
and  Rabbinical  schools  invented  many  prohibitions 
respecting  the  Sabbath  of  which  we  find  nothing  in 
the  original  institution.  Of  these  some  may  have 
been  legitimate  enforcements  in  detail  of  that  insti 
tution,  such  as  the  Scribe's  and  Pharisees  "  sitting 
in  Moses'  seat "  (Matt,  xxiii.  2,  3)  had  a  right  to 
impose.  How  a  general  law  is  to  be  carried  out  in 
'  particular  cases,  must  often  be  determined  for 
others  by  such  as  have  authority  to  do  so.  To  this 
class  may  belong  the  limitation  of  a  Sabbath-day's 
journey,  a  limitation  not  absolutely  at  variance  with  | 
the  fundamental  canon  that  the  Sabbath  was 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath,  although  it 
may  have  proceeded  from  mistaking  a  temporary 
enactment  for  a  permanent  one.  Many,  however, 
of  these  prohibitions  were  fantastic  and  arbitrary, 
in  the  number  of  those  "  heavy  burdens  and  griev 
ous  to  be  borne  "  which  the  later  expounders  of  the 
Law  "laid  on  men's  shoulders."  We  have  seen 
that  the  impotent  man's  carrying  his  bed  was  con 
sidered  a  violation  of  the  Sabbath — a  notion  pro 
bably  derived  from  Jeremiah's  warnings  against 
the  commercial  traffic  carried  on  at  the  gates  of 
Jerusalem  in  his  day.  The  harmless  act  of  the 
disciples  in  the  corn-field,  and  the  beneficent  healing 
of  the  man  in  the  synagogue  with  the  withered 
hand  (Matt.  xii.  1-13),  were  alike  regarded  as 
bleaches  of  the  Law.  Our  Lord's  reply  in  the 
former  case  will  come  before  us  under  our  third 
head  ;  in  the  latter  He  appeals  to  the  practice  of  the 
objectors,  who  would  any  one  of  them  raise  his  own 
sheep  out  of  the  pit  into  which  the  animal  had 
fallen  on  the  Sabbath-day.  From  this  appeal,  we 
are  forced  to  infer  that  such  practice  would  have 
been  held  lawful  at  the  time  and  place  in  which  He 
spoke.  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  we  find  it 
prohibited  in  other  traditions,  the  law  laid  down 
beiue;,  that  in  this  case  a  man  might  throw  some  need 
ful  nourishment  to  the  animal,  but  must  not  pull 
him  out  till  the  next  day.  (See  Heylin,  Hist,  of 
Sabbath,  i.  8,  quoting  Buxtorf.)  This  rule  possibly 
came  into  existence  in  consequence  of  our  Lord's 
appeal,  and  with  a  view  to  warding  off  the  necessary 


S  AJBBATH 

inference  trom  it.  Still  more  fantastic  prohibition* 
were  issued.  It  was  unlawful  to  catch  a  flea  on 
the  Sabbath,  except  the  insect  were  actually  hurt 
ing  his  assailant,  or  to  mount  into  a  tree,  lest  a 
branch  or  twig  should  be  broken  in  the  process. 
The  Samaritans  were  especially  rigid  in  matters 
like  these;  and  Dositheus,  who  founded  a  sect 
amongst  them,  went  so  far  as  to  maintain  the  obli 
gation  of  a  man's  remaining  throughout  the  Sabbath 
in  the  posture  wherein  he  chanced  to  be  at  its  com 
mencement — a  rule  which  most  people  would  find 
quite  Jestructive  of  its  character  as  a  day  of  rest. 
When  minds  were  occupied  with  such  microlocjjj,  i\s 
this  has  been  well  called,  there  was  obviously  no  limit 
to  the  number  of  prohibitions  which  they  might 
devise,  confusing,  as  they  obviously  did,  abstinence 
from  action  of  every  sort  with  rest  from  business 
and  labour. 

That  this  perversion  of  the  Sabbath  had  become 
very  general  in  our  Saviour's  time  is  apparent  both 
from  the  recorded  objections  to  acts  of  His  on  that 
day,  and  from  His  marked  conduct  on  occasions  to 
which  those  objections  were  sure  to  be  urged.  There 
is  no  reason,  however,  for  thinking  that  the  Pha 
risees  had  arrived  at  a  sentence  against  pleasure  of 
every  sort  on  the  sacred  day.  The  duty  of  hospi 
tality  was  remembered.  It  was  usual  for  the  rich 
to  give  a  feast  on  that  day  ;  and  our  Lord's  attend 
ance  at  such  a  feast,  and  making  it  the  occasion  of 
putting  forth  His  rules  for  the  demeanour  of  guests, 
and  for  the  right  exercise  of  hospitality,  show  that 
the  gathering  of  friends  and  social  enjoyment  were 
not,  deemed  inconsistent  with  the  true  scope  and 
spirit  of  the  Sabbath.  It  was  thought  right  that 
the  meats,  though  cold,  should  be  of  the  best  and 
choicest,  nor  might  the  Sabbath  be  chosen  for  a 
fast. 

Such  are  the  inferences  to  which  we  are  brought 
by  our  Lord's  words  concerning,  and  works  on,  the 
sacred  day.  We  have  already  protested  against 
the  notion  which  has  been  entertained  that  they 
were  breaches  of  the  Sabbath  intended  as  harbingers 
of  its  abolition.  Granting  for  argument's  sake  that 
such  abolition  was  in  prospect,  still  our  Lord, 
"  made  under  the  Law,"  would  have  violated  no 
i  part  of  it  so  long  as  it  was  Law.  Nor  can  anything 
be  inferred  on  the  other  side  from  the  Evangelist's 
i  lauguao-e  (John  v.  18).  The  phrase  "He  had 
j  broken  the  Sabbath,"  obviously  denotes  not  the 
'  character  of  our  Saviour's  act,  but  the  Jewish  esti 
mate  of  it.  He  had  broken  the  Pharisaic  rules  re- 
j  spectiug  the  Sabbath.  Similarly  His  own  phrase, 
"  the  priests  profane  the  Sabbath  and  are  blame 
less,"  can  only  be  understood  to  assert  the  lawfulness 
of  certain  acts  done  for  certain  reasons  on  that  day, 
which,  taken  in  themselves  and  without  those  rea 
sons,  would  be  profanations  of  it.  There  remains 
only  His  appeal  to  the  eating  of  the  shewbread  by 
David  and  his  companions,  which  was  no  doubt  in 
its  matter  a  breach  of  the  Law.  It  does  not  follow, 
however,  that  the  act  in  justification  of  which  it  is 
appealed  to  was  such  a  breach.  It  is  rather,  we 
think,  an  argument  a  fortiori,  to  the  effect,  that  if 
even  a  positive  law  might  give  place  on  occasion, 
much  more  might  an  arbitrary  ruie  like  that  of  the 
Rabbis  in  the  case  in  question. 

Finally,  the  declaration  that  "  the  Son  of  Man 
is  Lord  also  of  the  Sabbath,"  must  not  be  viewed 


5  It  is  obvious  from  the  whole  scope  of  the  chapter  judgment  in  case  of  neglect  or  violation  of  the  Law,  th« 
tha»  the  words,  "  Ye  shall  keep  my  sabbaths,"  in  Lev.  Sabbatical  year  would  seem  tu  be  mainly  referred  u> 
nxvt  2.  related  tc  all  these.  In  the  nsuing  threat  of  (ver.  1,  34,  35). 


SABBATH 

as  though  our  Lord  held  Himself  free  from  the 
Law  respecting  it.  It  is  to  be  taken  in  connexion 
with  the  preceding  words,  "  the  Sabbath  was  made 
for  man,"  &c.,  from  which  it  is  an  inference,  as  is 
shown  by  the  adverb  therefore-,  and  the  Son  of 
Man  is  plainly  speaking  of  Himself  as  the  Man,  the 
Representative  and  Exemplar  of  all  mankind,  and 
teaching  us  that  the  human  race  is  lord  of  the 
Sabbath,  the  day  being  rande  for  man,  not  man  for 
the  day. 

If,  then,  our  Lord,  coming  to  fulfil  and  rightly 
interpret  the  Law,  did  thus  protest  against  the  Phari 
saical  and  Rabbinical  rules  respecting  the  Sabbath, 
we  are  supplied  by  this  protest  with  a  large  negative 
view  of  that  ordinance.  The  acts  condemned  by 
the  Pharisees  were  not  violations  of  it.  Mere  action, 
as  such,  was  not  a  violation  of  it,  and  far  less  was  a 
work  of  healing  and  beneficence.  To  this  we  shall 
have  occasion  by  and  bye  to  return.  Meanwhile 
we  must  try  to  gain  a  positive  view  of  the  insti 
tution,  and  proceed  in  furtherance  of  this  to  our 
second  head. 

II.  The  Sabbath,  as  we  have  said,  was  the  key 
note  to  a  scale  of  Sabbatical  observance — consisting 
of  itself,  the  seventh  month,  the  seventh  year,  and 
the  year  of  Jubilee.  As  each  seventh  day  was 
sacred,  so  was  each  seventh  month,  and  each  seventh 
year.  Of  the  observances  of  the  seventh  month, 
little  needs  be  said.  That  month  opened  with  the 
Feast  of  Trumpets,  and  contained  the  Day  of  Atone 
ment  and  Feast  of  Tabernacles-  the  last  named 
being  the  most  joyful  of  Hebrew  festivals.  It  is 
not-  apparent,  nor  likely,  that  the  whole  of  the 
month  was  to  be  characterised  by  cessation  from 
labour;  but  it  certainly  has  a  place  in  the  Sab 
batical  scale.  Its  great  centre  was  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles  or  Ingathering,  the  year  and  the  year's 
labour  having  then  done  their  work  and  yielded 
their  issues.  In  this  last  respect  its  analogy  to  the 
weekly  Sabbath  is  obvious.  Only  at  this  part  of 
the  Sabbatical  cycle  do  we  find  any  notice  of  humi 
liation.  On  the  Day  of  Atonement  the  people  were 
to  afflict  their  souls  (Lev.  xxiii.  27-29). 

The  rules  for  the  Sabbatical  year  are  very  precise 
As  labour  was  prohibited  on  the  seventh  day,  so 
<he  land  was  to  rest  every  seventh  year.  And  as 
each  forty-ninth  year  wound  up  seven  of  such  weeks 
of  years,  so  it  either  was  itself,  or  it  ushered  in, 
what  was  called  "  the  year  of  Jubilee." 

In  Exodus  xxiii.  10,  11,  we  rind  the  Sabbatical 
year  placed  in  close  connexion  with  the  Sabbath 
day,  and  the  words  in  which  the  former  is  pre 
scribed  are  analogous  to  those  of  the  Fourth  Com 
mandment  :  "  Six  years  thou  shalt  sow  thy  land 
and  gather  in  the  fruits  thereof;  but  the  seventh 
year  thou  shalt  let  it  rest  and  lie  still ;  that  the 
poor  of  thy  people  may  eat ;  and  what  they  leave 
the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  eat."  This  is  imme 
diately  followed  by  a  renewed  proclamation  of  the 
law  of  the  Sabbath,  "  Six  days  thou  shalt  do  thy 
work,  and  on  the  seventh  day  thou  shalt  rest :  that 
thine  ox  and  thine  ass  may  rest,  and  the  son  of  thy 
handmaid,  and  the  stranger  may  be  refreshed."  It 
is  impossible  to  avoid  perceiving  that  in  these  pas 
sages  the  two  institutions  are  put  on  the  same 
ground,  and  are  represented  as  quite  homogeneous. 
Their  aim,  as  here  exhibited,  is  eminently  a  benefi 
cent  one.  To  give  rights  to  classes  that  would  other 
wise  have  been  without  such,  to  the  bondman 
uiil  bondmaid,  nay,  to  the  beast  of  the  field,  is 
viewed  here  as  their  main  end.  "The  stranger, 
too,  is  comprehended  in  the  benefit.  Many,  we 


SABBATH 


1067 


suspect,  while  reading  the  Fourth  Commandment, 
merely  regard  him  as  subjected,  together  witli  his 
host  a-nd  family,  to  a  prohibition.  But  if  w?  con 
sider  how  continually  the  stranger  is  referred  to  in 
the  enactments  of  the  Law,  and  that  with  a  vie-? 
to  his  protection,  the  instances  being  one-and-twenty 
in  number,  we  shall  be  led  to  regard  his  inclusion 
in  the  Fourth  Commandment  rather  as  a  benefit 
conferred  than  a  prohibition  imposed  on  him. 

The  same  beneficent  aim  is  still  more  apparent 
in  the  fuller  legislation  respecting  the  Sabbatica. 
year  which  we  find  in  Lev.  xxv.  2-7,  "  When 
ye  come  into  the  land  which  I  give  you,  then 
shall  the  land  keep  a  sabbath  unto  the  Lord. 
Six  years  thou  shalt  sow  thy  field,  and  six  years 
thou  shalt  prune  thy  vineyard,  and  gotlier  in  the 
fruit  thereof;  but  in  the  seventh  year  shall  be  a 
sabbath  of  rest  unto  the  land,  a  sabbath  unto  the 
Lord ;  thou  shalt  neither  sow  thy  field  nor  prune 
thy  vineyard.  That  which  groweth  of  its  own 
accord  of  thy  harvest  thou  shalt  not  reap,  neither 
gather  the  grapes  of  thy  vine  undressed :  for  it  is 
a  year  of  rest  unto  the  land.  And  the  sabbath 
of  the  land  shall  be  meat  for  you ;  for  thee,  and 
for  thy  slave,  and  for  thy  maid,  and  for  thy 
hired  servant,  and  for  thy  stranger  that  sojourneth 
with  thee,  and  for  thy  cattle,  and  for  the  beasts 
that  are  in  thy  land,  shall  all  the  increase  thereof 
be  meat."  One  great  aim  of  both  institutions, 
the  Sabbath-day  and  the  Sabbatical  year,  clearly 
was  to  debar  the  Hebrew  from  the  thought  of  ab 
solute  ownership  of  anything.  His  time  was  not 
his  own,  as  was  shown  him  by  each  seventh  day 
being  the  Sabbath  of  the  Lord  his  God ;  his  land 
was  not  his  own  but  God's  (Lev.  xxv.  23),  as  was 
shown  by  the  Sabbath  of  each  seventh  year,  during 
which  it  was  to  have  rest,  and  all  individual  right 
over  it  was  to  be  suspended.  It  was  also  to  be  the 
year  of  release  from  debt  (Deut.  xv.).  We  do  not 
read  much  of  the  way  in  which,  or  the  extent 
to  which,  the  Hebrews  observed  the  Sabbatical 
year.  The  reference  to  it  (2  Chr.  xxxvi.  21) 
leads  us  to  conclude  that  it  had  been  much 
neglected  previous  to  the  Captivity,  but  it  was 
certainly  not  lost  sight  of  afterwards,  since  Alex 
ander  the  Great  absolved  the  Jews  from  paying 
tribute  on  it,  their  religion  debarring  them  from 
acquiring  the  means  of  doing  so.  [SABBATICAL 
YEAR.] 

The  year  of  Jubilee  must  be  regarded  as  com 
pleting  this  Sabbatical  Scale,  whether  we  consider 
it  as  really  the  forty-ninth  year,  the  seventh  of  a 
week  of  Sabbatical  years  or  the  fiftieth,  a  question 
on  which  opinions  are  divided.  [JUBILEE,  YEAR 
OF.]  The  difficulty  in  the  way  of  deciding  for 
the  latter,  that  the  land  could  hardly  bear  enough 
spontaneously  to  suffice  for  two  years,  seems 
disposed  of  by  reference  to  Isaiah  xxxvii.  30.  Adopt 
ing,  therefore,  that  opinion  as  the  most  probable, 
we  must  consider  each  week  of  Sabbatical  years  to 
have  ended  jn  a  double  Sabbatical  period,  to  which, 
moreover,  increased  emphasis  was  given  by  the  pe 
culiar  enactments  respecting  the  second  half  of  such 
period,  the  year  of  Jubilee. 

Those  enactments  have  been  already  considered 
in  the  article  just  referred  to,  and  throw  further 
light  on  the  beneficent  character  of  the  Sabbatical 
Law. 

III.  We  must  consider  the  actual  enactments  of 
Scriuture  respecting  the  seventh  day.  Howeve.i 
numogeneous  the  different  Sabbatical  periods  may 
be,  the  weekly  Sabbath  is,  as  we  have  said,  tl:>/ 


1068 


SABBATH 


tonic  or  keynote.  It  alone  is  prescribed  in  the 
Decalogue,  and  it  alone  has  in  any  shape  survived 
the  earthly  commonwealth  of  Israel.  We  must 
still  postpone  the  question  of  its  observance  by 
die  patriarchs,  and  commence  our  inquiry  with 
the  institution  of  it  in  the  wilderness,  in  con 
nexion  with  the  gathering  of  manna  (Ex.  xvi. 
23).  The  prohibition  to  gather  the  manna  on  the 
Sabbath  is  accompanied  by  one  to  bake  or  to  seethe 
on  that  day.  The  Fourth  Commandment  eives  us 
but  the  generality,  "  all  manner  of  work,"  and, 
seeing  that  action  of  one  kind  or  another  is  a  neces 
sary  accompaniment  of  waking  life,  and  cannot 
therefore  in  itself  be  intended,  as  the  later  Jews 
imagined,  by  the  prohibition,  we  are  left  to  seek 
elsewhere  for  the  particular  application  of  the 
general  principle.  That  general  principle  in  itself, 
however,  obviously  embraces  an  abstinence  from 
worldly  labour  or  occupation,  and  from  the  en 
forcing  such  on  servants  or  dependents,  or  on  the 
stranger.  By  him,  as  we  have  said,  is  most  pro 
bably  meant  the  partial  proselyte,  who  would  not 
have  received  much  consideration  from  the  Hebrews 
had  they  been  left  to  themselves,  as  we  must  infer 
from  the  numerous  laws  enacted  for  his.  protection. 
Had  man  been  then  regarded  by  him  as  made  for 
the  Sabbath,  not  the  Sabbath  for  man,  that  is,  had 
the  prohibitions  of  the  commandment  been  viewed 
as  the  putting  on  of  a  yoke,  not  the  con  fen-ing  of  a 
privilege,  one  of  the  dominant  race  would  probably 
have  felt  no  reluctance  to  placing  such  a  stranger 
under  that  yoke.  The  naming  him  therefore  in  the 
commandment  helps  to  interpret  its  whole  principle, 
and  testifies  to  its  having  been  a  beneficent  privilege 
for  all  who  came  within  it.  It  gave  rights  to  the 
slave,  to  the  despised  stranger,  even  to  the  ox  and 
the  ass. 

This  beneficent  character  of  the  Fourth  Com 
mandment  is  very  apparent  in  the  version  of  it 
which  we  find  in  Deuteronomy:  "Keep  the  Sab 
bath-day  to  sanctify  it,  as  the  Lord  thy  God  hath 
commanded  thee.  Six  days  thou  shalt  labour  and 
do  all  thy  work  ,  but  the  seventh  day  is  the  Sab 
bath  of  the  Lord  thy  God:  in  it  thou  shalt  not  do 
any  work,  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daughter, 
nor  thy  bondman,  nor  thy  bondwoman,  nor  thine 
ox,  nor  thine  ass,  nor  thy  stranger  that  is  within 
thy  gates :  that  thy  bondman  and  thy  bond 
woman  may  rest  as  well  as  thou.  And  remember 
that  thou  wast  a  slave  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and 
that  the  Lord  thy  God  brought  thee  out  thence 
through  a  mighty  hand  and  by  a  stretched-out 
arm  :  therefore  the  Lord  thy  God  commanded 
thee  to  keep  the  Sabbath-day"  (Deut.  v.  12-15). 
But  although  this  be  so,  and  though  it  be  plain 
that  to  come  within  the  scope  of  the  command 
ment  was  to  possess  a  franchise,  to  share  in  a  privi 
lege,  yet  does  the  original  proclamation  of  it  in 
Exodus  place  it  on  a  ground  which,  closely  con 
nected  no  doubt  with  these  others,  is  yet  higher  and 
more  comprehensive.  The  Divine  method  of  work 
ing  and  rest  is  there  proposed  to  man  as  the  model 
after  which  he  is  to  work  and  to  rest.  Time  then 
presents  a  perfect  whole,  is  then  well  rounded  and 
entire,  when  it  is  shaped  into  a  week,  modelled  on 
the  six  days  of  creation  and  their  following  Sabbath. 
Six  days'  work  and  the  seventh  day's  rest  conform 
th3  life  of  man  to  the  method  of  his  Creator.  In 
distributing  his  life  thus,  man  may  look  up  to  God 
as  his  Archetype.  We  need  not  suppose  that  the 
Hebrew,  even  in  that  early  stage  of  spiritual  educa 
tion,  was  limited  by  .so  gross  a  conception  as  that 


SABBATH 

of  God  working  ai  ,d  then  resting,  as  it  needing  rest, 
The  idea  awakened  by  the  record  of  creation  and 
by  the  Fourth  Commandment  is  that  of  work  that 
has  a  consummation,  perfect  in  itself  and  coming  to 
a  perfect  end ;  and  man's  work  is  to  be  like  this, 
not  aimless,  indefinite,  and  incessant,  but  having  an 
issue  on  which  he  can  repose,  and  see  and  rejoice  in 
its  fruits.  God's  rest  consists  in  His  seeing  that 
all  which  He  has  made  is  very  good ;  and  man's 
works  are  in  their  measure  and  degree  very  good 
when  a  six  days'  faithful  labour  has  its  issue  in  & 
seventh  of  rest  after  God's  pattern.  It  is  meet 
important  to  remember  that  the  Fourth  Comman.i- 
ment  is  not  limited  to  a  mere  enactment  respecting 
one  day,  but  prescribes  the  due  distribution  of  a 
week,  and  enforces  the  six  days'  work  as  much  as 
the  seventh  day's  rest. 

This  higher  ground  of  observance  was  felt  to 
invest  the  Sabbath  with  a  theological  character,  and 
rendered  it  the  great  witness  for  faith  in  a  personal 
and  creating  God.  Hence  its  supremacy  over  all 
the  Law,  being  sometimes  taken  as  the  representa 
tive  of  it  all  (Neh.  ix.  14).  The  Talmud  says  that 
"  the  Sabbath  is  in  importance  equal  to  the  whole 
Law  ;"  that  "  he  who  desecrates  the  Sabbath  openly 
is  like  him  who  transgresses  the  whole  Lav/ ;" 
while  Maimonides  winds  up  his  discussion  of  th« 
subject  thus :  "  He  who  breaks  the  Sabbath  openly 
is  like  the  worshipper  of  the  stars,  and  both  are 
like  heathens  in  every  respect." 

In  all  this,  however,  we  have  but  an  assertion 
of  the  general  principle  of  resting  on  the  Sabbath, 
and  must  seek  elsewhere  for  information  as  to  the 
details  wherewith  that  principle  was  to  be  brought 
out.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  work  forbidden 
is  not  to  be  confounded  with  action  of  every  sort, 
To  make  this  confusion  was  the  error  of  the  later 
Jews,  and  their  prohibitions  would  go  far  to  render 
the  Sabbath  incompatible  with  waking  life.  The 
terms  in  the  commandment  show  plainly  enough 
the  sort  of  work  which  is  contemplated.  They  are 
13Dn  and  fDxbD,  the  former  denoting  servile 
work,  and  the  latter  business  (see  Gesenius  sub.  voc. ; 
Michaelis,  Laws  of  Moses,  iv.  195).  The  Penta 
teuch  presents  us  with  but  three  applications  of  the 
general  principle.  The  lighting  a  fire  in  any  house 
on  the  Sabbath  was  strictly  forbidden  (Ex.  xxxv,  3). 
and  a  man  was  stoned  for  gathering  sticks  on  that 
day  (Num.  xv.  32-36).  The  former  prohibition  is 
thought  by  the  Jews  to  be  of  perpetual  force  ;  but 
some  at  least  of  the  Rabbis  have  held  that  it  applies 
only  to'  lighting  a  fire  for  culinary  purposes,  not  to 
doing  so  in  cold  weather  for  the  sake  of  warmth 
The  latter  case,  that  of  the  man  gathering  sticks, 
was  perhaps  one  of  more  labour  and  business  than 
we  are  apt  to  imagine.  The  third  application  oi 
the  general  principle  which  we  find  in  the  Penta 
teuch  was  the  prohibition  to  go  out  of  the  camp, 
the  command  to  every  one  to  abide  in  his  place 
(Ix.  xvi.  29)  on  the  Sabbath-day.  This  is  so  ob- 
i  viously  connected  with  the  gathering  the  manna, 
that  it  seems  most  natural  to  regard  it  as  a  mere 
temporary  enactment  for  the  circumstances  of  the 
people  in  the  wilderness.  It  was,  however,  after- 
wai  Is  considered  by  the  Hebrews  a  permanent  law, 
and  applied,  in  the  absence  of  the  camp,  to  the  cii-y 
in  which  a  man  might  reside.  To  this  was  ap 
pended  the  dictum  that  a  space  of  two  thousand  el  J 
on  every  side  of  a  city  belonged  to  it,  and  to  go 
that  distance  beyond  the  walls  was  permitted  a; 
"  a  Sabbath-day's  journey/' 

The  reference  of  Is:ii:ih  to  the  Sabbath  gives  iu 


SABBATH 

no  details.  Those  in  Jeremiah  and  Nehemiah  show 
that  carrying  goods  for  sale,  aud  buying  such,  were 
squally  profanations  of  the  day. 

There  is  no  ground  for  supposing  that  to  engage 
the  enemy  on  the  Sabbath  was  considered  unlawful 
oefore  the  Captivity.  On  the  contrary,  there  is 
much  force  in  the  argument  of  Michaelis  (Zaws 
of  Moses,  iv.  196)  to  show  that  it  was  not.  His 
reasons  are  as  follows : — 

1.  The  prohibited  piy,  service,  does  not  even 
suggest  the  thought  of  war. 

2.  The  enemies  of  the  chosen  people  would  have 
continually  selected  the  Sabbath  as  a  day  of  attack,  had 
the  latter  been  forbidden  to  defend  themselves  then. 

3.  We   read   of  long-protracted   steges,  that  of 
Rabbah  (2  Sam.  xi.,  xii.),  and  that  of  Jerusalem  in 
the  reign  of  Zedekiah,  which  latter  lasted  a  year 
and  a  half,  during  which  the  enemy  would  cer 
tainly  have  taken  advantage  of  any  such  abstinence 
from  warfare  on  the  part  of  the  chosen  people. 

At  a  subsequent  period  we  know  (1  Mace.  ii. 
34-38)  that  the  scruple  existed  and  was  acted  on 
with  most  calamitous  effects.  Those  effects  led 
(1  Mace.  ii.  41)  to  determining  that  action  in  self- 
defence  was  lawful  on  the  Sabbath,  initiatory  attack 
not.  The  reservation  was,  it  must  be  thought, 
nearly  as  great  a  misconception  of  the  institution 
as  the  overruled  scruple.  Certainly  warfare  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  servile  labour  or  the  worldly 
business  contemplated  in  the  Fourth  Commandment, 
and  is,  as  regards  religious  observance,  a  law  to 
itself.  Yet  the  scruple,  like  many  other  scruples, 
proved  a  convenience,  and  under  the  Roman  Empire 
the  Jews  procured  exemption  from  military  service 
by  means  of  it.  It  was  not,  however,  without  its 
evils.  In  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Pompey  (Joseph. 
Ant,  xiv.  4),  as  well  as  in  the  final  one  by  Titus, 
the  Romans  took  advantage  of  it,  and,  abstaining 
from  attack,  prosecuted  on  the  Sabbath,  without 
molestation  from  the  enemy,  such  works  as  enabled 
them  to  renew  the  assault  with  increased  resources. 

So  far  therefore  as  we  have  yet  gone,  so  far  as 
the  negative  side  of  Sabbatical  observance  is  con 
cerned,  it  would  seem  that  servile  labou*,  whether 
that  of  slaves  or  of  hired  servants,  and  all  worldly 
business  on  the  part  of  masters,  was  suspended  on 
the  Sabbath,  and  the  day  was  a  common  right  to 
rest  and  be  refreshed,  possessed  by  all  classes  in 
the  Hebrew  community.  It  was  thus,  as  we 
have  urged,  a  beneficent  institution.*1  As  a  sign 
between  God  and  His  chosen  people,  it  was  also 
a  monitor  of  faith,  keeping  up  a  constant  wit 
ness,  on  the  ground  taken  in  Gen.  ii.  3,  and  in 
the  Fourth  Commandment,  for  the  one  living  and 
personal  God  whom  they  worshipped,  and  for  the 
truth,  in  opposition  to  all  the  cosmogonies  of  the 
heathen,  that  everything  was  created  by  Him. 

We  must  now  quit,  the  negative  for  the  positive 
side  of  the  institution. 

In  the  first  place,  we  learn  from  the  Pentateuch 
that  the  morning  and  evening  sacrifice  were  both 
doubled  on  the  Sabbath-day,  and  that  the  fresh 
shew-bread  was  then  baked,  and  substituted  on  the 
Table  for  that  of  the  previous  week.  And  this 
fet  once  leads  to  the  observation  that  the  negative 
rules,  proscribing  work,  lighting  of  fires,  &c.,  did 
not  apply  to  the  rites  of  religion.  It  became  a 
dictum  that  there  was  no  Sabbath  in  holy  things. 
To  this  our  Saviour  appeals  when  He  says  that  the 


SABBATH 


1069 


priests  in  the  Temple  profane  the  Sablath  aiid  are 
blameless. 

Next,  it  is  clear  that  individual  offerings  were 
not  breaches  of  the  Sabbath ;  and  from  this  doubt 
less  came  the  feasts  of  the  rich  on  that  day,  which 
were  sanctioned,  as  we  have  seen,  by  our  Saviour's 
attendance  on  one  such.  It  was,  we  may  be  pretty 
sure,  a  feast  on  a  sacrifice,  and  therefore  a  religious 
act.  All  around  the  giver,  the  poor  as  well  as 
others,  were  admitted  to  it.  Yet  further,  "  in  cases 
of  illness,  and  in  any,  even  the  remotest,  danger," 
the  prohibitions  of  work  were  not  held  to  apply. 
The  general  principle  was  that  "  the  Sabbath  is  deli  • 
ered  into  your  hand,  not  you  into  the  hand  of  the 
Sabbath  "  (comp.  Mark  ii.  27,  28). 

We  have  no  ground  for  supposing  that  anything 
like  the  didactic  institutions  of  the  synagogue  formed 
part  of  the  original  observance  of  the  Sabbath.  Such 
institutions  do  not  come  into  being  while  the  matter 
to  which  they  relate  is  itself  only  in  process  of 
formation.  Expounding  the  Law  presumes  the 
completed  existence  of  the  Law,  and  the  removal 
of  the  living  lawgiver.  The  assertion  of  the  Tal 
mud  that  "  Moses  ordained  to  the  Israelites  that 
they  should  read  the  Law  on  the  Sabbath-days,  the 
feasts,  and  the  new  moons,"  in  itself  improbable,  is 
utterly  unsupported  by  the  Pentateuch.  The  rise 
of  such  custom  in  after  times  is  explicable  enough. 
[SYNAGOGUE.]  But  from  an  early  period,  if  not, 
as  is  most  probable,  from  the  very  institution, 
occupation  with  holy  themes  was  regarded  as  an 
essential  part  of  the  obsei-vance  of  the  Sabbath.  It 
would  seem  to  have  been  an  habitual  practice  to 
repair  to  a  prophet  on  that  clay,  in  order,  it  must 
be  presumed,  to  listen  to  his  teaching  (2  K.  iv.  23). 
Certain  Psalms  too,  e.  g.  the  92nd,  were  composed 
for  the  Sabbath,  and  probably  used  in  private  as 
well  as  in  ttie  Tabernacle.  At  a  later  period  we 
come  upon  precepts  that  on  the  Sabbath  the  mind 
should  be  uplifted  to  high  and  holy  themes — to 
God,  His  character,  His  revelations  of  Himself,  Hi? 
mighty  works.  Still  the  thoughts  with  which  the 
day  was  invested  were  ever  thoughts,  not  of  re 
striction,  but  of  freedom  and  of  joy.  Such  indeed 
would  seem,  from  Neh.  viii.  9-12,  to  have  been 
essential  to  the  notion  of  a  holy  day.  We  have 
more  than  once  pointed  out  that  pleasure,  as  such, 
was  never  considered  by  the  Jews  a  breach  of  the 
Sabbath ;  and  their  practice  in  this  respect  is  often 
animadverted  on  by  the  early  Christian  Fathers, 
who  taunt  them  with  abstaining  on  that  day  only 
from  what  is  good  and  useful,  but  indulging  in 
dancing  and  luxury.  Some  of  the  heathen,  indeed, 
such  as  Tacitus,  imagined  that  the  Sabbath  was 
kept  by  them  as  a  fast,  a  mistake  which  might 
have  arisen  from  their  abstinence  from  cookery  on 
that  day,  and  perhaps,  as  Heylin  conjectures,  from 
their  postponement  of  their  meals  till  the  more 
solemn  services  of  religion  had  been  performed. 
But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  kept  as  a 
feast,  and  the  phrase  luxus  Sabbatarius,  which  we 
find  in  Sidonius  Apollinaris  (i.  2),  and  which  has 
been  thought  a  proverbial  one,  illustrates  tie  mode 
in  which  they  celebrated  it  in  the  early  centuries 
of  our  era.  The  following  is  Augustine's  descrip 
tion  of  their  practice : — "  Ecce  hodiemus  dies  Sah 
bati  est :  hunc  in  praesenti  tempore  otio  quodL.. 
corporaliter  languido  et  fluxo  et  luxurioso  cehbrant 
Judaei.  Vacant  enim  ad  nugas,  et  cum  Deus  prae- 


*  In  this  light  the  Sabbath  has  found  a  champion  in 
one  who  would  not,  we  suppose,  have  paid  it  much  respect 


in  its  theological  character ;  we  mean  no  less  a  person  tliau 
M.  Prouclhon  (/>«  la  Calibration  du  D-i-nutmdui}. 


1070 


SABBATH 


ceperil  Sabbatum,  illi  in  his  quae  Deus  prohibet  I 
exercent  Sabbatum.  Vacatio  nostra  a  malis  operi- 
bus,  vacatio  illorum  a  bonis  operibus  est.  Melius 
csi  enim  arare  quam  saltare.  Illi  ab  opere  bono 
vacant,  ab  opere  nugatorio  non  vacant "  (Aug. 
Enarr.  in  Psalmos.  Ps.  xci. :  soe  too  Aug.  De 
dccem  Chordis,  iii.  3 ;  Chrysost.  Homil  I.,  De 
Lazaro;  and  other  references  given  by  Bingham, 
Eccl.  Ant.  lib.  xs.  cap.  ii.).  And  if  we  take  what 
alone  is  in  the  Law,  we  shall  find  nothing  to  be 
counted  absolutely  obligatory  but  rest,  cessation 
from  labour.  Now,  as  we  have  more  than  once 
had  occasion  to  observe,  rest,  cessation  from  labour, 
cannot  in  the  waking  moments  mean  avoidance  of 
all  action.  This,  therefore,  would  be  the  question 
respecting  the  scope  and  purpose  of  the  Sabbath 
which  would  always  demand  to  be  devoutly  con 
sidered  and  intelligently  answered — what  is  truly 
rest,  what  is  that  cessation  from  labour  which  is 
really  Sabbatical  ?  And  it  is  plain  that,  in  appli 
cation  and  in  detail,  the  answer  to  this  must  almost 
indefinitely  vary  with  men's  varying  circumstances, 
habits,  education,  and  familiar  associations. 

We  have  seen,  then,  that,  for  whomsoever  else  the 
provision  was  intended,  the  chosen  race  were  in 
possession  of  an  ordinance,  whereby  neither  a  man's 
time  nor  his  property  could  be  considered  absolutely 
his  own,  the  seventh  of  each  week  being  holy  to 
God,  and  dedicated  to  rest  after  the  pattern  of  God's 
rest,  and  giving  equal  rights  to  all.  We  have  also 
seen  that  this  provision  was  the  tonic  to  a  chord  of 
Sabbatical  observance,  through  which  the  same  great 
principles  of  God's  claim  and  society's,  on  every 
man's  time  and  everj  man's  property,  were  extended 
and  developed.  Of  the  Sabbatical  year,  indeed,  and 
of  the  year  of  Jubilee,  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
they  were  ever  persistently  observed,  the  only  indi 
cations  that  we  possess  of  Hebrew  practice  respecting 
them  being  the  exemption  from  tribute  during  the 
former  accorded  to  the  Jews  by  Alexander,  to  which 
we  have  already  referred,  and  one  or  two  others, 
all,  however,  after  the  Captivity.  [SABBATICAL 
YEAR  ;  YEAR  OF  JUBILEE.] 

But  no  doubt  exists  that  the  weekly  Sabbath  was 
always  partially,  and  in  the  Pharisaic  and  subsequent 
times  very  strictly,  however  mistakenly,  observed. 

We  have  hitherto  viewed  the  Sabbath  merely  as  a 
Mosaic  ordinance.  It  remains  to  ask  whether,  first, 
there  be  indications  of  its  having  been  previously 
known  and  observed  ;  and,  secondly,  whether  it  have 
an  universal  scope  and  authority  over  all  men. 

The  former  of  these  questions  is  usually  ap 
proached  with  a  feeling  of  its  being  connected  with 
the  latter,  and  perhaps  therefore  with  a  bias  in 
favour  of  the  view  which  the  questioner  thinks  will 
support  his  opinion  on  the  latter.  It  seems,  how 
ever,  to  us,  that  we  may  dismiss  any  anxiety  as  to  the 
results  we  may  arrive  at  concerning  it.  No  doubt, 
if  we  see  strong  reason  for  thinking  that  the  Sabbath 
had  a  prae-Mosaic  existence,  we  see  something  in  it 
that  has  more  than  a  Mosaic  character  and  scope. 
But  it  might  have  had  such  without  having  an  uni 
versal  authority,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  ascribe 
that  to  the  prohibition  of  eating  blood  or  things 
strangled.  And  again,  it  might  have  originated  in 
the  Law  of  Moses,  and  yet  possess  an  universally 
human  scope,  and  an  authority  over  all  men  and 
through  all  time.  Whichever  way,  therefore,  the 
second  of  our  questions  is  to  be  determined,  we  may 
easily  approach  the  first  without  anxiety. 

The  first  and  chief  argument  of  those  who 
maintain  that  the  Sabbath  was  known  before  Moses, 


SABBATH 

is  the  reference  to  it  in  Gen.  ii.  2,  3.  This  is  ceo- 
sidered  to  represent  it  as  co-aeval  with  man,  being 
instituted  at  the  Creation,  or  at  least,  as  Lightfoot 
views  the  matter,  immediately  upon  the  Fall.  This 
latter  opinion  is  so  entirely  without  rational  ground 
of  any  kind  that  we  may  dismiss  it  at  once.  But 
the  whole  argument  is  very  precarious.  We  have 
no  materials  for  ascertaining,  or  even  conjecturing, 
which  was  put  forth  first,  the  record  of  the  Creation, 
or  the  Fourth  Commandment.  If  the  latter,  then 
the  reference  to  the  Sabbath  in  the  former  is  abund 
antly  natural.  Had,  indeed,  the  Hebrew  tongue  the 
variety  of  preterite  tenses  of  the  Greek,  the  words 
in  Genesis  might  require  careful  consideration  in 
that  regard ;  but  as  the  case  is,  no  light  can  be  had 
from  grammar ;  and  on  the  supposition  of  these  being 
written  after  the  Fourth  Commandment,  their  ab 
sence,  or  that  of  any  equivalent  to  them,  would  be 
really  marvellous. 

The  next  indication  of  a  prae-Mosaic  Sabbath  has 
been  found  in  Gen.  iv.  3,  where  we  read  that  "  in 
process  of  time  it  came  to  pass  that  Cain  brought 
of  the  fruit  of  the  ground  an  offering  unto  the  Lord." 
The  words  rendered  in  process  of  time  mean  literally 
"  at  the  end  of  days,"  and  it  is  contended  that  they 
designate  a  fixed  period  of  days,  probably  the  end 
of  a  week,  the  seventh  or  Sabbath-day.  Again, 
the  division  of  time  into  weeks  seems  recognised 
in  Jacob's  courtship  of  Rachel  (Gen.  xxix.  27,  28). 
Indeed  the  large  recognition  of  that  division  from 
the  earliest  time  is  considered  a  proof  that  it  must 
have  had  an  origin  above  and  independent  of  local 
and  accidental  circumstances,  and  been  imposed  on 
man  at  the  beginning  from  above.  Its  arbitrary 
and  factitious  character  is  appealed  to  in  further 
confirmation  of  this.  The  saci  edness  of  the  seventh 
day  among  the  Egyptians,  as  recorded  by  Herodotus, 
and  the  well-known  words  of  Hesiod  respecting  it, 
have  long  been  cited  among  those  who  adopt  this 
view,  though  neither  of  them  in  reality  gives  it  the 
slightest  support.  Lastly,  the  opening  of  the  Fourth 
Commandment,  the  injunction  to  remember  the 
Sabbath-day,  is  appealed  to  as  proof  that  that  day 
was  already  known. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  all  this  is  but  a  precarious 
foundation  on  which  to  build.  It  is  not  clear  that 
the  words  in  Gen.  iv.  3  denote  a  fixed  division  of 
time  of  any  sort.  Those  in  Gen.  xxix.  obviously  do, 
but  carry  us  no  farther  than  proving  that  the  week 
was  known  and  recognized  by  Jacob  and  Laban  ; 
though  it,  must  be  admitted  that,  in  the  case  of  time 
so  divided,  sacred  rites  would  probably  be  celebrated 
on  a  fixed  and  statedly  recurring  day.  The  argu 
ment  from  the  prevalence  of  the  weekly  division  of 
time  w6uld  require  a  greater  approach  to  univer 
sality  in  such  practice  than  the  facts  exhibit,  to  make 
it  a  cogent  one.  That  division  was  unknown  to  the 
ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  being  adopted  by  the 
latter  people  from  the  Egyptians,  as  must  be  inferred 
from  the  well-known  passage  of  Dion  Cassius  (xxxvii. 
18,  19),  at  a  period  in  his  own  time  comparatively 
recent ;  while  of  the  Egyptians  themselves  it  is 
thought  improbable  that  they  were  acquainted  with 
such  division  in  early  times.  The  sacred  ness  of  the 
seventh  day  mentioned  by  Hesiod,  is  obviously  that 
of  the  seventh  day,  not  of  the  week,  but  of  the 
month.  And  even  after  the  weekly  division  was 
established,  no  trace  can  be  found  of  anything  re 
sembling  the  Hebrew  Sabbath. 

While  the  injunction  in  the  Fourth  Commandment 
to  remember  the  Sabbath-day  may  refer  only  to  its 
previous  institution  in  connexion  with ', ho  gathering 


SABBATH 

ci"  mj-nna,  or  may  be  but  the  natural  precept  to 
Ki  ip  in  mind  the  rule  about  to  be  delivered — a  phrase 
natural,  and  continually  recurring  in  the  intercourse 
of  life,  as,  for  example,  between  parent  and  child — 
on  the  other  hand,  the  perplexity  of  the  Israelites 
respecting  the  double  supply  of  manna  on  the  sixth 
day  (Ex.  xvi.  22)  leads  us  to  infer  that  the  Sabbath 
/or  which  such  extra  supply  was  designed  was  not 
then  known  to  them.  Moreover  the  language  of 
Ezekiel  (xx.)  seems  to  designate  it  as  an  ordinance 
distinctively  Hebrew  and  Mosaic. 

We  cannot  then,  from  the  uncertain  notices  which 
we  possess,  infer  more  than  that  the  weekly  division 
of  time  was  known  to  the  Israelites  and  others  before 
the  Law  of  Moses.  [WEEK.]  There  is  proba 
bility,  though  not  more,  in  the  opinion  of  Grolius, 
that  the  seventh  day  was  deemed  sacred  to  reli 
gious  observance ;  but  that  the  Sabbatical  observance 
of  it,  the  cessation  from  labour,  was  superinduced 
on  it  in  the  wilderness. 

But  to  come  to  our  second  question,  it  by  no 
means  follows,  that  even  if  the  Sabbath  were  no 
older  than  Moses,  its  scope  and  obligation  are  limited' 
to  Israel,  and  that  itself  belongs  only  to  the  obsolete 
enactments  of  the  Levitical  Law.  That  law  con 
tains  two  elements,  the  code  of  a  particular  nation, 
and  commandments  of  human  and  universal  cha 
racter.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
Hebrew  was  called  out  from  the  world,  not  to  live 
on  a  narrower  but  a  far  wider  footing  than  the 
children  of  earth ;  that  he  was  called  out  to  be  the 
true  man,  bearing  witness  for  the  destiny,  exhibiting 
the  aspect,  and  realizing  the  blessedness,  of  true 
manhood.  Hence,  we  can  always  see,  if  we  have  a 
mind,  the  difference  between  such  features  of  his 
Law  as  are  but  local  and  temporary,  and  such  as 
are  human  and  universal.  To  which  class  belongs 
the  Sabbath,  viewed  simply  in  itself,  is  a  question 
which  will  soon  come  before  us,  and  one  which 
does  not  appear  hard  to  settle.  Meanwhile,  we  must 
inquire  into  the  case  as  exhibited  by  Scripture. 

And  here  we  are  at  once  confronted  with  the 
fact  that  the  command  to  keep  the  Sabbath  forms 
part  of  the  Decalogue.  And  that  the* Decalogue 
had  a  rank  and  authority  above  the  other  enact 
ments  of  the  Law,  is  plain  to  the  most  cursory 
readers  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  is  indicated  by 
its  being  written  on  the  two  Tables  of  the  Cove 
nant.  And  though  even  the  Decalogue  is  affected 
by  the  New  Testament,  it  is  not  so  in  the  way 
of  repeal  or  obliteration.  It  is  raised,  trans 
figured,  glorified  there,  but  itself  remains  in  its 
authority  and  supremacy.  Not  to  refer  just  now 
to  our  Saviour's  teaching  (Matt.  xix.  17-19),  of 
which  it  might  be  alleged  that  it  was  delivered 
when,  and  to  the  persons  over  whom,  the  Old  Law 
was  in  force — such  passages  as  Rom.  xiii.  8,  9,  and 
Eph.  vi.  2,  3,  seem  decisive  of  this.  In  some  way, 
therefore,  the  Fourth  Commandment  has  an  au 
thority  over,  and  is  to  be  obeyed  by,  Chiistians, 
though  whether  in  the  letter,  or  in  some  large 
spiritual  sense  and  scope,  is  a  question  which  still 
remains. 

The  phenomena  respecting  the  Sabbath  presented 
by  the  New  Testament  are,  1st,  the  frequent  re 
ference  to  it  in  the  four  Gospels ;  and  2ndly,  the 
silence  of  the  Epistles,  with  the  exception  of  one 
place  (Col.  ii.  16,  17),  where  its  repeal  would  seem 
to  be  asserted,  and  perhaps  one  other  (Heb.  iv.  9). 

1st.  The  references  to  it  in  the  four  Gospels  are, 
it  needs  not  be  said,  numerous  enough.  We  have 
already  seen  the  high  position  which  it  took  in  the 


SABBATH 


1C71 


minds  of  the  Rabbis,  and  the  strange  code  of  pro 
hibitions  which  they  put  forth  in  connexion  with 
it.  The  consequence  of  this  was,  that  no  part  o; 
our  Saviour's  teaching  and  practice  would  seem  to 
have  been  so  eagerly  and  narrowly  watched  as  that 
which  related  to  the  Sabbath.  He  seems  even  to 
have  directed  attention  to  this,  thereby  intimat 
ing  surely  that  on  the  one  hand  the  misapprehen 
sion,  and  on  the  other  the  true  fulfilment  of  the 
Sabbath  were  matters  of  deepest  concern.  We  have 
already  seen  the  kind  of  prohibitions  against  which 
both  His  teaching  and  practice  were  directed ;  and 
His  two  pregnant  declarations,  "  The  Sabbath  was 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath,"  and 
"  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work,"  surely 
exhibit  to  us  the  Law  of  the  Sabbath  as  human  and 
universal.  The  former  sets  it  forth  as  a  privilege 
and  a  blessing,  and  were  we  therefore  to  suppose  it 
absent  from  the  provisions  of  the  covenant  of  grace, 
we  must  suppose  that  covenant  to  have  stinted  man 
of  something  that  was  made  for  him,  something 
that  conduces  to  his  well-being.  The  latter  won 
derfully  exalts  the  Sabbath  by  referring  it,  even  as 
do  the  record  of  Creation  and  the  Fourth  Command 
ment,  to  God  as  its  archetype ;  and  in  showing  us 
that  the  repose  of  God  does  not  exclude  work — inas 
much  as  God  opens  His  hand  daily  and  filleth  all 
things  living  with  plenteousness — show,  us  that 
the  rest  of  the  Sabbath  does  not  exclude  action, 
which  would  be  but  a  death,  but  only  that  week 
day  action  which  requires  to  be  wound  up  in  a  rest 
that  shall  be  after  the  pattern  of  His,  who  though 
He  has  rested  from  all  the  work  that  He  hath 
made,  yet  "  worketh  hitherto." 

2ndly.  The  Epistles,  it  must  be  admitted,  with 
the  exception  of  one  place,  and  perhaps  another  to 
which  we  have  already  referred,  are  silent  on  the 
subject  of  the  Sabbath.  No  rules  for  its  observ 
ance  are  ever  given  by  the  Apostles — its  violation 
is  never  denounced  by  them,  Sabbath-breakers  are 
never  included  in  any  list  of  offenders.  Col.  ii.  16, 
17,  seems  a  far  stronger  argument  for  the  abolition 
of  the  Sabbath  in  the  Christian  dispensation  than 
is  furnished  by  Heb.  iv.  9  for  its  continuance ;  and 
while  the  first  day  of  the  week  is  more  than  once 
referred  to  as  one  of  religious  observance,  it  is  never 
identified  with  the  Sabbath,  nor  are  any  prohi 
bitions  issued  in  connexion  with  the  former,  while 
the  omission  of  the  Sabbath  from  the  list  of 
"necessary  things"  to  be  observed  by  the  Gentiles 
(Acts  xv.  29),  shows  that  they  were  regarded  by 
the  Apostles  as  free  from  obligation  in  this  matter. 

When  we  turn  to  the  monuments  which  we 
possess  of  the  early  Church,  we  find  ourselves  on 
the  whole  carried  in  the  same  direction.  The  seventh 
day  of  the  week  continued,  indeed,  to  be  observed, 
being  kept  as  a  feast  by  the  greater  part  of  the 
Church,  and  as  a  fast  from  an  early  period  by  that 
of  Rome,  and  one  or  two  other  Churches  of  the 
West ;  but  not  as  obligatory  on  Christians  in  the 
same  way  as  on  Jews.  The  Council  of  Laodicea 
prohibited  all  scruple  about  working  on  it ;  and 
there  waa  a  very  general  admission  among  the 
early  Fathers  that  Christians  did  not  Sabbatize  in 
the  letter. 

Again,  the  observance  of  the  Lord's  Day  as  a 
Sabbath  would  have  been  well  nigh  impossible  to 
the  majority  of  Christians  in  the  first  ages.  The 
slave  of  the  heathen  master,  and  the  child  of  the 
heathen  father,  could  neither  of  them  have  the 
control  of  his  own  conduct  in  such  a  matter  ;  while 
the  Christian  in  general  would  have  been  at  oace 


1072 


SABBATH 


betrayed  and  dragged  into  notice  if  he  was  found 
abstaining  from  labour  of  every  kind,  not  on  the 
seventh  but  the  first  day  of  the  week.  And  yet 
it  is  clear  that  many  were  enabled  without  blame 
to  keep  their  Christianity  long  a  secret ;  nor  does 
there  seem  to  have  been  any  obligation  to  divulge 
it,  until  heathen  interrogation  or  the  order  to 
sacrifice  dragged  it  into  daylight. 

When  the  early  Fathers  speak  of  the  Lord's  Day, 
they  sometimes,  perhaps,  by  comparing,  connect 
it  with  the  Sabbath  ;  but  we  have  never  found  a 
passage,  previous  to  the  conversion  of  Constantine, 
prohibitory  of  any  work  or  occupation  on  the 
former,  and  any  such,  did  it  exist,  would  have 
been  in  a  great  measure  nugatory,  for  the  reasons 
just  alleged.  [LORD'S  DAY.]  After  Constantine 
things  become  different  at  once.  His  celebrated 
edict  prohibitory  of  judicial  proceedings  on  the 
Lord's  Day  was  probably  dictated  by  a  wish  to 
give  the  great  Christian  festival  as  much  honour 
as  was  enjoyed  by  those  of  the  heathen,  rather 
than  by  any  reference  to  the  Sabbath  or  the  Fourth 
Commandment;  but  it  was  followed  by  several 
which  extended  the  prohibition  to  many  other  occu 
pations,  and  to  many  forms  of  pleasure  held  inno 
cent  on  ordinary  days.  When  this  became  the  case, 
the  Christian  Church,  which  ever  believed  the 
Decalogue,  in  some  sense,  to  be  of  universal  obliga 
tion,  could  not  but  feel  that  she  was  enabled  to 
keep  the  Fourth  Commandment  in  its  letter  as  well 
as  its  spirit;  that  she  had  not  lost  the  type  even 
in  possessing  the  antitype;  that  the  great  law  of 
week-day  work  and  seventh-day  rest,  a  law  so 
generous  and  so  ennobling  to  humanity  at  large, 
was  still  in  operation.  True,  the  name  Sabbath 
vas  always  used  to  denote  the  seventh,  as  that 
of  the  Lord's  Day  to  denote  the  first,  day  of  the 
week,  which  latter  is  nowheie  habitually  called 
the  Sabbath,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  except  in 
Scotland  and  by  the  English  Puritans.  But  it 
was  surely  impossible  to  observe  both  the  Lord's 
Day,  as  was  done  by  Christians  after  Constantine, 
and  to  read  the  Fourth  Commandment,  without 
connecting  the  two  ;  and,  seeing  that  such  was  to  be 
the  practice  of  the  developed  Church,  we  can  under 
stand  how  the  silence  of  the  N.  T.  Epistles,  and 
even  the  strong  words  of  St.  Paul  (Col.  ii.  16, 
17),  do  not  impair  the  human  and  universal  scope 
of  the  Fourth  Commandment,  exhibited  so  strongly 
in  the  very  nature  of  the  Law,  and  in  the  teaching 
respecting  it  of  Him  who  came  not  to  destroy  the 
Law,  but  to  fulfil. 

In  the  East,  indeed,  where  the  seventh  day  of 
the  week  was  long  kept  as  a  festival,  that  would, 
present  itself  to  men's  minds  as  the  Sabbath,  and 
the  first  day  of  the  week  would  appear  rather  in 
its  distinctively  Christian  character,  and  as  ot" 
Apostolical  and  ecclesiastical  origin,  than  in  con 
nexion  with  the  Old  Law.  But  in  the  West  the 
seventh  day  was  kept  for  the  most  part  as  a  fast, 
and  that  for  a  reason  merely  Christian,  viz.  in 
commemoration  of  our  Lord's  lying  in  the  sepulchre 
throughout  that  day.  Its  observance  therefore 
would  not  obscure  the  aspect  of  the  Lord's  Day  as 
that  of  hebdomadal  rest  and  refreshment,  and  as 
consequently  the  prolongation  of  the  Sabbath  in  the 
osseniial  character  of  that  benignant  ordinance ; 
and,  with  some  variation,  therefore,  of  verbal  state 
ment,  a  connexion  between  the  Fourth  Command 
ment  and  the  first  day  of  the  week  (together,  as 
should  1>€  remembered,  with  the  other  festivals  of 
the  Church),  came  to  be  perceiv'd  and  proclaimed 


SABBATH 

Attention  has  recently  been  called,  in  conuezion 
with  our  subject,  to  a  circumstance  which  is  im 
portant,  the  adoption  by  the  Roman  world  of 
the  Egyptian  week  almost  contemporaneously 
with  the  founding  of  the  Christian  Church.  Dior 
Cassius  speaks  of  that  adoption  as  recent,  and 
we  are  therefore  warranted  in  conjecturing  the 
time  of  Hadrian  as  about  that  wherein  it  must  have 
established  itself.  Here,  then,  would  seem  a  signal 
Providential  preparation  for  providing  the  people 
of  God  with  a  literal  Sabbatismus;  for  prolonging 
in  the  Christian  kingdom  that  great  institution 
which,  whether  or  not  historically  older  than  the 
Mosaic  Law,  is  yet  in  its  essential  character  adapted 
to  all  mankind,  a  witness  for  a  personal  Creator 
and  Sustainer  of  the  universe,  and  for  His  call  to 
men  to  model  their  work,  their  time,  and  their 
lives,  on  His  pattern. 

Were  we  prepared  to  embrace  an  exposition 
which  has  been  given  of  a  remarkable  passage 
already  referred  to  (Heb.  iv.  8-10),  we  should 
find  it  singularly  illustrative  of  the  view  just 
suggested.  The  argument  of  the  passage  is  to 
this  effect,  that  the  rest  on  which  Joshua  entered, 
and  into  which  he  made  Israel  to  enter,  cannot  be 
the  true  and  final  rest,  inasmuch  as  the  Psalmist 
long  afterwards  speaks  of  the  entering  into  that 
rest  as  still  future  and  contingent.  In  ver.  9  we 
have  the  words  "there  remaineth,  therefore,  a  rest 
for  the  people  of  God."  Now  it  is  important  that 
throughout  the  passage  the  word  for  rest  is  Karti- 
iravffis,  and  that  in  the  words  just  quoted  it  is 
changed  into  (rojSjSaTttr^ds,  which  certainly  means 
the  keeping  of  rest,  the  act  of  sabbatizing  rather 
than  the  objective  rest  itself.  It  has  accordingly 
been  suggested  that  those  words  are  not  the  author's 
conclusion — which  is  to  be  found  in  the  form  of 
thesis  in  the  declai'ation  "  we  which  have  believed 
do  enter  into  rest" — but  a  parenthesis  to  the  effect 
that  "  to  the  people  of  God,"  the  Christian  com 
munity,  there  remaineth,  there  is  left,  a  Sabbat 
izing,  the  great  change  that  has  passed  upon  them 
and  the  mighty  elevation  to  which  they  have  been 
brought  as  on  other  matters,  so  as  regards  the 
Rest  of  God  revealed  to  them,  still  leaving  scope 
for  and  justifying  the  practice.6  This  exposition  is 
in  keeping  with  the  general  scope  of  the  Ep.  to 
the  Hebrews  ;  and  the  passage  thus  viewed  will 
seem  to  some  minds  analogous  to  xiii.  10.  It  is 
given  by  Owen,  and  is  elaborated  with  great  in 
genuity  by  Dr.  Wardlaw  in  his  Discourses  on  the 
Sabbath.  It  will  not  be  felt  fatal  to  it  that  more 
than  300  years  should  have  passed  before  the 
Church  at  large  was  in  a  situation  to  discover  the 
heritage  that  had  been  preserved  to  her,  or  to 
enter  on  its  enjoyment,  when  we  consider  how 
development,  in  all  matters  of  ritual  and  ordinance, 
must  needs  be  the  law  of  any  living  body,  and 
much  more  of  one  which  had  to  struggle  from 
its  birth  with  the  impeding  forces  of  a  heathen 
empire,  frequent  persecution,  and  an  unreclaimed 
society.  In  such  case  was  the  early  Church,  and 
therefore  she  might  well  have  to  wait  for  a  Con 
stantine  before  she  could  fully  open  her  eyes  to 
the  fact  that  sabbatizing  was  still  left  to*  her , 
and  her  members  might  well  be  permitted  not  to 
see  the  truth  in  any  steady  or  consistent  way 
even  then. 

The  objections,  nowever,  to  this  exposition  ait 


«  According  to  this  exposition  the  words  of  ver.  10 
'for  he  that  hath  entered,  &c."  are  referred  to  Christ. 


SABBATH 

rujny  and  great,  oae  being,  that  it  has  occurred 
to  so  tew  among  the  great  commentators  who  have 
iaboured  on  the  Ep.  to  the  Hebrews.  Chrysostom 
(in  foe.)  denies  that  there  is  any  reference  to 
hebdomadal  sabbatizing.  Nor  have  we  found  any 
commentators,  besides  the  two  just  named,  who 
admit  that  there  is  such,  with  the  single  exception 
of  Ebrard.  Dean  Alford  notices  the  interpretation 
only  to  condemn  it,  while  Dr.  Hessey  gives  an 
other,  and  that  the  usual  explanation  of  the  verse, 
suggesting  a  sufficient  reason  tor  the  change  of  word 
from  Kara-Trawls  to  ffafifiaTiff/j.6s.  It  would  not 
have  been  right,  however,  to  have  passed  it  over 
in  this  article  without  notice,  as  it  relates  to  a 
passage  of  Scripture  in  which  Sabbath  and  Sabba 
tical  ideas  are  markedly  brought  forward. 

It  would  be  going  beyond  the  scope  of  this 
article  to  trace  the  history  of  opinion  on  the  Sab 
bath  in  the  Christian  Church.  Dr.  Hessey,  in  his 
Barnpton  Lectures,  has  sketched  and  distinguished 
every  variety  of  doctrine  which  has  been  or  still  is 
maintained  on  the  subject. 

The  sentiments  and  practice  of  the  Jews  sub 
sequent  to  our  Saviour's  time  have  been  already 
referred  to.  A  curious  account — taken  from  Bux- 
torf,  De  Synag. — of  their  superstitions,  scruples, 
and  prohibitions,  will  be  found  at  the  close  of  the 
first  part  of  Heylin's  Hist,  of  the  Sabbath.  Cal- 
met,  (art.  "Sabbath  "),  gives  an  interesting  sketch 
of  their  family  practices  at  the  beginning  and  end 
of  the  day.  And  the  estimate  of  the  Sabbath, 
its  uses,  and  its  blessings,  which  is  formed  by  the 
more  spiritually  minded  Jews  of  the  present  day 
may  be  inferred  from  some  striking  remarks  of 
Dr.  Kalisch  (Comm.  on  Exodus),  p.  273,  who 
winds  up  with  quoting  a  beautiful  passage  from 
the  late  Mrs.  Horatio  Montefiore's  work,  A  Few 
'Words  to  the  Jews. 

Finally,  M.  Proudhon's  striking  pamphlet,  De 
la  Celebration  da  Dimanche  consideree  sous  les 
rapports  de  V Hygiene  publique,  de  la  Morale,  des 
relatiom  de  Famille  et  de  Cite,  Paris,  1850,  may 
be  studied  with  great  advantage.  His  remarks 
(p.  67)  on  the  advantages  of  the  precise  propor 
tion  established,  six  days  of  work  to  one  of  rest, 
and  the  inconvenience  of  any  other  that  could  be 
arranged,  are  well  worth  attention. 

The  word  Sabbath  seems  sometimes  to  denote  a 
week  in  the  N.  T.  Hence,  by  the  Hebrew  usage  of 
reckoning  time  by  cardinal  numbers,  eV  rfj  /xj£  rwv 
<ra/3£oT«j/,  means  on  the  first  day  of  the  week. 
The  Rabbis  have  the  same  phraseology,  keeping, 
however,  the  word  Sabbath  in  the  singular. 

On  the  phrase  of  St.  Luke,  vi.  1,  eV  rcf  (rapfidTcp 
SfvTfpoirpwTci),  see  SABBATICAL  YEAR. 

This  article  should  be  read  in  connexion  with  that 
on  the  LORD'S  DAY. 

Literature : — Critici  Sacri,  on  Exod.  ;  Heylin's 
Hist,  of  the  Sabbath  ;  Selden,  De  Jure  Natur. 
et  Gent. ;  Buxtorf,  De  Synag. ;  Barrow,  Expos, 
of  the  Decalogue;  Paley,  Moral  and  Political 
Philosophy,  v.  7  ;  James,  On  the  Sacraments  and 
Sabbath',  Whately's  Thowjhts  on  the  Sabbath; 
Wardlaw,  On  the  Sabbath ;  Maurice,  On  the  Sab 
bath;  Michaelis,  Laws  of  Moses, .  arts,  cxciv.— yi., 
ckviii. ;  Oehler,  in  Herzog's  lieal-Encycl.  "  Sab 
bath ;"  Winer,  Realwdrterbuch,  "Sabbath;"  Bahr, 
Symbolik  des  Mos.  Cult.  vol.  ii.  bk.  iv.  eh.  11,  §2 ; 
Kalisch,  Historical  and  Critical  Commentary  on 
0.  T.  in  Exod.  XX. ;  Proudhon,  De  la  Celebration 
du  Dimanche ;  and  especially  Dr.  Hessey's  Sunday  ; 
tke  Bampton  Lecture  for  18uO.  ("F.  G.] 

VOL.  Tir. 


SABBATH-DA  PS  JOURNEY     1073 

SABBATH-DAY'S  JOURNEY  (2aj8/3<£™ 
&86s,  Acts  i.  12).  On  occasion  of  a  violation  01 
the  commandment  by  certain  of  the  people  who 
went  to  look  for  manna  on  the  seventh  day, 
Moses  enjoined  every  man  to  "  abide  in  his 
place,"  and  forbade  any  man  to  "  go  out  of  his 
place"  on  that  day  (Ex.  xvi.  29).  It  seems 
natural  to  look  on  this  as  a  mere  enactment 
pro  re  natd,  and  having  no  bearing  011  any  state 
of  affairs  subsequent  to  the  journey  through  the 
wilderness  and  the  daily  gathering  of  manna. 
Whether  the  earlier  Hebrews  did  or  did  not  regard 
it  thus,  it  is  not  easy  to  say.  Nevertheless,  the 
natural  inference  from  2  K.  iv.  23  is  against  thft 
supposition  of  such  a  prohibition  being  known  to 
the  spokesman,  Elisha  almost  certainly  living — as 
may  be  seen  from  the  whole  narrative — much 
more  than  a  Sabbath  Day's  Journey  from  Shuneni. 
Heylin  infers  from  the  incidents  of  David's  flight 
from  Saul,  and  Elijah's  from  Jezebel,  that  neither 
felt  bound  by  such  a  limitation.  Their  situation, 
however,  being  one  of  extremity,  cannot  be  safelj 
argued  from.  In  after  times  the  precept  in  Ex. 
xvi.  was  undoubtedly  viewed  as  a  peimanent  law. 
But  as  some  departure  from  a  man's  own  place 
was  unavoidable,  it  was  thought  necessary  to  de 
termine  the  allowable  amount,  which  was  fixed  at 
2000  paces,  or  about  six  furlongs,  from  the  wall  of 
the  city. 

Though  such  an  enactment  may  have  proceeded 
from  an  erroneous  view  of  Ex.  xvi.  29,  it  is  by 
no  means  so  superstitious  and  unworthy  on  the 
face  of  it  as  are  most  of  the  Rabbinical  rules  and 
prohibitions  respecting  the  Sabbath  Day.  In  the 
case  of  a  general  law,  like  that  of  the  Sabbath, 
some  authority  must  settle  the  application  in 
details,  and  such  an  authority  "  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  sitting  in  Moses'  seat"  were  entitled  to 
exercise.  It  is  plain  that  the  limits  of  the  Sab 
bath  Day's  Journey  must  have  been  a  great  check 
on  the  profanation  of  the  day  in  a  country  where 
business  was  entirely  agricultural  or  pastoral,  and 
must  have  secured  to  "  the  ox  and  the  ass  "  the 
rest  to  which  by  the  Law  they  were  entitled. 

Our  Saviour  seems  to  refer  to  this  Law  in 
warning  the  disciples  to  pray  that  their  flight  from 
Jerusalem  in  the  time  of  its  judgment  should  not 
be  "on  the  Sabbath  Day"  (Matt.  xxiv.  20).  The 
Christians  of  Jerusalem  would  not,  as  in  the  case 
of  Gentiles,  feel  free  from  the  restrictions  on  jour 
neying  on  that  day ;  nor  would  their  situation  en 
able  them  to  comply  with  the  foims  whereby  such 
journeying  when  necessary  was  sanctified  ;  nor  would 
assistance  from  those  around  be  procurable. 

The  permitted  distance  seems  to  have  be':n 
grounded  on  the  space  to  be  kept  between  the 
Ark  and  the  people  (Josh.  iii.  4)  in  the  wilderness, 
which  tradition  said  was  that  between  the  Ark  and 
the  tents.  To  repair  to  the  Ark  being,  of  course, 
a  duty  on  the  Sabbath,  the  walking  to  it  was  no 
violation  of  the  day  ;  and  it  thus  was  taken  as  the 
measure  of  a  lawful  Sabbath  Day's  Journey.  We 
find  the  same  distance  given  as  the  circumference 
outside  the  walls  of  the  Levitical  cities  to  be 
counted  as  their  suburbs  (Num.  xxxv.  5).  The 
terminus  a  quo  was  thus  not  a  man's  own  house, 
but  the  wall  of  the  city  where  he  dwelt,  and  thus 
the  amount  of  .'awful  Sabbath  Day's  journeying 
must  therefore  have  varied  greatly  •  the  movements 
of  a  Jew  in  one  of  the  small  cities  of  his  own  land 
being  restricted  indeed  when  compared  with  those 
of  a  Jew  in  Alexandria,  Antioch  or  Rome. 

3  Z 


1074 


BABBATHEUS 


When  a  mnn  was  obliged  to  go  farthei  man  a 
Sal/bath  Day's  Journey,  on  some  good  and  allow 
able  ground,  it  was  incumbent  on  him  on  the 
evening  before  to  furnish  himself  with  food  enough 
tor  two  meals.  He  was  to  sit  down  and  eat  at  the 
appointed  distance,  to  bury  what  he  had  left,  and 
utter  a  thanksgiving  to  God  for  the  appointed 
boundary.  Next  morning  he  was  at  liberty  to 
make  this  point  his  terminus  a  quo. 

The  Jewish  scruple  to  go  more  than  2000  paces 
from  his  city  on  the  Sabbath  is  referred  to  by 
OrSgen,  irepl  dpxwj',  iv.  2 ;  by  Jerome,  ad  Alga- 
siam,  quaest.  10  ;  and  by  Oecumenius — with  some 
•  apparent  difference  between  them  as  to  the  measure 
ment.  Jerome  gives  Akiba,  Simeon,  and  Hillel,  as 
the  authorities  for  the  lawful  distance.  [F.  G.] 

SABBATHE'US  CSaftftaraios :  Sabbathaeus). 
SHABBETHAI  the  Levite  (1  Esd.  ix.  14 ;  comp.  Ezr. 
x.  15). 

SABBATICAL  YEAR.  As  each  seventh  day 
and  each  seventh  month  were  holy,  so  was  each 
seventh  year,  by  the  Mosaic  code.  We  first  en 
counter  this  law  in  Ex.  xxiii.  10,  11,  given  in 
words  corresponding  to  those  of  the  Fourth  Com 
mandment,  and  followed  (ver.  12)  by  the  re-en 
forcement  of  that  commandment.  It  is  impossible  to 
read  the  passage  and  not  feel  that  the  Sabbath  Day 
and  the  Sabbatical  year  are  parts  of  one  general  law. 

The  commandment  is,  to  sow  and  reap  for  six 
years,  and  to  let  the  land  rest  on  the  seventh, 
"  that  the  poor  of  thy  people  may  eat ;  and  what 
they  leave  the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  eat."  It  is 
added,  "  In  like  manner  thou  shalt  deal  with  thy 
vineyard  and  thy  oliveyard." 

We  next  meet  with  the  enactment  in  lev.  xxv. 
2-7,  and  finally  in  Deut.  xv.,  in  which  last  place 
the  new  feature  presents  itself  of  the  seventh  year 
being  one  of  release  to  debtors. 

When  v,re  combine  these  several  notices,  we  find 
that  every  seventh  year  the  land  was  to  hav 
rest  to  enjoy  her  Sabbaths.  Neither  tillage  noi 
cultivation  of  any  sort  was  to  be  practised.  Th 
spontaneous  growth  of  the  soil  was  not  to  be  reaped 


by  the 


'vhose  rights  of  property  were  in 


abeyance.   All  were  to  have  their  share  in  the  glean 
ings  :  the  poor,  the  stranger,  and  even  the  cattle. 

This  singular  institution  has  the  aspect,  at  first 
sight,  of  total   impracticability.      This,  however 
wears  off  when  we  consider  that  in  no  year  was 
the  owner  allowed  to  reap  the  whole  harvest  (Lev 
xix.  9,  xxiii.  22).     Unless,  therefore,  the  remaindei 
was  gleaned  veiy  carefully,  there  may  easily  have 
been  enough  left  to  ensure  such  spontaneous  deposi 
of  seed  as  in  the  fertile  soil  of  Syria  would  produce 
some  amount  of  crop  in  the  succeeding  year,  whil 
the  vines  and  olives  would  of  course  yield  their 
fruit  of  themselves.     Moreover,  it  is  clear  that  the 
owners  of  land  were  to  lay  by  corn  in  previous  years 
for  their  own  and  their  families'  wants.     This  is 
the  unavoidable  inference   from  Lev.  xxv.  20-22. 
And  though  the  right  of  property  was  in  abeyance 
during  the  Sabbatical  year,  it  has  been  suggested 


that  this  only  a 


to  the  fields,  and  not  to  the 


SABBATICAL  i'EAR 

paid ;  and  it  has  been  questioned  whether  the  re- 
ease  of  the  seventh  year  was  final  or  merely  lasted 
,hrough  the  year.  This  law  was  virtually  abro 
gated  in  kter  times  by  the  well-known  prosbol*-  of 
;he  great  Hillel,  a  permission  to  the  judges  to 
illow  a  creditor  to  enforce  his  claim  whenever  he 
required  to  do  so.  The  formula  is  given  in  the 
Mishna  (Sheviith,  10,  4). 

The  release  of  debtors  during  the  Sabbatical  year 
must  not  be  confounded  with  the  release  of  slaves 
on  the  seventh  year  of  their  service.  The  two  are 
bviously  distinct — the  one  occurring  at  one  fixed 
time  for  all,  while  the  other  must  have  varied  with 
various  families,  and  with  various  slaves. 

The  spirit  of  this  law  is  the  same  as  that  of  the 
weekly  Sabbath.  Both  have  a  beneficent  ten 
dency,  limiting  the  rights  and  checking  the  sense  of 
property;  the  one  puts  in  God's  claims  on  time,  the 
other  on  the  land.  The  land  shall  "  keep  a  Sabbath 
unto  the  Lord."  "  The  land  is  mine." 

There  may  also  have  been,  as  Kalisch  conjectures, 
an  eye  to  the  benefit  which  would  accrue  to  the 
land  from  lying  fallow  every  seventh  year,  in  a 
time  when  the  rotation  of  crops  was  unknown. 

The  Sabbatical  year  opened  in  the  Sabbatical 
month,  and  the  whole  Law  was  to  be  read  every 
such  year,  during  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  to  the 
assembled  people.  It  was  thus,  like  the  weekly 
Sabbath,  no  mere  negative  rest,  but  was  to  be 
marked  by  high  and  holy  occupation,  and  connected 
with  sacred  reflection  and  sentiment. 

At  the  completion  of  a  week  of  Sabbatical  years, 
the  Sabbatical  scale  received  its  completion  in  tne 
year  of  Jubilee.  For  the  question  whethei  that 
was  identical  with  the  seventh  Sabbatical  year,  ox- 
was  that  which  succeeded  it,  i.  e.  whether  th*>  yeai 
of  Jubilee  fell  every  forty-ninth  or  every  fiftieth 
year,  see  JUBILEE,  YEAR  OF. 

The  next  question  that  presents  itself  regarding 
the  Sabbatical  year  relates  to  the  time  when  its 
observance  became  obligatory.  It  has  been  inferred 
from  Leviticus  xxv.  2,  "  When  ye  come  into  tne 
land  which  I  give  you,  then  shall  the  land  keep  a 
Sabbath  unto  the  Lord,"  that  it  was  to  be  held  by 
the  people  on  the  first  year  of  their  occupation  of 
Canaan  ;  but  this  mere  'literalism  gives  a  result  in 
contradiction  to  the  words  which  immediately  fol 
low  :  " Six  years  thou  shalt  sow  thy  field,  and  six 
years  thou  shalt  prune  thy  vineyard,  and  gather  in 
the  fruit  thereof;  but  in  the  seventh  year  shall  be 
a  Sabbath  of  rest  unto  the  land."  It  is  more  rea 
sonable  to  suppose,  with  the  best  Jewish  authori 
ties,  that  the  law  became  obligatory  fourteen  years 
after  the  first  entrance  into  the  Promised  Land,  the 
conquest  of  which  took  seven  years  and  the  distribu 
tion  seven  more. 

A  further  question  arises.  At  whatever  period 
the  obedience  to  this  law  ought  to  have  commenced, 
was  it  in  point  of  fact  obeyed?  This  is  an  inqairy 
which  reaches  to  more  of  the  Mosaic  statutes  than 
the  one  now  before  us.  It  is,  we  apprehend,  rare 
to  see  the  whole  of  a  code  in  full  operation ;  and 
the  phenomena  of  Jewish  history  previous  to  the 
Cantivitv  present  us  with  no  such  spectacle.  In  the 


gardens  attached  to  houses. 

The  claiming  of  debts  was  unlawful  during  this 
year,  as  we  learn  from  Deut.  xv.  The  exceptions 
laid  down  are  in  the  case  of  a  foreigner,  and  that  of 
there  being  no  poor  in  the  land.  This  latter,  how 
ever,  it  is  straightway  said,  is  what  will  never 
happen.  But  though  debts  might  not  be  claimed, 
it  is  not  said  that  they  might  not  be  voluntarily 


Captivity  present  us 


threatenings  contained  in  Lev.  xxvi.,  judgments  on 
the  violation  of  the  Sabbatical  year  are  particu 
larly  contemplated  (vers.  33,  34)  ;  and  that  it  was 
greatly  if  not  quite  neglected  appears  from  2  Chron. 


'this  and  other  curious  speculations  on  the  etymology  of  tM 
word  see  Buxtorf.  lex.  Tblmud.  1807 


SABBEUS 

xxxvi.  20,  21 :  "  Tliem  that  escaped  from  the  sword 
carried  he  away  to  Babylon;  where  they  were 
servants  to  him  and  his  sons  until  the  reign  of  the 
kingdom  of  Persia:  to  fulfil  the  word  of  the  Lord 
by  the  mouth  of  Jeremiah,  until  the  land  had  en 
joyed  her  Sabbaths  ;  for  as  long  as  she  lay  desolate 
she  kept  Sabbath,  to  fulfil  threescore  and  ten  years." 
Some  of  the  Jewish  commentators  have  inferred 
from  this  that  their  forefathers  had  neglected  exactly 
seventy  Sabbatical  years.  If  such  neglect  was  con 
tinuous,  the  law  must  have  been  disobeyed  througn- 
out  a  period  of  490  years,  i.  e.  through  nearly  the 
whole  duration  of  the  monarchy ;  and  as  there  is 
nothing  in  the  previous  history  leading  to  the  in 
ference  that  the  people  vveve  more  scrupulous  then, 
we  must  look  to  the  return  from  captivity  for  indi 
cations  of  the  Sabbatical  year  being  actually  ob 
served.  Then  we  know  the  former  neglect  was  re 
placed  by  a  punctilious  attention  to  the  Law  ;  and  as 
its  leading  feature,  the  Sabbath,  began  to  be  scrupu 
lously  reverenced,  so  we  now  find  traces  of  a  like 
observance  of  the  Sabbatical  year.  We  read  (1  Mace, 
vi.  49)  that  "  they  came  out  of  the  city,  because 
they  had  no  victuals  there  to  endure  the  siege,  it 
being  a  year  of  rest  to  the  land."  Alexander  the 
Great  is  said  to  have  exempted  the  Jews  from  tri 
bute  during  it,  since  it  was  unlawful  for  them  to 
sow  seed  or  reap  harvest  then ;  so,  too,  did  Julius 
Caesar  (Joseph.  Ant.  xiv.  10,  §6).  Tacitus  (Hist. 
lib.  v.  2,  §4),  having  mentioned  the  observance  of 
the  Sabbath  by  the  Jews,  adds : — "  Dein  blan- 
dienti  inertia  septimum  quoque  annum  ignaviae 
datum."  And  St.  Paul,  in  reproaching  the  Ga- 
latians  with  their  Jewish  tendencies,  taxes  them 
with  observing  years  as  well  as  days  and  months 
aud  times  (Gal.  iv.  10),  from  which  we  must  infer 
tn;>t  the  teachers  who  communicated  to  them  those 
tendencies  did  more  or  less  the  like  themselves. 
Another  allusion  in  the  N.  T.  to  the  Sabbatical  year 
is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the  phrase,  eV  (rapfidTtf) 
SevrepoTrpcaTca  (Luke  vi.  1).  Various  explanations 
have  been  given  of  the  term,  but  one  of  the  most 
probable  is  that  it  denotes  the  first  Sabbath  of 
the  second  year  in  the  cycle  (Wieseler,  quoted  by 
Alford,  vol.  i.).  ~*  [F.  G.] 

SABBE'US  (2aj8j8afas  ;  Alex.  SajSjScuo* :  Sa- 
meas),  I  Esdr.  ix.  32.     [SHEMAIAH,  14.] 
SABE'ANS.    [SHEBA.] 

SA'BI(2a£eiV;  Alex.Satfnj:  Sabathen).  "The 
children  of  Pochereth  of  Zebaim  "  appear  in  1  Esd. 
v.  34  as  "  the  sons  of  Phacareth,  the  sons  of  Sabi." 

SAB'TAH  (nraD,  in  21  MSS.  KrQP,  Gen. 
x.  7  ;  MJ3D,  1  Chr.'i.  9,  A.  V.  SABTA  :  2a£aT0a : 
Sabatha}.  The  third  in  order  of  the  sons  of  Gush. 
In  accordance  with  the  identifications  of  the  settle 
ments  of  the  Cushites  in  the  article  ARABIA  and 
elsewhere,  Sabtah  should  be  looked  for  along  the 
southern  coast  of  Arabia.  The  writer  has  found  no 
traces  in  Arab  writers ;  but  the  statements  of  Pliny 
(vi.  32,  §155,  xii.  32),  Ptolemy  (vi.  7,  p.  411),  and 
Anon.  Peripl.  (27),  respecting  Sabbatha,  Sabota,  or 
Sobotale,  metropolis  of  the  Atramitae  (probably  the 
Chatramotitae),  seem  to  point  to  a  'trace  of  the 
tribe  which  descended  from  Sabtah,  always  sup 
posing  that  this  city  Sabbatha  was  not  a  corrup 
tion  or  dialectic  variation  of  Saba,  Sebn,  or  Sheba. 
Tiiis  point  wfill  be  discussed  under  SHEBA.  It  is 
oaly  necessary  to  remark  here  that  the  indications 
afforded  by  the  breeh.  and  Roman  writers  of  Arabian 
geography  require  very  cautious  handling,  pre- 


SACAE 


1075 


senting,  as  they  do,  a  mass  of  contradictions  and 
transparent  travellers'  tales  respecting  the  unknown 
regions  of  Arabia  the  Happy,  Arabia  Thurifera,  &c. 
Ptolemy  places  Sabbatha  in  77°  long.  16°  30'  lat. 
It  was  an  important  city,  containing  no  less  than 
sixty  temples  (Pliny,  N.  H.  vi.  c.  xxiii.  §32"  ;  it  was 
also  situate  in  the  territory  of  king  Elisarus,  or 
Eleazus  (comp.  Anon.  Peripl.  ap.  M  tiller,  Geoij. 
Min.  278-9),  supposed  by  Fresuel  to  be  identical 
with  "  Ascharides,"  or  "  Alascharissoun,"  in  Arabic 
(Joum.  Asiat.  Nouv.  Serie,  x.  191).  Winer  thinks 
the  identification  of  Sabtah  with  Sabbatha,  &c.,  to 
be  probable;  and  it  is  accepted  by  Bunsen  (Bibel- 
werk,  Gen.  x.  and  Atlas').  It  certainly  occupies  a 
position  in  which  we  should  expect  to  find  traces  of 
Sabtah,  where  are  traces  of  Cushite  tribes  in  very 
early  times,  on  their  way,  as  we  hold,  from  their 
earlier  colonies  in  Ethiopia  to  the  Euphrates. 

Gesenius,  who  sees  in  Gush  only  Ethiopia,  "  has 
no  doubt  that  Sabtah  should  be  compared  with 
2a£(fr,  2aj8a,  Sa£a£  (see  Strab.  xvi.  p.  770, 
Casaub.  ;  Ptol.  iv.  10),  on  the  shore  of  the  Arabian 
Gulf,  situated  just  where  Arkiko  is  now.  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  which  the  Ptolemies  hunted  elephants. 
Amongst  the  ancient,  translators,  Pseudojonathan 
saw  the  true  meaning,  rendering  it  *N1DD,  for 
which  read  '&ODD,  i.  e.  the  Sembritae,  whom 
Strabo  (loc.  cit.  p.  786)  places  in  the  same  region. 
Joseph  us  (Ant.  i.  6,  §1)  understands  it  to  be  the 
inhabitants  of  Astabora  "  (Gesenius,  ed.  Tregelles, 
s.  v.}.  Here  the  etymology  of  Sabtah  is  compared 
plausibly  with  2oj8aT  ;  but  when  probability  is 
against  his  being  found  in  Ethiopia,  etymology 
is  of  small  value,  especially  when  it  is  remem 
bered  that  Sabat  and  its  variations  (Sabax,  Sabai) 
may  be  related  to  Seba,  which  certainly  »v»te  in 
Ethiopia.  On  the  Rabbinical  authorities  winch 
he  quotes  we  place  no  value.  It  only  lemams 
to  add  that  IMichuelis  (Suppl.  p.  1712)  removes 
Sabtah  to  Ceuta  opposite  Gibraltar,  called  in  Arabic 
-o  - 


Sebtah,  XxJUw  (comp.  Marasid,  s.  u.)  ;  and  that 

Bochart  (Phaleg,  i.  114,  115,  252,  seqq.},  while 
he  mentions  Sabbatha,  prefers  to  place  Sabtah  near 
the  western  shore  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  with  the 
Saphtha  of  Ptolemy,  the  name  also  of  an  island  in 
that  gulf.  [E.  S.  P.] 

SAB'TECHA,  and  SAB'TECHAH  (fcOfinp  = 
2aj8a0a/fct,  2ej8e0ax<»  :  Sabatacka,  Sabath'acha, 
Gen.  x.  7,  1  Chr.  i.  9).  The  fifth  in  order  of  the 
sons  of  Gush,  whose  settlements  would  puobably  be 
near  the  Persian  Gulf,  where  are  those  of  Raamah, 
the  next  before  him  in  the  order  of  the  Cushites. 
[RAAMAH,  DEDAN,  SHEBA.]  He  has  not  been  iden 
tified  with  any  Arabic  place  or  district,  nor  satis 
factorily  with  any  name  given  by  classical  writers. 
Bochart  (who  is  followed  by  Bunsen,  Bibelw.,  Gen. 
x.  and  Atlas]  argues  that  he  should  be  placed  in  Car 
mania,  on  the  Persian  shore  of  the  gulf,  comparing 
Sabtechah  with  the  city  of  Samydace  of  Steph.  By  2 
(2a/u5ci/cT?  or  2a/iuKoS7)  of  Ptol.  vi.  8,  7).  This  ety 
mology  appears  to  be  very  far-fetched.  Gesenius 
merely  says  that  Sabtechah  is  the  proper  name  of  a 
district  of  Ethiopia,  and  adds  the  reading  of  the  Targ. 
Pseudojonathan  (»fcUJT,  Zingitani}.  [E.  S.  PJ 

SA'CAE  ("W:  'Axdp  ;  Alex.  2a%^:  Sachar). 
1.  A  Hararite,  father  of  Ahiam,  one  of  David's 
mighty  men  (1  Chr.  xi.  35).  In  2  Sam.  xxiii.  33 
he  is  called  SHARAR,  but  Kennicott  regaids  Sa;-a: 
i\s  the  correct  reading. 

3  Z  2 


1076 


SAOKBUT 


2.  (2axdp.)  The  fourth  son  of  Obed-edom  (1 
Chr.  xx vi.  4). 

8ACKBUT  (JO^D,  Dan.  iii.  5 ;  ND3b,  Dan. 
Hi.  7,  10,  15:  <ra/j.lSvKi/i :  sambuca).  The  rendering 
in  the  A.  V.  of  the  Chaldee  sabbeca.  If  this  mu 
sical  instrument-  be  the  same  as  the  Greek  (ra/xjS 
Mini  Latin  sambuca  f  the  English  translation  is  en 
tirely  wrong.  The  sackbut  was  a  wind-instrument ; 
the  sambuca  was  played  with  strings.  Mr.  Chappell 
says  {Pop.  Mus.  i.  35),  "  The  sackbut  was  a  bass 
trumpet  with  a  slide,  like  the  modern  trombone.' 
It  had  a  deep  note  according  to  Drayton  (Polyolbion, 
iv.  365)  : 

"  The  hoboy,  sagbut  deep,  recorder,  and  the  flute." 

The  sambuca  was  a  triangular  instrument  with 
four  or  more  strings  played  with  the  ringers.  Ac 
cording  to  Athenaeus  (xiv.  633),  Masurius  described 
it  as  having  a  shrill  tone ;  and  Euphorion,  in  his 
book  on  the  Isthmian  Games,  said  that  it  was  used 
by  the  Parthians  and  Troglodytes,  and  had  four 
strings.  Its  invention  is  attributed  to  one  Sambyx, 
and  to  Sibylla  its  first  use  (Athen.  xiv.  637).  Juba, 
in  the  4th  book  of  his  Theatrical  History,  says  it 
was  discovered  in  Syria,  but  Neanthes  of  Cyzicum, 
in  the  first  book  of  the  Hours,  assigns  it  to  the  poet 
Ibycus  of  Rhegium  (Athen.  iv.  77).  This  last  tra 
dition  is  followed  by  Suidas,  who  describes  the  sam 
buca  as  a  kind  of  triangular  harp.  That  it  was  a 
foreign  instrument  is  clear  from  the  statement  of 
Strabo  (x.  471),  who  says  its  name  is  barbarous. 
Isidore  of  Seville  (Orig.  iii.  20)  appears  to  regard 
it  as  a  wind  instrument,  for  he  connects  it  with  the 
sambucus,  or  elder,  a  kind  of  light  wood  of  which 
pipes  were  made. 

The  sambuca  was  early  known  at  Rome,  for 
Plautus  (Stick,  ii.  2,  57)  mentions  the  women  who 
played  it  (sambucae,  or  sambucistriae,  as  they  are 
called  in  Livy,  xxxix.  6).  It  was  a  favourite  among 
the  Greeks  (Polyb.  v.  37),  and  the  Rhodian  women 
appear  to  have  been  celebrated  for  their  skill  on 
this  instrument  (Athen.  iv.  129). 

There  was  an  engine  called  sambuca  used  in 
siege  operations,  which  derived  its  name  from  the 
musical  instrument,  because,  according  to  Athenaeus 
(xiv.  634),  when  raised  it  had  the  form  of  a  ship 
and  a  ladder  combined  in  one.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SACKCLOTH  (pb :  <rdKKos :  saccws).  A 
course  texture,  of  a  dark  colour,  made  of  gnats' 
hair  (Is.  1.  3;  Rev.  vi.  12),  and  resembling  the 
cilicium  of  the  Romans.  It  was  used  (1.)  for 
making  sacks,  the  same  word  describing  both  the 
material  and  the  article  (Gen.  xlii.  25;  Lev.  xi. 
32  ;  Josh.  ix.  4)  ;  and  (2.)  for  making  the  rough 
garments  used  by  mourners,  which  were  in  extreme 
cases  worn  next  the  skin  (1  K.  xxi.  27;  2  K.  vi. 
30;  Job  xvi.  15;  Is.  xxxh.  11),  and  this  even  by 
females  (Joel  i.  8 ;  2  Mace.  iii.  19),  but  at  other 
times  were  worn  over  the  coat  or  cethoneth  (Jon. 
iii.  6)  m  lieu  of  the  outer  garment.  The  robe  pro 
bably  resembled  a  sack  in  shape,  and  fitted  close  to 
the  person,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  application  of 
the  term  chdgar^  to  the  process  of  putting  it  on 
(2  Sam.  iii.  31  ;  Ez.  vii.  18,  &c.).  It  was  con 
fined  by  a  girdle  of  similar  material  (Is.  iii.  24). 
Sometimes  it  was  worn  throughout  the  night  (1  K. 
xxi.  27).  [W.  L.  B.] 

a  Compare  ambulaia,  from  Syr.  &O-13N,  abMba,  a 
fluto,  where  the  m  occupies  the  place  of  the  dagesh. 

b  -on. 


SACRIFICE 

SACRIFICE.  The  peculiar  features  of  each 
kind  of  sacrifice  are  referred  to  under  their  re 
spective  heads  ;  the  object  of  this  article  will  be  : — 

I.  To  examine  the   meaning   and  derivation  ol 
the  various  words  used  to  denote  sacrifice  in  Scrip 
ture. 

II.  To  examine   the   historical   development   ci 
sacrifice  in  the  Old  Testament. 

III.  To  sketch  briefly  the  theory  of  sacrifice,  as 
it  is  set  forth  both  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
with  especial  reference  to  the  Atonement  of  Christ. 

I.  Of  all  the  words  used  in  reference  to  sacri 
fice,  the  most  general  appear  to  be — 

(a.)  nnjft,  minchah,  from  the  obsolete  root 
WE,  "to  give;"  used  in  Gen.  xxxii.  13,  20,  21,  ol 

a  gift  from  Jacob  to  Esau  (LXX.  S&pov)  ;  in  * 
Sam.  viii.  2,  6  (£€i/ia),  in  1  K.  iv.  21  (Swpa), 
in  2  K.  xvii.  4  (/j.avad),  of  a  tribute  from  a  vassal 
king;  in  Gen.  iv.  3,  5,  of  a  sacrifice  generally 
(SQpov  and  Ovcria,  indifferently);  and  in  Lev.  ii. 
1,  4,  5,  6,  joined  with  the  word  korban,  of  an 
unbloody  sacrifice,  or  "meat-offering"  (generally 
Swpov  QvcricC).  Its  derivation  and  usage  point  to 
that  idea  of  sacrifice,  which  represents  it  as  an  Eu- 
chanstic  gift  to  God  our  King. 

'&.)  J2"]P,  korban,  derived  from  the  root  ^p. 

"  to  approach,"  or  (in  Hiphil)  to  "  make  to  ap 
proach ;"  used  with  minchah  in  Lev.  ii.  1,  4,  5,  6, 
(LXX.  Suipoif  6v<ria\  generally  rendered  Swpov 
(see  Mark  vii.  1 1 ,  Kopfiav,  '6  e<m  Sfapov )  or  irpoff- 
(p6pa.  The  idea  of  a  gift  hardly  seems  inherent  in 
the  root ;  which  rather  points  to  sacrifice,  as  a 
symbol  of  communion  or  covenant  between  God 
and  man. 

(c.)  !"Qt,  zebach,  derived  from  the  root  HUT,  to 
"  slaughter  animals,"  especially  to  "  siay  in  sacri 
fice,"  refers  emphatically  to  a  bloody  sacrifice,  one 
in  which  the  shedding  of  blood  is  the  essential 
idea.  Thus  it  is  opposed  to  minchah,  in  Ps.  xl.  6 
(dvffiav  Kal  irpo(r<popdv},  and  to  olah  (the  whole 
burnt-offering)  in  Ex.  x.  25,  xviii.  12,  &c.  With  it 
the  expiatory  idea  of  sacrifice  is  naturally  connected. 

Distinct  from  these  general  terms,  and  often 
appended  to  them,  are  the  words  denoting  special 
kinds  of  sacrifice : — 

(d.}  rb'iy,  olah  (generally  oAo/coureofca),  the 
"  whole  burnt-offering." 

(e.)  -D7t?,  shelem  (9v<ria  ffwripiov),  used  fre 
quently  with  |"QT,  and  sometimes  called  J2"]p,  the 

peace-"  or  "  thank-offering." 

(/.)  riKBn,  chattdth  (generally  -jrepl  o/ioprfas), 
the  "  sin-offering." 

(<jf.)  DG^N,  dshdm  (generally  TrAr^eXeu:)  the 
"  trespass-o tiering." 

For  the  examination  of  the  derivation  and  mean- 
ng  of  these,  see  each  under  its  own  head. 

II.  (A.)  ORIGIN  OF  SACRIFICE. 

In  tracing  the  history  of  sacrifice,  from  its  first 
Beginning  to  its  perfect  development  in  the  Mosaic 
ritual,  we  are  at  once  met  by  the  long-disputed 
question,  as  to  the  origin  of  sacrifice ;  whether  it 
arose  from  a  natural  instinct  of  man,  sanctioned 
and  guided  by  God,  or  whether  it  was  the  subject 
of  some  distinct  primeval  revelation. 

It  is  a  question,  the  importance  of  which  has 
probably  been  exaggerated.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 


SACRIFICE 

{hat  sacrifice  was  sanctioned  by  God's  Law,  with  a 
special  typical  reference  to  the  Atonement  of  Christ; 
its  universal  prevalence,  independent  of,  and  often 
opposed  to,  man's  natural  reasonings  on  his  relation 
to  God,  shows  it  to  have  been  primeval,  and  deeply 
rooted  in  the  instincts  of  humanity.  Whether  it  was 
first  enjoined  by  an  external  command,  or  whether 
it  was  based  on  that  sense  of  sin  and  lost  communion 
with  God,  which  is  stamped  by  His  hand  on  the 
heart  of  man — is  a  historical  question,  perhaps  inso 
luble,  probably  one  which  cannot  be  treated  at  all, 
except  in  connexion  with  some  general  theory  of  the 
method  of  primeval  revelation,  but  certainly  one, 
which  does  not  affect  the  authority  and  the  meaning 
of  the  rite  itself. 

The  great  difficulty  in  the  theory,  which  refers 
it  to  a  distinct  command  of  God,  is  the  total  silence 
of  Holy  Scripture — a  silence  the  more  remarkable, 
when  contrasted  with  the  distinct  reference  made  in 
Gen.  ii.  to  the  origin  of  the  Sabbath.  Sacrifice  when 
first  mentioned,  in  the  case  of  Cain  and  Abel,  is  re 
ferred  to  as  a  thing  of  course ;  it  is  said  to  have 
been  brought  by  men  ;  there  is  no  hint  of  any  com 
mand  given  by  God.  This  consideration,  the  strength 
of  which  no  ingenuity*  has  been  able  to  impair, 
although  it  does  not  actually  disprove  the  formal 
revelation  of  sacrifice,  yet  at  least  forbids  the  asser 
tion  of  it,  as  of  a  positive  and  important  doctrine. 

Nor  is  the  fact  of  the  mysterious  and  super 
natural  character  of  the  doctrine  of  Atonement,  with 
which  the  sacrifices  of  the  0.  T.  are  expressly  con 
nected,  any  conclusive  argument  on  this  side  of  the 
question.  All  allow  that  the  eucharistic  and  depre 
catory  ideas  of  sacrifice  are  perfectly  natural  to 
man.  The  higher  view  of  its  expiatory  character, 
dependent,  as  it  is,  entirely  on  its  typical  nature, 
appears  but  gradually  in  Scripture.  It  is  veiled  under 
other  ideas  in  the  case  of  the  patriarchal  sacrifices. 
It  is  first  distinctly  mentioned  in  the  Law  (Lev. 
xvii.  11,  &c.)  ;  but  even  then  the  theory  of  the  sin- 
offering,  and  of  the  classes  of  sins  to  which  it 
referred,  is  allowed  to  be  obscure  and  difficult ;  it 
is  only  in  the  N.  T.  (especially  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews)  that  its  nature  is  clearly  unfolded.  It  is 
as  likely  that  it  pleased  God  gradually  to  superadd 
the  higher  idea  to  an  institution,  derived  by  man 
from  the  lower  ideas  (which  must  eventually  find 
their  justification  in  the  higher),  as  that  He  ori 
ginally  commanded  the  institution  when  the  time 
for  the  revelation  of  its  full  meaning  was  not  yet 
come.  The  rainbow  was  just  as  truly  the  symbol 
of  God's  new  promise  in  Gen.  ix.  13-17,  whether  it 
had  or  had  not  existed,  as  a  natural  phenomenon 
before  the  Flood.  What  God  sets  His  seal  to,  He 
makes  a  part  of  His  revelation,  whatever  its  origin 
may  be.  It  is  to  be  noticed  (see  Warburton's  Div. 
Ley.  ix.  c.  2)  that,  except  in  Gen.  xv.  9,  the  method 
of  patriarchal  sacrifice  is  left  free,  without  any 
direction  on  the  part  of  God,  while  in  all  the 
Mosaic  ritual  the  limitation  and  regulation  of  sacri 
fice,  as  to  time,  place,  and  material,  is  a  most  pro 
minent  feature,  on  which  much  of  its  distinction 
from  heathen  sacrifice  depended.  The  inference  is 


a  See,  for  example  (as  In  Faber's  Origin  of  Sacrifice), 
the  elaborate  reasoning  on   the  translation  of  nKtSH 

In  Gen.  Iv.  7.  Even  supposing  the  version,  a  "  sin- 
offering  coucheth  at  the  door"  to  be  correct,  on  the 
ground  of  general  usage  of  the  word,  of  the  curious  version 
of  the  LXX-,  and  of  the  remarkable  grammatical  con 
struction  of  the  masculine  participle,  with  the  feminine 
noun  (us  referring  to  the  fact  that  the  sin-offering  \vu8 


SACRIFICE  1071! 

at  least  probable,  that  when  God  sanctioned  formally 
a  natural  rite,  then,  and  not  till  then,  did  He  define 
its  method. 

The  question,  therefore,  of  the  origin  of  sacrifice 
is  best  left  in  the  silence,  with  which  Scripture  sur 
rounds  it. 

(B.)  ANTE-MOSAIC  HISTORY  OF  SACRIFICE. 

In  examining  the  various  sacrifices,  recorded  in 
Scripture  before  the  establishment  of  the  Law,  we 
find  that  the  words  specially  denoting  expiatory 
sacrifice  (nb?t2PI  and  D£'tf)  are  not  applied  to 
them.  This  fact  does  not  at  all  show,  that  they 
were  not  actually  expiatory,  nor  even  that  the 
offerers  had  not  that  idea  of  expiation,  which  must 
have  been  vaguely  felt  in  all  sacrifices;  but  it  jus 
tifies  the  inference,  that  this  idea  was  not  then  the 
prominent  one  in  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice. 

The  sacrifice  of  Cain  and  Abel  is  called  minchah, 
although  in  the  case  of  the  latter  it  was  a  bloody 
sacrifice.  (So  in  Heb.  xi.  4  the  word  6v<ria  is 
explained  by  the  rols  Scbpois  below.)  In  the  case 
of  both  it  would  appear  to  have  been  eucharistic, 
and  the  distinction  between  the  offerers  to  have 
lain  in  their  "  faith  "  (Heb.  xi.  4).  Whether  that 
faith  of  Abel  referred  to  the  promise  of  the  Redeemer, 
and  was  connected  with  any  idea  of  the  typical 
meaning  of  sacrifice,  or  whether  it  was  a  simple 
and  humble  faith  in  the  unseen  God,  as  the  giver 
and  promiser  of  all  good,  we  are  not  authorised  by 
Scripture  to  decide. 

The  sacrifice  of  Noah  after  the  Flood  (Gen.  viii. 
20)  is  called  burnt-offering  (dlah\  This  sacrifice 
is  expressly  connected  with  the  institution  of  the 
Covenant  which  follows  in  ix.  8-17.  Th?  s?rne 
ratification  of  a  covenant  is  seen  in  the  defined 
offering  of  Abraham,  especially  enjoined  and  burnt- 
by  God  in  Gen.  xv.  9  ;  and  is  probably  to  be  traced 
in  the  "  building  of  altars  "  by  Abraham  on  entering 
Canaan  at  Bethel  (Gen.  xii.  7,  8)  and  Mamre  (xiii. 
18),  by  Isaac  at  Beersheba  (xxvi.  25),  and  by  Jacob 
at  Shechem  (xxxiii.  20),  and  in  Jacob's  setting  up 
and  anointing  of  the  pillar  at  Bethel  (xxviii.  18, 
xxxv.  14).  The  sacrifice  (zebach)  of  Jacob  at  Mizpah 
also  marks  a  covenant  with  Laban,  to  which  God 
is  called  to  be  a  witness  and  a  party.  In  all  these, 
therefore,  the  prominent  idea  seems  to  have  been 
what  is  called  the  federative,  the  recognition  of  a 
bond  between  the  sacrifice!'  and  God,  and  the  dedi 
cation  of  himself,  as  represented  by  the  victim,  to 
the  service  of  the  Lord. 

The  sacrifice  of  Isaac  (Gen.  xxii.  1-13)  stands  by 
itself,  as  the  sole  instance  in  which  the  idea  of  human 
sacrifice  was  even  for  a  moment,  and  as  a  trial, 
coi  Jitenanced  by  God.  Yet  in  its  principle  it  ap 
pears  to  have  been  of  the  same  nature  as  before : 
the  voluntary  surrender  of  an  only  son  on  Abraham's 
part,  and  the  willing  dedication  of  himself  on  Isaac's, 
are  in  the  foreground  ;  the  expiatory  idea,  if  recog 
nised  at  all,  holds  certainly  a  secondary  position. 

In  the  -burnt-offerings  of  Job  for  his  children 
(Job  i.  5)  and  for  his  three  friends  (xlii.  8),  we, 
for  the  first  time,  find  the  expression  of  the  desire 


actually  a  male),  still  it  does  not  settle  the  matter.  The 
Lord  even  then  speaks  of  sacrifice  as  existing,  and  as 
known  to  exist:  He  does  not  institute  it  The  sup 
position  that  the  "  skins  of  beasts"  in  Gen.  iii.  21  were 
skins  of  animals  sacrificed  by  God's  command  is  a  pure 
assumption.  The  argument  on  Heb.  xi.  4,  that  faith  can 
rest  only  on  a  distinct  Divine  command  as  to  the  special 
occasion  of  its  exercise,  is  contradicted  by  the  general 
definition  of  it  given  in  v.  1. 


1078  SACRIFICE 

of  expiation  for  sin,  accompanied  by  repentnnce  and 
prayer,  and  brought  prominently  forward.  The 
same  is  the  case  in  the  words  of  Moses  to  Pharaoh, 
as  to  the  necessity  of  sacrifice  in  the  wilderness 
(Ex.  x.  25),  where  sacrifice  (zebach}  is  distinguished 
from  burnt-offering.  Here  the  main  idea  is  at  least 
daprecatory  ;  the  object  is  to  appease  the  wrath,  and 
avert  the  vengeance  of  God. 
(C.)  THE  SACRIFICES  OF  THE  MOSAIC  PERIOD. 

These  are  inaugurated  by  the  offering  of  the 
PASSOVER  and  the  sacrifice  of  Ex.  xxiv.  The 
Passover  indeed  is  unique  in  its  character,  and 
seems  to  embrace  the  peculiarities  of  all  the  various 
divisions  of  sacrifice  soon  to  be  established.  Its 
ceremonial,  however,  most  nearly  resembles  that  of 
the  sin  offering  in  the  emphatic  use  of  the  blood, 
which  (after  the  first  celebration)  was  poured  at  the 
bottom  of  the  altar  (see  Lev.  iv.  7),  and  in  the  care 
taken  that  none  of  the  flesh  should  remain  till  the 
morning  (see  Ex.  xii.  10,  xxxiv.  25).  It  was  unlike 
it  in  that  the  flesh  was  to  be  eaten  by  all  (not  burnt, 
or  eaten  by  the  priests  alone),  in  token  of  their 
entering  into  covenant  with  God,  and  eating  "  at 
His  table,"  as  in  the  case  of  a  peace-offering.  Its 
peculiar  position  as  a  historical  memorial,  and  its 
special  reference  to  the  future,  naturally  mark  it 
out  as  incapable  of  being  referred  to  any  formal  class 
of  sacrifice  ;  but  it  is  clear  that  the  idea  of  sal 
vation  from  death  by  means  of  sacrifice  is  brought 
out  in  it  with  a  distinctness  before  unknown. 

The  sacrifice  of  Ex.  xxiv.,  offered  as  a  solemn  in 
auguration  of  the  Covenant  of  Sinai,  has  a  similarly 
comprehensive  character.  It  is  called  a  "burnt- 
ollering "  and  "peace-offering"  in  v.  5;  but  the 
solemn  use  of  the  blood  (comp.  Heb.  ix.  18-22) 
distinctly  marks  the  idea  that  expiatory  sacrifice 
was  needed  for  entering  into  covenant  with  God, 
the  idea  of  which  the  sin-  and  trespass-offerings 
were  afterwards  the  symbols. 

The  Law  of  Leviticus  now  unfolds  distinctly  the 
Carious  forms  of  sacrifice : — 

(a.)  The  burnt-offering.    SELF-DEDICATORY. 

(b.}  The  meat-offering  (unbloody}  lFuc,IAR]CTIC 
The  peace-offering  (bloody}  /M 

(c.)   The  sin-offering         EXPIATORY 
The  trespass-offering^ 

fo  these  may  be  added, — 

(d.}  The  incense  offered  after  sacrifice  in  the 
t'foly  Place,  and  (on  the  Day  of  Atonement)  in  the 
Holy  of  Holies,  the  symbol  of  the  intercession  of  th 
priest  (as  a  type  of  the  Great  High  Priest),  accom 
panying  and  making  efficacious  the  prayer  of  the 
people. 

Jn  the  consecration  of  Aaron  and  his  sons  (Lev 
viii.)  we  find  these  offered,  in  what  became  eve 
afterwards  the  appointed  order :  first  came  th< 
sin-offering,  to  prepare  access  to  God  ;  next  thi 
burnt-offering,  to  mark  their  dedication  to  His 
service ;  and  thirdly  the  meat-offering  of  thanks 
giving.  The  same  sacrifices,  in  the  same  order 
with  the  addition  of  a  peace-offering  (eaten  n< 
doubt  by  all  the  people),  were  offered  a  week  afte 
for  all  the  congregation,  and  accepted  visibly  bj 
the  descent  of  fire  upon  the  burnt-offering.  Hence 
forth  the  sacrificial  system  was  fixed  in  all  its  parts 
until  He  should  come  whom  it  typified. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  Law  of  Leviticu 

b  For  Instances  of  Infringement  of  this  rule  uncensurec 
f  cc  Jin'.g.  ii.  5,  vi.  26,  xiii.  19 ;  1  Sam.  xi.  15,  xvi.  5 ;  2  San 
VJ.  13;  1  K.  iii.  2,  3.  Most  of  these  cases  are  specia 


SACRIFICE 

akes  the  rite  of  sacrifice  for  granted  (see  Lev.  i.  2, 
.  1,  &c.,  "  If  a  man  bring  an  offering,  ye  shall," 
&c.),  and  is  directed  chiefly  to  guide  and  limit  its 
xercise.  In  every  cuse  but  that  of  the  peace 
iffering,  the  nature  of  the  victim  w;vs  carefully 
Described,  so  as  to  preserve  the  ideas  symbolized, 
)ut  so  as  to  avoid  the  notion  (so  inherent  in 
leathen  systems,  and  finding  its  logical  result  in 
mman  sacrifice)  that  the  more  costly  the  offering. 
,he  more  surely  must  it  meet  with  acceptance. 
\t  the  same  time,  probably  in  order  to  impress 
this  truth  on  their  minds,  and  al*o  to  guard  against 
corruption  by  heathenish  ceremonial,  and  against 
he  notion  that  sacrifice  in  itself,  without  obedi- 
mce,  could  avail  (see  1  Sam.  xv.  22,  23),  the  place 
f  offering  was  expressly  limited,  first  to  the  Taber- 
iacle,b  afterwards  to  the  Temple.  This  ordinance 
Uso  necessitated  their  periodical  gathering  as  one 
nation  before  God,  and  so  kept  clearly  before  their 
minds  their  relation  to  Him  as  their  national  King. 
3oth  limitations  brought  out  the  great  truth,  that 
od  Himself  provided  the  way  by  which  man 
should  approach  Him,  and  that  the  method  of 
•econciliation  was  initiated  by  Him,  and  not  by 
hem. 

In  consequence  of  the  peculiarity  of  the  Law,  it 
las  been  argued  (as  by  Outram,  Warburton,  &c.) 
that  the  whole  system  of  sacrifice  was  only  a  con 
descension  to  the  weakness  of  the  people,  borrowed, 
more  or  less,  from  the  heathen  nations,  especially 
Tom  Egypt,  in  order  to  guard  against  worse  super 
stition  and  positive  idolatry.  The  argument  is 
•nainly  based  (see  Warb.  Div.  Leg.  iv.,  sect.  vi.  2) 
on  Ez.  xx.  25,  and  similar  references  in  the  0.  and 
N.  T.  to  the  nullity  of  all  mere  ceremonial.  Taken 
as  an  explanation  of  the  theory  of  sacrifice,  it  is  weak 
and  superficial;  it  labours  under  two  fatal  diffi 
culties,  the  historical  fact  of  the  primeval  existence  of 
sacrifice,  and  its  typical  reference  to  the  one  Atone 
ment  of  Christ,  which  was  foreordained  from  the 
very  beginning,  and  had  been  already  typified,  as, 
for  example,  in  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac.  But  as  giving 
a  reason  for  the  minuteness  and  elaboration  of  the 
Mosaic  ceremonial,  so  remarkably  contrasted  with 
the  freedom  of  patriarchal  sacrifice,  and  as  furnish 
ing  an  explanation  of  certain  special  rites,  it  may 
probably  have  some  value.  It  certainly  contains  this 
truth,  that  the  craving  for  visible  tokens  of  God's 
presence,  and  visible  rites  of  worship,  from  which 
idolatry  proceeds,  was  provided  for  and  turned  into  a 
safe  channel,  by  the  whole  ritual  and  typical  system, 
of  which  sacrifice  was  the  centre.  The  contact  witn 
the  gigantic  system  of  idolatry,  which  prevailed  in 
Egypt,  and  which  had  so  deeply  tainted  the  spirit 
of  the' Israelites,  would  doubtless  render  such  pro 
vision  then  especially  necessary.  It  was  one  part 
of  the  prophetic  office  to  guard  against  its  degrad.t  • 
tion  into  formalism,  and  to  bring  out  its  spiritual 
meaning  with  an  ever-increasing  clearness. 

(D.)  POST-MOSAIC  SACRIFICES. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  pursue,  in  detail,  the 
history  of  Post -Mosaic  Sacrifice,  for  its  main  prin 
ciples  were  now  fixed  for  ever.  The  most  remark 
able  instances  of  sacrifice  on  a  large  scale  are  by- 
Solomon  at  the  consecration  of  the  Temple  (1  K. 
viii.  63),  by  Jehoiada  after  the  death  of  Athaliah 
(2  Chr.  xxiii.  18),  and  by  Hezekiah  at  his  great 
Passover  and  restoration  of  the  Temple-worship 


some  authorized  by  special  command;  but  the  Law  pro 
bably  did  not  attain  to  its  full  strictness  till  the  foundation 
of  the  Temple. 


SACRIFICE 


SACRIFICE 


1079 


12  Chr.  xxx.  21-24).  In  each  case,  the  lavish  u»e  '  ledge  of  sin  "  (Rom.  iii.  20)  the  sin-offering  was  for 
of  victims  was  chiefly  in  the  peace-offerings,  which  the  first  time  explicitly  set  forth.  This  is  but  iia- 
were  a  sacred  national  feast  to  the  people  at  the  tural,  that  the  deepest  ideas  should  be  the  last  in 
Table  of  their  Great  King. 

The   regular   sacrifices   in     the   Temple   service 
were : — 

(a.)  BURNT-OFFERINGS. 

1.  The  daily  burnt-offerings  (Ex.  xxix.  38-42). 

2.  The  double  burnt-offerings  on    the    Sabbath 
(Num.  xxviii.  9,  10). 

3.  The   burnt-offerings   at    the    great    festivals 
^Num.  xxviii.  11-xxix.  39). 

(6.)  MEAT-OFFERINGS. 

1.  The  daily  meat-offerings    accompanying   the 
daily    burnt-offerings   (flour,   oil,  and   wine)  (Ex. 
xxix.  40,  41). 

2.  The  shew-bread  (twelve  loaves  with  frankin 
cense),  renewed  every  Sabbath  (Lev.  xxiv.  5-9). 

3.  The  special  meat-offerings  at  the  Sabbath  and 
:he  great  festivals  (Num.  xxviii.,  xxix.). 

4.  The  first-fruits,  at  the  Passover  (Lev.  xxiii. 
10-14),  at  Pentecost  (xxiii.  17-20),   both  "wave- 
offerings;"  the  riist-fruits  of  the  dough  and  thresh 
ing-floor  at  the  harvest-time  (Num.  xv.  20,  21  ; 
Deut.  xxvi.  1-11),  called  "heave-offerings." 

(c.)  SIN-OFFERINGS. 

1.  Sin-offering  (a  kid)  each  new  moon  (Num. 
xxviii.  15). 

2.  Sin-offerings  at  the  Passover,  Pentecost,  Feast 
of  Trumpets,  and  Tabernacles  (Num.  xxviii.  22,  30, 
xxix.  5,  16,  19,  22,  25,  28,  31,  34,  38). 

3.  The   offering   of  the    two   goats    (the    goat 
sacrificed,  and  the  scape-goat)  for  the  people,  and 
of  the  bullock  for  the  priest  himself,  on  the  Great 
Da;  of  Atonement  (Lev.  xvi.). 

(d.)  INCENSE. 

1.  The  morning  and  evening  incense  (Ex.  xxx. 


7-8). 

2.  The  incense  on  the  Great  Day  of  Atonement 
(Lev.  xvi.  12). 

Besides  these  public  sacrifices,  there  were  offer 
ings  of  the  people  for  themselves  individually;  at 
the  purification  of  women  (Lev.  xii.),  the  presenta 
tion  of  the  first-born,  and  circumcision  of  all  male 
children,  the  cleansing  of  the  leprosy  (Lev.  xiv.)  or 
nny  uncleanness  (Lev.  xv.),  at  the  fulfilment  of 
Nazaritic  and  other  vow?  (Num.  vi.  1-21),  on  oc 
casions  of  marriage  and  of  burial,  &c.,  &c.,  besides 
the  fiequent  offering  of  private  sin-offerings.  These 
must  have  kept  up  a  constant  succession  of  sacri 
fices  every  day ;  and  brought  the  rite  home  to 
every  man's  thought,  and  to  every  occasion  of 
human  life. 

(III.)  In  examining  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice,  it  is 
necessary  to  remember,  that,  in  its  development, 
Jie  order  of  idea  is  not  necessarily  the  same  as  the 
order  of  time.  By  the  order  of  sacrifice  in  its  per- 
fsct  form  (as  in  Lev.  viii.)  it  is  clear  that  the  sin- 
offering  occupies  the  most  important  place,  the 
burnt-offering  comes  next,  and  the  meat-offering  or 
peace-offering  last  of  all.  The  second  could  only 
ta  offered,  after  th€  .irs.  had  been  accepted;  the 
third  was  only  a  subsidiary  part  of  the  second. 
iTet,  in  actual  order  of  time,  it  has  been  seen,  that 
the  patriarchal  sacrifices  partook  much  more  of 
the  nature  of  the  peace-offering  and  burnt-offering ; 
and  that,  under  the  Law.  by  which  was  "  the  know- 


order  of  development. 

It  is  also  obvious,  that  those,  who  oelieve  in  the 
unity  of  the  0.  and  N.  T.,  and  the  typical  nature 
of  the  Mosaic  Covenant,  must  view  the  type  in 
constant  reference  to  the  antitype,  and  be  prepared 
therefore  to  find  in  the  former  vague  and  recondite 
meanings,  which  are  fixed  and  manifested  by  the 
latter.  The  sacrifices  must  be  considered,  not  merely 
as  they  stand  in  the  Law,  or  even  as  they  might 
have  appeared  to  a  pious  Israelite;  but  as  they 
were  illustrated  by  the  Prophets,  and  perfectly  in 
terpreted  in  the  N.  T.  (e.  g.  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews).  It  follows  from  this,  that,  as  belonging 
to  a  system  which  was  to  embrace  all  mankind  in 
its  influence,  they  should  be  also  compared  and 
contrasted  with  the  sacrifices  and  worship  of  God 
in  other  nations,  and  the  ideas  which  in  them  were 
dimly  and  confusedly  expressed. 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  on  the  universality  of 
heathen  sacrifices,"  and  difficult  to  reduce  to  any 
single  theory  the  various  ideas  involved  therein. 
It  Ts  clear,  that  the  sacrifice  was  often  looked  upon 
as  a  gift  or  tribute  to  the  gods :  an  idea  which  (for 
example)  runs  through  all  Greek  literature,  from 
the  simple  conception  in  Homer  to  the  caricatures 
of  Aristophanes  or  Lucian,  against  the  perversion 
of  which  St.  Paul  protested  at  Athens,  when  he  de 
clared  that  God  needed  nothing  at  human  hands 
[Acts  xvii.  25).  It  is  also  clear  that  sacrifices 
were  used  as  prayers,  to  obtain  benefits,  or  to  avert 
wrath ;  and  that  this  idea  was  corrupted  into  the 
superstition,  denounced  by  heathen  satirists  as  well 
as  by  Hebrew  prophets,  that  by  them  th?  gods' 
favour  could  be  purchased  for  the  wicked,  or  Uieir 
envy  "  be  averted  from  the  prosperous.  On  the 
other  hand,  that  they  weie  regarded  as  thank-offer 
ings,  and  the  feasting  on  their  flesh  as  a  partaking 
of  the  "  table  of  the  gods  "  (comp.  1  Cor.  x.  20, 
21),  is  equally  certain.  Nor  was  the  higher  idea 
of  sacrifice,  as  a  representation  of  the  sell-devotion 
of  the  offerer,  body  and  soul,  to  the  god,  wholly 
lost,  although  generally  obscured  by  the  grosser 
and  more  obvious  conceptions  of  the  rite.  But, 
besides  all  these,  there  seems  always  to  have  been 
latent  the  idea  of  propitiation,  that  is,  the  belief  in  a 
communion  with  the  gods,  natural  to  man,  broken  off 
in  some  way,  and  by  sacrifice  to  be  restored.  The 
emphatic  "  shedding  of  the  blood,"  as  the  essential 
part  of  the  sacrifice,  while  the  flesh  was  often  eaten  by 
the  priests  or  the  sacrifice!-,  is  not  capable  of  any  full 
explanation  by  any  of  the  ideas  above  referred  to. 
Whether  it  represented  the  death  of  the  sacrifice!1,  or 
(as  in  cases  of  national  offering  of  human  victims, 
and  of  those  self-devoted  for  their  country)  an 
atoning  death  for  him ;  still,  in  either  case,  it  con 
tained  the  idea  that  "  without  shedding  of  blood  is 
no  remission,"  and  so  had  a  vague  and  distorted 
glimpse  of  the  great  central  truth  of  Revelation. 
Such  an  idea  may  be  (as  has  been  argued)  "  unna 
tural,"  in  that  it  could  not  be  explained  by  natural 
reason ;  but  it  certainly  was  not  unnatural,  if  fre 
quency  of  existence,  and  accordance  with  a  deep 
natural  instinct  be  aliened  to  preclude  that  epithet. 
Now  the  essential  difference  between  these  heathen 
views  of  sacrifice  and  the  Scriptural  dx'triiie  of 


the  0.  T.  is  not  to  be  found  in  its  ae;iial  of 


any 


c  tee  Magee's  Dtis.  on  Sacr.,  vol.  i.  diss.  v.,  and  Ernst  j  quoted  in  notes  23,  26,  to  Thomson's  Hampton  Lf.:iur"S, 
vox  Ifcisaulx's  Treatise  on  Greek   aiid  Uomau  ^acrilke,  i  1853. 


1080 


SACRIFICE 


these  ideas.  The  very  names  used  in  it  for  sacri 
fice  (as  is  seen  above)  involve  the  conception  of  the 
rite  as  a  gift,  a  form  of  worship,  a  thank-offering,  a 
self-devotion,  and  an  atonement.  In  fact,  it  brings 
out,  clearly  and  distinctly,  the  ideas  which  in  hea 
thenism  were  uncertain,  vague,  and  perverted. 

But  the  essential  points  of  distinction  are  two. 
First,  that  whereas  the  heathen  conceived  of  their 
gods  as  alienated  iu  jealousy  or  anger,  to  be  sought 
after,  and  to  be  appeased  by  the  unaided  action  of 
man,  Scripture  represents  God  Himself  as  approach 
ing  man,  as  pointing  out  and  sanctioning  the  way 
by  which  the  broken  covenant  should,  be  restored. 
This  was  impressed  on  the  Israelites  at  every  step 
by  the  minute  directions  of  the  Law,  as  to  time, 
place,  victim,  and  ceremonial,  by  its  utterly  dis 
countenancing  the  "  will-worship,"  which  in  hea 
thenism  found  full  scope,  and  rioted  in  the  invention 
of  costly  or  monstrous  sacrifices.  And  it  is  espe 
cially  to  be  noted,  that  this  particularity  is  increased, 
as  we  approach  nearer  to  the  deep  propitiatory  idea  ; 
for  that,  whereas  the  patriarchal  sacrifices  generally 
seem  to  have  been  undefined  by  God,  and  even  under 
the  Law,  the  nature  of  the  peace-offerings,  and  (to 
some  extent)  the  burnt-offerings,  was  determined  by 
the  sacrifice!'  only,  the  solemn  sacrifice  of  Abraham 
in  the  inauguration  of  his  covenant  was  prescribed 
to  him,  and  the  sin-offerings  under  the  Law  were 
most  accurately  and  minutely  determined.  (See,  for 
example,  the  whole  ceremonial  of  Lev.  xvi.)  It  is 
needless  to  remark,  how  this  essential  difference 
purifies  all  the  ideas  above  noticed  from  the  corrup 
tions,  which  made  them  odious  or  contemptible, 
and  sets  on  its  true  basis  the  relation  between  God 
and  fallen  man. 

The  second  mark  of  distinction  is  closely  con 
nected  with  this,  inasmuch  as  it  shows  sacrifice  to 
be  a  scheme  proceeding  from  God,  and,  in  His  fore 
knowledge,  connected  with  the  one  central  fact  of 
all  human  history.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  typical 
character  of  all  Jewish  sacrifices,  on  which,  as  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  argues,  all  their  efficacy 
depended.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  like  other 
ordinances  of  the  Law,  they  had  a  twofold  effect, 
depending  on  the  special  position  of  an  Israelite,  as  a 
member  of  the  natural  Theocracy,  and  on  his  general 
position,  as  a  man  in  relation  with  God.  On  the 
one  hand,  for  example,  the  sin-offering  was  r,n 
atonement  to  the  national  law  for  moral  offences  of 
negligence,  which  in  "  presumptuous,"  i.  e.  de 
liberate  and  wilful  crime,  was  rejected  (see  Num. 
xv.  27-31  ;  and  comp.  Heb.  x.  26,  27).  On  the 
other  hand  it  had,  as  the  prophetic  writings  show 
us,  a  distinct  spiritual  significance,  as  a  means  of 
expressing  repentance  and  receiving  forgiveness, 
which  could  have  belonged  to  it  only  as  a  type  of  the 
Great  Atonement.  How  far  that  typical  meaning 
was  recognized  at  different  periods  and  by  different 
persons,  it  is  useless  to  speculate :  but  it  would  be 
impossible  to  doubt,  even  if  we  had  no  testimony 
on  the  subject,  that,  in  the  face  of  the  high  spiritual 
teaching  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  a  pious 
Israelite  must  have  felt  the  nullity  of  material 
sacrifice  in  itself,  and  so  believed  it  to  be  availing 
only  as  an  ordinance  of  God,  shadowing  cut  some 
great  spiritual  truth,  or  action  of  His.  Nor  is  it 

d  Some  render  this  (like  socer)  "  accursed ;"  but  the 
primitive  meaning,  "  clean,"  and  the  usage  of  the  word, 
Bt-em  derisive  against  this.  LXX.  a-yta  (vid.  Gcsen.  s.  «.)• 

•  In  Ixjv.  i.  4,  it  is  said  to  "atone"  nQIi,  i.e.  to 
'  covsr,"  anrt  so  to  "  do  away  ;:>  LX  i.  efiAaa-cuT-e^).  Th* 


SACKIFIUE 

unlikely  that,  with  more  or  less  distinctness,  hi 
connected  the  evolution  of  this,  as  of  other  truths 
with  the  coming  of  the  promised  Messiah.  But, 
however  this  be,  we  know  that,  in  God's  pur 
pose,  the  whole  system  was  typical,  that  ail  its 
spiritual  efficacy  depended  on  the  true  sacrifice 
which  it  represented,  and  could  be  received  only  on 
condition  of  Faith,  and  that,  therefore,  it  passod 
away  when  the  Antitype  was  come. 

The  nature  and  meaning  of  the  various  kinds  of 
sacrifice  is  partly  gathered  from  the  form  of  their 
institution  and  ceremonial,  partly  from  the  teaching 
of  the  Prophets,  and  partly  from  the  N.  T.,  especi 
ally  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  All  had  relation, 
under  different  aspects,  to  a  Covenant  between  God 
and  man. 

The  SIN-OFFERING  represented  that  Covenant  as 
broken  by  man,  and  as  knit  together  again,  by  God's 
appointment,  through  the  "  shedding  of  blood." 
Its  characteristic  ceremony  was  the  sprinkling  of 
the  blood  before  the  veil  of  the  Sanctuary,  the  put 
ting  some  of  it  on  the  horns  of  the  altar  of  incense, 
and  the  pouring  out  of  all  the  rest  at  the  foot  ot 
the  altar  of  burnt-offering.  The  flesh  was  in  no 
case  touched  by  the  offerer ;  either  it  was  consumed 
by  fire  without  the  camp,  or  it  was  eaten  by  the 
priest  alone  in  the  holy  place,  and  everything  that 
touched  it  was  holy  (£JHp).d  This  latter  point 

marked  the  distinction  from  the  peace-offering,  and 
showed  that  the  sacrifice!-  had  been  rendered  un 
worthy  of  communion  with  God.  The  shedding  of 
the  blood,  the  symbol  of  life,  signified  that  the 
death  of  the  offender  was  deserved  tor  sin,  but  that 
the  death  of  the  victim  was  accepted  for  his  death 
by  the  ordinance  of  God's  mercy.  This  is  seen 
most  clearly  in  the  ceremonial  of  the  Day  of  Atone 
ment,  when,  after  the  sacrifice  of  the  one  goat,  the 
high-priest's  hand  was  laid  on  the  head  of  the  scape 
goat  —which  was  the  other  part  of  the  sin-offering — 
with  confession  of  the  sins  of  the  people,  that  it 
might  visibly  bear  them  away,  and  so  bring  out 
explicitly,  what  in  other  sin-offerings  was  but 
implied.  Accordingly  we  find  (see  quotation  from 
the  Mishna  in  Outr.  De  Sacr.  i.  c.  xv.,  §10)  that, 
in  all  cases,  it  was  the  custom  for  the  offerer  to  lay 
his  hand  on  the  head  of  the  sin-offering,  to  confess 
generally  or  specially  his  sins,  and  to  say,  "  Let  this 
be  my  expiation."  Beyond  all  doubt  the  sin-offer 
ing  distinctly  witnessed,  that  sin  existed  in  man, 
that  the  "  wages  of  that  sin  was  death,"  and  that 
God  had  provided  an  Atonement  by  the  vicariouy 
suffering  of  an  appointed  victim.  The  reference  of 
the  Baptist  to  a  "  Lamb  of  God  who  taketh  away 
the  sins  of  the  world,"  was  one  understood  and 
hailed  at  once  by  a  "  true  Israelite." 

The  ceremonial  and  meaning  of  the  BURNT- 
OFFERING  were  very  different.  The  idea  of  ex 
piation  seems  not  to  have  been  absent  from  it  (for 
the  blood  was  sprinkled  round  about  the  altar  of 
sacrifice)  ;e  and,  before  the  Levitical  ordinance  of  the 
sin-offering  to  precede  it,  this  idea  may  have  been 
even  prominent.  But  in  the  system  of  Leviticus 
it  is  evidently  only  secondary.  The  main  idea  is 
the  offering  of  the  whole  victim  to  God,  reprinting 
(as  the  laying  of  the  hand  on  its  head  shows;  the 


same  word  is  used  below  of  the  sin-offering ;  and  tlib 
later  Jews  distinguished  the  burnt-offering  as  atoning  for 
thoughts  and  designs,  the  sin-offering  for  acts  of  traob- 
gression.  (See  Jonath.  Paraphr.  on  Lev.  vi.  l7,£:c.,  quoicJ 
by  OutraoiJ 


SACRIFICE 

devotion  of  the  sacrificer,  body  and  soul,  to  Him. 
The  death  of  the  victim  was  (so  to  speak)  an  inci 
dental  feature,  to  signify  the  completeness  ot  the 
devotion ;  and  it  is  to  be  noticed  that,  in  all  solemn 
sacrifices,  no  burnt-offering  could  be  made  until  a 
previous  sin-offering  had  brought  the  sacrificer 
again  into  covenant  with  God.  The  main  idea  of 
this  sacrifice  must  have  been  representative,  not 
vicarious,  and  the  best  comment  upon  it  is  the 
exhortation  in  Rom.  xii.  1,  "to  present  our  bodies 
a  living  sacrifice,  holy  and  acceptable  to  God." 

The  MEAT-OFFERINGS,  the  peace  or  thank- 
offering,  the  first-fruits,  &c.,  were  simply  offerings 
to  God  of  His  own  best  gifts,  as  a  sign  of  thankful 
homage,  and  as  a  means  of  maintaining  His  service 
and  His  servants.  Whether  they  were  regular  or 
voluntary,  individual  or  national,  independent  or 
subsidiary  to  other  offerings,  this  was  still  the  lead 
ing  idea/  The  meat-offering,  of  flour,  oil,  and  wine, 
seasoned  with  salt,  and  hallowed  by  frankincense, 
was  usually  an  appendage  to  the  devotion  implied 
in  the  burnt^offering ;  and  the  peace-offerings  for 
the  people  held  the  same  place  in  Aaron's  first 
sacrifice  (Lev.  ix.  22),  and  in  all  others  of  special 
solemnity.  The  characteristic  ceremony  in  the  peace- 
offering  was  the  eating  of  the  flesh  by  the  sacrificer 
(afte*-  the  fat  had  been  burnt  before  the  Lord,  and 
the  breast  and  shoulder  given  to  the  priests).  It 
betokened  the  enjoyment  of  communion  with  God 
at  "  the  table  of  the  Lord,"  in  the  gifts  which  His 
mercy  had  bestowed,  of  which  a  choice  portion  was 
offered  to  Him,  to  His  servants,  and  to  His  pool 
(see  Deut.  xiv.  28,  29).  To  this  view  of  sacrifice 
allusion  is  made  by  St.  Paul  in  Phil.  iv.  18 ;  Heb, 
xiii.  15,  16.  It  follows  naturally  from  the  other 
two. 

It  is  clear  from  this,  that  the  idea  of  sacrifice  is  a 
complex  idea,  involving  the  propitiatory,  the  dedi 
catory,  and  the  eucharistic  elements.  Any  one  o 
these,  taken  by  itself,  would  lead  to  error  ant 
superstition.  The  propitiatory  alone  would  tern" 
to  the  idea  of  atonement  by  sacrifice  for  sin,  a; 
being  effectual  without  any  condition  of  repentnnci 
and  faith ;  the  self-dedicatory,  taken  alone,  ignores 
the  barrier  of  sin  between  man  and  God,  and  under 
mines  the  whole  idea  of  atonement ;  the  eucharistl 
alone  leads  to  the  notion  that  mere  gifts  can  satisfy 
God's  service,  and  is  easily  perverted  into  th 
heathenish  attempt  to  "bribe"  God  by  vows  am 
offerings.  All  three  probably  were  more  or  les 
implied  in  each  sacrifice,  each  element  predomi 
nating  in  its  turn :  all  must  be  kept  in  mind  in 
-  considering  the  historical  influence,  the  spiritua" 
meaning,  and  the  typical  value  of  sacrifice. 

Now  the  Israelites,  while  they  seem  always  t 
have  retained  the  ideas  of  propitiation  and  of  eucha 
ristic  offering,  even  when  they  perverted  these  b 
half-heal  henish  superstition,  constantly  ignored  th 
self-dedication  which  is  the  link  between  the  tw 
and  which  the  regular  burnt-offering  should  have  im 
pressed  upon  them  as  their  daily  thought  and  duty 
It  is  therefore  to  this  point  that  the  teaching  of  th 
Prophets  is  mainly  directed ;  its  key-note  is  con 
iviined  iu  the  words  of  Samuel:  "  Behold,  to  obey 
better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  o 
rams"  (1  Sam.  xv.  22).  So  Isaiah  declares  (a 
i.  10-20)  that  "  the  Lord  delights  not  in  the  bloo 
of  bullocks,  or  lambs,  or  goats;"  .that  to  thos 
who  "  cease  to  do  evil  and  learn  to  do  well,  .  .  . 
though  their  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  win 
as  snow."  Jeremiah  reminds  them  (vii.  22,  23 
that  the  Lord  did  not  "  command  bumt-offuing 


SACRIFICE 


1081 


r  sacrifices "  under  Moses,  but  said,  "  Obey  my 
oice,  and  I  will  be  your  God."  Ezekiel  is  full  of 
dignant  protests  (see  xx.  39-44)  against  the  pol- 
ition  of  God's  name  by  offerings  of  those  whos? 
earts  were  with  their  idols.  Hosea  sets  forth 
od's  requirements  (vi.  6)  in  words  which  oui 
ord  Himself  sanctioned:  "I  desired  mercy  and 
ot  sacrifice,  and  the  knowledge  of  God  more  than 
unit-offerings."  Amos  (v.  21-27)  puts  it  even 
lore  strongly,  that  God  "hates"  their  sacrifices, 
nless  "  judgment  run  down  like  water,  and 
ighteousness  like  a  mighty  stream."  And  Micah 
vi.  6-8)  answers  the  question  which  lies  at  the 
oot  of  sacrifice,  "  Wherewith  shall  I  come  before 
he  Lord?"  by  the  words,  "What  doth  the  Lord 
equire  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  love  mercy, 
nd  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ?"  All  these  pas- 
ages,  and  many  others,  are  directed  to  one  object — • 
ot  to  discourage  sacrifice,  but  to  purify  and  spiritu- 
lize  the  feelings  of  the  offerers. 

The  same  truth,  here  enunciated  from  without, 
s  recognized  from  within  by  the  Psalmist.  Thus 
ie  says,  in  Ps.  xl.  8-11,  "  Sacrifice  and  meat- 
fferiug,  burnt-offering  and  sin-offering,  Thou  hast 
ict  required;"  and  contrasts  with  them  the  ho 
mage  of  the  heart — "  mine  ears  hast  Thou  bored," 
ind  the  active  service  of  life — "  Lo!  I  come  to  do 
Thy  will,  OGod."  In  Ps.  1.  13,  14,  sacrifice  is 
contrasted  with  prayer  and  adoration  (comp.  Ps. 
:xli.  2)  :  "  Thinkest  thou  that  I  will  eat  bulls'  flesh, 
\nd  drink  the  blood  of  goats  ?  Offer  unto  God 
thanksgiving,  pay  thy  vows  to  the  Most  Highest, 
and  call  upon  me  in  time  of  trouble."  In  Ps.  li. 
16,  17,  it  is  similarly  contrasted  with  true  re 
pentance  of  the  heart:  "  The  sacrifice  of  God  is  a 
troubled  spirit,  a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart." 
Yet  here  also  the  next  verse  shows  that  sacrifice 
was  not  superseded,  but  purified  :  "  Then  shait  thou 
be  pleased  with  burnt-offerings  and  oblations;  then 
shall  they  offer  young  bullocks  upon  thine  altar." 
These  passages  are  correlative  to  the  others,  express 
ing  the  feelings,  which  those  others  in  God's  Name 
require.  It  is  not  to  be  argued  from  them,  that  this 
idea  of  self-dedication  is  the*  main  one  of  sacrifice. 
The  idea  of  propitiation  lies  below  it,  taken  for 
granted  by  the  Prophets  as  by  the  whole  people, 
but  still  enveloped  in  mystery  until  the  Antitype 
should  come  to  make  all  clear.  For  the  evolution 
of  this  doctrine  we  must  look  to  the  N.  T.  ;  the 
preparation  for  it  by  the  Prophets  was  (so  to  speak) 
negative,  the  pointing  out  the  nullity  of  all  other 
propitiations  in  themselves,  and  then  leaving  the 
warnings  of  the  conscience  and  the  cravings  of  the 
heart  to  fix  men's  hearts  on  the  better  Atonement 
to  come. 

Without  entering  directly  on  the  great  subject 
of  the  Atonement  (which  would  be  foreign  to  the 
scope  of  this  article),  it  will  be  sufficient  to  refer  tc 
the  connexion,  established  in  the  N.  T.,  between  it 
and  the  sacrifices  of  the  Mosaic  system.  To  do  this, 
we  need  do  little  more  than  analyse  the  Kpistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  which  contains  the  key  of  the  whole 
sacrificial  doctrine. 

In  the  first  place,  it  follows  the  prophetic  books 
by  stating,  in  the  most  emphatic  terms,  the  intrinsic 
nullity  of  all  mere  material  sacrifices.  The  "gifts 
and  sacrifices  "  of  the  first  tabernacle  could  "  never 
make  the  sacrificers  perfect  in  conscience"  (KCIT& 
<rvveiSrj(riv}  ;  they  were  but  "  carnal  ordinances,  im 
posed  on  them  till  the  time  of  reformation"  (Stop- 
66(reas}  (Heb.  ix.  9,  10).  The  very  fact  of  then 
constant  repetition  is  said  to  prove  this  irn  perfe 


1082 


SACRIFICE 


which  depends  en  the  fundamental  principle,  "  that 
it  is  impossible  that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats 
should  take  away  sin "  (x.  4).  But  it  does  not 
lead  us  to  infer,  that  they  actually  had  no  spiritual 
efficacy,  if  offered  in  repentance  and  faith.  On  the 
contrary,  the  object  of  the  whole  Epistle  is  to  show 
their  typical  and  probationary  character,  and  to 
assert  that  in  virtue  of  it  alone  they  had  a  spiritual 
meaning.  Our  Lord  is  declared  (see  1  Pet.  i.  20) 
*'  to  have  been  foreordained  "  as  a  sacrifice  "  before 
the  foundation  of  the  world ;"  or  (as  it  is  more 
strikingly  expressed  in  Rev.  xiii.  8)  "  slain  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world."  The  material  sacrifices 
represented  this  Great  Atonement,  as  already  made 
and  accepted  in  God's  foreknowledge  ;  and  to  those 
\vho  grasped  the  ideas  of  sin,  pardon,  and  self- 
dedication,  symbolized  in  them,  they  were  means 
of  entering  into  the  blessings  which  the  One  True 
Sacrifice  alone  procured.  Otherwise  the  whole  sacri 
ficial  system  could  have  been  only  a  superstition 
and  a  snare.  The  sins  provided  for  by  the  sin- 
offering  were  certainly  in  some  cases  moral.  [See 
SIN-OFFERING.]  The  whole  of  the  Mosaic  de 
scription  of  sacrifices  clearly  implies  some  real  spi 
ritual  benefit  to  be  derived  from  them,  besides  the 
temporal  privileges  belonging  to  the  national  theo 
cracy.  Just  as  St.  Paul  argues  (Gal.  iii.  15-29) 
that  the  Promise  and  Covenant  to  Abraham  were  of 
primary,  the  Law  only  of  secondary,  importance, 
so  that  men  had  under  the  Law  more  than  they  had 
by  the  Law ;  so  it  must  be  said  of  the  Levitical 
sacrifices.  They  could  convey  nothing  in  them 
selves  ;  yet,  as  types,  they  might,  if  accepted  by  a 
true,  though  necessarily  imperfect,  faith,  be  means 
of  conveying  in  some  degree  the  blessings  of  the 
Antitype. 

This  typical  character  of  all  sacrifice  being  thus 
set  forth,  the  next  point  dwelt  upon  is  the  union  in 
our  Lord's  Person  of  the  priest,  the  offerer,  and  the 
sacrifice.  [PRIEST.]  The  imperfection  of  all  sacri 
fices,  which  made  them,  in  themselves,  liable  to 
superstition,  and  even  inexplicable,  lies  in  this, 
that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  victim  seems  arbitrarily 
chosen  to  be  the  substitute  for,  or  the  representative 
of,  the  sacrifice!1  ;*  and  that,  on  the  other,  if  there 
be  a  barrier  of  sin  between  man  and  God,  he  has  no 
right  of  approach,  or  security  that  his  sacrifice  will 
be  accepted ;  that  there  needs,  therefore,  to  be  a 
Mediator,  i.  c.  (according  to  the  definition  of  Heb. 
v.  1-4),  a  true  Priest,  who  shall,  as  being  One  with 
man,  offer  the  sacrifice,  and  accept  it,  as  being  One 
with  God.  It  is  shown  that  this  imperfection,  which 
necessarily  existed  in  all  types,  without  which  indeed 
they  would  have  been  substitutes,  not  preparations 
for  the  Antitype,  was  altogether  done  away  in  Him  ; 
that  in  the  first  place  He,  as  the  representative  of 
the  whole  human  race,  offered  no  arbitrarily-chosen 
victim,  but  the  willing  sacrifice  of  His  own  blood  ; 
that,  in  the  second,  He  was  ordained  by  God,  by  a 
solemn  oath,  to  be  a  high-priest  for  ever,  "  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek,"  one  "  in  all  points  tempted  like 
as  we  are,  yet  without  sin,"  united  to  our  human 
nature,  susceptible  to  its  infirmities  and  trials,  yet, 
at  the  sair.e  time,  the  True  Son  of  God,  exalted  tar 
above  all  created  things,  and  ever  living  to  make 
Intercession  in  heaven,  now  that  His  sacrifice  is 
over,  and  that,  in  the  last  place,  the  barrier  between 
man  and  God  is  by  His  mediation  done  away  for 
ever,  and  the  Most  Holy  Place  once  for  all  opened 


f  It  may  be  remembered  that  devices,  sometimes  ludi- 
rrous.  some  times  horrible,  v  ere  adopted   to  make   the 


SACRIFICE 

to  man.  All  the  points,  in  the  doctrine  of  sacrifi^ 
which  had  before  been  unintelligible,  wer*  thui 
made  clear. 

This  being  the  case,  it  next  follows  that  all  the 
various  kinds  of  sacrifices  were,  each  in  its  measure 
representatives  and  types  of  the  various  aspects  oi 
the  Atonement.  It  is  clear  that  the  Atonement,  in 
this  Epistle,  as  in  the  N.  T.  generally,  is  viewed  in 
a  twofold  light. 

On  the  one  hand,  it  is  set  forth  distinctly  as  a 
vicarious  sacrifice,  which  was  rendered  necessary  by 
the  sin  of  man,  and  in  which  the  Lord  "  bare  the 
sins  of  many."  It  is  its  essential  characteristic, 
that  in  it  He  stands  absolutely  alone,  offering  His 
sacrifice  without  any  reference  to  the  faith  or  the 
conversion  of  men — offering  it  indeed  for  those  who 
"  were  still  sinners"  and  at  enmity  with  God. 
Moreover  it  is  called  a  "  propitiation"  (l\a<Tfi6s  or 
iXacTT-hpiov ,  Rom.  iii.  24 ;  1  John  ii.  2)  ;  a  "  ran 
som"  (aTroAirrpoxns,  Rom.  iii.  25 ;  1  Cor.  i.  30,  &c.) ; 
which,  if  words  mean  anything,  must  imply  that  it 
makes  a  change  in  the  relation  between  God  and  man, 
from  separation  to  union,  from  wrath  to  love,  and 
a  change  in  man's  state  from  bondage  to  freedom. 
In  it,  then,  He  stands  out  alone  as  the  Mediator 
between  God  and  man  ;  and  His  sacrifice  is  offered 
once  for  all,  never  to  be  imitated  or  repeated. 

Now  this  view  of  the  Atonement  is  set  forth  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  as  typified  by  the  sin- 
offering  ;  especially  by  that  .particular  sin-offering 
with  which  the  high-priest  entered  the  Most  Holy 
Place  on  the  Great  Day  of  Atonement  (ix.  7-12)  : 
and  by  that  which  hallowed  the  inauguration  of  the 
Mosaic  covenant,  and  cleansed  the  vessels  of  its  mi 
nistration  (ix.  13-23).  In  the  same  way,  Christ  is 
called  "  our  Passover,  sacrificed  for  us"  (1  Cor. 
v.  7)  ;  and  is  said,  in  even  more  startling  language, 
to  have  been  "  made  sin  for  us,"  though  He  "  knew 
no  sin"  (2  Cor.  v.  21).  This  typical  relation  is 
pursued  even  into  details,  and  our  Lord's  suffering 
without  the  city  is  compared  to  the  burning  of  the 
public  or  priestly  sin-offerings  without  the  camp 
(Heb.  xiii.  10-13).  The  altar  of  sacrifice  (Bvaia- 
0"T77piOj>)  is  said  to  have  its  antitype  in  His  Passion 
(xiii.  10).  All  the  expiatory  and  propitiatory  sacii- 
fices  of  the  Law  are  now  for  the  first  time  brought 
into  full  light.  And  though  the  principle  of  vicarious 
sacrifice  still  remains,  and  must  remain,  a  mystery, 
yet  the  fact  of  its  existence  in  Him  is  illustrated  by 
a  thousand  types.  As  the  sin-offering,  though  not 
the  earliest,  is  the  most  fundamental  of  all  sacrifices, 
so  the  aspect  of  the  Atonement,  which  it  symbolizes, 
is  the  one  on  which  all  others  rest. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  set 
forth  to  us,  as  the  completion  of  that  perfect  obe 
dience  to  the  will  of  the  Father,  which  is  the  natural 
duty  of  sinless  man,  in  which  He  is  the  repre 
sentative  of  all  men,  and  in  which  He  calls  upon  us, 
when  reconciled  to  God,  to  "  take  up  the  Cross  and 
follow  Him."  "  In  the  days  of  His  flesh  He  offered 
up  prayers  and  supplications  .  .  .  and  was  heard,  in 
that  He  feared  ;  though  He  were  a  Soa,  yet  learned 
He  obedience  by  the  things  which  He  suffered ; 
and  being  made  perfect "  (by  that  suffering  ;  see 
ii.  10),  "  He  became  the  author  of  salvation  to  ail 
them  that  obey  Him"  (v.  7,  8,  9).  In  this  view 
His  death  is  not  the  principal  object ;  we  dwell 
rather  on  His  lowly  Incarnation,  and  His  life  of 
humility,  temptation,  and  suffering,  to  which  that 

victim  appear  willing ;  and  that  voluntary  sacriCoc,  such 
as  that  of  the  Decii,  was  held  to  bv  the  noblest  of  all. 


SACRIFICE 

death  was  but  a  fitting  close.  In  the  passage  above 
referred  to  the  allusion  is  not  to  th<-.  Cross  of  Calvary, 
but  to  the  agony  in  Gethsemane,  which  bowed  His 
human  will  to  the  will  of  His  Father.  The  main 
idea  of  this  view  of  the  Atonement  is  representative, 
rather  than  vicarious.  In  the  first  view  the  "  second 
Adam"  undid  by  His  atoning  blood  the  work  of  evil 
which  the  first  Adam  did  ;  in  the  second  He,  by  His 
perfect  obedience,  did  that  which  the  first  Adam 
left  undone,  and,  by  His  grace  making  us  like  Him 
self,  calls  upon  us  to  follow  Him  in  the  same  path. 
This  latter  view  is  typified  by  the  burnt-offering  : 
in  respect  of  which  the  N.  T.  merely  quotes  and 
enforces  the  language  already  cited  from  the  O.  T., 
and  especially  (see  Heb.  x.  6-9)  the  words  of  Ps.  xl. 
0,  &c.,  which  contrast  with  material  sacrifice  the 
"  doing  the  will  of  God."  It  is  one,  which  cannot  be 
dwelt  upon  at  all  without  a  previous  implication  of 
the  other ;  as  both  were  embraced  in  one  act,  so  are 
they  inseparably  connected  in  idea.  Thus  it  is  put 
forth  in  Rom.  xii.  1,  where  the  "  mercies  of  God" 
(t.  e.  the  free  salvation,  through  the  sin-offering  of 
Christ's  blood,  dwelt  upon  in  all  the  preceding  part 
of  the  Epistle)  are  made  the  ground  for  calling  on 
us  "  to  present  our  bodies,  a  living  sacrifice,  holy 
and  acceptable  to  God,"  inasmuch  as  we  are  all  (see 
v.  5)  one  with  Christ,  and  members  of  His  body. 
In  this  sense  it  is  that  we  are  said  to  be  "  crucified 
with  Christ"  (Gal.  ii.  20;  Horn.  vi.  6);  to  have 
"the  sufferings  of  Christ  abound  in  us"  (2  Cor.  i. 
5);  even  to  "  fill  up  that  which  is  behind"  (rcb 
varrfp^^ara)  thereof  (Col.  i.  24)  ;  and  to  "  be 
offered"  (oWrSerrflat)  "  upon  the  sacrifice  of  the 
feith  "  of  others  (Phil.  ii.  17  ;  comp.  2  Tim.  iv.  6  ; 
1.  John  iii.  16).  As  without  the  sin-offering  of  the 
Cross,  this,  our  burnt-offering,  would  be  impossible, 
so  Hisn  without  the  burnt-offering  the  sin-offering 
will  to  us  be  unavailing. 

With  these  views  of  our  Lord's  sacrifice  on  earth, 
as  typified  in  the  Levitical  sacrifices  on  the  outer 
altar,  is  also  to  be  connected  the  offering  of  His  In 
tercession  for  us  in  heaven,  which  was  represented 
by  the  incense.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  this 
part  of  His  priestly  ornte  is  dwelt  upon,  with  parti 
cular  reference  to  the  offering  of  incense  in  the  Most 
Holy  Place  by  the  high-priest  on  the  Great  Day  of 
Atonement  (Heb.  ix.  24-28;  comp.  ir.  14-16,  vi. 
19,  20,  vii.  25).  It  implies  that  the  sin-offering 
has  been  made  once  for  all,  to  rend  asunder  the  veil 
(of  sin)  between  man  and  God ;  and  that  the  conti 
nual  burnt-offering  is  now  accepted  by  Him  for  the 
sake  of  the  Great  Interceding  High-priest.  That 
intercession  is  the  strength  of  our  prayers,  and 
"  with  the  smoke  of  its  incense  "  they  rise  up  to 
heaven  (Rev.  viii.  4).  [PliAYER.] 

The  typical  sense  of  the  meat-offering,  or  peace- 
offering,  .s  less  connected  with  the  sacrifice  of  Chrisl 
Himself,  than  with  those  sacrifices  of  praise,  -thanks 
giving,  charity,  and  devotion,  which  we,  as  Chris 
tians,  offer  to  God,  and  "  with  which  He  is  wel 
pleased"  (Heb.  xiii.  15,  16)  as  with  "an  odour  or 
sweet  smell,  a  sacrifice  acceptable  to  God"  (Phil 
iv.  18).  They  betoken  that,  through  the  peace  won 
by  the  sin-offering,  we  have  already  been  enable  1 
to  dedicate  ourselves  to  God,  and  they  are,  as  it 
were,  the  ornaments  and  accessories  of  that  self- 
dedication. 

Such  is  a  brief  sketch  of  the  doctrine  of  Sacrifice. 
It  is  seen  to  have  been  deeply  rooted  in  men's  hearts  ; 
and  to  have  been,  from  the  beginning,  accepted  and 
sanctioned  by  God,  and  n.ade  by  Him  one  chauml 
of  His  Revelation.  In  virtue  of  that  sanction  it  hail 


SADDUCEES  1083 

value,  partly  symbolical,  partly  actual,  but  in  all 
respects  derived  from  the  one  True  Sacrifice,  oi 
which  it  was  the  type.  It  involved  the  expiatory, 
the  self-dedicatory,  and  the  eucharistic  ideas,  each 
gradually  developed  and  explained,  but  all  :npable 
>f  full  explanation  only  by  the  light  reflected  back 
rom  the  Antitype. 

On  the  antiquarian  part  of  the  subject  valuable 
nformation  may  be  found  in  Spencer,  De  Legibus 
ffebracorum,  and  Outram,  De  Sacrificiis.  The 
question  of  the  origin  of  sacrifice  is  treated  clearly 
on  either  side  by  Faber,  On  the  (Divine)  Origin  cf 
Sacrifice,  and  by  Davison,  Inquiry  into  the  Origin 
of  Sacrifice ;  and  Warburton,  Div.Leg.  (b.  ix.  c.  2). 
On  the  general  subject,  see  Magee's  Dissertation  on 
Atonement ;  th<>  Appendix  to  Tholuck's  Treatise  on 
the  Hebrews ;  Kurtz,  Der  Alttesiamentliche  Opfer- 
cultas,  Mitau,  1862  ;  and  the  catalogue  of  autho 
rities  in  Winer's  Eealrcorterb.  "  Opfer."  But  it  needs 
for  its  consideration  little  but  the  careful  study  ot 
Scripture  itself.  [A.  B.] 

SADAMI'AS  (Sadanias}.  The  name  of  SHAL- 
LUM,  one  of  the  ancestors  of  Ezra,  is  so  written  m 
2  Esd.  i.  1. 

SA'DAS  ('Apyai  ;  Alex.  'Affrad  :  Archad^ 
AZGAD  (1  Esd.  v!  13;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  12).  The 
form  Sadas  is  retained  frcm  the  Geneva  Version. 

SADDE'US  ( AoSSaTos ;  Alex  Ao\8cuos  :  I.od- 
deus}.  "  IDDO,  the  chief  at  the  place  Casiphia,"  is 
called  in  1  Esd.  viii.  45,  "  Saddens  the  captain,  who 
was  in  the  place  of  the  treasury."  In  1  Esd.  viii. 
46  the  name  is  written  "  Daddeus  "  in  the  A.  V., 
as  in  the  Geneva  Version  of  both  passages. 

SAD'DUC  CSaZSovKos:  Sadoc).  ZADOX  the 
high-priest,  ancestor  of  Ezra  (1  Esd.  viii.  ^\ 

SADDUCEES  (SaSSou/ccubi :  Sadducaei  • 
Matt.  iii.  7,  xvi.  1,  6,  11,  12,  xxii.  23,  34;  Mark 
xii.  18;  Luke  xx.  27;  Actsiv.  1,  v.  17,  xxiii.  6,  7,  8). 
A  religious  party  or  school  among  the  Jews  at  the 
time  of  Christ,  who  denied  that  the  oral  law  was  a 
revelation  of  God  to  the  Israelites,  and  who  deemed 
the  written  law  alone  to-be  obligatory  on  the 
nation,  as  of  divine  authority.  Although  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  New  Testament  in  conjunction 
with  the  Pharisees,  they  do  not  throw  such  vivid 
light  as  their  great  antagonists  on  the  real  signi 
ficance  of  Christianity.  Except  on  one  occasion, 
when  they  united  with  the  Pharisees  in  insidiously 
asking  for  a  sign  from  heaven  (Matt.  xvi.  1,  4,  6), 
Christ  never  assailed  the  Sadducees  with  the  same 
bitter  denunciations  which  he  uttered  against  the 
Pharisees ;  and  they  do  not,  like  the  Pharisees, 
seem  to  have  taken  active  measures  for  causing  Him 
to  be  put  to  death.  In  this  respect,  and  in  many 
others,  they  have  not  been  so  influential  as  the 
Pharisees  in  the  world's  history  ;  but  still  they 
deserve  attention,  as  representing  Jewish  ideas  before 
the  Pharisees  became  triumphant,  and  as  illus 
trating  one  phase  of  Jewish  thought  at  the  time 
when  the  new  religion  of  Christianity,  destined  to 
produce  such  a  momentous  revolution  in  the  opinions 
of  mankind,  issued  from  Judaea. 

Authorities. — The  sources  of  information  respect 
ing  the  Sadducees  are  much  the  same  as  for  the 
Pharisees.  [PiiARiSKKS,  p.  885.]  There  arc,  how 
ever,  some  exceptions  negatively.  Thus,  the  Sad 
ducees  are  not  spoken  of  at  all  in  the  fourth  Gospel, 
where  the  Pharisees  are  frequently  mentioned,  John 
vii.  32,45,  xi.  47,  57,  xviii.  3,  viii.  3,  13-19,  ix.  13; 
an  omission,  v  hich,  asGeigor  suggests,  is  not  uuin> 


1084 


SADDUCEES 


portant  in  reference  to  the  criticism  of  the  Gospels 
(  Urschrift  und  Uebersetzungen  der  Bibel,  p.  1'07). 
Moreover,  while  St.  Paul  had  been  a  Pharisee  and 
was  the  son  of  a  Pharisee;  while  Josephus  was  a 
Pharisee,  and  the  Mishna  was  a  Pharisaical  digest  j 
of  Pharisaical  opinions  and  practices,  not  a  single 
undoubted  writing  of  an  acknowledged  Sadducee 
has  come  down  to  us,  so  that  for  an  acquaintance 
with  their  opinions  we  are  mainly  dependent  on 
their  antagonists.  This  point  should  be  always 
borne  in  mind  in  judging  their  opinions,  and  forming 
an  estimate  of  their  character,  and  its  full  bearing 
will  be  duly  appreciated  by  those  who  reflect  that 
even  at  the  present  day,  with  all  the  checks  against 
misrepresentation  arising  from  publicity  and  the 
invention  of  printing,  probably  no  religious  or  poli 
tical  party  in  England  would  be  content  to  accept 
the  statements  of  an  opponent  as  giving  a  correct 
view  of  its  opinions. 

Origin  of  the  name. — Like  etymologies  of  words, 
the  origin  of  the  name  of  a  sect  is,  in  some  cases, 
almost  wholly  immaterial,  while  in  other  canes  it  is 
of  extreme  importance  towards  understanding  opi 
nions  which  it  is  proposed  to  investigate.  The 
origin  of  the  name  Sadducees  is  of  the  latter  de 
scription  ;  and  a  reasonable  certainty  on  this  point 
would  go  far  towards  ensuring  correct  ideas  respect 
ing  the  position  of  the  Sadducees  in  the  Jewish  State. 
The  subject,  however,  is  involved  in  great  diffi 
culties.  The  Hebrew  word  by  which  they  are 
called  in  the  Mishna  is  Tsedukim ;  the  plural  of 
Tsddok,  which  undoubtedly  means  "just,"  or 
"  righteous,"  but  which  is  never  used  in  the  Bible 
except  as  a  proper  name,  and  in  the  Anglican  Version 
is  always  translated  "Zadok"  (2  K.  xv.  33;  2 
Sam.  viii.  17  ;  1  Chr.  vi.  8, 13,  &c. ;  Neh.  iii.  4,  29, 
xi.  II).  The  most  obvious  translation  of  the  word, 
therefore,  is  to  call  them  Zadoks  or  Zadokites;  and 
a  question  would  then  arise  as  to  why  they  were  so 
called.  The  ordinary  Jewish  statement  is  that 
they  are  named  from  a  certain  Zadok,  a  disciple 
of  the  Antigonus  of  Socho,  who  is  mentioned  in 
the  Mishna  (Avoth  i.)  as  having  received  the  oral 
law  from  Simon  the  Just,  the  last  of  the  men  of 
the  Great  Synagogue.  It  is  recorded  of  this  Anti 
gonus  that  he  used  to  say:  "  Be  not  like  servants 
who  serve  their  Master  for  the  sake  of  receiving  a 
reward,  but  be  like  servants  who  serve  their  master 
without  a  view  of  receiving  a  reward  ;"  and  the 
current  statement  has  been  that  Zadok,  who  gave 
his  name  to  the  Zadokites  or  Sadducees,  misinter 
preted  this  saying  so  far,  as  not  only  to  maintain 
the  great  truth  that  virtue  should  be  the  rule  of 
conduct  without  reference  to  the  rewards  of  the  in 
dividual  agent,  but  likewise  to  proclaim  the  doctrine 
that  there  was  no  future  state  of  rewards  and  pu 
nishments.  (See  Buxtorf,  s.  v.  p*H¥  ;  Lightfoot's 

florae  Hebraicae  on  Matth.  iii.  8 ;  and  the  Note 
of  Maimonides  in  Surenhusius's  Mishna,  iv.  p.  411.) 
If,  howeArer,  the  statement  is  traced  up  to  its  ori 
ginal  source,  it  is  found  that  there  is  no  mention  of 
it  either  in  the  Mishna,  or  in  any  other  part  of  the 
T;ilmud  (Geiger's  Urschrift,  &c.,  p.  105)  and  that 
the  first  mention  of  something  of  the  kind  is  in  a  small 
work  by  a  certain  Rabbi  Nathan,  which  he  wrote  on 


SADDUCEES 

the  Treatise  of  the  Mishna  called  the  Aroth,  or  "«  Fa 
thers."  But  the  age  in  which  this  Rabbi  Nathan  lived 
is  uncertain  (Bartolocci,  Bibliotheca  Magna  Rabbi- 
nica,  vol.  iii.  p.  770),  and  the  earliest  mention  o-*him 
is  in  a  well-known  Rabbinical  dictionary  called  the 
Aruch,*  which  was  completed  about  the  year  1105, 
A.D.  The  following  are  the  words  of  the  above  men 
tioned  Rabbi  Nathan  of  the  Avoth.  Adverting  to 
the  passage  in  the  Mishna,  already  quoted,  respect 
ing  Antigonus's  saying,  he  observes,  "  Antigonus 
of  Socho  had  two  disciples  who  taught  the  saying 
to  their  disciples,  and  these  disciples  again  taught  it 
to  their  disciples.  At  last  these  began  to  scrutinize 
it  narrowly,  and  said,  '  What  did  our  Fathers  mean 
in  teaching  this  saying?  Is  it  possible  that  a  la. 
bourer  is  to  perform  his  work  all  the  day,  and 
not  receive  his  wages  in  the  evening?  Truly,  if 
our  Fathers  had  known  that  there  is  another  world 
and  a  resurrection  of  the  dead,  they  would  not 
have  spoken  thus.'  They  then  began  to  separate 
themselves  from  the  law  ;  and  so  there  arose  two 
Sects,  the  Zadokites  and  Baithusians,  the  former 
from  Zadok,  and  the  latter  from  Baithos."  Now 
it  is  to  be  observed  on  this  passage  that  it  does  not 
justify  the  ance  current  belief  that  Zadok  himself 
misinterpreted  Antigonus's  saying ;  and  it  suggests 
no  reason  why  the  followers  of  the  supposed  new 
doctrines  should  have  taken  their  name  from  Zadok 
rather  than  Antigonus.  Bearing  this  in  mind,  in  con 
nexion  with  several  other  points  of  the  same  nature, 
such  as  for  example,  the  total  silence  respecting  any 
such  story  in  the  works  of  Josephus  or  in  the  Talmud ; 
the  absence  of  any  other  special  information  respect 
ing  even  the  existence  of  the  supposed  Zadok ;  the 
improbable  and  childishly  illogical  reasons  assigned 
for  the  departure  of  Zadok's  disciples  from  the  Law  ; 
the  circumstance  that  Rabbi  Nathan  held  the  tenets 
of  the  Pharisees,  that  the  statements  of  a  Pharisee 
respecting  the  Sadducees  must  always  be  received 
with  a  certain  reserve,  that  Rabbi  Nathan  of  the 
Avoth,  for  aught  that  has  ever  been  proved  to 
the  contrary,  may  have  lived  as  long  as  1000  years 
after  the  first  appearance  of  the  Sadducees  as  a  party 
in  Jewish  history,  and  that  he  quotes  no  authority 
of  any  kind  for  his  account  of  their  origin,  it  seems 
reasonable  to  reject  this  Rabbi  Nathan's  narration  as 
unworthy  of  credit.  Another  ancient  suggestion 
concerning  the  origin  of  the  name  "  Sadducees,"  is 
in  Epiphanius  (Adversus  Hacrescs,  i.  4),  who  states 
that  the  Sadducees  called  themselves  by  that  name 
from  "  righteousness,"  the  interpretation  of  the 
Hebrew  word  Zedek  ;  "and  that  there  was  likewise 
anciently  a  Zadok  among  the  priests,  but  that  they 
did  not  continue  in  the  doctrines  of  their  chief." 
But  this  statement  is  unsatisfactory  in  two  respects . 
1st.  It  does  not  explain  why,  if  the  suggested  ety 
mology  was  correct,  the  name  of  the  Sadducees  was 
not  Tsaddiklm  or  Zaddikites,  which  would  have 
been  the  regular  Hebrew  adjective  for  the  "  Just," 
or  "Righteous;"  and  2ndly.  While  it  evidently 
implies  that  they  once  held  the  doctrines  of  an 
ancient  priest,  Zadok,  who  is  even  called  their  chief 
or  master  (eTrKrrctTrjs),  it  does  not  directly  assert 
that  there  was  any  connexion  between  his  name 
and  theirs ;  nor  yet  does  it  say  that  the  coin 
cidence  between  the  two  names  was  accidental. 


a  Amch.  or  'Aruc  (*11")yn)«  means  "  arranged,"  or  "  set 
in  order."  The  author  of  this  work  was  another  Rabbi 
Nathan  Ben  Jechiel,  president  of  the  Jewish  Academy  at 
Rome,  who  died  in  1106,  A.D.  (See  Bartolocci,  Bibl.  Kabb. 
iv.  261).  The  reference  to  Rabbi  Nathan,  author  of  the 


treatise  on  the  Avdth,  is  made  in  the  Aruch  under  the  word 
Tbe  treatise  itself  was  published  in  a  Latin 


translation  by  F.  Tayler,  at  London,  1657.  The  original 
passage  respecting  Zadok's  disciples  is  printed  by  Geigej 
la  Hebrew,  and  translated  by  him,  Urschrift,  <fcc.,  p.  105 


SADDUOEES 

Moreover,  it  does  not  give  information  as  to  when 
Zadok  lived,  nor  what  were  those  doctrines  of  his 
which  the  Sadducees  once  held,  but  subsequently 
departed  from.  The  unsatisfactoriness  of  Epipha- 
nius's  statement  is  increased  by  its  being  coupled 
with  an  assertion  that  the  Sadducees  were  a  branch 
broken  off  from  Dositheus ;  or  in  other  words  Schis 
matics  from  Dositheus  (a.Tr6a"jra(Tfj.a  OVTSS  avb 
AoviOeov) ;  for  Dositheus  was  a  heretic  who  lived 
about  the  time  ef  Christ  (Origen,  contra  Celsum, 
lib.  i.  c.  17;  Clemens,  Beoognit.  ii.  8;  Photius, 
Biblioth.  c.  xxx.),  and  thus,  if  Epiphanius  was 
correct,  the  opinions  characteristic  of  the  Sadducees 
wereproductions  of  the  Christian  aera  ;  a  supposition 
contrary  to  the  express  declaration  of  the  Pharisee 
Josephus,  and  to  a  notorious  fact  of  history,  the 
connexion  of  Hyrcanus  with  the  Sadducees  more  than 
100  years  before  Christ.  (See  Josephus,  Ant.  xiii. 
9,  §6,  and  xviii.  1,  §2,  where  observe  the  phrase  e/c 
rov  Travv  apx&iov. .  .).  Hence  Epiphanius's  expla 
nation  of  the  origin  of  the  word  Sadducees  must  be 
rejected  with  that  of  Rabbi  Nathan  of  the  Avoth. 
In  these  circumstances,  if  recourse  is  had  to  con 
jecture,  the  first  point  to  be  considered  is  whether  the 
word  is  likely  to  have  arisen  from  the  meaning  of 
"  righteousness,"  or  from  the  name  of  an  individual. 
This  must  be  decided  in  favour  of  the  latter  alter 
native,  inasmuch  as  the  word  Zadok  never  occurs  in 
the  Bible,  except  as  a  proper  name ;  and  then  we  are 
led  to  inquire  as  to  who  the  Zadok  of  the  Sadducees 
is  likely  to  have  been.  Now,  according  to  the 
existing  records  of  Jewish  history,  there  was  one 
Zadok  of  transcendent  importance,  and  only  one; 
viz.,  the  priest  who  acted  such  a  prominent  part  at 
the  time  of  David,  and  who  declared  in  favour  of 
Solomon,  when  Abiathar  took  the  part  of  Adonijah 
as  successor  to  the  throne  (1  K.  i.  32-45).  This 
Zadok  was  tenth  in  descent,  according  to  the  ge 
nealogies,  from  the  high-priest,  Aaron ;  and  what 
ever  may  be  the  correct  explanation  of  the  state 
ment  in  the  1st  Book  of  Kings  ii.  35,  that  Solomon 
put  him  in  the  room  of  Abiathar,  although  on 
previous  occasions  b^e  had,  when  named  with  him, 
been  always  mentioned  first  (2  Sam.  xv.  35,  xix. 
11;  cf.  viii.  17),  his  line  of  priests  appears  to 
have  had  decided  pre-eminence  in  subsequent  his 
tory.  Thus,  when  in  2  Chr.  xxxi.  10  Hezekiah  is 
represented  as  putting  a  question  to  the  priests  and 
Levites  generally,  the  answer  is  attributed  to  Aza- 
riah,  "  the  chief  priest  of  the  house  of  Zadok :"  and 
in  Ezekiel's  prophetic  vision  of  the  future  Temple, 
"  the  sons  of  Zadok,"  and  "  the  priests  the  Levites 
of  the  seed  of  Zadok  "  are  spoken  of  with  peculiar 
honour,  as  those  who  kept  the  charge  of  the  sanctuary 
of  Jehovah,  when  the  children  of  Israel  went  astray 
(Ez.  xl.  46,  xlii.  19,  xliv.  15,  xlviii.  11).  Now,  as 
the  transition  from  the  expression  "  sons  of  Zadok," 
and  "priests  of  the  seed  of  Zadok"  to  Zadokites 
is  easy  and  obvious,  and  as  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  v.  17,  it  is  said,  "  Then  the  high-priest 
rose,  and  all  they  that  were  with  him,  which  is  the 
sect  of  the  Sadducees,  and  were  filled  with  indigna 
tion,"  it  has  been  conjectured  by  Geiger  that  the 
Sadducees  or  Zadokites  were  originally  identical 
with  the  sons  of  Zadok,  and  constituted  what  may 
be  termed  a  kind  of  sacerdotal  aristocracy  (  Urschrift 
&c.,  p.  104).  To  these  were  afterwards  attached 
all  who  for  any  reason  reckoned  themselves  as 


SADDUCEES 


1085 


h  According  to  the  Mishna,  Sanked.  iv.  2,  no  one  was 
"  clean,"  in  tne  Levitical  sense,  to  act  as  a  judge  in  ca- 
P'tal  trials,  except  priests.  Levity,  and  Israelites  whose 


belonging  to  the  aristocracy ;  such,  for  example, 
as  the  families  of  the  high-priest ;  who  had  olv 
tained  consideration  under  the  dynasty  of  Herod, 
These  were  for  the  most  part  judges,b  and  indi 
viduals  of  the  official  and  governing  class.  Now, 
although  this  view  of  the  Sadducees  is  only 
inferential,  and  mainly  conjectural,  it  certainly 
explains  the  name  better  than  any  other,  and  elu 
cidates  at  once  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  the 
otherwise  obscure  statement  that  the  high-priest, 
and  those  who  were  with  him,  were  the  sect  of  the 
Sadducees.  Accepting,  therefore,  this  view  till  a 
more  probable  conjecture  is  suggested,  some  of  the 
principal  peculiarities,  or  supposed  peculiarities  of 
the  Sadducees  will  now  be  noticed  in  detail,  although 
in  such  notice  some  points  must  be  touched  upon, 
which  have  been  already  partly  discussed  in  speak 
ing  of  the  Pharisees. 

I.  The  leading  tenet  of  the  Sadducees  was  the 
negation  of  the  leading  tenet  of  their  opponents. 
As  the  Pharisees  asserted,  so  the  Sadducees  denied, 
that  the  Israelites  were  in  possession  of  an  Oral 
Law  transmitted  to  them  by  Moses.  The  manner 
in  which  the  Pharisees  may  have  gained  acceptance 
for  their  own  view  is  noticed  elsewhere  in  this 
work  [vol.  ii.  p.  887];  but,  for  an  equitable  esti 
mate  of  the  Sadducees,  it  is  proper  to  bear  in  mind 
emphatically  how  destitute  of  historical  evidence 
the  doctrine  was  which  they  denied.  That  doctrina 
is  at  the  present  day  rejected,  probably  by  almost  all,, 
if  not  by  all,  Christians ;  and  it  is  indeed  so  foreign 
to  their  ideas,  that  the  greater  number  of  Christians 
have  never  even  heard  of  it,  though  it  is  older  than 
Christianity,  and  has  been  the  support  and  conso 
lation  of  the  Jews  under  a  series  of  the  most  cruel 
and  wicked  persecutions  to  which  any  nation  has 
ever  been  exposed  during  an  equal  number  of  cen 
turies.  It  is  likewise  now  maintained,  all  over  the 
world,  by  those  who  are  called  the  orthodox  Jews. 
It  is  therefore  desirable,  to  know  the  kind  of  argu 
ments  by  which  at  the  present  day,  in  an  historical 
and  critical  age,  the  doctrine  is  defended.  For  this 
an  opportunity  has  been  given  during  the  last  three 
years  by  a  learned  French  Jew,  Grand-Rabbi  of  the 
circumscription  of  Colmar  (Klein,  Le  Judaisme,  ou 
la  VtritSsur  le  Talmud,  Mulhouse,  1859),  who  still 
asserts  as  a  fact,  the  existence  of  a  Mosaic  Oral  Law. 
To  do  full  justice  to  his  views,  the  original  work 
should  be  perused.  But  it  is  doing  no  injustice  to 
his  learning  and  ability,  to  point  out  that  iiot  one 
of  his  arguments  has  a  positive  historical  value. 
Thus  he  relies  mainly  on  the  inconceivability  (as 
will  be  again  noticed"  in  this  article)  that  a  Divine 
revelation  should  not  have  explicitly  proclaimed 
the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punish 
ments,  or  that  it  should  have  promulgated  laws, 
left  in  such  an  incomplete  form,  and  requiring  so 
much  explanation,  and  so  many  additions,  as  the 
laws  in  the  Pentateuch.  Now,  arguments  of  this 
kind  may  be  sound  or  unsound ;  based  on  reason, 
or  illogical ;  and  for  many  they  may  have  a  philo 
sophical  or  theological  value;  but  they  have  no 
pretence  to  be  regarded  as  historical,  inasmuch  as 
the  assumed  premisses,  which  involve  a  knowledge 
of  the  attributes  of  the  Supreme  Being,  and  the 
manner  in  which  He  would  be  likely  to  deal  with 
man,  are  far  beyond  the  limits  of  historical  verifica 
tion.  The  nearest  approach  to  an  historical  argument 


daughters  might  marry  priests.  This  again  tallies  with 
the  explanation  offered  in  the  text,  of  the  Sadducees,,  t&  a 
sacerdotal  aristocracy,  being  "  with  the  high-priest." 


I08G 


SADDIK5EES 


is  the  following  (p.  10) :  "  In  the  first  pLve,  nothing  I 
proves  better  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the  tra 
dition  than  the  belief  itself  in  the  tradition.  An 
entire  nation  does  not  suddenly  forget  its  religious 
code,  its  principles,  its  laws,  the  daily  ceremonies  of 
its  worship,  to  such  a  point,  that  it  could  easily  be 
persuaded  that  a  new  doctrine  presented  by  some 
impostors  is  the  true  and  only  explanation  of  its 
law,  and  has  always  determined  and  ruled  its  appli 
cation.  Holy  Writ  often  represents  the  Israelites 
as  a  stiff-necked  people,  impatient  of  the  religious 
yoke,  and  would  it  not  be  attributing  to  them  ra 
ther  an  excess  of  docility,  a  too  great  condescension, 
a  blind  obedience,  to  suppose  that  they  suddenly 
consented  to  troublesome  and  rigorous  innovations 
which  some  persons  might  have  wished  to  impose 
on  them  some  fine  morning?  Such  a  supposition 
destroys  itself,  and  we  are  obliged  to  acknowledge 
that  the  tradition  is  not  a  new  invention,  but  that 
its  birth  goes  back  to  the  origin  of  the  religion  ;  and 
that  transmitted  from  father  to  son  as  the  word  of 
God,  it  lived  in  the  heart  of  the  people,  identified 
itself  with  the  blood,  and  was  always  considered  as 
an  inviolable  authority."  But  if  this  passage  is 
carefully  examined,  it  will  be  seen  that  it  does  not 
supply  a  single  fact  worthy  of  being  regarded  as  a 
proof  of  a  Mosaic  Oral  Law.  Independent  testi 
mony  of  persons  contemporary  with  Moses  that  he 
had  transmitted  such  a  law  to  the  Israelites  would 
be  historical  evidence  ;  the  testimony  of  persons  in 
the  next  generation  as  to  the  existence  of  such  an 
Oral  Law  which  their  fathers  told  them  came  from 
Moses,  would  have  been  secondary  historical  evi 
dence  ;  but  the  belief  of  the  Israelites  on  the  point 
1200  years  after  Moses,  cannot,  in  the  absence  of 
any  intermediate  testimony,  be  deemed  evidence  of 
an  historical  foot.  Moreover,  it  is  a  mistake  to 
assume,  that  they  who  deny  a  Mosaic  Oral  Law, 
imagine  that  this  Oral  Law  was  at  some  one  time, 
as  one  great  system,  introduced  suddenly  amongst 
the  Israelites.  The  real  mode  of  conceiving  what 
occurred  is  far  different.  After  the  return  from  the 
Captivity,  there  existed  probably  amongst  the  Jews 
a  large  body  of  customs  and  decisions  not  contained 
in  the  Pentateuch  ;  and  these  had  practical  authority 
over  the  people  long  before  they  were  attributed  to 
Moses.  The  only  phenomenon  of  importance  requiring 
explanation  is  not  the  existence  of  the  customs  sanc 
tioned  by  the  Oral  Law,  but  the  belief  accepted  by 
a  certain  portion  of  the  Jews  that  Moses  had  divinely 
revealed  those  customs  as  laws  to  the  Israelites. 
To  explain  this  historically  from  written  records 
is  impossible,  from  the  silence  on  the  subject  of  the 
very  scauty  historical  Jewish  writings  purporting  to 
be  written  between  the  return  from  the  Captivity  in 
538  before  Christ  and  that  uncertain  period  when 
the  canon  was  closed,  which  at  the  earliest  could 
not  have  been  long  before  the  death  of  Antiochus 
Kpiphaaes,  B.C.  164.  For  all  this  space  of  time, 
a  period  of  about  374  years,  a  period  as  long  as 
from  the  accession  of  Henry  VII.  to  the  present 
year  (1862)  we  have  no  Hebrew  account,  nor  in 
fact  any  contemporary  account,  of  the  history  of  the 
Jews  in  Palestine,  except  what  may  be  contained  in 
the  short  works  entitled  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  And 
tha  last  named  of  these  works  does  not  carry  the 


0  See  p.  32  of  Essay  on  tfie  Revenues  of  the  Chwch, 
of  England,  by  the  Rev.  Morgan  Cove,  Prebendary  of 
Hirsford,  and  Hector  of  Eaton  Bishop.  578  pp.  London, 
Kiviugton,  1816.  Third  Edition.  "Thus  do  we  return 
Again  to  the  original  difficulty  [the  origin  of  tithes],  to  the 
>o!ution  of  which  the  strength  of  human  reason  IE  unequal. 


SADDUCEES 

history  much  later  than  cue  hundred  years  .ifter  th* 
return  from  the  Captivity :  so  that  there  is  a  long  and 
extremely  important  period  of  more  than  two  cen 
turies  and  a  half  before  the  heroic  rising  of  the 
Maccabees,  during  which  there  is  a  total  absence  of 
contemporary  Jewish  history.  In  this  dearth  of 
historical  materials,  it  is  idle  to  attempt  a  positive 
narration  of  the  circumstances  under  which  the  Oral 
Law  became  assigned  to  Moses  as  its  author.  It  is 
amply  sufficient  if  a  satisfactory  suggestion  is  made 
as  to  how  it  might  have  been  attributed  to  Moses, 
and  in  this  there  is  not  much  difficulty  for  j.ry  one 
who  bears  in  mind  how  notoriously  in  ancient  times 
laws  of  a  much  later  date  were  attributed  to  Minos, 
Lycurgus,  Solon,  and  Numa.  The  unreasonableness 
of  supposing  that  the  belief  in  the  Oral  traditions 
being  from  Moses  must  have  coincided  in  point  of 
time  with  the  acceptance  of  the  Oral  tradition,  may 
be  illustrated  by  what  occurred  in  England  during 
the  present  century.  During  a  period  when  the 
fitness  of  maintaining  the  clergy  by  tithes  was 
contested,  the  theory  was  put  forth  that  the  origin 
of  tithes  was  to  be  assigned  to  "  an  unrecorded  reve 
lation  made  to  Adam."c  Now,  let  us  suppose  that 
England  was  a  country  as  small  as  Judaea  ;  that  the 
English  were  as  few  in  number  as  the  Jews  of 
Judaea  must  have  been  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah, 
that  a  temple  in  London  was  the  centre  of  the  English 
religion,  and  that  the  population  of  London  hardly 
ever  reached  50,000.  [JERUSALEM,  p.  1025.]  Let 
us  further  suppose  that  printing  was  not  invented, 
that  manuscripts  were  dear,  and  that  few  of  the 
population  could  read.  Under  such  circumstances 
it  is  not  impossible  that  the  assertion  of  an  unre 
corded  revelation  made  to  Adam,  might  have  betn 
gradually  accepted  by  a  large  religious  party  in 
England  as  a  divine  authority  for  tithes.  If  tnis 
belief  had  continued  in  the  same  party  during  a 
period  of  more  than  2000  years,  if  that  party  had 
become  dominant  in  the  English  Church,  if  for 
the  first  250  years  every  contemporary  record  of 
English  history  became  lost  to  mankind,  and  if  all 
previous  English  writings  merely  condemned  the 
belief  by  their  silence,  so  that  the  precise  date  of 
the  origin  of  the  belief  could  not  be  ascertained,  we 
should  have  a  parallel  to  the  way  in  which  a  belief 
in  a  Mosaic  Oral  Law  may  possibly  have  arisen.  Yet 
it  would  have  been  very  illogical  for  an  English 
reasoner  in  the  year  4000  A.  D.  to  have  argued 
from  the  burden  and  annoyance  of  paying  tithes  to 
the  correctness  of  the  theory  that  the  institution  of 
tithes  was  owing  to  this  unrecorded  revelation  to 
Adam.  It  is  not  meant  by  this  illustration  to 
suggest  that  reasons  as  specious  could  be  advanced 
for  such  a  divine  origin  of  tithes  as  even  for  a  Mosaic 
Oral  Law.  The  main  object  of  the  illustration  is  to 
show  that  the  existence  of  a  practice,  and  the  belief 
as  to  the  origin  of  a  practice,  are  two  wholly  distinct 
points  ;  and  that  there  is  no  necessary  connexion  in 
time  between  the  introduction  of  a  practice,  and  the 
introduction  of  the  prevalent  belief  in  its  origin. 

Under  this  head  we  may  add  that  it  must  not  be 
assumed  that  the  Sadducees,  because  they  rejected 
a  Mosaic  Oral  Law,  rejected  likewise  all  traditions 
and  all  decisions  in  explanation  of  passages  in  the 
Pentateuch.  Although  they  protested  against  the 


Nor  does  there  remain  any  other  method  of  solving  it,  but 
by  assigning  the  origin  of  the  custom,  and  the  peculiar 
observance  of  it,  to  some  unrecorded  revelation  made  tc 
Adam,  and  by  him  and  his  descendants  delivered  down  tc 
poM/ertty." 


SADDUCEES 

assertion  thai  such  points  had  been  divinely  settled 
by  Moses,  f-hey  probably,  in  numerous  instances, 
followed  practically  the  same  traditions  as  the  Pha 
risees.  This  will  explain  why  in  the  Mishua  spe 
cific  points  of  difference  between  the  Pharisees  and 
Sadducees  are  mentioned,  which  are  so  unimportant ; 
such,  e.  g.  as  whether  touching  the  Holy  Scrip 
tures  made  the  hands  technically  "  unclean,"  in  the 
Levitical  sense,  and  whether  the  stream  which  flows 
when  water  is  poured  from  a  clean  vessel  into  an  un 
clean  one  is  itself  technically  "  clean  "  or  "  unclean  " 
(  Yadaim,  iv.  6,  7).  If  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees 
had  differed  on  all  matters  not  directly  contained  in 
the  Pentateuch,  it  would  scarcely  have  been  neces 
sary  to  particularize  points  of  difference  such  as 
these,  which  to  Christians  imbued  with  the  ge- 
Duine  spirit  of  Christ's  teaching  (Matt.  xv.  11; 
Luke  xi.  37-40),  must  appear  so  trifling,  as 
almost  to  resemble  the  products  of  a  diseased  ima 
gination.'1 

II.  The  second  distinguishing  doctrine  of  the  Sad 
ducees,  the  denial  of  man's  resurrection  after  death, 
followed  in  their  conceptions  as  a  logical  conclusion 
from  their  denial  that  Moses  had  revealed  to  the 
Israelites  the  Oral  Law.  For  on  a  point  so  mo 
mentous  as  a  second  life  beyond  the  grave,  no 
religious  party  among  the  Jews  would  have  deemed 
themselves  bound  to  accept  any  doctrine  as  an 
article  of  faith,  unless  it  had  been  proclaimed  by 
Moses,  their  great  legislator ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
in  the  written  Law  of  the  Pentateuch  there  is  a 
total  absence  of  any  assertion  by  Moses  of  the  resur 
rection  of  the  dead.  The  absence  of  this  doctrine, 
so  far  as  it  involves  a  future  state  of  rewards  and 
punishments,  is  emphatically  manifest  from  the 
numerous  occasions  for  its  introduction  in  the  Pen 
tateuch,  among  the  promises  and  threats,  the  bless 
ings  and  curses,  with  which  a  portion  of  that  great 
work  abounds.  In  the  Law  Moses  is  represented 
as  promising  to  those  who  are  obedient  to  the  com 
mands  of  Jehovah  the  most  alluring  temporal  re 
wards,  such  as  success  in  business,  the  acquisition 
of  wealth,  fruitful  seasons,  victory  over  their 
enemies,  long  life,  and  freedom  from  sickness  (Deut. 
vii.  12-15,  xxviii.  1-12  ;  Ex.  xx.  12,  xxiii.  25,  26) ; 
and  he  likewise  menaces  the  disobedient  with  the 
most  dreadful  evils  which  can  afflict  humanity, 
with  poverty,  fell  diseases,  disastrous  and  disgrace 
ful  defeats,  subjugation,  dispersion,  oppression,  and 
overpowering  anguish  of  heart  (Deut.  xxviii.  15- 
68) :  but  in  not  a  single  instance  does  he  call  to  his 
aid  the  consolations  and  terrors  of  rewards  and 
punishments  hereafter.  Moreover,  even  in  a  more 
restricted  indefinite  sense,  such  as  might  be  in 
volved  in  the  transmigration  of  souls,  or  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  as  believed  in  by  Plato, 
and  apparently  by  Cicero,*  there  is  a  similar  absence 
of  any  assertion  by  Moses  of  a  resurrection  of  the 
dead.  This  fact  is  presented  to  Christians  in  a 
striking  manner  by  the  well-known  words  of  the 
Pentateuch  which  "are  quoted  by  Christ  in  argu 
ment  with  the  Sadducees  on  this  subject  (Ex.  iii. 
3, 16  ;  Mark  xii.  26,  27 ;  Matt.  xxii.  31,  32 ;  Luke 


SADDUCEES 


1087 


d  Many  other  points  of  difference,  ritual  and  juridical, 
are  mentioned  in  the  Gemaras.  See  Graetz,  (iii.  pp. 
514-18).  But  it  seems  unsafe  to  admit  the  uemaras 
as  an  authority  for  statements  respecting  the  Pharisees 
fcnd  Sadducees.  See,  as  to  the  date  of  those  works. 
l>«  article  PHARISEES. 

f  Hee  Ue  Senectute,  xxiii.  This  treatise  was  composed 
"ri:.imi  twc  years  before  Cicero's  death,  and  although  a 


xx.  37).  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  in  such  a  cast 
Christ  would  quote  to  his  powerful  adversaries  the 
most  cogent  text  in  the  Law ;  and  yet  the  text 
actually  quoted  does  not  do  more  than  suggest  an 
inference  on  this  great  doctrine.  Indeed  it  must 
be  deemed  probable  that  the  Sadducees,  as  they  did 
not  acknowledge  the  divine  authority  of  Christ, 
denied  even  the  logical  validity  of  the  inference, 
and  argued  that  the  expression  that  Jehovah  was 
the  God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the 
God  of  Jacob,  did  not  necessarily  mean  more  than 
that  Jehovah  had  been  the  God  of  those  patriarchs 
while  they  lived  on  earth,  without  conveying  a 
suggestion,  one  way  or  another,  as  to  whether  they 
were  or  were  not  still  living  elsewhere.  It  is  true 
that  in  other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  there  are 
individual  passages  which  express  a  belief  in  a 
resurrection,  such  as  in  Is.  xxvi.  19,  Dan.  xii.  2, 
Job  xix.  26,  and  in  some  of  the  Psalms ;  and  it  ma) 
at  first  sight  be  a  subject  of  surprise  that  the  Sad 
ducees  were  not  convinced  by  the  authority  of  those 
passages.  But  although  the  Sadducees  regarded  the 
books  which  contained  these  passages  as  sacred,  it 
is  more  than  doubtful  whether  any  of  the  Jew* 
regarded  them  as  sacred  in  precisely  the  same  sei^* 
as  the  written  Law.  There  is  a  danger  here  of  con 
founding  the  ideas  which  are  now  common  amongst 
Christians,  who  regard  the  whole  ceremonial  law 
as  abrogated,  with  the  ideas  of  Jews  after  the  time 
of  Ezra,  while  the  Temple  was  still  standing,  or 
even  with  the  ideas  of  orthodox  modern  Jews.  To 
the  Jews  Moses  was  and  is  a  colossal  Form,  pie- 
eminent  in  authority  above  all  subsequent  prophets. 
Not  only  did  his  series  of  signs  and  wonders  in 
Egypt  and  at  the  Red  Sea  transcend  in  magnitude 
and  brilliancy  those  of  any  other  holy  men  in  the 
Old  Testament,  not  only  was  he  the  centre  in 
Mount  Sinai  of  the  whole  legislation  of  the  Israel 
ites,  but  even  the  mode  by  which  divine  communi 
cations  were  made  to  him  from  Jehovah  was 
peculiar  to  him  alone.  While  others  were  ad 
dressed  in  visions  or  in  dreams,  the  Supreme  Being 
communicated  with  him  alone  mouth  to  mouth  and 
face  to  face  (Num.  xii.  6*  7,  8 ;  Ex.  xxxiii.  11  ; 
Deufc.  v.  4,  xxxiv.  10-12).  Hence  scarcely  any  Jew 
would  have  deemed  himself  bound  to  believe  in 
man's  resurrection,  unless  the  doctrine  had  been 
proclaimed  by  Moses ;  and  as  the  Sadducees  dis 
believed  the  transmission  of  any  Oral  Law  by  Moses, 
the  striking  absence  of  that  doctrine  from  the  written 
law  freed  them  from  the  necessity  of  accepting  the 
doctrine  as  divine.  It  is  not  meant  by  this  to  deny 
that  Jewish  believers  in  the  resurrection  had  their 
faith  strengthened  and  confirmed  by  allusions  to  a 
resurrection  in  scattered  passages  of  the  other  sacred 
writings;  but  then  these  passages  were  read  and 
interpreted  by  mearrs  of  the  central  light  which 
streamed  from  the  Oral  Law.  The  Sudducees,  how 
ever,  not  making  use  of  that  light,  would  have 
deemed  all  such  passages  inconclusive,  as  being, 
indeed,  the  utterances  of  holy  men,  yet  opposed  to 
other  texts  which  had  equal  claims  to  be  pro 
nounced  sacred,  but  which  could  scarcely  be  sup- 
dialogue,  may  perhaps  be  accepted  as  expressing  his  phi 
losophical  opinions  respecting  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
He  had  held,  however,  very  different  language  in  hie 
oration  pro  Cluentia,  cap.  Ixi.,  in  a  passage  whicfc  is  a 
striking  proof  of  the  popular  belief  at  Rome  in  his  time 
See  also  Sallust,  Ca&lin.  li. ;  Juvenal,  ii.  149 ;  and  Pilny 
the  Elder  vii.  56 


1088 


8ADDUOEE6 


{•osed  to  have  been  written  by  men  who  believed  m 
a  resurrection  (Is.  xxxviii.  18,  19;  Ps.  vi.  5,  xxx. 
9,  Ixxxviii.  10,  11,  12  ;  Eccles.  ix.  4-10).  The  real 
truth  seems  to  be  that,  as  in  Christianity  the  doc 
trine  of  the  resurrection  of  man  rests  on  belief  in 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  with  subsidiary  arguments 
drawn  from  texts  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  from 
man's  instincts,  aspirations,  and  moral  nature  ;  so, 
admitting  fully  the  same  subsidiary  arguments,  the 
doctrine  of  the  resurrection  among  Pharisees,  and 
the  successive  generations  of  orthodox  Jews,  and 
the  orthodox  Jews  now  living,  has  rested,  and  rests, 
on  a  belief  in  the  supposed  Oral  Law  of  Moses.  On 
this  point  tne  statement  of  the  learned  Grand-Rabbi 
to  whom  allusion  has  been  already  made  deserves 
particular  attention.  "  What  causes  most  sur 
prise  in  perusing  the  Pentateuch  is  the  silence 
which  it  seems  to  keep  respecting  the  most  funda 
mental  and  the  most  consoling  truths.  The  doc 
trines  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  of  retri 
bution  beyond  the  tomb,  are  able  powerfully  to 
fortify  man  against  the  violence  of  the  passions  and 
the  seductive  attractions  of  vice,  and  to  strengthen 
nis  steps  in  the  rugged  path  of  virtue :  of  them 
selves  they  smooth  all  the  difficulties  which  are 
raised,  all  the  objections  which  are  made,  against 
the  government  of  a  Divine  Providence,  and  account 
for  the  good  fortune  of  the  wicked  and  the  bad 
fortune  of  the  just.  But  man  searches  in  vain  for 
these  truths,  which  he  desires  so  ardently ;  he  in 
vain  devours  with  avidity  each  page  of  Holy  Writ ; 
he  does  not  find  either  them,  or  the  simple  doctrine 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  explicitly  announced. 
Nevertheless  truths  so  consoling  and  of  such  an 
elevated  order  cannot  have  been  passed  over  in 
silence,  and  certainly  God  has  not  relied  on  the 
mere  sagacity  of  the  human  mind  in  order  to  an 
nounce  them  only  implicitly.  He  has  transmitted 
them  verbally,  with  the  means  of  finding  them  in 
the  text.  A  supplementary  tradition  was  neces 
sary,  indispensable:  this  tradition  exists.  Moses 
received  the  Law  from  Sinai,  transmitted  it  to 
Joshua,  Joshua  to  the  elders,  the  elders  trans 
mitted  it  to  the  prophets,  and  the  prophets  to  the 
men  of  the  great  synagogue"  (Klein,  Le  Judaisme 
ou  la  Verite  sur  le  Talmud,  p.  15). 

In  connexion  with  the  disbelief  of  a  resurrection 
by  the  Sadducees,  it  is  proper  to  notice  the  state 
ment  (Acts  xxiii.  8)  that  they  likewise  denied  there 
xvas  "  angel  or  spirit."  A  perplexity  arises  as  to 
the  precise  sense  in  which  this  denial  is  to  be 
understood.  Angels  are  so  distinctly  mentioned  in 
the  Pentateuch  and  other  books  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  that  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  those  who 
acknowledged  the  Old  Testament  to  have  divine 
authority  could  deny  the  existence  of  angels  (see 
Gen.  xvi.  7,  xix.  1,  xxii.  11,  xxviii.  12 ;  Ex.  xxiii. 
20 ;  Num.  xxii.  23 ;  Judg.  xiii.  18  ;  2  Sam.  xxiv. 
16,  and  other  passages).  The  difficulty  is  increased 
by  the  fact  that  no  such  denial  of  angels  is  recorded 
of  the  Sadducees  either  by  Josephus,  or  in  the 
Mishua,  or,  it  is  said,  in  any  part  of  the  Talmudical 
writings.  The  two  principal  explanations  which 
nave  been  suggested  are,  either  that  the  Sadducees 
regarded  the  angels  of  the  Old  Testament  as  tran 
sitory  unsubstantial  representations  of  Jehovah,  or 
that  they  disbelieved,  not  the  angels  of  the  Old 
Testament,  but  merely  the  angelical  system  which 
had  become  developed  in  the  popular  belief  of 
the  Jews  after  their  return  from  the  Babylonian 
Captivity  (Herzfeld,  Geschichte  des  Yolkes  Israel, 


SADDUCEES 

iii.  364).  Either  of  these  explanations  may  pos 
sibly  be  correct;  and  the  first,  although  there 
are  numerous  texts  to  which  it  did  not  apply, 
would  have  received  some  countenance  from  pas 
sages  wherein  the  same  divine  appearance  which  at 
one  time  is  called  the  "  angel  of  Jehovah  "  is  after 
wards  called  simply  "  Jehovah  "  (see  the  instance 
pointed  out  by  Gesenius,  s.  v.  IjisPQ,  Gen.  xvi.  7, 

13,  xxii.  11,  12,  xxxi.  11,  16  ;  Ex.' iii.  2,  4;  Judg. 
vi.  14,  22,  xiii.  18,  22).  Perhaps,  however,  an 
other  suggestion  is  admissible.  It  appears  from 
Acts  xxiii.  9,  that  some  of  the  scribes  on  the  side 
of  the  Pharisees  suggested  the  possibility  of  a  spirit 
or  an  angel  having  spoken  to  St.  Paul,  on  the  veiy 
occasion  when  it  is  asserted  that  the  Sadducees 
denied  the  existence  of  angel  or  spirit.  Now  the 
Sadducees  may  have  disbelieved  in  the  occurrence 
of  any  such  phenomena  in  their  own  time,  although 
they  accepted  all  the  statements  respecting  angels 
in  the  Old  Testament ;  and  thus  the  key  to  the 
assertion  in  the  8th  verse  that  the  Sadducees  denied 
"angel  or  spirit"  would  be  found  exclusively  in 
the  9th  verse.  This  view  of  the  Sadducees  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  present  state  of  opinion  among 
Christians,  the  great  majority  of  whom  do  not  in 
any  way  deny  the  existence  of  angels  as  recorded 
in  the  Bible,  and  yet  they  certainly  disbelieve  thai 
angels  speak,  at  the  present  day,  even  to  the  most 
virtuous  and  pious  of  mankind. 

III.  The  opinions  of  the  Sadducees  respecting  the 
freedom  of  the  will,  and  the  way  in  which  those 
opinions  are  treated  by  Josephus  (Ant.  xiii.  5, 
§9),  have  been  noticed  elsewhere  [PHARISEES, 
p.  895],  and  an  explanation  has  been  there  sug- 
gested  of  the  prominence  given  to  a  difference  ii: 
this  respect  between  the  Sadducees  and  the  Phari 
sees.  It  may  be  here  added  that  possibly  the  great 
stress  laid  by  the  Sadducees  on  the  freedom  of  the 
will  may  have  had  some  connexion  with  their 
forming  such  a  large  portion  of  that  class 
from  which  criminal  judges  were  selected.  Jewish 
philosophers  in  their  study,  although  they  knew 
that  punishments  as  an  instrument  of  good  were 
unavoidable,  might  indulge  in  reflections  that 
man  seemed  to  be  the  creature  of  circumstances, 
and  might  regard  with  compassion  the  punishments 
inflicted  on  individuals  whom  a  wiser  moral  train 
ing  and  a  more  happily  balanced  nature  might  have 
made  useful  members  of  society.  Those  Jews  who 
were  almost  exclusively  religious  teachers  would 
naturally  insist  on  the  inability  of  man  to  do  any 
thing  good  if  God's  Holy  Spirit  were  taken  away 
from  him  (Ps.  li.  11,  12),  and  would  enlarge  on 
the  perils  which  surrounded  man  from  the  tempta 
tions  of  Satan  and  evil  angels  or  spirits  (1  Chr.  xxL 
1 ;  Tob.  iii.  17).  But  it  is  likely  that  the  ten 
dencies  of  the  judicial  class  would  be  more  practical 
and  direct,  and  more  strictly  in  accordance  with 
the  ideas  of  the  Levitical  prophet  Ezekiel  (xxxiii. 
11-19)  in  a  well-known  passage  in  which  he  gives 
the  responsibility  of  bad  actions,  and  seems  to  at 
tribute  the  power  of  performing  good  actions,  exclu 
sively  to  the  individual  agent.  Hence  the  sentiment 
of  the  lines — 

"  Our  acts  our  Angels  are,  or  good  or  ill, 
Our  fatal  shadows  that  walk  by  us  still," 

would  express  that  portion  of  truth  on  which  the 
Sadducees,  in  inflicting  punishments,  would  dwell 
with  most  emphasis :  and  as,  in  some  sense,  they 
disbelieved  in  angels,  these  lines  have  r.  ueoulini 


SADDUCEES 

claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  correct  exponent  of 
Sadducean  thought.'  And  yet  perhaps,  if  writings 
were  extant  in  which  the  Sadducees  explained  their 
own  ideas,  we  might  find  that  they  reconciled  these 
principles,  as  we  may  be  certain  that  Ezekiel  did, 
with  other  passages  apparently  of  a  different  import 
m  the  Old  Testament,  and  that  the  line  of  de 
marcation  between  them  and  the  Pharisees  was  not, 
in  theory,  so  very  sharply  marked  as  the  account 
of  Josephus  would  lead  us  to  suppose. 

I  V.  Some  of  the  early  Christian  writers,  such  as 
Epiphanius  (Ilaeres.  xiv.),  Origen,  and  Jerome  (in 
their  respective  Commentaries  on  Matt.  xxii.  31, 
32,  33)  attribute  to  the  Sadducees  the  rejection  of 
all  the  Sacred  Scriptures  except  the  Pentateuch. 
Such  rejection,  if  true,  would  undoubtedly  constitute 
a  most  important  additional  difference  between  the 
Sadducees  and  Pharisees.  The  statement  of  these 
Christian  writers  is,  however,  now  generally  ad 
mitted  to  have  been  founded  on  a  misconception  of 
the  truth,  and  probably  to  have  arisen  from  a  con 
fusion  of  the  Sadducees  with  the  Samaritans.  See 
Lightfoot's  florae  ffebraicae  on  Matt.  iii.  7 ; 
Herzfeld's  Geschichte  des  Volkes  Israel,  ii.  363. 
Josephus  is  wholly  silent  as  to  an  antagonism  on 
this  point  between  the  Sadducees  and  the  Pha 
risees  ;  and  it  is  absolutely  inconceivable  that  on 
the  three  several  occasions  when  he  introduces 
an  account  of  the  opinions  of  the  two  sects,  he 
should  have  been  silent  respecting  such  an  antagon 
ism,  if  it  had  really  existed  (Ant.  xiii.  5,  §9,  xviii. 
1,  §3 ;  B.  J.  ii.  8,  §14).  Again,  the  existence  of 
such  a  momentous  antagonism  would  be  incompa 
tible  with  the  manner  in  which  Josephus  speaks  of 
John  Hyrcanus,  who  was  high-priest  and  king 
of  Judaea  thirty-one  years,  and  who  nevertheless, 
having  been  previously  a  Pharisee,  became  a  Sad- 
ducee  towards  the  close  of  his  life.  This  Hyrcanus, 
who  died  about  106  B.C.,  had  been  so  inveterately 
hostile  to  the  Samaritans,  that  when  about  three 
years  before  his  death,  he  took  their  city  Samaria, 
he  razed  it  to  the  ground ;  and  he  is  represented  to 
have  dug  cavernsSn  various  parts  of  the  soil  in 
order  to  sink  the  surface  to  a  level  or  slope,  and 
then  to  have  diverted  streams  of  water  over  it,  in 
order  to  efface  marks  of  such  a  city  having  ever 
existed.  If  the  Sadducees  had  come  so  near  to  the 
Samaritans  as  to  reject  the  divine  authority  of  all 
the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  except  the  Pen 
tateuch,  it  is  very  unlikely  that  Josephus,  after 
mentioning  the  death  of  Hyrcanus,  should  have 
f-poken  of  him  as  he  does  in  the  following  manner: — 
"  He  was  esteemed  by  God  worthy  of  three  of  the 
greatest  privileges,  the  government  of  the  nation, 
the  dignity  of  the  high  priesthood,  and  prophecy. 
For  God  was  with  him,  and  enabled  him  to  know 
future  events."  Indeed,  it  may  be  inferred  from 
this  passage  that  Josephus  did  not  even  deem  it  a 
matter  of  vital  importance  whether  a  high-priest 
was  a  Sadducee  or  a  Pharisee — a  latitude  of  tolera 
tion  which  we  may  be  confident  he  would  not  have 
indulged  in,  if  the  divine  authority  of  all  the  books 
of  the  Old  Testament,  except  the  Pentateuch,  had 
been  at  stake.  What  probably  had  more  influence 
than  anything  else  in  occasioning  this  misconception 
respecting  the  Sadducees,  was  the  circumstance  that 


SADDUCEES 


108K 


«  The  preceding  lines  would  be  equally  applicable,  if, 
as  is  not  improbable,  the  Sadducees  likewise  rejected  the 
Chaldaean  belief  in  astrology,  so  common  among  the  Jews 
and  Christians  of  the  Middle  Ages  :— 

VOL.  1IT. 


in  arguing  with  them  on  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life, 
Christ  quoted  from  the  Pentateuch  only,  although 
there  are  stronger  texts  in  favour  of  the  doctrine  in 
some  other  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  But  pro 
bable  reasons  have  been  already  assigned  why  Christ 
in  arguing  on  this  subject  with  the  Sadducees  re 
ferred  only  to  the  supposed  opinions  oi  Moses  rather 
than  to  isolated  passages  extracted  from  the  produc 
tions  of  any  other  sacred  writer. 

V.  In  conclusion,  it  may  be  proper  to  notice  a 
fact,  which,  while  it  accounts  for  misconceptions  of 
early  Christian  writers  respecting  the  Sadducees,  is 
on  other  grounds  well  worthy  to  arrest  the  atten 
tion.  This  fact  is  the  rapid  disappearance  of  the 
Sadducees  from  history  after  the  first  century,  and 
the  subsequent  predominance  among  the  Jews  of 
the  opinions  of  the  Pharisees.  Two  circumstances, 
indirectly,  but  powerfully,  contributed  to  produce 
this  result:  1st.  The  state  of  the  Jews  after  the 
capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus ;  and  2ndly.  The 
growth  of  the  Christian  religion.  As  to  the  first 
point  it  is  difficult  to  over-ostimate  the  consterna 
tion  and  dismay  which  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
occasioned  in  the  minds  of  sincerely  religious  Jews. 
Their  holy  city  was  in  ruins ;  their  holy  and  beau 
tiful  Temple,  the  centre  of  their  worship  and  their 
love,  had  been  ruthlessly  burnt  to  the  ground,  and 
not  one  stone  of  it  was  left  upon  another:  their 
magnificent  hopes,  either  of  an  ideal  king  who  was 
to  restore  the  empire  of  David,  or  of  a  Son  of  Man 
who  was  to  appear  to  them  in  the  clouds  of  heaven , 
seemed  tp  them  for  a  while  like  empty  dreams  ;  and 
the  whole  visible  world  was,  to  their  imagination, 
black  with  desolation  and  despair.  In  this  their  hour 
of  darkness  and  anguish,  they  naturally  turned  to 
the  consolations  and  hopes  of  a  future  state,  and  thfc 
doctrine  of  the  Sadducees  that  there  was  nothing 
beyond  the  present  life,  would  have  appeared  to 
them  cold,  heartless,  and  hateful. — Again,  while  they 
were  sunk  in  the  lowest  depths  of  depression,  a  new 
religion  which  they  despised  as  a  heresy  and  a  super 
stition,  of  which  one  of  their  own  nation  was  the 
object,  and  another  the  unriva]led  missionary  to  the 
heathen,  was  gradually  making  its  way  among  the 
subjects  of  their  detested  conquerors,  the  Romans. 
One  of  the  causes  of  its  success  was  undoubtedly  the 
vivid  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  a  con 
sequent  resurrection  of  all  mankind,  which  was 
accepted  by  its  heathen  converts  with  a  passionate 
earnestness,  of  which  those  who  at  the  present  day 
are  familiar  from  infancy  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead  can  form  only  a  faint  idea. 
To  attempt  to  check  the  progress  of  this  new  re 
ligion  among  the  Jews  by  an  appeal  to  the  tem 
porary  rewards  and  punishments  of  the  Pentateuch, 
would  have  been  as  idle  as  an  endeavour  to 
check  an  explosive  power  by  ordinary  mechanical 
restraints.  Consciously,  therefore,  or  unconsciously, 
many  circumstances  combined  to  induce  the  Jews, 
who  wero  iiot  Pharisees,  but  who  resisted  the 
new  heresy,  to  rally  round  the  standard  of  the 
Oral  Law,  and  to  assert  that  their  holy  legislator, 
Moses,  had  transmitted  to  his  faithful  people  by 
word  of  mouth,  although  not  in  writing,  the  reve 
lation  of  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punishments, 
A  great  belief  was  thus  built  up  on  a  great  fiction 


"  Man  is  his  own  Star ;  and  the  soul  that  can 
Render  an  honest  and  a  perfect  man, 
Commands  all  light,  all  influence,  all  fate : 
Nothing  to  him  falls  early,  or  too  late." 

FLETCHER'S  Lines  "  Upon  an  Honest  Man's  Fortunt.* 
4  A 


1090 


SADOC 


early  teaco-ng  and  custom  supplied  the  place  of  evi 
dence  ;  faith  in  an  imaginary  fact  produced  results  as 
striking  as  could  have  flowed  from  the  fact  itself; 
and  the  doctrine  of  a  Mosaic  Oral  Law,  enshrining 
convictions  and  hopes  deeply  rooted  in  the  human 
heart,  has  triumphed  for  nearly  1800  years  in 
the  ideas  of  the  Jewish  people.  This  doctrine,  the 
pledge  of  eternal  life  to  them,  as  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  to  Christians,  is  still  maintained  by  the 
majority  of  our  Jewish  contemporaries ;  and  it  will 
probably  continue  to  be  the  creed  of  millions  long 
after  the  present  generation  of  mankind  has  passed 
away  from  the  earth.*  [E.  T.] 

SA'DOC  (Sadoch\     1.  ZADOK  the  ancestor  of 
Ezra  (2  Esd.  i.  1 ;  comp.  Ezr.  vii.  2). 

2.  (2a8caic  :  Sadoc.)  A  descendant  of  Zerubbabel 
in  the  genealogy  of  Jesus  Christ  (Matt.  i.  14). 

SAFFRON"  (D3"]3,  carcom :  Kp6>tos :  crocus) 
is  mentioned  only  in  Cant.  iv.  14  with  other  odorous 
substances,  such  as  spikenard,  calamus,  cinnamon, 
&c. ;  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  "  saffron" 
is  th°  correct  rendering  of  the  Hebrew  word ;  the 
Ara^c  Kurkum  is  similar  to  the  Hebrew,  and  de 
notes  the  Crocus  sativus,  or  "  saffron  crocus." 
Saffron  has  from  the  earliest  times  been  in  high 
esteem  as  a  perfume :  "  it  was  used,"  says  Rosen- 
miiller  (Bib.  Bot.  p.  138),  "  for  the  same  purposes 
as  the  modern  pot-pourri."  Saffron  was  also  used 
in  seasoning  dishes  (Apicius,  p.  270),  it  entered 
into  the  composition  of  many  spirituous  extracts 
which  retained  the  scent  (see  Beckmann's  Hist,  of  In 
vent,  i.  p.  175,  where  the  whole  subject  is  very  fully 
discussed).  The  part  of  the  plant  which  was  used 
was  the  stigma,  which  was  pulled  out  of  the  flower 
•and  then  dried.  Dr.  Royle  says,  that  "  some 
times  the  stigmas  are  prepared  by  being  submitted 
to  pressure,  and  thus  made  into  cake  saffron,  a 
form  in  which  it  is  still  imported  from  Persia  into 
India."  Hasselquist  (Trav.  p.  36)  states  that  in 
certain  places,  as  around  Magnesia,  large  quantities 
of  saffron  are  gathered  and  exported  to  different 
places  in  Asia  and  Europe.  Kitto  (Phys.  Hist,  of 
Palest,  p.  321)  says  that  the  Safflower  (Cartha- 
mus  tinctorius\  a  very  different  plant  from  the 
crocus,  is  cultivated  in  Syria  for  the  sake  of  the 
flowers  which  are  used  in  dyeing,  but  the  Karkom 
no  doubt  denotes  the  Crocus  sativus.  The  word 
saffron  is  derived  from  the  Arabic  Zafran, "  yellow." 
This  plant  gives  its  name  to  Saffron- Walden,  in 
Essex,  where  it  is  largely  cultivated :  it  belongs  to 
the  Natural  Order  Iridaceae.  [W.  H.] 

SA'LA  (SaAcJ :  Sale}.  SALAH,  or  SHELAH,  the 
father  of  Eber  (Luke  iii.  35). 

SA'LAH(rfe>:  5aAc£:  Sale}.  The  son  of  Ar- 
phaxad  and  father  of  Eber  (Gen.  x.  24,  xi.  12-14; 
Luke  iii.  35).  The  name  is  significant  of  extension, 
the  cognate  verb  being  applied  to  the  spreading  out 
of  the  roots  and  branches  of  trees  (Jer.  xvii.  8  ; 
Ez.  xvii.  6).  It  thus  seems  to  imply  the  historical 
fact  of  the  gradual  extension  of  a  branch  of  the 
Semitic  race  from  its  original  seat  in  Northern 
Assyria  towards  the  river  Euphrates.  A  place  with 
a  similar  name  in  Northern  Mesopotamia  is  noticed 
by  Syrian  writers  (Knobel,  in  Gen.  xi.) ;  but  we 


SALAMIS 

can  hardly  assume  its  identity  with  the  Salah  of 
the  Bible.  Ewald  (Gesch.  i.  354)  and  Von  Bohleu 
(Introd.  to  Gen.  ii.  205)  regard  the  name  aa 
partly  fictitious,  the  former  explaining  it  as  a  son 
or  offspring,  the  latter  as  the  father  of  a  race. 
That  the  name  is  significant  does  not  prove  it 
fictitious,  and  the  conclusions  drawn  by  these  writers 
are  unwarranted.  [W.  L.  B.] 

SAL'AMIS  (2o\a/ife :  Salamis),  a  city  at  the 
east  end  of  the  island  of  Cyprus,  and  the  first  place 
visited  by  Paul  and  Barnabas,  on  the  first  missionary 
journey,  after  leaving  the  mainland  at  Seleucia, 
Two  reasons  why  they  took  this  course  obviously 
suggest  themselves,  viz.  the  fact  that  Cyprus  (and 
probably  Salamis)  was  tne-native-place  of  Barnabas, 
and  the  geographical  proximity  of  this  end  of  the 
island  to  Antioch.  But  a  further  reason  is  indi 
cated  by  a  circumstance  in  the  narrative  (Acts  xiii. 
5).  Here  alone,  among  all  the  Greek  cities  visited 
by  St.  Paul,  we  read  expressly  of  "  synagogues  in 
the  plural.  Hence  we  conclude  that  there  were  many 
Jews  in  Cyprus.  And  this  is  in  harmony  with 
what  we  read  elsewhere.  To  say  nothing  of  pos 
sible  mercantile  relations  in  very  early  times  [CHIT- 
TIM  ;  CYPRUS],  Jewish  residents  in  the  island 
are  mentioned  during  the  period  when  the  Seleu- 
cidae  reigned  at  Antioch  (1  Mace.  xv.  23).  In  the 
reign  of  Augustus  the  Cyprian  copper-mines  were 
farmed  to  Herod  the  Great  (Joseph.  Ant.  xvi.  4, 
§5),  and  this  would  probably  attract  many  Hebrew 
families :  to  which  we  may  add  evidence  to  the 
same  effect  from  Philo  (Legat.  ad  Caium)  at  the 
very  time  of  St.  Paul's  journey.  And  again  at  a 
later  period,  in  the  reigns  of  Trajan  and  Hadrian, 
we  are  informed  of  dreadful  tumults  here,  caused 
by  a  vast  multitude  of  Jews,  in  the  course  of  which 
"the  whole  populous  city  of  Salamis  became  a 
desert "  (Milman's  Hist,  of  the  Jews,  iii.  Ill,  11 2). 
We  may  well  believe  that  from  the  Jews  of  Salamis 
came  some  of  those  early  Cypriote  Christians,  who 
are  so  prominently  mentioned  in  the  account  of  the 
first  spreading  of  the  Gospel  beyond  Palestine  (Acts 
xi.  19,  20),  even  before  the  first  missionary  expe 
dition.  Mnason  (xxi.  16)  might  be  one  of  them. 
Nor  ought  Mark  to  be  forgotten  here.  He  was  at 
Salamis  with  Paul,  and  his  own  kinsman  Barnabas; 
and  again  he  was  there  with  the  same  kinsman  after 
the  misunderstanding  with  St.  Paul  and  the  separa 
tion  (xv.  39). 

Salamis  was  not  far  from  the  modern  Fama- 
gousta.  It  was  situated  near  a  river  called  the 
Pediaeus,  on  low  ground,  which  is  in  fact  a  con 
tinuation  of  the  plain  running  up  into  the  interior 
towards  the  place  where  Nicosia,  the  present  capital 
of  Cyprus,  stands.  We  must  notice  in  regard  to 
Salamis  that  its  harbour  is  spoken  of  by  Greek 
writers  as  very  good ;  and  that  one  of  the  ancient 
tables  lays  down  a  road  between  this  city  and 
PAPHOS,  the  next  place  which  Paul  and  Barnabas 
visited  on  their  journey.  Salamis  again  has  rather 
an  eminent  position  in  subsequent  Christian  history. 
Constantine  or  his  successor  rebuilt  it,  and  called  it 
Constantia  ("Salamis,  quae  nunc  Constantia  di- 
citur,"  Hieronym.  Philern.),  and,  while  it  had  this 
name,  Epiphanius  was  one  of  its  bishops. 


e  In  Germany  and  elsewhere,  some  of  the  most  learned 
Jews  disbelieve  in  a  Mosaic  Oral  Law ;  and  Judaism  seems 
ripe  to  rater  on  a  new  phase.  Based  on  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  but  avoiding  the  mistakes  of  the  Karaites,  it  might 
itill  IUTC  a  great  future  ;  but  whether  it  o«uld  last 


another  1800  years  with  the  belief  in  a  future  life,  as  a 
revealed  doctrine,  depending  not  on  a  supposed  reve 
lation  by  Moses,  tut  solely  on  scattered  texts  in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  Is  an  interesting  s  ibject  fur  dpec- 
ttlation. 


SALASADAI 

Of  the  travellers  who  have  visited  and  described 
Salamis,  we  must  particularly  mention  Pococke 
(Desc.  of  the  East,  ii.  214)  and  Ross  (Reisen  nach 
Kos,  ffalikurnassos,  Rhodos,  und  Cypem,  118-125). 
These  travellers  notice,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Srtlamis,  a  village  named  St.  Sergius,  which  is 
doubtless  a  reminiscence  of  Sergius  Paulus,  and  a 
large  Byzantine  church  bearing  the  name  of  St. 
Barnabas,  and  associated  with  a  legend  concerning 
the  discovery  of  his  relics.  The  legend  will  be 
found  in  Cedrenus  (i.  618,  ed.  Bonn).  [BARNABAS  ; 
SERGIUS  PAULUS.]  [J.  S.  H.] 

SALASADA'I  (SoAewrc'oVi,  'Sapaa-aSat,  2oupi- 
craSe),  a  variation  for  Surisadai  (SoupttraSa't,  Num. 
I.  6Nin  Jud.  viii.  1.  [ZURISHADDAI.]  [B.  F.  W.] 

SALA'THIEL  (^nW :  SaAafl^A :  Sa 
lathiel:  "I  have  asked  God" a),  son  of  Jechouias 
king  of  Judah,  and  father  of  Zorobabel,  according 
to  Matt.  i.  12 ;  but  son  of  Neri,  and  father  of 
Zorobabel,  according  to  Luke  iii.  27  ;  while  the 
genealogy  in  1  Chr.  iii.  17-19,  leaves  it  doubtful 
whether  he  is  the  son  of  Assir  or  Jechonias,  and 
makes  Zorobabel  his  nephew.  [ZERUBBABEL.] 
Upon  the  incontrovertible  principle  that  no  gene 
alogy  would  assign  to  the  true  son  and  heir  of  a 
king  any  inferior  and  private  parentage,  whereas, 
on  the  contrary,  the  son  of  a  private  person  would 
naturally  be  placed  in  the  royal  pedigree  on  his 
becoming  the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne ;  we  may 
assert,  with  the  utmost  confidence,  that  St.  Luke 
gives  us  the  true  state  of  the  case,  when  he  infonns 
us  that  Salathiel  was  the  son  of  Neri,  and  a  de 
scendant  of  Nathan  the  son  of  David.b  And  from 
his  insertion  in  the  royal  pedigree,  both  in  1  Chr. 
and  St.  Matthew's  gospel,  after  the  childless 
Jechonias,0  we  infer,  with  no  less  confidence,  that, 
on  the  failure  of  Solomon's  line,  he  was  the  next 
heir  to  the  throne  of  David.  The  appearance  of 
Salathiel  in  the  two  pedigrees,  though  one  deduces 
the  descent  from  Solomon  and  the  other  from 
Nathan,  is  thus  perfectly  simple,  and,  indeed,  neces 
sary  ;  whereas  the  notion  of  Salathiel  being  called 
Ned's  son,  as  Yardley  and  others  have  thought, 
because  he  married  Neri's  daughter,  is  palpably 
absurd  on  the  supposition  of  his  being  the  son  of 
Jechonias.  On  this  last  principle  you  might  have 
not  two  but  about  a  million  different  pedigrees 
between  Jechonias  and  Christ  ;•*  and  yet  you  have 
no  rational  account,  why  there  should  actually  be 
more  than  one.  It  may  therefore  be  considered  as 
certain,  that  Salathiel  was  the  son  of  Neri,  and  the 
heir  of  Jechoniah.  The  question  whether  he  was 
the  father  of  Zerubbabel  will  be  considered  under 
that  article.*  Besides  the  passages  already  cited, 
Salathiel  occurs  in  1  Esdr.  v.  5,  48.  56,  vi.  2 ; 
2  Esdr.  v.  16. 

As  regards  the  orthography  of  the  name,  it  has, 


SALCHAH 


1091 


a  Possibly  with  an  allusion  to  1  Sam.  i.  20,  27,  28.  See 
Brough  ton's  Our  Lord's  Family. 

b  It  is  worth  noting  that  Josephus  speaks  of  Zorobabel 
as  "  the  son  of  rfalathiel,  of  the  posterity  of  David,  and  of 
the  tribe  of  Judah  "  (A.  J.  xi.  3,  $10).  Had  he  believed  him 
to  be  the  son  of  Jeconiah,  of  whom  he  had  spoken  (x.  11,  $2), 
he  could  hardly  have  failed  to  say  so.  Comp.  x.  1,  $1. 

c  "  Of  Jechonias  God  sware  that  he  should  die  leaving 
no  child  behind  him ;  wherefore  it  were  flat  atheism  to 
prate  that  he  naturally  became  father  to  Salathiel.  Though 
St.  Luke  had  never  left  us  Salathlel's  family  up  to  Nathan, 
whole  brother  to  Solomon,  to  show  that  Salathiel  was  of 
auothnr  family,  God's  oath  should  make  us  believe  that, 
without  any  further  record"  (Bnroghton,  ut  supr.). 


as  noted  above,  two  forms  in  Hebiew.  The  con 
tracted  form  is  peculiar  to  Haggai,  who  uses  it 
three  times  out  of  five ;  while  in  the  first  and  last 
verse  of  his  prophecy  he  uses  the  full  form,  which 
is  also  found  in  Ezr.  iii.  2  ;  Neh.  xii.  1.  The  LXX. 
everywhere  have  SaAa0«ftA,  while  the  A.  V.  has 
(probably  with  an  eye  to  correspondence  with  Matt, 
and  Luke)  Salathiel  in  1  Chr.  iii.  17.  but  everywhere, 
else  in  the  0.  T.  SHEALTIEL.  [GENEALOGY  OF 
JESUS  CHRIST  ;  JEHOIACHIN.]  [A.  C.  H.] 

SAL'CAH'  (PO^D  :  Sexx**.  *AX«>  2eA<{; 
Alex.  EAx«,  A<reAx«,  2eAx« :  Salecha,  Salacha). 
A  city  named  in  the  early  records  of  Israel  as  the 
extreme  limit  of  Bashan  (Deut.  iii.  10 ;  Josh.  xiii. 
1 1)  and  of  the  tribe  of  Gad  (1  Chr.  v.  11).  On 
another  occasion  the  name  seems  to  denote  a  district 
rather  than  a  town  (Josh.  xii.  5).  By  Eusebius 
and  Jerome  it  is  merely  mentioned,  apparently 
without,  their  having  had  any  real  knowledge  of  it. 

It  is  doubtless  identical  with  the  town  of  Sulkhad, 
which  stands  at  the  southern  extremity  of  the  Jebel 
Hauran,  twenty  miles  S.  of  Kunawat  (the  ancient 
Kenath),  which  was  the  southern  outpost  of  the 
Leja,  the  Argob  of  the  Bible.  Sulkhad  is  named 
by  both  the  Christian  and  Mahomedan  historians  of 
the  middle  ages  (Will,  of  Tyre,  xvi.  8,  "Selcath;" 
Abulfeda,  in  Schultens'  Index  geogr.  "  Sarchad"). 
It  was  visited  by  Burckhardt  (Syria,  Nov.  22, 
1810),  Seetzen  and  others,  and  more  recently  by 
Porter,  who  describes  it  at  some  length  (Five  Years, 
ii.  176-116).  Its  identification  with  Salcah  appears 
to  be  due  to  Gesenius  'Burckhardt's  Reisen,  507). 

Immediately  below  Sulkhad  commences  the  plain 
of  the  great  Euphrates  desert,  which  appears  to 
stretch  with  hardly  an  undulation  from  here  to 
Busra  on  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  town  is  of  consi 
derable  size,  two  to  three  miles  in  circumference, 
surrounding  a  castle  on  a  lofty  isolated  hill,  which 
rises  300  or  400  feet  above  the  rest  of  the  place 
(Porter,  178,  179).  One  of  the  gateways  of  the 
castle  bears  an  inscription  containing  the  date  of 
A.D.  246  (180).  A  still  earlier  date,  viz.  A.n.  196 
(Septimius  Severus),  is  found  on  a  grave-stone 
(185).  Other  scanty  particulars  of  its  later  history 
will  be  found  in  Porter.  The  hill  on  which  the 
castle  stands  was  probably  at  one  time  a  crater,  and 
its  sides  are  still  covered  with  volcanic  cinder  and 
blocks  of  lava.  [G.] 

SAL'CHAH  (n^>D :    'EAxa:    Selcha).    The 

form  in  which  the  name,  elsewhere  more  accu 
rately  given  SALCAH,  appears  in  Deut.  iii.  10 

only.  The  Targum  Pseudojon.  gives  it  fcOp'l'PD 
*.  e.  Selucia ;  though  which  Seleucia  they  can  have 
supposed  was  here  intended  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine.  [G.] 


d  See  a  curious  calculation  in  Blackstone's  Comment. 
ii.  203,  that  in  the  20th  degree  of  ancestry  every  man  has 
above  a  million  of  ancestors,  and  in  the  40th  upwards  of  a 
million  millions. 

e  The  theory  of  two  Salathiels,  of  whom  each  had  a 
son  called  Zerubbabel,  though  adopted  by  Hottinger  and 
J.  G.  Vossius,  is  scarcely  worth  mentioning,  except  as  a 
curiosity. 

t  One  of  the  few  instances  of  our  translator?  having 
represented  the  Hebrew  Caph  by  C.  Their  common  prac 
tice  is  to  use  ch  for  it— as  indeed  they  havo  done  on  one 
occurrence  of  this  very  name.  [SALCHAH  ;  and  compare 
CALEB  ;  CAPHTOR  ;  CARMEL  ;  COZBI  ;  CUSH,  &c.] 

4  A  2 


1 09  2  SALEM 

SA'LEM  (tb&,  i.  e.  Shalem  :  2aA^/x :  Salem}. 
I.  The  place  of  which  Melchizedek  was  king  (Gen. 
riv.  18  ;  Heb.  vii.  1,  2).  No  satisfactory  identifica 
tion  of  it  is  perhaps  possible.  The  indications  of  the 
narrative  are  not  sufficient  to  give  any  clue  to  its 
position.  It  is  not  even  safe  to  infer,  as  some  have 
'lone,8  that  it  lay  between  Damascus  and  Sodom  ; 
&r  though  it  is  said  that  the  king  of  Sodom— who 
hail  probably  regained  his  own  city  after  the  retreat 
.if  the  Assyrians — went  out  to  meet  (flN")!??)  b 
Abram,  yet  it  is  also  distinctly  stated  that  this'  was 
after  Abram  had  returned  (U-18?  ^PIK)  from  the 
slaughter  of  the  kings.  Indeed,  it  is  not  certain 
that  there  is  any  connexion  of  time  or  place  between 
Abram's  encounter  with  the  king  of  Sodom  and  the 
appearance  of  Melchizedek.  Nor,  supposing  this 
last  doubt  to  be  dispelled,  is  any  clue  afforded  by  the 
mention  of  the  Valley  of  Shaveh,  since  the  situation 
even  of  that  is  more  than  uncertain. 

Dr.  Wolff — no  mean  authority  on  Oriental  ques 
tions — in  a  striking  passage  in  his  last  work,  implies 
that  Salem  was — what  the  author  of  the  Epistle  of 
the  Hebrews  understood  it  to  be — a  title,  not  the 
name  of  a  place.  "  Melchizedek  of  old  ...  had  a 
royal  title;  he  was  'King  of  Righteousness/  in 
Hebrew  Melchi-zedek.  And  he  was  also  '  King  of 
Peace,'  Melek-Salem.  And  when  Abraham  came 
to  his  tent  he  came  forth  with  bread  and  wine,  and 
was  called '  the  Priest  of  the  Highest,'  and  Abraham 
gave  him  a  portion  of  his  spoil.  And  just  so  Wolff's 
friend  in  the  desert  of  Meru  in  the  kingdom  of 
Khiva  .  .  .  whose  name  is  Abd-er-Rahrnan,  which 
means  'Slave  of  the  merciful  God'  .  .  .  has  also 
a  royal  title.  He  is  called  Shahe-Adaalat,  '  King 
of  Righteousness ' — the  same  as  Melchizedek  in 
Hebrew.  And  when  he  makes  peace  between  kings 
he  bears  the  title,  Shahe  Soolkh,  <  King  of  Peace ' — 
in  Hebrew  Melek-Salem!' 

To  revert,  however,  to  the  topographical  ques 
tion  ;  two  main  opinions  have  been  current  from 
the  earliest  ages  of  interpretation.  1.  That  of  the 
Jewish  commentators,  who — from  Onkelos(  Targum) 
and  Josephus  (B.  J.  vi.  10 ;  Ant.  i.  10,  §2,  vii.  3, 
§2)  to  Kalisch  (Comm.  on  Gen.  p.  360)— with  one 
voice  affirm  that  Salem  is  Jerusalem,  on  the  ground 
that  Jerusalem  is  so  called  in  Ps.  Ixxvi.  2,  the 
Psalmist,  after  the  manner  of  poets,  or  from  some 
exigency  of  his  poem,  making  use  of  the  archaic 
name  in  preference  to  that  in  common  use.  This 
is  quite  feasible  ;  but  it  is  no  argument  for  the 
identity  of  Jerusalem  with  the  Salem  of  Melchi 
zedek.  See  this  well  put  by  Reland  (Pal.  833). 
The  Christians  of  the  4th  century  held  the  same 
belief  with  the  Jews,  as  is  evident  from  an  expres 
sion  of  Jerome  ("nostri  omnes,"  Ep.  ad  Evan- 
gelum,  §7). 

2.  Jerome  himself,  however,  is  not  of  the  same 
opinion.  He  states  (Ep.  ad  Evang.  §7)  without 
hesitation,  though  apparently  (as  just  observed) 
alone  in  his  belief,  that  the  Salem  of  Melchizedek 
was  not  Jerusalem,  but  a  town  near  Scythopoiis, 
which  in  his  day  was  still  called  Salem,  and  where 
the  vast  ruins  of  the  palace  of  Melchizedek  were 

»  I  or  Instance,  Rochart,Phdleg,  ii. ;  4  Ewald,  Gesch.  i.  410. 

b  The  force  of  this  word  is  occurrere  in  obviam  (Gese- 
unis,  Thes.  1233  6). 

c  Professor  Stanley  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  call 
attention  to  this  (S.  &  P.  249).  See  Eupolemi  Fragmenta, 
anctore  G.  A.  Kuhlmey  (Berlin,  1840) ;  one  of  those  excel 
lent  monographs  which  we  owe  to  the  German  academical 
custom  of  demanding  a  treatise  at  each  step  in  honours. 


SALEM 

still  to  ie  seer.  Elsewhere  (Onow.  "  Salem  <>N  v 
locates  it  more  precisely  at  eight  Roman  miles  fioty 
Scythopc.ts,  and  gives  its  then  name  as  Saluniiac. 
Further,  he  identifies  this  Salem  with  the  Salim 
(JaAefyt)  of  St.  John  the  Baptist.  That  a  Salem 
existed  where  St.  Jerome  thus  places  it  there  need 
be  no  doubt.  Indeed,  the  name  has  been  recovered 
at  the  identical  distance  below  Beisan  by  Mr.  Van 
de  Velde,  at  a  spot  otherwise  suitable  for  Aenon. 
But  that  this  Salem,  Salim,  or  Salumias  was  the 
Salem  of  Melchizedek,  is  as  uncertain  as  that  Jeru 
salem  was  so.  The  ruins  were  probably  as  much 
the  ruins  of  Melchizedek's  palace  as  the  remains  at 
Ramet  el-Khalil,  three  miles  north  of  Hebron,  are 
those  of  "  Abraham's  house."  Nor  is  the  decision 
assisted  by  a  consideration  of  Abram's  homeward 
route.  He  probably  brought  back  his  party  by  the 
road  along  the  Ghor  as  far  as  Jericho,  and  then  turn 
ing  to  the  right  ascended  to  the  upper  level  of  the 
country  in  the  direction  of  Mamre ;  but  whether  he 
crossed  the  Jordan  at  the  Jisr  Benat  Yakub  above 
the  Lake  of  Gennesaret,  or  at  the  Jisr  Mejamia 
below  it,  he  would  equally  pass  by  both  Scythopoiis 
and  Jerusalem.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  con 
fessed  that  the  distance  of  Salem  (at  least  eighty 
miles  from  the  probable  position  of  Sodom)  makes  it 
difficult  to  suppose  that  the  king  of  Sodom  can  have 
advanced  so  far  to  meet  Abram,  adds  its  weight  to 
the  statement  that  the  meeting  took  place  after 
Abram  had  returned — not  during  his  return — and 
is  thus  so  far  in  favour  of  Salem  being  Jerusalem. 

3.  Professor  Ewald   (Geschichte,  i.   410  note) 
pronounces  that  Salem  is  a  town  on  the  further 
side  of  Jordan,   on  the  road   from   Damascus  to 
Sodom,  quoting  at  the  same  time  John  iii.  23,  but 
the  writer  has  in  vain  endeavoured  to  discover  any 
authority  for  this,  or  any  notice  of  the  existence  of 
the  name  in   that   direction  either   in  former  01 
reces*  times. 

4.  A  tradition  given  by  Eupolemus,  a  writer 
known  only  through  fragments  preserved  in  the 
Praeparatio  Evangelica  of  Eusebius  (ix.  17),  differs 
in  some  important  points  from  the  Biblical  account. 
According  to  this  the  meeting  took  place  in  the 
sanctuary  of  the  city  Argarizin,  which  is  interpreted 
by  Eupolemus  to  mean  "  the  Mountain  of  the  Most 
cHigh."     Argarizin  d  is  of  course  har  Gerizzim, 
Mount  Gerizim.     The  source  of  the  tradition  is. 
therefore,  probably  Samaritan,  since  the  encounter 
of  Abram  and  Melchizedek  is  one  of  the  events  to 
which  the  Samaritans  lay  claim  for  Mount  Gerizim. 
But  it  may  also  proceed  from  the  identification  of 
Salem  with  Shechem,  which  lying  at  the  foot  of 
Gerizim  would  easily  be  confounded  with  the  moun 
tain  itself.    [See  SHALEM.] 

5.  A  Salem  is  mentioned  in  Judith  iv.  4,  among 
the  places  which  were  seized  and  fortified  by  the 
Jews  on  the  approach  of  Holofernesl     "  The  valley 
of  Salem,"  as  it  appears  in  the  A.  V.  (rbv  ov\S>va 
"SaX^fjC),  is  possibly,  as  Reland  has  ingeniously  sug 
gested  (Pal.  "  Salem,"  p.  977),  a  corruption  of  els 
avXwva  fls  SoA^/i — "into  the  plain  to  Salem." 
If  A.v\<£>v  is  here,  according  to  frequent  usage,  the 
Jordan6  valley,  then  the  Salem  referred  to  must 


d  Pliny  uses  nearly  the  same  form  — Argaris  (JET.  j>*. 
v.  14). 

e  AvXwv  is  commonly  employed  in  Palestine  topography 
for  the  great  valley  of  the  Jordan  (see  Eusebius  and  Ja« 
rome,  Onomasticon,  "  Aulon  ").  But  in  the  Book  of  Judith 
it  is  used  with  much  less  precision  in  the  general  sense  of  a 
valley  or  plain. 


SALIM 

surely  be  that  mentioned  by  Jerome,  and  already 
uoticed.  But  in  this  passage  it  may  be  with  equal 
probability  the  broad  plain  of  the  Mukhna  which 
stretches  from  Ebal  and  Gerizim  on  the  one  hand, 
to  the  hills  on  which  Salim  stands  on  the  other, 
which  is  said  to  be  still  called  the  "  plain  of 
^alim  "  f  (Porter,  Handbook,  340  a),  and  through 
which  runs  the  central  north  road  of  the  country. 
Or,  as  is  perhaps  still  more  likely,  it  refers  to 
another  Salim  near  Zerin  (Jezreel),  and  to  the 
plain  which  runs  up  between  those  two  places,  as 
far  as  Jenin,  and  which  lay  directly  in  the  route 
of  the  Assyrian  army.  There  is  nothing  to  show 
that  the  invaders  reached  as  far  into  the  interior 
of  the  country  as  the  plain  of  the  Mukhna.  And 
the  other  places  enumerated  in  the  verse  seem,  as 
far  as  they  can  be  recognized,  to  be  points  which 
guarded  the  main  approaches  to  the  interior  (one  ol 
the  chief  of  which  was  by  Jezreel  and  Engannim), 
not  towns  in  the  interior  itself,  like  Shechem  or  the 
Salem  near  it. 


2.  (D?^  :  eV  tlp-hvri  :  in  pacee),  Ps.  Ixxvi.  2. 
It  seems  to  be  agreed  on  all  hands  that  Salem  is 
here  employed  for  Jerusalem,  but  whether  as  a  mere 
abbreviation  to  suit  some  exigency  of  the  poetry, 
and  point  the  allusion  to  the  peace  (salern)  which 
the  city  enjoyed  through  the  protection  of  God,  or 
whether,  after  a  well-known  habit  of  poets,11  it  is 
an  antique  name  preferred  to  the  more  modern  and 
familiar  one,  is  a  question  not  yet  decided.  The 
latter  is  the  opinion  of  the  Jewish  commentators, 
but  it  is  grounded  on  their  belief  that  the  Salem  of 
Melchizedek  was  the  city  which  afterwards  became 
Jerusalem.  This  is  to  beg  the  question.  See  a  re 
markable  passage  in  Geiger's  Urschrift,  &c.,  74-6. 

The  antithesis  in  verse  1  betweeen  "  Judah  "  and 
"  Israel,"  would  seem  to  imply  that  some  sacred 
place  in  the  northern  kingdom  is  being  contrasted 
with  Zion,  the  sanctuary  of  the  south.  And  if  there 
were  in  the  Bible  any  sanction  to  the  identification 
of  Salem  with  Shechem  (noticed  above),  the  passage 
might  be  taken  -as  referring  to  the  continued  rela 
tion  of  God  to  the  kingdom  of  Israel.  But  there 
are  no  materials  even  for  a  conjecture  on  the  point. 
Zion  the  sanctuary,  however,  being  named  in  the 
one  member  of  the  verse,  it  is  tolerably  certain  that 
Salem,  if  Jerusalem,  must  denote  the  secular  part 
of  the  city'  —  a  distinction  which  has  been  already 
noticed  [vol.  i.  1026]  as  frequently  occurring  and 
implied  in  the  Psalms  and  Prophecies.  [G.] 

SA'LIM  (2aAei>  ;  Alex.  2aAA«/i  :  Salim). 
A  place  named  (John  iii.  23)  to  denote  the  situation 
of  Aenon,  the  scene  of  St.  John's  last  baptisms—  Salim 
being  the  well-known  town  or  spot,  and  Aenon  a 
place  of  fountains,  or  other  water,  near  it.  There 
is  no  statement  in  the  narrative  itself  fixing  the 
situation  of  Salim,  and  the  only  direct  testimony 
we  possess  is  that  of  Eusebius  and  Jerome,  who 
both  affirm  unhesitatingly  (Onom.  "Aenon")  that 
it  existed  in  their  day  near  the  Jordan,  eight  Ro 
man  miles  south  of  Scythopolis.  Jerome  adds 
(under  "  Saiem")  that  its  name  was  then  Salumias. 
Elsewhere  (Up.  ad  Evangelum,  §7,  8)  he  states 


f  The  writer  could  not  succeed  (In  1861)  in  eliciting 
thl3  r.<wie  for  any  part  of  the  plain.  The  name,  given  in 
answer  to  repeated  questions,  for  the  Eastern  branch  or 
leg  of  the  Mukhna  was  always  Wady  Sajua. 

8  The  above  is  the  reading  of  the  Vulgate  and  of  the 
"Galilean  Psalter."  But  in  the  Liber  Pscdmorum  juxta 
Hebraicam  veritatem,  in  the  Divina  BMwthsca  included 


SALIM  1093 

that  it  was  identical  with  the  Salem   af  Melchi- 
zedek. 

Various  attempts  have  been  more  recently  mad« 
to  determine  the  locality  of  this  interesting  spot. 

1.  Some  (as  Alford,  Greek  Test,  ad  loc.)  propose 
SHILHIM  and  Am,  in  the  arid  country  far  in  the 
south  of  Judaea,  entirely  out  of  the  circle  of  asso 
ciations  of  St.  John  or  our  Lord.     Others  identify 
it  with  the  SHALIM  of  I  Sam.  ix.  4,  but  this  latter 
place  is  itself  unknown,  and  the  name  in  Hebrew 
contains  JJ,  to  correspond  with  which  the  name  in 
St.  John  should  be  2e7oAei/t  or  5oa\€i/*. 

2.  Dr.  Robinson  suggests  the  modern  village  of 
Salim,  three  miles  E.  of  Nablus  (B.  R.  iii.  333), 
but  this  is  no  less  out  of  the  circle  of  St.  John's 
ministrations,  and  is  too  near  the  Samaritans ;  and 
although   there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  the 
village  contains    "two   sources   of  living  water" 
(ib.   298),   yet  this  is  hardly   sufficient  for  the 
abundance  of  deep  water  implied  in  the  narrative. 
A  writer  in  the  Colonial  Ch.  Chron.,  No.  cxxvi. 
464,  who  concurs  in  this  opinion  of  Dr.  Robinson, 
was  told  of  a  village  an  hour  east  (?)  of  Salim 
"  named  Ain-un,  with  a  copious  stream  of  water." 
The  district  east  of  Salim  is  a  blank  in  the  maps. 
Yanun  lies  about  l£  hour  S.E.  of  Salim,  but  this 
can   hardly  be    the  place   intended ;    and   in   the 
description  of  Van  de  Velde,  who  visited  it  (ii.  303), 
no  stream  or  spring  is  mentioned. 

3.  Dr.  Barclay  (City,  &c.,  564)  is  filled  with  an 
"  assured  conviction  "  that  Salim  is  to  be  found  in 
Wady  Seleim,  and  Aenon  in  the  copious  springs 
of  Am  Farah  (ib.  559),  among  the  deep  and  in 
tricate  ravines  some  five  miles  N.E.  of  Jerusalem. 
This  certainly  has  the  name  in  its  favour,  and,  if 
the  glowing  description  and   pictorial  woodcut  of 
Dr.  Barclay  may  be  trusted — has  water  enough, 
and  of  sufficient  depth  for  the  purpose. 

4.  The  name  of  Salim  has  been  lately  discovered 
by  Mr.  Van  de  Velde  (Syr.  $  Pal.  ii.  345,  6)  in  a 
position  exactly  in  accordance  with  the  notice  of  Eu 
sebius,  viz.  six  English  miles  south  of  Beisan,  and 
two  miles  west  of  the  Jordan.    On  the  northern  base 
of  Tell  Redghah  is  a  site  of  ruins,  and  near  it  a 
Mussulman   tomb,   which  is  called  by  the  Arabs 
Sheykh  Salim  (see  also  Memoir,  345).     Dr.  Robin 
son  '(in.  333)  complains  that  the  name  is  attached 
only  to  a  Mussulman  sanctuary,  and  also  that  no 
ruins  of  any  extent  are  to  be  found  on  the  spot ;  but 
with  regard  to  the  first  objection,  even  Dr.  Robinson 
does  not  dispute  that  the  name  is  there,  and  thai 
the  locality  is  in  the  closest  agreement  with  the 
notice  of  Eusebius.     As  to  the  second  it  is  only  ne 
cessary  to  point  to  Kefr-Saba,  where  a  town  (An- 
tipatris),  which  so  late  as  the  time  of  the  destruc 
tion  of  Jerusalem  was  of  great  size  and  extensively 
fortified,  has  absolutely  disappeared.     The  career  of 
St.  John  has  been  examined  in  a  former  part  of  this 
work,  and  it  has  been  shown  with  great  probability 
that  his  progress  was  from  south  to  north,  and  that 
the  scene  of  his  last  baptisms  was  not  far  distant 
from  the  spot  indicated  by  Eusebius,  and  now  re 
covered  by  Mr.   Van  de  Velde.     [JORDAN,  vol.  i. 
p.  1128.]     Salim  fulfils  also  the  conditions  implied 
'n  the  name  of  Aenon   (springs),   and   the  direct 


n  the  Benedictine  Edition  of  Jerome's  works,  the  reading 
\sSalem. 

h  The  Arab  poets  are  said  to  use  the  same  abbreviation 
;Gesenius,  Thes.  1422  b).  The  preference  of  an  archaic  to 
i  modern  name  will  surprise  no  student  of  poetry,  few 
things  are  of  more  constant  occurrence. 


1094 


8ALLAI 


statement  of  the  text,  that  the  place  contained 
Abundance  of  water.  «  The  brook  of  Wady  Chumeh 
runs  close  to  it,  a  splendid  fountain  gushes  out 
beside  the  Wely,  and  rivulets  wind  about  in  all 
directions.  ...  Of  few  places  in  Palestine  could  it 
so  truly  be  said,  *  Here  is  much  water  '  "  (Svr.  & 
Pal.  ii.  346). 

A  tradition  is  mentioned  by  Reland  (Palaeslina, 
978)  that  Salim  was  the  native  place  of  Simon 
Zelotes.  This  in  itself  seems  to  imply  that  its  po 
sition  was,  at  the  date  of  the  tradition,  believed  to 
be  nearer  to  Galilee  than  to  Judaea.  [G.] 

SALLA'I  (^D,  in  pause  ^p:  ^\l  ;  Alex. 
27?\ef  :  Sellai).  1.  A  Benjamite,  who  with  928 
of  his  tribe  settled  in  Jerusalem  after  the  captivity 
(Neh.  xi.  8). 

2.  (2oA.erf.)  The  head  of  one  of  the  courses  of 
priests  who  went  up  from  Babylon  with  Zerubbabel 
(Neh.  xii.  20).  In  Neh.  xii.  7  he  is  called  SALLU. 

SAL'LTJ  (-iVp:  3oA^,  2^  ;  Alex.  2oAe£ 
in  1  Chr.  :  Salo~  Sellum).  1.  The  son  of  Me- 
shullam,  a  Benjamite  who  returned  and  settled  in 
Jerusalem  after  the  captivity  (1  Chr.  ix.  7  ;  Neh. 
xi.7), 

2.  (Om.  in  Vat.  MS.;  Alex.  SoAoycu:  Sellum.} 
The  head  of  one  of  the  courses  of  priests  who 
returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Neh.  xii.  7).  Called 
also  SALLAI. 

SALLU'MUS  (2a\ov/jios  ;  Alex.  SaAAoC^os  : 
Salumus).  SHALLUM  (1  Esd.  ix.  25;  comp.  Ezr. 
x.  24). 

SAL'MA,  or  SAL'MON 


Alex. 


but 


both  MSS.  in  Ruth  iv.  :  Salmon).  Son  of  Nahshon, 
the  prince  of  the  children  of  Judah,  and  father  of 
Boaz,  the  husband  of  Ruth.  Salmon's  age  is  dis 
tinctly  marked  by  that  of  his  father  Nahshon,  and 
with  this  agrees  the  statement  in  1  Chr.  ii.  51,  54, 
that  he  was  of  the  sons  of  Caleb,  and  the  father,  or 
head  man  of  Bethlehem-Ephratah,  a  town  which 
seems  to  have  been  within  the  territory  of  Caleb 
(1  Chr.  ii.  50,  51).  [EpHRATAH  ;  BETHLEHEM.] 
On  the  entrance  of  the  Israelites  into  Canaan, 
Salmon  took  Rahab  of  Jericho  to  be  his  wife,  and 
from  this  union  sprang  the  Christ.  [RAHAB.] 
From  the  circumstance  of  Salmon  having  lived  at 
the  time  of  the  conquest  of  Canaan,  as  well  as  from 
his  being  the  first  proprietor  of  Bethlehem,  where 
his  family  continued  so  many  centuries,  perhaps  till 
the  reign  of  Domitian  (Euseb.  Eccles.  Hist.  ii.  20). 
he  may  be  called  the  founder  of  the  house  of  David. 
Besides  Bethlehem,  the  Netophathites,  the  house  of 
Joab,  the  Zorites,  and  several  other  families,  boked 
to  Salmon  as  their  head  (1  Chr.  ii.  54,  55). 

Two  circumstances  connected  with  Salmon  have 
caused  some  perplexity.  One,  the  variation  in  the 
orthography  of  his  name.  The  other,  an  apparent 
variation  in  his  genealogy. 

As   regards   the  first,  the  variation  in   proper 

a  Eusebius  (Chron.  Canon,  lib.  i.  22)  has  no  misgiving 
as  to  the  identity  of  Salma. 

b  See  a  work  by  Reuss,  Der  acht  und  scctizigste  Psalm, 
ein  Denkmal  exegetischer  Noth  und  Kwnst,  zu  Ehren  unser 
ganzen,  Zunft,  Jena,  1851.  Independently  of  its  many 
obscure  allusions,  the  68th  Psalm  contains  thirteen  ai 
Veyo/ueva,  including  J/G^R  It  may  be  observed  that 
tnis  word  is  scarcely,  as'Gesenius  suggests,  analogous  to 
r2?H,  D>taTXn,  Hiphils  of  colour;  for  these  words  have 


SALMON 

names  (whether  caused  by  the  fluctuations  of 
copyists,  or  whether  they  existed  in  practice,  and 
were  favoured  by  the  significance  of  the  names),  is 
so  extremely  common,  that  such  slight  differences 
as  those  in  the  three  forms  of  this  name  are  scarcely 
worth  noticing.  Compare  e.  g.  the  different  forms 
of  the  name  Shimea,  the  son  of  Jesse,  in  1  Sam. 
xvi.  9  ;  2  Sam.  xiii.  3  ;  1  Chr.  ii.  13  :  or  of  Simon 
Peter,  in  Luke  v.  4,  &c. ;  Acts  xv.  14.  See  othei 
examples  in  Hervey's  Geneal.  of  our  Lord,  ch.  vi. 
and  x.  Moreover,  in  this  case,  the  variation  from 
Salma  to  Salmon  takes  place  in  two  consecutive 
verses,  viz.,  Ruth  iv.  20,  21,  where  the  notion  of 
two  different  persons  being  meant,  though  in  some 
degree  sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  Dr.  Kennicott 
(Dissert,  i.  p.  184,  543),  is  not  worth  refuting." 
As  regards  the  Salma  of  1  Chr.  ii.  51,  54,  his  con 
nection  with  Bethlehem  identifies  him  with  the  son 
of  Nahshon,  and  the  change  of  the  final  H  into  K 
belongs  doubtless  to  the  late  date  of  the  Book  of 
Chronicles.  The  name  is  so  written  also  in  1  Chr. 
ii.  11.  But  the  truth  is  that  the  sole  reason  for 
endeavouring  to  make  two  persons  out  of  Salma  and 
Salmon,  is  the  wish  to  lengthen  the  line  between 
Salma  and  David,  in  ordei  to  meet  the  false  chro 
nology  of  those  times. 

The  variation  in  Salma  s  genealogy,  which  has 
induced  some  to  think  that  the  Salma  of  1  Chr.  ii. 
51,  54  is  a  different  person  from  the  Salma  of 
1  Chr.  ii.  11,  is  more  apparent  than  real.  It  arises 
from  the  circumstance  that  Bethlehem  Ephratah, 
which  was  Salmon's  inheritance,  was  part  of  the 
territory  of  Caleb,  the  grandson  of  Ephratah ;  and 
this  caused  him  to  be  reckoned  among  the  sonc  of 
Caleb.  But  it  is  a  complete  misunderstanding  of 
the  language  of  such  topographical  genealogies  to 
suppose  that  it  is  meant  to  be  asserted  that  Salma 
was  the  literal  son  of  Caleb.  Mention  is  made  of 
Salma  only  in  Ruth  iv.  20,  21 ;  1  Chr.  ii.  11,  51, 
54 ;  Matt.  i.  4,  5  ;  Luke  iii.  32.  The  questions 
of  his  age  and  identity  are  discussed  in  the  Geneal. 
of  our  Lord,  ch.  iv.  and  ix. ;  Jackson,  Chron. 
Antiq.  i.  171;  Hales,  Analysis,  iii.  44;  Burring- 
ton,  Geneal.  i.  189;  Dr.  Mill,  Vindic.  of  our  Lord's 
Geneal.  123,  &c.  [A.  C.  H.] 

SALMANA'SAK  (Salmanasar).  SHALMAN- 
ESER,  king  of  Assyria  (2  Esd.  xiii.  40). 

SAL'MON  (jin1?* :  2fV«":  Salmon,  Judg. 
ix.  48).  The  name  of  a  hill  near  Shechem,  on  which 
Abimelech  and  his  followers  cut  down  the  boughs 
with  which  they  set  the  tower  of  Shechem  on  fire. 
Its  exact  position  is  not  known. 

It  is  usually  supposed  that  this  hill  is  mentioned 
in  a  verse  of  perhaps  the  most  difficult  of  all  the 
Psalms b  (Ps.  Ixviii.  14);  and  this  is  probable, 
though  the  passage  is  peculiarly  difficult,  and  the 
precise  allusion  intended  by  the  poet  seems  hope 
lessly  lost.  Commentators  differ  from  each  other  ; 
and  Fttrst,  within  176  pages  of  his  ffandwtirterbuch, 

differs  from  himself  (see  &W  and  ptf?*).    Indeed, 


a  signification  of  colour  in  Kal.  The  really  analogous 
word  is  "Vt3pn,  "he  makes  it  rain,"  which  bears  the 
same  relation  tc  ".{3D,  "  rain,"  which  3  Y^H  bears  to 
3?t^,  "snow."  Owing,  probably,  to  Hebrew  religious 
conceptions  of  natural  phenomena,  no  instance  occurs  of 
used  as  a  neuter  in  the  sense  of  "  it  rains;" 


though  this  would  be  grammatically  admissible. 


SAiMON 

of  HX  distinguished  modem  commentators — De 
Wette,  Hitzig,  Ewald,  Hengstenberg,  Delitzsch,  and 
Hupteld — no  two  give  distinctly  the  same  meaning ; 
and  Mr.  Keble,  in  his  admirable  Version  of  the 
Psalms,  gives  a  translation  which,  though  poetical, 
as  was  to  be  expected,  differs  from  any  one  of  those 
suggested  by  these  six  scholars.  This  is  not  the 
place  for  an  exhaustive  examination  of  the  passage. 
It  may  be  mentioned,  however,  that  the  literal  trans 
lation  of  the  words  flD^V?  J/?^D  is  "  Thou 
Hiakest  it  snow,"  or  "  It  snows,"  with  liberty  to  use 
the  word  either  in  the  past  or  in  the  future  tense. 
As  notwithstanding  ingenious  attempts,  this  supplies 
no  satisfactory  meaning.,  recourse  is  had  to  a  trans 
lation  of  doubtful  validity,  "Thou  makest  it  white 
as  snow,"  or  "It  is  white  as  snow" — words  to 
which  various  metaphorical  meanings  have  been 
attributed.  The  allusion  which,  through  the  Lexi 
con  of  Gesenius,  is  most  generally  received,  is  that 
the  words  refer  to  the  ground  being  snow-white 
with  bones  after  a  defeat  of  the  Canaanite  kings ; 
and  this  may  be  accepted  by  those  who  will  admit 
the  scarcely  permissible  meaning,  "  white  as  snow," 
and  who  cannot  rest  satisfied  without  attaching 
some  definite  signification  to  the  passage.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  figure 
is  a  very  harsh  one  ;  and  that  it  is  not  really 
justified  by  passages  quoted  in  illustration  of  it 
from  Latin  classical  writers,  such  as,  "  campique 
ingentes  ossibus  albent "  (Virg.  Aen.  xii.  36), 
and  "  humanis  ossibus  albet  humus  "  (Ovid,  Fast. 
i.  558),  for  in  these  cases  the  word  "  bones"  is 
actually  used  in  the  text,  and  is  not  left  to  be 
supplied  by  the  imagination.  Granted,  however, 
that  an  allusion  is  made  to  bones  of  the  slain, 
there  is  a  divergence  of  opinion  as  to  whether 
Salmon  was  mentioned  simply  because  it  had  been 
the  battle-ground  in  some  great  defeat  of  the  Ca- 
naanitish  kings,  or  whether  it  is  only  introduced  as 
an  image  of  snowy  whiteness.  And  of  these  two 
explanations,  the  first  would  be  on  the  whole  most 
probable  ;  for  Sajmon  cannot  have  been  a  very  high 
mountain,  as  the  highest  mountains  near  Shechem 
are  Ebal  and  Gerizim,  and  of  these  Ebal,  the  highest 
of  the  two,  is  only  1028  feet  higher  than  the  city 
(see  EBAL,  p.  470 ;  and  Robinson's  Gesenius,  895  a). 
If  the  poet  had  desired  to  use  the  image  of  a  snowy 
mountain,  it  would  have  been  more  natural  to  select 
Hermon,  which  is  visible  from  the  eastern  brow  of 
Gerizim,  is  about  10,000  feet  high,  and  is  covered 
with  perpetual  snow.  Still  it  is  not  meant  that 
this  circumstance  by  itself  would  be  conclusive  ;  for 
there  may  have  been  particular  associations  in  the 
mind  of  the  poet,  unknown  to  us,  which  led  him  to 
prefer  Salmon. 

In  despair  of  understanding  the  allusion  to  Salmon, 
some  suppose  that  Salmon,  i.  e.  Tsalmon,  is  not  a 
proper  name  in  this  passage,  but  merely  signifies 
"  darkness  ;"  and  this  interpretation,  supported  by 
the  TargHm,  though  opposed  to  the  Septuagint,  has 
been  adopted  by  Evald,  and  in  the  first  state 
ment  in  his  Lexicon  is  admitted  by  Fiirst.  Since 
iseletn  signifies  "  shade,"  this  is  a  bare  etymo 
logical  possibility.  But  no  such  word  as  tsalmon 
occurs  elsewhere  in  the  Hebrew  language;  while 
there  are  several  other  words  for  darkness,  in 
different  degrees  of  meaning,  such  as  the  ordinary 
word  choshek,  oplwl,  aphelah,  and  'araphel. 

Unless  the  passage  is  given  up  as  corrupt,  it 
seems  more  in  accordance  with  reason  to  admit  that 
there  was  some  allusion  present  to  the  poet's  muid; 


8ALOME 


1096 


the  key  to  which  i:;  now  lost ;  and  this  ought  not  to 
surprise  any  scholar  who  reflects  how  many  allu 
sions  there  are  in  Greek  poets — in  Pindar,  for  ex 
ample,  and  in  Aristophanes — which  would  be  wholly 
unintelligible  to  us  now,  were  it  not  for  the  notes 
of  Greek  scholiasts.  To  these  notes  there  is  nothing 
exactly  analogous  in  Hebrew  literature ;  and  in  ths 
absence  of  some  such  assistance,  it  is  unavoidable 
that  there  should  be  several  passages  in  the  0.  T. 
respecting  the  meaning  of  which  we  must  be  content 
to  remain  ignorant.  [E.  T.] 

SAL'MON  the  father  of  Boaz  (Ruth  iv.  20,  21 ; 
Matt.  i.  4,  5;  Luke  iii.  32).  [SALMA.] 

SALMO'NE  (2a\fj.6vn :  Salmone).  The  East 
point  of  the  island  of  CRETE.  In  the  account  of  St. 
Paul's  voyage  to  Rome  this  promontory  is  mentioned 
in  such  a  way  (Acts  xxvii.  7)  as  to  afford  a  curious 
illustration  both  of  the  navigation  of  the  ancients 
and  of  the  minute  accuracy  of  St.  Luke's  narrative. 
We  gather  from  other  circumstances  of  the  voyage 
that  the  wind  was  blowing  from  the  N.W.  (eVoy- 
riovs,  ver.  4;  PpaSvirXoovvres,  ver.  7).  [See 
MYRA.]  We  are  then  told  that  the  ship,  on 
making  CNIDUS,  could  not,  by  reason  of  the  wind, 
hold  on  her  course,  which  was  past  the  south  point 
of  Greece,  W.  by  S.  She  did,  however,  just  fetch 
Cape  Salmone,  which  bears  S.W.  by  S.  from  Cnidus. 
Now  we  may  take  it  for  granted  that  she  could 
have  made  good  a  course  of  less  than  seven  points 
from  the  wind  [Snip] :  and,  starting  from  this 
assumption,  we  are  at  once  brought  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  the  wind  must  have  been  between  N.N.W. 
and  W.N.W.  Thus  what  Paley  would  have  called 
an  "  undesigned  coincidence  "  is  elicited  by  a  cross- 
examination  of  the  narrative.  This  ingenious  argu 
ment  is  due  to  Mr.  Smith  of  Jordanhill  (  Voy.  and 
Shipwreck  of  St.  Paul,  pp.  73,  74,  2nd  ed.),  and 
from  him  it  is  quoted  by  Conybeare  and  Howson 
(Life  and  Epp.  of  St.  Paul,  ii.  393,  2nd  ed.).  To 
these  books  we  must  refer  for  fuller  details.  We  may 
just  add  that  the  ship  had  had  the  advantages  of  a 
weather  shore,  smooth  water,  and  a  favouring  cur 
rent,  before  reaching  Cnidus,  and  that  by  running 
down  to  Cape  Salmone  the  sailors  obtained  similar 
advantages  under  the  lee  of  Crete,  as  far  as  FAIR 
HAVENS,  near  LASAEA.  [J.  S.  H.] 

SA'LOM  (2aA^:  Salom).  The  Greek  form 
1.  of  Shallum,  the  father  of  Hilkiah  (Bar.  i.  7). 
[SHALLUM.]  2.  (Salomus}  of  Salu  the  father  of 
Zimri  (1  Mace.  ii.  26).  [SALU.] 

SALO'ME  (2oA^7j :  Salome).  1.  The  wife  of 
Zebedee,  as  appears  from  comparing  Matt,  xxvii. 
56  with  Mark  xv.  40.  It  is  further  the  opinion  of 
many  modem  critics  that  she  was  the  sister  of 
Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  to  whom  reference  is 
made  in  John  xix.  25.  The  words  admit,  however, 
of  another  and  hitherto  generally  received  explana 
tion,  according  to  which  they  refer  to  the  "  Mary 
the  wife  ef  Cleophas"  immediately  afterwards  men 
tioned.  In  behalf  of  the  former  view,  it  may  be 
urged  that  it  gets  rid  of  the  difficulty  arising  out 
of  two  sisters  having  the  same  name — that  it  har 
monises  John's  narrative  with  those  of  Matthev 
and  Mark — that  this  circuitous  manner  of  describing 
his  own  mother  is  in  character  with  St.  John's 
manner  of  describing  himself — that  the  absence  of 
any  connecting  link  between  the  second  and  third 
designations  may  be  accounted  for  on  the  ground 
that  the  four  are  arranged  in  two  distinct  couplets 
—and,  lastly,  that  the  Peshito,  the  Persian,  aad  the 


SALT 

Aethiopic  versions  mark  the  distinction  between  the 
second  and  third  by  interpolating  a  conjunction.  On 
tLe  other  hand,  it  may  be  urged  that  the  difficulty 
arising  out  of  the  name  may  be  disposed  of  by 
assuming  a  double  marriage  on  the  part  of  the 
father— that  there  is  no  necessity  to  harmonise 
John  with  Matthew  and  Mark,  for  that  the  time 
and  the  place  in  which  the  groups  are  noticed  differ 
materially — that  the  language  addressed  to  John, 
"  Behold  thy  mother ! "  favours  the  idea  of  the 
absence  rather  than  of  the  presence  of  his  natural 
mother — and  that  the  varying  traditions  •  current  in 
the  early  Church  as  to  Salome's  parents,  worthless 
as  they  are  in  themselves,  yet  bear  a  negative  testi 
mony  against  the  idea  of  her  being  related  to  the 
mother  of  Jesus.  Altogether  we  can  hardly  regard 
the  point  as  settled,  though  the  weight  of  modern 
criticism  is  decidedly  in  favour  of  the  former  view 
(see  Wieseler,  Stud.  u.  Krit.  1840,  p.  648).  The 
only  events  recorded  of  Salome  are  that  she  pre 
ferred  a  request  on  behalf  of  her  two  sons  for  seats 
of  honour  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  (Matt.  xx.  20), 
that  she  attended  at  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  (Mark 
xv.  40),  and  that  she  visited  his  sepulchre  (Mark 
xvi.  1).  She  is  mentioned  by  name  only  on  the 
two  latter  occasions. 

2.  The  daughter  of  Herodias  by  her  first  hus 
band,  Herod  Philip  (Joseph.  Ant.  xviii.  5,  §4).  She 
is  the  "daughter  of  Herodias"  noticed  in  Matt, 
xiv.  6  as  dancing  before  Herod  Antipas,  and  as  pro 
curing  at  her  mother's  instigation  the  death  of  John 
the  Baptist.  She  married  in  the  first  place  Philip 
the  tetrarch  of  Trachonitis,  her  paternal  uncle,  and 
secondly  Aristobulus,  the  king  of  Chalcis.  [W.  L.  B.] 

8ALT(fTO:  &\s  :  sal).  Indispensable  as  salt 
is  to  ourselves,  it  was  even  more  so  to  the  Hebrews, 
being  to  them  not  only  an  appetizing  condiment  in 
the  food  both  of  man  (Job  vi.  6)  and  beast  (Is. 
xxx.  24,  see  margin),  and  a  most  valuable  antidote 
to  the  effects  of  the  heat  of  the  climate  on  animal 
food,  but  also  entering  largely  into  their  religious 
services  as  an  accompaniment  to  the  various  offer 
ings  presented  on  the  altar  (Lev.  ii.  13).  They 
possessed  an  inexhaustible  and  ready  supply  of  it 
on  the  southern  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea.  Here  may 
have  been  situated  the  Valley  of  Salt  (2  Sam.  viii. 
13),  in  pwximity  to  the  mountain  of  fossil  salt 
which  Robinson  (Researches,  ii.  108)  describes  as 
five  miles  in  length,  and  as  the  chief  source  of  the 
salt  in  the  sea  itself.  Here  were  the  saltpits  (Zeph. 
ii.  9),  probably  formed  in  the  marshes  at  the 
southern  end  of  the  lake,  which  are  completely 
coated  with  salt,  deposited  periodically  by  the  rising 
of  the  waters;  and  here  also  were  the  successive 
pillars  of  salt  which  tradition  has  from  time  to 
time  identified  with  Lot's  wife  (Wisd.  x.  7 ;  Jo 
seph.  Ant.  i.  11,  §4).  [SEA,  THE  SALT..]  Salt 
might  also  be  procured  from  the  Mediterranean 
Sea,  and  from  this  source  the  Phoenicians  would 
naturally  obtain  the  supply  necessary  for  salting 
fish  (Neh.  xiii.  16)  and  for  other  purposes.  The 
Jews  appear  to  have  distinguished  between  rock- 
salt  and  that  which  was  gained  by  evaporation,  as 
the  Talmudists  particularize  one  species  (probably 
the  latter)  as  the  "salt  of  Sodom"  (Carpzov, 
Appar.  p,  718).  The  notion  that  this  expression 
means  bitumen  rests  on  no  foundation.  The  salt- 
j/its  formed  an  important  source  of  revenue  to  the 


a  According  to  one  account  she  was  the  daughter  of 
.Joseph  by  a  former  marriage  (Epiphan.  Haer.  Isxviii.  8): 


SALT 

rulers  of  the  country  (Joseph.  Ant.  xiii.  4,  §9), 
and  Antiochus  conferred  a  valuable  boon  on  Jeru 
salem  by  presenting  the  city  with  375  bushels  oi 
salt  for  the  Temple  service  (Ant.  xii.  3,  §3).  In 
addition  to  the  uses  of  salt  already  specified,  the 
inferior  sorts  were  applied  as  a  manure  to  the  soil, 
or  to  hasten  the  decomposition  of  dung  (Matt.  v. 
1 3 ;  Luke  xiv.  35).  Too  large  an  admixture,  how 
ever,  was  held  to  produce  sterility,  as  exemplified 
on  the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea  (Deut.  xxix.  23 ; 
Zeph.  ii.  9):  hence  a  "  salt"  land  was  synonymous 
with  barrenness  (Job  xxxix.  6,  see  margin;  Jer. 
xvii.  6  ;  comp.  Joseph.  B.  J.  iv.  8,  §2,  aXpvpdSijs 
Kal  &yovos) ;  and  hence  also  arose  the  custom  of 
sowing  with  salt  the  foundations  of  a  destroyed  city 
(Judg.  ix.  45),  as  a  token  of  its  irretrievable  ruin. 
It  was  the  belief  of  the  Jews  that  salt  would,  by 
exposure  to  the  air,  lose  its  virtue  (/jLupavOfi,  Matt. 
v.  13)  and  become  saltless  (&va\ov,  Mark  ix.  50). 
The  same  fact  is  implied  in  the  expressions  of  Pliny, 
sal  iners  (xxxi.  39),  sal  tabescere  (xxxi.  44) ;  and 
Maundrell  (Early  Travels,  p.  512,  Bohn)  asserts 
that  he  found  the  surface  of  a  salt  rock  in  this  con 
dition.  The  associations  connected  with  salt  in 
Eastern  countries  are  important.  As  one  of  the 
most  essential  articles  of  diet,  it  symbolized  hospi  • 
tality ;  as  an  antiseptic,  durability,  fidelity,  and 
purity.  Hence  the  expression,  "  covenant  of  salt " 
(Lev.  ii.  13;  Num.  xviii.  19;  2  Chr.  xiii.  5),  as 
betokening  an  indissoluble  alliance  between  friends ; 
and  again  the  expression,  "  salted  with  the  salt  of 
the  palace"  (Ezr~.  iv.  14),  not  necessarily  meaning 
that  they  had  "  maintenance  from  the  palace,"  as 
the  A.  V.  has  it,  but  that  they  were  bound  by 
sacred  obligations  of  fidelity  to  the  king.  So  in  the 
present  day,  "  to  eat  bread  and  salt  together "  is 
an  expression  for  a  league  of  mutual  amity  (Russell, 
Aleppo,  i.  232)  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Persian  term  for  traitor  is  nemekharam,  "  faithless 
to  salt"  (Gesen.  Thes.  p.  790).  It  was  probably 
with  a  view  to  keep  this  idea  prominently  before 
the  minds  of  the  Jews  that  the  use  of  salt  was  en 
joined  on  the  Israelites  in  their  offerings  to  God; 
for  in  the  first  instance  it  was  specifically  ordered 
for  the  meat-offering  (Lev.  ii.  13),  which  consisted 
mainly  of  flour,  and  therefore  was  not  liable  to  cor 
ruption.  The  extension  of  its  use  to  burnt  sacri 
fices  was  a  later  addition  (Ez.  xliii.  24;  Joseph. 
Ant.  iii.  9,  §1),  in  the  spirit  of  the  general  injunc 
tion  at  the  close  of  Lev.  ii.  13.  Similarly  the 
heathens  accompanied  their  sacrifices  with  salted 
barley-meal,  the  Greeks  with  their  ov\oxvrai  (Horn. 
U.  i.  449),  the  Romans  with  their  mola  salsa  (Hor. 
Sat.  ii.  3,  200)  or  their  salsae  fruges  (Virg.  Aen 
ii.  133).  It  may  of  course  be  assumed  that  in  all 
of  these  cases  salt  was  added  as  a  condiment ;  but 
the  strictness  with  which  the  rule  was  adhered  to— 
no  sacrifice  being  offered  without  salt  (Plin.  xxxi. 
41),  and  still  more  the  probable,  though  perhaps 
doubtful,  admixture  of  it  in  incense  (Ex.  xxx.  35, 
where  the  word  rendered  "  tempered  together  "  js 
by  some  understood  as  "  salted") — leads  to  the  con 
clusion  that  there  was  a  symbolical  force  attached 
to  its  use.  Our  Lord  refers  to  the  sacrificial  use 
of  salt  in  Mark  ix.  49,  50,  though  some  of  the  other 
associations  may  also  be  implied.  The  purifying 
property  of  salt,  as  opposed  to  corruption,  led  to  its 
selection  as  the  outward  sign  in  Elisha's  miracle 
(2  K.  ii.  20,  21),  and  is  also  developed  in  the  N.  T. 


according  to  another,  the  wife  oi  ,;s*>ph  (Niceph.  H.E 
il.3). 


SALT,  CITY  OF 

(Matt.  v.  13  Col.  iv.  6).  The  custom  of  rubbing 
infants  with  salt  (Ez.  xvi.  4)  originated  in  sani 
tary  considerations,  but  received  also  a  symbolical 
meaning.  [W.  L.  B.j 

SALT,  CITY  OF  (rferrvy  -.  «i  whew 

Zatuv;  Alex,  at  iro\is  a\<av :  civitas  Salts}. 
The  fifth  of  the  six  cities  of  Judah  which  lay  in  the 
"  wilderness  '*  (Josh.  xv.  62).  Its  proximity  to  En- 
gedi,  and  the  name  itself,  seem  to  point  to  its  being 
situated  close  to  or  at  any  rate  in  the  neighbour 
hood  of  the  Salt-sea.  Dr.  Robinson  (£.  R.  ii.  109) 
expresses  his  belief  that  it  lay  somewhere  near  the 
plain  at  the  south  end  of  that" lake,  which  he  would 
identify  with  the  Valley  of  Salt.  This,  though 
possibly  supported  by  the  reading  of  the  Vatican 
LXX.,  "  the  cities  of  Sodom,"  is  at  present  a  mere 
conjecture,  since  no  trace  of  the  name  or  the  city  has 
yet  been  discovered  in  that  position.  On  the  other 
hand,  Mr.  Van  de  Velde  (Syr.  $  Pal.  ii.  99,  Memoir, 
111,  and  Map)  mentions  a  Nahr  Maleh  which  he 
passed  in  his  route  from  Wady  el-Email  to  Sebbeh, 
the  name  of  which  (though  the  orthography  is  not 
certain)  may  be  found  to  contain  a  trace  of  the 
Hebrew.  It  is  one  of  four  ravines  which  unite  to 
form  the  Wady  el  Bedun.  Another  of  the  four,  W. 
'Amreh  (Syr.  | P. ii.  99 ;  Memoir, 111,  Map),  recals 
the  name  of  Gomorrah,  to  the  Hebrew  of  which  it 
is  very  similar.  [G 

SALT,  VALLEY  OF  (rkft  603,  but  twice 
with  the  article,  I"6l9n  '3  :  Fc^cAlp,  Te^eXe'S, 
Kot\as,  and  4>c£pay£,  r&v  a\S>v ;  Alex.  FTj/ioAa, 
Fat/xeAo  :  Vail  is  Salinarum).  A  certain  valley,  or 
perhaps  more  accurately  a  "  ravine,"  the  Hebrew 
word  Ge  appearing  to  bear  that  signification — in 
which  occurred  two  memorable  victories  of  the 
Israelite  arms. 

1.  That  of  David  over  the  Edomites  (2  Sam 
viii.  13;  1  Chr.  xviii.  12).     It  appears  to  have 
immediately  followed  his    Syrian  campaign,    and 
was  itself  one  of  the  incidents  of  the  great  Edomite 
war  of  extermination."     The  battle  in  the  Valley 
of  Salt  appears  to  have  been  conducted  by  Abishai 
(1  Chr.  xviii.  12),  but  David  and  Joab  were  both 
present  in  person  at  the  battle  and  in  the  pursuit 
and  campaign  which  followed ;  and  Joab  was  left 
behind  for  six  months  to  consummate  the  doom 
of  the  conquered  country  (1  K.  xi.  15,  16  ;  Ps.  Ix. 
title).     The  number  of  Edomites  slain  in  the  battle 
is  uncertain :  the  narratives  of  Samuel  and  Chronicles 
both  give  it  at  18,000,  but  this  figure  is  lowered  in 
the  title  of  Ps.  Ix.  to  12,000. 

2.  That  of  Amaziah  (2  K.  xiv.  7 ;  2  Chr.  xxv. 
11),  who  is  related  to  have   slain  ten  thousand 
Edomites   in  this  valley,  and  then  to  have  pro 
ceeded,  with  10,000  prisoners,  to  the  stronghold  of 
the  nation  at  has-Sela,  the  Cliff,  ».  <?.  Petra,  and, 
after  taking  it,  to  have  massacred  them  by  hurling 
them  down  the  precipice  which  gave  its  ancieul 
name  to  the  city. 


SALT,  VALLEY  OF 


1097 


»  The  Received  Text  of  2  Sam.  vlii.  13  omits  the  men 
tion  of  Edomites  ;  but  from  a  comparison  of  the  paralle 
passages  in  1  Chr.  and  in  the  title  of  Ps.  Ix.  there  is  good 
ground  for  believing  that  tha  Terse  originally  stood  thus 
"  And  David  made  himself  a  name  [when  he  returnee 
from  smiting  the  Aramites]  [and  when  he  returned  he 
smote  the  Edomites]  in  tbe  Valley  of  Salt— eighteen 
thousand ;"  the  two  clauses  within  brackets  having  been 
emitted  by  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  scribes  respectively 
owing  to  the  very  close  resemblance  of  the  words  with 
which  each  clause  finishes— Q1E1N  and  Q^D^N-  This 
is  the  conjecture  of  Thcnius  (Eteg  //and/wcft),  and  is 


Neither  of  these  notices  affords  any  clue  to  the 
situation  of  the  Valley  of  Salt,  nor  does  the  cursory 
mention  of  the  name  ("Gemela"  and  "Mela") 
n  the  Onomasticon.  By  Josephus  it  is  not  named 
on  either  occasion.  Seetzen  (Eeisen,  ii.  356)  was 
probably  the  first  to  suggest  that  it  was  the  broad 
open  plain  which  lies  at  the  lower  end  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  and  intervenes  between  the  lake  itself  and  the 
range  of  heights  which  crosses  the  valley  at  six  or 
eight  miles  to  the  south.  The  same  view  is  takon 
(more  decisively)  by  Dr.  Robinson  (B.  R.  ii.  109). 
The  plain  is  in  fact  the  termination  of  the  Ghor  or 
valley  through  which  the  Jordan  flows  from  the 
Lake  of  Tiberias  to  the  Dead  Sea.  Its  N.W.  cornet 
is  occupied  by  the  Khashm  Usdum,  a  mountain  of 
rock  salt,  between  which  and  the  lake  is  an  extensive 
salt  marsh,  while  salt  streams  and  brackish  springs 
pervade,  more  or  less,  the  entire  western  half  of  the 
plain.  Without  presuming  to  contradict  this  sug 
gestion,  which  yet  can  hardly  be  affirmed  with  safety 
in  the  very  imperfect  condition  of  our  knowledge  of 
the  inaccessible  regions  S.  and  S.E.  of  the  Dead  Sea, 
it  may  be  well  to  call  attention  to  some  considera 
tions  which  seem  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the  implicit 
reception  which  most  writers  have  given  it  since  the 
publication  of  Dr.  R.'s  Researches. 

(a)  The  word  Ge  (fc03),  employed  for  the  place 
in  question,  is  not,  to  the  writer's  knowledge,  else 
where  applied  to  a  broad  valley  or  sunk  plain 
of  the  nature  of  the  lower  Ghor.  Such  tracts  are 
denoted  in  the  Scripture  by  the  words  Emek  or 
Bika'ah,  while  Ge  appears  to  be  reserved  for  clefts 
or  ravines  of  a  deeper  and  narrower  character. 
[VALLEY.] 

(6)  A  priori,  one  would  expect  the  tract  in 
question  to  be  called  in  Scripture  by  the  pecu 
liar  name  uniformly  applied  to  the  more  northern 
pails  of  the  same  valley—  ha-Ardbah — in  the  same 
manner  that  the  Arabs  now  call  it  el-Ghor — Ghor 
being  their  equivalent  for  the  Hebrew  Ardbah. 

(c)  The  name  "  Salt,"  though  at  first  sight  con 
clusive,  becomes  less  so  on  reflection.     It  does  not 
follow,  because  the  Hebrew  "Word  melach  signifies 
salt,  that  therefore  the  valley  was  salt.     A  case 
exactly  parallel  exists  at  el-Milk,  the  representative 
of  the  ancient  MOLADAH,  some  sixteen  miles  south 
of  Hebron.     Like  melach,  milk  signifies  salt ;  but 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  there  is  any  salt 
present  there,  and  Dr.  Robinson  (B.  R,  ii.  201  note) 
himself  justly  adduces  it  as  "an  instance  of  the 
usual  tendency  of  popular  pronunciation  to  reduce 
foreign  proper  names  to  a  significant  form."     Just 
as    el-Milh   is   the    Arabic   representative    of  the 
Hebrew  Moladah,  so  possibly  was  ge-melach  the 
Hebrew  representative  of  some   archaic   Edomite 
name. 

(d)  What  little  can  be  inferred  from  the  narra 
tive  as  to  the    situation  of  the  Ge-Melach  is  in 
favour  of  its   being   nearer  to  Petra.     Assuming 
Selah  to  be'  Petra  (the  chain  of  evidence  for  which 

adopted  by  Bunsen  (Bibelwerlc,  note  to  the  passage). 
Ewald  has  shown  (Getch.  iii.  201,  2)  that  the  whole 

passage  is  very  much  disordered.  Qfc?  ^5?*1  should  pro 
bably  be  rendered  "  and  set  up  a  monument,"  instead 
of  "  and  gat  a  name  "  (Gesen.  Thes.  1431  b)) ;  Michaelis 
(Suppl.  No.  2501,  and  note  to  Bibdfiir  Ungel) ;  De  Wette 
(Bibd);  LXX.  Coisl.  xal  IfljjKev  eon;Aa>/xei^v ;  Jerome 
(Quaest.  Hebr.~),  erexit  fornicem  triuiaphalem.  Raschi 
Interprets  it  "  reputation,"  and  makes  the  reputation  to 
have  arisen  from  David's  good  act  in  burying  the  deatJ 
even  of  his  enemies. 


6ALU 

is  tolerably  connected),  it  seems  difficult  to  believe 
that  a  large  body  of  prisoners  should  have  been 
dragged  for  upwards  of  fifty  miles  through  the 
heart  of  a  hostile  and  most  difficult  country,  merely 
for  massacre.  [G.] 

SA'LU  (N-1?D :  ^a\/j.(av ;  Alex.  'S,a\u> :  Salu). 
The  father  of  Zimri  the  prince  of  the  Simeonites, 
who  was  slain  by  Phinehas  (Num.  xxv.  14).  Called 
also  SALOM. 

SA'LUM  (2a\ovyu:  Esmennus}.  1.  SHALLUM, 
the  head  of  a  family  of  gatekeepers  (A.  V. "  porters") 
of  the  Temple  (1  Esd.  v.  28 ;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  42). 

2.  (SoA^jUos :  Solome.}  SHALLUM,  the  father 
of  Hilkiah  and  ancestor  of  Ezra  (1  Esd.  viii.  1 ; 
comp.  Ezr.  vii.  2).  Called  also  SADAMIAS  and 
SADOM. 

SALUTATION.     Salutations  may  be  classed 
under  the  two  heads  of  conversational  and  epistolary. 
The  salutation  at  meeting  consisted  in  early  times 
of  various  expressions  of  blessing,  such  as  "  God  be 
gracious  unto  thee"  (Gen.  xliii.  29) ;  "  Blessed  be 
thou  of  the  Lord  "  (Ruth  iii.  10  ;  1  Sam.  xv.  13)  ; 
"  The  Lord  be  with  you,"  "  The  Lord  bless  thee  " 
(Ruth  ii.  4) ;  "  The  blessing  of  the  Lord  be  upon 
you  ;  we  bless  you  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  "  (Ps. 
cxxix.  8).     Hence  the  term  "bless"  received  the 
secondary  sense  of  "  salute,"  and  is  occasionally  so 
rendered  in  the  A.  V.  (1  Sam.  xiii.  10,  xxv.  14; 
2  K.  iv.  29,  x.  15),  though  not  so  frequently  as  it 
might  have  been  (e.g.  Gen.  xxvii.  23,  xlvii.  7, 10  ; 
1  K.  viii.  66).    The  blessing  was  sometimes  accom 
panied  with  inquiries  as  to  the  health  either  of  the 
pei-son   addressed   or   his   relations.     The  Hebrew 
term  used  in  these  instances  (shalom*)  has  no  special 
reference  to   "peace,"   as  stated  in  the  marginal 
translation,  but  to  general  well-being,  and  strictly 
answers  to  our  "  welfare,"  as  given  in  the  text  (Gen. 
xliii.  27  ;  Ex.  xviii.  7).     It  is  used  not  only  in  the 
case  of  salutation  (in  which  sense  it  is  frequently 
rendered  "to  salute,"  e.g.  Judg.  xviii.  15  ;  1  Sam. 
x.  4  ;  2  K.  x.  13) ;  but  also  in  other  cases  where  it 
is  designed  to  soothe  or  to  encourage  a  person  (Gen. 
xliii.  23  ;   Judg.  vi.  23,  xix.  20 ;   1  Chr.  xii.  18 ; 
Dan.  x.  19 ;   compare  1  Sam.  xx.  21,  where  it  is 
opposed  to  "  hurt ;"  2  Sam.  xviii.  28,  "  all  is  well ;" 
and  2  Sam.  xi.  7,  where  it  is  applied  to  the  progress 
of  the  war).     The  salutation  at  parting  consisted 
originally   of  a  simple   blessing   (Gen.    xxiv.  60, 
xxviii.  1,  xlvii.  10;    Josh.  xxii.  6),  but  in  later 
times  the  term  shdlom  was  introduced  here  also  in 
the  form   "  Go  in  peace,"  or  rather   "  Farewell " 
(1  Sam.  i.  17,  xx.  42  ;  2  Sam.  xv.  9).     This^  was 
current    at   the   time  of  our    Saviour's   ministry 
(Mark  v.  34 ;  Luke  vii.  50  ;  Acts  xvi.  36),  and  * 
adopted  by  Him  in  His  parting  address  to  His  dis 
ciples  (John  xiv.  27).     It  had  even  passed  into  a 
salutation  on  meeting,  in  such  forms  as  "  Peace  be 
to  this  house  "  (Luke  x.  5),  "  Peace  be  unto  you  " 
(Luke  xxiv.  36  ;  John  xx.  19).    The  more  common 
salutation,  however,  at  this  period  was  borrowed 
from  the  Greeks,  their  word  xa^PfiV  being  used 
both  at  meeting  (Matt.  xxvi.  49,  xxviii.  9 ;  Luke  i. 
28),  and  probably  also  at  departure.     In  modern 
tiroes  the  ordinary  mode  of  address  current  in  the 
East  resembles  the  Hebrew: — Es-seldm   aleykum, 
"  Peace  be  on  you"  (Lane's  Mod.  Eg.  ii.  7),  and 


b  Tho  Greek  expression  is  evidently  borrowed  from  the 
Hebrew,  the  p.-eposition  eis  not  beU-fcening  the  state  into 


SALUTATION 

the  term  "  salam  "  has  been  introduced  into  our 
>wn  language  to  describe  the  Oriental  salutation. 

The  forms  of  greeting  that  we  have  noticed,  were 
reeiy  exchanged  among  persons  of  ditfereat  ranks 
m  the  occasion  of  a  casual  meeting,  and  this  even 
when  they  were  strangers.  Thus  Boaz  exchanged 
greeting  with  his  reapers  (Ruth  ii.  4),  the  tra 
veller  on  the  road  saluted  the  worker  in  the  field 
[Ps.  cxxix.  8),  and  members  of  the  same  family  in 
terchanged  greetings  on  rising  in  the  morning  (Prov. 
xxvii.  14).  The  only  restriction  appears  to  have 
seen  in  regard  to  religion,  the  Jew  of  old,  as  the 
Mohammedan  of  the  present  day,  paying  the  com- 
Dliment  only  to  those  whom  he  considered  "bre- 
;hren,"  »'.  e.  members  of  the  same  religious  com 
munity  (Matt.  v.  47 ;  Lane,  ii.  8;  Niebuhr,  Descript. 
p.  43).  Even  the  Apostle  St.  John  forbids  an 
nterchange  of  greeting  where  it  implied  a  wish 
for  the  success  of  a  bad  cause  (2  John  11).  In 
modern  times  the  Orientals  are  famed  for  the  ela 
borate  formality  of  their  greetings,  which  occupy  a 
rery  considerable  time ;  the  instances  given  in  the 
Bible  do  not  bear  such  a  character,  and  therefore 
;he  prohibition  addressed  to  persons  engaged  in 
argent  business,  "  Salute  no  man  by  the  way  "  (2  K. 
v.  29  ;  Luke  x.  4),  may  best  be  referred  to  the 
delay  likely  to  ensue  from  subsequent  conversation. 
Among  the  Persians  the  monarch  was  never  ap 
proached  without  the  salutation  "Oh,  king!  live 
forever"  (Dan.  ii.  4,  &c.).  There  is  no  evidence 
that  this  ever  became  current  among  the  Jews :  the 
expression  in  1  K.  i.  31,  was  elicited  by  the  previous 
allusion  on  the  part  of  David  to  his  own  decease. 
In  lieu  of  it  we  meet  with  the  Greek  xa*jP€>  "  hail !" 
(Matt,  xxvii.  29).  The  act  of  salutation  was  ac 
companied  with  a  variety  of  gestures  expressive  of 
different  degrees  of  humiliation,  and  sometimes  with 
a  kiss.  [ADORATION  ;  Kiss.]  These  acts  involved 
the  necessity  of  dismounting  in  case  a  person  were 
riding  or  driving  (Gen.  xxiv.  64;  1  Sam.  xxv.  23  ; 
2  K.  v.  21).  The  same  custom  still  prevails  in  the 
East  ( Niebuhr 's  Descript.  p.  39). 

The  epistolary  salutations  in  the  period  subsequent 
to  the  0.  T.  were  framed  on  the  model  of  the  Latin 
style :  the  addition  of  the  term  "  peace  "  may,  how 
ever,  be  regarded  as  a  vestige  of  the  old  Hebrew 
form  (2  Mace.  i.  1).  The  writer  placed  his  own 
name  first,  and  then  that  of  the  person  whom  he 
saluted  ;  it  was  only  in  special  cases  that  this  order 
was  reversed  (2  Mace.  i.  1,  ix.  19  ;  1  Esdr.  vi.  7). 
A  combination  of  the  first  and  third  persons  in  the 
terms  of  the  salutation  was  not  unfrequent  (Gal.  i. 
1,2;  Philem.  1 ;  2  Pet.  i.  1).  The  term  used 
(either  expressed  or  understood)  in  the  introductoiy 
salutation  was  the  Greek  %a.lpeiv  in  an  elliptical 
construction  (1  Mace.  x.  18 ;  2  Mace.  ix.  19; 
1  Esdr.  viii.  9  ;  Acts  xxiii.  26) ;  this,  however,  was 
more  frequently  omitted,  and  the  only  Apostolic 
passages  in  which  it  occurs  are  Acts  xv.  23  and 
James  i.  1,  a  coincidence  which  renders  it  probable 
that  St.  James  composed  the  letter  in  the  former 
passage.  A  form  of  prayer  for  spiritual  mercies  was 
also  used,  consisting  generally  of  the  terms  "  grace 
and  peace,"  but  in  the  three  Pastoral  Epistles  and 
in  2  John,  "grace,  mercy,  and  peace,"  and  in  Jud« 
"  mercy,  peace,  and  love."  The  concluding  saluta 
tion  consisted  occasionally  of  a  translation  of  the 
Latin  valete  (Acts  xv.  29,  xxiii.  30),  but  more  ge- 


which,  but  answering  to  the  Hebre^  7  in  which  th« 
person  departs. 


SAMAEL 

ncraliy  of  the  term  aff-n -aCo/iai,  "  I  salute,"  or  the 
cognate  substantive,  accompanied  by  a  prayer  for 
peace  or  grace.  St.  Paul,  who  availed  himself  of 
an  amanuensis  (Rom.  xvi.  22),  added  the  salutation 
with  his  own  hand  (1  Cor.  xvi.  21 ;  Col.  iv.  18  ; 
2  Thes.  iii.  17).  The  omission  of  the  introductory 
talutatior.  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  very 
noticeable.  [W.  L.  B.] 

SAM'AEL  (2o\0)Ut^X:  Salathiel],  a  variation 
for  (margin)  Salamiel  [SHELUMIEL]  in  Jud.  viii.  1 
(comp.  Num.  i.  6).  The  form  in  A.  V.  is  given 
by  Aldus.  [B.-F.  W.] 

SAMAI'AS  (Sayuafos  :  Semeias).  1.  SHE- 
MAIAH  the  Levite  in  the  reign  of  Josiah  (I  Esd.  i. 
9  ;  comp.  2  Chr.  xxxv.  9). 

2.  SHEMAIAH  of  the  sons  of  Adonikam  (1  Esd. 


viii.  39  ;  comp.  Ezr.  viii.  13). 
3.  (Se/ue?;  Alex. 


om.  in  Vulg.)   The 

"  great  Samaias,"  father  of  Ananias  and  Jonathas 
(Tob.  v.  13). 

SAMA'RIA 

~2,a/J.dp€ia, 

i,  but  Ant.  viii.  12,  §5, 
marid],  a  city  of  Palestine. 

The  word  Shomeron  means,  etymologically,  "per 
taining  to  a  watch,"  or  "  a  watch-mountain  ;"  and 
we  should  almost  be  inclined  to  think  that  the  pecu 
liarity  of  the  situation  of  Samaria  gave  occasion  to 


».  e.  Shomeron  :   Chald. 
'S.o^pwv*  ;  Joseph. 


Sa 


SAMARIA 

From  the  date  of  Omri's  purchase,  B.C.  925, 
Samaria  retained  its  dignity  as  the  capital  of  the 
ten  tribes.  Ahab  built  a  temple  to  Baal  there 
(1  K.  xvi.  32,  33)  ;  and  from  this  circumstance  a 
portion  of  the  city,  possibly  fortified  by  a  separatt 
wall,  was  called  "  the  city  of  the  house  of  Baal " 
(2  K.  x.  25).  Samaria  must  have  been  a  place 
of  great  strength.  It  was  twice  besieged  by  the 
Syrians,  in  B.C.  901  (1  K.  xx.  1),  and  in  B.C.  892 
(2  K.  vi.  24-vii.  20)  ;  but  on  both  occasions  the 
siege  was  ineffectual.  On  the  latter,  indeed,  it 
was  relieved  miraculously,  but  not  until  the  inha 
bitants  had  suffered  almost  incredible  horrors  from 
famine  during  their  protracted  resistance.  The  pos 
sessor  of  Samaria  was  considered  to  be  de  facto 
king  of  Israel  (2  K.  xv.  13, 14)  ;  and  woes  denounced 
against  the  nation  were  directed  against  it  by  name 
(Is.  vii.  9,  &c.).  In  B.C.  721,  Samaria  was  taken, 
after  a  siege  of  three  years,  by  Shalmaneser,  king  of 
Assyria  (2  K.  xviii.  9,  10),  and  the  kingdom  of  the 
ten  tribes  was  put  an  end  to.  [See  below,  No.  3.] 
Some  years  afterwards  the  district  of  which  Samaria 
was  the  centre  was  repeopled  by  Esarhaddon ;  but 
we  do  not  hear  especially  of  the  city  until  the  days 
of  Alexander  the  Great.  That  conqueror  took  the 
city,  which  seems  to  have  somewhat  recovered  itself 
(Euseb.  Chron.  ad  ann.  Abr.  1684),  killed  a  large 
portion  of  the  inhabitants,  and  suffered  the  remainder 
to  settle  at  Shechem.  [SHECHEM  :  SYCHAR.] 
He  replaced  them  by  a  colony  of  Syro-Macedonians, 


its  name.     In  the  territory  originally  belonging  to  and  gave  the  adjacent  territory  (2ajuape?Tts  x<*>Pa) 
the  tribe  of  Joseph,  about  six  miles  to  the  north-west  !  to  the  Jews  to  inhabit  (Joseph,  c.  Ap.  ii.  4).    These 

of  Sliechem,  there  is  a  wide  basin-shaped  valley,  Syro-Macedonians  occupied  the  city  until  the  time 

encircled  with  high  hills,  almost  on  the  edge  of  the  of  John  Hyrcanus.     It  was  then  a  place  of  consi- 

great  plain  which  borders  upon  the  Mediterranean,  derable  importance,  for  Josephus  describes  it  (Ant. 
la  the  centre  of  this  basin,  which  is  on  a  lower 
level  than  the  valley  of  Shechem,  rises  a  less  elevated 


oblong  hill,  with  steep  yet  accessible  sides,  and  a 
long  fiat  top.  This  hill  was  chosen  by  Omri,  as  the 
site  of  the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel.  The 
first  capital  after  the  secession  of  the  ten  tribes  had 
been  Shechem  itself,  whither  all  Israel  had  come  to 
make  Rehoboam  king.  On  the  separation  being  fully 
accomplished,  Jeroboam  rebuilt  that  city  (1  K.  xii. 
25),  which  had  been  razed  to  the  ground  by  Abi- 
melech  (Judg.  ix.  45).  But  he  soon  moved  to 
Tirzah,  a  place,  as  Dr.  Stanley  observes,  of  great  and 
proverbial  beauty  (Cant.  vi.  4)  ;  which  continued  to 


xi  11.  10,  §2)  as  a  very  strong  city  (ir6\ts 
rdrri).  John  Hyrcanus  took  it  after  a  year's  siege, 
and  did  his  best  to  demolish  it  entirely.  He  inter 
sected  the  hill  on  which  it  lay  with  trenches : 
into  these  he  conducted  the  natural  brooks,  and 
thus  undermined  its  foundations.  "  In  fact,"  says 
the  Jewish  historian,  "  he  took  away  all  evidence 
of  the  very,  existence  of  the  city."  This  story  at 
first  sight  seems  rather  exaggerated,  and  incon 
sistent  with  the  hilly  site  of  Samaria.  It  may 
have  referred  only  to  the  suburbs  lying  at  its  foot. 
"  But,"  says  Prideaux  (Conn.  B.C.  109,  note),  "  Ben 
jamin  of  Tudela,  who  was  in  the  place,  tells  us  in 


be  the  royal  residence  until  Zimri  burnt  the  palace  '  his  Itinerary ^  that  there  were  upon  the  top  of  this 
and  perished  in  its  ruins  (1  K.  xiv.  17  ;  xv.  21,  33  ;    hill  many  fountains  of  water,  and  from  these  water 
Omri,  who  prevailed  in  the  contest  for  |  enough  may  have  been  derived  to  fill  these  trenches. 


the  kingdom  that  ensued,  after  "  reigning  six  years  "  It  should  also  be  recollected  that  the  hill  of  Samaria 
there,  "  bought  the  hill  of  Samaria  (tiTOE?  1HH  ;  T&  was  lower  than  the  hills  in  its  neighbourhood.  This 
„  v—  /  \  <•  01  f~T  may  account  for  the  existence  of  these  springs. 

Se^pa,!/)  of  ShemerOBP;2e/«,p,  Joseph.  josephus  describes  the  extremities  to  which  the 
Se/xdjuos)  for  two  talents  of  silver,  and  built  on  !  inhabitants  were  reduced  during  this  siege,  much  in 
the  hill,  and  called  the  name  of  the  city  which  j  the  same  way  that  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Kings 
he  built,  after  the  name  of  the  owner  of  the  hill,  !  does  during  that  of  Benhadad  (comp.  Ant.  xiii.  10, 
Samaria"  (1  K.  xvi.  23,  24).  This  statement  of!  §2,  with  2  K.  vi.  25).  John  Hyrcanus'  reasons 
course  dispenses  with  the  etymology  above  alluded  I  for  attacking  Samaria  were  the  injuries  which  its 


to ;  but  the  central  position  of  the  hill,  as  Herod 
sagnciously  observed  long  afterwards,  made  it  ad 
mirably  adapted  for  a  place  of  observation,  and  a 
fortress  to  awe  the  neighbouring  country.  And  the 
singular  beauty  of  the  spot,  upon  which,  to  this  hour, 
travellers  dwell  with  admiration,  may  have  struck 
Omri,  as  it  afterwards  struck  the  tasteful  Idu- 
mean  (B.  J.  i.  21,  §2;  Ant.  xv.  8,  §5). 


a  The  prevailing  LXX.  form  in  the  0.  T.  is 
with  the  following  remarkable  exceptions :— 1  K.  xvi.  24, 
(Mai,  2aju,;jp<«'ii/) ;  Ezr.  iv.  10 


inhabitants  had  done  to  the  people  of  Marissa, 
colonists  and  allies  of  the  Jews.  This  confirms  what 
was  said  above,  of  the  cession  of  the  Samaritan  neigh 
bourhood  to  the  Jews  by  Alexander  the  Great. 

After  this  disaster  (which  occurred  in  B.C.  109), 
the  Jews  inhabited  what  remained  of  the  city ;  at 
least  we  find  it  in  their  possession  in  the  time  oi 
Alexander  Jannaeus  (Ant.  xiii.  15,  §4),  and  until 


piav  (5iai.  2tojudiptoi>)  ;  Neh.  iv.  2,  Is.  vii.  9,  . 

b  No  such  passage,  however,  now  exists  in  Be«j»uiiin  <J 
Tudela.    See  the  editions  of  Asher  and  c  f  Boha. 


1 100 


SAMARIA 


Pompey  gave  it  back  to  the  descendants  of  its 
original  inhabitants  (rots  oiKfirooffiv).  These  ot/r/j- 
ropes  may  possibly  have  been  the  Syro-Macedonians, 
but  it  is  more  probable  that  they  were  Samaritans 
proper,  whose  ancestors  had  been  dispossessed  by  the 
colonists  of  Alexander  the  Great.  By  directions  of 
Gabinius,  Samaria  and  other  demolished  cities  wers 
rebuilt  (Ant.  xiv.  5,  §3).  But  its  more  effectual 
rebuilding  was  undertaken  by  Herod  the  Great,  to 
whom  it  had  been  granted  by  Augustus,  on  the 
death  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  (Ant.  xiii.  10,  §3, 
xv.  8,  §5 ;  B.  J.  i.  20,  §3).  He  called  it  Sttastt. 
2e/3a0"n7  =  Augusta,  after  the  name  of  his  patron 
(Ant.  xv.  7,  §7).  Josephus  gives  an  elaborate  de 
scription  of  Herod's  improvements.  The  wall  sur 
rounding  it  was  20  stadia  in  length.  In  the  middle 
of  it  was  a  close,  of  a  stadium  and  a  half  square, 
containing  a  magnificent  temple,  dedicated  to  the 
Caesar.  It  was  colonised  by  6000  veterans  and 
others,  for  whose  support  a  most  beautiful  and 
rich  district  surrounding  the  city  was  appropriated. 
Herod's  motives  in  these  arrangements  were  pro 
bably,  first,  the  occupation  of  a  commanding  position, 
and  then  the  desire  of  distinguishing  himself  for  taste 
by  the  embellishment  of  a  spot  already  so  adorned  by 
nature  (Ant.  xv.  8,  §5  ;  B.  J.  i.  20,  §3 ;  21,  §2). 

How  long  Samaria  maintained  its  splendour  after 
Herod's  improvements  we  are  not  informed.  In 
the  N.  T.  the  city  itself  does  not  appear  to  be  men 
tioned,  but  rather  a  portion  of  the  district  to  which, 
even  in  older  times,  it  had  extended  its  name.  Our 
Version,  indeed,  of  Acts  viii.  5  says  that  Philip 
the  deacon  "  went  down  to  the  city  of  Samaria ;" 
but  the  Greek  of  the  passage  is  simply  ets  TTO\IV 
TT/S  "Saftapeias.  And  we  may  fairly  argue,  both 
from  the  absence  of  the  definite  article,  and  from 
the  probability  that,  had  the  city  Samaria  been 
intended,  the  term  employed  would  have  been 
Sebaste,  that  some  one  city  of  the  district,  the 
name  of  which  is  not  specified,  was  in  the  mind 
of  the  writer.  In  verse  9  of  the  same  chapter  "  the 
people  of  Samaria  "  represents  rJ>  edvos  TTJS  Sa^uo- 
peias ;  and  the  phrase  in  verse  25,  "  many  villages 
of  the  Samaritans,"  shows  that  the  operations  of 
*vangelizing  were  not  confined  to  the  city  of  Sa 
maria  itself,  if  they  were  ever  carried  on  there. 
Comp.  Matt.  x.  5,  "  Into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans 
enter  ye  not;"  and  John  iv.  4,  5,  where,  after  it  has 
been  said,  "  And  He  must  needs  go  through  Samaria," 
obviously  the  district,  it  is  subjoined,  "Then  cometh 
He  to  a  city  of  Samaria  called  Sychar."  Hence 
forth  its  history  is  very  unconnected.  Septimius 
Severus  planted  a  Roman  colony  there  in  the  begin 
ning  of  the  third  century  (Ulpian,  Leg.  I.  de  Cen- 
stbus,  quoted  by  Dr.  Robinson).  Various  specimens 
of  coins  struck  on  the  spot  have  been  preserved, 
extending  from  Nero  to  Geta,  the  brother  of  Cara- 
calla  (Vaillant,  in  Numism.  Imper.,  and  Noris, 
quoted  by  Reland).  But,  though  the  seat  of  a  Ro 
man  colony,  it  could  not  have  been  a  place  of  much 
political  importance.  We  find  in  the  Codex  of 
Theodosius,  that  by  A.D.  409  the  Holy  Land  hid 
been  divided  into  Palaestina  Prima,  Secunda,  hnd 
Tertia.  Palaestina  Prima  included  the  country  of 
the  Philistines,  Samaria  (the  district),  and  the 
northern  part  of  Judaea;  but  its  capital  was  not 
Sebaste,  but  Caesarea.  In  an  ecclesiastic^  point  of 
view  it  stood  rather  higher.  It  was  an  episcopal 
see  probably  as  ea^y  as  the  third  century.  At 
any  rate  its  bishop  was  present  amongst  those  of 
Palestine  at  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  A.D.  325,  and 
subscribed  its  acts  as  "  Maxiraus  (al.  Marinus) 


SAMARIA 

Sebastenus."  The  names  of  some  of  his  suceeasert 
have  been  preserved — the  latest  of  them  rnentionol 
is  Pelagius,  who  attended  the  Synod  at  Jerusalem. 
A.D.  536.  The  title  of  the  see  occurs  in  the 
earlier  Greek  Notitiae,  and  in  the  later  Latin  ones 
(Reland,  Pal.  214-229).  Sebaste  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Mahommedans  during  the  siege  of  Jeru 
salem.  In  the  course  of  the  Crusades  a  Latin 
bishopric  was  established  there,  the  title  of  which 
was  recognised  by  the  Roman  Church  until  the 
fourteenth  century.  At  this  day  the  city  of  Omri 
and  of  Herod  is  represented  by  a  small  village 
retaining  few  vestiges  of  the  past  except  its  name, 
Sebustieh,  an  Arabic  corruption  of  Sebaste.  Some 
architectural  remains  it  has,  partly  of  Christian 
construction  or  adaptation,  as  the  ruined  church 
of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  partly,  perhaps,  traces  of 
Idumaean  magnificence.  "A  long  avenue  of  broken 
pillars  (says  Dr.  Stanley),  apparently  the  main 
street  of  Herod's  city,  here,  as  at  Palmyra  and 
Damascus,  adorned  by  a  colonnade  on  each  side, 
still  lines  the  topmost  terrace  of  the  hill."  But 
the  fragmentary  aspect  of  the  whole  place  exhibits 
a  present  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  of  Micah 
(i.  6),  though  it  may  have  been  fulfilled  more  than 
once  previously  by  the  ravages  of  Shalmaneser  or 
of  John  Hyrcanus.  "  I  will  make  Samaria  as  an 
heap  of  the  field,  and  as  plantings  of  a  vineyard : 
and  I  will  pour  down  the  stones  thereof  into  the 
valley,  and  I  will  discover  the  foundations  thereof" 
(Mic.  i.  6;  comp.  Hos.  xiii.  16). 

St.  Jerome,  whose  acquaintance  with  Palestine 
imparts  a  sort  of  probability  to  the  tradition  which 
prevailed  so  strongly  in  later  days,  asserts  that 
Sebaste,  which  he  invariably  identifies  with  Samaria, 
was  the  place  in  which  St.  John  the  Baptist  was 
imprisoned  and  suffered  death.  He  also  makes  it 
the  burial-place  of  the  prophets  Elisha  and  Obadiah 
(see  various  passages  cited  by  Reland,  pp.  980-981), 
Epiphanius  is  at  great  pains,  in  his  work  Adv. 
Haereses  (lib.  i.),  in  which  he  treats  of  the  heresies 
of  the  Samaritans  with  singular  minuteness,  to 
account  for  the  origin  of  their  name.  He  interprets 
it  as  Dn»b;,  <l>v\aKes,  or  "  keepers."  The  hill 
on  which  the  city  was  built  was,  he  says,  designated 
Somer  or  Someron  (2w/x^p,  ~S,(ajJi6p<uv),  from  a 
certain  Somoron  the  son  of  Somer,  whom  he  con 
siders  to  have  been  of  the  stock  of  the  ancient 
Perizzites  or  Girgashites,  themselves  descendants  of 
Canaan  and  Ham.  But  he  adds,  the  inhabitants 
may  have  been  called  Samaritans  from  their  guard 
ing  the  land,  or  (coming  down  much  later  in  their 
history)  from  their  guarding  the  Law,  as  distin 
guished  from  the  later  writings  of  the  Jewish  Canon, 
which  they  refused  to  allow.  [See  SAMARITANS.] 

For  modern  descriptions  of  the  condition  of  Sa 
maria  and  its  neighbourhood,  see  Dr.  Robinson's 
Biblical  Researches,  ii.  127-33 ;  Reland's  Palaes 
tina,  344,  979-982 ;  Raumer's  Paldstina,  144-148. 
notes ;  Van  de  Velde's  Syria  and  Palestine,  i.  363- 
388,  and  ii.  295,  296,  Map,  and  Memoir ;  Dr.  Stan 
ley's  Sinai  and  Palestine,  242-246  ;  and  a  short 
article  by  Mr.  G.  Williams  in  the  Diet,  of  Geog. 
Dr.  Kitto,  in  his  Physical  History  of  Palestine,  pp, 
cxvii.,  cxviii.,  has  an  interesting  reference  to  and 
extract  from  Sandys,  illustrative  of  its  topography 
and  general  aspect  at  the  commencement  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

2.  The  Samaria  named  in  ;he  present  text  of 
1  Mace.  v.  66  (r^v  ~2,a/j.dp€iav :  Samariam}  is  evi 
dently  an  error.  At  any  rate  tlie  well-known  Sa- 


SAMARIA. 


1101 


S&uetiyeh,  the  ancient  SAMAEIA,  from  the  E.N.E. 

Bcnina  tne  city  are  the  mountains  of  Ephratm,  verging  on  tne  Ham  of  Sharon.  The  Mediterranean  Sea  Is  in  the  furtHest  distance. 
The  original  sketch  from  which  this  view  U  taken  was  made  by  William  Tipping,  Esq.,  in  1842,  and  is  engraved  by  his  kind 
permission. 


maria  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  cannot  be 
intended,  for  it  is  obvious  that  Judas,  in  passing 
from  Hebron  to  the  land  of  the  Philistines  (Azotus), 
could  not  make  so  immense  a  detour.  The  true 
correction  is  doubtless  supplied  by  Josephus  {Ant. 
xii.  8,  §6),  who  has  Marissa  (f.  e.  MARESHA),  a  place 
which  lay  in  the  road  from  Hebron  to  the  Philistine 
Plain.  One  of  the  ancient  Latin  Versions  exhibits 
the  same  reading  ;  which  is  accepted  by  Ewald 
(Gesch.  iv.  361)  and  a  host  of  commentators  (see 
Grimm,  Kurzg.  Exeg.  Handb.,  on  the  passage;  . 
Drusius  proposed  "Bhaaraim  ;  but  this  is  hardly  so 
feasible  as  Maresha,  and  has  no  external  support. 

3.  SAMARIA  (y  2ayuap6?Ttj  x^Pa>  Joseph.  x^Pa 
2a/ua/jea>j'  ;   Ptol.  Sctyiapis,  2a/*apeta  :  Samaria). 

SAMARITANS  (D'OID!^:    Scytapemu  ;  Joseph. 


There  are  few  questions  in  Biblical  philology 
upon  which,  in  recent  times,  scholars  have  come 
to  such  opposite  conclusions  as  the  extent  of  the 
territory  to  which  the  former  of  these  words  is 
applicable,  and  the  origin  of  the  people  to  which 
the  latter  is  applied  in  the  N.  T.  But  a  probable 
solution  of  them  may  be  gained  by  careful  attention 
to  the  historical  statements  of  Holy  Scripture  and 
of  Josephus,  and  by  a  consideration  of  the  geo 
graphical  features  of  Palestine. 

In  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term,  a  SAMARITAN 
would  be  an  inhabitant  of  the  city  of  Samaria.  But 
it  is  not  found  at  all  in  this  sense,  exclusively  at 
any  rate,  in  the  0.  T.  In  fact,  it  only  occurs  there 
once,  and  then  in  a  wider  signification,  in  2  K.  xvii. 
29.  There  it  is  employed  to  designate  those  whom 
the  king  of  Assyria  had  •'  placed  in  (what  are 
called)  the  cities  of  Samaria  (whatever  these  may 
be)  instead  of  the  children  of  Israel." 

Were  the  word  Samaritan  found  elsewhere  in  the 
0.  T.,  it  would  have  designated  those  who  belonged 
to  the  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes,  which  in  a  large 
sense  was  called  Samaria.  And  as  the  extent  of  that 
kingdom  varied,  which  it  did  very  much,  gradually 


diminishing  to  the  time  of  Shalmaneser,  so  the 
extent  of  the  word  Samaritan  would  have  varied. 

SAMARIA  at  first  included  all  the  tribes  over 
which  Jeroboam  made  himself  king,  whether  east 
or  west  of  the  river  Jordan.  Hence,  even  before 
the  city  of  Samaria  existed,  we  find  the  "  old  pro 
phet  who  dwelt  at  Bethel"  describing  the  predic 
tions  of  "  the  man  of  God  who  came  from  Judah." 
in  reference  to  the  altar  at  Bethel,  as  directed  not 
merely  against  that  altar,  but  "  against  all  the 
houses  of  the  high-places  which  are  in  the  cities 
of  Samaria  "  (1  K.  xiii.  32J,  i.  e.,  of  course,  the 
cities  of  which  Samaria  was,  or  was  to  be,  the  head 
or  capital.  In  other  places  in  the  historical  books 
cf  the  0.  T.  (with  the  exception  of  2  K.  xvii.  24, 
26,  28,  29)  Samaria  seems  to  denote  the  city  ex 
clusively.  But  the  prophets  use  the  word,  much 
as  did  the  old  prophet  of  Bethel,  in  a  greatly  ex 
tended  sense.  Thus  the  "  calf  of  Bethel "  is  called 
by  Hosea  (viii.  5,  6)  the  "  calf  of  Samaria ;"  in 
Amos  (iii.  9)  the  "mountains  of  Samaria"  are 
spoken  of;  and  the  "  captivity  of  Samaria  and  her 
daughters"  is  a  phrase  found  in  Ezekiel  (xvi.  53). 
Hence  the  word  Samaritan  must  have  denoted  every 
one  subject  to  the  king  of  the  northern  capital. 

But,  whatever  extent  the  word  might  have  ac 
quired,  it  necessarily  became  contracted  as  the  limits 
of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  became  contracted.  In  all 
probability  the  territory  of  Simeon  and  that  of  Dan 
were  very  early  absorbed  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah. 
This  would  be  one  limitation.  Next,  in  B.C.  771 
and  740  respectively,  "  Pul,  king  of  Assyria,  and 
Tilgath-pilneser,  king  of  Assyria,  carried  away  the 
Reubenites  and  the  Gadites,  and  the  half-tribe  of 
Manasseh,  and  brought  them  unto  Halah,  and 
Habor,  and  Hara,  and  to  the  river  Gozan  "  (1  Chr. 
v.  26).  This  would  be  a  second  limitation.  But 
the  latter  of  these  kings  went  further :  "  He  took 
Ijon,  and  Abel-beth-maachah,  and  Janoah,  and 
Kedesh,  and  Hazor,  and  Gilead,  and  Galilee,  all  the 
land  of  Naphtali,  and  earned  them  captive  to  As 
syria"  (2  K.  xv.  29).  This  would  be  a  third 


1102 


SAMARIA 


limitation.  Nearly  a  century  before,  B.C.  860, ' 
"the  Lord  had  begun  to  cut  Israel  short;"  for 
"  Hazael,  king  of  Syria,  smote  them  in  all  the 
coasts  of  Israel ;  from  Jordan  eastward,  all  the  land 
of  Gilead,  the  Gadites,  and  the  Reubenites,  and  the 
Manassites,  from  Aroer,  which  is  by  the  river 
Arnon,  even  Gilead  and  Bashan  "  (2  K.  x.  32,  33). 
This,  however,  as  we  may  conjecture  from  the 
diversity  of  expression,  had  been  merely  a  passing 
inroad,  and  had  involved  no  permanent  subjection 
of  the  country,  or  deportation  of  its  inhabitants. 
The  invasions  of  Pul  and  of  Tilgath-pilneser  were 
utter  clearances  of  the  population.  The  territory 
thus  desolated  by  them  was  probably  occupied  by 
degrees  by  the  pushing  forward  of  the  neighbouring 
heathen,  or  by  straggling  families  of  the  Israelites 
themselves.  In  reference  to  the  northern  part  of 
Galilee  we  know  that  a  heathen  population  pre 
vailed.  Hence  the  phrase  "  Galilee  of  the  Nations," 
or  "Gentiles"  (Is.  ix.  1 ;  1  Mac.  v.  15).  And  no 
doubt  this  was  the  case  also  beyond  Jordan. 

But  we  have  yet  to  arrive  at  a  fourth  limitation 
of  the  kingdom  of  Samaria,  and,  by  consequence,  of 
the  word  Samaritan.  It  is  evident  from  an  occur 
rence  in  Hezekiah's  reign,  that  just  before  the  depo 
sition  and  death  of  Hoshea,  the  last  king  of  Israel, 
the  authority  of  the  king  of  Judah,  or,  at  least,  his 
influence,  was  recognised  by  portions  of  Asher,  Issa- 
char,  and  Zebukin,  and  even  of  Ephraim  and  Ma- 
nasseh  (2  Chr.  xxx.  1-26).  Men  came  from  all 
those  tribes  to  the  Passover  at  Jerusalem.  This 
was  about  B.C.  726.  In  fact,  to  such  miserable 
limits  had  the  kingdom  of  Samaria  been  reduced, 
that  when,  two  or  three  years  afterwards,  we  are 
told  that  "  Shalmaneser  came  up  throughout  the 
land,"  and  after  a  siege  of  three  years  "  took  Sa 
maria,  and  carried  Israel  away  into  Assyria,  and 
placed  them  in  Halah,  and  in  Habor  by  the  river 
Gozan,  and  in  the  cities  of  the  Medes  "  (2  K.  xvii. 
5,  6),  and  when  again  we  are  told  that  "  Israel 
was  carried  away  out  of  their  own  land  into  As 
syria"  (2  K.  xvii.  23),  we  must  suppose  a  very 
small  field  of  operations.  Samaria  (the  city),  and 
a  few  adjacent  cities  or  villages  only,  represented 
that  dominion  which  had  once  extended  from  Bethel 
to  Dan  northwards,  and  from  the  Mediterranean  to 
the  borders  of  Syria  and  Ammon  eastwards.  This 
is  further  confirmed  by  what  we  read  of  Josiah's 
progress,  in  B.C.  641,  through  "  the  cities  of  Ma- 
nasseh  and  Ephraim  and  Simeon,  even  unto  Naph- 
tali"  (2  Chr.  xxxiv.  6).  Such  a  progress  would 
have  been  impracticable  had  the  number  of  cities 
and  villages  occupied  by  the  persons  then  called 
Samaritans  been  at  all  large. 

This,  however,  brings  us  more  closely  to  the 
second  point  of  our  discussion,  the  origin  of  those 
who  are  in  2  K.  xvii.  29,  and  in  the  N.  T.,  called 
Samaritans.  Shalmaneser,  as  we  have  seen  (2  K. 
xvii.  5,  6,  26),  carried  Israel,  i.  e.  the  remnant  of 
the  ten  tribes  which  still  acknowledged  Hoshea's 
authority,  into  Assyria.  This  remnant  consisted,  as 
has  been  shown,  of  Samaria  (the  city)  and  a  few 
adjacent  cities  and  villages.  Now,  1.  Did  he  carry 
away  all  their  inhabitants,  or  no?  2.  Whether 
they  were  wholly  or  only  partially  desolated,  who 
replaced  the  deported  population  ?  On  the  answer 
to  these  inquiries  will  depend  our  determination  of 
the  questions,  were  the  Samaritans  a  mixed  race, 
composed  partly  of  Jews,  partly  of  new  settlers,  or 
were  they  purely  of  foreign  extraction? 

In  reference  to  the  former  of  these  inquiries,  it 
may  be  observed  that  the  language  of  Scripture 


SAMARIA 

admits  of  scarcely  a  doubt.  "  Israel  was  carried 
away"  (2  K.  xvii.  6,  23),  and  other  nations  were 
placed  "  in  the  cities  of  Samaria  instead  of  the 
children  of  Israel "  (2  K.  xvii.  24).  There  is  no 
mention  whatever,  as  in  the  case  of  the  somewhat 
parallel  destruction  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  ol 
"  the  poor  of  the  land  being  left  to  be  vine-dressers 
and  husbandmen"  (2  K.  xxv.  12).  We  add,  that, 
had  any  been  left,  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  the  new  inhabitants  to  have  been  so  utterly 
unable  to  acquaint  themselves  with  "  the  manner 
of  the  God  of  the  land,"  as  to  require  to  be  taught 
by  some  priest  of  the  captivity  sent  from  the  king 
of  Assyria.  Besides,  it  was  not  an  unusual  thing 
with  Oriental  conquerors  actually  to  exhaust  a  land 
of  its  inhabitants.  Comp.  Herod,  iii.  149,  "  The 
Persians  dragged  ((rayrjvevffavrfs}  Samos,  and  deli 
vered  it  up  to  Syloson  stript  of  all  its  men  ;"  and, 
again,  Herod,  vi.  31,  for  the  application  of  the  same 
treatment  to  other  islands,  where  the  process  called 
ffaytivevfiv  is  described,  and  is  compared  to  a 
hunting  out  of  the  population  (eKdrjpeveiv}.  Such 
a  capture  is  presently  contrasted  with  the  capture 
of  other  territories  to  which  ffcrynveveiv  was  not 
applied.  Josephus's  phrase  in  reference  to  the  cities 
of  Samaria  is  that  Shalmaneser  '« transplanted  all 
the  people"  {Ant.  ix.  14,  §1).  A  threat  against 
Jerusalem,  which  was  indeed  only  partially  carried 
out,  shows  how  complete  and  summaiy  the  desola 
tion  of  the  last  relics  of  the  sister  kingdom  must 
have  been :  "I  will  stretch  over  Jerusalem  the 
line  of  Samaria,  and  the  plummet  of  the  house  of 
Ahab  :  and  I  will  wipe  Jerusalem  as  a  man  wipeth 
a  dish  :  he  wipeth  and  tumeth  it  upon  the  face 
thereof"  (2  K.  xxi.  13).  This  was  uttered  within 
forty  years  after  B.C.  721,  during  the  reign  of  Ma- 
nasseh.  It  must  have  derived  much  strength  from 
the  recentuess  and  proximity  of  the  calamity. 

We  may  then  conclude  that  the  cities  of  Samaria 
were  not  merely  partially,  but  wholly  evacuated  of 
their  inhabitants  in  B.C.  721,  and  that  they  re 
mained  in  this  desolated  state  until,  in  the  words 
of  2  K.  xvii.  24,  "  the  king  of  Assyria  brought  men 
from  Babylon,  and  from  Cuthah,  and  from  Ava 
(Ivah,  2  K.  xviii.  34),  and  from  Hamath,  and  from 
Sepharvaim,  and  placed  them  in  the  cities  of  Sa 
maria  instead  of  the  children  of  Israel :  and  they 
possessed  Samaria,  and  dwelt  in  the  cities  thereof." 
Thus  the  new  Samaritans — for  such  we  must  now 
call  them — were  Assyrians  by  birth  or  subjugation, 
were  utterly  strangers  in  the  cities  of  Samaria,  and 
were  exclusively  the  inhabitants  of  those  cities.  An 
incidental  question,  however,  arises,  Who  was  the 
king  of  Assyria  that  effected  this  colonization  ?  At 
first  sight,  one  would  suppose  Shalmaneser  ;  for  the 
narrative  is  scarcely  broken,  and  the  repeopling 
seems  to  be  a  natural  sequence  of  the  depopulation. 
Such  would  appear  to  have  been  Josephus'  view,  for 
he  says  of  Shalmaneser,  "  when  he  had  removed  the 
people  out  of  their  land,  he  bixmght  other  nations 
out  of  Cuthah,  a  place  so  called  (for  there  is  still  in 
Persia  a  river  of  that  name),  into  Samaria  and  the 
country  of  the  Israelites  "  (Ant.  ix.  14,  §1,  3;  x.  9, 
§7) ;  but  he  must  have  been  led  to  this  interpretation 
simply  by  the  juxtaposition  of  the  two  transactions 
in  the  Hebrew  text.  The  Samaritans  themselves, 
in  Ezr.  iv.  2, 10,  attributed  their  colonization  not  to 
Shalmaneser,  but  to  "  Esar-haddon,  king  of  Assur," 
or  to  "  the  great  and  noble  A  snapper,"  either  the 
king  himself  or  oue  of  his  generals.  It  was  probably 
on  his  invasion  of  Judah,  in  the  reign  of  Manasseh, 
about  B.C.  677,  that  Esarhaddon  discovered  the 


SAMARIA 

impolicy  of  leaving  a  tract  upon  tho  very  frontiers 
of  that  kingdom  thus  desolate,  and  determined  to 
garrison  it  with  foreigners.  The  fact,  too,  that  some 
of  these  foreigners  came  from  Babylon  would  seem 
to  direct  us  to  Esarhaddon,  rather  than  to  his  grand 
father,  Shalmaneser.  It  was  only  recently  that 
Babylon  had  come  into  the  hands  of  the  Assyrian 
king.  And  there  is  another  reason  \vhy  this  date 
should  be  preferred.  It  coincides  with  the  termi 
nation  of  the  sixty-five  years  of  Isaiah's  prophecy, 
delivered  B.C.  742,  within  which  "  Ephraim  should 
be  broken  that  it  should  not  be  a  people  "  (Is.  vii.  8). 
This  was  not  effectually  accomplished  until  the  very 
land  itself  was  occupied  by  strangers.  So  long  as- 
this  had  not  taken  place,  there  might  be  hope  of 
return :  after  it  had  taken  place,  no  hope.  Josephus 
(Ant.  x.  9,  §7)  expressly  notices  this  difference  in 
the  cases  of  the  ten  and  of  the  two  tribes.  The  land 
of  the  former  became  the  possession  of  foreigners, 
the  land  of  the  latter  not  so. 

These  strangers,  whom  we  will  now  assume  to 
have  been  placed  in  "  the  cities  of  Samaria"  by 
Esarhaddon,  were  of  course  idolaters,  and  wor 
shipped  a  strange  medley  of  divinities.  Each  of  the 
rive  nations,  says  Josephus,  who  is  confirmed  by 
the  words  of  Scripture,  had  its  own  god.  No  place 
was  found  for  the  worship  of  Him  who  had  once 
called  the  land  His  own,  and  whose  it  was  still. 
God's  displeasure  was  kindled,  and  they  were  in 
fested  by  beasts  of  prey,  wV«ich  had  probably 
increased  to  a  great  extent  before  their  entrance 
upon  it.  "  The  Lord  sent  lions  among  them,  which 
slew  some  of  them."  On  their  explaining  their 
miserable  condition  to  the  king  of  Assyria,  he  de 
spatched  one  of  the  captive  priests  to  teach  them 
"  how  they  should  fear  the  Lord."  The  priest 
came  accordingly,  and  henceforth,  in  the  language 
of  the  sacred  historian,  they  "  feared  the  Lord,  and 
served  their  graven  images,  both  their  children  and 
their  children's  children :  as  did  their  fathei-s,  so  do 
they  unto  this  day"  (2  K.  xvii.  41).  This  last 
sentence  was  probably  inserted  by  Ezra.  It  serves 
two  purposes  :  1st,  to  qualify  the  pretensions  of  the 
Samaritans  of  Ezra's  time  to  be  pure  worshippers 
of  God  —  they  were  no  more  exclusively  His  ser 
vants,  than  was  the  Roman  emperor  who  desired  to 
place  a  statue  of  Christ  in  the  Pantheon  entitled  to 
be  called  a  Christian ;  and,  2ndly,  to  show  how  en 
tirely  the  Samaritans  of  later  days  differed  from 
their  ancestors  in  respect  to  idolatry.  Josephus' 
account  of  the  distress  of  the  Samaritans,  and  of  the 
remedy  for  it,  is  very  similar,  with  the  exception 
that  with  him  they  are  afflicted  with  pestilence. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  the  post-captivity  or  new 
Samaritans — men  not  of  Jewish  extraction,  but  from 
the  further  East :  "  the  Cuthaeans  had  formerly  be 
longed  to  the  inner  parts  of  Persia  and  Media,  but 
were  then  called  '  Samaritans,'  taking  the  name  of 
the  country  to  which  they  were  removed,"  says 
Josephus  (Ant.  x.  9,  §7).  And  again  he  says  (Ant. 
ix.  14,  §3)  they  are  called  "  in  Hebrew  '  Cuthaeans,' 
but  in  Greek  '  Samaritans.'  "  Our  Lord  expressly 
terms  them  a\\o-yeve~is  (Luke  xvii.  18) ;  and  Jo 
sephus'  whole  account  of  them  shows  that  he  believed 
them  to  have  been  /JLCTOIKOI  a.\\oeOvf'is,  though, 
<s  he  tells  us  in  two  places  (Ant.  ix.  14,  §3,  and 
xi.  8,  §6),  they  sometimes  gave  a  different  account 
of  their  origin.  But  of  this  bye  and  bye.  A  gap 
occurs  in  their  history  until  Judah  has  returned 
from  captivity.  They  then  desire  to  be  allowed  to 
participate  in  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  at  Jeru 
salem.  It  is  curious,  and  perhaps  indicative  of  the 


SAMARIA 


1103 


treacherous  character  of  their  designs,  to  find  them 
even  then  called,  by  anticipation,  "  the  adversaries 
of  Judah  and  Benjamin  "  (Ezr.  iv.  1),  a  title  which 
they  afterwards  fully  justified.  But,  so  far  as  pro 
fessions  go,  they  are  not  enemies ;  they  are  most 
anxious  to  be  friends.  Their  religion,  they  assert, 
is  the  same  as  that  of  the  two  tribes,  therefore  they 
have  a  right  to  share  in  that  great  religious  under 
taking.  But  they  do  not  call  it  a  national  under 
taking.  They  advance  no  pretensions  to  Jewish  blood. 
They  confess  their  Assyrian  descent,  and  even  put  it 
forward  ostentatiously,  perhaps  to  enhance  the  merit 
of  their  partial  conversion  to  God.  That  it  was  but 
partial  they  give  no  hint.  It  may  have  become 
purer  already,  but  we  have  no  information  that  it 
had.  Be  this,  however,  as  it  may,  the  Jews  do  not 
listen  favourably  to  their  overtures.  Ezra,  no  doubt, 
from  whose  pen  we  have  a  record  of  the  transaction, 
saw  them  through  and  through.  On  this  the  Sama 
ritans  throw  off' the  mask,  and  become  open  enemies, 
frustrate  the  operations  of  the  Jews  through  the 
reigns  of  two  Persian  kings,  and  are  only  effectually 
silenced  in  the  reign  of  Darius  Hystaspis,  B.C.  519. 

The  feud,  thus  unhappily  begun,  grew  year  by 
year  more  inveterate.  It  is  probable,  too,  that  the 
more  the  Samaritans  detached  themselves  from  idols, 
and  became  devoted  exclusively  to  a  sort  of  worship 
of  Jehovah,  the  more  they  resented  the  contempt 
with  which  the  Jews  treated  their  offers  of  fra 
ternization.  Matters  at  length  came  to  a  climax. 
About  B.C.  409,  a  certain  Manasseh,  a  man  of 
priestly  lineage,  on  being  expelled  from  Jerusalem 
by  Nehemiah  for  an  unlawful  marriage,  obtained 
permission  from  the  Persian  king  of  his  day,  Darius 
Nothus,  to  build  a  temple  on  Mount  Gerizim,  for 
the  Samaritans,  with  whom  he  had  found  refuge. 
The  only  thing  wanted  to  crystallise  the  opposition 
between  the  two  races,  viz.,  a  rallying  point  for 
schismatical  worship,  being  now  obtained,  their  ani 
mosity  became  more  intense  than  ever.  The  Sama 
ritans  are  said  to  have  done  everything  in  their  power 
to  annoy  the  Jews.  They  would  refuse  hospitality 
to  pilgrims  on  their  road  to"  Jerusalem,  as  in  our 
Lord's  case.  They  would  even  waylay  them  in 
their  journey  (Joseph.  Ant.  xx.  6,  §1) ;  and  many 
were  compelled  through  fear  to  take  the  longer 
route  by  the  east  of  Jordan.  Certain  Samaritans 
were  said  to  have  once  penetrated  into  the  Temple 
of  Jerusalem,  and  to  have  defiled  it  by  scattering 
dead  men's  bones  on  the  sacred  pavement  (Ant. 
xviii.  2,  §2).  We  are  told  too  of  a  strange 
piece  of  mockery  which  must  have  been  especially 
resented.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  Jews  to  com 
municate  to  their  brethren  still  in  Babylon  the  exact 
day  and  hour  of  the  rising  of  the  paschal  moon,  by 
beacon-fires  commencing  from  Mount  Olivet,  and 
flashing  forward  from  hill  to  hill  until  they  were 
mirrored  in  the  Euphrates.  So  the  Greek  poet 
represents  Agamemnon  as  conveying  the  news  of 
Troy's  capture  to  the  anxious  watchers  at  Mycenae. 
Those  who  "  sat  by  the  waters  of  Babylon  "  looked 
for  this  signal  with  much  interest.  It  enabled  them 
to  share  in  the  devotions  of  those  who  were  in  theii 
father-land,  and  it  proved  to  them  that  they  were 
not  forgotten.  The  Samaritans  thought  scorn  of 
these  feelings,  and  would  not  unfrequently  deceive 
and  disappoint  them,  by  kindling  a  rival  flame  and 
perplexing  the  watchers  on  the  mountains.'  Their 

»  "  This  fact,"  says  Dr.  Trench,  "  is  mentioned  by  Ma- 
krizi  (see  De  Sacy's  Chrest.  Arabe,  :i.  159),  who  affirms 
that  it  wxs  this  which  out  the  Jews  on  making  accuraW 


1104 


SAMARIA 


own  temple  on  Gerizim  they  considered  to  be  much 
superior  to  that  at  Jerusalem.  There  they  sacri 
ficed  a  passover.  Towards  the  mountain,  even  after 
the  temple  on  it  had  fallen,  wherever  they  were, 
they  directed  their  worship.  To  their  copy  of  the 
Law  they  arrogated  an  antiquity  and  authority 
greater  than  attached  to  any  copy  in  the  possession 
Df  the  Jews.  The  Law  (i.  e.  the  five  books  of  Moses) 
was  their  sole  code ;  for  they  rejected  every  other 
book  iu  the  Jewish  canon.  And  they  professed  to 
observe  it  better  than  did  the  Jews  themselves, 
employing  the  expression  not  unfreque'ntly,  "  The 
Jews  indeed  do  so  and  so ;  but  we,  observing  the 
letter  of  the  Law,  do  otherwise." 

The  Jews,  on  the  other  hand,  were  not  more 
conciliatory  in  their  treatment  of  the  Samaritans. 
Tha  copy  of  the  Law  possessed  by  that  people  they 
declared  to  be  the  legacy  of  an  apostate  (Manasseh), 
and  cast  grave  suspicions  upon  its  genuineness. 
Certain  other  Jewish  renegades  had  from  time  to 
time  taken  refuge  with  the  Samaritans.  Hence,  by 
degrees,  the  Samaritans  claimed  to  partake  of  Jewish 
blood,  especially  if  doing  so  happened  to  suit  their 
interest  (Joseph.  Ant.  xi.  8,  §6;  ix.  14,  §3).  A 
remarkable  instance  of  this  is  exhibited  in  a  request 
which  they  made  to  Alexander  the  Great,  about 
B.C.  332.  They  desired  to  be  excused  payment  of 
tribute  in  the  Sabbatical  year,  on  the  plea  that  as 
fy-ue  Israelites,  desc?ndants  of  Ephraim  and  Ma 
nasseh,  sons  of  Joseph,  they  refrained  from  culti 
vating  their  land  in  that  year.  Alexander,  on  cross- 
questioning  them,  discovered  the  hollowness  of  their 
pretensions.  (They  were  greatly  disconcerted  at 
their  failure,  and  their  dissatisfaction  probably  led 
to  the  conduct  which  induced  Alexander  to  besiege 
and  destroy  the  city  of  Sarnaria.  Shechem  was 
indeed  their  metropolis,  but  the  destruction  of  Sa 
maria  seems  to  have  satisfied  Alexander.)  Another 
instance  of  claim  to  Jewish  descent  appears  in 
the  words  of  the  woman  of  Samaria  to  our  Lord, 
John  iv.  12,  "  Art  Thou  greater  than  our  father 
Jacob,  who  gave  us  the  well  ?"  A  question  which 
she  puts  without  recollecting  that  she  had  just 
before  strongly  contrasted  the  Jews  and  the  Sama 
ritans.  Very  far  were  the  Jews  from  admitting 
this  claim  to  consanguinity  on  the  part  of  these 
people.  They  were  ever  reminding  them  that  they 
were  after  all  mere  Cuthaeans.  mere  strangers  from 
Assyria.  They  accused  them  ol  worshipping  the 
idol-gods  buried  long  ago  under  the  oak  of  Shechem 
(Gen.  xxxv.  4).  They  would  have  no  dealings  with 
them  that  they  could  possibly  avoid.b  "  Thou  art  a 
Samaritan  and  hast  a  devil,"  was  the  mode  in  which 
they  expressed  themselves  when  at  a  loss  for  a  bitter 
reproach.  Every  thing  that  a  Samaritan  had  touched 
was  as  swine's  flesh  to  them.  The  Samaritan  was 
publicly  cursed  in  their  synagogues — could  not  be 
adduced  as  a  witness  in  the  Jewish  courts — could 
not  be  admitted  to  any  sort  of  proselytism — and 
was  thus,  s<>  far  as  the  Jew  could  affect  his  position, 
excluded  from  hope  of  eternal  life.  The  traditional 
hatred  in  which  the  Jew  held  him  is  expressed  in 
Ecclus.  1.  25,  26,  "  There  be  two  manner  of  nations 
which  my  heart  abhorreth,  and  the  third  is  no 
oation  :  they  that  sit  on  the  mountain  of  Samaria ; 

calculations  to  determine  the  moment  of  the  new  moon's 
appearance  (comp.  Schoettgen's  HOT.  Heb.  i.  344)." 

b  This  prejudice  had,  of  course,  sometimes  to  give  way 
to  necessity,  for  the  disciples  had  gone  to  Sychar  to  boy 
food,  vhile  our  Lord  was  talking  with  the  woman  of  Sa 
maria  by  the  well  in  its  suburb  (John  iv.  8).  And  from 
Luke  ix.  52,  we  learn  that  the  disciples  went  before  onr 


SAMAKIA 

and  they  that  dwell  among  the  Philistines  ;  and 
that  foolish  people  that  dwell  in  Sichem."  And  so 
long;  was  it  before  such  a  temper  could  be  banished 
from  *ne  Jewish  mind,  that  we  find  even  the 
Apostles  believing  that  an  inhospitable  slight  shown 
by  a  Samaritan  village  to  Christ  would  be  not  unduly 
avenged  by  calling  down  fire  from  heaven. 

"  Ye  know  not  what  spirit  ye  are  of,"  said  the 
large-hearted  Son  of  Man,  and  we  find  Him  on  no 
one  occasion  uttering  anything  to  the  disparagement 
of  the  Samaritans.  His  words,  however,  and  the 
records  of  His  ministrations  confirm  most  thoroughly 
the  view  which  has  been  taken  above,  that  the 
Samaritans  were  not  Jews.  At  the  first  sending 
forth  of  the  Twelve  (Matt.  x.  5,  6)  He  charges 
them,  "Go  not  into  the  way  of  the  Gentiles,  and 
into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans  enter  ye  not,  but 
go  rather  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel." 
So  again,  in  His  final  address  to  them  on  Mount 
Olivet,  "  Ye  shall  be  witnesses  to  Me  in  Jerusalem 
and  in  all  Judaea,  and  in  Samaria,  and  unto  the 
uttermost  part  of  the  earth"  (Acts  i.  8).  So  the 
nine  unthankful  lepers,  Jews,  were  contrasted  by 
Him  with  the  tenth  leper,  the  thankful  stranger 
(oAA.oyej/r}s),  who  was  a  Samaritan.  So,  in  Hia 
well-known  parable,  a  merciful  Samaritan  is  con- 
trasted  with  the  unmerciful  priest  and  Levite.  And 
the  very  worship  of  the  two  races  is  described  by 
Him  as  different  in  character.  "  Ye  worship  ye 
know  not  what,"  this  is  said  of  the  Samaritans  : 
"  We  know  what  we  worship,  for  salvation  is  of 
the  Jews  "  (John  iv.  22). 

Such  were  the  Samaritans  of  our  Lord's  day  :  a 
people  distinct  from  the  Jews,  though  lying  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  Jews  ;  a  people  preserving  their 
identity,  though  seven  centuries  had  rolled  away 
since  they  had  been  brought  from  Assyria  by  Esar- 
haddon,  and  though  they  had  abandoned  their  poly 
theism  for  a  sort  of  ultra  Mosaicism  ;  a  people,  who  — 
though  their  limits  had  been  gradually  contracted, 
and  the  rallying  place  of  their  religion  on  Mount 
Gerizim  had  been  destroyed  one  hundred  and  sixty 
years  before  by  John  Hyrcanus  (B.C.  130),  and 
though  Samaria  (the  city)  had  been  again  and 
again  destroyed,  and  though  their  territory  had 
been  the  battle-field  of  Syria  and  Egypt  —  still  pre 
served  their  nationality,  still  worshipped  from 
Shechem  and  their  other  impoverished  settlements 
towards  their  sacred  hill  ;  still  retained  their  na 
tionality,  and  could  not  coalesce  with  the  Jews: 

6£os  T*  oAei<|>a  T'  ey\ea.s  T 
av  ov  <£i'A<os 


Not  indeed  that  we  must  suppose  that  the  whole  of 
the  country  called  in  our  Lord's  time  Samaria,  was 
in  the  possession  of  the  Cuthaeau  Samaritans,  or  that 
it  had  ever  been  so.  "  Samaria,"  says  Joseph  us, 
(B.  J.  iii.  3,  §4)  "  lies  between  Judaea  and  Galilee. 
It  commences  from  a  village  called  Ginaea  (Jenin), 
on  the  great  plain  (that  of  Esdraelon),  and  extends 
to  the  toparchy  of  Acrabatta,"  in  the  lower  part  oi 
the  territory  of  Ephraim.  These  points,  indicating 
the  extreme  northern  and  the  extreme  southern 
parallels  of  latitude  between  which  Samaria  was 
situated,  enable  us  to  fix  its  boundaries  with  tole- 


Lord  at  His  command  into  a  certain  village  of  thy 
Samaritans  "  to  make  ready"  for  Him.  Unless,  indeeu 
(though,  as  we  see  on  both  occasions,  our  Lord's  influ 
ence  over  them  was  not  yet  complete),  we  are  to  attribute 
this  partial  abandonment  of  their  ordinary  scruples  to 
the  change  which  His  example  had  already  wrought  ic 
UK-IB. 


SAMARIA 

rebk  certainty.     It  was  bounded  northward  by  the 
range  of  hills  which  commences  at  Mount  Carmel 
on  the  west,  and,  after  making  a  bend  to  the  south 
west,  runs  almost  due  east  to  the  valley  of  the 
Jordan,  forming  the  southern  border  of  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon.     It  touched  towards  the  south,  as  nearly 
as  possible,  the  northern  limits  of  Benjamin.    Thus 
it  comprehended  the  ancient  territory  of  Ephraim, 
and  of  those  Manassites  who  were  west  of  Jordan. 
"  Its  character,"  Josephus   continues,    "  is  in  no 
respect  different  from  that  cf  Judaea.    Both  abound 
in  mountains  and  plains,  and  are  suited  for  agricul 
ture,  and  productive,   wooded,  and  full  of  fruits 
both  wild  and  cultivated.    They  are  not  abundantly 
watered ;  but  much  rain  falls  there.     The  springs 
are  of  an  exceedingly  sweet  taste  ;  and,  on  account 
of  the  quantity  of  good  grass,  the  cattle  there  pro- 
luce   more   milk   than   elsewhere.     But  the    best 
proof  of  their  richness  and  fertility  is  that  both  are 
thickly  populated."     The  accounts  of  modern  tra 
vellers  confirm  this  description  by  the  Jewish  his 
torian  of  the  "good  land"  which  was  allotted  to 
that  powerful  portion  of  the  house  of  Joseph  which 
crossed  the  Jordan,  on  the  first  division  of  the  ter 
ritory.     The  Cuthaean  Samaritans,  however,  pos 
sessed  only  a  few  towns  and  villages  of  this  large 
area,  and  these  lay  almost  together  in  the  centre  of 
the  district.     Shechem  or  Sychar  (as  it  was  con 
temptuously  designated)  was  their  chief  settlement, 
even  before  Alexander  the  Great  destroyed  Samaria, 
probably  because  it  lay  almost  close  to  Mount  Ge- 
rizim.     Afterwards  it  became  more  prominently  so, 
and  there,  on  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  on 
Gerizim,  by  John  Hyrcanus  (Joseph.  Ant.  xiii.  9, 
§1),  they  built  themselves  a  temple.     The  modern 
representative    of  Shechem   is   Ndblus,  a  corrup 
tion   of  Neapolis,  or  the  "  New  Town,"  built  by 
Vespasian  a  little  to  the  west  of  the  older  town  which 
was  then  ruined.     At  Ndblus  the  Samaritans  have 
still  a  settlement,  consisting  of  about  200  persons. 
Yet  they  observe  the  Law,  and  celebrate  the  Passovei 
oh  a  sacred  spot  on  Mount  Gerizim,  with  an  exact 
ness  of  minute  ceremonial  which  the  Jews  them 
selves  have  long  intermitted : 

"  Quanquam  diruta,  servat 

Ignem  Trojanum,  et  Vestam  colit  Alba  rainorem." 
The  Samaritans  were  very  troublesome  both  to 
their  Jewish  neighbours  and  to  their  Roman  masters 
in  the  first  century,  A.D.  Pilate  chastised  them  with 
a  severity  which  led  to  his  own  downfall  (Joseph 
Ant.  xviii.  4,  §1),  and  a  slaughter  of  10,600  01 
them  took  place' under  Vespasian  (£.  J.  iii.  7,  §32) 
In  spite  of  these  reverses  they  increased  greatly  in 
numbers  towards  its  termination,  and  appear  to 
have  grown  into  importance  under  Dositheus,  whc 
was  probably  an  apostate  Jew.  Epiphanius  (adv 
Haercses,  lib.  i.),  in  the  fourth  century,  considers 
them  to  be  the  chief  and  most  dangerous  adver 
saries  of  Christianity,  and  he  enumerates  the  severa 
sects  into  which  they  had  by  that  time  dividec 
themselves.  They  were  popularly,  and  even  b] 
some  of  the  Fathers,  confounded  with  the  Jews,  in 
eornuch  that  a  legal  interpretation  of  the  Gospe 
was  described  as  a  tendency  to  2a/uapem0'jtid's  o; 
'lov$ai'<TiJ.6s.  This  confusion,  however,  did  no 
extend  to  an  identification  of  the  two  laces.  It  v.-as 
simply  an  assertion  that  their  exti  <emc  opinions  wen 
identical.  And  previously  to  an  outrage  whicl 
thpy  committed  on  the  Christian.-,  at  Neapolis  in  th 
reign  of  Zeno,  towards  the  end  of  the  fifth  century 
ihe  distinction  between  them  mid  the  Jews  wa 
sufficiently  known,  and  even  recognised  in  the  Theo- 
voi.  in. 


SAMAKIA 


1105 


osiau  Code.  This  was  so  severely  pumshe.l,  that 
bey  sank  into  an  obscurity,  which,  though  they 
re  just  noticed  by  travellers  of  the  twelfth  and 
omleenth  centuries,  was  scarcely  broken  until  the 
xteenth  century.  In  the  latter  half  of  that  ceil- 
ury  a  correspondence  with  them  was  commenced 
>y  Joseph  Scaliger.  (De  Sacy  has  edited  two  of 
;heir  letters  to  that  eminent  scholar.)  Job  Ludolf 
eceived  a  letter  from  them,  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
icxt  century.  These  three  letters  are  to  be  found  in 
Lichhorn's  Repertorium  fur  Biblische  und  Morgen- 
andische  Litteratur,  vol.  xiii.  They  are  of  great 
rchaeological  interest,  and  enter  very  minutely  into 
he  observances  of  the  Samaritan  ritual.  Among 
ither  points  worthy  of  notice  in  them  is  the  incon- 
istency  displayed  by  the  writers  in  valuing  them- 
elves  on  not  being  Jews,  and  yet  claiming  to  be 
descendants  of  Joseph.  See  also  De  Sacy's  Cor- 
respondance  des  Samaritains,  &c.,  in  Notices  et 
Extr.  des  MSB.  de  la  Biblioth.  du  Roi,  &c.,  vol. 
xii.  And,  for  more  modern  accounts  of  the  people 
hemselvesr  Robinson's  Biblical  Researches,  ii.  280- 
311;  iii.  129-30;  Wilson's  Lands  of  the  Bible, 
i.  46-78 ;  Van  de  Velde's  Syria  and  Palestine,  ii. 
296  seq.  ;  Stanley's  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  240  ; 
"Rogers'  Notices  of  the  Modern  Samaritans,  p.  25 ; 
3rovejs  account  of  their  Day  of  Atonement  in 
Vacation  Tourists  for  1861  ;  and  Dr.  Stanley's,  of 
their  Passover,  in  his  Lectures  on  the  Jewish  Church t 
App.  iii. 

The  view  maintained  in  the  above  remarks,  as  to 
the  purely  Assyrian  origin  of  the  New  Samaritans, 

that  of  Suicer,  Reland,  Hammond,  Drusius  in  the 
Critici  Sacri,  Maldonatus,  Hengstenberg,  Havernick, 
Robinson,  and  Dean  Trench.  The  reader  is  referred 
to  the  very  clear  but  too  brief  discussion  of  the 
subject  by  the  last  mentioned  learned  writer,  in 
his  Parables,  pp.  310,  311,  and  to  the  authori 
ties,  especially  De  Sacy,  which  are  there  quoted. 
There  is  no  doubt  in  the  world  that  it  was  the 
ancient  view.  We  have  seen  what  Josephus  said, 
and  Origen,  Eusebius,  Epiphanius,  Chrysostom,and 
Theodoret,  say  the  same  thing.  Socrates,  it  must 
be  admitted,  calls  the  Samaritans  cbrdVx'O'M0  'lov- 
5ai«f,  but  he  stands  almost  alone  among  the 
ancients  in  making  this  assertion.  Origen  and 
Cyril  indeed  both  mention  their  claim  to  descent 
from  Joseph,  as  evidenced  in  the  statement  of  the 
woman  at  the  well,  but  mention  it  only  to  declare 
it  unfounded.  Others,  as  Winer,  Dollinger,  and 
Dr.  Davidson,  have  held  a  different  view,  which 
may  be  expressed  thus  in  Dollinger's  own  words : 
"  In  the  northern  part  of  the  Promised  Land  (as 
opposed  to  Judaea  proper)  there  grew  up  a  mingled 
race  which  drew  its  origin  from  the  remnant  of  the 
Israelites  who  were  left  behind  in  the  country  on 
the  removal  of  the  Ten  Tribes,  and  also  from  the 
heathen  colonists  who  were  transplanted  into  the 
cities  of  Israel.  Their  religion  was  as  hybrid  as 
their  extraction :  they  worshipped  Jehovah,  but,  in 
addition  to  Him,  also  the  heathen  idols  of  Phoenician 
origin  which  they  had  brought  from  their  native 
land"  (Heidenthwn  und  Judenthum,  p.  739,  §7). 
If  the  words  of  Scripture  are  to  be  taken  alone,  it 
does  not  appear  how  this  view  is  to  be  maintained. 
At  any  rate,  as  Drusius  observes,  the  only  mixture 
was  that  of  Jewish  apostate  fugitives,  long  after 
Esarhaddon's  colonization,  not  at  the  time  of  the 
colonization.  But  modern  as  this  view  is,  it  has 
for  some  years  been  the  popular  one,  and  even  Dr. 
Stanley  seems,  though  quite  incidentally,  to  haxre 
admitted  it  (S.  $  P.  240).  He  docs  not,  however, 

4  B 


1106     SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

enter  upon  its  defence.     Mr.  Grove  is  also  in  favour 
of  it.     See  his  notice  already  mentioned. 

The  authority  due  to  the  copy  of  the  Law  possessed 
ty  the  Samaritans,  and  the  determh.ition  whether 
the  Samaritan  reading  of  Deut.  xxvii.  4,  Gerizim 
or  that  of  the  Hebrew,  Ebal,  is  to  be  preferred,  are 
discussed  in  the  next  article.  [See  SAMARITAN 
PENTATEUCH  ;  EBAL  ;  GERIZIM  ;  SHECHEM 
SICHEM;  SYCHAR.]  vJ'A'H«] 

SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH,  a  Recen 
sion  of  the  commonly  received  Hebrew  Text  of  th 
Mosaic  Law,  in  use  with  the  Samaritans,  anc 
written  in  the  ancient  Hebrew  (Ton),  or  so-callec 
Samaritan  character.11  This  recension  is  founc 
vaguely  quoted  by  some  of  the  early  Fathers  of  th 
Church,  under  the  name  of  "  Ua.\at6Tarov  'EjSpai 
xbv  rJ>  irapa.  Sc^uaperrais,"  in  contradistinction  to 
the  "  'E^pa'iKbv  rb  irapa  'lovSaiois  ;"  further,  as 
"  Samaritanorum  Volumina,"  &c.  Thus  Origen  on 
Num.  xiii.  1,  ...."&  Kal  avra  e/c  TOVTUV 
2,a/j.apeiTu>v  'EfipaiKov  /j.ereftd\o/j.€v  ;  "  and  01 
Num.  xxi.  13,  .  .  .  "  a  fv  JAOVOIS  roov  2a/AapetTa)» 
fvpouev,"  &c.  Jerome,  Prol.  to  Kings  :  "Samaritan 
etiam  Peutateuchum  Moysis  totidem  (?  22,  like  th< 
"  Hebrews,  Syrians  and  Chaldaeans")  litteris  habent 
figuris  tantum  et  apicibus  discrepantes."  Also  on  Gal 
iii.  10,  "quam  ob  causam  "  —  (viz.  ' 
Tras  t>s  OVK  e/ijueVet  tv  iraffi  rot's 
being  quoted  there  from  Deut.  xxvii.  26,  where  the 
Masoretic  text  has  only  HK  D'p 
nXtn  minn  '13*1  —  "cursed  be  he  that  confirmeth 
notb  the  words  of  this  Law  to  do  them  ;"  while  th 
LXX.  reads  IT  as  &v6p(airos  .  .  iraa-i  TO?S  \6yois] 
—  "  quam  ob  causam  Samaritanorum  Hebraea  vo- 
lumina  relegens  invem  ?D  scriptum  esse  ;"  and  he 
forthwith  charges  the  Jews  with  having  deliberately 

taken  out  the  TO,  because  they  did  not  wish  to  be 
bound  individually  to  all  the  ordinances  :  forgetting 
at  the  same  time  that  this  same  ^D  occurs  in  the 
very  next  chapter  of  the  Masoretic  text  (Deut.  xxviii. 
15):  —  "  All  his  commandments  and  his  statutes." 
Eusebius  of  Caesarea  observes  that  the  LXX.  and 
the  Sam.  Pent,  agree  against  the  Received  Text  in 
the  number  of  years  from  the  Deluge  to  Abraham. 
Cyril  of  Alexandria  speaks  of  certain  words  (Gen. 
iv.  8),  wanting  in  the  Hebrew,  but  found  in  the  Sa 
maritan.  The  same  remark  is  made  by  Procopius 
of  Gaza  with  respect  to  Deut.  i.  6  ;  Num.  x.  10, 
x.  9,  &c.  Other  passages  are  noticed  by  Diodorus, 
the  Greek  Scholiast,  &c.  The  Talmud,  on  the  other 
hand,  mentions  the  Sam.  Punt,  distinctly  and  con 
temptuously  as  a  clumsily  forged  record  :  "  You 
have  falsified*  your  Pentateuch"  said  R.  Eliezer  b. 
Shimon  to  the  Samaritan  scribes,  with  reference  to 
a  passage  in  Deut.  xi.  30,  where  the  well-understood 
word  Shechem  was  gratuitously  inserted  after  "  the 
pains  of  Moreh,"  —  "and  you  have  not  profited 
aught  by  it"  (com  p.  Jer.  Sotah  21  b,  cf.  17  ;  BabK 
33  b).  On  another  occasion  they  are  ridiculed  on 
account  of  their  ignorance  of  one  of  the  simplest  rules 
of  Hebrew  Grammar,  displayed  in  their  Pentateuch  ; 
viz.  the  use  of  the  il  locale  (unknown,  however, 
&«cording  to  Jer.  Meg.  6,  2,  also  to  the  people  of 
Jerusalem).  "Who  lias  caused  you  to  blunder  f 
said  It.  Shimon  b.  Eliezer  to  them  ;  referring  to  their 


}'jn.  nnny  nro,  as  distinguished 
ntt'K  nriD-   comp.  synh  21  b,  jer. 

Meg.  6,  ?  ;   Tosifta  Synh.  4  ;  Synhodr.  22  a,  Meg.  Jer. 
I,  £.  Sola  Jp,r.  7,  2,  «;. 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

abolition  of  the  Mosaic  ordinance  of  marrying  thd 
deceased  brother's  wife  (Deut.  xxv.  5  ff'.),  —  through 
a  misinterpretation  of  the  passage  in  question,  which 
enjoins  that  the  wife  of  the  dead  n.an  shall  not  be 
"  without  "  to  a  stranger,  but  that  the  brother 
should  marry  her  :  they,  however,  taking  HVinn 
(  =  ^in?)  to  be  an  epithet  of  ftWK,  "  wife/'  trans 
lated  "  the  outer  wife"  i.  e.  the  betrothed  only 
(Jer.  Jebam.  3,  2,  Ber.  E.,  &c.). 

Down  to  within  the  last  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  however,  no  copy  of  this  divergent  Code  of 
Laws  had  reached  Europe,  and  it  began  to  be  pro 
nounced  a  fiction,  and  the  plain  words  of  the  Church- 
Fathers  —  the  better  known  authorities  —  who  quoted 
it,  were  subjected  to  subtle  interpretations.  Sud 
denly,  in  1616,  Pietro  della  Valle,  one  of  the  first  dis 
coverers  also  of  the  Cuneiform  inscriptions,  acquired 
a  complete  Codex  from  the  Samaritans  in  Damascus. 
In  1623  it  was  presented  by  Achille  Harley  de  Sancy 
to  the  Library  of  the  Oratory  in  Paris,  and  in  1628 
the*e  appeared  a  brief  description  of  it  by  J.  Mo- 
rinus  in  his  preface  to  the  Roman  text  of  the  LXX, 
Three  years  later,  shortly  Before  it  was  published 
in  the  Paris  Polyglott.  —  whence  it  was  copied,  with 
few  emendations  from  other  codices,  by  Walton,  — 
Morinus,  the  first  editor,  wrote  his  Exercitationes 
Ecclesiasticae  in  utrumque  Samaritanorum  Penta- 
teuchum,  in  which  he  pronounced  the  newly  found 
Codex,  with  all  its  innumerable  Variants  from  the 
Masoretic  text,  to  be  infinitely  superior  to  the 
latter  :  in  fact,  the  unconditional  and  speedy  emen 
dation  of  the  Received  Text  thereby  was  urged  most 
authoritatively.  And  now  the  impulse  was  given 
to  one  of  the  fiercest  and  most  barren  literary  and 
theological  controversies  :  of  which  more  anon.  Be 
tween  1620  and  1630  six  additional  copies,  partly 
complete,  partly  incomplete,  were  acquired  by 
Ussher  :  five  of  which  he  deposited  in  English 
libraries,  while  one  was  sent  to  De  Dieu,  and  has 
disappeared  mysteriously.  Another  Codex,  now  in 
the  Ambrosian  Library  at  Milan,  was  brought  to 
Italy  in  1621.  Peiresc  procured  two  more,  one  of 
which  was  placed  in  the  Royal  Library  of  Paris,  and 
one  in  the  Barberini  at  Rome.  Thus  the  number  of 
MSS.  in  Europe  gradually  grew  to  sixteen.  During 
the  present  century  another,  but  very  fragmentary 
copy,  was  acquired  by  the  Gotha  Library.  A  copy 
of  the  entire  (?)  Pentateuch,  with  Targum  (?  Sam. 
Version),  in  parallel  columns,  4to.,  on  parchment, 
was  brought  from  Nahlus  by  Mr.  Grove  in  1861, 
for  the  Count  of  Pans,  in  whose  library  it  is. 
Single  portions  of  the  Sam.  Pent.,  in  a  more  or 
less  detective  state,  are  now  of  no  rare  occurrence 
in  Europe. 

Respecting  the  external  condition  of  these  MSS., 
it  may  be  observed  that  their  sizes  vary  from  12mo. 
to  folio,  and  that  no  scroll,  such  as  the  Jews  and  the 
Samaritans  use  in  their  synagogues,  is  to  be  found 
among  them.  The  letters,  which  are  of  a  size  cor 
responding  to  that  of  the  book,  exhibit  none  of  those 
varieties  of  shape  so  frequent  in  the  Masor.  Text  ; 
such  as  majuscules,  minuscules,  suspended,  inverted 
letters,  &c.  Their  material  is  vellum  or  cotton- 
paper  ;  the  ink  used  is  black  in  all  cases  save  the 
scroll  used  by  the  Samaritans  at  Ndblus,  the  letters 
of  which  are  in  gold.  There  are  neither  vowels, 


b  The  A.  V.,  following  the  LXX,.  sjjd  p 
ias  inserted  the  word  all 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

1  tccents,  nor  diacritical  points.  The  individual  words 
are  separated  from  each  other  by  a  dot.  Greater 
or  smaller  divisions  of  the  text  are  marked  by  two 
dot-;  placed  one  above  the  other,  and  by  an  asterisk. 
A  small  line  above  a  consonant  indicates  a  peculiar 
uieanmg  of  the  word,  an  unusual  form,  a  passive, 


(250) 
(200) 
(iso) 
(218) 


mn 


WBTI 


mo   .. 
IDI  .p   » 


The  Sam.  Pentateuch  is  halved  in  Lev.  vii.  15 
(viii.  8,  in  Hebrew  Text),  where  the  words  "  Middle 
of  the  Thorah  "  e  are  found.  At  the  end  of  each  MS. 
the  year  of  the  copying,  the  name  of  the  scribe,  and 
also  that  of  the  proprietor,  are  usually  stated.  Yet 
their  dates  are  not  always  trustworthy  when  given, 
and  very  difficult  to  be  conjectured  when  entirely 
omitted,  since  the  Samaritan  letters  afford  no  internal 
evidence  of  the  period  in  which  they  were  written. 
To  none  of  the  MSS.,  however,  which  have  as  yet 
reached  Europe,  can  be  assigned  a  higher  date  than 
the  10th  Christian  century.  The  scroll  used  in 
Ndblus  bears — so  the  Samaritans  pretend — the  fol 
lowing  inscription : — "  I,  Abisha,  son  of  Pinehas, 
son  of  Eleazar,  son  of  Aaron  the  Priest, — upon 
them  be  the  Grace  of  Jehovah !  To  His  honour 
have  I  written  this  Holy  Law  at  the  entrance  of 
the  Tabernacle  of  Testimony  on  the  Mount  Gerizim, 
Beth  El,  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  the  taking  pos 
session  of  the  Land  of  Canaan,  and  all  its  boundaries 
arounu  it,  by  the  Children  of  Israel.  I  praise  Jeho 
vah."  (Letter  of  Meshalmah  b.  Ab  Sechuah,  Cod. 
19,791,  Add.  MSS.  Brit.  Mus.  Comp.  Epist.  Sam. 
Sichemitarum  ad  Jobum  Ludolphum,  Cizae,  1688  ; 
Antiq.  Eccl.  Orient,  p.  123  ;  Huntingtoni  Epist. 
pp.  49-  56 ;  Eichhorn's  Eepertorium  f.  bibl.  und 
morg  £&.,  torn,  ix.,  &c.)  But  no  European'  has 
ever  succeeded  in  finding  it  in  this  scroll,  however 
great  the  pains  bestowed  upon  the  search  (comp. 
Eichhorn,  Einleit.  ii.  132)  ;  and  even  if  it  had  been 
found,  it  would  not  have  deserved  the  slightest 
credence. 

We  have  briefly  stated  above  that  the  Exercita- 
tiones  of  Morinus,  which  placed  the  Samaritan  Pen 
tateuch  far  above  the  Received  Text  in  point  of  ge 
nuineness, — partly  on  account  of  its  agreeing  in 
many  places  with  the  Septuagint,  and  partly  on 
account  of  its  superior  "  lucidity  and  harmony," — 
excited  and  kept  up  for  nearly  two  hundred  years  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  controversies  on  record. 
Characteristically  enough,  however,  this  was  set  at 
rest  once  for  all  by  the  very  first  systematic  inves 
tigation  of  the  point  at  issue.  It  would  now  appear 
as  if  the  unquestioning  rapture  with  which  every 
new  literary  discovery  was  formerly  hailed,  the  in 
nate  animosity  against  the  Masoretic  (Jewish)  Text, 
the  general  preference  for  the  LXX.,  the  defective 
state  of  Semitic  studies, — as  if,  we  say,  all  these  put 

d  njn  and  nan,  iy  and  "iy,  "a1!  and  -QT 

?K  and  7tf,  /3JO  and  7D&O,  tOp*  and  N'tp'S 
ty  and  ]£},  the  suffixes  at  the  end  of  a  word,  the  |"|  with 
out  a  dagesh,  kc.,  are  thus  pointed  out  to  the  reader. 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH     1107 

and  the  like :  it  is,  in  fact,  a  contrivance  to  bespeak 
attention.*  The  whole  Pentateuch  is  divided  into 
nine  hundred  ani  sixty-four  paragraphs,  or  Kazzin, 
ths  termination  of  which  is  indicated  by  these  figures, 
= ,  .*.,  or  <.  At  the  end  of  each  book  the  numbei 
of  its  divisions  is  stated  thus : — 

[Masoret.  Cod.,  12  Sidras  (Parshioth),  50  Chapters]. 
L  11       -  40         „   ] 

[  10          „  27  „    ] 

C  10          „  36  „     ] 

[  ,.  11          „  34  „     ] 

together  were  not  sufficient  to  account  for  the  phe 
nomenon  that  men  of  any  critical  acumen  could  for 
one  moment  not  only  place  the  Sam.  Pent,  on  a  par 
with  the  Masoretic  Text,  but  even  raise  it,  uncon 
ditionally,  far  above  it.  There  was  indeed  another 
cause  at  work,  especially  in  the  first  period  of  the  dis 
pute  :  it  was  a  controversial  spirit  which  prompted 
Morinus  and  his  followers,  Cappellus  and  others,  to 
prove  to  the  Reformers  what  kind  of  value  was  to 
be  attached  to  their  authority :  the  received  form  of 
the  Bible,  upon  which  and  which  alone  they  pro 
fessed  to  take  their  stand ; — it  was  now  evident  that 
nothing  short  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  under  the  influ 
ence  and  inspiration  of  which  the  Scriptures  were 
interpreted  and  expounded  by  the  Roman  Church, 
could  be  relied  upon.  On  the  other  hand,  most  of 
the  "  Anitnorinians  " — De  Muys,  Hottinger,  St. 
Morinus,  Buxtorf,  Fuller,  Leusden,  Pfeitfer,  &c. — 
instead  of  patiently  and  critically  examining  the 
subject  and  refuting  their  adversaries  by  arguments 
which  were  within  their  reach,  as  they  are  within 
ours,  directed  their  attacks  against  the  persons  of 
the  Morinians,  and  thus  their  misguided  zeal  left 
the  question  of  the  superiority  of  the  New  Document 
over  the  Old  where  they  found  it.  Of  higher  value 
were,  it  is  true,  the  labours  of  Simon,  Le  Clerc, 
Walton,  &c.,  at  a  later  period,  who  proceeded 
eclectically,  rejecting  many  readings,  and  adopting 
others  which  seemed  preferable  to  those  of  the  Old 
Text.  Houbigant,  however,  with  unexampled  igno 
rance  and  obstinacy,  returned  to  Morinus'  first  no 
tion — already  generally  abandoned — of  the  unques 
tionable  and  thorough  superiority.  He,  again,  was 
followed  more  or  less  closely  by  Kennicott,  Al.  a  St. 
Aquilino,  Lobstein,  Geddes,  and  others.  The  discus 
sion  was  taken  up  once  more  on  the  other  side, 
chiefly  by  Ravius,  who  succeeded  in  finally  disposing 
of  this  point  of  the  superiority  {Exercitt.  Phil,  in 
Houbig.  Prol.  Lugd.  Bat.  1755).  It  was  from  his 
day  forward  allowed,  almost  on  all  hands,  that  the 
Masoretic  Text  was  the  genuine  one,  but  that  in 
doubtful  cases,  when  iiieSamaritan  had  an  "  unques 
tionably  clearer  "  reading,  this  was  to  be  adopted, 
since.  A  certain  amount  of  value,  however  limited, 
did  attach  to  it.  Michaelis,  Eichhorn,  Bertholdt, 
Jahn,  and  the  majority  of  modern  critics,  adhered 
to  this  opinion.  Here  the  matter  rested  until  1815, 
when  Gesenius  (De  Pent.  Sam.  Origine,  Indole, 


f  it  wDuld  appear,  however  (see  Aichdeacon  Tattani's 
notice  in  the  I'artherum,  No.  4,  May  21  1862)  that  Mr. 
Uvysohn,  a  person  lately  attached  to  the  Russian  "tuff  h> 


Jerusalem,  has  found  the  inscription  in  question  "going 
through  the  middle  of  the  body  of  the  Text  of  the  Deca 
logue,  and  extending  through  three  columns."  Consider 
ing  that  the  Samaritans  themselves  told  Ht.ntington, 
"  that  this  inscription  had  been  in  their  scroll  once,  but 
must  have  been  erased  by  some  wicked  hruij "  th!a 
startling  piece  of  information  must  be  received  with 
extreme  caution :— no  less  so  than  the  other  more  or  less 
j  vague  statements  with  respect  to  the  labours  and  piv, 
tended  discoveries  of  Mr.  Levysohn.  See  note,  p.  ilia 

4  1'.  '2 


1108    SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

et  Auctoritate^)  abolished  the  remnant  of  the 
authority  of  the  Sam.  Pent.  So  masterly,  lucid, 
iind  clear  are  his  arguments  and  his  proofs,  that 
there  has  been  and  will  be  no  further  question  as 
u>  the  absence  of  all  value  in  this  Recension,  and  in 
its  pretended  emendations.  In  fact,  a  glance  at  the 
systematic  arrangement  of  the  variants,  of  which 
he  first  of  all  bethought  himself,  is  quite  sufficient 
to  convince  the  reader  at  once  that  they  are  for  the 
most  part  mere  blunders,  arising  from  an  imperfect 
knowledge  of  the  first  elements  of  grammar  and 
exegesis.  That  others  owe  their  existence  to  a  studied 
design  of  conforming  certain  passages  to  the  Sama 
ritan  mode  of  thought,  speech,  and  faith  —  moie 
especially  to  show  that  the  Mount  Gerizim,  upon 
which  their  temple  stood,  was  the  spot  chosen  and 
indicated  by  God  to  Moses  as  the  one  upon  which 
He  desired  to  be  worshipped.?  Finally,  that  others 
are  due  to  a  tendency  towards  removing,  as  well  as 
linguistic  shortcomings  would  allow,  all  that  seemed 
obscure  or  in  any  way  doubtful,  and  towards 
filling  up  all  apparent  imperfections:  —  either  by 
repetitions  or  by  means  of  newly-invented  and 
badly-fitting  words  and  phrases.  It  must,  how 
ever,  be  premised  that,  except  two  alterations  (Ex. 
xiii.  7,  where  the  Sam.  reads  "  Six  days  shalt 
thou  eat  unleavened  bread,"  instead  of  the  received 
•'  Seven  days,"  and  the  change  of  the  word  nTlH, 
'*  There  shall  not  be,"  into  ("PPM"!?  "  live,"  Deut. 
xxiii.  18),  the  Mosaic  laws  and  ordinances  them 
selves  are  nowhere  tampered  with. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  lay  specimens  of  these 
once  so  highly  prized  variants  before  the  reader,  in 
order  that  he  may  judge  for  himself.  We  shall 
follow  in  this  the  commonly  received  arrangement 

g  For  1fQV  "He  will  elect"  (the  spot),  the  Sam. 
always  puts  "IfQ.  "  He  has  elected"  (viz.  Gerizim).  See 
below. 

h  D'nyfc?  "3*  must  be  a  misprint. 

*  Thus  D    is  found  in  the  Samar.  for  ft-  of  the  Ma- 


soretic  T.;  ft]  for  ft--;  V  for  1"  ;  D 
rTnlKO  f°r  rn&Q-  &c.  :  sometimes  a  •)  Is  put  even 
where  the  Heb.  T.  has,  in  accordance  with  the  gram 
matical  rules,  only  a  short  vowel  or  a  sheva:  — 

found  for  vjpn  ;  ni^iN  f 


k  ura  on,    ?n,  become  i:ms,  non,  nxn- 

m  ISfil  becomes  T>3ni  ;  ftW\  is  emendated  into 
nilD^I  i  NT  (verb  H"b)  into  PINT  J  the  final  ]^—  of  the 
3rd  pers.  fern.  plur.  fut.  into  PO. 

"  ^DIK^s  shortened  into  p^,  )ft)ft  into  ft*ft. 

0  Masculine  are  made  the  words  Qf"p  (Gen.  xlix.  20) 
"iy{?  (Deut.  xv.  7,  £c.),  njfllD  (Wen.  xxxh.  9);  feminine 
the  words  tv-|tf  (Gen.  xiii.  6),  "1~n  (Deut.  xxviii.  25), 
{J>a3  (Gen.  xlvi.  25,  &c.);  wherever  the  word  -|J»J  occurs 
in  the  sense  of  "  girl,"  a  ft  is  added  at  the  end  (Gen.  xxiv. 
14,  &c.). 

p  31EJ>1  *|vn  121£J^V  "  tne  waters  returned  conti 
nually,"  is  transformed  into  'QKM  l^n  121K^lt  "  tneJ 
returned,  they  went  and  they  returned"  (Gen.  viii.  3). 
Where  the  infin.  is  used  as  an  adverb,  e.  g.  p|~nn  (Gen. 
xxi.  16),  "  far  off,"  it  is  altered  into  HpTY"!!"!.  "  she  went 
far  away,"  which  renders  the  passage  almost  unintelligible. 

i-  io»  u);  i    for  *i     xi- 


30)  ;  D*"11B¥  lor  the  collective  IIQV  (xv.  10); 
"female  servants,"  for  nin!DK(xx-  IS);  nriU 

for  the  adverbial  y\&  (xlix.  15)  ; 
(Ex.  xxvi.  26,  making  it  depend  from  <^y); 
P.  in  the  unusual  sense  of  "  from  it  ''  (comp.  l  K.  x  vii. 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

of  Gesenius,  who  divides  all  these  readings  into  eight 
classes ;  to  which,  as  we.  shall  after  wards  show, 
Frankel  has  suggested  the  addition  of  two  or 
three  others,  while  Kirchheim  (in  his  Hebrew 
work  JIIDIt?  *1D"O)  enumerates  thirteen,11  which 
we  will  name  hereafter. 

1.  The  first  class,  then,  consists  of  readings  by 
which  emendations  of  a  grammatical  nature  have 
been  attempted. 

(a.)  The  quiescent  letters,  or  so-called  matres 
lectionis,  are  supplied.1 

(6.)  The  more  poetical  forms  of  the  pronouns, 
probably  less  known  to  the  Sam.,  are  altered  into 
the  more  common  ones.k 

(c.)  The  same  propensity  for  completing  appa 
rently  incomplete  forms  is  noticeable  in  the  flexion 
of  the  verbs.  The  apocopated  or  short  future  is 
altered  into  the  regular  future.111 

(d.)  On  the  other  hand  the  paragogical  letters  1  and 
*  at  the  end  of  nouns,  are  almost  universally  struck 
out  by  the  Sam.  corrector  ;B  and,  in  the  ignorance 
of  the  existence  of  nouns  of  a,  common  gender,  he 
has  given  them  genders  according  to  his  fancy.0 

[e.)  The  infin.  absol.  is,  in  the  quaintest  manner 
possible,  reduced  to  the  form  of  the  finite  verb.? 

For  obsolete  or  rare  forms,  the  modern  and  more 
common  ones  have  been  substituted  in  a  great  num 
ber  of  places.* 

2.  The  second  class  of  variants  consists  of  glosses 
and  interpretations  received  into  the  text :  glosses, 
moreover,   in   which   the  Sam.  not   (infrequently 
coincides  with  the  LXX.,  and  which  are  in  many 
cases  evidently  derived  by  both  from  some  ancient 
Targum.' 

3.  The  third  class   exhibits   conjectural   emen- 


13),  is  altered  into  H3ED  (Lev.  ii.  2)  ;  flipl  is  wrongly 


put  for  «>n  (3rd  p.  s.  m.  of  lipl  =  45^)  !  "TJJ.  the  obsolete 
form,  is  replaced  by  the  more  recent  TJJ  (Num.  xxi.  15) 
the  unusual  fern,  termination  *~  (comp.  7t2^&$) 
^J^tf  »  is  elongated  into  ft*-  ;  infe?  ls  tne  emendation 
for  VE^  (Deut.  xxii.  1);  IIH  for  ^H  (Deut.  xxxiii. 
15),  etc. 

1  i"lfc^JO  &^tf>  "'nan  and  woman,"  used  by  Gen.  vii.  2 
of  animals,  is  changed  into  rQp3!  "1DT»  "  male  and 
female;"  VfcOEJ^  (Gen-  xxiv-  60)>  "his  haters,"  becomes 
nis  enemies;"  for  j-|Q  (indefin.)  is  substituted 
K"V'  "he  will  see.  choose,"  is  amplified  by  a 
for  himself  ;"  "12  il  Ijlil  is  transformed  into  "1JH 


(Num.  xxiii.  4),  "And  God  met  Bileam,"  becomes  with 
the  Sam.  '}  HK  '^X  "JN^D  KV»*V  "  and  an  An9d 
of  the  Lord  found  Bileam;"  n^X!l  ^  (Gen-  xx-  3)« 
"  for  the  woman,"  is  amplified  into  n&^Kn  HTlX  ^y, 
"  for  the  sake  of  the  woman:"  for  H337I,  from  ^^J 
(obsol.,  comp.  JsO)'  is  Put  H33^»  "  tnose  tQat  are  be 
fore  me,"  in  contradistinction  to  "  those  who  will  come 
after  me  ;"  "lyPM,  "  and  she  emptied  "  (her  pitcher  into 
the  trough,  Gen.  xxiv.  20),  has  made  room  for  THini- 
"and  she  took  down;"  ftW  lft*m  "I  will  meet 
there"  (A.  V.,  Ex.  xxix.  43),  is  made  Q^  \n^"li:. 
"I  shall  be  [searched]  found  there;"  Num.  xxxi.  15, 
before  the  words  rQp3  ^3  DrVTin.  "  Have  you  spared 
the  life  of  every  female  ?"  a  n^?,  "  Why,"  is  inserted 
(LXX.);  for  Klptf  niPI*  Dt?  *3  (Deut  xxxii.  3) 
'•  If  1  call  the  n.ame  of  Jehovah.'  the  Sam.  hac 
"  In  l  ho  name,"  etc. 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

dat.ons — sometimes   far  from   happy — of  leal    or 
imaginary  difficulties  in  the  Masoretic  text.9 

4.  The  fourth  class  exhibits  readings  in  which  ap 
parent  deficiencies  have  been  corrected  or  supplied 
from  parallel  passages  in  the  common  text.      Gen. 
xviii.  '29,  30,  for  "  1  shall  not  do  it,"  *  "  I  shall  not 
destroy"  «  is  substituted  from  Gen.  xviii.  28,  31,  32. 
Gen  xxxvii.  4,  VHN,  "  his  brethren,"  is  replaced  by 
VJ2,  "  his  sons,"  from  the  former  verse.    One  of  the 
most  curious  specimens  of  the  endeavours  of  the 
Samaritan  Codex  to  render  the  readings  as  smooth 
and  consistent  as  possible,  is  its  uniform  spelling  of 
proper  nouns  like  VirV»  Jethro,  occasionally  spelt 
1]T   in  the  Hebrew  text,  Moses'  father-in-law — a 
man  who,  according  to  the  Mid  rash  (Sifri),  had  no 
less  than  seven   names ;   Vfc^in*    (Jehoshua),  into 
which  form  it  corrects  the  shorter  JJBJ'in  (Hoshea) 
when  it  occurs  in  the  Masoretic  Codex.     More  fre 
quent  stijl  are  the  additions  of  single  words  and 
short  phrases  inserted  from  parallel  passages,  where 
the  Hebrew  text  appeared  too  concise:* — unneces 
sary,  often  excessively  absurd  interpolations; 

5.  The  fft/i  class  is  an  extension  of  the  one  im 
mediately  preceding,  and  comprises  larger  phrases, 
additions,  and  repetitions  from  parallel  passages. 
Whenever  anything  is  mentioned  as  having  been 
done  or  said  previously  by  Moses,  or  where  a  com 
mand  of  God    is  related   as  being    executed,  the 
whole  speech  bearing  'upon  it  is  repeated  again  at 
full  length.     Thest  tedious  and  always  superfluous 
repetitious  are  most  frequent  in  Exodus,  both  in  the 
record  of  the  plagues  and  in  the  many  interpola 
tions  from  Deuteronomy. 

6.  To  the  sixth  class  belong  those  "  emendations  " 


riAUAHITAN  PENTATEUCH     1109 

of  passages  ind  words  of  the  Hebrew  text  which 
contain  something  objectionable  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Samaritans,  on  account  either  of  historical  impro 
bability  or  apmrent  want  of  dignity  in  the  terms 
applied  to  the  Creator.  Thus  in  the  Sam.  Pent, 
no  one  in  the  antediluvian  times,  begets  his  first 
son  after  he  has  lived  150  years  :  but  one  hundred 
years  are,  where  necessary,  subtracted  before,  and 
added  after  the  birth  of  the  first  son.  Thus  Jared, 
according  to  the  Hebrew  Text,  begot  at  162  years, 
lived  afterwards  800  years,  and  "  all  his  years  were 
962  years;"  according  to  the  Sam.  he  begot  when 
only  62  years  old,  lived  afterwards  785  years,  "  and 
all  his  years  were  847."  After  the  Deluge  the 
opposite  method  is  followed.  A  hundred  or  fitly 
years  are  added  before  and  subtracted  after  the  be 
getting  :  E.  g.  Arphaxad,  who  in  the  Common  Text 
is  35  years  old  when  he  begets  Shelah,  and  lived 
afterwards  403  years :  in  all  438 — is  by  the  Sam. 
made  135  years  old  when  he  begets  Shelah,  and 
lives  only  303  years  afterwards  =  438.  (The  LXX. 
has,  according  to  its  own  peculiar  psychological  and 
chronological  notions,  altered  the  Text  in  the  oppo 
site  manner.  [See  SEPTUAGINT.])  An  exceedingly 
important  and  often  discussed  emendation  of  this 
class  is  the  passage  in  Ex.  xii.  40,  which  in  oui 
text  reads,  "  Now  the  sojourning  of  the  children  of 
Israel  who  dwelt  in  Egypt  was  four  hundred  and 
thirty  years."  The  Samaritan  (supported  by  LXX. 
Cod.  Al.)  has  "  The  sojourning  of  the  children  of 
Israel,  [and  their  fathers  who  dicelt  in  the  land  of 
Canaan  and  in  the  land  of  Egypt — ej/  777  Alyvirrcf 
Kal  eV  777  Kavadv]  was  four  hundred  and  thirty 
years:"  an  interpolation  of  very  late  date  indeed 


8  The  elliptic  use  of  *p>,  frequent  both  in  Hebrew  and 
Arabic,  being  evidently  unknown  to  the  emendator,  he 
alters  the  ^!p  ftyy  HND  p^H  (Gen. xvii.  17),  "shall 
a  diiid  be  born  unto  him  that  is  a  hundred  years  old  ?" 
into  T»7|K,  " shall  1  beget?"  Gen.xxiv. 62,  tf-QD  N3> 
"  he  came  from  going"  (A.  V.  "from  the  way")  to  the 
well  of  Lahai-roi,vthe  Sam.  alters  into  "Q1D2  fcO, 
H  in  or  through  the  desert"  (LXX.,  Sid  7%  epij/uov).  In 
Gen.  xxx.  34,  "jH^ID  \T  "6  }H.  "  Behold,  may  it  be 

according  to  thy  word,"  the  1^>  (Arab.  J)  is  transformed 
into  #~>,  "and  if  not— let  it  be  like  thy  word."  Gen. 
xli.  32,  Dl7nn  niJ^n  7jn,  «  And  for  that  the  dream 

was  doubled,"  becomes  'fl  JTO^  P&yi»  "  The  dream 
rose  a  second  time,"  which  is  both  un-Hebrew,  and 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  sense  and  construction  of 
the  passage.  Better  is  the  emendation  Gen.  xlix.  10, 
1 yj"l  f'llK)  "  from  between  his  feet,"  into  "  from 
among  his  banners,"  I^HI  pZlD-  Ex-  xv-  18»  all  but 
five  of  the  Sam.  Codd.  read  -|iyi  D^IJJ^'  "  for  ever  and 
longer"  instead  of  "iyi,  the  common  form,  "  evermore." 

Kx.  xxxiv.  7,  nj?3*  &6  nj331,  "  that  will  by  no  means 

clear  the  sin,"  becomes  Hj^  1?  Hpi),  "  and  the  inno 
cent  to  him  shall  be  innocent,"  against  both  the  parallel 
passages  and  the  obvious  sense.  The  somewhat  difficult 

•1QCP  &6l  •«  and  they  did  ivo*.  cease"  (A.  V.,  Num.  x!. 
25),  reappears  as  a  still  more  obscure  conjectural  -IDDN^' 
which  we  would  venture  to  translate,  "  they  were  not 
gathered  in,"  in  the  sense  of  "killed:"  instead  of 
either  the  1£^2K>  "congregated,"  of  the  Sam.  Vers.,  or 
Castell's  "  continuerunt,"  or  B*ubigant's  and  Dathe  j 
"  convcaerant."  Num.  xxi.  28,  *ne  "1)7,  "  Ar  "  (Moab),  is 
5Uiend;ited  into  HS?,  "  as  far  as,"  a  perfectly  meaningless 


reading  ;  only  that  the  "IV,  "  city,"  as  we  saw  above,  was 
a  word  unknown  to  the  Sam.  The  somewhat  uncommon 
words  (Num.  xi.  32),  HNSS?  DH^  UIBB^I.  "  antl  tliey 
(the  people)  spread  them  all  abroad,"  are  transposed  intc 


i"       1pnE>'l1.   "and  they  slaughtered  for 
themselves  a  slaughter."      Deut.  xxviii.  37,   the  word 


an  astonishment  "  (A.  V.),  very  rarely  used  in 
this  sense  (Jer.  xix.  8,  xxv.  9),  becomes  DKv,  "  to  a 
name,"  i.  e.,  a  bad  name.  Deut.  xxxiii.  6,  ITID  TH 
May  his  men  be  a  multitude,"  the  Sam.,  with 
its  characteristic  aversion  to,  or  rather  ignorance  of,  the 
use  of  poetical  diction,  reads  "1SDD  IfiNE  ^"W'  "May 
there  be/rom  him  a  multitude,"  thereby  trying  perhaps 
to  encounter  also  the  apparent  difficulty  of  the  word 
")DDD>  standing  for  "  a  great  number."  Anything  more 
absurd  than  the  ^J"IND  in  this  place  could  hardly  be 
imagined.  A  few  verses  further  on,  the  uncommon  use 
of  }D  in  the  phrase  j-ID-lp?  JD  (Deut.  xxxiii.  11),  as 
"  lest,'"  "not,"  caused  the  no  less  unfortunate  alteration 
*D,  so  that  the  latter  part  of  the  passage,  "smite 
through  the  loins  of  them  that  rise  against  him,  and  of 
them  that  hate  him,  that  they  rise  not  again,"  becomes 
"who  iviU  raise  Mem?"—  barreu  alike  of  meaning  and 
of  poetry.  For  the  unusual  and  poetical  ^j^^^  (Deut. 
xxxiii.  25;  A.  V.  "thy  strength"),  "]<>3'"  is  suggested; 
a  word  about  the  significance  of  which  the  commentators 
are  at  a  greater  loss  even  than  about  that  of  the  original. 


Thus  in  Gen.  i.  14,  the  words 
"  to  give  light  upon  the  earth,"  are  inserted  from  ver.  17 ; 

Sen.  xi.  8,  the  word  T^JD-l,  "and  a  tower,"  is  added 

from  ver.  4 ;  Gen.  xxiv!  22,  J-|DK  ?V»  " on  ner  face " 
nose),  is  added  from  ver  47,  so  that  the  former  verse 
reads  "  And  the  man  took  (np^l  for  QW*\)  a  golden  ilng 
'  upon  hor  face.' " 


1110  SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 
Again,  in  Gen.  ii.  2,  "  And  God  [?  had]  finished 
(few,  ?  ptuperf.)  on  the  seventh  day,"  tyWH  is 
altered  into  ^^,1,  "  the  sixth,"  lest  God's  rest 
on  the  Sabbath-day  might  seem  incomplete  (LXX.). 
In  Gen.  xxix.  3,  8,  "  We  cannot,  until  all  the  flocks 
be  gathered  together,  and  till  they  roll  the  stone 
from  the  mouth  of  the  well,"  D'Viy,  "  flocks," 
is  replaced  by  0^11,  "  shepherds,"  since  the  flocks 
could  not  roll  the  stone  from  the  well :  the  cor 
rector  not  being  apparently  aware  that  in  common 
parlance  in  Hebrew,  as  in  other  languages,  *•'  they" 
occasionally  refers  to  certain  not  particularly  spe 
cified  persons.  Well  may  Gesenius  ask  what  this 
corrector  would  have  made  of  Is.  xxxvii.  [not 
xxxvi.]  36 :  "  And  when  they  arose  in  the  morning, 
beheld  they  were  all  dead  corpses."  The  surpassing 
reverence  of  the  Samaritan  is  shown  in  passages  like 
Ex.  xxiv.  10,  "and  they  beheld  God,"*'  which 
is  transmuted  into  "  and  they  held  by,  clung  to, 
God  "  2 — a  reading  certainly  less  in  harmony  with 
the  following — "  and  they  ate  and  drank." 

7.  The  seventh  class  comprises  what  we  might 
briefly   call   Samaritanisms,   ».  e.   certain   Hebrew 
forms,  translated   into   the   idiomatic   Samaritan; 
and  here  the  Sam.  Codices  vary  considerably  among 
themselves, — as  far  as  the  very  imperfect  collation  of 
them  has  hitherto   shown — some  having  retained 
the  Hebrew  in  many  places  where  the  others  have 
adopted  the  new  equivalents.* 

8.  The  eighth  and  last  class  contains  alterations 
made  in  favour  or  on  behalf  of  Samaritan  theology, 
hermeneutics,   and   domestic  worship.     Thus   the 
word  Elohim,  four  times  construed  with  the  plural 
verb  in  the  Hebrew  Pentateuch,  is  in  the   Sam 
aritan  Pent,  joined  to  the  singular  verb  (Gen.  xx. 
13,  xxxi.  53.  xxxv.  7;    Ex.  xxii.  9);  and  further, 
both  anthropomorphisms  as  well  as  anthropopathisms 
are  carefully  expunged — a  practice  very  common  in 
later  times.b    The  last  and  perhaps  most  momentous 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUOH 

of  all  intentional  alterations  is  the  constant  change 
of  all  the  ")f"Q\  "  God  will  choose  a  spot,"  into 
"irQ,  "  He  has  chosen,"  viz.  Gerizim,  and  the  well- 
known  substitution  of  Gerizim  for  Ebal  in  Deut. 
xxrii.  4  (A.  V.  5):—"  It  shall  be  when  ye  be  gone 
over  Jordan,  that  ye  shall  set  up  these  stones  which 
I  command  you  this  day  on  Mount  Ebal  (Sam. 
Geriziin),  and  there  shalt  thou  build  an  altar 
unto  the  Lord  thy  God,"  &c.  This  passage  gains  a 
certain  interest  from  Whiston  and  Kennicott  having 
charged  the  Jews  with  corrupting  it  from  Gerizim 
into  Ebal.  This  supposition,  however,  was  met  by 
Rutherford,  Parry,  Tychsen,  Lobstein,  Verachuir, 
and  others,  and  we  need  only  add  that  it  is  com 
pletely  given  up  by  modern  Biblical  scholars,  al 
though  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  some  primd 
facie  ground  for  a  doubt  upon  the  subject.  To  this 
class  also  belong  more  especially  interpolations  of 
really  existing  passages,  dragged  out  of  their  con 
text  for  a  special  purpose*  In  Exodus  as  well  as 
in  Deuteronomy  the  Sam.  has,  immediately  after 
the  Ten  Commandments,  the  following  insertions 
from  Deut.  xxvii.  2-7  and  xi.  30 :  "  And  it  shall  be 
on  the  day  when  ye  shall  pass  over  Jordan  ...  ye 
shall  set  up  these  stones  ...  on  Mount  Gerizim 
.  .  .  and  there  shalt  thou  build  an  altar  .  .  .  '  That 
mountain'  on  the  other  side  Jordan  by  the  way 
where  the  sun  goeth  down  ...  in  the  champaigB 
over  against  Gilgal,  beside  the  plains  of  Moreh, '  over 
against  Shechem:'" — this  last  superfluous  addi 
tion,  which  is  also  found  in  Deut.  xi.  30  of  the 
Sam.  Pent.,  being  ridiculed  in  the  Talmud,  as  we 
have  seen  above. 

From  the  immense  number  of  these  worse  than 
worthless  variants  Gesenius  has  singled  out  four, 
which  he  thinks  preferable  on  the  whole  to  those 
of  the  Masoretic  Text.  We  will  confine  ourselves 
to  mentioning  them,  and  refer  the  reader  to  the 
recent  commentaries  upon  them :  he  will  find  that 


y  D*r«  P.K  urn- 

»  The  gutturals  and  Ah evi -letters  are  frequently 
changed :— B*npl  becomes  &TM  (Gen.  viii.  4) ;  itf!  is 
altered  into  ty^  f  xxiii.  18) ;  J-Q£>  into  ])%&  (xxvii.  19) ; 
•^nt  stands  for  ^nt  C^eut.  xxxii.  24) ;  the  ft  is  changed 
into  pi  in  words  like  JH3,  D*PQ!l«  which  become  jnj> 
D^PQ 3  5  n  is  altered  into  y— "IJOPI  becomes  -)Ey.  The 
*  is  frequently  doubled  (?  as  a  mater  lectionis) : 
is  substituted  for  ^ftTl  5  K"!^  for 
Many  words  are  joined  together :— *H VHO  stands  for 
im  "ID  (Ex.  xxx.  23);  j&OrO  for  ftf  jj-|D  (Gen.xli. 
45);  DT"13  "in  is  always  Q^p^yiri'  The  pronouns 
flNt  and  jfiK,  2nd  p.  fern.  sing,  and  plur.,  are  changed  into 
••hX.  pnjtf  (the  obsolete  Heb.  forms)  respectively;  the 
suff.  tj  into  -]&$ ;  *]-  into  *^;  the  termination  of  the  2nd 
p.  s.  fern,  praet.,  F\~,  becomes  ^fl,  like  the  first  p. ;  the 
verbal  form  Aphel  is  used  for  the  Hiphil;  ^JVOTK  for 
*m3tn  »  the  medial  letter  of  the  verb  yy  is  sometimes 
retained  as  fc$  or  >,  instead  of  being  dropped  as  hi  the  Heb. 
Again,  verbs  of  the  form  j-|"^  have  the  >  frequently  at  the 
end  of  the  infin.  fut.  and  part.,  instead  of  the  H-  Nouns  of 
the  schema  7t3p  COX,  &c.)  are  often  spelt  ?%C3p,  into 

which  the  form  ?it3|5  is  likewise  occasionally  trans 
formed.  Of  distinctly  Samaritan  words  may  be  men 
tioned:  *|n  (Gen.  xxxiv.  31)="pN'  TI7  (Chald.), "  like ;" 
for  Heb.  DHin.  "seal;"  niVlbS.  "as  though 

."  becomes  nrnB&o=Targ-  nmBN  "O; 


"wise,"  reads  OOP!;  1]},  "spoil,"  HJJ. 

« days,"  nio'r. 

b  nJOn^D  tS^tf.  "  man  of  war,"  an  expression  used 
of  God  (Ex.  xv.  3),  becomes  "Q  "VQ  J,  "  hero  of  war,' 
the  former  apparently  of  irreverent  import  to  the  Sama 
ritan  ear ;  for  'ft  p|tf  Vt&W  (Deut.  xxix.  19,  A.  V.  20), 
lit.  "And  the  wrath  (nose)  of  the  Lord  shall  smoke,' 
Tl  P]N  "IJT>  "  tne  wrath  of  the  Lord  will  be  kindled,"  is 
substituted;  "J^nJO  T)¥  (Dent  xxxiL  18),  "the  rock 
(God)  which  begat  thee,"  is  changed  into  •p^HD  "VI  ¥< 
"  the  rock  which  glorifies  thee ;"  Gen.  xix.  12,  D^JKiT. 
"  the  men,"  used  of  the  angels,  has  been  replaced  by 
Q^$$7>}3n>  "*^e  angels."  Extreme  reverence  for  the 
patriarchs  changed  ITlX-  "  Cursed  be  their  (Simeon  and 
Levi's)  anger,"  into  SHN>  "  brilliant  is  their  anger  " 
(Gen.  xlix.  7).  A  flagrant  falsification  is  the  alteration, 
in  an  opposite  sense,  which  they  ventured  in  the  passage 
HDl^  p8J*  'H  TT.  "  The  beloved  of  God  [Ben 
jamin,  the  founder  of  the  Judaeo-Davidlan  empire,  hate 
ful  to  the  Samaritans]  shall  dwell  securely,"  trans 
formed  by  them  into  the  almost  senseless  'H  1*  *V 
riE3l!?  P^»  "  The  hand>  the  hana  of  God  wiu  ^st  (.if 
Hiph. :  }3fe?\  '  will  cause  to  rest ']  securely"  (Deut.  xxxiii. 
12).  Reverence  for  the  Law  and  the  Sacred  Records  gives 
rise  to  more  emendations:  —  VtJODU  (Deut.  xxv.  12, 
A.  V.  11),  "  by  his  secrets,"  becomes  1*1^33.  "  by  his 
coibit  cum  ea"  (Deut  xxviii.  12), 
concumbetcumea;"  JID^ETl 
"  to  the  dog  shall  ye  throw  it"  (Ex.  xxii,  30), 
hall  indeed  throw  it  [away]." 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

tiey  too  have  since  been,  all  but  unanimously, 
"ejected."  (1.)  After  the  words,  "And  Cain  spoke 
ODtf'1)  to  his  brother  Abel"  (Gen.  iv.  8.),  the 
Sam.  adds,  "  let  us  go  into  the  field,"  d  in  ignorance 
of  the  absol.  use  of  "IOK,  "  to  say,  speak"  (corap. 
Ex.  xix.  25;  2  Chr.  ii.  10,  xxxii.  34),  and  the 
absol.  "Wl  (Gen.  ix.  21).  (2.)  For  in«  (Gen.  xxii. 
13)  the  Sam.  reads  "IflX,  i.  e.  instead  of"  behind 
him  a  ram,"  "  one  ram."  (3.)  For  D"13  "11OH 
(Gen.  xlix.  14),  "an  ass  of  hone"  i.e.  a  strong 
a*s,  the  Sam.  has  DHJ  "IIDH  (Targ.  DlJ,  Syr. 

f 

>O^v).    And  (4.)  for  pTI  (Gen.  xiv.  14),  "  he 

led  forth  his  trained  servants,"  the  Sam.  reads 
D*VI,  "  he  numbered." 

We  must  briefly  state,  in  concluding  this  por 
tion  of  the  subject,  that  we  did  not  choose  this 
classification  of  Gesenius  because  it  appeared  to  us 
to  be  either  systematic  (Gesenius  says  himself: 
"  Ceterum  facile  perspicitur  complures  in  his  esse 
lectiones  quarum  singulas  alius  ad  aliud  genus  re- 
terre  forsitan  malit  ...  in  una  vel  altera  lectione  ad 
aliam  classem  referenda  haud  difficiles  erimus  .  .  .") 
or  exhaustive,  or  even  because  the  illustrations 
themselves  are  unassailable  in  point  of  the  reason 
he  assigns  for  them ;  but  because,  deficient  as  it  is, 
it  has  at  once  and  for  ever  silenced  the  utterly  un 
founded  though  time-hallowed  claims  of  the  Sama 
ritan  Pentateuch.  It  was  only  necessary,  as  we  said 
before,  to  collect  a  great  number  of  variations  (or 
to  take  them  from  Walton),  to  compare  them  with 
the  old  text  and  with  each  other,  to  place  them  in 
some  kind  of  order  before  the  reader  and  let  them 
tell  their  own  tale.  That  this  was  not  done  during 
the  two  hundred  years  of  the  contest  by  a  single 
one  of  the  combatants  is  certainly  rather  strange : 
— albeit  not  the  only  instance  of  the  kind. 

Important  additions  to  this  list  have,  as  we 
hinted  before,  been  made  by  Frankel,  such  as  the 
Samaritans'  preference  of  the  imperat.  for  the  3rd 
pers.  ;e  ignorance  of  the  use  of  the  abl.  absol.  ;f 
Galileanisms, — to  which  also  belongs  the  permuta 
tion  of  the  letters  Ahevif  (comp.  Enjb.  53,  "1DPI, 
*1EN,  "M3JJ),  in  the  Samaritan  Cod. ;  the  occasional 
softening  down  of  the  Q  into  l,h  of  3  into  3,  X 
into  T,  &c-,  and  chiefly  the  presence  of  words  and 
phrases  in  the  Sam.  which  are  not  interpolated  from 
parallel  passages,  but  are  entirely  wanting  in  our 
text.1  Frankel  derives  from  these  passages  chiefly 
the  conclusion  that  the  Sam.  Pent,  was,  partly  at 
least,  emendated  from  the  LXX.,  Onkelos,  and  other 
very  late  sources.  (See  below.) 

We  now  subjoin,  for  the  sake  of  completeness,  the 
beforementioned  thirteen  classes  of  Kirchheim,in  the 
original,  to  which  we  have  added  the  translation : — 

i.  onna  in  rbyth  D'-WI  niaoin.  [Ad 
ditions  and  alterations  in  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch 
m  favour  of  Mount  Gerizim.] 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH     llll 


c  Keil,  in  the  latost  edition  of  his  Introd.  p.  590,  note  7, 
Bays,  "  Even  the  few  variants,  which  Gesenius  tries  to 
prove  genuine,  fall  to  the  ground  on  closer  examina 
tion." 


JYlDDin.     [Additions  for  tre  pur 
pose  of  completion.] 

3.  "11&Q.    [Commentary,  glosses.] 

4.  D'O'Oini  D^JJBn  tjlVl.     [Change  of  verbs 
and  moods.] 

5.  niEPn  ffhn     [Change  of  nouns.] 

6.  nfcOtJTl.       [Emendation   of  seeming   irregu 
larities  by  assimilating  forms,  &c.] 

7.  nVITlXn  mi»n.    [Permutation  of  letters.] 

8.  D"1^-.     [Pronouns.] 

9.  p».     [Gender.] 

10.  niBDUn  n^niN.     [Letters  added.] 

11.  DH^n  nVniK.     [Addition  of  prepositions. 
conjunctions,  articles,  &c.] 

12.  THQI  f  Up.     [Junction  of  separated,  and 
separation  of  joined  words.] 

13.  D^IJJ  niB».     [Chronological  alterations.] 
It  may,  perhaps,  not  be  quite  superfluous  to  ob 

serve,  before  we  proceed  any  further,  that,  since  up 
to  this  moment  no  critical  edition  of  the  Sam.  Pent., 
or  even  an  examination  of  the  Codices  since  Ken- 
nicott  —  who  can  only  be  said  to  have  begun  the 
work  —  has  been  thought  of,  the  treatment  of  the 
whole  subject  remains  a  most  precarious  task,  and 
beset  with  unexampled  difficulties  at  every  step; 
and  also  that,  under  these  circumstances,  a  more  or 
less  scientific  arrangement  of  isolated  or  common 
Samaritan  mistakes  and  falsifications  appears  to  us 
to  be  a  subject  of  very  small  consequence  indeed. 

It  is,  however,  this  same  rudimentary  state  of 
investigation  —  after  two  centuries  and  a  half  of 
fierce  discussion  —  which  has  left  the  other  and 
much  more  important  question  of  the  Age  and 
Origin  of  the  Sam.  Pent,  as  unsettled  to-day  as  it 
was  when  it  first  came  under  the  notice  of  European 
scholars.  For  our  own  part  we  cannot  but  think 
that  as  long  as  —  (1)  the  histoiy  of  the  Samaritans 
remains  involved  in  the  obscurities  of  which  a 
former  article  will  have  giveji  an  account;  (2)  we 
are  restricted  to  a  small  number  of  comparatively 
recent  Codices  ;  (3)  neither  these  Codices  them 
selves  have,  as  has  just  been  observed,  been  tho 
roughly  collated  and  recollated,  nor  (4)  more  than 
a  feeble  beginning  has  been  made  with  anything 
like  a  collation  between  the  various  readings  of 
the  Sam.  Pent,  and  the  LXX.  (Walton  omitted 
the  greatest  number,  "  cum  nullam  sensus  varie- 
tatem  constituant  ")  ;  —  so  long  must  we  have  2 
variety  of  the  most  divergent  opinions,  all  based  or. 
"probabilities,"  which  are  designated  on  the  other  side 
as  "false  reasonings"  and  "individual  crotchets," 
and  which,  moreover,  not  unfrequently  start  from 
flagrantly  false  premisses. 

We  shall,  under  these  circumstances,  confine  our 
selves  to  a  simple  enumeration  of  the  leading  opi 
nions,  and  >the  chief  reasons  and  arguments  alleged 
for  and  against  them  :  — 


<  K.g.  mpn  for  mp>  (Ex.  xii.  48^; 
(Ex.  xxxv.  io). 

f  K-  9-  i-or  for  list  (Ex-  xiil-  13)  ;  s»:n  for 

'vNum.  xv.  35). 

*  £-  ff-  Cpm  for  ppni  (Gen.  via  22)  ;  pn  for 
OWL  xxxvi.  28^     t  for  f 


(Gen-  xxxl-  35)  » 
xv.  10). 

i  Gen.  xxiii.  2,  after  jmxn  JV"lpl  the  words 
pJOy  are  added;  xxvii.  27,  after  ni^il  the  word  { 
is  found  (LXX.);  xliii.  28,  the  phrase 

nn  is  inserted  after  theEthnach;  xlvii.  21, 

n,  and  EX.  xxxu.  32,  Ktan  s^n  DK 

NB>  DH  is  read-  An  exceedingly  difficult  andun-Hebrew 
passage  is  found  in   Ex.   xxiii.   19,  reading 

spy  »nW?  Nin  n-osn  ro^  rats  n 


1112    BAMAR1TAN  PENTATEUCH 

(1  }  The  Samaritan  Pentateuch  came  irto  the 
hands  of  the  Samaritans  as  an  inheritance  from  the 
ten  tribes  whom  they  succeeded — so  the  popular 
notion  runs.  Of  this  opinion  are  J.  Morinus,  Walton, 
Cappellus,  Kennicott,  Michaelis,  Eichhorn,  Bauer, 
Jahn,  Bertholdt,  Steudel,  Mazade,  Stuart,  Daridson, 
and  others.  Their  reasons  for  it  may  be  thus  briefly 
summed  up : — 

(a.)  It  seems  improbable  that  the  Samaritans 
should  have  accepted  their  code  at  the  hands  of  the 
Jews  after  the  Exile,  as  supposed  by  some  critics, 
since  there  existed  an  intense  hatred  between  the 
two  nationalities. 

(6.)  The  Samaritan  Canon  has  only  the  Penta 
teuch  in  common  with  the  Hebrew  Canon :  had 
that  book  been  received  at  a  period  when  the  Hagio- 
grapha  and  the  Prophets  were  in  the  Jews'  hands, 
it  would  be  surprising  if  they  had  not  also  received 
those. 

(c.)  The  Sam.  letters,  avowedly  the  more  ancient, 
are  found  in  the  Sam.  Cod. :  therefore  it  was  written 
before  the  alteration  of  the  character  into  the  square 
Hebrew — which  dates  from  the  end  of  the  Exile — 
took  place. 

[We  cannot  omit  briefly  to  draw  attention  here  to 
a  most  keen-eyed  suggestion  of  S.  D.  Luzzatto, 
contained  in  a  letter  to  K.  Kirchheim  (Carme 
Shomron,  p.  106,  &c.),  by  the  adoption  of  which 
many  readings  in  the  Heb.  Codex,  now  almost  un 
intelligible,  appear  perfectly  clear.  He  assumes  that 
the  copyist  who  at  some  time  or  other  after  Ezra 
transcribed  the  Bible  into  the  modern  square  He 
brew  character,  from  the  ancient  copies  written  in 
so-called  Samaritan,  occasionally  mistook  Samaritan 
letters  of  similar  form.k  And  since  our  Sam.  Pent, 
has  those  difficult  readings  in  common  with  the 
Mas.  Text,  that  other  moot  point,  whether  it  was 
copied  from  a  Hebrew  or  Samaritan  Codex,  would 
thus  appear  to  be  solved.  Its  constant  changes 
of  "1  and  *1,  >  and  1,  H  and  PI  —  letters  which 
are  similar  in  Hebrew,  but  not  in  Samaritan — 
have  been  long  used  as  a  powerful  argument  for 
the  Samaritans  having  received  the  Pent,  at  a  very 
late  period  indeed.] 

Since  the  above  opinion — that  the  Pent,  came 
into  the  hands  of  the  Samaritans  from  the  Ten 
Tribes — is  the  most  popular  one,  we  will  now 
adduce  some  of  the  chief  reasons  brought  against  it, 
and  the  reader  will  see  by  the  somewhat  feeble 
naturo  of  the  arguments  on  either  side,  that  the  last 
word  has  not  yet  been  spoken  in  the  matter. 

(a.)  There  existed  no  religious  animosity  what 
soever  between  Judah  and  Israel  when  they  sepa 
rated.  -The  ten  tribes  could  not  therefore  have 
bequeathed  such  an  animosity  to  those  who  suc 
ceeded  them,  and  who,  we  may  add,  probably  cared 
as  little  originally  for  the  disputes  between  Judah 
and  Israel,  as  colonists  from  far-off  countries,  be 
longing  to  utterly  different  races,  are  likely  to  care 
for  the  quarrels  of  the  aborigines  who  formerly  in 
habited  the  country.  On  the  contrary,  the  contest 
between  the  slowly  judaized  Samaritans  and  the 
Jews,  only  dates  from  the  moment  when  the  latter 


k  E.  g.,  Is.  xi.  15,  D1JJ2  instead  of  QVJD  (adopted  by 
Gesenius  in  The*,  p.  1017  a,  without  a  mention  of  its 
rource,  which  lie,  however,  distinctly  avowed  to  Rosen- 
miiller— comp.  ty'"},  p.  107,  note  ^) ;  Jer  iii.  8,  K")fcO 
instead  of  fcpni ;  1  Sam.  xxiv.  11,  Qnni  for  DPIN1; 

Ezr.  vi.  4,  rnn  for  Kin  5  Ez- xxii-  2°-  '»nrum  for 

TinS!"!*!  i  J"dg.  xv.  20,  Q^^y — Samson's  reign  during 
die  time  of  the  Philistines  being  f,'ivcn  as  twenty  years 


SAMAETTAN  PENTATEUCH 

refused  to  recognise  the  claims  of  the  former,  ot 
belonging  to  the  people  of  God,  and  rejected  then 
aid  in  building  the  Temple:  why  then,  it  is  said, 
should  they  not  first  have  received  the  one  book 
which  would  bring  them  into  still  closer  conformity 
with  the  returned  exiles,  at  their  hands  ?  That  th« 
Jews  should  yet  have  refused  to  receive  them  as 
equals  is  no  more  surprising  than  that  the  Sama 
ritans  from  that  time  forward  took  their  stand  upon 
this  very  Law  —  altered  according  to  their  circum 
stances  ;  and  proved  from  it  that  they  and  they  alone 
were  the  Jews  «OT' 


(6.)  Their  not  possessing  any  other  book  of  th» 
Hebrew  Canon  is  not,  to  be  accounted  for  by  the 
circumstance  that  there  was  no  other  book  in  exist 
ence  at  the  time  of  the  schism,  because  many  psalms 
of  David,  writings  of  Solomon,  &c.,  must  have  been 
circulating  among  the  people.  But  the  jealousy 
with  which  the  Samaritans  regarded  Jerusalem,  and 
the  intense  hatred  which  they  naturally  conceived 
against  the  post-Mosaic  writei's  of  national  Jewish 
history,  would  sufficiently  account  for  their  reject 
ing  the  other  books,  in  all  of  which,  save  Joshua, 
Judges,  and  Job,  either  Jerusalem,  as  the  centre  of 
worship,  or  David  and  his  House,  are  extolled.  If, 
however,  Loewe  has  really  found  with  them,  as  he 
reports  in  the  Allgem.  Zeitung  d.  Judenth.  April 
18th,  1839,  our  Book  of  Kings  and  Solomon's  Song 
of  Songs,  —  which  they  certainly  would  not  have  re 
ceived  subsequently,  —  all  these  arguments  are  per 
fectly  gratuitous. 

(c.)  The  present  Hebrew  character  was  not  intro 
duced  by  Ezra  after  the  return  from  the  Exile,  bu 
came  into  use  at  a  much  later  period.  The  Samari 
tans  might  therefore  have  received  the  Pentateuch 
at  the  hands  of  the  returned  exiles,  who,  according 
to  the  Talmud,  afterwards  changed  their  writing, 
and  in  the  Pentateuch  only,  so  as  to  distinguish 
it  from  the  Samaritan.  "  Originally,"  says  Mar 
Sutra  (Sanhedr.  xxi.  b),  "the  Pentateuch  was 
given  to  Isi-ael  in  Ibri  writing  and  the  Holy 
(Hebrew)  language:  it  was  again  given  to  them 
in  the  days  of  Ezra  in  the  Ashurith  writing  and 
Aramaic  language.  Israel  then  selected  the  Ashurith 
writing  and  the  Holy  language,  and  left  to  the  He- 
diotes  ('iSiWTcu)  the  Ibri  writing  and  the  Aramaic 
language.  WTho  are  the  Hediotes  ?  The  Cuthim 
(Samaritans).  What  is  Ibri  writing  ?  The  Libo- 
naah  (Samaritan)."  It  is  well  known  also  that 
the  Maccabean  coins  bear  Samaritan  inscriptions  :  so 
that  "  Hediotes  "  would  point  to  the  common  use 
of  the  Samaritan  character  for  ordinary  purposes, 
down  to  a  very  late  period. 

(2.)  The  second  leading  opinion  on  the  age  and 
origin  of  the  Sam.  Pent,  is  that  it  was  introduced  by 
Manasseh  (comp.  Josephus,  Ant.  xi.  8,  §2,  4)  at  the 
time  of  the  foundation  of  the  Samaritan  Sanctuary 
on  Mount  Gerizim  (Ant.  van  Dale,  R.  Simon,  Pri- 
deaux,  Fulda,  Hasse,  De  Wette.  Gesenius,  Hupfeld, 
Hengstenberg,  Keil,  &c.).  In  support  of  this  opinion 
are  alleged,  the  idolatry  of  the  Samaritans  before 
they  received  a  Jewish  priest  through  Esarhaddon 


instead  of  forty  (comp.  Jer.  Sot.  1),  accounted  for  by  the  £ 
(numerical  letter  for  forty)  in  the  original  being  mistaken 
for  3  (twenty).  Again,  2  Chr.  xxii.  2,  forty  is  put  in- 
fcteua  of  twenty  (comp.  2  K.  viii.  26) ;  2  K.  xxii.  4, 

fo.  -jjvi;  Ez- w- 12'  "ini for  Dra.&c-:— & 

letters-fit  and  ^\,    A-  and  A,    3  and  !i 
!  resembling  each  other  very  closely. 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

2  K.  xvii.  24-33),  and  the  immense  numoer  of 
readings  common  to  the  LXX.  and  this  Code, 
against  the  Masoretic  Text. 

(3.)  Other,  but  very  isolated  notions,  are  tnose  or 
Morin,  Le  Clerc,  Poncet,  &c.,  that  the  Israelitish 
priest  sent  by  the  king  of  Assyria  to  instruct  the 
aew  inhabitants  in  the  religion  of  the  country 
brought  the  Pentateuch  with  him.  Further,  that 
the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  was  the  production  of 
an  impostor,  Dositheus  (''NtDDH  in  Talmud  „  who 
lived  during  the  time  of  the  Apostles,  and  who 
falsified  the  sacred  records  in  order  to  prove  that  he 
was  the  Messiah  (Ussher).  Against  which  there 
is  only  this  to  be  observed,  that  there  is  not  the 
slightest  alteration  of  such  a  nature  to  be  found. 
Finally,  that  it  is  a  very  late  and  faulty  recension, 
with  additions  and  corruptions  of  the  Masoretic  Text 
(6th  Century  after  Christ),  into  which  glosses  from 
the  LXX.  had  been  received  (Frankel).  Many  other 
suggestions  have  been  made,  but  we  cannot  here 
dwell  upon  them  :  suffice  it  to  have  mentioned  those 
to  which  a  certain  popularity  and  authority  attaches. 

Another  question  has  been  raised : — Have  all  the 
variants  which  we  find  in  our  copies  been  introduced 
at  once,  or  are  they  the  work  of  many  generations  ? 
From  the  number  of  vague  opinions  on  that  point, 
we  have  only  room  here  to  adduce  that  of  Azariah 
de  Rossi,  who  traces  many  of  the  glosses  (Class  2) 
both  in  the  Sam.  and  in  the  LXX.  to  an  ancient 
Targum  in  the  hands  of  the  people  at  the  time  of 
Ezra,  and  refers  to  the  Talmudical  passage  of  Nedar. 
37 :  "  And  he  read  in  the  Book  of  the  Law  of 
Cod— this  is  Mikra,  the  Pentateuch  ;  BTIBB,  ex 
planatory,  this  is  Targum."  [VERSIONS  (TARGUM).] 
Considering  that  no  Masorah  fixed  the  letters  and 
signs  of  the  Samar.  Codex,  and  that,  as  we  have 
noticed,  the  principal  object  was  to  make  it  read 
as  smoothly  as  possible,  it  is  not  easily  seen  why 
each  succeeding  century  should  not  have  added  its 
own  emendations.  But,  here  too,  investigation  still 
wanders  aboutjn  the  mazes  of  speculation. 

The  chief  opinions  with  respect  to  the  agreement 
of  the  numerous  and  as  yet  uninvestigated — even 
uncounted— readings  of  the  LXX.  (of  which  likewise 
no  critical  edition  exists  as  yet),  and  the  Sam.  Pent, 
are : — 

1.  That  the  LXX.  have  translated  from  the  Sam.' 
(De  Dieu,  Selden,  Hottinger,  Hassencamp,  Eichhom, 
&c.). 

2.  That  mutual  interpolations  have  taken  place 
(Grotius,  Ussher,  Ravius,  &c.). 

3.  That  both  Versions  were  formed  from  Hebrew 
Codices,  which  differed  among  themselves  as  well 
as  from  the  one  which  afterwards  obtained  public 
authority  in  Palestine  ;    that  however  very  many 
wilful  corruptions  and  interpolations  have  crept  in 
in  later  times  (Gesenius). 

4.  That  the  Saraar.  has,  in  the  main,  been  altered 
from  the  LXX.  (Frankel). 

It  must,  on  the  other  hand,  be  stated  also,  that 
the  Sam.  and  LXX.  quite  as  often  disagree  with 
each  other,  and  follow  each  the  Masor.  Text. 
Also,  that  the  quotations  in  the  N.  T.  from  the 
LXX.,  where  they  coincide  with  the  Sam.  against 
the  Hebr.  Text,  are  so  small  in  number  and  of  so 


m  The  original  intention  of  the  Russian  Government  to 
publish  the  whole  Codex  iu  the  same  manner  seems  to 
have  been  given  up  for  the  present.  We  can  only  hope 
Out,  if  the  work  is  ever  taken  up  again,  it  will  fall  into 
more  competent  hand*.  Mr  Lcvysohn's  Introduction, 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH     1113 

unimportant  a  nature  that  they  cannot  be  adduced 
as  any  argument  whatsoever. 

The  following  is  a  list  of  the  MSS.  of  the  Sam 
Pent,  now  in  European  Libraries  [Kenniootf  : — 

No.  1.  Oxford  (Ussher)  Bodl.,  fol.,  No.  "3127. 
Perfect,  except  the  20  first  and  9  last  rerses. 

No.  2.  Oxford  (Ussher)  Bodl.,  4to.,  No.  3128, 
with  an  Arabic  version  in  Sam.  character.  Imper 
fect.  Wanting  the  whole  of  Leviticus  and  many 
portions  of  the  other  books. 

No.  3.  Oxford  (Ussher)  Bodl.,  4to.,  No.  3129 
Wanting  many  portions  in  each  book. 

No.  4.  Oxtbid  ( Ussher,  Laud)  Bodl.,  4to.,  No. 
624.  Defective  in  parts  of  Deut. 

No.  5.  Oxford  (Marsh)  Bodl.,  12mo.,  No.  15. 
Wanting  some  verses  in  the  beginning;  21  chapters 
obliterated. 

No.  6.  Oxford  (Pocock)  Bodl.,  24mo.,  No.  5328. 
Parts  of  leaves  lost ;  otherwise  perfect. 

No.  7.  London  (Ussher)  Br.  Mus.  Claud.  B  8. 
Vellum.  Complete.  254  leaves. 

No.  8.  Paris  (Peiresc)  Imp.  Libr.,  Sam.  No.  1. 
Recent  MS.  containing  the  Hebr.  and  Sam.  Tejts, 
with  an  Arab.  Vers.  in  the  Sam.  character. 
Wanting  the  first  34  ch.,  and  very  defective  in 
many  places. 

No.  9.  Paris  (Peiresc)  Imp.  Libr.,  Sam.  No.  2. 
Ancient  MS.,  wanting  first  17  chapters  of  Gen.; 
and  all  Deut.  from  the  7th  ch.  Houbigant,  how 
ever,  quotes  from  Gen.  x.  11  of  this  Codex,  a 
rather  puzzling  circumstance. 

No.  10.  Paris  (Had.  de  Sancy)  Oratory,  No.  1 
The  famous  MS.  of  P.  della  Valle. 

No.  11.  Paris  (Dom.  Nolin)  Oratory,  No.  2. 
Made-up  copy. 

No.  12.  Paris  (Libr.  St.  Genfcv.).  Of  little 
value. 

No.  13.  Rome  (Peir.  and  Barber.)  Vatican. 
No.  106.  Hebr.  and  Sam.  texts,  with  Arab. 
Vers.  in  Sam.  character.  Very  defective  and  re 
cent.  Dated  the  7th  century  (?). 

No.  14.  Rome  (Card..  Cobellutius),  Vatican. 
Also  supposed  to  be  of  the  7th  century,  but  very 
doubtful. 

No.  15.  Milan  (Ambrosian  Libr.).  Said  to  be 
very  ancient ;  not  collated. 

No.  16.  Leyden  (Golius  MS.),  fol.,  No.  1.  Said 
to  be  complete. 

No.  17.  Gotha  (Ducal  Libr.).    A  fragment  only. 

No.  18.  London,  Count  of  Paris'  Library.  Witb 
Version. 

Printed  editions  are  contained  in  the  Paris  and 
Walton  Polyglots;  and  a  separate  reprint  from 
the  latter  was  made  by  Blayney,  Oxford,  1790.  A 
Facsimile  of  the  20th  ch.  of  Exodus,  from  one  of 
the  Nablus  MSS.,  has  been  edited,  with  portions  of 
the  corresponding  Masoretic  text,  and  a  Russian 
Translation  and  Introduction,  by  Levysohn,  Jeru 
salem,  1860.m 

II.  VERSIONS. 

1.  Samaritan. — The  origin,  author,  and  age  of  the 
Samaritan  Version  of  the  Five  Books  of  Moses,  has 
hitherto — so  Eichhorn  quaintly  observes — "  always 
been  a  golden  apple  to  the  investigators,  and  will  ver? 
probably  remain  so,  until  people  leave  off  venturing 
decisive  judgments  upon  historical  subjects  which 


brief  as  it  is,  shows  him  to  be  utterly  wanting  bcth  in 
scholarship  and  in  critical  acumen,  and  to  be,  moreover, 
entirely  unacquainted  with  the  fact  that  his  new  di»« 
coveries  have  been  disposed  of  some  huutlrecl  oud  flft) 
years  since. 


J114    SAMAiUTAN  PENTATEUCH 

ao  one  has  recorded  in  antiquity."  And,  indeed, 
modern  investigators,  keen  as  they  have  been,  have 
done  little  towards  the  elucidation  of  the  subject. 
A.ccording  to  the  Samaritans  themselves  (De  Sacy 
Mem.  3;  Paulus;  Winer),  their  high  -priest 
Nathaniel,  who  died  about  20  B.C.,  is  its  author. 
Gesenius  puts  its  date  a  few  years  after  Christ. 
Juynboll  thinks  that  it  had  long  been  in  use  in 
the  second  post-Christian  century.  Frankel  places 
it  in  the  post-Mohammedan  time.  Other  inves 
tigators  date  it  from  the  time  of  Esarhaddon's 
priest  (Schwarz),  or  either  shortly  before  or  after 
the  foundation  of  the  temple  on  Mount  Gerizim. 
It  seems  certain,  however,  that  it  was  composed 
before  the  destruction  of  the  second  temple  ;  and 
being  intended,  like  the  Targums,  for  the  use  of  the 
people  exclusively,  it  was  written  in  the  popular 
Samaritan  idiom,  a  mixture  of  Hebrew,  Aramaic, 
and  Syriac. 

In  this  version  the  original  has  been  followed, 
with  a  very  few  exceptions,  in  a  slavish  and  some 
times  perfectly  childish  manner,  the  sense  evidently 
being  of  minor  consideration.  As  a  very  striking 
instance  of  this  may  be  adduced  the  translation  of 
Deut.  iii.  9  :  "  The  Zidonians  call  Hermon  pt? 
(Shirion),  and  the  Amorites  call  it  TJB>  (Shenir)." 
The  translator  deriving  plfe^  from  1£^  "  prince, 
master,"  renders  it  pi  "  masters  ;  "  and  finding 
the  letters  reversed  in  the  appellation  of  the  Amor- 
rites  as  T3BJ*,  reverses  also  the  sense  in  his  version, 
and  translates  it  by  "  slaves  "  jliaVt^JO  !  In 
other  cases,  where  no  Samaritan  equivalent  could  be 
found  for  a  Hebrew  word,  the  translator,  instead  of 
paraphrasing  it,  simply  transposes  its  letters,  so  as 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

to  make  it  look  Samaritan.  Occasionally  he  ia 
misled  by  the  orthography  of  the  original  •. 
p  DKi  "If  so,  where  .  .  .?"  he  render 
p  DN,  "  If  so,  I  shall  le  wrath  :"  roistak- 
ing  K1SN  for  1SN,  from  P]K  "anger."  On  the 
whole  it  may  be  considered  a  very  valuable  aid 
towards  the  study  of  the  Samar.  Text,  on  account 
of  its  very  close  verbal  adherence.  A  few  cases, 
however,  may  be  brought  forward,  where  the  Ver 
sion  has  departed  from  the  Text,  either  under  the 
influence  of  popular  religious  notions,  or  for  the 
sake  of  explanation.  "  We  pray  "  —  so  they  write 
to  Scaliger  —  "  every  day  in  the  morning  and  in  the 
evening,  as  it  is  said,  the  one  lamb  shalt  thou  pre 
pare  in  the  morning  and  the  second  in  the  evening  ; 
we  bow  to  the  ground  and  worship  God."  Accord 
ingly,  we  find  the  translator  rendering  the  passage, 
"And  Isaac  went  to  'walk'  (m&j6)  in  the  field," 
by  —  "and  Isaac  went  to  pray  (n&T'VQ?)  in  the 
field."  "  And  Abraham  rose  in  the  morning 
OP113),"  is  rendered  ^¥1,  "in  the  prayer," 
&c.  Anthropomorphisms  are  avoided.  "  The 
image  (n^lDH)  of  God"  is  rendered  rWJJJ,  "  the 
glory."  niiT  •>£),  "  the  mouth  of  Jehovah,"  is 
transformed  into  niiT*  ID^D,  "  the  word  of 
Jehovah."  For  D^K,  "God,"  fTSfcAo, 
"Angel"  is  frequently  found,  &c.  A  great  diffi 
culty  is  offered  by  the  proper  names  which  this 
version  often  substitutes,  they  being,  in  many 
cases,  less  intelligible  than  the  original  ones.*  The 
similarity  it  has  with  Onkelos  occasionally  amounts 
to  complete  identity,  for  instance  — 


Onkelos  in  Polyglott.  Num.  vi.  1,  2. 

Dy  &D  :  ID^  n^iD  Dy  mrp 


>n  IP 

p.nno 


mn 


Dip 
lorn  ^ni  mn 


Sam.  Vers.  In  Barbermi  Triglott. 

a  DV  y? 


iaa  Jir6 


bai 


xb 


But  no  safe  conclusion  as  to  the  respective  rela 
tion  of  the  two  versions  can  be  drawn  from  this. 

This  Version  has  likewise,  in  passing  through  the  | 
hands  of  copyists  and  commentators,  suffered  many 
interpolations  and  corruptions.  The  first  copy  of 
it  was  brought  to  Europe  by  De  la  Valle,  together 
with  the  Sam.  Text,  in  1616.  Joh.  Nedrinus  first 
published  it  together  with  a  faulty  Latin  transla- 


»  A  list  of  the  more  remarkable  of  these,  in  the  case  of 
geographical  names,  is  subjoined  :— 

Gen.  viii.  4,  for  Ararat,  Sarendib,  a'HSID- 

x.  10,    „   Shinar,  Tsofah,  H2W  (?  Zobah). 

11,  „    Asshur,  Astun,  ptODV- 

—  „    Rehoboth,  Satcan,  pt^D  (?  Sittacene). 

—  „    Calah,  Laksah,  HDp^- 

12,  „•  Resen,  Asfah,  |"|QDy- 
30,    „    Mesha,  Mesbal,  SlDtD- 

xi.  9,    „    Babel,  Lilak,  p^. 
xiii.  3,    „   Ai,  Cefrah,  HIM  (?  Ccphirab,  Josh. 

ix.  IT). 
xiv.  5,    „    Ashteroth  Karnaim,  Afinith  Karniah, 


Ham,  Lishah, 

El  Faran,  Pe^ishah,  &c., 


D11D 


tion  in  the  Paris  Polyglott,  whence  it  was,  with  a 
few  emendations,  reprinted  in  Walton,  with  some 
notes  by  Castellus.  Single  portions  of  it  appeared 
in  Halle,  ed.  by  Cellarius,  1705,  and  by  Uhlemann, 
Leipz.,  1837.  Compare  Gesenius,  De  Pent.  Sam. 
Origine,  &c.,  and  Winer's  monogi'aph,  De  Versionis 
Pent.  Sam.  Indole,  &c.,  Leipzig,  1817. 

2.  Tb  2a[j.apeiTiK6v.     The  hatred  between  the 

Gen.  xiv.  14,  for  Dan,  Banias,  D&033- 

—  15,    „    Hobah,  Fogah, 

—  17,    „   Shaveh,  Mifneh, 
xv.  8,    „    Euphrates,  Shalmah, 

—  20,    „    Rephaim,  Chasah, 
xx.  1,    „   Gerar,  Askelun, 

xxvi.  2,    „    Mitsraim,  Netik,  p^QJ  (?  Exodus). 

xxxvi.8,9,&c.   „    Seir,  Gablah,  nS^MJebal). 

37,    „    Kehoboth,  Fathi,  ^fiQ. 

Num.  xxi.  33,    „    Bashan,  Bathnin,  prO  (Batanaea) 
xxxiv.  10,    „    Shepham,  'Abamiah, 

maea). 

11,    „    Shepham,  'Afamiah,  I 
Deut.  ii.  9,    „    Ar  (ly),  Arsbah, 
iii.  4,    „    Argob,Rigobaah, 

—  17,    ,,    Chimiereth,  Genesar, 

iv.48,    „    Slon,  Tur  Telga, 
et  Teljj. 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

r*mnritans  and  the  Jews  is  supposed  to  have  caused 
ilie  former  to  prepare  a  Greek  translation  of  their 
Pent,  in  opposition  to  the  LXX.  of  the  Jews.  In 
this  way  at  least  the  existence  of  certain  fragments 
of  a  Greek  Version  of  the  SaiiK  Pent.,  preserved  in 
some  MSS.  of  the  LXX.,  together  with  portions  of 
Aquila,  Symmachus,  Theodotion,  &c.,  is  accounted 
for.  These  fragments  are  supposed  to  be  alluded  to 
by  the  Greek  Fathers  under  the  name  Souape  IT  IK.UV. 
(t  is  doubtful  however  whether  it  ever  existed  (as 
Gesenius,  Winer,  Juynboll,  suppose)  in  the  shape  of 
a  complete  translation,  or  only  designated  (as  Cas- 
tdlus,  Voss,  Herbst  hold)  a  certain  number  of  scholia 
translated  from  the  Sam.  Version.  Other  critics 
again  (Havernick,  Hengstenberg,  &c.)  see  in  it  only 
a  corrected  edition  of  certain  passages  of  the  LXX. 

3.  In  1070  an  Arabic  Version  of  the  Sam.  Pent. 
was  made  by  Abu  Said  in  Egypt,  on  the  basis  of 
the  Arabic  translation  of  Saadjah  haggaon.  Like  the 
original  Samaritan  it  avoids  Anthropomorphisms  and 
Anthropopathisms,  replacing  the  latter  by  Euphe 
misms,  besides  occasionally  making  some  slight  alter 
ations,  more  especially  in  proper  nouns.  It  is  extant 
in  several  MS.  copies  in  European  libraries,  and  is 
now  in  course  of  being  edited  by  Kuenen,  Leyden, 
1  850-54,  &c.  It  appears  to  have  been  drawn  up 
from  the  Sam.  Text,  not  from  the  Sam.  Version  ; 
the  Hebrew  words  occasionally  remaining  unal 
tered  in  the  translation.0  Often  also  it  renders 
the  original  differently  from  the  Samar.  Version.* 
Principally  noticeable  is  its  excessive  dread  of  as 
signing  to  God  anything  like  human  attribute, 

physical  or  mental.     For  D^H^N   JTliT,  "God," 
we  find  (as  in  Saadiah  sometimes)   £\$\    »*}^*c 
•'  the  Angel  of  God  ;"   for  "  the  eyes  of  God  "  we 
have  (Deut.  ix.  12)  ^    ata^OILc     "the  Be 


holding  of  God."   For  "  Bread  of  God  :"    .  y,  "  the 

necessary,"  &c.  Again,  it  occasionally  adds  ho 
nourable  epithet;?  where  the  Scripture  seems  to  have 
omitted  them,  &c.  Its  language  is  far  from  elegant 
or  even  correct  ;  and  its  use  must  likewise  be  con 
fined  to  the  critical  study  of  the  Sam.  Text. 

4.  To  this  Arabic  version  Abu  Barachat,  a  Syrian, 
wrote  in  1208  a  somewhat  paraphrastic  commentary, 
which  has  by  degrees  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
new  Version  —  the  Syriac,  in  contradistinction  to 
the  Arabic,  and  which  is  often  confounded  with  it  in 
the  MSS.  On  both  Recensions  see  Eichhorn,  Gese 
nius,  Juynboll,  &c. 

III.  SAMARITAN  LITERATURE. 

It  may  perhaps  not  be  superfluous  to  add  here  a 
concise  account  of  the  Samaritan  literature  in  general, 
since  to  a  certain  degree  it  bears  upon  our  subject. 

1.  Chronicon  Samaritanum.  —  Of  the  Pentateuch 
and  its  Versions  we  have  spoken.  We  have  also  men 
tioned  that  the  Samaritans  have  no  other  book  of  our 
Received  Canon.  "  There  is  no  Prophet  but  Moses  " 
is  one  of  their  chief  dogmas,  and  fierce  are  the  in 
vectives  in  which  they  indulge  against  men  like 

Samuel,  "a  Magician  and  an  Infidel,"  Jj"  9  (Chron. 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH     1115 

£anO;  Eli;  Solomon,  "Shiloh"  (Gen.  xlix.  10), 
"  i.  e.  the  man  who  shall  spoil  the  Law  and  whom 
many  nations  will  follow  because  of  their  own 
licentiousness  "  (De  Sacy,  Mem.  4) ;  Ezra  "  cursed 
for  ever"  (Lett,  to  Ifiintington,  &c.).  Joshua 
alone,  partly  on  account  of  his  being  an  Ephraimite, 
partly  because  Shechem  was  selected  by  him  as  the 
scene  of  his  solemn  valedictory  address,  seems  tr 
have  found  favour  in  their  eyes ;  but  the  Boon 
of  Joshua,  which  they  perhaps  possessed  in  its 
original  form,  gradually  came  to  form  only  the 
groundwork  of  a  fictitious  national  Samaritan  his 
tory,  overgrown  with  the  most  fantastic  and  ana 
chronistic  legends.  This  is  the  so-called  "  Samaritan 

Joshua,"  or  Chronicon  Samaritanum  ( *r*ffl  f  *JU* 
.  .  *}  /.T-0'  sen^  to  Scaliger  by  the  Samaritans  of 

Cairo  in  1584.  It  was  edited  by  Juynboll  (Leyden, 
1848),  and  his  acute  investigations  have  shown 
that  it  was  redacted  into  its  present  form  about 
A.D.  1300,  out  of  four  special  documents,  three 
of  which  were  Arabic,  and  one  Hebrew  (t.  e. 
Samaritan).  The  Leyden  MS.  in  2  pts.,  which 
Gesenius,  De  Sam.  Theol.  p.  8.  n.  18,  thinks  unique, 
is  dated  A.H.  764-919  (A.D.  1362-1513)  ;— the 
Cod.  in  the  Brit.  Museum,  lately  acquired,  dates 
A.H.  908  (A.D.  1502).  The  chronicle  embraces 
the  time  from  Joshua  to  about  A.D.  350,  and  was 
originally  written  in,  or  subsequently  translated  into, 
Arabic.  After  eight  chapters  of  introductory  matter 
begins  the  early  history  of  "  Israel "  under  "  King 
Joshua,"  who,  among  other  deeds  of  arms,  wages 
war,  with  300,000  mounted  men — "  half  Israel " 
— against  two  kings  of  Persia.  The  last  of  his  five 
"  royal "  successors  is  Shimshon  (Samson),  the  hand 
somest  and  most  powerful  of  them  all.  These  reigned 
for  the  space  of  250  years,  and  were  followed  by  five 
high-priests,  the  last  of  whom  was  Usi  (?  =  Uzzi, 
Ezr.  vii.  4).  With  the  history  of  Eli,  "  the  seducer/' 
which  then  follows,  and  Samuel  "  a  sorcerer,"  the 
account  by  a  sudden  transition,  runs  off  to  Nebuchad 
nezzar  (ch.  45),  Alexander  (ch.  46),  and  Hadrian 
(47),  and  closes  suddenly  at  the  time  of  Julian  the 
Apostate. 

We  shall  only  adduce  here  a  single  specimen  out 
of  the  45th  ch.  of  the  Book,  which  treats  of  the 
subject  of  the  Pentateuch : — 

Nebuchadnezzar  was  king  of  Persia  (Mossul),  and 
conquered  the  whole  world,  also  the  kings  of  Syria. 
In  the  thirteenth  year  of  their  subjugation  they  re 
belled,  together  with  the  kings  of  Jerusalem  (Kodsh). 
Whereupon  the  Samaritans,  to  escape  from  the 
vengeance  of  their  pursuer,  fled,  and  Persian  colo 
nists  took  their  place.  A  curse,  however,  rested 
upon  the  land,  and  the  new  immigrants  died  from 
eating  of  its  fruits  (Joseph.  Ant.  ix.  14,  §3).  The 
chiefs  of  Israel  (i.  e.  Samaritans),  being  asked  the 
reason  of  this  by  the  king,  explained  it  by  the  abo 
lition  of  the  worship  of  God.  The  king  upon  this 
permitted  them  to  return  and  to  erect  a  temple,  in 
which  work  he  promised  to  aid  them,  and  he  gave 
them  a  letter  to  all  their  dispersed  brethren.  The 
whole  Dispersion  now  assembled,  and  the  Jews  said, 
"We  will  now  go  up  into  the  Holy  City  (Jeru- 


city  "),  the  Arab,  renders  3^-  ;  Gen.  xli.  43, 
(Sam.  Ver.  fl«Q  =  Krjpv&,  the  Arab,  translates 


•  E.  g.  Ex.  *iii.  12,  Qm    "1L3Q    ?3  (Sam.  Ver. 
Dm  'lima)  remains^U   Jj  :  xxi.  3, 

pam.  Ver.   pinX  jpIDD)  is  Siven  sU^c! 

i  A  word,  it  may  be  observed  by  the  way.  taken  by  the 
Thus  rrVy.  Gen.  xlix.  11  (Sam.  Ver.  HDIp.  "Ms    Mohammedans  from  the  Rabbinical  (Ip^y^)  ")5V3« 


1116    SAMAKITAN  PENTATEUCH 

salem)  and  live  there  in  unity."  But  the  sons  of 
Karun  (Aaron)  and  of  Joseph  (t.  e.  the  priests  and* 
the  Samaritans)  insisted  upon  going  to  the  "  Mount 
of  Blessing,"  Gerizim.  The  dispute  was  referred  to 
the  king,  and  while  the  Samaritans  proved  then- 
case  from  the  books  of  Moses,  the  Jews  grounded 
their  preference  for  Jerusalem  on  the  post-Mosaic 
books.  The  superior  force  of  the  Samaritan  argu 
ment  was  fully  recognised  by  the  king.  But  as  each 
side— by  the  mouth  of  their  spokesmen,  Sanballat 
and  Zerubabel  respectively, — charged  the  other  with 
basing  its  claims  on  a  forged  document,  the  sacred 
books  of  each  party  were  subjected  to  the  ordeal 
of  fire.  The  Jewish  Record  was  immediately  con 
sumed,  while  the  Samaritan  leaped  three  times  from 
the  flames  into  the  king's  lap :  the  third  time,  how 
ever,  a  portion  of  the  scroll,  upon  which  the  king 
had  spat,  was  found  to  have  been  consumed.  Thirty- 
six  Jews  were  immediately  beheaded,  and  the  Sama 
ritans,  to  the  number  of  300,000,  wept,  and  all 
Israel  worshipped  henceforth  upon  Mount  Gerizim 
— "  and  so  we  will  ask  our  help  from  the  grace  of 
God,  who  has  in  His  mercy  granted  all  these  things, 
and  in  Him  we  will  confide." 

2.  From  this  work  chiefly  has  been  compiled  an 
other  Chronicle  written  in  the  14th  century  (1355), 
by  Abu'l  Fatah.'  This  comprises  the  history  of  the 
Jews  and  Samaritans  from  Adam  to  A.H.  756  and 
798  (A.D.  1355  and  1397)  respectively  (the  forty- 
two  years  must  have  been  added  by  a  later  historio 
grapher).  It  is  of  equally  low  historical  value ;  its 
only  remarkable  feature  being  its  adoption  of  certain 
Talmudical  legends,  which  it  took  at  second  hand 
from  Josippon  ben  Gorion.  According  to  this 
chronicle,  the  deluge  did  not  cover  Gerizim,  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  Midrash  (Ber.  Rah.}  exempts 
the  whole  of  palestine  from  it.  A  specimen,  like 
wise  on  the  subject  of  the  Pentateuch,  may  not  be 
out  of  place : — 

In  the  year  of  the  world  4150,  and  in  the  10th 
year  of  Philadelphus,  this  king  wished  to  learn  the 
difference  between  the  Law  of  the  Samaritans,  and 
that  of  the  Jews.  He  therefore  bade  both  send  him 
some  of  their  elders.  The  Samaritans  delegated 
Ahron,  Sumla,  and  Hudmaka,  the  Jews  Eleazar  only. 
The  king  assigned  houses  to  them,  and  gave  them 
eaoa  an  adept  of  the  Greek  language,  in  order  that 
he  might  assist  them  in  their  translation.  The  Sa 
maritans  rendered  only  their  Pentateuch  into  the 
language  of  the  land,  while  Eleazar  produced  a 
translation  of  the  whole  Canon.  The  king,  per 
ceiving  variations  in  the  respective  Pentateuchs, 
asked  the  Samaritans  the  reason  of  it.  Whereupon 
they  replied  that  these  differences  chiefly  turned 
upon  two  points.  (1.)  God  had  chosen  the  Mount 
of  Gerizim :  and  if  the  Jews  were  right,  why  was 
there  no  mention  of  it  in  their  Thora?  (2.)  The  Sa 
maritans  read,  Deut.  xxxii.  35,  Dp3  01*6,  "  to  the 
day  of  vengeance  and  reward,"  the  Jews  QpJ  V?, 
"  Mine  is  vengeance  and  reward  " — which  left  it 
uncertain  whether  that  reward  was  to  be  given 
hore  or  in  the  world  to  come.  The  king  then  asked 
what  was  their  opinion  about  the  Jewish  prophets 
and  their  writings,  and  they  replied,  "  Either  they 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

must  have  said  and  contained  what  stood  ir  the 
Pentateuch,  and  then  their  saying  it  again  was  super 
fluous;  or  more;  or  less:8  ei  the'' of  which  was  again 
distinctly  prohibited  in  the  Thora ;  or  finally  they 
must  have  changed  the  Laws,  and  these  were  un 
changeable."  A  Greek  who  stood  near,  observed  that 
Laws  must  be  adapted  to  different  times,  and  altered 
accordingly  ;  whereupon  the  Samaritans  proved  that 
this  was  only  the  case  with  human,  not  with  Divine 
Laws :  moreover,  the  seventy  Elders  had  left  them 
the  explicit  command  not  to  accept  a  word  beside 
the  Thora.  The  king  now  fully  approved  of  their 
translation,  and  gave  them  rich  presents.  But  to 
the  Jews  he  strictly  enjoined,  not  even  to  approach 
Mount  Gerizim.  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  there 
is  a  certain  historical  fact,  however  contorted,  at 
the  bottom  of  this  (comp.  the  Talmudical  and  other 
accounts  of  the  LXX.),  but  we  cannot  now  further 
pursue  the  subject.  A  lengthened  extract  from  thjs 
chronicle — the  original  text  with  a  German  trans 
lation — is  given  by  Schnurrer  in  Paul  us'  Neus 
Eepertorium,  1790,  117-159. 

3.  Another   "  historical "    work    is  the  *_»lxT 
w/JsAM^   on  the   history   and    genealogy   of  the 
patriarchs,  from  Adam  to  Moses,  attributed  to  Moses 
himself;  perhaps  the  same  which  Petermann  saw 
at  Nqblus,  and  which  consisted  of  sixteen  vellum 
leaves  (supposed,  however,  to  contain  the  history  of 
the  world  down  to  the  end).    An  anonymous  recent 
commentary  on  it,  A.H.  1200,  A.D.  1784,  is  in  the 
Brit.  Mus.  (No.  1140,  Add.). 

4.  Of  other  Samaritan  works,  chiefly  in  Arabic — 
their  Samaritan  and  Hebrew  literature  having  mostly 
been  destroyed  by  the  Emperor  Commodus — may  be 
briefly  mentioned  Commentaries  upon  the  whole  or 
parts" of  their  Pentateuch,  by  Zadaka  b.  Manga  b. 
Zadaka  ;«  further,  by  Maddib  Eddin  Jussuf  b.  Abi 
Said  b.  Khalef;  by  Ghazal  Ibn  Abu-1-Surur  Al- 
Safawi   Al-Ghazzi«   (A.H.  1167-8,   A.D.  1753-4, 
Brit.    Mus.),    &c.     Theological   works   chiefly   in 
Arabic,  mixed  with  Samaritanisms,  by  Abul  Has 
san    of  Tyre,    On    the    religious    Manners    and 
Customs    of  the  Samaritans  and   the   World  to 
come ;  by  Mowaffek  Eddin  Zadaka  el  Israili,  A  Com 
pendium  of  Religion,  on  the  Nature  of  the  Divine 
Being,  on  Man,  on  the  Worship  of  God ;  by  Amin 
Eddin  Abu'l  Baracat,  On  the  Ten  Commandments ; 
by  Abu'l   Hassan  Jbn  El  Markum  Gouajem  ben 
Abulfaraj'  ibn  Chatar,  On  Penance]  by  Muhaddib 
Eddin  Jussuf  Ibn  Salamah  Ibn  Jussuf  Al  Askari,  An 
Exposition  of  the  Mosaic  Laws,  &c.,  &c.  Some  gram 
matical  works  may  be  further  mentioned,  by  Abu 
Ishak  Ibrahim,  On  the  Hebrew  Language ;  by  Abu 

Said,  On  reading  the  Hebrew  Text  (,_/JJyi 
\  JC*J\).  This  grammar  begins  in  the  following 

characteristic  manner:  — 

"  Thus  said  the  Sheikh,  rich  in  good  works  and 
knowledge,  the  model,  the  abstemious,  the  well- 
guided  Abu  Said,  to  whom  God  be  merciful  and 
compassionate. 

"  Praise  be  unto  God  for  His  help,  and  I  ask  for 
His  guidance  towards  a  clear  exposition.  I  have 


P-   Library,   Paris). 

Two    copies    in    Berlin    Library    (Petermann,    Rosen) 
recently  acquired. 


«  Compare  the  well  known  dictum,  of  Omar  on  tbt 
Alexandrian  Library  (Gibbon,  ch.  51). 

*  i  (13th  century,  Bodl.). 


Under  the  title.^^J 


SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

resolved  TO  lay  down  a  few  rules  for  the  proper 
manner  of  reading  the  Holy  Writ,  on  account  of  the 
difference  which  I  found,  with  respect  to  it,  among 
our  co-religionists  —  whom  may  God  make  numerous 
and  inspire  to  obedience  unto  Him  !  —  and  in  such  a 
manner  that  I  shall  bring  proofs  for  my  assertions, 
from  which  the  wise  could  in  no  way  differ.  But 
God  knows  best  ! 

"  Rule  1  :  —  With  all  their  discrepancies  about 
dogmas  or  religious  views,  yet  all  the  confessors  ot 
the  Hebrew  religion  agree  in  this,  that  the  H  of 
the  first  pers.  (sing,  pert'.)  is  always  pronounced 
\vith  Kasra,  and  that  a  *  follows  it,  provided  it  has 
no  suffix.  It  is  the  same,  when  the  suffix  of  the 
plural  D>  is  added  to  it,  according  to  the  unanimous 
testimony  of  the  MSS.,  &c." 

The  treatise  concludes,  at  the  end  of  the  12th 
Canon  or  Rule  :  — 

"  Often  also  the  perfect  is  used  in  the  form  of 
the  imperative.  Thus  it  is  reported  of  a  man  of 
the  best  reputation,  that  he  had  used  the  form  of  the 
imperative  in  the  passage  (Ex.  lii.  .13),  V 
IDE?  HD  —  '  And  they  shall  say  to  me,  What  is  his 
name  ?  '  He  who  reported  this  to  me,  is  a  man  of 
very  high  standing,  against  whose  truthfulness  no 
thing  can  be  brought  forward.  But  God  knows  best  ! 

'•  There  are  now  a  few  more  words  to  be  treated, 
of  which,  however,  we  will  treat  viva  wee.  And 
blessed  be  His  name  for  evermore." 

5.  Their  Liturgical  literature  is  more  extensive, 
and  not  without  a  certain  poetical  value.  It  consists 
chiefly  of  hymns  (Defter,  Durran)  and  prayers  for 
Sabbath  and  Feast-days,  and  of  occasional  prayers  a 
nuptials,  circumcisions,  burials,  and  the  like.  We 
subjoin  a  few  specimens  from  MSS.  in  the  British 
Museum,  transcribed  into  Hebrew  characters. 

The  following  is  part  of  a  Litany  for  the  dead  :  — 

.-pi  .7»rro  •  D'n^K  .  mir  . 
pwi  •  DmaN  •  p^nxm 


Lord  Jehovah,  Elohim,  for  Thy  mercy,  and  for  Thin 
Own  sake,  and  for  Thy  name,  and  for  Thy  glory,  and  fo 
the  sake  of  our  Lords  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  am 
our  Lords  Moses  and  Aaron,  and  Eleazar,  and  Ithamar 
and  Pinehas,  and  Joshua,  and  Caleb,  and  the  Holy  Angelb 
and  the  seventy  Elders,  and  the  holy  mountain  of  Gerizim 
Beth  El.  If  Thou  acceptest  [Q^fl]  this  prayer  ftOpO 
=  reading],  may  there  go  forth  from  before  Thy  hoi; 
countenance  a  gift  sent  to  protect  the  spirit  of  Thy 
servant,  Mj  A  MJ  [N.  the  son  of  N.J  of  th 

eons  of  [  -  ],  daughter  [  --  j  from  the  sons  of  [  -  ; 
0  Lord  Jehovah,  in  Thy  mercy  have  compassion  01 
him  (*\  C°r]  have  compassion  on  her),  and  rest  his  (her 
soul  in  the  garden  of  Eden  ;  and  forgive  him  (  J  [or]  her) 

and  all  the  congregation  of  Israel  who  flock  to  Moun 
Gerizim  Beth  El.  Amen.  Through  Moses  the  trusty 
Amen,  Amen,  Amen. 

The  next  is  part  of  a  hymn  (see  Kirchheim' 
Carme  Shomron,  emendations  on  Gesenius,  Carm 
Sam.  iii.")  :  — 

1. 

n^>    There  is  no  God  but  one, 
^nStf    The  everlasting  God, 
1]}  D'ViTl    Who  Hveth  for  ever  ; 
3  tty  ilPK    God  above  all  powers, 


P  * 


And  who  thus  remaineth  fo 
ever 


fcAMAKlTAN  PENTATEECH     1117 


rn"l  "lra    In  Thy  great  power  shall 

we  trust, 
!D  IP!  n&<T    For  Thou  art  our  Lord; 

In  Thy  Godhead  ;  for  Thou 

hast  conducted 
The  world  from  beginning 


3. 

Thy  power  was  hidden 
"pntDI    AndThygloryand  mercy. 

nj1KJ  |^J  Revealed  are  both  the  things 
that  are  revealed,  and 
those  that  are  unrevealed 

tne  rei^  of  T1»y 

Godhead,  &c.  &c. 


IV.  We  shall  only  briefly  touch  here,  in  conclu 
sion,  upon  the  strangely  contradictory  rabbinical  laws 
framed  for  the  regulation  of  the  intercourse  between 
the  two  rival  nationalities  of  Jews  and  Samaritans 
n  religious  and  ritual  matters  ;  discrepancies  due 
partly  to  the  ever-shifting  phases  of  their  mutual 
relations,  partly  to  the  modifications  brought  about 
in  the  Samaritan  creed,  and  partly  to  the  now  less 
now  greater  acquiescence  of  the  Jews  in  the  reli 
gious  state  of  the  Samaritans.  Thus  we  find  the 
older  Talmudical  authorities  disputing  whether  the 
Cuthim  (Samaritans)  are  to  be  considered  as  "  Real 
Converts"  fiDN  **VJ,  or  only  converts  through 
fear  —  "Lion  Converts"  niHK  *"TO—  in  allusion 
to  the  ncident  related  in  2  K.  xvii.  25  (Baba  K. 
38  ;  Kidush.  75,  &c.).  One  Rabbi  holds  »U3  TI1D, 
"  A  Samaritan  is  to  be  considered  as  a  heathen  ;" 
while  R.  Simon  b.  Gamaliel  —  the  same  whose 
opinion  on  the  Sam.  Pent,  we  had  occasion  to  quote 
before  —  pronounces  that  they  are  "to  be  treated 
in  every  respect  like  Israelites  "  (Dem.  Je^.  ix.  2  ; 
Ketub.  11,  &c.).  It  would  appear  that  notwith 
standing  their  rejection  of  all  but  the  Penta 
teuch,  they  had  adopted  many  traditional  religious 
practices  from  the  Jews  —  principally  such  as 
were  derived  direct  from  the  Books  of  Moses. 
It  was  acknowledged  that  they  kept  these 
ordinances  with  even  greater  rigour  than  those 
from  whom  they  adopted  them.  The  utmost  con 
fidence  was  therefore  placed  in  th^m  for  their 
ritually  slaughtering  animals,  even  fowls  (Chul. 
4a)  ;  their  wells  are  pronounced  to  be  conformed 
to  all  the  conditions  prescribed  by  the  Mishnah 
(loseph.  Mikw.  6  ;  comp.  Mikw.  8,  1).  See,  how 
ever  A^odah  Zarah  (Jer.  v.  4)  .  Their  unleavened 
bread  for  the  Passover  is  commended  (Git.  10; 
Chul.  4)  ;  their  cheese  (Mass.  Cuth.  2)  ;  and  even 
their  whole  food  is  allowed  to  the  Jews  (Ab.  Zar. 
Jer.  v.  4).  Compare  John  iv.  8,  where  the  disciples 
are  reported  to  have  gone  into  the  city  of  Samaria 
to  buy  food.  Their  testimony  was  valued  in  that 
most  stringent  matter  of  the  letter  of  divorce 
(Mas.  Cuth.  ii.).  They  were  admitted  to  the  office  of 
circumcising  Jewish  boys  (Mas.  Cuth.  i.)  —  against 
R.  Jehudah,  who  asserts  that  they  circumc'se  "  in 
the  name  of  Mount  Gerizim"  (Abodah  Zarah,  43). 
The  criminal  law  makes  no  difference  whatever  be- 
tween  them  and  the  Jews  (Mas.  Cuth.  2  ;  Makk. 
8)  ;  and  a  Samaritan  who  strictly  adheres  to  his 
own  special  creed  is  honoured  with  the  title  of  a 
Cuthi-Chaber  (Gittin,  106;  Middah,  336).  By 
degrees,  however,  inhibitions  began  to  be  laid  upou 
thi)  use  of  their  wine,  vinegar,  bread  (Mas.  Cuth.  2 
Toseph.  77,  5),  &c.  This  intermediate  stage  of 


1118     SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH 

uncertain  and  inconsistent  treatment,  which  must 
have  lasted  for  nearly  two  centuries,  is  best  char 
acterized  by  the  small  rabbinical  treatise  quoted 
above— Massecheth  Cuthim  (2nd  cent.  A.D.) — first 
edited  by  Kirchheim  Cp^yv  flttBp  'DD  3J1B> 
Francf.  1851, — the  beginning  of  which  reads: — 
"  The  ways  (treatment)  of  the  Cuthim  (Samaritans), 
sometimes  like  Goyim  (heathens)  sometimes  like 
Israel.'  No  less  striking  is  its  conclusion : 

"  Ami  why  are  the  Cuthim  not  permitted  to  come 
into  tne  midst  of  the  Jews?  Because  they  have 
mixed  with  the  priests  of  the  heights"  (idolaters). 
R.  Ismael  says:  "They  were  at  first  pious  converts 
(pTV  ^3  =  real  Israelites),  and  why  is  the  inter 
course  with  them  prohibited?  Because  of  their 
illegally  begotten  children,*  and  because  they  do 
not  fulfil  the  duties  of  W  (marrying  the  deceased 
brother's  wife)  " ;  a  law  which  they  understand,  as 
we  saw  above,  to  apply  to  the  betrothed  only. 

"  At  what  period  are  they  to  be  received  (into 
the  Community)  ?  "  "  When  they  abjure  the  Mount 
Gerizim,  recognise  Jerusalem  (viz.,  its  superior 
claims),  and  believe  in  the  Resurrection."  « 

We  hear  of  their  exclusion  by  R.  Meir  (ChuL 
6),  in  the  third  generation  of  the  Tanaim,  and 
later  again  under  R.  Abbuha,  the  Amora,  at  the 
time  of  Diocletian  ;  this  time  the  exclusion  was  un 
conditional  and  final  (Jer.  Abodah  Zarah,  5,  &c.). 
Partaking  of  their  bread  7  was  considered  a  trans 
gression,  to  be  punished  like  eating  the  flesh  of 
swine  (Zeb.  8,  6).  The  intensity  of  their  mutual 
hatred,  at  a  later  period,  is  best  shown  by  dicta  like 
that  in  Meg.  28,  6.  "May  it  never  happen  to 
me  that  I  behold  a  Cuthi."  "  Whoever  receives  a 
Samaritan  hospitably  in  his  house,  deserves  that  his 
children  go  into  exile"  (Synh.  104,  1).  In  Matt. 
x.  5  Samaritans  and  Gentiles  are  already  mentioned 
together;  and  hi  Luke  xvii.  18  the  Samaritan  is 
called  "a  stranger"  (a\\oyfv^s).  The  reason  for 
this  exclusion  is  variously  given.  They  are  said 
by  some  to  have  used  and  sold  the  wine  of  heathens 
for  sacrificial  purposes  (Jer.  ib.);  by  others  they 
were  charged  with  worshipping  the  dove  sacred 
to  Venus ;  an  imputation  over  the  correctness  of 
which  hangs,  up  to  this  moment,  a  certain  myste 
rious  doubt.  It  has,  at  all  events,  never  been 
brought  home  to  them,  that  they  really  worshipped 
this  image,  although  it  was  certainly  seen  with 
them,  even  by  recent  travellers. 

Authorities. — 1 .  Original  texts.  Pentateuch  in 
the  Polyglotts  of  Paris,  and  Walton  ;  also  (in  Hebr. 
letters)  by  Blayney,  8vo.  Ox.  1790.  Sam.  Version 
in  the  Polyglotts  of  Walton  and  Paris.  Arab.  Vers. 
of  Abu  Said,  Libri  Gen.  Ex.  et  Lev.  by  Kuenen, 
8vo.  Lugd.  1851-4;  also  Van  Vloten,  Specimen, 
&c.,  4to.  Lugd.  1803.  Literae  ad  Scaliger,  &c. 
(by  De  Sacy)  and  Epistola  ad  Ludolph.  (Bruns), 
in  Eichhorn's  Repertorium,  xiii.  Also,  with  Letters 
to  De  Sacy  himself,  in  Notices  et  Extraits  des 
MSS.  Par.  1831.  Chronicon  Samaritanum,  by 
Juynboll,  4to.  Leyden  1848.  Specimen  of  Samar. 
Commentary  on  Gen.  xlix.  by  Schnurrer,  in  Eich 
horn's  Repert.  xvi.  Carm.  Samar.  Gescnius,  4to. 
Lips.  1824. 

2.  Dissertations,  &c.  J.  Morinus,  Exercitationes, 


SAMMUS 

&c.,  Par.  1631  ;  Opuscula  Hebr.  Samaritfoa,  Pat 
1657;  Antiquitates  Eccl.  Orient.,  Lond.  1682. 
J.  H.  Hottinger,  Exercit.  Anti-morinianae,  &c., 
Tigur.  1644.  Walton,  De  Pent.  Sam.  in  Prologom. 
ad  Pofyglott.  Castell,  Animadversiones,  in  Poly- 
glott,  vi.  Cellarius,  Home  Samaritanae,  Ciz.  1 682 ; 
also  Collectanea,  in  Ugolini,  xxii.  Leusden,  Philo- 
logus  Hebr.  Utraj.  1686.  St.  Morinus,  Exercit. 
de  Ling.primaeva,  Utr.  1694.  Schwarz,  Exercita 
tiones,  &c.  Houbigant,  Prolegomena,  &c.,  Par. 
1746.  Kennicott,  State  of  the  Heb.  Text,  &c.,  ii. 
1759.  J.  G.  Carpzov,  Grit.  Sacri  V.  T.  Pt.  1, 
Lips.  1728.  Hassencamp,  Entdeckter  Ursprung, 
&c.  0.  G.  Tychsen,  Disputatio,  &c.,  Biitz.  1765. 
Bauer,  Crit.  Sacr.  Gesenius,  De  Pent.  Sam. 
Origine,  &c.,  Hal.  1815;  Samar.  Theologia,  &c., 
Hal.  1822;  Anecdota  Exon.  Lips.  1824.  Heng- 
stenberg,  Auth.  des  Pent.  Mazade  Sur  I' 'Origine, 
&c.,  Gen.  1830.  M.  Stuart,  N.  Amer.  Rev. 
Frankel,  Vorstudien,  Leipz.  1841.  Kirchheim, 
\rW&  '•DID,  Frankfort  1851.  The  Einleitungen 
of  Eichhorn,  Bertholdt,  Vater,  DeWette,  Havernick, 
Keil,  &c.  The  Gcschichten  of  Jost,  Herzfeld,  &c. 

3.  Versions.  Winer,  De  Vers.  Pent.  Sam. 
De  Sacy,  Mem.  sur  la  Vers.  Arabe  des  Livrcs  de 
Moise,  in  Mem.  de  Litterature,  xlix.  Par.  1808  ; 
also  L'Etat  actuel  des  Samaritains,  Par.  1812  ; 
De  Versione  Samaritans- Arabica,  &c.,  in  Eich- 
hom's  Allg.  Bibliothek,  x.  1-176.  [E.  D.] 

SAM'ATUS  (2ana.T6s :  Semedius).  One  of  the 
sons  of  Ozora  in  the  list  of  1  Esd.  ix.  34.  The 
whole  verse  is  very  corrupt. 

SAMEI'US  (Sa/iaTos).  SHEMAIAH  of  the 
sons  of  Harim  (1  Esd.  ix.  21 ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  21). 

SAM'GAR-NE'BO  (•lQ3-"IJpD :  Samegar- 
nebu).  One  of  the  princes  or  generals  of  the  king 
of  Babylon  who  commanded  the  victorious  army  of 
the  Chaldaeans  at  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  (Jer. 
xxxix.  3).  The  text  of  the  LXX.  is  corrupt.  The 
two  names  "  Samgar-nebo,  Sarsechim,"  are  there 
written  *S,a.p.ayu>Q  ical  Nafiovo-dxap.  The  Nebo 
is  the  Chaldaean  Mercury ;  about  the  Samgar, 
opinions  are  divided.  Von  Bohlen  suggested  that 
from  the  Sanscrit  sangara,  "  war,"  might  be  formed 
sangara,  "  warrior,"  and  that  this  was  the  original 
of  Samgar. 

SA'MI  (Tecfr's ;  Alex.  2aj8w :  ZbW).  SnOBAI 
(1  Esd..v.  28;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  42). 

SA'MIS  (Sonets  :  om.  in  Vulg.).  SHIMEI  13 
(1  Esd.  ix.  34 ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  38). 

SAM'LAH  (rfeb:  2aAia8o;  Alex.  2aXa/ia; 

Semlci),  Gen.  xxxvi.'  36,  37;  1  Chr.  i.  47,  48. 
One  of  the  kings  of  Edom,  successor  to  HADAD  or 
HADAR.  Samlah,  whose  name  signifies  "  a  gar 
ment,"  was  of  MASREKAH  ;  that  .being  probably 
the  chief  city  during  his  reign.  This  mention  of 
a  separate  city  as  belonging  to  each  (almost  with 
out  exception)  of  the  "kings"  of  Edom,  suggests 
that  the  Edomite  kingdom  consisted  of  a  confederacy 
of  tribes,  and  that  the  chief  city  of  the  reigning 
tribe  was  the  metropolis  of  the  whole.  [E.  S.  P.] 

SAM'MUS  (2a/ifious :  Samus~).  SHEMA  (1  Esd. 
ix.  43 ;  comp.  Neh.  viii.  4). 


*  The  briefest  rendering  of  D'HTDD  which  we  can 
give — a  full  explanation  of  the  term  would  exceed  our 
limits. 

»  On  this  subject  the  Pent,  contains  nothing  explicit. 
They  at  first  rejected  that  dogma,  but  adopted  it  at  a  later 
jKiriod,  perhaps  since  Posi  ,heus;  comp.  the  sayings  of 


Jehudda-hadassi  and  Massudi,  that  one  of  the  two  Sama 
ritan  sects  believes  in  the  Resurrection;  Epiphaninr. 
Leontius.  Gregory  the  Great,  testify  unanimously  t< 
their  fonror  unbelief  in  this  article  of  their  present  faitb 
y  J-|Fj,  I  ightfoot  "  bucella  "  °) 


SAMOS 

SA'MOS  (Sdfwi).  A  very  illustrious  Greek  |  after  leaving  th 
island  off  that  part  of  Asia  Minor  where  IONIA 
touches  CARIA.  For  its  history,  from  the  time 
when  it  was  a  powerful  member  of  the  Ionic  con 
federacy  to  its  recent  straggles  against  Turkey 
during  the  war  of  independence,  and  since,  we 
must  refer  to  the  Diet,  of  Greek  and  Rom.  Geog* 
Samos  is  a  very  lofty  and  commanding  island  ;  the 
word,  in  fact,  denotes  a  height,  especially  by  the 
sea-shore :  hence,  also,  the  name  of  SAMOTHRACIA, 
or  "the  Thracian  Samos."  The  Ionian  Samos 
comes  before  our  notice  in  the  detailed  account  of 
St.  Paul's  return  from  his  third  missionary  jour 
ney  (Acts  xx.  15).  He  had  been  at  Chios,  and 
was  about  to  proceed  to  Miletus,  having  passed 
by  Ephesus  without  touching  there.  The  topo 
graphical  notices  given  incidentally  by  St.  Luke  are 
most  exact.  The  night  was  spent  at  the  anchorage 
of  TROGYLLIUM,  in  the  narrow  strait  between 
Samos  and  the  extremity  of  the  mainland-ridge  of 
Mycale.  This  spot  is  famous  both  for  the  great 
battle  of  the  old  Greeks  against  the  Persians  in  B.C. 
479,  and  also  for  a  gallant  action  of  the  modern 
Greeks  against  the  Turks  in  1824.  Here,  how 
ever,  it  is  more  natural  (especially  as  we  know, 
from  1  Mace.  xv.  23,  that  Jews  resided  here)  to 
allude  to  the  meeting  of  Herod  the  Great  with 
Marcus  Agrippa  in  Samos,  whence  resulted  many 
privileges  to  the  Jews  (Joseph.  Ant.  xvi.  2,  §2,  4). 
At  this  time  and  when  St.  Paul  was  there  it  was 
politically  a  "free  city"  in  the  province  of  ASIA. 
Various  travellers  (Tournefort,  Pococke,  Dallaway, 
Ross)  have  described  this  island.  We  may  refer 
particularly  to  a  very  recent  work  on  the  subject, 
Description  de  Vile  de  Patmos  et  de  Vile  de 
Samos  (Paris,  1856),  by  V.  Guerin,  who  spent 
two  months  in  the  island.  [J.  S.  H.] 

SAMOTHKA'CIA  (2a/to0p<£/oj :  Samothra- 
c»a).  The  mention  of  this  island  in  the  account  o: 
St.  Paul's  first  voyage  to  Europe  (Acts  xvi.  11)  is  foi 
two  reasons  worthy  of  careful  notice.  In  the  first 
place,  being  a  very  lofty  and  conspicuous  island,  it  is 
an  excellent  landmark  for  sailors,  and  must  have  been 
full  in  view,  if  the  weather  was  clear,  throughout 
that  voyage  from  Troas  to  Neapolis.  From  the  shor 
at  Troas  Samothrace  is  seen  towering  over  Imbi  os 
(Horn.  //.  xiii.  12,  13;  Kinglake's  Edthen,  p.  64) 
and  it  is  similarly  a  marked  object  in  the  view  from 
the  hills  between  Neapolis  and  Philippi  (Clarke's 
Travels,  ch.  xiii.).  These  allusions  tend  to  give 
vividness  to  one  of  the  most  important  voyages 
that  ever  took  place.  Secondly,  this  voyage  was 
made  with  a  fair  wind.  Not  only  are  we  told  tha1 
it  occupied  only  parts  of  two  days,  whereas  on  a 
subsequent  return-voyage  (Acts  xx.  6)  the  time 
spent  at  sea  was  five :  but  the  technical  word  here 
used  (eufluSpOjiiirja'a/iev)  implies  that  they  ran  be 
fore  the  wind.  Now  the  position  of  Samothrace 
exactly  such  as  to  correspond  with  these  notices 
and  thus  incidentally  to  confii-m  the  accuracy  of  i 
most  artless  narrative.  St.  Paul  and  his  companion 
anchored  for  the  night  off  Samothrace.  The  ancien 
city,  and  therefore  probably  the  usual  anchorage 
was  on  the  N.  side,  which  would  be  sufficientl) 
sheltered  from  a  S.E.  wind.  It  may  be  added,  as 
further  practical  consideration  not  to  be  overlooked 
that  such  a  wind  would  be  favourable  for  over 
coming  the  opposing  current,  which  sets  southed 

a  A  curious  illustration  of  the  renown  of  the  Samia 
earthenware  is  furnished  by  the  Vulgate  rendering  o 
Is.  xlv.  9  r  "  Testa  de  Samiis  terrae." 


SAMSON  1119 

Dardanelles,  and  easterly  between 
amothrace  and  the  mainland.  Fuller  details  are 
iven  in  Life  and  Epp.  of  St.  Paul,  2nd  ed.  i. 
35-338.  The  chief  classical  associations  of  this 
iland  are  mythological  and  connected  with  the 

ysterious  divinities  called  Cabeiri.  Perseus  took 
efuge  here  after  his  defeat  by  the  Romans  at 
'ydna.  In  St.  Paul's  time  Samothrace  had,  ao 
ording  to  Pliny,  the  privileges  of  a  small  free  state, 

ough  it  was  doubtless  considered  a  dependency  of 
he  province  of  Macedonia.  [J.  S.  H.j 

SAMP'SAMES  (2a/4c(/«7s,2a/4<*K77s:  Lamp- 
acus,  Samsames),  a  name  which  occurs  in  the  list 
f  those  to  whom  the  Romans  are  said  to  have  sent 
etters  in  favour  of  the  Jews  (1  Mace.  xv.  23).  The 
.ame  is  probably  not  that  of  a  sovereign  (as  it  appears 
o  be  taken  in  A.  V.),  but  of  a  place,  which  Grimm 
dentifies  with  Samsun  on  the  coast  of  the  Black 
>ea,  between  Sinope  and  Trebizond.  [B.  F.  W.] 

SAM 'SON  (flt?pK>,  i.e.  Shimshon:  'S.ap.^v. 

little  sun,"  or  "  sunlike ;"  but  according  to 
Joseph.  Ant.  v.  8,  §4  "strong:"  if  the  root 
shemesh  has  the  signification  of  "  awe "  which 
Gesenius  ascribes  to  it,  the  name  Samson  would 
;eem  naturally  to  allude  to  the  "  awe  "  and 
'  astonishment  "  with  which  the  father  and  mother 
looked  upon  the  angel  who  announced  Samson's 
birth— see  Judg.  xiii.  6,  18-20,  and  Joseph.  /.  c.), 
son  of  Manoah,  a  man  of  the  town  of  Zorah,  in 
the  tribe  of  Dan,  on  the  border  of  Judah  (Josh.  xv. 
33,  xix.  41).  The  .miraculous  circumstances  of  his 
birth  are  recorded  in  Judg.  xiii. ;  and  the  three  fol 
lowing  chapters  are  devoted  to  the  history  of  his  life 
and  exploits.  Samson  takes  his  place  in  Scripture, 
(1)  as  a  judge — an  office  which  he  filled  for  twenty 
years  (Judg.  xv.  20,  xvi.  31) ;  (2)  as  a  Nazarite 
(Judg.  xiii.  5,  xvi.  17) ;  and,  (3)  as  one  endowed 
with  supernatural  power  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
(Judg.  xiii.  25,  xiv.  6,  19,  xv.  14). 

(1.)  As  a  judge  his  authority  seems  to  have  been 
limited  to  the  district  bordering  upon  the  country 
of  the  Philistines,  and  his  action  as  a  deliverer  does 
not  seem  to  have  extended  beyond  desultory  attacks 
upon  the  dominant  Philistines,  by  which  their  hold 
upon  Israel  was  weakened,  and  the  way  prepared 
for  the  future  emancipation  of  the  Israelites  from 
their  yoke.  It  is  evident  from  Judg.  xiii.  1,  5,  xv. 
9-11,  20,  and  the  whole  history,  that  the  Israelites, 
or  at  least  Judah  and  Dan,  which  are  the  only  tribes 
mentioned,  were  subject  to  the  Philistines  through 
the  whole  of  Samson's  judgeship ;  so  that,  of  course, 
Samson's  twenty  years  of  office  would  be  included 
in  the  forty  years  of  the  Philistine  dominion.  From 
the  angel's  speech  to  Samson's  mother  (Judg.  xiii. 
5),  it  appears  further  that  the  Israelites  were 
already  subject  to  the  Philistines  at  his  birth  ;  and 
as  Samson  cannot  have  begun  to  be  judge  before 
he  was  twenty  years  of  age,  it  follows  that  his 
judgeship  must  about  have  coincided  with  the  last 
twenty  years  of  Philistine  dominion.  But  when 
we  turn  to  the  First  Book  of  Samuel,  and  especially 
to  vii.  1-14,  we  find  that  the  Philistine  dominion 
ceased  under  the  judgeship  of  Samuel.  Hence  it  is 
obvious  to  conclude  that  the  early  part  of  Samuel's 
judgeship  coincided  with  the  latter  part  of  Samson's  ; 
and'  that  the  capture  of  the  ark  by  the  Philistines 
in  the  time  of  Eli  occurred  during  Samson's  life- 
fame.  There  are  besides  several  points  ID  the  re- 
sp:ctive  narratives  of  the  times  of  Samson  and  Sa- 
:r-.iel  which  indicate  great  proximity.  First,  there 


1120 


SAMSON 


is  the  guiersw  prominence  of  the  Phihstines  in  their 
relation  to  Israel.  Secondly,  there  is  the  remark 
able  coincidence  of  both  Samson  and  Samuel  being 
Xazarites  (Judg.  xiii.  5,  xvi.  17,  compared  with 
1  Sam.  i.  11).  It  looks  as  if  the  great  exploits  of 
the  young  Danite  Nazarite  had  suggested  to  Hannah 
ihe  consecration  of  her  son  in  like  manner,  or,  at  all 
events,  as  if  for  some  reason  the  Nazarite  vow  was 
at  that  time  prevalent.  No  other  mention  of  Na- 
zarites  occurs  in  ihe  Scripture  history  till  Amos  ii. 
11,  12  ;  and  even  there  the  allusion  seems  to  be  to 
Samuel  and  Samson.  Thirdly,  there  is  a  similar 
notice  of  the  house  of  Dagon  in  Judg.  xvi.  23,  and 
1  Sam.  v.  2.  Fourthly,  the  lords^  of  the  Philis 
tines  are  mentioned  in  a  similar  way  in  Judg.  xvi. 
8,  18,  27,  and  in  1  Sam.  vii.  7.  All  of  which, 
taken  together,  indicates  a  close  proximity  between 
the  times  of  Samson  and  Samuel.  There  does  not 
seem,  however,  to  be  any  means  of  fixing  the  time 
of  Samson's  judgeship  more  precisely.  The  effect  of 
his  prowess  must  have  been  more  of  a  preparatory 
kind,  by  arousing  the  cowed  spirit  of  his  people, 
and  shaking  the  insolent  security  of  the  Philistines, 
than  in  the  way  of  decisive  victory  or  deliverance. 
There  is  no  allusion  whatever  to  other  parts  of 
Israel  during  Samson's  judgeship,  except  the  single 
fact  of  the  men  of  the  border  tribe  of  Judah,  3000 
in  number,  fetching  him  from  the  rock  Etam  to 
deliver  him  up  to  the  Philistines  (Judg.  xv.  9-13). 
The  whole  narrative  is  entirely  local,  and,  like  the 
following  story  concerning  Micah  (Judg.  xvii.  xviii.), 
seems  to  be  taken  from  the  annals  of  the  tribe  of 
Dan. 

(2.)  As  a  Nazarite,  Samson  exhibits  the  law  in 
Num.  vi.  in  full  practice.  [NAZARITE.]  The  emi 
nence  of  such  Nazarites  as  Samson  and  Samuel 
would  tend  to  give  that  dignity  to  the  profession 
which  is  alluded  to  in  Lam.  iv.  7,  8. 

(3.)  Samson  is  one  of  those  who  are  distinctly 
spoken  of  in  Scripture  as  endowed  with  super 
natural  power  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord.  "  The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  began  to  move  him  at  times  in 
Mahaneh-Dan."  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came 
mightily  upon  him,  and  the  cords  that  were  upon 
his  arms  became  as  flax  burnt  with  fire."  "The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon  him,  and  he  went 
down  to  Ashkelon,  and  slew  thirty  men  of  them." 


SAMSON 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  after  his  locks  wore  out, 
and  his  strength  was  gone  from  him,  it  is  said 
"  He  wist  not  that  the  Lord  was  departed  from 
him"  (Judg.  xiii.  25,  xiv.  6,  19,  xv.  14,  xvi.  20). 
The  phrase,  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon 
him,"  is  common  to  him  with  Othniel  and  Gideon 
(Judg.  iii.  10,  vi.  34) ;  but  the  connexion  of  super 
natural  power  with  the  integrity  of  the  Nazarj'io 
vow,  and  the  particular  gift  of  great  strength  of 
body,  as  seen  in  tearing  in  pieces  a  lion,  breaking 
his  bonds  asunder,  carrying  the  gates  of  the  city 
upon  his  back,  and  throwing  down  the  pillars  which 
supported  the  house  of  Dagon,  are  quite  peculiar  to 
Samson.  Indeed,  his  whole  character  and  history 
have  no  exact  parallel  in  Scripture.  It  is  easy, 
however,  to  "see  how  forcibly  the  Israelites  would 
be  taught,  by  such  an  example,  that  their  national 
strength  lay  in  their  complete  separation  from 
idolatry,  and  consecration  to  the  true  God  ;  and  that 
He  could  give  them  power  to  subdue  their  mightiest 
enemies,  if  only  they  were  true  to  His  service 
(comp.  1  Sam.  ii.  10). 

It  is  an  interesting  question  whether  any  of  the 
legends  which  have  attached  themselves  to  the  name 
of  Hercules  may  have  been  derived  from  Phoenician 
traditions  of  the  strength  of  Samson.  The  com 
bination  of  great  strength  with  submission  to  the 
power  of  women  ;  the  slaying  of  the  Nemeaean  lion ; 
the  coming  by  his  death  at  the  hands  of  his  wife  ; 
and  especially  the  story  told  by  Herodotus  of  the 
captivity  of  Hercules  in  Egypt,*  are  certainly  re 
markable  coincidences.  Phoenician  traders  might 
easily  have  earned  stories  concerning  the  Hebrew 
hero  to  the  different  countries  where  they  traded, 
especially  Greece  and  Italy ;  and  such  stories  would 
have  been  moulded  according  to  the  taste  or  ima 
gination  of  those  who  heard  them.  The  following 
description  of  Hercules  given  by  C.  0.  Miiller 
(Dorians,  b.  ii.  c.  12)  might  almost  have  been 
written  for  Samson : — "  The  highest  degree  of 
human  suffering  and  courage  is  attributed  to  Her 
cules:  his  character  is  as  noble  as  could  be  con 
ceived  in  those  rude  and  early  times ;  but  he  is  by 
no  means  represented  as  free  from  the  blemishes  of 
human  nature;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  frequently 
subject  to  wild,  ungovernable  passions,  when  the 
noble  indignation  and  anger  of  the  suffering  hero 


»  "  Hercules  once  went  to  Egypt,  and  there  the  inha 
bitants  took  him,  and,  putting  a  chaplet  on  his  head,  led 
him  out  in  solemn  procession,  intending  to  offer  him  in 
sacrifice  to  Jupiter.  For  a  while  he  submitted  quietly ; 
but  when  they  led  him  up  to  the  altar,  and  began  the 
ceremonies,  he  put  forth  his  strength  and  slew  them  all '' 
(Hawlins.  Herod,  book  ii.  45). 

The  passage  from  Lycophron,  with  the  scholion,  quoted 
by  Bochart  (Hieroz.  pars  ii.  lib.  v.  cap.  xii.),  where  Her 
cules  is  said  to  have  been  three  nights  in  the  belly  of  the 
sea-monster,  and  to  have  come  out  with  the  loss  of  all  his 
hair,  is  also  curious,  and  seems  to  be  a  compound  of  the 
stories  of  Samson  and  Jonah.  To  this  may  be  added  the 
connexion  between  Samson,  considered  as  derived  from 
Shemesh,  "  the  Sun,"  and  the  designation  of  Moui,  the 
Egyptian  Hercules,  as  "Son  of  the  Sun,"  worshipped  also 
under  the  name  Sem,  which  Sir  G.  Wilkinson  compares 
with  Samson.  The  Tyrian  Hercules  (whose  temple  at  Tyre 
Is  described  by  Herodot.  ii.  44),  he  also  tells  us,  "  was  ori 
ginally  the  Sun,  and  the  same  as  Baal "  (Kawl.  Herod,  ii. 
•14,  note  7).  The  connexion  between  the  Phoenician  Baal 
(called  Baal  Shemen,  Baal  Shemesh,  and  Baal  Hamtnan),  and 
Hercules  is  well  known.  Gesenius  (  Thes.  s.  v.  7JJ2)  tells  us 
that,  in  certain  Phoenician  inscriptions,  which  are  accom 
panied  by  a  Greek  translation,  liaal  is  rendered  Herakles, 
atvl  that  "  the  Tyrian  Hercules  "  is  the  constant  Greek 


designation  of  the  Baal  of  Tyre.  He  also  gives  many  Car 
thaginian  inscriptions  to  Baal  Hamman,  which  he  renders 
Baal  Solaris ;  and  also  a  sculpture  in  which  Baal  Ham- 
man's  head  is  surrounded  with  rays,  and  which  has  an 
image  of  the  sun  on  the  upper  part  of  the  monument 
(Hon.  Phoen.  i.  Ill ;  ii.  tab.  21).  Another  evidence  of 
the  identity  of  the  Phoenician  Baal  and  Hercules  may  be 
found  in  Bauli,  near  Baiae,  a  place  sacred  to  Hercules 
("locus  Herculis,"  Serv.),  but  evidently  so  called  from 
Baal.  Thirlwall  (Hist,  of  Greece)  ascribes  to  the  nume 
rous  temples  built  by  the  Phoenicians  in  honour  of  Baal 
in  their  different  settlements  the  Greek  fables  of  the 
labours  and  journeys  of  Hercules.  Bochart  thinks  the 
custom  described  by  Ovid  (Fast,  liv.)  of  tying  a  lighted 
torch  between  two  foxes  in  the  circus,  in  memory  of  the 
damage  once  done  to  the  harvest  by  a  fox  with  burning 
hay  and  straw  tied  to  it,  was  derived  from  the  Phoenicians, 
and  is  clearly  to  be  traced  to  the  history  of  Samson  (Ilitroz. 
pars  i.  lib.  iii.  cap.  xiii.).  From  all  which  arises  a  con 
siderable  probability  that  the  Greek  and  Latin  conception 
of  Hercules  in  regard  to  his  strength  was  derived  from 
Phoenician  stories  and  reminiscences  of  the  great  Hebrew 
hero  Samson.  Some  learned  men  connect  the  name  Her 
cules  with  Samson  etymologically.  (See  Sir  G.  Wilkinson's 
note  in  Rawlinson's  Herod,  ii.  43  ;  Patrick,  On  Judg.  xvi 
30 ;  Cornel,  a  Lapide,  &c.)  But  none  of  these  etymoletfe* 
are  very  convincing. 


SAMUEL 

degenerate  into  frenzy.  Every  crime,  however,  is 
atoned  for  by  some  new  suffering;  but  nothing 
oreaks  his  invincible  courage,  until,  purified  from 
'.arthly  corruption,  he  ascends  Mount  Olympus." 
And  again  :  "  Hercules  was  a  jovial  guest,  and  not 
backward  in  enjoying  himself.  ...  It  was  Hercules,' 
above  all  other  heroes,  whom  mythology  placed  in 
udicrous  situations,  and  sometimes  made,  the  butt 
of  the  buffoonery  of  othei-s.  The  Cercopes  are 
represented  as  alternately  amusing  and  annoying 
the  hero.  In  works  of  art  they  are  often  repre 
sented  as  satyrs  who  rob  the  hero  of  his  quiver, 
bow,  and  club.  Hercules,  annoyed  at  their  insults, 
binds  two  of  them  to  a  pole,  and  marches  off  with 

his  prize It  also  seems  that  mirth  and  buffoonery 

were  often  combined  with  the  festivals  of  Hercules : 
thus  at  Athens  there  was  a  society  of  sixty  men, 
who  on  the  festival  of  the  Diomean  Hercules 
attacked  and  amused  themselves  and  others  with 
sallies  of  wit."  Whatever  is  thought,  however,  of 
such  coincidences,  it  is  certain  thai-  the  history  of 
Samson  is  an  historical,  and  not  an  allegorical  nar 
rative.  It  has  also  a  distinctly  supernatural  element 
which  cannot  be  explained  away.  The  history,  as 
we  now  have  it,  must  have  been  written  several 
centuries  after  Samson's  death  (Judg.  xv.  19,  20, 
xviii.  1,  30,  xix.  1),  though  probably  taken  from 
the  annals  of  the  tribe  of  Dan.  Josephus  has 
given  it  pretty  fully,  but -with  alterations  and  em 
bellishments  of  his  own.  after  his  manner.  For 
example,  he  does  not  make  Samson  eat  any  of  the 
honey  which  he  took  out  of  the  hive,  doubtless  as 
unclean,  and  unfit  for  a  Nazarite,  but  makes  him 
give  it  to  his  wife.  The  only  mention  of  Samson 
in  the  N.  T.  is  that  in  Heb.  xi.  32,  where  he  is 
coupled  with  Gideon,  Barak,  and  Jephthah,  and 
spoken  of  as  one  of  those  who  "  through  faith 
waxed  valiant  in  fight,  and  turned  to  flight  the 
armies  of  the  aliens."  See,  besides  the  places  quoted 
in  the  course  of  this  article,  a  full  article  in  Winer, 
Realwb. ;  Ewald,  Geschichte,  ii.  516,  &c.;  Ber- 
theau,  On  Judges ;  Bayle's  Diet.  [A.  C.  H.] 

SAM'UEL  £WDB>,  i.e.  Shemuel: 
Arabic,  Samwil,  orAschmouyl,  see  D'Herbelot,  under 
this  last  name).  Different  derivations  have  been 
given.  (1)  7X  D5^,  "  name  of  God  :' 
rently  Ungen  (Eus.  H.  E.  vi.  25), 
(2)  $N  P1E>,  "  placed  by  God."  (3; 
"asked  of  God"(l  Sam.  i.  20).  Josephus  inge 
niously  makes  it  correspond  to  the  well-known  Greek 
name  TJieaetetus.  (4)  ^>tf  TOfc?,  "  heard  of  God.' 
This,  which  may  have  the  same  meaning  as  the  pre 
vious  derivation,  is  the  most  obvious.  The  last  Judge 
the  first  of  the  regular  succession  of  Prophets,  and  th< 
founder  of  the  monarchy.  So  important  a  position 
did  he  hold  in  Jewish  history  as  to  have  given  his 
name  to  the  sacred  book,  now  divided  into  two 
which  covers  the  whole  period  of  the  first  establish 
ment  of  the  kingdom,  corresponding  to  the  manner 
m  which  the  name  of  Moses  has  been  assigned  to 
the  sacred  book,  now  divided  into  five,  which  covers 
ihe  period  of  the  foundation  of  the  Jewish  Church 
itself.  In  fact  no  character  of  equal  magnitude  hac 
arisen  since  the  death  of  the  great  Lawgiver. 

He  was  the  son  of  Elkanah,  an  Ephrathite  o 
Ephraimite,  and  Hannah  or  Anna.  His  father  i 
ona  of  the  few  private  citizens  in  whose  househok 
we  find  polygamy.  It  may  possibly  have  arise 
from  the  irregularity  of  the  period. 

The  descent  of  Elkanah  is"  involved  in  grear  '>b 

VOL,  III. 


SAMUEL 


1121 


so  appa 


scurity.  In  1  Sam.  i.  1  he  is  described  as  an 
Ephraimite.  In  1  Chr.  vi.  22,  23  he  is  made  a  de 
scendant  of  Korah  the  Levite.  Hengstenberg  (on 
Ps.  Ixxviii.  1)  and  Ewald  (ii.  433)  explain  this  by 
supposing  that  the  Levites  were  occasionally  incor 
porated  into  the  tribes  amongst  wnom  they  dwelt. 
The  question,  however,  is  of  no  practical  import 
ance,  because,  even  if  Samuel  were  a  Levite,  he 
certainly  was  not  a  Priest  by  descent. 

His  birthplace  is  one  of  the  vexed  questions  of 
sacred  geography,  as  his  descent  is  of  sacred  gene 
alogy.    [See  RAMATHAIM-ZOPHIM.]     All  that  ap 
pears  with  certainty  from  the  accounts  is  that  it 
ras  in  the  hills  of  Ephraim,  and  (as  may  be  in- 
erred  from  its  name)  a  double  height,  used  for  the 
urpose  of  beacons  or  outlookers  (1  Sam.  i.  1).    At 
he  foot  of  the  hill  was  a  well  (1  Sam.  xix.  22). 
)n  the  brow  of  its  two  summits  was  the.  city.     It 
ever  lost  its  hold  on  Samuel,  who  in  later  life  made 
;  his  fixed  abode. 

The  combined  family  must  have  been  large, 
'eninnah  had  several  children,  and  Hannah  had, 
>esides  Samuel,  three  sons  and  two  daughters.  But 
f  these  nothing  is  known,  unless  the  names  of  the 
ons  are  those  enumerated  in  1  Chr.  vi.  26,  27. 

It  is  on  the  mother  of  Samuel  that  our  chief 
Mention  is  fixed  in  the  account  of  his  birth.  She 
s  described  as  a  woman  of  a  high  religious  mission. 
Almost  a  Nazarite  by  practice  (1  Sam.  i.  1 5),  and 
a  prophetess  in  her  gifts  (1  Sam.  ii.  1),  she  sought 
lorn  God  the  gift  of  the  child  for  which  she  lopgtxl 
with  a  passionate  devotion  of  silent  prayer,  of  which 
ihere  is  no  other  example  in  the  0.  T.,  and  when 
;he  son  was  granted,  the  name  which  he  bore,  and 
;hus  first  introduced  into  the  world,  expressed  her 
sense  of  the  urgency  of  her  entreaty — Samuel,  "  the 
Asked  or  Heard  of  God." 

Living  in  the  great  age  of  vows,  she  had  before 
his  birth  dedicated  him  to  the  office  of  a  Nazarite. 
As  soon  as  he  was  weaned,  she  herself  with  her 
husband  brought  him  to  the  Tabernacle  at  Shiloh, 
where  she  had  received  the  first  intimation  of  his 
birth,  and  there  solemnly  consecrated  him.  The 
form  of  consecration  was  similar  to  that  with  which 
the  irregular  priesthood  of  Jeroboam  was  set  apart 
in  later  times  (2  Chr.  xiii.  9) — a  bullock  of  three 
years  old  (LXX.),  loaves  (LXX.),  an  ephah  of  flour, 
and  a  skin  of  wine  (1  Sam.  i.  24).  First  took  place 
the  usual  sacrifices  (LXX.)  by  Elkanah  himself — 
then,  after  the  introduction  of  the  child,  the  special 
sacrifice  of  the  bullock.  Then  his  mother  made 
him  over  to  Eli  (i.  25,  28),  and  (according  to  the 
Hebrew  text,  but  not  the  LXX.)  the  child  himself 
performed  an  act  of  worship. 

The  hymn  which  followed  on  this  consecration 
is  the  first  of  the  kind  in  the  sacred  volume.  It  is 
possible  that,  like  many  of  the  Psalms,  it  may  have 
been  enlarged  in  later  times  to  suit  great  occasions 
of  victory  and  the  like.  But  verse  5  specially 
applies  to  this  event,  and  verses  7,  8  may  well 
express  the  sense  entertained  by  the  prophetess  of 
the  coming  revolution  in  the  fortunes  of  her  son  and 
of  her  country. 

From  this  time  the  child  is  shut  up  m  the 
tabernacle.  The  priests  furnished  him  with  a  sacred 
garment,  an  ephod,  made,  like  their  own,  of  white 
linen,  though  of  inferior  quality,  and  his  mother 
every  year,  apparently  at  the  only  time  of  their 
meeting,  gave  him  a  little  mantle  reaching  down  to 
his  feet,  such  as  was  worn  only  by  high  personages, 
or  women,  over  the  other  dress,  and  such  as  he 
retained,  as  his  badge,  till  the  latest  times  of  hit 

4  C 


1122 


SAMUEL 


Lfc.     [MANTLE,  vol.  ii.  p.  231  6.  |     He  seems 
have  slept  whhin  the  Holiest  Place  (LXX.,  1  Sam 
iii.  3),  and  his  special  duty  was  to  put  out,  as 
would  s-jem,  the  sacred  candlestick,  and  to  open  th 
doors  at  sunrise. 

In  this  way  his  childhood  was  passed.     It  wa 
whilst  thus  sleeping  in  the  tabernacle  that  he  re 
ceived  his  first  prophetic  call.     The  stillness  of  th 
night — the  sudden  voice — the  childlike  misconcep 
tion — the  venerable  Eli — the  contrast  between  the 
terrible  doom  and  the  gentle  creature  who  has  tc 
announce  it — give  to  this  portion  of  the  narrativi 
a  universal  interest.      It  is  this  side  of  Samuel' 
career  that  has  been  so  well  caught  in  the  well 
known  picture  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 

From  this  moment  the  prophetic  character  o 
Samuel  was  established.  His  words  were  treasurec 
up,  and  Shiloh  became  the  resort  of  those  wh< 
came  to  hear  him  (iii.  19-21). 

In  the  overthrow  of  the  sanctuary,  which  fol 
lowed  shortly  on  this  vision,  we  hear  not  wha 
became  of  Samuel.*  He  next  appears,  probablj 
twenty  years  afterwards,  suddenly  amongst  th< 
people,  warning  them  against  their  idolatrous  prac 
tices.  He  convened  an  assembly  at  Mizpeh — pro 
bably  the  place  of  that  name  in  the  tribe  of  Ben 
jamin — and  there  with  a  symbolical  rite,  expressive 
partly  of  deep  humiliation,  partly  of  the  libations 
of  a  treaty,  they  poured  water  on  the  ground,  they 
fasted,  and  they  entreated  Samuel  to  raise  the 
piercing  cry,  for  which  he  was  known,  in  suppli 
cation  to  God  for  them.  It  was  at  the  moment 
that  he  was  offering  up  a  sacrifice,  and  sustaining 
this  loud  cry  (compare  the  situation  of  Pausanias 
before  the  battle  of  Plataea,  Herod,  ix.  61),  that 
the  Philistine  host  suddenly  burst  upon  them.  A 
violent  thunderstorm,  and  (according  to  Josephus, 
Ant.  vi.  2,  §2)  an  earthquake,  came  to  the  timely 
resistance  of  Israel.  The  Philistines  fled,  and, 
exactly  at  the  spot  where  twenty  years  before  they 
had  obtained  their  great  victory,  they  were  totally 
routed.  A  stone  was  set  up,  which  long  remained 
as  a  memorial  of  Samuel's  triumph,  and  gave  to 
the  place  its  name  of  Eben-ezer,  "  the  Stone  of 
Help,"  which  has  thence  passed  into  Christian 
phraseology,  and  become  a  common  name  of  Non 
conformist  chapels  (1  Sam.  vii.  12).  The  old  Ca- 
naanitcs,  whom  the  Philistines  had  dispossessed  in 
the  outskirts  of  the  Judaean  hills,  seem  to  have 
helped  in  the  battle,  and  a  large  portion  of  territory 
was  recovered  (1  Sam.  vi.  14).  This  was  Samuel's 
first  and,  as  far  as  we  know,  his  only  military 
achievement.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  the  earlier 
chiefs  who  bore  that  name,  it  was  apparently  this 
which  raised  him  to  the  office  of"  Judge  "  (comp. 
A  Sam.  xii.  11,  where  he  is  thus  reckoned  with 
Jerubbaal,  Bedan,  and  Jephthah  ;  and  Ecclus.  xlvi. 
15-18).  He  visited,  in  discharge  of  his  duties 
as  ruler,  the  three  chief  sanctuaries  (ej/  iraffi  rots 
jjyiaff/jifvois  rovrois}  on  the  west  of  the  Jordan — 
Bethel,  Gilgal,  and  Mizpeh  (1  Sam.  vii.  16).  His 
own  residence  was  still  his  native  city,  Ramah  or 
Ramathaim,  which  he  further  consecrated  by  an 
altar  (vii.  17).  Here  he  married,  and  two  sons 
grew  up  to  repeat  under  his  eyes  the  same  per 
version  of  high  office  that  he  had  himself  witnessed 
in  his  childhood  in  the  case  of  the  two  sous  of  Eli. 


SAMUEL 

One  was  Abiah,  he  other  Joel,  sometimes  called 
simply  "the  second"  (vashni,  1  Chr.  vi.  28).  In 
his  old  age,  according  to  the  quasi-hereditary  prin 
ciple,  already  adopted  by  previous  Judges,  he  shared 
his  power  with  them,  and  thej  exercised  their  func 
tions  at  the  southern  frontier  in  Beersheba  (1  Sam. 
viii.  1-4). 

2.  Down  to  this  point  in  Samuel's  life  there  is 
but  little  to  distinguish  his  career  from  that  of  his 
predecessors.  Like  many  characters  in  later  days, 
had  he  died  in  youth  his  fame  would  hardly  have 
been  greater  than  that  of  Gideon  or  Samson.  H« 
was  a  Judge,  a  Nazarite,  a  warrior,  and  (to  a  cer* 
tain  point)  a  prophet. 

But  his  peculiar  position  in  the  sacred  narrative 
turns  on  the  events  which  follow.  He  is  the 
inaugurator  of  the  transition  from  what  is  com 
monly  called  the  theocracy  to  the  monarchy.  The 
misdemeanour  of  his  own  sons,  in  receiving  bi'ibes, 
and  in  extorting  exorbitant  interest  on  loans  (1  Sam. 
viii.  3,  4),  precipitated  the  catastrophe  which  had 
been  long  preparing.  The  people  demanded  a  king. 
Josephus  (Ant.  vi.  3,  §3)  describes  the  shock  to 
Samuel's  mind,  "  because  of  his  inborn  sense  of 
justice,  because  of  his  hatred  of  kings,  as  so  far 
inferior  to  the  aristocratic  form  of  government, 
which  conferred  a  godlike  character  on  those  who 
lived  under  it."  For  the  whole  night  he  lay  fasting 
and  sleepless,  in  the  perplexity  of  doubt  and  diffi 
culty.  In  the  vision  of  that  night,  as  recorded  by 
the  sacred  historian,  is  given  the  dark  side  of  the 
new  institution,  on  which  Samuel  dwells  on  the 
following  day  (1  Sam.  viii.  9-18). 

This  presents  his  reluctance  to  receive  the  new 
order  of  things.  The  whole  narrative  of  the  recep 
tion  and  consecration  of  Saul  gives  his  acquiescence 
in  it.  [SAUL.J 

The  final  conflict  of  feeling  and  surrender  of  his 
office  is  given  in  the  last  assembly  over  which  he 
presided,  and  in  his  subsequent  relations  with  Saul. 
The  assembly  was  held  at  Gilgal,  immediately  after 
the  victory  over  the  Ammonites.  The  monarchy  was 
a  second  time  solemnly  inaugurated,  and  (according 
to  the  LXX.)  "Samuel"  (in  the  Hebrew  text 
Saul ")  "  and  all  the  men  of  Israel  rejoiced 
rreatly."  Then  takes  place  his  farewell  address. 
By  this  time  the  long  flowing  locks  on  which  no 
razor  had  ever  passed  were  white  with  age  (xii.  2). 
He  appeals  to  their  knowledge  of  his  integrity. 
Whatever  might  be  the  lawless  habits  of  the  chiefs 
of  those  times — Hophni,  Phinehas,  or  his  own  sons 
— he  had  kept  aloof  from  all.  No  ox  or  ass  had 
le  taken  from  their  stalls — no  bribe  to  obtain  his 
udgment  (LXX.,  ^!i'Xaer/ta) — not  even  a  sandal 
'vir65tj/jLa,  LXX.,  and  Ecclus.  xlvi.  19).  It  is  thii 
appeal,  and  the  response  of  the  people,  that  has 
made  Grotius  call  him  the  Jewish  Aristides.  He 
hen  sums  up  the  new  situation  in  which  they  have 
)laced  themselves ;  and,  although  "  the  wickedness 
)f  asking  a  king"  is  still  strongly  insisted  on,  and 
,he  unusual  portent*  of  a  thunderstorm  in  May  or 
June,  in  answer  to  Samuel's  prayer,  is  urged  as  a 
ign  of  Divine  displeasure  (xii.  16-19),  the  general 
tone  of  the  condemnation  is  much  softened  from 
;hat  which  was  pronounced  on  the  first  intimation 
f  the  change.  The  first  king  is  repeatedly  acknow- 
;  "  the  Messiah  "  or  anointed  of  the  Lord 


*  According  to  the  Mussulman  tradition,  Samuel's  birth 
IB  granted  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  the  nation  on  the 
overthrow  of  the  sanctuary  and  loss  of  the  ark  (I)'Her- 
Lelot,  Aschmouyl').  This,  though  false  in  the  letter,  is  true 
to  ttit  epirit  of  Samuel's  life. 


According  to  the  Mussulman  traditions,  his  anger  wa« 
ccasioned  by  the  people  rejecting  Saul  as  not  being  of  tba 
ribe  of  Judah.  The  sign  that  Saul  was  *fce  king  was  thi 
quefaction  of  the  sacred  oil  in  his  presence  and  l.be  r«» 
overy  of  the  tabernacle  (D'Herbelot,  Aschmouyl) 


SAMUEL 

(xii.  3,  5),  the  future  prosperity  of  the  nation  is 
declared  to  depend  on  their  use  or  misuse  of  the 
new  constitution,  and  Samuel  retires  with  expres 
sions  of  goodwill  and  hope: — "  I  will  teach  you  the 
good  and  the  right  way  .  . .  only  fear  the  Lord  .  . ." 
(1  Sam.  xii.  23,  24). 

It  is  the  most  signal  example  afforded  in  the 
0.  T.  of  a  great  character  reconciling  himself  to  a 
changed  order  of  things,  and  of  the  Divine  sanction 
resting  on  his  acquiescence.  For  this  reason  it  is 
that  Athanasius  is  by  Basil  called  the  Samuel  of 
the  Church  (Basil,  Ep.  82). 

o.  His  subsequent  relations  with  Saul  are  of  the 
same  mixed  kind.  The  two  institutions  which  they 
respectively  represented  ran  on  side  by  side.  Samuel 
was  still  Judge.  He  judged  Israel  "  all  the  days  of 
his  life  "  (vii.  1 5),  and  from  time  to  time  came  across 
the  king's  path.  But  these  interventions  are  chiefly 
in  another  capacity,  which  this  is  the  place  to  unfold. 

Samuel  is  called  emphatically  "the  Prophet" 
(Acts  iii.  24,  xiii.  20).  To  a  certain  extent  this 
was  in  consequence  of  the  gift  which  he  shared  in 
common  with  others  of  his  time.  He  was  especially 
known  in  his  own  age  as  "  Samuel  the  Seer " 
(1  Chr.  ix.  22,  xxvi.  28,  xxix.  29).  "I  am  the 
seer,"  was  his  answer  to  those  who  asked  "  Where 
is  the  seer?"  "  Where  is  the  seer's  house?"  (1  Sam. 
ix.  11,  18,  19).  "Seer,"  the  ancient  name,  was  not 
yet  superseded  by  "Prophet"  (1  Sam.  ix.).  By 
this  name,  Samuel  Videns  and  Samuel  6  f$\sir<av, 
he  is  called  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum.  Of  the  three 
modes  by  which  Divine  communications  were  then 
made,  "by  dreams,  Urim  and  Thummim,  and  pro 
phets,"  the  first  was  that  by  which  the  Divine  will 
was  made  known  to  Samuel  (1  Sam.  iii.  1,2;  Jos. 
Ant.  v.  10,  §4).  "  The  Lord  uncovered  his  ear  "  to 
whisper  into  it  in  the  stillness  of  the  night  the 
messages  that  were  to  be  delivered.  It  is  the  first 
distinct  intimation  of  the  idea  of  "  Revelation  "  to 
a  human  being  (see  Gesenius,  in  roc.  n/5).  He 
was  consulted  fa? and  near  on  the  small  affairs  of  life ; 
loaves  of  "  bread,"  or  "  the  fourth  part  of  a  shekel  of 
silver,"  were  paid  for  the  answers  (1  Sam.  ix.  7,  8). 

From  this  faculty,  combined  with  his  office  of 
ruler,  an  awful  reverence  grew  up  round  him.  No 
sacrificial  feast  was  thought  complete  without  his 
blessing  (ib.  ix.  13).  When  he  appeared  suddenly 
elsewhere  for  the  same  purpose,  the  villagers  "  trem 
bled  "  at  his  approach  (1  Sam.  xvi.  4,  5).  A  pecu 
liar  virtue  was  believed  to  reside  in  his  intercession. 
He  was  conspicuous  in  later  times  amongst  those 
that  "  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  "  (Vs.  xcix. 
6 ;  1  Sam.  xii.  18),  and  was  placed  with  Moses  as 
"  standing  "  for  prayer,  in  a  special  sense,  "  before 
the  Lord  "  (Jer.  xv.  1).  It  was  the  last  consolation 
he  left  in  his  parting  address  that  he  would  "  pray 
to  the  Lord"  for  the  people  (1  Sam.  xii.  19,  23). 
There  was  something  peculiar  in  the  long  sustained 
cry  or  shout  of  supplication,  which  seemeJ  to  draw 
down  as  by  force  the  Divine  answer  (1  Sam.  vii. 
8,9).  All  night  long,  in  agitated  moments,  "he 
ciied  unto  the  Lord  "  (1  Sam.  xv.  11). 

But  there  are  two  other  points  which  more 
especially  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  prophetic 
order  as  it  afterwards  appeared.  The  first  is 
brought  out  in  his  relation  with  Saul,  the  second 
in  his  relation  with  David. 


*  Agag  is  described  by  Josephus  (Ant.  vl.  7,  $2  )  as  a 
chief  of  magnificent  appearance ;  and  hence  rescued  from 
instruction.  This  is  perhaps  an  inference  from  the  word 
^21^I~..  which  the  Wigate.  translates  pinyirissimus. 


SAMUEL 

(a).  He  represents  the  independence  of  the  moral 
law,  of  the  Divine  Will,  as  distinct  from  regal  01 
sacerdotal  enactments,  which  is  so  remarkable  a 
characteristic  of  all  the  later  prophets.  As  we 
have  seen,  he  was,  if  a  Levite,  yet  certainly  not  A 
Priest ;  and  all  the  attempts  to  identify  his  oppo 
sition  to  Saul  with  a  hierarchical  interest  are 
founded  on  a  complete  misconception  of  the  facts 
of  the  case.  From  the  time  of  the  overthrow  of 
Shiloh,  he  never  appears  in  the  remotest  connexion 
with  the  priestly  order.  Amongst  all  the  places 
included  in  his  personal  or  administrative  visits, 
neither  Shiloh,  nor  Nob,  nor  Gibeon,  the  seats  of 
the  sacerdotal  caste,  are  ever  mentioned.  When  ne 
counsels  Saul,  it  is  not  as  the  priest  but  as  the 
prophet ;  when  he  sacrifices  or  blesses  the  sacrifice, 
it  is  not  as  the  priest,  but  either  as  an  individual 
Israelite  of  eminence,  or  as  a  ruler,  like  Saul  him 
self.  Saul's  sin  in  both  cases  where  he  came  into 
collision  with  Samuel,  was  not  of  intruding  into 
sacerdotal  functions,  but  of  disobedience  to  the 
prophetic  voice.  The  first  was  that  of  not  waiting 
for  Samuel's  arrival,  according  to  the  sign  given 
by  Samuel  at  his  original  meeting  at  Kamah  (1 
Sam.  x.  8,  xiii.  8)  ;  the  second  was  that  of  not  car 
rying  out  the  stern  prophetic  injunction  for  the 
destruction  of  the  Amalekites.  When,  on  that 
occasion,  the  aged  Prophet  called  the  captive  c  prince 
before  him,  and  with  his  own  hands  hacked  him 
limb  from  limb,*  in  retribution  for  the  desolation 
he  had  brought  into  the  homes  of  Israel,  and  thus 
offered  up  his  mangled  remains  almost  as  a  human 
sacrifice  ("  before  the  Lord  in  Gilgal  "),  we  see  the 
representative  of  the  older  part  of  the  Jewish  his  • 
tory.  But  it  is  the  true  prophetic  utterance  such 
as  breathes  through  the  psalmists  and  prophets  when 
he  says  to  Saul  in  words  which,  from  their  poetical 
form,  must  have  become  fixed  in  the  national  me 
mory,  "  To  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to 
hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams." 

The  parting  was  not  one  pf  rivals,  but  of  dear 
though  divided  friends.  The  King  throws  himself 
on  the  Prophet  with  all  his  force ;  not  without  a 
vehement  effort  (Jos.  Ant.  vi.  7,  §5)  the  prophet 
tears  himself  away.  The  long  mantle  by  which 
he  was  always  known  is  rent  in  the  struggle  ;  and, 
like  Ahijah  after  him,  Samuel  was  in  this  the 
omen  of  the  coming  rent  in  the  monarchy.  They 
parted,  each  to  his  house,  to  meet  no  more.  But 
a  long  shadow  of  grief  fell  over  the  prophet. 
"  Samuel  mourned  for  Saul."  "  It  grieved  Samuel 
for  Saul."  "  How  long  wilt  thou  mourn  for  Saul  ?" 
(1  Sam.  xv.  11,  35,  xvi.  1.) 

(6).  He  is  the  first  of  the  regular  succession  of 
prophets.  "All  the  prophets  from  Samuel  and 
those  that  follow  after"  (Acts  iii.  24).  "Ex 
quo  sanctus  Samuel  propheta  coepit,  et  deincepj 
donee  populus  Israel  in  Babyloniam  captivus  ve- 

heretur, totum  est  tempus  prophetarum  " 

(Aug.  Civ.  Dei,  xvii.  1).  Moses,  Miriam,  and 
Deborah,  perhaps  Ehud,  had  been  prophets.  But 
it  was  only  from  Samuel  that  the  continuous  suc 
cession  was  unbroken.  This  may  have  been  merely 
from  the  coincidence  of  his  appearance  with  the 
beginning  of  the  new  order  of  things,  of  which  the 
prophetical  office  was  the  cnief  expression.  Some 
predisposing  causes  there  may  have  been  in  his  own 


d  1  Sam.  xv.  The  LXX.  softens  this  into  ecr<£o£e ;  Lu! 
the  Vulg.  translation,  in  frusta  contidit,  "  cut  up  iuU 
small  pieces,"  seems  to  be  the  true  meanicg. 

4  C  2 


1124 


SAMUEL 


family  and  birthplace.  His  mother,  as  we  h:ive 
seen,  though  not  expressly  so  called,  was  in  fact  a 
prophetess;  the  word  Zophim,  as  the  affix  of  Ra- 
mathaim,  has  been  explained,  not  unreasonably,  to 
mean  "seers;"  and  Elkanah,  his  father,  is  by  the 
Chaldee  paraphrast  on  I  Sam.  'i.  1,  said  to  be  "  a 
disciple  of  the  prophets."  But  the  connexion  of 
the  continuity  of  the  office  with  Samuel  appeal's  to 
x  stiii  more  direct.  It  is  in  his  lifetime,  long  after 
he  had  been  "established  as  a  prophet"  (1  Sam. 
iii.  20),  that  we  hear  of  the  companies  of  disciples, 
called  in  the  0.  T.  "  the  sons  of  the  prophets,"  by 
modern  writers  "  the  schools  of  the  prophets."  All 
the  peculiarities  of  their  education  are  implied  or 
expressed — the  sacred  dance,  the  sacred  music,  the 
solemn  procession  (1  Sam.  x.  5,  10;  1  Chr.  xxv. 
1,6).  At  the  head  of  this  congregation,  or  "  church 
as  it  were  within  a  church''  (LXX.  rty  €KK\T)- 
triav,  1  Sam.  x.  5, 10),  Samuel  is  expressly  described 
as  "  standing  appointed  over  them  "  (1  Sam.  xix.  20). 
Their  chief  residence  at  this  time  (though  after 
wards,  as  the  institution  spread,  it  struck  root  in 
other  places)  was  at  Samuel's  own  abode,  Ramah, 
where  they  lived  in  habitations  (Naioth,  1  Sam. 
xix.  19,  &c.)  apparently  of  a  rustic  kind,  like  the 
leafy  huts  which  Elisha's  disciples  afterwards  occu 
pied  by  the  Jordan  (Naioth  =  "  habitations,"  but 
more  specifically  used  for  "  pastures  "). 

In  those  schools,  and  learning  to  cultivate  the  pro 
phetic  gifts,  were  some,  whom  we  know  for  certain , 
others  whom  we  may  almost  certainly  conjecture,  to 
have  been  so  trained  or  influenced.  One  was  Saul. 
Twice  at  least  he  is  described  as  having  been  in  the 
company  of  Samuel's  disciples,  and  as  having  caught 
from  them  the  prophetic  fervour,  to  such  a  degree  as 
to  have  "  prophesied  among  them  "  (1  Sam.  x.  10, 
1 1);  and  on  one  occasion  to  have  thrown  off  his  clothes, 
and  to  have  passed  the  night  in  a  state  of  prophetic 
trance  (1  Sam.  xix.  24) :  and  even  in  his  palace, 
the  prophesying  mingled  with  his  madness  on  ordi 
nary  occasions  (1  Sam.  xviii.  9).  Another  was 
DAVID.  The  first  acquaintance  of  Samuel  with 
David,  was  when  he  privately  anointed  him  at  the 
house  of  Jesse  [see  DAVID].  But  the  connexion 
thus  begun  with  the  shepherd  boy  must  have  been 
continued  afterwards.  David,  at  first,  fled  to 
"  Naioth  in  Ramah,"  as  to  his  second  home  (1  Sam. 
xix.  19),  and  the  gifts  of  music,  of  song,  and  of 
prophecy,  here  developed  on  so  large  a  scale,  were 
exactly  such  as  we  find  in  the  notices  of  those  who 
looked  up  to  Samuel  as  their  father.  It  is,  further, 
hardly  possible  to  escape  the  conclusion  that  David 
there  first  met  his  fast  friends  and  companions  in 
after  life,  prophets  like  himself — GAD  and  NATHAN. 
It  is  needless  to  enlarge  on  the  importance  with 
which  these  incidents  invest  the  appearance  of  Sa 
muel.  He  there  becomes  the  spiritual  father  of  the 
Psalmist  king.  He  is  also  the  Founder  of  the  first 
regular  institutions  of  religious  instruction,  and  com 
munities  for  the  purposes  of  education.  The  schools 
cf  Greece  were  not  yet  in  existence.  From  these 
Jewish  institutions  were  developed,  by  a  natural 
order,  the  universities  of  Christendom.  And  it  may 
be  further  added,  that  with  this  view  the  whole  life 
of  Samuel  is  in  accordance.  He  is  the  prophet — 
the  only  prophet  till  the  time  of  Isaiah — of  whom  we 
know  that  he  was  so  from  his  earliest  years.  It  is 
this  continuity  of  his  own  life  and  character,  that 
makes  him  so  fit  an  instrument  for  conducting  his 
nation  through  so  great  a  change. 

The  death  of  Samuel  is  described  as  taking  place 
'ii  the  year  of  the  close  of  David's  wanderings.     It 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

is  said  with  peculiar  emphasis,  as  if  to  mark  tlw 
loss,  that  "  all  the  Israelites" — all,  with  a  uiiiver. 
sality  never  specified  before — "  were  gathered  to 
gether"  from  ill  parts  of  this  hitherto  divided 
country,  and  "lamented  him, '  and  "buried  h.m, J 
not  in  any  consecrated  place,  nor  outside  the  walls 
of  his  city,  but  within  his  own  house,  thus  in  a 
manner  consecrated  by  being  turned  into  his  tomb 
(1  Sam.  xxv.  1).  His  relics  were  translated  "  fix  in 
Judaea"  (the  place  is  not  specified)  A.D.  406,  to 
Constantinople,  and  received  there  with  much  pomp 
by  the  Emperor  Arcadius.  They  were  lande  I  at 
the  pier  of  Chalcedon,  and  thence  conveyed  to  a 
church,  near  the  palace  of  Hebdomon  (see  Acta 
Sanctorum,  Aug.  20). 

The  situation  of  Ramathaim,  as  has  been  observed, 
is  uncertain.  But  the  place  long  pointed  out  as  his 
tomb  is  the  height,  most  conspicuous  of  all  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  immediately  above 
the  town  of  Gibeon,  known  to  the  Crusaders  as 
Montjoye,"  as  the  spot  from  whence  they  first 
saw  Jerusalem,  now  called  Neby  Samwil,  "the 
Prophet  Samuel."  The  tradition  can  be  traced  back 
as  far  as  the  7th  century,  when  it  is  spoken  of  as  the 
monastery  of  S.  Samuel  (Robinson,  B.  R.  ii.  142), 
and  if  once  we  discard  the  connexion  of  Ramathaim 
with  the  nameless  city  where  Samuel  met  Saul, 
(as  is  set  forth  at  length  in  the  articles  RAMAH  ; 
RAMATHAIM-ZOPHIM)  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
tradition  should  be  rejected.  A  cave  is  still  shown 
underneath  the  floor  of  the  mosque.  "  He  built  the 
tomb  in  his  lifetime,"  is  the  account  of  the  Mussul 
man  guardian  of  the  mosque,  "  but  was  not  buried 
here  till  after  the  expulsion  of  the  Greeks."  It  is 
the  only  spot  in  Palestine  which  claims  any  direct 
connexion  with  the  first  great  prophet  who  was 
born  within  its  limits;  and  its  commanding  situa 
tion  well  agrees  with  the  importance  assigned  to 
him  in  the  sacred  history. 

His  descendants  were  here  till  the  time  of  David. 
Heman,  his  grandson,  was  one  of  the  chief  singers 
in  the  Levitical  choir  (1  Chr.  vi.  33,  xv.  IT,  xxv.  5). 
The  apparition  of  Samuel  at  Endor  (1  Sam.  xxviii. 
14 ;  Ecclus.  xlvi.  20)  belongs  to  the  history  of  SAUL. 
It  has  been  supposed  that  Samuel  wrote  a  Life 
of  David  (of  course  of  his  earlier  years),  which  was 
still  accessible  to  one  of  the  authors  of  the  Book  of 
Chronicles  (1  Chr.  xxix.  29);  but  this  appears 
doubtful.  [Seep.  1126,6.]  Various  other  books  of 
the  0.  T,  have  been  ascribed  to  him  by  the  Jewish 
tradition  the  Judges,  Ruth,  the  two  Books  of  Sa 
muel,  the  latter,  it  is  alleged,  being  written  in  the 
spirit  of  prophecy.  He  is  regarded  by  the  Sama 
ritans  as  a  magician  and  an  infidel  (Hottinger,  Hist. 
Orient,  p.  52). 

The  Persian  traditions  fix  his  life  in  the  time 
of  Kai-i-Kobad,  2nd  king  of  Persia,  with  whom 
he  is  said  to  have  conversed  (D'Herbelot,  Kat 
Kobad}.  [A.  P.  S.] 

SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF  (WlOf :  BeuriAefow. 
Tlp(t>Tfj ,  A  evrepa :  L  iber  Regum  Primus,  Secundas) . 
Two  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  which 
are  not  separated  from  each  other  in  the  Hebrew 
MSS.,  and  which,  from  a  critical  point  of  view, 
must  be  regarded  as  one  book.  The  present  division 
was  first  made  in  the  Septuagint  translation,  and 
was  adopted  in  the  Vulgate  from  the  Septuagint. 
But  Origen,  as  quo'ed  by  Eusebius  (Histor.  Ecdes. 
vi.  25),  expressly  states  that  they  formed  only  o.ie 
book  among  the  Hebrews.  Jerome  (Pracfaiio  in 
Libros  Samuel  et  Mc.lachim]  implies  the  same  state 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

mcnt;  and  in  the  Talmud  (Baba  Bathra,  fol.  14, 
c.  2),  wherein  the  authorship  is  attributed  to  Samuel, 
they  are  designated  by  the  name  of  his  "book,  in  the 

After  the 


eingular  number  (IIDD  3H3 
invention  of  printing  they  were  published  as  one 
oook  in  the  first  edition  of  the  whole  Bible  printed 
at  Soncino  in  1488  A.D.,  and  likewise  in  the  Com- 
plutensian  Polyglot  printed  at  Ahala,  1502-1517 
A.D.  ;  and  it  was  not  til!  the  year  1518  that 
thp  division  of  the  Septuagint  was  adopted  in  He- 
li-cw,  in  the  edition  of  the  Bible  printed  by  the 
Bombergs  at  Venice.  The  book  was  willed  by  the 
Hebrews  "  Samuel,"  probably  because  the  birth  and 
life  of  Samuel  were  the  subjects  treated  of  in  the 
beginning  of  the  work  —  just  as  a  treatise  on  fes 
tivals  in  the  Mishua  bears  the  name  of  Bcitsah,  an 
egg,  because  a  question  connected  with  the  eating 
of  an  egg  is  the  first  subject  discussed  in  it.  [PHA 
RISEES,  p.  890.]  It  has  been  suggested  indeed  by 
Abarbanel,  as  quoted  by  Carpzov  (p.  211),  that  the 
book  was  called  by  Samuel's  name  because  all  things 
that  occur  in  each  book  may,  in  a  certain  sense,  be 
referred  to  Samuel,  including  the  acts  of  Saul  and 
David,  inasmuch  as  each  of  them  was  anointed  by 
him,  and  was,  as  it  were,  the  work  of  his  hands. 
This,  however,  seems  to  be  a  refinement  of  explana 
tion  for  a  fact  which  is  to  be  accounted  for  in  a  less 
artificial  manner.  And,  generally,  it  is  to  be  ob 
served  that  the  logical  titles  of  books  adopted  in 
modern  times  must  not  be  looked  for  in  Eastern 
works,  nor  indeed  in  early  works  of  modern  Europe. 
Thus  David's  Lamentation  over  Saul  and  Jonathan 
was  called  "  The  Bow,"  for  some  reason  connected 
with  the  occurrence  of  that  word  in  his  poem 
(2  Sam.  i.  18-22)  ;  and  Snorro  Storleson's  Chronicle 
of  the  Kings  of  Norway  obtained  the  name  of 
"  Heimskringla,"  the  World's  Circle,  because  Heims- 
kringla  was  the  first  prominent  word  of  the  MS. 
that  caught  the  eye  (Laing's  Heimskringla,  i.  1). 

Authorship  and  Date  of  the  Book.  —  The  most 
interesting  points  in  regard  to  every  important  his 
torical  work  are  the  name,  intelligence,  and  character 
of  the  historian,  and  his  means  of  obtaining  correct 
information.  If  these  points  should  not  be  known, 
next  in  order  of  interest  is  the  precise  period  of  time 
when  the  work  was  composed.  On  all  these  points, 
however,  in  reference  to  the  Book  of  Samuel,  more 
questions  can  be  asked  than  can  be  answered,  and 
the  results  of  a  dispassionate  inquiry  are  mainly 
negative. 

1st,  as  to  the  authorship.  In  common  with  all 
the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  except 
the  beginning  of  Nehemiah,  the  Book  of  Samuel 
contains  no  mention  in  the  text  of  the  name  of  its 
author.  The  earliest  Greek  historical  work  extant, 
written  by  one  who  has  frequently  been  called  the 
Father  of  Histo"j,  commences  with  the  words, 
"  This  is  a  pubiication  of  the  researches  of  Hero 
dotus  of  Halicarnassus  ;  "  and  the  motives  which 
induced  Herodotus  to  write  the  work  are  then  set 
forth.  Thucydides,  the  writer  of  the  Greek  his 
torical  work  next  in  order  of  time,  who  likewise 
specifies  his  reasons  for  writing  it,  commence;  by 
stating,  "  Thucydides  the  Athenian  wrote  the  his 
tory  of  the  war  between  the  Peloponnesians  anc 
Athenians,"  and  frequently  uses  the  formula  thai 
such  or  such  a  year  ended  —  the  second,  or  third,  01 
fourth,  as  the  case  might  be  —  "  of  this  war  of  which 
Thucydidos  wrote  the  history  "  (ii.  70,  103  ;  iii.  25 
88,  IIG).  Again,  when  h*  speaks  in  one  passage 
of  events  ;n  which  it  is  necessary  that  he  shoul< 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF         1125 

mention  his  own  name,  he  refers  to  hhrself  as 
Thucydides  son  of  Olorus,  who  composed  this 
work"  (iv.  104).  Now,  with  the  one  exception 
if  this  kind  already  mentioned,  no  similar  infcrma- 
ion  is  contained  in  any  historical  book  of  the  Old 
Testament,  although  there  are  passages  not  only  in 
Nehemiah,  but  likewise  in  Ezra,  written  in  the  first 
person.  Still,  without  any  statement  of  the  author 
hip  embodied  in  the  text,  it  is  possible  that  his- 
.orical  books  might  come  down  to  us  with  a  titls 
ontaining  the  name  of  the  author.  This  is  the 
:ase,  for  example,  with  Livy's  Roman  History,  ana 
Caesar's  Commentaries  of  the  Gallic  War.  In  the 
atter  case,  indeed,  although  Caesar  mentions  a  long 
eries  of  his  own  actions  without  intimating  that  he 
vas  the  author  of  the  work,  and  thus  there  is  mi 
antecedent  improbability  that  he  wrote  it,  yet  tin- 
traditional  title  of  the  work  outweighs  this  imprc- 
jability,  confirmed  as  the  title  is  by  an  unbroken 
:hain  o"f  testimony,  commencing  with  contemporaries 
Cicero,  Brut.  75 ;  Caesar,  De  Bell.  Gall.  viii.  1  ; 
Suetonius,  Jul  Caes.  56  ;  Quinctilian,  x.  1  ; 
Tacitus,  Germ.  28).  Here,  again,  there  is  no 
thing  precisely  similar  in  Hebrew  history.  The 
five  books  of  the  Pentateuch  have  in  Hebrew  no 
;itle  except  the  first  Hebrew  words  of  each  part ; 
ind  the  titles  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers, 
and  Deuteronomy,  which  are  derived  from  the  Sep- 
uagint,  convey  no  information  as  to  their  author, 
n  like  manner,  the  Book  of  Judges,  the  Books  of 
he  Kings  and  the  Chronicles,  are  not  referred  to 
my  particular  historian;  and  although  six  works 
bear  respectively  the  names  of  Joshua^  KutKv  Samuel, 
Ezra,  Nehemiah,  and  Esther,  there  is  nothing  in  the 
works  themselves  to  preclude  the  idea  that  in  each 
case  the  subject  only  of  the  work  may  be  indicated, 
and  not  its  authorship  ;  as  is  shown  conclusively  by 
the  titles  Ruth  and  Esther,  which  ne  one  has  yet 
construed  into  the  assertion  that  those  celebrated 
women  wrote  the  works  concerning  themselves. 
And  it  is  indisputable  that  the  title  "  Samuel " 
does  not  imply  that  the  prophet  was  the  author  of 
the  Book  of  Samuel  as  a  whole ;  for  the  death  of 
Samuel  is  recorded  in  the  beginning  of  the  25th 
chapter ;  so  that,  under  any  circumstances,  a  dif 
ferent  author  would  be  required  for  the  remaining 
chapters,  constituting  considerably  more  than  one- 
half  of  the  entire  work.  Again,  in  reference  to  the 
Book  of  Samuel,  the  absence  of  the  historian's  name 
from  both  the  text  and  the  title  is  not  supplied  by 
any  statement  of  any  other  writer,  made  within  a 
reasonable  period  from  the  time  when  the  book  may 
be  supposed  to  have  been  written.  No  mention  of 
the  author's  name  is  made  in  the  Book  of  Kings, 
nor,  as  will  be  hereafter  shown,  in  the  Chronicles, 
nor  in  any  other  of  the  sacred  writings.  In  like 
manner,  it  is  not  mentioned  either  in  the  Apocrypha 
or  in  Josephus.  The  silence  of  Josephus  is  par 
ticularly  significant.  He  published  his  Antiquities 
about  1100  years  after  the  death  of  David,  and  in 
them  he  makes  constant  use  of  the  Book  of  Samuel 
for  one  portion  of  his  history.  Indeed  it  is  his 
exclusive  authority  for  his  account  of  Samuel  and 
Saul,  and  his  main  authority,  in  conjunction  with 
the  Chronicles,  for  the  history  of  David.  Yet  he 
nowhere  attempts  to  name  the  author  of  the  Book 
of  Samuel,  or  of  any  part  of  it.  There  is  a  similar 
silence  in  the  Miabna,  where,  however,  the  inference 
from  such  silence  is  far  less  cogent.  And  it  is  not 
until  we  come  to  the  Babylonian  Gemara,  which  is 
supposed  to  have  been  completed  in  its  present,  foi  rc 
somewhere  about  500  A.D.,  that  any  Jewi-h  stat* 


1126          SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

ment  respecting  the  authorship  can  be  pointed  out, 
and  then  it  is  for  the  first  time  asserted  (Baba 
Bathra,  fol.  14,  c.  2),  in  a  passage  already  referred 
to,  that  "  Samuel  wrote  his  book,"  i.  e.  as  the  words 
imply,  the  book  which  bears  his  name.  But  this 
statement  cannot  be  proved  to  have  been  made 
earlier  than  1550  years  after  the  death  of  Samuel — 
a  longer  period  than  has  elapsed  since  the  death  of 
the  Emperor  Constantine ;  and  unsupported  as  the 
statement  is  by  reference  to  any  authority  of  any 
kind,  it  would  be  unworthy  of  credit,  even  if  it 
were  not  opposed  to  the  internal  evidence  of  the 
book  itself.  At  the  revival  of  learning,  an  opinion 
was  propounded  by  Abarbanel,  a  learned  Jew, 
T  A.I).  15U8,  that  the  Book  of  Samuel  was  written 
by  the  prophet  Jeremiah  a  (Lat.  by  Aug.  Pfeiffer, 
Leipzig,  1686),  and  this  opinion  was  adopted  by  Hugo 
Grotius  (Pref.  ad  Librum  priorem  Samuelis],  with 
a  general  statement  that  there  was  no  discrepancy  in 
the  language,  and  with  only  one  special  reference. 
Notwithstanding  the  eminence,  however,  of  these 
writers,  this  opinion  must  be  rejected  as  highly  im 
probable.  Under  any  circumstances  it  could  not  be 
regarded  as  more  than  a  mere  guess ;  and  it  is,  in 
reahty,  a  guess  uncountenanced  by  peculiar  simi 
larity  of  language,  or  of  style,  between  the  history 
of  Samuel  and  the  writings  of  Jeremiah.  In  our 
own  time  the  most  prevalent  idea  in  the  Anglican 
Church  seems  to  have  been  that  the  first  twenty-four 
chapters  of  the  Book  of  Samuel  were  written  by  the 
prophet  himself,  and  the  rest  of  the  chapters  by 
the  prophets  Nathan  and  Gad.  This  is  the  view 
favoured  by  Mr.  Home  (Introduction  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  ed.  1846,  p.  45),  in  a  work  which  has 
had  very  extensive  circulation,  and  which  amongst 
many  readers  has  been  the  only  work  of  the  kind 
consulted  in  England.  If,  however,  the  authority 
adduced  by  him  is  examined,  it  is  found  to  be  ulti 
mately  the  opinion  "  of  the  Talmudists,  which  was 
adopted  by  the  most  learned  Fathers  of  the  Christian 
Church,  who  unquestionably  had  better  means  of 
ascertaining  this  point  than  we  have."  Now  the 
absence  of  any  evidence  for  this  opinion  in  the 
Talmud  has  been  already  indicated,  and  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  understand  how  the  opinion  could  have  been 
stamped  with  real  value  through  its  adoption  by 
learned  Jews  called  Talmudists,  or  by  learned 
Christians  called  Fathers  of  the  Christian  Church, 
who  lived  subsequently  to  the  publication  of  the 
Talmud.  For  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  for 
supposing  that  in  the  year  500  A.D.  either  Jews  or 
Christians  had  access  to  trustworthy  documents  on 
this  subject  which  have  not  been  transmitted  to 
modem  times,  and  without  such  documents  it  can 
not  be  shown  that  they  had  any  better  means  of 
ascertaining  this  point  than  we  have.  Two  circum 
stances  have  probably  contributed  to  the  adoption 
of  this  opinion  at  the  present  day : — 1st,  the  growth 
ot  stricter  ideas  as  to  the  importance  of  knowing 
who  was  the  author  of  any  historical  work  which 
advances  claims  to  be  trustworthy  ;  and  2ndly,  the 
mistranslation  of  an  ambiguous  passage  in  the  First 
Book  of  Chronicles  (xxix.  29),  respecting  the  autho- 

»  Professor  Hitzig,  in  like  manner,  attributes  some  of 
the  Psalms  to  Jeremiah.  In  support  of  this  view,  he 
points  out,  1st,  several  special  instances  of  striking  simi 
larity  of  language  between  those  Psalms  and  the  writings 
of  Jeremiah,  and,  2ndly,  agreement  between  historical  facts 
in  the  life  of  Jeremiah  and  the  situation  in  which  the  writer 
of  those  Psalms  depicts  himself  as  having  been  placed 
(Hitaig.  Dit,  Psoii/nen.  pp.  48-85).  Whether  the  conclu 
sion  i£  correct  or  incorrect,  this  is  a  legitimate  mode  of 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

rities  for  the  life  of  David.  The  first  point  requires 
no  comment.  On  the  second  point  it  is  to  be  ob 
served  that  the  following  appears  to  be  the  correct 
translation  of  the  passage  in  question : — "  Now  the 
history  of  David  first  and  last,  behold  it  is  written 
in  the  history  of  Satnu«U  the  seer,  and  in  the  history 
of  Nathan  the  prophet,  and  in  the  history  of  Gac. 
the  seer  " — in  whrch  the  Hebrew  word  dibrei,  here 
translated  "  history,"  has  the  same  meaning  given 
to  it  each  of  the  four  times  that  it  is  used.  This 
agrees  with  the  translation  in  the  Septuagint,  which 
is  particularly  worthy  of  attention  in  reference  to 
the  Chronicles,  as  the  Chronicles  are  the  very  last 
work  in  the  Hebrew  Bible ;  and  whether  this  arose 
from  their  having  been  the  last  admitted  into  the 
Canon,  or  the  last  composed,  it  is  scarcely  probable 
that  any  translation  in  the  Septuagint,  with  one 
great  exception,  was  made  so  soon  after  the  com 
position  of  the  original.  The  rendering  of  the 
Septuagint  is  by  the  word  \6yoi,  in  the  sense,  so 
well  known  in  Herodotus,  of  "history"  (i.  184, 
ii.  161,  vi.  137),  and  in  the  like  sense  in  the  Apo 
crypha,  wherein  it  is  used  to  describe  the  history  of 
Tobit,  |8£j8\oy  \6yuv  TwjBfr.  The  word  "  history  " 
(Geschichte)  is  likewise  the  word  four  times  used  in 
the  translation  of  this  passage  of  the  Chronicles  in 
Luther's  Bible,  and  in  the  modem  version  of  the 
German  Jews  made  under  the  superintendence  of 
the  learned  Dr.  Zunz  (Berlin,  1858).  In  the 
English  Version,  however,  the  word  dibrei  is  trans 
lated  in  the  first  instance  "  acts "  as  applied  to 
David,  and  then  "  book "  as  applied  to  Samuel, 
Nathan,  and  Gad ;  and  thus,  through  the  ambiguity 
of  the  word  "  book,"  the  possibility  is  suggested 
that  each  of  these  three  prophets  wrote  a  book 
respecting  his  own  life  and  times.  This  double 
rendering  of  the  same  word  in  one  passage  seems 
wholly  inadmissible  ;  as  is  also,  though  in  a  less 
degree,  the  translation  of  dibrei  as  "  book,"  for 
which  there  is  a  distinct  Hebrew  word — sepher. 
And  it  may  be  deemed  morally  certain  that  this 
passage  of  the  Chronicles  is  no  authority  for  the 
supposition  that,  when  it  was  written,  any  work 
was  in  existence  of  which  either  Gad,  Nathan,  or 
Samuel  was  the  author.b 

2.  Although  the  authorship  of  the  Book  of  Samuel 
cannot  be  ascertained,  there  are  some  indications  as 
to  the  date  of  the  work.  And  yet  even  on  this 
point  no  precision  is  attainable,  and  we  must  be 
satisfied  with  a  conjecture  as  to  the  range,  not  of 
years  or  decades,  but  of  centuries,  within  which  the 
history  was  probably  composed.  Evidence  on  this 
head  is  either  external  or  internal.  The  earliest 
undeniable  external  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the 
book  would  seem  to  be  the  Greek  translation  of  it 
in  the  Septuagint.  The  exact  date,  however,  of  the 
translation  itself  is  uncertain,  though  it  must  have 
been  made  at  some  time  between  the  translation  of 
the  Pentateuch  in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus, 
who-  died  B.C.  247,  and  the  century  before  the  birth 
of  Christ.  The  next  best  external  testimony  is  that 
of  a  passage  in  the  Second  Book  of  Maccabees  (ii. 
13),  in  which  it  is  said  of  Nehemiah,  that  "  he, 

reasoning,  and  there  is  a  sound  basis  for  a  critical  super 
structure.  See  Psalms  xxxi.,  xxxv.,  xl. 

b  In  the  Swedish  Bible  the  word  dibrti  In  each  of  the 
four  instances  is  translated  "  acts"  (Gemingar),  being  pre 
cisely  the  same  word  which  is  used  to  designate  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  in  the  New  Testament.  This  translation 
is  self-consistent  and  admissible.  But  the  German 
trauelatlons,  supported  as  they  are  by  the  Soptuagiut 
seeia  preferable. 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

founding  a  library,  gathered  together  the  acts  of 
the  kings,  and  the  prophets,  and  of  David,  and  the 
epistles  of  the  kings  concerning  the  holy  gifts." 
Now,  although  this  passage  cannot  be  relied  on  for 
proving  that  Nehemiah  himself  did  in  fact  ever 
fourd  such  a  library,6  yet  it  is  good  evidence  to 
prov\  that  the  Acts  of  the  Kings,  T&  irepl  rtav 
fiaffiXfcav,  were  in  existence  when  the  passage  was 
written  ;  and  it  cannot  reasonably  be  doubted  that 
this  phrase  was  intended  to  include  the  Book  of 
Samuel,  which  is  equivalent  to  the  two  first  Books 
of  Kings  in  the  Septuagint.  Hence  there  is  external 
evidence  that  the  Book  of  Samuel  was  written 
before  the  Second  Book  of  Maccabees.  And  lastly, 
the  passage  in  the  Chronicles  already  quoted  (1  Chr. 
xxix.  29)  seems  likewise  to  prove  externally  that 
the  Book  of  Samuel  was  written  before  the  Chro 
nicles.  This  is  not  absolutely  certain,  but  it  seems 
to  be  the  most  natural  inference  from  the  words 
that  the  history  of  David,  first  and  last,  is  con 
tained  in  the  history  of  Samuel,  the  history  of 
Nathan,  and  the  history  of  Gad.  For  as  a  work 
has  come  down  to  us,  entitled  Samuel,  which  con 
tains  an  account  of  the  life  of  David  till  within  a 
short  period  before  his  death,  it  appears  most  rea 
sonable  to  conclude  (although  this  point  is  open  to 
dispute)  that  the  writer  of  the  Chronicles  referred 
to  this  work  by  the  title  History  of  Samuel.  In 
this  case,  admitting  the  date  assigned,  on  internal 
grounds,  to  the  Chronicles  by  a  modern  Jewish 
writer  of  undoubted  learning  and  critical  powers, 
there  would  be  external  evidence  for  the  existence 
of  the  Book  of  Samuel  earlier  than  247  B.C.,  though 
not  earlier  than  312  B.C.,  the  era  of  the  Seleucidae 
(Zunz,  Die  Gottesdienstlichen  Vortrage  der  Juden, 
p.  32).  Supposing  that  the  Chronicles  were  written 
earlier,  this  evidence  would  go,  in  precise  proportion, 
farther  back,  but  there  would  be  still  a  total  absence 
if  earlier  external  evidence  on  the  subject  than  is 
contained  in  the  Chronicles.  If,  however,  instead 
of  looking  solely  to  the  external  evidence,  the  in 
ternal  evidence  respecting  the  Book  of  Samuel  is 
examined,  there  are  indications  of  its  having  been 
written  some  centuries  earlier.  On  this  head  the 
following  points  are  worthy  of  notice : — 

1.  The  Book  of  Samuel  seems  to  have  been  writ 
ten  at  a  time  when  the  Pentateuch,  whether  it  was 
or  was  not  in  existence  in  its  present  form,  was  at 
any  rate  not  acted  on  as  the  rule  of  religious  ob 
servances.  According  to  the  Mosaic  Law  as  finally 
established,  sacrifices  to  Jehovah  were  not  lawful 
anywhere  but  before  the  door  of  the  tabernacle 
of  the  congregation,  whether  this  was  a  permanent 
temple,  as  at  Jerusalem,  or  otherwise  (Deut.  xii. 
13, 14;  Lev.  xvii.  3,  4 ;  but  see  Ex.  xx.  24).  But 
in  the  Book  of  Samuel,  the  offering  of  sacrifices,  or 
the  erection  of  altars,  which  implies  sacrifices,  is 
mentioned  at  several  places,  such  as  Mizpeh,  Ramah, 
Bethel,  the  thresh  ing- place  of  Araunah  the  Jebusite, 
and  elsewhere,  not  only  without  any  disapprobation, 
apology,  or  explanation,  but  in  a  way  which  pro 
duces  the  impression  that  such  sacrifices  were 
pleasing  to  Jehovah  (1  Sam.  vii.  9,  10,  17,  ix.  13, 
x.  3,  xiv.  35 ;  2  Sam.  xxiv.  18-25).  This  circum- 

0  Professors  Ewald  and  Bleek  have  accepted  the  state 
ment  that  Nehemiah  founded  such  a  library,  and  they 
make  inferences  from  the  account  of  the  library  as  to  the 
time  when  certain  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  ad 
mitted  into  the  Canon.  There  are,  however,  the  following 
easons  for  rejecting  the  statement : — 1st.  It  occurs  in  a 
letter  generally  deemeU  spurious.  2ndly.  In  the  same 
A  fabulous  story  is  recorded  not  only  of  Jeremiah 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 


1127 


ctance  points  to  the  date  of  the  Book  of  Samuel  na 
earlier  than  the  reformation  of  Josiah,  when  Hil- 
kiah  the  high-priest  told  Shaphan  the  scribe  that 
he  had  found  the  Book  of  the  Law  in  the  house  ol 
Jehovah,  when  the  Passover  was  kept  as  was  en- 
oined  in  that  book,  in  a  way  that  no  Passover  had 
aeen  holden  since  the  days  of  the  Judges,  and  vrhen 
the  worship  upon  high-places  was  abolished  by  the 
king's  orders  (2  K.  xxii.  8,  xxiii.  8,  13,  15,  19,  21, 
22).  The  probability  that  a  sacred  historian,  writing 
after  that  reformation,  would  have  expressed  dis 
approbation  of,  or  would  have  accounted  for,  any 
seeming  departure  from  the  laws  of  the  Pentateuch 
by  David,  Saul,  or  Samuel,  is  not  in  itseY  conclu 
sive,  but  joined  to  other  considerations  it  is  entitled 
to  peculiar  weight.  The  natural  mode  of  dealing  with 
such  a  religious  scandal,  when  it  shocks  the  ideas 
of  a  later  generation,  is  followed  by  the  author  of  the 
Book  of  Kings,  who  undoubtedly  lived  later  than 
the  reformation  of  Josiah,  or  than  the  beginning,  at 
least,  of  the  captivity  of  Judah  (2  K.  xxv.  21,  27). 
This  writer  mentions  the  toleration  of  worship  on 
high-places  with  disapprobation,  not  only  in  con 
nexion  with  bad  kings,  such  as  Manasseh  and  Ahaz, 
but  likewise  as  a  drawback  in  the  excellence  of 
other  kings,  such  as  Asa,  Jehoshaphat,  Jehoash, 
Amaziah,  Azariah,  and  Jotham,  who  are  praised  for 
having  done  what  was  right  in  the  sight  of  Jehovah 
(1  K.  xv.  14,  xxii.  43 ;  2  K.  xii.  3,  xiv.  4,  xv.  4, 
35,  xvi.  4,  xxi.  3)  ;  and  something  of  the  same  kind 
might  have  been  expected  in  the  writer  of  the  Book 
of  Samuel,  if  he  had  lived  at  a  time  when  the  wor 
ship  on  high-places  had  been  abolished. 

2.  It  is  in  accordance  with  this  early  date  of  the 
Book  of  Samuel  that  allusions  in  it  even  to  the 
existence  of  Moses  are  so  few.  After  the  return 
from  the  Captivity,  and  more  especially  after  the 
changes  introduced  by  Ezra,  Moses  became  tlv' 
great  central  figure  in  the  thoughts  and  language 
of  devout  Jews  which  he  could  not  fail  to  be  when 
all  the  laws  of  the  Pentateuch  were  observed,  and 
they  were  all  referred  to  him  as  the  divine  prophet 
who  communicated  them  directly  from  Jehovah. 
This  transcendent  importance  of  Moses  must  already 
have  commenced  at  the  finding  of  the  Book  of  the 
Law  at  the  reformation  of  Josiah.  Now  it  is  re 
markable  that  the  Book  of  Samuel  JS  the  historical 
work  of  the  Old  Testament  in  which  the  name  of 
Moses  occurs  most  rarely.  In  Joshua  it  occurs  56 
times ;  in  Chronicles,  Ezra,  and  Nehemiah  31  times ; 
in  the  Book  of  Kings  ten  times;  in  Judges  three 
times;  but  in  Samuel  only  twice  (Zunz,  Vortrdge, 
35).  And  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  each  case 
Moses  is  merely  mentioned  with  Aaron  as  having 
brought  the  Israelites  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  but 
nothing  whatever  is  said  of  the  Law  of  Moeefi 
(1  Sam.  xii.  6,  8).  It  may  be  thought  that  no 
inference  can  be  drawn  from  this  omission  of  1  h« 
name  of  Moses,  because,  inasmuch  as  the  Law  of 
Moses,  as'  a  whole,  was  evidently  not  acted  on  in 
the  time  of  Samuel,  David,  and  Solomon,  there  was 
no  occasion  for  a  writer,  however  late  he  lived,  to 
introduce  the  name  of  Moses  at  all  in  connexion 
with  their  life  and  actions.  But  it  is  very  raiT 


(li.  1-7),  but  likewise  of  Nehemiah  himse':f.  3rdly.  Au 
erroneous  historical  statement  is  likewise  made  in  the 
same  letter,  that  Nehemiah  built  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem 
(i.  18).  No  witness  in  a  court  of  justice,  whose  credit  bad 
been  shaken  to  a  similar  extent,  would,  unless  corroborated 
by  other  evidence  be  relied  on  as  an  authority  for  auy 
important  fact. 


1128         SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

indeed  for  later  writers  to  refrain  in  this  way  trom 
importing  the  ideas  of  their  own  time  into  the  ac 
count  of  earlier  transactions.  Thus,  very  early  in 
the  Book  of  Kings  there  is  an  allusion  to  what  is 
"  written  in  the  Law  of  Moses  "  (1  K.  ii.  3).  Thus 
the  author  of  the  Book  of  Chronicles  makes,  for  the 
reign  of  David,  a  calculation  of  money  in  darics, 
a  Persian  coin,  not  likely  to  have  been  in  common 
use  among  the  Jews  until  the  Persian  domination 
had  been  fully  established.  Thus,  more  than  once, 
Josephus,  in  his  Antiquities  of  the  Jews,  attributes 
expressions  to  personages  in  the  Old  Testament 
which  are  to  be  accounted  for  by  what  was  familiar 
to  his  own  mind,  although  they  are  not  justified 
by  his  authorities.  For  example,  evidently  copying 
the  history  of  a  transaction  from  the  Book  of 
Samuel,  he  represents  the  prophet  Samuel  as  ex 
horting  the  people  to  bear  in  mind  "  the  code  of 
laws  which  Moses  had  given  them  "  (TTJS  Mwuirews 
vouo8f<rtas,  Ant.  vi.  5,  §3),  though  there  is  no 
mention  of  Moses,  or  of  his  legislation,  in  the 
corresponding  passage  of  Samuel  (1  Sam.  xii.  20- 
25).  Again,  in  giving  an  account  of  the  punish 
ments  with  which  the  Israelites  were  threatened  for 
disobedience  of  the  Law  by  Moses  in  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy,  Josephus  attributes  to  Moses  the 
threat  that  their  temple  should  be  burned  (Ant.  iv. 
8,  §46).  But  no  passage  can  be  pointed  out  in  the 
whole  Pentateuch  in  which  such  a  threat  occurs ; 
and  in  fact,  according  to  the  received  chronology 
(1  K.  vi.  1),  or  according  to  any  chronology,  the 
first  temple  at  Jerusalem  was  not  built  till  some 
centuries  after  the  death  of  Moses.  Yet  this  allu 
sion  to  the  burning  of  an  unbuilt  temple  ought  not 
to  be  regarded  as  an  intentional  misrepresentation. 
It  is  rather  an  instance  of  the  tendency  in  an  histo 
rian  who  describes  past  events  to  give  unconsciously 
indications  of  his  living  himself  at  a  later  epoch. 
Similar  remarks  apply  to  a  passage  of  Josephus  (Ant. 
vii.  4,  §4),  in  which,  giving  an  account  of  David's 
project  to  build  a  temple  at  Jerusalem,  he  says  that 
David  wished  to  prepare  a  temple  for  God,  "  as 
Moses  commanded,"  though  no  such  command  or 
injunction  is  to  be  found  in  the  Pentateuch.  To  a 
religious  Jew,  when  the  laws  of  the  Pentateuch  were 
observed,  Moses  could  not  fail  to  be  the  predominant 
idea  in  his  mind;  but  Moses  would  not  necessarily 
be  of  equal  importance  to  a  Hebrew  historian  who 
lived  before  the  reformation  of  Josiah. 

3.  It  tallies  with  an  early  date  for  the  compo 
sition  of  the  Book  of  Samuel  that  it  is  one  of  the 
best  specimens  of  Hebrew  prose  in  the  golden  age 
of  Hebrew  literature.  In  prose  it  holds  the  same 
place  which  Joel  and  the  undisputed  prophecies  of 
Isaiah  hold  in  poetical  or  prophetical  language.  It 
is  free  from  the  peculiarities  of  the  Book  of  Judges, 
which  it  is  proposed  to  account  for  by  supposing 
that  they  belonged  to  the  popular  dialect  of  Northern 
Palestine  ;  and  likewise  from  the  slight  peculiarities 
of  the  Pentateuch,  which  it  is  proposed  to  regard 
as  archaisms d  (Gesenius,  Hebrew  Grammar,  §2,  5). 
It  is  a  striking  contrast  to  the  language  of  the  Book 
of  Chronicles,  wlich  undoubtedly  belongs  to  the 
silver  age  of  Hebrew  prose,  and  it  does  not  contain 
=»s  many  alleged  Chaldaisms  as  the  few  in  the  Book 
of  Kings.  Indeed  the  number  of  Chaldaisms  in  the 
Book  of  Samuel  which  the  most  rigid  scrutiny  has 
suggested  do  not  amount  to  more  than  about  six 
instances,  some  of  them  doubtful  ones,  in  90  pages 

*  .As  compared  with  Samuel,  the  peculiarities  ol  the 
Peatateuch  are  not  quite  as  striking  as  the  differences  in 
tween  Lucretius  and  Virgil :  the  Daralld  w  Oich 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

of  our  modern  Hebrew  Bible.  And,  considering  the 
general  purity  of  the  language,  it  is  not  only 
possible,  but  probable,  that  the  trifling  residuum  ol 
Chaldaisms  may  be  owing  to  the  inadvertence  of 
Chaldee  copyists,  when  Hebrew  had  ceased  to  be  a 
living  language.  At  the  same  time  this  argument 
from  language  must  not  be  pushed  so  far  as  to 
imply  that,  standing  alone,  it  would  be  conclusive; 
for  some  writings,  the  date  of  which  is  about  the 
time  of  the  Captivity,  are  in  pure  Hebrew,  such 
as  the  prophecies  of  Habakkuk,  the  Psalms  cxx., 
cxxxvii.,  cxxxix.,  pointed  out  by  Gesenius,  and  by 
far  the  largest  portion  of  the  latter  part  of  the  pro 
phecies  attributed  to  "  Isaiah  "  (xl.— Ixvi.).  And  we 
have  not  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  condition  or 
the  Jews  at  the  time  of  the  Captivity,  or  for  a  few 
centuries  after,  to  entitle  any  one  to  assert  that 
there  were  no  individuals  among  them  who  wrote 
the  purest  Hebrew.  Still  the  balance  of  probability 
inclines  to  the  contrary  direction,  and,  as  a  sub- 
sidiary  argument,  the  purity  of  language  of  the 
Book  of  Samuel  is  entitled  to  some  weight. 

Assuming,  then,  that  the  work  was  composed  at 
a  period  not  later  than  the  reformation  of  Josiah — 
say,  B.C.  622 — the  question  arises  as  to  the  very 
earliest  point  of  time  at  which  it  could  have  existed 
in  its  present  form  ?  And  the  answer  seems  to  be, 
that  the  earliest  period  was  subsequent  to  the  seces 
sion  of  the  Ten  Tribes.  This  results  from  the  passage 
in  1  Sam.  xxvii.  6,  wherein  it  is  said  of  David, 
"  Then  Achish  gave  him  Ziklag  that  day :  wherefore 
Ziklag  pertaineth  unto  the  kings  of  Judah  to  this 
day :"  for  neither  Saul,  David,  nor  Solomon  is  in  a 
single  instance  called  king  of  Judah  simply.  It  is  true 
that  David  is  said,  in  one  narrative  respecting  him,  to 
have  reigned  in  Hebron  seven  years  and  six  months 
over  Judah  (2  Sam.  v.  5)  before  he  reigned  in  Jeru 
salem  thirty-three  years  over  all  Israel  and  Judah  ; 
but  he  is,  notwithstanding,  never  designated  by 
the  title  King  of  Judah.  Before  the  secession, 
the  designation  of  the  kings  was  that  they  were 
kings  of  Israel  (1  Sam.  xiii.  1,  xv.  1,  xvi.  1 ;  2  Sam. 
v.  17,  viii.  15;  1  K.  ii.  11,  iv.  1,  vi.  1,  xi.  42).  It 
may  safely,  therefore,  be  assumed  that  the  Book  of 
Samuel  could  not  have  existed  in  its  present  form 
at  an  earlier  period  than  the  reign  of  Rehoboam, 
who  ascended  the  throne  B.C.  975.  If  we  go  be 
yond  this,  and  endeavour  to  assert  the  precise  time 
between  975  B.C.  and  622  B.C.,  when  it  was  com 
posed,  all  certain  indications  fail  us.  The  expres 
sion  "unto  this  day,"  used  several  times  in  the 
book  (1  Sam.  v.  5,  vi.  18,  xxx.  25;  2  Sam.  iv.  3, 
vi.  8),  in  addition  to  the  use  of  it  in  the  passage 
already  quoted,  is  too  indefinite  to  prove  anything, 
except  that  the  writer  who  employed  it  lived  sub 
sequently  to  the  events  he  described.  It  is  in- 
zdsquate  to  prove  whether  he  lived  three  centuries, 
or  only  half  a  century,  after  those  events.  The 
same  remark  applies  to  the  phrase,  "  Therefore  it 
became  a  proverb,  '  Is  Saul  among  the  Prophets?'" 
(1  Sam.  x.  12),  and  to  the  verse,  "  Betbretime  in 
Israel,  when  a  man  went  to  enquire  of  God,  thus 
he  spake,  Come,  and  let  us  go  to  the  seer  :  for  he 
that  is  now  called  a  Prophet  was  beforetime  called 
a  Seer"  (1  Sam.  ix.  9).  In  both  cases  it  is  not 
certain  that  the  writer  lived  more  than  eighty  years 
after  the  incidents  to  which  he  alludes.  In  like 
manner,  the  various  traditions  respecting  the  manner 
in  which  Saul  first  became  acquainted  with  Davi<' 


has  been  suggested  by  Gesenius.  Virgil  seems  to  have 
been  about  14  years  of  age  when  Lucretius's  great  poem 
was  publiblie;'. 


SAMUEL.  BOOKS  OF 

(I  Sam.  xvi.  14-23,  xvii.  55-58) — respecting  the 
manner  of  Saul's  death  (1  Sam.  xxxi.  2-6,  8-13  ; 
2  Sam.  i.  2-12) — do  not  necessarily  show  that  a 
very  long  time  (say  even  a  century)  elapsed  between 
the  actual  events  and  the  record  of  the  traditions. 
In  an  age  anterior  to  the  existence  of  newspapers  or 
the  invention  of  printing,  and  when  probably  few 
could  read,  thirty  or  forty  years,  or  even  less,  have 
been  sufficient  for  the  growth  of  different  traditions 
respecting  the  same  historical  fact.  Lastly,  internal 
evidence  of  language  lends  no  assistance  for  discri 
mination  in  the  period  of  353  years  within  which 
the  book  may  have  been  written;  for  the  undis 
puted  Hebrew  writings  belonging  to  that  period 
are  comparatively  few,  and  not  one  of  them  is  a 
history,  which  would  present  the  best  points  of 
comparison.  They  embrace  scarcely  more  than  the 
writings  of  Joel,  Amos,  Hosea,  Micah,  Nahum, 
and  a  certain  portion  of  the  writings  under  the 
title  "  Isaiah."  The  whole  of  these  writings  to 
gether  can  scarcely  be  estimated  as  occupying  more 
than  sixty  pages  of  our  Hebrew  Bibles,  and  what 
ever  may  be  their  peculiarities  of  language  or  style, 
they  do  -not  afford  materials  for  a  safe  inference  as 
to  which  of  their  authors  was  likely  to  have  been 
contemporary  with  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Sa 
muel.  All  that  can  be  asserted  as  undeniable  is, 
that  the  book,  as  a  whole,  can  scarcely  have  been 
composed  later  than  the  reformation  of  Josiah,  and 
that  it  could  not  have  existed  in  its  present  form 
earlier  than  the  reign  of  Rehoboam. 

It  is  to  be  added  that  no  great  weight,  in  opposition 
to  this  conclusion,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  death 
of  David,  although  in  one  passage  evidently  implied 
(2  Sam.  v.  5),  is  not  directly  recorded  in  the  Book 
of  Samuel.  From  this  fact  Havernick  (Einleitung 
in  das  Alte  Testament,  part  ii.,  p.  145)  deems  it 
a  certain  inference  that  the  author  lived  not  long 
after  the  death  of  David.  But  this  is  a  very  slight 
foundation  for  such  an  inference,  since  we  know 
nothing  of  the  author's  name,  or  of  the  circum 
stances  under  which  he  wrote,  or  of  his  precise 
ideas  respecting  what  is  required  of  an  historian. 
We  cannot,  therefore,  assert,  from  the  knowledge  of 
the  character  of  his  mind,  that  his  deeming  it  logi 
cally  requisite  to  make  a  formal  statement  of  David's 
death  would  have  depended  on  his  living  a  short 
time  01  a  long  time  after  that  event.  Besides,  it  is 
very  possible  that  he  did  formally  record  it,  and 
that  the  mention  of  it  was  subsequently  omitted  on 
account  of  the  more  minute  details  by  which  the 
account  of  David's  death  is  preceded  in  the  First 
Book  of  Kings.  There  would  have  been  nothing 
wrong  in  such  an  omission,  nor  indeed,  in  any  addi 
tion  to  the  Book  of  Samuel ;  for,  as  those  who 
finally  inserted  it  in  the  Canon  did  not  transmit  it 
to  posterity  with  the  name  of  any  particular  author, 
their  honesty  was  involved,  not  in  the  mere  circum 
stance  of  their  omitting  or  adding  anything,  but 
solely  in  the  fact  of  their  adding  nothing  which  they 
believed  to  be  false,  and  of  omitting  nothing  of  im 
portance  which  they  believed  to  be  true. 

In  this  absolute  ignorance  of  the  author's  name, 
and  vague  knowledge  of  the  date  of  the  work, 
thera  1ms  been  a  controversy  whether  the  Book  of 
Samuel  is  or  is  not  a  compilation  from  pre-existing 
documents  ;  and  if  this  is  decided  in  the  affirmative, 
to  what  extent  the  work  is  a  compilation.  It  is 
not  intended  to  enter  fully  here  into  this  contro 
versy,  respecting  which  the  reader  is  referred  to  Dr. 
Davidson's  Introduction  to  the  Critical  Study  and 
Knowledge  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  London,  Long 
man,  1856,  in  which  this  subject  is  dispassionately 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OP         1129 

and  fairly  treated.  One  observation,  howevei.  of 
some  practical  importance,  is  to  be  borne  in  mind. 
It  does  not  admit  of  much  reasonable  doubt  that  in 
the  Book  of  Samuel  there  are  two  different  accoioi ts 
(already  alluded  to)  respecting  Saul's  first  acquaint 
ance  with  David,  and  the  circumstances  of  Saul's 
death — and  that  yet  the  editor  or  author  of  the 
Book  did  not  let  his  mind  work  upon  these  two 
different  accounts  so  far  as  to  make  him  interpose 
his  own  opinion  as  to  which  of  the  conflicting 
accounts  was  correct,  or  even  to  point  out  to  the 
reader  that  the  two  accounts  were  apparently  con 
tradictory.  Hence,  in  a  certain  sense,  and  to  a 
certain  extent,  the  author  must  be  regarded  as  a 
compiler,  and  not  an  original  historian.  And  la 
reference  to  the  two  accounts  of  Saul's  death,  this 
i:>  not  the  less  true,  even  if  the  second  account  be 
deemed  reconcileable  with  the  first  by  the  supposi 
tion  that  the  Amalekite  had  fabricated  the  story  of 
his  having  killed  Saul  (2  Sam.  i.  6-10).  Although 
possibly  true,  this  is  an  unlikely  supposition,  be 
cause,  as  the  Amalekite's  object  in  a  lie  would  have 
been  to  curry  favour  with  David,  it  would  have 
been  natural  for  him  to  have  forged  some  story 
which  would  have  redounded  more  to  his  own  credit 
than  the  clumsy  and  improbable  statement  that  he, 
a  mere  casual  spectator,  had  killed  Saul  at  Saul's 
own  request.  But  whether  the  Amalekite  said 
what  was  true  or  what  was  false,  an  historian,  as 
distinguished  from  a  compiler,  could  scarcely  have 
failed  to  convey  his  own  opinion  on  the  point, 
affecting,  as  on  one  alternative  it  did  materially, 
the  truth  of  the  narrative  which  he  had  just  before 
recorded  respecting  the  circumstances  under  which 
Saul's  death  occurred.  And  if  compilation  is  ad 
mitted  in  regard  to  the  two  events  just  mentioned, 
or  to  one  of  them,  there  is  no  antecedent  improba 
bility  that  the  same  may  have  been  the  case  in 
other  instances ;  such,  for  example,  as  the  two  expla 
nations  of  the  proverb,  "  Is  Saul  also  among  the 
Prophets?"  (1  Sam.  x.  9-12,  xix.  22-24),  or  the 
two  accounts  of  David's  haying  forborne  to  take 
Saul's  life,  at  the  very  time  when  he  was  a  fugitive 
from  Saul,  and  his  own  life  was  in  danger  from 
Saul's  enmity  (1  Sam.  xxiv.  3-15,  xxvi.  7-12). 
The  same  remark  applies  to  what  seem  to  be  sum 
maries  or  endings  of  narratives  by  different  write rs, 
such  as  1  Sam.  vii.  15-17,  1  Sam.  xiv.  47-52,  com 
pared  with  chapter  xv. ;  2  Sam.  viii.  15-18.  In 
these  cases,  if  each  passage  were  absolutely  isolated, 
and  occurred  in  a  work  which  contained  no  other 
instance  of  compilation,  the  inference  to  be  drawn 
might  be  uncertain.  But  when  even  one  instance 
of  compilation  has  been  clearly  established  in  a 
work,  all  other  seeming  instances  must  be  viewed 
in  its  light,  and  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  contest 
each  of  them  singly,  on  principles  which  imply  that 
compilation  is  as  unlikely  as  it  would  be  in  a  work 
of  modern, history.  It  is  to  be  added,  that  as  the 
author  and  the  precise  date  of  the  Book  of  Samuel 
are  unknown,  its  historical  value  is  not  impaired 
by  its  being  deemed  to  a  certain  extent  a  compila 
tion.  Indeed,  from  one  point  of  view,  its  value  is 
in  this  way  somewhat  enhanced  ;  as  the  probability 
is  increased  of  its  containing  documents  of  an  early 
date,  some  of  which  may  have  been  written  by 
persons  contemporaneous,  or  nearly  so,  with  the 
events  described. 

Sources  of  the  Book  of  Samuel. — Assuming  that 
the  book  is  a  compilation,  it  is  a  subject  of  rational 
inquiry  to  ascertain  the  materials  from  which  it 
was  composed.  But  our  information  on  this  hend 
is  scanty.  The  only  work  actually  quoted  u»  this1 


1130          SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

book  is  the  Book  of  Jasher ;  i.  e.  the  Book  of  the 
Upright.  Notwithstanding  the  great  learning  which 
has  been  brought  to  bear  on  this  title  by  numerous 
commentators  [vol.  i.  p.  932],  the  meaning  of  the 
title  must  be  regarded  as  absolutely  unknown,  and 
the  character  of  the  book  itself  as  uncertain.  The 
best  conjecture  hitherto  offered  as  an  induction  from 
facts  is,  that  it  was  a  Book  of  Poems ;  but  the  facts 
are  too  few  to  establish  this  as  a  positive  general 
conclusion.  It  is  only  quoted  twice  in  the  whole 
Bible,  once  as  a  work  containing  David's  Lamenta 
tion  over  Saul  and  Jonathan  (2  Sam.  i.  18),  and 
secondly,  as  an  authority  for  the  statement  that 
the  sun  and  moon  stood  still  at  the  command  of 
Joshua  (Josh.  x.  13).  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  Lamentation  of  David  is  a  poem  ;  and  it  is  most 
probable  that  the  other  passage  referred  to  as  written 
in  the  Book  of  Jasher  includes  four  lines  of  Hebrew 
poetry,*  though  the  poetical  diction  and  rhythm  of 
the  original  are  somewhat  impaired  in  a  translation. 
But  the  only  sound  deduction  from  these  facts  is,  that 
the  Book  of  Jasher  contained  some  poems.  What  else 
it  may  have  contained  we  cannot  say ,  even  negatively. 
Without  reference,  however,  to  the  Book  of  Jasher, 
the  Book  of  Samuel  contains  several  poetical  com 
positions,  on  each  of  which  a  few  observations  may 
be  offered  ;  commencing  with  the  poetry  of  David. 

(1.)  David's  Lamentation  over  Saul  and  Jonathan, 
called  "  The  Bow."  This  extremely  beautiful  com 
position,  which  seems  to  have  been  preserved  through 
David's  having  caused  it  to  be  taught  to  the  chil 
dren  of  Judah  (2  Sam.  i.  18),  is  universally  admitted 
to  be  the  genuine  production  of  David.  In  this 
respect,  it  has  an  advantage  over  the  Psalms ;  as, 
owing  to  the  unfortunate  inaccuracy  of  some  of  the 
inscriptions,  no  one  of  the  Psalms  attributed  to 
David  has  wholly  escaped  challenge.  One  point  in 
the  Lamentation  especially  merits  attention,  that, 
contrary  to  what  a  later  poet  would  have  ventured 
to  represent,  David,  in  the  generosity  and  tenderness 
of  his  nature,  sounds  the  praises  of  Saul. 

(2.)  David's  Lamentation  on  the  death  of  Abner 
(2  Sam.  iii.  33,  34).  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
the  genuineness  of  this  short  poetical  ejaculation. 

(3.)  2  Sam.  xxii.  A  Song  of  David,  which  is  in 
troduced  with  the  inscription  that  David  spoke  the 
words  of  the  song  to  Jehovah,  in  the  day  that  Je 
hovah  had  delivered  him  out  of  the  hand  of  all  his 
enemies  and  out  of  the  hand  of  Saul.  This  song, 
with  a  few  unimportant  verbal  differences,  is  merely 
the  xviiith  Psalm,  which  bears  substantially  the 
same  inscription.  For  poetical  beauty,  the  song  is 
well  worthy  to  be  the  production  of  David.  The 
following  difficulties,  however,  are  connected  with  it. 

(a.)  The  date  of  the  composition  is  assigned  to 
the  day  when  David  had  been  delivered  not  only  out 
of  the  hand  of  all  his  enemies,  but  likewise  "  out  of 
the  hand  of  Saul."  Now  David  reigned  forty  years 
after  Saul's  death  (2  Sam.  v.  4,  5),  and  it  was  as 
king  that  he  achieved  the  successive  conquests  to 
which  allusion  is  made  in  the  Psalm.  Moreover, 
the  Psalm  is  evidently  introduced  as  composed  at  a 
late  period  of  his  life  ;  and  it  immediately  precedes 
the  twenty-third  chapter,  which  commences  with 
the  passage,  "  Now  these  be  the  last  words  of  David." 
It  sounds  strange,  therefore,  that  the  name  of  Saul 


e  Any  Hebrew  scholar  who  will  write  out  the  original 
four  lines  commencing  with  "  Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon 
Giheon  !"  may  satisfy  himself  that  they  belong  to  a  poem. 
The  last  line,  "  Until  the  people  had  avenged  themselves 
upon  their  enemies,"  which  in  the  A.  V.  is  somewhat 
neavy,  is  almost  unmistakeably  a  line  of  poetry  in  the 
uifrmul.  In  a  narrative  respecting  the  Israelites  in  prose 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

should  be  introduced,  whose  hostility,  so  far  distant 
in  time,  had  been  condoned,  as  it  were,  by  David  in 
his  noble  Lamentation. 

(6.)  In  the  closing  verse  (2  Sam.  »xii.  51),  J** 
hovah  is  spoken  of  as  showing  "mercy  to  His 
anointed,  unto  David  and  his  seed  for  evermore.'' 
These  words  would  be  more  naturally  written  o/ 
David  than  by  David.  They  may,  however,  be  a 
later  addition ;  as  it  may  be  observed  that  at  the 
present  day,  notwithstanding  the  safeguard  of  print 
ing,  the  poetical  writings  of  living  authors,  are 
occasionally  altered,  and  it  must  be  added  disfigured, 
in  printed  hymn-books.  Still,  as  far  as  they  go, 
the  words  tend  to  raise  a  doubt  whether  the  Psalm 
was  written  by  David,  as  it  cannot  be  proved  that 
they  are  an  addition. 

(c.)  In  some  passages  of  the  Psalm,  the  strongest 
assertions  are  made  of  the  poet's  uprightness  and 
purity.  He  says  of  himself,  "  According  to  the 
cleanness  of  my  hands  hath  He  recompensed  me. 
For  I  have  kept  the  ways  of  Jehovah,  and  have  not 
wickedly  departed  from  my  God.  For  all  His  judg 
ments  were  before  me:  and  as  for  His  statutes,  I 
did  not  depart  from  them.  I  was  also  upright  before 
Him,  and  have  kept  myself  from  mine  iniquity" 
(xxii.  21-24).  Now  it  is  a  subject  of  reasonable 
surprise  that,  at  any  period  after  the  painful  incidents 
of  his  life  in  the  matter  of  Uriah,  David  should 
have  used  this  language  concerning  himself.  Ad 
mitting  fully  that,  in  consequence  of  his  sincere 
and  bitter  contrition,  "the  princely  heart  of  inno 
cence"  may  have  been  freely  bestowed  upon  him, 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  this  should  have 
influenced  him  so  far  in  his  assertions  respecting 
his  own  uprightness  in  past  times,  as  to  make  him 
forget  that  he  had  once  been  betrayed  by  his  passions 
into  adultery  and  murder.  These  assertions,  if 
made  by  David  himself,  would  ferm  a  striking  con 
trast  to  the  tender  humility  and  self-mistrust  in 
connexion  with  the  same  subject  by  a  great  living 
genius  of  spotless  character.  (See  '  Christian  Year,' 
6th  Sunday  after  Trinity — ad  finem.} 

(4.)  A  song,  called  "  last  words  of  David,"  2 
Sam.  xxiii.  2-7.  According  to  the  Inscription,  it 
was  composed  by  "  David  the  son  of  Jesse,  the  man 
who  was  raised  up  on  high,  the  anointed  of  the 
God  of  Jacob,  and  the  sweet  psalmist  of  Israel." 
It  is  suggested  by  Bleek,  and  is  in  itself  very  pro 
bable,  .that  both  the  Psalm  and  the  Inscription  were 
taken  from  some  collection  of  Songs  or  Psalms. 
There  is  not  sufficient  reason  to  deny  that  this  song 
is  correctly  ascribed  to  David. 

(5.)  One  other  song  remains,  which  is  perhaps 
the  most  perplexing  in  the  Book  of  Samuel.  This 
is  the  Song  of  Hannah,  a  wife  of  Elkanah  (1  Sam. 
ii.  1-10).  One  difficulty  arises  from  an  allusion  in 
verse  10  to  the  existence  of  a  king,  under  Jehovah, 
many  years  before  the  kingly  power  was  established 
among  the  Israelites.  Another  equally  great  diffi 
culty  arises  from  the  internal  character  of  the  song. 
It  purports  to  be  written  by  one  of  two  wives  as  a 
song  of  thanksgiving  for  having  borne  a  child,  after 
a  long  period  of  barrenness,  which  had  caused  her 
to  be  looked  down  upon  by  the  other  wife  of  her 
husband.  But,  deducting  a  general  allusion,  in 
verse  5,  to  the  barren  having  borne  seven,  there  is 

they  would  not  have  been  described  as  1}$  (gfc),  without 
even  an  article.  Moreover,  there  is  no  other  instance  in 
which  the  simple  accusative  of  the  person  on  whom  ven 
geance  is  taken  is  used  after  QpJ  (nakom).  lu  simple 
prose  f£  (min)  intervenes,  and,  like  the  article,  it  may 
have  been  he(c  omitted  for  conciseness 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

nothing  in  the  song  peculiarly  applicable  to  the 
supposed  circumstances,  and  by  tar  the  greater 
portion  of  it  seems  to  be  a  song  of  triumph  for  deli 
verance  from  powerful  enemies  in  battle  (vers.  1, 
4,  10).  Indeed,  Thenius  does  not  hesitate  to  con 
jecture  that  it  was  written  by  David  after  he  had 
slain  Goliath,  and  the  Philistines  had  been  defeated 
in  a  great  battle  (Exegetisches  Handbuch,  p.  8). 
There  is  no  historical  warrant  for  this  supposition ; 
but  the  song  is  certainly  more  appropriate  to  the 
victory  of  David  over  Goliath,  than  to  Hannah's 
having  given  birth  to  a  child  under  the  circum 
stances  detailed  in  the  first  chapter  of  Samuel.  It 
would,  however,  be  equally  appropriate  to  some 
other  great  battles  of  the  Israelites. 

In  advancing  a  single  step  beyond  the  songs  of 
the  Book  of  Samuel,  we  enter  into  the  region  of 
conjecture  as  to  the  materials  which  were  at  the 
command  of  the  author ;  and  in  points  which  arise 
for  consideration,  we  must  be  satisfied  with  a  sus 
pense  of  judgment,  or  a  slight  balance  of  probabi 
lities.  For  example,  it  being  plain  that  in  some 
instances  there  are  two  accounts  of  the  same  trans 
action,  it  is  desirable  to  form  an  opinion  whether 
these  were  founded  on  distinct  written  documents, 
er  on  distinct  oral  traditions.  This  point  is  open 
to  dispute ;  but  the  theory  of  written  documents 
seems  preferable ;  as  in  the  alternative  of  mere 
oral  traditions  it  would  have  been  supereminently 
unnatural  even  for  a  compiler  to  record  them 
without  stating  in  his  own  person  that  there  were 
different  traditions  respecting  the  same  event. 
Again,  the  truthful  simplicity  and  extraordinary 
vividness  of  some  portions  of  the  Book  of  Samuel 
naturally  suggest  the  idea  that  they  were  founded 
on  contemporary  documents  or  a  peculiarly  trust 
worthy  tradition.  This  applies  specially  to  the 
account  of  the  combat  between  David  and  Goliath, 
which  has  been  the  delight  of  successive  genera 
tions,  which  charms  equally  in  different  ways  the 
old  and  the  young,  the  learned  and  the  illiterate, 
and  which  Hem pts  us  to  deem  it  certain  that  the 
account  must  have  proceeded  from  an  eye-witness. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that 
vividness  of  description  often  depends  more  on  the 
discerning  faculties  of  the  narrator  than  on  mere 
bodily  presence.  "It  is  the  mind  that  sees,"  so 
that  200  years  after  the  meeting  of  the  Long  Par 
liament  a  powerful  imaginative  writer  shall  pour- 
tray  Cromwell  more  vividly  than  Ludlow,  a  con 
temporary  who  knew  him  and  conversed  with  him. 
Moreover,  Livy  has  described  events  of  early  Roman 
History  which  educated  men  regard  in  their  details 
as  imaginary ;  and  Defoe,  Swift,  and  the  authors  of 
T/m  Arabian  Nights  have  described  events  which  all 
men  admit  to  be  imaginary,  with  such  seemingly 
authentic  details,  with  such  a  charm  of  reality, 
movement,  and  spirit,  that  it  is  sometimes  only  by 
a  strong  effort  of  reason  that  we  escape  from  the 
illusion  that  the  narratives  are  true.  In  the  absence, 
therefore,  of  any  external  evidence  on  this  point,  it  is 
safer  to  suspend  our  judgment  as  to  whether  any  por 
tion  of  the  Book  of  Samuel  is  founded  on  the  writing 
of  a  contemporary,  or  on  a  tradition  entitled  to  any 
peculiar  credit.  Perhaps  the  two  conjectures  re 
specting  the  composition  of  the  Book  of  Samuel 
which  are  most  entitled  to  consideration  are — 1st. 
That  the  list  which  it  contains  of  officers  or  public 
functionaries  under  David  is  the  result  of  contem 
porary  registration  ;  and  2ndly.  That  the  Book 

f  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  prophet  Ezckiel  never 
Uieb  the  expression  "  Lord  of  Hosts."  On  the  other  baud, 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF         1131 

of  Samuel  was  the  compilation  of  some  one  con 
nected  with  the  schools  of  the  prophets,  or  pene 
trated   by   their   spirit.     On  the   first  point,   the 
reader  is  referred  to  such  passages  as  2  Sam.  viii. 
16-18,  and  xx.  23-26,  in  regard  to  which  one  fact 
may    be   mentioned.     It   has   already  been  stated 
[KiNG,  p.  42]  that  under  the  Kings  there  existed 
an  officer  called  Recorder,  Remembrancer,  or  Chro 
nicler  ;  in  Hebrew,  mazkir.     Now  it  can  scarcely 
be  a  mere  accidental  coincidence  that  such  an  officer 
is  mentioned  for  the  first  time  in  David's  reign, 
and  that  it  is  precisely  for  David's  reign  that  a  list 
of  public  functionaries  is  for  the  first  time  trans 
mitted  to  us.     On  the  second  point,  it  cannot  but  be 
observed  what  prominence  is  given  to  prophets  in 
the  history,  as  compared  with  priests  and  Levites. 
This  prominence  is  so  decided,  that  it  undoubtedly 
contributed  towards  the  formation  of  the  uncritical 
opinion  that  the  Book  of  Samuel  was  the  produc 
tion  of  the  prophets   Samuel,   Nathan,  and  Gad. 
This  opinion  is  unsupported  by  external  evidence, 
and  is  contrary  to  internal  evidence ;  but  it  is  by 
no  means  improbable  that  some  writers  among  the 
sons  of  the  prophets  recorded  the  actions  of  those 
prophets.     This  would  be  peculiarly  probable   in 
reference  to  Nathan's  rebuke  of  David  after  the 
murder  of  Uriah.     Nathan  here  presents  the  image 
of  a  prophet  in  its  noblest  and  most  attractive  form. 
Boldness,  tenderness,  inventiveness,  and  tact,  were 
combined   in   such  admirable  proportions,   that  a 
prophet's  functions,  if  always  discharged  in  a  similar 
manner  with  equal   discretion,    would    have   been 
acknowledged  by  all  to  be  purely  beneficent.     In 
his   interposition   there   is   a   kind  of  ideal   moral 
beauty.     In  the  schools  of  the  prophets  he  doubt 
less  held  the  place  which  St.  Ambrose  afterwards 
held  in  the  minds  of  priests  for  the  exclusion  of  the 
Emperor  Theodosius  from  the  church  at  Milan  after 
the  massacre  at  Thessalonica.     It  may  be  added, 
that  the  following  circumstances  are  in  accordance 
with  the  supposition  that  the  compiler  of  the  Book 
of  Samuel  was  connected  with  the  schools  of  the 
j  prophets.    The  designation  of  Jehovah  as  the  "  Lord 
of  Hosts,"  or  God  of  Hosts,  does  not  occur  in  the 
Pentateuch,   or  in  Joshua,  or  in  Judges ;   but  it 
i  occurs  in  the  Book  of  Samuel  thirteen  times.     In 
j  the  Book  of  Kings  it  occurs  only  seven  times  ;  and 
j  in  the  Book  of  Chronicles,  as  far  as  this  is  an  ori- 
i  ginal   or  independent  work,  it  cannot  be  said  to 
occur   at   all,  for  although   it   is   found  in   three 
!  passages,  all  of  these  are  evidently  copied  from  the 
I  Book  of  Samuel.   (See  1  Chr.  xi.  9— in  the  original 
1  precisely  the  same  words  as  in  2  Sam.  v.  10  ;  and 
see  1  Chr.  xvii.  7,  24,  copied  from  2  Sam.  vii.  8,  26.) 
i  Now  this  phrase,  though  occurring  so  rarely  else 
where  in  prose,  that  it  occurs  nearly  twice  as  often 
in  the  Book  of  Samuel  as  in  all  the  other  historical 
writings  of  the  Old  Testament  put  together,  is  a 
very  favourite  phrase  in  some  of  the  great  pro- 
!  phetical  writings.  In  Isaiah  it  occurs  sixty-two  times 
j  (six  times  only  in  the  chapters  xl.-lxvi.),  and  in  Je- 
j  remiah  sixty-five  times  at  least.     Again,  the  predo 
minance  of  the  idea  of  the  prophetical  office  in 
Samuel  is  shown  by  the  veiy  subordinate  place 
\  assigned  in  it  to  the  Levites.     The  difference  between 
J  the  Chronicles  and  the  Book  of  Samuel   in   this 
!  respect  is  even  more  striking  than  their  difference 
in  the  use  of  the  expression  "  Lord   of  Hosts;''* 
though  in  a  reverse  proportion.     In  the  whole  Book 
of  Samuel  the  Levites  are  mentioned   only  twice 

there  is  no  mention  of  the  Levites  in  tha 
a-itings  of  Isaiali. 


1132         SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

(1  Sain.  vi.  15;  2  Sam.  xv.  24),  while  in  Chro 
nicles  they  are  mentioned  above  thirty  times  in  the 
First  Book  alone,  which  contains  the  history  of 
David's  reign. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  observed  that  it  is  very 
instructive  to  direct  the  attention  to  the  passages  in 
Samuel  and  the  Chronicles  which  treat  of  the  same 
events,  and,  generally,  to  the  manner  in  which  the 
life  ot  David  is  treated  in  the  two  histories.  A 
comparison  of  the  two  works  tends  to  throw  light 
on  the  state  of  the  Hebrew  mind  at  the  time  when 
the  Book  of  Samuel  was  written,  compared  with  the 
ideas  prevalent  among  the  Jews  some  hundred  years 
later,  at  the  time  of  the  compilation  of  the  Chro- 
iiicles.  Some  passages  correspond  almost  precisely 
word  for  word ;  othei-s  agree,  with  slight  but  signi 
ficant  alterations.  In  some  cases  there  are  striking 
omissions ;  in  others  there  are  no  less  remarkable 
additions.  Without  attempting  to  exhaust  the  sub 
ject,  some  of  the  differences  between  the  two  histories 
will  Is  now  briefly  pointed  out ;  though  at  the  same 
tiii3  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that,  in  drawing  in 
ferences  from  them,  it  would  be  useful  to  review 
likewise  all  the  differences  between  the  Chronicles 
and  the  Book  of  Kings. 

1.  In  1  Sam.  xxxi.  12,  it  is  stated  that  the  men 
of  Jabesh  Gilead  took  the  body  of  Saul  and  the 
bodies  of  his  sons  from  the  wall  of  Beth-shan,  and 
came  to  Jabesh  and  burnt  them  there.     The  com 
piler  of  the  Chronicles  omits  mention  of  the  burning 
of  their  bodies,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  designedly; 
for  he  says  that  the  valiant  men  of  Jabesh  Gilead 
buried  the  bones  of  Saul  and  his  sons  under  the  oak 
in  Jabesh ;  whereas  if  there  had  been  no  burning, 
the  natural  expression  would  have  been  to  have 
spoken  of  burying  their  bodies,    instead  of  their 
bones.     Perhaps  the  chronicler  objected  so  strongly 
to  the  burning  of  bodies  that  he  purposely  refrained 
from  recording  such  a  fact  respecting  the  bodies  of 
Saul  and  his  sons,  even  under  the  peculiar  circum 
stances  connected  with  that  incident.* 

2.  In  the  Chronicles  it  is  assigned  as  one  of  the 
causes  of  Saul's  defeat  that  he  had  asked  counsel  of 
one  that  had  a  familiar  spirit,  and  "had  not  en 
quired  of  Jehovah"  (1  Chr.  x.  13,  14);  whereas  in 
Samuel  it  is  expressly  stated  (1  Sam.  xxviii.  6)  that 
Saul  had  inquired  of  Jehovah  before  he  consulted  the 
witch  of  Endor,  but  that  Jehovah  had  not  answered 
him  either  by  dreams,  or  by  Urim,  or  by  prophets. 

3.  The  Chronicles  make  no  mention  of  the  civil 
war  between  David  and  Ishbosheth  the  son  of  Saul, 
nor  of  Abner's  changing  sides,  nor  his  assassination 
by  Joab,  nor  of  the  assassination  of  Ishbosheth  by 
Kechab  and  Baanah  (2  Sam.  ii.  8-32,  iii.,  iv.). 

4.  David's   adultery   with   Bathsheba,   the   ex 
posure  of  Uriah  to  certain  death  by  David's  orders, 
the  solemn  rebuke  of  Nathan,  and  the  penitence  of 
David,  are  all  passed  over  in  absolute  silence  in  the 
Chronicles  (2  Sam.  xi.,  xii.  1-25). 

5.  In  the  account  given  in  Samuel  (2  Sam.  vi. 
S-ll)  of  David's  removing  the  Ark  from  Kirjath- 
jeorim,  no  special  mention  is  made  of  the  priests  or 
Levites.     David's  companions  are  said,  generally, 
to  have  been  "all  the  people  that  were  with  him," 

g  Tacitus  re-cords  it  as  a  distinguishing  custom  of  the 
J  ews, "  corpora  condere  quam  cremare,  ex  more  Aegyptio  " 
(Hitt.  v.  5).  And  it  is  certain  that,  in  later  times,  they 
buried  dead  bodies,  and  did  not  burn  them  ;  though,  not 
withstanding  the  instance  in  Gen.  1.  2,  they  did  not, 
Btrirt3y  speaking,  embalm  them,  like  the  Egyptians. 
And  though  it  may  be  suspected,  it  cannot  be  proved, 
IJuat  liiey  ever  burned  their  dead  in  early  times.  The 


SAMUEL,  BOOKS  OF 

and  "all  the  house  of  Israel"  are  sail  to  have 
played  before  Jehovah  on  the  occasion  with  all 
manner  of  musical  instruments.  In  the  coirespond- 
ing  passage  of  the  Chronicles  (1  Chr.  xiii.  1-14 v 
David  is  represented  as  having  publicly  proposed  to 
send  an  invitation  to  the  priests  and  Lfvites  in 
their  cities  and  "  suburbs,"  and  this  is  said  to  have 
been  assented  to  by  all  the  congregation.  Again, 
in  the  preparations  which  are  made  for  the  I  eception 
of  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  at  Jerusalem,  nothing 
is  said  of  the  Levites  in  Samuel ;  whereas  in  the 
Chronicles  David  is  introduced  as  saying  that  none 
ought  to  carry  the  Ark  of  God  but  the  Levites  ;  the 
special  numbers  of  the  Levites  and  of  the  children 
of  Aaron  are  there  given  ;  and  names  of  Levites  are 
specified  as  having  been  appointed  singers  and  players 
on  musical  instruments  in  connexion  with  the  Ark 
(1  Chr.  xv.,  xvi.  1-6). 

6.  The  incident  of  David's  dancing  in  public  with 
all  his  might  before  Jehovah,  when  the  Ark  was 
brought  into  Jerusalem,  the  censorious  remarks  of 
his  wife  Michal  on  David's  conduct,  David's  answer, 
and  Michel's  punishment,  are  fully  set  forth    in 
Samuel  (2  Sam.  vi.  14-23) ;  but  the  whole  subject 
is  noticed  in  one  verse  only  in  Chronicles  (1  Chr. 
xv.  29).     On  the  other  hand,  no  mention  is  made 
in  Samuel  of  David's  having  composed  a  Psalm  on 
this  great  event ;  whereas  in  Chronicles  a  Psalm  \i 
set  forth  which  David  is  represented  as  having  deli 
vered  into  the  hand  of  Asaph  and  his  brethren  on 
that  day  (1  Chr.  xvi.  7-36).     Of  this  Psalm  the 
first  fifteen  verses  are  almost  precisely  the  same  as 
in  Ps.  cv.  1-15.     The  next  eleven  verses  are  the 
same  as  in  Ps.  xcvi.  1-11 ;  and  the  next  three  con 
cluding  verses  are  in  Ps.  cvi.  1,  47,48.     The  last 
verse  but  one  of  this  Psalm  (1  Chr.  xvi.  35)  appears 
to  have  been  written  at  the  time  of  the  Captivity. 

7.  It  is  stated  in  Samuel  that  David  in  his  con 
quest  of  Moab  put  to  death  two-thirds  either  of  the 
inhabitants  or   of  the   Moabitish   army  (2  Sam. 
viii  2).    This  fact  is  omitted  in  Chronicles  (1  Chr. 
xviii.  2),  though  the  words  used  therein  in  men 
tioning  the  conquest  are  so  nearly  identical  with  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  the  passage  in  Samuel, 
that  in  the  A.  V.   there  is  no  difference  in   the 
translation  of  the  two  texts, "  And  he  smote  Moab  r 
and  the   Moabites   became   David's   servants,  and 
brought  gifts." 

8.  In  2  Sam.  xxi.  19,  it  is  stated  that  "there  was 
battle  in  Gob  with  the  Philistines,  where  Elhanan 

the  son  of  Jaare-oregim,  a  Bethlehemite  (in  the  ori 
ginal  Beit  hat-lachmi),  slew  Goliath  the  Gittite,  the 
staff.of  whose  spear  was  like  a  weaver's  beam."  In 
the  parallel  passage  in  the  Chronicles  (1  Chr.  xx. 
5)  it  is  stated  that  "  Elhanan  the  son  of  Jair  slew 
Lachmi  the  brother  of  GolLith  the  Gittite."  Thus 
Lachmi,  which  in  the  former  case  is  merely  part  ot 
an  adjective  describing  Elhanan 's  place  of  nativity, 
seems  in  the  Chronicles  to  be  the  substantive  name 
of  the  man  whom  Elhanan  slew,  and  is  so  translated 
in  the  LXX.  [ELHANAN,  i.  520 ;  LAHMI,  ii.  55.] 

9.  In  Samuel  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  1)  it  is  stated  that, 
the  anger  of  Jehovah  having  been  kindled  against 
Israel,  He  moved  David  against  them  to  give  orders 


passage  in  Am.  vi  10  is  ambiguous.  It  may  merely  refer 
to  the  burning  of  bodies,  as  a  sanitary  precaution  in  a 
plague;  but  it  \e  not  undoubted  that  burning  is  alluded 
to.  See  Ftirst,  *.  v.  5pD.  The  burning  for  Asa  (2  Cnr 

.  14)  Is  different  from  the  burning  of  his  body.  Compare 
Jtr.  xxxiv.  5;  2  Chr.  Xxi.  19,  20;  Joseph.  Ant.  xv.  3,  $4 
De  Sell  Jud.  i.  33,  $9 


SAMUEL.  BOOKS  OF 

for  taKing  a  census  of  the  population.  In  the 
Chronicles  (1  Chr.  xxi.  1)  it  is  mentioned  that 
David  was  provoked  to  take  a  census  of  the  popu 
lation  by  Satan.  This  last  is  the  first  and  the  only 
instance  in  which  thp  name  of  Satan  is  introduced 
into  any  historical  book  of  the  Old  Testament.  In 
the  Pentateuch  Jehovah  Himself  is  represented  as 
hardening  Pharaoh's  heart  (Ex.  vii.  13),  as  in  this 
passage  of  Samuel  He  is  said  to  have  incited  David  to 
give  orders  for  a  census. 

10.  la  the  incidents  connected  with  the  three 
days'  pestilence  upon  Israel  on  account  of  the  census, 
some  facts  of  a  very  remarkable  character  are  nar 
rated  in  the  Chronicles,  which  are  not  mentioned,  in 
the  earlier  histoiy.     Thus  in  Chronicles  it  is  s'^tt-^i 
of  the  Angel  of  Jehovah,  that  he  stood  between  the 
enrth  and  the  heaven,  having  a  drawn  sword  in  his 
hand  stretched  over  Jerusalem  ;    that   afterwards 
Jehovah  commanded  the  angel,  and  that  the  angel 
put  up  again  his  sword  into  its  sheath k  (1  Chr. 
xxi.  15-27).     It  is  further  stated  (ver.   20)  that 
Oman  and  his  four  sons  hid  themselves  when  they 
saw  the  angel ;  and  that  when  David  (ver.  26)  had 
built  an  altar  to  Jehovah,  and  offered  burnt-offer 
ings  to  Him,  Jehovah  answered  him  from  heaven  by 
fire  upon  the  altar  of  burnt-offering.     Regarding  all 
these  circumstances  there  is  absolute  silence  in  the 
corresponding  chapter  of  Samuel. 

1 1.  The  Chronicles  make  no  mention  of  the  hor 
rible  fact  mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Samuel  (2  Sam. 
xxi.  3-9)  that  David  permitted  the   Gibeonites  to 
sacrifice  seven  sons  of  Saul  to  Jehovah,  as  an  atone 
ment  for  the  injuries  which   the   Gibeonites  had 
formerly  received  from  Saul.     This  barbarous  act 
of  superstition,  which  is  not  said  to  have  been  com 
manded  by  Jehovah  (ver.  1)  is  one  of  the  most 
painful   incidents    in   the    life    of  David,  and  can 
scarcely  be  explained  otherwise  than  by  the  supposi 
tion  either  that  David  seized  this  opportunity  to 
rid  himself  of  seven  possible  rival  claimants  to  the 
throne,  or  that  he  was,  for  a  while  at  least,  infected 
by  the  baleful  example  of  the  Phoenicians,  who  en 
deavoured  to  avert  the  supposed  wrath  of  their  gods 
by  human  sacrifices  [PHOENICIA].     It  was,  per 
haps,  wholly  foreign  to  the  ideas  of  the  Jews  at  the 
time  when  the  Book  of  Chronicles  was  compiled. 

It  only  remains  to  add,  that  in  the  numerous 
rastances  wherein  there  is  a  close  verbal  agreement 
between  passages  in  Samuel  and  in  the  Chronicles, 
the  sound  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  the  Chro 
nicles  were  copied  from  Samuel,  and  not  that  both 
were  copied  from  a  common  original.  In  a  matter 
of  this  kind,  we  must  proceed  upon  recognised 
principles  of  criticism.  If  a  writer  of  the  3rd  or 
4th  century  narrated  events  of  Roman  history  almost 
precisely  in  the  words  of  Livy,  no  critic  would  he 
sitate  to  say  that  all  such  narratives  were  copied 
frcm  Livy.  It  would  be  regarded  as  a  very  impro 
bable  hypothesis  that  they  were  copied  from  docu 
ments  to  which  Livy  and  the  later  historian  had 
equal  access,  especially  when  no  proof  whatever  was 
adduced  that  anv  such  original  documents  were  in 
existence  at  the  time  of  the  later  historian.  The 
•mm  principle  applies  to  the  relation  in  which  the 
Chronicles  stand  to  the  Book  of  Samuel.  There  is 
not  a  particle  of  proof'  that  the  original  documents, 
or  any  one  of  them,  on  which  the  Book  of  Samuel 
was  founded  were  in  existence  at  the  time  when  the 

h  The  statue  of  the  archangel  Michael  on  the  top  of  the 
anusoleum  of  Hadrian  at  Rome  is  in  accordance  with  thf 


SANBALLAT 


1133 


Chronicles  were  compiled ;  and  in  the  absence  oi 
such  proof,  it  must  be  taken  for  granted  that,  where 
there  is  a  close  verbal  corresp«ndenoi  between  the 
two  works,  the  compiler  ol  the  Chronicles  copied 
passages,  more  or  less  closely,  from  the  Book  of 
Samuel.  At  the  same  time  it  would  be  unreason 
able  to  deny,  and  it  would  be  impossible  to  dis 
prove,  that  the  compiler,  in  addition  to  the  Book  of 
Samuel,  made  use  of  other  historical  documents 
which  are  no  longer  in  existence. 

Literature. — The  following  list  of  Commentaries 
is  given  by  De  Wette: — Serrarii,  Seb.  Schmidii, 
Jo.  Clerici,  Maur.  Commentt. ;  Jo.  Drusii,  An- 
notatt.  in  Locos  diffic.  Jos.,  Jud.,  et  Sam. ;  Vic- 
torini,  Strigelii,  Comm.  in  Libr.  Sam.,  Reg.,  et  Pa 
ralipp.,  Lips.  1591,  fol. ;  Casp.  Sanctii,  Comm.  in 
IV.  Lib.  Reg.  et  Paralipp.,  1624,  fol. ;  Hensler, 
Erlauterungen  des  I.  B.  Sam.  u.  d.  Salom.  Denk- 
spriiche,  Hamburg,  1795.  The  best  modern  Com 
mentary  seems  to  be  that  of  Thenius,  Exegetisches 
Handbuch,  Leipzig,  1842.  In  this  work  there  is 
an  excellent  Introduction,  and  an  interesting  de 
tailed  comparison  of  the  Hebrew  text  in  the  Bible 
with  the  Translation  of  the  Septuagint.  There  are 
no  Commentaries  on  Samuel  in  Rosenmiiller's  great 
work,  or  in  the  Compendium  of  his  Scholia. 

The  date  of  the  composition  of  the  Book  of  Samuel 
and  its  authorship  is  discussed  in  all  the  ordinary 
Introductions  to  the  Old  Testament — such  as  those 
of  Home,  Havernick,  Keil,  De  Wette,  which  have 
been  frequently  cited  in  this  work.  To  these  may 
be  added  the  following  works,  which  have  ap 
peared  since  the  first  volume  of  this  Dictionary  was 
printed  :  Bleek's  Einleitung  in  das  Alie  Testament, 
Berlin,  1860,  pp.  355-368;  Stahelin's  Specielle 
Einleitung  in  die  Kanonischen  Biicher  des  Alien 
Testaments,  Elberfeld,  1862,  pp.  83-105 ;  David 
son's  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament,  London 
and  Edinburgh,  1862,  pp.  491-53tf.  [E.  T.] 

SANABAS'SAR  (2anavd<r<rapos ;  Alex.  2ava- 
fid(T<rupos :  Salmanasarus}.  SHESHBAZZAR  (1  Esd. 
ii.  12,  15 ;  comp.  Ezr.  5.  8,'ll). 

SANABAS'SARUS  (2o/3a»/ocro-apoj ;  Alex. 
2aj/aj8ao-<rapoy :  Salmanasarus).  SHESHBAZZAR 
(1  Esd.  vi.  18,  20 ;  comp.  Ezr.  v.  14,  16). 

SAN'ASIB  (SarafrfjS ;  Alex.  'Awwei'0:  Eli- 
asib).  The  sons  of  Jeddu,  the  son  of  Jesus,  are 
reckoned  "  among  the  sons  of  Sanasib,"  as  priests 
who  returned  with  Zorobabel  (1  Esd.  v.  24). 

SANBAL'LAT  (D;>13D :  SovaflaAAar :  Sana- 
ballot').  Of  uncertain  etymology ;  according  to  Gese- 
nius  after  von  Bohlen,  meaning  in  Sanscrit  "  giving 
strength  to  the  army,"  but  according  to  Ftirst  "  a 
chestnut  tree."  A  Moabite  of  Horonaim,  as  appears 
by  his  designation  "  Sanballat  the  Horonite  "  (Nth. 
ii.  10,  19,  xiii.  28).  All  that  we  know  of  him 
from  Scripture  is  that  he  had  apparently  some  civil 
or  military  command  in  Samaria,  in  the  service  of 
Artaxerxes  (Neh.  iv.  2),  and  that,  from  the  moment 
of  Nehemiah's  arrival  in  Judaea,  he  set  himself  to 
oppose  every  measure  for  the  welfare  of  Jerusalem, 
and  was  a  constant  adversary  to  the  Tirshaiha. 
His  companions  in  this  hostility  were  Tobiah  the 
Ammonite,  and  Geshem  the  Arabian  (Neh.  ii.  19, 
iv.  7).  For  the  details  of  their  cppcsition  the 
reader  is  referred  to  the  articles  NEH  EMI  AH  and 

as  b«  is  supposed  to  be  represented  in  the  statue.  It  IE 
owing  to  this  that  the  fortress  subsequently  had  the  i»aiu« 


eamo  idea     In  a  procession  to  St.  Peter's,  dur'.5«  a  pes-  i  of  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo.    See  Murray's  Haarulbook  fm 
,.,  <;,-, .fr.jry  the  Great  saw  the  archangel  in  n  vision,  i  /.'/wie.  r>.  67.  6th  edit.  1862 


1134 


SANE ALL AT 


NEHEMIAH,  BOOK  OF,  and  to  Neh.  vi.,  where  the 
enmity  between  Sanballat  and  the  Jews  is  brought 
out  in  the  strongest  colours.  The  only  other  inci 
dent  in  his  life  is  his  alliance  with  the  high-priest'; 
family  by  the  marriage  of  his  daughter  with  one 
of  the  grandsons  of  Eliashib,  which,  from  the 
similar  connexion  formed  by  Tobiah  the  Ammonite 
(Neh.  xiii.  4),  appears  to  have  been  part  of  a 
settled  policy  concerted  between  Eliashib  and  the 
Samaritan  faction.  The  expulsion  from  the  priest 
hood  of  the  guilty  son  of  Joiada  by  Nehemiah 
must  have  still  further  widened  the  breach  between 
h'in  and  Sanballat,  and  between  the  two  parties  in 
the  Jewish  state.  Here,  however,  the  Scriptural 
narrative  ends  —  owing,  probably,  to  Nehemiah' s 
return  to  Persia — and  with  it  likewise  our  know 
ledge  of  Sanballat. 

But  on  turning  to  the  pages  of  Josephus  a 
wholly  nev  set  jf  actions,  in  a  totally  different 
time,  is  b\  ought  before  us  in  connexion  with  San 
ballat,  while  his  name  is  entirely  omitted  in  the 
account  there  given  of  the  government  of  Nehe- 
miah,  which  is  placed  in  the  reign  of  Xerxes. 
Josephus,  after  interposing  the  whole  reign  of 
Artaxerxes  Longimanus  between  the  death  of  Nehe- 
miah  and  the  transactions  in  which  Sanballat  took 
part,  and  utterly  ignoring  the  very  existence  of  Darius 
\othus,  Artaxerxes  Mnemon,  Ochus,  &c.,  jumps 
At  once  to  the  reign  of  "  Darius  the  last  king," 
and  tells  us  (Ant.  xi.  7,  §2)  that  Sanballat  was  his 
officer  in  Samaria,  that  he  was  a  Cuthean,  *'.  e.  a 
Samaritan,  by  birth,  and  that  he  gave  his  daughter 
Nicaso  in  marriage  to  Manasseh,  the  brother  of  the 
high-priest  Jaddua,  and  consequently  the  fourth  in 
descent  from  Eliashib,  who  was  high-priest  in  the 
time  of  Nehemiah.  He  then  relates  that  on  the 
threat  of  his  brother  Jaddua  and  the  other  Jews  to 
expel  him  from  the  priesthood  unless  he  divorced 
his  wife,  Manasseh  stated  the  case  to  Sanballat, 
who  thereupon  promised  to  use  his  influence  with 
king  Darius,  not  only  to  give  him  Sariballat's 
government,  but  to  sanction  the  building  of  a  rival 
temple  on  Mount  Gerizim  of  which  Manasseh 
should  be  tlie  high-priest.  Manasseh  on  this  agreed 
to  retain  his  wife  and  join  Sariballat's  faction, 
which  was  further  strengthened  by  the  accession 
of  all  those  priests  and  Levites  (and  they  were 
many)  who  had  taken  strange  wives.  But  just 
at  this  time  happened  the  invasion  of  Alexander 
the  Great ;  and  Sanballat,  with  7000  men,  joined 
him,  and  renounced  his  allegiance  to  Darius  (Ant. 
xi.  8,  §4).  Being  favourably  received  by  the  con 
queror,  he  took  the  opportunity  of  speaking  to  him 
in  behalf  of  Manasseh.  He  represented  to  him  how 
Touch  it  was  for  his  interest  to  divide  the  strength 
of  the  Jewish  nation,  and  how  many  there  were  who 
wished  for  a  temple  in  Samaria;  and  so  obtained 
Alexanders  pel-mission  to  build  the  temple  on 
Mount  Gerizim,  and  make  Manasseh  the  heredi 
tary  high-priest.  Shortly  after  this,  Sanballat  died ; 


•  He  says  that  Alexander  appointed  Andromachus 
goverfior  of  Judea  and  the  neighbouring  districts ;  that 
the  Samaritans  murdered  him;  and  that  Alexander  on 
his  return  took  Samaria  in  revenge,  and  settled  a  colony 
of  Macedonians  in  it,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Samaria 
retired  to  Sichem. 

b  Such  a  time,  e.  g.,  as  when  the  Book  of  Ecclesiasticus 
was  written,  in  which  we  read  (ch.  1.  25,  26),  "  There  be 
two  manner  of  nations  which  mine  heart  abliorreth,  and 
tae  third  Is  no  nation  :  they  that  sit  upon  the  mountain 
of  Samaria,  and  they  that  dwell  among  the  Philistines, 
pnd  tlat  foolish  people  that  dwell  in  Sichem." 


SANDAL 

but  the  temple  on  Mount  Gerizim  remained,  and 
the  Shechemites,  as  they  were  called,  continued 
also  as  a  permanent  schism,  which  was  continually 
fed  by  all  the  lawless  and  disaffected  Jews.  Such 
is  Jcsephus's  account.  If  there  is  any  truth  in  it, 
of  course  the  Sanballat  of  whom  he  speaks  is  a 
different  person  from  the  Sanballat  of  Nehemiah, 
who  flourished  fully  one  hundred  years  earlier  ; 
but  when  we  put  together  Josephus's  silence  con 
cerning  a  Sanballat  in  Nehemiah's  time,  and  the 
many  coincidences  in  the  lives  of  the  Sanballat  ot 
Nehemiah  and  that  of  Josephus,  together  with  the 
inconsistencies  in  Josephus's  narrative  (pointed  out 
by  Prideaux,  Connect,  i.  466,  288,  290),  and 
its  disagreement  with  what  Eusebius  tells  of  the 
relations  of  Alexander  with  Samaria*  (Ckron.  Can. 
lib.  post.  p.  346),  and  remember  how  apt  Jose 
phus  is  to  follow  any  narrative,  no  matter  how 
anachronistic  and  inconsistent  with  Scripture,  we 
shall  have  no  difficulty  in  concluding  that  his  ac 
count  of  Sanballat  is  not  historical.  It  is  doubt 
less  taken  from  some  apocryphal  romance,  now 
lost,  in  which  the  writer,  living  under  the  em 
pire  of  the  Greeks,  and  at  a  time  when  the 
enmity  of  the  Jews  and  Samaritans  was  at  its 
height,b  chose  the  downfall  of  the  Persian  empire 
for  the  epoch,  and  Sanballat  for  the  ideal  instru 
ment,  of  the  consolidation  of  the  Samaritan  Church 
and  the  erection  of  the  temple  on  Gerizim.  To 
borrow  events  from  some  Scripture  narrative  and 
introduce  some  Scriptural  personage,  without  any 
regard  to  chronology  or  other  propriety,  w;is 
the  regular  method  of  such  apocryphal  books. 
See  1  Esdras,  apocryphal  Esther,  apocryphal  addi 
tions  to  the  Book  of  Daniel,  and  the  articles  on 
them,  and  the  story  inserted  by  the  LXX.  after 
2  K.  xii.  24,  &c.,  with  the  observations  on  it  at 
p.  91  of  this  volume.  To  receive  as  historical 
Josephus's  narrative  of  the  building  of  the  Sa 
maritan  temple  by  Sanballat,  circumstantial  as  it 
is  in  its  account  of  Manasseh's  relationship  to 
Jaddua,  and  Sanballat's  intercourse  with  both 
Darius  Codomanus  and  Alexander  the  Great,  and 
yet  to  transplant  it,  as  Prideaux  does,  to  the 
time  of  Darius  Nothus  (B.C.  409),  seems  scarcely 
compatible  with  sound  criticism.  For  a  further 
discussion  of  this  subject,  see  the  article  NEHE 
MIAH,  BOOK  or,  p.  491  ;  Prideaux,  Connect,  i. 
395-6  ;  Geneal.  of  our  Lord,  p.  323,  &c.  ;  Mill's 
Vindic^  of  our  Lord's  Geneal.  p.  165;  Hales's 
Analys.  ii.  534.  [A.  C.  H.] 


SANDAL  (  :  uir^/ia,  aavSd\tov}.  The 
sandal  appears  to  have  been  the  article  ordinarily 
used  by  the  Hebrews  for  protecting  the  feet.  It 
consisted  simply  of  a  sole  attached  to  the  foot  by 
thongs.  The  Hebrew  term  wa'a/c  implies  such  an 
article,  its  proper  sense  being  that  of  confining  or 
shutting  in  the  foot  with  thongs  :  we  have  aiso 
xpress  notice  of  the  thong  d  ("?p"lb>  ;  1/j.ds  ;  A.  V. 


In  the  A.  V.  this  term  is  invariably  rendered  "  shoes." 
There  is,  however,  little  reason  to'  think  that  the  Jews 
really  wore  shoes,  and  the  expressions  which  Carpzov 
(Apparat.  pp.  781,  782)  quotes  to  prove  that  they  did — 
(viz.  "  put  the  blood  of  war  in  his  shoes,"  1  K.  ii.  5;  "make 
men  go  over  in  shoes,"  Is.  xi.  15),  are  equally  adapted  to 
the  sandal — the  first  signifying  that  the  blood  was  sprinkled 
tke  thong  of  the  sandal,  the  second  that  men  shouul 
cross  the  river  on  foot  instead  of  in  boats.  The  shoe* 
found  in  Egypt  probably  belonged  to  Greeks  (Wilkinson, 
i.  333). 
d  The  terms  applied  tc  tiie  removal  of  the  shoe  (r?ft* 


SANDAL 

•shor-latchet")  in  several  passages  («jien.  xiv.  23; 
Is.  v.  27 ;  Mark  i.  7).  The  Greek  term  uir6S-rjfMa 
properly  applies  to  the  sandal  exclusively,  as  it 
means  what  is  bound  under  the  foot ;  but  no  stress 
can  be  laid  on  the  use  of  the  term  by  the  Alexan 
drine  writers,  as  it  was  applied  to  any  covering  of 
the  foot,  even  to  the  military  caliga  of  the  Romans 
(Joseph.  B.  J.  vi.  i,  §8).  A  similar  observation 
applies  to  (rav8oi\iov,  which  is  used  in  a  general, 
and  not  in  its  strictly  classical  sense,  and  was  adopted 
in  a  Hebraized  form  by  the  Talmudists.  We  have 
no  description  ot  the  sandal  in  the  Bible  itself,  but 
the  deficiency  can  be  supplied  from  collateral  sources. 
Thus  we  learn  froni  the  Talmudists  that  the  ma 
terials  employed  in  the  construction  of  the  sole 
were  either  leather,  felt,  cloth,  or  wood  (M<s?bn, 
Jebam.  12,  §1,  2),  and  that  it  was  occasionally 
shod  with  iron  (Sabb.  6,  §2).  In  Egypt  various 
fibrous  substances,  such  as  palm  leaves  and  p  ipyrus 
svalks,  were  used  in  addition  to  eather  (Hrrod.  ii. 
37;  Wilkinson,  ii.  332,  333),  while  in  Assyria, 
wood  or  leather  was  employed  (Layard,  Nin.  ii. 
323,  324).  In  Egypt  the  sandals  were  usually 
turned  up  at  the  toe  like  our  skates,  though  other 
forms,  rounded  and  pointed,  are  also  exhibited.  In 
Assyria  the  heel  and  the  side  of  the  foot  were  en 
cased,  and  sometimes  the  sandal  consisted  of  little 
else  than  this.  This  does  not  appear  to  have  been 


SANDAL 


3135 


Assyrian  Sandals.     (From  Layard,  iu  234.) 

the  case  in  Palestine,  for  a  heel-strap  was  essential 
to  a  proper  sandal  (Jebam.  12,  §1).  Great  atten 
tion  was  paid  by  the  ladies  to  their  sandals ;  they 
were  made  of  the  skin  of  an  animal,  named  tachash 
(Ez.  xvi.  1C),  whether  a  hyena  or  a  seal  (A.  V. 
"  badger "),  is  doubtful :  the  skins  of  a  fish  (a 
species  of  Halicore)  are  used  for  this  purpose  in  the 
peninsula  of  Sinai  (Robinson,  Bib.  Res.  i.  116). 
The  thongs  were  handsomely  embroidered  (Cant, 
vii.  1  ;  Jud.  x.  4,  xvi.  9),  as  were  those  of  the 
Greek  ladies  (Diet,  of  Ant.  s.  v. "  Sandalium  ").  San 
dals  were  worn  by  all  classes  of  society  in  Palestine, 
even  by  the  very  poor  (Am.  viii.  6),  and  both  the  san 
dal  and  the  thong  or  shoe-latchet  were  so  cheap  and 
common,  that  they  passed  into  a  proverb  for  the  most 
insignificant  thing  (Gen.  xiv.  23  ;  Ecclus.  xlvi.  19). 
They  were  not,  however,  worn  at  all  periods ;  they 
were  dispensed  with  in-doors,  and  were  only  put 
on  by  persons  about  to  undertake  some  business 
away  from  their  homes ;  such  as  a  military  expe 
dition  (Is.  v.  27  ;  Eph.  vi.  15),  or  a  journey  (Ex. 
sii.  11;  Josh.  ix.  5,  13;  Acts  xii.  8):  on  such 
occasions  persons  carried  an  extra  pair,  a  practice 
which  our  Lord  objected  to  as  far  as  the  Apostles 


Deut.  xxv.  10;  Ip  xx.  2;  and  ff?&,  Ruth  iv.  7)  imply 
thai  the  thongs  were  either  so  numerous  or  so  broad  as 
almost  to  cover  the  top  of  the  foot. 


v/ere  concerned  (Matt.  x.  10  ;  compare  Mark  vi.  ft, 
and  the  expression  in  L\.ke  x.  4,  "do  not  carry," 
which   harmonizes  the  passages).     An   extra  pair 
might  in  certain  cases  be  needed,  as  the  soles  were 
liable  to  be  soon  worn  out  (Josh.  ix.  5),  or  the 
thongs  to   be  broken   (Is.  v.  27).     During  meal 
times  the  feet  were  undoubtedly  uncovered,  as  im 
plied  in  Luke  vii.  38  ;   John  xiii.  5,  6,  and  in  the 
exception  specially  made  in  reference  to  the  Pasch'i; 
feast  (Ex.  xii.  11):  the  same  custom  must  have 
prevailed  wherever  reclining  at  meals  was  practised 
(comp.  Plato,  Sympos.  p.  213).     It  was  a  mark  of 
reverence  to  cast  oft'  the  shoes  in  approaching  a  place 
or  person  of  eminent  sanctity:8    hence  the  com 
mand    to   Moses  at   the  bush  (Ex.  iii.  5)  and  to 
Joshua  in  the  presence  of  the  angel  (Josh.  v.  15). 
In  deference  to  these  injunctions  the  priests  are  said 
to  have  conducted  their  ministrations  in  the  Temple 
barefoot  (Theodoret,  ad  Ex.  iii.  quaest.  7),  and  the 
Talmudists  even  forbade  any  person  to  pass  through 
the  Temple  v/ith  shoes  on  (Mishn.  Berach.  9,  §5). 
This  reverential  act  was  not  peculiar  to  the  Jews : 
in  ancient  times  we  have   instances   of  it  in  the 
worship  of  Cybele  at  Rome  (Prudent.  Peris.  154), 
in  the  worship  of  Isis  as  represented  in  a  picture  at 
Herculaneum  (Ant.  d'Ercol.   ii.   320),  and  in  the 
practice  of  the  Egyptian  priests,  according  to  Sil. 
Ital.  iii.  28.    In  modern  times  we  may  compare  the 
similar  practice  of  the  Mohammedans  of  Palestine 
before  entering  a  mosk  ( Robinson's  Researches,  ii. 
36),  and  particularly  before  entering  the  Kaaba  at 
Mecca  (Burckhardt's  Arabia,  i.  270),  of  the  Yezidis 
of  Mesopotamia  before  entering  the  tomb  of  their 
patron  saint  (Layard's  Nin.  i.  282),  and  of  the  Sa 
maritans  as  they  tread  the  summit  of  Mount  Ge- 
rizim   (Robinson,  ii.  278).     The  practice  of  the 
modern  Egyptians,  who  take  off'  their  shoes  before 
stepping  on  to  the  carpeted  leewdn,  appears  to  be 
dictated  by  a  feeling  of  reverence  rather  than  clean 
liness,   that  spot  being   devoted  to  prayer  (Lane, 
i.  35).    It  was  also  an  indication  of  violent  emotion, 
or  of  mourning,  if  a  person  appeared  barefoot  in 
public    (2    Sam.    xv.    30;    Is.   xx.   2;    Ez.    xxiv. 
17,   23).     This  again  was  held  in  common  with 
other  nations,  as  instanced  at  the  funeral  of  Au 
gustus  (Suet.  Aug.  100),  and  on  the  occasion  of 
the  solemn  processions  which  derived  their  name  of 
Nudipedalia  from  this  feature  (Tertull.  Apol.  40). 
To  carry  or  to  unloose  a  person's  sandal  was  a  me 
nial  office  betokening  great  inferiority  on  the  part 
of  the  person  performing  it ;  it  was  hence  selected 
by  John  the  Baptist  to  express  his  relation  to  the 
Messiah   (Matt.  iii.   11;  Mark  i.  7;    John  i.  27; 
Acts  xiii.  25).     The  expression  in  Ps.  Ix.  8,  cviii. 
9,  "  over  Edom  will  I  cast  out  my  shoe,"  evidently 
signifies  the  subjection  of  that  country,    but  the 
exact  point  of  the  comparison  is  obscure ;  for  it  may 
refer  either  to  the  custom  of  handing  the  sandal  tc 
a  slave,  or  to  that  of  claiming  possession  of  a  pro 
perty  by  planting  the  foot  on  it,  or  of  acquiring  it 
by  the  symbolical  action  of  casting  the  shoe,   or 
again,  Edom  rr^y  be  regarded  in  the  still  more  sub 
ordinate  position  of  a  shelf  on  which  the  candals 
were  rested  while  their  owner  bathed  his  feet.     The 
use  of  the  shou  in  the  transfer  of  property  is  noticed 
n  Ruth   iv.   7,  8,  and  a  similar  significancy  was 
attached  to  the  act  in  connexion  with  the  repudia 
tion  of  a  Levirate  marriage  (Deut.  xxv.  9).     Shoe* 

e  It  Is  worthy  of  observation  that  the  terra  used  fci 
'putting  off"  the  shoes  on  these  occasions  is  peailia 
%)•  and  conveys  the  notion  of  violence  and  haste, 


1136 


SANHEDRIM 


making,  or  rather  strap-making  (».  e.  making  the 
straps  for  the  sandals),  was  a  recognised  trade  among 
the  Jews  (Mishn.  Pesach.  4,  §6).  [W.  L.  B.] 


SANHEDRIM 

is  not  a  perfect  agreement  among  the  teamed 
The  nearly  unanimous  opinion  of  the  Jews  is  given 
in  the  Mishna  (Sanhedr:  i.  6) :  "the  great  San- 


SAN'HEDRIM (accurately Sanhedrin,|mniD,    h,edrim  con/lfted L°f  se™nt7-one  judges      How  is 
,     J  '•:-.•:-    ;  this  proved?      From    Num.  xi.   16,  where   it  is 

formed  from  w&piov.  the  attempts  of  the  Rab-    ^  t     ther  unto  me  seventy  men  of  the  e]ders  of 

bins  to  find  a  Hebrew  etymology  are  idle ;  Buxtorf,    - 
Lex.  Chald.  s.  v.),  called  also  in  the  Talmud  the 
great  Sanhedrin,  the  supreme  council  of  the  Jewish 


people  in  the  time  of  Christ  and  earlier.     In  the 


Mishna  it  is  also  styled 
of  judgment." 


JV2,  Beth  Din,  "house 


1.  The  origin  of  this  assembly  is  traced  in  the 


Israel.'     To  these  add  Moses,  and  we  have  seventv- 


one.      Nevertheless    R.    Judaii 


there 


seventy."  The  same  difference  made  by  the  addi 
tion  or  exclusion  of  Moses,  appears  in  the  works 
of  Christian  writers,  which  accounts  for  the  varia 
tion  in  the  books  between  seventy  and  seventy- 
one.  Baronius,  however  (Ad  Ann.  31,  §H/  and 


Mishna  (Sanhedr.  i.  6)  to  the  seventy  elders  I  many  other  Roman  Catholic  writers,  together  with 
whom  Moses  was  directed  (Num.  xi.  16,  17)  to  j  not  a  few  Protestants,  as  Drusius,  Grotius,  Pri- 
associate  with  him  in  the  government  of  the  j  deaux,  Jahn,  Bretschneider,  etc.,  hold  that  the  true 
Israelites.  This  body  continued  to  exist,  according  {  number  was  seventy-two,  on  the  ground  that  Eldad 
to  the  Rabbinical  accounts,  down  to  the  close  (  and  Medad,  on  whom  it  is  expressly  said  the  Spirit 
of  the  Jewish  commonwealth.  Among  Christian  '•  rested  (Num.  xi.  26),  remained  in  the  camp,  and 
writers  Schickhard,  Isaac  Casaubon,  Salmasius,  j  should  be  added  to  the  seventy  (see  Hartmann, 
Selden,  and  Grotius  have  held  the  same  view,  j  Verbindung  des  A.  T.  p.  182 ;  Selden,  De  Synedr. 
Since  the  time  of  Vorstius,  who  took  the  ground  j  lib.  ii.  cap.  4).  Between  these  three  numbers, 
(De  Synhedriis,  §25-40)  that  the  alleged  identity  j  that  given  by  the  prevalent  Jewish  tradition  is 
between  the  assembly  of  seventy  elders  mentioned  i  certainly  to  be  preferred  ;  but  if,  as  we  have 
in  Num.  xi.  16,  17,  and  the  Sanhedrim  which  j  seen,  there  is  really  no  evidence  for  the  identity 
existed  in  the  later  period  of  the  Jewish  common-  |  of  the  seventy  elders  summoned  by  Moses,  and 
wealth,  was  simply  a  conjecture  of  the  Rabbins,  and  the  Sanhedrim  existing  after  the  Babylonish  cap- 
that  there  are  no  traces  of  such  a  tribunal  in  Deut.  j  tivity,  the  argument  from  Num.  xi.  16  in  respect 
xvii.  8, 10,  nor  in  the  age  of  Joshua  and  the  judges,  to  the  number  of  members  of  which  the  latter 
nor  during  the  reign  of  the  kings,  it  has  been  gener-  body  consisted,  has  no  force,  and  we  are  left,  as 
ally  admitted  that  the  tribunal  established  by  Moses  !  Keil  maintains  (Archaologie,  ii.  §259),  without 


was  probably  temporary,  and  did  not  continue  to 
exist  after  the  Israelites  had  entered  Palestine  (Winer, 
Realworterb.  art.  "  Synedrium  "). 

In  the  lack  of  definite  historical  information  as    w&g  chosen  on  ^^       ^  eminence     - 
to   the   establishment   of  the   Sanhedrim    it   can  ,  ^  ^^      Qf  ^  n      thig 

only_be  said  in  general  that  the  Greek  etymology  |  eminence  was  ^.^  fo  th(f  hi(rh.J.iest.     fhat 


any  certain  information  on  the  point. 

The  president  of  this  body  was  styled 
Nasi,  and,  according  to  Maimonides  and  Lightfoot, 


«      ,  i  ,  .       .          A  •       J  T_  CJXllllCtl^C       W«*>      <H_,^U1UCU.       L\J       L11C      ZUilll-Ul  1COU.  ±  11C&L 

of  the  name  seems  to   point    to  a  period  subse-  |  ^  h.  fc  ed  condemnation   of 

quent  to  the  Macedonian  supremacy  in  Palestine.  ^^  ^  .g   ^  from  thg  ^^^ 

tive.  The  vice-president,  called  in  the  Talmud 
1*1  n^ll  3X,  "father  of  the  house  of  judgment," 
sat  at  the  right  hand  of  the  president.  Some  writers 


Livy  expressly  states  (xiv.  32),  "  pronuntiatum 
quod  ad  statum  Macedoniae  pertiuebat,  senatores, 
quos  synedros  vocant,  legendos  esse,  quorum  con- 
silio  respublica  administraretur."  The  fact  that 


Herod,   when    procurator    of  Galilee,   was    sum-  i  speak   of  a   second   vice-president,    styled 


moned   before  the   Sanhedrim    (B.C.    47)   on    the 
ground   that   in    puttin      men   to   death   he   had 


<4  wise>»  bufc  this  is  not  sufficiently  confirmed  fsee 
Se\den,  De  Synedr.  ^.  15G,  seq.\     The  Babylonian 

' 


,  .    .        ,       . 

usurped  the  authority  of  the  body  (Jos.  Ant.  xiv.  ,  Gemara  states  that  there  were  two  scribes,  one  ot 
9,  §4)  shows  that  it  then  possessed  much  power    whom  registered  the  votes  for  ucquittal,  the  other 


and  was  not  of  very  recent  origin.  If  the  yepov- 
(rla  TUV  'lovoaioov,  in  2  Mace.  i.  10,  iv.  44,  xi.  27, 
designates  the  Sanhedrim  —  as  it  probably  does  — 
this  is  the  earliest  historical  trace  of  its  existence. 
On  these  grounds  the  opinion  of  Vorstius,  Witsius, 
Winer,  Keil,  and  others,  may  be  regarded  as  pro 
bable,  that  the  Sanhedrim  described  in  the  Talmud 
arose  after  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  Babylon, 
and  in  the  time  of  the  Seleucidae  or  of  the  Hasmo- 
•iean  princes. 

In  the  silence  of  Philo,  Josephus,  and  the  Mishna 
respecting  the  constitution  of  the  Sanhedrim,  we 
are  obliged  to  depend  upon  the  few  incidental 


notices  in   the  New  Testament. 
gather     that     it     consisted    of 


From  these  we 
chief 


priests,  or  the  heads  of  the  twenty-four  classes 
into  which  the  priests  wer»  divided  (including, 
probably,  those  who  had  beer,  high  -priests), 


.,  elders,  men  of  age  and  experience,  and 
?s,  scribes,  lawyers,  or  those  learned  in 
the  Jewish  law  (Matt.  xxvi.  57,  59  ;  Mark  xv.  1  ; 
Luke  xxii.  66  ;  Acts  v.  21). 

2.  The  number  of  members  is  usually  given  as 


those  for  condemnation.  In  Matt.  xxvi.  58 ; 
Mark  xiv.  54,  &c.,  the  lictors  or  attendants  of 
the  Sanhedrim  are  referred  to  under  the  name  o 
vinr]piETai.  While  in  session  the  Sanhedrim  sat  h/ 
the  form  of  a  half  circle  (Gem.  Hieros.  Const,  vii. 
ad  Sanhedr.  i.),  with  all  which  agrees  the  state 
ment  of  Maimonides  (quoted  by  Vorstius):  "him 
who  excels  all  others  in  wisdom  they  appoint  head 
over  them  and  head  of  the  assembly.  And  he  it 
is  whom  the  wise  everywhere  call  NASI,  and  he  is 
in  the  place  of  our  master  Moses.  Likewise  him 
who  is  the  oldest  among  the  seventy,  they  place 
on  the  right  hand,  and  him  they  call  '  father  of 
the  house  of  judgment.'  The  rest  of  the  seventy 
sit  before  these  two,  according  to  their  dignity,  in 
the  form  of  a  semicircle,  so  that  the  president  and 
vice-president  may  have  them  all  in  sight." 

3.  The  place  in  which  the  sessions  of  the  San 
hedrim  were  ordinarily  held  was,  according  to  the 
Talmud,  a  hall  called  JTJ3,  Gazzith  (Sanhedr.  x.), 
supposed  by  Lightfoot  (  Works,  i.  2005)  to  have 
been  situated  in  the  south-east  corner  of  one  cf  tlit 


seventy-owe,  but   this  is  a  point  on  which   there  [couits  near  the  Temple  building.     In  special 


SANSANNAH 

gencies,  however,  it  seems  to  have  met  in  the 
residence  of  the  high-priest  (Matt.  xxvi.  3).  Forty 
years  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  con 
sequently  while  the  Saviour  was  teaching  in  Pales 
tine,  the  sessions  of  the  Sanhedrim  were  removed 
from  the  hall  Gazzith  to  a  somewhat  greater 
distance  from  the  temple  building,  although  still 
on  Mt.  Moriah  (Abod.  Zara  i.  Gem.  Babyl.  ad 
Sanhedr.  v.).  After  several  other  changes,  its 
seat  was  finally  established  at  Tiberias  (Liglitfoot, 
Works,  ii.  365). 

As  a  judicial  body  the  Sanhedrim  constituted  a 
supreme  court,  to  which  belonged  in  the  first 
instance  the  trial  of  a  tribe  fallen  into  idolatry, 
false  prophets,  and  the  high-priest  (Mishna,  San- 
liedr.  i.)  ;  also  the  other  priests  (Middoth,  v.). 
As  an  administrative  council  it  determined  other 
;mportant  matters.  Jesus  was  arraigned  before 
this  body  as  a  false  prophet  (John  xi.  47),  and 
Peter,  John,  Stephen,  and  Paul  as  teachers  of 
error  and  deceivers  of  the  people.  From  Acts  ix. 
2  it  appears  that  the  Sanhedrim  exercised  a  degree 
of  authority  beyond  the  limits  of  Palestine.  Ac 
cording  to  the  Jerusalem  Gemara  (quoted  by 
Selden,  lib.  ii.  c.  15,  11),  the  power  of  inflicting 
capital  punishment  was  taken  away  from  this 
tribunal  forty  yeai-s  before  the  destruction  of  Jeru 
salem.  With  this  agrees  the  answer  of  the  Jews 
to  Pilate  (John  xix.  31),  "  It  is  not  lawful  for  us 
to  put  any  man  to  death."  Beyond  the  arrest, 
trial,  and  condemnation  of  one  convicted  of  vio 
lating  the  ecclesiastical  law,  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Sanhedrim  at  the  time  could  not  be  extended ; 
the  confirmation  and  execution  of  the  sentence  in 
capital  cases  belonged  to  the  Roman  procurator. 
The  stoning  of  Stephen  (Acts  vii.  56,  &c.)  is  only 
an  apparent  exception,  for  it  was  either  a  tu 
multuous  procedure,  or,  if  done  by  order  of  the 
Sanhedrim,  was  an  illegal  assumption  of  power, 
as  Josephus  (Ant.  xx.  9,  §1)  expressly  declares  the 
execution  of  the  Apostle  James  during  the  absence 
of  the  procurator  to  have  been  (Winer,  Eeatwb. 
art.  "  Synedrium  "). 

The  Talmud  also  mentions  a  lesser  Sanhedrim  of 
twenty-three  members  in  every  city  in  Palestine  in 
which  were  not  less  than  120  householders ;  but 
respecting  these  judicial  bodies  Josephus  is  entirely 
silent. 

The  leading  work  on  the  subject  is  Selden,  De 
Synedriis  et  Praefccturis  Juridicis  veterum  Ebrae- 
orum,  Lond.  1650,  Amst.  1679,  4to.  It  exhibits 
immense  learning,  but  introduces  much  irrelevant 
matter,  and  is  written  in  a  heavy  and  unattractive 
style.  The  monographs  of  Vorstius  and  Witsius, 
contained  in  Ugolini's  Thesauri®,  vol.  xxv.  are  able 
and  judicious.  The  same  volume  of  Ugolini  con 
tains  also  the  Jerusalem  and  Babylonian  Gemaras, 
along  with  the  Mishna  on  the  Sanhedrim,  with 
which  may  be  compared  Duo  Tituli  Talmudici 
Sanhedrin  et  Maocoth,  ed.  Jo.  Coch,  Amst.  1629, 
4to.,  and  Maimouides,  De  Sanhedriis  et  Poenis, 
ed.  Routing.  Amst.  1695,  4to.  Hartmann,  Die 
Verbindung  des  Alien  Testaments  mit  dem  Neuen. 
Hainb.  1831,  8vo.,  is  worthy  of  consultation,  and 
for  a  compressed  exhibition  of  the  subject,  Winer, 
Realwb.  and  Keil,  Arckaeolojie.  [G.  D.  E.] 

SANSAN'NAH  (njWD  :  SefleiW*  ;  Alex. 
'S.avffavva:  Sensenna}.  One  of  the  towns  in  the 
south  district  of  Judah,  named  in  Josh.  xv.  31  only. 
The  towns  of  this  district  are  not  distributed  into 
rxnaii  groups,  like  those  of  the  highlands  or  the 

VOL.  JIT. 


SAPKIK 

Shefelah  ;  and  as  only  very  few  of  them  have  beer, 
yet  identified,  we  have  nothing  to  guide  us  to  tht 
position  of  Sansannah.  It  can  hardly  have  had  any 
connexion  with  KiKJATH-SANNAH  (Kirjath-Sepher, 
or  Debir),  which  was  probably  near  Hebron,  man} 
miles  to  the  north  of  the  most  northern  position 
possible  for  Sansannah.  It  does  not  appear  to  It 
mentioned  by  any  explorer,  ancient  or  modern. 
Gesenius  (Tlies.  962)  explains  the  name  to  mean 
"  palm  branch  ;"  but  this  is  contradicted  by  Fiirst 
(Hwb.  ii.  88),  who  derives  it  from  a  root  which 
signifies  "  writing."  The  two  propositions  are  pro 
bably  equally  wide  of  the  mark.  The  conjectuie 
of  Schwarz  that  it  was  at  Simsim,  on  the  valley  of 
the  same  name,  is  less  feasible  than  usual. 

The  termination  of  the  name  is  singular  (comp. 
MADMANNAH). 

By  comparing  the  list  of  Josh.  xv.  26-32  with 
those  in  xix.  2-7  and  1  Chr.  iv.  28-33,  it  will  be 
seen  that  Beth-marcaboth  and  Hazar-susim,  or 
-susah,  occupy  in  the  two  last  the  place  of  Mad- 
mannah  and  Sansannah  respectively  in  the  first. 
In  like  manner  Shilhim  is  exchanged  for  Sharuhen 
and  Shaaraim.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  these 
changes  can  have  arisen  from  the  mistakes  of  copy 
ists  solely,  but  equally  difficult  to  assign  any  other 
satisfactory  reason.  Prof.  Stanley  has  suggested 
that  Beth-marcaboth  and  Hazar-susim  are  tokens 
of  the  trade  in  chariots  and  horses  which  arose  in 
Solomon's  time ;  but,  if  so,  how  comes  it  that  the 
new  names  bear  so  close  a  resemblance  in  form  to 
the  old  ones  ?  [G.] 

SAPH(P)D:  2e'</>;  Alex.  2e<^6:  Saph~).  One 
"of  the  sons  of  the  giant  ('Pa0c£,  Arapha)  slain  by 
Sibbechai  the  Hushathite  in  the  battle  against  the 
Philistines  at  Gob  or  Gaza  (2  Sam.  xxi.  18).  In 
1  Chr.  xx.  4  he  is  called  SIPPAI.  The  title  of  Ps. 
cxliii.  in  the  Peshito  Syriac  is,  "  Of  David :  when 
he  slew  Asaph  (Saph)  the  brother  of  Gulyad 
(Goliath),  and  thanksgiving  for  that  he  had  con 
quered." 

SA'PHAT  (2a</><£r :  om.  in  Vulg.).  SHE- 
PHATIAH  2  (1  Esd.  v.  9  ;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  4). 

SAPHATI'AS  (2at/>aTi'as :  Saphatias\  SHE- 
PHATIAH  2  (1  Esd.  viii.  34 ;  comp.  Ezr.  viii.  8). 

SA'PHETH(2a<J>uf;  Alex.  2a#u0i:  Saphuzi}. 
SHEPHATIAH  (1  Esd.  v.  33;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  57). 

SA'PHIR  pW,  ».  e.  Shaphir:  /caAws:  pul- 
chra,  but  in  Jerome's  Comment.  Saphir").  One  of 
the  villages  addressed  by  the  Prophet  Micah  (i.  11), 
but  not  elsewhere  mentioned.  By  Eusebius  and 
Jerome  (Onomast.  "Saphir")  it  is  described  as 
"  in  the  mountain  district  between  Eleutheropolis 
and  Ascalon."  In  this  direction  a  village  called 
es-Sawdfir  still  exists  (or  rather  three  of  that  name, 
two  with  affixes),  possibly  the  representative  of 
the  ancient  Saphir  (Rob.  B.  R.  ii.  34  note ;  Van 
de  Velde,  Syr.  fy  Pal.  159).  Es-Sawdfir  lies  seven 
or  eight  miles  to  the  N.E.  of  Ascalon,  and  about 
12  W.  of  Beit-Jibrin,  to  the  right  of  the  coast-road 
from  Gaza.  Tobler  prefers  a  village  called  Saber, 
close  to  Sawdfir,  containing  a  copious  and  apparently 
very  ancient  well  (3tte  Wanderung,  47).  In  one  im 
portant  respect,  however,  the  position  of  neither  of 
these  agrees  with  the  notice  of  the  Onomasticon, 
since  it  is  not  near  the  mountains,  but  on  the  open 
plain  of  the  Shefelah.  But  as  Beit-Jibrin,  the 
ancient  Eleutheropolis,  stands  on  the  western  slopes 
of  the  mountains  of  Judah.  it  is  difficult  to  under' 

<t  n 


1138 


SAPPHIRA 


stand  how  any  place  could  be  westward  of  it  (i.  e. 
jbttween  it  and  Ascalon),  and  yet  be  itself  in  the 
mountain  district,  unless  that  expression  may  refer 
to  places  which,  though  situated  in  the  plain,  were 
for  some  reason  considered  as  belonging  to  the 
towns  of  the  mountains.  We  have  already  seen 
reason  to  suspect  that  the  reverse  was  the  case  with 
some  others.  [KEILAH  ;  NEZIB,  &c.] 

Schwarz,  though  aware  of  the  existence  of  Sa- 
wdfir  (p.  116),  suggests  as  a  more  feasible  identifi 
cation  the  village  of  Safiriyeh,  a  couple  of  miles 
N.W.  of  Lydda  (136).  The  drawback  to  this  is, 
that  the  places  mentioned  by  Micah  appear,  as  far  as 
we  can  trace  them,  to  be  mostly  near  Beit-Jibrin, 
and  in  addition,  that  Safiriyeh  is  in  clear  contradic 
tion  to  the  notice  of  Eusebius  and  Jerome.  [G.] 

SAPPHI'RA  (SairQeiprj  =  either  "sapphire," 
from  ffdir<pfipos,  or  "  beautiful,"  from  the  Syriac 
NTBBfy.  The  wife  of  Ananias,  and  the  participator 
both  in  his  guilt  and  in  his  punishment  (Acts  v. 
1-10).  The  interval  of  three  hours  that  elapsed 
between  the  two  deaths,  Sapphira's  ignorance  of 
what  had  happened  to  her  husband,  and  the  pre 
dictive  language  of  St.  Peter  towards  her,  are  de 
cisive  evidences  as  to  the  supernatural  character  of 
the  whole  transaction.  The  history  of  Sapphira's 
death  thus  supplements  that  of  Ananias's,  which 
might  otherwise  have  been  attributed  to  natural 
causes.  [W.  L.  B.] 


SAPPHIRE  CVSD,  sappir  :  ffdv^fipos  :  sap- 
phirus).  A  precious  stone,  apparently  of  a  bright 
blue  colour,  see  Ex.  xxiv.  10,  where  the  God  of 
Israel  is  represented  as  being  seen  in  vision  by 
Moses  and  the  Elders  with  "a  paved  work  of  a 
sappir  stone,  and  as  it  were  the  body  of  heaven  in 
its  clearness  "  (comp.  Ez.  i.  26).  The  sappir  wa0 
the  second  stone  in  the  second  row  of  the  high- 
priest's  breastplate  (Ex.  xxviii.  18)  ;  it  was  ex 
tremely  precious  (Job  xxviii.  16);  it  was  one  of 
the  precious  stones  that  ornamented  the  king  of 
Tyre  (Ez.  xxviii.  13).  Notwithstanding  the  identity 
of  name  between  our  sapphire  and  the  ffd-jrQeipos, 
and  sapphirus  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  it  is  ge 
nerally  agreed  that  the  sapphirus  of  the  ancients 
was  not  our  gem  of  that  name,  viz.,  the  azure  or 
indigo-blue,  crystalline  variety  of  Corundum,  but 
our  Lapis-lazuli  (  Ultra-marine)  ;  this  point  may 
be  regarded  as  established,  for  Pliny  (N.  H.  xxxvii. 
9)  thus  speaks  of  the  Sapphirus,  "It  is  refulgent 
with  spots  of  gold,  of  an  azure  colour  sometimes, 
but  not  often  purple;  the  best  kind  comes  from 
Media;  it  is  never  transparent,  and  is  not  well 
suited  for  engraving  upon  when  intersected  with 
hard  crystalline  particles."  This  description  an 
swers  exactly  to  the  character  of  the  Lapis-lazuli  ; 
the  "  crystalline  particles  "  of  Pliny  are  crystals  of 
iron  pyrites,  which  often  occur  with  this  mineral. 
It  is,  however,  not  so  certain  that  the  Sappir  of 
the  Hebrew  Bible  is  identical  with  the  Lapis-lazuli  ; 
for  the  Scriptural  requirements  demand  transpa 
rency,  great  value  and  good  material  for  the  en 
graver's  art,  all  of  which  combined  characters  the 
Lapis-lazuli  does  not  possess  in  any  great  degree. 
Mr.  King  (Antique  Gems,  p.  44)  says  that  intagh 
and  camei  of  Roman  times  are  frequent  in  the 
material,  but  rarely  any  works  of  much  merit. 
Again,  the  Sappir  was  certainly  pellucid,  "  sane  apud 
JucUsos,"  says  Braun  (I)e  Vest.  Sac.  p.  680,  ed. 
1680),  "  saphiros  pellucidas  notas  fuisse  rnanifestis- 
timiun  est,  adpf>  etiam  ut  pellncidiim  illornm  phi 


SARAH 

losophis  dicatur  TQD,  Saphir."  Beckmann  (Hist, 
of  fnvent.  i.  472)  is  of  opinion  that  the  Sappir  ot 
the  Hebrews  is  the  same  as  the  Lapis-lazuli ;  Rosen- 
miiller  and  Braun  argue  in  favour  of  its  being  our 
sapphire  or  precious  Corundum.  We  are  inclined 
to  adopt  this  latter  opinion,  but  are  unable  to  come 
to  any  satisfactory  conclusion.  [W  H.J 

SA'RA  (Sd^pa :  Sara).  1.  SARAH,  the  wife 
of  Abraham  (Heb.  xi.  11 ;  1  Pet.  iii.  6). 

2.  The  daughter  of  Raguel,  in  the  apocrypha] 
history  of  Tobit.  As  the  story  goes,  she  had  been 
married  to  seven  husbands,  who  were  all  slain  on 
the  wedding  night  by  Asmodeus  the  evil  spirit,  who 
loved  her  (Tob.  iii.  7).  The  breaking  of  the  spell 
and  the  chasing  away  of  the  evil  spirit  by  the 
"  fishy  fume,"  when  Sara  was  married  to  Tobias, 
are  told  in  chap.  viii. 

SARABI'AS  (Sapafrias :  Sarebias).  SHERS- 
BIAH  (1  Esd.  ix.  48;  comp.  Neh.  viii.  7). 

SA'RAH(rn'K>,  "princess:"  2c*#a:  Sara- 
originally  nb^iopa:  Sarai}.  1.  The  wife  of 

Abraham,  and  mother  of  Isaac. 

Of  her  birth  and  parentage  we  have  no  certain 
account  in  Scripture.  Her  name  is  first  introduced 
in  Gen.  xi.  29,  as  follows:  "  Abram  and  Nahor 
took  them  wives :  the  name  of  Abram's  wife  was 
Sarai ;  and  the  name  of  Nahor's  wife  was  Mil- 
cah,  the  daughter  of  Haran,  the  father  of  Milcah 
and  the  father  of  Iscah."  In  Gen.  xx.  12,  Abraham 
speaks  of  her  as  "  his  sister,  the  daughter  of  the 
same  father,  but  not  the  daughter  of  the  same 
mother."  The  common  Jewish  tradition,  taken  for 
granted  by  Josephus  (Ant.  i.  c.  6,  §6)  and  by  St. 
Jerome  (Quaest.  Hebr.  ad  Genesin,  vol.  iii.  p.  323, 
ed.  Ben.  1735),  is  that  Sarai  is  the  same  as  Iscah, 
the  daughter  of  Haran,  and  the  sister  of  Lot,  who 
is  called  Abraham's  "  brother"  in  Gen.  xiv.  14, 16. 
Judging  from  the  fact  that  Rebekah,  the  grand 
daughter  of  Nahor,  was  the  wife  of  Isaac  the  son 
of  Abraham,  there  is  reason  to  conjecture  that 
Abraham  was  the  youngest  brother,  so  that  his 
wife  might  not  improbably  be  younger  than  the 
wife  of  Nahor.  It  is  certainly  strange,  if  the  tra 
dition  be  true,  that  no  direct  mention  of  it  is  found 
in  Gen.  xi.  29.  But  it  is  not  improbable  in  itself; 
it  supplies  the  account  of  the  descent  of  the  mother 
of  the  chosen  race,  the  omission  of  which  in  such  a 
passage  is  most  unlikely  ;  and  there  is  no  other  to 
set  against  it. 

the  change  of  her  name  from  "  Sarai "  to  "  Sa 
rah"  was  made  at  the  same  time  that  Abram's 
name  was  changed  to  Abraham,  on  the  establish 
ment  of  the  covenant  of  circumcision  between  him 
and  God.  That  the  name  "  Sarah  "  signifies  "  prin 
cess"  is  universally  acknowledged.  But  the  mean 
ing  of  "  Sarai "  is  still  a  subject  of  controversy. 
The  older  interpreters  (as,  for  example,  St.  Jerome 
in  Quaest.  Hebr.,  and  those  who  follow  him)  sup 
pose  it  to  mean  "  my  princess ;"  and  explain  the 
change  from  Sarai  to  Sarah,  as  signifying  that  she 
was  no  longer  the  queen  of  one  family,  but  the 
royal  ancestress  of  "  all  families  of  the  earth."  They 
also  suppose  that  the  addition  of  the  letter  H,  as 
taken  from  the  sacred  Tetragrammalon  Jehovah,  to 
the  names  of  Abram  and  Sarai,  mystically  signified 
their  being  received  into  covenant  with  the  Lord. 
Among  modern  Hebraists  there  is  great  diversity  of 
interpretation.  One  opinion,  keeping  to  the  same 
general  derivation  as  that  referred  to  above,  explains 


SARAH 

•«fxmu  "  as  "noble,"  "  nobility,"  &c.,  an  explana 
tion  which,  even  more  than  the  other,  labours  under 
the  objection  of  giving  little  force  to  the  change. 
Another  opinion  supposes  Sarai  to  be  a  contracted 
form  of  iinb>  (Serayah),  and  to  signify  "  Jehovah 
is  ruler."  But  this  gives  no  force  whatever  to  the 
change,  and  besides  introduces  the  same  name  Jah 
into  a  proper  name  too  early  in  the  history.  A 
third  (following  Ewald)  derives  it  from  rnfe>,  a  root 
which  is  found  in  Gen.  xxxii.  28,  Hos.  xii.  4,  in  the 
sense  of  "  to  fight,"  and  explains  it  as  "  conten 
tious"  (streitsOcktig).  This  last  seems  to  be 
etymologically  the  most  probable,  and  differs  from 
the  others  in  giving  great,  force  and  dignity  to  the 
change  of  name.  (See  Ges.  Tkes.  vol.  iii.  p.  13386.) 

Her  history  is,  of  course,  that  of  Abraham.  She 
came  with  him  from  Ur  to  Haran,  from  Haran  to 
Canaan,  and  accompanied  him  in  all  the  wanderings 
of  his  life.  Her  only  independent  action  is  the  de 
mand  that  Hagar  and  Ishmael  should  be  cast  out, 
far  from  all  rivalry  with  her  and  Isaac  ;  a  demand, 
symbolically  applied  in  Gal.  iv.  22-31,  to  the  dis 
placement  of  the  Old  Covenant  by  the  New.  The 
times,  in  which  she  plays  the  most  important 
part  in  the  history,  are  the  times  when  Abraham 
was  sojourning,  first  in  Egypt,  then  in  Gerar, 
and  where  Sarah  shared  his  deceit,  towards  Pha- 
rach  and  towards  Abimelech.  On  the  first  oc 
casion,  about  the  middle  of  her  life,  her  personal 
beauty  is  dwelt  upon  as  its  cause  (Gen.  xii.  11-15)  ; 
on  the  second,  just  before  the  birth  of  Isaac,  at  a 
time  when  she  was  old  (thirty-seven  years  before  her 
death),  but  when  her  vigour  had  been  miracu 
lously  restored,  the  same  cause  is  alluded  to,  as 
supposed  by  Abraham,  but  not  actually  stated 
(xx.  9-11).  In  both  cases,  especially  the  last,  the 
truthfulness  of  the  history  is  seen  in  the  unfavour 
able  contrast,  in  which  the  conduct  both  of  Abra 
ham  and  Sarah  stands  to  that  of  Pharaoh  and  Abime 
lech.  -She  died  at  Hebron  at  the  age  of  127  years, 
28  years  before  her  husband,  and  was  buried  by  him 
in  the  cave  of  Machpelah.  Her  burial  place,  pur 
chased  of  Ephron  the  Hittite,  was  the  only  posses 
sion  of  Abraham  in  the  land  of  promise ;  it  has  re 
mained,  hallowed  in  the  eyes  of  Jews,  Christians, 
and  Mohammedans  alike,  to  the  present  day ;  and  in 
it  the  "  shrine  of  Sarah  "  is  pointed  out  opposite  to 
that  of  Abraham,  with  those  of  Isaac  and  Rebekah 
on  the  one  side,  and  those  of  Jacob  and  Leah  on  the 
other  (See  Stanley's  Lect.  on  Jewish  Church,  app. 
ii.  pp.  484-509). 

Her  character,  like  that  of  Abraham,  is  no  ideal 
type  of  excellence,  but  one  thoroughly  natural,  in 
ferior  to  that  of  her  husband,  and  truly  feminine, 
both  in  its  excellences  and  its  defects.  She  is  the 
mother,  even  more  than  the  wife.  Her  natural 
motherly  affection  is  seen  in  her  touching  desire 
for  children,  even  from  her  bondmaid,  and  in  her 
unforgiving  jealousy  of  that  bondmaid,  when  she 
became  a  mother  ;  in  her  rejoicing  over  her  son 
Isaac,  and  in  the  jealousy  which  resented  the  slightest 
insult  to  him,  and  forbade  Ishmael  to  shai'e  his  son- 
ship.  It  makes  her  cruel  to  others  as  well  as  tender 
to  her  own,*  and  is  remarkably  contrasted  with  the 
sacrifice  of  natural  feeling  on  the  part  of  Abraham 
to  God's  command  in  the  last  case  (Gen.  xxi.  12). 

8  Note  the  significant  remark  on  Isaac's  marriage  (Gen. 
xxiv.  67),  "  Isaac  was  comforted  after  his  mother's  death." 
There  Is  a  Jewish  tradition,  based  apparently  on  the 
mention  of  Sarah's  death  almost  immediately  after  the 


8ABAMEL 


1139 


To  the  same  character  belong  her  ironical  laughter 
at  the  promise  of  a  child,  long  desired,  but  now 
beycnd  all  hope;  her  trembling  denial  of  that 
laughter,  and  her  change  of  it  to  the  laughter  of 
thankful  joy,  which  she  commemorated  in  the  name 
of  Isaac.  It  is  a  character  deeply  and  truly  affec 
tionate,  but  impulsive,  jealous,  and  imperious  in 
its  affection.  It  is  referred  to  in  the  N.  T.  as  a 
type  of  conjugal  obedience  in  1  Pet.  iii.  6,  and  as 
one  of  the  types  of  faith  in  Heb.  xi.  1 1 .  [A.  B.  \ 

2.  (rnb :  2dpo :  Sara).  SERAH  the  daughter 
of  Asher  (Num.  xxvi.  46). 

SARA'I  (^B? :  Scfym:  SaraT).  The  original 
name  of  Sarah,  the  wife  of  Abraham.  It  is  always 
used  in  the  history  from  Gen.  xi.  29  to  xvii.  15, 
when  it  was  changed  to  Sarah  at  the  same  time  that 
her  husband's  name  from  Abram  became  Abraham, 
and  the  birth  of  Isaac  was  more  distinctly  foretold. 
The  meaning  of  the  name  appears  to  be,  as  Ewald 
has  suggested,  "  contentious."  [SARAH.] 

SAKAI'AS  (Zapaias:  om.  in  Vulg.).  1.  SE- 
RAIAH  the  high-priest  (1  Esd.  v.  5). 

2.  ('A^opoios ;  Alex.  2apcuas :  Azarias,  Aza- 
reus.}  SERAIAH  the  father  of  Ezra  (1  Esd.  viii.  1  » 
2  Esd.  i.  1). 

SAB'AMEL  (2apo/«V ;  Alex.  2opo^€A ;  othei 
MSS.  'Affapa/j.f\ :  Asaramel}.  The  name  of  the 
place  in  which  the  assembly  of  the  Jews  was  held 
at  which  the  high-priesthood  was  conferred  upon 
Simon  Maccabaeus  (1  Mac.  xiv.  28).  The  fact  that 
the  name  is  found  only  in  this  passage  has  led  to 
the  conjecture  that  it  is  an  imperfect  version  of  a 
word  in  the  original  Hebrew  or  Syriac,  from  which 
the  present  Greek  text  of  the  Maccabees  is  a  trans 
lation.  Some  (as  Castellio)  have  treated  it  as  a 
corruption  of  Jerusalem  :  but  this  is  inadmissible, 
since  it  is  inconceivable  that  so  well-known  a  name 
should  be  corrupted.  The  other  conjectures  are 
enumerated  by  Grimm  in  the  Kurzgef.  exegetisches 
Handb.  on  the  passage.  A  few'only  need  be  named 
here,  but  none  seem  perfectly  satisfactory.  All 
appear  to  adopt  the  reading  Asaramel.  1.  Ha- 
hatsar  Millo,  "  the  court  of  Millo,"  Millo  being 
not  improbably  the  citadel  of  Jerusalem  [vol.  ii. 
367  a].  This  is  the  conjecture  of  Grotius,  and 
has  at  least  the  merit  of  ingenuity.1*  2.  Hahatsar 
Am  El,  "the  court  of  the  people  of  God,  that 
is,  the  great  court  of  the  Temple."  This  is  due 
to  Ewald  {Gesch.  iv.  387),  who  compares  with 
it  the  well-known  Sarbeth  Sabanai  El,  given  by 
Eusebius  as  the  title  of  the  Maccabaean  history. 
[See  MACCABEES,  vol.  ii.  173  a.]  3.  HasshaarAm 
El,  "  the  gate  of  the  people  of  God  "  adopted  by 
Winer  {Realwb.}.  4.  Hassar  Am  El,  '*  prince  of 
the  people  of  God,"  as  if  not  the  name  of  a  place, 
j  but  the  title  of  Simon,  the  "  in  "  having  been  in 
serted  by  puzzled  copyists.  This  is  adopted  by 
Grimm  himself.  It  has  in  its  favour  the  fact  that 
without  it  Simon  is  here  styled  high-priest  only., 
and  his  second  title,  "  captain  and  governor  of  the 
Jews  and  priests  "  (ver.  47),  is  then  omitted  in  the 
solemn  official  record — 'the  very  place  where  it  ought 
to  be  found.  It  also  seems  to  be  countenanced  by 
the  Peshito-Syriac  version,  which  certainly  omits  the 
title  of  "  high-priest,"  but  inserts  EMa  dc  Israel* 


sacrifice  of  Isaac,  that  the  shock  of  it  killed  her,  and  tha» 
Abraham  found  her  dead  on  his  return  from  Moriah. 

b  Junius  and  Tremellias  render  it  by  in  atria  muw 
tionis. 

4  D  2 


1140 


SARAPH 


'•  leader  of  Israel."    None  of  these  explanations,  l>ow- 
Dver,  can  be  regarded  as  entirely  satisfactory.    [<  5.] 


SA'RAPH  (?pK> :  2apcty> :  Incendens).  Men 
tioned  in  1  Chr.  iv.  22  among  the  descendants  of 
Shelah  the  sou  of  Judah.  Burrington  (Geneal 
5.  179)  makes  Saraph  a  descendant  of  Jokim,  whom 
he  regards  as  the  third  son  of  Shelah.  In  the 
Targum  of  R.  Joseph,  Joash  and  Saraph  are  iden 
tified  with  Mahlon  and  Chilion,  "  who  married 
(•"6^3 )  in  Moab." 

SARCUE'DONUS  (2axep8oi/<k,  2ax*p8aj>  : 
Arckedonassar,  Achenossar,  Sarcedonassar],  a  col 
lateral  form  of  the  name  Esar-haddon  [ ESAR-HAD 
DON  J.  occurring  Tob.  i.  21.  The  form  in  A.  V.  for 
Sacherdonus  appears  to  be  an  oversight.  [B.  F.  W.] 

SARDE'US  (ZepaAm?  ;  Alex.  ZapSouoy  :  The- 
Udias).  Aziz  A  ( 1  Esd.  ix.  28  ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  27). 

SARDINE,  SARDIUS  (Clfc,  odem:  vdp- 
Siov :  sardius]  is,  according  to  the  LXX.  and 
Josephus-  (Sell.  Jud.  v.  5,  §7)  the  correct  render 
ing  of  the  Heb.  term,  which  occurs  in  Ex.  xxviii. 
17  ;  xxxix.  10,  as  the  name  of  the  stone  which 
occupied  the  first  place  in  the  first  row  of  the  high 
priest's  breastplate  ;  it  should ,  however,  be  noticed 
that  Josephus  is  not  strictly  consistent  with  him 
self,  for  in  the  Antiq.  iii.  7,  §5,  he  says  that  the 
sardonyx  was  the  first  stone  in  the  breastplate ;  still 
as  this  latter  named  mineral  is  merely  another 
variety  of  agate,  to  which  also  the  sard  or  sardius 
belongs,  there  is  no  very  great  discrepancy  in  the 
statements  of  the  Jewish  historian.  The  odem  is 
mentioned  by  Ezek.  (xxviii.  13)  as  one  of  the  orna 
ments  of  the  king  of  Tyre.  In  Rev.  iv.  3,  St.  John 
declares  that  he  whom  he  saw  sitting  on  the 
heavenly  throne  "was  to  look  upon  like  a  jasper 
and  a  sardine  stone."  The  si<th  foundation  of  thr 
wall  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  was  a  sardius  (Rev 
xxi.  20).  There  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt  that  eithei 
the  sard  or  the  sardonyx  is  the  stone  denoted  by 
odem.  The  authority  of  Josephus  in  all  that  relates 
to  the  high-priest's  breastplate  is  of  the  greatest 
value,  for  as  Braun  (De  Vest.  Sac.  Heh.  p.  635)  has 
remarked,  Josephus  was  not  only  a  Jew  but  a  priest 
who  might  have  seen  the  breastplate  with  the  whoL 
sacerdotal  vestments  a  hundred  times,  since  in  hi 
time  the  Temple  was  standing ;  the  Vulgate  agrees 
with  his  nomenclature  ;  in  Jerome  s  time  the  breast 
plate  was  still  to  be  inspected  in  the  Temple  o 
Concord  ;  hence  it  will  readily  be  acknowbdged  tha 
this  agreement  of  the  two  is  of  great  weight. 

The  sard,  which  is  a  superior  variety  of  agate 
has  long  been  a  favourite  stone  for  the  engraver' 
art ;  "  on  this  stone,"  says  Mr.  King  (Antiqu 
Gems,  p.  5),  "  all  the  finest  works  of  the  mos 
celebrated  artists  are  to  be  'bund  ;  and  this  no 
without  good  cause,  such  is  its  toughness,  facilit 
of  working,  beauty  of  colour,  and  the  high  polisl 
of  which  it  is  susceptible,  and  which  Pliny  state 
tbxc  it  retains  longer  than  any  other  gem."  Sard 
differ  in  colour ;  there  is  a  bright  red  variety  which 
in  Pliny's  time,  was  the  most  esteemed,  and,  pei 
haps,  the  Heb.  odem,  from  a  root  which  means  "  t 
be  red,"  points  to  this  kind  ;  there  is  also  a  paler  o 
noney-coloured  variety;  but  in  all  sards  there  i 
always  a  shade  of  yellow  mingling  with  the  re 
(see  King's  Ant.  Gems,  p.  6).  The  sardius,  at 
cording  to  Pliny  (N.  H.  xxxvii.  7),  derived  it 
name  from  Sardis  in  Lydia,  where  it  was  firs 
( >und  ;  Babylonian  specimens,  however,  were  th 


SAUDIS 

most  esteemed.  The  Hebrews,  in  the  tirtt  of  Mosec, 
ould  easily  have  obtained  their  surd  stones  from 
Arabia,  in  which  country  they  were  ?t  the  time  th« 
reastplate  was  made  ;  other  precious  stones  not  ao- 
uirable  during  their  wanderings,  may  have  been 
i-ought  with  them  from  the  land  of  their  bondage 
vhen  "  they  spoiled  the  Egyptians."  [W.  H.] 

SAR'DIS  (2ap8eis).    A  city  situated  about  two 
miles  to  the  south  of  the  river  Hermus,  just  below 
he  range  of  Tmolus  (Bos  Dagh],  on  a  spur  ot 
which  its  acropolis  was  built.     It  was  the  ancient 
esidence  of  the  kings  of  Lydia.     After  its  conquest 
iy  Cyrus,  the  Persians  always  kept  a  garrison  in  the 
itadel,  on  account  of  its  natural  strength,  which 
nduced  Alexander  the  Great,  when  it  was  surren 
dered  to  him  in  the  sequel  of  the  battle  of  the  Gra- 
icus,  similarly  to  occupy  it.     Sardis  was  in  very 
early  times,  both  from  the  extremely  fertile  cha- 
•acter  of  the  neighbouring  region,   and  from  its 
convenient  position,  a  commercial  mart  of  import 
ance.     Chestnuts  were  first  produced  in  the  neigh 
bourhood,  which  procured  them  the  name  of  &a\a.vo 
apSiavoi.  The  art  of  dyeing  wool  is  said  by  Pliny 
;o  have  been  invented  there  ;  and  at  any  rate,  Sardis 
was  the  entrepot  of  the  dyed  woollen  manufactures, 
of  which  Phrygia  with  its  vast  flocks  (TroAuirpojSa- 
Tii,  Herod,  v.  49)  furnished  the  raw  material. 
Hence  we  hear  of  the  (pou/t^Ses  SapSmvai,  and 
Sappho  speaks  of  the   irot/ci\o.s  ji<£<r0Arjs  AvSiov 
Ka\bt>  epyov,  which  was  perhaps  something  like 
the  modern  Turkish  carpets.     Some  of  the  woollen 
manufactures,   of  a  peculiarly   fine   texture,  were 
called  iJ/tAoTOTnSes.     The  hall,  through  which  the 
king  of  Persia  passed  from  his  state  apartments  to 
the  gate  where  he  mounted  on  his  horse,  was  laid 
with  these,  and  no  foot  but  that  of  the  monarch 
was  allowed  to  tread  on  them.     In  the  description 
given  of  the  habits  of  a  young  Cyprian  exquisite  of 
great  wealth,  he  is  represented  as  reposing  upon  a 
bed  of  which  the  feet  were  silver,  and  upon  which 
these  ^tAoTcb-iSes  SapSicu/cJ  were  laid  as  a  mattrass. 
Sardis  too  was  the  place  where  the  metal  electrum 
was  procured  (Soph.  Antig.   1037);   and  it  was 
thither  that  the  Spartans  sent  in  the  6th  century 
B.C.  to  purchase  gold  for  the  purpose  of  gilding  the 
face  of  the  Apollo  at  Amyclae.     This  was  probably 
furnished  by  the  auriferous  sand  of  the  Pactolus,  a 
brook  which  came  from  Tmolus,  and  ran  through 
the  ugora  of  Sardis  by  the  side  of  the  great  temple 
of  Cybebe.    But  though  its  gold-washings  may  have 
been  celebrated  in  early  times,  the  greatness  of  Sardis 
in,  its  best  days  was  much  more  due  to  its  general 
commercial  importance  and  its  convenience  as  an 
entrepot.     This  seems  to  follow   from  the   state 
ment,  that  not  only  silver   and  gold  coins  were 
there  first  minted,  but  there  also  the  class  of  KO~ 
iTTjAoi    (stationary   traders   as    contradistinguished 
from  the  e/juropoi,  or  travelling  merchants)   first 
arose.     It  was  also,  at  any  rate  between  the  fall  ol 
the   Lydian   and   that  of  the   Persian  dynasty,  a 
slave-mart. 

Sardis  recovered  the  privilege  of  municipal  go 
vernment  (and,  as  was  alleged  several  centuries 
afterwards,  the  right  of  a  sanctuary)  upon  its  sur 
render  to  Alexander  the  Great,  but  its  fortunes  foi 
the  next  three  hundred  years  are  very  obscure.  It 
changed  hands  more  than  once  in  the  contest* 
between  the  dynasties  which  arose  after  the  death 
of  Alexander.  In  the  year  214  B.C.,  it  was  taker 
and  sacked  by  the  army  of  Antiochus  the  Great,  who 
besieged  his  cousin  Achaeus  in  it  for  two  years  before 
j  succeeding,  as  he  at  last  did  through  treachery,  i.n 


SARDIS 

obtaining  possession  of  the  person  of  the  latter. 
After  thj  ruin  of  Antiochus's  fortunes,  it  passed, 
with  the  rest  of  Asia  on  that  side  of  Taurus,  under 
the  dominion  of  the  kings  of  Pergamus,  whose  in 
terests  led  them  to  divert  the  course  of  traffic 
between  Asia  and  Europe  away  from  Sardis.  Its 
productive  soil  must  always  have  continued  a  source 
of  wealth ;  but  its  importance  as  a  central  mart 
appears  to  have  diminished  from  the  time  of  the 
invasion  of  Asia  by  Alexander.  Of  the  few  inscrip 
tions  which  have  been  discovered,  all,  or  nearly  all, 
belong  to  the  time  of  the  Roman  empire.  Yet  there 
stiil  exist  considerable  remains  of  the  earlier  days. 
The  massive  temple  of  Cybebe  still  bears  witness  in 
its  fragmentary  remains  to  the  wealth  and  archi 
tectural  skill  of  the  people  that  raised  it.  Mr. 
Cockerell,  who  visited  it  in  1812,  found  two  columns 
standing  with  their  architrave,  the  stone  of  which 
stretched  in  a  single  block  from  the  centre  of  one  to 
that  of  the  other.  This  stone,  although  it  was  not 
the  largest  of  the  architrave,  he  calculates  must 


SAKDIS 


H4i 


i  have  weighed  25  tons.  The  dia'iieters  of  the  co 
lumns  supporting  it  are  6  feet  4£  inches  at  about 
35  feet  .below  the  capital.  The  present  soil  (appa 
rently  formed  by  the  crumbling  away  of  the  hill 
which  backs  the  temple  on  its  eastern  side)  is  more 
than  25  feet  above  the  pavement.  Such  propor 
tions  are  not  inferior  to  those  of  the  columns  in  the 
Heraeum  at  Samos,  which  divides,  in  the  estimation 
of  Herodotus,  with  the  Artemisium  at  Ephesus,  the 
palm  of  pre-eminence  among  all  the  works  of  Greek 
art.  And  as  regards  the  details,  "  th*e  capitals  ap 
peared,"  to  Mr.  Cockerell,  "  to  surpass  any  specimen 
of  the  Ionic  he  had  seen  in  perfection  of  design  and 
execution."  On  the  north  side  of  the  acropolis, 
overlooking  the  valley  of  the  Hermus,  is  a  theatre 
near  400  teet  in  diameter,  attached  to  a  stadium  of 
about  1000.  This  probably  was  erected  after  the 
restoration  of  Sardis  by  Alexander.  In  the  attack 
of  Sardis  by  Antiochus,  described  by  Polybius  (vii. 
15-18j,  it  constituted  one  of  the  chief  points  on 
which,  after  entering  the  city,  the  assaulting  fore* 


Ruins  of  Sarais. 


was  directed.    The  temple  belongs  to  the  era  of  the  I  desolated  by  an  earthquake,  together  with  eleven,  or 


l.ydian  dynasty,  and  is  nearly  contemporaneous 
with  the  temple  of  Zeus  Panhellenius  in  Aegina, 
and  that  of  Her6  in  Samos.  To  the  same  date  may 
be  assigned  the  "  Valley  of  Sweets  "  (y\viti>s  ay- 
K(av),  a  pleasure  ground,  the  fame  of  which  Poly- 
crates  endeavoured  to  rival  by  the  so-called  Laura 
at  Samos. 

The  modern  name  of  the  ruins  at  Sardis  is  Sert- 
Kalessi.  Travellers  describe  the  appearance  of  the 
locality  on  approaching  it  from  the  N.W.  as  that 
of  complete  solitude.  The  Pactolus  is  a  mere  thread 
of  water,  all  but  evanescent  in  summer  time.  The 
Wadis-tchai  (Hermus),  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
town,  is  between  50  and  60  yards  wide,  and  nearly 
3  feet  deep,  but  its  waters  are  turbid  and  disagree 
able,  and  are  not  only  avoided  as  unfit  for  drinking, 
but  have  the  local  reputation  of  generating  the  fever 
which  is  the  scourge  of  the  neighbouring  plains. 

In  the  time  of  the  emperor  Tiberius,  Sardis  was 


as  Eusebius  says  twelve,  other  important  cities  of 
Asia.  The  whole  face  of  the  country  is  said  to  have 
been  changed  by  this  convulsion.  In  the  case  of 
Sardis  the  calamity  was  increased  by  a  pestilential 
fever  which  followed ;  and  so  much  compassion  was 
in  consequence  excited  for  the  city  at  Rome,  that  its 
tribute  was  remitted  for  five  years,  and  it  received 
a  benefaction  from  the  privy  purse  of  the  emperor. 
This  was  in  the  year  17  A.D.  Nine  years  after 
wards  the  Sardians  are  found  among  the  competitors 
for  the  honour  of  erecting,  as  representatives  ot 
the  Asiatic  cities,  a  temple  to  their  benefactor. 
[SMYRNA.]  On  this  occasion  they  plead,  not  only 
their  ancient  services  to  Rome  in  the  time  of  the 
Macedonian  war,  but  their  well-watered  country, 
their  climate,  and  the  richness  of  the  neighbouring 
soil :  there  is  no  allusion,  however,  to  the  important 
manufactures  and  the  commerce  of  the  early  times 
In  the  time  of  Pliny  it  was  included  in  the  same 


1142 


SARDITES,  THE 


yynvenius  juridicus  with  Philadelphia,  with  the 
Cadueni,  a  Macedonian  colony  in  the  neighbourhood, 
with  some  settlements  of  the  old  Maeonian  popula 
tion,  and  a  few  other  towns  of  less  note.  These 
Maeonians  still  continued  to  call  Sardis  by  its  ancient 
Qame  Hyd6,  which  it  bore  in  the  time  of  Omphale. 

The  only  passage  in  which  Sardis  is  mentioned 
in  the  Bible,  is  Rev.  iii.  1-6.  There  is  nothing 
in  it  which  appears  to  have  any  special  reference 
to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  city,  or  to  any 
thing  else  than  the  moral  and  spiritual  condition  of 
the  Christian  community  existing  there.  This  latter 
was  probably,  in  its  secular  relations,  pretty  nearly 
identical  with  that  at  Philadelphia. 

(Athenaeus  ii.  p.  48,  vi.  p.  231,  xii.  p.  514, 
540  ;  Arrian,  i.  17  ;  Pliny,  N.  H.  v.  29,  xv.  23  ; 
Stephanus  Byz.  v.  "TSij  ;  Pausanias,  iii.  9,  5  ; 
Diodorus  Sic.  xx.  107  ;  Scholiast,  Aristoph.  Pac. 
1174;  Boeckh,  Inscriptiones  Graecae,  Nos.  3451- 
3472  ;  Herodotus,  i.  69,  94,  iii.  48,  viii.  105  ; 
Strabo,  xiii.  §5  ;  Tacitus,  Annal  ii.  47,  iii.  63,  iv.  55  ; 
Cockerell,  in  Leake's  Asia  Minor,  p.  343  ;  Arundell, 
Discoveries  in  Asia  Minor,  i.  pp.  26-28  ;  Tchi- 
hatcheff,  Asie  Mineure,  pp.  232-242.)  [J.  W.  B.] 


SAR'DITES,  THE  OTlDH:  6  SapeSf:  Sa- 

reditae).  The  descendants  of  Sered  the  son  of  Zebulon 
(Num.  xxvi.  26). 

SARDONYX  (<rap56vv£  :  sardonyx}  is  men 
tioned  in  the  N.  T.  once  only,  viz.,  in  Rev.  xxi.  20, 
as  the  stone  which  garnished  the  fifth  foundation  of 
the  wall  of  the  heavenly  J  erusalem  .  "By  sardonyx," 
says  Pliny  (N.  H.  xxxvii.  6),  who  describes  several 
varieties,  "  was  formerly  understood,  as  its  name 
implies,  a  sard  with  a  white  ground  beneath  it, 
like  the  flesh  under  the  finger-nail."  The  sardonyx 
consists  of  "  a  white  opaque  layer,  superimposed 
upon  a  red  transparent  stratum  of  the  true  red 
sard  "  (Antique  Gems,  p.  9)  ;  it  is,  like  the  sard, 
merely  a  variety  of  agate,  and  is  frequently  em 
ployed  by  engravers  for  the  purposes  of  a  signet- 
ring.  [W.  H.] 

SARE'A  (Sarea).  One  of  the  five  scribes  "  ready 
to  write  swiftly  "  whom  Esdras  was  commanded  to 
take  (2  Esd.  xiv.  24). 

SAREP'TA  (Sopeirra:  Sarepta  :  Syriac,  Tsar- 
path).  The  Greek  form  of  the  name  which  in  the 
Hebrew  text  of  the  0.  T.  appears  as  ZAREPHATH. 
The  place  is  designated  by  the  same  formula  on  its 
single  occurrence  in  the  N.  T.  (Luke  iv.  26)  that 
it  is  when  first  mentioned  in  the  LXX.  version  of 
1  K.  xvii.  9,  "  Sarepta  of  Sidonia."  [G.] 

SAR'GON  (  ji3"}p  :  'ApvS  :  Sargon)  was  one 
of  the  greatest  of  the  Assyrian  kings.  His  name  is 
read  in  the  native  insci'iptions  as  Sargina,  while  a 
town  which  he  built  and  called  after  himself  (now 
Khorsabad)  was  known  as  Sarghun  to  the  Arabian 
geographers.  He  is  mentioned  by  name  only  once 
in  Scripture  (Is.  xx.  1),  and  then  not  in  an  historical 
book,  which  formerly  led  historians  and  critics  to 
suspect  that  he  was  not  really  a  king  distinct  from 
those  mentioned  in  Kings  and  Chronicles,  but  rather 
one  of  those  kings  under  another  name.  Vitringa, 
Offerhaus,  Eichhorn,  and  Hupfeld  identified  him 
with  Shalmaneser  ;  Grotius,  Lowth,  and  Keil  with 
Sennacherib  ;  Perizonius,  Kalinsky,  and  Michaelis 


"  There  is  a  peculiarity  of  phraseology  in  2  K.  xviii. 
3,  10,  which  perhaps  Indicates  a  knowledge  on  the  part 
of  the  writer  that  Shalruaneser  was  not  the  actual  captor. 


SARGON 

with  Esarhaddon.  All  these  conjectures  are  now 
shown  to  be  wrong  by  the  Assyrian  inscriptions, 
which  prove  Sargon  to  have  b*m  distinct  and 
different  from  the  several  monarchs  named,  and  fix 
his  place  in  the  list — where  it  had  been  already  as 
signed  by  Rosenmiiller,  Gesenius,  Ewald,  and  Winer 
— between  Shalmaneser  and  Sennacherib.  He  was 
certainly  Sennacherib's  father,  and  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  he  was  his  immediate  predecessor. 
He  ascended  the  throne  of  Assyria,  as  we  gather 
from  his  annals,  in  the  same  year  that  Merodach- 
Baladan  ascended  the  throne  of  Babylon,  which, 
according  to  Ptolemy's  Canon,  was  B.C.  721.  He 
seems  to  have  been  an  usurper,  and  not  of  royal 
birth,  for  in  his  inscriptions  he  carefully  avoids  all 
mention  of  his  father.  It  has  been  conjectured  that 
he  took  advantage  of  Shalmaneser's  absence  at  the 
protracted  siege  of  Samaria  (2  K.  xvii.  5)  to  effect 
a  revolution  at  the  seat  of  government,  by  which 
that  king  was  deposed,  and  he  himself  substituted 
in  his  room.  [SHALMANESER.]  It  is  remarkable 
that  Sargon  claims  the  conquest  of  Samaria,  which 
the  narrative  in  Kings  appears  to  assign  to  hig 
predecessor.  He  places  the  event  in  Tiis  first  year, 
before  any  of  his  other  expeditions.  Perhaps,  there 
fore,  he  is  the  "  king  of  Assyria "  intended  in  2  K. 
xvii.  6  and  xviii.  11,  who  is  not  said  to  be  Shal 
maneser,  though  we  might  naturally  suppose  so  from 
no  other  name  being  mentioned.*  Or  perhaps  he 
claimed  the  conquest  as  his  own,  though  Shalmaneser 
really  accomplished  it,  because  the  capture  of  the 
city  occurred  after  he  had  been  acknowledged  king 
in  the  Assyrian  capital.  At  any  rate,  to  him  belongs 
the  settlement  of  the  Samaritans  (27,280  families, 
according  to  his  own  statement)  in  Halah,  and  on 
the  Habor  (Kkabour),  the  river  of  Gozan,  and  (at 
a  later  period  probably)  in  the  cities  of  the  Medes. 

Sargou  was  undoubtedly  a  great  and  successful 
warrior.  In  his  annals,  which  cover  a  space  of 
fifteen  years  (from  B.C.  721  to  B.C.  706),  he  gives 
an  account  of  his  warlike  expeditions  against  Baby 
lonia  and  Susiana  on  the  south,  Media  on  the  east, 
Armenia  and  Cappadocia  towards  the  north,  Syria, 
Palestine,  Arabia,  and  Egypt  towards  the  west  and 
the  south-west.  In  Babylonia  he  deposed  Merodach- 
Baladan,  and  established  a  viceroy;  in  Media  he 
built  a  number  of  cities,  which  he  peopled  with 
captives  from  other  quarters;  in  Armenia  and  the 
neighbouring  countries  he  gained  many  victories ; 
while  in  the  far  west  he  reduced  Philistia,  penetrated 
deep  into  the  Arabian  peninsula,  and  forced  Egypt 
to  submit  to  his  arms  and  consent  to  the  payment 
of  a  tribute.  In  this  last  direction  he  seems  to 
have  waged  three  wars — one  in  his  second  year 
(B.C.  720),  for  the  possession  of  Gaza ;  another  in 
his  sixth  year  (B.C.  715),  when  Egypt  itself  was 
the  object  of  attack ;  and  a  third  in  his  ninth  (B.C. 
712),  when  the  special  subject  of  contention  was 
Ashdod,  which  Sargon  took  by  one  of  his  generals. 
This  is  the  event  which  causes  the  mention  of  Sar- 
gon's  name  in  Scripture.  Isaiah  was  instructed  at 
the  time  of  this  expedition  to  "  put  off  his  shoe,  and 
go  naked  and  barefoot,"  for  a  sign  that  "  the  king 
of  Assyria  should  lead  away  the  Egyptians  pri 
soners,  and  the  Ethiopians  captives,  young  and  old, 
naked  and  barefoot,  to  the  shame  of  Egypt"  (I*. 
xx.  2-4).  We  may  gather  from  this,  either  thai 
Ethiopians  and  Egyptians  formed  part  of  the  garri- 


"  In  the  fourth  year  of  Hezeklan,"  he  says,  '  Shalmanesw 
king  of  Assyria  came  up  against  Samaria  and  besieged  it 
end  at  the  cud  of  three  years,  THEY  took  it." 


BARID 

aon  of  Ashdod  and  were  captured  with  the  city, 
or  that  the  attack  on  the  Philistine  town  was  ac 
companied  uy  an  invasion  of  Egypt  itself,  which 
was  disastrous  to  the  Egyptians.  The  year  of  the 
attack,  being  B.C.  712,  would  fall  into  the  reign 
of  the  first  Ethiopian  king,  Sabaco  I.,  who  probably- 
conquered  Egypt  in  B.C.  714  (Rawlinson's  Hero 
dotus,  i.  386,  note  7,  2nd  ed.),  and  it  is  in  agree 
ment  with  this  Sargon  speaks  of  Egypt  as  being  at 
this  time  subject  to  Meroe.  Besides  these  expe 
ditions  of  Sargon,  his  monuments  mention  that  he 
took  Tyre,  and  received  tribute  from  the  Greeks  of 
Cyprus,  against  whom  there  is  some  reason  to  think 
that  he  conducted  an  attack  in  person.1* 

It  is  not  as  a  warrior  only  that  Sargon  deserves 
special  mention  among  the  Assyrian  kings.  He  was 
also  the  builder  of  useful  works  and  of  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  of  the  Assyrian  palaces.  He 
relates  that  he  thoroughly  repaired  the  walls  of 
Nineveh,  which  he  seems  to  have  elevated  from  a 
provincial  city  of  some  importance  to  the  first  posi 
tion  in  the  empire  ;  and  adds  further,  that  in  its 
neighbourhood  he  constructed  the  palace  and  town 
which  he  made  his  principal  residence.  This  was 
the  city  now  known  as  "  the  French  Nineveh,"  or 
"  Khorsabad,"  from  which  the  valuable  series  of 
Assyrian  monuments  at  present  in  the  Louvre  is 
derived  almost  entirely.  Traces  of  Sai  gon's  buildings 
have  been  found  also  at  Nimrud  and  Koyuujik  ;  and 
his  time  is  marked  by  a  considerable  advance  in  the 
useful  and  ornamental  arts,  which  seem  to  have 
profited  by  the  connexion  which  he  established  be 
tween  Assyria  and  Egypt.  He  probably  reigned 
nineteen  years,  from  B.C.  721  to  B.C.  702,  when 
he  left  the  throne  to  his  son,  the  celebrated  Sen 
nacherib.  [G.  R.] 

SA'RID  O*t?  : 


S  2eo5oi5«  ;  Alex. 

2ap0t5,  2aptS  :  Sarid}.  A  chief  landmark  of  the 
territory  of  Zebulun,  apparently  the  pivot  of  the 
western  and  southern  boundaries  (Josh.  xix.  10,  12). 
All  that  can  be  gathered  of  its  position  is  that  it 
lay  to  the  west  of  Chisloth-Tabor.  It  was  unknown 
to  Eusebius  and  Jerome,  and  no  trace  of  it  seems  to 
have  been  found  by  any  traveller  since  their  day 
(Onom.  "  Sarith  "). 

The  ancient  Syriac  version,  in  each  case,  reads 
Asdod.  This  may  be  only  from  the  interchange, 
so  frequent  in  this  version,  of  K  and  D.  At  any 
rate,  the  Ashdod  of  the  Philistines  cannot  be  in 
tended.  [G.] 

SA'RON  (rjbv  Zapwva  ;  in  some  MSS.  curtra- 
pcoi/a,  i.  e.  jn&?n  :  Sarona).  The  district  in  which 
Lydda  stood  (Acts  ix.  35  only);  the  SHARON  of 
the  0.  T.  The  absence  of  the  article  from  Lydda, 
and  its  presence  before  Saron,  is  noticeable,  and 
shows  that  the  name  denotes  a  district  —  as  in 
"  The  Shefelah,"  and  in  our  own  "The  Weald," 
"  The  Downs."  [G.] 

SARO'THIE  (2ap«0f  ;    Alex.  Sapwflte:  Ca- 

ronetli).  "  The  sons  of  Sarothie  "  are  among  the 
sons  of  the  servants  of  Solomon  who  returned  with 
Zorobabel,  according  to  the  list  in  1  Esd.  v.  34. 
There  is  nothing  corresponding  to  it  in  the  Hebrew. 

SAR'SECHIM  (D^D-1^:  Sarsachim}.  One 
of  the  generals  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  army  at  the 


SA  TAN 

taking  of  Jerusalem  (Jer.  xxxix.  3).  He  appean 
to  have  held  the  office  of  chief  eunuch,  for  Kab- 
saris  is  probably  :i  title  and  not  a  proper  name. 
In  Jer.  xxxix.  13  Nebushasban  is  called  Rab-saris, 
"  chief  eunuch ,"  and  the  question  arises  whether 
Nebushasban  and  Sarsechim  may  not  be  names  of 
the  same  person.  In  the  LXX.,  verses  3  and  13 
are  mixed  up  together,  and  so  hopelessly  corrupt 
thi.t  it  is  impassible  to  infer  anything  from  their 
reading  of  Uafiov<rdxap  for  Sarsechim.  In  Gosc- 
nius'  Thesaurus  it  is  conjectured  that  Sarsechim 
and  Rab-saris  may  be  identical,  and  both  titles  of 
the  same  office. 

SA'RUCH  (2opot5x :  Sarug).  SERUG  the  son 
ofReu  (Luke  iii.  35). 

SA'TAN.  The  word  itself,  the  Hebrew  |B£>, 
is  simply  an  "adversary,"  and  is  so  used  in  1  Sam. 
xxix.  4 ;  2  Sam.  xix.  22  ;  1  K.  v.  4  (LXX.  eVf- 
jSouAos)  ;  in  1  K.  xi.  25  (LXX.  avriKei/j.fvos}  ;  in 
Num.  xxii.  22,  32,  and  Ps.  cix.  6  (LXX.  5u$£oAo» 
and  cognate  words);  in  1  K.  xi.  14,  23  (LXX. 
(Tardy).  This  original  sense  is  still  found  in  our 
Lord's  application  of  the  name  to  St.  Peter  in  Matt, 
rvi.  23.  It  is  used  as  a  proper  name  or  title  only 
four  times  in  the  0.  T.,  viz.  (with  the  article)  in 
Job  i.  6,  12,  ii.  1,  Zech.  iii.  1,  and  (without  the 
article)  in  1  Chr.  xxi.  1.  In  each  case  the  LXX. 
has  SictjSoAos,  and  the  Vulgate  Satan.  In  the  N.  T. 
the  word  is  (raravas,  followed  by  the  Vulgate 
Satanas,  except  in  2  Cor.  xii.  7,  where  ffarav  is 
used.  It  is  found  in  twenty-five  places  (exclusive 
of  parallel  passages),  and  the  corresponding  word 
6  Sm/JoAos  in  about  the  same  number.  The  title 
6  &px<av  rov  K.6(Tfj.ov  rovrov  is  used  three  times ; 
6  TrovT]p6s  is  used  certainly  six  times,  probably  more 
frequently,  and  6  -n-fipafav  twice. 

It  is  with  the  scriptural  revelation  on  the  subject 
that  we  are  here  concerned,  and  it  is  clear,  from 
this  simple  enumeration  of  passages,  that  it  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  New, rather  than  in  the  Old  Testament. 

It  divides  itself  naturally  into  the  consideration 
of  his  existence,  his  nature,  and  his  power  and 
action. 

(A.)  His  EXISTENCE. — It  would  be  a  waste  o 
time  to  prove,  that,  in  various  degrees  of  clearness, 
the  personal  existence  of  a  Spirit  of  Evil  is  revealed 
again  and  again  in  Scripture.  Every  quality,  every 
action,  which  can  indicate  personality,  is  attributed 
to  him  in  language  which  cannot  be  explained  away. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  see  why  it  should  be  thus  re 
vealed.  It  is  obvious,  that  the  fact  of  his  existence 
is  of  spiritual  importance,  and  it  is  also  clear,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  that  it  could  not  be  discovered, 
although  it  might  be  suspected,  by  human  reason. 
It  is  in  the  power  of  that  reason  to  test  any  sup 
posed  manifestations  of  supernatural  power,  and 
any  asserted  principles  of  Divine  action,  which  fall 
within  its  sphere  of  experience  ("  the  earthly  things" 
of  John  iii.  12)  ;  it  may  by  such  examination  satisfy 
itself  of  the  truth  and  divinity  of  a  Person  or  a 
book;  but,  having  done  this,  it  must  then  accept 
and  understand,  without  being  able  to  test  or  to 
explain,  the  disclosures  of  this  Divine  authority 
upon  subjects  beyond  this  world  (the  "  heavenly 
things,"  of  which  it  is  said  that  none  can  see  or 
disclose  them,  save  the  "Son  of  Man  who  is  in 
Heaven  "). 


The  statue  of  Sargon,  now  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  was    the  expedition  in  person 


found  at  Idalium  in  Cyprus.    It  is  not  very  likely  that  the 
king'b  statue  would  have  been  set  up  unless  he  had  made 


c  This  barbarous  worn  is  obtained  by  joining  to  Sarid 
the  tirst  word  of  the  following  verse,    i\}]}\ 


1144 


SATAN 


It  is  true,  that  human  thought  can  assert  an 
it  priori  probability  01  improbability  in  such  state 
ments  made,  based  on  the  perception  of  a  greater  or 
less  degree  of  accordance  in  principle  between  the 
things  seen  and  the  things  unseen,  between  the 
effects,  which  are  visible,  and  the  causes,  which  are 
revealed  from  the  regions  of  mystery.  But  even 
this  power  of  weighing  probability  is  applicable 
rather  to  the  fact  and  tendency,  than  to  the  method* 
of  supernatural  action.  This  is  true  even  of  natural 
action  beyond  the  sphere  of  human  observation.  In 
the  discussion  of  the  Plurality  of  Worlds,  for  ex- 
.iinple,  it  may  be  asserted  without  doubt,  that  in 
all  the  orbs  of  the  universe  the  Divine  power,  wis 
dom,  and  goodness  must  be  exercised :  but  the  in- 
lerence  that  the  method  of  their  exercise  is  found 
there,  as  here,  in  the  creation  of  sentient  and  rational 
beings,  is  one  at  best  of  but  moderate  probability. 
Still  more  is  this  the  case  in  the  spiritual  world. 
Whatever  supernatural  orders  of  beings  may  exist, 
we  can  conclude  that  in  their  case,  as  in  ours,  the 
Divine  government  must  be  carried  on  by  the  union 
of  individual  freedom  of  action  with  the  overruling 
power  of  God,  and  must  tend  finally  to  that  good 
which  is  His  central  attribute.  But  beyond  this 
we  can  assert  nothing  to  be  certain,  and  can  scarcely 
even  say  of  any  part  of  the  method  of  this  govern 
ment,  whether  it  is  antecedently  probable  or  im 
probable. 

Thus,  on  our  present  subject,  man  can  ascertain 
by  observation  the  existence  of  evil,  that  is,  of  facts 
and  thoughts  contrary  to  the  standard  which  con 
science  asserts  to  be  the  true  one,  bringing  with 
them  suffering  and  misery  as  their  inevitable  results. 
If  he  attempts  to  trace  them  to  their  causes,  he 
finds  them  to  arise,  for  each  individual,  partly  from 
the  power  of  certain  internal  impulses  which  act 
upon  the  will,  partly  from  the  influence  of  external 
circumstances.  These  circumstances  themselves  arise, 
either  from  the  laws  of  nature  and  society,  or  by 
the  deliberate  action  of  other  men.  He  can  con 
clude  with  certainty,  that  both  series  of  causes  must 
exist  by  the  permission  of  God,  and  must  finally  be 
overruled  to  His  will.  But  whether  there  exists 
any  superhuman  but  subordinate  cause  of  the  cir 
cumstances,  and  whether  there  be  any  similar  in 
fluence  acting  in  the  origination  of  the  impulses 
which  move  the  will,  this  is  a  question  which  he 
cannot  answer  with  certainty.  Analogy  from  the 
observation  of  the  only  ultimate  cause  which  he  can 
discover  in  the  visible  world,  viz.  the  free  action  of 
a  personal  will,  may  lead  him,  and  generally  has 
led  him,  to  conjecture  in  the  affirmative,  but  still 
the  inquiry  remains  unanswered  by  authority. 

The  tendency  of  the  mind  in  its  inquiry  is  gene 
rally  towards  one  or  other  of  two  extremes.  The  first 
is  to  consider  evil  as  a  negative  imperfection,  aris 
ing,  in  some  unknown  and  inexplicable  way,  from  the 
nature  of  matter,  or  from  some  disturbing  influences 
which  limit  the  action  of  goodness  on  earth  ;  in 
fact,  to  ignore  as  much  of  evil  as  possible,  and  to 
decline  to  refer  the  residuum  to  any  positive  cause 
at  all.  The  other  is  the  old  Persian  or  Manichaean 
hypothesis,  which  traces  the  existence  of  evil  to  a 
rival  Creator,  not  subordinate  to  the  Creator  of 
Good,  though  perhaps  inferior  to  Him  in  power, 
and  destined  to  be  overcome  by  Him  at  last.  Be- 


See  Wisd.  ii.  24, 


6dva.TO<;  et<r»}X0ev 

ft?  TOV  KOCrfLOV. 

b  For  this  reason,  if  for  no  otner,  it  seems  impossible  to 
iccept  the  interpretation  of  "Azazfl."  given  by  Spencer, 


SATAN 

tween  these -two  extremes  the  mind  vauoil,  through 
many  gradations  of  thought  and  countless  forms  of 
superstition.  Each  hypothesis  had  its  arguments 
of  probability  against  the  other.  The  first  laboured 
under  the  difficulty  of  being  insufficient  as  an 
Account  of  the  anomalous  facts,  and  indeterminate 
in  its  account  of  the  disturbing  causes  ;  the  second 
sinned  against  that  belief  in  the  Unity  of  God  and 
the  natural  supremacy  of  goodness,  which  is  sup 
ported  by  the  deepest  instincts  of  the  heart.  But 
both  were  laid  in  a  sphere  beyond  human  cogni 
zance;  neither  could  be  proved  or  disproved  with 
certainty. 

The  Revelation  of  Scripture,  speaking  with  au 
thority,  meets  the  truth,  and  removes  the  error, 
inherent  in  both  these  hypotheses.  It  asserts  in 
the  strongest  terms  the  perfect  supremacy  of  God, 
so  that  under  His  permission  alone,  and  for  His 
inscrutable  purposes,  evil  is  allowed  to  exist  (see 
for  example  Prov.  xvi.  4;  Is.  xlv.  7;  Arn.iii.  6; 
comp.  Rom.  ix.  22,  23).  It  regards  this  evil  as 
an  anomaly  and  corruption,  to  be  taken  away  by  a 
new  manifestation  of  Divine  Love  in  the  Incarnation 
and  Atonement.  The  conquest  of  it  began  virtually 
in  God's  ordinance  after  the  Fall  itself,  was  effected 
actually  on  the  Cross,  and  shall  be  perfected  in  its 
results  at  the  Judgment  Day.  Still  Scripture  re 
cognises  the  existence  of  evil  in  the  world,  not  only 
as  felt  in  outward  circumstances  ("the  world"), 
and  as  inborn  in  the  soul  of  man  ("  the  flesh  "), 
but  also  as  proceeding  from  the  influence  of  an 
Evil  Spirit,  exercising  that  mysterious  power  of 
free  will,  which  God's  rational  creatures  possess,  to 
rebel  against  Him,  and  to  draw  others  into  the 
same  rebellion  ("  the  devil "). 

In  accordance  with  the  "  economy "  and  pro- 
gressiveness  of  God's  revelation,  the  existence  of 
Satan  is  but  gradually  revealed.  In  the  first  en 
trance  of  evil  into  the  world,  the  temptation  is  re 
ferred  only  to  the  serpent.  It  is  true  that  the 
whole  narrative,  and  especially  the  spiritual  nature 
of  the  temptation  ("  to  be  as  gods"),  which  was 
united  to  the  sensual  motive,  would  force  on  any 
thoughtful  reader8  the  conclusion  that  something 
more  than  a  mere  animal  agency  was  at  work ;  but 
the  time  was  not  then  come  to  reveal,  what  after 
wards  was  revealed,  that  "  he  who  sinneth  is  of 
the  devil"  (1  John  iii.  8),  that  "  the  old  serpent" 
of  Genesis  was  "  called  the  devil  and  Satan,  who 
deceiveth  the  whole  world"  (Rev.  xii.  9,  xx.  23). 

Throughout  the  whole  period  of  the  patriarchal 
and  Jewish  dispensation,  this  vague  and  imperfect 
revelation  of  the  Source  of  Evil  alone  was  given. 
The  Source  of  all  Good  is  set  forth  In  aii  His  su 
preme  and  unapproachable  Majesty ,  evil  is  known 
negatively  as  the  falling  away  from  Him ;  and  the 
"vanity"  of  idols,  rather  than  any  positive  evil 
influence,  is  represented  as  the  opposite  to  His 
reality  and  goodness.  The  Law  gives  the  "  know 
ledge  of  sin"  in  the  soul,  without  referring  to  any 
external  influence  of  evil  to  foster  it ;  it  denounces 
idolatry,  without  even  hinting,  what  the  N.  T. 
declares  plainly,  that  such  evil  implied  a  "  power 
of  Satan."  b 

The  Book  of  Job  stands,  in  any  case,  alone 
(whether  we  refer  it  to  an  early  or  a  later  period) 
on  the  basis  of  "  natural  religion,"  apart  from  the 


Hengstenberg,  and  others,  in  Lev.  xvi.  8,  as  a  reference  to 
the  Spirit  of  Evil.  Such  a  reference  would  not  cnly  stand 
alone,  but  would  be  entirely  inconsistent  with  the  whole 
tenor  of  the  Mosaic  revelation.  See  DAT  UK  ATONEMENT. 


SATAN 

gradual  and  orderly  evolutions  of  the  Mosaic  reve 
lation.  In  it,  for  the  first  time,  we  find  a  distinct 
mention  of  "  Satan,"  "  the  adversary "  of  Job. 
But  it  is  important  to  .remark  the  emphatic  stress 
laid  on  his  subordinate  position,  on  the  absence  of 
all  but  delegated  power,  of  all  terror,  and  all 
grandeur  in  his  character.  He  comes  among  the 
•*  sons  of  God"  to  present  himself  before  the  Lord  ; 
his  malice  and  envy  are  permitted  to  have  scope, 
in  accusation  or  in  action,  only  for  God's  own  pur 
poses  ;  and  it  is  especially  remarkable  that  no  power 
of  spiritual  influence,  but  only  a  power  over  out 
ward  circumstances,  is  attributed  to  him.  All  this 
is  widely  different  from  the  clear  and  terrible  reve 
lations  of  the  N.  T. 

The  Captivity  brought  the  Israelites  face  to  face 
with  the  great  dualism  of  the  Persian  mythology, 
the  conflict  of  Ormuzd  with  Ahriman,  the  co 
ordinate  Spirit  of  Evil.  In  the  books  written 
after  the  Captivity  we  have  again  the  name  of 
'  Satan "  twice  mentioned ;  but  it  is  confessed  by 
all  that  the  Satan  of  Scripture  bears  no  resemblance 
to  the  Persian  Ahriman.  His  subordination  and 
inferiority  are  as  strongly  marked  as  ever.  In 
1  Chr.  xxi.  1 ,  where  the  name  occurs  without  the 
article  ("  an  adversary,**  not  "  the  adversary "), 
the  comparison  with  2  Sam.  xxiv.  1  shows  dis 
tinctly  that,  in  the  temptation  of  David,  Satan's 
malice  was  overruled  to  work  out  the  "  anger  of 
the  Lord "  against  Israel.  In  Zech.  iii.  1,  2, 
"  Satan"  is  6  avriSiKos  (as  in  1  Pet.  v.  8),  the 
:,:ruser  of  Joshua  before  the  throne  of  God,  re- 
fauked  and  put  to  silence  by  Him  (comp.  Ps.  cix.  6). 
In  the  case,  as  of  the  good  angels,  so  also  of  the 
Evil  One,  the  presence  of  fable  and  idolatry  gave 
cause  to  the  manifestation  of  the  truth.  [ANGELS, 
p.  70  a.]  It  would  have  been  impossible  to  guard 
the  Israelites  more  distinctly  from  the  fascination 
of  the  great  dualistic  theory  of  their  conquerors. 

It  is  perhaps  not  difficult  to  conjecture,  that  the 
reason  of  this  reserve  as  to  the  disclosure  of  the  ex 
istence  and  nature  of  Satan  is  to  be  found  in  the  in-  | 
veterate  tendency  of  the  Israelites  to  idolatry,  an 
idolatry  based  as  usual,  in  great  degree,  on  the  sup 
posed  power  of  their  false  gods  to  inflict  evil.  The 
existence  of  evil  spirits  is  suggested  to  them  in  the 
stern  prohibition  and  punishment  of  witchcraft 
(Ex.  xxii.  18;  Dent,  xviii.  10),  and  in  the  narra 
tive  of  the  possession  of  men  by  an  "  evil  "  or 
"  lying  spirit  from  the  Lord"  (1  Sam.  xvi.  14; 
1  K.  xxii.  22) ;  the  tendency  to  seek  their  aid  is 
shown  by  the  rebukes  of  the  prophets  (Is.  viii. 
19,  &c.).  But  this  tendency  would  have  been  in 
creased  tenfold  by  the  revelation  of  the  existence  of 
the  great  enemy,  concentrating  round  himself  all 
the  powers  "of  evil  and  enmity  against  God.  There 
fore,  it  would  seem,  the  revelation  of  the  "  strong 
man  armed "  was  withheld  until  "  the  stronger 
than  he"  should  be  made  manifest. 

For  in  the  New  Test,  this  reserve  suddenly 
vanishes.  In  the  interval  between  the  Old  and 
New  Test,  the  Jewish  mind  had  pondered  on  the 
ccanty  revelations  already  given  of  evil  spiritual 
influence.  But  the  Apocryphal  Books  (as,  for  ex 
ample,  Tobit  and  Judith),  while  dwelling  on 
'"demons"  (8ai/j.6via),  have  no  notice  of  Satan. 
The  same  may  be  observed  of  Josephus.  The  only 
instance  to  the  contrary  is  the  reference  already 
made  to  Wisd.  ii.  24.  'it  is  to  be  noticed  also  that 
the  Targums  often  introduce  the  name  of  Satan 
into  the  descriptions  of  sin  and  temptation  found 
in  the  0.  T. ;  as  for  es:?mple  in  Ex.  xx.v.ii.  19,  in 


SATAN 


1145 


connexion  with  the  worship  of  the  golden  calf 
(comp.  the  tradition  as  to  the  body  of  Moses,  Deut. 
xxxiv.  5,  6  ;  Jude  9,  MICHAEL).  But,  while  a 
mass  of  fable  and  superstition  grew  up  on  the 
general  subject  of  evil  spiritual  influence,  still  the 
existence  and  nature  of  Satan  remained  in  the  back 
ground,  felt,  but  not  understood. 

The.  N.  T.  first  brings  it  plainly  forward.  From 
the  beginning  of  the  Gospel,  when  he  appears  as  the 
personal  tempter  of  our  Lord,  through  all  the 
Gospels,  Epistles,  and  Apocalypse,  it  is  asserted  or 
implied,  again  and  again,  as  a  familiar  and  im 
portant  truth.  To  refer  this  to  mere  "accommo 
dation"  of  the  language  of  the  Lord  and  His 
Apostles  to  the  ordinary  Jewish  belief,  is  to  contra 
dict  facts,  and  evade  the  meaning  of  words.  The 
subject  is  not  one  on  which  error  could  be  tolerated 
as  unimportant ;  but  one  important,  practical,  and 
even  awful.  The  language  used  respecting  it  is 
either  truth  or  falsehood  ;  and  unless  we  impute 
error  or  deceit  to  the  writers  of  the  N.  T.,  we  must 
receive  the  doctrine  of  the  existence  of  Satan  as  a 
certain  doctrine  of  Revelation.  Without  dwelling 
on  other  passages,  the  plain,  solemn,  and  unmeta- 
phorical  words  of  John  viii.  44,  must  be  sufficient: 
"  Ye  are  of  your  father  the  devil.  .  .  .  He  was  a 
murderer  from  the  beginning,  and  abides  (eVrrj/cej') 
not  in  the  truth.  .  .  .  When  he  speaketh  a  lie,  he 
speaketh  of  his  own,  for  he  is  a  liar  and  the  father 
of  it."  On  this  subject,  see  DEMONIACS,  vol.  i. 
p.  425  6. 

(B.)  His  NATURE.— Of  the  nature  and  original 
state  of  Satan,  little  is  revealed  in  Scripture.  Most 
of  the  common  notions  on  the  subject  are  drawn 
from  mere  tradition,  popularized  in  England  by 
Milton,  but  without  even  a  vestige  of  Scriptural 
authority.  He  is  spoken  of  as  a  "  spirit"  in  Eph. 
ii.  2,  as  the  prince  or  ruler  of  the  "demons" 
(8ai/uL6via)  in  Matt.  xii.  24-26,  and  as  having 
"  angels "  subject  to  him  in  Matt.  xxv.  41  ;  Rev. 
xii.  7,  9.  The  whole  description  of  his  power 
implies  spiritual  nature  and  spiritual  influence 
We  conclude  therefore  that  he  was  of  angelic  nature 
[ANGELS],  a  rational  and  spiritual  creature,  super 
human  in  power,  wisdom,*  and  energy ;  and  not 
only  so,  but  an  archangel,  one  of  the  "  princes  "  of 
heaven.  We  cannot,  of  course,  conceive  that  any 
thing  essentially  and  originally  evil  was  created  by 
God.  We  find  by  experience,  that  the  will  of  a  free 
and  rational  creature  can,  by  His  permission,  oppose 
His  will ;  that  the  very  conception  of  freedom 
implies  capacity  of  temptation :  and  that  every 
sin,  unless  arrested  by  God's  fresh  gift  of  grace, 
strengthens  the  hold  of  evil  on  the  spirit,  till  it 
may  fall  into  the  hopeless  state  of  reprobation.  We 
can  only  conjecture,  therefore,  that  Satan  is  a  fallen 
angel,  who  once  had  a  time  of  probation,  but  whose 
condemnation  is  now  irrevocably  fixed. 

But  of  the  time,  cause,  and  manner  of  his  fall, 
Scripture  tells  us  scarcely  anything.  It  limits  its 
disclosures,  as  always,  to  that  which  we  neea  to 
know.  The  passage  on  which  all  the  fabric  of  tra 
dition  and  poetry  has  been  raised  is  Rev.  xii.  7,  9, 
which  speaks  of"  Michael  and  his  angels  "  as  "  fight 
ing  against  the  dragon  and  his  angels,"  till  the 
"great  dragon,  called  the  devil  and  Satan"  was 
"cast  out  into  the  earth,  and  his  angels  cast  out 
with  him."  Whatever  be  the  meaning  of  this  pas- 
sage,  it  is  certain  that  it  cannot  refer  to  the  original 
fall  of  Satan.  The  only  other  passage  which  refers 
to  the  fall  of  the  angels  is  2  Pet.  ii.  4,  "  God  spared 
not  the  angels,  when  they  had  sinned,  but  having 


1146 


SATAN 


east  them  into  hell,  delivered  them  to  chains  of 
darkness  (ffctpais  £6<f>ov  Taprapuxrus  7rape'5w/cev), 
reserved  unto  judgment,"  with  the  parallel  passage 
in  Jude  6,  "  Angels,  who  kept  not  their  first  estate 
(TT/IV  eavroov  apxV).  but  left  their  own  habita 
tion,  he  hath  reserved  in  everlasting  chains  under 
darkness  unto  the  judgment  of  the  Great  Day." 
Here  again  the  passage  is  mysterious  ;c  but  it  seems 
hardly  possible  to  consider  Satan  as  one  of  these ; 
for  they  are  in  chains  and  guarded  (TeTTjpTj/ieVous) 
till  the  Great  Day  ;  he  is  permitted  still  to  go 
about  as  the  Tempter  and  the  Adversary,  until  his 
appointed  time  be  come. 

Setting  these  passages  aside,  we  have  still  to  con 
sider  the  declaration  of  our  Lord  in  Luke  x.  18, 
"  I  beheld  (Mfdpovv)  Satan,  as  lightning,  fall 
fw>m  heaven."  This  may  refer  to  the  fact  of  his 
original  fall  (although  the  use  of  the  imperfect 
tense,  and  the  force  of  the  context,  rather  refer  it 
figuratively  to  the  triumph  of  the  disciples  over  the 
evil  spirits) ;  but,  in  any  case,  it  tells  nothing  of  its 
cause  or  method.  There  is  also  the  passage  already 
quoted  (John  viii.  44),  in  which  our  Lord  declares 
of  him,  that  "he  was  a  murderer  from  the  be 
ginning,"  that  "he  stands  not  (cVrrj/ce)  in  the 
truth,  because  there  is  no  truth  in  him,"  "  that  he 
is  a  liar  and  the  father  of  it."  But  here  it  seems 
likely  the  words  air'  apxys  refer  to  the  beginning 
of  his  action  upon  man;  perhaps  the  allusion  is 
to  his  temptation  of  Cain  to  be  the  first  murderer, 
an  allusion  explicitly  made  in  a  similar  passage  in 
1  John  iii.  9-12.  The  word  etrrijice  (wrongly  ren 
dered  "abode"  in  A.  V.),and  the  rest  of  the  verse, 
refer  to  present  time.  The  passage  therefore  throws 
little  or  no  light  on  the  cause  and  method  of  his  fall. 
Perhaps  the  only  one,  which  has  any  value,  is 
1  Tim.  iii.  6,  "  lest  being  lifted  up  by  pride  he  fall 
into  the  condemnation"  (itpip.a)  "of  the  devil."  It 
is  concluded  from  this,  that  pride  was  the  cause  of 
the  devil's  condemnation.  The  inference  is  a  pro 
bable  one  ;  it  is  strengthened  by  the  only  analogy 
within  our  reach,  that  of  the  fall  of  man,  in  which 
the  spiritual  temptation  of  pride,  the  desire  "  to  be 
as  gods,"  was  the  subtlest  and  most  deadly  temp 
tation.  Still  it  is  but  an  inference ;  it  cannot  be 
regarded  as  a  matter  of  certain  Revelation. 

But,  while  these  points  are  passed  by  almost  in 
silence  (a  silence  which  rebukes  the  irreverent 
exercise  of  imagination  on  the  subject),  Scripture 
describes  to  us  distinctly  the  moral  nature  of  the 
Evil  One.  This  is  no  matter  of  barren  speculation 
to  those,  who  by  yielding  to  evil  may  become  the 
"  children  of  Satan,"  instead  of  "children  of  God." 
The  ideal  of  goodness  is  made  up  of  the  three  great 
moral  attributes  of  God,  Love,  Truth,  and  Purity 
or  Holiness ;  combined  with  that  spirit,  which  is  the 
natural  temper  of  a  finite  and  dependent  creature, 
the  spirit  of  Faith.  We  find,  accordingly,  that  the 
opposites  to  these  qualities  are  dwelt  upon  as  the 
characteristics  of  the  devil.  In  John  viii.  44,  com 
pared  with  1  John  iii.  10-15,  we  have  hatred  and 
falsehood ;  in  the  constant  mention  of  the  "  un 
clean  "  spirits,  of  which  he  is  the  chief,  we  find  im 
purity  ;  from  1  Tim.  iii.  6,  and  the  narrative  of  the 
Temptation,  we  trace  the  spirit  of  pride.  These 


SATAN 

to  spread  corruption,  and  with  it  eternal  death,  wiJ 
we  have  the  portraiture  of  the  Spirit  of  Evil  at 
Scripture  has  drawn  it  plainly  before  our  eyes. 

(C.)  HIS  POWER  AND  ACTION. — Both  these 
points,  being  intimately  connected  with  our  own 
life  and  salvation,  are  treated  with  a  distinctness  and 
fulness  remarkably  contrasted  with  the  obscurity 
of  the  previous  subject. 

The  power  of  Satan  over  the  soul  is  represented 
as  exercised,  either  directly,  or  by  his  instruments. 
His  direct  influence  over  the  soul  is  simply  that  oi 
a  powerful  and  evil  nature  on  those,  in  whom  lurks 
the  germ  of  the  same  evil,  differing  from  the  in 
fluence  exercised  by  a  wicked  man,  in  degree  rathei 
than  in  kind ;  but  it  has  the  power  of  acting  by 
suggestion  of  thoughts,  without  the  medium  ol 
actions  or  words — a  power  which  is  only  in  very 
slight  degi^ee  exercised  by  men  upon  each  other. 
This  influence  is  spoken  of  in  Scripture  in  the 
strongest  terms,  as  a  real  external  influence,  corre 
lative  to,  but  not  to  be  confounded  with,  the 
existence  of  evil  within.  In  the  parable  of  the 
sower  (Matt.  xiii.  19),  it  is  represented  as  a  ne 
gative  influence,  taking  away  the  action  of  the 
Word  of  God  for  good ;  in  that  of  the  wheat  and 
the  tares  (Matt.  xiii.  39),  as  a  positive  influence  for 
evil,  introducing  wickedness  into  the  world.  St. 
Paul  does  not  hesitate  to  represent  it  as  a  power, 
permitted  to  dispute  the  world  with  the  power  ot 
God ;  for  he  declares  to  Agrippa  that  his  mission 
was  "  to  turn  men  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from 
the  power  (e|ou(r/as)  of  Satan  unto  God,"  and  re 
presents  the  excommunication,  which  cuts  men  off 
from  the  grace  of  Christ  in  His  Church,  as  a  "de 
liverance  of  them  unto  Satan  "  (1  Cor.  v.  5 ;  1  Tim. 
i.  20).  The  same  truth  is  conveyed,  though  in  a 
bolder  and  more  startling  form,  in  the  Epistles  to 
the  Churches  of  the  Apocalypse,  where  the  body  ot 
the  unbelieving  Jews  is  called  a  "  synagogue  ol 
Satan  "  (Rev.  ii.  9,  iii.  9),  where  the  secrets  of  false 
doctrine  are  called  «  the  depths  of  Satan"  (ii.  24), 
and  the  "throne"  and  "habitation"  of  Satan  are 
said  to  be  set  up  in  opposition  to  the  Church  ot 
Christ.  Another  and  even  more  remarkable  expres 
sion  of  the  same  idea  is  found  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  where  the  death  of  Christ  is  spoken  of  as 
intended  to  baffle  (Karapyeiv)  "  him,  that  hath  the 
power  (rb  Kpdros}  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil ;" 
for  death  is  evidently  regarded  as  the  "  wages  ol 
sin,"  and  the  power  of  death  as  inseparable  from 
the  power  of  corruption.  Nor  is  this  truth  only 
expressed  directly  and  formally ;  it  meets  us  again 
and  again  in  passages  simply  practical,  taken  for 
granted,  as  already  familiar  (see  Rom.  xvi.  20; 
2  Cor.  ii.  11 ;  1  Thess.  ii.  18 ;  2  Thess.  ii.  9  ; 
1  Tim.'  v.  15).  The  Bible  does  not  shrink  from 
putting  the  fact  of  Satanic  influence  over  the  soul 
before  us,  in  plain  and  terrible  certainty. 

Yet  at  the  same  time,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that 
its  language  is  very  far  from  countenancing,  even 
for  a  moment,  the  horrors  of  the  Manichaean  theory. 
The  influence  of  Satan  is  always  spoken  of  as  tern  • 
porary  and  limited,  subordinated  to  the  Divine 
counsel,  and  broken  by  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God. 
It  is  brought  out  visibly,  in  the  form  of  possession, 


are  especially  the  "  sins  of  the  devil ;"  in  them  we  I  in  the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord,  only  in  order  that 
trace  the  essence  of  moral  evil,  and  the  features  of    it  may  give  the  opportunity  of  His  triumph.     As 
the  reprobate  mind.     Add  to  this  a  spirit  of  rest 
less  activity,  a  power  of  craft,  and  an  intense  desire 


e  It  Is  referred  by  some  to  Gen.  vi.  2,  where  many  MSS. 
of  the  LXX,  have  ayyeAot  ©eoO  for  "  sons  of  God }" 


for  Himself,  so  for  His  redeemed   ones,  it  is  true, 
that  "  God   shall   bruise    Satan   under  their   feet 


especially  because  2  Pet.  iii.  5,  relating  to  the  FkxxJ 
seeuis  closely  connected  with  tLat  passage. 


SATAN 

shortly "  (Rom.  xvi.  20 ;  comp.  Gen.  iii.  15). 
Nor  is  this  all,  for  the  history  of  the  Book  of  Job 
shows  plainly,  what  is  elsewhere  constantly  implied, 
that  Satanic  influence  is  permitted,  in  order  to  be 
overruled  to  good,  to  teach  humility,  and  therefore 
faith.  The  mystery  of  the  existence  of  evil  is  left 
unexplained ;  but  its  present  subordination  and  future 
extinction  are  familiar  truths.  So  accordingly,  on 
the  other  hand,  his  power  is  spoken  of,  as  capable 
of  being  resisted  by  the  will  of  man,  when  aided 
by  the  grace  of  God.  "  Resist  the  devil,  and  he 
will  flee  from  you,"  is  the  constant  language  of 
Scripture  (Jam.  iv.  7).  It  is  indeed  a  power,  to 
which  "  place "  or  opportunity  "  is  given,"  only 
by  the  consent  of  man's  will  (Eph.  iv.  27).  It  is 
probably  to  be  traced  most  distinctly  in  the  power 
of  evil  habit,  a  power  real,  but  not  irresistible, 
created  by  previous  sin,  and  by  every  successive  act 
of  sin  riveted  more  closely  upon  the  soul.  It  is  a 
power  which  cannot  act  directly  and  openly,  but 
needs  craft  and  dissimulation,  in  order  to  get  ad 
vantage  over  man  by  entangling  the  will.  The 
"wiles"  (Eph.  vi.  11),  the  "devices"  (2  Cor.  ii. 
11),  the  "snare"  (1  Tim.  iii.  7,  vi.  9;  2  Tim.  ii. 
26)  "  of  the  devil,"  are  expressions  which  indicate 
the  indirect  and  unnatural  character  of  the  power 
of  evil.  It  is  therefore  urged  as  a  reason  for  "  so* 
berness  and  vigilance"  (1  Pet.  v.  8),  for  the  careful 
use  of  the  "  whole  armour  of  God"  (Eph.  vi.  10- 
17)  ;  but  it  is  never  allowed  to  obscure  the  supre 
macy  of  God's  grace,  or  to  disturb  the  inner  peace 
of  the  Christian.  "  He  that  is  born  of  God,  keepeth 
himself,  and  the  wicked  one  toucheth  him  not" 
(1  John  v.  18). 

Besides  his  own  direct  influence,  the  Scripture 
discloses  to  us  the  fact  that  Satan  is  the  leader  of  a 
host  of  evil  spirits  or  angels  who  share  his  evil 
work,  and  for  whom  the  "  everlasting  fire  is  pre 
pared"  (Matt.  xxv.  41).  Of  their  origin  and  fall 
we  know  no  more  than  of  his,  for  they  cannot  be 
the  same  as  the  fallen  and  imprisoned  angels  o( 
2  Pet.  ii.  4,  and  Jude  6  ;  but  one  passage  (Matt, 
xii.  24-26)  identifies  them  distinctly  with  the 
Sai/ji.6via  (A.  V.  "  devils " d)  who  had  power  to 
possess  the  souls  of  men.  The  Jews  there  speak 
of  a  Beelzebub  (Bee\^ftov\),  "  a  prince  of  the 
demons,"  whom  they  identify  with,  or  symbolise 
by,  the  idol  of  Ekron,  the  "  god  of  flies "  [see 
BEELZEBUB],  and  by  whose  power  they  accuse  our 
Lord  of  casting  out  demons.  His  answer  is,  "  How 
can  Satan  cast  out  Satan  ?  "  The  inference  is  clear 
that  Satan  is  Beelzebub,  and  therefore  the  demons 
are  "  the  angels  of  the  devil ;"  and  this  inference  is 
strengthened  by  Acts  x.  38,  in  which  St.  Peter 
describes  the  possessed  as  KaTaSvvao'Tfvofj.evovs 
M  TOV  Aict/Bo'Aot/,  and  by  Luke  x.  18,  in  which 
the  mastery  over  the  demons  is  connected  by  our 
Lord  with  the  "  fell  of  Satan  from  heaven,"  and 
their  power  included  by  Him  in  the  "  power  of  the 
enemy  "  (TOV  *x6p°v  >  comp.  Matt.  xiii.  39).  For 
their  nature,  see  DEMONS.  They  are  mostly  spoken 
of  in  Scripture  in  reference  to  possession ;  but  in 
Eph.  vi.  12  they  are  described  in  various  lights,  as 
"principalities"  (apxai\  "powers"  (e£ovffiai), 
"  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world,"  and 
"  spiritual  powers  of  wickedness  in  heavenly  places" 

d  It  is  unfortunate  that  the  A.  V.  should  use  the  word 
44  devil."  not  only  for  its  proper  equivalent  SidjSoAos,  but 
also  for  Sai/aoi/toi/. 

e  The  word  Koir/oto?,  properly  referring  to  the  system  of 
tbc  universe,  and  so  used  in  John  i.  10.  is  generally  applied 
in  Scripture  U  human  society  as  alienated  from  God,  with 


SATAN 


1147 


(or  "  thingi ")  (TO  Tn/ev/taTi/ca  rr)s  irovrjpias  «f 
TO?S  fTrovpaviois) ;  and  in  ill  as  '»  wrestling " 
against  the  soul  of  man.  The  same  reference  ie 
made  less  explicitly  in  Rom.  viii.  38,  and  Col.  ii. 
15.  In  Rev.  xii.  7-9  they  are  spoken  of  as  fight 
ing  with  "  the  dragon,  the  old  serpent  called  the 
devil  and  Satan,"  against  "  Michael  and  his  angels," 
and  as  cast  out  of  heaven  with  their  chief.  Taking 
all  these  passages  together,  we  find  them  sharing  the 
enmity  to  God  and  man  implied  in  the  name  and 
nature  of  Satan ;  but  their  power  and  action  are 
but  little  dwelt  upon  in  comparison  with  his.  That 
there  is  against  us  a  power  of  spiritual  wickedness 
is  a  truth  which  we  need  to  know,  and  a  mystery 
which  only  Revelation  can  disclose ;  but  whether  it 
is  exercised  by  few  or  by  many  is  a  matter  of  com 
parative  indifference. 

But  the  Evil  One  is  not  only  the  "  prince  of  the 
demons,"  but  also  he  is  called  the  "  prince  of  this 
world  "  (5  &P-X&V  TOV  /coVyuou  TOVTOV}  in  John  xii. 
31,  xiv.  30,  xvi.  11,  and  even  the  "god  of  this 
world"  (6  0ebs  TOV  aluvos  TOVTOV)  in  2  Cor.  iv. 
4 ;  the  two  expressions  being  united  in  the  words 
TOVS  Koo~fjLOKpd,Topas  TOV  o'KoVoys  TOV  cuwvor 
TOVTOV,  used  in  Eph.  vi.  12."  This  power  he 
claimed  for  himself,  as  a  delegated  authority,  in 
the  temptation  of  our  Lord  (Luke  iv.  6);  and  the 
temptation  would  have  been  unreal,  had  he  spoken 
altogether  falsely.  It  implies  another  kind  of  in 
direct  influence  exercised  through  earthly  instru 
ments.  There  are  some  indications  in  Scripture  of 
the  exercise  of  this  power  through  inanimate  in 
struments,  of  an  influence  over  the  powers  of 
nature,  and  what  men  call  the  "  chances"  of  life. 
Such  a  power  is  distinctly  asserted  in  the  case  of 
Job,  and  probably  implied  in  the  case  of  the  woman 
with  a  spirit  of  infirmity  (in  Luke  xiii.  16),  and  of 
St.  Paul's  "  thorn  in  the  flesh  "  (2  Cor.  xii.  7). 
It  is  only  consistent  with  the  attribution  of  such 
action  to  the  angels  of  God  (as  ia  Ex.  xii.  23 ;  2 
Sam.  xxiv.  16 ;  2  K.  xix.  35;  Acts  xii.  23) ;  and, 
in  our  ignorance  of  the  method  of  connexion  of  the 
second  causes  of  nature  with  the  Supreme  Will  of 
God,  we  cannot  even  say  whether  it  has  in  it  any 
antecedent  improbability^  but  it  is  little  dwelt 
upon  in  Scripture,  in  comparison  with  the  other 
exercise  of  this  power  through  the  hands  of  wicked 
men,  who  become  "  children  of  the  devii,"  and 
accordingly  "  do  the  lusts  of  their  father."  (See 
John  viii.  44;  Acts  xiii.  10;  1  John  iii.  8-10; 
and  comp.  John  vi.  70.)  In  this  sense  the  Scrip 
ture  regards  all  sins  as  the  "  works  of  the  devil," 
and  traces  to  him,  through  his  ministers,  all 
spiritual  evil  and  error  (2  Cor.  xi.  14,  15),  and  all 
the  persecution  and  hindrances  which  oppose  the 
Gospel  (Rev.  ii.  10 ;  1  Thess.  ii.  18).  Most  of  all 
is  this  indirect  action  of  Satan  manifested  in  those 
who  deliberately  mis'ead  and  tempt  men,  and  who 
at  last,  independent  of  any  interest  of  their  own, 
come  to  take  an  unnatural  pleasure  in  the  sight  of 
evil-doing  in  others  (Rom.  i.  32). 

The  method  of  his  action  is  best  discerned  by  an 
examination  ot  the  title,  by  which  he  is  designated 
in  Scripture.  He  is  called  emphatically  6  SidfioXos, 
"  the  devil."  The  derivation  of  the  word  in  itself 
implies  only  the  endeavour  to  break  the  bonds  be- 


a  reference  to  the  "  pomp  and  vanity  "  which  makes  it  an 
idol  (see,  e.  g.,  1  John  ii.  15)  ;  altav  refers  to  its  transitory 
character,  and  is  evidently  used  above  to  qualify  the 
startling  application  of  the  word  0e6s,  a  "  god  of  an  age  *' 
being  of  course  no  true  God  at  all.  It  is  used  with  Koa^iot 
iu  Eph.  ii.  2. 


1148 


SATAN 


tween  others,  and  "  set  them  at  variance "  (see, 
e.  </.,  Plat.  Symp.  p.  L'22  c  :  5ia/SaAAe»>  e>e  KOI 
' AydQcova) ;  but  common  usage  adds  to  this  general 
sense  the  special  idea  of  "setting  at  variance  by 
flander"  In  the  N.  T.  the  word  SidftoXoi  is 
used  three  times  as  an  epithet  (1  Tim.  iii.  11; 
2  Tim.  iii.  3  ;  Tit.  ii.  3) ;  and  in  each  case  with 
•fomething  like  the  special  meaning.  In  the  appli 
cation  of  the  title  to  Satan,  both  the  general  and 
special  senses  should  be  kept  in  view.  His  general 
object  is  to  break  the  bonds  of  communion  between 
God  and  man,  and  the  bonds  of  truth  and  love 
which  bind  men  to  each  other,  to  "  set "  each  soul 
"at  variance"  both  with  men  and  God,  and  so 
reduce  it  to  that  state  of  self-will  and  selfishness 
which  is  the  seed-plot  of  sin.  One  special  means,  by 
which  he  seeks  to  do  this,  is  slander  of  God  to  man, 
and  of  man  to  God. 

The  slander  of  God  to  man  is  seen  best  in  the 
words  of  Gen.  iii.  4,  5:  "  Ye  shall  not  surely  die: 
for  God  doth  know,  that  in  the  day  that  ye  eat 
thereof,  your  eyes  shall  be  opened,  and  ye  shall  be 
as  gods,  knowing  good  and  evil.'*  These  words 
contain  the  germ  of  the  false  notions,  which  keep 
men  from  God,  or  reduce  their  service  to  Him  to  a 
hard  and  compulsory  slavery,  and  which  the  hea 
then  so  often  adopted  in  all  their  hideousness,  when 
they  represented  their  gods  as  either  careless  of 
numan  weal  and  woe,  or  "  envious "  of  human  ex 
cellence  and  happiness.  They  attribute  selfishness 
and  jealousy  to  the  Giver  of  all  good.  This  is 
enough  (even  without  the  imputation  of  falsehood 
which  is  added)  to  pervert  man's  natural  love  of 
freedom,  till  it  rebels  against  that,  which  is  made  to 
appear  as  a  hard  and  arbitrary  tyranny,  and  seeks 
to  set  up,  as  it  thinks,  a  freer  and  nobler  standard 
of  its  own.  Such  is  the  slander  of  God  to  man,  by 
which  Satan  and  his  agents  still  strive  against  His 
reuniting  grace. 

The  slander  of  man  to  God  is  illustrated  by  the 
Book  of  Job  (Job  i.  9-11,  ii.  4,  5).  In  reference 
to  it,  Satan  is  called  the  "  adversary  "  (avrloiKos) 
of  mau  in  1  Pet.  v.  8,  and  represented  in  that  cha 
racter  in  Zech.  iii.  1,  2 ;  and  more  plainly  still  de 
signated  in  Rev.  xii.  10,  as  "  the  accuser  of  our 
brethren,  who  accused  them  before  our  God  day 
and  night."  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  understand 
what  can  be  the  need  of  accusation,  or  the  power  of 
slander,  under  the  all-searching  eye  of  God.  The 
mention  of  it  is  clearly  an  "accommodation"  of 
God's  judgment  to  the  analogy  of  our  human  expe 
rience:  but  we  understand  by  it  a  practical  and 
awful  truth,  that  every  sin  of  life,  and  even  the 
admixture  of  lower  and  evil  motives  which  taints 
the  best  actions  of  man,  will  rise  up  against  us  at 
the  judgment,  to  claim  the  soul  as  their  own,  and 
rix  for  ever  that  separation  from  God,  to  which, 
through  them,  we  have  yielded  ourselves.  In  that 
accusation  Satan  shall  in  some  way  bear  a  leading 
part,  pleading  against  man.  with  that  worst  of 
slander  which  is  based  on  perverted  or  isolated 
facts  ;  and  shall  be  overcome,  not  by  any  counter 
claim  of  human  merit,  but  "  by  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb  "  received  in  true  and  stedfast  faith. 

But  these  points,  important  as  they  are,  are  of 
less  moment  than  the  disclosure  of  the  method  of 
Satanic  action  upon  the  heart  itself.  It  may  be 
summed  up  in  two  words — Temptation  and  Pos- 


1  Sec  the  connexion  between  faith  and  love  by  which 
it  is  made  perfect  (evepyovufiv))  in  Gal.  v.  6,  and  between 


SATAN 

The  subject  of  temptation  is  illustrated,  not  on])1 
by  abstract  statements,  but  also  by  the  ra»rd 
of  the  temptations  of  Adam  and  of  our  Lord.  It 
is  expressly  laid  down  (as  in  Jam.  i.  2-4)  that 
"  temptation,"  properly  so  called,  i.  e.  "  trial '"' 
(Tretpuoyioj),  is  essential  to  man,  and  is  accord 
ingly  ordained  for  him  and  sent  to  him  by  God 
(as  in  Gen.  xxii.  1).  Man's  nature  is  progressive; 
his  faculties,  which  exist  at  first  only  in  capacity 
(Suj/cfytet),  must  be  brought  out  to  exist  in  actual 
efficiency  (ei/epyeio)  by  free  exercise.'  His  appe 
tites  and  passions  tend  to  their  objects,  simply  and 
unreservedly,  without  respect  to  the  rightness  or 
wrongness  of  their  obtaining  them  ;  they  need  to  be 
checked  by  the  reason  and  conscience,  and  this 
need  constitutes  a  trial,  in  which,  if  the  conscience 
prevail,  the  spirit  receives  strength  and  growth  ;  if 
it  be  overcome,  the  lower  nature  tends  to  predomi 
nate,  and  the  man  has  fallen  away.  Besides  this, 
the  will  itself  delights  in  independence  of  action. 
Such  independence  of  physical  compulsion  is  its  high 
privilege ;  but  there  is  over  it  the  Moral  Power  of 
God's  Law,  which,  by  the  very  fact  of  its  truth  and 
goodness,  acknowledged  as  they  are  by  the  reason 
and  the  conscience,  should  regulate  the  human  will. 
The  need  of  giving  up  the  individual  will,  freely 
and  by  conviction,  so  as  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 
will  of  God,  is  a  still  severer  trial,  with  the  reward 
of  still  greater  spiritual  progress,  if  we  sustain  it, 
with  the  punishment  of  a  subtler  and  more  dan 
gerous  fall,  if  we  succumb.  In  its  struggle  the 
spirit  of  man  can  only  gam  and  sustain  its  authority 
by  that  constant  grace  of  God,  given  through  com 
munion  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  is  the  breath 
of  spiritual  life. 

It  is  this  tentability  of  man,  even  in  his  original 
nature,  which  is  represented  in  Scripture  as  giving 
scope  to  the  evil  action  of  Satan.  He  is  called  the 
"tempter"  (as  in  Matt.  iv.  3;  1  Thess.  iii.  5). 
He  has  power  (as  the  record  of  Gen.  iii.  shows 
clearly),  first,  to  present  to  the  appetites  or  passions 
their  objects  in  vivid  and  captivating  forms,  so  as 
to  induce  man  to  seek  these  objects  against  the  Law 
of  God  "  written  in  the  heart ;"  and  next,  to  act 
upon  the  false  desire  of  the  will  for  independence, 
the  desire  "  to  be  as  gods,  knowing  "  (that  is,  prac 
tically,  judging  and  determining)  <'  good  and  evil." 
It  is  a  power  which  can  be  resisted,  because  it  is 
under  the  control  and  overruling  power  of  God,  as 
is  emphatically  laid  down  in  1  Cor.  x.  13 ;  Jam.  iv. 
7,  &c.  ;  but  it  can  be  so  resisted  only  by  yielding 
to  the  grace  of  God,  and  by  a  struggle  (sometimes 
an  "  agony")  in  reliance  on  its  strength. 

It  is  exercised  both  negatively  and  positively. 
Its  negative  exercise  is  referred  to  in  the  parabl0  o; 
the  sower,  as  taking  away  the  word,  the  "  engrafted 
word"  (James  i.  21)  of  grace,  i.  e.  as  interposing 
itself,  by  consent  of  man,  between  him  and  the 
channels  of  God's  grace.  Its  positive  exercise  is  set 
forth  in  the  parable  of  the  wheat  and  the  tares, 
represented  as  sowing  actual  seed  of  evij  in  the  in 
dividual  heart  or  the  world  generally  ;  *nd  it  is  to 
be  noticed,  that  the  consideration  of  the  true  nature 
of  the  tares  (£i£ai/ia)  leads  to  the  conclusion,  which 
is  declared  plainly  in  2  Cor.  xi.  14,  viz.  that  evil  is 
introduced  into  the  heart  mostly  as  the  counterfeit 
of  good. 

This  exercise  of  the  Tempter's  power  is  possible, 
even  against  a  sinless  nature.  We  see  this  in  tha 


faith  and  tho  works  by  which  it  is  perfected  (TtXetovT«u) 
in  Jam.  il.  1C 


SATAN 

of  our  Lord.  The  temptations  pre 
sented  to  Him  appeal,  first  to  the  natural  desire 
and  need  of  food,  next  to  the  desire  of  power,  to 
be  used  for  good,  which  is  inherent  in  the  noblest 
minds;  and  lastly,  to  the  desire  of  testing  and 
realizing  God's  special  protection,  which  is  the  in 
evitable  tendency  of  human  weakness,  under  a  real 
but  imperfect  faith.  The  objects  contemplated  in 
volved  in  no  case  positive  sinfulness ;  the  temptation 
was  to  seek  them  by  presumptuous  or  by  unholy 
means;  the  answer  to  them  (given  by  the  Lord  as 
the  Son  of  Man,  and  therefore  as  one  like  ourselves 
in  all  the  weakness  and  finiteness  of  our  nature) 
lay  in  simple  Faith,  resting  upon  God,  and  on  His 
Word,  keeping  to  His  way,  and  refusing  to  con 
template  the  issues  of  action,  which  belong  to  Him 
alone.  Such  faith  is  a  renunciation  of  all  self- 
confidence,  and  a  simple  dependence  on  the  will  and 
on  the  grace  of  God. 

But  in  the  temptation  of  a  fallen  nature  Satan 
has  a  greater  power.  Every  sin  committed  makes 
a  man  the  "  servant  of  sin  "  for  the  future  (John 
viii.  34;  Rom.  vi.  16);  it  therefore  creates  in  the 
spirit  of  man  a  positive  tendency  to  evil,  which 
sympathizes  with,  and  aids,  the  temptation  of  the 
Evil  One.  This  is  a  fact  recognized  by  experience ; 
the  doctrine  of  Scripture,  inscrutably  mysterious, 
but  unmistakeably  declared,  is  that,  since  the  Fall, 
this  evil  tendency  is  born  in  man  in  capacity,  prior 
to  all  actual  sins,  and  capable  of  being  brought  out 
into  active  existence  by  such  actual  sins  committed. 
It  is  this  which  St.  Paul  calls  "  a  law,"  i.  e.  (ac 
cording  to  his  universal  use  of  the  word)  an  external 
power  "  of  sin"  over  man,  bringing  the  inner  man 
(the  vovs)  into  captivity  (Rom.  vii.  14-24).  Its 
power  is  broken  by  the  Atonement  and  the  gift  of 
the  Spirit,  but  yet  not  completely  cast  out ;  it  still 
"  lusts  against  the  spirit"  so  that  men  "  cannot  do 
the  things,  which  they  would  "  (Gal.  v.  17).  It  is 
to  this  spiritual  power  of  evil,  the  tendency  to  false 
hood,  cruelty,  pride,  and  unbelief,  independently  of 
any  benefits  to  be  derived  from  them,  that  Satan  is 
said  to  appeal  in  tempting  us.  If  his  temptations 
be  yielded  to  without  repentance,  it  becomes  the 
reprobate  (aS6Ki/j.os)  mind,  which  delights  in  evil 
for  its  own  sake  (Rom.  i.  28,  32)  and  makes  men 
emphaticr.lly  "children  of  the  devil"  (John  viii. 
44;  Acts  xiii.  10;  1  John  iii.  8,  10),  and  "ac 
cursed"  (Matt.  xxv.  41),  fit  for  "the  fire  pre 
pared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels."  If  they  be 
resisted,  as  by  God's  grace  they  may  be  resisted, 
then  the  evil  power  (the  "flesh"  or  the  "old 
man")  is  gradually  "crucified"  or  "mortified," 
until  the  soul  is  prepared  for  that  heaven,  where 
no  evil  can  enter. 

This  twofold  power  of  temptation  is  frequently 
referred  to  in  Scripture,  as  exercised,  chiefly  by  the 
suggestion  of  evil  thoughts,  but  occasionally  by  the 
delegated  power  of  Satan  over  outward  circum 
stances.  To  this  latter  power  is  to  be  traced 
(as  has  been  said)  the  trial  of  Job  by  temporal  loss 
snd  bodily  suffering  (Job  i.,  ii.),  the  remarkable 
expression,  used  by  our  Lord,  as  to  the  woman  with 
a  "spirit  of  infirmity"  (Luke  xiii.  16),  the  "thorn 
in  the  flesh,"  which  St.  Paul  calls  the  "messenger 
of  Satan  "  to  buffet  him  (2  Cor.  xii.  7).  Its  lan 
guage  is  plain,  incapable  of  being  explained  as  me 
taphor,  or  poetical  personification  of  an  abstract 
principle.  Its  general  statements  are  illustrated 
by  examples  of  temptation.  (See,  besides  those  already 
mentioned,  Luke  xxii.  5;  John  xxiii.  27  (Judas); 
Luke  xxii.  31  (Peter} ;  Acts  v.  3  (Ananias  «j;d 


SATYRS 


1149 


Sapphira);  ICor.  vii.  5;  2  Cor.  ii.  11  ;  1  fhess. 
iii.  5.)  The  subject  itself  is  the  most  startling  form 
of  the  mystery  of  evil ;  it  is  one,  on  which,  from 
our  ignorance  of  the  connexion  of  the  First  Causa 
with  Second  Causes  in  Nature,  and  of  the  process 
of  origination  of  human  thought,  experience  can 
hardly  be  held  to  be  competent,  either  to  confirm, 
or  to  oppose,  the  testimony  of  Scripture. 

On  the  subject  of  Possession  see  DEMONIACS.  It 
is  sufficient  here  to  remark,  that  although  widely 
different  in  form,  yet  it  is  of  the  same  intrinsic  cha 
racter  as  the  other  power  of  Satan,  including  both 
that  external  and  internal  influence  to  which  refer 
ence  has  been  made  above.  It  is  disclosed  to  us 
only  in  connexion  with  the  revelation  of  that 
redemption  from  sin,  which  destroys  it, — a  reve 
lation  begun  in  the  first  promise  in  Eden,  and 
manifested,  in  itself  at  the  Atonement,  in  its  effects 
at  the  Great  Day.  Its  end  is  seen  in  the  Apoca 
lypse,  where  Satan  is  first  "  bound  for  a  thousand 
years,"  then  set  free  for  a  time  for  the  last  conflict, 
and  finally  "  cast  into  the  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone 
...  for  ever  and  ever  "  (xx.  2,  7-10).  [A.  B.] 

SATHRABU'ZANES  (^aBpaftovCd^s :  Sa- 
tmbuzanes).  SHETHARBOZNAI  (1  Esd.  vi.  3,  7, 
27 ;  comp.  Ezr.  v.  3,  6,  vi.  6,  13). 

SATYRS  (DnW,  setrim :  Sai^via :  pilosi), 

the  rendering  in  the  A.  V.  of  the  above-named 
plural  noun,  which,  having  the  meaning  of  "  hairy  " 
or  "  rough,"  is  frequently  applied  to  "  he-goats  " 
(comp.  the  Latin  hircus,  from  hirtus,  hirsutus) ;  the 
Seirim,  however,  of  Is.  xiii.  21,  and  xxxiv.  14, 
where  the  prophet  predicts  the  desolation  of  Babylon, 
have,  probably,  no  allusion  to  any  species  of  goat 
whether  wild  or  tame.  According  to  the  old  ver 
sions,  and  nearly  all  the  commentators,  our  own 
translation  is  correct,  and  Satyrs,  that  is,  demons  of 
woods  and  desert  places,  half  men  and  half  goats, 
are  intended.  Comp.  Jerome  (Comment,  ad  Is. 
xiii.),  "  Seirim  vel  incubones  vel  satyros  vel  sylves- 
tres  quosdam  homines  quos  nonnulli  fatuos  ficarios 
vocant,  aut  daemonum  genera  intelligunt."  This 
explanation  receives  confirmation  from  a  passage  in 
Lev.  xvii.  7 ;  "  they  shall  no  more  offer  their 
sacrifices  unto  Seirim,"  and  from  a  similar  one  in 
2  Chr.  xi.  15.  The  Israelites,  it  is  probable,  hao. 
become  acquainted  with  a  form  of  goat-worship 
from  the  Egyptians  (see  Bochart,  Hicroz.  iii.  825; 
Jablonski  Pant.  Aegypt.  i.  273,  et  sqq.).  The 
opinion  held  by  Michaelis  (Supp.  p.  2342)  an  i 
Lichtenstoin  (Commentat.  de  Simiarum,  &c.,  §4; 


Cynocoplmlus 


1150 


SAUL 


p.  50,  sqq.),  that  the  S$irim  probably  denote  some  i 
species  of  ape,  has  been  sanctioned  by  Hamilton 
Smith  in  Kitto's  Cyc.  art.  Ape.  From  a  few 
passages  in  Pliny  (N.  H.  v.  8  ;  vii.  2  ;  viii.  54)  it  is 
clear  that  by  Satyrs  are  sometimes  to  be  understood 
some  kind  of  ape  or  monkey  ;  Col.  H.  Smith  has 
figured  the  Macacus  Ardbicus  as  being  the  probable 
satyr  of  Babylon.  That  some  species  of  Cyno- 
cephalus  (dog-faced  baboon)  was  an  animal  that 
entered  into  the  theology  of  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
is  evident  from  the  monuments  and  from  what 
Horapollo  (i.  14-16)  has  told  us.  The  other  ex 
planation,  however,  has  the  sanction  of  Gesenius, 
Boohart,  Rosenmiiller,  Parkhurst,  Maurer,  Fiirst, 
And  others.  As  to  the  "  dancing "  satyrs,  comp. 
Virg.  Eel.  v.  73, 

"  Saltantes  satyros  iraitafcltur  Alphesiboeus." 

[W.  H.] 

SAUL  (^lfctt£  i.  e.  Shaul :  2ao«5\ ;  Joseph. 
""iaouAos  :  Saiil),  more  accurately  SHAUL,  in  which 
form  it  is  giver,  on  several  occasions  in  the  Autho 
rized  Version.  The  riame  of  various  persons  in  the 
Sacred  History. 

1.  Saul  of  Rehobotn  by  the  River  was  one  of 
the  early  kings  of  Edom,  and  successor  of  Samlah 
(Gen.  xxxvi.  37,  38).  In  1  Chr.  i.  48  he  is  called 
SHATTL.  [G.] 


SAUL 

2.  The  first  king  of  Israel.  The  narm;  here 
first  appears  in  the  history  of  Israel,  though  found 
before  in  the  Edomite  prince  already  mentioned; 
and  in  a  son  of  Simeon  (Gen.  xlvi.  10 ;  A.  V. 
Shaul).  It  also  occurs  among  the  Kohathites  in 
the  genealogy  of  Samuel  (1  Chr.  vi.  24),  and  in 
Saul,  like  the  king,  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  better 
known  as  the  Apostle  Paul  (see  below  p.  1154). 
Josephus  (B.  J.  ii.  18,  §4)  mention*  a  Saul,  father 
of  one  Simon  who  distinguished  himself  at  Scytho- 
polis  in  the  early  part  of  the  Jewish  war. 

In  the  following  genealogy  may  be  observed — 
1.  The  repetition  in  two  generations  of  the  names 
of  Kish  and  Ner,  of  Nadab  and  Abi-nadab,  and  of 
Mephibosheth.  2.  The  occurrence  of  the  name  of 
Baal  in  three  successive  generations:  possibly  in 
four,  as  there  were  two  Mephibosheths.  3.  'The 
constant  shiftings  of  the  names  of  God,  as  incor 
porated  in  the  proper  names:  (a)  ^16-iel  =  /e-hiel. 
(6)  Malchi-shua.  =  «7e-shua.  (c)  Esh-6actJ=Ish- 
bosheth.  (d)  Mephi-  (or  Meri-)  baal  =  Mephi- 
bosheth.  4.  The  long  continuance  of  the  family 
down  to  the  times  of  Ezra.  5.  Is  it  possible 
that  Zimri  (1  Chr.  ix.  42)  can  be  the  usurper 
of  1  K.  xvi. — if  so,  the  last  attempt  of  the  house 
of  Saul  to  regain  its  ascendancy  ?  The  time  would 
agree. 


APHIAH.     (1  Sam.  ix.  1.) 
Bechorath. 

Zeror.     (LXX.  Jaord.) 

Abiel,  or  Jehiel  =  Maachah. 
(1  Sam.  ix.  1.)      I      (1  Chr.  ix.) 
(I  Chr.  viii.  33.) 


ZJir. 


KiLb. 


Baal.  if*.  Nadab. 

0  Cbr.  ix.  26.) 
I 


Alno. 


Zechariah. 
(Zacher, 
1  Chr.  viii.) 


nL 

<SAUL 
(1  Chr.  ix.  1 

Jonathan,     hhui. 

(1  Sam.          Joshua  (Jot.  Ant. 
tterib-baal.    xiv.  49.)  vi.  6,  I.) 

Mephiboeheth  (1  Chr.  ix.  84). 

Micab. 


Abie, 


M  Ik  Lin. 
(1  Chr.  ix.  P74 

SnirrvAh. 


Rizpah. 


MnlchLhua.    Abinadab.     Egh-baal.     Merab.    David  = 
Ishboiheth. 


iclml  = 


Phaltiel.    Armoni.    Mephiboibetb. 


Melech.  Tahrea.  Ahaz. 

Jeboadah  (Janxh,  1  Chr.  ix.  42). 


Alemetb.           Annaveth. 

| 
Zimri. 

„,!». 

Binea. 

•f 

EleaLh. 

1 

.(Rephaiah,  1  Chr.  ix.  43). 

JL 

Eohek. 
1 

AtJiam.        P-JL*        MM*       Shulriob.       Obitiah. 

Hanan. 

Ulam.       Jehufh. 

Eliphelet. 

150  deecendacte. 


There  is  a  contradiction  between  the  pedigree  in 
1  Sam.  ix.  1,  xiv.  51,  which  represents  Saul  and 
Abner  as  the  grandsons  of  Abiel,  and  1  Chr.  viii . 
33,  ix.  39,  which  represents  them  as  his  great- 
grandsons.  If  we  adopc  the  more  elaborate  pedigree 
m  the  Chronicles,  we  must  suppose  either  that  a 
link  has  been  dropped  between  Abiel  and  Kish,  ia 
I  Sam.  ix.  1,  or  that  the  elder  Kish,  the  son  of 
Abiel  (1  Chr.  ix.  36),  has  been  confounded  with 


the  younger  Kish,  the  son  of  Ner  (1  Chr.  ix.  39). 
The  pedigree  in  1  Chr.  viii.  is  not  free  from  con 
fusion,  as  it  omits  amongst  the  sons  of  Abiel,  Ner, 
who  in  1  Chr.  ix.  36  is  the  fifth  son,  and  who  in 
both  is  made  the  father  of  Kteh. 

His  character  is  in  part  illustrated  by  the  fierce, 
wayward,  fitful  nature  of  the  tribe  [BENJAMIN], 
and  in  part  accounted  for  by  the  struggle  between 
the  old  and  new  systems  in  which  he  found  him- 


SAUL 

self  involved.  To  this  we  must  add  a  taint  of 
»nadness,  which  broke  out  in  violent  frenzy  at 
times,  leaving  him  with  long  lucid  intervals.  His 
affections  were  strong,  as  appears  in  his  love  both 
for  David  and  his  son  Jonathan,  but  they  were 
unequal  to  the  wild  accesses  of  religious  zeal  or 
insanity  which  ultimately  led  to  his  ruin.  He  was, 
like  the  earlier  Judges,  of  whom  in  one  sense  he 
may  be  counted  as  the  successor,  remarkable  for  his 
strength  and  activity  (2  Sam.  i.  23),  and  he  was, 
.ike  the  Homeric  heroes,  of  gigantic  stature,  taller 
by  head  and  shoulders  than  the  rest  of  the  people, 
and  of  that  kind  of  beauty  denoted  by  the  Hebrew 
word  "good"  (1  Sam.  ix.  2),  and  which  caused 
him  to  be  compared  to  the  gazelle,  "  the  gazelle 
of  Israel."  *  It  was  probably  these  external  quali 
ties  which  led  to  the  epithet  which  is  frequently 
attached  to  his  name,  "  chosen  " — "  whom  the  Lord 
did  choose  " — "  See  ye  (».  e.  Look  at)  him  whom 
the  Lord  hath  chosen!"  (1  Sam.  ix.  17,  x.  24; 
2  Sam.  xxi.  6). 

The  birthplace  of  Saul  is  not  expressly  mentioned ; 
but  as  Zelah  was  the  place  of  Kish  s  sepulchre 
(2  Sam.  xxi.),  it  was  probably  his  native  village. 
There  is  no  wan-ant  for  saying  that  it  was  Gibeah,b 
though,  from  its  subsequent  connexion  with  him,  it 
is  called  often  "  Gibeah  of  Saul "  [GlBEAH].  His 
father,  Kish,  was  a  powerful  and  wealthy  chief, 
though  the  family  to  which  he  belonged  was  of 
little  importance  (ix.  1,  21).  A  portion  of  his  pro 
perty  consisted  of  a  drove  of  asses.  In  search  of 
these  asses,  gone  astray  on  the  mountains,  he  sent 
his  son  Saul,  accompanied  by  a  servant,*  who  acted 
also  as  a  guide  and  guardian  of  the  young  man 
(ix.  3-10).  After  a  three  days'  journey  (ix.  20), 
which  it  has  hitherto  proved  impossible  to  track, 
through  Ephraim  and  Benjamin  [SHALISHA  ;  SHA- 
LIM  ;  ZUPH],  they  arrived  at  the  foot  of  a  hill  sur 
rounded  by  a  town,  when  Saul  proposed  to  return 
home,  but  was  deterred  by  the  advice  of  the  servant, 
who  suggested  that  before  doing  so  they  should 
consult  "  a  man  of  God,"  "  a  seer,"  as  to  the  fate 
of  the  asses — securing  his  oracle  by  a  present 
(backshish)  of  a  quarter  of  a  silver  shekel.  They 
\vere  instructed  by  the  maidens  at  the  well  outside 
the  city  to  catch  the  seer  as  he  came  out  of  the 
city  to  ascend  to  a  sacred  eminence,  where  a  sacri 
ficial  feast  was  waiting  for  his  benediction  (1  Sam. 
ix.  11-13).  At  the  gate  they  met  the  seer  for  the 
first  time — it  was  Samuel.  A  divine  intimation 
had  indicated  to  him  the  approach  and  the  future 
destiny  of  the  youthful  Benjamite.  Surprised  at 
his  language,  but  still  obeying  his  call,  they  ascended 
to  the  high  place,  and  in  the  inn  or  caravanserai  at 
the  top  (T&  Kard\v/j.a,  LXX.,  ix.  27)  found  thirty 
or  (LXX.,  and  Joseph.  Ant.  vi.  4,  §1)  seventy  guests 
assembled,  amongst  whom  they  took  the  chief  place. 
In  anticipation  of  some  distinguished  stranger, 
Samuel  had  bade  the  cook  reserve  a  boiled  shoulder, 

»  2  Sam.  i.  19,  the  word  translated  "  beauty,"  but  the 
eame  term  (*3¥)  in  2  Sam.  ii.  18  and  elsewhere  is 
translated  "  roe."  The  LXX.  have  confounded  it  with  a 
very  similar  word,  and  render  it  STrjAwo-oi',  "  set  up  a 
pillar." 

b  When  Abiel,  or  Jehiel  (1  Chr.  viii.  29,  ix.  35),  is  called 
the  father  of  "Gibeon,"  it  probably  means  founder  of 
'Jibeah. 

«=  The  word  is  TJJ3,  «  servant,"  not  *13^,  "  slave." 

d  At  Zelzah,  or  (LXX.)  -  leaping  for  joy." 

e  Mistranslated  in  A.  V.  "  plain." 

'  In  x.  5.  Gibtath  ha-Elohim ;  in  x.  10,  haff-pibeuti  only. 


SAUL 


1151 


from  wnich  Saul,  as  the  chief  guest,  was  bidden  to 
1«ar  off  the  first  morsel  (LXX.,  ix.  22-24).  They 
then  descended  to  the  city,  and  a  bed  was  prepared 
for  Saul  on  the  housetop.  At  daybreak  Samuel 
roused  him.  They  descended  again  to  the  skirts 
of  the  town,  and  there  (the  servant  having  left  them) 
Samuel  poured  over  Saul's  head  the  consecrated  oil, 
and  with  a  kiss  of  salutation  announced  to  him  that 
he  was  to  be  the  ruler  and  (LXX.)  deliverer  of  the 
nation  (ix.  25— x.  1).  From  that  moment,  as  he 
turned  on  Samuel  the  huge  shoulder  which  towered 
above  all  the  rest  (x.  9,  LXX.),  a  new  life  dawned 
upon  him.  He  returned  by  a  route  which,  like 
that  of  his  search,  it  is  impossible  to  make  out 
distinctly  ;  and  at  every  step  homeward  it  was  con 
firmed  by  the  incidents  which,  according  to  Samuel's 
prediction,  awaited  him  (x.  9,  10).  At  Rachel's 
sepulchre  he  met  two  men,d  who  announced  to  him 
the  recovery  of  the  asses — his  lower  cares  were  to 
cease.  At  the  oak"  of  Tabor  [PLAIN;  TABOR, 
PLAIN  OF]  he  met  three  men  carrying  gifts  of  kids 
and  bread,  and  a  skin  of  wine,  as  an  offering  to 
Bethel.  Tv/o  of  the  loaves  were  offered  to  him  as 
if  to  indicate  his  new  dignity.  At  "  the  hill  of 
*God"  (whatever  may  be  meant  thereby,  possibly 
his  own  city,  GIBEAH),  he  met  a  band  of  prophets 
descending  with  musical  instruments,  and  he  caught 
the  inspiration  from  them,  as  a  sign  of  his  new  life.g 
This  is  what  may  be  called  the  private,  inner 
view  of  his  call.  The  outer  call,  which  is  related 
independently  of  the  other,  was  as  follows.  An 
assembly  was  convened  by  Samuel  at  Mizpeh,  and 
lots  (so  often  practised  at  that  time)  were  cast  to 
find  the  tribe  and  the  family  which  was  to  produce 
the  king.  Saul  was  named — and,  by  a  Divine  inti 
mation,  found  hid  in  the  circle  of  baggage  which  sur 
rounded  the  encampment  (x.  17-24).  His  stature 
at  once  conciliated  the  public  feeling,  and  for  the 
first  time  the  shout  was  raised,  afterwards  so  often 
repeated  in  modern  times,  "  Long  live  the  king  " 
(x.  23-24),  and  he  returned  to  his  native  Gibeah, 
accompanied  by  the  fighting  part h  of  the  people, 
of  whom  he  was  now  to  be  the  especial  head.  T ho 
murmurs  of  the  worthless  part  of  the  community 
who  refused  to  salute  him  with  the  accustomed 
presents  were  soon  dispelled l  by  an  occasion  arising 
to  justify  the  selection  of  Saul.  He  was  (having 
apparently  returned  to  his  private  life)  on  his  way 
home,  driving  his  herd  of  oxen,  when  he  heard  one 
of  those  wild  lamentations  in  the  city  of  Gibeah, 
such  as  mark  in  Eastern  towns  the  arrival  of  a 
great  calamity.  It  was  the  tidings  of  the  threat 
issued  by  Nahash  king  of  Ammon  against  Jabesh 
Gilead  (see  AMMON).  The  inhabitants  of  Jabesh 
were  connected  with  Benjamin,  by  the  old  adven 
ture  recorded  in  Judg.  xxi.  It  was  as  if  this  one 
spark  was  needed  to  awaken  the  dormant  spirit  of 
the  king.  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon 
him,"  as  on  the  ancient  Judges.  The  shy,  re- 


Joseph.  (Ant.  vi.  4,  $2)  gives  the  name  Gabatha,  by  which 
he  elsewhere  designates  Gibeah,  Saul's  city. 

g  See  for  this  EwaM  (iii.  28-30). 

h  7^nn»  "  the  strength,"  the  host,  x.  26 ;  comp.  2  Sam. 
xxiv.  2.  The  word  "band"  is  usually  employed  in  the 
A.  V.  for  THS,  a  very  different  term,  with  a  strict 
meaning  of  its  own.  [TBOOP.] 

>  The  words  which  close  1  Sam.  x.  27  are  in  th<j 
Hebrew  text  "he  was  as  though  he  were  deaf  "  in 
Joseph.  Ant.  vi.  5,  $1,  and  the  LXX.  (followed  by  Kwald) 
"  and  it  came  to  pass  -after  a  month  tluit." 


1152 


SAUL 


tiring  nature  which  we  have  observed,  vanished 
never  to  return.  He  had  recourse  to  the  expedient 
of  the  earlier  days,  and  summoned  the  people  by 
the  bones  of  two  of  the  oxen  from  the  herd  which 
he  was  driving:  three  (or six,  LXX.)  hundred  thou 
sand  followed  from  Israel,  and  (perhaps  not  in  due 
proportion)  thirty  (or  seventy,  LXX.)  thousand 
from  Judah :  and  Jabesh  was  rescued.  The  effect 
was  instantaneous  on  the  people — the  punishment 
of  the  murmurers  was  demanded — but  refused  by 
Saul,  and  the  monarchy  was  inaugurated  anew  at 
Gilgal  (xi.  1-15).  It  should  be,  however,  observed 
that,  according  to  1  Sam.  xii.  12,  the  affair  of 
Nahash  preceded  and  occasioned  the  election  of 
Saul.  He  becomes  king  of  Israel.  But  he  still 
so  far  resembles  the  earlier  Judges,  as  to  be  vir 
tually  king  only  of  his  own  tribe,  Benjamin,  or  of 
the  immediate  neighbourhood.  Almost  all  his  ex 
ploits  are  confined  to  this  circle  of  territory  or 
associations. 

Samuel,  who  had  up  to  this  time  been  still  named 
as  ruler  with  Saul  (xi.  7,  12,  14),  now  withdrew, 
and  Saul  became  the  acknowledged  chief.11  In  the 
2nd  year1  of  his  reign,  he  began  to  organise  an 
attempt  to  shake  off  the  Philistine  yoke  which 
pressed  on  his  country  ;  not  least  on  his  own  tribe, 
where  a  Philistine  officer  had  long  been  stationed 
even  in  his  own  field  (x.  5,  xiii.  3).  An  army  of 
3000  was  formed,  which  he  soon  afterwards  gathered 
together  round  him;  and  Jonathan,  apparently  with 
his  sanction,  rose  against  the  officer  m  and  slew  him 
(xiii.  2-4).  This  roused  the  whole  force  of  the 
Philistine  nation  against  him.  The  spirit  of  Israel 
was  completely  broken.  Many  concealed  them 
selves  in  the  caverns  ;  many  crossed  the  Jordan ; 
all  were  disarmed,  except  Saul  and  his  son,  with 
their  immediate  retainers.  In  this  crisis,  Saul, 
now  on  the  very  confines  of  his  kingdom  at 
Gilgal,  found  himself  in  the  position  long  before 
described  by  Samuel ;  longing  to  exercise  his  royal 
right  of  sacrifice,  yet  deterred  by  his  sense  of  obe 
dience  to  the  Prophet.0  At  last  on  the  7th  day,  he 
could  wait  no  longer,  but  just  after  the  sacrifice 
was  completed  Samuel  arrived,  and  pronounced  the 
first  curse,  on  his  impetuous  zeal  (xiii.  5-14). 
Meanwhile  the  adventurous  exploit  of  Jonathan  at 
Michmash  brought  on  the  crisis  which  ultimately 
arove  the  Philistines  back  to  their  own  territory 
[JONATHAN].  It  was  signalised  by  two  remark 
able  incidents  in  the  life  of  Saul.  One  was  the  first 
appearance  of  his  madness  in  the  rash  vow  which 
all  but  cost  the  life  of  his  son  (1  Sam.  xiv.  24,  44). 
The  other  was  the  erection  of  his  first  altar,  built 
either  to  celebrate  the  victory,  or  to  expiate  the 
savage  feast  of  the  famished  people  (xiv.  35). 

The  expulsion  of  the  Philistines  (although  not 
entirely  completed,  xiv.  52)  at  once  placed  Saul 
in  a  position  higher  than  that  of  any  previous  ruler 
of  Israel.  Probably  from  this  time  was  formed 
the  organisation  of  royal  state,  which  contained 
in  germ  some  of  the  future  institutions  of  the 
monarchy.  The  host  of  3000  has  been  already 
mentioned  (1  Sam.  xiii.,  xxiv.  2,  xxvi.  2;  comp. 


HAUL 

1  Chr.  xii.  29).  Of  this  Aoner  became  captain 
(1  Sam.  xiv.  50).  A  body  guard  was  also  formed  oj 
runners  and  messengers  (see  1  Sam.  xvi.  15,  17, 
xxii.  14,  17,  xxvi.  22).°  Of  this  David  was  after- 
wards  made  the  chief.  These  two  were  the  prin 
cipal  officers  of  the  court,  and  sate  with  Jonathan 
at  the  king's  table  (1  Sam.  xx.  25).  Another  officer 
is  incidentally  mentioned — the  keeper  of  the  royal 
mules  —  the  comes  stabuli,  the  "constable"  of 
the  king — such  as  appeal's  in  the  later  monarchy 
(1  Chr.  xxvii.  30).  He  is  the  first  instance  of  a 
foreigner  employed  about  the  court — being  an 
Edomite  or  (LXX.)  Syrian,  of  the  name  of  Doeg 
(1  Sam.  xxi.  7,  xxii.  9).  According  to  Jewish 
tradition  (Jer.  Qu.  Heb.  ad  loc.)  he  was  the  servant 
who  accompanied  Saul  in  his  pursuit  of  his  father's 
asses — who  counselled  him  to  send  for  David  (ix., 
xvi.),  and  whose  son  ultimately  killed  him  (2  Sam. 
i.  10).  The  high-priest  of  the  house  of  Ithamar 
(Ahimelech  or  Ahijah)  was  in  attendance  upon  him 
with  the  ephod,  when  he  desired  it  (xiv.  3),  and 
felt  himself  bound  to  assist  his  secret  commissioners 
(xxi.  1-9,  xxii.  14). 

The  king  himself  was  distinguished  by  a  state, 
not  before  marked  in  the  rulers.  He  had  a  tall 
spear,  of  the  same  kind  as  that  described  in  the 
hand  of  Goliath.  [ARMS.]  This  never  left  him — 
in  repose  (1  Sam.  xviii.  10,  xix.  9  ) ;  at  his  meals 
(xx.  33)  ;  at  rest  (xxvi.  11),  in  battle  (2  Sam. 
i.  6).  In  battle  he  wore  a  diadem  on  his  head 
and  a  bracelet  on  his  arm  (2  Sam.  i.  10).  He 
sate  at  meals  on  a  seat  of  his  own  facing  his  son 
(1  Sam.  xx.  25 ;  LXX.).  He  was  received  on  his 
return  from  battle  by  the  songs  of  the  Israelite  P 
women  (1  Sam.  xviii.  6),  amongst  whom  he  was  OD 
such  occasions  specially  known  as  bringing  back 
from  the  enemy  scarlet  robes,  and  golden  orna 
ments  for  their  apparel  (2  Sam.  i.  24). 

The  warlike  character  of  his  reign  naturally  still 
predominated,  and  he  was  now  able  (not  merely, 
like  his  temporary  predecessors,  to  act  on  the 
defensive,  but)  to  attack  the  neighbouring  tribes  of 
Moab,  Ammon,  Edom,  Zobah,  and  finally  Amalek 
(xiv.  47).  The  war  with  Amalek  is  twice  re 
lated,  first  briefly  (xiv.  48),  and  then  at  length 
(xv.  1-9).  Its  chief  connexion  with  Saul's  history 
lies  in  the  disobedience  to  the  prophetical  command 
of  Samuel ;  shown  in  the  sparing  of  the  king,  and 
the  retention  of  the  spoil. 

The  extermination  of  Amalek  and  the  subsequent 
execution  of  Agag  belong  to  the  general  question 
of  the  moral  code  of  the  0.  T.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  Saul  spared  the  king  for  any  other 
reason  than  that  for  which  he  retained  the  spoil — 
namely,  to  make  a  more  splendid  show  at  the 
sacrificial  thanksgiving  (xv.  21).  Such  was  the 
Jewish  tradition  preserved  by  Josephus  (Ant.  vi. 
7,  §2),  who  expressly  says  that  Agag  was  spared  foi 
his  stature  and  beauty,  and  such  is  the  general 
impression  left  by  the  description  of  the  celebration 
of  the  victory.  Saul  rides  to  the  southern  Carmel 
in  a  chariot  (LXX.),  never  mentioned  elsewhere, 
and  sets  up  a  monument  there  (Heb.  "  a  hand," 


k  Also  2  Sam.x.  15,  LXX.,  for  "Lord." 

1  The  expression,  xiii.  1,  "Saul  was  one  year  old"  (the 
eon  of  a  year),  in  his  reigning,  may  be  either,  (1)  he 
reigned  one  year;  or  (2),  the  word  30  may  have  dropped 
oat  thence  to  xiii.  5,  and  it  may  have  been  "  he  was  31 
//hen  he  began  to  reign." 

m  The  word  may  be  rendered  either  "  garrison "  or 
"  officer ;"  its  meaning  is  uncertain. 

»  The  command  of  Samuel  (x.  8)  had  apparently  ft 


perpetual  obligation  (xiii.  13).  It  had  been  given  two 
years  before,  and  in  the  interval  they  had  both  been  at 
Gilgal  (xi.  15).  N.B.— The  words  "had  appointed" 
(xiii.  8)  are  inserted  in  A.  V. 

o  They  were  Benjamites  (1  Sam.  xxii.  7;  Jos.  Ant 
vii.  14),  young,  tall,  and  handsome  (Ibid.  vi.  6,  §6"). 

P  Jos.  (Ant.  vi.  10,  $1)  makes  the  women  sing  the 
praises  of  Saul,  the  maidens,  of  David. 


SAUL 

2  Sara,  xviii.  18),  which  m  the  Jewish  iraditions 
(Jerome,  Qu.  ffeb.  ad  loc.)  was  a  triumphal  arch 
of  olives,  myrtles,  and  palms.  And  in  allusion  to 
his  crowning  triumph,  Samuel  applies  to  God  the 
plu-ase,  "  The  Victory  (Vulg.  triumphator)  of  Israel 
will  neither  lie  nor  repent"  (xv.  29 ;  and  com  p. 
1  Chr.  xxix.  11).  This  second  act  of  disobedience 
called  down  the  second  curse,  and  the  first  distinct 
intimation  of  the  transference  of  the  kingdom  to  a 
rival.  The  struggle  between  Samuel  and  Saul  in 
their  final  parting  is  indicated  by  the  rent  of 
Samuel's  robe  of  state,  as  he  tears  himself  away 
from  Saul's  grasp  (for  the  gesture,  see  Joseph.  Ant. 
vi.  7,  §5),  and  by  the  long  mourning  of  Samuel 
for  the  separation — "  Samuel  mourned  for  Saul." 
"  How  long  wilt  thou  mourn  for  Saul  ?  "  (xiv.  35, 
xvi.  1). 

The  rest  of  Saul's  life  is  one  long  tragedy.  The 
frenzy,  which  had  given  indications  of  itself  before, 
now  at  times  took  almost  entire  possession  of  him. 
It  is  described  in  mixed  phrases  as  "  an  evil  spirit 
of  God"  (much  as  we  might  speak  of  "religious 
madness"),  which,  when  it  came  upon  him,  almost 
choked  or  strangled  him  from  its  violence  (xvi.  14, 
LXX. ;  Joseph.  Ant.  vi.  8,  §2). 

In  this  crisis  David  was  recommended  to  him  by 
one  of  the  young  men  of  his  guard  (in  the  Jewish 
tradition  groundlessly  supposed  to  be  DOEG.  Jerome, 
Qu.  Heb.  ad  loc.).  From  this  time  forward  their 
lives  are  blended  together.  [DAVID.]  In  Saul's 
better  moments  he  never  lost  the  strong  affection 
which  he  had  contracted  for  David.  "  He  loved 
him  greatly"  (xvi.  21).  "  Saul  would  let  him  go 
no  more  home  to  his  father's  house"  (xviii.  2). 
"  Wherefore  cometh  not  the  son  of  Jesse  to  meat  ?  " 
(xx.  27).  "Is  this  thy  voice,  my  son  David.  .  .  . 
Retum,  my  son  David;  blessed  be  thou,  my  son 
David  "  (xxiv.  16,  xxvi.  17,  25).  Occasionally  too 
his  prophetical  gift  returned,  blended  with  his 
madness.  He  "  prophesied  "  or  "  raved  "  in  the 
midst  of  his  house — "he  prophesied  and  lay  down 
naked  all  day  and  all  night"  at  Ramah  (xix.  24). 
But  his  acts  of  fierce,  wild  zeal  increased.  The 
massacre  of  the  priests,  with  all  their  families  1 
(xxii.) — the  massacre,  perhaps  at  the  same  time, 
of  the  Gibeonites  (2  Sam.  xxi.  1),  and  the  violent 
extirpation  of  the  necromancers  (1  Sam.  xxviii. 
3,  9),  are  all  of  the  same  kind.  At  last  the 
monarchy  itself,  which  he  had  raised  up,  broke 
down  under  the  weakness  of  its  head.  The  Philis 
tines  re-entered  the  country,  and  with  their  chariots 
and  horses  occupied  the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  Their 
camp  was  pitched  on  the  southern  slope  of  the 
range  now  called  Little  Hermon,  by  Shunem.  On 
the  opposite  side,  on  Mount  Gilboa,  was  the  Israelite 
army,  clinging  as  usual  to  the  heights  which  were 
their  safety.  It  was  near  the  spring  of  Gideon's 
encampment,  hence  called  the  spring  of  Harod  or 
"  trembling  " — and  now  the  name  assumed  an  evil 
omen,  and  the  heart  of  the  king  as  he  pitched  his 
camp  there  "  trembled  exceedingly  "  (1  Sam.  xxviii. 
5).  In  the  loss  of  all  the  usual  means  of  con 
sulting  the  Divine  Will,  he  determined,  with  that 
wayward  mixture  of  superstition  and  religion  which 
marked  his  whole  career,  to  apply'  to  one  of  the 
necromancers  who  had  escaped  his  persecution. 


SAUL 


1153 


She  IMS  a  wroman  living  at  Endor,  on  the  other 
side  of  Little  Hermon ;  she  is  called  a  woman  ol 
"  Ob,"  i.  e.  of  the  skin  or  bladder,  and  this  the 
LXX.  has  rendered  by  ^yya.(npifjiv6os  or  ventrilo 
quist,  and  the  Vulgate  by  Pythoness.  According 
to  the  Hebrew  tradition  mentioned  by  Jevome, 
she  was  the  mother  of  Abner,  and  honce  her 
escape  from  the  general  massacre  of  the  necro 
mancers  (See  Loo  Allatius  De  Enr/astrimut/to, 
cap.  6  in  Critici  Sacri  ii.).  Volumes  have  been 
written  on  the  question,  whether  in  the  scene 
that  follows  we  are  to  understand  an  imposture 
or  a  real  apparition  of  Samuel.  Eustathius  and 
most  of  the  Fathers  take  the  former  view  (repre 
senting  it,  however,  as  a  figment  of  the  Devil) ; 
Origen,  the  latter  view.  Augustine  wavers.  (See 
Leo  Allatius,  ut  supra,  p.  1062-1114).  The  LXX. 
of  1  Sam.  xxvii.  7  (by  the  above  translation) 
and  the  A.  V.  (by  its  omission  of  "  himself"  in 
xxviii.  14,  and  insertion  of"  when"  in  xxviii.  12) 
lean  to  the  former.  Josephus  (who  pronounces  a 
glowing  eulogy  on  the  woman,  Ant.  vi.  14,  §2,3), 
and  the  LXX.  of  1  Chr.  x.  13,  to  the  latter.  At 
this  distance  of  time  it  is  impossible  to  determine 
the  relative  amount  of  fraud  or  of  reality,  though 
the  obvious  meaning  of  the  narrative  itself  tends, 
to  the  hypothesis  of  some  kind  of  apparition.  She 
recognises  the  disguised  king  first  by  the  appear 
ance  of  Samuel,  seemingly  from  his  threatening 
aspect  or  tone  as  towards  his  enemy.8  Saul  appa 
rently  saw  nothing,  but  listened  to  her  description 
of  a  god-like  figure  of  an  aged  man,  wrapped  round 
with  the  royal  or  sacred  robe.* 

On  hearing  the  denunciation,  which  the  apparition 
conveyed,  Saul  fell  the  whole  length  of  his  gigantic 
stature  (see  xxviii.  20,  margin)  on  the  ground,  and 
remained  motionless  till  the  woman  and  his  servants 
forced  him  to  eat. 

The  next  day  the  battle  came  on,  and  according 
to  Josephus  (Ant.  vi.  14,  §7),  perhaps  according  to 
the  spirit  of  the  sacred  narrative,  his  courage  and 
self-devotion  returned.  The  Israelites  were  driver 
up  the  side  of  Gilboa.  The  three  sons  of  Saul 
were  slain  (1  Sam.  xxxi.  2).'  Saul  himself  with 
his  armour-bearer  was  pursued  by  the  archers  and 
the  charioteers  of  the  enemy  (1  Sam.  xxxi.  3  : 
2  Sam.  i.  6).  He  was  wounded  in  the  stomach 
(LXX.,  1  Sam.  xxxi.  3).  His  shield  was  cast 
away  (2  Sam.  i.  21).  According  to  one  account, 
he  tell  upon  his  own  sword  (1  Saui.  xxxi.  4). 
According  to  another  account  (which  may  be 
reconciled  with  the  former  by  supposing  that  it 
describes  a  later  incident),  an  Amalekite0  came  up  at 
the  moment  of  his  death-wound  (whether  from 
himself  or  the  enemy),  and  found  him  "  fallen," 
but  leaning  on  his  spear  (2  Sam.  i.  6,  10).  The 
dizziness  of  death  was  gathered  over  him  (LXX.. 
2  Sam.  i.  9),  but  he  was  still  alive;  and  he  was 
at  his  own  request,  put  out  of  his  pain  by  the 
Amalekite,  who  took  off  his  royal  diadem  and  brace 
let,  and  carried  the  news  to  David  (2  Sam.  i.  7-10). 
Not  till  then,  according  to  Josephus  (Ant.  vi.  14, 
§7),  did  the  faithful  armour-bearer  fall  on  his  sword 
and  die  with  him  (1  Sam.  xxxi.  5).  The  body  on 
being  found  by  the  Philistines  wa  stripped,  and 
decapitated. ,  The  armour  was  sent  nto  the  Philis- 


i  This  is  placed  by  Josephus  as  the  climax  of  his  guilt 
srougU  on  by  the  intoxication  of  power  (Ant.  vl.  12,  $7). 

1  His  companions  were  Abner  and  Amasa  (Seder 
Olam,  Mover,  492). 

*  \Vhen  ^  la»t  heard  of  Samuel  he  was  mourning  for, 

VOL.  ill. 


not  hating,  Saul.    Had  the  massacre  of  the  priests  aiul 
the  persecution  of  David  (xix.  18)  alienated  him  ? 

1  itpariKV  SiTrAoiSa  (Jos.  Ant.  vi.  14,  $2). 

"  According  to  the  Jewir.h  tradition  (Jcroiue,  (ju.  Hit 
ad  loc.),  he  was  the  son  of  Doe?. 

4  E 


1154 


SAVARAK 


tine  cities,  as  if  in  retribution  fo/  the  spoliation  of 
'Joliath,  and,  finally  deposited  in  the  temple  of 
Astarte,  apparently  in  the  neighbouring  Canaan- 
itish  city  of  Bethshan ;  and  over  the  walls  of  the 
same  city  was  hung  the  naked  headless  corpse, 
with  those  of  his  three  sons  (ver.  9.  10).  The 
nead  was  deposited  (probably  at  Ashdod)  in  the 
temple  of  Dagon  (1  Chr.  x.  10).  The  corpse  was 
removed  from  Bethshan  by  the  gratitude  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Jabesh-gilead,  who  came  over  the 
Jordan  by  night,  earned  off  the  bodies,  burnt  them, 
and  buried  them  under  the  tamarisk  at  Jabesh 
(1  Sam.  xxxi.  13).  Thence,  after  the  lapse  of 
several  years,  his  ashes  and  those  of  Jonathan  were 
removed  by  David  to  their  ancestral  sepulchre  at 
Zelah  in  Benjamin  (2  Sam.  xxi.  14).  [MEPHI- 
BOSHETH,  p.  325a.]  [A.  P.  S.] 

3.  The  Jewish  name  of  ST.  PAUL.  This  was 
the  most  distinguished  name  in  the  genealogies  of 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  to  which  the  Apostle  felt 
some  pride  in  belonging  (Rom.  xi.  1  ;  Phil.  iii.  5). 
He  himself  leads  us  to  associate  his  name  with  that 
of  the  Jewish  king,  by  the  marked  way  in  which 
he  mentions  Saul  in  his  address  at  the  Pisidian 
Antioch:  "God  gave  unto  them  Saul  the  son  of 
Jis,  a  man  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  "  (Acts  xiii. 
21).  These  indications  are  in  harmony  with  the 
intensely  Jewish  spirit  of  which  the  life  of  the 
Apostle  exhibits  so  many  signs.  [PAUL.]  The 
early  ecclesiastical  writers  did  not  fail  to  notice  the 
prominence  thus  given  by  St.  Paul  to  his  tribe. 
Tertullian  (adv.  Marc.  v.  1)  applies  to  him  the 
iying  words  of  Jacob  on  Benjamin.  And  Jerome, 
m  his  Epitaphium  Paulae  (§8),  alluding  to  the 
preservation  of  the  six  hundred  men  of  Benjamin 
after  the  affair  of  Gibeah  (Judg.  xx.  49),  speaks 
of  them  as  "  trecentos  (sic)  viros  propter  Apostolum 
reservatos."  Compare  the  article  on  BENJAMIN 
[vol.  i.  1906]. 

Nothing  certain  is  known  about  the  change  of 
the  Apostle's  name  from  Saul  to  Paul  (Acts  xiii.  9), 
to  which  reference  has  been  already  made.  [PAUL, 
p.  736  6.]  Two  chief  conjectures  »  prevail  concern 
ing  the  change.  (1 .)  That  of  Jerome  and  Augustine, 
that  the  name  was  derived  from  SERGIUS  PAULUS, 
the  first  of  his  Gentile  converts.  (2.)  That  which 
appears  due  to  Lightfoot,  that  Paulus  was  the 
Apostle's  Roman  name  as  a  citizen  of  Tarsus,  na 
turally  adopted  into  common  use  by  his  biographer 
when  his  labours  among  the  heathen  commenced. 
The  fornier  of  these  is  adopted  by  Olshausen  and 
Meyer.  It  is  also  the  view  of  Ewald  (  Gesch.  vi.  41 9, 
20),  who  seems  to  consider  it  self-evident,  and  looks 
on  tlie  absence  of  any  explanation  of  the  change  as 
a  proof  that  it  was  so  understood  by  all  the  readers 
of  the  Acts.  However  this  may  be,  after  Saul  has 
laken  his  place  definitively  as  the  Apostle  to  the 
Gentile  world,  his  Jewish  name  is  entirely  dropped. 
Two  divisions  of  his  life  are  well  marked  by  the 
use  of  the  two  names.  [J.  LI.  D.] 

SAV'AKAN  (&  Zavapdv  :  fi'ius  Saura,  Ava- 
»vwi?),  an  erroneous  form  of  the  title  A  varan, 
borne  by  Eleazar  the  son  of  Mattathias,  which  is 
found  in  the  common  texts  in  1  Mace.  vi.  43, 
[ELKAZER  8,  vol.  i.  p.  518.]  [B.  F.  W.] 

SAVI'AS  (om.  in  Vat. ;  Alex.  2aoi/m :  om.  in 
Vulg.).  Uzzi  the  ancestor  of  Ezra  (1  Esd.  viii.  2  ; 
:omp.  Ezr.  vii.  4). 


SAVIOUR 

SAVIOUR.  The  following  article,  together  \vitij 
the  one  on  the  SON  OF  GOD,  forms  the  complement 
to  the  life  of  our  Lord  JESUS  CHRIST.  [See  vol.  i. 
p.  1039.]  An  explanation  is  first  given  of  the 
word  "  Saviour,"  and  then  of  His  work  of  salvr.tion, 
as  unfolded  and  taught  in  the  New  Testament.  [See 
also  MESSIAH.] 

I.  THE  WORD  SAVIOUR. — The  term  "  Saviour," 
as  applied  to  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  represents  the 
Greek  soter  ((reuTTjp),  which  in  turn  represent* 
certain  derivatives  from  the  Hebrew  root  yash'a 
(SJt^),  particularly  the  participle  of  the  Hiphil 
form  moshia  (jTtpQ),  which  is  usually  rendered 
"Saviour"  in  the  A.V.  (e. g.  Is.  xlvi.  15,  xlix. 
26).  In  considering  the  true  import  of  "  Saviour," 
it  is  essential  for  us  to  examine  the  original  terms 
answering  to  it,  including  in  our  view  the  use 
of  soter  in  the  LXX.,  whence  it  was  more  immedi 
ately  derived  by  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  further  noticing  the  cognate  terms  "  to  save " 
and  "  salvation,"  which  express  respectively  the 
action  and  the  results  of  the  Saviour's  office.  1.  The 
first  point  to  be  observed  is  that  the  term  soter  is 
of  more  frequent  occurrence  in  the  LXX.  than  the 
term  "Saviour"  in  the  A.  V.  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment.  It  represents  not  only  the  word  moskia 
above-mentioned,  but  also  very  frequently  the 
nouns  yesh'a  (JJK^)  and  yeshu'dh  (ny-lfc^),  which, 
though  properly  expressive  of  the  abstract  notion 
"  salvation,"  are  yet  sometimes  used  in  a  concrete 
sense  for  "  Saviour."  We  may  cite  as  an  example 
Is.  Ixii.  1 1,  "  Behold,  thy  salvation  cometh,  his 
reward  is  with  him,"  where  evidently  "  salvation  " 
=  Saviour.  So  again  in  passages  where  these 
terms  are  connected  immediately  with  the  person 
of  the  Godhead,  as  in  Ps.  Ixviii.  20,  "  the  God  our 
Saviour"  (A.V.  "God  of  our  salvation  ").  Not 
only  in  such  cases  as  these,  but  in  many  others 
where  the  sense  does  not  require  it,  the  LXX.  has 
stier  where  the  A.  V.  has  "  salvation ;"  and  thus 
the  word  "  Saviour"  was  more  familiar  to  the  ear 
of  the  reader  of  the  Old  Testament  in  our  Lord's 
age  than  it  is  to  us.  2.  The  same  observation  holds 
good  with  regard  to  the  verb  ado&iv,  and  the  sub 
stantive  ffcornpia,  as  used  in  the  LXX.  An  ex 
amination  of  the  passages  in  which  they  occur 
shows  that  they  stand  as  equivalents  for  words 
conveying  the  notions  of  well-being,  succour,  peace, 
and  the  like.  We  have  further  to  notice  ffturiipia 
in  the  sense  of  recovery  of  the  bodily  health  (2  Mace, 
iii.  32),  together  with  the  etymological  connexion 
supposed  to  exist  between  the  terms  ffoer^p  and 
ff&fJLa.,  to  which  St.  Paul  evidently  alludes  in  Eph. 
v.  '23;  Phil.  iii.  20,  21.  3.  If  we  turn  to  the 
Hebrew  terms,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with 
their  comprehensiveness.  Our  verb  "  to  save " 
implies,  in  its  ordinary  sense,  the  rescue  of  a  person 
from  actual  or  impending  danger.  This  is  un 
doubtedly  included  in  the  Hebrew  root  ydsh'a,  and 
may  be  said  to  be  its  ordinaiy  sense,  as  testified  by 
the  frequent  accompaniment  of  the  preposition  mm, 
( JD  ;  compare  the  ff<t><rci  ant  which  the  angel  gives 
in  explanation  of  the  name  Jesus,  Matt.  i.  21). 
But  ydsh'a,  beyond  this,  expresses  assistance  and 
protection  of  every  kind — assistance  in  aggressive 
measures,  protection  against  attack ;  and,  in  a 
secondary  sense,  the  results  of  such  assistance — 


1  There  are  many  other  theories,  one  of  which  may  be  I  to  have  been  a  nickname  given  to  the  Apostle  on  account 
mentioned;  that  of  Nicephorus  (Hist.  Ecd.  ii.  37),  wlio  j  of  his  insignificant  stature  ! 
'.reals  Paulus  as  a  contraction  of  Pusillus,  and  supposes  It  I 


6AV100R 

victory,  safety,  prosperity,  and  happiness.  We 
may  cite  as  &i.  instance  of  the  aggrvssioe  sense 
Deut.  xx.  4,  "  to  fight  for  you  against  your  enemies, 
to  save  you ;"  of  protection  against  attack  Is.  xxvi. 
1,  "  salvation  will  God  appoint  for  walls  and  bul 
warks  ;"  of  victory  2  Sam.  yiii.  6,  "The  Lord 
preserved  David,"  »'.  e.  gave  him  victory  ;  of  pros 
perity  and  happiness,  Is.  Ix.  18,  "Thou  shalt  call 
thy  walls  Salvation  ;"  Is.  Ixi.  10,  "  He  hath  clothed 
me  with  the  garments  of  salvation."  No  better 
Distance  of  this  last  sense  can  be  adduced  than  the 
exclamation  "  Hosanna,"  meaning,  "  Save,  I  beseech 
thee,"  which  was  uttered  as  a  prayer  for  God's 
blessing  on  any  joyous  occasion  (Ps.  cxviii.  25), 
as  at  our  Lord's  entry  into  Jerusalem,  when  the 
.'tymological  connexion  of  the  terms  Hosanna  and 
Jesus  could  not  have  been  lost  on  the  ear  of  the 
Hebrew  (Matt.  xxi.  9,  15).  It  thus  appears  that 
the  Hebrew  and  Greek  terms  had  their  positive  as 
well  as  their  negative  side,  in  other  words  that  they 
expressed  the  presence  of  blessing  as  well  as  the 
absence  of  danger,  actual  security  as  well  as  the  re 
moval  of  insecurity.*  4.  The  historical  personages 
to  whom  the  terms  are  applied  further  illustrate 
this  view.  The  judges  are  styled  "  saviours,"  as 
having  rescued  their  country  from  a  state  of  bondage 
(Judg.  iii.  9,  15,  A.  V.  "  deliverer;"  Neh.  ix.  27); 
a  "  saviour "  was  subsequently  raised  up  in  the 
person  of  Jeroboam  II.  to  deliver  Israel  from  the 
Syrians  (2  K.  xiii.  5) ;  and  in  the  same  sense  J'o- 
sephus  styles  the  deliverance  from  Egypt  a  "  salva 
tion  "  (Ant.  iii.  1,  §1).  Joshua  on  the  other  hand 
verified  the  promise  contained  in  his  name  by  his 
conquests  over  the  Canaanites :  the  Lord  was  his 
helper  in  an  aggressive  sense.  Similarly  the  office 
of  the  "saviours"  promised  in  Obad.  21  was  to 
execute  vengeance  on  Edom.  The  names  Isaiah, 
Jeshua,  Ishi,  Hosea,  Hoshea,  and  lastly,  Jesus,  are 
all  expressive  of  the  general  idea  of  assistance  from 
the  Lord.  The  Greek  sdter  was  in  a  similar  manner 
Applied  in  the  double  sense  of  a  deliverer  from  foreign 
foes  as  in  the  case  of  Ptolemy  Soter,  and  a  general 
protector,  as  in  the  numerous  instances  where  it  was 
appended  as  the.  title  of  heathen  deities.  5.  There  are 
numerous  indications  in  the  0.  T.  that  the  idea  of  a 
spiritual  salvation,  to  be  effected  by  God  alone,  was 
by  no  means  foreign  to  the  mind  of  the  pious  He 
brew.  In  the  Psalms  there  are  numerous  petitions 
to  Hod  to  save  from  the  effects  of  sin  (e.  g.  xxxix. 
8,  Ixxix.  9).  Isaiah  in  particular  appropriates  the 
term  "saviour"  to  Jehovah  (xliii.  11),  and  con 
nects  it  with  the  notions  of  justice  and  righteousness 
(xlv.  21,  Ix.  16,  17)  :  he  adduces  it  as  the  special 
manner  in  which  Jehovah  reveals  Himself  to  man 
(xlv.  15):  he  hints  at  the  means  to  be  adopted  for 
effecting  salvation  in  passages  where  he  connects  the 
term  "saviour"  with  "redeemer"  (goSl},  as  in 
xli.  14,  xlix.  26,  Ix.  16,  and  again  with  "  ransom, 
as  in  xliii.  3.  Similar  notices  are  scattered  over  the 
prophetical  books  (e.  g.  Zech.  ix.  9  ;  Hos.  i.  7),  and 
though  in  many  instances  these  notices  admitted  ol 
a  reference  to  proximate  events  of  a  temporal  nature 
they  evidently  looked  to  higher  things,  and  thus  fos 
tered  in  the  mind  of  the  Hebrew  the  idea  of  a 
"Saviour"  who  should  far  surpass  in  his  achieve- 

*>  The  Latin  language  possessed  in  the  classical  perio< 
no  proper  equivalent  for  the  Greek  crwTijp.  This  appears 
from  the  introduction  of  the  Greek  word  itself  in  a  Latin- 
Jicd  form,  and  from  Cicero's  remark  (in  Terr.  Act.  2,  ii 
that  there  was  no  one  word  which  expressed  the 
qui  salutem  dedit.  Tacitus  (Ann.  xv.  71)  uses 
r,  and  Pliny  (xxii.  5)  scrvator.  The  term  sal 


SAVIOUR 


1151 


ments  the  "saviours"  that  had  as  yd  appeared. 
The  mere  sound  of  the  word  would  conjure  up 
jefore  his  imagination  visions  of  deliverance,  se- 
urity,  peace,  and  prosperity. 

II.  THE  WOIJK  OF  THE  SAVIOUR.  — 1.  The 
,hree  first  Evangelists,  as  we  know,  agree  in  show- 
ng  that  Jesus  unfolded  His  message  to  the  disciples 
>y  degrees.  He  wrought  the  miracles  that  were  to 
be  the  credentials  of  the  Messiah  ;  He  laid  down  the 
great  principles  of  the  Gospel  morality,  until  He 
lad  established  in  the  minds  of  the  Twelve  the  con 
viction  that  He  was  the  Christ  of  God.  Then  as 
;he  clouds  of  doom  grew  darker,  and  the  malice  of 
the  Jews  became  more  intense,  He  tumed  a  new 
page  in  His  teaching.  Drawing  from  His  disciples 
the  confession  of  their  faith  in  Him  as  Christ,  He 
then  passed  abruptly,  so  to  speak,  to  the  truth  that 
remained  to  be  learned  in  the  last  few  months  of 
His  ministry,  that  His  work  included  suffering  as 
well  as  teaching  (Matt.  xvi.  20,  21).  He  was  in- 
tant  in  pressing  this  unpalatable  doctrine  home  to 
His  disciples,  from  this  time  to  the  end.  Four  occa 
sions  when  He  prophesied  His  bitter  death  are  on 
record,  and  they  are  probably  only  examples  out  of 
many  more  (Matt.  xvi.  21).  We  grant  that  in 
none  of  these  places  does  the  word  "sacrifice"  occur; 
and  that  the  mode  of  speaking  is  somewhat  obscure, 
as  addressed  to  minds  unprepared,  even  then,  to 
bear  the  full  weight  of  a  doctrine  so  repugnant  to 
their  hopes.  But  that  He  must  (Set)  go  and  meet 
death ;  that  the  powers  of  sin  and  of  this  world  are 
let  loose  against  Him  for  a  time,  so  that  He  shall 
be  betrayed  to  the  Jews,  rejected,  delivered  by  them 
to  the  Gentiles,  and  by  them  be  mocked  and  scourged, 
crucified,  and  slain  ;  and  that  all  this  shall  be  done 
to  achieve  a  foreseen  work,  and  accomplish  all  things 
written  of  Him  by  the  prophets — these  we  do  cer 
tainly  find.  They  invest  the  death  of  Jesus  with  a 
peculiar  significance;  they  set  the  mind  inquiring 
what  the  meaning  can  be  of  this  hard  necessity  that 
is  laid  on  Him.  For  the  answer  we  look  to  other 
places ;  but  at  least  there  is  here  no  contradiction 
to  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice,  though  the  Lord  does 
not  yet  say,  "  I  bear  the  wrath  of  God  against  your 
sins  in  your  stead  ;  I  become  a  curse  for  you."  Of 
the  two  sides  of  this  mysterious  doctrine, — that 
Jesus  dies  for  us  willingly,  and  that  he  dies  to  bear 
a  doom  laid  on  Him  as  of  necessity,  because  some 
one  must  bear  it, — it  is  the  latter  side  that  is  made 
prominent.  In  all  the  passages  it  pleases  Jesus  to 
speak,  not  of  His  desire  to  die,  but  of  the  burden 
laid  on  Him,  and  the  power  given  to  others  against 
Him. 

2.  Had  the  doctrine  been  explained  no  further, 
there  would  have  been  much  to  wait  for.  But  the 
series  of  announcements  in  these  passages  leads  up 
to  one  more  definite  and  complete.  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  words  of  the  institution  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  speak  most  distinctly  of  a  sacrifice. 
"  Drink  ye  all  of  this,  for  this  is  My  blood  of  the 
new  covenant,"  or,  to  follow  St.  Luke,  "  the  new 
covenant  in  My  blood."  We  are  carried  back  by 
these  words  to  the  first  covenant,  to  the  altar  with 
twelve  pillars,  and  the  burnt-offerings  and  peace- 
offerings  of  oxen,  and  the  blood  of  the  victims 


vator  appears  appended  as  a  title  of  Jupiter  in  an  in 
scription  of  the  age  of  Trajan  (Gruter,  p.  19,  No.  5).  This 
was  adopted  by  Christian  writers  as  the  most  adequate 
equivalent  for  <ro>Tijp,  though  objections  were  evidently 
raised  against  it  (Augustin,  Serm.  299,  §6X  Another 
term,  salutijicator,  was  occasionally  used 
(De  Resurr.  earn.  47  •  De  earn.  <'hr.  14V 

4  E  2 


U56 


SAVIOUK 


sprinkled  on  the  altar  and  on  the  people,  and  the 
words  of  Moses  as  he  sprinkled  it :  "  Behold  the 
blood  of  the  covenant  which  the  Lord  hath  made 
with  you  concerning  all  these  words"  (Ex.  xxiv.). 
No  interpreter  has  ever  failed  to  draw  from  these 
passages  the  true  meaning  :  "  When  My  sacrifice  is 
accomplished,  My  blood  shall  be  the  sanction  of  the 
new  covenant."  The  word  "  sacrifice"  is  wanting; 
but  sacrifice  and  nothing  else  is  described.  And 
the  words  are  no  mere  figure  used  for  illustration, 
and  laid  aside  when  they  have  served  that  turn, 
"  Do  this  in  remembrance  of  Me."  They  are  the 
words  in  which  the  Church  is  to  interpret  the  act 
of  Jesus  to  the  end  of  time.  They  are  reproduced 
sxactly  by  St.  Paul  (1  Cor.  xi."  25).  Then,  as 
now,  Christians  met  together,  and  by  a  solemn  act 
declared  that  they  counted  the  blood  of  Jesus  as  a 
sacrifice  wherein  a  new  covenant  was  sealed ;  and  oi 
the  blood  of  that  sacrifice  they  partook  by  faith, 
professing  themselves  thereby  willing  to  enter  the 
covenant  and  be  sprinkled  with  the  blood. 

3.  So  far  we  have  examined  the  three  "  synoptic ' 
Gospels.  They  follow  a  historical  order.  In  the 
.  early  chapters  of  all  three  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's 
sacrifice  is  not  found,  because  He  will  first  answer 
the  question  about  Himself,  "  Who  is  this  ? "  before 
he  shows  them  "What  is  His  work?"  But  at 
length  the  announcement  is  made,  enforced,  re 
peated  ;  until,  when  the  feet  of  the  betrayer  are 
ready  for  their  wicked  errand,  a  command  is  given 
which  secures  that  the  death  of  Jesus  shall  be 
described  for  ever  as  a  sacrifice  and  nothing  else, 
sealing  a  new  covenant,  and  cariying  good  to  many. 
Lest  the  doctrine  of  Atonement  should  seem  to  be 
an  afterthought,  as  indeed  De  Wette  has  tried  to 
represent  it,  St.  John  preserves  the  conversation 
with  Nicodemus,  which  took  place  early  in  the  mi 
nistry;  and  there,  under  the  figure  of  the  brazen 
serpent  lifted  up,  the  atoning  virtue  of  the  Lord's 
death  is  fully  set  forth.  "  As  Moses  lifted  up  the 
sei-pent  in  the  wilderness,  even  so  must  the  Son  of 
Man  be  lifted  up ;  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him 
should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal  life  "  (John  iii. 
14,  15).  As  in  this  intercessory  act,  the  image  of 
the  deadly,  hateful,  and  accurs&i  (Gen,  iii.  14,  15) 
reptile  became  by  God's  decree  '.he  means  of  health 
to  all  who  looked  on  it  earnestly,  so  does  Jesus  in 
the  form  of  sinful  man,  of  a  deceiver  of  the  people 
'Matt,  xxvii.  63),  of  Antichrist  (Matt.  xii.  24; 
John  xviii.  33),  of  one  accursed  (Gal.  iii.  13),  be 
come  the  means  of  our  salvation  ;  so  that  whoever 
fastens  the  earnest  gaze  of  faith  on  him  shall  not 
perish,  but  have  eternal  life.  There  is  even  a  sig 
nificance  in  the  word  "lifted  up;"  the  Lord  used 
probably  the  word  Sjpl,  which  in  older  Hebrew 
meant  to  lift  up  in  the  widest  sense,  but  began  in 
the  Aramaic  to  have  the  restricted  meaning  of  lift- 
flig  up  for  punishment.1*  With  Christ  the  lifting 
up  was  a  seeming  disgrace,  a  true  triumph  and 
elevation.  But  the  context  in  which  these  verses 
occur  is  as  important  as  the  verses  themselves.  Ni 
codemus  comes  as  an  inquirer;  he  is  told  that  a  man 
must  be  born  again,  and  then  he  is  directed  to  the 
death  of  Jesus  as  the  means  of  that  regeneration. 
The  earnest  gaze  of  the  wounded  soul  is  to  be  the 
condition  of  its  cure  ;  and  that  gaze  is  to  be  turned, 
not  to  Jesus  on  the  mountain,  or  in  the  Temple, 


SAVIOUR 

but  on  the  Cross.  This,  then,  is  no  passing  alhv 
sion,  but  it  is  the  substance  of  the  Christian  teaching 
addressed  to  an  earnest  seeker  after  truth. 

Another  passage  claims  a  reverent  attention — 
"  If  any  man  eat  of  this  bread  he  shall  live  for  ever, 
and  the  bread  that  I  will  give  is  My  flesh,  which  1 
will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world  "  (John  vi.  51). 
He  is  the  bread ;  and  He  will  give  the  bread.6  H 
His  presence  on  earth  were  the  expected  food,  it 
was  given  already  ;  but  would  He  speak  of  "  drink 
ing  His  blood"  (ver.  53),  which  can  onlj  refer  to 
the  dead  ?  It  is  on  the  Cross  that  He  will  afford 
this  food  to  His  disciples.  We  grant  that  this  whole 
passage  has  occasioned  as  much  disputing  among 
Christian  commentators  as  it  did  among  the  Jews 
who  heard  it ;  and  for  the  same  reason, — for  the  hard 
ness  of  the  saying.  But  there  stands  the  saying  : 
and  no  candid  person  can  refuse  to  see  a  reference 
in  it  to  the  death  of  Him  that  speaks. 

In  that  discourse,  which  has  well  been  called  the 
Prayer  of  Consecration  offered  by  our  High  Priest, 
there  is  another  passage  which  cannot  be  alleged  as 
evidence  to  one  who  thinks  that  any  word  applied 
by  Jesus  to  His  disciples  and  Himself  must  bear  in 
both  cases  precisely  the  same  sense,  but  which  is 
really  pertinent  to  this  inquiry : — "  Sanctify  them 
through  Thy  truth  :  Thy  word  is  truth.  As  Thou 
hast  sent  Me  into  the  world,  even  so  have  I  also  sent 
them  into  the  world.  And  for  their  sakes  I  sane 
tify  Myself,  that  they  also  might  be  sanctified 
through  the  truth  "  (John  xvii.  17-19).  The  woixl 
ayidfav,  "  sanctify,"  "  consecrate,"  is  used  in  the 
Septuagint  for  the  offering  of  sacrifice  (Levit.  xxii. 
2),  and  for  the  dedication  of  a  man  to  the  Divine 
service  (Num.  iii.  15).  Here  the  present  tense, 
"  I  consecrate,"  used  in  a  discourse  in  which  our 
Lord  says  He  is  "  no  more  in  the  world,"  is  con 
clusive  against  the  interpretation  "  I  dedicate  My 
life  to  thee ;"  for  life  is  over.  No  self-dedication, 
except  that  by  death,  can  now  be  spoken  of  as  pre- 
eent.  "  I  dedicate  Myself  to  Thee,  in  My  death, 
hat  these  may  be  a  people  consecrated  to  Thee ; " 
such  is  the  great  thought  in  this  sublime  passage, 
which  suits  well  with  His  other  declaration,  that 
the  blood  of  His  sacrifice  sprinkles  them  for  a  new 
covenant  with  God.  To  the  great  majority  of  ex 
positors  from  Chrysostom  and  Cyril,  the  doctrine  of 
reconciliation  through  the  death  of  Jesus  is  asserted 
in  these  verses. 

The  Redeemer  has  already  described  Himself  as 
the  Good  Shepherd  who  lays  down  His  life  for  the 
sheep  (John  x.  11,  17,  18),  taking  care  to  distin 
guish  His  death  from  that  of  one  who  dies  against 
his  will  in  striving  to  compass  some  other  aim : 
"  Therefore  doth  my  Father  love  Me,  because  I  lay 
down  My  life  that  I  might  take  it  again.  No  man 
taketh  it  from  Me,  but  I  lay  it  down  of  Myself. 
[  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I  have  power  to 
take  it  again." 

Other  passages  that  relate  to  His  death  will  occur 
to  the  memory  of  any  Bible  reader.  The  corn  of 
wheat  that  dies  in  the  ground  to  bear  much  fruit 
John  x.  24),  is  explained  by  His  own  words  else 
where,  where  He  says  that  He  came  "  to  minister, 
and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom -for  many  "  (Matt. 
xx.  28). 

4.  Thus,  then,  speaks  Jesus  of  Himself.     What 


*  So  Tholnck,  and  Knapp  (Opuscida,  p.  217).  The  trea- 
u«e  cf  Knapp  oa  this  discourse  is  valuable  throughout. 

c  Some,  omitting  r)v  eyw  6oicra>,  would  read,  "  And  my 
3cih  is  the  bread  that  I  will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world." 


So  Tertullian  seems  to  have  read  "  Panis  quern  ego  dedero 
pro  salnte  mundi  caro  mea  est."  The  sense  is  the  same 
with  the  omission;  but  the  received  reading  HK»y  b< 
uccessfully  defended. 


SAVIOUR 

y,.y  His  witnesses  of  Him  ?  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of 
God,"  says  the  Baptist,  "  which  taketh  away  the 
«n  of  the  wond"  (John  i.  29).  Commentators 
differ  about  the  allusion  implied  in  that  name.  But 
take  any  one  of  their  opinions,  and  a  sacrifice  is 
implied.  Is  it  the  Paschal  lamb  that  is  referred 
t0  ? — Is  it  the  lamb  of  the  daily  sacrifice  ?  Either 
way  the  death  of  the  victim  is  brought  before  us. 
But  the  allusion  in  all  probability  is  to  the  well- 
known  prophecy  of  Isaiah  (liii.),  to  the  Lamb 
brought  to  the  slaughter,  who  bore  our  grrfs  and 
carried  our  son.-ows.'1 

5.  The  Apostles  after  the  Resurrection  preach  no 
moral  system,  but  a  belief  in  and  love  of  Christ, 
the  crucified  and  risen  Lord,  through  whom,  if  they 
repent,  men  shall  obtain  salvation.  This  was  Peter's 
preaching  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  (Acts  ii.) ;  and  he 
appealed  boldly  to  the  Prophets  on  the  ground  of 
an  expectation  of  a  suffering  Messiah  (Acts  iii.  18). 
Philip  traced  out  for  the  Eunuch,  in  that  picture 
of  suffering  holiness  in  the  well-known  chapter  of 
Isaiah,  the  lineaments  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  (Acts 
viii. ;  Isai.  liii.).  The  first  sermon  to  a  Gentile 
household  proclaimed  Christ  slain  and  risen,  and 
added  "  that  through  His  name  whosoever  believeth 
in  Him  shall  receive  remission  of  tins"  (Acts  x.). 
Paul  at  Antioch  preaches  "a  Saviour  Jesus"  (Acts 
xiii.  23) ;  "  through  this  Man  is  preached  unto  you 
the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  by  Him  all  that  believe 
are  justified  from  all  things  from  which  ye  could  not 
be  justified  by  the  Law  of  Moses"  (Acts  xiii.  38,  39). 
At  Thessalonica  all  that  we  learn  of  this  Apostls's 
preaching  is  "  that  Christ  must  needs  have  suffered 
and  risen  again  from  the  dead  ;  and  that  this  Jesus, 
whom  I  preach  unto  you,  is  Christ  "  (Acts  xvii.  3). 
Before  Agrippa  he  declared  that  he  had  preached 
always  "  that  Christ  should  suffer,  and  that  He 
should  be  the  first  that  should  rise  from  the  dead  " 
(Acts  xxvi.  23) ;  and  it  was  this  declaration  that 
convinces  his  royal  hearer  that  he  was  a  crazed 
fanatic.  The  account  of  the  first  founding  of  the 
Church  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  concise  and 
fragmentary  ;  and  sometimes  we  have  hardly  any 
means  of  judging  what  place  the  sufferings  of  Jesus 
held  in  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles  ;  but  when  we 
read  that  they  "  preached  Jesus,"  or  the  like,  it  is 
Duly  fair  to  infer  from  other  passages  that  the 
Cross  of  Christ  was  never  concealed,  whether  Jews, 
or  Greeks,  or  barbarians  were  the  listeners.  And  this 
very  pertinacity  shows  how  much  weight  they 
attached  to  the  facts  of  the  life  of  our  Lord.  They 
did  not  merely  repeat  in  each  new  place  the  pure 
morality  of  Jesus  as  He  uttered  it  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount:  of  such  lessons  we  have  no  record 
They  took  in  their  hands,  as  the  strongest  weapon, 
the  fact  that  a  certain  Jew  crucified  afar  off  in  J 
rusalem  was  the  Son  of  God,  who  had  died  to  save 
men  from  their  sins ;  and  they  offered  to  all  alike 
an  interest,  through  faith,  in  the  resurrection  frona 
the  dead  of  this  outcast  of  His  own  people.  No 
wonder  that  Jews  and  Greeks,  judging  in  theii 
worldly  way,  thought,  this  strain  of  preaching  came 
of  folly  or  madness,  and  turned  from  what  they 
thought  unmeaning  jargon. 

6,  We  are  able  to  complete  from  the  Epistles-  our 
account  of  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles  on  the  doc- 


SAVIOUK 


1157 


:i*ine  of  Atcxement.  "The  Man  Christ  Jesus  "  if 
;he  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  fcr  in  Him  the 
inman  nature,  in  its  sinless  purity,  is  I.ftcd  up  to 
;he  Divine,  so  that  He.  exempt  from  guilt,  can 
)lead  for  the  guilty  (1  Tim  ii.  5;  1  John  ii.  1,2; 
3eb.  vii.  25).  Thus  He  is  the  second  Adam  that 
shall  redeem  the  sin  of  the  first ;  the  interests  ot 
men  are  bound  up  in  Him,  since  He  has  power  tc 
;ake  them  all  into  Himself  (Eph.  v.  29,  30;  Rom, 
iii.  5;  1  Cor.  xv.  22;  Rom.  v.  12,  17).  This 
salvation  was  provided  by  the  Father,  to  "  reconcile 
us  to  Himself"  (2  Cor.  v.  18),  to  whom  the  name 
of  "  Saviour"  thus  belongs  (Luke  i.  47)  ;  and  our 
redemption  is  a  signal  proof  of  the  love  of  God  to 
us  (1  John  iv.  10).  Not  less  is  it  a  proof  of  the 
love  of  Jesus,  since  He  freely  lays  down  His  life  for 
us — offers  it  as  a  precious  gift,  capable  of  pur 
chasing  all  the  lost  (1  Tim.  ii.  6 ;  Tit.  ii.  14  ;  Eph. 

'.  Comp.  Matt.  xx.  28).  But  there  is  another 
side  of  the  truth  more  painful  to  our  natural  reason. 
How  came  this  exhibition  of  Divine  love  to  be 
needed  ?  Because  wrath  had  already  gone  out 
against  man.  The  clouds  of  God's  anger  gathered 
thick  over  the  whole  human  race  ;  they  discharged 
themselves  on  Jesus  only.  God  has  made  Him  to 
be  sin  for  us  who  knew  no  sin  (2  Cor.  v.  21}  ;  He 
is  made  "  a  curse  "  (a  thing  accursed)  for  us,  that 
the  curse  that  hangs  over  us  maybe  removed  (Gal. 
iii.  13):  He  bore  our  sins  in  His  own  body  on  the 
tree  (1  Pet.  ii.  24).  There  are  those  who  would 
see  on  the  page  of  the  Bible  only  the  sunshine  of 
the  Divine  love;  but  the  muttering  thunders  of 
Divine  wrath  against  sin  are  heard  there  also ;  and 
He  who  alone  was  no  child  of  wrath,  meets  the 
shrxjk  of  the  thunderstorm,  becomes  a  curse  for  us, 
and  a  vessel  of  wrath;  and  the  rays  of  love  break 
out  of  that  thunder-gloom,  and  shine  on  the  bowed 
head  of  Him  who  hangs  on  the  Cross,  dead  for  our 
sins. 

We  have  spoken,  and  advisedly,  as  if  the  New 
Testament  were,  as  to  this  doctrine,  one  book  in 
harmony  with  itself.  That  there  are  in  the  New 
Testament  different  types  of  the  one  true  doctrine, 
may  be  admitted  without  peril  to  the  doctrine. 
The  principal  types  are  four'in  number. 

7.  In  the  Epistk  of  James  there  is  a  remarkable 
absence  of  all  explanations  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement ;  but  this  admission  does  not  amount  to 
so  much  as  may  at  first  appear.  True,  the  key 
note  of  the  Epistle  is  tl^t  the  Gospel  is  the  Law 
made  perfect,  and  that  it  is  a  practical  moral  system, 
in  which  man  finds  himself  free  to  keep  the  Divim 
law.  But  with  him  Christ  is  no  mere  Lawgiver 
appointed  to  impart  the  Jewish  system.  He  knows 
that  EHas  is  a  man  like  himself,  but  of  the  Person 
of  Christ  he  speaks  in  a  different  spirit.  He  calls 
himftelf  "  a  servant  of  God  and  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,"  who  is  "  the  Lord  of  Glory,"  He  speaks 
of  the  Word  of  Truth,  of  which  Jesus  has  been  the 
utterer.  He  knows  that  faith  in  the  Lord  of  Glory 
is  inconsistent  with  time-serving  and  "  respect  of 
persons"  (Jam*s  i.  1,  ii.  1,  i.  18).  "  There  is  one 
Lawgiver,"  he  says,  "  who  is  able  to  save  and  to 
destroy  "  (James  iv.  1 2 ")  ;  and  this  refers  no  doubt 
to  Jesus,  whose  second  coming  he  holds  up  as  a 
motive  to  obedience  (James  v.  7-9).  These  aud 


d  See  this  passage  discussed  fully  in  the  notes  of  Meyer 
Lunge  (BMwerke),  and  Alford.  The  reference  to  the 
I'afichal  lamb  finds  favour  with  Grotius  and  otherc  •  the 
rctcrenco  to  Isaiah  is  approved  by  Chrysostom  and  manj 
>thera.  The  taking  away  of  sin  (alptii/)  of  the  Baptist 


and  the  bearing  it  (^e'pec.y,  Sept.)  of  Isaiah,  have  ono 
meaning,  and  answer  to  the  Hebrew  word  N^-  To 
take  tbe  sins  on  Himself  is  to  remove  them  from  (he 
sinners ;  and  how  can  this  be  through  His  death  except  in 
the  way  of  expiation  by  that  death  it&elf  ? 


1158 


SAVIOUR 


like  expressions  remove  this  Epistle  far  out  of  the 
sphere  of  Ebionitish  teaching.  The  inspired  writer 
sees  the  Saviour,  in  the  Father's  glory,  preparing 
to  return  to  judge  the  quick  and  dead*.  He  puts 
forth  Christ  as  Prophet  and  King,  for  he  makes 
Him  Teacher  and  Judge  of  the  world;  but  the 
office  of  the  Priest  he  doer,  not  dwell  on.  Far  be 
it  from  us  to  say  that  he  knows  it  not.  Something 
must  have  taken  place  before  he  could  treat  his 
hearers  with  confidence,  as  free  creatures,  able  to  re 
sist  temptations,  and  even  to  meet  temptations  with 
joy.  He  treats  "  your  faith  "  as  something  founded 
already,  not  to  be  prepared  by  this  Epistle  (James 
i.  2,  3,  21).  His  purpose  is  a  purely  practical  one. 
There  is  no  intention  to  unfold  a  Christology,  such 
as  that  which  makes  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  so 
valuable.  Assuming  that  Jesus  has  manifested 
Himself,  and  begotten  anew  the  human  race,  he 
seeks  to  make  them  pray  with  undivided  hearts, 
and  be  considerate  to  the  poor,  and  strive  with  lusts, 
for  which  they  and  not  God  are  responsible ;  and 
bridle  their  tongues,  and  show  their  fruits  by  their 
works." 

8.  In  the  teaching  of  St.  Peter  the  doctrine  of 
the  Person  of  our  Lord  is  connected  strictly  with 
that  of  His  work  as  Saviour  and  Messiah.  The 
frequent  mention  of  His  sufferings  shows  the  pro 
minent  place  he  would  give  them ;  and  he  puts 
forward  as  the  ground  of  his  own  right  to  teach, 
that  he  was  "  a  witness  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  " 
(1  Pet.  v.  1).  The  atoning  virtue  of  those  suf 
ferings  he  dwells  on  with  peculiar  emphasis ;  and 
not  less  so  on  the  purifying  influence  of  the  Atone 
ment  on  the  hearts  of  believers.  He  repeats  again 
and  again  that  Christ  died  for  us  (1  Pet.  ii.  21, 
iii.  18,  iv.  1) ;  that  He  bare  our  sins  in  His  own 
body  on  the  tree f  (1  Pet.  ii.  24).  He  bare  them  ; 
and  what  does  this  phrase  suggest,  but  the  goat 
that  "  shall  bear  "  the  iniquities  of  the  people  off 
into  the  land  that  was  not  inhabited?  (Lev.  xvi. 
22)  or  else  the  feeling  the  consequences  of  sin,  as 
the  word  is  used  elsewhere  (Lev.  xx.  17,  19)  ?  We 
have  to  choose  between  the  cognate  ideas  of  sacri 
fice  and  substitution.  Closely  allied  with  these 
statements  are  those  which  connect  moral  reforma 
tion  with  the  death  of  Jesus.  He  bare  our  sins 
that  we  might  live  unto  righteousness.  His  death 
is  our  life.  We  are  not  to  be  content  with  a  self- 
satisfied  contemplation  of  our  redeemed  state,  but 
to  live  a  life  worthy  of  it  (1  Pet.  ii.  21-25,  iii. 
15-18).  In  these  passages  the  whole  Gospel  is 
contained;  we  are  justified  by  the  death  of  Jesus, 
who  bore  our  sins  that  we  might  be  sanctified  and 
renewed  to  a  life  of  godliness.  And  from  this 
Apostle  we  hear  again  the  name  of  "  the  Lamb," 
as  well  as  from  John  the  Baptist ;  and  the  passage 
of  Isaiah  comes  back  upon  us  with  unmistakeable 
clearness.  We  are  redeemed  "  with  the  precfSus 
blood  of  Cftvii%  as  of  a  lamb  without  blemish  and 
without  spot"  (1  Pet.  i.  18,  19,  with  Is.  liii.  7). 
Every  word  carries  us  back  to  the  Old  Testament 
and  its  sacrificial  system  :  the  spotless  victim,  the 
release  from  sin  by  its  blood  (elsewhere,  i.  2,  by 
the  sprinkling  of  its  blood),  are  here ;  not  the  type 
»nd  shadow,  but  the  truth  of  them  ;  not  a  cere 
monial  purgation,  but  an  effectual  reconcilement  of 
man  and  God. 

*  Sec  Nean«ler,  PJlanzung,  b.  vi.  c.  3 ;  Schmid,  Theologie 
dcr  -V.  T.,  part  ii. ;  and  Dorncr,  Christologie,  i.  95. 

'  If  there  were  any  doubt  that  "  for  us  "  (wrep  TJ/AWV) 
»3fanft  "  in  our  stead  "  (see  ver.  21).  this  24th  verse,  which 
ins  the  former,  would  set  it  at  rest. 


SAVIOUR 

9.  In  the  inspired  writings  of  John  we  are  struck 
at  once  with   the  emphatic  statements  as  to  the 
Divine  and  hnman  natures  of  Christ.    A  right  belid 
in  the  incarnation  is  the  test  of  a  Christian  man 
(1  John  iv.  2  ;  John  i.  14;  2  John  7) ;  we  must 
believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh,  ;.nd 
that  He  is  manifested  to  destroy  the  works  of  the 
devil  (1  John  iii.   8).     And,  on  the  other  hand, 
He  who  has  come  m  the  flesh  is  the  One  who  alone 
has  been  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  seen  the 
things  that  human  eyes  have  never  seen,  and  has 
come  to  declare  them  unto  us  (1  John  i.  2,  iv.  14; 
John  i.  14-18\     This  Person,  at  once  Divine  anil 
human,   is   "  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,"  oair 
"  Advocate  with  the  Father,"  sent  into  the  world 
"  that  we    might   live   through    Him ;"   and  thr 
means  was  His  laying  down  His  life  for  us,  which 
should  make  us  ready  to  lay  down  our  lives  for 
the  brethren  (1  John  ii.  1,  2,  iv.  9,  10,  v.  11-H, 
iii.  16,  v.  6,  i.  7  \  John  xi.  51).     And  the  moral 
effect  of  His  redemption  is,  that  "  the   blood  of 
Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin"  (1  John 
i.  7).     The  intimate  connexion  between  His  work 
and  our  holiness  is  the  main  subject  of  his  First 
Epistle :    "  Whosoever  is   born  of  God   doth  not 
commit  sin"  (1  John  iii.  9).     As  with  St.  Peter, 
so  with  St.  John ;  every  point  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Atonement  comes  out  with  abundant  clearness. 
The  substitution  of  another  who  can  bear  our  sins, 
for  us  who  cannot ;  the  sufferings  and  death  as  the 
means  of  our  redemption,  our  justification  thereby, 
and  our  progress  in  holiness  as  the  result  of  our 
justification. 

10.  To  follow  out  as  fully,  in  the  more  volumi 
nous  writings  of  St.  Paul,  the  passages  that  speak 
of  our  salvation,  would  far  transgress  the  limits  of 
our  paper.     Man,  according  to  this  Apostle,  is  a 
transgressor  of  the  Law.     His  conscience  tells  him 
that  he  cannot  act  up  to  that  Law  which,  the  same 
conscience  admits,  is  Divine,  and  binding  upon  him. 
Through  the  old  dispensations  man   remained  in 
this  condition.     Even  the  Law  of  Moses  could  not 
justify  him  :  it  only  by  its  strict  behests  held  up  a 
mirror  to  conscience   that  its  frailness   might  be 
seen.      Christ   came,   sent   by  the  mercy  of  our 
Father  who  had  never  forgotten  us ;  given  to,  not 
deserved  by  us.     He  came  to  reconcile  men  and 
God  by  dying  on  the  Cross  for  them,  arid  bearing 
their  punishment  in  their  steads  (2  Cor.  v.  14-21 ; 
Rom.  v.   6-8).      He   is  "a  propitiation   through 
faith  in  His  blood"  (Rom.  iii,  25.  26.     Compare 
Lev.   xvi.    15.     'l\a<rr-f}piov   means  "victim    for 
expiation ") :   words  which  most  people  will  fiivi 
unintelligible,  except  in  reference  to  the  01^     esta- 
ment  and  its  sacrifices.     He  is  the  ransom,  or  price 
paid,  for  the  redemption  of  man  from  all  iniquity 
(Titus  ii.   14).     The  wrath  of  God  was  against 
man,  but  it  did  not  fall  on  man.     God  made  His 
Son  *•  to  be  sin  for  us  "  though  He  knew  no  sin, 
and  Jesus  suffered  though  men  had  sinned.     By 
this  act  God  and  man  were  reconciled  (Rom.  v.  10; 
2  Cor.  v.   18-20;  Eph.  ii.  16;  Col.  i.  21).     On 
the  side  of  man,  trust  and  love  and  hope  take  the 
place  of  fear  and  of  an  evil  conscience  ;  on  the  side 
of  God,  that  terrible  wrath  of  His,  which  is  re 
vealed    iom    heaven   against   all  \mgodliness  and 
unrighteousness  of  men,  is  turned  away  (Rom.  i. 


f  These  two  passages  are  decisive  as  to  tne  fact  of  sub 
stitution  :  they  might  be  fortified  with  many  others. 

h  Still  stronger  in  1  Tim.  ii.  6,  "  ransom  instead  of 
(n-'-r'Aurpor).  Also  Eph.  i.  7  (aTroAuTpioo-is) ;  1  Cor.  vi.  20 
riL  23 


SAVIOUB 

18,  v.  9;  I  These,  i.  10).  The  question  whether 
re  fire  reconciled  to  God  only,  or  God  is  also  re 
conciled  to  us,  might  be  discussed  on  deep  meta 
physical  grounds ;  hut  we  purposely  leave  that  on 
one  side,  content  to  show  that  at  all  events  the  in 
tention  of  God  to  punish  man  is  averted  by  this 
"  propitiation  "  and  "  reconcilement." 

11.  Different  views  are  held  about  the  author 
ship  of  the   Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  by  modern 
critics ;  but  its  numerous  points  of  contact  with 
the  other  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  must  be  recognized. 
In  both  the  incompleteness  of  Judaism  is  dwelt  on  ; 
redemption  from  sin  and  guilt  is  what  religion  has 
to  do  tor  men,  and  this  the  Law  failed  to  secure. 
In  both,  reconciivation  and  forgiveness  and  a  new 
moral  power  in  the  believers  are  the  fruits  of  the 
work  of  Jesus.     In  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
Paul  shows  that  the  Law   failed  to  justify,  and 
that  faith  in  the  blood  of  Jesus  must  be  the  ground 
of  justification.     In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  the 
same  result  follows  from  an  argument  rather  dif 
ferent:  all  that  the  Jewish  system  aimed  to  do  is 
jiccomplished  in  Christ  in  a  far  more  perfect  manner. 
The  Gospel  has  a  better  Priest,  more  effectual  sacri 
fices,  a  more  profound  peace.     In  the  one  Epistle 
the  Law  seems  set  aside  wholly  for  the  system  of 
faith  ;  in  the  other  the  Law  is  exalted  and  glorified 
in  its  Gospel  shape ;  but  the  aim  in  precisely  the 
same — to  show  the  weakness  of  the  Law  and  the 
effectual  fruit  of  the  Gospel. 

12.  We  are  now  in  a  position  to  see  how  far  the 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament  on  the  effects  of  the 
death  of  Jesus  is  continuous  and  consistent.     Are 
the  declarations  of  our   Lord   about  Himself  the 
same  as  those  of  James  and  Peter,  John  and  Paul  ? 
and  are  those  of  the  Apostles  consistent  with  each 
other  ?    The  several  points  of  this  mysterious  trans 
action  may  be  thus  roughly  described : — 

1.  God  sent  His  Son  into  the  world  to  redeem 
lost  and  ruined  man  from  sin  and  death,  and  the 
Son  willingly  took  upon  Him  the  form  of  a  servant 
for  this  purpose ;  and  thus  the  Father  and  the  Son 
manifested  their  love  for  us. 

2.  God  the  Father  laid  upon  His  Son  the  weight 
of  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  so  that  He  bare  in 
His  own  body  the  wrath  which  men  must  else  have 
borne,  because  there  was  no  other  way  of  escape  for 
them  ;  and  thus  the  Atonement  was  a  manifestation 
of  Divine  justice. 

3.  The  effect  of  the  Atonement  thus  wrought  is, 
that  man  is  placed  in  a  new  position,  freed  from  the 
dominion  of  sin,  and  able  to  follow  holiness  ;  and 
thus  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  ought  to  work 
in  all  the  hearers  a  sense  of  love,  of  obedience,  and 
of  self-sacrifice. 

In  shorter  words,  the  sacrifice  of  the  death  of 
Christ  is  a  proof  of  Divine  love,  and  of  Divine  justice, 
and  is  for  us  .a  document  of  obedience. 

Of  the  four  great  writers  of  the  New  Testament, 
Peter,  Paul,  and  John  set  forth  every  one  of  these 
joints.  Peter,  the  "  witness  of  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,"  tells  us  that  we  are  redeemed  with  the 
blood  of  Jesus,  as  of  a  lamb  without  blemish  and 
without  spot. ;  says  that  Christ  bare  our  sins  in  His 
'-•u-n  body  en  the  tree.  If  we  "  have  tasted  that 
the  Lora  is  gracious  "  ( 1  Pet.  ii.  3),  we  must  not 
rusi,  satisfied  with  a  contemplation  of  our  redeemed 
state,  but  must  live  a  life  worthy  of  it.  No  one 
can  well  doubt,  who  reads  the  two  Epistles,  that 
the  love  of  God  and  Christ,  and  the  justice  of  God, 
and  the  duties  thereby  laid  on  us,  all  have  their 
iu  them;  but  the  iovc  is  k*.<  dwelt  on  than 


SAVIOUK 


1159 


the  justice,  whilst  the  most  prominent  idea  of  all  L: 
the  moral  and  practical  working  of  the  Cross  ov 
Christ  upon  the  lives  of  men. 

With  St.  John,  again,  all  three  points  find  place. 
That  Jesus  willingly  laid  down  His  life  for  us,  and 
is  an  advocate  with  the  Father ;  that  He  is  also  the 
propitiation,  the  suffering  sacrifice,  for  our  s.ns  ; 
and  that  the  blooa  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  us 
from  all  sin,  for  that  whoever  is  born  of  God  doth 
not  commit  sin  ;  all  are  put  forward.  The  death 
of  Christ  is  both  justice  and  love,  both  a  pro 
pitiation  and  an  act  of  loving  self-surrender  ;  but 
the  moral  effect  upon  us  is  more  prominent  e"tn 
than  these. 

In  the  Epistles  of  Paul  the  three  elements  are  all 
present.  In  such  expressions  as  a  ransom,  a  pro 
pitiation,  who  was  "  made  sin  for  us,"  the  wrath 
of  God  against  sin,  and  the  mode  in  which  it  was 
turned  away,  are  presented  to  us.  Yet  not  wrath 
alone.  "  The  love  of  Christ  constraineth  us ;  be 
cause  we  thus  judge,  that  if  one  died  for  all,  then 
were  all  dead :  and  that  He  died  for  all,  that  they 
which  live  should  not  henceforth  live  unto  them 
selves,  but  unto  Him  which  died  for  them,  and 
rose  again"  (2  Cor.  v.  14,  15).  Love  in  Him 
begets  love  in  us,  and  in  our  reconciled  state  the 
holiness  which  we  could  not  practise  before  becomes 
easy. 

The  reasons  for  not  finding  from  St.  James  similar 
evidence,  we  have  spoken  of  already. 

Now  in  which  of  these  points  is  there  the  sem 
blance  of  contradiction  between  the  Apostles  and 
their  Master  ?  In  none  of  them.  In  the  Gospels, 
as  in  the  Epistles,  Jesus  is  held  up  as  the  sacrifice 
and  victim,  draining  a  cup  from  which  His  human 
nature  shrank,  feeling  in  Himself  a  sense  of  desolation 
such  ac  we  fail  utterly  to  comprehend  on  a  theory 
of  human  motives.  Yet  no  one  takes  from  Him 
Hi*  j'-ecious  redeeming  life;  He  lays  it  down  ot 
Himself,  out  of  His  great  love  for  men.  But  men 
are  to  deny  themselves,  and  take  up  their  cross  and 
troad  in  His  steps.  They  are  His  friends  only  if 
they  keep  His  commands  and  follow  His  footsteps. 

We  must  consider  it  proved  that  these  three 
points  or  moments  are  the  doctrine  of  the  whole 
New  Testament.  What  is  tnere  about  this  teaching 
that  has  provoked  in  times  past  and  present  so 
much  disputation?  Not  the  hardness  of  the  doc 
trine, — for  none  of  the  theories  put  in  its  place 
are  any  easier, — but  its  want  of  logical  complete 
ness.  Sketched  out  for  us  in  a  few  broad  lines,  it 
tempts  the  fancy  to  fill  it  in  and  lend  it  colour; 
and  we  do  not  always  remember  that  the  hands 
that  attempt  this  are  trying  to  make  a  mystery 
into  a  theory,  an  infinite  truth  into  a  finite  one, 
and  to  reduce  the  great  things  of  God  into  the 
narrow  limits  of  our  little  field  of  view.  To  whom 
was  the  ransom  paid  ?  What  was  Satan's  sl.are  of 
the  transaction  ?  How  can  one  suffer  for  anotner  ? 
How  oould  the  Redeemer  be  miserable  when  He 
was  conscious  that  His  work  was  one  which  c.uli 
bring  happiness  to  the  whole  human  race?  Yet 
this  condition  of  indefiniteness  is  one  which  is  im 
posed  on  us  in  the  reception  of  every  mystery : 
prayer,  the  incarnation,  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
are  all  subjects  that  pass  far  beyond  our  range  of 
thought.  And  here  we  see  the  wisdom  of  God  in 
connecting  so  closely  our  redemption  with  our 
reformation.  If  the  object  were  to  give  us  a  com 
plete  theory  of  salvation,  no  doubt  there  world  bo 
in  the  Bible  much  to  seek.  The  theory  i«=  gathered 
by  fragments  out  of  many  an  exhortation  aud  warn- 


1160 


BAW 


ing;  nowhere  does  it  stand  out  entire,  and  without 
logical  flaw.  But  if  we  assume  that  the  New  Tes 
tament  is  written  for  the  guidance  of  sinful  hearts, 
we  find  a  wonderful  aptness  for  that  particular  end. 
Jesus  is  proclaimed  as  the  solace  of  our  fears,  as 
the  founder  of  our  moral  life,  as  the  restorer  of  our 
lost  relation  with  our  Father.  If  He  had  a  cross, 
there  is  a  cross  for  us  ;  if  He  pleased  not  Himself, 
let  us  deny  ourselves;  if  He  suffered  for  sin,  let  us 
hate  sin.  And  the  question  ought  not  to  be,  What 
•io  all  these  mysteries  mean  ?  but,  Are  these 
thovights  really  sucli  as  will  serve  to  guide  our  life 
and  to  assuage  our  terrors  in  the  hour  of  death  ? 
The  answer  is  twofold  —  one  from  history  and  one 
from  experience.  The  preaching  of  the  Cross  of 
the  Lord  even  in  this  simple  fashion  converted  the 
world.  The  same  doctrine  is  now  the  ground  of 
any  definite  hope  that  we  find  in  ourselves,  of  for 
giveness  of  sins  and  of  everlasting  life. 

It  would  be  out  of  place  in  a  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible  to  examine  the  History  of  the  Doctrine  or  to 
answer  the  modern  objections  urged  against  it.  For 
these  subjects  the  leader  is  referred  to  the  author's 
Essay  on  the  "  Death  of  Christ,"  in  Aids  to  Faith, 
which  also  contains  the  substance  of  the  present 
article.  [W.  T.] 

SAW.*  Egyptian  saws,  so  far  as  has  yet 
been  discovered,  were  single-handed,  though  St. 
Jerome  has  been  thought  to  allude  to  circular  saws. 
As  is  the  case  in  modern  Oriental  saws,  the  teeth 
usually  incline  towards  the  handle,  instead  of  away 
from  it  like  ours.  They  have,  in  most  cases,  bronze 
blades,  apparently  attached  to  the  handles  by  lea 
thern  thongs,  but  some  of  those  in  the  British 
Museum  have  their  blades  let  into  them  like  our 
knives.  A  double-handed  iron  saw  has  been  found 
at  Nimrftd  ;  and  double  saws  strained  with  a  cord, 
such  as  modern  carpenters  use,  were  in  use  among 
the  Romans.  In  sawing  wood  the  Egyptians  placed 
the  wood  perpendicularly  in  a  sort  of  frame,  and  cut 
it  downwards.  No  evidence  exists  of  the  use  of  the 
saw  applied  to  stone  in  Egypt,  nor  without  the 
double-handed  saw  does  it  seem  likely  that  this 
should  be  the  case;  but  we  read  of  sawn  stones 
used  in  the  Temple.  (1  K.  vii.  9  ;  Ges.  Thes.  305  ; 
Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egyp.  ii.  114,  119;  Brit.  Mus. 
Eg  up.  Room,  No.  6046;  Layard,  Nin.  and  Bab. 
p.  195;  Jerome,  Comm.  in  Is.  xxviii.  27.)  The 
saws  "  under  "  or  "  in  "  b  which  David  is  said 
to  have  placed  his  captives  were  of  iron.  The 
expression  in  2  Sam.  xii.  '6'  ,  does  not  necessarily 
imply  torture,  but  the  word  "cut"  in  1  Chr. 
xx.  3,  can  hardly  be  understood  otherwise.  (Ges. 
Thes.  p.  1326;  Thenius  on  2  Sam.  xii.  and 
1  Chr.  xx.)  A  case  of  sawing  asunder,  by  placing 
the  criminal  between  boards,  and  then  beginning 
at  the  head,  is  mentioned  by  Shaw,  Trav.  p.  254. 
'See  Diet,  of  Antiq.  "Serra.")  [HANDICRAFT; 
PUNISHMENT].  "  [H.  W.  P.] 

SCAPE-GOAT.     [ATONEMENT,  DAY  OF.] 

SCARLET.     [COLOURS.] 

SCEPTRE  (B3B>).  The  Hebrew  term  shebet, 
like  its  Greek  equivalent  ffK^irrpov,  and  our  deri 
vative  sceptre,  originally  meant  a  rod  or  staff.  It 
>vas  thence  specifically  applied  to  the  shepheid's 
crook  (Lev.  xxvii.  32;  Mic.  vii.  14),  and  to  the 


SCIENCE 

wand  or  sceptre  of  a  ruler.  It  has  been  inferred 
that  the  latter  of  these  secondary  senses  is  derive*! 
from  the  former  (Winer,  Eealwl.  "  Sceptre")  ;  but 
this  appears  doubtful  from  the  circumstance  that  the 
sceptre  of  the  Egyptian  kings,  whence  the  idea  of 
a  sceptre  was  probably  borrowed  by  the  early  Jews, 
resembled,  not  a  shepherd's  crook,  but  a  plough 
(Diod.  Sic.  iii.  3).  The  use  of  the  staff  as  a  symbol 
of  authority  was  not  confined  to  kings  ;  it  might 
be  used  by  any  leader,  as  instanced  in  Judg.  v.  14, 
where  for  "  pen  of  the  writer,"  as  in  the  A.  V.,  we 
should  read  "  sceptre  of  the  leader."  Indeed,  no 
instance  of  the  sceptre  being  actually  handled  by  a 
Jewish  king  occurs  in  the  Bible  ;  the  allusions  to  it 
aie  all  of  a  metaphorical  character,  and  describe 
it  simply  as  one  of  the  insignia  of  supreme  power 
(Gen.  xlix.  10;  Num.  xxiv.  17  ;  Ps.  xlv.  6  ;  Is  xiv. 
5  ;  Am.  i.  5  ;  Zech.  x.  11;  Wisd.  x.  14  ;  Bar.  vi. 
14).  We  are  consequently  unable  to  describe  the 
article  from  any  Biblical  notices;  we  may  inter 
from  the  term  shebet,  that  it  was  probably  made  of 
wood  ;  but  we  are  not  wan-anted  in  quoting  Ez. 
xix.  11  in  support  of  this,  as  done  by  Winer,  for 
the  term  rendered  "  rods  "  may  better  be  rendered 
"  shoots,"  or  "  sprouts"  as  =  o/spring.  The  sceptre 
of  the  Persian  monarchs  is  described  as  "  golden," 
i.  e.  probably  of  massive  gold  (Esth.  iv.  11  ;  Xen. 
Cyrop.  viii.  7,  §13)  ;  the  inclination  of  it  towards 
a  subject  by  the  monarch  was  a  sign  of  favour,  and 
kissing  it  an  act  of  homage  (Esth.  iv.  11,  v.  2). 
A  carved  ivory  staff  discovered  at  Nimrud  is  sup 
posed  to  have  been  a  sceptre  (Layard,  Nin.  and 
Bab.  p.  195).  The  sceptre  of  the  Egyptian 
queens  is  represented  in  Wilkinson's  Anc.  JEy. 
i.  276.  The  term  shebet  is  rendered  in  the  A.  V. 
"  rod  "  in  two  passages  where  sceptre  should  be 
substituted,  viz.  in  Ps.  ii.  9,  where  "  sceptre  of 
iron"  is  an  expression  for  strong  authority,  and  in 
Ps.  cxxv.  3.  [W.  L.  B.J 

SCE'VA  (2/ceuSs;  Sceva).  A  Jew  residing 
at  Ephesus  at  the  time  of  St.  Paul's  second  visit  to 
that  town  (Acts  xix.  14-16).  He  is  described  as 
a  "  high-piiest"  (apxupeus),  either  as  having 
exercised  the  office  at  Jerusalem,  or  as  being  chief 
of  one  of  the  twenty-four  classes.  His  seven  sons 
attempted  to  exorcise  spirits  by  using  the  name  of 
Jesus,  and  on  one  occasion  severe  injury  was  in 
flicted  by  the  demoniac  on  two  of  them  (as  implied 
in  the  term  a^orffwv,  the  true  reading  in  ver.  Ib 
instead  of  avr&v).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SCIENCE  QTO  :  yvwffis:  scientia}.  In  th» 
A.  V.  this  word  occurs  only  in  Dan.  i.  4,  and  1  Tim. 
vi.  20.  Elsewhere  the  rendering  for  the  Hebrew  or 
Greek  words  and  their  cognates  is  "knowledge," 
while  the  Vulg.  has  as  uniformly  scientia.  Its  use 
in  Dan.  i.  4  is  probably  to  be  explained  by  the 
number  of  synonymous  words  in  the  verse,  forcing 
the  translators  to  look  out  for  diversified  equivalents 
in  English.  Why  it  should  have  been  chosen  for 
1  Tim.  vi.  20  is  not  so  obvious.  Its  effect  is  inju 
rious,  as  leading  the  reader  to  suppose  that  St.  Paul 
is  speaking  of  something  else  than  the  "  knowledge" 
of  which  both  the  Judaizing  and  the  mystic  sects  of 
the  Apostolic  age  continually  boasted,  against  which 
he  so  urgently  warns  men  (1  Cor.  viii.  1,  7),  the 
counterfeit  of  the  true  knowledge  which  he  prize* 
so  highly  (1  Cor.  xii.  8,  xiii.  2;  Phil.  i.  9:  Col 


*  1.  H13D  . 
Fual.  1  K*vli.  9. 


from  "HS  :    only  usei'    a  part. 


terra. 
32  ;  cv  ft?  n-puw  (e0i}/ce);  serravit 


SCORPION 

lii.  10).  A  natural  perversion  of  the  meaning  of  the 
text  has  followed  from  this  translation.  Men  have 
seen  in  it  a  warning,  i,ot  against  a  spurious  theo- 
sophy — of  which  Swedinborgianism  is,  perhaps,  the 
icarest  modern  analogue — but  against  that  which 
jid  not  come  within  St  Paul's  horizon,  and  which, 
if  it  had,  we  may  believe  he  would  have  welcomed — 
the  stady  of  the  works  of  God,  the  recognition  of 
His  Wilf  working  by  laws  in  nature.  It  has  been 
hurled  successively  at  the  heads  of  astronomers  and 
geologists,  whenever  men  have  been  alarmed  at 
what  they  have  deemed  the  antagonism  of  physical 
"science"  to  religion.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
ascertain  whether  this  were  at  all  the  animus  of  the 
translators  of  the  A.  V. — whether  they  were  be 
ginning  to  look  with  alarm  at  the  union  of  scepticism 
and  science,  of  which  the  common  proved,  "  ubi 
tres  medici  duo  at/iei,"  was  a  witness.  As  it  is,  we 
must  content  ourselves  with  noting  a  few  facts  in 
the  Biblical  history  of  the  English  word. 

(1.)  In  Wiclif's  translation,  it  appears  less  fre 
quently  than  might  have  been  expected  in  a  version 
based  upon  the  Vulgate.  For  the  "  knowledge  of 
salvation"  of  the  A.  V.  in  Luke  i.  77,  we  have  the 
"  sc-'ence  of  health."  In  Christ  are  hid  "  the  trea 
sures  of  wisdom  and  of  science"  (Col.  ii.  3).  In 
I  Tim.  vi.  20,  however,  Wiclif  has  "  kunnynge." 

(2.)  Tindal,  rejecting  "  science"  as  a  rendering 
elsewhere,  introduces  it  here ;  and  is  followed  by 
Cranmer's  and  the  Geneva  Bibles,  and  by  the  A.  V.a 

(3.)  The  Rhemish  translators,  in  this  instance  ad 
hering  less  closely  to  the  Vulg.  than  the  Protestant 
versions,  give  "knowledge." 

It  would  obviously  be  out  of  place  to  enter  here 
into  the  wide  question  what  were  the  avridfcreis 
TTJS  \l/ev5cavvfj.ov  yvcaffews  of  which  St.  Paul  speaks. 
A  dissertation  on  the  Gnosticism  of  the  Apostolic 
age  would  require  a  volume.  What  is  necessary 
for  a  Dictionary  will  be  found  under  TIMOTHY, 
EPISTLES  TO.  "  [E.  H.  P.] 

SCORPION  (2~\\)y,'akrdb:  fftcopirios:  scorpio). 
The  well-known  animal  of  that  name,  belonging  to 
the  class  Arachnid®  and  order  Pulmonaria,  which  is 
twice  mentioned  in  the  0.  T.  and  four  times  in  the 
N.  T.  The  wilderness  of  Sinai  is  especially  alluded 
to  as  oeing  inhabited  by  scorpions  at  the  time  of 
the  exodus  (Deut.  viii.  15),  and  to  this  day  these 
animals  are  common  in  the  same  district,  as  well 
as  in  some  parts  of  Palestine.  Ehrenberg  (Symb. 
Phys.}  enumerates  five  species  as  occurring  near  Mt. 
Sinai,  some  of  which  are  found  also  in  the  Lebanon. 
Ezekiel  (ii.  6)  is  told  to  be  in  no  fear  of  the  rebel 
lious  Israelites,  here  compared  to  scorpions.  The 
Apostles  were  endued  with  power  to  resist  the 
stings  of  serpents  and  scorpions  (Luke  x.  19).  In 
the  vision  of  St.  John  (Rev.  ix.  3, 10)  the  locusts  that 
came  out.  of  the  smoke  of  the  bottomless  pit  are 
said  to  have  had  "  tails  like  unto  scorpions,"  while 
the  pain  resulting  from  this  creature's  sting  is  al 
luded  to  in  verse  5.  A  scorpion  for  an  egg  (Luke 
xi.  12)  was  probably  a  proverbial  expression.  Ac- 


SCORPION 


1161 


cording  to  Erasmus  the  Greeks  had  a  similar  proverb 
(avrl  TTfpKTJs  (TKopriW).  Scorpions  are  generally 
found  in  dry  and  in  dark  places,  under  stones  and 
in  ruins,  chiefly  in  warm  climates.  They  are  car 
nivorous  in  their  habits,  and  move  alcng  in  a 
threatening  attitude  with  the  tail  elevated.  The 
sting,  which  is  situated  at  the  extremity  of  the  tail, 
has  at  its  base  a  gland  that  secretes  a  poisonous 
fluid,  which  is  discharged  into  the  wound  by  two 
minute  orifices  at  its  extremity.  In  hot  climates 
the  sting  often  occasions  much  suffering,  and 
sometimes  alarming  symptoms.  The  following 
are  the  species  of  scorpions  mentioned  by  Eh 
renberg  : — Scorpio  macrocentrus,  S.  palmatus, 
S.  bicolor,  S.  leptochelis,  S.  funcstus,  all  found  at 
Mt.  Sinai ;  S.  nigrocinctus,  S.  melanophysa,  S. 
palmatus,  Mt.  Lebanon.1*  Besides  these  Palestine 
and  Sinai  kinds,  five  others  are  recorded  as  oc 
curring  in  Egypt. 


Scorpion 

The  "  scorpions"  of  1  K.  xii.  11,  14,  2  Chr.x.  11 
14,  have  clearly  no  allusion  whatever  to  the  animal, 
but  to  some  instrument  of  scourging  —  unless 
indeed  the  expression  is  a  mere  figure.  Celsius 
(Hierob.  ii.  45)  thinks  the  "  scorpion  "  scourge  was 
the  spiny  stem  of  what  the  Arabs  call  Hedek 

(t5*Xs*),  the  Solatium  melonyena,  var.  esculentum, 

egg-plant,  because,  according  to  Abul  Fadli,  this 
plant,  from  the  resemblance  of  its  spines  to  the 
sting  of  a  scorpion,  war  sometimes  called  the 
"  scorpion  thorn  ;"  but  in  all  probability  this  in 
strument  of  punishment  was  in  the  form  of  a  whip 
armed  with  iron  points  "  Virga — si  nodosa  vel 
f/juleala,  scorpio  rectissimo  nomine  vocatur,  qui 
arcuato  vulnere  in  corpus  infigitur."  (Isidorus 
Orig.  Lat.  5,  27  ;  and  see  Jahn,  Bib.  Ant^p.  287.) 
In  the  Greek  of  1  Mace.  vi.  51,  some  kind  of  war 
missile  is  mentioned  under  the  name  ffKopiriSiov ; 
but  we  want  information  both  as  to  its  form  and 
the  reason  of  its  name.  (See  Diet,  of  Antiquities 
art.  "  Tormentum.")  [W.  H.] 


a  The  folio  wing  quotation  from  Tindal  is  decisive  as  to 
the  sense  in  which  he  used  the  word.  It  shows  that  he 
contemplated  no  form  of  science  (in  the  modern  sense  of 
the  term),  mathematical  or  physical,  but  the  very  oppo 
site  of  this,— the  attempt  to  bring  all  spiritual  or  divine 
I  HI  hs  under  the  formulae  of  the  logical  understanding.  He 
spe-.iks  of  the  disputes  of  Romish  theologians  as  the  "  con 
tradictions  of  which  Paul  warned  Timothy,  calling  them 
the  oppositions  of  a  false-named  science,  for  that  their 
tfh.>l<jstical  divinity  inns';  make  objections  against  any 


truth,  be  it  never  so  plain,  with  pro  and  contra  "  (Svpper 
of  the  Lord,  iii.  284,  Parker  Soc.  Edition).  Tindal's  use 
and  application  of  the  word  accounts,  it  may  be  remarked, 
for  the  choice  of  a  different  word  by  the  Rhemiah  trans 
lators.  Those  of  the  A.  V.  may  have  used  it  with  a  dif  • 
meaning. 

*>  Modern  naturalists  restrict  the  genus  Scorpio  to 
those  kinds  which  have  six  eyes,  Boathus  to  thost 
which  have  eight,  and  Androctonus  to  thoee  whid;  iinv« 
twelve. 


1162 


SCOURGING 


SCOURGING."  The  punishment  of  scourging 
was  prescribed  by  the  Law  in  the  case  of  a  betrothed 
bondwoman  guilty  of  unchastity,  and  perhaps  in 
the  case  of  both  the  guilty  persons  (Lev.  xix.  20). 
Women  were  subject  to  scourging  in  Egypt,  as  they 
f  till  r.re  by  the  law  of  the  Koran,  for  incontinence 
(Sale,  Koran,  chap.  xxiv.  and  chap.  iv.  note  ; 
Lane,  Mod.  Egyp.  i.  147  ;  Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egi/p. 
abridgm.  ii.  211).  The  instrument  of  punishment 
in  ancient  Egypt,  as  it  is  also  in  modern  times 
generally  in  the  East,  was  usually  the  stick,  applied 
to  the  soles  of  the  feet  —  bastinado  (Wilkinson,  /.  c.  ; 
Chardin,  vi.  114;  Lane,  Mod.  Egi/p.  i.  146).  A 
mere  severe  scourge  is  possibly  implied  in  the 
term  "  scorpions,"  whips  armed  with  pointed 
balls  of  lead,  the  "  horribile  flagellum"  of  Horace, 
though  it  is  more  probably  merely  a  vivid  figure. 
Under  the  Roman  method  the  culprit  was  stripped, 
stretched  with  cords  or  thongs  on  a  frame  (Jivari- 
catio\  and  beaten  with  rods.  After  the  Porcian 
law  (B.C.  300),  Roman  citizens  were  exempted  from 
scourging,  but  slaves  and  foreigneis  were  liable 
to  be  beaten,  even  to  death  (Gesen.  Tkes.  p.  1062  ; 
Isid.  Orig.  v.  27,  ap.  Scheller;  Lex.  Lat.  Scorpio; 
Hor.  1  Sat.  ii.  41,  iii.  119;  Prov.  xxvi.  3  ;  Acts 
xvi.  22,  and  Grotius,  ad  1.,  xxii.  24,  25  ;  1  K.  xii. 
1  1  ;  Cic.  Ver.  iii.  28,  29  ;  pro  Rob.  4  ;  Liv.  x.  9  ; 
Sail.  Cat.  51).  [H.  W.  P.] 

SCREECH-OWL.    [OwL.] 


SCRIBES  (DnBiD:  ypawareis  :  scribae}. 
The  prominent  position  occupied  by  the  Scribes  in 
the  Gospel  history  would  of  itself  make  a  know 
ledge  of  their  life  and  teaching  essential  to  any 
clear  conception  of  our  Lord's  work.  It  was  by 
their  influence  that  the  later  form  of  Judaism  had 
been  determined.  Such  as  it  was  when  the  "new 
doctrine"  was  first  proclaimed,  it  had  become 
through  them.  Far  more  than  priests  or  Levites 
they  represented  the  religious  life  of  the  people. 
On  the  one  hand  we  must  know  what  they  were 
in  order  to  understand  the  innumerable  points  of 
contrast  presented  by  our  Lord's  acts,  and  words. 
On  the  other,  we  must  not  forget  that  there  were 
also,  inevitably,  points  of  resemblance.  Opposed 
as  His  teaching  was,  in  its  deepest  principles,  to 
theirs,  He  was  yet,  in  the  eyes  of  men,  as  one  of 
their  order,  a  Scribe  among  Scribes,  a  Rabbi  among 
Rabbis  (John  i.  49,  iii.  2,  vi.  25,  &c.  ;  Schoettgen, 
Hor.  Heb.  ii.  Christus  Rabbinorum  Summus). 

I.  Name.  —  (1.)  Three  meanings  are  connected 
with  the  verb  sdphar  (*1DD),  the  root  of  Sopherim 
—  (1)  to  write,  (2)  to  set  in  order,  (3)  to  count. 
The  explanation  of  the  word  has  been  referred  to 
each  of  these.  The  Sopherim  were  so  called  because 
they  wrote  out  the  Law,  or  because  they  classified 
and  arranged  its  precepts,  or  because  they  counted 
with  scrupulous  minuteness  every  clause  and  letter 
it  contained.  The  traditions  of  the  Scribes,  glorying 
in  their  own  achievements,1*  weie  in  favour  of  the 


a  1.  To  scourge,  ^-1^.  the  scourge,  &) 
flagellum ;  also  in  A.  V.  "  whip. 

2.  t3t2D> ;  ^A.os ;  offendiculum ;  only  in  Josh,  xxiii.  13. 
Either  a  subst.  or  the  inf.  in  Piel.  (Ges.  1379). 

b  They  had  ascertained  that  the  central  letter  of  the 
whole  Law  was  the  van  of  JIHS  in  Lev.  xi.  42,  and  wrote 
it  accordingly  in  a  larger  character.  (Kiddush.  in  Light- 
toot,  On  Luke  x.)  They  counted  up  in  like  manner  the 
precepts  of  the  Law  that  answered  to  the  number  of 
Abraham's  servants  or  Jacob's  descendants. 

«  Lightfoot's  arrangement,  though  conjectural,  is  worth 


SCRIBES 

last  of  these  etymologies  (tekalim,  5  ;  Carp/ov. 
App.  Crit.  ii.  135).  The  second  fits  in  best  with 
the  military  functions  connected  with  the  word  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  its  history  (infra].  The  au 
thority  of  most  Hebrew  scholars  is  with  the  £*-st 
(Gesenius,  s.  c.).  The  Greek  equivalent  answers 
to  the  derived  rather  than  the  original  meaning  of 
the  word.  The  ypa/j-fj-arevs  of  a  Greek  state  was 
not  the  mere  writer,  but  the  keeper  and  registrar 
of  public  documents  (Thuc.  iv.  118,  vii.  10;  so  ir 
Acts  xix.  35).  The  Scribes  of  Jerusalem  were,  it 
like  manner,  the  custodians  and  interpreters  of  the 
'ypd/j./j.a.Ta  upon  which  the  polity  of  the  nation 
rested.  Other  words  applied  to  the  same  class  are 
found  in  the  N.  T.  NO,U:KO!  appears  in  Matt.  xxii. 
35,  Luke  vii.  30,  x.  25,  xiv.  3;  vo/j.o8i8d<TKa\oi 
in  Luke  v.  17  ;  Acts  v.  34.  Attempts  have  been 
made,  but  not  very  successfully,  to  reduce  the 
several  terms  to  a  classification.6  All  that  can  be 
said  is  that  ypajj.iJ.aTfvs  appears  the  most  generic 
term  ;  that  in  Luke  xi.  45  it  is  contrasted  with 
VO/J.IKOS  ;  that  i/o/ioSiSaerffoAos,  as  in  Acts  v.  34, 
seems  the  highest  of  the  three.  Josephus  (Ant. 
xvii.  6,  §2)  paraphrases  the  technical  word  by 
f^ynral  vopav. 

(2.)  The  name  of  KIRJATH-SEPHER  (WAts 
ypa/j./ji.d.T<av,  LXX.,  Josh.  xv.  15;  Judg.  i.  12)  may 
possibly  connect  itself  with  some  early  use  of  the 
title.  In  the  Song  of  Deborah  (Judg.  v.  14)  the 
word  appears  to  point  to  military  functions  of  some 
kind.  The  "  pen  of  the  writer "  of  the  A.  V. 
(LXX.  eV  pdfiScp  5i777T?<reu's  ypa/j-fiarews}  is  pro 
bably  the  rod  or  sceptre  of  the  commander  num 
bering  or  marshalling  his  troops.*1  The  title  appears 
with  more  distinctness  in  the  early  history  of  the 
monarchy.  Three  men  are  mentioned  as  successively 
rilling  the  office  of  Scribe  under  David  and  Solomon 
(2  Sam.  viii.  17,  xx.  25;  1  K.  iv.  3,  in  this  in 
stance  two  simultaneously).  Their  functions  aie 
not  specified,  but  the  high  place  assigned  to  them, 
side  by  side  with  the  high-priest  and  the  captain 
of  the  host,  implies  power  and  honour.  We  may 
think  of  them  as  the  king's  secretaries,  writing 
his  letters,  drawing  up  his  decrees,  managing  his 
finances  (comp.  the  work  of  the  scribe  under  Joash, 
2  K.  xii.  10).  At  a  later  period  the  word  again 
connects  itself  with  the  act  of  numbering  the  mili 
tary  forces  of  the  country  (Jer.  Iii.  25,  and  probably 
Is.  xxxiii.  18).  Other  associations,  however,  beg;iu 
to  gather  round  it  about  the  same  period.  The 
zeal  of  Kezekiah  led  him  to  foster  the  growth  of  a 
body  of  men  whose  work  it  was  to  transcribe  old 
records,  or  to  put  in  writing  what  had  been  handed 
down  orally  (Prov.  xxv.  1).  To  this  period  ac 
cordingly  belongs  the  new  significance  of  the  title. 
It  no  longer  designates  only  an  officer  of  the  king's 
court,  but  a  class,  students  and  interpreters  of  the 
Law,  boasting  of  their  wisdom  (Jer.  viii..  8). 

(3.)  The  seventy  years  of  the  Captivity  gave  a 
fresh  glory  to  the  name.  The  exiles  would  be 

giving  (Harm.  $  77).  The  "Scribes,"  as  such,  were  those 
who  occupied  themselves  with  the  Mikra.  Next  above 
them  were  the  "Lawyers,"  students  of  the  Mishna, acting 
as  assessors,  though  not  voting  in  the  Sanhedrim.  The 
"  Doctors  of  the  Law  "  were  expounders  of  the  Gemara, 
and  actual  members  of  the  Sanhedrim.  (Comp.  Carpzov, 
App.  Crit.  i.  7 ;  Leusden,  Phil.  Hebr.  r,  23 ;  Leyrer.  ill 
Herzog's  Encyclop.  "  Schriftgelehrte.") 

d  Ewald,  however  (Poet.  Bitch,  i.  126),  takes  "1SD  as 
equivalent  to  DD^>  "a judge" 


SCRIBES 

anxious  above  all  things  to  preserve  the  sacred 
books,  the  laws,  the  hymns,  the  prophecies  of  the 
past.  To  know  what  was  worth  presenting,  to 
transcribe  the  older  Hebrew  documents  accurately, 
when  the  spoken  language  of  the  people  was  passing 
into  Aramaic,  to  explain  what  was  hard  and  ob 
scure — this  was  what  the  necessities  of  the  time 
demanded.  The  man  who  met  them  became  em 
phatically  Ezra  the  Scribe,  the  priestly  functions 
falling  into  the  background,  as  the  priestly  order 
itself  did  before  the  Scribes  as  a  class.  The  words 
of  Ezr.  vii.  10  describe  the  high  ideal  of  the  new 
office.  The  Scribe  is  "  to  seek  (VTT\)  the  law  of 
the  Lord  and  to  do  it,  and  to  teach  in  Israel  statutes 
and  judgments."  This,  far  more  than  his  priest 
hood,  was  the  true  glory  of  Ezra.  In  the  eyes 
even  of  the  Persian  king  he  was  "  a  Scribe  of 
the  Law  of  the  God  of  Heaven"  (vii.  12).  He 
was  assisted  in  his  work  by  others,  chiefly  Levites. 
Publicly  they  read  and  expounded  the  Law, 
perhaps  also  translated  it  from  the  already  obso 
lescent  Hebrew  into  the  Aramaic  of  the  people c 
'vNeh.  viii.  8-13). 

(4.)  Of  the  time  that  followed  we  have  but 
scanty  records.  The  Scribes'  office  apparently  be 
came  more  and  more  prominent.  Traces  are  found 
in  the  later  canonical  books  of  their  work  and  in 
fluence.  Already  they  are  recognised  as  "  masters 
of  assemblies,"  actl.ig  under  "  one  shepherd,"  hav 
ing,  that  is,  something  of  a  corporate  life  (Eccl.  xii. 
11  ;  Jost,  Judenth.  i.  42).  As  such  they  set  their 
faces  steadily  to  maintain  the  authority  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  to  exclude  from  all  equality  with 
them  the  "  many  books  "  of  which  "  there  is  no 
end"  (Eccl.  xii.  12).  They  appear  as  a  distinct 
class,  "  the  families  of  the  Scribes,"  with  a  local 
habitation  (1  Chr.  ii.  55).  They  compile,  as  in 
the  two  Books  of  Chronicles,  excerpta  and  epitomes 
of  larger  histories  (1  Chr.  xxix.  29 ;  2  Chr.  ix.  29). 
The  occurrence  of  the  word  midrash  ("  the  story 
— margin,  '  the  commentary ' — of  the  Prophet 
Iddo  "),  afterwards  so  memorable,  in  2  Chr.  xiii.  22, 
snows  that  the  work  of  commenting  and  expounding 
had  begun  already. 

II.  Development  of  Doctrine. — (1.)  It  is  charac 
teristic  of  the  Scribes  of  this  period  that,  with  the 
exception  of  Ezra  and  Zadok  (Neh.  xiii.  13),  we 
have  no  record  of  their  names.  A  later  age 
honoured  them  collectively  as  the  men  of  the  Great 
Synagogue,  the  true  successors  of  the  Prophets 
(Pirke  Abotfi,  i.  1),  but  the  men  themselves  by 
whose  agency  the  Scriptures  of  the  0.  T.  were 
written  in  their  present  characters/  compiled  in 
their  present  form,  limited  to  their  present  number, 
remain  unknown  to  us.  Never,  perhaps,  was  so 
important  a  work  done  so  silently.  It  has  been 
well  argued  (Jost,  Judcntham,  i.  42)  that  it  was  so 
of  set  purpose.  The  one  aim  of  those  early  Scribes 
was  to  promote  reverence  for  the  Law,  to  make  it 
the  groundwork  of  the  people's  life.  They  would 
write  nothing  of  their  own,  lest  less  worthy  words 


e  If  this  were  so  (and  most  commentators  adopt  this 
view),  we  should  have  in  this  history  the  starting-point  of 
the  Targum.  It  has,  however,  been  questioned.  (Comp. 
Leyrer,  I.  c.) 

1  Jost  (Judenth.  i.  52)  draws  attention  to  the  singular, 
almost  unique  combinations  of  this  period.  The  Jesvish 
teachers  kept  to  the  old  Hebrew,  but  used  Aramaic  charac 
ters.  The  Samaritans  spoke  Aramaic,  but  retained  the 
5lder  Hebrew  writing. 

8  l"he  yrisc'ple  of  an  unwritten  leaching  was  uia'n 


SCRIBES  1163 

should  be  raised  to  a  level  with  those  of  the  oracles 
of  God.  If  interpretation  were  needed,  their  teach 
ing  should  be  oral  only.  No  precepts  should  t* 
perpetuated  as  resting  on  their  authority.e  In  the 
words  of  later  Judaism,  they  devoted  themselves  to 
the  Mikra  (i.e.  recitation,  reading,  as  in  Neh.  viii.  8), 
the  careful  study  of  the  text,  and  laid  down  rules  for 
transcribing  it  with  the  most  scrupulous  precision 
(comp.  the  tract  Sophcntn  in  the  Jerusalem  Gemara). 

(2.)  A  saying  is  ascribed  to  Simon  the  Just 
(B.C.  300-290),  the  last  of  the  succession  of  the 
men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  which  embodies  the 
principle  on  which  they  had  acted,  and  enables  us 
to  trace  the  next  stage  of  the  growth  of  their  sys 
tem.  "  Our  fathers  have  taught  us,"  he  said,  "  three 
things,  to  be  cautious  in  judging,  to  train  many 
scholars,  and  to  set  a  fence  about  the  Law  "  (Pv-ke 
Aboth,  i.  1  ;  Jost,  i.  95).  They  wished  to  make 
the  Law  of  Moses  the  rule  of  life  for  the  whole 
nation  and  for  individual  men.  But  it  lies  in  th« 
nature  of  every  such  law,  of  every  informal,  halt- 
systematic  code,  that  it  raises  questions  which  it 
does  not  solve.  Circumstances  change,  while  the 
Law  remains  the  same.  The  infinite  variety  of  life 
presents  cases  which  it  has  not  contemplated.  A 
Roman  or  Greek  jurist,  would  have  dealt  with 
these  on  general  principles  of  equity  or  polity. 
The  Jewish  teacher  could  recognise  no  principles 
beyond  the  precepts  of  the  Law.  To  him  they  all 
stood  on  the  same  footing,  were  all  equally  divine. 
All  '-xissible  cases  must  be  brought  within  their 
range,  decided  by  their  authority. 

(3.)  The  result  showed  that,  in  this  as  in  other 
instances,  the  idolatry  of  the  letter  was  destructive 
of  the  veiy  reverence  in  which  it  had  originated. 
Step  by  step  the  Scribes  were  led  to  conclusions  at 
which  we  may  believe  the  earlier  representatives  of 
the  order  would  have  started  back  with  horror. 
Decisions  on  fresh  questions  were  accumulated  into 
a  complex  system  of  casuistry.  The  new  precepts, 
still  transmitted  orally,  more  precisely  fitting  in  to 
the  circumstances  of  men's  lives  than  the  old,  came 
practically  to  take  their  platfe.  The  "  Words  of  the 
Scribes"  (D^SJID  HIR,  now  used  as  a  technical 
phrase  for  these  decisions)  were  honoured  above  the 
Law  (Lightfoot,  Harm.  i.  §77 ;  Jost,  Judenth.  i. 
93).  It  was  a  greater  crime  to  offend  against  them 
than  against  the  Law.  They  were  as  wine,  while 
the  precepts  of  the  Law  were  as  water.  The  first 
step  was  taken  towards  annulling  the  command 
ments  of  God  for  the  sake  of  their  own  traditions. 
The  casuistry  became  at  once  subtle  and  prurient,h 
evading  the  plainest  duties,  tampering  with  con 
science  (Matt.  xv.  1-6,  xxiii.  16-23).  The  right 
relation  of  moral  and  ceremonial  laws  was  not  oidy 
forgotten,  but  absolutely  inverted.  This  was  th; 
result  of  the  profound  reverence  for  the  letter 
which  gave  no  heed  to  the  "  word  abiding  in  them  " 
(John  v.  38). 

(4.)  The  history  of  the  full  development  of  these 
tendencies  will  be  found  elsewhere. 


tained  among  the  Rabbis  of  Palestine  up  to  the  destruction 
of  the  Temple  (Jost,  i.  97,  367). 

h  It  would  be  profitless  to  accumulate  proofs  of  this.. 
Those  who  care  for  them  may  find  them  in  Huxtorf 
SynagogaJudaica;  M'Caul,  Old  Paths.  Revolting  as  it 
is,  we  must  remember  that  it  rose  out  of  the  principle 
that  there  can  be  no  indifferent  action,  that  there  must 
be  a  right  or  a  wrong  even  for  the  commonest  necessities 
the  merest  animal  functions  of  man's  life,  that  it  was  tlir 
work  of  the  tearhcr  to  formulate  that  principle  into  r.u«j 


1104 


SCRIBES 


Here  it  will  be  enough  to  notice  in  what  way  the 
teaching  of  the  Scribes  in  our  Lord's  time  was 
milking  to  that  result.  Their  first  work  was  to 
report  the  decisions  of  previous  Rabbis.  These  were 
ihe.-ff'j.lachoth  (that  which  goes,  the  current  pre 
cepts  of  the  schools) — precepts  binding  on  the  con 
science.  As  they  accumulated  they  had  to  be  com 
piled  and  classified.  A  new  code,  a  second  Corpus 
Juris,  the  Mishna  (Sevreptloaeis),  grew  out  of 
them,  to  become  in  its  turn  the  subject  of  fresh 
questions  and  commentaries.  Here  ultimately  the 
spirit  of  the  commentators  took  a  wider  range.  The 
anecdotes  of  the  schools  or  courts  of  law,  the 
Obiter  dicta  of  Rabbis,  the  wildest  fables  of  Jewish 
superstition  (Tit.  i.  14),  were  brought  in,  with  or 
without  any  relation  to  the  context,  and  the  Gernara 
(completeness)  filled  up  the  measure  of  the  Insti 
tutes  of  Rabbinic  Law.  The  Mishna  and  the  Gemara 
together  were  known  as  the  Talmud  (instruction), 
the  "  necessary  doctrine  and  erudition "  of  every 
learned  Jew  (Jost,  Judenth.  ii.  202-222). 

(5.)  Side  by  side  with  this  was  a  development 
ii\  another  direction.  The  sacred  books  were  not 
studied  as  a  code  of  laws  only.  To  search  into 
their  meaning  had  from  the  first  belonged  to  the 
ideal  office  of  the  Scribe.  He  who  so  searched  was 
secure,  in  the  language  of  the  Scribes  themselves, 
of  everlasting  life  (John  v.  39;  Pirke  Aboth,  ii.  8). 
But  here  also  the  book  suggested  thoughts  which 
could  not  logically  be  deduced  from  it.  Men  came 
to  it  with  new  beliefs,  new  in  form  if  not  in  essence, 
and,  not  finding  any  ground  for  them  in  a  literal 
interpretation,  were  compelled  to  have  recourse  to 
an  interpretation  which  was  the  reverse  of  literal.1 
The  fruit  of  this  effort  to  find  what  was  not  there 
appears  in  the  Midrashim  (searchings,  investiga 
tions)  on  the  several  books  of  the  0.  T.  The 
process  by  which  the  meaning,  moral  or  mystical, 
was  elicited,  was  known  as  Hagada  (saying, 
opinion).  There  was  obviously  no  assignable  limit 
to  such  a  process.  It  became  a  proverb  that  no  one 
ought  to  spend  a  day  in  the  Beth-ham-Midrash 
("  the  house  of  the  interpreter  " )  without  lighting 
on  something  new.  But  there  lay  a  stage  higher 
even  than  the  Hagada.  The  mystical  school  of  in 
terpretation  culminated  in  the  Kabbala  (reception, 
the  received  doctrine).  Every  letter,  every  number, 
became  pregnant  with  mysteries.  With  the  strangest 
possible  distortion  of  its  original  meaning,  the  Greek 
word  which  had  been  the  representative  of  the  most 
exact  of  all  sciences  was  chosen  for  the  wildest  of 
all  interpretations.  The  Gematria  (  =  yeca/jLerpia) 
showed  to  what  depths  the  wrong  path  could  lead 
men.  The  mind  of  the  interpreter,  obstinately 
shutting  out  the  light  of  day,  moved  in  its  self- 
chosen  darkness  amid  a  world  of  fantastic  Eidola 
(coinp.  Carpzov,  App.  Crit.  i.  7 ;  Schoettgen,  Hor. 
Heb.  de  Mess.  i.  4 ;  Zunz,  Gottesdtenstl.  Vortrdge, 
pp.  42-61 ;  Jost,  Judenth.  iii.  65-81). 

III.  History. — (1.)  The  names  of  the  earlier 
.scribes  passed  away,  as  has  been  said,  unrecorded. 
Simon  the  Just  (circ.  B.C.  300-290)  appeal's  as 
the  last  of  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  the 
beginner  of  a  new  period.  The  memorable  names 
of  the  times  that  followed — Antigonus  of  Socho, 


SCKIBES 

Zadok,  Boothos — connect  themselves  with  the  rv* 
of  the  first  opposition  to  the  traditional  syste  )p- 
which  was  growing  up.  [SADDUCEES.]  The  tenet 
of  the  Sadducees,  however,  never  commanded  trw 
adhesion  of  more  than  a  small  minority.  It  tended, 
by  maintaining  the  sufficiency  of  the  letter  of  the 
Law,  to  destroy  the  very  occupation  of  a  Scribe, 
and  the  class,  as  such,  belonged  to  the  party  of  it* 
opponents.  The  words  "  Scribes  "  and  "  Pharisees ' 
were  bound  together  by  the  closest  possible  alliance 
(Matt,  xxiii. pass iin;  Luke  v.  30).  [PHARISEES.] 
Within  that  party  there  were  shades  and  sub 
divisions,  and  to  understand  their  relation  to  each 
other  in  Our  Lord's  time,  or  their  connexion  with 
His  life  and  teaching,  we  must  look  back  to  what 
is  known  of  the  five  pairs  (n'lMD)  of  teachers  who 
represented  the  scribal  succession.  Why  two,  and 
two  only,  are  named  in  each  case  we  can  only 
conjecture,  but  the  Rabbinic  tradition  that  one  was 
always  the  Nasi  or  President  of  the  Sanhedrim  as 
a  council,  the  other  the  Ab-beth-din  (Father  of 
the  House  of  Judgment),  presiding  in  the  supreme 
court,  or  in  the  Sanhedrim  when  it  sat  as  such,  is 
not  improbable  (Jost,  Judenth.  i.  160). 

f2.)  The  two  names  that  stand  first  in  order 
are  Joses  ben-Joezer,  a  priest,  and  Joses  ben- 
Jochanan  (circ.  B.C.  140-130).  The  precepts 
ascribed  to  them  indicate  a  tendency  to  a  greater 
elaboration  of  all  rules  connected  with  ceremonial 
defil.'ip.ent.  Their  desire  to  separate  themselves 
and  their  disciples  from  all  occasions  of  defilement 
may  have  furnished  the  starting-point  for  the 
name  of  Pharisee.  The  brave  struggle  with  the 
Syrian  kings  had  turned  chiefly  on  questions  of 
this  nature,  and  it  was  the  wish  of  the  two 
teachers  to  prepare  the  people  for  any  future  con 
flict  by  founding  a  fraternity  (the  Chaberiin,  or 
associates)  bound  to  the  strictest  observance  of 
the  Law.  Every  member  of  the  order  on  his 
admission  pledged  himself  to  this  in  the  presence 
of  three  Chaberim.  They  looked  on  each  other  as 
brothers.  The  rest  of  the  nation  they  looked  on 
as  "  the  people  of  the  earth."  The  spirit  ot 
Scribedom  was  growing.  The  precept  associated 
with  the  name  of  Jose  ben-Joezer,  "  Let  thy  house 
be  the  assembly-place  for  the  wise ;  dust  thyself 
with  the  dust  of  their  feet;  drink  eagerly  of  their 
words,"  pointed  to  a  further  growth  (Pirke  Aboth, 
i.  1 ;  Jost,  i.  233).  It  was  hardly  checked  by  the 
taunt  of  the  Sadducees  that  "  these  Pharisees  would 
purify  the  sun  itself"  (Jost,  i.  217). 

(3.)  Joshua  ben-Perachiah  and  Nithai  of  Ar- 
bela  were  contemporary  with  John  Hyrcanus  (circ 
B.C.  135-108),  and  enjoyed  his  favour  till  towards 
the  close  of  his  reign,  when  caprice  or  interest  led 
him  to  pass  over  to  the  camp  of  the  Sadducees. 
The  saying  ascribed  to  Joshua,  "  Take  to  thyself  j» 
teacher  (^?a6),get  to  thyself  an  associate  (ChaberJ 
judge  every  man  on  his  better  side"  (Pirke  Abotht 
i.  1),  while  its  last  clause  attracts  us  by  its 
candour,  shows  how  easily  even  a  fairminded  man 
might  come  to  recognise  no  bonds  of  fellowship 
outside  the  limits  of  his  sect  or  order  (Jost,  i. 
227-233). 

(4.)  The    secession   of  Hyrcanus    involved   the 


•i  Comp.  e.g.  the  exposition  which  found  in  Labau  and 
Salaam  "  going  to  their  own  place  "  (Gen.  xxxi.  55 ;  Num. 
xxiv.  25)  an  intimation  of  their  being  sentenced  to  Ge- 
hcmm  (Gill,  Comm.  on  Acts,  i.  25). 

k  A  striking  instance  of  this  is  teeu  in  the  history  of 
John  Hyrcanus.  A  Sadduc**  came  to  him  with  proofs  of 


the  disaffection  of  the  Pharisees.  The  king  asked,  "  What 
then  am  I  to  do?"  "  Crush  them,"  was  the  answer.  "  But 
what  then  will  become  of  the  teaching  of  the  Law?" 
"  The  Law  is  now  in  the  hands  of  every  man.  They, 
and  they  only,  would  keep  it  iu  a  corner  "  (Josl,  Judentk 
35). 


SCRIBES 

Pharisees,  and  therefore  the  Scribes  as  a  class,  in 
difficulties,  and  a  period  of  confusion  followed. 
The  meetings  of  the  Sanhedrim  were  suspended  or 
became  predominantly  Sadducean.  Under  his  suc 
cessor,  Alexander  Jannai,  the  influence  of  Simon 
ben-Shetach  over  the  queen-mother  Salome  re 
established  for  a  time  the  ascendancy  of  the  Scribes. 
The  Sanhedrim  once  again  assembled,  with  none  to 
oppose  the  dominant  Pharisaic  party.  The  day 
of  meeting  was  observed  afterwards  as  a  festival 
only  less  solemn  than  those  of  Purim  and  the 
Dedication.  The  return  of  Alexander  from  his 
campaign  against  Gaza  again  turned  the  tables. 
Eight  hundred  Pharisees  took  refuge  in  a  fortress, 
were  besieged,  taken,  and  put  to  death.  Joshua 
ben-Perachiah,  the  venerable  head  of  the  order,  was 
driven  into  exile.  Simon  ben-Shetach,  his  successor, 
had  to  earn  his  livelihood  by  spinning  flax.  The 
Sadducees  failed,  however,  to  win  the  confidence 
of  the  people.  Having  no  body  of  oral  traditions 
to  fall  back  on,  they  began  to  compile  a  code. 
They  were  accused  by  their  opponents  of  wishing 
to  set  up  new  laws  on  a  level  with  those  of  Moses, 
aud  had  to  abandon  the  attempt.  On  the  death 
of  Jannai  the  influence  of  his  widely  Alexandra 
was  altogether  on  the  side  of  the  Scribes,  and  Simon 
beu-Shetach  and  Judah  ben-Tabbai  entered  on  their 
work  as  joint  teachers.  Under  them  the  juristic 
side  of  the  Scribe's  functions  became  prominent. 
Their  rules  turn  chiefly  on  the  laws  of  evidence 
(Pirke  Aboth,  i.  1).  In  two  memorable  instances 
they  showed  what  sacrifices  they  were  prepared  to 
make  in  support  of  those  laws.  Judah  had,  on 
one  occasion,  condemned  false  witnesses  to  death: 
His  zeal  against  the  guilt  led  him  to  neglect  the 
rule  which  only  permitted  that  penalty  when  it 
would  have  been  the  consequence  of  the  original 
accusation.  His  colleague  did  not  shrink  from 
rebuking  him,  "  Thou  hast  shed  innocent  blood." 
From  that  day  Judah  resolved  never  to  give  judg 
ment  without  consulting  Simon,  and  every  day 
threw  himself  on  the  grave  of  the  man  he  had 
condemned,  imploring  pardon.  Simon,  in  his  turn, 
showed  a  like  sense  of  the  supreme  authority  of 
the  Law.  His  own  son  was  brought  before  him 
as  an  offender,  and  he  sentenced  him  to  death. 
On  the  way  to  execution  the  witnesses  confessed 
that  they  had  spoken  falsely  ;  but  the  son,  more 
anxious  that  they  should  suffer  than  that  he  him 
self  should  escape,  turned  round  and  entreated  his 
father  not  to  stop  the  completion  of  the  sen 
tence.  The  character  of  such  a  man  could  not 
fail  to  impress  itself  upon  his  followers.  To  its 
influence  may  probably  be  traced  the  indomitable 
courage  in  defence  of  the  Temple,  which  won  the 
admiration  even  of  the  Roman  generals  (Jost,  i. 
234-247). 

(5.)  The  two  that  followed,  Shemaiah  and 
Abtalion  (the  names  also  appear  under  the  forai 
of  Sameas,  Jos.  Ant.  xiv.  9,  §4,  and  Pollio,  Jos. 
Ant.  xiv.  1,  §1),  were  conspicuous  for  another 
reason.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  the  teachers 
who  sat  in  Moses'  seat  were  not  even  of  the 
children  of  Abraham.  Proselytes  themselves,  or 


SCRIBES 


1105 


m  The  amount  is  uncertain.  The  story  of  Hillel  (infra} 
represents  it  as  half  a  stater,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether 
the  stater  here  is  equal  to  twice  the  didrachma  or  to  half 
(Comp.  Geiger,  De  Hillde  et  Shammai,  in  Ugolini,  Thes. 
xxi.j.  It  was,  at  any  rate,  half  the  day's  wages  of  & 
skilled  labourer. 

n  The  exhaustive  treatise  oy  Geiger  in  Ugolini,  Tli&s. 
xxi.  must  be  mentioned  as  an  exception. 


the  sons  of  proselytes,  their  pre-eminence  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  Law  raised  ihem  to  this  office. 
The  jealousy  of  the  high-priest  was  excited.  As 
the  people  flocked  round  their  favourite  Rabbis 
when  it  was  his  function  to  pronounce  the  blessing, 
he  looked  round  and,  turning  his  benediction  into 
a  sarcasm,  said,  with  a  marked  emphasis,  "  May 
the  sons  of  the  alien  walk  in  peace  !  "  The  ..answer 
of  the  two  teachers  expressed  the  feeling  of  scorn 
with  which  the  one  order  was  beginning  to  look 
upon  the  other:  "  Yes,  the  sons  of  the  alien  shall 
indeed  walk  in  peace,  for  they  do  the  work  of 
peace.  Not  so  the  son  of  Aaron  who  follows  not 
in  the  footsteps  of  his  father."  Here  also  we  have 
some  significant  sayings.  The  growing  love  of 
titles  of  honour  was  checked  by  Shernaiah  by  the 
counsel  that  "  men  should  love  the  work,  but  hate 
the  Rabbiship."  The  tendency  to  new  opinions 
(the  fruits,  probably,  of  the  freer  exposition  of  tli€ 
Hagadd)  was  rebuked  by  Abtalion  in  a  precept 
which  enwraps  a  parable,  "  Take  good  heed  to  thy 
words,  lest,  if  thou  wander,  thou  light  upon  a 
place  where  the  wells  are  poisoned,  and  thy  scholars 
who  come  after  thee  drink  deep  thereof  and  die  " 
(Pirke  Aboth,  i.  1).  The  lot  of  these  two  alsc 
was  cast  upon  evil  days.  They  had  courage  to 
attempt  to  check  the  rising  power  of  Hercd  in  his 
bold  defiance  of  the  Sanhedrim  (Jos.  Ant.  xiv.  9, 
§3).  When  he  showed  himself  to  be  irresistible 
they  had  the  wisdom  to  submit,  and  were  suffered 
to  continue  their  work  in  peace.  Its  glory  was, 
hor/ever,  in  great  measure,  gone.  The  doors  of 
their  school  were  no  longer  thrown  open  to  all 
comers  so  that  crowds  might  listen  to  the  teacher. 
A  fixed  feem  had  to  be  paid  on  entrance.  The 
regulation  was  probably  intended  to  discourage  the 
attendance  of  the  young  men  of  Jerusalem  at  the 
Scribes'  classes  ;  and  apparently  it  had  that  effect 
(Jost,  i.  248-253).  On  the  death  of  Shemaiah  and 
Abtalion  there  were  no  qualified  successors  to  take 
their  place.  Two  sons  of  Bethera,  otherwise  un 
known,  for  a  time  occupied  it,  but  they  were  them 
selves  conscious  of  their  incompetence.  A  question 
was  brought  before  them  which  neither  they  nor 
any  of  the  other  Scribes  could  answer.  At  last 
they  asked,  in  their  perplexity,  "Was  there  none 
present  who  had  been  a  disciple  of  the  two  who 
had  been  so  honoured  ? "  The  question  was 
answered  by  Hillel  the  Babylonian,  known  also, 
then  or  afterwards,  as  the  son  of  David.  He 
solved  the  difficulty,  appealed  to  principles,  and, 
when  they  demanded  authority  as  well  as  argu 
ment,  ended  by  saying,  "  So  have  I  heard  from 
my  masters  Shemaiah  and  Abtalion."  This  was 
decisive.  The  sons  of  Bethera  withdrew.  Hillel 
was  invited  by  acclamation  to  enter  on  his  high 
office.  His  alleged  descent  from  the  house  of 
David  may  have  added  to  his  popularity. 

(6.)  The  name  of  Hillel  (born  circ.  B.C.  112)  has 
hardly  received  the  notice  due  to  it  from  students 
of  the  Gospel  history.11  The  noblest  and  most 
genial  representative  of  his  order,  we  may  see  in 
him  the  best  fruit  which  the  system  of  the  Scribes 
was  capable  of  producing.0  It  is  instructive  to 


0  The  reverence  of  later  Jews  for  Hillel  is  shown  in 
some  curious  forms.  To  him  it  was  given  to  under- 
Stand  the  speech  of  animals  as  well  as  of  men.  He  who 
hearkened  not  to  the  words  of  Hillel  was  worthy  of  death. 
(Geiger,  ut  supra.)  Of  him  too  it  was  said  that  the  Divine 
Shechinah  rested  on  him :  if  the  heavens  were  parchment, 
and  all  the  trees  of  the  earth  pens,  and  all  the  sea  ink,  it 
would  tut  be  enough  to  write  down  his  wisuc,m  (Oouij* 


1166 


SCRIBES 


nark  at  once  how  far  he  prepared  the  way  for  the 
higher  teaching  which  was  to  follow,  how  far  he 
inevitably  fell  short  of  it.  The  starting-point  of 
his  career  is  told  in  a  tale  which,  though  deformed 
by  Rabbinic  exaggerations,  is  yet  fresh  and  genial 
enough.  The  young  student  had  come  from  Golah 
in  Babylonia  to  study  under  Shemaiah  and  Abta- 
lion.  He  was  poor  and  had  no  money.  The  new 
rule  requiring  payment  was  in  force.  For  the 
most  part  he  worked  for  his  livelihood,  kept  him 
self  with  half  his  earnings,  and  paid  the  rest  as  the 
fee  to  the  college-porter.  On  one  day,  however, 
he  had  failed  to  find  employment.  The  door 
keeper  refused  him  entrance ;  but  his  zeal  for 
knowledge  was  not  to  be  baffled.  He  stationed 
himself  outside,  under  a  window,  to  catch  what 
he  could  of  the  words  of  the  Scribes  within.  It 
was  winter,  and  the  snow  began  to  fall,  but  he 
remained  there  still.  It  fell  till  it  lay  upon  him 
six  cubits  high  (!)  and  the  window  was  darkened 
and  blocked  up.  At  last  the  two  teachers  noticed 
it,  sent  out  to  see  what  caused  it,  and  when  they 
found  out,  received  the  eager  scholar  without  pay 
ment.  "For  such  a  man,"  said  Shemaiah,  ''one 
mig'at  even  break  the  Sabbath  "  (Geiger,  ut  supra  ; 
.lost,  i.  254).  In  the  earlier  days  of  his  activity 
Hillel  had  as  his  colleague  Menahem,  probably 
the  same  as  the  Essene  Manaen  of  Josephus  {Ant. 
xv.  10,  §5).  He,  however,  was  tempted  by  the 
growing  power  of  Herod,  and,  with  a  large  number 
(eighty  in  the  Rabbinic  tradition)  of  his  follow 
ers,  entered  the  king's  service  and  abandoned  at 
once  their  calling  as  Scribes  and  their  habits  of 
devotion.  They  appeared  publicly  in  the  gorgeous 
apparel,  glittering  with  gold,  which  was  incon 
sistent  with  both  P  (Jost,  i.  259).  The  place  thus 
vacant  was  soon  filled  by  Shammai.  The  two  were 
held  in  nearly  equal  honour.  One,  in  Jewish  lan 
guage,  was  the  Nasi,  the  other  the  Ab-beth-din  of 
the  Sanhedrim.  They  did  not  teach,  however,  as 
their  predecessors  had  done,  in  entire  harmony  with 
each  other.  Within  the  party  of  the  Pharisees, 
within  the  order  of  the  Scribes,  there  came  for  the 
first  time  to  be  two  schools  with  distinctly  opposed 
tendencies,  one  vehemently,  rigidly  orthodox,  the 
other  orthodox  also,  but  with  an  orthodoxy  which, 
in  the  language  of  modern  politics,  might  be 
classed  as  Liberal  Conservative.  The  points  on 
which  they  differed  were  almost  innumerable  (comp. 
Geiger,  ut  supra}.  In  most  of  them,  questions  as 
to  the  causes  and  degrees  of  uncleanness,  as  to  the 
law  of  contracts  or  of  wills,  we  can  find  little  or 
no  interest.  On  the  former  class  of  subjects  the 
school  of  Shammai  represented  the  extremest  deve 
lopment  of  the  Pharisaic  spirit.  Everything  that 
could  possibly  have  been  touched  by  a  heathen  or 

John  xxi.  25).  (See  Heubner,  De  Academiis  Hebraeorum, 
in  Ugolini,  Thes.  xxi.) 

p  We  may  perhaps  find  in  this  fact  an  explanation  which 
gives  a  special  force  to  words  that  have  hitherto  been  in 
terpreted  somewhat  vaguely.  When  our  Lord  contrasted 
the  stedfastness  and  austerity  of  the  Baptist  with  the  lives 
of  those  who  wore  soft  clothing,  were  gorgeously  appa 
relled,  arcd  lived  delicately  in  kings'  houses  (Matt.  xi.  3 ; 
Luke  vii.  24),  those  who  heard  Him  may  at  once  have 
recognised  the  picture.  In  the  multitude  of  uncertain 
guesses  as  to  the  Herodians  of  the  Gospels  (Matt.  xxii.  16) 
we  may  be  permitted  to  hazard  the  conjecture  that  they 
may  be  identified  with  the  party,  perhaps  rather  with  the 
clique,  of  Menahem  and  his  followers  (Geiger,  ut  sup. ; 
O'Jbo,  Hist.  Doctorum  Misniaorum,  In  Ugolini,  flies,  xxi.). 
The  fact  that  the  stern,  sharp  words  of  a  divine  scorn 
which  have  been  quoted  above,  meet  us  Just  after  the 


SCRIBES 

an  unclean  Israelite,  became  itself  unclean.  '  Pc« 
filement "  was  as  a  contagious  disease  which  it  was 
hardly  possible  to  avoid  even  witft  the  earefu1 
scrupulosity  described  in  Mark  vii.  1-4.  They 
were,  in  like  manner,  rigidly  Sabbatarian.  It  was 
unlawful  to  do  anything  before  the  Sabbath  which 
would,  in  any  sense,  be  in  operation  during  it,  e.  </. 
to  put  cloth  into  a  dye- vat,  or  nets  into  the  sea. 
It  was  unlawful  on  the  Sabbath  itself  to  givt 
money  to  the  poor,  or  to  teach  children,  or  to  visit 
the  sick.  They  maintained  the  marriage  law  in 
its  strictness,  and  held  that  nothing  but  the  adul 
tery  of  the  wife  could  justify  repudiation  (Jost,  i. 
257-269).  We  must  not  think  of  them,  however, 
as  rigid  and  austere  in  their  lives.  The  religious 
world  of  Judaism  presented  the  inconsistencies 
wh-'.ch  it  has  often  presented  since.  The  "  straitest 
sect "  was  also  the  most  secular.  Shammai  him 
self  was  said  to  be  rich,  luxurious,  self-indulgent. 
Hillel  remained  to  the  day  of  his  death  as  poor  as 
in  his  youth  (Geiger,  I.  c.). 

(7.)  The  teaching  of  Hillel  showed  some  capacity 
for  wider  thoughts.  His  personal  character  was 
more  loveable  and  attractive.  While  on  the  one  side 
he  taught  as  from  a  mind  well  stored  with  the  tra 
ditions  of  the  elders,  he  was,  on  the  other,  anything 
but  a  slavish  follower  of  those  traditions.  He  was 
the  first  to  lay  down  principles  for  an  equitable 
construction  of  the  Law  with  a  dialectic  precision 
which  seems  almost  to  imply  a  Greek  culture  (Jost, 
i.  257).  When  the  letter  of  a  law,  as  e.  g.  that 
of  the  year  of  release,  was  no  longer  suited  to  the 
times,  and  was  working,  so  far  as  it  was  kept  at  all, 
only  for  evil,  he  suggested  an  interpretation  which 
met  the  difficulty  or  practically  set  it  aside.  His 
teaching  as  to  divorce  was  in  like  manner  an  adapta 
tion  to  the  temper  of  the  age.  It  was  lawful  for  a 
man  to  put  away  his  wife  for  any  cause  of  dis 
favour,  even  for  so  slight  an  offence  as  that  of  spoil 
ing  his  dinner  by  her  bad  cooking  i  (Geiger,  I.  c.). 
The  genial  character  of  the  man  comes  out  in  some 
of  his  sayings,  which  remind  us  of  the  tone  of  Jesus 
the  son  of  Sirach,  and  present  some  faint  approxima 
tions  to  a  higher  teaching:  "Trust  not  thyself  to 
the  day  of  thy  death."  "  Judge  not  thy  neighbour 
till  thou  art  in  his  place."  "  Leave  nothing  dark  and 
obscure,  saying  to  thyself,  I  will  explain  it  when  I 
have  time  ;  for  how  knowest  thou  whether  the  time 
will  come?"  (comp.  James  iv.  13-15).  "  He  who 
gains  a  good  name  gains  it  for  himself,  but  he  who 
gains  a  knowledge  of  the  Law  gains  everlasting  life  " 
(comp.  John  v.  39;  Pirke  Aboth,ii.  5-8).  In  one 
memorable  rule  we  find  the  nearest  approach  that 
had  as  yet  been  made  to  the  great  commandment  of 
the  Gospel :  "  Do  nothing  to  thy  neighbour  that 
thou  wouldest  not  that  he  should  do  to  thee."  r 


first  combination  of  Herodians  and  Pharisees,  gives  it  a 
strong  confirmation  (comp.  Mark  iii.  6;  Luke  v'.  11, 
vii.  19). 

q  It  is  fair  to  add  that  a  great  Rabbinic  scholar  main 
tains  that  this  "spoiling  the  dinner  "  was  a  well-known 
figurative  phrase  for  conduct  which  brought  shame  or 
discredit  on  the  husband  (Jost,  i.  264). 

r  The  history  connected  with  this  saying  is  too  charm- 
ingly  characteristic  to  be  passed  over.  A  proselyte  came 
to  Shammai  and  begged  for  some  instruction  in  the  Law 
if  it  were  only  for  as  long  as  he,  the  learner,  could  stand 
on  one  foot.  The  Scribe  was  angry,  and  drove  him 
away  harshly.  He  went  to  Hillel  with  the  same  re 
quest  He  received  the  inquirer  benignantly  and  gave 
him  the  precept  above  quoted,  adding—"  l)o  this,  arid 
thou  hast  fulfilled  the  I.AW  and  the  Prcohets  <"3eiger, 


SCRIBES 

(8.)  Ths  contrast  showed  itself  in  the  conduct  of 
i!ie  followers  not  less  than  in  the  teachers.  The 
disciples  of  Shammai  were  conspicuous  for  their 
fierceness,  appealed  to  popular  passions,  used  the 
sword  to  decide  their  controversies.  Out  of  that 
School  grew  the  party  of  the  Zealots,  fierce,  fana 
tical,  vindictive,  the  Orangemen  of  Pharisaism  (Jost, 
i.  267-269).  Those  of  Hillel  were,  like  their 
master  (comp.  e.  g.  the  advice  of  Gamaliel,  Acts  v. 
34-42),  cautious,  gentle,  tolerant,  unwilling  to  make 
enemies,  content  to  let  things  take  their  course. 
One  school  resisted,  the  other  was  disposed  to  foster 
the  study  of  Greek  literature.  One  sought  to  im 
pose  upon  the  proselyte  from  heathenism  the  full 
burden  of  the  Law,  the  other  that  he  should  be 
Uiated  with  some  sympathy  and  indulgence. 
PROSELYTE.]  One  subject  of  debate  between 
•Je  schools  exhibits  the  contrast  as  going  deeper 
than  these  questions,  touching  upon  the  great  pro 
blems  of  the  universe.  "  Was  the  state  of  man  so 
full  of  misery  that  it  would  have  been  better  for 
him  never  to  have  been  ?  Or  was  this  life,  with 
all  its  suffering,  still  the  gift  of  God,  to  be  valued 
and  used  as  a  training  for  something  higher  than 
itself?"  The  school  of  Shammai  look,  as  might 
be  expected,  the  darker,  that  of  Hillel  the  brighter 
and  the  wiser  view  (Jost,  i.  p.  264). 

(9.)  Outwardly  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  must 
have  appeared  to  men  different  in  many  ways  from 
both.  While  they  repeated  the  traditions  of  the 
elders,  He  "  spake  as  one  having  authority,"  "  not 
as  the  Scribes  "  (Matt.  vii.  29  ;  comp.  the  constantly 
recurring  "  I  say  unto  you  ").  While  they  confined 
their  teaching  to  the  class  of  scholars,  He  "  had  com 
passion  on  the  multitudes"  (Matt.  ix.  36).  While 
they  were  to  be  found  only  in  the  council  or  in  their 
schools,  He  journeyed  through  the  cities  and  vil 
lages  (Matt.  iv.  23,  ix.  35,  &c.,  &c.).  While  they 
spoke  of  the  kingdom  of  God  vaguely,  as  a  thing 
far  off,  He  proclaimed  that  it  had  already  come  nigh 
to  men  (Matt.  iv.  17).  But  in  most  of  the  points 
at  issue  between  the  two  parties,  He  must  have 
appeared  in  direct  antagonism  to  the  school  of 
Shammai,  in  sympathy  with  that  of  Hillel.  In 
the  questions  that  gathered  round  the  law  of  the 
Sabbath  (Matt.  xii.  1-14,  and  2  John  v.  1-16, 
&c.),  and  the  idea  of  purity  (Matt.  xv.  1-11,  and 
its  parallels),  this  was  obviously  the  case.  Even  in 
the  controversy  about  divorce,  while  His  chief  work 
was  to  assert  the  truth  which  the  disputants  on 
both  sides  were  losing  sight  of,  He  recognised,  it 
must  be  remembered,  the  rule  of  Hillel  as  being  a 
true  interpretation  of  the  Law  (Matt.  xix.  8).  When 
He  summed  up  the  great  commandment  in  which 
the  Law  and  the  Prophets  were  fulfilled,  He  repro 
duced  and  ennobled  the  precept  which  had  been  given 
by  that  teacher  to  his  disciples  (Matt.  vii.  12,  xxii 
34-40).  So  far,  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  temper  oi 
the  Hillel  school  was  one  of  mere  adaptation  to  th 
feeling  of  the  people,  cleaving  to  tradition,  wanting  in 
the  intuition  of  a  higher  life,  the  teaching  of  Chrisl 
must  have  been  felt  as  unsparingly  condemning  it 
(10.)  It  adds  to  the  interest  of  this  inquiry  to 
remember  that  Hillel  himself  lived,  according  to  th 


SCRIBES 


H37 


•  Rabbi  Simeon,  the  son  of  Gamaliel,  came  between 
them,  but  apparently  for  a  short  time  only.  The  ques 
tton  whether  he  is  to  bo  identified  with  the  Simeon  o 
Luke  ii.  25,  is  one  which  we  have  not  sufficient  data  t< 
determine.  Most  commentators  answer  it  in  the  nega 
tive.  There  seem,  however,  some  probabilities  on  the 
other  side  One  trained  in  the  school  of  Hillel  might  no 


radition  of  the  Rabbis,  to  the  great  age  of  120 
and  may  therefore  ht  ve  been  present  among  tht 
octors  of  Luke  ii.  46,  and  that  Gamaliel,  his  grand- 
on  and  successor,*  was  at  the  head  of  this  school 
luring  the  whole  c.f  the  ministry  of  Christ,  as  well 
is  in  the  early  portion  of  the  history  of  the  Acts. 
«Ve  are  thus  able  to  explain  the  fact,  which  so  many 
)ass;iges  in  the  Gospels  lead  us  to  infer,  the  existence 
ill  along  of  a  party  among  the  Scribes  themselves, 
more  or  less  disposed  to  recognise  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
as  a  teacher  (John  iii.  1  ;  Mark  x.  17),  not  far  from 
;he  kingdom  of  God  (Mark  xii.  84),  advocates  of 
i  policy  of  toleration  (John  vii.  51),  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  timid  and  time-serving,  unable  to 
confess  even  their  half-belief  (John  jcii.  42),  afraid 
o  take  their  stand  against  the  strange  alliance 
>f  extremes  which  brought  together  the  Sadducean 
section  of  the  priesthood  and  the  ultra-Pharisaic 
followers  of  Shammai.  When  the  last  great  crisis 
came,  they  apparently  contented  themselves  with  a 
policy  of  absence  (Luke  xxiii.  50,  51),  possibly 
were  not  even  summoned,  and  thus  the  Council 
which  condemned  our  Lord  was  a  packed  meeting 
of  the  confederate  parties,  not  a  formally  consti 
tuted  Sanhedrim.  All  its  proceedings,  the  hasty 
nvestigation,  the  immediate  sentence,  were  vitiated 
by  irregularity  (Jost,  i.  pp.  407-409).  Afterwards, 
when  the  fear  of  violence  was  once  over,  and  po 
pular  feeling  had  turaed,  we  find  Gamaliel  summon 
ing  courage  to  maintain  openly  the  policy  of  a 
tolerant  expectation  (Acts  v.  34). 

IV.  Education  mid  Life.  —  (1.)  The  special 
training  for  a  Scribe's  office  began,  probably,  about 
the  age  of  thirteen.  According  to  the  Pirke  Aboth 
(v.  24)  the  child  began  to  read  the  Mikra  at  five 
and  the  Mishna  at  ten.  Three  years  later  every 
Israelite  became  a  child  of  the  Law  (Bar-Mitsva/i), 
and  was  bound  to  study  and  obey  it.  The  great  mass 
of  men  rested  in  the  scanty  teaching  of  their  syna 
gogues,  in  knowing  and  repeating  their  Tephillim, 
the  texts  inscribed  on  their  phylacteries.  For  the 
boy  who  was  destined  by  Tiis  parents,  or  who 
devoted  himself,  to  the  calling  of  a  Scribe,  some 
thing  more  was  required.  He  made  his  way  to 
Jerusalem,  and  applied  for  admission  to  the  school 
of  some  famous  Rabbi.  If  he  were  poor,  it  was 
the  duty  of  the  synagogue  of  his  town  or  village 
to  provide  for  the  payment  of  his  fees,  and  in 
part  also  for  his  maintenance.  His  power  to  learn 
was  tested  by  an  examination  on  entrance.  If 
he  passed  it  he  became  a  "chosen  one"  plPD, 
comp.  John  xv.  16),  and  entered  on  his  ''vork 
as  a  disciple  (Carpzov,  App.  Grit.  i.  7).  The 
master  and  his  scholars  met,  the  former  sitting 
on  a  high  chair,  the  elder  pupils  (D^TD7J"I)  on  R 
lower  bench,  the  younger  (D^JDp)  on  the  ground, 
both  literally  "  at  his  feet."  The  class-room  might 
be  the  chamber  of  the  Temple  set  apart  for  this 
purpose,  or  the  private  school  of  the  Rabbi.  In 
addition  to  the  Rabbi,  or  head  master,  there  were 
assistant  teachers,  and  one  interpreter,  or  crier, 
whose  function  it  was  to  proclaim  aloud  to  the 
whole  school  what  the  Rabbi  had  spoken  in  a  whisper 

unnaturally  be  looking  for  the  "  consolation  of  Israel." 
Himself  of  the  house  and  lineage  of  David,  he  would 
jeadily  accept  the  inward  witness  which  pointed  to  a 
child  of  that  house  as  "  the  Lord's  Christ."  There  is 
something  significant,  too,  in  the  silence  of  Eabbinic 
literature.  In  the  Pirke  Aboth  he  is  not  e^en  ntuaed, 
Comp.  Otho,  Hitt.  Doct.  Misn.  in  Ugolini  xxl. 


1168 


SCHIBES 


.  Matt.  x.  27).  The  education  was  cniefly 
catechetical,  the  pupil  submitting  cases  and  asking 
questions,  the  teacher  examining  the  pupil  (Luke 
ii.).  The  questions  might  be  ethical,  "  What  was 
the  great  commandment  of  all?  What  must  a 
m«m  do  to  inherit  eternal  life?  "  or  casuistic,  "  Whm, 
might  a  man  do  or  leave  undone  on  the  Sabbath  ?" 
or  ceremonial,  "  What  did  or  did  not  render  him 
unclean?"*  In  due  time  the  pupil  passed  on  to 
the  laws  of  property,  of  contracts,  and  of  evidence. 
So  far  he  was  within  the  circle  of  the  Halachah,  the 
simple  exposition  of  the  traditional  "  Woi'ds  of  the 
Scribes."  He  might  remain  content  with  this,  or 
might  pass  on  to  the  higher  knowledge  of  the  Beth- 
ham-Midrash,  with  its  inexhaustible  stores  of  mys 
tical  interpretation.  In  both  cases,  pre-eminently 
in  the  latter,  parables  entered  largely  into  the  method 
of  instruction.  The  teacher  uttered  the  similitude, 
and  left  it  to  his  hearers  to  interpret  for  themselves. 
[PARABLES.]  That  the  relation  between  the  two 
was  often  one  of  genial  and  kindly  feeling,  we  may 
infer  from  the  saying  of  one  famous  Scribe,  "  I 
have  learnt  much  from  the  Rabbis  my  teachers,  I 
have  learnt  more  from  the  Rabbis  my  colleagues, 
I  have  learnt  most  of  all  from  my  disciples  " 
(Carpzov,  App.  Grit.  i.  7). 

(2.)  After  a  sufficient  period  of  training,  pro 
bably  at  the  age  of  thirty,"  the  probationer  was 
solemnly  admitted  to  his  office.  The  presiding 
Rabbi  pronounced  the  formula,  "  I  admit  thee,  and 
thou  art  admitted  to  the  Chair  of  the  Scribe,"  so 
lemnly  ordained  him  by  the  imposition  of  hands 
(the  fO'lDD  =  x€ifJ00€a't/a)>x  and  gave  to  him,  as 
the  symbol  of  his  work,  tablets  on  which  he  was  to 
note  down  the  sayings  of  the  wise,  and  the  "  key 
of  knowledge "  (comp.  Luke  xi.  52),  with  which 
he  was  to  open  or  to  shut  the  treasures  of  Divine 
wisdom.  So  admitted,  he  took  his  place  as  a 
Chaber,  or  member  of  the  fraternity,  was  no  longer 
c.ypd/jLfji.a.Tos  Kal  tSi^rrjs  (Acts  iv.  13),  was  sepa 
rated  entirely  from  the  multitude,  the  brute  herd 
that  knew  not  the  Law,  the  "  cursed  "  "  people  of 
the  earth"  (John  vii.  15,  49).7 

(3.)  There  still  remained  for  the  disciple  after 
his  admission  the  choice  of  a  variety  of  functions, 
the  chances  of  failure  and  success.  He  might  give 
himself  to  any  one  of  the  branches  of  study,  or  com 
bine  two  or  more  of  them.  He  might  rise  to  high 
places,  become  a  doctor  of  the  law,  an  arbitrator  in 
family  litigations  (Luke  xii.  14),  the  head  of  a 
school,  a  member  of  the  Sanhedrim.  He  might 
have  to  content  himself  with  the  humbler  work  of  a 
transcriber,  copying  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  for 
the  use  of  synagogues,  or  Tephillim  for  that  of  the 
devout  (Otho,  Lexic.  Rabbin,  s.  v.  Phylacteria), 
or  a  notary  writing  out  contracts  of  sale,  covenants 
of  espousals,  bills  of  repudiation.  The  position  of 
the  more  fortunate  was  of  course  attractive  enough. 


SCRIBES 

Theoretically,  indeed,  the  office  of  the  Scribe  \VM 
not.  to  be  a  source  of  wealth.  It  is  doubtful  how 
far  the  fees  paid  by  the  pupils  were  appropiiated 
by  the  teach  ?r  (Buxtorf,  Synag.  Judaic,  cap.  46). 
The  great  Hillel  worked  as  a  day-labourer.  St. 
Paul's  work  as  a  tentmaker,  our  Lord's  work  as  a 
carpenter,  were  quite  compatible  with  the  popular 
conception  of  the  most  honoured  Rabbi.  The  in 
direct  payments  were,  however,  considerable  enough. 
Scholars  brought  gifts.  Rich  and  devout  widows 
maintained  a  Rabbi  as  an  act  of  piety,  often  to 
the  injury  of  their  own  kindred  (Matt,  xxiii.  14). 
Each  act  of  the  notary's  office,  or  the  arbitration  ol 
the  jurist,  would  be  attended  by  an  honorarium. 

(4.)  In  regard  to  social  position  there  was  a  like 
contradiction  between  theory  and  practice.  The 
older  Scribes  had  had  no  titles  [RABBi]  ;  Shemaiah, 
as  we  have  seen,  warned  his  disciples  against  them. 
In  our  Lord's  time  the  passion  for  distinction  waa 
insatiable.  The  ascending  scale  of  Rab,  Rabbi. 
Rabban  (we  are  reminded  of  our  own  Reverend, 
Very  Reverend,  Right  Reverend),  presented  so 
many  steps  on  the  ladder  of  ambition  (Serupius, 
de  tit.  Rabbi,  in  Ugolin'  xxii.).  Other  forms  of 
worldli ness  .were  not  far  oil'.1  The  salutations  in 
the  market-place  (Matt,  xxiii.  7),  the  reverential 
kiss  offered  by  the  scholars  to  their  master,  ov 
by  Rabbis  to  each  other,  the  greeting  of  Abba, 
father  (Matt,  xxiii.  9,  and  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb. 
in  loc.),  the  long  <rroXal,  as  contrasted  with  the 
simple  xlrwv  and  l/j-drutv  of  our  Lord  and  His  dis 
ciples,  with  the  broad  blue  Zizith  or  fringe  (the 
KpdcrireSov  of  Matt,  xxiii.  5),  the  Tephillim  cf 
ostentatious  size,  all  these  go  to  make  up  the  picture 
of  a  Scribe's  life.  Drawing  to  themselves,  as  they 
did,  nearly  all  the  energy  and  thought  of  Judaism, 
the  close  hereditary  caste  of  the  priesthood  was 
powerless  to  compete  with  them.  Unless  the  priest 
became  a  Scribe  also,  he  remained  in  obscurity 
The  order,  as  such,  became  contemptible  and  base.*1 
For  the  Scribes  there  were  the  best  places  at  feasts, 
the  chief  seats  in  synagogues  (Matt,  xxiii.  6  ;  Luke 
xiv.  7). 

(5.)  The  character  of  the  order  was  marked 
under  these  influences  by  a  deep,  incurable  hypo 
crisy,  all  the  more  perilous  because,  in  most  cases, 
it  was  unconscious.  We  must  not  infer  from  this 
that  all  were  alike  tainted,  or  that  the  work  which 
they  had  done,  and  the  worth  of  their  office,  were 
not  recognised  by  Him  who  rebuked  them  for  their 
evil.  Some  there  were  not  far  from  the  kingdom 
of  God,  taking  their  place  side  by  side  with  prophets 
and  wise  men,  among  the  instruments  by  which  the 
wisdom  of  God  was  teaching  men  (Matt,  xxiii.  34). 
The  name  was  still  honourable.  The  Apostles  them 
selves  were  to  be  Scribes  in  the  kingdom  of  God 
(Matt. -sin.  52).  The  Lord  himself  did  not  refuse 
the  salutations  which  hailed  Him  as  a  Rabbi.  -  In 


*  We  are  left  to  wonder  what  were  the  questions  and 
answers  of  the  school-room  of  Luke  ii.  46,  but  those  pro 
posed  to  our  Lord  by  his  own  disciples,  or  by  the  Scribes, 
as  tests  of  his  proficiency,  may  fairly  be  taken  as  types  of 
what  was  commonly  discussed.  The  Apocryphal  Gospels, 
as  usual,  mock  our  curiosity  with  the  most  irritating 
puerilities.  (Comp.  Evangel.  Infant,  c.  45,  in  Tischendorf, 
Codex  Apoc.  JV.  T.) 

"  This  is  Inferred  by  Schoettgen  (Har.  ITeb.  1.  c.)  from 
the  analogy  of  the  Levite's  office:,  and  from  the  fact  that 
the  Baptist  and  our  Lord  both  entered  on  their  ministry 
&t  this  age, 

a  It  wns  said  of  Hillel  that  he  placed  a  limit  on  this  I 
practice.     It  bad  been  exercised  by  any  ScrJbe.     After  j 


his  time  it  was  reserved  for  the  Nasi  or  President  of  the 
Sanhedrim  (Geiger,  ut  supra). 

y  For  all  the  details  in  the  above  section,  and  many 
others,  eomp.  the  elaborate  treatises  by  Ursinus,  Antiqq. 
Neb.,  and  Heubner,  De  Academiis  Hebraeorum,  in  Ugolinl, 
Thes.  xxi. 

*  The  later  Rabbinic  saying  that  "  the  disciples  of  the 
wise  have  a  right  to  a  goodly  house,  a  fair  wife,  and  a  soft 
couch,"  reflected  probably  the  luxury  of  an  earlier  time 
(Ursini,  Antiqq.  Heb.  cap.  5,  ut  supra.) 

a  The  feeling  is  curiously  prominent  in  the  Rabbinic 
scale  of  precedence.  The  Wise  Man,  i.  e.  the  Rabbi,  ie 
higher  than  the  High  Priest  himself.  (Gem.  Hieros 
f.  84 .) 


SCRIP 

"Zenas  the  lawyer"  (vofjiiK6s,  Tic.  in.  13)  and 
Apollos  "mighty  in  the  Scriptures,"  sent  appar 
ently  for  the  special  purpose  of  dealing  with  the 
fidxat  vo/u-iKai  which  prevailed  at  Crete  (Tit.  iii. 
9),  we  may  recognise  the  work  which  members  of 
the  order  were  capable  of  doing  for  the  edifying  ofthe 
Church  of  Christ  (comp.  Winer,  Eealwb.,  and  Her- 
zog's  Encydop.  "  Sehriftgelehrte  ").  [E.  H.  P.] 

SCRIP  (JMp^» :  o-v\\oyf],  Tr-npd  :  perd).  The 
Hebrew  word  a  thus  translated  appears  iu  1  Sam. 
zvii.  40,  as  a  synonyme  for  D^jnil  v3  (TO  na8iov 
T-b  iroi/j.ei>tK6v),  the  bag  in  which  the  shepherds  of 
Palestine  carried  their  food  or  other  necessaries.  In 
Symmachus  and  the  Vulg.  pera,  and  in  the  mar 
ginal  reading  of  A.  V.  "  scrip,"  appear  >n  2  K.  iv. 
42,  for  the  |&j5V,  which  in  the  text  ofthe  A.  V.  is 
translated  husk  (comp.  Cesen.  s.  v.).  The  ir-fipa  of 
the  N.  T.  appears  in  our  Lord's  command  to  his 
disciples  as  distinguished  from  the  tyvi]  (Matt.  x.  1 0 ; 
Mark  vi.  8)  and  the  ftaXXavriov  (Luke  x.  4,  xxii.  35, 
36),  and  its  nature  and  use  are  sufficiently  defined  by 
the  lexicographers.  The  scrip  of  the  Galilean  pea 
sants  was  of  leather,  used  especially  to  cany  their 
food  on  a  journey  (T\  drjKrj  TWV  &prwj/,  Suid.  ; 
8ep,ua  TI  dpr6(popov,  Ammon.),  and  slung  over 
their  shoulders.  In  the  Talmudic  writers  the  word 
p^D^n  is  used  as  denoting  the  same  thing,  and  is 
named  as  part  of  the  equipment  both  of  shepherds 
in  their  common  life  and  of  proselytes  coming  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  (Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.  on 
Matt.  x.  10).  The  (wvr),  on  the  other  hand,  was 
the  loose  girdle,  in  the  folds  of  which  money  was 
often  kept  for  the  sake  of  safety  [GIRDLE]  ;  the 
&a\\&vTiov  (sacculus,  Vulg.),  the  smaller  bag 
used  exclusively  for  money  (Luke  xii.  33).  The 
command  given  to  the  Twelve  first,  and  afterwards 
to  the  Seventy,  involved  therefore  an  absolute  de- 
pendance  upon  God  for  each  day's  wants.  They 
were  to  appear  in  every  town  or  village,  as  men  un 
like  all  other  travellers,  freely  doing  without  that 
which  others  looked  on  as  essential.  The  fresh  rule 
given  in  Luke  xxii.  35,  36,  perhaps  also  the  facts 
that  Judas  was  the  bearer  ofthe  bag  (y\cao-<r6Ko/j.ov, 
John  xii.  6),  and  that  when  the  disciples  were  with 
out  bread  they  were  ashamed  of  their  forgetfulness 
(Mark  viii.  14-16),  show  that  the  command  was  not 
intended  to  be  permanent. 

The  English  word  has  a  meaning  precisely  equi 
valent  to  that  of  the  Greek.  Connected,  as  it  pro 
bably  is,  with  scrape,  scrap,  the  scrip  was  used  for 
articles  of  food.  It  belonged  especially  to  shep 
herds  (As  You  Like  It,  act  iii.  sc.  2).  It  was 
made  of  leather  (Milton,  Cvmus,  626).  A  similar 
article  is  still  used  by  the  Syrian  shepherds  (Porter's 
Damascus,  ii.  109).  The  later  sense  of  scrip  as  a 
written  certificate,  is,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  of  dif 
ferent  origin  or  meaning ;  the  word,  on  its  first  use  in 
English,  was  written  "script"  (Chaucer).  [E.  fl.  P.] 

SCRIPTURE  (3J13,  Dan.  x.  21  :  ypcup-fi, 
yp&WaTa,  2  Tim.  iii.  16:  Scriptura}.  The  chief 
facts  relating  to  the  books  to  which,  individually 
and  collectively,  this  title  has  been  applied,  will  be 
found  under  BIBLI;  and  CANON.  It  will  fall  within 
'•he  scope  of  this  article  to  trace  the  history  of  the 


SCRIPTURE 


1169 


•  Yalkut,  the  scrip,  is  the  quaint  title  of  some  of  the 

mos>  ler-rned  of  the  Rabbinical  treatises :  for  instance,  the 

Tal'-cut  Shimoni,  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  fragmentary 

ecmments  on  the  whole  of  the  O.T.,  cornicing  of  extracts 

VOL.  III. 


word,  and  to  determine  its  exact  meaning  in  th< 
language  of  the  0.  and  N.  T. 

(1.)  It  is  not  till  the  return  from  the  Captivity 
that  the  word  meets  us  with  any  distinctive  force-. 
In  the  earlier  books  we  read  of  the  Law,  the  Book 
of  the  Law.  In  Ex.  xxxii.  16,  the  Commandments 
written  on  the  tables  of  testimony  are  said  to  be 
"  the  writing  of  God  "  (ypa<p^  0eofJ),  but  there 
is  no  special  sense  in  the  word  taken  by  itself.  In 
the  passage  from  Dan.  x.  21  (cv  ypcupy  dArj- 
06/os),  where  the  A.  V.  has  "  the  Scripture  of 
Truth,"  the  words  do  not  probably  mean  more  than 
"  a  true  writing."  The  thought  of  the  Scripture 
as  a  whole  is  hardly  to  be  found  in  them.  This 
first  appears  in  2  Chr.  xxx.  5,  18  (D-ln32),  KarA 
r^v  ypa-Q'flv,  LXX.,  "as  it  was  written,"  A.  V.), 
and  is  probably  connected  with  the  profound  reve 
rence  for  the  Sacred  Books  which  led  the  earlier 
Scribes  to  confine  their  own  teaching  to  oral  tradi 
tion,  and  gave  therefore  to  "  the  Writing  "  a  distinc 
tive  pre-eminence.  [SCRIBES.]  The  same  feeling 
showed  itself  in  the  constant  formula  of  quotation, 
"  It  is  written,"  often  without  the  addition  of  any 
words  defining  the  passage  quoted  (Matt.  iv.  4,  6, 
xxi.  13,  xxvi.  24).  The  Greek  word,  as  will  be 
seen,  kept  its  ground  in  this  sense.  A  slight  change 
passed  over  that  of  the  Hebrew,  and  led  to  the 
substitution  of  another.  The  D'O-irG  (cgthubim 
=  writings),  in  the  Jewish  arrangement  of  the 
0.  T.,  was  used  for  a  part  and  not  the  whole  of 
the  0.  T.  (the  Hagiographa  ;  comp.  BIBLE),  while 
another  form  of  the  same  root  (cethib)  came  to 
have  a  technical  significance  as  applied  to  the  text, 
which,  though  written  in  the  MSS.  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  might  or  might  not  be  recognised  as 
keri,  the  right  intelligible  reading  to  be  read  in  the 
congregation.  Another  word  was  therefore  wanted, 
ana  it  was  found  in  the  Mikra"  ({Ojp)D,  Neh.  viii.  8), 
or  "  reading,"  the  thing  read  or  recited,  recitation.*1 
This  accordingly  we  find  as  the  equivalent  for  the 
collective  ypa^at.  The  boy  at  the  age  of  five 
begins  the  study  of  the  Mikra,  at  ten  passes  on  to 
the  Mishna  (Pirke  Aboth,  v.  24).  The  old  word 
has  not  however  disappeared,  and  D^flS!"!,  "  the 


Writing,"  is  used  with  the  same  connotation  (ibid. 
iii.  10). 

(2.)  With  this  meaning  the  word  ypa<p-fi  passed 
into  the  language  of  the  N.  T.  Used  in  the  singular 
it  is  applied  chiefly  to  this  or  that  passage  quoted 
from  the  0.  T.  (Mark  xii.  10  ;  John  vii.  38,  xiii. 
18,  xix.  37  ;  Luke  iv.  21  ;  Rom.  ix.  17  ;  Gal.  iii.  8, 
et  aL).  In  Acts  viii.  32  (fj  Trepioxb  T?]S  ypcuprjs] 
it  takes  a  somewhat  larger  extension,  as  denoting 
the  writing  of  Isaiah;  but  in  ver.  35  the  more 
limited  meaning  reappears.  In  two  passages  of 
some  difficulty,  some  have  seen  the  wider,  some  the 
narrower  sense.  (1.)  Uaffa  ypacp^  6e6iri>evffTos 
(2  Tim.  iii.  16)  has  been  translated  in  the  A.  V. 
"  All  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,"  as 
though  7pa<jMj,  though  without  the  article,  were 
taken  as  equivalent  to  the  0.  T.  as  a  whole  (comp. 
irufa.  ot/coSojidj,  Eph.  ii.  21  ;  iracru  'lepoo-tfAi^a, 


Matt.  ii.  3),  and  QeSirvevffTos,  the  predicate  as 
serted  of  it.  Retaining  the  narrower  meaning, 
however,  we  might  still  take  Q*6irvevffTos  as  the 

from  more  than  fifty  older  Jewish  works  (Zunz,  Gottesd, 
Vortrage,  cap.  18). 

b  The  same  root,  it  may  be  noticed,  is  found  in  Uw 
title  of  the  Sacred  Book  uf  Islam  (Koran  =  recitation). 

4  F 


1170 


SCRIPTURE 


predicate.  "  Every  Scripture — sc.  every  separate 
portion— -is  divinely  inspired."  It  has  been  urged, 
however,  that  this  assertion  of  a  truth,  which 
both  St .  Paul  and  Timothy  held  in  common,  would 
be  less  suitable  to  the  context  than  the  assigning 
that  truth  as  a  ground  for  the  further  inference 
drawn  from  it ;  and  so  there  is  a  preponderance  of 
authority  in  favour  of  the  rendering,  "  Every 
ypa<f)-f],  being  inspired,  is,  also  profitable,  ..." 
(comp.  Meyer,  Alford,  Wordsworth,  Ellicott, 
Wiesinger,  in  /oc.).  There  does  not  seem  any 
ground  for  making  the  meaning  of  ypa<J>rj  depen 
dent  on  the  adjective  0e<$7n/eu<rTos  ("  every  inspired 
writing  "),  as  though  we  recognised  a  ypaty-fi  not 
inspired.  The  usus  loquendi  of  the  N.  T.  is  uni 
form  ia  this  respect ;  and  the  word  ypoup-fi  is  never 
used  of  any  common  or  secular  writing. 

(2.)  The  meaning  of  the  genitive  in  iraaa 
7rpo(p7jT€ta  ypcuprjs  (2  Pet.  i.  20)  seems  at  first 
sight,  anarthrous  though  it  be,  distinctly  collective. 
"  Every  prophecy  of,  i.  e.  contained  in,  the  0.  T. 
Scripture."  A  closer  examination  of  the  passage 
will  perhaps  lead  to  a  different  conclusion.  The 
Apostle,  after  speaking  of  the  vision  on  the  holy 
mount,  goes  on,  "  We  have  as  something  yet  firmer, 
the  prophetic  word  "  (here,  probably,  including  the 
utterances  of  N.  T.  7rpo<f>fjTat,  as  well  as  the 
writings  of  the  0.  T.c).  Men  did  well  to  give  heed 
to  that  word.  They  needed  one  caution  in  dealing 
with  it.  They  were  to  remember  that  no  irpo^rfia 
ypa^JTjs,  no  such  prophetic  utterance  starting  from, 
resting  on  a  ypa<j>-f),d  came  from  the  i5ia  eTriAucns, 
the  individual  power  of  interpretation  of  the  speaker, 
but  was,  like  the  ypa<p-h  itself,  inspired.  It  was  the 
law  of  irpo<p7jTet'a,  of  the  later  as  well  as  the  earlier, 
that  men  of  God  spake,  "  borne  along  by  the  Holy 
Spirit." 

(3.)  In  the  plural,  as  might  be  expected,  the 
collective  meaning  is  prominent.  Sometimes  we 
have  simply  at  yf<a<pai  (Matt.  xxi.  42,  xxii.  29  ; 
John  v.  89  ;  Acts  xvii.  11  ;  1  Cor.  xv.  8).  Some 
times  Tracrai  at  yocupai  (Luke  xxiv.  27).  The 
epithets  ayiat  (Rom.  i.  2),  irpotyrjTiKai  (Rom. 
xvi.  26),  are  sometimes  joined  with  it.  In  2  Pet. 
lii.  IB,  we  find  an  extension  of  the  term  to  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul;  but  it  remains  uncertain 
whether  at  AotTrai  ypa^ai  are  the  Scriptures  of 
'the  0.  T.  exclusively,  or  include  other  writings, 
then  extant,  dealing  with  the  same  topics.  There 
seems  little  doubt  that  such  writings  did  eiist. 
A  comparison  of  Rom.  xvi.  26  with  Eph.  iii.  5, 
might  even  suggest  the  conclusion,  that  in  both 
there  is  the  same  assertion,  that  what  had  not  been 
revealed  before  was  now  manifested  by  the  Spirit 
to  the  apostles  and  prophets  of  the  Church ;  and  so 
that  the  "  prophetic  writings "  to  which  St.  Paul 
refers,  are,  like  the  spoken  words  of  N.  T.  prophets, 
those  that  reveal  things  not  made  known  before,  the 
knowledge  of  the  mystery  of  Christ. 

It  is  noticeable,  that  in  the  2nd  Epistle  of  Clement 
ct  Rome  (c.  xi.)  we  have  a  long  citation  of  this 
nature,  not  from  the  0.  T.,  quoted  as  6  irpo<pt)TiKbs 
\6yos  (comp.  2  Pet.  i.  19),  and  that  in  the  1st 
Epistle  (c.  xxiii.)  the  same  is  quoted  as 


SCYTHOPOLIS 

Looking  to  the  special  fulness*  c.f  the  prophetic 
gifts  in  the  Church  of  Corinth  (1  Cor.  i.  5,  xiv.  Ij, 
it  is  obviously  probable  that  some  of  the  spoken 
prophecies  would  be  committed  to  writing ;  and  it 
is  a  striking  coincidence,  that  both  the  apostolic  and 
the  post-apostolic  references  are  connected,  first  with 
that  Church,  and  next  with  that  of  Rome,  which 
was  so  largely  influenced  by  it. 

(4.)  In  one  passage,  TO,  tepo  ypajujuara  (2  Tim. 
iii.  15)  answers  to  "The  Holy  Scriptures"  of  the 
A.  V.  Taken  by  itself,  the  word  might,  as  in  John 
vii.  15,  Acts  xxvi.  24,  have  a  wider  range,  including 
the  whole  circle  of  Rabbinic  education.  As  deter 
mined,  however,  by  the  use  of  other  Hellenistic 
writers,  Philo  (Leg.  ad  Caium,  vol.  ii.  p.  574,  ed. 
Mang.),  Josephus  (Ant.prooem.  3,  x.  1 0,  §4 ;  c.  Apion. 
i.  26),  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  accurately 
translated  with  this  special  meaning.  [E.  H.  P.J 

SCYTH'IAN  (2/cu07js:  Scythd)  occurs  in 
Col.  iii.  11  as  a  generalised  term  for  rude,  ignorant, 
degraded.  In  the  Gospel,  says  Paul,  "there  is 
neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncircum- 
cision,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free ;  but 
Christ  is  all  and  in  all."  The  same  view  of  Scythian 
barbarism  appears  in  2  Mace.  iv.  47,  and  3  Mace, 
vii.  5.  For  the  geographical  and  ethnographical 
relations  of  the  term,  see  Diet,  of  Geog.  ii.  pp.  936- 
945.  The  Scythians  dwelt  mostly  on  the  north  of 
the  Black  Sea  and  the  Caspian,  stretching  thence 
indefinitely  into  inner  Asia,  and  were  regarded  by 
the  ancients  as  standing  extremely  low  in  point  of 
intelligence  and  civilisation.  Josephus  (c.  Apian. 
ii.  37)  says,  2/ci»0ai  5e  (povois  x«'pOJ/Tes  avQpwTrcav 
Kal  fipaxv  Tiav  Qypiow  Siafpfpovres ;  and  Par- 
menio  (ap.  Athen.  v.  p.  221),  avrjp  yap  e XKUSV 
olvov,  wy  vScap  'ITTTTOS  S/cuflfO-rl  <po>»<eT,  ou5^ 
KaTnra  yiyv<affKuv.  For  other  similar  testimonies 
see  Wetstein,  JVou.  Test.  vol.  ii.  p.  292.  Perhaps 
it  may  be  inferred  from  Col.  iii.  11  that  there 
were  Scythians  also  among  the  early  converts  to 
Christianity.  Many  of  this  people  lived  in  Greek 
and  Roman  lands,  and  could  have  heard  the  Gospel 
there,  even  if  some  of  the  first  preachers  had  not 
already  penetrated  into  Scythia  itself. 

Herodotus  states  (i.  103-105)  that  the  Scythians 
made  an  incursion  through  Palestine  into  Egypt, 
under  Psammetichus,  the  contemporary  of  Josiah. 
In  this  way  some  would  account  for  the  Greek 
name  of  Bethshean,  Scythopolis.  [H.  B.  H.] 

SCYTHOP'OLIS  (SitvOwv  7T<fAts:  Peshito- 
Syriac,  Beisan  :  civitas  Scytharum),  that  is,  "  the 
city  of. the  Scythians,"  occurs  in  the  A.  V.  of  Jud. 
iii.  10  and  2  Mace.  xii.  29  only.  In  the  LXX. 
of  Judg.  i.  27,  however,  it  is  inserted  (in  both  the 
great  MSS.)  as  the  synonym  of  BETHSHEAN,  and 
this  identification  is  confirmed  by  the  narrative  of 
1  Mace.  v.  52,  a  parallel  account  to  that  of  2  Mace. 
xii.  29,  as  well  as  by  the  repeated  statements  of 
Josephus  (Ant.  v.  1,  §22,  vi.  14,  §8,  xii.  8,  §5).  He 
uniformly  gives  the  name  in  the  contracted  shape 
(2/cu0o7roAts)  in  which  it  is  also  given  bv  Eusebius 
(Onom.  passim),  Pliny  (H.  N.  v.  18),  Strabo  (xvi.), 
&c.  &c.,  and  which  is  inaccurately  followed  in  the 
A.  V.  Polybius  (v.  70, 4)  employs  the  fuller  form  of 


c  6  irp<x|>7)Tiicbs  Ao-yos  is  used  by  Philo  of  the  words  of 
Moses  (Leg.  Alleg.  iii.  14,  vol.  i.  p.  95,  ed.  Mang.).  He, 
of  cour&s,  could  recognize  no  prophets  but  those  of  the  0.  T. 
Clement  of  Rome  (ii.  11)  uses  it  of  a  prophecy  not  included 
In  the  Canons. 

<>  So  in  the  only  other  instance  in  which  the  genitive  is 
found  ('Rom.  XV.  4),  TJ  TrapdK\yo-ir  rwf  ypa<j>w  is  the 


counsel,  admonition,  drawn  from  the  Scriptures. 
Trapa/cA^o-ews  appears  in  Acts  xiii.  15  as  the  received  term 
for  such  an  address,  the  Sermon  of  the  Synagogue.  Ilapd- 
*cA7jais  itself  was  so  closely  allied  with  jrpo^rjTeia  (comp. 
Barnabas  =  vio?  7rpo</>T}Teias  =  vios  TrapoucAijcrew;),  thai 
the  expressions  of  the  two  Apostles  may  be  regarded  ae 
subetantially  identical. 


SGYTHOPOLIS 

the  LXX.  Bethshean  has  now,  like  so  many  other 
places  in  the  Holy  Land,  regained  its  ancient  name, 
and  is  known  as  Beisan  only.  A  mound  close  to  it 
on  the  west  is  called  Tell  Shuk,  in  which  it  is  perhaps 
just  possible  that  a  trace  of  Scythopolis  may  linger. 

But  although  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  of  the 
identity  of  the  place,  there  is  considerable  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  the  origin  cf  the  aname.  The  LXX. 
(as  is  evident  from  the  forrj  in  which  they  present  it) 
and  Pliny  (N.  H.  v.  16 b)  attribute  it  to  the 
Scythians,  who  in  the  words  of  the  Byzantine  his 
torian  George  Syncellus,  "  overran  Palestine,  and 
fcok  possession  of  Baisan,  which  from  them  is  called 
Scythopolis."  This  has  been  in  modern  times  gene 
rally  referred  to  the  invasion  recorded  by  Herodotus 
(i.  1 04-6),  v/nen  the  Scythians,  after  their  occupation 
of  Media,  passed  through  Palestine  on  their  road  to 
Egypt  (about  B.C.  600 — a  few  years  before  the  taking 
of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadnezzar),  a  statement  now 
recognised  as  a  real  fact,  though  some  of  the  details 
may  be  open  to  question  (Diet,  of  Gcogr.  ii.  9406; 
Rawlinson's  Herod,  i.  246).  It  is  not  at  all  im 
probable  that  either  on  their  passage  through,  or  on 
their  return  after  being  repulsed  by  Psammetichus 
(Herod,  i.  105),  some  Scythians  may  have  settled  in 
the  country  (Ewald,  Gesch.  iii.  694,  note} ;  and  no 
place  would  be  more  likely  to  attract  them  than 
Beisan — fertile,  most  abundantly  watered,  and  in  an 
excellent  military  position.  In  the  then  state  of  the 
Holy  Land  they  would  hardly  meet  with  much 
resistance. 

Reland,  however  (apparently  incited  thereto  by 
his  doubts  of  the  truth  of  Herodotus'  account),  dis 
carded  this  explanation,  and  suggested  that  Scytho 
polis  was  a  corruption  of  Succothopolis — the  chief 
town  of  the  district  of  Succoth.  In  this  he  is  sup 
ported  by  Gesenius  (Notes  to  Burckhardt,  1058) 
and  by  Grimm  (Exeg.  Handbuch  on  1  Mace.  v.  52). 
Since,  however,  the  objection  of  Reland  to  the  his 
torical  truth  of  Herodotus  is  now  removed,  the 
necessity  for  this  suggestion  (certainly  most  in 
genious)  seems  not  to  exist.  The  distance  «f  Suc 
coth  from  Beisan,  if  we  identify  it  with  Sakut,  is 
10  miles,  while  if  the  arguments  of  Mr.  Beke  are 
valid  it  would  be  nearly  double  as  far.  And  it  is 
surely  gratuitous  to  suppose  that  so  large,  inde 
pendent,  and  important  a  town  as  Bethshean  was 
in  the  earlier  history,  and  as  the  remains  show  it 
to  have  been  in  the  Greek  period,  should  have  taken 
its  name  from  a  comparatively  insignificant  place 
at  a  long  distance  from  it.  Dr.  Robinson  (Bib.  Res. 
iii.  330)  remarks  with  justice,  that  had  the  Greeks 
derived  the  name  from  Succoth  they  would  have 
employed  that  name  in  its  translated  form  as  ^KTjvai, 
and  the  compound  would  have  been  Scenopolis. 
Reland's  derivation  is  also  dismissed  without  hesi 
tation  by  Ewald,  on  the  ground  that  the  two  names 
Succoth  and  Skythes  have  nothing  in  common 
{Gesch.  iii.  694,  note).  Dr.  Robinson  suggests 


SEA 


1171 


•  The  "modern  Greeks"  are  said  to  derive  it  from 
TKVTOS,  a  hide  (Williams,  in  Diet,  of  Geogr.).  This  is, 
doubtless,  another  appearance  of  the  legend  so  well  known 
in  connexion  with  the  foundation  of  Byrsa  (Carthage). 
One  such  has  been  mentioned  in  reference  to  Hebron 
under  MACHPELAH  (p.  188). 

b  The  singular  name  JS'ysa,  mentioned  in  this  passage 
as  a  former  appellation  of  Scythopolis,  is  identified  by 
Ewald  (Gesch.  iv.  453)  with  Neash,  an  inversion  of  (Beth-) 
Shean,  actually  found  on  coins. 

c  DJ,  Ch.  KE>>,  Dan.  vii.  2,  3,  0aAa<r<r<x,  mare,  from 
nOj,  cat  used,Ti.a.  DOn,  or  nOJl,  "roar,"  fl  and  * 


that,  after  all.  City  of  the  Scythians  may  bf  right  j 
the  word  Scythia  being  used  as  in  the  N.  T.  as 
equivalent  to  a  barbarian  or  savage.  In  this  sense 
he  thinks  it  may  have  been  applied  to  the  wild 
Arabs,  wno  then,  as  now,  inhabited  the  Ghor,  and  at 
times  may  have  had  possession  of  Bethshean. 

The  Canaanites  were  neve"  expelled  from  Beth 
shean,  and  the  heathen  appear  to  have  always  main 
tained  a  footing  there.  It  is  named  in  the  Mis/ma 
as  the  seat  of  idolatry  (Mishna,  Aboda  Zara,  i.  4), 
and  as  containing  a  double  population  of  Jews  and 
heathens.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Roman  war 
(A.D..65)  the  heathen  rose  against  the  Jews  and 
massacred  a  large  number,  according  to  Joseph  us 
(B.  /.  ii.  18,  §3)  no  less  than  13,000,  in  a  wood  or 
grove  close  to  the  town.  Scythopolis  was  the  largest 
city  of  the  Decapolis,  and  the  only  one  of  the  ten 
which  lay  west  of  Jordan.  By  Eusebius  and  Jerome 
(Onom.  "Bethsan")  it  is  characterised  as  ir6\ts 
e7ri57jjuos  and  urbs  nobilis.  It  was  surrounded  by  a 
district  of  its  own  of  the  most  abundant  fertility.  It 
became  the  seat  of  a  Christian  bishop,  and  its  name  is 
found  in  the  lists  of  signatures  as  late  as  the  Council 
of  Constantinople,  A.D.  536.  The  latest  mention 
of  it  under  the  title  of  Scythopolis  is  probably  that 
of  William  of  Tyre  (xxii.  16  and  26).  He  men 
tions  it  as  if  it  was  then  actually  so  called,  carefully 
explaining  that  it  was  formerly  Bethshan.  [G.] 

SEA.  The  Sea,  ydm,c  is  used  in  Scripture  to 
denote  —  1.  The  "gather  ing  of  the  waters"  (yamirri), 
encompassing  the  land,  or  what  we  call  in  a  more 
or  less  definite  sense  "  the  Ocean."  2.  Some  portion 
of  this,  as  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  3.  Inland  lakes, 
whether  of  salt  or  fresh  water.  4.  Any  great  col 
lection  of  water,  as  the  rivers  Nile  or  Euphrates, 
especially  in  a  state  of  overflow. 

1.  In  the  first  sense  it  is  used  in  Gen.  i.  2,  10,  and 
elsewhere,  as  Deut.  xxx.  13  ;  1  K.  x.  22  ;  Ps.  xxiv. 
2;   Job  xxvi.  8,  12,  xxxviii.  8  ;  see  Horn.  //.  xiv. 
301,  302,  and  Hes.  Theog.  107,  109  ;  and  2  Pet. 
iii.  5. 

2.  In  the  second,  it  is  used,  with  the  article,  (a)  of 
the  Mediterranean  Sea,  called  the  "  hinder,"  *  the 
"  western,"  and  the  "  utmost  "  sea  (Deut.  xi.  24, 
xxxiv.  2;   Joel  ii.  20);   "sea  of  the  Philistines" 
(Ex.  xxiii.  31)  ;  "  the  great  sea"  (Num.  xxxiv.  6,  7  ; 
Josh.  xv.  47)  ;  "  the  sea"  (Gen.  xlix.  13  ;  Ps.  Ixxx. 
11,  cvii.  23;    1  K.  iv.  20,  &c.).     (6)    Also  fre 
quently  of  the  Red  Sea  (Ex.  xv.  4  ;   Josh.  xxiv.  6), 
or  one  of  its  gulfs  (Num.  xi.  31  ;  Is.  xi.  15),  and 
perhaps  (1  K.  x.  22)  the  sea  traversed  by  Solomon's 
fleet.     [RED  SEA.] 

3.  The  inland  lakes  termed  seas,  as  the  Salt  or 
Dead  Sea.     (See  the  special  articles.) 

4.  The  term  yam,  like  the  Arabic  Bahr,  is  also 
applied  to  great  rivers,  as  the  Nile  (Is.  xix.  5  ;  Am. 
viii.  8,  A.V.  "flood;"  Nah.  iii.  8;  Ez.  xxxii.  2), 
the  Euphrates  (Jer.  Ii.  36).     (See  Stanley,  S.  #  P. 
App-  p.  533.) 


being  interchanged.  Connected  with  this  is 
a/3vo-o-os,  abyssiis,  "  the  deep"  (Gen.  i.  2  ;  Jon.  ii.  5  ;  Ges 
p.  371).  ft  also  means  the  west  (Ges.  pp.  360,  598). 
When  used  for  the  sea,  it  very  often,  but  not  always 
takes  the  article. 

Other  words  for  the  sea  (in  A.  V.   "  deep  ")  are  :— 
I.     i"l>1¥D,  n?Wp  (only  in  plur.),  or  rkW,  a/Svereros, 

jSaflo?,  abyssus,  profundum.      2.  >120,  <eaTa»eAu<7/x<k, 
diluvium,  "  water-  flood  "  (Ps.  xxiz.  10). 
d     "^         fl--    rj)  ecrxanj,  (mare)rwvissimum. 
4  F  2 


1172 


SEA.  MOLTEN 


The  qualities  or  characteristics  of  the  sea  and 
sea-coast  mentioned  in  Scripture  are,  1.  The  sand,e 
whose  abundance  on  the  coast  both  of  Palestine  and 
Egypt  furnishes  so  many  illustrations  (Gen.  xxii. 
17,  xli.  49 ;  Judg.  vii.  12  ;  1  Sam.  xiii.  5  ;  1  K. 
iv.  20,  29 ;  Is.  x.  22  ;  Matt.  vii.  26  ;  Strabo,  lib. 
xvi.  p.  758,  759  ;  Riiumer,  Pal.  p.  45  ;  Robinson, 
ii.  34-38,  464  ;  Shaw,  Trav.  p.  280  ;  Hasselquist, 
Trav.  p.  119  ;  Stanley,  8.  $  P.  pp.  255,  260,  264). 
2.  The  shore.'  3.  Creeks «  or  inlets.  4.  Har 
bours.11  5.  Waves  *  or  billows. 

It  may  be  remarked  that  almost  all  the  figures 
of  speech  taken  from  the  sea  in  Scripture,  refer 
either  to  its  power  or  its  danger,  and  among  the 
woes  threatened  in  punishment  of  disobedience,  one 
may  be  remarked  as  significant  of  the  dread  of  the 
sea  entertained  by  a  non-seafaring  people,  the  being 
brought  back  into  Egypt  "  in  ships  "  (Deut.  xxviii. 
08).  The  national  feeling  on  this  subject  may  be 
contrasted  with  that  of  the  Greeks  in  reference  to 
the  sea.  [COMMERCE.]  It  may  be  remarked,  that, 
as  is  natural,  no  mention  of  the  tide  is  found  in 
Scripture. 

The  place  "where  two  seas  met"k  (Acts  xxvii. 
41)  is  explained  by  Conybeare  and  Howson,  as  a 
place  where  the  island  Salmonetta  off  the  coast  of 
Malta  in  St.  Paul's  Bay,  so  intercepts  the  passage 
from  the  sea  without  to  the  bay  within  as  to  give 
the  appearance  of  two  seas,  just  as  Strabo  represents 
the  appearance  of  the  entrance  from  the  Bosphorus 
into  the  Euxine ;  but  it  seems  quite  as  likely  that 
by  the  "  place  of  the  double  sea,"  is  meant  one 
where  two  currents,  caused  by  the  intervention  of  the 
island,  met  and  produced  an  eddy,  which  made  it 
desirable  at  once  to  ground  the  ship  (Conybeare  and 
Howson,  ii.  p.  423 ;  Strabo,  ii.  p.  124).  [H.  W.  P.] 

SEA,  MOLTEN.m  The  name  given  to  the 
great  brazen  n  laver  of  the  Mosaic  ritual.  [LAYER.] 

In  the  place  of  the  laver  of  the  tabernacle,  Solo 
mon  caused  a  lavex  to  be  cast  for  a  similar  purpose, 
which  from  its  size  was  called  a  sea.  It  was  made 
partly  or  wholly  of  the  brass,  or  rather  copper, 
which  had  been  captured  by  David  from  "  Tibhath 
and  Chun,  cities  of  Hadarezer  king  of  Zobah" 
1  K.  vii.  23-26  ;  1  Chr.  xviii.  8).  Its  dimen 
sions  were  as  follows : — Height,  5  cubits  ;  diameter, 
10  cubits;  circumference,  30  cubits;  thickness,  1 
handbreadth  ;  and  it  is  said  to  have  been  capable  of 
containing  2000,  or  according  to  2  Chr.  iv.  5,  3000 
baths.  Below  the  brim  °  there  was  a  double  row 
of  "  knops,"  9  10  (t.  e.  5+5)  in  each  cubit.  These 
were  probably  a  running  border  or  double  fillet  of 
tendrils,  and  fruits,  said  to  be  gourds,  of  an  oval 
shape  (Celsius,  ffierob.  i.  397,  and  Jewish  authori 
ties  quoted  by  him).  The  brim  itself,  or  lip,  was 
wrought  "  like  the  brim  of  a  cup,  with  flowers 9  of 


SEA,  MOLTEN 

ilies,"  t.  e.  curved  outwards  like  a  lily  or  lotus 
flower.  The  laver  stood  on  twelve  oxen,  three  to 
wards  each  quarter  of  the  heavens,  and  all  looking 
outwards.  It  was  mutilated  by  Ahaz,  Lyr  being 
removed  from  its  basis  of  oxen  and  placed  on  a 
stone  base,  and  was  finally  broken  up  by  the  Assy 
rians  (2  K.  xvi.  14,  17,  xxv.  13). 

Joseph  us  says  that  the  form  of  the  sea  was  hemi 
spherical,  and  that  it  held  3000  baths ;  and  he  else- 
where  tells  us  that  the  bath  was  equal  to  72  Attic 
rai,  or  1  /xerpTjr^s  =  8  gallons  5'12  pint* 
(Joseph.  Ant.  viii.  2,  §9,  and  3,  §5).  The  question 
arises,  which  occurred  to  the  Jewish  writers  them 
selves,  how  the  contents  of  the  laver,  as  they  are 
given  in  the  sacred  text,  are  to  be  reconciled  with 
ts  dimensions.  At  the  rate  of  1  bath  =  8  gallons 
5-12  pints,  2000  baths  would  amount  to  about 
17,250  gallons,  and  3000  (the  more  precisely  stated 
reading  of  2  Chr.  iv.  5)  would  amount  to  25,920 
gallons.  Now  supposing  the  vessel  to  be  hemi 
spherical,  as  Josephus  says  it  was,  the  cubit  to  be 
=  20£  inches  (20'6250),  and  the  palm  or  hand- 
lireadth  =  3  inches  (2-9464,  Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egyp 
ii.  258),  we  find  the  following  proportions  : — From 
the  height  (5  cubits  =  102J  inches)  subtract  the 
thickness  (3  inches),  the  axis  of  the  hemisphere 
would  be  99J  inches,  and  its  contents  in  gallons,  at 
277£  cubic  inches  to  the  gallon,  would  be  about 
7500  gallons  ;  or  taking  the  cubit  at  22  inches,  the 
contents  would  reach  10,045  gallons — an  amount 
still  far  below  the  required  quantity.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  hemispherical  vessel,  to  contain  17,250 
gallons,  must  have  a  depth  of  11  feet  nearly,  or 
rather  more  than  6  cubits,  at  the  highest  estimate 
of  22  inches  to  the  cubit,  exclusive  of  the  thickness 
of  the  vessel.  To  meet  the  difficulty,  we  may  ima 
gine — 1.  an  erroneous  reading  of  the  numbers. 
2.  We  may  imagine  the  laver,  like  its  prototype  in 
the  tabernacle,  to  have  had  a  "  foot,"  which  may 
have  been  a  basin  which  received  the  water  as  it 
was  drawn  out  by  taps  from  the  laver,  so  that  the 
priests  might  be  said  to  wash  "  at "  r  not  "  in  "  it 
(Ex.  xxx.  18,  19 ;  2  Chr.  iv.  6).  3.  We  may 
suppose  the  laver  to  have  had  another  shape  than 
the  hemisphere  of  Josephus.  The  Jewish  writers 
supposed  that  it  had  a  square  hollow  base  for  3 
cubits  of  its  height,  and  2  cubits  of  the  circular 
form  above  (Lightfoot,  Descr.  Tempi,  vol.  i.  p. 
647).  A  far  more  probable  suggestion  is  that  of 
Thenius,  in  which  Keil  agrees,  that  it  was  of  a 
bulging  form  below,  but  contracted  at  the  mouth 
to  the  dimensions  named  in  1  K.  vii.  23.  4.  A 
fourth,  supposition  is  perhaps  tenable,  that  when 
it  is  said  the  laver  contained  2000  or  3000  baths, 
the  meaning  is  that  the  supply  of  water  required 
for  its  use  amounted,  at  its  utmost,  to  that  quan 
tity.  '  The  quantity  itself  of  water  is  not  sur- 


s,  arena. 

f  Pjiri'  Joined  with  D*;  TropoAta  -y^;  littus.  In  Gen. 
xlix.  13,  "  haven ;"  Acts  xxvii.  39,  aiyioAos. 

8  }*"1S)0,  from  f^S,  "  break,"  only  in  Judg.  v.  17  in 
plnr. ;  Sio/eoTrai;  portus;  A.  V.  "breaches." 

h  T1HD,  a  place  of  retreat ;  At^f ;  portus ;  A.  V 
« haven." 

'  1.  73,  lit.  a  heap,  in  plur.  waves;  tv^a;  gurgites 
mare  fluctuant.  2.  p^,  or  H3^  ;  «riTpfyeis ;  fluctus ; 
only  in  Ps.  xciii.  3.  3.  "IS^D  ;  /aerewpttr/ids  ;  gurges 
elatio;  "a  breaker."  4.  !"|D21  (Job  ix.  8) ;  fluct us ;  lit. 
a  high  place  (Ez.  xx.  29). 


TOTTOS  SiflaAacro-os  ;  locus  ditholassus. 
;  XVTOS  ;  fuMis. 

aeneus. 
;  Idbrum. 

p  D^S  :  virotrnipiynaTa  ;  scidptura  ;  property 
"  gourds." 

q  jK'lK'  n"]S  ;  /BAaorrbs  KpLvov  ;  fcli-jm  repandi  Klii 
The  passage  literally  is,  "  and  its  lip  (was)  like  work  (such 
as)  a  cup's  lip,  a  lily-flower." 

MD;   e£  avrov;  A.V.  "thereat"  (Ex.  xxx.  19J 
.  iv.  6). 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

prising,  when  we  remember  the  quantity  mentioned 
as  the  supply  of  a  private  house  for  purification,  viz. 
6  amphorae  of  2  or  3  firkins  (/j.eTpr)Tal)  each,  t.  e. 
from  16  to  24  gallons  each  (John  ii.  6). 

The  laver  is  said  to  have  been  supplied  in  earlier 
days  by  the  Gibeonites,  but  afterwards  by  a  conduit 
from  the  pools  of  Bethlehem.  Ben-Katin  made 
twelve  cocks  (epistomia)  for  drawing  off  the  water, 
and  invented  a  contrivance  for  keeping  it  pure  during  I 
the  night  (Joma,  iii.  10  ;  Tamid,  iii.  8  ;  Middoth,  iii. 
6 ;  Lightfoot,  L  c.).  Mr.  Layard  mentions  some 
circular  vessels  found  at  Nineveh,  of  6  feet  in  dia 
meter  and  2  feet  in  depth,  which  seemed  to  answer, 
in  point  of  use,  to  the  Molten  Sea,  though  far 
inferior  in  size  ;  and  on  the  bas-reliefs  it  is  remark 
able  that  cauldrons  are  represented  supported  by- 
oxen  (Layard,  Nin.  and  Bab.  p.  180  ;  see  Thenius 
on  1  K.  vii. ;  and  Keil,  Arch.  BiU.  i.  127,  and 
pi.  3,  fig.  i.).  [H.  W.  P.] 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


1173 


Hypothetical  restoration  dl  the  Lavor.    From  K«U. 

SEA,  THE  SALT  (rfr»n  DJ :    r)  0<*Ao<r<ra 

TWV  a\S)v  ;  0.  rj  oAuKT],  and  TTJS  aAuwf/s;  Q.  a\6s: 
in  Gen.  mare  salis,  elsewhere  m.  salsissimum,  except 
Josh.  iii.  quod  nunc  vocatur  mortuum).  The  usual, 
and  perhaps  the  most  ancient,  name,  for  the  remark 
able  lake,  which  to  the  Western  world  is  now  gene 
rally  known  as  the  Dead  Sea. 

1.  1.  It  is  found  only,  and  but  rarely,  in  the 
Pentateuch   (Gen.  xiv.    3;   Num.  xxxiv.   3,    12; 
Deut.  iii.  17  6),  and  in  the  Book  of  Joshua  (iii.  16, 
xii.  3,  xv.  2,  5,  xviii.  19). 

2.  Another,  and  possibly  a  later  name,  is  the 
SEA  OP  THE  ARABAH  (i"O"lJJn  W :   6d\aa-a-a 

ApajSa  ;  f]  6d\.  *Apa0a ;  17  0<JA.  TTJS  "Apa£a : 
mare  solitudinis,  or  deserti ;  A.  V.  "  sea  of  the 
plain  "),  which  is  found  in  Deut.  iv.  49,  and  2  K. 
xiv.  25  ;  and  combined  with  the  former — "  the  sea 
of  the  Arabah,  the  salt  sea"— in  Deut.  iii.  17; 
Josh.  iii.  1 6,  xii.  3. 

3.  In  the  prophets  (Joel  ii.  20  ;  Ezek.  xlvii.  18; 
Zech.  xiv.  8)  it  is  mentioned  by  the  title  of  THE 
*>  EAST  SEA  (tflB'lgn  D»n  :  in  Ez.  T^V  0d\a<r<rav 

rV  irpbs  oi/aToA&s  e&oiviKwvos ;  in  Joel  and  Zech. 
rfy  8d\.  r}]v  Trpcarrjv :  mare  orientate}. 

4.  In  Ez.  xlvii.  8,  it  is  styled,  without  previous 
reference,  THE  SEA  (DTI),  and  distinguished  from 
"  the  great  sea" — the  Mediterranean  (ver.  10). 

5.  Its  connexion  with  Sodom  is  first  suggested  in 
the  Bible  in  the  book  of  2  Esdras  (v.  7)  by  the  name 
"  Sodomitish  sea  "  (mare  Sodomiticum}. 


a  In  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  also  in  iv.  49. 

*>  In  Zechariah  and  Joel,  as  an  antithesis*  to  "  the  hinder 
aea,"  i.  e.  the  Mediterranean ;  whence  the  olscure  render- 
Ing  of  the  A.  V.,  "  former  sea." 

c  The  version  of  theLXX.  is  remarkable,  as  introducing 
the  name  of  Phoenicia  in  both  ver.  18  and  19.  This  may  j 
De  either  an  equivalent  of  Engedi,  originally  Haza/on-  ' 


6.  In  the  Talmudical  books  it  is  called  kith  the 
"Sea  of  Salt"  (Kn^DT  ND»),  and  «  Sea  of  Sodom" 
(DHD  76?  NE11).    See  quotations  from  Talmud  and 
Midrash  Tehillim,  by  Reland  (Pal.  237). 

7.  Josephus,  and  before  him  Diodorus  Siculus 
(ii.  48,  xix.  98),  names  it  the  Asphaltic  Lake — 
T]  'Aar<pa\Tiris  Kl^vy  (Ant.  i.  9 ;  iv.  5,  §1 ;  ix 
10,  §1 ;  B.  J.  i.  33,  §5;  iii.  10,  §7;  iv.  8,  §'2, 
4),  and  once  A.  •}]  a<r(pa\To(p6pos  {Ant.  xvii  6,  §5). 
Also  (Ant.  v.  1,  §22)  77  2o8o/a'-m  A/yuorj. 

8.  The  name    "  Dead   Sea"    appeal's  to   have 
been   first   used   in   Greek  (6d\a<rffa   vetcpd)   by 
Pausanias  (v.  7)  and  Galen  (iv.  9),  and  in  Latin 
(mare  mortuum)   by   Justin   (xxxvi.   3,   §6"),  or 
rather   by  the   older  historian,  Trogus  Pompeiius 
(cir.  B.C.  10),  whose  work  he  epitomized.     It  is 
employed  also  by  Eusebius  ( Onom.  2^8o/xo).    The 
expressions  of  Pausanias  and  Galen  imply  that  the 
name  was  in  use  in  the  country.    And  this  is  corro 
borated  by  the  expression  of  Jerome  ( Comm.  on 
Dan.  xi.  45),  "  mare  ....  quod  nunc  appellatur 
mortuum."     The  Jewish  writers  appear  never  to 
have  used  it,  and  it  has  become  established  in  mo 
dern  literature,  from  the  belief  in  the  very  exag 
gerated  stories  of  its  deadly  character  and  gloomy 
aspect,  which  themselves  probably  arose  out  of  the 
name,  and  were  due  to  the  preconceived  notions  oi 
the  travellers  who  visited  its  shores,  or  to  the  implicit, 
faith  with  which  they  received  the  statements  of 
their  guides.    Thus  Maundeville  (chap,  ix.)  says  it  is 
called  the  Dead  Sea  because  it  moveth  not,  but  is  ever 
still— the  fact  being  that  it  is  frequently  agitated, 
and  that  when  in  motion  its  waves  have  great  force. 
Hence  also  the  fable  that  no  birds  could  fly  across  it 
alive,  a  notion  which  the  experience  of  almost  every 
modern  traveller  to  Palestine  would  contradict. 

9.  The  Arabic  name  is  Bahr  Lut,  the  "  Sea  ot 
Lot."     The  name  of  Lot  is  also  specially  connected 
with  a  small  piece  of  land,  sometimes  island  some 
times  peninsula,  at  the  north  end  of  the  lake. 

II.  1.  The  so-called  DEAD  SEA  is  the  final  re 
ceptacle  of  the  river  Jordan,  the  lowest  and  largest 
of  the  three  lakes  which  interrupt  the  rush  of  its 
downward  course.  It  is  the  deepest  portion  of  that 
very  deep  natural  fissure  which  runs  likt  a  furrow 
from  the  Gulf  of  Akaba  to  'the  range  of  Lebanon, 
and  from  the  range  of  Lebanon  to  the  extreme 
north  of  Syria.  It  is  in  fact  a  pool  left  by  the 
Ocean,  in  its  retreat  from  what  there  is  reason 
to  believe  was  at  a  very  remote  period  a  channel 
connecting  the  Mediterranean  with  the  Red  Sea. 
As  the  most  enduring  result  of  the  great  geological 
operation  which  determined  the  present  form  of  *he 
country  it  may  be  called  without  exaggeration  the 
key  to  the  physical  geography  of  the  Holy  Land. 
It  is  therefore  in  every  way  an  object  of  extreme 
interest.  The  probable  conditions  of  the  formation 
of  the  lake  will  be  alluded  to  in  the  course  of  this 
article :  we  shall  now  attempt  to  describe  its  dimen 
sions,  appearance,  and  natural  features. 

2.  Viewed  on  the  map,  the  lake  is  of  an  oblong 
form,  of  tolerably  regular  contour,  interrupted  only 
by  a  large1  and  long  peninsula  which  projects  from 
the  eastern  shore,  near  its  southern  end,  and  vir 
tually  divides  the  expanse  of  the  water  into  two 


tamar,  the  "  City  of  Palm-trees "  ($ou>unnO ;  or  may 
arise  out  of  a  corruption  of  Kadmoni  into  Kanaan,  whicl 
in  this  version  is  occasionally  rendered  by  Phoenicia, 
The  only  warrant  for  it  in  the  existing  Heb.  text  is  the 
name  Tamar  (=  "  a  palm,"  and  rendered  ©aijxac  *eal  *«u- 
I'wcwi'os)  in  ver  19. 


1174 


SEA,  THE  SALT. 


Alu,  and  Longitudinal  Section  (from  North  to  Soutnj,  of  the  DEAD  SKA,  from  tne  Observations,  Surveys,  and  Bounding  of  Lynch. 
Robinson,  De  Saulcy,  Van  de  Velde,  and  others,  drawn  under  the  superintendence  of  Mr.  Grove  by  Trelawney  Saunders^  amf 
engraved  by  J.  D.  Cooper. 

Kefrencet.—l.  Jericho.  2.  Ford  of  Jordan.  3.  Wady  Goumrnn.  4.  Wady  Zfirka  Ma'in.  5.  Ras  el  Fe'shkhah.  6.  Ain  Terabeh.  7.  Has 
Mersed.  8.  Wady  Mojib.  9.  Ain  Jidy.  10.  Birket  el  KhuliL  11.  Sebbeh.  12.  Wadv  Zuweirah.  13.  Um  ZoghaL  14.  Khashm 
Usdum.  15.  Wady  Fikreh.  16.  Wady  el  Jeib.  17.  Wady  Tufileh.  la  Ghor  es  Safieh.  19.  Plain  es  Sabkah.  20.  Wady  ed 
Dra'ah.  21.  The  Peninsula.  22.  The  Lagoon.  23.  The  Frank  Mountain.  24.  Bethlehem.  25.  Hebron. 

The  dotted  lines  crossing  and  recrossing  the  Lake  show  the  place  of  the  transverse  sections  given  on  the  opposite  page. 


portions,  connected  by  a  long,  narrow,  and  some 
what  devious,  passage.  Its  longest  axis  is  situated 
nearly  North  and  South.  It  lies  between  31°  6' 
20"  and  31°  46'  N.  lat.,  nearly ;  and  thus  its  water 
surface  is  from  N.  to  S.  as  nearly  as  possible  40 
geographical,  or  4G  English  miles  long.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  lies  between  35°  24'  and  35°  37' 
East  long.,d  nearly  ;  and  its  greatest  width  (some 
?.  miles  S.  of  Ain  Jidy)  is  about  9  *  geogr.  miles, 
or  10|  Eng.  miles.  The  ordinary  area  of  the  upper 
portion  is  about  174  square  geogr.  miles ;  ot  the 
channel  29 ;  and  of  the  lower  portion,  hereafter 
styled  "  the  lagoon,"  46  ;  in  all  about  250  square 
geographical  miles.  These  dimensions  are  not  very 


dissimilar  to  those  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  They  are, 
however,  as  will  be  seen  further  on,  subject  to  con 
siderable  variation  according  to  the  time  of  the  year. 
At  its  northern  end  the  lake  receives  the  stream 
of  the  Jordan  :  on  its  Eastern  side  the  Zurka  Ma'in 
(the  ancient  Callirrhoe,  and  possibly  the  more  ancient 
en-Eglaim),  the  Mojib  (the  Arnon  of  the  Bible),  and 
the  Beni-Hemad.  On  the  South  the  Kurdlty  or  el~ 
Ahsy  •  and  on  the  West  that  of  Ain  Jidy.  These 
are  probably  all  perennial,  though  valuable,  streams; 
but,  in  addition,  the  beds  of  the  torrents  which  lead 
through  the  mountains  East  and  West,  and  over  the 
flat  shelving  plains  on  both  North  and  South  of 
the  lake,  show  that  in  the  winter  a  very  large 


d  The  longitudes  and  latitudes  are  given  with  care  by 
Van  de  Velde  (Mem.  65),  but  they  can  none  of  them  be 
implicitly  trusted. 

e  Lynch  says  9  to  9| ;  Dr.  Robinson  says  9  (i.  509). 
The  ancient  writers,  as  is  but  natural,  estimated  its 
dimensions  very  inaccurately.  Diodorus  states  the  length 
as  500  stadia,  or  about  50  miles,  and  breadth  60,  or1 6 
miles.  Josephus  extends  the  length  to  580  stadia,  and  the 


breadth  to  150.  It  is  not  necessary  to  accuse  him,  on  thi? 
account,  of  wilful  exaggeration.  Nothing  is  more  difficult 
to  estimate  accurately  than  the  extent  of  a  sheet  of  water, 
especially  one  which  varies  so  much  in  appearance  as  the 
Dead  Sea.  As  regards  the  length,  it  is  not  impossible 
that  at  the  time  of  Josephus  the  water  extended  over  the 
southern  plain,  which  would  make  the  entire  length 
over  50  geogr.  miles. 


SKA,  THE  SALT 


1.  From  Ain  Feshkhah  to  1C.  shor 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


1175 


7.  From  the  W.  shore  to  the  N.  point  of  Peninsula. 


250-fei 
5OO 


the  Lngoon  f  romE  boW. 


Trass-Terse  Sections  (from  West  to  East)  of  the  DEAD  SEA  ;  plotted 
for  the  first  time,  from  the  Soundings  given  by  Lynch  on  the 
Map  in  his  Nim-ative  of  tJie  V.  S.  Expedition,  &c.,  London,  1849. 
The  spots  at  which  the  Sections  were  token  are  indicated  on 
the  Map  (opposite)  by  the  dotted  lines.  The  depths  are  given 
in  English  feel. 

N.B. — I'or  the  sake  of  clearness,  the  horizontal  and  vertical 
scales  for  these  Sections  have  been  enlarged  from  those  adopted 
tor  ths  Map  and  Longitudinal  Section  on  the  opposite  rege. 


quantity  of  water  must  be  poured  into  it.  There 
are  also  all  along  the  western  side  a  considerable 
number  of  springs,  some  fresh,  some  warm,  some 
salt  and  fetid — which  appear  to  run  continually, 
and  all  find  their  way,  more  or  less  absorbed  by 
the  sand  and  shingle  of  the  beach,  into  its  waters. 
The  lake  has  no  visible*  outlet. 

3.  Excepting  the  last  circumstance,  nothing  ha? 
yet  been  stated  about  the  Dead  Sea  that  may  no 
be  stated  of  numerous  other  inland  lakes.  The 
depression  of  its  surface,  however,  and  the  depth 
which  it  attains  below  that  surface,  combined  witli 
the  absence  of  any  outlet,  render  it  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  spots  on  the  globe.  According  to  the 
observations  of  Lieut.  Lynch,  the  surface  of  the  lake 
in  May  1848,  was  1316-78  feet  below  the  level  of 


f  Nor  can  there  be  any  invisible  one :  the  distance  of 
the  surface  below  that  of  the  ocean  alone  renders  it  im 
possible  ;  and  there  is  no  motive  for  supposing  it,  because 
the  evaporation  (see  note  to  $4)  is  amply  sufficient  to 
carry  off  the  supply  from  without. 

6  This  figure  was  obtained  by  running  levels  from  Ain 
Terdbeh  up  the  Wady  lias  el-Ghuweir  and  Wady  en-Nar 
to  Jerusalem,  and  thence  by  llamleh  to  Jaffa.  It  seems 
to  have  been  usually  assumed  as  accurate,  and  as  settling 
the  question.  The  elements  of  error  in  levelling  across 
such  a  country  are  very  great,  and  even  practised  sur 
veyors  would  be  liable  to  mistake,  unless  by  the  adoption 
of  a  series  of  checks  which  it  is  inconceivable  that  Lynch's 
party  can  have  adopted.  The  very  fact  that  no  datum  on 
the  beach  is  mentioned,  and  that  they  appear  to  have 
levelled  from  the  then  surface  of  the  water,  shews  that 
the  party  was  not  directed  by  a  practised  leveller,  and 
casts  suspicion  over  all  the  observations.  Lynch's  observa 
tion  with  the  barometer  (p.  12)  gave  1234-589  feet— 82  feet 
less  depression  than  that  mentioned  above.  The  existence 
of  the  depression  was  for  a  long  time  unknown.  Even 
Seetzen  (i.  425)  believed  that  it  lay  higher  than  the  ocean. 
Marmont  (Voyage,  iii.  61)  calculates  the  Mount  of  Olives 
at  747  metres  above  the  Mediterranean,  and  then  estimates 
the  Dead  Sea  at  500  metres  below  the  mount.  The  fact 
was  first  ascertained  by  Moore  and  Beek  in  March  1 837  by 
boiling  water ;  but  they  were  unable  to  arrive  at  a  figure. 
It  may  be  well  here  to  give  a  list  of  the  various  observation  13 
on  the  level  of  the  lake  made  by  different  travellers :— 


Apr.  1837 
1838 
1838 
1841 
1845 
May  1848 

Von  Schubert   .   . 
De  Bertou    „  .   . 
Russegger    .   .   . 
Symonds  .... 
Von  Wildenbruch 
Lynch  

Baroirf. 
Do. 
Do. 
Trignom. 
Barom. 
Do. 

Eng.  ft 
637' 
1374-7 
1429-2 
1312-2 
1446-3 
1234-6 

do 

Do 

Level 

1316-7 

Nov.  1850 
Oct  27  1855 

Rev.  G.W.  Bridges 
l>oole     

Aneroid 
Do. 

1367- 
1313-5 

Apr.  (?)  1857 

Roth  

Barom. 

1374-6 

—See  Petermanu,  in  Geogr.  Journal,  xviii.  90 ;  for  Roth, 
Petermann'ii  Mittheilungen,  1858,  p.  3 ;  for  Poole,  Geogr. 
Journ.  xxvj.  58.  Mr.  Bridges  has  kindly  communicated 
to  the  writer  the  results  of  his  observations.  Captain 
Symonds's  operations  are  briefly  described  by  Mr.  Ha 
milton  in  his  addresses  to  the  Royal  Geogr.  Society  in 
1842  and  '43.  He  carried  levels  across  from  Jaffa  to  Jeru 
salem  by  two  routes,  and  thence  to  the  Dead  Sea  by  one 
route :  the  ultimate  difference  between  the  two  observa 
tions  was  less  than  12  feet  (Geogr.  Journal,  xii.  p.  Ix. ;  xili. 
p.  Ixxiv.)/  One  of  the  sets,  ending  in  1312 '2  ft.,  is  given 
in  Van  de  Velde's  Memoir,  75-81. 

Widely  as  the  results  in  the  table  differ,  there  is  yet 
enough  agreement  among  them,  and  with  Lynch's  level* 
observation,  to  warrant  the  statement  in  the  text.  Those 
of  Symonds,  Lynch,  and  Poole,  are  remarkably  close,  when 
the  great  difficulties  of  the  case  are  considered ;  but  it  must 
be  admitted  that  those  of  De  Bertou,  Roth,  and  Bridges  a«-« 
equally  close.  The  time  of  year  must  not  be  overlooked. 
Lynch's  level  waa  taken  about  midway  betwnen  the  wintei 


1L76          SEA,  THE  SALT 

the  Mediterranean  at  Jaffa  {Report  of  Secretary  of 
Navy,  &c.,  8vo.  p.  23),  and  although  we  cannot 
absolutely  rely  on  the  accuracy  of  that  dimension, 
still  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  not  very 
far  from  the  fact.  The  measurements  of  the  depth 
of  the  lake  taken  by  the  same  party  are  probably 
more  trustworthy.  The  expedition  consisted  of 
sailors,  who  were  here  in  their  element,  and  to 
whom  taking  soundings  was  a  matter  of  every  day 
occurrence.  In  the  upper  portion  of  the  lake, 
north  of  the  peninsula,  seven  cross  sections  were 
obtained,  six  of  which  are  exhibited  on  the  pre 
ceding  page.h  They  shew  this  portion  to  be 
a  perfect  basin,  descending  rapidly  till  it  attains, 
at  about  one- third  of  its  length  from  the  north 
end,  a  depth  of  1303 l  feet.  Immediately  west 
of  the  upper  extremity  of  the  peninsula,  however, 
this  depth  decreases  suddenly  to  336  feet,  then  to 
114,  and  by  the  time  the  west  point  of  the  penin 
sula  is  reached,  to  18  feet.  Below  this  the  southern 
portion  is  a  mere  lagoon  of  almost  even  bottom, 
varying  in  depth  from  1 2  feet  in  the  middle  to  3  at 
the  edges.  It  will  be  convenient  to  use  the  term 
"  lagoon  "k  in  speaking  of  the  southern  portion. 

The  depression  of  the  lake,  both  of  its  surface  and 
its  bottom,  below  that  of  the  ocean  is  at  present 
quite  without  parallel.  The  lake  Assal,  on  the 
Somali  coast  of  Eastern  Africa  opposite  Aden, 
furnishes  the  nearest  approach  to  it.  Its  surface  is 
said  to  be  570  feet  below  that  of  the  ocean. 

4.  The  level  of  the  lake  is  liable  to  variation 
according  to  the  season  of  the  year.  Since  it  has 
no  outlet,  its  level  is  a  balance  struck  between  the 
amount  of  water  poured  into  it,  and  the  amount 
given  off  by"9  evaporation.  If  more  water  is  sup 
plied  than  the  evaporation  can  carry  off,  the  lake 
will  rise  until  the  evaporating  surface  is  so  much 
increased  as  to  restore  the  balance.  On  the  other 
hand,  should  the  evaporation  drive  off  a  larger 
quantity  than  the  supply,  the  lake  will  descend 
until  the  surface  becomes  so  small  as  again  to  restore 
the  balance.  This  fluctuation  is  increased  by  the 
fact  that  the  winter  is  at  once  the  time  when  the 
clou. Is  and  streams  supply  most  water,  and  when 
the  evaporation  is  least;  while  in  summer  on  the 
other  hand,  when  the  evaporation  goes  on  most 
furiously,  the  supply  is  at  its  minimum.  The 
extreme  differences  in  level  resulting  from  these 
causes  have  not  yet  been  carefully  observed. 

rains  and  the  autumnal  drought,  and  therefore  is  consistent 
with  that  of  Poole,  taken  5  months  later,  at  the  very  end 
of  the  dry  season. 

h  The  map  in  Lynch's  private  Narrative  (London,  1849) 
from  which  these  sections  have,  for  the  first  time,  been 
plotted,  is  to  a  much  larger  scale,  contains  more  details, 
and  is  a  more  valuable  document,  than  that  in  his  Official 
Report,  4to.  (Baltimore,  1852),  or  his  Report,  8vo.  (Senate 
Papers,  30th  Congr.,  2nd  Session,  No.  34). 

i  Three  other  attempts  have  been  made  to  obtain  sound 
ings,  but  in  neither  case  with  any  very  practical  result. 
1.  By  Messrs.  Moore  and  Beek  in  March,  1837.  They  re 
cord  a  maximum  depth  of  2400  ft.  between  Ain  Terabeh 
and  W.  Zurka,  and  a  little  north  of  the  same  2220  ft.  (See 
Palmer's  Map,  to  which  these  observations  were  contri 
buted  by  Mr.  Beek  himself:  also  Geogr.  Journ.  vii.  456). 
Lynch's  soundings  at  nearly  the  same  spots  give  1170  and 
1308  ft.  respectively,  at  once  reversing  and  greatly  dimi 
nishing  the  depths.  2.  Captain  Symonds,  R.E.,  is  said  to 
have  been  upon  the  lake  and  to  have  obtained  soundings, 
the  deepest  of  which  was  2100  ft.  But  for  this  the  writer 
can  find  no  authority  beyond  the  statement  of  Hitter 
(Erdkunde,  Jordan,  704),  who  does  not  name  the  source  of 
bis  information.  3.  Lieut.  Molyneux,  R.N.,  in  Sept.  184T, 
look  three  sounding.!.  The  first  of  these  seems  to  have 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

Dr.  Robinson  in  May  1838,  from  the  lines  of  drift, 
wood  which  he  found  beyond  the  then  brink  of  the 
water  in  the  southern  part  of  the  lake,  judged  that 
the  level  must  be  sometimes  from  10  to  1 5  feet  higher 
than  it  then  was  (B.  JR.  i.  515,  ii.  115)  ;  but  thw 
was  only  the  commencement  of  the  summer,  and 
by  the  end  of  September  the  water  would  probably 
have  fallen  much  lower.  The  writer,  in  the  be 
ginning  of  Sept.  1858,  after  a  very  hot  summer, 
estimated  the  line  of  driftwood  along  the  steep 
beach  of  the  north  end  at  from  10  to  12  feet  above 
the  then  level  of  the  water.  Robinson  (i.  506) 
mentions  a  bank  of  shingle  at  Ain  Jidy  6  or  8  feet 
above  the  then  (May  10)  level  of  the  water,  but 
which  bore  marks  of  having  been  covered.  Lynch 
(Narr.  289)  says  that  the  marks  on  the  shore  near 
the  same  place  indicated  that  the  lake  had  already 
(April  22)  fallen  7  feet  that  season. 

Possibly  a  more  permanent  rise  has  lately  taken 
place,  since  Mr.  Poole  (60)  saw  many  dead  trees 
standing  in  the  lake  for  some  distance  from  the 
shore  opposite  Khashm  Usdum.  This  too  was  at  the 
end  of  October,  when  the  water  must  have  been  at 
its  lowest  (for  that  year). 

t). 

in  the 

affect  the  southern  end.  The  shore  of  that  part 
slopes  up  from  the  water  with  an  extremely  gradual 
incline.  Over  so  flat  a  beach  a  very  slight  rise  in 
the  lake  would  send  the  water  a  considerable 
distance.  This  was  found  to  be  actually  the  case. 
The  line  of  drift-wood  mentioned  by  Dr.  Robinson 
(ii.  115)  was  about  3  miles  from  the  brink  of  the 
lagoon.  Dr.  Anderson,  the  geologist  of  the  American 
expedition,  conjectured  that  the  water  occasional Ij 
extended  as  much  as  8  or  10  miles  south  of  its  then 
position  (Official  Report,  4to.  p.  182).  On  th« 
peninsula,  the  acclivity  of  which  is  much  greater 
than  that  of  the  southern  shores  of  the  lagoon,  and 
in  the  early  part  of  the  summer  (June  2),  Irby 
and  Mangles  found  the  "  high-water  mark  a  mile 
distant  from  the  water's  edge."  At  the  northern  end 
the  shore  being  steeper,  the  water-line  probably  re 
mains  tolerably  constant.  The  variation  in  breadth 
will  not  be  so  much.  At  the  N.W.  and  N.E.  corners 
there  are  some  flats  which  must  be  often  overflowed. 
Along  the  lower  part  of  the  western  shore,  where 
the  beach  widens,  as  at  Birket  el-Khulil,  it  is  occa 
sionally  covered  in  portions,  but  they  are  probably 


>.  The  change  in  level  necessarily  causes  a  change 
the  dimensions  of  the  lake.     This  will  chiefly 


been  about  opposite  Ain  Jidy,  and  gave  1350  ft.,  though 
without  certainly  reaching  the  bottom.  The  other  two  were 
further  north,  and  gave  1068  and  1098  ft.  (Geogr.  Journ. 
xviii.  12?,  8).  The  greatest  of  these  appears. to  be  about 
coincident  with  Lynch's  1104  feet;  but  there  is  so  much 
vagueness  about  the  spots  at  which  they  were  taken,  that 
no  use  can  be  made  of  the  results.  Lynch  and  Beek  agree 
in  representing  the  west  side  as  more  gradual  in  slope  than 
the  east,  which  has  a  depth  of  more  than  900  ft.  close  to 
the  brink. 

k  Irby  and  Mangles  always  term  this  part  "  the  back* 
water,"  and  reserve  the  name  "  Dead  Sea "  for  the 
northern  and  deeper  portion. 

1  Murchison  in  Geogr.  Journal,  xiv.  p.  cxvi.  A  brief 
description  of  this  lake  is  given  in  an  interesting  paper  by 
Dr.  Buist  on  the  principal  depressions  of  the  globe,  re 
printed  in  the  Edinb.  N.  Phil.  Journal,  April,  1855. 

m  This  subject  has  been  ably  and  carefully  investigated 
by  the  late  Professor  Marchand,  the  eminent  chemist  of 
Halle,  in  his  paper  on  the  Dead  Sea  in  the  Journal  fur 
prakt.  Chemie,  Leipzig,  1849,  371-4.  The  result  of  hia 
calculations,  founded  on  the  observations  of  Shaw,  A.  von 
Humboldt,  and  Balard,  is  that  while  the  average  quantity 
supplied  cannot  exceed  20,000,000  cub.  ft.,  the  evaporation 
may  be  taken  at  24,000000  cub.  ft.  per  diem. 


8EA,  THE  SALT 

not  enough  to  make  any  great  variation  in  the  width 
of  the  lake.  Of  the  eastern  side  hardly  anything  is 
known,  but  the  beach  there  appears  to  be  only  partial, 
aid  confined  to  the  northern  end. 

6.  The  mountains  which  form  the  walls  of  the 
great  fissure  in  whose  depths  the  lake  is  contained, 
continue  a  nearly  parallel   course   throughout  its 
entire   length.      Viewed   from   the   beach   at   the 
northern  end  of  the  lake — the  only  view  witnin 
the  reach  of  most  travellers — there  is  little  per 
ceptible  difference  between  the  two  ranges.     Each 
is  equally  bare  and  stern  to  the  eye.     On  the  left 
the  eastern  mountains  stretch  their  long,  hazy,  hori 
zontal  line,  till  they  are  lost  in  the  dim  distance. 
The  western  mountains  on  the  other  hand  do  not 
offer  the  same  appearance  of  continuity,  since  the 
headland  of  Ras  el-Feshkhah  projects  so  far  in  front 
of  the  general  line  as  to  conceal  the  southern  portion 
of  the  range  when  viewed  from  most  points.     The 
horizon   is  formed  by  the  water-line  of  the  lake 
itself,  often  lost  in  a  thick  mist  which  dwells  on 
the  surface,  the  result  of  the   rapid  evaporation 
always  going  on.     In  the  centre  of  the  horizon, 
when  the  haze  permits  it,  may  be  discovered  the 
mysterious  peninsula. 

7.  Of  the  eastern  side  but  little  is  known.     One 
traveller  in  modern  times  (Seetzen)  has  succeeded 
in  forcing  his  way  along  its  whole  length.     The 
American  party  landed  at  the  W.  Mojib  and  other 
points.     A  few  others  have  rounded  the  southern 
end  of  the  lake,  and  advanced  for  10  or  12  miles 
along  its  eastern  shores.     But  the  larger  portion 
of  those  shores — the  flanks  of  the  mountains  which 
stretch  from  the  peninsula  to  the  north  end  of  the 
lake — have  been  approached  by  travellers  from  the 
West  only  on  very  rare  occasions  nearer  than  the 
western  shore. 

Both  Dr.  Robinson  from  Ain  Jidy  (i.  502),  and 
Lieut.  Molyneux  (127)  from  the  surface  of  the  lake, 
record  their  impression  that  the  eastern  mountains 
are  much  more  lofty  than  the  western,  and  much 
more  broken  by  clefts  and  ravines  than  those  on  the 
west.  In  colour  they  are  brown,  or  red, — a  great 
contrast  to  the  grey  aiid  white  tones  of  the  western 
mountains.  Both  sides  of  the  lake,  however,  are 
alike  in  the  absence  of  vegetation — almost  entirely 
barren  and  scorched,  except  where  here  and  there 
a  spring,  bursting  up  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains, 
covers  tha  beach  with  a  bright  green  jungle  of  reeds 
and  thorn-bushes,  or  gives  life  to  a  clump  of  stunted 
palms  ;  or  where,  as  at  Ain  Jidy  or  the  Wady  Mojib, 
a  perennial  stream  betrays  its  presence,  and  breaks 
the  long  monotony  of  the  precipice  by  falling  the  rift 
with  acacias,  or  nourishing  a  little  oasis  of  verdure 
at  its  embouchure. 

8.  Seetzen's  journey,  just  mentioned,  was  accom 
plished  in  1807.     He  started  in  January  from  the 
ford  of  the  Jordan  through  the  upper  country,  by 
Mkaur,  Attamis,  and  the  ravine  of  the  Wady  Mojib 
to  the  peninsula ;  returning  immediately  after  by 
the  lower  level,  as  near  the  lake  as  it  was  possible 
to  go.     He  was  on  foot  with  but  a  single  guide. 
He  represents  the  general  structure  of  the  moun 
tains    as    limestone,    capped    in   many   places   by 
basalt,  and  having  at  its  foot  a  red  ferruginous 
sandstone,  which  forms  the  immediate  margin  of 
the  lake."     The  ordinary  path  lies  high  up  on  the 
face  of  the  mountains,  and  the  lower  track,  which 
Seetzen  pursued,  is  extremely  rough,  and  often  all 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


1177 


Termed  by  Anderson  (189,  190)  the  Undercliff. 

A  rude  view  of  the  embouchure  of  the  former  of  these 


but  impassable.  The  rocks  lie  in  a  succession  oi 
enormous  terraces,  apparently  more  vertical  in  form 
than  those  on  the  west.  On  the  lower  one  of  these, 
but  still  far  above  the  water,  lies  the  path,  if  path 
it  can  be  called,  where  the  traveller  has  to  scramble 
through  and  over  a  chaos  of  enormous  blocks  of 
limestone,  sandstone,  and  basalt,  or  basalt  conglo 
merate,  the  debris  of  the  slopes  above,  or  is  brought 
abruptly  to  a  stand  by  wild  clefts  in  the  solid  rock 
of  the  precipice.  The  streams  of  the  Mojib  and 
Zurka  issue  from  portals  of  dark  red  sandstone  ot 
romantic  beauty,  the  overhanging  sides  of  which 
no  ray  of  sun  ever  enters.0  The  deltas  of  these 
streams,  and  that  portion  of  the  shore  between 
them,  where  several  smaller  rivulets t  flow  into 
the  lake,  abound  in  vegetation,  and  form  a  truly 
grateful  relief  to  the  rugged  desolation  of  the  re 
mainder.  Palms  in  particular  are  numerous  (An 
derson,  192 ;  Lynch,  Narr.  369),  and  in  Seetzen's 
opinion  bear  marks  of  being  the  relics  of  an  ancient 
cultivation  ;  but  except  near  the  streams,  there  is 
no  vegetation.  It  was,  says  he,  the  greatest  possible 
rarity  to  see  a  plant.  The  north-east  corner  of  the 
lake  is  occupied  by  a  plain  of  some  extent  left  by 
the  retiring  mountains,  probably  often  overflowed 
by  the  lake,  mostly  salt  and  unproductive,  and 
called  the  Ghor  el-Belka. 

9.  One  remarkable  feature  of  the  northern  por 
tion  of  the  eastern  heights  is  a  plateau  which  divides 
the  mountains  halfway  up,  apparently  forming  a 
gigantic  landing-place  in  the  slope,  and  stretching 
northwards  from  the  Wady  Zurka  Ma' in.     It  is 
very  plainly  to  be  seen  from  Jerusalem,  especially 
at  sunset,  when  many  of  the  points  of  these  fasci 
nating  mountains  come  out  into  unexpected  relief. 
This  plateau  appears  to  be  on  the  same  general  level 
with  a  similar  plateau  on  the  Western  side  opposite 
it  (Poole,  68),  with  the  top  of  the  rock  of  Sebbeh, 
and  perhaps  with  the  Mediterranean. 

10.  The  western  shores  of  the  lake  have  been  more 
investigated  than  the  eastern,  although  they  cannot 
be  said  to  have  been  yet  more  than  very  partially 
explored.     Two  travellers  have  passed  over  their 
entire  length: — De  Saulcy  in  January  1851,  from 
North  to  South,  Voyage  dans  la  Syrie,  &c.,  1853  , 
and  Narrative  of  a  Jwneyi  &c.,  London,  1 854 ;  and 
Poole  in  Nov.  1855,  from  South  to  North  (Geogr. 
Journal,  xxvi.  55).     Others  have  passed  over  con 
siderable  portions  of  it,  and  have  recorded  observa 
tions  both  with  pen  and  pencil.    Dr.  Robinson  on  his 
first  journey  in  1838  visited  Ain  Jidy,  and  proceeded 
from  thence  to-  the  Jordan  and  Jericho :  — Wolcott 
and  Tipping,  in  1842,  scaled  the  rock  of  Masada 
(probably   the   first  travellers   from   the   Western 
world    to    do    so),    and    from    thence    journeyed 
to  Ain  Jidy  along  the  shore.     The  views  which 
illustrate  this  article  have  been,  through  the  kind 
ness  of  Mr.  Tipping,  selected  from  those  which  he 
took  during  this  journey.     Lieut.  Van  de  Velde  in 
1852,  also  visited  Masada,  and  then  went  south  as 
far  as  the  south  end  ofJebel  Usdum,  after  which  he 
turned  up  to  the  right  into  the  western  mountains. 
Lieut.  Lynch's  party,  in  1848,  landed  and  travelled 
over  the  greater  part  of  the  shore  from  Ain  Feshkhah 
to  Usdum.     Mr.  Holman  Hunt,  in  1854,  with  the 
Messrs.  Beamont,  resided  at  Usdum  for  several  days, 
and  afterwards  went  over  the  entire  length  from 
Usdum  to  the  Jordan.     Of  this  journey  one  of  the 
ultimate   fruits  was   Mr.  Hunt's   picture   of  the 


is  given  by  Lynch  (Narratiix,  368). 
p  Conjectured  by  Seetzen  to  be  the  "  springs  of  Ptegalv' 


1178 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


THE  DEAD  SEA.— View  from  Ain  Jidy,  looking  South.    Prom  a  Drawing  made  on  the  spot  m  1842,  by  \V.  Tipping,  Esq. 


Dead  Sea  at  sunset,  known  as  "  The  Scapegoat." 
Miss  Emily  Beaufort  and  her  sister,  in  December 
1860,  accomplished  the  ascent  of  Masada,  and  the 
journey  from  thence  to  Ain  Jidy ;  and  the  same 
thing,  including  Usdum,  was  done  in  April  1863 
by  a  party  consisting  of  Mr.  G.  Clowes,  jun., 
Mr.  Straton,  and  others. 

1 1 .  The  western  range  preserves  for  the  greater 
part  of  its  length  a  course  hardly  less  regular  than 
the  eastern.  That  it  does  not  appear  so  regular 
when  viewed  from  the  north-western  end  of  the  lake 
is  owing  to  the  projection  of  a  mass  of  the  moun 
tain  eastward  from  the  line  sufficiently  far  to  shut 
out  from  view  the  range  to  the  south  of  it.  It  is 
Dr.  Robinson's  opinion  (B.  R.  i.  510,  11)  that  the 
projection  consists  of  the  Ras  el  Feshkhah  and  its 
"adjacent  cliffs"  only,  and  that  from  that  head 
land  the  western  range  runs  in  a  tolerably  direct 
course  as  far  as  Usdum,  at  the  S.W.  corner  of  the  lake. 
The  Ras  el  Feshkhah  stands  some  six  miles  below 
the  head  of  the  lake,  and  forms  the  northern  side  of 
the  gorge  by  which  the  Wady  en  Nar  (the  Kidron) 
debouches  into  the  lake.  Dr.  Robinson  is  such  an 
accurate  observer,  that  it  is  difficult  to  question  his 
opinion,  but  it  seems  probable  that  the  projection 
really  commences  further  south,  at  the  Ras  Mersed, 
north  of  Ain  Jidij.  At  any  rate  no  traveller « 
appears  to  have  been  able  to  pass  along  the  beach 
between  Ain  Jidy  and  Ras  Feshkhah,  and  the  great 

q  Poole  appears  to  have  tried  his  utmost  to  keep  the 
shore,  and  to  have  accomplished  more  than  others,  but 
with  only  small  success.  De  Saulcy  was  obliged  to  take 
to  the  heights  at  Ain  Terabdi,  and  keep  to  them  till  he 
reached  Ain  Jidy. 

r  It  is  a  pity  that  travellers  should  so  often  indulge  in 
the  use  of  such  terms  as  "vertical,"  "perpendicular," 
*  overhanging,"  &c.,  to  describe  acclivities  which  prove 
to  be  only  moderately  steep  slopes.  Even  Dr.  Robinson — 


Arab  road,  which  adheres  to  the  shore  from  the 
south  as  far  as  Ain  Jidy,  leaves  it  at  that  point,  and 
mounts  to  the  summit.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted 
that  Lynch's  party,  who  had  encampments  of  several 
days  duration  at  Ain  Feshkhah,  Ain  Terabeh,  and 
Ain  Jidy,  did  not  make  such  observations  as  would 
have  decided  the  configuration  of  the  shores. 

12.  The  accompanying  woodcut  represents  the 
view  looking  southward  from  the  spring  of  Ain  Jidij, 
a  point  about  700  feet  above  the  water  (Poole,  66). 
It  is  taken  from  a  drawing  by  the  accurate  pencil 
of  Mr.  Tipping,  and  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  course 
of  that  portion  of  the  western  heights,  and  of  their 
ordinary  character,  except  at  a  few  such  exceptional 
spots  as  the  headlands  just  mentioned,  or  the  isolated 
rock  of  Sebbeh,  the  ancient  Masada.    In  their  present 
aspect  they  can  hardly  be  termed  "  vertical  "  or 
"perpendicular,"  or  even  "cliffs"'  (the  favourite 
term  for  them),  though  from  a  distant  point  on 
the  surface  of  the  lake  they  probably  look  vertical 
enough  (Molyneux,  127).    Their  structure  was  ori 
ginally  in  huge  steps  or  offsets,  but  the  horizontal 
portion  of  each  offset  is  now  concealed  by  the  slopes 
of  debris,  which  have  in  the  lapse  of  ages  rolled  down 
from  the  vertical  cliff  above.8 

13.  The  portion  actually  represented  in  this  view 
is  described  by  Dr.  Anderson  (p.  175)  as  "  vary 
ing  from   1200  to  1500  feet  in  height,  bold  and 
steep,  admitting  nowhere  of  the  ascent  or  descent 


usually  so  moderate — on  more  than  one  occasion  speaka 
of  a  mountain-side  as  "  perpendicular,"  and  immediately 
afterwards  describes  the  ascent  or  descent  of  it  by  his 
party! 

8  Lynch's  view  of  Airi  Jidy  (Narr.  290),  though  rough, 
is  probably  not  inaccurate  in  general  effect.  It  agrees 
with  Mr.  Tipping's  as  iro  the  structure  of  the  heights. 
That  in  De  Saulcy  by  M.  Belly,  which  purports  to  be  from 
the  same  spot  as  the  latter,  is  very  poor. 


BEA,  THE  SALT 

of  boasts  of  burden,  and  oractieable  only  here 
and  there  to  the  most  intrepid  climber.  .  .  .  The 
marked  divisions  of  the  great  escarpment,  reckon 
ing  from  above,  are: — 1.  Horizontal  layers  of  lime 
stone  from  200  to  300  feet  in  depth.  "  2.  A  series 
cf  tent-shaped  embankments  of  debris,  brought 
down  through  the  small  ravines  intersecting  the 
upper  division,  and  lodged  on  the  projecting  ter 
race  below.  3.  A  sharply  defined  well-marked 
formation,  less  perfectly  stratified  than  No.  1,  and 
constituting  by  its  unbroken  continuity  a  zone  of 
nnked  rock,  probably  150  feet  in  depth,  running 
like  a  vast  frieze  along  the  face  of  the  cliff,  and  so 
precipitous  that  the  detritus  pushed  over  the  edge 
of  this  shelf-like  ledge  finds  no  lodgment  anywhere 
on  its  almost  vertical  face.  Above  this  zone  is  an 
interrupted  bed  of  yellow  limestone  40  feet  thick. 
4.  A  broad  and  boldly  sloping  talus  of  limestone, — 
partly  bare,  partly  covered  by  debris  from  above — 
descends  nearly  to  the  base  of  the  cliff.  5.  A  breast*- 
work  of  fallen  fragments,  sometimes  swept  clean 
away,  separates  the  upper  edge  of  the  beach  from 
the  ground  line  of  the  escarpment.  6.  A  beach  of 
variable  width  and  structure — sometimes  sandy, 
sometimes  gravelly  or  shingly,  sometimes  made  up 
of  loose  and  scattered  patches  of  a  coarse  travertine  or 
marl— falls  gradually  to  the  border  of  the  Dead  Sea." 

14.  Further  south  the  mountain  sides  assume  a 
more  abrupt  and  savage  aspect,  and  in  the  Wady 
Zuw&irah,  and  still  more  at  Sebbeh — the  ancient  Ma- 
Bada* — reach  a  pitch  of  rugged  and  repulsive,  though 
at  the  same  time  impressive,  desolation,  which  per 
haps  cannot  be  exceeded  anywhere  u^  the  face  of  the 
earth.    Beyond  Usdum  the  mountains  continue  their 
general  line,  but  the  district  at  their  feet  is  occupied 
by  a  mass  of  lower  eminences,  which,  advancing  in 
wards,  gradually  encroach  on  the  plain  at  the  south 
end  of  the  lake,  and  finally  shut  it  in  completely, 
at  about  8  miles  below  Jebel  Usdxm. 

1 5.  The  region  which  lies  on  the  top  of  the  western 
heights  was  probably  at  one  time  a  wide  tabie-land, 
rising  gradually  towards  the  high  lands  which  form 
the  central  line  of  the  country — Hebron,  Bem-naim, 
£c.     It  is  now  cut  up  by  deep  and  difficult  ravines, 
separated  by  steep  and  inaccessible  summits ;  but 
portions  of  the  table-lands  still  remain  in  man)' 
places  to  testify  to  the  original  conformation.     The 
material  is  a  soft  cretaceous  limestone,  bright  white 
in  colour,  and  containing  a  good  deal  of  sulphur. 
The  surface  is  entirely  desert,  with  no  sign  of  cul 
tivation  :  here  and  there  a  shrub  of  Retem,  or  some 
other  desert-plant,   but  only  enough  to  make  the 
monotonous  desolation  of  the  scene  more  frightful. 
"  II  existe  au  monde,"  says  one  of  the  most  intelli 
gent  of  modern   travellers,  "  peu  de  regions  plus 
d&sole'es,  plus  abandonees  de  Dieu,  plus  ferme'es  a  la 
vie,  que  la  pt-nte  rocailleuse  qui  forme  le  bord  occi 
dental  de  la  Mer  Morte  "   (R&ian,  Vie  de  Jesus, 
ch.  vii.). 

16.  Of  the  elevation  of  this  region  we  hitherto 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


1179 


possess  but  scanty  observations.  Between  Ain  Jidf, 
and  A^n  Terabeh  the  summit  is  a  table-land  740 
feet  above  the  lake  (Poole,  67).»  Further  north, 
above  Ain  Terabeh,  the  summit  of  the  pats  is 
1305-75  feet  above  the  lake  (Lynch,  Off.  Rep.  43), 
Avithin  a  few  feet  the  height  of  the  plain  between  tne 
Wady  en-Nar  and  Goumran,  which  is  given  by  Mr. 
Poole  (p.  68.)  at  1340  feet.  This  appears  also  to  be 
about  the  height  of  the  rock  of  Sebbeh,  and  of  the 
table-land,  already  mentioned.,  on  the  eastern  moun 
tains  north  of  the  Wady  Zurka.  It  is  also  nearly 
coincident  with  that  of  the  ocean.  In  ascending 
from  the  lake  to  Nebi  Musa  Mr.  Poole  (58)  passed 
over  what  he  "  thought  might  be  the  original  leve 
of  the  old  plain,  532|  feet  above  the  Dead  Sea." 
That  these  are  the  remains  of  ancient  sea  margins, 
chronicling  steps  in  the  history  of  the  lake  (Allen, 
in  Geogr.  Journ.  xxiii.  163),  may  reasonably  be 
conjectured,  but  can  only  be  determined  by  the 
observation  of  a  competent  geologist  on  the  spot. 

17.  A  beach  of  varying  width  skirts  the  foot 
of  the  mountains  on  the  western  side.  Above 
Ain  Jidy  it  consists  mainly  of  the  deltas  of  the 
torrents — fan-shaped  banks  of  debris'*  of  all  sizes, 
at  a  steep  slope,  spreading  from  the  outlet  of  the 
torrent  like  those  which  become  so  familiar  to  tra 
vellers,  in  Northern  Italy  for  example.  In  one 
or  two  places — as  at  the  mouth  of  the  Kidron  and 
at  Ain  Terabeh — the  beach  may  be  1000  to  1400 
yards  wide,  but  usually  it  is  much  narrower,  and 
often  is  reduced  to  almost  nothing  by  the  advance 
of  the  headlands.  For  its  major  part,  as  already 
remarked,  it  is  impassable.  Below  Am  Jidy,  how 
ever,  a  marked  change  occurs  in  the  character  of 
the  beach.  Alternating  with  the  shingle,  solid  de 
posits  of  a. new  material,  soft  friable  chalk,  marl,  and 
gypsum,  with  salt,  begin  to  make  their  appearance. 
These  are  gradually  developed  towards  the  south, 
till  at  Sebbeh  and  below  it  they  form  a  terrace  80 
feet  or  more  in  height  at  the  back,  though  sloping 
off  gradually  to  the  lake.  This  new  material  is  a 
greenish  white  in  colour,  and  is  ploughed  up  by  the 
cataracts  from  the  heights  behind  into  very  strange 
forms : — here,  hundreds  of  small  mamelons,  covering 
the  plain  like  an  eruption  ;*  there,  long  rows  of  huge 
cones,  looking  like  an  encampment  of  enormous 
tents ;  or,  again,  rectangular  blocks  and  pillars,  ex 
actly  resembling  the  streets  of  a  town,  with  rows 
of  nouses  and  other  edifices,  all  as  if  constructed 
of  white  marble.w  These  appear  to  be  the  remains 
of  strata  of  late-  or  post-tertiary  date,  deposited  at 
a  time  when  the  water  of  the  lake  stood  much 
higher,  and  covered  a  much  larger  area,  than  it 
does  at  present.  The  fact  that  they  are  strongly  im 
pregnated  with  the  salts  of  the  xlake,  is  itself  pre 
sumptive  evidence  of  this.  In  many  places  they  have 
completely  disappeared,  doubtless  washed  into  the 
lake  by  the  action  of  torrents  from  the  hills  behind, 
similar  to,  though  more  violent  than  those  which 
have  played  the  strange  freaks  just  described  :  but 


*  Tbis  was  the  fortress  in  which  the  last  remnant  of  the 
Zealots,  or  fanatical  party  of  the  Jews,  defended  them 
selves  against  Silva,  the  Roman  general,  in  A.D.  71,  and 
at  last  put  themselves  to  death  to  escape  capture.  1  he 
spot  is  described  and  the  tragedy  related  in  a  very  graphic 
and  impressive  manner  by  Dean  Milman  (Hist,  of  the  Jews, 
3rd  edit.  ii.  335-9). 

u  De  Saulcy  mentions  this  as  a  small  rocky  table-land, 
250  metres  above  the  Dead  Sea.  But  this  was  evidently 
not  the  actual  summit,  as  he  speaks  of  the  sheika  occupy 
ing  a  post  a  few  hundred  yards  above  the  level  of  tliat 
position,  and  further  west  [Narr.  \.  169). 


v  Lynch  remarks  that  at  Ain  d-Feshkhah  there  was  a 
"  total  absence  of  round  pebbles ;  the  shore  was  covered 
with  small  angular  fragments  of  flint "  (Narr.  274).  The 
same  at  Ain  Jidy  (290). 

»  De  Saulcy,  Narr.  ibid. ;  Anderson,  176.  See  also  a 
striking  description  of  the  "  resemblance  of  a  great  city  " 
at  the  foot  of  Sebbeh,  in  Beamont's  Diary,  &c.,  ii.  52. 

x  A  specimen  brought  by  Mr.  Clowes  Trom  the  foot  oi 
SebbeJi,  has  been  examined  for  the  writer  by  Dr.  Price,  and 
proves  to  contain  no  less  than  6'  88  pt  r  cent  of  salts  soluble 
inwsder,  viz.  chlor.  sodium,  4-559,  chlor.  calcium,  2 '08 
chlor.  magnesium,  0'241.  Bromine  was  distinctly  fcuac1 


1180 


SKA,  THE  SALT 


they  still  linger  on  this  part  of  the  shore,  on  the 
peninsula/  opposite,  at  the  southern  and  western 
outskirts  of  the  plain  south  of  the  lake,  and  pro 
bably  in  a  few  spots  at  the  northern  and  north 
western  end,  to  testify  to  the  condition  which  once 
existed  all  round  the  edge  of  the  deep  basin  of  the 
lake.  The  width  of  the  beach  thus  formed  is  con 
siderably  greater  than  that  above  Ain  Jidy.  From 
the  Birket  d-Khulil  to  the  wady  south  of  Sebbeh, 
a  distance  of  six  miles,  it  is  from  one  to  two  miles 
wide,  and  is  passable  for  the  whole  distance.  The 
Birket  el-Khulil  just  alluded  to  is  a  shallow  de 
pression  on  the  shore,  which  is  filled  by  the  water 
of  the  lake  when  at  its  greatest  height,  and  forms  a 
natural  salt-pan.  After  the  lake  retires  the  water 
evaporates  from  the  hollow,  and  the  salt  remains 
for  the  use  of  the  Arabs.  They  also  collect  it  from 
similar  though  smaller  spots  further  »  south,  and  on 
the  peninsula  (Irby,  June  2).  One  feature  of  the 
beach  is  too  characteristic  to  escape  mention — the 
}ine  of  driftwood  which  encircles  the  lake,  and  marks 
the  highest,  or  the  ordinary  high,  level  of  the  water. 
It  consists  of  branches  of  brushwood,  and  of  the 
limbs  of  trees,  some  of  consideiable  size,  brought 
down  by  the  Jordan  and  other  streams,  and  in 
course  of  time  cast  up  on  the  beach.  They  stand 
up  out  of  the  sand  and  shingle  in  curiously  fantastic 
shapes,  all  signs  of  life  gone  from  them,  and  with  a 
charred  though  blanched  look  very  desolate  to  be 
hold.  Amongst  them  are  said  to  be  great  numbers 
of  palm  trunks  (Poole,  69)  ;  some  doubtless  floated 
over  from  the  palm  groves  on  the  eastern  shore 
already  spoken  of,  and  others  brought  down  by  the 
Jordan  in  the  distant  days  when  the  palm  flourished 
along  its  banks.  The  driftwood  is  saturated  with  salt, 
and  much  of  it  is  probably  of  a  very  great  age. 

A  remarkable  feature  of  the  western  shore  has 
been  mentioned  to  the  writer  by  the  members  of 
Mr.  Clowes's  party.  This  is  a  set  of  3  parallel 
beaches  one  above  the  other,  the  highest  about  50  ft. 
above  the  water ;  which  though  often  interrupted 
by  ravines,  and  by  debris,  &c.,  can  be  traced  during 
the  whole  distance  from  Wady  Zuweirah  to  Ain 
Jidy.  These  terraces  are  possibly  alluded  to  by 
Anderson  when  speaking  of  the  "  several  descents" 
necessary  to  reach  the  floor  of  Wady  Seyal  (177). 

18.  At  the  south-west  corner  of  the  lake,  below 
where  the  wadys  Zuweirah  and  Mahauwat  break 
down  through  the  enclosing  heights,  the  beach  is 
encroached  on  by  the  salt  mountain  or  ridge  of 
Khashm  Usdum.  This  remarkable  object  is  hitherto 
but  imperfectly  known.  It  is  said  to  be  quite 
independent  of  the  western  mountains,  lying  in 
front  of  and  separated  from  them,  by  a  considerable 
tract  filled  up  with  conical  hills  and  snort  ridges 
of  the  soft  chalky  marly  deposit  just  described.  It 
is  a  long  level  ridge  or  dyke,  of  several  miles  long." 


y  They  are  identified  by  Dr.  Anderson. 

1  The  salt  of  the  Dead  Sea  was  anciently  much  in 
request  for  use  in  the  Temple  service.  It  was  preferred 
before  all  other  kinds  for  its  reputed  effect  in  hastening 
the  combustion  of  the  sacrifice,  while  it  diminished  the 
unpleasant  smell  of  the  burning  flesh.  Its  deliquescent 
character  (due  to  the  chlorides  of  alkaline  earths  it  contains) 
is  also  noticed  in  the  Talmud  (Menacoth  xxi.  1 ;  Jalkut). 
It  was  called  "  Sodom  salt,"  but  also  went  by  the  name  of 
the  "salt  that  does  not  rest"  (firD^  }JKK>  r6»), 
because  it  was  made  on  the  Sabbath  as  on  other  days, 
/Ike  the  "  Sunday  salt  "  of  the  English  salt-works.  It  is 
•till  much  esteemed  in  Jerusalem. 

»  There  is  great  uncertainty  about  its  length.  Dr.  Ro 
binson  states  it  at  5  miles  and  "  a  considerable  distance 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

Its  northern  portion  runs  £.,S.E.  i  but  xfter  more 
than  half  its  length  it  makes  a  sudden  and  decided 
bend  to  the  right,  and  then  runs  S.W.  It  is  from 
3  to  400  feet  in  height,  of  inconsiderable  width,* 
consisting  of  a  body  of  crystallized  rock-salt,  more 
or  less  solid,  covered  with  a  capping  of  chalky  lime 
stone  and  gypsum.  The  lower  portion,  the  salt  rock, 
rises  abruptly  from  the  glossy  plain  at  its  eastern 
base,  sloping  back  at  an  angle  of  not  more  than  45°, 
often  Jess.  It  has  a  strangely  dislocated,  shattered 
look,  and  is  all  furrowed  and  worn  Into  huge 
angular  buttresses  and  ridges,  from  the  face  of 
which  great  fragments  are  occasionally  detached  by 
the  action  of  the  rains,  and  appear  as  "  pillars  of 
salt,"  advanced  in  front  of  the  general  mass.  At 
the  foot  the  ground  is  strewed  with  lumps  and 
masses  of  salt,  salt  streams  drain  continually  from 
it  into  the  lake,  and  the  whole  of  the  beach  is 
covered  with  salt — soft  and  sloppy,  and  of  a  pinkish 
hue  in  winter  and  spring,  though  during  the  heat 
of  summer  dried  up  into  a  shining  brilliant  crust. 
An  occasional  patch  of  the  Kali  plant  (Salicorniae, 
&c.)  is  the  only  vegetation  to  vary  the  monotony  of 
this  most  monotonous  spot. 

Between  the  north  end  of  K.  Usdum  and  the 
lake  is  a  mound  covered  with  stones  and  bearing 
the  name  of  um-Zoghal.c  It  is  about  60  feet  in 
diameter  and  10  or  12  high,  evidently  artificial,  and 
not  improbably  the  remains  of  an  ancient  structure. 
A  view  of  it,  engraved  from  a  photograph  by 
Mr.  James  Graham,  is  given  in  Isaacs's  Dead  Sea 
(p.  21).  This  heap  M.  De  Saulcy  maintained  to  be  a 
portion  of  the  remains  of  Sodom.  Its  name  is  more 
suggestive  of  Zoar,  but  there  are  great  obstacles  to 
either  identification.  [SODOM  ;  ZOAR.] 

19.  It  follows  from  the  fact  that  the  lake  oc 
cupies   a  portion  of  a  longitudinal  depression,  that 
its  northern  and  southern  ends  are  not  enclosed  by 
highland,  as  its  east  and  west  sides  are.     The  floor 
of  the  Ghor  or  Jordan  Valley  has   been   already 
described.    [PALESTINE,  p.  675.]   As  it  approaches 
the  northern  shore  of  the  lake  it  breaks  down  by 
two  oflsets  or  terraces,  tolerably  regular  in  figure 
and  level.    At  the  outside  edge  of  the  second  of  these, 
a  range  of  driftwood  marks  the  highest  level  of  the 
waters — and  from  this  point  the  beach  slopes  more 
rapidly  into  the  clear  light-green  water  of  the  lake. 

20.  A  small  piece  of  land  lies  off  the  shore  about 
halfway  between  the  entrance  of  the  Jordan  and  the 
western  side  of  the  lake.     It  is  nearly  circulai  in 
form.     Its  sides  are  sloping,  and  therefore  its  size 
varies  with  the  height  of  the  water.     When  the 
writer  went  to  it  in  Sept.  1858,  it  was  about  100 
yards  in  diameter,  10  or  12  feet  out  of  the  water, 
and  connected  with  the  shore  by  a  narrow  neck  or 
isthmus  of  about  100  yards  in  length.  The  isthmus 
is  concealed  when  the  water  is  at  its  full  height, 


further"  (ii.  107,  112).  Van  de  Velde  makes  it  10  miles 
(11. 113),  or  3i  hours  (116).  But  when  these  dimensions 
are  applied  to  the  map  they  are  much  too  large,  £.-id  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  it  c?.n  be  more  than  5  miles  in  all. 

b  Dr.  Anderson  (181)  says  it  is  about  2£  miles  \\ida. 
But  this  appears  to  contradict  Dr.  Robinson's  expressions 
(ii.  107).  The  latter  are  corroborated  ly  Mr.  Clowes'e 
party.  They  also  noticed  salt  in  large  quantities  among 
the  rocks  in  regular  strata  some  considerable  distance 
back  from  the  lake. 

c   V£    .        I  (Robiuson,  ii.  107).     By  de  Sanlcy  tbn 

name  is  given  Redjom  el-Mezorrahl  (tte  gh  and  rr  are 
both  attempts  to  represent  the  gr/uun).  Tha  "Pilgrim" 
in  Atherucum,  Apr.  2,  1854,  expressly  slates  that  his 
tjuide  called  it  Rudjeim  ez-Zoyheir. 


SEA.  THE  SALT 

and  then  the  little  peninsula  becomes  an  island. 
M.  De  Saulcy  attributes  to  it  the  name  Redjum  Lut 
— the  cairn  of  Lot.d  It  is  covered  with  stones,  and 
dead  wood  washed  up  by  the  waves.  The  stones 
are  large,  and  though  much  weather-worn,  appear 
to  have  been  originally  rectangular.  At  any  rate 
they  are  very  different  from  any  natural  fragments 
on  the  adjacent  shores. 

21.  Beyond  the  island  the  north-western  corner 
of  the  lake  is  bordered  by  a  low  plain,  extending  up 
to  the  foot  of  the  mountains  of  Neby  Zfusa,  and 
south  as  far  as  Has  Feshkhah.     This  plain  must  be 
considerably  lower   than  the  general  level  of  the 
land  north  of  the  lake,  since  its  appearance  implies 
that  it  is  often  covered  with  water.     It  is  described 
as  sloping  gently  upwards  from  the  lake  ;  flat  and 
barren,  except  rare  patches  of  reeds  round  a  spring. 
It  is  soft  and  slimy  to  the  tread,  or  in  the  summer 
covered  with  a  white  film  of  salt  formed  by  the 
evaporation  of  the  surface  water.     The  upper  sur 
face  appears  to  be  only  a  crust,  covering  a  soft 
and  deep  substratum,  and  often  not  strong  enough 
to  bear  the  weight  of  the  traveller."     In  all  these 
particulars  it  agrees  with  the  plain  at  the  south  of 
the  lake,  which  is  undoubtedly  covered  when  the 
waters  rise.    It  further  agrees  with  it  in  exhibiting 
at  the  back  remains  of  the  late  tertiary  deposits 
already  mentioned,  cut  out,  like  those  about  Sebbeh, 
into  fantastic  shapes  by  the  rush  of  the  torrents 
from  behind. 

A  similar  plain  (the  Ghor  el-Belka,  or  Ghor 
Seisaban)  appears  to  exist  on  the  N.E.  corner  of  the 
lake  between  the  embouchure  of  the  Jordan  and  the 
slopes  of  the  mountains  of  Moab.  Beyond,  how 
ever,  the  very  brief  notice  of  Seetzen  (ii.  373), 
establishing  the  fact  that  it  is  "  salt  and  stony," 
nothing  is  known  of  it.f 

22.  The  southern  end  is  like  the  northern,  a  wide 
plain,  and  like  it  retains  among  the  Arabs  the  name  of 
El  Ghcr?  It  has  been  visited  by  but  few  travellers. 
Seetzen  crossed  it  from  E.  to  W.  in  April,  1806 
(Reisen,  i.  426-9),  Irby  and  Mangles  in  May,  1818, 
De  Saulcy  in  Jan.  1851,  and  Poole  in  Nov.  1855, 
all  crossed  it  in  the  opposite  direction  at  a  moderate 
distance  from  the  lake.     Dr.  Robinson,  on  his  way 
from  Hebron  to  Petra  in  May,  1838,  descended  the 
Wad  1 1  Zuweirah,  passed  between  K.   Usdum  and 
the  lake,  and  went  along  the  western  side  of  the 
plain  to  the  Wady  el-Jeib.     The  same  route  was 
partially   followed    by  M.  Van  de  Velde.       The 
plain    is   bounded   on    the    west    side,    below   the 
Khashm  Usdum,  by  a  tract  thickly  studded  with  tv 
confused  mass  of  unimportant  eminences,  "  low  cliffs 
and  conical  hills,"  of  chalky  indurated  marl  (Rob.  ii. 
116),  apparently  of  the  same  late  formation  as  that 
already  mentioned  further  north.     These  eminences 
intervene  between  the  lofty  mountains  of  Judah 
and  the  plain,  and  thus  diminish  the  width  of  the 
Ghor  from  what  it  is  at  Ain  Jidy.     Their  present 
forms   are   due  to   the  fierce  rush  of  the  winter 
torrents  from  the  elevated  tracts  behind  them.     In 
height  they  vary  from  50  to  150  feet.     In  colour 
they  are  brilliant  white  (Poole,  61).      All  along 

d  This  island  was  shewn  to  Maundrell  (March  30, 1697) 
as  containing,  or  having  near  it,  the  "  monument  of  Lot's 
wife."  It  forms  a  prominent  feature  in  the  view  of  "  the 
Dead  Sea  from  its  northern  shore,"  No.  429  of  Frith' s 
stereoscopic  views  in  the  Holy  Land. 

e  This  was  especially  mentioned  to  the  writer  by  Mr. 
David  Roberts,  R.A.,  who  was  nearly  lost  in  such  a  hole 
on  his  way  from  the  Jordan  to  Mar  Saba. 

The  statement  of  the  ancient  traveller  Thietmar 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


1181 


their  base  are  springs,  generally  of  brackish,  though 
occasionally  of  fresh  water,  the  overflow  from  which 
forms  a  tract  of  marshland,  overgrown  with  canes, 
tamarisks,  retem,  ghurkud,  thorn,  and  other  shrubs. 
Here  and  there  a  stunted  palm  is  to  be  seen  Several 
principal  wadys,  such  as  the  Wad;/  Emaz,  and  the 
Wady  Fikreh,  descend  into  the  Ghor  through  these 
hills  from  the  higher  mountains  behind,  and  their 
wide  beds,  strewed  with  great  stones  and  deeply 
furrowed,  show  what  vast  bodies  of  water  they  must 
discharge  in  the  rainy  season.  The  hills  themselves 
bend  gradually  round  to  the  eastward,  and  at  last 
close  the  valley  in  to  the  south.  In  plan  they  form 
"  an  irregular  curve,  sweeping  across  the  Ghor  in 
something  like  the  segment  of  a  circle,  the  chord 
of  which  would  be  6  or  7  geogr.  miles  in  length, 
extending  obliquely  from  N.W.  to  S.E."  (Rob.  ii. 
120).  Their  apparent- height  remains  about  what 
it  was  on  the  west,  but,  though  still  insignificant  in 
themselves,  they  occupy  here  an  important  position 
as  the  boundary-line  between  the  districts  of  the 
Ghor  and  the  Arabah — the  central  and  southern 
compartments  of  the  great  longitudinal  valley  men 
tioned  in  the  outset  of  this  article.  The  Arabah 
is  higher  in  level  than  the  Ghor.  The  valley  takes 
at  this  point  a  sudden  rise  or  step  of  about  100  ft. 
in  height,  and  from  thence  continues  rising  gra 
dually  to  a  point  about  35  miles  north  of  Akabeh, 
where  it  reaches  an  elevation  of  1800  ft.  above  the 
Dead  Sea,  or  very  nearly  500  ft.  above  the  h  ocean. 

23.  Thus  the  waters  of  two-thirds  of  the  Arabah 
drain  northwards  into  the  plain  at  the  south  of  the 
lake,  and  thence  into  the  lake  itself.     The  Wady 
el  Jeib — the  principal  channel  by  which  this  vast 
drainage    is  discharged    on  to  the   plain — is  very 
large,  "  a  huge  channel,"  "  not  far  from  half  a  mile 
wide,"  "  bearing  traces  of  an  immense  volume  of 
water,  rushing  along  with  violence,  and  covering 
the  whole  breadth  of  the  valley."     The  body  of  de 
tritus  discharged  by  such  a  river  must  be  enormous. 
We  have  no  measure  of  the  elevation  of  the  plain 
at  the  foot  of  the  southern  line  of  mounds,  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  rise  from  the  lake 
upwards  is,  as  the  torrents  are  approached,  consi 
derable,  and  it  seems  hardly  possible  to  avoid  the 
conclusion  that  the  silting  up  of  the  lagoon  which 
forms  the  southern  portion  of  the  lake  itself  is  due 
to  the  materials  brought  down  by  this  great  torrent . 
and  by  those,  hardly  inferior  to  it,  which,  as  already 
mentioned,  discharge  the  waters  of  the  extensive 
highlands  both  on  the  east  and  west. 

24.  Of  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  plain  we  possess 
hardly  any  information.   We  know  that  it  is  formed 
by  the  mountains  of  Moab,  and  we  can  just  discern 
that,  adjacent  to  the  lake,  they  consist  of  sandstone, 
red  and  yellow,  with  conglomerate  containing  por 
phyry  and  granite,  fragments  of  which  have  rolled 
down  and  seem  to  occupy  the  position  which  on 
the  western  side  is  occupied  by  the  tertiary  hills. 
We  know  also  that  the  wadys  Ghurundel  and  Tu- 
fileh,  which  drain  a  district  of  the  mountains  N.  of 
Petra,  enter  at  the  S.E.  corner  of  the  plain — but 
beyond  this  all  is  uncertain. 


(A.D.  1217),  who  crossed  the  Jordan  at  the  ordinary  ford, 
and  at  a  mile  from  thence  was  shewn  the  "  salt  pillar" 
of  Lot's  wife,  seems  to  imply  that  there  are  masses 
of  rock-salt  at  this  spot,  of  the  same  nature  as  that 
at  Usdum,  though  doubtless  less  extensive  (Thietmar 
Peregr.  xi.  47). 

g  Rdhr  in  the  spelling  adopted  by  De  Saulcy. 

h  See  the  section  given  by  Petennann  In  Geogr.  Jour* 
xviii.  89. 


1182 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


25.  Of  the  plain  itself  hardly  fioie  is  known 
han  of  its  boundaries.     Its  greatest  \v'<dth  from  W. 

to  E.  is  estimated  at  from  5  to  6  miles,  while  its 
length  from  the  cave  in  the  salt  mountain  to  the 
range  of  heights  on  the  south,  appears  to  be  about  8. 
Thus  the  breadth  of  the  Ghor  seems  to  be  here  con 
siderably  less  than  it  is  anywhere  north  of  the  lake, 
or  across  the  lake  itself.  That  part  of  it  which  more 
immediately  adjoins  the  lake  consists  of  two  very 
distinct  sections,  divided  by  a  line  running  nearly 
N.  and  S.  Of  these  the  western  is  a  region  of  salt 
and  barrenness,  bounded  by  the  salt  mountain  of 
Khashm  Usdum,  and  fed  by  the  liquefied  salt  from 
its  caverns  and  surface,  or  by  the  drainage  from  the 
salt  springs  beyond  it — and  overflowed  periodically 
by  the  brine  of  the  lake  itself.  Near  the  lake  it 
bears  the  name  of  es  Sabkah,  i.  e.  the  plain  of  salt 
mud  (De  Saulcy,  262).  Its  width  from  W.  to  E. — 
from  the  foot  of  K.  Usdum  to  the  belt  of  reeds  which 
separates  it  from  the  Ghor  es  Safieh — is  from  3  to  4 
miles.1  Of  its  extent  to  the  south  nothing  is  known, 
but  it  is  probable  that  the  muddy  district,  the 
Scibkah  proper,  does  not  extend  more  at  most  than 
3  miles  from  the  lake.  It  is  a  naked  marshy  plain, 
often  so  boggy  as  to  be  impassable  for  camels  (Rob. 
115),  destitute  of  every  species  of  vegetation,  scored 
at  frequent  intervals  k  by  the  channels  of  salt  streams 
from  the  Jebel  Usdum,  or  the  salt  springs  along  the 
base  of  the  hills  to  the  south  thereof.  As  the  southern 
boundary  is  approached  the  plain  appears  to  rise,  and 
its  surface  is  covered  with  a  "countless  number" 
of  those  conical  mamelons  (Poole,  61),  the  remains 
of  late  aqueous  deposits,  which  are  so  characteristic 
of  the  whole  of  this  region.  At  a  distance  from 
the  lake  a  partial  vegetation  is  found  (Rob.  ii.  103), 
clumps  of  reeds  surrounding  and  choking  the  springs, 
and  spreading  out  as  the  water  runs  off. 

26.  To  this  curious  and  repulsive  picture  the 
eastern  section  of  the  plain  is  an  entire  contrast.    A 
dense  thicket  of  reeds,  almost  impenetrable,  divides 
it  from  the  Sabkah.     This  past,  the  aspect  of  the 
land  completely  changes.      It  is  a  thick  copse  of 
shrubs  similar  to  that  around  Jericho  (Rob.  ii.  113), 
and,  like  that,  cleared  here  and  there  in  patches 
where  the  Ghawarineh,1  or  Arabs  of  the  Ghor, 
cultivate  their  wheat  and  durra,  and  set  up  their 
wretched  villages.     The  variety  of  trees  appears  to 
be  remarkable.      Irby  and  Mangles  (1086)  speak 
of  "  an    infinity  of  plants   that    they    knew    net 
ho»-  to  name  or  describe."      De  Saulcy  expresses 
nimself  in  the  same  terms — "  une  riche  moisson 
botanique."       The   plants   which    these    travellers 
name   are  dwarf  mimosa,  tamarisk,    dom,  osher, 
Asdepias  procera,   nubk,   arek,  indigo.      Seetzen 
(i.  427)  names  also  the  Thuja  aphylla.     Here,  as 
at    Jericho,    the    secret   of  this   vegetation    is   an 
abundance  of  fresh  water  acting  on  a  soil  of  ex 
treme    richness  (Seetzen,   ii.  355).      Besides  the 

'  Irby,  H  hour;  DeSaolcy,  1  hr.  18  min.+800 metres; 
Poole,  1  hr.  5  min.  Seetzen,  3  hourg  (i.  428). 

k  Irby  and  Mangles  report  the  number  of  these  "  drains  " 
between  Jebel,  Usdum  and  the  edge  of  the  Ghor  es-Safiek 
at  six ;  Poole  at  eleven  ;  De  Saulcy  at  three,  but  he  evi 
dently  names  only  the  most  formidable  ones. 

i  The  Ghorneys  of  Irby  and  Mangles ;  the  Rhaouarnas 
of  De  Saulcy. 

•»  Probably  the  Wady  et-TufUeh. 

"  See  De  Saulcy,  Naiv.  i.  493. 

»  Larger  than  the  Wady  Mojib  (Seetzen,  i.  427). 

P  Seetzen  (ii.  355)  states  that  the  stream,  which  he  calls 
el-ITossa,  is  conducted  in  artificia.  channels  (KanaUri) 
through  the  fields  (also  i.  427).  Poole  names  them  Ain 
tefiha. 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

watercourse,1"  in  which  the  belt  of  reeds  flourish:;? 
(like  those  north  of  the  Lake  of  Huleh  in  the 
marshes  which  bound  the  upper  Jordan u),  thfl 
Wady  Kurahy  (or  el  Ahsy],  a  considerable  stream  c 
from  the  eastern  mountains,  runs  through  it,  and 
Mr.  Poole  mentions  having  passed  three  swift  brooks, 
either  branches  of  the  same,?  or  independent  streams 
But  this  would  hardly  be  sufficient  to  account  for 
its  fertility,  unless  this  portion  of  the  plain  were 
too  high  to  be  overflowed  by  the  lake ;  and  although 
no  mention  is  made  of  any  such  change  of  level,  it 
is  probably  safe  to  assume  it.  Perhaps  also  some 
thing  is  due  to  the  nature  of  the  soil  brought  down 
by  the  Wady  el-Ahsy,  of  which  it  is  virtually  the 
delta.  This  district,  so  well  wooded  and  watered, 
is  called  the  Ghor  es-Safieh.^  Its  width  is  less  than 
that  of  the  Sabkah.  No  traveller  has  traversed  it 
from  W.  to  E.,  for  the  only  road  through  it  is  ap 
parently  that  to  Kerak,  which  takes  a  N.E.  direc 
tion  immediately  after  passing  the  reeds.  De  Saulcy 
made  the  nearest  approach  to  such  a  traverse  on 
his  return  from  Kerak  (Narrative,  i.  492),  and  on 
his  detailed  map  (feuille  6)  it  appears  a&out  2|  miles 
in  width.  Its  length  is  still  more  uncertain,  as 
we  are  absolutely  without  record  of  any  exploration 
of  its  southern  portion.  Seetzen  (ii.  355)  specifies 
it  (at  second  hand)  as  extending  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Wady  el-Hossa  (i.  e.  the  el-Ahsy}.  On  the  other 
hand,  De  Saulcy,  when  crossing  the  Sabkah  for  the 
first  time  from  W.  to  E.  (Narr.  i.  263),  remarked 
that  there  was  no  intermission  in  the  wood  before 
him.  between  the  Ghor  es-Safieh  and  the  foot  of  the 
hills  at  the  extreme  south  of  the  plain.  It  is  pos 
sible  that  both  are  right — and  that  the  wood  extends 
over  the  whole  east  of  the  Ghor,  though  it  bears 
the  name  of  es-Safieh  only  as  far  as  the  mouth  ol 
the  el-Ahsy. 

27.  The  eastern  mountains  which  form  the  back 
ground  to  this  district  of  woodland,  are  no  less 
naked  and  rugged  than  those  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  valley.  They  consist,  according  to  the  re 
ports  of  Seetzen  (ii.  354),  Poole,  and  Lynch,  of  a 
red  sandstone,  with  limestone  above  it — the  sand 
stone  in  horizontal  strata  with  vertical  cleavage 
(Lynch,  Narr.  311,  313).  To  judge  from  the  frag 
ments  at  their  feet,  they  must  also  contain  veiy 
fine  brecciae  and  conglomerates,  of  granite,  jasper, 
greenstone,  and  felspar  of  varied  colour.  Irby  and 
Mangles  mention  also  porphyry,  serpentine,  and 
basalt ;  but  Seetzen  expressly  declares  that  of  basalt 
he  there  found  no  trace. 

Of  their  height  nothing  is  known,  but  all  travel 
lers  concur  in  estimating  them  as  higher  than  those 
on  the  west,  and  as  preserving  a  more  horizontal 
line  to  the  south. 

After  passing  from  the  Ghor  es-Safieh  to  the 
north,  a  salt  plain  is  encountered  resembling  the 
Sabkah,  and  like  it  overflowed  by  the  lake  when 


i  Mr.  Tristram  found  even  at  the  foot  of  the  sa»* 
mountain  of  Usdum  that  about  2  feet  below  the  sal* 
surface  there  was  a  splendid  alluvial  soil;  and  he  has 
suggested  to  the  writer  that  there  is  an  analogy  between 
this  plain  and  certain  districts  in  North  Africa,  which 
though  fertile  and  cultivated  in  Roman  times,  are  now 
barren  and  covered  with  efflorescence  of  natron.  The 
cases  are  also  to  a  certain  degree  parallel,  inasmuch  as 
the  African  plains  (also  called  Sebklw!)  have  their  salt 
mountain  (like  the  Khashm  Usdum,  "  isolated  from  the 
mountain  range  behind,"  and  flanked  by  small  mamelons 
bearing  stunted  herbage),  the  streams  from  which  supply 
them  with  salt  (The  Great  Sahara,  71,  &c.).  They  arc 
also,  like  the  Sabkah  of  Syria,  overflowed  every  winter  by 
the  adjo'ning  lake. 


SEA,  THE  SALT. 


1183 


THB  DEAD  SEA.— View  from  the  heights  behind  Sebtieh  (Masndu).  snewlng  the  wide  beach  on  the  Western  side  of  the  Lake,  and  me 
tongue-shaped  Peninsula.    From  a  Drawing  made  on  the  spot  by  W.  Tipping,  Esq. 


high  (Seetzen,  ii.  355).  With  this  exception  the  ' 
mountains  come  down  abruptly  on  the  water  dur 
ing  the  whole  length  of  the  eastern  side  of  the 
lagoon.  In  two  places  only  is  there  a  projecting 
beach,  apparently  due  to  the  deltas  caused  by  the 
Wadys  en-Nemeirah  and  Uheimir. 

28.  We  have  now  arrived  at  the  peninsula  which 
projects  from  the  eastern  shore  and  forms  the  north 
enclosure  of  the  lagoon.  It  is  too  remarkable  an 
object,  and  too  characteristic  of  the  southern  portion 
of  the  lake,  to  be  passed  over  without  description. 

It  has  been  visited  and  described  by  three  ex 
plorers- -Irby  and  Mangles  in  June  1818;  Mi. 
Poole  in  Nov.  1855;  and  the  American  expedition 
in  April  1848.  Among  the  Arabs  it  appears  to 
bear  the  names  Ghor  el  Mezra'ah  and  Ghor  el- 
Lisan.  The  latter  name—"  the  Tongue—"'  recals 

the  similar  Hebrew  word  lashon,  flKO,  which  is 

employed  three  times  in  relation  to  the  lake  in  the 
specification  of  the  boundaries  of  Judah  and  Ben 
jamin  contained  in  the  Book  of  Joshua  But  in  its 
three  occurrences  the  word  is  applied  to  two  different 
places — one  at  the  north  (Josh.  xv.  5,  xviii.  19), 
and  one  at  the  south  (xv.  2) ;  and  it  is  probable 


that  it  signifies  in  both  cases  a  tongue  of  water 
— a  bay — instead  of  a  tongue*  of  land. 

29.  Its  entire  length  from  north  to  south  is  about 
10  geogr.  miles — and  its  breadth  from  5  to  6 — 
though  these  dimensions  are  subject  to  some  varia- 
fion  according  to  the  time  of  year.  It  appears  to  be 
formed  entirely  of  recent  aqueous  deposits,  late  o- 
post-tertiary,  very  similar,  if  not  identical,  witl. 
those  which  face  it  on  the  western  shore,  and  with 
the  "  mounds"  which  skirt  the  plains  at  the  soutn 
and  N.W.  of  the  lake.  It  consists  of  a  friable 
carbonate  of  lime  intermixed  with  sand  or  sandy 
marls,  and  with  frequent  nfasses  of  sulphate  of  lime 
(gypsum).  The  whole  is  impregnated  strongly 
with  sulphur,  lumps  of  which  are  found,  as  on  the 
plain  at  the  north  end  of  the  lake,  and  also  with 
salt,  existing  in  the  form  of  lumps  or  packs  ot 
rock-salt  (And.  187).  Nitre  is  reported  by  Irby 
(139),  but  neither  Poole  nor  Anderson  succeeded 
in  meeting  with  it.  The  stratification  is  almost 
horizontal,  with  a  slight  dip  to  the  east  (Poole, 
63).  At  the  north  it  is  worn  into  a  sharp  ridge  or 
mane,  with  very  steep  sides  and  serrated  top.  To 
wards  the  south  the  top  widens  into  a  table-land, 
which  Poole  (ib.)  reports  as  about  *  230  ft.  above 


r  This  appellation  is  justified  by  the  view  at  the  top 
of  this  page. 

8  From  the  expression  being  in  the  first  two  cases 
"  tongue  of  the  sea,"  and  in  the  third  simply  "  tongue," 
M.  de  Saulcy  conjectures  that  in  the  last  case  a  tongue  of 
land  is  intended :  but  there  is  nothing  to  warrant  this. 
It  is  by  no  means  certain  whether  the  two  Arabic  names 
Just  mentioned  apply  to  different  parts  of  the  peninsula, 
or  are  given  indiscriminately  to  the  whole.  Ghor  el  Mez 
ra'ah  is  the  only  name  which  Seetzen  mentions,  and  he 
attaches  it  to  the  -vhole.  It  is  also  the  only  one  mentioned 
by  Dr.  Anderson,  but  he  restricts  it  to  the  depression  on 
the  east  side  of  the  peninsula,  which  runs  N.  and  S.,  and 
Intervenes  between  the  main  body  and  the  foot  of  the 
eastern  mountains  (And.  184).  M .  de  Saulcy  is  apparently 
the  earliest  traveller  to  mention  the  name  Lisan.  He 
i  Jan.  15)  ascribes  it  to  the  whole  peninsula,  though  he 


|  appears  to  attach  it  more  particularly  to  its  southern 
portion  —  «'  le  Lican  actuel  des  Arabes,  c'est-a-dire  la 

I  pointe  sud  de  la  presqu'-lle"  (Voyage,  i.  290).    And  this 

I  is  supported  by  the  practice  of  Van  de  Velde,  who  on  his 
map  marks  the  north  portion  of  the  peninsula  as  Ghor-cl- 
Alezra'dh,  and  the  south  Ghor-el-Lisan.  M.  de  Saulcy 

j  also  specifies  with  much  detail  the  position  of  the  former 
of  these  two  as  at  the  opening  of  the  Wady  ed  Dra'a 
(Jan.  15).  The  point  is  well  worth  the  careful  attention 
of  future  travellers,  for  if  the  name  Lisdn  is  actually 
restricted  to  the  south  side,  a  curious  confirmation  of  the 
accuracy  of  the  ancient  survey  recorded  in  Josh.  xv.  2 
would  be  furnished,  as  well  as  a  remarkable  proof  ot  the 
tenacity  of  an  old  name. 

t  This  dimension,  which  Mr.  Poole  took  with  his  ane 
roid,  is  sti-angely  at  variance  with  the  estimate  of  Lynch 'e 
party.  Lynch  himself,  on  approaching  it  at  the  north 


1183  a 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


the  level  of  the  lake  at  its  southern  end.  It  breaks 
down  on  the  W.,  S.,  and  N.E.  sides  by  steep  decli 
vities  to  the  shore,  furrowed  by  the  rains  which  are 
gradually  washing  it  into  the  lake,  into  cones  and 
other  fantastic  forms,  like  those  already  described 
on  the  western  beach  near  Sebbeh.  It  presents  a 
brilliant  white  appearance  when  lit  up  by  the  blaz 
ing  sun,  and  contrasted  with  the  deep  blue  of  the 
lake  (Beaufort,  104).  A  scanty  growth  of  shrubr, 
(Poole,  64) — so  scanty  as  to  be  almost  invisible 
(Irby,  1396)— is  found  over  the  table-land.  On 
the  east  the  highland  descends  to  a  depression  of 
1^  or  2  miles  wide,  which  from  the  description  of 
Dr.  Anderson  (184)  appears  to  run  across  the  neck 
from  S.  to  N.,  at  a  level  hardly  above  that  of  the 
lake.  It  will  doubtle%  be  ultimately  worn  down 
ouite  to  the  level  of  the  water,  and  then  the 
peninsula  will  become  an  island  (Anders  n,  184, 
189).  Into  this  valley  lead  the  torrents  from  the 
ravines  of  the  mountains  on  the  e.ost.  The  principal 
of  these  is  the  Wady  ed-Dra'a  or  W.  Kerak, 
which  leads  up  to  the  city  of  that  name.  It  is  here 
that  the  few  inhabitants  of  the  Peninsula  reside,  in 
a  wretched  village  called  Mezra'ah.  The  soil  is  of 
the  most  unbounded  fertility,  and  only  requires 
water  to  burst  into  riotous  prodigality  of  vegetation 
(Seetzen,  ii.  351,  2). 

30.  There  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that  this 
peninsula  is  the  remnant  of  a  bed  of  late  aqueous 
strata    which  were    deposited   at   a   period  when 
the  water  of  the   lake  stood  very  much   higher 
than  it  now  does,  but  which,  since  it  attained  its 
present  level,  and  thus  exposed  them  to  the  action 
of  the  winter  torrents,  are  gradually  being  disin 
tegrated  and  carried  down  into  the  depths  of  the 
lake.     It  is  in  fact  an  intrusion  upon  the  form  of 
the  lake,  as  originally  determined   by  the  rocky 
walls  of  the  great  fissure  of  the  Ghor.     Its  presence 
here,  so  long  after  the  great  bulk  of  the  same  for 
mation  has  been  washed  away,  is  an  interesting  and 
fortunate  circumstance,   since  it  furnishes  distinct 
evidence  of  a  stage  in  the  existence  of  the   Jake, 
which  in  its  absence  might  have  been  inferred  from 
analogy,   but  could  never  have  been   affirmed   as 
certain.     It  may  have  been  deposited  either  by  the 
general  action  of  the  lake,  or  by  the  special  action 
of  a  river,  possibly  in  the  direction  of  Wady  Kerak, 
which  in  that  case  formed  this  extensive  deposit  at 
its  mouth,  just  as  the  Jordan  is  now  forming  a 
similar  bank  at  its  embouchure.     If  a  change  were 
to  take  place  which  either  lowered  the  water,  or  ele 
vated  the  bottom,  of  the  lake,  the  bank  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Jordan  would  be  laid  bare,  as  the  Lisan  now 
is,  and  would  immediately  begin  to  undergo  the 
process  of  disintegration  which  that  is  undergoing. 

31.  The   extraordinary  difference   between    the 
depth  of  the  two  portions  of  the  lake — north  and 
south  of  the  peninsula — has  been  already  alluded 
to,  and  may  be  seen  at  a  glance  on  the  section 
given  on  page  1174.     The  former  is  a  bowl,  which 
;it  one  place  attains  the  depth  of  more  than  1300  feet, 
while  the  average  depth  along  its  axis  may  be  taken 


b.EA,  THE  SALT 

at  not  far  short  of  1000.  On  the  other  hand  th. 
southern  portion  is  a  flat  plain,  with  the  greatei 
part  of  its  area  nearly  level,  a  very  few  feetu  only 
below  the  surface,  shoaling  gradually  at  the  edges 
till  the  brink  is  reached.  So  shallow  is  this  lagoon 
that  it  is  sometimes  possible  to  ford  right  across  from 
the  west  to  the  east  side  (Seetzen,  i.  428,x  ii.  358 ; 
Rob.  i.  521 ;  Lynch,  Near.  304). 

The  channel  connecting  the  two  portions,  on  the 
western  side  of  the  peninsula,  is  very  gradual  in 
its  slope  from  S.  to  N.,y  increasing  in  depth  from 
3  fathoms  to  13,  and  from  13  to  19,  32  and  ftb, 
when  it  suddenly  drops  to  107  (642  feet),  and 
joins  the  upper  portion. 

32.  Thus  the  circular  portion  below  the  penin 
sula,  and  a  part  of  the  channel,  form  a  mere  lagoon, 
entirely  distinct  and  separate  from  the  basin  of  the 
lake  proper.     This  portion,  and  the  plain  at  the 
south   as   far  as  the  rise  or  offset  at  which  the 
Arabah  commences — a  district  in  all  of  some  16 
miles   by  8 — would  appear  to  have  been  left  by 
the  last  great  change  in  the  form  of  the  ground 
at   a   level   not   far   below   its   present   one,   and 
consequently  much  higher  than  the  bottom  of  the 
lake   itself.      But    surrounded    as   it    is   on    three 
sides  by  highlands,  the  waters  of  which  have  no 
other  outlet,  it  has  become  the  delta  into  which 
those  waters  discharge  themselves.     On  its  south 
side  are  the   immense   torrents   of  the  Jeib,   the 
Ghurundel,   and   the   Fikreh.      On   the   east   the 
somewhat    less    important   El  Ahsu,    Numeirah, 
Humeir  and  ed-Dra'ah.      On  the  west  the  Zu- 
weirah,  Mvbughghik*  and  Benin.     These  streams 
are  the  drains  of  a  district  not   less   than  6000 
square  miles  in  area,  very  uneven  in  form,  and 
composed  of  materials  more  or  less  friable.     They 
must  therefore  bring  down  enormous  quantities  of 
silt  and  shingle.    There  can  be  little  doubt  that  they 
have  already  filled  up  the   southern   part  of  the 
estuary  as  far  as  the  present  brink  of  the  water, 
and  the  silting  up  of  the  rest  is  merely  a  work  of 
time.     It  is  the  same  process  which  is  going  on, 
on  a  larger  and  more  rapid  scale,  in  the  Sea  of  Azov, 
the  upper  portion  of  which  is  fast  filling  up  with 
the  detritus  of  the  river  Don.     Indeed  the  two  por 
tions  of  the  Dead  Sea  present  several  points  of  ana 
logy  to  the  Sea  of  Azov  and  the  Black  Sea. 

It  is  difficult  to  speak  with  confidence  on  any  of 
the  geological  features  of  the  lake,  in  the  absence  of 
reports  by  competent  observers.  But  the  theory 
that  the  lagoon  was  lowered  by  a  recent  change, 
and  overflowed  (Robinson,  7?.  R.  ii.  189),  seems 
directly  contrary  to  the  natural  inference  from  the 
fact  that  such  large  torrents  discharge  themselves 
into  that  spot.  There  is  nothing  in  the  appearance 
of  the  ground  to  suggest  any  violent  change  in 
recent  (f.  e.  historical)  times,  or  that  anything  has 
taken  place  but  the  gradual  accumulation  of  the 
deposits  of  the  torrents  all  over  the  delta. 

33.  The  water  of  the  lake  is  not  less  remarkable 
than  its  other  features.      Its  most  obvious  pecu 
liarity  is    its  great   weight."     Its  specific   gravity 


point  (Narr.  297),  states  it  at  from  40  to  60  ft  high,  with  a 
sharp  angular  central  ridge  some  20  ft.  above  that.  This 
last  feature  is  mentioned  also  by  Jrby  (June  2).  Anderson 
Increases  the  dimension  of  his  chief  to  80  or  90  ft.  (Off. 
Rep.  185) ;  .but  even  this  falls  short  of  Poole.  The  penin- 
ftila  probably  slopes  off  considerably  towards  the  north 
end,  at  which  Lynch  and  Anderson  made  their  estimate. 

»  \Yfcea  sounded  by  Lynch,  its  depth  over  the  greater 
part  of  the  area  was  12  feet. 

*  He  fixes  the  ford  at  i  an  hour  north  of  the  N.  end  of 
i/e&J  Usdum. 


s  Across  this,  too,  there  is  a  ford,  described  in  some 
detail  by  Irby  and  Mangles  (June  2).  The  water  mur>t 
have  been  unusually  low,  since  they  not  only  state  that 
donkeys  were  able  to  cross,  but  also  that  the  width  did 
not  exceed  a  mile,  a  matter  in  which  the  keen  eye  of  a 
practical  sailor  is  not  likely  to  have  been-deceived.  Lyncli 
could  find  no  trace  of  either  ford,  and  his  map  shews  the 
channel  as  fully  two  miles  wide  at  its  narrowest  spot. 
*  denounced  Muburrik ;  the  Embarreg  of  De  Sanlcy 
a  Of  the  salt-lakes  in  Northern  Persia  (Urumiyeh. 
Sec.)  nothing  is  yet  known.  Wagner's  account  is  very 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

has  bwn  found  to  be  as  much  as  12-28;  that  is 
to  say,  a  gallon  of  it  would  weigh  over  12  J  Ibs. 
instead  of  10  Ibs.,  the  weight  of  distilled  water. 
Water  so  heavy  must  not  only  be  extremely 
buoyant,  but  must  possess  great  inertia.  Its  buoy 
ancy  is  a  common  theme  of  remark  by  the  travel 
lers  who  have  been  upon  it  or  in  it.  Josephus 
(B.  J.  iv.  8,  §4)  relates  some  experiments  made  by 
Vespasian  by  throwing  bound  criminals  into  it ;  and 
Lynch,  bathing  on  the  eastern  shore  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Wady  Zurka,  says  (Narr.  371),  in  words 
curiously  parallel  to  those  of  the  old  historian, 
"  With  great  difficulty  I  kept  my  feet  down,  and 
when  I  laid  upon  my  back,  and,  drawing  up  my 
knees,  placed  my  hands  upon  them,  I  rolled  imme 
diately  over."  In  the  bay  on  the  north  side  of  the 
peninsula  "  a  horse  could  with  difficulty  keep  him 
self  upright.  Two  fresh  hens'  eggs  floated  up  one 
third  of  their  length,"  i.  e.  with  one-third  exposed  ; 
*'  they  would  have  sunk  in  the  water  of  the  Medi 
terranean  or  Atlantic  "  {Narr.  342).  "  A  muscular 
man  floated  nearly  breast-high  without  the  least 
exertion  "  (ib.  325).  One  of  the  few  things  recol 
lected  by  the  Maltese  servant  of  Mr.  Costigan — 
who  lost  his  life  from  exposure  on  the  lake — was 
that  the  boat  "  floated  a  palm  higher  than  before  " 
(Stephens,  Incidents,  ch.  xxxii).  Dr.  Robinson 
"  could  never  swim  before,  either  in  fresh  or  salt 
water,"  yet  here  he  "  could  sit,  stand,  lie,  or  swim 
without  difficulty"  (B.  R.  i.  506). 

34.  So  much  for  its  buoyancy.     Of  its  weight 
and  inertia  the  American  expedition  had  also  prac 
tical  experience.     In  the  gale  jn  which  the  party 
were  caught  on  their  first  day  on  the  lake,  between 
the  mouth  of  the  Jordan  and  Ain  Feshkhah,  "  it 
seemed  as  if  the  bows  of  the  boats  were  encoun 
tering  the  sledge-hammers  of  the  Titans."     When, 
however,  "  the  wind  abated,  the  sea  rapidly  fell ; 
the  water,  from  its  ponderous  quality,  settling  as 
soon  as  the   agitating  cause   had   ceased  to   act" 
(Narr.    268,    9).      At    ordinary   times    there    is 
nothing  remarkable  in  the  action  of  the  surface  of 
the  lake.     Its  waves  rise  and  fall,  and  surf  beats  on 
the  shore,  just  like  the  ocean.     Nor  is  its  colour, 
dissimilar  to  that  of  the  Sea.      The  water  has  a 
greasy  feel,  owing  possibly  to  the  saponification  of 
the  lime  and  other  earthy  salts  with  the  perspiration 
of  the  skin,  and  this  seems  to  have  led  some  observers 
to  attribute  to  it  a  greasy  look.     But  such  a  look 
exists  in  imagination  only.     It  is  quite  transparent, 
of  an  opalescent  green  tint,  and  is  compared  by 
Lynch  (Narr.  337)  to  diluted  absinthe.      Lynch 
(Narr.    296)   distinctly   contradicts   the   assertion 
that  it  has  any  smell,  noxious  or  not.     So  do  the 
chemists  b  who  have  analysed  it. 

35.  One  or  two  phenomena  of  the  surface  may  be 
mentioned.     Many  of  the  old  travellers,  and  some 
modern  ones  (as  Osburn,  Pal.  Past  and  Present, 
443,  and  Churton,   Land  of  the  Morning,  149), 
mention   that   the   turbid   yellow    stream   of  the 
Jordan   is  distinguishable   for  a   long  distance  in 
the  lake.     Molyneux  (129)  speaks  of  a  "  curious 
broad  strip  of  white  foam  which  appeared  to  lie  in 

vague.  Those  in  Southern  Russia  have  been  fully  inves 
tigated  by  Goebel  (Reisen  &c.,  Dorpat,  183?).  The 
heaviest  water  is  that  of  the  -  Ked  Sea,"  near  Perekop 
in  the  Crimea  (solid  contents  37-22  per  cent. ;  sp.  gr. 
13-31).  The  others,  including  the  leltonskoe  or  Elton, 
contain  from  24  to  28  per  cent  of  solid  matter  in  solution, 
and  range  in  sp.  gr.,  from  12-07  to  12-68. 

b  With  the  single  exception  of  Moldenhauer,  who  when 
be  first  opened  the  specimen  be  analysed,  found  it  to 

VOL.  III.  i 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


Il83t 


a  straight  line  pearly  N.  and  S.  throughout  the 

whole  length  of  the  sea some  miles  W. 

of  the  mouth  of  the  Jordan"  (comp.  Lynch,  Narr. 
279,  295).  "  It  seemed  to  be  constantly  bubbling 
and  in  motion,  like  a  stream  that  runs  rapidly 
through  still  water ;  while  nearly  over  this  track 
during  both  nights  we  observed  in  the  sky  a  white 
streak  like  a  cloud  extending  also  N.  and  S.  and  as 
far  as  the  eye  could  reach."  Lines  of  loam  on  the 
surtace  are  mentioned  by  others  :  as  Robinson 
(i.  503)  ;  Borrer  (Journey,  &c.,  479)  ;  Lynch 
(Narr.  288,  9).  From  Ain  Jidy  a  current  was 
observed  by  Mr.  Clowes's  party  running  steadily 
to  the  N.  not  far  from  the  shore  (comp.  Lynch, 
Narr,  291).  It  is  possibly  an  eddy  caused  by  the 
influx  of  the  Jordan.  Both  De  Saulcy  (Narr. 
Jan.  8)  and  Robinson  (i.  504)  speak  of  spots  and 
belts  of  water  remaining  smooth  and  calm  while 
the  rest  of  the  surface  was  rippled,  and  presenting 
a  strong  resemblance  to  islands  (comp.  Lynch,  288, 
Irby,  June  5).  The  haze  or  mist  which  perpetually 
broods  over  the  water  has  been  already  mentioned. 
It  is  the  result  of  the  prodigious  evaporation. 
Lynch  continually  mentions  it.  Irby  (June  1)  saw 
it  in  broad  transparent  columns,  like  water-spouts, 
only  very  much  larger.  Extraordinary  effects  01 
mirage  due  to  the  unequal  refraction  produced  by 
the  heat  and  moisture  are  occasionally  seen  (Lynch, 
Narr.  320). 

36.  The  remarkable  weight  of  this  water  is  due 
to  the  very  large  quantity  of  mineral  salts  which  L 
holds  in  solution.    The  details  of  the  various  analyses 
are  given  overleaf  in  a  tabular  form,  accompanied 
by  that  of  sea-water  for  comparison.     From  that 
of  the  U.  S.  expedition  c  it  appears  that  each  gallon 
of  the  water,  weighing   12^  Ibs.,  contains  nearly 
3£  Ibs.  (3-319)  of  matter  in  solution — an  immens'e 
quantity  when  we  recollect  that  sea-water,  weighing 
10|  Ibs.  per  gallon,  contains  less  than  \  a  Ib.     Of 
this  3^  Ibs.  nearly  1  Ib.  is  common  salt  (chloride  of 
sodium)  ;  about  2  Ibs.  chloride  of  magnesium,  and 
less  than  \  a  Ib.  chloride  of  calcium  (or  muriate  ot 
lime).     The  most  unusual  ingredient  is  bromide  of 
magnesium,   which   exists   hi  truly   extraordinary 
d  quantity.     To  its  presence  is  due  the  therapeutic 
reputation  enjoyed  by  the  lake  when  its  water  was  sent 
to  Rome  for  wealthy  invalids  (Galen,  in  Reland,  Pal. 
242)  or  lepers  flocked  to  its  shores  (Ant.  Mart.  §x.). 
Boussingault  (Ann.  de  Chimie,  1856,  xlviii.  168) 
remarks  that  if  ever  bromine   should  become  an 
article  of  commerce  the  Dead  Sea  will  be  the  natural 
source  for  it.   It  is  the  magnesian  compounds  which 
impart  so  nauseous  and  bitter   a  flavour   to   the 
water.     The  quantity  of  common  salt  in  solution 
is  very  large.    Lynch  found  (Narr.  377)  that  while 
distilled  water  would  dissolve  5-17ths  of  its  weight 
of  salt,  and  the  water  of  the  Atlantic   l-6th,  the 
water  of  the  Dead  Sea  was  so  nearly  saturated  as 
only  to  be  able  to  take  up  1-1 1th. 

37.  The  sources  of  the  components  of  the  water 
may  be  named  generally  without  difficulty.  The  lime 
and  magnesia  proceed  from  the  dolomitic  limestone  of 
the  surrounding  mountains ;  from  the  gypsum  whicb 


smell  strongly  of  sulphur. 

c  This  is  chosen  because  the  water  was  taken  from  a 
considerable  depth  in  the  centre  of  the  lake,  and  there 
fore  probably  more  fairly  represents  the  average  com 
position  than  the  others. 

<«  Adopting  Marchand's  analysis,  it  appears  that  th« 
quantity  of  this  salt  in  the  Dead  Sea  is  123  times  as  great 
as  in  the  Ocean  and  74  times  as  great  as  in  the  Kreuznach 
water,  where  its  strength  is  considered  remarkable. 

4  F* 


1133  c 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


COMPARATIVE  TABL'E  OF  ANALYSES  OF  THE  WATER  OF  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


1. 

2 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9 

C.o. 

Booth, 

Gmelin, 
1824. 
As  recal 
culated  by 

Apjohn, 
1838. 

Marchand, 
1847. 

Herapath, 
1849.  * 

of  Phila 
delphia 
(US. 
Exped.), 

Boutron- 
Charlard 
and 
Henry. 

Prof.  W. 
Gregory, 

Molden- 
hauer, 
No-   1854. 

Water  of  UK 
Dcwui. 

Marchand 

1849. 

Chloride  of  Magnesium 

12-166 

7-370 

10*543 

7-822 

14*589 

1-696 

13*951 

6*831 

•3<KV 

Sodium 

7-039 

7-839 

6*578 

12-109 

7*855 

11-003 

7-339 

2-967 

2*700 

Calcium 

3-336 

2-438 

2*894 

2-455 

*3*107 

•680 

2*796 

1-471 

Potassium  . 

1-086 

•852 

1*398 

1-217 

•658 

•166 

•571 

2-391 

•07f 

Manganese  . 

•161 

•005 

•006 

Ammonium 

•001 

•006 

Aluminium 

•143 

•018 

'056 

Iron.     .     . 

t 

•003 

Sulp  mte  of  Potash  .     . 

*062 

Lime     .     . 

•052 

•075 

•088 

•068 

•070 

•106 

•14C 

Magnesia    . 

•233 

•230 

Bromide  of  Magnesium 

•442 

•201 

•251 

.     '251 

•137 

trace 

•069 

•183 

•002 

,  ,          Sodium  . 

Organic  matter    . 

•062 

Silica  

•003 

0*200 

Bituminous  matter  . 

*      * 

*      * 

*      * 

*      * 

*    * 

Carbonate  of  Lime   .     . 

0*953 

•003 

Loss     -026 

Total  solid  contents  . 

24-435 

18-780 

21-773 

24.055 

26-416 

14*927 

24-832 

13-»95 

3-530 

Water       

75-565 

81  '220 

78  '227 

75*945 

73  '584 

85*073 

75-168 

86'  105 

96-470 

100-000 

100-000 

100*000 

100*000 

100-000 

100-000 

100-000 

100-000 

100-000 

Specific  gravity  .... 

1-202 

1*153 

1-1841 

1*172 

1-227 

1*099 

1-210 

1-116 

1-0278 

at  66°  F. 

at  60"  F. 

at  60°  F. 

Boiling  Point       .... 

.    . 

221° 

227*75 

Water  obtained  .... 

Jmile 
from 

in  1847, 
at  the 

in  March, 
1849, 

May  5,  '48 
196  fath. 

Apr.  2, 
1850, 

from 
Island  at 

in  June, 
1854. 

Jordan, 

north  end. 

J  mile 

deep, 

"  2  hours 

N.  end. 

late 

N.W.  of 

off 

from  the 

March  11, 

in  rainy 

mouth  of 

A.Terabeb 

Jordan." 

18&4. 

season. 

Jordan. 

No.  1.  The  figures  in  the  Table  are  the  recalculations 
of  Marchand  (Journal,  &c.,  359)  on  the  basis  of  the  im 
proved  chemical  science  of  his  time.  The  original  analysis 
is  in  Naturwis.  Abhandl.,  Tttbingen,  i.  (182T)  333. 

No.  2.  See  The  Athenaeum,  June  15,  1839. 

No.  3.  Journal  fur  prakt.  Chemie,  &c.,  Leipzig,  xlvii. 
J849),  365. 

No.  4.  Quarterly  Journal  of  Chan.  Soc.  ii.  (1850)  336. 

No.  5.  Off.  Report  of  U.  S.  Expedition,  4to.,  p.  204. 

No.  6.  Journal  de  Pharmacie  et  de  Chimie,  Mars  1852. 

No.  7.  Calculated  by  the  writer  from  the  proportionate 
table  of  salts  given  in  Stewart's  Tent  and  Khan,  381. 

No.  8.  Liebig  and  Wohler's  Annalen  der  Chemie,  xlvii. 
(1856)  357;  xlviii.  (1856)  129-170. 

No.  9.  Regnault's  Cours  Elem.  de  Chimie,  ii.  190. 

The  older  analyses  have  not  been  reprinted,  the  methods 
employed  having  been  imperfect  and  the  results  uncertain 
as  compared  with  the  more  modern  ones  quoted.  They  are 
as  follows : — 1.  Macquer,  Lavoisier,  and  Lesage  (Mem.  de 
I'Acad.  des  Sciences,  1778) ;  2.  Marcet  (Phil.  Trans.,  1807, 
p.  296,  &c.);  3.  Klaproth  (Mag.  der  Gesetts.  naturfor. 
Freunde  zu  Berlin,  iii.  139) ;  4.  Gay  Lussac  (Ann.  de 
Chimie,  xi.  (1819),  p.  197) ;  5.  Hermbstadt  (Schweigger's 
Journal,  xxxiv.  163). 

Want  of  space  compels  the  omission  of  the  analysis  of 
Boussingault  of  water  collected  in  spring  1855  (Ann.  de 
Chimie,  xlviii.  (1856),  129-170),  whicli  corresponds  very 
closely  with  that  of  Gmelin  (viz.  sp.  gr.  1-194;  salts, 
22-785  per  cent),  as  well  as  that  of  Commines  (quoted  in 
1he  same  paper)  of  water  collected  in  June  1853,  showing 
sp.  gr.  1*196  and  salts  18 '26  per  cent  Another  analysis 
by  Prof.  W.  Gregory,  giving  19-25  per  cent  of  salts,  is 
quoted  by  Kitto  (Phys.  Geogr.  374). 

The  writer  has  been  favoured  with  specimens  of  water 
collected  13th  Nov.,  1850,  by  the  Rev.  G.  W.  Bridges,  and 
7th  April,  1863,  by  Mr.  R.  D.  Wilson.  Both  were  taken 
from  the  north  end.  The  former,  which  had  been  care 
fully  sealed  up  until  examination,  exhibited  sp.  gr.  1-1812, 


solid  contents,  21-585  per  cent;  the  latter,  sp.  gr.  1-184, 
solid  contents,  22-188;  the  boiling  point  in  both  cases 
226°  4  Fahr. ;— a  singular  agreement,  when  it  is  remem 
bered  that  one  specimen  was  obtained  at  the  end,  the  other 
at  the  beginning,  of  summer.  For  this  Investigation,  and 
much  more  valuable  assistance  in  this  part  of  his  article, 
the  writer  is  indebted  to  his  friend  Dr.  David  Simpson 
Price,  F.C.S. 

The  inferiority  in  the  quantity  of  the  salts  in  Nos.  2, 
6,  and  8  is  very  remarkable,  and  must  be  due  to  the  fact 
(acknowledged  in  the  2  first)  that  the  water  was  obtained 
during  the  rainy  season,  or  from  near  the  entrance  of  the 
Jordan  or  other  fresh  water.  Nos.  7  and  8  were  collected 
within  two  months  of  each  other.  The  preceding  winter, 
1853-4,  was  one  of  the  wettest  and  coldest  remembered 
in  Syria,  and  yet  the  earlier  of  the  two  analyses  shows  a 
largely  preponderating  quantity  of  salts.  There  is  suffi 
cient  discrepancy  in  the  whole  of  the  results  to  render  it 
desirable  that  a  fresh  set  of  analyses  should  be  made,  of 
water  obtained  from  various  defined  spots  and  depths,  at 
different  times  of  the  year,  and  investigated  by  the  same 
analyst.  The  variable  density  of  the  water  was  observed 
as  early  as  by  Galen  (see  quotations  in  Reland,  Pal.  242). 

The  best  papers  on  this  interesting  subject  are  those  of 
Gmelin,  Marchand,  Herapath,  and  Boussingault  (see  the 
references  given  above).  The  second  of  these  contains 
an  excellent  review  of  former  analyses,  and  most  in 
structive  observations  on  matters  more  or  less  connected 
with  the  subject. 

The  absence  of  iodine  is  remarkable.  It  was  particu« 
larly  searched  for  by  both  Herapath  and  Marchand,  but 
without  effect.  In  Sept  1858  the  writer  obtained  a  large 
quantity  of  water  from  the  island  at  the  north  end  of  the 
lake,  which  he  reduced  by  boiling  on  the  spot.  The 
concentrated  salts  were  afterwards  tested  by  Dr.  D.  S. 
Price  by  his  nitrate  of  potash  test  (see  Chem.  Soc.  Jour 
nal  for  1851),  with  the  express  view  of  detecting  iodin^ 
but  not  a  trace  could  be  discovered. 


*  Dr.  Anderson  (Off.  Sep.  205)  states  that  in  water  from  "another  part"  of  the  lake  he  found  as  much  at  4-8  per  cent  of  ;hlog 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

exists  on  the  shores,  nearly  pure,  in  large  quantities ; 
and  from  the  carbonate  of  lime  and  carbonate  of  mag 
nesia  found  on  the  peninsuala  and  elsewhere  (An 
derson,  185).  The  chloride  of  sodium  is  supplied 
from  Khashm  Usdum,  and  the  copious  brine  springs 
on  both  shores.  Balls  of  nearly  pure  sulphur  (pro 
bably  the  deposit  of  some  sulphurous  stream)  are 
found  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  lake,  on  the 
peninsula  (Anderson,  187),  on  the  western  beach 
and  the  north-western  heights  (Ibid.  176,  180, 
160),  and  on  tire  plain  S.  of  Jericho  (Rev.  G.  W. 
Bridges).  Nitre  may  exist,  but  the  specimens 
mentioned  by  Irby  and  others  are  more  probably 
pieces  of  rock  salt,  since  no  trace  of  nitric  acid 
has  been  found  in  the  water  or  soil  (Marchand, 
370).'  Manganese,  iron,  and  alumina  have  been 
found  on  the  peninsula  (Anderson,  185,  7),  and  the 
other  constituents  are  the  product  of  the  numerous 
mineral  springs  which  surround  the  lake,'  and  the 
washings  of  the  aqueous  deposits  on  the  shores 
(see  §17),  which  are  gradually  restoring  to  the 
lake  the  salts  they  received  from  it  ages  back 
when  covered  by  its  waters.  The  strength  of 
these  ingredients  is  heightened  by  the  continual 
evaporation,  which  (as  already  stated)  is  sufficient 
to  carry  off  the  whole  amount  of  the  water 
supplied,  leaving,  of  course,  the  salts  in  the  lake ; 
and  which  in  the  Dead  Sea,  as  in  every  other  lake 
which  has  affluents  but  no  outlets,  is  gradually  con 
centrating  the  mineral  constituents  of  the  water, 
as  in  the  alembic  of  the  chemist.  When  the  water 
becomes  saturated  with  salt,  or  even  before,  deposi 
tion  will  take  place,  and  salt-beds  be  formed  on  the 
bottom  of  the  lake.?  If,  then,  at  a  future  epoch 
a  convulsion  should  take  place  which  should  up 
heave  the  bottom  of  the  lake,  a  salt  mountain 
would  be  formed  similar  to  the  Khashm  Usdum  ; 
and  this  is  not  improbably  the  manner  in  which 
that  singular  mountain  was  formed.  It  appears  to 
have  been  the  bed  of  an  ancient  salt  lake,  which 
during  the  convulsion  which  depressed  the  bed  of  the 
present  lake,  or  some  other  remote  change,  was  forced 
up  to  its  present  position.  Thus  this  spot  may  have 
been  from  the  earliest  ages  the  home  of  Dead  Seas; 
and  the  present  lake  but  one  of  a  numerous  series. 

38.  It  has  been  long  supposed  that  no  life  what 
ever  existed  in  the  lake.  But  recent  facts  show  that 
som«  inferior  organizations  can  and  do  find  a  home 
even  in  these  salt  and  acrid  waters.  The  Cabinet 
d'Hist.  Naturelle  at  Paris  contains  a  fine  specimen  of 
a  coral  railed  Stylopliora  pistillata,  which  is  stated 
to  have  been  brought  from  the  lake  in  1837  by  the 
Marq.  de  1'Escalopier,  and  has  every  appearance  of 


e  On  the  subject  of  the  bitumen  of  the  lake  the  writer 
has  nothing  to  add  to  what  is  said  under  PALESTINE, 
6826,  and  SLIME,  1333,  4. 

'  The  bromine  has  not  yet  been  satisfactorily  traced. 
The  salt  of  KJiashm  Usdum  has  been  analysed  for  its  dis 
covery  (Rob.  ii.  108),  but  in  vain.  Marchand  examined 
a  specimen  of  soil  from  a  "  salt-plain  called  Zeph  "  *  an 
hour  W.  of  the  lake,  and  found  it  to  contain  "  an  appre 
ciable  quantity  of  bromine"  (Journal  fur  prakt.  Chemie, 
xlvii.  369,  70). 

In  addition  to  the  obvious  sources  named  in  the  text, 
there  are  doubtless  others  less  visible.  The  remarkable 
variation  in  the  proportions  of  the  constituents  of  the 
water  in  the  specimens  obtained  by  different  travellers 
(see  the  analyses)  leads  to  the  inference  that  in  the  bed 
of  the  lake  there  are  masses  of  mineral  matter,  or 
mineral  springs,  which  may  modify  the  constitution  of 
the  water  in  their  immediate  neighbourhood. 

J  This  is  already  occurring,  for  Lynch's  sounding-lead 
wveral  times  brought  up  cubical  crystals  of  salt,  some- 


SE A,  THE  SALT        1183d 

having  been  a  resident  there,  and  not  an  ancient  or 
foreign  specimen.11  Ehrenberg  discovered  11  species 
of  Polygaster,  2  of  Polythalamiae,  and  5  of  Phyto- 
lithariae,  in  mud  and  water  brought  home  by  Lepsius 
(Monatsb.  d.  KSn.  Pr.  Akad.  June  1849).  The 
mud  was  taken  from  the  north  end  of  the  lake, 
1  hour  N.W.  of  the  Jordan,  and  far  from  the  shore. 
Some  of  the  specimens  of  Polygaster  exhibited 
ovaries,  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  all  the 
species  were  found  in  the  water  of  the  Jordan  also. 
The  copious  phosphorescence  mentioned  by  Lynch 
(Narr.  280)  is  also  a  token  of  the  existence  of  life 
in  the  waters.  In  a  warm  salt  stream  which  rose 
at  the  foot  of  the  Jebel  Usdum,  at  a  few  yards  only 
from  the  lake,  Mr.  Poole  (Nov.  4)  caught  small  fish 
(Cyprinodon  hammonis)  l£  inch  long.  He  is  of 
opinion,  though  he  did  not  ascertain  the  fact,  that 
they  are  denizens  of  the  lake.  The  melanopsis 
shells  found  by  Poole  (67)  at  the  fresh  springs 
(?  Ain  Terabeh),  and  which  other  travellers  have 
brought  from  the  shore  at  Ain  Jidy,  belong  to  the 
spring  and  not  to  the  lake.  Fucus  and  ulva  are 
spoken  of  by  some  of  the  travellers,  but  nothing 
certain  is  known  of  them.  The  ducks  seen  diving 
by  Pcole  must  surely  have  been  in  search  of  some 
form  of  life,  either  animal  or  vegetable. 

39.  The  statements  of  ancient  travellers  and  geo 
graphers  to  the  effect  that  no  living  creature  could 
exist  on  the  shores  of  the  lake,  or  bird  rly  across 
its  surface,  are  amply  disproved  by  later  travellers. 
It  is  one  of  the  first  things  mentioned  by  Maundrell 
(March  30)  ;  and  in  our  own  days  almost  every  tra 
veller  has  noticed  the  fable  to  contradict  it.     The 
cane  brakes  of  Ain  Feshkhah,  and  the  other  springs 
on  the  margin  of  the  lake,  harbour  snipe,  partridges, 
ducks,  nightingales,  and  other  birds,  as  well  as  frogs ; 
hawks,  doves,  and  hares  are  found  along  the  shore 
(Lynch,  274,  277,  279,  287,  294, 371,  6)  ;  and  the 
thickets  of  Ain  Jidy  contain  "  innumerable  birds," 
among  which  were  the  lark,  quail,  and  partridge, 
as  well  as  birds  of  prey  (B.  R.  i.  524).     Lynch 
mentions  the  curious  fact  that  "  all  the  birds,  and 
most  of  the  insects  and  animals  "  which  he  saw  on 
the  western  side  were  of  a  sjtone  colour  so  as  to  be 
almost  invisible  on  the  rocks  of  the  shore  (Narr. 
279,  291,  294).     Van  de  Velde  (8.  $  P.  ii.  119), 
Lynch  (Near.  279,  287,  308),  and  Poole  (Nov.  2, 
3,  and  7),  even  mention  having  seen  ducks  and  other 
birds,  single  and  in  flocks,  swimming  and  diving  in 
the  water. 

40.  Of  the  temperature  of  the  water  more  ob 
servations  are  necessary  before  any  inferences  can  be 
drawn.  Lynch  (Report,  May  5)  states  that  a  stratum 

times  with  mud,  sometimes  alone  (Narr.  281,  297  ;  comp. 
Molyneux,  127).  The  lake  of  Assal,  on  the  E.  coast  oi 
Africa,  which  has  neither  affluent  nor  outlet.  Is  said  to 
be  concentrated  to  (or  nearly  to)  the  point  of  saturation 
(Edin.  N.  Phil.  Journ.  Apr.  1855,  259). 

h  This  interesting  fact  is  mentioned  by  Humboldt 
(  Views  of  Nat.  270)  ;  but  the  writer  is  indebted  to  the 
kind  courtesy  of  M.  Valenciennes,  keeper  of  the  Cabinet, 
for  confirmation  of  it.  Humboldt  gives  the  coral  the 
name  of  Porites  elongata,  but  the  write!  has  the  authority 
of  Dr.  P.  Martin  Duncan  for  saying  that  its  true  designa 
tion  is  Stylophora pist.  Unfortunately  nothing  whatever 
is  known  of  the  place  or  manner  of  its  discovery  •  and  it 
is  remarkable  that  after  26  years  no  second  specimen 
should  have  been  acquired.  It  is  quite  possible  for  the 
coral  in  question  to  grow  under  the  conditions  presented 
by  the  Dead  Sea,  and  it  is  true  that  it  abounds  also  in  the 
Red  Sea ;  but  it  will  not  be  safe  to  draw  any  deduction 
from  these  facts  till  other  specimens  of  it  have  botvj 
brought  from  the  lake. 


1184 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


at  59°  Fahr.  is  almost  invariably  found  at  10  fathoms  I 
below  the  surface.  Between  Wady  Zurka  and  Ain 
Terabeh  the  temp,  at  surface  was  76°,  gradually  de 
creasing  to  62°  at  1044  ft.  deep,  with  the  exception 
just  named  (Narr.  374).  At  other  times,  and  in 
the  lagoon,  the  temp,  ranged  from  82°  to  90°,  and 
from  5°  to  10°  below  that  of  the  air  (/&.  310-20. 
Comp.  Poole,  Nov.  2).  Dr.  Stewart  (Tent  and 
Khan,  381),  on  llth  March,  1854,  found  the 
Jordan  60°  Fahr.,  and  the  Dead  Sea  (N.  end)  73°  ; 
the  temperature  of  the  air  being  83°  in  the  former 
case,  and  78°  in  the  latter. 

41.  Nor  does  there  appear  to  be  anything  inimical 
to  life  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  lake  or  its  shores, 
except  what  naturally  proceeds  from  the  great  heat 
of  the  climate.     The  Ghawdrineh  and  Rashaideh 
Arabs,  who  inhabit  the  southern  and  western  sides 
and  the  peninsula,  ai-e  described  as  a  poor  stunted 
race ;  but  this  is  easily  accounted  for  by  the  heat 
and  relaxing  nature  of  the  climate,  and  by  their 
meagre  way  of  life,  without  inferring  anything  spe 
cially  unwholesome  in  the  exhalations  of  the  lake. 
They  do  not  appear  to  be  more  stunted  or  meagre 
than  the  natives  of  Jericho,  or,  if  more,  not  more 
than  would  be  due  to  the  fact  that  they  inhabit  a 
spot  500  to  600  feet  further  below  the  surface  of  the 
ocean  and  more  effectually  enclosed.    Considering  the 
hard  work  which  the  American  party  accomplished 
in  the  tremendous  heat  (the  thermometer  on  one 
occasion  106°,  after  sunset,  Narr.  314),  and  that  the 
sounding  and  working  the  boats  necessarily  brought 
them  a  great  deal   into   actual  contact   with  the 
water  of  the  lake,  their  general  good  health  is  a 
proof  that  there  is  nothing  pernicious  in  the  prox 
imity  of  the  lake  itself.     A  strong  smell  of  sulphur 
pervades  some  parts  of  the  western  shore,  proceed 
ing  from  springs  or  streams  impregnated  with  sul 
phuretted  hydrogen  (De  Saulcy,  Narr.  i.  192  ;  Van 
de  Velde,»  ii.  109;  Beaufort,  ii.  113).     It  accom 
panied  the  north  wind  which  blew  in  the  evenings 
(Lynch,  292,  294).     But  this  odour,  though  un 
pleasant,  is  not  noxious,  and  in  fact  M.  de  Saulcy 
compares  it  to  the  baths  of  Bar&ges.     The  Sabkah 
has  in  summer  a  "  Strong  marshy  smell,"  from 
the  partial  desiccation  of  the  ditches  which  con 
vey  the  drainage  of  the  salt  springs  and  salt  rocks 
into   the   lagoon ;   but   this   smell  can   hardly  be 
stronger  or  more  unhealthy  than  it  is  in  the  marshes 
above  the  Lake  el-Huleh,  or  in  many  other  places 
where  marshy  ground  exists  under  a  sun  of  equal 
cower ;  such,  for  example,  as  the  marshes  at  Iskan- 
derun,  quoted  by  Mr.  Porter  (Handbook,  201  a). 

42.  Of  the  Botany  of  the  Dead  Sea  little  or 
uothing  can  be  said.     Dr.  Hooker,  in  his  portion 
of  the  article  PALESTINE,  has  spoken  (pp.  687,  8) 
of  the  vegetation  of  the  Ghor  in  general,  and  of 
that  of  Ain  Jidy  and  the  N.W.  shore  of  the  lake 
in  particular.     Beyond  these,  the  only  parts  of  the 
lake  which  he  explored,  nothing  accurate  is  known. 
A  few  plants  are  named  by  Seetzen  as  inhabit 
ing  the  Ghor  cs-Safieh  and  the  peninsula.     These, 
such   as   they  are,   have  been  already  mentioned. 
In  addition,  the  following  are  enumerated  in  the 
lists k  which  accompany  the  Official  Report  (4to.) 
of  Lynch,   and   the    Voyage  of  De  Saulcy  (Atlas 
des  Planches,  ^c.)      At  Ain  Jidy,  Reseda  lutea, 


*  M.  Van  de  Vekie's  watch  turned  black  with  the  sul 
phur  in  the  air  of  the  hills  and  valleys  south  of  Masada. 
Miss  Beaufort  (at  Birket  el  Klmlil)  says  it  was  "  very 
strong,  immensely  more  nauseous  than  that  of  the  springs 
of  Tadmor." 

k  Lynch'*  lists  were  drawn  up  by  Dr.  R.  Eglesfield 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

Malva  sylvcstris,  Glinus  lotoides,  Sedum  reflexum, 
Sideritis  syriaca,  Eupatorium  syriacum,  and  Wi- 
thania  somnifera.  On  the  south-eastern  and  eastern 
shore  of  the  lake,  at  the  Ghor  es-Safieh,  and  on  the 
peninsula,  they  name  Zilla  myagroides,  Zygophylla 
coccinea,  Ruta  bracteosa,  Zizyphus  spina  christi 
Tndigofera,  Tamarix,  Aizoon  canariense,  Salva 
dor  a  persica,  I  flog  a  fontanesii,  Picridium  tingi- 
tanum,  Solanum  villosum,  Euphorbia  peplus,  Ery- 
throstictus  punctatus,  Carex  stenophylla,  and  Helio- 
tropum  albidum.  At  Ain  Feshkhah,  Ain  Ghuweir, 
Ain  Terabeh,  and  other  spots  on  the  western  shore, 
they  name,  in  addition  to  those  given  by  Dr.  Hooker, 
Sida  asiatica,  Knautia  arvensis,  Scabiosa  papposa, 
Echium  italicum  and  creticum,  Stratice  sinuata, 
Anastatica  hierochuntina,  Heliotropum  rotundi- 
folium,  and  Phrag mites  communis.  At  other  places 
not  specified  along  the  shores,  Kakile  and  Crambd 
maritima,  Arenaria  maritima,  Chenopodium  mari- 
timum,  Anabasis  aphylla,  Anemone  coronaria, 
Ranunculus  asiaticus,  Fumaria  micrantha,  Sisym~ 
brium  irio,  Cleone  trineroia,  Anagyris  foetida, 
Chrysanthemum  coronaria,  Rhagadiolus  stcllatus, 
Anagallis  arvensis,  Convolvulus  siculus,  Onosma 
syriaca,  Lithospermum  tenuiflorum,  Hyoscyamus 
aureus,  Euphorbia  helioscopa,  Iris  caucasica, 
Morea  sisyrinchium,  Romulea  bulbocodium  and 
grandiflora.  The  mouth  of  the  Wady  Zuweirah 
contains  large  quantities  of  oleanders. 

43.  Of  the  Zoology  of  the  shores,  it  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say  that  nothing  is  known.    The  birds  and 
animals  mentioned  by  Lynch  and  Robinson  have 
been  already  named,  but  their  accurate  identification 
must  await  the  visit  of  a  traveller  versed  in  natural 
history.     On  the  question  of  the  existence  of  life  in 
the  lake  itself,  the  writer  has  already  said  all  that 
occurs  to  him. 

44.  The  appearance  of  the  lake  does  not  fulfil  the 
idea  conveyed  by  its  popular  name.     "  The  Dead 
Sea,"  says  a  recent  traveller,1  "  did  not  strike  me 
with  that  sense  of  desolation  and- dreariness  which 
I  suppose  it  ought.     I  thought  it  a  pretty,  smiling 
lake — a  nice  rippie  on  its  surface."     Lord  Nugent 
(Lands  fyc.,  ii.  ch.  5)    expresses  himself  in  similar 
terms.     Schubert   came  to  it   from   the  Gulf  of 
Akabeh,  and  he  contrasts  the  "  desert  look"  of  that 
with  the  remarkable  beauties  of  this,  "  the  most 
glorious  spot  he  had  ever  seen"  (Ritter,  557).   This 
was  the  view  from  its  northern  end.     The  same  of 
the  southern  portion.      "  I  expected  a  scene  of  un 
equalled  horror,"  says  Mr.  Van  de  Velde  (ii.  117), 
"  instead  of  which  I  found  a  lake  calm  and  glassy, 
blue  and  transparent,  with  an  unclouded  heaven,  a 
smooth  beach,  and  surrounded  by  mountains  whose 
blue  tints  were  of  rare  beauty.  ...  It  bears  a  re 
markable  resemblance  to  Loch  Awe." — "It  reminded 
me  of  the  beautiful  lake  of  Nice  "  (Paxton,  in  Kitto, 
Phys.  Geogr.  383).    "  Nothing  of  gloom  and  deso 
lation,"  says  another  traveller,  "...  even  the  shore 
was  richly  studded  with  bright"1  yellow  flowers 
growing  to  the  edge  of  the  rippling  waters.''    Of  the 
view  from  Masada,  Miss  Beaufort   (ii.   110)  thus 
speaks — "  Some   one  says   there   is  no  beauty  in 
it  ...  but  this  view  is  beyond  all  others  for  the 
splendour  of  its  savage  and  yet  beautiful  wildness." 
Seetzen,  in  a  lengthened  and  unusually  enthusiastic 


Griffith ;  and  De  Saulcy's  by  the  Abbe  Michou,  who  aiso 
himself  collected  the  bulk  of  the  specimens. 

*  Kev.  W.  Lea  (ia47),  who  has  kindly  allowed  the  writei 
the  use  of  his  MS.  journal.  See  very  nearly  the  sain? 
remarks  by  Dr.  Stewart  (Tent  and  Khan). 

m  Probably  Jnula  crithmoides. 


REA,  THE  SALT 

(L,  364,  5)  extols  the  beauties  of  the  view 
from  the  delta  at  the  mouth  of  the  Wady  Mojib, 
and  the  advantages  of  that  situation  for  a  per 
manent  residence.  These  testimonies  might  be 
multiplied  at  pleasure,  and  they  contrast  strangely 
with  the  statements  of  some  of  the  mediaeval  pil 
grims  (on  whose  accounts  the  ordinary  conceptions 
of  the  lake  are  based),  and  even  those  of  some  modern 
travellers,11  of  the  perpetual  gloom  which  broods 
over  the  lake,  and  the  thick  vapours  which  roll  from 
its  wate.s  like  the  smoke  of  some  infernal  furnace, 
tilling  the  whole  neighbourhood  with  a  miasma 
which  has  destroyed  all  life  within  its  reach. 

45.  The  truth  lies,  as  usual,  somewhere  between 
these  two  extremes.  On  the  one  hand  the  lake 
certainly  is  not  a  gloomy,  deadly,  smoking,  gulf. 
In  this  respect  it  does  not  at  all  fulfil  the  promise 
of  its0  name.  The  name  is  more  suggestive  of  the 
dead  solitude  of  the  mountain  tarns  of  Wales  or 
Scotland,  the  perpetual  twilight  and  undisturbed 
lingering  decay  of  the  Great  Dismal  Swamp,  or  the 
reeking  miasma  oi'  the  Putrid  Sea  of  the  Crimea. 
Death  can  never  be  xssociated  with  the  wonderful 
brightness  of  the  sun  of  Syria,  with  the  cheerful  re 
flexion  of  the  calm  bosom  of  the  lake  at  some  periods 
of  the  day,  or  with  the  regular  alternation  of  the 
breezes  which  ruffle  its  surface  at  others.  At  sunrise 
and  sunset  the  scene  must  be  astonishingly  beau 
tiful.  Every  one  who  has  been  in  the  West  of 
Scotland  knows  what  extraordinary  pictures  are 
sometimes  seen  mirrored  in  the  sea-water  lochs 
when  they  lie  unruffled  in  the  calm  of  early  morn 
ing  or  of  sunset.  The  reflexions  from  the  bosom 
of  the  Dead  Sea  are  said  to  surpass  those,  as  far  as 
the  hues  of  the  mountains  which  encircle  it,  when 
lit  up  by  the  gorgeous  rising  and  setting  suns 
of  Syria,  surpass  in  brilliancy  and  richness  those 
of  the  hills  around  Loch  Fyne  and  Loch  Goyle. 
One  such  aspect  may  be  seen — and  it  is  said  by 
competent  judges  to  be  no  exaggerated  representation 
"—in  "The  Scapegoat"  of  Mr.  Holman  Hunt,  which 
is  a  view  of  the  Moab  mountains  at  sunset,  painted 
from  the  foot  of  Jebel  Usdum,  looking  across  the 
lower  part  of  the  Lagoon.*  But  on  the  other  hand, 
with  all  the  brilliancy  of  its  illumination,  its  fre 
quent  beauty  of  colouring,  the  fantastic  grandeur  of 
its  enclosing  mountains,  and  the  tranquil  charm 
afforded  by  the  reflexion  of  that  unequalled  sky  on 
the  no  less  unequalled  mirror  of  the  surface — with 
all  these  there  is  something  in  the  prevalent  sterility 
and  the  dry,  burnt,  look  of  the  shores,  the  over 
powering  heat,  the  occasional  smell  of  sulphur,  the 
dreary  salt  marsh  at  the  southern  end,  and  the 
fringe  of  dead  driftwood  round  the  margin,  which 
must  go  far  to  excuse  the  title  which  so  many  ages 
have  attached  to  the  lake,  and  which  we  may  be 
sure  it  will  never  lose. 

"  As,  for  instance,  the  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  quoted  by 
Brocardus  (A.D.  1290),  and  the  terrific  description  given  by 
Quaresmius  (H.  759,  &c.),  as  if  from  Brocardus,  though  It  Is 
not  in  the  Received  Text  of  his  works  (Amst.  1711) :  Sir  R. 
fiuylforde  (A.D.  1506) :  Schwarz  (A.D.  1845).  It  is,  however, 
surprising  how  free  the  best  of  the  old  travellers  are  from 
euch  fables.  The  descriptions  of  the  Bourdeaux  Pilgrim,  of 
Arculfus,  •Maundeville,  Thietmar,  Doubdan,  Maundrell, 
barring  a  little  exaggeration  of  the  buoyancy  of  the  water 
and  of  its  repulsion  to  life,  are  sober,  and,  as  far  as  they  go, 
tco.Tate.  It  Is  to  be  lamented  that  the  popular  conception 
if  the  lake  was  not  founded  oil  these  accounts,  instead  of 
the  sensation-descriptions  of  others  at  secondhand. 

'  "  It  is  not  gloom  but  desolation  that  is  *ts  prevail 
ing  characteristic,"  is  the  remark  of  Prof.  Stanley,  in  his 
excellent  chapter  on  the  lake  in  Sinai  and  Palestine 
VOL.  III. 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


1186 


46.  It  does  not  appear  probable  that  the  condition 
or  aspect  of  the  lake  in  biblical  times  was  mate 
rially  different  from  what  it  is  at  present.  Other 
parts  of  Syria  may  have  deteriorated  in  climate  K>£ 
appearance  owing  to  the  destruction  of  the  wood 
which  once  covered  them,  but  there  are  no  traces 
either  of  the  ancient  existence  of  wood  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  the  lake,  or  of  anything  which  wcukl 
account  for  its  destruction  supposing  it  to  have 
existed.  A  few  spots,  such  as  Ain  Jidy,  the  mouth 
of  the  Wady  Zuu-eirah,  and  that  of  the  Wady  ed 
Dra'a,  were  more  cultivated,  and  consequently  more 
populous,  than  they  are  under  the  discouraging  in- 
flaences  of  Mohammedanism.  But  such  attempts 
must  always  have  been  partial,  confined  to  the  imme 
diate  neighbourhood  of  the  fresh  springs  and  to  a 
certain  degree  of  elevation,  and  ceasing  directly  irri 
gation  was  neglected.  In  fact  the  climate  of  the 
shores  of  the  lake  is  too  sultry  and  trying  to  allow 
of  any  considerable  amount  of  civilized  occupation 
being  conducted  there.  Nothing  will  grow  without 
irrigation,  and  artificial  irrigation  is  too  laborious 
for  such  a  situation.  The  plain  of  Jericho  we  know 
was  cultivated  like  a  garden,  but  the  plain  of  Jeri 
cho  is  very  nearly  on  a  level  with  the  spring  of 
Ain  Jidy,  some  600  feet  above  the  Ghor  el-Lisdn, 
the  Ghor  es  Safieh,  or  other  cultivable  portions  ot 
the  beach  of  the  Dead  Sea.  Of  course,  as  far  as 
the  capabilities  of  the  ground  are  concerned,  pro 
vided  there  is  plenty  of  water,  the  hotter  the 
climate  the  better,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that,  if  some  system  of  irrigation  could  be  carried  out 
and  maintained,  the  plain  of  Jericho,  and  still  more 
the  shores  of  the  lake  (such  as  the  peninsula  and 
the  southern  plain),  might  be  the  most  productive 
spots  in  the  world.  But  this  is  not  possible,  and  the 
difficulty  of  communication  with  the  external  world 
would  alone  be  (as  it  must  always  have  been)  a 
serious  bar  to  any  great  agricultural  efforts  in  thin 
district. 

When  Machaerus  and  Callirrhoe  were  inhabited 
(if  indeed  the  former  was  ever  more  than  a  fortress, 
and  the  latter  a  bathing  establishment  occasionally 
resorted  to),  and  when  the  .plain  of  Jericho  was 
occupied  with  the  crowded  population  necessary 
for  the  cultivation  of  its  balsam-gardens,  vineyards, 
sugar-plantations,  and  palm-groves,  there  may  have 
been  a  little  more  life  on  the  shores.  But  this  can 
never  have  materially  affected  the  lake.  The  track 
along  the  western  shore  and  over  Ain  Jidy  was  then, 
as  now,  used  for  secret  marauding  expeditions,  net  for 
peaceable  or  commercial  traffic.  What  transport 
there  may  have  been  between  Idumaea  and  Jericho 
came  by  some  other  channel.  A  doubtful  passage 
in  iJosephus,  and  a  reference  by  Edrisi  (Ed.  Jau- 
bert,  in  Ritter,  Jordan,  700)  to  an  occasional  ven 
ture  by  the  people  of ««  Zara  and  Dara  "  in  the  12th 


(chap.  vii.).  "  So  mournful  a  landscape,  for  one  having 
real  beauty,  I  had  never  seen  "  (Miss  Martineau,  Eastern 
Life,  Pt.  III.  ch.  4). 

P  The  remarks  in  the  text  refer  to  the  mountains  which 
form  the  background  to  this  remarkable  painting.  The 
title  of  the  picture  and  the  accidents  of  the  foreground 
give  the  key  to  the  sentiment  which  it  conveys,  which  is 
certainly  that  of  loneliness  and  death.  But  the  .mountains 
would  form  an  appropriate  background  to  a  scene  of  a 
very  different  description. 

q  Quoted  by  Reland  (Pal.  252)  as  "  liber  v.  de  bell 
cap.  3."  But  this— if  it  can  be  verified,  which  the  writer 
has  not  yet  succeeded  in  doing— only  shows  that  the 
Rooiaus  on  one  occasion,  sooner  than  let  their  fugitives 
escape  them,  got  some  boats  over  and  put  them  on  tbs 
lake.  It  does  not  indicate  any  coi.linued  navigation 

4  G 


1186 


SEA,  THE  SALT 


century,  are  \1  the  allusions  known  to  exist  to 
1he  navigation  of  the  lake,  until  Englishmen  and 
Americans  *  launched  their  boats  on  it  within  the 
last  twenty  years  for  purposes  of  scientific  inves 
tigation.  The  temptation  to  the  dwellers  in  the 
environs  must  always  have  been  to  ascend  to  the 
fresher  air  of  the  heights,  rather  than  descend  to 
the  sultry  climate  of  the  shores. 

47.  The  connexion  between  this  singular  lake  and 
the  Biblical  history  is  very  slight.     In  the  topogra 
phical  records  of  the  Pentateuch  and  §the  Book  of 
Joshua,  it  forms  one  among  the  landmarks  of  the 
boundaries  of  the  whole  country,  as  well  as  of  the 
interior  divisions  of  Judah  and  Benjamin ;  and  atten 
tion  has  been  already  drawn  to  the  minute  accuracy 
with  which,  according  to  the  frequent  custom  cf 
these  remarkable  records,  one  of  the  salient  features 
of  the  lake  is  singled  out  for  mention.     As  a  land 
mark  it  is  once  named  in  what  appears  to  be  a 
quotation  from  a  lost  work  of  the  prophet  Jonah 
(2  K.  xiv.  25),  itself  apparently  a  remniscence  of 
the  old  Mosaic   statement   (Num.  xxxiv.  8,  12). 
Besides  this  the  name  occurs  once  or  twice  in  the 
Imagery  of  the  Prophets.*     In  the  New  Testament 
there  is  not  even  an  allusion  to  it.     There  is,  how 
ever,  one  passage  in  which  the  "  Salt  Sea"  is  men 
tioned  in  a  different  manner  to  any  of  those  already 
quoted,  viz.,  as  having  been  in  the  time  of  Abraham 
the  Vale  of  Siddim  (Gen.  xiv.  3).     The  narrative  in 
which  this  occurs  is  now  generally  acknowledged  to 
be  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  those  venerable  docu 
ments,  from  which  the  early  part  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis  was  compiled.     But  a  careful  examination 
shows  that  it  contains  a  number  of  explanatory 
statements  which  cannot,  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  have  come  from  the  pen  of  its  original 
author.     The  sentences,  "  Bela  which"  is  Zoar" 
(2  and  8)  ;  "  En-Mishpat  which  is  Kadesh"  (7)  ; 
"  the  Valley  of  Shaveh  which  is  the  King's  Valley  " 
(17)  ;  and  the  one  in  question,  "  the  Vale  of  Siddim 
which  is  the  Salt  Sea  "  (3),  are  evidently  explana 
tions  added  by  a  later  hand  at  a  time  when  the 
ancient  names  had  become  obsolete.    These  remarks 
(or,  as  they  may  be  termed,  "  annotations")  stand 
on  a  perfectly  different  footing  to  the  words  of  the 
original  record  which  they  are  intended  to  elucidate, 
and  whose  antiquity  they  enhance.     It  bears  every 
mark  of  being  contemporary  with  the  events  it  nar 
rates.     They  merely  embody  the  opinion  of  a  later 
person,  and  must  stand  or  fall  by  their  own  merits. 

48.  Now  the  evidence  of  the  spot  is  sufficient  to 
show  that  no  material  change  has  taken  place  in  the 
upper  and  deeper  portion  of  the  lake  for  a  period 
very  long  anterior  to  the  time  of  Abraham.    In  the 
lower  portion — the  lagoon  and  the  plain  below  it — 
if  any  change  has  occurred,  it  appeal's  to  have  been 
rather  one  of  reclamation  than  of  submersion — the 
giadual  silting  up  of  the  district  by  the  torrents 
which  discharge  their  contents  into  it  (see  §23). 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

We  hare  seen  that,  owing  to  the  gentle  slope  of  ihe 
plain,  temporary  fluctuations  in  the  level  of  the  lak« 
would  affect  this  portion  very  materially  ;  and  it  is 
quite  allowable  to  believe  that  a  few  wet  winters  fol 
lowed  by  cold  summers,  would  raise  the  level  of  the 
lake  sufficiently  to  lay  the  whole  of  the  district  south 
of  the  lagoon  tinder  water,  and  convert  it  for  the  time 
into  a  part  of  the  "  Salt  Sea."  A  rise  of  20  feet  be 
yond  the  ordinaiy  high-water  point  would  probably 
do  this,  and  it  would  take  some  years  to  bring  things 
back  to  their  former  condition.  Such  an  exceptional 
state  of  things  the  writer  of  the  words  in  Gen.  xiv.  3 
may  have  witnessed  and  placed  on  record. 

49.  This  is  merely  stated  as  a  possible  explanation ; 
and  it  assumes  the  Vale  of  Siddim  to  have  been  the 
plain  at  the  south  end  of  the  lake,  for  which  there 
is  no  evidence.  But  it  seems  to  the  writer  more 
natural  to  believe  that  the  author  of  this  note  on 
a  document  which  even  in  his  time  was  probably 
of  great  antiquity,  believed  that  the  present  lake 
covered  a  district  which  in  historic  times  had  been 
permanently  habitable  dry  land.  Such  was  the  im 
plicit  belief  of  the  whole  modern  world — with  the 
exception  perhaps  of  T  Reland — till  within  less  than 
half  a  century.  Even  so  lately  as  1830  the  for 
mation  of  the  Dead  Sea  was  described  by  a  divine 
of  our  Church,  remarkable  alike  for  learning  and 
discernment,  in  the  following  terms  : — 

"  The  Valley  of  the  Jordan,  in  which  the  cities 
of  Sodom,  Gomorrah,  Adma,  and  Tseboim,  were 
situated,  was  rich  arid  highly  cultivated.  It  is 
most  probable  that  the  river  then  flowed  in  a  deep 
and  uninterrupted  channel  down  a  regular  descent, 
and  discharged  itself  into  the  eastern  gulf  of  the 
Red  Sea.  The  cities  stood  on  a  soil  broken  and 
undermined  with  veins  of  bitumen  and  sulphur. 
These  inflammable  substances  set  on  fire  by  light 
ning  caused  a  terrible  convulsion  ;  the  water 
courses — both  the  river  and  the  canals  by  which  the 
land  was  extensively  irrigated — burst  their  banks ; 
the  cities,  the  walls  of  which  were  perhaps  built 
from  the  combustible  materials  of  the  soil,  were 
entirely  swallowed  up  by  the  fiery  inundation,  and 
the  whole  valley,  which  had  been  compared  to  Pa 
radise  and  the  well-watered  cornfields  of  the  Nile, 
became  a  dead  and  fetid  lake"  (Milman,  Hist,  of 
the  Jews,  2nd  ed.  i.  15). 

In  similar  language  does  the  usually  cautious  Dr. 
Robinson  express  himself,  writing  on  the  spot,  before 
the  researches  of  his  countrymen  had  revealed  the 
depth  and  nature  of  the  chasm,  and  the  consequent 
remote  date  of  the  formation  of  the  lake : — "  Shat 
tered  mountains  and  the  deep  chasms  of  the  rent 
earth  are  here  tokens  of  the  wrath  of  God,  and  of 
his'  vengeance  upon  the  guilty  inhabitants  of  the 
plain  "  (Bib.  Res.  i.  525).w 

Now  if  these  explanations — so  entirely  ground 
less,  when  it  is  recollected  that,  the  identity  of  the 
Vale  of  Siddim  with  the  Plain  of  Jordan,  and  the 


r  Costigan  in  1835,  Moore  and  Beek  in  1837,  Symonds 
in  1841,  Molyneux  in  1847,  Lynch  in  1848. 

s  See  the  quotations  at  the  head  of  the  article. 

*  One  of  these  (Ez.  xlvii.)  is  remarkable  for  the  manner 
in  which  the  characteristics  of  the  lake  and  its  environs — 
the  dry  ravines  of  the  western  mountains ;  the  noxious 
waters ;  the  want  of  fish  ;  the  southern  lagoon  —  are 
brought  out  See  Prof.  Stanley's  notice  (S.  tfc  P.  294). . 

u  lyTTK'n  J??2  :  such  is  the  formula  adopted  in  each 
of  the  instances  quoted.  I  is  the  same  which  is  used  in  the 
precisely  parallel  case,  "Hazazon-Tamar,  which  is  Engedi " 
2  Chr.  xx.  2).  In  other  :ases,  where  the  remark  seems 
to  ha\e  proceeded  from  tk»;  original  writer,  another  form 


is  used— "Ifc^N— as  in  "  el  Paran,  which  is  by  the  Wilder 
ness"  (6),  "  Hobah,  which  is  on  the  left  hand  of  Da 
mascus"  (lo). 

»  See  his  chapter  De  lacu  Asphaltite  in  Palaestina,  lib. 
i.  cap.  xxxviii.— truly  admirable,  considering  the  scanty 
materials  at  his  disposal.  He  seems  to  have  been  the 
first  to  disprove  the  idea  that  the  cities  of  the  plaiu  were 
submerged. 

"  Even  Lieut.  Lynch  can  pause  between  the  casts  of 
the  lead  to  apostrophise  the  "unhallowed  sea  ...  the 
record  of  God's  wrath,"  or  to  notice  the  "sepulchral 
light "  cast  around  by  the  phosphoreuce,  &c.,  &c. 
284,  288,  280). 


SEA,  THE  SALT 

of  the  cities,  find  no  wan-ant  whatever 
in  Scripture — are  promulgated  by  persons  of  learn 
ing  and  experience  in  the  19th  centuiy  after  Christ, 
surely  it  need  occasion  no  surprise  to  find  a  similar 
view  put  forward  at  a  time  when  the  contradic 
tions  involved  in  the  statement  that  the  Salt  Sea 
had  once  been  the  Vale  of  Siddim  could  not  have 
presented  themselves  to  the  ancient  commentator 
who  added  that  explanatory  note  to  the  original  re 
cord  of  Gen.  xiv.  At  the  same  time  it  must  not  be 
overlooked  that  1  'ie  passage  in  question  is  the  only 
one  in  the  whole  Bible — Old  Testament,  Apocrypha, 
or  New  Testament — to  countenance  the  notion  that 
the  cities  of  the  plain  were  submerged;  a  notion  which 
the  present  writer  has  endeavoured  elsewhere*  to 
shew  does  not  daie  earlier  than  the  Christian  era. 

50.  The  writer  has  (.here  also  attempted  to 
prove  that  the  belief  which  prompted  the  state 
ments  just  quoted  from  modern  writers,  viz.  that 
the  Dead  Sea  was  formed  by  the  catastrophe  which 
overthrew  the  "Cities  of  the  Plain" — is  a  mers 
assumption.  It,  is  not  only  unsupported  by  Scripture, 
but  is  directly  in  the  teeth  of  the  evidence  of  the 
ground  itself.  Of  the  situation  of  those  cities  we  only 
know  that,  being  in  the  "  Plain  of  the  Jordan,"  they 
must  have  been  to  the  north  of  the  lake.  Of  the  cata 
strophe  which  destroyed  them,  we  only  know  that  it 
is  described  as  a  shower  of  ignited  sulphur  descending 
from  the  skies.  Its  date  is  uncertain,  but  we  shall 
be  safe  in  placing  it  within  the  limit  of  2000  years 
before  Christ.  Now,  how  the  chasm  in  which  the 
Jordan  and  its  lakes  were  contained  was  produced 
out  of  the  limestone  block  which  forms  the  main 
body  of  Syria,  we  are  not  at  present  sufficiently  in 
formed  to  know.  It  may  have  been  the  effect  of  a 
sudden  fissure*  of  dislocation,  or  of  gradual  f  erosion, 
or  of  a  combination  of  both.  But  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that,  however  the  operation  was  performed, 
it  was  of  far  older  date  than  the  time  of  Abraham, 
or  any  other  historic*  event.  And  not  only  this,  but 
the  details  of  the  geology,  so  far  as  we  can  at  present 
discern  them,  all  point  in  a  direction  opposite  to 
the  popular  hypothesis.  That  hypothesises  to  the 
effect  that  the  valley  was  once  dry,  and  at  a  certain 
historic  period  was  covered  with  water  and  con- 


SEA,  THE  SALT  118? 

verted  into  a  lake.  The  evidence  of  the  spct  goee 
to  show  that  the  very  reverse  wns  the  case ;  the 
plateaus  and  terraces  traceable  round  its  sidesv,  the 
aqueous  deposits  of  the  peninsula  and  the  western 
and  southern  shores,  saturated  with  the  salts  of  the«r 
ancient  immersion,  speak  of  a  depth  at  one  time 
far  greater  than  it  is  at  present,  and  of  a  gradual 
subsidence,  until  the  present  level  (the  balance,  as 
already  explained,  betw-.«n  supply  and  evaporati*  n) 
was  reached. 

Beyond  these  and  similar  tokens  of  the  action  of 
water,  there  are  no  marks  of  any  geological  action 
nearly  so  recent  as  the  date  of  Abraham.  Inexpe 
rienced  and  enthusiastic  travellers  have  reported 
craters,  lava,  pumice,  scoriae,  as  marks  of  modern 
volcanic  action,  at  every  step.  Bu*  lhese  things  are 
riot  so  easily  recognized  by  inexpe."  -,aced  observers, 
nor,  if  seen,  is  the  deduction  from  them  so  obvious. 
The  very  few  competent  geologists  who  have 
visited  the  spot — both  those  who  have  published 
their  observations  (as  Dr.  Anderson,  geologist  to 
the  American  b  expedition),  and  those  who  have 
not,  concur  in  stating  that  no  certain  indications 
exist  in  or  about  the  lake,  of  volcanic  action 
within  the  historical  or  human  period,  no  volcanic 
craters,  and  no  coulees  of  lava  traceable  to  any 
vent.  The  igneous  rocks  described  as  lava  are  more 
probably  basalt  of  great  antiquity  ;  the  bitumen  of 
the  lake  has  nothing  necessarily  to  do  with  volcanic 
action.  The  scorched,  calcined  look  of  the  rocks 
in  the  immediate  neighbourhood,  of  which  so  many 
travellers  have  'spoken  as  an  evident  tokon  of 
the  conflagration  of  the  cities,  is  due  to  natural 
causes— to  the  gradual  action  of  the  atmosphere  on 
the  constituents  of  the  stone. 

The  destruction  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  may 
have  been  by  volcanic  action,  but  it  may  be  safely 
asserted  that  no  traces  of  it  have  yet  been  disco 
vered,  and  that,  whatever  it  was,  it  can  have  had 
no  connexion  with  that  far  vaster  and  far  more 
ancient  event  which  opened  the  great  valley  of  the 
Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea,  and  at  some  subsequent 
time  cut  it  off  from  communication  with  the  Red 
Sea  by  forcing  up  between  -them  the  tract  of  the 
Wadg  ArabahA  [G.] 


*  Under  the  heads  of  SODOM,  SIDDIM,  ZOAR. 

y  See  the  remarks  of  Sir  R.  Murchison  before  the  B. 
Association  (in  Athenaeum,  29  Sept.  1849). 

*  This  is  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Anderson. 

a  Dr.  Anderson  is  compelled  to  infer  from  the  features  of 
the  eastern  shore  that  the  Ghor  existed  "before  the  tertiary 
age  "  (189  ;  and  see  his  interesting  remarks  on  190,  2). 

b  This  Report  is  the  only  document  which  purports  to 
give  a  scientific  account  of  the  geology  of  the  Dead  Sea. 
The  author  was  formerly  Professor  at  Columbia  College, 
U.  S.  ]t  forms  a  part  of  his  Geological  Reconnaissance  of 
those  portions  of  the  Holy  Land  which  were  visited  by 
the  American  Expedition.  The  writer  is  not  qualified  to 
pass  judgment  01:  its  scientific  merits,  but  he  can  speak 
to  its  fulness  and  clearness,  and  to  the  modesty  with 
which  the  author  submits  his  conclusions,  and  which 
contrasts  very  favourably  with  the  loose  bombast  in  which 
the  chief  of  the  Expedition  is  too  prone  to  indulge.  Its 
usefulness  would  be  greatly  increased  by  the  addition  of 
sections,  showing  the  order  of  succession  of  the  strata,  and 
diagrams  of  some  of  the  more  remarkable  phenomena. 

'  An  instance  of  the  loose  manner  in  which  these  ex 
pressions  are  used  is  found  in  Lynch's  Narrative  (283), 
where  he  characterises  as  '•  scathed  by  fire  "  a  rock  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Kidron,  which  in  the  same  sentence  he 
k.ates  was  in  rapid  progress  of  disintegration,  with  a 
"sloping  hill  of  half  its  own  height  "  at  its  base  formed 
ty  the  dust  of  its  daily  decay. 

1  There  is  a  slight  <  orrespondence,  though  probably  but 


a  superficial  one,  between  the  Dead  Sea  at  the  apex  of  the 
Gulf  of  Akabeh  and  the  Bitter  Lakes  at  the  apex  of  the 
Gulf  of  Suez.  Each  was  probably  at  one  time  a  portion  of 
the  sea,  and  each  has  been  cut  off  by  some  change  in  the 
elevation  of  the  land,  and  left  to  concentrate  its  waters  at  a 
distance  from  the  parent  branch  of  the  ocean.  The  change 
in  the  latter  case  was  probably  far  more  recent  than  in  the 
former,  and  may  even  have  occurred  since  the  Exodus. 

The  parallel  between  the  Euxine  and  the  Dead  Se.a  has 
been  already  spoken  of.  If  by  some  geological  caanpn 
the  strait  of  the  Bosphorus  should  ever  be  closed,  and  'br 
outlet  thus  stopped,  the  parallel  would  in  some  respec'S 
be  very  close — the  Danube  and  the  Dnieper  would  cor 
respond  to  the  Jordan  and  the  Zurka :  the  Sea  of  Azov 
with  the  Sivash  would  answer  to  the  Lagoon  and  the 
Sabkali— the  river  Don  to  the  Wady  el  Jeib.  The  process 
of  adjustment  between  supply  and  evaporation  would  at 
once  commence,  and  from  the  day  the  straits  were  closed 
the  saltness  of  the  water  would  begin  to  concentrate.  If 
further,  the  evaporation  should  be  greater  than  the  present 
supply,  the  water  would  sink  and  sink  until  the  great 
Euxine  became  a  little  lake  fn  a  deep  hollow  far  below 
the  level  of  the  Mediterranean ;  and  the  parallel  would 
then  be  complete. 

The  likeacss  between  the  Jordan  with  its  lakes  and  the 
river  of  Utah  has  been  so  often  alluded  to.  that  it  need 
not  be  more  than  mentioned  here.  See  Dr.  Buist  In 
Kdin.  N.  Phil.  Journal,  April  1856  ;  Burton's  City  of  tht 
Saints,  304. 

4   (5   2 


1188 


SEAL 


SEAL  *  The  importance  attached  to  seals  in 
the  East  is  so  great  that  without  one  no  document 
is  regarded  as  authentic  (Layard,  Nin.  $•  Bab.  p. 
608  ;  Chardin,  Voy.  v.  454).  The  use  of  some 
method  of  sealing  is  obviously,  therefore,  of  remote 
antiquity.  Among  such  methods  used  in  Egypt 
at  a  very  rarly  period  were  engraved  stones,  pierced 
through  their  Isngth  and  hung  by  a  string  or 
chain  from  the  arm  or  neck,  or  set  in  rings  for 
the  finger.  The  most  ancient  form  used  for  this 
purpose  was  the  scarabaeus,  formed  of  precious 
or  common  stone,  or  even  of  blue  pottery  or 
porcelain,  on 'the  flat  side  of  which  the  inscription 
or  device  was  engraved.  Cylinders  of  stone  or 
pottery  bearing  devices  were  also  used  as  signets. 
One  in  the  Alnwick  Museum  bears  the  date  of 
Osirtasen  I.,  or  between  2000  and  3000  B  c. 
Besides  finger-rings,  the  Egyptians,  and  also  the 
Assyrians  and  Babylonians,  made  use  of  cylinders 
of  precious  stone  or  terra-cotta,  which  were  pro 
bably  set  in  a  frame  and  rolled  over  the  document 
which  was  to  be  sealed.  The  document,  especially 
among  the  two  latter  nations,  was  itself  often  made 
of  baked  clay,  sealed  while  it  was  wet  and  burnt 
afterwards.  But  in  many  cases  the  seal  consisted 
of  a  lump  of  clay,  impressed  with  the  seal  and 
attached  to  the  document,  whether  of  papyrus  or 
other  material,  by  strings.  These  clay  lumps  often 
bear  the  impress  of  the  finger,  and  also  the  remains 
of  the  strings  by  which  they  had  been  fastened. 
One  such  found  at  Nimroud  was  the  seal  of  Sabaco 
king  of  Egypt,  'B.C.  711,  and  another  is  believed 
by  Mr.  Layard  to  have  been  the  seal  of  Sennacherib, 
of  nearly  the  same  date  (Birch,  Hist,  of  Pottery, 

1.  101,  118;  Wilkinson,  Anc.  Eg.  ii.  341,  364; 
Layard,  Nin.  $  Bab.  154-160).     In  a  somewhat 
similar   manner  doors   of  tombs   or   other   places 
intended  to  be  closed  were  sealed  with  lumps  of 
clay.      The    custom    prevalent    among    the    Ba 
bylonians    of    carrying    seals    is    mentioned    by 
Herodotus  i.  195,   who  also   notices  the  seals  on 
tombs,  ii.   121;  Wilkinson,  i.  15,  ii.  364;  Matt. 
xxvii.  66  ;  Dan.  vi.  17.     The  use  of  clay  in  sealing 
is  noticed  in  the  Book  of  Job  xxxviii.  14,  and  the 
signet-ring  as  an  ordinary  part  of  a  man's  equip 
ment  in  the  case  of  Judah  (Gen.  xxxviii.  18),  who 
probably,  like  many  modern  Arabs,  wore  it  sus 
pended  by  a  string  b  from  his  neck  or  arm.     (See 
Cant.  viii.   6;  Ges.  pp.   538,  1140;  Robinson,  i. 
36 ;  Niebuhr,  Descr.  de  VAr.  p.  90  ;  Chardin,  /.  c. 
Olearius,  Trav.  p.  317  ;  Knobel  on  Gen.  xxxviii.  in 
Exeg.  ffdb.}     The  ring  or  the  seal  as  an  emblem 
of  authority  both  in  Egypt,  in  Persia,  and   else 
where,  is  mentioned  in  the  cases  of  Pharaoh  with 
Joseph,  Gen.  xli.  42 ;  of  Ahab,  I  K.  xxi.  8 ;  of 
Ahasuerus,  Esth.  iii.  10,  12,  viii.  2 ;  of  Darius, 
Dan.  1.  c.,  also  1  Mace.  vi.  15;  Joseph.  Ant.  xx. 

2,  §2  ;  Her.  iii.  128  ;  Curtius,  iii.  6,  7,  x.  5,  4  ; 
Sandys,    Trav.  p.  62  ;  Chardin,  ii.  291,  v.  451, 
462  ;   and  as  an  evidence  of  a   covenant  in  Jer. 
xxxii.  10,  54 ;    Neh.  ix.  38,   x.   1 ;  Hag.  ii.  23. 
Its   general   importance   is  denoted  by  the  meta 
phorical  use  of  the  word,  Rev.  v.  1,  ix.  4.     Rings 
«v-ith  seals   are   mentioned  in  the  Mishna,  Shabb. 
vi.  3,  and  earth  or  clay  c  as  used  for  -seals  of  bags, 


SEBA 

viii.  5.  Seals  of  four  sorts  used  in  thft  Temple,  as 
well  as  special  guardians  of  them,  are  mentioned  in 
Shekal.  v.  1. 

Among  modem  Orientals  the  size  and  place 
of  the  seal  vary  according  to  the  importance  both 
of  the  sender  of  a  letter  and  of  the  person  to 
whom  it  is  sent.  In  sealing,  the  seal  itself,  not 
the  paper,  is  smeared  with  the  sealing-substmce 
Thus  illiterate  persons  sometimes  use  the  object 
nearest  at  hand — their  own  finger,  or  a  stick 
notched  for  the  purpose  —  and,  daubing  it  with 
ink,  smear  the  paper  therewith  (Chardin,  v.  454, 
ix.  347;  Arvieux,  Trav.  p.  161  ;  Rauwolff,  Trav. 
in  Ray,  ii.  61 ;  Niebuhr,  I.  c. ;  Robinson,  i.  p.  36). 
Engraved  signets  were  in  use  among  the  Hebrews 
in  early  times,  as  is  evident  in  the  description  of 
the  high-priest's  breastplate,  Ex.  xxviii.  11,  36, 
xxxix.  6,  and  the  work  of  the  engraver  as  a  distinct 
occupation  is  mentioned  in  Ecclus.  xxxviii.  27. 
[CLAY,  i.  337.]  [H.  W.  D  ' 

SE'BA(Nnp:  2nj8a,  2o^?j :  Saba:  gent.  n. 
pi.  D'NID  :  2aj3a€iV,  Za/Saefc :  Sabaim :  A.  V. 
incorrectly  rendered  SABEANS,  a  name  there  given 
with  more  probability  to  the  D*Klt?,  Joel  iii.  8 
[Heb.  text,  iv.  8]  ;  and  to  Sheba,  used  for  the  people, 
Job  i.  15 ;  but  it  would  have  been  better  had  the 
original  orthography  been  followed  in  both  cases  by 
such  renderings  as  "  people  of  Seba,"  "  people  of 
Sheba,"  where  the  gent,  nouns  occur).  Seba  heads 
the  list  of  the  sons  of  Cush.  If  Seba  be  of  Hebrew, 
or  cognate,  origin,  it  may  be  connected  with  the  root 
&OD,  "  he  or  it  drank,  drank  to  excess,"  which  would 

not  be  inappropriate  to  a  nation  seated,  as  we  shall 
see  was  that  of  Seba,  in  a  well- watered  country ; 
but  the  comparison  of  two  other  similar  names  of 
Cushites,  Sabtah  (HFQp)  and  Sabtechah  (fcOFI^p), 
does  not  favour  this  supposition,  as  they  were  pro 
bably  seated  in  Arabia,  like  the  Cushite  Sheba 
(N1EO,  which  is  not  remote  from  Seba  (K3p),  the 
two  letters  being  not  unfrequently  interchanged. 
Gesenius  has  suggested  the  Ethiopic  fi'fl/V 
sdbeay,  "  a  man,"  as  the  origin  of  both  Seba  and 
Sheba,  but  this  seems  unlikely.  The  ancient 
Egyptian  names  of  nations  or  tribes,  possibly  coun 
tries,  of  Ethiopia,  probably  mainly,  if  not  wholly, 
of  Nigritian  race,  SAHABA,  SABARA  (Brugsch, 
Geogr.  Inschr.  ii.  p.  9,  tav.  xii.  K.  1.),  are  more  to 
the  point ;  and  it  is  needless  to  cite  later  geographical 
names  of  cities,  though  that  of  one  of  the  upper  con 
fluents  of  the  Nile,  Astasobas,  compared  with  Asta- 
boras,  and  Astapus,  seems  worthy  of  notice,  as  per 
haps  indicating  the  name  of  a  nation.  The  proper 
names  of  the  first  and  second  kings  of  the  Ethi 
opian  xxvth  dynasty  of  Egypt,  SHEBEK  (&OD) 
and  SHEBETEK,  may  also  be  compared.  Geseuius 
was  led,  by  an  error  of  the  Egyptologists,  to  con 
nect  Sevechus,  a  Greek  transcription  of  SHEBETEK, 
with  SABK  or  SBAK,  the  crocodile-headed  divinity 
of  Ombos  (Lex.  a.  v.  KID). 

The  list  of  the  sons  of  Cush  seems  to  indicate  the 
position  of  the  Cushite  nation  or  country  Sebsw 


;  <r4>pa.yCs,  a 


annulus  (Gon.  xxxviii.  25). 
nulus-,   from   DHH,  "close"  or  "seal."     Ch. 
;  lignum  imprimere,  signare. 


2.  Ring,  or  signet-ring, 

3.  tfpty,  Ch. ;  SotKTuAios  ;  annulus. 

b  ^nS  ,  6pM«TKos;  armilla;  A.  V.  "bracelet.' 


SEBA 

Nirnrod,  who  is  mw^Vncd  <*t  the  cio&e  of  the  list, 
ruled  at  first  ii.  babylonia,  and  apparently  after 
wards  in  Assyria:  of  the  names  enumerated  be 
tween  Seba  and  Nimrod,  it  is  highly  probable  that 
some  belong  to  Arabia.  We  thus  may  conjecture  a 
curve  of  Cushite  settlements,  one  extremity  of  which 
is  to  b»  placed  in  Babylonia,  the  other,  if  prolonged 
far  enough  in  accordance  with  the  mention  of  the 
African  Cush,  in  Ethiopia.  The  more  exact  position 
«f  Seba  will  be  later  discussed. 

Besides  the  mention  of  Seba  in  the  list  of  the 
sons  of  Cush  (Gen.  x.  7 ;  1  Chr.  i.  9),  there  are 
but  three,  or,  as  some  hold,  four,  notices  of  the 
nation.  In  Psalm  Ixxii.,  which  has  evidently  a 
first  reference  to  the  reign  of  Solomon,  Seba  is  thus 
spoken  of  among  the  distant  nations  which  should  do 
honour  to  the  king: — "  The  kings  of  Tarshish  and 
of  the  isles  shall  bring  presents  :  the  kings  of  Slieba 
and  Seba  shall  offer  gifts"  (10).  This  mention  of 
Sheba  and  Seba  together  is  to  be  compared  with 
the  occurrence  of  a  bheba  among  the  descendants  of 
Cush  (Gen.  x.  7),  and  its  fulfilment  is  found  in  the 
queen  of  Sheba's  coming  to  Solomon.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  Arabian  kingdom  of  Sheba 
was  Cushite  as  well  asJoktanite;  and  this  occur 
rence  of  Sheba  and  Seba  together  certainly  lends 
some  support  to  this  view.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  connection  of  Seba  with  an  Asiatic  kingdom  is 
important  in  reference  to  the  race  of  its  people, 
which,  or  at  least  the  ruling  class,  was,  no  doubt, 
not  Nigritiati.  In  Isaiah  xliii.,  Seba  is  spoken  of 
with  Egypt,  and  more  particularly  with  Cush, 
apparently  with  some  reference  to  the  Exodus, 
where  we  read :  "  I  gave  Egypt  [for]  thy  ransom, 
Cush  and  Seba  for  thee  "  (3).  Here,  to  render  Cush 
by  Ethiopia,  as  in  the  A.  V.,  is  perhaps  to  miss  the 
sense  of  the  passage,  which  does  not  allow  us  to 
infer,  though  it  is  by  no  means  impossible,  that 
Cush,  as  a  geographical  designation,  includes  Seba, 
as  it  would  do  if  here  meaning  Ethiopia.  Later  in 
the  book  there  is  a  passage  parallel  in  its  indica 
tions  :  "  The  labour  of  Egypt,  and  merchandize  of 
Cush,  and  of  the  people  of  Seba,  men  of  stature, 
shall  come  over  unto  thee,  and  they  shall  be  thine" 
(xlv.  14).  Here  there  is  the  same  mention  to 
gether  of  the  three  nations,  ;tnd  the  same  special 
association  of  Cush  and  Sef/a.  The  great  stature 
and  beauty  of  the  Ethiopians  is  mentioned  by 
Herodotus,  who  speaks  of  them  as  by  report  the 
tallest  and  handsomest  men  in  the  world  (iii.  20 ; 
comp.  114);  and  in  the  present  day  some  of  the 
tribes  of  the  dark  races  of  a  type  intermediate  be 
tween  the  Nigritians  and  the  Egyptians,  as  well 
as  the  Caucasian  Abyssinians,  are  remarkable  for 
their  fine  form,  and  certain  of  the  former  for  their 
height.  The  doubtful  notice  is  in  Ezekiel,  in  a 
difficult  passage :  "  and  with  men  of  the  multi 
tude  of  Adam  [were]  brought  drunkards  [D^&QID, 
but  the  Keri  reads  D^3D,  «  people  of  SebaT] 
from  the  wilderness,  which  put  bracelets  upon  their 
hands,  and  beautiful  crowns  upon  their  heads "  a 
(zxiii.  42).  The  first  clause  would  seem  to  favour 
the  idea  that  a  nation  is  meant,  but  the  reading  of 
the  text  is  rather  supported  by  what  follows  "the 
tacntion  of  the  "  drunkards."  Nor  is  it  clear  why 
people  of  Seba  should  come  from  the  wilderness. 
The  passages  we  have  examined  thus  seem  to  show 
(if  we  omit  the  last)  that  Seba  was  a  nation  of 


SECACAM 


1189 


»  The  reading  of  the  A.  V.  in  the  text  is,  "  with  the  men 
?f  the  common  sort,"  and  in  the  margin.  -  with  the  men 


»f  the  multitude  of  men. 


Africa,  bordering  on  or  included  in  Cush  and  iu 
Solomon's  time  independent  and  of  political  anport- 
ance.  We  are  thus  able  to  conjecture  the  posi 
tion  of  Seba.  No  ancient  Ethiopian  k.rgdom  of 
importance  could  have  excluded  the  island  of  Meroe, 
and  therefore  this  one  of  Solomon's  time  may  be 
identified  with  that  which  must  have  arisen  in 
the  period  of  weakness  and  division  of  Egypt  that 
followed  the  Empire,  and  have  laid  the  basis  of 
that  power  that  made  SHEBEK,  or  Sabaco,  able  to 
conquer  Egypt,  and  found  the  Ethiopian  dynasty 
which  ruled  that  country  as  well  as  Ethiopia. 

Josephus  says  that  Saba  (2aj8a)  was  the  ancient 
name  of  the  Ethiopian  island  and  city  of  Meroe 
(A.  J.  ii.  10,  §2),  but  he  writes  Seba.  in  the  notice 
of  the  Noachian  settlements,  Sabas  (Id.  i.  6,  §2). 
Certainly  the  kingdom  of  Meroe  succeeded  that  ot 
Seba ;  and  the  ancient  city  of  the  same  name  may 
have  been  the  capital,  or  one  of  the  capitals,  of 
Seba,  though  we  do  not  find  any  of  its  monuments 
to  be  even  as  early  as  the  xxvth  dynasty.  There 
can  be  no  connection  between  the  two  names. 
According  to  Josephus  and  others,  Meroe  wa:; 
named  after  a  sister  of  Cambyses ;  but  this  is  ex 
tremely  unlikely,  and  we  prefer  taking  it  from  the 
ancient  P.gyptian  MEIJU,  an  island,  which  occurs 
in  the  name  of  a  part  of  Ethiopia  that  can  only  be 
this  or  a  similar  tract,  MERU-PET,  "  the  island  of 
PET  [Phut?]  the  bow,"  where  the  bow  may  have 
a  geographical  reference  to  a  bend  of  the  river,  and 
the  word  island,  to  the  country  enclosed  by  that 
bend  and  a  tributary  [PHUT]. 

As  Meroe,  from  its  fertility,  must  have  been 
the  most  important  portion  of  any  Ethiopian  king 
dom  in  the  dominions  of  which  it  was  included, 
it  may  be  well  here  to  mention  the  chief  lacts  n>- 
specting  it  which  are  known.  It  may  be  remarked 
that  it  seems  certain  that,  from  a  remote  time, 
Ethiopia  below  Meroe  could  never  have  formed  a 
separate  powerful  kingdom,  and  was  probably 
always  dependent  upon  either  Meroe  or  Egypt. 
The  island  of  Meroe  lay  between  the  Astaboras,  the 
Atbara,  the  most  northern  tributary  of  the  Nile,  ana 
the  Astapus,  the  Bahr  el-Azrak  or  "  Blue  River," 
the  eastern  of  its  two  great  confluents :  it  is  also 
described  as  bounded  by  the  Astaboras,  the  Astapus, 
and  the  Astasobas,  the  latter  two  uniting  to  form  the 
Blue  River  (Str.  xvii.  p.  821),  but  this 'is  essentially 
the  same  thing.  It  was  in  the  time  of  the  kingdom 
rich  and  productive.  The  chief  city  was  Meroe, 
where  was  an  oracle  of  Jupiter  Ammon.  Modern 
•esearch  confirms  these  particulars.  The  country 
s  capable  of  being  rendered  very  wealthy,  tb  Dugh 
ts  neighbourhood  to  Abyssinia  has  checked  ;'ts  com 
merce  in  that  direction,  from  the  natural  dread  that 
the  Abyssinians  have  of  their  country  being  absorb*-! 
like  Kurdufan,  Darfoor,  and  Fayzoglu,  by  their 
powerful  neighbour  Egypt.  The  remains  of  the  city 
Meroe  have  not  been  identified  with  certainty,  bu*< 
between  N.  lat.  16°  and  17°,  temples,  one  of  then 
tedicated  to  the  ram-headed  Num,  confounded  with 
Ammon  by  the  Greeks,  and  pyramids,  indicate  that 
;here  must  have  been  a  great  population,  and  at 
'east  one  important  city.  When  ancient  writers 
ipeak  of  sovereigns  of  Meroe,  they  may  either  mean 
rulers  of  Meroe  alone,  or,  in  addition,  of  Ethiopia  to 
the  north  nearly  as  far  or  as  far  as  Egypt.  [R.  S.  P.] 

SE'BAT.     [MONTH.] 

SEC'ACAH  (n:Op :  A!oXufr ;  Alex. 2ox°X«: 
Schacha,  or  Sachficha].  One  of  the  six  cities  ol 
Judah  which  wwe  situated  in  the  Midb-n-  ("  wilder 


1190 


&ECHENIAS 


ness"),  ti,at  is  the  tract  bordering  on  the  Dead  Sea 
fJosh.  xv.  61).  It  occurs  in  the  list  between 
Middin  and  han-Nibshan.  It  was  not  known  to 
Eusebius  and  Jerome,  nor  has  the  name  been  yet 
encountered  in  that  direction  in  more  modern  times. 
From  Sinjil,  among  the  highlands  of  Ephraim,  near 
Sciliin,  Dr.  Robinson  saw  a  place  called  Sekdkeh 
(B.  R.  ii.  267,  note).  [G.] 

SECHENI'AS  (Sexevfas  :  Scecilias}.  1  .  SHE- 
CMANIAH  (1  Esd.  viii.  29  ;  comp.  Ezr.  viii.  3). 

2.  (Jechonias.}  SHECIIANIAII  f  I  Esd.  viii.  32; 
romp.  Ezr.  viii.  5). 

SE'CHU  (-13'^n,  with  the  article  :  eV  r$  2e</>€i  ; 
Alex,  ev  2oKX«  •  Soccho}.  A  place  mentioned 
once  only  (1  Sam.  xix.  22),  apparently  as  lying; 
on  the  route  between  Saul's  residence,  Gibeah,  and 
Ramah  (Raimthaim  Zophim),  that  of  Samuel.  It 
was  notorious  for  "  the  great  well  "  (or  rather  cis 
tern,  113)  which  it  contained.  The  name  is  derivable 
from  a  root  signifying  elevation,  thus  perhaps  imply 
ing  that  the  place  was  situated  on  an  eminence. 

Assuming  that  Saul  started  from  Gibeah  (Tuleil 
el-Ful),  and  that  Nchij  Samwil  is  Raman,  then  Bir 
Neballa  (the  well  of  Neballa),  alleged  by  a  modern 
traveller  (Schwarz,  127)  to  contain  a  large  pit, 
would  be  in  a  suitable  position  for  the  great  well 
of  Sechu.  Schwarz  would  identify  it  with  As/Mr, 
on  the  S.E.  end  of  Mount  Ebal,  and  the  well  with 
Jacob's  Well  in  the  plain  below  ;  and  Van  de  Velde 
(S.  fy  P.  ii.  53,  4)  hesitatingly  places  it  at  Sh&k, 
in  the  mountains  of  Judah  N.E.  of  Hebron  ;  but 
this  they  are  forced  into  by  their  respective  theories 
us  to  the  position  of  Ramathaim  Zophim. 

The  Vat.  LXX.  alters  the  passage,  and  has  "  the 
well  of  the  threshing-floor  that  is  in  Sephei,"  sub 
stituting,  in  the  first  case,  p3  for  T13,  or  a\ca 
tor  fjLeyd\ov,  and  in  the  latter  *£&  for  13^.  The 
Alex.  MS.,  as  usual,  adheres  more  closely  to  the 
Hebrew.  [G.] 

SECUN'DUS  (2e/v-oui/5oy  :  Secundus)  was  one 
of  the  party  who  went  with  the  Apostle  Paul  from 
Corinth  as  far  as  Asia  (&XP1  r^5  'Acrtas),  probably 
to  Troas  or  Miletus  (all  of  them  so  far,  some  fur 
ther),  on  his  return  to  Jerusalem  from  his  third 
missionary  tour  (see  Acts  xx.  4).  He  and  Ari- 
starchus  are  there  said  to  have  been  Thessalonians. 
H  ;  is  otherwise  unknown.  [H.  B.  H.] 

SEDECl'AS  (SeSeKt'as  :  Sedeciai).  the  Greek 
form  of  Zedekiah.  1.  A  man  mentioned  in  Bar. 
i.  1  as  the  father  of  Maaseiah,  himself  the  grand 
father  of  Baruch,  and  apparently  identical  with  the 
false  prophet  in  Jer.  xxix.  21,  22. 

2.  The  "  son  of  Josiah,  king  of  Judah  "  (Bar. 
i.  8).  [ZEDEKIAH.]  [B.  F.  W.] 

SEER.     [PROPHET.] 

SE'GUB  {yjf  ;  Kri,  2-Ub  :  Xeyotfl  :  Segub}. 
1.  The  youngest  'son  of  Hi  el'  the  Bethelite,  who 
rebuilt  Jericho  (1  K.  xvi.  34).  According  to  Rab 
binical  tradition  he  died  when  his  father  had  set  up 
the  gates  of  the  city.  One  stcry  says  that  his 
father  slew  him  as  a  sacrifice  on  the  same  occasion. 

2.  (Zepoi>x  ;  Alex-  2eyou)3.)  Son  of  Hezron,  by 
the  daughter  of  Machir  the  father  of  Gilead  (1  Chr. 
a.  21,  22). 

SEIR,  MOUNT  ("IW,  "rough"  or  "rugged:" 
:  Seir).     We  have  'both  T?       K,  "land 


of  Seir"  (Gen.  xxxii.  3,  xxxvi.  30),  and  TW  "in, 
il  Mount  Seir"  (Gen.  xiv.  6).  1.  The  original  name 
of  the  mountain  ridge  extending  along  the  east  .side  of 


SEIR,  MOUNT 

tne  valley  of  Arabah,  from  the  Dead  5ai  to  the  Elfin- 
itic  Gulf.  The  name  may  either  have  been  derived 
from  Seir  the  Horite,  who  appears  to  have  been  ths 
chief  of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  (G<"-n.  xxxvi.  20), 
or,  what  is  perhaps  more  probable,  from  the  rough 
aspect  of  the  whole  country.  The  view  from 
Aaron's  tomb  on  Hor,  in  the  centre  of  Mount  Seir, 
is  enough  to  show  the  appropriateness  of  the  appel 
lation.  The  sharp  and  serrated  ridges,  the.  jr.gged 
rocks  and  cliffs,  the  straggling  bushes  and  stunted 
trees,  give  the  whole  scene  a  sternness  and  rugged- 
ness  almost  unparalleled.  In  the  Samaritan  Penta 
teuch,  instead  of  Tyfc^,  the  name  nb^J  is  used ; 
and  in  the  Jerusalem  Targum,  in  place  of  "  Mount 
Seir  "  we  find  K^331  NTjD,  Mount  Gabla.  The 
word  Gabla  signifies  "  mountain,"  and  is  thus  de 
scriptive  of  the  region  (Keland,  Pal.  p.  83).  The 
name  Gebala,  or  Gebalene,  was  applied  to  this  pro 
vince  by  Josephus,  and  also  by  Eusebius  and  Jerome 
(Joseph.  Ant.  ii.  1,  §2;  Onomast.  "Idumaea"). 
The  northern  section  of  Mount  Seir,  as  far  as  Petra, 
is  still  called  Jebal,  the  Arabic  form  of  Gebal.  The 
Mount  Seir  of  the  Bible  extended  much  farther 
south  than  the  modern  province,  as  is  shown  by  the 
words  of  Dent.  ii.  1-8.  In  tact  its  boundaries  are 
there  defined  with  tolerable  exactness.  It  had  the 
Arabah  on  the  west  (vers.  1  and  8) ;  it  extended  as 
far  south  as  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akabah  (ver.  8) ; 
its  eastern  border  ran  along  the  base  of  the  moun 
tain  range  where  the  plateau  of  Arabia  begins.  Its 
northern  border  is  not  so  accurately  determined. 
The  land  of  Israel,  as  described  by  Joshua,  extended 
from  "  the  Mount  Halak  that  goeth  up  to  Seir, 
even  unto  Baal  Gad"  (Josh.  xi.  17).  As  no  part  of 
Edom  was  given  to  Israel,  Mount  Halak  must  have 
been  upon  its  northern  border.  Now  there  is  a  line 
of  "naked"  (halak  signified  "  naked  ")  white  hills 
or  cliff's  which  runs  across  the  gieat  valley  about 
eight  miles  south  of  the  Dead  Sea,  forming  the  divi 
sion  between  the  Arabah  proper  and  the  deep  Ghor 
north  of  it.  The  view  of  these  cliffs,  from  the  shore 
of  the  Dead  Sea,  is  very  striking.  They  appear  as 
a  line  of  hills  shutting  in  the  valley,  and  extending 
up  to  the  mountains  of  Seir.  The  impression  left 
by  them  on  the  mind  of  the  writer  was  that  this  is  the 
very  "  Mount  Halak,  that  goeth  up  to  Seir"  (Robin 
son,  B.  E.  ii.  113,  &c. ;  sec  Keil  on  Josh.  xi.  17). 
The  northern  border  of  the  modern  district  of  Jebal 
is  Wady  el-Ahsy,  which  falls  into  the  Ghor  a  few 
miles  farther  north  (Burckhardt,  Fyr.  p.  401). 

In  Deut.  xxxiii.  2,  Seir  appears  to  be  connected 
with  Sinai  and  Paran ;  but  a  careful  consideration 
of  that  difficult  passage  proves  that  the  connexion 
is  not  a  geographical  one.  Moses  there  only  sums 
up  the  several  glorious  manifestations  of  the  Divine 
Majesty  to  the  Israelites,  without  regard  either  to 
time  or  place  (comp.  Judg.  v.  4,  5). 

Mount  Seir  was  originally  inhabited  by  the 
Horites,  or  "  troglodytes,"  who  were  doubtless  the 
excavators  of  those  singular  rock-dwellings  found 
in  such  numbers  in  the  ravines  and  cliffs  around 
Petra.  They  were  dispossessed,  And  apparently 
annihilated,  by  the  posterity  of  Esau,  who  "  dwelt 
in  their  stead"  (Deut.  ii.  12).  The  history  of  Seir 
thus  early  merges  into  that  of  Edom.  Though  the 
country  was  afterwards  called  Edom,  yet  the  older 
name,  Seir,  did  not  pass  away :  it  is  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  subsequent  history  of  the  Israelites 
(1  Chr.  iv.  42;  2  Chr.  xx.  10).  Mount  Seir  is 
the  subject  of  a  terrible  prophetic  curse  pronounced 
by  Ezekiel  (chap,  xxxv.),  which  seems  now  to  b« 
literally  fulfilled : — "  Thus  saith  the  Lor  I  Gv>d 


8EIBATH 

Behold,  0  Mount  Seir,  I  am  against  thee,  and  I  will 
make  thee  most  desolate.  I  will  lay  thy  cities 
waste,  .  .  .  when  the  whole  earth  rejoiceth  I  wTil 
make  thee  desolate.  ...  I  will  make  thee  perpetual 
desolations,  and  thy  cities  shall  not  return,  and  ye 
shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord."  [J.  L.  P.] 

2.  ("Vy^  "1H:  opos  Ao-o-op;8  Alex.  6.  2r?eip : 
Mcns  Seir).  An  entirely  different  place  from  the 
foregoing;  one  of  the  landmarks  on  the  north 
boundary  of  the  territory  of  Judah  (Josh.  xv.  10 
only).  It  lay  westward  of  Kirjath-jearim,  and 
between  it  and  Beth-shemesh.  If  Knriet  el  Enab 
be  the  former,  and  Ain-shems  the  latter  of  these 
two,  then  Mount  Seir  cannot  fail  to  be  the  ridge 
which  lies  between  the  Wady  Aly  and  the  Wad;/ 
G/iurab  (Rob.  iii.  155).  A  Village  called  Saris b 
stands  on  the  southern  site  of  this  ridge,  which 
Tobler  (?>tte  Wanderung,  203)  and  Schwarz  (97) 
would  identify  with  Seir.  The  obstacle  to  this  is 
that  the  names  are  radically  c  different.  The  Sa'trah 
(swOUw)  on  the  south  of  the  Wady  Surar  (Rob. 
B.  R.  1st  edit.  ii.  364,,  is  nearer  in  orthography, 
but  not  so  -suitable  in  position. 

How  the  name  of  Seir  came  to  be  located  so  far 
to  the  north  of  the  main  seats  of  the  Seirites  we 
have  no  means  of  knowing.  Perhaps,  like  other 
names  occurring  in  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  it  is  a 
monument  of  an  incursion  by  the  Edomites  which 
has  escaped  record.  [OPHNI,  &c.]  But  it  is  more 
probable  that  it  derived  its  name  from  some  pecu 
liarity  in  the  form  or  appearance  of  the  spot.  Dr. 
Robinson  (155),  apparently  without  intending  any 
allusion  to  the  name  of  Seir,  speaks  of  the  "  rugged 
points  which  composed  the  main  ridge "  of  the 
mountain  in  question.  Such  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Hebrew  word  Seir.  Whether  there  is  any  connec 
tion  between  this  mountain  and  SEIRATH  or  has- 
Seirah  (see  the  next  article)  is  doubtful.  The  name  is 
not  a  common  one,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  it  may 
have  been  attached  to  the  more  northern  continua 
tion  of  the  hills  of  Judah  which  ran  up  into  Benjamin 
— or,  as  it  was  then  called,  Mount  Ephraim.  [G.] 

SEI'RATH  (HTyiPn,  with  the  definite  article : 
d  2€T€ipw0o  ;  Alex.T2eeipo>0a  :  SeiratK).  The  place 
to  which  Ehud  fled  after  his  murder  of  Eglon 
(Judg.  iii.  26),  and  whither,  by  hlasts  of  his  cow- 
horn,  he  collected  his  countiymen  for  the  attack  of 
the  Moabites  in  Jericho  (27).  It  was  in  "  Mount 
Ephraim  "  (27),  a  continuation,  perhaps,  of  the  same 
wooded  shaggy  hills  (such  seems  to  be  the  signifi 
cation  of  Scir,  and  Seiratk]  which  stretched  even 
so  far  south  as  to  enter  the  territory  of  Judah 
(Tosh.  xv.  10).  The  definite  article  prefixed  to 
the  name  in  the  original  shows  that  it  was  a  well- 
known  spot  in  its  day.  It  has,  however,  hitherto 
escaped  observation  in  modern  times.  [G.] 

SE'LA  and  SE'LAH  (^D,  or  y^DH  :  irerpa, 
or  1)  irfTpa\  2  K.  xiv.  7  ;  Is.  xvi.  1 :  rendered 
"the  rock"  in  the  A.  V.,  in  Judg.  i.  36,  2  Chr. 


a  'A<T<rap.  This  looks  as  if  the  Heb.  name  had  once 
had  the  article  prefixed. 

b  Possibly  the  Swprj?  which,  in  the  Alex.  MS.,  is  one  of 
the  eleven  names  inserted  by  the  LXX.  in  Josh,  x  v.  59.  The 
neighbouring  names  agree.  In  the  Vat.  MS.  it  is  'Eio/3»j?. 


is  the  orthography  of  Sans  (i,ists  of  Dr. 
Smith  in  1st  ed.  of  Robinson,  iii.  App.  123),  containing  no 
Ain  and  a  duplicate  s. 

d  This  is  the  reading  of  the  Vat  Codex  according  to 
Mai.  If  accurate,  it  furnishes  an  instance  of  the  y  being 
represented  by  T,  which  is  of  the  greatest  rarity,  and  is  i 


8ELA-HAM-MAHLEKOTH     1J91 

xxv.  12,  Obad.  3.  Probably  the  city  later  knowt 
as  Petra,  500  Roman  miles  from  Gaza  (Plin.  vi. 
32),  the  ruins  of  which  are  found  about  two  days' 
journey  N.  of  the  top  of  the  gulf  of  Akaba,  and 
three  or  four  S.  from  Jericho.  It  was  in  th* 
midst  of  Mount  Seir,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Mount  Hor  (Joseph.  Ant.  iv.  4,  §7),  and  theitfoie 
Edomite  territory,  taken  by  Amasiah,  and  called 
JOKTHEEL  (not  therefore  to  be  confounded  with 
Joktheel,  Josh.  xv.  38,  wL'tfi  pertained  to  Judah 
in  the  time  of  Joshua),  b  jt  seems  to  have  after 
wards  come  under  the  dominion  of  Moab.  In  the 
end  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.  it  appears  as  the 
head-quarters  of  the  Nabatnaeans,  who  successfully 
resisted  the  attacks  of  Antigonus  (Diod.  Sic.  xix. 
731,  cd.  Hanov.  1604),  and  under  them  became 
one  of  the  greatest  stations  for  the  approach  of 
Eastern  commerce  to  Rome  (ib.  94 ;  Strabo,  xvi. 
799  ;  Apul.  Flor.  i.  6).  About  70  B.C.  Petra  ap 
pears  as  the  residence  of  the  Arab  princes  named 
Aretas  (Joseph.  Ant.  xiv.  1,  §4,  and  5,  §1 ;  B.  J. 
i.  6,  §2,  and  29,  §3).  It  was  by  Trajan  reduced  t<r 
subjection  to  the  Roman  empire  (Dion  Cass.  Ixviii. 
14),  and  from  the  next  emperor  received  the  name 
of  Hadriana.6  as  appears  from  the  legend  of  a  coin. 
Josephus  (Ant.  iv.  4,  §7)  gives  the  name  of  Arce 
(vAp/f»j)  as  an  earlier  synonym  for  Petra,  where, 
however,  it  is  probable  that  'ApK-fip.  or  'Ap/ce/i1 
(alleged  by  Euseb.  Onom.,  as  found  in  Josephus) 
should  be  read.  The  city  Petra  lay,  though  at  a 
high  level,*  in  a  hollow  shut  in  by  irountain-cliffs, 
and  approached  only  by  a  narrow  ravine  through 
which,  and  across  the  city's  site,  the  river  winds 
(Plin.  vi.  32 ;  Strabo,  xvi.  779).  The  principal 
ruins  are — 1.  el  Khuzneh  ;  2.  the  theatre  ;  3.  a 
tomb  with  three  rows  of  columns;  4.  a  tomb  with 
a  Latin  inscription ;  5.  ruined  bridges ;  6.  a  tri 
umphal  arch;  7.  Zub  Far'on',  8.  Kusr  Fa-'6n; 
and  are  chiefly  known  by  the  illustrations  o/  La- 
borde  and  Linant,  who  also  thought  that  they 
traced  the  outline  of  a  naumachia  or  theatre  for 
sea-fights,  which  wotdd  be  flooded  from  cisterns, 
in  which  the  water  of  the  torrents  in  the  wet  season 
had  been  reserved — a  remarkable  proof,  if  the  hy 
pothesis  be  correct,  of  the  copiousness  of  the  water- 
supply,  if  properly  husbanded,  and  a  confirmation 
of  what  we  are  told  of  the  exuberant  fertility  of  the 
region,  and  its  contrast  to  the  barren  Arabah  on  its 
immediate  west  (Robinson,  ii.  169).  Prof.  Stanley 
(S.  if  P.  95)  leaves  little  doubt  that  Petra  was  the 
seai  *f  a  primeval  sanctuary,  which  he  fixes  at  the 
spot  now  called  the  "  Deir "  or  "  Convent,"  and 
with  which  fact  the  choice  of  the  site  of  Aaron's 
tomb  may,  he  thinks,  have  been  connected  (96).  As 
regards  the  question  of  its  identity  with  Kadesh.  soe 
KADESH  ;  and,  for  the  genera!  subject,  Ritter,  xiv.  69, 
997  foil.,  and  Robinson,  ii.  1.  '  [H.  H.] 

8ELA-*HAM-MAHLEKOTH  (i.  e.  "  th; 
cliffbf  escapes"  or  "  of  divisions,"  nip^nftn  J^D 
TreVpo  T)  fjLfpio-de'tara,  in  both  MSS.:   Petra  diiv- 


not  mentioned  by  Frankel  (Varstudien,  &c.  112).  y  and 
K  are  the  ordinary  equivalents  of  y  in  the  LXX. 

e  Nummi  in  quibus  AAPIANH  HHTPA  MHTPO- 
HOAI2,  Reland,  s.  v. 

i  Kusebius  (  Onom,.),  under  a  later  article,  identifies  Petra 
and  'Pe<ceV,  which  appears  (Num.  xxxi.  8)  as  the  name  ol 
a  Midianitish  prince  (see  Stanley,  S.  &  P.  p.  94,  note). 

g  Robinson  (ii.  124)  computes  the  Wady  Mousa  as  about 
200Q  feet  or  more  above  the  Arabah. 

l>  One  of  the  few  cases  in  whicb  the  Hebrew  article  ha? 
been  retained  in  our  translation.  Ham-moleketh  auJ 
Helkath  har-Zur;m  are  examples  of  (he  &»me. 


1192  SELAH 

&ns).  A  rock  or  cliff  in  the  wilderness  ofMaon, 
the  scene  of  one  of  those  remarkable  escapes  which 
are  so  frequent  in  the  history  of  Saul's  pursuit  of 
David  (1  Sam.  xxiii.  28).  Its  name,  if  interpreted 
as  Hebrew,  signifies  the  "  cliff  of  escapes,"  or  "of 
divisions."  The  former  is  the  explanation  of 
Gesenius  (Thes.  485),  the  latter  of  the  Targum 
and  the  ancient  Jewish  interpreters  (Midrash  ; 
Kashi).  The  escape  is  that  of  David ;  the  divi- 
tions  are  those  of  Saul's  mind  undecided  whether 
to  remain  in  pursuit  of  his  enemy  or  *p  go  after 
the  Philistines ;  but  such  explanations,  though 
appropriate  to  either  interpretation,  and  con 
sistent  with  the  Oriental  habit  of  playing  on 
words,  are  doubtless  mere  accommodations.  The 
analogy  of  topographical  nomenclature  makes  it 
almost  certain  that  this  cliff  must  have  derived  its 
name  either  from  its  smoothness  (the  radical  mean 
ing  of  p/TI)  or  from  some  peculiarity  of  shape  or 
position,  such  as  is  indicated  in  the  translations  of 
the  LXX.  and  Vulgate.  No  identification  has  yet 
been  suggested.  fG.] 

SE'LAH  (i"6c!).  This  word,  which  is  only 
found  in  the  poetical  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
occurs  seventy-one  times  in  the  Psalms,  and  three 
times  in  Habakkuk.  In  sixteen  Psalms  it  is  found 
once,  in  fifteen  twice,  in  seven  three  trmes,  and  in 
one  four  times — always  at  the  end  of  a  verse,  ex 
cept  in  Ps.  Iv.  19  [20],  Ivii.  3  [4],  and  Hab.  iii. 
3,  9,  where  it  is  in  the  middle,  though  at  the  end 
of  a  clause.  All  the  Psalms  in  which  it  occurs, 
except  eleven  (iii.  vii.  xxiv.  xxxii.  xlviii.  1.  Ixxxii. 
Ixxxiii.  Ixxxvii.  Ixxxix.  cxliii.),  have  also  the  musical 
direction,  "to  the  Chief  Musician"  (comp.  also 
Hab.  iii.  19)  ;  and  in  these  exceptions  we  find  the 
words  "IDTE, mizmor  (A.V.  "  Psalm"),  Shiggaioa, 
or  Maschil,  which  sufficiently  indicate  that  they 
were  intended  for  music.  Besides  these,  in  the 
titles  of  the  Psalms  in  which  Selah  occurs,  we  meet 
with  the  musical  terms  Alamoth  (xlvi.X  Altaschith 
(Ivii.  lix.  Ixxv.),  Gittith  (Ixxxi.  kxxiv.),  Maha- 
lath  Leannoth  (Ixxxviii.),  Michtam  (Ivii.  lix.  lx.), 
Neginah  (Ixi.),  Neginoth  (iv.  liv.  Iv.  kvii.  Ixxvi. ; 
comp.  Hab.  iii.  19),  and  Shushan-eduth  (lx.)  ;  and 
an  this  association  alone  might  be  formed  a  strong 
presumption  that,  like  these,  Selah  itself  is  a  term 
which  had  a  meaning  in  the  musical  nomenclature 
of  the  Hebrews.  What  that  meaning  may  have 
been  is  now  a  matter  of  pure  conjecture.  Of  the 
many  theories  which  have  been  framed,  it  is  easier 
to  say  what  is  not  likely  to  be  the  true  one  than  to 
pronounce  certainly  upon  what  is.  The  Versions 
are  first  deserving  of  attention. 

In  by  far  the  greater  number  of  instances  the 
Targum  renders  the  word  by  j^DpyT5,  le'almin, 
"  for  ever ;"  four  times  (Ps.  xxxii.  4,  7  ;  xxxix.  11 
[12];  4  [6])  ND^>,  Walma;  once(Ps.xliv.8[9]) 
PP^y  Vjpj&,  le'alme  'almin ;  and  (Ps.  xlviii.  8 
[9]  )  poby  ^/y  *iy>  '<&  '«^w«  'almtn,  with  the 
same  meaning,  "  for  ever  and  ever."  In  Ps.  xlix. 
13  [14]  it  has  >njO  ND^>,  lealmd  dedtJie,  "foi 
the  world  to  come  ;"  in  Ps.  xxxix.  5  [G]  ND?y  **Hp, 

Wchayye  'alma,  "  for  the  life  everlasting;"  and  in 
Ps.  cxl.  5  [6]  KTHfi,  tedira,  "  continually."  This 


8  Except  in  Ps.  ix.  16  [17],  Ixxv.  3  [4],  Ixxvi.  3,  9 
[4,  10],  where  £d.  bta  has  aei,  Ps.  xxi.  2  [3],  where  it  has 
iojitKou?,  and  in  Hab.  iii.  3, 13,  where  it  reproduces  the 


SELAH 

interpretation,  which  j&  the  one  adopted  by  thfl 
majority  of  Rabbinical  writers,  is  purely  traditional, 
and  based  upon  no  etymology  whatever.  It  is  fol 
lowed  by  Aquila,  who  renders  "  Selah  "  ctei  ;  by  the 
Editio  quinta  and  Editio  sexta,  which  give  respec 
tively  Siairavros  and  ets  reAor;1  by  Symmachus 
(els  rbv  cduva)  and  Theodotiou  (els  reAos),  in 
Habakkuk;  by  the  reading  of  the  Alex.  MS.  (tls 
re'Aos)  in  Hab.  iii.  13  ;  by  the  Peshito-Syriac  in 
Ps.  iii.  8  [9],  iv.  2  [3],  xxiv.  10,  and  Hab.  iii.  13  ; 
and  by  Jerome,  who  has  semper.  In  Ps.  Iv.  19  [iOl 
H?D  D^p,  hedem  selah,  is  rendered  in  the  Peshito 

T   V  V'V 

"  from  before  the  world."  That  this  rendering  is 
manifestly  inappropriate  in  some  passages,  as  for 
instance  Ps.  xxi.  2  [3],  xxxii.  4,  Ixxxi.  7  [8],  and 
Hab.  iii.  3,  and  superfluous  in  others,  as  Ps.  xliv. 
8  [9],  Ixxxiv.  4  [5],  Ixxxix.  4  [5],  was  pointed  out 
long  since  by  Aben  Ezra.  In  the  Psalms  the  uni- 
f^rm  rendering  of  the  LXX.  is  StaiJ/aAjua.  Sym 
machus  and  Theodotion  give  the  same,  except  in 
Ps.  ix.  16  [17],  where  Theodotion  has  dei,  am! 
Ps.  Iii.  5  [7],  where  Symmachus  has  ets  etet.  In 
Hab.  iii.  13,  the  Alex.  MS.  gives  els  reAos.  In  Ps. 
xxxviii.  (in  LXX.)  7,  Ixxx.  7  [8],  8id\l/a\p.a  is  added 
in  the  LXX.,  and  in  Hab.  iii.  7  in  the  Alex.  MS.  In 
Ps.  Ivii.  it  is  put  at  the  end  of  ver.  2  ;  and  in  Ps. 
iii.  8  [9],  xxiv.  10,  Ixxxviii.  10  [11],  it  is  omitted 
altogether.  In  all  passages  except  those  already 
referred  to,  in  which  it  follows  the  Targum,  the 

Peshito-Syriac  has  ifD2ix»,  an  abbreviation  for 
8tctyaAjua.  This  abbreviation  is  added  in  Ps.  xlviii. 
13  [14],  1.  15  [16],  Ixviii.  13  [14],  Ivii.  2,  Ixxx. 
7  [8],  at  the  end  of  the  verse  ;  and  in  Ps.  Iii.  3  in 
the  middle  of  the  verse  after  IIEO  ;  in  Ps.  xlix.  it 
is  put  after  |N-¥3  in  ver.  14.  [15],  and  in  Ps.  Ixviii. 
after  n^JH  in  ver.  8  [9~],  and  after  DTlW?  in 
ver.  32  fjfj.  The  Vulgate  omits  it  entirely,  while 
in  Hab.  iii.  3  the  Ediiio  sexta  and  others  give 


The  rendering  Sia^aAjtta  of  the  LXX.  and  othei 
translators  is  in  every  way  as  traditional  as  that  of 
the  Targum  "for  ever,"  and  has  no  foundation  in 
any  known  etymology.  With  regard  to  the  mean 
ing  of  Std^a\fj.a  itself  there  are  many  opinions. 
Both  Origen  (Comm.  ad  PC.,  Opp.  ed.  Delarue,  ii. 
516)  and  Athanasius  (Synops.  Script.  Sacr.  xiii.) 
arc  silent  upon  this  point.  Eusebius  of  Caesarea 
(Praef.  in  Ps.}  says  it  marked  those  passages  in 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  ceased  for  a  time  to  work 
upon  the.  choir.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  (Tract.  2  in 
Ps.  cap.  x.)  interprets  it  as  a  sudden  lull  in  the 
midst  of  the  psalmody,  in  order  to  receive  anew 
the  Divine  inspiration.  Chrysostom  (Opp.  ed. 
Montfaucon,  v.  p.  540)  takes  it  to  indicate  the 
portion  of  the  psalm  which  was  given  to  another 
choir.  Augustine  (on  Ps.  iv.)  regards  it  as  an 
interval  of  s;lence  in  the  psalmody.  Jerome  (Ep. 
ad  Marcellarii)  enumciates  the  various  opinions 
which  have  been  held  upon  the  subject  ;  that 
diapsalma  denotes  a  change  of  metre,  a  cessation 
of  the  Spirit's  influence,  or  the  beginning  of  another 
sense.  Others,  he  says,  regard  it  as  indicating  a 
diti'ereuce  of  rhythm,  and  the  silence  of  some  kind 
of  music  in  the  choir;  but  for  himself  he  falls 
back  upon  the  version  of  Aquila,  and  renders  Selah 
by  semper,  with  a  reference  to  the  custom  of  the 


Hebrew  ff€\d.  In  Ps.  ix.  16  [17]  Editio-  6ta  has  «€t. 
In  Ps.  Ixxv.  3  [41  fitajrowTov,  \::d  in  Pe.  lixvl  3  |.Vj  ti;  rJ 
reAtw. 


6ELAH 

Jews  to  put  at  the  end  of  their  writings  Amen, 
Selah,  or  Shalom.  In  his  commentary  on  Ps.  iii. 
ne  is  doubtful  whether  to  regard  it  as  simply  a 
musical  sign,  or  as  indicating  the  perpetuity  of  the 
truth  contained  in  the  passage  after  which  it  is 
placed  ;  so  that,  he  says,  "  wheresoever  Selah,  that 
is  diapsalma  or  semper,  is  put,  there  we  may  know 
that  what  follows,  as  well  as  what  precedes,  belong 
not  only  to  the  present  time,  but  to  eternity." 
Theodoret  (Praef.  in  Ps.')  explains  diapsalma  by 
ue'Aous  £ieTaj8o\7j  or  eva\\a.yf)  (as  Suidas),  "  a 
change  of  the  melody."  On  the  whole,  the  ren 
dering  Sid^a\/j.a  rather  increases  the  difficulty,  for 
it  does  not  appear  to  be  the  true  meaning  of  Selah, 
and  its  own  signification  is  obscure. 

Leaving  the  Versions  and  the  Fathers,  we  come 
to  the  Rabbinical  writers,  the  majority  of  whom 
follow  the  Targum  and  the  dictum  of  K.  Eliezer 
'Talm.  Babl.  Erubin,  v.  p.  54)  in  rendering  Selah 
"  for  ever."  But  Aben  Ezra  (on  Ps.  iii.  3)  showed 
that  in  some  passages  this  rendering  was  inappro 
priate,  and  expressed  his  own  opinion  that  Selah 
was  a  word  of  emphasis,  used  to  give  weight  and 
importance  to  what  was  said,  and  to  indicate  its 
truth : — "  But  the  right  explanation  is  that  the 
meaning  of  Selah  is  like  '  so  it  is '  or  '  thus,'  and 
'  the  matter  is  true  and  right.' "  Kimchi  (Lex, 
s.  v.)  doubted  whether  it  had  any  special  meaning 
at  all  in  connexion  with  the  sense  of  the  passage  in 


SELAH 


1193 


which  it  was  found,  and  explained  it  as  a  musical 
term.  He  derives  it  from  TvD,  to  raise,  elevate, 
with  H  paragogic,  and  interprets  it  as  signifying 
a  raising  or  elevating  the  voice,  as  much  as  to  say  in 
this  place  there  was  an  elevation  of  the  voice  in  song. 
Among  modern  writers  there  is  the  same  diversity 
of  opinion.  Gescnius  (Thes.  s.  v.)  derives  Selah 
from  j"PD,  sdldh,  to  suspend,  of  which  he  thinks 
it  is  the  imperative  Kal,  with  Jl  paragogic,  !"Dp, 
in  pause  n?D.  But  this  form  is  supported  by  no 
parallel  instance.  In  accordance  with  his  derivation, 
which  is  harsh,  he  interprets  Selah  to  mean  either, 
"  suspend  the  voice,"  that  is,  "  be  silent,"  a  hint  to 
the  singers  ;  or  "  raise,  elevate  the  stringed  instru 
ments."  In  either  case  he  regards  it  as  denoting  a 
pause  in  the  song,  which  was  rilled  up  by  an  inter 
lude  played  by  the  choir  of  Levites.  Ewald  (Die 
Dichter  des  A.  B.  i.  179)  arrives  at  substantially 
the  same  result  by  a  different  process.  He  derives 
Selah  from  77D,  sdial,  to  rise,  whence  the  sub 
stantive  ?D,  which  with  PI  paragogic  becomes  in 
pause  r6o  (comp.  rHil,  from  in,  root  Tin,  Gen. 
xiv.  10).  So  far  as  the  form  of  the  word  *is  con 
cerned,  this  derivation  is  more  tenable  than  the 
former.  Ewald  regards  the  phrase  "  Higgaion, 
Selah,"  in  Ps.  ix.  16  [17],  as  the  full  form,  signi 
fying  "music,  strike  up!" — an  indication  that  the 
voices  of  the  choir  were  to  cease  while  the  instru 
ments  alone  came  in.  Hengstenberg  follows  Gesenius, 
De  Wette,  and  others,  in  the  rendering  pause !  out 
refers  it  to  the  contents  of  the  psalm,  and  under 
stands  it  of  the  silence  of  the  music  in  order  to  give 
room  for  quiet  reflection.  If  this  were  the  case, 
Selah  at  the  end  of  a  psalm  would  be  superfluous. 
The  same  meaning  of  pause  or  end  is  arrived  at  by 
f'iirst  (ffajulw.  s.  v.),  who  derives  Selah  from  a  root 
H?D,  sdldh,  to  cut  off  (a  meaning  which  is  per 
fectly  arbitrary),  whence  the  substantive  ?D,  sil, 
which  with  H  r>;iragogic  becomes  in  pause  n"?D  ;  a 


form  which  is  without  parallel.  While  etymolrgj«ts 
have  recourse  to  such  shifts  as  these,  it  can  scarcely 
be  expected  that  the  true  meaning  of  the  word 
will  be  evolved  by  their  investigations.  Indeed  the 
question  is  as  far  from  solution  as  ever.  Beyond 
the  fact  that  Selah  is  a  musical  term,  we  know 
absolutely  nothing  about  it,  and  are  entirely  in  the 
dark  as  to  its  meaning.  Sommer  (Bibl.  Abhandl. 
i.  1-84)  has  devoted  an  elaborate  discourse  to  its 
explanation.  After  observing  that  Selah  every- 
where  appears  to  mark  critical  moments  in  the  reli 
gious  consciousness  of  the  Israelites,  and  that  the 
music  was  employed  to  give  expression  to  the 
energy  of  the  poet's  sentiments  on  these  occasions, 
he  (p.  40)  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  the  word 
is  used  "  in  those  passages  where,  in  the  Temple 
Song,  the  choir  of  priests,  who  stood  opposite  to 
the  stage  occupied  by  the  Levites,  were  to  raise 
their  trumpets  (TvD),  and  with  the  strong  tones 
of  this  instrument  mark  the  words  just  spoken,  and 
bear  them  upwards  to  the  hearing  of  Jehovah.  Pro 
bably  the  Levite  minstrels  supported  this  priestly 
intercessory  music  by  vigorously  striking  their 
harps  and  psalteries ;  whence  the  Greek  expression 
SietyoAjua.  To  this  points,  moreover,  the  fullei 
direction,  '  Higgaion,  Selah'  (Ps.  ix.  16)  ;  the  first 
word  of  which  denotes  the  whirr  of  the  stringed 
instruments  (Ps.  xcii.  4),  the  other  the  raising^  of 
the  trumpets,  both  which  were  here  to  sound 
together.  The  less  important  Higgaion  fell  away, 
when  the  expression  was  abbreviated,  and  Selah 
alone  remained."  Dr.  Davidson  (Introd.  to  the 

0.  T.  ii.   248)  with  good  reason  rejects  this  ex 
planation  as  laboured  and  artificial,  though  it  is 
adopted   by  Keil    in   Havernick's   Einleitung  (iii. 
120-129).      He  shows  that  in  some  passages  (as 
Ps.  xxxii.  4,  5,  Iii.  3,  Iv.  7,  8)  the  playing  of  the 
priests  on  the  trumpets  would  be  unsuitable,  and 
proposes  the  following  as  his  own  solution  of  the 
difficulty : — "  The  word  denotes  elevation  or  ascent, 

1.  e.  loud,  dear.     The  music  which  commonly  ac 
companied  the  singing  "was  soft  and  feeble.    In  cases 
where  it  was  to  burst  in  more  strongly  during  the 
silence  of  the  song,  Selah  was  the  sign.    At  the  end 
of  a  verse  or  strophe,  where  it  commonly  stands, 
the  music  may  have   readily  been  strongest  and 
loudest."    It  may  be  remarked  of  this,  as  of  all  the 
other  explanations  which  have  been  given,  that  it 
is  mere  conjecture,  based  on  an  etymology  which, 
in  any  other  language  than  Hebrew,  would  at  once 
be  rejected  as  unsound.     A  few  other  opinions  may 
be  noticed  as  belonging  to  the  history  of  the  sub 
ject.    Michaelis,  in  despair  at  being  unable  to  assign 
any  meaning  to  the  word,  regarded  it  as  an  abbre 
viation,  formed  by  taking  the  first  or  other  letters 
of  three  other   words   (Suppl.   ad  Lex.   ffebr.~), 
though  he  declines  to  conjecture  what  these  may 
have  been,  and  rejects  at  once  tne  guess  of  Mei- 
bomius,  who  extracts  the  meaning  da  capo  from 
the  three  words  which  he  suggests.     For  other  con 
jectures  of  this  kind,  see  Eichhorn's   Bibliothek,  v. 
545.      Mattheson   was   of   opinion  that  the   pas 
sages  where  Selah  occurred  were  repeated  either  by 
the  instruments  or  by  another  choir :  hence  he  took 
it  as  equal  to  ritornello.      Herder  regarded  it  as 
marking  a  change  of  key  ;  while  Paulus  Burgensis 
and  Schiudler  assigned  to  it  no  meaning,  but  looked 
upon  it  as  an  enclitic  word  used  to  rill  up  the  verse. 
Buxtorf  (Lex.  Hebr.}  derived  it  from  i"]7D,  sdlah, 
to  spread,  lay  low:  hence  used  as  a  s'sjn  to  lowci 
the  voice,  like  piano.      In   Eichhorn's  Bibliothek 


1194 


RELED 


(r.  550)  it  is  suggested  that  Selah  may  perhapt 
signify  a  scale  in  music,  cr  indicate  a  rising  or 
falling  in  the  tone.  Koster  'Stud,  und  Krii.  1831) 
saw  in  it  only  a  mark  to  indicate  the  strophical 
divisions  of  the  Psalms,  but  its  position  in  the 
middle  of  verses  is  against  this  theory.  Augusti 
(Pract.  Einl.  in  d.  Ps.  p.  125)  thought  it  was  an 
exclamation,  like  hallelujah!  and  the  same  view 
was  taken  by  the  late  Prof.  Lee  (ffeb.  Gr.  §243,  2), 
who  classes  it  among  the  interjections,  and  renders 
it  praise  I  "  For  my  own  part,"  he  says,  "  1  be 

lieve  it  to  be  descended  from  the  root  ,JlA^,    '  he 


blessed,'  &c.,  and  used  not  unlike  the  word  amen, 
or  the  doxology,  among  ourselves."  If  any  further 
information  be  sought  on  this  hopeless  snbject,  it 
may  be  found  in  the  treatises  contained  in  (Jgolini, 
vol.  xxii.,  in  Noldius  (Concord.  Part.  Ann.  et  Vind. 
No.  1877),  in  SaaLschiitz  (Hebr.  Poes.  p.  346),  and 
in  the  essay  of  Sommer  quoted  above.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SEL'ED  (l^D:  2aAa5:  Soled}.  One  of  the 
sons  of  Nadab,  a  descendant  of  Jerahmeel  (1  Chr. 
ii.  30). 

SELEMI'A  (Sakmfa).  One  of  the  five  men 
"  ready  to  write  swiftly,"  whom  Esdras  was  com 
manded  t')  take  (2  Esd.  xiv.  24). 

SELEMI'AS  (SeAejucw  :  om.  in  Vulg.).  SHE- 
LEMIAH  of  the  sons  of  Bani  (1  Esd.  ix.  34  ;  comp. 
Ezr.  x.  39). 

SELEUCI'A  (2e\6u/fe.o:  Seleucia}  was  prac- 
uicallv  the  seaport  of  ANTIOCH,  as  Ostia  was  of 
Rome,  Neapolis  of  Philippi,  Cenchreae  of  Corinth, 
ind  the  Piraeus  of  Athens.  The  river  Orontes, 
after  flowing  past  Antioch,  entered  the  sea  not 
far  from  Seleucia.  The  distance  between  the  two 
towns  was  about  16  miles.  We  are  expressly 
told  that  St.  Paul,  in  company  with  Barnabas, 
sailed  from  Seleucia  at  the  beginning  of  his  first 
missionary  circuit  (Acts  xiii.  4)  ;  and  it  is  almost 
certain  that  he  landed  there  on  his  return  from 
it  (xiv.  26).  The  name  of  the  place  shows  at 
once  that  its  history  was  connected  with  that 
line  of  Seleucidae  who  reigned  at  Antioch  from 
the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great  to  the  close  of 
the  Roman  Republic,  and  whose  dynasty  had  so 
close  a  connexion  with  Jewish  annals.  This  strong 
fortress  and  convenient  seaport  was  in  fact  con 
structed  by  the  first  Seleucus,  and  here  he  was 
buried.  It  retained  its  importance  in  Roman  times, 
and  in  St.  Paul's  day  it  had  the  privileges  of  a  free 
city  (Plin.  H.  N.  v.  18).  The  remains  are  nu 
merous,  the  most  considerable  being  an  immense 
excavation  extending  from  the  higher  part  of  the 
city  to  the  sea  :  but  to  us  the  most  interesting  are 
the  two  piers  of  the  old  harbour,  which  still  bear 
the  names  of  Paul  and  Barnabas.  The  masonry 
continues  so  good,  that  the  idea  of  clearing  out  and 
repairing  the  harbour  has  recently  been  entertained. 
Accounts  of  Seleucia  will  be  found  in  the  narrative 
of  the  Euphrates  Expedition  by  Geneml  Chesney, 
and  in  his  papers  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Geo 
graphical  Society,  and  also  in  a  paper  by  Dr.  Yates 
in  the  Museum  of  Chssical  Antiquities.  [J.  S.  H.] 

SELEU'CUS  QSe'Aev/cos:  Seleucus}  IV.  Philo- 
pator,  "king  of  Asia"  (2  Mace.  iii.  3),  that  is,  of 
the  provinces  included  in  the  Syrian  monarchy,  ac 
cording  to  the  title  claimed  by  the  Seleucidae,  even 
when  they  had  lost  their  footing  in  Asia  Minor 
(oomp.  1  Mace.  viii.  6,  xi.  13,  xii.  39,  xiii.  32),  was 


SENAAH 

the  son  and  successor  of  A ntiochus  the  Great.  He 
took  part  in  the  disastrous  battle  of  Magnesia  (B.C. 
190),  and  three  years  afterwards,  on  the  death  of 
his  father,  ascended  the  throne.  He  seems  to  hav« 
devoted  himself  to  strengthening  the  Syrian  power, 
which  had  been  broken  down  at  Magnesia,  seeking 
to  keep  on  good  terms  with  Rome  and  Egypt  till  he 
could  find  a  favourable  opportunity  for  war.  He 
was,  however,  murdered,  after  a  reign  of  twelve 
years  (B.C.  175),  by  Heliodorus,  one  of  his  own 
courtiers  [HELIODORUS],  "  neither  in  [sudden] 
anger  nor  in  battle"  (Dan.  xi.  20.  and  Jerome,  ad 
foe.),  but  by  ambitious  treachery,  without  having 
effected  anything  of  importance.  His  son  Deme 
trius  I.  Soter  [DEMETRIUS],  whom  he  had  sent, 
while  still  a  boy,  as  hostage  to  Rome,  after  a  series 
of  romantic  adventures,  gained  the  crown  in  162  B.C. 
(1  Mace.  vii.  1  ;  2  Mace.  xiv.  1).  The  general 
policy  of  Seleucus  towards  the  Jews,  like  that  of  his 
father  (2  Mace.  iii.  2,  3,  Kal  SeAeu/coj/),  was  con 
ciliatory,  as  the  possession  of  Palestine  was  of  the 
highest  importance  in  the  prospect  of  an  Egyptian 
war ;  and  he  undertook  a  large  share  of  the  expenses 
of  the  Temple-service  (2  Mace.  iii.  3,  6).  On  one 
occasion,  by  the  false  representations  of  Simon, 
a  Jewish  officer  [SiMON  3],  he  was  induced  to 
make  an  attempt  to  carry  away  the  treasures  de 
posited  in  the  Temple,  by  means  of  the  same  Helio 
dorus  who  murdered  him.  The  attempt  signally 
failed,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  afterwards 
showed  any  resentment  against  the  Jews  (2  Mace, 
iv.  5,  6)  ;  though  his  want  of  money  to  pay  the 
enormous  tribute  due  to  the  Romans  [ANTIOCHUS 
III.,  vol.  i.  p.  74]  may  have  compelled  him  to  raise 
extraordinary  revenues,  for  which  cause  he  is  de 
scribed  in  Daniel  as  "a  raiser  of  taxes"  (Dan.  xi. 
1.  c. ;  Liv.  xli.  19).  [B.  F.  W.] 

SEM  (2V:  San}-  SHEM  the  patriarch  (Luke 
iii.  36). 

SEMACHI'AH  (-irVSOp:  2aj8aXi'a;  Alex. 
2ajuax/as :  Samachias).  One  of  the  sons  of  She- 
maiah,  the  son  of  Obed-edom  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  7). 

SEM'EI  (Se/ief :  Semei).  1.  SHIMET  of  the 
sons  of  Hashum  (1  Esd.  ix.  33;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  33). 

2.  (2e/i€«w.)  SHIMEI,  the  ancestor  of  Mordecai 
(Esth.  xi.  2). 

3.  (Sejtef.)    The   father   of  Mattathias   in   the 
genealogy  of  Jesus  Christ  (Luke  iii.  26). 

SEMEL'LIUS  (ScyteAAios :  SabeUius).  SHIM- 
SHAI  the  scribe  (I  Esd.  ii.  16,  17,  25,  30;  comp. 
Ezr.  iv.). , 

SEM'IS  (Sejuets  :  Semeis).  SHIMEI  the  I  evite 
in  the  time  of  Ezra  (1  Esd.  ix.  23;  comp.  Ezr. 
x.  23). 

SEMITIC  LANGrAGES.  [SHEMITIC  LAN* 

GUAGKS.] 

SENA'AH  (HMD  :  2oa»/a,  2a^am :  Sanaa), 
The  "  children  of  Senaah  "  are  enumerated  amongst 
the  "  people  of  Israel  "  who  returned  from  the  Cap 
tivity  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  35;  Neh.  vii.  38). 
In  JS'eh.  iii.  3,  the  name  is  given  with  the  article, 
has-Senaah. 

The  names  in  these  lists  are  mostly  those  of 
towns ;  but  Senaah  does  not  occur  elsewhere  in  the 
Bible  as  attached  to  a  town.* 

The  Magdal-Senna,  or  "  great  Senna"  of  Eusebius 
and  Jerome,  seven  miles  N.  of  Jericho  (Onomast. 

a  The  rock  SENEI?  »f  1  Sam.  xiv.  4  is  hardly  appropriate 


SENEH 

*  Senna"),  however,  is  not  inappropriate  in  position.  ' 
There  is  a  variation  in  the  numbers  given  by  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah  ;  but  even  adopting  the  smaller  figure, 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  the  people  of  Senaah 
should  have  been  so  much  more  numerous  than  those 
of  the  other  places  in  the  catalogue.  Bertheau 
(Exeg.  Handb.}  suggests  that  Senaah  represents  not 
a  single  place  but  a  district ;  but  there  is  nothing 
to  corroborate  this. 

In  the  parallel  passages  of  1  Esdras  (iv.  23)  the 
name  is  given  ANNAAS,  and  the  number  3330.  [G.] 

SEN'EH  (POD:  2ewa;  Alex,  omits:  Sme"). 
The  name  of  one  of  the  two  isolated  rocks  which 
stood  iq  the  "  passage  of  Michmash,"  at  the  time 
of  the  adventure  of  Jonathan  and  his  armour-bearer 
(1  Sam.  xiv.  4).  It  was  the  southern  one  of  the 
two  (ver.  5),  and  the  nearest  to  Geba.  The  name 
in  Hebrew  means  a  "  thorn,"  or  thorn-bush,  and 
is  applied  elsewhere  only  to  the  memorable  thorn 
of  Horeb ;  but  whether  it  refers  in  this  instance 
to  the  shape  of  the  rock,  or  to  the  growth  of  seneh 
upon  it,  we  cannot  ascertain.  The  latter  is  more 
consistent  with  analogy.  It  is  remarkable  that 
Josephus  (B.  J.  v.  2,  §1),  in  describing  the  route 
of  Titus  from  the  north  to  Jerusalem,  mentions  that 
the  last  encampment  of  his  army  was  at  a  spot 
"  which  in  the  Jews'  tongue  is  called  the  valley  " 
or  perhaps  the  plain  "  of  thorns  (aKav6cav  av\u>v}, 
near  a  certain  village  called  Gabathsaoul^,"  i.  e. 
Gibeath  of  Saul.  The  ravine  of  Michmash  is 
about  four  miles  from  the  hill  which  is,  with 
tolerable  certainty,  identified  with  Gibeah.  This 
distance  is  perhaps  too  great  to  suit  Josephus's  ex 
pression  ;  still  the  point  is  worth  notice.  [G.] 

SENI'R  ("MS? :  2ai/et> :  Sanir).     This  name 

occurs  twice  in  the  A.  V.,  viz.  1  Chr.  v.  23,  and 
Ez.  xxvii.  5 ;  but  it  should  be  found  in  two  other 
passages,  in  each  of  which  the  Hebrew  word  is  ex 
actly  similar  to  the  above,  viz.  Deut.  iii.  9,  and 
Cant.  iv.  8.  In  these  it  appeal's  in  the  A.  V.  as 
SIIENIR.  Even  this  slight  change  is  unfortunate, 
since,  as  one  of  the  few  Amorite  words  preserved,  the 
name  possesses  an  interest  which  should  have  pro 
tected  it  from  the  addition  of  a  single  letter.  It  is 
the  Amorite  name  for  the  mountain  in  the  north  of 
Palestine  which  the  Hebrews  called  HERMON,  and 
the  Phoenicians  SlRiON ;  or  perhaps  it  was  rather 
the  name  for  a  portion  of  the  mountain  than  the 
whole.  In  1  Chr.  v.  23,  and  Cant.  iv.  8,  Hermon 
and  it  are  mentioned  as  distinct.  Abulfeda  (ed. 
Kohler,  p.  164,  quoted  by  Gesenius)  reports  that 
the  part  of  Anti-Lebanon  north  of  Damascus — that 
usually  denominated  Jebel  esh  Shurky,  "  the  East 
Mountain  " — was  in  his  day  called  Senir.  The  use 
of  the  word  in  Ezekiel  is  singular.  In  describing 
Tyre  we  should  naturally  expect  to  find  the  Phoe 
nician  name  (Sirion)  of  the  mountain  employed, 
if  the  ordinary  Israelite  name  (Hermon)  were  dis 
carded.  That  it  is  not  so  may  show  that  in  the 
time  of  Ezekiel  the  name  of  Senir  had  lost  its  ori 
ginal  significance  as  an  Amorite  name,  and  was  em 
ployed  without  that  restriction. 

TheTargum  of  Joseph  on  1  Chr.  v.  23  (ed.  Beck 
renders  Senir  by  »pa  *^»  "VKD,"  of  which  the 
most  probable  translation  'is  "  the  mountain  of  th 
plains  of  the  Perizzites."     In  the  edition  of  Wilkins 
the  text  is  altered  to  »VVB  np»  'D,  "  the  moun 
tain  that  corrupteth  fruits,"  in  agreement  with  the 
Turgums  on  D<  ut.  iii.  9,  though  it  is  there  given  as 


SENNACHERIB 


119! 


the  equivalent  of  Sirion.  Which  of  three  is  the 
original  it  is  perhaps  impossible  now  to  decide. 
The  former  has  the  slight  consideration  ::i  its 
favour,  that  the  Hivites  are  specially  mentioned  as 
"  under  Mount  Hermon,"  and  thus  may  have 
been  connected  or  confounded  with  the  Perizzites; 
or  the  reading  may  have  arisen  from  mere  caprice, 
as  that  of  the  Sam.  ver.  of  Deut.  iii.  9,  appears 
-o  have  done.  [See  SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH, 
p.  1114.]  [G.] 

SENNACH'ERIB 


i/j.,  LXX. ;  2e*>axrjp(£os,  Joseph. ;  2a- 
,  Herod. :  Sennacherib)  was  the  son  and 
successor  of  Sargon.  [SARGON.]  His  name  in  the 
original  is  read  as  Tsin-akki-irib,  which  is  under 
stood  to  mean,  "  Sin  (or  the  Moon)  increases  bro- 
,hers :"  an  indication  that  he  was  not  the  first-born 
of  his  father.  The  LXX.  have  thus  approached 
much  more  nearly  to  the  native  articulation  than 
the  Jews  of  Palestine,  having  kept  the  vowel- sounds 
almost  exactly,  and  merely  changed  the  labial  at 
;he  close  from  j8  to  yu.  Josephus  has  been  even 
more  entirely  correct,  having  only  added  the  Greek 
nominatival  ending. 

We  know  little  or  nothing  of  Sennacherib  during 
his  father's  lifetime.  From  his  name,  and  from  a 
circumstance  related  by  Polyhistor,  we  may  gather 
that  he  was  not  the  eldest  son,  and  not  the  heir  tc 
the  crown  till  the  year  before  his  father's  death. 
Polyhistor  (following  Be.'osus)  related  that  the  tri 
butary  kingdom  of  Babylon  was  held  by  a  brother 
— who  would  doubtless  be  an  elder  brother— of 
Sennacherib's,  not  long  before  that  prince  came  to 
the  throne  (Beros.  Fr.  12).  Sennacherib's  brother 
was  succeeded  by  a  certain  Hagisa,  who  reigned 
only  a  month,  being  murdered  by  Merodach-Bala- 
dan,  who  then  took  the  throne  and  held  it  six 
months.  These  events  belong  to  the  year  B.C.  703, 
which  seems  to  have  been  the  last  year  of  Sargon. 
Sennacherib  mounted  the  throne  B.C.  702.  His 
first  efforts  were  directed  to  crushing  the  revolt  of 
Babylonia,  which  he  invaded  with  a  large  army. 
Merodach-Baladan  ventured  on  a  battle,  but  was 
defeated  and  driven  from  the  country.  Sennacherib 
then  made  Belibus,  an  officer  of  his  court,  viceroy 
and,  quitting  Babylonia,  ravaged  the  lands  of  the 
Aramaean  tribes  on  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates, 
whence  he  carried  off  200,000  captives.  In  the 
ensuing  year  (B.C.  701)  he  made  war  upon  the 
independent  tribes  in  Mount  Zagros,  and  penel  rated 
thence  to  Media,  where  he  reduced  a  portion  of  the 
nation  which  had  b<>en  previously  independent.  In 
his  third  year  ( u.G.  700)  he  turned  his  arms  towarus 
the  west,  chastised  Sidon,  took  tribute  from  Tyre, 
Aradus,  and  the  other  Phoenician  cities,  as  well  as 
from  Edom  and  Ashdod,  besieged  and  captured 
Ascalon,  made  war  on  Egypt,  which  was  still  de 
pendent  on  Ethiopia,  took  Libnah  and  Lachish  on 
the  Egyptian  frontier,  and,  having  probably  con. 
eluded  a  convention  with  his  chief  enemy,1*  finally 
marched  against  Hezekiah,  king  of  Judah.  Heze- 
kiah,  apparently,  had  not  only  revolted  and  with 
held  his  tribute,  but  had  intermeddled  with  the 
affairs  of  the  Philistian  cities,  and  given  his  support 
to  the  party  opposed  to  the  influence  of  Assyria. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  "  Sennacherib  came  up 
against  all  the  fenced  cities  of  Judah,  and  took 


a  The  impression  on  clay  of  the  seaJ  of  a  Sabaco,  found 
in  Sennacherib's  palace  at  Koyunjik,  had  probably  boey 
appended  to  this  treaty. 


1196 


SENNACHERIB 


them"  (2  K  xviii.  13).  There  can  DP  no  doubt 
that  the  rectrd  which  he  has  left  of  his  campaign 
against  "  Hiskiah  "  in  his  third  year,  is  the  war 
with  Hezekiah  so  briefly  touched  in  the  four  verses 
cf  this  chapter  (vers.  13-16).  The  Jewish  monarch 
was  compelled  to  make  a  most  humble  submission. 
He  agreed  to  bear  whatever  the  Great  King  laid 
upon  him  ;  and  that  monarch,  besides  carrying  off 
a  rich  booty  and  more  than  200,000  captives, 
appointed  him  a  fixed  tribute  of  300  talents  of 
silver,  and  30  talents  of  gold.  He  also  deprived 
him  of  a  considerable  portion  of  his  territory, 
which  he  bestowed  on  the  petty  kings  of  Ashdod, 
Ekron,  and  Gaza.  Having  made  these  arrange 
ments,  he  left  Palestine  and  returned  into  his  own 
country. 

In  the  following  year  (B.C.  699),  Sennacherib 
invaded  Babylonia  for  the  second  time.  Merodach- 
Baladan  continued  to  have  a  party  in  that  country, 
where  his  brothers  still  resided  ;  and  it  may  be 
suspected  that  the  viceroy,  Belibus,  either  secretly 
favoured  his  cause,  or  at  any  rate  was  remiss  in 
opposing  it.  The  Assyrian  monarch,  therefore, 
took  the  field  in  person,  defeated  a  Chaldaean  chief 
who  had  taken  up  arms  on  behalf  of  the  banished 
king,  expelled  the  king's  brothers,  and,  displacing 
Belibus,  put  one  of  his  own  sons  on  the  throne  in 
his  stead. 

It  was  perhaps  in  this  same  year  that  Senna 
cherib  made  his  second  expedition  into  Palestine. 
Hezekiah  had  again  revolted,  and  claimed  the  pro 
tection  of  Egypt,  which  seems  to  have  been  regarded 
by  Sennacherib  as  the  true  cause  of  the  Syrian 
troubles. '  Instead,  therefore,  of  besieging  Jeru 
salem,  the  Assyrian  king  marched  past  it  to  the 
Egyptian  frontier,  attacked  once  more  Lachish  and 
Libnah,  but  apparently  failed  to  take  them,  sent 
messengers  from  the  former  to  Hezekiah  (2  K. 
xviii.  17),  and  on  their  return  without  his  submis 
sion  wrote  him  a  threatening  letter  (2  K.  xix.  14), 
while  he  still  continued  to  press  the  war  against 
Egypt,  which  had  called  in  the  assistance  of  Tir- 
hakah,  king  of  Ethiopia  (ib.  ver.  9).  Tirhakah 
was  hastening  to  the  aid  of  the  Egyptians,  but  pro 
bably  had  not  yet  united  his  troops  with  theirs, 
when  an  event  occurred  which  relieved  both  Egypt 
and  Judaea  from  their  danger.  In  one  night  the 
Assyrians  lost,  either  by  a  pestilence  or  by  some 
more  awful  manifestation  of  divine  power,  185,000 
men !  The  camp  immediately  broke  up — the  king 
fled — the  Egyptians,  naturally  enough,  as  the  de 
struction  happened  upon  their  borders,  ascribed  it  to 
their  own  gods,  and  made  a  boast  of  it  centuries  after 
(Herod,  ii.  141).  Sennacherib  reached  his  capital 
in  safety,  and  was  not  deterred,  by  the  terrible  dis 
aster  which  had  befallen  his  arms,  from  engaging 
in  other  wars,  though  he  seems  thenceforward  to 
have  carefully  avoided  Palestine.  In  his  fifth  year 
he  led  an  expedition  into  Armenia  ai.d  Media;  after 
which,  from  his  sixth  to  his  eighth  year,  he  was 
er gaged  in  wars  with  Susiana  and  Babylonia.  From 
this  point  his  annals  fail  us. 

Sennacherib  reigned  twenty-two  years.  The  date 
rf  his  accession  is  fixed  by  the  Canon  of  Ptolemy  to 
B.C.  702,  the  first  year  of  Belibus  or  Elibus.  The 
date  of  his  death  is  marked  in  the  same  document 
by  the  accession  of  Asaridanus  (Esar-Haddon)  to  the 
throne  cf  Babylon  in  B.C.  680.  The  monuments  are 
m  exact  conformity  with  these  dates,  for  the  22nd 

b  It  has  boon  stated  that  in  1861  the  French  occupants  of 
9yru  destroyed  this  tablet,  and  replaced  it  by  an  inscrip- 


SENUAH 

year  of  Sennacherib  has  been  found  uj  on  them, 
while  they  have  not  furnished  any  notice  of  a  latei 
year. 

It  is  impossible  to  reconcile  these  dates  with  the 
chronology  or  Hezemah  s  reign,  according  to  the 
numbers  of  the  present  Hebrew  text.  Those  num 
bers  assign  to  Hezekiah  the  space  between  B.C.  726 
and  B.C.  697.  Consequently  the  first  invasion  rl 
Sennacherb  falls  into  Hezekiah 's  twenty-seotnth 
year  instead  of  his  fourteenth,  as  stated  in  2  K. 
xviii.  13,  and  Is.  xxxvi.  1.  Various  solutions  have 
been  proposed  of  this  difficulty.  According  to  some, 
there  has  been  a  dislocation  as  well  as  an  alteration 
of  the  text.  Originally  the  words  ran,  "  Now  it 
came  to  pass  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  king  Heze 
kiah,  that  the  king  of  Assyria  [Sargon],  came  up 
against  the  fenced  cities  of  Judah."  Then  followed 
ch.  xx.  (Is.  xxxviii.) — "  In  those  days  was  Hezekiah 
sick  unto  death,"  &c. ;  after  which  came  the  nar 
rative  of  Sennacherib's  two  invasions.  [See  HKZK- 
KIAH.]  Another  suggestion  is,  that  the  year  has 
been  altered  in  2  K.  xviii.  13  and  Is.  xxxvi.  1,  by  a 
scribe,  who,  referring  the  narrative  in  ch.  xx.  (Is. 
xxxviii.)  to  the  period  of  Sennacherib's  first  inva 
sion,  concluded  (from  xx.  6)  that  the  whole  hap 
pened  in  Hezekiah's  fourteenth  year  (Rawlinson's 
Herodotus,  vol.  i.  p.  479,  note  2),  and  therefore 
boldly  changed  "  twenty-seventh"  into  "  four 
teenth." 

Sennacherib  was  one  of  the  most  magnificent  of 
the  Assyrian  kings.  He  seems  to  have  been  the 
first  who  fixed  the  seat  of  government  permanently 
at  Nineveh,  which  he  carefully  repaired  and  adorned 
with  splendid  buildings.  His  greatest  work  is  the 
grand  palace  at  Koyunjik,  which  covered  a  space  of 
above  eight  acres,  and  was  adorned  throughout  with 
sculptures  of  finished  execution.  He  built  also,  or 
repaired,  a  second  palace  at  Nineveh  on  the  mound 
of  Nebbi  Yunus,  confined  the  Tigris  to  its  channel 
by  an  embankment  of  brick,  restored  the  ancient 
aqueducts  which  had  gone  to  decay,  and  gave  to 
Nineveh  that  splendour  which  she  thenceforth  re 
tained  till  the  ruin  of  the  empire.  He  also  erected 
monuments  in  distent  countries.  It  is  his  memorial 
which  still  remains  b  at  the  mouth  of  the  Nahr-el- 
Kclb  on  the  coast  of  Syria,  side  by  side  with  au 
inscription  of  Rameses  the  Great,  recording  his  con 
quests  six  centuries  earlier. 

Of  the  death  of  Sennacherib  nothing  is  known 
beyond  the  brief  statement  of  Scripture,  that  "  3- 
he  was  worshipping  in  the  house  of  Nisroch  (?),  hiv 
god,  Adrammelech  and  Sharezer  his  sons  smote  him 
with  the  sword,  and  escaped  into  the  land  of  Ar 
menia"  (2  K.  xix.  37  ;  Is.  xxxvii.  38).  It  is  curious 
that  Moses  of  Chorene  and  Alexander  Polyhistor 
should  both  call  the  elder  of  these  two  sons  by  a 
different  name  (Ardumazanes  or  Argamozauus) ; 
and  it  is  still  more  curious  that  Abydenus,  who 
generally  drew  from  Berosus,  should  interpose  a  king 
Nergilus  between  Sennacherib  and  Adrammelech, 
and  make  the  latter  be  slain  by  Esarhaddon  (Euseb. 
Chr.  Can.  i.  9  ;  comp.  i.  5,  and  see  also  Mos.  Chor. 
Arm.  Hist.  i.  22).  Moses,  on  the  contrary,  confirms 
the  escape  of  both  brothers,  and  mentions  the  parts 
of  Armenia  where  they  settled,  and  which  were 
afterwards  peopled  by  their  descendants.  [G.  R.] 

SEN'UAH  (nK-1Jp :  'Ao-ovo:  Senna}.  Pro 
perly  Hassenuah,  with  the  def.  article.  A  Ben- 

(ion  in  their  own  honour;  but  such  an  act-of  barbarisTT 
seems  scarcely  pos&ible  in  Ihc  nineteenth  century. 


KEORIM 

jairiite,  the  father  of  Judith,  who  was  second  over 
the  city  after  the  return  from  Babylon  (Neh.  xi. 
9).  In  1  Chr.  ix.  7,  "  Judah  the  son  of  Senuah  " 
is  "  Hodaviah  the  son  of  Hasenuah." 


SEPHAR 


1191 


SEO'RIM  (Dny^  :    2eo>pi>  ;    Alex. 

Seorim}.  The  chief  of  the  fourth  of  the  twenty- 
four  courses  of  priests  instituted  by  Pavid  (1  Chr. 
xxiv.  8). 


SE'PHAB  OSp:  2a</)rjpo;  Alex. 
Sephar}.  It  is  written,  after  tha  enumeration  of  the 
sons  of  Joktan,  "  and  their  dwelling  was  from  Mesha 
as  thou  goest  unto  Sephar,  a  mount  of  the  east" 
(Gen.  x.  30).  The  immigration  of  the  Joktanites 
was  probably  from  west  to  east,  as  we  have  shown  in 
ARABIA,  MESHA,  &c.,  and  they  occupied  the  south 
western  portion  of  the  peninsula.  The  undoubted 
identifications  of  Arabian  places  and  tribes  with 
their  Joktanite  originals  are  included  within  these 
limits,  and  point  to  Sephar  as  the  eastern  boundary. 
There  appears  to  be  little  doubt  that  the  ancient 
sea-port  town  called  Dhafari  or  Zafari,  and  Dhafar 
jr  Zafar,  without  the  inflexional  termination,  repre 
sents  the  Biblical  site  or  district  :  thus  the  etymo 
logy  is  sufficiently  near,  and  the  situation  exactly 
agrees  with  the  requirements  of  the  case.  Accord 
ingly,  it  has  been  generally  accepted  as  the  Sephar 
of  Genesis.  But  the  etymological  fitness  of  this  site 
opens  out  another  question,  inasmuch  as  there  are 
no  less  than  four  places  bearing  the  same  name, 
besides  several  others  bearing  names  that  are  merely 
variations  from  the  same  root.  The  frequent  re 
currence  of  these  variations  is  curious  ;  but  we  need 
only  here  concern  ourselves  with  the  four  first 
named  places,  and  of  these  two  only  are  important 
to  the  subject  of  this  article.  They  are  of  twofold 
importance,  as  bearing  on  the  site  of  Sephar,  and  as 
being  closely  connected  with  the  ancient  history  of  the 
Joktanite  kingdom  of  Southern  Arabia,  the  kingdom 
founded  by  the  tribes  sprung  from  the  sons  of  Jok 
tan.  The  following  extracts  will  put  in  a  clear 
light  what  the  best  Arabian  writers  themselves  say 
on  the  subject.  The  first  is  from  the  most  im 
portant  of  the  Arabic  Lexicons  :  — 


Dhafari 


town   of  the   Yemen  ; 


one  says,  He  who  enters  Dhafari  learns  the  Him 
yeritic  .  .  .  Es-Sdghdnee  says,  *  In  the  Yemen  are 
four  places  every  one  of  which  is  called  Dhafari  ; 
two  cities  and  two  fortresses.  The  two  cities  are 
Dhafar  i-l-Hakl,  near  San'a,  two  days'  journey  from 
it  on  the  south  ;  and  the  Tubbaas  used  to  atide 
there,  and  it  is  .said  that  it  is  San'a  [itself].  In 
relation  to  it  is  called  the  onyx  of  DhafaVi.  (Ibn- 
Es-Sikkeet  says  that  the  onyx  of  Dhafdri  is  so 
called  in  relation  to  Dhafari-Asad,  a  city  in  the 
Yemen.)  Another  is  in  the  Yemen,  near  Mirbdt, 
in  the  extremity  of  the  Yemen,  and  is  known  by 
the  name  of  Dhafari-s-SjChib  [that  is,  of  the  sea- 
coast],  and  in  relation  to  it  is  willed  the  Kust-Dha- 
fdri  [either  costus  or  aloes-wood],  that  is,  the  wood 
with  which  one  fumigates,  because  it  is  brought 
ibither  from  India,  and  from  it  to  [the  rest  of]  the 
Yemen'  .  .  .  And  it  Ya"koot  meant,  for  he  said, 
'  Dhafari  ...  is  a  city  in  the  extremity  of  the 
Yemen,  near  to  Esh-Shihr.'  As  to  the  two  fortresses, 


a  Abu-1-Fida  has  fallen  into  an  absurd  error  In  his 
Geography,  noticed  by  M.  Fresnel  (7T*.  Lettre,  p.  317). 
He  endeavours  to  prove  that  tt  5  two  Zafaris  were  only 


one  of  them  is  a  fortress  on  the  south  of  Snn'a,  two 
days'  journey  from  it,  in  the  country  of  [the  tribe 
of]  Benoo-Murad,  and  it  is  called  Dhafiiri-MVadi- 
yeyn  [that  is,  of  the  Two  Valleys].  It  is  also  called 
Dhafari-Zeyd  ;  and  another  is  on  the  north  thereof, 
also  two  days'  journey  from  it,  in  the  country  of 
Hemdan,  and  is  called  Dhafari-dh-Dhahir "  (Taj- 
el- 'Aroos,  MS.,  s.v.).a 

Yakoot,  in  his  Homonymous  Dictionary  {El- 
Mushtarak,  s.  v.)  says : — "  Dhafari  is  a  celebrated 
city  in  the  extremity  of  the  country  of  the  Yemen, 
between  'Oman  and  Mirbat,  on  the  shore  of  the 
sea  of  India :  I  have  been  informed  of  this  by  one  whc 
has  seen  it  prosperous,  abounding  in  good  things 
It  is  near  Esh-Shihr.  Dhafari-Zeyd  is  a  fortress  in 
the  Yemen  in  the  territory  of  Habb :  and  Dhatari 
is  a  city  near  to  San'i,  and  in  relation  to  it  is  called 
the  Dhafari  onyx ;  in  it  was  the  abode  of  the 
kings  of  Himyer,  and  of  it  was  said,  He  who  enters 
Dhafari  learns  the  Himyeritic ; — and  it  is  said  that 
San'a  itself  is  Dha&ri." 

Lastly,  in  the  Geographical  Dictionary  called  the 
Mardsid,  which  is  ascribed  to  Ya*koot,  we  read,  s.  v. 
"  Dhafari :  two  cities  in  the  Yemen,  one  of  them 
near  to  San'a,  in  relation  to  which  is  called  the 
Dhjifa'ri  onyx :  in  it  was  the  dwelling  of  the  kings 
of  Himyer ;  and  it  is  said  that  Dhafari  is  the  city 
of  San'k  itself.  And  Dhafari  of  this  day  is  a  city 
on  the  shore  of  the  sea  of  India,  between  it  and 
Mirba"t  are  five  parasangs  of  the  territories  of  Esh- 
Shihr,  [and  it  is]  near  to  SuhaV,  and  Mirbat  is  the 
other  anchorage  besides  Dhafari.  Frankincense  is 
only  found  on  the  mountain  of  DhafaVi  of  Esh- 
Shihr." 

These  extracts  show  that  the  city  of  Dhafan 
near  San'a  was  very  little  known  to  the  writers, 
and  that  little  only  by  tradition ;  it  was  even  sup 
posed  to  be  the  same  as,  or  another  name  for, 
San'a,  and  its  site  had  evidently  fallen  into  oblivion 
at  their  day.  But  the  sea-port  of  this  name  was  a 
celebrated  city,  still  flourishing,  and  identified  on 
the  authority  of  an  jeye-witness.  M.  Fresnel  has 
endeavoured  to  prove  that  this  city,  and  not  the 
western  one,  was  the  Himyerite  capital ;  and  cer 
tainly  his  opinion  appears  to  be  borne  out  by  most 
of  the  facts  that  have  been  bi  ought  to  light. 
Niebuhr,  however,  mentions  the  ruins  of  Dhafari 
near  Yereem,  which  would  be  those  of  the  western 
city  (Descr.  206).  While  Dhafari  is  often  men 
tioned  as  the  capital  in  the  history  of  the  Him 
yerite  kingdom  (Caussin,  Essai,  i.  passim],  it  was 
also  in  the  later  times  of  the  kingdom  the  seat  of 
a  Christian  Church  (Philostorgius,  Hist.  Eccles. 
iii.  4). 

But,  leaving  this  curious  point,  it  remains  to 
give  what  is  known  respecting  DhafaYi  the  sea 
port,  or  as  it  will  be  more  convenient  to  call  it, 
after  the  usual  pronunciation,  Zaf&r.  All  the  evi 
dence  is  clearly  in  favour  of  this  site  being  that  of 
the  'Sephar  of  the  Bible,  and  the  identification  has 
accordingly  been  generally  accepted  by  critics.  More 
accurately,  it  appears  to  preserve  the  name  mentioned 
in  Gen.  x.  30,  and  to  be  in  the  district  anciently  so 
named.  It  is  situate  on  the  coast,  in  the  province  of 
Hadramawt,  and  near  to  the  district  which  adjoins 
that  province  on  the  east,  called  Esh-Shihr  (or  as 
M.  Fresnel  says  it  is  pronounced  in  the  modern 
Himyeritic  Skker).  Wellsted  says  of  it,  "  DofaV  is 


one,  by  supposing  that  the  inland  town,  which  he  place; 
only  twenty-four  leagues  from  San'fc,  VVP.S  originally  of 
the  sea-const. 


SEPHARAD 

situated  beneath  a  lofty  mountain  "  (ii.  453).  In 
the  Mardsid  it  is  said,  as  we  have  seen,  that  frank 
incense  (in  the  author's  time)  was  found  only  in 
the  "  mountain  of  Dhafari ;"  and  Niebuhr  (Descr. 
248)  says  that  it  exports  the  best  frankincense. 
M.  Fresnel  gives  almost  all  that  is  known  of  the 
present  state  of  this  old  site  in  his  Lettres  sur 
r  Hist,  des  Arabes  avant  I' ' Islamlsmc  (V*.  Lettre, 
Journ.  Asiat.  iii.e  serie,  tome  v.).  Zafar,  he  tells 
us,  pronounced  by  the  modern  inhabitants  "  Isfor," 
is  now  the  name  of  a  series  of  villages  situate 
some  of  them  on  the  shore,  and  some  close  to 
the  shore,  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  between  Mirbat 
and  Ras-Sajir,  extending  a  distance  of  two  days' 
journey,  or  17  or  18  hours,  from  east  to  west. 
Proceeding  in  this  direction,  those  near  the  shore 
are  named  Takah,  Ed-Dahareez,  El-Beleed,  El- 
Hareh,  Saldhah,  and  Awkad.  The  fiist  four  are 
on  the  sea-shore,  and  the  last  two  at  a  small  dis 
tance  from  it.  El-Beleed,  otherwise  called  Harkam, 
is,  in  M.  Fresnel's  opinion,  the  ancient  Zatar.  It 
is  in  ruins,  but  ruins  that  attest  its  former  pros 
perity.  The  inhabitants  were  celebrated  for  their 
hospitality.  There  are  now  only  three  or  four 
inhabited  houses  in  El-Beleed.  It  is  on  a  small 
peninsula  lying  between  the  ocean  and  a  bay,  and 
the  port  is  on  the  land  side  of  the  town.  In  the 
present  day,  during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  year, 
at  least  at  low  tide,  the  bay  is  a  lake,  and  the 
peninsula  an  isthmus,  but  the  lake  is  of  sweet 
water.  In  the  rainy  season,  which  is  in  the  spi'ing, 
it  is  a  gulf,  of  sweet  water  at  low  tide  and  of  salt 
water  at  high  tide. 

The  classical  writers  mention  Sapphar  metropolis 
(SoTRpcJpa  [i.i\T p6iro\is)  or  Saphar  (in  Anon.  Peripl. 
p.  274),  in  long.  88°,  lat.  14°  30',  according  to 
Ptol.,  the  capital  of  the  Sappharitae  (Scnrcpap'iTai), 
placed  by  Ptol.  (vi.  6.  §25)  near  the  Homeritae  ; 
but  their  accounts  are  obscure,  and  probably  from 
hearsay.  In  later  times,  as  we  have  already  said, 
it  was  the  seat  of  a  Christian  Church :  one  of 
three  which  were  founded  A.D.  343,  by  permis 
sion  of  the  reigning  Tubbaa,  in  Dhafari  (written 
Tapharon,  Td<papov,  by  Philostorgius,  Hist.  Eccles. 
iii.  4),  in  'Aden,  and  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian 
Gulf.  Theophilus,  who  was  sent  with  an  embassy 
by  order  of  the  Emperor  Constantine  to  effect  this 
purpose,  was  the  first  bishop  (Caussin,  i.  Ill 
seqq.).  In  the  reign  of  Abrahah  (A.D.  537-570) 
S.  Gregentius  was  bishop  of  these  churches,  having 
been  sent  by  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  (cf.  autho 
rities  cited  by  Caussin,  i.  142-5).  [E.  S.  P.] 

SEPHA'RAD  O^Bp  ;  Targ.  fc^EQDK,  ».  e. 
Ispania :  ecos  'E<f>pa6a,  in  both  MSS. :  in  Bospord). 
A  name  which  occurs  in  Obad.  ver.  20  only,  as 
that  of  a  place  in  which  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem 
were  then  held  in  captivity,  and  whence  they  were 
to  return  to  possess  the  cities  of  the  south. 

Its  situation  has  always  been  a  matter  of  un 
certainty,  and  cannot  even  now  be  said  to  be 
settled. 

(1.)  The  reading  of  the  LXX.  given  above,  and 
followed  by  the  Arabic  Version,  is  probably  a  mere 
conjecture,  though  it  may  point  to  a  modified  form 
of  the  name  in  the  then  original,  viz.  Sepharath.  In 
Jsroms's  copy  of  the  LXX.  it  appears  to  have  been 
Eu<£peiT7?s,  since  (Comm.  in  Abd.}  he  renders  their 
version  of  the  verse  transmigratio  Jerusalem  usque 
Eupkrathem.  This  is  certainly  extremeiy  ingenious, 
hut  will  hardly  hold  water  when  we  turn  it  back 
'nto  Hebrew. 


SEPHARAD 

(2.)  The  reading  of  the  Vulgate,  Bosporus*  wns 
adopted  by  Jerome  from  his  Jewish  instructor,  who 
considered  it  to  be  "  the  place  to  which  Hadrian  had 
transported  the  captives  from  Jerusalem  "  '  Comm. 
in  Abdiam).  This  interpretation  Jerome  Jid  not 
accept,  but  preferred  rather  to  treat  Sepharad  as 
connected  with  a  similar  Assyriat  word  signi 
fying  a  •'  boundary,"  and  to  consider  the  passage 
as  denoting  the  dispersion  of  the  Jews  into  al 
regions. 

We  have  no  means  of  knowing  to  which  Bospoii'8 
Jerome's  teacher  alluded — the  Cimmerian  or  the 
Thracian.  If  the  former  (Strait  of  Yeni-kale), 
which  was  in  Iberia,  it  is  not  impossible  that  this 
Rabbi,  as  ignorant  of  geography  outside  the  Holy 
Land  as  most  of  his  brethren,  confounded  it  with 
Iberia  in  Spain,  and  thus  agreed  with  the  rest  of 
the  Jews  whose  opinions  have  come  down  to  us. 
If  the  latter  (Strait  of  Constantinople),  then  he 
may  be  taken  as  confirming  the  most  modorn  opin 
ion  (not  ced  below),  that  Sepharad  was  Sardis  in 
Lydia. 

The  Targum  Jonathan  (s«e  above)  and  the 
Peshito-Syriac,  and  from  them  the  modern  Jews, 
interpret  Sepharad  as  Spain  (Ispamia  and  Ispania), 
one  common  variation  of  which  name,  Hesperi-jt 
(Diet,  of  Geogr.  i.  10746),  does  certainly  bear  con 
siderable  resemblance  to  Sepharad  ;  and  so  deeply 
has  this  taken  root  that  at  the  present  day  the 
Spanish  Jews,  who  form  the  chief  of  the  two  great 
sections  into  which  the  Jewish  nation  is  divided, 
are  called  by  the  Jews  themselves  the  Scphardim, 
German  Jews  being  known  as  the  Ashkenazim. 

It  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  either  of  these  can 
be  the  true  explanation  of  Sepharad.  The  prophecy 
of  Obadiah  has  every  appearance  of  referring  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  Jews  had 
been  at  that  early  date  transported  to  Spain. 

(3.)  Others  have  suggested  the  identity  of  Sepha  • 
rad  with  Sipphara  in  Mesopotamia,  but  that  is  more 
probably  SEPHARVAIM. 

(4.)  The  name  has  perhaps  been  discovered  in 
the  cuneiform  Persian  inscriptions  of  Naksh-i- 
Rustwn  and  Beltistun ;  and  also  in  a  list  of  Asiatic 
nations  given  by  Niebuhr  (Reiseb.  ii.  pi.  31 ).  In  the 
latter  it  occurs  between  Ka  Ta  Pa  TUK  (Cappa- 
docia)  and  Ta  UNA  (Ionia).  De  Sacy  was  the  first 
to  propose  the  identification  of  this  with  Sepharad, 
and  subsequently  it  was  suggested  by  I.assen  that 
S  Pa  Ra  D  was  identical  with  Sardis,  the  ancient 
capital  of  Lydia.  This  identification  is  approved 
of  by  Winer,  and  adopted  by  Dr.  Pusey  (Tntrod.  U 
Obad.  p.  232,  note,  also  245).  In  support  of  this, 
Fiirst  (flandwb.  ii.  95  a)  points  out  that  Antigonus 
(dr.  B.C.  320)  may  very  probably  have  taken  some 
of  his  Jewish  captives  to  Sardis  ;  but  it  is  more  con 
sistent  with  the  apparent  date  of  Obadiah's  pro 
phecy  to  believe  that  he  is  referring  to  the  event 
mentioned  by  Joel  (iii.  6),  when  "  children  of 
Judah  and  Jerusalem"  were  soil  to  the  "sons  or 
the  Javanim  "  (lonians),  which — as  the  first  cap 
tivity  that  had  befallen  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  and 
a  transportation  to  a  strange  land,  and  that  beyond 
the  sea— could  hardly  fail  to  make  an  endu/ing 
impression  on  the  nation. 

(5.)  Ewald  (Prophetcn,  i.  404)  considers  that 
Sepharad  has  a  connexion  with  Zarephath  in  the 


»  Obtained  by  taking  the  prefixed  preposition  as  part 
of  the  name— "112  D3  '•>  and  at  tho  salpe  t1ine  reJect'nf? 
the  final  I). 


SEl'HAEVAIM 

preceding  verse  ;  and  while  deprecating  the  "  pene 
tration"  of  those  who  have  discovered  the  name 
in  a  cuneiform  inscription,  suggests  that  the  true 
reading  is  Sepharam,  and  that  it  is  to  be  found 
in  a  place  three  hours  from  Akka,  i.  e.  doubtless 
the  modern  Shefa  'Omar,  a  place  of  much  ancient 
repute  and  veneration  among  the  Jews  of  Palestine 
(see  Zuaz,  nj*e  to  Parchi.  428)  ;  but  it  is  not 
obvious  how  a  residence  within  the  Holy  Land  can 
have  been  spoken  of  as  a  captivity,  and  there  are 
considerable  differences  in  the  form  of  the  two  names. 
(6.)  Michaelis  (Suppl.  No.  1778)  has  devoted 
some  space  to  this  name  ;  and,  among  other  conjec 
tures,  ingeniously  suggests  that  the  "  Spartans"  of 
1  Mace.  xii.  15  are  accurately  "  Sepharadites." 
This  suggestion,  however,  does  not  appear  to  have 
stood  the  test  of  later  investigation.  I  See  SPAR- 
IANS.]  [G.] 

SEPHARVA'IM 


l/j. :  Sepharvaiin}  is  mentioned  by  Sen 
nacherib  in  his  letter  to  Hezekiah  as  a  city  whose 
king  had  been  unable  to  resist  the  Assyrians  (2  K. 
dx.  13;  Is.  xxxvii.  13;  comp.  2  K.  xviii.  34).     It 
is  coupled  with  Hena  and  Ava,  or  Ivah,  which  were 
towns   on  the  Euphrates  above  Babylon.     Again, 
it  is  mentioned,  in  2  K.  xvii.  24,  as  one  of  the 
places  from  which  colonists  were   transported    to 
people  the  desolate  Samaria,  after  the  Israelites  had 
been  carried  into  captivity,  where  it  is  again  joined 
with   Ava,   and   also  with  Cuthah  and    Babylon. 
These  indications  are  enough  to  justify  us  in  identi 
fying  the  place  with  the  famous  town  of  Sippara, 
on   the   Euphrates   above  Babylon   (Ptol.  v.   18), 
which  was  near  the  site  of  the  modern   Mosaib. 
Sippara  was   mentioned  by  Berosus  as  the   place 
where,  according  to  him,  Xithrus  (or  Noah)  buried 
the  records  of  the  antediluvian  world  at  the  time  oi 
the  deluge,  and  from  which  his  posterity  recovered 
them  afterwards  (Fragm.  Hist.  Gt:  ii.  p.  501, 
p.  280).     Abydenus   calls   it  ir6\iv  2 imraprj vuv 
(F*.  9),  and  says  that  Nebuchadnezzar  excavated  a 
vast  lake  in  its  vicinity  for  purposes  of  irrigation 
Pliny  seems  to  intend  the  same  place  by  his  "  op 
pida  Hipparenorum  "  * — where,  according  to  him 
was  a  great  seat  of  the  Chaldaic  learning  (H.  N 
vi.  30).     The  plural  form  here  used  by  Pliny  maj 
be  compared  with  the  dual  form  in  use  among  the 
Jews ;  and  the  explanation  of  both  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  there  were  two  Sipparas,  one  on  eithe: 
side  of  the  river.     Berosus  called  Sippara,  "  a  cit] 
of  the  sun"  ('HAfou  Tro'Atj/) ;  and  in  the  inscription 
it  bears  the  same  title,  being  called    Tsipar  she 
Shamas,  or  "  Sippara  of  the  Sun  " — the  sun  being 
the  chief  object  of  worship  there.     Hence  the  Se 
pharvitcs  are  said,  in  2  K.  xvii.  31,  to  have  "burn 
their   children   in   the   fire  to   Adrammelech  am 
Anammelech,  the  gods  of  Sepharvaiin  " — these  tw 
distinct  deities  representing  respectively  the  mal 
and  female  powers  of  the  sun,  as  Lunus  and  Lun 
represented  the  male  and  female  powers  of  the  moo 
among  the  Romans.  [G.  R.] 


SEPHE'LA  (T) 


Sephela).  TheGree 


SEPIIELA  1199 

form  of  the  ancient  word  has-Shefeldh 

the  native  name  for  the  southern  division  of  the 

low-lying  flat  district  which  intervenes  between  tht 

central  highlands  of  the  Holy  Land  and  the  Medi- 

jrranean,  the  other  and  northern  portion  of  which 

as  known  as  SHARON.   The  name  occurs  through- 

ut  the  topographical  records  of  Joshua,  the  his- 

>rical  works,  and  the  topographical  passages  in  the 

'rophets ;    always  with  the  article   prefixed,  and 

Iways  denoting  the  same  region  b  (Deut.  i.  7  ;  Josh. 

x.  1,  x.  40,  xi.  2,  16  a,  xii.  8,  xv.  33;  Judg.  i.  9; 

K.  x.  27  ;  1  Chr.  xxvii.  28  ;  2  Chr.  i.  15,  ix.  27. 

xvi.  10,  xxviii.  18  ;  Jer.  xvii.  26,  xxxii.  44,  xxxiii 

3;  Obad.  19;   Zech.  vii.  7).      In  each  of  these 

assages,  however,  the  word  is  treated  in  the  A.  V. 

ot  as  a  proper  name,  analogous  to  the  Campagna, 

he  Wolds,  the  Carse,  but  as  a  mere  appellative, 

nd   rendered   "  the   vale,"    "  the   valley,"    "  the 

jlain,"  "the  low  plains,"  and  "the  low  country." 

low  destructive  this  is  to  the  force  of  the  narrative 

nay  be  realized  by  imagining  what  confusion  would 

3e  caused  in  the  translation  of  an  English  historical 

vork  into  a  foreign  tongue,  if  such  a  name  as  "  The 

Downs"  were  rendered  by  some  general  term  ap- 

)licable   to  any  other   district    in  the   countiy  ot' 

imilar  formation.    Fortunately  the  Book  of  Macca- 

>ees  has  redeemed  our  Version  from  the  charge  of 

laving  entirely  suppressed  this  interesting  name. 

n  1  Mace.  xii.   38   the  name   Sephela   is  found, 

though  even  here  stripped  of  the  article,  which  was 

tttached  to  it  in  Hebrew,  and  still  accompanies  it  in 

,he  Greek  of  the  passage. 

Whether  the  name  is  given  in  the  Hebrew  Scrip 
tures  in  the  shape  in  which  the  Israelites  encoun 
tered  it  on  entering  the  country,  or  modified  so  as 
x>  conform  it  to  the  Hebrew  root  shafal,  and  thus 
^according  to  the  constant  tendency  of  language 
bring  it  into  a  form  intelligible  to  Hebrews — we 
shall  probably  never  know.  The  root  to  which  it 
is  related  is  in  common  use  both  in  Hebrew  and 
Arabic.  In  the  latter  it  has  originated  more  than 
one  proper  name— as,  Mespila,  now  known  as 
Koyunjik;  el-Mesfale,  one  of  the  quarters  of  the 
city  of  Mecca  (Burckhardt,  Arabia,  i.  203,  4)  ;  and 
Seville,  originally  Hi-spalis,  probably  so  called  from 
its  wide  plain  (Arias  Montano,  in  Ford,  Handbook 
of  Spain). 

The  name  Shefelah  is  retained  in  the  old  versions, 
even  those  of  the  Samaritans,  and  Habbi  Joseph  on 
Chronicles  (probably  as  late  as  the  llth  century 
A.D.).  It  was  actually  in  use  down  to  the  5th 
century.  Eusebius,  and  after  him  Jerome  ( Onomast. 
Sephela,"  and  Comm.  on  Obad.),  distinctly  state 
that  "  the  region  round  Eleutheropolis  on  the  north 
and  west  was  so  called."  c  And  a  careful  investi 
gation  might  not  improbably  discover  the  name 
still  lingering  about  its  ancient  home  even  at  the 
present  day. 

No  definite  limits  are  mentioned  to  the  Shefelah, 
nor  is  it  probable  that  there  were  any.  In  the  list 
of  Joshua  (xv.  33-47)  it  contains  43  "  cities,"  as 
well  as  the  hamlets  and  temporary  villages  de 
pendent  on  them.  Of  these,  as  far  as  our  know- 


»  When  Pliny  places  Hippara  or  Sippara  on  the  Na 
ragam  (NaJir  Agam),  instead  of  on  the  Euphrates,  h 
reference  is  to  the  artificial  channel,  which  branched  o 
from  the  Euphrates  at  Sippara,  and  led  to  the  great  lak 
(Chald  J03JX)  excavated  by  Nebuchadnezzar.  Abyden 
called  this  branch  "  Aracauus"  ('Apa»cai/os),  Ar  Aka 
;Fr  10). 

fc  So  absolute  is  this  usage,  that  on  the  single  occ 


sion  where  it  is  used  without  the  article  (Josh.  xi.  166) 
it  evidently  does  not  denote  the  region  referred  to 
above,  but  the  plains  surrounding  the  mountains  oi 
Ephraim. 

c  In  his  comment  on  Obadiah,  St.  Jerome  appears  to 
extend  it  to  Lydda  and  Emmaus-Nicopolis ;  and  at  the 
same  time  to  extend  Sharon  so  far  south  as  to  include  the 
Philistine  cities. 


1200 


SEPTUAGDNT 


ledge  avails  us,  the  most  northern  was  Ekron,  the 
most  southern  Gaza,  and  the  most  western  Nezib 
(about  7  miles  N.N.W.  of  Hebron).  A  large  num 
ber  of  these  towns,  hovever,  were  situated  not  in 
the  plain,  nor  even  on  the  western  slopes  of  the 
central  mountains,  but  in  the  mountains  themselves. 
[JARMUTH;  KEILAH  ;  NEZIB,  &c.]  This  seems 
to  show,  either  that  on  the  ancient  principle  of 
dividing  territory  one  district  might  intrude  into 
the  limits  of  another,  or,  which  is  more  probable, 
that,  as  already  suggested,  the  name  Shefelah  did 
not  originally  mean  a  lowland,  as  it  came  to  do  in 
Us  accommodated  Hebrew  form. 

The  Shefelah  was,  and  is,  one  of  the  most  pro 
ductive  regions  in  the  Holy  Land.  Sloping  as  it 
does  gently  to  the  sea,  it  receives  every  ye&r  a  fresh 
dressing  from  the  materials  washed  down  from  the 
mountains  behind  it  by  the  furious  rains  of  winter. 
1  his  natural  manure,  aided  by  the  great  heat  of  its 
climate,  is  sufficient  to  enable  it  to  reward  the 
rude  husbandry  of  its  inhabitants,  year  after  year, 
with  crops  of  corn  which  are  described  by  the  tra 
vellers  as  prodigious. 

Thus  it  was  in  ancient  times  the  corn-field  of 
Syria,  and  as  such  the  constant  subject  of  warfare 
between  Philistines  and  Israelites,  and  the  refuge 
of  the  latter  when  the  harvests  in  the  central  coun 
try  were  ruined  by  drought  (2  K.  viii.  1-3).  But 
it  was  also,  from  its  evenness,  and  from  its  situation 
on  the  road  between  Egypt  and  Assyria,  exposed  to 
continual  visits  from  foreign  armies,  visits  which 
at  last  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  Israelite  king 
dom.  In  the  earlier  history  of  the  country  the 
Israelites  do  not  appear  to  have  ventured  into  the 
Shefelah,  but  to  have  awaited  the  approach  of  their 
enemies  from  thence.  Under  the  Maccabees,  how 
ever,  their  tactics  were  changed,  and  it  became  the 
field  where  some  of  the  most  hardly  contested  and 
successful  of  their  battles  were  fought. 

These  conditions  have  hardly  altered  in  modern 
times.  Any  invasion  of  Palestine  must  take  place 
through  the  maritime  plain,  the  natural  and  only 
road  to  the  highlands.  It  did  so  in  Napoleon's  case, 
as  has  already  been  noticed  under  PALESTINE  [p. 
667  a].  The  Shefelah  is  still  one  vast  corn-field,  but 
the  contests  which  take  place  on  it  are  now  reduced 
to  those  between  the  oppressed  peasants  and  the 
insolent  and  rapacious  officials  of  the  Turkish  go 
vernment,  who  are  gradually  putting  a  stop  by 
their  extortions  to  all  the  industry  of  this  district, 
and  driving  active  and  willing  hands  to  better- 
governed  regions.  [See  JUDAH,  vol.  i.  1156  ;  PA 
LESTINE,  vol.  ii.  666  a,  667  6,  672,  3  ;  PLAINS, 
890  &.]  [G.] 

SEPTUAGINT.  The  Greek  version  of  the 
Old  Testament,  known  by  this  name,  is  like  the 
Nile,  funtium  qui  celat  origines.  The  causes  which 
produced  it,  the  number  and  names  of  the  trans 
lators,  the  times  at  which  different  portions  were 
translated,  ure  all  uncertain. 

It  will  therefore  be  best  to  launch  our  skiff  on 
known  waters,  and  try  to  track  the  stream  upwards 
towards  its  source. 

This  Version  appears  at  the  present  day  in  four 
piincipal  editions. 

1.  Biblia  Polyslotta  Complutensis,  A.D.  1514- 
1517. 

2.  The  Aldine  Edition,  Venice,  A.D.  1518. 

3.  The  Roman  Edition,  edited  under  Pope  Sixtus 
VT.,  A,D.  1587, 

4.  Facsirnilt    Edition  of  the  Codex  Alexandrinus, 
by  II    H.  Ihber    \,u.  18K5. 


SEPTUAGINT 

1,  £.  The  texts  of  (1)  and  (2)  were  probably 
formed  by  collation  of  several  MSS. 

3.  The  .Roman  edition  (3)   is  printed  from  the 
venerable  Codex  Vaticanus,  but  not  without  many 
errors.     This  text  has  been  followed  in  most  of  the 
modern  editions. 

A  transcript  of  the  Codex  Vatican  us,  prepared 
by  Cardinal  Mai,  was  lately  published  at  Home,  by 
Vercelloni.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  tine 
edition  is  not  so  accurate  as  to  preclude  the  neces 
sity  of  consulting  the  MS.  The  text  of  the  Codex 
and  the  parts  added  by  a  later  hand,  to  complete 
the  Codex  (among  them  nearly  all  Genesis),  are 
Drinted  in  the  same  Greek  type,  with  distinguishing 
notes. 

4.  The   Facsimile   Edition,    by   Mr.   Baber,    id 
printed  with  types  made  after  the  form  of  the  letters 
n  the  Codex  Alexandrinus  (Brit.  Museum  Library) 

for  the  Facsimile  Edition  of  the  New  Testament,  by 
Woide,  in  1786.  Great  care  was  bestowed  upon 
:he  sheets  as  they  passed  through  the  press. 

Other  Editions. 

The  Septuagmt  in  Walton's  Polyglot  (1657)  is 
the  Roman  text,  with  the  various  readings  of  th« 
Codex  Alexandrinus. 

The  Cambridge  edition  (1665),  (Roman  text),  is 
only  valuable  for  the  Preface  by  Pearson. 

An  edition  of  the  Cod.  Alex,  was  published  by 
Grabe  (Oxford,  1707-1720),  but  its  critical  valu? 
is  far  below  that  of  Baber's.  It  is  printed  in  com  • 
mon  type,  and  the  editor  has  exercised  his  judg 
ment  on  the  text,  putting  some  words  of  the  Codei 
n  the  margin,  and  replacing  them  by  what  he 
thought  better  readings,  distinguished  by  a  smallei 
type.  This  edition  was  reproduced  by  Breitinger 
(Zurich,  1730),  4  vols.  4to.,  with  the  various  read 
ings  of  the  Vatican  text. 

The  Edition  of  Bos  (Franeq.  1709)  follows  the 
Roman  text,  with  its  Scholia,  and  the  various  read 
ings  given  in  Walton's  Polyglott,  especially  those  of 
the  Cod.  Alex. 

The  valuable  Critical  Edition  of  Holmes,  conti 
nued  by  Parsons,  is  similar  in  plan  to  the  Hebre^ 
Bible  of  Kennicott ;  it  has  the  Roman  text,  with  a 
large  body  of  various  readings  from  numerous  MSS.. 
and  editions,  Oxford,  1798-1827. 

The  Oxford  Edition,  by  Gaisford,  1848,  has 
the  Roman  text,  with  the  va/ious  readings  of  the 
Codex  Alexandrinus  below. 

Tischendorfs  Editions  (the  2nd,  1856)  are  on 
the  same  plan  ;  he  has  added  readings  from  some 
other  MSS.  discovered  by  himself,  with  very  useful 
Prolegomena. 

Some  convenient  editions  have  been  published  by 
Mr.  Bagster,  one  in  8vo.,  others  of  smaller  size, 
forming  part  of  his  Polyglott  series  of  Bibles.  His 
text  is  the  Roman. 

The  latest  edition,  by  Mr.  Field  (1859),  differs 
from  any  of  the  preceding.  He  takes  as  hk  basis 
the  Codex  Alexandrinus,  but  corrects  all  the  ma 
nifest  errors  of  transcription,  by  the  help  of  other 
MSS.;  and  brings  the  dislocated  portions  of  the 
Septuagint  into  agreement  with  the  order  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible.* 

Manuscripts. 

The  various  readings  given  by  Holmes  and  Par 
sons  enable  us  to  judge,  in  some  measure,  of  th.€ 
character  of  the  several  MSS.  and  of  the  degree  oi 
their  accordance  with  the  Hebrew  text. 


"  There  are  some  singular  variations  in  1  Kings  (sec 
the  article  on  KINGS,  p.  81). 


BEPTUAGINT 

They  are  distinguished  thus  by  Holmes:  the 
uncial  by  Roman  numerals,  the  cursive  by  Arabic 
figures. 

Among  them  may  be  specially  noted,  with  their 

S-obable  dates  and  estimates  of  value  as  given  by 
oimes  m  his  Preface  to  the  Pentateuch  : — 


UNCIAL.b 

I.  COTTONIANUS.  Brit,  Mus.  (fragments) 
II.  VATICANCS.  Vat.  Library,  liome  .  . 

III.   ALEXANDKINUS.    Brit.  Mus 

VII.  AMBKOSIANUS.  Ambros.  Lib.,  Milan  . 
X.  CPISUNIANUS.  Bibl.  Imp.,  Paris  .  . 


Probable 

date. 
Century. 

4 

4 

5 

7 

1 


CURSIVE. 

Mediceus.    Med.  Laurentian  Lib.,  Florence 
Chigianus.    Similar  to  Complut.  Text  and 
108,  118    .......... 

Monachiensis.    Munich  ...... 

Vaticanm;  (num.  x.).  Vat.  Lib.,  similar  to  72 
Glasguensis      ......... 

Bodleianv,s.    Laud.  36,  notae  optimae  .     . 
Parisiensls(ll).    Imperial  Library      .     . 
Ve.T^.us.    Maximi  faciendus     .... 

Oxomensis.    Univ.  Coll  ....... 

Vaticanus  (1901),  optimae  notae     .     .     . 

Ferrarienses.     These  two  agree      .     .     • 
Vaticanus  (330)  7  Similar  to  Complut.  f  1  4 

Parisiensis.  Imp.  Lib.  J     Text  and  (19)     .  \  13 


11 

10 
10 

12 
12 

10  or  11 
13 
12 

)  14 


16. 
19. 

25. 

58. 

59. 

61. 

64. 

72. 

75. 

84. 
106.) 
107.5 
108.  I 
118.1 

The  texts  of  these  MSS.  differ  considerably  from 
each  other,  and  consequently  differ  in  various  degrees 
from  the  Hebrew  original. 

The  following  are  the  results  of  a  comparison  of 
the  readings  in  the  first  eight  chapters  of  Exodus : 

1.  Several  of  the  MSS.  agree  well  with  the  He 
brew  ;  others  differ  very  much. 

2.  The  chief  variance  from  the  Hebrew  is  in  the 
addition,  or  omission,  of  words  and  clauses. 

3.  Taking  the  Roman  text  as  the  basis,  there  are 
found  80  places  (a)  where  some  of  the  MSS.  differ 
from  the  Roman  text,  either  by  addition  or  omission, 
in  agreement  with   the   Hebrew;    26    places    (j8) 
where  differences  of  the  same  kind  are  not  in  agree 
ment  with  the  Hebrew.     There  is  therefore  a  large 
balance  against  the  Roman  text,  in  point  of  accord 
ance  with  the  Hebrew. 

4.  Those  MSS.  which  have  the  largest  number 
of  differences  of  class  (a)  have  the  smallest  number 
of  class  (j8).    There  is  evidently  some  strong  reason 
for  this  close  accordance  with  the  Hebrew  in  these 
MSS. 

5.  The  divergence  between  the  extreme  points  of 
the  series  of  MSS.  may  be  estimated  from  the  fol 
lowing  statement : — 

72  differs  from  the  Koman  ( in  40  places,  with  Hebrew. 
Text \  in   4     „       against  „ 


„,«„ 


Between  these  and  the  Roman   text   lie   many 
shades  of  variety. 

The  Alexandrine  text  falls  about  halfway  between 
the  two  extremes: 
Differing  fromRomanText 


The  diagram  below,  drawn  on  a  scale  represent 
ing  the  comparison  thus  instituted  (by  the  test  of 
agreement  with  the  Hebrew  in  respect  of  additions 
or  omissions),  may  help  to  bring  these  results  more 
clearly  into  view. 


b  An  uncial  MS.,  brought  by  Tischendorf  from  S*,. 
Catherine's  Monastery,  and  named  Codex  Sinai ticus,  IB 
supposed  by  him  to  be  as  ancient  as  Cod.  Viticanus  (II.) 
VOL.  IIT. 


SEPTUAGINT  120! 

The  base-line  R.  T.  rt presents  the  Ronum  text 


I      I 

I      I 
R. T. 

The  above  can  only  be  taken  as  an  approximation, 
the  range  of  comparison  being  limited.  A  more 
extended  comparison  might  enable  us  to  discri 
minate  the  several  MSS.  more  accurately,  but  the 
result  would,  perhaps,  hardly  repay  the  labour. 

But  whence  these  varieties  of  text?  Was  the 
Version  at  first  more  in  accordance  with  the  Hebrew, 
as  in  (72)  and  (59),  and  did  it  afterwards  dege 
nerate  into  the  less  accurate  state  of  the  Codex 
Vaticanus  ? 

Or  was  the  Version  at  first  less  accurate,  like  the 
Vatican  text,  and  afterwards  brought,  by  critical 
labours,  into  the  more  accurate  form  of  the  MSS. 
which  stand  highest  in  the  scale? 

History  supplies  the  answer. 

Hieronymus  (Ep.  ad  Suniam  et  Fretelam,  torn, 
ii.  p.  627)  speaks  of  two  copies,  one  older  and  less 
accurate,  Koivf),  fragments  of  which  are  believed  to 
be  represented  by  the  still  extant  remains  of  the 
old  Latin  Version ;  the  other  more  faithful  to  the 
Hebrew,  which  he  took  as  the  basis  of  his  own  new 
Latin  Version. 

"  In  quo  illud  breviter  admoneo,  ut  sciatis,  aliam 
esse  editionem,  quam  Origenes,  et  Caesariensis  Eu- 
sebius,  omnesque  Graeciae  tractatores  Koivfyv,  id  est, 
communcm,  appellant,  atque  vulgatam,  et  a  pie- 
risque  nunc  AouKiaz/bs  dicitur;  aliam  LXX.  inter  - 
pretum,  quae  et  in  e£cwr\o7s  codicibus  reperitur,  et 
a  nobis  in  latinum  sermonem  fideliter  versa  est,  et 
Hieroscdymae  atque  in  Orientis  Ecclesiis  deean- 
tatur  .  '.  .  KOIVTI  autem  ista,  hoc  est,  communis 
editio,  ipsa  est  quae  et  LXX.  sed  hoc  interest  inter 
utramque,  quod  KOIV^J  pro  locis  et  temporibus,  et 
pro  volun tate  scriptorum,  vetus  corrupta  editio  est; 
ea  autem  quae  habetur  in  e|o7rAoTs,  et  quam  nos 
vertimus,  ipsa  est  quae  in  eruditorum  libris  incor- 
rupta  et  immaculata  LXX.  interpretum  translatio 
reservatur.  Quicquid  ergo  ab  hoc  discrepat,  uulli 
dubium  est,  quiu  ita  et  ab  Hebraeorum  auctoritate 
discordet." 

In  another  place  (Praefat.  in  Paralip.  torn.  i. 
col.  1022)  he  speaks  of  the  corruption  of  the  ancient 
translation,  and  the  great  variety  o/"  copies  used  ir 
di  fferent  conn  tries : — 


1202 


8EPTUAGINT 


"  Cum  germana  ilia  antiquaque  translatio  cor- 
rupta  sit."  .  .  .  "  Alexandria  etAegyptus  in  LXX. 
•suis  Hesychium  laudant  auctorem  ;  Constantinopol.s 
usque  Antiochiam  Luciani  Martyris  exemplaria  pro- 
bat  ;  mediae  inter  lias  provinciae  Palaestinos  codices 
{egunt:  quos  ab  Origene  elaborates  Eusebius  et 
Pamphilus  vulgaverunt:  totusque  orbis  hac  inter 
se  contraria  varietate  compugnat." 

The  labours  of  Origen,  designed  to  remedy  the  con 
flict  of  discordant  copies,  are  best  described  in  his  own  j 
words  (Comment.  inMatth.  torn.  i.  p.  381, ed.  Huet.).  j 

"  Now  there  is  plainly  a  great  difference  in  the 
copies,  either  from  the  carelessness  of  scribes,  or 
the  rash  and  mischievous  correction  of  the  text 
by  others,  or  from  the  additions  or  omissions  made 
by  others  at  their  own  discretion.  This  discrepance 
in  the  copies  of  the  Old  Covenant,  we  have  found 
means  to  remedy,  by  the  help  of  God,  using  as  our 
criterion  the  other  versions.  In  all  passages  of  the 
LXX.  rendered  doubtful  by  the  discordance  of  the 
copies,  forming  a  judgment  from  the  other  versions, 
we  iiave  preserved  what  agreed  with  them;  and 
some  words  we  have  marked  with  an  obelos  as  not 
found  in  the  Hebrew,  not  venturing  to  omit  them 
entirely  ;  and  some  we  have  added  with  asteriscs 
affixed,  to  show  that  they  are  not  found  in  the 
LXX.,  but  added  by  us  from  the  other  versions,  in 
accordance  with  the  Hebrew." 

The  other  ficSScreis,  or  versions,  are  those  of 
Aquila,  Theodotion,  and  Symmachus. 

Origen,  Cornm.  in  Joann.  (torn.  ii.  p.  131,  ed. 
Huet.).  "  The  same  errors  in  names  may  be  observed 
frequently  in  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  as  we  have 
learnt  by  diligent  enquiry  of  the  Hebrews,  and  by 
comparing  our  copies  with  their  copies,  as  repre 
sented  in  the  still  uncorrupted  versions  of  Aquila, 
Theodotion,  and  Symmachus." 

It  appears,  from  these  and  other  passages,  that 
Origen,  finding  great  discordance  in  the  several 
copies  of  the  LXX.,  laid  this  version  side  by  side 
with  the  other  three  translations,  and,  taking  their 
accordance  with  each  other  as  the  test  of  their 
agreement  with  the  Hebrew,  marked  the  copy  of 
the  LXX.  with  an  obelos,  -j-,  where  he  found  su 
perfluous  words,  and  supplied  the  deficiencies  of 
the  LXX.  by  words  taken  from  the  other  versions, 
with  an  asterisc,  *,  prefixed. 

The  additions  to  the  LXX.  were  chiefly  made  from 
Theodotion  (Hieronymus,  Prolog,  in  Genesin,  1. 1). 

"  Quod  ut  auderem,  Origenis  me  studium  pro- 
vocavit,  qui  Edition!  antiquae  transiationem  Theo- 
dotionis  miscuit,  asterisco  *  et  obelo  -J-,  id  est, 
stella  et  veru,  opus  omne  distinguens:  dum  aut 
illucescere  facit  quae  minus  ante  fuerant,  aut  super- 
flua  quaeque  jugulat  et  confodit "  (see  also  Praef. 
m  Job,  p.  795)." 

From  Eusebius,  as  quoted  below,  we  learn  that 
this  work  of  Origen  was  called  rerpairXa,  the  four 
fold  Bible.  The  specimen  exhibited  at  the  top  of 
the  next  column  is  given  by  Montfaucon. 


SEPTUAGINT 

.     Gen.  i.  1. 


2YM- 

AKYAA2. 

MAX02. 

OiO. 

©eo^ortuv. 

ev   Kt<f>a\ai(a 

ev  apxfl 

ev  apxjl 

eV  apxrj 

CKTtae  v  6 

eKTicrev  6 

eTTOtrja-er 

eKTicrev  o 

®ebs  criiv  TOV 

©ebs  TOV 

6  ©ebs 

©ebs  TOV 

ovpavov  Kal 

ovpavov  *al 

TOV  ovpavov 

ovpavov  Kal 

oitv  Tfjv  -fyv. 

TYfv  yrjv. 

Kai  Trjvyrjv. 

r^if. 

But  this  was  only  the  earlier  and  the  smaller 
portion  of  Origen's  labours  ;  he  rested  not  till  he 
had  acquired  the  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  and  com 
pared  the  Septuagint  directly  with  the  Hebrew- 
copies.  Eusebius  (Hist.  Eccl.  vi.  16,  p.  217,  ed. 
Vales.)  thus  describes  the  labours  which  led  to  the 
greater  work,  the  Hexapla ;  the  kst  clause  of  the 
passage  refers  to  the  Tetrapla  : — 

"So  careful  was  Origen's  investigation  of  the 
sacred  oracles,  that  he  learnt  the  Hebrew  tongue, 
and  made  himself  master  of  the  original  Scriptures 
received  among  the  Jews,  in  the  Hebrew  letters; 
and  reviewed  the  versions  of  the  other  interpreters 
of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  besides  the  LXX. ;  and 
discovered  some  translations  varying  from  the  well- 
known  versions  of  Aquila,  Symmachus,  and  Theo 
dotion,  which  he  searched  out,  and  brought  to  light 
from  their  long  concealment  in  neglected  corners ; 
.  .  .  .  and  in  his  Hexapla,  after  the  four  principal 
versions  of  the  Psalms,  added  a  fifth,  yea,  a  sixth 
and  seventh  translation,  stating  that  one  of  these 
was  found  in  a  cask  at  Jericho,  in  the  time  of  An 
toninus,  son  of  Severus :  and  bringing  these  all  into 
one  view,  and  dividing  them  in  columns,  over 
against  one  another,  together  with  the  Hebrew  text, 
he  left  to  us  the  work  called  Hexapla ;  having  ar 
ranged  separately,  in  the  Tetrapla,  the  versions  of 
Aquila,  Symmachus,  and  Theodotion,  together  with 
the  version  of  the  Seventy." 

So  Jerome  (in  Catal.  Script.  Eccl.  torn.  iv.  P.  2, 
p.  116):  "Quis  ignorat,  quod  tantum  in  Scrip- 
turis  divinis  habuerit  studii,  ut  etiam  hebraeam 
linguam  contra  aetatis  gentisque  suae  naturam 
edisceret ;  et  acceptis  LXX.  interpretibus,  alias  quo- 
que  editiones  in  unum  volumen  congregaret :  Aquilae 
scilicet  Pontici  proselyti,  et  Theodotionis  Ebionaei, 
et  Symmachi  ejusdem  dogmatis  ....  Praeterea 
Quintara  et  Sextam  et  Septimam  Editionem,  quas 
etiam  nos  de  ejus  Bibliotheca  habeirus,  miro  laboie 
repent,  et  cum  caeteris  editionibus  comparavit." 

From  another  passage  of  Jerome  (in  Epist.  ad 
Titum,t.  iv.  P.  1,  p.  437)  we  learn  that  in  theHexapla 
the  Hebrew  text  was  placed  in  one  column  in  Hebrew 
letters,  in  the  next  column  in  Greek  letters : — 

"Undo  et  nobis  curae  fuit  omnes  veteris  legis 
libros,  quos  vir  doctus  Adamantius  (Origenes)  in 
Hexapla  digesserat,  de  Caesariensi  Bibliothecal  de- 
scriptos,  ex  ipsis  authenticis  emendare,  in  quibus  et 
ipsa  hebraea  propriis  sunt  characteribus  verba  de- 
scripta,  et  Graecis  literis  tramite  expressa  vicino." 


HEXAPLA  {Hos.  xi.  1). 


To  EBPAIKON. 

To  EBP. 
EAAHNIKOI2  PP. 

AKYAA2. 

2YMMAXO2. 

010. 

©EOAOTIQN. 

ininsi 

XL  V€P 
I<rpari\ 
oveafiriov 

ort  Trats 
lo-pari\, 
/cat  TiycLTrYjcrit 

OTi  7TO.IS 

Kai 

OTt   VrjTTlOS 

ItrpaTjA  /cat 

OTi  VTITTIOS 

Io~par)\ 
Kai  riyaTrqiro, 

*nb  *nN"iD 

ov/j.f/j.eo'patfj. 
KapaOi 
\(@avi. 

O.VTOV,  Kai 

OTTO  AiyVTTTOV 

e/caAeo-o 

riyaTrriiJ.ei'os 
e|  AiyvTTTov 

auTov  /cat 
e£  AiyvTTTQv 
KtKXrjra: 

avrov  Kai 
fKa\eo~a 
viov  IJ.QV 

TOV  VIOV  pOU. 

VIOS  fJLOV. 

vios  fj.ov. 

e^  AiyvTTTov 

SEPTUAGINT 

It  should  here  be  mentioned  that  some  take  uhe 
Tetrapla  as  denoting,  not  a  separate  work,  but 
only  that  portion  of  the  Hexapla  which  contains  the 
four  columns  filled  by  the  ftmi  principal  Greek  ver 
sions.  Valesius  (Notes  on  Eusebius,  p.  106)  thinks 
that  the  Tetrapla  was  formed  by  taking  those  four 
columns  out  of  the  Hexapla,  and  making  them  into 
a  separate  book. 

But  the  testimony  of  Origen  himself  (i.  381, 
ii.  131),  above  cited,  is  clear  that  he  formed  one 
corrected  text  of  the  Septuagiut,  by  comparison  of 
the  three  other  Greek  versions  (A,  2,  0),  using 
them  as  his  criterion.  If  he  had  known  Hebrew  at 
this  time,  would  he  have  confined  himself  to  the 
Greek  versions?  Would  he  have  appealed  to  the 
Hebrew,  as  represented  by  Aquila,  &c.  ?  It  seems 
very  evident  that  he  must  have  learnt  Hebrew  at  a 
later  time,  and  therefore  that  the  Hexapla,  which 
rests  on  a  comparison  with  the  Hebrew,  must  have 
followed  the  Tetrapla,  which  was  formed  by  the 
help  of  Greek  versions  only. 

The  words  of  Eusebius  also  (ff.  E.  vi.  16)  ap 
pear  to  distinguish  very  clearly  between  the  Hex 
apla  and  Tetrapla  as  separate  works,  and  to  imply 
that  the  Tetrapla  preceded  the  Hexapla. 

The  order  of  precedence  is  not  a  mere  literary 
question  ;  the  view  above  stated,  which  is  supported 
ny  Montfaucon,  Ussher,  &c.,  strengthens  the  force 
of  Origen's  example  as  a  diligent  student  of  Scrip 
ture,  showing  his  increasing  desire  integros  accedere 
fontes. 

The  labours  of  Origen,  pursued  through  a  long 
course  of  years,  first  in  procuring  by  personal  travel 
the  materials  for  his  great  work,  and  then  in  com 
paring  and  arranging  them,  made  him  worthy  of 
the  name  Adamantius. 

But  what  was  the  result  of  all  this  toil?  Where 
is  now  his  great  work,  the  Hexapla,  prepared  with 
so  much  care,  and  written  by  so  many  skilful 
hands  ?  Too  large  for  transcription,  too  early  by 
centuries  for  printing  (which  alone  could  have  saved 
it),  it  was  destined  to  a  short  existence.  It  was 
brought  from  Tyre  and  laid  up  in  the  Library  at 
Caesarea,  and  there  probably  perished  by  the  flames, 
A.D.  653. 

One  copy,  however,  had  been  made,  by  Pam- 
philus  and  Eusebius,  of  the  column  containing  the 
corrected  text  of  the  Septuagint,  with  Origen's 
asteriscs  and  obeli,  and  the  letters  denoting  from 
which  of  the  other  translators  each  addition  was 
taken.  This  copy  is  probably  the  ancestor  of  those 
Codices  which  now  approach  most  nearly  to  the 
Hebrew,  and  are  entitled  Hexaplar ;  but  in  the 
course  of  transcription  the  distinguishing  marks  have 
disappeared  or  become  confused  ;  and  we  have  thus 
a  text  composed  partly  of  the  old  Septuagint  text, 
partly  of  insertions  from  the  three  other  chief  Greek 
versions,  especially  that  of  Theodotion. 

The  facts  above  related  agree  well  with  the  phe 
nomena  of  the  MSS.  before  stated.  As  we  have 
Codices  derived  from  the  Hexaplar  text,  e.  g.  72, 
59,  58 ;  and  at  the  other  extreme  the  Codex  Vati- 
eanus  (II.),  probably  representing  nearly  the  ancient 
uncorrected  text,  KOIVT]  ;  so  between  these  we  find 
texts  of  intermediate  character  in  the  Codex  Alex- 
andrinus  (III.),  and  others,  which  may  perhaps  be 
derived  from  the  text  of  the  Tetrapla. 

To  these  main  sources  of  our  existing  MSS.  must 
be  added  the  recensions  of  the  Septuagint  mentioned 
by  Jerome  and  others,  viz.  those  of  Lucian  of 
Antioch  and  Ilesychius  of  Egypt,  not  long  after  the 
tittle  of  Origen.  We  have  seen  ubovo  that  each  of 


^EFIUAGINT 


1203 


these  had  a  wide  range ;  that  of  Lucian  (supposed 
to  be  corrected  by  the  Hebrew)  in  the  Churches 
from  Constantinople  to  Antioch  ;  that  of  Ilesychius 
in  Alexandria  and  Egypt ;  while  the  Churches  lying 
between  these  two  regions  used  the  Hexaplar  test 
copied  by  Eusebius  and  Pamphilus  (Hferon.  torn.  i. 
col.  1022). 

The  great  variety  of  text  in  the  existing  MSS.  is 
thus  accounted  for  by  the  variety  of  sources  from 
which  they  have  descended. 

I.  HISTORY  OF  THE  VERSION. 

We  have  now  to  pursue  our  course  upwards,  by 
such  guidance  as  we  can  find.  The  ancient  text, 
called  Kowf),  which  was  current  before  the  time  of 
Origen,  whence  came  it  ? 

We  find  it  quoted  by  the  early  Christian  Fathers, 
in  Greek  by  Clemens  Romanus,  Justin  Martyr, 
Irenaeus ;  in  Latin  versions  by  Tertullian  and 
Cyprian;  we  find  it  questioned  as  inaccurate  by 
the  Jews  (Just.  Martyr,  Apol.\  and  provoking 
them  to  obtain  a  better  version  (hence  the  versions 
of  Aquila,  &c.) ;  we  find  it  quoted  by  Josephus 
and  Philo;  and  thus  we  are  brought  to  the  time 
of  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists,  whose  writings  are 
full  of  citations  and  references,  and  imbued  with 
the  phraseology  of  the  Septuagint. 

But  when  we  attempt  to  trace  it  to  its  origin, 
our  path  is  beset  with  difficulties.  Before  we  enter 
on  this  doubtful  ground  we  may  pause  awhile  to 
mark  the  wide  circulation  which  the  Version  had 
obtained  at  the  Christian  era,  and  the  important 
services  it  rendered,  first  in  preparing  the  way  of 
CHRIST,  secondly  in  promoting  the  spread  of  the 
Gospel. 

1.  This  version  was  highly  esteemed  by  the  Hel 
lenistic  Jews  before  the  coming  of  Christ.    An  annual 
festival  was  held  at  Alexandria  in  remembrance  of 
the  completion  of  the  work  (Philo,  De  Vita  Mosis, 
lib.  ii.).     The  manner  in  which  it  is  quoted  by  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament  proves  that  it  had 
been  long  in  general  use."    Wherever,  by  the  con 
quests  of  Alexander,  or  by  colonization,  the  Greek 
language  prevailed ;    wherever  Jews  were  settled, 
and  the  attention  of  the  neighbouring  Gentiles  was 
drawn  to  their  wondrous  history  and  law,  there 
was  found  the  Septuagint,  which  thus  became,  by 
Divine  Providence,  the  means  of  spreading  widely 
the  knowledge  of  the  One  True  God,  and  His  pro 
mises  of  a  Saviour  to  come,  throughout  the  nations  ; 
it  was  indeed  ostium  gentibus  ad  Christum.    To  the 
wide  dispersion  of  this  version  we  may  ascribe  in 
great  measure  that  general  persuasion  which  pre 
vailed  over  the  whole  East  (percrebuerat  oriente 
toto)  of  the  near  approach  of  the  Redeemer,  and  led 
the  Magi  to  recognise  the  star  which  proclaimed 
the  birth  of  the  King  of  the  Jews. 

2.  Not  less  wide  was  the  influence  of  the  Septua 
gint  in  the  spread  of  the  Gospel.     Many  of  those 
Jews  who  were  assembled  at  Jerusalem  on  the  day 
of  Pentecost,  from  Asia  Minor,  from  Africa,  from 
Crete  and  Rome,  used   the   Greek  language;   the 
testimonies  to  Christ  from  the  Law  and  the  Pro 
phets  came  to  them  in  the  words  of  the  Septuagint ; 
St.  Stephen  probably  quoted  from  it  in  his  address 
to  the  Jews ;  the  Ethiopian  eunuch  was  reading  the 
Septuagint  version  of  Isaiah  in  his  chariot  ( .  . .  d>y 

&a.Tov  f-rrl  ff^ayrjv  ^X^7/-  •  •)  5  tne7  w'no  were 
scattered  abroad  went  forth  into  many  lands  speaking 
of  Christ  in  Greek,  and  pointing  to  the  things  writ 
ten  of  Him  in  the  Greek  version  of  Moses  and  tht 
Prophets  ;  from  Antioch  and  Alexandria  in  the  Ea.s< 

4  H  2 


1204 


SEPTUAGINT 


tt  Rome  and  Massilia  in  the  West  the  voice  of  the 
Gospel  sounded  forth  in  Greek ;  Clemens  of  Rome, 
Ignatius  at  Antioch,  Justin  Martyr  in  Palestine. 
Irenaeus  at  Lyons,  and  many  more,  taught  and 
wrote  in  the  words  of  the  Greek  Scriptures ;  and  a 
still  wider  range  was  given  to  them  by  the  Latin 
version  (or  versions)  made  from  the  LXX.  for  the 
use  of  the  Latin  Churches  in  Italy  and  Africa;  and 
in  later  times  by  the  numerous  other  versions  into 
the  tongues  of  Aegypt,  Aethiopia,  Armenia,  Arabia, 
and  Georgia.  For  a  long  period  the  Septuagint  was 
the  Old  Testament  of  the  far  larger  part  of  the 
Christian  Church.0 

Let  us  now  try  to  ascend  towards  the  source. 
Can  we  find  any  clear,  united,  consistent  testimony 
to  the  origin  of  the  Septuagint?  (1)  Where  and 
'  2)  when  was  it  made  ?  and  (3)  by  whom  ?  and 
(4)  whence  the  title?  The  testimonies  of  ancient 
writers,  or  (to  speak  more  properly)  their  tradi 
tions,  have  been  weighed  and  examined  by  many 
learned  men,  and  the  result  is  well  described  by 
Pearson  (Praef.  ad  LXX.,  1665): 

"  Neque  vero  de  ejus  antiquitate  dignitateque 
quicquam  impraesentiarum  dicemus,  de  quibus  viri 
docti  multa,  hoc  praesertim  saeculo,  scripsere ;  qui 
cum  maxime  inter  se  dissentiant,  nihil  adkuc  satis 
certi  et  explorati  videntur  tradidisse." 

(1)  The  only  point  in  which  all  agree  is  that 
Alexandria  was  the  birthplace  of  the  Version :  the 
Septuagint  begins  where  the  Nile  ends  his  course. 

(2)  On  one  other  point  there  is  a  near  agree 
ment,  viz.  as  to  time,  that  the  Version  was  made, 
or  at  least  commenced,  in  the  time  of  the  earlier 
Ptolemies,  in  the  first  half  of  the  third  century  B.C. 

(3)  By  whom  was  it  made  ? — The  following  are 
some  of  the  traditions  current  among  the  Fathers : — 

Irenaeus  (lib.  iii.  c.  24)  relates  that  Ptolemy  Lagi, 
wishing  to  adorn  his  Alexandrian  Library  with  the 
writings  of  all  nations,  requested  from  the  Jews  of 
Jerusalem  a  Greek  version  of  their  Scriptures ;  that 
they  sent  seventy  elders  well  skilled  in  the  Scrip 
tures  and  in  later  languages;  that  the  king  sepa 
rated  them  from  one  another,  and  bade  them  all 
translate  the  several  books.  When  they  came  to 
gether  before  Ptolemy  and  showed  their  versions, 
God  was  glorified,  for  they  all  agreed  exactly,  from 
beginning  to  end,  in  every  phrase  and  word,  so 
that  all  men  may  know  that  the  Scriptures  are 
translated  by  the  inspiration  of  God. 

Justin  Martyr  (Cohort,  ad  Graecos,  p.  34)  gives 
the  same  account,  and  adds  that  he  was  taken  to  see 
the  cells  in  which  the  interpreters  worked. 

Epiphanius  says  that  the  translators  were  divided 
into  pairs,  in  36  cells,  each  pair  being  provided 
with  two  scribes ;  and  that  36  versions,  agreeing 
in  every  point,  were  produced,  by  the  gift  of  tlie 
Holy  Spirit  (De  Pond,  et  Mens.  cap.  iii.-vi.). 

Among  the  Latin  Fathers  Augustine  adheres  to 
the  inspiration  of  the  translators: — "  Non  autem 
secundum  LXX.  interpretes,  qui  etiam  ipsi  divino 
Spiritu  interpretati,  ob  hoc  aliter  videntur  nonnulla 
dixisse,  ut  ad  spiritualem  sensum  scrutandum  magis 
admoneretur  lectoris  intentio  .  .  .  .  "  (De  Doctr. 
Christ,  iv.  15). 

But  Jerome  boldly  throws  aside  the  whole  story 
of  the  cells  and  the  inspiration : — "  Et  nescio  quis 
primus  auctor  Septuaginta  cellulas  Alexandriae 
mendacio  suo  extruxerit,  quibus  divisi  eadem  scrip- 


c  On  this  part  of  the  subject  see  an  Hulscan  Prize 
Essay,  by  W.  R.  Churton,  "  On  the  Influence  of  the  LXX. 
on  the  Progress  of  Christianity." 


SEPTUAGINT 

titarent,  cum  Aristaeus  ejusdem  Ptolemaei 
a,ffiri<TT'f)s,  et  multo  post  tempore  Josephus,  nihil 
tale  retulerint:  sed  in  una  basilica  congregate.*, 
contulisse  scribant,  non  prophetasse.  Aliud  est 
enim  vatem,  aliud  esse  interpretem.  Ibi  Spiritus 
ventura  praedicit  ;  hie  eruditio  et  verborum  copia 
§a  quae  intelligit  transfert"  (Praef.  ad  Pent.'. 

The  decision  between  these  conflicting  reports  as 
to  the  inspiration  may  be  best  made  by  careful 
study  of  the  version  itself. 

It  will  be  observed  that  Jerome,  while  rejecting 
the  stories  of  others,  refers  to  the  relation  of  Ari 
staeus,  or  Aristeas,  and  to  Josephus,  the  former 
being  followed  by  the  latter. 

This  (so  called)  letter  of  Aristeas  tc  nis  brother 
Philocrates  is  still  extant  ;  it  may  be  found  at  the 
beginning  of  the"  folio  volume  of  Hody  (De  Bibli- 
orum  Textibus  Originalibus  iic.,  Oxon.  MDCCV.), 
and  separately  in  a  small  volume  published  at 
Oxford  (1692).  It  gives  a  splendid  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  Septuagint  ;  of  the  embassy  and  pre 
sents  sent  by  King  Ptolemy  to  the  high-priest  at 
Jerusalem,  by  the  advice  of  Demetrius  Phalereus, 
his  librarian,  50  talents  of  gold  and  70  talents  of 
silver,  &c.  ;  the  Jewish  slaves  whom  he  set  free, 
paying  their  ransom  himself;  the  letter  of  the 
king  ;  the  answer  of  the  high-priest  ;  the  choosing 
of  six  interpreters  from  each  of  the  twelve  tribes, 
and  their  names;  the  copy  of  the  Law,  in  letters 
of  gold  ;  their  arrival  at  Alexandria  on  the  anni 
versary  of  the  king's  victory  over  Antigonus  ;  the 
feast  prepared  for  the  seventy-two,  which  continued 
for  seven  days  ;  the  questions  proposed  to  each  of 
the  interpreters  in  turn,  with  the  answers  of  each  ; 
their  lodging  by  the  sea-shore  ;  and  the  accom 
plishment  of  their  work  in  seventy-two  days,  by 
conference  and  comparison. 

Ot  5r/  eTrereAouy  e/ca0Ta  ffv^wt/a  TTOLOVVTCS 
irpbs  tavrobs  rats  avTifioXcus,  rb  8e  e/c  TTJS 


irapa  rov 

The  king  rejoiced  greatly,  and  commanded  the 
books  to  be  carefully  kept  ;  gave  to  each  three  robas, 
two  talents  of  gold,  &c.  ;  to  Eleazar  the  high-priest 
he  sent  ten  silver-footed  tables,  a  cup  of  thirty 
talents,  &c.,  and  begged  him  to  let  any  of  the 
interpreters  who  wished  come  and  see  him  again, 
for  he  loved  to  have  such  men  and  to  spend  his 
wealth  upon  them. 

This  is  the  story  which  probably  gave  to  this 
version  the  title  of  the  Septuagint.  It  differs  from 
the  later  accounts  above  cited,  being  more  embel 
lished,  'but  less  marvellous.  It  speaks  much  of 
royal  pomp  and  munificence,  but  says  nothing  of 
inspiration.  The  translators  met  together  and  con 
ferred,  and  produced  the.  best  version  they  could. 

A  simpler  account,  and  probably  more  genuine, 
is  that  given  by  Aristobulus  (2nd  century  B.C.)  in 
a  fragment  preserved  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus 
(Stromata,  lib.  v.  p.  595)  and  by  Eusebius  (Praep. 
Evang.  b.  xiii.  c.  12)  :  — 

"  It  is  manifest  that  Plato  has  followed  our  Law, 
and  studied  diligently  all  its  particulars.  For  before 
Demetrius  Phalereus  a  translation  had  been  made, 
by  others,  of  the  history  of  the  Hebrews'  going 
forth  out  of  Egypt,  and  of  all  that  happened  to 
them,  and  of  the  conquest  of  the  land,  and  of  the 
exposition  of  the  whole  Law.  Hence  it  is  manifest 
that  the  aforesaid  philosopher  borrowed  many 
things  ;  for  he  was  very  learned,  as  was  Pytha 
goras,  who  also  transferred  many  of  our  doctrinee 
into  his  system.  But  the  entire  translation  of  GUI 


SEPTUAGINT 

whole  Law  (r;  8e  8\7)  tpjj.'fivfta  TWV  8iet  rov 
v6fiov  Trdvrwv)  was  made  in  the  time  of  the  king 
named  Philadelphia,  a  man  of  greater  zeal,  under 
the  direction  of  Demetrius  Phalereus."  * 

This  probably  expresses  the  belief  which  prevailed 
in  the  2nd  century  B.C.,  viz.  that  some  portions  ot 
the  Jewish  history  had  been  published  in  Greek 
before  Demetrius,  but  that  in  his  time  and  under 
his  direction  the  whole  Law  was  translated:  and 
this  agrees  with  the  story  of  Aristeas. 

The  Prologue  of  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus  the  Son 
of  Sirach  (ascribed  to  the  time  of  Ptolemy  Pbyscon, 
about  133  B.C.)  makes  mention  of  "  the  Law  itself, 
the  Prophets,  and  the  rest  of  the  books,"  having 
been  translated  from  the  Hebrew  into  another 
tongue. 

The  letter  of  Aristeas  was  received  as  genuine 
and  true  for  many  centuries ;  by  Josephus  and 
Jerome,  and  by  learned  men  in  modern  times.  The 
first  who  expressed  doubts  were  Lud.  de  Vives 
(Note  on  Augustin.  De  Civit.  Dei,  xviii.  42)  and 
.Julius  Scaliger,  who  boldly  declared  his  belief  that 
't  was  a  forgery :  "  a  Judaea  quodam  Aristeae 
nomine  confectam  esse\"  and  the  general  belief  of 
scholars  now  is,  that  it  was  the  work  of  some 
Alexandrian  Jew,  whether  with  the  object  of  en 
hancing  the  dignity  of  his  Law,  or  the  credit  of  the 
Greek  version,  or  for  the  meaner  purpose  of  gain. 
The  age  in  which  the  letter  of  Aristeas  makes  its 
appearance  was  fertile  in  such  fictitious  writings 
(see  Beutley  on,  Phalaris,  p.  85,  ed.  Dyce). 

"  The  passage  in  Galen  that  I  refer  to  is  this : 
'  When  the  Attali  and  the  Ptoleuv>s  were  in  emu 
lation  about  their  libraries,  the  knaveiy  of  forging 
books  and  titles  began.  For  there  were  those  that, 
to  enhance  the  price  of  their  books,  put  the  names 
of  great  authors  before  thera,  and  so  sold  them  to 
those  princes.' " 

It  is  worth  while  to  look  through  the  letter  of 
Aristeas,  that  the  reader  may  see  for  himself  how 
exactly  the  characters  of  the  writing  correspond  to 
those  of  the  fictitious  writings  of  the  Sophists,  so 
ably  exposed  by  Bentley. 

Here  are  the  same  kind  of  errors  and  anachron 
isms  in  history,  the  same  embellishments,  eminent 
characters  and  great  events,  splendid  gifts  of  gold 
and  silver  and  purple,  of  which  the  writers  of  fic 
tion  were  so  lavish.  These  are  well  exposed  by 
Hody;  and  we  of  later  times,  with  our  inherited 
wisdom,  wonder  how  such  a  story  could  have  ob 
tained  credit  with  scholars  of  former  days. 

"  What  clumsie  cheats,  those  Sibylline  oracles 
now  extant,  and  Aristeas'  story  of  the  Septuagint, 
passed  without  contest^  even  among  many  learned 
men  "  (Bentley  on  Phalaris,  Introd.  p.  83). 

But  the  Pseudo- Aristeas  had  a  basis  of  fact  for 
his  fiction ;  on  three  points  of  his  story  there  is  no 
material  difference  of  opinion,  and  they  are  confirmed 
by  the  study  of  the  Version  itself: — 

1.  The  Version  was  made  at  Alexandria. 

2.  It  was  begun  in  the  time  of  the  earlier  Ptole 
mies,  about  280  B.C. 

3.  The  Law  (i.  e.  the  Pentateuch)  alone  was 
translated  at  first. 

It  is  also  very  possible  that  there  is  some  truth 
in  the  statement  of  a  copy  being  placed  in  the  royal 
library.  (The  emperor  Akbar  caused  the  New 
Testament  to  be  translated  into  Persian.) 


SEPTUAGINT 


1205 


d  Some  doubts  have  been  raised  of  the  genuineness 
of  tins  fragment,  but  it  is  well  defended  by  Valckenaer 
(Piatrite  de  Aristobulo  Judaeo). 


But  by  whom  was  the  Version  made?  As 
Hody  justly  remarks,  "it  is  of  little  moment 
whether  it  was  made  at  the  command  of  the  king 
or  spontaneously  by  the  Jews ;  but  it  is  a  question 
of  great  importance  whether  the  Hebrew  copy  of 
the  Law,  and  the  interpreters  (as  Pseudo-Aristeas 
and  his  followers  relate),  were  summoned  from  Jeru 
salem,  and  sent  by  the  high-priest  to  Alexandria.'' 

On  this  question  no  testimony  can  be  so  con 
clusive  as  the  evidence  of  the  Version  itself,  which 
bears  upon  its  face  the  marks  of  imperfect  know 
ledge  of  Hebrew,  and  exhibits  the  forms  and  phrases 
of  the  Macedonia  Greek  prevalent  in  Alexandria, 
with  a  plentiful  sprinkling  of  Egyptian  words. 
The  forms  %\Qo<rav,  irapevefiaXoffav,  bewray  the 
fellow-citizens  of  Lycophron,  the  Alexandrian  poet, 
who  closes  his  iambic  line  with  /cewrb  7775  eo"X^* 
£offav.  Hody  (ii.  c.  iv.)  gives  several  examples 
of  Egyptian  renderings  of  names,  and  coins,  and 
measures;  among  them  the  hippodrome  of  Alex 
andria,  for  the  Hebrew  Cibrath  (Gen.  xlviii.  7), 
and  the  papyrus  of  the  Nile  for  the  rush  of  Job 
(viii.  11).  The  reader  of  the  LXX.  will  readily 
agree  with  his  conclusion,  "  Sivre  regis  jussu,  sive 
sponte  a  Judaeis,  a  Judaeis  Alexandrinis  fuisst 
factam." 

The  question  as  to  the  moving  cause  which  gave 
birth  to  the  Version  is  one  which  cannot  be  so 
decisively  answered  either  by  internal  evidence  or 
by  historical  testimony.  The  balance  of  proba 
bility  must  be  struck  between  the  tradition,  so 
widely  and  permanently  prevalent,  of  the  king's 
intervention,  and  the  simpler  account  suggested  by 
the  facts  of  history,  and  the  phenomena  of  the 
Version  itself. 

It  is  well  known  that,  after  the  Jews  returned 
from  the  Captivity  of  Babylon,  having  lost  in 
great  measure  the  familiar  knowledge  of  the  ancient 
Hebrew,  the  readings  from  the  Books  of  Moses 
in  the  synagogues  of  Palestine  were  explained  to 
them  in  the  Chaldaic  tongue,  in  Targums  or  Para 
phrases;  and  the  same  was  done  with  the  Books  of 
the  Prophets  when,  at  a  later  time,  they  also  were 
read  in  the  synagogues. 

The  Jews  of  Alexandria  had  probably  still  less 
knowledge  of  Hebrew  ;  their  familiar  language  was 
Alexandrian  Greek.  They  had  settled  in  Alexan 
dria  in  large  numbers  soon  after  the  time  of 
Alexander,  and  under  the  earlier  Ptolemies.  The) 
would  naturally  follow  the  same  practice  as  thai 
brethren  in  Palestine ;  the  Law  first  and  afterward* 
the  Prophets  would  be  explained  in  Greek,  and  from 
this  practice  would  arise  in  time  an  entire  Greek 
Version. 

All  the  phenomena  of  the  Version  seem  to  con 
firm  this  view  ;  the  Pentateuch  is  the  best  part  of 
the  Version;  the  other  books  are  more  defective, 
betraying  probably  the  increasing  degeneracy  of  the 
Hebrew  MSS.,  and  the  decay  of  Hebrew  learning 
with  thex  lapse  of  time. 

4.  Whence  the  title1? — It  seems  unnecessary  to 
suppose,  with  Eichhorn,  that  the  title  Septitaginl 
arose  from  the  approval  given  to  the  Version  by 
an  Alexandrian  Sanhedrim  of  70  or  72 ;  that  title 
appears  sufficiently  accounted  for  above  by  the  pre 
valence  of  the  letter  of  Aristeas,  describing  the  mis 
sion  of  72  interpreters  from  Jerusalem. 

II.  CHARACTER  OF  THE  SEPTUAGINT. 

We  come  now  to  consider  the  character  of  the 
Version,  and  the  help  which  it  affords  in  the  crili 
cism  and  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures. 


1206 


SEPTUAGINT 


The  Character  of  the  Version. — Is  it  faithful 
in  substance?  Is  it  minutely  accurate  in  details? 
Does  it  bear  witness  for  or  against  the  tradition  of 
its  having  been  made  by  special  inspiration  ? 

These  are  some  of  the  chief  questions :  there  are 
others  which  relate  to  particulars,  and  it  will  be 
weil  to  discuss  these  latter  first,  as  they  throw 
some  light  on  the  more  general  questions. 

K.  Was  the  Version  made  from  Hebrew  MSS. 
v/ith  the  vowel  points  now  used? 

A  few  examples  will  indicate  the  answer. 

1.  PROPER  NAMES. 
Hebrew. 


Boo-dp. 


Ex.  vi.  17.  ^27>  LlbnL  Ao/Sei/ei. 

vi.  19.  vniD,  Machli.  MooAei. 

xiii.  20.  tDTltf,  Etham. 

Deut.  iii.  10.  riD^D.  Salchah. 

iv.  43.  "1V3,  Bezer. 

V   V 

xxxiv.  1.  nilpB,  Pisgah. 

2.  OTHER  WORDS. 

Hebrew.  Septuagint. 

Gen.  i.    9.  Dlpft.  place.  owaycoyy;  (JT1J5D)' 

«   xv.  11.  DrifcS  3tjP'1»  Kai  <rvve/ca0i<rev  avroi? 

and  he  drove  them  away.        (DJ-lfcS  U^*1!)- 
Ex.  xii.  17.  nV1£E>iT"nK>  TTJV  eVToATjv  raimjv 

unleavened  bread. 

T 

N  um.  xvl.  5.  ""l£2>  in  the  en 

morning.  (^p3)' 

Deut.  xv.  18.    !"13K^O.   double.         eireV< 
Is.  ix.  8.  "D"5!'  a  icord. 

Examples  of  these  two  kinds  are  innumerable. 
Plainly  the  Greek  translators  had  not  Hebrew  MSS. 
pointed  as  at  present. 

In  many  cases  (e.  g.  Ex.  ii.  25 ;  Nahum  iii.  8) 
the  LXX.  have  probably  preserved  the  true  pro 
nunciation  and  sense  where  the  Masoretic  pointing 
has  gone  wrong. 

D.  Were  the  Hebrew  words  divided  from  one 
another,  and  were  the  final  letters,  "p,  PJ,  |,  D,  "],  in 
use  when  the  Septuagint  was  made? 

Take  a  few  out  of  many  examples  : 

Hebrew. 
(1)  Deut.  xxvi.  5.  Ill 

a  perishing  Syrian. 
(1)        2  K.  ii.  14.  N-1iTP]K. 
he  also. 

W    2  K.  xxli.  20.  }5J' 
therefore. 
(4)  1  Chr.  xvii.  10.  *?J7  *^KV 

and  I  wilt  tell  thee. 


LXX. 
Supiav  a 
Cl3fc$» 


[they  join  the  two 
words  in  onej 

oi>x  OVTWS 


C5)       Hos.  vi.  5.  "VIK  ^pBBt^C 
''' 


and  thy  judgments  (are 


o-erai. 
The  LXX.  read  : 


y6)     Zcch.  xi.  7.   I^^H   *J,3JJ    |D7.        eis  TYJJ/  Xavaj/ 

even  you,  0  poor  of  the        [they  join  the  two 
flock.  first  wordsX 

Here  we  find  three  cases  (2,  4,  6)  where  the 
LXX.  read  as  one  woid  what  makes  two  in  tfre 


SEPTUAGINT 

present  Hebrew  text  :  one  case  (3)  where  one 
Hebrew  word  is  made  into  two  by  the  LXX.; 
two  cases  (  1  .  5)  where  the  LXX.  transfers  a  letter 
from  the  end  of  one  word  to  the  beginning  of  the 
next.  By  inspection  of  the  Hebrew  in  these  cases 
it  will  be  easily  seen  that  the  Hebrew  MSS.  must 
have  been  written  without  intervals  between  the 
words,  and  that  the  present  final  forms  were  not 
then  in  use. 

In  three  of  the  above  examples  (4,  5,  6),  the 
Septuagint  has  probably  preserved  the  true  division 
and  sense. 

In  the  study  of  these  minute  particulars,  which 
enable  us  to  examine  closely  the  work  of  the 
translators,  great  help  is  afforded  by  Cappelli  Critica 
Sacra,  and  by  the  Vorstudien  of  Frankel,  who  has 
most  diligently  anatomised  the  text  of  the  LXX. 
His  projected  work  on  the  whole  of  the  Version 
has  not  been  completed,  but  he  has  published  a 
part  of  it  in  his  treatise  Ueber  den  Einfluss  der 
Paldstinischen  Exegese  auf  die  Alexandrinische 
flermeneutik,  in  which  he  reviews  minutely  the 
Septuagint  Version  of  the  Pentateuch. 

We  now  proceed  to  the  larger  questions. 

A.  7s  the  Septuagint  faithful  in  substance  ?  — 
Here  we  cannot  answer  by  citing  a  few  examples  ; 
the  question  refers  to  the  general  texture,  and 
any  opinion  we  express  must  be  verified  by  con 
tinuous  reading. 

1.  And  first  it  has  been  clearly  shown  by  Hody, 
Krankel,  and  others,  that  the  several  books  were 
translated  by  different  persons,  without  any  com 
prehensive  revision  to  harmonise  the  several  parts. 
Names  and  words  are  rendered  differently  in  dif 
ferent  books  ;  e.  g.  HD5,  the  passover.  in  the 
Pentateuch  is  rendered  traffa,  in  2  Chr.  xxxv.  6 


,  Urim.  Ex.  xxviii.  26,  Sfauffis,    Deut. 
xxxiii.  8,  SrjAot,  Ezr.  ii.  63,  <|>am£bj'Tes,  Neh.  vii. 


,   Thummim,  in  Ex.  xxviii.  26,  is 


in  Ezr.  ii.  63,  re 

The  Philistines  in  the  Pentateuch  and  Joshua 
are  <t>v\to~Tif\u,  in  the  other  books,  a\\6(J>v\oi. 

The  Books  of  Judges,  Ruth,  Samuel,  and  Kings,  are 
distinguished  by  the  use  of  eyca  ei'yut,  instead  of  eyd. 

These  are  a  few  out  of  many  like  variations. 

2.  Thus   the   character   of  the   Version   varies 
much  in  the  several  books  ;   those  of  the  Penta 
teuch  are  the  best,  as  Jerome  says  (Confitemur  phtf 
quam  caeteris  cum  hebraicis  consonare),  and  this 
agrees  \yell  with   the  external   evidence  that  tfi* 
Law  was  translated  first,  when  Hebrew  MSS.  weie 
more  correct  and  Hebrew  better  known.     Perhaps 
the  simplicity  of  the  style  in   these   early  books 
facilitated  the  fidelity  of  the  Version. 

3.  The   poetical   parts   are,  generally   speaking, 
inferior   to  the   historical,  the  original  abounding 
with  rarer  words  and  expressions.     In  these  parts 
the  reader  of  the  LXX.  must  be  continually  on  the 
watch  lest  an  imperfect  rendering  of  a   difficult 
word  mar  the  whole  sentence.     The  Psalms  and 
Proverbs  are  perhaps  the  best. 

4.  In  the  Major  Prophets  (probably  translated 
nearly  100  years  after  the  Pentateuch)   some  ol 
the  most  important  prophecies  are  sadly  obscured  : 
e.  g.   Is.   ix.   1,  rovro  irputroy   vie   rax»  iroifi, 
x4>a  Za/3ouAa>»/,  K.  r.  A.,  and  in  ix.  6,  Esaiat 
nactus  est  interpretem  sese   indignum^(7,mi\gYi)  ; 
Jer.  xxiii.  6,  Kai  TOVTO  rb  ovopa  O.VTUV  & 
a.i"r}>v  Kvpios  'laxreoeK  fv  rols 


SEPTUAGINT 

Kzekiel  and  the  Minor  Prophets  (speaking  gene 
rally)  seem  to  be  better  rendered.  The  LXX. 
version  of  Daniel  was  not  used,  that  of  Theodotion 
being  substituted  for  it. 

5.  Supposing  the  numerous  glosses  and  duplicate 
renderings,  which  have  evidently  crept  from  the 
margin  into  the  text,  to  be  removed  (e.  g.  Is.  vii. 
16;  Hab.  iii.  2;  Joel  i.  8),—  for  these  are  blem 
ishes,  not  of  the  Version  Itself,  but  of  the  copies  — 
and  forming  a  rough  estimate  of  what  the  Septua- 
gint  was  in  its  earliest  state,  we  may  perhaps  say 
of  it,  in  the  words  of  the  well-known  simile,  that  it 
was,  in  many  parts,  the  wrong  side  of  the  Hebrew 
tapestry,  exhibiting  the  general  outlines  of  the 
pattern,  but  confused  in  the  more  delicate  lines, 
and  with  many  ends  of  threads  visible  ;  or,  to  use 
a  more  dignified  illustration,  the  Septuagint  is  the 
image  of  the  original  seen  through  a  glass  not 
adjusted  to  the  proper  focus;  the  larger  featureb 
are  shewn,  but  the  sharpness  of  definition  is  lost. 

B.  We  have  anticipated  the  answer  to  the  second 
question  —  Is  the  Version  minutely  accurate  in  de 
tails  ?  —  but  will  give  a  tew  examples  : 

1.  The  same  word  in  the  same  chapter  is  often 
rendered  by  differing  words—  Ex.  xii.  13,  ^FinD3) 
"  I  will  pass  over,"  LXX.  mteirdff*,  but  23,  ripB, 
"  will  pass  over,"  LXX.  irapfXevtrerai. 

2.  Differing  words  by  the  same  word  —  Ex.  xii. 
23,  "Qy,  "  pass  through,"  and  HDQ,  "  pass  over," 
both  by  TropeAeuo-erot  ;  Num.  xv.  4,  5,   H!"!^ 
"  offering,"  and  PIIT,  "  sacrifice,"  both  by  Ovffla. 

3.  The  divine  names  are  frequently  interchanged  ; 
Kvpios  is  put  for  DTT7X,  GOD,  and  ©eo's  for  J"lii"P, 
JEHOVAH  ;    and  the  two  are  often  wrongly  com 
bined  or  wrongly  separated. 

4.  Proper  names  are  sometimes  translated,  some 
times  not.     In  Gen.  xxiii.  by  translating  the  name 
Machpelah  (TO  5nr\ovv\  the  Version  is  made  to 
speak  first  of  the  cave  being  in  the  field  (ver.  9), 
and  then  of  the  field  being  in  the  cave  (ver.  17), 
6  aypbs  'E^pc^y,  fcs  ifv  tv  r$  5nr\<p  <nr7/\ofy, 
the  last  word  not  warranted  by  the  Hebrew.    Zech. 
vi.   14  is  a  curious   example  of  four   names  of 
persons  being  translated,  e.  g.  n*littp,   "  to  To- 

bijah,"  LXX.  TO?S  xP*?<rtV°ls  afiTTJs  ;    Pisgah  in 
Deut.  xxxiv.  1  is  Qcurya,  but  in  Deut.  iii.  27,  rov 


5.  The  translators  are  often  misled  by  the  simi 
larity  of  Hebrew  words  :  e.  g.  Num.  iii.  26, 
VnJVO,  «  the  cords  of  it,"  LXX.  TO  *ar<i\onra, 
and  iv.  26,  ret.  irepiffffd.  In  other  places  of  /coAot, 
and  Is.  liv.  2,  TO  ffxoivtfffj.ara,  both  rightly.  Ex. 
iv.  31,  W»B»,  "they  heard,"  LXX.  e'Xapr? 
b))  ;  Num.  xvi.  15,  "  I  have  not  taken  one  ass  " 
LXX.  OVK  &nft5/MW«*  OBffl  eft^o; 
Dtut.  xxxii.  10,  WK¥B»,  "he  found  him,"  LXX. 
avTapKnfffv  avr6v  ;  1  Sam.  xii.  2,  ''Fpfe*,  "  I  am 
greyheaded,"  LXX.  /ca^o-o/tot  (»WM>)  ;  Gen.  iii. 
17,  TVQS73,  "  for  thy  sake,"  LXX.  eV  rots  epyois 
<rov  (i  for  1). 

In  vory  many  cases  the  error  may  be  thus  traced 
to  the  similarity  of  some  of  the  Hebrew  letters, 
"I  and  1,  H  and  71,  V  and  1,  &c.  ;  in  some  it  is 
difficult  to  see  any  connexion  between  the  original  and 
the  version  :  e.g.  Deut.  xxxii.  8,  ^JOfe"  ^3,  "  the 

••         *     •• 


SEPTUAGINT  1207 

sons  of  Ik'vael."  LXX.  ayyehw  &fov.     Aquila  anJ 
Symmachus,  vluv  'Itrpa^A.. 

Is.  srt.  11,  12.  LXX. 

Watchman,  what  of  the  night?  *vA.a<r<reTe  «iraA.£«a- 

Watchmao,  what  of  the  night  ?  Qv\d<row  roirpul  * 
The  watc'-iman  said,  -rt\v  WKTA 

The  morning  cometh,  and  also  eav  £7777?  ^rec 

the  night :  *cai  trap'  e/txol  oi<e«i. 
If  ye  will  enquire,  enquire  ye. 
Return,  come. 

fi.  Besides  the  above  deviations,  and  many  like 
them,  which  are  probably  due  to  accidental  causes, 
the  change  of  a  letter,  or  doubtful  writing  in  the 
Hebrew,  there  are  some  passages  which  seem  to 
exhibit  a  studied  variation  in  the  LXX.  from  the 
Hebrew :  e.  g.  Gen.  ii.  2,  on  the  seventh  ('•yil^n) 
day  GOD  ended  his  work,  LXX.  «rw/eTeAe<re»/  6 
&ebs  4v  T»7  TjfJt-fpa  rfj  fiery  TO  €^70  OUTOU.  The 
addition  in  Ex.  xii.  40,  Kal  £v  rrj  777  Xavaav, 
appears  to  be  of  this  kind,  inserted  to  solve  a  diffi 
culty. 

Frequently  the  strong  expressions  of  the  Hebrew 
are  softened  down  ;  where  human  parts  are  ascribed 
to  GOD,  for  hand  the  LXX.  substitute  power :  for 
mouth — word,  &c.  Ex.  iv.  16,  "  Thou  shalt  be  to 
him  instead  of  GOD"  (D'H^fcA),  LXX.  ai>  5* 
ouT<p  £0-77  TO  irpbs  rbv  ®f6v ;  see  Exod.  iv.  15. 
These  and  many  more  savour  of  design,  rather  than 
of  accident  or  error. 

The  Version  is,  therefore,  not  minutely  accurate 
in  details  ;  and  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  principle, 
never  to  build  any  argument  on  words  or  phrase!) 
of  the  Septuagint,  without  comparing  them  with  the 
Hebrew.  The  Greek  may  be  right ;  but  very  often 
its  variations  are  wrong. 

T.  We  shall  now  be  prepared  to  weigh  the  tradi 
tion  of  the  Fathers,  that  the  Version  was  made  by 
inspiration :  KOT*  ^-rrlirvoiav  re  v  0eoG,  Irenaeus  ; 
"  divino  Spiritu  interpretati,"  Augustine.  Even 
Jerome  himself  seems  to  think  that  the  LXX.  may 
have  sometimes  added  words  to  the  original,  "  06 
Spiritus  Sancti  auctoritatem,  licet  in  Hebraeis  vo- 
luminibus  non  legatur  "  (Praefat.  in  Paralip.  torn, 
i.  col.  1419). 

Let  us  try  to  form  some  conception  of  what  is 
meant  by  the  inspiration  of  translators.  It  cannot 
mean  what  Jerome  here  seems  to  allow,  that  the 
translators  were  divinely  moved  to  add  to  the  ori 
ginal,  for  this  would  be  the  inspiration  of  Prophets ; 
as  he  himself  says  in  another  passage  {Prolog,  in 
Genesin,  torn.  i.  )  "  aliud  est  enim  vertere,  aliud 
esse  interpretem."  Every  such  addition  would  bo, 
in  fact,  a  new  revelation. 

Nor  can  it  be,  as  some  have  thought,  that  th« 
deviations  of  the  Septuagint  from  the  original  were 
divinely  directed,  whether  in  order  to  adapt  the 
Scriptures  to  the  mind  of  the  heathen,  or  for  other 
purposes.  This  would  be,  pro  tanto,  a  new  reve- 
lationv  and  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  such  a 
revelation ;  for,  be  it  observed,  the  discrepance 
between  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures  would 
tend  to  separate  the  Jews  of  Palestine  from  those 
of  Alexandria,  and  of  other  places  where  the  Greek 
Scriptures  were  used ;  there  would  be  two  different 
copies  of  the  same  books  dispersed  throughout  the 
world,  each  claiming  Divine  authority ;  the  appeal 
to  Moses  and  the  Prophets  would  lose  much  of  its 
force ;  the  standard  of  Divine  truth  would  be  ren 
dered  doubtful ;  the  trumpet  would  give  an  uncertain 
sound. 

No  !    If  there  be  such  a  thing  as  an  inspiration 


1208 


KEPTUAGINT 


of  translators,  it  must  be  an  effect  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  on  their  minds,  enabling  them  to  do  then* 
work  of  trartslation  more  perfectly  than  by  their 
own  abilities  and  acquirements;  to  overcome  the 
difficulties  arising  from  defective  knowledge,  from 
imperfect  MSS.,  from  similarity  of  letters,  from 
human  infirmity  and  weariness  ;  and  so  to  produce 
a  copy  of  the  Scriptures,  setting  forth  the  Word  of 
God,  and  the  history  of  his  people,  in  its  original 
truth  and  purity.  This  is  the  kind  of  inspiration 
claimed  for  the  translators  by  Philo  ( Vit.  Mosis, 
lib.  ii.),  "  We  look  upon  the  persons  who  made  this 
Version,  not  merely  as  translators,  but  as  persons 
chosen  and  set  apart  by  Divine  appointment,  to 
whom  it  was  given  to  comprehend  and  express  the 
sense  and  meaning  of  Moses  in  the  fullest  and  clearest 
manner." 

The  reader  will  be  able  to  judge,  from  the  fore 
going  examples,  whether  the  Septuagint  Version 
satisfies  this  test.  If  it  does,  it  will  be  found  not 
only  substantially  faithful,  but  minutely  accurate 
in  details ;  it  will  enable  us  to  correct  the  Hebrew 
in  every  place  where  an  error  has  crept  in ;  it  will 
give  evidence  of  that  faculty  of  intuition  in  its 
highest  form,  which  enables  our  great  critics  to 
divine  from  the  faulty  text  the  true  reading ;  it  will 
be,  in  short,  a  republication  of  the  original  text, 
purified  from  the  errors  of  human  hands  and  eyes, 
stamped  with  fresh  authority  from  Heaven. 

This  is  a  question  to  be  decided  by  facts,  by  the 
phenomena  of  the  Version  itself.  We  will  simply 
declare  our  own  conviction  that,  instead  of  such  a 
Divine  republication  of  the  original,  we  find  a  marked 
distinction  between  the  original  and  the  Septuagint ; 
a  distinction  which  is  well  expressed  in  the  words  of 
Jerome  (Prolog,  in  Genesin) : 

Ibi  Spiritus  ventura  praedicit ;  hie  eruditio  et 
verborum  copia  ea  quae  intclligit  transfert. 

And  it  will  be  remembered  that  this  agrees  with 
the  ancient  narrative  of  the  Version,  known  by  the 
name  of  Aristeas,  which  represents  the  interpreters 
as  meeting  in  one  house,  forming  one  council,  con 
ferring  together,  and  agreeing  on  the  sense  (see  Hody, 
lib.  ii.  c.  vi.). 

There  are  some,  perhaps,  who  will  deem  this 
estimate  of  the  LXX.  too  low ;  who  think  that  the 
use  of  this  version  in  the  N.  T.  stamps  it  with  an 
authority  above  that  of  a  mere  translation.  But 
as  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists  do  not  invariably 
cite  the  0.  T.  according  to  this  version,  we  are  left 
to  judge  by  the  light  of  facts  and  evidence.  Stu 
dents  of  Holy  Scripture,  as  well  as  students  of  the 
natural  world,  should  bear  in  mind  the  maxim  of 
Bacon — Sola  spes  est  in  verd  inductione. 

III.  WHAT,  THEN,  ARE  THE  BENEFITS  TO  BE 

DERIVED  FROM  THE  STUDY  OF  THE 

SEPTUAGINT  ? 

After  all  the  notices  of  imperfection  above  given, 
it  may  seem  strange  to  say,  but  we  believe  it  to  be 
the  truth,  that  the  student  of  Scripture  can  scarcely 
read  a  chapter  without  some  benefit,  especially  if 
he  be  a  student  of  Hebrew,  and  able,  even  in  a 
very  humble  way,  to  compare  the  Version  with 
the  Original. 

1.  For  the  Old  Testament.  We  have  seen  above, 
that  the  Septuagint  gives  evidence  of  the  character 
and  condition  of  the  Hebrew  MSS.  from  which  it 
was  made,  with  respect  to  vowel  points  and  the 
mode  of  writing. 

.  This  evidence  often  renders  very  material  help  in 
"he  correction  and   establishment  of  the   Hebrew 


SEPTUAGINT 

text.  Being  made  from  MSS.  fat  older  than  the 
Masoretic  recension,  the  Septuagint  often  indicates 
readings  more  ancient  and  more  correct  than  those 
of  our-  present  Hebrew  MSS.  and  editions;  and  often 
speaks  decisively  between  the  conflicting  readings 
of  the  present  MSS. 

E.  g.  Ps.  xxii.  17  (in  LXX.  xxi.  16),  the  printed 
Hebrew  text  is  'HJO  ;  but  several  MSS.  have  a  verb 
in  3  pers.  plural,  1")&O  :  the  Sept.  steps  in  to  decide 
the  doubt,  £pv£av  x^P^s  Moy  K«l  ir68as  /j.ovt  con 
firmed  by  Aquila,  ijG-xyvav. 

Ps.  xvi.  10.  The  printed  text  is  "pTDn,  in  the 
plural  ;  but  near  200  MSS.  have  the  singular, 
*|TDn,  which  is  clearly  confirmed  by  the  evidence 
of  the  Sept.,  ot»5e  Secrets  rbv  '6ffi6v  <rov  iSeiv 


In  passages  like  these,  which  touch  on  the  car 
dinal  truths  of  the  Gospel,  it  is  of  great  importance 
to  have  the  testimony  of  an  unsuspected  witness, 
in  the  LXX.,  long  before  the  controversy  between 
Christians  and  Jews. 

In  Hosea  vi.  5,  the  context  clearly  requires  that 
the  first  person  should  be  maintained  throughout 
the  verse  ;  the  Sept.  corrects  the  present  Hebrew 
text,  without  a  change  except  in  the  position  of  one 
letter,  rb  Kpi/J.a  pov  &s  $<as  e£e\fvff€Tai,  render 
ing  unnecessary  the  addition  of  words  in  Italics,  in 
our  English  Version. 

More  examples  might  be  given,  but  we  must 
content  ourselves  with  one  signal  instance,  of  a 
clause  omitted  in  the  Hebrew  (probably  by  what  is 
called  6(ji.oioTe\£VTov},  and  preserved  in  the  Sept. 
In  Genesis  iv.  8,  is  a  passage  which  in  the  Hebrew, 
and  in  our  English  Version,  is  evidently  incomplete  : 

"And  Cain  talked  O»K*1)  with  Abel  his  bro 
ther  ;  and  it  came  to  pass  when  they  were  in  the 
field,"  &c. 

Here  the  Hebrew  word  *|JDNS1,  is  the  word  con 
stantly  used  as  the  introduction  to  words  spoken, 
"  Cain  said  unto  Abel  "  .  .  .  ,  but,  as  the  text 
stands,  there  are  no  words  spoken  ;  and  the  follow 
ing  words  "...  when  they  were  in  the  field," 
come  in  abruptly.  The  Sept.  fills  up  the  lacuna 
Hebraeorum  codicum  (Pearson),  /cal  e?7re  Kal> 
Trpbs  'AjSeA.  r'bv  a8e\<(>bv  avrov,  8i€\8w/J.ev  els  rb 
irtflov  (  =  rnbn  nrfo).  The  Sam.  Pentateuch 
and  the  Syriac  Version  agree  with  the  Sept.,  and 
the  passage  is  thus  cited"  by  Clemens  Romanus 
(Ep.  i.  c.  iv.).  The  Hebrew  transcriber's  eye  was 
probably  misled  by  the  word  rTlfi?,  terminating 
both  the  clauses. 

In  all  £he  foregoing  cases,  we  do  not  attribute 
any  paramount  authority  to  the  Sept.  on  account 
of  its  superior  antiquity  to  the  extant  Hebrew 
MSS.  ;  but  we  take  it  as  an  evidence  of  a  more 
ancient  Hebrew  text,  as  an  eye-witness  of  the  texts, 
280  or  180  years  B.C.  The  decision  as  to  any  par 
ticular  reading  must  be  made  by  weighing  this 
evidence,  together  with  thnt  of  other  ancient  Ver 
sions,  with  the  arguments  from  the  context,  the  rules 
of  grammar,  the  genius  of  the  language,  and  the 
comparison  of  parallel  passages.  And  thus  the  He 
brew  will  sometimes  correct  the  Greek,  and  some 
times  the  Greek  the  Hebrew;  both  liable  to  err 
through  the  infirmity  of  human  eyes  and  hands, 
but  each  checking  the  other's  errors. 

2.  The  close  connexion  between  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  makes  the  study  of  the  Septuagint  ex 
tremely  valuable,  and  almost  indispensable  to  the 
theological  student.  Pearson  (motes  from  Ire- 


SEPTUAGINT 

saeus  and  Jerome,  as  to  the  citation  of  the  words 
of  prophecy  from  the  Septuagint.  The  former,  as 
Pearson  observes,  speaks  too  universally,  when  he 
Bays  that  the  Apostles,  "  prophetica  omnia  ita  enun- 
ciaverunt  quemadmodum  Seniorum  interpretatio 
contioet."  But  it  was  manifestly  the  chief  store 
house  from  which  they  drew  their  proofs  and  pre 
cepts.  Mr.  Grinneia  fc  says  that  "  the  number  of 
direct  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament  in  the 
fiospels,  Acts,  and  Epistles,  may  be  estimated  at 
350,  of  which  not  more  than  50  materially  differ 
from  the  LXX.  But  the  indirect  verbal  allusions 
would  swell  the  number  to  a  far  greater  amount  " 
(Apol.for  LXX.,  p.  37).  The  comparison  of  the 
citations  with  the  Septuagint  is  much  facilitated  by 
Mr.  Grinfield's  «  Editio  Hellenistic^  '  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  by  Mr.  Cough's  4  New  Test.  Quo 
tations/  in  which  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  passages 
of  the  Old  Test,  are  placed  side  by  side  with  the 
citations  in  the  New.  (On  this  subject  see  Hody,  p. 
248,  281  ;  Kennicott,  Dissert.  Gen.  §84;  Cappelli 
Critica  Sacra,  vol.  ii.) 

3.  Further,  the  language  of  the  Sept.  is  the  mould 
in  which  the  thoughts  and  expressions  of  the  Apos 
tles  and  Evangelists  are  cast.  In  this  version  Divine 
Truth  has  taken  the  Greek  language  as  its  shrine, 
and  adapted  it  to  the  things  of  GOD.  Here  the 
peculiar  idioms  of  the  Hebrew  are  grafted  upon  the 
stock  of  the  Greek  tongue  ;  words  and  phrases  take 
a  new  sense.  The  terms  of  the  Mosaic  ritual  in 
the  Greek  Version  are  employed  by  the  Apostles 
to  express  the  great  truths  of  the  Gospel,  e.  g. 
apxieptits,  Qv<ria,  bfffj.}]  evoaSias.  Hence  the  Sept. 
is  a  treasury  of  illustration  for  the  Greek  Testa 
ment. 

Many  examples  are  given  by  Pearson  (Praef.  ad 
LXX.},  e.  g.  (rapt,  Trvev/j.a,  SiKai6(a,  <pp6vr]fjLa.  rrjs 
aapicbs,  "  Frustra  apud  veteres  Graecos  quaeras 
quid  sit  iriffreveiv  T<JJ  ©e$,  vel  ets  rbv  ®ebvr 
quid  sit  els  rbv  Kvptov,  vel  Trpbs  rbv  Qebv  TT'HTTIS, 
quae  toties  in  Novo  Foedere  inculcantur,  et  ex  lec- 
tione  Seniorum  facile  intelliguntur." 

Valckenaer  also  (on  Luke  i.  51)  speaks  strongly 
on  this  subject  :  "  Graecum  Novi  Testament!  con- 
textum  rite  intellecturo  nihil  est  utilius,  quam 
diligenter  versasse  Alexandrinam  antiqui  Foederis 
interpretationem,  e  qua  una  plus  peti  poterit  auxilii, 
quam  ex  veteribus  scriptoribus  Graecis  simul  sumtis. 
Centena  reperientur  in  N.  T.  nusquam  obvia  in 
scriptis  G  raecorum  veterum,  sed  frequentata  in  Alexa. 
Versione." 

E.  g.  the  sense  of  TO  Trd<rxo>  in  Deut.  xvi.  2, 
including  the  sacrifices  of  the  Paschal  week,  throws 
light  on  the  question  as  to  the  day  on  which  our 
Lord  kept  his  last  Passover,  arising  out  of  the 
words  in  John  xviii.  28,  a\\'  'iva  (pdyuffi  rb 


SEPTUAGINT 


1209 


4.  The  frequent  citations  of  the  LXX.  by  the 
Greek  Fathers  and  of  the  Latin  Version  of  the  LXX. 
by  the  Fathers  who  wrote  in  Latin,  form  another 
strong  reason  for  the  study  of  the  Septuagint.  Pear 
son  cites  the  appellation  ofScarabaeus  bonus,  applied 
to  CHRIST  by  Ambrose  and  Augustine,  as  explained 
by  reference  to  the  Sept.  in  Habak.  ii.  11,  ttdvdapos 


5.  On  the  value  of  the  Sept.  as  a  monument  of 
the  Greek  language  in  one  of  its  most  curious 
phases,  this  is  not  the  place  to  dwell.  Our  busi 
ness  is  with  the  use  of  this  Version,  as  it  bears  on 


e  One  of  the  most  diligent  students  of  the  LXX.,  who 
has  devoted  his  life  to  the  promotion  of  tais  branch  of 


the  criticism  and  interpretation  of  the  Bible.  And 
we  may  safely  urge  the  theological  student  who 
wishes  to  be  "  thoroughly  furnished,"  to  nave 
always  at  his  side  the  Septuagint.  Let  the  Hebrew; 
if  possible,  be  placed  before  him  ;  and  at  his  right, 
in  the  next  place  of  honour,  the  Alexandrian  Version  ; 
the  close  and  careful  study  of  this  Version  will  be 
more  profitable  than  the  most  learned  inquiry  into 
its  origin ;  it  will  help  him  to  a  better  knowledge 
both  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New. 

OBJECTS  TO  BE  ATTAINED  BY  THE  CRITICAL 
SCHOLAR. 

1.  A  question  of  much  interest  still  waits  for  a 
solution.     In  many  of  the  passages  which  show  a 
studied  variation  from  the  Hebrew  (some  of  which 
are  above  noted),  the  Septuagint  and  the  Sama 
ritan  Pentateuch  agree  together :  e.  g.  Gen.  ii.  2  ; 
Ex.  xii.  40. 

They  also  agree  in  many  of  the  ages  of  the 
Post-Diluvian  Patriarchs,  adding  100  years  to  the 
age  at  which  the  first  son  of  each  was  born,  ac 
cording  to  the  Hebrew.  (See  Cappelli  Grit.  Sacr. 
iii.  xx.  vii.) 

They  agree  in  the  addition  of  the  words  StcAflw- 
fj.ev  els  rb  TTfSiov,  Gen.  iv.  8,  which  we  have  seen 
reason  to  think  rightly  added. 

Various  reasons  have  been  conjectured  for  this 
agreement ;  translation  into  Greek  from  a  Sama 
ritan  text,  interpolation  from  the  Samaritan  into 
the  Greek,  or  vice  versa ;  but  the  question  does  not 
seem  to  have  found  a  satisfactory  answer. 

2.  For  the  critical  scholar  it  would  be  a  worthy 
object  of  pursuit  to  ascertain,  as  nearly  as  possible, 
the  original  text  of  the  Septuagint  as  it  stood  in  the 
time  of  the  Apostles  and  Philo.     If  this  could  be 
accomplished  with  any  tolerable   completeness,   it 
would  possess  a  strong  interest,  as  being  the  firs*, 
translation  of  any  writing  into  another  tongue,  ana 
the  first  repository  of  Divine  truth  to  the  great 
colony  of  Hellenistic  Jews  at  Alexandria. 

The  critic  would  probably  take  as  his  basis  the 
Roman  edition,  from  the  Codex  Vaticanus,  as  repre 
senting  most  nearly  the  ancient  (KoivV)  texts. 
The  collection  of  fragments  ot  Ongen's  Hexapla, 
by  Montfaucon  and  others,  would  help  him  to 
eliminate  the  additions  which  have  been  made  tc 
the  LXX.  from  other  sources,  and  to  purge  out 
the  glosses  and  double  renderings  ;  the  citations  in 
the  New  Testament  and  in  Philo,  in  the  early 
Christian  Fathers,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  would 
render  assistance  of  the  same  kind;  and  perhaps 
the  most  effective  aid  of  all  would  be  found  in  ths 
fragments  of  the  Old  Latin  Version  collected  by 
Sabatier  in  3  vols.  folio  (Rheims,  1743). 

3.  Another  work,  of  more  practical  and  genera* 
interest,  still  remains  to  be  done,  viz.  to  provids 
a   Greek    version,    accurate    and   faithful    to    the 
Hebrew  original,  for  the  use  of  the  Greek  Church, 
and   of  students   reading    the    Scriptures    in   that 
language  for  purposes  of  devotion  or  mental   im- 
pi'ovement.     Mr.  Field's  edition  is  as  yet  the  best 
edition  of  this  kind ;  it  originated  in  the  desire  to 
supply   the  Greek   Church  with    such   a   faithful 
copy  of  the   Scriptures ;    but   as   the   editor   has 
followed  the   text   of  the  Alexandrian  MS.,  only 
correcting,  by  the  help  of  other  MSS.,  the  evident 
errors  of  transcription  (e.  g.  in  Gen.  xv.  15,  cor 
recting  rpaQeis,  in  the  Alex.  MS.  to  rafyeis,  the 


Scripture  study,  and  has  lately  founded  a  Lecture  on  the 
LXX.  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 


1210 


SEPTUAGINT 


reading  of  the  Complut.  text),  and  as  we  have 
seen  above  that  the  Alexandrian  text  is  far  from 
being  the  nearest  to  the  Hebrew,  it  is  evident  that 
a  more  faithful  and  complete  copy  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  Greek  might  yet  be  provided. 

We  may  here  remark,  in  conclusion,  that  such 
an  edition  might  prepare  the  way  for  the  correction 
of  the  blemishes  which  remain  in  our  Authorised 
English  Version.  Embracing  the  results  of  the 
criticism  of  the  last  250  years,  it  might  exhibit 
several  passages  in  their  original  purity  ;  and  the 
corrections  thus  made,  being  approved  by  the  judg 
ment  of  the  best  scholars,  would  probably,  after  a 
time,  find  their  way  into  the  margin,  at  least,  of 
our  English  Bibles. 

One  example  only  can  be  here  given,  in  a  passage 
which  has  caused  no  small  perplexity  and  loads  of 
commentary.  Jsai.  ix.  3  is  thus  rendered  in  the 
LXX.  :  rb  irX^ffrov  rov  \aov,  &  /caTTj-yoyes  ev 
ev^poffvvt)  <rov  Kal  fvtypavQ'ha'ovTai  tvd)iri6v  (rov, 
&s  ol  fv<ppau'6/j.fvoi  ft  a.fj.'fiTCi),  Kal  $>v  rp6irov  ol 
SiaipovfjLfvoi  ffKv\a. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  the  faulty  rendering  of  the 
first  part  of  this  has  arisen  from  the  similarity  of 
Hebrew  letters,  ft  and  H,  "I  and  "I,  and  from  an 
ancient  error  in  the  Hebrew  text.  The  following 
translation  restores  the  whole  passage  to  its  original 
clearness  and  force  :•  — 


TTJV  a-yaAXtWif 
e/u.eya.A.vi'a.s  TTJV  eu<£pocruwjj'* 
eixfrpaivovTai   ev&Tnov  <rou  w?  oc  ev</>p<uvdju,£voi 

ev  a/«}T(f>, 
ov  rponov  d-yaXAiwvTai  oi  Sioupov/xei-oi  (TKv\a. 

Thou  hast  multiplied  the  gladness, 

Thou  hast  increased  the^joy  ; 

They  rejoice  before  thee  as  with  the  joy  of  harvest; 

As  men  are  glad  when  they  divide  the  spoil. 

Here  a.ya\\ia<ris  and  a.ya.\XiS>vra.i.  in  the  first 
and  fourth  lines,  correspond  to  7*0  and  •l?'1^  ; 
fvtypoffvv-ri  and  fvtypaivovTat,  in  the  second  and 
third,  to  nn»fe>  and  -iniDb. 

T  :    •  :  T 

The  fourfold  introverted  parallelism  is  complete, 
and  the  connexion  with  the  context  of  the  prophecy 
perfect. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remark  that  in  such 
an  edition  the  apocryphal  additions  to  the  Book 
of  Esther,  and  those  to  the  Book  of  Daniel,  whicb 
are  not  recognised  by  the  Hebrew  Canon,  would 
be  either  omitted,  or  (perhaps  more  properly,  since 
they  appear  to  have  been  incorporated  with  the 
Septuagint  at  an  early  date)  would  be  placed  sepa 
rately,  as  in  Mr.  Field's  edition  and  our  English 
Version.  [See  APOCRYPHA;  CANON;  DANIEL; 
Aroc.  ADDITIONS  ;  ESTHER  ;  SAMARITAN  PENT.] 

LITERATURE. 

Cappelli  Critica  Sacra,  1651. 

Waltoni  Proleg.  ad  Bibl.  Polyglott.,  1657. 

Pearsoni  Praef.  Paraenetica  ad  LXX.,  1655. 

Voss  I.  de  LXX.  Interp.  Hag.  1661.  App. 
1663. 

Montfaucon,  Hexaplorum  Origenis  quae  super- 
sunt,  Paris,  1710,  ed.  Bahrdt.  Lips.  1740. 

Hody,  de  Bibl.  Text.  Original.  Vers.  Graecis,  et 
Latino,  Vulgata,  1705. 

Hottinger,  Thesaurus. 

Owen,  Dr.  H.,  Enquiry  into  the  LXX.,  1769  ; 
Brief  Account,  $c.,  1787. 

Kennicott's  Dissertations. 

Holmes,  Prokgg.  ad  LXX.,  1708. 


SERAIAH 

Valckenaer,  Diatribe  de  Aristobulo  Jitdaeo, 
1806. 

Schleusner,  Opusc.  Crit.  ad  Verss.  Gr.  V.  T., 
1812. 

Dahne,  Judisch  -  Alexandrinische  Philosophic 
1834. 

Topler,  de  Pentat.  interp.  Alex,  indole  crit.  ct 
hermen.,  1830. 

Pliischke,  Lectiones  Alex,  et  Hebr.,  1837. 

Thiersch,  de  Pent.  Vers.  Alex.,  1841. 

Frankel,  Vorstudien  zu  der  Septuaginta,  1841 ; 
Ueber  den  Einfluss  der  Paldstinischen  Exegese  auf 
die  Alex.  Henneneutik,  1851. 

Grinfield,  E.  W.,  N.  T.  Editio  Hellenistic*, 
1843,  and  Apology  for  the  Septuagint. 

Selwyn,  W.,  Notae  Criticae  in  Ex.  i.— xxiv. 
Numeros,  Deuteronomium,  1856,  7,  8  (comparing 
LXX.  with  Hebrew,  &c.)  Hor.  Hebr.  on  Isai.  ix. 

Churton,  Hulsean  Essay,  1861. 

Journal  of  Sacred  Lit.,  Papers  (by  G.  Pearson) 
on  LXX.  Vols.  i.  iv.  vii.,  3rd  series. 

Introduction  to  Old  Test.,  Carpzov,  Eichhorn, 
Havernick,  Davidson. 

Concordances,  Kircher,  1607;  Trommius,  1718. 

Lexica,  Biel,  1780  ;  Schleusner,  1820. 

On  the  Language  of  the  LXX 
Winer,  Grammar. 
Sturz,  de  Dialecto  Macedonica. 
Maltby,  Ed.,   Two  Sermons  before  University 

of  Durham,  1843.  [W.  S.] 

SEPULCHRE.    [BURIAL.] 

SE'KAH  (rnb>:  2c£pa  in  Gen.,  2ope  in  1  Chr. ; 
Alex.,  2aap  in  Gen.,  2apa?  in  1  Chr. :  Sara}.  The 
daughter  of  Asher  (Gen.  xlvi.  17  ;  1  Chr.  vii.  30)  ; 
called  in  Num.  xxvi.  46,  SARAH. 

SERAI'AH  (rW:  2a<r<£;  Alex.  5apai'as: 
Saraias).  1.  Seraiah,  the  king's  scribe  or  secretary 
in  the  reign  of  David  (2  Sam.  viii.  17).  In  the 
Vatican  MS.  of  the  LXX.  Sorra  appears  to  be  the 
result  of  a  confusion  between  Seraiah  and  Shisha, 
whose  sons  were  secretaries  to  Solomon  (IK.  iv.  3). 

2.  CSapaias ;    Alex.   Sopofos :   Saraias.}    The 
high-priest  in  the  reign  of  Zedekiah.    He  was  taken, 
captive  to  Babylon  by  Nebuzaradan,  the  captain  of 
the  guard,  and  slain  with  others  at  Riblah  (2  K. 
xxv.  18;  1  Chr.  vi.  14;  Jer.  lii.  24). 

3.  (Saraia,  Sarea.}    The  son  of  Tanhumeth  the 
Netophathite.  according  to  2  K.  xv.  23,  who  came 
with  Ishmael,  Jonanan,  and  Jaazaniah  to  Gedaliah, 
and  was  persuaded  by  him  to  submit  quietlv  to  th.- 
Chaldeans  and  settle  in  the  land  (Jer.  xl.  8). 

4.  (Sopcud :  Saraia.)  The  son  of  Kenaz,  brother 
of  Othniel,  and  father  of  Joab,  the  father  or  founder 
of  the  valley  of  Charashim  (1  Chr.  iv.  13,  14). 

5.  (Sapav;  Alex.  Sopoio.)     Ancestor  of  Jehu, 
a  chief  of  one  of  the  Simeonite  families  (1  Chr. 
iv.  35). 

6.  (Sapofas.)  One  of  the  children  of  the  pro 
vince  who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  2). 
In  Neh.  vii.  7  he  is  called  AZARIAH,  and  in  1  Esd. 
v.  8  ZACHARIAS. 

7.  One  of  the  ancestors  of  Ezra  the  scribe  (Ezr. 
vii.  1),  but  whether  or  not  the  same  as  Seraiah  the 
high-priest  seems  uncertain.     Called  also  SARAIAS 
(1  Esd.  viii.  1  ;  2  Esd.  i.  1). 

8.  (vibs  'Apoto ;  Alex,  vlbs  2apoia.)  A  priest, 
or  priestly  family,  who  signed  the  covenant  with 
Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  2). 

9.  (Sapoto.)  A  priest,  the  son  of  Hilkiah  (Neh 
xi.  11),  who  was  ruler  of  the  house  of  God  after  th«? 


SEKAPHIM 

return  from  Babylon.     In  1  Chr.  is.  11  he  is  called 
AZARIAH. 

10.  (Sapata.*)    The   head   of  a   priestly   house 
which    went  up  from   Babylon  with   Zevubbabel. 
His  representative  in  the  days  of  Joiakim  the  high- 
priest  was  Meraiah  (Neh.  xii.  1,  12). 

11.  The  son  of  Neriah,  and  brother  of  Baruch 
(Jer.  li.  59,  61).     He  went  with  Zedekiah  to  Ba 
bylon  in  the  4th  year  of  his  reign,  or,  as  the  Targum 
has  it,  "  in  the  mission  of  Zedekiah,"  and  is  de 
scribed  as  mTUD  ")B>,  sar  menuchdh  (lit.  "  prince 
of  rest;"    A.  V.   "  a   quiet   prince;"    marg.  "or, 
prince  of  Menucha,  or,  chief  chamberlain  "),  a  title 
which  is  interpreted  by  Kimchi  as  that  of  the  office 
of  chamberlain,  "  for  he  was  a  friend  of  the  king, 
and  was  with  the  king  at  the  time  of  his  rest,  to 
talk  and  to  delight  himself  with  him."     The  LXX. 
and  Targum  read  PI  PUD,  minchdh,  "  an  offering," 
and  so  Rashi,  who  says,  "under  his  hand  were 
those  who  saw  the  king's  face,  who  brought  him  a 
present."    The  Peshito-Syriac  renders  "  chief  of  the 
camp,"  apparently  reading  H^HD,  machaneh,  un 
less  the  translator  understood  menuchdh  of  the  halt 
ing-place  of  an  army,  in  which  sense  it  occurs  in  Num. 
x.  33.     Gesenius  adopts  the  latter  view,  and  makes 
Seraiah  hold  an  office  similar  to  that  of  "  quarter 
master-general  "  in  the  Babylonian  army.     It  is 
perfectly  clear,  however,  that  he  was  in  attendance 
upon  Zedekiah,  and  an  officer  of  the  Jewish  court. 
The  suggestion  of  Maurer,  adopted  by  Hitzig,  has 
more  to  commend  it,  that  he  was  an  officer  who 
took  charge  of  the  royal  caravan  on  its  march,  and 
fixed  the  place  where  it  should  halt.     Hiller  (  Ono- 
mast.}  says  Seraiah  was   prince   of  Menuchah,  a 
place  on  the  borders  of  Judah  and  Dan,  elsewhere 
called  Manahath.     The  rendering  of  the  Vulgate  is 
unaccountable,  princeps  prophetiae. 

Seraiah  was  commissioned  by  the  prophet  Jere 
miah  to  take  with  him  on  his  journey  the  roll  in 
which  he  had  written  the  doom  of  Babylon,  and 
sink  it  in  the  midst  of  the  Euphrates,  as  a  token 
tbat  Babylon  should  sink,  never  to  rise  again  (Jer. 
li.  60-64).  [W.  A.  W.] 

SER'APHIM  (D^nb:  2eptt<f>ety.  Seraphim}. 

An  order  of  celestial  beings,  whom  Isaiah  beheld  in 
vision  standing  above  Jehovah  (not  as  in  A.  V., 
"  above  it,"  i.e.  the  throne)  as  He  sat  upon  his  throne 
(Is.  vi.  2).  They  are  described  as  having  each  of  them 
three  pairs  of  wings,  with  one  of  which  they  covered 
their  faces  (a  token  of  humility ;  comp.  Ex.  iii.  6  ; 
1  K.  xix,  13  Plutarch,  Qwest.  Bom.  10)  ;  with  the 
second  they  covered  their  feet  (a  token  of  respect ; 
see  Lowth  on  Is.  vi.,  who  quotes  Chardin  in  illustra 
tion)  ;  while  with  the  third  they  flew.  They  seem 
to  hava  born^  a  general  resemblance  to  the  human 
figure,  for  they  are  represented  as  having  a  face,  a 
voice,  feet,  and  hands  (ver.  6).  Their  occupation 
was  twofold — to  celebrate  the  praises  of  Jehovah's 
holiness  and  power  (ver.  3),  and  to  act  as  the 
medium  of  communication  between  heaven  and 
earth  (ver.  6).  From  their  antiphonal  chant  ("  one 
cried  unto  another " )  we  may  conceive  them  to 
have  been  ranged  in  opposite  rows  on  each  side  of 
the  throne.  As  the  Seraphim  are  nowhere  else 
mentioned  in  the  Bible,  our  conceptions  of  their  ap 
pearance  must  be  restricted  to  the  above  particulars, 
aided  by  such  uncertain  light  as  etymology  and 
analogy  will  supply.  We  may  observe  that  the 
idea  of  a  winged  human  figure  was  not  peculiar  to 
ihe  Hebrews:  among  the  sculptures  found  at 


SERGITJS  PAULUS 


1211 


Mourghaub  in  Persia,  we  meet  with  a  representa 
tion  of  a  man  with  two  pairs  of  wings,  springing 
from  the  shoulders,  and  extending,  the  one  pair  up 
wards,  the  other  downwards,  so  as  to  admit  of 
covering  the  head  and  the  feet  (Vaux's  Nin.  and 
Persep.  p.  322).  The  wings  in  this  instance  imply 
deification  ;  for  speed  and  ease  of  motion  stand,  in 
man's  imagination,  among  the  most  prominent  tokens 
of  Divinity.  The  meaning  of  the  word  "  seraph  "  is 
extremely  doubtful  ;  the  only  word  which  resembles 
it  in  the  current  Hebrew  is  sdraph,*  "  to  bum," 
whence  the  idea  of  brilliancy  has  been  extracted. 
Such  a  sense  would  harmonise  with  other  descrip 
tions  of  celestial  beings  (e.  g.  Ez.  i.  13  ;  Matt. 
xxviii.  3)  ;  but  it  is  objected  that  the  Hebrew  term 
never  bears  this  secondary  sense.  Gesenius  (  Thes. 
p.  1341)  connects  it  with  an  Arabic  term  signify 
ing  high  or  exalted  ;  and  this  may  be  regarded  as 
the  generally  received  etymology  ;  but  the  absence 
of  any  cognate  Hebrew  term  is  certainly  worthy  of 
remark.  The  similarity  between  the  names  Sera 
phim  and  Sarapis,  led  Hitzig  (in  Is.  Vi.  2)  to 
identify  the  two,  and  to  give  to  the  former  the 
figure  of  a  winged  serpent.  But  Sarapis  was  un 
known  in  the  Egyptian  Pantheon  until  the  time  of 
Ptolemy  Soter  (Wilkinson's  Anc.  Eg.  iv.  360  ff.)  ; 
and,  even  had  it  been  otherwise,  we  can  hardly 
conceive  that  the  Hebrews  would  have  borrowed 
their  imagery  from  such  a  source.  Knobel's  con 
jecture  that  Seraphim  is  merely  a  false  reading  for 
shdrdthim,b  "  ministers,"  is  Ingenious,  but  the 
latter  word  is  not  Hebrew.  The  relation  subsisting 
between  the  Cherubim  and  Seraphim  presents  an 
other  difficulty  :  the  "  living  creatures  "  described 
in  Rev.  iv.  8  resemble  the  Seraphim  in  their  occu 
pation  and  the  number  of  the  wings;  and  the 
Cherubim  in  their  general  appearance  and  number, 
as  described  in  Ez.  i.  5  ff.,  x.  12.  The  difference 
between  the  two  may  not,  therefore,  be  great,  but 
we  cannot  believe  them  to  be  identical  so  long  as 
the  distinction  of  name  holds  good.  [W.  L.  B.] 


SER'ED  (Y1D:    2epe'8    in   Gen.,    2ope'5   in 

Num.  :  Sared).  The  firstborn  of  Zebulon,  and 
ancestor  of  the  family  of  the  Sardites  (Gen.  xlvi. 
14;  Num.  xxvi.  26). 

SER'GIUS  PAU'LUS  (Sepyios  UavXoi  :  Ser- 
gius  Paulus)  was  the  name  of  the  proconsul  of  Cy 
prus  when  the  Apostle  Paul  visited  that  island  with 
Barnabas  on  his  first  missionary  tour  (Acts  xiii. 
7  sq.).  He  is  described  as  an  intelligent  man 
(ffvv€T6i),  truth-seeking,  eager  for  information 
from  all  sources  within  his  reach.  It  was  this  trait 
of  his  character  which  led  him  in  the  first  instance 
to  admit  to  his  society  Elymas  the  Magian,  and 
afterwards  to  seek  out  the  missionary  strangers  and 
learn  from  them  the  nature  of  the  Christian  doctrine. 
The  strongest  minds  at  that  period  were  drawn 
with  a  singular  fascination  to  the  occult  studies  of 
the  East  ;  and  the  ascendancy  which  Luke  repre 
sents  the  "  sorcerer"  as  having  gained  over  Sergius 
illustrates  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  times.  For 
other  examples  of  a  similar  character,  see  Howson's 
Life  and  Epistles  of  Paul,  vol.  i.  p.  177  sq.  But 
Sergius  was  not  effectually  or  long  deceived  by  the 
arts  of  the  impostor  ;  for  on  becoming  acquainted 
with  the  Apostle  he  examined  at  once  the  claims  of 
the  Gospel,  and  yielded  his  mind  to  the  evidence  of 
its  truth. 


1212 


SERON 


It  is  unfortunate  that  this  officer  is  styled  "  de 
puty"  in  the  Common  Version,  and  not  "pro 
consul,"  according  to  the  import  of  the  Greek  term 
(avQinraros).  Though  Cyprus  was  originally  an 
imperial  province  (Dion  Cassias,  liii.  12.),  and  as  such 
governed  by  propraetors  or  legates  (avriar  partly  01, 
irpeo-pcvrai},  it  was  afterwards  transferred  to  the 
Roman  senate,  and  henceforth  governed  by  pro 
consuls  (Kai  OVTWS  dv6inraToi  Kal  es  e/cetVa  TO 
t&VT]  ire/iTretrflat  ijpfcavTo,  Dion  Cassius,  liv.  4). 
For  the  value  of  this  attestation  cf  Luke's  accuracy, 
see  Lardner's  Credibility  of  the  Gospel  ffistory,  vol. 
i.  p.  32  sq.  Coins  too  are  still  extant,  on  which 
this  very  title,  ascribed  in  the  Acts  to  Sergius 
Paulus,  occurs  as  the  title  of  the  Roman  governors 
of  Cyprus.  (See  Akerman's  Numismatic  Illustra 
tions,  p.  41  ;  and  Howson's  Life  and  Epistles  of 
Paul,  vol.  i.  pp.  176,  187.)  [H.  B.  H.] 


SE'RON  (Z-hpwv  •  in  Syr.  and  one  Gk.  MS. 
Hpwv:  Serori),  a  general  of  Antiochus  Epiph., 
in  chief  command  of  the  Syrian  army  (1  Mace.  iii. 
13,  6  &pxo>v  T.  Svv.  2.),  who  was  defeated  at  Beth- 
horon  by  Judas  Maccabaeus  (B.C.  166),  as  in  the 
day  when  Joshua  pursued  the  five  kings  "  in  the 
going  down  of  Beth-horon  "  (1  Mace.  iii.  24;  Josh. 
x.  11).  According  to  Josephus,  he  was  the  governor 
of  Coele-Syria  and  fell  in  the  battle  (Jos.  Ant.  xii. 
7,  §1),  nor  is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that  his 
statements  are  mere  deductions  from  the  language 
of  1  Mace.  [B.  F.  W.] 

SERPENT.  The  following  Hebrew  words  de 
note  serpents  of  some  kind  or  other.  'Acshub, 
pethen,  tzepha'  or  tziph'oni,  shephiphon,  ndchdsh, 
and  ep/i'eh.  There  is  great  uncertainty  with  respect 
to  the  identification  of  some  of  these  terms,  the 
first  four  of  which  are  noticed  under  the  articles 
ADDER  and  ASP  (Appendix  A)  :  the  two  remaining 
names  we  proceed  to  discuss. 

1.  Ndchdsh  (£?n3  :  t></ns,  Spdicuv:  serpens,  co 

luber),  the  generic  name  of  any  serpent,  occurs 
frequently  in  the  0.  T.  The  following  are  the 
principal  Biblical  allusions  to  this  animal:  —  Its 
subtilty  is  mentioned  in  Gen.  iii.  1  ;  its  wisdom  is 
alluded  to  by  our  Lord  in  Matt.  x.  16;  the  poi 
sonous  properties  of  some  species  are  often  men 
tioned  (see  Ps.  Iviii.  4  ;  Prov.  xxiii.  32)  ;  the  sharp 
tongue  of  the  serpent,  which  it  would  appear  some 
of  the  ancient  Hebrews  believed  to  be  the  instru 
ment  of  poison,  is  mentioned  in  Ps.  cxl.  3;  Job 
xx.  16,  "  the  viper's  tongue  shall  slay  him  ;" 
although  in  other  places,  as  in  Prov.  xxiii.  32, 
Eccl.  x.  8,  11,  Num.  xxi.  9,  the  venom  is  correctly 
ascribed  to  the  bite,  while  in  Job  xx.  ]  4  the  gall 
is  said  to  be  the  poison  ;  the  habit  serpents  have  oi 
lying  concealed  in  hedges  is  alluded  to  in  Eccl.  x. 
and  in  holes  of  walls,  in  Am.  v.  19  ;  their  dwelling 
in  dry  sandy  places,  in  Deut.  viii.  15  ;  their  won 
derful  mode  of  progression  did  not  escape  the  obser 
vation  of  the  autnor  of  Prov.  xxx,  who  expressly 
mentions  it  as  "  one  of  the  three  things  which  were 
too  wonderful  for  him"  (19);  the  oviparous  natur 
of  most  of  the  order  is  alluded  to  in  Is.  lix.  5,  where 
the  A.  V.,  however,  has  the  unfortunate  rendering 
of  "  cockatrice."  The  ait  of  taming  and  charming 
serpents  is  of  great  antiquity,  and  is  alluded  to  in 
Ps.  Iviii.  5  ;  Eccl.  x.  11  ;  Jer.  viii.  17,  and  doubtless 
intimated  by  St.  James  (iii.  7),  who  particularise 
serpents  among  all  other  animals  that  "  have  been 
tamed  by  man."  [SERPETST-CH  ARMING.] 

It  was  under  tie  form  of  a  serpent  that  the  devi 


SERPENT 

seduced  Eve ;  hence  in  Scripture  Satan  is  called  *  the 
old  serpent"  (Kev.  xii.  9,  and  com  p.  2  Cor.  xi.  3). 
The  part  which  the  serpent  played  in  the 
transaction  of  the  Fall  must  not  be  passed  over 
without  some  brief  comment,  being  full  of  deep 
and  curious  interest.  First  of  all,  then,  we  have 
to  note  the  subtilty  ascribed  to  this  reptile,  which 
was  the  reason  for  its  having  been  selected  as  the 
nstrument  of  Satan's  wiles,  and  to  compare  with 
t  the  quality  of  wisdom  mentioned  by  our  Lord  as 
jelonging  to  it,  "  Be  ye  wise  as  serpents "  (Matt. 
x.  16).  It  was  an  ancient  belief,  both  amongst 
Orientals  and  the  people  of  the  western  world,  that 
.he  serpent  was  endued  with  a  large  share  of 
sagacity.  The  Hebrew  word  translated  "  subtle," 
,hough  frequently  used  in  a  good  sense,  implies, 
t  is  probable,  in  this  passage,  "mischievous  and 
malignant  craftiness,"  and  is  well  rendered  by 
Aquila  and  Theodotion  by  Travovpyos,  and  thus 
commented  upon  by  Jerome,  "magis  itaque  hoc 
erbo  calliditas  et  versutia  quam  sapientia  demon- 
stratur "  (see  Rosenmuller,  Schol.  I.  c.).  The 
ancients  give  various  reasons  for  regarding  serpents 
as  being  endued  with  wisdom,  as  that  one  species, 
;he  Cerastes,  hides  itself  in  the  sand  and  bites  the 
leels  of  animals  as  they  pass,  or  that,  as  the  head 
was  considered  the  only  vulnerable  part,  the  serpent 
;akes  care  to  conceal  it  under  the  folds  of  the  body. 
Serpents  have  in  all  ages  been  regarded  as  emblems  of 
cunning  craftiness.  The  particular  wisdom  alluded 
io  by  our  Lord  refers,  it  is  probable,  to  the  sagacity 
displayed  by  serpents  in  avoiding  danger.  The 
disciples  were  warned  to  be  as  prudent  in  not  in 
curring  unnecessary  persecution. 

It  has  been  supposed  by  many  commentators  that 
the  serpent,  prior  to  the  Fall,  moved  along  in  an 
erect  attitude,  as  Milton  (Par.  L.  ix.  496)  says— 

"  Not  with  indented  wave 
Prone  on  the  ground,  as  since,  but  on  his  rear, 
Circular  base  of  rising  folds  that  tower'd 
Fold  above  fold,  a  surging  maze." 
Compare    also    Josephus,   Antiq.   i.    1,    §4,    who 
believed  that  God  now  for  the  first  time  inserted 
poison  under  the   serpent's   tongue,   and  deprived 
him  of  the  use  of  feet,  causing  him  to  crawl  low 
on  the  ground  by  the  undulating  inflexions  of  the 
body    (KOT&    TTJS    yrjs    l\va"jrcafJLfVov).       Patrick 
(Comment.    L    c.)    entertained   the    extraordinary 
notion  that  the  serpent  of  the  Fall  was  a  winged 
kind  {Saraph}. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  an  erect  mode  of  pro 
gression  is  utterly  incompatible  with  the  structure 
of  a  serpeirfc,  whose  motion  on  the  ground  is  sf 
beautifully  effected  by  the  mechanism  of  tht 
vertebral  column  and  the  multitudinous  ribs 
which,  forming  as  it  were  so  many  pairs  of  levers, 
enable  the  animal  to  move  its  body  from  place  to 
place ;  consequently,  had  the  snakes  before  tfie 
Fall  mcived  in  an  erect  attitude,  they  must  hav«? 
been  formed  on  a  different  plan  altogether.  It  is 
true  that  there  are  saurian  reptiles,  suck  is  tne 
Saurophis  tetradactylus  and  the  Chamaesaura 
anguina  of  S.  Africa,  which  in  external  form  are 
very  like  serpents,  but  with  quasi-feet  ;  indeed, 
even  in  the  boa-constrictor,  underneath  the  skin 
near  the  extremity,  there  exist  rudimentary  legs  ; 
some  have  been  disposed  to  believe  that  the  snakes 
before  the  Fall  were  similar  to  the  S<zu*-ophis. 
Such  an  hypothesis,  however,  is  untenable,  for  all 
the  fossil  ophidia  that  have  hitherto  been  found 
differ  in  no  essential  respects  from  modern  repre 
sentatives  of  that  order:  it  is,  moreover,  beside 


SERPENT 

the  mark,  for  the  words  of  the  curse,  '•  upon  thy 
belly  shalt  thou  go,"  are  as  characteristic  of  the 
prog  ession  of  a  saurophoid  serpent  before  the  Fall 
as  of  a  true  ophidian  after  it.  There  is  no  reason 
whatever  to  conclude  from  the  language  of  Scrip 
ture  that  the  serpent  underwent  any  change  of 
form  on  account  of  the  part  it  played  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  Fall.  The  sun  and  the  moon  were  in 
the  heavens  long  before  they  were  appointed  "  for 
signs  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days  and  for  years." 
The  typical  form  of  the  serpent  and  its  mode  of 
progression  were  in  all  probability  the  same  before 
the  Fall  as  after  it;  but  subsequent  to  the  Fall 
its  form  and  progression  were  to  be  regarded  with 
hatred  and  disgust  by  all  mankind,  and  thus  the 
animal  was  cursed  "  above  all  cattle,"  and  a  mark 
of  condemnation  was  for  ever  stamped  upon  it. 
There  can  be  no  necessity  to  show  how  that  part 
of  the  curse  is  literally  fulfilled  which  speaks  of 
the  "  enmity"  that  was  henceforth  to  exist  between 
the  serpent  and  mankind  ;  and  though,  of  course, 
this  has  more  especial  allusion  to  the  devil,  whose 
instrument  the  serpent  was  in  his  deceit,  yet  it  is 
perfectly  true  of  the  serpent.  Few  will  be  inclined 
to  differ  with  Theocritus  (Id.  xv.  58)  :  — 

o<l»-v 


SERPENT 


1213 


Serpents  are  said  in  Scripture  to  "  eat  dust  "  (see 
Gen.  iii.  14;  Is.  Ixv.  25;  Mic.  vii.  17);  these 
animals,  which  for  the  most  part  take  their  food 
on  the  ground,  do  consequently  swallow  with  it 
large  portions  of  sand  and  dust. 

"  Almost  throughout  the  East,"  writes  Dr. 
Kalisch  (Hist,  and  Grit.  Comment.  Gen.  iii.  1), 
"  the  serpent  was  used  as  an  emblem  of  the  evil 
principle,  of  the  spirit  of  disobedience  and  con 
tumacy.  A  few  exceptions  only  can  be  discovered. 
The  Phoenicians  adored  that  animal  as  a  beneficent 
genius  ;  and  the  Chinese  consider  it  as  a  symbol  of 
superior  wisdom  and  power,  and  ascribe  to  the 
kings  of  heaven  (tien-hoangs]  bodies  of  serpents. 


Cnqph  Agathodaemon,  denoting  Immortality  (see  Horapollo,  L  1). 

Some  other  nations  fluctuated  in  their  conceptions 
regarding  the  serpent.  The  Egyptians  represented 
the  eternal  spirit  Kneph,  the  author  of  all  good, 
under  the  mythic  form  of  that  reptile ;  they  under 
stood  the  art  of  taming  it,  and  embalmed  it  after 
death  ;  but  they  applied  the  same  symbol  for  the  god 
of  revenge  and  punishment  (Tithrambo),  and  for 
Typhon,  the  author  of  all  moral  and  physical  evil ; 
and  in  the  Egyptian  symbolical  alphabet  the  serpent 
represents  subtlety  and  cunning,  lust  and  sensual 
pleasure.  In  Greek  mythology  it  is  certainly,  on 


the  one  hand,  the  attribute  of  Ceres,  of  Meicury,  and 
of  Aesculapius,  in  their  most  beneficent  qualities; 
but  it  forms,  on  the  other  hand,  a  part  of  the  terrible 
Furies  or  Eumenides :  it  appears  in  the  form  of  a 
Python  as  a  fearful  monster,  which  the  arrows  of  a 
god  only  were  able  to  destroy ;  and  it  is  the  most 
hideous  and  most  formidable  part  of  the  impious 
giants  who  despise  and  blaspheme  the  power  of 


Agftthodaemon.     From  Egyptian  Monuments. 

a.  Sacred  symbol  of  the  winged  globe  and  seipent.    6.  Head  of 

hawk  surmounted  by  globe  and  serpent. 

Heaven.  The  Indians,  like  the  savage  tribes  of  Africa 
and  America,  suffer  and  nourish,  indeed,  serpents  in 
their  temples,  and  even  in  their  houses ;  they  be 
lieve  that  they  bring  happiness  to  the  places  which 
they  inhabit ;  they  worship  them  as  the  symbols 
of  eternity;  but  they  regard  them  also  as  evil 
genii,  or  as  the  inimical  powers  of  nature  which  is 
gradually  depraved  by  them,  and  as  the  enemies  ot 
the  gods,  who  either  tear  them  to  pieces  or  tread 
their  venomous  head  under  their  all-conquering 
feet.  So  contradictory  is  all  animal  worship.  Its 
principle  is,  in  some  instances,  gratitude,  and  in 
others  fear;  but  if  a  noxious  animal  is  very  dan 
gerous  the  fear  may  manifest  itself  in  two  ways, 
either  by  the  resolute  desire  of  extirpating  the 
beast,  or  by  the  wish  of  averting  the  conflict 
with  its  superior  power ;  thus  the  same  fear  may, 
on  the  one  hand,  cause  fierce  enmity,  and  on  the 
other  submission  and  worship."  (See  on  the  sub 
ject  of  serpent-worship,  Vossius,  de  Orig.  Idol. 
i.  5;  Bryant's  Mythology,  i.  420-490;  it  is  well 
illustrated  in  the  apocryphal  story  of  "  Bel  and 
the  Dragon ;"  comp.  SteindorfF,  de  'O^toXarpeia  ; 
Winer's  Bib.  Realwort.  ii.  488.)  The  subjoined 
woodcut  represents  the  horned  cerastes,  as  very 
frequently  depicted  on  the  Egyptian  monuments. 


Horned  Cerastes.     From  Egyptian  Monuments. 

The  evil  spirit  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  appears 
in  the  Ahriman  or  lord  of  evil  who,  according  to 
the  doctrine  of  Zoroaster,  first  taught  men  to  sia 
under  the  guise  of  this  reptile  (Zendavesta,  ed. 
Kleuk.  i.  25,  iii.  84  ;  see  J.  Reinh.  Rus  de  ser- 
pente  seductore  non  naturali  sed  diabolo,  Jen. 
1712,  and  Z.  Grapius,  de  tentatione  Erne  et 
Christi  a  diabolo  in  assumpto  cot-pore  facta, 
Rostoch.  1712).  But  compare  the  opinion  of 
Dr.  Kalisch,  who  (Comment,  on  Gen.  iii.  14,  15) 
says  "the  serpent  is  the  reptile,  not  an  evil 

demon   that  had   assumed  its  shape If 

the  serpent  represented  Satan,  it  would  be  ex 
tremely  surprising  that  the  former  only  was  cursed  ; 
and  that  the  latter  is  not  even  mentioned  .  .  .  .  il 


1214 


SERPENT 


SERPENT,  BRAZEN 


would  be  entirely  at  variance  with  the  Divine 
justice  for  ever  to  curse  the  animal  whose  shape 
it  had  pleased  the  evil  one  to  assume."  Ac 
cording  to  the  Talmudists,  the  name  of  the  evil 

epirit  that  beguiled  Eve  was  Samm&el  (^XED) ; 

"R.  Moses  ben  Majemon  scribit  in  More  lib.  2, 
cap.  30,  Sammaelem  inequitasse  serpenti  antique 
et  seduxisse  Evam.  Dicit  etiam  nomen  hoc  abso 
lute  usurpari  de  Satana,  et  Sammaelem  nihil  aliud 
fuse  quam  ipsum  Satanam  "  (Buxtorf,  Lex.  Talrn. 
1495). 

Much  has  been  written  on  the  question  of  the 
"fiery  serpents"  (D'BTJfn  DWJ3J1)  of  Num. 

xxi.  6,  8,  ^>;.*h  which  it  is  usual  erroneously  to 
identify  the  •'  fiery  flying  sei-pent "  of  Is.  xxx.  6, 
and  xiv.  2£.  In  the  transaction  recorded  (Num. 
/.  c. ;  Deut  viii.  15)  as  having  occurred  at  the 
time  of  the  Exodus,  when  the  rebellious  Israelites 
ji-ere  visited  with  a  plague  of  serpents,  there  is 
not  a  word  about  their  having  been  "flying" 
creatures ;  there  is  therefore  no  occasion  to  refer  the 
venomous  snakes  in  question  to  the  kind  of  which 
Niebuhr  (Descript.  de  VArab.  p.  156)  speaks,  and 
vaich  the  Arabs  at  Basra  denominate  Heie  sur- 
surie,  or  Heie  thiare,  "  flying  serpents,"  which 
obtained  that  name  from  their  habit  of  "  springing  " 
from  branch  to  branch  of  the  date  trees  they 
inhabit.  Besides  these  are  tree- serpents  (Den- 
drophidae),  a  harmless  family  of  the  Colubrine 
snakes,  and  therefore  quite  out  of  the  question. 
The  Heb.  term  rendered  "fiery"  by  the  A.  V. 
is  by  the  Alexandrine  edition  of  the  LXX.  repre 
sented  by  davarovvres,  "  deadly  ;"  Onkelos,  the 
Arabic  version  of  Saadias,  and  the  Vulg.  translate 
the  word  "  burning,"  in  allusion  to  the  sensation 
produced  by  the  bite  ;  other  authorities  understand 
a  reference  to  the  bright  colour  of  the  serpents. 
It  is  impossible  to  point  out  the  species  of  poi 
sonous  snake  which  destroyed  the  people  in  the 
Arabian  desert.  Niebuhr  says  that  the  only  truly 
formidable  kind  is  that  called  Baetan,  a  small 
slender  creature  spotted  black  and  white,  whose 
bite  is  instant  death  and  whose  poison  causes  the 
dead  body  to  swell  in  an  extraordinary  manner 
(see  ForskfQ,  Descript.  Animal,  p.  15).  What 
the  modem  name  of  this  serpent  is  we  have  been 
unable  to  ascertain;  it  is  obvious,  however,  that 
either  the  Cerastes,  or  the  Naia  haje,  or  any  other 
venomous  species  frequenting  Arabia,  may  denote 
the  "serpent  of  the  burning  bite"  which  destroyed 
the  children  of  Israel.  The  "fiery  flying  serpent" 
of  Isaiah  (I.  c.)  <jan  have  no  existence  in  nature, 
though  it  is  curious  to  notice  that  Herodotus  (ii. 
75,  iii.  108)  speaks  of  serpents  with  wings  whose 
bones  he  imagined  he  had  himself  seen  near  Buto 
in  Arabia.  Monstrous  forms  of  snakes  with  birds' 
wings  occur  on  the  Egyptian  sculptures;  it  is 
probable  that  some  kind  of  flying  lizard  (Draco, 
Dracocella,  or  Dracunculus}  may  have  been  the 
"  flying  serpent "  of  which  Herodotus  speaks ;  and 
perhaps,  as  this  animal,  though  harmless,  is  yet 
calculated  to  inspire  horror  by  its  appearance,  it 
may  denote  the  flying  serpent  of  the  prophet,  and 
have  been  regarded  by  the  ancient  Hebrews  as 
an  animal  as  terrible  as  a  venomous  snake. 

a  The  theory  which  ascribes  the  healing  to  mysterious 
powers  known  to  the  astrologers  or  alchemists  of  Egypt 
may  be  mentioned,  but  hardly  calls  for  examination 
(Marsham,  Can.  Chron.  pp.  143,  149  ;  R.  Tirza,  in 
Deyling,  EnvcM.  Sacr.  ii.  210). 


2.  Epheh  (ny^lK:  fyts,  affirts,  &nrl\iTKOt 
vipera,  regulus)  occurs  in  Job  xx.  16,  Is.  xxx.  6 
and  lix.  5,  in  all  of  which  passages  the  A.  V.  has 
"  viper."  There  is  no  Scriptural  allusion  by  moans 
of  which  it  is  possible  to  determine  the  species  of 
serpent  indicated  by  the  Heb.  term,  which  is  de 
rived  from  a  root  which  signifies  "  to  hiss."  Shaw 
(Trav.  p.  251)  speaks  of  some  poisonous  snake 
which  the  Arabs  call  LefFah  (El  effah)  :  "  it  is  the 
most  malignant  of  the  tribe,  and  rarely  above  a 
foot  long."  Jackson  also  (Marocco,  p.  110)  men 
tions  this  serpent  ;  from  his  description  it  would 
seem  to  be  the  Algerine  adder  (Echidna  arietaiis 
var.  Mauritanicd).  The  snake  (e^iS^o)  that  fastened 
on  St.  Paul's  hand  when  he  was  at  Melita  (Acts 
xxviii.  3)  was  probably  the  common  viper  of  this 
country  (Pelias  berus),  which  is  widely  distributed 
throughout  Europe  and  the  islands  of  the  Mediter 
ranean,  or  else  the  Vipera  aspis,  a  not  uncommon 
species  on  the  coasts  of  the  same  Sea.  [W.  H.j 

SERPENT,  BRAZEN.  The  familiar  history 
of  the  brazen  serpent  need  not  be  repeated  here. 
The  nature  of  the  fiery  snakes  by  which  the 
Israelites  were  attacked  has  been  discussed  under 
SERPENT.  The  scene  of  the  history,  determined 
by  a  comparison  of  Num.  xxi.  3  and  xxxiii.  42, 
must  have  been  either  Zalmonah  or  Punon.  The 
names  of  both  places  probably  connect  themselves 
with  it,  Zalmonah  as  meaning  "  the  place  of  the 
image,"  Punon  as  probably  identical  with  the 
Qaivoi  mentioned  by  Greek  writers  as  famous  for 
its  copper-mines,  and  therefore  possibly  supply 
ing  the  materials  (Bochai't,  Hieroz.  ii.  3,  13). 
[PUNON  ;  ZALMONAH.]  The  chief  interest  of  the 
narrative  lies  in  the  thoughts  which  have  at  dif 
ferent  times  gathered  round  it.  We  meet  with 
these  in  three  distinct  stages.  We  have  to  ask 
by  what  associations  each  was  connected  with  the 
others. 

I.  The  truth  of  the  history  will,  in  this  place, 
be  taken  for  granted.  Those  who  prefer  it  may 
choose  among  the  hypotheses  by  which  men  halting 
between  two  opinions  have  endeavoured  to  retain 
the  historical  and  to  eliminate  the  supernatural 
element.*  They  may  look  on  the  cures  as  having 
been  effected  by  the  force  of  imagination,  which 
the  visible  symbol  served  to  heighten,  or  by 
the  rapid  rushing  of  the  serpent-bitten  from  all 
parts  of  the  camp  to  the  standard  thus  erected, 
curing  them,  as  men  are  said  to  be  cured  by 
dancing  of  the  bite  of  the  tarantula  (Bauer,  Heb. 
Gesch.  ii.  320;  Paulus,  Cvmm.  IV.  i.  198,  in 
Winer,  Rwb.}.  They  may  see  in  the  serpent  the 
emblematic  sign-post,  as  it  were,  of  the  camp- 
hospital  to  which  the  sufferers  were  brought  tor 
special  treatment,  the  form  in  this  instance,  as  in 
that  of  the  rod  of  Aesculapius,  being  a  symbol  of 
the  art  of  healing  (Hoffmann,  in  Scherer,  Schrift. 
Forsch.  i.  576  ;  Winer,  £wb.~).  Leaving  these 
conjectures  on  one  side,  it  remains  for  us  to 
inquire  into  the  fitness  of  the  symbol  thus  em 
ployed  as  the  instrument  of  healing.  To  most  of 
the  Israelites  it  must  have  seemed  as  strange  then 
as  it  did  afterwards  to  the  later  Rabbis,b  that  any 
such  symbol  should  be  employed.  The  Second 
Commandment  appeared  to  forbid  the  likeness  of 


b  One  of  the  Jewish  interlocutors  in  the  dialogue  of 
Justin  Martyr  with  Trypho  (p.  322)  declares  that  he  had 
often  asked  his  teachers  to  solve  the  difficulty,  and  hail 
never  found  one  who  explained  it  satisfactorily.  Justin 
himself,  of  course,  explains  it  as  a  type  of  Christ. 


SERPENT,  BRAZEN 

luiy  living  thing.  The  golden  calf  had  been  de 
stroyed  as  an  abomination.  Now  the  colossal 
serpent  (the  narrative  implies  that  it  was  visible 
from  all  parts  of  tne  encampment),  made,  we  may 
conjecture,  by  the  hands  of  Bezaleel  or  Aholiab, 
was  exposed  to  their  gaze,  and  they  were  told  to 
look  to  it  as  gifted  with  a  supernatural  power. 
What  reason  was  there  for  the  difference  ?  In  part, 
of  course,  the  answer  may  be,  that  the  Second 
Commandment  forbade,  not  all  symbolic  forms  as 
such,  but  those  that  men  made  for  themselves  to 
worship ;  but  the  question  still  remains,  why  was 
this  form  chosen?  It  is  hardly  enough  to  say, 
with  Jewish  commentators,  that  any  outward 
means  might  have  been  chosen,  like  the  lump  of 
figs  in  Hezekiah's  sickness,  the  salt  which  healed 
the  bitter  waters,  and  that  the  biazen  serpent 
made  the  miracle  yet  more  miraculcas,  inasmuch 
as  the  glare  of  burnished  brass,  the  gaze  upon  the 
sei-pent  form  were,  of  all  things,  most  likely  to  be 
fatal  to  those  who  had  been  bitten  (Gem.  Bab. 
Joma ;  Aben  Ezra  and  others  in  Buxtorf,  Hist. 
Aen.  Serp.  c.  5).  The  fact  is  doubtful,  the  reason 
inadequate.  It  is  hardly  enough  again  to  say, 
with  most  Christian  interpreters,  that  it  was 
intended  to  be  a  type  of  Christ.  Some  meaning 
it  must  have  had  for  those  to  whom  it  was 
actually  presented,  and  we  have  no  grounds  for 
assuming,  even  in  Moses  himself,  still  less  in  the 
multitude  of  Israelites  slowly  rising  out  of  sen 
suality,  unbelief,  rebellion,  a  knowledge  of  the 
far-off  mystery  of  redemption.  If  the  words  of 
our  Lord  in  John  iii.  14, 15  point  to  the  fulfilment 
of  the  type,  there  must  yet  have  been  another 
meaning  for  the  symbol.  Taking  its  part  in  the 
education  of  the  Israelites,  it  must  have  had  its 
starting-point  in  the  associations  previously  con 
nected  with  it.  Two  views,  very  different  from 
each  other,  have  been  held  as  to  the  nature  of 
those  associations.  On  the  one  side  it  has  been 
maintained  that,  either  from  its  simply  physical 
effects  or  from  the  mysterious  history  of  the 
temptation  in  Gen.  iii.,  the  serpent  was  the  repre 
sentative  of  evil.  To  present  the  serpent-form  as 
deprived  of  its  power  to  hurt,  impaled  as  the 
trophy  of  a  conqueror,  was  to  assert  that  evil, 
physical  and  spiritual,  had  been  overcome,  and  thus 
help  to  strengthen  the  weak  faith  of  the  Israelites 
in  a  victory  over  both.  The  serpent,  on  this  view, 
expressed  the  same  idea  as  the  dragon  in  the 
popular  representations  of  the  Archangel  Michael 
and  St.  George  (Ewald,  Geschichte,  ii.  228).c 
To  some  writers,  as  to  Ewald,  this  has  com 
mended  itself  as  the  simplest  and  most  obvious 
view.  It  has  been  adopted  by  some  orthodox 
divines  who  have  been  unable  to  convince  them- 
r^Ives  that  the  same  form  could  ever  really  have 
been  at  once  a  type  of  Satan  and  of  Christ  (Jackson, 
Humiliation  vf  the  Son  of  God,  c.  31 ;  Patrick, 
Comrn.  in  loc. ;  Espagnaeus,  Burmann,  Vitringa, 
in  Deyling,  Observatt.  Sac.  ii.  15).  Others, 
again,  have  started  from  a  different  ground.  They 
raise  the  question  whether  Gen.  iii.  was  then 
written,  or,  if  written,  known  to  the  great  body 


c  Another  view,  verging  almost  on  the  ludicrous,  has 
been  maintained  by  some  Jewish  writers.  The  serpent 
was  set  up  in  terrorem,  as  a  man  who  has  chastised  his 
son  hangs  up  the  rod  against  the  W;ii1  as  a  warning 
(Otho,  Lexic.  Rabbin,  s.v.  Serpens). 

A  Comp.  SEKPEXT,  and,  in  addition  to  the  authorities 
there  referred  to,  Wilkinson's  Anc.  Egyptians,  ii.  134, 
fv.395,  v.  01,  23* ;  Kurtz,  History  of  Ui&  Old  Covenant,  iii. 


SERPENT,  BRAZEN        1215 

of  the  Israelites.  They  look  to  Egypt  as  the 
starting-point  for  all  the  thoughts  which  tli« 
serpent  could  suggest,  and  they  find  there  that 
it  was  worshipped  as  an  agathodaemon,  the  symbol 
of  health  and  lite.d  This,  for  them,  explains  the 
mystery.  It  was  as  the  known  emblem  of  a 
power  to  heal  that  it  served  as  the  sign  and  sacra 
ment  on  which  the  faith  of  the  people  might  fasten 
and  sustain  itself. 

Contrasted  as  these  views  appear,  they  have,  it 
is  believed,  a  point  of  contact.  The  idea  primarily 
connected  with  the  serpent  in  the  history  of  the 
Fall,  as  throughout  the  proverbial  language  of  Scrip 
ture,  is  that  of  wisdom  (Gen.  iii.  1  ;  Matt.  x.  16; 
2  Cor.  xi.  3).  Wisdom,  apart  from  obedience  to  a 
divine  order,  allying  itself  to  man's  lower  nature, 
passes  into  cunning.  Man's  nature  is  envenomed 
and  degraded  by  it.  But  wisdom,  the  self-same 
power  of  understanding,  yielding  to  the  divine  law, 
is  the  source  of  all  healing  and  restoring  influences, 
and  the  serpent-form  thus  becomes  a  symbol  of 
deliverance  and  health.  The  Israelites  were  taught 
that  it  would  be  so  to  them  in  proportion  as  they 
ceased  to  be  sensual  and  rebellious.  There  were 
facts  in  the  life  of  Moses  himself  which  must  have 
connected  themselves  with  this  two-fold  symbolism. 
When  he  was  to  be  taught  that  the  Divine  Wisdom 
could  work  with  any  instruments,  his  rod  became 
a  serpent  (Ex.  iv.  1-5).  (Comp.  Cyril.  Alex.  Schol. 
15.  Glaphyra  in  Ex.  ii.)  e  When  he  and  Aaron 
were  called  to  their  great  conflict  with  the  per 
verted  wisdom  of  Egypt,  the  many  serpents  of  the 
magicians  were  overcome  by  the  one  serpent  of  the 
future  high-priest.  The  conqueror  and  the  conquered 
were  alike  in  outward  form  (Ex.  vii.  10-12). 

II.  The  next  stage  hi  the  history  of  the  brazen 
serpent  shows  how  easily  even  a  legitimate  symbol, 
retained  beyond  its  time,  after  it  had  done  its 
work,  might  become  the  occasion  of  idolatry.  It 
appears  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  as  having  been, 
for  some  undefined  period,  an  object  of  worship. 
The  zeal  of  that  king  leads  him  to  destroy  it.  it 
receives  from  him,  or  had  borne  before,  the  name 
Nehushtan.  [Comp.  NEHUSHTAN.]  We  are  left  to 
conjecture  when  the  worship  began,  or  what  was 
its  locality.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  it  should  have 
been  tolerated  by  the  reforming  zeal  of  kings  like 
Asa  and  Jehoshaphat.  It  must,  we  may  believe, 
have  received  a  fresh  character  and  become  more 
conspicuous  in  the  period  which  preceded  its  de 
struction.  All  that  we  know  of  the  reign  of  Ahaz 
makes  it  probable  that  it  was  under  his  auspices 
that  it  received  a  new  development,*  that  it  thus 
became  the  object  of  a  marked  aversion  to  the 
iconoclastic  party  who  were  prominent  among  the 
counsellors  of  Hezekiah.  Intercourse  with  countries 
in  which  Ophiolatry  prevailed — Syria,  Assyria, 
possibly  Egypt  also— acting  on  the  feeling  which 
led  him  to  bring  together  the  idolatries  of  all 
neighbouring  nations,  might  easily  bring  about  this 
perversion  of  the  reverence  felt  for  the  time- 
honoured  relic. 

Here  we  might  expect  the  history  of  the  mate 
rial  object  would  cease,  but  the  passion  for  relics 

348,  Eng.  transl. ;  Witsius,  ^Egyptiaca,  in  Ugolini,  i.  852. 

e  The  explanation  given  by  Cyril  is,  as  might  be  ex 
pected,  more  mystical  than  that  in  the  text.  The  rod 
transformed  into  a  serpent  represents  the  Divine  Word 
taking  on  Himself  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh. 

'  Ewald's  conjecture  (Gesch,.  iv.  622)  that,  till  then, 
the  serpent  may  have  remained  at  Zalmonah,  the  object 
of  occasional  pilgrimages,  is  probable  enough. 


1216 


SERPENT,  BRAZEN 


has  prevailed  even  against  the  history  of  the  Bible. 
The  church  of  St.  Ambrose,  at  Milan,  has  boasted, 
frr  centuries,  of  possessing  the  brazen  serpent 
which  Moses  set  up  in  the  wilderness.  The  earlier 
history  of  the  relic,  so  called,  is  matter  for  con 
jecture.  Our  knowledge  of  it  begins  in  the  year 
A.D.  971,  when  an  envoy  was  sent  by  the  Milanese 
to  the  court  of  the  Emperor  John  Zimisces,  at 
Constantinople.  He  was  taken  through  the  im 
perial  cabinet  of  treasures  and  invited  to  make 
his  choice,  and  he  chose  this,  which,  the  Greeks 
assured  him,  was  made  of  the  same  metal  as  the 
original  serpent  (Sigonius,  Hist.  Regn.  Ital.  b.  vii.). 
On  his  return  it  was  placed  in  the  church  of  St. 
Ambrose,  and  popularly  identified  with  that  which 
it  professed  to  represent.  It  is,  at  least,  a  possible 
hvpothesis  that  the  Western  Church  has  in  this 
way  been  led  to  venerate  what  was  originally  the 
object  of  the  worship  of  some  Ophite  sect. 

III.  When  the  material  symbol  had  perished,  its 
bistory  began  to  suggest  deeper  thoughts  to  the 
riinds  of  men.     The  writer  of  the  Book  of  Wis 
dom,  in  the  elaborate  contrast  which   he   draws 
between  true   and  false   religions  in  their  use  of 
outward  signs,  sees  in  it  a  ffvpfioXov  ffur-npias, 
els   avdnvriaiv    ei/ToA.7js    v6/j.ov   aov ;    "  he   that 
turned  himself  was  not  saved  by  the  thing  that 
he  saw  (5t&  rb  Occapovfifvov],  but  by  Thee  that 
art  the  Saviour  of  all"   (Wisd.  xvi.   6,  7).     The 
Targum   of  Jonathan   paraphrases    Num.   xxi.  8, 
"  He  shall  be  healed  if  he  direct  his  heart  unto 
the  Name  of  the  Word  of  the  Lord."     Philo,  with 
his   characteristic   taste   for   an   ethical,   mystical 
interpretation,  represents  the  history  as  a  parable 
of  man's  victory  over  his  lower  sensuous  nature. 
The  metal,  the  symbol  of  permanence  and  strength, 
has  changed  the  meaning  of  the  symbol,  and  that 
which  had  before  been  the  emblem  of  the  will, 
yielding  to  and  poisoned  by  the  serpent  pleasure, 
now  represents  ffaxppoffvvii,  the  avwraOes   O.KO- 
\affias  <(>dp[j.aKov  (J)e  Agricult.}.     The  facts  just 
stated  may  help  us  to  enter  into  the  bearing  of 
the  words  of  John  iii.  14,  15.     If  the  paraphrase 
of  Jonathan   represents,   as   it   does,   the  current 
interpretation   of  the   schools   of  Jerusalem,    the 
devout  Rabbi   to   whom   the  words   were  spoken 
could   not  have  been   ignorant  of  it.      The  new 
teacher  carried  the  lesson  a  step  further.      He  led 
him  to  identify  the  "  Name  of  the  Word  of  the 
Lord  "  with  that  of  the  Son  of  Man.     He  prepared 
him  to  see  in  the  lifting-up  of  the  Crucifixion  that 
which  should  answer  in  its  power  to  heal  and  save 
to  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness. 

IV.  A   full   discussion    of  the  typical  meaning 
here  unfolded  belongs  to  Exegesis  rather  than  to  a 
Dictionary.     It  will  be  enough  to  note  here  that 
which  connects  itself  with  facts  or  theories  already 
mentioned.     On  the  one  side  the  typical  interpre 
tation  has  been  extended  to  all  the  details.     The 
pole  on  which  the  serpent  was  placed  was  not  only 
a  type  of  the  cross,  but  was  itself  crucial  in  form 
(Just.  Mart.  Dial.  c.  Tryph.  p.  322).     The  ser 
pent  was  nailed  to  it  as  Christ  was  nailed.     As 
the  symbol  of  sin  it  represented  His  being  made 
sin  for  us.     The  very  metal,  like  the  fine  brass  of 
Rev.  i.  15,  was  an  emblem  of  the  might  and  glory 
of  the  Son  of  Man  (comp.  Lampe,  in  loc.}.     On  the 
other  it  has  been  maintained  (Patrick  and  Jackson, 
ut  supra)  that  the  serpent  was  from  the  beginning, 
anl  remains  still,  exclusively  the  symbol  of  evil, 
that  the  lifting-up  of  the  Son  of  Man  answered  to 
that  of  the  serpent  because  on  the  cross  the  victory 


$  ERPENT-CHARMING 

over  the  serpent  was  accomplished.  The  pnnt  oi 
comparison  fey  not  between  the  serpent  and  Christ, 
but  between  the  look  of  the  Israelite  to  the  out 
ward  sign,  the  look  of  a  justifying  faith  to  the 
cross  of  Christ.  It  will  not  surprise  us  to  find 
that,  in  the  spiritual  as  in  the  historical  interpreta 
tion,  both  theories  have  an  element  of  truth.  The 
serpent  here  also  is  primarily  the  emblem  of  the 
"knowledge  of  good  and  evil."  To  man,  as 
having  obtained  that  knowledge  by  doing  evil,  it 
has  been  as  a  venomous  serpent,  poisoning  and 
corrupting.  In  the  nature  of  the  Son  of  Man  it 
is  once  more  in  harmony  with  the  Divine  will, 
and  leaves  the  humanity  pure  and  untainted. 
The  Crucifixion  is  the  vitness  that  the  evil  has 
been  overcome  by  the  good.  Those  who  are  bitten 
by  the  serpent  find  their  deliverance  in  looking  to 
Him  who  knew  evil  only  by  subduing  it,  and  who 
is  therefore  mighty  to  save.  Well  would  it  have 
been  for  the  Church  of  Christ  if  it  had  been  con 
tent  to  rest  in  this  truth.  Its  history  shows  ho*' 
easy  it  was  for  the  old  perversion  to  reproduct 
itself.  The  highest  of  all  symbols  might  share  the 
fate  of  the  lower.  It  was  possible  even  for  the 
cross  of  Christ  to  pass  into  a  Nehushtan.  (Comp. 
Stier,  Words  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  on  John  iii.,  and 
Kurtz,  Hist,  of  the  Old  Covenant,  iii.  344-358 
Eng.  transl.)  "  [E.  H.  P.] 

SERPENT-CHARMING.  Some  few  remarks 
on  this  subject  are  made  under  ASP  (Appendix  A), 
where  it  is  shown  that  the  peihen  (jHSl)  probably 

denotes  the  Egyptian  cobra.  There  can  be  no  ques 
tion  at  all  of  the  remarkable  power  which,  from 
time  immemorial,  has  been  exercised  by  certain 
people  in  the  East  over  poisonous  serpents.  The 
art  is  most  distinctly  mentioned  in  the  Bible, 
and  probably  alluded  to  by  St.  James  (iii.  7). 
The  usual  species  operated  upon,  both  in  Africa 
and  India,  are  the  hooded  snakes  (Naia  tripudians, 
and  Naia  haje)  and  the  horned  Cerastes.  The  skill 
of  the  Italian  Marsi  and  the  Libyan  Psylli  in  taming 
serpents  was  celebrated  throughout  the  world ;  and 
to  this  day,  as  we  are  told  by  Sir  G.  Wilkinson 
(Rawlinson's  Herodotus,  iii.  124,  note,  ed.  1862), 
the  snake-players  of  the  coast  of  Barbary  aiv 
worthy  successors  of  the  Psylli  (see  Pliny,  viii.  25, 
xi.  25,  and  especially  Lucan's  account  of  the  PsylB , 
Pharsal.  ix.  892).  See  numerous  references  cited 
by  Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  164,  &c.)  on  the  subject 
of  serpent-taming. 

That  the  charmers  frequently,  and  perhaps  gene- 
•ally,  take,  the  precaution  of  extracting  the  poison 
iangs  before  the  snakes  are  subjected  to  their  skill, 
there  is  much  probability  for  believing,  but  that 
this  operation  is  not  always  attended  to  is  clear  from 
the  testimony  of  Bruce  and  numerous  other  writers, 
'  Some  people,"  says  the  traveller  just  mentioned, 
'  have  doubted  that  it  was  a  trick,  and  that  the 
animals  so  handled  had  been  first  trained  and  then 
disarmed  of  their  power  of  hurting,  and,  fond  of  the 
discovery,  they  have  rested  themselves  upon  it  with 
out  experiment,  in  the  face  of  all  antiquity.  But  I 
will  not  hesitate  to  aver  that  I  have  seen  at  Cairo 
a  man  ....  who  has  taken  a  cerastes  with  his 
naked  hand  from  a  number  of  others  lying  at  the 
bottom  of  the  tub,  has  put  it  upon  his  bare  head, 
covered  it  with  the  common  red  cap  he  wears, 
then  taken  it  out,  put  it  in  his  breast  and  tied  it 
about  his  neck  like  a  necklace,  after  which  it  has 
been  applied  to  a  hen  and  bit  it,  which  has  died 
n  a  few  minutes."  Dr.  Davy,  in  his  Interior  of 


SERPENT-CHARMING 

,  speaking  of  the  snake  charmers,  says  on  this 
subject : — "  The  ignorant  vulgar  believe  that  these 
men  really  possess  a  chann  by  which  they  thus  play 
without  dread,  and  with  impunity  from  danger. 
The  move  enlightened,  laughing  at  this  idea,  con 
sider  the  men  impostors,  and  that  in  playing  their 
tricks  there  is  no  danger  to  be  avoided,  it  being 
remcrad  by  the  abstraction  of  the  poison  fangs. 
The  enlightened  in  this  instance  are  mistaken,  and 
the  vulgar  are  nearer  the  truth  in  their  opinion. 
I  have  examined  the  snakes  I  have  seen  exhibited, 
and  have  found  their  poison  fangs  in  and  uninjured. 
These  men  do  possess  a  charm,  though  net  a  super 
natural  one — viz.  that  of  confidence  and  courage. . . . 
They  will  play  their  tricks  with  any  hooded  snakes 
(Naja  tripudians),  whether  just  taken  or  long  in 
confinement,  but  with  no  other  kind  of  poisonous 
snake."  See  also  Tennent,  Ceylon,  i.  199,  3rd  ed. 
Some  have  supposed  that  the  practice  of  taking 
out  or  breaking  off  the  poison  fangs  is  alluded  to 
in  Ps.  Iviii.  6,  "  Break  their  teeth,  O  God,  in  their 
mouth." 


Serpent-charming. 

The  serpent-charmer's  usual  instrument  is  a 
flute.  Shrill  sounds,  it  would  appear,  are  those 
which  serpents,  with  their  imperfect  sense  of 
hearing,  are  able  most  easily  to  discern  ;  hence  it 
is  that  the  Chinese  summon  their  tame  fish  by 
whistling  or  by  ringing  a  bell. 

The  reader  will  find  much  interesting  matter  on 
ihe  art  of  serpent-charming,  as  practised  by  the 
ancients,  in  Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  161)  in  the  dis 
sertation  by  Bohmer  entitled  De  Psyllorum,  Mar- 
sorum,  et  Ophiogenum  advcrsus  serpentes  virtutc, 
Lips.  1745 ;  and  in  Kaempfer's  Amoenitates  Exo- 
ticae,  iii.  ix.  565 ;  see  also  Broderip's  Note  Book 
of  a  Naturalist,  and  Anecdotes  of  Serpents,  pub 
lished  by  Chambers;  Lane's  Modern  Egyptians, 
ii.  106.  Those  who  professed  the  art  of  taming 
serpents  were  called  by  the  Hebrews  mendchashim 
(DHPTOD),  while  the  art  itself  was  called  lachash 
(&TOJ,  Jer.  viii.  17 :  Eccl.  x.  11  ;  but  these  terms 
were  not  always  used  in  this  restricted  sense, 
[DIVINATION  ;  ENCHANTMENT.]  [\V.  H.] 


*  But  perhaps  €i.«6i>es  and  dvSpiai/res  may  hers  be  used 
of  pictures 

'  In  many  passages  the  correct  reading  would  add  con 
siderable  force  to  the  meaning,  e.  g.  in  Gen.  ix.  25,  "  Cursed 
be  Canaan  ;  a  slave  of  slaves  shall  he  be  unto  his  brethren ;" 

VOL,  III. 


SERVANT  1217 

SERU'G  (>W  :  2epotfx  5  N.  T.  2op«t/x  - 
Sarufj}.  Son  of  Reu,  and  great-gran  Ifather  oi 
Abraham.  His  age  is  given  in  the  Hebrew  Bible 
as  230  years — 30  years  before  he  begat  Nahor,  and 
200  years  afterwards.  But  in  the  LXX.  13C 
years  are  assigned  to  him  lefore  he  begat  Nahor 
(making  his  total  age  330),  being  one  of  those 
systematic  variations  in  the  ages  of  the  patriarchs 
between  Shem  and  Terah,  as  given  by  the  LXX., 
by  which  the  interval  between  the  Flood  and 
Abraham  is  lengthened  from  292  (as  in  the  Heb. 
B.)  to  1172  (or  Alex.  1072)  years.  [CHRONO 
LOGY,  p.  319.J  Bochart  (Phal.  ii.  cxiv.)  con 
jectures  that  the  town  of  Seruj,  a  day's  journey 
from  Charrae  in  Mesopotamia,  was  named  from  this 
patriarch,  Suidas  and  others  ascribe  to  him  the 
deification  of  dead  benefactors  of  mankind.  Epi- 
phanius  (Adv.  Haeres.  i.  6,  8),  who  says  that  his 
name  signifies  "provocation,"  states  that,  though 
in  his  time  idolatry  took  its  rise,  yet  it  was  con 
fined  to  pictures ;  and  that  the  deification  of  dead 
men,  as  well  as  the  making  of  idols,  was  subse 
quent.  He  characterises  the  religion  of  mankind 
up  to  Serug's  days  as  Scythic;  after  Serug  and 
the  building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  the  Hellenic 
or  Greek  form  of  religion  was  introduced,  and 
continued  to  the  writer's  time  (see  Petavius,  Anim. 
ndv.  Epiph.  Oper.  ii.  13).  The  account  given  by 
John  of  Antioch,  is  as  follows  : — Serug,  of  the  race 
of  Japhet,  taught  the  duty  of  honouring  eminent 
deceased  men,  either  by  images  or  statues,a  of 
worshipping  them  on  certain  anniversaries  as 
if  still  living,  of  preserving  a  record  of  their 
actions  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  priests,  and  of 
calling  them  gods,  as  being  benefactors  of  mankind. 
Hence  arose  Polytheism  and  idolatry  (see  Frogm. 
Historic.  Grace,  iv.  345,  and  the  note).  It  is  in 
accordance  with  his  being  called  of  the  race  of 
Japhet  that  Epiphanius  sends  Phaleg  and  Reu  to 
Thrace  (Epist.  ad  Descr.  Paul.  §ii.).  There  is, 
of  course,  little  or  no  historical  value  in  any  of  these 
statements.  •  [A.  C.  H.] 

SERVANT  (TW;  TWD).  The  Hebrew  terms 
na'ar  and  meshareth,  which  alone  answer  to  our 
"  servant,"  in  as  far  as  this  implies  the  notions 
of  liberty  and  voluntariness,  are  of  comparatively 
rare  occurrence.  On  the  other  hand,  'ebed,  which 
is  common  and  is  equally  rendered  "  servant "  in 
the  A.  V.,  properly  means  a  slave,b  Slavery  was 
in  point  of  fact  the  normal  condition  of  the  under 
ling  in  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  [SLAVE],  while 
the  terms  above  given  refer  to  the  exceptional  cases 
of  young  or  confidential  attendants.  Joshua,  for 
instance,  is  described  as  at  once  the  na'ar  and  me 
shareth  of  Moses  (Ex.  xxxiii.  11);  Elisha's  servant 
sometimes  as  the  former  (2  K.  iv.  12,  v.  20),  some 
times  as  the  latter  (2  K.  iv.  43,  vi.  15).  Amnon's 
servant  was  a  mcshnreth  (2  Sam.  xiii.  17, 18),  while 
young  Joseph  was  a  na'ar  to  the  sons  of  Bilhah 
(Gen.  xxxvii.  2,  where  instead  of  "  the  lad  was 
with,"  we  should  read,  "he  was  the  servant-boy 
to  "  the  sons  of  Bilhah).  The  confidential  designa 
tion  meshareth  is  applied  to  the  priests  and  Levites, 
in  their  relation  to  Jehovah  (Ezr.  viii.  17  ;  Is.  Ixi. 
6;  Ez.  xliv.  11),  and  the  cognate  verb  to  Joseph 
after  he  found  favour  with  Potiphar  (Gen.  xxxix. 

in  Deut.  v.  15,  "  Remember  that  thou  wast  a  slave  in  the 
land  of  Egypt;"  in  Job  iii.  19,  "  The  slave  is  free  from  hts 
master ;"  and  particularly  in  passages  where  the  speaker 
uses  the  term  of  himself,  as  in  Gen.  xviii.  3,  "Pass  not 
away,  I  pray  tbee,  from  thy  slave." 

4  I 


1218 


SESIS 


4),  and  to  the  nephews  of  Ahaziah  (2  Chr.  xxii.  8). 
In  1  K.  xx.  14,  15,  we  should  substitute  "  servants  " 
(ncCar}  for  "  young  men."  [W.  L.  B.] 

SES'IS  (Ws  ;  Alex.  26<r<rek:  om.  in  Vulg.). 
SHASHAT  (1  Esd.  ix.  34  ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  40). 

SES'THEL  (2e<r0^\ :  Beseel}.  BEZALEEL  of 
the  sons  of  Pahath-Moab  (1  Esd.  ix.  31 ;  Ezr.  x. 
30). 

SETH  (W,  i.  e.  Sheth  :  2^0 :  Seth),  Gen.  iv. 
25,  v.  3 ;  1  Chr.  i.  1.  The  third  son  of  Adam,  and 
father  of  Enos.  The  signification  of  his  name  (given 
in  Gen.  iv.  25)  is  "appointed"  or  "put"  in  the 
place  of  the  murdered  Abel,  and  Delitzsch  speaks 
of  him  as  the  second  Abel ;  but  Ewald  (Gesch. 
i.  353)  thinks  that  another  signification,  which  he 
prefers,  is  indicated  in  the  text,  viz.  "  seedling,"  or 
*  jprm."  The  phrase,  "  children  of  Sheth  "  (Num. 
txiv.  17)  has  been  understood  as  equivalent  to  all 
mankind,  or  as  denoting  the  tribe  of  some  unknown 
Moabitish  chieftain ;  but  later  critics,  among  whom 
are  Rosenmiiller  and  Gesenius  (Thes.  i.  346),  bear- 
'Bg  in  mind  the  paralM  passage  (Jer.  xlviii.  45), 
render  the  phrase,  "  children  of  noise,  tumultuous 
ones,"  i.  e.  hostile  armies.  [SHETH.] 

In  the  4th  century  there  existed  in  Egypt  a  sect 
calling  themselves  Sethians,  who  are  classed  by 
Neander  (  Ch.  Hist.  ii.  1 15,  ed.  Bohn)  among  those 
Gnostic  sects  \vhioh,  in  opposing  Judaism,  approxi 
mated  to  paganism.  (See  also  Tillemont,  Memmres, 
11.318.)  Irenaeus  (i.  30;  comp.  Massuet,  Dissert. 
i.  3,  §14)  and  Theodoret  (Haeret.  Fab.  xiv.  p.  306), 
without  distinguishing  between  them  and  ihe  Oph 
ites,  or  worshippers  of  the  serpent,  say  that  in  their 
system  Seth  was  regarded  as  a  divine  effluence  or 
virtue.  Epiphanius,  who  devotes  a  chapter  to 
them  (Adv.  Haer.  i.  3,  §39),  says  that  they  iden 
tified  Seth  with  our  Lord.  [W.  T.  B.] 

SETHU'R  O-inp:  2a0ofy :  Sthur).  The 
Asherite  spy,  son  of  Michael  (Num.  xiii.  13). 

SEVEN.  The  frequent  recurrence  of  certain 
numbers  in  the  sacred  literature  of  the  Hebrews  is 
obvious  to  the  most  superficial  reader ;  and  it  is 
almost  equally  obvious  that  these  numbers  are 
associated  with  certain  ideas,  so  as  in  some  instances 
to  lose  their  numerical  force,  and  to  pass  over  into 
the  province  of  symbolic  signs.  This  is  more  or 
less  true  of  the  numbers  three,  four,  seven,  twelve, 
and  forty  ;  but  seven  so  far  surpasses  the  rest,  both 
»n  the  frequency  with  which  it  recuns,  and  in  the 
importance  of  the  objects  with  which  it  is  associated, 
that  it  may  fairly  be  termed  the  representative 
symbolic  number.  It  has  hence  attracted  con 
siderable  attention,  and  may  be  said  to  be  the  key 
stone  on  which  the  symbolism  of  numbers  depends. 
The  origin  of  this  symbolism  is  a  question  that 
meets  us  at  the  threshold  of  any  discussion  as  to 
the  number  seven.  Our  limits  will  not  permit  us 
to  follow  out  this  question  to  its  legitimate  extent, 
but  we  may  briefly  state  that  the  views  of  Biblical 
critics  may  be  ranged  under  two  heads,  according  as 
the  symbolism  is  attributed  to  theoretical  specula 
tions  as  to  the  internal  properties  of  the  number 
itself,  or  to  external  associations  of  a  physical  or  his 
torical  character.  According  to  the  former  of  tnese 
views,  the  symbolism  of  the  number  seven  would 
be  traced  back  to  the  symbolism  of  its  compo 
nent  elements  three  and  four,  the  first  of  which 
—  Divinity,  and  the  second  =  Humanity,  whence 
seven  =  Divinity  -f-  Humanity,  or,  in  other  words, 
the  union  between  God  and  Man,  as  effected  by 


SEVEN 

the  manifestations  of  the  Divinity  in 
revelation.  So  again  the  symbolism  of 
is  explained  as  the  symbolism  of  3  X  4,  i.  e.  or 
a  second  combination  of  the  same  two  elements, 
though  in  different  proportions,  the  representative 
number  of  Humanity,  as  a  multiplier,  assuming  a 
more  prominent  position  (Bahr's  Symbolik,  i.  187, 
201,  224).  This  theory  is  seductive  from  its  in 
genuity,  and  its  appeal  to  the  imagination,  but 
there  appears  to  be  little  foundation  for  it.  For  (1 .) 
we  do  not  find  any  indication,  in  early  times  at  all 
events,  that  the  number  seven  was  resolved  into 
three  and  four,  rather  than  into  any  other  arith 
metical  elements,  such  as  two  and  five.  Bengel 
notes  such  a  division  as  running  through  the 
heptads  of  the  Apocalypse  (Gnomon,  in  Rev.  xvi.  1), 
and  the  remark  undoubtedly  holds  good  in  certain 
instances,  e.  g.  the  trumpets,  the  three  latter  beir.£ 
distinguished  from  the  four  former  by  the  triple 
"  woe"  (Rev.  viii.  13),  but  in  other  instances,  e.  g. 
in  reference  to  the  promises  (Gnom.  in  Rev.  ii.  7), 
the  distinction  is  not  so  well  established,  and  even 
if  it  were,  an  explanation  might  be  found  in  the 
adaptation  of  such  a  division  to  the  subject  in  hand. 
The  attempt  to  discover  such  a  distinction  in  the 
Mosaic  writings — as,  for  instance,  where  an  act  is 
to  be  done  on  the  third  day  out  of  seven  (Num. 
xix.  12) — appears  to  be  a  failure.  (2.)  It  would 
be  difficult  to  show  that  any  associations  of  a  sacred 
nature  were  assigned  to  three  and  four  previously  to 
the  sanctity  of  seven.  This  latter  number  is  so  far 
the  sacred  number  /car*  Qo-)(T)v  that  we  should  be 
less  surprised  if,  by  a  process  the  reverse  of  the 
one  assumed,  sanctity  had  been  subsequently  at 
tached  to  three  and  four  as  the  supposed  elements 
of  seven.  But  (3.)  all  such  speculations  on  mere 
numbers  are  alien  to  the  spirit  of  Hebrew  thought ; 
they  belong  to  a  different  stage  of  society,  in  which 
speculation  is  rife,  and  is  systematized  by  the  ex 
istence  of  schools  of  philosophy. 

We  turn  to  the  second  class  of  opinions  which 
attribute  the  symbolism  of  the  number  seven  to 
external  associations.  This  class  may  be  again  sub 
divided  into  two,  according  as  the  symbolism  is 
supposed  to  have  originated  in  the  observation  of 
purely  physical  phenomena,  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  the  peculiar  religious  enactments  of  Mosaism. 
The  influence  of  the  number  seven  was  not  re 
stricted  to  the  Hebrews  ;  it  prevailed  among  the 
Persians  (Esth.  i.  10,  14),  among  the  ancient 
Indians  (Von  Bohlen's  Alt.  Indien,  ii.  224,  seqq.}, 
among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  to  a  certain  extent, 
and  probably  among  all  nations  where  the  week  of 
seven  days  was  established,  as  in  China,  Egypt, 
Arabia,  &c.  (Ideler's  Chronol.  i.  88,  178,  ii.  473). 
The  wide  range  of  the  word  seven  is  in  this  respect 
an  interesting  and  significant  fact:  with  the  ex 
ception  of  "  six,"  it  is  the  only  numeral  which  the 
Semitic  languages  have  in  common  with  the  Indo- 
European  ;  for  the  Hebrew  sheba*  is  essentially  the 
same  as  cirra,  septem,  seven,  and  the  Sanscrit, 
Persian,  and  Gothic  names  for  this  number  (Pott'3 
Etym.  Forsch.  i.  129).  In  the  countries  above 
enumerated,  the  institution  of  seven  as  a  cyclical 
number  is  attributed  to  the  observation  of  the 
changes  of  the  moon,  or  to  the  supposed  number  of 
the  planets.  The  Hebrews  are  held  by  some  writers 
to  have  borrowed  their  notions  of  the  sanctity  of 
seven  from  their  heathen  neighbours,  cither  wholly 
or  partially  (Von  Bohlen's  Introd.  to  Gen.  i.  216 


SEVEN 

0ji:lj  Hengstenberg's  Balaam,  p.  393,  Clark's 
,-U.) ;  but  the  peculiarity  of  the  Hebrew  view  con- 
Bists  in  the  special  dignity  of  the  seventh,  and  not 
simply  in  that  of  seven.  Whatever  influence,  there- 
lore,  may  be  assigned  to  astronomical  observation 
or  to  prescriptive  usage,  in  regard  to  the  original 
institution  of  the  week,  we  cannot  trace  back  the 
peculiar  associations  of  the  Hebrews  farther  than  to 
the  point  when  the  seventh  day  was  consecrated  to 
the  purposes  of  religious  rest. 

Assuming  this,  therefore,  as  our  starting-point, 
the  first  idea  associated  with  seven  would  be  that 
of  religious  periodicity.  The  Sabbath,  being  the 
seventh  day,  suggested  the  adoption  of  seven  as  the 
coefficient,  so  to  say,  for  the  appointment  of  all 
sacred  periods ;  and  we  thus  find  the  7th  month 
ushered  in  by  the  Feast  of  Trumpets,  and  signalised 
by  the  celebration  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  and 
the  great  Day  of  Atonement;  7  weeks  as  the  in 
terval  between  the  Passover  and  the  Pentecost ;  the 
7th  year  as  the  Sabbatical  year  ;  and  the  year  suc 
ceeding  7X7  years  as  the  Jubilee  year.  From  the 
idea  of  periodicity,  it  passed  by  an  easy  transition 
to  the  duration  or  repetition  of  religious  proceed 
ings  ;  and  thus  7  days  were  appointed  as  the  length 
of  the  Feasts  of  Passover  and  Tabernacles ;  7  days 
for  the  ceremonies  of  the  consecration  of  priests; 
7  days  for  the  interval  to  elapse  between  the  occa 
sion  and  the  removal  of  various  kinds  of  legal  un- 
cleanness,  as  after  childbirth,  after  contact  with  a 
corpse,  &c. ;  7  times  appointed  for  aspersion  either 
of  the  blood  of  the  victim  (e.g.  Lev.  iv.  6,  xvi.  14) 
or  of  the  water  of  purification  (Lev.  xiv.  51 ;  comp. 
2  K.  v.  10,  14) ;  7  things  to  be  offered  in  sacrifice 
(oxen,  sheep,  goats,  pigeons,  wheat,  oil,  wine) ;  7 
victims  to  be  offered  on  any  special  occasion,  as  in 
Balaam's  sacrifice  (Num.  xxiii.  1),  and  especially 
at  the  ratification  of  a  treaty,  the  notion  of  seven 
being  embodied  in  the  very  termb  signifying  to  swear, 
literally  meaning  to  do  seven  times  (Gen.  xxi.  28  ; 
comp.  Herod,  iii.  8,  for  a  similar  custom  among 
the  Arabians).  The  same  idea  is  further  carried 
out  in  the  vessels  and  arrangements  of  the  Taber 
nacle — in  the  seven  arms  of  the  golden  candlestick, 
and  the  seven  chief  utensils  (altar  of  burnt-offerings, 
iaver,  shewbread  table,  altar  of  incense,  candlestick, 
ark,  mercy-seat). 

The  number  seven,  having  thus  been  impressed 
with  the  seal  of  sanctity  as  the  symbol  of  all  con 
nected  with  the  Divinity,  was  adopted  generally  as 
a  cyclical  number,  with  the  subordinate  notions 
of  perfection  or  completeness.  It  hence  appears  in 
cases  where  the  notion  of  satisfaction  is  required, 
as  in  reference  to  punishment  for  wrongs  (Gen.  iv. 
15  ;  Lev.  xxvi.  18,  28  ;  Ps.  Ixxix.  12  ;  Prov.  vi.  31), 
or  to  forgiveness  of  them  (Matt,  xviii.  21).  It  is 
again  mentioned  in  a  variety  of  passages  too  nu 
merous  for  quotation  (e.g.  Job  v.  19  ;  Jer.  xv.  9  ; 
Matt.  xii.  45)  in  a  sense  analogous  to  that  of  a 
"  round  number,"  but  with  the  additional  idea  of 
sufficiency  and  completeness.  To  the  same  head 
we  may  refer  the  numerous  instances  in  which  per 
sons  or  things  are  mentioned  by  sevens  in  the  his 
torical  portions  of  the  Bible — <?.  g.  the  7  kine  and 
the  7  ears  of  corn  in  Pharaoh's  dream,  the  7 
daughters  of  the  priest  of  Midian,  the  7  sons  of 
Jesse,  the  7  deacons,  the  7  sons  of  Sceva,  the  twice 
7  generations  in  the  pedigree  of  Jesus  (Matt.  i.  17)  ; 


SHAALABBIN 


1219 


0  A  city  called   SoAa/ntV,   or  SaAa/uu's,  formerly  lay 
at  ths  east  end  of  the  island  of  Cyprus,  between  whicn 


and  again  the  still  more  numerous  instan:es  iu 
which  periods  of  seven  days  or  seven  yeai's,  occa 
sionally  combined  with  the  repetition  of  an  act 
seven  times ;  as,  in  the  taking  of  Jericho,  the  town 
was  surrounded  for  7  days,  and  on  the  7th  day  it 
fell  at  the  blast  of  7  trumpets  borne  round  thf 
town  7  times  by  7  priests;  or  agaiu  at  the  flood, 
an  interval  of  7  days  elapsed  between  the  notice  to 
enter  the  ark  and  the  coming  of  the  flood,  the 
beasts  entered  by  sevens,  7  days  elapsed  between 
the  two  missions  of  the  dove,  &c.  So  again  in  pri 
vate  life,  7  years  appear  to  have  been  the  usual 
period  of  a  hiring  (Gen.  xxix.  18),  7  days  for  a 
marriage-festival  (Gen.  xxix.  27  ;  Juo'g.  xiv.  12), 
and  the  same,  or  in  some  cases  70  days,  for  mourn 
ing  for  the  dead  (Gen.  1.  3, 10  ;  1  Sam.  xxxi.  13). 

The  foregoing  applications  of  the  number  seven 
become  of  great  practical  importance  in  connexion 
with  the  interpretation  of  some  of  the  prophetical 
portions  of  the  Bible,  and  particularly  of  the  Apo 
calypse.  For  in  this  latter  book  the  ever-recurring 
number  seven  both  serves  as  the  mould  which  has 
decided  the  external  form  of  the  work,  and  also  to 
a  certain  degree  penetrates  into  the  essence  of  it. 
We  have  but  to  run  over  the  chief  subjects  of  that 
book — the  7  churches,  the  7  seals,  the  7  trumpets, 
the  7  vials,  the  7  angels,  the  7  spirits  before  the 
throne,  the  7  horns  and  7  eyes  of  the  Lamb,  &c. — 
in  order  to  see  the  necessity  of  deciding  whether  the 
number  is  to  be  accepted  in  a  literal  or  a  meta 
phorical  sense — in  other  words,  whether  it  represents 
a  number  or  a  quality.  The  decision  of  this  ques 
tion  affects  not  only  the  number  seven,  but  also 
the  number  which  stands  in  a  relation  of  antagonism 
to  seven,  viz.  the  half  of  seven,  which  appears  under 
the  form  of  forty-two  months,  =  3£  years  (Rev. 
xiii.  5),  twelve  hundred  and  sixty  days,  also  =  3| 
years  (xi.  3,  xii.  6),  and  again  a  time,  times,  and 
half  a  time  =  3J  years  (xii.  14).  We  find  this 
number  frequently  recurring  in  the  Old  Testament, 
as  in -the  forty-two  stations  of  the  wilderness  (Num. 
xxxiii.),  the  three  and  a  half  years  of  the  famine  in 
Elijah's  time  (Luke  iv.  25),  the  "  time,  times,  and 
the  dividing  of  time,"  during  which  the  persecution 
of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  was  to  last  (Dan.  vii.  25), 
the  same  period  being  again  described  as  "  the 
midst  of  the  week,"  i.  e.  the  half  of  seven  years 
(Dan.  ix.  27),  "  a  time,  times,  and  a  half"  (Dan. 
xii.  7),  and  again  probably  in  the  number  of  days 
specified  in  Dan.  viii.  14,  xii.  11,  12.  If  the  num 
ber  seven  express  the  notion  of  completeness,  then 
the  number  half-seven  =  incompleteness  and  the 
secondary  ideas  of  suffering  and  disaster :  if  the  one 
represent  divine  agency,  the  other  we  may  expect 
to  represent  human  agency.  Mere  numerical  cal 
culations  would  thus,  in  regard  to  unfulfilled  pro 
phecy,  be  either  wholly  superseded,  or  at  all  events 
take  a  subordinate  position  to  the  general  idea  con 
veyed.  .  fW.  L.  B.] 

SHAAL'ABBIN  (|»3^|B>,  but  in  many  MSS. 

D^y^:  2a\a£eiV;  Alex.  2a\a/ie«/:e  Selebin}. 
A  town  in  the  allotment  of  Dan,  named  between 
IR-SHEMESH  and  AJALON  (Josh.  xix.  42).  There 
is  some  uncertainty  about  the  form  of  the  name. 
The  MSS.  pieponderate  in  favour  of  SHAALBIM, 
in  which  form  it,  is  found  in  two  other  passages. 
But  there  is  also  some  ground  for  suspecting  that 

and   Phoenicia,  or  Canaar,  there  was  a  constant  Intcr- 


Shaalahbia 


4  I  2 


1220 


SHAALBIM 


it  was  Shaalbon.     [See  SHAALBIM  and  SHAAL- 

f»ONITE.J 

SHA'ALBIM  (D*3y$:  *®a\a.p€iv,  Alex,  at 


«Aw7re/c6s  ;  in  1  K.  BTjflaAajwei,  Alex. 
Salabim.  Salebini).  The  commoner  form  of  the  name 
of  a  town  of  Dan  which  in  one  passage  is  found  as 
Shaalabbin.  It  occurs  in  an  ancient  fragment  of 
history  inserted  in  Judg.  i.  enumerating  the  towns 
of  which  the  original  inhabitants  of  Canaan  succeeded 
in  keeping  possession  after  the  general  conquest. 
Mount  Heres,  Aijalon,  and  Shaalbim  were  held 
against  the  Danites  by  the  Amorites  (ver.  35)  till 
the  help  of  the  great  tribe  of  Ephraim  being  called 
in,  they  were  at  last  compelled  to  succumb.  It  is 
mentioned  with  Aijalon  again  in  Josh.  xix.  42 
(Shaalabbin)  and  with  Bethshemesh  both  there 
and  in  1  K.  iv.  9,  in  the  last  passage  as  making  up 
one  of  Solomon's  commissariat  districts.  By  Euse- 
bius  and  Jerome  it  is  mentioned  in  the  Onomasticon 
("Selab")  as  a  large  village  in  the  district  of  Se- 
baste  (i.  e.  Samaria),  and  as  then  called  Selaba.  But 
this  is  not  very  intelligible,  for  except  in  the  state 
ment  of  Josephus  (Ant.  v.  1,  §22),  that  the  allotment 
of  the  Danites  extended  as  far  north  as  Dor  (Tan- 
tura),  there  is  nothing  to  lead  to  the  belief  that 
any  of  their  towns  were  at  all  near  Samaria,  while 
the  persistent  enumeration  of  Shaalbim  with  Aijalon 
and  Bethshemesh,  the  sites  of  both  which  are  known 
with  tolerable  certainty  as  within  a  radius  of  15 
miles  west  of  Jerusalem,  is  strongly  against  it.  It 
is  also  at  variance  with  another  notice  of  Jerome, 
in  his  commentary  on  Ezek.  xlviii.  22,  where  he 
mentions  the  "  towers  of  Ailon  and  Selebi  and 
Emmaus-Nicopolis,"  in  connexion  with  Joppa,  as 
three  landmarks  of  the  tribe  of  Dan.  No  trace 
appears  to  have  been  yet  discovered  of  any  name 
resembling  Shaalbim,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Yalo 
or  Ain-shems,  or  indeed  anywhere  else,  unless 

it  be  a  place  called  'Esalin,       JUvJ>  mentioned  in 

the  lists  of  Eli  Smith  and  Robinson  (B.  R.  1st  Ed. 
iii.  App.  120  6)  as  lying  next  to  Surah,  the  ancient 
Zorah,  a  position  which  is  very  suitable. 

The  Shalotbun,  discovered  by  M.  Kenan's  expedi 
tion  about  4  miles  N.  W.  of  Bint-Jebeil,  in  the 
Belad  Besharrak  (see  the  Carte  dressee  par  la 
brigade  topographique,  &c.,  1862),  may  be  an 
ancient  Shaalbim,  possibly  so  named  by  the  northern 
colony  of  Danites  after  the  town  of  their  original 
dwelling-place.  But  it  is  obvious  from  the  fore 
going  description  that  it  cannot  be  identical  with 
it.  [G.] 

SHAAL'BONITE,  THE  (  tf3?yB>n  :  6  2«Aa- 
flau/eiTTjs:  de  SalbonC).  Eliahba  the  Shaalboaite 
was  one  of  David's  thirty-seven  heroes  (2  Sam. 
xxiii.  32  ;  1  Chr.  xi.  33)."  He  was  the  native  of  a 
place  named  Shaalbon,  which  is  unmentioned  else 
where,  unless  it  is  identical  with  SHAALBIM  or 
SHAALABBIN  of  the  tribe  of  Dan.  In  this  cx,&  it 

•  This  passage  in  the  Vatican  Codex  (Mai's  Ed.)  con 
tains  a  curious  specimen  of  a  double  reading,  each  of  the 
two  being  a  translation  of  the  Hebrew  proper  names  .-  — 
i"  TW  opei  T<3  oorpaKwSet  ev  w  at  ap/cot  *ai  ev  u  at 
«Aa>7re*ce?  ev  rep  Mvpcm/copt,  /cat  ev  ©aAajSetV.  Here 
oarrpaKwST)?  and  Mypcrivtav  are  both  attempts  to  render 
Din,  reading  it  ZJHR  and  D1H  respectively.  The 

aAwTrcKe?  is  due  to  tbe^yj^  in  Shaaltin.  ai  apjcot,  "the  she- 
tears,"  is  for  Ajalon,  though  that  signifies  deer  or  gazelles. 


SHABBETHAI 

becomes  difficult  to  decide  which  of  the  ih>-ee  is  tht 
original  form  of  the  name.  [G.] 

SHA'APH  (5|y^ :  Scryae  ;  Alex.  5cryd<p : 
SaapK).  1.  The  son  of  Jahdai  (1  Chr.  ii.  47). 

2.  The  son  of  Caleb  the  brother  of  Jerahmed 
by  his  concubine  Maachah.  He  is  called  the  father, 
that  is,  the  founder,  of  the  town  Madmannah  (1 
Chr.  ii.  49). 

SHA AKA'IM  (DJ'lJft? :  r&v  irv\£>v  in  both 
MSS. ;  "Sewpflp:  Sarim,  Saarim).  A  city  in  the 
territory  allotted  to  Judah  (Josh.  xv.  36 ;  in  A.  V. 
incorrectly  Sharaim).  It  is  one  of  the  first  group 
of  the  towns  of  the  Shefelah,  or  lowland  district, 
which  contains  also  Zoreah,  Jarmuth,  Socoh,  be 
sides  others  not  yet  recognised.  It  is  mentioned 
again  in  the  account  of  the  rout  which  followed  the 
fall  of  Goliath,  where  the  wounded  fell  down  on 
the  road  to  Shaaraim  and  as  far  as  Gath  and  Ekron 
(1  Sam.  xvii.  52).  These  two  notices  are  con 
sistent  with  each  other.  Goliath  probably  fell  in 
the  Wady  es-Sumt,  on  opposite  sides  of  which  stand 
the  representatives  of  Socoh  and  Jarmuth ;  Gath 
was  at  or  near  Tell  es-Safieh,  a  few  miles  west  of 
Socoh  at  the  mouth  of  the  same  Wady  ;  whilst 
Ekron  (if  'Akir  be  Ekron)  lies  farther  north.  Shaa 
raim  is  therefore  probably  to  be  looked  for  some 
where  west  of  Shmceikeh,  on  the  lower  slopes  of 
the  hills,  where  they  subside  into  the  great  plain.b 

We  find  the  name  mentioned  once  more  in  a  list 
of  the  towns  of  Simeon  (1  Chr.  iv.  31),c  occupying 
the  same  place  with  Sharuchen  and  Sansannah,  in 
the  corresponding  lists  of  Joshua.  Lying  as  the 
allotment  of  Simeon  did  in  the  lowest  part  of  Judah, 
many  miles  south  of  the  region  indicated  above,  it 
is  impossible  that  the  same  Shaaraim  can  be  in 
tended,  and  indeed  it  is  quite  doubtful  whether  it  be 
not  a  mere  corruption  of  one  of  the  other  two  names. 

Taken  as  Hebrew,  the  word  is  a  dual,  and  means 
"  two  gateways,"  as  the  LXX.  have  rendered  it  in 
1  Sam.  xvii.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  group  in 
which  Shaaraim  is  included  in  Josh.  xv.  should 
contain  more  names  in  dual  form  than  all  the  rest 
of  the  list  put  together ;  viz.  besides  itself,  Adithaim, 
and  Gederothaim,  and  probably  also  Enam  and 
Adullam.  For  the  possible  mention  of  Shaaraim 
in  1  Mace.  v.  66,  see  SAMARIA,  HOla.  [G.] 

SHAASH'GAZ  (MBW :  not  found  in  the 
LXX.,  who  substitute  Tot,  Hegai,  as  in  v.  8,  15: 
Susagazus}.  The  eunuch  in  the  palace  of  Xerxes 
who  had  the  custody  of  the  women  in  the  second 
house,  ».  e.  of  those  who  had  been  in  to  the  king 
(Esth.  ii.  14).  [HEGAI.]  [A.  C.  H.] 

SHABBETHAI  (TG^ :    Saj8j8a0af;  Alex. 


Ka£j8a0cu:  Sebethai  in  Ezr.,  Septhai  in  Nth.). 
1.  A  Levite  in  the  time  of  Ezra,  who  assisted 
him  in  investigating  the  marriages  with  foreigners 
which  had  taken  place  among  the  people  (Ezr.  x. 
15).  It  is  apparently  the  same  who  with  Jeshua 
and  others  instructed  the  people  in  the  knowledge 


The  word  shaaraim  means  "  two  gateways ;"  and  out 
for  the  mention  of  the  town  in  Joshua,  and  the  consistency 
f  its  position  with  1  Sam.  xvii.  52,  it  would  be  perhaps 
more  natural  in  that  passage  to  take  it  as  meaning  the 
gates  of  Gath  and  Ekron,  as  the  LXX.  have  done.  In  thai 
case,  however,  it  ought  to  have  the  article,  which  it  has  not 
Here  there  is  a  slight  difference  in  the  vowels,  rttw 
to  the  pause -D^C'— which  is  reflected  in  both  LXX 
and  Vulgate  (eee  above,  at  heart  of  articled 


SHACHIA 

of  the  Law  (Neh.  viii.  7).  He  is  called  SABUATIIE us  i 
(1  Esdr.  ix.  14)  and  SABATEAS  (1  Esdr.  ix.  48). 

2.  (Om.  in  LXX. :  Sabathat)  Shabbethai  and 
Jozabad,  of  the  chief  of  the  Levites,  were  over  the  | 
outward  business  of  the  house  of  God  after  the 
return  from  Babylon  (Neh.  xi.  16).  Possibly  1. 
and  2.  are  identical,  although  Burrington  (Geneal. 
i.  167)  regards  Shabbethai,  who  is  mentioned  in 
Neh.  viii.  7,  as  a  priest. 

SHACH'IA  (rP^:  Za&ia-  Scchia}.  Pro 
perly  "  Shabiah,"  a  son  of  Shaharaim  by  his  wife 
Hodesh  (1  Chr.  viii.  10).  This  form  of  the  name 
is  retained  from  the  Geneva  Version.  The  trans 
lators  have  followed  the  Vulgate  in  reading  3  for  3. 
Seven  of  Kennicott's  MSS.  read  N'Ofc?,  and  fifteen 

not?. 

SHADDA'I  (^W,  in  pause  ^K>).  An  ancient 
name  of  God,  rendered  "  Almighty"  everywhere  in 
the  A.  V.  In  all  passages  of  Genesis,  except  one 
(xlix.  25*),  in  Ex.  vi.  3,  and  in  Ez.  x.  5,  it  is  found 
in  connexion  with  }tf,  el,  "  God,"  El  Shaddai  being 

there  rendered  "God  Almighty,"  or  "  the  Almighty 
God."  It  occurs  six  times  in  Genesis,  once  in 
Exodus  (vi.  3),  twice  in  Numbers  (xxiv.  4,  16), 
twice  in  Ruth  (i,  20,  21),  thirty-one  times  in  Job, 
twice  in  the  Psalms  (Ixviii.  14  [15],  xci.  1),  once 
in  Isaiah  (xiii.  6),  twice  in  Ezekiel  (i.  24,  x.  5), 
and  once  in  Joel  (i.  15).  In  Genesis  and  Exodus  it 
is  found  in  what  are  called  the  Elohistic  portions  of 
those  books,  in  Numbers  in  the  Jehovistic  portion, 
and  throughout  Job  the  name  Shaddai  stands  in 
parallelism  with  Elohim,  and  never  with  Jehovah. 
By  the  name  or  in  the  character  of  El  Shaddai,  God 
was  known  to  the  patriarchs — to  Abraham  (Gen. 
rvii.  1),  to  Isaac  (Gen.  xxviii.  3),  and  to  Jacob 
(Gen.  xliii.  14,  xlviii.  3,  xlix.  25),  before  the  name 
Jehovah,  in  its  full  significance,  was  revealed  (Ex. 
vi.  3).  By  this  title  He  was  known  to  the  Midianite 
Balaam  (Num.  xxiv.  4,  16),  as  God  the  Giver  of 
Visions,  the  Most  High  (comp.  Ps.  xci.  1)  ;  and  the 
identity  of  Jehovah  and  Shaddai,  who  dealt  bitterly 
with  her,  was  recognised  by  Naomi  in  her  sorrow 
(Ruth  i.  20,  21).  Shaddai,  the  Almighty,  is  the 
God  who  chastens  men  (Job  v.  17,  vi.  4,  xxiii.  16, 
xxvii.  2) ;  the  just  God  (Job  viii.  3,  xxxiv.  10) 
who  hears  prayer  (Job  viii.  5,  xxii.  26,  xxvii.  10) ; 
the  God  of  power  who  cannot  be  resisted  (Job  xv. 
25),  who  punishes  the  wicked  (Job  xxi.  20,  xxvii. 
13),  and  rewards  and  protects  those  who  trust  in 
Him  (Job  xxii.  23,  25,  xxix.  5)  ;  the  God  of  provi 
dence  (Job  xxii.  17,  23,  xxvii.  11)  and  of  fore 
knowledge  (Job  xxiv.  1),  who  gives  to  men  under 
standing  (Job  xxxii.  8)  and  life  (Job  xxxiii.  4)  : 
"  excellent  in  power,  and  in  judgment,  and  in  plenty 
of  justice,"  whom  none  can  perfectly  know  (Job 
xi.  7,  xxxvii.  23).  The  prevalent  idea  attaching 
to  the  name  in  all  these  passages  is  that  of  strength 
and  power,  and  our  translators  have  probably  given 
to  "  Shaddai"  its  true  meaning  when  they  rendered 
it  "  Almighty." 

In  the  Targum  throughout,  the  Hebrew  word  is 
retained,  as  in  the  Peshito-Syriac  of  Genesis  and 
Exodus  and  of  Ruth  i.  20.  The  LXX.  gives  iKa.v6s, 
iT^'upJy,  Qf6s,  Kitpios,  iravTOKpa.T(ap,  Kvpios  irav- 
TOK.pd.T(0p,  6  TO,  iravra  Troi^ffas  (Job  viii.  3). 
tirovpdvios  (Ps.  Ixviii.  14  [15]),  6  6tbs  TOV  ovpavov 
(P^.  xci.  1),  (raSSat  (Ez.  x.  5),  and  ra\anrupia 


BHADRACH 


1221 


(Joel  i.  15).     In  Job  xxix.  5  we  find  the  strange 

rendering  t>Ac687jy.    In  Gen.  and  Ex.  "  El  Shaddai  " 

is  translated  6  Oeos  /JLOU,  or  <rou,  or  avrcov,  as  the 

case  may  be.     The  Vulgate  has  omnipotens  in  &il 

jases,  except  Dominus  (Job  v.  1  7,  vi.  4,  14  ;  Is 

iii.  6),  Deus  (Job  xxii.  3,  xl.  2),  Deus  coeli  (Ps. 

xci.   1),  sublimis  Deus  (Ez.  i.  24),  coelcstis  (Ps. 

xviii.   14  [15]),  potens  (Joel  i.    15),  and  dijne 

Job  xxxvii.  23).     The  Veneto-Greek  has  /cparot^s. 

The    Peshito-Syriac,    in    many   passages,    renders 

Shaddai  "  simply   "  God,"    in  others  jl  I  xfYUp 

jhasino,  "strong,  powerful"  (Job  v.   17,  vi.  4, 

Sic.),  and  once  JUX^,  'eloyo,  "  Most  High  "  (Job 

ri.  14).  The  Samaritan  Version  of  Gen.  xvii.  1 
las  for  "  El  Shaddai,"  "  powerful,  sufficient," 
though  in  the  other  passages  of  Genesis  and  Exodus 
t  simply  retains  the  Hebrew  word  ;  while  in  Num. 
xxiv.  4,  16,  the  translator  must  have  read  PH!^ 
sddeh,  "  a  field,"  for  he  renders  "  the  vision  of 
Shaddai,"  "  the  vision  of  the  field,"  i.  e.  the  vision 
seen  in  the  open  plain.  Aben  Ezra  and  Kimchi 
render  it  "  powerful." 

The  derivations  assigned  to  Shaddai  are  various. 
We  may  mention,  only  to  reject,  the  Rabbinical 
etymology  which  connects  it  with  ^,  dai,  "suffi 
ciency,"  given  by  Rashi  (on  Gen.  xvii.  1),  "  I  am 
He  in  whose  Godhead  there  is  sufficiency  for  the 
whole  creation;"  and  in  the  Talmud  (Chagiga,  fol. 
12,  col.  1),  "I  am  He  who  said  to  the  world, 
Enough!"  According  to  this,  vrjg>  =  v:j  -ft^,  «  He 

who  is  sufficient,"  "  the  all-sufficient  One  ;"  and  sc 
"  He  who  is  sufficient  in  himself,"  and  therefore 
self-existent.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  inav6s  of  the 
LXX.,  Theodoret,  and  Hesychius,  and  of  the  Arabic 
alkafi,  of  Saadias,  which  has  the  same 


Even  here  some  MSS.  aid  the  Samaritan  Text  read 
.  eth. 


meaning.  Gesenius  (Gram.  §86,  and  Jesaia,  xiii.  6) 
regards  ^t^,  shaddai,  as  the  plural  of  majesty, 
from  a  singular  noun,  12>,  shad,  root  "HS?,  shddad, 

of  which  the  primary  notion  seems  to  be,  "  to  be 
strong  "  (Fiirst,  Handwb.~).  It  is  evident  that  this 
derivation  was  present  to  the  mind  of  the  prophet 
from  the  play  of  words  in  Is.  xiii.  6.  Ewald  (  Lehrb. 
§155c.  5te  Ausg.}  takes  it  from  a  root  mE?  = 
*nfc^,  and  compares  it  with  k>^\,  davvdi,  from 
fllT,  ddvdh,  the  older  termination  *-  being  retained. 
He  also  refers  to  the  proper  names  ^*,  Yishai 
(Jesse),  and  ^3,  Bavvai  (Neh.  iii.  18).'  'Roediger 
(Ges.  Thes.  s.  v.)  disputes  Ewald's  explanation,  and 
proposes,  as  one  less  open  to  objection,  that  Shaddai 
originally  signified  "  my  powerful  ones,"  and  after 
wards  became  the  name  of  God  Almighty,  like  the 
analogous  form  Adonai.  In  favour  of  this  is  the 
fact  that  it  is  never  found  with  the  definite  article, 
but  such  would  be  equally  the  case  if  Shaddai  were 
regarded  as  a  proper  name.  On  the  whole  there 
seems  no  reasonable  objection  to  the  view  taken  by 
Gesenius,  which  Lee  also  adopts  (Gram.  §139,  6). 
Shaddai  is  found  as  an  element  in  the  proper 
names  Ammishaddai,  Zurishaddai,  and  possibly  also 
in  Shedeur  there  may  be  a  trace  of  it.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHAD'KACH      T      :  ^Sdx:  Sidrach:  of 


uncertain  etymology).  The  Chaldee  name  of  Hana- 
niah  [HANANIAH  7  ;  SiiKSHBAZZAu"1,  the  chief 
of  the  "three  children,"  whose  song,  as  given  ii> 


1222 


SHADKACH 


the  apocryphal  Daniel,  forms  part  of  the  service 
of  the  Chun  h  of  England,  under  the  name  of  "  Be- 
nedieite,  omnia  opera."  A  long  prayer  in  the 
furnace  is  also  ascribed  to  him  in  the  LXX.  and 
Vulgate,  but  this  is  thought  to  be  by  a  different 
hand  from  that  which  added  the  song.  The  history 
of  Shadrach,  or  Hananiah,  is  briefly  this.  He  was 
taken  captive  with  Daniel,  Mishael,  and  Azariah, 
at  the  first  invasion  of  Judah  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  in 
the  fourth,  or,  as  Daniel  (i.  1)  reckons,  in  the  third* 
year  of  Jehoiakim,  at  the  time  when  the  Jewish  king 
himself  was  bound  in  fetters  to  be  cavried  off  to 
Babylon.  [JEHOIAKIM.]  Being,  with  his  three 
companions,  apparently  of  royal  birth  (Dan.  i.  3), 
of  superior  understanding,  and  of  goodly  person,  he 
was  selected,  with  them,  for  the  king's  immediate 
service,  and  was  for  this  end  instructed  in  the  lan 
guage  and  in  all  the  learning  and  wisdom  of  the 
Chaldeans,  as  taught  in  the  college  of  the  ma 
gicians.  Like  Daniel,  he  avoided  the  pollution  of 
the  meat  and  wine  which  formed  their  daily  provi 
sion  at  the  king's  cost,  and  obtained  permission  to 
live  on  pulse  and  water.  When  the  time  of  his 
probation  was  over,  he  and  his  three  companions, 
being  found  superior  to  all  the  other  magicians, 
were  advanced  to  stand  before  the  king.  When  the 
decree  for  the  slaughter  of  all  the  magicians  went 
forth  from  Nebuchadnezzar,  we  find  Shadrach 
uniting  with  his  companions  in  prayer  to  God  to 
reveal  the  dream  to  Daniel ;  and  when,  in  answer  to 
that  prayer,  Daniel  had  successfully  interpreted  the 
dream,  and  been  made  ruler  of  the  province  of 
Babylon,  and  head  of  the  college  of  magicians,  Sha 
drach  was  promoted  to  a  high  civil  office.  But  the 
penalty  of  Oriental  greatness,  especially  when  com 
bined  with  honesty  and  uprightness,  soon  had  to  be 
paid  by  him,  on  the  accusation  of  certain  envious 
Chaldeans.  For  refusing  to  worship  the  golden 
image  he  was  cast  with  Meshach  and  Abed-nego 
into  the  burning  furnace.  But  his  faith  stood  firm  ; 
and  his  victory  was  complete  when  he  came  out  of 
the  furnace,  with  his  two  companions,  unhurt, 
heard  the  king's  testimony  to  the  glory  of  God,  and 
was  "promoted  in  the  province  of  Babylon."  We 
hear  no  more  of  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abed-nego 
hi  the  0.  T.  after  this;  neither  are  they  spoken  of 
in  the  N.  T.,  except  in  the  pointed  allusion  to 
them  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  as  having 
"  through  faith  quenched  the  violence  of  fire  "  (Heb. 
xi.  33, 4).  But  there  are  repeated  allusions  to  them 
in  the  later  apocryphal  books,  and  the  martyrs  of 
the  Maccabaean  period  seem  to  have  been  much  en 
couraged  by  their  example.  See  1  Mace.  ii.  59, 
60;  3  Mace.  vi.  6  ;  4  Mace.  xiii.  9,  xvi.  3,  21, 
xviii.  12.  Ewald  (Geschichte,  iv.  557)  observes, 
indeed,  that  next  to  the  Pentateuch  no  book  is  so 
often  referred  to  in  these  times,  in  proportion,  as  the 
Book  of  Daniel.  The  apocryphal  additions  to  Daniel 
contain,  as  usual,  many  supplementary  parti 
culars  about  the  furnace,  the  angel,  and  Nebuchad 
nezzar,  besides  the  introduction  of  the  prayer  of 
Shadrach,  and  the  hymn.  Theodore  Parker  observes 
with  truth,  in  opposition  to  Bertholdt,  that  these 
additions  of  the  Alexandrine  prove  that  the  Hebrew 
was  the  original  text,  because  they  are  obviously 
irserted  to  introduce  a  better  connexion  into  the 
narrative  (Joseph.  Ant.  x.  10 ;  Prideaux,  Connect. 
i.  59,  60;  Parker's  De  Wette's  Introd.  ii.  483- 


SHALEM 

510  ;  Grimm,  on  1  Mace.  ii.  60  ;  Hitzig  (who  tak« 
a  thoroughly  sceptical  view),  on  Dan.  iii.  ;  Ewald,  iv. 
106-7,  557-9  ;  Keil,  Einleit.  Daniel}.  [A.  C.  H.] 

SHA'GE  (&U£;  :  2a\A  ;  Alex.  Scry^j  :  Sage}. 
Father  of  Jonathan  the  Hararite,  one  of  David's 
guard  (1  Chr.  xi.  34).  In  tht  parallel  list  of  2  Sam. 
xxiii.  33,  he  is  called  Shaznmah  :  unless,  as  seems 
probable,  there  is  a  confusion  between  Jonathan  the 
son  of  "  Shage  the  Hararite,"  Jonathan  the  son  ol 
Shammah,  David's  brother,  and  "  Shammah  the  son 
of  Agee  the  Hararite."  [See  SHAMMAH  5.] 

SHAHAKA'IM  (DnnK>  :  ^aaplv  ;  Alex.  2ua- 


p^fj.  :  Saharaun).  A  Benjamite  whose  history  and 
descent  are  alike  obscure  in  the  present  text  (1  Chr. 
viii.  8).  It  is  more  intelligible  if  we  remove  the 
full  stop  from  the  end  of  ver.  7,  and  read  on  thus  : 
"  and  begat  Uzza  and  Ahihud,  and  Shaharaim  he 
begat  in  the  field  of  Moab,"  &c.  This  would  make 
Shaharaim  the  son  of  Gera.  He  had  three  wives 
and  nine  children. 

SHAHAZ'IMAH  (nD^C!^  :  but  in  the  orig. 
text^(Cethib)  riD^n^,  i.*.  SKahatsumah:  2aAe^ 
Kara.  b  0aAa<r<rai'  ;  Alex.  Scwre^afl  :  Seesima}.  One 
of  the  towns  of  the  allotment  of  Issachar,  apparently 
between  Tabor  and  the  Jordan  (Josh.  xix.  22  only). 
The  name  is  accurately  Shahatsim,the  termination  ah 
being  the  particle  of  motion  —  "  to  Shahatsim."  [G.] 

SHA'LEM(D^;  Samar.  D'fe':  etsSaA^u: 
in  Salem},  Gen.  xxxiii.  18.  It  seems  more  than 
probable  that  this  word  should  not  here  be  takc« 
as  a  proper  name,  but  that  the  sentence  should  be 
rendered,  "  Jacob  came  safe  to  the  city  of  Shechem." 
Our  translators  have  followed  the  LXX.,  Peshito- 
Syriac,  and  Vulgate,  among  ancient,  and  Luther's 
among  modern  versions,  in  all  of  which  Shalem  is 
treated  as  a  proper  name,  and  considered  as  a  town 
dependent  on  or  related  to  Shechem.  And  it  is 
certainly  remarkable  that  there  should  be  a  modern 
village  bearing  the  name  of  Salim  in  a  position 
to  a  certain  degree  consistent  with  the  require 
ments  of  the  narrative  when  so  interpreted  :  —  viz. 
3  miles  east  of  Ndbliis  (the  ancient  Shechem),  and 
therefore  between  it  and  the  Jordan  Valley,  where 
the  preceding  verse  (ver.  17)  leaves  Jacob  settled 
(Rob.  B.  R.  ii.  279  ;  Wilson,  Lands,  ii.  72  ;  Van 
de  Velde,  Syr.  $  Pal.  ii.  302,  334). 

But  there  are  several  considerations  which  weigh 
very  much  against  this  being  more  than  a  fortuitous 
coincidence. 

1.  If  Shalem  was  the  city  in  front  of  which 
Jacob  pitched  his  tent,  then  it  certainly  was  the 
scene  of  the  events  of  chap,  xxxiv.  ;  and  the  well  of 
Jacob  and  the  tomb  of  Joseph  must  be  removed 
from  the  situation  in  which  tradition  has  so  appro 
priately  placed  them  to  some  spot  further  eastward 
and  nearer  to  Salim.  Eusebius  and  Jerome  felt  this, 
and  they  accordingly  make  Sychem  and  Salem  one 
and  the  same  (Onomast.,  under  both  these  heads). 

2  .  Though  east  of  Ndbhis,  Salim  does  not  appear 
to  lie  near  any  actual  line  of  communication  be 
tween  it  and  the  Jordan  Valley.  The  roivd  from 
Sakut  to  Nablus  would  be  either  by  Wady  Maleh, 
through  Teyasir,  Tubas,  and  the  Wady  Bidun,  or 
by  Eerawa,  Yan&n,  and  Beit-Funk.  The  former 
passes  two  miles  to  the  north,  the  latter  two  miles 


a  Keil  explains  the    discrepancy  by  supposing   that 
Nebuchadnezzar  may  have   set  off  from    Babylon  to 
the  end  of  the  third  year,  tut  not  have  reached 


Judaea  till  the  fourth  (Einleit.  p.  387). 
*>  Reoduig  the  final  syllable  as  HDV  "  to  the  sea.' 


BUALIM,  THE  LAND  OF 

to  the  south  of  Saltm,  but  neither  approach  it  in 
the  direct  way  which  the  narrative  of  Gen.  xxxiii.  18 
seems  to  denote  that  Jacob's  route  did. 

3.  With  the  exceptions  already  named,  the  una 
nimous  vo'  ce  of  translators  and  scholars  is  in  favour 
of  treating  slialem  as  a  mere  appellative.  Among 
the  ancients,  Josephus  (by  his  silence,  Ant.  i.  21, 
§1),  the  Targums  of  Onkelos  and  Pseudojonathan, 
the  Samaritan  Codex,  the  Arabic  Version.  Among 
the  moderns,  the  Veneto-Greek  Version,  Rashi,a 
Junius  and  Tremellius,  Meyer  (Annot,  on  Seder 
Olam),  Aiusworth,  Keland  (Pal  and  Dissert.  Misc.}, 
Schumann,  Rosenmiiller,  J.  D.  Michaelis  (Bibel  fur 
Ungelehrt.),  and  the  great  Hebrew  scholars  of  our 
own  day,  Gesenius  (Tkeg.  1422),  Zunz  (24  Bucher, 
and  Handwb.),  De  Wette,  Luzzatto,  Knobel,  and 
Kalisch  —  all  these  take  shalem  to  mean  "  safe  and 
Bound,"  and  the  city  before  which  Jacob  pitched  to 
be  the  city  of  Shechem. 

Salim  does  not  appear  to  have  been  visited  by 
any  traveller.  It  could  be  done  without  difficulty 
from  Ndblus,  and  the  investigation  might  be  of 
importance.  The  springs  which  are  reported  to 
be  there  should  not  be  overlooked,  for  their  bearing 
on  its  possible  identity  with  the  SALIM  of  St.  John 
the  Baptist.  [G.] 


6HALLUM 


1223 


SHA'LIM,  THE  LAND  OF 

i.  e.  Shaalim  :  rrjs  yys  'Ea<ra/ce'/ii;b  Alex.  T.  y. 
SaaAet^u,  :  terra  Salim).  A  district  through  which 
.Saul  passed  on  his  journey  in  quest  of  his  father's 
asses  (1  Sam.  ix.  4  only).  It  appears  to  have  lain 
between  the  "  land  of  Shalisha"  and  the  '*  land  of 
Yemiui"  (probably,  but  by  no  means  certainly, 
that  of  Benjamin). 

In  the  complete  uncertainty  which  attends  the 
route  —  its  starting-point  and  termination,  no  less 
than  its  whole  course  —  it  is  very  difficult  to  hazard 
any  conjecture  on  the  position  of  Shalim.  The 
spelling  of  the  name  in  the  original  shows  that  it 
had  no  connexion  with  Shalem,  or  with  the  modern 
Salim  east  of  Ndblus  (though  between  these  two 
there  is  probably  nothing  in  common  except  the 
name).  It  is  more  possibly  identical  with  the 
"  land  of  Shual,"  c  the  situation  of  which  appears, 
from  some  circumstances  attending  its  mention,  to 
be  almost  necessarily  fixed  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Taiyibeh,  i.  e.  nearly  six  miles  north  of  Michmash, 
and  about  nine  from  Gibeah  of  Saul.  But  this  can 
only  be  taken  as  a  conjecture.  [G.] 

SHAL'ISHA,THE  L 

i.  e.  Shalishah  :  $  7^  2e\x«  5  -Alex.  77  y 
terra  Salisa  )  .  One  of  the  districts  tra  vei-sed  by  Saul 
when  in  search  of  the  asses  of  Kish  (1  Sam.  ix.  4, 
only).  It  apparently  lay  between  "  Mount  Ephraim  " 
and  the  "  land  of  Shaalim,"  a  specification  which 
with  all  its  evident  preciseness  is  irrecognisable, 
because  the  extent  of  Mount  Ephraim  is  so  un 
certain  ;  and  Shaalim,  though  probably  near  Tai 
yibeh,  is  not  yet  definitely  fixed  there.  The  diffi 
culty  is  increased  by  locating  Shalisha  at  Sans  or 
Kkirbct  Saris,  a  village  a  few  miles  west  of  Jeru 
salem,  south  of  Abu  Gosh  (Tobler,  'Stte  Wand. 


a  The  traditional  explanation  of  the  word  among  the 
Jews,  as  stated  by  Rashi,  is  that  Jacob  arrived  before 
Shechern  sound  from  his  lameness  (incurred  at  Peniel), 
and  with  his  wealth  and  his  faith  alike  uninjured. 

b  Many  MSS.  have  Se-yaAiju  or  SeyaAei/a  (see  Holmes 
and  Parsons),  the  reading  followed  by  Tischendorf  in  his 
text  (1856).  The  reading  of  the  Alex,  is  remarkable  for 
Its  suppression  of  the  presence  of  the  y  in  the  Hebrew 
word,  usually  rendered  in  Greek  by  y. 


178),  which  some  have  proposed.  If  the  land  ol 
Shalisha  contained,  as  it  not  imf  ossibly  .lid,  tb.3 
place  called  BAAL-SHALISHA  (2  K.  iv.  42),  vhich, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  Eusebius  &nd  Jerome 
(Onom.  "Beth  Salisha"),  lay  fifteen  Roman  (or 
twelve  English)  miles  north  of  Lydd,  then  tne  \vhole 
disposition  of  Saul's  route  would  be  changed. 

The  words  Eglath  Shalishiyah  in  Jer.  xlviii.  34 
(A.  V.  "a  heifer  of  three  years  old")  are  by  some 
translators  rendered  as  if  denoting  a  place  named 
Shalisha.  But  even  if  this  be  correct,  it  is  obvious 
that  the  Shalisha  of  the  prophet  was  on  the  coast  of 
the  Dead  Sea,  and  therefore  by  no  means  appro 
priate  for  that  of  Saul.  [G.] 

SHALLECH'ETH,    THE    GATE    (*W 

J"OPfc^ :  T)  7rv\77  TrcuTTOKpopiov  :  porto,  quae  duett). 
One  of  the  gates  of  the  "house  of  Jehovah,"  whether 
by  that  expression  be  intended  the  sacred  tent  of 
David  or  the  Temple  of  Solomon.  It  is  mentioned 
only  in  1  Chr.  xxvi.  16,  in  what  purports  to  be  a 
list  of  the  staff  of  the  sacred  establishment  as  settled 
by  David  (xxiii.  6,  25,  xxiv.  51,  xxv.  1,  xxvi.  31. 
o'_').  It  was  the  gate  "  to  the  causeway  of  the 
ascent,"  that  is  to  the  long  embankment  which  led 
up  from  the  central  valley  of  the  town  to  the  sacred 
enclosure.  As  the  causeway  is  actually  in  exist 
ence,  though  very  much  concealed  under  the  mass 
of  houses  which  fill  the  valley,  the  gate  Shallecheth 
ran  hardly  fail  to  be  identical  with  the  Bab  Silsilen, 
or  Sinsleh,  which  enters  the  west  wall  of  the  Haram 
area  opposite  the  south  end  of  the  platform  of  the 
Dome  of  the  Rock,  about  600  feet  from  the  south 
west  corner  of  the  Haram  wall.  For  the  bearing 
of  this  position  on  the  topography  of  the  Temple, 
see  that  article. 

The  signification  of  shalleceth  is  "  falling  or 
casting  down."  The  LXX.  however,  appear  to 
have  read  H2^/,d  the  word  which  they  usually 
render  by  iraarotyopiov.  This  would  point  to  the 
"  chambers  "  of  the  Temple.  [G.] 

SHAL'LUM  (D-lfe:  2^AXo^:  SeOum), 
the  fifteenth  king  of  Israel,  son  of  Jabesh, 
conspired  against  Zechariah,  son  of  Jeroboam  II.. 
killed  him,  and  brought  the  dynasty  of  Jehu  t.o 
a  close,  B.C.  770,  according  to  the  prophecy  in 
2  K.  x.  30,  where  it  is  promised  that  Jehu's 
children  should  occupy  the  throne  of  Israel  to  the 
fourth  generation.  In  the  English  version  of  2  K 
xv.  10,  we  read,  "  And  Shallum  the  son  of  Jabeiij 
conspired  against  him,  and  smote  him  before  tht. 
people,  and  slew  him,  and  reigned  in  his  stead/' 
And  so  the  Vulg.  percussitque  cum  palam  et  inter- 
fecit.  But  in  the  LXX.  we  find  Kf£Aocfyt  instead 
of  before  the  people,  i.  e.  Shallum  and  Kebkam  killed 
Zechariah.  The  common  editions  read  tv  Ke^SAaa^, 
meaning  that  Shallum  killed  Zechariah  in  KcbJaam  ; 
but  no  place  of  such  a  name  is  known,  and  there  is 
nothing  in  the  Heb.  to  answer  to  fv.  The  words 
translated  before  the  people,  palam,  KeySAaau, 
are  DJJ  ^Q[X  Ewald  (Oeschichte  iii.  598) 
maintains  that  ?3p  never  occurs  in  prose,*  and 


=  It  will  be  seen  that  Shalim  contains  the  Ain  which  is 
absent  from  Shalem.  It  is,  however,  present  in  Shual. 

d  At  the  same  time  omitting  !"!?pP,  "  the  causeway," 
or  confounding  it  with  the  word  before*  it. 

e  Is  not  the  objection  rather  that  the  word  is 
Chaldee?  It  occurs  repeatedly  in  Daniel  (11.  31;  iii.  3; 
v.  l,  5,  10),  and  also  in  the  Chaldee  portions  of  Ezrr 
(iv.  10;  vi.  13). 


1224 


SHALLUM 


that  DV  would  be  DVH  if  the  Latin  and  English 
translations  were  correct.  He  also  observes  that 
iu  ver.  14,  25,  30,  where  almost  the  same  expres 
sion  is  used  of  the  deaths  of  Shallum,  Pekahiah, 
and  Pekah,  the  words  before  the  people  are  omitted. 
Hence  he  accepts  the  translation  in  the  Vatican 
MS.  of  the  LXX.,  and  considers  that  f  Qobolam  or 
KejSAaciju  was  a  fellow-conspirator  or  rival  of 
Shallum,  of  whose  subsequent  fate  we  have  no  in 
formation.  On  the  death  of  Zechariah,  Shallum 
was  made  king,  but,  after  reigning  in  Samaria  for 
a  month  only,  was  in  his  turn  dethroned  and  killed 
by  Menahem.  To  these  events  Ewald  refers  the 
obscure  passage  in  Zech.  xi.  8: — Three  shepherds 
also  I  cut  off  in  one  month,  and  my  soul  abhorred 
them, — the  three  shepherds  being  Zechariah,  Qobo 
lam,  and  Shallum.  This  is  very  ingenious:  we 
must  remember,  however,  that  Ewald,  like  cer 
tain  English  divines  (Mede,  Hammond,  Newcome, 
Seeker,  Pye  Smith),  thinks  that  the  latter  chapters 
of  the  prophecies  of  Zechariah  belong  to  an  earlier 
date  than  the  rest  of  the  book.  [G.  E.  L.  C.] 

2.  (SeAA^w;   Alex.  2eAAot5/*  in  2  K.).     The 
husband  (or  son,  according  to  the  LXX.  in  2  K.) 
of  Huldah  the  prophetess  (2  K.  xxii.  14 ;  2  Chr. 
xxxiv.  22)  in  the  reign  of  Josiah.     He  appears  to 
have  been  keeper  of  the  priestly  vestments  in  the 
Temple,  though  in  the  LXX.  of  2  Chr.  this  office  is 
wrongly  assigned  to  his  wife. 

3.  (SaAou^t;  Alex.  SaAAoifyt).  A  descendant  of 
Sheshan  (1  Chr.  ii.  40,  41). 

4.  (Alex.  SaAAov/*  in  1  Chr.,  SeAA^u  in  Jer.). 
The  third  son  of  Josiah  king  of  Judah,  known  in 
the  Books  of  Kings   and  Chronicles   as  Jehoahaz 
(1   Chr.  iii.    15;   Jer.   xxii.    11).     Hengstenberg 
(Christology  of  the    0.    T.  ii.  p.  400,  Eng.  tr.) 
regards  the  name  as  symbolical,  "  the  recompensed 
one,"  and  given  to  Jehoahaz  in  token  of  his  fate,  as 
one  whom  God  recompensed  according  to  his  deserts. 
This  would  be  plausible  enough  if  it  were  only  found 
in  the  prophecy ;  but  a  genealogical  table  is  the  last 
place  where  we  should  expect  to  find  a  symbolical 
name,  and  Shallum  is  more  probably  the  original 
name  of  the  king,  which  was  changed  to  Jehoahaz 
when  he  came  to  the  crown.    Upon  a  comparison  of 
the  ages  of  Jehoiakim,  Jehoahaz  or  Shallum,  and 
Zedekiah,  it  is  evident  that  of  the  two  last  Zede- 
kiah  must  have  been  the  younger,  and  therefore 
that  Shallum  was  the  third,  not  the  fourth,  son  of 
Josiah,  as  stated  in  1  Chr.  iii.  15. 

5.  (SaAeV-)     Son  of  Shaul  the  son  of  Simeon 
(1  Chr.  iv.  25;. 

8.  (SaActijU  in  Chr.,  SeAou/A  in  Ezr.  ;  Alex. 
2eAAou/i).  A  high-priest,  son  of  Zadok  and  an 
cestor  of  Ezra  (1  Chr.  vi.  12,  13 ;  Ezr.  vii.  2). 
Called  also  SALUM  (1  Esdr.  viii.  1),  and  SADA- 
MIAS  (2  Esdr.  i.  1). 

7.  (ScAAofyt.)  A  son  of  Naphthali  (1  Chr.  vii. 
13).     He   and   his  brethren  are  called    "sons   of 
Bilhah,"  but  in  the  Vat.  MS.  of  the  LXX.,  Shallum 
and  the  rest  are  the  sons  of  Naphthali,  and  Balam 
(not  Bilhah)  is  the  son  of  Shallum.     Called  also 
SHILLEM. 

8.  (SaXiafi. ;   Alex.  SuAAc^   in  1   Chr.  ix.  17 : 
2eAAot/i  in  Ezr.  ii.  42  :  2oAoU|tt ;  Alex.  SeAAou^ 
in  Neh.  vii.  45).     The  chief  of  a  family  of  porters 
or  gatekeepeis  of  the  east  gate  of  the  Temple,  for 
the  camps  of  the  sons  of  Levi.     His  descendants 
were  among  those  who  returned  with  Zerubbabel. 

f  Q  is  the  best  representative  of  the  Hebrew  p. 


SHALMAN 

In  1  Esdr.  v.  28  he  is  called  SALUM,  a&d  in  Nch 
xii.  25  MESHULLAM. 

9.  (2eAAou/i,    2ctAc6/t  ;     Alex.    2oA\^ju   in   1 
Chr.  ix.  19.)     Son  of  Kore,  a  Korahite,  who  with 
his  brethren  was  keeper  of  the  thresholds  of  the 
tabernacle  (1  Chr.  ix.  19,  31  \,  "and  their  fathers 
^were)  over  the  camp  of  Jehovah,  keepers  of  the 
entry."     On  comparing  this  with  the  expression 

n  ver.  18,  it  would  appear  that  Shallum  the  son 
of  Kore  and  his  brethren  were  gatekeepers  of  a 
higher  rank  than  Shallum,  Akkub,  Talmon,  and 
Ahiman,  who  were  only  "  for  the  camp  of  the  sons 
of  Levi."  With  this  Shallum  we  may  identify  Me 
sh  elemiah  and  Shelemiah  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  1,  2,  9, 
14),  but  he  seems  to  be  different  from  the  last- 
mentioned  Shallum. 

10.  (SeAAT^u.)     Father  of  Jehizkiah,  one  of  the 
heads  of  the  children  of  Ephraim  (2  Chr.  xxviii.  12). 

11.  (2o\/j.-fiv ;  Alex.  SoAA-^u.)  One  of  the  porters 
of  the  Temple  who  had   married  a  foreign  wife 
(Ezr.  x.  24). 

12.  CSeAAotfyt.)     Son  of  Bani,  who  put  away 
his  foreign   wife  at  the  command  of  Ezra  (Ezr. 
x.  42). 

13.  (SaAAouju;  FA.  SoAov^t).     The  son  of  Ha- 
lohesh  and  ruler  of  a  district  of  Jerusalem.     With 
his  daughters  he  assisted  Nehemiah  in  rebuilding 
the  wall  of  the  city  (Neh.  iii.  12). 

14.  (SaAcfyi.)     The   uncle   of  Jeremiah    (Jer. 
xxxii.  7) ;  perhaps  the  same  as  Shallum  the  hus 
band  of  Huldah  the  prophetess.     [JEREMIAH,  vol. 
i.  p.  966.] 

15.  (2eAe6jii.)     Father  or  ancestor  of  Maaseiah, 
"  keeper  of  the  threshold "  of  the  Temple  in  the 
time  of  Jeremiah  (Jer.  xxxv.  4)  ;  perhaps  the  same 
as  9. 

SHAL'LUN  (j-W:  SaAoyicSi/:  Sellum).  The 
son  of  Col-hozeh,  and  ruler  of  a  district  of  the 
Mizpah.  He  assisted  Nehemiah  in  repairing  the 
spring  gate,  and  "  the  wall  of  the  pool  of  Has- 
shelach"  (A.  V.  "  Siloah")  belonging  to  the  king's 
garden,  "  even  up  to  the  stairs  that  go  down  from 
the  city  of  David"  (Neh.  iii.  15). 

SHALMA'I  (hti£,  Keri;  ^V  in  Ezr., 
in  Neh. :  2eAa/a,  2eA/ief ;  Alex.  2eAa/i6t, 
:  Semlai,  Selmal}.  The  children  of  Shalmai 
(or  SHAMLAI,  as  in  the  margin  of  Ezr.  ii.  46) 
were  among  the  Nethinim  who  returned  with  Ze 
rubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  46 ;  Neh.  vii.  48).  In  "Neh. 
the  name  is  properly  SALMAI.  In  1  Esdr.  v.  30 
it  is  written  SUBAI. 

SHAL'MAN  (JE1?^:  2oAa^»/ :  Salmand). 
Shalmaneser,  king  of  Assyria  (Hos.  x.  14).  The 
versions  differ  in  a  remarkable  manner  in  their  ren 
dering  of  this  verse.  The  LXX.  read  "16?,  sar 

(&pXwv\  f°r  "^»  sh°d  (m  which  they  are  followed 
by  the  Arabic  of  the  Polyglot),  and  "Jeroboam" 
(Alex.  "  Jerubbaal ")  for  -  Arbel."  The  Vulgate, 
reading  "Jerubbaal,"  appears  to  have  confounded 
Shalman  with  Zalmunna,  and  renders  the  clause, 
sicut  vastatus  est  Salmana  a  domo  ejus  quijudicavit 
Baal  in  die  praelii.  The  Targum  of  Jonathan  and 
Peshito-Syriac  both  give  "  Shalma  ;"  the  former  foi 
S&31K  TV3,  reading  1"W3,  "  by  an  ambush," 
the  latter,  btf  TV2,  "  Beth-el."  The  Chaldee 
translator  seems  to  have  caught  only  the  first  letters 
of  the  word  "  Arbel,"  while  the  Syrian  only  saw 
the  last  two.  The  Targum  possibly  regards  "  Sheii- 


SHALMANESER 

man"  as  an  appellative,  "the  peaceable,"  following 
in  this  the  traditional  interpretation  of  the  verse 
recorded  by  Kashi,  whose  note  is  as  follows :  "  As 
spoilers  that  come  upon  a  people  dwelling  in  peace, 
suddenly  by  means  of  an  ambush,  who  have  not 
been  warned  against  them  to  flee  before  them,  and 
destroy  all." 

SHALMANE'SER 

dp  ;    Joseph.    SaXjuaj/ao-o-apTjs  :  Salmanasar} 
the  Assyrian  king  who  reigned  immediately 
before    Sargon,    and    probably    immediately   after 
Tiglath-pileser.      Very  little    is   known   of  him, 
since  Sargon,  his  successor,  who  was  of  a  different 
family,  and  most  likely  a  rebel  against  his  autho 
rity  [SARGON],  seems  to  have  destroyed  his  monu 
ments.     He  can  scarcely  have  ascended  the  throne 
earlier  than  B.C.  730,  and  may  possibly  not  have 
done  so  till  a  few  years  later.     [TIGLATH-PILE 
SER.]     It  must  have  been  soon  after  his  accession 
that  he  led  the  forces  of  Assyria  into  Palestine, 
where  Hoshea,  the  last  king  of  Israel,  had  revolted 
against  his  authority  (2  K.  xvii.   3).     No  sooner 
was  he  come  than  Hoshea  submitted,  acknowledged 
himself  a  "  servant "  of  the  Great  King,  and  con 
sented  to  pay  him  a  fixed  tribute  annually.     Shal 
maneser  upon  this  returned  home ;  but  soon  after 
wards  he  "  found  conspiracy  in  Hoshea,"  who  had 
concluded  an  alliance  with  the  king  of  Egypt,  and 
withheld  his  tribute  in  consequence.     In  B.C.  723 
Shalmaneser  invaded  Palestine  for  the  second  time, 
and,  as  Hoshea  refused   to   submit,  laid   siege  to 
Samaria.     The  siege  lasted  to  the  third  year  (B.C 
721),  when  the  Assyrian  arms  prevailed;  Samaria 
fell ;    Hoshea  was   taken  captive  and  shut  up  in 
prison,  and  the  bulk  of  the  Samaritans  were  trans> 
ported  from  their  own  country  to  Upper  Mesopo 
tamia  (2  K.  xvii.  4-6,  xviii.  9-11).    It  is  uncertain 
whether   Shalmaneser   conducted   the  siege   to  it 
close,  or  whether  he  did  not   lose   his   crown   tc 
Sargon  before  the  city  was  taken.     Sargon  claims 
the  capture  as  his  own  exploit  in  his  first  year 
and  Scripture,  it  will  be  found,  avoids  saying  tha 
Shalmanoser  took  the  place.a    Perhaps  Shalmanese 
died  before  Samaria,  or  perhaps,  hearing  of  Sargon' 
•revolt,  he  left  his  troops,  or  a  pnrt  of  them,  to  con 
tinue  the  siege,  and  returned  to  Assyria,  where  h 
was  defeated   and  deposed   (or   murdered)   by  hi 
enemy. 

According  to  Josephus,  who  professes  to  follow 
the  Phoenician  history  of  Menander  of  Ephesus 
Shalmaneser  engaged  in  an  important  war  wit 
Phoenicia  in  defence  of  Cyprus  (Ant.  ix.  14 
§2).  It  is  possible  that  he  may  have  done 
though  we  have  no  other  evidence  of  the  fact ;  bu 
it  is  perhaps  more  probable  that  Josephus,  o 
Menander,  made  some  confusion  between  him  an 
Sargon,  who  certainly  warred  with  Phoenicia,  an 
set  up  a  memorial  in  Cyprus.  [SARGON.]  [G.  R.~ 

SHA'MA  (5?D^:     ^apaed ;    Alex.    Za^d 

Sammd).  One  of  David's  guard,  son  of  Hothan  < 
Aroer  (1  Chr.  xi.  44),  and  brother  of  Jehiel.  Pr< 
bably  a  Reubenite  (see  1  Chr.  v.  8). 

SHAMARI'AH  (rPTOBJ :  Zafiopia;  Ale 
Sa^iapia:  Somoria).  Son  of  Rehoboam  by  Abiha 
the  daughter  of  Eliab  (2  Chr.  xi.  19). 


SHAMHUTH 


a  In  2  K.  xvii.  6,  the  expression  is  simply  "  the  kin 
of  Assyria  took  it."    In  2  K.  xviii.  9,  10,  we  find,  sti 
inore  remarkably,  "  Shalmaneser,  king  of  Assyria,  cam 
up  against  Samaria,  and  besieged  it;  and  at  the  end 
three  ytars  they  took  it." 


122S 
SHA  'MED  (IDG? :    2eu/^p :   Sanaf .     Fro' 

erly  SilAMER,  or  Shemer;  one  of  the  sens  of 
Ipaal  the  Benjamite,  who  built  Ono  and  Lod,  with 
he  towns  thereof  (1  Chr.  viii.  12).  The  A.  V, 
as  followed  the  Vulg.,  as  in  the  case  of  Shachia, 
nd  retains  the  reading  of  the  Geneva  Version 
'hirteeu  of  Kennicott's  MSS.  have  "IDE*. 

SHA'MER  ("\D& :  2e/r^jp  ;  Alex.  2t|U,u^p ', 
'omer}.  1.  A  Merarite  Levite,  ancestor  of  Ethan 
1  Chr.  vi.  46). 

2.  (^e/j.fjL7jp ;  Alex.  2<w/n?p.)  SHOMER  the  son  ot 
Heber  an  Asherite  (1  Chr.  vii.  34).  His  four  sons 
re  mentioned  by  name.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHAM'GAR  ("15JD^ :  ^,afj.eydp:  Samgar:  of 
ncertain  etymology ;  compare  Samgar-nebo).    Son 
f  Anath,  judge  of  Israel  after  Ehud,  and  before 
Sarak,    though    possibly   contemporary   with   the 
atter,   since  he  seems  to  be   spoken  of  in  Judg. 
6  as  a   contemporary  of  Jael,    if  the   reading 
correct.**       It    is    not     improbable     from     his 
mtronymic  that  Shamgar  may  have  been  of  the 
,ribe  of  Naphtali,  since  Beth-anath  is  in  that  tribe 
Judg.    i.    33).      Ewald  conjectures   that   he  was 
of  Dan — an  opinion  in  which  Bertheau  (On  Judg. 
ii.  31)  does  not   coincide.      And   since   the   tribe 
of  Naphtali  bore  a  chief  part  in  the  war  against 
Jabin    and  Sisera    (Judg.  iv.   6,  10,  v.  18),  we 
seem  to  have  a  point  of  contact  between  Shamgar 
and  Barak.     Anyhow,  in   the   days   of  Shamgar, 
Israel  was  in  a  most  depressed  condition ;  the  tri 
butary  Canaanites  (Judg.  i.  33),  in  league  appa 
rently  with  their  independent  kinsmen,  the  Philis 
tines,  rose  against  their  Israelite  masters,  and  th« 
country  became  so  unsafe,  that  the  highways  were 
deserted,  and  Hebrew  travellers  were  obliged  to  creep 
unobserved  by  cross-roads  and  by-ways.     The  open 
villages  were  deserted,  the  wells  were  inaccessible,  and 
the  people  hid  themselves  in  the  mountains.     Their 
arms  were  apparently  taken  from  them,  by  the  same 
policy  as  was  adopted  later  by  the  same  people  (Judg. 
iii.  31,  v.  8 ;  comp.  with  1  Sam.  xiii.  19-22),  and 
the  whole  nation  was  cowed.     At  this  conjuncture 
Shamgar  was  raised  up  to  be  a  deliverer.    With  no 
arms  in  his  hand   but  an  ox-goad  (Judg.  iii.  31  ; 
comp.  1  Sam.  xiii.  21),  he  made  a  desperate  assault 
upon  the  Philistines,  and  slew  600  of  them ;  an  act 
of  valour  by  which  he  procured  a  temporary  respite 
for  his  people,  and  struck  terror  into  the  hearts  of 
the  Canaanites  and  their  Philistine  allies.     But  it 
was  reserved  for  Deborah  and  Barak  to  complete 
the  deliverance ;   and   whether  Shamgar   lived  to 
witness  or  participate  in  it  we  have  no  certain  in 
formation.    From  the  position  of  "  the  Philistines  " 
in  1  Sam.  xii.  9,  between  "Moab"  and  "Hazor," 
the  allusion  seems  to  be  to  the  time  of  Shamgar. 
Ewald  observes  with  truth  that  the  way  in  which 
Shamgar  is  mentioned  in  Deborah's  song  indicates 
that  his  career  was  very  recent.     The  resemblance 
to  Samson,  pointed  out  by  him,  does  not  seem  to 
lead  to  anything.  [A.  C.  H.] 

The  fifth  captain  for  the  fifth  month  in  David's 
arrangement  of  his  army  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  8).  His 
designation  mT*n,  hayyizrdch,  i.  e.  the  YizrSch, 

b  The  mention  of  Jael  seems  scarcely  natural.  It  hai 
occurred  to  •&&  writer  to  conjecture  for  }yi  *W3, 
"PNlK^H)  as  5n  ver-  '•  ^tr-  Donaldson  (Jashar  p.  271-2 
conjectures  rPjJDI,  "  and  previously." 


1226  SHAM1K  SHAMMOTH 

is  probably  for  TTttn,  hazzarchi,  the  Zarhite,  or  '  piece  of  ground  full  of  lentiles  against  the  Phili> 
descendant  of  Zerah  the  son  of  Judah.  From  a  !  tines  on  one  of  tneir  marauding  incursions.  This 
comparison  of  the  lists  in  1  Chr.  xi.,  xxvii.,  it  would  achievement  gave  him  a  place  among  the  first  three 
seem  that  ^hamhuth  is  the  same  as  SHAMMOTH  •  heroes,  who  on  another  occasion  cut  their  way 

through  the  Philistine  garrison,  and  brought  David 
water  from  the  well  of  Bethlehem  (2  bam.  xxiii. 
11-17).     The  text  of  Chronicles  at  this   part   is 
The  name  j  clearly  very  fragmentary,  and  what  is  there  attri- 
j  buted  to  Eleazar  the  son  of  Dodo  properly  belongs 
1  to   Shammah.      There    is    still,    however,    a   dis 
crepancy  in   the   two   narratives.      The   scene  of 
Shammah's   exploit    is    said   in   Samuel    to   be  a 
field  of  lentiles  i'Dl|!^1^),  and  in  1  Chron.  a  field 
of  barley  (DHtyb;.     Keunicott  proposes  in  both 
cases  to  read  "'  barley,"  the  words  being  in  Hebrew 


the  Harorite.  [VV.  A.  W.] 

^DBJJ :    3a.fJi.eip  ;    Alex,   in  Josh, 
in  Judg. 
of  two  places  in  the  Holy  Land. 

1.  A  town  in  the  mountain  district  of  Judah 
(Josh.  xv.  48,  only).  It  is  the  first  in  this  division  of 
the  catalogue,  and  occurs  in  company  with  JATTIR 
in  the  group  containing  Sociio  and  ESHTEMOH. 
It  therefore  probably  lay  some  eight  or  ten  miles 
south  of  Hebron,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  three 


places  just  named,  all  of  which  have  been  identifiec 
with  tolerable  certainty.  But  it  has  not  itself  been 
yet  discovered. 

2.  A  place  in  Mount  Ephraim,  the  residence  am 
burial-place  of  Tola  the  judge  (Judg.  x.  1,  2).  I 
is  singular  that  this  judge,  a  man  of  Issachar,  shoulc 
have  taken  up  his  official  residence  out  of  his  own 
tribe.  We  may  account  for  it  by  supposing  tha 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  which  formed  the  greatei 
part  of  the  territory  of  Issachar,  was  overrun,  as  in 
Gideon's  time,  by  the  Canaanites  or  other  ma 
rauders,  of  whose  incursions  nothing  whatever  is 
told  us — though  their  existence  is  certain — driving 
Tola  to  the  more  secure  mountains  of  Ephraim. 
Or,  as  Manasseh  had  certain  cities  out  of  Issachar 
allotted  to  him,  so  Issachar  on  the  other  hand  may 
have  possessed  some  towns  in  the  mountains  of 
Ephraim.  Both  these  suppositions,  however,  are 
but  conjecture,  and  have  no  corroboration  in  any 
statement  of  the  records. 

Shamir  is  not  mentioned  by  the  ancient  topogra 
phers.  Schwarz  (151)  proposes  to  identify  it  with 
Sanur,  a  place  of  great  natural  strength  (which 
has  some  claims  to  be  Bethulia),  situated  in  the 
mountains,  half-way  between  Samaria  and  Jenin, 
about  eight  miles  from  each.  Van  de  Velde  (Mem. 
348)  proposes  Kliirbet  Sammer,  a  ruined  site  in 
the  mountains  overlooking  the  Jordan  valley,  ten 
miles  E.S.E.  of  Nablus.  There  is  no  connexion 
between  the  names  Shamir  and  Samaria,  as  pro 
posed  in  the  Alex.  LXX.  (see  above),  beyond  the 
accidental  one  which  arises  from  the  inaccurate 
form  of  the  latter  in  that  Version,  and  in  our  own, 
it  being  correctly  Shomron.  [G.] 

SHA'MIR  ("UBS?;  Keri,  "MM?:  2aMp:  Sa- 
mtr).  A  Kohathite/son  of  Micah,  or  Michah,  the 
firstborn  of  Uzziel  (1  Chr.  xxiv.  24). 

SHAM'MA  (XVW  :  2a,uc* ;  Alex.  2Wa  : 
Samma).  One  of  the  sons  of  Zophar,  an  Asherite 
(1  Chr.  vii.  37). 

SHAM  MAH  (HSt? :  2ofie :  Alex.  2<yt/ie  in 
1  Chr.  i.  37  :  Samma)'  1.  The  son  of  Reuel  the 
son  of  Esau,  and  one  of  the  chieftains  of  his  tribe 
(Gen.  xxxvi.  13,  17  ;  1  Chr.  i.  37). 

2  (Safjid ;  Alex.  2au/ia :  Samma.)  The  third 
ton  jf  Jesse,  and  brother  of  David  (1  Sam.  xvi.  9, 
xvii.  13).  Called  also  SHIMEA,  SHIMEAH,  and 
SHIMIIA.  He  was  present  when  Samuel  anointed 
David,  and  with  his  two  elder  brothers  joined  the 
Hebrew  army  in  the  valley  of  Elah  to  fight  with 
the  Philistines. 

3.  (2a/ia?a;  Alex.  2a/ijueas:  Semma.)  One  of 
the  three  greatest  of  David's  mighty  men.  He  was 
with  him  during  his  outlaw  life  in  the  cave  of 
A'.lullr.m,  and  signalised  himself  bj  defending  a 


so  similar  that  one  is  produced  from  the  other 
by  a  very  slight  change  anu  transposition  of  the 
letters  (Diss.  p.  141).  It  is  more  likely,  too,  that 
the  Philistines  should  attack  and  the  Israelites 
defend  a  field  of  barley  than  a  field  of  lentiles. 
In  the  Peshito-Syriac,  instead  of  being  called  "  the 
Hararite,"  he  is  said  to  be  ««  from  the  king's 
mountain"  (JLo^>D  >O^  ^O),  and  the  "same 
is  repeated  at  ver.  25.  The  Vat.  MS.  of  the  LXX. 
makes  him  the  son  of  Asa  (vibs"A<ra  6  ' 


, 

where  'ApouScuos  was  perhaps  the  original  reading). 
Josephus  (Ant.  vii.  12,  §4)  calls  him  Cesabaeus  the 
son  of  Ilus  ('IAoO  fj.fv  vlbs  K-rjaa^os  Se  ovopa). 

4.  (2«/Lta  ;  Alex.  2o^/ia/  :  Semrna.)    The  Ha- 
rodite,  one  of  David's  mighties  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  25). 
He  is  called  "  SHAMMOTH  the  Harorite  "  in  1  Chr. 
xi.  27,  and  in   1  Chr.  xxvii.  8  "  SHAMHUTH  the 
Izrahite."    Kennicott  maintained  the  true  reading  in 
both  to  be  "  Shamhoth  the  Harodite"  (Diss.  p.  181). 

5.  (S,apva.v;    Alex.    2a/was.)     In   the   list   of 
David's  mighty  men  in  2  Sam.  xxiii.  32,  33,  we 
find  "  Jonathan,  Shammah  the  Hararite  ;"  while  in 
the    corresponding   verse    of   1    Chr.   xi.    34,    it 
is   "Jonathan,    the   son  of  Shage  the  Hararite." 
Combining  the  two,   Kennicott  proposes   to  read 
"  Jonathan,    the   son   of  Shamha,  the   Hararite," 
David's  nephew  who  slew  the  giant  in  Gath  (2  Sam. 
xxi.  21).     Instead  of  "the  Hararite,"  the  Peshit(> 
Sriac  has  "  of  the  Mount  of  Olives 

in  2  Sam.  xxiii.  33,  and  in  1  Chr.  xi.  34. 
"of  Mount    Carmel" 


but  the  origin  of  both  these  interpretations  is 
obscure.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHAMMA'I  (ȣ$:   2a,waf;    Alex.  2o/i/xoi 

Semei).  1.  The  son  of  Onam,  and  brother  of 
Jada  (1  Chr.  ii.  28,  32).  In  the  last-quoted  verse 
the  LXX.  give ' Axura(*ds  for  "  the  brother  of  Shain- 
mai." 

2.  (Samma/i.)     Son  of  Rekem,  and  father  or 
bunder  of  Maon  (1  Chr.  ii.  44,  45). 

3.  (2ejitet ;  Alex.  2e/x/iaf.)     The  brother  of  Mi 
riam  and  Ishbah  the  founder  of  Eshtemoa,  in  a«j 
obscure  genealogy  of  the  descendants  of  Judah  (1 
Uhr.  iv.  17).     Rabbi  D.  Kimchi  conjectures  that 
these  were  the  children  of  Mered  by  his  Egyptian 
vife  Bithiah,  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh.    [MERED.] 
The  LXX.  makes  Jether  the  father  of  all  three. 
The  tradition  in  the  Quaest.  in  Libr.  Paral.  iden 
tifies  Shammai  with  Moses,  and  Ishbah  with  Aaron. 

SHAM'MOTH  (T\\W  :  2^0  ;  Alex.  2«. 
aQ\  Summoth}.      The  Harorite,   one  of  David'* 


SHAMMUA 

guard  (1  Chr.  xi.  27).  He  is  apparently  the  same 
with  "  Snamraah  the  Harodite"  (2  Sam.  xxii).  25), 
and  with  "  Shamhuth  "  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  8). 

SHAMMU'A  (&&&  :  ZapovliX  ;  Alex.  2a- 
fiaAirjA.  :  Sammua).  1.  The  son  of  Zaccur  (Num. 
xiii.  4)  and  the  spy  selected  from  the  tribe  of  Reuben. 

2.  (2ajtu«£;  Alex.  2a,ufiaoi$:  Samua.}    Son  of 
David,  by  hib  wife  Bathsheba,  born  to  him  in  Jeru 
salem  (1  Chr.  xiv.  4).     In  the  A.  V.  of  2  Sam.  v. 
14  he  is  called  SHAMMUAH,  and  in  1  Chr.  iii.  5 
SHIM  E  A. 

3.  (2ctyiovt  ;  FA.  2o,uovei.)  A  Levite,  the  father 
of  Abda  (Neh.  xi.  17).     He  is  the  same  as  SHE- 
MAIAII  the  father  of  Obadiah  (1  Chr.  ix.  16). 

4.  (2a/*oue:    Sammua.)    The  representative  of 
the  priestly  family  of  Bilgah,  or  Bilgai,  in  the  days 
of  the  high-priest  Joiakim  (Neh.  xii.  18). 

SHAMMU'AH  (y-ISB?:  Sewuofc  ;  Alex.  Saytt- 
fiove:  Samua).  Son  of  David  (2  Sam.  v.  14); 
elsewhere  called  SHAMMUA,  and  SHIMEA. 

SHAMSHEKA'I  (n^W  :  2o/x(rapi  ;  Alex. 
2a/xa"apia:  Samsan).  One  of  the  sons  of  Jeroham, 
a  Benjamite,  whose  family  lived  in  Jerusalem  (1 
Chr.  viii.  26). 

SHA'PHAM  (DDK>  :    2a<^  :    Saphan).    A 

Gadite  who  dwelt  in  Bashan  (1  Chr.  v.  12).  He 
was  second  in  authority  in  his  tribe. 

SHATHAN      SB?:   SOTT^J/;  Alex, 


SHAREZER 


1227 


in  2  K.  xxii.,  but  elsewhere  both  MSS.  hare  2o(/>aj/  : 
Saphan).  The  scribe  or  secretary  of  King  Josiah. 
He  was  the  son  of  Azaliah  (2  K.  xxii.  3  ;  2  Chr. 
xxxiv.  8),  father  of  Ahikam  (2  K.  xxii.  12  ;  2  Chr. 
xxxiv.  20),  Elasah  (Jer.  xxix.  3),  and  Gemariah 
(Jer.  xxxvi.  10,  11,  12),  and  grandfather  of  Geda- 
liah  (Jer.  xxxix.  14,  xl.  5,  9,  11,  xli.  2,  xliii.  6), 
Michaiah  (Jer.  xxxvi.  11),  and  probably  of  Jaaza- 
niah  (Ez.  viii.  11).  There  seems  to  be  no  suffi 
cient  reason  for  supposing  that  Shaphan  the  father 
of  Ahikam,  and  Shaphan  the  scribe,  were  different 
persons.  The  history  of  Shaphan  brings  out  some 
points  with  regard  to  the  office  of  scribe  which  he 
held.  He  appears  on  an  equality  with  the  governor 
of  the  city  and  the  royal  recorder,  with  whom  he 
was  sent  by  the  king  to  Hilkiah  to  take  an  account 
of  the  money  which  had  been  collected  by  the 
Levites  for  the  repair  of  the  Temple  and  to  pay  the 
workmen  (2  K.  xxii.  4  ;  2  Chr.  xxxiv.  9  ;  comp. 
2  K.  xii.  10).  Ewald  calls  him  Minister  of  Finance 
(Gesch.  iii.  697).  It  was  on  this  occasion  that 
Hilkiah  communicated  his  discovery  of  a  copy  of 
the  Law,  which  he  had  probably  found  while 
making  preparations  for  the  repair  of  the  Temple. 
[HILKIAH,  vol.  i.  p.  814.]  Shaphan  was  entrusted 
to  deliver  it  to  th3  king.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  portion  of  the  Pentateuch  thus  discovered,  the 
manner  of  its  discovery,  and  the  conduct  of  the  king 
upon  hearing  it  read  by  Shaphan,  prove  that  for 
many  years  it  must  have  been  lost  and  its  contents 
forgotten.  The  part  read  was  apparently  from  Deu 
teronomy.  and  when  Shaphan  ended,  the  king  sent 
him  with  the  high-priest  Hilkiah,  and  other  men  oi 
high  rank,  to  consult  Huldah  the  prophetess.  Her 
answer  moved  Josiah  deeply,  and  the  work  which 
begun  with  the  restoration  of  the  decayed  fabric  oi 
the  Temple,  quickly  took  the  form  of  a  thorough 
reformation  of  religion  and  revival  of  the.  Levitical 
services,  while  all  traces  of  idolatry  were  for  a  time 
swept  away.  Shaphan  was  then  probably  an  ok 


man,  for  his  son  Ahikam  must  have  been  in  a  posi 
ion  of  importance,  and  his  grandson  Gedaliih  was 
.Iready  born,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  fact  that 
thirty-five  years  afterwards  he  is  made  governoi  oi 
;he  country  by  the  Chaldeans,  an  office  which 
would  hardly  be  given  to  a  very  young  man.  Be 
iiis  as  it  may,  Shaphan  disappears  from  the  scene, 
nd  probably  died  before  the  fifth  year  of  Jehoiakim, 
ighteen  years  later,  when  we  find  Elishama  was 
scribe  (Jer.  xxxvi.  12).  There  is  just  one  point  io 
;he  narrative  of  the  burning  of  the  roll  of  Jere 
miah's  prophecies  by  the  order  of  the  king,  which 
seems  to  identify  Shaphan  the  father  of  Ahikam  with 
Shaphan  the  scribe.  It  is  well  known  that  Ahikam 
was  Jeremiah's  great  friend  and  protector  at  courl, 
and  it  was  therefore  consistent  with  this  friendship 
of  his  brother  for  the  prophet  that  Gemariah  the 
sou  of  Shaphan  should  warn  Jeremiah  and  Baruch 
to  hide  themselves,  and  should  intercede  with  the 
dug  for  the  preservation  of  the  roll  (Jer.  xxxvi. 
12,19,25).  [W.  A.  W/l 

SHATHAT  (BDB?  :  la^dr  :  Saphat).  1.  The 
son  of  Hori,  selected  from  the  tribe  of  Simeon  to 
spy  out  the  land  of  Canaan  (Num.  xiii.  5). 

2.  The  father  of  the  prophet  Elisha  (1  K.  xix. 
16,  19;  2  K.  iii.  11,  vi.  31). 

3.  (2a4>c£0  ;  Alex.  Sa^ar.)  One  of  the  six  sons  of 
Shemaiah  in  the  royal  line  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  iii.  22). 

4.  (o  ypa>ifj.aTfvs.)    One  of  the  chiefs  of  thj 
Gadites  in  Bashan  (1  Chr.  v.  12). 

5.  (2o><J><£T.)  The  son  of  Adlai,  who  was  over 
David's  oxen  in  the  valleys  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  29). 


SHA'PHER,  MOUNT 

Num.  xxxiii.  23).  The  name  of  a  desert  station 
where  the  Israelites  encamped,  of  which  no  other 
mention  occurs.  The  name  probably  means  "  mount 
of  pleasantness,"  but  no  site  has  been  suggested 
for  it.  [H.  H.] 

SHARA'I  (nKJ  :  2apioiJ;  FA.2apov<=:  Sarai\ 
One  of  the  sons  of  Bani,who  put  away  his  foreign 
wife  at  the  command  of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  40).  He  is 
called  ESRIL  in  i  Esdr.  ix.  34. 


SHARA'IM  (Dn^,  ».  <?.  Shaaraim:  2<wca- 
pei/*;  Alex.  a2ap7apet^t:  Sarim  and  Saraim).  An 
imperfect  version  (Josh.  xv.  36  only)  of  the  name 
which  is  elsewhere  more  accurately  given  SHAA 
RAIM.  The  discrepancy  does  not  exist  in  the  ori 
ginal,  and  doubtless  arose  in  the  A.  V.  from  ad 
herence  to  the  Vulgate.  [G.] 

SHA'RAR  (-n2>  :  'Apof;  Alex.'ApaS:  Sarar}. 
The  father  of  Ahiam  the  Hararite,  one  of  David's 
guard  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  33).  In  1  Chr.  xi.  35  he  is 
called  SACAR,  which  Kennicott  (Diss.  p.  203) 
thinks  the  true  reading. 

SHARE'ZER  p¥iW:  2opa<ra/>:  Sarcuar) 
was  a  son  of  Sennacherib',  whom,  in  conjunction  with 
his  brother  Adrammelech,  he  murdered  (2  K.  xix. 
37).  Moses  of  Chorene  calls  him  Sanasar,  and  says 
that  he  was  favourably  received  by  the  Armenian 
king  to  whom  he  fled,  and  given  a  tract  of  country 
on  the  Assyrian  frontier,  where  his  descendants  be 
came  very  numerous  (Hist.  Armen.  i.  22).  He  is 
not  mentioned  as  engaged  in  the  murder,  either  by 
Polyhistor  or  Abydenus,  who  both  speak  of  Ad  ram- 
melech.  [G.  K.] 


a  Codex  A  here  retains  the  y  as  the  equivalent  for  the 
y,  which  has  disappeared  from  the  name  in  Codex  B.  The 
tirst  p,  however,  is  unusual.  [Comp.  TIDAL.") 


1228 


SHARON 


SHA'RON   (fVKPn,    with    the   def.   article: 


b  'Zapaiv  ;  a  6  5pv/jLos  ;  rb  irfSiov  :  Saron,  cam- 
pestria,  campus).  A  district  of  the  Holy  Land 
occasionally  referred  to  in  the  Bible  b  (1  Chr.  v.  16, 
xxvii.  29  ;  Is.  xxxiii.  9,  xxxv.  2,  Ixv.  10  ;  Cant.  ii. 
1;  Acts  ix.  35,  A.  V.  SARON).  The  name  has  on 
each  occurrence,  with  one  exception  only,  the  de 
finite  article  —  has-Sharon  —  as  is  the  case  also  with 
other  districts  —  the  Arabah,  the  Shefelah,  the 
Ciccar;  and  on  that  single  occasion  (1  Chr.  v.  16), 
it  is  obvious  that  a  different  spot  must  be  intended 
to  that  referred  to  in  the  other  passages.  This  will 
be  noticed  further  on.  It  would  therefore  appear 
that  "  the  Sharon  "  was  some  well-defined  region  fa 
miliar  to  the  Israelites,  though  its  omission  in  the 
formal  topographical  documents  of  the  nation  shows 
that  it  was  not  a  recognised  division  of  the  country, 
as  the  Shefelah  for  example.  [SEPHELA.]  From 
the  passages  above  cited  we  gather,  that  it  was  a 
place  of  pasture  for  cattle,  where  the  royal  herds  of 
David  grazed  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  29);  the  beauty  of 
which  was  as  generally  recognised  as  that  of  Carmel 
itself  (Is.  xxxv.  2)  ;  and  the  desolation  of  which 
would  be  indeed  a  calamity  (xxxiii.  9),  and  its  re- 
establishment  a  symbol  of  the  highest  prosperity 
(Ixv.  10).  The  rose  of  Sharon  (possibly  the  tall 
graceful  and  striking  squill),  was  a  simile  for  all 
that  a  lover  would  express  (Cant.  ii.  1).  Add  to 
these  slight  traits  the  indications  contained  in  the  ren 
derings  of  the  LXX.,  TO  7re5/o»>,  "  the  plain,"  and  6 
8pv[ji6s,  "  the  wood,"  and  we  have  exhausted  all 
that  we  can  gather  from  the  Bible  of  the  charac 
teristics  of  Sharon. 

The  only  guide  to  its  locality  furnished  by 
Scripture  is  its  mention  with  Lydda  in  Acts  ix. 
35.  There  is,  however,  no  doubt  of  the  identifica 
tion  of  Sharon.  It  is  that  broad  rich  tract  of  land 
which  lies  between  the  mountains  of  the  central 
part  of  the  Holy  Land  and  the  Mediterranean  —  the 
northern  continuation  of  the  SHEFELAH.  Joseph  us 
but  rarely  alludes  to  it,  aud  then  so  obscurely  that 
it  is  impossible  to  pronounce  with  certainty,  from 
his  words  alone,  that  he  does  refer  to  it.  He  em 
ploys  the  same  term  as  the  LXX.,  "  woodland." 
Apvp.ol  rb  xcapiov  /caAeTrat,  says  he  (Ant.  xiv. 
13,  §3  ;  and  comp.  B.  J.  i.  13,  §2),  but  beyond  its 
connexion  with  Carmel  there  is  no  clue  to  be  gained 
from  either  passage.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
Strabo  (xvi.  28),  who  applies  the  same  name,  and 
at  the  same  time  mentions  Carmel. 

Sharon  is  derived  by  Gesenius  (Thes.  642)  from 
*&'',  to  be  straight  or  even  —  the  root  also  of 

Mishor,  the  name  of  a  district  east  of  Jordan. 
The  application  to  it,  however,  by  the  LXX., 
by  Joseph  us,  and  by  Strabo,  of  the  name  Apv/j.6s 
or  Apv/jioi  —  "  woodland,"  is  singular.  It  does  not 
seem  certain  that  that  term  implies  the  existence  of 
wood  on  the  plain  of  Sharon.  Reland  has  pointed 
out  (Pal.  190)  that  the  Saronicus  Sinus,  or  Bay  of 
Saron,  in  Greece,  was  so  called  (Pliny,  N.  H.  iv.  5) 
because  of  its  woods,  ffdpcavis  meaning  an  oak. 
Thus  it  is  not  impossible  that  Apw^uos  was  used  as 
an  equivalent  of  the  iiame  Sharon,  and  was  not 
intended  to  denote  the  presence  of  oaks  or  woods  on 


»  Two  singular  variations  of  this  are  found  in  the  Vat. 
MS.  (Mai),  viz.  1  Chr.  v.  16,  Tepia/i ;  and  xxvii.  29, 
'AcretSoji/,  where  the  A  is  a  remnant  of  the  Hebrew  def. 
article.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  a  more  decided  trace 
of  the  Heb.  article  appears  in  Acts  ix.  35,  where  souie 
I&SS.  have  acrcraptoya. 


SHARUHEN 

the  spot.  May  it  not  be  a  token  that  the  original 
meaning  of  Saron,  or  Sharon,  is  not  that  wnicib 
its  received  Hebrew  root  would  imply,  and  that 
it  has  perished  except  in  this  one  instance  ?  The 
Alexandrine  Jews  who  translated  the  LXX.  are 
not  likely  to  have  known  much  either  of  the 
Saronic  gulf,  or  of  its  connexion  with  a  rare 
Greek  word. — Eusebius  and  Jerome  (Onomast. 
"  Saron  "),  under  the  name  of  Saronas,  specify  it 
as  the  region  extending  from  Caesarea  to  Joppa. 
And  this  is  corroborated  by  Jerome  in  his  com 
ments  on  the  three  passages  in  Isaiah,  in  one  of 
which  (on  Ixv.  10)  he  appears  to  extend  it  as  far 
south  as  Jamnia.  There  are  occasional  allusions  to 
wood  in  the  description  of  the  events  which  oc 
curred  in  this  district  in  later  times.  Thus,  in  the 
Chronicles  of  the  Crusades,  the  "  Forest  of  Saron  " 
was  the  scene  of  one  of  the  most  romantic  adventures 
of  Richard  (Michaud,  Histoire,  viii.),  the  "  forest 
of  Assur"  (f.  e.  Arsuf)  is  mentioned  by  Vinisauf 
(iv.  16).  To  the  S.E.  of  Kaisariyeh  there  is  still 
"  a  dreary  wood  of  (natural)  dwarf  pines  and  en 
tangled  bushes "  (Thomson,  Land  and  Book,  ch. 
33).  The  orchards  and  palm-groves  round  Jimzu, 
Lydd,  and  Ramleh,  and  the  dense  thickets  of  dom 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  two  last — as  well  as 
the  mulberry  plantations  in  the  valley  of  the  Aujeh 
a  few  miles  from  Jaffa — an  industry  happily  in 
creasing  every  day — show  how  easily  wood  might 
be  maintained  by  care  and  cultivation  (see  Stanley, 
S.  $  P.  260  note). 

A  general  sketch  of  the  district  is  given  under 
the  head  of  PALESTINE  (pp.  672,  673).  Jerome 
(Comm.  on  Is.  xxxv.  2)  characterises  it  in  words 
which  admirably  portray  its  aspects  even  at  the 
present : — "  Omnis  igitur  candor  (the  white  sand 
hills  of  the  coast),  cultus  Dei  (the  wide  crops  of 
the  finest  corn),  et  circumcisionis  scientia  (the  well 
trimmed  plantations)  et  loca  uberrima  et  campestria 
(the  long  gentle  swells  of  rich  red  and  black  earth) 
quae  appellantur  Saron." 

2.  (J'W:  Tepidn ;  Alex,  ^apuv :  Saron).  The 
SHARON  of  1  Chr.  r.  16,  to  which  allusion  has 
already  been  made,  is  distinguished  from  the  western 
plain  by  not  having  the  article  attached  to  its  name 
as  the  other  invariably  has.  It  is  also  apparent 
from  the  pissage  itself  that  it  was  some  district  on 
the  east  of  Jordan  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Gilead 
and  Bashan.  The  expression  "  suburbs  "  (^"IJD), 
is  in  itself  remarkable.  The  name  has  not  been  met 
with  in  that  direction,  and  the  only  approach  to  an 
explanation  of  it  is  that  of  Prof.  Stanley  (8.  &  P. 
App.  §7)|  that  Sharon  may  here  be  a  synonym  for 
the  M ishor—  a  word  probably  derived  from  the  same 
root,  describing  a  region  with  some  of  flhe  sam« 
characteristics,  and  attached  to  the  pastoral  plains 
east  of  the  Jordan.  [G.] 

SHA'KONITE,  THE  (tfnB>n  :  <5  2ap« 
veiTTjs  ;  Alex.  SapawrTjs  :  Saronites).  Shitrai, 
who  had  charge  of  the  royal  herds  pastured  ill 
Sharon  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  29),  is  the  only  Sharonite 
mentioned  in  the  Bible.  [G-J 

SHAK'UHEN  (jn-n^ :  of  aypol*  avrwv,  in 
both  MSS. :  Sareon).  A  town,  named  in  Josh.  xix.  6 

*>  The  Lasharon  of  Josh.  xii.  18,  which  some  scholars 
consider  to  be  Sharon  with  a  preposition  prefixed,  appears 
to  the  writer  more  probably  correctly  given  in  the  A  V' 
[LASHARON.] 

c  Probably  reading  |nHE?>  as  Reland  conjectures. 


SHASHA1 

cnJy,  amongst  those  which  were  allotted  within 
Judah  to  Simeon.  Sharuhen  does  not  appeal-  in 
the  catalogue  of  the  cities  of  Judah  ;  but  instead  of 
it,  and  occupying  the  same  position  with  regard  to 
the  other  names,  we  find  SHILHIM  (xv.  32).  In  the 
list  of  1  Chr.  on  the  other  hand,  the  same  position  is 
occupied  by  SHAARAIM  (iv.  31).  Whether  these  are 
different  places,  or  different  names  of  the  same  place, 
or  mere  variations  of  careless  copyists  ;  and,  in  the 
last  case,  which  is  the  original  form,  it  is  perhaps 
impossible  now  to  determine.  Of  the  three,  Shaa- 
raim  would  seem  to  have  the  strongest  claim, 
since  we  know  that  it  was  the  name  of  a  place 
in  another  direction,  while  Shilhim  and  Sharuhen 
are  found  once  only.  If  so,  then  the  Ain  which 
exists  in  Shaaraim  has  disappeared  in  the  others. 

Knobel  (Exeg.  Handb.  on  Josh.  xv.  32)  calls 
attention  to  Tell  Sheriah,  about  10  miles  West  of 
Bir  es-Seba,  at  the  head  of  Wady  Sheri'ah  (the 
"watering-place").  The  position  is  not  unsuit 
able,  but  as  to  its  identity  with  Shaaraim  or  Sha 
ruhen  we  can  say  nothing.  [G-] 

SHASHA'I(W:  Secret  :  Sisat).  One  of  the 
sons  of  Bani  who  had  married  a  foreign  wife  and 
put  her  away  in  the  time  of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  40). 

SHA'SHAK  (pl£^  :  ZWfa:  Sesac}.  ABen- 

jamite,  one  of  the  sons  of  Beriah  (1  Chr.  viii.  14,  25). 

SHA'UL    ^KB>:  Soota:  Alex. 


Gen'.  :  Saul).  1.  The  son  of  Simeon  by  a  Ca- 
naanitish  woman  (Gen.  xlvi.  10  ;  Ex.  vi.  15  ;  Num. 
xxvi.  13;  1  Chr.  iv.  24),  and  founder  of  the  family 
of  the  SHAULITES.  The  Jewish  traditions  identify 
him  with  Zimri,  "  who  did  the  work  of  the  Canaan- 
ites  in  Shittim  "  (Targ.  Pseudojon.  on  Gen.  xlvi.). 

2.  Shaul  of  Rehoboth  by  the  river  was  one  of 
the  kings  of  Edom,  and  successor  of  Samlah  (1  Chr. 
i.  48,  49).     In  the  A.  V.  of  Gen.  xxxvi.  37  he  is 
less  accurately  called  SAUL. 

3.  A  Kohathite,  son  of  Uzziah  (1  Chr.  vi.  24). 

SHA'VEH,  THE  VALLEY  OF  (W  p»J>  ; 
the  Samar.  Cod.  adds  the  article,  HIK^n  'V,  Sam. 
Vers.  il3SDa:  r^v  Koi\dSa  T^V  b2ou7j  ;  Alex. 
T.  K.  T.  Scunjj/  :  vallis  Save  quae  est  vallis  regis). 
A  name  found  only  in  Gen.  xiv.  It  is  one  of  those 
archaic  names  with  which  this  venerable  chapter 
abounds  —  such  as  Bela,  En-Mishpat,  Ham,  Ha- 
zezon-tamar  —  so  archaic,  that  many  of  them  have 
been  elucidated  by  the  insertion  of  their  more  mo 
dern  c  equivalents  in  the  body  of  the  document,  by 
a  later  but  still  very  ancient  hand.  In  the  present 
case  the  explanation  does  not  throw  any  light  upon 
the  locality  of  Shaveh  :  —  "  The  valley  of  Shaveh, 
that  is  the  Valley  of  the  King"  (ver.  17).  True, 
the  "Valley  of  the  King"  is  mentioned  again  in 
2  Sam.  xviii.  18,  as  the  site  of  a  pillar  set  up  by 
Absalom  ;  but  this  passage  again  conveys  no  indi 
cation  of  its  position,  and  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  the  two  passages  refer  to  the  same  spot.  The 
extreme  obscurity  in  which  the  whole  account  of 


»  The  Targum  of  Onkelos  gives  the  same  equivalent, 
Mi  with  a  curious  addition,  "  the  plain  of  Mefana,  which 
is  the  king's  place  of  racing ;"  recalling  the  l 
so  strangely  inserted  by  the  LXX.  in  Gen.  xlviii.  7. 

*»  This  is  one  of  the  numerous  instances  in  which 
tae  Vatican  Cod.  (Mai)  agrees  with  the  Alex.,  aiid  dis 
agrees  with  the  ordinary  text,  which  in  this  case  has 
TOT)  2a£u. 

c  If  the  signification  of  SJiaveh  be  "  valley,"  as  Gesenius 
rtiiil  Filrst  assert,  tl.en  its  extreme  antiquitj  is  Involved 


SHAWM  1229 

Abram's  route  from  Damascus  is  involved,  h^sb-ea 
already  noticed  vnder  SALEM.  A  notion  has  betu 
longd  prevalent  that  the  pillar  of  Absalom  is  the 
well-known  pyramidal  structure  which  forms  the 
northern  member  of  the  group  of  monuments  at  tha 
western  foot  of  Olivet.  This  is  perhaps  originally 
founded  on  the  statement  of  Josephus  (Ant.  vii. 
10,  §3)  that  Absalom  erected  (e<TT7jKe)'  a  column 
(<rHj\'7j)  of  marble  (\iOov  /j.apfjiapii'ov}  at  a  dis 
tance  of  two  stadia  from  Jerusalem.  But  neither 
the  spot  nor  the  structure  of  the  so-called  "  Ab 
salom's  tomb  "  agree  either  with  this  description,  or 
with  the  terms  of  2  Sam.  xviii.  18.  The  "  Valley  :f 
the  King"  was  an  Emek,  that  is  a  broad  open 
valley,  having  few  or  no  features  in  common  with 
the  d'eep  rugged  ravine  of  the  Kedron.  [VALLEY.] 
The  pillar  of  Absalom — which  went  by  the  name  of 
"  Absalom's  hand  " — was  set  up,  erected  (2^), 
according  to  Josephus  in  marble — while  the  lower 
existing  part  of  the  monument  (which  alone  has 
any  pretension  to  great  antiquity)  is  a  monolith  not 
erected,  but  excavated  out  of  the  ordinary  limestone 
of  the  hill,  and  almost  exactly  similar  to  the  so- 
called  "  tomb  of  Zechariah,"  the  second  from  it  on 
the  south.  And  even  this  cannot  claim  any  very 
great  age,  since  its  Ionic  capitals  and  the  ornaments  of 
the  frieze  speak  with  unfaltering  voice  of  Roman  art. 
Shaveh  occurs  also  in  conjunction  with  another 
ancient  word  in  the  name 


SHA'VEH  KIEIATHA'IM  (D*nnp  iTlf  = 
eV  SCUT?  TTJ  7r<$\6i :  Save  Cariathaim)  mentioned 
in  the  same  early  document  (Gen.  xiv.  5)  as  the 
residence  of  the  Emim  at  the  time  of  Chedorlao- 
mer's  incursion.  Kiriathaim  is  named  in  the  later 
history,  and,  though  it  has  not  been  identified,  is 
known  to  have  been  a  town  on  the  east  of  the 
Jordan ;  and  Shaveh  Kiriathaim,  which  was  also  in 
the  same  region,  was  (if  Shaveh  mean  "  Valley '") 
probably  the  valley  in  or  by  which  the  town 
lay.  [G.] 

SHAV'SHA  (HM*  2ov<rd;  FA.  2o«5s . 
Susa).  The  royal  secretary  in  the  reign  of  David 
(1  Chr.  xviii.  16).  He  is  apparently  the  same  with 
SERAIAH  (2  Sam.  viii.  17),  who  is  called  2,eurd  by 
Josephus  (Ant.  vii.  5,  §4),  and  ScwcS  in  the  Vat. 
MS.  of  the  LXX.  SHISHA  is  the  reading  of  two 
MSS.  and  of  the  Targum  in  1  Chr.  xviii.  16.  In 
2  Sam.  xx.  25  he  is  called  SHEVA,  and  in  1  K. 
iv.  3  SHISHA. 

SHAWM.  In  the  Prayer-book  version  of  Ps. 
xcviii.  7,  "  with  trumpets  also  and  shawms"  is  the 
rendering  of  what  stands  in  the  A.  V.  "  with  trum 
pets  and  sound  of  cornet"  The  Hebrew  word 
translated  "  cornet "  will  be  found  treated  under 
that  head.  The  "  shawm  "  was  a  musical  instru 
ment  resembling  the  clarionet.  The  word  occurs 
in  the  forms  shalm,  shalmie,  and  is  connected  with 
the  Germ,  schalmeie,  a  reed-pipe. 
"  With  shaumes  and  trompets  and  with  clarions  sweet." 
SPENSER,  F.  Q.  i.  12,  $13. 


in  the  very  expression  "  the  Emek-Shaveh,"  which  shows 
that  the  word  had  ceased  to  be  intelligible  to  the  writer, 
who  added  to  it  a  modern  word  of  the  same  meaning  with 
itself.  It  is  equivalent  to  such  names  as  "  Puente  d' Al 
cantara,"  "  the  Greesen  Steps,"  &c.,  where  the  one  part 
of  the  name  is  a  mere  repetition  or  translation  of  the  other, 
and  which  cannot  exist  till  the  meaning  of  the  older  term 
is  obsolete. 

d  Perhaps  first  mentioned  by  Benjamin  of  Tudsl 
1160),  and  next  by  Maumleville  (1323). 


1230 


SHEAL 


••Even  from  the  shrillest  shaum  unto  the  cornamnte." 
DRAYTON,  Polyolb.  iv.  366. 

Mr.  Chappell  says  (Pop.  Mus.  i.  35,  note  6),  "  The 
modern  clarionet  is  an  improvement  upon  the 
shawm,  which  was  played  with'  a  reed  like  the 
wayte,  or  hautboy,  but,  being  a  bass  instrument, 
with  about  the  compass  of  an  octave,  had  probably 
more  the  tone  of  a  bassoon."  In  the  same  note  he 
quotes  one  of  the  "  proverbis "  written  about  the 
time  of  Henry  VJI.  on  the  walls  of  the  Manor  House 
at  Leckingfield  near  Beverley,  Yorkshire : — 

"  A  shawme  maketh  a  swete  sounde,  for  he  tunythe  the 


It  mountithe  not  to  hye,  but  kepith  rule  and  space. 
Yet  yf  it  be  blowne  with  to  vehement  a  wynde, 
It  makithe  it  to  mysgoverne  out  of  his  kinde." 
From  a  passage  quoted  by  Nares  (Glossary)  it  ap 
pears  that  the  shawm  had  a  mournful  sound : — 
"  lie- 
That  never  wants  a  Gilead  full  of  balm 
For  his  elect,  shall  turn  thy  woful  shalm 
Into  the  merry  pipe." 

G.  TOOKE,  Belides,  p.  18.          [W.  A.  W.] 

SHEA'L(^NK>:  2a\ovia:  Alex.  SaaX:  Saal). 
One  of  the  sons  of  Bani  who  had  married  a  foreign 
wife  (Ezr.  x.  29>  In  1  Esd.  ix.  30  he  is  called 
JASAEL. 

SHEAL'TIEL  fatfffffl},  but  three  times  in 
Haggai  ^fl^ :  2aAa0t}j\':  Salatkiel).  Father 
of  Zerubbabel,  the  leader  of  the  Return  from  Cap 
tivity  (Ezr.  Hi.  2,  8,  v.  2  ,  Neh.  xii.  1 ;  Hagg.  i. 
1,  12,  14,  ii.  2,  23).  The  name  occurs  also  in  the 
original  of  1  Chr.  iii.  17,  though  there  rendered  in 
the  A.  V.  SALATHIEL.  That  is  its  equivalent  in 
the  books  of  the  Apocrypha  and  the  N.  T. ;  and 
under  that  head  the  curious  questions  connected 
with  his  person  are  examined. 

SHEARI'AH  (rnytf> :  -Sapaia :  Alex.  Zapia 
in  1  Chr.  ix.  44:  Sari'a)'.  One  of  the  six  sons  of 
Azel,  a  descendant  of  Saul  (1  Chr.  viii.  38,  ix.  44). 

SHEARING -HOUSE,  THE  Oj$  TV3 
'D^Jpn  :Bai6uK<id  riav  iroi^vwv  ;  Alex.  Bot0a/ca5 
r.  ir. :  camera  pastorum).  A  place  on  the  road 
between  Jezreel  and  Samaria,  at  which  Jehu,  on  his 
way  to  the  latter,  encountered  forty-two  members 
of  the  royal  family  of  Judah,  whom  he  slaughtered  at 
the  well  or  pit  attached  to  the  pkce  (2  K.  x.  12, 14). 
The  translators  of  our  version  have  given  in  the  mar 
gin  the  literal  meaning  of  the  name — "  house  of  bind 
ing  of  the  shepherds,"  and  in  the  text  an  interpre 
tation  perhaps  adopted  from  Jos.  Kimchi.  Binding, 
however,  is  but  a  subordinate  part  of  the  operation 
of  shearing,  and  the  word  akad  is  not  anywhere 
used  in  the  Bible  in  connexion  therewith.  The 
inteipretation  of  the  Targum  and  Arabic  version, 
adopted  by  Rashi,  viz.  "  house  of  the  meeting  of 
shepherds,"  is  accepted  by  Simonis  (Onom.  186) 
and  Gesenius  (Tkes.  195  6).  Other  renderings  are 
given  by  Aquila  and  Symmachus.  Kone  of  them, 
however,  seem  satisfactory, and  it  is  probable  that 
the  original  meaning  has  escaped.  By  the  LXX., 
Eusebius,  and  Jerome,  it  is  treated  as  a  proper 
name,  as  they  also  treat  the  "  garden-house  "  of 
»x.  27.  Eusebius  (Onom.)  mentions  it  as  a  village 
of  Samaria  "in  the  great  plain  [of  Esdraelon]  15 
rail's  from  Legeon."  It  is  remarkable,  that  at  a  d.is- 

•  The  last  word  of  the  three  is  omitted  in  ver.  14  in  the 
original,  and  in  both  the  Versions. 


SHEBA 

tance  of  precisely  15  Roman  miles  from  Lejj&n  tit 
name  of  Betk-Kad  appears  in  Van  de  Velde's  map 
(see  also  Rob.  B.R.  ii.  316)  ;  but  this  place,  though 
coincident  in  point  of  distance,  is  not  on  the  plain, 
nor  can  it  either  belong  to  Samaria,  or  be  on  the 
road  from  Jezreel  thither,  being  behind  (south  of) 
mount  Gilboa.  The  slaughter  at  the  well  recals  the 
massacre  of  the  pilgrims  by  Ishmael  ben-Nethaniah  at 
Mizpah,  and  the  recent  tragedy  at  Cawnpore.  [G.J 

SHE'AR-JA'SHUB  (3«3»  1KB?  :  6  Ka.ro.- 
\fi<j>6fls  'la<rovfi  :  qui  derelictus  est  Jasub).  The 
son  of  Isaiah  the  prophet,  who  accompanied  him 
when  he  went  to  meet  Ahaz  in  the  causeway  of  the 
fuller's  field  (Is.  vii.  3).  The  name,  like  that  of 
the  prophet's  other  son,  Maher-shalal-hash-baz,  had 
a  mystical  significance,  and  appears  to  have  been 
given  with  mixed  feeMngs  of  sorrow  and  hope  — 
sorrow  for  the  captivity  of  the  people,  and  hope 
that  in  the  end  a  remnant  should  return  to  the 
land  of  their  fathers  (comp.  Is.  x.  20-22). 


SHE'BA  (V3B>:  2a)8ee;  Joseph.  2aj8a?os  : 
Seba).  The  son  of  Bichri,  a  Benjamite  from  the 
mountains  of  Ephraim  (2  Sam.  xx.  1-22),  the  last 
chief  of  the  Absalom  insurrection.  He  is  described 
as  a  "man  of  Belial,"  which  seems  [comp.  SHIMEI] 
to  have  been  the  usual  term  of  invective  cast  to 
and  fro  between  the  two  parties.  But  he  must 
have  been  a  person  of  some  consequence,  from  the 
immense  effect  produced  by  his  appearance.  It 
was  in  fact  ail  but  an  anticipation  of  the  revolt  of 
Jeroboam.  It  was  not,  as  in  the  case  of  Absalom, 
a  mere  conflict  between  two  factions  in  the  court 
of  Judah,  but  a  struggle,  arising  out  of  that  con 
flict,  on  the  part  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  to  recover 
its  lost  ascendancy;  a  struggle  of  which  some 
indications  had  been  already  manifested  in  the 
excessive  bitterness  of  the  Benjamite  Shimei.  The 
occasion  seized  by  Sheba  was  the  emulation,  as 
if  from  loyalty,  between  the  northern  and  southern 
tribes  on  David's  return.  Through  the  ancient 
custom,  he  summoned  all  the  tribes  "  to  their 
tents  ;"  and  then,  and  afterwards,  Judah  alone  re 
mained  faithful  to  the  house  of  David  (2  Sam.  xx. 
1,  2).  The  king  might  well  say,  "  Sheba  the  son 
of  Bichri  shall  do  us  more  harm  than  did  Absalom  " 
(ib.  6).  What  he  feared  was  Sheba's  occupation 
of  the  fortified  cities.  This  fear  was  justified  by 
the  result..  Sheba  traversed  the  whole  of  Pales 
tine,  apparently  rousing  the  population,  Joab  fol 
lowing  him  in  full  pursuit,  and  so  deeply  impressed 
with  the  gravity  of  the  occasion,  that  the  murder 
even  of  the  great  Amasa  was  but  a  passing  in 
cident  in  the  campaign.  He  stayed  but  for  the 
moment  of  the  deed,  and  "  pursued  after  Sheba  the 
son  of  Bichri."  The  mass  of  the  army  halted  for 
an  instant  by  the  bloody  corpse,  and  then  they  also 
"  went  on  after  Joab  to  pursue  after  Sheba  the  son 
of  Bichri."  It  seems  to  have  been  his  intention 
to  establish  himself  in  the  fortress  of  Abel-Beth- 
maacah  —  in  the  northmost  extremity  of  Palestine  — 
possibly  allied  to  the  cause  of  Absalom  through  his 
mother  Maacah,  and  famous  for  the  prudence  of 
its  inhabitants  (2  Sam.  xx.  18).  That  prudence 
was  put  to  the  test  on  the  present  occasion.  Joab's 
terms  were  —  the  head  of  the  insurgent  chief.  A 
woman  of  the  place  undertook  the  mission  to  hei 
city,  and  proposed  the  execution  to  her  fellow- 
citizens.  The  head  of  Sheba  was  thrown  ever  tin 
wall,  and  the  insurrection  ended. 

2.  (Se/See;   Alex.  2o£o0e:    Sebe.}    A  Gudite, 


SHEBA 

one  of  the  chiefs  of  his  tribe,  who  dwelt  in  Bashnn 
(1  Chr.  v.  13).  [A.  P.  S.] 

SHE'BA(fcOK>:  2a£(£:  Saba).  The  name 
of  three  fathers^of  tribes  in  the  early  genealogies 
of  Genesis,  often  referred  to  in  the  sacred  books. 
They  are : — 

1.  A  son  of  Raamah,  son  of  Gush  (Gen.  x.   7 ; 
1  Chr.  i.  9). 

2.  (Alex.  2aj8«^,  Sa^ay.)  A  son  of  Jokfem  (Gen. 
x.  28  ;  1  Chr.  i.  22) ;  the  tenth  in  order  of  his  sons. 

3.  (2aj3c£,   2a/3af;   Alex.    2a£ar,    2aj8«f.)     A 
son   of  Jokshan,  son  of  Keturah  (Gen.    xxv.    3; 
1  Chr.  i.  32). 

We  shall  consider,  first,  the  history  of  the  Jok- 
tanite  Sheba  ;  and,  secondly,  the  Cushite  Sheba  and 
the  Keturahite  Sheba  together. 

I.  It  has  been  shown,  in  ARABIA  and  other 
articles,  that  the  Joktanites  were  among  the  early 
colonists  of  southern  Arabia,  and  that  the  kingdom 
which  they  there  founded  was,  for  many  centuries, 
called  the  kingdom  of  Sheba,  after  one  of  the  sons 
of  Joktan.  They  appear  to  have  been  preceded  by 
an  aboriginal  race,  which  the  Arabian  historians 
describe  as  a  people  of  gigantic  stature,  who  culti 
vated  the  land  and  peopled  the  deserts  alike,  living 
with  the  Jinn  in  the  "  deserted  quarter,"  or,  like 
the  tribe  of  Thamood,  dwelling  in  caves.  This 
people  correspond,  in  their  traditions,  to  the  abori 
ginal  races  of  whom  remains  are  found  wherever  a 
civilized  nation  has  supplanted  and  dispossessed  the 
ruder  race.  But  besides  these  extinct  tribes,  there 
are  the  evidences  of  Cushite  settlers,  who  appear  to 
have  passed  along  the  south  coast  from  west  to  east, 
and  who  probably  preceded  the  Joktanites,  and  mixed 
with  them  when  they  arrived  in  the  country. 

Sheba  seems  to  have  been  the  name  of  the  great 
south  Arabian  kingdom  and  the  peoples  which 
composed  it,  until  that  of  Himyer  took  its  place  in 
later  times.  On  this  point  much  obscurity  remains  ; 
but  the  Sabaeans  are  mentioned  by  Diod.  Sic.,  who 
refers  to  the  historical  books  of  the  kings  of  Egypt 
in  the  Alexandrian  Library,  and  by  Eratosthenes,  as 
well  as  Artemidorus,  or  Agatharchides  (iii.  38,  46), 
who  is  Strabo's  chief  authority ;  and  the  Homeritae 
or  Himyerites  are  first  mentioned  by  Strabo,  in  the 
expedition  of  Aelius  Callus  (B.C.  24).  Nowhere 
earlier,  in  sacred  or  profane  records,  are  the  latter 
people  mentioned,  except  by  the  Arabian  historians 
themselves,  who  place  Himyer  very  high  in  their  list, 
and  ascribe  importance  to  his  family  from  that  early 
date.  We  have  endeavoured,  in  other  articles,  to 
show  reasons  for  supposing  that  in  this  very  name 
of  Himyer  we  have  the  Red  Man,  and  the  origin  of 
Erythrus,'  Erythraean  Sea,  Phoenicians,  &c.  [See 
ARABIA  ;  RED  SEA.]  The  apparent  difficulties  of 
the  case  are  reconciled  by  supposing,  as  M.  Caussin 
de  Perceval  (Essai,  i.  54-5)  has  done,  that  the 
kingdom  and  its  people  received  the  name  of  Sheba 
(Arabic,  Seba-),  but  that  its  chief  and  sometimes 
reigning  family  or  tribe  was  that  of  Himyer ;  and 
that  an  old  name  was  thus  preserved  until  the 
foundation  of  the  modern  kingdom  of  Himyer  or 
the  Tubbaas,  which  M.  Caussin  is  inclined  to  place 
(but  there  is  much  uncertainty  about  this  date) 
about  a  century  before  our  era,  when  the  two  great 
rival  families  of  Himyer  and  Kahlan,  together  with 
smaller  tribes,  were  united  under  the  former.  In 
iupport  of  the  view  that  the  name  of  Sheba  applied 
to  the  kingdom  and  its  people  as  ?.  generic  or  national 
name,  we  find  in  the  Kdmoos  "  the  name  of  Seba 
comprises  the  tribes  of  the  Yemen  in  common  " 


SHEBA 


1231 


(s.  v.  Seba)  ;  and  this  was  written  long  aft<r  the 
later  kingdom  of  Himyer  had  flourished  and  fallen. 
And  further,  as  Himyer  meant  the  "  Red  Man,"  sc 
probably  did  Seba.  In  Arabic,  the  verb  Seba, 

Luw,  said  of  the  sun,  or  of  a  journey,  or  of  a 
fever,  means  "it  altered"  a  man,  ».  e.  by  turning 
him  red  ;  the  noun  seba,  as  well  as  sM  and 
sebee-ah,  signifies  "  wine  "  (  Taj  el-Aroos  MS.). 
The  Arabian  wine  was  red  ;  for  we  read  "  kumeyt 
is  a  name  of  wine,  because  there  is  in  it  blackness 
and  redness  "  (Sihdh  MS.).  It  appears,  then,  that 
in  Seba  we  very  possibly  have  the  oldest  name  of 
the  Red  Man,  whence  came  q>oivi£,  Himyer,  and 
Erythrus. 

We  have  assumed  the  identity  of  the  Arabic  Seba> 


U~,  with  Sheba  (N}f  )•  The  P1-  form 
corresponds  with  the  Greek  2oj8oTos  and  the  Latin 
Sabaei.  Gesenius  compares  the  Heb.  with  Eth. 
(^"•flfti  "  man."  The  Hebrew  skin  is,  in  by  far 
the  greater  number  of  instances,  sin  in  Arabic  (see 
Gesenius);  and  the  historical,  ethnological,  and 
geographical  circumstances  of  the  case,  all  require 
the  identification. 

In  the  Bible,  the  Joktanite  Sheba,  mentioned 
genealogically  in  Gen.  x.  28,  recurs,  as  a  kingdom, 
in  the  account  of  the  visit  of  the  queen  of  Sheba  to 
king  Solomon,  when  she  heard  of  his  fame  con 
cerning  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  came  to  prove 
him  with  hard  questions  (1  K.  x.  1)  ;  "  and  she 
came  to  Jerusalem  with  a  very  great  train,  with 
zameis  that  bare  spices,  and  very  much  gold,  and 
precious  stones  "  (2).  And,  again,  "  she  gave  the 
king  an  hundred  and  twenty  talents  of  gold,  and  of 
spices  very  great  store,  and  precious  stones  :  there 
came  no  more  such  abundance  of  spices  as  these 
which  the  queen  of  Sheba  gave  to  king  Solomon  " 
(10).  She  was  attracted  by  the  fame  of  Solomon's 
wisdom,  which  she  had  heard  in  her  own  land  ; 
but  the  dedication  of  the  Temple  had  recently  been 
solemnized,  and,  no  donbt,  the  people  of  Arabia 
were  desirous  to  see  this  famous  house.  That  the 
queen  was  of  Sheba  in  Arabia,  and  not  of  Seba  the 
Cushite  kingdom  of  Ethiopia,  is  unquestionable  ; 
Josephus  and  some  of  the  rabbinical  writers  ft  per 
versely,  as  usual,  refer  her  to  the  latter  ;  and  the 
Ethiopian  (or  Abyssinian)  church  has  a  convenient 
tradition  to  the  same  effect  (comp.  Joseph.  Ant.  viii. 
6,  §5  ;  Ludolf,  Hist.  Aethiop.  ii.  3  ;  Harris'  Abys 
sinia,  ii.  105).  The  Arabs  call  her  Bilkees  (or 
Yelkamah  or  Balkamah  ;  Ibn  Khaldoon),  a  queen 
of  the  later  Himyerites,  who,  if  M.  Caussin  's 
chronological  adjustments  of  the  early  history  of 
the  Yemen  be  correct,  reigned  in  the  first  century  of 
our  era  (Essai,  i.  75,  &c.)  ;  and  an  edifice  at 
Ma-rib  (Mariaba)  still  bears  her  name,  while 
M.  Fresnel  read  the  name  of  "Almacah"  or 
"  Balmacah,"  in  many  of  the  Himyeritic  inscrip 
tions.  The  Arab  story  of  this  queen  is,  in  the  present 
state  of  our  knowledge,  altogether  unhistorical  and 
unworthy  of  credit  ;  but  the  attempt  to  make  her 
Solomon's  queen  of  Sheba  probably  arose  (as 
M.  Caussin  conjectures)  from  the  latter  being  men 
tioned  in  the  Kur-an  without  any  name,  and  the 
commentators  adopting  Bilkees  as  the  most  ancient, 
queen  of  Sheba  in  the  lists  of  the  Yemen.  The 
Kur-an,  as  usual,  contains  a  very  poor  version  of 


»  Aben-Ezra  (on  Dan.  xi.  6),  however,  remarkf  that  th« 
queen  of  Sheba  came  from  the  Yemen,  for  si  e  .spoke  at' 
Ishmaelite  (or  rather  «  ihemltic)  language. 


1232 


SHEBA 


the  Biblical  narrative,  diluted  with  nonsense  and 
encumbered  with  fables  (ch.  xxvii.  ver.  24,  &c.). 

The  other  passages  in  the  Bible  which  seem  to 
refer  to  the  Joktan.te  Sheba  occur  in  Is.  Ix.  6, 
where  we  read,  "  all  they  from  Sheba  shall  come  : 
they  shall  bring  gold  and  incense,"  in  conjunction 
with  Midian,  Ephah,  Kedar,  and  Nebaioth.  Here 
inference  is  made  to  the  commerce  that  took  the 
road  from  Sheba  along  the  western  borders  of 
Arabia  (unless,  as  is  possible,  the  Cushite  or 
Keturahite  Sheba  be  meant)  ;  and  again  in  Jer. 
vi.  20,  it  is  written,  "  To  what  purpose  cometh 
there  to  me  incense  from  Sheba,  and  the  sweet  cane 
from  a  far  country?  "  (but  compare  Ezek.  xxvii.  22, 
23,  and  see  below).  On  the  other  hand,  in  Ps.  Ixxii. 
10,  the  Joktanite  Sheba  is  undoubtedly  meant ;  for 
the  kingdoms  of  Sheba  and  Seba  are  named  together, 
and  in  ver.  15  the  gold  of  Sheba  is  mentioned. 

The  kingdom  of  Sheba  embraced  the  greater  part 
of  the  Yemen,  or  Arabia  Felix.  Its  chief  cities, 
and  probably  successive  capitals,  were  Seba,  San'a 
(UzAL),  and  Zafar  (SEPHAE).  Seba  was  probably 
the  name  of  the  city,  and  generally  of  the  country 
and  nation  ;  but  the  statements  of  the  Arabian 
writers  are  conflicting  on  this  point,  and  they  are 
not  made  clearer  by  the  accounts  of  the  classical 
geographers.  Ma- rib  was  another  name  of  the  city, 
or  of  the  fortress  or  royal  palace  in  it: — <{  Seba  is  a 
city  known  by  the  name  of  Ma-rib,  three  nights' 
journey  from  San'a"  (Ez-Zejjaj,  in  the  Tdj-el- 
'Aroos  MS.).  Again,  "  Seba  was  the  city  of  Ma- 
rib  (Mushtarak,  s.  t>.),  or  the  country  in  the  Yemen, 
of  which  the  city  was  Ma-rib  "  (Mardsid,  in  voc,~). 
Near  Seba  was  the  famous  Dyke  of  El-'Arim,  said 
by  tradition  to  have  been  built  by  Lukman  the 
'Adite,  to  store  water  for  the  inhabitants  of  the 
place,  and  to  avert  the  descent  of  the  mountain  tor 
rents.  The  catastrophe  of  the  rupture  of  this  dyke 
is  an  important  point  in  Arab  history,  and  marks 
the  dispersion  in  the  2nd  century  of  the  Joktanite 
tribes.  This,  like  all  we  know  of  Seba,  points  irre 
sistibly  to  the  great  importance  of  the  city  as  the 
ancient  centre  of  Joktanite  power.  Although  Uzal 
(which  is  said  to  be  the  existing  San'a)  has  been 
supposed  to  be  of  earlier  foundation,  and  Zafar 
(SKPHAR)  was  a  royal  residence,  we  cannot  doubt 
that  Sebi  was  the  most  important  of  these  chief 
towns  of  the  Yemen.  Its  value  in  the  eyes  of  the 
old  dynasties  is  shown  by  their  struggles  to  obtain 
and  hold  it ;  and  it  is  narrated  that  it  passed  several 
times  into  the  hands  alternately  of  the  so-called 
Himyerites  and  the  people  of  Hadramawt  (HAZAR- 
MAVETH).  Eratosthenes,  Artemidorus,  Strabo,  and 
Pliny,  speak  of  Mariaba  ;  Diodorus,  Agatharchides, 
Steph.  Byzant.,  of  Saba.  2o/3of  (Steph.  Byzant.). 
2oj85s  (Agath.).  Ptol.  (vi.  7,  §30,  42),  and  Plin. 
(vi.  23,  §34)  mention  2aj3r7.  But  the  former  all 
say  that  Marimba  was  the  metropolis  of  the  Sabaei ; 
and  we  may  conclude  that  both  names  applied  to 
the  same  place,  one  the  city,  the  other  its  palace  or 
fortress  (though  probably  these  writers  were  not 
aware  of  this  fact) :  unless  indeed  the  form  Sabota 
(with  the  variants  Sabatha,  Sobatale,  &c.)  of  Pliny 
(N.  H.  vi.  28,  §32),  have  reference  to  Shibam, 
capital  of  Hadramawt,  and  the  name  also  of  an 
other  celebrated  city,  of  which  the  Arabian  writers 
{Mardsid,  s.  v.)  give  curious  accounts.  The  classics 
are  generally  agreed  in  ascribing  to  the  Sabaei  the 
chief  riches,  the  best  territory,  and  the  greatest 
numbers,  of  the  four  principal  peoples  of  the  Arabs 
which  they  name  :  the  Sabaei,  Atramitae  ( =  Ha- 
draniiiwt.  Katabeni  (  =  I\ahtan  =  Joktan).  and  Mi- 


SHEBA 

n  aei  ( for  wh  i  ch  see  D  i  K  L  A  H  ) .    See  Be  <  hart  (Phai&j, 
xxvi.),  and  Muller's  Gcog.  Min.  p.  186,  sqq. 

The  history  of  the  Sabaeans  has  been  examined 
by  M.  Caussin  de  Perceval  (Essai  sur  I'Hist.  des 
Arabes),  but  much  remains  to  be  adjusted  before 
its  details  can  be  received  as  trustworthy,  the 
earliest  safe  chronological  point  being  about  the 
commencement  of  our  era.  An  examination  of  the 
existing  remains  of  Sabaean  and  Himyerite  cities 
and  buildings  will,  it  cannot  be  doubted,  add  more 
facts  to  our  present  knowledge ;  and  a  further  ac 
quaintance  with  the  language,  from  inscriptions, 
aided  as  M.  Fresnel  believes,  by  an  existing  dialect, 
will  probably  give  us  some  safe  grounds  for  placing 
the  Building,  or  Em,  of  the  Dyke.  In  the  art. 
ARABIA,  (vol.  i.  966),  it  is  stated  that  there  are 
dates  on  the  ruins  of  the  dyke,  and  the  conclusions 
which  De  Sacy  and  Caussin  have  drawn  from  those 
dates  and  other  indications  respecting  the  date  of  the 
Rupture  of  the  Dyke,  which  forms  then  an  important 
point  in  Arabian  history ;  but  it  must  be  placed  in 
the  2nd  century  of  our  era,  and  the  older  era  of  the 
Building  is  altogether  unfixed,  or  indeed  any  date 
before  the  expedition  of  Aelius  Callus.  The  ancient 
buildings  are  of  massive  masonry,  and  evidently  of 
Cushite  workmanship,  or  origin.  Later  temples,  and 
palace-temples,  of  which  the  Arabs  give  us  descrip 
tions,  were  probably  of  less  massive  character ;  but 
Sabaean  art  is  an  almost  unknown  and  interesting 
subject  of  inquiry.  The  religion  celebrated  in  those 
temples  was  cosmic  ;  but  this  subject  is  too  obscure 
and  too  little  known  to  admit  of  discussion  in  this 
place.  It  may  be  necessary  to  observe  that  whatever 
connexion  there  was  in  religion  between  the  Sabeans 
and  the  Sabians,  there  was  none  in  name  or  in  race. 
Respecting  the  latter,  the  reader  may  consult  Chwol- 
son's  Ssabier,  a  work  that  may  be  recommended 
with  more  confidence  than  the  same  author's  Na- 
bathaean  Agriculture.  [See  NEBAIOTH.]  Some 
curious  papers  have  also  appeared  in  the  Journal  of 
the  German  Oriental  Society  of  Leipsic,  by  Dr. 
Osiander. 

II.  Sheba,  son  of  Raamah  son  of  Cush,  settled 
somewhere  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  In 
the  Mardsid  (s.  v.)  the  writer  has  found  an  identi 
fication  which  appears  to  be  satisfactory — that  on 
the  island  of  Awal  (one  of  the  "  Bahreyn  Islands  "), 
are  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  city  called  Seba.  Viewed 
in  connexion  with  RAAMAH,  and  the  other  facts 
which  we  know  respecting  Sheba,  traces  of  his 
settlements  ought  to  be  found  on  or  near  the  shores 
of  the  gulf.  It  was  this  Sheba  that  carried  on  the 
great  Indian  -traffic  with  Palestine,  in  conjunction 
with,  as' we  hold,  the  other  Sheba,  son  of  Jokshan 
son  of  Keturah,  who  like  DEDAN,  appears  to  have 
formed  with  the  Cushite  of  the  same  name,  one 
tribe :  the  Cushites  dwelling  on  the  shores  of  the 
Persian  Gulf,  and  carrying  on  the  desert  trade 
thence  to  Palestine  in  conjunction  with  the  nomade 
Keturahite  tribes,  whose  pasturages  were  mostly  on 
the  western  frontier.  The  trade  is  mentioned  by 
Ezek.  xxvii.  22,  23,  in  an  unmistakeable  manner ; 
and  possibly  by  Isa.  Ix.  6,  and  Jer.  vi.  20,  but  these 
latter,  we  think,  rather  refer  to  the  Joktanite  Sheba. 
The  predatory  bands  of  the  Keturahites  are  men 
tioned  in  Job  i.  15,  and  vi.  19,  in  a  manner  that 
recalls  the  forays  of  modern  Bedawees.  [Comp. 
ARABIA,  DEDAN,  &c.]  [E.  S.  I'.j 

SHE'BA  (5D^ :  2a/ioo ;  Alex.  2aj3ee  :  Salee). 
One  of  the  towns  of  -he  allotment  of  Simeon  (Josh. 
xix.  2).  It  occurs  between  Beershebaand  Mnltdah, 


SHEBAH 

In  the  list  of  the  cities  of  the  south  cf  Jtniah,  out  of 
which  those  of  Simeon  were  selected,  IK,  Sheba  ap 
pears  apart  from  Beersheba ;  but  there  is  a  Shema 
(xv.  26)  which  stands  next  to  Moladah,  and  which 
is  probably  the  Sheba  in  question.  This  suggestion 
is  supported  by  the  reading  of  the  Vatican  LXX. 
The  change  from  b  to  m  is  an  easy  one  both  in 
speaking  and  in  writing,  and  in  their  other  letters 
the  words  are  identical.  Some  have  supposed  that 
the  name  Sheba  is  a  mere  repetition  of  the  latter 
portion  of  the  preceding  name,  Beersheba, — by  the 
common  error  called  homoioteleuton, — and  this  is 
supported  by  the  facts  that  the  number  of  names 
given  in  xix.  2-6  is,  including  Sheba,  fourteen,  though 
the  number  stated  is  thirteen,  and  that  in  the  list 
of  Simeon  of  1  Chron.  (iv.  28)  Sheba  is  entirely 
omitted.  Gesenius  suggests  that  the  words  in  xix.  2 
may  be  rendered  "  Beersheba,  the  town,  with  Sheba, 
the  well;"  but  this  seems  forced,  and  is  besides 
inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  the  list  is  a  list  of 
"  cities."  Thes.  1355  a,  where  other  suggestions 
are  cited.  [G.] 

SHE'BAH  (njDP,  ».  e.  Shibeah  :  O>KOS  : 
Abundantia).  The  famous  well  which  gave  its  name 
to  the  city  of  Beersheba  (Gen.  xxvi.  33).  Accord 
ing  to  this  version  of  the  occurrence,  Shebah,  or 
more  accurately  Shibeah,  was  the  fourth  of  the 
series  of  wells  dug  by  Isaac's  people,  and  received 
its  name  from  him,  apparently  in  allusion  to  the 
oaths  (31,  -lyilte^,  yisshdbe'u)  which  had  passed  be 
tween  himself  and  the  Philistine  chieftains  the  day 
before.  It  should  not  be  overlooked  that  according 
to  the  narrative  of  an  earlier  chapter  the  well  owed 
its  existence  and  its  name  to  Isaac's  father  (xxi.  32). 
Indeed  its  previous  existence  may  be  said  to  be 
implied  in  the  narrative  now  directly  under  conside 
ration  (xxvi.  23).  The  two  transactions  are  curi 
ously  identical  in  many  of  their  circumstances — the 
rank  and  names  of  the  Philistine  chieftains,  the  strife 
between  the  subordinates  on  either  side,  the  cove 
nant,  the  adjurations,  the  city  that  took  its  name 
from  the  well.  They  differ  alone  in  the  fact  that 
the  chief  figure  in  the  one  case  is  Abraham,  in  the 
other  Isaac.  Some  commentators,  as  Kalisch(6rtfn. 
500),  looking  to  the  fact  that  there  are  two  large 
wills  at  Bir  cs  Seba,  propose  to  consider  the  two 
transactions  as  distinct,  and  as  belonging  the  one  to 
the  one  well,  the  other  to  the  other.  Others  see  in 
the  two  narratives  merely  two  versions  of  the  cir 
cumstances  under  which  this  renowned  well  was 
hrst  dug.  And  certainly  in  the  analogy  of  the 
early  history  of  other  nations,  and  in  the  very  close 
correspondence  between  the  details  of  the  two  ac 
counts,  there  is  much  to  support  this.  The  various 
piays  on  the  meaning  of  the  name  J?3£^,  inter 
preting  it  as  "  seven  " — as  an  "  oath" — as  "  abun 
dance  "  • — as  "  a  lion  "  b  —  are  all  so  many  direct 
testimonies  to  the  remote  date  and  archaic  form  of 
this  most  venerable  of  names,  and  to  the  fact  that 
the  narratives  of  the  early  history  of  the  Hebrews 
'ire  under  tha  control  of  the  same  laws  which  regu 
late  the  early  history  of  other  nations.  [G.] 

SHEBA'M(D3B>,i.<?.Sebam:  S€j8o/«£:  Saban). 
One  of  the  towns  in  the  pastoral  district  on  the  east 


SHEBXA 


1233 


•  This  is  Jerome's  (Quaest.  in  Gcnesim  and  Vulgate)  •  as 
If  x»-3  word  was  HVl'^,  as  in  Ex.  xvi.  49. 
'•  Tlvo  modern  An'nc  li'tr  es-Seba'. 
*'OL.  UI. 


of  Jordan — the  "  land  of  Jazer  and  the  land  of 
Gilead  "—demanded,  and  finally  ceded  to  the  tribei. 
of  Reuben  and  Gad  (Num.  xxxii.  3,  only).  It  is 
named  between  Elealeh  and  Nebo,  uid  is  probably 
the  same  which  in  a  subsequent  verse  of  the  chap 
ter,  and  on  later  occasions,  appears  in  the  altered 
forms  of  SHIBMAH  and  SIBMAH.  The  change  from 
Sebam  to  Sibmah.  is  perhaps  due  to  the  difference 
between  the  Amorite  or  Moabite  and  Hebrew  lan 
guages.  [G.] 

SHEBANI'AH  (H^ntp  :  2ex«"'a  5  Alex-  2a- 
Xavia  in  Neh.  ix.,  SajScma  in  Neh.  x. :  Sabania, 
Sebnia  in  Neh.  ix.,  Sebenia  in  Neh.  x.). 

1.  A  Levite  in  the  time  of  Ezra,  one  of  those 
who  stood  upon  the  steps  of  the  Levites  and  sang 
the  psalm  of  thanksgiving  and  confession,  which  is 
one  of  the  last  efforts  of  Hebrew  psalmody  (Neh. 
ix.  4,  5).     He  sealed  the  covenant  with  Nehemiah 
(Neh.  x.  10).     In  the  LXX.  of  Neh.  ix.  4  he  is 
made  the  son  of  Sherebiah. 

2.  CSe&avi  in  Neh.  x.,  Sextet  in  Neh.  xii.  14c 
Sebenia.)   A  priest,  or  priestly  family,  who  sealed 
the  covenant  with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  4,  xii.  14). 
Called  SHKCHANIAH  in  Neh.  xii.  3. 

3.  (SejSai'.a :    Sabania.}    Another  Levite   who 
sealed  the  covenant  with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  12). 

4.  OiTnB> :    2o/«/fa  ;   Alex.   Zafevia  :    Se- 
benias.)      One  of  the  priests  appointed  by  David  to 
blow  with  the   trumpets  before  the  ark   of  God 
(1  Chr.  xv.  24).  [W.  A.  Vvr.j 

SHEB'ARIM  (Dnifc^n,  with  the  def.  article : 

•  T  :     - 

(Tvi/€Tpi\l/av  :  Sabarim).  A  place  named  in  Josh, 
vii.  5  only,  as  one  of  the  points  in  the  flight  from  Ai. 
The  root  of  the  word  has  the  force  of  "  dividing  " 
or  "  breaking,"  and  it  is  therefore  suggested  that 
the  name  was  attached  to  a  spot  where  there  were 
fissures  or  rents  in  the  soil,  gradually  deepening  till 
they  ended  in  a  sheer  descent  or  precipice  to  the 
ravine  by  which  the  Israelites  had  come  from  Gilgal 
— "  the  going  down"  (TnifcDH  ;  see  verse  5  and 
the  margin  of  the  A.  V.).  The  ground  around 
the  site  of  Ai,  on  any  hypothesis  cf  its  locality,  was 
very  much  of  this  character.  No  trace  of  the  name 
has,  however,  been  yet  remarked. 

Keil  (Josua,  ad  loc.)  interprets  Shebarim  by 
"  stone  quarries ;"  but  this  does  not  appear  to  be 
supported  by  other  commentators  or  by  lexico 
graphers.  The  ancient  interpreters  usually  discard 
it  as  a  proper  name,  and  render  it  "  till  they  were 
broken  up,"  &c.  (  G.T 

SHEB'EK(-QK>:  2a)3e>;  Alex.2ej3*p:  Saber). 
Son  of  Caleb  ben-Hezron  by  his  concubine  Maachah 

(1  Chr.  ii.  48). 

SHEB'NACKJ3B>:  Zo^ds:  Sobnas).  A  person 
of  high  position  in  Hezekiah's  court,  holding  at 
one  time  the  office  of  prefect  of  the  palace  (Is.  xxii. 
15),  but  -subsequently  the  subordinate  office  of 
secretary  (Is.  xxxvi.  3 ;  2  K.  xix.  2).  This  change 
appears  to  have  been  effected  by  Isaiah's  inter 
position  ;  for  Shebna  had  incurred  the  prophet's 
extreme  displeasure,  partly  on  account  of  his  pride 
(Is.  xxii.  16),  his  luxury  (ver.  18),  and  his  tyranny 
(as  implied  in  the  title  of  "  father '"'  bestowed  on 
his  successor,  ver.  21),  and  partly  (as  appears  from 
his  successor  being  termed  a  "servant  of  Jfihovah," 
ver.  20)  on  account  of  his  belonging  to  the  political 
party  which  was  opposed  to  the  theocracy,  and  Ir 

4  K 


1234 


SHEBUEL 


favour  of  the  Egyptian  alliance.  From  the  omission 
of  the  usual  notice  of  his  father's  name,  it  has  been 
Conjectured  that  he  was  a  novus  homo.  [W.  L.  B.] 


SHEB'UEL 


:  Subuel, 


baefy  3.  A  descendant  of  Gershom  (1  Chr.  xxiii. 
zx\  '..  24),  who  was  ruler  of  the  treasures  of  the 
house  of  God;  called  also  SHUBAE.L  (1  Chr.  xxiv. 
20).  The  Targum  of  1  Chr.  xxvi.  24  has  a  strange 
piece  of  confusion  :  "  And  Shebuel,  that  is,  Jona 
than  the  son  of  Gershom  the  son  of  Moses,  returned 
to  the  fear  of  Jehovah,  and  when  David  saw  that 
he  was  skilful  in  money  matters  he  appointed  him 
chief  over  the  treasures."  He  is  the  last  descendant 
of  Moses  of  whom  there  is  any  trace. 

2.  One  of  the  fourteen  sons  of  Heman  the  min 
strel  (1  Chr.  xxv.  4)  ;  called  also  SHUBAEL  (1  Chr. 
xxv.  20),  which  was  the  reading  of  the  LXX.  and 
Vulgate.  He  was  chief  of  the  thirteenth  band  of 
twelve  in  the  Temple  choir. 

SHECANI'AH  (•1iT3DE>  :   ^eX€vtas  :  Seche- 


SHECHEM 

head  of  their  tribe  in  the  time  of  Jacob  (Gen 
xxxiii.  18,  sq.),  or  whether  he  received  his  name 
from  the  city.  The  import  of  the  name  favours, 
certainly,  the  latter  supposition,  since  the  pcsitiot 
of  the  place  on  the  "  saddle  "  or  "  shoulder  "  cf  the 
ihts  which  divide  the  waters  there  that  flow  tc 


• 

I  heigh 


nid).  1.  The  tenth  in  order  of  the  priests  who 
were  appointed  by  lot  in  the  reign  of  David  (1  Chr. 
xxiv.  11). 

2.  (Se^ovias:  Sechenias.}  A  priest  in  the  reign 
of  Hezekiah,  one  of  those  appointed  in  the  cities  of 
the  priests  to  distribute  to  their  brethren  their 
daily  portion  for  their  service  (2  Chr.  xxxi.  15). 

SHECHANrAH(n\JD^:  Sexepfos:  Seche 

nias).  1.  A  descendant  of  Zerubbabel  of  the  line 
royal  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  iii.  21,  22). 

2.  (Saxavias.)  Some  descendants  of  Shechaniah 
appear  to  have  returned  with  Ezra  (Ezr.  viii.  3). 
He  is  called  SECHENIAS  in  1  Esd.  viii.  29. 

3.  C2fX€V'ia5-}    The  sons  of  Shechaniah  were 
another  family  who  returned  with  Ezra,  three  hun 
dred  strong,  with  the  son  of  Jahaziel  at  their  head 
(Ezr.  viii.  5).     In  this  verse  some  name  appears  to 
have  been  omitted.     The  LXX.  has  "  of  the  sons 
of  Zathoe,  Sechenias  the  son  of  Aziel,"  and  in  this 
it  is  followed  by  1  Esd.  viii.  32,  "  of  the  sons  of 
Zathoe,  Sechenias  the  son  of  Jezelus."    Perhaps  the 
reading  should  be  :  "  of  the  sons  of  Zattu,  Shecha 
niah,  the  son  of  Jahaziel." 

4.  The  son  of  Jehiel  of  the  sons  of  Elam,  who 
proposed  to  Ezra  to  put  an  end  to  the  foreign  mar 
riages  which  had  been  contracted  after  the  return 
from  Babylon  (Ezr.  x.  2). 

5.  The  father  of  Shemaiah  the  keeper  of  the 
east  gate  of  Jerusalem  (Neh.  iii.  29). 

6.  The  son  of  Arah,  and  father-in-law  to  Tobiah 
the  Ammonite  (Neh.  vi.  18). 

7.  (Sex€l/t'a  :  Sebenias.*)  The  head  of  a  priestly 
family  who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Neh.  xii.  3). 
He  is  also  called  SHEBANIAH,  and  SHECANIAH, 
and  was  tenth  in  order  of  the  priests  in  the  reign 
of  David. 

SHEOH'EM  (D3  .,  "shoulder,"  "ridge,"  like 

dorsum  in  Latin  :  2uxc'/i  in  most  passages,  but  also 
1}  ^iKifjia  in  1  K.  xii.  25,  and  TO  'S.imp.a,  as  in 
Josh.  xxiv.  32,  the  form  used  by  Josephus  and  Euse- 
bius,  with  still  other  variations  :  Sicheiri).  There 
may  be  some  doubt  respecting  the  origin  of  the 
name.  It  has  been  made  a  question  whether  the 
place  was  so  called  from  Shechem,  the  son  of  Hamor, 

*  From  the  foot  of  the  mountains  on  either  side  of  the 
town  can  be  discerned  an  the  one  hand  the  range  beyond 
Jordan  Valley,  and  on  the  other  the  blue  waters  of  the 


the  Mediterran&an  on  the  west  and  the  Jordan  on 
the  a  east,  would  naturally  originate  such  a  name  ; 
and  the  name,  having  been  thus  introduced,  would 
be  likely  to  appear  again  and  again  in  the  family  ol 
the  hereditaiy  rulers  of  the  ctiy  or  region.  The 
name,  too,  if  first  given  to  the  city  in  the  time  o/ 
Hamor,  would  have  been  taken,  according  to  histo 
rical  analogy,  from  the  father  rather  than  the  son. 
Some  interpret  Gen.  xxiii.  18,  19  as  showing  that 
Shechem  in  that  passage  may  have  been  called  also 
Shalem.  But  this  opinion  has  no  support  except 
from  that  passage  ;  and  the  meaning  even  there 
more  naturally  is,  that  Jacob  came  in  safety  to 

Shechem  (D/t^,  as  an  adjective,  safe  ;  comp.  Gen. 

xviii.  21)  ;  or  (as  recognised  in  the  Eng.  Bible) 
that  Shalem  belonged  to  Shechem  as  a  dependent 
tributary  village.  [SHALEM.]  The  name  is  also 
given  in  the  Auth.  Version  in  the  form  of  SICHEM, 
and  SYCHEM,  to  which,  as  well  as  SYCHAR,  the 
reader  is  referred. 

The  etymology  of  the  Hebrew  word  shecem  indi 
cates,  at  the  outset,  that  the  place  was  situated  on 
some  mountain  or  hill-side  ;  and  that  presumption 
agrees  with  Josh.  xx.  7,  which  places  it  in  Mount 
Ephraim  (see,  also,  1  K.  xii.  25),  and  with  Judg. 
ix.  9,  which  represents  it  as  under  the  summit  of 
Gerizim,  which  belonged  to  the  Ephraim  range. 
The  other  Biblical  intimations  in  regard  to  its 
situation  are  only  indirect.  They  are  worth 
noticing,  though  no  great  stress  be  laid  on  them. 
Thus,  for  example,  Shechem  must  have  been  not 
far  from  Shiloh,  since  Shiloh  is  said  (Judg.  xxi.  1  ) 
to  be  a  little  to  the  east  of  "  the  highway  "  which 
led  from  Bethel  to  Shechem.  Again,  if  Shalem 
in  Gen.  xxxiii.  18  be  a  proper  name,  as  our  version 
assumes,  and  identical  with  the  present  Salim  on 
the  left  of  the  plain  of  the  Mukhna,  then  Shechem, 
which  is  said  to  be  east  of  Skalim,  must  have  been 
among  the  hills  on  the  opposite  side.  Further, 
Shechem,  as  we  leam  from  Joseph's  histoiy  (Gen. 
xxxvii.  12,  &c.),  must  have  been  near  Dothan  ;  and, 
assuming  Dothan  to  be  the  place  of  that  name  a 
few  miles  north-east  of  Ndbuliis,  Shechem  must 
have  been  among  the  same  mountains,  not  far  dis 
tant.  So,  too,  as  the  Sychar  in  John  iv.  5  was 
probably  the  ancient  Shechem,  that  town  must 
have  been  near  Mount  Gerizim,  to  which  the  Sa 
maritan  woman  pointed  or  glanced  as  she  stood  by 
the  well  at  its  foot. 

But  the  historical  and  traditional  data  which 
exist  outside  of  the  Bible  are  abundant  and  decisive. 
Josephus  (Ant.  iv.  8,  §44)  describes  Shechem  as 
between  Gerizim  and  Ebal  :  TT?S  ^iKi/mcav  Tr6\e<as 
v  Si/oil/  opoIV,  Tapifaiov  /j.fv  TOV  e/c  8e£i<ij> 
ov,  TOV  5'  e/c  Xaiuv  TifiaXov  Trpovayopevo- 
.  The  present  Nabulus  is  a  corruption 
merely  of  Neapolis  ;  and  Neapolis  succeeded  the 
more  ancient  Shechem.  All  the  early  writers  who 
touch  on  the  topography  of  Palestine,  testify  to 
this  identity  of  the  two.  Josephus  usually  retains 
the  old  name,  but  has  Neapolis  in  B.  J.  iv.  8,  §1. 

Mediterranean.  The  latter  appears  in  the  illustration  to 
this  article. 


SHECHEM. 


1235 


The  Valley  and  Town  of  A'aM»».  the  ancient  Shecnem.  from  ttij  South- western  flanx  of  Mount  Ehal.  looking  Westward.    The  nrmnrnl 
on  the  left  is  Gerizim     The  Mediterranean  is  discernible  in  the  distance.     From  a  sketch  by  VV.  Tipping,  Ksq. 


Epiphanius  says  (Adv.  Haer.  iii.  1055):  eV  2i/a- 
fiois,  TOUT'  fffriv,  ej>  rrj  vvvi  NfciTroAet.  Jerome 
says  in  the  Epit.  Paulae :  "  Transivit  Sichem,  quae 
nunc  Neapolis  appellatur."  The  city  received  its 
new  name  (NediroXts  =  Ndbuhis)  from  Vespasian, 
and  on  coins  still  extant  (Eckhel,  Doctr.  Numrn.  iii. 
433)  is  called  Flavia  Neapolis.  It  had  been  laid 
waste,  in  all  probability,  during  the  Jewish  war ; 
and  the  overthrow  had  been  so  complete  that,  con 
trary  to  what  is  generally  true  in  such  instances, 
of  the  substitution  of  a  foreign  name  for  the  native 
one,  the  original  appellation  of  Shechem  never 
regained  its  currency  among  the  people  of  the 
country.  Its  situation  accounts  for  another  name 
which  it  bore  among  the  natives,  while  it  was 
known  chiefly  as  Neapolis  to  foreigners.  It  is 
nearly  midway  between  Judaea  and  Galilee ;  and, 
it  being  customary  to  make  four  stages  of  the 
journey  between  those  provinces,  the  second  day's 
halt  occurs  most  conveniently  at  this  place.  Being 
thus  a  "thoroughfare"  (^NrniyiD)  on  this  im 
portant  route,  it  was  called b  also  MafiopOd  or 
Maj8ap0a,  as  Josephus  states  (B.  J.  iv.  8,  §1). 
He  says  there  that  Vespasian  marched  from  Am- 
maus,  5m  TTJS  2<tytapeiTi8oy  KCU.  Trapa  rrjv  Nea- 
iro\iv  Ka\ovfj.fvr]i',  Ma;8op0&  Se  virb  riav  eia- 
Xupiwv.  Pliny  (ff.  N.  v.  13)  writes  the  same 
name  "  Mamortha."  Others  would  restrict  the 
term  somewhat,  and  understand  it  rather  of  the 
"  pass  "  or  "  gorge"  through  the  mountains  where 
the  town  was  situated  (Hitter's  Erdkunde,  Pal. 
546). 

The  ancient  town,  in  its  most  flourishing  age, 

b  This  bappy  conjecture,  in  explanation   of  a  name 
.vl:!ch  baffled  even  the  ingenious!  lleland,  is  due  to  Ols- 
fitter,  as  above). 


may  have  filled  a  wider  circuit  than  its  modern 
representative.  It  could  easily  have  extended 
further  up  the  side  of  Gerizim,  and  eastward  nearer 
to  the  opening  into  the  valley  from  the  plain. 
But  any  great  change  in  this  respect,  certainly  the 
idea  of  an  altogether  different  position,  the  natural 
conditions  of  the  locality  render  doubtful.  That 
the  suburbs  of  the  town,  ^in  the  age  of  Christ, 
approached  nearer  than  at  present  to  the  entrance 
into  the  valley  between  Gerizim  and  Ebal,  may 
be  inferred  from  the  implied  vicinity  of  Jacob's 
well  to  Sychar,  in  John's  narrative  (iv.  1,  sq.). 
The  impression  made  there  on  the  reader  is,  that 
the  people  could  be  readily  seen  as  they  came  foilh 
from  the  town  to  repair  to  Jesus  at  the  well , 
whereas  Kdbuliis  is  more  than  a  mile  distant,  and 
not  visible  from  that  point.  The  present  in 
habitants  nave  a  belief  or  tradition  that  Shechem 
occupied  a  portion  of  the  valley  on  the  east  Leyond 
the  limits  of  the  modern  town;  and  certain  tra 
vellers  speak  of  ruins  there,  which-  they  regard  as 
evidence  of  the  same  fact.  The  statement  of 
Eusebius  that  Sychar  lay  east  of  Neapolis,  may 
be  explained  by  the  circumstance,  that  the  part 
of  Neapolis  in  that  quarter  had  fallen  into  such 
a  state  of  ruin  when  he  lived,  as  to  be  mistaken 
for  the  site  of  a  separate  town  (see  Iceland's 
Palaest.  1004).  The  portion  of  the  town  on  the 
edge  of  the  plain  was  more  exposed  than  that  in 
the  recess  of  the  valley,  and,  in  the  natural  course 
of  things,  would  be  destroyed  first,  or  be  left  to 
desertion  and  decay.  Josephus  says  that  more  than 
ten  thousand  Samaritans  (Inhabitants  of  Shechem 
are  meant}  were  destroyed  by  the  Romans  on  one 
occasion  (B.  J.  iii.  7,  §32).  The  populaticn,  there 
fore,  must  have  been  much  greater  than  JS'abulut 
with  its  present  dimensions  would  contain. 

4  K  2 


1236 


RHEOHEM 


The  situation  of  the  town  is  one  of  surpassing 
beauty.  "  The  land  of  Syria,"  said  Mohammed, 
"  is  beloved  by  Allah  beyond  all  lands,  and  the  part 
of  Syria  which  He  loveth  most  is  the  district  of 
Jerusalem,  and  the  place  which  He  loveth  most  in 
the  district  of  Jerusalem  is  the  mountain  of 
Nablus"  (Fandgr.  des  Orients,  ii.  139).  Its  ap 
pearance  has  called  forth  the  admiration  of  all  tra 
vellers  who  have  any  sensibility  to  the  charms  of 
nature.  It  lies  in  a  sheltered  valley,  protected  by 
Gerizim  on  the  south,  and  Ebal  on  the  north.  The 
feet  of  these  mountains,  where  they  rise  from  the 
town,  are  not  more  than  five  hundred  yards  apart. 
The  bottom  of  the  valley  is  about  1800  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  sea,  and  the  top  of  Gerizim  800  feet 
higher  still.  Those  who  have  been  at  Heidelberg 
will  assent  to  0.  von  Richter's  remark,  that  the 
scenery,  as  viewed  from  the  foot  of  the  hills,  is  not 
unlike  that  of  the  beautiful  German  town.  The 
site  of  the  present  city,  which  we  believe  to  have  been 
also  that  of  the  Hebrew  city,  occurs  exactly  on  the 
water-summit;  and  streams  issuing  from  the  nu 
merous  springs  there,  flow  down  the  opposite  slopes 
of  the  valley,  spreading  verdure  and  fertility  in  every 
direction.  Travellers  vie  with  each  other  in  the  lan 
guage  which  they  employ  to  describe  the  scene  that 
bursts  here  so  suddenly  upon  them  on  arriving  in 
spring  or  early  summer  at  this  pi'i'adise  of  the  Holy 
Land.  The  somewhat  sterile  aspect  of  the  adjacent 
mountains  becomes  itself  a  foil,  as  it  were,  to  set  off 
the  effect  of  the  verdant  fields  and  orchards  which 
fill  up  the  valley.  "  There  is  'nothing  finer  in  all 
Palestine,"  says  Dr.  Clarke,  "  than  a  view  of  Ndbulus 
from  the  heights  around  it.  As  the  traveller  descends 
towards  it  from  the  hills,  it  appears  luxuriantly 
embosomed  in  the  most  delightful  and  fragrant 
bowers,  half  concealed  by  rich  gardens  and  by 
stately  trees  collected  into  groves,  all  around  the 
bold  and  beautiful  valley  in  which  it  stands." 
"The  whole  valley/'  says  Dr.  Robinson,  "was 
rilled  with  gardens  of  vegetables,  and  orchards  of 
all  kinds  of  fruits,  watered  by  fountains,  which 
burst  forth  in  various  parts  and  flow  westwards  in 
refreshing  streams.  It  came  upon  us  suddenly  like 
a  scene  of  fairy  enchantment.  We  saw  nothing  to 
compare  with  it  in  all  Palestine.  Here,  beneath 
the  shadow  of  an  immense  mulberry-tree,  by  the 
side  of  a  purling  rill,  we  pitched  our  tent  for  the 
remainder  of  the  day  and  the  night.  .  .  .  We  rose 
early,  awakened  by  the  songs  of  nightingales  and 
other  birds,  of  which  the  gardens  around  us  were 
full."  "  There  is  no  wilderness  here,"  says  Van 
de  Velde  (i.  386),  "  there  are  no  wild  thickets, 
yet  there  is  always  verdure,  always  shade,  not  of 
the  oak,  the  terebinth,  and  the  caroub-tree,  but  of 
the  olive -grove,  so  soft  in  colour,  so  picturesque  in 
form,  that,  for  its  sake,  we  can  willingly  dispense 
with  all  other  wood.  There  is  a  singularity  about 
the  vale  of  Shechem,  and  that  is  the  peculiar 
colouring  which  objects  assume  in  it.  You  know 
that  wherever  there  is  water  the  air  becomes 
charged  with  watery  particles,  and  that  distant 
objects  beheld  through  that  medium  seem  to  be 
enveloped  in  a  pale  blue  or  gray  mist,  such  as 
contributes  not  a  little  to  give  a  charm  to  the  land 
scape.  But  it  is  precisely  those  atmospheric  tints 


c  The  rendering  "  plains  of  Moreh  "  in  the  Auth.  Vc-rs. 
is  incorrect.  The  Samaritan  Pen t;i touch  translates  H^N 
lu  Gen.  xxxv.  4  "  bow"  or  "arch;"  and  on  the  basis  of 


SHECHJBM 

that  we  miss  so  much  in  Palestine.  Fiery  tints  art 
to  be  seen  both  in  the  morning  and  the  evening, 
and  glittering  violet  or  purple  coloured  hues  where 
the  light  falls  next  to  the  long,  deep  .shadows  ;  but 
there  is  an  absence  of  colouring,  and  of  that  charm 
ing  dusky  hue  in  which  objects  assume  such  softly 
blended  forms,  and  in  which  also  the  transition  in 
colour  from  the  foreground  to  the  farthest  distance 
loses  the  hardness  of  outline  peculiar  to  the  perfect 
transparency  of  an  eastern  sky.  It  is  otherwise  in 
the  vale  of  Shechem,  at  least  in  the  morning  and 
the  evening.  Here  the  exhalations  remain  hovering 
among  the  branches  and  leaves  of  the  olive-trees, 
and  hence  that  lovely  bluish  haze.  The  valley  is 
far  from  broad,  not  exceeding  in  some  places  a  few 
hundred  feet.  This  you  find  generally  enclosed  on 
all  sides  ;  here,  likewise,  the  vapours  are  condensed. 
And  so  you  advance  under  the  shade  of  the  foliage, 
along  the  living  waters,  and  charmed  by  the  melody 
of  a  host  of  singing  birds  —  for  they,  too,  know  where 
to  find  their  best  quarters  —  while  the  perspective 
fades  away  and  is  lost  in  the  damp,  vapoury  atmo 
sphere."  Apart  entirely  from  the  historic  interest  of 
the  place,  such  are  the  natural  attractions  of  this 
favourite  resort  of  the  patriarchs  of  old,  such  the 
beaut/  of  the  scenery,  and  the  indescribable  air  of 
tranquillity  and  repose  which  hangs  over  the  scene, 
that  the  traveller,  aiiiiuus  as  he  may  be  to  hasten 
forward  in  his  joun^y,  feels  that  he  would  gladly 
linger,  and  could  pas?  'here  days  and  weeks  without 
impatience. 

The  allusions  .to  Shechem  in  the  Bible  are 
numerous,  and  show  how  important  the  place  was 
in  Jewish  history.  Abraham,  on  his  first  migra 
tion  to  the  Land  of  Promise,  pitched  his  tent  and 
built  an  altar  under  the  c  Oak  (or  Terebinth)  of 
Moreh  at  Shechem.  "  The  Canaanite  was  then  in 
the  land  ;"  and  it  is  evident  that  the  region,  if  not 
the  city,  was  already  in  possession  of  the  aboriginal 
race  (see  Gen.  xii.  6).  Some  have  inferred  from 


the  expression,  "  place  of  Shechem," 

that  it  was  not  inhabited  as  a  city  in  the  time  of 
Abraham.  But  we  have  the  same  expression  used 
of  cities  or  towns  in  other  instances  (Gen.  xviii.  24, 
xix.  12,  xxix.  22)  ;  and  it  may  have  been  inter 
changed  here,  without  any  difference  of  meaning, 
with  the  phrase,  "  city  of  Shechem,"  which  occurs 
in  xxxiii.  18.  A  position  affording  such  natural  ad 
vantages  would  hardly  fail  to  be  occupied,  as  soon 
as  any  population  existed  in  the  country.  The 
narrative  shows  incontestably  that  at  the  time  of 
Jacob's  arrival  here,  after  his  sojourn  in  Meso 
potamia  (Gen.  xxxiii.  18,  xxxiv.),  Shechem  was  a 
Hivite  city,  of  which  Hamor,  the  father  of 
Shechem,  was  the  head-man.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  the  patriarch  purchased  from  that  chieftain 
"  the  parcel  of  the  field,"  which  he  subsequently 
bequeathed,  as  a  special  patrimony,  to  his  sou 
Joseph  (Gen.  xliii.  22  ;  Josh.  xxiv.  32  ;  John  iv.  5). 
The  field  lay  undoubtedly  on  the  rich  plain  of  the 
Mukhna,  and  its  value  was  the  greater  on  account 
of  the  well  which  Jacob  had  dug  there,  sc  as  not  to 
be  dependent  on  his  neighbours  for  a  supply  ol 
water.  The  defilement  of  Dinah,  Jacob's  daughter, 
and  the  capture  of  Shechem  and  massacre  of  all 

that  error  the  Samaritans  at  Nabulus  sbow  a  structure 
of  that  sort  under  an  acclivity  of  Gerizim,  whkb  tfcej' 
say  was  the  spot  where  Jacob  buried  the  Mesopotamia 
idols. 


SHEOHEM 

the  male  inhabitants  by  Simeon  and  Levi,  are 
events  that  belong  to  this  period  (Gen.  rxxiv.  1  sq.). 
As  this  bloody  act,  which  Jacob  so  entirely  con 
demned  ^Gen.  xxxiv.  30')  and  reprobated  with  his 
dying  breath  (Gen.  xlix.  5-7),  is  ascribed  to  two 
persons,  some  urge  that  as  evidence  of  the  very 
insignificant  character  of  the  town  at  the  time  of 
that  transaction.  But  the  argument  is  by  no 
means  decisive.  Those  sons  of  Jacob  were  already 
at  the  head  of  households  of  their  own,  and  may 
have  had  the  support,  in  that  achievement,  of  their 
numerous  slaves  and  retainers.  We  speak,  in  like 
manner,  of  a  commander  as  taking  this  or  that 
city,  when  we  mean  that  it  was  done  under  his 
leadership.  The  oak  under  which  Abraham  had 
worshipped,  survived  to  Jacob's  time ;  and  the 
latter,  as  he  was  about  to  remove  to  Bethel,  col 
lected  the  images  and  amulets  which  some  of  his 
family  had  brought  with  them  from  Padan-aram, 
and  buried  them  "  under  the  oak  which  was  by 
Shechem  "  (Gen.  xxxv.  1-4).  The  "oak  of  the 

monument"  (if  we  adopt  that  rendering  of  \l?K 
2-Vp  in  Judg.  ix.  6),  where  the  Shechemites  made 
Abimelech  king,  marked,  perhaps,  the  veneration 
with  which  the  Hebrews  looked  back  to  these 
earliest  footsteps  (the  incunabula  gentis]  of  the 
patriarchs  in  the  Holy  Land.tl  During  Jacob's 
sojourn  at  Hebron,  his  sons,  in  the  course  of  their 
pastoral  wanderings,  drove  their  flocks  to  Shechem, 
and  at  Dothan,  in  that  neighbourhood,  Joseph,  who 
.  had  been  sent  to  look  after  their  welfare,  was  seized 
and  sold  to  the  Ishmaelites  (Gen.  xxxvii.  12,  28). 
In  the  distribution  of  the  land  after  its  conquest  by 
the  Hebrews,  Shechem  fell  to  the  lot  of  Ephraim 
(Josh.  xx.  7),  but  was  assigned  to  the  Levites,  and 
became  a  city  of  refuge  (Josh.  xxi.  20,  21).  It 
acquired  new  importance  as  the  scene  of  the  re 
newed  promulgation  of  the  Law,  when  its  blessings 
were  heard  from  Gerizim  and  its  curses  from  Ebal, 
and  the  people  bowed  their  heads  and  acknowledged 
Jehovah  as  their  king  and  ruler  (Deut.  xxvii.  11; 
and  Josh.  ix.  33-35).  It  was  here  Joshua  as 
sembled  the  people,  shortly  before  his  death,  and 
delivered  to  them  iiis  last  counsels  (Josh.  xxiv. 
1,  25).  After  the  death  of  Gideon,  Abimelech,  his 
bastard  son,  induced  the  Shechemites  to  revolt 
from  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  and  elect  him  as 
king  (Judg.  ix.).  It  was  to  denounce  this  act  of 
usurpation  and  treason  that  Jotham  delivered  his 
parable  of  the  trees  to  the  men  of  Shechem  from 
the  top  of  Gerizim,  as  recorded  at  length  in  Judg. 
ix.  22  sq.  The  picturesque  traits  of  the  allegory,  as 
Prof.  Stanley  suggests  (S.  $  P.  236 ;  Jewish  Church, 
348),  are  strikingly  appropriate  to  the  diversified 
foliage  of  the  region.  In  revenge  for  his  expulsion, 
after  a  reign  of  three  years,  Abimelech  destroyed  the 
city,  and,  as  an  emblem  of  the  fate  to  which  he  would 
consign  it,  sowed  the  ground  with  salt  (Judg.  ix. 
34-45).  It  was  soon  restored,  however,  for  we 
are  told  in  1  K.  xii.  that  all  Israel  assembled  at 
Shechem,  and  Rehoboam,  Solomon's  successor,  went 
thither  to  be  inaugurated  as  king.  Its  central 
position  made  it  convenient  for  such  assemblies  ; 
Its  history  was  fraught  with  recollections  which 


SHECHEM 


1237 


d  Here  again  the  Auth.  Vers.,  which  renders  "  the  plain 
of  the  pillar,"  is  o.-nainly  wrong.  It  will  not  answer  to 
insist  on  the  explanation  suggested  in  tte  text  of  the 
iUticAe.  The  Hebrew  expression  may  refer  to  "  the  stone  " 
\vb;cb  Joshua  erected  at  Shechem  as  a  witM/aa  of  the 


would  give  the  sanctions  ol  religion  as  well  i\s  of 
patriotism  to  the  vows  of  sovereign  and  people. 
The  new  king's  obstinacy  made  him  insensible  tc 
such  influences.  Here,  at  this  same  j  dace,  the  ten 
tiibes  renounced  the  house  of  David,  and  transferred 
their  allegiance  to  Jeroboam  (1  K.  xii.  16),  under 
whom  Shechem  became  for  a  time  the  capital  of 
his  kingdom.  We  come  next  to  the  epoch  of  the 
exile.  The  people  of  Shechem  doubtless  sharr*i 
the  fate  of  the  other  inhabitants,  and  were,  most  ol 
them  at  least,  carried  into  captivity  (2  K.  xvii. 
5,  6,  xviii.  9  sq.).  But  Shalmaneser,  the  con. 
queror,  sent  colonies  from  Babylonia  to  occupy  the 
place  of  the  exiles  (2  K.  xvii.  24).  It  would  seem 
that  there  was  another  influx  of  strangers,  at  a 
later  period,  under  Esar-haddon  (Ezr.  iv.  2).  The 
"  certain  men  from  Shechem,"  mentioned  in  Jer. 
xii.  5,  who  were  slain  on  their  way  to  Jeru 
salem,  were  possibly  Cuthites,  i.  e.  Babylonian 
immigrants  who  had  become  proselytes  or  wor 
shippers  of  Jehovah  (see  Hitzig,  Der  Proph.  Jer. 
p.  331).  These  Babylonian  settlers  in  the  land, 
intermixed  no  doubt  to  some  extent  with  the  old 
inhabitants,  were  the  Samaritans,  who  erected  at 
length  a  rival  temple  on  Gerizim  (B.C.  300),  and 
between  whom  and  the  Jews  a  bitter  hostility  existed 
for  so  many  ages  (Jos.  Ant.  xii.  1,  §1,  xiii.  3,  §4), 
The  Son  of  Sirach  (1.  26)  says,  that  "  a  foolish 
people,"  i.e.  the  Samaritans,  "dwelt  at  Shechem" 
(TO.  ^LKt/jLa}.  From  its  vicinity  to  their  place  oi 
worship,  it  became  the  principal  city  of  the  Sama 
ritans,  a  rank  which  it  maintained  at  least  till 
the  destruction  of  their  temple,  about  B.C.  129, 
a  period  of  nearly  two  hundred  years  (Jos.  Ant. 
xiii.  9,  §1  ;  B.  J.  i.  2,  6).  It  is  unnecessary 
to  pursue  this  sketch  further.  From  the  time 
of  the  origin  of  the  Samaritans,  the  history  of 
Shechem  blends  itself  with  that  of  this  people 
and  of  their  sacred  mount,  Gerizim ;  and  the 
reader  will  find  the  proper  information  on  thit 
part  of  the  subject  under  those  heads  (see  Herzog, 
Real-Encyk.  xiii.  362.)  [SAMARIA,  SAMARITAN 
PENT.] 

As  intimated  already,  Shechem  reappears  in  the 
New  Testament.  It  is  the  Sychar  of  John  iv.  5, 
near  which  the  Saviour  conversed  with  the  Samaritan 
woman  at  Jacob's  Well.  2ux«P>  as  tne  place  is 
termed  there  (2ix^P  m  Rec.Text  is  incorrect),  found 
only  in  that  passage,  was,  no  doubt,  current  among 
the  Jews  in  the  age  of  Christ,  and  was  either  a  term 

of  reproach  (~\\>W,  "  a  lie ")  with  reference  to  the 

Samaritan  faith  and  worship,  or,  possibly,  a  pro 
vincial  mispronunciation  of  that  period  (see  Liicke's 
Comm.  ub.  Johan.  i.  577).  The  Saviour,  with  His 
disciples,  remained  two  days  at  Sychar  on  His 
journey  from  Judaea  to  Galilee.  He  preached  the 
Word  there,  and  many  of  the  people  believed  on 
Him  (John  iv.  39,  40).  In  Acts  vii.  16,  Stephen 
reminds'  his  hearers  that  certain  of  the  patriarchs 
(meaning  Joseph,  as  we  see  in  Josh.  xxiv.  32,  and 
following,  perhaps,  some  tradition  as  to  Jacob's 
other  sons)  were  buried  at  Sychem.  Jerome,  who 
lived  so  long  hardly  more  than  a  day's  journey 
from  Shechem,  says  that  the  tombs  of  the  twelve 


covenant  between  God  and  His  people  (Josh.  xxiv.  26) , 
or  may  mean  "  the  oak  of  the  garrison,"  i.  e.  the  one 
where  a  military  post  was  established.  (See  Gesea 
Hcl>.  Lfx  s.  v.)  [PILLAR,  PLAIN  OF  THK.  p.  877  uQ 


1238 


SKECHEM 


patriarchs  were  to  be  seen*  thern  in  his  day.  The 
anonymous1  city  in  Acts  viii.  5,  where  Philip 
preached  with  such  effect,  may  have  been  Sychem, 
though  many  would  refer  that  narrative  to  Samaria, 
the  capital  of  the  province.  It  is  interesting  to 
remember  that  Justin  Martyr,  who  follows  so  soon 
aftor  the  age  of  the  Apostles,  was  born  at  Shechem. 

It  only  remains  to  add  a  few  words  relating 
more  especially  to  Ndbulus,  the  heir,  under  a 
different  name,  of  the  site  and  honours  of  the 
ancient  Shechem.  It  would  be  inexcusable  not  to 
avail  ourselves  here  of  some  recent  observations  of 
Dr.  Rosen,  in  the  Zeitschr.  der  D.  M.  Gesellschaft 
for  1860  fpp.  622-639).  He  has  inserted  in 
that  journal  a  careful  plan  of  Ndbulus  and  the 
environs,  with  various  accompanying  remarks. 
The  population  consists  of  about  five  thousand, 
among  whom  are  five  hundred  Greek  Christians,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  Samaritans,  and  a  few  Jews. 
The  enmity  between  the  Samaritans  and  Jews  is  as 
inveterate  still,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Christ. 
The  Mohammedans,  of  course,  make  up  the  bulk  of 
the  population.  The  main  street  follows  the  line 
of  the  valley  from  east  to  west,  and  contains  a  well- 
stocked  bazaar.  Most  of  the  other  streets  cross 
this :  here  are  the  smaller  shops  and  the  workstands 
of  the  artisans.  Most  of  the  streets  are  narrow  and 
dark,  as  the  houses  hang  over  them  on  arches,  very 
much  as  in  the  closest  parts  of  Cairo.  The  houses 
are  of  stone,  and  of  the  most  ordinary  style,  with 
the  exception  of  those  of  the  wealthy  sheikhs  of 
Samaria  who  live  here.  There  are  no  public  build- 
'ngs  of  any  note.  The  Keniseh  or  synagogue  of  the 
Samaritans  is  a  small  edifice,  in  the  interior  of 
which  there  is  nothing  remarkable,  unless  it  be  an 
alcove,  screened  by  a  curtain,  in  which  their  sacred 
writings  are  kept.  The  structure  may  be  three 
or  four  centuries  old.  A  description  and  sketch 
pkn  of  it  is  given  in  Mr.  Grove's  paper  On  the 
modern  Samaritans  in  Vacation  Tourists  for  1861. 
Ndbulus  has  five  mosks,  two  of  which,  according  to 
a  tradition  in  which  Mohammedans,  Christians,  and 
Samaritans  agree,  were  originally  churches.  One  of 
them,  it  is  said,  was  dedicated  to  John  the  Baptist ; 
its  eastern  portal,  still  well  preserved,  shows  the 
European  taste  of  its  founders.  The  domes  of  the 
houses  and  the  minarets,  as  they  show  themselves 
above  the  sea  of  luxuriant  vegetation  which  sur 
rounds  them,  present  a  striking  view  to  the  traveller 
approaching  from  the  east  or  the  west. 

Dr.  Rosen  says  that  the  inhabitants  boast  of  the 
existence  of  not  less  than  eighty  springs  of  water 
within  and  around  the  city.  He  gives  the  names  of 
twenty-seven  of  the  principal  of  them.  One  of  the 
most  remarkable  among  them  is  'Ain  el-Kerun, 
which  rises  in  the  town  under  a  vaulted  dome,  to 
which  a  long  flight  of  steps  leads  down,  from  which 
the  abundant  water  is  conveyed  by  canals  to  two  of 
the  mosks  and  many  of  the  private  houses,  and 
after  that  serves  to  water  the  gardens  on  the  north 
side  of  the  city.  The  various  streams  derived  from 
this  and  other  fountains,  after  being  distributed 
thus  among  the  gardens,  fall  at  length  into  a  single 
channel  and  turn  a  mill,  kept  going  summer  and 
winter.  Of  the  fountains  out  of  the  city,  three 

e  Probably  at  the  Rejd  el  Amud,  a  wely  at  the  foot  of 
fteriziiii,  east  of  the  city,  which  is  still  believed  to  contain 
tlie  remains  of  forty  eminent  Jewish  saints  (Rosen,  as 
•ibove).  Or.  Stanley  appears  to  have  been  the  first  to 
notice  the  possible  connexion  between  the  name  Amud, 


SHECHEM 

only  belong  to  the  eastern  water-shed.  One  tf 
them,  'Ain  Baldta,  close  to  the  hamlet  of  that 
name,  rises  in  a  partly  subterranean  chamber  sup- 
ported  by  three  pillars,  hardly  a  stone's  throw  from 
Jacob's  Well,  and  is  so  large,  that  Dr.  Rosen  ob 
served  small  fish  in  it.  Another,  'Ain  'Askar, 
issues  from  an  arched  passage  which  leads  into 
the  base  of  Ebal,  and  flows  thence  into  a  tank  en 
closed  by  hewn  stone,  the  workmanship  of  which, 
as  well  as  the  archway,  indicates  an  ancient  origin. 
The  third,  ' Ain  Defna,  which  comes  from  the  same 
mountain,  reminds  us,  by  its  name  (Ac^yrj),  of  the 
time  when  Shechem  was  called  Neapolis.  Some  of 
the  gardens  are  watered  from  the  fountains,  while 
others  have  a  soil  so  moist  as  not  to  need  such 
irrigation.  The  olive,  as  in  the  days  when  Jotham 
delivered  his  famous  parable,  is  still  the  principal 
tree.  Figs,  almonds,  walnuts,  mulberries,  grapes, 
oranges,  apricots,  pomegranates,  are  abundant.  The 
valley  of  the  Nile  itself  hardly  surpasses  Ndbulus  in 
the  production  of  vegetables  of  every  sort. 

Being,  as  it  is,  the  gateway  of  the  trade  between 
Jaffa  and  Beirut  on  the  one  side,  and  the  trans- 
Jordanic  districts  on  the  other,  and  the  centre  also  of 
a  province  so  rich  in  wool,  grain,  and  oil,  Ndbulu* 
becomes,  necessarily,  the  seat  of  an  active  com 
merce,  and  of  a  comparative  luxury  to  be  found  in 
veiy  few  of  the  inland  Oriental  cities.  It  produces, 
in  its  own  manufactories,  many  of  the  coarser 
woollen  fabrics,  delicate  silk  goods,  cloth  of  camel's 
hair,  and  especially  soap,  of  which  last  commodity 
large  quantities,  after  supplying  the  immediate 
country,  are  sent  to  Egypt  and  other  parts  of  the 
East.  The  ashes  and  other  sediments  thrown  out 
of  the  city,  as  the  result  of  the  soap  manufacture, 
have  grown  to  the  size  of  hills,  and  give  to  the 
environs  of  the  town  a  peculiar  aspect. 

Rosen,  during  his  stay  at  Ndbulus,  examined 
anew  the  Samaritan  inscriptions  found  there,  sup 
posed  to  be  among  the  oldest  written  monuments  in 
Palestine.  He  has  furnished,  as  Professor  Riidiger 
admits,  the  best  copy  of  them  that  has  been  taken 
(see  a  fac-simile  in  Zeitschrift,  as  above,  p.  62 IV 
The  inscriptions  on  stone-tablets,  distinguished  m 
his  account  as  No.  1  and  No.  2,  belonged  originally  to 
a  Samaritan  synagogue  which  stood  just  out  of  the 
city,  near  the  Samaritan  quarter,  of  which  syna 
gogue  a  few  remains  only  are  now  left.  They  are 
thought  to  be  as  old  at  least  as  the  age  of  Justinian, 
who  (A.D-.  529)  destroyed  so  many  of  the  Samaritan 
places  of  worship.  Some,  with  less  reason,  think 
they  may  have  been  saved  from  the  temple  on 
Gerizim,  having  been  transferred  afterwards  to  a 
later  synagogue.  One  of  the  tablets  is  now  inserted 
in  the  wall  of  a  minaret ;  the  other  was  discovered 
not  long  ago  in  a  heap  of  rubbish  not  far  from  it. 
The  inscriptions  consist  of  brief  extracts  from  the 
Samaritan  Pentateuch,  probably  valuable  as  palaeo- 
graphic  documents. 

Similar  slabs  are  to  be  found  built  into  the  walls 
of  several  of  the  sanctuaries  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Ndbulus  ;  as  at  the  tombs  of  Eleazar,  Phinehas, 
and  Ithamar  at  Au-ertah. 

This  account  would  be  incomplete  without  some 
mention  of  the  two  spots  in  the  neighbourhood  of 

"  pillar,"  attached  to  this  wely,  as  well  as  to  one  en  tne 
west  end  of  Ebal,  and  the  old  Hebrew  locality  the  "  oak 
of  the  Pillar." 

f  The  Auth.  Vers.  inaccuiately  adds  the  article,,  It  to 
simply  "  a  city  of  Samaria." 


BHECHEM 


bear  the  names  of  the  Well  of  Jacob 
and  the  Tomb  of  Joseph.  Of  these  the  former 
,s  the  more  remarkable.  It  lies  about  a  mile  and 
•v  half  east  of  the  city,  close  to  the  lower  road, 
and  just  beyond  the  wretched  hamlet  of  Balata. 
Among  the  Mohammedans  and  Samaritans  it  is 
known  as  Bir  el-Yakub,  or  'Ain-Yakub  ;  the  Chris 
tians  sometimes  call  it  Bir  es-Samariyeh  —  "  the 
well  of  the  Samaritan  woman."  "  A  low  spur  pro 
jects  from  the  base  of  Gerizim  in  a  north  -eastern 
direction,  between  the  plain  and  the  opening  of  the 
valley.  On  the  point  of  this  spur  is  a  little  mound 
of  shapeless  ruins,  with  several  fragments  of  granite 
columns.  Beside  these  is  the  well.  Formerly  there 
was  a  square  hole  opening  into  a  carefully-built 
vaulted  chamber,  about  10  feet  square,  in  the  floor 
of  which  was  the  true  mouth  of  the  well.  Now  a 
portion  of  the  vault  has  fallen  in  and  completely 
covered  up  the  mouth,  so  that  nothing  can  be  seen 
above  but  a  shallow  pit  half  rilled  with  stones  and 
rubbish.  The  well  is  deep  —  75  ft.?  when  last 
measured  —  and  there  was  probably  a  considerable 
accumulation  of  rubbish  at  the  bottom.  Sometimes 
it  contains  a  few  feet  of  water,  but  at  others  it  is 
quite  dry  .  It  is  entirely  excavated  in  the  solid  rock, 
perfectly  round,  9  ft.  in  diameter,  with  the  sides 
hewn  smooth  and  regular"  (Porter,  Handbook, 
340).  "  It  has  every  claim  to  be  considered  the 
original  well,  sunk  deep  into  the  rocky  ground  by 
*  our  father  Jacob.'  "  This  at  least  was  the  tradition 
of  the  place  in  the  last  days  of  the  Jewish  people 
(John  iv.  6,  12).  And  its  position  adds  probability 
to'  the  conclusion,  indicating,  as  has  been  well  ob 
served,  that  it  was  there  dug  by  one  who  could  not 
trust  to  the  springs  so  near  in  the  adjacent  vale  — 
the  springs  of  'Ain  Balata  and  'Ain  Defneh  —  which 
still  belonged  to  the  Canaanites.  Of  all  the  special 
localities  of  our  Lord's  life,  this  is  almost  the  only 
one  absolutely  undisputed.  "  The  tradition,  in 
which  by  a  singular  coincidence  Jews  and  Sama 
ritans,  Christians  and  Mohammedans,  all  agree,  goes 
back,"  says  Dr.  Robinson  (B.  R.  ii.  284),  "  at 
least  to  the  time  of  Eusebius,  in  the  early  part  of 
the  4th  century.  That  writer  indeed  speaks  only 
of  the  sepulchre  ;  but  the  Bourdeaux  Pilgrim  in 
A.D.  333,  mentions  also  the  well;  and  neither  of 
these  wiiters  has  any  allusion  to  a  church.  But 
Jerome  in  Epitaphium  Paulae,  which  is  referred 
to  A.D.  404,  makes  her  visit  the  church  erected 
at  the  side  of  Mount  Gerizim  around  the  well  of 
Jacob,  where  our  Lord  met  the  Samaritan  woman. 
The  church  would  seem  therefore  to  have  been 
built  during  the  4th  century  ;  though  not  by 
Helena,  as  is  reported  in  modern  times.  It  was 
visited  and  is  mentioned,  as  around  the  well,  by 
Antoninus  Martyr  near  the  close  of  the  6th  cen 
tury  ;  by  Arculfus  a  century  later,  who  describes  it 
as  built  in  the  form  of  a  cross  ;  and  again  by  St. 
Willibald  in  the  8th  century.  Yet  Saewulf  about 
A.D.  1103,  and  Phocas  in  1185,  who  speak  of  the 
well,  make  no  mention  of  the  church  ;  whence  we 
may  conclude  that  the  latter  had  been  destroyed 
before  the  period  of  the  crusades.  Brocardub  speaks 
of  ruins  around  the  well,  blocks  of  marble  and  co 
lumns,  which  he  held  to  be  the  ruins  of  a  town, 
the  ancient  Thebez  ;  they  were  probably  those  of 
the  church,  to  which  he  makes  no  allusion.  Other 


SHECHEM 


1239 


travellers,  both  of  that  age  and  later,  speak  of  the 
church  only  aa  destroyed,  and  the  well  as  already  de 
serted.  Before  the  days  of  Euseiius,  there  seems  to 
be  no  historical  testimony  to  show  the  identity  of 
this  well  with  that  which  our  Saviour  visited ;  znd 
the  proof  must  therefore  rest,  so  far  as  it  can  be 
made  out  at  all,  on  circumstantial  eviAjnce.  I  an> 
not  aware  of  anything,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
that  goes  to  contradict  the  common  traditicfti ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  I  see  much  .in  the  circumstances 
tending  to  confirm  the  supposition  that  this  is 
actually  the  spot  where  our  Lord  held  his  conversa 
tion  with  the  Samaritan  woman.  Jesus  was  jour 
neying  from  Jerusalem  to  Galilee,  and  rested  at  the 
well,  while  '  his  disciples  were  gone  away  into  the 
city  to  buy  meat.'  The  well  therefore  lay  appa 
rently  before  the  city,  and  at  some  distance  from  it, 
In  passing  along  the  eastern  plain,  Jesus  had  halted 
at  the  well,  and  sent  his  disciples  to  the  city  situated 
in  the  narrow  valley,  intending  on  their  return  to 
proceed  along  the  plain  on  his  way  to  Galilee,  with 
out  himself  visiting  the  city.  All  this  corresponds 
exactly  to  the  present  character  of  the  ground.  The 
well  too  was  Jacob's  well,  of  high  antiquity,  a  known 
and  venerated  spot ;  which,  after  having  already 
lived  for  so  many  ages  in  tradition,  would  not  be 
likely  to  be  forgotten  in  the  two  and  a  half  centuries, 
intervening  between  St.  John  and  Eusebius." 

It  is  understood  that  the  well,  and  the  site  around 
it,  have  been  lately  purchased  by  the  Russian  Church, 
not,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  with  the  intention  of  erecting 
a  church  over  it,  and  thus  for  ever  destroying  the 
reality  and  the  sentiment  of  the  place. 

The  second  of  the  spots  alluded  to  is  the  Tomb 
of  Joseph.  It  lies  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  north 
of  the  well,  exactly  in  the  centre  of  the  opening  of 
the  valley  between  Gerizim  and  Ebal.  It  is  a  small 
square  enclosure  of  high  whitewashed  walls,  sur 
rounding  a  tomb  of  the  ordinary  kind,  but  with 
the  peculiarity  that  it  is  placed  diagonally  to  the 
walls,  instead  of  parallel,  as  usual.  A  rough  pillar 
used  as  an  altar,  and  black  with  the  traces  of  fire, 
is  at  the  head,  and  another  at  the  foot  of  the  tomb. 
In  the  left-hand  corner  as  you  enter  is  a  vine, 
whose  branches  "  run  over  the  wall,"  recalling 
exactly  the  metaphor  of  Jacob's  blessing  (Gen.  xlix. 
22).  In  the  walls  are  two  slabs  with  Hebrew  in 
scriptions,1*  and  the  interior  is  almost  covered  with 
the  names  of  pilgrims  in  Hebrew,  Arabic,  and  Sama 
ritan.  Beyond  this  there  is  nothing  to  remark  in 
the  structure  itself.  It  purports  to  cover  the  tomb 
of  Joseph,  buried  there  in  the  "  parcel  of  ground  " 
which  his  father  bequeathed  especially  to  him  his 
favourite  son,  and  in  which  his  bones  were  deposited 
after  the  conquest  of  the  country  was  completed 
(Josh.  xxiv.  32). 

The  local  tradition  of  the  Tomb,  like  that  of  the 
well,  is  as  old  as  the  beginning  of  the  4th  cent. 
Both  Eusebius  (Onomast.  2t/xeV)  and  the  Bour 
deaux  Pilgrim  mention  its  existence.  So  do  Ben 
jamin  of  Tudela  (U60-79),  and  Maundeville  (1322), 
and  so — to  pass  over  intermediate  travellers — does 
Maundrell  (1697).  All  that  is  wanting  in  these 
accou»ts  is  to  fix  the  tomb  which  they  mention  to 
the  present  spot.  But  this  is  difficult — Maundrell 
describes  it  as  on  his  right  hand,  in  leaving  Nablus 
for  Jerusalem  ;  "  just  without  the  city  " — a  small 


3  The  well  is  fast  filling  up  with  the  stones  thrown  In 
by  travellers  and  others.  At  Maundrell's  visit  (1697)  it 
"vas  105  ft.  deep,  and  the  same  measurement  is  given  by 
I>r.  Robinson  ;is  having  been  Oaken  In  May  1838.  But, 
live  vears  later,  when  Dr.  Wilson  recovered  Mr  A.  Dollar's 


Bible  from  it,  the  depth  had  decreased  to  "  exactly  75  " 
(Wilson's  Lands,  ii.  57).     Maundrell  (March  24)  found  15 
ft.  of  water  standing  in  the  well.    It  appears  now  to  b« 
always  dry. 
h  One  of  these  Is  given  by  Dr.  Wilson  (lands.  &c..  il.  61  > 


1210 


SHECHEM 


incsk,  "  built  over  the  sepulchre  of  Joseph  " 
(March  25).  Some  time  after  passing  it  he  arrives 
at  the  well.  Thi:;  description  is  quite  inapplicable 
&>  the  tomb  jusi  described,  but  perfectly  suits  the 
Wely  at  the  north-east  foot  of  Genzim,  which  also 
bears  (among  the  Moslems)  the  name  of  Joseph. 
And  when  the  expressions  of  the  two  oldest  autho 
rities'  cited  above  are  examined,  it  will  be  seen 
that  they  are  quite  as  suitable,  if  not  more  so,  to 
this  latter  spot  as  to  the  tomb  on  the  open  plain. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Jewish  travellers,k  from 
hap-Parchi  (cir.  1320)  downwards,  specify  the  tomb 
as  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  village  el- 
Balata.™ 

In  this  conflict  of  testimony,  and  in  the  absence 
cf  any  information  on  the  date  and  nature  of  the 
Moslem  n  tomb,  it  is  impossible  to  come  to  a 
definite  conclusion.  There  is  some  force,  and  that 
in  favour  of  the  received  site,  in  the  remarks  of  a 
learned  and  intelligent  Jewish  traveller  (Loewe,  in 
Allg.  Zcitung  des  Judenthums,  Leipzig,  1839,  No. 
50)  on  the  peculiar  form  and  nature  of  the  ground 
surrounding  the  tomb  near  the  well  :  the  more  so 
because  they  are  suggested  by  the  natural  features 
of  the  spot,  as  reflected  in  the  curiously  minute,  the 
almost  technical  language,  of  the  ancient  record, 
and  not  based  on  any  mere  traditional  or  artificial 
considerations.  "  The  thought,"  says  he,  "  forced 
itself  upon  me,  how  impossible  it  is  to  under 
stand  the  details  of  the  Bible  without  examining 
them  on  the  spot.  This  place  is  called  in  the 
Scripture,  neither  emek  ('  valley  ')  nor  shefela 
(•plain'),  but  by  the  individual  name  of  Chelkat 
Iuis-Sade\  and  in  the  whole  of  Palestine  there  is 
not  such  another  plot  to  be  found,  —  a  dead  level, 
without  the  least  hollow  or  swelling  in  a  circuit  of 
two  hours.  In  addition  to  this  it  is  the  loveliest 
and  most  fertile  spot  I  have  ever  seen."  [H.  B.  H.] 

SHEC'HEM.  The  names  of  three  persons  in 
the  annals  of  Israel. 

1.  (D2&?  :  2i/xe/u:  Sichem).  The  son  of  Ham  or 
the  chieftain  of  the  Ilivite  settlement  of  Shechem 
at  the  time  of  Jacob's  arrival   (Gen.  xxxiii.  19, 
xxxiv.  2-26  ;  Josh.  xxiv.  32  ;  Judg.  ix.  28). 

2.  (D3K>:  2vxeV:  8ectwri).    A  man  of  Ma- 


nasseh,  of  the  clan  of  Gilead,  and  head  of  the  family 
of  the  Shechemites  (Num.  xxvi.  31).  His  family 
are  again  mentioned  as  the  Beni-Shechem  (Josh. 
zvii.  2). 

3.  (D3^:  2tx*V:  Sechem).  In  the  lists  of 
1  Chr.  another  Shechem  is  named  amongst  the 
Gileadites  as  a  son  of  Shemida,  the  younger  brother 
of  the  foregoing  (vii.  19).  It  must  have  been  the 
recollection  of  one  of  these  two  Gik'adites  which  led 
Cyril  of  Alexandria  into  his  strange  fancy  (quoted 
by  Reland,  Pal  1007,  from  his  Comm.  on  Hosea) 
of  placing  the  city  of  Shechem  on  the  eastern  side 
of  the  Jordan.  [G.] 

SHECH'EMITES,  THE  ('ED^n  :  2vXef*i  : 

i  Euscbius  :—  iv  TrpoacrTeiois  Ne'as  jrdAews,  «/0a  /cat  6 
ratios  SetKWTou.  rov  'Iwcn?<|>. 

Bourdeaux  Pilgrim  :  —  "  Ad  pedem  mentis  locus  est  cui 
nomeuest  Sechim  :  ibi  positum  est  monumenlnm  ubiposi- 
tus  est  Joseph.  Inde  passus  mille  .  .  .  ubi  puteum,"  &o. 

*  ftenjaciiu  of  Tudola  (cir.  1  165)  says,  "  The  Samaritans 
arc  In  possession  of  the  tomb  of  Joseph  the  righteous  ;" 
but  does  not  define  its  position. 

m  See  the  Itineraries  entitled  Jichus  hat-tsadikim 
(A.D,  15S1),  and  Jickus  ha-Aboth  (1537),  in  Carmuly's 


SKEOHINAH 

Sechcmitac).  The  family  of  Shechem,  son  of  Gileaci 
one  of  the  minor  clans  of  the  Eastern  Manasaek 
(Num.  xxvi.  31  ;  comp.  Josh.  xvii.  2). 

SHECHI'NAH  (in  Chaldee  and  neo-Hebrew, 
n^DC?,  majestas  Dei,  praesentia  Dei,  Spiritut 
Sanctus,  Buxtorf ,  from  |3^  and  }3^,  "  to  rest " 
"  settle,"  "  dwell,"  whence  |3^D,  "a  tent,"  the 

Tabernacle  ;  comp.  ffKyvi]}.  This  term  is  not  found 
in  the  Bible.  It  was  used  by  the  later  Jews,  and 
borrowed  by  Christians  from  them,  to  express  the 
visible  majesty  of  the  Divine  Presence,  especially 
when  resting,  or  dwelling,  between  the  Cherubim 
on  the  mercy-seat  in  the  Tabernacle,  and  in  the 
temple  of  Solomon  ;  but  not  in  Zerubbabel's  temple, 
for  it  was  one  of  the  five  particulars  which  the 
Jews  reckon  to  have^been  wanting  in  the  second 
temple*  (Castell,  Lexic.  s.  v.  ;  Prideaux,  Connect. 
i.  p.  138).  The  use  of  the  term  is  first  found  in 
the  Targums,  where  it  forms  a  frequent  periphrasis 
for  God,  consideied  as  dwelling  amongst  the  chil 
dren  of  Israel,  and  is  thus  used,  especially  by  On- 
kelos,  to  avoid  ascribing  corporeity  b  to  God  Himself, 
as  Castell  tells  us,  and  may  be  compared  to  the 
analogous  periphrasis  so  frequent  in  the  Targum  of 
Jonathan  "  the  Word  of  the  Lord."  Many  Chris 
tian  writers  have  thought  that  this  threefold  ex 
pression  for  the  Deity — the  Lord,  the  word  of  the 
Lord,  and  the  Shechinah — indicates  the  knowledge 
of  a  Trinity  of  Perscr.s  in  the  Godhead,  and  accord 
ingly,  following  soni'i  Rabbinical  writers,  identify 
the  Shechinah  with  the  Holy  Spirit.  Others,  how 
ever,  deny  this  (Calmet's  Diet,  of  the  Bib. ;  Joh. 
Saubert,  On  the  Logos,  §  xix.  in  Critic.  Sacr.  • 
Glass.  Philolog.  Sacr.  lib.  v.  1,  vii.  &c.). 

Without  stopping  to  discuss  this  question,  it  will 
most  conduce  to  give  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
use  of  the  term  Sheehinah  by  the  Jews  themselves, 
if  we  produce  a  few  of  the  most  striking  passages  in 
the  Targums  where  it  occurs.  In  Ex.  xxv.  8, 
where  the  Hebrew  has  "  Let  them  make  me  a  sanc 
tuary  that  I  may  dwell  (>F)3D&?))  among  them," 
Onkelos  has,  "  I  will  make  my  Shechinah  to  dwell 
among  them."  In  xxix.  45,  46,  for  the  Hebrew  "  I 
will  dwell  among  the  children  of  Israel,"  Onkelos 
has,  "  I  will  make  my  Shechinah  to  dwell,  £c." 
In  Ps.  Ixxiv.  2,  for  "  this  Mount  Zion  wherein  thou 
hast  dwelt,"  the  Targum  has  "  wherein  thy  Shechi 
nah  hath  dwelt."  In  the  description  of  the  dedication 
of  Solomon's  Temple  (1  K.  viii.  12,  13),  the  Targum 
of  Jonathan  runs  thus :  "  The  Lord  .s  pleased  to 
make  Kis  Shechinah  dwell  in  Jerusalem.  I  have 
built  the  house  of  the  sanctuary  for  the  house  of 
thy  Shechinah  for  ever,"  where  it  should  be  noticed 

tliat  in  ver.  13  the  Hebrew  pfcj>,  is  not  used,  but 
Si?,  and  3B».  And  in  1  K.  vi.  13,  for  the  Heb. 
"  I  will  dwell  among  the  children  of  Israel,"  Jo 
nathan  has  "I  will  make  my  Shechinah  dwell, 

Itineraires  de  la  Terre  Sainte. 

»  It  appears  from  a  note  in  Prof.  Stanley's  Swai  &  Pal> 
•Ml,  that  a  later  Joseph  is  also  commemorated  in  thU 
sanctuary. 

»  Dr.  Bernard,  in  his  notes  on  Joscplius,  tries  to  prove 
that  these  five  things  were  all  in  the  second  Temple 
because  Josephus  says  the  Urim  and  Thummim  wore 
See  Wotton's  Traditions,  &c.,  p.  xl. 

b  Sc-e,  e.  0.,  Ps.  IXJK.  17,  and  KaUjch  on  Kx.  xan 
10. 


SflECHINAH 

i'io."  In  Is.  vi.  5  he  has  the  combination,6  "  the 
giory  of  the  Shechinah  of  the  King  of  ages,  the 
Lord  cf  Hosts  ;"  and  in  the  next  verse  he  para 
phrases  '  from  off  the  altar,"  by  "  from  before  His 
Sheehinah  on  the  throne  of  glory  in  the  lofty  hea 
vens  that  are  above  the  altar."  Compare  also  Num. 
v.  3,  xxxv.  34;  Ps.  Ixviii.  17,  18,  cxxxv.  21  ;  Is. 
xxxiii.  5,  Ivii.  15;  Joel  iii.  17,  21,  and  numerous 
other  passages.  On  the  other  hand,  it  should  be 
noticed  that  the  Targums  never  render  "  the  cloud" 
or  "  the  glory"  by  Shechinah,  but  by  KJJJJ  and 
mjT1,  and  that  even  in  such  passages  as  Ex.  xxiv. 

16/17;  Num.  ix.  17,  18,  22,  x.  12,  neither  the 
mention  of  the  cloud,  nor  the  constant  use  of  the 
verb  pB> d  in  the  Hebrew  provoke  any  reference  to 

ihe  Shechinah.  Hence,  as  regards  the  use  of  the 
word  Skcchinah  in  the  Targums,  it  may  be  defined 
as  a  periphrasis  for  God  whenever  He  is  said  to 
dwell  on  Zion,  amongst  Israel,  or  between  the  Che- 
rubims,  and  so  on,  in  order,  as  before  said,  to  avoid 
the  slightest  approach  to  materialism.  Far  most 
frequently  this  term  is  introduced  when  the  verb 
p£>  occurs  in  the  Heb.  text ;  but  occasionally,  as 

in  some  of  the  above  cited  instances,  where  it  does 
not,  but  where  the  Paraphrast  wished  to  interpose 
an  abstraction,  corresponding  to  Presence,  to  break 
the  bolder  anthropopathy  of  the  Hebrew  writer. 

Our  view  of  the  Targumistic  notion  of  the  She 
chinah  would  not  be  complete  if  we  did  not  add, 
that  though,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Jews  reckoned 
the  Shechiuah  among  the  marks  of  the  Divine 
favour  which  were  wanting  to  the  second  Temple, 
they  manifestly  expected  the  return  of  the  Shechi 
nah  in  the  days  of  the  Messiah.  Thus  Hagg. 
i.  8,  "  build  the  house,  and  I  will  take  pleasure  in 
it,  and  I  will  be  glorified,  saith  the  Lord,"  is  para 
phrased  by  Jonathan,  "  I  will  cause  my  Shechinah 
to  dwell  in  it  in  glory."  Zech.  ii.  10,  "  Lo  I 
come,  and  I  will  dwell  in  the  midst  of  thee,  saith 
the  Lord,"  is  paraphrased  "  I  will  be  revealed, 
and  will  cause  my  Shechinah  to  dwell  in  the  midst 
of  thee ;"  and  viii.  3,  "  I  am  returned  unto  Zion, 
and  will  dwell  in  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,"  is  para 
phrased  "  I  will  make  my  Shechinah  dwell  in  the 
midst  of  Jerusalem;"  and  lastly,  in  Ezek.  xliii.  7, 
9,  in  the  vision  of  the  return  of  the  Glory  of  God 
to  the  Temple,  Jonathan  paraphrases  thus,  "  Son  of 
man,  this  is  the  place  of  the  house  of  the  throne 
of  my  glory,  and  this  is  the  place  of  the  house  of 
the  dwelling  of  my  Shechinah,  where  I  will  make 
my  Shechinah  dwell  in  the  midst  of  the  children  of 
Israel  for  ever.  .  .  .  Now  let  them  cast  away  their 
idols  .  .  .  and  I  will  make  my  Shechinah  dwell  in 
th9  midst  of  them  for  ever."  Compare  Is.  iv.  5, 
where  the  return  of  the  pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  and 
fire  by  night  is  foretold,  as  to  take  place  in  the  days 
of  the  Messiah. 

As  regards  the  visible  manifestation  of  the  Divine 
Presence  dwelling  amongst  the  Israelites,  to  which 
the  term  Shechinah  has  attached  itself,  the  idea 
which  the  different  accounts  in  Scripture  convey  is 
that  of  a  most  brilliant  and  glorious  light,6  enve 
loped  in  a  cloud,  and  usually  concealed  by  the 
cloud,  so  that  the  cloud  itself  was  for  the  most  part 
alone  visible;  but  on  particular  occasions  the  glory f 


SHECHINAH 


1241 


c  In  Ps.  ixviil.  17  (16,  A.  V-),  the  Targum  has  "  the  Word 
of  the  Lord  has  desired  to  place  His  Shechinah  upon  Zion." 

d  Always  (;u;  far  as  I  have  observed)  rendered  by  the 
Chaldec 


appeared.  Thus  at  the  Exodus,  "  the  Lord  wept 
before"  the  Israelites  "  by  day  in  a  pillar  of  cloui 
.  .  .  and  by  night  in  a  pillar  of  fire  to  give  there 
light."  And  again  we  read,  that  this  pillar  "  was 
a  cloud  and  darkness  "  to  the  Egyptians,  "  but  it 
gave  light  by  night"  to  the  Israelites.  But  in  the 
morning  watch  "  the  Lord  looked  unto  the  host  o* 
the  Egyptians  through  the  pillar  of  fire  and  of  the 
cloud,  and  troubled  the  host  of  the  Egyptians :" 
i.  e.  as  Philo  (quoted  by  Patrick)  explains  it,  "  tl-.e 
fiery  appearance  of  the  Deity  shone  forth  from  the 
cloud,"  and  by  its  amazing  brightness  confounded 
them.  So  too  in  the  Pirke  Eliezer  it  is  said, 
"  The  Blessed  God  appeared  in  His  glory  upon  the 
sea,  and  it  fled  back  ;"  with  which  Patrick  compares 
Ps.  Ixxvii.  16,  "The  waters  saw  thee,  0  God,  the 
waters  saw  thee ;  they  were  afraid :"  where  the 
Targum  has,  "  They  saw  thy  Shechinah  in  the 
midst  of  the  waters."  In  Ex.  xix.  9,  "  the  Lord 
said  to  Moses,  Lo,  I  come  unto  thee  in  a  thick 
cloud,"  and  accordingly  in  ver.  16,  we  read  that 
"  a  thick  cloud  "  rested  "  upon  the  mount,"  and  in 
ver.  18,  that  "  Mount  Sinai  was  altogether  on  a 
smoke,  because  the  Lord  descended  upon  it  in  fire." 
And  this  is  further  explained,  Ex.  xxiv.  16,  where 
we  read  that  "  the  glory  of  the  Lord  abode  upon 
Mount  Sinai,  and  the  cloud  covered  it  (i.  e.  as  A  ben 
Ezra  explains  it,  the  glory)  six  days."  But  upon 
the  seventh  day,  when  the  Lord  called  "  unto 
Moses  out  of  the  midst  of  the  cloud,"  there  was  a 
breaking  forth  of  the  glory  through  the  cloud,  for 
"  the  sight  of  the  glory  of  the  Lord  was  like  de 
vouring  fire  on  the  top  of  the  mount  in  the  eyes  of 
the  children  of  Israel,"  ver.  17.  So  again  when 
God  as  it  were  took  possession  of  the  tabernacle  at 
its  first  completion  (Ex.  xl.  34,  35),  "the  cloud 
covered  the  tent  of  the  congregation  (externally),  and 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  filled  the  tabernacle  (within), 
and  Moses  was  not  able  to  enter  into  the  tent  of 
the  congregation"  (rather,  of  meeting} ;  just  as  at 
the  dedication  of  Solomon's  Temple  (1  K.  viii.  10, 
11),  "the  cloud  filled  ^the  house  of  the  Lord,  so 
that  the  priests  could  not  stand  to  minister  because 
of  the  cloud,  for  the  glory  of  the  Lord  had  filled  the 
house  of  the  Lord."  In  the  tabernacle,  however, 
as  in  the  Temple,  this  was  only  a  temporary  state 
of  things;  for  throughout  the  Books  of  Leviticus 
and  Numbers  we  find  Moses  constantly  entering 
into  the  tabernacle.  And  when  he  did  so,  the  cloud 
which  rested  over  it  externally,  dark  by  day,  and 
luminous  at  night  (Num.  ix.  15,  16),  came  down 
and  stood  at  the  door  of  the  tabernacle,  and  the 
Lord  talked  with  Moses  inside,  "  face  to  face,  as  a 
man  talketh  with  his  friend"  (Ex.  xxxiii.  7-H). 
It  was  on  such  occasions  that  Moses  "  heard  the 
voice  of  one  speaking  unto  him  from  off  the  mercy 
seat  that  was  upon  the  ark  of  testimony,  from 
between  the  two  cherubims"  (Num.  vii.  89),  in 
accordance  with  Ex.  xxv.  22  ;  Lev.  xvi.  2.  But  it 
does  not  appear  that  the  glory  was  habitually  seen 
either  by  Moses  or  the  people.  Occasionally,  how 
ever,  it  flashed  forth  from  the  cloud  which  con 
cealed  it ;  as  Ex.  xvi.  7,  10 ;  Lev.  ix.  6,  23,  when 
"  the  glory  of  the  Lord  appeared  unto  all  the 
people,"  according  to  a  previous  promise;  or  as 
Num.  xiv.  10,  xvi.  19,  42,  xx.  6,  suddenly,  to 
strike  terror  in  the  people  in  their  rebellion.  "  The 


e  The  Arabic  expression,  corresponding  to  the  ShecJtinali 
of  the  Targums,  is  a  word  signifying  light. 
lu  Hebrew,  "»  "1123  ;  in  Chaldce,  "'  "Ij3\ 


1242 


SHECHINAH 


.     .  .         .  .        .       , 

to  imply  the  continued  manifestation  of  God's 
nce  in  the  cloud  between  the  cherubims,  and 


fast  occasion  on  which  the  glory  of  the  Lord  ap- 
pe?-ed  was  that  mentioned  in  Num.  xx.  6,  when 
they-  were  in  Kadesh  in  the  40th  year  of  the  Exodus, 
and  murmured  for  want  of  water  ;  and  the  last 
?xpi  ess  mention  of  the  cloud  as  visibly  present  over 
the  tabernacle  is  in  Deut.  xxxi.  15,  just  before  the 
death  of  Moses.  The  cloud  had  not  been  men 
tioned  before  since  the  second  year  of  the  Exodus 
(Num.  x.  11,  34,  xii.  5,  10);  but  as  the  descrip 
tion  in  Num.  .x.  15-23  ;  Ex.  xl.  38,  relates  to  the 
whole  time  of  'their  wanderings  in  the  wilderness, 
we  may  conclude  that  at  all  events  the  cloud  visibly 
accompanied  them  through  all  the  migrations  men 
tioned  in  Num.  xxxiii.,  till  they  reached  the  plains 
of  Moab,  and  till  Moses  died.  From  this  time  we 
have  no  mention  whatever  in  the  history  either  of 
the  cloud,  or  of  the  glory,  or  of  the  voice  from  be 
tween  the  cherubim,  till  the  dedication  of  Solomon's 
Temple.  But  since  it  is  certain  that  the  Ark  was 
still  the  special  symbol  of  God's  presence  and  power 
(Josh,  iii.,  iv.,  vi.  ;  1  Sam.  iv.  ;  Ps.  Ixviii.  1  sqq.  ; 
compared  with  Num.  x.  35  ;  Ps.  cxxxii.  8,  Ixxx.  1, 
xcix.  1),  and  since  such  passages  as  1  Sam.  iv.  4, 
21,  22  ;  2  Sam.  vi.  2;  Ps.  xcix.  7  ;  2  K.  xix.  15, 
seem 
Presence 

that  Lev.  zvi.  2  seemed  to  promise  so  much,  and  that 
more  general  expressions,  such  as  Ps.  ix.  11,  cxxxii. 
7,  8,  13,  14,  Ixxvi.  2  ;  Is.  viii.  18,  &c.,  thus  acquire 
much  more  point,  we  may  perhaps  conclude  that 
the  cloud  did  continue,  though  with  shorter  or  longer 
interruptions,  to  dwell  between  "  the  cherubims  of 
glory  shadowing  the  mercy-seat,"  until  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  Temple  by  Nebuchadnezzar.  [OLIVES, 
MOUNT  OF,  p.  629,  a.~\ 

The  allusions  in  the  N.  T.  to  the  Shechinah  are  not 
unfrequent.  Thus  in  the  account  of  the  Nativity,  the 
words,  "  Lo,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  came  upon  them, 
and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shone  round  about  them  " 
(Luke  ii.  9),  followed  by  the  apparition  of  "  the 
multitude  of  the  Heavenly  host,"  recall  the  appear 
ance  of  the  Divine  glory  on  Sinai,  when  "  He  shined 
forth  from  Paran,  and  came  with  ten  thousands  of 
saints  "  (Deut.  xxxiii.  2  ;  comp.  Ps.  Ixviii.  17  ;  Acts 
vii.  53;  Heb.  ii.  2  ;  Ezek.  xliii.  2).  The  "  God  of 
glory"  (Acts  vii.  2,  55),  "  the  cherubims  of  glory  " 
(Heb.  ix.  5),  "  the  glory"  (Rom.  ix.  4),  arid  other 
like  passages,  are  distinct  references  to  the  mani 
festations  of  the  glory  in  the  0.  T.  When  we  read 
in  John  i.  14,  that  "  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and 
dwelt  among  us  (effK^vaffev  tv  ^/tuV),  and  we  be 
held  his  glory;"  or  in  2  Cor.  xii.  9,  "that  the 
power  of  Christ  may  rest  upon  me?  (fTricrK'rjvwar'r) 
eV  e/xe)  ;  or  in  Rev.  xxi.  3,  "  Behold  the  taber 
nacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and  He  will  dwell  with 
them  "  (TJ  ffKtjvr]  TOV  ®eov  .  .  .  ttal  ffK^vitxrei  jiter' 
MTtiiv}  we  have  not  only  references  to  the  She 
chinah,  but  are  distinctly  taught  to  connect  it  with 
the  incarnation  and  future  coming  of  Messiah,  as 
type  with  antitype.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that 
the  constant  connexion  of  the  second  advent  with  a 
cloud,  or  clouds,  and  attendant  angels,  points  in  the 
same  direction  (Matt.  xxvi.  64  ;  Luke  xxi.  27  ; 
Acts  i.  9,  11  ;  2  Thess.  i.  7,  8  ;  Rev.  i.  7). 

It  should  also  be  specially  noticed  that  the  at 
tendance  of  angels  is  usually  associated  with  the 

8  This  expression  of  St.  Paul's  has  a  singular  resem 
blance  to  the  Rabbinical  saying,  that  of  eighty  pupils  of 
Ihllel  the  elder,  thirty  were  worthy  that  the  Shechinah 
should  rest  upon  them  ;  and  of  these  Jonathan  (autnor  of 
tiie  T^rsius)  was  the  first  (Wolf.  Bib.  Heb.  u.  1159). 


SHEEP 

Shechinah.  These  are  most  frequently  called  (Ea 
x.,  xi.)  cherubim  ;  but  sometimes,  as  in  Is.  v\,t 
seraphim  (comp.  Rev.  iv.  7,  8).  In  Ex.  xiv.  19, 
"  the  angel  of  God  "  is  spoken  of  in  connexion  with 
the  cloud,  and  in  Deut.  xxxiii.  2,  the  descent  upon 
Sinai  is  described  as  being  "  with  ten  thousands  of 
saints"  (comp.  Ps.  Ixviii.  17;  Zech.  xiv.  5).  The 
predominant  association,  however,  is  with  the  che 
rubim,  of  which  the  golden  cherubim  on  the  mercy- 
seat  were  the  representation.  And  this  gives  force  to 
the  interpretation  that  has  been  put  upon  Gen.  iii. 
24,*-  as  being  the  earliest  notice  of  the  Shechiuah, 
under  the  symbol  of  a  pointed  flame,  dwelling 
between  the  cherubim,  and  constituting  that  local 
Presence  of  the  Lord  from  which  Cain  went  forth, 
and  before  which  the  worship  of  Adam  and  suc 
ceeding  patriarchs  was  performed  (see  Hale's  Chro- 
nol.  ii.  94;  Smith's  Sacr.  Annal.  i.  173,  176-7). 
Parkhurst  went  so  far  as  to  imagine  a  tabernacle 
containing  the  cherubim  and  the  glory  all  the  time 
from  Adam  to  Moses  (Heb.  Lex.  p.  623).  It  is, 
however,  pretty  certain  that  the  various  appear 
ances  to  Abraham,  and  that  to  Moses  in  the  bush, 
were  manifestations  of  the  Divine  Majesty  similar 
to  those  later  ones  to  which  the  term  Shechinah  is 
applied  (see  especially  Acts  vii.  2).  For  further 
information  the  reader  is  referred,  besides  the  works 
quoted  above,  to  the  articles  CLOUD,  ARK,  CHE 
RUB,  to  Winer,  Realwb.  Cherubim  ;  to  Bishop 
Patrick's  Commentary  ;  to  Buxtorf,  Hist.  Arc. 
Foed.  cap.  xi.  ;  and  to  Lovvman,  On  the  She 
chinah.  [A.  C.  H.] 


SHED'EUK  ("VIKnB>  :  SeSiofy:  Ale 
in  Num.  i.  5,  ii.  10  :"  Sedeur).  The  father  of 
Elizur,  chief  of  the  tribe  of  Reuben  at  the  time 
of  the  Exodus  (Num.  i.  5,  ii.  10,  vii.  30,  35,  x.  18). 
It  has  been  conjectured  (Zeitschr.  d.  Deut.  Morg. 
Ges.  xv.  809)  that  the  name  is  compounded  of 
Shaddai. 

SHEEP.  The  well-known  domestic  animal 
which  from  the  earliest  period  has  contributed  to 
the  wants  of  mankind.  Sheep  were  an  important 
part  of  the  possessions  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  and 
of  Eastern  nations  generally.  The  first  mention  of 
sheep  occurs  in  Gen.  iv.  2.  The  following  are  the 
principal  Biblical  allusions  to  these  animals.  They 
were  used  in  the  sacrificial  offerings,  both  the  adult 
animal  (Ex.  xx.  24  ;  1  K.  viii.  63  ;  2  Chr.  xxix.  33) 
and  the  lamb,  EJO3,  ».  e.  "a  male  from  one  to 
three  years  old,"  but  young  lambs  of  the  first  year 
were  more  generally  used  in  the  offerings  (see  Ex. 
xxix.  38;  Lev.  ix.  3,  xii.  6;  Num.  xxviii.  9,  &c.). 
No  lamb  under  eight  days  old  was  allowed  to  be 
killed  (Lev.  xxii.  27).  A  very  young  lamb  was 


called  rj,  t&leh  (see  1  Sam.  vii.  9;  Is.  Ixv.  25). 

Sheep  and  lambs  formed  an  important  article  ot 
food  (1  Sam.  xxv.  18;  1  K.  i.  19,  iv.  23;  Ps. 
xliv.  11,  &c.).  The  wool  was  used  as  clothing 
(Lev.  xiii.  47;  Deut.  xxii.  11  ;  Prov.  xxxi.  13; 
Job  xxxi.  20,  &c.)  [WOOL.]  Trumpets  may  have 
been  made  of  the  horns  of  rams  (Josh.  vi.  4), 
though  the  rendering  of  the  A.  V.  in  this  passage 
is  generally  thought  to  be  incofrect.  "  Rams' 


h  "  He  drove  out  the  man,  and  stationed  his  Shechinal 
of  old  between  the  two  cherubim "  (Jerusal.  Targum); 

D^nSrrnK  \2NP\  vHeb.  Bib.).    See  Utrlck  On  G-en 

m.  a*. 


SHEEP 

ifcns  dyed  red"  were  used  as  a  covering  for 
the  tabernacle  (Ex.  xxv.  5).  Sheep  and  lambs 
were  sometimes  paid  as  tribute  (2  K.  iii.  4).  It  is 
very  striking  to  notice  the  immense  numbers  of 
sheep  that  were  reared  in  Palestine  in  Biblical 
«iffl£s:  see  for  instance  1  Chr.  v.  21 ;  2  Chr.  xv. 
11,  xxx.  24;  2  K.  iii.  4;  Job  xlii.  12.  Especial 
mention  is  made  of  the  sheep  of  Bozrah  (Mic.  ii. 
12  ;  Is.  xxxiv.  6)  in  the  land  of  Edom,  a  district 
well  suited  for  pasturing  sheep.  "  Bashan  and 
Gilead  "  are  also  mentioned  as  pastures  (Mic.  vii. 
14).  "  Large  parts  of  Carmel,  Bashan,  and  Gilead," 
says  Thomson  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  205), 
"  are  at  their  proper  seasons  alive  with  countless 
flocks  "  (see  also  p.  331).  "  The  flocks  of  Kedar  " 
aud  "  the  rams  of  Nebaioth,"  two  sons  of  Ishmael 
(Gen.  xxv.  13)  that  settled  in  Arabia,  are  referred 
to  in  Is.  Ix.  7.  Sheep-shearing  is  alluded  to  Gen. 
xxxi.  19,  xxxviii.  13  ;  Deut.  xv.  19  ;  1  Sam.  xxv.  4; 
Is.  liii.  7,  &e.  Sheep-dogs  were  employed  in  Biblical 
times,  as  is  evident  from  Job  xxx.  1,  "  the  dogs  of 
my  flock."  From  the  manner  in  which  they  are 
spoken  of  by  the  patriarch  it  is  clear,  as  Thomson 
(Ttie  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  202)  well  observes, 
that  the  Oriental  shepherd-dogs  were  very  different 
animals  from  the  sheep-dogs  of  our  own  land. 
The  existing  breed  are  described  as  being  "  a 
mean,  sinister,  ill-conditioned  generation,  which  are 
kept  at  a  distance,  kicked  about,  and  half-starved, 
with  nothing  noble  or  attractive  about  them." 
They  were,  however,  without  doubt  useful  to  the 
shepherds,  more  especially  at  night,  in  keeping  off 
the  wild  beasts  that  prowled  about  the  hills  and 
valleys  (comp.  Theoc.  Id.  v.  106).  Shepherds  in 
Palestine  and  the  East  generally  go  before  their 
flocks,  which  they  induce  to  follow  by  calling  to 
them  (comp.  John  x.  4 ;  Ps.  Ixxvii.  20,  Ixxx.  1), 
though  they  also  drove  them  (Gen.  xxxiii.  13). 
[SHEPHERD.]  It  was  usual  amongst  the  ancient 
Jews  to  give  names  to  sheep  and  goats,  as  in 
England  we  do  to  our  dairy  cattle  (see  John  x.  3). 
This  practice  prevailed  amongst  the  ancient  Greek? 
(see  Theoc.  Id.  v.  103)  :— 

OVK  0.770  rag  Spvbs  oCros  6  Kaii/apc?,  a  rs  KvvaiSa ; 

The  following  quotation  from  Hartley's  Researches 
in  Greece  and  the  Levant,  p.  321,  is  so  strikingly 
illustrative  of  the  allusions  in  John  x.  1-16,  that 
we  cannot  do  better  than  quote  it :  "  Having  had 
my  attention  directed  last  night  to  the  words  in 
John  x.  3, 1  asked  my  man  if  it  was  usual  in  Greece 
to  give  names  to  the  sheep.  He  informed  me  that 
it  was,  and  that  the  sheep  obeyed  the  shepherd 
when  he  called  them  by  their  names.  This  morn 
ing  I  had  an  opportunity  of  verifying  the  truth  of 
this  remark.  Passing  by  a  flock  of  sheep,  I  asked 
the  shepherd  the  same  question  which  I  had  put  to 
the  servant,  and  he  gave  me  the  same  answer. 
1  then  bade  him  call  one  of  his  sheep.  He  did  so, 
and  it  instantly  left  ;ts  pasturage  and  its  com 
panions  and  ran  up  to  the  hands  of  the  shepherd 
with  sic;ns  of  pleasure  and  with  a  prompt  obedience 
v/hich  I  had  never  before  observed  in  any  other 
animal.  It  is  also  true  in  this  country  that  '  a 
stranger  ^will  they  not  follow,  but  will  flee  from 
him.'  The  shepherd  told  me  that  many  of  his 
sheep  were  still  wild,  that  they  had  not  yet  learned 
their  names,  but  that  by  teaching  them  they  would 
alMearn  them."  See  also  Thomson  (p.  203)  :— 
"  The  shepherd  calls  sharply  from  time  to  time  to 
remind  the  sheep  of  his  presence;  they  know  his 
voice  and  follow  on ;  but  if  a  stranger  call  they 


SHEEP 


1243 


stop  short,  lift  up  their  heads  in  alarm,  and  if  it  i« 
repeated  they  turn  and  flee,  beciust  they  know  not 
the  voice  of  a  stranger." 


Hrofwl-tailed  Sheep. 

The  common  sheep  of  Syria  and  Palestine  are  the 
broad-tail  (Ovis  laticaudatus),  and  a  variety  of  the 
common  sheep  of  this  country  ( Ovis  aries)  called  the 
Bidoween  according  to  Russell  (Aleppo,  ii.  p.  147). 
The  broad-tailed  kind  has  long  been  reared  in  Syria. 
Aristotle,  who  lived  more  than  2000  years  ago, 
expressly  mentions  Syrian  sheep  with  tails  a  cubit 
wide.  This  or  another  variety  of  the  species  is 
also  noticed  by  Herodotus  (iii.  113)  as  occurring 
in  Arabia.  The  fat  tail  of  the  sheep  is  probably 
alluded  to  in  Lev.  iii.  9,  vii.  3,  &c.,  as  the  fat  and 
the  whole  rump  that  was  to  be  taken  off  hard  by 
the  back-bone,  and  was  to  be  consumed  on  the 
altar.  The  cooks  in  Syria  use  this  mass  of  fat 
instead  of  Arab  butter,  "\vhich  is  often  rancid  (see 
Thomson,  The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  97). 

The  whole  passage  in  Gen.  xxx.  which  bears  on 
the  subject  of  Jacob's  stratagem  with  Laban's  sheep 
is  involved  in  considerable  perplexity,  and  Jacob's 
conduct  in  this  matter  has  been  severely  and  un 
compromisingly  condemned  by  some  writers.  We 
touch  upon  the  question  briefly  in  its  zoological 
bearing.  It  is  altogether  impossible  to  account 
for  the  complete  success  which  attended  Jacob's 
device  of  setting  peeled  rods  before  the  ewes  and 
she-goats  as  they  came  to  drink  in  the  watering 
troughs,  on  natural  grounds.  The  Greek  fathers 
for  the  most  part  ascribe  the  result  to  the  direct 
operation  of  the  Deity,  whereas  Jerome  and  the 
Latin  fathers  regard  it  as  a  mere  natural  opera 
tion  of  the  imagination,  adducing  as  illustrations 
in  point  various  devices  that  have  been  resorted 
to  by  the  ancients  in  the  cases  of  mares,  asses, 
«ic.  (see  Oppian,  Cyneg.  i.  327,  357;  Pliny,  N.  H. 
vii.  10,  and  the  passages  from  Quintilian,  Hippo 
crates,  and  Galen,  as  cited  by  Jerome,  Grotius, 
and  Bochart).  Even  granting  the  general  truth  of 
these  instances,  and  acknowledging  the  curious  effect 
which  peculiar  sights  by  the  power  of  the  imagi 
nation  do  occasionally  produce  in  the  fetus  of  many 
animals,  yet  we  must  agree  with  the  Greek  fathers 
and  ascribe  the  production  of  Jacob's  spotted  sheep 
and  goats  to  Divine  agency.  The  whole  question 
has  b«eu  carefully  considered  by  Nitochraunu  (D» 


124-i 


SHEEP 


Corylo  Jacobi,  in  Thes.  Nov.  TheoL  Phil.  i.  202- 
206),  from  wliom  we  quote  the  following  passage  : 
Fatenaur  itaque,  cum  Vossio  aliisque  piis  viris, 
iilam  pecudum  imaginationem  tantum  fuisse  causam 
udfuvantem,  ac  plus  in  hoc  negotio  diviuae  tribu- 
enduii>  esse  virtuti,  quae  suo  concursu  sic  debilem 
uxusac  secundae  vim  adauxit  ut  quod  ea  sola  secun- 
dum  naturam  praestare  non  valeret  id  divina  bene- 
dictione    supra    naturam    praestaret  ;"    and   then 
Nitschmann  cites  the  passage  in  Gen.  xxxi.  5-13, 
where  Jacob  expressly  states  that  his  success  was 
due  to  Divine  interference;  for  it  is  hard   to  be 
lieve   that  Jacob  is   here  uttering  nothing  but  a 
tissue  of  falsehoods,  which  appears  to  be  the  opinion 
of  Kalisch  (Hist,  and  Grit.  Comment.  Gen.  xxx. 
and  xxxi.),  who  represents  the  patriarch  as  "  un- 
blushingly  executing  frauds  suggested  by  his  feitile 
invention,  and  then  abusing  the  authority  of  God 
in  covering  or  justifying  them."     We  are  aware 
that  a  still  graver  difficulty  in  the  minds  of  some 
persons  remains,  if  the  above  explanation  be  adopted  ; 
but  we  have  no  other  alternative,  for,  as  Patrick 
has   observed,   "  let  any   shepherd  now   try  this 
device,  and  he  will  not  find  it  do  what  it  did  then 
by  a  Divine   operation.""     The  greater  difficulty 
alluded  to  is  the  supposing  that  God  would  have 
directly  interfered  to   help   Jacob    to  act   fraudu 
lently  towards  his  uncle.     But  are  we  quite  sure 
that  there  was   any  fraud  fairly   called  such  in 
the  matter  ?   Had  Jacob  not  been  thus  aided,  he 
might   have  remained  the   dupe  of  Laban's   nig 
gardly  conduct  all  his  days.     He  had  served  his 
money-loving  uncle  faithfully  for  fourteen  years; 
Laban  confesses  his  cattle  had  increased  considerably 
under  Jacob's  management;  but  all  the  return  he 
got  was  unfair  treatment  and  a  constant  desire  on 
the  part  of  Laban  to  strike  a  hard  bargain  with 
him   (Gen.  xxxi.   7).     God  vouchsafed  to  deliver 
Jacob  out  of  the  hands  of  his  hard  master,  and  to 
punish  Laban  for  his   cruelty,  which  He  did  by 
pointing  out  to  Jacob  how  he  could  secure  to  him 
self  large  flocks  and  abundant  cattle.    God  was  only 
helping  Jacob  to  obtain  that  which  justly  belonged 
to  him,   but   which    Laban's   rapacity   refused   to 
grant.     "  Were  it  lawful,"  says  Stackhouse,  "  for 
any  private  person  to  make  reprisals,  the  injurious 
treatment  Jacob  had  received  from  Laban,  both  in 
imposing  a  wife  upon  him  and  prolonging  his  servi 
tude  without  wages,  was  enough  to  give  him  both 
the  provocation  and  the  privilege  to  do  so.     God 
Almighty,  however,  was  pleased  to  take  the  deter 
mination  of  the  whole  matter  into  his  own  hands." 
This  seems  to  us  the  best  way  of  understanding  this 
disputed  subject.'' 

The  following  Hebrew  words  occur  as  the  names 
of  sheep:—  }KV,  flKV,  N^,  or  ru'tf,  a  collective 


noun  to  denote  "  a  flock  of  sheep  or  goats,"  to 
which  is  opposed  the  noun  of  unity,  H'^,  "  a 
sheep  "  or  "  a  goat,"  joined  to  a  masc.  "  where 
"  rams  "  or  "  he-goats  "  are  signified,  and  with  a 


a  None  of  the  instances  cited  by  Jerome  and  others 
are  exact  parallels  with  that  in  question.  The  quotations 
adduced,  with  the  exception  of  those  which  speak  of 
painted  images  set  before  Spartan  women  inter  concipi- 
zndum,  refer  to  cases  in  which  living  animals  themselves, 
and  not  reflections  of  inanimate  objects,  were  the  cause 
of  some  marked  peculiarity  L  "he  fetus.  Roseau  mller, 
however  (A'liol.  in  loc.),  cites  F.astfcer  (De  Re  oviaria, 
German  version,  p.  17,  30,  43,  46,  47)  as  a  writer  by 
whom  the  contrary  opinion  is  coiifiitued.  We  have  been 


SHEIIARIAH 

fern,   wnen   "ewes"    or   "she-goats"  are  meant, 
though  even  in  this  case  sometimes  to  a  masc.  (as 

in  Gen.  xxxi.  10)  :  sW,  "  a  ram  :"  /HI,  "  a  ewe  ;* 

••  T 

£03  or  a£*a,  "a  lamb,"  or  rather  "•  a  sheep  of  a 

»  1 

year  old  or  above,"  opposed  to  iT?D,  "  a  sucking  or 

very  young  lamb ;"  13  is  another  term  applied  to 
a  lamb  as  it  skips  ("113)  in  the  pastures. 

As  the  sheep  is  an  emblem  of  meekness,  patience, 
and  submission,  it  is  expressly  mentioned  as  typi 
fying  these  qualities  in  the  person  of  our  Blessed 
Lord  (Is.  liii.  7  ;  Acts  viii.  32,  &c.).  The  relation 
that  exists  between  Christ,  "  the  chief  Shepherd," 
and  His  members,  is  beautifully  compared  to  that 
I  which  in  the  East  is  so  strikingly  exhibited  by  the 
shepherds  to  their  flocks  (see  Thomson,  The  Lana 
and  the  Book,  p.  203).  [\V.  H.] 

SHEEPGATE,  THE  (jfc&n  "W:   y  ™ATJ 

f)  irpoftaTiKT) :  porta  gregis).  One  of  the  gates  of 
Jerusalem  as  rebuilt  by  Nehemiah  (Neh.  iii.  1,  32; 
xii.  39).  It  stood  between  the  tower  of  Meah  and 
the  chamber  of  the  corner  (iii.  32,  1)  or  gate  of  the 
guard-house  (xii.  39,  A.  V.  "prison-gate").  The 
latter  seems  to  have  been  at  the  angle  formed  by 
the  junction  of  the  wall  of  the  city  of  Davii 
with  that  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem  proper,  having 
the  sheep-gate  on  the  north  of  it.  (See  the  diagram 
in  p.  1027,  vol.  i.)  According  to  the  view  taken 
in  the  article  JERUSALEM,  the  city  of  David  oc 
cupied  a  space  on  t.V><?  mount  Moriah  about  coin 
ciding  with  that  between  the  south  wall  of  the 
platform  of  the  Dome  of  the  Rock  and  the  south 
wall  of  the  Haram  es  S/ieiif.  The  position  of  the 
sheep-gate  may  therefore  have  been  on  or  near  that 
of  the  Bab  el-Kattanln,  Bertheau  (Exeg.  Hand- 
buch,  on  Nehemiah,  144)  is  right  in  placing  it  on 
the  east  side  of  the  city  and  on  the  north  of  the 
corner  ;  but  is  wrong  in  placing  it  at  the  present 
St.  Stephen's  Gate,  since  no  wall  existed  nearly  so 
far  to  the  east  as  that,  till  after  the  death  of  Christ. 
[JERUSALEM.] 

The  pool  which  was  near  the  sheep-gate  (John 
v.  2;  A.  V.  inaccurately  "market")  was  probably 
the  present  Hammam  esh  She/a.  [G.] 

SHEEP-MARKET,  THE  (John  v.  2).  The 
word  "  market "  is  an  interpolation  of  our  trans 
lators,  possibly  after  Luther,  who  has  Schafhaus. 
The  words  of  the  original  are  eVi  TTJ  irpofta.Ti.Ky, 
to  which  should  probably  be  supplied  not  market, 
but  gate,  7ruA?7,  as  in  the  LXX.  version  of  the  pas 
sages  in  Nehemiah  quoted  in  the  foregoing  article. 
The  Vulgate  connects  the  irpoftaTiicf)  with  the  *o- 
\vfs.ft-fi6pa,  and  reads  Probatica  piscina;  while  the 
Syriac  omits  all  mention  of  the  sheep,  and  names 
only  a  "  place  of  baptism."  .  [G .] 

SHEHARI'AH  (PP  W  :  Zaapias  ;  Alex. 
2,aapia :  Sohoria}.  A  Benjamite,  son  of  Jerohara 
(1  Chr.  viii.  26). 

unable  to  gain  access  to  this  work. 

b  We  have  considered  this  perplexing  question  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  generally  received  opinion  that  the 
whole  account  is  the  work  of  one  and  the  same  author.- 
at  the  same  time  we  iniiot  allow  that  there  is  strong  pro 
bability  that  those  portions  of  the  narrative  which  relate 
to  Jacob's  stratagem  with  the  "  peeled  rods,"  are  attribut 
able,  not  to  the  Elohistic  or  ancient  iwurce,  but  to  th« 
supplementary  Jehovistic  writer. 


SHEKEL 

SHEKEL.  In  a  former  article  [MONEY]  a 
full  account  has  been  given  of  the  coins  called 
shekels,  which  are  found  with  inscriptions  m  the 
Samaritan a  character;  so  that  the  present  article 
will  only  contain  notices  of  a  few  particulars  relat 
ing  to  the  Jewish  coinage  which  did  not  fall  within 
the  plan  of  the  former. 

It  may,  in  the  first  place,  be  desirable  to 
mention,  that  although  some  shekels  are  found  with 
Hebrew  letters  instead  of  Samaritan,  these  are  un 
doubtedly  all  forgeries.  It  is  the  more  needful  to 
make  this  statement,  as  in  some  books  of  high 
reputation,  e.  g.  Walton's  Polyglot,  these  shekels 
are  engraved  as  if  they  were  genuine.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  suggest  the  reasons  which  may  have 
led  to  this  series  of  forgeries.  But  the  difference 
between  the  two  is  not  confined  to  the  letters  only  ; 
the  Hebrew  shekels  are  much  larger  and  thinner 
than  the  Samaritan,  so  that  a  person  might  distin 
guish  them  merely  by  the  touch,  even  under  a 
covering. 

Our  attention  is,  in  the  next  place,  directed  to  the 
early  notices  of  these  shekels  in  Rabbinical  writers. 
It  might  be  supposed  that  in  the  Mishna,  where  one 
of  the  treatises  bears  the  title  of  "  Shekalim"  or 
Shekels,  we  should  find  some  information  on  the 
subject.  But  this  treatise,  being  devoted  to  the 
consideration  of  the  laws  relating  to  the  payment 
of  the  half-shekel  for  the  Temple,  is  of  course  use 
less  for  our  purpose. 

Some  references  are  given  to  the  works  of  Rashi 
and  Maimonides  (contemporary  writers  of  the  12th 
century)  for  information  relative  to  shekels  and  the 
forms  of  Hebrew  letters  in  ancient  times  ;  but  the 
most  important  Rabbinical  quotation  given  by  Bayer 
is  that  from  Kantian,  i.  e.  Rabbi-Moses-Bar- 
Nacliman,  who  lived  about  the  commencement  of  the 
13th  century.  He  describes  a  shekel  which  he  had 
seen,  and  of  which  the  Cutf>?fi-i»c  read  the  inscrip 
tion  with  ease.  The  explanation  which  they  gave 
of  the  inscription  was,  on  one  side :  Shekel  ha-She- 
kalim,  "  the  shekel  of  shekels,"  and  on  the  other 
"  Jerusalem  the  Holy."  The  former  was  doubtless 
a  misinterpretation  of  the  usual  inscription  "  the 
shekel  of  Israel ;"  but  the  latter  corresponds  with 
the  inscription  on  our  shekels  (Bayer,  De  Numis. 
p.  11).  In  the  16th  century  R.  Azarias  de  Rossi 
states  that  R.  Moses  Basula  had  arranged  a  Cuthaean, 
i.  e.  Samaritan,  alphabet  from  coins,  and  R.  Moses 
Alaskar  (of  whom  little  is  known)  is  quoted  by  Bayer 
as  having  read  in  some  Samaritan  coins,  "  in  such  a 
year  of  the  consolation  of  Israel,  in  such  a  year  of 
such  a  king."  And  the  same  R.  Azarias  de  Rossi 
(or  de  Adumim,  as  he  is  called  by  Bartolocci,  Bibl. 
Eabb.  vol.  iv.  p.  158),  in  his  Q^JJ  TlKD,  «  The 
Light  of  the  Eyes"  (not  Fons  Oculorum,  as  Bayer 
translates  it,  which  would  require  PJJD,  not  TlND), 
discusses  the  Transfluvial  or  Samaritan  letters,  and 
describes  a  shekel  of  Israel  which  he  had  seen.  But 
the  most  important  passage  of  all  is  that  in  which 
this  writer  quotes  the  description  of  a  shekel  seen 
bj  Ramban  at  St.  Jean  d'Acre,  A.D.  1210.  He 
gives  the  inscriptions  as  above,  "  the  Shekel  of 
Snekels,"  and  "  Jerusalem  the  Holy  :"  but  he  also 

*  The  character  nearly  resembles  that  of  Samaritan 
MSS.,  plthoagh  it  Is  not  quite  identical  with  it.  The 
Hebrew  and  Samaritan  alphabets  appear  to  be  divergent 
representatives  cf  some  older  form,  as  may  be  inferred 
from  several  of  the  letters.  Thus  the  Beth  and  several 


CHEKEL 


1245 


determines  the  weight,  which  he  makcc  alout  hx?J 
an  ounce. 

We  find,  therefore,  that  in  early  times  shekels 
were  known  to  the  Jewish  Rabbis  with  Samaritan  in 
scriptions,  corresponding  with  those  now  found 
(except  in  one  point,  which  is  probably  an  error), 
and  corresponding  with  them  in  weight.  These 
are  important  considerations  in  tracing  tie  his 
tory  of  this  coinage,  and  we  pass  on  now  to  the 
earliest  mention  of  these  shekels  by  Christian  writers. 
We  believe  that  W.  Postell  is  the  first  Christian 
writer  who  saw  and  described  a  shekel.  He  was  a 
Parisian  traveller  who  visited  Jerusalem  early  in 
the  16th  century.  In  a  curious  work  published  by 
him  in  1538,  entitled  Alphabetum  Duodecim  Lin- 
guarum,  the  following  passage  occurs.  After  stating 
that  the  Samaritan  alphabet  was  the  original  form 
of  the  Hebrew,  he  proceeds  thus  : — 

"I  draw  this  inference  from  silver  coins  of  great 
antiquity,  which  I  found  among  the  Jews.  They 
set  such  store  by  them  that  I  could  not  get  one  of 
them  (not  otherwise  worth  a  quincunx)  for  two 
gold  pieces.  The  Jews  say  they  are  of  the  time  of 
Solomon,  and  they  added  that,  hating  the  Sama 
ritans  as  they  do,  worse  than  dogs,  and  never 
speaking  to  them,  nothing  endears  these  coins  so 
much  to  them  as  the  consideration  that  these  cha 
racters  were  once  in  their  common  usage,  nature,  as 
it  were,  yearning  after  the  things  of  old.  They  say 
that  at  Jerusalem,  now  called  Chus  or  Chussem- 
barich,  in  the  masonry  and  in  the  deepest  part  of 
the  ruins,  these  coins  are  dug  up  daily."  b 

Postell  gives  a  very  bad  woodcut  of  one  of  these 
shekels,  but  the  inscription  is  correct.  He  was  uii- 
able  to  explain  the  letters  over  the  vase,  which 
soon  became  the  subject  of  a  discussion  among  the 
learned  men  of  Europe,  which  lasted  for  nearly  two 
centuries.  Their  attempts  to  explain  them  are  enu 
merated  by  Bayer  in  his  Treatise  De  Numis  He- 
braeo-Samaritanis,  which  may  be  considered  as  the 
first  work  which  placed  the  explanation  of  these 
coins  on  a  satisfactory  basis.  But  it  would  obvi 
ously  be  useless  here  to  record  so  many  unsuc 
cessful  guesses  as  Bayer  enumerates.  The  work  of 
Bayer,  although  some  of  the  authors  nearly  solved 
the  problem,  called  forth  an  antagonist  in  Professor 
Tychsen  of  Rostock,  a  learned  Orientalist  of  that 
period.  Several  publications  passed  between  them 
which  it  is  unnecessary  to  enumerate,  as  Tychsen 
gave  a  summary  of  his  objections  in  a  small"  pam 
phlet,  entitled  0.  G.  Tychsen,  De  Numis  He- 
braicis  Diatribe,  qua  simul  ad  Nuperas  ill.  F.  P. 
Bayerii  Objectiones  respondetur  (Rostochii,  1791). 
His  first  position  is  —  That  either  (1)  all  the 
coins,  whether  with  Hebrew  or  Samaritan  inscrip 
tions,  are  false,  or  (2)  if  any  are  genuine,  they 
belong  to  Barcoceba — p.  6.  This  he  modifies 
slightly  in  a  subsequent  part  of  the  treatise,  p. 
52-5$,  where  he  states  it  to  be  his  conclusion  (1) 
that  the  Jews  had  no  coined  money  before  the  time 
of  our  Saviour;  (2)  that  during  the  rebellion  of 
Barcoceba  (or  Barcoziba'],  Samaritan  money  was 
coined  either  by  the  Samaritans  to  please  the  Jews, 
or  by  the  Jews  to  please  the  Samaritans,  and  that 
the  Samaritan  letters  were  used  in  order  to  make 


other  letters  are  evidently  identical  in  their  origin.    And    phabet  from  these 


the  £»  (Shin)  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet  Is  the  samp  ae 
that  of  the  Samaritan ;  for  if  we  make  the  two  middle 
strokes  of  the  Samaritan  letter  coalesce,  it  takes  the 
Hebrew  form. 
b  1'ostcll  appears  to  have  arranged  *iie  SamariUw  til- 


I24G 


SHEKEL 


the  coins  dee  liable  as  amulets !  and  (3)  that  the 
coins  attributed  to  Simon  Maccabaeus  belong  to  tins 
period.  Tychsen  has  quoted  some  curiou"  passages,0 
but  his  arguments  are  wholly  untenable.  In  the 
first  place,  no  numismatist  can  doubt  the  genuine 
ness  of  the  shekels  attributed  to  Simon  Maccabaeus, 


SHEKEL 

The  following  list  is  given  by  Cavcdoni  (p.  11  cl 
the  German  translation)  as  an  enumeration  of  y.li 
the  coins  which  can  be  attributed  with  any  cer 
tainty  to  Simon  Maccabaeus. 

I.  Shekels  of  three  years,  vith  the  inscription 
Shekel  Israel  on  the  Obverse  with  a  Vase,  over 


or  believe  that  they  belong  to  the  same  epoch  as  |  which  appears   (1)  an  Aleph  ;  (2)  the  let'.sr  Shin 
the  coins  of  Barcoceba.      But  as  Tychsen  never  saw 
a  shekel,  he  was  not  a  competent  judge.     There  is 


another  consideration,  which,  if  further  demonstra 
tion  were  needed,  would  supply  a  very  strong  argu 
ment.  These  coins  were  first  made  known  to 
Europe  through  Postell,  who  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  aware  of  the  description  given  of  them  in 
Rabbinical  writers.  The  correspondence  of  the  newly- 
found  coins  with  the  earlier  description  is  almost 
demonstrative.  But  they  bear  such  undoubted 
marks  of  genuineness,  that  no  judge  of  ancient  coins 
could  doubt  them  for  a  moment.  On  the  contrary, 
to  a  practical  eye,  those  with  Hebrew  inscriptions 
bear  undoubted  marks  of  spuriousness.d 

Among  the  symbols  found  on  this  series  of  coins 
is  one  which  is  considered  to  represent  that  which 
was  called  Lulab  by  the  Jews.  This  term  was 
applied  (see  Maimon.  on  the  section  of  the  Mishna 
called  Rosh  Hashanah,  or  Commencement  of  the 
Year,  ch.  vii.  1,  and  the  Mishna  itself  in  Succah, 
i"lD1D,  or  Booths,  ch.  iii.  1,  both  of  which  passages 
are  quoted  by  Bayer,  De  Num.  p.  129)  to  the 
branches  of  the  three  trees  mentioned  in  Lev.  xxiii. 
40,  which  are  thought  to  be  the  Palm,  the  Myrtle, 
and  the  Willow.  These,  which  were  to  be  earned 
by  the  Israelites  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  were 
usually  accompanied  by  the  fruit  of  the  Citron,  which 
is  also  found  in  this  representation.  Sometimes  two 
of  these  Luldbs  are  found  together.  At  least  such 
is  the  explanation  given  by  some  authorities  of  the 
symbols  called  in  the  article  MONEY  by  the  name  of 
Sheaves.  The  subject  is  involved  in  much  diffi 
culty  and  obscurity,  and  we  speak  therefore  with 
some  hesitation  and  diffidence,  especially  as  expe 
rienced  numismatists  differ  in  their  explanations. 
This  explanation  is,  however,  adopted  by  Bayer 
(De  Num.  p.  128,  219,  &c.),  and  by  Cavedoni 
(Bibl.  Num.  p.  31-32  of  the  German  translation, 
who  adds  references  to  1  Mace.  iv.  59 ;  John  x.  22), 
as  he  considers  that  the  Lulab  was  in  use  at  the  Feast 
of  the  Dedication  on  the  2 5th  day  of  the  9th  month 
as  well  as  at  that  of  Tabernacles.  He  also  refers  to 
2  Mace.  i.  18,  x.  6,  7,  where  the  celebration  of  the 
Feast  of  Tabernacles  is  described,  and  tlie  branches 
carried  by  the  worshippers  are  specified. 

The  symbol  on  the  Reverse  of  the  shekels,  repre 
senting  a  twig  with  three  buds,  appears  to  bear 
more  resemblance  to  the  buds  of  the  pomegranate 
than  to  any  other  plant. 


v  i  th  a  Beth  ;  (3)  the  letter  Shin  with  a  Gimel. 

R.  On  the  Reverse  is  the  twig  with  three  buds, 
and  the  inscription  Jerusalem  Kcdushah  or  Hak- 
kedushah* 

II.  The  same  as  the  above,  only  half  the  weight, 


which  is  indicated  by  the  word 


chdtsi,  "  a 


half."     These  occur  only  in  the  first  and  second 
years. 

The  above  are  silver. 

The  fourth  year — a  half. 
Lulab  s. 
R. 


Slt&nath    ArVa    Chatsi. 
A  Citron  between  two 


beration  of  Zion." 


,  Legeullatk  Tsion,  "  Of  the  Li- 
A  Palm-tree  between  two  baskets 


of  fruit 

IV.  JTm  ymtf  n:^,  Shtnath  ArVa,  Rebfa. 
The  fourth  year — a  fourth.     Two  Lulabs. 

R.  fV¥  rhttb— as  before.  Citron-fruit. 

V.  JJ3"IN  JW,   Shcnath    Arb'a.     The   fourth 
year.     Lulab  between  two  Citrons. 

R.  |V¥  r&K&,  Legeuttath  Tsion,  as  before. 

The  Vase  as  on  the  shekel  and  half-shekel. 

These  are  of  copper. 

The  other  coins  which  belong  to  this  series  have 
been  sufficiently  illustrated  in  the  article  MONEY. 

In  the  course  of  1862  a  work  of  considerable 
importance  was  published  at  Breslau  by  Dr.  M.  A. 
Levy,  entitled  Geschichte  der  Judischen  Miinzcn.* 
It  appears  likely  to  be  useful  in  the  elucidation 
of  the  questions  relating  to  the  Jewish  coinage 
which  have  been  touched  upon  in  the  present 
volume.  There  are  one  or  two  points  on  which 
it  is  desirable  to  state  the  views  of  the  author, 
especially  as  he  quotes  coins  which  have  only 
become  known  lately.  Some  coins  have  been  de 
scribed  in  the  Revue  Numismatique  (1860,  p. 
260  seq.\  to  which  the  name  of  Eleazar  coins  has 
been  given.  A  coin  was  published  some  time  ago 
by  De  Saulcy  which  is  supposed  by  that  author  to 
be  a  counterfeit  coin.  It  is  scarcely  legible,  but  it 
appears  to  contain  the  name  Eleazar  on  one  side, 
and  that  of  Simon  on  the  other.  During  the 
troubles  which  preceded  the  final  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  Eleazar  (the  son  of  Simon),  who  was  a 
priest,  and  Simon  Ben  Giora,  were  at  the  head  of 
large  factions.  It  is  suggested  by  Dr.  Levy  that 


«  He  quotes,  e.  g.,  the  following  passage  from  the  Je 
rusalem  Talmud  :  p  p;o  O-IB&W  "nro^  ynBD 

QTTIE)  "PHD  WK  KITD;  "Revolution  (Samaritan) 
money,  like  that  of  Ben  Coziba,  does  not  defile."  The  mean 
ing  of  this  is  not  very  obvious,  nor  does  Tychsen's  explana 
tion  appear  quite  satisfactory.  He  adds,  "  does  not  defile, 
if  used  as  an  amulet."  We  should  rather  inquire  whether 
the  expression  may  not  have  some  relation  to  that  of 
"  defiling  the  hands,"  as  applied  to  the  canonical  books 
of  the  0.  T.  See  Ginsburg,  Commentary  on  the  Song  of 
Songs,  p.  3.  The  word  for  polluting  is  different,  but  the 
expressions  may  be  analogous.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
these  coins  are  often  perforated,  which  gives  countenance 
lo  the  notion  that  they  were  used  as  amulets.  The  passage 
is  from  the  division  of  the  Jerusalem  Talmud  entitled 
Haaser  fJheni,  or  *  The  Second  Tithe." 


d  The  statement  here  made  will  not  be  disputed  by  any 
practical  numismatist.  It  is  made  on  the  authority  of  the 
late  Mr.  T.  Burgon,  of  the  British  Museum,  whose  know 
ledge  and  skill  in  these  questions  was  known  throughout 
Europe. 

e  The  spelling  varies  with  the  year.  The  shekel  of  the 
first  year  has  only  HS^IIp  D^IT1 5  wnile  those  of  the 
second  and  third  years  have  the  fuller  form,  Q<9fc*>1<V 
n^npil-  The  ^  of  the  Jerusalem  is  important  as  show 
ing  that  both  modes  of  spelling  were  in  use  at  the  same 
time. 

'  From  the  time  of  its  publication,  it  was  net  available 
for  the  article  MONEY  :  but  I  am  indebted  to  the  authoi 
of  that  article  for  calling  my  attention  to  this  book.  ( 
was,  however,  unable  to  proc are  it  until  the 
was  in  type.— H.  J.  R 


SB EL AH 

money  may  hr>ve  been  struck  which  bore  tfce  names 
of  both  these  leaders ;  but  it  seems  scarcely  pro 
bable,  as  they  do  not  appear  to  have  acted  in  con 
cert.  But  a  copper  coin  has  been  puclished  in 
the  Revue  Numismatique  which  undoubtedly  bears 
the  inscription  of  "  Eleazar  the  priest."  Its  types 
are — 

T.  A  vase  with  one  handle  and  the  inscription 
f!tDn  "ITJ^X,  "  Eleazar  the  priest,"  in  Sama 
ritan  letters. 

#.  A  bunch  of  grapes  with  the  inscription 
&HTOB"  rbxti  nn  SnJP,  "year  one  of  the 
redemption  of  Israel." 

Some  silver  coins  also,  first  published  by  Keichardt, 
bear  the  same  inscription  on  the  obverse,  under  a 
palm-tree,  but  the  letters  run  from  left  to  right. 
The  reverse  bears  the  same  type  and  inscription  as 
the  copper  coins. 

These  coins  are  attributed,  as  well  as  some  that 
bear  the  name  of  Simon  or  Simeon,  to  the  period 
of  this  first  rebellion,  by  Dr.  Levy.  It  is,  however, 
quite  clear  that  some  of  the  coins  bearing  similar 
inscriptions  belong  to  the  period  of  Bar-cocab's 
rebellion  (or  Barcocebas,  as  the  name  is  often 
spelt)  under  Hadrian,  because  they  are  stamped 
upon  denarii  of  Trajan,  his  predecessor.  The  work 
of  Dr.  Levy  will  be  found  very  useful  as  collecting 
together  notices  of  all  these  coins,  and  throwing 
out  very  useful  suggestions  as  to  their  attribution  ; 
but  we  must  still  look  to  further  researches  and 
fresh  collections  of  these  coins  for  full  satisfaction 
on  many  points.i  The  attribution  of  the  shekels 
and  half-shekels  to  Simon  Maccabaeus  may  be  con 
sidered  as  well  established,  and  several  of  the  other 
coins  described  in  the  article  MONEY  offer  no 
grounds  for  hesitation  or  doubt.  But  still  this 
series  is  very  much  isolated  from  other  classes  of 
coins,  and  the  nature  of  the  work  hardly  corresponds 
in  some  cases  with  the  periods  to  which  we  are 
constrained  from  the  existing  evidence  to  attribute 
th£  coins.  We  must  therefore  still  look  for  further 
light  from  future  inquiries.  Drawings  of  shekels 
are  given  in  the  article  MONEY.  [H.  J.  R.] 


SHELEPU 


1247 


SHE'LAH  (fW  :  2rj\^ :  Sela).  1.  The 
youngest  son  of  Judah  by  the  daughter  of  Shuah 
the  Canaanite,  and  ancestor  of  the  family  of  the 
SIIELANITES  (Gen.  xxxviii.  5,  11,  14,  26,  xlvi.  12  ; 
Num.  xxvi.  20  ;  1  Chr.  ii.  3,  iv.  21).  Some  of  his 
descendants  are  enumerated  in  a  remarkable  passage 
1  Chr.  iv.  21-23. 

2.  (rPK>:  2aAa:  Sale.)     The  proper  form  o 

the  name  of  SAL  AH  the  son  of  Arphaxad  (1  Chr 
i.  18,  24). 

SHE'LANITES,  THE  (»iWn  :  6  ^-nKuvi 

Selaitae).  The  descendants  of  SHELAH  1  (Num 
xxvi.  20). 

SHELEMI'AH  (njD^:    2e\e|ufa :    Alex 

2e\e^as:  Salmias).  1.  One  of  the  sons  of  Bani 
who  "had  married  a  foreign  wife  in  the  time  of  Ezra 
(Ezr  x.  39).  Called  SELEMIAS  in  1  Esd.  ix.  34. 

2.  (2e\ejiuas ;  Alex.  2ee/iia:  Selemias.)  The 
tather  of  Hananiah  (Neh.  iii.  30),  who  assisted  in 
restoring  the  wall  of  Jerusalem.  If  this  Hananiah 


be  the  same  as  is  mentioned  in  Neh.  iii.  8,  Slide- 
miah  was  one  of  the  priests  who  made  the  sacred 
perfumes  and  incense. 

3.  A  priest  in  the  time  of  Nehemiab,  who  was 
made  one  of  the  treasurers  over  the  treasuries  of 
the  Levitical  tithes  (Neh.  xiii.  13). 

4.  The  father  of  Jehucal,  or  Ji  cal,  in  the  time 
f  Zedekiah  (Jer.  xxxvii.  3). 

5.  The  father  of  Irijah,  the  captain  of  the  ward 
who  arrested  Jeremiah  (Jer.  xxxvii.  13).     In  Jer. 
\xxviii.  1,  his  name  appears  in  the  lengthened  form. 

ike  the  following. 

6.  (tfPtpW  :  2eAe/a'a.)    The  same  as  MESHE- 
LEMIAH  and  SHALLUM  8  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  14). 

7.  (Selemiau.)  Another  of  the  sons  of  Bani  who 
had  married  a  foreign  wife  in  the  time  of  Ezra 
(Ezr.  x.  41). 

8.  (2eAe/iias  ;  Alex.  2aAa/tias:  Selemia.')  An 
cestor  of  Jehudi  in  the  time  of  Jehoiakim    (Jer. 
xxxvi.  14). 

9.  (Om.  in  LXX.)  Son  of  Abdeel;  one  of  those 
who  received  the  orders  of  Jehoiakim  to  take  Baruch 
and  Jeremiah  (Jer.  xxxvi.  26). 


SHELEPH  (C|B>:  2aA.e>  ;  Alex. 
Saleph),  Gen.  x.  26  ;  1  Chr.  i.  20.  The  second 
in  order  of  the  sons  of  Joktan.  The  tribe  which 
sprang  from  him  has  been  satisfactorily  identi 
fied,  both  in  modern  and  classical  times:  as  well 
as  the  district  of  the  Yemen  named  after  him. 
It  has  been  shown  in  other  articles  [ARABIA  ;  JOK 
TAN,  &c.]  that  the  evidence  of  Joktan's  coloniza 
tion  of  Southern  Arabia  is  indisputably  proved,  and 
that  it  has  received  the  assent  of  critics.  Sheleph 
is  found  where  we  should  expect  to  meet  with  him, 
in  the  district  (Mikhldf,  as  the  ancient  divisions  of 

*-j 

the  Yemen  are  called  by  the  Arabs)  of  Sulaf  (cA^w 
Mardsid,  s.  v.),  which  appears  to  be  the  same  as 
Niebuhr's  Salfie  (Descr.  p.  215),  written  in  his 


map  Selfia.     He  gives  the  Arabic  A/jLw,  with  the 

vowels  probably  Sulafeeyeh.  Niebuhr  says  of  it, 
"  grande  ^tendue  de  pays  gouverne'e  par  sept 
Schechs:"  it  is  situate  in  N.  lat.  14°  30',  and 
about  60  miles  nearly  south  of  San'a. 

Besides  this  geographical  trace  of  Sheleph,  we 
have  the  tribe  of  Shettf  or  Shulaf,  of  which  the 
first  notice  appeared  in  the  Zeitschrift  d.  Deutschen 
Morgenlandischen  Gesellschaft,  xi.  153,  by  Dr. 
Osiander,  and  to  which  we  are  indebted  for  the  fol 
lowing  information.  Yakoot  in  the  Moajam,  s.  v., 
says,  "  Es-Selif  or  Es-Sulaf  they  are  two  ancient 
tribes  of  the  tribes  of  Yemen  ;  Hisham  Ibn-Moham- 
med  says  they  are  the  children  of  Yuktin  Joktan  ; 
and  Yuktan  was  the  son  of  Eber  the  son  of  Salah  the 
son  of  Arphaxad  the  son  of  Shem  the  son  of  Noah 
....  And  a  district  in  El-Yemen  is  named  after 
the  Sulaf."  El-Kalkasauder  (in  the  British  Museum 
library)  says,  "  El-Sulaf,  called  also  Beni-s-Silfan, 
a  tribe  of  the  descendants  of  Kahtan  (Joktan).  .  .  . 
The  name  of  their  father  has  remained  with  them, 
and  they  are  called  Es-Sulaf  :  they  are  children  of 
Es-Sulaf  son  of  Yuktan  who  is  Kahtan.  .  .  .  E&- 
Sulaf  originally  signifies  one  of  the  little  ones  of  the 
partridge,  and  Es-Silfan  is  its  plural  :  the  tribe  was 
named  after  that  on  account  of  translation."  Yakoot 


f  rhe  passage  from  the  Jerusalem  Talmuu,  quoted  in  i  Tychsen  "to  pollute,"  is  translated  by  him 
a  former  note,  is  considered  by  Dr.  Levy  (p.  127),  and  &.  j  "  redeem  the  tithe,"  which  seems  b*::*r. 
different  explanation  given.      The  word  translated  by  j 

I 


1243 


SHELESH 


also  says  (s.  v.  Muntabik}  that  El-Muntabik  wao 
.an  idol  belonging  to  Es-Sulaf.  Finally,  according 
jo  the  Kdmnos  (and  the  Lubb-el-Lubab,  cited  in  the 
Mardsid.  s.  v.),  Sulaf  was  a  branch-tribe  of  Dhu-1- 
lCili5a;  [a  Himyerite  family  or  tribe  (Caussiu. 
'  i.  113),  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  later 


king,  or  Tubbaa  of  that  name]. 

This  identification  is  conclusively  satisfactory, 
especially  when  we  recollect  that  Hazarmaveth 
(Hadramawt),  Sheba  (Seba),  and  other  Joktanite 
names  are  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.  It  is 
strengthened,  if  further  evidence  were  required,  by 
the  classical  mention  of  the  2a\airr)voi,  Salapeni, 
also  written  'A\aTnt}voi,  Alapeui  (Ptol.  vi.  7). 
Bochart  puts  forward  this  people,  with  rare  brevity. 
The  more  recent  researches  in  Arabic  MSS.  have,  as 
we  have  shown,  confirmed  in  this  instance  his 
theory  ;  for  we  do  not  lay  much  stress  on  the  point 
that  Ptolemy's  Salapeni  are  placed  by  him  in  N. 
lat.  22°.  [E.  S.  P.] 

SHE'LESH  (B^B?  :  SeAA^y  :  SeUes).    One  of 

the  sons  of  Helem  the  brother  of  Shamer  (1  Chr. 
vii.  35. 


i:  Salami}.  Father 


SHEL'OMI 

of  Ahihud,  the  prince  of  the  tribe  of  Asher  (Num. 
xxxiv.  27). 


SHEL'OMITH  (TPti®  :  2o\«/tef0:  Salu- 
mith}.  1.  The  daughter  of  Dibri  of  the  tribe  of 
Dan  (Lev.  xxiv.  11).  She  had  married  an  Egyptian, 
and  their  son  was  stoned  for  blasphemy. 

2.  (2aAa>/*e0i  :    Salomith.}    The   daughter   of 
Zerubbabel  (1  Chr.  iii.  19). 

3.  (2a\<0/j.a>8  ;  Alex.  SaAou^fl.)  Chief  of  the 
Izharites,  one  of  the  four  families  of  the  sons  of 
Kohath  (1  Chr.  xxiii.  18).     He  is  called  SHELO- 
MOTH  in  1  Chr.  xxiv.  22. 

4.  (rm?V;   Keri  fVb1?^  in  1  Chr.  xxvi.  25; 
nte>V  in  !  Chr-  xxvi.  26  ;  JVcfcp  in  l  Chr.  xxvi. 
28  :  8elemith\    A  descendant  of  Eliezer  the  son  of 
Moses,  who  with  his  brethren  had  charge  of  the 
treasures  dedicated  for  the  Temple  in  the  reirn  of 
David. 

5.  (m^V:  Keri  M?)&:    2o\«/ii'0  ;  Alex. 
2aA.a>,uei0  :  Salomith}.    A  Gershonite,  son  of  Shimei 
(  1  Chr.  xxiii.  9).  "  Shimei  "  is  probably  a  mistake,  as 
Shelomith  and  his  brothers  are  afterwards  described 
as  chief  of  the  fathers  of  Laadan,  who  was  the  brother 
of  Shimei,  and  the  sons  of  Shimei  are  then  enume 
rated 

6.  (JVb/^  .     StXi/ioufl  ;     Alex.    2aAtj/*ou0  : 
Selomith}.     According  to  the  present  text,  the  sons 
of  Shelomith,  with   the  son  of  Josiphiah   at   their 
head,  returned  from  Babylon  with  Ezra  (Ezr.  viii. 
10).     There  appears,  however,  to  be  an  omission, 
which  may  be  supplied  from  the  LXX.,  and  the 
true  reading  is  probably,  "  Of  the  sons  of  Bani, 
Shelomith  the  son  of  Josiphiah."     See  also  1  Esdr. 
viii.  36,  where  he  is  called  "  ASSAI.IMOTH  son  of 
Josaphias." 

SHEL'OMOTH 


'•  2aAco/^0  :  Sale- 
moth}.  The  same  as  SHELOMITH  3  (1  Chr.  xxiv 
22). 

SIIELU  MIEL  (^*D^  :  2oA.o/*^A  :  Sala- 
The  son  of  Zurisha/Viai,  and  prince  of  the 


SHEM 

tribe  ot  S.moon  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus.    H.->  haf 
59,300  men  under  him  (Num.  i.  G;  ii.  12,  vii.  ">(> 
41,   x.    n~        Li    Judith    (viii.    1)   he   is   railed 
,  SAMAEL. 

SHEM  V0£> :   2-fiyu :   Scm).     The  eldest  son  of 

Noah,  born  (Gen.  v.  32)  when  his  father  hail  at 
tained  the  age  of  500  years.  He  was  98  years 
old,  married,  and  childless,  at  the  time  of  the  Flood. 
After  it,  hi«,  with  his  father,  brothers,  sisteis-in- 
law,  and  wife,  received  the  blessing  of  God  (ix.  1), 
and  entered  into  the  covenant.  Two  years  after 
wards  he  became  the  father  of  Arphaxad  (xi.  Id), 
and  other  children  were  born  to  him  subsequently. 
With  the  help  of  his  brother  Japheth,  he  covered 
the  nakedness  of  their  father,  which  Canaan  and 
Ham  did  not  care  to  hide.  In  the  prophecy  of 
Noah  which  is  connected  with  this  incident  (ix. 
25-27),  the  first  blessing  falls  on  Shem.  He  died 
at  the  age  of  600  years. 

Assuming  that  the  years  ascribed  to  the  patri 
archs  in  the  present  copies  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  aro 
correct,  it  appears  that  Methuselah,  who  in  his  first, 
243  years  was  contemporary  with  Adam,  had  still 
nearly  100  years  of  his  long  life  to  run  after  Shem 
was  born.  And  when  Shem  died,  Abraham  was 
148  years  old,  and  Isaac  had  been  9  years  married. 
There  are,  therefore,  but  two  links — Methuselah 
and  Shem — between  Adam  and  Isaac.  So  that  the 
early  records  of  the  Creation  and  the  Fall  of  Man, 
which  came  down  to  Isaac,  would  challenge  (apart 
from  their  inspiration)  the  same  confidence  which 
is  readily  yielded  to  a  tale  that  reaches  the  hearer 
through  two  well-known  persons  between  himself 
and  the  original  chief  actor  in  the  events  related. 

There  is  no  chronological  improbability  in  that  an 
cient  Jewish  tradition  which  brings  Shem  and  Abra 
ham  into  personal  conference.  [MELCHIZEDEK.] 

A  mistake  in  translating  x.  21,  which  is  admitted 
into  the  Septuagint,  and  is  followed  by  the  A.  V. 
and  Luther,  has  suggested  the  supposition  that 
Shem  was  younger  than  Japheth  (see.  A.  Pfeiffen 
Opera,  p.  30).  There  can  be,  however,  no  doubt  (see 
Roseumuller,  in  loc.,  with  whom  Gesenius,  The- 
sawnis,  p.  1433,  seems  to  agree)  that  the  translation 
ought  to  be,  according  to  grammatical  rule,  "  the 
elder  brother  of  Japheth."  In  the  six  places  (v.  32, 
vi.  10,  vii.  13,  ix.  18,  x.  1 ;  1  Chr.  i.  4)  where  the 
three  sons  of  Noah  are  named  together,  precedence  is 
uniformly  assigned  to  Shem.  In  ch.  x.  the  descend 
ants  of  Ham  and  Japheth  are  enumerated  first, 
possibly  because  the  sacred  historian,  regarding  the 
Shemitic  people  as  his  proper  subject,  took  the  ear 
liest  opportunity  to  disencumber  his  narrative  of  a 
digression.  The  verse  v.  32  compared  with  xi.  10 
may  be  fairly  understood  to  mean  that  the  three 
sons  of  Noah  were  bora  after  their  father  had  at 
tained  the  age  of  500  years  ;  but  it  cannot  be  rea 
sonably  inferred  from  thence  either  that  Shem  was 
the  second  son,  or  that  they  were  all  born  in  one 
year. 

The  portion  of  the  earth  occupied  by  the 
descendants  of  Shem  (x.  21-31)  intersects  the  por 
tions  of  Japheth  and  Ham,  and  stretches  in  an  un 
interrupted  line  from  the  Mediterranean  Sea  to  the 
Indian  Ocean.  Beginning  as  its  north- western  ex 
tremity  with  Lydia  (according  to  all  ancient  autho 
rities,  though  doubted  by  Michaelis ;  see  (KWII. 
Tlies.  p.  745),  it  includes  Syria  (Aram),  Chal<ia<^ 
(Arphaxad),  parts  of  Assyria  (Asshur),  of  Persia 
(Elam),  and  of  the  Arabian  Peninsula  (Jokt-ui. 
The  various  questions  connected  with  the  dispel 


SHEMA 

siou  of  the  Shemitic  people  are  discussed  in   the 
article  SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES. 

The  servitude  of  Canaan  under  Shem,  predicted  by 
"tfoah  (ix,  26),  was  fulfilled  primarily  in  the  sub 
jugation  of  the  people  of  Palestine  (Josh,  xxiii.  4, 
and  2  Chr.  viii.  7,  8).  It  is  doubtful  whether  in 
verse  27  God  or  Japheth  is  mentioned  as  the 
dweller  in  the  tents  of  Shem  :  in  the  former  sense 
the  verse  may  refer  to  the  special  presence  of  God 
with  the  Jews,  and  to  the  descent  of  Christ  from 
them;  or,  in  the  latter  sense,  to  the  occupation  of 
Palestine  and  adjacent  countries  by  the  Romans, 
and  (spiritually  understood)  to  the  accession  of  the 
Gentiles  to  the  Church  of  God  (Eph.  iii.  6).  See  A. 
Pfeifleri  Opera,  p.  40  :  Newton,  On  the  Prophecies 
Uiss.1.  [W.T.B.J 

Alex.     2ajuaa  : 


SHEMAIAH 


1240 


2a\/xoa  ; 

Same].  One  of  the  towns  of  Judah.  It  lay  in  the 
region  of  the  south,  and  is  named  between  AMAH 
and  MOLADAH  (Josh.  xv.  26).  In  the  list  of  the 
towns  of  Simeon  selected  from  those  in  the  south 
of  Judah,  Sheba  takes  the  place  of  Shema,  probably 
by  au  error  of  transcription  or  a  change  of  pro 
nunciation.  The  genealogical  lists  of  1  Chr.  (ii 
43,  4)  inform  us  that  Shema  originally  proceede( 
from  Hebron,  and  in  its  turn  colonized  Maon.  [G/ 

SHEM'A  QHDt?  :  2a/«£:  Samma).     1.  AReu 
benite,  ancestor  of  Bela  (I  Chr.  v.  8). 

2.  (Sama.*)    Son  of  Elpaal,  and  one  of  the  head 
of  the  fathers  of  the  inhabitants  of  Aijalon  wh 
drove  out  the  inhabitants  of  Gath  (1  Chr.  viii.  13) 
Probably  the  same  as  SHIMHI. 

3.  (Sa/j.aias  :  Semeli.}    One  of  those  who  stooc 
at  Ezra's  right  hand  when  he  read  the  Law  to  th 


107)  prct'-^es  to  omit  the  words  at  the  begin- 
ing  of  1  Chr.  ii.  22  as  spurious,  and  to  consider 
lemaiah  identical  with  SHIMEI  5,  the  brother  oj 
erubbabel. 

3.  (2o|uatos:   Samaia.}    Ancestor  of  Ziza,   a 
rince  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon  (1  Chr.  iv.  37).    Per- 
aps  the  same  as  SHIMEI  6. 

4.  (Se/irf:  Samia.}    Son  of  Joel  a  Reubenit*  ; 
erhaps  the  same  as  SHEMA  (1  Chr.  v.  4).     See 
OEL  5. 

5.  (2a/iofo:  Semeta.}     Son  of  Hasshub,  a  Me- 
arite    Levite  who   lived   in    Jerusalem  after   the 

Captivity  (1  Chr.  ix.   14;  Neh.  xi.  15),  and  had 
versight  of  the  outward  business  of  the  house  of 

God. 

(2aju£a.)    Father   of  Obadiah,   or  Abda,    a 
.evite  who  returned  to  Jerusalem  after  the  Captivity 

(1  Chr.  ix.  16).     He  is  elsewhere  called  SHAMMUA 

(Neh.  xi.  17). 

7.  (2e/xef,    2ejua/o ;    Alex.   'Oejwcua,    Sejueta : 
Semeias.}    Son  of  Elizaphan,  and  chief  of  his  house 

n  the  reign  of  David  (1  Chr.  xv.  8,  11).  He  took 
Dart  in  the  ceremonial  with  which  the  king  brought 
;he  Ark  from  the  house  of  Obed-edom. 

8.  (2ctytcuas ;  Alex.  2a/tjuaias.)    A  Levite,  son 
of  Nethaneel,  and  also  a  scribe  in  the  time  of  David. 
He  registered  the  divisions  of  the  priests  by  lot  into 
twenty-four  orders  (1  Chr.  xxiv.  6). 

9.  (,2ajua/os;  Alex.  2a/ie?as.)  The  eldest  son  of 
Obed-edom  the  Gittite.     He  and  his  brethren  and 
his  sons  were  gatekeepers  of  the  Temple  (\  Chr. 
xxvi.  4,  6,  7). 

10.  (Alex.  2aiuei/as.)     A  descendant  of  Jedu- 
thun  the  singer  who  lived  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah 
(2  Chr.  xxix.  14).     He  assisted  in  the  purification 


people  (Neh.  viii.  4).  Called  SAMMUS,  1  Esdr.  ix.  43 

SHEM'AAH  (nyDK>:    'A<r/ic{;    FA. 
Samaa).     A  Benjamite  of  Gibeah,  and  father  o 
Ahiezer  and  Joash,  two  warriors  of  their  tribe  wh 
joined  David  at  Ziklag  (1  Chr.  xii.  3).     His  nam 
is  written  with  the  article,  and  is  properly  "  Has- 
shemaah."    The  margin  of  A.V.  gives  "  Hasmaah. 

SHEM AI AH  (n$OG?:  Zapaias:  Sonetas 
L.  A  prophet  in  the  reign  of  Rehoboam.  Whe 
the  king  had  assembled  180,000  men  of  Benjami 
and  Judah  to  reconquer  the  northern  kingdom  after 
its  revolt,  Shemaiah  was  commissioned  to  charge 
them  to  return  to  their  homes,  and  not  to  war 
against  their  brethren  (1  K.  xii.  22 ;  2  Chr.  xi.  2). 
His  second  and  last  appearance  upon  the  stage  was 
upon  the  occasion  of  the  invasion  of  Judah'  and 
siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Shishak  king  of  Egypt. 
His  message  was  then  one  of  comfort,  to  assure  the 
princes  of  Judah  that  the  punishment  of  their 
idolatry  should  not  come  by  the  hand  of  Shishak 
(2  Chr.  xii.  5,  7).  This  event  is  in  the  order  of 
narrative  subsequent  to  the  first,  but  from  some 
circumstances  it  would  seem  to  have  occurred  before 
the  disruption  of  the  two  kingdoms.  Compare  xii. 
1,  where  the  people  of  Rehoboam  are  called  "  Israel," 
and  xii.  5,  6  where  the  princes  are  called  indiffer 
ently  "  of  Judah  "  and  "  of  Israel."  He  wrote  a 
chronicle  containing  the  events  of  Rehoboam 's  reign 
(2  Chr.  xii.  15).  In  1  Chr.  xi.  2  his  name  is 
given  in  the  lengthened  form  •liTJ/DK* 

?metu,    Semala.')     The  son   of 
the  descendants  of  Zerubbabel 
(1  Chr.  iii.  22).     He  was  keeper  of  the  east  gate  of 
the  city,  and  assisted  Nehemiah  in  restoring  the 
wall   (Neh.  iii.  29).      Lord  A.  Hervej-  (Geneal. 
VOL.  m. 


2- 

Shechaniah,  amon 


of  the  Temple  and  the  reformation  of  the  service, 
and  with  Uzziel  represented  his  family  on  that 
occasion. 

11.  (2a,uafa;  Alex.  2ajimeia:  Samalas.}    One 
of  the  sons  of  Adonikam  who  returned  in  the  second 
caravan  with  Ezra  (Ezr.  viii.  13).    Called  SAMAIA3 
in  1  Esdr.  viii.  39. 

12.  (2e^e'/os:  Semeias.}     One  of  the  "heads" 
whom   Ezra  sent  for  to  his  camp  by  the  river  of 
Ahava,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  Levites  and 
ministers  for  the  Temple  from  "  the  place  Casiphia  " 
(Ezr.  viii.  16).   Called  M  ASM  AN  in  1  Esdr.  vii.  43. 

13.  (2ajttofa:   Semeia.}    A  priest  of  the  family 
of  Harim,  who  put  away  his  foreign  wife  at  Ezra's 
bidding  (Ezr.  x.   21).     He  is  called  SAMEIUS  in 

Esdr.  ix.  21. 

14.  (2o/iafos :  Semrtas.}    A  layman  of  Israel, 
son  of  another  Harim,   who   also   had  married  a 
foreigner  (Ezr.  x.  31).    ('ailed  SABBEUS  in  1  Esdr. 
ix.  32. 

15.  (2e/iet)    Son  of  Delaiah  the  son  of  Mehe- 
tabeel,  a  prophet  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah,  who  was 
bribed  by  Sanballat  and  his  confederates  to  frighten 
the  Jews  'from  their  task  of  rebuilding  the  wall, 
and  to  put  Nehemiah  in  fear  (Neh.  vi.  10).     In  Kis 
assumed  terror  he  appears  to   have  shut  up   his 
house  and  to  have  proposed  that  all  should  retire 
into  the  Temple  and  close  the  doors. 

16.  (2ajuaia,  2eutas;   Alex.   2e^efas  m  Neh. 
xii. :  Semeia.}     The  head  of  a  priestly  house  who 
signed  the  covenant  with   Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  8). 
His  family  went  up  with  Zerubbabel,  and  were  re 
presented  in  the  time  of  Joiakim  by  Jehonathau  (Neh . 
xii.  6,  18).     Probably  the  same  who  is  mentioned 
again  in  Neh.  xii.  35. 

17.  (Sff/ieua? ;  Alex.   2aa/ticrtas.)     Oue  cf  th* 
princes  of  J  udah  who  went  in  procession  with  Ezra, 


12oO 


SHEivlARIAH 


SHEMINITH 


in  the  right  hand  of  the  two  thanksgiving  com- 
[>anies  who  celebrated  the  solemn  dedication  of  the 
wall  of  Jerusalem  (Neh.  xii.  34). 

18.  (Sdjuafa.)  One  of  the  choir  who  took  part 
in  the  procession  with  which  the  dedication  of  the 
new  wall  of  Jerusalem  by  Ezra  was  accompanied 
(Neh.  xii.  36).   He  appears  to  have  been  a  Gershon- 
ite  Levite,  and  descendant  of  Asaph,    for  reasons 
which.  are  given  under  MATTANIAH  2. 

19.  (Om.  in  Vat.  MS.  ;  Alex.  2ejue?as.)  A  priest 
who  blew  a  trumpet  on  the  same  occasion  (Neh. 
xii.  42). 

20.  (2a/iaios:  Semeias.}     Shemaiah   the  Ne- 
helamite,  a  false  prophet  in  the  time  of  Jeremiah. 
He  prophesied  to  the  people  of  the  Captivity  in  the 
name  of  Jehovah,  and  attempted  to  counteract  the 
influence   of  Jeremiah's   advice  that  they  should 
settle  quietly  in  the  land  of  their  exile,  build  houses, 
plant  vineyards,  and  wait  patiently  for  the  period 
of  their  return  at  the  end  of  seventy  years.     His 
animosity  to  Jeremiah  exhibited  itself  in  the  more 
active  form  of  a  letter  to  the  high-priest  Zepha- 
niah,  urging  him  to  exercise  the  functions  of  his 
office,  and  lay  the  prophet  in  prison  and  in  the 
stocks.     The  letter  was  read  by  Zephaniah  to  Jere 
miah,  who  instantly  pronounced  the  message  of 
doom   against  Shemaiah  for  his  presumption,  that 
he  should  have  none  of  his  family  to  dwell  among 
the  people,  and  that  himself  should  not  live  to  see 
their  return  from  captivity  (Jer.  xxix.  24-32).  His 
name  is  written  in  ver.  24  in  the  lengthened  form 


21.  (Sct/iaias.)    A  Levite  in  the  third  year  of 
Jehoshaphat,  who  was  sent  with  other  Levites,  ac 
companied  by  two  priests  and  some  of  the  princes 
of  Judah,  to  teach  the  people  the  book  of  the  Law 
(2  Chr.  xvii.  8). 

22.  (Sejitef  :  Semetas,}     One  of  the  Levites  in 
the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  whowtie  placed  in  the  cities 
of  the  priests  to  distribute  the  tithes  among  their 
brethren  (2  Chr.  xxxi.  15). 

23.  (Sonatas.)  A  Levite  in  the  reign  of  Josiah, 
who  assisted  at  the  solemn  passover  (2  Chr.  xxxv.  9). 
He  is  called  the  brother  of  Conaniah,  and  in  2  Chr. 
xxxi.  12  we  find  Cononiah  and  Shimei  his  brother 
mentioned  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  as  chief  Levites  ; 
but  if  Cononiah  and  Conaniah  are  the  names  of 
persons  and  not  of  families,  they  cannot  be  identical, 
nor  can  Shemaiah  be  the  same  as  Shimei,  who  lived 
at  least  eighty-five  years  before  him. 

24.  (Semei.)     The  father  of  Urijah  of  Kirjath- 
jearim  (Jer.  xxvi.  20}. 

25.  (2eA€)u(oy;  FA.  SeSeKfos:  Semeias.}    The 
father  of  Delaiah  (Jer.  xxxvi.  12).       [W.  A.  W.] 


SHEMARIAII  (-inn»     :  So/tapafa  ;  Alex. 


Samaria).  1.  On«j  of  the  Benjamite 
warriors,  "  helpers  of  the  battle,"  who  came  to  JDavid 
at  Ziklag  (1  Chr.  xii.  5). 

2.  (iT"]!OK>:  Soapier.  Samarias).    One  of  the 


family  of  Harim,  a  layman  of  Israel,  who  put  away 
his  foreign  wife  in  the  time  of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  32). 

3.  (Semeria.}  One  of  the  family  of  Bani,  under 
the  same  circumstances  as  the  preceding  (Ezr. 
>:.  41). 


feHEME'BER  p3NE>  :  ?v/j.op6p:  Semeber}. 
King  of  Zeboim,  and  ally  of  the  king  of  Sodom 
when  he  was  attacked  by  the  north-eastern  invaders 
«i»der  Chedorlaomer  (Gen.  xiv.  2).  The  Sam.  Text 
Rf»:  Version  give  "  Sheraebel." 


SHEM'ER  O»6?  :  Se^p:  Som<r).  Thcov/nei 
of  the  hill  on  which  the  city  of  Sar.  aria  was  luilt 
(1  K.  xvi.  24),  and  after  whom  it  was  railed  Sho- 
rneron  !>y  its  founder  Omri,  who  bought  the  site  for 
two  silver  talents.  We  should  rather  have  expected 
that  the  name  of  the  city  would  have  been  Shimrun, 
from  Skemer  ;  for  Shomeron  would  have  been  the 
name  given  after  an  owner  Shomcr.  This  latter 
form,  which  occurs  1  Chr.  vii.  32,  appears  to  be 
that  adopted  by  the  Vulgate  and  Syriac,  who  read 
Somer  and  S/tomir  respectively;  but  the  Vat.  Mis 
of  the  LXX.  retains  the  present  form  "  Shemer,' 
and  changes  the  name  of  the  city  to  Seyuepwp  or 
ZcwpAv.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHEM'IDA(yTȣ>:  2i/Ato6p,2i//*ap^;  Alex. 
2eyuipae  in  Josh.  :  Semida).  A  son  of  Gi  lead,  and 
ancestor  of  the  family  of  the  Shemidaites  (Num. 
xxvi.  32  ;  Josh.  xvii.  2).  Called  SHEMIDAH  in  the 
A.  V.  of  1  Chr.  vii.  19. 


SHEM'IDAH  (jnn?B>:  25e/w/>e£  :  Semida). 
The  same  as  Shemida  the  son  of  Gilead  (1  Chr. 
vii.  19). 

SHEMIDA'ITES,  THE  (TTE&f  H  :  &  2u- 
/uaepi  :  Semidnltae}.  The  descendants  of  Shemida 
the  son  of  Gilead  (Num.  xxvi.  32).  They  obtained 
their  lot  among  the  male  children  of  Manasseh 
(Josh.  xvii.  2). 

SHEM'INITH  (TVJ  Wn.     The  title  of  Ps. 


vi.  contains  a  direction  to  the  leader  of  the  stringed 
instruments  of  the  Temple  choir  concerning  the 
manner  in  which  the  Psalm  was  to  be  sung.  "  To 
the  chief  Musician  on  Neginoth  upon  Sheminith," 
or  "  the  eighth,"  as  the  margin  of  the  A.  V.  has  it. 
A  similar  direction  is  found  in  the  title  of  Ps.  xii.  The 
LXX.  in  both  passages  renders  it-ire  p  rrjs  oy56i}s, 
and  the  Vulgate  pro  octavd.  The  Geneva  Version 
gives  "  upon  the  eighth  tune."  Referring  to  1  Chr. 
xv.  21,  we  find  certain  Levites  were  appointed  by 
David  to  play  "  with  harps  on  the  Sheminith," 
which  the  Vulgate  renders  as  above,  and  the  LXX. 
by  a/jiafffviO,  which  is  merely  a  corruption  of 
the  Hebrew.  The  Geneva  Version  explains  in  the 
margin,  "  which  was  the  eighth  tune,  over  the 
which  he  that  was  the  most  excellent  had  charge." 
As  we  know  nothing  whatever  of  the  music  of  the 
Hebrews,  all  conjectures  as  to  the  meaning  of  their 
musical  terms  are  necessarily  vague  and  contra 
dictory.  With  respect  to  Sheminith,  most  Rab 
binical  writers,  as  Rashi  and  Aben  Ezra,  follow  the 
Targum  on  the  Psalms  in  regarding  it  as  a  harp 
with  eight  strings  ;  but  this  has  no  foundation,  and 
depends  upon  a  misconstruction  of  1  Chr.  xv.  21. 
Gesenius  (Thes.  s.  v.  HV3)  says  it  denotes  the  bass, 
in  opposition  to  Alamoth  (1  Chr.  xv.  20),  which 
signifies  the  treble.  But  as  the  meaning  of  Alamoth 
itself  is  very  obscure,  we  cannot  make  use  of  it  for 
determining  the  meaning  of  a  term  which,  though 
distinct  from,  is  not  necessarily  contrasted  with  it. 
Others,  with  the  author  of  Shilte  Haggibborim, 
interpret  "  the  sheminith"  as  the  octave;  but  therp 
is  no  evidence  that  the  ancient  Hebrews  were  ac 
quainted  with  the  octave  as  understood  by  our 
selves.  On  comparing  the  manner  in  which  the 
word  occurs  in  the  titles  of  the  two  Psalms  already 
mentioned,  with  the  position  of  the  terms  Aijeleth 
Shahar,  Gittith,  Jonath-elem-rechokim,  &c.,  m 
other  Psalms,  which  are  generally  regarded  as  in 
dicating  the  melody  to  be  employed  by  the  singers- 


BIlfiMiRAMOTfl 

it  seems  most  probable  that  Sheminith  is  of  the 
same  kind,  and  denotes  a  certain  air  known  as  the 
eighth,  or  a  certain  key  in  which  the  Psalm  was  to 
be  sung.  Maurer  (Comm.  in  Ps.  vi.)  regards 
Sheminith  as  an  instrument  of  deep  tone  like  the 
violoncello,  while  Alamoth  he  compares  with  the 
violin  ;  and  such  also  appears  to  be  the  view  taken 
by  Junius  and  Tremellius.  It  is  impossible  in  such 
a  case  to  do  more  than  point  to  the  most  probable 
conjecture.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHEMI'KAMOTH  (niDnW  : 


Alex.  •S.e/j.ipa/j.de,  1  Chr.  xv.  18  ;  FA. 
1  Chr.  xv.  18,  20,  Sa/iap^cSfl,  1  Chr.  xvi.  5: 
Semiramoth).  1.  A  Levite  of  the  second  degree, 
appointed  to  play  with  a  psaltery  "on  Alamoth," 
in  the  choir  formed  by  David.  He  was  in  the  divi 
sion  which  Asaph  led  with  cymbals  (1  Chr.  xv.  18, 
20,  xvi.  5). 

2.  (Sejiupajuwe.)  A  Levite  in  the  reign  of  Je- 
hoshaphat,  who  was  sent  with  others  through  the 
cities  of  Judah  to  teach  the  book  of  the  Law  to  the 
people  (2  Chr.  xvii.  8). 

SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  and  WKIT- 
TNG.  INTRODUCTION,  §§1-5.  —  1.  The  expres 
sions,  "  Shemitic  family,"  and  "  Shemitic  lan 
guages,"  are  based,  as  is  well  known,  on  a  reference 
to  Uen.  x.  21  seqq.  [See  SHEM.]  Subsequently, 
the  obvious  inaccuracy  of  the  expression  has  led  to 
an  attempt  to  substitute  others,  such  as  Western 
Asiatic,  or  Syro-Arabic  —  this  last  a  happily  chosen 
designation,  as  bringing  at  once  before  us  the  two 
geographical  extremes  of  this  family  of  languages. 
But  the  earlier,  though  incorrect  one,  has  maintained 
its  ground  :  and  for  purposes  of  convenience  we 
shall  continue  to  use  it.* 

2.  It  is  impossible  to  lay  down  with  accuracy 
the  boundaries  of  the  area,  occupied  by  the  tribes 
employing  so-called  Shemitic  dialects.  Various  dis 
turbing  causes  led  to  fluctuations,  especially  (as  on  the 
Northern  side)  in  the  neighbourhood  of  restless  Aryan 
tribes.  For  general  purposes,  the  highlands  of  Ar 
menia  may  be  taken  as  the  Northern  boundary  —  the 
river  Tigris  and  the  ranges  beyond  it  as  the  Eastern 
—  and  the  Red  Sea,  the  Levant,  and  certain  portions 
of  Asia  Minor  as  the  Western.  Within  these  limits 
lies  the  proper  home  of  the  Shemitie  family,  which 
has  exercised  so  mighty  an  influence  on  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  area  named  may  seem  small,  in 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES     1251 

compari^n  with  the  wider  regions  occupied  by  the 
Aryan  -,tock.  But  its  geographical  position  in 
respect  of  so  much  of  the  old  world — its  two  noble 
rivers,  alike  facilitating  foreign  and  internal  inter 
course — the  extent  of  seaboard  and  desert,  present 
ing  long  lines  of  protection  against  foreign  invasion 
— have  proved  eminently  favourable  to  the  undis 
turbed  growth  and  development  of  this  family  01 
languages,  as  well  as  investing  some  branches  (at 
certain  periods  of  their  history)  with  very  consider 
able  influence  abroad ,b 

3.  Varieties  of  the  great  Shemitic  language-family 
ure  to  be  found  in  use  in  the  following  localities 
within  the  area  named.  In  those  ordinarily  known 
as  Syria,  Mesopotamia,  Babylonia,  and  Assyria, 
there  prevailed  Aramaic  dialects  of  different  kinds, 
<?.  g.  Biblical  Chaldaic — that  of  the  Targums  and 
of  the  Syriac  versions  of  Scripture — to  which  may 
be  added  other  varieties  of  the  same  stock — such 
as  that  of  the  Palmyrene  inscriptions — and  of  dif 
ferent  Sabian  fragments.  Along  the  Mediterranean 
seaboard,  and  among  the  trite  settled  in  Canaan, 
must  be  placed  the  home  of  the  language  of  th« 
canonical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  among  which 
were  interspersed  some  relics  of  that  of  the  Phoe 
nicians.  In  the  south,  amid  the  seclusion  of  Arabia, 
was  preserved  the  dialect  destined  at  a  subsequent 
period  so  widely  to  surpass  its  sisters  in  the  extent 
of  territory  over  which  it  is  spoken.  A  variety 
allied  to  this  last,  is  found  to  have  been  domiciliated 
for  a  long  time  in  Abyssinia. 

In  addition  to  the  singular  tenacity  and  exclu- 
siveness  of  the  Shemitic  character,  as  tending  to 
preserve  unaltered  the  main  features  of  their  lan 
guage,  we  may  allow  a  good  deal  for  the  tolerably 
uniform  climate  of  then  geographical  locations. 
But  (as  compared  with  variations  from  the  parent 
stock  in  the  Japhetian  family),  in  the  case  of  the 
Shemitic,  the  adherence  to  the  original  type  is  very 
remarkable.  Turn  where  we  will,  from  whatever 
causes  springing,  the  same  tenacity  is  discernible — 
whether  we  look  to  the  simple  pastoral  tribes  of  the 
wilderness — the  fierce  and  rapacious  inhabitants  ol 
mountain  regions — the  craftsmen  of  cities,  the  tillerr 
of  the  soil,  or  the  traffickers  in  distent  marts  and 
havens.6 

The  following  table  is  taken  from  Professor  M. 
Miiller's  late  volume  On  the  Science  of  Language 
(p.  381) — a  volume  equally  remarkable  for  re 
search,  fidelity,  and  graphic  description: — 


Limng  languages. 
Dialects  of  Arabic 
Amharic .     .     . 

The  Jews     . 


Neo-Syriac 


WENEALOGICAL  TABLE  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  FAMILY  OF  LANGUAGES. 

Dead  Languages.  Classet. 

.     Ethiopia ^Arabic,  or 

.     Himyaritic  Inscriptions )  Southern. 

t  Biblical  Hebrew \  Hebraic, 

.<  Samaritan  Pentateuch >      or 

I  Carthaginian-Phoenician  Inscriptions )  Middle. 


i  Chaldee,  Masora,  Talmud,  Targum,  Biblical  Chaldee 
.  <  Syriac  (Peshito,  2nd  cent.  A.I>.)    ....... 

I  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh   . 


Aramaic. 


Northern. 


Ftw  enquiries  would  be  more  interesting,  were 
sufficiently  trustworthy  means  at  hand,  than  that 
into  the  original  Shemitic  dialect,  and  as  to  whether 
or  not  the  Aramaic  was — not  only  in  the  first  in 


stance,  but  more  long  and  widely  than  we  ordinarily 
suppose — the  principal  means  of  intercommunication 
among  all  tribes  of  Shemitic  origin,  with  the  excep 
tion  perhaps  of  those  of  the  Arabian  peninsula.  The 


k  "  La  denomination  de  semitiques  ne  peut  avoir  d'ln- 
convenieat,  du  moment  qu'on  la  prend  comme  une  simple 
appellation  conventionnelle  et  que  1'on  s'est  explique 
Bur  ce  qu'elle  renferme  de  profondement  inexact"  (Renan, 
Hist.  Gen.  des  Langues  Semitiques,  i.  2).  English  scholars 
have  lately  adopted,  from  the  French,  the  form 
"SemUic;"  but  there  is  no  reason  why  v:e  shor.ld 


abandon  the  Hebrew  sound  because  the  French  find  the 
pronunciation  Cifficult.  • 

b  Berthean,  in  Herzog's  Real-Encydopadie,  v.  609. 
613  ;  Fiirst,  I^hrgebaude  der  Aramdiscfien  Idiom,  $1. 

c  Scholz,  Mnleitung  in  das  A.  T.,  Com,  1833,  21-26, • 
Wist,  Lehrgeb.  $$1,20,  22. 


1252 


SHEH1TIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  show  plainly, 
that  between  the  occupation  of  Canaan,  and  the  vic 
tories  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  many  causes  led  to  the 
extension  of  the  Aramaic,  to  the  restriction  of  pure 
Hebrew.  But  there  is  much  that  is  probable  in 
the  notion  held  by  more  than  one  scholar,  that  the 
spoken  dialect  of  the  Shemitic  tribes  external  to 
Arabia  (in  the  earliest  periods  of  their  history) 
closely  resembled,  or  was  in  fact  a  better  variety  of 
Aramaic.  This  notion  is  corroborated  by  the  traces 
still  discernible  in  the  Scriptures  of  Aramaisms,  where 
the  language  (as  in  poetical  fragments)  would  seem 
to  have  been  preserved  in .  a  form  most  nearly  re 
sembling  its  original  one : d  and  also  from  the  re 
semblances  which  may  be  detected  between  the 
Aramaic  and  the  earliest  monument  of  Arabic 
speech — the  Himyaritic  fragments.* 

4.  The  history  of  the  Shemitic  people  tells  us  of 
various  movements  undertaken  by  them,  but  sup 
plies  no  remarkable  instances  of  their  assimilating. 
Though  carrying  with  them  their  language,  insti 
tutions,  and  habits,  they  are  not  found  to  have 
struck  root,  but  remained  strangers  and  exotics  in 
several  instances,  passing  away  without  traces  of 
their  occupancy.     So  late  as  the  times  of  Augustine, 
a  dialect,  derived  from  the  old  Phoenician  settlers, 
was  spoken  in  some  of  the  more  remote  districts  of 
Roman   Africa.     But   no   traces   remained   of  the 
power,   or   arts   of  the   former   lords   of  sea  and 
land,  from  whom  these  fragments  were  inherited. 
Equally  striking  is   the  absence   of  results,  from 
the  occupation  of  a  vast  aggregate  of  countries  by 
the  victorious  armies  of  Islam.     The  centuries  since 
elapsed  prove  in  the  clearest  manner,  that  the  vo 
cation  of  the  Arab  branch  of  the  Shemitic  family  was 
not  to  leaven  the  nations  whom  their  first  onset 
laid  prostrate.     They  brought  nothing  with  them 
but  their  own  stern,  subjective,  unsocial  religion. 
They  borrowed  many  intellectual  treasures  from 
the  conquered  nations,  yet  were  these  never  fully 
engrafted  upon  the  alien  Shemitic  nature,  but  re 
mained,  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances, 
only  external  adjuncts  and  ornaments.     And  the 
same  inveterate  isolation  still  characterizes  tribes  of 
the  race,  when  on  new  soil. 

5.  The  peculiar  elements  of  the  Shemitic  character 
will  be  found  to  have   exercised  considerable  in 
fluence  on  their  literature.     Indeed,  accordance  is 
seldom  more  close,  than  in  the  case  of  the  Shemitic 
race  (where  not  checked  by  external  causes)  between 
the  generic  type  of  thought,  and  its  outward  ex 
pression.     Like  other  languages,  this  one  is  mainly 
resolvable  into  monosyllabic  primitives.     These,  as 
far  as  they  may  be  traced  by  research  and  analysis, 
carry  us  back  to  the  early  times,  when  the  broad 
line  of  separation,  to  which  we  have  been  so  long 
accustomed,    was    not    yet    drawn    between    the 
Japhetian  and  the  Shemitic  languages.    Instances  of 
this  will  be  brought   forward  in  the  sequel,  but 
subsequent   researches  have  amply  confirmed  the 
substance  of  Halhed's  prediction  of  the  ultimate  re 


cognition  of  the  affinities  between  Sanscrit  (  =  tn€ 
Indo-Germanic  family)  and  Arabic  (  =  the  Shciritic  j 
"  in  the  main  groundwork  of  language,  in  mono 
syllables,  in  the  names  of  numbers,  a-nd  the  ap 
pellations  of  such  things,  as  would  be  first  dis 
criminated  on  the  immediate  dawn  of  civilization."1 

These  monosyllabic  primitives  may  still  be  traced 
in  particles,  and  words  least  exposed  to  the  ordinary 
causes  of  variation.  But  differences  are  observable 
in  the  principal  parts  of  speech — the  verb  and  the 
noun.  Secondary  notions,  and  those  of  relation,  are 
grouped  round  the  primary  ones  of  meaning  in  a 
single  word,  susceptible  of  various  internal  changes 
according  to  the  particular  requirement.  Hence, 
in  the  Shemitic  family,  the  prominence  of formation, 
and  that  mainly  internal  (or  contained  within  the 
root  form).  By  such  instrumentality  are  expressed 
the  differences  between  noun  and  verb,  adjective 
and  substantive.  This  mechanism,  within  certain 
limits,  invests  the  Shemitic  languages  with  consi 
derable  freshness  and  sharpness  ;  but,  as  will  be  seen 
in  the  sequel,  this  language-family  does  not  (for 
higher  purposes)  possess  distinct  powers  of  expression 
equal  to  those  possessed  by  the  Japhetian  family. 
Another  leading  peculiarity  of  this  branch  of  lan 
guages,  is  the  absence  (save  in  the  case  of  proper 
names)  of  compound  words — to  which  the  sister 
family  is  indebted  for  so  much  life  and  variety.  In 
the  Shemitic  family — agglutination,  not  logical  se 
quence — independent  roots,  not  compound  appro 
priate  derivations  from  the  same  root,  are  used  to 
express  respectively  a  train  of  thought,  or  different 
modifications  of  a  particular  notion.  Logical  se 
quence  is  replaced  by  simple  material  sequence. 

Both  language-families  are  full  of  life  ;  but  the 
life  of  the  Japhetian  is  organic — of  the  Shemitic,  an 
aggregate  of  units.  The  one  looks  around  to  be 
taught,  and  pauses  to  gather  up  its  lessons  into 
form  and  shape:  the  other  contains  a  lore  within 
itself,  and  pours  out  its  thoughts  and  fancies  as 
they  arise.R 

§§6-13. — HEBREW  LANGUAGE. — PERIOD  OF 
GROWTH. 

6.  The  Hebrew  language  is  a  branch  of  the  so- 
called  Shemitic  family,  extending  over  a  large  por 
tion  of  South- Western  Asia.  The  development  and 
culture  of  this  latter  will  be  found  to  have  been 
considerably  influenced  by  the  situation  or  fortunes 
of  its  different  districts.  In  the  north  (or  Aram, 
under  which  designation  are  comprehended  Syria, 
Mesopotamia,  Babylonia),  and  under  a  climate  par 
tially  cold  and  ungenial — in  the  close  proximity  of 
tribes  of  a  different  origin,  not  un frequently  masters 
by  conquest— the  Shemitic  dialect  became  in  places 
harsher,  and  its  general  character  less  pure  and  dis 
tinct.  Towards  the  south,  opposite  causes  contri 
buted  to  maintain  the  language  in  its  purity.  In 
Arabia,  preserved  by  many  causes  from  foreign  in 
vasion,  the  language  maintained  more  euphony 
and  delicacy,  and  exhibited  greater  variety  of 


d  "  Un  autre  fait,  non  moins  digne  de  remarque,  c'est 
1'analogie  frappante  qu'ont  toutes  ces  irreguiarites  pro 
vinciates  avec  1'Arameen.  II  semble  que,  meme  avant  la 
caotivite,  le  patois  populaire  se  rapprochait  beaucoup  de 
wctte  iangue,  en  sorte  qu'il  nous  est  maintenant  impos-  | 
sible  de  separer  bien  nettemcnt.  dans  le  style  de  certains  j 
ecrits,  cequi  appartient  au  dialeete  populaire,  ou  au  patoig 
du  royaume  d'lsrael,  ou  a  1'influence  des  temps  de  la  j 
captivite."  "  11  est  a  remarquer,  du  reste,  que  les  langnes  • 
scmitiques  different  moins  dans  ia  bouche  du  peuple  qu&' 
tans  les  livres:>  (Renan  i.  141  142;  and  also  Fiirst, 


Lehrgeb.  §§  3,  4,  3,  11). 

e  Hoffmann,  Gramm.  Syr.  p.  5-6 ;  Scholz,  i  p.  41,  ?, 
p.  8-9;  Gesenius.  Lehrgebdude  (1817), 'p.  194-6;  Furet, 
Lehrgeb.  $$4,  14  ;  Rawllnson,  Journal  of  Asiatic  Society \ 
xv.  233. 

*  Halhed's  Grammar  of  the  Bengal  Language,  '778, 
quoted  in  Delitzsch,  Jemrun,  p.  113;  Fiirst,  Lehrffeb 
Z weiter  Haupttheil. 

K  Ewald,  Gramm.  d.  A.  T.   1833,  *••£     Perthwu.   te 
Herzog,  v.  611,  12;  Reuss,  Ibid.  598,  6fO,  Vianc*, 
Orientals,  387. 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WHITING  1253 

and  construction.     A  reference  to  the  map    corded  in  Scripture,  in   its   second   stage   of  pro 
as  did  Judaea  be- 


will  serve  to  explain  this — lying 
twwn  Aram  and  Arabia,  and  chiefly  inhabited  by 
th<>  Hebrew  race,  with  the  exception  of  Canaanite 
and  Phoenician  tribes.  Of  the  language  of  these  last 
few  distinctive  remains  have  hitherto  been  brought 
V)  light.1*  But  its  general  resemblance  to  that  of 
the  Terachite  settlers  is  beyond  all  doubt,  both  in 
the  case  of  the  Hamite  tribes,  and  of  the  Philistine 
tribes,  another  branch  of  the  same  stock. 

Originally,  the  language  of  the  Hebrews  pre 
sented  more  affinities  with  the  Aramaic,  in  accord 
ance  with  their  own  family  accounts,  which  bring 
the  Patriarchs  from  the  N.E., — more  directly  from 
northern  Mesopotamia.  In  consequence  of  vicinity, 


gress.  There  is  at  least  nothing  unreasonable  in 
the  thought,  that  the  movement  of  Terah  from  Ur 
of  the  Chaldees  (if  modern  scholarship  is  right  in 
the  locality  selected)  was  caused  by  Divine  sugges 
tion,  acting  on  a  mind  ill  at  ease  in  the  neighbour 
hood  of  Cushite  thought  and  habits.  It  may  be 
that  the  active  cause  of  the  movement  recorded  in 
Gen.  xi.  31  was  a  renewed  manifestation  of  the 
One  True  God,  the  influences  of  which  were  to  be 
stamped  on  all  that  was  of  Israel,  and  not  least 
palpably  on  its  language  in  its  purity  and  proper 
development.  The  leading  particulars  of  that  me 
morable  journey  are  preserved  to  us  in  Scripture, 
which  is  also  distinct  upon  the  fact,  that  the  new 

as  was  to  be  anticipated,  many  features  of  resem-    comers   and  the  earlier  settlers   in    Canaan  found 
blance  to  the  Arabic  may  be  traced ;   but  subse- .  no  difficulty  in  conversing.     Indeed,  neither  at  the 

first  entrance  of  Terachites,  nor  at  the  return  of 


quently,  the  Hebrew  language  will  be  found  to 
have  followed  an  independent  course  of  growth  and 
development. 

7.  Two  questions,  in  direct  connexion  with  the 
early  movements  of  the  ancestors  of  the  subsequent 
Hebrew  nation,  have  been  discussed  with  great 
earnestness  by  many  writers — the  first  bearing  on 
the  causes  which  set  the  Terachite  family  in  motion 
towards  the  south  and  west ;  the  second,  on  the 
origin  and  language  of  the  tribes  in  possession  of 
Canaan  at  the  arrival  of  Abraham. 

In  Gen.  x.  and  xi.  we  are  told  of  five  sons  of 
Shem — Elam,  Asshur,  Arphaxad,  Lud,  and  Aram. 
The  last  of  these  (or  rather  the  peoples  descended 
from  him)  will  be  considered  subsequently.  The 
fourth  has  been  supposed  to  be  either  the  progenitor 
(or  the  collective  appellation)  of  the  tribes  which 
originally  occupied  Canaan  and  the  so-called  Shemitic 
regions  to  the  south.  Of  the  remaining  three,  the 
tribes  descended  from  Elam  and  called  by  his  name 
were  probably  subjugated  at  an  early  period,  for  in 
Gen.  xiv.  mention  is  made  of  the  headship  of  an 
anti-Terachite  league  being  vested  in  the  king  of 
Elam,  Chedorlaomer,  whose  name  points  to  a 
Cushite  origin.  Whether  Shemitic  occupation  was 
succeeded  at  once  (in  the  case  of  Elam1)  by 
Aryan,  or  whether  a  Cushite  (Hamite)  domination 
intervened,  cannot  now  be  decided.  But  in  the 
case  of  the  second,  Asshur,  there  can  be  little  doubt, 
on  the  showing  of  Scripture  (Gen.  x.  11),  that 
his  descendants  were  disturbed  in  their  home  by 
the  advance  of  the  clearly  traceable  Cushite  stream 
of  population  flowing  upwards  on  a  return  course 
through  Arabia,  where  plain  marks  are  to  be  found 
of  its  presence.k  When  we  bear  in  mind  the 
strongly  marked  differences  existing  between  the 
Shemitic  and  Cushite  (  =  Hamite)  races  in  habits 
and  thought,01  and  the  manifestation  of  God's  wrath 
left  on  record,  we  can  well  understand  an  uneasiness 
and  a  desire  of  removal  among  the  Shemitic  popula 
tion  of  the  plains  by  the  river.  Scripture  only  tells 
us  that,  led  in  a  way  which  they  knew  not,  chosen 
Shemitic  wanderers  of  the  lineage  of  Arphaxad 
set  forth  on  the  journey  fraught  with  such  enduring 
consequences  to  the  history  of  the  world,  as  re^ 


h  "  The  name  of  their  country,  fife? 7 3  =  the  land  of 
Immigration,— points  to  the  fact  that  the  Philistines  did 
not  reach  the  line  of  coast  from  the  interior  at  all  events" 
(Quart.  Rev.  Ixxviii.  172). 

1  The  word  Elam  is  simply  the  pronunciation,  accord 
ing  to  the  organs  of  Western  Asia,  of  Iran  =  Airyama  = 
Airjana.  Kenan,  i.  41,  on  the  authority  of  Burnouf  and 
M.  Miiller;  J.  G.  Mullor,  It.  E.  xiv.  233;  Rawlinson, 
/owna<  of  Asiatic  Society,  xv  222. 


their  descendants  after  their  long  sojourn  in  Egypt, 
does  there  appear  to  have  been  any  difficulty  in 
this  respect  in  the  case  of  any  of  the  numerous 
tribes  of  either  Shemitic  or  Hamitic  origin  of  which 
mention  is  made  in  Scripture.  But,  as  was  to  be 
expected,  very  great  difference  of  opinion  is  to  be 
found,  and  very  much  learned  discussion  has  taken 
place,  as  to  whether  the  Terachites  adopted  the 
language  of  the  earlier  settlers,  or  established 
their  own  in  its  place.  The  latter  alternative  is 
hardly  probable,  although  for  a  long  time,  and 
among  the  earlier  writers  on  Biblical  subjects,  it 
was  maintained  with  great  earnestness — Walton, 
for  example,  holding  the  advanced  knowledge  and 
civilization  of  the  Terachite  immigration  in  all  im 
portant  particulars.  It  may  be  doubted,  with  a 
writer  of  the  present  day,0  whether  this  is  a  sound 
line  of  reasoning,  and  whether  "  this  contrast  be 
tween  the  inferiority  of  the  chosen  people  in  all 
secular  advantages,  and  their  pre-eminence  in  re 
ligious  privileges,"  is  not  '*  an  argument  which 
cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  on  by  a  Christian 
advocate."  The  whole  history  of  the  Jewish  people 
anterior  to  the  advent  of  Christ  would  seem  to 
indicate  that  any  great  early  amount  of  civilization, 
being  built  necessarily  on  closer  intercourse  with 
the  surrounding  peoples,  would  have  tended  to 
retard  rather  than  promote  the  object  for  which 
that  people  was  chosen.  The  probability  is,  that  a 
great  original  similarity  existing  between  the  dia 
lects  of  the  actual  possessors  of  the  country  in  their 
various  localities,  and  that  of  the  immigrants,  the 
latter  were  less  likely  to  impart  than  to  borrow 
from  their  more  advanced  neighbours. 

On  what  grounds  is  the  undoubted  similarity  of 
the  dialect  of  the  Terachites,  to  that  of  the  occu 
pants  at  the  time  of  their  immigration,  to  be  ex« 
plained  ?  Of  the  origin  of  its  earliest  occupants, 
known  to  us  in  the  sacred  records  by  the  mys 
terious  and  boding  names  of  Nephilim,  Zamzum- 
mim,  and  the  like,  and  of  whose  probable  Titanic 
size  traces  have  been  brought  to  light  by  recent 
travellers,  history  records  nothing  certain.  Some 
assert  that  no  reliable  traces  of  Shemitic  language 


k  Renan,  i.  34,  312,  315  ;  Spiegel,  in  Herzog,  x.  365-6. 

m  Compare  Gen.  xi.  5  with  Gen.  xviii.  20,  and  note  L 
Rawlinson,  J.  A.  S.  xv.  231.  Does  the  cuneiform  ortho 
graphy  Bab-Il  =  "the  gate  of  God,"  point  to  the  act  of 
Titanic  audacity  recorded  in  Gen.?  and  is  the  punish 
ment  recorded  in  the  confusion  expressed  in  a  Shemitte 
word  of  kindred  sound"?  Quatremere,  Melanges  d'Hisicirt, 
113,  164. 

»  Bishop  of  St.  Davids'  Letter  to  the  rev.  /,'.  Williams 
D.D.,  p.  61-. 


1254 


53EHITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


are  to  be  found  north  of  Mount  Taurus,  and 
claim  for  the  early  inhabitants  of  Asia  Minor  a 
Japhetian  origin.  Others  affirm  the  descent  of  these 
early  tribes  from  Lud,  the  fourth  son  of  Shem,  and 
their  migration  from  "  Lydia  to  Arabia  Petraea  and 
the  southern  borders  of  Palestine."0  But  these 
must  ha\e  disappeared  at  an  early  period,  no  men 
tion  being  made  of  them  in  Gen.  x.,  and  their 
remains  being  only  alluded  to  in  references  to  the 
tribes  which,  under  a  well-known  designation,  we 
find  in  occupation  of  Palestine  on  the  return  from 
Egyr*-. 

£ ,  Another  view  is  that  put  forward  by  our  coun 
tryman  Rawlinson,  and  shared  by  other  scholars. 
"  Either  from  ancient  monuments,  or  from  tra 
dition,  or  from  the  dialects  now  spoken  by  their 
descendants,  we  are  authorised  to  infer  that  at  some 
very  remote  period,  before  the  rise  of  the  Shemitic 
or  Arian  nations,  a  great  Scythic "  ( =  Hamitic) 
"  population  must  have  overspread  Europe,  Asia, 
and  Africa,  speaking  languages  all  more  or  less 
dissimilar  in  their  vocabulary,  but  possessing  in 
common  certain  organic  characteristics  of  grammar 
and  construction."  P 

And  this  statement  would  appear,  in  its  lead 
ing  features,  to  be  historically  sound.  As  was  to 
be  anticipated,  both  from  its  importance  and  from 
its  extreme  obscurity,  few  subjects  connected  with 
Biblical  antiquities  have  been  more  warmly  dis 
cussed  than  the  origin  of  the  Canaanitish  occupants 
of  Palestine.  Looking  to  the  authoritative  records 
V0en.  ix.  18,  x.  6,  15-20)  there  would  seem  to  be 
no  reason  for  doubt  as  to  the  Hamitic  origin  of 
these  tribes.*  Nor  can  the  singular  accordances  dis 


cernible  between  the 


of  these  Canaanitish 


(=  Hamitic)  occupants,  and  the  Shemitic  family 
be  justly  pleaded  in  bar  of  this  view  of  the  origin 
of  the  former.  "  If  we  examine  the  invaluable 
ethnography  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  we  shall  find 
that,  while  Ham  is  the  brother  of  Shem,  and 
therefore  a  relationship  between  his  descendants  and 
the  Shemitic  nations  fully  recognised,  the  Hamites 
are  described  as  those  who  previously  occupied  the 
different  countries  into  which  the  Aramaean  race 
afterwards  forced  their  way.  Thus  Scripture  (Gen. 
x.  seqq.)  attributes  to  the  race  of  Ham  not  only  the 
aboriginal  population  of  Canaan,  with  its  wealthy 
and  civilised  communities  on  the  coast,  but  also  the 
mighty  empires  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  the  rich 
kingdoms  of  Sheba  and  Havilah  in  Arabia  Felix, 
and  the  wonderful  realm  of  Egypt.  There  is  every 
reason  to  believe — indeed  in  some  cases  the  pi-oof 
amounts  to  demonstration — that  all  these  Hamitic 
nations  spoke  languages  which  differed  only  dialec 
tical]  y  from  those  of  the  Syro-Arabic  family."  r 

9.  Connected  with  this  subject  of  the  relation 
ship  discernible  among  the  early  Noachidae  is  that 
of  the  origin  and  extension  of  the  ait  of  writing 
among  the  Shemites,  the  branch  with  which  we  are 
at  present  concerned.  Our  limits  preclude  a  dis 
cussion  upon  the  many  theories  by  which  the  stu 
dent  is  still  bewildered  :  the  question  would  seem 
to  be,  in  the  case  of  the  Terachite  branch  of  the 


Shemitic  stock,  did  they  acquire  the  art  of  writing 
fiom  the  Phoenicians,  or  Egyptians,  or  Assyrian* 
—or  was  it  evolved  from  given  elements,  among 
themselves  ? 

But  vrhile  the  truth  with  respect  to  the  origin 
of  Shemitic  writing  is  as  yet  involved  in  obscurity, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  an  indelible  influ 
ence  was  exercised  by  Egypt  upon  the  Terachite 
branch  in  this  particular.  The  language  of  Egypt 
cannot  be  considered  as  a  bar  to  this  theory,  for,  in 
the  opinion  of  most  who  have  studied  the  subject, 
the  Egyptian  language  may  claim  an  Asiatic,  and 
indeed  a  Shemitic  origin.  Nor  can  the  changes 
wrought  be  justly  attributed  to  the  Hvksos,  instead 
of  the  Egyptians.  These  people,  when  scattered  after 
their  long  sojourn,  doubtless  carried  with  them  many 
traces  and  results  of  the  superior  culture  of  Egypt ; 
but  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  they  can  be 
considered  in  any  way  as  instructors  of  the  Te- 
rachites.  The  claim,  so  long  acquiesced  in,  of  the 
Phoenicians  in  this  respect,  has  been  set  aside  on 
distinct  grounds.  What  was  the  precise  amount  of 
cultivation,  in  respect  of  the  art  of  writing,  pos 
sessed  by  the  Terachites  at  the  immigration  or  at 
their  removal  to  Egypt,  we  cannot  now  tell— pro 
bably  but  limited,  when  estimated  by  their  social 
position.  But  the  Exodus  found  them  possessed  of 
that  priceless  treasure,  the  germ  of  the  alphabet  of 
the  civilised  world,  built  on  a  pure  Shemitic  basis, 
but  modified  by  Egyptian  culture.  "  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  phonetic  signs  are  subsequent  to 
the  objective  and  determinative  hieroglyphics,  and 
showing  as  they  do  a  much  higher  power  of  ab 
straction,  they  must  be  considered  as  infinitely  more 
valuable  contributions  to  the  art  of  writing.  But 
the  Egyptians  have  conferred  a  still  greater  boon 
on  the  world,  if  their  hieroglyphics  were  to  any 
extent  the  origin  of  the  Shemitic,  which  has  formevl 
the  basis  of  almost  every  known  system  of  letters 
The  long  continuance  of  a  pictorial  and  figurative 
system  of  writing  among  the  Egyptians,  and  their 
low,  and,  after  all,  imperfect  syllabarium,  must  be 
referred  to  the  same  source  as  their  pictorial  and 
figurative  representation  of  their  idea  of  the  Deity  ; 
just  as,  on  the  contrary,  the  early  adoption  by  the 
people  of  Israel  of  an  alphabet  properly  so  called 
must  be  regarded  as  one  among  many  proofs  which 
they  gave  of  their  powers  of  abstraction,  and  con 
sequently  of  their  fitness  for  a  more  spiritual  wor 
ship."  » 

10.  Between  the  dialects  of  Aram  and  Arabia,  that 
of  the  Terachites  occupied  a  middle  place — superior 
to  the  first,  as  being  the  language  in  which  are 
preserved  to  us  the  inspired  outpourings  of  so  many 
great  prophets  and  poets — wise,  learned,  and  elo 
quent—and  different  from  the  second  (which  does 
not  appear  in  history  until  a  comparatively  recent 
period)  in  its  antique  simplicity  and  majesty. 

The  dialect,  which  we  are  now  considering,  has 
been  ordinarily  designated  as  that  of  the  Hebrews, 
rather  than  of  the  Israelites,  apparently  for  the  fol 
lowing  reasons.  The  appellation  Hebrew  is  of  old 
standing,  but  has  no  reference  to  the  history  of  the 


0  Renan,  i.  45,  107;  Arnold,  in  Herzog,  viii.  310,  11; 
tiraham,  Cambridge  Essays,  1858. 

P  Ruwlinson,  J.  of  A.  S.  xv.  230,  232. 

1  "All  the  Canaarutes  were,  1  am  satisfied,  Scyths;  and 
Lbe  inhabitants  of  Syria  retained  the'-  distinctive  ethnic 
character  until  quite  a  late  period  of  nistory.     Accoiding 
t:»  the  inscriptions,  the  Khetta  or  Hittites  were  the  domi 
nant  Scythian  rice  frra  th*  earliest  times."     Kawlinson, 
f.  A.  S.  XV.  230, 


'  Quarterly  Rev.  Ixxviii.  173.  See  a  quotation  in  J.  A,  $. 
xv.  238,  on  the  corruption  of  manners  flowing  from  the 
advanced  civilization  of  the  Hamites. 

«  Q.  R.  Ixxviii.  156;  Ewald,  Gesch.  i.  472-4T4;  Hoff 
mann,  Gramm.  Syriac.  pp.  60-62;  Leyrer,  Henog,  xiv. 
358,  359  ;  Lepsius,  Zwei  Abhandlungen,  39,  40,  56,  65 
J.  G.  Miiller,  in  Herzog,  xiv.  232 ;  Ruwlinson, «/.  A  S.  xv. 
222,  226,  2,30;  Saatschiitz,  Zur  GefchicMe  d.  fiiuJisial^n 
*chrij'tt  ^6,  17,  18  ;  Vaihinger,  in  Herzog,  xL  302. 


people,  as  connecied  with  its  glories  or  eminence, 
while  that  of  Israel  is  uound  up  with  its  historical 
grandeur.  The  people  is  addressed  as  Israel  by 
their  priests  and  prophats,  on  solemn  occasions, 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 

Isaiah,  Hosea,  Amos,  Joel,  Micah,  Nanum,  Habak- 
kuk,  and  Jeremiah — widely  separated  from  each 
other  by  time  as  are  many  of  these  writings. 
Grammar*  and  lexicons  are  confidently  referred 


by  foreigners  they  are  designated  as  Hebrews 
i'Gen.  xl.  15),  and  indeed  by  some  of  their  own 
enrly  writers,  where  no  point  is  raised  in  connec- 
*:on  with  their  religion  ("Gen.  xliii.  32  ;  Ex.  xxi.  2  ; 
1  Sam.  xiii.  3,  7,  xiv.  21).  It  was  long  assumed  that 
their  designation  (tj'HDy  =  ol  irtparai}  had  reference 
to  Eber,  the  ancestor  of  Abraham.  More  probably 
it  should  be  regarded  as  designating  all  the  Shemitic- 
speaking  tribes,  which  had  migrated  to  the  south 
from  the  other  side  of  the  Euphrates ;  and  in  that 
case,  might  have  been  applied  by  the  earlier  inha 
bitants  of  Canaan.  But  in  either  case,  the  term 
«'  Hebrews"  would  comprise  all  the  descendants  of 
Abraham,  and  their  language  therefore  should  be 
designated  as  the  Hebrew,  in  accordance  with  the 
more  usual  name  of  the  people.  "  The  language 
of  Canaan "  is  used  instead  (Is.  xix.  18),  but  in 
this  passage  the  country  of  Canaan  is  contrasted 
with  that  of  Egypt.  The  expression  "  the  Jews' 
language"  (Is.  xxxvi.  11,  13)  applies  merely  to 
the  dialect  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  in  all  proba 
bility,  more  widely  used  after  the  fall  of  Samaria. 

11.  Many  causes,  all  obvious  and  intelligible, 
combine  to  make  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  any 
formal  or  detached  account  of  the  Hebrew  language, 
anterior  to  its  assuming  a  written  shape.  But 
various  reasons  occur  to  render  difficult,  even  withi-n 
this  latter  period,  such  a  reliable  history  of  the 
Hebrew  language  as  befits  the  exceeding  interest  of 
the  subject.  In  the  first  place,  very  little  has  come 
down  to  us,  of  what  appears  to  have  been  an  ex 
tensive  and  diveisified  literature.  Where  the  facts 
requisite  for  a  judgment  are  so  limited,  any  attempt 
of  the  kind  is  likely  to  mislead,  as  being  built  on 
speculations,  erecting  into  characteristics  of  an  entire 
period  what  may  be  simply  the  peculiarities  of  the 
author,  or  incidental  to  his  subject  or  style.  Again, 
attempts  at  a  philological  history  of  the  Hebrew 
language  will  be  much  impeded  by  the  fact — that 
the  chronological  order  of  the  extant  Scriptures  is 
not  in  all  instances  clear — and  that  the  history  of 
the  Hebrew  nation  from  its  settlement  to  the  7th 
century  B.C.  is  without  changes  or  progress  of  the 
marked  and  prominent  nature  required  for  a  satis- 
tactory  critical  judgment.  Unlike  languages  of  the 
Japhetian  stock,  such  as  the  Greek  or  German, 
the  Hebrew  language,  like  all  her  Shemitic  sisters, 
is  firm  and  hard  as  from  a  mould — not  suscep 
tible  of  change.  In  addition  to  these  characteristics 
cf  their  language,  the  people  by  whom  it  was  spoken 
were  of  a  retired  and  exclusive  cast,  and,  for  a  long 
time,  exempt  from  foreign  sway.  The  dialects  also 
of  the  few  conterminous  tribes,  with  whom  they 
had  any  intercourse,  were  allied  closely  with  their 
own. 

The  extant  remains  of  Hebrew  literature  are  des 
titute  of  any  important  changes  in  language,  during 
the  pericd  tVom  Moses  to  the  Captivity.  A  certain 
and  intelligible  amount  of  progress,  but  no  con 
siderable  or  remarkable  difference  (according  to  one 
school),  is  really  observable  in  the  language  of  the 
Pentateuch,  the  Books  of  Joshua,  Judges,  Ruth, 


of 


to,  as  supplying  abundant  evidence  of  unchanged 
materials  and  fashioning ;  and  foreign  words,  when 
occurring,  are  easily  to  be  recognized  under  their 
Shemitic  dress,  or  their  introduction  as  easily  to  be 
explained. 

At  the  first  sight,  and  to  modern  judgment, 
much  of  this  appears  strange,  and  possibly  untenable. 
But  an  explanation  of  the  difficulty  is  sought  in 
the  unbroken  residence  of  the  Hebrew  pec  pie,  with 
out  removal  or  molestation — a  feature  of  history 
not  unexpected  or  surprising  in  the  case  of  a  peopl 
preserved  by  Providence  simply  as  the  guardians  i 
a  sacred  deposit  of  truth,  not  yet  ripe  for  publica 
tion.  An  additional  illustration  of  the  immunity 
from  change,  is  to  be  drawn  from  the  history  cf 
the  other  branches  of  the  Shemitic  stock.  The 
Aramaic  dialect,  as  used  by  various  writers  for 
eleven  hundred  years,  although  inferior  to  the 
Hebrew  in  many  respects,  is  almost  without 
change,  and  not  essentially  different  from  the  lan 
guage  of  Daniel  and  Ezra.  And  the  Arabic  language, 
subsequently  to  its  second  birth,  in  connexion  with 
Mahometanism,  will  be  found  to  present  the  same 
phenomena. 

12.  Moreover,  is  it  altogether  a  wild  conjecture, 
to  assume  as  not  impossible,  the  formation  of  a 
sacred  language  among  the  chosen   people,  at  so 
marked  a  period  of  their  history  as  that  of  Moses  ? 
Every  argument  leads  to  a  belief,  that  the  popular 
dialect  of  the  Hebrews  from  a  very  early  period  was 
deeply  tinged  with  Aramaic,  and  that  it  continued 
so.     But  there  is  byrely  nothing  unlikely  or  incon 
sistent  in  the  notion  that  he  who  was  "  learned  in 
all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians"  should  have  bee;i 
taught  to  introduce  a  sacred  language,  akin,  but 
superior  to  the  every-day  dialect  of  his  people — 
the  property  of  the  rulers,  and  which  subsequent 
writers  should  be  guided  to   copy.     Such  a  lan 
guage  would  be  the  sacred  and  learned  one — that 
of  the  few, — and  no  clearer  proof  of  the  limited  hold 
exercised  by  this  classical  Hebrew  on  the  ordinary 
language  of  the  people  can  be  required    than  its 
rapid   withdrawal,   after   the  Captivity,   before    a 
language  composed  of  dialects  hitherto  disregarded, 
but  still  living  in  popular  use.     It  has  been  well 
said  that  "  literary  dialects,  or  whafe  are  commonly 
called  classical  languages,  pay  for  their  temporary 
greatness  by  inevitable  decay."    "  If  later  in  history 
we  meet  with  a  new  body  of  stationary  language 
forming  or  formed,  we  may  be  sure  that  its  tribu 
taries  were  those  rivulets  which  for  a  time  were 
almost  lost  to  our  sight."  * 

13.  A  few  remarks  may  not  be  out  of  place  here 
with    reference   to   some    leading   linguistic   pecu 
liarities  in  different  books  of  the  0.  T.     For  ordi 
nary  pin-poses  the  old  division  into  the  golden  and 
silver  ages  is  sufficient.     A  detailed  list  of  peculi 
arities  observable  in  the  Pentateuch  (without,  how 
ever,  destroying  its  close  similarity  to  other  0.  T. 
writings)  is  given  by  Scholz,  divided  under  lexical, 
grammatical,  and  syntactical  heads.    With  the  style 
of  the  Pentateuch  (as  might  be  expected)  that  of 
Joshua  very  closely   corresponds.     The  feeling  of 


Samuel,  the  Kings,  the  Psalms,  or  the  prophecies  of    hostility  to  the  neighbouring  peoples  of  mixed  de- 

*  M.  Miiller,  Science  of  Language,  57-59:  a  most  in-  [  seyn,  aber  damals   zuerst  aus  dem  Dunkel  der  Volka- 
etructive  passage.    Forster,   Voice  of  Israel,  77.     "  Vieles     spi ache,  dio  ji?  uberall  reicher  1st  als  die  iler  cla&6i&che<; 
auch,  was  uns  jetzt  zum  erston  mal  in  den  Denkmtibm     Legitimitat."     Reuss,  in  Herzog,  v.  7u7 
lor  macid'jnisdien   Weltzeit   begrgiu't,  inyg  wohl  iilt«r  I 


f266 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  ANT)  WRITING 


scent,  so  prevalent  at  the  time  of  the  restoration, 
;pakes  strongly  against  the  asserted  late  origin  of 
the  Book  of  Ruth,  in  which  it  cannot  be  traced. 
But  (with  which  we  are  at  present  concerned)  the 
i»tyle  points  to  an  earlier  date,  the  asserted  Ara- 
onaisms  being  probably  relics  of  the  popular  dia- 
lsct.n  The  same  linguistic  peculiarities  are  observ 
able  (among  other  merits  of  style)  in  the  Books  of 
Samuel.* 

The  Books  of  Job  and  Ecclesiastes  contain  many 
asserted  Aramaisms,  which  have  been  pleaded  in 
support  of  a  late  origin  of  these  two  poems.  In 
the  case  of  the  first,  it  is  argued  (on  the  other  side) 
that  these  peculiarities  are  not  to  be  considered  so 
much  poetical  ornaments  as  ordinary  expressions 
and  usages  of  the  early  Hebrew  language,  affected 
necessarily  to  a  certain  extent  by  intercourse  with 
neighbouring  tribes.  And  the  asserted  want  of 
study  and  polish,  in  the  diction  of  this  book,  leads 
to  the  same  conclusion.  As  respects  the  Book  of 
Ecclesiastes  the  case  is  more  obscure,  as  in  many 
instances  the  peculiarities  of  style  seem  rather  re 
ferable  to  the  secondary  Hebrew  of  a  late  period 
of  Hebrew  history,  than  to  an  Aramaic  origin.  But 
our  acquaintance  with  Hebrew  literature  is  too 
limited  to  allow  the  formation  of  a  positive  opinion 
on  the  subject,  in  opposition  to  that  of  ecclesiastical 
antiquity  .y  In  addition  to  roughnesses  of  diction, 
growing  probably  out  of  the  same  cause — close  in 
tercourse  with  the  people — so-called  Aramaisms  are 
to  be  found  in  the  remains  of  Jonah  and  Hosea,  and 
expressions  closely  allied  in  those  of  Amos.*  This 
is  not  the  case  in  the  writings  of  Nahum,  Zepha- 
ninh,  and  Habakkuk,  and  in  the  still  later  ones  of 
the  minor  prophets  ;  the  treasures  of  past  times, 
which  filled  their  hearts,  served  as  models  of  style." 

As  with  respect  to  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  (at 
the  hands  of  modern  critics),  so,  in  the  case  of 
Ezekiel,  Jewish  critics  have  sought  to  assign  its 
peculiarities  of  style  and  expression  to  a  secondary 
Hebrew  origin.1*  But  the  references  above  given 
may  serve  to  aid  the  consideration  of  a  most  in 
teresting  question,  as  to  the  extent  to  which  Ara 
maic  elements  entered  into  the  ordinary  dialect  of 
the  Hebrew  people,  from  early  times  to  the  Cap 
tivity. 

The  peculiarities  of  language  in  Daniel  belong 
to  another  field  of  inquiry  ;  and  under  impartial 
consideration  more  difficulties  may  be  found  to  dis 
appear,  as  in  the  case  of  those  with  regard  to  the 
asserted  Greek  words.  The  language  and  subject 
matter  of  Daniel  (especially  the  latter),  in  the 
opinion  of  scholai-s,  led  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  to  place 
this  book  elsewhere  than  among  the  prophetical 
writings.  To  their  minds,  the  apocalyptic  character 
of  the  book  might  seem  to  assign  it  rather  to  the 
Hagiographa  than  the  roll  of  prophecy,  properly  so 
called.  Inquiries,  with  respect  to  the  closing  of  the 
-anon,  tend  to  shake  the  comparatively  recent  date 
which  it  has  been  so  customary  to  assign  to  this 
book.* 

With  these  exceptions  (if  so  to  be  considered) 


«  Scholz,  Eml.  313,  and  note;  Nagelsbach,  in  Herzog 
xiii.  188. 

Niigelsbacb,  ibid.  412. 

Scholz,  FAnl.  iii.  65-67,  180,  181 ;  Ewald,  Uiob,  65. 

Scholz,  ibid.  581,  537,  549. 

Scholz,  ibid.  595,  600,  606 ;  Ewald,  Gesch.  iii.  t.  2 
)2  5. 

Zunz,  Gottesdienstliche  Vortrage  der  Juden,  162. 


ew  traros  of  dialects  nre  discernible  in  the  small 
•emains  still  extant,  for  the  most  part  composed  in 
Judah  and  Jerusalem.  The  dialects  of  the  northern 
districts  probably  were  influenced  by  thtir  Aramaic 
neighbours ;  and  local  expressions  are  to  be  detected 
n  Judg.  v.  and  xii.  6.  At  a  later  period  Philistine 
dialects  are  alluded  to  (Neh.  xiii.  23,  24),  and  that 
of  Galilee  (Matt.  xxvi.  73). 

As  has  been  remarked,  the  Aramaic  element? 
above  alluded  to,  ..re  most  plainly  observable  in  the 
remains  of  some  jf  the  less  educated  writers.  The 
general  style  of  Hebrew  prose  literature  is  plain 
and  simple,  but  lively  and  pictorial,  and  rising  with 
the  subject,  at  times,  to  considerable  elevation.  But 
the  strength  of  the  Hebrew  language  lies  in  its 
poetical  and  prophetical  remains.  For  simple  and 
historical  narrative,  ordinary  words  and  formations 
sufficed.  But  the  requisite  elevation  of  poetical 
composition,  and  the  necessity  (growing  out  of  the 
general  use  of  parallelism)  for  enlarging  the  supply 
of  striking  words  and  expressions  at  command,  led 
to  the  introduction  of  many  expressions  which  we 
do  not  commonly  find  in  Hebrew  prose  literature.*1 
For  the  origin"  and  existence  of  these  we  must 
look  especially  to  the  Aramaic,  from  which  expres 
sions  were  borrowed,  whose  force  and  peculiarities 
might  give  an  additional  ornament  and  point  not 
otherwise  attainable.  Closely  resembling  that  of 
the  poetical  books,  in  its  general  character,  is  the 
style  of  the  prophetical  writings,  but,  as  might 
be  anticipated,  more  oratorical,  and  running  into 
longer  sentences.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  by 
the  side  of  so  much  that  is  uniform  in  language 
and  construction  throughout  so  long  a  period,  that 
diversities  of  individual  dispositions  and  standing  are 
strongly  marked,  in  the  instances  of  several  writers. 
But  from  the  earliest  period  of  the  existence  of  a 
literature  among  the  Hebrew  people  to  B.C.  600. 
the  Hebrew  language  continued  singularly  exempt 
from  change,  in  all  leading  and  general  feature?, 
and  in  the  general  laws  of  its  expressions,  forms, 
and  combinations. 

From  that  period  the  Hebrew  dialect  will  bo 
found  to  give  way  before  the  Aramaic,  in  what  ha& 
been  preserved  to  us  of  its  literature,  although,  as 
is  not  unfrequently  the  case,  some  later  writei> 
copy,  with  almost  regretful  accuracy,  the  classical 
and  consecrated  language  of  a  brighter  period. 

§§14-19.  ARAMAIC  LANGUAGE. — SCHOLASTIC 
PERIOD. 

14.  The  language  ordinarily  called  Aramaic  is  a 
dialect  of  the  great  Shemitic  family,  deriving  its 
name  from  the  district  over  which  it  was  spoken, 
Aram  =  the  high  or  hill  country  (as  Canaan  —  the 
low  country).  But  the  name  is  applied,  both  by 
Biblical  and  other  writers,  in  a  wider  and  a  more 
restricted  sense.  The  designation — Aram — was 
imperfectly  known  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  by 
whom  the  country  was  called  Syria,  an  abbrevia 
tion  of  Assyria,  according  to  Herodotus  (vii.  63).' 
In  general  practice  Aram  was  divided  into  Eastern 


See  also  Rawlinson,  J.  A.  S.  xv.  247  ;   Dclitzsch,  in  ! 


d  "  I/importance  du  verset  dans  le  style  des  Semites 
est  la  meilleure  preuve  du  manque  absolu  de  construction 
interieure  qui  caracterise  leur  phrase.  Le  verset  n'a  rien 
de  cormnun  avec  la  pe'riode  grecque  et  latine,  puisqu'il 
n'offre  pas  une  suite  de  membres  dependants  les  uns  dee 
autres :  c'est  une  coupe  &  peu  pres  arbitraire  dans  une  serio 
de  propositions  separees  par  des  virgules."  Reuan,  i.  2 1 . 

*  Reuss,  in  Herzog,  v.  606-*;  Bleek,  Einleitung,  80-9. 

1  Other  derivations  are  given  and  refuted  r.y  Qualra 


Herzog,  iii  274  ;  Vaihinger,  Stud.  a.  Krit.  1857,  93-99.         mere,. Melanges  d'Histoire.  }'22. 


BHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


1257 


ind  Western.  The  dialects  of  these  two  districts 
were  severally  called  Cnaldaic  and  Syriac — designa 
tions  not  happily  chosen,  but,  as  in  the  case  of 
Shemitic,  of  too  long  currency  to  be  changed  with 
out  great  inconvenience.  No  traces  remain  of  the 
numerous  dialects  which  must  have  existed  in  so 
large  an  aggregate  of  many  very  populous  districts. 
Nothing  can  be  more  erroneous,  than  the  applica 
tion  of  the  word  "Chaldaic"  to  the  East  Aramaic 
dialect.  It  seems  probable  that  the  Chaldaeans 
were  a  people  of  Japhetian  extraction,  who  probably 
took  the  name  of  the  Shemitic  tribe  whom  they  dis 
lodged  before  their  connexion  with  Babylon,  so  long, 
so  varied,  and  so  full  of  interest.  But  it  would  be 
an  error  to  attribute  to  these  conquerors  any  great 
or  early  amount  of  cultivation.  The  origin  of  the 
peculiar  and  advanced  civilization  to  be  traced  in  the 
basin  of  Mesopotamia  must  be  assigned  to  another 
cause  —  the  influences  of  Cushite  immigration. 
The  colossal  scientific  and  industrial  characteristics 
of  Assyrian  civilization  are  not  reasonably  deducible 
from  Japhetian  influences — that  race,  in  those  early 
times,  having  evinced  no  remarkable  tendency  for 
construction  or  the  study  of  the  applied  sciences. 
Accordingly,  it  woul,d  seem  not  unreasonable  to 
place  on  the  two  rivers  a  population  of  Cushite 
(Hamite)  accomplishments,  if  not  origin,  subsequent 
to  the  Shemitic  occupation,  which  established  its 
own  language  as  the  ordinary  one  of  those  districts ; 
and  thirdly,  a  body  of  warriors  and  influential  men 
— of  Japhetian  origin — the  true  Chaldeans,  whose 
name  has  been  applied  to  a  Shemitic  district  and 
dialect.e 

The  eastern  boundary  of  the  Shemitic  languages 
is  obscure ;  but  this  much  may  be  safely  assumed, 
that  this  family  had  its  earliest  settlement  on  the 
upper  basin  of  the  Tigris,  from  which  extensions 
were  doubtless  made  to  the  south.  And  (as  has 
been  before  said)  history  points  to  another  stream, 
flowing  northward  (at  a  subsequent  but  equally 
ante-historic  period),  of  Cushite  population,  with 
its  distinctive  accomplishments.  These  settlements 
would  seem  to  comprise  the  wide  extent  of  country 
extending  from  the  ranges  bounding  the  watershed 
of  the  Tigris  to  the  N.  and  E.,  to  the  plains  in  the 
S.  and  W.  towards  the  lower  course  of  the  "  great 
river,"  =  Assyria  (to  a  great  extent),  Mesopotamia 
and  Babylonia,  with  its  southern  district,  Chaldea. 
There  are  few  more  interesting  linguistic  questions, 
than  the  nature  of  the  vernacular  language  of  this 
last-named  region,  at  the  period  of  the  Jewish  de 
portation  by  Nebuchadnezzar.  It  was,  mainly  and 
incontestably,  Shemitic ;  but  by  the  side  of  it  an 
Aryan  one,  chiefly  official,  is  said  to  be  discern 
ible.  [CHALDEA  ;  CHALDEANS.]  The  passages 
ordinarily  relied  on  (Dan.  i.  4,  ii.  4)  are  not  very 
conclusive  in  support  of  this  latter  theory,  which 
derives  more  aid  from  the  fact,  that  many  proper 
names  of  ordinary  occurrence  (Belshazzar,  Merodach- 
Baladan,  Nabonassar,  Nabopolassar,  Nebo,  Nebu 
chadnezzar)  are  certainly  not  Shemitic.  As  little, 
perhaps,  are  they  Aryan — but  in  any  case  they  may 
be  naturalised  relics  of  the  Assyrian  supremacy. 

The  same  question  has  been  raised  as  to  the 
Shemitic  or  Aryan  origin  of  the  vernacular  language 
of  Assyria — i.  c.  the  country  to  the  E.  of  the 
Euphrates.  As  in  the  ease  of  Babylonia,  the  lan 
guage  appears  to  have  been,  ordinarily,  that  of  a 
blended  Shemitic  and  Cushite  population — and  a 

s  Renan,  p.  211.  Quatremere,  Melanges  d'JIittoire,  pp. 
JJS190,  and  ?specia'ly  118-164. 


similar  difficulty  to  be  connected  with  the  ordinary 
proper  names — Nibchaz,  Pul,  Salmanassar.  Sarda- 
napalus,  Sennacherib,  Tartak,  and  Tiglath-Pileser. 
Is.  xxxiii.  19,  and  Jer.  v.  15,  have  been  leferred 
to  as  establishing  the  difference  of  the  vernacular 
language  of  Assyria  from  the  Shemitic.  Our 
knowledge  of  the  so-called  Cushite  stock  in  the 
basins  of  the  two  rivers  is  but  limited  ;  but  in  any 
case  a  strong  Shemitic  if  not  Cushite  element  is 
so  clearly  discernible  in  many  old  local  and  proper 
names,  as  to  make  an  Aryan  or  other  vernnoi lar 
language  unlikely,  although  incorporations  may  be 
found  to  have  taken  place,  from  some  ocher  lan 
guage,  probably  that  of  a  conquering  race. 

Until  recently,  the  literature  of  these  wide  dis 
tricts  was  a  blank.  Yet  "  there  must  have  been 
Babylonian  literature,  as  the  wisdom  of  the 
Chaldeans  had  acquired  a  reputation,  which  could 
hardly  have  been  sustained  without  a  literature. 
If  we  are  ever  to  recover  a  knowledge  of  that 
ancient  Babylonian  literature,  it  must  be  from  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  lately  brought  home  from 
Babylon  and  Nineveh.  They  are  clearly  written 
in  a  Shemitic  language  "  (M.  Miiller,  S.  of  L.  263). 
As  has  been  before  remarked  [BABYLONIA,  §16] 
the  civilization  of  Assyria  was  derived  from  Baby 
lonia  in  its  leading  features — Assyrian  art,  however, 
being  progressive,  and  marked  by  local  features, 
such  as  the  substitution  of  alabaster  for  bricks  as  a 
material  for  sculpture.  With  regard  to  the  dialects 
used  for  the  class  of  inscriptions  with  which  we  are 
concerned,  namely,  the  Assyrian — as  distinguished 
from  the  Zend  (or  Persian)  and  Tartar  (?)  families  of 
cuneiform  memorials — the  opinion  of  scholars  is  all 
but  unanimous — Lassen,  Bumouf  (as  far  as  he  pro 
nounces  an  opinion),  Layard,  Spiegel,  all  agree  with 
the  great  authority  above  cited.  Renan  differs,  un 
willingly,  from  them. 

From  what  source,  then,  does  it  seem  most  pro 
bable  that  future  scholars  will  find  this  peculiar 
form  of  writing  deducible?  One  of  the  latest 
writers  on  the  subject5<0ppert,  divides  the  family, 
instead  of  three,  into  two  large  classes — the  Aryan 
or  Old  Persian,  and  another  large  class  containing 
various  subdivisions  of  which  the  Assyrian  forms 
one.  The  character  itself  he  asserts  to  be  neither 
Aryan  nor  Shemitic  in  its  origin,  but  ancient 
Central  Asiatic,  and  applied  with  difficulty,  as 
extraneous  and  exotic,  to  the  languages  of  totally 
different  races.  But  it  is  quite  as  likely  that  the 
true  origin  may  be  found  in  an  exactly  different 
direction — the  S.W. — for  this  peculiar  system  of 
characters,  which,  besides  occupying  the  great  river 
basins  of  which  we  have  spoken,  may  be  traced 
westward  as  far  as  Bey  rout  and  Cyprus,  and  east 
ward,  although  less  plainly,  to  Bactra.  Scholars, 
including  Oppert,  incline  to  the  judgment,  that  (as 
Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Arabic  writers  all  show)  from 
a  Cushite  stock  (Gen.  x.  8-12)  there  grew  up 
Babylon  and  Nineveh,  and  other  great  homes  of 
civilization,  extending  from  the  level  plains  of 
Chaldaea  far  away  to  the  N.  and  E.  of  Assyria. 
In  these  districts,  far  anterior  to  the  deportation  of 
the  Jews,  but  down  to  that  period,  flourished  the 
schools  of  learning,  that  gave  birth  to  results, 
material  and  intellectual,  stamped  with  affinity  to 
those  of  Egypt.  It  may  well  be,  that  in  the  pro 
gress  of  discovery,  from  Shemitic — Cushite  records 
— akin  to  the  Himyaritic  and  Ethiopic — scholars 
may  carry  back  these  researches  to  Shemitic — • 
Cushite  imitations  of  kindred  writing  from  southern 
lands.  Already  the  notion  has  obtained  currency 


1258 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


that  the  so-called  primitive  Shemitic  alphabet,  of 
Assyrian  or  Babylonian  origin,  is  transitional,  built 
oi>  the  older  formal  and  syllabic  one,  preserved  in 
'ar.eiform  remains.  To  this  fact  we  shall  in  the 
sequel  recur — passing  now  to  the  condition  of  the 
Aramaic  language  at  the  time  of  the  Captivity. 
Little  weight  can  be  attributed  to  th<?  argument, 
that  tht  ancient  literature  of  the  district  being 
called  "Chaldean,"  an  Aryan  origin  is  implied. 
The  word  "Chaldean"  naturally  drove  out  "Baby 
lonian,"  after  the  establishment  of  Chaldean  ascen 
dancy,  in  the  latter  country ;  but  as  in  the  case  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  intellectual  ascendancy  held  its 
ground  after  the  loss  of  material  power  and  rule.h 

15.  Without  entering  into  the  discussions  re 
specting  the  exact  propriety  of  the  expressions,  it 
will  be  sufficient  to  follow  the  ordinary  division  of 
the  Aramaic  into  the  Chaldaic  or  Eastern,  and  the 
Western  or  Syriac  dialects. 

The  term  "  Chaldaic  "  is  now  (like  "  Shemitic  ") 
firmly  established,  but  Babylonian  would   appear 
more  suitable.     We  know  that  it  was  a  spoken  lan- 
\  §uage  at  the  time  of  the  Captivity. 
\      A  valuable  outline  of  the  different  ages  and  styles 
observable  in  the  Aramaic  branch  of  the  Shemitic 
family  has  l>een  given  by  both  Delitzsch  and  Fiirst, 
jvhich  (with  some  additions)  is  here  reproduced  for 
-he  reader.1 

^s  (1.)  The  earliest  extant  fragments  are  the  well- 
•  own  ones  to  be  found  at  Dan.  ii.  4-vii.  28 ;  Ezr. 
th»  8-vi.  18 ;  vii.  12-26.  Affinities  are  to  be  traced, 
j^thout  difficulty,  between  these  fragments,  which 
ga  ier  again  in  some  very  marked  pai  ticulars  from 
ale  earliest  Taigums.k 

To  those  who  in  the  course  of  travel  have  ol>- 
yerved  the  ease,  almost  the  unconsciousness — with 
tvhich  persons,  living  on  the  confines  of  cognate 
dialects,  pass  from  the  use  of  one  to  another— -or  who 
.'ire  aware,  how  close  is  the  connexion,  and  how  very 
slight  the  difference  between  conterminous  dialec- 
tical  varieties  of  one  common  stock,  there  can  be 
nothing  strange  in  this  juxtaposition  of  Hebrew  and 
Aramaic  portions.  The  prophet  Daniel,  we  may 
be  sure,  cherished  with  true  Israelite  affection  the 
holy  language  of  his  early  home,  while  his  high 
official  position  must  have  involved  a  thorough 
acquaintance  not  only  with  the  ordinary  Baby 
lonish-Aramaic,  but  with  the  Chaldaic  (properly  so 
called).  Accordingly,  we  may  understand  how  the 
prophet  might  pass  without  remark  from  the  use  of 
one  dialect  to  the  other.  Again,  in  the  case  of  Ezra, 
although  writing  at  a  later  period,  when  the  holy 
language  had  again  been  adopted  as  a  standard  of 
style  and  means  of  expression  by  Jewish  writers, — 
there  is  nothing  difficult  to  be  understood  in  his 
incorporating  with  his  own  composition  accounts 
written  by  an  eyewitness  in  Aramaic,  of  events 
which  took  place  before  his  own  arrival.10 

(2.)  The  Syro-Chaldaic  originals  of  several  of 
the  Apocryphal  books  are  lost ;  many  Hebraisms 
were  engrafted  on  the  Aramaic  as  spoken  by  the 
Jews,  but  the  dialect  of  the  earlier  Targums  con 
tains  a  percaptibly  smaller  amount  of  such  admix 
ture  than  later  compilations. 


h  Lepsius,  Zwei  Abhandlunyen,  p.  58.  Quatremere, 
Etudea  Historiques,  as  quoted  above.  Renan,  56-79. 
Herzog's  Real-Enc..  vol.  i.  Babel,  Kabylonien  (Ruetschi). 
-  vol.  ii.  Chaldaa  (Arnold).— vol.  x.  Ninive  (Spiegel), 
163,  379,  381.  Bleek,  Einl.  i.  d.  A.  T.  43-48. 

1  Delitzsch,  Jesurun,  pp.  65-70;  Fiirst,  Ldirgeb.  §19. 

*•  HeugsteiiDerg,  Danid,  pp.  302-306. 

"•  IJtugftenl'erg,  ibid.  298.     Hence  in  our  own  time, 


(3.)  The  language  of  the  Gemaras  is  extremely 
composite — that  of  the  Jerusalem  Gemara  being 
less  pure  than  that  of  Babylon.  Still  lower  in  the 
scale,  according  to  the  same  authority,  are  thosa 
of  the  fast-expiring  Samaritan  dialect;  and  that  cf 
Galilee. 

(4.)  The  curious  book  Zohar — an  adaptation  of 
Aramaic  expressions  to  Judaizing  Gnosticism — 
among  its  foreign  additions  contains  very  many 
from  the  Arabic,  indicative  (according  to  Delitzsch) 
of  a  Spanish  origin. 

(5.)  The  Masora,  brief  and  symbolical,  is  chiefly 
remarkable  for  what  may  be  called  vernacular  pe 
culiarities. 

(6.)  The  Christian  or  ecclesiastical  Aramaic  is 
that  ordinarily  known  as  Syriac — the  language  of 
early  Christianity,  as  Hebrew  and  Arabic,  respec 
tively,  of  the  Jewish  religion  and  Mahometanism. 

The  above  classification  may  be  useful  as  a  guide 
to  the  two  great  divisions  of  the  Aramaic  dialect 
with  which  a  Biblical  student  is  directly  concerned. 
For  that,  ordinarily  called  the  Samaritan,  contains 
very  little  calculated  to  afford  illustration  among  its 
scanty  remains ;  and  future  discoveries  in  that 
branch  of  pagan  Aramaic  knqwn  as  the  dialect  of 
the  Nabathaeaus,  Mendaites,  or  Zabians  of  Meso 
potamia  (not  the  Sabeans  of  Southern  Arabia),  can 
only  exercise  a  remote  or  secondary  influence  on 
the  study  of  Aramaic  as  connected  with  the  Scrip 
tures. 

The  following  sketch  of  the  three  leading  varieties 
of  the  West-Aramaic  dialect,  is  built  on  the  account 
given  by  Fiirst.n 

a.  What  is  known  of  the  condition  of  Galilee 
corroborates  the  disparaging  statements  given   by 
the  Talmudists  of  the  sub-dialect  (for  it  is  no  more) 
of  this  district.     Close  and  constant  communication 
with  the  tribes  to  the  north,  and  a  large  admixture 
of  heathens  among  the  inhabitants  would  necessarily 
contribute  to  this.     The  dialect  of  Galilee  appears 
to  have  been  marked  by  confusion  of  letters — Q  and 
3,  D  with  p  (as  in  various  European  dialects) — and 
aphaeresis  of  the  guttural — a  habit  of  connecting 
words  otherwise  separate  (also  not  uncommon  in 
rude  dialects) — carelessness  about  vowel-sounds, — 
and  the  substitution  of  ?J  final  for  IH. 

b.  The  Samaritan  dialect  appears  to  have  been  a 
compound  of  the   vulgar  Hebrew  with   Aramaic, 
as  might  have  been  anticipated  from  the  elements 
of  which  the  population  was  composed,  remains  ot 
the  *«  Ephraimite  "  occupiers,  and  Aramaic  immi 
grants.     A  confusion  of  the  mute  letters,  and  also 
of  the  gutturals,  with  a  predilection  for  the  letter 
y,  has  been  noticed. 

c.  The  dialect  called  that  of  Jerusalem  or  Judea, 
between  which  and  the  purer  one  of  the  Babylonish 
Jews    so   many    invidious    distinctions    have    been 
drawn,  seems  to  have  been  variable,  from  frequent 
changes  among  the  inhabitants — and  also  to  have 
contained  a  large  amount  of  words  different  from 
those  in  use  in  Babylonia — besides  being  somewhat 
incorrect,  in  its  orthography. 

Each  dialect,  it  will  be  seen,  was  directly  influ- 

Latin  and  Welsh,  and  Latin  and  Saxon  passages,  are  to  be 
found  in  the  same  juxtaposition  in  chartularies  and  histo 
rical  records  ;  but  the  instances  are  more  apposite  (given 
in  Delitzsch,  Wissenschaft,  Kunst,  Judenthum,  256,  seqq.) 
of  the  simultaneous  use  of  Hebrew,  Rabbinic,  and  Arabic, 
among  Jewisn  writers  after  the  so-called  revival  of  lite 
rature  under  Mahometan  influence. 
"  Lclti-geb.  M  15-19. 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WHITING 


1259 


cm .3(1  by  the  circumstances— physical  or  social — of 
its  locality.  For  instance,  in  the  remote  and  un 
lettered  Galilee,  peculiarities  and  words  could  not 
fail  to  be  engrafted  from  the  neighbouring  tribes. 
The  bitter  hatred  which  existed  between  the  Sa 
maritans  and  the  Jews,  effectually  precluded  the 
admission  of  any  leavening  influences  from  the  latter 
source.  A  dialect  originally  impure — the  Samaritan 
became  in  course  of  time  largely  interspersed  with 
Aramaic  words.  That  of  Judea,  alone  being  spoken 
by  Jews  to  whom  nationality  was  most  precious, 
was  preserved  in  tolerable  immunity  from  corre 
sponding  degradation,  until  ovei-powered  by  Greek 
and  Roman  heathenism. 

The  small  amount  of  real  difference  between  the 
two  branches  of  Aramaic  has  been  often  urged  as  an 
argument  for  making  any  division  superfluous.  But 
it  has  been  well  observed  by.  Fiirst,0  that  each  is 
animated  by  a  very  different  spirit.  The  chief  relics 
of  Chaldaic,  or  Eastern  Aramaic — the  Targums — 
are  filled  with  traditional  faith  in  the  varied  pages 
of  Jewish  history :  they  combine  much  of  the  better 
Pharisaism — nourished  as  it  was  on  lively  concep 
tions  of  hallowed,  national  lore,  with  warm,  ear 
nest,  longings  for  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah. 
Western  Aramaic,  or  Syriac  literature,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  essentially  Christian,  with  a  new  teimin- 
ology  especially  framed  for  its  necessities.  Ac 
cordingly,  the  tendency  and  linguistic  character  of 
the  first  is  essentially  Hebrew,  that  of  the  second 
Hellenic.  One  is  full  of  Hebraisms,  the  other  of 
Hellenisms. 

16.  Perhaps  few  lines  of  demarcation  are  traced 
with  greater  difficulty,  than  those  by  which  one 
age  of  a  language  is  separated  from  another.  This 
is  remarkably  the  case  in  respect  of  the  cessation 
of  the  Hebrew,  and  the  ascendancy  of  the  Aramaic, 
or,  as  it  may  be  put,  in  respect  of  the  date  at  which 
the  period  of  growth  terminates,  and  that  of  expo 
sition  and  scholasticism  begins,  in  the  literature  of 
the  chosen  people. 

Much  unnecessary  discussion  has  been  roused 
with  respsct  to  the  introduction  of  interpretation. 
Not  only  in  any  missionary  station  among  the 
heathen,  but  in  Europe  at  the  Reformation,  we  can 
find  substantially  the  germ  of  Targums.  During 
the  16th  century,  in  the  eastern  districts  of  the 
present  kingdom  of  Prussia,  the  desire  to  bring  the 
Gospel  home  to  the  humbler  classes,  hitherto  but 
little  touched  by  its  doctrines,,  opened  a  new  field 
of  activity  among  the  non-German  inhabitants  of 
those  provinces,  at  that  time  a  very  numerous  body. 
Assistants  were  appointed,  under  the  name  of 
Tolken  (interpreters),  who  rendered  the  sermon, 
sentence  by  sentence,  into  the  vernacular  old  Prussian 
dialect.P  Just  so  in  Palestine,  on  the  return,  an 
eager  desire  to  bring  their  own  Scriptures  within 
the  reach  of  the  people,  led  to  measures  such  as  that 
described  in  Nehemiah  viii.  8,  a  passage  of  difficult 
interpretation.  It  is  possible,  that  the  apparent 
vagueness  of  this  passage  may  represent  the  two 
methods,  which  would  be  naturally  adopted  for  such 
different  purposes,  as  rendering  Biblical  Hebrew  in 
telligible  to  the  common  people,  who  only  spoke  a 


0  tehrgeb.  §  14. 

P  Ranke,  D.  G.  im  Zeitalter  d.  Reformation,  b.  iv.  cap.  v. 
p.  476 ;  Barthdlemy  St.  Hilaire,  Le  Bmtddha  et  sa  Religion, 
Paris,  1860,  p.  385.  "  Ordinairement  on  ne  recite  qae  le 
texte  P41i  tout  seul,  et  alors  le  peuple  n'en  comprend 
pas  un  mot ;  mais  quelquefois  aussi,  quand  le  texte  PAli 
?,  etc  recite,  un  pretre  en  donne  une  interpretation  en 
luSh-llAis  pour  le  vulgaire  " 


dialect  of  Aramaic — and  supplying  a  coir  mentor} 
after  such  deliberate  reading. 

Of  the  several  Targums  which  are  preserved,  th> 
dates,  style,  character,  and  value  are  exceedingly 
different.  An  account  of  them  is  gp-en  under 
VERSIONS  (CHALDAIC). 

1 7.  In  the  scholastic  period,  of  which  we  now  treat, 
the    schools   of   the    prophets   were   succeedtxi   by 
"  houses  of  enquiry,"  — B>YT1D  ''fill.      For  with 
Vitringa,  in  preference  to  Rabbinical  writers,  we 
prefer  considering  the  first  named  institutions  as 
pastoral  and  devotional  seminaries,  if  not  monastic 
retreats — rather  than  schools  of  law  and  dialectics. 
as  some  would  explain  them.     It  was  not  until  thf 
scholastic  period  that  all  Jewish  studies  were   so 
employed.     Two  ways  only  of  extending  the  bless 
ings  hence  derivable,  seem  to  have  presented  them 
selves  to  the  national  mind,  by  commentary —  D-liHPl 
and  enquiry  — t^T5].     In  the  first  of  these  — Tar- 
gumic  literature,  but  limited  openings  occurred  for 
critical  studies  ;    in  the  second,    still  fewer .1     The 
vast     storehouse     of    Hebrew    thought    reaching 
through  so  many  centuries — known   by  the  name 
of  the  Talmud — and  the  collections  of  a    similar 
nature    called   the   Midrashim,   extending   in    the^ 
case  of  the   first,  dimly   but   tangibly,   from   tru.jf 
period  of  the    Captivity   to   the    times   of  Rabfrj, 
Asher — the    closer   of   the    Talmud    (A.D.   426  re_ 
contain  comparatively  few  accessions  to  linguist  ^ 
knowledge.     The  terms  by  which  serious  or  phiJt  to 
sophical  inquiry  is  described,  with  the   names  ,  Of 
its  subordinate  branches — Halacha  (rule) — Haga 
(what  is  said  or  preached) — Tosiphta  (addition)-,^ 
Boraitha  (statements  not  in  the  Mishna) — Mechilti.s 
(measure,    form)  —  the   successive  designations   o,.v 
learned  dignitaries — Sopherim  (scribes) — Chacamim,s 
(sages) — Tannaim  (  =  Shonim,  teachers) — Amoraim  e 
(speakers) — Seburaim  (disputants) — Geonim  (emin-"s 
ences) — all  bear  reference  to  the  study  and  exposi-^ 
tion  of  the  rules  and  bearing  of  the  Mosaic  law, 
with  none,  or  very  little  to  the  critical  study  of 
their  own  prized  language — the  vehicle  of  the  law. 
The  two  component  parts    of    the    Talmud,    the 
Mishna   and  the  Gemara — republication  and  final 
explanation — are  conceived  in  the  same  spirit.     The 
style  and  composite  nature  of  these  works  belong 
to  the  history  of  Rabbinical  literature. 

18.  Of  the  other  main  division  of  the  Aramaic 
language  —  the   Western   or   Syriac   dialect  —  the 
earliest  existing  document  is  the   Peshito  version 
of  the  Scriptures,  which  not  improbably  belongs  to 
the  middle  of  the  second  century.     Various  sub- 
dialects  probably  existed  within  the  wide  area  over 
which  this  Western  one  was  current :  but  there  are 
no  means  now  attainable  for  pursuing  the  inquiry 
— what  we  know  of  the  Palmyrene  being  only  de 
rivable  from  inscriptions  ranging  from  A.D.  49  tc 
the  middle  of  the  third  century.    The  Syriac  dialect 
is  thickly  studded  with  foreign  words,  Arabic,  Per 
sian,  Greek,  and  Latin,  especially  with  the  third. 
A  comparison  of  this  dialect  with  the  Eastern  branch 
will  show  that  they  are  closely  allied  in  all  the 
most  important  peculiarities  of  grammar  and  syu- 


i  Vitringa,  De  Synagogv,  1696,  p.  1,  cap.  v.  vi.  vii., 
p.  11,  cap.  v.-viii. — no  scholar  should  be  without  this 
storehouse  of  learning;  Cassel,  in  Herzog,  ix.  526-529; 
Franck,  Etudes  Orientates,  1 27  ;  Oehler,  in  Herzog,  xii.  215, 
225  ;  Zunz,  Gottesdienstliclte  Vortrage  der  Juden,  cap.  10 
This  last  volume  is  most  valuable  as  a  guiding  suminwy 
in  a  little  known  and.  bewildering  field. 


1*460 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


*ax,  as  well  as  in  their  store  of  original  words — the 
true  standard  in  linguistic  researches. 

A  few  lines  may  be  here  allowable  on  the  fortunes 
i'f  a  dialect  which  (as  will  be  shown  hereafter)  has 
bceu  so  conspicuous  an  instrument  in  extending  a 
knowledge  of  the  truths  originally  given,  and  so 
long  preserved  in  the  sacred  language  of  the  He 
brews.  Subsequently  to  the  fall  of  (Jerusalem  its 
chief  seat  of  learning  and  literature  was  at  Edessa — 
from  A.D.  440,  at  Nisibis.  Before  the  8th  and  9th 
centuries  its  decline  had  commenced,  in  spite  of  the 
protests  made  by  James  of  Edessa  in  favour  of  its 
own  classical  writers.  But,  as  of  old  the  Hebrew 
language  had  given  way  to  the  Aramaic,  so  in  her 
turn,  the  Western  Aramaic  was  driven  out  by  the 
advances  of  the  Arabic  during  the  10th  and  llth 
centuries.  Somewhat  later  it  may  be  said  to  have 
"  died  out — its  last  writer  of  mark,  Barhebraeus  (or 
Abulpharagius)  composing  in  Arabic  as  well  as 
Syriac.1 

19.  The  Chaldaic  paraphrases   of  Scripture  are 

exceedingly  valuable  for  the  light  which  they  throw 

on  Jewish  manners  and  customs,  and  the  meaning 

of  passages  otherwise  obscure,  as  likewise  for  many 

o  happy  renderings  of  the  original  text.     But  they 

faare  valuable  also  on  higher  reasons — the  Christian 

•v.'iiterpretation  put  by  their  authors  on  controverted 

•brassages.     Their  testimony  is  of  the  greatest  value, 

(^  showing  that  Messianic  interpretations  of  many 

in  oiportant  passages  must  have  been  current  among 

^  ,  b  Jews  of  the  period.    Walton,  alluding  to  Jewish 

atftLempts  to  evade  their  own  orthodox  traditions, 

&a  liys  that  "  many  such  passages,"  i.  c.  of  the  later 

a,«id  evasive  kind,  "  might  be  produced  which  find 

r  10  sanction  among  the  Jews.     Those  very  passages, 

e.vhich  were  applied  by  their  own  teachers  to  the 

tvMessinh,  and  are  incapable  of  any  other  fair  appli- 

dcation  save  to  Him  in  whom  they  all  centre,  are 

!vnot  unirequently  waited  into  meanings  irreconcile- 

Vable  alike  with  the  truth,  and  the  judgment  of  their 

own  most  valued  writers."  • 

A  comparative  estimate  is  not  yet  attainable,  as 
to  what  in  Targumic  literature  is  the  pure  expres 
sion  and  development  of  the  Jewish  mind,  and  what 
is  of  foreign  growth.  But,  as  has  been  said,  the 
Targums  and  kindred  writings  are  of  considerable 
dogmatical  and  exegetical  value ;  and  a  similar  good 
wcrk  has  been  eHected  by  means  of  the  cognate 
dialect,  Western  Aramaic  or  Syriac.  From  the 
3rd  to  the  9th  century,  Syriac  was  to  a  great  part 
of  Asia — what  in  their  spheres  Hellenic  Greek  and 
mediaeval  Latin  have  respectively  been — the  one 
ecclesiastical  language  of  the  district  named.  Be 
tween  the  literally  preserved  records  of  Holy  Scrip 
ture,  as  delivered  to  the  Terachites  in  the  infancy 
of  the  world,  and  the  understandings  and  hearts  of 
Aryan  peoples,  who  were  intended  to  share  in  those 
treasures  fully  and  to  their  latest  posterity,  some 
connecting  medium  was  necessary.  This  was 
supplied  by  the  dialect  in  question — neither  so  spe 
cific,  nor  so  clear,  nor  so  sharply  subjective  as  the 
pure  Hebrew,  but  for  those  very  reasons  (while  in 
itself  essentially  Shemi tic)  open  to  impressions  and 
thoughts  as  well  as  words  from  without,  and  there 
fore  well  calculated  to  act  as  the  pioneer  and  intro 


ducer  of  Biblical  thoughts  and  Biblical  trutltf 
among  minds,  to  whom  these  treasures  would  other 
wise  long  have  remained  obscure  and  unintelligible 

§§20-24.  ARABIC  LANGUAGE. — PERIOD  CF  RE 
VIVAL. 

20.  The  early  population  of  Arabia,  its  antiqui 
ties  and  peculiarities,  have  been  described  cnder 
ARABIA.*   We  find  Arabia  occupied  by  a  confluence 
of  tribes,  the  leading  one  of  undoubted  Ishmaelitish 
descent — the  others  of  the  seed  or  lineage  of  Abra 
ham,  and  blended  by  alliance,  language,  neighbour 
hood,  and  habits.     Before  these  any  aboriginal  in 
habitants  must  have  disappeared,  as  the  Canaanitish 
nations  before  their  brethren,  the  children  of  the 
greater  promise — as  the  Edomites  and  Ishmaelites 
were  of  a  lesser,  but  equally  certain  one. 

We  have  seen  [ARABIA]  that  the  peninsula  of 
Arabia  lay  in  the  track  of  Cushite  civilization,  in 
its  supposed  return-course  towards  the  north-east. 
As  in  the  basin  of  Mesopotamia,  so  in  Arabia  it  has 
left  traces  of  its  constructive  tendencies,  and  predi 
lections  for  grand  and  colossal  undertakings.  Modern 
research  has  brought  to  light  in  addition  many 
valuable  remains,  full  of  philological  interest.  There 
may  now  be  found  abundant  illustration  of  the 
relationship  of  the  Himyaritic  with  the  early  Shemi- 
tic  before  adverted  to ;  and  the  language  of  the 
Ehkili  (or  Mahrah),  on  which  so  much  light  has 
recently  been  thrown,  presents  us  with  the  singular 
phenomenon,  not  merely  of  a  specimen  of  what  the 
Himyaritic  (or  language  of  Yemen)  must  have  been 
before  its  expulsion  by  the  Koreishite,  but  of  a 
dialect  less  Arabic  than  Hebrew,  and  possessing 
close  affinity  with  the  Ghez,  or  Ethiopian." 

21.  The  affinity  of  the  Ghez  (Cush?  the  sacred 
language  of  Ethiopia)  with  the  Shcmitic  has  been 
long  remarked.     Walton  supposes  its  introduction 
to  have  been  consequent  on  that  of  Christianity. 
But  the  tradition  is  probably  correct,  according  to 
which  Ethiopia  was  colonized  from  S.  W.  Arabia, 
and  according  to  which  this  language  should  be 
considered  a  relic  of  the  Himyaritic.     In  the  O.  T., 
Cush,  in  addition  to  Ethiopia  in  Africa,  comprises 
S.  Arabia  (Gen.  x.  7,  8;  2  Chr.  xiv.  9  ;  xxi.  16  ; 
Hab.  iii.  7),  and  by  many  the  stream  of  Hamite 
civilization  is  supposed  to  have  flowed  in  a  northerly 
course  from  that  point  into  P^gypt.     In  its  lexical 
peculiarities,  the  Ghez  is  said  to  resemble  the  Ara 
maic,  in  its  grammatical  the  Arabic.     The  alphabet 
is  very  curious,  differing  from  Shemitic  alphabets  in 
the   number,  order,  and   name   and   form   of  the 
letters,  by  the  direction  of  the  writing,  and  espe 
cially  by  the  form  of  vowel  notation.     This  is  ex 
tremely  singular.      Each  consonant  contains  a  short 
r — the  vowels  are  expressed  by  additions   to   the 
consonants.     The  alphabet  is,  by  this  means,  con 
verted  into  a  "  syllabarium  "  of  202  signs.    Various 
points  of  resemblance  have  been  traced  between  this 
alphabet  and  the  Samaritan  ;  but  recent  discoveries 
establish  its  kindred  (almost  its  identity)  with  that 
of  the  Himyaritic  inscriptions.     The  language  and 
character  of  which  we  have  spoken  briefly,  have 
now  been  succeeded  for  general  purposes  by  the 
Amharic  —probably  in  the  first  instance  a  kindred 


*  Bleek,  Einldtung,  51-57. 

•  Walton,  Prol.  xii.  18,  19.    See  also  Delitzsch,  Wis- 
vnechqft,  Kunst,  Judenthum,  p.  173,  seqq.  (In  respect  of 
Chr'stian  anticipations  in   the  Targums  and  Sjnagogal 
•A*  rational  poetry),  and  also  p.  190,  note  (in  respect  of 
moderate  tone  of  Talmud) ;  Oehlcr,  in  Herajjr,  ix.  431-441 ; 


and  Westcott,  Introduction,  110-115. 

«  Comp.  for  the  early  history  of  the  Arabic  language  the 
recent  work  by  Freytag  (Bonn,  1861),  alike  remarkable  for 
interest  and  research,  Einteitung  in  das  Studitm.  da 
Arabischen  Sprache  bis  Mohammed  und  zum  Theil  spatter 

"  Renan,  i.  302-317 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


1261 


dialect  with  the  Ghez,  but  now  altered  by  subse 
quent  extraneous  additions.1 

22.  Internal  evidence  demonstrates,  that  the 
Arabic  language,  at  the  time  when  it  first  appears 
on  the  field  of  history,  was  being  gradually  developed 
in  its  remote  and  barren  peninsular  home.  Not  to 
dwell  on  its  broken  (or  internal)  plurals,  and  its 
system  of  cases,  there  are  peculiarities  in  the  earliest 
extant  remains,  which  evince  progress  made  in  the 
cultivation  of  the  language,  at  a  date  long  anterior 
to  the  period  of  which  we  speak. 

A  well-known  legend  speaks  of  the  present 
Arabic  language  as  being  a  fusion  of  different 
dialects,  effected  by  the  tribe  of  Koreish  settled 
round  Mecca,  and  the  reputed  wardens  of  the 
Caaba.  In  any  case,  the  paramount  purity  of  the 
Koreishite  dialect  is  asserted  by  Arabic  writers  on 
grammar,  in  whose  judgment  the  quality  of  the 
spoken  dialects  appears  to  have  declined,  in  propor 
tion  to  their  distance  from  Mecca.  It  is  also 
asserted,  that  the  stores  of  the  Koreishite  dialect 
were  increased  by  a  sort  of  philological  eclecticism — 
ill  striking  elegancies  of  construction  or  expression, 
observable  in  the  dialects  of  the  many  different  tribes 
visiting  Mecca,  being  engrafted  upon  the  one  in  ques 
tion.  F  But  the  recognition  of  the  Koran,  as  the  ulti 
mate  standard  in  linguistic  as  in  religious  matters, 
established  in  Arabic  judgment  the  superior  purity 
of  the  Koreishite  dialect. 

That  the  Arabs  possessed  a  literature  anterior  to 
the  birth  of  Mohammed,  and  expressed  in  a  language 
marked  with  many  grammatical  peculiarities,  is 
beyond  doubt.  There  is  no  satisfactory  proof  of 
the  assertion,  that  all  early  Arabic  literature  was 
destroyed  by  the  jealous  disciples  of  Islam.  "Of 
old,  the  Arab  gloried  in  nothing  but  his  sword,  his 
hospitality,  and  his  fluent  speech."1  The  last  gift, 
if  we  may  judge  from  what  has  been  preserved  to 
us  of  the  history  of  those  early  times,  seems  to 
have  been  held  in  especial  honour.  A  zealous 
purism,  strange  as  it  sounds  amid  the  rude  and 
uneducated  children  of  the  desert,  seems,  as  in 
later  times,  to  have  kept  almost  Masoretic  watch 
over  the  exactitude  of  the  transmission  of  these 
early  outpourings.* 

Even  in  our  own  times,  scholars  have  seemed 
unwilling  altogether  to  abandon  the  legend — how  at 
the  fair  of  Ocadh  ("  the  mart  of  proud  rivalry  "b) 
goods  and  traffic — wants  and  profit — were  alike  ne 
glected,  while  bards  contended  amid  their  listening 
countrymen,  anxious  for  such  a  verdict  as  should 
entitle  their  lays  to  a  place  among  the  Moallakat, 
the  avaO-fiftaTa  of  the  Caaba,  or  national  temple  at 
Mecca.  But  the  appearance  of  Mohammed  put  an 
end  for  a  season  to  commerce  and  bardic  contests ; 
nor  was  it  until  the  work  of  conquest  was  done, 
that  the  fait1""1!  resumed  the  pursuits  of  peace. 
And  enougl  .ains  to  show  that  poetry  was 
not  alone  c'  ated  among  the  ante-Mohammedan 
Arabians.  "  Seeds  of  moral  truth  appear  to  have 
been  embodied  in  sentences  and  aphorisms,  a  form 
of  instruction  peculiarly  congenial  to  the  temper  of 
Orientals,  and  proverbially  cultivated  by  the  inha 
bitants  of  the  Arabian  peninsula."  c  Poetry  and 
romance,  as  might  be  expected  from  the  degree  of 

1  Walton,  Prol.  ii.  585;  Jones,  Camm.  1774,  p.  18; 
Lepsius,  Zwei  Abh.  78,  79 ;  Renan,  i.  317-330 ;  Prichard, 
Physical  Hist,  of  Mankind,  ii.  169,  quoted  by  Forster. 

y  Pocoeke  (ed.  White,  Oxford),  157-158. 

»  Pococke,  166-168. 

*  Umbreit  in  Theologische  Stud.  u.  Kritiken,  1841,  pp. 
223.  224 ;  Ewald,  Gesch.  i.  24,  25. 


Arab    civilization,    would    se-?in   to  have  been  th£ 
chief  objects  of  attention. 

Against  these  views  it  has  been  urged,  that 
although  of  such  compositions  as  the  Moallakat, 
and  others  less  generally  known,  the  substance  may 
be  considered  as  undoubtedly  very  ancient,  and  il 
lustrative  accordingly  of  manners  and  customs — • 
yet  the  same  antiquity,  according  to  competent 
judges,  cannot  reasonably  be  assigned  to  their  pre 
sent  form.  Granting  (what  is  borne  out  from 
analogy  and  from  references  in  the  Hebrew  Scrip 
tures)  the  existence  of  philosophical  compositions 
among  the  Arabs  at  an  early  period,  still  no  traces 
of  these  remain.  The  earliest  reliable  relics  of 
Arabic  literature  are  only  fragments,  to  be  found  in 
what  has  come  down  to  us  of  pre- Islamite  composi 
tions.  And,  as  has  been  said  already,  various  argu 
ments  have  been  put  forward  against  the  probability* 
of  the  present  form  of  these  remains  being  their 
original  one.  Their  obscurities,  it  is  contended,  are 
less  those  of  age  than  of  individual  style,  while  their 
uniformity  of  language  is  at  variance  with  the  de- 
monstrably  late  cultivation  and  ascendancy  of  the 
Koreishite  dialect.  Another,  and  not  a  feeble  argu 
ment,  is  the  utter  absence  of  allusion  to  the  early 
religion  of  the  Arabs.  Most  just  is  Kenan's  remark 
that,  sceptical  or  voluptuaries  as  were  most  of 
their  poets,  still  such  a  silence  would  be  inexpli 
cable,  but  on  the  supposition  of  a  systematic  re 
moval  of  all  traces  of  former  paganism.  No  great 
critical  value,  accordingly,  can  fairly  be  assigned  to 
any  Arabic  remains  anterior  to  the  publication  of 
the  Koran.* 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  sketch  to  touch 
upon  the  theological  teaching  of  the  Koran,  its  objects, 
sources,  merits,  or  deficiencies.  But  its  style  is  very 
peculiar.  Assuming  that  it  represents  the  best  forim 
of  the  Koreishite  dialect  about  the  middle  of  the 
7th  century,  we  may  say  of  the  Koran,  that  its 
linguistic  approached  its  religious  supremacy.  The 
Koran  may  be  characterized  as  marking  the  transi 
tion  from  versification  to  prose,  from  poetry  to  elo 
quence.  Mohammed  himself  has  adverted  to  his 
want  of  poetical  skill — a  blemish  which  required 
explanation  in  the  judgment  of  his  countrymen — 
but  of  the  effect  of  his  forcible  language  and 
powers  of  address  (we  can  hardly  call  it  oratory) 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  Koran  itself  contains 
distinct  traces  of  the  change  (to  which  allusion  has 
been  made)  then  in  progress  in  Arabic  literature. 
The  balance  of  proof  inclines  to  the  conclusion,  that 
the  Suras  of  the  Koran,  which  are  placed  last  in 
order,  are  earliest  in  point  of  composition — out 
pourings  bearing  some  faint  resemblance  to  those  of 
Hebrew  prophecy.* 

23.  It  would  lead  to  discussions  foreign  to  the 
present  subject,  were  we  to  attempt  to  follow  the 
thoughts  respecting  the  future,  suggested  by  the 
almost  universal  prevalence  of  the  Arabic  idiom 
over  so  wide  a  portion  of  the  globe.  A  comparison 
of  some  leading  features  of  the  Arabic  language, 
with  its  two  sisters,  is  reserved  for  the  next  division 
of  this  sketch.  With  regard  to  ;ts  value  in  illus 
tration  two  different  judgments  obtain.  Accord 
ing  to  one,  all  the  lexical  riches  and  grammatical 


b  Fresnel,  1«  Lettre  fur  Us  Arabes,  p.  36. 
c  Forster,  ii.  298,  319. 

d  Renan,  Lang.  S&m.  1.  iv.  c.  11,  a  lucid  summary  » 
recent  researches  on  this  subject. 
«  Renan.  358-360;  Uinbrcit,  Stud.  u.  Krit    1841,25 


1232 


SHEM1TIC  LANGUAGES  ANL  WRITING 


varieties  of  the  Shemitic  family  are  to  be  found  com 
bined  in  the  Arabic.  What  elsewhere  is  imperfect 
or  exceptional  is  here  said  to  be  fully  developed 
forms  elsewhere  rare  or  anomalous,  are  here  found  in 
regular  use.  Great  faults  of  style  cannot  be  denied, 
but  its  superiority  in  lexical  riches  and  grammatical 
precision  and  variety  is  incontestable.  Without  this 
means  of  illustration,  the  position  of  the  Hebrew 
student  may  be  likened  to  that  of  the  geologist, 
who  should  have  nothing  whereon  to  found  a  judg 
ment,  beyond  the  scattered  and  imperfect  remains 
of  some  few  primeval  creatures.  But  the  Arabic, 
it  is  maintained,  for  purposes  of  illustration,  is  to 
the  Hebrew  precisely  what,  to  such  an  inquirer, 
would  be  the  discovery  of  an  imbedded  multitude 
of  kindred  creatures  in  all  their  fulness  and  com 
pleteness — even  more,  for  the  Arabic  (it  is  urg 
— as  a  means  of  comparison  and  illustration — is  a 
living  breathing  reality. 

24.  Another  school  maintains  very  different 
opinions  with  respect  to  the  value  of  Arabic  in 
illustration.  The  comparatively  recent  date  (in 
their  present  form  at  least)  and  limited  amount 
of  Arabic  remains  are  pleaded  against  its  claims,  as 
a  standard  of  reference  in  respect  of  the  Hebrew. 
Its  verbal  copiousness,  elaborate  mechanism,  subtlety 
of  thought,  wide  and  diversified  fields  of  literature, 
cannot  be  called  in  question.  But  it  is  urged  (and 
colourably)  that  its  riches  are  not  all  pure  metal, 
and  that  no  great  attention  to  etymology  has  been 
evinced  by  native  writers  on  the  language.  Nor 
should  the  follies  and  perversions  of  scholasticism 
(in  the  case  of  Rabbinical  writers)  blind  us  to  the 
superior  purity  of  the  spirit  by  which  the  Hebrew 
language  is  animated,  and  the  reflected  influences, 
for  elevation  of  tone  and  character,  from  the  sub 
jects  on  which  it  was  so  long  exclusively  employed. 
"  My  doctrine  shall  drop  as  the  rain,  my  speech 
shall  distil  as  the  dew,  as  the  small  rain  upon  the 
tender  herb,  and  as  the  showers  upon  the  grass." 
No  more  fitting  description  of  the  spirit  and  power 
of  the  holy  language  can  be  found  than  these  words 
of  the  Lawgiver's  last  address  to  his  people.  The 
Arabic  language,  on  the  other  hand,  is  first,  that  of 
wandering  robbers  and  herdsmen,  destitute  of  reli 
gion,  or  filled  with  second-hand  superstitions;  in 
its  more  cultivated  state,  that  of  a  self-satisfied, 
luxurious,  licentious  people,  the  vehicle  of  a  bor 
rowed  philosophy,  and  a  dogmatism  of  the  most 
wearisome  and  captious  kind.f 

Undoubtedly  schools  such  as  that  of  Albert 
Schultens  (d.  1730)  have  unduly  exalted  the  value 
of  Arabic  in  illustration  ;  but  in  what  may  be 
designated  as  the  field  of  lower  criticism  its  im 
portance  cannot  be  disputed.  The  total  extent  of 
the  canonical  writings  of  the  Old  Testament  is  so 
very  limited  as  in  this  respect  to  make  the  assist 
ance  of  the  Arabic  at  once  welcome,  trustworthy, 
and  copious.  Nor  can  the  proposed  substitute  be 
accepted  without  demur — the  later  Hebrew,  which 
has  found  an  advocate  so  learned  and  able  as 
Delitzsch.s  That  its  claims  and  usefulness  have 
been  undeservedly  overlooked  few  will  dispute  or 
deny ;  but  it  would  seem  to  be  recent,  uncertain, 


and  heterogeneous,  to  a  degiee  \\hich  lays  it  open 
to  many  objections  taken  by  the  admirers  of  tha 
Arabic,  as  a  trustworthy  means  of  illustration. 

§§25-33.  STRUCTURE  OP  THE  SHEMITIC  LAN 
GUAGES. 

25.  The  question,  as  to  whether  any  large  amount 
of  primitives  in  the  Shemitic  languages  is  fairly  de- 
ducible  from  imitation  of  sounds,  has  been  answered 
very    differently    by    high    authorities.       Gesenius 
thought   instances    of  onomatopoeia   very  rare   in 
extant  remains,  although  probably  more  numerous 
at  an  early  period.     Hoffmann's  judgment  is  the 
same,  in  respect  of  Western  Aramaic.    On  the  other 
hand,  Kenan  qualifies  his  admission  of  the  identity 
of  numerous  Shemitic  and  Japhetian  primitives  by  a 
suggestion,  that  these,  for  the  most  part,  may  be 
assigned  to  biliteral  words,  originating  in  the  imi 
tation  of  the  simplest  and  most  obvious  sounds. 
Scholz  also  has  an  interesting  passage  in  which  he 
maintains  the  same  proposition  with  considerable 
force,  and  attempts  to  follow,  in  some  particular 
cases,  the  analogy  between  the  simple  original  sign 
and    its    distant    derivatives.     But    on   a    careful 
examination,  it  is  not  unlikely  that,  although  many 
are  lost,  or  overlaid,  or  no  longer  as  appreciable  by 
our  organs  as  by  the  keener  ones  of  eailier  races, 
yet  the  truth  is,  as  the  case  has  been  put  by  a 
great  living  comparative  philologist — "  The  400  or 
500  roots  which  remain  as  the  constituent  elements 
in  different  families  of  languages  are  not  interjec 
tions,  nor  are  they  imitations.     They  are  phonetic 
types,  produced  by  a  power  inherent  in   human 
nature."'1 

26.  The  deeply  curious  inquiry,  as  to  the  extent  o: 
affinity  still  discernible  between  Shemitic  and  Japhe 
tian  roots,  belongs  to  another  article.     [TONGUES.] 
Nothing  in  the  Scripture  which  bears  upon  the  sub 
ject,  can  be  fairly  pleaded  against  such  an  affinity 
being  possible.     A  literal  belief  of  Biblical  records 
does  not  at  all  call  upon  us  to  suppose  an  entire 
abrogation,  by  Divine  interference,  of  all  existing 
elements  of  what  must  have  been  the  common  lan 
guage  of  the  early  Noachidae.1     That  such  resem- 
jlance  is  not  dimly  to  be  traced  cannot  be  denied — 
although  the  means  used  for  establishing  instances, 
oy  Delitzsch  and  the  analytical  school,  cannot  be 
admitted  without  great  reserve.''     But  in  treating 
;he  Shemitic  languages  in  connexion  with  Scripture, 
it  is  most  prudent  to  turn  away  from  this  tempting 
field  of  inquiry  to  the  consideration  of  the  simple 
elements — the  primitives — the  true  base  of  every 
language,  in  that  these  rather  than  the  mechanism 
of  grammar,  are  to  be  regarded  as  exponents  of 
internal  spirit  and  character.      It  is  not   denied, 
that  these  apparently  inorganic  bodies  may  very 
frequently  be  found  resolvable  into  constituent  parts, 
and  that  kindred  instances  may  be  easily  found  in 
conterminous  Japhetian  dialects.™ 

27.  Humboldt  has  named  two  very  remarkable 
points   of  difference   between    the   Japhetian   and 
Shemitic  language-families — the  latter  of  which  he 
also,    for   the   second  reason  about  to  be  named, 
assigns  to  the  number  of  those  which  have  deviated 


'  Delitzsch,  Jesurun,  76-89. 

e  Ibid.,  pp.  89-108. 

«>  Gesenius,  Lehrgebaude,  pp.  183-185;  Hoffman,  Gr. 
K\jr.  7;  Renan,  449,  454;  Scholz,  Einl.  i.  31,  £-2,  37; 
M.  .YKiller,  Sc.  of  Lang.  358,  369,  370. 

i  Walton,  Prol.  (ed.  Wrangham),  i.  121.  "  Hoc  ration! 
aiinime  consentaneum  est,  ut  Deus  in  illo  loco  linguam 
primuni  servaret,  ubi  iMiguannn  diversitutem  inimiserat, 


ne  coepto  opere  progrederentur.  Probabilius  itaque  eft, 
linguas  alias  in  eos  Deura  infudisse,  qui  ibi  commorati 
snnt,  ne  se  inutuo  intelligereiit,  et  ab  insana  structure 
desisterent."  M.  Miiller,  Sc.  of  Lang.  2«9. 

k  Comparative  tables  are  to  be  found  in  J)elit7«eli. 
Jesurun,  p.  111.-  Renan,  451-454;  Scholz,  i.  37. 

">  Merian,  Principes  de  I  Etude  Comparative  cbt 
La-nguts,  Paris,  182s,  pp.  Id  14,  19,  20. 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AN1>  WRITING 


1203 


from  the  regular  course  of  development.  The  first 
peculiarity  is  the  triliteral  root  (as  the  language  is 
at  present  known) — the  second  the  expression  of 
significations  by  consonants,  and  relations  by  vowels 
— both  forming  part  of  the  flexions  within  words, 
so  remarkable  in  the  Shemitic  family.  Widely  dif 
ferent  from  the  Japhetian  primitive,  a  fully  formed 
and  independent  word — the  Shemitic  one  (even  in  its 
present  triliteral  state)  appears  to  have  consisted 
of  three  separate  articulations,  aided  by  an  indefinite 
sound  like  the  Sheva  of  the  Hebrews,  and  to  have 
varied  in  the  shades  of  its  meaning  according  to  the 
vowels  assigned  to  it.  In  the  opinion  of  the  same 
scholar,  the  prevalent  triliteral  root  was  substituted 
for  an  earlier  or  biliteral,  as  being  found  imprac 
ticable  and  obscure  in  use.n 

Traces  of  this  survive  in  the  rudest,  or  Aramaic, 
branch,  where  what  is  pronounced  as  one  syllable, 
in  the  Hebrew  forms  two,  and  in  the  more  elaborate 
Arabic  three— e.  g.  ktal,  katal,  katala.  It  is  need 
less  to  say,  that  much  has  been  written  on  the 
question  of  this  peculiarity  being  original  or 
secondary.  A  writer  among  ourselves  has  thus 
stated  the  case : — "  An  uniform  root-formation  by 
three  letters  or  two  syllables  developed  itself  out  of 
the  original  monosyllabic  state  by  the  addition  of  a 
third  letter.  This  tendency  to  enlargement  pre 
sents  itself  in  the  Indo-Germanic  also :  but  there  is 
this  difference,  that  in  the  latter  monosyllabic  roots 
remain  besides  those  that  have  been  enlarged,  while 
in  the  other  they  have  almost  disappeared."  °  In 
this  judgment  most  will  agree.  Many  now  tri 
literal  root-words  (especially  those  expressive  of  the 
primary  relations  of  life)  were  at  first  biliteral 
only.  Thus  3N  is  not  really  from  rQN,  nor  DN 
from  DDK.  In  many  cases  a  third  (assumed)  root- 
letter  has  been  obviously  added  by  repetition,  or 
by  the  use  of  a  weak  or  moveable  letter,  or  by 
prefixing  the  letter  Nun.  Additional  instances  may 
be  found  in  connexion  with  the  biliterals  313,  *|T, 
and  "13,  and  many  others.  Illustrations  may  also 
be  drawn  from  another  quarter  nearer  home — in  the 
Japhetian  languages  of  Europe.  Fear  is  variously 
expressed  by  (ppeca  or  <f>pi(Tff(i>,  pavere,  peur, 
paura,pavor  (Span.),  fear,  furcht,frykt  (Scandin.), 
and  braw  (Old  Celtic).  In  all  these  cognate 
words,  the  common  rudimentary  idea  is  expressed 
by  the  same  two  sounds,  %he  third  correspond 
ing  with  the  various  non-essential  additions,  by 
which  apparent  triliteral  uniformity  is  secured 
in  Shemitic  dialects.  Again,  in  the  Shemitic  family 
many  primitives  may  be  found,  having  the  same 
two  letters  in  common  in  the  first  and  second 
places,  with  a  different  one  in  the  third,  yet  all 
expressive  of  different  modifications  of  the  same 

idea,  as  1.  "|J  and  its  family  ;  2.  m=  »S,  &c. ; 
3.  ">5i=^>,  &c.  ;  4.  Pp  =  kj,  &c.  — each  with 

a  similar*  train  of  cognate  words,  containing  the 
same  two  consonants  of  the  biliteral  form,  but  with 
a  third  active  consonant  added  .P 

28.  We  now  approach  a  question  of  great  in 
terest.  Was  the  art  of  writing  invented  by  Moses 
and  his  contemporaries,  or  from  what  source  did 
the  Hebrew  nation  acquire  it?  It  can  hardly  be 
doubted,  that  the  art  of  writing  was  known  to  the 
Israelites  in  the  time  of  Moses.  An  art,  such  as 


»  Humboldt,  fiber  die  Verschiedenheit  d.  menscUichen 
Sprackbaues,  307-311. 
*  Davidson,  Biblical  Criticism,  1.  11. 


that  of  writing,  is  neither  acqui  el  ncr  invented  at 
once.  No  trustworthy  evidence  can  be  alleged  of 
such  an  exception  to  the  ordinary  course.  The 
writing  on  the  two  tables  of  the  law  (Ex.  xxiv.  4) — 
the  list  of  stations  attributed  to  the  hand  of  Moses 
himself  (Num.  xxxiii.  2) — the  prohibition  of  print 
ing  on  the  body  (Lev.  xix.  28) — the  writing  of 
"  the  curses  in  a  book  "  by  the  priest,  in  tha  trial  ot 
jealousy  (Num.  v.  23) — the  description  of  the  land 
(literally,  the  writing)  j-equired  by  Joshua  (Josh, 
xviii.  6) — all  point  to  the  probability  of  the  art  of 
writing  being  an  accomplishment  already  possessed 
by  the  Hebrews  at  that  period.  So  complex  a  system, 
as  alphabetic  writing,  could  hardly  have  been  invented 
in  the  haste  and  excitement  of  the  desert  pilgrimage. 

Great  difference  of  opinion  has  prevailed,  as  to 
which  of  the  Shemitic  peoples  may  justly  claim  th« 
invention  of  letters.  As  has  been  said,  the  award 
to  the  Phoenicians,  so  long  unchallenged,  is  now 
practically  set  aside.  The  so-called  Phoenician  al 
phabet  bears  no  distinctive  traces  of  a  Phoenician 
origin.  None  of  the  selected  objects,  whose  initial 
letters  were  to  rule  the  sounds  of  the  several  pho 
netic  characters,  are  in  keeping  with  the  habits  and 
occupations  of  the  Phoenicians.  On  the  contrary, 
while  no  references  to  the  sea  and  commerce  are  to 
be  found,  the  majority  of  the  objects  selected  are 
such  as  would  suggest  themselves  to  an  inland  and 
nomadic  people,  e.g.  Aleph=an  ox,  Gimel  =  a 
camel,  Teth  =  a  snake,  Lamed  =  an  ox-goad. 

A  more  probable  theory  would  seem  that,  which 
represents  letters  as  having  passed  from  the  Egyp 
tians  to  the  Phoenicians  and  Hebrews.  Either 
people  may  have  acquired  this  accomplishment 
from  the  same  source,  at  the  same  time  and  in 
dependently — or  one  may  have  preceded  the  other, 
and  subsequently  imparted  the  acquisition.  Either 
case  is  quite  possible  on  the  assumption,  that  the 
Egyptian  alphabet  consisted  of  only  such  characters 
as  were  equivalent  to  those  used  by  the  Hebrews 
and  Phoenicians — that  is,  that  the  multiplicity  of 
signs,  which  is  found,  to  exist  in  the  Egyptian 
alphabet,  was  only  introduced  at  a  later  period. 
But  the  contrary  would  seem  to  be  the  case — 
namely,  that  the  Egyptian  alphabet  existed  at  a 
very  early  period  in  its  present  form.  And  it  is 
hardly  likely  that  two  tribes  would  separately  have 
made  the  same  selection  from  a  larger  amount  o:' 
signs  than  they  required.  But  as  the  Hebrew  and 
Phoenician  alphabets  do  correspond,  and  (as  has  been 
said)  the  character  is  less  Phoenician  than  Hebrew 
— the  latter  people  would  seem  to  have  been  the 
first  possessors  of  this  accomplishment,  and  to  have 
imparted  it  subsequently  to  the  Phoenicians. 

The  theory  (now  almost  passed  into  a  general 
belief)  of  an  early  uniform  language  overspreading 
the  range  of  countries  comprehended  in  Gen.  x. 
serves  to  illustrate  this  question.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  as  to  the  fact  of  the  Hamite  occupants  of 
Egypt  having  migrated  thither  from  Asia ;  nor  (on 
this  hypothesis)  can  there  be  any  difficulty  in 
admitting,  in  a  certain  degree,  the  correspondence 
of  their  written  character  with  the  Hebrew.  That 
changes  should  subsequently  have  been  introduced 
in  the  Egyptian  characters,  is  perfectly  intelligible, 
when  their  advances  in  civilization  are  considered 
—so  different  from  the  nomadic,  unlettered  con 
dition  of  the  Hebrew  people.  On  such  a  primary, 


P  Gesenius,  Lehrgebaude,  p.  181 ;   Renan,  Lang. 
p.  100,  412,  450.     M.  Miiller,  Sc.  of  Lang.  371. 


1264 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WHITING 


generic  agreemer  t  as  this  between  the  advanced 
language  of  Egypt,  and  that  of  the  Hebrews — 
inferior  from  necessary  causes  at  the  time,  the 
mighty  intellect  of  Moses,  divinely  guided  for  such 
a  task  (as  has  been  before  suggested),  would  find 
little  difficulty  in  grafting  improvements.  The 
theory  that  the  Hyksos  built  a  syllabic  alphabet  on 
the  Egyptian,  is  full  of  difficulties.^ 

According  to  the  elaborate  analysis  of  Lepsius, 
the  original  alphabet  of  the  language-family,  of 
which  the  Shemitic  formed  a  part,  stood  as  follows: 

Weak  Gutluralc.  Labials.     Gulluralt.    Dentalt. 

Aleph  =  A      .  Beth  -f-  Gimel  +  Daleth=  Media 

He  =  E  +  i     .  Vav   +  Heth  +  Teth     =  Aspirates 

Ghain=0  +  u  Pe      +  Kuph  +  Tau      =  Tenues 

As  the  processes  of  enunciation  became  more  de 
licate,  the  liquids  Lamed,  Mem,  Nun,  were  appa 
rently  interposed  as  the  third  low,  w&h  the  original 
S,  Samech,  from  which  were  derived  Zain,  Tsaddi, 
and  Shin — Caph  (soft  /;),  from  its  limited  functions, 
is  apparently  of  later  growth  ;  and  the  separate  ex 
istence  of  Resh,  in  many  languages,  is  demonstrably 
of  comparatively  recent  date,  as  distinguished  from 
the  kindred  sound  Lamed.  In  this  manner  (accord 
ing  to  Lepsius),  and  by  such  Shemite  equivalents, 
may  be  traced  the  progress  of  the  parent  alphabet. 
In  the  one  letter  yet  to  be  mentioned — Yod — as  in 
Kuph  and  Lamed,  the  same  scholar  finds  remains  of 
the  ancient  vowel  strokes,  which  carry  us  back  to 
the  early  syllabaria,  whose  existence  he  maintains, 
with  great  force  and  learning. 

Apparently,  in  the  case  of  all  Indo-Germanic  and 
Shemitic  alphabets,  a  parent  alphabet  may  be  traced, 
in  which  each  letter  possessed  a  combined  vowel 
and  consonant  sound — each  in  fact  forming  a  distinct, 
well  understood  syllable.  It  is  curious  to  mark  the 
different  processes,  by  which  (in  the  instances  given 
by  Lepsius),  these  early  syllabaria  have  been  affected 
by  the  course  of  enunciation  in  different  families. 
What  has  been  said  above  (§  21),  may  serve  to 
show  how  far  the  system  is  still  in  force  in  the 
Ethicpic.  In  the  Indo-Germanic  languages  of  Eu 
rope,  where  a  strong  tendency  existed  to  draw  a  line 
of  demarcation  between  vowels  and  consonants,  the 
primary  syllables  aleph,  he,  gho  =  a,  i,  u,  were 
soon  stripped  of  their  weak  guttural  (or  consonant) 
element,  to  be  treated  simply  as  the  vowel  sounds 
named,  in  combination  with  the  more  obvious  con 
sonant  sounds.  A  very  similar  course  was  followed 
by  the  Shemitic  family,  the  vowel  element  being  in 
most  letters  disregarded ;  but  the  guttural  one  in 
the  breath-syllables  was  apparently  too  congenial, 
and  too  firmly  fixed  to  allow  of  these  being  con 
verted  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Indo-Germanic  family) 
into  simple  vowels.  Aleph,  the  weakest,  for  that 
reason  terms  the  exception.  As  apparently  contain 
ing  (like  the  Devanagari)  traces  of  its  people's 
syliabarium,  as  well  for  its  majestic  forms,  befitting 
Babylonian  learning,  Lepsius  with  others  attributes 
a  very  high  antiquity  to  the  square  Hebrew  cha 
racter.  But  this  is  difficult  to  be  maintained.' 

29.  Passing  from  the  growth  of  the  alphabet,  to 
the  history  of  the  formation  of  their  written  cha 
racters  among  the  three  leading  branches  of  the 
Shemitic  family,  that  of  the  Hebrews  has  been  thus 

i  "  Sont-ce  les  Hyksos,  aiusi  que  le  suppose  M.  Ewald, 
qui  firent  passer  1'ecriture  egyptienne  de  1'etat  phonetique 
ii  I'etat  syllabique  ou  alphabetique,  comrue  les  Japonais 
et  les  Coreens  1'ont  fait  pour  1'ecritnre  Chinoise  •'  (Kenan, 
p.  112).  Saalschiitz,  Zur  Geschichte  der  Budtstabenschrift, 
Kb'uigsberg  1S3S  GO  16,  17,  13.  Corap.  ulsr  !>yrer. 


sketched.  "  In  its  oldest,  though  not  iL«  oricina. 
state,  it  exists  in  Phoenician  monuments,  both 
stones  and  coins.  It  consists  of  22  letters,  written 
from  right  to  left,  and  is  characterized  generally  by 
stiff  straight  down  strokes,  without  regularity  and 
beauty,  and  by  closed  heads  round  or  pointed 
We  have  also  a  twofold  memorial  of  it,  viz.,  the 
inscriptions  on  Jewish  coins,  struck  under  the  Mac- 
cabean  princes,  where  it  is  evident  that  its  cha 
racters  resemble  the  Phoenician,  and  the  Samaritan 
character,  in  which  the  Pentateuch  of  the  Sama 
ritans  is  written."6  This  latter  differs  from  the 
first  named,  merely  by  a  few  freer  and  finer  strokes. 
The  development  of  the  written  character  in  the 
Aramaic  branch  of  the  Shemitic  family  illustrates  the 
passage  from  the  stiff  early  character,  spoken  of 
above,  to  the  more  fully  formed  angular  one  of  later 
times  in  the  case  of  the  Hebrew  family,  and  in  that 
of  the  Arabic,  to  the  Cufic  and  Neshki.  Aramaic 
writing  may  be  divided  into  two  principal  families 
— 1.  ancient  Aramaic,  and  2.  Syriac,  more  properly 
so  called.  Of  the  first,  the  most  early  specimen 
extant  is  the  well-known  Carpentras  stone,  pre 
served  at  that  place  in  France,  since  the  end  of  the 
17th  century.*  Its  date  is  very  doubtful,  but  an 
terior  to  those  of  the  inscriptions  from  Palmyra, 
which  extend  fiom  A.D.  49  to  the  3rd  century. 
The  first  very  closely  resembles  the  Phoenician 
character — the  tops  of  the  letters  being  but  slightly 
opened  ;  in  the  second,  these  are  more  fully  opened, 
and  many  horizontal  strokes  of  union  added,  showing 
!  its  cursive  character.  From  these  remains  may  be 
1  fairly  deduced  the  transitional  nature  of  the  written 
,  character  of  the  period  preceding  the  invention  (or 
'  according  to  others  the  revival)  of  the  square 
!  character. 

Hupfeld,  Fiirst,  and  all  leading  writers  on  the 
subject,  concur  in  designating  this  last  as  a  gradual 
development  from  the   sources  mentioned   above. 
A  reference  to  these  authors  will  show,  how  con 
fused  were  even  Jewish  notions  at  an  early  period 
as  to  its  origin,  from  the  different  explanations  of  the 
word  JVTlE^K  (Assyriaca),  substituted  by  the  Rab 
bins  for  VB'lp  ("  square  "),  by  which  this  charactei 
I  was  distinguished  from  their  own  —  T'-'Diy  3H3 — • 
i  "  round  writing,"  as  it  was  called.     But  assuming 
I  with  Hupfeld  and  Fiirst,  the  presence  of  two  active 
1  principles — a  wish  to  write  quickly,  and  to  write 
pictorially- — the   growth    of   the    square    Hebrew 
!  character   from   the  old  Phoenician   is  easily  dis- 
i  cernible   through    the  Carpentras   and   Palmyrene 
I  relics.     "  Thus  we  find  in  it  the  points  of  the  letters 
blunted  off,  the  horizontal  union-strokes  enlarged, 
figures  that  had  been  divided  rounded  and  closed, 
the  position  and  length  of  many  cross  lines  altered, 
I  and   final   letters   introduced  agreeably  to  tachy- 
i  graphy.      On    the   other   hand,    the    caligraphical 
I  principle    is  seen   in  the   extraordinary  uniformity 
i  and  symmetry  of  the  letters,  their  separation  from 
one  another,  and  in  the  peculiar  taste  which  adorns 
them  with  a  stiff  and  angular  form."  tt 

Few  important  changes  are  to  be  found  from  tht 
period  of  Ezra,  until  the  close  of  the  5th  century 
of  our  era.  During  this  period,  the  writteu 
character  of  the  text  (as  well  as  the  text  itself)  wa* 


in  Herzog,  xiv.  9. 

r  Lepsius,  Zwei  Abhandlwngen,  9-29. 

•  Davidson,  Biblical  Criticism,  i.  23. 

»  A  copy  of  it  is  given  in  Fiirst,  Lehrgeb.  23. 

u  Davidson,  Biblic.  Criticism,  i.  29 ;  Hoffmann,  Grawp 
Syriaca,  $6:  1-6;  and  Fiirst,  Lchrg.  i.  $$  22-27. 


SHEM1TIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


1265 


as  at  present,  and  likewise,  to  a  great 
extent,  the  reading  and  divisions  of  the  text.  During 
this  period,  the  groundwork  of  very  much  contained 
in  the  subsequent  Masora  was  laid,  but  as  yet  only 
in  an  unwritten,  traditional  shape.  The  old  cha 
racter  gave  way  to  the  square,  or  Assyrian  cha 
racter — not  at  once  and  by  the  authority  of  Ezra, 
but  (as  has  been  proved  with  much  clearness) 
by  gradual  transitions.*  The  square  character  is, 
demonstrably,  not  an  exact  copy  of  any  existing 
Aramaic  style,  but  grew  by  degrees  out  of  the 
earlier  one,  although  greatly  modified  by  Aramaic 
influence.  No  exact  date  can  be  assigned  to  the 
actual  change,  which  probably  was  very  gradual ; 
but  that  the  new  character  had  become  generally 
adopted  by  the  first  century  of  our  era,  may  be 
inferred  from  the  Gospels  (Matt.  v.  18).  It  is, 
moreover,  alluded  to  in  the  Mishna  as  the  Assyrian 
character,  and  by  Origen  as  settled  by  long  usage, 
and  was  obviously  well-known  to  Jerome  and  the 
Talmudists.  The  latter  writers,  aided  powerfully 
by  the  ceremonious  (not  to  say  superstitious)  tone 
engendered  among  the  Jews  by  the  fall  of  Jeru 
salem,  secured  the  exclusive  use  of  its  square  cha 
racter  for  sacred  purposes.  All  that  external  care 
and  scrupulous  veneration  could  accomplish  for  the 
exact  transmission  of  the  received  text,  in  the  con 
secrated  character,  was  secured.  It  is  true  that 
much  of  a  secondaiy,  much  of  an  erroneous  kind 
was  included  among  the  objects  of  this  devout 
veneration ;  but  in  the  absence  cf  sound  princi 
ples  of  criticism,  not  only  ia  those  early,  but 
many  subsequent  generations,  this  is  the  less  to 
be  deplored.  The  character  called  Rabbinic  is 
best  described  as  an  attempt  at  Hebrew  cursive 
writing. 

The  history  of  the  characters,  ordinarily  used  in 
the  Syriac  (or  Western)  branch  of  the  Aramaic 
family,  is  blended  with  that  of  those  used  in  Judea. 
Like  the  square  characters,  they  were  derived  from 
the  old  Phoenician,  but  passed  through  some  inter 
mediate  stages.  The  first  variety  is  that  known 
by  the  name  of  Estrangelo — a  heavy  cumbrous  cha 
racter  said  to  be  derived  from  the  Greek  adj. 
<rrpoyyv\os,  but  more  probably  from  two  Arabic 
words  signifying  the  writing  of  the  Gospel.  It  is 
to  be  found  in  use  in  the  very  oldest  documents. 
Concurrently  with  this,  are  traces  of  the  existence 
of  a  smaller  and  more  cursive  character,  very  much 
resembling  it.  The  character  called  the  "  double  " 
(a  large,  hollow  variety),  is  almost  identical.  There 
are  also  other  varieties,  slightly  differing— the  Nes- 
torian  for  example — but  that  in  ordinary  use,  is  the 
Peshito  =  simple  (or  lineal  according  to  some).  Its 
origin  is  somewhat  uncertain,  but  probably  may  be 
assigned  to  the  7th  century  of  our  era.  It  is  a 
modification  of  the  Estrangelo,  sloped  for  writing, 
and  in  some  measure  altered  by  use.  This  variety 
of  written  characters  in  the  Aramaic  family  is  pro 
bably  attributable  to  the  fact,  that  literature  was 
more  extensively  cultivated  among  them  than  among 
kindred  tribes.  Although  not  spared  to  us,  an  ex 
tensive  literature  probably  existed  among  them 
anterior  to  the  Christian  era ;  and  subsequently,  for 
v.  long  period,  they  were  the  sole  imparters  of  know 
ledge  and  learning  to  Western  Asia. 

The  history  of  the  Arabic  language  has  another 


Lcyrer,  in  Herzog,  xiv.  12. 

ALnther  etymology  of  this  word  is  given  by  Lepsiue, 


.  from 
in. 


peculiar  feature,  beyond  its  excessive  purism,  which 
has  been  alluded  to,  at  first  sight,  so  singulai 
among  the  dwellers  in  the  desert.  Until  a  compa 
ratively  short  time  before  the  days  of  Mohammed, 
the  art  of  writing  appears  to  have  been  practically 
unknown.  For  the  Himyarites  guarded  with  jealous 
care  their  own  peculiar  character — the  "musnad," 
or  elevated  ;>'  in  itself  unfitted  for  general  use.  Pos 
sibly  different  tribes  might  have  possessed  approaches 
to  written  characters ;  but  about  the  beginning  of 
the  7th  century,  the  heavy  cumbrous  Cufic  cha 
racter  (so  called  from  Cufa,  the  city  where  it  was 
most  early  used)  appears  to  have  been  generally 
adopted.  It  was  said  to  have  been  invented  by 
Muramar-Ibn  Murrat,  a  native  of  Babylonian  Irak. 
But  the  shapes  and  arrangement  of  the  letters  in 
dicate  their  derivation  from  the  Estrangelo ;  and 
the  name  assigned  to  their  introducer — containing 
the  title  ordinarily  borne  by  Syrian  ecclesiastics — is 
also  indicative  of  th^ir  real  origin.  But  it  is  now 
only  to  be  found  in  the  documents  of  the  early  ages 
of  Islamism. 

The  well-known  division  of  "the  people  of  the 
book  "  =•  Christians,  who  were  educated,  and  "  the 
common  people"  who  could  not  read ±: the  tribes 
round  Mecca,  and  the  summary  way  in  which 
an  authoritative  text  of  the  Koran  was  established 
(in  the  Caliphate  of  Othman),  alike  indicate  a  very 
rude  state  of  society.  It  is  generally  asserted  that 
Mohammed  was  unable  to  write:  and  this  would  at 
first  sight  appear  to  be  borne  out  by  his  description 
of  himself  as  an  illiterate  prophet.  Modern  writers, 
however,  generally  are  averse  to  a  literal  interpre 
tation  of  these  and  kindred  statements.  In  any  case, 
about  the  10th  century  (the  fourth  of  the  Hegira), 
a  smaller  and  more  flowing  character,  the  Nishki, 
was  introduced  by  Ibn  Moklah,  which,  with  con 
siderable  alterations  and  improvements,  is  that 
ordinarily  in  present  use.z 

30.  As  in  the  Hebrew  and  Aramaic  branches,  so 
in  the  Arab  branch  of  the  Shemitic  family,  various 
causes  rendered  desirable*  the  introduction  of  dia 
critical  signs  and  vowel  points,  which  took  place 
towards  the  close  of  the  7th  centuiy  of  our  era — 
not  however  without  considerable  opposition  at  the 
outset,  from  Shemitic  dislike  of  innovation,  and  ad 
dition  to  the  roll  of  instruction  already  complete  in 
itself.  But  the  system  obtained  general  recognition 
after  some  modifications  in  deference  to  popular 
opinion,  though  not  carried  out  with  the  fulness  of 
the  Masoretes.* 

Ewald,  with  great  probability,  assumes  the  ex 
istence  and  adoption  of  certain  attempts  at  vowel 
marks  at  a  very  early  period,  and  is  inclined  to 
divide  their  history  into  three  stages. 

At  first  a  simple  mark  or  stroke,  like  the  dia 
critical  line  in  the  Samaritan  MSS.,  was  adopted  to 
mark  unusual  significations  as  T21,  "  a  pestilence,'* 
as  distinguished  from  "QT,  *'  to  speak,"  or  "  a 
word."  A  further  and  more  advanced  stage,  like  the 
diacritical  points  of  the  Aramaic,  was  the  employ 
ment  (in  order  to  express  generally  the  difference 
of  sounds)  of  a  point  above  the  line  to  express  sounds 
of  a  high  kind,  like  a  and  o — one  below  for  feebler 
and  lower  ones  like  i  and  e — and  a  third  in  the 
centre  of  the  letters  for  those  of  a  harsher  kind,  as 
distinguished  from  the  other  t\vo.b 

1  A  much  earlier  existence  is  claimed  for  this  character 
by  Forster,  One  Prim.  Lang.  \.  16T. 

»  Pocockc.  AUJfeda,  ed.  White ;  Walton,  ProU.  Pt 
Lingua  Arabica,  Leyrer,  Herzog,  xlv.  12. 

*  Kwald,  Grammatik  (1835),  p.  62. 

4  M 


1266 


SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


Original'v.  the  number  of  voirel  sounds  among 
the  Shemitic  races  (as  distinguished  from  vowel 
points)  was  only  three,  and  apparently  used  in  com- 
bmatijn  with  the  consonants.  Origen  and  Jerome 
were  alike  ignorant  of  vowel  points,  in  the  ordinary 
acceptation.  Many  readings  in  the  LXX.  indicate 
the  want  of  some  such  system — a  want  to  which 
•:ome  directions  in  the  Talmud  are  said  to  refer. 
But  until  a  later  period,  a  regular  system  of  punc 
tuation  remained  unknown ;  and  the  number  of 
vowel  sounds  limited.  The  case  is  thus  put  by 
Walton.  "  The  modern  points  were  not  either  from 
Adam,  or  affixed  by  Moses,  or  the  Prophets  that 
were  before  the  captivity,  nor  after  the  captivity, 
devised  either  by  Ezra,  or  by  any  other  before  the 
completing  of  the  Talmud,  but  after  five  hundred 
years  after  Christ,  invented  by  some  learned  Jews  for 
the  help  of  those  who  were  ignorant  of  the  Hebrew 
tongue."  "  We  neither  affirm  that  the  vowels  and 
accents  were  invented  by  the  Masoretes,  but  that 
the  Hebrew  tongue  did  always  consist  of  vowels 
and  consonants.  Aleph,  Vau,  and  Yod  were  the 
vowels  before  the  points  were  invented,  as  they 
were  also  in  the  Syriac,  Arabic,  and  other  Eastern 
.  ongues."  c 

We  will  add  one  more  quotation  from  the  same 
author,  with  reference  to  the  alleged  uncertainty 
.ntroduccd  into  the  rendering  of  the  text,  by  any 
doubts  on  the  antiquity  of  the  system  of  vowel- 
points,  a  question  which  divided  the  scholars  of  his 
day.  "  The  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  Chaldean  Para 
phrase  of  the  Pentateuch  and  Prophets,  and  the  Syriac 
translation  of  the  Bible,  continued  above  a  thousand 
years  before  they  were  pointed."  "  That  the  true 
reading  might  be  preserved  above  a  thousand  years, 
is  not  against  all  reason,  since  we  see  the  same  done 
in  the  Samaritan,  Syriac,  and  Chaldee,  for  a  longer 
time ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  Arabic, 
though  not  for  so  long  a  time  after  the  Alcoran  was 
written."*1 

31.  The  reverence  of  the  Jews,  for  their  sacred 
writings,  would  have  been  outraged  by  any 
attempts  to  introduce  an  authoritative  system  of 
interpretation  at  variance  with  existing  ones.  To 
reduce  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures  to  authoritative 
and  intelligible  uniformity  was  the  object  of  the 
Masoretes,  by  means  of  a  system  of  vowels  and 
accents. 

What  would  have  suggested  itself  to  scholars, 
not  of  Shemitic  origin,  was  at  utter  variance  with 
Hebrew  notions,  which  looked  upon  the  established 
written  characters  as  sacred.  No  other  plan  was 
possible  than  the  addition  of  different  external  marks. 
And,  in  fact,  this  plan  was  adopted  by  the  three 
great  divisions  of  the  Shemitic  family ;  probably 
being  copied  to  a  certain  extent  by  the  Hebrew  and 
Arabic  branches  from  the  Synac,  among  whom  there 
existed  schools  of  some  repute  during  the  first  cen- 
turias  of  our  era.  Of  the  names  of  the  inventors, 
or  the  exact  time  of  their  introduction,  nothing 
can  be  stated  with  certainty.  Their  use  probably 
began  about  the  sixth  century,  and  appears  to  have 
been  completed  about  the  tenth.  The  system  has 
been  carried  out  with  far  greater  minuteness  in  the 
Hebrew,  than  in  the  two  sister  dialects.  The  Arabic 
grammarians  did  not  proceed  beyond  three  signs  for 
a,  f,  u  ;  the  Syriac  added  e  and  o,  which  they  repre 
sented  by  figures  borrowed  from  the  Greek  alphabet, 
not  very  much  altered.  In  both  these  cases  all  the 


c  Walton,  ('(moderator  Considered,  ii.  229,  210. 
•»  Walton,  ibid.  222,  223. 


vowels  arev  strictly  speaking,  to  be  considered  ne 
short ;  wiule  the  Hebrew  has  five  Jcng  as  well  as  five 
short,  and  a  half-vowel,  and  other  auxiliary  signs. 
Connected  with  this  is  the  system  of  accents,  which 
is  involved  in  the  same  obscurity  of  origin.  But 
it  bears  rather  on  the  relation  of  words  and  the 
members  of  sentences,  than  on  the  construction  of 
individual  words. 

The  chief  agents  in  this  laborious  and  peculiar 
undertaking  were  the  compilers  of  the  Masora, 
as  it  is  called  ="  tradition,"  as  distinguished  from 
the  word  to  be  read.  As  the  Talmud  has  its  pro 
vince  of  interpreting  legal  distinctions  and  regula 
tions,  under  the  sanction  of  the  sacred  text,  and 
the  Kabbala  its  peculiar  function  of  dealing  with 
theological  and  esoteric  tradition,  so  the  object  of 
the  Masora  (J"n\D£,  "tradition"),  and  its  com 
pilers  the  Masoretes  (or  miDD  vJJ3>  "masters  of 
tradition"),  was  to  deal  critically,  grammatically, 
and  lexically,  with  a  vast  amount  of  tradition  bear 
ing  on  the  text  of  Scripture,  and  to  reduce  this  to 
a  consistent  form.  Little  is  known  with  accuracy 
of  the  authors,  or  the  growth  of  this  remarkable 
collection.  Tradition  assigns  the  commencement  (as 
usual)  to  Ezra  and  the  great  synagogue  ;  but  other 
authorities — Jewish  and  Christian — to  the  learned 
members  of  the  school  of  Tiberias,  about  the  begin 
ning  of  the  sixth  century.  These  learned  collections, 
comprising  some  very  early  fragments,  were  pro 
bably  in  progress  until  the  eleventh  century,  and  are 
divided  into  a  greater  and  less  Masora,  the  second 
a  compendium  of  the  former.  "  The  masters  of  the 
Masora,"  in  the  well-known  quotation  of  Elias 
Levita,  "  were  innumerable,  and  followed  each  other 
in  successive  generations  for  many  years ;  nor  is  the 
beginning  of  them  known  to  us,  nor  the  end  thereof." 
Walton,  who  was  by  no  means  blind  to  its  deficiencies, 
has  left  on  record  a  very  just  judgment  on  the 
real  merits  of  the  Masora.*  It  is  in  truth  a  very 
striking  and  meritorious  instance  of  the  devotion 
of  the  Jewish  mind  to  the  text  of  Scripture — of  the 
earnestness  of  its  authors  to  add  the  only  proof  in 
their  power  of  their  zeal  for  its  preservation  and 
elucidation.' 

32.  A  comparison  of  the  Shemitic  languages,  as 
known  to  us,  presents  them  as  very  unevenly  de 
veloped.  In  their  present  form  the  Arabic  is  un 
doubtedly  the  richest:  but  it  would  have  been 
rivalled  by  the  Hebrew  had  a  career  been  vouch 
safed  equally  long  and  favourable  to  this  latter. 
The  cramping  and  perverting  conditions  of  its 
labours  depressed  the  Rabbinic  dialect  (child  of  the 
old  age  of  the  Hebrew)  into  bewildering  confusion 
in  many  instances,  but  there  are  many  valuable 
signs  of  life  about  it.  Ancient  Hebrew,  as  has  been 
truly  said,  possesses  in  the  bud  almost  all  the 
mechanisms  which  constitute  the  riches  of  the 
Arabic.  In  the  preface  to  his  great  work  (Lehr- 
gebaude,  p.  vii.)  Gesenius  has  pointed  out  various 
instances,  which  will  repay  the  labour  of  com 
parison.  It  is  true  that  to  the  Aramaic  has  been 
extended  a  longer  duration  than  to  the  Hebrew  ; 
but  for  various  causes  its  inferiority  is  remarkable, 
as  regards  its  poverty — lexical  and  grammatical — 
its  want  of  harmony  and  flexibility,  and  the  con 
sequent  necessary  frequency  of  periphrases  and 
particles  in  aid. 

A  brief  comparison  of  some  leading  gramim  tical 

e  I'rol.  vtii.  17. 

f  Arnold,  in  Herzog,  ix.  s.  v. ;  Lcyrer,  in  llt-rzog,  x  v,  3  5 


SHEMJTJC  LANGUAGES  AND  WRITING 


1267 


<md  syntactical  peculiarities,  in  the  three  main  dia 
lects  of  the  Shemitic  family,  will  not  be  out  of  place 
at,  the  end  of  this  sketch.  To  scholars  it  will  neces 
sarily  appear  meagre ;  but,  brief  as  it  is,  it  may  not 
be  without  interest  to  the  general  reader.  The 


root-forms  with  the  consonants  and   vowels  have 
been  already  considered. 

Conjugations  or  their  equivalent  verb-forr.?. — 
The  following  is  the  tabulated  form  gi  ven  by  EwalJ 
for  the  ordinary  Hebrew  verb : — 


1.  (Simple  form)  Kal. 


(Forms  extremely  augmented) 


^Causative  form) 

Hiphil.  w. 
Passive  Hophal. 


3.  (Reflexive  form) 
MphaL 


4.  (Intensive  form) 

Piel.  w. 
pass.  I  I'ual. 


5.  (Reflexive  and  intensive  form) 
Hithpad. 


In  the  Aramaic  the  first,  third,  and  fourth  of 
these  appear,  with  another  (  rrHithpael),  all  with 
passives,  marked  by  a  syllable  prefixed.  In  the 
Arabic  the  verb-forms,  at  the  lowest  -computation, 
are  nine,  but  are  ordinarily  reckoned  at  thirteen, 
and  sometimes  fifteen.  Of  these,  the  ninth  and 
eleventh  forms  are  comparatively  rare,  and  serve 
to  express  colours  and  defects.  As  may  be  seen 
from  the  table  given,  the  third  and  fourth  forms  in 
Hebrew  alone  have  passives. 

Equivalents  to  Conjunctive  Moods,  fyc. — One  of 
the  most  remarkable  features  of  the  Arabic  language 
is  what  is  ordinarily  described  as  the  "  futurum 
h'guratum."  As  in  almost  all  Shemitic  grammars 
imperfect  is  now  substituted  for  future,  this  may 
be  explained,  by  stating  that  in  Arabic  there  are 
four  forms  of  the  imperfect,  strongly  marked,  by 
which  the  absence  of  moods  is  almost  compensated. 
The  germs  of  this  mechanism  are  to  be  found  in 
the  common  imperfect,  the  jussive,  and  the  cohor- 
tative  of  the  Hebrew,  but  not  in  the  Aramaic. 
Again,  a  curious  conditional  and  subjunctive  usage 
(at  first  sight  almost  amounting  to  an  inversion) 
applied  to  the  perfect  and  imperfect  tenses  by  the 
addition  of  a  portion,  or  the  whole,  of  the  sub 
stantive  verb  is  to  be  found  in  both  Hebrew  and 
Arabic,  although  very  differently  developed. 

Nouns. — The  dual  number,  very  uncommon  in 
the  Syriac,  is  less  so  in  Hebrew — chiefly  limited, 
however,  to  really  dual  nouns—  while  in  the  Arabic 
its  usage  may  be  described  as  general.  What  is 
called  the  "  status  emphaticus,"  ».  e.  the  rendering 
a  word  definite  by  appending  the  article,  is  found 
constantly  recurring  in  the  Aramaic  (at  some  loss 
to  clearness  in  the  singular).  This  usage  brings  to 
mind  the  addition  of  the  definite  article  as  a  post 
positive  in  Swedish — skib,  ship ;  skibet,  the  ship. 
In  the  Arabic  it  is  lost  in  the  inflexions  of  cases, 
while  in  the  Hebrew  it  may  be  considered  as  un 
important.  As  regards  nouns  of  abstraction,  also, 
the  Aramaic  is  fuller  than  the  Hebrew ;  but  in  this 
last  particular,  as  in  the  whole  family  of  nouns, 
the  Arabic  is  rich  to  excess.  It  is  in  this  last  only 
that  we  find  not  only  a  regular  system  of  cases, 
and  of  comparison,  but  especially  the  numerous 
plural  formations  called  broken  or  internal,  which 
form  so  singular  a  part  of  the  language.  As  re 
gards  their  meaning,  the  broken  plurals  are  totally 
different  from  the  regular  (or,  as  they  are  techni 
cally  called,  souud)  plurals — the  latter  denoting 
several  individuals  of  a  genus,  the  former  a 
number  of  individuals  viewed  collectively,  the 
idea  of  individuality  being  wholly  suppressed. 

%  Wright's  Arabic  Grammar,  pert  i.  p.  189.  "  Cette 
pa;  tie  de  la  grammaire  Arabe  est  celle  oil  il  regne  Ic  plus 


Broken  plui-als  accordingly  are  singulars  with  a 
collective  meaning,  and  are  closely  akin  to  abstract 
nouns.? 

33.  To  the  scholar,  as  before  remarked,  this  re 
capitulation  of  some  leading  peculiarities  may  appeal 
unnecessary,  while  to  those  unacquainted  with  the. 
Shemitic  languages,  it  is  feared,  these  instances  must 
unavoidably  appear  like  fragments  or  specimens, 
possibly  new  and  peculiar,  but  conveying  no  very 
definite  instruction.  But  in  any  case  some  of  the 
chief  grammatical  features  of  the  family  have  been 
enumerated — all,  moreover,  illustrative  of  the  in 
ternal  self-contained  type  so  peculiarly  Shemitic. 
In  this  respect — as  with  its  formal,  so  with  its 
syntactical  peculiarities.  Of  one  fertile  parent  of 
new  words  in  the  Japhetian  language-family — the 
power  of  creating  compound  words— the  Shemitic  is 
destitute.  Different  meanings  are,  it  is  true,  ex 
pressed  by  different  primitives,  but  these  stand 
necessarily  divided  by  impassable  barriers  from  each 
other ;  and  we  look  in  vain  for  the  shades  and  gra 
dations  of  meaning  in  a  word  in  the  Shemitic  lan 
guages  which  give  such  copiousness  and  charm  to 
the  sister-family.  It  is  so  with  regard  to  the 
whole  range  of  privative  and  negative  words.  The 
prefixes  of  the  other  family,  in  conjunction  with 
nouns,  give  far  more  life  and  clearness  than  do  the 
collective  verbals  of  the  Shemitic.  Even  the  pregnant 
and  curiously  jointed  verb-forms,  spreading  out 
from  the  sharply  defined  root,  with  pronominal 
adjuncts  of  obvious  meaning,  and  the  aid  of  a  deli 
cate  vowel-system,  have  an  artificial  appearance. 
The  Japhetian,  whose  spiritual  fulness  would  pre- 
bably  never  have  reached  him,  but  that  its  sub 
stance  was  long  preserved  in  these  very  forms,  will 
gratefully  acknowledge  the  wisdom  of  that  Almighty 
Being  who  framed  for  the  preservation  of  the  know 
ledge  of  Himself— the  One  True  God — so  fitting  a 
cradle  as  the  language  of  the  Old  Testament.  Of 
other  families,  the  Japhetian  was  not  ripe  for  such  a 
trust.  Of  those  allied  with  the  Shemitic,  the  Aramaic 
was  too  coarse  and  indefinite,  however  widely  and 
early  spread,  or  useful  at  a  later  period  as  a  means 
of  extension  and  explanation,  and  (as  has  been 
before  observed)  the  Arabic  in  its  origin  was  essen 
tially  of  the  earth,  earthy.  The  Japhetian  cannot 
then  but  recognise  the  wisdom,  cannot  but  thank 
the  goodness  of  God,  in  thus  giving  and  preserving 
His  lessons  concerning  Himself  in  a  form  so  fitting 
and  so  removed  from  treachery.  He  will  do  all 
this,  but  he  will  see  at  the  same  time  in  his  own 
languages,  so  flexible,  so  varied,  so  logical,  drawing 
man  out  of  himself  to  bind  him  to  his  neighbour, 


d'arbitraire,  et  oil  les  regies  generates  sont  sujettea  a  on 
plus  grand  nombre  d'exccptions."  De  Sacy,  i.  279  (ed.  1810> 

4  M  2 


1268 


6HEMUEL 


means  far  more  likely  to  spread  tho  treasure: 
of  the  holy  language  than  even  its  general  adoption. 
It  is  Humboldt  who  has  said,  in  reference  to  the 
wonderful  mechanism  discernible  in  the  consonant 
said  vowel  systems  of  the  Shemitic  languages  — 
that,  admitting  all  this,  there  is  more  energy  and 
weight,  more  truth  to  nature,  when  the  elements 
of  language  can  be  recognised  independently  and  in 
order,  than  when  fused  in  such  a  combination,  how 
ever  remarkable. 

And  from  this  rigid  self-contained  character  the 
Shemitic  language-family  finds  difficulty  in  depart 
ing.  The  more  recent  Syriac  has  added  various 
auxiliary  forms,  and  repeated  pronouns,  to  the  cha 
racteristic  words  by  which  the  meaning  is  chiefly 
conveyed.  But  the  general  effect  is  cumbrous  and 
confused,  and  brings  to  mind  some  features  of  the 
ordinary  Welsh  version  of  the  Epistles.  In  Arabic, 
again,  certain  prefixes  are  found  to  be  added  for  the 
sake  of  giving  definiteness  to  portions  of  the  verb, 
and  prepositions  more  frequently  employed.  But 
the  character  of  the  language  remains  unaltered  — 
the  additions  stand  out  as  something  distinct  from 
the  original  elements  of  the  sentence. 

In  what  consists  the  most  marked  point  of  dif 
ference  between  the  Indo-European  family  of  lan 
guages  and  the  Shemitic  family  as  known  to  us  ? 
The  first  has  lived  two  lives,  as  it  were  :  in  its  case 
a  period  of  synthesis  and  complexity  has  been  suc 
ceeded  by  another  of  analysis  and  decomposition. 
The  second  family  has  been  developed  (if  the  word 
may  be  used)  in  one  way  only.  No  other  instance 
of  a  language-family  can  probably  be  found  cast  in 
a  mould  equally  unalterable.  Compared  with  the 
living  branches  of  the  Indo-European  family,  those 
of  the  Shemitic  may  be  almost  designated  as  in 
organic:  they  have  not  vegetated,  have  not  grown  ; 
they  have  simply  existed.1^  [T.  J.  0.] 

SHEM'UEL  (W*-W  :  2aAa/^\:  Samuel). 
1.  Son  of  Ammihud,  appointed  from  the  tribe  of 
Simeon  to  divide  the  land  of  Canaan  among  the 
tribes  (Num.  xxxiv.  20). 

2.  (So^oi^A.)    SAMUEL  the  prophet  (1  Chr. 
vi.  33). 

3.  Son  of  Tola,  and  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  tribe 
of  Issachar  (1  Chr.  vii.  2). 

SHEN  (}tpn,  with  the  def.  article  :  TTJS  m- 
\aius  :  Sen],  A  place  mentioned  only  in  1  Sam. 
vii.  12,  defining  the  spot  at  which  Samuel  set  up 
the  stone  Eben-ezer  to  commemorate  the  rout  of 
the  Philistines.  The  pursuit  had  extended  to  "  below 
Beth-car,"  and  the  stone  was  erected  "  between  the 
Mizpah  and  between  the  Shen."  Nothing  is  known 
of  it.  The  Targum  has  Shinna.  The  Peshito- 
Syriac  and  Arabic  Versions  render  both  Beth-car 
and  Shen  by  Beit-Jasan,  but  the  writer  has  not 
succeeded  in  identifying  the  name  with  any  place 
in  the  lists  of  Dr.  Robinson  (1st  edit.  App.  to 
vol.  iii.)  The  LXX.  read  }&  ydshdn,  old.  [G.] 

SHEN'AZAR  0*  &UE>  :  Zawdp:  Senneser}. 
Son  of  Salathiel,  or  Shealtiel  (1  Chr.  iii.  18).  Ac 
cording  to  the  Vulgate  he  is  reckoned  as  a  son  of 
Jechoniah. 


SHEPHERD 

:  2ai/et'p  :  Sanir}.  This  name  occurs  ID 
Deut.  iii.  9,  Cant.  iv.  8.  It  is  an  inaccurate  equi 
valent  for  the  Hebrew  Senlr,  the  Amorite  name  for 
Mount  Hermon,  and.  like  Shibmah  (for  Sibmah),  has 
found  its  way  into  the  Authorised  Version  without 
any  apparent  authority.  The  correct  form  is  found 
in  1  Chr.  v.  23  and  Ez.  xxvii.  5.  [SENIR.]  [G.] 


SHENI'R 


i,    ».  e.    Senlr  ;    Sam.  Vere. 


SHEPHA'M  (DQb:  ZevQandp*  :  Sephama). 
A  place  mentioned  only  in  the  specification  by 
Moses  of  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  1  romised 
Land  (Num.  xxxiv.  10,  11),  the  first  landmark  from 
Hatser-enan,  at  which  the  northern  boundary  termi 
nated,  and  lying  between  it  and  Kiblah.  The  an 
cient  interpreters  (Targ.  Pseudojon.;  Saadiah)  render 
the  name  by  Apameiab;  but  it  seems  uncertain 
whether  by  this  they  intend  the  Greek  city  of  that 
name  on  the  Orontes,  50  miles  below  Antioch,  or 
whether  they  use  it  as  a  synonym  of  Banias  or 
Dan,  as  Schwarz  affirms  (Descr.  Geogr.  27).  No 
trace  of  the  name  appears,  however,  in  that  direc 
tion.  Mr.  Porter  would  fix  ITatser-euan  at  Ku- 
ryetein,  70  miles  E.N.E.  of  Damascus,  which 
would  remove  Shepham  into  a  totally  different 
region,  in  which  there  is  equally  little  trace  of  it. 
The  writer  ventures  to  disagree  with  this  and 
similar  attempts  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  the  Holy 
Land  to  an  extent  for  which,  in  his  opinion,  there 
is  no  warrant  in  Scripture.  [G.] 

SHEPHATHI'AH 


h  Renan,  i.  423-4. 

»  The  ar  at  the  end  of  the  LXX.  version  of  the  name  Js 
partly  due  to  the  ah  (particle  of  motion)  which  Is  affixed 
to  it  in  the  original  of  ver.  10,  and  partly  derived  from 


BBP  :  ZaQaria  :  Sa 
phatia}.  A  Benjamite,  father  of  MESHULLAM  6 
(1  Chr.  ix.  8).  The  name  is  properly  SHEPHA- 

TJAH. 

SHEPHATI'AH  (iTBBP  :  Sa^cm'a  ;  Alex. 
2a<£a0ta,  2a</>aTtas  :  Saphathia,  Saphatias}.  1. 
The  fifth  son  of  David  by  his  wife  Abital  (2  Sam. 
iii.  4;  1  Chr.  iii.  3). 

2.  (2o</>oTia:  Sepliatia,  Saphatia.}    The  family 
of  Shephatiah,  372  in  number,  returned  with  Ze- 
rubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  4  ;  Neh.  vii.  9).     A  second  de 
tachment  of  eighty,  with  Zebadiah  at  their  head, 
came  up  with  Ezra  (Ezr.  viii.  8j.     The  name  is 
written  SAPHAT  (1  Esdr.  v.  9),  and  SAPHATIAS 
(1  Esdr.  viii.  34). 

3.  (Saphatia.}     The  family  of  another  Shepha 
tiah  were  among  the  children  of  Solomon's  servants, 
who  came  up  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  57  :  Neh. 
vii.  59).. 

4.  A  descendant  of  Perez,  cr  Pharez,  the  son 
of  Judah,  and  ancestor  of  Athaiah  (Neh.  xi.  4) 

5.  (Safyavias  :  Saphatias.}   The  son  of  Mattan  ; 
one  of  the  princes  of  Judah  who  counselled  Zedekiah 
to  put  Jeremiah  in  the  dungeon  (Jer.  xxxviii.  1). 

6.  (ttftafc*:  Sharks  ;  Alex.  Saejxrr/a;  FA. 
Za^areia  :  'Saphatia.}  The  Haruphite,  or  Hariphite, 
one  of  the  Benjamite  warriors  who  joined  David  in 
his  retreat  at  Ziklag  (1  Chr.  xii.  5). 

7.  (2a<£aTta:  Saphatias.}   Son  of  Maachah,  and 
chief  of  the  Simeonites  in  the  reign  of  David  (1  Chr. 
xxvii.  16). 

8.  (2a<£oTias  ;  Alex.  Sa^ar/as.)   Sou  of  Je'ho- 
shaphat  (2  Chr.  x.u.  2). 

SHEPHERD  (nXTI;  1J513,  Am.  vii.  14; 
*lj53,  Am.  i.  1).  In  a  nomadic  state  of  society  every 


the  commencement  of  Riblah,  which  follows  it  in  ver.  11 
and  which  they  have  given  without  its  r,  as  B>jXa. 

b  ':  Sam.  Vers. 


8HEPHERD 


SHEPHERD 


1269 


adapted  solely  to  pastoral  pursuits,  the  institution 
of  the  nomad  life,  with  its  appliances  of  tents  and 
camp  equipage,  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
memorable  inventions  (Gen.  iv.  20).  The  proge 
nitors  of  the  Jews  in  the  patriarchal  age  were 
nomads,  and  their  history  is  rich  in  scenes  of  pas 
toral  life.  The  occupation  of  tending  the  flocks 
was  undertaken,  not  only  by  the  sons  of  wealthy 
chiefs  (Gen.  xxx.  29  ff.,  xxxvii.  12  ff.),  but  even  by 
their  daughters  (Gen.  xxix.  6  ff.  ;  Ex.  ii.  19;.  The 
Egyptian  captivity  did  much  to  implant  a  love  o) 
settled  abode,  and  consequently  we  find  the  tribes 
which  still  retained  a  taste  for  shepherd  life  select 
ing  their  own  quarters  apart  from  their  brethren  in 
the  Transjordanic  district  (Num.  xxxii.  1  ff.).  Hence 
forward  in  Palestine  Proper  the  shepherd  held  a 
subordinate  position  ;  the  increase  of  agriculture  in 
volved  the  decrease  of  pasturage  ;  and  though  large 
flocks  were  still  maintained  in  certain  parts,  parti 
cularly  on  the  borders  of  the  wilderness  of  Judah, 
as  about  Carmel  (1  Sam.  xxv.  2),  Bethlehem  (1  Sam. 
xvi.  11 ;  Luke  ii.  8),  Tekoah  (Am.  i.  1),  and  more 
to  the  south,  at  Gedor,  (1  Chr.  iv.  39),  the  nomad 
life  was  practically  extinct,  and  the  shepherd  be 
came  one  out  of  many  classes  of  the  labouring  popu 
lation.  The  completeness  of  the  transition  from 
the  pastoral  to  the  agricultural  state  is  strongly 
exhibited  in  those  passages  which  allude  to  the  pre 
sence  of  the  shepherd's  tent  as  a  token  of  desolation 
(e.  g.  Ez.  xxv.  4 ;  Zeph.  ii.  6).  The  humble  posi 
tion  of  the  shepherd  at  the  same  period  is  implied 
in  the  notices  of  David's  wondrous  elevation  (2  Sam. 
vii.  8  ;  Ps.  Ixxviii.  70),  and  again  in  the  self-depre 
ciating  confession  of  Amos  (vii.  14).  The  frequent 
and  beautiful  allusions  to  the  shepherd's  office  in 
the  poetical  portions  of  the  Bible  (e.  g.  Ps.  xxiii. ; 
Js.  xl.  11,  xlix.  9, 10 ;  Jer.  xxiii.  3, 4 ;  Ez.  xxxiv.  11, 
12,  23),  rather  bespeak  a  period  when  the  shepherd 
had  become  an  ideal  character,  such  as  the  Roman 
poets  painted  the  pastors  of  Arcadia. 

The  office  of  the  Eastern  shepherd,  as  described 
in  the  Bible,  was  attended  with  much  hardship,  and 
even  danger.  He  was  exposed  to  the  extremes  of 
heat  and  cold  (Gen.  xxxi.  40)  ;  his  food  frequently 
consisted  of  the  precarious  supplies  afforded  by 
nature,  such  as  the  fruit  of  the  "sycomore,"  or 
Egyptian  fig  (Am.  vii.  14),  the  "  husks"  of  the 
carob-tree  (Luke  xv.  16),  and  perchance  the  locusts 
and  wild  honey  which  supported  the  Baptist  (Matt, 
iii.  4);  he  had  to  encounter  the  attacks  of  wild 
occasionally  of  the  larger  species,  such  as 
lions,  wolves,  panthers,  and  bears  (1  Sam.  xvii.  34; 
Is.  xxxi.  4;  Jer.  v.  6;  Am.  iii.  12);  nor  was  he 
free  from  the  risk  of  robbers  or  predatory  hordes 
(Gen.  xxxi.  39).  To  meet  these  various  foes  the 
shepherd's  equipment  consisted  of  the  following 
articlei. : — a  mantle,  made  probably  of  sheep's-skin 
with  the  fleece  on,  which  he  turned  inside  out  in 
cold  weather,  as  implied  in  the  comparison  in  Jer. 
xliii.  12  (cf.  Juv.  xiv.  187);  a  scrip  or  wallet,  con 
taining  a  small  amount  of  food  (1  Sam.  xvii.  40 ; 
Porter's  Damascus,  ii.  100)  ;  a  sling,  which  is  still 
the  favourite  weapon  of  the  Bedouin  shepherd  (1 
Sam  ivii.  40;  Burckhardt's  Notes,  i.  57);  and, 
lastly,  a  staff,  which  served  the  double  purpose  of  a 
weapon  against  foes,  and  a  crook  for  the  manage 
ment  of  the  flock  (1  Sam.  xvii.  40 ;  Ps.  xxiii.  4 ; 
Zech,  jd.  7).  If  the  shepherd  was  at  a  distance 
from  his  home,  he  was  provided  with  a  light  tent 
'  Caat.  i.  8 ;  Jer.  xxxv.  7),  the  removal  of  whkb 


man,  from  the  sheikh  down  to  the  slave,  is  more  or  i  was  easily  effected  (Is.  xxxviii.  1<2).     In  certain 
less  a  shepherd.     As  many  regions  in  the  East  are  I  localities,    moreover,   towers  were  erected  for  the 

double  purpose  of  spying  an  enemy  at  a  distance, 
and  protecting  the  flock :  such  towers  were  erected 
by  Uzziah  and  Jotham  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  10,  xxvii.  4). 
while  their  existence  in  earlier  times  is  testified  by 
the  name  MigdaUEder  (Gen  xxxv.  21,  A.  V. 
"  tower  of  Edar ;"  Mic.  iv.  8,  A.  V.  «<  tower  of  the 
flock"). 

The  routine  of  the  shepherd's  duties  appears  to 
have  been  as  follows : — in  the  morning  he  led  forth 
his  flock  from  the  fold  (John  x.  4),  which  he  did 
by  going  before  them  and  calling  to  them,  as  is  still 
usual  in  the  East ;  arrived  at  the  pasturage,  he 
watched  the  flock  with  the  assistance  of  dogs  (Job 


xxx.  1),  and,  should  any  sheep  stray,  he  had  to 
search  for  it  until  he  found  it  (Ez.  xxxiv.  12  ;  Luke 
xv.  4) ;  he  supplied  them  with  water,  either  at  a 
running  stream  or  at  troughs  attached  to  wells  (Gen. 
xxix.  7,  xxx.  38 ;  Ex.  ii.  16  ;  Ps.  xxiii.  2)  ;  at  evening 
he  brought  them  back  to  the  fold,  and  reckoned 
them  to  see  that  none  were  missing,  by  passing  them 
"  under  the  rod  "  as  they  entered  the  door  of  the  en 
closure  (Lev.  xxvii.  32 ;  Ez.  xx.  37),  checkiag  each 
sheep  as  it  passed,  by  a  motion  of  the  hand  (Jer.  xxxiii. 
13);  and,  finally,  he  watched  the  entrance  of  the 
fold  throughout  the  night,  acting  as  porter  (John 
x.  3).  We  need  not  assume  that  the  same  person 
was  on  duty  both  by  night  and  by  day ;  Jacob, 
indeed,  asserts  this  of  himself  (Gen.  xxxi.  40),  but 
it  would  be  more  probable  that  the  shepherds  took 
it  by  turns,  or  that  they  kept  watch  for  a  portion 
only  of  the  night,  as  may  possibly  be  implied  in 
the  expression  in  Luke  ii.  8,  rendered  in  the  A.  V. 
"  keeping  watch,"  rather  "  keeping  the  watches  " 
(<f>vXd(TO'ovTes  <|>uAaKcfa).  The  shepherd's  office 
thus  required  great  watchfulness,  particularly  by 
night  (Luke  ii.  8 ;  cf.  Nah.  iii.  18).  It  also  re 
quired  tenderness  towards  the  young  and  feeble  (Is. 
xl.  11),  particularly  in  driving  them  to  and  from 
the  pasturage  (Gen.  xxxiii.  13).  In  large  establish 
ments  there  were  various  grades  of  shepherds,  the 
highest  being  styled  "-rulers"  (Gen.  xl  vii.  6),  or 
"  chief  shepherds  "  (1  Pet.  v.  4) :  in  a  royal  house 
hold  the  title  of  abbir*  "  mighty,"  was  bestowed  on 
the  person  who  held  the  post  (1  Sam.  xxi.  7). 
Great  responsibility  attached  to  the  office ;  for 
the  chief  shepherd  had  to  make  good  all  losses 
(Gen.  xxxi.  39) ;  at  the  same  time  he  had  a  per 
sonal  interest  in  the  flock,  inasmuch  as  he  was  not 
paid  in  money,  but  received  a  certain  amount  of 
the  produce  (Gen.  xxx.  32 ;  1  Cor.  ix.  7).  The 
life  of  the  shepherd  was  a  monotonous  one;  he 
may  perhaps  have  wiled  «way  an  nour  in  playing 
on  some  instrument  (1  Sam.  xvi.  18;  Job  xxi.  12, 
xxx.  31),  as  his  modern  representative  still  occa 
sionally  does  (Wortabet's  Syria,  i.  234).  He  also 
had  his  periodical  entertainments  at  the  shearing- 
time,  which  was  celebrated  by  a  general  gathering 
of  the  neighbourhood  for  festivities  (Gen.  xxxi.  19, 
xxxviii.  12  ;  2  Sam.  xiii.  23) ;  but,  generally  speak- 
the  life  must  have  been  but  dull.  Nor  did  it 
conduce  to  gentleness  of  manners ;  rival  shepherds 
contended  for  the  possession  or  the  use  of  water 
with  great  acrimony  (Gen.  xxi.  25,  xxvi.  20  ff. ; 
Ex.  ii.  17) ;  nor  perhaps  is  this  a  matter  of  surprise, 
as  those  who  come  late  to  a  well  frequently  have  to 
wait  a  long  time  until  their  turn  comes  (Burck- 
hardt's  Syria,  p.  63). 

The  hatred  of  the  Egyptians  towards  shepherds 

•  T3K- 


1270 


SHEVHI 


(Gen.  xlvi.  34)  may  have  b««sn  mainly  due  to  their 
contempt  for  the  sheep  itself,  which  appears  to  have 
been  valued  neither  for  food  (Plutarch.  De  Is.  72), 
nor  generally  for  sacrifice  (Herod,  ii.  42),  the  only 
district  where  they  were  offered  heing  about  the 
Natron  lakes  (Strab.  xvii.  p.  803).  It  may  have 
been  increased  by  the  memory  of  the  Shepherd 
invasion  (Herod,  ii.  128).  Abundant  confirmation 
of  the  fact  of  this  hatred  is  supplied  by  the  low  po 
sition  which  all  herdsmen  held  in  the  castes  of 
Egypt,  and  by  the  caricatures  of  them  in  Egyptian 
paintings  (Wilkinson,  ii.  169). 

The  term  "  shepherd  "  is  applied  in  a  metapho 
rical  sense  to  princes  (Is.  xliv.  28  ;  Jer.  ii.  8,  iii. 
15,  xxii.  22  ;  Ez.  xxxiv.  2  &c.),  prophets  (Zech.  xi. 
5,  8,  16),  teachers  (Eccl.  xii.  11),  and  to  Jehovah 
himself  (Gen.  xlix.  24;  Ps.  xxiii.  1,  hxx.  1):  to  the 
same  effect  are  the  references  to  "  feeding"  in  Gen. 
xlviii.  15  ;  Ps.  xxviii.  9  ;  Hos.  iv.  16.  [W.  L.  B.] 

SHEPHT  (W  :  2w<j>i  ;  Alex.  S&x^p  :  Sephi}. 
Son  of  Shobal,  of"  the  sons  of  Seir  (1  Chr.  i.  40). 
Called  also  SHEPIIO  (Gen.  xxxvi.  23)  ;  which  Bur- 
rington  concludes  to  be  the  true  reading  (Geneal. 
i.  49. 

SHE'PHO  OD£>  :  2oxJ>ap:  Sepho).  The  same 
as  SHEPHI  (Gen.  xxxvi.  23). 


8HEPH'UPHAN(jQ-1£: 

S«<pc£*'  :  Sephuphan}.  One  of  the  sons  of  Bela  the 
firstborn  of  Benjamin  (1  Chr.  viii.  5).  His  name 
is  also  written  SHEPHUPHAM  (A.  V.  "  Shupham," 
Num.  xxvi.  39),  SHUPPIM  (1  Chr.  vii.  12,  15), 
and  MUPPIM  (Gen.  xlvi.  21).  Lord  A.  Hervey 
conjectures  that  Shephuphan  may  have  been  a  son 
of  Benjamin,  whose  family  was  reckoned  with  those 
of  In  the  son  of  Bela.  [MOPPIM.] 

SHE'RAH  (i"n&^,  i.e.  Sheerdh:  Zapad  ;  Alex. 
Soapa:  Sara).  Daughter  of  Ephraim  (1  Chr.  vii. 
24),  and  foundress  of  the  two  Beth-horons,  and  of 
a  town  which  was  called  after  her  UzzEN-SnERAH. 

SHEREBI'AH  (rPTTC?  :  Sapafo,  Ezr.  viii.  24  ; 
2upaj8/as,  Neh.  viii.  7,  ix.  4  ;  SapajSia,  Neh.  x.  12, 
sii.  8;.  24;  Alex.  2apa/3ia,  Neh.  viii.  7;  2upa)8a?a, 
Neh.  x.  4  :  Sarabias,  Ezr.  ;  Serebia,  Neh.  viii.  7, 
x.  12,  xii.  24  ;  Sarebias,  Neh.  ix.  4  ;  Sarebia,  Neh. 
sii.  8).  A  Levite  in  the  time  of  Ezra,  of  the  family 
of  Mahli  the  son  of  Merari  (Ezr.  viii.  18,  24).  He 
was  one  of  the  first  of  the  ministers  of  the  Temple 
to  join  Ezra  at  the  river  of  Ahava,  and  with  Hasha- 
biah  and  ten  of  their  brethren*  had  the  charge  of 
the  vessels  and  gifts  which  the  king  and  his  court, 
and  the  people  of  Israel  had  contributed  for  the 
service  of  the  Temple.  When  Ezra  read  the  Law 
to  the  people,  Sherebiah  was  among  the  Levites 
who  assisted  him  (Neh.  viii.  7).  He  took  part  in 
the  psalm  of  confession  and  thanksgiving  which  was 
sung  at  the  solemn  fast  after  the  Feast  of  Taber 
nacles  (Neh.  ix.  4,  5),  and  signed  the  covenant 
with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  12).  He  is  again  men 
tioned  as  among  the  chief  of  the  Levites  who  be 
longed  to  the  choir  (Neh.  xii.  8,  24).  In  1  Esdr. 
viii.  54  he  is  called  ESEBRIAS. 

SHER'ESH  (BhC?  in  pause  :  2oOpos  ;  Alex. 
Sopos  :  SaresJ.  Son  of  Machir  the  son  of  Manasseh 
by  his  wife  Maachah  (1  Chr.  vii.  16). 

SHERE'ZER  p^ftW  :  So/wrdp  :    Sarasar) 


They  are  called  "  priests ;"   but  the  torm  is  used 

,  as  in  Josh.  iii.  3. 


SHESHBAZZAR 

Properly  "  Sharezer ;"  one  of  the  messengers  sent 
in  the  fourth  year  of  Darius  by  the  people  who  had 
returned  from  the  Captivity  to  inquire  concerning 
fasting  in  the  fifth  month  (Zech.  vii.  2;.  [See 
REGEMMELECH.] 

SHE'SHACH  0|W:  Sesach)  is  a  term  which 
occurs  only  in  Jeremiah  (xxv.  26,  Ii.  41),  who  evi 
dently  uses  it  as  a  synonym  either  for  Babylon  or 
for  Babylonia.  According  to  some  commentators 
it  represents  "Babel"  on  a  principle  well  known  to 
the  later  Jews — the  substitution  of  letters  according 
to  their  position  in  the  alphabet,  counting  back~ 
wards  from  the  last  letter,  for  those  which  hold  the 
same  numerical  position,  counting  in  the  ordinary 
way.  Thus  H  represents  N,  £>  represents  3, 
"I  represents  J,  and  so  on.  It  is  the  fact  that  in 
this  way  "r]K^  would  represent  ?32.  It  may 
well  be  doubted,  however,  if  this  fanciful  practice 
is  as  old  as  Jeremiah.  At  any  rate,  this  explana 
tion  does  not  seem  to  be  so  satisfactory  as  to  make 
any  other  superfluous.  Now  Sir  H.  Rawlinson  has 
observed  that  the  name  of  the  moon-god,  which  was 
identical,  or  nearly  so,  with  that  of  the  city  of 
Abraham,  Ur  (or  Hur),  "  might  have  been  read  in 
one  of  the  ancient  dialects  of  Babylon  as  Shiskaki," 
and  that  consequently  "  a  possible  explanation  is 
thus  obtained  of  the  Sheshach  of  Scripture"  (Raw- 
linson's  Herodotus,  vol.  i.  p.  616).  Sheshach  may 
stand  for  Ur,  Ur  itself,  the  old  capital,  being  taken 
(as  Babel,  the  new  capital,  was  constantly)  to  re 
present  the  country.  [G.  R.] 

SHESHA'I(>W:  2eo-<rf,  Num.  and  Judg.; 
2ou<7t,  Josh. ;  Alex.  2e/«i,  Soutrat',  TfQOi :  Sisai, 
Num.;  SesaT).  One  of  the  three  sons  of  Anak  who 
dwelt  in  Hebron  (Num.  xiii.  22)  and  were  driven 
thence  and  slain  by  Caleb  at  the  head  of  the  chil 
dren  of  Judah  (Josh.  xv.  14;  Judg.  i.  10). 

SHESHA'N  ($& :  *u<rdv :  Sesan}.  A  de 
scendant  of  Jerahmeel  the  son  of  Hezron,  and  repre 
sentative  of  one  of  the  chief  families  of  Judah.  In 
consequence  of  the  failure  of  male  issue,  he  gave  his 
daughter  in  marriage  to  Jarha,  his  Egyptian  slave, 
and  through  this  union  the  line  was  perpetuated 
(1  Chr.  ii.  31,  34,  35). 

SHESHBAZ'ZAR    (1-V3 W&  :    2a<ra£a<rc{p  ; 

Alex.  2a<raj8a<r<rap  :  Sassabasar  :  of  uncertain 
meaning  and  etymology).  The  Chaldean  or  Persian 
name  given  to  Zerubbabel,  in  Ezr.  i.  8,  11,  v.  14, 
16  ;  1  Esdr.  ii.  12,  15,  after  the  analogy  of  Sha- 
drach,  Mqshach,  Abednego,  Belteshazzar,  and  Esther. 
Ir.  like  manner  also  Joseph  received  the  name  of 
Zaphnath-Paaneah,  and  we  leam  from  Manetho,  as 
quoted  by  Josophus  (c.  Apion.  i.  28),  that  Moses' 
Egyptian  namo  was  Osarsiph.  The  change  of  name 
in  the  case  of  Jehoiakim  and  Zedekiah  (2  K.  xxiii. 
34,  xxiv.  17)  may  also  be  compared.  That  Shesh- 
bazzar  means  Zerubbabel  is  proved  by  his  being 
called  the  prince  of  Judah  (X^SH),  and  governor 
(nn3),  the  former  term  marking  him  as  the  head 
of  the  tribe  in  the  Jewish  sense  (Num.  vii.  2,  10, 
11,  &c.),  and  the  latter  as  the  Persian  governor  ap 
pointed  by  Cyras,  both  which  Zerubbabel  was ;  and 
yet  more  distinctly,  by  the  assertion  (Ezr.  v.  16) 
that  "  Sheshbazzar  laid  the  foundation  of  the  House 
of  God  which  is  in  Jerusalem,"  compared  with  the 
promise  to  Zerubbabel  (Zech.  iv.  9),  "The  hands 
of  Zerubbabel  have  laid  the  foundation  of  this  house, 
\  his  hands  shall  also  finish  it."  It  is  also  apparent 


SHETII 

f  om  the  mere  comparison  of  Ezr.  i.  11  with  ii.  1, 
2,  and  the  whole  history  of  the  returned  exiles.  The 
Jewish  tradition  that  Sheshbazzar  is  Daniel,  is  utterly 
without  weight.  [ZERUBBABEL.]  [A.  C.  H.] 

SHETH  (JIG?  :  2NJ0:  Seth).  1.  The  patriarch 
SETH  (1  Chr.  i.'l). 

2.  In  the  A.  V.  of  Num.  xxiv.  17,  fife?  is  ren 
dered  as  a  proper  name,  but  there  is  reason  to  regard 
it  as  an  appellative,  and  to  translate,  instead  of  "  the 
sons  of  Sheth,"  "  the  sons  of  tumult,"  the  wild 
warriors  of  Moab,  for  in  the  parallel  passage,  Jer. 
xlviii.  45,  fttffe?,  shdon,  "  tumult,"  occupies  the 
lace  of  sheth.  fl£J>,  sheth,  is  thus  equivalent  to 
nNfe?,  sheth,  as  in  Lam.  iii.  47.  Ewald  proposes, 
very  unnecessarily,  to  read  DE^,  seth=r\W&,  and 
to  translate  "  the  sons  of  haughtiness  "  (Hochmuths- 
sohne).  Kashi  takes  the  word  as  a  proper  name, 
and  refers  it  to  Seth  the  son  of  Adam,  and  this 
seems  to  have  been  the  view  taken  by  Onkelos,  who 
renders  "  he  shall  rule  all  the  sons  of  men."  The 
Jerusalem  Targum  gives  "  all  the  sons  of  the  East ; " 
the  Targum  of  Jonathan  ben-Uzziel  retains  the  He 
brew  word  Sheth,  and  explains  it  of  the  armies  of 
Gog  who  were  to  set  themselves  in  battle  array 
against  Israel.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHETHA'R  ("in^ :  2apo-a0atos ;  2ape<r0a?os, 
Cod.  Alex. :  Sethar  :""  a  star,"  Pers.).  One  of  the 
seven  princes  of  Persia  and  Media,  who  had  access 
to  the  king's  presence,  and  were  the  first  men  in 
the  kingdom,  in  the  third  year  of  Xerxes  (Esth.  i. 
14).  Compare  Ezr.  vii.  14  and  the  eir-rct  ruv 
Hepo-uv  eiri<rr)noi  of  Ctesias  (14),  and  the  state 
ment  of  Herodotus  with  regard  to  the  seven  noble 
Persians  who  slew  Smerdis,  that  it  was  granted  to 
them  as  a  privilege  to  have  access  to  the  king's 
presence  at  all  times,  without  being  sent  for, 
except  when  he  was  with  the  women  ;  and  that  the 
king  might  only  take  a  wife  from  one  of  these  seven 
families,  iii.  84,  and  Gesen.  s.  v.  [CARSHENA ; 
ESTHER.]  [A.  C.  H.] 

SHETHA'K-BOZNA'I  (^|i2  in^  :  2a0ap- 
Qovfavoi — TJS,  Cod.  Alex. :  Stharbuzanl :  "  star  of 
splendour ").  A  Persian  officer  of  rank,  having 
a  command  in  the  province  "  on  this  side  the 
river"  under  Tatnai  the  satrap  (71112),  in  the  reign 
of  Darius  Hystaspis  (Ezr.  v.  3,  6,~vi.  6,  13).  He 
joined  with  Tatnai  and  the  Apharsachites  in  trying 
to  obstruct  the  progress  of  the  Temple  in  the  time 
of  Zerubbabel,  and  in  writing  a  letter  to  Darius,  of 
which  a  copy  is  preserved  in  Ezr.  v.,  in  which 
they  reported  that  "the  house  of  the  great  God" 
in  Judaea  was  being  builded  with  great  stones,  and 
that  the  work  was  going  on  fast,  on  the  alleged  au 
thority  of  a  decree  from  Cyrus.  They  requested 
that  search  might  be  made  in  the  rolls  court  whe 
ther  such  a  decree  was  ever  given,  and  asked  for 
the  king's  pleasure  in  the  matter.  The  decree  was 
found  at  Egbatana,  and  a  letter  was  sent  to  Tatnai 
and  Shethar-boznai  from  Darius,  ordering  them  no 
more  to  obstruct,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  aid  the 
elders  of  the  Jews  in  rebuilding  the  Temple,  by 
supplying  them  both  with  money  and  with  beasts, 
corn,  salt,  wine,  and  oil,  for  the  sacrifices.  Shethar- 
boznai  after  the  receipt  of  this  decree  offered  no 
further  obstruction  to  the  Jews.  The  account  of 
the  Jewish  prosperity  in  Ezr.  vi.  14-22,  would  in- 
Jicato  that  the  Persian  governors  acted  fully  up  to 
Uio  spirit  of  their  instructions  from  the  king. 


SHEW  BREAD 


1271 


As  regards  the  nume  Shethar-boznai,  it  seems  to 
be  certainly  Persian.  The  first  element  of  it  appears 
as  the  name  Shethar,  one  of  the  seven  Persian 
princes  in  Esth.  i.  14.  It  is  perhaps  also  contained 
in  the  name  Pharna-zathres  (Herod,  vii.  65)  ;  and 
the  whole  name  is  not  unlike  Sati-barzanes,  a  Per 
sian  in  the  time  of  Artaxerxes  Mnemon  (Ctesias,  57). 
If  the  names  of  the  Persian  officers  mentioned  in 
the  Book  of  Ezra  could  be  identified  in  any  inscrip 
tions  or  other  records  of  the  reigns  of  Darius, 
Xerxes,  and  Artaxerxes,  it  would  be  of  immense 
value  in  clearing  up  the  difficulties  of  that  book. 

[A.  C.  H.] 

SHE'VA  (WW,  Keri;  JOE>,  2  Sam.:  2o««rc£, 
Alex.  'Iffovs  :  Siva).  1.  The  scribe  or  royal  secre 
tary  of  David  (2  Sam.  xx.  25).  He  is  called  else 
where  SERAI  AH  (2  Sam.  viii.  17),  SHISHA  (IK.  iv. 
3),  and  SHAVSHA  (1  Chr.  xvi.  18). 

2.  (2oou;  Alex.  SOO^A:  Sue.)  Son  of  Caleb 
ben-Hezron  by  his  concubine  Maachah,  and  founder 
or  chief  of  Machbena  and  Gibea  (1  Chr.  ii.  49). 

SHEW  BREAD.  (D^Q  Dr6,  or  D^QH  "h 
(Ex.  xxv.  30,  xxxv.  13,  xxxix.  36,  &c.),  literally 
"  bread  of  the  face  "  or  «  v  faces."  D^SK  DPlS,  Onk. 
n3"lV»n  "h,  "  bread  set  in  order,"  1  Chr.  ix.  32, 
xxiii.  29,  2  Chr.  xxix.  18,  Neh.  x.  34,  nimyD. 
In  Num.  iv.  7,  we  find  TDnn  "7,  "  the  perpetual 
bread."  In  1  Sam.  xxi.  4-6,  it  is  called  fcJHp  "b,  "  holy 
bread."  Syr.  JLx^OJ  O1$oA>25J  Jbo>m.S 

"  bread  of  the  Table  of  the  Lord."  The  LXX. 
give  us  &proi  cvdairioi,  Ex.  xxv.  30  ;  &prot  TT)V 
Trpofftyopas,  I  K.  vii.  48.  N.  T.  :  aproi  TTJS  irpo- 
0eVeo>s,  Matt.  xii.  4,  Luko  vi.  4  ;  ^  irpodeffis  ru> 
&pTO)v,  Heb.  ix.  2.  The  \  ulg.  panes  propositionis. 
Wiclif,  "  loaves  of  proposition."  Luther,  Schaiir 
brode  ;  from  which  our  subsequent  English  versions 
have  adopted  the  title  SHEW-BREAD. 

Within  the  Ark  it  was  directed  that  there  should 
be  a  table  of  shittim  wogd,  i.  e.  acacia,  two  cubits 
in  length,  a  cubit  in  breadth,  and  a  cubit  and  a  halt 
in  height,  overlaid  with  pure  gold,  and  having  "a 
golden  crown  to  the  border  thereof  round  about," 
i.  e.  a  border  or  list,  in  order,  as  we  may  suppose,  to 
hinder  that  which  was  placed  on  it  from  by  any 
accident  falling  off.  The  further  description  of 
this  table  will  be  found  in  Ex.  xxv.  23-30,  and  a 
representation  of  it  as  it  existed  in  the  Herodian 
Temple  forms  an  interesting  feature  in  the  bas- 
reliefs  within  the  Arch  of  Titus.  The  accuracy  of 
this  may,  as  is  obvious,  be  trusted.  It  exhibits  one 
striking  correspondence  with  the  prescriptions  in 
Exodus.  We  there  find  the  following  words:  "and 
thou  shalt  make  unto  it  a  border  of  a  handbreadth 
round  about."  In  the  sculpture  of  the  Arch  the 
hand  of  one  of  the  slaves  who  is  carrying  the 
Table,  tand  the  border,  are  of  about  equal  breadth." 
This  table  is  itself  called  D*JQn  pfe,  "the  Table 


of  the  Faces,"  in  Num.  iv.  7,  and 
"  the  pure  table  "  in  Lev.  xxiv.  6  ;  and  2  Chr 
xiii.  11.  This  latter  epithet  is  generally  referred 
by  commentators  to  the  unalloyed  gold  with  whicfc 
so  much  of  it  was  covered.  It  may,  however,  mean 
somewhat  more  than  this,  and  bear  something  of  the 
force  which  it  has  in  Malachi  i.  11. 


»  Taking,  i.  e.,  the  four  fingers,  when  closed  together, 
as  the  measure  of  a  handbreadth,  as  we  arc  instructed  tc 
<lo  *v  a  comparison  of  1  K.  vii.  26  and  Jcr.  Iii.  21. 


1272 


SHEW  BREAD 


It  was  thought  by  Philn  and  Clement  of  Alex 
andria  that  the  Table  was  a  symbol  of  the  world, 
its  four  sides  or  legs  typifying  the  four  seasons.  In 
the  utter  absence  of  any  argument  in  their  support, 
we  may  feel  wan-anted  in  neglecting  such  fanciful 
Conjectures,  withou4  calling  in  the  aid  of  Bahr's 
arguments  again«t  _/iem. 

In  2  Chr.  iv.  19  we  have  mention  of  "  the  tables 
whereon  the  shewbread  was  set,"  and  at  ver.  8 
we  r«nd  of  Solomon  making  ten  tables.  This  is  pro 
bably  explained  by  the  statement  of  Josephus  (Ant. 
viii.  3,  §7  ),  that  the  king  made  a  number  of  tables, 
and  one  great  golden  one  on  which  they  placed  the 
loaves  of  God.  [See  TEMPLE.] 

The  table  of  the  second  Temple  was  earned  away 
by  Antiochus  Rpiphanes  (1  Mace.  i.  22),  and  a  new 
one  made  at  the  refurnishing  of  the  sanctuary  under 
Judas  Maccabaeus  (1  Mace.  iv.  49).  Afterwards 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus  presented  a  magnificent  table 
(Joseph.  Ant.  xii.  2,  §8,  9). 

The  Table  stood  in  the  sanctuary  together  with 
the  seven-branched  candlestick  and  the  altar  of  in 
cense.  Every  Sabbath  twelve  newly-baked  loaves 
were  put  on  it  in  two  rows,  six  in  each,  and  sprinkled 
with  incense  (the  LXX.  add  salt},  where  they 
remained  till  the  following  Sabbath.  Then  they 
were  replaced  by  twelve  new  ones,  the  incense  was 
burned,  and  they  were  eaten  by  the  priests  in  the 
Holy  Place,  out  of  which  they  might  not  be  re 
moved.  Besides  these,  the  Shewbread  Table  was 
adorned  with  dishes,  spoons,  bowls,  &c.,  which  were 
of  pure  gold  (Ex.  xxv.  29).  These,  however,  were 
manifestly  subsidiary  to  the  loaves,  the  preparation, 
presentation,  and  subsequent  treatment  of  which 
manifestly  constituted  the  ordinance  of  the  shew- 
bread,  whose  probable  purport  and  significance  must 
now  be  considered. 

The  number  of  the  loaves  (twelve)  is  considered 
by  Philo  and  Josephus  to  represent  the  twelve 
months.  If  there  was  such  a  reference,  it  must 
surely  have  been  quite  subordinate  to  that  which  is 
obvious  at  once.  The  twelve  loaves  plainly  answer 
to  the  twelve  tribes  (compare  Rev.  xxii.  2).  But, 
taking  this  for  granted,  we  have  still  to  ascertain 
the  meaning  of  the  rite,  and  there  is  none  which  is 
left  in  Scripture  so  wholly  unexplained.  Though 
it  is  mentioned,  as  we  have  seen,  in  other  parts  of 
the  0.  T.  besides  the  Pentateuch,  it  is  never  more 
than  mentioned.  The  narrative  of  David  and  his 
companions  being  permitted  to  eat  the  shew 
bread,  does  but  illustrate  the  sanctity  which  was 
ascribed  to  it ;  and  besides  our  Saviour's  appeal  to 
that  narrative,  the  ordinance  is  only  once  referred 
to  in  the  N.  T.  (Heb.  ix.  2),  and  there  it  is  merely 
named  among  the  other  appurtenances  of  the  first 
sanctuary. 

But  although  unexplained,  it  is  referred  to  as 
one  of  tho  leading  and  most  solemn  appointments  of 
the  sanctuary.  For  example,  the  appeal  of  Abijam 
to  the  revolted  tribes  (2  Chr.  xiii.  10,  11)  runs 
thuo — "  but  as  for  us,  the  LORD  is  our  God,  and 
we  have  not  forsaken  Him;  and  the  priests,  which 
minister  unto  the  Lord,  are  the  sons  of  Aaron,  and 
the  Leviteswait  upon  their  business  ;  and  they  burn 
unto  the  Lord  every  morning  and  every  evening 
burnt-sacrifices  and  sweet  incense ;  the  shewbread 
also  set  they  in  order  upon  the  pure  table,"  &c.  &c. 

In  this  absence  of  explanation  of  that  which  is 
yet  regarded  as  so  solemn,  we  have  but  to  seek 
whether  the  names  bestowed  on  and  the  rites  con 
nected  with  the  shewbread  will  lead  us  to  some 
apprehension  of  its  meaning. 


SHEW  BREAD 

The  first  name  we  find  given  it  is  obviously  tnc 
dominant  one,  DOS  Dfv,  "  bread  of  the  face, 
or  faces."  This  is  explained  by  some  of  the 
Rabbis,  even  by  Maimonides,  as  referring  to  the 
four  sides  of  each  loaf.  It  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  title  was  given  on  a  ground  which  in  no 
way  distinguished  them  from  other  loaves.  Besides, 
it  is  applied  in  Num.  iv.  7,  simply  to  the  Table, 
D*OQn  }n?K\  not,  as  in  the  English  version,  the 
"  table  of  shewbread,"  but  the  "  shew  table,"  the 
"  table  of  the  face,  or  faces." 

We- have  used  the  words  face  or  faces,  for  0*02, 
it  needs  scarcely  be  said,  exists  only  in  the  plural, 
and  is  therefore  applied  equally  to  the  face  of  one 
person  and  of  many.  In  connexion  with  this  mean 
ing,  it  continually  bears  the  secondary  one  of  pre 
sence.  It  would  be  superfluous  to  cite  any  of  the 
countless  passages  in  which  it  does  so.  But  whose 
face  or  presence  is  denoted  ?  That  of  the  people  ? 
The  rite  of  the  shewbread,  according  to  some,  was 
performed  in  acknowledgment  of  God's  being  the 
giver  of  all  our  bread  and  sustenance,  and  the  loaves 
lay  always  on  the  Table  as  a  memorial  and  monitor 
of  this.  But  against  this,  besides  other  reasons, 
there  is  the  powerful  objection  that  the  shewbread 
was  unseen  by  the  people ;  it  lay  in  the  sanctuary, 
and  was  eaten  there  by  the  priests  alone.  So  that 
the  first  condition  of  symbolic  instruction  was  want 
ing  to  the  rite,  had  this  been  its  meaning. 

The  D^Q>  therefore,  or  Presence,  is  that  not  of 
the  people  but  of  God.  The  &proi  eVwTrtoi  and 
the  &proi  rrls  irpo&fpopas  of  the  LXX.  seem  to 
indicate  as  much.  To  say  nothing  of  1  Sam.  xxi.  6, 
where  the  words  rttPP  "JSlte  DnDIEil  D»3BH  '*? 
seem  decisive  of  the  whole  question.  But  in  what 
sense  ?  Spencer  and  others  consider  it  bread  offered 
to  God  as  was  the  Minchah,  a  symbolical  meal  for 
God  somewhat  answering  to  a  heathen  Lcctistcr- 
nium.  But  it  is  not  e'asy  to  find  this  meaning  in 
the  recorded  appointments.  The  incense  is  no  doubt 
to  be  burnt  on  the  appointed  altar,  but  the  bread, 
on  the  Sabbath  following  that  of  its  presentation, 
is  to  be  eaten  in  the  Holy  Place  by  the  priests. 
There  remains,  then,  the  view  which  has  been 
brought  out  with  such  singular  force  and  beauty 
by  Bahr — a  view  broad  and  clear  in  itself,  and 
not  disturbed  by  those  fanciful  theories  of  numbers 
which  tend  to  abate  confidence  in  some  parts  of 
his  admirable  Symbolik. 

He  remarks,  and  justly,  that  the  phrase  D'OQ  is 
applied  solely  to  the  table  and  the  bread,  not  to  the 
other  furniture  of  the  sanctuary,  the  altar  of  in 
cense,  or  the  golden  candlestick.  There  is  some 
thing  therefore  peculiar  to  the  former  which  is 
denoted  by  the  title.  Taking  D'OSn  as  equivalent 
to  the  Presence  (of  God  subaud.),  he  views  the 
application  of  it  to  the  table  and  the  bread  as  ana 
logous  to  its  application  to  the  angel,  D'OQ  *]&$;>D 
(Is.  Ixiii.  9,  compared  with  Ex.  xxxiii.  14,  15  ; 
Deut.  iv.  37).  Of  the  Angel  of  God's  Presence  it 
is  said  that  God's  "  Name  is  in  Him"  (Ex.  xxiii. 
20).  The  Presence  and  the  Name  may  therefore  bo 
taken  as  equivalent.  Both,  in  reference  to  theii 
context,  indicate  the  manifestaticn  of  God  to  His 
creatures.  "  The  Name  of  God,"  he  remarks,  "  is 
Himself,  but  that,  in  so  far  as  He  reveals  Himself; 
the  face  is  that  wherein  the  being  of  a  man  pro 
claims  itself,  and  makes  known  its  individual  per 
sonality.  Hence,  as  Name  stands  for  He  or  Himself, 
so  Face  for  Person:  to  see  the  Face,  for,  to  see  the 
Person.  The  Bread  of  the  Face  is' therefore  thit 


SHIBBOLETH 

bread  through  which  God  is  seen,  that  is,  with 
the  participation  of  which  the  seeing  of  God  is 
hound  up,  or  through  the  participation  of  which 
man  attains  the  sight  of  God.  Whence  it  follows 
that  we  have  not  to  think  of  bread  merely  as  such, 
as  the  means  of  nourishing  the  bodily  life,  but  as 
spiritual  food,  as  a  means  of  appropriating  and 
retaining  that  life  which  consists  in  seeing  the  face 
of  God.  Bread  is  therefore  here  a  symbol,  and 
stands,  as  it  so  generally  does  in  all  languages,  both 
for  life  and  life's  nourishment ;  but  by  beiug  entitled 
the  Bread  of  the  Face  it  becomes  a  symbol  of  a 
life  higher  than  the  physical ;  it  is,  since  it  lies  on 
the  table  placed  in  the  symbolic  heaven,  heavenly 
bread ;  they  who  eat  of  it  and  satisfy  themselves 
with  it  see  the  face  of  God"  (Bahr,  Symbolik, 
book  i.  c.  6,  §2).  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
shewbread  was  «'  taken  from  the  children  of  Israel 
by  an  everlasting  covenant"  (Ltv.  xxiv.  8),  and 
may  therefore  be  well  expected  to  bear  the  most 
solemn  meaning.  Bahr  proceeds  to  show  very  beau 
tifully  the  connexion  in  Scripture  between  seeing 
God  and  being  nourished  by  God,  and  points,  as  the 
coping-stone  of  his  argument,  to  Christ  being  at 
once  the  perfect  Image  of  God  and  the  Bread  of 
Life.  The  references  to  a  table  prepared  for  the 
righteous  man,  such  as  Ps.  xxiii.  5,  Luke  xxii.  30, 
should  also  be  considered.  [F.  G.] 

SHIB'BOLETH  (nVa^:  Scibboleth),  Judg. 
xii.  6.  The  Hebrew  word  which  the  Gileadites 
under  Jephthah  made  use  of  at  the  passages  of  the 
Jordan,  after  a  victory  over  the  Ephraimites,  to 
test  the  pronunciation  of  the  sound  sh  by  those 
who  wished  to  cross  over  the  river.  The  Ephraim 
ites,  it  would  appear,  in  their  dialect  substituted 
for  sh  the  simple  sound  s;  and  the  Gileadites,  re 
garding  every  one  who  failed  to  pronounce  sh  as  an 
Ephraimite  and  therefore  an  enemy,  put  him  to 
death  accordingly. 

The  word  "Shibboleth,"  which  has  now  a 
second  life  in  the  English  language  in  a  new  signi 
fication,  has  two  meanings  in  Hebrew :  1st,  an  ear 
of  corn ;  '2ndly,  a  stream  or  flood :  and  it  was, 
perhaps,  in  the  latter  sense  that  this  particular 
word  suggested  itself  to  the  Gileadites,  the  Jordan 
being  a  rapid  river.  The  word,  in  the  latter  sense, 
is  used  twice  in  the  69th  Psalm,  in  verses  2  and 
15,  where  the  translation  of  the  A.  V.  is  "the 
floods  overflow  me,"  and  "  let  not  the  water-flood 
overflow  me."  If  in  English  the  word  retained 
its  original  meaning,  the  latter  passage  might  be 
translated  "  Let  not  a  shibboleth  of  waters  drown 
me."  There  is  no  mystery  in  this  particular  word. 
Any  word  beginning  with  the  sound  sh  would  have 
answered  equally  well  as  a  test. 

Before  the  introduction  of  vowel  points  (which 
took  place  not  earlier  than  the  6th  century  A.D.) 
there  was  nothing  in  Hebrew  to  distinguish  the 
letters  Shin  and  Sin,  so  it  could  not  be  known  by 
the  eye  in  reading  when  h  was  to  be  sounded 
after  s,  just  as  now  in  English  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  it  should  be  sounded  in  the  words  sugar, 
Asia,  Persia ;  or  in  German,  according  to  the  most 
common  pronunciation,  after  s  in  the  words  Sprache 
Spiel,  Sturm,  Stiefel,  and  a  large  class  of  similar 
words.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  sound  s/i  is 


SHIELD 


1273 


a  111  proper  names  not  naturalized  in  English  through 
tbe  LXX.,  the  Hebrew  form  is  retained,  as  in  Mephi- 
bosheth,  Ishbosheth.  The  latter  name  is  melted  down  In 
the  LXX.  to  'Ie0ocre'0;  as,  with  the  e  ferme,  the  French 
have  softened  many  Latin  words  beginning  with  st,  such 


unknown  to  the  Greek  language,  as  the  Eng  ish  th 
is  unknown  to  so  many  modern  languages.  Hence 
in  the  Septuagint  proper  names  commence  simply 
with  s,  which  in  Hebrew  commence  with  sh  ;  and 
one  result  has  been  that,  through  the  Septuagint  and 
the  Vulgate,  some  of  these  names,  such  as  Samuel, 
Samson.  Simeon,  and  Solomon,  having  become3 
naturalized  in  the  Greek  form  in  the  English 
language,  have  been  retained  in  this  form  in  the 
English  version  of  the  0.  T.  Hence,  likewise,  it 
is  a  singularity  of  the  Septuagint  version  that,  in 
the  passage  in  Judg.  xii.  6,  the  translator  could 
not  introduce  the  word  "  Shibboleth,"  and  has 
substituted  one  of  its  translations,  (Tra^us,  "  an  ear 
of  corn,"  which  tells  the  original  story  by  analogy. 
It  is  not  impossible  that  this  word  may  have  been 
ingeniously  preferred  to  any  Greek  word  signifying 
"  stream,"  or  "  flood,"  from  its  first  letters  being 
rather  harsh-sounding,  independently  of  its  contain 
ing  a  guttural.  [E.  T.] 


SHIB'MAH  (nO!K>,  ».  e.  Sibmah  : 

Sdbama}.  One  of  the  places  on  the  east  of  Jor 
dan  which  were  taken  possession  of  and  rebuilt 
by  the  tribe  of  Reuben  (Num.  xxxii.  38).  It  is 
probably  the  same  with  Shebam  (».  e.  Sebam) 
named  in  the  list  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter, 
and  is  certainly  identical  with  Sibmah,  so  celebrated 
at  a  later  date  for  its  vines.  Indeed,  the  two  names 
are  precisely  the  same  in  Hebrew,  though  our  trans 
lators  have  chosen  to  introduce  a  difference.  Sib 
mah,  and  not  Shibmah,  is  the  accurate  representative 
of  the  Hebrew  original.  [G.] 


SHIC'KON 


5   Alex.  ' 


pcova  :  Sechrona).  One  of  the  landmarks  at  the 
western  end  of  the  north  boundary  of  Judah  (Josh. 
xv.  11,  only).  It  lay  between  Ekron  (Akir)  and 
Jabneel  (Yebna\  the  port  at  which  the  boundary 
ran  to  the  sea.  No  trace  of  the  name  has  been  disco 
vered  between  these  two  places,  which  are  barely 
four  miles  apart.  The  Alex.  LXX.  (with  an  un 
usual  independence  of  tne  Hebrew  text)  has  evi 
dently  taken  Shicron  as  a  repetition  of  Ekron,  but 
the  two  names  are  too  essentially  different  to  allow 
of  this,  which  is  not  supported  by  any  other  ver 
sion.  The  Targum  gives  it  Shicaron,  and  with  this 
agrees  Eusebius  (Onom.  2ax&Y>aj'),  though  no  know 
ledge  of  the  locality  of  the  place  is  to  be  gained 
from  his  notice.  [G.] 


SHIELD  (HJV;  |JD;  tt  ;  fnn).  The 
three  first  of  the  Hebrew  terms  quoted  have  been 
already  noticed  under  the  head  of  ARMS,  where  it 
is  stated  that  the  tzinnah  was  a  large  oblong  shield 
or  target,  covering  the  whole  body  ;  that  the  mdgen 
was  a  small  round  or  oval  shield  ;  and  that  the  term 
shelet  is  of  doubtful  import,  applying  to  some  orna 
mental  piece  of  armour.  To  these  we  may  add 
socherdh,  a  poetical  term  occurring  only  in  Ps. 
xci.  4.  The  ordinary  shield  consisted  of  a  frame 
work  of  wood  covered  with  leather  ;  it  thus  admitted 
of  being  burnt  (Ez.  xxxix.  9).  The  mdgen  was 
frequently  cased  with  metal,  either  brass  or  copper  ; 
its  appearance  in  this  case  resembled  gold,b  when 
the  sun  shone  on  it  (1  Mace.  vi.  39),  and  to  this, 
rather  than  to  the  practice  of  smearing  blood.  on  the 


as  Studium=Htude,  Strenae=fitrennes,  &c.  &o. 

b  In  the  passage  quoted,  the  shields  carried  by  tot 
soldiers  of  Antiochus  are  said  to  have  been  actually  ol 
gold.  This,  however,  must  have  been  a  mistake,  as  evec 
silver  shields  were  very  rare  (Diod.  Sic.  xvil.  57). 


1274 


SHIGGAION 


shield,  we  may  refer  the  redness  noticed  by  Nahum 
<fii.  3).  The  surface  of  the  shield  was  kept  bright  by 
the  application  of  oil,  as  implied  in  Is.  xxi.  5  ;  hence 
Saul's  shield  is  described  as  "  not  anointed  with  oil" 
i.e.  dusty  and  gory  (2  Sam.  i.  21).  Oil  would  be 
as  useful  for  the  metal  as  for  the  leather  shield.  In 
order  to  preserve  it  from  the  effects  of  weather,  the 
shield  was  kept  covered,  except  in  actual  conflict  (Is. 
xxii.  6  ;  comp.  Caes.  E.G.  ii.  21  ;  Cic.  Nat.  Deor.  ii. 
14).  The  shield  was  worn  on  the  left  arm,  to  which 
it  was  attached  by  a  strap.  It  was  used  not  only 
in  the  field,  but  also  in  besieging  towns,  when  it 
served  for  the  protection  of  the  head,  the  combined 
shields  of  the  besiegers  forming  a  kind  of  tcstudo 
(Ez.  xxvi.  8).  Shields  of  state  were  covered  with 
beaten  gold.  Solomon  made  such  for  use  in  reli 
gious  processions  (1  K.  x.  16,  17)  ;  when  these  were 
carried  off,  they  were  replaced  by  shields  of  brass, 
which,  as  being  less  valuable,  were  kept  in  the 
guard-room  (1  K.  xiv.  27),  while  the  former  had 
been  suspended  in  the  palace  for  ornament.  A  large 
golden  shield  was  sent  as  a  present  to  the  Romans, 
when  the  treaty  with  them  was  renewed  by  Simon 
Maccabaeus  (1  Mace.  xiv.  24,  xv.  18);  it  was  in 
tended  as  a  token  of  alliance  (ffv^oXov  .TTJS  trv/j.- 
uax'ias,  Joseph.  Ant.  xiv.  8,  §5),  but  whether  any 
symbolic  significance  was  attached  to  the  shield  in 
particular  as  being  the  weapon  of  protection,  is  un 
certain.  Other  instances  of  a  similar  present  occur 
(Suet.  Calig.  16),  as  well  as  of  complimentary  pre- 
•sents  of  a  different  kind  on  the  part  of  allies  (Cic. 
Verr.  2  Act.  iv.  29,  §67).  Shields  were  suspended 
about  public  buildings  for  ornamental  purposes  (1  K. 
x.  17  ;  1  Mace.  iv.  57,  vi.  2) ;  this  was  particularly 
the  case  with  the  shields  (assuming  shelet  to  have 
this  meaning)  which  David  took  from  Hadadezer 
(2  Sam.  viii.  7 ;  Cant.  iv.  4),  and  which  were 
afterwards  turned  to  practical  account  (2  K.  xi.  10  ; 
2  Chr.  xxiii.  9) :  the  Gammadim  similarly  sus 
pended  them  about  their  towers  (Ez.  xxvii.  11 ;  see 
GAMMA  DIMS).  In  the  metaphorical  language  of  the 
Bible  the  shield  generally  represents  the  protection 
of  God  (e.g.  Ps.  iii.  3,  xxviii.  7);  but  in  Ps.  xlvii. 
9  it  is  applied  to  earthly  rulers,  and  in  Eph.  vi.  16, 
to  faith.  [W.  L.  B.] 

SHIGGAI'ON  (I'Vat?:  Va\fj.6s :  Psalmus\ 
Ps.  vii.  1.  A  particular  kind  of  Psalm  ;  the  specific 
character  of  which  is  now  not  known. 

In  the  singular  number  the  word  occurs  no 
where  in  Hebrew,  except  in  the  inscription  of  the 
7th  Psalm,  and  there  seems  to  be  nothing  peculiar 
in  that  psalm  to  distinguish  it  from  numerous 
others,  in  which  the  author  gives  utterance  to  his 
feelings  against  his  enemies,  and  implores  the 
assistance  of  Jehovah  against  them ;  so  that  the 
contents  of  the  psalm  justify  no  conclusive  in 
ference  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word.  In  the 
inscription  to  the  Ode  of  the  Prophet  Habakkuk 
iii.  1,  the  word  occurs  in  the  plural  number;  but 
the  phrase  in  which  it  stands  "  'al  shigyonoth"  is 
deemed  almost  unanimously,  as  it  would  seem,  by 
modern  Hebrew  scholars  to  mean  "  after  the  man 
ner  of  the  Shiggaion,"  and  to  be  merely  a  direction 
as  to  the  kind  of  musical  measures  by  which  the 
ode  was  to  be  accompanied.  This  being  so,  the 
ode  is  no  real  help  in  ascertaining  the  meaning  of 
Shiggaion ;  for  the  ode  itself  is  not  so  called, 
though  it  is  directed  to  be  sung  according  lo  the 
measures  of  the  shiggaion.  And,  indeed,  if  it 
were  called  a  shiggaion,  the  dilliculty  would  not  | 
be  diminished ;  for,  independently  of  the  inscrip-  j 


SHIHON 

tion,  no  one  would  have  ever  thought  that  the  cult 
and  the  psalm  belonged  to  the  same  sj>ecies  oi 
sacred  poem  ;  and  even  since  their  possible  simi 
larity  has  been  suggested,  no  one  has  definitely 
pointed  out  in  what  that  similarity  consists,  so  as 
to  justify  a  distinct  classification.  In  this  state  of 
uncertainty  it  is  natural  to  endeavour  to  form  a 
conjecture  as  to  the  meaning  of  shiggaion  from  it? 
etymology ;  but  unfortunately  there  are  no  less 
than  three  rival  etymologies,  each  with  plausible 
claims  to  attention.  Gesenius  and  Fiirst,  s.  v., 
concur  in  deriving  it  from  Hjl^  (the  Piel  of 
nJ5?),  in  the  sense  of  magnifying  or  extolling 

with  praises;  and  they  justify  this  derivation  by 
kindred  Syriac  words.  Shiggaion  would  thus  mean 
a  hymn  or  psalm  ;  but  its  specific  meaning,  if  it 
has  any,  as  applicable  to  the  7th  Psalm,  would 
continue  unknown.  Ewald,  Die  Poetischen  Biicher 
des  alien  Bundes,  i.  29  ;  Rodiger,  s.  v.  in  his 
continuation  of  Gesenius's  Thesaurus',  and  Delitzsch, 
Commentar  uber  den  Psalter,  i.  51,  derive  it  from 
r\M,  in  the  sense  of  reeling,  as  from  wine,  and 
consider  the  word  to  be  somewhat  equivalent  to  a 
dithyrambus;  while  De  Wette,  Die  Psalmen,  p. 
34 ;  Lee,  s.  v. ;  and  Hitzig,  Die  Zwolf  kleinen 
Propheten,  p.  26,  interpret  the  word  as  a  psalm 
of  lamentation,  or  a  psalm  in  distress,  as  derived 
from  Arabic.  Hupfeld,  on  the  other  hand,  Die 
Psalmen,  i.  109,  199,  conjectures  that  shiggaion  is 
identical  with  higgaion  Ps.  ix.  16,  in  the  sense  of 
poem  or  song,  from  H!in,  to  meditate  or  compose; 
but  even  so,  no  information  would  be  conveyed  as 
to  the  specific  nature  of  the  poem. 

As  to  the  inscription  of  Habakkuk's  ode,  •'  W 
shigyonoth,"  the  translation  of  the  LXX.  is  /terek 
<j55r}s,  which  conveys  no  definite  meaning.  The 
Vulgate  translates  "  pro  ignorantiis,"  as  if  the 
word  had  been  shegdyoth,  transgressions  through 
ignorance  (Lev.  iv.  2.  27 ;  Num.  xv.  27 ;  Eccl. 
v.  6),  or  shegioth  (Ps.  xix.  13),  which  seems  tc 
have  nearly  the  same  meaning.  Perhaps  the 
Vulgate  was  influenced  by  the  Targum  of  Jona 
than,  where  shigyonoth  seems  to  be  translated 
Kfl  WD.  In  the  A.  V.  of  Hab.  iii.  1,  the  rendering 
is  "  upon  shigionoth,"  as  if  shigionoth  were  some 
musical  instrument.  But  under  any  circumstances 
yal  (?JJ)  must  not  be  translated  "  upon "  in  the 
sense  of  playing  upon  an  instrument.  Of  this  use 
there  is  not  a  single  undoubted  example  in  prose, 
although  playing  on  musical  instruments  is  fre 
quently  referred  to  ;  and  in  poetry,  although  there 
is  one  passage,  Ps.  xcii.  3,  where  the  word  might 
be  so  translated,  it  might  equally  well  be  ren 
dered  there  "  to  the  accompaniment  of"  the  musical 
instruments  therein  specified — and  this  translation 
is  preferable.  It  seems  likewise  a  mistake  that 
'al  is  translated  "  upon"  when, preceding  the  sup 
posed  musical  instruments,  Gmith,  Machalath, 
Neginath,  Nechiloth,  Shushan,  Shoshannim  (Ps, 
viii.  1,  Ixxxi.  1,  Ixxxiv.  1,  liii.  1,  Ixxxviii.  1,  Ixi. 
1,  v.  1,  Ix.  1,  xiv.  1,  Ixix.  1,  Ixxx.  1).  Indeed, 
ail  these  words  are  regarded  by  Ewald  (Poet. 
Buch.  i.  177)  as  meaning  musical  keys,  and  by 
Fiirst  (ss.  vv.~)  as  meaning  musical  bands.  What 
ever  may  be  thought  of  the  proposed  substitutes,  it 
is  very  singular,  if  those  six  words  signify  musical 
instruments,  that  not  one  of  them  should  be  men 
tioned  elsewhere  in  the  whole  Bible.  [E.  T.] 

8ILTHON  (JifcW  i.e.  Shion:  2wi/a:  Scon). 
A  town  of  Isstichiii,  named  only  in  Josh.  xix.  19 


SHIHOR  OF  EGYPT 

It  occurs  between  Haphraim  and  Anaharath.  Eu- 
sfhius  and  Jerome  (Onomast.)  mention  it  as  then 
existing  "  near  Mount  Tabor."  The  only  name  at 
all  resembling  it  at  present  in  that  neighbourhood 
is  the  Chirbet  Schfin  of  Dr.  Schulz  (Zimmermann's 
Map  of  Galilee,  1861)  1£  mile  N.W.  of  Deburieh. 
This  is  probably  the  pla^e  mentioned  by  Schwarz 
(166)  as  "  Sain  between  Duberieh  and  Jafa."  The 
identification  is,  however,  very  uncertain,  since 
Schi'in  appears  to  contain  the  Ain,  while  the  He 
brew  name  does  not. 

The  redundant  h  in  the  A.  V.  is  an  error  of  the 
recent  editions.  In  that  of  1611  the  name  is 
Shion.  [G.] 

SHI'HOR  OF  EGYPT 


:  °Pl* 

:  Sikor  Aegypti,  1  Chr.  xiii.  5)  is  spoken 
of  as  one  limit  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  in  David's 
time,  the  entering  in  of  Hamath  being  the  other. 
It  must  correspond  to  "  Shihor,"  "  the  Shihor  which 
[is]  before  Egypt"  (Josh.  xiii.  2,  3),  A.  V.  "  Sihor," 
sometimes,  at  least,  a  name  of  the  Nile,  occurring 
in  other  passages,  one  of  which  (where  it  has  the 
article)  is  parallel  to  this.  The  use  of  the  article 
indicates  that  the  word  is  or  has  been  an  appella 
tive,  rather  the  former  if  we  judge  only  from  the 
complete  phrase.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that 
Shihor  Mizraim  is  used  interchangeably  with  Nahal 
Mizraim,  and  that  the  name  SHiHOR-LlBNATH, 
in  the  north  of  Palestine,  unless  derived  from  the 
Egyptians  or  the  Phoenician  colonists  of  Egypt,  as 
we  are  disposed  to  think  possible,  from  the  connec 
tion  of  that  country  with  the  ancient  manufacture 
of  glass,  shows  that  the  word  Shihor  is  not  re 
stricted  to  a  great  river.  It  would  appear  there 
fore  that  Shihor  of  Egypt  and  "  the  Shihor  which 
[is]  before  Egypt  "  might  designate  the  stream  of 
the  W;uli-l-'Areesh  :  Shihor  alone  would  still  be 
the  Nile.  On  the  other  hand,  both  Shihor,  and 
even  Nahal,  alone,  are  names  of  the  Nile,  while 
Nahal  Mizraim  is  used  interchangeably  with  the 

river  (")H3,  not  TTI3)  of  Mizraim.  We  therefore 
are  disposed  to  hold  that  all  the  names  designate 
the  Nile.  The  fitness  of  the  name  Shihor  to  the 
Nile  must  be  remembered.  [NiLE  ;  RIVER  OF 
EGYPT  ;  SIHOR.]  [R.  S.  P.] 

SHI'HOR-LIB'NATH 


teal  A.afiavdd  ;  Alex.  2eta<p  K.  A.  :  Sichor  et 
Labanath}.  Named  only  in  Josh.  xix.  26  as  one  of 
the  landmarks  of  the  boundary  of  Asher.  Nothing 
is  known  of  it.  By  the  ancient  translators  and 
commentators  (as  Peshito-Syriac,  and  Eusebius  and 
Jerome  in  the  Onomasticori)  the  names  are  taken  as 
belonging  to  two  distinct  places.  But  modern  com 
mentators,  beginning  perhaps  with  Masius,  have 
inclined  to  consider  Shihor  as  identical  with  the 
name  of  the  Nile,  and  Shihor-Libnath  to  be  a  river. 
Led  by  the  meaning  of  Libnath  as  "  white,"  they 
interpret  the  Shihor-Libnath  as  the  glass  river, 
which  they  then  naturally  identify  with  the  Belus  R 
of  Pliny  (N.  H.  v.  19),  the  present  Nalir  Naman, 
which  drains  part  of  the  plain  of  Akka,  and  enters 
the  Mediterranean  a  short  distance  below  that  city. 
It  is  a  pity  to  disturb  a  theory  at  once  so  ingenious 
and  so  consistent,  and  supported  by  the  great  name 
of  Michaelis  (Suppl.  No.  2462),  but  it  is  surely 
very  far-fetched.  There  is  nothing  to  indicate  that 


•  It  is  singular,  too,  that  Joseph  us  should  state  that 
there  was  a  monument  of  Alemnon  standing  cloae  to  the 
belus  (B.  J.  li  10,  $2). 


SIIILOAH,  THE  WATERS  OF     1275 

Shihor-Libnath  is  a  stream  at  all,  except  the  agree 
ment  of  the  first  portion  of  the  name  with  a  ran: 
word  used  for  the  Nile — a  river  which  can  have 
nothing  in  common  with  an  insignificant  streamlet 
like  the  Naman.  And  even  if  it  be  a  river,  the 
position  of  the  Naman  is  unsuitable,  since,  as  far  as 
can  be  gathered  from  the  very  obscure  list  in  which 
the  name  occurs,  Shihor-Libnath  was  the  south 
pivot  of  the  territory  of  Asher,  below  Mount  Carmel. 
Raland's  conjecture  of  the  Crocodeilon  river,  pro 
bably,  the  Moieh  et  Temseh,  close  to  Kaisariyeh,  is 
too  far  south.  [G.] 

SHIL'HI  OrftC> :  SoAof,  2a\i ;  Alex.  SaAaAa, 

SaAei :  Salai,  Salahf).  The  father  of  Azubah,  Je- 
hoshaphat's  mother  (1  K.  xxii.  42 ;  2  Chr.  xx.  31 X 

SHIL'HIM  (DTl^:  2aM  ;  Alex.  SeAee.^i: 

Silim).  One  of  the  cities  in  the  southern  portion 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah.  Its  place  in  the  list  is 
between  Lebaoth  and  Ain,  or  Ain-Rimmon  (Josh. 
xv.  32),  and  it  is  not  elsewhere  mentioned.  It  is 
not  even  named  by  Eusebius  and  Jerome.  No 
trace  of  it  has  yet  been  discovered.  In  the  list  of 
Simeon's  cities  in  Josh.  xix.  SIIARUHEN  (ver.  6) 
occupies  the  place  of  Shilhim,  and  in  1  Chr.  iv.  31 
this  is  still  further  changed  to  SHAARAIM.  It  i.i 
difficult  to  say  if  these  are  mere  corruptions,  or  denote 
any  actual  variations  of  name. 

The  juxtaposition  of  Shilhim  and  Ain  has  led  to 
the  conjecture  that  they  are  identical  with  the 
Salim  and  Aenon  of  St.  John  the  Baptist ;  but  their 
position  in  the  south  of  Judah,  so  remote  from  the 
scene  of  St.  John's  labours  and  the  other  events  of 
the  Gospel  history,  seems  to  forbid  this.  [G.] 

SHIL'LEM  (D^ :  2oX\^i,  SeAA^u;  Alex. 
2vAAi7;u,  in  Gen. :  Sallem,  Scllem).  Son  of  Naphtali, 
and  ancestor  of  the  family  of  the  Shillemites  (Gen. 
xlvi.  24  ;  Num.  xxvi.  49).  The  same  as  SHALLUM  7. 

SHIL'LEMITES,  THE  (»D^J1 :  o  SeAArj/J : 

Sellemitae).  The  descendants  of  Shillem  the  son  of 
Naphtali  (Num.  xxvi.  4#). 

SHILO'AH,  THE  WATERS  OF  (fkwT\  ^: 
rb  vScap  rov  SetAwa^t ;  Alex.  SiAcuajU :  Saad. 
,.^JLw  /.r^c'b  AinSefadn:  aquas  Siloe].  Acer- 
tain  soft-flowing  stream  employed  by  the  prophet 
Isaiah  (viii.  6)  to  point  his  comparison  between 
the  quiet  confidence  in  Jehovah  which  he  was 
urging  on  the  people,  and  the  overwhelming  vio 
lence  of  the  king  of  Assyria,  for  whose  alliance 
they  were  clamouring. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  waters  in 
question  were  the  same  which  are  better  known 
under  their  later  name  of  SILOAM — the  only  per 
ennial  spring  of  Jerusalem.  Objection  has  been 
taken  to  the  fact  that  the  "  waters  of  Siloam " 
run  with  an  irregular  intermittent  action,  and 
therefore  could  hardly  be  appealed  to  as  flowing 
"  softly."  But  the  testimony  of  careful  investigators 
(Rob.  B.  R.  i.  341,  2;  Barclay,  City,  516)  esta 
blishes  the  fact  that  the  disturbance  only  takes  place, 
at  the  often est,  two  or  three  times  a  day,  say  three 
to  four  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four,  the  flow  being 
"  perfectly  quiescent "  during  the  rest  of  the  time. 
In  summer  the  disturbance  only  occurs  once  in  two 
or  three  days.  Such  interruptions  to  the  quiet  flow 


b  The  Targum  Jonathan,  Pcshlto,  and  Arabic  Ver 
sions  of  1  K.  .  33.  read  Shiloah  for  the  Gihon  of  the 
Hebrew 


!27r> 


SKILOH 


of  the  stream  would  therefore  not  interfere  with 
the  contrast  enforced  in  the  prophet's  metaphor. 

The  fo'-H>  of  the  name  employed  by  Isaiah  is 
midway  between  the  has-Shelach,  of  Nehemiah 
(A.  V.  SILOAII)  and  the  Siloam  of  the  N.  T.  A 
similar  change  is  noticed  under  SHILOSI. 

The  spring  and  pool  of  SILOAM  are  treated  of 
under  that  head.  [G.] 

SHI'LOH  (j&W  :  TO  luroKclpeva  avry  :  qui 
mittcndas  est}.  In  the  A.  V.  of  the  Bible,  Shiloh 
is  once  used  as  the  name  of  a  person,  in  a  very 
difficult  passage,  in  the  10th  verse  of  the  49th 
chapter  of  Genesis.  Supposing  that  the  translation 
is  correct,  the  meaning  of  the  word  is  Peaceable,  or 
Pacific,  and  the  allusion  is  either  to  Solomon,  whose 
name  has  a  similar  signification,  or  to  the  expected 
Messiah,  who  in  Is.  ix.  6  is  expressly  called  the 
Prince  of  Peace.  This  was  once  the  translation 
of  Gesenius,  though  he  afterwards  saw  reason  to 
abandon  it  (see  his  Lexicon,  s.  v.),  and  it  is  at 
present  the  translation  of  Hengstenberg  in  his 
Christologie  des  Alien  Testaments,  p.  69,  and  of  the 
Grand  Rabbin  Wogue,  in  his  Translation  of  Genesis, 
a  work  which  is  approved  and  recommended  by  the 
Grand  Rabbins  of  France  (Le  Pentateuque,  ou  les 
Cinq  Livres  de  Moise,  Paris,  I860).  Both  these 
writers  regard  the  passage  as  a  Messianic  prophecy, 
and  it  is  so  accepted  by  the  writer  of  the  article 
MESSIAH  in  this  work  (p.  340). 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  original  Hebrew  text 
is  correct  as  it  stands,  there  are  three  objections  to 
this  translation,  which,  taken  collectively,  seem  fatal 
to  it.  1st.  The  word  Shiloh  occurs  nowhere  else 
in  Hebrew  as  the  name  or  appellation  of  a  person. 
2ndly.  The  only  other  Hebrew  word,  apparently, 
of  the  same  form,  is  Giloh  (Josh.  xv.  51 ;  2  Sam. 
xv.  12) ;  and  this  is  the  name  of  a  city,  and  not 
of  a  person.  Srdly.  By  translating  the  word  as  it 
is  translated  everywhere  else  in  the  Bible,  viz.  as 
the  name  of  the  city  in  Ephraim  where  the  Ark  of 
the  Covenant  remained  during  such  a  long  period, 
a  sufficiently  good  meaning  is  given  to  the  passage 
without  any  violence  to  the  Hebrew  language,  and, 
indeed,  with  a  precise  grammatical  parallel  else 
where  (compare  rfe  JO*1,  1  Sam.  iv.  12).  The 
simple  translation  is,  "  The  sceptre  shall  not  depart 
from  Judah,  nor  the  ruler's  staff  from  between  his 
feet,  till  he  shall  go  to  Shiloh."  And,  in  this  case, 
the  allusion  would  be  to  the  primacy  of  Judah  in 
war  (Judg.  i.  1,  2,  xx.  18;  Num.  ii.  3,  x.  14), 
which  was  to  continue  until  the  Promised  Land 
was  conquered,  and  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  was 
solemnly  deposited  at  Shiloh.  Some  Jewish  writers 
had  previously  maintained  that  Shiloh,  the  city  of 
Ephraim,  was  referred  to  in  this  passage ;  and  Ser- 
vetus  had  propounded  the  same  opinion  in  a  fanciful 
dissertation,  in  which  he  attributed  a  double  mean 
ing  to  the  words  (De  Trinitate,  lib.  ii.  p.  61,  ed. 
of  I5'j3  A.D.).  But  the  above  translation  and 
<  xplanation,  as  proposed  and  defended  on  critical 
grounds  of  reasonable  validity,  was  first  suggested 
in  modern  days  by  Teller  (Notae  Criticae  et  Excge- 
ticae  in  Gen,  xlix.,  Dent,  xxxiii.,  Ex.  xv.,  Judg.  v., 
Halae  et  Helmstadii,  1766),  and  it  has  since,  with 
modifications,  found  favour  with  numerous  1-earned 
men  belonging  to  various  schools  of  theology,  such 
as^Eichhorn,  Hitzig,  Tuch,  Bleek,  Ewald,  Delitzsch, 
Kodiger,  Kalisch,  Luzzatto,  and  Davidson. 

The  objections  to  this  interpretation  are  set  forth 
at  length  by  Hengstenberg  (I.  c.\  and  the  reasons 
Li  its  favour,  with  an  account  of  the  various  inter- 


SHILOH 

pretations  which  have  been  suggested  by  others, 
are  well  given  by  Davidson  ( Introduction  to  t/i6 
Old  Testament,  i.  1 99-2 1 0).  Supposing  always  thai 
the  existing  text  is  correct,  the  reasons  in  favour  01 
Teller's  interpretation  seem  much  to  preponderate. 
It  may  be  observed  that  the  main  obstacle  to  inter 
preting  the  word  Shiloh  in  its  simple  and  obvious 
meaning  seems  to  arise  from  an  imaginative  view 
of  the  prophecy  respecting  the  Twelve  Tribes,  which 
finds  in  it  more  than  is  justified  by  a  sober  exami 
nation  of  it.  Thus  Hengstenberg  says  : — "  The 
temporal  limit  which  is  here  placed  to  the  pre 
eminence  of  Judah  would  be  in  glaring  contradic 
tion  to  verses  8  and  9,  in  which  Judah,  without 
any  temporal  limitation,  is  raised  to  be  the  Lion  of 
God."  But  the  allusion  to  a  lion  is  simply  the  fol 
lowing  : — "  Judah  is  a  lion's  whelp :  from  the  prey, 
my  son,  thou  art  gone  up:  he  stooped  down,  he 
couched  as  a  lion,  and  as  an  old  lion ;  who  shall 
rouse  him  up?"  Now,  bearing  in  mind  the  general 
colouring  of  Oriental  imagery,  there  is  nothing  in 
this  passage  which  makes  a  reference  to  the  city 
Shrloh  improbable.  Again,  Hengstenberg  says  that 
the  visions  of  Jacob  never  go  into  what  is  special,  but 
always  have  regard  to  the  future  as  a  whole  and  on 
a  great  scale  (im  ganzen  und  grosseri).  If  this 
is  so,  it  is  nevertheless  compatible  with  the  follow 
ing  geographical  statement  respecting  Zebulun  : — 
Zebulun  shall  dwell  at  the  haven  of  the  sea,  and 
he  shall  be  for  an  haven  of  ships,  and  his  border 
shall  be  unto  Zidon."  It  is  likewise  compatible 
with  prophecies  respecting  some  of  the  other  tribes, 
which  to  any  one  who  examined  Jacob's  blessing 
minutely  with  lofty  expectations  would  be  disap- 
]>ointing.  Thus  of  Benjamin,  within  whose  territory 
the  glorious  Temple  of  Solomon  was  afterwards 
built,  it  is  merely  said,  "  Benjamin  shall  ravin  as  a 
wolf;  in  the  morning  he  shall  devour  the  prey,  and 
at  night  he  shall  divide  the  spoil."  Of  Gad  it  is 
said,  "  A  troop  shall  overcome  him,  but  he  shall 
overcome  at  the  last."  Of  Asher,  "  Out  of  Asher 
bis  bread  shall  be  fat,  and  he  shall  yield  royal 
dainties."  And  of  Naphtali,  "  Naphtali  is  a  hind 
let  loose;  he  giveth  goodly  words"  (vv.  19,20, 
21,  27).  Indeed  the  difference  (except  in  the  bless- 
ng  of  Joseph,  in  whose  territory  Shiloh  was  situ 
ated)  between  the  reality  of  the  prophecies  and  the 
demands  of  an  imaginative  mind,  explains,  perhaps, 
the  strange  statement  of  St.  Isidore  of  Pelusium, 
quoted  by  'Teller,  that,  when  Jacob  was  about  to 
announce  to  his  sons  the  future  mystery  of  the 
Incarnation,  he  was  restrained  by  the  ringer  of  God ; 
ilence  was  enjoined  him  :  and  he  was  seized  with  loss 
of  memory.  See  the  letter  of  St.  Isidore,  Lib.  i.  Epist. 
365,  in  Bibliotheca  Maxima  Patrum,  vii.  570. 

2.  The  next  best  translation  of  Shiloh  is  perhaps 
thai  of  "  Rest."  The  passage  would  then  run  thus : 
'  The  sceptre  shall  not  depart  from  Judah  .  .  .  till 
•est  come,  and  the  nations  obey  him " — and  the 
reference  would  be  to  the  Messiah,  who  was  tc 
spring  from  the  tribe  of  Judah.  This  translation 
deserves  respectful  consideration,  as  having  been 
ultimately  adopted  by  Gesenius.  It  was  preferred 

Vater,  and  is  defended  by  Knobel  in  the  Exege- 
tisches  Handbuch,  Gen.  xlix.  10.  There  is  one 
objection  less  to  it  than  to  the  use  of  Shiloh  as  e 
person,  and  it  is  not  without  some  probability. 
Still  it  remains  subject  to  the  objection  that  Shiloh 
occurs  nowhere  else  in  the  Bible  except  as  the  name 
of  a  city,  and  that  by  translating  the  word  hero  at 
the  name  of  a  city  a  reasonably  good  meaning  mziy 

given  to  the  passage. 


SHILOH 

3.  A  third  explanation  of  Shiloh,  on  the  assump 
tion  that  it  is  not  the  name  of  a  person,  is  a  translation 
by  various  learned  Jews,  apparently  countenanced 
\sy  the  Targum  of  Jonathan,  that  Shiloh  merely  means 
•'  his  son,"  i.  e,  the  son  of  Judah  (in  the  sense  of 
the  Messiah),  from  a  supposed  word  Shil,  "  a  son." 
There  is,  however,  no  such  word  in  known  Hebrew, 
iind  as  a  plea  for  its  possible  existence  reference  is 
made  to  an  Arabic  word,  shalil,  with  the  same  sig 
nification.  This  meaning  of  "  his  son  "  owes,  per 
haps,  its  principal  interest  to  its  having  been  sub 
stantially  adopted  by  two  such  theologians  as  Luther 
and  Calvin.  (See  the  Commentaries  of  each  on 
Gen.  xlix.  10.)  Luther  connected  the  word  with 
cchilyah  in  Deut.  xxviii.  57,  but  this  would  not 
now  be  deemed  permissible. 

The  translation,  then,  of  Shiloh  as  the  name  of  a 
city  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  soundest,  if  the  present 
Hebrew  text  is  correct.  It  is  proper,  however,  to 
oear  in  mind  the  possibility  of  there  being  some 
error  in  that  text.  When  Jerome  translated  the 
word  "  qui  missus  est,"  we  may  be  certain  that  he 
did  not  read  it  as  Shiloh,  but  as  some  form  of 
n?£?,  "  to  send,"  as  if  the  word  6  cwreo-TaA/ieVos 
might  have  been  used  in  Greek.  We  may  likewise 
be  certain  that  the  translator  in  the  Septoagint  did 
not  read  the  word  as  it  stands  in  our  Biblfos.  He 
read  it  as 


SHILOII 


1277 


i?E^,   precisely  corresponding  to 
X,  and  translated  it  well  by  the  phrase  TO 

airoKei/iej/a  avrqi  ;  so  that  the  meaning  would  be, 
"  The  sceptre  shall  not  depart  from  Judah  .  .  .  till 
the  things  reserved  for  him  come."  It  is  most  pro 
bable  that  Ezekiel  read  the  word  in  the  same  way 
when  he  wrote  the  words  DD^Sn  fr'lB'K  N2-iy 
(Ez.  xxi.  32,  in  the  A.  V.  verse  27)  ;  and  'it  seems 
likely,  though  not  certain,  that  the  author  a  of  the 
Paraphrase  of  Jacob's  last  words  in  the  Targum  of 
Onkelos  followed  the  reading  of  Ezekiel  and  the 
Septuagiut,  substituting  the  word  NJTD^D  for  the 
t23£?D  of  Ezekiel.  It  is  not  meant  by  these  re 
marks  that  n?l2>  is  more  likely  to  have  been  correct 
than  Shiloh,  though  one  main  argument  against 
PlTfi?,  that  W  occurs  nowhere  else  in  the  Pentateuch 
us  an  equivalent  to  "Ifc^tf,  is  inconclusive,  as  it 
occurs  in  the  Song  of  Deborah,  which,  on  any 
hypothesis,  must  be  regarded  as  a  poem  of  great 
antiquity.  But  the  fact  that  there  were  different 
readings,  in  former  times,  of  this  very  difficult  pas 
sage,  necessarily  tends  to  suggest  the  possibility  that 
the  correct  reading  may  have  been  lost. 

Whatever  interpretation  of  the  present  reading 
may  be  adopted,  the  one  which  must  be  pronounced 
entitled  to  the  least  consideration  is  that  which  sup 
poses  the  prophecy  relates  to  the  birth  of  Christ  as 
occurring  in  the  reign  of  Herod  jus-t  before  Judaea 
became  a  Roman  province  There  is  no  such  inter 
pretation  in  the  Bible,  and  however  ancient  this 
mode  of  regarding  the  passage  may  be,  it  must  sub 
mit  to  the  ordeal  of  a  dispassionate  scrutiny.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  impossible  reasonably  to  regard  the 
dependent  rule  of  King  Herod  the  Idumaean  as  an 
instance  of  the  sceptre  being  still  borne  by  Judah. 
In  order  to  appreciate  the  precise  position  of  Herod, 
it  may  be  enough  to  quote  the  unsuspicious  testi- 

a  This  writer,  however,  was  so  fanciful,  that  no  reliance 
can  be  placed  on  his  judgment  on  any  point  where  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  go  wrong.  Thus  his  paraphrase  of  the 
prophecy  respecting  Benjamin  is  :  "  The  ehechlnah  shall 


mony  of  Jerome,  who,  in  his  Commentaries  OB 
Matthew,  lib.  iii.  c.  22,  writes  as  follows: — "  Caesar 
Augustus  Herodem  fiLum  Antipatris  alienigenam  pt 
proselytum  regem  Judaeis  constituerat,  qui  tributis 
pmeetset,  et  Romano  pareret  imperio."  Secondly, 
it  imist  be  remembered  that  about  588  years  before 
Chritt,  Jerusalem  had  been  taken,  its  Temple  de 
stroyed,  and  its  inhabitants  led  away  into  captivity 
by  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  the  Chaldees,  and  during 
the  next  h'fty  years  the  Jews  were  subjects  of  the 
Chaldaean  Empire.  Afterwards,  during  a  period 
of  somewhat  above  200  years,  from  the  taking  of 
Babylon  by  Cyrus  to  the  defeat  of  Darius  by  Alex 
ander  the  Great  at  Arbela,  Judaea  was  a  province  of 
the  Persian  Empire.  Subsequently,  during  a  period 
of  163  years,  from  the  death  of  Alexander  to  the 
rising  of  the  Maccabees,  the  Jews  were  ruled  by  the 
successors  of  Alexander.  Hence  for  a  period  of 
more  than  400  years  from  the  destruction  of  the 
Temple  by  Nebuchadnezzar  the  Jews  were  deprived 
of  their  independence ;  and,  as  a  plain  undeniable 
matter  of  fact,  the  sceptre  had  already  departed 
from  Judah.  Without  pursuing  this  subject  farther 
through  the  rule  of  the  Maccabees  (a  family  of  the 
tribe  of  Levi,  and  not  of  the  tribe  of  Judah)  down 
to  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  and  the  conquest  ot 
Palestine  by  Pompey  (B.C.  63),  it  is  sufficient  to 
observe  that  a  supposed  fulfilment  of  a  prophecy 
which  ignores  the  dependent  state  of  Judaea  during 
400  years  after  the  destruction  of  the  first  Temple 
cannot  be  regarded  as  based  upon  sound  principles 
of  interpretation.  [E.  T.] 

SHI'LOH,  as  the  name  of  a  place,  stands  in 
Hebrew  as  H^  (Josh,  xviii.  1-10),  ft^  (1 
Sam.  i.  24,  iii.  21 ;  Judg.  xxi.  19),  r6'S?  (1  K. 
ii.  27),  fatf  (Judg.  xxi.  21  ;  Jer.  vii.  12),  and 
perhaps  also  |'l?^,  whence  the  gentile  *3?*6? 
(1  K.  xi.  29,  xii.  15);  in  the  Sept.  as  2rjAc$, 
2ijA«S/i,  SoAcS,  2uAc6.(Jos.  Ant.  viii.  7,  §7  ; 
11,  §1  ;  and  Si\4  SiXouv,  v.  1,  §19  ;  ii.  9, 
§12);  and  in  the  Vulg.  as  Silo,  and  more  rarely 
Selo.  The  name  was  derived  probably  from  PPE?, 
17K>  "  to  rest,"  and  represented  the  idea  that  the 

nation  attained  at  this  place  to  a  state  of  rest,  or 
that  the  Lord  Himself  would  here  rest  among  His 
people.  TAANATH-SHILOH  may  be  another  name 
of  the  same  place,  or  of  a  different  place  near  it, 
through  which  it  was  customary  to  pass  on  the 
way  to  Shiloh  (as  the  obscure  etymology  may  indi 
cate).  [TAANATH-SHILOH.]  (See  also  Kurtz's 
Gesch.  des  A.  Bund.  ii.  p.  569). 

The  principal  conditions  for  identifying  with  con 
fidence  the  site  of  a  place  mentioned  in  the  Bible, 
are:  (1)  that  the  modern  name  should  bear  a 
proper  .resemblance  to  the  ancient  one ;  (2)  that 
its  situation  accord  with  the  geographical  notices 
of  the  Scriptures ;  and  (3)  that  the  statements  of 
early  writers  and  travellers  point  to  a  coincident 
conclusion.  Shiloh  affords  a  striking  instance  of 
the  combination  of  these  testimonies.  The  de 
scription  in  Judg.  xxi.  19  is  singularly  explicit. 
Shiloh,  it  is  said  there,  is  "  on  the  north  side  of 
Bethel,  on  the  east  side  of  the  highway  that  goeth 
up  from  Bethel  to  Shechem,  and  on  the  south  of 


abide  in  the  land  of  Benjamin ;  and  in  his  possession  a 
sanctuary  shall  be  built.  Morning  and  evening  the  priestg 
shall  offer  oblations ;  and  in  the  evening  they  shall  divide 
the  residue  of  their  portion." 


1278 


SHILOH 


Lebonah."  In  agreement  with  this  the  traveller  at 
i,he  present  day  (the  writer  quotes  here  his  own 
note-book),  going  north  from  Jerusalem,  lodges  the 
first  night  at  Beitin,  the  ancient  Bethel ;  the  next 
day,  at  the  distance  of  a  few  hours,  turns  aside  to 
the  right,  in  order  to  visit  Seitun,  the  Arabic  for 
Shiloh  ;  and  then  passing  through  the  narrow  Wady, 
which  brings  him  to  the  main  road,  leaves  el-Leb- 
bdn,  the  Lebonah  of  Scripture,  on  the  left,  as  he 
pursues  "  the  highway "  to  Ndblus,  the  ancient 
Shechem.  [SnECHEM.]  Its  present  name  is  suffi 
ciently  like  the  more  familiar  Hebrew  name,  while 
it  is  identical  with  Shilon  (see  above),  on  which 
it  is  evidently  founded.  Again,  Jerome  (ac?  Zeph. 
i.  14),  and  Eusebius  (Onomast.  art.  "  Silo")  cer 
tainly  have  Seilftn  in  view  when  they  speak  of 
the  situation  of  Shiloh  with  reference  to  Neapolis 
or  Ndblus.  It  discovers  a  strange  oversight  of  the 
iata  which  control  the  question,  that  some  of  the 
older  travellers  have  placed  Shiloh  at  Neby  Samwil, 
About  two  hours  north-west  of  Jerusalem. 

Shiloh  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  sacred  of 
the  Hebrew  sanctuaries.  The  ark  of  the  covenant, 
which  had  been  kept  at  Gilgal,  during  the  progress 
of  the  Conquest  (Josh,  xviii.  1  sq.)  was  removed 
thence-  on  the  subjugation  of  the  country,  and 
kept  at  Shiloh  from  the  last  days  of  Joshua  to 
the  time  of  Samuel  (Josh,  xviii.  10 ;  Judg.  xviii. 
31 ;  1  Sam.  iv.  3).  It  was  here  the  Hebrew  con 
queror  divided  among  the  tribes  the  portion  of  the 
west  Jordan-region,  which  had  not  been  already 
allotted  (Josh,  xviii.  10,  xix.  51).  In  this  distri 
bution,  or  an  earlier  one,  Shiloh  fell  within  the 
limits  of  Ephraim  (Josh.  xvi.  5).  The  seizure 
here  of  the  "daughters  of  Shiloh"  by  the  Ben- 
jamites,  is  recorded  as  an  event  which  preserved 
one  of  the  tribes  from  extinction  (Judg.  xxi.  19-23). 
The  annual "  feast  of  the  Lord"  was  observed  at  Shi 
loh,  and  on  one  of  these  occasions,  the  men  lay  in  wait 
in  the  vineyards,  and  when  the  women  went  forth 
"  to  dance  in  dances,"  the  men  took  them  captive 
and  carried  them  home  as  wives.  Here  Eli 
judged  Israel,  and  at  last  died  of  grief  on  hearing 
that  the  ark  of  the  Lord  was  taken  by  the  enemy 
(1  Sarn.  iv.  12-18).  The  story  of  Hannah  and 
her  vow,  which  belongs  to  our  recollections  of 
Shiloh,  transmits  to  us  a  characteristic  incident  in 
the  life  of  the  Hebrews  (1  Sam.  i.  1  &c.) ;  Samuel, 
the  child  of  her  prayers  and  hopes,  was  here  brought 
up  in  the  sanctuary,  and  called  to  the  prophetic  office 
(1  Sam.  ii.  26,  iii.  1).  The  ungodly  conduct  of  the 
sons  of  Eli  occasioned  the  loss  of  the  ark  of  the 
covenant,  which  had  been  carried  into  battle  against 
the  Philistines,  and  Shiloh  from  that  time  sank  into 
insignificance.  It  stands  forth  in  the  Jewish  history 
as  a  striking  example  of  the  Divine  indignation.  "  Go 
ye  now,"  says  the  prophet,  "  unto  my  place  which 
which  was  in  Shiloh,  where  I  set  my  name  at  the 
first,  and  see  what  I  did  to  it,  for  the  wickedness 
of  my  people  Israel"  (Jer.  vii.  12).  Some  have 
inferred  from  Judg.  xviii.  31  (comp.  Ps.  Ixxviii. 
60  sq.)  that  a  permanent  structure  or  temple  had 
been  built  for  the  tabernacle  at  Shiloh,  and  that  it 
continued  there  (as  it  were  sine  numine]  for  a  long 
time  alter  the  tabernacle  was  removed  to  other 
places.  But  the  language  in  2  Sam.  vii.  6  is  too 
explicit  to  admit  of  that  conclusion.  God  says  there 
to  David  through  the  mouth  of  Nathan  the  prophet, 
"  I  have  not  dwelt  in  any  house  since  the  time  that 
I  brought  up  the  children  of  Israel  out  of  Egypt, 
even  to  this  day,  but  have  walked  in  a  tent  and  in 
u  tabernacle."  So  in  1  K.  iii.  2,  it  is  said  expressly 


SHILOH 

that  no  "  house  "  had  been  built  for  the  worship  of 
God  till  the  erection  of  Solomon's  Temple  at  Je 
rusalem.  It  must  be  in  a  spiritual  sense,  there 
fore,  that  the  tabernacle  is  called  a  "  house "  or 
"temple"  in  those  passages  which  refer  to  Shiloh. 
God  is  said  to  dwell  where  He  is  pleased  to  rrnnifest 
his  presence  or  is  worshipped ;  and  the  place  thus 
honoured  becomes  His  abode  or  temple,  whether  it 
be  a  tent  or  a  structure  of  wood  or  stone,  or  even  thf 
sanctuary  of  the  heart  alone.  Ahijah  the  prophet 
had  his  abode  at  Shiloh  in  the  time  of  Jeroboam  I., 
and  was  visited  there  by  the  messengers  of  Jero 
boam's  wife  to  ascertain  the  issue  of  the  sickness  of 
their  child  (1  K.  xi.  29,  xii.  15,  xiv.  1,  &c.).  The 
people  there  after  the  time  of  the  exile  (Jea-.  xli. 
5)  appear  to  have  been  Cuthites  (2  K.  xvii.  30) 
who  had  adopted  some  of  the  forms  of  Jewish  wor 
ship.  (See  Hitzig,  Zu  Jerem.  p.  33 1.)  Jerome,  who 
surveyed  the  ruins  in  the  4th  century,  says :  "  Vix 
ruinarum  parva  vestigia,  vix  altaris  fundamenta 
monstrantur." 

The  contour  of  the  region,  as  the  traveller  views 
it  on  the  ground,  indicates  very  closely  where  the 
ancient  town  must  have  stood.  A  Tell,  or  mo 
derate  hill,  rises  from  an  uneven  plain,  surrounded 
by  other  higher  hills,  except  a  narrow  valley  on  the 
south,  which  hill  would  naturally  be  chosen  as  the 
principal  site  of  the  town.  The  tabernacle  may 
have  been  pitched  on  this  eminence,  where  it  would 
be  a  conspicuous  object  on  every  side.  The  ruins 
found  there  at  present  are  very  inconsiderable.  They 
consist  chiefly  of  the  remains  of  a  comparatively 
modern  village,  with  which  some  large  stones  and 
fragments  of  columns  are  intermixed,  evidently 
from  much  earlier  times.  Near  a  ruined  mosk 
flourishes  an  immense  oak,  the  branches  of  which 
the  winds  of  centuries  have  swayed.  Just  beyond 
the  precincts  of  the  hill  stands  a  dilapidated  edifice, 
which  combines  some  of  the  architectural  properties 
of  a  fortress  and  a  church.  Three  columns  with 
Corinthian  capitals  lie  prostrate  on  the  floor.  An 
amphora  between  two  chaplets,  perhaps  a  work  of 
Roman  sculpture,  adorns  a  stone  over  the  doorway. 
The  natives  call  this  ruin  the  •«  Mosk  of  Seilun."  • 
At  the  distance  of  about  fifteen  minutes  from  the 
main  site,  is  a  fountain,  which  is  approached 
through  a  narrow  dale.  Its  water  is  abundant, 
and,  according  to  a  practice  very  common  in  the 
East,  flows. first  into  a  pool  or  well,  and  thence  into 
a  larger  reservoir,  from  which  flocks  and  herds  are 
watered.  This  fountain,  which  would  be  so  na 
tural  a  resort  for  a  festal  party,  may  have  been  the 
place  where  the  "daughters  of  Shiloh"  were  dan 
cing,  when  they  were  surprised  and  borne  oft'  by 
their  captors.  In  this  vicinity  are  rock-hewn  se 
pulchres,  in  which  the  bodies  of  some  of  the  unfor 
tunate  house  of  Eli  may  have  been  laid  to  rest. 
There  was  a  Jewish  tradition  (Asher's  Benj.  of 
Tud.  ii.  435)  that  Eli  and  his  sons  were  buried  here. 

It  is  certainly  true,  as  some  travellers  remark,  that 
the  scenery  of  Shiloh  is  not  specially  attractive  ;  it 
presents  no  feature  of  grandeur  or  beauty  adapted  to 
impress  the  mind,  and  awaken  thoughts  in  harmony 
with  the  memories  of  the  place.  At  the  same  time, 
it  deserves  to  be  mentioned  that,  for  the  objects  to 
which  Shiloh  was  devoted,  it  was  not  unwisely 
chosen.  It  was  secluded,  and  therefore  favourable 
to  acts  of  worship  and  religious  study,  in  which 


>  This  is  on  the  authority  of  Dr.  RooinsoD.  Dr.  Wilson 
understood  it  was  called  "  Mosk  of  the  Sisty"  (k'lttin; 
(.Lands  of  the  Bible,  ii.  294). 


SHILONI 

ihe  youth  of  scholars  aed  devotees,  like  Samuel, 
•aras  to  be  spent.  Yearly  festivals  were  celebrated 
there,  and  brought  together  assemblages  which 
would  need  the  supplies  of  water  and  pasturage  so 
easily  obtained  in  such  a  place.  Terraces  are  still 
visible  on  the  sides  of  the  rocky  hills,  which  show 
that  every  foot  and  inch  of  the  soil  once  teemed 
with  verdure  and  fertility.  The  ceremonies  of  such 
occasions  consisted  largely  of  processions  and  dances, 
and  the  place  afforded  ample  scope  for  such  move 
ments.  The  surrounding  hills  served  as  an  amphi 
theatre,  whence  the  spectators  could  look,  and  hare 
the  entire  scene  under  their  eyes.  The  position 
too,  in  times  of  sudden  danger,  admitted  of  an  easy 
defence,  as  it  was  a  hill  itself,  and  the  neighbour 
ing  hills  could  be  turned  into  bulwarks.  To 
its  other  advantages  we  should  add  that  of  its 
central  position  for  the  Hebrews  on  the  west  of 
the  Jordan.  An  air  of  oppressive  stillness  hangs 
now  over  all  the  scene,  and  adds  force  to  the  re 
flection  that  truly  the  "  oracles  "  so  long  consulted 
there  "  are  dumb ;"  they  had  fulfilled  their  pur 
pose,  and  given  place  to  "a  more  sure  word  of 
prophecy."  A  visit  to  Shiloh  requires  a  detour  of 
several  miles  from  the  ordinary  track,  and  it  has 
been  less  frequently  described  than  other  more  ac 
cessible  places.  (The  reader  may  consult  Relaud's 
Palaestina,  1016 ;  Bachiene's  Beschreibung,  ii. 
§582  ;  Raumer's  Palaest.  201 ;  Hitter's  Erdk.  xv. 
631  sq. ;  Robinson's  Bib.  Res.  ii.  269-276  ;  Wilson's 
Lands  of  the  Bible,  ii.  294  ;  Stanley,  8m.  and  Pal. 
p.  231-3;  Porter's  ffandb.  of  Syria,  ii.  328;  and 
Herzog's  Eeal-Encyk.  xiv.  369.)  [H.  B.  H.] 

SHILO'NI  0&B>n, ».  e.  "  the  Shilonite :"  rov 
ATjAwve  :  Silonites}.  This  word  occurs  in  the  A.  V. 
only  in  Neh.  xi.  5,  where  it  should  be  rendered — as 
it  is  in  other  cases — "  the  Shilonite,"  that  is,  the 
descendant  of  Shelah  the  youngest  son  of  Judah. 
The  passage  is  giving  an  account  (like  1  Chr.  ix. 
3-6)  of  the  families  of  Judah  who  lived  in  Jeru 
salem  at  the  date  to  which  it  refers,  and  (like  that) 
it  divides  them  into  the  great  houses  of  Pharez  and 
Shelah. 

The  change  of  Shelani  to  Shiloni  is  the  same 
which  seems  to  have  occurred  in  the  name  of 
Siloam — Shelach  in  Nehemiah,  and  Shiloach  in 
Isaiah.  [G.] 

SHI'LONITE,  THE  (»iWn :  in  Chron., 
VtiWrj  and  tflWn  :  6  3i}A«ycfop  ;  Alex.  STJ- 
XWJ/ITTJS  :  Silonites) ;  that  is,  the  native  or  resident 
of  Shiloh  : — a  title  ascribed  only  to  Ahijah,  the  pro 
phet  who  foretold  to  Jeroboam  the  disruption  of 
the  northern  and  southern  kingdoms  (1  K.  xi.  29, 
xii.  15,  xv.  29;  2  Chr.  ix.  29,  x.  15).  Its  con 
nexion  with  Shiloh  is  fixed  by  1  K.  xiv.  2,  4,  which 
shows  that  that  sacred  spot  was  still  the  residence 
of  the  prophet.  The  word  is  therefore  entirely 
distinct  from  thai  examined  in  the  following  article 
and  under  SIIILONI.  °  [G.l 

SHI'LONITES,  THE  ObWn  :  T&V  2rj- 
Xojj/ei :  Siloni)  are  mentioned  among  the  descendants 
of  Judah  dwelling  in  Jerusalem  at  a  date  difficult 
to  fix  (1  Chr.  ix.  5).  They  are  doubtless  the  mem 
bers  of  the  house  of  SHELAH,  who  in  the  Penta 
teuch  are  more  accurately  designated  SHELANITES. 
This  is  supported  by  the  reading  of  the  Tar  gum 
Joseph  on  the  passage — "  the  tribe  of  Shelah,"  and 
is  allowed  by  Gesenius.  The  word  occurs  again  in 
Nth.  ii.,  a  document  which  exhibits  a  certain  cor- 


SHIMEI  127« 

.espondence  with  1  Chr.  ix.  It  w  identical  in  tht 
original  except  a  slight  contraction,  but  in  the  A.  V 
it  is  given  as  SHILONI. 

SHIL'SHAH  (nyb&  :  2aA.«rcf  :  Alex.  2a- 
\enrd  :  Salusa").  Son  of  Zophah  of  the  trii-e  ot 
Asher  (1  Chr.  vii.  37). 

SHIM'EA  (KVE£>  :  lapad  :  Simmaa}.     1.  Son 

of  David  by  Bathsheba  (1  Chr.  iii.  5).  Called  also 
SHAMMUA.  and  SHAMMUAH. 

2.  (Alex.  Sa/ict.)   A  Merarite  Levite  (1  Chr.  vi. 
30  [15]). 

3.  (/S'amaa.)    A  Gershonite  Levite,  ancestor  of 
Asaph  the  minstrel  (I  Chr.  vi.  39  [24]). 

4.  (Alex.   Salads.)    The  brother  of  David  (I 
Chr.  xx.  7),  elsewhere  called  SHAMMAH,  SIIIMMA, 
and  SHIMEAH. 


SHIM'EAH  (>yEE>  ;    Keri, 

Alex.  Select  :  Samoa).  1.  Brother  of  David,  and 
father  of  Jonathan  and  Jonadab  (2  Sam.  xxi.  21): 
called  also  SHAMMAH,  SHIMEA,  and  SHIMMA.  In 
2  Sam.  xiii.  3,  32,  his  name  is  written 
(2a/uaa  ;  Alex.  2o/xa  in  ver.  32  :  Samma}. 

2.  (nKEK>:    Za/jiad;    Alex.  Sajieo  :    Sumaa). 

A   descendant  of  Jehiel  the  father  or  founder  of 
Gibeon  (1  Chr.  viii.  32). 

SHIM'EAM  (DKIDB?  :  2a^oc£  ;  Alex.  Sa/«i  . 
Scimaan).  A  descendant  of  Jehiel,  the  founder  01 
prince  of  Gibeon  (1  Chr.  ix.  38).  Called  SHIMEAH 
in  1  Chr.  viii.  32. 

SHIM'EATH  (ny£E>:  'Ie/xou<*0,  Saporfff; 
Alex.  Sctjtiafl  in  Chr.  :  Semaath,  SemmaatK).  An 
Ammonitess,  mother  of  Jozachar,  or  Zabad,  one  of 
the  murderers  of  King  Joash  (2  K.  xii.  21  [22]  ; 
2  Chr.  xxiv.  26). 

SHIM'EI  WKX?:  2€/*ef  :  Semei).  1.  Son  of 
Gershom  the  son  of  Lejri  (Num.  iii.  18  ;  1  Chr. 
vi.  17,  29,  xxiii.  7,  9,  10;  Zech.  xii.  13);  called 
SHIMI  in  Ex.  vi.  17.  In  1  Chr.  vi.  29,  according 
to  the  present  text,  he  is  called  the  son  of  Libni,  and 
both  are  reckoned  as  sons  of  Merari,  but  there  is 
reason  to  suppose  that  there  is  something  omitted  in 
this  verse.  [See  LIBNI  2  •  MAHLI  l.j  [W.  A.  W.j 

2.  (Alex.  2e/i€e£.)  Snimei  the  son  of  Gera,  a 
Benjamite  of  the  house  of  Saul,  who  lived  at 
Bahurim.  His  residence  there  agrees  with  the 
other  notices  of  the  place,  as  if  a  marked  spot  on 
the  way  to  and  from  the  Jordan  Valley  to  Jeru 
salem,  and  just  within  the  border  of  Benjamin 
[BAHURIM.]  He  may  have  received  the  unfortu 
nate  Phaltiel  after  his  separation  from  Michal 
(2  Sam.  iii.  16). 

When  David  and  his  suite  were  seen  descending 
the  long  defile,  on  his  flight  from  Absalom  (2  Sam. 
xvi.  5-13),  the  whole  feeling  of  the  clan  of  Benjamin 
burst  forth  without  restraint  in  the  person  of  Shimei. 
His  house  apparently  was  separated  from  the  road 
by  a  deep  valley,  yet  not  so  far  as  that  anything 
that  he  did  or  said  could  not  be  distinctly  heard.  He 
ran  along  the  ridge,  cursing,  throwing  stones  at  the 
King  and  his  companions,  and  when  he  came  to  & 
patch  of  dust  on  the  dry  hill-  side,  taking  it  up,  and 
throwing  it  over  them.  Abishai  was  so  irritated, 
that,  but  for  David's  remonstrance,  he  would  have 
darted  across  the  ravine  (2  Sam.  xvi.  9)  and  torn 
or  cut  off  lib  head.  The  whole  cenveisation  is 
remarkable,  at;  showing  what  may  almost  D«  called 


1280 


SHIMEI 


Lhc  slang  terms  of  abuse  prevalent  in  the  two  rival 
courts.  The  cant  name  for  David  in  Shimei's  mouth 
IB"  the  man  of  blood,"  twice  emphatically  repeated : 
"  Come  out,  come  out,  thou  man  of  blood  " — "  A  man 
of  blood  art  thou  "  (2  Sam.  xvi.  7,  8).  It  seems  to 
nave  been  derived  from  the  slaughter  of  the  sons  of 
Saul  (2  Sam.  xxi.),  or  generally  perhaps  from  Da 
vid's  predatory,  warlike  life  (comp.  1  Chr.  xxii.  8). 
The  cant  nanie  for  a  Benjamite  in  Abishai's  mouth 
was  "  a  dead  dog  "  (2  Sam.  xvi.  9  ;  compare  Abner's 
expression,  '*  Am  I  a  dog's  head,"  2  Sam.  iii.  8). 
"  Man  of  Belial "  also  appears  to  have  been  a  fa 
vourite  term  on  both  sides  (2  Sam.  xvi.  7,  xx.  1). 
The  royal  party  passed  on  ;  Shimei  following  them 
with  his  stones  and  curses  as  long  as  they  were  in 
sight. 

The  next  meeting  was  very  different.  The  king 
was  now  returning  from  his  successful  campaign. 
Just  as  he  was  crossing  the  Jordan,  in  the  ferry 
boat  or  on  the  bridge  (2  Sam.  xix.  18  ;  LXX.  5m- 
ftaivovros',  Jos.  Ant.  vii.  2,  §4,  firl  T}\V  yzfyvpav], 
the  first  person  to  welcome  him  on  the  western, 
or  perhaps  even  on  the  eastern  side,  was  Shimei, 
who  may  have  seen  him  approaching  from  the 
heights  above.  He  threw  himself  at  David's  feet  in 
abject  penitence.  "  He  was  the  first,"  he  said,  "  of 
all  the  house  of  Joseph"  thus  indicating  the  close 
political  alliance  between  Benjamin  and  Ephraim. 
Another  altercation  ensued  between  David  and 
Abishai,  which  ended  in  David's  guaranteeing 
Shimei's  life  with  an  oath  (2  Sam.  xix.  18-23),  in 
consideration  of  the  general  jubilee  and  amnesty 
of  the  return. 

But  the  king's  suspicions  were  not  set  to  rest  by 
this  submission ;  and  on  his  deathbed  he  recalls  the 
whole  scene  to  the  recollection  of  his  son  Solomon. 
Shimei's  head  was  now  white  with  age  (I  K.  ii.  9), 
and  he  was  living  in  the  favour  of  the  court  at 
Jerusalem  (ib.  8).  Solomon  gave  him  notice 
that  from  henceforth  he  must  consider  himself  con 
fined  to  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  on  pain  of  death. 
The  Kidron,  which  divided  him  from  the  road  to 
his  old  residence  at  Bahurim,  was  not  to  be  crossed. 
He  was  to  build  a  house  in  Jerusalem  (1  K.  ii.  36, 37). 
For  three  years  the  engagement  was  kept.  At  the 
end  of  that  time,  for  the  purpose  of  capturing  two 
slaves  who  had  escaped  to  Gath,  he  went  out  on  his 
ass,  and  made  his  journey  successfully  (ib.  ii.  40). 
On  his  return,  the  king  took  him  at  his  word,  and 
he  was  slain  by  Benaiah  (ib.  ii.  41-46).  In  the 
sacred  historian,  and  still  more  in  Josephus  {Ant. 
viii.  1,  §5),  great  stress  is  laid  on  Shimei's  having 
broken  his  oath  to  remain  at  home ;  so  that  his  death 
is  regarded  as  a  judgment,  not  only  for  his  previous 
treason,  but  for  his  recent  sacrilege.  [A.  P.  S.] 

3.  One  of  the  adherents  of  Solomon  at  the  time 
of  Adonijah's  usurpation  (1  K.  i.  8).     Unless  he  is 
the  same  as  Shimei  the  son  of  Elah  (1  K.  iv.  18), 
Solomon's  commissariat  officer,  or  with  Shimeah, 
or  Shammah,   David's  brother,  as  Ewald  (Gesch. 
iii.  266)  suggests,  it  is  impossible  to  identify  him. 
From  the  mention  which  is  made  of  "  the  mighty 
men  "  in  the  same  verse,  one  might  be  tempted  to 
conclude  that  Shimei  is  the  same  with  Shammah 
the  Hararite  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  11);  for  the  difference 
,n  the  Hebrew  names  of  Shimei  and  Shammah  is 
not  greater  than  that  between  those  of  Shimeah  and 
Shammah,  which  are  both  applied  to  David's  brother 

4.  Solomon's  commissariat  officer  in  Benjamin 
fl  K.  iv.  18)  ;  son  of  Elah. 

5.  Son  of  Pedaiah,  and  brother  of  Zerubbabel 
(1  Chr.  iii.  19V 


SHIMRATH 

6.  A  Simeonite,  sou  of  Zacchin   vi  Chr.  iv.  26 
27).    He  had  sixteen  sons  and  six  daughters.     Per. 
haps  the  same  as  SHEMAIAH  3. 

7.  (Alex.  "SefJLfiv.}    Son  of  Jog,  a  Rcubtnite    1 
Chr.  v.  4).     Perhaps  the  same  as  SHEMA  1. 

8.  A  Gershonite  Levite,  son  of  Jahath  (1  Chr. 
vi.  42). 

9.  (Se/xefo;  Akr.  Se/iei':  Semeias.}    Son  of  Je- 
duthun,    and  chief  of  the  tenth   division  of  the 
singers  (1  Chr.  xxv.  17).  His  name  is  omitted  from 
the  list  of  the  sons  of  Jeduthun  in  ver.  3,  but  is 
evidently  wanted  there. 

10.  (Se^ef  :  Semeias.}  The  Ramathite  who  was 
over  David's  vineyards  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  27).     In  the 
Vat.  MS.  of  the  LXX.  he  is  described  as  6  e/c  'Pa^A. 

11.  (Alex.  Sa^et'as  :  Semei.}    A  Levite  of  the 
sons  of  Heman,  who  took  part  in  the  purification 
of  the  Temple  under  Hezekiah  (2  Chr.  xxix.  14). 

12.  The  brother  of  Cononiah  the  Levite  in  the 
reign  of  Hezekiah,  who  had  charge  of  the  offerings, 
the  tithes,  and  the  dedicated  things  (2  Chr.  xxxi. 
12,  13).     Perhaps  the  same  as  the  preceding. 

13.  (Sa^uou  ;  FA.  Sa^iouS.)    A  Levite  in  the 
time  of  Ezra  who  had  married  a  foreign  wife  (Ezr. 
x.  23).     Called  also  SEMIS. 

14.  (2e/*ef  ;  FA.  2e/iee/.)    One  of  the  family  of 
Hashum,  who  put  away  his  foreign  wife  at  Ezra's 
command  (Ezr.  x.  33).     Called  SEMEI  in  1  Esdr. 
ix.  33. 

15.  A  son  of  Bani,  who  had  also  married  a 
foreign  wife  and  put  her  away  (Ezr.  x.  38).  Called 
SAMIS  in  1  Esdr.  ix.  34. 

16.  (Se^cias;  Alex.  Sa/ueems.)     Son  of  Kish 
a    Benjamite,   and   ancestor    of   Mordecai    (Esth. 
ii.  5).  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHIM'EON  (fWDK*  :  Se/ie^j/:  Sim&m).  A 
layman  of  Israel,  of  the  family  of  Harim,  who  had 
married  a  foreign  wife  and  divorced  her  in  the  time 
of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  31).  The  name  is  the  same  as 
SIMEON. 


SHIM'HI  (\JMDG? :  2a/iof0 ;  Alex. 
Semei).  A  Benjamite,  apparently  the  same  as 
SHEMA  the  son  of  Elpaal  (1  Chr.  viii.  21).  The 
name  is  the  same  as  SHIMEI. 

8HIM1(^pe>:   2e,uet:   Semei  =  SHIMEI  1, 
Ex.  vi.  17). 

SHIM'ITES,  THE  (^D^H :  6  Se/xef:  Se- 

meitica,  sc.  famiKa).  The  descendants  of  Shimei 
the  son  of  Gershom  (Num.  iii.  21).  They  are  again 
mentioned  in  Zech.  xii.  13,  where  the  LXX.  have 


SHIM'MA  (KJtt       :    2a^o(£;    Alex.  2a/xa(a  . 

Simmaa}.  The  third  son  of  Jesse,  and  brother  of 
David  (1  Chr.  ii.  13).  He  is  called  also  SHAM 
MAH,  SHIMEA,  and  SHIMEAH.  Josephus  calls  him 
2a/ioAos  (Ant.  vi.  8,  §1),  and  2ojtta  (Ant.  vii. 
12,  §2). 

SHI'MON  (|"WB>  :  2e,uc£j>  ;  Alex.  ^e^iuv  : 
Simon}.  The  four  sons  of  Shimon  are  enumerated 
in  an  obscure  genealogy  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  (1 
Chr.  iv.  20).  There  is  no  trace  of  the  name  else 
where  in  the  Hebrew,  but  in  the  Alex.  MS.  of  the 
LXX.  there  is  mention  made  of  "  Someion  the 
father  of  Joman"  in  1  Chr.  iv.  19,  which  was  pos 
sibly  the  same  as  Shimon. 

SHIM'KATH  (rnOB*  :  3an*pdO:  Samarath\ 
A  Berijamite,  c-f  ;he  sons  of  Shimhi  (1  Cbr.  viii.  21). 


SH1MB1 


SHINAB 


1281 


SHIM'RI 


2eWf:    Alex. 


Semri\     1.  A  Simeonite,  son  of  Shemaiah  (1  Chr. 
iv.  37,. 

2.  (Zafjifpi;  Alex.  2a/utpf  :  Samri.)   The  father 
of  Jediael,  one  of  David's  guard  (1  Chr.  xi.  45). 

3.  (Zafiftpt;  Alex.  2a/*]Bpf.)  A  Kohathite  Levite 
in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  of  the  sons  of  Elizaphan 
('2  Chr.  xxix.  13).     He  assisted  in  the  purification 
of  the  Temple. 

SHIM'KITH  (nn»B>:  2a/ui^0:  Alex.  2a- 
Hapi9:  Semaritfi).  A'Moabitess,  mother  of  Je- 
hozabad,  one  of  the  assassins  of  King  Joash  (2  Chr. 
xxiv.  26).  In  2  K.  xii.  21,  she  is  called  SHOMEK. 
The  Peshito-Syriac  gives  Neturuth,  which  appears 
to  be  a  kind  of  attempt  to  translate  the  name. 

SHIM'ROM  (j'VlpG?  :  Se^epcSi/  ;  Alex.Sa^pa^  : 
Simeron).  SHIM  RON  the  son  of  Issachar  (1  Chr. 
rii.  1).  The  name  is  correctly  given  "Shimron" 
in  the  A.  V.  of  1611. 

SHIM'KON  (|YliOB>  :  ^v^odiv  ;  Alex,  ^o^puv, 
3€/j.pcav:  Semeron,  Semron}.  A  city  of  Zebulun 
(Josh.  xix.  15).  It  is  previously  named  in  the  list 
of  the  places  whose  kings  were  called  by  Jabin,  king 
of  Hazor,  to  his  assistance  against  Joshua  (xi.  1). 
Its  full  appellation  was  perhaps  SHIMRON-MERON. 
Schwarz  (172)  proposes  to  identify  it  with  the 
Simonias  of  Josephus  (  Vita,  §24),  now  Simuniyeh, 
a  village  a  few  miles  W.  of  Nazareth,  which  is 
mentioned  in  the  well  known  list  of  the  Talmud 
(Jerus.  Megillah,  cap.  1)  as  the  ancient  Shimron. 
This  has  in  its  favour  its  proximity  to  Bethlehem 
(comp.  xix.  15).  The  Vat.  LXX.,  like  the  Talmud, 
omits  the  r  in  the  name.  [G.] 

SHIM'RON  (p»B>:  in  Gen.  ZapjSpdE/i  ;  in 
Num.  ~2a/j.apd/j.  ;  Alex.  Apfipav  :  Simron,  Semron}. 
The  fourth  son  of  Issachar  according  to  the  lists  of 
Genesis  (xlvi.  13)  and  Numbers  (xxvi.  24),  and  the 
head  of  the  family  of  the  SHIMRONITES.  In  the 
catalogues  of  Chronicles  his  name  is  given  as 
SHIMROM.  [G.] 

SHIM'EONITES,  THE  (tflp^n  :  6  Sa^a-* 
pai/ei  ;  Alex,  o  AjUjSpaju:  Semronitae],  The  family 
of  SHIMRON,  son  of  Issachar  (Num.  xxvi.  24). 

SHIM'EON-ME'EON  (|i&O!D  |Vl»B>  ;  the 
Keri  omits  the  X  :  SuyuoW  .  .  .  Ma/zpc£0  ;  Alex. 
"2,a.fjLpwv  .  .  *$a<rya  .  .  Mapwv:  Simeron  Marori). 
The  king  of  Shimron-meron  is  mentioned  as  one  of 
the  thirty-one  kings  vanquished  by  Joshua  (Josh. 
rii.  20).  It  is  probably  (though  not  certainly)  the 
complete  name  of  the  place  elsewhere  called  SHIM- 
RON.  Both  are  mentioned  in  proximity  to  Achshaph 
(xi.  1,  xii.  20).  It  will  be  observed  that  the  LXX. 
treat  the  two  words  as  belonging  to  two  distinct 
places,  and  it  is  certainly  worth  notice  that  Madon 
—  in  Hebrew  so  easily  substituted  for  Meron,  and 
in  fact  so  read  by  the  LXX.,  Pesbito,  and  Arabic  — 
occurs  next  to  Shimron  in  Josh.  xi.  1. 

There  are  two  claimants  to  identity  with  Shim 
ron-meron.  The  old  Jewish  traveller  hap-Parchi 
fixes  it  at  two  hours  east  of  Engannim  (Jeniri], 
south  of  the  mountains  of  Gilboa,  at  a  village  called 
in  his  day  Dar  Meron  (Asher's  Benjamin,  ii.  434). 
No  modern  *  .oiler  appears  to  have  explored  that 
district,  and  is  consequently  a  blank  on  the  maps. 
The  other  is  tj.  -;llage  of  Simuniyeh,  west  of  Naza- 

a  This  addition,  especially  in  the  Alex.  MS.-nsually 
so  close  to  the  Hebrew—  is  remarkable.    There  is  nothing 
in  the  origin&l  text  to  suggest  it. 
VOL.  III. 


reth,  which  the  Talmud  asserts  to  be  tl.e  uune  with 
Shimron.  [G."j 

SHIMSHA'I  (WW?  :  Sa/^rf  ;  Alex,  2a««raf  : 
Samsaf).  The  scribe  or  secretary  of  Rehum,  who 
was  a  kind  of  satrap  of  the  conquered  province  ot 
Judea,  and  of  the  colony  at  Samaria,  supported  by 
the  Persian  court  (Ezr.  iv.  8,  9,  17,  23).  He  was 
apparently  an  Aramean,  for  the  letter  which  he 
wrote  to  Artaxerxes  was  in  Syriac  (Ezr.  iv.  7),  and 
the  form  of  his  name  is  in  favour  of  this  sup/position. 
In  1  Esdr.  ii.he  is  called  SEMELLIUS,  and  by  Jose 
phus  2efjL€\ios  (Ant.  xi.  2,  §1).  The  Samaritans 
were  jealous  of  the  return  of  the  Jews,  and  for  a 
long  time  plotted  against  them  without  effect.  They 
appear  ultimately,  however,  to  have  prejudiced  the 
royal  officers,  and  to  have  prevailed  upon  them  to 
address  to  the  king  a  letter  which  set  forth  the 
turbulent  character  of  the  Jews  and  the  dangerous 
character  of  their  undertaking,  the  effect  of  which 
was  that  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  ceased  for 
a  time. 


W:  Zewadp:  Sennaab}.  The 
king  of  Admah  in  the  time  of  Abraham  :  one  of  the 
five  kings  attacked  by  the  invading  army  of  Che- 
dorlaomer  (Gen.  xiv.  2).  Josephus  (Ant.  i.  9)  calls 
him  2e;'a/3ctp7]s. 

SHI'NAK  pitt^  :  2e»/aap,  2ewoap  :  Sennaar) 
seems  to  have  been  the  ancient  name  of  the  great 
alluvial  tract  through  which  the  Tigris  and  Eu 
phrates  pass  before  reaching  the  sea  —  the  tract 
known  in  later  times  as  Chaldaea  or  Babylonia.  It 
was  a  plain  country,  where  biick  had  to  be  used  for 
stone,  and  slime  (mud?)  for  mortar  (Gen.  xi.  3). 
Among  its  cities  were  Babel  (Babylon),  Erech  or 
Orech  (Orchoe),  Calneh  or  Calno  (probably  Niffer), 
and  Accad,  the  site  of  which  is  unknown.  These 
notices  are  quite  enough  to  fix  the  situation.  It 
may,  however,  be  remarked  further,  that  the  LXX. 
render  the  word  by  "  Babylonia"  (BajSvAwpfa)  in 
one  place  (Is.  xi.  1  1),  and  by  "  the  land  of  Babylon  " 
(77)  BojSuAwj/os)  in  another  (Zech.  v.  11). 

The  native  inscriptions  contain  no  trace  of  the 
term,  which  seems  to  be  purely  Jewish,  and  un 
known  to  any  other  people.  At  least  it  is  extremely 
doubtful  whether  there  is  really  any  connexion  be 
tween  ShinaY  and  Singara  or  Sinjar.  Singara  was 
the  name  of  a  town  in  Central  Mesopotamia,  well 
known  to  the  Romans  (Dion  Cass.  Ixviii.  22  ;  Amm. 
Marc,  xviii.  5,  &c.),  and  still  existing  (Layard, 
Nin.  and  Bab.  p.  249).  It  is  from  this  place  that 
the  mountains  which  run  across  Mesopotamia  from 
Mosul  to  Rakkeh  receive  their  title  of  "  the  Sinjar 
range"  (Siyyapas  opos,  Ptol.  v.  18).  As  this  name 
first  appears  in  central  Mesopotamia,  to  which  the 
term  Shinar  is  never  applied,  about  the  time  of  the 
Antonines,  it  is  very  unlikely  that  it  can  represent 
the  old  Shinar,  which  ceased  practically  to  be  a 
geographic  title  soon  after  the  time  of  Moses.** 

It  may  be  suspected  that  Shinar  was  the  name 
by  which  the  Hebrews  originally  knew  tfie  lower 
Mesopotamian  country,  where  they  so  long  dwelt, 
and  which  Abraham  brought  with  him  from  "  Ur  of 
the  Chaldees  "  (Mugheir).  Possibly  it  means  "  the 
country  of  the  Two  Rivers,"  being  derived  from 
iy&,  "  two  "  and  'ar,  which  was  used  in  Baby 
lonia,  as  well  as  nahr  or  nahar  ("IHi),  for  "  a  river." 


b  In  Isaiah  and  Zechariah,  Shinar,  once  USttX  by  each 
writer,  is  an  archaism. 

4  N 


1282 


SHIP 


SHIP 


(Compare  the  "Ar-malchar"  of  Pliny,  H.  #  vi.  2G.  I  token  on  to  Puteoli  m  another  ship  (xxviii.  11) 
and  "  Ar-macales "  of  Abydenus,  Fr.  9,  with  th*  which  had  its  own  crew  and  its  own  caro-o :  nor 
Naar-malcha  of  Ammianus,  xxiv.  6,  called  Nap-  *s  there  a  trace  of  any  difficulty  in  the  "matter, 
_  Isidore,  p.  5,  which  is  translated  as  «« thw  though  the  emergency  was  unexpected.  Now 
Koyal .River;  "and  compare  again  the  «  Narragam  "  in  English  transport-ships,  prepared  for  carrying 
of  Pliny,  H.  N.  vi.  30,  with  the  "  Aracanus  "  of  troops,  it  is  a  common  estimate  to  allow  a  ton  and 
Abydenus,  /.  s.  c.)  [G.  K.j  a  half  per  man :  thus  we  see  that  it  would  be  a 

SHIP.  No  one  writer  in  the  whole  range  of  mistake  to  suppose  that  these  Alexandrian  corn-ships 
Greek  and  Roman  literature  has  supplied  us  (it  may  were  Vei7  much  smaller  than  modern  trading  vessels, 
be  doubted  whether  all  put  together  have  supplied  What  is  here  stated  is  quite  in  harmony  with  other 
us)  with  so  much  information  concerning  the  mer-  instances.  The  ship  in  which  Josephus  was  wrecked 
chant-ships  of  the  ancients  as  St.  Luke  in  the  nar-  (  Vit-  c-  3)»  ^  the  same  part  of  the  Levant,  had 
rative  of  St.  Paul's  voyage  to  Rome  (Acts  xxvii.  600  souls  on  board.  The  Alexandrian  corn-ship 

described  by  Lucian  (Navig.  s.  void)  as  driven 
into  the  Piraeus  by  stress  of  weather,  and  as  ex 
citing  general  attention  from  its  great  size,  would 
appear  (from  a  consideration  of  the  measurements, 
which  are  explicitly  given)  to  have  measured  1 100 
or  1200  tons.  As  to  the  ship  of  Ptolemy  Phila- 

0.  T.  and  the  Apocrypha.  As  regards  the  earlier  I  delphus,  described  by  Athenaeus  (v.  204),  this  must 
Scriptures,  the  Septuagintal  thread  will  be  fol-  nave  been  much  larger ;  but  it  would  be  no  more 
lowed.  This  will  be  the  easiest  way  to  secure  the  ^a'r  to  take  that  as  a  standard  than  to  take  the 
mutual  illustration  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  "  Great  Eastern  "  as  a  type  of  a  modern  steamer, 
m  regard  to  this  subject.  The  merchant-ships  of  On  the  whole,  if  we  say  that  an  ancient  merchant- 
various  dates  in  the  Levant  did  not  differ  in  any  sm'P  might  range  from  500  to  1000  tons,  we  are 
essential  principle ;  and  the  Greek  of  Alexandria  |  clearly  within  the  mark. 

(2.)  Steering  Apparatus. — Some  commentators 
have  fallen  into  strange  perplexities  from  observing 
that  in  Acts  xxvii.  40  (TUS  favKTypias  T&V  7r?j5a- 
\icov  "  the  fastenings  of  the  rudders  ")  St.  Luke  uses 
Trr]dd\tov  in  the  plural.  One  even  suggests  that  the 


xxviii.).  In  illustrating  the  Biblical  side  of  this 
question,  it  will  be  best  to  arrange  in  order  the 
various  particulars  which  we  learn  from  this  nar 
rative,  and  to  use  them  as  a  basis  for  elucidating 
whatever  else  occurs,  in  reference  to  the  subject,  in 
the  Gospels  and  other  parts  of  the  N.  T.,  in  the 


contains  the  nautical  phraseology  which  supplies 
our  best  linguistic  information.  Two  preliminary 
remarks  may  be  made  at  the  outset. 

As  regards  St.  Paul's  voyage,  it  is  important  to 
remember  that  he  accomplished  it  in  three  ships : 
first  the  Adramyttian  vessel  [ADRAMYTTIUM] 
which  took  him  from  CAESAREA  to  MYRA,  and 
which  was  probably  a  coasting  vessel  of  no  great 
size  (xxvii.  1-6) ;  secondly,  the  large  Alexandrian 
corn-ship,  in  which  he  was  wrecked  on  the  coast  of 
Malta  (xxvii.  6-xxviii.  1)  [MELITA];  and  thirdly, 
another  large  Alexandrian  corn-ship,  in  which  he 


ship  had  om  rudder  fastened  at  the  bow  and  another 
fastened  at  the  stern.     We  may  say  of  him,  as  a 
modern  writer  says  in  reference  to  a  similar  comment 
on  a  passage  of  Cicero,  "  It  is  hardly  possible  that 
can  have  seen  a  ship."     The  sacred  writer's  use 
TnjSaAto  is  just  like  Pliny's  use  of  gubernacula 
7.  H.  xi.  37,  88),  or  Lucretius's  of  guberna  (iv. 

sailed  from  Malta  by  SYRACUSE  and  RHEGIUM  to  I  440).  Ancient  ships  were  in  truth  not  steered  at  all 
PUTEOLI  (zxviii.  1 1-13).  by  rudders  fastened  or  hinged  to  the  stern,  but  by 

Again,  the  word  employed  by  St.  Luke,  of  each  means  of  two  paddle-rudders,  one  on  each  quarter, 
of  these  ships,  is,  with  one  single  exception,  when  acting  in  a  rowlock  or  through  a  port-hole,  as  the 
he  uses  vavs  (xxvii.  41),  the  generic  term  irKoiov  vessel  might  be  small  or  large.*  This  fact  is  made 
(xxvii.  2,  6,  10,  15,  22,  30,  37,38,  39,44,  xxviii.  familiar  to  us  in  classical  works  of  art,  as  on  coins,  and 
11 ).  The  same  general  usage  prevails  throughout,  the  sculptures  of  Trajan's  Column.  The  same  thing 
Elsewhere  in  the  Acts  (xx.  13,  38,  xxi.  2,  3,  6)  we  is  true,  not  only  of  the  Mediterranean,  but  of  the 


have  irXoiov.  So  in  St.  James  (iii.  4)  and  in  the 
Revelations  (viii.  9,  xviii.  17,  19).  In  the  Gospels 
we  have  irXotov  (passiiri)  or  ir\oidpiov  (Mark  iv. 
36 ;  John  xxi.  8).  In  the  LXX.  we  find  ir^olov 
used  twenty-eight  times,  and  vavs  nine  times.  Both 
words  generally  correspond  to  the  Hebrew  ^3&$  or 
n*3tf .  In  Jon.  i.  5,  ir\diov  is  used  to  represent 
the  Heb.  H^QD  sephindh,  which,  from  its  etymo 
logy,  appears  to  mean  a  vessel  covered  with  a 
deck  or  with  hatches,  in  opposition  to  an  open 
boat.  The  senses  in  which  critaQos  (2  Mace.  xii. 
3,  6)  and  ffK&tyii  (Acts  xxvii.  16,  32)  are  employed 
we  shall  notice  as  we  proceed.  The  use  of  rpi-fip^s 
is  limited  to  a  single  passage  in  the  Apocrypha 
(2  Mace.  iv.  20). 

(1.)  Size  of  Ancient  Ships. — The  narrative 
which  we  take  as  our  chief  guide  affords  a  good 
standard  for  estimating  this.  The  ship  in  which 
St.  Paul  was  wrecked  had  276  persons  on  board  (Acts 
xzvii.  37),  besides  a  cargo  (Qopriov}  of  wheat  (ib. 
10,  38) ;  and  all  these  passengers  seem  to  have  been 


early  ships  of  the  Northmen,  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
Bayeux  tapestry.  Traces  of  the  "  two  rudders " 
are  found  in  the  time  of  Louis  IX.  The  hinged 
rudder  first  appears  on  the  coins  of  our  King  Ed 
ward  III.  There  is  nothing  out  of  harmony  with 
this  early  system  of  steering  in  Jam.  iii.  4,  where 
injbti\iov  occui-s  in  the  singular ;  for  "  the  go 
vernor"  or  steersman  (6  evdvvwv)  would  only  use 
one  paddle-rudder  at  a  time.  In  a  case  like  that 
described  in  Acts  xxvii.  40,  where  four  anchors 
were  let  go  at  the  stern,  it  would  of  .course  be  ne 
cessary  to  lash  or  trice  up  both  paddles,  lest  they 
should  interfere  with  the  ground  tackle.  When  it 
became  necessary  to  steer  the  ship  again,  and  the 
anchor-ropes  were  cut,  the  lashings  of  the  paddles 
would  of  course  be  unfastened. 

(3.)  Build  and  Ornaments  of  the  Hull. — It  is 
probable,  from  what  has  been  said  about  the  mode 
of  steering  (and  indeed  it  is  nearly  evident  from 
ancient  works  of  art),  that  there  was  no  very 
marked  difference  bet-ween  the  bow  (irodoa,  "  fore- 
ship,"  ver.  30,  "  fore  part,"  ver.  41)  and  the  stem 


fc  Dr.  Wordsworth  gives  a  very  interesting  illustration 
from  HippclytuB,  bishop  of  Portns  (de  Anticlir.  9),  where, 
in  a  detailed  allegorical  comparison  of  the  Church  to  a 


ship,  he  says  "  her  two  rudders  are  the  two  Testament*, 
by  which  she  steers  her  course." 


SHIP 

(ifpi/iiyei,  "hinder  part,"  ver. 41 ;  see  Mark  iv.  38). 
The  "  hold  "  (jcoi'Xr;,  "  the  sides  of  the  ship,"  Jonah 
i.  5)  would  present  no  special  peculiarities.  One 
characteristic  ornament  (the  ^vtffKos,  or  aplustre\ 
rising  in  a  lofty  curve  at  the  stern  or  the  bow,  is 
familiar  to  us  in  works  of  art,  but  no  allusion  to  it 
occurs  in  Scripture.  Of  two  other  customary  orna 
ments,  however,  one  is  probably  implied,  and  the 
second  is  distinctly  mentioned  in  the  account  of  St. 
Paul's  voyage.  That  personification  of  ships,  which 
seems  to  be  instinctive,  led  the  ancients  to  paint  an 
eye  on  each  side  of  the  bow.  Such  is  the  custom 
still  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  indeed  our  own  sailors 
speak  of  "  the  eyes"  of  a  ship.  This  gives  vivid 
ness  to  the  word  dj/T0^0aA/Ae?j/,  which  is  used 
(Acts  xxvii.  15)  where  it  is  said  that  the  vessel 
could  not  "  bear  up  into"  (literally  "  look  at") 
the  wind.  This  was  the  vessel  in  which  St.  Paul 
was  wrecked.  An  ornament  of  that  which  took  him 
on  from  Malta  to  Pozzuoli  is  more  explicitly  re 
ferred  to.  The  "  sign  "  of  that  ship  (Trccpotnjjuoj', 
Acts  xxviii.  11)  was  CASTOR  AND  POLLUX;  and 
the  symbols  of  these  heroes  (probably  in  the  form 
represented  in  the  coin  engraved  under  that  article) 
were  doubtless  painted  or  sculptured  on  each  side  of 
the  bow,  as  was  the  case  with  the  goddess  Isis  on 
Lucian's  ship  (TJ  irp&pa  T^V  ^Tr<avv/J.ov  rrjs  ve&s 
6ebv  exovffa  rfyv^lffiv  eKarepwOfv,  Navig.  c.  5). 

(4.)  Undergirders.  —  The  imperfection  of  tha 
build,  and  still  more  (see  below,  6)  the  peculiarity  of 
the  rig,  in  ancient  ships,  resulted  in  a  greater  ten 
dency  than  in  our  times  to  the  starting  of  the  planks, 
and  consequently  to  leaking  and  foundering.  We 
see  this  taking  place  alike  in  the  voyages  of  Jonah, 
St.  Paul,  and  Josephus ;  and  the  loss  of  the  fleet 
of  Aeneas  in  Virgil  ("  laxis  laterum  compagibus 
ornnes,"  Aen.  i.  122)  may  be  adduced  in  illustra 
tion.  Hence  it  was  customary  to  take  on  board 
peculiar  contrivances,  suitably  called  "  helps " 
(jSoTjfleicus,  Acts  xxvii.  17),  as  precautions  against 
such  dangers.  These  were  simply  cables  or  chains, 
which  in  case  of  necessity  could"  be  passed  round 
the  frame  of  the  ship,  at  right  angles  to  its  length, 
and  made  tight.  The  process  is  in  the  English 
navy  called  frapping,  and  many  instances  could  be 
given  where  it  has  been  found  necessary  in  modern 
experience.  Ptolemy's  great  ship,  in  Athenaeus  (I.  c.), 
carried  twelve  of  these  undergirders  (VTTO^/UOTO). 
Various  allusions  to  the  practice  are  to  be  found  in 
the  ordinary  classical  writers.  See,  for  instance, 
Thucyd.  i.  29 ;  Plat.  Rep.  x.  3,  616 ;  Hor.  Od.  i. 
14,  6.  But  it  is  most  to  our  purpose  to  refer  to 
the  inscriptions,  containing  a  complete  inventory  of 
the  Athenian  navy,  as  published  by  Boeckh  ( Ur- 
kunden  ubcr  das  Scevcesen  des  Attischen  Staates, 
Berl.  1840).  The  editor,  however,  is  quite  mis 
taken  in  supposing  (pp.  133-138)  that  these  under 
girders  were  passed  round  the  body  of  the  ship  from 
stem  to  stern. 

(5.)  Anchors. — It  is  probable  that  the  ground 
tackle  of  Greek  and  Roman  sailors  was  quite  as 
good  as  our  own.  (On  the  taking  of  soundings, 
see  below,  12.)  Ancient  anchors  were  similar  in 
form  (as  may  be  seen  on  coins)  to  those  which  we 
use  now,  except  that  they  were  without  flukes. 
Two  allusions  to  anchoring  are  found  in  the  N.  T., 
one  in  a  very  impressive  metaphor  concerning 
Christian  hope  (Heb.  vi.  19).  A  saying  of 
Socrates,  quoted  here  by  Kypke  (OVTC  vavv  e| 
erbj  ayxvpiov  oure  ftiov  e/c  /J.LO.S  e'A.7ri8os  6p/jLi- 
traffQai),  may  serve  to  carry  our  thoughts  to  the 
other  passage,  which  is  part  of  the  literal  narrative 


SHIP 


1283 


of  St.  Paul's  voyage  at  its  most  critical  point.  Tht 
ship  in  which  he  was  sailing  had  four  anchois  on 
board,  and  these  were  all  employed  m  the  night, 
when  the  danger  of  falling  on  breakers  was  immi 
nent.  The  sailors  on  this  occasion  anchored  by 
the  stern  (e/c  Trpv/j.vt)s  ptyavrts  ayicvpas  reV- 
arapas,  Acts  xxvii.  29).  In  this  there  is  nothing 
remarkable,  if  there  has  been  time  for  due  prepara 
tion.  Our  own  ships  of  war  anchored  by  the  stern 
at  Copenhagen  and  Algiers.  It  is  clear,  too,  that 
this  was  the  right  course  for  the  sailors  with  whom 
St.  Paul  was  concerned,  for  their  plan  was  to  run 
the  ship  aground  at  daybreak.  The  only  motives 
for  surprise  are  that  they  should  have  been  able  so 
to  anchor  without  preparation  in  a  gale  of  wind, 
and  that  the  anchors  should  have  held  on  such  a 
night.  The  answer  to  the  first  question  thus  sug 
gested  is  that  ancient  ships,  like  their  modern  suc 
cessors,  the  small  craft  among  the  Greek  islands, 
were  in  the  habit  of  anchoring  by  the  stern,  and 
therefore  prepared  for  doing  so.  We  have  a  proof 
of  this  in  one  of  the  paintings  of  Herculaneum, 
which  illustrates  another  point  already  mentioned, 
viz.  the  necessity  of  tricing  up  the  moveable  rud 
ders  in  case  of  anchoring  by  the  stern  (see  ver.  40). 
The  other  question,  which  we  have  supposed  to 
arise,  relates  rather  to  the  holding-ground  than 
to  the  mode  of  anchoring;  and  it  is  very  inte 
resting  here  to  quote  what  an  English  sailing  book 
says  of  St.  Paul's  Bay  in  Malta : — "  While  the 
cables  hold,  there  is  no  danger,  as  the  anchors  will 
never  start"  (Purdy*s  Sailing  Directions,  p.  180). 
(6.)  Masts, Sails, Hopes,  and  Yards.—  These  were 
collectively  called  (r/cevTj  or  tr/ffin?,  or  gear  (rii  Sc 
<ri5jti7raj/TO  ovceu^  KaAeTrai,  Jul.  Poll.).  We  find 
this  word  twice  used  for  parts  of  the  rigging  in  the 
narrative  of  the  Acts  (xxvii.  17, 19).  The  rig  of  an 
ancient  ship  was  more  simple  and  clumsy  than  that 
employed  in  modem  times.  Its  great  feature  was 
one  large  mast,  with  one  large  square  sail  fastened 
to  a  yard  of  great  length.  Such  was  the  rig  also  of 
the  ships  of  the  Northman  «vt  a  later  period.  Hence 


Ancient  ship.    From  a  painting  at  Pompeii. 

the  strain  upon  the  hull,  and  the  danger  of  starting 
the  planks,  were  greater  than  under  the  present 
system,  which  distributes  the  mechanical  pressure 
more  evenly  over  the  whole  ship.  Not  that  there 
were  never  more  masts  than  one,  or  more  sails  than 
one  on  the  same  mast,  in  an  ancient  merchantman. 
But  these  were  repetitions,  so  to  speak,  of  the  same 
general  unit  of  rig.  In  the  account  of  St.  Paul's 
shipwreck  very  explicit  mention  is  made  of  the 
apT€fj.(t>v  (xxvii,  40),  which  is  undoubtedly  the 
"  foresail "  (not  "  mainsail,"  as  in  the  A.  V.).  Such 
a  sail  would  be  almost  necessary  in  putting  a  large 

4  N  2 


1284 


SHIP 


ship  about.  On  that  occasion  it  was  used  in  the 
process  of  running  the  vessel  aground.  Nor  is  it 
out  of  place  here  to  quote  a  Crimean  letter  in  the 
Times  (Dec.  5,  1855)  :  — "  The  'Lord  Raglan' 
(merchant-ship)  is  on  shore,  but  taken  there  in  a 
most  sailorlike  manner.  Directly  her  captain  found 
he  could  not  save  her,  he  cut  away  his  mainmast 
and  mizen,  and  setting  a  topsail  on  her  foremast, 
ran  her  ashore  stem  on,"  Such  a  mast  may  be 
seen,  raking  over  the  bow,  in  representations  of 
ships  in  Roman  coins.  In  the  0.  T.  the  mast  (lorros} 
is  mentioned  (Is.  xxxiii.  23) ;  and  from  another  pro-, 
phet  (Ez.  xxvii.  5)  we  learn  that  cedar-wood  from 
Lebanon  was  sometimes  used  for  this  part  of  ships. 
There  is  a  third  passage  (Prov.  xxiii.  34,  fc^tO 
?3n\  where  the  top  of  a  ship's  mast  is  probably 

intended,  though  there  is  some  slight  doubt  on  the 
subject,  and  the  LXX.  take  the  phrase  differently. 
Both  ropes  (ff-^oivia,  Acts  xxxvii.  32)  and  sails 
xtVr/a)  are  mentioned  in  the  above-quoted  passage 
of  Isaiah ;  and  from  Ezekiel  (xxvii.  7)  we  learn 
that  the  latter  were  often  made  of  Egyptian  linen  (if 
such  is  the  meaning  of  at pa pvii).  There  the  word 
Xa\da>  (which  we  find  also  in  Acts  xxvii.  17,  30) 
is  used  for  lowering  the  sail  from  the  yard.  It  is 
interesting  here  to  notice  that  the  word  viroffre\- 
\ofMai,  the  technical  term  for  furling  a  sail,  is  twice 
used  by  St.  Paul,  and  that  in  an  address  delivered 
fn  a  seaport  in  the  course  of  a  voyage  (Acts  xx.  20, 
27).  It  is  one  of  the  very  few  cases  in  which  the 
Apostle  employs  a  nautical  metaphor. 

This  seems  the  best  place  for  noticing  two  other 
points  of  detail.  Though  we  must  not  suppose  that 
merchant-ships  were  habitually  propelled  by  rowing, 
yet  sweeps  must  sometimes  have  been  employed.  In 
Ez.  xxvii.  29,  oars  (tDifc^E)  are  distinctly  mentioned ; 

and  it  seems  that  oak-wood  from  Bashan  was  used 
in  making  them  (e/c  TTJS  Batrai/tTtSos  ^iroiri 
ray  KUTTO.S  ffov,  ib.  6).  Again,  in  Is.  xxxiii.  21, 
t^fc?  *OK  literally  means  "  a  ship  of  oar,"  t.  e. 

oared  vessel.  Rowing,  too,  is  probably  implied  in 
Jon.  5.  13,  where  the  LXX.  have  simply  7rape/3td- 
£OVTO.  The  other  feature  of  the  ancient,  as  of  the 
modern  ship,  is  the  flag  or  o'Tj/teToi'  at  the  top  ol 
the  mast  (Is,  I.  c.,  a*id  xxx.  17).  Here  perhaps,  as 
in  some  other  respects,  the  early  Egyptian  paintings 
supply  our  best  illustration. 

(7.)  Hate  of  Sailing. — St.  Paul's  voyages  furnish 
excellent  data  for  approximately  estimating  this 
and  they  are  quite  in  harmony  with  what  we  learn 
from  other  sources.  We  must  notice  here,  howevei 
(what  commentators  sometimes  curiously  forget) 
that  winds  are  variable.  Thus  the  voyage  betweei 
TROAS  and  PHILIPPI,  accomplished  on  one  occasion 
(Acts  xvi.  1.1,  12)  in  two  days,  occupied  on  anothe 
occasion  (Acts  xx.  6)  five  days.  Such  a  variation 
might  be  illustrated  by  what  took  place  almost  an] 
week  between  Dublin  and  Holyhead  before  thi 
application  of  steam  to  seafaring.  With  a  fair  wine 
an  ancient  ship  would  sail  fully  seven  knots  an  hour 
Two  very  good  instances  are  again  supplied  b 
St.  Paul's  experience :  in  the  voyages  from  Caesare 
to  Sidou  (Acts  xxvii.  2,  3),  and  from  Rhegium  t< 
Puteoli  (Acts  xxviii.  13).  The  result  given  bj 
comparing  in  these  cases  the  measurements  of  timi 
and  distance  corresponds  with  what  we  gather  froir 
Greek  and  Latin  authors  generally  ;  e.  g.,  from 
Pliny's  story  of  the  fresh  fig  produced  by  Cato  ii 
the  Roman  senate  before  the  third  Punic  war 


SHIP 

This  fruit  was  gathered  fresh  at  Carthage  thiw 
lays  ago :  that  is  the  distance  of  the  enemy  from 
your  walls"  (Plin.  H.  N.  xv.  20). 

(8.)  Sailing  before  the  wind,  and  near  the  wind. 
— The  rig  which  has  been  described  is,  like  the  rig 
f  Chinese  junks,  peculiarly  favourable  to  a  quick 
run  before  the  wind.     We  have  in  the  N.  T.  (Acts 
xvi.  11,  xxvii.  16)  the  technical  term  €v6vSpofj.t<a 
c-r  voyages  made  under  such  advantageous  condi 
tions.**     It  would,  however,  be  a  great  mistake  to 
suppose  that  ancient  ships  could  not  work  to  wind 
ward.     Pliny  distinctly  says :   "  lisdem  ventis  in 
contrarium  navigatur  prolatis  pedibus"  (H.  N.  ii. 
48).     The  superior  rig  and  build,  however,  of  mo 
dern  ships  enable  them  to  sail  nearer  to  the  wind 
than  was  the  case  in  classical  times.     At  one  very 
critical  point  of  St.  Paul's  voyage  to  Rome  (Acta 
xxvii.  7)  we  are  told  that  the  ship  could  not  hold 
on  her  course  (which  was  W.  by  S.,  from  Cnidus 
by  the  north  side  of  Crete)  against  a  violent  wind 
irpoffetavros  y^as  rov  aj/ejuou)  blowing  from 
the  N.W.,  and  that  consequently  she  ran  down  to 
the  east  end  of  CRETE  [SALMONE],  and  worked 
up  under  the  shelter  of  the  south  side  of  the  island 
(vers.  7,  8).    [FAIR  HAVENS.]    Here  the  technical 
terms  of  our  sailors  have  been  employed,  whose 
custom  is  to  divide  the  whole  circle  of  the  compass- 
card  into  thirty-two  equal  parts,  called  points.     A 
modern  ship,  if  the  weather  is  not  very  boisterous, 
will  sail  within  six  points  of  the  wind.     To  an 
ancient  vessel,  of  which  the  hull  was  more  clumsy, 
and  the  yards  could  not  be  braced  so  tight,  it  would 
be  safe  to  assign  seven  points  as  the  limit.     This 
will  enable  us,  so  far  as  we  know  the  direction  of 
the  wind  (and  we  can  really  ascertain  it  in  each  case 
very  exactly),  to  lay  down  the  tacks  of  the  ships 
in  which  St.  Paul  sailed,  beating  against  the  wind, 
on  the  voyages  from  Philippi  to  Troas  (&xpu  ^j"e- 
pwv  TreWe,  Acts  xx.  6),  from  Sidon  to  Myra  (5iek 
rb  TOI>S  avtfjiovs  e?vai  evavriovs,  xxvii.  3-5),  from 
Myra  to  Cnidus   (ev   iKavcus  ypfpats  /BpoSuTrAo- 
oiWey,  xxvii.  6,  7),  from  Salmone  to  Fair  Havens 
(/j.6\ts   irapa\ey6/j.ei'oi,    xxvii.    7,    8),   and   from 
Syracuse  to  Rhegiurn  (irepie \66vrfs,  xxviii.  12, 13). 
(9.)  Lying-to. — This  topic  arises  naturally  out 
of  what   has  preceded,  and  it  is  so  important  in 
reference  to  the  main  questions  connected  with  the 
shipwreck  at  Malta,  that  it  is  here  made  the  subject 
of  a  separate  section.     A  ship  that  could  make  pro 
gress  on  her  proper  course,  in  moderate  weather, 
when  sailing  within  seven  points  of  the  wind,  would 
lie-to  in  a  gale,  with  her  length  making  about  the 
same  angle  with  the  direction  of  the  wind.     This 
is  done  when  the  object  is,  not  to  make  progress  at 
all  hazards,  but  to  ride  out  a  gale  in  safety ;  and 
this  is  what  was  done  in  St.  Paul's  ship  when  she 
was  undergirded  and  the  boat  taken  on  board  (Acts 
xxvii.  14-17)  under  the  lee  of  CLAUDA.     It  is  here 
that  St.  Luke  uses  the  vivid  term  avToQOaX/j.e'iv, 
mentioned  above.     Had  the  gale  been  less  violent, 
the  ship  could  easily  have  held  on  her  course.     To 
anchor  was  out  of  the  question  ;  and  to  have  drifted 
before  the  wind  would  have  been  to  run  into  the 
fatal  Syrtis  on  the  African  coast.     [QUICKSANDS.] 
Hence  the  vessel  was  laid-to  ("  cicse-hauled,"  as  the 
sailors  say)  "  on  the  starboard  tack,"  i.  e.  with  her 
right  side  towards  the  storm.   The  wind  was  E.N.E. 
[EDROCLYDON],  the  ship's  bow  would  point  N.  by 

b  With  this  compare  TOV  CTT'  evfleias  Spopov  In  an  inte 
resting  passage  of  Philo  concerning  the  Alexandrian  slips 
(in  Flacc.  p.  968  ed.  Frankf.  1691). 


SHIP 

W.,  the  direction  of  drift  (six  points  being  added 
6ir  "  lee-way  ")  would  be  W.  by  N.,  and  the  rate 
of  drift  about  a  mile  and  a  half  an  hour.  It  is 
from  these  materials  that  we  easily  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  shipwreck  must  have  taken  place 
on  the  coast  of  Malta.  [ADRIA.] 

(1 0.)  Ship's  Boat. — This  is  perhaps  the  best  place 
for  noticing  separately  the  o~Kd(pr),  which  appears 
prominently  in  the  narrative  of  the  voyage  (Acts 
xxvii.  16,  32).  Every  large  merchant-ship  must 
have  had  one  or  more  boats.  It  is  evident  that  the 
Alexandrian  corn-ship  in  which  St.  Paul  was  sailing 
from  Fair  Havens,  and  in  which  the  sailors,  appre 
hending  no  danger,  hoped  to  reach  PHENICE,  had 
her  boat  towing  behind.  When  the  gale  came,  one 
of  their  first  desires  must  have  been  to  take  the 
boat  on  board,  and  this  was  done  under  the  lee  of 
Clauda,  when  the  ship  was  undergirded,  and  brought 
round  to  the  wind  for  the  purpose  of  lying-to ;  but 
it  was  done  with  difficulty,  and  it  would  seem  that 
the  passengers  gave  assistance  in  the  task  (jiioAis 
Iffxvffa/JLtv  irepiKpare'is  yeveffQai  TTJS  ffKa.<pi\s, 
Acts  xxvii.  16).  The  sea  by  this  time  must  have 
been  furiously  rough,  and  the  boat  must  have  been 
filled  with  water.  It  is  with  this  very  boat  that 
one  of  the  most  lively  passages  of  the  whole  narra 
tive  is  connected.  When  the  ship  was  at  anchor 
in  the  night  before  she  was  run  aground,  the  sailors 
lowered  the  boat  from  the  davits  with  the  selfish 
desire  of  escaping,  on  which  St.  Paul  spoke  to  the 
soldiers,  and  they  cut  the  ropes  (T«  (rxoivia)  and 
the  boat  fell  off  (Acts  xxvii.  30-32). 

(11.)  Officers  and  Crew. — In  Acts  xxvii.  11  we 
have  both  /evjSepHjTTjs  and  vatitXiripos.  The  latter 
is  the  owner  (in  part  or  in  whole)  of  the  ship  or  the 
cargo,  receiving  also  (possibly)  the  fares  of  the  pas 
sengers.  The  former  has  the  charge  of  the  steeling. 
The  same  word  occurs  also  in  Rev.  xviii.  17; 
Prov.  xxiii.  34 ;  Ez.  xxvii.  8,  and  is  equivalent  to 
•jrpvpevs  in  Ez.  xxvii.  29 ;  Jon.  i.  6.  In  James  iii.  4 
6  evdvvwv,  "  the  governor,"  is  simply  the  steers 
man  for  the  moment.  The  word  for  "  shipmeu  " 
(Acts  xxrii.  27,  30)  and  "  sailors"  (Rev.  xviii.  17) 
is  simply  the  usual  term  vavrai.  In  the  latter 
passage  '6/j.iXos  occurs  for  the  crew,  but  the  text  is 
doubtful.  In  Ez.  xxvii.  8,  9,  26,  27,  29,  34,  we 
have  /ccoTTTjAcSrat  for  "  those  who  handle  the  oar," 
and  in  the  same  chapter  (ver.  29)  67rij8oTai,  which 
may  mean  either  passengers  or  mariners.  The  only 
other  passages  which  need  be  noticed  here  are  1  K. 
ix.  27,  and  2  Chr.  viii.  18,  in  the  account  of  Solo 
mon's  ships.  The  former  has  T&V  iraiSav  avrov 
ofSpes  vavriKol  sXavveiv  et'S^res  OdXacrffav  ;  the 
latter,  TrcuSey  etSJrcs  6d\a<r<rav. 

(12.)  Storms  and  Shipwrecks. — The  first  cen 
tury  of  the  Christian  era  was  a  time  of  immense 
traffic  in  the  Mediterranean;  and  there  must  have 
been  many  vessels  lost  there  every  year  by  ship 
wreck,  and  (perhaps)  as  many  by  foundering.  This 
last  danger  would  be  much  increased  by  the  form 
of  rig  described  above.  Besides  this,  we  must 
remember  that  the  ancients  had  no  compass,  and 
very  imperfect  charts  and  instruments,  if  any  at 
all ;  and  though  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to 
suppose  that  they  never  ventured  out  of  sight  of 
land,  yet,  dependent  as  they  were  on  the  heavenly 
bodies,  the  danger  was  much  greater  than  now  in 
bad  weather,  when  the  sky  was  overcast,  and 
"  neither  sun  nor  stars  in  many  days  appeared " 
(Acts  xxvii.  20).  Hence  also  the  winter  season 
considered  dangerous,  and,  if  possible,  avoided 
TOV  ir\o6s,  Sia  rb  Kal 


SHIP 


1285 


TV  vncrreiav  ^5rj  irapf\T)\vQtt'ai,  ib.  9).  Certain 
coasts  too  were  much  dreaded,  especially  the  African 
Syrtis  (ib.  17).  The  danger  indicated  by  breakers 
(ib.  29),  and  the  fear  of  falling  on  rocks  (rpaxets 
T<hroi),  are  matters  of  course.  St.  Paul's  expe 
rience  seems  to  have  been  full  of  illustrations  of  ail 
these  perils.  We  learn  from  2  Coi  ri.  25  that, 
before  the  voyage  described  in  detail  by  St.  Luke, 
he  had  been  "  three  times  wrecked,"  and  further 
that  he  had  once  been  "a  night  and  a  day  in  the 
deep"  probably  floating  on  a  spar,  as  was  the  case 
with  Josephus.  These  circumstances  give  peculiar 
force  to  his  using  the  metaphor  of  a  shipwreck 
(evavdyi)(rat>,  1  Tim.  i.  19)  in  speaking  of  those 
who  had  apostatized  from  the  faith.  In  connexion 
with  this  general  subject  we  may  notice  the  caution 
with  which,  on  the  voyage  from  Troas  to  Patara 
(Acts  xx.  13-16,  xxi.  1),  the  sailors  anchored  for 
the  night  during  the  period  of  dark  moon,  in  the 
intricate  passages  between  the  islands  and  the  main 
[MITYLENE  ;  SAMOS  ;  TROGYLLIUM],  the  evident 
acquaintance  which,  on  the  voyage  to  Rome,  the 
sailors  of  the  Adramyttian  ship  had  with  the  cur 
rents  on  the  coasts  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor  (Acts 
xxvii.  2-5)  [ADRAMYTTIUM],  and  the  provision 
for  taking  soundings  in  case  of  danger,  as  clearly 
indicated  in  the  narrative  of  the  shipwreck  at 
Malta,  the  measurements  being  apparently  the  same 
as  those  which  are  customary  with  us  (froXiaav- 
res  evpov  opyvias  eiKOffi'  ftpa\v  5l  SiaffT^ffavrts, 
Kal  irdXiv  fioXlffavrts,  evpov  opyvias  Se/caTreVre, 
Acts  xxvii.  28). 

(13.)  Boats  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee. — There  is  a 
melancholy  interest  in  that  passage  of  Dr.  Robin 
son's  Researches  (iii.  253),  in  which  he  says,  that  on 
his  approach  to  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  he  saw  a  single 
white  sail.  This  was  the  sail  of  the  one  rickety 
boat  which,  as  we  learn  from  other  travellers  (see 
especially  Thomson,  The  Land  and  the  Book,  401- 
404),  alone  remains  on  a  scene  represented  to  us  in 
the  Gospels  and  in  Josephus  as  full  of  life  from  the 
multitude  of  its  fishing-boats.  In  the  narratives  of 
the  call  of  the  disciples  to  be  "  fishers  of  men  " 
(Matt.  iv.  18-22;  Mark  i.  16-20  ;  Luke  v.  1-11), 
there  is  no  special  information  concerning  the  cha 
racteristics  of  these  boats.  In  the  account  of  the 
storm  and  the  miracle  on  the  lake  (Matt.  viii.  23-27  ; 
Mark  iv.  35-41  ;  Luke  viii.  22-25),  it  is  for  every 
reason  instructive  to  compare  the  three  narra 
tives  ;  and  we  should  observe  that  Luke  is  more 
technical  in  his  language  than  Matthew,  and  Mark 
than  Luke.  Thus,  instead  of  a-eur^s  fjieyas  eyevtro 
tv  rfj  6aXdff<rr)  (Matt.  viii.  24),  we  have  /caTejSrj 
AaiXwJ'  av€fj.ov  els  ryv  XI/J.VTJV  (Luke  viii.  23),  and 
again  r<j5  KXvS&vi  rov  u'Saros  (ver.  24)  ;  and  instead 
of  &a-re  rb  irXoLQV  KaXinrr€<TOai  we  have  trvvf- 
•n-XypovvTO.  In  Mark  (iv.  37)  we  have  TO  Kvp-aro 
67rej3aAAej'  cts  rb  irXoiov,  Soffre  avrb  fjSr)  yefj.i- 
fcaOat.  This  Evangelist  also  mentions  the  irpoffKe- 
(paXaiov,  or  boatman's  cushion,0  on  which  our  Blessed 
Saviour  was  sleeping  ev  rrj  Trpv/j.vri,  and  he  uses  the 
technical  term  eK6ira<rev  for  the  lulling  of  the  storm. 
See  more  on  this  subject  in  Smith,  Dissertation  on 
the  Gospels  (Lond.  1853).  We  may  turn  now  to 
St.  John.  In  the  account  he  gives  of  what  fol 
lowed  the  miracle  of  walking  on  the  sea  (vi.  16-25), 
irXoiov  and  irXoidpiov  seem  to  be  used  indifferently, 
and  we  have  mention  of  other  irXoidpia.  There 


«  The  word  in  Pollux  is  vTrrjpeo-toi/,  tU  Hesych'us 
gives  Trpo<rKe<j><i\aiov  as  the  equivalent.  See  Kiihn's  pot* 
on  Jul.  Poll.  On&m.  i.  p.  59.  (Ed,  Amstel.  1706.) 


J2S6 


SHIP 


would  of  course  be  boats  of  various  si;:es  on  the  lake. 
The  reading,  however,  is  doubtful.*1  Finally,  in  the 
solemn  scene  after  the  resurrection  (John  xxi.  1-8), 
we  have  the  terms  alyiaX 6s  and  ra  8e£ia  /meprj  rov 
ir\oiov,  which  should  be  noticed  as  technical.  Here 
again  irXoiov  and  trXoidpiov  appear  to  be  synony 
mous.  If  we  compare  all  these  passages  with  Jose- 
phus,  we  easily  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  with 
the  large  population  round  the  Lake  of  Tiberias, 
there  must  have  been  a  vast  number  both  of  fishing- 
boats  and  pleasure-boats,  and  that  boat-building 
must  have  been  an  active  trade  on  its  shores  (see 
Stanley,  Sin.  and  Pal.  p.  367).  The  term  used  by 
Josephus  is  sometimes  ir\oiov,  sometimes  ffKdtyos. 
There  are  two  passages  in  the  Jewish  historian  to 
which  we  should  carefully  refer,  one  in  which  he 
describes  his  own  taking  of  Tiberias  by  an  expe 
dition  of  boats  from  Tarichaea  (  Vit.  32,  33,  B.  J. 
ii.  21,  §§8-10).  Here  he  says  that  he  collected 
all  the  boats  on  the  lake,  amounting  to  230  in 
number,  with  four  men  in  each.  He  states  also 
incidentally  that  each  boat  had  a  "  pilot "  and  an 
*'  anchor."  The  other  passage  describes  the  opera 
tions  of  Vespasian  at  a  later  period  in  the  same  neigh 
bourhood  (B.  J.  iii.  10,  §§1,  5,  6,  9).  These  opera 
tions  amounted  to  a  regular  Roman  sea-fight:  and 
large  rafts  (<r%e5/eu)  are  mentioned  besides  the 
boats  or  ffKd<pi). 

(14.)  Merchant-Ships  in  the  Old  Testament. — 
The  earliest  passages  where  seafaring  is  alluded  to 
in  the  0.  T.  are  the  following  in  order,  Gen.  xlix. 
13,  in  the  prophecy  of  Jacob  concerning  Zebulun 
(KaroiK'fjffei  Trap'  opfjiov  TrAoicoi/)  ;  Num.  xxiv.  24, 
in  Balaam's  prophecy  (where,  however,  ships  are  not 
mentioned  in  the  LXX.e) ;  Deut.  xxviii.  68,  in  one 
of  the  warnings  of  Moses  (a-rroffrptyei  (re  Kvpios 
els  Atyvirrov  ev  irXoiois) ;  Judg.  v.  17,  in  Debo 
rah's  Song  (Aav  els  rt  irapotKe'i  irXoiots,}.  Next 
after  these  it  is  natural  to  mention  the  illustrations 
and  descriptions  connected  with  this  subject  in  Job 
(ix.  26,  3)  Kal  effri  vavfflv  'lxvos  °^oD) ;  and  in 
the  Psalms  (xlvii.  [xlviii.]  7,  ev  Trvev/j.ari  ftialcf f 
ffvvrptyeis  -jrXota  Qapo~is,  ciii.  [civ.]  26,  ewe? 
7rAo?o  SiccTropeiWrat,  cvi.  23,  of  itarafiaivovres 
els  6aXao~o~av  ev  irXoiois).  Prov.  xxiii.  34  has 
already  been  quoted.  To  this  add  xxx.  19  (rpifiovs 
vr]os  TrovroTropovffijs},  xxxi.  14  (vavs  efjuropevo/ji.ev'ri 
/j.aKp66ev).  Solomon's  own  ships,  which  may  have 
suggested  some  of  these  illustrations  (1  K.  ix.  26  ; 
2  Chr.  viii.  18,  ix.  21),  have  previously  been  men 
tioned.  We  must  notice  the  disastrous  expedition 
of  Jehoshaphat's  ships  from  the  same  port  of  Ezion- 
geber  (1  K.  xxii.  48, 49 ;  2  Chr.  xx.  36,  37).  The 
passages  which  remain  are  in  the  prophets.  Some 
have  been  already  adduced  from  Isaiah  and  Eze- 
kiel.  In  the  former  prophet  the  general  term 
"  ships  of  Tarshish "  is  variously  given  in  the 
LXX.,  irXolov  OaXdffffitjs  *  (ii.  16),  irAotd  Kapx7?' 
86vos  (xxiii.  1,  14),  irXoia.  Qapffis  (Ix.  9).  For 
another  allusion  to  seafaring  see  xliii.  14.  The 
celebrated  27th  chapter  of  Ezekiel  ought  to  be  care 
fully  studied  in  all  its  detail ;  and  in  Jonah  i.  3-16, 
the  following  technical  phrases  (besides  what  has 
been  already  adduced)  should  be  noticed:  vavXov 
(3),  ffwrpiftyvai  (4),  eic&oXfyv  eTroi-fjffavro  riav 


SHIP 


av,  rov  Kovfyi.ffQrivai  (5),  /coTratret 
(11,  12).     In  Dan.  xi.  40  (ffwa 
evs  rov  Bofipa  ev  ap/j-affi  Kal  ev  iTnrevffi  Kal  £t* 
vavffl  TroAAaTs)  we  touch  the  sutject  of  ships  of  war. 

(15.)  Ships  of  War  in  the  Apocrypha.  —  Military 
operations  both  by  land  and  water  («/  rij  8a- 
\d(ro-r)  Kal  e-rrl  rr)s  Znpas,  1  Mace.  viii.  23,  32) 
are  prominent  subjects  in  the  Books  of  Maccabees. 
Thus  in  the  contract  between  Judas  Maecabaeui 
and  the  Romans  it  is  agreed  (ib.  26,  28)  that  no 
supplies  are  to  be  afforded  to  the  enemies  of  either, 
whether  ffiros,  oirXa,  apyvpiov,  or  irAom.  In  a 
later  passage  '^xv.  3)  we  have  more  explicitly,  ir 
the  letter  of  King  Antiochus,  irAom  iroXefjuitd  (see 
v.  14),  while  in  2  Mace.  iv.  20  (as  observed  above) 
the  word  rpi^peis,  "  galleys,"  occurs  in  the  account 
of  the  proceedings  of  the  infamous  Jason.  Here  we 
must  not  forget  the  monument  erected  by  Simon 
Maccabaeus  on  his  father's  grave,  on  which,  with 
other  ornaments  and  military  symbols,  were  irXola 
eTriyeyXv/j.fji.eva,  els  TO  •  BewpelffQai  virb  irdvroav 
r£>v  irXeovrofv  rrjv  QaXaffffav  (1  Mace.  xiii.  29), 
Finally  must  be  mentioned  the  noyade  at  Joppa 
when  the  resident  Jews,  with  wives  and  children 
200  in  number,  were  induced  to  go  into  boats  an«. 
were  drowned  (2  Mace.  xii.  3,  4),  with  the  venge 
ance  taken  by  Judas  (rbi/  fiev  Xip.eva  vvKroap  eve 
7rprjo"€  Kal  ra  ffKacpf]  Kare<p\e£e,  ver.  6).  It  seems 
sufficient  simply  to  enumerate  the  other  passages  in 
the  Apocrypha  where  some  allusion  to  sea-faring  is 
made.  They  are  the  following:  Wisd.  v.  10,  xiv: 
1  ;  Ecclus.  xxxiii.  2,  xliii.  24  ;  1  Esd.  iv.  23. 

(16.)  Nautical  Terms.  —  The  great  repertory  ot 
such  terms,  as  used  by  those  who  spoke  the  Greek  lan 
guage,  is  the  Onomasticon  of  Julius  Pollux  ;  and  it 
may  be  useful  to  conclude  this  article  by  mention 
ing  a  few  out  of  many  which  are  found  there,  and 
also  in  the  N.  T.  or  LXX.  First,  to  quote  some  which 
have  been  mentioned  above.  We  find  the  following 
both  in  Pollux  and  the  Scriptures  :  ffxoivia,  ffKev-fi, 

K\V$(t>V,   Xfl^v>   <p6pTlOV,    €KlBo\-f),  (TVpTlS,    Ov8fJ> 

VTroffTe\\eff6at,  OVK  ^v  rbv  %Xiov  iSe'iv,  ffKd<prj, 
(TKa<pos,  vavXov,  ffwrpi^vai,  o<p6a\/jibs  oVoi, 
Kal  rovvofj-a  rys  ve&s  eiriypdtpovffi  (compared 
with  Acts  xxvii.  15,  xxviii.  11)»  rpa^els  alyia\oi 
(compared  with  Acts  xxvii.  29,  40).  The  following 
are  some  which  have  not  been  mentioned  in  this 
article  :  —  avdyeffOai  and  Kardyeffdai  (e.  g.  Acts 
xxviii.  11,  12),  ffaviSes  (Ezek.  xxvii.  5),  rp6iris 
(Wisd.  v;  10),  ava&aivu  (Jon.  i.  3  ;  Mark  vi.  5J), 
ya\i\vn  (Matt.  viii.  26),  a^ift^ffrpov  (Matt.  iv. 
18,  Mark  i.  16),  kTrotyopTlaaffQai  (Acts  xxi.  4), 
inroirvfto  (xxvii.  13),  rv(pcav  (#i/e/ios  rv(po)viK6s, 
xxvii.  14),  ayKvpas  Karareiveiv  (ayKvpas  e/crei- 
veiv,  ib.  30),  vftpiffr^s  &ve/j.os  (yfipeoas,  10,  vfipiv, 
21),  TrpoffOKe\\<a  (eiroKeXXu,  ib.  41),  KoXv^v 
(ib.  42),  SiaXv6ei<rijs  TTJS  ved>s  (f]  irpv(j.va  eXvero, 
ib.  41).  This  is  an  imperfect  list  of  the  whole 
number  ;  but  it  may  serve  to  show  how  rich  the 
N.  T.  and  LXX.  are  in  the  nautical  phraseology  of 
the  Greek  Levant.  To  this  must  be  added  a  notice 
of  the  peculiar  variety  and  accuracy  of  St.  Luke's 
ordinary  phrases  for  sailing  under  different  circum 
stances,  irXeo),  aTTOTr\eci>,  j8pa5i/irAo«t>,  S.airA.eo>, 
eKirXew,  /caTUTrAew,  viroTrXew,  TrapOTrAew,  ev&v- 


d  So  in  Mark  iv.  38,  "  little  ships,"  the  true  reading 
appears  to  be  ir\ola,  not  TrAotapia. 

e  So  in  Dan.  xi.  30,  where  the  same  phrase  "  ships  of 
Chittim  "  occurs,  there  is  no  strictly  corresponding  phrase 
to  the  LXX.  The  translators  appear  to  have  read 


and  '          for  D'V)  and  D«V  in 
lively."  " 

The  LXX.  here  read    J1BJJ.   Jcatdn,   "  small,"  fo! 

east." 

g  This  is  perhaps  a  mistake  of  the  copyist,  who  Iran' 
scribed  from  dictation,  and  mistook  ©apais  for©a>a<r<r»;.? 


SHIPHt 


,  8m- 


(17.)  Authorities.  —  The  preceding  list  of  St. 
Luke's  nautical  verbs  is  from  Mr.  Smith's  work 
on  the  Voyage  and  Shipwreck  of  St.  Paul  (London, 
1st  ed.  1848,  2nd  ed.  1856).  No  other  book  need 
be  mentioned  here,  since  it  has  for  some  time  been 
recognised,  both  in  England  and  on  the  Continent, 
of.  the  standard  work  on  ancient  ships,  and  it  con- 
ta.ns  a  complete  list  of  previous  books  on  the 
subject.  Reference,  however,  may  be  made  to  the 
memoranda  of  Admiral  Penrose,  incorporated  in  the 
notes  to  the  27th  chap,  of  Conybeare  and  Howson's 
The  Life  and  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  (London,  2nd 
ed.  1856).  [J.  S.  H.]. 

SHIPH'I  (7£B>:  2acJ>af;  Alex.  ^Qeiv  : 
Sephe'i).  A  Simeonite,  father  of  Ziza,  a  prince  of 
the^tribe  in  the  time  of  Hezekmh  (1  Chr.  iv.  37). 

SHIPH'MITE,  THE  0»aB>i1  :  <5  TOV  Se^ef  ; 
Alex,  b  T.  2e<p*/t  ;  Saphonites).  Probably,  though 
not  certainly,  the  native  of  SHEPHAM.  Zabdi,  the 
officer  in  David's  household  who  had  charge  of  the 
wine-making  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  27),  is  the  only  person 
so  distinguished.  [G-] 

SHIPH'EAH  (rn«^  :  2«r$($pa  :  Sephora, 
Ex.  i.  15).  The  name  of  one  of  the  two  midwives  of 
the  Hebrews  who  disobeyed  the  command  of  Pharaoh, 
the  first  oppressor,  to  kill  the  male  children,  and 
were  therefore  blessed  (vers.  15-21).  It  is  not 
certain  that  they  were  Hebrews  :  if  they  were,  the 
name  Shiphrah  would  signify  "brightness"  or 
"  beauty."  It  has  also  an  Egyptian  sound,  the  last 
syllable  resembling  that  of  Potiphar,  Poti-phra, 


SHISHAK  1287 

and  Hophra,  in  all  which  we  recognize  the  \\ord 
PH-RA,  P-RA,  "  the  sun,"  or  "  Pharaoh."  in  com 
position,  when  alone  written  in  HeK  fijnB :  in  these 
cases,  however,  the  y  is  usual,  as  we  should  expect 
from  the  Egyptian  spelling.  [PuAH.]  [R.  S.  P.] 

SHIPH'TAN  (JIDBB* :   2aj8a0a,/:  Sephthan). 

Father  of  Kemuel,  a  prince  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim 
(Num.  xxxiv.  24). 

SHI'SHA  (KPHP :  2rjj8c£;  Alex.:S«en£:  Sisa). 
Father  of  Elihoreph  and  Ahiah,  the  royal  secretaries 
in  the  reign  of  Solomon  (1  K.  iv.  3).  He  is  appar 
ently  the  same  as  SHAVSHA,  who  held  the  same 
position  under  David. 

SHI'SHAK(pWB:  Soucm/a'/*:  Sesac),  king 

of  Egypt,  the  Sheshenk  I.  of  the  monuments,  first 
sovereign  of  the  Bubastite 
xxiind  dynasty.    His  name 
is  thus  written   in  hiero 
glyphics. 

Chronology. — The  reign 
of  Shishak  offers  the  first 
determined  synchronisms  of 
Egyptian  and  Hebrew  his 
tory.  Its  chronology  must 
therefore  be  examined.  We 
first  give  a  table  with  the 
Egyptian  and  Hebrew  data 
for  the  chronology  of  the 
dynasty,  continued  as  far 
as  the  time  of  Zerah,  who  was  probably  a  successor 
of  Shishak,  in  order  to  avoid  repetition  in  treating  ol 
the  latter.  [ZERAH.] 


TABLE  OF  FIEST  SIX  REIGNS  OF  DYNASTY  XX IL 


EGYPTIAN  DATA. 

HEBREW  DATA 

Manetho. 

Monuments. 

Kings. 

Events. 

Afticanus. 
Yre. 
1.  Scbtectais.  .  21 

S.  Oaorthdn.  .  15 

Eusebius. 

Yrs. 
1.  Sesfinchteis  .  21 

2.  Onorthdn   .  .  15 

Order. 
1.  SHESHENK  [I.] 
2.  USARKEN  [I.] 

Highest 
Yr. 

XXI. 

Solomon, 
Jttdah.        Yre. 
1.  Reho'ooam   .  17 

40  Yean. 
N^iel.         Yr*. 
I.  Jeroboam     .  82 

Jeroboam    flees    to 

Shishak. 

Shithak    20  (?)     in 
vades          Judah, 
Rehoboam,  5. 

9.  Abijah    ...    3 

8.1 
|  Three  othere, 

«•? 

I     251.29' 
6.} 

3.  TEKERUT  [I.] 
4.  USARKEN  [II.] 
5.  SHESHENK  [II.] 

XXIII. 

3.  Asa  41 

2.  Nadab    .          2 
8.  Baasha    ...  £4 

4.  Elah    .  .  .  .    * 

5.  Zimri 

6.  Omri        ,  .      12 

I.   rate!nthiB  .  13 

Takelothts  .  .  13 

6.  TEKERUT  [II.] 

XIV. 

Respecting  the  Egyptian  columns  of  this  table, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  observe  that,  as  a  date  of  the 
23rd  year  of  Usarken  II.  occurs  on  the  monuments, 
it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  sum  of  the 
third,  fourth,  and  fifth  reigns  should  be  29  years 
instead  of  25,  K®  being  easily  changed  to  K€ 
(Lepsius,  Ko'nigsbuch,  p.  85).  We  follow  Lepsius's 
arrangement,  our  Tekerut  I.,  For  instance,  being  the 
same  as  his. 

The  synchronism  of  Shishak  and  Solomon,  and 
that  of  Shishak  and  Rehoboam  may  be  nearly  fixed, 
TS  shown  in  article  CHRONOLOGY,  where  a  slight 


correction  should  be  made  in  one  of  the  data.  We 
there  mentioned,  on  the  authority  of  Champollion, 
that  an  inscription  bore  the  date  of  the  22nd  year 
of  Shishak  (i.  p.  327).  Lepsius,  however,  states 
that  it  is  of  the  21st  year,  correcting  Champollion, 
who  had  been  followed  by  Bunsen  and  othera 
(xxii  Aeg.  KSnigsdyn.  p.  272  and  note  1).  It 
must,  therefore,  be  supposed,  that  the  invasion  of 
Judah  took  place  in  the  20th,  and  not  in  the  21st 

»  The  text  in  1  K.  xiv.  25  has  pK>1&?,  but  the  Ker> 
proposes  p{JWJ3>. 


1288 


8HISHAK 


year  of  Shishak.  The  first  year  of  Shishak  would 
thus  about  correspond  to  the  26th  of  Solomon,  and 
the  20th  to  the  5th  of  Rehoboam. 

The  synchronism  of  Zerah  and  Asa  is  more  diffi 
cult  to  detenrv'ne.  It  seems,  from  the  narrative  in 
Chronicles,  that  the  battle  between  Asa  and  Zerah 
took  place  early  in  the  reign  of  the  king  of  Judah. 
It  is  mentioned  before  an  event  of  the  15th  year  of 
his  reign,  and  afterwards  we  read  that  "  there  was 
110  [more]  war  unto  the  five  and  thirtieth  year  of  the 
reign  of  Asa"  (2  Chr.  xv.  19).  This  is  immediately 
followed  by  the  account  of  Baasha's  coming  up  against 
Judah  "  in  the  six  and  thirtieth  year  of  the  reign  of 
Asa"  (xvi.  1).  The  latter  two  dates  may  perhaps 
be  reckoned  from  the  division  of  the  kingdom,  unless 
we  can  read  the  15th  and  16th,b  for  Baasha  began 
to  reign  in  the  3rd  year  of  Asa,  and  died,  after  a 
reign  of  24  years,  and  was  succeeded  by  Elah,  in 
the  26th  year  of  Asa.  It  seems,  therefore,  most 
probable  that  the  war  with  Zerah  took  place  early 
in  Asa's  reign,  before  his  15th  year,  and  thus  also 
early  in  the  reign  of  Usarken  II.  The  probable 
identification  of  Zerah  is  considered  under  that  name 
[ZERAH.] 

The  chronological  place  of  these  synchronisms 
may  be  calculated  on  the  Egyptian  as  well  as  the 
Biblical  side.  The  Egyptian  data  enable  us  to  cal 
culate  the  accession  of  Shishak  approximatively, 
reckoning  downwards  from  the  xixth  dynasty,  and 
upwards  from  the  xxvith.  The  first  60  years  of 
the  Sothic  Cycle  commencing  B.C.  1322  c  appear  to 
have  extended  from  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of 
Kameses  II.  to  a  year  after  the  12th  of  Rameses  III. 
The  intervening  reigns  are  Men-ptah  19,  Sethee 
II.  x,  Seth-nekht  x,  which  added  to  Rameses  II.  x 
and  Rameses  III.  12,  probably  represent  little  less 
than  50  years.  The  second  60  years  of  the  same 
Cycle  extended  from  the  reign  of  one  of  the  sons  of 
Rameses  III.,  Rameses  VI.,  separated  from  his 
father  by  two  reigns,  certainly  short,  one  of  at  least 
5  years,  to  the  reign  of  Rameses  XI.,  the  reigns  in 
tervening  between  Rameses  VI.  and  XI.  giving  two 
dates,  which  make  a  sum  of  18  years.  We  can 
thus  very  nearly  fix  the  accession  of  the  xxth 
dynasty.  In  the  order  of  the  kings  we  follow  M.  de 
Roug<$  (fitude,  pp.  183,  seqq.). 


1203 


1262 
1203 


The  commencement  of  the  xxth  dynasty  would, 
on  this  evidence,  fall  about  B.C.  1280.  The  dura 
tion  of  the  dynasty,  according  to- Manetho,  was  178 
(Eus.)  or  135  (Afr.)  years.  The  highest  dates 
found  give  us  a  sum  of  99  years,  and  the  Sothic 
data  and  the  circumstance  that  there  were  five  if 
not  six  kings  after  Rameses  XI.,  show  that  the 


xix 

2. 

Barneses  II. 

3. 

Men-ptah        .              19 

4. 

Sethee  II.  .     . 

• 

5. 

Seth-nekht      . 

« 

XX. 

1. 

Rameses  III.   . 

12  (14) 

2. 

Rameses  IV.  . 

(5) 

3. 

Rameses  V. 

4. 

Rameses  VI.   . 

5. 

Rameses  VII. 

6. 

Rameses  VIII. 

7. 

Rameses  IX.   . 

O)[ 

8. 

Rameses  X.     . 

(2) 

9. 

Rameses  XI.  . 

J 

SHISHAK 

length  cannot  have  been  less  than  120  years.  Ma 
netio's  numbers  would  bring  us  to  B.C.  1102  or 
1145,  for  the  end  of  this  dynasty.  The  monuments 
do  not  throw  any  clear  light  upon  the  chronology 
f  the  succeeding  dynasty,  the  xxist :  the  only  indi 
cations  upon  which  we  can  found  a  conjecture  are 
those  of  Manetho's  lists,  according  to  which  it  ruled 
for  130  years.  This  number,  supposing  that  the 
dynasty  overlapped  neither  the  xxth  nor  the  xsiind, 
would  bring  the  commencement  of  the  xxiind  and 
accession  of  Shishak  to  B.C.  972  or  1015. 

Reckoning  upwards,  the  highest  certain  date  is 
that  of  the  accession  of  Psammitichus  I.,  B.C.  664. 
He  was  preceded,  probably  with  a  short  interval,  by 
Tirhakah,  whose  accession  was  B.C.  cir.  695.d  The 
beginning  of  Tirhakah's  dynasty,  the  xxvth,  was 
probably  719.  For  the  xxivth  and  xxiiird  dy 
nasties  we  have  only  the  authority  of  Manetho's 
lists,  in  which  they  are  allowed  a  sum  of  95  (Afr. 
6  +  89)  or  88  (Eus.  44  +  44)  years.  This  carries 
us  up  to  B.C.  814  or  807,  supposing  that  the  dy 
nasties,  as  here  stated,  were  wholly  consecutive. 
To  the  xxiind  dynasty  the  lists  allow"  120  (Afr.)  or 
49  (Eus.)  years.  The  latter  sum  may  be  discarded 
at  once  as  merely  that  of  the  three  reigns  mentioned. 
The  monuments  show  that  the  former  needs  correc 
tion,  for  the  highest  dates  of  the  individual  kings 
and  the  length  of  the  reign  of  one  of  them,  She- 
shenk  III.,  determined  by  the  Apis  tablets,  oblige  us 
to  raise  its  sum  to  at  least  366  years.  This  may 
be  thus  shown  : — 1.  Sesonchis  21.  (1  Sheshenk  I. 
21).  2.  Osorthon  15.  (2.  Usarken  I.)  3,4,5. 
Three  others,  25  (29  ?).  (3.  Tekerut  I.  4.  Usar 
ken  II.  23.  5.  Sheshenk  II.)  6.  Takelothis  13, 
(6.  Tekerut  II.  14.)  7,  8,  9.  Three  others,  42. 
(7.  Sheshenk  III.  date  28  reign  51.  8.  Peshee  2. 
9.  Sheshenk  IV.  37).  (21  +  15  +  29  +  13+51  + 
1  +  36  =  166.)  It  seems  impossible  to  trace  the 
mistake  that  has  occasioned  the  difference.  The 
most  reasonable  conjectures  seem  to  be  either  that 
the  first  letter  of  the  sum  of  the  reign  of  She 
shenk  III.  fell  out  in  some  copy  of  Manetho,  and 
51  thus  was  changed  to  1,  or  that  this  reign  fell 
out  altogether,  and  that  there  was  another  king  not 
mentioned  on  the  monuments.  The  sum  would 
thus  be  166+a?,  or  169,  which,  added  to  our  last 
number,  place  the  accession  of  Sheshenk  I.  B.C.  980 
or  983,  or  else  seven  years  later  than  each  of  these 
dates. 

The  results  thus  obtained  from  approximative 
data  are  sufficiently  near  the  Biblical  date  to  make 
it  certain  that  Sheshenk  I.  is  the  Shishak  of  Solo 
mon  and,  Rehoboam,  and  to  confirm  the  Bible  chro 
nology. 

The  Biblical  date  of  Sheshenk's  conquest  of  Judah 
has  been  computed  in  a  previous  article  to  be  B.C. 
cir.  969  [CHRONOLOGY,  i.  p.  327],  and  this  having 
taken  place  in  his  20th  year,  his  accession  would 
have  been  B.C.  cir.  988.  The  progress  of  Assyrian 
discovery  has,  however,  induced  some  writers  to 
propose  to  shorten  the  chronology  by  taking  35 
years  as  the  length  of  Manasseh's  reign,  in  which 
case  all  earlier  dates  would  have  to  be  lowered  20 
years.  It  would  be  premature  to  express  a  positive 


b  The  25th  and  26th  are  out  of  the  question,  unless 
the  cessation  of  war  referred  to  relate  to  that  with  Zerah 
for  it  is  said  that  Asa  and  Baasha  warred  against  each  other 
"all  their  days "  (1  K.  xv.  16,  32). 

c  We  prefer  the  date  B.C.  1322  to  M.  Biot's  B.C.  cir.  1300 
fo~  reasons  we  cannot  here  explain. 

d  In  a  previous  article  (CHRONOLOGY,  i.  326  a)  we  dated 
tie  first  year  of  Tirhakah's  reig'i  over  Egypt  B.O.  68 » 


This  date  is  founded  upon  an  interpretation  of  an  Apis- 
tablet,  which  ia  not  certain.  It  concludes  with  the  worde 
"done"  or  "made  in  year  21?"  which  we  formerly  read, 
as  had  been  previously  done,  "  completing  21  years," 
referring  the  number  to  the  life  of  the  bull,  not  to  the  yeai 
of  the  king  in  which  the  tablet  was  executed  or  completed 
(See  the  text  in  Lepsius,  Konigsbuch,  p.  95.) 


8HISHAK 

•pit-ion  on  this  matter,  but  it  must  be  remarked  that, 
•jave  only  the  taking  of  Samaria  by  Sargon,  although 
this  is  a  most  important  exception,  the  Assyrian 
chronology  appears  rather  to  favour  the  reduction. 
and  that  the  Egyptian  chronology,  as  it  is  found, 
does  not  seem  readily  reconcileable  with  the  re 
ceived  dates,  but  to  require  some  small  reduction. 
The  proposed  reduction  would  place  the  accession  of 
Sheshenk  I.  B.C.  cir.  968,  and  this  date  is  certainly 
more  in  accordance  with  those  derived  from  the 
Egyptian  data  than  the  higher  date,  but  these  data 
are  too  approximative  for  us  to  lay  any  stress  upon 
minute  results  from  them.  Dr.  Hincks  has  drawn 
attention  to  what  appears  to  be  the  record,  already 
noticed  by  Brugsch,  in  an  inscription  of  Lepsius's 
Tekerut  II.,  of  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  on  the  24th 
Meson  (4th  Apr.)  B.C.  945,  in  the  15th  year  of 
his  father.  The  latter  king  must  be  Usarken  I.,  if 
these  data  be  correct,  and  the  date  of  Sheshenk  I.'s 
accession  would  be  B.C.  980  or  981.  But  it  does 
not  seem  certain  that  the  king  of  the  record  must 
be  Tekerut  I.  Nor,  indeed,  are  we  convinced  that 
the  eclipse  was  lunar.  (See  /own.  Sac.  Lit.  Jan. 
1863;  Lepsius,  Denkmaler,  iii.  bl.  256,  a). 

History. — In  order  to  render  the  following  obser 
vations  clear,  it  will  be  necessary  to  say  a  few 
words  on  the  history  of  Egypt  before  the  accession 
of  Sheshenk  I.  On  the  decline  of  the  Theban  line 
or  Rameses  family  (the  x'xth  dynasty),  two  royal 
houses  appear  to  have  arisen.  At  Thebes,  the 
high-priests  of  Amen,  after  a  virtual  usurpation,  at 
last  took  the  regal  title,  and  in  Lower  Egypt  a 
Tanite  dynasty  (Manetho's  xxist)  seems  to  have 
gained  royal  power.  But  it  is  possible  that  there 
was  but  one  line  between  the  xxth  and  xxiind  dy 
nasties,  and  that  the  high-priest  kings  belonged  to 
the  xxist.  The  origin  of  the  royal  line  of  which 
Sheshenk  I.  was  the  head  is  extremely  obscure. 
Mr.  Birch's  discovery  that  several  of  the  names  of 
the  family  are  Shemitic  has  led  to  the  supposition 
that  it  was  of  Assyrian  or  Babylonian  origin.  Shi- 
Bhak,  pK^tP,  may  be  compared  with  Sheshak, 
"sj^t?,  a  name  of  Babylon  (rashly  thought  to  be  for 

Babel  by  Atbash),  Usarken  has  been  compared  with 
Sargon,  and  Tekerut,  with  Tiglath  in  Tiglath-Pileser. 
If  there  were  any  doubt  as  to  these  identifications, 
some  of  which,  as  the  second  and  third  cited,  are 
certainly  conjectural,  the  name  Namuret,  Nimrod, 
which  occurs  as  that  of  princes  of  this  line,  would 
afford  conclusive  evidence,  and  it  is  needless  here  to 
compare  other  names,  though  those  occurring  in  the 
genealogies  of  the  dynasty,  given  by  Lepsius,  well 
merit  the  attention  of  Semitic  students  (xxii 
Aeg.  Konigsdyn.  and  Konigsbucli).  It  is  worthy 
of  notice  that  the  name  Nimrod,  and  the  designa 
tion  of  Zerah  (perhaps  a  king  of  this  line,  otherwise 
a  general  in  its  service),  as  "  the  Cushite,"  seem  to 
indicate  that  the  family  sprang  from  a  Cushite 
origin.  They  may  possibly  have  been  connected 
with  the  MASHUWASHA,  a  Shemitic  nation,  appa 
rently  of  Libyans,  for  Tekerut  II.  as  Prince  is  called 
"great  chief  of  the  MASHUWASHA/'  and  also 
" great  chief  of  the  MATU,"  or  mercenaries;  but 
they  can  scarcely  have  been  of  this  people.  Whether 
eastern  or  western  Cushites,  there  does  not  seem  to 
be  any  evidence  in  favour  of  their  having  been  Nigri- 
tians,  and  as  there  is  no  trace  of  any  connexion  be 
tween  them  and  the  xxvth  dynasty  of  Ethiopians, 
they  must  rather  be  supposed  to  be  of  the  eastern 
branch.  Their  names,  when  not  Egyptian,  are  trace 
able  to  Shemitic  roots,  which  is  not  the  case,  as  far  as 


SHISHAK 


1289 


we  know,  with  the  ancient  kings  of  Ethiopia,  whose 
civilization  is  the  same  as  that  of  Egypt.  We  find 
these  foreign  Shemitic  names  in  the  family  of  the 
high-priest-king  Her-har,  three  of  whose  sons  are 
called,  respectively,  MASAHARATA,  MASAKA- 
HARATA,  and  MATEN-NEB,  although  the  names 
of  most  of  his  other  sons  and  those  of  his  line 
appear  to  be  Egyptian.  This  is  not  a  parallel  case 
to  the  preponderance  of  Shemitic  names  in  the  line  of 
the  xxiind  dynasty,  but  it  warns  us  against  too 
positive  a  conclusion.  M.  de  Rouge,  instead  ot 
seeing  in  those  names  of  the  xxiind  dynasty  a  Shem 
itic  or  Asiatic  origin,  is  disposed  to  trace  the  line 
to  that  of  the  high-priest-kings.  Manetho  calls  the 
xxiind  a  dynasty  of  Bubastites,  and  an  ancestor  of  the 
priest-king  dynasty  bears  the  name  Meree-bast,  "  be 
loved  of  Bubastis."  Both  lines  used  Shemitic  names 
and  both  held  the  high-priesthood  of  Amen  (comp. 
Etude  sur  une  Stele  figyptienne,  pp.  203,  204). 
This  evidence  does  not  seem  to  us  conclusive,  for 
policy  may  have  induced  the  line  of  the  xxiind 
dynasty  to  effect  intermarriages  with  the  family  of 
the  priest-kings,  and  to  assume  their  functions. 
The  occurrence  of  Shemitic  names  at  an  earlier  time 
may  indicate  nothing  more  than  Shemitic  alliances, 
but  those  alliances  might  not  improbably  end  in 
usurpation.  Lepsius  gives  a  genealogy  of  Sheshenk  I. 
from  the  tablet  of  Har-p-sen  from  the  Serapeum, 
which,  if  correct,  decides  the  question  (xxii  JKonigs- 
dyn.  pp.  267-269).  In  this,  Sheshenk  I.  is  the 
son  of  a  chief  Namuret,  whose  ancestors,  excepting 
his  mother,  who  is  called  "  royal  mother,"  not  as 
Lepsius  gives  it,  "royal  daughter"  (Etude,  &c., 
p.  203,  note  2),  are  all  untitled  persons,  and,  all 
but  the  princess,  bear  foreign,  apparently  Shemitic 
names.  But,  as  M.  de  Rouge  observes,  this  gene 
alogy  cannot  be  conclusively  made  out  from  the 
tablet,  though  we  think  it  more  probable  than  he 
does  (Etude,  p.  203,  and  note  2). 

Sheshenk  I.,  on  his  accession,  must  have  found 
the  state  weakened  by  internal  strife  and  deprived 
of  much  of  its  foreign  influence.  In  the  time  of  the 
later  kings  of  the  Rameses  family,  two,  if  not  three, 
sovereigns  had  a  real  or  titular  authority;  but 
before  the  accession  of  Sheshenk  it  is  probable  that 
their  lines  had  been  united :  certainly  towards  the 
close  of  the  xxist  dynasty  a  Pharaoh  was  powerful 
enough  to  lead  an  expedition  into  Palestine  and  cap 
ture  Gezer  (1  K.  ix.  16).  Sheshenk  took  as  the  title 
of  his  standard,  "  He  who  attains  royalty  by  uniting 
the  two  regions  [of  Egypt]."  (De  Rouge',  Etude, 
&c.,  p.  204 ;  Lepsius,  Konigsbuch,  xliv.  567  A  a). 
He  himself  probably  married  the  heiress  of  tne  Ra 
meses  family,  while  his  son  and  successor  Usarken 
appears  to  have  taken  to  wife  the  daughter,  and 
perhaps  heiress,  of  the  Tanite  xxist  dynasty.  Pro 
bably  it  was  not  until  late  in  his  reign  that  he  was 
able  to  carry  on  the  foreign  wars  of  the  earlier  king 
who  captured  Gezer.  It  is  observable  that  we 
trace  a  change  of  dynasty  in  the  policy  that  induced 
Sheshenk  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign  to  receive 
the  fugitive  Jeroboam  (1  K.-xi.  40).  Although  it 
was  probably  a  constant  practice  for  the  kings  of 
Egypt  to  show  hospitality  to  fugitives  of  import 
ance,  Jeroboam  would  scarcely  have  been  included 
in  their  class.  Probably,  it  is  expressly  related 
that  he  fled  to  Shishak  because  he  was  well  received 
as  an  enemy  of  Solomon. 

We  do  not  venture  to  lay  any  stress  upon  the 
LXX.  additional  portion  of  1  K.  xii.,  as  the  narra 
tive  there  given  seems  ir reconcileable  with  that  of  the 


1290 


8IIISHAK 


previous  chapter,  which  agrees  with  the  Mas.  text. 
In  the  latter  chapter  Hadad  (LXX.  Ader)  the 
Edomite  flees  from  the  slaughter  of  his  people  by 
Joab  and  David  to  Egypt,  and  marries  the  elder 
sister  of  Tahpenes  (LXX.  Thekemina),  Pharaoh's 
jueen,  returning  to  Idumaea  after  the  death  of 
David  and  Joab.  In  the  additional  portion  of  the 
former  chapter,  Jeroboam — already  said  to  have 
fled  to  Shishak  (LXX.  Susacim) — is  married  after 
Solomon's  death  to  Ano,  elder  sister  of  Thekemina 


SHISHAK 

Judah.  He  built  even  Beth-lehem,  and  Etam, 
and  Tekoa,  and  Beth-zur,  and  Shoco,  and  Auullam, 
and  Gath,  and  Mareshah,  and  Ziph,  and  Adoraim, 
and  Lachish,  and  Azekah,  and  Zorah,  and  Aijalon, 
and  Hebron,  wiich  [are]  in  Judah  and  in  Benjamio 
fenced  cities  "  (2  Chr.  xi.  5-10). 

Shishak  has  left  a  record  of  this  expedition, 
sculptured  on  the  wall  of  the  great  temple  of  El- 
Karnak.  It  is  a  list  of  the  countries,  cities,  and 
tiibes,  conquered  or  ruled  by  him,  or  tributary  to 


the  queen.    Between  Hadad's  return  and  Solomon's    him.     In  this  list  Champollion  recognized  a  name 


death,  probably  more  than  thirty  years  elapsed,  cer 
tainly  twenty.  Besides,  how  are  we  to  account  for 
the  two  elder  sisters  ?  Moreover,  Shishak's  queen, 
his  only  or  principal  wife,  is  called  KARAAMA, 
which  is  remote  from  Tahpenes  or  Thekemina. 
[TAHPENES.] 

The  king  of  Egypt  does  not  seem  to  have  com 
menced  hostilities  during  the  powerful  reign  of  So 
lomon.  It  was  not  until  the  division  of  the  tribes, 
that,  probably  at  the  instigation  of  Jeroboam,  he 
attacked  Rehoboam.  The  following  particulars  of 
this  war  are  related  in  the  Bible  :  "  In  the  fifth 
year  of  king  Rehoboam,  Shishak  king  of  Egypt 
came  up  against  Jerusalem,  because  they  had  trans 
gressed  against  the  LORD,  with  twelve  hundred 
chariots,  and  threescore  thousand  horsemen:  and 
the  people  [were]  without  number  that  came  with 
him  out  of  Egypt;  the  Lubim,  the  Sukkiim,  and 
the  Cushim.  And  he  took  the  fenced  cities  which 
[pertained]  to  Judah,  and  came  to  Jerusalem" 


('2  Chr.  xii.  2-4).     Shishak  did  not 


Jeru 


salem,  but  exacted  all  the  treasures  of  his  city  from 
Rehoboam,  and  apparently  made  him  tributary 
(5,  9-12,  esp.  8).  The  narrative  in  Kings  men 
tions  only  the  invasion  and  the  exaction  (1  K.  xiv. 
25,  26).  The  strong  cities  of  Rehoboam  are  thus 
enumerated  in  an  earlier  passage :  "  And  Rehoboam 
dwelt  in  Jerusalem,  and  built  cities  for  defence  in 


which  he  translated,  as  we  shall  see,  incorrectly, 
"  the  kingdom  of  Judah,"  and  was  thus  led  to  trace 
the  names  of  certain  cities  of  Palestine.  The  docu 
ment  has  since  been  more  carefully  studied  by  Dr. 
Brugsch,  and  with  less  success  by  Dr.  Blau.  On 
account  of  its  great  importance  as  a  geographical 
record,  we  give  a  full  transcription  of  it. 

There  are  two  modes  of  transcribing  Hebrew  or 
cognate  names  written  in  hieroglyphics.  They  can 
either  be  rendered  by  the  English  letters  to  which 
the  hieroglyphics  correspond,  or  by  the  Hebrew- 
letters  for  which  they  are  known  from  other  in 
stances  to  be  used.  The  former  mode  is  perhaps 
more  scientific ;  the  latter  is  more  useful  for  the 
present  investigation.  It  is  certain  that  the  Egyp 
tians  employed  one  sign  in  preference  for  H,  and 
another  for  |"l,  but  we  cannot  prove  that  these  signs 
had  any  difference  when  used  for  native  words, 
though  in  other  cases  it  seems  clear  that  there 
was  such  a  difference.  We  give  Ihe  list  transcribed 
by  both  methods,  the  first  as  a  check  upon  the 
second,  for  which  we  are  indebted  to  M.  de  Rouge"  s 
comparative  alphabet,  by  far  the  most  satisfactory 
yet  published,  though  in  some  parts  it  may  be 
questioned  (Revw.  Archtfoloyiqiie,  N.  S.  xi.  351-354). 
These  transcriptions  occupy  the  first  two  columns  of 
the  table,  the  third  contains  Dr.  Brugsch's  identifi 
cation,  and  the  fourth,  our  own.e 


THE  GEOGRAPHICAL  LIST  OF  SHESHENK  I. 


No. 

Transcr.  in  Eng.  Let9. 

Transcr.  in  Heb.  Let8. 

Brugsch's  Identification. 

Our  Identification. 

13 

ReBATA 

«n«3^ 

Rabbith. 

Rabbith  ? 

14 

TAANKAU 

1JOJJJKD 

Taanach. 

Taanach. 

15 

SHeNeMA-AA 

NKJflMB* 

Shunem. 

Shunem. 

16 

BAT-SHeNRAA 

«&rop  run 

Beth-shan. 

17 

ReHeBAA 

NKirfc 

Rehob. 

Rehob. 

18 

HePURMAA 

MMOhfifl 

Haphraim. 

Haphraim. 

19 

ATeRMA 

KID^IK 

Adoraim. 

Adoraim. 

21 

SHUATEE. 

•  nKi$ 

22 

MAHANMA 

yD3KnyD 

Mahanaim. 

Mahanaim. 

23 

KeBAANA 

&OV2P 

Gibeon. 

Gibeon. 

24 

BAT-HUAReN 

£>Kin  n&*3 

Beth-horon. 

Beth-horon. 

25 

KATMeT 

n?o*iNp 

Kedemoth. 

Kedemoth. 

26 

AYUReN 

JWH 

Aijalon. 

Atfalon. 

27 

MAKeTAU 

l&rOSJB 

Megiddo. 

Megiddo. 

28 

ATEERA 

frw>HiS 

. 

Edrei  ? 

29 

YUTeH-MARK 

l^yro  mv 

. 

Kingdom  of  Jtdah? 

31 

HAANeM 

D3NNH 

.        . 

Anem? 

32 

AARANA 

fcUKiy 

Eglon. 

33 

BARMA 

ND^N3 

Bileam,  Ibleam. 

Bileam,  Ibleam. 

*  The  list  of  Shishak  in  the  original  hieroglyphics  Is 
published  by  Rosellini,  Monumenti  ReaM,  no.  cxlviii.; 


Geogr.  Inschr.  li.  taf.  xxiv. ;  and  commented  upon  bj 
Brugsch  (Id.  pp.  56  seqq )  and  Dr.  Blau  (Zeitschrifi  d 


Denkmater,  Abth.  iii.  bl.  252  ;  and  Brugsch,    Deutsch.  Mvrgenland.  Gesellseh.  sv.  pp.  233  seqq.). 


SHISHAK 


1291 


No. 

Transcr.  in  Eng.  Lef.lTranscr.  In  Heb.  Let6 

Brugsch's  Identification 

Our  IdeiitiflDiUon. 

34 

TATPeTeR 

bnmn 

35 

A.  H.  M. 

•o-n-N 

36 

BAT-AARMeT 

r\zf?y    flN3 

Alemeth. 

Alemeth,  Almon. 

37 

KAKAREE 

*^NpXp 

. 

Ha-kikkar  (Circle  of  JorcL-n;, 

38 

SHAUKA 

Np1J<K> 

Shoco. 

Shoco. 

39 

BAT-TePU 

lato  nx3 

Beth-Tappmh. 

Beth-Tappuah. 

40 

ABARAA 

XK^&QK 

AbeL 

45 

BAT-TAB  .  . 

••3NT    flK3 

53 

NUPAR 

;>Kai3 

54 

.  PeTSHAT 

nKBna. 

65 

Pe-KeTeT? 

?  J-JB3B 

56 

ATMAA 

KK&TK 

Edom. 

Edomf 

57 

TARMEM 

DE^NT 

Zalmonah  ? 

68 

.  .  .  RR  .  A 

N  •  y?  •  •  • 

69 

.  .  RTAA 

NKT1?  •  • 

Tirzah? 

C4 

.  .  APeN 

tax  .  . 

65 

PeAAMAK 

pyoya 

66 

AA-AATeMAA 

NNETN'Ky 

Azem. 

Azem,  or  Ezem? 

67 

ANARA 

K^JX 

68 

PeHAKRAA 

NN^pxna 

Hagaritea. 

Hagarites. 

69 

FeTYUSHAA 

N«^rna 

. 

LetdBhim? 

70 

ARAHeReR 

y>n&nK 

71 

PeHeKRAA 

KK^pne 

Hagarites. 

Hagarltea. 

72 

MeRSARAMA 

yjONiNDiD 

. 

Cf.  Salma? 

73 

SHEBPeReT 

n*?3^ 

Shephelah  ? 

Shephelah  ? 

74 

NeKBeREE 

«^aaa 

75 

SHeBPeRet 

rtxw 

Shephelah  ? 

Shephelah  ? 

76 

WARAKEET 

n^Nixi 

77 

PeHeKRAA 

xx'ppna 

Hagarites. 

Hagarites. 

78 

NAABAYT 

n^K3ya 

. 

Nebaioth. 

79 

AATeTMAA 

NN^iiy 

•        .         .         . 

Tema? 

80 

TePKeKA 

NppBT 

81 

MA  .  A  .  . 

•  •  K  •  yio 

82 

TA  

NLJ 

83 

KANAA 

NN3NJ 

. 

Kenit«s? 

84 

PeNAKBU 

i3awa 

Negeb. 

Negeb. 

86 

ATeM-A'erer-HeT 

•  nnno3CTy 

. 

Azem,  or  Ezem, 

86 

TASHTNAU 

IN^I^KID 

87 

PeHKARA 

N^Npna 

Hagarites. 

Hagarites. 

88 

SHNAYAA 

Mtt*IU& 

89 

HAKA 

NpNH 

90 

PeNAKBU 

nawa 

Negeb. 

Negeb. 

91 

WAHTURKA 

ND/innKi 

92 

PeNAKBU 

133N3B 

Negeb. 

Negeb. 

93 

ASH-HeTA 

Nnn^x 

94 

PeHeKREE 

^ana 

Hagarites. 

Hagarites. 

95 

HANEENYAU 

1K*3*3Kn 

96 

PeHeKRAU 

iN^3na 

Hagarites. 

Hagarites. 

97 

ARKAT 

INp^K 

98 

MERTMAM 

DK»"nB 

«... 

Duma? 

99 

HANANYEE 

*^3NJKn 

100 

MERTRA-AA 

NXN1T1D 

. 

Cf.  Eddara? 

J01 

PeHeKeR 

!?3na 

Haearites. 

HagBriteb, 

102 

TRUAN 

l«An 

129? 


SHISHAK 


No. 

Transcr.  in  Eng.  Let". 

Transcr.  in  Heb.  Let".  Brugsch's  Identification. 

Our  Identification. 

103 

HEETBAA 

iwaTn 

. 

Adbeel? 

104 

SHeRNeRAM 

DN1?:1?^ 

105 

HEETBAA 

KK1TH 

«        .        • 

Adbeel? 

106 

TEEWATEE 

*HKVT 

107 

HAKeRMA  or 
HAReKMA 

ychpxn  , 

. 

Rekem  (Petra)  ? 

108 

AARATAA 

wnvby 

. 

Eldaah? 

109 

RABAT 

noib 

Beth-lebaoth,  Lebaoth. 

Beth-lebaoth,  Lebaoth?   R*bbahf 

110 

AARATAAY 

wwAs; 

Arad. 

Eldaah? 

111 

NeBPTeBeT 

ruon: 

112 

YURAHMA 

pOTfcffti 

. 

Jerahmeelites? 

116 

MeREE  .  M 

D-no 

117 

MeRTRA-AA 

KNNYnD 

. 

Cf.  Eddara? 

118 

PeBYAA 

KM^fi 

119 

MAHKAA. 

^K^nyD 

.         .         .         • 

Maachah? 

120 

•  ARYUK 

"11HX  • 

121 

FeRTMA-AA 

NNyjorna 

• 

122 

MeRBARA 

intcra 

123 

BPAR-RATA 

fcwn^ita 

124 

BAT-  A-  A  AT 

nyy  nxn 

Beth-anoth. 

Beth-anoth,  or  Beth-anath  ? 

125 

SHeRHATAU 

ixnxm^ 

Sharuhen  ? 

126 

ARMATeN 

|nytDTM 

127 

KeRNAA 

fettU^ 

Golan? 

128 

MeRMA  .  . 

•  •  K!D"1D 

129 

.  .  RHeT 

nm-. 

130 

.  .  .  RAA 

XXT  •  •  • 

131 

MA  

....  yj3 

132 

AR  

....  S*^ 

133 

YURA  .  .  . 

...i6i» 

The  following  identifications  are  so  evident  that 
it  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  them,  and  they  may 
be  made  the  basis  of  our  whole  investigation : — Nos. 
14,  22,  24,  26,  27,  38,  39.  It  might  appear  at 
first  sight  that  there  was  some  geographical  order, 
but  a  closer  examination  of  these  few  names  shows 
that  this  is  not  the  case,  and  all  that  we  can  infer 
is,  that  the  cities  of  each  kingdom  or  nation  are  in 
general  grouped  together.  The  forms  of  the  names 
show  that  irregularity  of  the  vowels  that  charac 
terizes  the  Egyptian  language,  as  may  be  seen  in 
the  different  modes  in  which  a  repeated  name  is 
written  (Nos.  68,  71,  77,  87,  94,  96,  101).  The 
consonants  are  used  very  nearly  in  accordance  with 
the  system  upon  which  we  have  transcribed  in  the 
second  column,  save  in  the  case  of  the  Egyptian  R, 
which  seems  to  be  indifferently  used  for  1  and  ^. 

There  are  several  similar  geographical  lists,  dating 
for  the  most  part  during  the  period  of  the  Empire, 
but  they  differ  from  this  in  presenting  few,  if  any, 
^petitions,  and  only  one  of  them  contains  names 
certainly  the  same  as  some  in  the  present.  They 
ate  lists  of  countries,  cities,  and  tribes,  forming  the 
Egyptian  Empire,  and  so  far  records  of  conquest  that 
any  cities  previously  taken  by  the  Pharaoh  to  whose 
reign  thay  belong  are  mentioned.  The  list  which 
contains  some  of  the  names  in  Sheshenk's  is 
of  Thothmes  III.,  sixth  sovereign  of  the  xviiith 
dynasty,  and  comprises  man}r  name-"  of  cities  of 


Palestine  mainly  in  the  outskirts  of  the  Israelite 
territory.  It  is  important,  in  reference  to  this 
list,  to  state  that  Thothmes  III.,  in  his  23rd  year, 
had  fought  a  battle  with  confederate  nations  near 
Megiddo,  whose  territories  the  list  enumerates.  The 
narrative  of  the  expedition  fully  establishes  the 
identity  of  this  and  other  towns  in  the  list  of 
Shishak.  It  is  given  in  the  document  known  as  the 
Statistical  Tablet  of  El-Karnak  (Birch,  «  Annals  of 
Thothmes  III.,"  Archaeologia,  1853;  De  Rouge", 
Rec.  Arch.  N.  S.  xi.  347  seqq. ;  Brugsch,  Geogr. 
Inschr.  ii.  pp.  32  seqq.).  The  only  general  result 
of  the  comparison  of  the  two  lists  is,  that  in  the 
later  one  the  Egyptian  article  is  in  two  cases  pre 
fixed  to  foreign  names,  No.  56,  NEKBU,  of  the  list 
of  Thothmes  III.,  being  the  same  as  Nos.  84,  90. 
92,  PeNAKBU  of  the  list  of  Shishak ;  and  No. 
105,  AAMeKU,  of  the  former,  being  the  same  as 
No.  65,  PeAAMAK,  of  the  latter. 

We  may  now  commence  a  detailed  examination 
of  the  list  of  Shishak.  No.  13  may  correspond  to 
Rabbith  in  Issachar.  No.  14  is  certainly  Taanach, 
a  Levitical  city  in  the  same  tribe,  noticed  in  the 
inscription  of  Thothmes  commemorating  the  cam 
paign  above  mentioned,  in  some  connexion  with  the 
route  to  Megiddo:  it  is  there  written  TAANAKA. 
No.  15  is  probably  Shunem,  a  town  of  Issachar: 
the  form  of  the  hieroglyphic  name  seems  to  indicate 
a  dual  'comp.  Nos.  18.  19,  22),  and  it  i»  remark 


SHISHAK 

fble  that  Shunem  has  been  thought  to  be  originally 
a  dual,  D>1K>  for  D^-lt?  (Ges.  Thes.  s.  v.).    No.  16 
is  supposed  by  Dr.  Brugsch  to  be  Beth-shan ;  but 
the  final  letter  of  the  Egyptian  name  is  wanting  in 
the  Hebrew.     It  was  a  city  of  Manasseh,  but  in  the 
tribe  of  Issachar.      No.  17  is  evidently  Rehob,  a 
Levitical  city  in  Asher;  and  No.  18  Haphraim,  a 
town  in  Issachar.     No.  19  seems  to  be  Adoraim, 
one  of  Rehoboam's   strong  cities,  in  the  tribe  of 
Judah :  Adullam  is  out  of  the  question,  as  it  com 
mences  with  y,  and  is  not  a  dual.     No.  21  we  can 
not  explain.    No.  22  is  Mahanaim,  a  Levitical  city  in 
Gad.     No.  23  is  Gibeon,  a  Levitical  city  in  Benja 
min.    No.  24  is  Beth-horon,  which,  though  counted 
to  Ephraim,  was  on  the  boundary  of  Benjamin.     It 
was  assigned  to  the  Levites.     The  place  consisted 
of  two  towns  or  villages,  both  of  which  we  may 
suppose  are  here  intended.     No.  25  is  evidently  the 
Levitical  city  Kedemoth  in   Reuben,  and  No.  26, 
Aijalon,  also   Levitical,   in  Dan.      No.  27  is  the 
famous  Megiddo,  which  in  the  Statistical  Tablet  of 
Thothmes  III.  is  written  MAKeTA,  and  in  the  same 
king's  list  MAKeTEE,  but  in  the  introductory  title 
MAKeTA.     It  was  a  city  of  the  western  division  of 
Manasseh.    No.  28  may  perhaps  be  Edrei,  in  trans- 
Jordanite  Manasseh,  though  the  sign  usually  em 
ployed  for  V  is   wanting.     No.  29  is  the  famous 
name  which  Champollion  read  "  the  kingdom  ol 
Judah."     To  this  Dr.  Brugsch  objects,  (1)  that  the 
name  is  out  of  place  as  following  some  names  o; 
towns  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah  as  well  as  in  that  o1 
Israel,  and  preceding  others  of  both  kingdoms  ;  (2 
that  the  supposed  equivalent  of  kingdom  (MARK 
does  not  satisfactorily  represent  the  Hebrew 
D,  but  corresponds  to  TJ^D  ;  and  (3)  that  th 
supposed  construction  is  inadmissible.     He  proposes 
to  read  "|ten  Tl!V  as  the  name  of  a  town,  whicl 
he  does  not  find  in  ancient  Palestine.     The  positioi 
does  not  seem  to  us  of  much  consequence,  as  th 
list  is  evidently  irregular  in  its  order,  and  the  form 
might   not   be   Hebrew,   and   neither   Arabic   no 
Syriac  requires  the  final  letter.     The  kingdom  o 
Judah  cannot  be  discovered  in  the  name  withou 
disregard   of  grammar ;    but   if  we   are   to    rea( 
"  Judah  the  king,"  to  which  Judah  does  the  nam 
point?     There  was  no  Jewish  king  of  that  nam 
before  Judas-Aristobulus.     It  seems  useless  to  loo 
for  a  city,  although  there  was  a  place  called  Jehu 
in  the  tribe  of  Dan.     The  only  suggestion  we  cai 
propose  is,  that  the  second  word  is  "  kingdom,"  an 
was  placed  after  the  first  in  the   manner  of 
Egyptian  determinative.     No.  31  may  be  compare 
with  Anem  in  Issachar  (D3j7),  occurring,  howevei 

only  in  1  Chr.  vi.  73  (Heb.  58),  but  it  is  not  cer 
tain  that  the  Egyptian  H  ever  represents  JJ.  N 
32  has  been  identified  by  Dr.  Brugsch  with  Eglon 
but  evidence  as  to  its  position  shows  that  he  is  i 
error.  In  the  Statistical  Tablet  of  El-Karnak  it  i 
placed  in  a  mountain -district  apparently  southwar 
of  Megiddo,  a  half-day's  march  from  the  plain  of  tha 
city.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  M.  de  Roug 
is  correct  in  supposing  that  the  Hebrew  origins 
signified  an  ascent  (comp.  n*?JJ  ;  Rev.  Arch.  } 
350).  This  name  also  occurs  in  the  list  of  Thothme 
(Id.  p.  360)  ;  there  differing  only  in  having  anothe 
character  for  the  second  letter.  No.  33  has  bee 
identified  by  Dr.  Brugsch  with  Bileam  or  Ibleam 
a  Levitical  city  in  the  western  division  of  Manage] 
For  No.  34  we  can  make  no  suggestion,  and  No.  i 


SHISHAK 


1293 


too  much  effaced  for  any  conjecture  to  be  hazarded, 
o.  30   Dr.  Brugsch    identifies   with   Alemeth,  a 
evitical  city  in  Benjamin,  also  called  Almon,  the 
rst  being  probably  either  the  later  or  a  correct 
rm.     [ALEMETH  ;  ALMON.]      No.  37  we  think 
iay  be  the  Circle  of  Jordan,  in  the  A.  V.  Plain  of 
ordan.    No.  38  is  Shoco,  one  of  Rehoboam's  strong 
ties,  and  39,  Beth-Tappuah,  in  the  mountainous 
art  of  Judah.     No.  40  has  been  supposed  by  Dr. 
>rugsch  to  be  an  Abel,  and  of  the  towns  of  that 
ame  he  chooses  Abel-shittim,  the  Abila  of  Josephus, 
i  the   Bible   generally  called    Shittim.      No.  45, 
hough  greatly  effaced,  is  sufficiently  preserved  for 
s  to  conclude  that  it  does  not  correspond  to  any 
nown  name  in  ancient  Palestine  beginning  with 
5eth :  the  second  part  of  the  name  commences  with 
XT,  as  though  it  were  "  the  house  of  the  wolf  or 
Zeeb,"  which  would  agree  with  the  south-eastern 
part  of  Palestine,  or  indicate,  which  is  far  less  likely, 
place  named  after  the  Midianitish  prince  Zeeb,  or 
ome  chief  of  that  name.    No.  53  is  uncertain  in  its 
,hird  letter,  which  is  indistinct,  and  we  offer  no  con- 
ecture.     No.  54  commences  with  an  erased  sign, 
bllowed  by  one  that  is  indistinct.    No.  55  is  doubt- 
"ul  as  to  reading:  probably  it  is  Pe-KETET.     Pe 
sin  be  the  Egyptian  article,  as  in  the  name  of  the 
Hagarites,  the   second    sign    in  Egyptian   signifies 
little,"  and  the  remaining  part  corresponds  to  the 
lebrew  J"lt3p  Kattath,  "  small,"  the  name  of  a  town 
n  Zebulun  (Josh.  xix.  15),  apparently  the  same  as 
Kitron  (Judg.  i.  30).   The  word  KET  is  found  in  an 
cient  Egyptian  with  the  sense  "  little  "  (comp.  Copt. 
KO*ffXI>  De  Rouge,  fitude,  p.  66).  It  seems,  how 
ever,  rare,  and  may  be  Shemitic.    No.  56  is  held  by 
Dr.  Brugsch  to  be  Edom,  and  there  is  no  objection  to 
this  identification  but  that  we  have  no  other  names 
positively  Edomite  in  the  list.    No.  57  Dr.  Brugsch 
compares  with  Zalmonah,  a  station  of  the  Israelites 
in  the  desert.     If  it  be  admissible  to  read  the  first 
letter  as  a  Hebrew   D,  this  name  does  not  seem 
remote  from  Telem  and  Telaim,  which  are  probably 
the  names  of  one  place  in  the  tribe  of  Judah.     Nos. 
58,  59,  and  64  are  not  sufficiently  preserved  for  us 
to  venture  upon  any  conjecture.     No.  65  has  been 
well  supposed  by  Dr.  Brugsch  to  be  the  Hebrew 
pOy,  "  a  valley,"  with  the  Egyptian  article  pre 
fixed,  but  what  valley  is  intended  it  seems  hopeless 
to  conjecture:  it  may  be  a  town  named  after  a 
valley,  like  the  Beth-emek  mentioned  in  the  account 
of  the  border  of  Asher  (Josh.  xix.  27).     No.  66 
has  been  reasonably  identified  by  Dr.  Brugsch  with 
Azem,    which   was   in  the   southernmost   part  of 
Judah,  and  is  supposed   to  have  been  afterwards 
allotted  to  Simeon,  in  whose  list  an  Ezem  occurs. 
No.  85  reads  ATeM-^^T-HeT?    the  second  part 
being  the  sign  for  "  little"  (comp.  No.  55).     This 
suggests  that  the  use  of  the  sign  for  "  great "  as 
the   first   character   of  the    present   name   is   not 
without  significance,  and   that  there  was  a  great 
and  little  Azem   or   Ezem,  perhaps   distinguished 
in    the    Hebrew    text    by   different    orthography. 
No.  67  we   cannot  explain.      No.  68   is  unques 
tionably  "  the  Hagarites,"  the  Egyptian  article  being 
prefixed.      The   same   name   recurs   Nos.   71,  77, 
87,  94,  96,  and  101.     In  the  Bible  we  find  the 
Hagarites  to  the  east  of  Palestine,  and  in  the  classical 
writers  they  are  placed  along  the  north  of  Arabia. 
The  Hagaranu  or  Hagar  are  mentioned  as  conquered 
by  Sennacherib  (Rawlinson's  Hdt.  i.  p.  476 ;  Oppert, 
Sarganides,  p.  42).     No.  69   FeTYUSHAA, 


1294 


SHISHAK 


from  the  termination,  to  be  a  gentile  name,  and  in 
form  resembles  Letushim,  a  Keturahite  tribe.  But 
this  resemblance  seems  to  be  more  than  superficial, 
for  Letushim,  "the  hammered  or  sharpened,"  comes 
irom  t^D?,  "  he  hammered,  forged,"  and  K'DS 
(unused)  signifies  "  he  bent  or  hammered."  From 
the  occurrence  of  this  name  near  that  of  the 
Hagarites,  this  identification  seems  deserving  of 
attention.  No.  70  may  perhaps  be  Aroer,  but  the 
correspondence  of  Hebrew  and  Egyptian  scarcely 
allows  this  supposition.  No.  72  commences  with 
a  sign  that  is  frequently  an  initial  in  the  rest 
of  the  list.  If  here  syllabic,  it  must  read  MEB ; 
if  alphabetic,  and  its  alphabetic  use  is  possible 
at  this  period,  M.  In  the  terms  used  for  Egyp 
tian  towns  we  find  MER,  written  with  the  same 
sign,  as  the  designation  of  the  second  town  in  a 
uome,  therefore  not  a  capital,  but  a  town  of  im 
portance.  That  this  sign  is  here  similarly  em 
ployed  seems  certain  from  its  being  once  followed  by 
a  geographical  determinative  (No.  122).  We  there 
fore  read  this  name  SARAMA,  or,  according  to 
Lepsius,  BARAMA.  The  final  syllable  seems  to 
indicate  a  dual.  We  may  compare  the  name  Salma, 
vhich  occurs  in  Ptolemy's  list  of  the  towns  of 
Arabia  Deserta,  and  his  list  of  those  of  the  interior.* 
No.  73,  repeated  at  75,  has  been  compared  by 
Dr.  Brugsch  with  the  Shephelah,  or  maritime  plain 
of  the  Philistines.  The  word  seems  nearer  to  Shib 
boleth,  "  a  stream,"  but  it  is  unlikely  that  two 
places  should  have  been  so  called,  and  the  names 
among  which  it  occurs  favour  the  other  explana 
tion.  No.  74  seems  cognate  to  No.  87,  though  it 
is  too  different  for  us  to  venture  upon  supposing  it 
to  be  another  form  of  the  same  name.  No.  76  has 
been  compared  by  Dr.  Brugsch  with  Berecah,  "  a 
pool,"  but  it  seems  more  probably  the  name  of  a 
tribe.  No.  78  reads  NAABAYT,  and  is  unques 
tionably  Nebaioth.  There  was  a  people  or  tribe  of 
Nebaioth  in  Isaiah's  time  (Is.  Ix.  7),  and  this 
second  occurrence  of  the  name  in  the  form  of  that 
of  Ishmael's  son  is  to  be  considered  in  reference  to 
the  supposed  Chaldaean  origin  of  the  Nabathaeans. 
In  Lepsius's  copy  the  name  is  N.  TAYT,  the 
second  character  being  unknown,  and  no  doubt,  as 
well  as  the  third,  incorrectly  copied.  The  occurrence- 
of  the  name  immediately  after  that  of  the  Hagarites 
is  sufficient  evidence  in  favour  of  Dr.  Brugsch's  read 
ing,  which  in  most  cases  of  difference  in  this  list  is 
tolbe  preferred  to  Lepsius's.*  No.  79,  AATeTMAA. 
may  perhaps  be  compared  with  Tema  the  son  of 
Ishmael,  if  we  may  read  AATTeMAA.  No.  80 
we  cannot  explain.  Nos.  81  and  82  are  too  much 
effaced  for  any  conjecture.  No.  83  we  compare 
with  the  Kenites :  here  it  is  a  tribe.  No.  84  is 
also  found  in  the  list  of  Thothmes :  here  it  has  the 
Egyptian  article,  PeNAKBQ,  there  it  is  written 
NeKBU  (Rev.  Arch.  pp.  364,  365).  It  evidently 
corresponds  to  the  Hebrew  ^33,  "  the  south,"  some- 
times  specially  applied  to  the  southern  district  of 
Palestine.  No.  85  reads  ATeM-A^T-HeT?  The 
second  part  of  the  name  is  "  little  "  (comp.  No.  55). 
We  have  already  shown  that  it  is  probably  a 
•l  little  "  town,  corresponding  to  the  "  great "  town 
No.  66.  But  the  final  part  of  No.  85  remains 


f  We  were  disposed  to  think  that  this  might  be  Jeru 
salem,  especially  on  account  of  the  dual  termination  ;  but 
the  impossibility  of  reading  the  first  character  ATUR  or 
AUR  OX1)'  as  an  ideographic  sign  for  "  river,"  to  say 
nothing  of  the  doubt  as  to  the  second  character,  makea  us 


SHISHAK 

unexplained.  No.  86  we  cr.nnot  explain.  No.  87 
liffers  from  the  other  occurrences  of  the  name  oi 
the  Hagarites  in  being  followed  by  the  sign  for 
MER:  we  therefore  suppose  it  to  be  a  city  of  this 
nation.  No.  88  may  be  compared  with  Shen  (1 
Sam.  vii.  12),  which,  however,  may  not  be  the  name 
of  a  tov/n  or  village,  or  with  the  two  Ashnahs 
(Josh.  xv.  33,  43).  Nos.  89,  91,  and  93  we  cannot 
explain.  No.  95  presents  a  nan.e,  repeated  with 
slight  variation  in  No.  99,  which  is  evidently  that 
of  a  tribe,  but  we  cannot  recognize  it.  No.  97 
equally  baffles  us.  No.  98  is  a  town  TeMAiM, 
possibly  the  town  of  Dumah  in  the  north  of 
Arabia  or  that  in  Judah.  No.  100  is  a  town 
TRA-AA,  which  we  may  compare  with  Eddara 
in  Arabia  Deserta.  No.  102  may  mean  a  resting- 
place,  from  the  root  j-17.  No.  103,  repeated  at 
105,  is  apparently  the  name  of  a  tribe.  It  may  be 
Adbeel,  the  name  of  a  son  of  Ishmael,  but  the  form 
is  not  close  enough  for  us  to  offer  this  as  more  than 
a  conjecture.  Nos.  104  and  106  we  cannot  explain. 
No.  107  is  either  HAKeRMA  or  HAReKMA.  It 
may  be  compared  with  Rekem  or  Arekeme,  the  old 
name  of  Petra  according  to  Josephus  (A.  J.  iv.  7), 
but  the  form  is  probably  dual.  No.  108  has  been 
compared  with  Arad  by  Dr.  Brugsch :  it  is  a  coun 
try  or  place,  and  the  variation  in  No.  110  appears 
to  be  the  name  of  the  people.  No.  109  may  be 
Beth-lebaoth  in  Simeon,  evidently  the  same  as 
Lebaoth  originally  in  Judah,  or  else  Rabbah  in 
Judah.  No.  Ill  we  cannot  explain.  No.  112 
is  most  like  the  Jerahmeelites  in  the  south  of  Judah. 
No.  116  is  partly  effaced.  No.  117  is  the  same 
name  as  No.  100.  No.  118  is  probably  the  name 
of  an  unknown  tribe.  No.  119  may  be  Maachah, 
if  the  geographical  direction  is  changed.  No.  120 
is  partly  effaced.  No.  121  we  cannot  explain.  No. 
122  appears  to  be  a  town  of  BARA  or  BALA. 
No.  123  seems  to  read  BAR-RATA,  (tfTK")  ^JD), 
but  we  know  no  place  of  that  name.  No.  124 
reads  BAT-AAT,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  it  is  really  BAT-ANAT.  In  this  case  it 
might  be  either  Beth-anath  in  Naphtali  or  Beth- 
anoth  in  Judah.  No.  125  we  cannot  explain.  No. 
126  appears  to  commence  with  Aram,  but  the  rest 
does  not  correspond  to  any  distinctive  word  known 
to  follow  this  name.  No.  127  has  been  identified 
by  Dr.  Brugsch  with  Golan,  a  Levitical  city  in 
Bashan.  The  remaining  names  are  more  or  less 
effaced. 

It  will  be  perceived  that  the  list  contains  three 
classes  of 'names  mainly  grouped  together — ;(1)  Le 
vitical  and  Canaanite  cities  of  Israel;  (2)  cities  of 
Judah  ;  and  (3)  Arab  tribes  to  the  south  of  Pales 
tine.  The  occurrence  together  of  Levitical  cities 
was  observed  by  Dr.  Brugsch.  It  is  evident  that 
Jeroboam  was  not  at  once  firmly  established,  and 
that  the  Levites  especially  held  to  Rehoboam. 
Therefore  it  may  have  been  the  policy  of  Jeroboam 
to  employ  Shishak  to  capture  their  cities.  Other 
cities  in  his  territory  were  perhaps  still  garrisoned 
by  Rehoboam's  forces,  or  held  by  the  Canaanites, 
who  may  have  somewhat  recovered  their  inde 
pendence  at  this  period.  The  small  number  of 
cities  identified  in  the  actual  territory  of  Reho- 

reject  this  reading ;  and  the  position  in  the  list  is  unsuit 
able.    The  Rev.  D.  Haigh  has  learnedly  supported  this 
view,  at  which  he  independently  arrived,  in  a  corre 
spondence. 
§  Lepsius's  copy  presents  many  errors  of  carelessness 


SlilTRAl 

boam  is  explained  by  the  erasure  of  fourteen  oarnes 
of  the  part  of  the  list  where  they  occur.  The 
identification  of  some  names  of  Arab  tribes  is  of 
great  interest  and  historical  value,  though  it  is  to 
be  feared  that  further  progress  can  scarcely  be 
made  in  their  part  of  the  list. 

The  Pharaohs  of  the  Empire  passed  through 
northern  Palestine  to  push  their  conquests  to  the 
Euphrates  and  Mesopotamia.  Shishak,  probably 
unable  to  attack  the  Assyrians,  attempted  the 
subjugation  of  Palestine  and  the  tracts  of  Arabia 
which  border  Egypt,  knowing  that  the  Arabs  would 
interpose  an  effectual  resistance  to  any  invader  of 
Egypt.  He  seems  to  have  succeeded  in  consolidating 
his  power  in  Arabia,  and  we  accordingly  find  Zerah  in 
alliance  with  the  people  of  Gerar,  if  we  may  infer 
this  from  their  sharing  his  overthrow.  [R.  S.  P.] 


SHITTAH-TKEE 


1295 


SHITBA'I   (ntDi    Keri, 
Sctrai).     A  Sharonite  who  was  over  David's  herds 
that  fed  in  Sharon  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  29). 

SHITTAH-TREE,  SHITTIM  (ntP,  shit- 


tdh:  £v\ov  aa-n-n-Tov:  ligna  setim,  spind)  is  with 
out  doubt  correctly  referred  to  some  species  of 
Acacia,  of  which  three  or  four  kinds  occur  in  the 
Bible  lands.  The  wood  of  this  tree  —  perhaps  the 
A.  Seyal  is  more  definitely  signified  —  was  exten 
sively  employed  in  the  construction  of  the  taber- 


Acacia  Seyal. 

nacle,  the  boards  and  pillars  of  which  were  made 
of  it ;  the  ark  of  the  covenant  and  the  staves  for 
carrying  it,  the  table  of  shew-bread  with  its 
staves,  the  altar  of  burnt-offerings  and  the  altar 
of  incense  \rith  their  respective  staves  were  also 
constructed  out  of  this  wood  (see  Ex.  xxv.,  xxvi., 
xxxvi.,  xxxvii.,  xxxviii.).  In  Is.  xli.  19  the 


*•  Livingstone  (Tram,  in  S.  Africa,  abridged  ed.,  p.  77) 
thinks  the  Acacia  giraffa,  (Camel-thorn)  supplied  the 
ifood  for  the  Tabernacle,  &c.  "  It  is,"  he  adds,  "an  im- 


Acacia  tree  is  mentioned  with  the  •'  ceJai ,  the 
myrtle,  and  the  oil-tree,"  as  one  which  God  would 
plant  in  the  wilderness.  The  Egyptian  name  of 
the  Acacia  is  sont,  sant,  or  lanth :  see  Jablonski, 
Opusc.  i.  p.  261 ;  Rossius,  EtymoL  Aegyp.  p.  273  ; 
and  Prosper  Alpinus  (Plant.  Aegypt.  p.  6),  who 
thus  speaks  of  this  tree :  "  The  acacia,  which  the 
Egyptians  call  Sant,  grows  in  localities  in  Egypt 
remote  from  the  sea ;  and  large  quantities  of  this 
tree  are  produced  on  the  mountains  of  Sinai,  ov»r- 
hanging  the  Red  Sea.  That  this  tree  is,  without 
doubt,  the  true  acacia  of  the  ancients,  or  the 
Egyptian  thorn,  is  clear  from  several  indications, 
especially  from  the  fact  that  no  other  spinous  tree 
occurs  in  Egypt  which  so  well  answers  to  the 
required  characters.  These  trees  grow  to  the 
size  of  a  mulberry  tree,  and  spread  their  branches 
aloft."  "  The  wild  acacia  (Mimosa  Nilotica), 
under  the  name  of  Sunt,"  says  Prof.  Stanley  (S. 
fy  P.  p.  20),  "  everywhere  represents  the  '  seneh 
or  'senna'  of  the  Burning  Bush."  The  Heb. 
term  (nt2£^)  is,  by  Jablonski,  Celsius,  and  many 
other  authors,  derived  from  the  Egyptian  word, 
the  3  being  dropped;  and,  from  an  Arabic  MSS. 
cited  by  Celsius,  it  appears  that  the  Arabic  term 
also  comes  from  the  Egyptian,  the  true  Arabic  name 
for  the  acacia  being  Karadh  (Hierob.  i.  p.  508). 

The  Shittah  tree  of  Scripture  is  by  some  writers 
thought  to  refer  more  especially  to  the  Acacia 
Seyal,  though  perhaps  the  Acacia  Nilotica  and  A. 
Arabica  may  be  included  under  the  term.  The 
A.  Seyal  is  very  common  in  some  parts  of  the 
peninsula  of  Sinai  (M.  Bov£,  Voyage  du  Caire  au 
Mont  Sinai,  Ann.  des  Scienc.  Nat.  1834,  i.,  sec. 
ser.  p.  166;  Stanley,  8.  $  P.  pp.  20,  69,  298). 
These  trees  are  more  common  in  Arabia  than  in 
Palestine,  though  there  is  a  valley  on  the  west  side 
of  the  Dead  Sea,  the  Wady  Seyal,  which  derives  its 
name  from  a  few  acacia  trees  there.  The  Acacia 
Seyal,  like  the  A.  arabica,  yields  the  well-known 
substance  called  gum  arabic  which  is  obtained  by 
incisions  in  the  bark,  but  it  is  impossible  to  say 
whether  the  ancient  Jews  were  acquainted  with  its 
use.  From  the  tangled  thickets  into  which  the 
stem  of  this  tree  expands,  Stanley  well  remarks  that 
hence  is  to  be  traced  the  use  of  the  plural  form  of 
the  Heb.  noun,  Shittim,  the  sing,  number  occurring 
but  once  only  in  the  Bible.*  Besides  the  Acacia 
Seyal,  there  is  another  species,  the  A.  tortilis, 
common  on  Alt.  Sinai.  Although  none  of  the 
above-named  trees  are  sufficiently  large  to  yield 
plants  10  cubits  long  by  1J  cubit  wide,  which  we 
are  told  was  the  size  of  the  boards  that  formed  the 
tabernacle  (Ex.  xxxvi.  21),  yet  there  is  an  acacia 
that  grows  near  Cairo,  viz.  the  A.  Serissa,  which 
would  supply  boards  of  the  required  size.  There  is, 
however,  no  evidence  to  show  that  this  tree  ever 
grew  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai.  And  though  it 
would  be  unfair  to  draw  any  conclusion  from  such 
negative  evidence,  still  it  is  probable  that  "  the 
boards"  rQ^ljpn)  were  supplied  by  one  of  the 
other  acacias.  There  is,  however,  no  necessity  to 
limit  the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  KHJ5  (keresh)  to 
"  a  single  plank."  In  Ez.  xxvii.  6  the  same  word, 
in  the  singular  number,  is  applied  in  a  collective 
sense  to  "the  deck"  of  a  ship  (comp.  our  "  on 
board  ").  The  keresh  of  the  tabernacle,  therefore, 


perishable  wood,  while  that  which  is  usually  suppoeed  to 
be  the  Sbj  ,tim  (Acacia  Nilotica)  wants  beauty  end  soon 
decays." 


1296 


SHJTTIM 


may  denote  "  two  or  more  boards  joined  together/ 
which,  from  being  thus  united,  may  have  been 
expressed  by  a  singular  noun.  These  acacias,  which 
are  for  the  most  part  tropical  plants,  must  not 
be  confounded  with  the  tree  (Robinia  pseudo- 
acacia]  popularly  known  by  this  name  in  England, 
which  is  a  North  American  plant,  and  belongs  to 
a  different  genus  and  sub-order.  The  true  acacias, 
most  of  which  possess  hard  and  durable  wood 
(comp.  Pliny,  H.  N.  xiii.  19  ;  Josephus,  Ant.  iii. 
6,  §1),  belong  to  the  order  Leguminosae,  sub-order 
Mimoseae.  [W.  H.] 

SHIT'TIM  (D^^H,  with  the  def.  article: 
2aT--ei»/;  in  the  Prophets,  T&  ffxoiva:  Settim,  Abel- 
satim).  The  place  of  Israel's  encampment  between 
the  conquest  of  the  Transjordanic  highlands  and  the 
passage  of  the  Jordan  (Num.  xxxiii.  49,  xxv.  1 ;  Josh. 
ii.  1,  iii.  1 ;  Mic.  vi.  5).  Its  full  name  appears  to 
be  given  in  the  first  of  these  passages — Abel  has- 
Shittim — "  the  meadow,  or  moist  place,  of  the 
acacias."  It  was  "  in  the  Arboth-Moab?  by  Jordan- 
Jericho  : "  such  is  the  ancient  formula  repeated  over 
and  over  again  (Num.  xxii.  1,  xxvi.  3,  xxxi.  12, 
xxxiii.  48,  49).  That  is  to  say,  it  was  in  the  Ara- 
bah  or  Jordan  Valley,  opposite  Jericho,  at  that  part 
of  the  Arabah  which  belonged  to  and  bore  the  name 
of  Moab,  where  the  streams  which  descend  from 
the  eastern  mountains  and  force  their  winding  way 
through  the  sandy  soil  of  the  plain,  nourished  a  vast 
growth  of  the  Seyal,  Sunt,  and  Sidr  trees,  such  as 
is  nourished  by  the  streams  of  the  Wady  Kelt  and 
the  Ain  Sultan  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river. 

It  was  in  the  shade  and  the  tropical  heat  of  these 
acacia-groves  that  the  people  were  seduced  to  the 
licentious  rites  of  Basil- Peor  by  the  Midianites ;  -but 
it  was  from  the  same  spot  that  Moses  sent  forth 
the  army,  under  the  fierce  Phinehas,  which  worked 
so  fearful  a  retribution  for  that  licence  (xxxi.  1-12). 
It  was  from  the  camp  at  Shittim  that  Joshua  sent 
out  the  spies  across  the  river  to  Jericho  (Josh.  ii.  1). 

The  Nachal-Shittim,  or  Wady-Sunt,  as  it  would 
now  be  called,  of  Joel  (iii.  18),  can  hardly  be  the 
same  spot  as  that  described  above,  but  there  is 
nothing  to  give  a  clue  to  its  position.  [G.] 

SHI'ZA  (KJ^:  2ai£(£;  Alex.  '££«:  Siza). 
A  Reubenite,  father  of  Adina,  one  of  David's  mighty 
men  ^1  Chr.  xi.  42). 

SHO'A  (Vte? :  2ou€ ;  Alex.  2ou5 :  tyranni). 
A  proper  name  which  occurs  only  in  Ez.  xxiii.  23, 
in  connexion  with  Pekod  and  Koa.  The  three  appa 
rently  designate  districts  of  Assyria  with  which 
the  southern  kingdom  of  Judah  had  been  intimately 
connected,  and  which  were  to  be  arrayed  against  it 
for  punishment.  The  Peshito-Syriac  has  Lud,  that 
is  Lydia ;  while  the  Arabic  of  the  London  Polyglott 
has  Sut,  and  Lud  occupies  the  place  of  Koa.  Rashi 
remarks  on  the  three  words,  "  The  interpreters  say 
that  they  signify  officers,  princes,  and  rulers."  This 
rendering  must  have  been  traditional  at  the  time  of 
Aquila  (eTrtfr/ceTrTTjs  Kal  "rvpavvos  nal  Kopu^atbs) 
arid  Jerome  (nobiles  tyranni  et  principes).  Gese- 
nius  (Thes.  p.  1208 a)  maintains  that  the  context 
requires  the  words  to  be  taken  as  appellatives,  and 
not  as  proper  names;  and  Fiirst,  on  the  same 
ground,  maintains  the  contrary  (ffandicb.  s.  v. 
JPp).  Those  who  take  Shoa  as  an  appellative  refer 
to  the  usage  of  the  word  in  Job  xxxiv.  19  (A.  V. 
"rich")  and  Is.  xxxii.  5  (A.  V.  "  bountiful"), 
where  it  signifies  rich,  liberal,  and  stands  in  the 
latter  passage  in  parallelism  with  2H3,  nddib,  by 


SHOBI 

which  Kimchi  explains  it,  and  which  is  elsewhere 
rendered  in  the  A.  V.  "prince"  (Prov.  xvii.  7)  and 
"noble"  (Prov.  viii.  16).  But  a  consideration  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  verse  Ez.  xxiii.  23,  where  th«« 
captains  and  rulers  of  the  Assyrians  are  distinctly 
mentioned,  and  the  fondness  which  Ezekiel  else 
where  shows  for  playing  upon  the  sound  of  proper 
names  (as  in  xxvii.  10,  xxx.  5),  lead  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  in  this  case  Pekod,  Shoa,  and  Koa  are 
proper  names  also ;  but  nothing  further  can  be 
said.  The  only  name  which  has  been  found  at  all 
resembling  Shoa  is  that  of  a  town  in  Assyria  men 
tioned  by  Pliny,  "  Sue  in  rupibus,"  near  Gangamela, 
and  west  of  the  Orontes  mountain  chain.  Bochart 
(Phaleg,  iv.  9)  derives  Sue  from  the  Chaldee  NW, 
shu'd,  a  rock.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHO'BAB  (!DiG? :  2o>£a£ ;  Alex.  2w^a5av  in 
Sam. :  Sobab}.  L  Son  of  David  by  Bathsheba  (2 
Sam.  v.  14;  1  Chr.  iii.  5,  xiv.  4). 

2.  (2ouj8aj8;  Alex.  2&>/3a£).  Apparently  the 
son  of  Caleb  the  son  of  Hezron  by  his  wife  Azubah 
(1  Chr.  ii.  18).  But  the  passage  is  corrupt. 

SHO'BACH  C=jni^  :  2o>)8c£/c ;  Alex.  2apdx, 
2  Sam.  x.  16 :  Sobach}.  The  general  of  Hadarezer 
king  of  the  Syrians  of  Zoba,  who  was  in  command 
of  the  army  which  was  summoned  from  beyond  tho 
Euphrates  against  the  Hebrews,  after  the  defeat  of 
the  combined  forces  of  Syria  and  the  Ammonites 
before  the  gates  of  Rabbah.  He  was  met  by  David 
in  person,  who  crossed  the  Jordan  and  attacked  him 
at  Helam.  The  battle  resulted  in  the  total  defeat 
of  the  Syrians.  Shobach  was  wounded,  and  died 
on  the  field  (2  Sam.  x.  15-18).  In  1  Chr.  xix. 
16,  18  he  is  called  SHOPHACH,  and  by  Josephus 
(Ant.  vii.  6,  §3)  2aj8e/cos. 

SHOBA'I  (Ufc? :  2w/3cu,  2aj8t ;  Alex.  2aj8ai1 
in  Neh.:  Sohai,  Soba'i}.  The  children  of  Shobai 
were  a  family  of  the  doorkeepers  of  the  Temple, 
who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  42 ;  Neh. 
vii.  45).  Called  SAMI  in  1  Esdr.  v.  28. 

SHO'BAL^W:  2a>frU:  Sobal).  1.  The 
second  son  of  Seir  the  Horite  (Gen.  xxxvi.  20; 
1  Chr.  i.  38),  and  one  of  the  "  dukes"  or  phylarchs 
of  the  Horites  (Gen.  xxxvi.  29).  [E.  S.  P.] 

2.  Son  of  Caleb  the  son  of  Hur,  and  founder  or 
prince  of  Kirjath-jearim  (1  Chr.  ii.  50,  52). 

3.  (2oyj8cU.)  'in  1  Chr.  iv.  1,  2,  Shobai  appears 
with  Hur  among  the  sons  of  Judah,  and  as  the 
father  of  Reaiah.     He  is  possibly  the  same  as  the 
preceding,  in  which  case  Reaiah  may  be  identical 
with  Haroeh,  the  two  names  in  Hebrew  being  not 
very  unlike. 

SHO'BEK  (plte> :  2co/3?7K:  Sobec).  One  of  the 
heads  of  the  people  who  sealed  the  covenant  with 
Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  24). 

SKO'BI  Olb>:  Oue<r^i ;  Alex.  Ove<r£e£:  Sobi}. 
Son  of  Nahash  of  Rabbah  of  the  children  of  Ammon 
fcl  Sam.  xviu  27).  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  meet 
David  at  Mahanaim  on  his  flight  from  Absalom, 
and  to  offer  him  the  hospitality  of  a  powerful  and 
wealthy  chief,  for  he  was  the  son  of  David's  old 
friend  Nahash,  and  the  bond  between  them  was 
strong  enough  to  survive  on  the  one  hand  the 
insults  of  Hanun,  and  on  the  other  the  conquest  and 
destruction  of  Rabbah.  Josephus  calls  him  Siphar 
(Ant.  vii.  9,  §8),  "  chief  (Swaavtis}  of  the  ^  1H' 
monite  country." 


8HOCO 

SEOCO  (toV&>:  Ti\v  2oK\'c60 ;  and  so  Alex.  ; 
Isciho},  2  Chr.  xi.  7.  A  variation  of  the  name 
SCCCH,  unnecessarily  increased  in  the  A.  V.  by  the 
lubsticution  of  Sh  for  the  S  of  the  original. 

SHO'CHO  (tote?:  TV  2o>xc6:  Socho},  2  Chr. 
xxviii.  18.  One  of  the  four  varieties  of  the  name 
vSoGOH.  In  this  case  also  the  discrepancies  in  the 
A.  V.  are  needlessly  multiplied  by  Sh  being  substi 
tuted  for  S  and  ch  for  c  of  the  original. 

SHO'CHOH  (nbtt?:  2oKXc$0;  Alex.  o*x« 
and  (TOKXu  •  Soccho),  \  Sam.  xvii.  1.  This,  like 
SIIOCHO,  SOCHOH,  and  SHOCO,  is  an  incorrect  vari 
ation  of  the  name  SOCOH. 

SHO'HAM  (Onfc>:  'I<roef/*;  Alex.  'Iffffodp: 
Soam}.  A  Meravite  Levite,  son  of  Jaaziah  ( I  Chr. 
xxiv.  27). 

SHOE.     [SANDAL.] 

SHO'MER  pDte>:  2«/*4f>:  £w»«r).  1.  A 
man  of  the  tribe  of  Asher  (1  Chr.  vii.  32),  who  is 
also  called  Shamer  (ver.  34). 

2.  The  father  of  Jehozabad,  who  slew  King  Joash 
(2  K.  xii.  21 ):  in  the  parallel  passage  in  2  Chr.  xxiv. 
26,  the  name  is  converted  into  the  feminine  form 
Shimrith,  who  is  further  described  as  a  Moabitess. 
This  variation  may  have  originated  in  the  dubious 
gender  of  the  preceding  name  Shimeath,  which  is 
also  made  feminine  by  the  Chronicler.  [W.  L.  B.] 
SHO'PHACHC^i^:  2«cJ>c£0;  Alex.  2«4><£x» 
SwjSax  :  Sophach}.  SnOBACH,  the  general  of  Ha- 
darezer  (1  Chr.  xix.  16,  18). 

SHOTHAN  (jBte>;  Samar.  D'Bfc?:  r^v  2o- 
(pdp :  Sophan}.  One  of  the  fortified  towns  on  the 
cast  of  Jordan  which  were  taken  possession  of  and 
rebuilt  by  the  tribe  of  Gad  (Num.  xxxii.  35).  It 
is  probably  an  affix  to  the  second  Atroth,  to  distin 
guish  it  from  the  former  one,  not  an  independent 
place.  No  name  resembling  it  has  yet  been  met 
with  in  that  locality.  [G.] 

SHOSHAN'NIM.  "  To  the  chief  musician 
upon  Shoshannim"  is  a  musical  direction  to  the 
leader  of  the  Temple-choir  which  occurs  in  Pss. 
xlv.,  Ixix.,  and  most  probably  indicates  the  melody 
"after"  or  "in  the  manner  of"  (!?y,  'a/,  A.  V. 
"  upon  ")  which  the  Psalms  were  to  be  sung.  As 
"  Shoshannim  "  literally  signifies  "  lilies,"  it  has 
been  suggested  that  the  word  denotes  lily-shaped 
instruments  of  music  (Simouis,  Lex.  s.  v.),  perhaps 
cymbals,  and  this  view  appears  to  be  adopted  by 
De  Wette  (Die  Psalinen,  p.  34).  Hengstenberg 
gives  to  it  an  enigmatical  interpretation,  as  indi 
cating  "  the  subject  or  subjects  treated,  as  lilies 
figuratively  for  bride  in  xlv. ;  the  delightful  con 
solations  and  deliverances  experienced  in  Ixix.,  etc." 
(Davidson,  Introd.  ii.  246) ;  which  Dr.  Davidson 
very  truly  characterises  as  "  a  most  improbable 
fancy."  The  LXX.  and  Vulgate  have  in  both 
Psalms  virep  TU>V  aA.Aota>07pro/xe'j/a>j'  and  pro  Us 
qui  immutabuntur  respectively,  reading  apparently 
D»3Bto  Vj?  for  D»3B^  h$.  Ben  Zeb  (Otsar 
Hcishshor.  s.  v.)  regards  it  as  an  instrument  o 
psalmody,  and  Junius  and  Tremellius,  after  Kimchi 
render  it  "  hexachorda,"  an  instrument  with  six 
strings,  referring  it  to  the  root  shesh,  "  six,"  anc 
this  is  approved  by  Eichhorn  in  his  edition  o 
Simonis.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHOSHAN'NIM-E'DUTH.    In  the  title  o 
Ps.  Ixxx.  is  found  the  direction  "  to  the  chief  mu 
VOL.  III. 


1  29V 


SHUBAEL 

jiuan  upon  Shoshannim-eduth  " 
which  appears,  according  to  the  most  probable  con 
jecture,  to  denote  the  melody  or  air  "  after  "  or 
"in  the  manner  of"  which  the  Psalm  was  to  be 
sung.  As  the  words  now  stand  they  signify  "  lilies, 
a  testimony,"  and  the  two  are  separated  by  a  large 
distinctive  accent.  In  themselves  they  have  no 
meaning  in  the  present  text,  and  must  therefore  be 
regarded  as  probably  a  fragment  of  the  beginning 
of  an  older  Psalm  with  which  the  choir  were 
familiar.  Ewald  gives  what  he  considers  the 
original  meaning  —  "  '  lilies,'  that  is,  pure,  innocent 
is  '  the  Law  ;'  "  but  the  words  will  not  bear  ihis 
interpretation,  nor  is  it  possible  in  their  present 

>osition  to  assign  to  them  any  intelligible  sense. 

?or  the  conjectures  of  those  who  regard  the  words 
as  the  names  of  musical  instruments,  see  the  articles 
SHOSHANNIM,  SHUSHAN-EDUTH.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SHU'A  (y-1K>:  2aiJa:  Sue}.  A  Canaanite  of 
Adullam,  father  of  Judah's  wife  (1  Chr.  ii.  3),  who 
was  hence  called  Bath-Shua.  In  the  LXX.  of  Gen. 
xxxviii.  2,  Shua  is  wrongly  made  to  be  the  name  of 
the  daughter.  [BATH-SHUA.] 

SHU'AH  (me?  :  2*i*,  Sue  ;  Alex.  2o>ue  :  Sue}. 
1.  Son  of  Abraham  by  Keturah  (Gen.  xxv.  2  ; 
1  Chr.  i.  32). 

2.  (HfW:  'A<rxa:  Sua.}  Properly  "Shuchah." 
The  name  Shuah  occurs  among  the  descendants  of 
Judah  as  that  of  the  brother  of  Chelub  (I  Chr.  iv. 
11).    For  "  Chelub  the  brother  of  Shuah,    the  LXX. 
read  "  Caleb  the  father  of  Achsah."     In  ten  of 
Kennicott's  and  De  Rossi's  MSS.  Shuah  is  made  the 
son  of  Chelub. 

3.  (W:  Saurf:  Sue}.    The  father  of  Judah's 
wife,  the  Canaanitess  (Gen.  xxxviii.  2,  12);  also 
called  SHUA  in  the  A.  V.     The  LXX.  make  Shuah 
the  name  of  the  woman  in  both  instances. 

HU'AL(^W:  SouAa;  Alex.2ouoA:  Sual,. 
Son  of  Zophah,  an  Asherite  {1  Chr.  vii.  36). 
SHU'AL,  THE  LAND  OF  ("JW  H«:  7f' 
>7(£\;  Alex,  is  lost:  terra  Sual}.  A  district 
named  only  in  1  Sam.  xiii.  17,  to  denote  the  direc 
tion  taken  by  one  of  the  three  parties  of  marauders 
who  issued  from  the  Philistine  camp  at  Michmash. 
Its  connexion  with  Ophrah  (probably  Taiyibeh}  and 
the  direction  of  the  two  other  routes  named  in  the 
passage  make  it  pretty  certain  that  the  land  of 
Shual  lay  north  of  Michmash.  If  therefore  it  be 
identical  with  the  "land  of  Shalim"  (1  Sam.  ix. 
4)  —  as  is  not  impossible  —  we  obtain  the  first  and 
only  clue  yet.  obtained  to  Saul's  journey  in  quest  of 
the  asses.  The  name  Shual  has  not  yet  been  iden 
tified  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Taiyibeh  or  elsewhere. 
It  may  have  originated  in  the  Hebrew  signification 
of  the  word  —  "jackal  ;"  in  which  case  it  would  be 
appropriate  enough  to  the  wild  desolate  region  east 
of  Taiyibch  ;  a  region  containing  a  valley  or  ravine 
at  no  great  distance  from  Taiyibeh  which  bore  and 
perhaps  still  bears  the  name  of  "  Hyaenas."  [ZE- 
BOIM.  VALLEY  OF.]  Others  (as  Thenius,  in  Exeg. 
Handb.}  derive  the  name  from  a  different  root,  and 
interpret  it  as  "hollow  land."  [G.] 

SHU'BAEL  i^*!W:  2»j8o^A  ;  Alex.  2ou- 
/3ai7\:  Suball).  1.  SHEBUBH,  the  son  of  Gershona 
(1  Chr.  xxiv.  20). 

2.  (SoujBar/A.)  SHEBUEL  the  son  of  Hemau 
the  minstrel  (I  Chr.  xxv.  20). 

4  O 


SHUHAM 


1298 

SHU 'HAM  (DrM?:  2o/*e;  Alex.  2o/*f  to-/j : 
Suham\  Son  of  Dan,  and  ancestor  of  the  SHU- 
HAMITES  (Num.  xxvi.  42).  In  Gen.  xlvi.  23  he 
13  called  HUSHIM. 

SHU'HAMITES,  THE  (nDn-l^n:  &  Sa^ef ; 
Alex.  SajuetoV,  2a/ief :  Suhamitae,  Suamitae). 
The  descendants  of  Shuham,  or  Hushim,  the  son  of 
Dan  (Num.  xxvi.  42,  43).  In  the  census  taken  in 
the  plains  of  Moab  they  numbered  4460. 

gHU'HITE  (»IW:  Savxefo:  Suhites).  This 
<ethnic  appellative  "  Shuhite  "  is  frequent  in  the  Book 
of  Job,  but  only  as  the  epithet  of  one  person,  Biidad 
3<be  local  indications  of  the  Book  of  Job  point  to  a 
region  on  the  western  side  of  Chaldaea,  bordering  on 
Arabia ;  and  exactly  in  this  locality,  above  Hit  and 
on  both  sides  of  the  Euphrates,  are  found,  in  the 
Assyrian  inscriptions,  the  Tsukhi,  a  powerful  people. 
ft  is  iprobable  that  these  were  the  Shuhites,  and  that, 
having  been  conquered  by  the  Babylonian  kings, 
they  weve  counted  by  Ezekiel  among  the  tribes  of 
the  Chaldaeaus.  Having  lost  their  independence, 
ihey  ceased  to  be  noticed  ;  but  it  was  no  doubt  from 
them  that  the  country  on  the  Euphrates  immedi 
ately  above  Babylonia  came  to  be  designated  as 
Sohene,  a  term  applied  to  it  in  the  Peutingerian 
Tables.  The  Shuhites  appear  to  have  been  descend 
ants  of  Abraham  by  Keturah.  [SHU  AH,  1.]  [G.  R.] 

SHU'LAMITE,  THE  (JVE^n,  i.  e.  the 
Shulammite:  T/  Sou/Acwems ;  Alex,  ri  ^ov\afuris: 
Sulamitis  and  Sunamitis).  One  of  the  personages  in 
the  poem  of  Solomon's  Song,  who,  although  named 
only  in  one  passage  (vi.  13),  is,  according  to  some 
interpreters,  the  most  prominent  of  all  the  charac 
ters.  The  name — after  the  analogy  of  Shunammite 
— denotes  a  woman  belonging  to  a  place  called 
Shulem.  The  only  place  bearing  that  name,  of  which 
we  have  any  knowledge,  is  Shunem  itself,  which, 
as  far  back  as  the  4th  century,  was  so  called  (Euse- 
bius,  quoted  under  SHUNEM).  In  fact  there  is  good 
ground  for  believing  that  the  two  were  identical. 
Since,  then,  Shulammite  and  Shunammite  are  equi 
valent,  there  is  nothing  surely  extravagant  in  sxip- 
posing  that  the  Shunammite  who  was  the  object  of 
Solomon's  passion  was  Abishag, — the  most  lovely 
girl  of  her  day,  and  at  the  time  of  David's  death 
one  of  the  most  prominent  persons  at  the  court  or 
Jerusalem.  This  would  be  equally  appropriate, 
whether  Solomon  was  himself  the  author  of  the 
Song,  or  it  were  written  by  another  person  whose 
object  was  to  personate  him  accurately.  For  the 
light  which  it  throws  on  the  circumstances  of  Solo 
mon's  accession,  see  SOLOMON.  [G.j 

SHU'MATHITES,  THE  (»n»B>n,  i.  e.  the 
Shuma*hite :  'Hcrojuafle^u  :  Semathei).  One  of  the 
four  families  who  sprang  from  Kirjath-jearim  (1  Chr. 
ii.  53).  They  probably  colonised  a  village  named 
Shumah  somewhere  in  that  neighbourhood.  But 
no  fr'ace  of  such  a  name  has  been  discovered.  [G.J 
SHU'NAMMITE,  THE  (JVEWi]*:  ^  2<>- 
paveiTis  ;  Alex,  ^ovfiaviris :  Sunamitis),  t.  e.  the 
native  of  Shunem,  as  is  plain  from  2  K.  iv.  1.  It 
is  applied  to  two  persons  : — Abishag,  the  nurse  of 
King  David  (1  K.  i.  b3, 15,  ii.  17,  21,  22),  and  the 
nameless  hostess  of  Elisha  (2  K.  iv.  12,  25,  36X 
The  modern  representative  of  Shunem  being 

*  In  1  K.  ii.  21,  22,  the  shorter  form  of  J"P}336Pn 
if  used. 

b  Tbb  A.  V.  is  here  incorrect  in  omitting  the  definite 
article. 


SHTJPP1M 

Solam,  some  h?.ve  susrgest*d  (as  Gesenius,  Thes 
1S796),  or  positively  affirmed  (as  Fiirst,  Handwb 
ii.  422),  that  Shunancmite  is  identical  Tnth  Shu- 
laramite  (Cant.  vi.  13),  Of  this  all  that  can  be 
said  is,  that  though  highly  probable,  it  is  not  abso 
lutely  certain.  [G.] 

SHU'NEM(D>1^C:  2ouj/cwa:  Sunem,  8mam) 
One  of  the  cities  allotted  to  the  tribe  of  Issachar 
(Josh.  xix.  18).  It  occurs  in  the  list  between 
Chesulloth  and  Haphraim.  It  is  mentioned  on 
two  occasions.  First  as  the  place  of  the  Philis 
tines'  first  encampment  before  tne  battle  of  GilLoa 
(1  Sam.  xxviii.  4).  Here  it  occurs  in  connexion  with 
Mount  Gilboa  and  En-dor,  and  also  probably  witn 
Jezreel  (xxix.  1 ).  Secondly,  as  the  scene  of  E'lis.'.a's 
intercourse  with  the  Shunammite  woman  and  her 
son  (2  K.  iv.  8).  Here  it  is  connected  with  adja<  ent 
corn-fields,  and,  more  remotely,  with  Mount  Can  icl. 
It  was  besides  the  native  place  of  Abishag,  thf  at 
tendant  on  King  David  (1  K.  i.  3),  and  possibly  the 
heroine  of  the  poem  or  drama  of  "  Solomon's  Soi  g." 

By  Eusebius  and  Jerome  ( Onom.]  it  is  menti*  ned 
twice :  under  SoujS^/u,  and  "  Sunem,"  as  5  miles 
south  of  Mount  Tabor,  and  then  known  as  Sulem  : 
and,  under  "  Sonam,"  as  a  village  in  Acrabattine, 
in  the  territory  of  Sebaste  called  Sanim.  The  latter 
of  these  two  identifications  probably  refers  to  Sanur, 
a  well-known  fortress  some  7  miles  from  Sebastiyeh 
and  4  from  Arrabeh — a  spot  completely  out  of  the 
circle  of  the  associations  which  connect  themselves 
with  Shunem.  The  other  has  more  in  its  favour, 
since — except  for  the  distance  from  Mount  Tabor, 
which  is  nearer  8  Roman  miles  than  5 — it  agrees 
with  the  position  of  the  present  Solam,  a  village 
on  the  S.W.  flank  of  Jebel  Dahy  (the  so-called 
"  Little  Hermon"),  3  miles  N.  of  Jezreel,  5  from 
Gilboa  (/.  f'ukua),  full  in  view  of  the  sacred  spot 
on  Mount  Carmel,  and  situated  in  the  midst  of  the 
finest  corn-fields  in  the  world. 

It  is  named,  as  Salem,  by  the  Jewish  traveller 
hap-Parchi  (Asher's  Benjamin,  ii.  431).  It  had 
then  its  spring,  without  which  the  Philistines  would 
certainly  not  have  chosen  it  for  their  encampment. 
Now,  according  to  the  notice  of  Dr.  Robinson  (ii 
324),  the  spring  of  the  village  is  but  a  poor  one. 

The  change  of  the  n  in  the  ancient  name  to  /  in  the 
modern  one,  is  the  reverse  of  that  which  has  taken 
place  in  Zerin  (Jezreel)  and  Beitin  (Bethel).  [G.] 

SHU'NI  C>H?:  Sow's,  ^ovvl ;  Alex.  *S,a.vvis  in 
Gen. :  Suni').  Son  of  Gad,  and  founder  of  the  family 
of  the  Shunites  (Gen.  xlvi.  16;  Num.  xxvi.  15). 

SHU'NITES,  THE  (^il:  6  Zovvi:  Sunitae}. 
Descendants  of  Shuni  the  son  of  Gad  (Num.  xxvi.  1 5). 

SHUTHAM.     [SHUPPIM.] 

SHUTHAMITES,  THE  (»6B*B>n :  6  2«- 
<f>avl :  Suphamitae).  The  descendants  of  ^hupham, 
or  Shephupham,  the  Beivjamite  (Num.  xxvi.  39). 

SHUPTIM  (DS£;,    D>SK>:    Senr^?;    Alex. 

2ff(f>ef|ii,  Se<f><f>6i/t :  Sepham,  Saphan).  In  the  genea 
logy  of  Benjamin  "  Shuppim  and  Huppim,  the 
children  of  Ir,"  are  reckoned  in  1  Chr.  vii.  12.  Ir 
is  the  same  as  Iri  the  son  of  Bela  the  son  of  Ben 
jamin,  so  that  Shuppim  was  the  great-grandson  of 
Benjamin.  In  Num.  xxvi.  39,  he  and  his  brother 


c  Perhaps  contract/id  from  D^>1£?  (Gesenius,  Thes.  1379  It.} 
*  it  is  given  differently  on  each  occurrence  in  each 

of  the  two  great  Codices :— Vat.  (Mai),  Zowdv,  ~ 

Sou/xai' ;  Alex.,  ~~ 


SHUK 

*re  called  Shupham,  and  Hupham,  while  in  1  Chr. 
viii.  5  they  appear  as  Shephuphan  and  Huram, 
sons  of  Bela,  and  in  Gen.  xlvi.  21  as  Muppim  and 
Huppim,  sons  of  Benjamin.  To  avoid  the  difficulty 
of  supposing  that  Benjamin  had  a  great-grandson 
at  the  time  he  went  down  to  Egypt,  Lord  A.  Hervey 
conjectures  that  Shuppim  or  Shephuphan  was  a 
son  of  Benjamin,  whose  family  was  reckoned  with 
that  of  Ir  or  Iri.  [MUPPIM.] 

SHUR  O-ltP :  2ovp,  re\a/jL$oi>p  :  Sur\  a  place 
just  without  the  eastern  border  of  Egypt.  Its  name, 
if  Hebrew  or  Arabic,  signifies  "a  wall,"  and  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  it  is  of  Shemitic  origin  from 
the  position  of  the  place.  The  LXX.  seems  to  have 
thus  interpreted  it,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  ob 
scure  rendering  of  1  Sam.  xxvii.  8,  where  it  must 
be  remarked  the  extraordinary  form  Te\a^ovp  is 
found.  This  word  is  evidently  a  transcription  of 
the  words  m-IE?  .  .  .  D?ij?D,  the  former,  save 
the  initial  particle,  not  being  translated. 

Shur  is  first  mentioned  in  the  narrative  of  Hagar's 
flight  from  Sarah.  Abraham  was  then  in  southern 
most  Palestine,  and  when  Hagar  fled  she  was  found 
by  an  angel  "  by  the  fountain  in  the  way  to  Shur" 
(Gen.  xvi.  7).  Probably  she  was  endeavouring  to 
return  to  Egypt,  the  country  of  her  birth — she  may 
not  have  been  a  pure  Egyptian — and  had  reached  a 
well  in  the  inland  caravan  route.  Abraham  after 
wards  "  dwelled  between  Kadesh  and  Shur,  and  so 
journed  in  Gerar"  (xx.  1).  From  this  it  would 
seem  either  that  Shur  lay  in  the  territory  of  the 
Philistines  of  Gerar,  or  that  this  pastoral  tribe 
wandered  in  a  region  extending  from  Kadesh  to 
Shur.  [GERAR.]  In  neither  case  can  we  ascertain 
the  position  of  Shur.  The  first  clear  indication  of 
this  occurs  in  the  account  of  Ishmael's  posterity. 
"And  they  dwelt  from  Havilah  unto  Shur,  that 
[is]  before  Egypt,  as  thou  goest  toward  Assyria" 
(xxv.  18).  With  this  should  be  compared  the  men 
tion  of  the  extent  of  the  Amalekite  territory,  given 
in  this  passage,  "  And  Saul  smote  the  Amalekites 
from  Havilah  [until]  thou  comest  to  Shur,  that  [is] 
over  against  Egypt"  (1  Sam.  xv.  7).  It  is  also 
important  to  notice  that  the  Geshurites,  Gezrites, 
and  Amalekites,  whom  David  smote,  are  described 
as  "  from  an  ancient  period  the  inhabitants  of  the 
land,  as  thou  comest  to  Shur,  even  unto  the  land 
of  Egypt"  (xxvii.  8).  The  Wilderness  of  Shur 
was  entered  by  the  Israelites  after  they  had  crossed 
the  Red  Sea  (Ex.  xv.  22,  23).  It  was  also  called 
the  Wilderness  of  Etham  (Num.  xxxiii.  8).  The 
first  passage  presents  one  difficulty,  upon  which  the 
LXX.  and  Vulg.  throw  no  light,  in  the  mention  of 
Assyria.  If,  however,  we  compare  it  with  later 
places,  we  find  iTTI^N  POK2  here,  remarkably 
like  rni$  ^N13  inTl  Sam.  xxvii.  8,  and  "VIS?  SJKfo 
in  xv.  7,  as  though  the  same  phrase  had  been  ori 
ginally  found  in  the  first  as  a  gloss,  but  it  may 
have  been  there  transposed,  and  have  originally  fol 
lowed  the  mention  of  Havilah.  In  the  notices  of 
the  Amalekite  and  Ishmaelite  region,  in  which  the 
latter  succeeded  the  former,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  a  strip  of  northern  Arabia  is  intended,  stretching 
from  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  towards  and  probably  to 
the  Persian  Gulf.  The  name  of  the  wilderness  may 
perhaps  indicate  a  somewhat  southern  position. 
Shur  may  thus  have  been  a  fortified  town  east  of 
the  ancient  head  of  the  Red  Sea,  but  in  the  hands 


SHUSH  AN 


1299 


of  the  Arabs,  or  at  one  time  the  Philisliner,  not 
of  the  Egyptians.  From  its  bsing  spoken  of  t>R  a 
limit,  it  was  probably  the  last  Arabian  town  before 
entering  Egypt.  The  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  have 
not  been  fouud  to  throw  any  light  upon  this  ques 
tion.  The  SHARA  or  SHALA  mentioned  in  them 
is  an  important  country,  perhaps  Syria.  [R.  S.  P.] 

SHUSHAN  (|B«IB> :  SoDao :  Susa)  is  sa.d  to 
have  received  its  name  from  the  abundance  of  the 
lily  (Shushan  or  Shushanah)  in  its  neighbourhood 
(Athen.  xii.  513).  .It  was  one  of  the  most  im 
portant  towns  in  the  whole  East,  and  requires  to 
be  described  at  some  length. 

1 .  History. — Susa  was  originally  the  capital  of 
the  country  called  in  Scripture  Elam,  and  by  the 
classical  writers,  sometimes  Cissia  (Kifftria),  some 
times  Susis  or  Susiana.  [ELAM.]  Its  foundation 
is  thought  to  date  from  a  time  anterior  to  Chedor- 
laomer,  as  the  remains  found  on  the  site  have  often 
a  character  of  very  high  antiquity.  The  first  dis 
tinct  mention  of  the  town  that  has  been  as  yet 
found  is  in  the  inscriptions  of  Asshur-bani-pal,  the 
son  and  successor  of  Esar-Haddon,  who  states  that 
he  took  the  place,  and  exhibits  a  ground-plan  of  it 
upon  his  sculptures  (Layard,  Nin.  and  Bab.  pp 
452,  453).  The  date  of  this  monument  is  about 
B.C.  660.  We  next  find  Susa  in  the  possession  of 
the  Babylonians,  to  whom  Elam  had  probably 
passed  at  the  division  of  the  Assyrian  empire  made 
by  Cyaxares  and  Nabopolassar.  In  the  last  year 
of  Belshazzar  (B.C.  538),  Daniel,  while  still  a  Baby 
lonian  subject,  is  there  on  the  king's  business,  and 
"  at  Shushan  in  the  palace  "  sees  his  famous  vision 
of  the  ram  and  he-goat  (Dan.  viii.  2).  The  con 
quest  of  Babylon  by  Cyrus  transferred  Susa  to  the 
Persian  dominion ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  the 
Achaemenian  princes  determined  to  make  it  the 
capital  of  their  whole  empire,  and  the  chief  place 
of  their  own  residence.  According  to  some  writers 
(Xen.  Cyrop.  viii.  6,  §22  ;  Strab.  xv.  3,  §2),  the 
change  was  made  by  Cyrus ;  according  to  others 
(Ctes.  Exc.  Pers.  §9;  Herod,  iii.  30,  65,  70),  it 
had  at  any  rate  taken  place  before  the  death  of 
Cambyses ;  but,  according  to  the  evidence  of  the 
place  itself  and  of  the  other  Achaemenian  monu 
ments,  it  would  seem  most  probable  that  the  trans 
fer  was  really  the  work  of  Darius  Hystaspis,  who 
is  found  to  have  been  (as  Pliny  said,  H.  N.  vi.  27) 
the  founder  of  the  great  palace  there — the  building 
so  graphically  described  in  the  book  of  Esther 
(i.  5,  6).  The  reasons  which  induced  the  change 
are  tolerably  apparent.  After  the  conquest  of 
Babylonia  and  Egypt,  the  western  provinces  6f  the 
empire  were  become  by  far  the  most  important, 
and  the  Court  could  no  longer  be  conveniently  fixed 
east  of  Zagros,  either  at  Ecbatana  (Hamadan)  or 
at  Pasargadae  (Murgaub),  which  were  cut  off  from 
the  Mesopotamian  plain  by  the  difficulty  of  the 
passes  for'  fully  one  half  of  the  year.*  It  was  neces 
sary  to  find  a  capital  west  of  the  mountains,  and 
here  Babylon  and  Susa  presented  themselves,  each 
with  its  peculiar  advantages.  Darius  probably  pre 
ferred  Susa,  first,  on  account  of  its  vicinity  to 
Persia  (Strab.  xv.  3,  §2);  secondly,  because  it  was 
cooler  than  Babylon,  being  nearer  the  mountain- 
chain  ;  and  thirdly,  because  of  the  excellence  of  the 
water  there  (Geograph.  Journ.  ix.  70).  Susa  ac 
cordingly  became  the  metropolis  of  Persia,  and  is 
recognised  as  such  by  Aeschylus  (Pers.  1 6, 124,  &c.), 


a  Not  only  were  the  passes  difficult,  but  they  were  in 
l.hf  possession  of  serai-independent  tr'.bes,  who  levied  o 


toll  on  all  passengers,  even  the  Persian  kings  tbetnselve,« 


(Strab.  xv.  3,  <}4). 


4  O  2 


1300 


SHUSHAN 


Herodotus  (r.  25,  49,  &c.),  Ctesias  (Pers.  Exc. 
passim),  Strabo  (xv.  3,  §2),  and  almost  all  the  best 
writers.  The  Court  must  have  resided  there  during 
The  greater  part  of  the  year,  only  quitting  it  regu 
larly  for  Ecbatana  or  Persepolis  in  the  height  of 
summer,  and  perhaps  sometimes  leaving  it  for 
Babylon  in  the  depth  of  winter  (see  Rawlinson's 
Herodotus,  iii.  256).  Susa  retained  its  pre-eminence 
to  the  period  of  the  Macedonian  conquest,  when 
Alexander  found  there  above  twelve  millions  ster 
ling,  and  all  the  regalia  of  the  Great  King  (Arrian, 
Exp.  Alex.  iii.  16).  After  this  it  declined.  The 
preference  of  Alexander  for  Babylon  caused  the 
neglect  of  Susa  by  his  successors,  none  of  whom 
ever  made  it  their  capital  city.  We  hear  of  it  once 
only  in  their  wars,  when  it  falls  into  the  power 
of  Antigonus  (B.C.  315),  who  obtains  treasure  there 
to  the  amount  of  three  millions  and  a  half  of  our 
money  (Diod.  Sic.  xix.  48,  §7).  Nearly  a  century 
later  (B.C.  221)  Susa  was  attacked  by  Molo  in  his 
rebellion  against  Antiochus  the  Great ;  he  took 
the  town,  but  failed  in  his  attempt  upon  the  citadel 
^Polyb.  v.  48,  §14).  We  hear  of  it  again  at  the 
time  of  the  Arabian  conquest  of  Persia,  when  it  was 
bravely  defended  by  Hormuzan  (Loftus,  Chaldaea 
and  Susiana,  p.  344). 

2.  Position,  #c. — A  good  deal  of  uncertainty  has 
existed  concerning  the  position  of  Susa.  While  most 
historians  and  comparative  geographers  have  in 
clined  to  identify  it  with  the  modern  Sus  or  Shusn, 
which  is  in  lat.  32°  10',  long.  48°  26'  E.  from 
Greenwich,  between  the  Shapur  and  the  river  of 
Dizful,  there  have  not  been  wanting  some  to  main 
tain  the  rival  claims  of  Shuster,  which  is  situated 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Kuran,  more  than  half  a 
degree  further  to  the  eastward.  A  third  candidate 
for  the  honour  has  even  been  started,  and  it  has 
been  maintained  with  much  learning  and  ingenuity 
that  Susan,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  same  stream, 
50  or  60  miles  above  Shuster,  is,  if  not  the  Susa 


SHUSHAN 

of  the  Greeks  and  Romans^at  any  rate  the  Shujhan 
of  Scripture  (Geogr.  Journ.  \\.  85).  But  a  cweful 
examination  of  these  sevei  al  spots  has  finally  caused 
a  general  acquiescence  in  the  belief  that  Sus  alone 
is  entitled  to  the  honour  of  representing  at  once  the 
Scriptural  Shushan  and  the  Susa  of  the  classical 
writers  (see  Loftus,  Chaldaea  and  Susiana,  p.  338  j 
Smith,  Dictionary  of  Geography,  sub  voc. ;  Raw- 
linson,  Herodotus,  iii.  254).  The  difficulties  causeo 
by  the  seemingly  confused  accounts  of  the  ancient 
writers,  of  whom  some  place  Susa  on  the  Choaspes 
(Herod,  v.  49,  52  ;  Strab.  xv.  3,  §4  ;  Q.  Curt.  v. 
j  2),  some  on  the  Eulaeus  (Arr.  Exp.  AL  vii.  7  ; 
Ptol.  vi.  3  ;  Plin.  //.  N.  vi.  27),  have  been  removed 
by  a  careful  survey  of  the  ground,  from  which  it 
appears  that  the  Choaspes  (Kerkhdh)  originally 
bifurcated  at  Pai  Pul,  20  miles  above  Susa,  the 
right  arm  keeping  its  present  course,  while  the  left 
flowed  a  little  to  the  east  of  Sus,  and,  absorbing 
the  Shapur  about  12  miles  below  the  ruins,  flowed 
on  somewhat  east  of  south,  and  joined  the  Karun 
(Pasitigris)  at  Ahwaz.  The  left  branch  of  the 
Choaspes  was  sometimes  called  by  that  name,  but 
more  properly  bore  the  appellation  of  Eulaeus 
(Ulai  of  Daniel).  Susa  thus  lay  between  the  two 
streams  of  the  Eulaeus  and  the  Shapur,  the  latter 
of  which,  being  probably  joined  to  the  Eulaeus  by 
canals,  was  reckoned  a  part  of  it ;  and  hence  Pliny 
I  said  that  the  Eulaeus  surrounded  the  citadel  of 
|  Susa  (/.  s.  c.).  At  the  distance  of  a  few  miles 
;  east  and  west  of  the  city  were  two  other  streams — 
the  Coprates  or  river  of  Dizful.  and  the  right  aim 
of  the  Choaspes  (the  modern  Kerkhah).  Thus  the 
country  about  Susa  was  most  abundantly  watered  ; 
and  hence  the  luxuriance  and  fertility  remarked 
alike  by  ancient  and  modern  authors  (Athen.  xii. 
513;  Geograph.  Journ.  ix.  71).  The  Kerkhah 
water  was  moreover  regarded  as  of  peculiar  excel 
lence  ;  it  was  the  only  water  drunk  by  the  Great 
King,  and  was  always  carried  with  him  on  his 


Scale  of  feet. 
0  .TO       10  0 


1.  Kuins  of  Susa. 

2.  The  high  mound  or  citadel  (?) 

3.  The  palace. 

4.  The  great  platform. 
6.  Kuins  of  the  city. 


No.  1.  Pluft  Of  tt-.o  Ruin i  of  Sus*. 


SHUSHAN 

journeys  and  foveign  expeditions  (Herod,  i.  188  ;' 
Plat,  de  Exil.  1  601,  l>;  A  then.  Deipn.  ii.  J71, 
&c.).  Even  at  the  present  day  it  is  celebrated  for 
lightness  and  purity,  and  the  natives  prize  it  above 
that  of  almost  all  other  streams  (Geogr.  Jown.  ix. 
70,  89). 

3.  General  Description  of  the  Ruins. — The  ruins 
of  Susa  cover  a  space  about  6000  feet  long  from 
east  to  west,  by  4500  feet  broad  from  north  to 
south.  The  circumference  of  the  whole,  exclusive 
of  outlying  and  comparatively  insignificant  mounds, 
is  about  three  miles.  According  to  Mr.  Loftus, 
"  the  principal  existing  remains  consist  of  four 
spacious  artificial  platforms,  distinctly  separate  from 
each  other.  Of  these  the  western  mound  is  the 
smallest  in  superficial  extent,  but  considerably  the 
most  lofty  and  important.  ...  Its  highest  point  is 
1 19  feet  above  the  level  of  the  Shaour  (Shapur). 
In  form  it  is  an  in-egular,  obtuse-angled  triangle, 
with  its  coiners  rounded  off,  and  its  base  facing 
nearly  due  east.  It  is  apparently  constructed  of 
earth,  gravel,  and  sun-dried  brick,  sections  being 
exposed  in  numerous  ravines  produced  by  the  rains 
of  winter.  The  sides  are  so  perpendicular  as  to  be 
inaccessible  to  a  horseman  except  at  three  places. 
The  measurement  round  the  summit  is  about  2850 
feet.  In  the  centre  is  a  deep  circular  depression, 
probably  a  large  court,  surrounded  by  elevated  piles 
of  buildings,  the  fall  of  which  has  given  the  present 
configuration  to  the  surface.  Here  and  there  are  i 


SHUSHAN 


1301 


ARCHITECTURE. — The  explorations  undertakes 
by  General,  now  Sir  Fenwick  Williams  of  Kars,  ir. 
the  mounds  at  Susa,  in  the  year  1851,  resulted  in 
the  discovery  of  the  bases  of  three  columns,  marked 
5,  6,  and  7  on  the  accompanying  plan  (woodcul 
No.  2).  These  were  found  to  be  27  feet  6  inches  apart 
from  centre  to  centre,  and  as  they  were  very  similar 
to  the  bases  of  the  great  hall  known  popularly  as  the 
Chel  Minar  at  Persepolis,  it  was  assumed  that  an 
other  row  would  be  found  at  a  like  distance  inwards. 
Holes  were  accordingly  dug,  and  afterwards  trenches 
driven,  without  any  successful  result,  as  it  hap 
pened  to  be  on  the  spot  where  the  walls  originally 
stood,  and  where  no  columns,  consequently,  could 
have  existed.  Had  any  trustworthy  restoration  of 
the  Persepolitan  haii  been  published  at  that  time 
the  mistake  would  have  been  avoided,  but  as  none 
then  existed  the  opportunity  was  nearly  lost  for  our 
becoming  acquainted  witn  one  of  the  Ynost  interesting 
ruins  connected  with  Bible  historj  which  now  exist 
out  of  Syria.  Fortunately  in  the  following  year  Mr. 
Loftus  resumed  the  excavations  with  more  sucoxc, 
and  ascertained  the  position  cf  all  the  72  columns 
of  which  the  original  building  was  composed.  Only 
one  base  had  been  entirely  removed,  and  as  thai 
was  in  the  midst  of  the  central  phalanx,  its  absence 
threw  no  doubt  on  any  part  of  the  arrangement. 
On  the  bases  of  four  of  the  columns  thus  uncovered 
(shaded  darker  on  the  plan,  and  numbered  1,  2, 
4)  were  found  trilingual  inscriptions  in  the 


exposed  in  the  ravines  traces  of  brick  walls,  which  languages  adopted  by  the  Achaemenian  kings  at 
show  that  the  present  elevation  of  the  mound  has  Behistun  and  elsewhere,  but  all  were  so  much 
been  attained  by  much  subsequent  superposition  "  j  injured  by  the  fall  of  the  superincumbent  mass  that 
(Chaldaea  and  Susiana,  p.  343).  Mr.  Loftus 
regards  this  mound  as  indubitably  the  remains 
of  the  famous  citadel  (&Kpa  or  a.Kp6iro\is)  of 
Susa,  sc  frequently  mentioned  by  the  ancient 
writers  (Herod,  iii.  68;  Polyb.  v.  48,  §14; 
Strab.  xv.  3,  §2 ;  An-.  Exp.  Al.  i:i.  16,  &c.). 
"  Separated  from  the  citadel  on  the  west  by  a 
channel  or  ravine,  the  bottom  of  which  is  on 
a  level  with  the  external  desert,  is  the  great 
central  platform,  covering  upwards  of  sixty 
acres  (No.  3  on  the  Plan).  The  highest  point 
is  on  the  south  side,  where  it  presents  generally 
a  perpendicular  escarpment  to  the  plain,  and 
rises  to  an  elevation  of  about  70  feet  ;  on  the 
east  and  north  it  does  not  exceed  40  cr  50  feet. 
The  east  face  measures  3000  feet  in  length. 
Enormous  ravines  penetrate  to  the  very  heart 
of  the  mound"  (Loftus,  p.  345).  The  third 
platform  (No.  2  on  the  Plan)  lies  towards  the 
north,  and  is  "  a  considerable  square  mass," 
about  a  thousand  feet  each  way.  It  abuts  on 
the  central  platform  at  its  north-western  ex 
tremity,  but  is  separated  from  it  by  "  a  slight 
hollow,"  wh-ich  "  was  perhaps  an  ancient  road 
way  "  (Loftus,  #.).  These  three  mounds  foi-m 
together  a  lozenge-shaped  mass,  4500  feet  long  and  not  one  was  complete,  and  unfortunately  the  Persian 
nearly  3000  feet  broad,  pointing  in  its  longer  direc-  j  text,  which  could  have  been  read  with  most  cer- 
tion  a  little  west  of  north.  East  of  them  is  the  tainty,  was  the  least  perfect  of  any.  Notwithstand- 
fourth  platform,  which  is  very  extensive  but  of  much  !  ing  this,  Mr.  Edwin  Norris,  with  his  usual  ingenuity, 
lower  elevation  than  the  rest  (No.  4  on  the  Plan).  |  by  a  careful  comparison  of  the  whole,  made  out  the 
ts  plan  is  very  irregular  :  in  its  dimensions  it  meaning  of  the  first  part  certainly,  of  the  latter  half 
about  equals  all  the  rest  of  the  ruins  put  together.  |  with  very  tolerable  precision.  As  this  inscription 
beyond  this  eastern  platform  a  number  of  low  j  contains  nearly  all  we  know  of  the  history  of  this 
mounds  are  traceable,  extending  nearly  to  the  Dizful  building  we  quote  it  entire  from  Joiim.  As.  Soc.,  vol. 
river;  but  there  are  no  remains  of  walls  in  any  |  xv.  162:— "Says  Artaxerxes  fMnemon),  the  Great 
.tirection,  and  no  marks  of  any  buildings  west  of!  King,  the  King  of  Kings,  the  King  of  the  Country, 
s  Shapur.  All  the  ruins  are  contained  within  a  the  King  of  the  Earth,  the  son  of  King  Darius— 


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No.  2.    Plan  of  the  Great  Palace  at  Susa. 


circumference   of 
Journ.  ix.  71 


about   seven  mike 


(Geograph.  \  Diunus  was  the  son  of  King  Artaxerxes — •Arfeuersa 
[G.  R.]    j  was  the  son  of  Xerxes — Xerxes  was  the  son  of 


1302 


SHUSHAN 


Darius — Darias  was  the  son  of  Hystaspes  the  Achae-  ] 
menian — Darius  my  ancestor  anciently  built  this 
temj.le,  and  afterwards  it  was  repaired  by  Artaxerxes 
my  grandfather.  By  the  aid  of  Ormazd  I  placed 
the  effigies  of  Tanaites  and  Mithra  in  this  temple. 
May  Ormacd,  Tanaites,  and  Mithra  protect  me,  with 
the  other  Gods,  and  all  that  I  have  done  ..." 

The  bases  uncovered  by  Mr.  Loftus  were  arranged 
as  on  the  woodcut  No.  2,  reduced  from  that  given 
at  page  366  of  his  Chcddaea  and  Susiana,  and  most 
fortunately  it  is  found  on  examination  that  the  build 
ing  was  an  exact  counterpart  of  the  celebrated  Chel 
Minar  at  Persepolis.  They  are  in  fact  more  like  one 
another  than  almost  any  other  two  buildings  of  an 
tiquity,  and  consequently  what  is  wanting  in  the 
one  may  safely  be  supplied  from  the  other,  if  it 
exists  there. 

Their  age  is  nearly  the  same,  that  at  Susa  having 
been  commenced  by  Darius  Hystaspis,  that  at  Perse 
polis — if  one  may  trust  the  inscription  on  its  stair 
case  (/.  A.  S.  x.  326)— was  built  entirely  by  Xerxes. 
Their  dimensions  are  practically  identical,  the  width 
of  that  at  Susa,  according  to  Mr.  Loftus,  being 
345  feet,  the  depth  N.  and  S.  244.  The  correspond 
ing  dimensions  at  Persepolis,  according  to  Flandin 
and  Coste's  survey,  are  357*6  by  254-6,  or  from 
10  to  12  feet  in  excess;  but  the  difference  may 
arise  as  much  from  imperfect  surveying  as  from 
any  real  discrepancy. 

The  number  of  columns  and  their  arrangement 
are  identical  in  the  two  buildings,  and  the  details 
of  the  architecture  are 
practically  the  same  so 
far  as  they  can  be  made 
out.  But  as  no  pillar 
is  standing  at  Susa,  and 
no  capital  was  found 
entire  or  nearly  so,  it  is 
not  easy  to  feel  quite 
sure  that  the  annexed 
restoration  (woodcut 
No.  3)  is  in  all  respects 
correct.  It  is  reduced 
from  one  made  by  Mr. 
Churchill,  who  accom 
panied  Mr.  Loftus  in  his 
explorations.  If  it  is 
so,  it  appears  that  the 
great  difference  between 
the  two  buildings  was 
that  double  bull  capitals 
were  used  in  the  inte 
rior  of  the  central  square 
hall  at  Susa,  while  their 
use  was  appropriately 
confined  to  the  porticoes 
at  Persepolis.  In  other 
respects  the  height  ot 
the  capital,  which  mea 
sures  28  feet,  is  very 
nearly  the  same,  but  it 
is  fuller,  and  looks  some 
what  too  heavy  for  the 
shaft  that  supports  it 
This  defect  was  to  a 

great  extent  corrected  at  Persepolis,  and  may  have 
arisen  from  those  at  Susa  being  the  first  transla 
tion  of  the  Ninevite  wooden  original  into  stone 
architecture. 

The  pillars  at  Persepolis  vary  from  60  to  67  feet 
in  height,  and  we  may  therefore  assume  that  those 
l.t  Susa  were  nearly  the  same.  No  trace  of  the  walls 


.  3.     Krsttiivd  elevation  of 
capital  at  .Susa. 


SHUSHAN 

which  enclosed  these  pillars  was  detected  at  OUSH 
:'rorn  which  Mr.  Loftus  assumes,  somewhat  too 
lastily,  that  none  existed.  As,  however,  he  could 
,iot  make  out  the  traces  of  the  walls  of  any  other 
of  the  numerous  buildings  which  he  admits  once 
existed  in  these  mounds,  we  ought  pot  to  be  sur 
prised  at  his  not  rinding  them  in  this  instance. 

Fortunately  at  Persepolis  sufficient  remains  still 
exist  to  enable  us'  to  supply  this  hiatus,  though 
there  also  sun-burnt  brick  was  too  much  used  foi 
the  walls,  and  if  it  were  not  that  the  jambs  of  the 
doors  and  windows  were  generally  of  stone,  we 
should  be  as  much  at  a  loss  there  as  at  Susa.  The 
annexed  woodcut  (No.  4),  representing  the  plan  <f 
the  hall  at  Persepolis,  is  restored  from  data  so  com 
plete  as  scarcely  to  admit  of  doubt  with  regard  to 
any  part,  and  will  suffice  to  explain  the  arrange 
ment  of  both.* 

Both  buildings  consisted  of  a  central  hall,  as 
nearly  as  may  be  200  feet  square,  and  consequently, 
so  far  as  we  know,  the  largest  interior  of  the  ancient 
world,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  great  hall 
at  Karnac,  which  covers  58,300  square  feet,  while 
this  only  extends  to  40,000.  Both  the  Persian  halls 
are  supported  by  36  columns,  upwards  of  60  feet 
in  height,  and  spaced  equidistant  from  one  another 
at  about  27  feet  6  inches  from  centre  to  centre. 

On  the  exterior  of  this,  separated  from  it  by 
walls  1 8  feet  in  thickness,  were  three  great  porches, 
each  measuring  200  feet  in  width  by  65  in  depth, 
and  supported  by  12  columns  whose  axes  were 
coincident  with  those  of  the  interior.  These  were 
beyond  doubt  the  great  audience  halls  of  the  palace, 
and  served  the  same  purposes  as  the  House  of  the 
Forest  of  Lebanon  in  Solomon's  palace,  though  its 
dimensions  were  somewhat  different,  150  feet  by 
75.  These  porches  were  also  identical,  as  far  as 
use  and  arrangement  go,  with  the  throne-rooms  in 
the  palaces  of  Delhi  or  Agra,  or  those  which  are 
used  at  this  day  in  the  palace  at  Ispahan. 

The  western  porch  would  be  appropriate  to 
morning  ceremonials,  the  eastern  to  those  of  the 
afternoon.  There  was  no  porch,  as  we  might  expect 
in  that  climate,  to  the  south,  but  the  principal  one, 
both  at  Susa  and  Persepolis,  was  that  which  faced 
the  north  with  a  slight  inclination  towards  the  east. 
It  was  the  throne-room,  par  excellence,  of  the 
palace,  and  an  inspection  of  the  plan  will  show  how 
easily,  by  the  arrangement  of  the  stairs,  a  whole 
army  of  courtiers  or  of  tribute-bearers  could  file 
before  the  king  without  confusion  or  inconvenience. 
The  bassi  relievi  in  the  stairs  at  Persepolis  in  fact 
represent  permanently  the  procession  that  on  great 
festivals  took  place  upon  their  steps ;  and  a  similar 
arrangement  of  stairs  was  no  doubt  to  be  found  at 
Susa  when  the  palace  was  entire. 

It  is  by  no  means  so  clear  to  what  use  the  central 
hall  was  appropriated.  The  inscription  quoted  above 
would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  it  was  a  temple,  pro 
perly  so  called,  but  the  sacred  and  the  secular  func 
tions  of  the  Persian  kings  were  so  intimately  blended 
together  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  draw  a  line 
anywhere,  or  say  how  far  "  temple  cella"  or 
"  palace  hall "  would  be  a  correct  designation  for 
this  part  of  the  building.  It  probably  was  used 
for  all  great  semi-religious  ceremonies,  such  as  the 
coronation  or  enthronization  of  the  king — at  such 
ceremonies  as  returning  thanks  or  making  offerings 


»  For  details  of  this  restoration,  see  The  Palaces  o) 
NineveJi  and  Persepolis  Restored.  By  Jas.  Fergusscn, 
Published  la  1851. 


SHUSHAN 

to  the  gods  for  victories — for  any  purpose  in  furt 
requiring  more  than  usual  state  or  solemnity;  b  it 
there  seems  no  reason  to  suppose  it  ever  was  us?d 
for  purely  festal  or  convivial  purposes,  for  which  it 
i«?  singularly  ill  suited. 


SHUSHAN 


1303 


From  what  we  know  of  the  buildings  at  Per- 
sepolis,  we  may  assert,  almost  with  certainty,  that 
the 
21), 
the  Book  of  Esther  took  place,  was  a  square  hall 


King's  Gate,"  where  Mordecai  sat  (Esth.  ii. 
and   where  so  many  of  the  transactions  of 


No.  4.    Restored  plan  of  Great  Hall  of  Xerxes  at  Persepolis.    Scale  100  feet  to  an  inch. 


(woodcut.  No.  5),  measuring  probably  a  little  more 
than  100  feet  each  way,  and  with  its  roof  supported 
by  four  pillars  in  the  centre,  and  that  this  stood  at 
a  distance  of  about  150  or  200  feet  from  the  front 
of  the  northern  portico,  where  its  remains  will 
probably  now  be  found  when  looked  for.  We  may 
also  be  tolerably  certain 
that  the  inner  court, 
where  Esther  appeared 
to  implore  the  king's 
favour  (Esth.  v.  1), 
was  the  space  between 
the  northern  portico 
and  this  square  build 
ing,  the  outer  court 
being  the  space  be 
tween  the  "  King's 
Gate"  and  the  northern 
terrace  wall.  We  may 


Scale  100  ft.  to  an  inch.          lerable  certainty  that 
the    "  Royal  House" 

i.  9)  and  the  "House  of  the  Women"  (ii.  9,  11) 
were  situated  behind  this  great  hall  to  the  south 
ward,  or  between  it  and  the  citadel,  and  having  & 
direct  communication  with  it  either  by  means  of  a 
bridge  over  the  ravine,  or  a  covered  way  under 
gound,  most  probably  the  former. 

There  seems  also  no  reasonable  doubt  but  that  it 
was  in  front  of  one  of  the  lateral  porticoes  of  this 
building  that  King  Ahasuerus  (Xerxes^  "  made  a 


feast  unto  all  the  people  ^that  were  present  ia  Shu- 
shan  the  palace,  both  unto  great  and  small,  seven 
days  in  the  court  of  the  garden  of  the  king's  palace 
where  were  white,  green,  and  blue  hangings,  fastened 
with  cords  of  fine  linen  and  purple  to  silver  rings 
and  pillars  of  marble:  the  beds  were  of  gold  and 
silver  upon  a  pavement  of  red  and  blue  and  white 
and  black  marble"  (Esth.  i.  5,  6).  From  this 
it  is  evident  that  the  feast  took  place,  not  in  the 
interior  of  any  hall,  but  out  of  doors,  in  tents 
erected  in  one  of  the  courts  of  the  palace,  such  as 
we  may  easily  fancy  existed  in  front  of  either  the 
eastern  or  western  porches  of  the  great  centiUi 
building. 

The  whole  of  this  great  group  of  buildings  was 
raised  on  an  artificial  mound,  nearly  square  in  plan, 
measuring  about  1000  feet  each  way,  and  rising  to 
a  height  apparently  of  50  or  60  feet  above  the 
plain.  As  the  principal  building  must,  like  those 
at  Persepolis,  have  had  a  lalar  or  raised  platform 
[TEMPLE]  above  its  roof,  its  height  could  not  have 
been  less  than  100  or  120  feet,  and  its  elevation 
above  the  plain  must  consequently  have  been  1 70 
or  200  feet. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  anything  much 
grander  in  an  architectural  point  of  view  than  such 
a  building,  rising  to  such  a  height  out  of  a  group 
of  subordinate  palace-buildings,  interspersed  with 
trees  and  shrubs,  and  the  whole  based  on  such  a 
terrace,  rising  from  the  flat  bat  fertile  plains  that 
are  watered  by  the  Eulaeus  at  its  base.  [J.  F.] 


1304 


SHUSH  AN-EDUTH 


BHU'SHAN-E'DUTH.  "  To  the  chief  musi 
cian  upon  Shushan-Eduth  "  (H-Hy  }WW)  is  plainly 
a  musical  direction,  whatever  else  may  be  obscure 
about  it  (Ps.  lx.).  In  Ps.  Ixxx.  we  have  the  fuller 
phrase  "  Shoshannim-eduth,"  of  which  Roediger 
regards  Shushan-eduth  as  an  abbreviation  (Gesen. 
Tlies.  p.  1385).  As  it  now  stands  it  denotes  "  the 
lily  of  testimony,"  and  possibly  contains  the  first 
words  of  some  Psalm  to  the  melody  of  which  that 
to  which  it  was  prefixed  was  sung  ;  and  the  pre 
position  *?y,  'al  (A.  V.  "  upon  ")  would  then  signify 
"  after,  in  the  manner  of,"  indicating  to  the  con 
ductor  of  the  Temple-choir  the  air  which  he  was  to 
follow.  If,  however,  Roediger  is  correct  in  his  con 
jecture  that  Shushan-eduth  is  merely  an  abbrevia 
tion  for  Shoshannim-eduth,  the  translation  of  the 
words  above  given  would  be  incorrect.  The  LXX. 
and  Vulgate  appear  to  have  read  D^^D'^y,  for 
they  render  roTs  a\\oia)dri(rofji€vois  and  pro  his  qui 
immutabuntur  respectively.  Ik  the  LXX.,  H-IIV) 
vduth,  becomes  "1*1)7,  '6d,  ert.  There  does  not  appear 
to  be  much  support  for  the  view  taken.  by  some 
(as  by  Joel  Bril)  that  Shushan-eduth  is  a  musical 
instrument,  so  called  from  its  resemblance  to  a  lily 
in  shape  (Simonis),  or.  from  having  lily-shaped 
ornaments  upon  it,  or  from  its  six  (shesh)  strings. 
Fiirst,  in  consistency  with  his  theory  with  respect 
to  the  titles  of  the  Psalms,  regards  Shushan-eduth 
as  the  name  of  one  of  the  twenty  -four  divisions  of 
singers  appointed  by  David,  so  called  after  a  band 
master,  Shushan,  and  having  its  head-quarters  at 
Eduth,  which  he  conjectures  may  be  the  same  as 
Adithaim  in  Josh.  xv.  36  (Handwb.  s.  v.).  As  a 
conjecture  this  is  certainly  ingenious,  but  it  has  the 
disadvantage  of  introducing  as  many  difficulties  as 
it  removes.  Simonis  (Lex.  s,  v.)  connects  'eduth 

B    3 

with  the  Arabic  $*£.,  'ud.    a  lute,*  or  kind   of 


guitar  played  with  a  plectrum,  a.nd  considers  ;t 
to  be  the  melody  produced  by  this  instrument  ;  so 
that  in  his  yiew  Shushan-eduth  indicates  that  the 
lily-shaped  cymbals  were  to  be  accompanied  with 
playing  on  the  lute.  Geseuius  proposes  to  render 
'eduth  a  "  revelation,"  and  hence  a  psalm  or  song 
revealed  ;  but  there  seems  no  reason  why  we  should 
depart  from  the  usual  meaning  as  above  given,  and 
we  may  therefore  regard  the  words  in  question  as  a 
fragment  of  an  old  psalm  or  melody,  the  same  in  cha 
racter  as  Aijeleth  Shaharand  others,  which  contained 
a  direction  to  the  leader  of  the  choir.  [W.  A.  W.] 


SHU  THALKITES,  THE  (Tnf  n  : 

0-iAcu:  Sathalaitae).  The  descendants  of  Shuthelah 
ti.e  son  of  Ephraim  (Num.  xxvi.  35). 


SHUTHE'LAH 


®ov- 


<ra\d,  Cod.  Alex.:  Suthala).  Head  of  an  Ephraimite 
family,  called  after  him  Shuthalhites  (Num.  xxvi. 
35),  and  lineal  ancestor  of  Joshua,  the  son  of  Nun 
(1  Chr.  vii.  20-27).  Shuthelah  appears  from  the 
former  passage  to  be  a  son  -of  Ephraim,  and  the 
father  of  Eran,  from  whom  sprung  a  family  of 
Eranites  (ver.  36).  He  appears  also  to  have  had 
two  brothers,  Becher,  father  of  the  Bachrites,  and 
Tahaii,  father  of  the  Tahanites.  But  in  1  Ghr. 
vii.  we  have  a  further  notice  of  Shuthelah,  where 


SHUTHELAH 

he  appears  first  of  all,  as  in  Num.,  as  the  son 
of  Ephraim  ;  but  in  ver.  21,  he  is  placed  six  gene 
rations  later.  Instead,  too,  of  Becher  and  Tahan, 
as  Shuthelah's  brothers,  we  find  Bered  and  Tahath, 
and  the  latter  twice  over  ;  and  instead  of  Eran, 
we  find  Eladah  ;  and  there  is  this  strange  ano 
maly,  that  Ephraim  appears  to  be  alive,  and  to 
mourn  for  the  destruction  of  his  descendants  in  the 
eighth  generation,  and  to  have  other  children  bom 
after  their  death.  And  then  again  at  ver.  25,  the 
genealogy  is  resumed  with  two  personages,  Rephah 
and  Resheph,  whose  parentage  is  not  distinctly 
stated,  and  is  conducted  through  Telah,  and  another 
Tahan,  and  Laadan,  to  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun.  who 
thus  appears  to  be  placed  in  the  twelfth  generation 
from  Joseph,  or,  as  some  reckon,  in  the  eighteenth. 
Obviously,  therefore,  the  text  in  1  Chr.  vii.  is  cor 
rupt.  The  following  observations  will  perhaps  assist 
us  to  restore  it. 

1.  The  names  that  are  repeated  over  and  over 
again,  either  in  identical  or  in  slightly  varied  forms, 
represent  probably  only  ONE  person.  Hence,  Ela 
dah,  ver.  20  ;  Elead,  ver.  21  ;  und  Laadan,  ver. 
20,  are  the  names  of  one  and  the  >ame  person.  And 
a  comparison  of  the  last  name  wun  Num.  xxvi.  36, 
where  we  have  "  of  Eran,"  will  further  show  tha; 
Eran  is  also  the  same  person,  whether  Eranb  Oi 
Laadan  be  the  true  form  of  the  name.  So  again, 
the  two  Tahaths  in  ver.  20,  and  Tahan  in  ver.  25, 
are  the  same  person  as  Tahan  in  Num.  xxvi.  35  ; 
and  Shuthelah  in  vers.  20  and  21,  and  Telah  in  ver. 
25,  are  the  same  as  the  Shuthelah  of  Num.  xxvi. 
35,  36  ;  and  the  Bered  of  ver.  20,  and  Zabad  of 
ver.  21,  are  the  same  as  the  Becher  of  Num.  xxv). 
35.  The  names  written  in  Hebrew  are  subjoined  U 
make  this  clearer. 


,  of  Eran. 
Laadan. 

Eleadah. 

.  Elead- 

.  Shuthelah. 


film  Tuhath. 
jni"l>  Tahan. 
"13  3  »  Becher. 


,  Zabad. 


2.  The  words  "  his  son  "  are  improperly  added 
after  Bered  and  Tahath  in  1  Chr.  vii.  20. 

3.  Tahan  is  improperly  inserted  in  1  Chr.  vii. 
25  as  a  son  of  Shuthelah,  as  appears  from  Num. 
xxvi.  35/36.     The  result  is  that  Shuthelah's  line 
may  be  thus  restored  :  (1)  Joseph.    (2)  Ephraim. 
(3)  Shuthelah.    (4)  Eran,  or  Laadan.    (5)  Ammi- 
hud.    (6)  Elishama,  captain  of  the  host  of  Ephraim 
(Num.i.  10,  ii.  18,  vii.  48).  (7)  Nun.   (8)  Joshua; 
a  number  which  agrees  well  with  all  the  genealogies 
in  which  we  can  identify  individuals  who  were  living 
at  the  entrance  into  Canaan  ;  as  Phinehas,  who  was 
sixth  from  Levi  ;  Salmon,  who  was  seventh  from 
Judah  ;  Bezaleel,  who  was  seventh;   Achan,  who 
was  sixth  ;   Zelophehad's  daughter,  seventh,  &o. 

As  regards  the  interesting  story  of  the  destruc 
tion  of  Ephraim's  sons  by  the  men  of  Gath,  which 
Ewald  (Gesch.  i.  491),  Bunsen  (Egypt,  vol.  i. 
p.  177;,  Lepsws  (Letters  from  Egypt,  p.  460), 
and  others  have  variously  explained  [EpilRAiM  ; 
BERIAH],  it  is  impossible  in  the  confused  state  01 
the  text  to  speak  positively  as  to  the  part  borne  ir 
it  by  the  house  of  Shuthelah.  But  it  seems  not 


n  With  the  article,  el  'M  is  the  origin  of  the  Ital.  liuto, 
Kr.  lath,  and  English  lute. 
*>  Pae  Samaritan  tort,  followed  by  the  I.S.X.  and  the 


Syrlac,  and  two  or  three  Heb.  MSS.,  read  Sdan ;  ar.d  oat 
HeK  MS.  reads  Kdan  for  Laadan  at  1  Chi  vii.  26  (JBlir 
ring  urn,  Gawdl.  TabU&\ 


SHUTHELAH 

unlikely  that  the  repetition  of  the  names  in  1  Chr. 
vii.  20,  21,  if  it  was  not  merely  caused  by  vitiated 
MSS.  like  2  Sam.  v.  14-16  (LXX.)  arose  from  their 
having  been  really  repeated  in  the  MS.,  not  as  ad 
ditional  links  in  the  genealogy,  but  as  having  borne 
part,  either  personally  or  in  the  persons  of  their 
descendants,  in  the  transaction  with  the  men  of 
Gath.  If  so,  we  have  mention  first  in  ver.  20 
of  the  four  families  of  Ephraim  reckoned  in  Num. 
xxvi.,  viz.,  Shuthelah,  Bered  or  Becher,  Tahath  or 
Tahan,  and  Eladah  or  Eran,  the  son  of  Shuthelah  ; 
and  we  are  then,  perhaps,  told  how  Tahath,  Bered, 
and  Shuthelah,  or  the  clans  called  after  them,  went 
to  help  (1"ITJJ)  Laadan  (or  Eran),  Shuthelah's  son, 
and  were  killed  by  the  men  of  Gath,  and  how  their 
father  mourned  them.  This  leads  to  an  account  of 
another  branch  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  of  which 
Beriah  was  the  head,  and  whose  daughter  or  sister 
(for  it  is  not  clear  which  was  meant)  was  Sherah 
(n"IN&?),c  who  built  the  upper  and  lower  Beth- 
horon  (on  the  border  of  Benjamin  and  Ephraim), 
and  Uzzen-Sherah,  a  town  evidently  so  called  from 
her  (Sherah' s)  earring.  The  writer  then  returns 
to  his  genealogy,  beginning,  according  to  the  LXX., 
with  Laadan.  But  the  fragment  of  Shuthelah's 
name  in  ver.  25,  clearly  shows  that  the  genealogy  of 
Joshua,  which  is  here  given,  is  taken  up  from  that 
name  in  ver.  20. d  The  clause  probably  began, 
"  the  sons  of  Shuthelah,  Laadan  (or,  of  Eran)  his 
son,"  &c.  But  the  question  remains  whether  the 
transaction  which  was  so  fatal  to  the  Ephraimites, 
occurred  really  in  Ephraim's  lifetime,  and  that  of 
his  sons  and  grandson,  or  whether  it  belongs  to  the 
times  after  the  entrance  into  Canaan ;  or,  in  other 
words,  whether  we  are  to  understand,  by  Ephraim, 
Shuthelah,  &c.,  the  individuals  who  bore  those 
names,  or  the  tribe  and  the  families  which  sprung 
from  thorn.  Ewald  and  Bunsen,  understanding 
the  names  personally,  of  course  refer  the  transaction 
to  the  time  of  the  sojourn  of  the  Israelites  in 
Goshen,  while  Lepsius  merely  points  out  the  con 
fusion  and  inconsistencies  in  the  narrative,  though 
he  apparently  suspects  that  the  event  occurred  in 
Palestine  after  the  Exodus.  In  the  Geneal.  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  p.  365,  the  writer  of  this  article 
had  suggested  that  it  was  the  men  of  Gath  who 
had  come  down  into  Goshen  to  steal  the  cattle  of 
the  Israelites,  in  order  to  obviate  the  objection  from 
the  word  "  came  down."  [See  too  EPHRATAH.]  But 
subsequent  consideration  has  suggested  another  pos 
sible  way  of  understanding  the  passage,  which  is 
also  advocated  by  Bertheau,  in  the  Kurzg.  exeget. 
Handb.  z.  A.  T.  According  to  this  view  the 
slaughter  of  the  Ephraimites  took  place  after  the 
settlement  in  Canaan,  and  the  event  related  in  1 
Chr.  viii.  13,  in  which  Beriah  also  took  part,  had  a 
close  connexion  with  it.  The  names  therefore  of 
the  patriarch,  and  fathers  of  families,  must  be  un 
derstood  of  the  families  which  sprung  from  them 
[NKHEMIAH,  p.  490  a],  and  Bertheau  well  com 
pares  Judg.  xxi.  6.  By  Ephraim  (1  Chr.  vii.  22,  23), 
we  must  in  this  case  understand  the  then  head  of 
the  tribe,  who  was  probably  Joshua,6  and  this  would 
go  far  to  justify  the  conjecture  in  Genealog.  p.  364, 
that  Sherah  (  =  H"1D)  was  the  daughter  of  Joshua, 


SIBBOLETH 


1306 


arrived  at  by  comparison  of  Josh,  xix.  49,  50  . 
1  Chr.  vii.  30,  and  by  observing  that  the  lattei 
passage  is  Joshua's  genealogy.  Beriah  would  seen: 
from  1  Chr.  viii.  13,  to  have  obtained  an  inherit 
ance  in  Benjamin,  and  also  in  Asher,  where  we  find 
him  and  "his  sister  Serah"  (PHS?)  in  1  Chr.  vii 
30.  It  is,  however,  impossible  to  speak  with  cer 
tainty  where  we  have  such  scanty  information. 
Bertheau's  suggestion  that  Beriah  was  adopted  into 
the  family  of  the  Ephraimites,  is  inconsistent  with 
the  precision  of  the  statement  (1  Chr.  vii.  23),  and 
therefore  inadmissible.  Still,  putting  together  the 
insuperable  difficulties  in  understanding  the  passage 
of  the  literal  Ephraim,  and  his  literal  sons  and 
daughter,  with  the  fact  that  the  settlements  of  the 
Ephraimites  in  the  mountainous  district,  where 
Beth-horon,  Gezer,  Timnath-Serah,  &c.,  lay,  were 
exactly  suited  for  a  descent  upon  the  plains  of  the 
Philistine  country  where  the  men  of  Gath  fed  their 
cattle,  and  with  the  further  facts  that  the  Ephraim 
ites  encountered  a  successful  opposition  fiom  the 
Canaanites  in  Gezer  (Josh.  xvi.  10;  Judg.  i.  29), 
and  that  they  apparently  called  in  later  the  Ben- 
jamites  to  help  them  in  driving  away  the  men  of 
Gath  (1  Chr.  viii.  13),  it  seems  best  to  understand 
the  narrative  as  of  the  times  after  the  entrance  into 
Canaan.  [A.  C.  H.] 

SI'A  (KJTD:  'AoW«;  Alex.  Stom:  Siaa). 
"  The  children  of  Sia"  were  a  family  of  Nethinim 
who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Neh.  vii.  47).  The 
name  is  written  SIAHA  in  Ezr.  ii.  44,  and  SUD  in 
1  Esd.  v.  29. 

SI'AHA  (KH^p :  2iac£;  Alex.  'A(tac$:  Siaa} 
=  SiA  (Ezr.  ii.  44). 

SIBBECA'I  CO3D :  2e/8ox«  in  Sam.,  5o)3oxat 
in  Chr.  ;  Alex.  SejSoxaei,  2oj8oxa£ :  Sobochai). 
SIBBECHAI  the  Hushatljjte  (2  Sam.  xxi.  18 ;  1  Chr. 
xxvii.  11). 

SIBBECHA'I  032D:  2o0ox<u ;  Alex.  2oj8- 
faxal  in  1  Chr.  xx.  4  : "  Sobbochat,  Sobochai).  One 
of  David's  guard,  and  eighth  captain  for  the  eighth 
month  of  24,000  men  of  the  king's  army  (1  Chr. 
xi.  29,  xxvii.  11).  He  belonged  to  one  of  the  prin 
cipal  families  of  Judah,  the  Zarhites,  or  descendants 
of  Zerah,  and  is  called  "the  Hushathite,"  probably 
from  the  place  of  his  birth.  Josephus  (Ant.  vii. 
12,  §2)  calls  him  "  the  Hittite,"  but  this  is  no 
doubt  an  error.  Sibbechai's  great  exploit,  which 
gave  him  a  place  among  the  mighty  men  of  David's 
army,  was  his  single  combat  with  Saph,  or  Sippai, 
the  Philistine  giant,  in  the  battle  at  Gezer,  or  Gob 
(2  Sam.  xxi.  18 ;  1  Chr.  xx.  4).  In  2  Sam.  xxiii. 
27  his  name  is  written  MEBUNNAI  by  a  mistake 
of  the  copyist.  Joseph  us  says  that  he  slew  "  many  " 
who  boasted  that  they  were  of  the  descent  of  the 
giants,  apparently  reading  D*1!")  for  *SD  in  1  Ckr. 
xx.  4. 

SIB'BOLETH  (rfelp :  Zibboleth}.  The  Eph- 
raimite  (or,  according  to  the  text,  the  Ephrathite) 
pronunciation  of  the  word  Shibboleth  (Judg.  xii.  6). 
The  LXX.  do  not  represent  Sibboleth  at  all.  [See 
SHIBBOLETH.]  [G.] 


0  It  seems  highly  improbable,  not  to  say  impossible, 
tiint  a  literal  daughter  or  granddaughter  of  Ephraim  should 
have  built  these  cities,  which  must  have  been  built  alter 
the  entrance  into  Canaan. 

d  It  does  not  appear  who  Rephah  and  Reshcph  are. 
Ffthiui  seems  to  be  repeated  out  of  us  place,  as  in  the 


Alex.  LXX.     It  is  after  Laadan,  there  corrupted  into 
Galaada. 

e  There  is  no  mention  elsewhere  of  any  posterity  oJ 
Joshua.  The  Jewish  tradition  assigned  him  a  wile  und 
children.  [RAIIAB.] 


1306 


SIBMAH 


SIBMAH  (HD^b:  2e)8a/m,  ij  Jer. 
Sibama,  Sabama).  A  town  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan, 
one  of  those  which  were  taken  and  occupied  by  the 
tribe  of  Reuben  (Josh.  xiii.  19).  In  the  original 
catalogue  of  those  places  it  appears  as  SHEBAM 
and  SHIBMAH  (the  latter  merely  an  inaccurate  va 
riation  of  the  Auth.  Version).  Like  most  of  the 
fransjordanic  places,  Sibmah  disappears  from  view 
during  the  main  part  of  the  Jewish  history.  We, 
however,  gain  a  parting  glimpse  of  it  in  the  lament 
over  Moab  pronounced  by  Isaiah  and  by  Jeremiah 
(Is.  xvi.  8,9;  Jer.  xlviii.  32).  It  was  then  a  Moab- 
ite  place,  famed  for  the  abundance  and  excellence 
of  its  grapes.  They  must  have  been  remarkably 
good  to  have  been  thought  worthy  of  notice  by 
those  who,  like  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  lived  close  to 
and  were  familiar  with  the  renowned  vineyards  of 
Sorek  (Is.  v.  2,  where  "  choicest  vine  "  is  "  vine  of 
Sorek.")  Its  vineyards  were  devastated,  and  the 
town  doubtless  destroyed  by  the  "  lords  of  the  hea 
then,"  who  at  some  time  unknown  appear  to  have 
laid  waste  the  whole  of  that  once  smiling  and  fertile 
district. 

Sibmah  seems  to  have  been  known  to  Eusebius 
(Onomasticon,  "Sabama"),8  and  Jerome  (Com 
ment.  in  fsaiam,  lib.  v.)  states  that  it  was  hardly 
500  paces  distant  from  Heshbon.  He  also  speaks 
of  it  as  one  of  the  very  strong  cities  (  Urbcs  validis- 
simae)  of  that  region.  No  trace  of  the  name  has 
been  discovered  more  recently,  and  nothing  resem 
bling  it  is  found  in  the  excellent  lists  of  Dr.  Eli 
Smith  (Robinson,  B.  R.  ed.  1,  App.  169,  170).  [G.] 


SICYON 

name   of  Shechem:  —  "that   foolish   people   (Ac»i 
p.tap6s}  that  dwell  in  Sichem."  [G.J 


SIBRA'IM  (D^ap  :  07?pck> 
Sabarirn).  One  of  the  landmarks  on  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  Holy  Land  as  stated  by  Ezekiel 
(xlvii.  16).  It  occurs  between  Berothah  andHazar- 
hatticon,  and  is  described  in  the  same  passage  as 
lying  between  the  boundary  of  Damascus  and  that 
of  Hamath.  It  has  not  been  identified  —  and  in  the 
great  obscurity  of  the  specification  of  this  boun 
dary  it  is  impossible  to  say  where  it  should  be 
sought.  [G.] 

SI'CHEM     (DIDIp,    Le.    Shechem  :     2»xe>  : 

Sichem).  The  same  well-known  name  —  identical  in 
the  Hebrew  —  with  that  which  in  all  other  places  in 
the  0.  T.  is  accurately  rendered  by  our  translators 
SHECHEM.  Here  (Gen.  xii.  6),  its  present  form 
arises  from  a  too  close  adherence  to  the  Vulgate,  or 
rather  perhaps  from  its  non-correspondence  with 
the  Hebrew  having  been  overlooked  in  the  revision 
of  1611. 

The  unusual  expression  "  the  place  of  Sichem  " 
may  perhaps  indicate  that  at  that  early  age  the 
city  did  not  exist.  The  "oaks  of  Moreh  "  were 
there,  bu^  the  town  of  Shechem  as  yet  was  not, 
its  "  place''  only  was  visited  by  the  great  patriarch. 

2.  (&v  ZiKipois  :  in  Sichimis).  Ecclus.  1.  26. 
The  Greek  original  here  is  in  the  form  which  is 
occasionally  found  in  the  0.  T.  as  the  equivalent  of 
SHECHEM.  If  there  could  be  any  doubt  that  the 
son  of  Sirach  was  alluding  in  this  passage  to  the 
Samaritans,  who  lived  as  they  stiH  live  at  Shechem, 
it  would  be  disproved  by  the  characteristic  pun  which 
he  has  perpetrated  on  the  word  Moreh,  the  ancient 


SIC'  YON  (ZiKvtiv}.  A  city  mentioned  with 
several  others  [see  PHASELIS]  in  1  Mace.  xv.  23 
The  name  is  derived  from  a  Punic  root  (sak,  sik,  01 
sok\  which  always  implies  a  periodical  market; 
and  the  original  settlement  was  p:obably  one  to 
which  the  inhabitants  of  the  narrow  strip  of  highly 
fertile  soil  between  the  mountains  and  the  southern 
shore  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf  brought  their  produce 
for  exportation.  The  oldest  name  of  the  town  on 
the  coast  (the  Sicyon  of  the  times  before  Alex 
ander)  was  said  to  have  been  Alyid\f],  or  AlyiaXol. 
This  was  perhaps  the  common  native  name,  and 
Sicyon  that  given  to  it  by  the  Phoenician  traders, 
which  would  not  unnaturally  extrude  the  other  as 
the  place  acquired  commercial  importance.  It  is 
this  Sicyon,  on  the  shore,  which  was  the  teat  of 
the  government  of  the  Orthagorids,  to  which  the 
Cieisthenes  celebrated  by  Herodotus  (v.  67)  be 
longed.1*  But  the  Sicyon  referred  to  in  the  Book 
of  Maccabees  is  a  more  recent  city,  built  on  the 
site  which  served  as  an  acropolis  to  the  old  one, 
and  distant  from  the  shore  from  twelve  to  twenty 
stades.  Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  in  the  year  303  B.C., 
surprised  the  garrison  which  Ptolemy  had  five  years 
before  placed  there,  and  made  himself  master  of  the 
harbour  and  the  lower  town.  The  acropolis  was 
surrendered  to  him,  and  he  then  persuaded  the 
population,  whom  he  restored  to  independence,  to 
destioy  the  whole  of  the  buildings  adjacent  to  the 
harbour,  and  remove  thither;  the  site  being  one 
much  more  easily  defensible,  especially  against  any 
enemy  who  might  attack  from  the  sea.  Diodorus 
describes  the  new  town  as  including  a  large  space 
so  surrounded  on  every  side  by  precipices  as  to  be 
unapproachable  by  the  machines  which  at  that 
time  were  employed  in  sieges,  and  as  possessing  the 
great  advantage  of  a  plentiful  supply  of  water 
within  its  circuit.  Modern  travellers  completely 
confirm  his  account.  Mr.  Clark,  who,  in  1857, 
descended  upon  Sicyon  from  "  a  ridge  of  hills 
running  east  and  west,  and  commanding  a  splendid 
prospect  of  both  the  [Corinthian  and  Saronic]  gulfs 
and  the  isthmus  between,"  after  two  hours  and  a 
half  of  riding  from  the  highest  point,  came  to  a 
ruined  bridge,  probably  ancient,  at  the  bottom  of 
a  ravine,  and  then  ascended  the  right  bank  by  a 
steep  path.  Along  the  crest  of  this  hill  he  traced 
fragments  of  the  western  wall  of  Sicyon.  The  moun 
tain  which  he  had  descended  did  not  fall  towards 
the  sea  in  a  continuous  slope,  but  presented  a  suc 
cession  of  abrupt  descents  and  level  terraces,  severed 
at  intervals  by  deep  rents  and  gorges,  down  which 
the  mountain-torrents  make  their  way  to  the  sea, 
spreading  alluvium  over  the  plain,  about  two  miles 
in  breadth,  which  lies  between  the  lowest  cliffs 
and  the  shore.  "  Between  two  such  gorges,  on  a 
smooth  expanse  of  table-laud  overlooking  the 
plain,"  stood  the  city  of  Demetrius.  "  On  every 
side  are  abrupt  cliffs,  and  even  at  the  southern 
extremity  there  is  a  lucky  transverse  rent  sepa 
rating  this  from  the  next  plateau.  The  ancient 
walls  may  be  seen  at  intervals  along  the  edge  of 
the  cliff  on  all  sides."  It  is  easy  to  conceive  how 
these  advantages  of  position  must  at  once  have 


*  The  statement  of  this  passage  that  Sibmah  was  "  in 
Gilead,"  coupled  with  its  distance  from  Heshbon  as  given 
by  Jerome,  supports  the  local  tradition  which  places 
Mount  Gilead  south  of  the  Jabbok,  if  the  \Vady  Zcrha  be 
tie  Jabbok. 


b  Tbe  commercial  connexion  of  the  Sicyon  of  the  Ortha 
gorids  with  Phoenicia,  is  shown  by  the  quantity  of  Tar- 
tessian  brass  in  the  treasury  of  the  Orthagorid  Myron  ai 
Olympia.  The  Phoenician  (Carthaginian)  treasury  \%:£ 
next  to  it  (Pausanias,  vi.  19,  $1). 


SICYON 

fixed  the  attention   of  the   gre.it  engineer  of  an 
tiquity — the  Besieger. 

Demetrius  established  the  forms  of  republican 
government  in  his  new  city ;  but  republican  go 
vernment  had  by  that  time  become  an  impossibility 
in  Hellas.  In  the  next  half-century  a  number  of 
tyrants  succeeded  one  another,  maintaining  them 
selves  by  the  aid  of  mercenaries,  and  by  tempo 
rising  with  the  rival  sovereigns,  who  each  endea 
voured  to  secure  the  hegemony  of  the  Grecian 
race.  This  state  of  things  received  a  temporary 
check  by  the  efforts  of  Aratus,  himself  a  native 
of  Sicyon,  of  which  his  father  Cleinias  for  a  time 
became  dynast.  In  his  twentieth  year,  being  at 
the  time  in  exile,  he  contrived  to  recover  possession 
of  the  city  and  to  unite  it  with  the  Achaean  league. 
This  was  in  the  year  251  B.C.,  and  it  appears 
that  at  this  time  the  Dorian  population  was  so 
preponderant  as  to  make  the  addition  of  the  town 


SIDDIM,  THE  VALE  OI'1      1307 

£5;  Pausanias,  ii.  8,v.  14,9,  vi.  19,  §1-6,  x.  11,  §1  ; 
Ciark,  Peloponnesus,  pp.  338,  seqq.}       [J.  W.  B.] 

SIDDIM,  THE  VALE  OF 


T]  (f)dpay£  T] 


i,  ;md  T\ 


??  a.\vKi\:    Vallil 


Silvestris).  A  place  named  only  in  one  passage  oi 
Genesis  (xiv.  3,  8,  10)  ;  a  document  pronounced  by 
Ewald  and  other  eminent  Hebrew  scholars  to  bo  one 
of  the  oldest,  it  not  the  oldest,  of  the  fragments  of 
historical  record  of  which  the  early  portion  of  the 
book  is  composed. 

The  meaning  of  the  name  is  very  doubtful. 
Gesenius  says  truly  (Thes.  132  la)  that  every  one 
of  the  ancient  interpreters  has  tried  his  hand  at  it, 
and  the  results  are  so  various  as  to  compel  the 
belief  that  nothing  is  really  known  of  it,  certainly 
not  enough  to  allow  of  any  trustworthy  inferences 
being  drawn  therefrom  as  to  the  nature  of  the  spot 


Gesenius    expresses    his    conviction    (by   inference 

to  a  confederation  of  Achaeaiis  a  matter  of  remark,  i  , 

For  the  half-century  before  the  foundation  of  the  |  fi'om  the  Arabic  J^an  obstacle)  that  the  ml 
new  city,  Sicyon  had  favoured  the  anti-Lacedae-  !  meaning  of  the  words  Emek  has-Siddim  is  "  a  plain 
monian  party  in  Peloponnese,  taking  active  part  j  cut  up  by  stony  channels  which  render  it  difficult 
with  the  Messenians  and  Arrives  in  support  of !  of  transit ;"  and  with  this  agree  Ftirst  (Handwb.  ii. 


Megalopolis,  which  Epaminondas  had  founded  as  a 
counter-check  to  Sparta. 

The  Sicyonian   territory  is   described  as   one  of 


411  6)  and  Kalisch  (Genesis,  355). 

Prof.  Stanley  conjectures  (S.  fy  P.}  that  Siddim 
is  connected  with  Sddeh*  and  thus  that  the  signi- 


singular  fertility,  which  was  probably  increased  by  fication  of  the  name  was  the  "  valley  of  the  fields,' 
artificial  irrigation.  In  the  changeful  times  which  so  called  from  the  high  state  of  cultivation  in  which 
preceded  the  final  absorption  of  European  Hellas  it  was  maintained  before  the  destruction  of  Sodom 


by  the  Romans  it  was  subject  to  plunder  by 
whoever  had  the  command  of  the  sea ;  and  in  the 
year  208  B.C.  the  Roman  general  Sulpicius,  who 
had  a  squadron  at  Naupactus,  landed  between 
Sicyon  and  Corinth  (probably  at  the  mouth  of  the 
little  river  Nemea,  which  was  the  boundary  of  the 
two  states),  and  was  proceeding  to  harass  the 
neighbourhood,  when  Philip  king  of  Macedonia, 
who  was  then  at  Corinth,  attacked  him  and  drove 
him  back  to  his  ships.  But  very  soon  after  this 
Roman  influence  began  to  prevail  in  the  cities  of 
the  Achaean  league,  which  were  instigated  by  dread 
of  Nabis  the  dynast  of  Lacedaemon  to  seek  Roman 
protection.  One  congress  of  the  league  was  held 
at  Sicyon  under  the  presidency  of  the  Romans  in 
198  B.C.,  and  another  at  the  same  place  six  years 
later.  From  this  time  Sicyon  always  appears  to 
have  adhered  to  the  Roman  side,  and  on  the  de 
struction  of  Corinth  by  Mummius  (B.C.  146)  was 
rewarded  by  the  victors  not  only  with  a  large 
portion  of  the  Corinthian  domain,  but  with  the 
management  of  the  Isthmian  games.  This  dis 
tinction  was  again  lost  when  Julius  Caesar  re- 
founded  Corinth  and  made  it  a  Roman  colony ;  but 
in  the  mean  while  Sicyon  enjoyed  for  a  century  all 
the  advantages  of  an  entrepot  which  had  before 
accrued  to  Corinth  from  her  position  between  the 
two  seas.  Even  in  the  days  of  the  Antonines  the 
plea£ur,»-grounds  (renews)  of  the  Sicyonian  tyrant 
Cleon  continued  appiopriated  to  the  Roman  go 
vernors  of  Achaia ;  and  at  the  time  to  which 
reference  is  made  in  the  Maccabees,  it  was  probably 
the  most  important  position  of  all  over  which  the 
Romans  exercised  influence  in  Greece. 

(Diodorus  Siculus,  xv.  70,  xx.  37, 102  ;  Polybius, 
ii.  43 ;  Strabo,  viii.  7,  §25  ;  Livy,  xxxii.  15, 19,  xxxv. 


ind  the  other  cities.  This,  however,  is  to  identify 
t  with  the  Ciccar,  the  "circle  (A.  V.  'plain')  of 
Jordan,"  which  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any 
warrant  for  doing. 

As  to  the  spot  itself: — 

1.  It  was  one  of  that  class  of  valleys  which  the 
Hebrews  designated  by  the  word  Emek.    This  term 

.ppears  to  have  been  assigned  to  a  broad  flattish 
;ract,  sometimes  of  considerable  width,  enclosed  on 
each  side  by  a  definite  range  of  hills.  [VALLEY.] 

The  only  Emek  which  we  can  identify  with  any 
pproach  to  certainty  is  that  of  Jezreel,  viz.  the 
valley  or  plain  which  lies  between  Gilboa  and  Little 
Hermon. 

2.  It  was  so  far  a  suitable  spot  for  the  combaj 
between  the  four  and  five  kings  (ver.  8) ;  but, 

3.  It    contained   a   multitude    of   bitumen-pits 
sufficient  materially  to  affect  the  issue  of  the  battle. 

4.  In  this  valley  the  kings  of  the  five  allied 
cities  of  Sodom,  Gomorrah,  Admah,  Zeboiirn,  and 
Bela,  seem  to  have  awaited  the  approach  of  the  in 
vaders.     It  is  therefore  probable  that  it  was  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  "  plain,  or  circle,  of  Jordan  " 
in  which  those  cities  stood.     But  this  we  can  only 
infer;  it  is  not  stated,  and  scarcely  implied. 

5.  So  much  may  be  gathered  from  the  passage 
as  it  appears  originally  to  have  stood.     But  the 
words  which  more  especially  bear  on  the  subject  oi 
this  article  (ver.  3)  do  not  form  part  of  the  original 
document.    That  venerable  record  has — with  a  cars 
which  shows  how  greatly  it  was  valued  at  a  very 
early  date — been  annotated  throughout  I  y  a  later, 
though  still  very  ancient,  chronicler,  who  has  added 
what  in  his  day  were  believed  to  be  the  equivalents 
for  names  of  places  that  had  become  obsolete.    Bela 
is  explained  to  be  Zoar ;  En-Mishpat  to  be  Kadesh ; 


a  The  following  are  the  equivalents  of  the  name  given 
m  the  ancient  versions : — Sam.  Vers.,  H^p'/Tl  "lEJ^D  \ 
Onkelos,  NvpPl  "IK^D ;  Arabic,  merj  al  halcul ;  Pesnito, 

Aquila,  K.  rw  nepw 


Mvtav ;  Symm.  and  Theod.,  K.  TO>I/  dAo-cot/  (= 
Josephus,  $peara  ao-t/xxArou :  Jerome  (Quaest.  in  Gen.) 
YaRit  Salinarum. 

b  Perhaps  more  accurately  with  Sddad,  "  to  harrow." 
See  Kalisch  (Gen.  355  a) ;  who,  however,  disapproves  o) 
such  a  derivation,  and  adheres  to  that  of  Geseiiius. 


1308      SIUD1M,  THE  VALE  OF 

the  Eirek-Shaveh  to  be  the  Valley  of  the  King; 
the  Emek  has-Siddim  to  be  the  Salt  Sea,  that  is,  in 
modern  phraseology,  the  Dead  Sea.  And  when  we 
lemember  how  persistently  the  notion  has  been  en 
tertained  for  the  last  eighteen  centuries,*  that  the 
Dead  Sea  covers  a  district  which  before  its  submer 
sion  was  not  only  the  Valley  of  Siddim  but  also  the 
Plain  of  the  Jordan,  and  what  an  elaborate  account 
of  the  catastrophe  of  its  submersion  has  been  con 
structed  even  very  recently  by  one  of  the  most  able 
scholars  of  our  day,  we  can  hardly  be  surprised 
that  a  chronicler  in  an  age  far  less  able  to  interpret 
natural  phenomena,  and  at  the  same  time  long  sub 
sequent  to  the  date  of  the  actual  event,  should 
have  shared  in  the  belief.  Recent  investigation, 
however,  of  the  geological  evidence  furnished  by  the 
aspect  of  the  spot  itself,  has  not  hitherto  lent  any 
support  to  this  view.  On  the  contrary,  it  seems  to 
contradict  it.  The  northern  and  deeper  portion  of 
the  lake  unquestionably  belongs  to  a  geological  era 
of  veiy  much  older  date  than  the  time  of  Abraham  ; 
and  as  to  even  the  southern  and  shallower  portion, 
if  it  has  undergone  any  material  change  in  historic 
times,  such  change  would  seem  to  be  one  rather  of 
gradual  elevation  than  of  submersion.d 

If  we  could  venture,  as  some  have  done,  to  in 
terpret  the  latter  clause  of  verse  3,  "  which  is  near," 
or  "  which  is  at,  or  by,  the  Salt  Sea,"  then  we 
might  agree  with  Dr.  Robinson  and  others  in  iden 
tifying  the  Valley  of  Siddim  with  the  enclosed  plain 
which  intervenes  between  the  south  end  of  the  lake 
«ind  the  range  of  heights  which  terminate  the  Ghor 
and  commence  the  Wady  Arabah.  This  is  a  dis 
trict  in  many  respects  suitable.  In  the  ditches  and 
drains  of  the  Sabkhah  are  the  impassable  channels 
of  Gesenius.  In  the  thickly  wooded  Ghor  es  Safieh 
are  ample  conditions  for  the  fertility  of  Prof.  Stan 
ley.  The  general  aspect  and  formation  of  the  plain 
answers  fully  to  the  idea  of  an  emek.*  But  the 
original  of  the  passage  will  not  bear  even  this  slight 
accommodation,  and  it  is  evident  that  in  the  mind 
of  the  author  of  the  words,  no  less  than  of  the 
learned  and  eloquent  divine  and  historian  of  our 
own  time  already  alluded  to,  the  Salt  Sea  covers 
the  actual  space  formerly  occupied  by  the  Vale  of 
Siddim.  It  should  be  remembered  that  if  the 
cities  of  the  plain  were,  as  there  is  much  reason  to 
believe  they  were,  at  the  north  end  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  it  is  hardly  probable  that  the  five  kings  would 
have  gone  so  far  from  home  as  to  the  other  end  of 
the  lake,  a  distance  of  more  than  forty  miles,  espe 
cially  as  on  their  road  they  must  have  passed 
Hazezon-Tamar,  the  modern  Ain  Jid;/,  where  the 
Assyrians  were  then  actually  sncamped  (yer.  7). 
The  course  of  the  invaders  at  this  time  was  appa 
rently  northwards,  and  it  seems  most  probable — 
though  after  all  nothing  but  conjecture  on  such 
a  point  is  possible — that  the  scene  of  the  engage 
ment  was  somewhere  to  the  north  of  the  lake, 
]>crhaps  on  the  plain  at  its  north-west  corner.  This 
plain  is  in  many  of  its  characteristics  not  unlike  the 
ftabkhah  already  mentioned,  and  it  is  a  proper  and 
natural  spot  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  plain  of 
Jericho  to  attack  a  hostile  force  descending  from 
the  passes  of  Ain  Jidy.  [G.] 


«  Josephus  states  it  emphatically.  His  words  (Ant.  i. 
9)  are,  "  They  encamped  in  the  valley  called  the  Wells  of 
Asphalt;  for  at  that  time  there  were  wells  in  that  spot; 
bnt  now  that  the  city  of  the  Sodomites  has  disappeared, 
that  valley  has  become  a  lake  witch  is  called  As- 
phaltltee."  See  also  Strabo,  rvi.  761. 


SIDE 

Sl'DE  (2Z577.  Side}.  A  city  on  the  coast  o( 
Pamphylia,  in  lat.  36°  46',  long.  31°  27',  ten  01 
twelve  miles  to  the  east  of  the  river  Ejiymedon. 
It  is  mentioned  in  1  Mace.  xv.  23,  among  the  list 
of  places  to  which  the  Roman  senate  sent  letters 
in  favour  of  the  Jews  [see  PHASKLIS].  It  was  a 
col-iny  of  Cumaeans.  In  the  time  of  Strabo  a 
temple  of  Athen6  stood  there,  and  the  name  of 
that  goddess  associated  with  Apollo  appeal's  in  an 
inscription  of  undoubtedly  late  times  found  on  the 
spot  by  Admiral  Beaufort.  Sid6  was  closely  con 
nected  with  Aradus  in  Phoenicia  by  commerce, 
even  if  there  was  not  a  considerable  Phoenician 
element  in  the  population ;  for  not  only  are 
the  towns  placed  in  juxtaposition  in  the  passage 
of  the  Maccabees  quoted  above,  but  Antiochus's 
ambassador  to  the  Achaean  league  (Livy,  xxxv. 
48),  when  boasting  of  his  master's  navy,  told 
his  hearers  that  the  left  division  was  made  ur 
of  men  of  Side  and  of  Aradus,  as  the  right  was 
of  those  of  Tyre  and  of  Sidon,  quas  gentes  nullae 
unquam  nee  arte  nee  virtute  navali  aequassent. 
It  is  possible  that  the  name  has  the  same  root  as 
that  of  Sidon,  and  that  it  (as  well  as  the  Side  on 
the  southern  coast  of  the  Euxine,  Strabo,  xii.  3) 
was  originally  a  Phoenician  settlement,  and  that, 
the  Cumaeau  colony  was  something  subsequent. 
In  the  times  in  which  Side  appears  in  history  it 
had  become  a  place  of  considerable  importance.  It 
was  the  station  of  Antiochus's  navy  on  the  eve  of 
the  battle  with  the  Rhodian  fleet  described  by  Livy 
(xxxvii.  23,  24).  The  remains,  too,  which  still 
exist  are  an  evidence  of  its  former  wealth.  They 
stand  on  a  low  peninsula  runnkig  from  N.E.  tc 
S.W.,  and  the  maritime  character  of  the  former 
inhabitants  appears  from  the  circumstance  that  the 
walls  towards  the  sea  were  but  slightly  built,  while 
the  one  which  faces  the  land  is  of  excel  lent  workman 
ship,  and  remains,  in  a  considerable  portion,  perfect 
even  to  this  time.  A  theatre  (belonging  appa 
rently  to  the  Roman  times)  is  one  of  the  largest 
and  best  preserved  in  Asia  Minor,  and  is  calculated 
to  have  been  capable  of  containing  more  than 
15,000  spectators.  This  is  so  prominent  an  object 
that,  to  persons  approaching  the  shore,  it  appears 
like  an  acropolis  of  the  city,  and  in  fact,  during  the 
middle  ages,  was  actually  occupied  as  a  fort.  The 
suburbs  of  Side  extend  to  some  distance,  but  the 
gieatest  length  within  the  walls  does  not  exceed 
1300  yards.  Three  gates  led  into  the  town  from 
the  sea,  and  one,  on  the  north-eastern  side,  into 
the  country.  From  this  last  a  paved  street  with 
high  curbstones  conducts  to  an  agora,  180  feet  in 
diameter,  and  formerly  surrounded  with  a  double 
row  of  columns,  of  which  only  the  bases  remain. 
In  the  centre  is  a  large  ruined  pedestal,  as  if  for  a 
colossal  statue,  and  on  the  southern  side  the  ruins 
of  a  temple,  probably  the  one  spoken  of  by  Strabo. 
Opposite  to  this  a  street  ran  to  the  principal  water- 
gate,  and  on  the  fourth  side  of  the  agora  the 
avenue  from  the  land-gate  was  continued  to  the 
front  of  the  theatre.  Of  this  last  the  lower  half  is, 
after  the  manner  of  Roman  architects  whenever 
the  site  permitted,  excavated  from  the  native  rock, 
the  upper  half  built  up  of  excellent  masonry.  The 


d  The  gronnds  of  this  conclusion  are  stated  under  SEA., 
THE  SALT. 

e  This  is  the  plain  which  Dr.  Robinson  and  others  woul<? 
identify  with  the  Valley  of  Salt,  ge  mdach.  It  is  hardly 
that  it  can  be  both  an  emek  and  a  ge 


81DON 

twts  for  the  spectators,  most  of  which  remain,  are 
of  white  marble  beautifully  wrought. 

The  two  principal  harbours,  which  at  first  seem  to 
hav»  been  united  in  one,  were  at  the  extremity  of  the 
peninsula :  they  were  closed,  and  together  contained 
a  surface  of  nearly  500  yards  by  200.  Besides 
these,  the  principal  water-gate  on  the  N.W.  side 
was  connected  with  two  small  piers  of  150  feet 
iong,  so  .that  it  is  plain  that  vessels  used  to  lie 
here  to  discharge  their  cargoes.  And  the  account 
which  Livy  gives  of  the  sea-fight  with  Antiochus 
above  referred  to,  shows  that  shelter  could  also  be 
found  on  the  other  (or  S.E.)  side  of  the  peninsula 
whenever  a  strong  west  wind  was  blowing. 

The  country  by  which  Side  is  backed  is  a 
broad  swampy  plain,  stretching  out  for  some  miles 
beyond  the  belt  of  sand-hills  which  fringe  the  sea 
shore.  Low  hills  succeed,  and  behind  these,  far 
inland,  are  the  mountains  which,  at  Mount  Climax 
40  miles  to  the  west,  and  again  about  the  same 
distance  to  the  east,  come  down  to  the  coast. 
These  mountains  were  the  habitation  of  the 
Pisidians,  against  whom  Antiochus,  in  the  spring 
of  the  year  192  B.C.,  made  an  expedition ;  and  as 
Side  was  in  the  interest  of  Antiochus,  until,  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  war,  it  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  Romans,  it  is  reasonable  to  presume  that 
hostility  was  the  normal  relation  between  its  inha 
bitants  and  the  Highlanders,  to  whom  they  were 
probably  objects  of  the  same  jealousy  that  the 
Spanish  settlements  on  the  African  seaboard  inspire 
in  the  Kabyles  round  about  them.  This  would  not 
prevent  a  large  amount  of  traffic,  to  the  mutual 
interest  of  both  parties,  but  would  hinder  the 
people  of  Sid6  from  extending  their  sway  into  the 
interior,  and  also  render  the  construction  of  effective 
fortifications  on  the  land  side  a  necessity.  (Strabo, 
xii.,  xiv. ;  Livy,  xxxv.,  xxxvii. ;  Beaufort,  Kara- 
mania-^  Cicero,"  Epp.  ad  Fam.  iii.  6.)  [J.W.B.] 

SI'DON.  The  Greek  form  of  the  Phoenician 
name  Zidon,  or  (more  accurately)  Tsidon.  As  such 
it  occurs  naturally  in  the  N.  T.  and  Apocrypha  of 
the  Auth.  Version  (2i5c«;j/:  Sidon:  2  Esd.  i.  11  , 
Judg.  ii.  28:  1  Mace.  v.  15  ;  Matt.  xi.  21,  22  ;  xv. 
21 ;  Mark  iii.  8,  vii.  24,  31 ;  Luke  iv.»  26,  vi.  17, 
x.  13,  14 ;  Acts  xii.  20,b  xxviii.  3).  It  is  thus  a 
parallel  to  SION. 

But  we  also  find  it  in  the  0.  T.,  where  it  imper 
fectly  represents  the  Hebrew  word  elsewhere  pre 
sented  as  ZIDON  (Gen.  x.  15,  19;  fV»:  2i8c^, 
Zr.Sdav:  Sidon}.  [ZiDON.]  [G.] 

SIDO'NIANS  (DWy ;  in  Judg.  >iTS :  2«- 

8<avioi  ;  in  Deut.  QoiviKes  ;  in  Judg.  "Sitidtvios : 
Sidonii,  Sidonius).  The  Greek  form  of  the  word 
ZIDONIANS,  usually  so  exhibited  in  the  Auth.  Vers. 
of  the  0.  T.  It  occurs  Deut.  iii.  9  ;  Josh.  xiii.  4, 
6  ;  Judg.  iii.  3  ;  1  K.  v.  6.  [G.] 

SI'HON  (flTD,  and  jilTD":  Samar.  J1ITD : 
STJOI^ •;  Joseph.  ~3,i-%<av :  Sehori).  King  of  the  Amor- 
ites  when  Israel  arrived  on  the  borders  of  the  Pro 
mised  Land  (Num .  xxi.  21).  He  was  evidently  a  man 
of  great  courage  and  audacity.  Shortly  before  the 
time  of  Israel's  arrival  he  had  dispossessed  the  Moab- 
ites  of  a  splendid  territory,  driving  them  south  of  the 


SIHOR 


1309 


natural  bulwark  of  the  Arnon  with  great  slaughter 
and  the  loss  of  a  great  number  of  captives  (xxi.  26- 
29).  When  the  Israelite  host  appeal's,  he  does  not 
hesitate  or  temporise  like  Balak,  but  at  once  gathers 
his  people  together  and  attacks  them.  But  the 
battle  was  his  last.  He  and  all  his  host  were  de 
stroyed,  and  their  district  from  Arnon  to  Jabbok 
became  at  once  the  possession  of  the  conqueror. 

Josephus  (Ant.  iv.  5,  §2)  hau  preserved  some. 
singular  details  of  the  battle,  which  have  not  sur 
vived  in  the  text  either  of  the  Hebrew  or  LXX. 
He  represents  the  Amorite  army  as  containing 
every  man  in  the  nation  fit  to  bear  arms.  He  states 
that  they  were  unable  to  fight  when  away  from  the 
shelter  of  their  cities,  and  that  being  especially 
galled  by  the  slings  and  arrows  of  the  Hebrews,  and 
at  last  suffering  severely  from  thirst,  they  rushed 
to  the  stream  and  to  the  shelter  of  the  recesses  of 
the  ravine  of  the  Arnon.  Into  these  recesses  they 
were  pursued  by  their  active  enemy  and  slaughtered 
in  vast  numbers. 

Whether  we  accept  these  details  or  not,  it  is  plain 
from  the  manner  in  which  the  name  of  Sihon  d  fixed 
itself  in  the  national  mind,  and  the  space  which  his 
image  occupies  in  the  official  records,  and  in  the 
later  poetry  of  Israel,  that  he  was  a  truly  formi 
dable  chieftain.  [G.] 

SI'HOR,  accurately  SHI'HOR,  once  THE 
SHIHOR  O'lrPE?,  "nn£>,  *W  :  Tyuv,  r) 
CIO£KT;TOS  T)  Kara  Trp6<ra)irov  Aiyvirrov  :  NUiis, 
fluvius  turbidus,  (aqua)  turbida  :  or  SHIHOR  OF 
EGYPT  (Dn¥»  "AW  :  fyua  Aiybrrov  :  Sihor 
Aegypti),  when  unqualified,  a  name  of  the  Nile.  It 
is  held  to  signify  "the  black"  or  "turbid,"  from 
"in£>,  "  he  or  it  was  or  became  black  ;"  a  word  used 
in  a  wide  sense  for  different  degrees  of  dark  colour, 
as  of  hair,  a  face  tanned  by  the  sun,  a  skin  black 
through  disease,  and  extreme  blackness.  [NILE, 
p.  539  a.]  Several  names  of  the  Nile  may  be  com 
pared.  N€?AOS  itself,  if  jt  be,  as  is  generally  sup 
posed,  of  Iranian  origin,  signifies  "  the  blue,"  that  is 
"  the  dark"  rather  than  the  turbid  ;  for  we  must  then 


compare  the  Sanskrit  [tjTJ  Nilah,  "  blue,"  pro 
bably  especially  "  dark  blue,"  also  even  «'  black,"  as 
*n^T^Tt  "black  mud."  The  Arabic  azrak, 

"  blue,"  signifies  "  dark  "  in  the  name  Bohr  el- 
Azrak,  or  Blue  River,  applied  to  the  eastern  of 
the  two  great  confluents  of  the  Nile.  Still  nearer 
is  the  Latin  Melo,  from  jue'\as,  a  name  of  the  Nile, 
according  to  Festus  and  Servius  (Georg.  iv.  291  ; 
Aen.  i.  745,  iv.  246)  ;  but  little  stress  can  be  laid 
upon  such  a  word  resting  on  no  better  authority. 
i  With  the  classical  writers,  it  is  the  soil  of  Egypt 
i  that  is  black  rather  than  its  river.  So  too  in  hiero- 
glyphics*  the  name  of  the  country,  KEM,  means 
"  the  black  ;"  but  there  is  no  name  of  the  Nile  of 
like  signification.  In  the  ancient  painted  sculptures, 
however,  the  figure  of  the  Nile-god  is  coloured  dif 
ferently  according  as  it  represents  the  river  during 
the  time  of  the  inundation,  and  during  the  rest  of 
the  year,  in  the  former  case  red,  in  the  latter  blue 
There  are  but  three  occurrences  of  Shihor  in  the 


*•  In  this  passage  the  form  Sifiwvta  is  used. 

b  Here  the  adjective  is  employed — SiSomois. 

c  This  form  is  found  frequently,  though  not  exclusively, 
In  the  books  subsequent  to  the  Pentateuch.  In  the  Pent, 
itself  it  occnrs  four  times,  two  of  which  are  in  the  song, 


Num.  xxi.  27,  29. 

d  It  is  possible  that  a  trace  of  the  name  may  still 
remain  in  the  Jebel  Shihhan,  a  lofty  and  conspicuous 
mountain  just  to  the  south  of  the  Wady  MfQtb. 


1310 


SILAS 


Bible,  and  but  one  of  Shihor  of  Egypt,  or  Shihor- 
Mizraim.  It  is  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  limits  of 
territory  which  was  still  unconquered  when  Joshua 
was  old.  "  This  [is]  the  land  that  yet  remaineth  : 
all  the  regions  of  the  Philistines,  and  all  Geshuri, 
from  the  Shihor  ("WWil),  which  [is]  before  Egypt, 
even  unto  the  borders  of  Ekron  northward,  is 
counted  to  the  Canaan i te  "  (Josh.  xiii.  2,  3).  The 
enumeration  of  the  Philistines  follows.  Here,  there 
fore,  a  district  lying  between  Egypt  and  the  most 
northern  Philistine  city  seems  to  be  intended.  With 
this  passage  must  be  compared  that  in  which  Shihor- 
Mizraim  occurs.  David  is  related  to  have  "ga 
thered  all  Israel  together,  from  Shihor  of  Egypt 
even  unto  the  entering  of  Hamath"  (1  Chr.  xiii.  5). 
There  is  no  other  evidence  that  the  Israelites  ever 
spread  westward  beyond  Gaza  ;  it  may  seem  strange 
that  the  actual  territory  dwelt  in  by  them  in  David's 
time  should  thus  appear  to  be  spoken  of  as  extend 
ing  as  far  as  the  easternmost  branch  of  the  Nile, 
but  it  must  be  recollected  that  more  than  one  tribe 
at  a  later  time  had  spread  beyond  even  its  first 
boundaries,  and  also  that  the  limits  may  be  those  of 
David's  dominion  rather  than  of  the  land  actually 
fully  inhabited  by  the  Israelites.  The  stream  may 
therefore  be  that  of  the  Wiidi-l-'Areesh.  That  the 
stream  intended  by  Shihor  unqualified  was  a  navi 
gable  river  is  evident  from  a  passage  in  Isaiah, 
where  it  is  said  of  Tyre,  "  And  by  great  waters, 
the  sowing  of  Shihor,  the  harvest  of  the  river 
(Yeor,  *liO),  [is]  her  revenue"  (xxiii.  3).  Here 
Shihor  is  either  the  same  as,  or  compared  with, 
Yeor,  generally  thought  to  be  the  Nile  [NiLE], 
but  in  this  work  suggested  to  be  the  extension  of 
the  Red  Sea.  [RED  SEA.]  In  Jeremiah  the  iden 
tity  of  Shihor  with  the  Nile  seems  distinctly  stated 
where  it  is  said  of  Israel,  "  And  now  what  hast  thou 
to  do  in  the  way  of  Egypt,  to  drink  the  waters  of 
Shihor?  or  what  hast  thou  to  do  in  the  way  of 
Assyria,  to  drink  the  waters  of  the  river?"  {.  e. 
Euphrates  (ii.  18).  In  considering  these  passages 
it  is  important  to  distinguish  uotwcen  "  the  Shihor 
which  [is]  before  Egypt,"  and  Shihor  of  Egypt,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  Shihor  alone,  on  the  other.  In 
articles  NILE  and  RIVER  OF  EGYPT  it  is  maintained 
too  strongly  that  Shihor,  however  qualified,  is  always 
the  Nile.  The  later  opinion  of  the  writer  is  expressed 
here  under  SHIHOR  OP  EGYPT.  The  latter  is,  he 
thinks,  unquestionably  the  Nile,  the  former  two 
probably,  but  not  certainly,  the  same.  [R.  S.  P.] 
SI'LAS  (StAos :  Silas],  An  eminent  member 
of  the  early  Christian  Church,  described  under  that 
name  in  the  Acts,  but  as  Silvan  us*  in  St.  Paul's 
Epistles.  He  first  appears  as  one  of  the  leaders  (yyov- 
uevoi)  of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem  (Acts  xv.  22), 
holding  the  office  of  an  inspired  teacher  (TT/OO^TT/S, 
xv.  32).  His  name,  derived  from  the  Latin  silva, 
"  wood,"  betokens  him  a  Hellenistic  Jew,  and  he 
appears  to  have  been  a  Roman  citizen  (Acts  xvi. 
37).  He  was  appointed  as  a  delegate  to  accom 
pany  Paul  and  Barnabas  on  their  return  to  Antioch 
with  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  Jerusalem  (Acts 
xv.  22,  32).  Having  accomplished  this  mission, 
he  returned  to  Jerusalem  (Acts  xv.  33;  the  follow- 
iqg  verse,  e5o£e  5e  T$  ~2,i\a  eirifjLe'ivai  avrov,  is  de 
cidedly  an  interpolation  introduced  to  harmonise 
the  passage  with  xv.  40).  He  must,  however, 

»  The  Alexandrine  writers  adopted  somewhat  bold  ab 
breviations  of  proper  names,  such  as  Zenas  for  Zenodorus, 
Apollos  for  Apollonius,  Hermas  for  Hermodorus.  .The 
method  by  which  they  arrived  at  these  forms  is  not  very 
Apparent. 


SILK 

have  immediately  revisited  Antioch,  for  we  find 
him  selected  by  St.  Paul  as  the  companion  of  his 
second  missionary  journey  (Acts  xv.  40-xvii.  40). 
At  Beroea  he  was  left  behind  with  Timothy  while 
St.  Paul  proceeded  to  Athens  (Acts  xvii.  14),  and 
we  hear  nothing  more  of  his  movements  until  he 
rejoined  the  Apostle  at  Corinth  (Acts  xviii.  5). 
Whether  he  had  followed  Paul  to  Athens  in  obe 
dience  to  the  injunction  to  do  so  (Acts  xvii.  15),  and 
had  been  sent  thence  with  Timothy  to  Thessalonica 
(1  Thess.  iii.  2),  or  whether  his  movements  were 
wholly  independent  of  Timothy's,  is  uncertain 
(Conyb.  and  Hows.  St.  Paul,  i.  458,  note  s).  His 
presence  at  Corinth  is  several  times  noticed  (2  Cor. 
i.  19 ;  1  Thess.  i.  1  ;  2  Thess.  i.  1).  He  probably 
returned  to  Jerusalem  with  St.  Paul,  and  from  that 
time  the  connexion  between  them  appears  to  have 
terminated.  Whether  he  was  the  Silvanus  who 
conveyed  St.  Peter's  First  Epistle  to  Asia  Minor 
(1  Pet.  v.  12),  is  doubtful ;  the  probabilities  are  in 
favour  of  the  identity  ;  the  question  is  chiefly  inte 
resting  as  bearing  upon  the  Pauline  character  of  St. 
Peter's  Epistles  (De  Wette,  Einleit.  §4).  A  tra 
dition  of  very  slight  authority  represents  Silas  to 
have  become  bishop  of  Corinth.  We  have  finally 
to  notice,  for  the  purpose  of  rejecting,  the  theories 
which  identify  Silas  with  Tertius  (Rom.  xvi. 
22)  through  a  Hebrew  explanation  of  the  name 
(t^7t^),  and  again  with  Luke,  or  at  all  events  with 
the  author  of  the  Acts  (Alford's  Prolegom.  in  Acts, 
i.  §1).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SILK  (o"npiK6v).  The  only  undoubted  notice 
of  silk  in  the  Bible  occurs  in  Rev.  xviii.  12,  where 
it  is  mentioned  among  the  treasures  of  the  typical 
Babylon.  It  is,  however,  in  the  highest  degree 
probable  that  the  texture  was  known  to  the  Hebrews 
from  the  time  that  their  commercial  relations  were 
extended  by  Solomon.  For,  though  we  have  no 
historical  evidence  of  the  importation  of  the  raw 
material  to  the  she  »s  of  the  Mediterranean  earlier 
than  that  of  Aristotle  (H.  A.  v.  19)  in  the  4th 
century  B.C.,  yet  that  notice,  referring  as  it  does  to 
the  island  of  Cos,  would  justify  the  assumption  that 
it  had  been  known  at  a  far  earlier  period  in  Western 
Asia.  The  commercial  routes  of  that  continent  are 
of  the  highest  antiquity,  and  an  indirect  testimony 
to  the  existence  of  a  trade  with  China  in  the  age  of 
Isaiah,  is  probably  afforded  us  in  his  reference  to  the 
Sinim.  [Si'NiM.]  The  well-known  classical  name 
of  the  substance  ((niptK^v,  sericum)  does  not  occur 
in  the  Hebrew  language,1*  but  this  may  be  accounted 
for,  partly  on  the  ground  that  the  Hebrews  were 
acquainted  only  with"  the  texture  and  not  with  the 
raw  material,  and  partly  on  the  supposition  that 
the  name  sericum  reached  the  Greeks  by  another 
channel,  viz.  through  Armenia.  The  Hebrew  terms 
which  have  been  supposed  to  refer  to  silk  are  meshic 
and  demeshek.d  The  former  occurs  only  in  Ez. 
xvi.  10,  13  (A.  V.  "silk")  and  is  probably  con 
nected  with  the  root  mashdh,  "  to  draw  out,"  as 
though  it  were  made  of  the  finest  drawn  silk  m  the 
manner  described  by  Pliny  (vi.  20,  xi.  26)  :  the 
equivalent  term  in  the  LXX.  (rpixaTTOi/),  though 
connected  in  point  of  etymology  with  hair  as  its 
material,  is  nevertheless  explained  by  Hesychius 
and  Suidas  as  referring  to  silk,  which  may  well 
have  been  described  as  resembling  hair.  The  cthei 


•>  Caltnet  conjectured  that 
fine")  was  connected  with  smea*n. 


xis.  9,  A.  V 


SILLA 

tcra  d&ncshek  occurs  in  Am.  iii.  12  (A.  V. 
"Damascus"),  and  has  been  supposed  to  refer  to 
silk  from  the  resemblance  of  the  word  to  our 
"  damask,"  and  of  this  again  to  "  Damascus,"  as 
the  place  where  the  manufacture  of  silken  textures 
was  carried  on.  It  appears,  however,  that  "da 
mask  "  is  a  corruption  of  dimakso,  a  term  applied 
by  the  Arabs  to  the  raw  material  alone,  and  not  to 
the  manufactured  article  (Pus«y's  Min.  Proph. 
p.  183).  We  must,  therefore,  consider  the  reference 
to  silk  as  extremely  dubious.6  We  have  notice  of 
silk  under  its  classical  name  in  the  Mishna  (Kil.  9, 
§2),  where  Chinese  silk  is  distinguished  from  floss- 
silk.  The  value  set  upon  silk  by  the  Romans,  as 
implied  in  Rev.  xviii.  12,  is  noticed  by  Josephus 
(B.  J.  vii.  5,  §4),  as  well  as  by  classical  writers 
(e.g.  Sueton.  Calig.  52  ;  Mart.  xi.  9).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SIL'LA  (N^D  :  Tad\\a ;  Alex.  ToXoaS :  Sela). 
"  The  house  of  Millo  which  goeth  down  to  Silla," 
was  the  scene  of  the  murder  of  King  Joash  (2  K. 
xii.  20).  What  or  where  Silla  was  is  entirely 
matter  of  conjecture.  Millo  seems  most  probably 
to  have  been  the  citadel  of  the  town,  and  situated 
on  Mount  Zion.  [See  p.  367  a.]  Silla  must  have 
been  in  the  valley  below,  overlooked  by  that  part 
of  the  citadel  which  was  used  as  a  residence.  The 
situation  of  the  present  so-called  Pool  of  Siloam 
would  be  appropriate,  and  the  agreement  between 
the  two  names  is  tempting  ;  but  the  likeuess  exists 
in  the  Greek  and  F,nglish  versions  only,  and  in  the 
original  is  too  slight  to  admit  of  any  inference. 
Gesenius,  with  less  than  his  usual  caution,  affirms 
Silla  to  be  a  town  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jeru 
salem.  Others  (as  Thenius,  in  Kurzg.  exeg. 
ffandb.  on  the  passage),  refer  it  to  a  place  on 
or  connected  with  the  causeway  or  flight  of  steps 
(n?pP)  which  led  from  the  central  valley  of  the 
city  up  to  the  court  of  the  Temple.  To  indulge  in 
such  confident  statements  on  either  side  is  an 
entire  mistake.  Neither  in  the  parallel  passage  of 
Chronicles,*  in  the  lists  of  Nehemiah  iii.  and  xii., 
the  Jewish  Commentator,1*  the  LXX.,  in  Josephus, 
nor  in  Jerome,  do  we  find  the  smallest  clue;  and 
there  is  therefore  no  alternative  but  to  remain  for 
the  present  in  ignorance.  [G.] 

SILO'AH,  THE  POOL  OF  (nWn  nms  • 

v     _  v    _         _  ..  .    • 

Ko\v/j.f}-f]9pa  TUV  KcaSiwv  ;  FA.  K.  rcav  Berov 
'Sih.caa/j. :  Piscina  Siloe  t.  This  name  is  not  accu 
rately  represented  in  the  A.  V.  of  Neh.  iii.  15— 
the  only  passage  in  which  this  particular  form 
occurs.  It  should  be  Shelach,  or  rather  has-She- 
lach,  since  it  is  given  with  the  definite  article. 
This  was  possibly  a  corrupt  form  of  the  name 
which  is  first  presented  as  Shiloach,  then  as 
Siloam,  and  is  now  Selwdn.  The  meaning  of  SJie- 
lach  taken  as  Hebrew  is  "  dart."  This  cannot  be  a 
name  given  to  the  stream  on  account  of  its  swiftness, 


SILOAM 


1311 


because  it  is  not  now,  nor  was  it  in  the  days  oi 
Isaiah,  anything  but  a  very  soft  and  gentle  stream. 
(Is.  viii.  6).  It  is  probably  an  accommodation  to  the 
popular  mouth,  of  the  same  nature  as  that  exempli 
fied  in  the  name  Dart,  which  is  now  borne  by  more 
than  one  river  in  England,  and  which  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  swiftness,  but  is  merely  a  cor 
ruption  of  the  ancient  word  which  also  appears  in 
the  various  forms  of  Derwent,c  Darent,  Trent.  The 
last  of  these  was  at  one  time  supposed  to  mean 
"  thirty  ;"  and  the  river  Trent  was  believed  to  have 
30  tributaries,  30  sorts  of  fish,  30  convents  on  its 
banks,  &c. :  a  notion  preserved  from  oblivion  by 
Milton  in  his  lines — 

"  And  Trent  that  like  some  earth-born  giant  spreads 
His  thirty  arms  along  the  indented  meads." 
For  the  fountain  and  pool,  see  SILOAM.       [G.] 

SILO'AM  (nS^n,  Shiloach,  Is.  viii.  6  ;  f6^n, 
Shelach,  Neh.  iii.  15;  the  change  in  the  Masoretic 
punctuation  indicating  merely  perhaps  a  change  in 
the  pronunciation  or  in  the  spelling  of  the  word, 
sometime  during  the  three  centuries  between  Isaiah 
and  Nehemiah.  Rabbinical  writers,  and,  following 
them,  Jewish  travellers,  both  ancient  and  modern, 
from  Benjamin  of  Tudela  to  Schwarz,  retain  the 
earlier  Shiloach  in  preference  to  the  later  Shelach. 
The  Rabbis  give  it  with  the  article,  as  in  the  Bible 
(mWn,  Dach's  Codex  Talmudicus,  p.  367).  The 
Sept.  gives  SiAcoa/i  in  Isaiah ;  but  in  Nehemiah  KO- 
\v/j.ft-f]6pa  TU>V  KoaS'iGW,  the  pool  of  the  sheep-skins, 
or  "  fleece-pool  ;"  perhaps  because,  in  their  day, 
it  was  used  for  washing  the  fleeces  of  the  victims.d 
The  Vulgate  has  uniformly,  both  in  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  Siloe;  in  the  Old  calling  it  piscina, 
and  in  the  New  natatoria.  The  Latin  Fathers,  led 
by  the  Vulgate,  have  always  Siloe ;  the  old  pilgrims, 
who  knew  nothing  but  the  Vulgate,  Siloe  or  Syloe. 
The  Greek  Fathers,  adhering  to  the  Sept.,  have 
Siloam.  The  word  does  not  occur  in  the  Apocrypha. 
Josephus  gives  both  Siloam  and  Siloas,  generally 
the  former.) 

Siloam  is  one  of  the  few  undisputed  localities 
(though  Reland  and  some  others  misplaced  it)  in  the 
topography  of  Jerusalem  ;  still  retaining  its  old  ?.ame 
(with  Arabic  modification,  Silwdn],  while  every 
other  pool  has  lost  its  Bible-designation.  This  is 
the  more  remarkable  as  it  is  a  mere  suburoan  tank 
of  no  great  size,  and  for  many  an  age  not  particu 
larly  good  or  plentiful  in  its  waters,  though  Jo 
sephus  tells  us  that  in  his  day  they  were  both 
"sweet  and  abundant"  (B.  J.  V.  4,  §1).  Apart 
from  the  identity  of  name,  there  is  an  unbroken 
chain  of  exterior  testimony,  during  eighteen  cen 
turies,  connecting  the  present  Birket  Silwdn  with 
the  S/iiloah  of  Isaiah  and  the  Siloam  of  St.  John. 
There  are  difficulties  in  identifying  the  Bir  Eijub 
(the  well  of  Salah-ed-dln,  Ibn  Eyub,  the  great 
digger  of  wells,  Jalal-Addin,  p.  239;,  but  none  in 


«  The  A.  V.  confounds  WW  with  silk  in  Prov.  xxxL  22. 

a  2  Chr.  xxiv.  25,  a  passage  tinged  with  the  usual  colour 
of  the  narrative  of  Chronicles,  and  containing  some  curious  | 
variations  from  that  of  the  Kings,  but  passing  over  the 
place  of  the  murder  sub  silentio. 

b  The  reading  of  the  two  great  MSS.  of  the  LXX.— 
agreeing  in  the  T  as  the  commencement  of  the  name — is 
remarkable ;  and  prompts  the  suggestion  that  the  Hebrew  I 
name  may  originally  have  begun  with  JS3,  a  ravine  (as 
tkj-hinnom).    The  Kara/nei/ofTo.  of  the  Alex,  is  doubtless  ! 
t  corruption  of  Kara/Soui/ovTa. 

«  UerweDf  appears  to  be  the  oldest  of  these  forms,  and 


to  be  derived  from  derwyn,  an  ancient  British  word, 
meaning  "  to  wind  about."  On  the  Continent  the  name 
is  found  in  the  following  forms  : — Fr.  Durance ;  Germ. 
Drewenz  ;  It.  Trento  ,  Russ.  Duna  (Ferguson's  River 
Names,  &c.). 

a  In  Talmudical  Hebrew  Shelach,  signifies  "  a  skin " 
(Levi's  Lingua  Sacra') ;  and  the  Alexandrian  translators 
attached  this  meaning  to  it*  they  and  the  earlier  Rabbis 
considering  Nehemiah's  Shelach  as  a  different  pool  from 
Siloam;  probably  the  same  as  Bethesda,  by  the  sheep- 
gate  (John  v.  2),  the  jrpojSai-Koj  *coAv/a)3»j0pa  of  Eusebius 
the  probati&a  piscina  of  Jerome.  If  so,  then  it  is  P  ;th- 
esda,  and  not  Siloam,  that  is  mentioned  by  Nehemiat 


1312 


SILOAM 


fixing  Siloam.  Josephus  mentions  it  frequently  in 
his  Jewish  War,  and  his  references  indicate  that  it 
was  a  somewhat  noted  place,  a  sort  of  city  land 
mark.  From  him  we  learn  that  it  was  without 
the  city  (e£w  TOV  forews,  B.  J.  v.  9,  §4)  ;  that 
it  was  at  this  pool  that  the  "  old  wall  "  took  a  bend 
and  shot  out  eastward  (ava.Ka.fj.irrov  els  avaroXty, 
ib.  v.  6,  §1);  that  there  was  a  valley  under  it 
(T)]V  UTTO  2iAwa/i  Qapayya,  ib.  vi.  8,  §5),  and  one 
beside  it  (rrj  KO.TO.  r-t]v  ~2,i\a)a/j.  (pdpayyt,  ib.  v.  12, 
§2 ) ;  a  hill  ( \6<pos}  right  opposite,  apparently  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Kedron,  hard  by  a  cliff  or  rock 
called  Peristereon  (ib.) ;  that  .t  was  at  the  ter 
mination  or  mouth  of  the  Tyropaeon  (ib.  v.  4,  §1)  ; 
that  close  beside  it,  apparently  eastward,  was  an 
other  pool,  called  Solomon's  pool,  to  which  the 
"  old  wall "  came  after  leaving  Siloam,  and  past 
which  it  went  on  to  Ophlas,  where,  bending  north 
ward,  it  was  united  to  the  eastern  arcade  of  the 
Temple.  In  the  Antonine  Itinerary  (A.D.  333)  it 
is  set  down  in  the  same  locality,  but  it  is  said  to 
be  "  juxta  murum,"  as  Josephus  implies;  whereas 
now  it  is  a  considerable  distance — upwards  of  1200 
feet— from  the  nearest  angle  of  the  present  wall, 
and  nearly  1900  feet  from  the  southern  wall  of  the 
Haram.  Jerome,  towards  the  beginning  of  the  5th 
century,  describes  it  as  "  ad  radices  montis  Moriah  " 
(in  Matt,  x.),  and  tells  (though  without  endorsing 
the  fable)  that  the  stones  sprinkled  with  the  blood 
(rubra  saxa)  of  the  prophet  Zechariah  were  still 
pointed  out  (in  Matt,  xxiii.).  lie  speaks  of  it  as 
being  in  the  Valley  of  the  Son  of  Hinnom,  as 
Josephus  does  of  its  being  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Tyropaeon  (in  Jer.  ii.) ;  and  it  is  noticeable  that  he 
(like  the  Rabbis)  never  mentions  the  Tyropaeon, 
while  he,  times  without  number,  speaks  of  the 
Valley  of  the  Son  of  Hinnom.  He  speaks  of  Hin 
nom,  Tophet,  with  their  groves  and  gardens,  as 
watered  by  Siloam  (in  Jer.  xix.  6,  and  xxxii.  35). 
"  Tophet,  quae  est  in  valle  filii  Ennom,  ilium  locum 
significat  qui  Siloe  fontibus  irrigatur,  et  est  amoenus 
atque  nemorosus,  hodieque  hortorum  praebet  deli- 
cias"  (in  Jer.  viii.).  He  speaks  of  Siloam  as  de 
pendent  on  the  rains,  and  as  the  only  fountain  used 
in  his  day : — "  Uno  fonte  Siloe  et  hoc  non  perpetuo 
utitur  civitas ;  et  usque  in  praesentem  diem  steri- 
litas  pluviarum,  non  solum  frugum  sed  et  bibendi 
inopiam  facit"  (in  Jer.  xiv.).  Now,  though  Jerome 
ought  to  have  known  well  the  water-supplies  of 
Jerusalem,  seeing  he  lived  the  greater  part  of  his 
life  within  six  miles  of  it,  yet  other  authorities,  and 
the  modern  water-provision  of  the  city,  show  us 
that  it  never  could  have  been  wholly  dependent  on 
its  pools.  Its  innumerable  bottle-necked  private  cis 
terns  kept  up  a  supply  at  all  times,  and  hence  it 
often  happened  that  it  was  the  besiegers,  not  the 
besieged,  that  suffered  most;  though  Josephus  re 
cords  a  memorable  instance  to  the  contrary,  when 
— relating  a  speech  he  made  to  the  Jews  standing, 
beyond  their  darts,  on  a  part  of  the  south-eastern 
wall  which  the  Romans  had  carried — he  speaks  of 
Siloam  as  overflowing  since  the  Romans  had  got 
access  to  it,  whereas  before,  when  the  Jews  held  it, 
it  was  dry  (B.  J.  v.  9,  §4).  And  we  may  here 
notice,  in  passing,  that  Jerusalem  is,  except  perhaps 
in  the  very  heat  of  the  year,  a  well-watered  city. 
Dr.  Barclay  says  that  "  within  a  circuit  swept  by  a 

e  Strabo's  statement  is  that  Jerusalem  itself  was  rocky 
but  well  watered  (euuSpov),  but  all  the  region  around  was 
barren  and  waterless  (A.u7rpdi/  KO.L  avvSpov),  b.  xvi.  ch.  2, 
sect.  36 


SILOAM 

radius  of  seven  or  eight  miles  there  arc  no  loss  tha« 
thirty  or  forty  natural  springs"  (City  of  the  Great 
King,  p.  295) ;  and  a  letter  from  Consul  Finn  to 
the  writer  adds,  "  This  I  believe  to  be  under  the 
truth ;  but  they  are  almost  all  found  to  the  S.  and 
S.W. :  in  those  directions  there  does  not  appear  to 
be  a  village  without  springs."  e 

In  the  7th  century  Antoninus  Martyr  mentions 
Siloam,  as  both  fountain  and  pool.  Bernhard  the 
monk  speaks  of  it  m  the  9th,  and  the  annalists  of  the 
Crusades  mention  its  site,  in  the  fork  of  two  valleys, 
as  we  find  it,  Benjamin  of  Tudela  (A.D.  1173) 
speaks  of  "  the  great  spring  of  Shiloach  which  runs 
into  the  brook  Kedron  "  (Asher's  ed.  vol.  i, 
p.  71);  and  he  mentions  "a  large  building  upon 
it "  (^yj,  which  he  says  was  erected  in  the  days  of 
his  fathers.  Is  it  of  this  building  that  the  present 
ruined  pillars  are  the  relics  ?  Caumont  (A.D.  1418) 
speaks  of  the  Valley  of  Siloah,  "  ou  est  le  fonteyne 
ou  le  (sic]  vierge  Marie  lavoit  les  drapellez  de  sou 
enfant,"  and  of  the  fountain  of  Siloam,  as  close  at 
hand  ( Voyage  (foultremer  en  Jherusalem,  &c., 
Paiis  edition,  p.  68).  Felix  Fabri  (A.D.  1484) 
describes  Siloam  at  some  length,  and  seems  to  have 
attempted  to  enter  the  subterraneous  passage  ;  but 
failed,  and  retreated  in  dismay  after  filling  his 
flasks  with  its  eye-healing  water.  Arnold  von 
Harff  (A.D.  1496)  also  identifies  the  spot  (Die 
Pilgerfahrt,  p.  186,  Col.  ed.).  After  this,  the  re 
ferences  to  Siloam  are  innumerable ;  nor  do  they, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions,  vary  in  their  location 
of  it.  We  hardly  needed  these  testimonies  to  enable 
us  to  fix  the  site,  though  some  topographers  have 
rested  on  these  entirely.  Scripture,  if  it  does  not 
actually  set  it  down  in  the  mouth  of  the  Tyropaeon 
as  Josephus  does,  brings  us  very  near  it,  both  in 
Nehemiah  and  St.  John.  The  reader  who  compares 
Neh.  iii.  15  with  Neh.  xii.  37,  will  find  that  the 
pool  of  Siloah,  the  fountain -gate,  the  stairs  of  the 
city  of  David,  the  wall  above  the  house  of  David, 
the  water-gate,  and  the  king's  gardens,  were  all 
near  each  other.  The  Evangelist's  narrative  re 
garding  the  blind  man,  whose  eyes  the  Lord  mira 
culously  opened,  when  carefully  examined,  leads  us 
to  the  conclusion  that  Siloam  was  somewhere  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Temple.  The  Rabbinical  tra 
ditions,  or  histories  as  they  doubtless  are  in  many 
cases,  frequently  refer  to  Siloam  in  connexion  with 
the  Temple  service.  It  was  to  Siloam  that  the 
Levite  was  sent  with  the  golden  pitcher  on  the 
"last  and  great  day  of  the  feast"  of  Tabernacles ; 
it  was  from  Siloam  that  he  brought  the  water 
which  was  then  poured  over  the  sacrifice,  in  me 
mory  of  the  water  from  the  rock  of  Rephidim  ;  and 
it  was  to  this  Siloam  water  that  the  Lord  pointed 
when  He  stood  in  the  Temple  on  that  day  and  cried, 
"  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and 
drink." 

The  Lord  sent  the  blind  man  to  wash,  not  in,  as 
our  version  has  it,  but  at  (els)  the  pool  of  Siloam  ; f 
for  it  was  the  clay  from  his  eyes  that  was  to  be 
washed  off;  and  the  Evangelist  is  careful  to  throw 
in  a  remark,  not  for  the  purpose  of  telling  us  that 
Siloam  meant  an  "  aqueduct,"  as  some  think,  but  to 
give  higher  significance  to  the  miracle.  "  Go  wash 
at  Siloam,"  was  the  command ;  the  Evangelist 
adds,  "  which  is  by  interpretation,  SENT."  On  the 


t  See  Wolfii  Curae,  &r,  Or  eis  gets  its  force  from 
viraye,  vfyai  coming  between  the  verb  and  its  preposi 
tion,  parenthetically,  "Go  to  the  pool  and  wash  thini 
eyes  there." 


trees  of  the  field."  The  Talmudists  coincide  with 
the  Evangelist,  and  say  that  Shiloach  was  so  called 
because  it  sent  forth  its  waters  to  water  the  gardens 
(Levi's  Lingua  Sacra}.  We  may  add  Homer's  line  — 


SILOAM  SILO  AM  1313 

inner  meaning  here — the  parallelism  between  "  the 

Sent  One"    (Luke  iv.  18;   John  x.  36)  and  "the 

Sent  water,"  the  missioned  One  and  the  missioned 

pool,  we  say  nothing  farther  than  what  St.  Basil 

said  well,  in  his  exposition  of  the  8th  of  Isaiah, 

ris   ovv  6   a.Trf(TTa\fj,fvos   Kal   a\l/o(pr}Tl   pecav  ;  fy 

irfpi  ov  efyrjTai,  Kvpics  aTreVraA/ce  jue'  Kal  TrdAiv, 

OIIK  epum  ouSe  Kpavydtr*i.     That  "Sent"  is  the 

natural  interpretation  is  evident,  not  simply  from 

the    word   itself,    but   from   other  passages  where 

TT>&  is  used  in  connexion  with  water,  as  Job  iii. 

10,T"  he  sendeth  waters  upon  the  fields  ;"  and  Ezek.  [  OPHEL  of  the  Bible,  and  the  Ophlas  of  Josephus. 

xxxi.  4-,  "she  sent  out  her  little  rivers  onto  all  the  I  fEN  ROGEL.l   At  the  back  part  of  this  fountain  a 


es  rei^os  i'et  poov  (H.  xii.  25). 
A  little  way  below  the  Jewish  burying  ground, 
but  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  valley,  where  the 
Kedron  turns  slightly  westward,  and  widens  itself 
considerably,  is  the  fountain  of  the  Virgin  or  Um- 
ed-Deraj,  near  the  beginning  of  that  saddle-shaped 
projection  of  the  Temple-hill  supposed  to  be  the 


Pool  of  Siloarn.  looking  uorth.    Froui  a  sketch  by  Rev.  S.  C.  Malan. 


subterraneous  passage  begins,  through  which  the 
water  flows,  and  through  which  a  man  may  make  his 
way,  as  did  Robinson  and  Barclay,  sometimes  walk 
ing  erect,  sometimes  stooping,  sometimes  kneeling, 
and  sometimes  crawling,  to  Siloam.  This  rocky 
conduit,  which  twists  considerably,  but  keeps,  in 
general,  a  south-westerly  direction,  is  according  to 


their  waters  down  from  the  city  pools  or  Temple- 
wells  to  swell  Siloam.  Barclay  writes,  "  In  ex 
ploring  the  subterraneous  channel  conveying  the 
water  from  the  Virgin's  fount  to  Siloam,  J  disco 
vered  a  similar  channel  entering  from  the  north,  a 
few  yards  from  its  commencement ;  and  on  tracing 
it  up  near  the  Mugrabiii  gate,  where  it  became  so 


Robinson,  1750  feet  long,  while  the  direct  distance  I  choked  with  rubbish  that  it  could  be  traversed  no 
between  Silwan  and  Um-ed-Deraj  is  only  a  little  farther,  I  there  found  it  turn  to  the  west,  in  the 
above  1200  feet.  In  former  days  this  passage  was  j  direction  of  the  south  end  of  the  cleft  or  saddle  of 
evidently  deeper,  as  its  bed  is  sand  of  some  depth,  Zion ;  and  if  this  channel  was  not  constructed  for 


which  has  been  accumulating  for  ages.     This  con 
duit  has  had  tributaries,  which  have  formerly  sent 


the  purpose  of  conveying   to  Siloam  the  surplus 
waters  of  Hezekiah's  aqueduct,  I  am  unable  to  sug- 


1314 


SILOAM 


ge;t  any  purpose  to  which  it  could  have  been 
ar  plied"  (City  of  the  Great  King,  p.  309).  In  an- 
olher  place  he  tells  us  something  more  :  "  Having 
loitered  in  the  pool  [Virgin's  fount]  till  the  coming 
down  of  the  waters,  I  soon  found  several  widely 
separated  places  where  it  gained  admittance,  besides 
the  opening  under  the  steps,  where  alone  it  had  for 
merly  been  supposed  to  enter.  I  then  observed  a 
large  opening  entering  the  rock-hewn  channel,  just 
below  the  pool,  which,  though  once  a  copious  tri 
butary,  is  now  dry.  Being  too  much  choked  with 
tesserae  and  rubbish  to  be  penetrated  far,  I  care 
fully  noted  its  position  and  bearing,  and,  on  search 
ing  for  it  above,  soon  identified  it  on  the  exterior, 
where  it  assumed  an  upward  direction  towards  the 
Temple,  and,  entering  through  a  breach,  traversed  it 
for  nearly  a  thousand  feet,  sometimes  erect,  some 
times  bending,  sometimes  inching  my  way  snake- 
fashion,  till  at  last  I  reached  a  point  near  the  wall 
where  I  heard  the  donkeys  tripping  along  over  my 
head.  I  was  satisfied,  on  subsequently  locating  our 
course  above  ground  with  the  theodolite,  that  this 
canal  derived  its  former  supply  of  water,  not  from 
Moriah,  but  from  Zion"  (City,  523). 

This  conduit  enters  Siloam  at  the  north-west 
angle ;  or  rather  enters  a  small  rock-cut  chamber 
which  forms  the  vestibule  of  Siloam,  about  rive  or 
six  feet  broad.  To  this  you  descend  by  a  few  rude 
steps,  under  which  the  water  pours  itself  into  the 
main  pool  (Narrative  of  Mission  to  the  Jews, 
vol.  i.  p.  207).  This  pool  is  oblong  ;  eighteen 
paces  in  length  according  to  LalK  (  Viaggio  al  Santo 
Sepolcro,  A.D.  1678);  fifty  feet  according  to  Bar 
clay  ;  and  fifty-three  according  to  Robinson.  It  is 
eighteen  feet  broad,  and  nineteen  feet  deep,  ac 
cording  to  Robinson  ;  but  Barclay  gives  a  more 
minute  measurement,  "  fourteen  and  a  half  at  the 
lower  (eastern)  end,  and  seventeen  at  the  upper ; 
its  western  end  side  being  somewhat  bent ;  it  is 
eighteen  and  a  half  in  depth,  but  never  filled  ;  the 
water  either  passing  directly  through,  or  being  main 
tained  at  a  depth  of  three  or  four  feet ;  this  is  effected 
by  leaving  open  or  closing  (with  a  few  handfuls  of 
weeds  at  the  present  day,  but  formerly  by  a  flood 
gate)  an  aperture  at  the  bottom  ;  at  a  height  of 
Jiree  or  four  feet  from  the  bottom,  its  dimensions 
become  enlarged  a  few  feet,  and  the  water,  attain 
ing  this  level,  falls  through  an  aperture  at  its  lower 
end,  into  an  educt,  subterranean  at  first,  but  soon 
appearing  in  a  deep  ditch  under  the  perpendicular 
cliff  of  Ophel,  and  is  received  into  a  few  small  reser 
voirs  and  troughs"  (City,  524). 

The  small  basin  at  the  west  end,  which  we  have 
described,  is  what  some  old  travellers  call  "  the 
fountain  of  Siloe  "  (F.  Fabri,  vol.  i.  p.  420).  "  In 
front  of  this,"  Fabri  goes  on,  "  there  is  a  bath  sur 
rounded  by  walls  and  buttresses,  like  a  cloister,  and 
the  arches  of  these  buttresses  are  supported  by 
marble  pillars,"  which  pillars  he  affirms  to  be  the 
remains  of  a  monastery  built  above  the  pool.  The 
present  pool  is  a  ruin,  with  no  moss  or  ivy  to  make 
it  romantic  ;  its  sides  falling  in  ;  its  pillars  broken ; 
its  stair  a  fragment ;  its  walls  giving  way  ;  the 
edge  of  every  stone  worn  round  or  sharp  by  time  ; 
in  some  parts  mere  debris;  once  Siloam,  now, 
like  the  city  which  overhung  it,  a  heap ;  though 
around  its  edges,  "  wild  flowers,  and,  among  other 
flants,  the  caper-tree,  grow  luxuriantly"  (Naira- 
five  of  Mission,  vol.  i.  p.  207).  The  grey  crum 
bling  limestone  of  the  stone  (as  well  as  of  the 
surrounding  rocks,  which  are  almost  verdureless) 
gives  a  poor  and  worn-out  aspect  tc  this  venerable 


SILOAM 

relic.  The  present  pool  is  not  the  original  build- 
ing;  the  work  of  crusaders  it  may  be;  perhapi 
even  improved  by  Salad  in,  whose  affection  for  wells 
and  pools  led  him  to  care  for  all  these  things; 
per-haps  the  work  of  later  days.  Yet  the  spot  is 
the  same.  Above  it  rises  the  high  rock,  and  beyond 
it  the  city  wall ;  while  eastward  and  southward 
the  verdure  of  gardens  relieves  the  grey  monotony 
of  the  scene,  and  beyond  these  the  Kedron  vale, 
overshadowed  by  the  third  of  the  three  heights  of 
Olivet,  "the  mount  of  corruption "  (1  K.  x.  7  ; 
xxiii.  13),  with  the  village  of  Silu'dn  jutting  out 
over  its  lower  slope,  and  looking  into  the  pool  from 
which  it  takes  its  name  and  draws  its  water. 

This  pool,  which  we  may  call  the  second,  seems 
anciently  to  have  poured  its  waters  into  a  third, 
before  it  proceeded  to  water  the  royal  gardens. 
This  third  is  perhaps  that  which  Josephus  calls 
"  Solomon's  pool "  (B.  J.  v.  4,  §2),  and  which 
Nehemiah  calls  "the  King's  pool"  (ii.  14);  for 
this  must  have  been  somewhere  about  "  the  King's 
garden  "  (Josephus's  fiaaiXiiibs  irapdSeiffos,  Ant. 
vii.  14,  §4)  ;  and  we  know  that  this  was  by  "the 
wall  of  the  pool  of  Siloah"  (iii.  15).  The  Anto- 
nine  Itinerary  speaks  of  it  in  connexion  with 
Siloa,  as  "  alia  piscina  graudis  foras."  It  is  now 
known  as  the  Birket-el-Hamra,  and  may  be  perhaps 
some  five  times  the  size  of  Birket-es-Silv-'an.  Bar 
clay  speaks  of  it  merely  as  a  "  depressed  fig-yard  ;" 
but  one  would  like  to  see  it  cleared  out. 

Siloam  is  in  Scripture  always  called  a  pool.  It 
is  not  an  D3&5,  that  is,  a  marsh-pool  (Is.  xxxv.  7) ; 
nor  a  J"Q3,  a  natural  hollow  or  pit  (Is.  xxx.  14)  ; 
nor  a  HlpD,  a  natural  gathering  of  water  (Gen.  i. 
10;  Is.  xxii.  11);  nor  a  "IN3,  a  well  (Gen.  xvi. 
14) ;  nor  a  "NS,  a  pit  (Lev.  xi.  36) ;  nor  an  \^ 
a  spring  (Gen.  iii.  17);  but  a  H^HS,  a  regularly- 
built  pool  or  tank  (2  K.  xx.  20  ;  Neh.  iii.  15  ;  Eccl. 
ii.  6).  This  last  word  is  still  retained  in  the  Arabic, 
as  any  traveller  or  reader  of  travels  knows.  While 
Nehemiah  calls  it  a  pool,  Isaiah  merely  speaks  of  it 
as  "  the  waters  of  Shiloah ;"  while  the  New  Testa 
ment  gives  Ko\v/j.^dpa,  and  Josephus  1777777.  The 
Rabbis  and  Jewish  travellers  call  it  a  fountain ;  in 
which  they  are  sometimes  followed  by  the  Euro 
pean  traveller^  of  all  ages,  though  more  generally 
they  give  us  piscina,  natatoria,  and  stagnum. 

It  is  the  least  of  all  the  Jerusalem  pools;  hardly 
the  sixth  part  of  the  Birhet  el-Mamilla ;  hardly  the 
tenth  -of  the  Birkct-es-Sultan,  or  of  the  lowest  of 
the  three  pools  of  Solomon  at  El-Burak.  Yet  it 
is  a  sacred  spot,  even  to  the  Moslem ;  much  more 
to  the  Jew ;  for  not  only  from  it  was  the  water 
taken  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,,  but  the  water 
for  the  ashes  of  the  red  heifer  (Dach's  7 aim.  Babyl. 
380).  Jewish  tradition  makes  Gihon  and  Siloam 
one  (Lightfoot,  Cent.  Chor.  in  Matt.  p.  51  ; 
Schwarz,  p.  265),  as  if  Gihon  were  "  the  burst 
ing  forth "  (rV3,  to  break  out),  and  Siloam  the 
receptacle  of  the  waters  "  sent."  If  this  were  the 
case,  it  might  be  into  Siloam,  through  one  of  the 
many  subterranean  aqueducts  with  which  Jerusa 
lem  abounds,  and  one  of  which  probably  went  down 
the  Tyropoeon,  that  Hezekiah  turned  the  waters  on 
the  other  side  of  the  city,  when  he  "  stoppel  the 
upper  watercourse  of  Gihon,  and  brought  it  straight 
down  to  the  west  side  of  the  city  of  David "  (2 
Chr.  xxxii.  30). 

The  rush  of  water  down  these  conduits  is  referred 


STT/OAM. 


Hie  Village  of  Silwttn  (Siloam).  and  the  lower  pan  of  the  Valley  ol  tne  Kedron,  shewing  the  "King's  gardens,"  which  *rc  watered 
by  the  Pool.  The  background  is  the  highlands  of  Judah.  The  view  is  from  a  Photograph  by  James  Graham,  Esq.,  taken  Irom 
beneath  the  S.  wall  of  the  Harara. 


to  by  Jerome  ("  per  ten-arum  concava  et  antra 
taxi  durissimi  cum  magno  sonitu  venit,"  In.  Is. 
viii.  6),  as  heard  in  his  day,  showing  that  the 
water  was  more  abundant  then  than  now.  The 
intermittent  character  of  Siloam  is  also  noticed  by 
him ;  but  in  a  locality  perforated  by  so  many 
aqueducts,  and  supplied  by  so  many  large  wells 
and  secret  springs  (not  to  speak  of  the  discharge  of 
the  great  city-baths),  this  n  regular  flow  is  easily 
accounted  for,  both  by  the  direct  and  the  siphonic 
action  of  the  water.  How  this  natural  intermit- 
tency  of  Siloam  could  be  made  identical  with  the 
•niiraculons  troubling  of  Bethesda  (John  v.  4)  one 
does  not  see.  The  lack  of  water  in  the  pool  now 
is  no  proof  that  there  was  not  the  great  abundance 
of  which  Josephus  speaks  (B.  J.  v.  4,  §1) ;  and  as 
to  the  "sweetness"  he  speaks  of,  like  the  "  aquae 
dulcet  "  of  Virgil  (Georg.  iv.  61),  or  the  Old  Test 
ament  pHD  (Ex.  xv.  25),  ^hich  is  used  both  in 
reference  to  the  sweetness  of  the  Marah  waters  (Ex. 
xv.  25),  and  of  the  "  stolen  waters  "  of  the  foolish 
woman  (Prov.  ix.  17);  it  simply  means  fresh  or 
pleasant  in  opposition  to  bitter  (^E5 ;  Tri/cp^s). 

The  expression  in  Isa'ah,  "  waters  of  Shiloah 
that  go  softly,"  seems  to  point  to  the  slender 
rivulet,  flowing  gently,  though  once  very  profusely, 
out  of  Siloam  into  the  lower  breadth  of  level, 
where  the  king's  gardens,  or  '•  royal  paradise," 
stood,  and  which  is  still  the  greenest  spot  about 
the  Holy  City,  reclaimed  from  sterility  into  a  fair 
oasis  of  olive-groves  fig-trees,  pomegranates,  &c., 
by  the  tiny  rill  which  flows  out  of  Siloam.  A 
winter-torrent,  like  the  Kedron,  or  a  swelling  river 
like  the  Euphrates,  carries  havoc  with  it,  by 
sweeping  or!'  s.oil,  trees,  and  terraces;  but  this 


Siloam-fed  rill  flows  softly,  festilizing  and  beauti 
fying  the  region  through  which  it  passes.  As  the 
Euphrates  is  used  by  the  prophet  as  the  symbol  of 
the  wasting  sweep  of  the  Assyrian  king,  so  Siloam 
is  taken  as  the  type  of  the  calm  prosperity  of  Israel 
under  Messianic  rule,  when  "  the  desert  rejoices  and 
blossoms  as  the  rose.'T  The  word  softly  or 
secretly  (DN?)  does  not  seem  to  refer  to  the  secret 

transmission  of  the  waters  through  the  tributary 
viaducts,  but,  like  Ovid's  "  molles  aquae," 
"  blandae  aquae,"  and  Catullus'  "  molle  flumen," 
to  the  quiet  gentleness  with  which  the  rivulet 
steals  on  its  mission  of  beneficence,  through  the 
gardens  of  the  king.  Thus  "  Siloah's  brook  "  of 
Milton,  and  "  cool  Siloam's  shady  rill,"  are  not 
mere  poetical  fancies.  The  "  fountain  "  and  the 
"  pool,"  and  the  "  rill  "  of  Siloam,  are  all  visible 
to  this  day,  each  doing  its  old  work  beneath  the 
high  rock  of  Moriah,  and  almost  beneath  the  shadow 
of  the  Temple  wall. 

East  of  the  Kedron,  right  opposite  the  rough 
grey  slope  extending  between  Deraj  and  Silwdn, 
above  the  kitchen-gardens  watered  by  Siloam  which 
supply  Jerusalem  with  vegetables,  is  the  village 
which  takes  its  name  from  the  pool, — Kefr-Silwan. 
At  Deraj  the  Kedron  is  narrow,  and  the  village  is 
very  near  the  fountain.  Hence  it  is  to  it  rather 
than  to  the  pool  that  the  villagers  generally  betakf 
themselves  for  water.  For  as  the  Kedron  widens  con 
siderably  in  its  progress  southward,  the  Kefr  is  at 
some  little  distance  from  the  Birkeh.  This  village 
is  unmentioned  in  ancient  times  ;  perhaps  it  did 
not  exist.  It  is  a  wretched  place  for  filth  and 
irregularity  ;  its  square  hovels  all  huddled  together 
like  the  lairs  of  wild  beasts,  or  rather  like  th* 

4  P  2 


1316          BELDAM,  TOWER  IN 

tombs  and  caves  in  which  savages  or  demoniacs 
may  he  supposed  to  dwell.  It  lies  near  the  foot, 
of  the  third  or  southern  height  of  Olivet ;  and  in 
ail  likelihood  marks  the  spot  of  the  idol -shrim  * 
which  Solomon  built  to  Chemosh,  and  Ashtoreth 
and  Milcom.  This  was  "  the  mount  of  corrup 
tion"  (2  K.  xxiii.  13),  the  hill  that  is  before  (east ; 
before  in  Hebrew  geography  means  east)  Jerusalem 
(1  K.  xi.  7);  and  these  "abominations  of  the 
Moabites,  Zidonians,  and  Ammonites  "  were  built 
on  "the  right  hand  of  the  mount,"  that  is,  the 
southern  part  of  it.  This  is  the  "opprobrious 
hill"  of  Milton  (Par.  L.  b.  i.  403);  the  "  mons 
jffensionis  "  of  the  Vulgate  and  of  early  travellers  ; 
the  Mo<r6dO  of  the  Sept.  (see  Keil  On  Kings) ; 
and  the  Berg  des  Aergernisses  of  German  maps. 
In  Ramboux'  singular  volume  of  lithographs  (Col. 
1858)  of  Jerusalem  and  its  Holy  Places,  in  imi 
tation  of  the  antique,  there  is  a  sketch  of  an  old 
monolith  tomb  in  the  village  of  Silwdn,  which  few 
travellers  have  noticed,  but  of  which  De  Saulcy 
has  given  us  both  a  cut  and  a  description  (vol.  ii. 
p.  '215);  setting  it  down  as  a  relic  of  Jebusite 
workmanship.  One  would  like  to  know  more 
about  this  Village,  and  about  the  pedigree  of  its 
inhabitants.  [H.  B.] 

SILO'AM,  TOWER  IN.  ('O  71-^705  *v  T$ 
2iAo>c£ju,  Luke  xiii.  4.)  Of  this  we  know  nothing 
definitely  beyond  these  words  of  the  Lord.  Of 
the  tower  or  its  fall  no  historian  gives  us  any 
account ;  and  whether  it  was  a  tower  in  connexion 
with  the  pool,  or  whether  "  in  Siloam  "  refers  to 
the  valley  near,  we  cannot  say.  There  were  forti 
fications  hard  by,  for  of  Jothan:  we  read,  "  on  the 
wall  of  Ophel  he  built  much"  (2  Chr.  xxvii.  3)  ; 
and  of  Manasseh  that  "  he  compassed  about  Ophel " 
(ib.  xxxiii.  14)  ;  and,  in  connexion  with  Ophel, 
there  is  mention  made  of  "  a  tower  that  lieth  out  " 
(Neh.  iii.  26);  and  there  is  no  unlikelihood  in 
connecting  this  projecting  tower  with  the  tower  in 
Siloam,  while  one  may  be  almost  excused  for  the 
conjecture  that  its  projection  was  the  cause  of  its 
ultimate  fall.  [H.  B.] 

SILVA'NUS.    [SILAS.] 

SILVER  (-P|D3,  ceseph}.  In  very  early  times, 
according  to  the  Bible,  silver  was  used  for  ornaments 
(Gen.  xxiv.  53),  for  cups  (Gen.  xliv.  2),  for  the 
sockets  of  the  pillars  of  the  tabernacle  (Ex.  xxvi.  19, 
&c.),  their  hooks  and  fillets,  or  rods  (Ex.  xxvii.  10), 
and  their  capitals  (Ex.  xxxviii.  17);  for  dishes,  or 
chargers,  and  bowls  (Num.  vii.  13),  trumpets 
(Num.  x.  2),  candlesticks  (1  Chr.  xxviii.  15), 
tables  (1  Chr.  xxviii.  16),  basins  (1  Chr.  xxviii.  17), 
chains  (Is.  xl.  19),  the  settings  of  ornaments  (Prov. 
xxv.  11),  studs  (Cant.  i.  11),  and  crowns  (Zech. 
vi.  11).  Images  for  idolatrous  worship  were  made  of 
silver  or  overlaid  with  it  (Ex,  xx.  23  ;  Hos.  xiii.  2  ; 
Hab.  ii.  19 ;  Bar.  vi.  39),  and  the  manufacture 
of  silver  shrines  for  Diana  was  a  trade  in  Ephesus 
(Acts  xix.  24).  [DEMETRIUS.]  But  its  chief  use 
was  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  and  throughout  the 
O.  T.  we  find  ceseph,  "  silver,"  used  for  money, 
like  the  Fr.  argent.  To  this  general  usage  there 
is  but  one  exception.  (See  METALS,  p.  342  6.) 
Vessels  and  ornaments  of  gold  and  silver  were  com 
mon  in  Egypt  in  the  times  of  Osirtasen  I.  and 
Thothmes  111.,  the  contemporaries  of  Joseph  and 
Moses  (Wilkinson,  Anc.  Eg.  iii.  225).  In  the  Ho 
meric  poems  we  find  indications  of  the  constant 
application  of  silver  to  purposes  of  ornament  and 


SIMALCUE 

usury.  It  was  used  for  basins  \0d.  i.  137,  iv 
53),  goblets  (//.  xxiii.  741),  baskets  (Od,  iv.  125), 
coffers  (II.  xviii.  413),  sword-hilts  (//.  i.  219;  Od. 
viii.  404),  door-handles  (Od.  i.  442),  and  clasps  for 
the  greaves  (//.  iii.  331).  Door-posts  (Od.  vii.  89} 
and  lintels  (Od.  vii.  90)  glittered  with  silver  orna 
ments;  baths  (Od.  iv.  128),  tables  (Od.  x.  355s, 
bows  (//.  i.  49,  xxiv.  605),  scabbards  (II.  xi.  31y 
sword-belts  (77.  xviii.  598),  belts  for  the  shield 
(77.  xviii.  480),  chariot-poles  (77.  v.  729)  and  the 
naves  of  wheels  (fl.  v.  729)  were  adorned  witir 
silver  ;  women  braided  their  hair  with  silver-tlyeac 
(fl.  xvii.  52),  and  cords  appear  to  have  been  mad" 
of  it  (Od.  x.  24);  while  we  constantly  find  thai 
swords  (II.  ii.  45,  xxiii.  807)  and  sword-belts  (// 
xi.  237),  thrones,  or  chairs  of  state  (Od.  viii.  65), 
and  bedsteads  (Od.  xxiii.  200)  were  studded  witl 
silver.  Thetis  of  the  silver  feet  was  probably  so 
called  from  the  silver  ornaments  on  her  sandals  (fl. 
i.  538).  The  practice  of  overlaying  silver  with 
gold,  referred  to  in  Homer  (Od.  vi.  232,  xxiii.  159\ 
is  nowhere  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  though  inferior 
materials  were  covered  with  silver  (Prov.  xxvi.  23). 

Silver  was  brought  to  Solomon  from  Arabia 
(2  Chr.  ix.  14)  and  from  Tarshish  (2  Chr.  ix.  21), 
which  supplied  the  markets  of  Tyre  (Ez.  xxvii. 
12).  From  Tarshish  it  came  in  the  form  of  plates 
(  Jer.  x.  9),  like  those  on  which  the  sacred  books  of 
the  Singhalese  are  written  to  this  day  (Tennent's 
Ceylon,  ii.  102).  The  silver  bowl  given  as  a  priz' 
by  Achilles  was  the  work  of  Sidonian  artists  (II 
xxiii.  743;  comp.  Od.  iv.  618).  In  Homer  (77.  ii. 
857),  Alybe  is  called  the  birthplace  of  silver,  and  was 
probably  celebrated  for  its  mines.  But  Spain  appears 
to  have  been  the  chief  source  whence  silver  was  ob 
tained  by  the  ancients.  [MINES,  p.  369.]  Possibly 
the  hills  of  Palestine  may  have  afforded  some  supply- 
of  this  metal.  "  When  Volney  was  among  ihe 
Druses,  it  was  mentioned  to  him  that  an  ore  afford-' 
ing  silver  and  lead  had  been  discovered  on  the  de 
clivity  of  a  hill  in  Lebanon  "  (Kitto,  Phijs.  Hist. 
of  Palestine,  p.  73). 

For  an  account  of  the  knowledge  of  obtaining' 
and  refining  silver  possessed  bv  the  ancient  Hebrews' 
see  the  articles  LEAD  and  MINES.  The  whole 
operation  of  mining  is  vividly  depicted  in  Jco 
xxviii.  1-11  ;  and  the  process  of  purity  ing  metals  if 
frequently  alluded  to  (Ps.  xii.  6  ;  Prov.  xx\r.  4yS  > 
while  it  is  described  with  some  minuteness  in  E2. 
xxii.  20-22.  Silver  mixed  with  alloy  is  referred  toil 
in  Jer.  vi.  30,  and  a  finer  kind,  either  purer  in 
itself,  or  more  thoroughly  purified,  is  mentioned  in' 
Prov.  viii.  19.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SILVERLINGS  (^03  :    cn'/cAos:   argcntem,. 

siclus  understood),  a  word  used  once  only  in  the 
A.  V.  (Is.  vii.  23),  as  a  translation  of  the  Hebrewj 
word  ceseph,  elsewhere  rendered  "  silver  ''  on 
"  money."  [PIECE  OF  SILVER.]  [R.  S.  P.]  1 


SIMALCU'E  (Siv/j.a\Kovri,  El/jLa\Kovai  :  Emal- 
chuel,  Malchus  :  MaAxos,  Joseph.),  an  Arabian' 
chief  who  had  charge  of  Antiochus,  the  young  son 
of  Alexander  Balas  before  he  was  put  forward  by 
Tryphon  as  a  claimant  to  the  Syrian  throne  (1  Mate. 
xi.  39).  [ANTIOCHUS  VI.,  vol.  i.  p.  76.]  Accord 
ing  to  Diodoius  (Eclog.  xxxii.  1)  the  name  of  thtf 
chief  was  Diocles,  though  in  another  place  (  Frag.  xxuv 
Miiller)  he  calls  him  Jamblichus.  The  name  evi 
dently  contains  the  element  Melek,  "  king,"  but 
the  original  form  is  uncertain  (comp.  Grotius  au4 
Grimm  on  1  TVLicc.  1.  c.\  TB.  F.  W,1 


SIMEON 


SIMEON 


1317 


.  SIM  'EON  UUW:  ^.v^v:  Simeon).  The 
second  of  Jacob's  sons  by  Leah.  His  birth  is  re 
corded  in  Gen.  xxix.  33,  and  in  the  explanation  there 
given  of  the  name,  it  is  derived  from  the  root 
thama,  to  ahear  —  "  'Jehovah  hath  heard  (shdma') 
that  1  was  hated.'  .  .  .  and  she  called  his  name 
Shime'on."b  This  metaphor  is  not  earned  on  (as  in 
the  case  of  some  of  the  other  names)  in  Jacob's 
blessing;  and  in  that  of  Moses  all  mention  of 
Simeon  is  omitted. 

The  first  group  of  Jacob's  children  consists, 
besides  Simeon,  of  the  three  other  sons  of  Leah  — 
Reuben,  Levi,  Judah.  With  each  of  these  Simeon 
is  mentioned  in  some  connexion.  "  As  Reuben  and 
Simeon  are  mine,"  says  Jacob,  "  so  shall  Joseph's 
sons  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  be  mine"  (Gen.  xlviii.  5). 
With  Levi,  Simeon  was  associated  in  the  massacre 
of  the  Shechemites  (xxxiv.  25)  —  a  deed  which  drew 
on  them  the  remonstrance  of  their  father  (ver.  30), 
and  perhaps  c  also  his  dying  curse  (xlix.  5-7).  With 
Judah  the  connexion  was  drawn  still  closer.  He 
and  Simeon  not  only  "went  up"  together,  side 
by  side,  in  the  forefront  of  the  nation,  to  the  con 
quest  of  the  south  of  the  Holy  Land  (Judg.  i.  3,  17), 
but  their  allotments  lay  together  in  a  more  special 
manner  than  those  of  the  other  tribes,  something  in 
the  same  manner  as  Benjamin  and  Ephraim.  Be 
sides  the  massacre  of  Shechem  —  a  deed  not  to  be 
judged  of  by  the  standards  of  a  more  civilized  and 
less  violent  age,  and,  when  fairly  estimated,  not 
altogether  discreditable  to  its  perpetrators  —  the  only 
personal  incident  related  of  Simeon  is  the  fact  of  his 
being  selected  by  Joseph,  without  any  reason  given 
or  implied,  as  the  hostage  for  the  appearance  of 
Benjamin  (Gen.  xlii.  19,  24,36;  xliii.  23). 

These  slight  traits  are  characteristically  amplified 
in  the  Jewish  traditions.  In  the  Targum  Pseudo- 
ionathan  it  is  Simeon  and  Levi  who  are  the  ene 
mies  of  the  lad  .Joseph.  It  is  they  who  counsel  his 
being  killed,  and  Simeon  binds  him  before  he  is 
lowered  into  the  well  at  Dothan.  (See  further 
details  in  Fabricius,  Cod.  Pseud.  535.)  Hence 
Joseph's  selection  of  him  as  the  hostage,  his  binding 
and  incarceration.  In  the  Midrash  the  strength  of 
Simeon  is  so  prodigious  that  the  Egyptians  are 
unable  to  cope  with  him,  and  his  binding  is  only 
accomplished  at  length  by  the  intervention  of  Ma 
nasseh,  who  acts  as  the  house  steward  and  interpreter 
of  Joseph.  His  powers  are  so  great  that  at  the  mere 
roar  of  his  voice  70  valiant  Egyptians  fall  at  his  feet 
and  break  their  teeth  (Weil,  Bib.  Leg.  88).  In  the 
"  Testament  of  Simeon  "  his  fierceness  and  impla 
cability  are  put  prominently  forward,  and  he  dies 
warning  his  children  against  the  indulgence  of  such 
passions  (Fabricius,  Cod.  Pseudep.  533-543). 

The  chief  families  of  the  tribe  are  mentioned  in 
the  lists  of  Gen.  xlvi.  (10),  in  which  one  of  them, 
bearing  the  name  of  Shaul  (Saul),  is  specified  as 
"  the  son  of  the  Canaanitess"  —  Num.  xxvi.  (12-14), 

a  Furst  (Handivb.  ii.  472)  inclines  to  the  interpretation 
"  famous  "  (ruhmreickef).  Redslob  (Alttest.  Namen,  93), 


on  the  other  hand,  adopting  the  Arabic  root 

considers  the  name  to  mean  "sons  of  bondage"  or 
"  bondmen.'' 

b  The  name  is  given  in  this  its  more  correct  form  in 
'Jie  A.V.  iu  connexion  with  a  later  Israelite  in  Ezr.  x.  31. 

c  It  13  by  no  means  certain  that  Jacob's  words  allude  to 
Ibe  transaction  at  Shechem.  They  appear  rather  to  refer 
to  tcuie  i/lher  act  of  the  brothers  which  has  escaped  direct 
record. 


and  1  Chr.  iv.  (24-43).  In  the  latter  passage  (ver. 
27)  it  is  mentioned  that  the  family  of  one  of  the 
heads  of  the  tribe  "  had  not  many  children,  neither 
did  they  multiply  like  to  the  children  of  Judah.' 
This  appears  to  have  been  the  case  not  only  with 
one  family  but  with  the  whole  tribe.  At  the 
census  at  Sinai  Simeon  numbered  59,300  fighting 
men  (Num.  i.  23).  It  was  then  the  most  nume 
rous  but  two,  Judah  and  Dan  alone  exceeding  it ; 
but  when  the  second  census  was  taken,  at  Shittina, 
the  numbers  had  ''alien  to  22,200,  and  it  was  tne 
weakest  of  all  the  tribes.  This  was  no  doubt  partly 
due  to  the  recent  mortality  following  the  idolatry 
of  Peor,  in  which  the  tribe  of  Simeon  appears  to 
have  taken  a  prominent  share,  but  there  must  have 
been  other  causes  which  have  escaped  mention. 

The  connexion  between  Simeon  and  Levi  implied 
in  the  Blessing  of  Jacob  (Gen.  xlix.  5-7)  has  been 
already  adverted  to.  The  passage  relating  to  them 
is  thus  rendered: — 

Shimeon  and  Levi  are  brethren," 

Instruments  of  violence  are  their  machinations  (or, 

their  e  swords). 

Into  their  secret  council  come  not  my  soul ! 
Unto  their  assembly  Join  not  mine  honour ! 
For  in  their  wrath  they  slew  a  man, 
And  in  their  self-will  they  houghed  an f  ox. 
Cursed  be  their  wrath,  for  it  is  fierce, 
And  their  anger,  for  it  is  cruel ! 

I  will  divide  them  in  Jacob. 

And  scatter  them  in  Israel. 

The  terms  of  this  denunciation  seem  to  imply  a 
closer  bond  of  union  between  Simeon  and  Levi,  and 
more  violent  and  continued  exploits  performed  under 
that  bond,  than  now  remain  on  record.  The  ex 
pressions  of  the  closing  lines  also  seem  to  necessitate 
a  more  advanved  condition  of  the  nation  of  Israel 
than  it  could  have  attained  at  the  time  of  the  death 
of  the  father  of  the  individual  patriarchs.  Taking 
it  however  to  be  what  it  purports,  an  actual  predic 
tion  by  the  individual  Jacob  (and,  in  the  present 
state  of  our  knowledge,  however  doubtful  this  may 
be,  no  other  conclusion  can  be  safely  arrived  at),  it 
has  been  often  pointed  out  how  differently  the  same 
sentence  was  accomplished  in  the  cases  of  the  two 
tribes.  Both  were  "divided"  and  "scattered." 
But  how  differently !  The  dispersion  of  the  Levites 
arose  from  their  holding  the  post  of  honour  in  the 
nation,  and  being  spread,  for  the  purposes  of  educa 
tion  and  worship,  broadcast  over  the  face  of  the 
country.  In  the  case  of  Simeon  the  dispersion 
seems  to  have  arisen  from  some  corrupting  element 
in  the  tribe  itself,  which  first  reduced  its  numbers, 
and  at  last  drove  it  from  its  allotted  seat  in  the 
country — not,  as  Dan,  because  it  could  not,  but  be 
cause  it  would  not  stay — and  thus  in  the  end 
caused  it  to  dwindle  and  disappear  entirely. 

The  non-appearance  of  Simeon's  name  in  the 
Blessing  of  Moses  (Deut.  xxxiii.  Q«]  may  be  ex- 


<»  The  word  is  ^HX,  meaning  "brothers"  in  the 
fullest,  strictest  sense.  In  the  Targ.  Pseudojon.  it  is 
rendered  achin  tdamin,  "  brothers  of  the  womb." 

e  Identified  by  some  (Jerome,  Talmud,  &c.)  with  the 
Greek  /u.ax<upa.  The  "habitations"  of  the  A.V.  Is 
derived  from  Kimchi,  but  is  not  countenanced  by  later 
scholars. 

t  A.V.  "digged  down  a  wall" ;  following  Onkelos,  wlu> 
reads  "V|fc>J  =  -|!)t3>  "  a  town,  a  wall." 

g  The  Alexandrine  MS.  of  the  LXX.  adds  Simeou'i 
name  in  this  passage — "Let  Reuben  live  and  not  die. 
and  let  Simeon  be  few  in  number."  In  so  doing  it  differs 


1318 


SIMEON 


plained  in  two  ways.  On  the  assumption  that  the 
Blessing  was  actually  pronounced  in  its  present 
form  by  Moses,  the  omission  may  be  due  to  his  dis 
pleasure  at  the  misbehaviour  of  the  tribe  at  Shittim. 
On  tb.2  assumption  that  the  Blessing,  or  this  por 
tion  of  it,  is  a  composition  of  later  date,  then  it 
may  be  due  to  the  fact  of  the  tribe  having  by  that 
time  vanished  from  the  Holy  Land.  The  latter  of 
these  is  the  explanation  commonly  adopted. 

During  the  journey  through  the  wilderness  Simeon 
was  a  member  of  the  camp  which  marched  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Sacred  Tent.  His  associates  were 
Reuben  and  Gad — not  his  whole  brothers,  but  the 
sons  of  Zilpah,  Leah's  maid.  The  head  of  the  tribe 
at  the  time  of  the  Exodus  was  Shelumiel  son  of 
Zurishaddai  (Num.  i.  6),  ancestor  of  its  one  heroine, 
the  intrepid  Judith.  [SALASADAI.]  Among  the  spies 
Simeon  was  represented  by  Shaphat  son  of  Hori, 
i.  e.  Horite,  a  name  which  perhaps,  like  the  "  Ca- 
naanitess  "  of  the  earlier  list,  reveals  a  trace  of  the 
lax  tendencies  which  made  the  Simeonites  an  easy 
prey  to  the  licentious  rites  of  Peor,  and  ultimately 
destroyed  the  permanence  of  the  tribe.  At  the 
division  of  the  land  his  representative  was  Shemuel,h 
son  of  Ammihud. 

The  connexion  between  Judah  and  Simeon  al 
ready  mentioned  seems  to  have  begun  with  the 
Conquest.  Judah  and  the  two  Joseph-brethren 
were  first  served  with  the  lion's  share  of  the  land ; 
and  then,  the  Canaanites  having  been  sufficiently- 
subdued  to  allow  the  Sacred  Tent  to  be  esta 
blished  without  risk  in  the  heart  of  the  country, 
the  work  of  dividing  the  remainder  amongst  the 
seven  inferior  tribes  was  proceeded  with  (Josh.  viii. 
1-6).  Benjamin  had  the  first  turn,  then  Simeon 
(xix.  1).  By  this  time  Judah  had  discovered  that 
the  tract  allotted  to  him  was  too  large  (xix.  9), 
and  also  too  much  exposed  on  the  west  and  south 
for  even  his  great  powers.1  To  Simeon  accordingly 
was  allotted  a  district  out  of  the  territory  of  his 
kinsman,  on  its  southern  frontier,11  which  contained 
eighteen  or  nineteen  cities,  with  their  villages, 
spread  round  the  venerable  well  of  Beersheba 
(Josh.  xix.  1-8 ;  1  Chr.  iv.  28-33).  Of  these 
places,  with  the  help  of  Judah,  the  Simeonites  pos 
sessed  themselves  (Judg.  i.  3,  17)  ;  and  here  they 
were  found,  doubtless  by  Joab,  residing  in  the  reign 
of  David  (1  Chr.  iv.  31).  During  his  wandering 
life  David  must  have  been  much  amongst  the 
Simeonites.  In  fact  three  of  their  cities  are  named 
in  the  list  of  those  to  which  he  sent  presents  of  the 
spoil  of  the  Amalekites,  and  one  (Ziklag)  was  his 
own  private  m  property.  It  is  therefore  remarkable 
that  the  numbers  of  Simeon  and  Judah  who  at 
tended  his  installation  as  king  at  Hebron  should 
have  been  so  much  below  those  of  the  other  tribes 
(1  Chr.  xii.  23-37).  Possibly  it  is -due  to  the  fact 
that  the  event  was  taking  place  in  the  heart  of 
their  own  territory,  at  Hebron.  This,  however, 
will  not  account  for  the  curious  fact  that  the 
warriors  of  Simeon  (7100)  were  more n  numerous 
than  thoss  of  Judah  (6800).  After  David's  removal 


SIMEON 

to  Jerusalem,  the  head  of  the  tribe  oras  ShephstiaL 
son  of  Maachnh  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  18). 

What  part  Simeon  took  at  the  lime  of  the  divi 
sion  of  the  kingdom  we  are.  not  told.  The  tribe  was 
probably  not  in  a  sufficient  y  strong  or  compact 
condition  to  have  shown  any  northern  tendencies, 
even  had  it  entertained  them.  The  only  thing 
which  can  be  interpreted  into  a  trace  of  its  having 
taken  any  part  with  the  northern  kingdom  are  the 
two  casual  notices  of  2  Chr.  xv.  9  and  xxxiv.  6, 
which  appear  to  imply  the  presence  of  Simeonites 
there  in  the  reigns  of  Asa  and  Josiah.  But  thia 
may  have  been  merely  a  manifestation  of  that 
vagrant  spirit  which  was  a  cause  or  a  consequence 
of  the  prediction  ascribed  to  Jacob.  And  on  the 
other  hand  the  definite  statement  of  1  Chr.  iv.  41- 
43  (the  date  of  which  by  Hezekiah's  reign,  seems  to 
show  conclusively  its  southern  origin)  proves  that 
at  that  time  there  were  still  some  of  them  remain 
ing  in  the  original  seat  of  the  tribe,  and  actuated  by 
all  the  warlike  lawless  spirit  of  their  progenitor. 
This  fragment  of  ancient  chronicle  relates  two  expe 
ditions  in  search  of  more  eligible  territory.  The 
first,  under  thirteen  chieftains,  leading  doubtless  a 
large  body  of  followers,  was  made  against  the 
Hamites  and  the  Mehunim,0  a  powerful  tribe  of 
Bedouins,  "  at  the  entrance  of  Gedor  at  the  east 
side  of  the  ravine."  The  second  was  smaller,  but 
more  adventurous.  Under  the  guidance  of  four 
chiefs  a  band  of  500  undertook  an  expedition 
against  the  remnant  of  Amalek,  who  had  taken 
refuge  from  the  attacks  of  Saul  or  David,  or  some 
later  pursuers,  in  the  distant  fastnesses  of  Mount 
Seir.  The  expedition  was  successful.  They  smote 
the  Amalekites  and  took  possession  of  their  quarters  ; 
and  they  were  still  living  there  after  the  return  of 
the  Jews  from  Captivity,  or  whenever  the  First  Book 
of  Chronicles  was  edited  in  its  present  form. 

The  audacity  and  intrepidity  which  seem  to  have 
characterized  the  founder  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon 
are  seen  in  their  fullest  force  in  the  last  of  his  de 
scendants  of  whom  there  is  any  express  mention  in 
the  Sacred  Record.  Whether  the  book  which  bears 
her  name  be  a  history  or  a  historic  romance, 
JUDITH  will  always  remain  one  of  the  most  pro 
minent  figures  among  the  deliverers  of  her  nation. 
Bethulia  would  almost  seem  to  have  been  a  Si- 
meonite  colony.  Ozias,  the  chief  man  of  the  city, 
was  a  Simeonite  (Jud.  vi.  15),  and  so  was  Ma- 
nasses  the  husband  of  Judith  (viii.  2).  She  herself 
had  the  purest  blood  of  the  tribe  in  her  veins.  Her 
genealogy  is  traced  up  to  Zurishaddai  (in  the  Gree-i 
form  of  .the  present  text  Salasadai,  viii.  1),  the  hea<j 
of  the  Simeonites  at  the  time  of  their  greatest  power. 
She  nerves  herself  for  her  tremendous  exploit  by  a 
prayer  to  "  the  Lord  God  of  her  father  Simeon  " 
and  by  recalling  in  the  most  characteristic  manner 
and  in  all  their  details  the  incidents  of  the  massacre 
of  Shechem  (•:*.  2). 

Simeon  is  named  by  Ezekiel  (xlviii.  25,  and  the 
author  of  the  Bock  of  the  Revelation  (vii.  7)  in  their 
catalogues  of  the  restoration  of  Israel.  The  former 


aot  only  from  the  Vatican  MS.  but  also  from  the  Hebrew 
text,  to  which  Jhis  MS.  usually  adheres  more  closely  than 
the  Vatican  does.  The  insertion  is  adopted  in  the  Coin- 
plutensian  and  Aldine  editions  of  the  LXX.,  but  does 
not  appear  in  any  of  the  other  versions. 

h  It  is  a  curious  coincidence,  though  of  course  nothing 
more,  that  the  scanty  records  of  Simeon  should  disclose  two 
names  so  illustrious  in  Israelite  history  as  Saul  and  Samuel. 

i  This  is  a  different  account  to  that  supplied  in  Judg.  i.  j 
iUe  two  are  entirely  distinct  documents.  That  of  Judges, 


from  its  fragmentary  and  abrupt  character,  has  the  ap 
pearance  of  being  the  more  ancient  of  the  two. 

k  "  The  parts  of  Idumaea  which  border  on  Arabia  and 
Egypt "  (Joseph.  Ant.  v.  I,  $22). 

m  It  had  been  first  taken  from  Simeon  by  the  Philistines 
(1  Sam.  xxvii.  6),  if  indeed  he  ever  got  possession  of  it. 

n  Possibly  because  the  Simeonites  were  warriors  aiw 
nothing  eise,  instead  of  husbandmen,  £c.,  like  the  men  a 
Judah. 

0  A.  V    "  habitations."     See  MEHUMIM. 


SIMEON 

removes  the  tribe  from  Judah  and  places  it  by  the 
of  Benjamin. 


2.  CSvfjLccav  :  Simeon.]  A  priest  of  the  family 
of  Joarib  —  or  in  its  full  form  JEHOIARIB  —  one  of 
the  ancestors  of  the  Maccabees  (1  Mace.  ii.  1). 

3.  Son  of  Juda  and  father  of  Levi  in  the  gene 
alogy  of  our  Lord  (Luke  iii.  30)      The  Vat.  MS. 
gives  the  name  Sijuewp. 

4.  That  is,   Simon   Peter  (Acts  xv.  14).     The 
use  of  the  Hebrew  form  of  the  name  in  this  place  is 
very  characteristic  of  the  speaker  in  whose  mouth 
it  occurs.     It  is  found  once  again  (2  Pet.  i.  1) 
though  here  there  is  not  the  same  unanimity  ii 
the     MS.S.         Lachmann,   with     B,    here    adopt 
"  Simon."  [G.] 

5.  A  devout  Jew,  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
who  met  the  parents  of  our  Lord  in  the  Temple 
took  Him  in  his  aims,  and  gave  thanks  for  what  h 
saw,  and  knew  of  Jesus  (Luke  ii.  25-35). 

In  the  apocryphal  Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  Simeon 
is  called  a  high-priest,  and  the  narrative  of  on 
Lord's  descent  into  Hell  is  put  into  the  mouths  o 
Charinus  and  Lenthius,  who  are  described  as  tw< 
sons  of  Simeon,  who  rose  from  the  grave  afte 
Christ's  resurrection  (Matt,  xxvii.  53),  and  relatec 
their  story  to  Annas,  Caiaphas,  Nicodemus,  Joseph 
and  Gamaliel. 

Rabban  Simeon,  whose  grandmother  was  of  the 
family  of  David,  succeeded  his  father  Hillel  as  pre 
sident  of  the  Sanhedrim  about  A.D.  13  (Otho 
Lexicon  Rahb.  p.  697),  and  his  son  Gamaliel  was 
the  Pharisee  at  whose  feet  St.  Paul  was  brought  up 
(Acts  xxii.  3).  A  Jewish  writer  specially  notes 
that  no  record  of  this  Simeon  is  preserved  in  the 
Mishna  (Lightfoot,  Horae  Heb.  Luke  ii.  25).  It 
has  been  conjectured  that  he  (Prideaux,  Connexion, 
anno  37,  Michaelis)  or  his  grandson  (Schottgen, 
Horae  Heb,  Luke  ii.  25)  of  the  same  name,  may 
be  the  Simeon  of  St.  Luke.  In  favour  of  the 
identity  it  is  alleged  that  the  name,  residence, 
time  of  life,  and  general  character  are  the  same  in 
both  cases  ;  that  the  remarkable  silence  of  the 
Mishna,  and  the  counsel  given  by  Gamaliel  (Acts 
v.  38)  countenance  a  suspicion  of  an  inclination  on 
the  part  of  the  family  of  the  Rabban  towards  Chris 
tianity.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  argued  that  these 
facts  fall  for  short  of  historical  proof;  and  that 
Simeon  was  a  very  common  name  among  the  Jews, 
that  St.  Luke  would  never  have  introduced  so  cele 
brated  a  character  as  the  President  of  the  Sanhedrim 
merely  as  "  a  man  in  Jerusalem,"  and  that  his  son 
Gamaliel,  after  all,  was  educated  as  a  Pharisee.  The 
question  is  discussed  in  Witsius,  Miscellanea  Sacra, 
i.  21  §14-1(3.  See  also  Wolf,  Curae  Philologicae, 
Luke  ii.  25,  and  BM.  Hebr.  ii.  682.  [W.  T.  B.] 

SIMEON  NIGER.     Acts  xiii.  1.     [NIGER.] 

SI'MON.  A  name  of  frequent  occurrence  in 
Jewish  history  in  the  post-Babylonian  period.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  it  was  borrowed  from  the 
Greeks,  with  whom  it  was  not  uncommon,  or  whe 
ther  it  was  a  contraction  of  the  Hebrew  Shimeon. 
That  the  two  names  svtre  regarded  as  identical  ap 
pears  from  1  Mace.  ii.  65.  "  Peihaps  the  Hebrew 
name  was  thus  slightly  altered  in  order  to  render  it 
identical  with  the  Greek. 

1.  Son   of  Mattathias.     [MACCABEES,    §4,    p. 
1666.] 

2.  Son  of  Onias  the  high-priest  (lepfvs  6  ftfyas), 
whose  eulogy  closes  the  "  praise  of  famous  men  "  in 
the  Book  of  Ecclesiasticus  (ch.  iv  ).     [EcCLESlAS- 
Ticus,  vol.  i.  p.  479.]     Fritzsche,  whose  edition  of 


SIMON 

Ecclesiasticus  (Exeg.  Handb.)  has  r-.ppeared  (1860) 
since  the  article  referred  to  was  written,  nwntains 
the  common  view  that  the  reference  is  to  Simon  II., 
but  without  bringing  forward  any  new  arguments 
to  support  it,  though  he  strangely  underrates  the 
importance  of  Simon  I.  (the  Just).  Without  laying 
undue  stress  upon  the  traditions  which  attached  tj 
this  name  (Herzfeld,  Gesch.  Isr.  i.  195),  it  is  evi 
dent  that  Simon  the  Just  was  popularly  regarded 
as  closing  a  period  in  Jewish  history,  as  the  last 
teacher  of  "  the  Great  Synagogue."  Yet  there  is 
in  fact  a  doubt  to  which  Simon  the  title  "  the 
Just"  was  given.  Herzfeld  (i.  377,  378)  has  en 
deavoured  to  prove  that  it  belongs  to  Simon  II., 
and  not  to  Simon  I.,  and  in  this  he  is  followed  by 
Jost  (Gesch.  d.  Judenth.  i.  95).  The  later  Hebrew 
authorities,  by  whose  help  the  question  should  be 
settled,  are  extremely  unsatisfactory  and  confused 
(Jost,  110,  &c.);  and  it  appears  better  to  adhere 
to  the  express  testimony  of  Josephus,  who  identifies 
Simon  I.  with  Simon  the  Just  (Ant.  xii.  2,  §4,  &c.), 
than  to  follow  the  Talmudic  traditions,  w'hich  are 
notoriously  untrustworthy  in  chronology.  The 
legends  are  connected  with  the  title,  and  "Herzfeld 
and  Jost  both  agree  in  supposing  that  the  reference 
in  Ecclesiasticus  is  to  Simon,  known  as  "  the  Just,' 
though  they  believe  this  to  be  Simon  II.  (compare, 
for  the  Jewish  anecdotes,  Raphall's  Hist .  of  Jews, 
i.  115-124;  Prideaux,  Connexion,  ii.  1). 

3.  "  A  governor  of  the  Temple  "  in  the  time  of 
Seleucus  Philopator,  whose  information  as  to  the 
treasures    of  the   Temple   led    to  the   sacrilegious 
attempt  of  Heliodorus  (2  Mace.  iii.  4  &c.).     After 
this  attempt  failed,  through  the  interference  of  the 
high-priest  Onias,  Simon  accused  Onias  of  conspiracy 
(iv.  1,  2),  and  a  bloody  feud  arose  between  tkeir 
two  parties  (iv.  3).    Onias  appealed  to  the  king,  but 
nothing  is  known  as  to  the  result  or  the  later  his 
tory  of  Simon.     Considerable  doubt  exists  as  to  the 
exact  nature  of  the  office  which  he  held  (irpoar&ri)! 
ov  lepov,  2  Mace.  iii.  4).     Various  interpretations 
are  given  by  Grimm  (Exeg.  Handb.  ad  loc.).     The 
chief  difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  Simon  is  said  to 
have  been  of  "the  tribe  of  Benjamin"  (2  Mace.  iii. 
3),  while  the  earlier  "  ruler  of  the  house  of  God" 
(6  rjyov/mevos  olf/cou  rov  Oeov  (itvplov),  1  Chr.  ix. 
11;   2  Chr.  xxxi.  13;  Jer.  xx.  1)  seems  to  have 
been  always  a  priest,   and   the  "  captain  of  the 
Temple  "  (ffrparriybs  rov  lepov,  Luke  xxii.  4,  with 
Lightfoot's  note;  Acts  iv.  1,  v.  24,  26)  and  the 
keeper  of  the  treasures  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  24;  2  Chr. 
xxxi.  12)  must  have  been  at  least  Levites.     Herz- 
'eld  (Gesch.  Isr.  i.  218)  conjectures  that  Benjamin 
s  an  error  for  Minjamin,  the  head  of  a  priestly 
house  (Neh.  xii.  5,  17.)     In  support  of  this  view 
t  may  be  observed  that  Menelaus,  the  usurping 
ligh-priest,    is   said    to    have    been  a  brother    of 
Simon   (2   Mace.   iv.   23),   and  no  intimation  is 
anywhere  given  that   he  was   not  of  priestly  de 
scent.      At  the   same  time  the   corruption  (if   it 
xist)    dates    from    an    earlier    period    than    the 
>resent  Greek  text,  for  '<  tribe  "  (<£UAT;)  could  not 
36  used  for  "  family  "  (oT/cos).     The  various  read- 
ng  ayopavopias  ("  regulation  of  the  market ")  for 
apavopias   ("disorder,"    2  Mace.   iii.  4),  which 
eems  to  be  certainly  correct,  poin&  to  some  office 
n  connexion  with  the  supply  of  the  sacrifices ;  and 
robably  Simon  was   appointed  to  carry  out  the 
esign  of  Seleucus,  who  (as  is  stated  in  the  context) 
lad  undertaken  to  defray  the  cost  of  them  (2  Mace, 
i.  3).     In  this  case  there  would  be  less  difficulty 
i  a  Benjamite  acting  as  the  agent  of  a  foreign  king 


1320 


SIMON 


arm  in  a  matter   which   concerned   the  Temple- 
service.  [B.  F.  W.] 

4.  SIMON  THE  BROTHER  OF  JESUS.  —  The  only 
undoubted  notice  of  this  Simon  occurs  in  Matt.  xiii. 
55,  Mark  vi.  3,  where,  in  common  with  James, 
Joses,  and  Judas,  he  is  mentioned  as  one  of  the 
*'  brethren  "  of  Jesus.     He  has  been  identified  by 
some  writers  with  Simon  the  Canaanite,  and  still 
more  generally  with  Symeon  who  became  bishop 
of  Jerusalem   aftei   the  death  of  James,  A.D.  62 
(Euseb.  H.  E.  iii.  II,  iv.  22),  and  who  suffered 
martyrdom  in  the  reign  of  Trajan  at  the  extreme 
age  of  120  years  (Hegesippus,  ap.  Euseb.  H.  E.  iii. 
32),  in  the  year  107,  or  according  to  Bui-ton  (Lec 
tures,  ii.  17,  note)  in  104.     The  former  of  these 
opinions  rests  on  no  evidence  whatever,  nor  is  the 
latter   without   its  difficulties.      For  in  whatever 
sense   the   term  "  brother"   is  accepted  —  a  vexed 
question  which  has  been  already  amply  discussed 
under   BROTHER    and    JAMES  —  it    is    clear  that 
neither  Eusebius  nor  the  author  of  the  so-called 
Apostolical  Constitutions  understood  Symeon  to  be 
the  brother  of  James,  nor  consequently  the  "  bro 
ther"  of  the  Lord.     Eusebius  invariably  describes 
James  as  "the  brother"  of  Jesus  (H.  E.  i.  12, 
ii.  1,  al.\  but  Symeon  as  the  son  of  Clopas,  and 
the  cousin  of  Jesus  (iii.  11,  iv.  22),  and  the  same 
distinction  is  made  by  the  other  author  (Const. 
Apost.  vii.  46). 

5.  SIMON  THE  CANAANITE,  one  of  the  Twelve 
Apostles  (Matt.  x.  4  ;  Mark  iii.  18),  otherwise  de 
scribed  as  Simon  Zelotes  (Luke  vi.  15;  Acts  i.  13). 
The  latter  term  (^TjAcoTrjs),  which  is  peculiar  to 
Luke,  is  the  Greek  equivalent  for  the  Chaldee  term  a 
preserved  by  Matthew  and  Mark  (Kavavirijs,  as  in 
text,  recept.,  or  itavavaios,  as  in  the  Vulg.,  Cana- 
naeus,  and  in  the  best  modern  editions).     Each  of 
these  equally  points  out  Simon  as  belonging  to  the 
faction  of  the  Zealots,  who  were  conspicuous  for 
their  fierce  advocacy  of  the  Mosaic  ritual.     The 
supposed  references  to  Canaan  (A.  V.)  or  to  Cana 
(Luther's  version)  are  equally  erroneous.  [C  ANAAN- 
ITE.]     The  term  Kavavirris  appears  to  have  sur 
vived    the    other  as  the   distinctive    surname   of 
Simon  (Const.  Apost.  vi.  14,  viii.  27).    He  has  been 
frequently  identified   with   Simon  the   brother  of 
Jesus;  but  Eusebius  (H.  E.  iii.  11)  clearly  distin 
guishes  between  the  Apostles  and  the  relations  of 
Jesus.     Still  less  likely  is  it  that  he  was  identical 
with  Symeon,  the  second  bishop  of  Jerusalem,  as 
stated   by  Sophronius   (App.  ad  Hieron.   Catal.}. 
Simon  the  Canaanite  is  reported,  on  the  doubtful 
authority  of  the  Pseudo-Dorotheus  and  of  Nicephorus 
Callistus,  to  have  preached  in  Egypt,  Cyrene,  and 
Mauritania  (Burton's  Lectures,  i.  333,  note),  and, 
on  the  equally  doubtful  authority  of  an  annotation 
preserved  in  an  original  copy  of  the  Apostolical 
Constitutions  (viii.  27),  to  have  been  crucified  in 
Judaea  in  the  reign  of  Domitian. 


>>  Some  doubt  has  been  thrown  on  Justin's  statement, 
from  the  fact  that  Josephus  (Ant.  xx.  7,  $2)  mentions  a 
reputed  magician  of  the  same  name  and  about  the  same 
date,  who  was  born  in  Cyprus.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
Justin  borrowed  bis  Information  from  'this  source,  and 
mistook  Citium,  a  town  of  Cyprus,  for  Gitton.  If  the 
writers  had  respectively  used  the  gentile  forms  Kmevs 
and  rimers,  the  similarity  would  have  favoured  such  an  } 
idea.  But  neither  does  Josephus  mention  Citium,  nor  yet 
..Iocs  Justin  ase  the  geatile  form.  It  is  far  more  probable 
Taat  Josephus  would  be  wrong  than  Justin,  in  any  point  ' 
rssuectiiig  Sarar.ria. 


SIMON 

6.  SIMON  OF  GYRENE. — A   Hellenistic  Jcv/ 
born  at  Cyrene  on  the  north  coast  of  Africa,  who 
was  present  at  Jerusalem  at  the  time  of  the  cruci 
fixion  of  Jesus,  either  as  an  attendant  at  the  feast 
(Acts  ii.  10),  or  as  one  of  the  numerous  settlers  at 
Jerusalem  from  that  place  (Acts  vi.  9).     Meeting 
the  procession  that  conducted  Jesus  to  Golgotha,  as 
he  was  returning  from  the  country,  he  was  pressed 
into  the  service  (ijyyd.pevo'av,  a  military  term)  to 
beat    the   cross    (Matt,  xxvii.   32 ;  Mark  xv.  21 ; 
Luke  xxiii.  26),  when  Jesus  himself  was  unable  to 
bear  it  any  longer  (comp.  John  xix.  17).     Mark 
describes  him  as  the  father  of  Alexander  and  Rufus, 
perhaps  because  this  was  the  Rufus  known  to  the 
Roman  Christians  (Rom.  xvi.  13),  for  whom  he 
more  especially  wrote.      The  Basilidian    Gnostics 
believed  that  Simon  suffered  in  lieu  of  Jesus  (Bur 
ton's  Lectures,  ii.  64). 

7.  SIMON  THE  LEPER. — A  resident  at  Bethany, 
distinguished  as  "  the  leper,"  not  from  his  having 
leprosy  at  the  time  when  he  is  mentioned,  but  at 
some  previous  period.     It  is  not  improbable  that 
he  had  been  miraculously  cured  by  Jesus.     In  hn 
house  Mary  anointed  Jesus  preparatory  to  His  deatb. 
and  burial  (Matt.  xxvi.   6  &c. ;  Mark  xiv.  3  &c. 
John  xii.  1  £c.).     Lazarus  was  also  present  as  one 
of  the  guests,  while  Martha  served  (John  xii.  2}: 
the  presence  of  the  brother  and   his  two  sisters, 
together  with  the  active  part  the  latter  took  in  the 
proceedings,  leads  to  the  inference  that  Simon  was 
related  to  them :  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  this, 
and  we  can  attach  no  credit  to  the  statement  that 
he  was  their  father,  as  reported  on  apocryphal  au 
thority  by  Nicephorus,  (H.  E.  i.  27),  and  still  less 
to  the  idea  that  he  was  the  husband  of  Mary.  Simon 
the  Leper  must  not  be  confounded  with  Simon  the 
Pharisee  mentioned  in  Luke  vii.  40. 

8.  SIMON  MAGUS. — A  Samaritan  living  in  the 
Apostolic  age,  distinguished  as  a  sorcerer  or  "  ma 
gician,"  from  his  practice  of  magical  arts  ( yuayelW, 
Acts  viii.  9).     His  histoiy  is  a  remarkable  one : 
he   was   born   at   Gitton,b   a   village    of  Samaria 
(Justin  Mart.  Apol.  i.  26),    identified   with    the 
modern   Kuryet   Jit,    near   Nabulus    (Robinson's 
Bib.  Res.  ii.  308,  note).    He  was  probably  educated 
at  Alexandria  (as  stated  in  Clement.  Horn.  ii.  22), 
and  there  became  acquainted  with  the  eclectic  tenets 
of  the  Gnostic  school.     Either  then  or  subsequently 
he  was  a  pupil  of  Dositheus,  who  preceded  him  as 
a  teacher  of  Gnosticism  in  Samaria,  and  whom  he 
supplanted   with   the    aid    of   Cleobius   (Constit. 
Apostol.  vi.  8).     He  is  first  introduced  to  us  in  the 
Bible  as  practising  magical  arts  in  a  city  of  Samaria, 
perhaps  Sychar  (Acts  viii.  5;  comp.  John  iv.  5) 
and   with  such  success,  that  he  was   pronounced 
to  be  "the  power  of  God  which  is  called  gieat"^ 
(Acts  viii.   10).     The  preaching  and  miracles  of 
Philip  having  excited  his  observation,  he  became 
one  of  his  disciples,   and  received  baptism  at   his 


c  The  A.  V.  omits  the  word  xaAov/aeVrj,  and  renders 
the  words  "  the  great  power  of  God."  But  this  is  to  lose 
the  whole  point  of  the  designation.  The  Samaritans  de 
scribed  the  angels  as  fiv^a/xeis,  D  Y^C!'  i.  e.  uncreated 
influences  proceeding  from  God  (Gieseler,  Ecd.  Hist.  i.  48, 
note  6).  They  intended  to  distinguish  Simon  from  such 
an  order  of  beings  by  adding  the  words  "  which  is  called 
great,"  meaning  thereby  the  source  of  all  power,  in  other 
words,  the  Supreme  Deity  Simon  was  recognized  as  the 
incarnation  of  this  power.  He  announced  himself  as  in  a 
special  sense  "  some  great  one"  (Acts  viii.  9)  ;  or  to  nee 
biso'vn  words  (as  reported  by  Jerome,  on  Matt,  x&lv,  6) 


SIMON 

hands.  Subsequently  he  witnessed  the  effect  pro 
duced  by  the  imposition  of  hands,  as  practised  by 
the  Apostles  Peter  and  John,  and,  being  desirous  of 
acquiring  a  similar  -power  for  himself,  he  offered  a 
sum  of  money  for  it.  His  object  evidently  was  to 
apply  the  power  to  the  prosecution  of  magical  arts. 
The  motive  and  the  means  were  equally  to  be  re 
probated  ;  and  his  proposition  met  with  a  severe 
denunciation  from  Peter,  followed  by  a  petition  on 
the  part  of  Simon,  the  tenor  of  which  bespeaks 
terror  but  not  penitence  (Acts  viii.  9-24).  The 
memory  of  his  peculiar  guilt  has  been  perpetuated 
in  the  word  simony,  as  applied  to  all  traffic  in 
spiritual  offices.  Simon's  history,  subsequently  to 
his  meeting  with  Peter,  is  involved  in  difficulties. 
Early  Church  historians  depict  him  as  the  perti- 
nacious  foe  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  whose  movements 
he  followed  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  encounters, 
in  which  he  was  signally  defeated.  In  his  jour 
neys  he  was  accompanied  by  a  female  named 
Helena,  who  had  previously  been  a  prostitute  at 
Tyre,  but  who  was  now  elevated  to  the  position  of 
his  evvoia*  or  divine  intelligence  (Justin  Mart. 
Apol.  i.  26 ;  Euseb.  H.  E.  ii.  13).  His  first 
encounter  with  Peter  took  place  at  Caesarea 
Stratonis  (according  to  the  Constitutiones  Apos- 
tolicae,  vi.  8),  whence  he  followed  the  Apostle  to 
Rome.  Eusebius  makes  no  mention  of  this  first 
encounter,  but  represents  Simon's  journey  to  Rome 
as  following  immediately  after  the  interview  re 
corded  in  Scripture  (H.E.  ii.  14)  ;  but  his  chrono 
logical  statements  are  evidently  confused ;  for  in 
the  very  same  chapter  he  states  that  the  meeting 
between  the  two  at  Rome  took  place  in  the  reign  of 
Claudius,  some  ten  years  after  the  events  in 
Samaria.  Justin  Martyr,  with  greater  consistency, 
represents  Simon  as  having  visited  Rome  in  the 
reign  of  Claudius,  and  omits  all  notice  of  an  en 
counter  with  Peter.  His  success  there  was  so 
great  that  he  was  deified,  and  a  statue  was  erected 
in  his  honour,  with  the  inscription  "  Simoni  Deo 
Sancto  "  °  (Apol.  i.  26,  56).  The  above  statements 
can  be  reconciled  only  by  assuming  that  Simon 
made  two  expeditions  to  Rome,  the  first  in  the 
reign  of  Claudius,  the  second,  in  which  he  en- 
countewd  Peter,  in  the  reign  of  Nero/  about  the 
year  68  (Burton's  Lectures,  i.  233,  318):  and 
even  this  takes  for  granted  the  disputed  fact  of 
St.  Peter's  visit  to  Rome.  [PETER.]  His  death 
is  associated  with  the  meeting  in  question :  ac 
cording  to  Hippolytus,  the  earliest  authority  on 
the  subject,  Simon  was  buried  alive  at  his  own 
request,  in  the  confident  assurance  that  he  would 


"  Ego  sum  sermo  Dei,  ego  sum  Speciosus,  ego  Paraclctus, 
ego  Omnipotens,  ego  omnia  Dei." 

d  In  the  eyj/oia,  as  embodied  in  Helena's  person,  we 
recognize  the  dualistic  element  of  Gnosticism,  derived 
from  the  Manic-bean  system.  The  Gnostics  appear  to 
have  recognized  the  Svva/j.^  and  the  evvoia,  as  the  two 
original  principles  from  whose  junction  all  beings  ema 
nated.  Simon  and  Helena  were  the  incarnations  in  which 
these  principles  resided. 

e  Justin's  authority  has  been  impugned  in  respect  to 
this  statement,  on  the  ground  that  a  tablet  was  discovered 
in  1574  on  the  Tiberina  insula,  which  answers  to  the 
.ocatily  described  by  Justin  (ei>  T<3  Ti/3epi  irorafj.™  /merafu 
rS)v  Svo  yefyvpOjv),  and  bearing  an  inscription,  the  first 
words  of  which  are  "  Semoni  sanco  deo  fidio."  This  in 
scription,  which  really  applies  to  the  Sabine  Hercules 
Sancus  Ser/io,  is  supposed  to  have  been  mistaken  by 
Justin,  in  his  ignorance  of  Latin,  for  one  in  honour  of 
§119011.  If  the  ins'-.ription  had  been  confined  to  the  words 


SIMRI 


1321 


rise  again  on  the  third  day  (Adv.  Haer.  vi.  20). 
According  to  another  account,  he  attempted  to 
fly  in  proof  of  his  supernatural  power ;  in  answer 
to  the  prayers  of  Peter,  he  fell  and  sustained 
a  fracture  of  his  thigh-  and  ankle-bones  (Con- 
stitut.  ApostoL  ii.  14,  vi.  9) ;  overcome  wir.h  vex 
ation,  he  committed  suicide  (Arnob.  Adv.  Gent. 
ii.  7).  Whether  this  statement  is  confirmed,  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  weakened,  by  the  account  of  a 
similar  attempt  to  fly  recorded  by  heathen  writers 
(Sueton.  Ner.  12;  Juv.  Sat.  iii.  79),  is  uncertain. 
Simon's  attempt  may  have  supplied  the  basis  for 
this  report,  or  this  report  may  have  been  errone 
ously  placed  to  his  credit.  Burton  (Lectures, 
i.  295)  rather  favours  the  former  alternative. 
Simon  is  generally  pronounced  by  early  writers  to 
have  been  the  founder  of  heresy.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  how  he  was  guilty  of  heresy  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  term,  inasmuch  as  he  was  not  a 
Christian  :  perhaps  it  refers  to  his  attempt  to 
combine  Christianity  with  Gnosticism.  He  is  also 
reported  to  have  forged  works  professing  to  emanate 
from  Christ  and  His  disciples  (Constitut.  ApostoL 
vi.  16). 

9.  SIMON  PETER.    [PETER.] 

10.  SIMON,    a    Pharisee,   in    whose    house    a 
penitent   woman    anointed    the  head   and  feet  of 
Jesus  (Luke  vii.  40). 

11.  SIMON  THE  TANNER. — A  Christian    con 
vert  living  at  Joppa,  at  whose  house  Peter  lodged 
(Acts  ix.   43).     The  profession   of  a  tanner  was 
regarded  with  considerable  contempt,  and  even  as 
approaching   to   uncleanness,    by  the  rigid  Jews. 
[TANNER.]     That  Peter  selected  such  an  abode, 
showed  the  diminished  hold  which  Judaism  had  on 
him.     The  house  was  near  the  sea-side  (Acts  x. 
6,  32),  for  the  convenience  of  the  water. 

12.  SIMON,  the  father  of  Judas  I-scariot  (John 
vi.  71,  xiii.  2,  26).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SI'MON  CHOSAMAETJS  (2f^  Xotro- 
fiaios  :  Simon).  SHIMEON,  and  the  three  following 
names  in  Ezr.  x.  31,  3.2,  are  thus  written  in  the 
LXX.  (1  Esd.  ix.  32).  The  Vulgate  has  correctly 
"  Simon,  Benjamin,  et  Malchus,  et  Marras."  "  Cho- 
samaeus"  is  apparently  formed  by  combining  the 
last  letter  of  Malluch  with  the  first  part  of  the  fol 
lowing  name,  Shemariah. 

SIM'RI  (niDP :  QvXdffffovTts  :  Semri).  Pro 
perly  "  Shimrij"  son  of  Hosah,  a  Merarite  Levite 
in  the  reign  of  David,  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  10).  Though 
not  the  first-born,  his  father  made  him  the  head 


quoted  by  Justin,  such  a  mistake  might  have  been  con 
ceivable;  but  it  goes  on  to  state  the  name  of  the  giver 
and  other  particulars  :  "  Semoni  Sanco  Deo  Fidio  sacrum 
Sex.  Pompeius,  Sp.  F.  Col.  Mussianus  Quinquennalis  decus 
Bidentalis  donum  dedit."  That  Justin,  a  man  of  literary 
acquirements,  should  be  unable  to  translate  such  an  in 
scription—that  he  should  misquote  it  in  an  Apology  duly 
prepared  at  Rome  for  the  eye  of  a  Roman  emperor— and 
that  the  mistake  should  be  repeated  by  other  early  writers 
whose  knowledge  of  Latin  is  unquestioned  (Irenaeus, 
Adv.  Haeres.  i.  20;  Tertullian,  Apol.  13)— these  assump 
tions  form  a  series  of  improbabilities,  amounting  almost 
to  an  impossibility. 

*  This  later  date  is  to  a  certain  extent  confirmed  by  the 
account  of  Simon's  death  preserved  by  Hippolytus  (Adv. 
Haer.  vi.  20) ;  for  the  event  is  stated  to  have  occurred 
while  Peter  and  Paul  (the  term  a7r«r-d.\ois  evidently 
implying  the  presence  of  the  lattei)  ^-x*  together  oi 
Rome. 


1322 


SIN 


cf  the  family.     The  LXX.  read 
•<  guards." 

SIN  (j^D  :  2ai's, 


shomtre, 


Pelusium).  a  city  of 
£gypt,  mentioned  only  by  Ezekiel  (xxx.  15,  16). 
The  name  is  Hebrew,  or,  at  least,  Shemitic.  Gesenius 
supposes  it  to  signify  "  clay,"  from  the  unused  root 
pp,  probably  "  he  or  it  was  muddy,  clayey."  It 
^  identified  in  the  Vulg.  with  Pelusium,  ri7jA.ot$- 
7  ov,  «  the  clayey  or  muddy  "  town,  from  irri\6s  ; 
and  seems  to  be  preserved  in  the  Arabic  Et-Teeneh, 


which  forms  part  of  the  names  of  Fum 


et-Teeneh,  the  Mouth  of  Et-Teeneh,  the  supposed  Pe 
lusiac  mouth  of  the  Nile,  and  Burg  or  Kal'at  et- 
Teeneh,  the  Tower  or  Castle  of  Et-Teeneh,  in  the  im 
mediate  neighbourhood,  "  teen  "  signifying  "  mud," 
&c.,  in  Arabic.  This  evidence  is  sufficient  to  show 
that  Sin  is  Pelusium.  The  ancient  Egyptian  name 
is  still  to  be  sought  for :  it  has  been  supposed  that 
Pelusium  preserves  traces  of  it,  but  this  is  very  im- 
bable.  Champollion  identifies  Pelusium  with  the 

(the  se 
cond  being  a  variation  held  by  Quatremere  to  be 
incorrect),  and  B^.peJULO*Jf  It,  of  the  Copts, 

El-Farma,  L«  JLJi,  of  the  Arabs,  which  was  in  the 
time  of  the  former  a  boundary-city,  the  limits  of  a 
governor's  authority  being  stated  to  have  extended 
from  Alexandria  to  Pilak-h,  or  Philae,  and  Peremoun 
(Acts  of  St.  Sarapamon  MS.  Copt.  Vat.  67,  fol.  90, 
ap.  Quatremere,  Memoires  Geog.  et  Hist,  sur 
I'Egypte,  i.  259).  Champollion  ingeniously  derives 
this  name  from  the  article  Cpj  Gp,  "  to  be,"  and 

OJULI,  "mud"  (L'Egypte,  ii.  82-87;  comp. 
Brugsch,  Geogr.  Inschr.  i.  p.  297).  Brugsch  com 
pares  the  ancient  Egyptian  HA-REM,  which  he 
reads  Pe-rema,  on  our  system,  PE-HEM,  "the 
abode  of  the  tear,"  or  "  of  the  fish  rem"  {Geogr. 
Inschr.  i.  L  c.,  pi.  Iv.  n°.  1679).  Pelusium,  he 
would  make  the  city  SAM  HAT  (or,  as  he  reads  it 
S&m-hud),  remarking  that  "  the  nome  of  the  city 
Samhud  "  is  the  only  one  which  has  the  determi 
native  of  a  city,  and,  comparing  the  evidence  of  the 
Roman  nome-coins,  on  which  the  place  is  apparently 
treated  as  a  nome ;  but  this  is  not  certain ,  for 
there  may  have  been  a  Pelusiac  nome.  and  the  ety 
mology  of  the  name  SAMHAT  is  unknown  (Id.  p. 
128  ;  PL  xxviii.  17). 

The  site  of  Pelusium  is  as  yet  undetermined.  It 
has  been  thought  to  be  marked  by  mounds  near  Burg 
et-Teeneh,  now  called  El-Farma  and  not  Et-Teeneh. 
This  is  disputed  by  Captain  Spratt,  who  supposes 
that  the  mound  of  Aboo-KheeyaV  indicates  where  it 
stood.  This  is  further  inland,  and  apparently  on 
the  west  of  the  old  Pelusiac  branch,  as  was  Pe 
lusium.  It  is  situate  between  Farma  and  Tel- 
Defenneh.*  Whatever  may  have  been  its  exact 
position,  Pelusium  must  have  owed  its  strength  not 
to  any  great  elevation,  but  to  its  being  placed  in 


SIN 

The  antiquity  of  the  town  of  Sin  may  perhaps  bt 
interred  from  the  mention  of  "  the  wilderness  ot 
Sin"  in  the  journeys  of  the  Israelites  (Ex.  xvi.  1  ; 
Num.  xxxiii.  11).  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that 
the  Israelites  did  not  immediately  enter  this  title* 
on  leaving  the  cultivated  part  of  Egypt,  so  that  r 
is  held  to  have  been  within  the  Sinaitic  ),oninsula, 
and  therefore  it  may  take  its  name  from  some  other 
place  or  country  than  the  Egyptian  Sin.  [SiN, 
WILDERNESS  OF.] 

Pelusium  is  mentioned  by  Ezekiel,  in  one  of  the 
prophecies  relating  to  the  invasion  of  Egypt  .by 
Nebuchadnezzar,  as  one  of  the  cities  which  should 
then  suffer  calamities,  with,  probably,  reference 
to  their  later  history.  The  others  spoken  of  are 
Noph  (Memphis),  Zoan  (Tanis),  No  (Thebes), 
Aven  (Heliopolis),  Pi-beseth  (Bubastis),  and  Te- 
haphnehes  (Daphnae).  All  these,  excepting  the  two 
ancient  capitals,  Thebes  and  Memphis,  lay  on  or 
near  the  eastern  boundary ;  and,  in  the  approach  to 
Memphis,  an  invader  could  scarcely  advance,  after 
capturing  Pelusium  and  Daphiiae,  without  taking 
Tanis,  Bubastis,  and  Heliopolis.  In  the  most  an 
cient  times  Tanis,  as  afterwards  Pelusium,  seems  to 
have  been  the  key  of  Egypt  on  the  east.  Bubastis 
was  an  important  position  from  its  lofty  mounds, 
and  Heliopolis  as  securing  the  approach  to  Memphis. 
The  prophet  speaks  of  Sin  as  "  Sin  the  stronghold 
of  Egypt "  (ver.  15).  This  place  it  held  from  that 
time  until  the  period  of  the  Romans.  Herodotus 
relates  that  Sennacherib  advanced  against  Pelusium, 
and  that  near  Pelusium  Cambyses  defeated  Psam- 
menitus.  In  like  manner  the  decisive  battle  in 
which  Ochus  defeated  the  last  native  king,  Nectane- 
bos,  NEKHT-NEBF,  was  fought  near  this  city.  It 
is  perhaps  worthy  of  note  that  Ezekiel  twice  men 
tions  Pelusium  in  the  prophecy  which  contains  the 
remarkable  and  signally-fulfilled  sentence :  "  There 
shall  be  no  more  a  prince  of  the  land  of  Egypt" 
(ver.  13).  As  he  saw  the  long  train  of  calamities 
that  were  to  fall  upon  the  country,  Pelusium  may 
well  have  stood  out  as  the  chief  place  of  her  suc 
cessive  humiliations.  Two  Persian  conquests,  and 
two  submissions  to  strangers,  first  to  Alexander, 
and  then  to  Augustus,  may  explain  the  especial 
misery  foretold  of  this  city  : — "  Sin  shall  suffer 
great  anguish"  (ver.  16). 

We  find  in  the  Bible  a  geographical  name,  which 
has  the  form  of  a  gent,  noun  derived  from  Sin, 
and  is  usually  held  to  apply  to  two  different  na 
tions,  neither  connected  with  the  city  Sin.  In  the 
list  of  the  descendants  of  Noah,  the  Sinite,  ^fr 
occurs  among  the  sons  of  Canaan  (Gen.  x.  17  • 
1  Chr.  i.  15).,  This  people  from  its  place  between 
the  Arkite  and  the  Arvadite  has  been  supposed  tc 
have  settled  in  Syria  north  of  Palestine,  where 
similar  names  occur  in  classical  geography  and 
have  been  alleged  in  confiiTnation.  This  theory 
would  not,  however,  necessarily  imply  that  the 
whole  tribe  was  there  settled,  and  the  supposed 
traces  of  the  name  are  by  no  means  conclusive.  Oil 
the  other  hand,  it  must  be  observed  that  some  of 
the  eastern  towns  of  Lower  Egypt  have  Hebrew  as 


the  midst  of  a  plain  of  marsh-land  and  mud,  never    well  as  Egyptian  names,  as  Heliopolis  and  Tanis;  that 


easy  to  traverse.  The  ancient  sites  in  such  alluvial 
tracts  of  Egypt  are  in  general  only  sufficiently 
raised  above  the  level  of  the  plain  to  preserve  them 
from  being  injured  by  the  inundation. 

a  Capt.  Spratt's  reports  1m ve  unfortunately  been  printed 
abstract  ("Delta  of  the  Nile,"  &c. ;  Iteturn,  House 
Commons,  9th  Feb    1860),  with  a  very  insufficient 


those  very  near  the  border  seem  to  have  borne  only 
Hebrew  names,  as  Migdol  ;  so  that  we  have  an  in 
dication  of  a  Shemitic  influence  in  this  part  of  Egypt, 
diminishing  in  degree  according  to  the  distance  from 


map.    In   M.  Linants  map  we  cannot  discover  Aboo* 
Kheeyir  (Fercemcnt  de  I'lsthme  de  Suez,  Atlas,  (\irtt 


SIN,  WILDERNESS  OF 

tha  border.  It  is  difficult  to  account  for  this 
influence  by  the  single  circumstance  of  the  Shepherd- 
hivv^ion  of  Egypt,  especially  as  it  is  shown  yet 
more  strikingly  by  the  remarkably-strong  charac 
teristics  which  have  distinguished'  the  inhabitants 
of  north-eastern  Egypt  from  their  fellow-country 
men  from  the  days  of  Herodotus  and  Achilles  Tatius 
to  our  own.  And  we  must  not  pass  by  the  state 
ment  of  the  former  of  these  writers,  that  the 
Palestine  Syrians  dwelt  westward  of  the  Arabians 
to  the  eastern  boundary  of  Egypt  (iii.  5,  and  above 
p.  1047,  note  *).  Therefore,  it  does  not  seem  a 
vHent  hypothesis  that  the  Sinites  were  connected 
with  Pelusium,  though  their  main  body  may  per 
haps  have  settled  much  further  to  the  north.  The 
distance  is  not  greater  than  that  between  the  Hit- 
tites  of  southern  Palestine  and  those  of  the  valley  of 
the  Orontes,  although  the  separation  of  the  less 
powerful  Hivites  into  those  dwelling  beneath  Mount 
Hermon  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  small  confede 
racy  of  which  Gibeon  was  apparently  the  head,  is  per 
haps  nearer  to  our  supposed  case.  If  the  wilderness  of 
Sin  owed  its  name  to  Pelusium,  this  is  an  evidence  of 
the  very  early  importance  of  the  town  and  its  conv 
nexion  with  Arabia,  which  would  perhaps  be  strange 
in  the  case  of  a  purely  Egyptian  town.  The  conjec 
ture  we  have  put  forth  suggests  a  recurrence  to  the 
old  explanation  of  the  famous  mention  of  "  the  land 
of  Sinim,"  D*rp'pN,  in  Isaiah  (xlix.  12),  supposed 
by  some  to  refer  to  China.  This  would  appear  from 
the  context  to  be  a  very  remote  region.  It  is  men 
tioned  after  the  north  and  the  west,  and  would  seem 
to  be  in  a  southern  or  eastern  direction.  Sin  is 
certainly  not  remote,  nor  is  the  supposed  place  of 
the  Sinites  to  the  north  of  Palestine  ;  but  the  ex 
pression  may  be  proverbial.  The  people  of  Pelu 
sium,  it  of  Canaanite  origin,  were  certainly  remote 
compared  to  most  of  the  other  Cauaanites,  and 
were  separated  by  alien  peoples,  and  it  is  also 
noticeable  that  they  were  to  the  south-east  of 
Palestine.  As  the  sea  bordering  Palestine  came  to 
designate  the  west,  as  in  this  passage,  so  the  land  of 
Sinim  may  have  passed  into  a  proverbial  expression 
for  a  distant  and  separated  country.  See,  however, 
SINITE,  SINIM.  [R.  S.  P.] 

SIN,  WILDEENESS  OF  (pp-irnO:  tpn- 
P.OS  ~2,\v :  desertum  Sin}.  The  name  of  a  tract  gf  the 
wilderness  which  the  Israelites  reached  after  leaving 
the  encampment  by  the  Red  Sea  (Num.  xxxiii.  11, 
12).  Their  next  halting-place  (Ex.  xvi.  1,  xvii.  1) 
was  Rephidim,  probably  the  Wady  Feiran  [REPHI- 
DIM]  ;  on  which  supposition  it  would  follow  that 
Sin  must  lie  between  that  wady  and  the  coast 
of  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  and  of  course  west  of  Sinai. 
Since  they  were  by  this  time  gone  more  than  a 
month  from  Egypt,  the  locality  must  be  too  far 
towards  the  S.  E.  to  receive  its  name  from  the 
Egyptian  Sin  of  Ez.  xxx.  15,  called  2ctis  by  the 
LXX.,  and  identified  with  Pelusium  (see  previous 
Article).  In  the  wilderness  of  Sin  the  manna  was 
first  gathered,  and  those  who  adopt  the  supposition 
that  this  was  merely  the  natural  product  of  the  tarfa 
bush,  find  from  the  abundance  of  that  shrub  in 
Wady  cs  Sheikh,  S.  E.  of  W.  Ghurundel  a  proof 
of  local  identity.  [ELIM.]  At  all  events,  that  wady 
is  as  probable  as  any  other.  [H.  H.] 

SIN-OFFEKING  (nNtSH :   a^apria,  rl  rris 

»  Its  technical  use  in  Gen.  iv.  7  is  asserted,  and  sup 
ported  by  high  authority.  But  the  word  here  probably 
weans  (as  in  the  Vulg.  and  A.  V.)  *  sin."  The  fact  that 


SLN-OFFE1UNG 


1323 


a/j.aprias,  Trepl  a/j.aprtas :  pro  peccato}.  The  sin1 
ottering  among  the  Jews  was  the  sacrifice,  in  which 
the  ideas  of  propitiation  and  of  atonement  for  sin 
were  most  distinctly  marked.  It  is  first  directly 
enjoined  in  Lev.  iv.,  whereas  in  chs.  i.-iii.  the  burnt- 
offering,  meat-offering,  and  peace-o tiering  are  taken 
for  granted,  and  the  object  of  the  Law  is  to  regu 
late,  not  to  enjoin,  the  presentation  of  them  to  th« 
Lord.  Nor  is  the  word  chatiat/i  applied  to  any 
sacrifice  in  ante-Mosaic  times.*  It  is  therefore  pecu 
liarly  a  sacrifice  of  the  Law,  agreeing  with  the 
clear  definition  of  good  and  evil,  and  the  stress  laid 
on  the  "  sinfulness  of  sin,"  which  were  the  main 
objects  of  the  Law  in  itself.  The  idea  of  propitiation 
was  no  doubt  latent  in  earlier  sacrifices,  but  it  was 
taught  clearly  and  distinctly  in  the  Levitical  sin- 
offering. 

The  ceremonial  of  the  sin-offering  is  described  in 
Lev.  iv.  and  vi.  The  animal,  a  young  bullock  for 
the  priest  or  the  congregation,  a  male  kid  or  lamb 
for  a  ruler,  a  female  kid  or  lamb  for  a  private  per 
son,  in  all  cases  without  blemish,  was  brought  by 
the  stxcrificer  to  the  altar  of  sacrifice ;  his  hand  was 
laid  upon  its  head  (with,  as  we  learn  from  later 
Jewish  authorities,  a  confession  of  sin,  and  a  prayer 
that  the  victim  might  be  its  expiation) ;  of  the 
blood  of  the  slain  victim,  some  was  then  sprinkled 
seven  times  before  the  veil  of  the  sanctuary,  some 
put  on  the  horns  of  the  altar  of  incense,  and  the 
rest  poured  at  the  foot  of  the  altar  of  sacrifice ;  the 
fat  (as  the  choicest  part  of  the  flesh)  was  then 
burnt  on  the  altar  as  a  burnt-offering;  the  lemain- 
der  of  the  body,  if  the  sin-offering  were  that  of  the 
priest  himself  or  of  the  whole  congregation,  was 
carried  out  of  the  camp  or  city  to  a  "  clean  place  " 
and  there  burnt ;  but  if  the  ottering  were  that  of  an 
individual,  the  flesh  might  be  eaten  by  the  priests 
alone  in  the  holy  place,  as  being  "most  holy." 

The  TRESPASS-OFFERING  (D8PK :  TrATj^eAem, 
rb  Trjs  7r\7j/i^eAeias :  pro  delicti}  is  closely  con 
nected  with  the  sin-offering  in  Leviticus,  but  at  the 
same  time  clearly  distinguished  from  it,  being  in 
some  cases  offered  with  .it  as  a  distinct  part  of  the 
same  sacrifice;  as,  for  example,  in  the  cleansing  of 
the  leper  (Lev.  xiv.).  The  victim  was  in  each 
case  to  be  a  ram.  At  the  time  of  offering,  in  all 
cases  of  damage  done  to  any  holy  thing,  or  to  any 
man,  restitution  was  made  with  the  addition  of  ;» 
fifth  part  to  the  principal ;  the  blood  was  sprinkled 
roundabout  upon  the  altar,  as  in  the  burnt-offering ; 
the  fat  burnt,  and  flesh  disposed  of  as  in  the  sin- 
offering.  The  distinction  of  ceremonial  clearly  indi 
cates  a  difference  in  the  idea  of  the  two  sacrifices. 

The  nature  of  that  difference  is  still  a  subject  of 
great  controversy.  Looking  first  to  the  derivation 
of  the  two  words,  we  find  that  fiNISH  is  derived 
from  KEPI,  which  is,  properly,  to  "miss"  a  mark, 
or  to  "  err"  from  a  way,  and  secondarily  to  "  sin,"  or 
to  incur  "  penalty;"  that  Dt^K  is  derived  from  the 
root  DE^tf,  which  is  properly  to  "  fail,"  having  for 

its  "  primary  idea  negligence,  especially  in  gait " 
(Ges.).  It  is  clear  that,  so  far  as  derivation  goes, 
there  appears  to  be  more  of  reference  to  general  and 
actual  sin  in  the  former,  to  special  cases  of  negli 
gence  in  the  latter. 

Turning  next  to  the  description,  in  the  Book  of 
Leviticus,  of  the  circumstances  under  which  each 


it  is  never  used  in  application  to  any  other  sacrifice  ir 
Genesis  or  Exodus,  alone  makes  the  translation  "  sin 
offering  "  here  very  improbable. 


1324: 


SIN-OFFERING 


should  ve  offered,  we  find  one  important  passage 
Lev.  v.  1-13)  in  wnich  the  sacrifice  is  called  first 
a  "  trespass-offering  "  (ver.  6),  and  then  a  "  sin- 
offering"  (ver.  7,  9,  11,  12j.  But  the  nature  of 
the  victims  in  ver.  6  agrees  with  the  ceremonial 
of  the  latter,  not  of  the  former  ;  the  application  of 
th*  latter  name  is  more  emphatic  and  reiterated; 
and  there  is  at  ver.  1 4  a  formal  introduction  of  the 
lavs  of  the  trespass-offering,  exactly  as  of  the  law 
of  the  sin-offering  in  iv.  I .  It  is  therefore  safe  to 
conclude  that  the  word  Dfc^tf  is  not  here  used  in 
its  technical  sense,  and  that  the  passage  is  to  be 
referred  to  the  sin-offering  only. 

We  find  then  that  the  sin-offerings  were— 

(A.)  REGULAR. 

(1.)  For  the  whole  people,  at  the  New  Moon, 
Passover,  Pentecost,  Feast  of  Trumpets,  and  Feast 
of  Tabernacles  (Num.  xxviii.  15-xxix.  38);  besides 
the  solemn  offering  of  the  two  goats  on  the  Great 
Day  of  Atonement  (Lev.  xvi.). 

(2.)  For  the  Priests  and  Levites  at  their  conse 
cration  (Ex.  xxix.  10-14,  36)  ;  besides  the  yearly 
sin-offering  (a  bullock)  for  the  high-priest  on  the 
Great  Day  of  Atonement  (Lev.  xvi.).b 

(B.)  SPECIAL. 

(1.)  For  any  sin  of  "  ignorance"  against  the 
commandment  of  the  Lord,  on  the  part  of  priest, 
people,  ruler,  or  private  man  (Lev.  iv.). 

(2.)  For  refusal  to  bear  witness  under  adjura 
tion  (Lev.  v.  1). 

(3.)  For  ceremonial  defilement  not  wilfully  con 
tracted  (Lev.  v.  2,  3),  under  which  may  be  classed 
the  offerings  at  the  purification  of  women  (xii.  6-8), 
at  the  cleansing  of  leprosy  (xiv.  19,  31)  or  the  un- 
cleanness  of  men  or  women  (xv.  15,  30),  on  the 
defilement  of  a  Nazarite  (Num.  vi.  6-11)  or  the 
expiration  of  his  vow  (16). 

(4.)  For  the  breach  of  a  rash  oath,  the  keeping 
of  which  would  involve  sin  (Lev.  v.  4). 

The  trespass-offerings,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
always  special,  as — 

(1.)  For  sacrilege  "  in  ignorance,"  with  compen 
sation  for  the  harm  done,  and  the  gift  of  a  fifth  part 
of  the  value  besides  to  the  priest  (Lev.  v.  15,  16). 

(2.)  For  ignorant  transgression  against  some 
definite  prohibition  of  the  Law  (v.  17-19). 

(3.)  For  fraud,  suppression  of  the  truth,  or  per 
jury  against  man,  with  compensation,  and  with  the 
addition  of  a  fifth  part  of  the  value  of  the  property 
in  question  to  the  person  wronged  (vi.  1-6). 

(4.)  For  rape  of  a  betrothed  slave  (Lev.  xix.  20, 
21). 

(5.)  At  the  purification  of  the  leper  (Lev.  xiv. 
12),  .and  the  polluted  Nazarite  (Num.  vi.  12), 
offered  with  the  sin-offering. 

From  this  enumeration  it  will  be  clear  that  the 
two  classes  of  sacrifices,  although  distinct,  touch 
closely  upon  each  other,  as  especially  in  B.  (1)  of 
the  sin-offering,  and  (2)  of  the  trespass-offering. 
It  is  also  evident  that  the  sin-offering  was  the  only 
regular  and  general  recognition  of  sin  in  the  ab 
stract,  and  accordingly  was  far  more,  solemn  and 
symbolical  in  its  ceremonial ;  the  trespass-offering 
vvas  confined  to  special  cases,  most  of  which  related 
to  the  doing  of  some  material  damage,  either  to  the 
holy  things  or  to  man,  except  in  (5),  where  the 


SIN-OFFERING 

trespass-offering  is  united  with  the  sii: -offering, 
Josephus  (Ant.  iii.  9,  §3)  declares  that  the  sin- 
offering  is  presented  by  those  "  who  fall  into  sin  in 
ignorance"  (/car*  0171/0  tew),  and  the  trespass- offer  ing 
by  "  one  who  has  sinned  and  is  conscious  of  his  sin, 
but  has  no  one  to  convict  him  thereof."  From  this 
it  may  be  inferred  (as  by  Winer  and  others)'  that 
the  former  was  used  in  cases  of  known  sin  against 
some  definite  law,  the  latter  in  the  case  of  secret 
sin,  unknown,  or,  if  known,  not  liable  to  judicial 
cognizance.  Other  opinions  have  been  entertained, 
widely  different  from,  and  even  opposed  to,  one 
another.  Many  of  them  are  given  in  Winer's 
Realw.  "  Schuldopfer."  The  opinions  which  sup 
pose  one  offering  due  for  sins  of  omission,  and  the 
other  for  sins  of  commission,  have  no  foundation  in 
the  language  of  the  Law.  Others,  with  more  plausi 
bility,  refer  the  sin-offering  to  sins  of  pure  igno 
rance,  the  trespass-offering  to  those  of  a  more  sinful 
and  deliberate  character ;  but  this  does  not  agree 
with  Lev.  v.  17-19,  and  is  contradicted  by  the 
solemn  contrast  between  sins  of  ignorance,  which 
might  be  atoned  for,  and  "sins  of  presumption," 
against  which  death  without  mercy  is  denounced  in 
Num.  xv.  30.  A  third  opinion  supposes  the  sin- 
offering  to  refer  to  sins  for  which  no  material  and 
earthly  atonement  could  be  made,  the  trespass- 
offering  to  those  for  which  material  compensation 
was  possible.  This  theory  has  something  to  sup 
port  it  in  the  fact  that  in  some  cases  (see  Lev.  v. 
15,  16,  vi.  1-6)  compensation  was  prescribed  as 
accessory  to  the  sacrifice.  Others  seek  more  re 
condite  distinctions,  supposing  (e.  g.}  that  the 
sin-offering  had  for  its  object  the  cleansing  of  the 
sanctuary  or  the  commonwealth,  and  the  trespass- 
offering  the  cleansing  of  the  individual ;  or  that 
the  former  referred  to  the  effect  of  sin  upon  the  soul 
itself,  the  latter  to  the  effect  of  sin  as  the  breach  of 
an  external  law.  Without  attempting  to  decide  so 
difficult  and  so  controverted  a  question,  we  may- 
draw  the  following  conclusions  : —  • 

First,  that  the  sin-offering  was  far  the  more 
solemn  and  comprehensive  of  the  two  sacrifices. 

Secondly,  that  the  sin-offering  looked  more  to 
the  guilt  of  the  sin  done,  irrespective  of  its  conse 
quences,  while  the  trespass-offering  looked  to  the 
evil  consequences  of  sin,  either  against  the  service 
of  God,  or  against  man,  and  to  the  duty  of  atone 
ment,'  as  far  as  atonement  was  possible.  Hence  the 
two  might  with  propriety  be  offered  together. 

Thirdly,  that  in  the  sin-offering  especially  we 
find  symbolized  the-  acknowledgment  of  sinfulness 
as  inherent  in  man,  and  of  the  need  of  expiatior 
by  sacrifice  to  renew  the  broken  covenant  betweeu 
man  and  God-. 

There  is  one  other  question  of  some  interest,  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  sins  for  which  either  sacrifice 
could  be  offered.  It  is  seen  at  once  that  in  the  Law 
of  Leviticus,  most  of  them,  which  are  not  purely 
ceremonial,  are  called  sins  of  "  ignorance "  (sec 
Heb.  ix.  7);  and  in  Num.  xv.  30,  it  is  expressly 
said  that  while  such  sins  can  be  atoned  for  by  offer 
ings,  "  the  soul  that  doeth  aught  presumptuously  " 
(Heb.  with  a  high  hand]  "  shall  be  cut  off  from 
among  his  people."  ..."  His  iniquity  shall  be  upon 
him  "  (comp.  Heb.  x.  26).  But  there  are  sufficient 
indications  that  the  sins  heie  called  "  of  igno 
rance'  are  more  strictly  those  of  "  negligence"  01 


b  To  these  niay  be  added  the  sacrifice  of  the  red 
heifer  (conducted  with  tbe  ceremonial  of  a  sin-offering), 
from  the  ashes  of  which  was  made  the  "  water  of  sepa» 


ration,"  used  in  certain  cases  of  ceremonial 
See  Num.  xix. 


SINA.  MOUNT 

*•  fraiity,"c  repented  of  by  the  unpunished  offender, 
as  opposed  to  those  of  deliberate  and  unrepentant 
sin.  The  Hebrew  word  itself  and  its  derivations 
are  so  used  in  Ps.  cxix.  67  (eTrATjjU/xeA.rjfra,  LXX.)  ; 
1  Sam.  xxvi.  21  (7/7^ 6rjKa)  ;  Ps.  xix.  13  (Trapairrca- 
uara)  ;  Job  xix.  4  (ir\iivos].  The  words  or/z/oTj/ita 
and  iiyvota  have  a  corresponding  extent  of  meaning 
in  tlie  N.  T. ;  as  when  in  Acts  iii.  17,  the  Jews,  in 
their  crucifixion  of  our  Lord,  are  said  to  have  acted 
(war*  avvoiav  ;  and  in  Eph.  iv.  18,  1  Pet.  i.  14, 
the  vices  of  heathenism,  done  against  the  light  of 
conscience,  are  still  referred  to  &yvoia.  The  use 
of  the  word  (like  that  of  a.yvca/j.ove'tv  in  classical 
Greek)  is  found  in  all  languages,  and  depends  on 
the  idea  that  goodness  is  man's  true  wisdom,  and 
that  sin  is  the  failing  to  recognfze  this  truth.  If 
from  the  word  we  turn  to  the  sins  actually  referred 
to  in  Lev.  iv.  v.,  we  find  some  which  certainly  are 
not  sins  of  pure  ignorance;  they  are  indeed  few 
cut  of  the  whole  range  of  sin  fulness,  but  they  are 
real  sins.  The  later  Jews  (see  Outram,  De  Sacri- 
ficiis)  limited  the  application  of  the  sin-offering  to 
negative  sins,  sins  in  ignorance,  and  sins  in  action, 
,iot  in  thought,  evidently  conceiving  it  to  apply  to 
actual  sins,  but  to  sins  of  a  secondary  order. 

In  considering  this  subject,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  sacrifices  of  the  Law  had  a  temporal,  as 
well  as  a  spiritual,  significance  and  effect.  They 
restored  an  offender  to  his  place  in  the  common 
wealth  of  Israel ;  they  were  therefore  an  atonement 
to  the  King  of  Israel  for  the  infringement  of  His 
law.  It  is  clear  that  this  must  have  limited  the 
extent  of  their  legal  application  ;  for  the-re  are 
crimes,  for  which  the  interest  and  very  existence  of 
a  society  demand  that  there  should  be  no  pardon. 
But  so  far  as  the  sacrifices  had  a  spiritual  and 
typical  meaning,  so  Jar  as  they  were  sought  by  a 
repentant  spirit  as  a  sign  and  means  of  leconcile- 
ment  with  God,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  they 
had  a  wider  scope  and  a  real  spiritual  effect,  so 
long  as  their  typical  character  remained.  [See 
SACRIFICE.] 

For  the  more  solemn  sin-offerings,  see  DAV  OF 
ATONEMENT;  LEPROSY,  &c.  [A.  B.] 

SI'NA,  MOUNT  (rb  Spos  2eiva  :  mons  Strut). 
The  Greek  form  of  the  well-known  name  which  in 
the  0.  T.  universally,  and  as  often  as  not  in  the 
Apocr.  and  N.  T.,  is  given  in  the  A.  V.  SINAI. 
Sina  occurs  Jud.  v.  14  ;»  Acts  vii.  30,  38.  [G.] 

SI'NAI  (Wp :  ~$iva  :  Sinai}.  Nearly  in  the 
centre  of  the  peninsula  which  stretches  between  the 
horns  of  the  Red  Sea  lies  a  wedge  of  granite,  griin- 
stein,  and  porphyry  rocks,  rising  to  between  8000 
find  9000  feet  above  the  sea.  Its  shape  resembles 
a  scalene  triangle,  with  a  crescent  cut  from  its 
uwthern  or  longer  side,  on  which  border  Russegger's 
map  gives  a  broad  skirting  tract  of  old  red  sand- 
Itone,  reaching  nearly  from  gulf  to  gulf,  and  tra- 


«  From  the  root  J3£>,  or  !"13!£>,  signifying  to  "  err" 
or  "  wander  out  of  the  way,"  cognate  in  sense  to  the  root 
wf  the  word  chattatk  itself. 

a  In  this  passage  the  present  Greek  text,  of  both  MSS., 
reads  ets  bSov,  not  6pos,  TOV  Setva.  But  the  note  in  the 
margin  of  the  A.  V.  of  1611  is,  notwithstanding,  wrong— 
•  Greek,  into  the  way  of  the  wilderness  of  Sina;"  that 
being  nearer  to  the  Vulg.  deserta  tfina  mantis  occupa- 
*ruttt. 

b  See  Robinson's  "  Memoir  on  the  Maps "  (Vol.  iii. 
Appeudix  1,  pp.  32-39),  a  most  important  comment  on  the 
different  sources  of  authority  for  different  portions  of  the 


RINAI  1326 

versed  by  a  few  ridges,  chiefly  of  a  tertiaiy  forma 
tion,  running  nearly  N.W.  and  S.E.  On  the  S.W. 
side  of  this  triangle,  a  -vide  alluvial  plain — nar 
:-owing,  however,  towards  the  N. — lines  the  coast 
of  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  whilst  that  on  the  eastern  or 
Akabah  coast  is  so  narrow  as  almost  to  disappear. 
Between  these  alluvial  edges  and  the  granitic  mas? 
a  strip  of  the  same  sandstone  is  interposed,  the  two 
trips  converging  at  Ras  Mohammed,  the  southern 
piomontory  of  the  whole.  This  nucleus  of  plutonic 
rocks  is  said  to  bear  no  trace  of  volcanic  action 
since  the  original  upheaval  of  its  masses  (Stanky, 
21,  22).  Laborde  (Travels,  p.  105)  thought  he 
detected  some,  but  does  not  affirm  it.  Its  general 
configuration  runs  into  neither  ranges  nor  peaks, 
but  is  that  of  a  plateau  cut  across  with  intersecting 
wadys,b  whence  spring  the  cliffs  and  mountain 
peaks,  beginning  with  a  very  gradual  and  termi 
nating  in  a  very  steep  ascent.  It  has  been  arranged 
(Stanley,  S.  and  P.  11)  in  three  chief  masses  as 
follows  :— 

1.  The  NAY.  cluster  above  Wady  Feirdn;  ita 
greatest   relief  found  in  the  five-peaked   ridge  ot 
Serbdl,  at  a  height  of  6342   feet  above  the  sea. 
(For  an  account  of  the  singular  natural  basin  into 
which  the  waters  of  this  portion  of  the  mountain 
mass  are  received,  and  its  probable  connexion  with 
Scriptural  topography,  see  REPHIDIM.) 

2.  The  eastern  and  central  one ;  its  highest  point 
the  Jebel  Katkerin^  at  a  height  of  8063  (Riippell) 
to  8168  (Russegger)  feet,  and  including  the  Jebel 
Musa,  the  height  of  which    is  variously  set  (by 
Schubert,  Riippell,  and  Russegger)  at  6796,  7033, 
and  7i)97  feet. 

3.  The  S.E.  one,  closely  connected,  however, 
with  2  ;  its  highest  point,  Urn  Shaumer,  being  that 
also  of  the  whole. 

The  three  last-named  peaks  all  lie  very  nearly 
in  a  line  of  about  9  miles  drawn  from  the  most 
northerly  of  them,  Musa,  a  little  to  the  W.  of  S. ; 
and  a  perpendicular  to  this  line,  traced  on  the  map 
westwards  for  about  20  miles,  nearly  traverses  the 
whole  length  of  the  range  of  Serbdl.  These  lines 
show  the  area  of  greafest  relief  for  the  peninsula,0 
nearly  equidistant  from  each  of  its  embracing  gulfs, 
and  also  from  its  northern  base,  the  range  of  Et  Tih, 
and  its  southern  apex,  the  Ras  Mohammed. 

Before  considering  the  claims  of  the  individual 
mountains  to  Scriptural  notice,  there  occurs  a  ques 
tion  regarding  the  relation  of  the  names  Horeb  and 
Sinai.  The  latter  name  first  occurs  as  that  of  the 
limit  on  the  further  side  from  Egypt  of  the  wilder 
ness  of  Sin  (Ex.  xvi.  1),  and  again  (xix.  1,  2)  as 
the  "wilderness"  or  "desert  of  Sinai,"  before 
Mount  Sinai  is  actually  spoken  of,  as  in  ver.  11 
soon  after  we  find  it.  But  the  name  "  Horeb  "d  is, 
in  the  case  of  the  rebuke  of  the  people  by  God  foi 
their  sin  in  making  the  golden  calf,  reintroduced 
into  the  Sinaitic  narrative  (xxxiii.  6),  halving 


region,  and  the  weight  due  to  each,  and  containing  a  just 
caution  regarding  the  indications  of  surface  aspect  given 
by  Laborde. 

c  Dr.  Stanley  (77)  notices  another  "very  high  moun 
tain  S.W.  of  Um-Shom'r,  apparently  calculated  by  Ruppeli 
to  be  the  highest  in  the  peninsula  .  .  .  possibly  that  called 
by  Burckhardt  Thorn-mar,  or  El  Koly."  But  this  seems 
only  to  effect  an  extereion  of  the  area  of  the  relief  in  the 
direction  indicated. 

d  Dr.  Stanley  has  spoken  of  two  of  the  three  passages  in 
Exodus  in  which  Horeb  occurs  (iii.  1,  xvii.  6)  as  "  doubtful," 
and  of  the  third  (xxxiii.  6)  as  "  ambiguous ;"  but  he  ik/ss 
not  say  on  what  grounds  (tf.  ifc  /'.  29.  note). 


1326 


SINAI 


fc<:en  previously  most  recently  used  in  the  story  of 
the  murmuring  at  Kephidim  (xvii.  6,  "  I  will  stand 
before  thee  there  upon  the  rock  in  Horeb"),  and 
earlier  as  the  name  of  the  scene  of  the  appearance 
of  God  in  the  "burning  bush"  (iii.  1).  Now, 
since  Rephidim  seems  to  be  a  desert  stage  apart 
from  the  place  where  Israel  "  camped  before  the 
mount"  (Sinai,  xix.  2),  it  is  not  easy  to  account 
for  a  Horeb  at  Rephidim,  apparently  as  the  specific 
spot  of  a  particular  transaction  (so  that  the  refuge 
of  a  "general"  name  Horeb,  contrasted  with  Sinai 
as  a  special  one,  is  cut  off),  and  a  Horeb  in  the 
Sinaitic  region,  apparently  a  synonym  of  the  moun 
tain  which,  since  the  scene  of  the  narrative  is  fixed 
at  it,  had  been  called  Sinai.  Lepsius  removes  the 
difficulty  by  making  Serbdl  Sinai,  but  against  this 
it  will  be  seen  that  there  are  even  stronger  objec 
tions.  But  a  proper  name  given  from  a  natural 
feature  may  recur  with  that  feature.  Such  is 
"  Horeb,"  properly  signifying  "  ground  left  dry 
by  water  chaining  off."  Now  both  at  Rephidim 
and  at  Kadesh  Men  bah,  where  was  the  "  fountain 
of  judgment"  (Gen.  xiv.  7),  it  is  expressly  men 
tioned  that  "there  was  no  water;"  and  the  in 
ference  is  that  some  ordinary  supply,  expected  to 
be  found  there,  had  failed,  possibly  owing  to 
drought.  "  The  rock  in  Horeb"  was  (Ex.  xvii.  6) 
what  Moses  smote.  It  probably  stood  on  the  exact 
spot  where  the  water  was  expected  to  be,  but  was 
not.  Now  Lepsius  (Tour,  April  22,  transl.  by 
Cottrell,  p.  74)  found  in  Wady  Feiran,  which  he 
identifies  with  Rephidim,  singular  alluvial  banks  of 
earth  which  may  have  once  formed  the  bottom  of  a 
lake  since  dried.6  If  this  was  the  scene  of  the 
miracle  [see  REPHIDIM],  the  propriety  of  the  name 
Horeb,  as  applied  to  it,  becomes  clear.  Further,  in 
all  the  places  of  Deut.  where  Horeb  is  found  [see 
HOREB],  it  seems  to  be  used  in  reference  to  the 
people  as  the  place  where  they  stood  to  receive, 
rather  than  whence  God  appeared  to  give  the  law, 
which  is  apparently  in  the  same  Book  of  Deut.  in 
dicated  by  Sinai  (xxxiii.  2);  and  in  the  one  re 
maining  passage  of  Exod.,  where  Horeb  occurs  in 
the  narrative  of  the  s;ime  events,,  it  is  used  also  in 
reference  to  the  people  (xxxiii.  6),  and  probably  refers 
to  what  they  had  previously  done  in  the  matter  of  the 
golden  calf  (xxxii.  2,  3).  If  this  be  accepted,  there 
remains  in  the  Pentateuch  only  Ex.  iii.  1,  where 
Moses  led  the  flocks  of  Jethro  "  to  the  mountain 
of  God,  to  Horeb  ;"  but  this  form  of  speech,  which 
seerns  to  identify  two  local  names,  is  sometimes  not 
a  strict  apposition,  but  denotes  an  extension,  espe 
cially  where  the  places  are  so  close  together  that 
the  writer  tacitly  recognizes  them  as  one.f  Thus 
Horeb,  strictly  taken,  may  probably  be  a  dry  plain, 
valley,  or  bed  of  a  wady  near  the  mountain ;  and 
yet  Mount  Horeb,  on  the  "vast  green  plain"  of 
which  was  doubtless  excellent  pasture,  may  mean 
the  mountain  viewed  in  reference  thereto,*  or  its 

*  "Alluvial  mounds"  are  visible  at  the  foot  of  the 
modern  Horeb  cliffs  in  the  plain  Er  Raheli ;  just  as  Lepsius 
noticed  others  at  the  Wady  Ftirun.  (Comp.  Stanley,  S.  tfe  P. 
40,  Lepsius,  84). 

f  So  in  Gen.  xiii.  3,  Abram  goes  "  to  Bethel,  unto  the 
place  where  his  tent  had  been  at  the  beginning,  between 
Bethel  and  Hai ;"  i.  e.  really  to  Bethel,  and  somewhat 
further. 

8  It  ought  not  to  be  left  unnoticed  that  different  tribes 
<  f  the  desert  often  seem  to  give  different  names  to  the 
same  mountain,  valley,  &c.,  or  the  same  names  to  different 
n  oun  tains,  &c.,  because  perhaps  they  judge  of  them  by  the 
which  leading  features  group  themselves  to  the 


SINAI 

side  abutting  thereon.  The  mention  of  Horeb  ic 
later  books  (e.g.  I  K.  viii.  9,  xix.  8)  .seems  to  show 
that  it  had  then  become  the  designation  of  the 
mountain  and  region  generally.  The  spot  where 
the  people  themselves  took  part  in  the  greatest 
event  of  their  history  would  natural1  f  become  the 
popular  name  in  later  designations  of  that  event 
"  Thou  stoodest  before  the  Lord  thy  God  in  Horeb" 
was  a  literal  fact,  and  became  the  great  lasis  of  all 
traditions  of  it.  By  this  they  recognized  that  they 
had  been  brought  into  covenant  with  God.  On  the 
contrary,  in  Neh.  ix.  13,  we  read,  "  Thou  earnest 
down  upon  Mount  Sinai." 

But  beyond  the  question  of  the  relation  which 
these  names  mutually  bear,  there  remains  that  of 
site.  Sinai  is  clearly  a  summit  distinctly  marked. 
Where  are  we  to  look  for  it?  There  are  three 
principal  views  in  answer  to  this  question  : — 

I.  That  of  Lepsius.  above  mentioned,  favoured 
also  by  Burckhardt  (Trav.  p.  fi09),  that  Serbal  is 
Sinai,  some  30  miles  distant  westward  from  the 
Jebel  Musa,  but  close  to  the  Wady  Feirdn  and 
El  ffcssue,  which  he  identifies,  as  do  most  authori 
ties,  with  Rephidim  (Lepsius,  74),  just  a  mile  frorc 
the  old  convent  of  Fardn.  On  this  view  Israel 
would  have  reached  Sinai  the  same  day  that  they 
fought  with  Amalek :  "  the  decampment  occurred 
during  the  battle"  (ib.  86) — an  unlikely  thing, 
since  the  contest  was  evidently  fierce  and  close, 
and  lasted  till  sunset.  Serbal  is  the  most  magnifi 
cent  mountain  of  the  peninsula,  rising  with  a  crown 
of  five  peaks  from  the  maritime  plain  on  one  side, 
and  from  the  Wady  Feirdn  on  the  other,  and 
showing  its  full  height  at  once  to  the  eye ;  and 
Ritter  (Geogr.  xiv.  734-6J  has  suggested11  that  it 
might  have  been,  before  the  actual  Exodus,  known 
as  "  the  mount  of  God"  to  the  Amalekite  Arabs, 
and  even  to  the  Egyptians.1  The  earliest  traditions 
are  in  its  favour.  "  It  is  undoubtedly  identified 
with  Sinai  by  Eusebius,  Jerome,  and  Cosmas,  that 
is,  by  all  known  writers  to  the  time  of  Justinian," 
as  confirmed  by  the  position  "  of  the  episcopal  city 
of  Paran  at  its  foot"  (Stanley,  S.  and  P.  40). 

But  there  are  two  main  objections  to  this : — (1.) 
It  is  clear,  from  Ex.  xix.  2  (comp.  xvii.  1),  that  the 
interval  between  Rephidim  and  Sinai  was  that  of  a 
regular  stage  of  the  march.  The  expressions  in  the 
Hebrew  are  those  constantly  used  for  decamping 
and  encamping  in  the  Books  of  Ex.,  Num.,  and 
Deut. ;  and  thus  a  Sinai  within  a  mile  of  Rephidim 
is  unsuitable.  (2.)  There  is  no  plain  or  wady  of 
any  sufficient  size  near  Serbal  to  offer  camping 
ground  to  so  large  a  host,  or  perhaps  the  tenth 
part  of  them. .  Dr.  Stewart  (The  Tent  and  the 
Khan,  p.  146)  contends  for  Serbdl  as  the  real 
Sinai,  seeking  to  obviate  objection  (1).  by  mak 
ing  Rephidim  "  no  higher  up  than  Heshueh  " 
[REPHIDIM],  and  (2),  by  regarding  Wady  Aleiat 
and  Wady  Eimm  as  capacious  enough  for  the 


aye,  and  which  varies  with  the  habitual  point  of  view 
(Lepsius,  64). 

h  Robinson,  on  the  other  hand  (1.  78-9),  suggests  that 
SurdMt  el  Kkadim  (or  Chadem),  lying  north  of  Serbdl 
was  a  place  of  pilgrimage  to  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
and  a  supposable  object  of  Moses'  proposed  "  three  days' 
journey  into  the  wilderness."  But  that  pilgrimage  was 
an  element  in  the  religion  of  ancient  Egypt  seems  at 
least  doubtful. 

>  So  Dr.  Stewart  (The  Tent  and  tJte  Khan,  p.  147)  says 
"  that  it  was  a  place  of  idolatrous  worship  before  th9 
passage  of  the  children  of  Israel  is  extremely  prcbable ' 
He  renders  the  name  by  "  Lord  Baal.* 


BINAI 

hc*t  t»  camj   in   (ib.   p.   145): — a  very  doubtful 
Marrtion. 

II.  The  second  is  that  of  Ritter,k  that,  allowing 
Serbal  the    reverence  of  an   early  sanctuary,  the 
Jebel   Musa    is    Sinai,   and    that   the     Wady   cs 
Sebayeh,  which  its  S.E.  or  highest  summit  over 
hangs,  is  the  spot  where  the  people  camped  before 
the  mount ;    but  the   second   objection  to  Serbal 
applies  almost  in  equal  force  to  this — the  want  of 
space  below.     The  wady  is  "  rough,  uneven,  and 
narrow  "  (Stanley,  S.  and  P.  76)  ;   and  there  seems 
no  possibility  of  the  people's  "  removing  (Ex.  xx. 
18)  and  standing  afar  off,"  and  yet  preserving  any 
connexion  with  the  scene.     Further,  this  site  offers 
no  such  feature,  as  a  "brook  that  descended  out  of 
the  mount"  (Deut.  ix.  21). 

III.  The  third  is  that  of  Robinson,  that  the  mo 
dern    Horeb  of  the   monks — viz.    the  N.W.    and 
lower  face  of  the   Jebel   Musa,  crowned  with   a 
range  of  magnificent  cliffs,  the  highest  point  called 
Ras  Sasdfeh,  or  Sufsdfeh,  as  spelt  by  Robinson — 
overlooking  the  plain  er  Rahah,  is  the  scene  of  the 
giving  of  the  Law,  and  that  peak  the  mountain 
into  which  Moses  ascended.      In  -this  view,  also, 
Strauss  appears  to  coincide  (Sinai  and  Golgotha, 
p.  116).     Lepsius  objects,  but  without  much  force 
(since  he  himself  climbed  it),  that  the  peak  Sasdfeh 
is  nearly  inaccessible.     It  is  more  to  the  purpose  to 
observe  that  the  whole  Jebel  Musa  is,   compara 
tively  with  adjacent  mountains,  insignificant ;  "  its 
prospect  limited  in  the  east,  south,  and  west,  by 
higher  mountains  "  (Riippell,m  quoted  by  Robinson, 
i.  105,  note ;  comp.  Seetzen,  Reisen,  vol.  ii.  p.  93) ; 
that  it  is  "  remote  and  almost  concealed."     But 
the  high  ground  of  Serbal  being  rejected  for  the 
above  reasons,  and  no  voice  having  ever  been  raised 
in  favour  of  the  Urn  Shaumer*  the  highest  point  in 
the  peninsula,  lying  S.W.  of  the  Musat  some  such 
secondary  and  overshadowed  peak  must  be  assumed. 
The   conjunction  of  mountain  with   plain   is  the 
greatest  feature  of  this  site  ;  in  choosing  it,  we  lose 
in  the  mountain,  as  compared  with  Serbal,  but  we 
gain  in  the  plain,  of  which  Serbal  has  nothing. 
Yet  the  view  from  the  plain  appears  by  no  means 
wanting  in  features  of  majesty  and  awe  (S.  and  P. 
42-3).      Dr.   Stanley    remarked    (S.  and  P.  43) 
some   alluvial    mounds    at    the   foot   of  the   cliff 
"  which  exactly  answered  to  the  bounds "  set  to 
restrain  the  people.     In  this  long  retiring  sweep  of 
er  Rahah    the  people  could   "  remove  and  stand 
afar  off;"  for  it  "  extends  into  the  lateral  valleys," 
and  so  joins  the  Wady  es  Sheykh  (ib.  74).     Here 
too  Moses,  if  he  came  down  through  one  of  the 
oblique  gullies  which  flank  the  Ras  Sasdfeh  on  the 
N.  and  S.,  might  not  see  the  camp,  although  he 
might   catch  its  noise,  till  he  emerged  from  the 

Wady  ed  Deir,  or  the  Wady  Lejd,  on  the  pl.-iin 
itself.  In  the  latter,  also,  is  found  a  brook  in  close 
connexion  with  the  mountain. 

Still  there  is  the  name  of  the  Jebel  Musa  be 
longing  to  the  opposite  or  S.E.  peak  or  precipice, 
overhanging  Es  Sebayeh.  Lepsius  treats  this  as  a 


SINAI 


1321; 


monkish  legend  unKiiown  before  the  con  vent;  but 
there  i^  the  name  Wady  Skouaib  (valley  of  Hobac 
or  Jethro.  S.  and  P.  32),  the  Wady  Lejd  and 
Jebel  Fureid  (perhaps  from  the  forms  in  Arabic 
legend  of  the  names  of  his  two  daughters  Lija  and 
Safuria  =  Zipporah),  forming  a  group  of  Mosaic  t  a- 
dition.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the  Jebel  Musa,  or 
loftiest  south-eastern  peak  of  that  block  of  which 
the  modern  Horeb  is  the  lower  and  opposite  end, 
may  have  been  the  spot  to  which  Moses  retired, 
leaving  the  people  encamped  in  er  Rahah  below, 
from  which  its  distance  is  not  above  three  miles? 
That  the  spot  is  out  of  sight  from  that  plain  is 
hardly  a  difficulty,  for  "  the  mountain  burning 
with  fire  to  the  rnidst  of  heaven "  was  what  the 
people  saw  (Deut.  iv.  11);  and  this  would  give  a 
reasonable  distance  for  the  spot,  somewhere  mid 
way,  whence  the  elders  enjoyed  a  partial  vision  of 
God  (Ex.  xxiv.  9,  10). 

Tradition,  no  doubt  in  this  case  purely  monkish, 
has  fixed  on  a  spot  for  Elijah's  visit — "  the  cave  " 
to  which  he  repaired;  but  one  at  Serbal  would 
equally  suit  (S,  and  P.  49).  That  on  the  Jebel 
Musa  is  called  the  chapel  of  St.  Elias.  It  has  been 
thought  possible  that  St.  Paul  may  have  visited 
Sinai  (Gal.  i.  17),  and  been  familiar  with  the  name 

Hajar  («^SVs*)  as  given  commonly  to  it,  signify 
ing  "  a  rock."  (Ewald,  Sendschreiben,  493.) 

It  may  be  added  that,  supposing  Wady  Tayibeh 
to  have  been  the  encampment  "  by  the  sea,"  as 
stated  in  Num.  xxxiii.  10,  three  routes  opened 
there  before  the  Israelites  :  the  most  southerly  one 
(taken  by  Shawe  and  Pococke)  down  the  plain  el 
Kda  to  Tur  ;  the  most  northerly  (Robinson's)  by  the 
Sarbut  el  Khadem  (either  of  which  would  have  left 
Serbal  out  of  their  line  of  march)  ;  and  the  middle 
one  by  Wady  Feirdn,  by  which  they  would  pass 
the  foot  of  Serbal,  which  therefore  in  this  case 
alone  could  possibly  be  Sinai  (Stanley,  S.  and  P. 
36,  37).  Just  east  of  the  Jebel  Musa,  across  the 
narrow  ravine  named  Shouaib,  lies  ed-Deir,  or  the 
convent  mountain,  called  also,  from  a  local  legend 
(Stanley,  46  ;  Robinson,"i.  98),  "  the  Mount  of  the 
Burning  Bush."  Tradition  has  also  fixed  on  a 
hollow  rock  in  the  plain  of  the  Wady  es  Sheykh, 
on  which  the  modern  Horeb  looks,  as  "  the  (mould 
of  the)  head  of  the  cow,"  i.  e.  in  which  the  golden 
calf  was  shaped  by  Aaron.  In  the  ravine  called 
Lejd,  parallel  to  Shouaib  on  the  western  side  of  the 
Jebel  Musa,  lies  what  is  called  the  rock  of  Moses 
(see  REPHIDIM);  and  a  hole  in  the  ground  near, 
n  the  plain,  is  called,  by  manifest  error,  the  "  pit 
of  Korah,"  whose  catastrophe  took  place  far  away 
(Robinson,  i.  113  ;  Lepsius,  19). 

The  middle  route  aforesaid  from  W.  Tayibeh 
reaches  the  W.  Feirdn  through  what  is  called  the 
W.  Mokatteb,  or  "  written  valley,"  from  the  in 
scriptions  on  the  rocks  which  line  it,0  generally 
considered  to  have  been  the  work  of  Christian 
hands,  but  whether  those  of  a  Christian  people 
localised  there  at  an  unknown  period,  as  Lep- 


k  Geogr.  xiv.  593. 

m  It  should  be  added  that  Riippell  (Lepsius,  p.  12)  took 
Gebel  Ka.ihe.rin  for  Horeb,  but  that  there  are.  fewer 
leatarcs  in  its  favour,  as  compared  with  the  history,  than 
almost  any  other  site  (Robinson,  i.  110). 

»  Thoigh  Dr.  Stanley  (S.  &  P.  39,  note)  states  that  it 
has  been  "  explored  by  Mr.  Hogg,  who  tells  me  that  it 
meets  none  of  the  special  requirements." 

0  See  the  work  of  Professor  Beer  of  Leipsic  on  this 
serious  question.  Mr.  Forster's  attempt  (1'oiee  of 


from  the  Rocks  of  Sinai)  to  regard  them  as  a  contem 
porary  record  of  the  Exodus  by  the  Israelites  involves  this 
anachronism :  the  events  of  the  fortieth  year— e.  g.  the 
plague  of  fiery  serpents — are  represented  as  recorded  close 
on  the  same  spot  with  what  took  place  before  the  people 
reached  Sinai ;  and  although  the  route  which  they  took 
cannot  he  traced  in  all  its  parts,  yet  all  the  evidence  am] 
all  the  probability  of  the  question  is  clearly  against  their 
ever  having  returned  from  Kadeab.  and  the  Arabili  to  th« 
valleys  west  of  Sinai. 


13*28 


SLMD1 


sius?  (p.  90)  thinks,  or  of  passing  pilgrims,  as  is  the 

more  general  opinion,  is  likely  to  continue  doubtful. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the   names   of  the  chief 

peaks  seem  all  borrowed  from  their  peculiarities 

•)f  vegetation :  thus  Urn  Sltomr'  (y+j*  *\)  means 
'«  mother  of  fennel ;"  R&sSas&feh  (properly  Sufsafeh, 
<wLA<aiA£>)  is  "  willow-head,"  a  group  of  two  or 
three  of  which  trees  grow  in  the  recesses  of  the 
adjacent  wady  ;  so  Serbal  is  perhaps  from  jljj^vy*  ? 

and,  from  analogy,  the  name  "  Sinai,"  now  un 
known  amongst  the  Arabs  (unless  Sena,  given  to 
the  point  of  the  Jebel  Fureia,  opposite  to  the  mo 
dern  Horeb  (Stanley,  42),  contain  a  trace  of  it), 

*  -  -t> 

may  be  supposed  derived  from  the  IAAM  and  vjuww*  the 
tree  of  the  Burning  Bush.  The  vegetation  «  of  the 
peninsula  is  most  copious  at  El  Wady,  near  Tur, 
on  the  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  in  the  Wady 
Feircm  [see  REPHIDIM],  the  two  oases  of  its  waste, 
and  "  in  the  nucleus  of  springs  in  the  Gebel  Mousa" 
(Stanley,  19).  For  a  fuller  account  of  its  flora,  see 
WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING.  As  regards 
its  fauna,  Seetzen  (iii.  20)  mentions  the  following 
animals  as  found  at  er  Ramleh,  near  Sinai : — the  wild 
goat,  the  wubber,  hyena,  fox,  hare,  gazelle,  panther 
(rare),  field-mouse  (el  Dschiirdy,  like  a  jerboa),  and 
a  lizard  called  el  Dsob,  which  is  eaten.  [H.  H.] 

SBTCM  (D^D).  A  people  noticed  in  Is.  xlix.  12, 
as  living  at  the  extremity  of  the  known  world, 
either  in  the  south  or  east.  The  majority  of  the 
early  interpreters  adopted  the  former  view,  but  the 
LXX.  in  giving  Ilepo-at  favours  the  latter,  and  the 
weight  of  modern  authority  is  thrown  into  the 
same  scale,  the  name  being  identified  by  Gesenius, 
Hitzig,  Knobel,  and  others,  with  the  classical  Sinae, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  southern  part  of  China.  No 
locality  in  the  south  equally  commends  itself  to  the 
judgment :  Sin,  the  classical  Pelusium,  which  Bo- 
chart  (Phaleg,  iv.  27)  suggests,  is  too  near,  and 
Syene  (Michaelis,  Spicil.  ii.  32)  would  have  been 
given  in  its  well-known  Hebrew  form.  There  is  no 
a  priori  improbability  in  the  name  of  the  Sinae 
being  known  to  the  inhabitants  of  Western  Asia  in 
the  age  of  Isaiah  ;  for  though  it  is  not  mentioned  by 
the  Greek  geographers  until  the  age  of  Ptolemy,  it 
is  certain  that  an  inland  commercial  route  connected 
the  extreme  east  with  the  west  at  a  very  early 
period,  and  that  a  traffic  was  maintained  on  the 
frontier  of  China  between  the  Sinae  and  the  Scy 
thians,  in  the  manner  still  followed  by  the  Chinese 
and  the  Russians  at  Kiachta.  If  any  name  for 
these  Chinese  traders  travelled  westward,  it  would 
probably  be  that  of  the  Sinae,  whose  town  Thinae 
(another  form  of  the  Sinae)  was  one  of  the  great 
emporiums  in  the  western  part  of  China,  and  is 
represented  by  the  modern  Thsin  or  Tin,  in  the 
province  of  Schensi.  The  Sinae  attained  an  inde 
pendent  position  in  Western  China  as  early  as  the 
8th  century  B.C.,  ?.nd  in  the  3rd  century  B.C. 
established  their  sway  under  the  dynasty  of  Tsin 
over  the  whole  of  the  empire.  The  Rabbinical  name 
of  China,  Tsin,  as  well  as  "  China"  itself,  was  derived 
from  this  dynasty  (Gesen.  TAes.  s.  v.).  [W.L.B.~J 


SlilAH,  THE  WELL  OF 

Sl'ttlTE  (»J»p  :  'Atrej/rcuoy  :  Smews).  A  tribe 
of  Canaanites  (Gen.  x.  1?  ;  1  Chr.  i.  15),  \\ho3e 
position  is  to  be  sought  for  in  the  northern  p.irt  oi 
the  Lebanon  district.  Various  localities  in  that 
district  bear  a  certain  amount  of  resemblance  lo  tht 
name,  particularly  Sinna,  a  mountain  fortress  men 
tioned  by  Strabo  (xvi.  p.  755)  ;  Sinum  or  Sini,  the 
ruins  of  which  existed  in  the  time  of  Jeronn 
(Quaest.  in  Gen.  1.  c.)  ;  Syn,  a  village  mentioned  ii; 
the  loth  century  as  near  the  r-ver  Area  (Gesen 
Thes.  p.  948)  ;  and  Dunniyeh,  ?.  district  near  Tri 
poli  (Robinson's  Researches,  ii.  49  1-).  The  Targums 
of  Onkelos  and  Jonathan  give  Orthosia,  a  to?/n  ov 
the  coast  to  the  north-east  of  Tripolis.  [V7.  L.  B.] 
SI'ON,  MOUNT.  1.  (ffcOb>  in  ;  Samar. 


"If!  ;  rb  opos  TOV  'Zy&v  :  rr,ons  Sion). 
One  of  the  various  names  of  Mount  Hermon  which 
are  fortunately  preserved,  all  not  improbably  more 
ancient  than  "  Hermon"  itself.  H  occurs  in  Deut 
iv.  48  only,  and  is  interpreted  by  'he  lexicographers 
to  mean  "  lofty."  Fiirst  conjectures  that  these 
various  appellations  were  the  names  of  separate 
peaks  or  portions  of  the  mountain.  Some  have 
supposed  that  Zion  in  Ps.  cxxxiii.  3  is  a  variation 
of  this  Sion  ;  but  there  is  no  warrant  for  this  be 
yond  the  fact  that  so  doing  overcomes  a  difficulty 
of  interpretation  in  that  passage. 

2.  (rb  opos  Stciij';  in  Heb.  ~2,i<av  opos  :  monsSion.} 
The  Greek  form  of  the  Hebrew  name  ZION  (Tsion), 
the  famous  Mount  of  the  Temple  (1  Mace.  iv.  37, 
60,  v.  54,  vi.  48,  62,  vii.  33,  x.  11,  xiv.  27  ;  Heb. 
xii.  22  ;  Rev.  xiv.  1).  In  the  Books  of  Maccabees 
the  expression  is  always  Mount  Sion.  In  the  other 
Apocryphal  Books  the  name  SION  is  alone  employed. 
Further,  in  the  Maccabees  the  name  unmistakeably 
denotes  the  mount  on  which  the  Temple  was  built  ; 
on  which  the  Mosque  of  the  Aksa,  with  its  attendant 
Mosques  of  Omar  and  the  Mogrebbins,  now  stands. 
The  first  of  the  passages  just  quoted  is  enough  to 
decide  this.  If  it  can  be  established  that  Zion  .in 
the  Old  Testament  means  the  same  locality  with 
Sion  in  the  Books  of  Maccabees,  one  of  the  greatest 
puzzles  of  Jerusalem  topography  will  be  solved. 
This  will  be  examined  under  ZiON.  [G.I 

SIPH'MOTH  (ni££?b>  :  2a</>et/  ;  Alex.  2ac/>a- 
fjLd)s  :  Sephamotli).  One  of  the  places  in  the  south 
of  Judah  which  David  frequented  during  his  free- 
booting  life,  and  to  his  friends  in  which  he  sent  a 
portion  of  the'  spoil  taken  from  the  Amalekites.  Ii 
is  named  only  in  1  Sam.  xxx.  28.  It  is  not  named 
by  Eusebius  or  Jerome.  No  one  appears  yet  to 
have  discovered  or  even  suggested  an  identification 
of  it.  [G.l 

SIPPA'I  (^SD  :    2a<povr  ;   Alex.  2e<f><pi  :    Sa- 


phai).  One  of  the  sons  of  the  Rephaim,  or  "  the 
giants,"  slain  by  Sibbechai  the  Hushathite  at  Gezcr 
(1  Chr.  xx.  4).  "  In  2  Sam.  xxi.  18  he  is  called  SAPH 

SI'KACH  (2eip<£x>  ^ipdx  :  Sirach  I  in  Rabbinic 
writers,  KTD),  the  father  of  Jesus  (Joshua),  the 
writer  of  the  Hebrew  original  of  the  Book  of  Eccle- 
siasticus.  [EccLESiASTicus  ;  JESUS  THE  SON  OF 
SIRACH.]  [B.  F.  W.] 

SIRAH,  THE  WELL  OF  (PHD!!  113  :  T* 
TOV  Seetpcfyi,  in  both  MSS.  :  cisterna  Sira\ 


P  Arguing  from  the  fact  that  these  inscriptions  occur 
not  only  on  roads  leading  out  of  Egypt,  but  in  the  most 
secluded  £DOt*.  and  on  rocks  lying  quite  out  of  the  main 


roads. 

i  For  a  full  account  of  the  climate  and  vegctaliort 
Schubert  (Reisen,  ii.  351)  may  be  consulted. 


SIRION 

The  spot  from  which  Abner  was  recalled  )jy  Joal) ' 
to  bis  death  at  Hebron  (2  Sam.  iii.  26  only).  It 
was  apparently  on  the  northern  road  from  Hebron 
— that  by  which  Abner  would  naturally  return 
through  Bahurim  (ver.  16)  to  Mahanaim.  There 
is  a  spring  and  reservoir  on  the  western  side  of 
the  ancient  northern  road,  about  one  mile  out  of 
Hebron,  which  is  called  Ain  Sara,  and  gives  its 
name  to  the  little  valley  in  which  it  lies  (see  Dr. 
Rosen's  paper  on  Hebron  in  the  Zeitschrift  der 
D.  M.  G.  xii.  486,  and  the  excellent  map  accom 
panying  it).  This  may  be  a  relic  of  the  well  of 
Sirah.  It  is  mentioned  as  far  back  as  the  12th  cen 
tury  by  Rabti  Petachia,  but  the  correspondence  of 
the" name  with  that  of  Sirah  seems  to  have  escaped 
notice.  [G.] 

SIKI'ON  (f*li^,a  i.  e.  Siryon,  in  Deut.,  but  in 
Ps.  xxix.  fin£;,  Shiryon  ;  Samar.  pB> ;  Sam.  Vers. 
pi:  Sou/iffy:  Sariori).  One  of  the  various  names 
of  Mount  Hermon,  that  by  which  it  was  known  to 
the  Zidonians  (Deut.  iii.  9).  The  word  is  almost 
identical  with  that  (J^ID)  which  in  Hebrew  denotes 
a  "  breastplate  "  or  "  cuirass,"  and  Gesenius  there 
fore  expresses  his  belief  that  it  was  applied  in  this 
sense  to  the  mountain,  just  as  the  name  Thorax 
(which  has  the  same  meaning)  was  given  to  a 
mountain  in  Magnesia.  This  is  not  supported  by 
the  Samaritan  Version,  the  rendering  in  which — 
Rabban — seems  to  be  equivalent  to  Jebel  esh  Sheykh, 
the  ordinary,  though  not  the  only  modern  name  of 
the  mountain. 

The  use  of  the  name  in  Ps.  xxix.  6  (slightly 
altered  in  the  original — Shirion  instead  of  Sirion) 
is  remarkable,  though,  bearing  in  mind  the  occur 
rence  of  Shenir  in  Solomon's  Song,  it  can  hardly 
be  used  as  an  argument  for  the  antiquity  of  the 
Psalm.  [G.] 

SISAMA'I  (»»pp:  Soo-o/wrf:  Sisamoi).  A 
descendant  of  Sheshan  in  the  line  of  Jerahmeel 
(1  Chr.  ii.  40). 

SIS'EBA  (Klp*Db:  Zeiffdpa,  Sitrctpa;  Joseph. 
6  ^iffdpris  :  Sisara).  Captain  (1K>)  of  the  army  of 
Jabin  king  of  Canaan  who  reigned  in  Hazor.  He 
himself  resided  in  Haroshethc  of  the  Gentiles.  The 
particular  of  the  rout  of  Megiddo  and  of  Sisera's 
flight  and  death  are  drawn  out  under  the  heads  of 
BARAK,  DEBORAH,  JAEL,  KENITES,  KISHON, 
MANTLE,  TENT.  They  have  been  recently  elabo- 


SISERA 


1329 


•  No  variation  from  ty  to  $p,  or  the  reverse,  is  noticed 
in  Doderlein  and  Meisner,  on  either  occurrence  of  the 
name. 

b  Gesenius  (Lex.  s.  «.)>  ^7  comparison  with  the  Syriac, 
interprets  the  name  as  "  battle-array."  Fiirst,  on  the  other 
hand  (Handwb.  ii.  2 79),  gives  as  its  equivalent  Vermittclung 
the  nearest  approach  to  which  is  perhaps  "  lieutenant.' 
As  a  Canaanite  word  its  real  signification  is  probably 
equally  wide  of  either. 

c  The  site  of  HABOSHETH  has  not  yet  been  identified 
with  certainty.  But  since  the  publication  of  vol  i.  the 
writer  observes  that  Dr.  Thomson  (Land  and  Book,  ch. 
xxix.)  has  suggested  a  site  which  seems  possible,  and 
invites  further  examination.  This  is  a  tell  or  mound 
on  the  north  side  of  the  Kishon,  in  the  S.E.  corner  of  the 
plain  of  Akka,  just  behind  the  hills  which  separate  it 
from  the  larger  plain  of  Jezreel.  The  tell  advances 
close  to  the  foot  of  Carmcl,  and  allows  only  room  for  the 
passage  of  the  river  between  them.  Its  name  is  variously 
given  as  Harothieh  (Thomson),  Harthijjeh  (Schulz),  Hur- 
shiyek  (Robinson),  Harti  (Van  de  Velde),  and  el  Har- 
tiyeh.  The  latter  is  the  form  given  in  the  official  list 
.Bade  for  the  writer  in  1861  by  Consul  Rogers,  and 
VOL.  ui. 


rated,  and  combined  into  a  living  whole,  with 
Treat  attention  to  detail  yet  without  any  sacrifW 
of  force,  by  Professor  Stanley,  in  his  Lectures  on 
the  Hist,  of  the  Jewish  Church,  Lect.  xiv.  To  that 
accurate  and  masterly  picture  we  refer  our  readers. 

The  army  was  mustered  at  the  Kishon  on  the 
plain  at  the  foot  of  the  slopes  of  Lejjun.  Partly 
owing  to  the  furious  attack  of  Barak,  partly  to  the 
mpassable  condition  of  the  plain,  and  partly  to  the 
unwieldy  nature  of  the  host  itself,  which,  amongst 
other  impediments,  contained  900  a  iron  chariots — 
a  horrible  confusion  and  rout  took  place.  Sisera 
deserted  his  troops  and  fled  off  on  foot.  He  took  a 
north-east  direction,  possibly  through  Nazareth  and 
Safed,  or,  if  that  direct  road  was  closed  to  him, 
stole  along  by  more  circuitous  routes  till  he  found 
himself  before  the  tents  of  Heber  the  Kenite,  near 
Kedesh,  on  the  high  ground  overlooking  the  upper 
basin  of  the  Jordan  valley.  Here  he  met  his  death 
from  the  hands  of  Jael,  Hebcr's  wife,  who,  although 
"  at  peace  "  with  him,  was  under  a  much  more 
stringent  relation  with  the  house  of  Israel  (Judg. 
iv.  2-22,  v.  20,  26,  28,  30).  [KENITES,  p.  11  a.] 
His  name  long  survived  as  a  word  of  fear  and  of 
exultation  in  the  mouths  of  prophets  and  psalmists 
(1  Sam.  xii.  9 ;  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  9). 

It  is  remarkable  that  from  this  enemy  of  the  Jews 
should  have  sprung  one  of  their  most  eminent  cha 
racters.  The  great  Rabbi  Akiba,  whose  father  was 
a  Syrian  proselyte  of  justice,  was  descended  from 
Sisera  of  Harosheth  (Bartolocci,  iv.  272).  The 
part  which  he  took  in  the  Jewish  war  of  independ 
ence,  when  he  was  standard  bearer  to  Barcocba 
(Otho,  Hist.  doct.  Misn.  134  note),  shows  that  the 
warlike  force  still  remained  in  the  blood  of  Sisera. 

2.  (Sitrapa,  2iffapdO ;  Alex.  ~2,Lirdpaa,  2ei- 
ffapdd.)  After  a  long  interval  the  name  re-appears 
in  the  lists  of  the  Nethinim  who  returned  from 
the  Captivity  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  53 ;  Neh. 
vii.  55).  The  number  of  foreign,  non-Israelite 
names"  which  occur  in  these  invaluable  lists  has 
been  already  noticed  under  MEHUNIM  [vol.  ii. 
p.  313.]  Sisera  is  another'example,  and  doubtless 
tells  of  Canaanite  captives  devoted  to  the  lowest 
offices  of  the  Temple,  even  though  the  Sisera  from 
whom  the  family  derived  its  name  were  not  actually 
the  same  person  as  the  defeated  general  of  Jabin. 
It  is  curious  that  it  should  occur  in  close  com 
panionship  with  the  name  Harsha  (ver.  52)  which 
irresistibly  recals  Harosheth. 

is  probably  accurate.  Dr.  Thomson — apparently  the 
only  traveller  who  has  examined  the  spot — speaks  oi 
the  Tell  as  "  covered  with  the  remains  of  old  walls  and 
buildings,"  in  which  he  sees  the  relics  of  the  ancient 
castle  of  Sisera, 

d  The  number  of  Jabin's  standing  army  is  given  by 
Josephus  (Ant.  v.  5,  $1)  as  300,000  footmen,  10,000  horse 
men,  and  3000  chariots.  These  numbers  are  large,  but 
they  are  nothing  to  those  of  the  Jewish  legends.  Sisera 
"had  40,0,00  generals,  every  one  of  whom  had  100,000 
men  under  him.  He  was  thirty  years  old,  ami  had  con 
quered  the  whole  world :  and  there  was  not  a  place  the 
walls  of  which  did  not  fall  down  at  his  voice  When 
he  shouted  the  very  beasts  of  the  field  were  rivetted 
to  their  places.  900  horses  went  in  his  chariot "  (Jalkut 
ad  loc.).  "  Thirty-one  kings  (cornp.  Josh.  xii.  24)  went 
with  Sisera  and  were  killed  with  him.  They  thirsted 
after  the  waters  of  the  land  of  Israel,  and  they  asked 
and  prayed  Sisera  to  take  them  with  him  withont  further 
reward  "  (comp.  Judg.  v.  19).  (Ber.  Rob.  ch.  23.)  Th« 
writer  is  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Dewtsch  tw 
these  extracts. 

•  MESUNIM,  NKFHCSJM,  HAKSHA,  KZZIN. 
1  4Q 


1330 


SIBINXE8 


In  the  parallel  list  of  1  fisd.  v.  32  Sisera  is  given 
as  ASERER.  [G.] 

SISIN'NES  (Zurlvwis :  Sisennes}.  A  governor 
of  Syria  and  Phoenicia  under  Darius,  and  a  con 
temporary  of  Zerubbabel  (1  Esdr.  vi.  3).  He 
attempted  to  stop  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple, 
but  was  ordered  by  Darius,  after  consulting  the 
archives  of  Cyrus's  reign,  to  adopt  the  opposite 
course,  and  to  forward  the  plans  of  Zerubbabel 
(Ibid,  vi/7,  vii.  1).  In  Ezra  he  is  called  TATNAI. 

SIT'NAH(njpK>:  *x¥a'>  Joseph.  2iTevj/c£: 
Inimicitiae).  The  second  of  the  two  wells  dug  by 
Isaac  in  the  valley  of  Gerai,  and  the  possession  of 
which  the  herdmen  of  the  valley  disputed  with  him 
(Gen.  xxvi.  21).  Like  the  first  one,  ESEK,  it  re 
ceived  its  name  from  the  disputes  which  took  place 
over  it,  Sitnah  meaning,  as  is  stated  in  the  margin, 
"  hatred,"  or  more  accurately  "  accusation,"  but 
the  play  of  expression  has  not  been  in  this  instance 
preserved  in  the  Hebrew.8  The  LXX.,  however, 
have  attempted  it : — eitpivovTO  ....  tyOp'10"  The 
root  of  the  name  is  the  same  as  that  of  Satan,  and 
this  has  been  taken  advantage  of  by  Aquila  and 
Symmachus,  who  render  it  respectively  avTtK€i/j.fvi) 
and  evavriaxris.  Of  the  situation  of  Esek  and 
Sitnah  nothing  whatever  is  known.  [G.] 

SIVAN.    [MONTH.] 

SLAVE.  The  institution  of  slavery  was  recog 
nised,  though  not  established,  by  the  Mosaic  Law 
with  a  view  to  mitigate  its  hardships  and  to  secure 
to  every  man  his  ordinary  rights.  Repugnant  as 
the  notion  of  slavery  is  to  our  minds,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  it  can  be  dispensed  with  in  certain 
phases  of  society  without,  at  all  events,  entailing 
severer  evils  than  those  which  it  produces.  Exclu- 
siveness  of  race  is  an  instinct  that  gains  strength  in 
proportion  as  social  order  is  weak,  and  the  rights 
of  citizenship  are  regarded  with  peculiar  jealousy 
in  communities  which  are  exposed  to  contact  with 
aliens.  In  the  case  of  war,  carried  on  for  conquest 
or  revenge,  there  were  but  two  modes  of  dealing 
with  the  captives,  viz.  putting  them  to  death  or 
reducing  them  to  slavery.  The  same  may  be  said 
in  regard  to  such  acts  and  outrages  as  disqualified 
a  person  for  the  society  of  his  fellow-citizens.  Again, 
as  citizenship  involved  the  condition  of  freedom  and 
independence,  it  was  almost  necessary  to  offer  the 
alternative  of  disfranchisement  to  all  who  through 
poverty  or  any  other  contingency  were  unable  to 
support  themselves  in  independence.  In  all  these 
cases  slavery  was  the  mildest  of  the  alternatives 
that  offered,  and  may  hence  be  regarded  as  a  bless 
ing  rather  than  a  curse.  It  should  further  be 
noticed  that  a  labouring  class,  in  our  sense  of  the 
term,  was  almost  unknown  to  the  nations  of  an 
tiquity  :  hired  service  was  regarded  as  incompatible 
with  freedom ;  and  henoe  the  slave  in  many  cases 
occupied  the  same  social  position  as  the  servant  or 
labourer  of  modern  times,  though  differing  from 
him  in  regai-d  to  political  status.  The  Hebrew 
designation  of  the  slave  shows  that  service  was  the 
salient  feature  of  his  condition ;  for  the  term  ebedp 
usually  applied  to  him,  is  derived  from  a  verb  sig 
nifying  "  to  work,"  and  the  very  same  term  is  used 
in  reference  to  offices  of  high  trust  held  by  free 
men.  In  short,  service  and  slavery  would  have 


a  In  the  A.  V.  of  vers.  20,  21,  two  entirely  distinct 
Hebrew  words  are  each  rendered  "  strive." 


«  Michaelis  (Comment,  iii.  9,  $123)   decides  In   the 
dnrn  latlve. 


SLAVE 

>een  to  the  ear  of  the  Hebrew  equivalent  tcrznt?t 
though  he  fully  recognised  grades  of  servit«*de,  ac 
cording  as  the  servant  was  a  Hebrew  or  a  non- 
Hebrew,  and,  if  the  latter,  according  as  he  >ras 
)ought  with  money  (Gen.  xvii.  12  ;  Ex.  xii.  44)  or 
)orn  in  the  house  (Gen.  xiv.  14,  xv.  3,  xvu.  23). 
We  shall  proceed  to  describe  the  condition  of  these 
classes,  as  regards  their  original  reduction  to  slavery, 
the  methods  by  which  it  might  be  terminated,  and 
their  treatment  while  in  that  state. 
I.  Hebrew  Slaves. 

1.  The  circumstances   under   which   a   Hebrew 
might  be  reduced  to  servitude  were — (1)  poverty  ; 

the  commission  of  theft;  and  (3)  the  exercise 
of  paternal  authority.  In  the  first  case,  a  man 
who  had  mortgaged  his  property,  and  was  unable  to 
support  his  family,  might  sell  himself  to  another 
Hebrew,  with  a  view  both  to  obtain  maintenance, 
and  perchance  a  surplus  sufficient  to  redeem  his 
property  (Lev.  xxv.  25,  39).  It  has  been  debated 
whether  under  this  law  a  creditor  could  seize  his 
debtor  and  sell  him  as  a  slave :  c  the  words  do  not 
warrant  such  an  inference,  for  the  poor  man  is  said 
n  Lev.  xxv.  39  to  sell  himself  (not  as  in  the  A.  V., 
'be  sold;"  see  Gesen.  Thes.  p.  787),  in  other 
words,  to  enter  into  voluntary  servitude,  and  this 
under  the  pressure  not  of  debt,  but  of  poverty.  The 
instances  of  seizing  the  children  of  debtors  in  2  K. 
iv.  1  and  Neh.  v.  5  were  not  wan-anted  by  law, 
and  must  be  regarded  as  the  outrages  of  lawless 
times,  while  the  case  depicted  hi  the  parable  of  the 
unmerciful  servant  is  probably  borrowed  from  Ro 
man  usages  (Matt,  xviii.  25).  The  words  in  Is. 
.  1,  "  Which  of  my  creditors  is  it  to  whom  I  have 
sold  you  ?  "  have  a  primd  facie  bearing  upon  the 
question,  but  in  reality  apply  to  one  already  in  the 
condition  of  slavery.  (2)  The  commission  of  theft 
rendered  a  person  liable  to  servitude,  whenever 
restitution  could  not  be  made  on  the  scale  prescribed 
by  the  Law  (Ex.  xxii.  1,  3).  The  thief  was  bound 
to  work  out  the  value  of  his  restitution  money  in 
the  service  of  him  on  whom  the  theft  had  been 
committed  (for,  according  to  Josephus,  Ant.  xvi.  1, 
§1,  there  was  no  power  of  selling  the  person  of  a 
thief  to  a  foreigner)  ;  when  this  had  been  effected 
he  would  be  free,  as  implied  in  the  expression  "  sold 
for  his  theft,"  ».  e.  for  the  amount  of  his  theft. 
This  law  contrasts  favourably  with  that  of  the 
Romans,  under  which  a  thief  became  the  actual 
property  of  his  master.  (3)  The  exercise  of  paternal 
authority  was  limited  to  the  sale  of  a  daughter  of 
tender  age  to  be  a  maidservant,  with  the  ulterioi 
view  of  her  becoming  a  concubine  of  the  purchasei 
(Ex.  xxi.  7).  Such  a  case  can  perhaps  hardly  be 
regarded  as  implying  servitude  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  term. 

2.  The  servitude  of  a  Hebrew  might.be  termin 
ated  in  three  ways:— (1)  by  the  satisfaction  or 
the  remission  of  all  claims  against  him  ; d  (2)  by 
the  recurrence  of  the  year  of  Jubilee  (Lev.  xxv. 
40),  which  might  arrive  at  any  period  of  his  servi 
tude  ;  and  (3),  failing  either  of  these,  the  expiration 
of  six  years  from  the  time  that  his  servitude  com 
menced  (Ex.  xxi.  2 ;  Deut.  xv.  12).     There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  this  last  regulation  applied  equally  to 
the  cases  of  poverty  and  theft,  though  Rabbinical 
writers  have  endeavoured  to  restrict  it  to  the  former. 


d  This  is  implied  in  the  statement  cf  the  cases  which 
gave  rise  to  the  servitude:  indeed  without  such  an 
assumption  the  words  "for  his  theft"  (Ex.  xxii.  3) 
would  be  unmeaning.  The  Rabbinists  gave  th  Mr  sanctiop 
to  such  a  view  (Maiuaon.  Abad.  2,  $$8,  11). 


SLAVE 

The  period  of  seven  years  has  reference  to  the  Sab 
batical  principle  in  general,  but  not  to  the  Sab 
batical  year,  for  no  regulation  is  laid  down  in 
reference  to  the  manumission  of  sei^vants  in  that 
year  (Lev.  xxv.  1  ff.  ;  Deut.  xv.  1  ff.).  We  have 
a  single  instance,  indeed,  of  the  Sabbatical  year 
being  celebrated  by  a  general  manumission  of  He 
brew  slaves,  but  this  was  in  consequence  of  the 
neglect  of  the  law  relating  to  such  cases  (Jer.  xxxiv. 
14«).  (4)  To  the  above  modes  of  obtaining  liberty 
the  Rabbinists  added  as  a  fourth,  the  death  of  the 
master  without  leaving  a  son,  there  being  no  power 
of  claiming  the  slave  on  the  part  of  any  heir  except 
a  son  (Maimon.  Abad.  2,  §12). 

If  a  servant  did  not  desire  to  avail  himself  of  the 
opportunity  of  leaving  his  service,  he  was  to  signify 
his  intention  in  a  formal  manner  before  the  judges 
(or  more  exactly  at  the  place  of  judgment  f),  and 
then  the  master  was  to  take  him  to  the  door-post, 
and  to  bore  his  ear  through  with  an  awl  (Ex.  xxi. 
6),  driving  the  awl  into  or  "  unto  the  door,"  as 
stated  in  Deut.  xv.  17,  and  thus  fixing  the  servant 
to  it.  Whether  the  door  was  that  of  the  master's 
house,  or  the  door  of  the  sanctuary,  as  Ewald 
(Alterth.  p.  245)  infers  from  the  expression  el 
hdelohim,  to  which  attention  is  drawn  above,  is  not 
stated;  but  the  significance  of  the  action  is  en 
hanced  by  the  former  view  ;  for  thus  a  connexion 
is  established  between  the  sei"vant  and  the  house  in 
which  he  was  to  serve.  The  boring  of  the  ear  was 
probably  a  token  of  subjection,  the  ear  being  the 
organ  through  which  commands  were  received  (Ps. 
xl.  6).  A  similar  custom  prevailed  among  the 
Mesopotamians  (Juv.  i.  104),  the  Lydians  (Xen. 
Anab.  iii.  1,  §31),  and  other  ancient  nations.  A 
servant  who  had  submitted  to  this  operation  re 
mained,  according  to  the  words  of  the  Law,  a  servant 
"  for  ever  "  (Ex.  xxi.  6).  These  words  are,  how 
ever,  interpreted  by  Josephus  (Ant.  iv.  8,  §28)  and 
by  the  Rabbinists  as  meaning  until  the  year  of 
Jubilee,  partly  from  the  universality  of  the  freedom 
that  was  then  proclaimed,  and  partly  perhaps  because 
it  was  necessary  for  the  servant  then  to  resume  the 
cultivation  of  his  recovered  inheritance.  The  latter 
point  no  doubt  presents  a  difficulty,  but  the  inter« 
pretation  of  the  words  "  for  ever  "  in  any  other  than 
their  obvious  sense  presents  still  greater  difficulties. 

3.  The  condition  of  a  Hebrew  servant  was  by  no 
means  intolerable.  His  master  was  admonished  to 
treat  him,  not  "  as  a  bondservant,  but  as  an  hired 
servant  and  as  a  sojourner,"  and,  again,  "  not  to  rule 
over  him  with  rigour"  (Lev.  xxv.  39,  40,  43). 
The  Rabbinists  specified  a  variety  of  duties  as 
coming  under  these  general  precepts  ;  for  instance, 
compensation  for  personal  injury,  exemption  from 
menial  duties,  such  as  uribinding  the  master's  san 
dals  or  carrying  him  in  a  litter,  the  use  of  gentle 
language  on  the  part  of  the  master,  and  the  main 
tenance  of  the  servant's  wife  and  children,  though 
the  master  was  not  allowed  to  exact  work  from 
them  (Mielzinef,  Sklaven  bei  den  Hebr.  p.  31).  At 
the  termination  of  his  servitude  the  master  was 
enjoined  not  to  "  let  him  go  away  empty,"  but  to 

e  The  rendering  of  the  A.  V.  "  at  the  end  of  seven 
years  "  in  this  passage  is  not  wholly  correct.  The  mean 
ing  rather  is  "  at  the  end  of  a  Sabbatical  period  of  years," 
the  whole  of  the  seventh  year  being  regarded  as  the  end  of 
the  period. 


SLAVE 


1331 


rpb?  TO  KpiTjJpiov,  LXX. 
e  In  the  A.  V.  the  sense  of  obligation  is  not  conveyed  ; 
instead  of  "may"   in  vers.  48.  49     shall  onqht  to  be 
substituted. 


rein  inerate  him  libeially  out  of  his  flock,  hie  llocr, 
and  his  winepress  (Deut.  xv.  13,  14).  Such  a  cus 
tom  would  stimulate  the  servant  to  faithful  service, 
inasmuch  as  the  amount  of  the  gift  was  left  tc  the 
master's  discretion ;  and  it  would  also  provide  him 
with  means  wherewith  to  start  in  the  world  afresh. 

In  the  event  of  a  Hebrew  becoming  the  servant 
of  a  "  stranger,"  meaning  a  non-Hebrew,  the  servi 
tude  could  be  terminated  only  in  two  ways,  viz.  by 
the  arrival  of  the  year  of  Jubilee,  or  by  the  repay 
ment  to  the  master  of  the  purchase-money  paid  for 
the  servant,  after  deducting  a  sum  for  the  value  oi 
his  services  proportioned  to  the  length  of  his  servi 
tude  (Lev.  xxv.  47-55).  The  servant  might  be 
redeemed  either  by  himself  or  by  one  of  his  rela 
tions,  and  the  object  of  this  regulation  appears  to 
have  been  to  impose  upon  relations  the  obligation  f 
of  effecting  the  redemption,  and  thus  putting  an 
end  to  a  state  which  must  have  been  peculiarly 
galling  to  the  Hebrew. 

A  Hebrew  woman  might  enter  into  voluntary 
servitude  on  the  score  of  poverty,  and  in  this  case 
she  was  entitled  to  her  freedom  after  six  years'  ser 
vice,  together  with  the  usual  gratuity  at  leaving, 
just  as  in  the  case  of  a  man  (Deut.  xv.  12,  13). 
According  to  Rabbinical  tradition  a  woman  could 
not  be  condemned  to  servitude  for  theft ;  neither 
could  she  bind  herself  to  perpetual  servitude  by 
having  her  ear  bored  (Mielziner,  p.  43). 

Thus  far  we  have  seen  little  that  is  objectionable 
in  the  condition  of  Hebrew  servants.  In  respect  to 
marriage  there  were  some  peculiarities  which,  to 
our  ideas,  would  be  regarded  as  hardships.  A 
master  might,  for  instance,  give  a  wife  to  a  Hebrew 
servant  for  the  time  of  his  servitude,  the  wife  being 
in  this  case,  it  must  be  remarked,  not  only  a  slave 
but  a  non-Hebrew.  Should  he  leave  when  his  term 
has  expired,  his  wife  and  children  would  remain  the 
absolute  property  of  the  master  (Ex.  xxi.  4,  5). 
The  reason  for  this  regulation  is,  evidently,  that  the 
children  of  a  female  heathen  slave  were  slaves ;  they 
inherited  the  mother's  disqualification.  Such  a 
condition  of  marrying  a  slave  would  be  regarded  as 
an  axiom  by  a  Hebrew,  and  the  case  is  only  inci 
dentally  noticed.  Again,  a  father  might  sell  his 
young  daughter11  to  a  Hebrew,  with  a  view  either  of 
marrying  her  himself,  or  of  giving  her  to  his  son  (Ex. 
xxi.  7-9).  It  diminishes  the  apparent  harshness  ot 
this  proceeding  if  we  look  on  the  purchase-money 
as  in  the  light  of  a  dowry  given,  as  was  not  un 
usual,  to  the  parents  of  the  bride ;  still  more,  if 
we  accept  the  Rabbinical  view  (which,  however, 
we  consider  very  doubtful)  that  the  consent  of  the 
maid  was  required  before  the  marriage  could  take 
place.  But  even  if  this  consent  were  not  obtained,  the 
paternal  authority  would  not  appear  to  be  violently 
strained  ;  for  among  ancient  nations  that  authority 
was  generally  held  to  extend  even  to  the  life  of  a 
child,  much  more  to  the  giving  of  a  daughter  in 
marriage.  The  position  of  a  maiden  thus  sold  by 
her  father  was  subject  to  the  following  regula 
tions  : — (1)  She  could  not  "  go  out  as  the  men 
servants  do,"  t.  e.  she  could  not  leave  at  the  termi- 


h  The  female  slave  was  in  this  case  termed 
distinct  from  HPIS)^,  applied  to  the  ordinary  household 
slave.  The  distinction  is  marked  in  regard  to  Hagar,  who 
Is  described  oy  the  latter  term  before  the  birth  of  Ishmael, 
and  by  the  former  after  that  event  (comp.  Gen.  xvi.  1, 
xxi.  10).  The  relative  value  of  the  terms  is  expressed  in 
Abigail's  address,  "  Let  thine  handmaid  (anvato  t»e  a  ser 
vant  (thiphchairt  to  wash."  &c.  (I  Sam.  xxv.  41). 

4  Q  3 


1332 


SLAVE 


nation  of  six  years,  or  in  the  year  of  Jubilee,  if  (as 
the  regulation  assumes)  her  master  was  willing  to 
fulfil  the  object  for  which  he  had  purchased  her. 
(2)  Should  he  not  wish  to  marry  her,  he  should 
call  upon  her  friends  to  procure  her  release  by  the 
repayment  of  the  purchase-money  (perhaps,  as  in 
other  cases,  with  a  deduction  for  the  value  of  her 
services).  (3)  If  he  betrothed  her  to  his  son,  he 
was  bound  to  make  such  provision  for  her  as  he 
would  for  one  of  his  own  daughters.  (4)  If  either 
he  or  his  son,  having  married  her,  took  a  second 
wife,  it  should  not  be  to  the  prejudice  of  the  first. 
(5)  If  neither  of  the  three  first  specified  alter 
natives  took  place,  the  maid  was  entitled  to  imme 
diate  and  gratuitous  liberty  (Ex.  xxi.  7-11). 

The  custom  of  reducing  Hebrews  to  servitude 
appears  to  have  fallen  into  disuse  subsequently  to 
the  Babylonish  captivity.  The  attempt  to  enforce 
it  in  Nehemiah's  time  met  with  decided  resistance 
(Neh.  v.  5),  and  Herod's  enactment  that  thieves 
should  be  sold  to  foreigners,  roused  the  greatest 
animosity  (Joseph.  Ant.  xvi.  1,  §1).  Vast  num 
bers  of  Hebrews  were  reduced  to  slavery  as  war- 
captives  at  different  periods  by  the  Phoenicians 
(Joel  iii.  6),  the  Philistines  (Joel  iii.  6 ;  Am.  i.  6), 
the  Syrians  (1  Mace.  iii.  41 ;  2  Mace.  viii.  11),  the 
Egyptians  (Joseph.  Ant.  xii.  2,  §3),  and,  above  all, 
by  the  Romans  (Joseph.  B.  J.  vi.  9,  §3).  We 
may  form  some  idea  of  the  numbers  reduced  to 
slavery  by  war  from  the  single  fact  that  Nicanor 
calculated  on  realizing  2000  talents  in  one  campaign, 
by  the  sale  of  captives  at  the  rate  of  90  for  a  talent 
(2  Mace.  viii.  10,  11),  the  number  required  to 
fetch  the  sum  being  180,000.  The  Phoenicians 
were  the  most  active  slave-dealers  of  ancient  times, 
purchasing  of  the  Philistines  (Am.  i.  9),  of  the 
Syrians  (2  Mace.  viii.  21),  and  even  of  the  tribes 
on  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  Sea  (Ez.  xxvii.  13),  and 
selling  them  wherever  they  could  find  a  market 
about  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  particu 
larly  in  Joel's  time  to  the  people  of  Javan  (Joel  iii. 
6),  it  being  uncertain  whether  that  name  represents 
a  place  in  S«uth  Arabia  or  the  Greeks  of  Asia 
Minor  and  the  peninsula.  It  was  probably  through 
the  T/rians  that  Jews  were  transported  in  Obadiah's 
time  to  Sepharad  or  Sardis  (Ob.  20).  At  Rome 
vast  numbers  of  Jews  emerged  from  the  state  of 
slavery  and  became  freedmen.  The  price  at  which 
the  slaves  were  offered  by  Nicanor  was  considerably 
below  the  ordinary  value  either  in  Palestine  or 
Greece.  In  the  former  country  it  stood  at  30 
shekels  (  =  about  31.  8s.),  as  stated  below,  in  the 
latter  at  about  1J  minas  (  =  about  51.  Is.  6d),  this 
being  the  mean  between  the  extremes  stated  by 
Xenophon  (Mem.  ii.  5,  §2)  as  the  ordinary  price  at 
Athens.  The  price  at  which  Nicanor  offered  them 
was  only  21.  15s.  2d.  a  head.  Occasionally  slaves 
were  sold  as  high  as  a  talent  (243 J.  los.)  each 
(Xen.  /.  o'.;  Joseph.  Ant.  xii.  4,  §9). 
H.  Non- Hebrew  Slaves. 

\.  The  majority  of  non-Hebrew  slaves  were 
war-captives,  either  the  Canaanites  who  had  sur 
vived  the  general  extermination  of  their  race  under 
Joshua,  or  such  as  were  conquered  from  the  other 
surrounding  nations  (Num.  xxxi.  26  ff.).  Besides 
these,  many  were  obtained  by  purchase  from  foreign 
slave-dealers  (Lev.  xxv.  44,  45) ;  and  others  may 
have  been  resident  foreigners  who  were  reduced  to 
this  state  either  by  poverty  or  crime.  The  Rab- 

»  There  is  an  apparent  disproportion  between  this  and 
the  following  regulation,  arising  probably  out  of  the 
different  circumstances  under  which  the  injury  was  ef- 


SIAVE 

binists  further  deemed  that  any  person  who  per 
formed  the  services  of  a  slave  became  ipso  facto  a 
slave  (Mishn.  Kedush.  1,  §3).  The  children  o! 
Slaves  remained  slaves,  being  the  class  described  as 
*  bora  in  the  house"  (Gen.  xiv.  14,  xvii.  12 ;  Eocl. 
ii.  7),  and  hence  the  number  was  likely  to  increase 
as  time  went  on.  The  only  statement  as  to  their 
number  applies  to  the  post-Babylonian  period,  when 
they  amounted  to  7,337,  or  about  1  to  6  of  the 
free  population  (Ezr.  ii.  65).  We  have  reason  to 
believe  that  the  number  diminished  subsequently  to 
this  period,  the  Pharisees  in  particular  being  opposed 
to  the  system.  The  average  value  of  a  slave  appears 
to  have  been  thirty  shekels  (Ex.  xxi.  32),  varying  of 
course  according  to  age,  sex,  and  capabilities.  The 
estimation  of  persons  given  in  Lev.  xxvii.  2-8  pro 
bably  applies  to  war-captives  who  had  been  dedicated' 
to  the  Lord,  and  the  price  of  their  redemption  would  in 
this  case  represent  the  ordinary  value  ot  such  slaves. 

2.  That  the  slave  might  be  manumitted,  appears 
from  Ex.  xxi.  26,  27  ;  Lev.  xix.  20.     As  to  the 
methods  by  which  this  might  be  effected,  we  are 
told  nothing  in  the  Bible ;  but  the  Rabbinists  specify 
the  following  four  methods: — (1)  redemption  by  a 
money  payment,  (2)  a  bill  or  ticket  of  freedom, 
(3)  testamentary  disposition,  or,  (4)  any  act  that 
implied  manumission,  such  as  making  a  slave  one's 
heir  (Mielziner,  pp.  65,  66). 

3.  The  slave  is  described  as  the  "  possession  "  of 
his  master,  apparently  with  a  special  reference  to 
the  power  which  the  latter  had  of  disposing  of  him 
to  his  heirs  as  he  would  any  other  article  of  per 
sonal  property  (Lev.  xxv.  45,  46) ;  the  slave  is  also 
described  as  his  master's  "money"  (Ex.  xxi.  21), 
i.  e.  as  representing  a  certain  money  value.     Such 
expressions  show  that  he  was  regarded  very  much 
in  the  light  of  a  mancipium  or  chattel.    But  on  the 
other  hand  provision  was  made  for  the  protection 
of  his  person :  wilful  murder  of  a  slave  entailed  the 
same  punishment  as  in  the  case  of  a  free  man  (Lev. 
xxiv.  17,  22).     So  again,  if  a  master  inflicted  so 
severe  a  punishment  as  to  cause  the  death  of  his 
servant,  he  was  liable  to  a  penalty,  the  amount  of 
which  probably  depended  on  the  circumstances  of 
the  case,  for  the  Rabbinical  view  that  the  words 
"  he  shall  be  surely  punished,"  or,  more  correctly, 
"  it  is  to  be  avenged,"  imply  a  sentence  of  death, 
is  wholly  untenable  (Ex.  xxi.  20).      No  punish 
ment  at  all   was  imposed   if  the   slave   survived 
the  punishment  by  a  day  or  two  (Ex.  xxi.  21), 
the  loss  of  the  slave1  being  regarded  as  a  suffi 
cient  punishment  in  this  case.     A  minor  personal 
injury,  such  as  the  loss  of  an  eye  or  a  tooth  was  to 
be  recompensed  by  giving  the  servant  his  liberty 
(Ex.  xxi.  26,  27).     The  general  treatment  of  slaves 
appears  to  have  been  gentle— occasionally  too  gentle, 
as  we  infer  from  Solomon's  advice  (Prov.  xxix.  19, 
21),  nor  do  we  hear  more  than  twice  of  a  slave  run 
ning  away  from  his  master  (1  Sam.  xxv.  10  ;  IK. 
ii.  39 ).    The  slave  was  considered  by  a  conscientious 
master  as  entitled  to  justice  (Job  xxxi.  13-15)  and 
honourable  treatment  (Prov.  xxx.  10).     A  slave, 
according  to  the  Rabbinists,  had  no  power  of  acquir 
ing  property  for  himself;  whatever  he  might  become 
entitled  to,  even  by  way  of  compensation  for  per 
sonal   injury,   reverted   to  his  master   (Mielziner, 
p.  55).     On  the  other  hand,  the  master  might  con 
stitute  him  his  heir  either  wholly  (Gen.  xv.  3),  or 
jomtiy  with  his  children  (Prov.  xvii.  2);  or  again, 

fetted.  In  this  case  the  law  is  speaking  of  legitimate 
punishment  "  with  a  rod  ;H  in  the  next,  of  a  violent 
assault. 


SLIME 


SLIME 


1333 


he  might  give  him  his  daughter  m  marriage  (1  Chr.  |  Strabo  (xvi.  743,.     Eratosthenes,  whom  ne  quotes. 


11.  35). 

The  position  of  the  slave  in  regard  to  religious 
privileges  was  favourable.  He  was  to  be  circum 
cised  (Gen.  xvii.  12),  and  hence  was  entitled  to 
partake  of  the  Paschal  sacrifice  (Ex.  xii.  44),  as 
well  as  of  the  other  religious  festivals  (Deut.  xii. 

12,  18,  xvi.  11,   14).     It  is  implied  that  every 
slave  must  have  been  previously  brought  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  true  God,  and  to  a  willing  accept 
ance  of  the  tenets  of  Judaism.  This  would  naturally 
be  the  case  with  regard  to  all  who  were  "  bora  in 
the  house,"  and  who  were  to  be  circumcised  at  the 
usual  age  of  eight  days  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  under 
stand  how  those  who  were  "  bought  with  money," 
as  adults,  could  be  always  induced  to  change  their 
creed,  or  how  they  could  be  circumcised  without 
having  changed  it.     The  Mosaic  Law  certainly  pre 
supposes  an  universal  acknowledgment  of  Jehovah 
within  the  limits  of  the  Promised  Land,  and  would 
therefore  enforce  the  dismissal  or  extermination  of 
slaves  who  persisted  in  heathenism. 

The  jccupations  of  slaves  were  of  a  menial  cha 
racter,  as  implied  in  Lev.  xxv.  39,  consisting  partly 
in  the  work  of  the  house,  and  partly  in  personal 
attendance  on  the  master.  Female  slaves,  for  in 
stance,  ground  the  corn  in  the  handmill  (Ex.  xi.  5  ; 
Job  xxxi.  10  ;  Is.  xlvii.  2),  or  gleaned  in  the  harvest 
rield  (Ruth  ii.  8).  They  also  baked,  washed,  cooked, 
and  nursed  the  children  (Mishn.  Cethub.  5,  §5).  The 
occupations  of  the  men  are  not  specified  ;  the  most 
trustworthy  held  confidential  posts,  such  as  that  of 
steward  or  major-domo  (Gen.  xv.  2,  xxiv.  2),  of  tutors 
to  sons  (Prov.  xvii.  2),  and  of  tenants  to  persons  of 
large  estate,  for  such  appears  to  have  been  the  posi 
tion  of  Ziba  (2  Sam.  ix.  2,  10).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SLIME.    The  rendering  in  the  A.  V.  of  the 


Heb.  1DH,  chemar,  the 


(Hommar)  of  the 


Arabs,  translated  &ff(f>a\TOs  by  the  LXX,  and  bitu 
men  in  the  Vulgate.  That  our  translators  under 
stood  by  this  word  the  substance  now  known  as 
bitumen,  is  evident  from  the  following  passages  in 
Holland's  Pliny  (ed.  1634).  "The  very  clammy 
glime  Bitumen,  which  at  certaine  times  of  the  yere 
floteth  and  swimmeth  upon  the  lake  of  Sodom, 
called  Asphaltites  in  Jury"  (vii.  15,  vol.  i.  p. 
163).  "  The  Bitumen  whereof  I  speake,  is  in  some 
places  in  manner  of  a  muddy  slime  ;  in  others,  very 
earth  or  minerall  "  (xxxv.  15,  vol.  ii.  p.  557). 

The  three  instances  in  which  it  is  mentioned  in 
the  0.  T.  are  abundantly  illustrated  by  travellers 
and  historians,  ancient  and  modern.  It  is  first 
spoken  of  as  used  for  cement  by  the  builders  in  the 
plain  of  Shmar,  or  Babylonia  (Gen.  xi.  3).  The 
bitumen  pits  in  the  vale  of  Siddim  are  mentioned 
in  the  ancient  fragment  of  Canaanitish  histoiy  (Gen. 
xiv.  10)  ;  and  the  ark  of  papyrus  in  which  Moses 
was  placed  was  made  impervious  to  water  by  a 
coating  of  bitumen  and  pitch  (Ex.  ii.  3). 

Herodotus  (i.  179)  tells  us  of  the  bitumen  found 
at  Is,  a  town  of  Babylonia,  eight  days  journey  from 
Babylon.  The  captive  Eretrians  (Her.  vi.  119) 
were  sent  by  Darius  to  collect  asphaltum,  silt,  and 
oil  at  Ardericca,  a  place  two  hundred  and  ten  stadia 
from  Susa,  in  the  district  of  Cissia.  The  town  of 
Is  was  situated  on  a  river,  or  small  stream,  of  the 
same  name  which  flowed  into  the  Euphrates,  and 
tarried  down  with  it  the  Jumps  of  bitumen,  which 
was  used  in  the  building  of  Babylon.  It  is  probably 
the  bitumen  springs  of  Is  which  are  described  in 


says  that  the  liquid  bitumen,  which  Is  called  naphtha, 
is  found  in  Susiana,  and  the  dry  in  Babylonia.  Of 
the  latter  there  is  a  spring  near  the  Euphrates,  and 
when  the  river  is  flooded  by  the  melting  of  the 
snow,  the  spring  also  is  filled  and  overflows  into 
the  river.  The  masses  of  bitumen  thus  produced 
are  fit  for  buildings  which  are  made  of  baked  brick 
Diodorus  Siculus  (ii.  12)  speaks  of  the  abundance 
of  bitumen  in  Babylonia.  It  proceeds  from  a  spring, 
and  is  gathered  by  the  people  of  the  country,  not 
only  for  building,  but  when  dry  for  fuel,  instead 
of  wood.  Ammianus  Marcellinus  (xxiii.  6,  §23) 
tells  us  that  Babylon  was  built  with  bitumen  by 
Semiramis  (comp.  Plin.  xxxv.  51 ;  Berosus,  quoted 
by  Jos.  Ant.  x.  11,  §1,  c.  Apion.  i.  19;  Arrian, 
Exp.  Al.  vii.  17,  §1,  &c.).  The  town  of  Is, 
mentioned  by  Herodotus,  is  without  doubt  the 
modern  Hit  or  ffeet,  on  the  west  or  right  bank  of 
the  Euphrates,  and  four  days'  journey,  N.W.,  or 
rather  W.N.W.,  of  Bagdad  (Sir  R.  Ker  Porter's 
Trav.  ii.  361,  ed.  1822).  The  principal  bitumen 
pit  at  Heet,  says  Mr.  Rich  (Memoir  on  the  Ruins 
of  Babylon,  p.  63,  ed.  1815),  has  two  sources,  and 
is  divided  by  a  wall  in  the  centre,  on  one  side  oi 
which  the  bitumen  bubbles  up,  and  on  the  other 
the  oil  of  naphtha.  Sir  R.  K.  Porter  (ii.  315)  ob 
served  "  that  bitumen  was  chiefly  confined  by  the 
Chaldean  builders,  to  the  foundations,  and  lower 
parts  of  their  edifices  ;  for  the  purpose  of  preventing 


the  ill  effects  of  water.' 
of  bitumen,"   he  adds, 


"With  regard  to  the  use 
I  saw  no  vestige  of  it 


whatever  on  any  remnant  of  building  on  the  higher 
ascents,  and  therefore  drier  regions."  This  view  is 
indirectly  confirmed  by  Mr.  Rich,  who  says  that 
the  tenacity  of  bitumen  bears  no  proportion  to  that 
of  mortar.  The  use  of  bitumen  appears  to  have 
been  confined  to  the  Babylonians,  for  at  Nineveh, 
Mr.  Layard  observes  (Nin.  ii.  278),  "  bitumen 
and  reeds  were  not  employed  to  cement  the  layers 
of  bricks,  as  at  Babylon ;  although  both  materials 
are  to  be  found  in  abundance  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  the  city."  At  Nimroud  bitumen  was 
found  under  a  pavement  (Nin.  i.  29),  and  "  the 
sculpture  rested  simply  upon  the  platform  of  sun- 
dried  bricks  without  any  other  substructure,  a  mere 
layer  of  bitumen,  about  an  inch  thick,  having  been 
placed  under  the  plinth "  (Nin.  $  Bab.  p.  208). 
In  his  description  of  the  firing  of  the  bitumen  pits 
at  Nimroud  by  his  Arabs,  Mr.  Layard  falls  into 
the  language  of  our  translators.  "  Tongues  of 
flame  and  jets  of  gas,  driven  from  the  burning  pit, 
shot  through  the  murky  canopy.  As  the  fire  bright 
ened,  a  thousand  fantastic  forms  of  light  played 
amid  the  smoke.  To  break  the  cindered  crust,  and 
to  bring  fresh  slime  to  the  surface,  the  Arabs  threw 


large  stones  into  the  spring. 


In  an  hour  the 


bitumen  was  exhausted  for  the  time,  the  dense 
smoke  gradually  died  away,  and  the  pale  light  of 
the  moon  again  shone  over  the  black  slime  pits" 
(Nin.  $  Bab.  202). 

The  bitumen  of  the  Dead  Sea  is  described  by 
Strabo,  Josephus,  and  Pliny.  Strabo  (xvi.  p.  763) 
gives  an  account  of  the  volcanic  action  by  which 
the  bottom  of  the  sea  was  disturbed,  and  the  bitu 
men  thrown  to  the  surface.  It  was  at  first  liquefied 
by  the  heat,  and  then  changed  into  a  thick  viscous 
substance  by  the  cold  water  of  the  sea,  on  the  sur 
face  of  which  it  floated  in  lumps  (f$a>\oi).  These 
lumps  are  described  by  Josephus  (B.  J.  iv.  8,  §4) 
as  of  the  size  and  shape  of  a  headless  ox  (comp. 
Plia.  vii.  1 3).  The  semi-liquid  kind  of  hitiuweu  is 


1334 


SLING 


that  which  Pliny  says  is  found  in  the  Dead  Sea,  the 
earthy  in  Syria  about  Sidon.  Liquid  bitumen,  such 
as  the  Zacynthian,  the  Babylonian,  and,  the  Apollo- 
niatic,  he  adds,  is  known  by  the  Greeks  by  the  name 
of  pis-asphaltum  (comp.  Ex.  ii.  3,  LXX.).  He  tells 
us  moreover  that  it  was  used  for  cement,  and  that 
bronze  vessels  and  statues  and  the  heads  of  nails 
were  covered  witli  it  (Plin.  xxxv.  51).  The  bitumen 
pits  by  the  Dead  Sea  are  described  by  the  monk  Bro- 
cardus  (Descr.  Terr.  Sanct.  c.  7,  in  Ugolini,  vi. 
p.  1044).  The  Arabs  of  the  neighbourhood  have 
perpetuated  the  story  of  its  formation  as  given  by 
Strabo.  "They  say  that  it  forms  on  the  rocks  in 
the  depths  of  the  sea,  and  by  earthquakes  or  other 
submarine  concussions  is  broken  off'  in  large  masses, 
and  rises  to  the  surface  "  (Thomson,  The  Land  arid 
the  Book,  p.  223).  They  told  Burckhardt  a  similar 

M.J 

tale.     "  The  asphaltum  (%*£»),  Hommar,  which  is 

collected  by  the  Arabs  of  the  western  shore,  is  said 
to  come  from  a  mountain  which  blocks  up  the 
passage  along  the  eastern  Gtor,  and  which  is  situ 
ated  at  about  two  hours  south  of  Wady  Mojeb. 
The  Arabs  pretend  that  it  oozes  up  from  fissures  in 
the  cliff,  and  collects  in  large  pieces  on  the  rock 
below,  where  the  mass  gradually  increases  and 
hardens,  until  it  is  rent  asunder  by  the  heat  of  the 
sun,  with  a  loud  explosion,  and,  falling  into  the  sea, 
is  carried  by  the  waves  in  considerable  quantities 
to  the  opposite  shores"  (Trav.  in  Syria,  p.  394). 
Dr.  Thomson  tells  us  that  the  Arabs  still  call  these 
pits  by  the  name  bidret  hummar,  which  strikingly 
resembles  the  Heb.  beSroth  chemar  of  Gen.  xiv.  10 
(Land  and  Book,  p.  224). 

Strabo  says  that  in  Babylonia  boats  were  made 
of  wicker-work,  and  then  covered  with  bitumen  to 
keep  out  the  water  (xvi.  p.  743).  In  the  same 
way  the  ark  of  rushes  or  papyrus  in  which  Moses 
was  placed  was  plastered  over  with  a  mixture  of 
bitumen  and  pitch  or  tar.  Dr.  Thomson  remarks 
(p.  224) :  "  This  is  doubly  interesting,  as  it  reveals 
the  process  by  which  they  prepared  the  bitumen. 
The  mineral,  as  found  in  this  country,  melts  readily 
enough  by  itself;  but  then,  when  cold,  it  is  as 
brittle  as  glass.  It  must  be  mixed  with  tar  while 
melting,  and  in  that  way  forms  a  hard,  glossy  wax, 
perfectly  impervious  to  water."  We  know  from 
Strabo  (xvi.  p.  764)  that  the  Egyptians  used  the 
bitumen  of  the  Dead  Sea  in  the  process  of  embalm 
ing,  and  Pliny  (vi.  35)  mentions  a  spring  of  the 
same  mineral  at  Corambis  in  Ethiopia.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SLING  (J)7£:  ffQevSovrj :  funda).  The  sling 
has  been  in  all  ages  the  favourite  weapon  of  the 
shepherds  of  Syria  (1  Sam.  xvii.  40  ;  Burckhardt's 
Notes,  i.  57),  and  hence  was  adopted  by  the  Israel- 
itish  anny,  as  the  most  effective  weapon  for  light- 
armed  troops.  The  Benjamites  were  particularly 
expert  in  their  use  of  it :  even  the  left-handed  could 
"  sling  stones  at  an  hair  and  not  miss  "  (Judg.  xx. 
1 6  ;  comp.  1  Chr.  xii.  2).  According  to  the  Targum 
of  Jonathan  and  the  Syriac,  it  was  the  weapon  of 
the  Cherethites  and  Pelethites.  It  was  advantage 
ously  used  in  attacking  and  defending  towns  (2  K. 


*  Other  words  besides  those  mentioned  in  vol.  i.  p.  749, 
i-re  :  — 


1.  "I2D£  ;  6  ovy/cXeuoi/  ;  clusor  (2  K.  xxiv.  14),  where 
chfirfeh  is  also  used,  thus  denoting  a  workman  of  an 
Inferior  kind. 


SMYRNA 

iii.  25  ;  Joseph.  B.  J.  iv.  1,  §3),  and  in  skirmishing 
(B.  /.  ii.  17,  §5).  Other  eastern  nations  availed 
themselves  of  it,  as  the  Syrians  (1  Mace.  ix.  11), 
who  also  invented  a  kind  of  artificial  sling  (1  Maec. 
vi.  51)  ;  the  Assyrians  (Jud.  ix.  7  ;  Layard's  Nin.  ii. 
344)  ;  the  Egyptians  (Wilkinson,  i.  357) ;  and  tlio 
Persians  (Xen.  Anab.  iii.  3,  §18).  The  construction 
of  the  weapon  hardly  needs  description :  it  consisted 
of  a  couple  of  strings  of  sinew  or  some  fibrous  sub 
stance,  attached  to  a  leathern  receptacle  for  the  stone 
in  the  centre,  which  was  termed  the  caph*  i.  e.  pan 
(1  Sam.  xxv.  29)  :  the  sling  was  swung  once  or 
twice  round  the  head,  and  the  stone  was  then  dis 
charged  by  letting  go  one  of  the  strings.  Sling- 
stones1*  were  selected  for  their  smoothness  (1  Sam. 
xvii.  40),  and  were  recognised  as  one  of  the  ordinary 
munitions  of  war  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  14).  In  action  the 
stones  were  either  carried  in  a  bag  round  the  neck 
(1  Sam.  xvii.  40),  or  were  heaped  up  at  the  feet  of 
the  combatant  (Layard's  Nin.  ii.  344).  The  vio 
lence  with  which  the  stone  was  projected  supplied 
a  vivid  image  of  sudden  and  forcible  removal  (Jer. 
x.  18).  The  rapidity  of  the  whirling  motion  of  the 
sling  round  the  head,  was  emblematic  of  inquietude 
(1  Sam.  xxv.  29,  "  the  souls  of  thine  enemies  shall 
he  whirl  round  in  the  midst  of  the  pan  of  a  sling  "); 
while  the  sling-stones  represented  the  enemies  of 
God  (Zech.  ix.  15,  "  they  shall  tread  under  foot 
the  sling-stones  ").  The  term  margemah  c  in  Prov. 
xxvi.  8,  is  of  doubtful  meaning;  Gesenius  (Thes. 
p.  1263)  explains  of  "a  heap  of  stones/'  as  in  the 
margin  of  the  A.  V.,  the  LXX. ;  Ewald,  and  Hitzig, 
of  "  a  sling,"  as  in  the  text.  [W.  L.  B.] 


Egyptian  Slingers.    (Wilkinson.) 

SMITH.*  The  work  of  the  smith,  together  with 
an  account  of  his  tools,  is  explained  in  HANDICRAFT, 
vol.  i.  p.  749.  A  description  of  a  smith's  workshop 
is  given  in  Ecclus.  xxxviii.  28.  [H.  W.  P.] 

SMYB'NA.  The  city  to  which  allusion  is  made 
in  Revelation  ii.  8-11,  was  founded,  or  at  least 
the  design  of  founding  it  was  entertained,  by  Alex 
ander  the  Great  soon  after  the  battle  of  the  Gra- 
nicus,  in  consequence  of  a  dream  when  he  had  lam 
down  to  sleep  after  the  fatigue  of  hunting.  A  temple 
in  which  two  goddesses  were  worshipped  under  the 
name  of  Nemeses  stood  on  the  hill,  on  the  sides  of 


2.  'EDI  7 ;   tr^vpoKon-os  ;  matteator  ;  a  hammerer  :  a 
term  applied  to  Tubal-Cain,  Gen.  iv.  22  (Ges.  p.  530,  755 ; 
Saalschutz,  Arch.  Hebr.  \.  143).    [TUBAL-CAIN.] 

3.  D?in  ;   6  TU'TTTWF  ;   he   that   sxnitee   (Oae  anvil, 
S,  yifivpa,  incus).  Is  xli.  7. 


SMYRNA 

which  the  new  town  was  built  under  the  auspices 
of  Anligonus  and  Lysimachus,  who  carried  out  the 
design  of  the  conqueror  after  his  death.  It  was  situ 
ated  twenty  stades  from  the  city  of  the  same  name, 
which  after  a  long  series  of  wars  with  the  Lydians 
had  been  finally  taken  and  sacked  by  Halyattes. 
The  rich  lands  in  the  neighbourhood  were  cultivated 
by  the  inhabitants,  scattered  in  villages  about  the 
country  (like  the  Jewish  population  between  the 
times  of  Zedekiah  and  Ezra),  for  a  period  which 
Strabo,  speaking  roundly,  calls  400  years.  The 
descendants  of  this  population  were  reunited  in  the 
new  Smyrna,  which  soon  became  a  wealthy  and 
important  city.  Not  only  was  the  soil  in  the 
neighbourhood  eminently  productive — so  that  the 
vines  were  even  said  to  have  two  crops  of  grapes — 
but  its  position  was  such  as  to  render  it  the  natural 
outlet  for  the  produce  of  the  whole  valley  of  the 
Hermus.  The  Pramnean  wine  (which  Nestor  in 
the  Iliad,  and  Circe  in  the  Odyssey,  are  represented 
as  mixing  with  honey,  cheese,  and  meal,  to  make  a 
kind  of  salad  dressing)  grew  even  down  to  the  time 
of  Pliny  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the 
temple  of  the  Mother  of  the  gods  at  Smyrna,  and 
doubtless  played  its  part  in  the  orgiastic  rites  both 
of  that  deity  and  of  Dionysus,  each  of  whom  in  the 
times  of  Imperial  Rome  possessed  a  guild  of  wor 
shippers  frequently  mentioned  in  the  inscriptions  as 
the  lepa  (rtivoSos  /j.vffTuv  /iTjrpbs  StTrvA.rjj'Tjs  and 
the  if  pa  vvvoSos  p.v<rruv  Kal  "rt-^vi-rwv  &IOVIHTOV. 
One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  chefs  d'oeuvre  of 
Myron  which  stood  at  Smyrna,  representing  an  old 
woman  intoxicated,  illustrates  the  prevalent  habits 
of  the  population. 

The  inhabitants  of  New  Smyrna  appear  to  have 
possessed  the  talent  of  successfully  divining  the 
course  of  events  in  the  troublous  times  through 
which  it  was  their  destiny  to  pass,  and  of  habitually 
securing  for  themselves  the  favour  of  the  victor  for 
the  time  being.  Their  adulation  of  Seleucus  and 
his  son  Antiochus  was  excessive.  The  title  6  dfbs 
Kal  crcoT-fip  is  given  to  the  latter  in  an  extant  in 
scription ;  and  a  temple  dedicated  to  his  mother 
Stratonice,  under  the  title  of  '  A-QpoSirti  ~Srparo- 
VIK[S,  was  not  only  constituted  a  sanctuary  itself, 
but  the  same  right  was  extended  in  virtue  of  it  to 
the  whole  city.  Yet  when  the  tide  turned,  a 
temple  was  erected  to  the  city  Rome  as  a  divinity, 
in  time  to  save  the  credit  of  the  Smyrnaeans  as 
zealous  friends  of  the  Roman  people.  Indeed,  though 
history  is  silent  as  to  the  particulars,  the  existence 
of  a  coin  of  Smyrna  with  the  head  of  Mithridates 
upon  it,  indicates  that  this  energetic  prince  also,  for 
a  time  at  least,  must  have  included  Smyrna  within 
Ihe  circle  of  his  dependencies.  However,  during 
the  reign  of  Tiberius,  the  reputation  of  the  Smyr 
naeans  for  an  ardent  loyalty  was  so  unsullied,  that 
on  this  account  alone  they  obtained  permission  to 
erect  P.  temple,  in  behalf  of  all  the  Asiatic  cities,  to 
the  emperor  and  senate,  the  question  having  been 
for  some  time  doubtful  as  to  whether  their  city  or 
Sardis  [SARDIS] — the  two  selected  out  of  a  crowd 
of  competitors — should  receive  this  distinction.  The 
honour  which  had  been  obtained  with  such  difficulty, 
was  requited  with  a  proportionate  adulation.  Nero 
appears  in  the  inscriptions  as  ffcar^p  ^ov  <rv/j.TravTOS 
avftpteirfiov  yevovs. 

.  It  seems  not  impossible,  that  just  as  St.  Paul's 


SMYRNA 


1335 


illustrations  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  are 
leiived  from  the  Isthmian  games,  so  the  message 
to  the  Church  in  Smyrna  contains  allusions  to  the 
ritual  of  the  pagan  mysteries  which  prevailed  in 
that  city.  The  stay  of  the  violent  death  and  re- 
viviscence  of  Dionysus  entered  into  these  to  such 
an  extent,  that  Origen,  in  his  argtfcnent  against 
Celsus,  does  not  scruple  to  quote  it  as  generally  ac 
cepted  by  the  Greeks,  although  by  them  interpreted 
metaphysically  (iv.  p.  171,  ed.  Spence).  In  this 
view,  the  words  &  irpwro?  Kal  6  fffxaros,  t>s  frytv- 
€TO  veKpbs  Kal  Z&ifffv  (Rev.  ii.  8)  would  come 
with  peculiar  force  to  ears  perhaps  accustomed  to 
hear  them  in  a  very  different  application.*  The  same 
may  be  said  of  Suxru  <rot  rbv  trretpavoy  TTJS  CWT?S, 
it  having  been  a  usual  practice  at  Smyrna  to  pre 
sent  a  crown  to  the  priest  who  superintended  the 
religious  ceremonial,  at  the  end  of  his  year  of  office. 
Several  persons  of  both  sexes  have  the  title  of  (Tre- 
$avr)$6poi  in  the  inscriptions;  and  the  context 
shows  that  they  possessed  great  social  consideration. 

In  the  time  of  Strabo  the  ruins  of  the  Old  Smyrna 
still  existed,  and  were  partially  inhabited,  but  the 
new  city  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  all 
Asia.  The  streets  were  laid  out  as  near  as  might 
be  at  right  angles ;  but  an  unfortunate  oversight  of 
the  architect,  who  forgot  to  make  underground 
drains  to  carry  off"  the  storm  rains,  occasioned  the 
flooding  of  the  town  with  the  filth  and  refuse  of  the 
streets.  There  was  a  large  public  library  there, 
and  also  a  handsome  building  surrounded  with  por 
ticoes  which  served  as  a  museum.  It  was  conse 
crated  as  a  heroiim  to  Homer,  whom  the  Smyr 
naeans  claimed  as  a  countryman.  There  was  also 
an  Odeum,  and  a  temple  of  the  Olympian  Zeus, 
with  whose  cult  that  of  the  Roman  emperors  was 
associated.  Olympian  games  were  celebrated  here, 
and  excited  great  interest.  On  one  of  these  occa 
sions  (in  the  year  A.D.  68)  a  Rhodian  youth  of  the 
name  of  Artemidorus  obtained  greater  distinctions 
than  any  on  record,  under  peculiar  circumstances 
which  Pausanias  i-elates.^  He  was  a  pancratiast, 
and  not  long  before  had*  been  beaten  at  Elis  from 
deficiency  in  growth.  But  when  the  Smyrnaean 
Olyrapia  next  came  round,  his  bodily  strength  had 
so  developed  that  he  was  victor  in  three  trials  on  the 
same  day,  the  first  against  his  former  competitors 
at  the  Peloponnesian  Olympia,  the  second  with  the 
youths,  and  the  third  with  the  men  ;  the  last  contest 
having  been  provoked  by  a  taunt  (Pausanias,  v. 
14,  §4).  The  extreme  interest  excited  by  the  games 
at  Smyrna,  may  perhaps  account  for  the  remark 
able  ferocity  exhibited  by  the  population  against  tht 
aged  bishop  Polycarp.  It  was  exactly  on  such  occa 
sions  that  what  the  pagans  regarded  as  the  unpa 
triotic  and  anti-social  spirit  of  the  early  Christians 
became  most  apparent ;  and  it  was  to  the  violent 
demands  of  the  people  assembled  in  the  stadium 
that  the  Roman  proconsul  yielded  up  the  martyr. 
The  letter  of  the  Smyrnaeans,  in  which  the  account 
of  his  martyrdom  is  contained,  represents  the  Jews 
as  taking  part  with  the  Gentiles  in  accusing  him  as 
an  enemy  to  the  state  religion, — conduct  which  would 
be  inconceivable  in  a  sincere  Jew,  but  which  was 
quite  natural  in  those  which  the  sacred  writer  cha 
racterises  as  "  a  synagogue  of  Satan  "  (Rev.  ii.  9). 

Smyrna  under  the  Romans  was  the  seat  of  a  con- 
ventus  juridicus,  whither  law  cases  were  brough* 


»  This  is  the  more  likely  from  the  superstitious  regard 
in  wjlch  the  Smyrnaeans  held  chance  phrases  (KA^OVCS) 
*s  a  material  for  augury.  They  had  a  K\t)86i'o>v  i 


just  above  the  dty  outside  the  walls,  in  which  this 
mode  of  divination  was  the  ordinary  one  (PaueanJaa 


1336 


SNAIL 


from  the  citizens  of  Magnesia  on  the  Sipylus,  and 
also  from  a  Macedonian  colony  settled  in  the  same 
country  under  the  name  of  Hyrcani.  The  last  are 
probably  the  descendants  of  a  military  body  in  the 
service  of  Seleucus,  to  whom  lands  were  given  soon 
after  the  building  of  New  Smyrna,  and  who,  together 
with  the  Magnesians,  seem  to  have  had  the  Smyrnaean 
citizenship  then  bestowed  upon  them.  The  decree 
containing  the  particulars  of  this  arrangement  is 
among  the  marbles  in  the  University  of  Oxford.  The 
Romans  continued  the  system  which  they  found  ex 
isting  when  the  country  passed  over  into  their  hands. 

(Strabo,  xiv.  p.  183  seqq. ;  Herodotus,  i.  16  ; 
Tacitus,  Annal.  iii.  63,  iv.  56  ;  Pliny,  N.  H.  v.  29  ; 
Boeckh,  Inscript.  Graec.  "Smyrnaean Inscriptions," 
especially  Nos.  3163-3176  ;  Pausanias,  loca  tit.,  and 
ir.  21,  §5 ;  Macrobius,  Saturnalia,  i.  18.)  [J.  W.  B.~] 

SNAIL.  The  representative  in  the  A.  V.  of  the 
Hebrew  words  shablul  and  chomet. 

1.  ShaMM    6&3B>  :     mip6s  ;    tvrepov,   Aq.  ; 
Xfyiov,  Sym. .   cera)  occurs  only  in  Ps.  Iviii.  9 
<8,  A.  V.)  :  «  As  a  shablul  which  melteth  let  (the 
wicked)  pass  away."     There  are  various  opinions 
as  to  the  meaning  of  this  word,  the  most  curious, 
perhaps,  being  that  of  Symmachus.    The  LXX.  read 
•'  melted   wax,"   similarly   the   Vulg.      The   ren 
dering  of  the  A.  V.  ("  snail ")  is  supported  by  the 
authority  of  many  of  the  Jewish  Doctors,  and  is 
probably  correct.     The  Chaldee  Paraphr.  explains 
shablul  by  thiblala  (K^lTl),  ».  e.  "  a  snail  or  a 
slug,"  which  was  supposed  by  the  Jews  to  con 
sume  away  and  die  by  reason   of  its  constantly 
emitting  slime  as  it  crawls  along.     See  Schol.  ad 
Gem.  Moe'd  Katon,    1    fol.  6  B,  as  quoted   by 
Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  560)  and  Gesenius  (Thes.  p. 
212).     It  is  needless  to  observe  that  this  is  not  a 
zoological  fact,  though  perhaps  generally  believed  by 
the  Orientals.    The  term  Shablul  would  denote  either 
a  Limax  or  a  Helix,  which  are  particularly  notice 
able  for  the  slimy  track  they  leave  behind  them. 

2.  Chomet  (tODH  :  aavpa :  lacerta)  occurs  only 
as  the  name  of  some  unclean  animal  in  Lev.  xi.  30. 
The  LXX.  and  Vulg.   understand   some   kind  of 
Lizard  by   the    term  ;    the   Arabic  versions    of 
Erpenius  and  Saadias  give  the  Chameleon  as  the 
animal    intended.       The    Veneto-Greek    and    the 
Rabbins,   with   whom   agrees   the  A.   V.,   render 
the  Heb.   term  by   "snail."      Bochart   (ffieroz. 
ii.  500)  has  endeavoured  to  show  that  a  species 
of  small  sand  lizard,  called  Chulaca  by  the  Arabs, 
is  denoted ;  but  his  argument  rests  entirely  upon 
some  supposed  etymological  foundation,  and  proves 
nothing  at  all.   The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  there 
is  no  evidence  to  lead  us  to  any  conclusion ;  perhaps 
some  kind  of  lizard  may  be  intended,  as  the  two 
most  important  old  versions  conjecture.     [W.  H.] 

SNOW  (but:  W&v\  5p6ffos  in  Prov.  xxvi. ; 

nix).  The  historical  books  of  the  Bible  contain 
oniy  two  notices  of  snow  actually  falling  (2  Sam. 
xxin.  20;  1  Mace.  xiii.  22),  but  the  allusions  in 
the  poetical  books  are  so  numerous  that  there  can 
be  no  cbubt  as  to  its  being  an  ordinary  occurrence 
in  the  winter  months.  Thus,  for  instance,  the 
snow-storm  is  mentioned  among  the  ordinary  ope- 
rations  of  nature  which  are  illustrative  of  the 
Creator's  power  (Ps.  cxlvii.  16,  cxlviii.  8).  We 
have,  again,  notice  of  the  beneficial  effect  of  snow 
on  the  soil  (Is.  Iv.  10).  Its  colour  is  adduced 
as  an  image  of  brilliancy  (Dan.  vii.  9 ;  Matt. 
*xviii.  3;  Rev.  i.  14),  of  purity  (Is.  i.  18;  Lam. 


SO 

Iv.  7,  in  reference  to  the  white  robes  of  the  priiices), 
and  of  the  blanching  effects  of  leprosy  (Ex.  iv.  6 ; 
Num.  xii.  10;  2  K.  v.  27).  In  the  book  of  Job 
we  have  references  to  the  supposed  cleansing  effects 
of  snow-water  (ix.  30),  to  the  rapid  melting  of  snow 
under  the  sun's  rays  (xxiv.  19),  and  the  consequent 
flooding  of  the  brooks  (vi.  16).  The  thick  falling 
of  the  flakes  forms  the  point  of  comparison  in  the 
obscure  passage  in  Ps.  Ixviii.  14.  The  snow  lies 
deep  in  the  ravines  of  the  highest  ridge  of  Leba 
non  until  the  summer  is  far  advanced,  and  indeed 
never  wholly  disappears  (Robinson,  iii.  531);  the 
summit  of  Hermon  also  perpetually  glistens  with 
frozen  snow  (Robinson,  ii.  437).  From  these 
sources  probably  the  Jews  obtained  their  supplies 
of  ice  for  the  purpose  of  cooling  their  beverages  in 
summer  (Prov.  xxv.  13).  The  "  snow  of  Lebanon  " 
is  also  used  as  an  expression  for  the  refreshing  cool 
ness  of  spiing  water,  probably  in  reference  to  the 
stream  of  Siloam  (Jer.  xviii.  14).  Lastly,  in  Prov. 
xxxi.  21,  snow  appears  to  be  used  as  a  synonym  for 
winter  or  cold  weather.  The  liability  to  snow 
must  of  course  vary  considerably  in  a  country  ot 
such  varying  altitude  as  Palestine.  Josephus  notes 
it  as  a  peculiarity  of  the  low  plain  of  Jericho  that 
it  was  warm  there  even  when  snow  was  prevalent 
in  the  rest  of  the  country  (B.  J.  iv.  8,  §3).  At 
Jerusalem  snow  often  falls  to  the  depth  of  a  foot  or 
more  in  January  and  February,  but  it  seldom  lies 
(Robinson,  i.  429).  At  Nazareth  it  falls  more 
frequently  and  deeply,  and  it  has  been  observed  to  fall 
even  in  the  maritime  plain  at  Joppa  and  about  Carmel 
(Kitto,  Phys.  Hist.  p.  210).  A  comparison  of  the 
notices  of  snow  contained  in  Scripture  and  in  the 
works  of  modern  travellers  would,  however,  lead 
to  the  conclusion  that  more  fell  in  ancient  times 
than  at  the  present  day.  At  Damascus,  snow  falls 
to  the  depth  of  nearly  a  foot,  and  lies  at  all  events 
for  a  few  days  (Wortabet's  Syria,  i.  215,  236). 
At  Aleppo  it  falls,  but  never  lies  for  more  than  a 
day  (Russell,  i.  69).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SO  (KID :  2r?7c<5/> :  Sua).  "  So  king  of  Egypt " 
is  once  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  Hoshea,  the  last 
king  of  Israel,  evidently  intending  to  become  the 
vassal  of  Egypt,  sent  messengers  to  him  and  made 
no  present,  as  had  been  the  yearly  custom,  to  the 
king  of  Assyria  (2  Kings  xvii.  4).  The  conse 
quence  of  this  step,  which  seems  to  have  been  for 
bidden  by  the  prophets,  who  about  this  period  are 
constantly  warning  the  people  against  trusting  in 
Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  was  the  imprisonment  of 
Hoshea,  the  taking  of  Samaria,  and  the  carrying 
captive  of  the  ten  tribes. 

So  has  been  identified  by  different  writers  with 
the  first  and  second  kings  of  the  Ethiopian  XXVth 
dynasty,  called  by  Manetho,  Sabakon,  and  Sebichos. 
It  will  be  necessary  to  examine  the  chronology  of 
the  period  in  order  to  ascertain  which  of  these  iden 
tifications  is  the  more  probable.  We  therefore  give 
a  table  of  the  dynasty  (see  opposite  page),  including 
the  third  and  last  reign,  that  of  Tirhakah,  for  the 
illustration  of  a  later  article.  [TlRHAKAH.] 

The  accession  of  Teharka,  the  Tirhakah  of  Scrip 
ture,  may  be  nearly  fixed  on  the  evidence  of  ac 
Apis-tablet,which  states  that  one  of  the  bulls  Apu. 
was  born  in  his  26th  year,  and  died  at  the  end  of 
the  20th  of  Psammetichus  I.  This  bull  lived  more 
than  20  years,  and  the  longest  age  of  any  Apis 
stated  is  26.  Supposing  the  latter  duration,  which 
would  allow  a  short  interval  between  Teharka  and 
Psammetichus  II.,  as  seems  necessary,  the  accession  OJ 


SOCHO 


TABLE  OF  DYNASTY  XXV. 


EGYPTIAN  DATA. 

HEBKEW  DATA. 

S.C. 

Manetho. 

Monuments. 

Con  ect 
reigns? 

B.C. 

,              Events. 

719 

Africanns. 

Yrs. 
l.Sabak6n    8 

Eusebius. 
Yrs. 
l.Sabakon  12 

Order. 
1.  SHEBEK    . 

Highest 
Yr. 

XII. 

12 

cir.  723  or  703 

Hoshea'elrei'ywithSo. 

707 
695 

2.  Sebich6s  14 
3.  Tarkos     18 

2.  Sebichds  12 
3.  Tarakos  20 

2.  SHEBETEK 
3.  TEHARKA 

XXVI. 

12 
26 

cir.  703  or  683? 

War  with  Sennacherit 

Teharka  would  be  B.  C.  695.  If  we  assign  24  years 
to  the  two  predecessors,  the  commencement  of  the 
dynasty  would  be  B.C.  719.  But  it  is  not  certain 
that  their  reigns  were  continuous.  The  account 
which  Herodotus  gives  of  the  war  of  Sennacherib 
and  Sethos  suggests  that  Tirhakah  was  not  ruling  in 
Egypt  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  the  Assyrian 
army,  so  that  we  may  either  conjecture,  as  Dr. 
Hincks  has  done,  that  the  reign  of  Sethos  followed 
that  of  Shebetek  and  preceded  that  of  Tirhakah  over 
Egypt  (Journ.  Sac.  Lit.,  Jan.  1853),  or  else  that 
Tirhakah  was  king  of  Ethiopia  while  Shebetek,  not 
the  same  as  Sethos,  ruled  in  Egypt,  the  former  hypo 
thesis  being  far  the  more  probable.  It  seems  im 
possible  to  arrive  at  any  positive  conclusion  as  to 
the  dates  to  which  the  mentions  in  the  Bible  of  So 
and  Tirhakah  refer,  but  it  must  be  remarked  that  it 
is  difficult  to  overthrow  the  date  of  B.  C.  721,  for 
the  taking  of  Samaria. 

If  we  adopt  the  earlier  dates  So  must  correspond 
to  Shebek,  if  the  later,  perhaps  to  Shebetek  ;  but  if 
it  should  be  found  that  the  reign  of  Tirhakah  is 
lated  too  high,  the  former  identification  might  still 
be  held.  The  name  Shebek  is  nearer  to  the  Hebrew 
name  than  Shebetek.  and  if  the  Masoretic  points 
do  not  faithfully  represent  the  original  pronunci 
ation,  as  we  might  almost  infer  from  the  conso 
nants,  and  the  name  was  Sewa  or  Seva,  it  is  not 
very  remote  from  Shebek.  We  cannot  account  foi 
the  transcription  of  the  LXX. 

From  Egyptian  sources  we  know  nothing  more 
of  Shebek  than  that  he  conquered  and  put  t< 
death  Bocchoris,  the  sole  king  of  the  XXIV th  dy 
nasty,  as  we  learn  from  Manetho's  list,  and  that  he 
continued  the  monumental  works  of  the  Egyptian 
kings.  There  is  a  long  inscription  atEl-Karnak  in 
which  Shebek  speaks  of  tributes  from  "  the  king  o 
the  land  of  KHALA  (SHARA),"  supposed  to  be  Syria 
(Brugsch,  Histoire  d'Egypte,  i.  p.  244.)  This  gives 
some  slight  confirmation  to  the  identification  of  thi 
king  with  So,  and  it  is  likely  that  the  founder  of 
new  dynasty  would  have  endeavoured,  like  Sbisha] 
and  Psammetichus  I.,  the  latter  virtually  the  founde 
of  the  XXVIth,  to  restore  the  Egyptian  supremacy 
in  the  neighbouring  Asiatic  countries. 

The  standard  inscription  of  Sargon  in  his  palac 
at  Khursabad  states,  according  to  ¥..  Oppert,  tha 
after  the  capture  of  Samaria,  Hanon  king  of  Gaza 
and  Sebech  sultan  of  Egypt,  met  the  king  of  As 
pyria  in  battle  at  Rapih,  Kaphia,  and  were  defeatec 
Sebech  disappeared,  but  Hanon  was  captured.  Pha 
raoh  king  of  Egypt  was  then  put  to  tribute.  (Le 
Inscriptions  Assyriennes  des  Sargonides,  &c.  p.  22. 
This  statement  would  appear  to  indicate  that  eithe 
Shebek  or  Shebetek,  for  we  cannot  lay  great  stres 
oijxwi  the  seeming  identity  of  name  with  the  forme 


dvanced  to  the  support  of  Hoshea  and  his  party, 
nd  being  defeated  tied  into  Ethiopia,  leaving  the 
iugdom  of  Egypt  to  a  native  prince.  This  evi 
ence  favours^ the  idea  that  the  Ethiopian  kings 
ere  not  successive.  [R-  S.  P-] 

SOAP  (JV"}3,  "12  :  *6a:  herba,h.  barith}.  The 
lebrew  term  borith  does  not  in  itself  bear  the  specific 
ense  of  soap,  but  is  a  general  term  for  any  substance 
f  cleansing  qualities.  As,  however,  it  appears  in 
er.  ii.  22,  in  contradistinction  to  nether,  which  un- 
oubtedly  means  "  nitre,"  or  mineral  alkali,  it  is 
air  to  infer  that  borith  refers  to  vegetable  alkali,  or 
ome  kind  of  potash,  which  forms  one  of  the  usual 
ngredients  in  our  soap.  Numerous  plants,  capable 
/yielding  alkalies,  exist  in  Palestine  and  the  sur- 
•ounding  countries ;  we  may  notice  one  named  Hu- 
beibeh  (the  salsola  kali  of  botanists),  found  near 
he  Dead  Sea,  with  glass-like  leaves,  the  ashes  of 
which  are  called  el-Kuli  from  their  strong  alkaline 
properties  (Robinson,  Bib.  Researches,  \.  505) ;  the 
Ajram,  found  near  Sinai,  which  when  pounded 
serves  as  a  substitute  for  soap  (Robinson,  i.  84)  • 
the  gilloo,  or  *  soap  plant"  of  Egypt  (Wilkinson, 
i.  106):  and  the  heaths  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Joppa  (Kitto's  Phys.  Hist.  p.  267).  Modern  tra 
vellers  have  also  noticed  the  Saponaria  officinalis  and 
the  Mesembryanthemum  nodiflorum,  both  possessing 
alkaline  properties,  as  growing  in  Palestine.  From 
:hese  sources  large  quantities  of  alkali  have  been  ex 
tracted  in  past  ages,  as  the  heaps  of  ashes  outside 
Jerusalem  and  Nablus  testify  (Robinson,  iii.  201, 
299),  and  an  active  trade  in  the  article  is  still  pro 
secuted  with  Aleppo  in  one  direction  (Russell,  i. 
79),  and  Arabia  in  another  (Burckhardt,  i.  66). 
We  need  not  assume  that  the  ashes  were  worked  up 
in  the  form  familiar  to  us ;  for  no  such  article  was 
known  to  the  Egyptians  (Wilkinson,  i.  186).  The 
uses  of  soap  among  the  Hebrews  were  twofold : — 
(1)  for  cleansing  either  the  person  (Jer.  ii.  22  ;  Job 
ix.  30,  where  for  "  never  so  clean,"  read  "  with 
alkali ")  or  the  clothes ;  (2)  for  purifying  metals 
(Is.  i.  25,  where  for  "  purely,"  read  "  as  through 
alkali").  Hitzig  suggests  that  borith  should  be 
substituted  for  berith,  "  covenant,"  in  Ez.  xx.  37, 
and  Mai.  iii.  1.  [W.  L.  B.] 

SO'CHO  (toYP :  2a>x«" :  Socho},  1  Chr.  iv.  1 8. 
Probably  the  town  of  Socoh  in  Judah,  though 
which  of  the  two  cannot  be  ascertained.  It  appears 
from  its  mention  in  this  list,  that  it  was  colonized 
by  a  man  or  a  place  named  Heber.  The  Targum 
playing  on  the  passage  after  the  custom  of  Hebrew 
writers,  interprets  it  as  referring  to  Moses,  and  tekeo 
the  names  Jered,  Soco,  Jekuthiel,  as  titles  of  him. 

He  was  "  the  Rabba  of  Soco,  because  he  sheltered 
the  house  of  Isiael  with  his  virtue. '    [G.  | 


1340 


SODOM 


Vale  of  Siddim  and  the  plain  of  the  Jordan,  will 
doubtless  never  again  be  listened  to.     But 

2.  A  more  serious  departure  from  the  terms  of  the 
ancient  history  is  exhibited  in  the  prevalent  opinion 
that  the  cities  stood  at  the  south  end  of  the  Lake. 
This  appears  to  have  been  the  belief  of  Joseph  us 
and  Jerome  (to  judge  by  their  statements  on  the 
fubject  of  Zoar).  It  seems  to  have  been  universally 
held  by  the  mediaeval  historians  and  pilgrims,  and 
it  is  adopted  by  modern  topographers,  probably 
without  exception.  In  the  words  of  one  of  the  most 
able  and  careful  of  modern  travellers,  Dr.  Robinson, 
"  The  cities  which  were  destroyed  must  b*.vt  been 
situated  on  the  south  end  of  the  lake  as  it  then 
existed"  (B.  R.  ii.  188).  This  is  also  the  belief 
of  M.  Do  Saulcy,  except  with  regard  to  Gomorrah  ; 
and,  in  fact,  is  generally  accerted.  There  are  several 
grounds  for  this  belief;  but  the  main  point  on 
which  Dr.  Robinson  rests  his  argument  is  the  situa 
tion  of  Zoar. 

(a.)  "  Lot,"  says  he,  in  continuing  the  passage 
just  quoted,  "  fled  to  Zoar,  which  was  near  to 
Sodom ;  and  Zoar  lay  almost  at  the  southern  end 
of  the  present  sea,  probably  in  the  mouth  of  the 
Wady  Kerak,  where  it  opens  upon  the  isthmus 
of  the  peninsula.  The  fertile  plain,  therefore, 
which  Lot  chose  for  himself,  where  Sodom  was 
situated  ...  lay  also  south  of  the  lake  '  as  thou 
comest  unto  Zoar'"  {B.R.  ibid.). 

Zoar  is  said  by  Jerome  to  have  been  "  the  key 
of  Moab."  It  is  certainly  the  key  of  the  position 
which  we  are  now  examining.  Its  situation  is  more 
properly  investigated  under  its  own  head.  [ZOAR.] 
It  will  there  be  shewn  that  grounds  exist  for  believing 
that  the  Zoar  of  Josephus,  Jerome,  and  the  Crusaders, 
which  probably  lay  where  Dr.  Robinson  places  it, 
was  not  the  Zoar  of  Lot.  On  such  a  point,  how 
ever,  where  the  evidence  is  so  fragmentary  and  so 
obscure,  it  is  impossible  to  speak  otherwise  than 
with  extreme  diffidence. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  it  may  be  observed 
that  the  statement  of  Gen.  xix.  hardly  supports 
the  inference  relative  to  the  position  of  these  two 
places,  which  is  attempted  to  be  extorted  from  it. 
For,  assuming  that  Sodom  was  where  all  topo 
graphers  seem  to  concur  in  placing  it,  at  the  salt 
ridge  of  Usdum,  it  will  be  found  that  the  distance 
between  that  spot  and  the  mouth  of  the  Wady 
Kcrak,  where  Dr.  Robinson  proposes  to  place  Zoar, 
a  distance  which,  according  to  the  narrative,  was 
traversed  by  Lot  and  his  party  in  the  short  twi 
light  of  an  Eastern  morning  (ver.  15  and  23),  is 
no  less  than  16  miles.1 

Without  questioning  that  the  narrative  of  Gen. 
xix.  is  strictly  historical  throughout,  we  are  not  at 
present  in  possession  of  sufficient  knowledge  of  the 
topography  and  of  the  names  attached  to  the  sites  of 
this  remarkable  region,  to  enable  any  profitable  con 
clusions  to  be  arrived  at  on  this  and  the  other  kindred 
questions  connected  with  the  destruction  of  the  rive 
cities. 

f  i.)  Another  consideration  in  favour  of  placing 
the  cities  at  the  southern  end  of  the  lake  is 
the  existence  of  similar  names  in  that  direction. 


*  M.  De  Saulcy  has  not  overlooked  this  consideration 
(Narrative,  i.  442).  His  own  proposal  to  place  Zoar  at 
ZuweiraJi  is  however  inadmissible,  for  reasons  stated 
under  the  head  of  Zoar.  If  Usdum  be  Sodom,  then  the 
Bite  which  has  most  claim  to  be  identified  with  the  site  of 
Zoar  Is  the  Tell  um-Zoghal.  which  stands  between  the 
mirth  end  of  Khashm  Usdum  and  the  Lake.  But  Zoar, 
the  craile  of  Moab  and  Animoa,  must  surely  have  been 


SODOM 

Thus,  the  name   Usdum,  attached  to  the  remark 
able  ridge  of  salt  which  lies  at  the  south-western 
comer  of  the  lake,  is  usually  accepted  as  the  repre-* 
sentative  of  Sodom  (Robinson,  Van  de  Velde,  De 
Saulcy,  &c.  &c.).     But  there  is  a  considerable  dif- 

.?     / 

ference  between  the  two  words  DID  and  j*Jw^ 
and  at  any  rate  the  point  deserves  further  investi 
gation.  The  name  'Amrah  (s*4Jc),  which  is  at 
tached  to  a  valley  among  the  mountains  south  oi 
Masada  (Van  de  Velde,  ii.  99,  and  Map),  is  an 
almost  exact  equivalent  to  the  Hebrew  of  Gomorrha  k 
('Amorah).  The  name  Dra'a  ($•£  A),  and  much 

more  sti-ongly  that  of  Zoghal  (\e«  •)»  reca^  Zoar. 

(c.)  A  third  argument,  and  perhaps  the  weightiest 
of  the  three,  is  the  existence  of  the  salt  mountain 
at  the  south  of  the  lake,  and  its  tendency  to  split 
off  in  columnar  masses,  presenting  a  rude  resem 
blance  to  the  human  form.  But  with  reference  to 
this  it  may  be  remarked  that  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  salt  does  not  exist  at  other  spots  round 
the  lake.  In  fact,  as  we  shall  see  under  the  head  of 
Zoar,  Thietmar  (A.D.  1217)  states  that  he  saw  the 
pillar  of  Lot's  wife  on  the  east  of  Jordan  at  about 
a  mile  from  the  ordinary  ford :  and  wherever  such 
salt  exists,  since  it  doubtless  belongs  to  the  same 
formation  as  the  Khashm  Usdum,  it  will  possess  the 
habit  of  splitting  into  the  same  shapes  as  that  does. 

It  thus  appears  that  on  the  situation  of  Sodom 
no  satisfactory  conclusion  can  at  present  be  come 
to.  On  the  one  hand  the  narrative  of  Genesis 
seems  to  state  positively  that  it  lay  at  the  northern 
end  of  the  Dead  Sea.  On  the  other  hand  the  long- 
continued  tradition  and  the  names  of  existing  spots 
seem  to  pronounce  with  almost  equal  positivenesi 
that  it  was  at  its  southern  end.  How  the  geo 
logical  argument  may  affect  either  side  of  the 
proposition  cannot  be  decided  in  the  present  con 
dition  of  our  knowledge. 

Of  the  catastrophe  which  destroyed  the  city  and 
the  district  of  Sodom  we  can  hardly  hope  ever  to 
form  a  satisfactory  conception.  Some  catastrophe 
there  undoubtedly  was.  Mot  only  does  the  narrative 
\  of  Gen.  xix.  expressly  state  that  the  cities  were  mi- 
|  raculously  destroyed,  but  all  the  references  to  the 
event  in  subsequent  writers  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  bear  witness  to  the  same  fact.  But 
what  secondary  agencies,  besides  fire,  were  employed 
in  the  accomplishment  of  the  punishment  cannot  be 
safely  determined  in  the  almost  total  absence  of  exact 
scientific  description  of  the-  natural  features  of  the 
ground  round  the  lake.  It  is  possible  that  when  the 
ground  has  been  thoroughly  examined  by  competent 
observers,  something  may  be  discovered  which  may 
throw  light  on  the  narrative.  Until  then,  it  is 
useless,  however  tempting,  to  speculate.  But  even 
this  is  almost  too  much  to  hope  for  ;  because,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  there  is  no  warrant  for  imagining 
that  the  catastrophe  was  a  geological  one,  and  in  any 
other  case  all  traces  of  action  must  at  this  distance 
of  time  have  vanished. 

on  the  east  side  of  the  Lake. 

k  The  G  here  is  employed  by  the  Greeks  for  the  diffi 
cult  guttural  ain  of  the  Hebrews,  which  they  were 
unable  to  pronounce  (comp.  Gothaliah  for  Athaliah,  &c.). 
This,  however,  would  not  be  the  case  in  Arabic,  where 
the  ain  is  very  common,  and  therefore  De  Saulcy's  identi 
fication  of  Goumran  with  Gomorrah  falls  to  the  ground 
ae  t'j,  at  least,  as  etymology  is  concerned. 


SODOM 

It  xvas  formerly  supposed  that  the  overthrow  of 
Sodom  was  can«ed  by  the  convulsion  which  formed 
the  Dead  Sea.  This  theory  is  stated  by  Dean  Milman 
in  his  History  of  the  Jews  (i.  15,  16)  with  great 
spirit  and  clearness."1  "  The  valley  of  the  Jordan, 
in  which  the  cities  of  Sodom,  Gomorrah,  Adma, 
and  Tseboim  were  situated,  was  rich  and  highly 
cultivated.  It  is  most  probable  that  the  river  then 
flowed  in  a  deep  and  uninterrupted  channel  down  a 
regular  descent,  and  discharged  itself  into  the  eastern 
gulf  of  the  Red  Sea.  The  cities  stood  on  a  soil 
broken  and  undermined  with  veins  of  bitumen  and 
sulphur.  These  inflammable  substances,  set  on 
fire  by  lightning,  caused  a  tremendous  convulsion  ; 
the  water-courses,  both  the  river  and  the  canals  by 
which  the  land  was  extensively  irrigated,  burst 
their  Links;  the  cities,  the  walls  of  which  were 
perhaps  built  from  the  combustible  materials  of  the 
soil,  were  entirely  swallowed  up  by  the  fiery  inun 
dation  ;  and  the  whole  valley,  which  had  been  com 
pared  to  Paradise,  and  to  the  well-watered  corn 
fields  of  the  Nile,  became  a  dead  and  fetid  lake." 
But  nothing  was  then  known  of  the  lake,  and  the 
recent  discovery  of  the  extraordinary  depression  of 
its  surface  below  the  ocean  level,  and  its  no  less 
extraordinary  depth,  has  rendered  it  impossible 
any  longer  to  hold  such  a  theory.  The  changes 
which  occurred  when  the  limestone  strata  of  Syria 
were  split  by  that  vast  fissure  which  forms  the 
Jordan  Valley  and  the  basin  of  the  Salt  Lake,  must 
not  only  have  taken  place  at  a  time  long  anterior 
to  the  period  of  Abraham,  but  must  have  been  of 
such  a  nature  and  on  such  a  scale  as  to  destroy  all 
animal  life  far  and  near  (Dr.  Buist,  in  Trans,  of 
Bombay  Geogr.  Soc.  xii.  p.  xvi.). 

Since  the  knowledge  of  these  facts  has  rendered 
the  old  theory  untenable,  a  new  one  has  been 
broached  by  Dr.  Robinson.  He  admits  that  "  a 
lake  must  have  existed  where  the  Dead  Sea  now  lies, 
into  which  the  Jordan  poured  its  waters  long  before 
the  catastrophe  of  Sodom.  The  great  depression  of 
tho  whole  broad  Jordan  valley  and  of  the  northern 
part  of  the  Arabah,  the  direction  of  its  lateral 
valleys,  as  well  as  the  slope  of  the  high  western 
district  towards  the  north,  all  go  to  show  that  the 
configuration  of  this  region  in  its  main  features 
is  coeval  with  the  present  condition  of  the  surface 
of  the  earth  in  general,  and  not  the  effect  of  any 

local  catastrophe  at  a  subsequent   period In 

view  of  the  fact  of  the  necessary  existence  of  a 
lake  before  the  catastrophe  of  Sodom;  the  well 
watered  plain  toward  the  south,  in  which  were 
the  cities  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  not  fa 
off  the  sources  of  bitumen  ;  as  also  the  peculiar 
character  of  this  part  of  the  lake,  where  alone  as- 
phaltum  at  the  present  day  makes  its  appearance — 
I  say,  in  view  of  all  these  facts,  there  is  but  a  step 
to  the  obvious  hypothesis,  that  the  fertile  plain  is 
how  in  part  occupied  by  the  southern  bay  lying 
south  of  the  peninsula ;  and  that,  by  some  convul 
sion  or  catastrophe  of  nature  connected  with  the 
miraculous  destruction  of  the  cities,  either  the  sur 
face  of  this  plain  was  scooped  out,  or  the  bottom  o 
the  lake  heaved  up'  so  as  to  cause  the  waters  tc 
overflow  and  cover  permanently  a  larger  tract  than 
formerly  "  (B.  R.  ii.  188,  9). 

To  this  very  ingenious  theory  two  objections  mai 


SODOM 


1341 


m  This  cannot  be  said  of  the  account  given  by  Fulle 
in  his  Pisgah-sight  of  Palestine  (Bk.  2,  ch.  13),  which 
teems  to  combine  every  possible  mistake  with  an  amoun 
of  bad  taste  and  unseemly  drollery  quite  astonishing  eve 
to  Fuller. 


be  taken.  (1.)  The  "  plain  of  the  Jordan,"  in  which 
he  cities  stood  (as  has  been  stated)  can  hardly  have 
seen  at  the  south  end  of  the  lake ;  and  (2.)  The 
jeological  portion  of  the  theory  does  not  appear  to 
gree  with  the  facts.  The  whole  of  the  lower  end 
if  the  lake,  including  the  plain  which  borders  it  on 
,he  south,  has  every  appearance  not  of  having  beeu 
owered  since  the  formation  of  the  valley,  but  of 
mdergoing  a  gradual  process  of  filling  up.  This 
•egion  is  in  fact  the  delta  of  the  very  large,  though 
•regular,  streams  which  drain  the  highlands  on  its 
east,  west,  and  south,  and  have  drained  them  ever 
since  the  valley  was  a  valley.  No  report  by  any  ob 
server  at  all  competent  to  read  the  geological  features 

the  district  will  be  found  to  give  countenance 
:o  the  notion  that  any  disturbance  has  taken  place 
within  the  historical  period,  or  that  anything  oc 
curred  there  since  the  country  assumed  its  present 
general  conformation  beyond  the  quiet,  gradual 
hange  due  to  the  regular  operation  of  the  ordinary 
agents  of  nature,  which  is  slowly  filling  up  the 
chasm  of  the  valley  and  the  lake  with  the  washings 
brought  down  by  the  torrents  from  the  highlands 
on  all  sides.  The  volcanic  appearances  and  marks 
of  fire,  so  often  mentioned,  are,  so  far  as  we  have 
any  trustworthy  means  of  judging,  entirely  illusory, 
and  due  to  ordinary,  natural,  causes. 

But  in  fact  the  narrative  of  Gen.  xix.  neither 
states  nor  implies  that  any  convulsion  of  the  earth 
occurred.  The  word  haphac,  rendered  in  the  A.  V. 
"overthrow,"  is  the  only  expression  which  sug 
gests  such  a  thing.  Considering  the  character  of 
the  whole  passage,  it  may  be  inferred  with  almost 
absolute  certainty  that,  had  an  earthquake  or  con 
vulsion  of  a  geological  nature  been  a  main  agent 
in  the  destruction  of  the  cities,  it  would  have  been 
far  more  clearly  reflected  in  the  narrative  than  it 
is.  Compare  it,  for  example,  with  the  forcible 
language  and  the  crowded  images  of  Amos  and  the 
Psalmist  in  reference  to  such  a  visitation.  If  it  were 
possible  to  speculate  on  materials  at  once  so  slender 
and  so  obscure  as  are  furnished  by  that  narrative,  it 
would  be  more  consistent  to  suppose  that  the  actual 
agent  in  the  ignition  and  destruction  of  the  cities 
had  been  of  the  nature  of  a  tremendous  thunderstorm 
accompanied  by  a  discharge  of  meteoric  stones.0 

The  name  Sedom  has  been  interpreted  to  mean 
«  burning"  (Gesenius,  Thes*  939a).  This  is  pos 
sible,  though  it  is  not  at  all  certain,  since  Gesenius 
himself  hesitates  between  that  interpretation  and 
one  which  identifies  it  with  a  similar  Hebrew  word 
meaning  "  vineyard,"  and  Fttrst  (Handwb.  ii.  72), 
with  equal  if  not  greater  plausibility,  connects  it 
with  a  root  meaning  to  enclose  or  fortify.  Simonis 
again  (Onomast.  363)  renders  it  "  abundance  of 
dew,  or  water,"  Killer  (Onomast.  176)  "fruitful 
land,"  and  Chytraeus  "mystery."  In  fact,  like 
most  archaic  names,  it  may,  by  a  little  inge 
nuity,  be  made  to  mean  almost  anything.  Pro 
fessor  Stanley  (8.  and  P.  289)  notices  the  first 
of  these  interpretations,  and  comparing  it  with 
the  "  Phlegraean  fields  "  in  the  Campagna  at  Rome, 
says  that  "  the  name,  if  not  derived  from  the  sub 
sequent  catastrophe,  shows  that  the  marks  of  fire 
had  already  passed  over  the  doomed  valley."  Appa 
rent  "  marks  of  fire  "  there  are  all  over  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  the  Dead  Sea.  They  have  misled  many 


"  This  is  the  accocnt  af  the  Koran  (xi.  84).— "We 
turned  those  cities  upside  down  and  we  rained  upon  them 
stones  of  baked  clay." 

o  Taking  Dhp=  HD^,  and  that  as 


1340 


SODOM 


SODOM 

Thus,  the  name  Usdum,  attached  to  the  remark 
able  ridge  of  salt  which  lies  at  the  south-western 
comer  of  the  lake,  is  usually  accepted  as  the  repre- 
sentative  of  Sodom  (Robinson,  Van  de  Velde,  De 
Saulcy,  &c.  &c.).  But  there  is  a  considerable  dif 
ference  between  the  two  words  DHD  and 
and  at  any  rate  the  point  deserves  further  investi 
gation.  The  name  'Amrah  (s»»|»c),  which  is  at 
tached  to  a  valley  among  the  mountains  south  oi 
Masada  (Van  de  Velde,  ii.  99,  and  Map),  is  an 
almost  exact  equivalent  to  the  Hebrew  of  Gomorrha  k 
('Amorah).  The  name  Drtia  (ac  A),  and  much 

more  strongly  that  of  Zoghal  (Vc»  *.)>  recal  Zoar. 

(c.)  A  third  argument,  and  perhaps  the  weightiest 
of  the  three,  is  the  existence  of  the  salt  mountain 
at  the  south  of  the  lake,  and  its  tendency  to  split 
off  in  columnar  masses,  presenting  a  rude  resem 
blance  to  the  human  form.  But  with  reference  to 
this  it  may  be  remarked  that  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  salt  does  not  exist  at  other  spots  round 
the  lake.  In  fact,  as  we  shall  see  under  the  head  of 
Zoar,  Thietmar  (A.D.  1217)  states  that  he  saw  the 
pillar  of  Lot's  wife  on  the  east  of  Jordan  at  about 
a  mile  from  the  ordinary  ford :  and  wherever  such 
salt  exists,  since  it  doubtless  belongs  to  the  same 
formation  as  the  Khashm  Usdum,  it  will  possess  the 
habit  of  splitting  into  the  same  shapes  as  that  does. 

It  thus  appears  that  on  the  situation  of  Sodom 
no  satisfactory  conclusion  can  at  present  be  come 
to.  On  the  one  hand  the  narrative  of  Genesis 
seems  to  state  positively  that  it  lay  at  the  northern 
end  of  the  Dead  Sea.  On  the  other  hand  the  long- 
continued  tradition  and  the  names  of  existing  spots 
seem  to  pronounce  with  almost  equal  positivenest 
that  it  was  at  its  southern  end.  How  the  geo 
logical  argument  may  affect  either  side  of  the 
proposition  cannot  be  decided  in  the  present  con 
dition  of  our  knowledge. 

Of  the  catastrophe  which  destroyed  the  city  and 
the  district  of  Sodom  we  can  hardly  hope  ever  to 
form  a  satisfactory  conception.  Some  catastrophe 
there  undoubtedly  was.  Not  only  does  the  narrative 
of  Gen.  xix.  expressly  state  that  the  cities  were  mi 
raculously  destroyed,  but  all  the  references  to  the 

Kerak,  where  Dr.  Robinson  proposes  to  place  Zoar,  |  event  in  subsequent  writers  in  the  Old  and  New 

Testaments  bear  witness  to  the  same  fact.  But 
what  secondary  agencies,  besides  fire,  were  employed 
in  the  accomplishment  of  the  punishment  cannot  be 
safely  determined  in  the  almost  total  absence  of  exact 
scientific  description  of  the-  natural  features  of  the 


Vale  of  Siddim  and  the  plain  of  the  Jordan,  will 
doubtless  never  again  be  listened  to.     But 

2.  A  more  serious  departure  from  the  terms  of  the 
ancient  history  is  exhibited  in  the  prevalent  opinion 
that  the  cities  stood  at  the  south  end  of  the  Lake. 
This  appears  to  have  been  the  belief  of  Josephus 
and  Jerome  (to  judge  by  their  statements  on  the 
f  ubject  of  Zoar).  It  seems  to  have  been  universally 
held  by  the  mediaeval  historians  and  pilgrims,  and 
it  is  adopted  by  modern  topographers,  probably 
without  exception.  In  the  words  of  one  of  the  most 
able  and  careful  of  modern  travellers,  Dr.  Robinson, 
"  The  cities  which  were  destroyed  must  hfcVt  been 
situated  on  the  south  end  of  the  lake  as  it  then 
existed  "  (B.  R.  ii.  188).  This  is  also  the  belief 
of  M .  Do  Saulcy,  except  with  regard  to  Gomorrah ; 
and,  in  fact,  is  generally  accerted.  There  are  several 
grounds  for  this  belief;  but  the  main  point  on 
which  Dr.  Robinson  rests  his  argument  is  the  situa 
tion  of  Zoar. 

(a.)  "  Lot,"  says  he,  in  continuing  the  passage 
just  quoted,  "  fled  to  Zoar,  which  was  near  to 
Sodom ;  and  Zoar  lay  almost  at  the  southern  end 
of  the  present  sea,  probably  in  the  mouth  of  the 
Wady  Kerak,  where  it  opens  upon  the  isthmus 
of  the  peninsula.  The  fertile  plain,  therefore, 
which  Lot  chose  for  himself,  where  Sodom  was 
situated  ...  lay  also  south  of  the  lake  '  as  thou 
comest  unto  Zoar'"  (B.R.  ibid.). 

Zoar  is  said  by  Jerome  to  have  been  "  the  key 
of  Moab."  It  is  certainly  the  key  of  the  position 
which  we  are  now  examining.  Its  situation  is  more 
properly  investigated  under  its  own  head.  [ZOAR.] 
It  will  there  be  shewn  that  grounds  exist  for  believing 
that  the  Zoar  of  Josephus,  Jerome,  and  the  Crusaders, 
which  probably  lay  where  Dr.  Robinson  places  it, 
was  not  the  Zoar  of  Lot.  On  such  a  point,  how 
ever,  where  the  evidence  is  so  fragmentary  and  so 
obscure,  it  is  impossible  to  speak  otherwise  than 
with  extreme  diffidence. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  it  may  be  observed 
that  the  statement  of  Gen.  xix.  hardly  supports 
the  inference  relative  to  the  position  of  these  two 
places,  which  is  attempted  to  be  extorted  from  it. 
For,  assuming  that  Sodom  was  where  all  topo 
graphers  seem  to  concur  in  placing  it,  at  the  salt 
ridge  of  Usdum,  it  will  be  found  that  the  distance 
between  that  spot  and  the  mouth  of  the  Wady 


a  distance  which,  according  to  the  narrative,  was 
traversed  by  Lot  and  his  party  in  the  short  twi 
light  of  an  Eastern  morning  (ver.  15  and  23),  is 
no  less  than  16  miles.1 

Without  questioning  that  the  narrative  of  Gen. 
xix.  is  strictly  historical  throughout,  we  are  not  at  j  ground  round  the  lake.  It  is  possible  that  when  the 
present  in  possession  of  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  I  ground  has  been  thoroughly  examined  by  competent 
topography  and  of  the  names  attached  to  the  sites  of  j  observers,  something  may  be  discovered  which  may 
this  remarkable  region,  to  enable  any  profitable  con 
clusions  to  be  arrived  at  on  this  and  the  other  kindred 
questions  connected  with  the  destruction  of  the  five 


cities. 


Another  consideration  in  favour  of  placing 
the  cities  at  the  southern  end  of  the  lake  is 
the  existence  of  similar  names  in  that  direction. 


*  M.  De  Saulcy  has  not  overlooked  this  consideration 
(Narrative,  i.  442).  His  own  proposal  to  place  Zoar  at 
Zuweirah  is  however  inadmissible,  for  reasons  stated 
under  the  head  of  Zoar.  If  Usdum  be  Sodom,  then  the 


throw  light  on  the  narrative.  Until  then,  it  is 
useless,  however  tempting,  to  speculate.  But  even 
this  is  almost  too  much  to  hope  for  ;  because,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  there  is  no  warrant  for  imagining 
that  the  catastrophe  was  a  geological  one,  and  in  any 
other  case  all  traces  of  action  must  at  this  distance 
of  time  have  vanished. 

on  the  east  side  of  the  Lake. 

k  The  G  here  is  employed  by  the  Greeks  for  the  diffl- 
cult  guttural  ain  of  the  Hebrews,  which  they  were 
unable  to  pronounce  (comp.  Gothaliah  for  Athaliah,  &c.) 


Bite  which  has  most  claim  to  be  identified  with  the  site  of  This,  however,  would  not  be  the  case  in  Arabic,  where 
Zoar  is  the  Tell  um-Zoghal.  which  stands  between  the  j  the  ain  is  very  common,  and  therefore  De  Saulcy's  identt- 
north  end  of  Kluishm  Usdum  and  the  Lake.  But  Zoar,  j  ncation  of  Goumran  with  Gomorrah  falls  to  the  ground 
ihe  craile  of  Moab  and  Ammon,  must  surely  have  been  j  M  Ssr,  at  least,  as  etymology  is  concerned. 


SODOM 

It  xras  formerly  supposed  that  the  overthrow  of 
Sodom  was  can«ed  by  the  convulsion  which  formed 
the  Dead  Sea.  This  theory  is  stated  by  Dean  Milman 
in  his  History  of  the  Jews  (i.  15,  16)  with  great 
spirit  and  clearness.01  "  The  valley  of  the  Jordan, 
in  which  the  cities  of  Sodom,  Gomorrah,  Adma, 
and  Tseboim  were  situated,  was  rich  and  highly 
cultivated.  It  is  most  probable  that  the  river  then 
flowed  in  a  deep  and  uninterrupted  channel  down  a 
regular  descent,  and  discharged  itself  into  the  eastern 
gulf  of  the  Red  Sea.  The  cities  stood  on  a  soil 
broken  and  undermined  with  veins  of  bitumen  and 
sulphur.  These  inflammable  substances,  set  on 
fire  by  lightning,  caused  a  tremendous  convulsion  ; 
the  water-courses,  both  the  river  and  the  canals  by 
which  the  land  was  extensively  irrigated,  burst 
their  banks;  the  cities,  the  walls  of  which  were 
perhaps  built  from  the  combustible  materials  of  the 
soil,  were  entirely  swallowed  up  by  the  fiery  inun 
dation  ;  and  the  whole  valley,  which  had  been  com 
pared  to  Paradise,  and  to  the  well-watered  corn 
fields  of  the  Nile,  became  a  dead  and  fetid  lake." 
But  nothing  was  then  known  of  the  lake,  and  the 
recent  discovery  of  the  extraordinary  depression  of 
its  surface  below  the  ocean  level,  and  its  no  less 
extraordinary  depth,  has  rendered  it  impossible 
any  longer  to  hold  such  a  theory.  The  changes 
which  occurred  when  the  limestone  strata  of  Syria 
were  split  by  that  vast  fissure  which  forms  the 
Jordan  Valley  and  the  basin  of  the  Salt  Lake,  must 
not  only  have  taken  place  at  a  time  long  anterior 
to  the  period  of  Abraham,  but  must  have  been  of 
such  a  nature  and  on  such  a  scale  as  to  destroy  all 
animal  life  far  and  near  (Dr.  Buist,  in  Trans,  of 
Bombay  Geogr.  Soc.  xii.  p.  xvi.). 

Since  the  knowledge  of  these  facts  has  rendered 
the  old  theory  untenable,  a  new  one  has  been 
broached  by  Dr.  Robinson.  He  admits  that  "  a 
lake  must  have  existed  where  the  Dead  Sea  now  lies, 
into  which  the  Jordan  poured  its  waters  long  before 
the  catastrophe  of  Sodom.  The  great  depression  of 
tho  whole  broad  Jordan  valley  and  of  the  northern 
part  of  the  Arabah,  the  direction  of  its  lateral 
valleys,  as  well  as  the  slope  of  the  high  western 
district  towards  the  north,  all  go  to  show  that  the 
configuration  of  this  region  in  its  main  features 
is  coeval  with  the  present  condition  of  the  surface 
of  the  earth  in  general,  and  not  the  effect  of  any 

local  catastrophe  at  a  subsequent   period Iu 

view  of  the  fact  of  the  necessary  existence  of  a 
lake  before  the  catastrophe  of  Sodom;  the  well 
watered  plain  toward  the  south,  in  which  were 
the  cities  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  not  ft 
off  the  sources  of  bitumen  ;  as  also  the  peculiar 
character  of  this  part  of  the  lake,  where  alone  as- 
phaltum  at  the  present  day  makes  its  appearance — 
1  say,  in  view  of  all  these  facts,  there  is  but  a  step 
to  the  obvious  hypothesis,  that  the  fertile  plain  is 
liow  in  part  occupied  by  the  southern  bay  lying 
south  of  the  peninsula ;  and  that,  by  some  convul 
si  on  or  catastrophe  of  nature  connected  with  the 
miraculous  destruction  of  the  cities,  either  the  sur 
face  of  this  plain  was  scooped  out,  or  the  bottom  o: 
the  lake  heaved  up'  so  as  to  cause  the  waters  tc 
overflow  and  cover  permanently  a  larger  tract  than 
formerly  "  (B.  R.  ii.  188,  9). 

To  this  very  ingenious  theory  two  objections  ma^ 


SODOM 


1341 


m  This  cannot  be  said  of  the  account  given  by  Fulle 
in  his  Pisgah-sight  of  Palestine  (Bk.  2,  ch.  13),  which 
seems  to  combine  every  possible  mistake  with  an  amoun 
of  bad  taste  and  unseemly  drollery  quite  astonishing  eve: 
to  Fuller. 


be  taken.  (1.)  The  "  plain  of  the  Jordan,"  in  which 
he  cities  stood  (as  has  been  stated)  can  hardly  have 
seen  at  the  south  end  of  the  lake  j  sind  (2.)  The 
geological  portion  of  the  theory  does  not  appear  to 
igree  with  the  facts.  The  whole  of  the  lower  end 
>f  the  lake,  including  the  plain  which  borders  it  on 
,he  south,  has  every  appearance  not  of  having  beeu 
owered  since  the  formation  of  the  valley,  but  of 
.mdergoing  a  gradual  process  of  filling  up.  This 
•egion  is  in  fact  the  delta  of  the  very  large,  though 
•regular,  streams  which  drain  the  highlands  on  its 
east,  west,  and  south,  and  have  drained  them  ever 
since  the  valley  was  a  valley.  No  report  by  any  ob 
server  at  all  competent  to  read  the  geological  features 
if  the  district  will  be  found  to  give  countenance 
;o  the  notion  that  any  disturbance  has  taken  place 
within  the  historical  period,  or  that  anything  oc 
curred  there  since  the  country  assumed  its  present 
general  conformation  beyond  the  quiet,  gradual 
change  due  to  the  regular  operation  of  the  ordinary 
agents  of  nature,  which  is  slowly  rilling  up  the 
chasm  of  the  valley  and  the  lake  with  the  washings 
orought  down  by  the  torrents  from  the  highlands 
on  all  sides.  The  volcanic  appearances  and  marks 
of  fire,  so  often  mentioned,  are,  so  far  as  we  have 
any  trustworthy  means  of  judging,  entirely  illusory, 
and  due  to  ordinary,  natural,  causes. 

But  in  fact  the  narrative  of  Gen.  xix.  neither 
states  nor  implies  that  any  convulsion  of  the  earth 
occurred.  The  word  haphac,  rendered  in  the  A.  V. 
"overthrow,"  is  the  only  expression  which  sug 
gests  such  a  thing.  Considering  the  character  of 
the  whole  passage,  it  may  be  inferred  with  almost 
absolute  certainty  that,  had  an  earthquake  or  con- 
ulsion  of  a  geological  nature  been  a  main  agent 
in  the  destruction  of  the  cities,  it  would  have  been 
far  more  clearly  reflected  in  the  narrative  than  it 
is.  Compare  it,  for  example,  with  the  forcible 
language  and  the  crowded  images  of  Amos  and  the 
Psalmist  in  reference  to  such  a  visitation.  If  it  were 
possible  to  speculate  on  materials  at  once  so  slender 
and  so  obscure  as  are  furnished  by  that  narrative,  it 
would  be  more  consistent  to  suppose  that  the  actual 
agent  in  the  ignition  and  destruction  of  the  cities 
had  been  of  the  nature  of  a  tremendous  thunderstorm 
accompanied  by  a  discharge  of  meteoric  stones.n 

The  name  Sedom  has  been  interpreted  to  mean 
"  burning"  (Gesenius,  Thes.°  939a).  This  is  pos 
sible,  though  it  is  not  at  all  certain,  since  Gesenius 
himself  hesitates  between  that  interpretation  and 
one  which  identifies  it  with  a  similar  Hebrew  word 
meaning  "  vineyard,"  and  Fiirst  (Handwb.  ii.  72), 
with  equal  if  not  greater  plausibility,  connects  it 
with  a  root  meaning  to  enclose  or  fortify.  Simonis 
again  (Onomast.  363)  renders  it  "  abundance  of 
dew,  or  water,"  Killer  (Onomast.  176)  "  fruitful 
land,"  and  Chytraeus  "mystery."  In  fact,  like 
most  archaic  names,  it  may,  by  a  little  inge 
nuity,  be  made  to  mean  almost  anything.  Pro 
fessor  Stanley  (S.  and  P.  289)  notices  the  first 
of  these  interpretations,  and  comparing  it  with 
the  "  Phlegraean  fields  "  in  the  Campagna  at  Rome, 
says  that  "  the  name,  if  not  derived  from  the  sub 
sequent  catastrophe,  shows  that  the  marks  of  fire 
had  already  passed  over  the  doomed  valley."  Appa 
rent  "  marks  of  fire  "  there  are  all  over  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  the  Dead  Sea.  They  have  misled  many 


»  This  is  the  account  of  the  Koran  (xi.  84):—  "We 
turned  those  cities  upside  down  and  we  rainod  upon  them 


stones  of  baked  clay." 
Taking  D'lD 


,  and  that  as 


1342 


SODOMA 


travellers  into  believing  them  to  be  the  tokens  of 
conflagration  and  volcanic  action  ;  and  in  the  same 
manner  it  is  quite  possible  that  they  originated  the 
name  Sedom,  for  they  undoubtedly  abounded  on  the 
shores  of  the  lake  long  before  even  Sodom  was 
founded.  But  there  is  no  warrant  for  treating  those 
appearances  as  the  tokens  of  actual  conflagration  or 
volcanic  action.  They  are  produced  by  the  gradual 
and  ordinary  action  of  the  atmosphere  on  the  rocks. 
They  are  familiar  to  geologists  in  many  other  places, 
and  they  are  found  in  other  parts  of  Palestine  where 
no  fire  has  ever  been  suspected. 

The  miserable  fate  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  is 
held  up  as  a  warning  in  numerous  passages  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments.  By  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Jude  it  is  made  "  an  ensample  to  those  that  after 
should  live  ungodly,"  and  to  those  "  denying  the 
only  Lord  God,  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ "  (2  Pet. 
n.  6,  Jude,  4-7).  And  our  Lord  Himself,  when 
describing  the  feaiful  punishment  that  will  befall 
those  that  reject  His  disciples,  says  that  "  it  shall  be 
more  tolerable  for  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  in  the  day 
of  judgment  than  for  that  city"  (Mark  vi.  11; 
comp.  Matt.  x.  15). 

The  name  of  the  Bishop  of  Sodom — "  Severus 
Sodomorum  " — appears  amongst  the  Arabian  pre 
lates  who  signed  the  acts  of  the  first  Council  of 
Nicaea.  Reland  remonstrates  against  the  idea  of 
the  Sodom  of  the  Bible  being  intended,  and  sug 
gests  that  it  is  a  mistake  for  Zuzumaon  or  Zoraima, 
a  see  under  the  metropolitan  of  Bostra  (Pal.  1020). 
This  M.  De  Saulcy  (Narr.  i.  454)  refuses  to  admit. 
He  explains  it  by  the  fact  that  many  sees  still  bear 
the  names  of  places  which  have  vanished,  and  exist 
onlv  in  name  and  memory,  such  as  Troy.  The 
Coptic  version  to  which  he  refers,  in  the  edition  of 
M.  Lenormant,  does  not  throw  any  light  on  the 
point.  [G.] 

SOD'OMA  (2rf5o/*a.  Sodoma).  Rom.  ix.  29. 
In  this  place  alone  the  Authorized  Version  has  fol 
lowed  the  Greek  and  Vulgate  form  of  the  well- 
known  name  SODOM,  which  forms  the  subject  of 
the  preceding  article.  The  passage  is  a  quotation 
from  Is.  i.  9.  The  form  employed  in  the  Penta 
teuch,  and  occasionally  in  the  other  books  of  the 
A.  V.  of  1611  is  Sodome,  but  the  name  is  now 
universally  reduced  to  Sodom,  except  in  the  one 
passage  quoted  above.  [G.] 

SOD'OMITES  (S5HJJ  ;  D'BHp  :  scortator, 
effeminatus).  This  word  does  not  denote  the  inha 
bitants  of  Sodom  (except  only  in  2  Esdr.  vii.  36) 
nor  their  descendants ;  but  is  employed  in  the  A.  V. 
of  the  Old  Testament  for  those  who  practised  as  a 
religious  rite  the  abominable  and  unnatural  vice 
from  which  the  inhabitants  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah 
haTe  derived  their  lasting  infamy.  It  occurs  in 
Deut.  xxiii.  17  ;  1  K.  xiv.  24,  xv.  12,  xxii.  46  ; 
2  K.  xxiii.  7  ;  and  Job  xxxvi.  14  (margin).  The 
Hebrew  word  Kadesh  is  said  to  be  derived  from  a 
root  kadash,  which  (strange  as  it  may  appear) 
means  "pure,"  and  thence  "holy."  The  words 
sacer  in  Latin,  and  "devoted"  in  our  own  lan 
guage,  have  also  a  double  meaning,  though  the 
subordinate  signification  is  not  so  absolutely  con 
trary  to  the  principal  one  as  it  is  in  the  case  of 


•  In  1  K.  xsii.  38  the  word  zonoth  is  rendered  "  armour." 
It  should  be  "  harlots  "— "  and  the  harlots  washed  them 
selves  there  "  (early  in  the  morning,  as  was  their  custom, 
adds  Prooopius  of  Gaza).  The  LXX.  have  rendered  this 
i/orrectly. 


SOLOMON 

kadesh.  "  This  dreadful  *  consecration  ,'  or  rathn 
desecration,  was  spread  in  different  ft  runs  ovei 
Phoenicia,  Syria,  Phrygia,  Assyria,  Babylonia.  Ash- 
taroth,  the  Greek  Astarte,  was  its  chief  object."  ft 
appears  also  to  have  been  established  at  Rome 
where  its  victims  were  called  Galli  (not  fron: 
Gallia,  but  from  the  river  Gallus  in  Bithynia), 
There  is  an  instructive  note  on  the  subject  in  Je 
rome's  Comm.  on  Hos.  iv.  14. 

The  translators  of  the  Septuagint  with  that 
anxiety  to  soften  and  conceal  obnoxious  expressions, 
which  has  been  often  noticed  as  a  characteristic  of 
their  version,  •  have,  in  all  cases  but  one,  avoided 
rendering  Kadesh  by  its  ostensible  meaning.  In  the 
first  of  the  passages  cited  above  they  give  a  double 
translation,  iropvetitov  and  TfXiffK6fJifvos  (initiated). 
In  the  second  o-tSj/Seoyioy  (a  conspiracy,  perhaps 
reading  "1^(5).  In  the  third  ras  reAeras  (sacri 
fices).  In  the  fourth  the  Vat.  MS.  omits  it,  and  the 
Alex,  has  rov  £v5i'r]\\a.'y(j,evov.  In  the  fifth  T&V 
Ka8r?<rf/i  :  and  in  the  sixth  virb  ayyeXcav. 

There  is  a  feminine  equivalent  to  Kadesh,  viz. 
Kadeshah.  This  is  found  in  Gen.  xxxviii.  21,  22  ; 
Deut.  xxiii.  17,  and  Hos.  iv.  14.  In  each  of  these 
cases  it  throws  a  new  light  on  the  passage  to  re 
member  that  these  women  were  (if  the  expression 
may  be  allowed)  the  priestesses  of  a  religion,  not 
plying  for  hire,  or  merely  instruments  for  gratifying 
passing  lust.  Such  ordinary  prostitutes  are  called 
by  the  name  zonah*  The  "  strange  women  "  of 
Prov.  ii.  16,  &c.,  were  foreigners,  zaroth.  [G.] 

SODOMTTISH  SEA,  THE  (Mare  Sodomi- 
ticum),  2  Esdr.  v.  7  ;  meaning  the  Dead  Sea.  It  is 
the  only  instance  in  the  Books  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  New  Testament,  or  Apocrypha,  of  an  ap 
proach  to  the  inaccurate  modern  opinion  which 
connects  the  salt  lake  with  the  destruction  of  Sodom. 
The  name  may,  however,  arise  here  simply  from 
Sodom  having  been  situated  near  the  lake.  [G.] 

SOL'OMON 


LXX.  ;  SoAo/icSj/,  N.  T.  and  Joseph.  :  Salomo). 

I.  Name.  —  The   changes  of  pronunciation  are 
worth  noticing.     We  lose  something  of  the  dignity 
of  the  name  when  it  passes  from  the  measured 
stateliness  of  the  Hebrew  to  the  anapaest  of  the 
N.  T.,  or  the  tribrach  of  our  common  speech.   Such 
changes  are  perhaps   inevitable  wherever  a  name 
becomes  a  household  word  in  successive  generations, 
just  as  that  of  Friedereich  (identical  in  meaning 
with  Solomon)  passes  into  Frederick.   The  feminine 
form  of  the  word  (SaAefytT?)  retains  the  long  vowel 
in  the  N.T.     It  appears,  though  with  an  altered 
sound,  in  the  Arabic  Suleimaun. 

II.  Materials.  —  (1).  The  comparative  scantiness 
of  historical  data   for  a  life  of  Solomon  is  itself 
significant.     While  that  of  David  occupies  1  Sam. 
xvi.-xxxi.,  2  Sam.  i.-xxiv.,  1  K.  i.  ii.,  1  Chr.  x.-xxix., 
that  of  Solomon  fills  only  the  eleven  chapters  1  K. 
i.-xi.,  and  the  nine  2  Chr.  i-ix.      The  compilers 
of  those  books  felt,  as  by  a  true  inspiration,  that 
the  wanderings,  wars,  and  sufferings  of  David  were 
better  fitted  for  the  instruction  of  after  ages  than 
the  magnificence  of  his  son.b    They  manifestly  give 
extracts  only  from  larger  works  which  were  before 


b  The  contrast  presented  by  the  Apocryphal  literature 
of  Jews,  Christians,  Mahometans,  abounding  in  pseudo 
nymous  works  and  legends  gathering  round  the  name  of 
Solomon  {infra),  but  having  hardly  any  connexion  with 
David,  is  at  once  striking  and  inst.ruci.iw 


SOLOMON 

them,  "  The  book  of  the  Acts  of  Solomon"  (1  K.  xi. 
41) ;  "  The  book  of  Nathan  the  prophet,  the  book 
of  Ahijah  the  Shilonite,  the  visions  of  Iddo  the  seer  " 
(2  Chr.  ix.  29).  Those  which  they  do  give,  bear, 
with  what  for  the  historian  is  a  disproportionate 
fullness,  on  the  early  glories  of  his  reign,  and  speak 
but  little  (those  in  2 'Chr.  not  at  all)  of  its  later 
sins  and  misfortunes,  and  we  are  consequently  un 
able  to  follow  the  annals  of  Solomon  step  by  step. 

(2).  Ewald,  with  his  usual  fondness  for  assign 
ing  different  portions  of  each  book  of  the  0.  T.  to  a 
series  of  successive  editors,  goes  through  the  process 
here  with  much  ingenuity,  but  without  any  very 
satisfactory  result  (Geschichte,  iii.  259-263).  A 
more  interesting  inquiry  would  be,  to  which  of  the 
books  above  named  we  may  refer  the  sections  which 
the  compilers  have  prit  together.  We  shall  pro 
bably  not  be  far  wrong  in  thinking  of  Nathan,  far 
advanced  in  life  at  the  commencement  of  the  reign, 
David's  chief  adviser  during  the  years  in  which  he 
was  absorbed  in  the  details  of  the  Temple  and  its 
ritual,  himself  a  priest  (1  K.  iv.  5  in  Heb.  comp. 
Ewald  iii.  116),  as  having  written  the  account  of  the 
accession  of  Solomon  and  the  dedication  of  the  Temple 
(1  K.  i.-viii.  66  ;  2  Chr.  i.-viii.  15).  The  prayer  of 
Solomon,  so  fully  reproduced,  and  so  obviously  pre- 
composed,  may  have  been  written  under  his  guidance. 
To  Ahijah  the  Shilonite,  active  at  the  close  of  the 
reign,  alive  some  time  after  Jeroboam's  accession, 
v/e  may  ascribe  the  short  record  of  the  sin  of  Solo 
mon,  and  of  the  revolution  to  which  he  himself  had 
so  largely  contributed  (1  K.  xi.).  From  the  Book 
of  the  Acts  of  Solomon  came  probably  the  miscel 
laneous  facts  as  to  the  commerce  and  splendour  of 
his  reign  (1  K.  ix.  10-x.  29). 

(3).  Besides  the  direct  history  of  the  0.  T.  we 
may  find  some  materials  for  the  life  of  Solomon  in 
the  books  that  bear  his  name,  and  in  the  Psalms 
which  are  referred,  on  good  grounds,  to  his  time, 
Ps.  ii.,  xlv.,  Ixxii.,  cxxvii.  Whatever  doubts  may 
hang  over  the  date  and  authorship  of  Ecclesiastes 
and  the  Song  of  Songs,  we  may  at  least  see  in  them 
the  reflection  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  his 
reign.  If  we  accept  the  latest  date  which  recent 
criticism  has  assigned  to  them,  they  elaborately 
work  up  materials  which  were  accessible  to  the 
writers,  and  are  not  accessible  to  us.  If  we  refer 
them  in  their  substance,  following  the  judgment  of 
the  most  advanced  Shemitic  scholars,  to  the  Solo 
monic  period  itself,  they  then  come  before  us  with 
all  the  freshness  and  vividness  of  contemporary  evi 
dence  (Renan,  Hist,  des  langues  Semit.  p.  131).* 

(4).  Other  materials  are  but  very  scanty.  The 
history  of  Josephus  is,  for  the  most  part,  only  a 
loose  and  inaccurate  paraphrase  of  the  O.  T.  narra 
tive.  In  him,  and  in  the  more  erudite  among  early 
Christian  writers,  we  find  some  fragments  of  older 
history  not  without  their  value,  extracts  from 
archives  alleged  to  exist  at  Tyre  in  the  first  century 
of  the  Christian  era,  and  from  the  Phoenician  his 
tories  of  Menandsr  and  Dius  (Jos.  Ant.  viii.  2,  §6  ; 
5,  §3),  from  Eupolemos  (Euseb.  Praep.  Evang.  ix. 


SOLOMON 

30),  from  Alexander  Polyhistor,  Menander,  and 
Laitus  (Clem.  Al.  Strom,  i.  21).  Writers  such  as 
these  were  of  course  only  compilers  at  recond- 
hand,  but  they  probably  had  access  to  some  earlier 
documents  which  have  now  perished. 

(5.)  The  legends  of  later  Oriental  literature  will 
claim  a  distinct  notice.  All  that  they  contribute 
to  history  is  the  help  they  give  us  in  realising  the 
impression  made  by  the  colossal  greatness  of  Solo 
mon,  as  in  earlier  and  later  times  by  that  of  Nim- 
rod  and  Alexander,  on  the  minds  of  men  of  many 
countries  and  through  many  ages. 

III.  Education.— (I}.  The  student  of  the  life 
of  Solomon  must  take  as  his  starting-point  the  cir 
cumstances  of  his  birth.  He  was  the  child  of 
David's  old  age,  the  last-born  of  all  his  sons  (1  Chr 
iii.  5).d  His  mother  had  gained  over  David  a 
twofold  power  ;  first,  as  the  object  of  a  passionate, 
though  guilty  love  ;  and  next,  as  the  one  person  to 
whom,  in  his  repentance,  he  could  make  something 
like  restitution.  The  months  that  preceded  his 
birth  were  for  the  conscience-stricken  king  a  time 
of  self-abasement.  The  birth  itself  of  the  child  who 
was  to  replace  the  one  that  had  been  smitten  must 
have  been  looked  for  as  a  pledge  of  pardon  and  a 
sign  of  hope.  The  feelings  of  the  king  and  of  his 
prophet-guide  expressed  themselves  in  the  names 
with  which  they  welcomed  it.  The  yearnings  of 
the  "  man  of  war,"  who  "  had  shed  much  blood/' 
for  a  time  of  peace — yearnings  which  had  shown 
themselves  before,  when  he  gave  to  his  third  son 
the  name  of  Ab-salom  (  =  father  of  peace),  now  led 
him  to  give  to  the  new-born  infant  the  name  of 
Solomon  (Shglomoh  =  the  peaceful  one).  Nathan, 
with  a  marked  reference  to  the  meaning  of  the 
king's  own  name  (  =  the  darling,  the  beloved  one), 
takes  another  form  of  the  same  word,  and  joins  it, 
after  the  growing  custom  of  the  time,  with  the 
name  of  Jehovah.  David  had  been  the  darling  of 
his  people.  Jedid-jah  (the  name  was  coined  for 
the  purpose)  should  be,  the  darling  of  the  Lord. 
(2  Sam.  xii.  24,  5.e  See  JEDIDIAH  ;  and  Ewald, 
iii.  215). 

(2).  The  influences  to  which  the  childhood  of 
Solomon  was  thus  exposed  must  have  contributed 
largely  to  determine  the  character  of  his  after 
years.  The  inquiry,  what  was  the  education  which 
ended  in  such  wonderful  contrasts, — a  wisdom 
then,  and  perhaps  since,  unparalleled, — a  sensuality 
like  that  of  Louis'  XV.,  cannot  but  be  instructive. 
The  three  influences  which  must  have  entered  most 
largely  into  that  education  were  those  of  his  father, 
his  mother,  and  the  teacher  under  whose  charge 
he  was  placed  from  his  earliest  infancy  (2  Sam. 
xii.  25). 

(3).  The  fact  just  stated,  that  a  prophet-priest 
was  made  the  special  instructor,  indicates  the  king's 
earnest  wish  that  this  child  at  least  should  be  pro 
tected  against  the  evils  which,  then  and  afterwards, 
showed  themselves  in  his  elder  sons,  and  be  worthy 
of  the  name  he  bore.  At  first,  apparently,  there 
was  no  distinct  purpose  to  make  him  his  heir.  Ab- 


c  The  weight  of  Kenan's  Judgment  is  however  dimi 
nished  by  the  fact  that  he  had  previously  assigned 
Ecclesiastes  to  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great  (Cant. 
Jes  Cant.  p.  102). 

d  The  narrative  of  2  Sam.  xii.  leaves,  it  is  true,  a  different 
impression.  On  the  other  hand,  the  order  of  the  names  in 
1  Chr.  iii.  5,  is  otherwise  unaccountable.  Josephus  dis 
tinctly  states  it  (Ant.  vii.  14,  $2.). 

e  According  to  the  received  interpretation  of  Prov.  xxxi. 
1,  his  mother  also  contributed  an  ideal  name,  Lemuel 


(=to  God,  Deodatus),  the  dedicated  one  (comp.  Ewald, 
Poet.  Buck.  iv.  173).  On  this  hypothesis  the  reprooi 
was  drawn  forth  by  the  king's  intemperance  and  sen 
suality.  In  contrast  to  what  his  wives  were,  she  draws 
the  picture  of  what  a  pattern  wife  ought  to  be  (Pitieda, 
i.4). 

f  Here  also  the  epithet  "le  bien-aime""  reminds  us,  no 
less  than  Jedidir.h,  of  the  terrible  irony  of  History  fojr 
those  who  abuse  gifts  and  forfeit  a  vocation. 


1344 


SOLOMO 


salotn  is  still  the  king's  favourite  son  (2  Sam.  xiii. 
37,  xviii.  33) — is  looked  on  by  the  people  as  the 
destined  successor  (2  Sam.  xiv.  13,  xv.  1-6).  The 
death  of  Absalom,  when  Solomon  was  about  ten  years 
old,  left  the  place  vacant,  and  David,  passing  over 
the  claims  of  all  his  elder  sons,  those  by  Bathsheba 
included,  guided  by  the  influence  of  Nathan,  or 
by  his  own  discernment  of  the  gifts  and  graces 
which  were  tokens  of  the  love  of  Jehovah,  pledged 
his  word  in  secret  to  Bathsheba  that  he,  and  no 
other,  should  be  the  heir  (1  K.  i.  13).  The  words 
which  were  spoken  somewhat  later,  express,  doubt 
less,  the  purpose  which  guided  him  throughout 
(1  Chr.  xxviii.  9,  20).  His  son's  life  should  not  be 
as  his  own  had  been,  one  of  hardships  and  wars, 
dark  crimes  and  passionate  repentance,  but,  from 
first  to  last,  be  pure,  blameless,  peaceful,  fulfilling 
the  ideal  of  glory  and  of  righteousness,  after  which 
he  himself  had  vainly  striven.  The  glorious 
visions  of  Ps.  Ixxii.  may  be  looked  on  as  the  pro 
phetic  expansion  of  those  hopes  of  his  old  age.  So 
far,  all  was  well.  But  we  may  not  ignore  the 
fact,  that  the  later  years  of  David's  life  presented 
a  change  for  the  worse,  as  well  as  for  the  better. 
His  sin,  though  forgiven,  left  behind  it  the  Nemesis 
of  an  enfeebled  will  and  a  less  generous  activity. 
The  liturgical  element  of  religion  becomes,  after 
the  first  passionate  out-pouring  of  Ps.  li.,  unduly 
predominant.  He  lives  to  amass  treasures  and 
materials  for  the  Temple  which  he  may  not  build 
(1  Chr.  xxii.  5,  14).  He  plans  with  his  own 
hands  all  the  details  of  its  architecture  (1  Chr. 
xxviii.  19).  He  organizes  on  a  scale  of  elaborate 
magnificence  all  the  attendance  of  the  priesthood 
and  the  choral  services  of  the  Levites  (1  Chr.  xxiv. 
xxv.).  But,  meanwhile,  his  duties  as  a  king  are 
neglected.  He  no  longer  sits  in  the  gate  to  do 
judgment  (2  Sam.  xv.  2,  4).  He  leaves  the  sin  of 
Amnon  unpunished,  "because  he  loved  him,  for  he 
was  his  first-born  "  (LXX.  of  2  Sam.  xiii.  2 1 ).  The 
hearts  of  the  people  fall  away  from  him.  First 
Absalom,  and  then  Sheba,  become  formidable  rivals 
(2  Sam.  xv.  6,  xx.  2).  The  history  of  the  number 
ing  of  the  people  (2  Sam.  xxiv.,  1  Chr.  xxi.)  im 
plies  the  purpose  of  some  act  of  despotism,  a  poll- 
tax,  or  a  conscription  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  9  makes  the 
latter  the  more  probable),  such  as  startled  all  his 
older  and  more  experienced  counsellors.  If,  in 
"  the  last  words  of  David  "  belonging  to  this  period, 
there  is  the  old  devotion,  the  old  hungering  after 
righteousness  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  2-5),  there  is  also — 
first  generally  (ibid.  6,  7),  and  afterwards  resting 
on  individual  offenders  (1  K.  ii.  5-8) — a  more  pas 
sionate  desire  to  punish  those  who  had  wronged 
him,  a  painful  recurrence  of  vindictive  thoughts  for 
offences  which  he  had  once  freely  forgiven,  and 
which  were  not  greater  than  his  own.  We  cannot 
rest  in  the  belief  that  his  influence  over  his  son's 
character  was  one  exclusively  for  good. 

(4).  In  Eastern  countries,  and  under  a  system  of 
polygamy,  the  son  is  more  dependent,  even  than 
elsewhere,  on  the  character  of  the  mother.  The 
history  of  the  Jewish  monarchy  furnishes  many 
instances  of  that  dependence.  It  recognises  it  in 
the  care  with  which  it  records  the  name  of  each 
monarch's  mother.  Nothing  that  we  know  of 
Bathsheba  leads  us  to  think  of  her  as  likely  to 
mould  her  son's  mind  and  heart  to  the  higher  forms 


g  Josephus,    with   his   usual    inaccuracy,   substitutes 
Nathan  for  Gad  in  hh  narrative  (Ant.  vii.  13,  $2). 
b  We  regret  to  tine  oirse'ves  unaHe  to  follow  Ewald  ID 


SOLOMON 

of  goodness.  She  offers  no  resistance  to  the  king's 
passion  (Ewald,  iii.  211).  She  makes  it  a  stepping- 
stone  to  power.  She  is  a  ready  accomplice  in  the 
scheme  by  which  her  shame  was  to  have  been 
concealed.  Doubtless  she  too  was  sorrowful  and 
penitent  when  the  rebuke  of  Nathan  was  followed 
by  her  child's  death  (2  Sam.  xii.  24),  but  the 
after-history  shows  that  the  grand-daughter  of 
Ahithophel  [BATHSHEBA]  had  inherited  not  a 
little  of  his  character.  A  willing  adultress,  who 
haa  become  devout,  but  had  not  ceased  to  be 
ambitious,  could  hardly  be  more,  at  the  best, 
than  the  Madame  de  Maintenon  of  a  king,  whose 
contrition  and  piety  were  rendering  him,  unlike 
his  former  self,  unduly  passive  in  the  hands  of 
others. 

(5)'.  What  was  likely  to  be  the  influence  of  the 
prophet  to  whose  care  the  education  of  Solomon 
was  confided?  (ffeb.  of  2  Sam.  xii.  25).  We 
know,  beyond  all  doubt,  that  he  could  speak  bold 
and  faithful  words  when  they  were  needed  (2  Sam. 
vii.  1-17,  xii.  1-14).  But  this  power,  belonging 
to  moments  or  messages  of  special  inspiration,  does 
not  involve  the  permanent  possession  of  a  cleir- 
sighted  wisdom,  or  of  aims  uniformly  high ;  and 
we  in  vain  search  the  later  years  of  David's  reign 
for  any  proof  of  Nathan's  activity  for  good.  He 
gives  himself  to  the  work  of  writing  the  annals  of 
David's  reign  (1  Chr.  xxix.  29).  He  places  his 
own  sons  in  the  way  of  being  the  companions  and 
counsellors  of  the  future  king  (1  K.  iv.  5).  The 
absence  of  his  name  from  the  history  of  the  "  num 
bering,"  and  the  fact  that  the  census  was  followed 
early  in  the  reign  of  Solomon  by  heavy  burdens 
and  a  forced  service,  almost  lead  us  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  the  prophet  had  acquiesced  K  in  a  measure 
which  had  in  view  the  magnificence  of  the  Temple, 
and  that  it  was  left  to  David's  own  heart,  returning 
to  its  better  impulses  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  10),  and  to  an 
older  and  less  courtly  prophet,  to  protest  against 
an  act  which  began  in  pride  and  tended  to  op 
pression.1* 

(6).  Under  these  influences  the  boy  grew  up.  At 
the  age  of  ten  or  eleven  he  must  have  passed  through 
the  revolt  of  Absalom,  and  shared  his  father's  exile 
(2  Sam.  xv.  16).  He  would  be  taught  all  that 
priests,  or  Levites,  or  prophets  had  to  teach  ;  music 
and  song ;  the  Book  of  the  Law  of  the  Lord,  in  such 
portions  and  in  such  forms  as  were  then  current ; 
the  "  proverbs  of  the  ancients,"  which  his  father 
had  been  wont  to  quote  (1  Sam.  xxiv.  13) ;  probably 
also  a  literature  which  has  survived  only  in  frag 
ments  ;  the  Book  of  Jasher,  the  upright  ones,  the 
heroes  of  the  people ;  the  Book  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Lord  ;  the  wisdom,  oral  or  written,  of  the  sages  of 
his  own  tribe,  Heman,  and  Ethan,  and  Calcol,  and 
Darda  (1  Chr.  ii.  6),  who  contributed  so  .largely  to 
the  noble  hymns  of  this  period  (Ps.  Ixxxviii.,  Ixxxix.), 
and  were  incorporated,  probably,  into  the  choir  of 
the  Tabernacle  (Ewald,  iii.  355).  The  growing  inter 
course  of  Israel  with  the  Phoenicians  would  lead 
naturally  to  a  wider  knowledge  of  the  outlying  world 
and  its  wonders  than  had  fallen  to  his  father's  lot. 
Admirable,  however,  as  all  this  was,  a  shepherd-lite, 
like  his  father's,  furnished,  we  may  believe,  a  better 
education  for  the  kingly  calling  (Ps.  Ixxviii.  70,  71). 
Born  to  the  purple,  there  was  the  inevitable  risk  of 
a  selfish  luxury.  Cradled  in  liturgies,  trained  to 


his  high  estimate  of  the  old  age  of  PavLI,  tori, 
quently,  of  Solomon's  education 


80LOMON 

think  chiefly  of  the  magnificent  "palace"  of  Jehovah 
J 1  Chr.  xxix.  19)  of  which  he  was  to  be  the  builder, 
there  was  the  danger,  first,  of  an  aesthetic  formalism, 
and  then  of  ultimate  indifference. 

IV.  Accession. — (1.)  The  feebleness  of  David's 
old  age  led  to  an  attempt  which  might  have  de 
prived  Solomon  of  the  throne  his  father  destined 
for  him.  Adonijah,  next  in  order  of  birth  to  Ab 
salom,  like  Absalom  "was  a  goodly  man"  (1  K. 
i.  6),  in  full  maturity  of  years,  backed  by  the 
oldest  of  the  king's  friends  and  counsellors,  Joab 
and  Abiathar,  and  by  all  the  sons  of  David,  who 
looked  with  jealousy,  the  latter  on  the  obvious 
though  not  as  yet  declared  preference  of  the  latest- 
bon,  and  the  former  on  the  growing  influence  of 
the  rival  counsellors  who  were  most  in  the  king's 
favour,  Nathan,  Zadok,  and  Benaiah.  Following  in 
the  steps  of  Absalom,  he  assumed  the  kingly  state 
of  a  chariot  and  a  bodyguard ;  and  David,  more 
passive  than  ever,  looked  on  in  silence.  At  last  a 
time  was  chosen  for  openly  proclaiming  him  as  king. 
A  solemn  feast  at  EN-ROGEL  was  to  inaugurate  the 
new  reign.  All  wore  invited  to  it  but  those  whom 
it  was  intended  to  displace.  It  was  necessary  for 
those  whose  interests  were  endangered,  backed  ap 
parently  by  two  of  David's  surviving  elder  brothers 
(Ewald,  iii.  266  ;  1  Chr.  ii.  13,  14),  to  take  prompt 
measures.  Bathsheba  and  Nathan  took  counsel 
together.  The  king  was  reminded  of  his  oath.  A 
virtual  abdication  was  pressed  upon  him  as  the  only 
means  by  which  the  succession  of  his  favourite  son 
could  be  secured.  The  whole  thing  was  completed 
with  wonderful  rapidity.  Riding  on  the  mule, 
well-known  as  belonging  to  the  king,  attended  by 
Nathan  the  prophet,  and  Zadok  the  priest,  and 
more  important  still,  by  the  king's  special  company 
of  the  thirty  Gibborim,  or  mighty  men  (IK.  i. 
10,  33),  and  the  bodyguard  of  the  Cherethites  and 
Pelethites  (mercenaries,  and  therefore  not  liable  to 
the  contagion  of  popular  feeling)  under  the  com 
mand  of  Benaiah  (himself,  like  Nathan  and  Zadok, 
of  the  sons  of  Aaron),  he  went  down  to  GIHON, 
and  was  proclaimed  and  anointed  king.h  The  shouts 
of  his  followers  fell  on  the  startled  ears  of  the 
guests  at  Adonijah's  banquet.  Happily  they  were 
as  yet  committed  to  no  overt  act,  and  they  did  not 
venture  on  one  now.  One  by  one  they  rose  and 
departed.  The  plot  had  failed.  The  counter  coup 
d'etat  of  Nathan  and  Bathsheba  had  been  successful. 
Such  incidents  are  common  enough  in  the  history 
of  Eastern  monarchies.  They  are  usually  followed 
by  a  massacre  of  the  defeated  party.  Adonijah  ex 
pected  such  an  issue,  and  took  refuge  at  the  horns 
of  the  altar.  In  this  instance,  however,  the  young 
conqueror  used  his  triumph  generously.  The  lives 
both  of  Adonijah  and  his  partizans  were  spared,  at 
least  for  a  time.  What  had  been  done  hurriedly 


SOLOMON 


1345 


was  done  afterwards  in  more  solemn  form.  Solo 
mon  was  presented  to  a  great  gathering  of  all  tiie 
notables  of  Israel,  with  a  set  speech,  in  which  the 
old  king  announced  what  was,  to  his  mind,  the 
programme  of  the  new  reign,  a  time  of  peace  acd 
plenty,  of  a  stately  worship,  of  devotion  to  J(- 
hovah.  A  few  months  more,  and  Solomon  found 
himself,  by  his  father's  death,  the  sole  occupant  ol 
the  throne. 

(2.)  The  position  to  which  he  succeeded  was 
unique.  Never  before,  and  never  after,  did  the 
kingdom  of  Israel  take  its  place  among  the  great 
monarchies  of  the  East,  able  to  ally  itself,  or  to 
contend  on  equal  terms  with  Egypt  or  Assyria, 
stretching  from  the  River  (Euphrates)  to  the  border 
of  Egypt,  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Gulf  of 
Akaba,  receiving  annual  tributes  from  many  subject 
princes.  Large  treasures  accumulated  through 
many  years  were  at  his  disposal.1  The  people, 
with  the  exception  of  the  tolerated  worship  in 
high  places,  were  true  servants  of  Jehovah.  Know 
ledge,  art,  music,  poetry,  had  received  a  new  im 
pulse,  and  were  moving  on  with  rapid  steps,  to 
such  perfection  as  the  age  and  the  race  were  capable 
of  attaining.  We  may  rightly  ask—  what  manner 
of  man  he  was,  outwardly  and  inwardly,  who  at 
the  age  of  nineteen  or  twenty,  was  called  to  this 
glorious  sovereignty?  We  have,  it  is  true,  no 
direct  description  in  this  case  as  we  have  of  the 
earlier  kings.  There  are,  however,  materials  for 
filling  up  the  gap.  The  wonderful  impression 
which  Solomon  made  upon  all  who  came  near  him 
may  well  lead  us  to  believe  that  with  him  as  with 
Saul  and  David,  Absalom  and  Adonijah,  as  with 
most  other  favourite  princes  of  Eastern  peoples, 
there  must  have  been  the  fascination  and  the  grace 
of  a  noble  presence.  Whatever  higher  mystic 
meaning  may  be  latent  in  Ps.  xlv.,  or  the  Song  of 
Songs,  we  are  all  but  compelled  to  think  of  them 
as  having  had,  at  least,  a  historical  starting-point. 
They  tell  us  of  one  who  was,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
men  of  his  own  time,  "  fairer  than  the  children  of 
men,"  the  face  "  bright  and  ruddy  "  as  his  father's 
(Cant.  v.  10  ;  1  Sam.  xvii.  42),  bushy  locks,  dark 
as  the  raven's  wing,  yet  not  without  a  golden 
glow,k  the  eyes  soft  as  "the  eyes  of  doves,"  the 
"  countenance  as  Lebanon,  excellent  as  the  cedars," 
"  the  chiefest  among  ten  thousand,  the  altogether 
lovely"  (Cant.  9-16).  Add  to  this  all  gifts 
of  a  noble,  far-reaching  intellect,  large  and  ready 
sympathies,  a  playful  and  genial  humour,  the  lips 
"  full  of  grace,"  the  soul  "  anointed  "  as  "  with  the 
oil  of  gladness"  (Ps.  xlv.),  and  we  may  form  some 
notion  of  what  the  king  was  like  in  that  dawn  of 
his  golden  prime.m 

(3.)  The  historical  starting-point  of  the  Song  of 
Songs  just  spoken  of  connects  itself,  in  all  proba- 


h  According  to  later  Jewish  teaching  a  king  was  not 
anointed  when  he  succeeded  his  father,  except  in  the  case 
of  a  previous  usurpation  or  a  disputed  succession  (Otho, 
Lexic.  Rabbin,  s.  v.  "Rex"). 

*  The  sums  mentioned  are  (1)  the  public  funds  for 
building  the  Temple,  100,000  talents  (kikarim)  of  gold 
and  1,000,000  of  silver;  (2)  David's  private  offerings, 
3000  talents  ot  gold  and  7000  of  silver.  Besides  these, 
large  sums  of  unknown  amount  were  believed  to  have 
been  stored  up  in  the  sepulchre  of  David.  3000  talents 
were  taken  from  it  by  Hyrcanus  (Jos.  Ant.  vii.  15,  $  3; 
xiii.  8,  $  4,  xvi.  7,  $  1). 

*•  Vossibly  sprinkled  with  gold  dust,  as  was  the  hair  of 
Ihe  yonths  who  waited  on  him  (Jos.  Ant.  viii.  7,  3),  or 
aynd  with  henna  (Michaelis,  Xrt.  in  Lowth,  Frael.  xxxi.), 
VOJ..  Ill, 


«»  It  will  be  seen  that  we  adopt  the  scheme  of  the  older 
literalist  school,  Bossuet,  Lowth,  Michaelis,  rather  than 
that  of  the  more  recent  critics,  Ewald,  Renan,  Ginsburg. 
Ingeniously  as  the  idea  is  worked  out  we  cannot  bring 
ourselves  to  believe  that  a  drama,  belonging  to  the 
literature  of  the  northern  kingdom,  not  to  that  of  Judah, 
holding  up  Solomon  to  ridicule  as  at  once  licentious 
and  unsuccessful,  wouJd  have  been  treasured  up  by  the 
Jews  of  the  Captivity,  and  received  by  the  Scribes  ol 
the  Great  Synagogue  as  by,  or  at  least,  in  honour  of 
Solomon  (comp.  Renos,  La  Cantique  des  Cantiqws,  pp. 
91,  95).  We  follow  the  Jesuit  Pineda  (De  rebus  Salom. 
iy.  3)  in  applying  the  language  of  the  Shulamite  to 
Solomon's  personal  appearance,  but  not  in  bis  extreme 
minuteness. 

4  R      ' 


1346 


SOLOMON 


Sility.  with  the  earliest  facts  in  the  history  of  the 
new  reign.  The  narrative,  as  told  in  1  K.  ii.  is 
not  a  little  perplexing.  Bathsheba,  who  had  before 
stirred  up  David  against  Adonijah,  now  appears  as 
interceding  for  him,  begging  that  Abishag  the  Shu- 
namite,  the  virgin  concubine  of  David,  might  be 
given  him  as  a  wife.  Solomon,  who  till  then  had 
professed  the  profbundest  reverence  for  his  mother, 
his  willingness  to  grant  her  anything,  suddenly 
flashes  into  fiercest  wrath  at  this.  The  petition  is 
treated  as  part  of  a  conspiracy  in  which  Joab  and 
Abiathar  are  sharers.  Benaiah  is  once  more  called 
in.  Adonijah  is  put  to  death  at  once.  Joab  is 
slain  even  within  the  precincts  of  the  Tabernacle,  to 
which  he  had  fled  as  an  asylum.  Abiathar  is  de 
posed,  and  exiled,  sent  to  a  life  of  poverty  and 
shame  (1  K.  ii.  31-36),  and  the  high  priesthood 
transferred  to  another  family  more  ready  than  he 
had  been  to  pass  from  the  old  order  to  the  new, 
and  to  accept  the  voices  of  the  prophets  as  greater 
than  the  oracles  which  had  belonged  exclusively  to 
the  priesthood  [comp.  URIM  AND  THUMMIM].  The 
facts  have,  however,  an  explanation.  Mr.  Grove's 
ingenious  theory n  identifying  Abishag  with  the 
heroine  of  the  Song  of  Songs  [SHULAMITE],  resting 
as  it  must  do,  on  its  own  evidence,  has  this  further 
merit,  that  it  explains  the  phenomena  here.  The 
passionate  love  of  Solomon  for  "  the  fairest  among 
women,"  might  well  lead  the  queen-mother,  hitherto 
supreme,  to  fear  a  rival  influence,  and  to  join  in  any 
scheme  for  its  removal.  The  king's  vehement  abrupt 
ness  is,  in  like  manner,  accounted  for.  He  sees  in  the 
request  at  once  an  attempt  to  deprive  him  of  the 
wonxin  he  loves,  and  a  plot  to  keep  him  still  in  the 
tutelage  of  childhood,  to  entrap  him  into  admitting 
his  elder  brother's  right  to  the  choicest  treasure  of  his 
father's  harem,  and  therefore  virtually  to  the  throne, 
or  at  least  to  a  regency  in  which  he  would  have  his 
own  partizans  as  counsellors.  With  a  keen-sighted 
promptness  he  crushes  the  whole  scheme.  He  gets 
rid  of  a  rival,  fulfils  David's  dying  counsels  as  to  Joab, 
and  asserts  his  own  independence.  Soon  afterwards 
an  opportunity  is  thrown  in  his  way  of  getting  rid  of 
one  [SHIMEI],  who  had  been  troublesome  before, 
and  might  be  troublesome  again.  He  presses  the 
letter  of  a  compact  against  a  man  who  by  his  infa 
tuated  disregard  of  it  seemed  given  over  to  destruc 
tion0  (IK.  ii.  36-46).  There  is,  however,  no 
needless  slaughter.  The  other  "sons  of  David" 
are  still  spared,  and  one  of  them,  Nathan,  becomes 
the  head  of  a  distinct  family  (Zech.  xii.  12),  which 
ultimately  fills  up  the  failure  of  the  direct  succes 
sion  (Luke  iii.  31).  As  he  punishes  his  father's 
enemies,  he  also  shows  kindness  to  the  friends  who 
had  been  faithful  to  him.  Chimham,  the  son  of 
Barzillai,  apparently  receives  an  inheritance  near 

*  The  hypothesis  is,  however,  not  altogether  new.  It 
was  held  by  some  of  the  literalist  histoiical  school  of 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  (not  by  Theodore  himself;  comp. 
his  fragments  in  Migne,  Ixvi.  699),  and  as  such  is  anathe 
matised  by  Theodoret  of  Cyrus  (Praef.  in  Cant.  Cantic.) 
The  latter,  believing  the  Song  of  Solomon  to  have  been 
supernaturally  dictated  to  Ezra,  could  admit  no  inter 
pretation  but  the  mystical  (comp.  Ginsburg,  Song  of  Sol. 
p.  66). 

0  An  elaborate  vindication  of  Solomon's  conduct  in  this 
matter  may  be  found  in  Menthen's  Thesaurus,  i. ;  Slisser, 
Dins,  de  Salom.  pracessu  contra  Shimei. 

v  Josephus,  again  inaccurate,  lengthens  the  reign  to  80 
years,  and  makes  the  age  at  accession  14  (Ant.  viii.  7,  $8). 

t  This  Pharaoh  is  identified  by  Ewald  (iii.  279)  with  j 
Pcnsecses,  the  last  king  of  the  29th  dynasty  of  Manctho, 
which  bad  its  seat  in  Lower  Egypt  at  Ttnis;  but  see  | 

I 


SOLOMON 

the  city  of  David,  and  probably  in  the  reign  of  !>» 
lomon,  displays  his  inherited  hospitality  by  building 
a  caravanserai  for  the  strangers  whon>  the  fame 
and  wealth  of  Solomon  drew  to  Jerusalem  (2  Sam. 
xix.  31-40;  1  K.  ii.  7  ;  Jer.  xli.  17  ;  Ewald,  Gesch. 
iii.  274  ;  Proph.  ii.  191). 

V.  Foreign  Policy. — (1.)  The  want  of  sufficient 
data  for  a  continuous  history  has  been  already  no 
ticed.  All  that  we  have  are — (a.)  The  duration  of 
the  reign,  40  years?  (1  K.  xi.  42).  (6.)  The 
commencement  of  the  Temple  in  the  4th,  its  com 
pletion  in  the  llth  year  of  his  reign  (1  K.  vi.  1,  37, 
38).  (c.)  The  commencement  of  his  own  palace  in 
the  7th,  its  completion  in  the  20th  year  (1  K.  vii. 
1.  ;  2  Chr.  viii,  1).  (d.)  The  conquest  of  Hamath- 
Zobah,  and  the  consequent  foundation  of  cities  in 
the  region  North  of  Palestine  after  the  20th  year 
(2  Chr.  viii.  1-6).  With  materials  so  scanty  as 
these,  it  will  be  better  to  group  the  chief  facts  in 
an  order  which  will  best  enable  us  to  appreciate 
their  significance. 

(2.)  Egypt.  The  first  act  of  the  foreign  policy 
of  the  new  reign  must  have  been  to  most  Israelites 
a  very  startling  one.  He  made  affinity  with  Pha 
raoh,  king  of  Egypt.  He  married  Pharaoh's 
daughter  (1  K.  iii.  i).i  Since  the  time  of  the  Ex 
odus  there  had  been  no  intercourse  between  the 
two  countries.  David  and  his  counsellors  had  taken 
no  steps  to  promote  it.  Egypt  had  probably  taken 
part  in  assisting  Edom  in  its  resistance  to  David 
(1  Chr.  xi.  23;  Ewald,  iii.  182),  and  had  received 
Hadad,  the  prince  of  Edom,  with  royal  honours. 
The  king  had  given  him  his  wife's  sister  in  mar 
riage,  and  adopted  his  son  into  his  own  family 
(1  K.  xi.  14-20).  These  steps  indicated  a  purpose 
to  support  him  at  some  future  time  more  actively, 
and  Solomon's  proposal  of  marriage  was  probably 
intended  to  counteract  it.  It  was  at  the  time  so 
far  successful,  that  when  Hadad,  on  hearing  of  the 
death  of  the  dreaded  leaders  of  the  armies  of  Israel, 
David  and  Joab,  wished  to  seize  the  opportunity  of 
attacking  the  new  king,  the  court  of  Egypt  ren 
dered  him  no  assistance  (1  K.  xi.  21,  22).  The 
disturbances  thus  caused,  and  not  less  those  in  the 
North,  coming  from  the  foundation  of  a  new  Syrian 
kingdom  at  Damascus  by  Rezon  and  other  fugitives 
from  Zobah  (1  K.  xi.  23-25),  might  well  lead  So 
lomon  to  look  out  for  a  powerful  support,*  to 
obtain  for  a  new  dynasty  and  a  new  kingdom  a 
recognition  by  one  of  older  fame  and  greater  power. 
The  immediate  results  were  probably  favourable 
enough.?  The  new  queen  brought  with  her  as  a 
dowry  the  frontier-city  of  Gezer,  against  which,  as 
threatening  the  tranquillity  of  Israel,  and  as  still 
•possessed  by  a  remnant  of  the  old  Canaanites,*  Pha 
raoh  had  led  his  armies.*  She  was  received  with 

PHARAOH,  pp.  816,  817.  Josephus  (Ant.  viit.  6,  $2)  only 
notes  the  fact  that  he  was  the  last  king  of  Egypt  who 
was  known  simply  by  the  title  Pharaoh. 

r  Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  7,  $6),  misled  by  the  position  of 
these  statements,  refers  the  disturbances  to  the  close  of 
Solomon's  reign,  and  is  followed  by  most  later  writers. 
The  dates  given,  however,  in  one  case  after  the  death  of 
Joab,  in  the  other  after  David's  conquest  of  Zobah,  show 
that  we  must  think  of  them  as  continuing  "  all  the  days 
of  Solomon,"  surmounted  at  tbe  commencement  of  his 
reign,  becoming  more  formidable  at  its  conclusion. 

«  Ewald  sees  in  Ps.  ii.  a  great  hymn  of  thanksgiving 
for  deliverance  from  these  dangers.  The  evidence  in 
favour  of  David's  authorship  seems,  however,  to  pre 
ponderate. 

1  Philistines,  according  to  Josephus  (Ant.  \iil.  6,  (.1). 

»  If,  with  Ewald  (iii.  277),  we  identify  Goaer  with 


GOLOMON 

nil  honour,  the  queen-mother  herself  attending  to 
place  the  diadem  on  her  son's  brow  on  the  day 
of  his  espousals  (Cant.  iii.  11).  Gifts  from  the 
nobles  cf  Israel  and  from  Tyre  (the  latter  offered 
perhaps  by  a  Tyrian  princess)  were  lavished  at  her 
feet  (Ps.  xlv.  12).  A  separate  and  stately  palace 
nras  built  for  her,  before  long,  outside  the  city 
of  D^vid  (2  Chr.  viii.  11).*  She  dwelt  there  appa 
rently  with  attendants  of  her  own  race,  "  the 
virgins  that  be  her  fellows,"  probably  conforming 
in  some  degree  to  the  religion  of  her  adopted 
country.  According  to  a  tradition  which  may  have 
some  foundation  in  spite  of  its  exaggerated  numbers, 
Pharaoh  (Psusennes,  or  as  in  the  story  Vaphres), 
sent  with  her  workmen  to  help  in  building  the 
Temple,  to  the  number  of  80,000  (Eupolemos,  in 
Euseb.  Praep.  Evang.  ii.  30-35).  The  "  chariots 
of  Pharaoh  "  at  any  rate,  appeared  in  royal  proces 
sion  with  a  splendour  hitherto  unknown  (Cant, 
i.  9). 

(3.)  The  ultimate  issue  of  the  alliance  showed 
chat  it  was  hollow  and  impolitic.  There  may  have 
been  a  revolution  in  Egypt,  changing  the  dynasty 
and  transferring  the  seat  of  power  to  Bubastis 
(Ewald,  iii.  389  }J  There  was  at  any  rate  a  change 
of  policy.  The  court  of  Egypt  welcomes  the  fugitive 
Jeroboam  when  he  is  known  to  have  aspirations 
after  kingly  power.  There,  we  may  believe,  by 
some  kind  of  compact,  expressed  or  understood,  was 
planned  the  scheme  which  led  first  to  the  rebellion 
of  the  Ten  Tribes,  and  then  to  the  attack  of  Shishak 
on  the  weakened  and  dismantled  kingdom  of  the  son 
of  Solomon.  Evils  such  as  these  were  hardly  coun 
terbalanced  by  the  trade  opened  by  Solomon  in  the 
fine  linen  of  Egypt,  or  the  supply  of  chariots  and 
horses  which,  as  belonging  to  aggressive  rather  than 
defensive  warfare,  a  wiser  policy  would  have  led 
him  to  avoid  (1  K.  x.  28,  29). 

(4.)  Tyre.  The  alliance  with  the  Phoenician 
king  rested  on  a  somewhat  different  footing.  It  had 
been  part  of  David's  policy  from  the  beginning  of  his 
reign.  Hiram  had  been  "  ever  a  lover  of  David." 
He,  or  his  grandfather,2  had  helped  him  by  supply 
ing  materials  and  workmen  for  his  palace.  As  soon 
as  he  heard  of  Solomon's  accession  he  sent  ambas 
sadors  to  salute  him.  A  correspondence  passed 
between  the  two  kings,  which  ended  in  a  treaty  of 
commerce.*  Israel  was  to  be  supplied  from  Tyre 
with  the  materials  which  were  wanted  for  the 
Temple  that  was  to  be  the  glory  of  the  new  reign. 
Gold  from  Ophir,  cedar-wood  from  Lebanon,  pro 
bably  also  copper  from  Cyprus,  and  tin  from  Spain 
or  Cornwall  (Niebuhr,  Led.  on  Anc.  Hist.  i.  79), 
for  the  brass  which  was  so  highly  valued,  purple 
from  Tyre  itself,  workmen  from  among  the  Zidonians, 
all  these  were  wanted  and  were  given.  The  open 
ing  of  Joppa  as  a  port  created  a  new  coasting-trade, 


SOLOMON 


1347 


Geshur,  we  may  see  in  this  attack  a  desire  to  weaken  a 
royal  house  which  was  connected  by  marriage  with  Absa 
lom  (2  Sam.  xiii.  37),  and  therefore  likely  to  be  hostile  to 
Solomon.  But  comp.  GEZEE. 

*  We  may  see  in  this  fact  a  sign  of  popular  dissatisfac 
tion  at  least  on  the  part  of  the  Priests  and  Levites  repre 
sented  by  the  compiler  of  2  Chron. 

y  The  singular  addition  of  the  LXX.  to  the  history  of 
Jeroboam  in  l  K.  xi.  makes  this  improbable.  Jeroboam, 
us  well  as  Hadad,  is  received  into  the  king's  family  by 
marnage  with  his  wife's  sister,  and,  in  each  case,  the 
wife's  name  is  given  as  Thekemina. 

1  Comp.  the  data  given  in  2  Sam.  v.  11 ;  Jos.  Ant.  vii. 
3  §2,^ viii.  5,  $3,  c.  Ap.  i.  is,  and  Ewald,  iii.  287. 

»  I'he  letters  are  given  at  length  by  Josephus  (Ant.  viii. 
?  $8)  and  Eupolemos  (Euseb.  Praep.  E; .  1.  <•.). 


and  the  materials  from  Tyre  were  conveyed  to  it  on 
floats,  and  thence  to  Jerusalem  (2  Chr.  a.  16\ 
The  chief  architect  of  the  Temple,  though  an  Israel- 
i.'e  on  his  mother's  side,  belonging  to  the  tribe  of 
1'an  or  Naphtali  [HiRAM],  was  yet  by  birth  a 
Tyrian,  a  namesake  of  the  king.  In  return  for  these 
exports,  the  Phoenicians  were  only  too  glad  to  re 
ceive  the  corn  and  oil  of  Solomon's  territory.  Their 
narrow  strip  of  coast  did  not  produce  enough  for 
the  population  of  their  cities,  and  then,  as  at  a  later 
period,  "  their  country  was  nourished "  by  the 
broad  valleys  and  plains  of  Samaria  and  Galilee 
(Acts  xii.  20). 

(5.)  The  results  of  the  alliance  did  not  end  here. 
Now,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Israel, 
they  entered  on  a  career  as  a  commercial  people. 
They  joined  the  Phoenicians  in  their  Mediterranean 
voyages  to  the  coasts  of  Spain  [TARSHisn].b  Solo 
mon's  possession  of  the  Edomite  coast  enabled  him 
to  open  to  his  ally  a  new  world  of  commerce.  The 
ports  of  Elath  and  Ezion-geber  were  filled  with 
ships  of  Tarshish,  merchant-ships,  i.  e.  for  the  long 
voyages,  manned  chiefly  by  Phoenicians,  but  built 
at  Solomon's  expense,  which  sailed  down  the 
Aelanitic  Gulf  of  the  Red  Sea,  on  to  the  Indian 
Ocean,  to  lands  which  had  before  been  hardly  known 
even  by  name,  to  OPHIR  and  SHEBA,  to  Arabia 
Felix,  or  India,  or  Ceylon,  and  brought  back  after 
an  absence  of  nearly  three  years,  treasures  almost 
or  altogether  new,  gold  and  silver,  and  precious 
stones,  nard,  aloes,  sandal-wood,  almug-trees,  and 
ivory  ;  and  last,  but  not  least  in  the  eyes  of  the  his 
torian,  new  forms  of  animal-life,  on  which  the  in 
habitants  of  Palestine  gazed  with  wondering  eyes, 
"apes  and  peacocks."  The  interest  of  Solomon  in 
these  enterprises  was  shown  by  his  leaving  his  pa 
laces  at  Jerusalem  and  elsewhere  and  travelling  to 
Elath  and  Ezion-geber  to  superintend  the  construc 
tion  of  the  fleet  (2  Chr.  viii.  17),  perhaps  also  to 
Sidon  for  a  like  purpose.0  To  the  knowledge  thus 
gained,  we  may  ascribe  tfie  wider  thoughts  which 
appear  in  the  Psalms  of  this  and  the  following 
periods,  as  of  those  who  "  see  the  wonders  of  the 
deep  and  occupy  their  business  in  great  waters" 
(Ps.  cvii.  23-30),  perhaps  also  an  experience  ot 
the  more  humiliating  accidents  of  sea-travel  (Prov. 
xxiii.  34,  35). 

(6.)  According  to  the  statement  of  the  Phoeni 
cian  writers  quoted  by  Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  5,  §3), 
the  intercourse  of  the  two  kings  had  in  it  also  some 
thing  of  the  sportiveness  and  freedom  of  friends. 
They  delighted  to  perplex  each  other  with  hard 
questions,  and  laid  wagers  as  to  their  power  of  an 
swering  them.  Hiram  was  at  first  the  loser  ana 
paid  his  forfeits ;  but  afterwards,  through  the  help 
of  a  sharp-witted  Tyrian  boy,  Abdemon,  solved  the 
hard  problems  and  was  in  the  end  the  winner.d  The 


b  Ewald  disputes  this  (iii.  345),  but  the  statement  in 
2  Chr.  ix.  21,  is  explicit  enough,  and  there  are  no  ground" 
for  arbitrarily  setting  it  aside  as  a  blunder. 

c  The  statement  of  Justin  Mart.  (Dial  c.  Tryph.  c.  34), 
ev  StSwpi  eifio>XoA.aTpet,  receives  by  the  accompanying  Sii 
•YVVO.IKO.  the  character  of  an  extract  from  some  history 
then  extant.  The  marriage  of  Solomon  with  a  daughter 
of  the  king  of  Tyre  is  mentioned  by  Eusebius  (Praep. 
Evang.  x.  11). 

d  The  narrative  of  Josephus  implies  the  existence  oi 
some  story,  more  or  less  humorous,  in  Tyrian  literature, 
in  which  the  wisest  of  the  kings  of  earth  was  baffled  by  a 
boy's  cleverness.  A  singular  pendant  to  this  is  found  In 
the  popular  mediaeval  story  of  Solomon  and  Morolf,  in 
which  the  latter  (an  ugly,  deformed  dwarf)  outwits  thf 
former.  A  modernised  version  of  this  work  may  be 

4  R  2 


1348 


SOLOMON 


singular  fragment  of  history  inserted  in  1  K.  ix. 
11-14.  recording  the  cession  by  Solomon  of  sixteen 
cities,  and  Hiram's  dissatisfaction  with  them,  is 
perhaps  connected  with  these  imperial  wagers.  The 
king  of  Tyro  revenges  himself  by  a  Phoenician  bon- 
mot  [CABUL].  He  fulfils  his  part  of  the  contract, 
and  pays  the  stipulated  price. 

(7.)  These  were  the  two  most  important  alli 
ances.  The  absence  of  any  reference  to  Babylon 
and  Assyria,  and  the  fact  that  the  Euphrates  was 
recognised  as  the  boundary  of  Solomon's  kingdom 
(2  Chr.  ix.  26),  suggest  the  inference  that  the  Meso- 
potamian  monarchies  were,  at  this  time,  compara 
tively  feeble.  Other  neighbouring  nations  were 
content  to  pay  annual  tribute  in  the  form  of  gifts 
(2  Chr.  ix.  24).  The  kings  of  the  Hittites  and  of 
Syria  welcomed  the  opening  of  a  new  line  of  com 
merce  which  enabled  them  to  find  in  Jerusalem  an 
emporium  where  they  might  get  the  chariots  and 
horses  of  Egypt  (1  K.  x.  29).  This,  however,  was 
obviously  but  a  small  part  of  the  traffic  organised 
by  Solomon.  The  foundation  of  cities  like  Tadmor 
in  the  wilderness,  and  Tiphsah  (Thapsacus)  on  the 
Euphrates;  of  others  on  the  route,  each  with  its 
own  special  market  for  chariots,  or  horses,  or  stores 
(2  Chr.  viii.  3-6) ;  the  erection  of  lofty  towers  on 
Lebanon  (2  Chr.  /.  c. ;  Cant.  vii.  4)  pointed  to  a 
more  distant  commerce,  opening  out  the  resources 
of  central  Asia,  reaching,  as  that  of  Tyre  did  after 
wards,  availing  itself  of  this  very  route,  to  the 
Nomade  tribes  of  the  Caspian  and  the  Black  Seas, 
to  Togarmah  and  Meshech  and  Tubal  (Ez.  xxvii. 
13,  14;  comp.  Milman,  Hist,  of  Jews,  i.  270). 

(8.)  The  survey  of  the  influence  exercised  by  So 
lomon  on  surrounding  nations  would  be  incomplete 
if  we  were  to  pass  over  that  which  was  more  di 
rectly  personal — the  fame  of  his  glory  and  his  wisdom. 
The  legends  which  pervade  the  East  are  probably 
not  merely  the  expansion  of  the  scanty  notices  of 
the  0.  T. ;  but  (as  suggested  above),  like  those 
which  gather  round  the  names  of  Nimrod  and  Alex 
ander,  the  result  of  the  impression  made  by  the 
personal  presence  of  one  of  the  mighty  ones  of  the 
earth.6  Wherever  the  ships  of  Tarshish  went,  they 
carried  with  them  the  report,  losing  nothing  in  its 
passage,  of  what  their  crews  had  seen  and  heard. 
The  impression  made  on  the  Incas  of  Peru  by  the 
power  and  knowledge  of  the  Spaniards,  offers  per 
haps  the  nearest  approach  -  to  what  falls  so  little 
within  the  limits  of  our  experience,  though  there 
was  there  no  personal  centre  round  which  the  admira 
tion  could  gather  itself.  The  journey  of  the  queen 
of  Sheba,  though  from  its  circumstances  the  most 
conspicuous,  did  not  stand  alone.  The  inhabitants 
of  Jerusalem,  of  the  whole  line  of  country  between 
it  and  the  Gulf  of  Akaba,  saw  with  amazement  the 
"  great  train  ;"  the  men  with  their  swarthy  faces, 
the  camels  bearing  spices  and  gold  and  gems,  of  a 
queen  who  had  come  from  the  far  South,'  because 
she  had  heard  of  the  wisdom  of  Solomon,  and  con 
nected  with  it  "  the  name  of  Jehovah  "  (1  K.  x.  1). 


found  in  the  Walhalla  (Leipzig,  1844).  Older  copies,  in 
Latin  and  German,  of  the  15th  century,  are  in  the  Brit. 
Mus.  Library.  The  Anglo-Saxon  Dialogue  of  Solomon 
and  Saturn  is  a  mere  catechism  of  Scriptural  knowledge, 

e  Cities  like  Tadmor  and  Tiphsah  were  not  likely  to 
have  been  founded  by  a  king  who  had  never  seen  and 
chosen  the  sites.  2  Chr.  viii.  3,  4,  implies  the  journey 
which  Josephus  speaks  of  (Ant.  viii.  6,  $1\  and  at  Tadmor 
Solomon  was  within  one  day's  journey  of  the  Euphrates, 
and  six  of  Babylon.  (So  Josephus,  I.  c.,  but  the  day's 
journey  must  have  been  a  long  one.) 


SOLOMON 

She  came  with  hard  questions  to  test  thai  wisdom 
and  the  words  just  quoted  may  throw  light  upon 
their  nature.  Not  riddles  and  enigmas  only,  such 
as  the  sportive  fancy  of  the  East  delights  in,  but  the 
ever-old,  ever-new  problems  of  life,  such  as,  eve» 
in  that  age  and  country,  were  vexing  the  hearts 
of  the  speakers  in  the  Book  of  Job,*  were  stirring 
in  her  mind  when  she  communed  with  Solomon  of 
"all  that  was  in  her  heart"  (2  Chr.  x.  2).  She 
meets  us  as  the  representative  of  a  body  whom  the 
dedication-prayer  shows  to  have  been  numerous, 
the  strangers  "  coming  from  a  far  country  "  because 
of  the  "great  name"  of  Jehovah  (1  K.  viii.  41), 
many  of  them  princes  themselves,  or  the  messengers 
of  kings  (2  Chr.  ix.  23).  The  historians  of  Israel 
delighted  to  dwell  on  her  confession  that  the  reality 
surpassed  the  fame,  "  the  one-half  of  the  greatness 
of  thy  wisdom  was  not  told  me "  (2  Chr.  ix.  6 ; 
Ewald,  iii.  353). 

VI.  Internal  History. — (1.)  We  can  now  enter 
upon  the  reign  of  Solomon,  in  its  bearing  upon  the 
history  of  Israel,  without  the  necessity  of  a  digres 
sion.  The  first  prominent  scene  is  one  which  pre 
sents  his  character  in  its  noblest  aspect.  There 
were  two  holy  places  which  divided  the  reverence 
of  the  people,  the  ark  and  its  provisional  tabernacle 
at  Jerusalem,  and  the  original  Tabernacle  of  the  con 
gregation,  which,  after  many  wanderings,  was  now 
pitched  at  Gibeon.  It  was  thought  right  that  the 
new  king  should  offer  solemn  sacrifices  at  both. 
After  those  at  Gibeon  h  there  came  that  vision  of 
the  night  which  has  in  all  ages  borne  its  noble  wit 
ness  to  the  hearts  of  rulers.  Not  for  riches,  or  long 
life,  or  victory  over  enemies,  would  the  son  of 
David,  then  at  least  true  to  his  high  calling,  feeling 
himself  as  "  a  little  ch'ild  "  in  comparison  with  the 
vastness  of  his  work,  offer  his  supplications,  but 
for  a  "  wise  and  understanding  heart,"  that  he 
might  judge  the  people.  The  "  speech  pleased  the 
Lord."  There  came  in  answer  the  promise  of  a 
wisdom  "  like  which  there  had  been  none  before, 
like  which  there  should  be  none  after"  (1  K.  iii. 
5-15).  So  far  all  was  well.  The  prayer  was  a 
right  and  noble  one.  Yet  there  is  also  a  contrast 
between  it  and  the  prayers  of  David  which  accounts 
for  many  other  contrasts.  The  desire  of  David's 
heart  is  not  chiefly  for -wisdom,  but  for  holiness. 
He  is  conscious  of  an  oppressing  evil,  and  seeks  to 
be  delivered  from  it.  He  repents,  and  falls,  and 
repents  again.  Solomon  asks  only  for  wisdom.  He 
has  a  lofty  ideal  before  him,  and  seeks  to  accom 
plish  it,  but  he  is  as  yet  haunted  by  no  deeper 
yearnings,  and  speaks  as  one  who  has  "  no  need  of 
repentance." 

(2.)  The  wisdom  asked  for  was  given  in  large 
measure,  and  took  a  varied  range.  The  wide  vrorld 
of  nature,  animate  and  inanimate,  which  the  enter 
prises  of  his  subjects  were  throwing  open  to  him, 
the  lives  and  characters  of  men,  in  all  their  surface- 
weaknesses,  in  all  their  inner  depths,  lay  before 
him,  and  he  took  cognisance  of  all.1  But  the  highest 


f  Josephus,  again  careless  about  authorities,  makes  her 
a  queen  of  Egypt  (!)  and  Ethiopia  (Ant.  viii.  6,  $5). 

g  Is  it  possible  that  the  Book  itself  came  into  the  lite 
rature  of  Israel  by  the  intercourse  thus  opened  ?  Its  Arabic 
character,  both  in  language  and  thought,  and  the  obvious 
traces  of  its  influence  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  have  been 
noticed  by  all  critics  worthy  of  the  name  [comp.  JOB]. 

h  Hebron,  in  Josephus,  once  more  blundering  (Ani. 
viii.  2,  §1). 

»  Ewald  sees  in  the  words  of  1  K.  iv.  33,  the  record  (A 
books  more  or  less  descriptive  of  natural  history,  tl* 


SOLOMON 

wisdom  was  that  wanted  for  the  highest  work,  for 
governing  and  guiding,  and  the  historian  hastens  to 
give  an  illustration  of  it.  The  pattern-instance  is, 
in  all  its  circumstances,  thoroughly  Oriental.  The 
king  sits  in  the  gate  of  the  city,  at  the  early  dawn, 
lo  settle  any  disputes,  however  strange,  between 
any  litigants,  however  humble.  In  the  rough  and 
ready  test  which  turns  the  scales  of  evidence,  before 
so  evenly  balanced,  there  is  a  kind  of  rough  humour 
as  well  as  sagacity,  specially  attractive  to  the  Eastern 
mind,  then  and  at  all  times  (IK.  iii.  16-28.). 

(3.)  But  the  power  to  rule  showed  itself  not  in 
judging  only,  but  in  organising.  The  system  of 
government  which  he  inherited  from  David  received 
a  fuller  expansion.  Prominent  among  the  "  princes  " 
of  his  kingdom,  i.  e.  officers  of  his  own  appointment, 
were  members  of  the  priestly  order : k  Azariah  the 
son  of  Zadok,  Zadok  himself  the  high-priest,  Benaiah 
the  son  of  Jehoiada  as  captain  of  the  host,  another 
Azariah  and  Zabud,  the  sons  of  Nathan,  one  over 
the  officers  (Nittsdbim)  who  acted  as  purveyors  to 
the  king's  household  (1  K.  iv.  2-5),  the  other  in 
the  more  confidential  character  of  "  king's  friend." 
In  addition  to  these  there  were  the  two  scribes 
(Sopherim),  the  king's  secretaries,  drawing  up  his 
edicts  and  the  like  [SCRIBES],  Elihoreph  and  Ahiah, 
the  recorder  or  annalist  of  the  king's  reign  (Mazcir), 
the  superintendent  of  the  king'*  house,  and  house 
hold  expenses  (Is.  xxii.  15),  including  probably  the 
harem.  The  last  in  order,  at  once  the  most  indis 
pensable  and  the  most  hated,  was  Adoniram,  who 
presided  "over  the  tribute,"  that  word  including 
probably  the  personal  service  of  forced  labour  (comp. 
Keil,  Comm.  in  loc.,  and  Ewald,  Gesch.  iii.  334). 

(4.)  The  last  name  leads  us  to  the  king's  finances. 
The  first  impression  of  the  facts  given  us  is  that  of 
abounding  plenty.  That  all  the  drinking  vessels  of 
the  two  palaces  should  be  of  pure  gold  was  a  small 
thing,  "  nothing  accounted  of  in  the  days  of  Solo 
mon  (1  K.  x.  21).m  "  Silver  was  in  Jerusalem  as 
stones,  and  cedars  as  the  sycamore-trees  in  the  vale  " 
(1  K.  x.  27).  The  people  were  "eating  and  drink 
ing  and  making  merry  "  (1  K.  iv.  20).  The  trea 
sures  left  by  David  for  building  the  Temple  might 
well  seem  almost  inexhaustible11  (1  Chr.  xxix.  1-7). 
The  large  quantities  of  the  precious  metals  imported 


SOLOMON 


1310 


from  Ophir  and  Tarshish  would  speak,  to  a  people 
who  had  not  learnt  the  lessons  of  a  long  experience, 
of  a  boundless  source  of  wealth  (1  K.  ix.  28).  All 
the  kings  and  princes  of  the  subject-prov-'nces  paid 
tribute  in  the  form  of  gifts,  in  money  and  in  kind, 
"  at  a  fixed  rate  year  by  year"  (1  K.  x.  25). 
Monopolies  of  trade,  then,  as  at  all  times  in  the 
East,  contributed  to  the  king's  treasury,  and  the 
trade  in  the  fine  linen,  and  chariots,  and  horses  of 
Egypt,  must  have  brought  in  large  profits  (1  K.  x. 
28,  29).  The  king's  domain-lands  were  apparently 
let  out,  as  vineyards  or  for  other  purposes,  at  a 
fixed  annual  rental  (Cant.  viii.  11).  Upon  the 
Israelites  (probably  not  till  the  later  period  of  his 
reign)  there  was  levied  a  tax  of  ten  per  cent,  on 
their  produce  (1  Sam.  viii.  15).  All  the  provinces 
of  his  own  kingdom,  grouped  apparently  in  a  special 
order  for  this  purpose,  were  bound  each  in  turn  to 
supply  the  king's  enormous  household  with  pro 
visions  (1  K.  iv.  21-23).  [Comp.  TAXES.]  The 
total  amount  thus  brought  into  the  treasury  in 
gold,  exclusive  of  all  payments  in  kind,  amounted 
to  666  talents  ( I  K.  x.  14).» 

(5.)  It  was  hardly  possible,  however,  that  any 
financial  system  could  bear  the  strain  of  the  king's 
passion  for  magnificence.  The  cost  of  the  Temple 
was,  it  is  true,  provided  for  by  David's  savings  and 
the  offerings  of  the  people ;  but  even  while  that  was 
building,  yet  more  when  it  was  finished,  one  struc 
ture  followed  on  another  with  ruinous  rapidity. 
A  palace  for  himself,  grander  than  that  which 
Hn-am  had  built  for  his  father,  another  for  Pha 
raoh's  daughter,  the  house  of  the  forest  of  Lebanon, 
in  which  he  sat  in  his  court  of  judgment,  the  pillars 
all  of  cedar,  seated  on  a  throne  of  ivory  and  gold, 
in  which  six  lions  on  either  side,  the  symbols  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah,  appeared  (as  in  the  thrones  of  As 
syria,  Layard's  Nineveh,  ii.  30)  standing  on  the 
steps  and  supporting  the  arms  of  the  chair  (1  K. 
vii.  1-12,  x.  18-20),  ivory  palaces  and  ivory  towers, 
used  apparently  for  the  king's  armoury  (Ps.  xlv.  8  ; 
Cant.  iv.  4,  vii.  4) ;  tne  ascent  from  his  own 
palace  to  the  house  or  palace  of  Jehovah  (1  K.  x. 
5),  a  summer  palace  in  Lebanon  (1  K.  ix.  19  ; 
Cant.  vii.  4),  stately  gardens  at  Etham,  paradises 
like  those  of  the  great  Eastern  kings  (Eccl.  ii.  5,  6  ; 


catalogue  raisonnee  of  the  king's  collections,  botanic  and 
zoological  (iii.  358)  ;  to  Renaii,  however  (following  Jose- 
phus),  it  seems  more  in  harmony  with  the  unscientific 
character  of  all  Shemitic  minds,  to  think  of  them  as  looking 
on  the  moral  side  of  nature,  drawing  parables  or  allegories 
from  the  things  he  saw  (Hist,  des  langues  Semitiques, 
p.  127).  The  multiplied  allusions  of  this  kind  in  Prov. 
xxx..  make  that,  perhaps,  a  fair  representative  of  this  form 
of  Solomon's  wisdom,  though  not  by  Solomon  himself. 

k  We  cannot  bring  ourselves,  with  Keil  (Comm.  in  loc.) 
and  others,  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  the  word  Cohen, 
and  to  give  it  different  meanings  in  alternate  verses. 
QComp.  PRIESTS.] 

m  A  reminiscence  of  this  form  of  splendour  is  seen  in 
the  fact  that  the  mediaeval  goldsmiths  described  their 
earliest  plate  as  "  oeuvre  de  Salomon."  It  was  wrought 
in  high  relief,  was  Eastern  in  its  origin,  and  was  known 
also  as  Saracenic  (Liber  Custumarius,  i.  61,  759). 

n  We  labour,  however,  under  a  twofold  uncertainty, 
(1)  as  to  the  accuracy  of  the  numbers,  (2)  as  to  the  value 
of  the  terms.  Prideaux,  followed  by  Lewis,  estimates 
the  amount  at  833,000,000?.,  yet  the  savings  of  the  later 
years  of  David's  life,  for  one  special  purpose,  could  hardly 
Dave  surpassed  the  national  debt  of  England  (comp. 
Milman's  History  of  Jews,  i.  267). 

•  666.  There  is  something  startling  in  thus  finding  in 
a  simple  historical  statement  a  number  which  has  since 
become  invested  with  such  a  mysterious  and  terrible 


significance  (Rev.  xiii.  18).  The  coincidence  can  hardly, 
it  is  believed,  be  looked  on  as  casual.  "  The  Seer  of  the 
Apocalypse,"  it  has  been  well  said,  "  lives  entirely  in 
Holy  Scripture.  On  this  territory,  therefore,  is  the  solu 
tion  of  the  sacred  riddle  to  be  sought "  (Hengstenberg, 
Comm.  in  Rev.  in  loc.).  If,  therefore,  we  find  the  number 
occurring  in  the  0.  T.,  with  any  special  significance,  we 
may  well  think  that  that  furnishes  the  starting  point  of 
the  enigma.  And  there  is  such  a  significance  here.  (1 .) 
As  the  glory  and  the  wisdom  of  Solomon  were  the  repre 
sentatives  of  all  earthly  wisdom  and  glory,  so  the  wealth 
of  Solomon  would  be  the  representative  of  all  earthly 
wealth.  X2-)  The  purpose  of  the  visions  of  St.  John  is  to 
oppose  the  heavenly  to  the  earthly  Jerusalem ;  the  true 
"  offspring  of  David,"  "  the  lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,"  to 
all  counterfeits ;  the  true  riches  to  the  false.  (3.)  The 
worship  of  the  beast  is  the  worship  of  the  world's  mam 
mon.  It  may  seem  to  reproduce  the  glory  and  the  wealth 
of  the  old  Jerusalem  in  its  golden  days,  but  it  is  of  evil, 
not  of  God ;  a  Babylon,  not  a  Jerusalem.  (4.)  This  re 
ference  does  not  of  course  exclude  either  the  mystical 
meaning  of  the  number  six,  so  well  brought  out  by 
Hengstenberg  (I.  c.)  and  Mr.  Maurice  (on  the  Apocalypse, 
p.  251),  or  even  names  like  Lateinos  and  Nero  Caesar. 
The  greater  the  variety  of  thoughts  that  could  be  con 
nected  with  a  single  number,  the  moie  would  it  commend 
itself  to  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  method  of  the 
Gematria  of  the  Jewish  cabbalists. 


(350 


SOLOMON 


Joseph.  Ant.  viii.  7,  §3;  comp.  PARADISE),  the 
foundation  of  something  lite  a  stately  school  or 
college,?  costly  aqueducts  bringing  water,  it.  may 
be,  from  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  dear  to  David's 
heart,  to  supply  the  king's  palace  in  Jerusalem 
(Ewald,  iii.  323),  the  fortifications  of  Jerusalem 
completed,  those  of  other  cities  begun  (1  K.  ix. 
15-19),  and,  above  all,  the  hargm,  with  all  the 
expenditure  which  it  involved  on  slaves  and  slave- 
dealers,  on  concubines  and  eunuchs  (1  Sam.  viii. 
15;  1  Chr.  xxviii.  1),  on  men-singers  and  women- 
singers  (Eccl.  ii.  8) — these  rose  before  the  wondering 
eyes  of  his  people  and  dazzled  them  with  their 
magnificence.  All  the  equipment  of  his  court,  the 
"  apparel "  of  his  servants,  was  on  the  same  scale. 
If  he  went  from  his  hall  of  judgment  to  the  Temple 
he  marched  between  two  lines  of  soldiers,  each  with 
a  burnished  shield  of  gold  (1  K.  x.  16,  17  ;  Ewald, 
iii.  320).  If  he  went  on  a  royal  progress  to  his 
paradise  at  Etham,  he  went  in  snow-white  raiment, 
riding  in  a  stately  chariot  of  cedar,  decked  with 
silver  and  gold  and  purple,  carpeted  with  the  cost 
liest  tapestry,  worked  by  the  daughters  of  Jeru 
salem  (Cant.  iii.  9,  10).  A  body-guard  attended 
him,  "  threescore  valiant  men,"  tallest  and  hand 
somest  of  the  sons  of  Israel,  in  the  freshness  of  their 
youth,  arrayed  in  Tyrian  purple,  their  long  black 
hair  sprinkled  freshly  every  day  with  gold-dust 
(ib.  iii.  7,  8;  Joseph.  Ant.  viii.  7,  §3).  Forty 
thousand  stalls  of  horses  for  his  chariots,  and  twelve 
thousand  horsemen,  made  up  the  measure  of  his 
magnificence  (1  K.  iv.  26).  If  some  of  the  public 
works  had  the  plea  of  utility,  the  fortification  of 
some  cities  for  purposes  of  defence — Millo  (the 
suburb  of  Jerusalem),  Hazor,  Megiddo,  the  two 
Beth-horons,  the  foundation  of  others,  Tadmor  and 
Tiphsah,  for  purposes  of  commerce — these  were 
simply  the  pomps  of  a  selfish  luxury,  and  the 
people,  after  the  first  dazzle  was  over,  felt  that 
they  were  so.  As  the  treasury  became  empty, 
taxes  multiplied  and  monopolies  became  more  irk 
some.  Even  Israelites,  besides  the  conscription  which 
brought  them  into  the  king's  armies  (1  K.  ix.  22), 
were  subject,  though  for  a  part  only  of  each  year, 
to  the  corvee  of  compulsory  labour  (1  K.  v.  13). 
The  revolution  that  followed  had,  like  most  other 
revolutions,  financial  disorder  as  the  chief  among 
its  causes.  The  people  complained,  not  of  the  king's 
idolatry,  but  of  their  burdens,  of  his  "  grievous 
yoke"  (1  K.  xii.  4).  Their  hatred  fell  heaviest  on 
Adoniram,  who  was  over  the  tribute.  If,  on  the 
one  side,  the  division  of  the  kingdom  came  as  a 
penalty  for  Solomon's  idolatrous  apostasy  from 
Jehovah,  it  was,  on  another,  the  Nemesis  of  a 
selfish  passion  for  glory,  itself  the  most  terrible  of 
all  idolatries. 

(6.)  It  remains  for  us  to  trace  that  other  down 
fall,  belonging  more  visibly,  though  not  more  really, 
to  his  religious  life,  from  the  loftiest  height  even  to 
the  lowest  depth.  The  building  and  dedication  of 
ihe  Temple  are  obviously  the  representatives  of  the 
tirst.  That  was  the  special  task  which  he  inherited 
from  his  father,  and  to  that  he  gave  himself  with 
all  his  heart  and  strength.  He  came  to  it  with  all 
the  noble  thoughts  as  to  the  meaning  and  grounds 


8OLOMOV 

of  worship  which  his  father  and  Nathan  could  instil 
into  him.  We  have  already  seen,  in  speaking  oi 
his  intercourse  with  Tyre,  what  measures  lie  took 
for  its  completion.  All  that  can  be  said  as  to  it, 
architecture,  proportions,  materials  [TEMPLE],  and 
the  organisation  of  the  ministering  PRIESTS  and 
LEVITES,  will  be  found  elsewhere.  Here  it  will  be 
enough  to  picture  to  ourselves  the  feelings  of  the 
men  of  Judah  as  they  watched,  during  seven  long 
years,  the  Cyclopian  foundations  of  vast  stones  (stili 
remaining  when  all  else  has  perished,  Ewald,  iii. 
297)  gradually  rising  up  and  covering  the  area  of 
the  threshing-floor  of  Araunah,  materials  arriving 
continually  from  Joppa,  .cedar,  and  gold  and  silver, 
brass  "  without  weight ''  from  the  foundries  ol 
Succoth  and  Zarethan,  stones  ready  hewn  and 
squared  from  the  quarries.  Far  from  colossal  in 
its  size,  it  was  conspicuous  chiefly  by  the  lavish 
use,  within  and  without,  of  the  gold  of  Ophir  and 
Parvaim.  It  glittered  in  the  morning  sun  (it  ha* 
been  well  said)  like  the  sanctuary  of  an  El  Dorad^c 
(Milman,  Hist,  of  Jews,  i.  259).  Throughout  tht 
whole  work  the  tranquillity  of  the  kingly  city 
was  unbroken  by  the  sound  of  the  workman's 
hammer : 

*  Like  some  tall  palm,  the  noiseless  fabric  grew." 

(7.)  We  cannot  ignore  the  fact  that  even  now 
there  were  some  darker  shades  in  the  picture.  Kot 
reverence  only  for  the  Holy  City,  but  the  wish  to 
shut  out  from  sight  the  misery  he  had  caused,  to 
close  his  ears  against  cries  which  were  rising  daily 
to  the  ears  of  the  Lord  of  Sabaoth,  led  him  probably 
to  place  the  works  connected  with  the  Temple  at 
as  great  a  distance  as  possible  from  the  Temple 
itself.  Forgetful  of  the  lessons  taught  by  the  his 
tory  of  his  own  people,  and  of  the  precepts  of  the 
Law  (Ex.  xxii.  21,  xxiii.  9  et  a/.),  following  the 
example  of  David's  policy  in  its  least  noble  aspect 
(1  Chr.  xxii.  2),  he  reduced  the  "strangers''  in 
the  land,  the  remnant  of  the  Canaanite  races  who 
had  chosen  the  alternative  of  conformity  to  the 
religion  of  their  conquerors,  to  the  state  of  helots, 
and  made  their  life  "  bitter  with  all  hard  bondage."* 
[PROSELYTES.]  Copying  the  Pharaohs  in  thei* 
magnificence,  he  copied  them  also  in  their  disreg  ird 
of  human  suffering.  Acting,  probably,  under  the 
same  counsels  as  had  prompted  that  measure  on 
the  result  of  David's  census,  he  seized  on  these 
•'  strangers "  for  the  weary,  servile  toil  against 
which  the  free  spirit  of  Israel  would  have  rebelled. 
One  hundred  and  fifty-three  thousand,  with  wivib 
and  children  in  proportion,  were  torn  from  their 
homes  and  sent  off  to  the  quarries  and  the  forests 
of  Lebanon  (1  K.  v.  15  ;  2  Chr.  ii.  17,  18).  Even 
the  Israelites,  though  not  reduced  pemianently  to 
the  helot  state  (2  Chr.  viii.  9),  were  yet  summoned 
to  take  their  share,  by  rotation,  in  the  same  labour 
(1  K.  v.  13,  14).  One  trace  of  the  special  servitude 
of  "  these  hewers  of  stone  "  existed  long  afterwards 
in  the  existence  "of  a  body  of  men  attached  to  the 
Temple,  and  known  as  SOLOMON'S  SERVANTS. 

(8.)  After  seven  years  and  a  half  the  work  was 
completed,  and  the  day  came  to  which  all  Israelites 
looked  back  as  the  culminating  glory  of  their  nation. 


p  Pineda's  conjecture  (iii.  28)  that  "the  house  with 
seven  pillars,"  "  the  highest  places  of  the  city,"  of  Prov. 
Ix.  1-3,  had  originally  a  local  reference  is,  at  leas! ,  plaus 
ible  enough  to  be  wortn  mentioning.  It  is  cur'ous  to 
think  that  there  may  have  been  a  historical  "  Solomon's 
bouse,"  like  that  of  the  New  Atlantis. 

<i  Ewald's  apology  fur  these  acts  of  despotism  (iii.  282) 


presents  a  singular  contrast  to  the  free  spirit  which,  for 
the  most  part,  pervades  his  work.  Throughout  his 
history  of  David  and  Solomon,  his  sympathy  for  the 
father's  heroism,  his  admiration  for  the  son's  magni 
ficence,  seem  to  keep  his  judgment  under  a  fascination 
which  it  is  difficult  for  his  renders  to  escape  from. 


SOLOMON 

Their  worship  was  now  established  on  a  scale  as 
stately  as  that  of  other  nations,  while  it  yet  retained 
its  freedom  from  all  worship  that  could  possibly 
become  idolatrous.  Instead  of  two  rival  sanctuaries, 
as  before,  there  was  to  be  one  only.  The  ark  from 
Zion,  the  tabernacle  from  Gibeon,  were  both  re 
moved  (2  Chr.  v.  5)  and  brought  to  the  new 
Temple.  The  choirs  of  the  priests  and  Levites  met 
in  their  fullest  force,  arrayed  in  white  linen.  Then, 
it  may  be  for  the  first  time,  was  heard  the  noble 
hymn,  "  Lift  up  your  heads,  0  ye  gates,  and  be  yc 
lift  up,  ye  everlasting  doors,  and  the  King  of  Glory 
shall  come  in"  (Milman,  Hist,  of  Jews,  i.  263). 
The  trumpeters  and  singers  were  "  as  one"  in  their 
mighty  Hallelujah — "6  praise  the  Lord,  for  He  is 
good,  for  His  mercy  endureth  for  ever  "  (2  Chr.  v. 
13).  The  ark  was  solemnly  placed  in  its  golden 
sanctuary,  and  then  "the  cloud,"  the  "  glory  of  the 
Lord,"  filled  the  house  of  the  Lord.  The  two  tables 
of  stone,  associated  with  the  first  rude  beginnings 
of  the  life  of  the  wilderness,  were  still,  they  and 
they  only,  in  the  ark  which  had  now  so  magnificent 
a  shrine  (2  Chr.  v.  10).  They  bore  their  witness 
to  the  great  laws  of  duty  towards  God  and  man, 
remaining  unchangeable  through  all  the  changes 
and  chances  of  national  or  individual  life,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  growth  of  a  national 
religion.  And  throughout  the  whole  scene,  the  per 
son  of  the  king  is  the  one  central  object,  compared 
with  whom  even  priests  and  prophets  are  for  the 
time  subordinate.  Abstaining,  doubtless,  from  dis 
tinctively  priestly  acts,  such  as  slaying  the  victims 
and  offering  incense,  he  yet  appears,  even  more  than 
David  did  in  the  bringing  up  the  ark,  in  a  liturgical 
character.  He,  and  not  Zadok,  blesses  the  congre 
gation,  offers  up  the  solemn  prayer,  dedicates  the 
Temple.  He,  and  not  any  member  of  the  prophetic 
order,  is  then,  and  probably  at  other  times,  the 
spokesman  and  "  preacher  "  of  the  people  (Ewald, 
iii.  320).  He  takes  at  least  some  steps  towards  that 
far-off  (Ps.  ex.  1)  ideal  of  "a  priest  after  the  order 
of  Melchizedek,"  which  one  of  his  descendants  rashly 
sought  to  fulfil  [UzziAH],  but  which  was  to  be  ful 
filled  only  in  a  Son  of  David,  not  the  crowned  leader 
of  a  mighty  nation,  but  despised,  rejected,  crucified. 
From  him  came  the  lofty  prayer,  the  noblest  utter 
ance  of  the  creed  of  Israel,  setting  forth  the  distance 
and  the  nearness  of  the  Eternal  God,  One,  Incompre 
hensible,  dwelling  not  in  temples  made  with  hands, 
yet  ruling  men,  hearing  their  prayers,  giving  them 
all  good  things,  wisdom,  peace,  righteousness.* 

(9.)  The  solemn  day  was  followed  by  a  week  of 
festival,  synchronising  with  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles, 
the  time  of  the  completed  vintage.  Representatives 
of  all  the  tribes,  elders,  fathers,  captains,  proselytes, 
it  may  be,  from  the  newly-acquired  territories  in 
Northern  Syria  (2  Chr.  vi.  32,  vii.  8),— all  were 
assembled,  rejoicing  in  the  actual  glory  and  the 
bright  hopes  of  Israel.  For  the  king  himself  then, 
or  at  a  later  period  (the  narrative  of  1  K.  ix.  and 
2  Chr.  vii.  leaves  it  doubtful),  there  was  a  strange 
contrast  to  the  glory  of  that  day.  A  criticism, 
misled  by  its  own  acuteness,  may  see  in  that 
warning  prophecy  of  sin,  punishment,  desolation, 
only  a  vaticinium  ex  eventu,  added  some  cen- 


T  Ewald;  yielding  to  his  one  special  weakness,  sees  in 
this  prayer  the  rhetorical  addition  of  the  Deuteronomist 
editor  (iii.  315). 

•  Ps.  cxxxii,  belongs  manifestly  (comp.  vv.  1,  S,  10,  16, 
wita  2  Chr.  vi.  41)  to  the  day  of  dedication;  and  v.  12 
eoa  tains  the  condition,  of  which  the  vision  of  the  night 
Presents  the  dark  as  the  day  had  presented  the  bright  side. 


SOLOMON  1351 

turies  afterwards  (Ewald,  iii.  404)  It  ..;•  opec 
to  us  to  maintain  that,  with  a  chaiacter  such  cis 
Solomon's,  with  a  religious  ideal  so  far  be;  ond  his 
actual  life,  such  thoughts  were  psychologically  pro 
bable,  that  strange  misgivings,  suggested  by  the 
very  words  of  the  jubilant  hymns  of  the  day's 
solemnity,  might  well  mingle  with  the  shouts  of 
the  people  and  the  hallelujahs  of  the  Levites.8  It  is 
in  harmony  with  all  we  know  of  the  \vork  of  the 
Divine  Teacher,  that  those  misgivings  should  receive 
an  interpretation,  that  the  king  should  be  taught 
that  what  he  had  done  was  indeed  right  and  good, 
but  that  it  was  not  all,  and  might  not  be  perma 
nent.  Obedience  was  better  than  sacrifice.  There 
was  a  danger  near  at  hand. 

(10.)  The  danger  came,  and  in  spite  of  the 
warning  the  king  fell.  Before  long  the  priests  and 
prophets  had  to  grieve  over  rival  temples  to  Moloch, 
Chemosh,  Ashtaroth,  forms  of  ritual  not  idolatrous 
only,  but  cruel,  dark,  impure.  This  evil  came,  as 
the  compiler  of  1  K.  xi.  1-8  records,  as  the  penalty 
of  another.  Partly  from  policy,  seeking  fresh  alli 
ances,  partly  from  the  terrible  satiety  of  lust  seeking 
the  stimulus  of  change,  he  gave  himself  to  "  strange 
women."  He  found  himself  involved  in  a  fascination 
which  led  to  the  worship  of  strange  gods.  The 
starting-point  and  the  goal  are  given  us.  We  are 
left,  from  what  we  know  otherwise,  to  trace  the 
process.  Something  there  was  perhaps  in  his  very 
"  largeness  of  heart,"  so  far  in  advance  of  the  tra 
ditional  knowledge  of  his  age,  lising  to  higher  and 
wider  thoughts  of  God,  which  predisposed  him  to 
it.  His  converse  with  men  of  other  creeds  and 
climes  might  lead  him  to  anticipate,  in  this  respect, 
one  phase  of  modern  thought,  as  the  confessions  of 
the  Preacher  in  Koheleth  anticipate  another.  In 
recognising  what  was  true  in  other  forms  of  faith, 
he  might  lose  his  horror  at  what  was  false,  his 
sense  of  the  pre-eminence  of  the  truth  revealed  to 
him,  of  the  historical  continuity  of  the  nation's  reli 
gious  life.  His  worship  might  go  backward  from 
Jehovah  to  Elohim,'  from  Elohim  to  the  "  Gods 
many  and  Lords  many"  of  the  nations  round. 
Jehovah,  Baal,  Ashtaroth,  Chemosh,  each  form  of 
nature-worship,  might  come  to  seem  equally  true, 
equally  acceptable.  The  women  whom  he  brought 
from  other  countries  might  well  be  allowed  the 
luxury  of  their  own  superstitions.  And,  if  per 
mitted  at  all,  the  worship  must  be  worthy  or  his 
fame  and  be  part  of  his  magnificence.  With  this 
there  may,  as  Ewald  suggests  (iii.  380),"  have 
mingled  political  motives.  He  may  have  hoped, 
by  a  policy  of  toleration,  to  conciliate  neighbouring 
princes,  to  attract  a  larger  traffic.  But  probably 
also  there  was  another  influence  less  commonly 
taken  into  account.  The  wide-spread  belief  of  the 
East  in  the  magic  arts  of  Solomon  is  not,  it  is 
believed,  without  its  foundation  of  truth.  On  the 
one  hand,  an  ardent  study  of  nature,  in  the  period 
that  precedes  science,  runs  on  inevitably  into  the 
pursuit  of  occult,  mysterious  properties.  On  the 
other,  throughout  the  whole  history  of  Judah,  the 
element  of  idolatry  which  has  the  strongest  hold  on 
men's  minds  was  the  thaumaturgic,  soothsaying, 
incarAitions,  divinations  (2  K.  i.  2  j  IE.  li.  6 ; 


»  It  is  noticeable  that  Elohim,  and  not  Jehovah,  is  the 
Divine  name  used  throughout  Ecclesiastes. 

u  To  see,  however,  as  Ewald  does,  in  Solomon's  policy 
nothing  but  a  wise  toleration  like  that  of  a  modern  states 
man  in  regard  to  Christian  sects,  or  of  the  English 
Government  in  India,  is  surely  to  read  history  through  a 
refracting  and  distorting  medium. 


1352 


SOLOMON 


2  Chr.  xxxiii.  0  et  al.}.  The  religion  of  Israel 
opposed  a  stern  prohibition  to  all  such  perilous  yet 
tempting  arts  (Deut.  xviii.  10  et  al.}.  The  religions 
of  the  nations  round  fostered  them.  Was  it  strange 
that  one  who  found  his  progress  impeded  in  one 
path  should  turn  into  the  other  ?  So,  at  any  rate, 
it  was.  The  reign  which  began  so  gloriously  was 
a  step  backwards  into  the  gross  darkness  of  fetish 
worship.  As  he  left  behind  him  the  legacy  of 
luxury,  selfishness,  oppression,  more  than  counter 
balancing  all  the  good  of  higher  art  and  wider 
knowledge,  so  he  left  this  too  as  an  ineradicable 
evil.  Not  less  truly  than  the  son  of  Nebat  might 
his  name  have  been  written  in  history  as  Solomon 
the  son  of  David  who  "  made  Israel  to  sin." 

(11.)  Disasters  followed  before  long  as  the  na 
tural  consequence  of  what  was  politically  a  blunder 
as  well  as  religiously  a  sin.  The  strength  of  the 
nation  rested  on  its  unity,  and  its  unity  depended 
on  its  faith.  Whatever  attractions  the  sensuous 
ritual  which  he  introduced  may  have  had  for  the 
great  body  of  the  people,  the  priests  and  Levites 
must  have  looked  on  the  rival  worship  with  entire 
disfavour.  The  zeal  of  the  prophetic  order,  dor 
mant  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  reign,  and  as  it 
were,  hindered  from  its  usual  utterances  by  the 
more  dazzling  wisdom  of  the  king,  was  now  kindled 
into  active  opposition.  Ahijah  of  Shiloh,  as  if 
f aught  by  the  history  of  his  native  place,  was  sent 
to  utter  one  of  those  predictions  which  help  to  work 
out  their  own  fulfilment,  fastening  on  thoughts 
before  vague,  pointing  Jeroboam  out  to  himself  and 
to  the  people  as  the  destined  heir  to  the  larger  half 
of  the  kingdom,  as  truly  called  as  David  had  been 
called,  to  be  the  anointed  of  the  Lord  (1  K.  xi. 
28-39).  The  king  in  vain  tried  to  check  the  cur 
rent  that  was  setting  strong  against  him.  If  Jero 
boam  was  driven  for  a  time  into  exile  it  was  only 
as  we  have  seen,  to  be  united  in  marriage  to  the 
then  reigning  dynasty,  and  to  come  back  with  a 
daughter  of  the  Pharaohs  as  his  queen  (LXX.  ut 
supra).  The  old  tribal  jealousies  gave  signs  of  re 
newed  vitality.  Ephraim  was  prepared  once  more 
to  dispute  the  supremacy  of  Judah,  needing  special 
control  (1  K.  xi.  28).  And  with  this  weakness 
within  there  came  attacks  from  without.  Hadad 
and  Rezon,  the  one  in  Edom,  the  other  in  Syria, 
who  had  been  foiled  in  the  beginning  of  his  reign, 
now  found  no  effectual  resistance.  The  king,  pre 
maturely  old,*  must  have  foreseen  the  rapid  break 
ing  up  of  the  great  monarchy  to  which  he  had  suc 
ceeded.  Kehoboam,  inheriting  his  faults  without  his 


SOLOMON 

wisdom,  haughty  and  indiscreet,   was  not  likely  f> 
avert  it. 

(12.)  Of  the  inner  changes  of  mind  and  head 
which  ran  parallel  with  this  history  Scripture  is 
comparatively  silent.  Something  may  be  learnt 
from  the  books  that  bear  his  name,  which,  whether 
written  by  him  or  not,  stand  in  the  Canon  of  the 
0.  T.  as  representing,  with  profound,  inspired  in 
sight  the  successive  phases  of  his  life ;  something 
also  from  the  fact  that  so  little  remains  out  of  so 
much,  out  of  the  songs,  proverbs,  treatises  of  which 
the  historian  speaks  (1  K.  iv.  32,  33).  Legendary  as 
may  be  the  traditions  which  speak  of  Ho^ekiah  as  at 
one  and  the  same  time,  preserving  some  poi  tions  of 
Solomon's  writings  (Prov.  xxv.  1),  and  destroying 
others/  a  like  process  of  selection  must  have  been 
gone  through  by  the  unknown  Rabbis  of  the  GREAT 
SYNAGOGUE  after  the  return  from  the  exile.  Slowly 
and  hesitatingly  they  received  into  the  Canon,  as 
they  went  on  with  their  unparalleled  work  of  the 
expurgation  by  a  people  of  its  own  literature,  the 
two  books  which  have  been  the  stumbling-blocks  of 
commentators.  Ecclesiastcs  ani  the  Jrong  of  Songs z 
(Ginsburg,  Koheleth,  pp.  13-15).  They  give  ex- 
cerpta  only  from  the  3000  Proverbs.  Of  the  thou 
sand  and  five  Songs  (the  precise  number  indicates 
a  known  collection)  we  know  absolutely  nothing. 
They  were  willing,  i.  e.  to  admit  Koheleth  for  the 
sake  of  its  ethical  conclusion,  the  Song  of  Songs,  be 
cause  at  a  very  early  period,  possibly  even  then,  it 
had  received  a  mystical  interpretation  (Keil.  Ein- 
leit.  in  das  Alt.  Test.  §127),  because  it  was,  at  any 
rate,  the  history  of  a  love  which  if  passionate,  was 
also  tender,  and  pure,  and  true.6  But  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  there  are  elements  in  that  poem,  the  strong 
delight  in  visible  outward  beauty,  the  surrender  of 
heart  and  will  to  one  overpowering  impulse,  which 
might  come  to  be  divorced  from  truth  and  purity, 
and  would  then  be  perilous  in  proportion  to  their 
grace  and  charm.  Such  a  divorce  took  place  we 
know  in  the  actual  life  of  Solomon.  It  could  not 
fail  to  leave  its  stamp  upon  the  idyls  in  which 
feeling  and  fancy  uttered  themselves.  The  poems  of 
the  Son  of  David  may  have  been  like  those  of  Hafiz. 
The  Scribes  who  compiled  the  Canon  of  the  0.  T. 
may  have  acted  wisely,  rightly,  charitably  to  his 
fame,  in  excluding  them. 

(13.)  The  books  that  remain  meet  us,  as  has 
been  said,  as  at  any  rate  representing  the  three 
stages  of  his  life.  The  Song  of  Songs  brings  before 
us  the  brightness  of  his  youth,  the  heart  as  jet  un 
tainted,  human  love  passionate  yet  undefiled,b  and 


»  Solomon's  age  at  his  death  could  not  have  been  much 
more  than  fifty- nine  or  sixty,  yet  it  was  not  till  he  was 
"  old  "  that  his  wives  perverted  him  (1  K.  xi.  4). 

y  Hezekiah  found,  it  was  said,  formulae  for  the  cure  of 
diseases  engraved  on  the  door-posts  of  the  Temple,  and 
destroyed  them  because  they  drew  men  away  from  the 
worship  of  Jehovah  (Suidas,  s.  v.  'EcJWas).  Strange  as 
the  history  is,  it  has  a  counterpart  in  the  complaint  of  the 
writer  of  2  Chr.  xvi.  12,  that  Asa  "  sought  not  to  the 
Lord  but  to  the  physicians."  Was  there  a  rivalry  in  the 
treatment  of  disease  between  the  priests  and  prophets  on 
the  one  side  (comp.  Is.  xxxviii.  21),  and  idolatrous  thau- 
maturgists  on  the  other  (comp.  also  2  K.  i.  2)? 

»  The  Song  of  Songs,  however,  was  never  read  publicly, 
either  in  the  Jewish  or  the  Christian  Church,  nor  in  the 
former  were  young  men  allowed  to  read  it  at  all 
(Theod.  Cyr.  Pratf.  in  Cant.  Cant. ;  Theod.  Mops.  p.  699 
in  JUigne). 

a  We  reet  oil  this  as  the  necessary  condition  of  all  deeper 
tnterprotation.  To  argue,  as  many  have  done,  that  the 
sens«  must  be  the  only  one  because  the  literal 


would  be  insupportable,  is  simply  to  "bring  a  clean 
thing  out  of  an  unclean,"  to  assert  that  the  Divine  Spirit 
would  choose  a  love  that  was  lustful  and  impure  as  the 
fitting  parable  of  the  holiest.  Much  rather  may  we  say 
with  Herder  (Geitt  der  Ebr.  Foes.,  Dial.  vL),  that  the 
poem,  in  its  literal  sense,  is  one  which  "  might  have  bee<« 
written  in  Paradise."  The  man  and  the  woman  are,  as 
in  their  primeval  innocence,  loving  and  beloved,  thinking 
no  evil,  "  naked  and  not  ashamed." 

b  We  adopt  the  older  view  of  Lowth  (I'rael.  xxx.,  xxxi.) 
and  others,  rather  than  that  of  Renan  and  Ewald,  which 
almost  brings  down  a  noble  poem  to  the  level  of  an 
operatic  ballet  at  a  Parisian,  theatre.  Theodore  of  Mop- 
suestia  (I.  c.)  had,  at  least,  placed  it  on  a  level  with 
the  Symposium  of  Plato.  The  theory  of  Michaeiis  (Not. 
in  Lowth,  xxxi.)  that  it  represents  a  young  husband 
and  his  favourite  bride  hindered,  by  harem  jealousies 
or  regulations,  from  free  intercourse  with  each  other, 
seems  to  us  preferable,  and  connects  itself  with  thg 
dentification  of  the  Shularnite  with  Abishag, 
noticed. 


SOLOMON 

therefore  becoming,  under  a  higher  inspiration,  half- 
consciously  it  may  be  to  itself,  but,  if  not,  then 
unconsciously  for  others,  the  parable  of  the  soul's 
affections.0  Then  comes  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs, 
the  stage  of  practical,  prudential  thought,  searching 
into  the  recesses  of  man's  heart,  seeing  duty  in 
little  things  as  well  as  great,  resting  all  duty  on 
the  fear  of  God,  gathering  from  the  wide  lessons  of 
a  king's  experience,  lessons  which  mankind  could 
ill  afford  to  lose.d  The  poet  has  become  the  philo 
sopher,  the  mystic  has  passed  into  the  moralist. 
But  the  man  passed  through  both  stages  without 
being  permanently  the  better  for  either.  They  were 
to  him  but  phases  of  his  life  which  he  had  known 
and  exhausted  (Eccl.  i.,  ii.).  And  therefore  there 
came,  as  in  the  Confessions  of  the  Preacher,  the 
great  retribution.  The  "  sense  that  wore  with 
time  "  avenged  "  the  crime  of  sense."  There  fell  on 
him,  as  on  other  crowned  voluptuaries,"  the  weari 
ness  which  sees  written  on  all  things,  Vanity  of 
Vanities.  Slowly  only  could  he  recover  from  that 
"  vexation  of  spirit,"  and  the  recovery  was  incom 
plete.  It  was  not  as  the  strong  burst  of  penitence 
that  brought  to  his  father  David  the  assurance  of 
forgiveness.  He  could  not  rise  to  the  height  from 
which  he  had  fallen,  or  restore  the  freshness  of  his 
first  love.  The  weary  soul  could  only  lay  again, 
with  slow  and  painful  relapses,  the  foundations  of 
a  true  morality  [comp.  ECCLESIASTES]. 

(14.)  Here  our  survey  must  end.  We  may  not 
enter  into  the  things  within  the  veil,  or  answer 
either  way,  the  doubting  question,  Is  there  any 
hope  ?  Others  have  not  shrunk  from  debating  that 
question,  deciding,  according  to  their  formulae,  that 
he  did  or  did  not  fulfil  the  conditions  of  salvation 
so  as  to  satisfy  them,  were  they  to  be  placed  upon 
the  judgment-seat.  It  would  not  be  profitable  to 
give  references  to  the  patristic  and  other  writers 
who  have  dealt  with  this  subject.  They  have  been 
elaborately  collected  by  Calmet  (Dictionn.  s.  v. 
Salomon,  Nouvell.  dissert.  De  la  salut  du  Sal.). 
It  is  noticeable  and  characteristic  that  Chrysostom 
and  the  theologians  of  the  Greek  Church  are,  for 
the  most  part,  favourable,  Augustine  and  those  of 
the  Latin,  for  the  most  part,  adverse  to  his  chances 
of  salvation.* 

VII.  Legends. — (1.)  The  impression  made  by 
Solomon  on  the  minds  of  later  generations,  is  shown 
in  its  best  form  by  the  desire  to  claim  the  sanction  of 
his  name  for  even  the  noblest  thoughts  of  other  writers. 
Possibly  in  ECCLESIASTES,  certainly  in  the  Bc^k 
of  Wisdom,  we  have  instances  of  this,  free  from  the 
vicious  element  of  an  apocryphal  literature.  Before 

c  "The  final  cause  of  Canticles,"  it  has  been  well 
said,  "  was  that  it  might  be  a  field  in  which  mysticism 
could  disport  itself"  (Bishop  Jebb,  Correspond,  with 
Knox,  i.  305).  The  traces  of  the  "  great  mystery  "  which 
I  bus  connects  divine  and  human  love,  are  indeed  to  be 
found  everywhere,  in  the  Targums  of  Rabbis,  in  the 
writings  of  Fathers,  Schoolmen,  Puritans,  in  the  poems 
of  Mystics  like  Novalis,  Jeladeddin  Rumi,  Saadi  (comp. 
Tholuck,  Morgenland.  Mystik,  pp.  55,  227).  it  appears 
in  its  highest  form  in  the  Vita  Nuova  of  Dante,  purified 
by  Christian  feeling  from  the  sensuous  element  which 
in  Eastern  writers  too  readily  mingles  with  it.  Of  all 
otrange  assertions,  that  of  Renau,  that  mysticism  of  this 
kind  is  foreign  to  the  Shemitic  character,  is  perhaps  about 
the  strangest  (Cant,  des  Cant.  p.  119). 

d  Both  in  Ecclesiastes  (ii.  3-12)  and  yet  more  in  Pro 
verbs  (i.  11-17,  vii.  6-23)  we  may  find  traces  of  experiences 
gained  in  other  ways.  The  graphic  picture  of  the  life  of 
the  robbers  and  the  prostitutes  of  an  Eastern  city  could 
hardly  have  becu  drawn  but  by  one  who,  like  Haroun 


SOLOMON 


1358 


long,  however,  it  took  other  forms.  Round  thfi 
facts  of  the  history,  as  a  nucleus,  there  gathers  a 
whole  world  of  fantastic  fables,  Jewish,  Christian, 
Mahometan,  refractions,  coloured  and  distorted,  ac 
cording  to  the  media  through  which  they  pass,  of  a 
colossal  form.  Even  in  the  Targum  of  Ecclesiastes 
we  find  strange  stories  of  his  character.  He  and 
the  Rabbis  of  the  Sanhedrim  sat  and  drank  wine 
together  in  Jabne.  His  paradise  was  filled  with 
costly  trees  which  the  evil  spirits  brought  him  from 
India.  The  casuistry  of  the  Rabbis  rested  on  his 
dicta.  Ashmedai,  the  king  of  the  demons,  deprived 
him  of  his  magic  ring,  and  he  wandered  through  the 
cities  of  Israel,  weeping  and  saying,  I,  the  preacher, 
was  king  over  Israel  in  Jerusalem  (Ginsburg,  Kohe- 
leth,  A  pp.  i.  H. ;  Koran,  Sur.  38).  He  left  behind 
him  spells  and  charms  to  cure  diseases  and  cast  out 
evil  spirits ;  and  for  centuries,  incantations  bearing 
his  name  were  the  special  boast  of  all  the  "  vagabond 
Jew  exorcists "  who  swarmed  in  the  cities  of  the 
empire  (Jos.  Ant.  viii.  2,  §5 ;  Just.  Mart.  Respons. 
ad  Orthod.  55 ;  Origen,  Comm.  in  Matt.  xxvi.  3). 
His  wisdom  enabled  him  to  interpret  the  speech  of 
beasts  and  birds,  a  gift  shared  afterwards,  it  was 
said,  by  his  descendant  Hillel  (Ewald,  iii.  407  ; 
Koran,  Sur.  37).  He  knew  the  secret  virtues  of 
gems  and  herbs8  (Fabricius,  Codex  Pseudep.  V.  T. 
1042).  He  was  the  inventor  of  Syriac  and  Ara 
bian  alphabets  (Ibid.  1014). 

(2.)  Arabic  imagination  took  a  yet  wilder  flight. 
After  a  long  struggle  with  the  rebellious  Afreets 
and  Jinns,  Solomon  conquered  them  and  cast  them 
into  the  sea  (Lane,  Attbicm  Nights,  i.  p.  36). 
The  remote  pre-Adamite  past  was  peopled  with  a 
succession  of  forty  Solomons,  ruling  over  different 
races,  each  with  a  shield  and  sword  that  gave  them 
sovereignty  over  the  Jinns.  To  Solomon  himself 
belonged  the  magic  ring  which  revealed  to  him  the 
past,  the  present,  and  the  future.  Because  he 
stayed  his  march  at  the  hour  of  prayer  instead  of 
riding  on  with  his  horsemen  God  gave  him  the 
winds  as  a  chariot,  ancl  the  birds  flew  over  him, 
making  a  perpetual  canopy.  The  demons  in  their 
spite  wrote  books  of  magic  in  his  name,  but  he, 
being  ware  of  it,  seized  them  and  placed  them 
under  his  throne,  where  they  remained  till  his 
death,  and  then  the  demons  again  got  hold  of  them 
and  scattered  them  abroad  (D'Herbelot,  s.  v.  *'  So- 
liman  ben  Daoud  ;"  Koran,  Sur.  21).  The  vi&lt  of 
the  Queen  of  Sheba  furnished  some  three  or  four 
•omances.  The  Koran  (Sur.  27)  narrates  her  visit, 
tier  wonder,  her  conversion  to  the  Islam,  which 
Solomon  professed.  She  appears  under  three  dif- 


Alrashid  and  other  Oriental  kings,  at  times  laid  aside 
the  trappings  of  royalty,  and  plunged  into  the  other 
extreme  of  social  life,  that  so  he  might  gain  the  excite 
ment  of  a  fresh  sensation. 

«  "  A  taste  for  pleasure  is  extinguished  in  the  King's 
heart  (Louis  XIV.).  Age  and  devotion  have  taught  him 
to  make  serious  reflections  on  the  vanity  of  everything  he 
was  formerly  fond  of"  (Mine,  de  Maintenon's  Letters,  206). 

f  How  deeply  this  question  entered  into  the  hearts  ol 
Mediaeval  thinkers,  and  in  what  way  the  noblest  of  them 
all  decided  it,  we  read  in  the  Divina  Commedia— 

"  La  quinta  luce  ch'e  tra  noi  piu  bella 
Spira  di  tal  amor,  che  tutto  il  mondo 
Laggiu  ne  gola  di  saper  novella." 

Paradiso,  x.  109. 

The  "  spira  di  tal  amor  "  refers,  of  course,  to  the  Song  ol 
Solomon. 

s  The  name  of  a  well-known  plant,  Solomou'3  tea? 
(Convidluria  JJyjalis),  perpetuates  the  old  belief. 


1354 


SOLOMON 


%rent  nan.es,  Nicaule  (Calmet,  Diet.  s.  t;.),  Balkis 
(D'Herbelot,  s.  ».),  Makeda  (Pineda,  v.  14).  The 
Arabs  claim  her  as  belonging  to  Yemen,  the  Ethi 
opians  as  coming  from  Meroe.  In  each  form  of  the 
story  a  son  is  born  to  her,  which  calls  Solomon  its 
lather,  in  the  Arab  version  Meilekh,  in  the  Ethiopian 
David  after  his  grandfather,  the  ancestor  of  a  long 
line  of  Ethiopian  kings  (Ludolf,  Hist.  Aethiop.  ii.  3, 
4,  5).  Twelve  thousand  Hebrews  accompanied  her 
on  her  return  home,  and  from  them  were  descended 
the  Jews  of  Ethiopia,  and  the  great  Prester  John 
f  Presbyter  Joannes)  of  mediaeval  travellers  (D'Her 
belot,  /.  c. ;  Pineda,  L  c. ;  Corylus,  Diss.  de  regina 
Austr.  in  Menthen's  Thesaurus,  i.).  She  brought 
to  Solomon  the  self-same  gifts  which  the  Magi 
afterwards  brought  to  Christ.  [MAGI.]  One  at 
least  of  the  hard  questions  with  which  she  came 
was  rescued  from  oblivion.  Fair  boys  and  sturdy 
girls  were  dressed  up  by  her  exactly  alike  so  that 
no  eye  could  distinguish  them.  The  king  placed 
water  before  them  and  bade  them  wash,  and  then 
when  the  boys  scrubbed  their  faces  and  the  girls 
stroked  them  softly,  he  made  out  which  were  which 
(Glycas,  Annul,  in  Fabricius,  /.  c.).  Versions  of  these 
and  other  legends  are  to  be  found  also  in  Weil,  Bibl. 
Legends,  p.  171  ;  Fiirst,  Perlenschnure,  c.  36. 

(3.)  The  fame  of  Solomon  spread  northward  and 
eastward  to  Persia.  At  Shiraz  they  showed  the 
Metier-Suleiman,  or  tomb  of  Bath-sheba,  said  that 
Persepolis  had  been  built  by  the  Jinns  at  his  com 
mand,  and  pointed  to  the  Takht-i-Suleiman  (Solo 
mon's  throne)  in  proof.  Through  their  spells  too 
he  made  his  wonderful  journey,  breakfasting  at  Per 
sepolis,  dining  at  Baal-bee,  supping  at  Jerusalem 
(Chardin,  iii.  135,  143  ;  Ouseley,  ii.  41,  437). 
Persian  literature,  while  it  had  no  single  life  of 
David,  boasted  of  countless  histories  of  Solomon, 
one,  the  SuJeiman-Nameh.  in  eighty  books,  ascribed 
to  the  poet  Firdousi  (D'Heibelot,  I.  c. ;  Chardin,  iii. 
198).  Jn  popular  belief  he  was  confounded  with 
the  great  Persian  hero,  Djemschid  (Ouseley,  ii.  64). 

(4.)  As  might  be  expected,  the  legends  appeared 
in  their  coarsest  and  basest  form  in  Europe,  losing 
all  their  poetry,  the  mere  appendages  of  the  most 
detestable  of  Apocrypha,  Books  of  Magic,  a  Hygro- 
manteia,  a  Contradictio  Salomonis  (whatever  that 
may  be)  condemned  by  Gelasius,  Incantationes, 
Clavicula,  and  the  like.k  One  pseudonymous  work 
has  a  somewhat  higher  character,  the  Psalterium 
Salomonis,  altogether  without  merit,  a  mere  cento 
from  the  Psalms  of  David,  but  not  otherwise 
offensive  (Fabricius,  i.  917  ;  Tregelles,  Introd.  to 
N.  T.  p.  154),  and  therefore  attached  sometimes, 
as  in  the  great  Alexandrian  Codex,  to  the  sacred 
volume.  One  strange  story  meets  us  from  the  om 
nivorous  Note-book  of  Bede.  Solomon  did  repent, 
and  in  his  contrition  he  offered  himself  to  the  San 
hedrim,  doing  penance,  and  they  scourged  him  five 
times  with  rods,  and  then  he  travelled  in  sackcloth 
through  the  cities  of  Israel,  saying  as  he  went 
Give  alms  to  Solomon  (Bede,  de  Salom.  ap.  Pineda). 

VIII.  New  Testament. — We  pass  from  this  wild 


h  Two  of  these  strange  books  have  been  reprinted  in 
facsimile  by  Schtible  (Kloster,  v.).  The  Clavicula  Salo 
monis  NscrjjrMnlica  consists  of  incantations  made  up  of 
Hebrew  words  ;  and  the  mightiest  spell  of  the  enchanter 
is  the  Sigillum  Salomonis,  engraved  with  Hebrew  cha 
racters,  such  as  might  have  been  handed  down  through 
&  long  succession  of  Jewish  exorcists.  It  is  singular 
(unless  this  too  was  part  of  the  imposture)  that  both  the 
boo^s  profess  to  be  published  with  the  special  licence  of 
Popes  Julius  U  and  Alexander  VI.  Was  this  the  form 


SOLOMON'S  SERVANTS 

farrago  of  Jewish  and  other  fables,  to  that  which 
presents  the  most  entire  contrast  to  them.  The 
teaching  of  the  N.  T.  adds  nothing  to  the  materials 
for  a  life  of  Solomon.  It  enables  us  to  take  thp 
truest  measure  of  it.  The  teaching  of  the  Sou  of 
Man  passes  sentence  on  all  that  kingly  pon.p.  It 
declares  that  in  the  humblest  work  of  God,  in  the 
lilies  of  the  field,  there  is  a  grace  and  beauty  inex 
haustible,  so  that  even  "  Solomon  in  all  his  glory 
was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these"  (Matt.  vi.  29).' 
It  presents  to  us  the  perfect  pattern  of  a  growth  ia 
wisdom,  like,  and  yet  unlike  his,  taking,  in  the  eyes 
of  men,  a  less  varied  range ;  but  deeper,  truer, 
purer,  because  united  with  purity,  victory  over 
temptation,  self-sacrifice,  the  true  large-heartedness 
of  sympathy  with  all  men.  On  the  lowest  view 
which  serious  thinkers  have  ever  taken  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  they  have  owned  that  there 
was  in  Him  one  "greater  than  Solomon"  (Matt, 
xii.  42).  The  historical  Son  of  David,  ideally  a 
type  of  the  Christ  that  was  to  come,  was  in  his 
actual  life,  the  most  strangely  contrasted.  It  was 
reserved  for  the  true,  the  later  Son  of  David,  to 
fulfil  the  prophetic  yearnings  which  had  gathered 
round  the  birth  of  the  earlier.  He  was  the  true 
ShSlomoh,  the  prince  of  peace,  the  true  Jedid-jah, 
the  well-beloved  of  the  Father.  [E.  H.  P.] 

SOLOMON'S  PORCH.     [PALACE.] 
SOLOMON'S  SERVANTS  (CHILDREN  OF) 
(HbV  '33!?  ^3  :  v?oi'Aj85if(T6A|uc£,  Ezr.  ii.  58; 

viol  8ov\(ov  '2a\w/j.ct>v,  Ezr.  ii.  55  ;  Neh.  vii.  57, 
60  :  filli  servorum  Salomonis}.  The  persons  thus 
named  appear  in  the  lists  of  the  exiles  who  returned 
from  the  Captivity.  They  occupy  all  but  the  lowest 
places  in  those  lists,  and  their  position  indicates 
some  connexion  with  the  services  of  the  Temple. 
First  come  the  priests,  then  Levites,  then  Nethinim, 
then  "  the  children  of  Solomon's  servants."  In 
the  Greek  of  1  Esdr.  v.  33,  35,  the  order  is  the 
same,  but  instead  of  Nethinim  we  meet  with 
f epoSouAoi,  "  servants "  or  "  ministers,"  of  the 
Temple.  In  the  absence  of  any  definite  state 
ment  as  to  their  office  we  are  left  to  conjecture  and 
inference.  (1.)  The  name,  as  well  as  the  order, 
implies  inferiority  even  to  the  Nethinim.  They 
are  the  descendants  of  the  slaves  of  Solomon.  The 
servitude  of  the  Nethinim,  "given  to  the  Lord,"  was 
softened  by  the  idea  of  dedication.  [NETHINIM.] 
(2.)  The  starting  point  of  their  history  is  to  he 
found  probably  in  1  K.  v.  13,  14,  ix.  20,  21 ; 
2  Chr.  viii.  7,  8.  Canaanites,  who  had  been  living 
till  then  with  a  certain  measure  of  freedom,  were 
reduced  by  Solomon  to  the  helot  state,  and  com 
pelled  to  labour  in  the  king's  stone-quarries,  and 
in  building  his  palaces  and  cities.  To  some  extent, 
indeed,  the  change  had  been  effected  under  David, 
but  it  appears  to  have  been  then  connected 
specially  with  the  Temple,  and  the  servitude  under 
his  successor  was  at  once  harder  and  more  extended 
(1  Chr.  xxii.  2).  (3.)  The  last  passage  thiows 


of  Hebrew  literature  which   they  were  willing  to  en 
courage  ? 

>  A  pleasant  Persian  apologue  teaching  a  like  lesson 
deserves  to  be  rescued  from  the  mass  of  fables.  The  king 
of  Israel  met  one  day  the  king  of  the  ants,  took  the  insect 
on  his  hand,  and  held  converse  with  it,  asking,  Croesus- 
like,  "  Am  not  I  the  mightiest  and  most  glorious  of  men  ?" 
"  Not  so,"  replied  the  ant-king,  "  Thou  sittest  on  a  throne 
of  gold,  but  J  make  thy  hand  my  throne,  nml  thus  AK 
greater  than  thou  "  (Chardin,  iii.  p.  188). 


SOLOMON'S  SONG 

some  light  on  their  special  office.  The  Nethimm, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Gibeonites,  were  appointed 
to  be  hewers  of  wood  (Josh.  ix.  23),  and  this 
was  enough  for  the  services  of  the  Tabernacle. 
For  the  construction  and  repairs  of  the  Temple 
another  kind  of  labour  was  required,  and  the  new 
slaves  were  set  to  the  work  of  hewing  and  squar- 
..ig  stones  (1  K.  v.  17,  18).  Their  descendants 
appear  to  have  formed  a  distinct  order,  inheriting 
probably  the  same  functions  and  the  same  skill. 
The  prominence  which  the  erection  of  a  new  Temple 
on  their  return  from  Babylon  would  give  to  their 
work,  accounts  for  the  special  mention  of  them  in 
the  lists  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  Like  the  Ne- 
thinim,  they  were  in  the  position  of  proselytes, 
outwardly  conforming  to  the  Jewish  ritual,  though 
belonging  to  the  hated  race,  and,  even  in  their 
names,  bearing  traces  of  their  origin  (Ezr.  ii.  55-58). 
Like  them,  too,  the  great  mass  must  either  have 
perished,  or  given  up  their  position,  or  remained 
at  Babylon.  The  392  of  Ezr.  ii.  55  (Nethinim  in 
cluded)  must  have  been  but  a  small  fragment  of  the 
descendants  of  the  150,000  employed  by  Solomon 
(1  K.  r.  15).  [E.  H.  P.] 

SOLOMON'S  SONG.     [CANTICLES.] 

SOLOMON,  WISDOM  OF.  [WISDOM, 
BOOK  OF.] 

SON.11  The  term  "  son  "  is  used  in  Scripture 
language  to  imply  almost  any  kind  of  descent  or 
succession,  as  ben  shdndh,  "  son  of  a  year,"  i.  e.  a 
year  old,  ben  kesheth,  "  son  of  a  bow,"  t.  e.  an  arrow. 
The  word  bar  is  often  found  in  N.  T.  in  composi 
tion,  as  Bar-timaeus.  [CHILDREN.]  [H.  W.  P.] 

SON  OF  GOD  (wfbs  0eoO),»>  the  Second  Person 
of  the  Ever-blessed  Trinity,  who  is  coequal,  co- 
eternal,  and  consubstantial  with  the  Father;  and 
who  took  the  nature  of  man  in  the  womb  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  and  as  Man  bears  the  name 
of  JESUS,  or  Saviour,  and  who  proved  Himself  to 
be  the  MESSIAH  or  CHRIST,  the  Prophet,  Priest, 
and  King  of  all  true  Israelites,  the  seed  of  faithful 
Abraham,  the  universal  Church  of  God. 

The  title  SON  OF  GOD  was  gradually  revealed  to 
the  world  in  this  its  full  and  highest  significance. 
In  the  Book  of  Genesis  the  term  occurs  in  the 


SON  OF  GOD 


1355 


plural  number,  "Sons  of  God," 
(Gen.  vi.  2,  4),  and  there  the  appellation  is  ap 
plied  to  the  potentates  of  the  earth,  and  to  those 
who  were  set  in  authority  over  others  (according 
to  the  exposition  in  Cyril  Alex.  Adv.  Julian,  p. 
296,  and  Adv.  Anthropomorph.  c.  17),  or  (as  some 
have  held)  the  sons  of  the  family  of  Seth—  those 
who  had  been  most  distinguished  by  piety  and 
virtue.  In  Job  i.  6,  and  ii.  1,  this  title,  "  Sons  of 
God,"  is  used  as  a  designation  of  the  Angels.  In 
Psalm  Ixxxii.  6,  "  I  have  said,  ye  are  gods  ;  and 
ye  are  all  sons  of  the  Highest"  (fl^  »J3),  the 
title  is  explained  by  Theodoret  and  others  to  signify 
those  persons  whom  God  invests  with  a  portion  ol 
His  own  dignity  and  authority  as  rulers  of  His 
people,  and  who  have  clearer  revelations  of  His 
will,  as  our  Lord  intimates  (John  x.  35);  and 


herefore  the  children  of  Israel,  the  favoured  peop1^ 
if  God,  are  specially  called  collectively,  by  God. 
His  Son  (Ex.  iv.  22/23  ;  Hos.  xi.  1). 

But,  in  a  still  higher  sense,  that  title  is  applied 
>y  God  to  His  only  Son,  begotten  by  eternal  gene- 
•ation  (see  Ps.  ii.  7),  as  interpreted  in  the  Epistle 
»  the  Hebrews  (i.  5,  v.  5);  the  word  Di'PJ, 
'  to-day,"  in  that  passage,  being  expressive  of  the 
act  of  God,  with  whom  is  no  yesterday,  nor  to 
morrow.  "  In  aetemo  nee  praeteritum  est,  nee 
\iturum,  sed  perpetuum  hodie  "  (Luther).  That 
«xt  evidently  refers  to  the  Messiah,  who  is  crowned 
and  anointed  as  King  by  God  (Ps.  ii.  2,  6),  although 
resisted  by  men,  Ps.  ii.  21,  23,  compared  with 
Acts  iv.  25-27,  where  that  text  is  applied  by  St. 
Peter  to  the  crucifixion  of  Christ  and  His  subse 
quent  exaltation ;  and  the  same  Psalm  is  also  re 
ferred  to  Christ  by  St.  Paul,  when  preaching  in 
the  Jewish  synagogue  at  Antioch  in  Pisidia  (Acts 
xiii.  33)  ;  whence  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  Jews 
might  have  learnt  from  their  own  Scriptures  that 
the  Messiah  is  in  a  special  sense  the  Son  of  God ; 
and  this  is  allowed  by  Maimonides  in  Portd  Mosis, 
ed.  Pococke,  p.  160,239.  This  truth  might  have 
been  deduced  by  logical  inference  from  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  but  in  no  passage  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
is  the  Messiah  clearly  and  explicitly  designated  by 
the  title  "  Son  of  God."  The  words,  "  The  form 
of  the  fourth  is  like  the  Son  of  God,"  are  in  the 
Chaldee  portion  of  the  Book  of  Daniel  (Dan.  iii.  25), 
and  were  uttered  by  a  heathen  and  idolatrous  king, 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  cannot  therefore  be  understood 
as  expressing  a  clear  appreciation,  on  the  part  of 
the  speaker,  of  the  divinity  of  the  Messiah,  although 
we  may  readily  agree  that,  like  Caiaphas  and  Pilate, 
the  king  of  Babylon,  especially  as  he  was  perhaps 
in  habits  of  intercourse  with  Daniel,  may  have  de 
livered  a  true  prophecy  concerning  Christ. 

We  are  now  brought  to  the  question,  whether  the 
Jews,  in  our  Lord's  age,  generally  believed  that  the 
Messiah,  or  Christ,  was*  also  the  Son  of  God  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  term,  viz.  as  a  Divine  Person, 
coequal,  coeternal,  and  cousubstantial  witli  the 
Father  ? 

That  the  Jews  entertained  the  opinion  that  the 
Messiah  would  be  the  Son  of  God,  in  the  subordi 
nate  senses  of  the  term  already  specified  (viz.  as  a 
holy  person,  and  as  invested  with  great  power  by 
Godj,  cannot  be  doubted ;  but  the  point  at  issue 
is,  whether  they  supposed  that  the  Messiah  would 
be  what  the  Universal  Church  believes  Jesus  Christ 
to  be?  Did  they  believe  (as  some  learned  persons 
suppose  they  did)  that  the  terms  Messiah  and  Son 
of  God  are  "  equivalent  and  inseparable  "  ? 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Jews  ought  to  have 
deduced  the  doctrine  of  the  Messiah's  divinity  from 
their  own  Scriptures,  especially  from  such  texts  as 
Psalm 'xlv.  6,  7,  "  Thy  throne,  0  God,  is  for  ever 
and  ever ;  the  sceptre  of  Thy  kingdom  is  a  right 
sceptre.  Thou  lovest  righteousness  and  hatest 
wickedness  ;  therefore  God,  Thy  God,  anointed  Thee 
with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  Thy  fellows;"  a  text 
to  which  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 


•  1.  J3:  vids;  filius;  from  PI33,  "build"  (see  Jer 
xxxiii.  7). 

2.  ")2,  from  ""PS,  "  pure ;"  -rtnvov ;  dilectus  (Prov 
ixxi.  2j. 


4.  1v*^  yewrjiML',  stirps;  genus. 

5.  j^3  ;  0-jre'pjU.a  ;  posteri. 

6.  3D,  like  a  son,  i.  e.  a  successor. 


3.    t}\  ;  xa. .Si'o;;  puer. 


*•  TheTpresent  article,  in  conjvjiction  with  that  ci 
SAVIOUR,  forms  the  supplement  to  the  life  of  our  LOTA 
[See  Jfisrs  CHBIBT,  vol.  I.  p.  1039.] 


1356 


SON  OF  GOD 


appeals  (Hcb.  i.  8) ;  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Mes 
siah's  Godhead  might  also  have  been  inferred  from 
such  texts  as  Isaiah  ix.  6,  "  Unto  us  a  Child  is 
corn,  unto  us  a  Son  is  given  ....  and  His  name 
shall  be  called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  the  Mighty 
Gcd;"  and  vii.  14,  "Behold  a  Virgin  shall  con 
ceive  and  bear  a  Son,  and  shall  call  His  name 
Immanuel"  (with  us,  God)  ;  and  from  Jer.  xxiii.  5, 
"  Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord,  that  I  will 
reise  unto  David  a  righteous  Branch,  and  a  King 
shall  reign  and  prosper  .  .  .  ;  and  this  is  the  name 
whereby  He  shall  be  called,  the  LORD  (Jehovah) 
our  Righteousness  ;"  and  from  Micah  v.  2,  "  Out 
of  thee  (Bethlehem  Ephratah)  shall  He  come  forth 
unto  me  that  is  to  be  Ruler  in  Israel,  whose  goings 
forth  have  been  from  of  old,  from  everlasting ; ' ' 
and  from  Zech.  xi.  13,  "And  the  Lord  said  unto 
me,  Cast  it  unto  the  potter :  a  goodly  price  that  I 
was  prised  at  of  them." 

But  the  question  is  not,  whether  the  Jews  might 
not  and  ought  not  to  have  inferred  the  Divine  Son- 
ship  of  the  Messiah  from  their  own  Scriptures,  but 
whether,  for  the  most  part,  they  really  did  deduce 
that  doctrine  from  those  Scriptures  ?  They  ought 
doubtless  to  have  been  prepared  by  those  Scriptures 
for  a  suffering  Messiah ;  but  this  we  k.  iow  was  not 
the  case,  and  the  Cross  of  Christ  was  to  them  a 
stumbling-block  (1  Cor.  i.  23)  ;  and  one  of  the 
strongest  objections  which  they  raised  against  the 
Christians  was  that  they  worshipped  a  man  who 
died  a  death  which  is  declared  to  be  an  accursed 
one  in  the  Law  of  Moses,  which  was  delivered  by 
God  Himself  (Deut.  xxi.'  23). 

May  it  not  also  be  true,  that  the  Jews  of  our 
Lord's  age  failed  likewise  of  attaining  to  the  true 
sense  of  their  own  Scriptures,  in  the  opposite  direc 
tion  ?  May  it  not  also  be  true,  that  they  did  not 
acknowledge  the  Divine  Sonship  of  the  Messiah,  and 
that  they  were  not  prepared  to  admit  the  claims  of 
one  who  asserted  Himself  to  be  the  Christ,  and  also 
affirmed  Himself  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  coequal  with 
the  Father? 

In  looking  at  this  question  d  priori,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  declare  in 
the  strongest  and  most  explicit  terms  the  Divine 
Unity.  "  Hear,  0  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is 
one  Lord"  (Deut.  vi.  4),  this  is  the  solemn  decla 
ration  which  the  Jews  recite  daily,  morning  and 
evening  (see  Mishnah,  Barachoth,  chap.  i.).  They 
regarded  themselves  as  set  apart  from  all  the 
nations  of  earth  to  be  a  witness  of  God's  unity, 
and  to  protest  against  the  polytheism  of  the  rest 
of  mankind.  And  having  suffered  severe  chastise 
ments  in  the  Babylonish  Captivity  for  their  own 
idolatries,  they  shrunk — and  still  shrink — with  fear 
and  abhorrence  from  everything  that  might  seem 
in  any  degree  to  trench  upon  the  doctrine  of  the 
unity  of  the  Godhead. 

To  this  consideration  we  must  add,  a  posteriori, 
the  external  evidence  derived  from  the  testimony  of 
ancient  writers  who  lived  near  to  our  Lord's  age. 

Trypho,  the  learned  Jew,  who  debated  with 
Justin  Martyr  at  Ephesus  about  A.D.  150,  on  the 
points  of  controversy  between  the  Jews  and  Chris 
tians  expressly  states,  "  that  it  seems  to  him  not 
only  paradoxical  but  silly  (fj.<ap6v),  to  say  that  the 
Messiah,  or  Christ,  pre-existed  from  eternity  as  God, 
and  that  He  condescended  to  be  born  as  man,  and  " 
— Trypho  explodes  the  notion — that  Christ  is  "  not 
man  begotten  of  man  "  (Justin  M.  Dialog,  a.  Try- 
plion.  §48,  vol.  ii.  p.  154,  ed.  Otto,  Jen.  1842). 
Here  is  a  distinct  assertion  on  the  part  of  the  Jew 


SON  OF  GOD 

that  the  Messiah  is  merely  man  ;  and  here  al«o 
is  a  denial  of  the  Christian  doctrine,  that  He  is 
God,  pre-existing  from  eternity,  and  took  the  nature 
of  man.  In  the  same  Dialogue  the  Jewish  inter 
locutor,  Trypho,  approves  the  tenets  of  the  Ebionite 
heretics,  who  asserted  that  the  Christ  was  a  mere 
man  (t^tXbs  avGpooiros),  and  adds  this  remarkable 
declaration :  '« all  we  (Jews)  expect  that  the  Messiah 
will  come  as  a  man  from  man  (i.  e.  from  human 
parents),  and  that  Elias  will  anoint  Him  when  He 
is  come"  (wdvr  es  ^jueTs  rbv  xpt<rr^v  av~ 
6  p  co  TT  «v  e  £  av 
(recr6ai,  Kal  Tb 
Trypho  Judaeus  ap.  Justin  M.  Dialog.  §49,  p. 
156).  And  in  §54,  St.  Justin  Martyr,  speaking  in 
the  name  of  the  Christian  believers,  combats  that 
assertion,  and  affirms  that  the  Hebrew  prophecies 
themselves,  to  which  he  appeals,  testify  that  the 
Messiah  is  not  a  man  born  of  man,  according  to  the 
ordinary  manner  of  human  generation,  avOpcotros 
££  avQp&Trtav  Kara  rb  fcoivbv  Tuiv  avQp&iriiw  •yev- 
VT]Qels.  And  there  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  a  sub 
sequent  portion  of  the  same  dialogue,  where  Justin 
says,  "  If,  0  Trypho,  ye  understood  who  He  is  that 
is  sometimes  called  the  Messenger  of  mighty  counsel, 
and  a  Man  by'Ezekiel,  and  designated  as  the  Son  of 
Man  by  Daniel,  and  as  a  Child  by  Isaiah,  and  the 
Messiah  and  God  by  Daniel,  and  a  Stone  by  many, 
and  Wisdom  by  Solomon,  and  a  Star  by  Moses,  and 
the  Day-spring  by  Zechariah,  and  who  is  repre 
sented  as  suffering,  by  Isaiah,  and  is  called  by  him 
a  Rod,  and  a  Flower  and  Corner  Stone,  and  the  Son 
of  God,  you  would  not  have  spoken  blasphemy 
against  Him,  who  is  already  come,  and  who  has 
been  born,  and  has  suffered,  and  has  ascended  into 
heaven  and  will  come  again  "  (Justin  M.  a.  Try- 
phon.  §126,  p.  409),  and  Justin  affirms  that  he 
has  proved,  against  the  Jews,  that  "  Christ,  who  is 
the  Lord  and  God,  and  Son  of  God,"  appeared  to 
their  Fathers,  the  Patriarchs,  in  various  forms, 
under  the  old  dispensation  (§128,  p.  425).  Com 
pare  the  authorities  in  Dorner,  On  the  Person  of 
Christ,  i.  pp.  265-271 ,  Engl.  transl. 

In  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  Origen  wrote 
his  apologetic  work  in  defence  of  Christianity  against 
Celsus,  the  Epicurean,  and  in  various  places  of  that 
treatise  he  recites  the  allegations  of  the  Jews  against 
the  Gospel.  In  one  passage,  when  Celsus,  speaking 
in  the  person  of  a  Jew,  had  said  that  one  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets  had  predicted  that  the  Son  of  God 
would  come  to  judge  the  righteous  and  to  punish 
the  wicked,  Origen  rejoins,  that  such  a  notion  is 
most  improperly  ascribed  to  a.  Jew ;  inasmuch  as  the 
Jews  did  indeed  look  for  a  Messiah,  but  not  as  the  Son 
of  God.  "  No  Jew,"  he  says,  "  would  allow  tnat 
any  prophet  ever  said  that  a  Son  of  God  would 
come ;  but  what  the  Jews  do  say,  is,  that  the 
Christ  of  God  will  come ;  and  they  often  dispute 
with  us  Christians,  as  to  this  very  question  for 
instance,  concerning  the  Son  of  God,  on  the  plea  that 
no  such  Person  exists  or  was  ever  foretold  "  (Origen, 
Adv.  Cels.  i.  §49,  vol.  i.  p.  365,  B.,  see  p.  38 
and  p.  79;  ed.  Spencer  and  other  places,  e.  g.  pp. 
22,  30,  51,  62,  71,  82,  110,  136). 

In  the  4th  century  Eusebius  testified  that  the 
Jews  of  that  age  would  not  accept  the  title  Son  of 
God  as  applicable  to  the  Messiah  (Euseb.  Dem. 
Evong.  iv.  1),  and  in  later  days  they  charge  Chris- 
tians  with  impiety  and  blasphemy  for  designating 
Christ  by  that  title  (Leontius,  Cone.  Nicen.  ii. 
Act,  iv.). 

Lastly,    a   learned   Jew,   Orobio,    in    the    17lJ: 


SON  OF  GOD 

century,  in  his  conference  with  Limborch,  affirms 
(hat  if  a  prophet,  or  even,  if  it  were  possible,  the 
Messiah  Himself,  were  to  work  miracles,  and  yet  lay 
claim  to  divinity,  he  ought  to  be  put  to  death  by 
stoning,  as  one  guilty  of  blasphemy  (Orobio  ap. 
Limborch,  Arnica  Collatio,  p.  295,  ed.  Goud,  1688). 

Hence,  therefore,  on  the  whole,  there  seems  to 
be  sufficient  reason  for  concluding  (with  Basnage, 
Histoire  des  Juifs,  iv.  c.  24),  that  although  the 
Jews  of  our  Lord's  age  might  have  inferred,  and 
ought  to  have  inferred,  from  their  own  Scriptures, 
that  the  Messiah,  or  Christ,  would  be  a  Divine 
Pei-son,  and  the  Son  of  God  in  the  highest  sense  of 
the  term  ;  and  although  some  among  them,  who 
were  more  enlightened  than  the  rest,  entertained 
that  opinion;  yet  it  was  not  the  popular  and  ge 
nerally  received  doctrine  among  the  Jews  that  the 
Messiah  would  be  other  than  a  man,  born  of  human 
parents,  and  not  a  divine  being,  and  Son  of  God. 

This  conclusion  reflects  much  light  upon  certain 
important  questions  of  the  Gospel  Histoiy,  and 
clears  up  several  difficulties  with  regard  to  the  evi 
dences  of  Christianity. 

1.  It  supplies  an  answer  to  the  question,  "  Why 
was  Jesus  Christ  put  to  death  ?  "  He  was  accused 
by  the  Jews  before  Pilate  as  guilty  of  sedition  and 
rebellion  against  the  power  of  Rome  (Luke  xxiii. 
1-5;  cf.  John  xix.  12);  but  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  observe  that  this  was  a  mere  pretext,  to  which 
the  Jews  resorted  for  the  sake  of  exasperating  the 
Roman  governor  against  Him,  and  even  of  com 
pelling  Pilate,  against  his  will,  to  condemn  Him,  in 
order  that  he  might  not  lay  himself  open  to  the 
charge  of  "  not  being  Caesar's  friend  "  (John  xix. 
12)  ;  whereas,  if  our  Lord  had  really  announced  an 
intention  of  emancipating  the  Jews  from  the  Roman 
yoke,  He  would  have  procured  for  Himself  the  fa 
vour  and  support  of  the  Jewish  rulers  and  people. 

Nor  does  it  appear  that  Jesus  Christ  was  put  to 
death  because  He  claimed  to  be  the  Christ.  The 
Jews  were  at  that  time  anxiously  looking  for  the 
Messiah ;  the  Pharisees  asked  the  Baptist  whether 
he  was  the  Christ  (John  i.  20-25)  ;  "and  all  men 
mused  in  their  hearts  of  John  whether  he  were  the 
Christ,  or  not"  (Luke  iii.  15). 

On  this  it  may  be  observed,  in  passing,  that  the 
people  well  knew  that  John  the  Baptist  was  the 
son  of  Zacharias  and  Elizabeth  ;  they  knew  him  to 
be  a  mere  man,  born  after  the  ordinary  manner  of 
human  generation  ;  and  jet  they  all  thought  it  pro 
bable  that  he  might  be  the  Christ. 

This  circumstance  proves,  that,  according  to  their 
notions,  the  Christ  was  not  to  be  a  divine  person  ; 
certainly  not  the  Son  of  God,  in  the  Christian  sense 
of  the  term.  The  same  conclusion  may  be  deduced 
from  the  circumstance  that  the  Jews  of  that  age 
eagerly  welcomed  the  appearance  of  those  false 
Christs  (Matt.  xxiv.  24),  who  promised  to  deliver 
them  from  the  Roman  yoke,  and  whom  they  knew 
to  be  mere  men,  and  who  did  not  claim  divine 
origin,  which  they  certainly  would  have  done,  if  the 
Christ  was  generally  expected  to  be  the  Son  of  God. 

We  see  also  that  after  the  miraculous  feeding, 
the  people  were  desirous  of  "  making  Jesus  a  King" 
(John  vi.  15) ;  and  after  the  raising  of  Lazarus  at 
Bethany  they  met  Him  with  enthusiastic  accla 
mations,  "  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David ;  blessed 
is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  "  (Matt. 
xxi.  9  ;  Mark  xi.  9  ;  John  xii.  13).  And  the  eager 
and  restless  facility  with  which  the  Jews  admitted 
the  pretensJons  of  almost  every  fanatical  adven- 


SON  OF  GOD 


1357 


turer  who  professed  to  be  the  Messiah  at  that 
period,  seems  to  show  that  they  would  have 
willingly  allowed  the  claims  of  one  who  "  wrought 
many  miracles,"  as,  even  by  tne  confession  of  the 
chief  priests  and  Pharisees.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  did 
(John  xi.  47),  if  He  had  been  content  with  such 
a  title  as  the  Jews  assigned  to  their  expected 
Messiah,  namely  that  of  a  great  Prophet,  distin 
guished  by  mighty  works. 

We  find  that  when  our  Lord  put  to  the  Phari 
sees  this  question,  "  What  think  ye  of  Christ, 
whose  Son  is  He  ?  "  their  answer  was  not,  "  He  is 
the  Son  of  God,"  but  "  He  is  the  Son  of  David ;" 
and  they  could  not  answer  the  second  question 
which  He  next  propounded  to  them,  "  How  then 
doth  David,  speaking  in  the  Spirit,  call  Him  Lord  ?  " 
The  reason  was,  because  the  Pharisees  did  not  ex 
pect  the  Messiah  to  be  the  Son  of  God;  and  when 
He,  who  is  the  Messiah,  claimed  to  be  God,  they 
rejected  His  claim  to  be  the  Christ. 

The  reason,  therefore,  of  His  condemnation  by 
the  Jewish  Sanhedrim,  and  of  His  delivery  to  Pilate 
for  crucifixion,  was  not  that  He  claimed  to  be  the 
Messiah  or  Christ,  but  because  He  asserted  Himself 
to  be  muck  more  than  that:  in  a  word,  because  He 
claimed  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  and  to  be  God. 

This  is  further  evident  from  the  words  of  the 
Jews  to  Pilate,  "  We  have  a  law,  and  by  our  law 
he  ought  to  die,  becaiase  he  made  himself  the  Son 
of  God"  (John  xix.  7)  ;  and  from  the  previous  re 
solution  of  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim,  "  Then  said  thej 
all,  Art  thou  then  the  Son  of  God  ?  And  he  said 
unto  them,  Ye  say  that  I  am.  And  they  said,  What 
need  we  any  further  witness?  for  we  ourselves 
have  heard  of  his  own  mouth.  And  the  whole  mul 
titude  of  them  arose  and  led  him  unto  Pilate  " 
(Luke  xxii.  70,  71,  xxiii.  1). 

In  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  the  question  of  the  High 
Priest  is  as  follows : — "  I  adjure  thee  by  the  living 
God,  that  thou  tell  us  whether  thou  be  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God  "  (Matt.  xxvi.  63).  This  question 
does  not  intimate  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  High 
Priest  the  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God,  but  it  shows 
that  Jesus  claimed  both  titles,  and  in  claiming 
them  for  Himself  asserted  that  the  Christ  was  the 
Son  of  God ;  but  that  this  was  not  the  popular 
opinion,  is  evident  from  the  considerations  above 
stated,  and  also  from  His  words  to  St.  Peter  when 
the  Apostle  confessed  Him  to  be  the  "  Christ,  the 
Son  of  the  living  God"  (Matt.  xvi.  16)  ;  He  de 
clared  that  Peter  had  received  this  truth,  not  from 
human  testimony,  but  by  extraordinary  revelation  : 
"Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar-jona:  for  flesh  and 
blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but  My  Father 
which  is  in  heaven"  (Matt.  xvi.  17). 

It  was  the  claim  which  He  put  forth  to  be  the 
Christ  and  Son  of  God,  that  led  to  our  Lord's 
condemnation  by  the  unanimous  verdict  of  the 
Sanhedrim :  "  They  all  condemned  Him  to  be 
guilty  of  death"  (Mark  xiv.  64;  Matt.  xxvi. 
63-66) ;  and  the  sense  in  which  He  claimed  to  be 
Son  of  God  is  clear  from  the  narrative  of  John  v.  15. 
The  Jews  sought  the  more  to  kill  Him  because  He 
not  only  had  broken  the  Sabbath,  but  said  also  that 
God  was  His  own  Father  (iraTe'/>a  tdioi>  e\eye  r5i/ 
fftbtr),  making  Himself  "equal  unto  God;"  and 
when  He  claimed  Divine  pre-existence,  saying, 
"Before  Abraham  was  (ryeVero),  I  am,  then 
took  they  up  stones  to  cast  at  him "  (John  viii. 
58,  59) ;  and  when  He  asserted  His  own  unity 
with  God,  "  I  and  the  Father  are  one  " — one  sub 
stance  (fy),  not  one  person  (efsY—  "  then  the  Jews 


1358 


RON  OF  GOD 


took  up  stones  again  to  stone  him "  ( Tohn  x. 
30,  31) ;  and  this  is  evident  again  from  their  own 
A'ords,  "  For  a  good  work  we  stone  thee  not,  but 
for  blasphemy ;  and  because  that  thou,  being  a  man, 
makest  thyself  God  "  (John  x.  33). 

Accordingly  we  find  that,  after  the  Ascension, 
the  Apostles  laboured  to  bring  the  Jews  to  acknow 
ledge  that  Jesus  was  not  only  the  Christ,  but  was 
also  a  Divine  Person,  even  the  Lord  Jehovah. 
Thus,  for  example,  St.  Peter,  after  the  outpouring 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost  by 
Christ,  says.  "  Therefore  let  all  the  house  of  Israel 
know  assuredly,  that  God  hath  made  that  same 
Jesus,  whom  ye  have  crucified,  both  LORD  (Kvpiov, 
JEHOVAH)  and  Christ"  (Acts  ii.  36). 

2.  This   conclusion  supplies  a  convincing  proof 
of  Christ's  Godhead.     If  He  is  not  the  Son  of  God, 
equal  with  God,  then  there  is  no  other  alternative 
tut  that  He  was  guilty  of  blasphemy  ;    for  He 
claimed  "  God  as  His  own  Father,  making  Himself 
equal  with  God,"  and   by  doing  so   He   proposed 
Himself  as  an  object  of  divine  worship.     And  in 
that   case   He   would   have   rightly    been    put   to 
death ;  and  the  Jews  in  rejecting  and  killing  Him 
would  have  been  acting  in  obedience  to  the  Law 
of  God  which  commanded  them  to  put  to  death 
any  prophet,  however  distinguished  he  might  be 
by  the  working  of  miracles,  if  he  were  guilty  of 
blasphemy  (Deut.  xiii.  1-11);  and  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus  would  have  been  an  act  of  pious  zeal  on 
their  part  for  the  honour  of  God,  and  would  have 
commended   them   to  His  favour   and   protection, 
whereas  we  know  that  it  was  that  act  which  filled 
the  cup  of  their  national  guilt  and  has  made  them 
outcasts  from  God  to  this  day  (Matt,  xxiii.  32-38  ; 
Luke  xiii.  33-35  ;   1  Thess.  ii.  15, 16  ;  James  v.  6). 

When  they  repent  of  this  sin,  and  say,  "  Blessed 
(fvXoyrjfj.fvos')  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord,"  and  acknowledge  Jesus  to  be  Christ 
and  the  Son  of  God,  coequal  with  God,  then  Israel 
shall  be  saved  (Rom.  xi.  26). 

3.  This  conclusion  also  explains  the  fact — which 
might  otherwise  have  perplexed  and  staggered  us 
— that  the  miracles  which   Jesus   wrought,  and 
which  the  Jews  and  their  rulers  acknowledged  to 
have  been  wrought  by  Him,  did  not  have  their 
due  influence  upon  them ;  those  mighty  and  mer 
ciful  works  did  not  produce  the  effect  upon  them 
which  they  ought  to  have  produced,  and  which  those 
works  would  have  produced,  if  the  Jews  and  their 
rulers  had  been  prepared,  as  they  ought  to  have 
been,  by  an  intelligent  study  of  their  own  Scrip 
tures,  to  regard  their  expected  Messiah  as  the  Son 
of  God,  coequal  with  God. 

Not  being  so  prepared,  they  applied  to  those 
miracles  the  test  supplied  by  their  own  law,  which 
enjoined  that,  if  a  prophet  arose  among  them,  and 
worked  miracles,  and  endeavoured  to  draw  them 
away  from  the  worship  of  the  true  God,  those 
miracles  wer:  to  be  regarded  as  trials  of  their  own 
stedfastness,  and  were  not  to  be  accepted  as  proofs 
at  a  divine  mission,  "  but  the  prophet  himself  was 
to  be  put  to  death"  (Deut.  xiii.  1-11).  The  Jews 
tried  our  Lord  and  His  miracles  by  this  law.  Some 
oi  the  Jews  ventured  to  say  that  "  Jesus  of  Naza 
reth  was  specially  in  the  mind  of  the  Divine 
Lawgiver  when  He  framed  that  law  "  (see  Fagius 
on  the  Chaldee  Paraphrase  of  Deut.  xiii.,  and  his 
•tote  on  Deut.  xviii.  15),  and  that  it  was  provided 
expressly  to  meet  His  case.  Indeed  they  do  not 
hesitate  to  say  that,  in  the  words  of  the  law,  "  if 


SON  OF  GOD 

thy  brother,  the  son  of  thy  mother,  entice  thee 
secretly"  (Deut.  xiii.  6),  there  was  a  prophet Jc 
reference  to  the  case  of  Jesus,  who  "  said  that  he 
had  a  human  mother,  but  not  a  human  father, 
but  was  the  Son  of  God  and  was  God "  (see 
Fagius,  I.  c.\ 

Jesus  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah  ;  but   ^cording 

|  to  the  popular  view  and  preconceived  notions  ol 

!  the  Jews,  the  Messiah  was  to  be  merely  a  humau 

personage,  and  would  not  claim  to  be  God  and  tc 

|  be  entitled  to  divine   power.      Therefore,  though 

they  admitted  his  miracles  to  be  really  wrought, 

yet  they  did  not  acknowledge  the  claim  grounded 

on  those  miracles  to  be  true,  but  rather  regarded 

those  miracles    as   trials   of  their   loyalty   to   the 

One  True  God,  whose  prerogatives,  they  thought, 

were  infringed  and  invaded  by  Him  who  wrought 

those  miracles ;  and  they  even  ascribed  those  mira 

cles  to  the   agency  of  the  Prince  of  the  Devils 

(Matt.  xii.  24,  27  ;  Mark  iii.  22 ;  Luke  xi.  15),  and 

said  that  He,  who  wrought  those  miracles,  had  a 

!  devil  (John  vii.  20,  viii.  48),  and  they  called  Him 

|  Beelzebub  (Matt.  x.  25),  because  they  thought  that 

he  was  setting  Himself  in  opposition  to  God. 

4.  "They  all  condemned  Him  to  be  guilty  of 
death"  (Mark  xiv.  64).  The  Sanhedrim  was 
unanimous  in  the  sentence  of  condemnation.  This 
is  remarkable.  We  cannot  suppose  that  there 
were  not  some  conscientious  persons  in  so  nu 
merous  a  body.  Indeed,  it  may  readily  be  allowed 
that  many  of  the  members  of  the  Sanhedrim  were 
actuated  by  an  earnest  zeal  for  the  honour  of  God 
when  they  condemned  Jesus  to  death,  and  that 
they  did  what  they  did  with  a  view  to  God's 
glory,  which  they  supposed  to  be  disparaged  by  our 
Lord's  pretensions  ;  and  that  they  were  guided  by 
a  desire  to  comply  with  God's  law,  which  required 
them  to  put  to  death  every  one  who  was  guilty  of 
blasphemy  in  arrogating  to  himself  the  power 
which  belonged  to  God. 

Hence  we  may  explain  our  Lord's  words  on  the 
cross,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do"  (Luke  xxiii.  34),  "  Father,  they  are 
not  aware  that  He  whom  they  are  crucifying  is 
Thy  Son :"  and  St.  Peter  said  at  Jerusalem  to  the 
Jews  after  the  crucifixion,  "  Now,  brethren,  I  wot 
that  through  ignorance  ye  did  it  (».  e.  rejected  and 
crucified  Christ),  as  did  also  your  rulers"  (Acts  iii. 
I  17)  ;  and  St.  Paul  declared  in  the  Jewish  synagogue 
at  Antioch  in  Pisidia,  "  they  that  dwell  at  Jeru 
salem,  and  their  rulers,  because  they  knew  Him 
not,  nor  yet  the  voices  of  the  prophets,  which  are 
read  every  Sabbath-day,  have  fulfilled  them  in  con 
demning  Him  "  (Acts  xiii.  27). 

Hence  it  is  evident  that  the  predictions  of  Holy 

j  Scripture  may  be  accomplished  before  the  eyes  or 

|  men,  while  they  are  unconscious  of  that  fulfilment ; 

and  that  the  prophecies  may  be  even  accomplished 

by  persons  who  have  the  prophecies  in  their  hands, 

and  do  not  know  that  they  are  fulfilling  them. 

Hence  also  it  is  clear  that  men  may  be  guilty  of 

enormous  sins  when  they  are  acting  according  to 

their  consciences  and  with  a  view  to  God's  glory, 

and  while  they  hold  the  Bible  in  their  hands  and 

i  hear  its  voice  sounding  in  their  ears  (Acts  xiii.  27)  ; 

j  and  that  it  is  therefore  of  unspeakable  importance 

!  not  only  to  hear  the  words  of  the  Scriptures,  but 

!  to  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest  them,  with 

humility,  docility,  earnestness,  and  prayer,  in  order 

to  understand  their  true  meaning. 

Therefore  the  Christian  student  has  great 


SON  OF  GOD 

to  thank  God  that  He  has  given  in  the  New  Testa-  • 
Kieut  a  divinely-inspired  interpretation  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  also  has  sent  the  Holy  Spirit  to 
teach  the  Apostles  all  things  (John  xiv.  26),  to 
abide  for  ever  with  His  Church  (John  xiv.  16), 
the  body  of  Christ  (Col.  i.  24),  which  He  has 
made  to  be  the  pillar  and  ground  of  truth  (1  Tim. 
Hi.  15),  and  on  whose  interpretations,  embodied  in 
the  creeds  generally  received  among  Christians,  Ave 
may  safely  rely,  as  declaring  the  true  sense  of  the 
Bible. 

If  the  Jews  and  their  rulers  had  not  been  swayed 
by  prejudice,  but  in  a  careful,  candid,  and  humble 
spirh  had  considered  the  evidence  before  them,  they 
would  have  known  that  their  promised  Messiah  was 
to  be  the  Son  of  God,  coequal  with  God,  and  that 
He  was  revealed  as  such  in  their  own  Scriptures, 
and  thus  His  miracles  would  have  had  their  due 
effect  upon  their  minds. 

5.  Those  persons  who  now  deny  Christ  to  be  the 
Son  of  God,  coequal  and  coeterual  with  the  Father, 
are  followers  of  the  Jews,  who,  on  the  plea  of  zeal 
for  the  Divine  Unity,  rejected  and  crucified  Jesus, 
who  claimed  to  be  God.     Accordingly  we  find  that 
the  Ebionites,  Cerinthians,  Nazarenes,  Photinians, 
and  others  who  denied  Christ's  divinity,  arose  from 
the  ranks  of  Judaism  (cf.  Waterland,  Works,  v. 
240,  ed.  Oxf.  1823:   on  these  heresies  the  writer 
of  this  article  may  perhaps  be  .permitted  to  refer  to 
his  Introduction  to  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  John, 
in  his  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament).    It  has  been 
well  remarked  by  the  late  Professor  Blunt  that  the 
arguments  by  which   the  ancient  Christian   Apo 
logists,   such    as   Justin    Martyr,    Tertullian,   and 
others,  confuted   the   Jews,   afford    the   strongest 
armour  against  the  modern  Sodnians  (see  also  the 
remark  of  St.  Athanasius,  Orat.  ii.,  adv.  Arianos, 
pp.  377-383,  where  he  compares  the  Arians  to  the 
Jews). 

The  Jews  sinned  against  the  comparatively  dim 
light  of  the  Old  Testament :  they  who  have  fallen 
into  their  error  reject  the  evidence  of  both  Testa 
ments. 

6.  Lastly,  the  conclusion  stated  in  this  article 
supplies  a  strong  argument  for  the  Divine  origin  and 
truth  of  Christianity.     The  doctrine  of  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God  as  well  as  Son  of  Man,  reaches  from  the 
highest  pole  of  Divine  glory  to  the  lowest  pole  of 
human  suffering.     No  human  mind  could  ever  have 
devised  such  a  scheme  as  that :  and   when  it  was 
presented  to  the  mind  of  the  Jews,  the  favoured 
people  of  God,  they  could  not  reach  to  either  of 
these  two  poles  ;  they  could  not  mount  to  the  height 
of  the  Divine  exaltation  in  Christ  the  Son  of  God, 
nor  descend  to  the  depth  of  human  suffering  in 
Christ  the  Son  of  Man.     They  invented  the  theory 
of  two  Messiahs,  in  order  to  escape  from  the  ima 
ginary  contradiction  between  a  suffering  and   tri- 
"mphant  Christ;  and  they  rejected  the  doctrine  of 
Christ's  Godhead  in  order  to  cling  to  a  defective 
and  unscriptural  Monotheism.    They  failed  of  grasp 
ing  the  true  sense  of  their  own  Scriptures  in  both 
respects.     But  in  the  Gospel,  Jesus  Christ,  Son  of 
God  and  Son  of  Man,  reaches  from  one  pole  to  the 
other,  and  filleth   all  in  all  (Eph.  i.  23).     The 
Gospel  of  Christ  ran  counter  to  the  Jewish   zeal 
for  Monotheism,  and  incurred  the  charge  of  Poly 
theism,  by  preaching  Christ  the  Son  of  God,  coequal 
with  the  Father ;  and  also  contravened  and  chal 
lenged  all  the  complex  and  dominant  systems  of 
V-entile   Polytheism,    by    proclaiming    the    Divine 


SON  OF  MAN 


135i) 


Unity.  It  boldly  confronted  the  World,  an  1  it  hes 
conquered  the  World  ;  because  "  the  excellency  of 
the  power  of  the  Gospel  is  not  of  man,  but  of 
God  "  (2  Cor.  iv.  7). 

The  Author  of  the  above  ai'ticle  may  lefer  for 
further  confirmation  of  his  statements,  to  an  ex 
cellent  work  by  the  Rev.  W.  Wilson,  B.D.,  and 
Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  entitled 
An  Illustration  of  the  Method  of  explaining  the 
New  Testament  by  the  early  Opinions  of  Jews  and 
Christians  concerning  Christ,  Cambridge,  1797  ; 
and  to  Dr.  J.  A.  Dorner's  History  of  the  Develop 
ment  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  of 
which  an  English  translation  has  been  printed  at 
Edinburgh,  1861,  2  vols. ;  and  to  Hagenbach,  Dog- 
men-Geschichte,  §42,  §65,  §66,  4te  Auflage, 
Leipz.  1857.  '  [C.  W.] 

SON  OF  MAN  (tHK'ta.  and  in  Chaldee 
Kb&?"""0 :  6  ufbs  rov  av6puirov,  or  vlos  av6p<a- 
irov),  the  name  of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Ever- 
blessed  Trinity,  the  Eternal  Word,  the  Everlasting 
Son,  becoming  Incarnate,  and  so  made  the  Son  of 
Man,  the  second  Adam,  the  source  of  all  grace  to 
all  men,  united  in  His  mystical  body,  the  Christian 
Church. 

1.  In  a  general  sense  every  descendant  of  Adam 
bears  the  name  "  Son  of  Man  "  in  Holy  Scripture, 
as  in  Job  xxv.  6 ;  Ps.  cxliv.  3,  cxlvi.  3 ;  Is.  li.  12, 
Ivi.  2.     But  in  a  more  restricted  signification  it  is 
applied  by  way  of  distinction  to  particular  persons. 
Thus  the  prophet  Ezekiel  is  addressed  by  Almighty 
God  as  Sen-Adam,  or  "  Son  of  Man,"  about  eighty 
times  in  his  prophecies.     This  title  appears  to  be 
assigned   to    Ezekiel   as   a   memento   from  God — 
(fj.ffj.vt]<ro  &vQpc0iros  &v} — in  order  that  the  pro 
phet,  who  had  been  permitted  to  behold  the  glorious 
manifestation  of  the  Godhead,  and  to  hold  converse 
with  the  Almighty,  and  to  see  visions  of  futurity, 
should   not   be   "  exalted   above   measure   by   the 
abundance  of  his  revelations,"  but  should  remember 
his  own  weakness  and  mortality,  and  not  impute 
his  prophetic  knowledge  to  himself,  but  ascribe  all 
the  glory  of  it  to  God,  and  be  ready  to  execute  with; 
meekness  and  alacrity  the  duties  of  his  prophetic 
office  and  mission  from  God  to  his  fellow-men. 

2.  In  a  still  more  emphatic  and  distinctive  sense 
the  title  "  Son   of  Man"  is  applied  in  the  Old 
Testament  to  the  Messiah.     And,  inasmuch  as  the 
Messiah  is   revealed    in  the   Old  Testament   as  a 
Divine  Person  and  the  Sou  of  God  (Ps.  ii.  7,  Ixxxix. 
27  ;  Is.  vii.  14,  ix.  6),  it  is  a  prophetic  pre-announce- 
ment  of  His  incarnation  (compare  Ps.  viii.  4  with 
Heb.  ii.  6,  7,  8,  and  1  Cor.  xv.  27). 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  Messiah  is  designated 
by  this  title,  "  Son  of  Man,"  in  His  royal  and  judi 
cial  character,  particularly  in  the  prophecy  of  Dan. 
vii.  13": — "Behold  One  like  the  Son  of  Man  came 
with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  came  to  the  Ancient 
of  Days  .  .  .  and  there  was  given  Him  dominion  and 
glory  .  .  .  His  dominion  is  an  everlasting  dominion." 
Here  the  title  is  not  Ben-ish,  or  Ben- Adam,  but 
Bar-enosh,  which  represents  humanity  in  its  greatest 
frailty  and  humility,  and  is  a  significant  declaration 
that  the  exaltation  of  Christ  in  His  kingly  and 
judicial  office  is  due  to  His  previous  condescension, 
obedience,  self-humiliation,  and  suffering  in  His 
human  nature  (comp.  Phil.  ii.  5-11). 

The  title  "  S-~>n  of  Man,"  derived  from  that  pas 
sage  of  Daniel,  is  appiied  by  St.  Stephen  to  Christ 
in  His  heavenly  exaltation  and  royal  raajt-sty ; 


1360 


SON  OF  MAN 


u  Behold  I  see  the  heavens  opened,  and  the  Son  of 
Man  standing  on  the  right  hand  of  God  "  (Acts  vii. 
56).  This  title  is  also  applied  to  Christ  by  St. 
John  in  tha  Apocalypse,  describing  our  Lord's 
priestly  office,  which  He  executes  in  heaven  (Rev. 
i.  13) :  "  In  the  midst  of  the  seven  golden  candle 
sticks"  (or  golden  lamps,  which  are  the  emblems 
of  the  churches,  i.  20)  "  one  like  the  Son  of  Man 
clothed  with  a  garment  down  to  the  foot "  (His 
priestly  attire) ;  "  His  head  and  His  hairs  were 
white  like  wool,  as  white  as  snow"  (attributes 
of  divinity;  comp.  Dan.  vii.  8).  St.  John  also  in 
the  Apocalypse  (xiv.  14)  ascribes  the  title  "  Son  of 
Man"  to  Christ  when  he  displays  His  kingly  and 
judicial  office:  "  I  looked  and  beheld  a  white  cloud, 
and  upon  the  cloud  one  sat  like  unto  the  Son  of 
Man,  having  on  His  head  a  golden  crown,  and  in 
His  hand  a  sharp  sickle  " — to  reap  the  harvest  of 
the  earth. 

3.  It  is  observable  that  Ezektel  never  calls  himself 
"  Son  of  Man ;"  and  in  the  Gospels  Christ  is  never 
called  "  Son   of  Man "  by  the  Evangelists ;    but 
wherever  that  title  is  applied  to  Him  there,  it  is 
applied  by  Himself. 

The  only  passages  in  the  New  Testament  where 
Christ  is  called  "  Son  of  Man "  by  anyone  except 
Himself,  are  those  just  cited,  and  they  relate  to 
Him,  not  in  His  humiliation  upon  earth,  but  in  His 
heavenly  exaltation  consequent  upon  that  humilia 
tion.  The  passage  in  John  xii.  34,  "  Who  is  this 
Son  of  Man?  "  is  an  inquiry  of  the  people  concern 
ing  Him  who  applied  this  title  to  Himself. 

The  reason  of  what  has  been  above  remarked 
seems  to  be,  that,  as  on  the  one  hand  it  was  expe 
dient  for  Ezekiel  to  be  reminded  of  his  own  hu 
manity,  in  order  that  he  should  not  be  elated  by 
his  revelations ;  and  in  order  that  the  readers  of  his 
prophecies  might  bear  in  mind  that  the  revelations 
in  them  are  not  due  to  Ezekiel,  but  to  God  the 
Holy  Ghost,  who  spake  by  him  (see  2  Pet.  i. 
21) ;  so,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  necessary  that 
they  who  saw  Christ's  miracles,  the  evidences  of 
His  divinity,  and  they  who  read  the  evangelic  his 
tories  of  them,  might  indeed  adore  Him  as  God,  but 
might  never  forget  that  He  is  Man. 

4.  The  two  titles  "  Son  of  God  "  and  «  Son  of 
Man,"  declaring  that  in  the  one  Person  of  Christ 
there  are  two  natures,  the  nature  of  God  and  the 
nature  of  man,  joined  together,  but  not  confused, 
are  presented  to  us  in  two  memorable  passages  of 
the  Gospel,  which  declare  the  will  of  Christ  that  all 
men  should  confess  Him  to  be  God  and  man,  and 
which  proclaim  the  blessedness  of  this  confession. 

(1.)  "  Whom  do  men  say  that  I,  the  Son  of  Man, 
am  ? "  was  our  Lord's  question  to  His  Apostles ; 
and  "  Whom  say  ye  that  I  am  ?  Simon  Peter 
answered  and  said,,  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God."  Our  Lord  acknowledged  this 
confession  to  be  true,  and  to  have  been  revealed 
from  heaven,  and  He  blessed  him  who  uttered  it : 
"  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar-jona  .  .  . "— "  Thou 
art  son  of  Jonas,  Bar-jona  (comp.  John  xxi.  15) ; 
and  as  truly  as  thou  art  Bar-jona,  so  truly  am  I 
Bar-enosh,  Son  of  Man,  and  Ben-Elohim,  Son  of 
God;  and  My  Father,  who  is  in  heaven,  hath 
revealed  this  truth  unto  thee.  Blessed  is  every  one 
who  holds  this  faith ;  for  I  Myself,  Son  of  God  and 
Son  of  Man,  am  the  living  Rock  on  which  the 
Church  is  built ;  and  he  who  holds  this  faith  is  a 
genuine  Petros,  a  lively  stone,  hewn  out  of  Me  the 
Divine  Petra,  the  Everlasting  Rock,  and  built  upon 


SON  OF  MAN 

Me  "  (see  the  authorities  cited  in  the  note  on  'Mult 
xvi.  18,  in  the  present  writer's  edition), 

(2.)  The  other  passage,  where  the  two  titles 
(Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man;  are  found  in  +he 
Gospels,  is  no  less  significant.  Our  Lord,  standing 
before  Caiaphas  arid  the  chief  priests,  was  interro 
gated  by  the  high-priest,  "  Art  thou  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God  ?  "  (Matt.  xxvi.  63 ;  comp.  Mark  xiv.  61). 
"  Art  Thou,  what  Thou  claimest  to  be,  the  Mes 
siah?  and  art  Thou,  as  Thou  professest  to  be,  a 
Divine  Person,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Son  of  the 
Blessed  ?  "  "  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Thou  sayest  it ; 
I  am"  (Matt.  xxvi.  64 ;  Mark  xiv.  62). 

But,  in  order  that  the  high-priest  and  the  council 
might  not  suppose  Him  to  be  a  Divine  Person  only, 
and  not  to  be  also  really  and  truly  Man,  our  Lord 
added  of  His  own  accord,  "  Nevertheless "  (TT\^V, 
besides,  or,  as  St.  Mark  has  it,  ical,  also,  in  addition 
to  the  avowal  of  My  Divinity)  "  I  say  unto  you, 
Hereafter  shall  ye  see  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  on 
the  right  hand  of  power,  and  coming  in  the  clouds 
of  heaven"  (Matt.  xxvi.  64;  Mark  xiv.  62).  That 
is,  '•  I  am  indeed  the  Son  of  God,  but  do  not  forget 
that  I  am  also  the  Son  of  Man.  Believe  and  confess 
the  true  faith,  that  I,  who  claim  to  be  the  Christ, 
am  Very  God  and  Very  Man." 

5.  The  Jews,  in  our  Lord's  age,  were  not  disposed 
to  receive  either  of  the  truths  expressed  in  those 
words.     They  were  so  tenacious  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Divine  Unity  (as  they  understood  it),  that  they 
were  not  willing  to  accept  the  assertion  that  Christ 
is  the  "  Son  of  God;"  Very  God  of  Very  God  (see 
above,  article  SON  OP  GOD),  and  they  were  not 
disposed  to  admit  that  God  could  become  Incarnate, 
and  that  the  Son  of  God  could  be  also  the  Son  of 
Man:  (see  the  remarks  on  this  subject  by  Dorner, 
On  the  Person  of  Christ,  Introduction,  throughout). 

Hence  we  find  that  no  sooner  had  our  Lord  as 
serted  these  truths,  than  "  the  high-priest  rent  his 
clothes,  saying.  He  hath  spoken  blasphemy.  What 
think  ye?  and  they  all  condemned  Him  to  be  guilty 
of  death"  (Matt.  xxvi.  65,  66 ;  Mark  xiv.  63,  64). 
And  when  St.  Stephen  had  said,  "  Behold,  I  see  the 
heavens  opened,  and  the  Son  of  Man  standing  on  the 
right  hand  of  God,"  then  they  "  cried  out  with  a 
loud  voice,  and  stopped  their  ears,  and  ran  upon  him 
with  one  accord,  and  cast  him  out  of  the  city,  and 
stoned  him"  (Acts  vii.  57,  58).  They  could  no 
longer  restrain  their  rage  against  him  as  guilty  of 
blasphemy,  because  he  asserted  that  Jesus,  who  had 
claimed  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  and  who  had  been 
put  to  death  because  He  made  this  assertion,  is  also 
the  Son  of  Man,  and  was  then  glorified;  and  that 
therefore  they  were  mistaken  in  looking  for  another 
Christ,  and  that  they  had  been  guilty  of  patting  to 
death  the  Messiah. 

6.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  clear  view  of  he  diffi 
culties  which  the  Gospel  had  to  overcome,  in  pro 
claiming  Jesus  to  be  the  Christ,  and  to  be  the  Son 
of  God,  and  to  be  the  Son  of  Man ;  and  in  the 
building  up  of  the  Christian  Church  on  this  founda 
tion.     It  had  to  encounter  the  prejudices  of  the 
whole  world,  both  Jewish  and  Heathen,   in  this 
work.     It  did  encounter  them,  and  has  triumphed 
over  them.     Here  is  a  proof  of  its  divine  origin. 

7.  If  we  proceed  to  analyze  the  various  passages 
in  the  Gospel  where  Christ  speaks  of  Himself  as  the 
Son  of  Man,  we  shall  find  that  they  not  only  teach 
the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God 
(and  thus  afford  a  prophetic  protest  against   the 
heresies  which  afterwards  imDUPiied  that  doctrine 


SON  OF  MAN 


SON  OF  MAN 


1361 


CTich  as  the  heresy  of  the  Docetae,  Valentinus,  and   nov?  sits  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  and  as  Sou  ot 

Man  He  will  come  in  the  clouds  of  heaven,  with 
power  and  great  glory,  in  His  own  glory,  and  iu 
ihe  glory  of  His  Father,  and  all  His  holy  artels 
with  Him,  and  it  is  as  Son  of  Man  that  He  will 
'  sit  on  the  throne  of  His  glory,"  and  "  before  Him 
will  be  gathered  all  nations  "  (Matt.  xvi.  27,  xxiv. 
30,  xxv.  31,32;  Mark  xiv.  62;  Luke  xxi.  27); 
and  He  will  send  forth  His  angels  to  gather  His 
elect  from  the  four  winds  (Matt.  xxiv.  31),  and  to  root 
up  iha  tares  from  out  of  His  Field,  which  is  the 
World  (Matt.  xiii.  38,  41)  ;  and  to  bind  them  in 
Bundles  to  burn  them,  and  to  gather  His  wheat  into 
His  barn  (Matt.  xiii.  30).  It  is  as  Son  of  Man 
;hat  He  will  call  all  from  their  graves,  and  summon 
:hem  to  His  judgment-seat,  and  pronounce  their 
sentence  for  everlasting  bliss  or  woe ;  "  for,  the 
Father  judgeth  no  man,  but  hath  committed  all 
udgment  unto  the  Son  ;  .  .  .  and  hath  given  Him 
authority  to  execute  judgment  also,  because  He  is 
the  Son  of  Man"  (John  v.  22,  27).  Only  "  the  pure 
n  heart  will  see  God"  (Matt.  v.  8 ;  Heb.  xii.  14) ; 
but  the  evil  as  well  as  the  good  will  see  their  Judge : 
every  eye  shall  see  Him  "  (Rev.  i.  7).  This  is 
it  and  equitable  ;  and  it  is  also  fit  and  equitable 
:hat  He,  who  as  Son  of  Man,  was  judged  by  the 
world,  should  also  judge  the  world ;  and  that  He 
who  was  rejected  openly,  and  suffered  death  for 
all,  should  be  openly  glorified  by  all,  and  be  exalted 
n  the  eyes  of  all,  as  King  of  kings,  and  Lord  of 
ords. 

9.  Christ  is  represented  in  Scripture  as  the  second 
Adam  (1  Cor.  xv.  45,  47  ;  comp.  Rom.  v.  14),  inas 
much  as  He  is  the  Father  of  the  new  race  of  man 
kind  ;  and,  as  we  are  all  by  nature  in  Adam,  so  are 
we  by  grace  in  Christ ;  and  "  as  in  Adam  all  die, 
even  so  in  Christ  all  are  made  alive"  (1  Cor.  xv.  22)  ; 
and  "  if  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature  " 
(2  Cor.  v.  17  ;  Eph.  iv.  24);  and  He,  who  is  the 
Son,  is  also  in  this  respect  a  Father ;  and  therefore 
Isaiah  joins  both  titles  In  one,  "  To  us  a  Son  is 
given 


Marcioi  ,  who  denied  that  Jesus  Christ  was  come  in 
the  flesh,  see  on  1  John  iv.  2,  and  2  John  7)  ;  but 
they  also  declare  the  consequences  of  the  Incarna 
tion,  both  in  regard  to  Christ,  and  in  regard  aLx>  !o 
all  mankind. 

The  consequences  of  Christ's  Incarnation  are  de 
scribed  in  the  Gospels,  as  a  capacity  of  being  a 
perfect  pattern  and  example  of  godly  life  to  men 
(Phil.  ii.  5;  1  Pet.  ii.  21);  and  of  sufferii.^  of 
dying,  of  "  giving  His  life  as  a  ransom  for  all,"  of 
being  "  the  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world  "  (1  John  ii.  2,  iv.  10),  of  being  the  source  of 
life  and  grace,  of  Divine  Sonship  (John  i.  12),  of 
Resurrection  and  Immortality  to  all  the  family  of 
Mankind,  as  many  as  receive  Him  (John  iii.  16,  36, 
xi.  25),  and  are  engrafted  into  His  body,  and  cleave 
to  Him  by  faith  and  love,  and  participate  in  the 
Christian  sacraments,  which  derive  their  virtue  and 
efficacy  from  His  Incarnation  and  Death,  and  which 
are  the  appointed  instruments  for  conveying  and 
imparting  the  benefits  of  His  Incarnation  and  Death 
to  us  (comp.  John  iii.  5,  vi.  53),  who  are  "  made 
partakers  of  the  Divine  nature  "  (2  Pet.  i.  4),  by 
virtue  of  our  union  with  Him  who  is  God  and  Man. 
The  infinite  value  and  universal  applicability  of 
the  benefits  derivable  from  the  Incarnation  and  sa 
crifice  of  the  Son  of  God  are  described  by  our  Lord, 
declaring  the  perfection  of  the  union  of  the  two 
natures,  the  human  nature  and  the  Divine,  in  His 
own  person.  "  No  man  hath  ascended  up  to 
heaven  but  He  that  came  down  from  heaven,  even 
the  Son  of  Man  which  is  in  heaven  ;  and  as  Moses 
'  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even  so 
must  the  Son  of  Man  be  lifted  up:  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal 
life  ;  for  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  He  gave  His 
only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in 
Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life  ; 
for  God  sent  not  His  Son  into  the  world  to  condemn 
the  world  ;  but  that  the  world  through  Him  might 
be  saved"  (John  iii.  13-17);  and  again,  "  What 
and  if  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  Man  ascend  up  where 
He  was  before  ?"  (John  vi.  62,  compared  with  John 
i.  1-3). 

8.  By  His  perfect  obedience  in  our  nature,  and  by 
His  voluntary  submission  to  death  in  that  nature, 
Christ  acquired  new  dignity  and  glory,  due  to  His 
obedience  and  sufferings.  This  is  the.  dignity  and 
glory  of  His  mediatorial  kingdom  ;  that  kingdom 
which  He  has  as  God-man,  "  the  only  Mediator 
between  God  and  man  "  —  (as  partaking  perfectly  of 
the  nature  of  both,  and  as  making  an  At-one-ment 
between  them),  "  the  Man  Christ  Jesus  "  (1  Tim. 
ii.  5;  Heb.  ix.  15,  xii.  24). 

It  was  as  Son  of  Man  that  He  humbled  Himself, 
it  is  as  Son  of  Man  that  He  is  exalted  ;  it  was 
AS  Son  of  Man,  born  of  a  woman,  that  He  was 
made  under  the  Law  (Gal.  iv.  4),  and  as  Son  of 
Man  He  was  Lord  of  the  Sabbath-day  (Matt.  xii.  8)  ; 
us  Son  of  Man  He  suffered  ibr  sins  (Matt.  xvii.  12  ; 
Mark  viii.  3t),  and  as  Son  of  Man  He  has  authority 
on  earth  to  forgive  sins  (Matt.  ix.  6).  It  was  as 
Son  of  Man  that  He  had  not  where  to  lay  His 
head  (Matt.  viii.  20  ;  Luke  ix.  58),  it  is  as  Son  of 
Man  that  He  wears  on  his  head  a  golden  crown 
(Rev.  xiv.  14)  ;  it  was  as  Son  of  Man  that  He  was 
r»etrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinful  men,  and  suffered 
t;any  things,  and  was  rejected,  and  condemned  and 
crucified  (see  Matt.  xvii.  22,  xx.  18,  xxvi.  2,  24  ; 
Mark  viii.  31,  ix.  31,  x.  33;  Luke  ix.  22,  44, 
rviii.  31,  xxiv.  7),  it  is  as  Son  of  Man  that  He 
VOL.  in. 


and  His  name  shall  be  called  the  Mighty 
God,  the  Everlasting  Father"  (Isa.  ix.  6).  Christ 
is  the  second  Adam,  as  the  Father  of  the  new  race ; 
but  in  another  respect  He  is  unlike  Adam,  because 
Adam  was  formed  in  mature  manhood  from  the 
earth  ;  but  Christ,  the  second  Adam,  is  Sen-Adam, 
the  Son  of  Adam ;  and  therefore  St.  Luke,  writing 
specially  for  the  Gentiles,  and  desirous  to  show  the 
universality  of  the  redemption  wrought  by  Christ, 
traces  His  genealogy  to  Adam  (Luke  iii.  23-38). 
He  is  Son  of  Man,  inasmuch  as  he  was  the  Promised 
Seed,  and  was  conceived  in  the  womb  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  and  took  our  nature,  the  nature  of  us  all, 
and  became  "  Emmanuel,  God  with  us"  (Matt.  i. 
23),  "  God  manifested  in  the  flesh  "  (1  Tim.  iii.  16). 
Thus  the  new  Creation  sprung  out  of  the  old ;  and 
He  made  "  all  things  new  "  (Rev.  xxi.  5).  The  Son 
of  God  in  Eternity  became  the  Son  of  Man  in  Time. 
He  turned  back,  as  it  were,  the  streams  of  pollution 
and  of  death,  flowing  in  the  innumerable  channels 
of  the  human  family,  and  introduced  into  them  a 
new  element,  the  element  of  life  and  health,  of 
divine  incorruption  and  immortality  ;  which  would 
not  have  been  the  case,  if  He  had  been  merely  like 
Adam,  having  an  independent  origin,  springing  by 
a  separate  efflux  out  of  the  earth,  and  had  not  been 
Ben- Adam  as  well  as  Bift'Elohim,  the  Son  of  Adam, 
as  well  as  the  Sfn  of  God.  And  this  is  what  St, 
Paul  observes  in  his  comparison — and  contrast — 
between  Adam  and  Christ  (Rom.  v.  15-18),  u  Not 
as  was  the  transgression  (in  Adam)  so  likewise  was 

4  S 


1362 


SON  OF  MAN 


(he  free  gift  ('n  Christ).  For  if  (as  is  the  fact) 
the  many  (».  e.  nil)  died  by  the  transgression  of  the 
one  (Adam),  much  more  the  grace  of  God,  and  the 
gift  by  the  grace  that  is  of  the  one  Man  Jesus 
Christ,  overfbwed  to  the  many  ;  and  not,  as  by  one 
who  sinned,  so  is  the  gift;  for  the  judgment  came 
from  one  man  to  condemnation,  but  the  free  gift 
came  forth  from  many  transgressions  to  their  state 
of  justification.  For  if  by  the  transgression  of  the 
one  (Adam),  Death  reigned  by  means  of  the  one, 
much  more  they  who  receive  the  abundnm-*1  of 
grace  and  of  the  gift  of  righteousness  will  reign  in 
life  through  the  one,  Jesus  Christ  .  .  .  Thus,  where 
Sin  abounded,  Grace  did  much  more  abound  (Rom. 
v.  20)  ;  for,  as,  by  the  disobedience  of  the  one  man 
(Adam),  the  many  were  made  sinners,  so  by  the 
obedience  of  the  one  (Christ),  the  many  were  made 
righteous.  ..." 

10.  The  benefits  accruing  to  mankind  from  the 
Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  are  obvious  from 
these  considerations : — 

We  are  not  so  to  conceive  of  Christ  as  of  a  Deli 
verer  external  to  humanity,  but  as  incorporating 
numanity  in  Himself,  and  uniting  it  to  God  ;  as 
rescuing  our  nature  from  Sin,  Satan,  and  Death  ; 
and  as  carrying  us  through  the  grave  and  gate  of 
death  to  a  glorious  immortality  ;  and  bearing  man 
kind,  His  lost  sheep,  on  His  shoulders ;  as  bearing 
us  and  our  sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree 
(I  Pet.  ii.  24)  ;  as  bringing  us  through  suffer 
ing  to  glory ;  as  raising  our  nature  to  a  dignity 
higher  than  that  of  angels ;  as  exalting  us  by  His 
Ascension  into  heaven  ;  and  as  making  us  to  "  sit 
together  with  Himself  in  heavenly  places"  (Eph.  ii. 
6).  even  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  "  To  him  that 
overcometh,"  He  says,  "  will  I  grant  to  sit  with  Me 
on  My  throne,  even  as  I  also  overcame  and  am  siet 
down  with  My  Father  on  His  throne''  (Kev.  iii.  21). 
These  are  the  hopes  and  privileges  which  we  derive 
from  the  Incarnation  of  Christ,  who  is  the  Life 
'John  i.  4,  xi.  25,  xiv.  6;  1  John  i.  2);  from 
our  filial  adoption  by  God  in  Him  (John  i.  12  ; 
1  John  iii.  1,2);  and  from  our  consequent  capacity 
of  receiving  the  Spirit  of  adoption  in  our  hearts 
(Gal.  iv.  6)  ;  and  from  our  membership  and  in 
dwelling  in  Him,  who  is  the  Son  of  God  from  all 
eternity,  and  who  became,  for  our  sakes  <.r\<\  for  our 
salvation,  the  Son  of  Man,  and  submitted  to  the 
weakness  of  our  humanity,  in  order  that  we  might, 
partake  in  the  glory  of  His  immortality. 

11.  These  conclusions  from  Holy  Scripture  have  ' 
been  stated  clearly  by  many  of  the  ancient  Fathers, 
among  whom  it  may  suffice  to  mention  S.  Irenaeus 

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7T  0  S    TCp    0€Cf>,     OVK    aV  TjSui/TJ^T?    fJLfTO.O'Xf'il'    T  TJ  S 

-  £8ei  yap  TOV  .juecriTTjj/  ®eov  re 
avOpuirov,  Sto  TTJS  Idlas  irpbs  e/carepovs  01- 
ets  fyi\iav  Kal  bpovoiav  fKarepovs 
.  And  iii.  21,  p.  250:  "  Hie  igitur 
Filius  Dei,  existens  Verburn  Patris  .  .  .  quoniam  ex 
Maria  factus  est  Filius  hominis  .  .  .  primitias  resur- 
rectionis  homiuis  in  Seipso  faciens,  ut  quemadmodum 


SOREK,  THE  VALLEY  OF 

Caput  resurrexit  a  mortuis,  sic  et  relir:uuin  corpus 
omnis  hominis,  qui  invenitur  in  vitii  .  .  .  resurjnxi 
per  compagines  et  conjunctions  coalescens,  et  con- 
rirmatum  augmento  Dei"  (Eph.  iv.  16).  And 
S.  Cyprian  (De  Idolorum  Vanitate,  p.  538,  «d. 
Venet.  1758)  «  "  Hujus  gratiae  disci  plinaeque  ar 
biter  et  magister  Sermo  (A6yos)  et  Filius  Det 
mittitur,  qui  per  prophetas  omnes  retro  Illuminutoi 
et  Doctor  huinai  generis  praedicabatur.  Hie  est 
virtus  Dei  .  .  .  carnem  Spiritu  Sancto  cooperante 
induitur  .  .  .  H,c  Deus  noster,  Hie  Christus  est,  qui 
Mediator  duorum  hominem  induit,  quern  pevduwt 
ad  Patrem.  Quod  homo  est,  esse  Christus  voluit, 
ut  et  homo  possit  esse,  quod  Christus  est."  And 
S.  Augustine  (Scrm.  121):  "Filius  Dei  factus  est 
Filius  hominis,  ut  vos,  qui  eratis  filii  hominis, 
efficeremini  filii  Dei."  ftt  W0 

SOOTHSAYER.     [DIVINATION.] 

SO'PATER  (26irarpos:  Sopater}.  Scpatei 
the  son  of  Pyrrhus  of  Beroea  was  one  of  the  com 
panions  of  St.  Paul  on  his  return  from  Greece  into 
Asia,  as  he  came  back  from  his  third  missionary 
journey  (Acts  xx.  4).  Whether  he  is  the  same  with 
Sosipater,  mentioned  in  Rom.  xvi.  21,  cannot  be 
positively  determined.  The  name  of  his  father, 
Pyrrhus,  is  omitted  in  the  received  text,  though  it 
has  the  authority  of  the  oldest  MSS.,  A,  B,  D,  E, 
and  the  recently  discovered  Codex  Sinaiticus,  as  well 
as  of  the  Vulgate,  Coptic,  Sahidic,  Philoxenian- 
Syriac,  Armenian,  and  Slavonic  versions.  Mill  con 
demns  it,  apparently  without  reason,  as  a  traditional 
gloss.  [W.A.W.] 

SOPHER'ETH  (JVlQb:  2*^6,  Zafapdr: 
Alex.  'A.<re<popdO,  ~2a<}>apd9  :  Sopheret,  Sophcretli). 
"  The  children  of  Sophereth  "  were  a  family  who 
returned  from  Babylon  with  Zerubbabel  among  the 
descendants  of  Solomon's  servants  (Ezr.  ii.  55 
Neh.  vii.  57).  Called  AZAPHION  in  1  Esdr.  v.  33. 

SOPHONI'AS  (SopJionias).  The  Prophet  ZK- 
PHANIAH  (2  Esd,  i.  40). 

SORCERER.     [DIVINATION.] 
SO'REK,  THE  VALLEY  OF 


•»  The  AA  is  no  doubt  the  last  relic  of  Na^oA :  cotnp. 
LJE-ABARIH;  and  KANAII,  RTVER. 
*>  M.  Vac  de  Velde  (Mem.  350)  proposes  the  Wady 


:  Vallis  So- 

ec).  A  wady  (to  use  the  modern  Arabic  term 
which  precisely  answers  to  the  Hebrew  nachafy,  in 
which  lay  the  residence  of  Dalilah  (  Judg.  xvi.  4). 
It  appears  to  have  been  a  Philistine  place,  and  pos 
sibly  was  nearer  Gaza  than  any  other  of  the  chiel 
Philistine  cities,  since  thither  Samson  was  taken 
«fter  his  capture  at  Dalilah's  house.  Beyond  this 
there  are  no  indications  of  its  position,  nor  is  if. 
mentioned  again  in  the  Bible.  Eusebius  and 
Jerome  (Onomast.  2o)^x)  state  that  a  village 
named  Capharsorech  was  shown  in  their  day  "  on  the 
north  of  Eleutheropolis,  near  the  town  of  Saar  (or 
Saraa),  i.  e.  Zovah,  the  native  place  of  Samson." 
Zorah  is  now  supposed  to  have  been  fully  10  miles  N. 
of  Beit-Jibrin,  the  modern  representative  of  Eleu 
theropolis,  though  it  is  not  impossible  that  there  may 
have  been  a  second  further  south.  No  trace  of  tht 
name  of  Sorek  has  been  yet  discovered  either  in  the 
one  position  or  the  other  ,b  But  the  district  is  com 
paratively  unexplored,  and  doubtless  it  will  ere 
long  be  discovered. 

The  word  Sorek  in  Hebrew  signifies   a   pecu- 

Simsim,  which  runs  from  near  Beit  Jibrin  to  Askid£n 
but  this  be  adsr/ts  to  be  mere  conjecture. 


ROSIPATER 

linrly  choice  kind  of  vine,  which  is  srJd  to  have 
derived  its  name  from  the  dusky  colour  of  its 
grapes,  that  perhaps  being  the  meaning  of  the  root 
(Gesenius,  Thes.  1342).  It  occurs  in  three  passages 
of  the  Old  Test.  (Is.  v.  2  ;  Jer.  ii.  21  ;  and,  with 
a  modification,  in  Gen.  xlix.  c  ll).  It  appears  to  be 
used  in  modern  Arabic  for  a  certain  purple  grape, 
grown  in  Syria,  and  highly  esteemed ;  which  is 
noted  for  its  small  raisins,  and  minute,  soft  pips, 
and  produces  a  red  wine.  This  being  the  case,  the 
valley  of  Sorek  may  have  derived  its  name  from  the 
growth  of  such  vines,  though  it  is  hardly  safe  to 
affirm  the  fact  in  the  unquestioning  manner  in 
which  Gesenius  (Thes.  ib.)  does.  Ascalon  was 
celebrated  among  the  ancients  for  its  wine;  and, 
though  not  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Zorah,  was  the 
natural  port  by  which  any  of  the  productions  of 
that  district  would  be  exported  to  the  west.  [G.] 
SOSIP'ATEK.  (Sua-'nraTpos :  Sosipater.}  I. 
A  general  of  Judas  Maccabaeus,  who  in  conjunction 
with  Dositheus  defeated  Timotheus  and  took  him 
prisoner,  c.  B.C.  164  (2  Mace.  xii.  19-24). 

2.  Kinsman  or  fellow  tribesman  of  St.  Paul, 
mentioned  in  the  salutations  at  the  end  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  (xvi.  21).  He  is  probably 
the  same  person  as  SOPATER  of  Beroea.  [B.  F.  W.] 
SOS'THENES  (SaxrfleVrjs:  Sosthenes)  was  a 
Jew  at  Corinth,  who  was  seized  and  beaten  in  the 
presence  of  Gallic,  on  the  refusal  of  the  latter  to 
entertain  the  charge  of  heresy  which  the  Jews  alleged 
against  the  Apostle  Paul  (see  Acts  xviii.  12-17). 
His  precise  connexion  with  that  affair  is  left  in  some 
doubt.  Some  have  thought  that  he  was  a  Christian, 
and  was  maltreated  thus  by  his  own  countrymen, 
because  he  was  known  as  a  special  friend  of  Paul. 
But  it  is  improbable  if  Sosthenes  was  a  believer,  that 
Luke  would  mention  him  merely  as  "  the  ruler  of 
the  synagogue  "  (apx^vvd'ycajoy),  without  any  al 
lusion  to  his  change  of  faith.  A  better  view  is,  that 
Sosthenes  was  one  of  the  bigoted  Jews ;  and  that 
"  the  crowd  "  (irdvres  simply,  and  not  irdvres  ol 
vE\\i]ves,  is  the  true  reading)  were  Greeks  who. 
taking  advantage  of  the  indifference  of  Gallic,  and 
ever  ready  to  show  their  contempt  of  the  Jews, 
turned  their  indignation  against  Sosthenes.  In  this 
case  he  must  have  been  the  successor  of  Crispus 
(Acts  xviii.  8)  as  chief  of  the  synagogue  (possibly 
a  colleague  with  him,  in  the  looser  sense  of  dpxi~ 
ffwaywyoi,  as  in  Mark  v.  22),  or,  as  Biscoe  con 
jectures,  may  have  belonged  to  some  other  syna 
gogue  at  Corinth.  Chrysostom's  notion  that  Crispus 
and  Sosthenes  were  names  of  the  same  person,  is 
arbitrary  and  unsupported. 

Paul  wrote  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
jointly  in  his  own  name  and  that  of  a  certain  Sos 
thenes  whom  he  terms  "the  brother"  (1  Cor. 
i.  1).  The  mode  of  designation '  implies  that  he 
was  well  known  to  the  Corinthians  ;  and  some  have 
held  that  he  was  identical  with  the  Sosthenes  men 
tioned  in  the  Acts.  If  this  be  so,  he  must  have  been 
converted  at  a  later  period  (Wetstein,  N.  Test.  vol. 
ii.  p.  576),  and  have  been  at  Ephesus  and  not  at  Co 
rinth,  when  Paul  wrote  to  the  Corinthians.  The 
name  was  a  common  one,  and  but  little  stress  can  be 
laid  :n  that  coincidence.  Eusebius  says  (H.  E.  i.  12, 
§1 )  that  this  Sosthenes  (1  Cor.  i.  1)  was  one  of  the 
seventy  disciples,  and  a  later  tradition  adds  that 
he  became  bishop  of  the  church  at  Colophon  in 
Ionia.  [H.  B.  H.] 

«  The  Arabic:  versions  of  this  passage  retain  the  term 
6ora\f  as  a  proper  name. 


SOWER,  SOWING 


1363 


SOS'TRATUS  (SwarpaTos:  Sosfn.v'tts),  a  com 
mander  of  the  Syrian  garrison  in  the  Acra  at  Jeru 
salem  (6  TTJS  aKpoTr6\eas  eirapxos)  m  the  reign 
of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  (e.  B.C.  172 :  2  Mace.  iv. 
27,29).  [B.  F.W.I 

SOTA'I  (HDID:  Swrot,  Sou-ret;  Alex.  Zovriet 
in  Neh. :  Sotai,  Sothai).  The  children  of  SotfJ 
were  a  family  of  the  descendants  of  Solomon's 
servants  who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii. 
55  ;  Neh.  vii.  57). 

SOUTH  RAM'OTH  (333  n'lCn :  eV  'Pa/*? 
j/oVou  ;  Alex.  eV  pa/j.a.0  v. :  Eamoth  ad  meridiem). 
One  of  the  places  frequented  by  David  and  his  band 
of  outlaws  during  the  latter  part  of  Saul's  life,  and  to 
his  friends  in  which  he  showed  his  gratitude  when 
opportunity  offered  (1  Sam.  xxx.  27).  The  towns 
mentioned  with  it  show  that  Ramoth  must  have 
been  on  the  southern  confines  of  the  country — the 
very  border  of  the  desert.  Bethel,  in  ver.  27,  is 
almost  certainly  not  the  well-known  sanctuary,  but 
a  second  of  the  same  name,  and  Hebron  was  probably 
the  most  northern  of  all  the  places  in  the  list.  It 
is  no  doubt  identical  with  RAMATH  OF  THE  SOUTH, 
a  name  the  same  in  every  respect  except  that  by  a 
dialectical  or  other  change  it  is  made  plural,  Ra 
moth  instead  of  Ramath.  [G.] 

SOW.     [SwiNE.] 

SOWER,  SOWING.  The  operation  of  sowing 
with  the  hand  is  one  of  so  simple  a  character,  as  to 
need  little  description.  The  Egyptian  paintings 
furnish  many  illustrations  of  the  mode  in  which  it 
was  conducted.  The  sower  held  the  vessel  or 
basket  containing  the  seed,  in  his  left  hand,  while 
with  his  right  he  scattered  the  seed  broadcast 
(Wilkinson's  Anc.  Eg.  ii.  12,  18,  39  ;  see  AGEI- 
OLTLTURE  for  one  of  these  paintings).  The  "  draw 
ing  out "  of  the  seed  is  noticed,  as  the  most  charac 
teristic  action  of  the  sower,  in  Ps.  cxxvi.  6  (A.  V. 
"  precious")  and  Am.  ix.  13:  it  is  uncertain  whe 
ther  this  expression  refers  to  drawing  out  the 
handful  of  seed  from  the  basket,  or  to  the  dispersion 
of  the  seed  in  regular  rows  over  the  ground  (Gesen. 
Thes.  p.  827).  In  some  of  the  Egyptian  paintings 
the  sower  is  represented  as  preceding  the  plough : 
this  may  be  simply  the  result  of  bad  perspective, 
but  we  are  told  that  such  a  practice  actually  pre 
vails  in  the  East  in  the  case  of  sandy  soils,  the 
plough  serving  the  purpose  of  the  harrow  for  cover 
ing  the  seed  (Russell's  Aleppo,  i.  74).  In  wet  soils 
the  seed  was  trodden  in  by  the  feet  of  animals  (Is. 
xxxii.  20),  as  represented  in  Wilkinson's  Ano. 
Eg.  ii.  12.  The  sowing  season  commenced  in  Oc 
tober  and  continued  to  the  end  of  February,  wheat 
being  put  in  before,  and  barley  after  the  beginning 
of  January  (Russell,  i.  74).  The  Mosaic  law  pro 
hibited  the  sowing  of  mixed  seed  (Lev.  six.  19; 
Deut.  xxii.  9)  :  Josephus  (Ant.  iv.  8,  §20)  supposes 
this  prohibition  to  be  based  on  the  repugnancy  of 
nature  to  intermixture,  but  there  would  appear  to 
be  a  further  object  of  a  moral  character,  viz.  to 
impress  on  men's  minds  the  general  lesson  of  purity. 
The  regulation  offered  a  favourable  opportunity  for 
Rabbinical  refinement,  the  results  of  which  are  em 
bodied  in  the  treatise  of  the  Mishna,  entitled  Kilaim, 
§§1-3.  That  the  ancient  Hebrews  did  not  consider 
themselves  prohibited  from  planting  several  kinds 
of  seeds  in  the  sam:  iield,  appears  from  Is.  xxviii. 
25.  A  distinction  a  made  in  Lev.  xi.  37,  38 
J  between  dry  and  wet  seed,  in  respect  to  contact 
j  with  a  corpse;  the  latter,  ss  heing  more  sns* eptiblc 

4  S  2 


1864 


SPAIN 


ef  contamination,  would  be  rendered  unclean  there 
by,  the  former  would  not.  .The  analogy  between 
the  germination  of  seed  and  the  effects  of  a  principle 
or  a  course  of  action  on  the  human  character  for 
good  or  for  evil  is  frequently  noticed  in  Scripture 
(Prov.  xi.  18  ;  Matt.  xiii.  19,  24;  2  Cor.  ix.  6; 
Gal.  vi.  7).  Lw-  L-  B-] 

SPAIN  CSvewta:  Hispania).  The  Hebrews 
were  acquainted  with  the  position  and  the  mineral 
wealth  of  Spain  from  the  time  of  Solomon,  whos»e 
alliance  with  the  Phoenician*  enlarged  the  circle  of 
their  geographical  knowledge  to  a  very  great  extent. 
[TARSHISH.]  The  local  designation,  Tarshish,  re 
presenting  the  Tartessus  of  the  Greeks,  probably 
prevailed  until  the  fame  of  the  Roman  wars  in  that 
country  reached  the  East,  when  it  was  superseded 
by  its  classical  name,  which  is  traced  back  by 
Bochart  to  the  Shemitic  tsdphdn,  "  rabbit,"  and  by 
Humboldt  to  the  Basque  Ezpana,  descriptive  of  its 
position  on  the  edge  of  the  continent  of  Europe 
(Diet,  of  Geog.  i.  1074).  The  Latin  form  of  this 
name  is  represented  by  the  'Icriravia  of  1  Mace.  viii. 
3  (where,  however,  some  copies  exhibit  the  Greek 
form),  and  the  Greek  by  the  ^iravia  of  Rom. 
xv.  24,  28.  The  passages  cited  contain  all  the 
Biblical  notices  of  Spain  :  in  the  former  the  con 
quests  of  the  Romans  are  described  in  somewhrt 
exaggerated  terms  ;  for  though  the  Carthaginians 
were  expelled  as  early  as  B.C.  206,  the  native  tribes 
were  not  finally  subdued  until  B.C.  25,  and  not 
until  then  could  it  be  said  with  truth  that  "they 
had  conquered  all  the  place  "  (1  Mace.  viii.  4).  In 
the  latter,  St.  Paul  announces  his  intention  of  visit 
ing  Spain.  Whether  he  carried  out  this  intention 
is  a  disputed  point  connected  with  his  personal 
history.  [PAUL.]  The  mere  intention,  however, 
implies  two  interesting  facts,  viz.  the  establishment 
of  a  Christian  community  in  that  country,  and  this 
by  means  of  Hellenistic  Jews  resident  there.  We 
have  no  direct  testimony  to  either  of  these  facts  ; 
but  as  the  Jews  had  spread  along  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean  as  far  as  Cyrene  in  Africa  and  Rome 
in  Europe  (Acts  ii.  10),  there  would  be  no  difficulty 
in  assuming  that  they  were  also  found  in  the  com 
mercial  cities  of  the  eastern  coast  of  Spain.  The 
early  introduction  of  Christianity  into  that  country 
is  attested  by  Irenaeus  (i.  3)  and  Tertullian  (adv. 
Jud.  7).  An  inscription,  pin-porting  to  record  u 
persecution  of  the  Spanish  Christians  in  the  reign 
of  Nero,  is  probably  a  forgery  (Gieseler's  Eccl. 
Hist.  i.  82,  note  5).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SPABROW  Oi2V>  tzippor  :  Spveov,  opvtSiov, 
rb  irereivSy,  ffrpovQiov  :  x'A40/70*  in  Neh.  v.  18, 
where  LXX.  probably  read  "VQV  :  avis,  volucris, 
passer).  The  above  Heb.  word  occurs  upwards  of 
forty  times  in  the  0.  T.  In  all  passages  excepting 
two  it  is  rendered  by  A.  V.  indifferently  "  bird  "  or 
'«  fowl."  In  Ps.  Ixxxiv.  3,  and  Ps.  ch.  7,  A.  V. 
renders  it  "  sparrow."  The  Greek  ~S,rpov6iov 
("  sparrow,"  A.  V.)  occurs  twice  in  N.  T.,  Matt. 
x.  29,  Luke  xii.  6,  7,  where  the  Vulg.  has  passeres. 
Tzippor  ("fiQ  ¥),  from  a  root  signifying  to  "  chirp  " 
or  "  twitter,"  appears  to  be  a  phonetic  repre 
sentation  of  the  call  note  of  any  passerine  bird.a 

Similarly  the  modern  Arabs  use  the  term  /i^U 
{zaonsK)  for  all  small  birds  which  chirp,  and 


•  Comp  the  Arabic  .^i^£  ('asfnr),  " 


SPARROW 

(zerzour)  not  only  for  the  starling,  bi-t  for 
any  other  bird  with  a  harsh,  shrill  twitter,  both 
these  being  evidently  phonetic  names. 

Tzippor  is  therefore  exactly  translated  by  the 
LXX.  ffrpovQiov,  explained  by  Moschopulus  TC! 
fj.iKp&  r&v  opvidwv.  although  it  may  sometimes 
have  been  used  in  a  more  restricted  sense.  See 
Athen.  Deipn.  ix.  391,  where  two  kinds  of  ffrpov 
dta  in  the  more  restricted  signification  are  noted. 

It  was  reserved  for  lafr  naturalists  to  discri 
minate  the  immense  variety  of  the  smaller  birds  of 
the  passerine  order.  Excepting  in  the  cases  of  the 
thrushes  and  the  larks,  the  natural  history  of  Ari 
stotle  scarcely  comprehends  a  longer  catalogue  than 
that  of  Moses. 

Yet  in  few  parts  of  the  world  are  the  species  of 
passerine  birds  more  mimerous  or  more  abundant 
than  in  Palestine.  A  very  cursory  survey  has  sup 
plied  a  list  of  above  100  different  species  of  this 
order.  See  Ibis,  vol.  i.  p.  26  seqq.,  and  vol.  iv. 
p.  277  seqq. 

But  although  so  numerous,  they  are  not  ge 
nerally  noticeable  for  any  peculiar  brilliancy  of 
plumage  beyond  the  birds  of  our  own  climate.  In 
fact,  with  the  exception  of  the  denizens  of  the  mighty 
forests  and  fertile  alluvial  plains  of  the  tropics,  it 
is  a  popular  error  to  suppose  that  the  nearer  WP 
approach  the  equator,  the  more  gorgeous  necessarily 
is  the  coloration  of  the  birds.  There  are  certain 
tropical  families  with  a  brilliancy  of  plumage  which 
is  unrivalled  elsewhere;  but  any  outlying  members 
of  these  groups,  as  for  instance  the  kingfisher  of 
Britain,  or  the  bee-eater  and  roller  of  Europe,  are 
not  suipassed  in  brightness  of  dress  by  any  of  their 
southern  relations.  Ordinarily  in  the  wanner  tem 
perate  regions,  especially  in  those  which  like  Pales 
tine  possess  neither  dense  forests  nor  morasses,  there 
is  nothing  in  the  brilliancy  of  plumage  which  espe 
cially  arrests  the  attention  of  the  unobservant.  It 
is  therefore  no  matter  for  surprise  if,  in  an  unscien 
tific  age,  the  smaller  birds  were  generally  grouped 
indiscriminately  under  the  term  tzippor,  opviSiov 
or  passer.  The  proportion  of  bright  to  obscure 
coloured  birds  is  not  greater  in  Palestine  than  in 
England  ;  and  this  is  especially  true  of  the  southern 
portion,  Judaea,  where  the  wilderness  with  its  bare 
hills  and  arid  ravines  affords  a  home  chiefly  to  those 
species  which  rely  for  safety  and  concealment  on  the 
modesty  and  inconspicuousness  of  their  plumage. 

Although  the  common  sparrow  of  England  (Pas 
ser  domesticus,  L.)  does  not  occur  in  the  Holy 
Land,  its  place  is  abundantly  supplied  by  two  very 
closely  allied  Southern  species  (Passer  salicicola, 
Vieill.,  and  Passer  cisalpina,  Tern.).  Our  English 
Tree  Sparrow  (Passer  montanus,  L.)  is  also  very 
common,  and  may  be  seen  in  numbers  on  Mount 
Olivet,  and  also  about  the  sacred  enclosure  of  the 
mosque  of  Omar.  This  is  perhaps  the  exact  species 
referred  to  in  Ps.  Ixxxiv.  3,  "  Yea,  the  sparrow  hath 
found  an  house." 

Though  in  Britain  it  seldom  frequents  houses, 
yet  in  China,  to  which  country  its  eastward  range 
extends,  Mr.  Swinhoe,  in  his  '  Ornithology  of  Amoy,' 
informs  us  its  habits  are  precisely  those  of  oui 
familiar  house  sparrow.  Its  shyness  here  may  be 
the  result  of  persecution  ;  but  in  the  East  the  Mus 
sulmans  hold  in  respect  any  bird  which  resorts  to 
their  houses,  and  in  reverence  such  as  build  in  01 
about  the  mosques,  considering  them  to  be  under 
the  Divine  protection.  This  natural. veneration  has 
doubtless  been  inherited  from  antiquity.  We  learn 
from  Aelian  (Var.  Hist.  \.  17)  that  the  Athenians 


SPARROW 

condemned  a  man  to  death  for  molesting  a  sparrow 
in  the  temple  of  Aesculapius.  The  story  of  Aris- 
todicus  of  Cyme,  who  rebuked  the  cowardly  advice 
of  the  oracle  of  Branchidae  to  surrender  a  suppliant, 
by  his  symbolical  act  of  driving  the  sparrows  out 
of  the  temple,  illustrates  the  same  sentiment  (Herod. 
i.  159),  which  was  probably  shared  by  David  and 
the  Israelites,  and  is  alluded  to  in  the  Psalm.  There 
can  be  no  difficulty  in  interpreting  fiirQTD,  not  as 

the  altar  of  sacrifice  exclusively,  but  as  the  place  of 
sacrifice,  the  sacred  enclosure  generally,  rb  rt^f- 
vos,  "  fanum."  The  interpretation  of  some  com 
mentators,  who  would  explain  112  V  in  this  passage 
of  certain  sacred  birds,  kept  and  preserved  by  the 
priests  in  the  temple  like  the  Sacred  Ibis  of  the 
Egyptians,  seems  to  be  wholly  without  warrant. 
See  Bochart.  iii.  21,  22. 

Most  of  our  commoner  small  birds  are  found  in 
Palestine.  The  starling,  chaffinch,  greenfinch, 
linnet,  goldfinch,  corn  bunting,  pipits,  blackbird, 
»ong  thrush,  and  the  various  species  of  wagtail 
abound.  The  woodlark  (Alauda  arborea,  L.), 
crested  lark  (Galerida  cristata,  Boie.),  Calandra 
iark  (Melanocori/pha  calandra,  Bp.),  short-toed 
lark  (Calandrella  brachydactyla,  Kaup.),  Isabel 
lark  (Alauda  deserti,  Licht.),  and  various  other 
desert  species,  which  are  snared  in  great  numbers 
for  the  markets,  are  far  more  numerous  on  the 
southern  plains  than  the  skylark  in  England.  In 
the  olive-yards,  and  among  the  brushwood  of  the 
hills,  the  Ortolan  bunting  (Emberiza  hortulana, 
L.)?  and  especially  Cretzschmaer's  bunting  (Embe 
riza  caesia,  Cretz.),  take  the  place  of  our  common 
yellow-hammer,  an  exclusively  northern  species. 
Indeed,  the  second  is  seldom  out  of  the  traveller's 
sight,  hopping  before  him  from  bough  to  bough 
with  its  simple  but  not  unpleasing  note.  As  most 
of  our  warblers  (Sylviadae)  are  summer  migrants, 
and  have  a  wide  eastern  range,  it  was  to  be  expected 
that  they  should  occur  in  Syria ;  and  accordingly 
upwards  of  twenty  of  those  on  the  British  list  have 
been  noted  there,  including  the  robin,  redstart,  white- 
throat,  blackcap,  nightingale,  willow-wren,  Dart- 
ford  warbler,  whinchat,  and  stonechat.  Besides 
these,  the  Palestine  lists  contain  fourteen  others, 
more  southern  species,  of  which  the  most  interesting 
are  perhaps  the  little  fautail  ( Cisticola  schoenicola, 
Bp.),  the  orphean  (Curruca  orphaea,  Boie.),  and 
the  Sardinian  warbler  (Sylvia  melanocephala, 
Lath.). 

The  chats  (Saxicolae),  represented  in  Britain  by 
the  wheatear,  whinchat,  and  stonechat,  are  very 
numerous  in  the  southern  parts  of  the  country.  At 
least  nine  species  have  been  observed,  and  by  their 
lively  motions  and  the  striking  contrast  of  black 
and  white  in  the  plumage  of  most  of  them,  they  are 
the  most  attractive  and  conspicuous  bird-inhabitants 
which  catch  the  eye  in  the  hill  country  of  Judaea, 
the  favourite  resort  of  the  genus.  Yet  they  are  not 
recognised  among  the  Bedouin  inhabitants  by  any 
aame  to  distinguish  them  from  the  larks. 

The  rock  sparrow  (Petronia  stulta,  Strickl.)  is  a 
common  bird  in  the  barer  portions  of  Palestine, 
aschewing  woods,  and  generally  to  be  seen  perched 
alone  on  the  top  of  a  rock  or  on  any  large  stone. 
From  this  habit  it  has  been  conjectured  to  be 
the  bird  alluded  to  in  Ps.  cii.  7,  as  "  the  sparrow 
lhat  sitteth  alone  upon  the  housetop ;"  but  as  the 
rock  sparrow,  though  found  among  ruins,  never 
reports  to  inhabited  buildings,  it  seems  more  pro 
file  that  the  bird  to  which  the  psalmist  alludes  is 


SPARROW 


1H65 


the  blue  thrush  (Petrocossyphw  cyaneus,  Boie.). 
a  bird  so  conspicuous  that  it  cannot  fail  to  attract 
attention  by  its  dark-blue  dress  and  its  plaint ivt 
monotonous  note  ;  and  which  may  frequently  be 
observed  perched  on  houses  and  especially  on  out 
buildings  in  the  villages  of  Judaea.  It  is  a  solitary 
bird,  eschewing  the  society  of  its  own  species,  and 
rarely  more  than  a  pair  are  seen  together.  Certainly 
the  allusion  of  the  psalmist  will  not  apply  to  the 
sociable  and  garrulous  house-  or  tree- sparrows. 


Petrocossyphtu  cyaneut. 

Among  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  small  birds 
of  Palestine  are  the  shrikes  (Lanii),  of  which  the 
red-backed  shrike  (Lanius  collurio,  L.)  is  a  familial- 
example  in  the  south  of  England,  but  there  repre 
sented  by  at  least  five  species,  all  abundantly  and 
generally  distributed,  viz.,  Enneoctonus  rufus,  Bp., 
the  woodchat  shrike,  Lanius  meridionalis,  L. ;  L. 
minor,  L. ;  L.  personatus,  Tern. ;  and  Telcphonus 
cucnttatus,  Gr. 

There  are  but  two  allusions  to  the  singing  ot 
birds  in  the  Scriptures,  Eccles.  xii.  4  and  Ps.  civ.  12, 
"  By  them  shall  the  fowls  (P|"iy)  of  the  heaven  have 
their  habitation  which  sing  among  the  branches." 
As  the  psalmist  is  here  speaking  of  the  sides  of 
streams  and  rivers  ("  By  them  "),  he  probably  had 

in  his  mind  the  bulbul  (^j*\j}  of  the  country,  or 

Palestine  nightingale  (Ixos  xanthopygius,  Hempr.), 
a  bird  not  very  far  removed  from  the  thrush  tribe, 
and  a  closely  allied  species  of  which  is  the  true 
bulbul  of  Persia  and  India.  This  lovely  songster, 
whose  notes,  for  volume  and  variety,  surpass  those 
of  the  nightingale,  wanting  only  the  final  cadence, 
abounds  in  all  the  wooded  districts  of  Palestine,  and 
especially  by  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  where  in  the 
early  morning  it  fills  the  air  with  its  music. 

In -one  passage  (Ez.  xxxix.  4),  tzippor  is  joined 
with  the  epithet  B?y  (ravenous),  which  may  very 
well  describe  the  raven  and  the  crow,  both  passerine 
birds,  yet  carrion  feeders.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to 
stretch  the  interpretation  so  as  to  include  raptorial 
birds,  which  are  distinguished  in  Hebrew  and  Arabic 
by  so  many  specific  appellations. 

With  the  exception  of  the  raven  tribe,  there  is  no 
prohibition  in  the  Levitical  law  against  any  pas 
serine  birds  being  used  for  food ;  while  the  wanton 
destruction  or  extirpation  of  any  species  was  guarded 


1366 


SPARHOW 


against  by  the  humane  provision  m  Deut.  xxn.  6. 
Small  birds  were  therefore  pvobably  as  ordinary  an 
article  of  consumption  among  the  Israelites  as  they 
still  are  in  the  markets  both  of  the  Continent  and  of 
the  East.  The  inquiry  of  our  Lord,  "  Are  not  five 
sparrows  sold  for  two  farthings?"  (Luke  xii.  6), 
"  Are  not  two  sparrows  sold  for  a  farthing  ?" 
(Matt.  x.  29),  points  to  their  ordinary  exposure  for 
sale  in  His  time.  At  the  present  day  the  markets 
of  Jerusalem  ana  Jaffa  are  attended  by  many 
"  fowlers  "  who  offer  for  sale  long  strings  of  little 
birds  of  various  species,  chiefly  sparrows,  wagtails, 
and  larks.  These  are  also  frequently  sold  ready 
plucked,  trussed  in  rows  of  about  a  dozen  on  slender 
wooden  skewers,  and  are  cooked  and  eaten  like 
kabobs. 

It  may  well  excite  surprise  how  such  vast  num 
bers  can  be  taken,  and  how  they  can  be  vended  at 
a  price  too  small  to  have  purchased  the  powder 
required  for  shooting  them.  But  the  gun  is  never 
used  in  their  pursuit.  The  ancient  methods  of 
fowling  to  which  we  find  so  many  allusions  in 
the  Scriptures  are  still  pursued,  and,  though  simple, 
are  none  the  less  effective.  The  ail  of  fowling  is 
spoken  of  no  less  than  seven  times  in  connexion 
with  "flSV,  £•  g>  "  a  bird  caught  in  the  snare," 
"  bird  hasteth  to  the  snare,"  "  fall  in  a  snare," 
"  escaped  out  of  the  snare  of  the  fowler."  There  is 
also  one  still  more  precise  allusion,  in  Ecclus.  xi.  30, 
to  the  well-known  practice  of  using  decoy  or  call 
birds,  7rep5t|  QtjpevT^s  fv  Kaprd\\y.  The  re 
ference  in  Jer.  v.  27,  "As  a  cage  is  full  of 
birds"  (D^Qiy),  is  probably  to  the  same  mode  of 
snaring  birds. 

There  are  four  or  five  simple  methods  of  fowling 
practised  at  this  day  in  Palestine  which  are  pro 
bably  identical  with  those  alluded  to  in  the  0.  T. 
The  simplest,  but  by  no  means  the  least  successful, 
among  the  dexterous  Bedouins,  is  fowling  with  the 
throw-stick.  The  only  weapon  used  is  a  short  stick, 
about  18  inches  long  and  half  an  inch  in  diameter, 
and  the  chase  is  conducted  after  the  fashion  in 
which,  as  we  read,  the  Australian  natives  pursue 
the  kangaroo  with  their  boomerang.  When  the 
game  has  been  discovered,  which  is  generally  the 
red-legged  great  partridge  (Caccdbis  saxatilis,  Mey.), 
the  desert  partridge  (Ammoperdix  Ifeyi,  Gr.),  or 
tne  nttle  bustard  (Otis  tetrax,  L.),  the  stick  is 
hurled  with  a  revolving  motion  so  as  to  strike  the 
legs  of  the  bird  as  it  runs,  or  sometimes  at  a  rather 
higher  elevation,  so  that  when  the  victim,  alarmed 
by  the  approach  of  the  weapon,  begins  to  rise,  its 
wings  are  struck  and  it  is  slightly  disabled.  The 
fleet  pursuers  soon  come  up,  and,  using  their  bur 
nouses  as  a  sort  of  net,  catch  and  at  once  cut  the 
throat  of  the  game.  The  Mussulmans  rigidly  ob 
serve  the  Mosaic  injunction  (Lev.  xvii.  13)  to  spill 
the  blood  of  every  slain  animal  on  the  ground. 
This  primitive  mode  of  fowling  is  confined  to  those 
birds  which,  like  the  red-legged  partridges  and  bus 
tards,  rely  for  safety  chiefly  on  their  running  powers, 
and  are  with  difficulty  induced  to  take  flight.  The 
writer  once  witnessed  the  capture  of  the  little 
desert  partridge  (Ammoperdix  Hey*)  by  this  method 
in  the  wilderness  near  Hebron :  an  interesting  illus 
tration  of  the  expression  in  1  Sam.  xxvi.  20,  "  as 
v/aen  one  doth  hunt  a  partridge  in  the  mountains." 

A  more  scientific  method  of  fowling  is  that 
alluded  to  in  Ecclus.  xi.  30,  by  the  use  of  decoy- 
birds.  The  birds  employed  for  this  purpose  are  very 
oarciv.lly  trained  and  perfectly  tame,  that  they  may 


SPARROW 

utter  their  natural  call-note  without  any  alarm 
from  the  neighbourhood  of  man.  Partridges,  quails, 
larks,  and  plovers  are  taken  by  this  kind  of  fowling, 
especially  the  two  former.  The  decty-bird,  in  j, 
cage,  is  placed  in  a  conc*«aled  position,  while  the 
fowler  is  secreted  in  the  neighbourhood,  near  enough 
to  manage  his  gins  and  snares.  For  game  birds  a 
common  method  is  to  construct  of  brushwood  a 
narrow  run  leading  to  the  cage,  sometimes  using 
a  sort  of  bag-net  within  the  brushwood.  This  has 
a  trap-door  at  the  entrance,  and  when  the  dupe  has 
entered  the  run,  the  door  is  dropped.  Great  num 
bers  of  quail  are  taken  in  this  manner  in  spring. 
Sometimes,  instead  of  the  more  elaborate  decoy  of  a 
run,  a  mere  cage  with  an  open  door  is  placed  in 
front  of  the  decoy-bird,  of  course  well  concealed  by 
grass  and  herbage,  and  the  door  is  let  fell  by  a 
string,  as  in  the  other  method.  For  larks  and  other 
smaller  birds  the  decoy  is  used  in  a  somewhat  dif 
ferent  manner.  The  cage  is  placed  without  con 
cealment  on  the  ground,  and  springes,  nets,  or  horse 
hair  nooses  are  laid  round  it  to  entangle  the  feet  of 
those  whom  curiosity  attracts  to  the  stranger ;  or 
a  net  is  so  contrived  as  to  be  drawn  over  them,  if 
the  cage  be  placed  in  a  thicket  or  among  brushwood. 
Immense  numbers  can  be  taken  by  this  means  in  a 
very  short  space  of  time.  Traps,  the  door  of  which 
overbalances  by  the  weight  of  the  bird,  exactly  like 
the  traps  used  by  the  shepherds  on  the  Sussex 
downs  to  take  wheatears  and  larks,  are  constructed 
by  the  Bedouin  boys,  and  also  the  horse-hair  springes 
so  familiar  to  all  English  schoolboys,  though  these 
devices  are  not  wholesale  enough  to  repay  the  j>ro- 
fessional  fowler.  It  is  to  the  noose  on  the  ground 
that  reference  is  made  in  Ps.  cxxiv.  7,  "  The  snare 
is  broken  and  we  are  escaped."  In  the  towns  and 
gardens  great  numbers  of  birds,  starlings  and  others, 
are  taken  for  the  markets  at  night  by  means  of  a 
large  loose  net  on  two  poles,  and  a  lanthorn,  which 
startles  the  birds  from  their  perch,  when  they  fall 
into  the  net. 

At  the  season  of  migration  immense  numbers  of 
birds,  and  especially  quails,  are  taken  by  a  yet  more 
simple  method.  When  notice  has  been  given  of 
the  arrival  of  a  flight  of  quails,  the  whole  village 
turns  out.  The  birds,  fatigued  by  their  long  flight, 
generally  descend  to  rest  in  some  open  space  a  tew 
acres  in  extent.  The  fowlers,  perhaps  twenty  or 
thirty  in  number,  spread  themselves  in  a  circle 
round  them,  and,  extending  their  loose  large  bur 
nouses  with  both  arms  before  them,  gently  advance 
towards  the  centre,  or  to  some  spot  where  they 
take  care, there  shall  be  some  low  brushwood.  The 
birds,  not  seeing  their  pursuers,  and  only  slightly 
alarmed  by  the  cloaks  spread  before  them,  begin  to 
run  together  without  taking  flight,  until  they  are 
hemmed  into  a  very  small  space.  At  a  given  signal 
the  whole  of  the  pursuers  make  a  din  on  all  sides, 
and  the  flock,  not  seeing  any  mode  of  escape,  rush 
huddled  together  into  the  bushes,  when  the  bur 
nouses  are  thrown  over  them,  and  the  whole  are 
easily  captured  by  hand. 

Although  we  have  evidence  that  dogs  were  U30u 
by  the  ancient  Egyptians,  Assyrians,  and  Indians  in 
the  chase,  yet  there  is  no  allusion  in  Scripture  to 
their  being  so  employed  among  the  Jews,  nor  does 
it  appear  that  any  of  the  ancients  employed  the 
sagacity  of  the  dog,  as  we  do  that  of  the  pointer  and 
setter,  as  an  auxiliary  in  the  chase  of  winged  game. 
At  the  present  day  the  Bedouins  of  Palestine  employ, 
in  the  pursuit  of  larger  game,  a  very  valuable  race 
of  greyhounds,  equalling  the  Scottish  ttaghouad  iw 


SPAliTA 

size  and  strength  ;  but  the  inhabitants  of  ,ne  towns 
have  a  strong  prejudice  against  the  unclean  animal, 
and  never  cultivate  its  instinct  for  any  further 
purpose  than  that  of  protecting  their  houses  and 
Hocks  (Is.  Ivi.  10;  Job  xxx.  1),  and  of  removing 
the  oflal  from  their  towns  and  villages.  No  wonder, 
then,  that  its  use  has  been  neglected  ibr  purposes 
which  would  have  entailed  the  constant  danger  of 
defilement  from  an  unclean  animal,  besides  the  risk 
of  being  compelled  to  reject  as  food  game  which 
might  be  torn  by  the  dogs  (cf.  Ex.  xxii.  31  ;  Lev. 
xxii.  8,  &c.). 

Whether  falconry  was  ever  employed  as  a  mode 
of  fowling  or  not  is  by  no  means  so  clear.  Its 
antiquity  is  certainly  much  greater  than  the  intro 
duction  of  dogs  in  the  chase  of  birds  ;  and  from  the 
statement  of  Aristotle  (Anton.  Hist.  ix.  24),  "  In 
the  city  of  Thrace  formerly  called  Cedropolis,  men 
hunt  birds  in  the  marshes  with  the  help  of  hawks," 
nnd  from  the  allusion  to  the  use  of  falconry  in 
India,  according  to  Photius*  abridgement  of  Ctesias, 
we  may  presume  that  the  art  was  known  to  the 
neighbours  of  the  ancient  Israelites  (see  also  Aelian, 
Hist.  An.  iv.  26,  and  Pliny,  x.  8).  Falconry,  how 
ever,  requires  an  open  and  not  very  rugged  country 
for  its  successful  pursuit,  and  Palestine  west  of  the 
Jordan  is  in  its  whole  extent  ill  adapted  for  this 
species  of  chase.  At  the  present  day  falconry  is 
practised  with  much  care  and  skill  by  the  Arab 
inhabitants  of  Syria,  though  not  in  Judaea  proper. 
It  is  indeed  the  favourite  amusement  of  all  the 
Bedouins  of  Asia  and  Africa,  and  esteemed  an  ex 
clusively  noble  sport,  only  to  be  indulged  in  by 
wealthy  sheiks.  The  rarest  and  most  valuable 
species  of  hunting  falcon  (Falco  Lanarius,  L.),  the 
Lanner,  is  a  native  of  the  Lebanon  and  of  the 
northern  hills  of  Palestine.  It  is  highly  prized  by 
the  inhabitants,  and  the  young  are  taken  from  the 
nest  and  sold  for  a  considerable  price  to  the  chief 
tains  of  the  Hauran.  Forty  pounds  sterling  is  no 
uncommon  price  for  a  well- trained  falcon.  A  de 
scription  of  falconry  as  now  practised  among  the 
Arabs  would  be  out  of  place  here,  as  there  is 
no  direct  allusion  to  the  subject  in  the  0.  T.  or 
N.  T.  [H.  B.  T.] 

SPARTA  (SirdpTii,  1  Mace.  xiv.  16  ;  Ao/ceSat- 
/j.6vioi,  2  Mace.  v.  9  :  A.  V.  "  Lacedaemonians"). 
In  the  history  of  the  Maccabees  mention  is  made  of 
a  remarkable  correspondence  between  the  Jews  and 
the  Spartans,  which  has  been  the  subject  of  much 
discussion.  The  alleged  facts  are  briefly  these. 
When  Jonathan  endeavoured  to  strengthen  his 
government  by  foreign  alliances  (c.  B.C."  144),  he 
sent  to  Sparta  to  renew  a  friendly  intercourse  which 
had  been  begun  at  an  earlier  time  between  Areus 
and  Onias  [AREUS  ;  ONIAS],  on  the  ground  of 
their  common  descent  from  Abraham  (1  Mace.  xii. 
5-23).  The  embassy  was  favourably  received,  and 
after  the  death  of  Jonathan  "  the  friendship  and 
league"  was  renewed  with  Simon  ("»  Mace.  xiv. 
16-23).  No  results  are  deduced  from  this  corre 
spondence,  which  is  recorded  in  the  narrative 
without  comment ;  and  imperfect  copies  of  the 
official  documents  are  given  as  in  the  case  of  similar 
negotiations  with  the  Romans.  Several  questions 
arise  out  of  these  statements  as  to  (1".  the  people 
described  under  the  name  Spartans,  (2)  the  rela 
tionship  of  the  Jews  and  Spartans,  (3)  the  historic 
character  of  the  events,  and  (4)  the  persons  referred 
to  under  the  names  Oiiias  and  Areus. 

1 .  The  whole  context  of  the  passage,  as  well  as 
the  independent  reference  to  the  connexion  of  the 


SPAETA 


1367 


"  Lacedaemonians  *'  and  Jews  in  2  Mace.  v.  9,  seem 
to  prove  clearly  that  the  reference  is  to  the  Spartans, 
properly  so  called  ;  Jostphus  evidently  understood 
the  records  in  this  sense,  and  the  other  interpreta 
tions  which  have  been  advanced  are  merely  con 
jectures  to  avoid  the  supposed  difficulties  of  the 
literal  interpretation.  Thus  Michaelis  conjectured 
that  the  words  in  the  original  text  were  D^TlSD, 
TIED  (Obad.  ver.  20  ;  Ges.  Tlics.  s.  v.),  which  the 
translators  read  erroneously  as  C'lSD,  D*tD"lSD, 
and  thus  substituted  Sparta  for  Kapharad  [Si-:- 
PHARAD],  And  Frankel,  again  (Monatsschrift, 
1853,  p.  456),  endeavours  to  show  that  the  name 
Spartans  may  have  been  given  to  the  Jewish  settle 
ment  at  Nisibis,  the  chief  centre  of  the  Armenian 
Dispersion.  But  against  these  hypotheses  it  may 
be  urged  conclusively  that  it  is  incredible  that  a 
Jewish  colony  should  have  been  so  completely 
separated  from  the  mother  state  as  to  need  to  be 
reminded  of  its  kindred,  and  also  that  the  vicissi 
tudes  of  the  government  of  this  strange  city  (1  Mace, 
xii.  20,  /JcKTiAeus;  xiv.  20,  &PXOVTGS  /col  y  Tr6\is) 
should  have  corresponded  with  those  of  Sparta 
itself. 

2.  The  actual   relationship   of    the   Jews    and 
Spartans  (2  Mace.  v.  9,  ffiryyevfia)  is  an  ethno 
logical  error,   which  it  is  difficult  to  trace  to  its 
origin.     It  is  possible  that  the  Jews  regarded  the 
Spartans  as  the  representatives  of  the  Pelasgi,  the 
supposed  descendants   of  Peleg   the   son   of  Ebei 
(Stillingfleet,  Origines  Sacrae,  iii.  4,  15 ;   Ewald, 
Gesch.  iv.  277,  note),  just  as  in  another  place  the 
Pergamenes  trace  back  their  friendship  with  the 
Jews  to  a  connexion  in  the  time  of  Abraham  (Jos. 
Ant.  xiv.  10,  §22) ;  if  this  were  so,  they  might  easily 
spread  their  opinion.     It  is  certain,  from  an  inde 
pendent  passage,  that  a  Jewish  colony  existed  at 
Sparta  at  an  early  time  (1  Mace.  xv.  23)  ;  and  the 
important  settlement  of  the  Jews  in  Cyrene  may 
have   contributed   to   favour   the   notion   of  some 
intimate  connexion  between  tho  two  races.     The 
belief  in  this  relationship  appears  to  have  continued 
to  later  times  (Jos.  B.  J.  i.  26,  §1),  and,  however 
mistaken,  may  be  paralleled  by  other  popular  le 
gends  of  the  eastern  origin  of  Greek  states.     The 
various  hypotheses  proposed  to  support  the  truth  of 
the  statement  are  examined  by  Wernsdorff  (De  fide 
Lib.  Mace.  §94),  but  probably  no  one  now  would 
maintain  it. 

3.  The  incorrectness  of  the  opinion  on  which  the 
intercourse  was  based  is  obviously  no  objection  to 
the  fact   of  the   intercourse  itself;  and   the   very 
obscurity  of  Sparta  at  the  time  makes  it  extremely 
unlikely   that   any  forger  would    invent   such  an 
incident.     But  it  is  urged  that  the  letters  said  to 
have  been   exchanged  are   evidently   not   genuine, 
since  they  betray  their  fictitious  origin  negatively 
by  the  absence  of  characteristic  forms  of  expression, 
and  'positively  by  actual  inaccuracies.     To  this  it 
may  be  replied  that  the  Spartan  letters  (1  Mace,  xii 
20-23,  xiv.  20-23J  are  extremely  brief,  and  exist 
only  in  a  translation  of  a  translation,  so  that  it  is 
unreasonable  to  expect  that  any  Doric  peculiarities 
should  have  been  preserved.     The  Hellenistic  trans 
lator  of  the  Hebrew  original  would  naturally  render 
the  text  before  him  without  any  regard  to  what  might 
have  been  its    original  form  (xii.   22-25,  cipfa'-n, 
KT-fjVT} ;  xiv.  20,  aSeA^oi)-     On  the  other  hand  the 
absence  of  the  name  of  the  second  king  of  Spart« 
in  the  first  letter  (1  Mace.  xii.  20),  and  of  both 
kings  in  the  second  (1   Mace.  xiv.  20),  is  probably 
to  be  explained  by  the  {wlitical  circumstances  under 


SPEAEMEN 

which  the  letters  were  written.  The  text  of  the 
first  letter,  as  given  by  Josephus  (Ant.  xii.  4,  §10), 
contains  some  variations,  and  a  very  remarkable 
additional  clause  at  the  end.  The  second  letter  is 
apparently  only  a  fragment. 

4.  The  difficulty  of  fixing  the  date  of  the  first 
correspondence  is  increased  by  the  recurrence  of  the 
names  involved.     Two  kings  bore  the  name  Areus, 
one  of  whom  reigned  B.C.  309-265,  and  the  other, 
his  grandson,  died  B.C.  257,  being  only  eight  years 
old.     The  same  name  was  also  borne  by  an  ad 
venturer,    who    occupied  a  prominent  position  at 
Sparta,  c.  B.C.   184  (Polyb.  xxiii.  11,   12).      In 
Judaea,  again,  three  high  priests  bore   the  name 
Onias,  the  first  of  whom  held  office  B.C.  330-309 
(or  300) ;    the   second   B.C.   240-226  ;    and    the 
third  c.  B.C.  198-171.     Thus  Onias  I.  was  for  a 
short  time  contemporary  with  Areus  I.,  and  the 
correspondence  has  been  commonly  assigned  to  them 
( Palmer,  De  Epist.,  etc.,  Darmst.  1828  ;  Grimm,  on 
1  Mace.  xii.).     But  the  position  of  Judaea  at  that 
time  was  not  such  as  to  make  the  contraction  of 
foreign  alliances  a  likely  occurrence  ;  and  the  special 
circumstances  which  are  said  to  have  directed  the 
attention  of  the  Spartan  king  to  the  Jews  as  likely 
to  effect  a  diversion  against  Demetrius  Poliorcetes 
when  he  was  engaged  in  the  war  with  Cassander, 
B.C.  302  (Palmer,  quoted  by  Grimm,  I.  c.),  are  not 
completely  satisfactory,  even  if  the  priesthood  of 
Oiiias  can  be  extended   to   the  later  date."     This 
being  so,  Josephus  is  probably  correct  in  fixing  the 
event  in  the  time  of  Onias  III.  (Ant.  xii.  4,  §10). 
The  last-named  Areus  may  have  assumed  the  royal 
title,  if  that  is  not  due   to   an   exaggerated  trans 
lation,  and   the  absence  of  the  name  of  a  second 
king  is  at  once  explained  (Ussher,  Annales,    A.  C. 
183  ;  Herzfeld,  Gesch.  d.  V.  Isr.  i.  215-218).     At 
the  time  when  Jonathan  and  Simon  made  negoci- 
ations  with   Sparta,   the  succession  of  kings   had 
ceased.     The  last  absolute  ruler   was  Nabis,   who 
was  assassinated  in  B.C.  192.    (Wernsdorff,  De  fide 
Lib.  Mace.    §§93-112;    Grimm,  I.  c. ;    Herzfeld, 
I.  c.      The   early  literature  of  the  subject  is  given 
by  Wernsdorff.)  [B.  F.  W.] 

SPEAR.     [ARMS.] 

SPEARMEN  (S€|i0Aaj3(n).  The  word  thus 
rendered  in  the  A.  V.  of  Acts  xxiii.  23  is  of  very 
rare  occurrence,  and  its  meaning  is  extremely 
obscure.  Our  translators  followed  the  lancearii  of 
the  Vulgate,  and  it  seems  probable  that  their  ren 
dering  approximates  most  nearly  to  the  true  mean 
ing.  The  reading  of  the  Codex  Alexandrinus  is 
8e|toj8JAovs,  which  is  literally  followed  by  the 
Peshito-Syriac,  where  the  word  is  translated 
"  darters  with  the  right  hand."  Lachmann  adopts 
this  reading,  which  appears  also  to  have  been  that 
of  the  Arabic  in  Walton's  Polyglot.  Two  hun 
dred  8e|ioAct8oi  formed  part  of  the  escort  which 
accompanied  St.  Paul  in  the  night-march  from 
Jerusalem  to  Caesarea.  They  are  clearly  distin 
guished  both  from  the'  ffTpantrrai,  or  heavy-armed 
legionaries,  who  only  went  as  far  as  Antipatris, 
and  from  the  i7T7re?s,  or  cavalry,  who  continued  the 
journey  to  Caesarea.  As  nothing  is  said  of  the 
return  of  the  8e£ioAa£oi  to  Jerusalem  after  their 
arrival  at  Antipatris,  we  may  infer  that  they 
accompanied  the  cavalry  to  Caesarea,  and  this 


a  Ewald  (Gesch.  iv.  2?6,  277,  note)  supposes  that  the 
letter  was  addressed  to  Onias  II.  during  his  minority 
(B.C.  290-240),  in  the  course  of  the  war*  with  Demetrk;s. 


'SPICE,  SPICES 

strengthens  the  supposition  that  they  were  irpj- 
gular  light-armed  troops,  so  lightlj  armed,  indnc-i 
as  to  be  able  to  keep  pace  on  the  march  with 
mounted  soldiers.  Meyer  (Kommentar,  n.  ? 
s.  404,  2te  Aufl.)  conjectures  that  they  were  # 
particular  kind  of  light-armed  troops  (called  by 
the  Romans*  Velites,  or  Rorarii},  probably  either 
javelin-men  or  slingers.  In  a  passage  quoted  by 
the  Emperor  Constantine  Porphyrogenneta  (Tkem. 
i.  1)  from  John  of  Philadelphia  they  are  dis 
tinguished  both  from  the  archers  and  from  the 
peltasts,  or  targeteers,  and  with  these  are  described 
as  forming  a  body  of  light-armed  tioops,  who 
in  the  10th  century  were  under  the  command  of 
an  officer  called  a  turrnarch.  Grotius,  however, 
was  of  opinion  that  at  this  late  period  the  term 
had  meiely  been  adopted  from  the  narrative  in 
the  Acts,  and  that  the  usage  in  the  10th  century 
is  no  safe  guide  to  its  true  meaning.  Others 
regard  them  as  body-guards  of  the  governor,  ;md 
Meursius,  in  his  Glossariiim  Graeco-barbarum, 
supposes  them  to  have  been  a  kind  of  military 
lictors,  who  had  the  charge  of  arresting  prisoners ; 
but  the  great  number  (200)  employed  is  against 
both  these  suppositions.  In  Suidas  and  the  Ety- 
mologicum  Magnum  7rapa</>uAo£  is  given  as  the 
equivalent  of  8e|joAaj8os.  The  word  occurs  again 
n  one  of  the  Byzantine  Historians,  Theophylactus 
Simocatta  (iv.  1),  and  is  used  by  him  of  soldiers 
who  were  employed  on  skirmishing  duty.  It  is 
probable,  therefore,  that  the  8e|ioAoj8oi  were  light- 
armed  troops  of  some  kind,  but  nothing  is  certainly 
known  about  them.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SPICE,  SPICES.  Under  this  head  it  will  be 
desirable  to  notice  the  following  Hebrew  words, 
bdsdm,  necoth,  and  sammim. 

1.  Basdm,  besem,  or  bosem  (DE>3,  D^3,  or 
rjSuaTxcmi,  8vfju.dfj.aTa :  aromata}.  The 

first-named  form  of  the  Hebrew  term,  which  occurs 
only  in  Cant.  v.  1,  "I  have  gathered  my  myrrh 
with  my  spice,"  points  apparently  to  some  definite 
substance.  In  the  other  places,  with  the  exception 
perhaps  of  Cant.  i.  13,  vi.  2,  the  words  refer  more 
generally  to  sweet  aromatic  odours,  the  principal  of 
which  was  that  of  the  balsam,  or  balm  of  Gilead ;  the 
;ree  which  yields  this  substance  is  now  generally 
admitted  to  be  the  Amyris  (Balsamodendron]  opo- 
balsamum ;  though  it  is  probable  that  other  species 
of  Amyridaceae  are  included  under  the  terms. 
The  identit  of  the  Hebrew  name  with  the  Arabic 


Basham  (iL£a)  or  Balasan  (  LwXj)  leaves 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  substances  are  identical. 
The  Amyris  opobalsamum  was  observed  by  Forskal 
near  Mecca ;  it  was  called  by  the  Arabs  Abuscharn, 
.  e.  "  very  odorous."  But  whether  this  was  the  • 
same  plant  that  was  cultivated  in  the  plains  of  Je 
richo,  and  celebrated  throughout  the  world  (Pliny, 
N.  H.  xii.  25;  Theophrastus,  Hist.  Plant,  ix.  6  ; 
Josephus,  Ant.  xv.  4,  §2  ;  Strabo.  xvi.  367  ;  &c.),  it 
s  difficult  to  determine  ;  but  being  a  tropical  plant, 
t  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  grown  except  in  the 
warm  valleys  of  the  S.  of  Palestine.  The  shrub 
mentioned  by  Burckhardt  (Trav.  p.  323)  as  grow- 
ng  in  gardens  near  Tiberias,  and  which  he  was  in 
formed  was  the  balsam,  cannot  have  been  the  tree 
n  question.  The  A.  V.  never  renders  Basain  by 
'  balm ;"  it  gives  this  word  as  the  representative  o! 
the  Hebrew  tzeri,  or  tzori  [BALM].  The  forra 
Bcscm  or  Boscm,  which  is  of  frequent  occurrence  in 


SPICE,  SPICES 

the  0.  T.,  may  well  be  represented  by  the  general 
term  of  "spices,"  or  "sweet  odours,"  in  accordance 
with  the  renderings  of  the  LXX.  and  Vulg.  The 
balm  of  Gilead  tree  grows  in  some  parts  of  Arabia, 
and  Africa,  and  is  seldom  more  than  fifteen  feet 
high,  with  straggling  branches  and  scanty  foliage. 
The  balsam  is  chiefly  obtained  from  incisions  in  the 
bark,  but  the  substance  is  procured  also  from  the 
green  and  ripe  berries.  The  balsam  orchards  near 
Jericho  appear  to  have  existed  at  the  time  of  Titus 
by  whose  legions  they  were  taken  formal  possession 
of,  but  no  remains  of  this  celebrated  plant  are  now 
to  be  seen  in  Palestine.  (See  Scripture  Herbal, 
p.  S3.)' 


SPICE,  SPICES 


1369 


Balsam  of  Gilead  (Amyris  Gileadensis), 


2.  Necoth  (nOJ  :  0v/tfa/ta  .  aromata).  The 
company  of  Ishmaelitish  merchants  to  whom  Joseph 
was  sold  were  on  their  way  from  Gilead  to  Egypt, 
with  their  camels  bearing  necoth,  tzeri  [BALM], 
and  lot  (ladanum)  (Gen.  xxxvii.  25);  this  same 
substance  was  also  among  the  presents  which  Jacob 
sent  to  Joseph  in  Egypt  (see  Gen.  xliii.  11).  It  is 
probable  from  both  these  passages  that  necoth,  if  a 
name  for  some  definite  substance,  was'a  product  of 
Palestine,  as  it  is  named  with  other  "best  fruits  of 
the  land,"  the  lot  in  the  former  passage  being  the 
gum  of  the  Cistus  creticus,  and  not  "  myrrh,"  as 
the  A.  V.  renders  it.  [MYRRH.]  Various  opinions 
have  been  formed  as  to  what  necoth  denotes,  for 
which  see  Celsius,  Hierob.  i.  548,  and  Rosenmiiller, 
Sctol.  in  Gen.  (1.  c.)  ;  the  most  probable  explana 
tion  is  that  which  refers  the  word  to  the  Arabic 
£?-—- 

nakaat  (axSo),  i.  e.  "  the  gum  obtained  from  the 
Tragacanth"  (Astragalus),  three  or  four  species 
;>t  which  genus  are  enumerated  as  occurring  in 
Palestine;  see  Strand's  Flora  Palaestina,  No.  413- 
416.  The  gum  is  a  natural  exudation  from  the 
\\  uuk  and  branches  of  the  plant,  which  on  being 


"  exposed  to  the  air  grows  hard,  and  is  fcrmec 
either  into  lumps  or  slender  pieces  curled  aud 
winding  like  worms,  more  or  less  long  according 
as  matter  offers"  (Tournefort,  Voyage,  i.  59,  ed. 
Lond.  1741). 


Astragalut  Tragacantha. 


It  is  uncertain  whether  the  word 


in  2  K. 


xx.  13;  Is.  xxxix.  2.  denotes  spice  of  any  kind.  The 
A.  V.  reads  in  the  text  "  the  house  of  his  precious 
things,"  the  margin  gives  "  spicery,"  which  has  the 
support  of  the  Vulg.,  Aq.,  and  Symm.  It  is  clear 
from  the  passages  referred  to  that  Hezekiah  possessed 
a  house  or  treasury  of  precious  and  useful  vegetable 
productions,  and  that  ndcoth  may  in  these  places 
denote,  though  perhaps  not  exclusively,  Tragacanth 
gum.  Keil  (Comment.  1.  c.)  derives  the  word  from 
an  unused  root  (fl-13,  "implevit  loculum"),  and 
renders  it  by  "  treasure.'* 

3.  Sammim  (D^D  :  ^Sucr/ua,  f)8v<r(j.6s,  Hpuffia, 
0vfj.ia/j.a  :  suave  fragrans,  boni  odoris,  gratissimus, 
aromatd).  A  general  term  to  denote  those  aromatic 
substances  which  were  used  in  the  preparation  of 
the  anointing  oil,  the  incense  offerings,  &c.  The 
root  of  the  word,  according  to  Gesenius,  is  to  be  re' 
ferred  to  the  Arabic  Samm,  "  olfecit,"  whence 
Samum,  "  an  odoriferous  substance."  For  more  par 
ticular  information  on  the  various  aromatic  >»uh- 
stances  mentioned  in  the  Bible  the  reader  is  referred 
to  the  articles  which  treat  of  the  different  kinds  : 
FRANKINCENSE,  GALBANUM,  MYRRH,  SPIKE 
NARD,  CINNAMON,  &c. 

The  spices  mentioned  as  being  used  by  Nico- 
demus  for  the  preparation  of  our  Lord's  body  (John 
xix.  39,  40)  are  "  myrrh  and  aloes,"  by  which  latter 
word  must  be  understood,  not  the  aloes  of  medicine 
(Aloe),  but  the  highly-scented  wood  of  the  Aqui- 
laria  agallochum  (but  see  ALOES,  App.  A).  The 
enormous  quantity  of  100  Ibs.  weight  of  which  St. 
John  speaks,  has  excited  the  incredulity  of  some 
authors.  Josephus,  however,  tells  us  that  there 
were  five  hundred  spicebearers  at  Herod's  funeral 
(Ant.  rvii.  8,  §3),  and  in  the  Talmud  it  is  said 


1370 


SPIDEK 


that  80  Ibs.  of  opobalsamum  were  employed  at  the 
funeral  of  a  certain  llabbi ;  still  taere  is  no  reason 
to  conclude  that  100  Ibs.  weight  of  pure  myrrh  and 
aloes  was  consumed ;  the  words  of  the  Evangelist 
imply  a  preparation  (^ry^ua)  in  which  perhaps  the 
myrrh  and  aloes  were  the  principal  or  most  costly 
aromatic  ingredients ;  again,  it  must  be  remem- 
oered  that  Nicodemus  was  a  rich  man,  and  perhaps 
was  the  owner  of  large  stores  of  precious  sub 
stances  ;  as  a  constant  though  timid  disciple  of  our 
Lord,  he  probably  did  not  scruple  at  any  sacrifice 
so  that  he  could  show  his  respect  for  Him.  [W.  H.] 

SPIDER.     The  representative  in  the  A.  V.  of 
the  Hebrew  words  'accabisk  and  semdmith. 

1.  'Accdbish  (^"QSy :  apdxvr):  aranea)  occurs 
in  Job  viii.  14,  where  of  the  ungodly  (A.  V.  hypo 
crite)  it  is  said  his  <%  hope  shall  be  cut  off,  and  his 
trust  shall  be  the  house  of  an  'accdbish,"  and  in  Is. 
lix.  5,  where  the  wicked  Jews  are  allegorically  said 
to  "  weave  the  web  of  the  'accdbish."     There  is  no 
doubt  of  the  correctness  of  our  translation  in  ren 
dering  this  word  "  spider."     In  the  two  passages 
quoted  above,  allusion  is  made  to  the  fragile  na 
ture  of  the  spider's  web,  which,  though  admirably 
suited  to  fulfil  all  the  requirements  of  the  animal, 
is  yet  most  easily  torn  by  any  violence  that  may 
be  offered  to  it.     In  the  passage  in  Is.  (7.  c.),  how 
ever,  there  is  probably  allusion  also  to  the  lurking 
habits  of  the  spider  for  his  prey :   "  The  wicked 
hatch  viper's  eggs  and  weave  the  spider's  web  .  .  . 
their  works  are  works  of  iniquity,  wasting  and  de 
struction  are  in  their  paths."   We  have  no  informa 
tion  as  to  the  species  of  Araneidae  that  occur  in 
Palestine,  but  doubtless  this  order  is  abundantly 
represented. 

2.  Semdmttk  (JVpttb  :    KaXafi&rw :    stellio), 
wrongly  translated  by  the  A.  V.  "  spider"  in  Prov. 
xxx.  28,  the  only  passage  where  the  word  is  found, 
has  reference,  it  is  probable,  to  some  kind  of  lizard 
(Bochart,  Hieroz.  ii.  510).    The  Semdmith  is  men 
tioned  by  Solomon  as  one  of  the  four  things  that  are 
exceeding  clever,  though  they  be  little  upon  earth. 
"  The  Semdrruih  taketh  hold  with  her  hands,  and 
is   in   kings'  palaces."     This    term    exists    in   the 
modern  Greek  language  under  the  form  <ra/iuGfyuj'- 
0os.     "  Quern  Graeci    hodie    ffa/judfjuvdoi'   vocant, 
antiquae  Graeciae  est  ao-/ca\a/3wT7js,  id  est  stellio — 
quae  vox  pura  Hebraica  est  et  reperitur  in  Prov. 
cap.  xxx.  28,  rPOtDP"  (Salmasii  Plin.  Exercit. 
p.  817,  b.  G.).     The  lizard  indicated  is  evidently 
some  species  of  Gecko,  some  notice  of  which  genus 
of  animals  is  given  under  the  article  LIZARD,  where 
the  Letdeh  was  referred  to  the  Ptyodactylus  Gecko. 
The  Semdmith  is  perhaps  another  species.    [W.  H.] 

SPIKENARD  ("sna,  nerd:  vdpSos:  nardus). 

We  are  much  indebted  to  the  late  lamented  Dr. 
Royle  for  helping  to  clear  up  the  doubts  that  had 
long  existed  as  to  what  particular  plant  furnished 
the  aromatic  substance  known  as  "  spikenard."  Of 
this  substance  mention  is  made  twice  in  the  0.  T., 
viz.  in  Cant.  i.  12,  where  its  sweet  odour  is 
alhded  to,  and  in  iv.  13,  14,  where  it  is  enume 
rated  with  various  other  aromatic  substances 
\7£ich  were  imported  at  an  early  age  from  Arabia 
or  India  and  the  far  East.  The  ointment  with 
which  our  Lord  was  anointed  as  He  sat  at  meat  in 
Simon's  house  at  Bethany  consisted  of  this  pre 
vious  substance,  the  costliness  of  which  may  be 
inferred  from  the  indignant  surprise  manifested  by 


SPIKENARD 

me  of  the  witnesses  of  the  transaction  (see  Mark 
NT.   3-5;    John  xii.   3-5).      With   this   may  be 
compared  Horace,  4  Carm.  xii.  16,  17 — 

"  Nardo  vina  merebere. 
Nardi  parvus  onyx  eliciet  cadum." 
Dioscorides  speaks  of  several  kinds  of  vdfttios, 
and  gives  the  names  of  various  substances  which 
composed  the  ointment  (i.  77).  The  Hebrew 
nerd,  according  to  Gesenius,  is  of  Indian  origin, 
and  signifies  the  stalk  of  a  plant;  hence  one  of 
the  Arabic  names  given  by  Avicenna  as  the  equi 
valent  of  nard  is  sunbul,  "  spica ;"  comp.  the 
Greek  vaoSdffraxvs,  and  our  "  spikenard."  But 
whatever  may  be  the  derivation  of  the  Heb.  '•HS, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  sunbul  is  by  Arabian 
authors  used  as  the  representative  of  the  Greek 
nardos,  as  Sir  Wm.  Jones  has  shown  (Asiat.  Res. 
ii.  416).  It  appears,  however,  that  this  great 
Oriental  scholar  was  unable  to  obtain  the  plant 
from  which  the  drug  is  procured,  a  wrong  plant 
having  been  sent  him  by  Roxburgh.  Dr.  Hoyle 
when  director  of  the  E.  I.  Company's  botanic 
garden  at  Saharunpore,  about  30  miles  from  the 
foot  of  the  Himalayan  Mountains,  having  ascer 
tained  that  the  jatamansee,  one  of  the  Hindu 
synonyms  for  the  sunbul,  was  annually  brought 
from  the  mountains  overhanging  the  Ganges  and 
Jumna  rivers  down  to  the  plains,  purchased  some 
of  these  fresh  roots  and  planted  them  in  the 
botanic  gardens.  They  produced  the  same  plant 
which  in  1825  had  been  described  by  Don  from  spe 
cimens  sent  by  Dr.  Wallich  from  Nepal,  and  named 
by  him  Patrinia  jatamansi  (see  the  Prodromes 
Florae  Nepalensis,  fyc.,  accedunt  plantae  a  Wal- 
Uchio  nupcrins  missae,  Lond.  1825).  The  iden 
tity  of  the  jatamansi  with  the  Sunbul  hindac  of 
the  Arabs  is  established  beyond  a  doubt  by  the 
form  of  a  portion  of  the  rough  stem  of  the  plant, 
which  the  Arabs  desciibe  as  being  like  the  tail  of 
an  ermine  (see  woodcut).  This  plant,  which  has 


Spikenard. 


been  called  Nardoatachys  jatamansi  by  De  Can- 
dolle,  is  evidently  the  kind  of  nardos  described  by 
Dioscorides  (i.  6)  under  the  name  of  yar/yhis,  i.  c. 
"the  Ganges  nard."  Dioscorides  refers  especially 
to  its  having  nviny  'baggy  (TTO\VK  (uovs}  spikes 


SPINNING 

growing  f.'om  one  root.  It  is  very  interesting  to 
note  that  Dioscorides  gives  the  same  locality  fcr 
the  plant  as  is  mentioned  by  Royle,  air6  TWOS  TTO- 
Ta.fj.ov  irapappeovros  rov  opovs,  Tayyov  tcaXov- 
ptvov  irap"  $  </>ueTcu :  though  he  is  here  speaking 
of  lowland  specimens,  he  also  mentions  plants  ob 
tained  from  the  mountains.  [W.  H.] 

SPINNING  (P1JB:  v^iv).  The  notices  of 
f pinning  in  the  Bible  are  confined  to  Ex.  xxxv.  25, 
26  ;  Matt.  vi.  28  ;  and  Prov.  xxxi.  19.  The  latter 
passage  implies  (according  to  the  A.  V.)  the  use 
of  the  same  instruments  which  have  been  in  vogue 
for  hand-spinning  down  to  the  present  day,  viz.  the 
distaff  and  spindle.  The  distaff,  however,  appears 
to  have  been  dispensed  with,  and  the  term*  so  ren 
dered  means  the  spindle  itself,  while  that  rendered 
"  spindle  "  b  represents  the  whirl  (verticillus,  PI  in. 
sxxvii.  11)  of  the  spindle,  a  button  or  circular  rim 
which  was  affixed  to  it,  and  gave  steadiness  to  its 
circular  motion.  The  "  whirl "  of  the  Syrian 
women  was  made  of  amber  in  the  time  of  Pliny 
(I.  c.).  The  spindle  was  held  perpendicularly  in 
the  one  hand,  while  the  other  was  employed  in 
drawing  out  the  thread.  The  process  is  exhibited 
in  the  Egyptian  paintings  (Wilkinson,  ii.  85). 
Spinning  was  the  business  of  women,  both  among 
the  Jews  (Ex.  I.  c.),  and  for  the  most  part  among 
the  Egyptians  (Wilkinson,  ii.  84).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SPIEIT,  THE  HOLY.  In  the  0.  T.  He  is 
generally  called  D'H^K  ITl"!,  or  HIPP  H-IT,  the 
Spirit  of  God,  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  ;  sometimes 
the  Holy  Spirit  of  Jehovah,  as  Ps.  Ii.  11  ;  Is.  Ixiii. 
10,  11 ;  or  the  Good  Spirit  of  Jehovah,  as  Ps.  cxliii 
10 ;  Neh.  ix.  20.  In  the  N.  T.  He  is  generally  r 
Trvfvfj.0.  rb  &yiov,  or  simply  rb  irvevfj.a,  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  Spirit;  sometimes  the  Spirit  of  God,  o: 
the  Lord,  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  in  Matt.  iii.  16;  Acts 
v.  9 ;  Phil.  i.  19,  &c. 

In  accordance  with  what  seems  to  be  the  genera 
rule  of  Divine  Revelation,  that  the  knowledge  o 
heavenly  things  is  given  more  abundantly  and  mon 
clearly  in  later  ages,  the  person,  attributes,  am 
operations  of  the  Holy  Ghost  are  made  known  to  u 
chiefly  in  the  New  Testament.  And  in  the  ligh 
of  such  later  revelation,  words  which  when  hearc 
by  patriarchs  and  prophets  were  probably  under 
stood  imperfectly  by  them,  become  full  of  meaning 
to  Christians. 

In  the  earliest  period  of  Jewish  history  the  Hoi) 
Spirit  was  revealed  as  co-operating  in  the  creation 
of  the  world  (Gen.  i.  2),  as  the  Source,  Giver,  anc 
Sustainer  of  life  (Job  xxvii.  3,  xxxiii.  4 ;  Gen.  ii.  7) 
as  resisting  (if  the  common  interpretation  be  cor 
rect)  the  evil  inclinations  of  men  (Gen.  vi.  3) ;  a 
the  Source  of  intellectual  excellence  (Gen.  xli.  38 
Deut.  xxxiv.  9) ;  of  skill  in  handicraft  (Ex.  xxviii 
3,  xxxi.  3,  xxxv.  31) ;  of  supernatural  knowledg 
and  prophetic  gifts  (Num.  xxiv.  2)  ;  of  valour  am 
those  qualities  of  mind  or  body  which  give  one  ma 
acknowledged  superiority  over  others  (JuJg.  iii.  10 
vi.  34,  xi.  29,  xiii.  25). 

In  that  period  which  began  with  Samuel,  th 
effect  of  the  Spirit  coming  on  a  man  is  described 
the  remarkable    case  of  Saul   as  change  of  heart 
(1  Sam.  x.  6,  9),  shown  outwardly  by  prophesying 
(1  Sam.  x.  10  ;  comp.  Num.  xi.  25,  and  1  Sam.  xix. 
20).     He  departs  from  a  mai  whom  He  has  once 
changed  (1   Sam.  xvi.  14).     His  departure  is  the 


SPIRIT,  THE  HOLY 


1371 


epavture  of  God  (xvi.  14,  xviu.  12,  XKviii.  15) 
lis  presence  is  the  presence  of  God  (xvi.  13,  xviii 
2).  In  the  period  of  the  Kingdom  the  operation 
f  the  Spirit  was  recognised  chiefly  in  the  inspiration 
f  the  prophets  (see  Witsius,  Miscellanea  /Sacra, 
ib.  i. ;  J.  Smith's  Select  Discourses,  6.  Of  Pro 
phecy  ;  Knobel,  Prophetismus  der  Hebrder).  Sepa- 
•ated  more  or  less  from  the  common  occupations  o/ 
men  to  a  life  of  special  religious  exercise  (Bp.  Bull's 
Sermons,  x.  p.  187,  ed.  1840),  they  were  sometimes 
workers  of  miracles,  always  foretellers  of  future 
vents,  and  guides  and  advisers  of  the  social  and 
political  life  of  the  people  who  were  contemporary 
with  them  (2  K.  ii.  9  ;  2  Chr.  xxiv.  20  ;  Ez.  ii.  23  ; 
veh.  ix.  30,  &c.).  In  their  writings  are  found 
abundant  predictions  of  the  ordinary  operations  of 
;he  Spirit  which  were  to  be  most  frequent  in  later 
times,  by  which  holiness,  justice,  peace,  and  conso- 
ation  were  to  be  spread  throughout  the  world  (Is. 
xi.  2,  xlii.  1,  Ixi.  1,  &c.). 

Even  after  the  closing  of  the  canon  of  the  0.  T. 
the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  world  con 
tinued  to  be  acknowledged  by  Jewish  writers  (Wisd. 
.  7,  ix.  17  ;  Philo,  De  Gigant.  5 ;  and  see  Ridley, 
Moyer  Lectures,  Serm.  ii.  p.  81,  &c.). 

In  the  N.  T.,  both  in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord 
and  in  the  narratives  of  the  events  which  preceded 
His  ministry  and  occurred  in  its  course,  the  exist 
ence  and  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  frequently 
revealed,  and  are  mentioned  in  such  a  manner  as 
shows  that  these  facts  were  part  of  the  common 
belief  of  the  Jewish  people  at  that  time.  Theirs 
was,  in  truth,  the  ancient  faith,  but  more  generally 
entertained,  which  looked  upon  prophets  as  inspired 
teachers,  accredited  by  the  power  of  working  signs 
and  wonders  (see  Nitzsch,  ChristL  Lehre,  §84).  It 
was  made  plain  to  the  understanding  of  the  Jews 
of  that  age  that  the  same  Spirit  who  wrought  of 
old  amongst  the  people  of  God  was  still  at  work. 

The  Dove  forsook  the  ark  of  Moses  and  fixed  its 
dwelling  in  the  Church  of  Christ "  (Bull,  On  Justi 
fication,  Diss.  ii.  ch.  xi."§7).  The  gifts  of  miracles, 
prediction,  and  teaching,  which  had  cast  a  fitful 
lustre  on  the  times  of  the  great  Jewish  prophets, 
were  manifested  with  remarkable  vigour  in  the 
first  century  after  the  birth  of  Christ.  Whether  in 
the  course  of  eighteen  hundred  years  miracles  and 
predictions  have  altogether  ceased,  and,  if  so,  at 
what  definite  time  they  ceased,  are  questions  still 
debated  among  Christians.  On  this  subject  reference 
may  be  made  to  Dr.  Conyers  Middleton's  Free  En 
quiry  into  the  Miraculous  Powers  of  the  Christian 
Church ;  Dr.  Brooke's  Examination  of  Middleton's 
Free  Enquiry ;  W.  Dod well's  Letter  to  Middleton 
Bp.  Douglas's  Criterion-.  J.  H.  Newman's  Essay 
on  Miracles,  &c.  With  respect  to  the  gifts  ol 
teaching  bestowed  both  in  early  and  later  ages, 
compare  Neander,  Planting  of  Christianity,  b.  iii. 
ch.  v.',  with  Horsley,  Sermons,  xiv.,  Potter,  On 
Church  Government,  ch.  v.,  and  Hooker,  Eccl. 
Polity,  v.  72,  §§5-8. 

The  relation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  Incarnate 
Son  of  God  (see  Oxford  translation  of  Treatises  of 
Athanasius,  p.  196,  note  d}  is  a  subject  for  reverent 
contemplation  rather  than  precise  definition.  By 
'  the  Spirit  the  redemption  of  mankind  was  made 
known,  though  imperfectly,  to  the  prophets  of  old 
(2  Pet.  i.  21),  and  through  them  to  the  people  oi 
God.  And  when  the  time  for  the  Incarnation  had 
arrived,  the  miraculous  conception  of  the  Redeemer 
(Matt.  i.  18)  was  the  work  of  the  Spirit;  by  th? 
Spirit  He  was  anointed  in  the  womb  or  al  baptise 


1372         SPIKIT,  THE  HOLT 

(Acts  r..  38  ;  cf.  Pearson,  On  the  Creed,  Art.  ii. 
p.  126,  ed.  Oxon.  1843)  ;  and  the  gradual  growth 
of  His  perfect  human  nature  was  in  the  Spirit 
(Luke  ii.  40,  52).  A  visible  sign  from  heaven 
showed  the  Spirit  descending  on  and  abiding  with 
Christ,  whom  He  thenceforth  filled  and  led  (Luke 
iv.  1),  co-operating  with  Christ  in  His  miracles 
(Matt.  xii.  18).  The  multitude  of  disciples  are 
taught  to  pray  for  and  expect  the  Spirit  as  the  best 
and  greatest  boon  they  can  seek  (Luke  xi.  13).  He 
inspires  with  miraculous  powers  the  first  teachers 
whom  Christ  sends  forth,  and  He  is  repeatedly  pro 
mised  and  given  by  Christ  to  the  Apostles  (Matt. 
z.  20,  xii.  28 ;  John  xiv.  16,  xx.  22  ;  Acts  i.  8). 

Perhaps  it  was  in  order  to  correct  the  grossly 
defective  conceptions  of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  pre 
vailed  commonly  among  the  people,  and  to  teach  them 
that  this  is  the  most  awful  possession  of  the  heirs 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  that  our  Lord  Himself 
pronounced  the  strong  condemnation  of  blasphemers 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  (Matt.  xii.  31).  This  has  roused 
in  every  age  the  susceptibility  of  tender  consciences, 
and  has  caused  much  inquiry  to  be  made  as  to  the 
specific  character  of  the  sin  so  denounced,  and  of 
the  human  actions  which  fall  under  so  terrible  a 
ban.  On  the  one  hand  it  is  argued  that  no  one 
now  occupies  the  exact  position  of  the  Pharisees 
whom  our  Lord  condemned,  for  they  had  not  en 
tered  into  covenant  with  the  Holy  Spirit  by  baptism  ; 
they  did  not  merely  disobey  the  Spirit,  but  blas 
phemously  attributed  His  works  to  the  devil ;  they 
resisted  not  merely  an  inward  motion  but  an  out 
ward  call,  supported  by  the  evidence  of  miracles 
wrought  before  their  eyes.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
morbid  conscience  is  prone  to  apprehend  the  unpar 
donable  sin  in  every,  even  unintentional,  resistance 
of  an  inward  motion  which  may  proceed  from  the 
Spirit.  This  subject  is  referred  to  in  Article 
XVI.  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  is  discussed 
by  Burnet,  Beveridge,  and  Harold  Browne,  in  their 
Expositions  of  the  Articles.  It  occupies  the  greater 
part  of  Athanasius'  Fourth  Epistle  to  Serapion, 
ch.  8-22  (sometimes  printed  separately  as  a  Treatise 
on  Matt.  xii.  31).  See  also  Augustine,  Ep.  ad 
Rom.  Expositio  inchoata,  §§14-23,  torn.  iii.  pt.  2, 
p.  933.  Also  Odo  Cameracensis  (A.D.  1113),  De 
Blasphemia  in  Sp.  Sanctum,  in  Migne's  Patrologia 
Lat.  vol.  163;  J.  Denison  (A.D.  1611),  The  Sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost ;  Waterland's  Sermons, 
xxvii.  in  Works,  vol.  v.  p.  706  ;  Jackson,  On  the 
Creed,  bk.  viii.  ch.  iii.  p.  770. 

But  the  Ascension  of  our  Lord  is  marked  (Eph. 
iv.  8;  John  vii.  39,  &c.)  as  the  commencement  of 
a  new  period  in  the  history  of  the  inspiration  of 
men  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  interval  between  that 
event  and  the  end  of  the  world  is  often  described  as 
the  Dispensation  of  the  Spirit.  It  was  not  merely 
(as  Didymus  Alex.  De  Trinitate,  iii.  34,  p.  431, 
and  others  have  suggested)  that  the  knowledge  of 
the  Spirit's  operations  became  more  general  among 
mankind.  It  cannot  be  allowed  (though  Bp.  Heber, 
Lectures,  viii.  514  and  vii.  488,  and  Warburton 
have  maintained  it)  that  the  Holy  Spirit  has  suffi 
ciently  redeemed  His  gracious  promise  to  every  suc 
ceeding  age  of  Christians  only  by  presenting  us 
with  the  New  Testament.  Something  more  was 
promised,  and  continues  to  be  given.  Under  the 
old  dispensation  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit  were 
uncovenanted,  not  universal,  intermittent,  chiefly 
e/r-.ernal.  All  this  was  changed.  Our  Lord,  by 
ordaining  (Matt,  xxviii.  19)  that  every  Christian 
should  be  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 


SPIBIT,  THE  HOLY 

icated  at  once  the  absolute  necessity  from  thai 
time  forth  of  a  personal  connexion  of  every  bel.ever 
with  the  Spirit;  and  (in  John  xvi.  7-15)  He  de 
clares  the  internal  character  of  the  Spirit's  work, 
and  (in  John  xiv.  16,  17,  &c.)  His  permanent  stay. 
And  subsequently  the  Spirit's  operations  under  the 
new  dispensation  are  authoritatively  announced  as 
universal  and  internal  in  two  remarkable  passages 
(Acts  ii.  16-21 ;  Heb.  viii.  8-12).  The  different 
relations  of  the  Spirit  to  believers  severally  undei 
the  old  and  new  dispensation  are  described  by  St. 
Paul  under  the  images  of  a  master  to  a  servant, 
and  a  father  to  a  son  (Rom.  viii.  15) ;  so  much 
deeper  and  more  intftnate  is  the  union,  so  much 
higher  the  position  (Matt.  xi.  11)  of  a  believer,  in 
the  later  stage  than  in  the  earlier  (see  J.  G.  Walch- 
ius,  Miscellanea  Sacra,  p.  763,  De  Spiritu  Adop- 
tionis,  and  the  opinions  collected  in  note  H  in  Hare's 
Mission  of  the  Comforter,  vol.  ii.  p.  433).  The 
rite  of  imposition  of  hands,  not  only  on  teachers, 
but  also  on  ordinary  Christians,  which  has  been 
used  in  the  Apostolic  (Acts  vi.  6,  xiii.  3,  xix.  6, 
&c.)  and  in  all  subsequent  ages,  is  a  testimony 
borne  by  those  who  come  under  the  new  dispensa 
tion  to  their  belief  of  the  reality,  permanence,  and 
universality  of  the  gift  of  the  Spirit. 

Under  the  Christian  dispensation  it  appears  to  be 
the  office  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  enter  into  and  dwell 
within  every  believer  (Rom.  viii.  9,  11 ;  1  John  iii. 
24).  By  Him  the  work  of  Redemption  is  (so  to 
speak)  appropriated  and  carried  out  to  its  comple 
tion  in  the  case  of  every  one  of  the  elect  people  of 
God.  To  believe,  to  profess  sincerely  the  Christian 
faith,  and  to  walk  as  a  Christian,  are  His  gifts 
(2  Cor.  iv.  13;  1  Cor.  xii.  3 ;  Gal.  v.  18)  to  each 
person  severally :  not  only  does  He  bestow  the 
power  and  faculty  of  acting,  but  He  concurs  (1  Cor 
iii.  9  ;  Phil.  ii.  13)  in  every  particular  action  so  far 
as  it  is  good  (see  South' s  Sermons,  xxxv.,  vol.  ii.  p. 
292).  His  inspiration  brings  the  true  knowledge 
of  all  things  (1  John  ii.  27).  He  unites  the  whole 
multitude  of  believers  into  one  regularly  organized 
body  (1  Cor.  xii.,  and  Eph.  iv.  4-16).  He  is  not 
only  the  source  of  life  to  us  on  earth  (2  Cor. 
iii.  6  ;  Rom.  viii.  2),  but  also  the  power  by  whom 
God  raises  us  from  the  dead  (Rom.  viii.  11).  All 
Scripture,  by  which  men  in  every  successive  gene 
ration  are  instructed  and  made  wise  unto  salvation, 
is  inspired  by  Him  (Eph.  iii.  5  ;  2  Tim.  iii.  16  ; 
2  Pet.  i.  21)  ;  He  co-operates  with  suppliants  in 
the  utterance  of  every  effectual  prayer  that  ascends 
on  high  (Eph.  ii.  18,  vi.  18;  Rom.  viii.  26 1; 
He  strengthens  (Eph.  iii.  16),  sanctifies  (2  Thess. 
ii.  13),  and  seals  the  souls  of  men  unto  the  day  of 
completed  redemption  (Eph.  i.  13,  iv.  30). 

That  this  work  of  the  Spirit  is  a  real  work,  and 
not  a  mere  imagination  of  enthusiasts,  may  be 
shown  (1)  from  the  words  of  Scripture  to  which 
reference  has  been  made,  which  are  too  definite  and 
clear  to  be  explained  away  by  any  such  hypothesis  ; 
(2)  by  the  experience  of  intelligent  Christians  in 
every  age,  who  are  ready  to  specify  the  marks  and 
tokens  of  His  operation  in  themselves,  and  even  to 
describe  the  manner  in  which  they  believe  Ho 
works,  on  which  see  Barrow's  Sermons,  Ixxvii.  and 
Ixxviii.,  towards  the  end;  Waterland's  Sermons, 
xxvi.,  vol.  v.  p.  686;  (3)  by  the  superiority  of 
Christian  nations  over  heathen  nations,  in  the  pos 
session  of  those  characteristic  qualities  which  are 
gifts  of  the  Spirit,  in  the  establishment  of  such 
custjms,  habits,  and  laws  as  are  agreeable  thereto, 
and  in  the  erercise  of  an  enlightening  and  purifying 


SPIRIT,  THE  HOLY        r 

feflucnce  in  the  world.  Christianity  and  civiliza-  ' 
tion  are  never  far  asunder :  those  nations  which  are 
now  eminent  in  power  and  knowledge  are  all  to  be 
found  within  the  pale  of  Christendom,  not  indeed 
free  from  national  vices,  r<»t  on  the  whole  mani 
festly  superior  both  to  contemporary  unbelievers 
raid  to  Paganism  in  its  ancient  palmy  days.  (See 
Hare's  Mission  of  the  Comforter,  Serm.  6,  vol.  i. 
p.  202  ;  Porteus  on  the  Beneficial  Effects  of  Chris 
tianity  on  the  Temporal  Concerns  of  Mankind,  in 
Works,  vol.  vi.  pp.  375-460.) 

It  has  been  inferred  from  various  passages  of 
Scripture  that  the  operations  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are 
not  limited  to  those  persons  who  either  by  circum 
cision  or  by  baptism  have  entered  into  covenant 
with  God.  Abimelech  (Gen.  xx.  3),  Melchizedek 
(xiv.  18),  Jethro  (Ex.  xviii.  12),  Balaam  (Num. 
xxii.  9),  and  Job  in  the  0.  T. ;  and  the  Magi  (Matt, 
ii.  12)  and  the  case  of  Cornelius,  with  the  declara 
tion  of  St.  Peter  (Acts  x.  35)  thereon,  are  instances 
showing  that  the  Holy  Spirit  bestowed  His  gifts  of 
knowledge  and  holiness  in  some  degree  even  among 
heathen  nations ;  and  if  we  may  go  beyond  the 
attestation  of  Scripture,  it  might  be  argued  from 
the  virtuous  actions  of  some  heathens,  from  their 
ascription  of  whatever  good  was  in  them  to  the  in 
fluence  of  a  present  Deity  (see  the  references  in 
Heber's  Lectures,  vi.  p.  446),  and  from  their  tena 
cious  preservation  of  the  rite  of  animal  sacrifice, 
that  the  Spirit  whose  name  they  knew  not  must 
have  girded  them,  and  still  girds  such  as  they  were, 
with  secret  blessedness. 

Thus  far  it  has  been  attempted  to  sketch  briefly 
the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  among  men  in  all  ages 
as  it  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  Bible.  But  after  the 
closing  of  the  canon  of  the  N.  T.  the  religious 
subtilty  of  Oriental  Christians  led  them  to  scruti 
nize,  with  the  most  intense  accuracy,  the  words  in 
which  God  has,  incidentally  as  it  were,  revealed  to 
us  something  of  the  mystery  of  the  Being  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  It  would  be  vain  now  to  condemn 
the  superfluous  and  irreverent  curiosity  with  which 
these  researches  were  sometimes  prosecuted,  and  the 
scandalous  contentions  which  they  caused.  The 
result  of  them  was  the  formation  and  general  ac 
ceptance  of  certain  statements  as  inferences  from 
Holy  Scripture  which  took  their  place  in  the  esta 
blished  creeds  and  in  the  teaching  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  Church,  and  which  the  great  body  of  Chris 
tians  throughout  the  world  continue  to  adhere  to, 
and  to  guard  with  more  or  less  vigilance. 

The  Sadducees  are  sometimes  mentioned  as  pre 
ceding  any  professed  Christians  in  denying  the  per 
sonal  existence  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Such  was  the 
inference  of  Epiphanius  (JIaeres.  xli.),  Gregory 
Nazianzen  (Oratio  xxxi.  §5,  p.  558,  ed.  Ben.),  and 
others,  from  the  testimony  of  St.  Luke  (Acts  xxxiii. 
8).  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  error  of 
the  Sadducees  did  not  rather  consist  in  asserting  a 
corporeal  Deity.  Passing  over  this,  in  the  first 
youthful  age  of  the  Church,  when,  as  Ncander  ob 
serves  (Ch.  Hist.  ii.  327,  Bonn's  edit.),  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  so  mightily  felt  as  a  new 
creative,  transforming  principle  of  life,  the  know 
ledge  of  this  Spirit,  as  identical  with  the"  Essence  of 
God.  was  not  so  thoroughly  and  distinctly  impressed 
on  the  understanding  of  Christians.  Simon  Magus, 
the  Montanists,  and  the  Manicheans,  are  said  to 
have  imagined  that  the  promised  Comforter  was 
jiersonined  in  certain  human  beings.  The  language 
of  some  of  the  primitive  Fathers,  though  its  de 
ficiencies  have  been  greatly  exaggerated,  occasiona'ly 


SPIRIT,  THE  HOLY          1373 

comes  short  of  a  full  and  complete  acknowledgment 
of  the  Divinity  of  the  Spirit.  Their  opinions  are 
given  in  their  own  words,  with  much  valuable 
criticism,  in  Dr.  Burton's  Testimonies  of  the  AntC" 
Nicene  Fathers  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and 
the  Divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost  (1831).  Valentinus 
believed  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  an  angel.  The 
Sabellians  denied  that  He  was  a  distinct  Person 
from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  Eunomius,  with  the 
Anomaeans  and  the  Arians,  regarded  Him  as  a 
created  Being.  Macedonius,  with  his  followers  the 
Pneumatomachi,  also  denied  His  Divinity,  and  re 
garded  Him  as  a  created  Being  attending  on  the 
Son.  His  Procession  from  the  Son  as  well  as  from 
the  Father  was  the  great  point  of  controversy  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  In  modem  times  the  Socinians  and 
Spinosa  have  altogether  denied  the  Personality,  and 
have  regarded  Him  as  an  influence  or  power  of  the 
Deity.  It  must  suffice  in  this  article  to  give  the 
principal  texts  of  Scripture  in  which  these  erroneous 
opinions  are  contradicted,  and  to  refer  to  the  prin 
cipal  works  in  which  they  are  discussed  at  length. 
The  documents  in  which  various  existing  commu 
nities  of  Christians  have  stated  their  belief  are  spe 
cified  by  G.  B.  Winer,  Comparative  Darstelluny  des 
Lehrbegriffs,  &c.,  pp.  41  and  80. 

The  Divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  He  is  called  God.  Compare  1  Sam.  xvi. 
13  with  xviii.  12  ;  Acts  v.  3  with  v.  4;  2  Cor.  iii. 
17  with  Ex.  xxxiv.  34 ;  Acts  xxviii.  25  with  Is. 
vi.  8;  Matt.  xii.  28  with  Luke  xi.  20;  1  Cor.  iii. 
16  with  vi.  1 9.  The  attributes  of  God  are  ascribed 
to  Him.  He  creates,  works  miracles,  inspires  pro 
phets,  is  the  Source  of  holiness  (see  above),  is  ever 
lasting  (Heb.  ix.  14),  omnipresent,  and  omniscient 
(Ps.  cxxxix.  7;  and  1  Cor.  ii.  10). 

The  Personality  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  shown  by 
the  actions  ascribed  to  Him.  He  hears  and  speaks 
(John  xvi.  13 ;  Acts  x.  19,  xiii.  2,  &c.).  He  wills 
and  acts  on  His  decision  (1  Cor.  xii.  11).  He 
chooses  and  directs  a  ce/tain  course  of  action  (Acts 
xv.  28).  He  knows  (1  Cor.  ii.  11).  He  teaches 
(John  xiv.  26).  He  intercedes  (Rom.  viii.  26). 
The  texts  2  Thess.  iii.  5,  and  1  Thess.  iii.  12,  13, 
are  quoted  against  those  who  confound  the  three 
Persons  of  the  Godhead. 

The  Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  from  the  Father 
is  shown  from  John  xiv.  26,  xv.  26,  &c.  The  tenet 
of  the  Western  Church  that  He  proceeds  from  the 
Son  is  grounded  on  John  xv.  26,  xvi.  7  ;  Rom.  viii. 
9 ;  Gal.  iv.  6  ;  Phil.  i.  19;  1  Pet.  i.  11 ;  and  on 
the  action  of  our  Lord  recorded  by  St.  John  xx.  22. 
The  history  of  the  long  and  important  controversy 
on  this  point  has  been  written  by  Pfaff,  by  J.  G. 
Walchius,  Historia  Controversiae  de  Processions, 
1751,  and  by  Neale,  History  of  the  Eastern  Church, 
ii.  1093. 

Besides  the  Expositions  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 
referred  to  above,  and  Pearson,  On  the  Creed,  art. 
viii.,  the  work  of  Barrow  (De  Spiritu  Sancto]  con 
tains  an  excellent  summary  ot  the  various  heresies 
and  their  confutation.  The  following  works  may 
be  consulted  for  more  detailed  discussion : — Atha- 
nasius,  Epistolae  IV.  ad  Serapioncm  ;  Didymus 
Alex.  De  Spiritu  Sancto  ;  Basil  the  Great,  De 
Spiritu  Sancto,  and  Adversus  Eunomium;  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  Orationes  de  Theologia  •  Gregory  of 
Nyssa,  Contra  Eunomium-  lib.  xiii.  ;  Ambrose,  DC 
Spiritu  Sancto.  lib.  iii. ;  Augustine,  Contra  Max- 
iminum,  and  De  Trinitate ;  Paschasius  Diaconub, 
De  Sp.  Sane. ;  Isidorus,  Hisp.  Etymologic/,  vii.  3, 
De  Sp.  Sane  ;  Hatramnus  Corbeiensis,  Contw 


1374 


SPONGE 


Sraecorum,  &c.  lib.  iv.;  Alcuin,  P.  Dnmian,  and 
Ansclm,  De  Processione ;  Aquinas,  Sum.  Theol. 
i.  36-43;  Owen,  Treatise  on  the  Holy  Spirit; 
7.  Howe,  Office  and  Works  of  the  Holy  Spirit; 
W.  Clagett,  On  the  Operations  of  the  Spirit,  1678  ; 
M.  Hole,  On  the  Gifts  and  Graces  of  the  H.  S. ; 
Bp.  Warburton,  Doctrine  of  Grace  ;  Gl.  Ridley, 
Moyer  Lectures  on  the  Divinity  and  Operations 
of  the  H.  S.  1742  ;  S.  Ogden,  Sermons,  pp.  157- 
176  ;  Faber,  Practical  Treatise  on  the  Ordinary 
Operations  of  the  H.  S.  1813  ;  Bp.  Heber,  Samp- 
ton  Lectures  on  the  Personality  and  Office  of  the 
Comforter,  1816;  Avchd,  Hare,  Mission  of  the 
Comforter,  1846.  [VV.  T.  B.] 

SPONGE  (<nr6yyos  :  spongia)  is  mentioned 
only  in  the  N.  T.  in  those  passages  which  relate 
the  incident  of  "  a  sponge  filled  with  vinegar  and 
put  on  a  reed"  (Matt,  xxvii.  48  ;  Mark  xv.  36), 
or  "on  hyssop"  (John  xix.  29)  being  offered  to 
our  Lord  on  the  cross.  The  commercial  value  of 
the  sponge  was  known  from  very  early  times ;  and 
although  there  appears  to  be  no  notice  of  it  in  the 
O.  T.,  yet  it  is  probable  that  it  was  used  by  the 
ancient  Hebrews,  who  could  readily  have  obtained 
it  good  from  the  Mediterranean.  Aristotle  men 
tions  several  kinds,  and  carefully  notices  those 
which  were  useful  for  economic  purposes  (Hist. 
Anim.  v.  14).  His  speculations  on  the  nature  of 
fhe  sponge  are  very  interesting.  [W.  H.] 

STACH'YS  (Srdxys :  Stachys}.  A  Christian 
at  Rome,  saluted  by  St.  Paul  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  (xvi.  9).  The  name  is  Greek.  According 
to  a  tradition  recorded  by  Nicephorus  Callistus 
(ff.  E.  viii.  6)  he  was  appointed  bishop  of  Byzan 
tium  by  St.  Andrew,  held  the  office  for  sixteen 
years,  and  was  succeeded  by  Onesimus. 

SPOUSE.     [MARRTAGE.] 

STACTE  (S|EJ,  ndtdf:  ffraKT-f,:  stacte),  the 

name  of  one  of  the  sweet  spices  which  composed 
the  holy  incense  (see  Ex.  xxx.  34).  The  Heb. 
word  occurs  once  again  (Job  xxxvi.  27),  where  it 
is  used  to  denote  simply  "  a  drop "  of  water.  For 
the  various  opinions  as  to  what  substance  is  in 
tended  by  ndtdf,  see  Celsius  (ffierob.  i.  529); 
Rosenmiiller  (Bib.  Bot.  p.  164)  identifies  the 
ndtdf  with  the  gum  of  the  storax  tree  (Styrax 
officinale};  the  LXX.  O-TOKT^  (from  (Trdfy,  "to 
drop  ")  is  the  exact  translation  of  the  Heb.  word. 
Now  Diof.orides  describes  two  kinds  of  a-rowc-H? : 
one  is  the  fresh  gum  of  the  myrrh  tree  (Balsamo- 
dendron  myrrha)  mixed  with  water  aad  squeezed 
out  through  a  press  (i.  74) ;  the  other  kind,  which 
he  calls,  from  the  manner  in  which  it  is  pre 
pared,  (TKOjATj/c^TTys  <TTupa|,  denotes  the  resin  of 
the  storax  adulterated  vrith  wax  and  fat.  The 
true  stacte  of  the  Greek  writers  points  to  the 
distillation  from  the  myrrh  tree,  of  which,  according 
to  Theophrastus  (Fr.  iv.  29,  ed.  Schneider),  both  a 
natural  and  an  artificial  kind  were  known  ;  this  is 
the  mor  deror  (~\m  liD)  of  Ex.  xxx.  23.  Perhaps 

the  ndtdf  denotes  the  storax  gum  ;  but  all  that  is 
positively  known  is  that  it  signifies  an  odorous 
distillation  from  some  plant.  For  some  account  of 
(.he  styiax  tree  see  under  POPLAR.  [W.  H.] 

STANDARDS.     [ENSIGNS.] 

STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  Until  the 
k,st  few  years  the  interpretation  of  St.  Matt.  ii. 
1-12,  by  theologians  in  general,  coincide;  in  the 


STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN 

!  main  vith  that  which  would  be  given  to  it  by  an)' 
person  of  ordinary  intelligence  who  read  the  accoum 
with  due  attention.  Some  supernatural  light 
resembling  a  star  had  appeared  in  tome  country 
(possibly  Persia)  far  to  the  East  of  Jerusalem,  to 
men  who  were  versed  in  the  study  of  celestial 
phenomena,  conveying  to  their  minds  a  superna 
tural  impulse  to  repair  to  Jerusalem,  where  they 
would  find  a  new-born  king.  It  supposed  them 
to  be  followers,  and  possibly  priests,  of  the  Zeud 
religion,  whereby  they  were  led  to  expect  a  Re 
deemer  in  the  person  of  the  Jewish  infant.  On 
arriving  at  Jerusalem,  after  diligent  inquiry  and 
consultation  with  the  priests  and  learned  men  who 
could  naturally  b?st  inform  them,  they  are  directed 
to  proceed  to  Bethlehem.  The  star  which  they 
had  seen  in  the  East  re-appeared  to  them  and  pre 
ceded  them  (7rpo7j76i/  avrovs),  until  it  took  up  its 
station  over  the  place  where  the  young  child  was  : 
(teas  %\9(av  €arrddr]  eVoi/oj  o'it  $v  TO  iraiSiov}. 
The  whole  matter,  that  is,  was  supernatural ; 
forming  a  portion  of  that  divine  pre-arrangement, 
whereby,  in  his  deep  humiliation  among  men,  the 
child  Jesus  was  honoured  and  acknowledged  by  the 
Father,  as  His  beloved  Son  in  whom  He  was  well 
pleased.  Thus  the  lowly  shepherds  who  kept  their 
nightly  watch  on  the  hills  near  to  Bethlehem, 
together  with  ail  that  remained  of  the  highest  and 
best  philosophy  of  the  East,  are  alike  the  par 
takers  and  the  witnesses  of  the  glory  of  Him  who 
was  "  bora  in  the  city  of  David,  a  Saviour  which 
is  Christ  the  Lord."  Such  is  substantially  the 
account  which,  until  the  earlier  part  of  the  present 
century  would  have  been  given  by  oithodox  divines, 
of  the  Star  of  the  Magi.  Latterly,  however,  a 
very  different  opinion  has  gradually  become  preva 
lent  upon  the  subject.  The  star  has  been  displaced 
from  the  category  of  the  supernatural,  and  has 
been  referred  to  the  ordinary  astronomical  pheno 
menon  of  a  conjunction  of  the  planets  Jupiter  and 
Saturn.  The  idea  originated  with  Kepler,  who, 
among  many  other  brilliant  but  untenable  fancies, 
supposed  that  if  he  could  identify  a  conjunction  of 
the  above  named  planets  with  the  Star  of  Bethle 
hem,  he  would  thereby  be  able  to  determine,  on  the 
basis  of  certainty,  the  very  difficult  and  obscure 
point  of  the  Annus  Domini.  Kepler's  suggestion 
was  worked  out  with  great  care  and  no  very  great 
inaccuracy  by  Dr.  Ideler  of  Berlin,  and  the  results 
of  his  calculations  certainly  do,  on  the  first  impres 
sion,  seem  to  show  a  very  specious  accordance  with 
the  phenomena  of  the  star  in  question.  We  pur 
pose,  then,'  in  the  first  place,  to  state  what  celestial 
phenomena  did  occur  with  reference  to  the  planets 
Jupiter  and  Saturn,  at  a  date  assuredly  not  very 
distant  from  the  time  of  our  Saviour's  birth  ;  and 
then  to  examine  how  far  they  fulfil,  or  fail  to 
fultil,  the  conditions  required  by  the  narrative  in 
St.  Matthew. 

In  the  month  of  May,  B.C.  7,  a  conjunction  oi 
the  planets  Jupiter  Knd  Saturn  occurred,  not  far 
from  the  first  point  of  Aries,  the  planets  rising  in 
Chaldaea  about  3^-  hours  before  the  sun.  It  is 
said  that  on  astrological  grounds  such  a  conjunction 
could  not  fail  to  excite  the  attention  of  men  like  the 
Magi,  and  that  in  consequence  partly  of  their 
knowledge  of  Balaam's  prophecy,  aad  partly  from 
the  uneasy  persuasion  then  said  to  be  prevalent  that 
some  great  one  was  to  be  born  in  the  East,  these 
Magi  commenced  their  journey  to  Jerusalem.  Sup 
posing  them  to  have  set  out  at  the  end  of  May 
B.C.  7  upon  a  journey  for  which  the  circumstances 


STAR  OFPHANAS 

will  le  seen  to  requ  ians.,  j"?n£c  seven  months,  the 
planets  were  observ  pi  to  separate  slowly  until  the 
«id  of  July,  when  their  motions  becoming  retro 
grade,  they  again  came  into  conjunction  by  the  end 
of  September.  At  that  time  there  can  be  no  doubt 
Jupiter  would  present  to  astronomers,  especially  in 
so  clear  an  atmosphere,*  a  magnificent  spectacle. 
It  was  then  at  its  most  brilliant  apparition,  for  it 
was  at  its  nearest  approach  both  to  the  sun  and  to 
the  earth.  Not  far  from  it  would  be  seen  its  duller 
and  much  less  conspicuous  companion  Saturn. 
This  glorious  spectacle  continued  almost  unaltered 
for  several  days,  when  the  planets  again  slowly 
separated,  then  came  to  a  halt,  when,  by  re-assum 
ing  a  direct  motion,  Jupiter  again  approached  to  a 
conjunctiva  for  the  third  time  with  Saturn,  just  as 
the  Magi  may  be  supposed  to  have  entered  the  Holy 
City.  And,'  to  complete  the  fascination  of  the 
tale,  about  an  hour  and  a  half  after  sunset,  the 
two  planets  might  be  seen  from  Jerusalem,  hang 
ing  as  it  were  in  the  meridian,  and  suspended  over 
Bethlehem  in  the  distance.  These  celestial  pheno 
mena  thus  described  are,  it  will  be  seen,  beyond 
the  reach  of  question,  and  at  the  first  impression 
they  assuredly  appear  to  fulfil  the  conditions  of  the 
Slar  of  the  Magi. 

The  first  circumstance  which  created  a  suspicion 
to  the  contrary,  arose  from  an  exaggeration,  unac 
countable  for  any  man  having  a  claim  to  be  ranked 
among  astronomers,  on  the  part  of  Dr.  Ideler 
nimself,  who  described  the  two  planets  as  wearing 
the  appearance  of  one  bright  but  diffused  light 
to  persons  having  weak  eyes.  "  So  dass  fur  ein 
schwaches  Auge  der  eine  Planet  fast  in  den  Zer- 
streuungskreis  des  andern  trat,  mithin  beide  als  ein 
einziger  Stern  erscheinen  konnten,"  p.  407,  vol.  ii. 
Not  only  is  this  imperfect  eyesight  inflicted  upon 
the  Magi,  but  it  is  quite  certain  that  had  they 
possessed  any  remains  of  eyesight  at  all,  they  could 
not  have  failed  to  see,  not  a  single  star,  but  two 
planets,  at  the  very  considerable  distance  of  double 
the  moon's  apparent  diameter.  Had  they  been 
even  twenty  times  closer,  the  duplicity  of  the  two 
stars  must  have  been  apparent ;  Saturn,  moreover, 
rather  confusing  than  adding  to  the  brilliance  of 
his  companion.  This  forced  blending  of  the  two 
lights  into  one  by  Ideler  was  still  further  improved 
by  Dean  A 1  ford,  in  the  first  edition  of  his  very 
valuable  and  suggestive  Greek  Testament,  who 
indeed  restores  ordinary  sight  to  the  Magi,  but 
represents  the  planets  as  forming  a  single  star  of 
surpassing  brightness,  although  they  were  certainly 
at  more  than  double  the  distance  of  the  sun's  appa 
rent  diameter.  Exaggerations  of  this  description 
induced  the  writer  of  this  article  to  undertake  the 
very  formidable  labour  of  calculating  afresh  an 
cphcmcris  of  the  planets  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  and  of 
the  sun,  from  May  to  December  B.C.  7.  The 
result  was  to  confirm  the  fact  of  there  being  three 
conjunctions  during  the  above  period,  though  some- 
v,hat  to  modify  the  dates  assigned  to  them  by 
Dr.  Ideler.  Similar  results,  als«,  have  been  ob 
tained  by  Encke,  and  the  December  conjunction  has 
been  confirmed  by  the  Astronomer-Royal ;  no  celes 
tial  phenomena,  therefore,  of  ancient  date  are  so 
certainly  ascertained  as  the  conjunctions  in  question. 
We  shall  now  proceed  to  examine  to  what  extent, 
jr,  as  it  will  be  seen,  to  how  slight  an  extent  the 


*  The  atmosphere  in  parts  of  Persia  is  so  transparent 
that  the  Magi  may  have  seen  the  satellites  of  Jupiter 
with  their  naked  eyes. 


STAK  OF  THE  WISE  MEN    1375 

December  conjunction  fulfils  the  coLditions  of  the 
narrative  of  St.  Matthew.  We  can  hardly  avoid 
a  feeling  of  regret  at  the  dissipation  of  so  fascinating 
an  illusion :  but  we  are  in  quest  of  the  truth,  rather 
than  of  a  picture,  however  beautiful. 

(a.)  The  writer  must  confess  himself  profoundly 
ignorant  of  any  system  of  astrology;  but  sup 
posing  that  some  system  did  exist,  it  nevertheless  is 
inconceivable  that  solely  on  the  ground  of  astrolo 
gical  reasons  men  would  be  induced  to  undertake  a 
seven  months'  journey.  And  as  to  the  widely- 
spread  and  prevalent  expectation  of  some  powerful 
personage  about  to  show  himself  in  the  East,  the 
fact  of  its  existence  depends  on  the  testimony  of 
Tacitus,  Suetonius,  and  Josephus.  But  it  ought  to 
be  very  carefully  observed  that  all  these  writers 
speak  of  this  expectation  as  applying  to  Vespasian, 
in  A.D.  69,  which  date  was  seventy-five  years,  or 
two  generations  after  the  conjunctions  in  question  i 
The  well-known  and  often  quoted  words  of  Tacitus 
are,  "  eo  ipso  tempore ;"  of  Suetonius,  "  eo  tern- 
pore  ;"  of  Josephus,  "  Kara  T^V  itaipbv  eKftvov ;' 
all  pointing  to  A.D.  69,  and  not  to  B.C.  7.  Seeing, 
then,  that  these  writers  refer  to  no  general  uneasy 
expectation  as  pi'evailing  in  B.C.  7,  it  can  have 
formed  no  reason  for  the  departure  of  the  Magi. 
And,  furthermore,  it  is  quite  certain  that  in  the 
February  of  B.C.  66  (Pritchard,  in  Trans.  R.  Ast. 
Soc.  vol.  xxv.),  a  conjunction  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn 
occurred  in  the  constellation  Pisces,  closer  than  the 
one  on  Dec.  4,  B.C.  7.  If,  therefore,  astrological 
reasons  alone  impelled  the  Magi  to  journey  to  Jeru 
salem  in  the  latter  instance,  similar  considerations 
would  have  impelled  their  fathers  to  take  the  same 
journey  fifty-nine  years  before. 

(6.)  But  even  supposing  the  Magi  did  undertake 
the  journey  at  the  time  in  question,  it  seems  impos 
sible  that  the  conjunction  of  Dec.  B.C.  7  can  on  any 
reasonable  grounds  be  considered  as  fulfilling  the 
conditions  in  St.  Matt.  ii.  9.  The  circumstances 
avo  as  follows :  On  Dec,.  4,  the  sun  set  at  Jerusa 
lem  a!  5  p.m.  Supposing  the*  Magi  to  have  then 
commenced  their  journey  to  Bethlehem,  they  would 
first  see  Jupiter  and  his  dull  and  somewhat  distant 
companion  1  £  hour  distant  from  the  meridian,  in  a 
S.E.  direction,  and  decidedly  to  the  East  of  Bethle 
hem.  By  the  time  they  came  to  Rachel's  tomb 
(see  Robinson's  Bib.  Res.  ii.  568)  the  planets  would 
be  due  south  of  them,  on  the  meridian,  and  no 
longer  over  the  hill  -of  Bethlehem  (see  the  maps  of 
Van  de  Velde  and  of  Tobler),  for  that  village  (see 
Robinson,  as  above)  bears  from  Rachel's  tomb 
S.  5°  E.  +  8°  declension  =  S.  13°  E.  The  road 
then  takes  a  turn  to  the  east,  and  ascends  the  hill 
near  to  its  western  extremity ;  the  planets  there 
fore  would  now  be  on  their  right  hands,  and  a  little 
behind  them :  the  "  star,"  therefore,  ceased  alto- 
gether(  to  go  "  before  them  v  as  a  guide.  Arrived 
on  the  hill  and  in  the  village,  it  became  physically 
impossible  for  the  star  to  stand  over  any  house 
whatever  close  to  them,  seeing  that  it  was  now 
visible  far  away  beyond  the  hill  to  the  west,  and 
far  off  in  the  heavens  at  an  altitude  of  57°.  As 
they  advanced,  the  star  would  of  necessity  recede, 
and  under  no  circumstances  could  it  be  said  to 
stand  "  over"  ("  eiro^w")  any  house,  unless  at  the 
distance  of  miles  from  the  place  where  they  were. 
Thus  the  two  heavenly  bodies  altogether  fail  to 
fulfil  either  of  the  conditions  implied  in  the  words 
"  Trporiyev  OUTOUS,"  or  "  e<rra077  firdvoa."  A 
star,  if  vertical,  would  appear  to  stand  over  any 
house  or  object  to  which  a  spectator  might  chance 


1376 


STATER 


a  piece 


to  be  near  ;  but  a  star  at  an  altitude  of  57°  could 
appear  to  stand  over  no  house  or  object  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  observer.  It  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  if  the  Magi  had  left 
the  Jaffa  Gate  before  sunset,  they  woulcf  not  have 
seen  the  planets  at  the  outset  ;  and  if  they  had 
left  Jerusalem  later,  the  "  star  "  would  have  been  a 
more  useless  guide  than  before.  Thus  the  beau 
tiful  phantasm  of  Kepler  and  Ideler,  which  has 
fascinated  so  many  writers,  vanishes  before  the  more 
perfect  daylight  of  investigation. 

A  modern  writer  of  great  ability  (Dr.  Words 
worth)  has  suggested  the  antithesis  to  Kepler's 
speculation  regaining  the  star  of  the  Magi,  viz.  that 
the  star  was  visible  to  the  Magi  alone.  It  is  diffi 
cult  to  see  what  is  gained  or  explained  by  the  hypo 
thesis.  The  song  of  the  multitude  of  the  heavenly 
host  was  published  abroad  in  Bethlehem  ;  the 
journey  of  the  Magi  thither  was  no  secret  whis 
pered  in  a  corner.  Why,  then,  should  the  heavenly 
light,  standing  as  a  beacon  of  glory  over  the  place 
where  the  young  child  was,  be  concealed  from  all 
eyes  but  theirs,  and  form  no  part  in  that  series  of 
wonders  which  the  Virgin  Mother  kept  and  pon 
dered  in  her  heart  ? 

The  original  authorities  on  this  question  are 
Kepler,  De  Jesu  Christi  vero  anno  natalitio, 
Frankfurt,  1614;  Ideler,  Handbuch  der  Chrono- 
logie,  ii.  399  ;  Pritchard,  Memoirs  of  Royal  Ast. 
Society,  vol.  xxv.  [C.  P.] 

STATER  (ffrarfip:    stater:  A.  V. 
of  money  ;"  margin,  "  stater  "). 

1.  The  term  stater,  from  '/trTr^tu,  is  held  to  sig 
nify  a  coin  of  a  certain  weight,  but  perhaps  means 
a  standard  coin.  It  is  not  restricted  by  the  Greeks 
to  a  single  denomination,  but  is  applied  to  standard 
coins  of  gold,  electrum,  and  silver.  The  gold  staters 
were  didrachms  of  the  later  Phoenician  and  the  Attic 
talents,  which,  in  this  denomination,  differ  only 
about  four  grains  troy.  Of  the  former  talent  were 
the  Daric  staters  or  Darics  (ffTarrjpfs  Aapeiicoi, 
Aapei/cot),  the  famous  Persian  gold  pieces,  and  those 
of  Croesus  (KpoKTeTot),  of  the  latter,  the  stater  of 
Athens.  The  electrum  staters  were  coined  by  the 
Greek  towns  on  the  west  coast  of  Asia  Minor  ;  the 
most  famous  were  those  of  Cyzicus  (ffrarripes 
Kv£iKr)voi,  Kv^iK-rjvoi),  which  weigh  about  248 
grains.  They  are  of  gold  and  silver  mixed,  in  the 
proportion,  according  to  ancient  authority  —  for  we 
believe  these  rare  coins  have  not  been  analysed  —  of 
three  parts  of  gold  to  one  of  silver.  The  gold 
was  alone  reckoned  in  the  value,  for  it  is  said  that 
one  of  these  coins  was  equal  to  28  Athenian  silver 
drachms,  while  the  Athenian  gold  stater,  weighing 
about  132  grains,  was  equal  to  20  (20  :  132  :  :  28  : 
184  4-  or  £  of  a  Cyzicene  stater).  This  stater  was 
thus  of  184  +  grains,  and  equivalent  to  a  didrachm 
of  the  Aeginetan  talent.  Thus  far  the  stater  is 
always  a  didrachm.  In  silver,  however,  the  term 
is  applied  to  the  tetradrachm  of  Athens,  which  was 
of  the  weight  of  two  gold  staters  of  the  same  cur 
rency.  There  can  therefore  be  no  doubt  that  the 
name  stater  was  applied  to  the  standard  denomina 
tion  of  both  metals,  and  does  not  positively  imply 
either  a  didrachm  or  a  tetradrachm. 

2.  In  the  N.  T.  the  stater  is  once  mentioned,  in 
the  narrative  of  the  miracle  of  the  sacred  tribute- 
money.  At  Capernaum  the  receivers  of  the  di 
drachms  (ol  TO  SiSpaxpa  Xanfidvovres)  asked 


^\R  OF  THE  \V 

St.  Peter  whether  hi»  .^,,ifj  bePa!^  * 
The  didrachm  refers  to  the  .yearly  tribute  paid  by 
every  Hebrew  into  the  treasury  of  the  Temple.* 
The  sum  was  half  a  shekel,  called  by  the  LXX.  T& 
^/jiiffv  rov  ot5pa%/xou.  The  plain  inference  would 
therefore  be,  that  the  receivers  of  sacred  tribute  tock 
their  name  from  the  ordinary  coin  or  weight  of  metal, 
the  shekel,  of  which  each  person  paid  half.  But  it 
has  been  supposed  that  as  the  coined  equivalent  of 
this  didrachm  at  the  period  of  the  Evangelist  was 
a  tetradrachm,  and  the  payment  of  each  person 
was  therefore  a  current  didrachm  [of  account],  tho 
term  here  applies  to  single  payments  of  didrachms. 
This  opinion  would  appear  to  receive  some  support 
from  the  statement  of  Josephus,  that  Vespasian 
fixed  a  yearly  tax  of  two  drachms  on  the  Jews 
instead  of  that  they  had  formerly  paid  into  the 
treasury  of  the  Temple  (B.  J.  vii.  6,  §6).  Rut  this 
passage  loses  its  force  when  we  remember  that  the 
common  current  silver  coin  in  Palestine  at  the  time 
of  Vespasian,  and  that  in  which  the  civil  tribute  was 
paid,  was  the  denarius,  the  tribute-money.,  then 
equivalent  to  the  debased  Attic  drachm.  It  seems 
also  most  unlikely  that  the  use  of  the  term  didrachm 
should  have  so  remarkably  changed  in  the  interval 
between  the  date  of  the  LXX.  translation  of  the 
Pentateuch  and  that  of  the  writing  of  St.  Matthew's 
Gospel.  To  return  to  the  narrative.  St.  Peter 
was  commanded  to  take  up  a  fish  which  should  be 
found  to  contain  a  stater,  which  he  was  to  pay  to 
the  collectors  of  tribute  for  Our  Lord  and  himself 
(Matt.  xvii.  24-27).  The  stater  must  here  mean  a 
silver  tetradrachm ;  and  the  only  tetradrachms 
then  current  in  Palestine  were  of  the  same  weight 
as  the  Hebrew  shekel.  And  it  is  observable,  in 
confirmation  of  the  minute  accuracy  of  the  Evan 
gelist,  that  at  this  period  the  silver  currency  in 
Palestine  consisted  of  Greek  imperial  tetradrachms, 
or  staters,  and  Roman  denarii  of  a  quarter  their 
value,  didrachms  having  fallen  into  disuse.  Had 
two  didrachms  been  found  by  St.  Peter  the  receivers 
of  tribute  would  scarcely  have  taken  them ;  and,  no 
doubt,  the  ordinary  coin  paid  was  that  miraculously 
supplied.  [R.  S.  P.] 

STEEL.  In  all  cases  where  the  word  "  steel " 
occurs  in  the  A.  V.  the  true  rendering  of  the  Hebrew 
is  "  copper."  il^nj,  nechushdh,  except  in  2  Sam. 
xxii.  35,  Job  xx.T24,'Ps.  xviii.  34  [35],  is  always 
translated  "  brass  ;"  as  is  the  case  with  the  cognate 
word  n&^fO,  nechosheth,  with  the  two  exceptions 
of  Jer.  xv.  i2  (A.  V.  "steel"),  and  Ezr.  viii.  27 
(A.  V.  "  copper  ").  Whether  the  Ancient  Hebrew? 
were  acquainted  with  steel  is  not  perfectly  certain. 
It  has  been  inferred  from  a  passage  in  Jeremiah 
(xv.  12),  that  the  "iron  from  the  north"  there 
spoken  of  denoted  a  superior  kind  of  metal,  hard 
ened  in  an  unusual  manner,  like  the  steel  obtained 
from  the  Chalybes  of  the  Pontus,  the  ironsmiths 
of  the  ancient  world.  The  hardening  of  iron 
for  cutting  instruments  was  practised  in  Pontus, 
Lydia,  and  Laconia  (Eustath.  II.  ii.  p.  294,  6u, 
quoted  in  Miiller,  Hand.  d.  Arch.  d.  Kunst, 
§307,  n  4).  Justin  (xliv.  3,  §8)  mentions  two 
rivers  in  Spain,  the  Bilbilis  (the  Salo,  or  Xalon, 
a  tributary  of  the  Ebro)  and  Chalybs,  the  water 
of  which  was  used  for  hardening  iron  (comp. 
Plin.  xxxiv.  41).  The  same  practice  is  alluded  to 
both  by  Homsr  (Od.  ix.  393;  and  Sophocles  (Aj. 


a  It  has  been  supposed  by  some  ancimt  and  modern    but  by  thia  emanation  the  f  jrce  of  our  Lord's  reason  foi 
ommentator*  that  the  civil  tribute  is  here  referred  to;    fowl  .ra  from  the  payment  seems  to  be  completely  missal 


STEPHANAS 

650).  The  Celtiberians,  according  to  Diodorus 
Siculus '('/.  33),  had  a  singular  custom.  They  buried 
sheets  of  iron  in  the  earth  till  the  weak  part,  as 
Diodorus  calls  it,  was  consumed  by  rust,  and  what 
was  hardest  remained.  This  firmer  portion  was  then 
converted  into  weapons  of  different  kinds.  The 
same  practice  is  said  by  Beckmann  (Hist,  of  Inv. 
ii.  328,  ed.  Bohn)  to  prevail  in  Japan.  The  last 
mentioned  writer  is  of  opinion  that  of  the  two 
methods  of  making  steel,  by  fusion  either  from 
iron-stone  or  raw  iron,  and  by  cementation,  the 
ancients  were  acquainted  only  with  the  former. 

There  is,  however,  a  word  in  Hebrew,  rT'PS1' 
palddh,  which  occurs  only  in  Nah.  ii.  3  [4],  and  is 
there  rendered  "  torches,"  but  which  most  probably 
denotes  steel  or  hardened  iron,  and  refers  to  the  flash 
ing  scythes  of  the  Assyrian  chariots.  In  Syriac 

and  Arabic  the  cognate   words  (J«-2b>2S,  poldo, 


5,  fuladh}  signify  a  kind   of 
ron  of  excellent  quality,  and  especially  steel. 

Steel  appears  to  have  been  known  to  the  Egyp 
tians.  The  steel  weapons  in  the  tomb  of  Rameses 
III.,  says  Wilkinson,  are  painted  blue,  the  bronze 
red  (Anc.  Eg.  iii.  247).  •  [W.  A.  W.] 

STEPH'ANAS  (2re<|)ov£s:  Stephanas}.  A 
Christian  convert  of  Corinth  whose  household  Paul 
baptised  as  the  "  first  fruits  of  Achaia  "  (1  Cor.  i. 
16,  xvi.  15).  He  was  present  with  the  Apostle  at 
Ephesus  when  he  wrote  his  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  having  gone  thither  either  to  consult 
him  about  matters  of  discipline  connected  with  the 
Corinthian  Church  (Chrysost.  Horn.  44),  or  on  some 
charitable  mission  arising  out  of  the  "  service  for 
the  saints"  to  which  he  and  his  family  had  devoted 
themselves  (1  Cor.  xvi.  16,  17).  [W.  L.  B.] 

STE'PHEN  (2Te>cwos :  Stephanas),  the  First 
Martyr.  His  Hebrew  •  (or  rather  Syriac)  name  is  tra 
ditionally  said  to  have  been  Chelil,  or  Cheliel  (acrown). 

He  was  the  chief  of  the  Seven  (commonly  called 
DEACONS)  appointed  to  rectify  the  complaints  in 
the  early  Church  of  Jerusalem,  made  by  the  Hel 
lenistic  against  the  Hebrew  Christians.  His  Greek 
name  indicates  his  own  Hellenistic  origin. 

His  importance  is  stamped  on  the  narrative  by  a 
reiteration  of  emphatic,  almost  superlative  phrases  : 
"  full  of  faith  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost "  (Acfcs  vi.  5) ; 
"full  of  grace b  and  power"  (ib.  8);  irresistible 
"  spirit  and  wisdom"  fib.  10) ;  "  full  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  "c  (vii.  55).  Of  his  ministrations  amongst 
the  poor  we  hear  nothing.  But  he  seems  to  have 
been  an  instance,  such  as  is  not  uncommon  in  history, 
of  a  new  energy  derived  from  a  new  sphere.  He  shot 
far  ahead  of  his  six  companions,  and  far  above  his 
particular  office.  First,  he  arrests  attention  by  the 
"  great  wonders  and  miracles  that  he  did."  Then 
begins  a  series  of  disputations  with  the  Hellenistic 
Jews  of  North  Africa,  Alexandria,  and  Asia  Minor, 
his  companions  in  race  and  birthplace.  The  subject 
of  these  disputations  is  not  expressly  mentioned ; 
but,  from  what  follows,  it  is  evident  that  he  struck 
into  a  new  vein  of  teaching,  which  eventually  caused 
his  martyrdom. 


»  Basil  of  Seleucia,  Or  at.  de  S.  Stephana.    See  tte&enlus 
ID  voce  -)^3- 

0  A,  B,  D,  and  most  of  the  versions,  react  xapiros.    JTie 
R".c.  Text  reads  Tri'oreajs. 

c  Tradit-  anally  he  was  reckoned  amongst  the  Seventy 
disciples. 
VOL,  TIT. 


STEPHEN  1611 

Down  to  this  time  the  Apostles  and  the  early 
Christian  community  had  clung  in  their  worship 
not  merely  to  the  Holy  Land  and  the  Holy  City, 
but  to  the  Holy  Place  of  the  Temple.  This 
local  worship,  with  the  Jewish  customs  belong 
ing  to  it,  he  now  denounced.  So  we  must  infer 
from  the  accusations  brought  against  him,  con 
firmed  as  they  are  by  the  tenor  of  his  defence. 
The  actual  words  of  the  charge  may  have  been 
false,  as  the  sinister  and  malignant  intention  which 
they  ascribed  to  him  was  undoubtedly  false.  "  Bias- 
phemous"  (jSA&r^Tj/xa),  that  is,  "calumnious" 
words,  "against  Moses  and  against  God"  (vi.  11), 
he  is  not  likely  to  have  used.  But  the  overthrow 
of  the  Temple,  the  cessation  of  the  Mosaic  ritual,  ,s 
no  more  than  St.  Paul  preached  openly,  or  than  is 
implied  in  Stephen's  own  speech :  "  against  this  holy 
place  and  the  Law" — "  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  shall 
destroy  this  place,  and  shall  change  the  customs 
that  Moses  delivered  us"  (vi.  13,  14). 

For  these  sayings  he  was  arrested  at  the  instiga 
tion  of  the  Hellenistic  Jews,  and  brought  before  the 
Sanhedrin,  where,  as  it  would  seem,  the  Pharisaic 
party  had  just  before  this  .time  (v.  34,  vii.  51 )  gained 
an  ascendancy. 

When  the  charge  was  formally  lodged  against 
him,  his  countenance  kindled  as  if  with  the  view  of 
the  great  prospect  which  was  opening  for  the  Church  ; 
the  whole  body  even  of  assembled  judges  was  trans 
fixed  by  the  sight,  and  "  saw  his  face  as  it  had  been 
the  face  of  an  angel  "  (vi.  15). 

For  a  moment,  the  account  seems  to  imply,  the 
judges  of  the  Sanhedrin  were  awed  at  his  presence.^ 
Then  the  High  Priest  that  presided  appealed  to  him 
(as  Caiaphas  had  in  like  manner  appealed  in  the 
Great  Trial  in  the  Gospel  History)  to  know  his  own 
sentiments  on  the  accusations  brought  against  him. 
To  this  Stephen  replied  in  a  speech  which  has  every 
appearance  of  being  faithfully  reported.  The  pecu 
liarities  of  the  style,  the  variations  from  the  Old 
Testament  history,  the  abruptness  which,  by  breaking 
off  the  argument,  prevents  us  from  easily  doing  it 
justice,  are  all  indications  of  its  being  handed  down 
to  us  substantially  in  its  original  form. 

The  framework  in  which  his  defence  is  cast  is  a 
summary  of  the  history  of  the  Jewish  Church.  In 
this  respect  it  has  only  one  parallel  in  the  N.  T., 
the  llth  chapter6  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews— 
a  likeness  that  is  the  more  noticeable,  as  in  all 
probability  the  author  of  that  Epistle  was,  like  Ste 
phen,  a  Hellenist. 

In  the  facts  which  he  selecu  from  this  history 
he  is  guided  by  two  principles— at  first  more  or 
less  latent,  but  gradually  becoming  more  and  more 
apparent  as  he  proceeds.  The  fii-st  is  the  endeavour 
to  prove  that,  even  in  the  previous  Jewish  history, 
the  presence  and  favour  of  God  had  not  been  con 
fined  to  the  Holy  Land  or  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem, 
This  he'  illustrates  with  a  copiousness  of  detail 
which  makes  his  speech  a  summary  almost  as  much 
of  sacred  geography  as  of  sacred  history — the  ap 
pearance  of  God  to  Abraham  "in  Mesopotamia 
before  he  dwelt  in  Haran  "  (vii.  2) ;  his  successive 
migrations  to  Haran  and  to  Canaan  (vii.  4) ;  his 
want  of  even  a  resting  place  for  his  foot  in  Canaan 
(vii.  5) ;  the  dwelling  of  his  seed  in  a  strange  land 


d  Well  described  in  Conybeare  and  Howson,  Life  of 
S.  Paul,  i.  74  ;  the  poetic  aspect  of  it  beautifully  given 
in  Tennyson's  Two  Voices. 

«  Other  verbal  likenesses  to  this  Epistle  are  pointed  out 
by  Dr.  Howson,  i.  11  (quoting  from  Mr.  Humphry,  Comin, 
on  the  Acis\ 

4  T 


1378 


STEPHEN 


(vii.  6) ;  the  details  of  the  stay  in  Egypt  (vil.  8-13) ; 
the  education  of  Moses  in  Egypt  (vii.  20-22);  his 
exile  in  Midian  (vii.  29) ;  the  appearance  in  Sinai, 
with  the  declaration  that  the  desert  ground  was 
holy  earth  (77)  ayta)  (vii.  30-33) ;  the  forty  years 
.h  the  wilderness  (vii.  36,  44)  ;  the  long  delay  be 
fore  the  preparation  for  the  Tabernacle  of  David 
Cvii.  45) ;  the  proclamation  of  spiritual  worship 
even  after  the  building  of  the  Temple  (vii.  47-50). 

The  second  principle  of  selection  is  based  on  the 
attempt  to  show  that  there  was  a  tendency  from 
the  earliest  times  towards  the  same  ungrateful  and 
narrow  spirit  that  had  appeared  in  this  last  stage  of 
their  political  existence.  And  this  rigid,  suspi 
cious,  disposition  he  contrasts  with  the  freedom  of 
the  Divine  Grace  and  of  the  human  will,  which 
were  manifested  in  the  exaltation  of  Abraham  (vii. 
4),  Joseph  (vii.  10),  and  Moses  (vii.  20),  and  in 
the  jealousy  and  rebellion  of  the  nation  against  these 
their  greatest  benefactors,  as  chiefly  seen  in  the  bit 
terness  against  Joseph  (vii.  9)  and  Moses  (vii.  27), 
and  in  the  long  neglect  of  true  religious  worship  in 
the  wilderness  (vii.  39-43). 

Both  of  these  selections  are  worked  out  on  what 
may  almost  be  called  critical  principles.  There  is 
no  allegorizing  of  the  text,  nor  any  forced  construc 
tions.  Every  passage  quoted  yields  fairly  the  sense 
assigned  to  it. 

Besides  the  direct  illustration  of  a  freedom  from 
local  restraints  involved  in  the  general  argument, 
there  is  also  an  indirect  illustration  of  the  same 
doctrine,  from  his  mode  of  treating  the  subject  in 
detail.  No  less  than  twelve  of  his  references  to  the 
Mosaic  history  differ  from  it  either  by  variation  or 
addition. 

1.  The  call  of  Abraham   before  the  migration 
to  Haran  (vii.  2),  not,  as  according  to  Gen.  xii.  1,  in 
Haran. 

2.  The  death  of  his  father  after  the  call  (vii.  4), 
not,  as  according  to  Gen.  xi.  32,  before  it. 

3.  The  75  souls  of  Jacob's  migration  (vii.  14), 
not  (as  according  to  Gen.  xlvi.  27)  70. 

4.  The  godlike  loveliness  (affretos  T$  0e$)  of 
Moses  (vii.  20),  not,  simply,' as  according  to  Ex. 
a.  2,  the  statement  that  "  he  was  a  goodly  child." 

5.  His  Egyptian  education  (vii.  22)  as  contrasted 
with  the  silence  on  this  point  in  Ex.  iv.  10. 

6.  The  same  contrast  with  regard  to  his  secular 
greatness,  "  mighty  in  words  and  deeds'*  (vii.  22, 
comp.  Ex.  ii.  10). 

7.  The  distinct  mention  of  the  three  periods  of 
forty  years  (vii.  23,  30,  36;  of  which  only  the  last 
i?  specified  in  the  Pentateuch. 

8.  The  terror  of  Moses  at  the  bush  (vii.  32),  not 
mentioned  in  Ex.  iii.  3. 

9.  The  supplementing   of  the  Mosaic  narrative 
by  the  allusions  in  Amos  to  their  neglect  of  the 
true  worship  in  the  desert  (vii.  42,  43). 

10.  The  intervention  of  the  angels  hi  the  giving 
of  the  Law  (vii.  53),  not  mentioned  in  Ex.  xix.  16. 

11.  The   burial    of  the   twelve   Patriarchs   at 
Shechem  (vii.  16),  not  mentioned  in  Ex.  i.  6. 

12.  The  purchase  of  the  tomb  at  Shechem  by 
Abraham  from  the  sons  of  Emmor  (vii.  16),  not, 
as  according  to  Gen.  xxiii.  15,  the  purchase  of  the 
cave  at  Machpelah  from  Ephron  the  Hittite. 

To  which  may  be  added 

13.  The  introduction  of  Remphan  from  the  LXX. 
of  Amos  v.  26,  not  found  in  the  Hebrew. 

The  explanation  and  source  of  these  variations 
must  be  sought  under  the  different  names  to  which 
they  refer ;  fcut  the  general  fact  of  their  adoption 


STEPHEN 

by  Stephen  is  significant  as  showing  the  freedom 
with  which  he  handled  the  sacred  history,  and  the 
comparative  unimportance  assigned  by  him  and  by 
the  sacred  historian  who  records  his  speech,  to  minute 
accuracy.  It  may  almost  be  said  that  the  whole 
speech  is  a  protest  against  a  rigid  view  of  the  me 
chanical  exactness  of  the  inspired  records  of  the  0.  T. 
"  He  had  regard,"  as  St.  Jerome  says,  «*  to  the 
meaning,  not  to  the  words." 

It  would  seem  that,  just  at  the  close  of  his  argu 
ment,  Stephen  saw  a  change  in  the  aspect  of  his 
judges,  as  if  for  the  first  time  they  had  caught  the 
drift  of  his  meaning.  He  broke  off  from  his  calm 
address,  and  turned  suddenly  upon  them  in  an  im 
passioned  attack  which  shows  that  he  saw  what  was 
in  store  for  him.  Those  heads  thrown  back  on  their 
unbending  necks,  those  ears  closed  against  any  pene 
tration  of  truth,  were  too  much  for  his  patience: — 
"  Ye  stiffhecked  and  uncircumcised  in  heart  and 
ears !  ye  do  always  resist  the  Holy  Ghost :  as  yom 
fathers  did,  so  do  ye.  Which  of  the  prophets  did 
not  your  fathers  persecute?  .  .  .  the  Just  One: 
of  whom  ye  are  the  betrayers  and  murderers." 
As  he  spoke  they  showed  by  their  faces  that  their 
hearts  (to  use  the  strong  language  of  the  narrative) 
"  were  being  sawn  asunder,'"  and  they  kept  gnash 
ing  their  set  teeth  against  him;  but  still,  though 
with  difficulty,  restraining  themselves.  He,  in  this 
last  crisis  of  his  fate,  turned  his  face  upwards  to  the 
open  sky,  and  as  he  gazed  the  vault  of  heaven 
seemed  to  him  to  part  asunder  (8n]i'oiy/j.cvos)  ; 
and  the  Divine  Glory  appeared  through  the  rending 
of  the  earthly  veil — the  Divine  Presence,  seated  on 
a  throne,  and  on  the  right  hand  the  human  form 
of  "Jesus,"  not,  as  in  the  usual  representations, 
sitting  in  repose,  but  standing  erect  as  if  to  assist 
His  suffering  servant.  Stephen  spoke  as  if  to  him 
self,  describing  the  glorious  vision ;  and,  in  so  doing, 
alone  of  all  the  speakers  and  writers  in  the  N.  T., 
except  only  Christ  Himself,  uses  the  expressive 
phrase,  "the  Son  of  Man."  As  his  judges  heard  the 
words,  expressive  of  the  Divine  exaltation  of  Him 
whom  they  had  sought  so  lately  to  destroy,  they 
could  forbear  no  longer.  They  broke  into  a  loud  yell ; 
they  clapped  their  hands  to  their  ears,  as  if  to  pre 
vent  the  entrance  of  any  more  blasphemous  words  ; 
they  flew  as  with  one  impulse  upon  him,  and 
dragged  him  out  of  the  city  to  the  place  of  exe 
cution. 

It  has  been  questioned  by  what  right  the  San- 
hedrin  proceeded  to  this  act  without  the  concur 
rence  of  the  Roman  government ;  but  it  is  enough 
to  reply  that  the  whole  transaction  is  one  of  violent 
excitement.  On  one  occasion,  even  in  our  Lord's 
life,  the  Jews  had  nearly  stoned  Him  even  within 
the  precincts  of  the  Temple  (John  viii.  59).  "  Their 
vengeance  in  other  cases  was  confined  to  those  sub 
ordinate  punishments  which  were  left  under  their 
own  jurisdiction:  imprisonment,  public  scourging 
in  the  synagogue,  and  excommunication"  (Milman's 
Hist,  of  Latin  Christianity,  i.  400).  See  Conybeare 
and  Howson's  St.  Paul,  i.  74. 

On  this  occasion,  however,  they  determined  for 
once  to  carry  out  the  full  penalties  enjoined  by  the 
severe  code  of  the  Mosaic  ritual. 

Any  violator  of  the  law  was  to  be  taken  outside 
the  gcates,  and  there,  as  if  for  the  sake  of  giving  to 
each  individual  member  of  the  community  a  sense 
of  his  responsibility  in  the  transaction,  he  was  to  U 
crushed  by  stones,  thrown  at  him  by  all  the  people. 

Those,  however,  were  to  take  the  lead  in  this 
wild  and  terrible  act  who  had  taken  upon  t'nera> 


STEPHEN 


the  responsibility  of  denouncing  him  (Deut. 
jcvii.  7;  comp.  John  viii.  7).  These  were,  in  this 
instance,  the  witnesses  who  had  reported  or  mis- 
reported  the  words  of  Stephen.  They,  according  to 
tne  custom,  for  the  sake  of  facility  in  their  dreadful 
task,  stripped  themselves,  as  is  the  Eastern  practice 
on  commencing  any  violent  exertion  ;  and  one  of  the 
prominent  leaders  in  the  transaction  was  deputed  by 
custom  to  signify  his  assent  '  to  the  act  by  taking 
the  clothes  into  his  custody,  and  standing  over  them 
whilst  the  bloody  work  went  on.  The  person  who 
officiated  on  this  occasion  was  a  young  man  from 
Tarsus  —  one  probably  of  the  Cilician  Hellenists  who 
had  disputed  with  Stephen.  His  name,  as  the  nar 
rative  significantly  adds,  was  Saul. 

Everything  was  now  ready  for  the  execution.  It 
was  outside  the  gates  of  Jerusalem.  The  earlier  tra- 
ditionf  iixed  it  at  what  is  now  called  the  Damascus 
gate.  The  later,  which  is  the  present  tradition, 
fixed  it  at  what  is  hence  called  St.  Stephen's  gate, 
opening  on  the  descent  to  the  Mount  of  Olives;  and 
in  the  red  streaks  of  the  white  limestone  rocks  of 
the  sloping  hill  used  to  be  shown  the  marks  of  his 
blood,  and  on  the  first  rise  of  Olivet,  opposite,  the 
eminence  on  which  the  Virgin  stood  to  support  him 
with  her  prayers. 

The  sacred  narrative  fixes  its  attention  only  on 
two  figures  —  that  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  already  no 
ticed,  and  that  of  Stephen  himself. 

As  the  first  volley  of  stones  burst  upon  him,  he 
called  upon  the  Master  whose  human  form  he  had 
just  seen  in  the  heavens,  and  repeated  almost  the 
words  with  which  He  himself  had  given  up  His  life 
on  the  cross,  "  0  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit." 

Another  crash  of  stones  brought  him  on  his 
knees.  One  loud  piercing  cry  (2/fpa£e  pey 
<pwvrj}  —  answering  to  the  loud  shriek  or  yell  with 
which  his  enemies  had  flown  upon  him  —  escaped 
his  dying  lips.  Again  clinging  to  the  spirit  oi 
nis  Master's  words,  he  cried  "  Lord,  lay  not  this 
sin  to  their  charge,"  and  instantly  sank  upon  the 
ground,  and,  in  the  touching  language  ot  the  nar 
rator,  who  then  uses  for  the  first  time  the  word 
afterwards  applied  to  the  departure  of  all  Chris 
tians,  but  here  the  more  remarkable  from  the 
bloody  scenes  in  the  midst  of  which  the  death  took 
place  —  ^Koifj.-f)0i],  "fell  asleep."  h 
'  His  mangled  body  was  buried  by  the  class  o: 
Hellenists  and  proselytes  to  which  he  belonged  (o 
eu<re/3ers),  with  an  amount  of  funeral  stale  anu 
lamentation  espre&ed  in  two  words  used  here  onb 
in  the  N.  T.  (ffvv£XGu.ura.v  and  Koirer6s). 

This  simple  expression  is  enlarged  by  writers  o 
the  5th  century  into  an  elaborate  legend.  The  High 
Priest  it  is  said,  had  intended  to  leave  the  corpse  to 
be  devoured  by  beasts  of  prey.  It  was  rescued  by 
Gamaliel,  carried  off  in  his  own  chariot  by  night 
and  buried  in  a  new  tomb  on  his  property  a 
Caphar  Gamala  (village  of  the  Camel),  8  league 
from  Jerusalem.  The  funeral  lamentations  lastet 
for  forty  days.  All  the  Apostles  attended.  Gamalie 
undertook  the  expense,  and,  on  his  death,  was  in 
terred  in  an  adjacent  cave. 

This  story  was  probably  first  drawn  up  on  th 
occasion  of  the  remarkable  event  which  occurred  i 


STEPHEN  1379 

.D.  415,  under  the  name  of  the  Invention  and 
'ranslation  ef  the  Relics  of  S.  Stephen.  Successive 
isions  of  Gamaliel  to  Lucian,  the  parish  priest  oi 
aphar  Gamala,  on  the  3rd  and  18th  cf  December 
n  that  year,  revealed  the  spot  where  the  martyr's 
emains  would  be  found.  They  were  identified  by 
tablet  bearing  his  name  Cheliel,  and  were  carried 
i  state  to  Jerusalem,  amidst  various  portents,  and 
uried  in  the  church  on  Mount  Zion,  the  scene  of 
o  many  early  Christian  traditions.  The  event  of 
ic  Translation  is  celebrated  in  the  Latin  Church 
n  August  3,  probably  from  the  tradition  of  that 
ay  being  the  anniversary  of  the  dedication  of  a 
hapel  of  S.  Stephen  at  Ancona. 

The  story  itself  is  encompassed  with  legend,  but 
he  event  is  mentioned  in  all  the  chief  writers  of 
he  time.  Parts  of  his  remains  were  afterwards 
ransported  to  different  parts  of  the  coast  of  the 
West — Minorca,  Portugal,  North  Africa,  Ancona, 
Constantinople — and  in  460  what  were  still  left  at 
Jerusalem  were  translated  by  the  Empress  Eudocia 
,o  a  splendid  church  called  by  his  name  on  the 
nipposed  scene  of  his  martyrdom  (Tillemont,  S. 
Etienne,  art.  5-9,  where  all  the  authorities  arc 
quoted). 

The  importance  of  Stephen's  career  may  be  briefly 
summed  up  under  three  heads: — 

I.  He  was  the  first  great  Christian  ecclesiastic. 
The  appointment  of  "  the  Seven,"  commonly  (though 
not  in  the  Bible)  called  Deacons,  formed  the  first 
direct   institution    of  the   nature   of  an   organised 
Christian  ministry,  and  of  these  Stephen  was  the 
bead — "  the  Archdeacon,"  as  he  is  called  in   the 
Eastern  Church — and  in  this  capacity  represented  as 
the  companion  or  precursor  of  Laurence,  Archdeacon 
of  Rome  in  the  Western  Church.      In  this  sense 
allusion  is  made  to  him  in  the  Anglican  Ordination 
of  Deacons. 

II.  He  is  the  first  martyr — the   proto-martyr. 
To  him  the  name  "  martyr  "  is  first  applied  (Acts 
xxii.  20).     He,  first  of  4he  Christian  Church,  bore 
witness  to  the  truth  of  his  convictions  by  a  violent 
and  dreadful  death.     The  veneration  which  has  ac 
crued  to  his  name  in  consequence  is  a  testimony  of 
the  Bible  to  the  sacredness  of  truth,  to  the  nobleness 
of  sincerity,  to  the  wickedness  and  the  folly  of  per 
secution.     It  also  contains  the  first  germs  of  the 
reverence  for  the  character  and   for  the  relics  of 
martyrs,  which  afterwards  grew  to  a  height,  now 
regarded  by  all  Christians  as  excessive.    A  beautiful 
hymn  by  Reginald  Heber  commemorates  this  side  of 
Stephen's  character. 

III.  He  is  the  forerunner  of  St.  Paul.    So  he  was 
already  regarded  in  ancient  times.    TlauAou  6  8t8a<r- 
KaAos  is  the  expression  used  for  him  by  Basil  of  Se- 
leucia.    But  it  is  an  aspect  that  has  been  much  more 
forcibly  drawn  out  in  modern  times.    Not  only  was 
his  martyrdom  (in  all  p'robnbiHty)  the  first  means 
of  converting  St.  Paul — his  prayer  for  his  murderers 
not  only  was  fulfilled  in  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul 
—the  blood  of  the  first  martyr,  the  seed  of  the 
greatest   Apostle — the   pangs   of  remorse   for   his 
death,   amongst   the  stings   of  conscience,   against 
which  the  Apostle  vainly  writhed  (Acts  ix.  5) ; 
not  only  thus,  but  in  his  doctrine  also  he  was  the 


f  Comp.  "  I  was  standing  by  and  consenting  to  his  deal! 
and  kept  the  raiment  of  those  that  slew  him  "  (Acts  xxi 
20). 

o  These  conflicting  versions  are  well  given  in  Coriytear 
jnJ  Howson,  S.  Paul,  i.  80 

h  The  date  of  Stephen's  deata  «  unknown.     But  eccle 


siastical  tradition  fixes  it  in  the  same  year  as  the  Cruci 
fixion,  on  the  26th  of  December,  the  day  after  Christmas 
day  It  is  beautifully  said  by  Augustine  (in  allnsion  to  the 
juxtaposition  of  the  two  festivals),  that  men  would  no1 
have  had  the  courage  to  die  for  God,  if  God  had  not  becomr 
man  to  die  for  them  (Tillemont,  S.  Etienne,  art.  4). 

4  T  2 


STOCKS 


STONES 


anticipator,  as,  had  he  lived,  he  would  have  been  I  heathen  morality  (Epictetene  Philos.  Monum.  eel 
the  propagator,  of  the  new  phase  of  Christianity.  |  Schweighauser,  1799).  The  precepts  of  Epictetui 
of  which  St.  Paul  became  the  main  support.  His  I  were  adopted  by  Marcus  Aurelius  fA.r>.  121-180} 


Enunciations  of  local  worship — the  stress  which  he 
lays  on  the  spiritual  side  of  the  Jewish  history — his 
freedom  in  treating  that  history — the  very  turns  of 
expression  that  he  uses — are  all  Pauline. 

The  history  of  the  above  account  is  taken  from 
Acts  (vi.  1-viii.  2  ;  xxii.  19,  20);  the  legends  from 
Tillemont  (ii.  p.  1-24) ;  the  more  general  treatment 
from  Neander's  Planting  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  from  Howson  and  Conybeare  in  The  Life  of 


St.  Paul,  ch.  2. 


[A.  P.  S.] 


STOCKS  (rOBflD,  ID:  tf\ov\    The  term 

"  stocks "  is  applied  in  the  A.  V.  to  two  different 
articles,  one  of  which  (the  Hebrew  mahpecetfi) 
answers  rather  to  our  pillory,  inasmuch  as  its  name 
implies  that  the  body  was  placed  in  a  bent  position 
by  the  confinement  of  the  neck  and  arms  as  well 
as  the  legs ;  while  the  other  (sad)  answers  to  our 
"  stocks,"  the  feet  alone  being  confined  in  it.  The 
former  may  be  compared  with  the  Greek  itv^xav, 
as  described  in  the  Scholia  ad  Aristoph.  Plut.  476 : 
the  latter  with  the  Roman  nervus  (Plaut.  Asin.  iii. 
2,  5  ;  Capt.  v.  3,  40),  which  admitted,  however, 
of  being  converted  into  a  species  of  torture,  as  the 
legs  could  be  drawn  asunder  at  the  will  of  the 
jailor  (Biscoe  on  Acts,  p.  229).  The  prophet  Jere 
miah  was  confined  in  the  first  sort  (Jer.  xx.  2), 
which  appears  to  have  been  a  common  mode  of 
punishment  in  his  day  (Jer.  xxix.  26),  as  the  pri 
sons  contained  a  chamber  for  the  special  puipose, 
termed  "  the  house  of  the  pillory  "  (2  Chr.  xvi.  10 ; 
A.  V.  "prison-house").  The  stocks  (sad)  are 
noticed  in  Jobxiii.  27,  xxxiii.  11,  and  Acts  xvi.  24. 
The  term  used  in  Prov.  vii.  22  (A.  V.  "  stocks") 


.nore  properly  means  a  fetter. 


[W.  L.  B.] 


[PHILOSOPHY].     The 
Zeno  of  Citium  (c.  B.C. 


STOICS.  The  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  who  are 
mentioned  together  in  Acts  xvii.  18,  represent  the 
two  opposite  schools  of  practical  philosophy  which 
survived  the  fall  of  higher  speculation  in  Greece 
Stoic  school  was  founded  by 
280),  and  derived  its  name 
from  the  painted  portico  (y  tra>ii\r,  crrod,  Diog. 
L.  vii.)  in  which  he  taught.  Zeno  was  followed  by 
Cleanthes  (c.  B.C.  260),  Cleanthes  by  Chrysippus 
(c.  B.C.  240).  who  was  regarded  as  the  intellectual 
founder  of  the  Stoic  system  (Diog.  L.  vii.  183). 
Stoicism  soon  found  an  entrance  at  Rome.  Dio 
genes  Babylonins,  a  scholar  of  Chrysippus,  was 
its  representative  in  the  famous  embassy  of  philo 
sophers,  B.C.  161  (Aulus  Gellius,  N.A.  vii.  14); 
and  not  long  afterwards  Panaetius  was  the  friend 
of  Scipio  Africanus  the  younger,  and  many  other 
leading  men  at  Rome.  His  successor  Posidonius 
numbered  Cicero  and  Pompey  among  his  scholars  ; 
and  under  the  Empire  stoicism  was  not  unnaturally 
connected  with  republican  virtue.  Seneca  (fA.D. 
65)  and  Musonius  (Tac.  Hist.  iii.  81)  did  much 
to  popularize  the  ethical  teaching  of  the  school  by 
their  writings  ;  but  the  true  glory  of  the  later 
Stoics  is  Epictetus  (fc.  A.D.  11 5),  "the  records  of 
whose  doctrine  form  the  noblest  monument  of 


who  endeavoured  to  shape  his  public  life  by  their 
guidance.  With  this  last  effort  stoicism  reached 
its  climax  and  its  end.  [PHILOSOPHY.] 

The  ethical  system  of  the  Stoics  has  been  com 
monly  supposed  to  have  a  close  connexion  with 
Christian  morality  (Gataker,  Antoninus  Praef.  ; 
Meyer,  Stoic.  Eth.  c.  Christ,  compar.,  1823),  and 
the  outward  similarity  of  isolated  precepts  is  very 
close  and  worthy  of  notice.*  But  the  morality  of 
stoicism  is  essentially  based  on  pride,  that  of 
Christianity  on  humility  ;  the  one  upholds  indi 
vidual  independence,  the  other  absolute  faith  in 
another  ;  the  one  looks  for  consolation  in  the  issue 
of  fate,  the  other  in  Providence  ;  the  one  is  limited 
by  periods  of  cosmical  ruin,  the  other  is  consum 
mated  in  a  personal  resurrection  (Acts  xvii.  18). 

But  in  spite  of  the  fundamental  error  of  stoicism, 
which  lies  in  a  supreme  egotism,b  the  teaching  of 
this  school  gave  a  wide  currency  to  the  noble  doc 
trines  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  (Cleanthes,  Hymn. 
31—38;  comp.  Acts  xvii.  28),  the  common  bonds 
of  mankind  (Anton,  iv.  4),  the  sovereignty  of  the 
soul.  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that  the  earlier 
Stoics  were  very  closely  connected  with  the  East, 
from  which  much  of  the  form,  if  not  of  the  essence, 
of  their  doctrines  seems  to  have  been  derived.  Zeno 
himself  was  a  native  of  Citium,  one  of  the  oldest 
Phoenician  settlements.  [CHITTIM.]  His  successor 
Chvysippus  came  from  Soli  or  Tarsus  ;  and  Tarsus 
is  mentioned  as  the  birthplace  of  a  second  Zeno  and 
Antipater.  Diogenes  came  from  Seleucia  in  Baby 
lonia,  Posidonius  from  Apamea  in  Syria,  and  Epic 
tetus  from  the  Phrygian  Hierapolis  (comp.  Sir  A. 
Grant,  The  Ancient  Stoics,  Oxford  Essays,  1858, 
p.  82). 

The  chief  authorities  for  the  opinions  of  the 
Stoics  are  Diog.  Laert.  vii.  ;  Cicero,  De  Fin.  ; 
Plutarch,  De  Stoic,  repugn.  ;  De  pkic.  Philos.  adv. 
Stoic.',  Sextus  Empiricus;  and  the  remains  of  Seneca, 
Epictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  Gataker,  in  his 
edition  of  the  Meditations  of  M.  Aurelius,  has 
traced  out  with  the  greatest  care  the  parallels  which 
they  offer  to  Christian  doctrine.  [B.  F.  W.] 

STOMACHEB  (?^n3).    The  Heb.  pethtgil 

describes  some  article  of  female  attire  (Is.  iii.  24), 
the  character  of  which  is  a  mere  matter  of  con- 
iecture.  The  LXX.  describes  it  as  a  variegated 
bunic  (-^nitiv  f*.€ffoir6p<pvpos}  ;  the  Vulg.  as  a 
species  of  .girdle  (fascia  pectoralis).  The  word  is 
evidently  a  compound,  but  its  elements  are  uncer 
tain.  Gesenius  (Thes.  p.  1137)  derives  it  from 
lQ,  with  very  much  the  same  sense  as  in 


*  E.  g.  Seneca,  De  Clem.  $5 :  "  Peccavimus  omnes  .  .  . . 
n«c  deliquimus  tantum  sed  ad  extremum  aevi  delin- 
qnemus."  Rom.  iii.  23  :  "  Peccaverunt  amnes  " 

Ep.  1. :  "Quern  mihi  dabis qui  intelligat  se  quotidie 

nori  ?"  Rom.  zv.  31 :  "  Quotidie  marior." 

De  Fit.  beata.  $  12 :  "  Laudant  enim  [Epicurei]  ea  quibus 
trufcescebant  ct  vitio  gloriaiitur."  Phil.  iii.  19 :  "  Quorora 
....  glorift  in  oonfnsione  eonnu." 


the  LXX.  ;  Saalschiitz  (Archaol.  i.  30)  from  'TIB 
7*3,  with  the  sense  of  "  undisguised  lust,"  as  applied 
to  some  particular  kind  of  dress.  Other  explana 
tions  are  given  in  Gesen.  Thes.  1.  c.  [W.  L.  B.] 


STONES 


The  uses  to  which  stones 


were  applied  in  ancient  Palestine  were  very  various. 

Id.  $15  :  "  In  regno  nati  sumus  :  Deo  parere  libertas  est." 
Epict.  Diss.  ii.  17,  22  :   oTrAw?  ^Sev  oAAo  0eAe  17  a  6 
0ebs  0e'Aei. 

Anton,  vii.   74  :    ftrj    o\>v    *a/u,ve    w^eAov/ueyos    ev   (5 


b  Seneca,  De  Vit.  beat.  $8  :  "  Incorruptns  vir  sit  extern!* 
et  insuperahilis  miratorque  tantum  tui,  fldens  anirao  atq  ue 
In  utrumque  paratns  artifex  vitive." 


STONES 

1.  They  were  used  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of 
building,  and  in  this  respect  the  most  noticeable 
point  is  the  very  large  size  to  which  thwy  occasion 
ally  run  (Mark  xiii.  1).  Robinson  gives  the  dimen 
sions  of  one  as  24  feet  long  by  6  feet  broad  and  3 
feet  high  (Res.  i.  233 ;  see  also  p.  284,  note).  For 
most  public  edifices  hewn  stones  were  used :  an 
exception  was  made  in  regard  to  altars,  which  were 
to  be  built  of  unhewn  stone  (Ex.  xx.  25 ;  Deut. 
xxvii.  5;  Josh.  viii.  31),  probably  as  being  in  a 
more  natural  state.  The  Phoenicians  were  parti 
cularly  famous  for  their  skill  in  hewing  stone 
(2  Sam.  v.  11  ;  IK.  v.  18).  Stones  were  selected 
of  certain  colours  in  order  to  form  ornamental 
string-courses :  in  1  Chr.  xxix.  2  we  find  enume 
rated  "  onyx  stones  and  stones  to  be  set,  glistering 
stones  (lit.  stones  of  eye-paint],  and  of  divers  colours 
(i.  e.  streaked  with  veins),  and  all  manner  of  pre 
cious  stones,  and  marble  stones  "  (comp.  2  Chr.  iii. 
6).  They  were  also  employed  for  pavements  (2  K. 
.xvi.  17  ;  comp.  Esth.  i.  6).  2.  Large  stones  were 
used  for  closing  the  entrances  of  caves  (Josh.  x. 
18;  Dan.  vi.  17),  sepulchres  (Matt,  xxvii.  60; 
John  xi.  38,  xx.  1),  and  springs  (Gen.  xxix.  2). 

3.  Flint-stones  *  occasionally  served  the  purpose  of 
a  knife,  particularly  for  circumcision  and   similar 
objects  (Ex.  iv.  25 ;  Josh.  v.  2,  3 ;    comp.  Herod, 
ii.  86  ;  Plutarch,  Nicias,  13  ;  Catull.  Carm.  Ixii.  5). 

4.  Stones  were  further  used  as  a  munition  of  war  for 
slings  (1  Sam.  xvii.  40,  49),  catapults  (2  Chr.  xxvi. 
14),  and  bows  (Wisd.  v.  22 ;   comp.  1   Mace.  vi. 
51;;  as  boundary  marks  (Deut.  xix.  14,  xxvii.  17; 
Job  xxiv.  2  ;  Prov.  xxii.  28,  xxiii.  10) ;  such  were 
probably  the  stone  of  Bohan  (Josh.  xv.  6,  xviii.  17), 
the  stone  of  Abel  (1   Sam.  vi.  15,  18),  the  stone 
Ezel  (1  Sam.  xx.  19),  the  great  stone  by  Gibeon 
(2  Sam.  xx.  8),  and  the  stone  Zoheleth  (1  K.  i.  9)  ; 
as  weights  for  scales  (Deut.  xxv.  13;  Prov.  xvi. 
11);    and  for   mills   (2  Sam.  xi.  21).      5.  Large 
stones  were  set  up  to  commemorate  any  remarkable 
events,  as  by  Jacob  at  Bethel  after   his  interview 
with  Jehovah  (Gen.  xxviii.  18,  xxxv.  14),  and  again 
when  he  made  the  covenant  with  Lahan  (Gen.  xxxi. 
45)  ;  by  Joshua  after  the  passage  of  the  Jordan 
(Josh.  iv.  9) ;  and  by  Samuel  in  token  of  his  vic 
tory  over  the  Philistines  (1  Sam.  vii.  12).   Similarly 
the  Egyptian  monarchs  erected  their  stelae  at  the 
farthest  point  they  reached  (Herod,  ii.  106).    Such 
stones  were  occasionally  consecrated  by  anointing,  as 
instanced  in  the  stone  erected  at  Bethel  (Gen.  xxviii. 
18).     A  similar  practice  existed  in  heathen  coun 
tries,  and  by  a  singular  coincidence  these  stones 
were  described  in  Phoenicia  by  a  name  very  similar 
to  Bethel,  viz.  baetylia  (&aiTv\ia),  whence  it  has 
been  surmised  that  the  heathen  name  was  derived 
from  the  Scriptural  one,  or  vice  versa  (Kalisch's 
Comm.  in  Gen.  1.  c.).     But  neither  are  the  names 
actually  identical,  nor    are    the   associations   of  a 
kindred  nature  ;  the  baetylia  were  meteoric  stones, 
and  derived  their  sanctity  from  the  belief  that  they 
had  fallen  from  heaven,  whereas  the  stone  at  Bethel 
was  simply  commemorative.     [BETHEL ;    IDOL.J 
The  only  point  of  resemblance  between  the  two 
consists  in  the  custom  of  anointing — the  anointed 
stones  (\iBoi  \tirapoi~),  which  are  frequently  men 
tioned  by  ancient  writers  as  objects  of  divine  honour 
vArnob.  adv.  Gent.  i.  39  ;   Euseb.  Praep.  Evan.  i. 


STONES 


13B1 


10,  §18  ;  Plin.  xxxvii.  51),  being  probably  aerolites. 
6.  That  the  worship  of  stones  prevailed  among  the 
heathen  nations  surrounding  Palestine,  and  was 
borrowed  from  them  by  apostate  Israelites,  appears 
from  Is.  Ivii.  6,  according  to  the  ordinary  rendering 
of  the  passage  ;  but  the  original  b  adndts  of  another 
sense,  "  in  the  smooth  (clear  of  wood)  places  of  the 
valley,"  and  no  reliance  can  be  placed  on  a  peculiar 
term  introduced  partly  for  the  sake  of  alliteration. 
The  eben  mascithf  noticed  in  Lev.  xxvi.  1  (A.  V. 
"  image  of  stone"),  has  again  been  identified  with 
the  baetylia,  the  doubtful  term  mascith  (comp.  Num. 
xxxiii.  52,  "picture;"  Ez.  viii.  12,  "imagery") 
being  supposed  to  refer  to  devices  engraven  on  the 
stone.  [IDOL.]  The  statue  (matstsebdh  A)  of  Baal 
is  said  to  have  been  of  stone  and  of  a  conical  shape 
(Movers,  Phoen.  i.  673),  but  this  is  hardly  recon- 
cileable  with  the  statement  of  its  being  burnt  in 
2  K.  x.  26  (the  correct  reading  of  which  would  be 
matstsebdh,  and  not  matstsebotli).  7.  Heaps  oi' 
stones  were  piled  up  on  various  occasions,  as  in  token 
of  a  treaty  (Gen.  xxxi.  46),  in  which  case  a  certain 
amount  of  sanctity  probably  attached  to  them  (cf. 
Horn.  Od.  xvi.  47 1 ) ;  or  over  the  grave  of  some 
notorious  offender  (Josh.  vii.  26,  viii.  29 ;  2  Sam. 
xviii.  17 ;  see  Propert.  iv.  5,  75,  for  a  similar  cus 
tom  among  the  Romans).  The  size  of  some  of  these 
heaps  becomes  very  great  from  the  custom  preva 
lent  among  the  Arabs  that  each  passer-by  adds  a 
stone ; e  Burckhardt  mentions  one  near  Damascus 
20  ft.  long,  2  ft,  high,  and  3  ft.  broad  (Syria, 
p.  46).  8.  The  "  white  stone  "  noticed  in  Rev.  ii. 
17  has  been  variously  regarded  as  referring  to  the 
pebble  of  acquittal  used  in  the  Greek  courts  (Ov. 
Met.  xv.  41 ; ;  to  the  lot  cast  in  elections  in  Greece ; 
to  both  these  combined,  the  white  conveying  the 
notion  of  acquittal,  the  stone  that  of  election 
(Bengel,  Gnom.}  ;  to  the  stones  in  the  high-priest's 
breastplate  (Ziillig)  ;  to  the  tickets  presented  to  the 
victors  at  the  public  games,  securing  them  main 
tenance  at  the  public  expense  (Hammond) ;  or, 
lastly,  to  the  custom  of  writing  on  stones  (Alford 
in  1.  c.).  9.  The  use  of  stones  for  tablets  is  alluded 
to  in  Ex:  xxiv.  12,  and  Josh.  viii.  32.  10.  Stones 
for  striking  Cre  are  mentioned  in  2  Mace.  x.  3.  11. 
Stones  were  prejudicial  to  the  operations  of  hus 
bandry  :  hence  the  custom  of  spoiling  an  enemy's 
field  by  throwing  quantities  of  stones  upon  it  (2  K. 
iii.  19,  25),  and,  again,  the  necessity  of  gathering 
stones  previous  to  cultivation  (Is.  v.  2)  :  allusion  is 
made  to  both  these  practices  in  Eccl.  iii.  5  ("a  time 
to  cast  away  stones,  and  a  time  to  gather  stones  "). 
12.  The  notice  in  Zech.  xii.  3  of  the  "burdensome 
stone"  is  referred  by  Jerome  to  the  custom  of 
lifting  stones  as  an  exercise  of  strength,  which  he 
describes  as  being  practised  in  Judaea  in  his  day 
(comp.  Eccl  us.  vi.  21)  ;  but  it  may  equally  well 
be  explained  of  a  large  corner-stone  as  a  symbol 
of  strength  (Is.  xxviii.  16). 

Stones  are  used  metaphorically  to  denote  hardness 
or  insensibility  (1  Sam.  xxv.  37*;  Ez.  xi.  19,  xxxvi. 
26),  as  well  as  firmness  or  strength,  as  in  Gen. 
xlix.  24,  where  "  the  stone  of  Israel  "  is  equivalent 
to  "  the  rock  of  Israel  "  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  3  ;  Is.  xxx. 
29).  The  members  of  the  Church  are  called  "  living 
stones,"  as  contributing  to  rear  that  living  temple 
in  which  Christ,  himself  "  a  living  stone,"  is  the 


e  A  reii'ience  to  this  practice  is  supposed  by  fiesenius 


to  be  contained  in  Prov.  xxvi.  8,  which  he  renders  *'  as  a 
bag  of  gems  in  a  heap  of  stones"  (Thes.  p.  1263).  The 
Vulgate  has  a  curious  version  of  this  passage  « Slcnt  qnJ 
mittlt  lapidem  in  acervmn  Mercurii." 


1382         STONES,  PRECIOUS 

;hief  or  head  of  the  comer  (Eph.  ii.  20-23,  1  Pet. 
ii.  4-8).  [W.  L.  B.] 

STONES,  PKECIOTJS.  The  reader  is  re 
ferred  to  the  separate  articles,  such  as  AGATE, 
CARBUNCLE,  SARDONYX,  &c.,  for  such  informa 
tion  as  it  has  been  possible  to  obtain  on  the  various 
gems  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  The  identification 
of  many  of  the  Hebrew  names  of  precious  stones  is 
a  task  of  considerable  difficulty  :  sometimes  we  have 
no  further  clue  to  aid  us  in  the  determination  of  a 
name  than  the  mere  derivation  of  the  word,  which 
derivation  is  always  too  vague  to  be  of  any  service, 
as  it  merely  expresses  some  quality  often  common 
to  many  precious  stones.  As  far,  however,  as 
regards  the  stones  of  the  high-priest's  breastplate, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  authority  of 
Josephus,  who  had  frequent  opportunities  of  seeing 
it  worn,  is  preferable  to  any  other.  The  Vulgate 
agrees  with  his  nomenclature,  and  in  Jerome's  time 
the  breastplate  was  still  to  be  inspected  in  the 
Temple  of  Concord  :  hence  this  agreement  of  the 
two  is  of  great  weight.*  The  modern  Arabic  names 
of  the  more  usual  gems,  which  have  probably  re 
mained  fixed  the  last  2000  years,  afford  us  also  some 
approximations  to  the  Hebrew  nomenclature;  still, 
as  it  was  intimated  above,  there  is  much  that  can 
only  be  regarded  as  conjecture  in  attempts  at  identi 
fication.  Precious  stones  are  frequently  alluded  to 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  they  were  known  and  very 
highly  valued  in  the  earliest  times.  The  onyx- 
stone,  fine  specimens  of  which  are  still  of  great 
value,  is  expressly  mentioned  by  Moses  as  being 
found  in  the  land  ofHavilah.  The  sard  and  sard 
onyx,  the  amethyst  or  rose-quartz,  with  many 
agates  and  other  varieties  of  quartz,  were  doubtless 
the  best  known  and  most  readily  procured.  "  Onyx- 
stones,  and  stones  to  be  set,  glistering  stones  and 
of  divers  colours,  and  all  manner  of  precious 
stones,"  were  among  the  articles  collected  by  David 
for  the  temple  (1  Chr.  xxix.  2).  The  Tyrians 
traded  in  precious  stones  supplied  by  Syria  (Ez. 
xxvii.  16),  and  the  robes  of  their  king  were  covered 
with  the  most  brilliant  gems.  The  merchants  of 
Sheba  and  Raamah  in  South  Arabia,  and  doubtless 
India  and  Ceylon,  supplied  the  markets  of  Tyre 
with  various  precious  stones. 

The  art  of  engraving  on  precious  stones  was 
known  from  the  very  earliest  times.  Sir  G. 
Wilkinson  says  (A.ic.  Egypt,  ii.  67,  Lond.  1854), 
"  The  Israelites  learnt  the  art  of  cutting  and  en 
graving  stones  from  the  Egyptians."  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  they  did  learn  much  of  the  art  from 
this  skilful  nation,  but  it  is  probable  that  it  was 
known  to  them  long  before  their  sojourn  in  Egypt  ; 
for  we  read  in  Gen.  xxxviii.  18,  that  when  Tamar 
desired  a  pledge  Judah  gave  her  his  signet,  which 
we  may  safely  conclude  was  engraved  with  some 
device.  The  twelve  stones  of  the  breastplate  were 
engraved  each  one  with  the  name  of  one  of  the  tribes 
(Ex.'xxviii.  17-21).  The  two  onyx  (or  sardonyx) 
stones  which  formed  the  high-priest's  shoulder- 
pieces  were  engraved  with  the  names  of  the  twelve 
tribes,  six  on  one  stone  and  six  on  the  other,  "  with 
the  work  of  an  engraver  in  stone  like  the  engravings 
of  a  signet"  See  also  ver.  36,  "  like  the  en- 

*  The  LXX.,  Vulg.,  and  Josephus,  are  all  agreed  as  to 
Iho  names  of  the  stones  ;  there  is,  however,  some  little 
Jifference  as  to  their  relative  positions  in  the  breastplate: 


STONES,  PKECIOUS 

gravings  era  signet."     It  is  an  undecided 
whether    the   diamond    was   known    to   the   early 
nations  of  antiquity.     The  A.  V.  gives  it  as  the 

rendering  of  the  Heb.  Yah&Iom,  (D?n*),  but  it 
is  probable  that  the  jasper  is  intended.  Sir  G. 
Wilkinson  is  of  opinion  that  the  ancient  Egyptians 
were  acquainted  with  the  diamond,  and  used  it  foi 
engraving  (ii.  p.  67).  Beckmann,  on  the  other 
hand,  maintains  that  the  use  of  the  diamond  was 
unknown  even  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans:  "  I  must 
confess  that  I  have  found  no  proofs  that  the  ancients 
cut  glass  with  a  diamond "  (Hist,  of  Intentions, 
ii.  p.  87,  Bohn's  ed.).  The  substance  used  for 
polishing  precious  stones  by  the  ancient  Hebrews 
and  Egyptians  was  emery  powder  or  the  emery 
stone  (Corundum},  a  mineral  inferior  only  to  the 
diamond  in  hardness  [ADAMANT,  App.  A.].  There 
is  no  proof  that  the  diamond  was  known  to  the 
ancient  Orientals,  and  it  certainly  must  be  banished 
from  the  list  of  engraved  stones  which  made  the 
sacerdotal  breastplate  ;  for  the  diamond  can  be  cut 
only  by  abrasion  with  its  own  powder,  or  by  friction 
with  another  diamond ;  and  this,  even  in  the  hands 
of  a  well-practised  artist,  is  a  work  of  most  patient 
labour  and  of  considerable  difficulty  ;  and  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  Hebrews,  or  any  other  Oriental 
people,  were  able  to  engrave  a  name  upon  a  dia 
mond  as  upon  a  signet  ring.b  Again,  Josephus  tells 
us  (Ant.  iii.  7,  §5)  that  the  twelve  stones  of  the 
breastplate  were  of  great  size  and  extraordinary 
beauty.  We  have  no  means  of  ascertaining  their 
size ;  probably  they  were  nearly  an  inch  square : 
at  any  rate  a  diamond  only  half  that  size,  with 
the  five  letters  of  pllt  (Zebulun)  engraved  on 
it — for,  as  he  was  the  sixth  son  of  Jacob  (Gen. 
xxx.  20),  his  name  would  occupy  the  third  place 
in  the  second  row — is  quite  out  of  the  question, 
and  cannot  possibly  be  the  Yahdlom  of  the  breast 
plate. 

Perhaps  the  stone  called  "ligure"  by  the  A.V. 
has  been  the  subject  of  more  discussion  than  any 
other  of  the  precious  stones  mentioned  in  the  Bible. 
In  our  article  on  that  subject  we  were  of  opinion 
that  the  stone  denoted  was  probably  tourmaline. 
We  objected  to  the  "  hyacinth  stone  "  representing 
the  lyncurium  of  the  ancients,  because  of  its  not 
possessing  attractive  powers  in  any  marked  degree, 
as  we  supposed  and  had  been  informed  by  a  well- 
known  jeweller.  It  appears,  however,  from  a  com 
munication  kindly  made  to  us  by  Mr.  King,  that 
the  hyacinth  (zircon)  is  highly  electric  when 
rubbed.  He  states  he  is  practically  convinced  of 
this  fact,  although  he  allows  that  highly  electric 
powers  are  not  usually  attributed  to  it  by  mineralo 
gists.  Mr.  King  asserts  that  our  hyacinth  (Jacinth, 
zircon)  was  greatly  used  for  engraving  on  by 
Greeks,  Romans,  and  Persians,  and  that  numerous 
intaglios  in  it  exist  of  the  age  of  Theophrastus. 
The  ancient  hyacinthus  was  our  sapph'.re,  as 
Solinus  shows. 

Precious  stones  are  used  in  Scripture  in  a  figura 
tive  sense,  to  signify  value,  beauty,  durability, 
&c.,  in  those  objects  with  which  they  are  com 
pared  (see  Cant.  v.  14  ;  Is.  liv.  11,  12  ;  Lam.  iv. 


thus  the 


hich,  according  to  Josephus,  occupies 


the  second  place  in  the  third  row,  is  by  the  LXX.  and 
Vttlc    y¥t  In  the  third  place;   a  similar  transposition 


occurs  with  respect  to  the  ajueflvoros  and  the  a^ar^s  lit 
the  third  row. 

b  "The  artists  of  the  Renaissance  actually  succeeded 
in  engraving  on  the  diamono. ;  the  discovery  is  assigned 
to  Clement  Birago,  by  others  to  J.  da  Trezzo,  Philip  11/3 
engraver."  [_C.  VV.  King/1, 


STONING 

?  ;  Rev.  iv.  3,  xxi.  10-21).  As  to  the  precious 
stones  iu  the  breastplate  of  the  high-priest,  see 
Josephus,  Ant.  iii.  7,  §5 ;  Epiphanius,  ire  pi  T&V 
i/B'  \i6cfv  roiv  &VTUV  fv  T.  (no\.  T.  'Aaptiav,  in 
Epiphanii  Opusc.  ed.  Petavius,  ii.  p.  225-232, 
Cologne,  1682,  (this  treatise  has  been  edited 
separately  by  Conr.  Gesner,  De  omni  rennn 
fossil,  genere,  &c.  Tiguri,  1565  ;  and  by  Mat. 
Hiller,  the  author  of  the  Hierophyticon,  in  -his 
Syntagmata  Hermeneutica,  p.  83,  Tubing.  1711)  ; 
Braun,  De  Vestitu  Sacerdotum  Hebraeorum 
(Amstel.  1680,  and  2nd  ed.  1698),  lib.  ii.  capp. 
7  and  8 ;  Bellermann,  Die  Urim  und  Thummim 
die  Aeltesten  Gemrnen,  Berlin,  1824  ;  Rosenmiiiler, 
«  The  Mineralogy  of  the  Bible,'  Biblical  Cabinet, 
vol.  xxvii.  [W.  H.] 

STONING.     [PUNISHMENTS.] 

STORK  (i"lTpn,  chastddh:  translated  indif 
ferently  by  LXX.  acriSa,  H-rrofy,  epwSios,  ire\€Kav : 
Vulg.  herodio,  herodius,  milvus:  A.  V.  "stork," 
except  in  Job  xxxix.  13,  where  it  is  translated 
"  wing  "  ("  stork  "  in  the  margin).  But  there  is 
some  question  as  to  the  correct  reading  in  this 
passage.  The  LXX.  do  not  seem  to  have  recognised 
the  stork  under  the  Hebrew  term  JTVpn  ;  other 
wise  they  could  scarcely  have  missed  the  obvious 
rendering  of  ire\apy6s,  or  have  adopted  in  two  in 
stances  the  phonetic  representation  of  the  original, 
ao-iSa  (whence  no  doubt  Hesych.  &<ris,  eTSoy  6p- 
vfov}.  It  is  singular  that  a  bird  so  conspicuous 
and  familiar  as  the  stork  must  have  been  both  in 
Egypt  and  Palestine  should  have  escaped  notice  by 
the  LXX.,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  correct 
ness  of  the  rendering  of  A.  V.  The  Heb.  term  is 
derived  from  the  root  IDPI,  whence  *1DH,  "  kind- 

-     T 

ness,"  from  the  maternal  and  filial  affection  of  which 
this  bird  has  been  m  all  ages  th«  type). 


White  Stoi-k(Ci<-oniaa7&a> 


The  White  Stork  {Ciconia  alba,  L.)  is  one  of  the 
largest  and  most  conspicuous  of  land  birds,  standing 
nearly  foin  feet  high,  the  jet  black  of  its  wings  and 
Its,  bright  red  beak  and  Legs  contrasting  finely  with 


STORK 

tlie  pure  white  of  its  plumage  (Zech.  v.  9,  "  They 
had  wings  like  the  wings  of  a  stork  ").  It  is  j laced 
by  naturalists  near  the  Heron  tribe,  with  which  it 
has  some  affinity,  forming  a  connecting  link  between 
it  and  the  spoonbill  and  ibis,  like  all  of  which,  the 
stork  feeds  on  fish  and  reptiles,  especially  on  the 
latter.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  man  it  devours 
readily  all  kinds  of  offal  and  garbage.  For  this 
reason,  doubtless,  it  is  placed  in  the  list  of  unclean 
birds  by  the  Mosaic  law  (Lev.  xi.  10;  Deut.  xiv. 
18).  The  range  of  the  white  stork  extends  ovei 
the  whole  of  Europe,  except  the  British  Isles,  where 
it  is  now  only  a  rare  visitant,  and  over  Northern 
Africa  and  Asia,  as  far  at  least  as  Birmah. 

The  Black  Stork  (Cioonfa  nigra,  L.),  though  less 
abundant  in  places,  is  scarcely  less  widely  distri 
buted,  but  has  a  more  easterly  range  than  its 
congener.  Both  species  are  very  numerous  in 
Palestine,  the  white  stork  being  universally  distri 
buted,  generally  in  pairs,  over  the  whole  country, 
the  black  stork  living  in  large  flocks  after  the 
fashion  of  herons,  in  the  more  secluded  and  marshy 
districts.  The  writer  met  with  a  flock  of  upwards 
of  fifty  black  storks  feeding  near  the  west  shore  of 
the  Dead  Sea.  They  are  still  more  abundant  by 
the  Sea  of  Galilee,  where  also  the  white  stork  is 
so  numerous  as  to  be  gregarious  ;  and  in  the  swamps 
round  the  waters  of  Merom. 

While  the  black  stork  is  never  found  about  build 
ings,  but  prefers  marshy  places  in  forests,  and  breeds 
on  the  tops  of  the  loftiest  trees,  where  it  heaps  up 
its  ample  nest  far  from  the  haunts  of  man ;  the 
white  stork  attaches  itself  to  him,  and  for  the 
service  which  it  renders  in  the  destruction  of  rep 
tiles  and  the  removal  of  offal  has  been  repaid  from 
the  earliest  times  by  protection  and  reverence. 
This  is  especially  the  case  in  the  countries  where  it 
breeds.  In  the  streets  of  towns  in  Holland,  in  the 
villages  of  Denmark,  and  in  the  bazaars  of  Syria 
and  Tunis,  it  may  be  seen  stalking  gravely  among 
the  crowd,  and  wo  betide  the  stranger  either  in 
Holland  or  in  Palestine  who  should  dare  to  molest  it. 
The  claim  of  the  stork  to  protection  seems  to  have 
been  equally  recognized  by  the  ancients.  Sempr. 
Rufus,  who  first  ventured  to  bring  young  storks  to 
table,  gained  the  following  epigram,  on  the  failure  of 
his  candidature  for  the  praetorship : — 

"  Quanquam  est  duobus  elegantior  Plancis 
Suffragiorum  puncta  non  tulit  septem. 
Ciconiarum  populus  ultus  est  mortem." 

Horace  contemptuously  alludes  to  the  same  sacrilege 
in  the  lines 

"  Tutoque  ciconia  nido, 
Donee  vos  auctor  docuit  praetorius"  (Sat.  ii.  2, 49). 

Pliny  (Nat.  Hist.  x.  21)  tells  us  that  in  Thessaly 
it  was  a  capital  crime  to  kill  a  stork,  and  that  they 
were  thus  valued  equally  with  human  life,  in  con 
sequence  of  their  warfare  against  serpents.  They 
were  not  less  honoured  in  Egypt.  It  is  said  that 
at  Fez  in  Morocco,  there  is  an  endowed  hospital  for 
the  purpose  of  assisting  and  nursing  sick  cranes  and 
storks,  and  of  burying  them  when  dead.  The  Maro- 
oains  hold  that  storks  are  human  beings  in  that 
form  from  some  distant  islands  (see  note  to  Brown's 
Pseud.  Epid.  iii.  27,  §3).  The  Turks  in  Syria  point 
to  the  stork  as  a  true  follower  of  Islam,  from  the 
preference  he  always  shows  for  the  Turkish  and  Arab 
over  the  Christian  quarters.  For  this  undoubted 
fact,  however,  there  may  be  two  other  reasons — the 
greater  amount  of  offal  to  be  found  about  the  Moslem 
houses,  and  the  persecutions  suffered  from  the  seep 


1384 


STOKK 


tical  G reeks,  who  rob  the  nests,  and  show  none  of 
the  gentle  consideration  towards  the  lower  animals 
which  often  redeems  the  Turkish  character.  Strick 
land,  Mem.  and  Papers,  vol.  ii.  p.  227,  states  that 
it  is  said  to  have  quite  deserted  Greece,  since  the 
expulsion  of  its  Mohammedan  protectors.  The  ob 
servations  of  the  writer  corroborated  this  remark. 
Similarly  the  rooks  were  said  to  be  so  attached 
to  the  old  regime,  that  most  of  them  left  France  at 
the  Revolution  ;  a  true  statement,  and  accounted  for 
by  the  clearing  of  most  of  the  fine  old  timber  which 
used  to  surround  the  chateaux  of  the  noblesse. 
The  derivation  of  JlTpn  points  to  the  paternal 

and  filial  attachment  of  which  the  stork  seems  to 
have  been  a  type  among  the  Hebrews  no  less  than 
the  Greeks  and  Romans.  It  was  believed  that  the 
young  repaid  the  care  of  their  parents  by  attaching 
themselves  to  them  for  life,  and  tending  them  in 
old  age.  Hence  it  was  commonly  called  among 
the  Latins  "avis  pia."  (See  Laburnus  in  Petronius 
Arbiter  ;  Aristotle,  Hist.  Anim.  ix.  14  ;  and  Pliny, 
Nat.  Hist.  x.  32.) 

Pliny  also  notices  their  habit  of  always  returning 
to  the  same  nest.  Probably  there  is  no  foundation 
for  the  notion  that  the  stork  so  far  differs  from  other 
birds  as  to  recognise  its  parents  after  it  has  become 
mature ;  but  of  the  fact  of  these  birds  returning 
year  after  year  to  the  same  spot,  there  is  no  ques 
tion.  Unless  when  molested  by  man,  storks'  nests 
all  over  the  world  are  rebuilt,  or  rather  repaired, 
for  generations  on  the  same  site,  and  in  Holland  the 
same  individuals  have  been  recognised  for  many  years. 
That  the  parental  attachment  of  the  stork  is  very 
strong,  has  been  proved  on  many  occasions.  The 
tale  of  the  stork  which,  at  the  burning  of  the  town 
of  Delft,  vainly  endeavoured  to  carry  off  her  young, 
and  at  length  sacrificed  her  life  with  theirs  rather 
than  desert  them,  has  been  often  repeated,  and  seems 
corroborated  by  unquestionable  evidence.  Its  watch 
fulness  over  its  young  is  unremitting,  and  often 
shown  in  a  somewhat  droll  manner.  The  writer 
was  once  in  camp  near  an  old  ruined  tower  in  the 
plain  of  Zana,  south  of  the  Atlas,  where  a  pair  of 
storks  had  their  nest.  The  four  young  might  often 
be  seen  from  a  little  distance,  surveying  the  prospect 
from  their  lonely  height ;  but  whenever  any  of  the 
human  party  happened  to  stroll  near  the  tower, 
one  of  the  old  storks,  invisible  before,  would  in 
stantly  appear,  and.  lighting  on  the  nest,  put  its 
foot  gently  on  the  ivrvcks  of  all  the  young,  so  as  to 
hold  them  down  out  of  sight  till  the  stranger  had 
passed,  snapping  its  bill  meanwhile,  and  assuming 
a  grotesque  air  of  indifferenc0  and  unconsciousness 
of  there  being  anything  under  its  charge. 

Few  migratory  birds  are  more  punctual  to  the 
time  of  their  reappearance  than  the  white  stork,  or 
at  least,  from  its  familiarity  and  conspicuousness, 
its  migrations  have  been  more  accurately  noted. 
"  The  stork  in  the  henven  knoweth  her  appointed 
times"  (see  Virgil,  Georg.  ii.  319,  and  Petron. 
Sat.).  Pliny  states  that  it  is  rarely  seen  in  Asia 
Minor  after  the  middle  of  August.  This  is  pro 
bably  a  slight  error,  as  the  ordinary  date  of  its 
arrival  in  Holland  is  the  second  week  in  April,  and 
it  remains  until  October.  In  Denmark  Judge  Boie 
noted  its  arrival  from  1820  to  1847.  The  earliest 
date  was  the  26th  March,  and  the  latest  the  12th 
April  (Kjaerbolling,  Danmarks  Fugle,  p.  262).  In 
Palestine  it  has  been  observed  to  arrive  on  the  22nd 
March.  Immense  flocks  of  storks  may  be  seen  on 
the  banks  of  the  Upper  Nile  during  winter,  and 


STORK 

some  few  further  west,  in  the  Sahara ;  L  at  it  does 
not  appear  to  migrate  very  far  soutb,  ui  less  indeed 
the  birds  that  are  seen  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
in  December  be  the  same  which  visit  Europe. 

The  stork  has  no  note,  and  the  only  sound  it 
emits  is  that  caused  by  the  sudden  snapping  of  its 
long  mandibles,  well  expressed  by  the  epithet "  crota- 
listria"  in  Petron.  (quasi  /cporaAi^oj,  to  rattle  the 
castanets).  From  the  absence  of  voice  probably 
arose  the  error  alluded  to  by  Pliny,  "Sunt  qui 
ciconiis  non  inesse  linguas  confirment." 

Some  unnecessary  difficulty  has  been  raised  re 
specting  the  expression  in  Ps.  civ.  17,  "  As  for  the 
stork,  the  fir-trees  are  her  house."  In  the  west  of 
Europe  the  home  of  the  stork  is  connected  with 
the  dwellings  of  man,  and  in  the  East,  as  the  eagle 
is  mentally  associated  with  the  most  sublime  scenes 
in  nature,  so,  to  the  traveller  at  least,  is  the  stork 
with  the  ruins  of  man's  noblest  works.  Amid  the 
desolation  of  his  fallen  cities  throughout  Eastern 
Europe  and  the  classic  portions  of  Asia  and  Africa, 
we  are  sure  to  meet  with  them  surmounting  his 
temples,  his  theatres  or  baths.  It  is  the  same  in 
Palestine.  A  pair  of  storks  have  possession  of  the 
only  tall  piece  of  ruin  in  the  plain  of  Jericho ;  they 
are  the  only  tenants  of  the  noble  tower  of  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion  at  Lydda ;  and  they  gaze  on  the 
plain  of  Sharon  from  the  lofty  tower  of  Ramleh 
(the  ancient  Arimathea).  So  they  have  a  pillar 
at  Tiberias,  and  a  corner  of  a  ruin  at  Nebi  Mousseh. 
And  no  doubt  in  ancient  times  the  sentry  shared 
the  watch-tower  of  Samaria  or  of  Jezreel  with  the 
cherished,  storks.  But  the  instinct  of  the  stork 
seems  to  be  to  select  the  loftiest  and  most  con 
spicuous  spot  he  can  find  where  his  huge  nest  may 
be  supported  ;  and  whenever  he  can  combine  this 
taste  with  his  instinct  for  the  society  of  man,  he 
naturally  selects  a  tower  or  a  roof.  In  lands  of 
ruins,  which  from  their  neglect  and  want  of  drainage 
supply  him  with  abundance  of  food,  he  finds  a 
column  or  a  solitary  arch  the  most  secure  position 
for  his  nest ;  but  where  neither  towers  nor  ruins 
abound  he  does  not  hesitate  to  select  a  tall  tree,  as 
both  storks,  swallows,  and  many  other  birds  must 
have  done  before  they  were  tempted  by  the  artificial 
conveniences  of  man's  buildings  to  desert  their  na 
tural  places  of  nidification.  Thus  the  golden  eagle 
builds,  according  to  circumstances,  in  clitf's,  on  trees, 
or  even  on  the  ground ;  and  the  common  heron, 
which  generally  associates  on  the  tops  of  the  tallest 
trees,  builds  in  Westmoreland  and  in  Galway  on 
bushes.  It  is  therefore  needless  to  interpret  the 
text  of  the  stork  merely  perching  on  trees.  It  pro 
bably  was  no  less  numerous  in  Palestine  when 
David  wrote  than  now ;  but  the  number  of  suitable 
towers  must  have  been  far  fewer,  and  it  would 
therefore  resort  to  trees.  Though  it  dees  not  fre 
quent  trees  in  South  Judaea,  yet  it  still  builds  on 
trees  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  according  to  several 
travellers ;  and  the  writer  may  remark,  that  while 
he  has  never  seen  the  nest  except  on  towers  or 
pillars  in  that  land  of  ruins,  Tunis,  the  only  nest 
he  ever  saw  in  Morocco  was  on  a  tree.  Varro 
(Re  Rustica,  iii.  5)  observes,  "  Advenae  volucres 
pullos  faciunt,  in  agro  ciconiac,  in  tecto  hirundines." 
All  modern  authorities  give  instances  cf  the  white 
stork  building  on  trees.  Degland  mentions  several 
pairs  which  still  breed  in  a  marsh  near  Chalons- 
sur-Marne  (Orn.  Europ.  ii.  153).  Kjaerbolling 
makes  a  similar  statement  with  respect  to  Den 
mark,  and  Nillson  also  as  to  Sweden.  BSdekei 
observes  "  that  in  Germany  the  whit*  stoik  buildr 


STRAIN  AT 

it;  tiit  gables,  &c.,  and  in  trees,  chiefly  the  tops  of 
poplars  and  the  strong  upper  branches  of  the  oak, 
binding  the  branches  together  with  twigs,  turf,  and 
earth,  and  covering  the  flat  surface  with  straw, 
moss,  and  feathers  "  (Eier  Eur.  pi.  xxxvi.). 

The  black  stork,  no  less  common  in  Palestine, 
has  never  relinquished  its  natural  habit  of  building 
upon  trees.  This  species,  in  the  north-eastern  por 
tion  of  the  land,  is  the  most  abundant  of  the  two 
(Banner's  Obs.  iii.  323).  Of  either,  however,  the 
expression  may  be  taken  literally,  that  "  the  fir-trees 
are  a  dwelling  for  the  stork."  [H.  B.  T.] 

STRAIN  AT.  The  A.  V.  of  1611  renders 
Matt,  xxiii.  24,  "  Ye  blind  guides!  which  strain  at 
A  gnat,  and  swallow  a  camel."  There  can  be  little 
doubt,  as  Dean  Trench  has  supposed,  that  this  ob 
scure  phrase  is  due  to  a  printer's  error,  and  that 
the  true  reading  is  "  strain  out."  Such  is  the  sense 
of  the  Greek  $iv\i£eiv,  as  used  by  Plutarch  (Op. 
Mor.  p.  692  D,  Symp.  Probl  vi.  7,  §1)  and  Dios- 
corides  (ii.  86),  viz.  to  clarify  by  passing  through 
a  strainer  (vAicr-r^p).  "  Strain  out,"  is  the  reading 
of  Tyndale's  (  1  539)  ,  Cranmer's  (1539),  the  Bishops' 
(1568),  and  the  Geneva  (1557)  Bibles,  and  "  strain 
at,"  which  is  neither  correct  nor  intelligible,  could 
only  have  crept  into  our  A.  V.,  and  been  allowed 
to  remain  there,  by  an  oversight.  Dean  Trench 
gives  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  passage  from 
a  private  letter  written  to  him  by  a  recent  traveller 
in  North  Africa,  who  says  :  "  Jn  a  ride  from  Tan 
gier  to  Tetuan,  I  observed  that  a  Moorish  soldier 
who  accompanied  me,  when  he  drank,  always  un 
folded  the  end  of  his  turban  and  placed  it  over  the 
mouth  of  his  bota,  drinking  through  the  muslin,  to 
strain  out  the  gnats,  whose  larvae  swarm  in  the 
water  of  that  country  "  (  On  the  Auth.  Vers.  of  the 
N.  T.  pp.  172,  173).  If  one  might  conjecture  the 
cause  which  led,  even  erroneously,  to  the  substitu 
tion  of  at  for  out,  it  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the 
marginal  note  of  the  Geneva  Version,  which  explains 
the  verse  thus  :  "  Ye  stay  at  that  which  is  nothing, 
and  let  pass  that  whicli  is  of  greater  importance." 


STRANGER 


1385 


STRANGER  (13,  aPfl).  A  "stranger"  in 
the  technical  sense  of  the  term  may  be  defined  to  be 
a  pei-son  of  foreign,  t.  e.  non-Israelitish,  extraction 
resident  within  the  limits  of  the  promised  land. 
He  was  distinct  from  the  proper  "  foreigner,"  a 
inasmuch  as  the  latter  still  belonged  to  another 
country,  and  would  only  visit  Palestine  as  a  tra 
veller  :  he  was  still  more  distinct  from  the  "  na 
tions,"  b  or  non-Israelite  peoples,  who  held  no 
relationship  with  the  chosen  people  of  God.  The 
term  answers  most  nearly  to  the  Greek  fj.€ToiKos, 
and  may  be  compared  with  our  expression  "  natu 
ralized  foreigner,"  in  as  far  as  this  implies  a  certain 
political  status  in  the  country  where  the  foreigner 
resides  :  it  is  opposed  to  one  "  born  in  the  land,"  c 
or,  as  the  term  more  properly  means,  "  not  trans 
planted,"  in  the  same  way  that  a  naturalized 
foreigner  is  opposed  to  a  native.  The  terms  applied 
to  the  "  stranger  "  have  special  reference  to  the  fact 
of  his  residing  d  in  the  land.  The  existence  of  such 


d  "13,  Hl^in.  These  terms  appear  to  describe,  not 
two  different  classes  of  strangers,  but  the  stranger  under 
two .  different  aspects,  g&r  rather  implying  his  foreign 
origin,  or  the  fact  of  his  having  turned  asifa  to  abide 
with  another  people,  tdsltab  implying  his  permanent  re- 
sidcnce  in  the  land  of  his  adoption.  Winer  (Realicb 
•*  Frtnkle  '*  regards  the  latter  as  equivalent  .0  hireling. 


a  class  of  persons  among  the  Israelites  is  e&sily 
accounted  for :  the  "  mixed  multitude "  that  ac 
companied  them  out  of  Egypt  (Mx.  xii.  38)  formed 
one  element ;  the  Canaanitish  population,  whicb 
was  never  wholly  extirpated  from  their  native  soil, 
formed  another  and  a  still  more  important  one; 
captives  taken  in  war  formed  a  third  ;  fugitives, 
hired  servants,  merchants,  &c.,  formed  a  tburth. 
The  number  from  these  various  sources  must  havt 
been  at  all  times  very  considerable;  the  census  of 
them  in  Solomon's  time  gave  a  return  of  153,600 
males  (2  Chr.  ii.  17),  which  was  equal  to  about  a 
tenth  of  the  whole  population.  The  enactments 
of  the  Mosaic  Law,  which  regulated  the  political 
and  social  position  of  resident  strangers,  were  con 
ceived  in  a  spirit  of  great  liberality.  With  the 
exception  of  the  Moabites  and  Ammonites  (Dent, 
xxiii.  3),  all  nations  were  admissible  to  the  rights 
of  citizenship  under  certain  conditions.  It  would 
appear,  indeed,  to  be  a  consequence  of  the  prohibition 
of  intermarriage  with  the  Canaanites  (Deut.  vii.  3), 
that  these  would  be  excluded  from  the  rights  of 
citizenship ;  but  the  Rabbinical  view  that  this  ex 
clusion  was  superseded  in  the  case  of  proselytes 
seems  highly  probable,  as  we  find  Doeg  the  Edomite 
(1  Sam.  xxi.  7,  xxii.  9),  Uriah  the  Hittite  (2  Sam. 
xi.  6),  and  Araunah  the  Jebusite  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  18), 
enjoying  to  all  appearance  the  full  rights  of  citizen 
ship.  Whether  a  stranger  could  ever  become  legally 
a  landowner  is  a  question  about  which  there  may 
be  doubt.  Theoretically  the  whole  of  the  soil  was 
portioned  out  among  the  twelve  tribes,  and  Ezekiel 
notices  it  as  a  peculiarity  of  the  division  which  he 
witnessed  in  vision,  that  the  strangers  were  to  share 
the  inheritance  with  the  Israelites,  and  should  thus 
become  as  those  "  bom  in  the  country "  (Ez.  xh'ii. 
22).  Indeed  the  term  "stranger"  is  more  than 
once  applied  in  a  pointed  manner  to  signify  one 
who  was  not  a  landowner  (Gen.  xxiii.  4;  Lev.  xxv. 
23)  ;  while  on  the  other  hand  ezrach  (A.  V.  "  born 
in  the  land")  may  have. reference  to  the  possession 
of  the  soil,  as  it  is  borrowed  from  the  image  of  a 
tree  not  transplanted,  and  so  occupying  its  native 
soil.  The  Israelites,  however,  never  succeeded  in 
obtaining  possession  of  the  whole,  and  it  is  possible 
that  the  Canaanitish  occupants  may  in  course  of 
time  have  been  recognised  as  "  strangers,"  and  had 
the  right  of  retaining  their  land  conceded  to  them. 
There  was  of  course  nothing  to  prevent  a  Canaanite 
from  becoming  the  mortgagee  in  possession  of  a 
plot,  but  this  would  not  constitute  him  a  proper 
landowner,  inasmuch  as  he  would  lose  all  interest 
in  the  property  when  the  year  of  Jubilee  came 
round.  That  they  possessed  land  in  one  of  these 
two  capacities  is  clear  from  the  case  of  Araunah 
above  cited.  The  stranger  appears  to  have  been 
eligible  to  all  civil  offices,  that  of  king  excepted 
(Deut.  xvii.  15).  In  regard  to  religion,  it  was 
absolutely  necessaiy  that  the  stranger  should  not 
infringe  any  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  Israel- 
itish  state:  he  was  forbidden  to  blaspheme  the 
name  of  Jehovah  (Lev.  xxiv.  16),  to  work  on  the 
Sabbath  (Ex.  xx.  10),  to  eat  leavened  bread  at  the 


Jahn  (ArcTwwol.  i.  11,  $181)  explains  itislidb  of  one  who, 
whether  Hebrew  or  foreigner,  was  destitute  of  a  home. 
We  see  no  evidence  for  either  of  these  opinions,  lu  the 
LXX.  these  terms  are  most  frequently  rendered  by  irdpoi- 
KOS,  the  Alexandrian  substitute  for  the  classical  pe-rouco? 
Sometimes  irpo<rri\vTos  is  used,  and  in  two  passages  (Kx. 
xii.  19;  Is.  xiv.  l)  yeiojpas,  as  repiesei'tiug  the 
form  of  ths  word  ger 


1386 


STRANGER 


time  of  the  Passiver  (Ex.  xii.  19),  to  commit  any 
breach  of  the  marriage  laws  (Lev.  xviii.  26),  to 
worship  Molech  (Lev.  xx.  2),  or  to  eat  blood  or 
(he  flesh  of  any  animal  that  had  died  otherwise 
than  by  the  hand  of  man  (Lev.  xvii.  10,  15).  He 
was  required  to  release  a  Hebrew  servant  in  the 
year  of  Jubilee  (Lev.  xxv.  47-54),  to  observe  the  day 
of  atonement  (Lev.  xvi.  29),  to  perform  the  rites 
of  purification  when  necessary  (Lev.  xvii.  15 ;  Num. 
xix.  10),  and  to  offer  sin-offerings  after  sins  of  igno- 
rance  (Num.  xv.  29).  If  the  stranger  was  a  bonds 
man  he  was  obliged  to  submit  to  circumcision  (Ex. 
xii.  44)  ;  if  he  was  independent,  it  was  optional 
with  him  ;  but  if  he  remained  uncircumcised,  he 
wns  prohibited  from  partaking  of  the  Passover  ^Ex. 
xii.  48),  and  could  not  be  regarded  as  a  full  citizen. 
Lil  erty  was  also  given  in  regard  to  the  use  of  pro 
hibited  food  to  an  uncircumcised  stranger ;  for  OH 
this  ground  alone  can  we  harmonise  the  statements 
in  Deut.  xiv.  21  and  Lev.  xvii.  10, 15.  Assuming, 
however,  that  the  stranger  was  circumcised,  no 
distinction  existed  m  regard  to  legal  rights  between 
the  stranger  and  the  Israelite :  "  one  law  "  for  both 
classes  is  a  principle  affirmed  in  respect  to  religious 
observances  (Ex.  xii.  49  ;  Num.  xv.  16),  and  to  legal 
proceedings  (Lev.  xxiv.  22),  and  the  judges  are 
strictly  warned  against  any  partiality  in  their  de 
cisions  (Deut.  i.  16,  xxiv.  17,  18).  The  Israelite 
is  also  enjoined  to  treat  him  as  a  brother  (Lev.  xix. 
34 ;  Deut.  x.  19),  and  the  precept  is  enforced  in 
each  case  by  a  reference  to  his  own  state  in  the 
land  of  Egypt.  Such  precepts  were  needed  in  order 
to  counteract  the  natural  tendency  to  treat  persons 
in  the  position  of  strangers  with  rigour.  For, 
though  there  was  the  possibility  of  a  stranger  ac 
quiring  wealth  and  becoming  the  owner  of  Hebrew 
slaves  (Lev.  xxv.  47),  yet  his  normal  state  was  one 
of  poverty,  as  implied  in  the  numerous  passages 
where  he  is  coupled -with  the  fatherless  and  the 
widow  (e.g.  Ex.  xxii.  21-23;  Deut.  x.  18,  xxiv. 
17),  and  in  the  special  directions  respecting  his 
having  a  share  in  the  feasts  that  accompanied  cer 
tain  religious  festivals  (Deut.  xvi.  1 1, 14,  xxvi.  11), 
in  the  leasing  of  the  corn-field,  the  vineyard,  and 
the  olive-yard  (Lev.  xix.  10,  xxiii.  22  ;  Deut.  xxiv. 
20),  in  the  produce  of  the  triennial  tithe  (Deut.  xiv. 
28,  29),  in  the  forgotten  sheaf  (Deut.  xxiv.  19),  and 
in  the  spontaneous  production  of  the  soil  in  the 
sabbatical  year  (Lev.  xxv.  6).  It  also  appears  that 
the  "  stranger "  formed  the  class  whence  the  hire 
lings  were  drawn :  the  terms  being  coupled  together 
in  Ex.  xii.  45  ;  Lev.  xxii.  10,  xxv.  6,  40.  Such 
labourers  were  engaged  either  by  the  day  (Lev.  xix. 
13  ;  Deut.  xxiv.  15),  or  by  the  year  (Lev.  xxv.  53), 
and  appear  to  have  been  considerately  treated,  for 
'he  condition  of  the  Hebrew  slave  is  favourably 
compared  with  that  of  the  hired  servant  and  the 
sojourner  in  contradistinction  to  the  bondman  (Lev. 
xxv.  39,  40).  A  less  fortunate  class  of  strangers, 
probably  captives  in  war  or  for  debt,  were  reduced 
to  slavery,  and  were  subject  to  be  bought  and  sold 
(Lev.  xxv.  45),  as  well  as  to  be  put  to  task-work,  as 
was  the  case  with  the  Gibeonites  (Josh.  ix.  21)  and 
with  those  whom  Solomon  employed  in  the  building 
:f  the  Temple  (2  Chr.  ii.  18).  The  liberal  spirit  of 
the  Mosaic  regulations  respecting  strangers  presents 
a  strong  contrast  to  the  rigid  exclusiveness  of  the 
Jews  at  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era. 
The  growth  of  this  spirit  dates  from  the  time  of 
the  Babylonish  captivity,  and  originated  partly  in 
the  outrages  which  the  Jews  suffered  at  the  hands 
of  foreigners,  and  partly  through  a  fear  lest  their 


STREET 


nationality  should  be  swam  pea  by  coLstant 
ture  with  foreigners  :  the  latter  motive  appears  to 
have  dictated  the  stringent  measures  adopted  by 
Nehemiah  (Neh.  ix.  2,  xiii.  3).  Our  Lord  condemns 
this  exclusive  spirit  in  the  parable  of  the  good 
Samaritan,  where  He  defines  the  term  "neighbour" 
in  a  sense  new  to  His  hearers  (Luke  x.  36).  It 
should  be  observed,  however,  that  the  proselyte* 
of  the  New  Testament  is  the  true  representative  of 
the  stranger  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  towards  this 
class  a  cordial  feeling  was  manifested.  [PROSE 
LYTE.]  The  term  "  stranger  "  (|e'j/os)  is  generally 
used  in  the  New  Testament  in  the  general  sense  ot 
foreigner,  and  occasionally  in  its  more  technical  sense 
as  opposed  to  a  citizen  (Eph.  ii.  19).  [W.  L.  13.] 

STRAW  (  J2n,  teben  :  &Xvpov  :  paled).     Both 

wheat  and  barley  straw  were  used  by  the  ancient 
Hebrews  chiefly  as  fodder  for  their  horses,  cattle, 
and  camels  (Gen.  xxiv.  25  ;  IK.  iv.  28  ;  Is.  xi.  7, 
Ixv.  25).  The  straw  was  probably  often  chopped 
and  mixed  with  barley,  beans,  &c.,  for  provender 
(see  Harmer's  Observations,  i.  423-4;  Wilkinson, 
Anc.  Egypt,  ii.  48,  Lond.  1854).  There  is  no 
intimation  that  straw  was  used  for  litter;  Harmer 
thinks  it  was  not  so  employed  ;  the  litter  the  people 
now  use  in  those  countries  is  the  animals'  dung, 
dried  in  the  sun  and  bruised  between  their  hands, 
which  they  heap  up  again  in  the  morning,  sprinkling 
it  in  the  summer  with  fresh  water  to  keep  it  from 
corrupting  (Obs.  p.  424,  Lond.  1797).  Straw  was 
employed  by  the  Egyptians  for  making  bricks 
(Ex.  v.  7,  16):  it  was  chopped  up  and  mixed 
with  the  clay  to  make  them  more  compact  and  to 
prevent  their  cracking  (Anc.  Egypt,  ii.  194). 
[BRICKS.]  The  ancient  Egyptians  reaped  their 
corn  close  to  the  ear,  and  afterwards  cut  the  straw 
close  to  the  ground  (Id.  p.  48)  and  laid  it  by. 
This  was  the  straw  that  Pharaoh  refused  to  give  to 
the  Israelites,  who  were  therefore  compelled  to  gather 
"stubble"  (t^jp,  Kash]  instead,.  a  matter  of  con 
siderable  difficulty,  seeing  that  the  straw  itself  had 
been  cut  off  near  to  the  ground.  The  Stubble  fre 
quently  alluded  to  in  the  Scriptures  may  denote 
either  the  short  standing  straw,  mentioned  above, 
which  was  commonly  set  on  fire,  hence  the  allu 
sions  in  Is.  v.  24;  Joel  ii.  5,  or  the  small  frag 
ments  that  would  be  left  behind  after  the  reapings, 
hence  the  expression,  "  as  the  Kash  before  the  wind  " 
(Ps.  Ixxxiii.  13;  Is.  xii.  2;  Jer.  xiii.  24).  [W.H.] 

STREAM  OF  EGYPT  (DnV1?  *>™  '•  '?lvo~ 
K6povpa  (pi.)  :  torrens  Aegypti],  once  occurs  in  the 
A.  V.  instead  of  "  the  river  of  Egypt,"  apparently 
to  avoid  tautology  (Is.  xxvii.  12).  It  is  the  best 
translation  of  this  doubtful  name,  for  it  expresses 
the  sense  of  the  Hebrew  while  retaining  the  vague 
ness  it  has,  so  long  as  we  cannot  decide  whether  it 
is  applied  to  the  Pelusian  branch  of  the  Nile  or  the 
stream  of  the  Wadi-l-'Areesh.  [RiVER  OF  EGYPT  ; 
NILE.]  [R.S.  P.] 

STREET  (fin,  irirn,  P-i^  -.  **<*•&,  Pv^\ 

The  streets  of  a  modern'  Oriental  town  present  z 
great  contrast  to  those  with  whwh  we  are  familiar, 
being  generally  narrow,  tortuous,  and  gloomy,  ever* 
in  the  best  towns,  such  as  Cairo  (Lane,  i.  25), 
Damascus  (Porter,  i.  30),  and  Aleppo  (Russell, 
14).  Their  character  is  mainly  fixed  by  the  cli« 


e  The  term  TrpocnjAvros  occurs  in  the  LXX.  ae  =  "Ii 
in  Ex.  xii.  19,  xx.  10.  xxii.  21,  xxiii.  9. 


8TKEET 

finite  and  the  style  of  architecture,  the  narrowness 
ueing  due  to  the  extreme  heat,  and  the  gloominess 
to  the  circumstance  of  the  windows  looking  for  the 
most  part  into  the  inner  court.  As  these  same 
influences  existed  in  ancient  times,  we  should  be 
inclined  to  think  that  the  streets  were  much  of  the 
same  character  as  at  present.  The  opposite  opinion 
has,  indeed,  been  maintained  on  account  of  the  He 
brew  term  rgchob,  frequently  applied  to  streets,  and 
properly  meaning  a  wide  place.  The  specific  signi 
fication  of  this  term,  however,  is  rather  a  court 
yard  or  square :  it  is  applied  in  this  sense  to  the 
broad  open  space  adjacent  to  the  gate  of  a  town, 
where  public  business  was  transacted  (Deut.  xiii. 
\6),  and,  again,  to  the  court  before  the  Temple 
(Ezr.  x.  9)  or  before  a  palace  (Esth.  iv.  6).  Its 
application  to  the  street  may  point  to  the  com 
parative  width  of  the  main  street,  or  it  may  per 
haps  convey  the  idea  of  publicity  rather  than  of 
width,  a  sense  well  adapted  to  the  passages  in 
which  it  occurs  (e.  g.  Gen.  xix.  2  ;  Judg.  xix.  15  ; 
2  Sam.  xxi.  12).  The  street  called  "  Straight,"  in 
Damascus  (Acts  ix.  11),  was  an  exception  to  the 
rule  of  narrowness:  it  was  a  noble  thoroughfare, 
100  feet  wide,  divided  in  the  Roman  age  by  colon 
nades  into  three  avenues,  the  central  one  for  foot 
passengers,  the  side  passages  for  vehicles  and  horse 
men  going  in  different  directions  (Porter,  i.  47). 
The  shops  and  warehouses  were  probably  collected 
together  into  bazars  in  ancient  as  in  modern  times : 
we  read  of  the  bakers'  bazar  (Jer.  xxxvii.  21),  and 
of  the  wool,  brurier,  and  clothes  bazars  (ayopa) 
in  Jerusalem  (Joseph.  B.  J.  v.  8,  §1),  and  perhaps 
the  agreement  between  Benhadad  and  Ahab  that 
the  latter  should  "  make  streets  in  Damascus" 
(IK.  xx.  34),  was  in  reference  rather  to  bazars 
(the  term  chuts  here  used  being  the  same  as  in  Jer. 
xxxvii.  21),  and  thus  amounted  to  the  establishment 
of  a  jus  ccmmercii.  A  lively  description  of  the 
bazars  at  Damascus  is  furnished  us  by  Porter 
'i.  58-60).  The  broad  and  narrow  streets  are  dis 
tinguished  under  the  terms  rechob  and  chuts  in  the 
following  passages,  though  the  point  is  frequently 
lost  in  the  A.  V.  by  rendering  the  latter  term 
"abroad"  or  "without": — Prov.  v.  16,  vii.  12, 
zxii.  13;  Jer.  v.  1,  ix.  21 ;  Am.  v.  16  ;  Nah.  ii.  4. 
The  same  distinction  is  apparently  expressed  by  the 
terms  rechob  and  shuk  in  Cant.  iii.  2,  and  by  irA-arem 
and  /MjiiTj  in  Luke  xiv.  21  :  but  the  etymological 
sense  of  shuk  points  rather  to  a  place  of  concourse, 
such  as  a  market-place,  while  fMyurj  is  applied  to 
the  "  Straight"  street  of  Damascus  (Acts  ix.  11), 
and  is  also  used  in  reference  to  the  Pharisees  (Matt, 
vi.  2)  as  a  place  of  the  greatest  publicity:  it  is 
therefore  doubtful  whether  the  contrast  can  be  sus 
tained  :  Josephus  describes  the  alleys  of  Jerusalem 
under  the  term  arevwiroi  (B.  J.  v.  8,  §1).  The 
term  shuk  occurs  elsewhere  only  in  Prov  .'vii.  8; 
Eccl.  xii.  4,  5.  The  term  chuts,  already  noticed, 
applies  generally  to  that  which  is  outside  the  resi 
dence  (as  in  Prov.  vii.  12,  A.  \r.  "  she  is  without"), 
and  hence  to  other  places  than  streets,  as  to  a 
pasture-ground  (Job  xiii.  17,  where  the  A.  V. 
requires  emendation).  That  streets  occasionally  had 
names  appears  from  Jer.  xxxvii.  21;  Acts  ix.  11. 
That  they  were  generally  unpaved  may  be  inferred 
from  the  notices  of  the  pavement  laid  by  Herod  the 
Great  at  Antioch  (Joseph.  Ant.  xvi.  5,  §3),  and  by 
Herod  Agrippa  II.  at  Jerusalem  (Ant.  xx.  9,  §7). 
Hence  pavement  forms  one  of  the  peculiar  features 
of  the  ideal  Jerusalem  (Tob.  xiii.  17  ;  Rev.  xxi.  21). 
Euch  sti'ett  and  buzur  in  a  modern  town  is  locked 


SUCCOTH 


1387 


up  at  night  (Lane,  i.  25  ;  Russell,  i.  21),  and  hence 
a  person  cannot  pass  without  being  observed  ty  the 
watchman  :  the  same  custom  apptars  to  have  pre 
vailed  in  ancient  times  (Cant.  iii.  3).  [W.  L.  B.] 

STKIPES.     [PUNISHMENTS.] 
SU'AH  (H-ID:  2ove:  Sue}.    Son  of  Zopkih,  an 
Asherite  (1  Chr.  vii.  36). 

SU'BA  (2a£i7j ;  Alex.  2ou£as  :  Suba}.  The 
sons  of  Suba  were  among  the  sons  of  Solomon's 
servants  who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (1  Esd.  v. 
34).  There  is  nothing  corresponding  to  the  name 
in  the  Hebrew  lists  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. 

SUBA'I  (SyjScrf;  Al«.2w£ae 
MAI  (1  Esd.  v.  30 ;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  46). 

SUC'COTH  (n'lSD :  2«W  in  Gen.  in  both 
MSS.,  elsewhere  2o/cxc60,  2o/cx«0a,  Sexx<60 ; 
Alex.  2o/cxa>0 :  in  Gen.  Sochoth,  id  est,  tabernacula ; 
Soccoth,  Socchot/i).  A  town  of  ancient  date  in  the 
Holy  Land,  which  is  first  heard  of  in  the  account 
of  the  homeward  journey  of  Jacob  from  Padan-aram 
(Gen.  xxxiii.  17).  The  name  is  fancifully  derived 
from  the  fact  of  Jacob's  having  there  put  up 
"booths"  (Succoth,  DSD)  for  his  cattle,  as  well 
as  a  house  for  himself.  Whether  that  occurrence 
originated  the  name  of  Succoth  (and,  following  the 
analogy  of  other  history,  it  is  not  probable  that  it 
did),  the  mention  of  the  house  and  the  booths  in 
contrast  to  the  "  tents  "  of  the  wandering  life  indi 
cates  that  the  Patriarch  made  a  lengthened  stay 
there — a  fact  not  elsewhere  alluded  to. 

From  the  itineraiy  of  Jacob's  return  it  seems 
that  Succoth  lay  between  PENIEL,  near  the  ford  of 
the  torrent  Jabbok,  and  Shechem  (comp.  xxxii.  30, 
and  xxxiii.  18,  which  latter  would  be  more  accurately 
rendered  "  Came  safe  to  the  city  Shechem  ").  In 
accordance  with  this  is  the  mention  of  Succoth  in 
the  narrative  of  Gideon's  pursuit  of  Zebah  and  Zal- 
munna  (Judg.  viii.  5-17).  His  course  is  eastward 
— the  reverse  of  Jacob's" — and  he  comes  first  to 
Succoth,  and  then  to  Penuel,  the  latter  being  fur 
ther  up  the  mountain  than  the  former  (ver.  8, 
"  went  up  thence").  Its  importance  at  this  time 
is  shown  by  the  organisation  and  number  of  its 

seventy-seven  head-men — chiefs  anda  sheikhs and 

also  by  the  defiance  with  which  it  treated  Gideon  on 
his  first  application. 

It  would  appear  from  this  passage  that  it  lay  on 
the  east  of  Jordan,  which  is  corroborated  by  the 
fact  that  it  was  allotted  to  the  tribe  of  Gad  (Josh, 
xiii.  27).  In  the  account  of  Jacob's  journey,  all 
mention  of  the  Jordan  is  omitted. 

Succoth  is  named  once  again  after  this — in  1  K.  vii. 
46 ;  2  Chr.  iv.  17— as  marking  the  spot  at  which 
the  brass  foundries  were  placed  for  casting  the 
metal-work  of  the  Temple,  "  in  the  district  of 
Jordan,  m  the  fat  or  soft  ground  between  Succoth 
and  Zarthan."  But,  as  the  position  of  Zarthan  is 
not  yet  known,  this  notice  has  no  topographical 
value  beyond  the  mention  of  the  Jordan. 

It  appears  to  have  been  known  in  the  time  of 
Jerome,  who  says  (Quaest.  in  Gen.  xxxiii.  16)  that 
there  was  then  a  town  named  Sochoth  beyond  the 
Jordan  (trans  Jordanem},  in  the  district  (parte)  of 
Scythopolis.  Nothing  more,  however,  was  heard 
of  it  till  Burckhardt's  journey.  He  mentions  it  in 


D'OpJ,  A.V.  "  elders."  The  word  has  exactly  the 
signification  of  the  Arabic  sheikh,  an  old  man,  and  hcucc 
the  head  of  a  tribe. 


1383 


SUCCOTH 


a  note  to  p.  345  (July  2).  He  is  speaking  of  the 
places  about  the  Jordan,  and,  after  naming  three 
ruined  towns  *«  on  the  west  side  of  the  river  to  the 
north  of  Bysan,"  he  says :  "  Near  where  we  crossed 

to  the  south  are  the  ruins  of  Sukkot  (laJUw).  On 
the  western  bank  of  the  river  there  are  no  ruins 
between  Ain  Sultan  (which  he  has  just  said  was 

north 

There   can, 

therefore,  be  no  doubt  that  the  Sukkot  of  Burck- 
hardt  was  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan.  The  spot 
at  which  he  crossed  he  has  already  stated  (p.  343, 
4)  to  have  been  "  two  hours  from  Bysan,  which 
bore  N.N.W." 

Dr.  Robinson  (B.  R.  iii.  309,  &c.)  and  Mr.  Van 
de  Velde  (Syr.  and  Pal.  ii.  343)  have  discovered 
a  place  named  Sdkut  {^^\^},  evidently  entirely 
distinct  both  in  name  and  position  from  that  of 


the  southernmost  of  the  three  rained  places 
of  Bysan)    and   Rieha   or  Jericho."      There 


Burckhardt.  In  the  accounts  and  maps  of  these 
travellers  it  is  placed  on  the  west  side  of  the  Jov 
dan,  less  than  a  mile  from  the  river.,  and  about  10 
miles  south  of  Beisdn.  A  fine  spring  bubbles  on 
on  the  east  side  of  the  low  bluff  on  which  the  ruins 
stand.  The  distance  of  Sdkut  from  Beisdn  is  too 
great,  even  if  it  were  on  the  other  side  of  th 
Jordan,  to  allow  of  its  being  the  place  referred  to  by 
Jerome.  The  Sukkot  of  Burckhardt  is  more  suit 
able.  But  it  is  doubtful  whether  either  of  them 
can  be  the  Succoth  of  the  Old  Test.  For  the  events 
of  Gideon's  story  the  latter  of  the  two  is  not  un 
suitable,  it  is  in  the  line  of  flight  and  pursuit 
which  we  may  suppose  the  Midianites  and  Gideon 
to  have  taken,  and  it  is  also  near  a  ford.  Sdkut,  on 
the  other  hand,  seems  too  far  south,  and  is  also  on 
the  west  of  the  river.  But  both  appear  too  fai 
to  the  north  for  the  Succoth  of  Jacob,  lying  as  that 
did  between  the  Jabbok  and  Shechem,  especially  iJ 
we  place  the  Wady  Zerka  (usually  identified  with  the 
Jabbok)  further  to  the  south  than  it  is  placed 
in  Van  de  Velde's  map,  as  Mr.  Bekeb  proposes  to 
do.  Jacob's  direct  road  from  the  Wady  Zerka  to 
Shechem  would  have  led  him  by  the  Wady  Fer- 
rah,  on  the  one  hand,  or  through  Yanun,  on  the 
other.  If  he  went  north  as  far  as  Sdkut,  he  must 
have  ascended  by  the  Wady  Maleh  to  Teyasir,  and 
so  through  Tubas  and  the  Wady  Bidan.  Perhaps 
his  going  north  was  a  ruse  to  escape  the  dangerous 
proximity  of  Esau ;  and  if  he  made  a  long  stay  at 
Succoth,  as  suggested  in  the  outset  of  this  article, 
Mje  de'tour  from  the  direct  road  to  Shechem  would 
be  of  little  importance  to  him. 

Until  the  position  of  Succoth  is  more  exactly 
ascertained,  it  is  impossible  to  say  what  was  the 
VALLEY  OF  SUCCOTH  mentioned  in  Ps.  Ix.  6  and 
cviii.  7.  The  word  rendered  "  Valley  "  is  'emek  in 
both  cases  (jj  Koi\as  TWV  tnoji/oDi/;  Vallis  Soccoth}. 
The  same  word  is  employed  (Josh.  xiii.  27)  in  speci 
fying  the  position  of  the  group  of  towns  amongst 
which  Succoth  occurs,  in  describing  the  allotment 
of  Gad.  So  that  it  evidently  denotes  some  marked 
feature  of  the  country.  It  is  not  probable,  however, 
that  the  main  valley  of  the  Jordan,  the  Ghor,  is 
intended,  that  being  always  designated  in  the  Bible 
by  the  name  of  "  the  Arabah."  *  [G.] 


b  This  gentleman,  an  old  and  experienced  traveller,  has 
lately  returned  from  a  journey  between  Damascus,  the 
Wady  Zerka,  and  Nablus.  It  was  undertaken  with  the 
view  of  testing  his  theory  that  Ilaran  was  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  Damascus.  Wi  thout  going  into  that  question, 


SUCCOTH-BENOTH 

SUC'COTH(ni3D:  2oKx«0:  Socoth,  Soccoih 
"  booths,"  or  "  tents  "),  the  first  camping-place  d 
the  Israelites  when  they  left  Egypt  'Ex.  xii.  37 
xiii.  20 ;  Num.  xxxiii.  5,  6).  This  place  was 
apparently  reached  at  the  close  of  the  first  day's 
march.  It  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  each  of 
the  first  three  stations  marks  the  end  of  a  single 
journey.  Rameses,  the  starting-place,  we  have 
shown  was  probably  near  the  western  end  of  the 
W&di-t-Tumeylat.  We  have  calculated  the  dis 
tance  traversed  in  each  day's  journey  to  have  been 
about  fifteen  miles,  and  as  Succoth  was  not  in  the 
desert,  the  next  station,  Etham,  being  "  in  the  edge 
of  the  wilderness  "  (Ex.  xiii.  20  ;  Num.  xxxiii.  6),  it 
must  have  been  in  the  valley,  and  consequently 
nearly  due  east  of  Rameses,  and  fifteen  miles  distant 
in  a  straight  line.  If  Rameses  may  be  supposed  to 
have  been  near  the  mound  called  El-'Abbaseeyeh, 
the  position  of  Succoth  can  be  readily  determined 
within  moderate  limits  of  uncertainty.  It  was 
probably,  to  judge  from  its  name,  a  resting- place 
of  caravans,  or  a  military  station,  or  a  town  named 
from  one  of  the  two.  We  find  similar  names  in 
Scenae  Mandrae  (Itin.  Ant.\  Scenae  Mandroruir. 
(Not.  Dign.)  or  S/CTJJ/^  MavSpwv  (Not.  Graec. 
Episcopatuum),  Scenae  Veteranorum  (It.  Ant.  Not. 
Dign.\  and  Scenae  extra  Gerasa  (sic:  Not.  Dign.}. 
See,  for  all  these  places,  Parthey,  Znr  Erdkunde 
des  alien  Aegyptens,  p.  535.  It  is,  however, 
evident  that  such  a  name  would  be  easily  lost,  and 
even  if  preserved,  hard  to  recognize,  as  it  might  be 
concealed  under  a  corresponding  name  of  similar 
signification,  though  very  different  in  sound,  as  that 
of  the  settlement  of  Ionian  and  Carian  mercenaries, 
called  TO  2T/>aTdVe5a  (Herod,  ii.  154). 

We  must  here  remark  upon  the  extreme  careless 
ness  with  which  it  has  been  taken  for  granted  that 
the  whole  journey  to  the  Red  Sea  was  through  the 
desert,  and  an  argument  against  the  authenticity 
of  the  sacred  narrative  based  upon  evidence  which 
it  not  only  does  not  state  but  contradicts.  For, 
as  we  have  seen,  Etham,  the  second  camping- 
place,  was  "  in  the  edge  of  the  wilderness,"  and  the 
country  was  once  cultivated  along  the  valley 
through  which  passed  the  canal  of  the  Red  Sea. 
The  demand  that  Moses  was  commissioned  to  make, 
that  the  Israelites  might  take  "  three  days'  journey 
into  the  wilderness"  (Ex.  iii.  18),  does  not  imply  that 
the  journey  was  to  be  of  throe  days  through  the 
wilderness,  but  rather  that  it  would  be  necessary  to 
make  three  days'  journey  in  order  to  sacrifice  in  th<- 
wilderness.  [Exoous,  THE  ;  RED  SEA,  PASSAGE 
OF.]  [R.  S.  P.] 

SUC'COTH-BEN'OTH  (nUi-J 
O-'BeviO :  Sochoth-benoth]  occurs  only  in  2  K. 
xvii.  30,  where  the  Babylonish  settlers  in  Samaria  are 
said  to  have  set  up  the  worship  of  Succoth -benoth 
on  their  arrival  in  that  country.  It  has  generally 
been  supposed  that  this  term  is  pure  Hebrew,  and 
signifies  the  "tents  of  daughters;"  which  some 
explain  as  "  the  booths  in  which  the  daughters  ol 
the  Babylonians  prostituted  themselves  in  honour 
>f  their  idol,"  others  as  "  small  tabernacles  in  which 
were  contained  images  of  female  deities  "  (comparf 
Gesenius  and  S.  Newman,  ad  vw.  i!3p :  Winer, 


all  that  concerns  us  here  is  to  say  that  Ue  has  fixed  the 
atitude  of  the  mouth  of  the  Wady  Zerka  at  32°  13',  01 
more  than  ten  miles  south  of  its  position  in  Van  di 
Velde's  map.  Mr.  Eeke's  paper  and  map  will  be  pnb 
shed  in  the  Journal  of  tie  11.  Geogr.  Society  for  1863. 


SUUHATHTTES 

Rcalworterbuch,  ii.  p.  543  ;  Calmet,  Commentaire 
Litteral,  ii.  897).  It  is  a  strong  objection  to  both 
these  explanations,  that  Succoth-benoth,  which  in 
the  passage  in  Kings  occurs  in  the  same  construc 
tion  with  Nergal  and  various  other  gods,  is  thus 
not  a  deity  at  all,  nor,  strictly  speaking,  an  object 
of  worship.  Perhaps  therefore  the  suggestion  of 
3ir  H.  Rawlinson,  against  which  this  objection  does 
not  lie,  may  be  admitted  to  deserve  some  attention. 
This  writer  thinks  that  Succoth-benoth  represents 
the  Chaldaean  goddess  Zir-banit,  the  wife  of  Me- 
rodach,  who  was  especially  worshipped  at  Babylon, 
in  conjunction  with  her  husband,  and  who  is  called 
the  "  queen  "  of  the  place.  Succoth  he  supposes  to 
be  either  "a  Hamitic  term  equivalent  to  Zir"  or  pos 
sibly  a  Shemitic  mistranslation  of  the  term  —  Zirat, 
"  supreme,"  being  confounded  with  Zarat,  "  tents." 
(See  the  Essay  of  Sir  H.  Rawlinson  in  Rawlinson's 
Herodotus,  vol.  i.  p.  630.)  [G.  R.] 

SUCHATHITES  (DTD-lb  :   ZuicaOictp  :  in 

tabernaculis  commor  antes}.  One  6f  the  families  of 
scribes  at  Jabez  (1  Chr.  ii.  55). 

SUD  (2ou8  :  Sodi).  A  river  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  Babylon,  on  the  banks  of  which 
Jewish  exiles  lived  (Bar.  i.  4).  No  such  river  is 
known  to  geographers  :  but  if  we  assume  that  the 
first  part  of  the  book  of  Baruch  was  written  in  He 
brew,  the  original  text  may  have  been  Sur,  the  final  "1 
having  been  changed  into  *1.  In  this  case  the  name 
would  represent,  not  the  town  of  Sora,  as  suggested 
by  Bochart  (Phaleg,  i.  8),  but  the  river  Euphrates 
itself,  which  is  always  named  by  Arab  geographers 
"  the  river  of  Sura,"  a  corruption  probably  of  the 
"  Sippara  "  of  the  inscriptions  (Rawlinson's  Herod. 
i.  611,  note  4).  [W.  L.  B.] 

SUD  (2ou5<£  ;  Alex.  Zovtrd  :  So)  =  SIA,  or 
SIAHA  (1  Esd.  v.  29  ;  comp.  Neh.  vii.  47  ;  Ezr. 
ii.  44). 

SU'DIAS  (ZovMas  :  Serebias  et  Edias)  = 
HODAVIAH  3  and  HODEVAH  (1  Esd.  v.  26  ;  comp. 
Ezr.  iii.  40  ;  Neh.  vii.  43). 


SUK'KIIMS  (D'»3D:  TpuyXoMrai:  Troglo- 

dilac],  a  nation  mentioned  (2  Chr.  xii.  3)  with  the 
Lubim  and  Cushim  as  supplying  part  of  the  army 
which  came  with  Shishak  out  of  Egypt  when  he  in 
vaded  Judah.  Gesenius  (Lex.  s.  v.)  suggests  that 
their  name  signifies  "  dwellers  in  tents,"  in  which 
case  it  might  perhaps  be  better  to  suppose  them  to 
have  been  an  Arab  tribe  like  the  Scenitae,  than 
Ethiopians.  If  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  Zerah  was 
apparently  allied  with  the  Arabs  south  of  Palestine 
[ZERAH],  whom  we  know  Shishak  to  have  subdued 
[SHISHAK],  our  conjecture  does  not  seem  to  be  im 
probable.  The  Sukkiims  may  correspond  to  some 
one  of  the  shepherd  or  wandering  races  mentioned 
on  the  Egyptian  monuments,  but  we  have  not 
found  any  name  in  hieroglyphics  resembling  their 
name  in  the  Bible,  and  this  somewhat  favours  the 
opinion  that  it  is  a  Shemitic  appellation.  [R.  S.  P.] 

SUN  (KW).  In  the  history  of  the  creation 
the  sun  is  described  as  the  "  greater  light"  in  con 
tradistinction  to  the  moon  or  "  lesser  light,"  in 
conjunction  with  which  it  was  to  serve  "  for  signs, 
and  for  seasons,  and  for  days,  and  for  years,"  while 
its  special  office  was  "  to  rule  the  day  "  (Gen.  i. 
14-16).  The  "signs"  referred  to  were  probably 
such  extraordinary  phenomena  as  eclipses,  which 
were  regarded  as  conveying  premonitions  of  coming 


SUN  1389 

events  ( Jer.  x.  2  ;  Matt.  xxiv.  29,  with  Luke  xxi.  25), 
The  joint  influence  assigned  to  the  sun  aud  moon  in 
deciding  the  "  seasons,"  both  for  agricultural  opera 
tions  and  for  religious  festivals,  and  also  in  regulating 
the  length  and  subdivisions  of  the  "  years,"  correctly 
describes  the  combination  of  the  lunar  and  solar 
year,  which  prevailed  at  all  events  subsequently  to 
the  Mosaic  period — the  moon  being  the  measurer 
(/car'  e'^o^j/)  of  the  lapse  of  time  by  the  subdivi 
sions  of  months  and  weeks,  while  the  sun  was  the 
ultimate  regulator  of  the  length  of  the  year  by 
means  of  the  recurrence  of  the  feast  of  Pentecost  at 
a  fixed  agricultural  season,  viz.  when  the  corn  be 
came  ripe.  The  sun  "  ruled  the  day  "  alone,  sharing 
the  dominion  of  the  skies  with  the  moon,  the  bril 
liancy  and  utility  of  which  for  journeys  and  other 
purposes  enhances  its  value  in  Eastern  countries. 
It  "  ruled  the  day,"  not  only  in  reference  to 
its  powerful  influences,  but  also  as  deciding  the 
length  of  the  day  and  supplying  the  means  of 
calculating  its  progress.  Sun-rise  and  sun-set  are 
the  only  defined  points  of  time  in  the  absence  of 
artificial  contrivances  for  telling  the  hour  of  the 
day:  and  as  these  points  are  less  variable  in  the 
latitude  of  Palestine  than  in  our  country,  they 
served  the  purpose  of  marking  the  commence 
ment  and  conclusion  of  the  working  day.  Be 
tween  these  two  points  the  Jews  recognized  three 
periods,  viz.  when  the  sun  became  hot,  about 
9  A.M.  (1  Sam,  xi.  9 ;  Neh.  vii.  3)  ;  the  double  light 
or  noon  (Gen.  xliii.  1 6  ;  2  Sam.  iv.  5),  and  "  the 
cool  of  the  day  "  shortly  before  sunset  (Gen.  iii.  8). 
The  sun  also  served  to  fix  the  quarters  of  the  he 
misphere,  east,  west,  north,  and  south,  which  were 
represented  respectively  by  the  rising  sun,  the 
setting  sun  (Is.  xlv.  6 ;  Ps.  1.  1),  the  dark  quarter 
(Gen.  xiii.  14 ;  Joel  ii.  20),  and  the  brilliant  quarter 
(Deut.  xxxiii.  23  ;  Job  xxxvii.  17  ;  Ez.  xl.  24) ;  or 
otherwise  by  their  position  relative  to  a  person 
facing  the  rising  sun — before,  behind,  on  the  left 
hand,  and  on  the  right  band  (Job  xxiii.  8,  9).  The 
apparent  motion  of  the  sun  is  frequently  referred  to 
in  terms  that  would  imply  its  reality  (Josh.  x.  13; 
2  K.  xx.  11 ;  Ps.  xix.  6 ;  Eccl.  i.  5 ;  Hab.  iii.  11). 
The  ordinary  name  for  the  sun,  shemesh,  is  sup-, 
posed  to  refer  to  the  extreme  brilliancy  of  its  rays, 
producing  stupor  or  astonishment  in  the  mind  of 
the  beholder;  the  poetical  names,  chammah*  (Job 
xxx.  28;  Cant.  vi.  10;  Is.  xxx.  26),  and  cheresb 
(Judg.  xiv.  18  ;  Job  ix.  7)  have  reference  to  its 
heat,  the  beneficial  effects  of  which  are  duly  com 
memorated  (Deut.  xxxiii.  14 ;  Ps.  xix.  6),  as  well 
as  its  baneful  influence  when  in  excess  (Ps.  cxxi.  6  ; 
Is.  zlix.  10;  Jon.  iv.  8  ;  Ecclus.  xliii.  3,  4).  The 
vigour  with  which  the  sun  traverses  the  heavens  is 
compared  to  that  of  a  "  bridegroom  coming  out  of 
his  chamber,"  and  of  a  "  giant  rejoicing  to  run  his 
course"  (Ps.  xix.  5).  The  speed  with  which  the 
beams  of  the  rising  sun  dart  across  the  sky,  is  ex 
pressed  in  the  term  "  wings"  applied  to  them  (Ps. 
cxxxix.  9 ;  Mai.  iv.  2). 

The  worship  of  the  sun,  as  the  most  prominent 
and  powerful  agent  in  the  kingdom  of  nature,  was 
widely  diffused  throughout  the  countries  adjacent 
to  Palestine.  The  Arabians  appear  to  have  paid 
direct  worship  to  it  without  the  intervention  of  any 
statue  or  symbol  (Job  xxxi.  26,  27  ;  Strab.  xvi.  p. 
784),  and  this  simple  style  of  worship  was  pro- 
familiar  to  the  ancestors  of  the  Jews  in 


nsn. 


Din. 


1390 


SUN 


Chaldaea  and  Mesopotamia.  In  Egypt  the  sun  was 
worshipped  under  the  title  of  R£  or  Ra,  and  not  as 
was  supposed  by  ancient  writers  under  the  form  of 
Osiris  (Diod.  Sic.  i.  11 ;  see  Wilkinson's  Anc.  Eg. 
iv.  289) :  the  name  came  conspicuously  forward  as 
the  title  of  the  kings,  Pharaoh,  or  rather  Phra, 
meaning  "the  sun"  (Wilkinson,  iv.  287).  The 
Hebrews  must  have  been  well  acquainted  with  the 
idolatrous  worship  of  the  sun  during  the  captivity 
in  Egypt,  both  from  the  contiguity  of  On,  the  chief 
seat  of  the  worship  of  the  sun  as  implied  in  the 
name  itself  (On  =  the  Hebrew  Bethshemesh,  "  house 
of  the  sun,"  Jer.  xliii.  13),  and  also  from  the  con 
nexion  between  Joseph  and  Poti-pherah  ("  he  who 
belongs  to  l!a"),  the  priest  of  On  (Gen.  xli.  45) 
After  their  removal  to  Canaan,  the  Hebrews  eame 
in  contact  with  various  forms  of  idolatry,  which 
originated  in  the  worship  of  the  sun ;  such  as  the 
Baal  of  the  Phoenicians  (Movers,  Phon.  i.  180), 
the  Molech  or  Milcom  of  the  Ammonites,  and  the 
Hadad  of  the  Syrians  (Plin.  xxxvii.  71).  These 
idols  were,  with  the  exception  of  the  last,  intro 
duced  into  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  at  various 
periods  (Judg.  ii.  11 ;  1  K.  xi.  5)  ;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  object  symbolized  by  them  was 
known  to  the  Jews  themselves.  If  we  have  any 
notice  at  all  of  conscious  sun-worship  in  the  early 
stages  of  their  history,  it  exists  in  the  doubtful 
term  chammdwm0  (Lev. xxvi.  30  ;  Is.  xvii.  8,  &<\), 
which  was  itself  significant  of  the  sun,  and  pro 
bably  described  the  stone  pillars  or  ftatues  under 
which  the  solar  Baal  (Baal-Haman  of  the  Punic  in 
scriptions,  Gesen.  Thes.  i.  489)  was  worshipped 
at  Baal-Hamon  (Cant.  viii.  1 1)  and  other  places. 
Pure  sun-worship  appears  to  have  been  introduced 
by  the  Assyrians,  and  to  have  become  formally 
established  by  Manasseh  (2  K.  xxi.  3,  5),  in  con 
travention  of  the  prohibitions  of  Moses  (Deut.  iv. 
19,  xvii.  3).  Whether  the  practice  was  borrowed 
from  the  Sepharvites  of  Samaria  (2  K.  xvii.  31), 
whose  gods  Adrammelech  and  Anammelech  are 
supposed  to  represent  the  male  and  female  sun,  and 
whose  original  residence  (the  Heliopolis  of  Berosus) 
was  the  chief  seat  of  the  worship  of  the  sun  in  Ba 
bylonia  (Rawlinson's  Herod,  i.  611),  or  whether 
the  kings  of  Judah  drew  their  model  of  worship 
more  immediately  from  the  East,  is  uncertain.  The 
dedication  of  chariots  and  horses  to  the  sun  (2  K. 
xxiii.  11)  was  .perhaps  borrowed  from  the  Persians 
(Herod,  i.  189;  Curt.  iii.  3,  §11;  Xen.  Cyrop. 
viii.  3,  §24),  who  honoured  the  sun  under  the 
form  of  Mithras  (Strab.  xv.  p.  732).  At  the 
same  time  it  should  be  observed  that  the  horse 
was  connected  with  the  worship  of  the  sun  in  other 
countries,  as  among  the  Massagetae  (Herod,  i.  216), 
and  the  Armenians  (Xen.  Anab.  iv.  5,  §35),  both 
of  whom  used  it  as  a  sacrifice.  To  judge  from 
the  few  notices  we  have  on  the  subject  in  the 
Bible,  we  should  conclude  that  the  Jews  derived 
their  mode  of  worshipping  the  sun  from  several 
quarters.  The  practice  of  burning  incense  on  the 
house-tops  (2  K.  xxiii.  5,  12;  Jer.  xix.  13; 
Zeph.  i.  5)  might  have  been  borrowed  from  the 
Arabians  (Strab.  xvi.  p.  784),  as  also  the  simple 
act  of  adoration  directed  towards  the  rising  sun 
(Ez.  viii.  16  ;  comp.  Job  xxxi.  27).  On  the  other 
hand,  the  use  of  the  chariots  and  horses  in  the  pro 
cessions  on  festival  days  came,  as  we  have  observed, 


VulG-  laqueos;   from  Vpty   "strike 


SUSA 

Tom  Persia;  and  so  also  the  custom  of  "  rutting 
the  branch  to  the  nose"  (Ez.  viii.  17)  according  to 
the  generally  received  explanation,  -vLich  identifies 
t  with  the  Persian  practice  of  holding  in  the  left 
land  a  bundle  of  twigs  called  Bersam  while  wor* 
shipping  the  sun  (Strab.  xv.  p.  733  ;  Hyde,  Eel 
Pers.  p.  345).  This,  however,  is  very  doubtful, 
the  expression  being  otherwise  understood  of  "  put 
ting  the  knife  to  the  nose,"  i.  e.  producing  self- 
mutilation  (Hitzig,  On  Ezek.~).  An  objection  lies 
against  the  former  view  from  the  fact  that  the 
Persians  are  not  said  to  have  held  the  branch  to  the 
nose.  The  importance  attached  to  the  worship  of 
the  sun  by  the  Jewish  kings,  may  be  inferred  from 
the  tact  that  the  horses  were  stalled  within  the 
precincts  of  the  temple  (the  term  parvar  d  meaning 
not  "  suburb  "  as  in  the  A.  V.,  but  either  a  portico 
or  an  outbuilding  of  the  temple).  They  were  re 
moved  thence  by  Josiah  (2  K.  xxiii.  11). 

In  the  metaphorical  language  of  Scripture  the 
sun  is  emblematic  of  the  law  of  God  (Ps.  xix.  7), 
of  the  cheering  presence  of  God  (Ps.  Ixxxiv.  11), 
of  the  person  of  the  Saviour  (John  i.  9 ;  Mai.  iv. 
2),  and  of  the  glory  and  "purity  of  heavenly  beings 
(Rev.  i.  16,  x.  1,  xii.  1).  [W.*L.  B.] 

SUE  (2ovp :  Vulg.  omits).  One  of  the  places 
on  the  sea-coast  of  Palestine,  which  are  named  as 
having  been  disturbed  at  the  approach  of  Holofernes 
with  the  Assyrian  army  (Jud.  ii.  28).  It  cannot 
be  Tyre,  the  modern  Sur,  since  that  is  mentioned 
immediately  before.  Some  have  suggested  Dor, 
others  a  place  named  Sora,  mentioned  by  Steph. 
Byz.  as  in  Phoenicia,  which  they  would  identity 
with  Athlit ;  others,  again,  Surafend.  But  none  of 
these  are  satisfactory. 

SUEETISHIP.  (1.)  The  A.  V.  rendering  for 
toke'im*  lit.  in  marg.  "  those  that  strike  (hands)." 
(2.)  The  phrase b  tesumeth  ydd,  "  depositing  in  the 
hand,"  ».  e.  giving  in  pledge,  may  be  understood 
to  apply  to  the  act  of  pledging,  or  virtual  though 
not  personal  suretiship  (Lev.  vi.  2,  in  Hebr.  v.  21). 
In  the  entire  absence  of  commerce  the  law  laid  down 
no  rules  on  the  subject  of  suretiship,  but  it  is 
evident  that  in  the  time  of  Solomon  commercial 
dealings  had  become  so  multiplied  that  suretiship 
in  the  commercial  sense  was  common  (Prov.  vi. 
1,  xi.  15,  xvii.  18,  xx.  16,  xxii.  26,  xxvii.  13). 
But  in  older  times  the  notion  of  one  man  be 
coming  a  surety  for  a  service  to  be  discharged 
by  another  was  in  full  force  (see  Gen.  xliv.  32), 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  same  form  of  under 
taking  existed,  viz.  the  giving  the  hand  to  (striking 
hands  with),  not,  as  Michaelis  represents,  the  per 
son  who  was  to  discharge  the  service — in  the 
commercial  sense  the  debtor — but  the  person  to 
whom  it  was  due,  the  creditor  (Job  xvii.  3 ; 
Prov.  vi.  1 ;  Michaelis,  Laws  of  Moses,  §151,  ii. 
322,  ed.  Smith).  The  surety  of  course  became 
liable  for  his  client's  debts  in  case  of  his  failure.  In 
later  Jewish  times  the  system  had  become  common, 
and  caused  much  distress  in  many  instances,  yet 
the  duty  of  suretiship  in  certain  cases  is  recognised 
as  valid  (Ecclus.  viii.  13,  xxix.  14,  15,  16,  18, 19). 

[LOAN.]  [H.  W.  P.] 

SUSA   (Susan).    Esth.  xi.  3.  xvi.  18. 

SHAN.] 


(Ges.  1517).  ^ 

b  T  nrjibn ; 


SUSANCHITES 
SUBANCH'ITES  (80D3B«IB>:  2ov<ret»/axaToi :  \ 

Sitsanechaei)  is  found  once  only — in  Ezr.  iv.  9, 
where  it  occurs  among  the  list  of  the  nations  whom 
the  Assyrians  had  settled  in  Samaria,  and  whose 
descendants  still  occupied  the  country  in  the  reign 
of  the  Pseudo-Smerdis.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
';hat  it  designates  either  the  inhabitants  of  the  city 
Susa  (JSME^),  or  those  of  the  country — Susis  or 
Susiana — whereof  Susa  was  the  capital.  Perhaps 
as  the  Elamites  are  mentioned  in  the  same  passage, 
and  as  Daniel  (viii.  2)  seems  to  call  the  country 
Elam  and  the  city  Shushan  (or  Susa),  the  former  ex 
planation  is  preferable.  (See  SHUSHAN.)  [G.  R.] 

STJSAN'NA  (2«(«£wa,  ^ovvdvva,  i.  e. 
•13&W,  "a  lily").  1.  The  heroine  of  the  story 

T-  J         ' 

of  the  Judgment  of  Daniel.  [DANIEL,  APOCRY 
PHAL  ADDITIONS  TO.]  The  name  occurs  in  Diod. 
Sic.  as  that  of  the  daughter  of  Ninus  (ii.  6),  and 
Sheshan  (1  Chr.  ii.  31,  34,  35)  is  of  the  same 
origin  and  meaning  (Ges.  Thes.  s.  v.). 

2.  One  of  the  women  who  ministered  to  the 
Lord  (Luke  viii.  3).  [B.  F.  W.] 

SU'SI  ('D-1D:  lov<rl:  Susi].  The  father  of 
Gaddi  the  Manassite  spy  (Num.  xiii.  11). 

SWALLOW,  "flTT,  dertr,  and  "W,  agur, 
both  thus  translated  in  A.  V.  "fl"ffi  occurs  twice, 
Ps.  Ixxxiv.  3,  and  Prov.  xxvi.  2  :  transl.  by  LXX. 
and  ffrpovQos ;  Vulg.  turtur  and  passer. 
also  twice,  Is.  xxxviii.  14,  and  Jer.  viii.  7, 
both  times  in  conjunction  with  D^D  or  D-1D,  and 
rendered  by  LXX.  irepiffTfpd  and  ffrpovQiov,  Vulg. 
"  columba  "  and  "  ciconia."  In  each  passage  D^D 
is  rendered,  probably  correctly,  by  LXX.  xtXib&v 
(swallow),  A.  V.  crane  [CRANE],  which  is  more 
probably  the  true  signification  of  "V!^.  D^D  is, 

perhaps,  connected  with  Arab.  <£*****•«  ('msissi}, 
applied  to  many  warbling  birds. 

The  rendering  of  A.  V.  for  "tt"n  seems  less  open 
to  question,  and  the  original  (quasi  "TlTl,  "  free 
dom  ")  may  include  the  swallow  with  other  swiftly 
flying  or  free  birds.  The  old  commentators,  except 
Bochart,  who  renders  it  "  columba  fera,"  apply 
it  to  the  swallow  from  the  love  of  freedom  in 
this  bird  and  the  impossibility  of  retaining  it  in 
captivity. 

Whatever  be  the  precise  rendering,  the  characters 
ascribed  in  the  several  passages  where  the  names 
occur,  are  strictly  applicable  to  the  swallow,  viz. 
its  swiftness  of  flight,  its  nesting  in  the  buildings 
of  the  Temple,  its  mournful,  garrulous  note,  and  its 
regular  migration,  shared  indeed  in  common  with 
several  others.  But  the  turtle-dove,  for  which  the 
LXX.  have  taken  TH1^,  was  scarcely  likely  to  be  a 

familiar  resident  in  the  Temple  enclosure.  On 
Is.  xxxviii.  14,  "Like  a  swallow,  so  did  I  chatter," 
we  may  observe  that  the  garrulity  of  the  swallow 
was  proverbial  among  the  ancients  (see  Nonn. 
Dionys.  ii.  133,  and  Aristoph.  Batr.  93).  Hence 
its  epithet  Ktan\ds,  "  the  twitterer,"  KwnActSas 
5£  TUS  xe*<S<$»'ay,  Athen.  622.  See  Anacr.  104, 
and  op6poy6-n,  Hes.  Op.  566 ;  and  Virg.  Georg. 
iv.  306. 

Although  Aris'x)tle  in  his  '  Natural  History,'  and 


SWAN 


1391 


Pliny  following  him,  have  given  currency  to  Uie 
fable  that  many  swallows  bury  themselves  dm  in? 
winter,  yet  the  regularity  of  their  migration  alluded 
to  by  the  Prophet  Jeremiah  was  iamiliarly  recog 
nised  by  the  ancients.  See  Anacre:m  (Od.  xxxiii.i. 
The  ditty  quoted  by  Athen.  (360)  from  Theognis 
is  well  known  — 


K<x\ous   eviavrovs,  eiri  yatrrepa.   \evKa,    eirl    viara. 
/u.e'Aatva. 

So  Ovid  (Fast.  ii.  853),  "  Praenuntia  veris 
hirundo." 

Many  species  of  swallow  occur  in  Palestine.  All 
those  familiar  to  us  in  Britain  are  found.  The 
swallow  (Hirundo  rustica,  L.,  var.  Cahirica, 
Lichst.),  martin  (Chelidon  urbica,  L.),  sand 
martin  (Cotyle  riparia,  L.),  abound.  Besides  these 
the  eastern  swallow  (Hir.  rufula,  Tern.),  which 
nestles  geiiei-ally  in  fissures  in  rocks,  and  the  crag 
martin  (Cotyle  rupestris,  L.),  which  is  confined  to 
mountain  gorges  and  desert  districts,  are  also  com 
mon.  See  Ibis,  vol.  i.  p.  27,  vol.  ii.  p.  386.  The 
crag  martin  is  the  only  member  of  the  genus  which 
does  not  migrate  from  Palestine  in  winter.  Of 
the  genus  Cypselus  (swift),  our  swift  (Cypsehis 
apus,  L.)  is  common,  and  the  splendid  alpine  swift 
(Gyps.  melba,  L.)  may  be  seen  in  all  suitable  loca 
lities.  A  third  species,  peculiar,  so  far  as  is  yet 
known,  to  the  north-east  of  Palestine,  has  recently 
been  described  under  the  name  of  Cypselus  Gali- 
Icensis. 

Whatever  be  the  true  appellation  for  the  swallow 
tribe  in  Hebrew,  it  would  perhaps  include  the 
bee-eaters,  so  similar  to  many  of  the  swallows, 
at.  least  in  the  eves  of  a  cursory  observer,  in  flight, 
note,  and  habits.  Of  this  beautiful  genus  three 
species  occur  in  Palestine,  Merops  apiaster,  L., 
Merops  Persians,  L.,  and  in  the  valley  of  the 
Jordan  only,  the  eastern  sub-  tropical  form  Merops 
mridis,  L.  [H.  B.  T.] 


SWAN  (niDB,  tinshemeth}.  Thus  rendered 
by  A.  V.  in  Lev.  xi.  18,  Deut.  xiv.  16,  where  it 
occurs  in  the  list  of  unclean  birds  ;  LXX.  iropQv- 
picav,  ?)8is  ;  Vulg.  porphyrio,  ibis.  Bochart  (Hic^o. 
ii.  290)  explains  it  noctua  (owl),  and  derives  the 
name  from  DDK\  "  to  astonish,"  because  othei 

-  T 

birds  are  startled  at  the  apparition  of  the  owl. 
Gesenius  suggests  the  pelican,  from  DC^J,  "  to 

breathe,  to  puff,"  with  reference  to  the  inflation  of 
its  pouch.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  bird  in 
tended  by  Moses,  these  conjectures  cannot  be  ad 
mitted  as  satisfactory,  the  owl  and  pelican  being 
both  distinctly  expressed  elsewhere  in  the  catalogue. 
Nor  is  the  A.  V.  translation  likely  to  be  correct. 
It  is  not  probable  that  the  swan  was  known  tc 
Moses  or  the  Israelites,  or  at  least  that  it  was 
sufficiently  familiar  to  have  obtained  a  place  in  this 
list.  Hasselquist  indeed  mentions  his  having  seen 
a  swan  on  the  coast  of  Damietta;  but  though  a 
regular  winter  visitant  tx>  Greece,  only  accidental 
stragglers  wander  so  far  south  as  the  Nile,  and  it 
has  not  been  obsei-ved  by  recent  naturalists  either 
in  Palestine  or  Egypt.  Nor,  if  it  had  been  known  to 
the  Israelites,  is  it  easy  to  understand  why  the  swan 
should  have  been  classed  among  the  unclean  birab 
The  renderings  of  the  LXX.,  "porphyrio"  and 
"  ibis,"  are  either  of  them  more  probable.  Neither 
of  these  birds  occur  elsewhere  in  the  catalogue, 
both  would  be  familiar  to  residents  in  Egypt,  ami 


1392 


SWEARING 


the  original  seems  to  point  to  some  wate -fowl. 
The  Samaritan  Version  also  agrees  with  the  LXX. 
Hop<f>vpi'jav,  porphyrio  antiquorum,  Bp.,  the  purple 
water-hen,  is  mentioned  by  Aristotle  (Hist.  An. 
viii.  8),  Aristophanes  (Ao.  707),  Pliny  (Nat.  Hist. 
x.  63),  and  more  fully  described  by  Athenaeus 
(Deipn.  ix.  388).  It  is  allied  to  our  corn-crake 
and  water-hen,  and  is  the  largest  and  most  beautiful 
of  the  family  Rallidae,  being  larger  than  the  do 
mestic  fowl,  with  a  rich  dark-blue  plumage,  and 
brilliant  red  beak  and  legs.  From  the  extraordinary 
length  of  its  toes  it  is  enabled,  lightly  treading  on 
the  flat  leaves  of  water-plants,  to  support  itself 
without  immersion,  and  apparently  to  run  on  the 
surface  of  the  water.  It  frequents  marshes  and 
the  sedge  -by  the  banks  of  rivers  in  all  the  countries 
bordering  on  the  Mediterranean,  and  is  abundant  in 
Lower  Egypt.  Athenaeus  has  correctly  noted  its 
singular  habit  of  grasping  its  food  with  its  very 
long  toes,  and  thus  conveying  it  to  its  mouth.  It 
is  distinguished  from  all  the  other  species  of 
Rallidae  by  its  short  powerful  mandibles,  with 
which  it  crushes  its  prey,  consisting  often  of 
reptiles  and  young  birds.  It  will  frequently  seize 
a  young  duck  with  its  long  feet,  and  at  once  crunch 
Jie  head  of  its  victim  with  its  beak.  It  is  an 
omnivorous  feeder,  and  from  the  miscellaneous 
character  of  its  food,  might  reasonably  find  a  place 
in  the  catalogue  of  unclean  birds.  Its  flesh  is  rank, 
coarse,  and  very  dark-coloured.  [H.  B.  T.] 

SWEARING.     [OATH.] 

SWEAT,  BLOODY.  One  of  the  physical 
phenomena  attending  our  Lord's  agony  in  the  garden 
of  Gethsemane  is  described  by  St.  Luke  (xxii.  44) : 
"  His  sweat  was  as  it  were  great  drops  (lit.  clots, 
6p6/j.floi)  of  blood  falling  down  to  the  ground." 
The  genuineness  of  this  verse  and  of  the  preceding 
has  been  doubted,  but  is  now  generally  acknow 
ledged.  They  are  omitted  in  A  and  B,  but  are 
found  in  the  Codex  Sinai  ticus  (fcO,  Codex  Bezae, 
and  othei-s,  and  in  the  Peshito,  Philoxenian,  and 
Curetonian  Syriac  (see  Tregelles,  Greek  New  Test. ; 
Scrivener,  Tntrod.  to  the  Grit,  of  the  N.  T.  p.  434), 
and  Tregelles  points  to  the  notation  of  the  section 
and  canon  in  ver.  42  as  a  trace  of  the  existence  of 
the  verse  in  the  Codex  Alexandrinus. 

Of  this  malady,  known  in  medical  science  by  the 
term  diapedesis,  there  have  been  examples  recorded 
both  in  ancient  and  modern  times.  Aristotle  was 
aware  of  it  (De  Part.  Anim.  iii.  5).  The  cause 
assigned  is  generally  violent  mental  emotion. 
"  Kannegiesser,"  quoted  by  Dr.  Stroud  (Phys.  Cause 
of  the  Death  of  Christ,  p.  86),  "  remarks,  « Violent 
mental  excitement,  whether  occasioned  by  uncon- 
•'j-ollable  anger  or  vehement  joy,  and  in  like  manner 
sudden  terror  or  intense  fear,  forces  out  a  sweat, 
accompanied  with  signs  either  of  anxiety  or  hilarity.' 
After  ascribing  this  sweat  to  the  unequal  constric 
tion  of  some  vessels  and  dilatation  of  others,  he 
further  observes  •  '  If  the  mind  is  seized  with  a 
sudden  fear  of  death,  the  sweat,  owing  to  the  exces 
sive  degree  of  constriction,  often  becomes  bloody.'  " 
Dr.  Millingen  (Curiosities  .of  Medical  Experience, 
p.  489,  2nd  ed.)  gives  the  following  explanation  of 
the  phenomenon :  "  It  is  probable  that  this  strange 
disorder  arises  from  a  violent  commotion  of  the 
nervous  system,  turning  the  streams  of  blood  out 
of  their  natural  course,  and  forcing  the  red  particles 
into  the  cutaneous  excretories.  A  mere  relaxation 
of  the  fibres  could  not  produce  so  powerful  a 
revulsion.  It  mar  also  arise  in  cases  of  extreme 


SWINE 

debility,  in  connexion  with  a  thinner  conditioo  of 
the  blood." 

The  following  are  a  few  of  the  instances  on  record 
which  have  been  collected  by  Calmet  (Diss.  sur  la 
Suewr  du  Sang),  Millingen,  Stroud,  Trusen  (Die 
Sitten,  Gebrduche,  und  Krankheiten  d.  alt.  Hebr., 
Breslau,  1853).  Schenkius  (Obs.  Med.  lib.  iii. 
p.  458")  mentions  the  case  of  a  nun  who  was  so 
terrified  at  tailing  into  the  hands  of  soldiers  that 
blood  oozed  from  all  the  pores  of  her  body.  The 
same  writer  says  that  in  the  plague  of  Miseno  in 
1554  a  woman  who  was  seized  sweated  blood  for 
three  days.  In  1552,  Conrad  Lycosthenes  (de  Pro- 
digiis,  p.  623,  ed.  1557)  reports,  a  woman  sick  of 
the  plague  sweated  blood  from  the  upper  part  of 
her  body.  Maldor.ato  (Comm.  in  Evang.)  gives 
an  instance,  attested  by  eyewitnesses,  of  a  man 
at  Paris  in  full  health  and  vigour,  who,  hearing 
the  sentence  of  death,  was  covered  with  a  bloody 
sweat.  According  to  De  Thou  (lib.  xi.  vol.  i. 
p.  326,  ed.  1626),  the  governor  of  Monte- 
maro,  being  seized  by  stratagem  and  threatened 
with  death,  was  so  moved  thereat  that  he  sweated 
blood  and  water.  Another  case,  recorded  in  the 
same  historian  (lib.  Ixxxii.  voi  iv.  p.  44),  is  that 
of  a  Florentine  youth  who  was  unjustly  con 
demned  to  death  by  Pope  Sixtus  V.  The  death 
of  Charles  IX.  of  France  was  attended  by  the  same 
phenomenon.  Mezeray  (Hist,  de  France,  ii.  p. 
1170,  ed.  1646)  says  of  his  last  moments,  "II 
s'agitoit  et  se  remuoit  sans  cesse,  et  le  sang  luy 
jaillissoit  par  tous  les  conduits,  mesme  par  les 
pores,  de  sorte  qu'  on  le  trouva  une  tbis  qui  baignoit 
dedans."  A  sailor,  during  a  fearful  storm,  is  said 
to  have  fallen  with  terror,  and  when  taken  up  his 
whole  body  was  covered  with  a  bloody  sweat  (Mil 
lingen,  p.  488).  In  the  Melanges  d'Histoire  (iii. 
179),  by  Dom  Bona venture  d'Argonne,  the  case  is 
given  of  a  woman  who  suffered  so  much  from  this 
malady  that,  after  her  death,  no  blood  was  found 
in  her  veins.  Another  case,  of  a  girl  of  1 8  who 
suffered  in  the  same  way,  is  reported  by  Mesaporiti,* 
a  physician  at  Genoa,  accompanied  by  the  observa 
tions  of  Valisneri,  Professor  of  Medicine  at  Padua. 
It  occurred  in  1703  (Phil.  Trans.  No.  303,  p. 
2144).  There  is  still,  however,  wanted  a  well- 
authenticated  instance  in  modern  times,  observed 
with  all  the  care  and  attested  by  all  the  exactness 
of  later  medical  science.  That  given  in  Caspar's 
Wochenschrift,  1 848,  as  having  been  observed  by 
Dr.  Schneider,  appears  to  be  the  most  recent,  and 
resembles  the  phenomenon  mentioned  by  Th:-o- 
phrastus  (London  Med.  Gaz.,  1848,  vol.  ii.  p. 
953).  For  further  reference  to  authorities,  see 
Copeland's  Diet,  of  Medicine,  ii.  72.  [W.  A.  W.] 

SWINE  (inn,  chdzir :  Sy,  getoj,  ffvs  ;  xo^oj 

in  N.  T. :  sus,  aper).  Allusion  will  be  found  in  the 
Bible  to  these  animals,  both  (1)  in  their  domestic 
and  (2)  in  their  wild  state. 

(1.)  The  flesh  of  swine  was  forbidden  as  food 
by  the  Levitical  law  (Lev.  xi.  7  ;  Deut.  xiv.  8) ; 
the  abhorrence  which  the  Jews  as  a  nation  had  oi 
it  may  be  inferred  from  Is.  Ixv.  4,  where  some  of 
the  idolatrous  people  are  represented  as  "  eating 
swine's  flesh,"  and  as  having  the  "  broth  of  abom 
inable  things  in  their  vessels ;"  see  also  Ixvi.  3,  1 7, 
and  2  Mace.  vi.  18,  19,  in  which  passage  we  icad 
that  Eleazar,  an  aged  scribe,  when  compelled  by 


So  the  name  is  given  in  the  Philos.  Trans.  \  Cftlaet 
writes  it  "  M.  Saporitius." 


BWJNE 

Aaitiochus  to  receive  in  his  mouth  swine's  flesh, 
'•'  spit  it  fbith,  choosing  rather  to  die  gloriously 
thi.ii  to  live  stained  with  such  an  abomination." 
Tl.e  use  of  swine's  flesh  was  forbidden  to  the 
Egyptian  priests,  to  whom,  says  Sir  G.  Wilkinson 
(Anc.  Egypt,  i.  322),  "above  all  meats  it  was 
particularly  obnoxious "  (see  Herodotus,  ii.  47  ; 
Aelian,  de  Nat.  Anim.  x.  1 6 ;  Josephus,  Contr. 
Apion.  ii.  14),  though  it  was  occasionally  eaten  by 
the  people.  The  Arabians  also  were  disallowed  the 
use  of  swine's  flesh  (see  Pliny,  N.  H.  viii.  52  ; 
Koran,  ii.  175),  as  were  also  the  Phoenicians, 
Aethiopians,  and  other  nations  of  the  East. 

No  other  reason  for  the  command  to  abstain  from 
swine's  flesh  is  given  in  the  law  of  Moses  beyond 
the  general  one  which  forbade  any  of  the  mam 
malia  as  food  which  did  not  literally  fulfil  the 
terms  of  the  definition  of  a  "  clean  animal,"  viz. 
that  it  was  to  be  a  cloven-footed  ruminant.  The 
pig,  therefore,  though  it  divides  the  hoof,  but  does 
not  chew  the  cud,  was  to  be  considered  unclean ; 
and  consequently,  inasmuch  as,  unlike  the  ass  and 
the  horse  in  the  time  of  the  Kings,  no  use  could 
be  made  of  the  animal  when  alive,  the  Jews  did 
not  breed  swine  (Lactant.  Instit.  iv.  17).  It  is, 
however,  probable  that  dietetical  considerations  may 
have  influenced  Moses  in  his  prohibition  of  swine's 
flesh;  it  is  generally  believed  that  its  use  in  hot 
countries  is  liable  to  induce  cutaneous  disorders  ; 
hence  in  a  people  liable  to  leprosy  the  necessity  for 
the  observance  of  a  strict  rule.  '*  The  reason  of 
the  meat  not  being  eaten  was  its  unwholesomeness, 
on  which  account  it  was  forbidden  to  the  Jews  and 
Moslems  "  (Sir  G.  Wilkinson's  note  in  Rawlinson's 
Herodotus,  ii.  47).  Ham.  Smith,  however  (Kitto's 
CycL  art.  '  Swine'},  maintains  that  this  reputed 
unwholesomeness  of  swine's  flesh  has  been  much 
exaggerated;  and  recently  a  writer  in  Colburn's 
New  Monthly  Magazine  (July  1,  1862,  p.  266) 
has  endorsed  this  opinion.  Other  conjectures  for  the 
reason  of  the  prohibition,  which  are  more  curious 
than  valuable,  may  be  seen  in  Bochart  (Hieroz. 
i.  806,  seq.~).  Callistratus  (apud  Plutarch.  Sympos. 
iv.  5)  suspected  that  the  Jews  did  not  use  swine's 
flesh  for  the  same  reason  which,  he  says,  influ 
enced  the  Egyptians,  viz.  that  this  animal  was 
sacred,  inasmuch  as  by  turning  up  the  earth  with 
its  snout  it  first  taught  men  the  art  of  ploughing 
(see  Bochart,  Hieroz.  i.  806,  and  a  dissertation  by 
Cassel,  entitled  De  Judaeorum  odio  et  abstinentia 
a  porcina  ejusque  causis,  Magdeb. ;  also  Michaelis, 
Comment,  on  the  Laws  of  Moses,  art.  203,  iii. 
230,  Smith's  transl.).  Although  the  Jews  did  not 
breed  swine,  during  the  greater  period  of  their 
existence  as  a  nation,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  heathen  nations  of  Palestine  used  the  flesh 
as  food. 

At  the  time  of  our  Lord's  ministry  it  would 
appear  that  the  Jews  occasionally  violated  the  law 
of  Moses  with  respect  to  swine's  flesh.  Whether 
"the  herd  of  swine"  into  which  the  devils  were 
allowed  to  enter  (Matt.  viii.  32;  Mark  v.  13) 
were  the  property  of  the  Jewish  or  Gentile  inha 
bitants  of  Gadara  does  not  appear  from  the  sacred 
narrative ;  but  that  the  practice  of  keeping  swine 
did  exist  amongst  some  of  the  Jews  seems  clear 
from  the  enactment  of  the  law  of  Hyrcanus,  "  ne 
cui  porcum  alere  liceret "  (Grotius,  Annot.  ad 
Matt.  1.  c.).  Allusion  is  made  in  2  Pet.  ii.  22 
to  the  fondness  which  swine  have  for  "  wallowing  in 
fhe  mire  ;"  this,  it  appears,  was  a  proverbial  expres 
sion,  with  which  may  be  compared  the  "  nrr.ica 

VOL.   III. 


SYCAMINE-TREE 


1393 


luto  sus"  of  Horace  (Ep.  i.  2,  26).  Solomon's 
comparison  of  a  "  jewel  of  gold  in  a  swine's  snout  " 
to  a  "  fair  woman  without  discretion "  (Prov.  xi. 
22),  and  the  expression  of  our  Lord,  "neither  cast 
ye  your  pearls  before  swine,"  are  so  obviously 
intelligible  as  to  render  any  remarks  unnecessary. 
The  transaction  of  the  destruction  of  the  herd  of 
swine  already  alluded  to,  like  the  cursing  of  the 
ban-en  fig-tree,  has  been  the  subject  of  most  unfair 
cavil :  it  is  well  answered  by  Trench  (Miracles, 
p.  173),  who  observes  that  "a  man  is  of  more 
value  than  many  swine ;"  besides  which  it  must 
be  remembered  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose 
that  our  Lord  sent  the  devils  into  the  swine.  He 
merely  permitted  them  to  go,  as  Aquinas  says, 
"  quod  autem  porci  in  mare  praecipitati  sunt  non 
fuit  operatic  divini  miraculi,  sed  operatic  daemo- 
num  e  permissione  divin& ;"  and  if  these  Gadarene 
villagers  were  Jews  and  owned  the  swine,  they 
were  rightly  punished  by  the  loss  of  that  which 
they  ought  not  to  have  had  at  all. 


(2.)  The  wild  boar  of  the  wood  (Ps.  Ixxx.  13) 
is  the  common  Sus  scrofa  which  is  frequently  met 
with  in  the  woody  parts  of  Palestine,  especially 
in  Mount  Tabor.  The  allusion  in  the  psalm  to 
the  injury  the  wild  boar  does  to  the  vineyards  is 
well  borne  out  by  fact.  "  It  is  astonishing  what 
havoc  a  wild  boar  is  capable  of  effecting  during  a 
single  night;  what  with  eating  and  trampling  under 
foot,  he  will  destroy  a  vast  quantity  of  grapes  " 
(Hartley's  Researches  in  Greece,  p.  234).  [W.  H.] 

SWORD.    [ARMS.] 

SYCAMINE-TREE  (oW/xti/os :  morus)  is 
mentioned  once  only,  viz.,  in  Luke  xvii.  6,  "  If 
ya  had  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  ye  might 
say  to  this  sycamine-tree,  Be  thou  plucked  up," 
&c.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  <rvKd- 
fjiivos  is 'distinct  from  the  O-VKO pupate,  of  the  same 
Evangelist  (xix.  4)  [SYCAMORE],  although  we  learn 
from  Dioscorides  (i.  180)  tnat  this  name  was  seme- 
times  given  to  the  crvKdpopos.  The  sycamine  is 
the  mulberry-tree  (Morus),  as  is  evident  from 
Dioscorides,  Theophrastus  (H.  P.  i.  6,  §1;  10, 
§10  ;  13,  §4,  &c.),  and  various  other  Greek  writers  ; 
see  Celsius,  ffierob.  i.  288.  A  form  of  the  same 
word,  <rvKa/ji.ir)vrid,  is  still  one  of  the  names  for  the 
mulberry-tree  in  Greece  (see  Heldreich's  Nvct-z- 
pflanzen  Griechenlands,  Athen.  1862,  p.  19, 
"  Morus  alba  L.  und  M.  nigra  L.  f)  MopTjd, 
Wlovpyyd.,  und  Movprjd,  auch  Su/ca^uTji/TjcJ — pelacg. 
, — &!.").  Both  black  and  white  mulberrv- 
4  II 


1394 


SYCAM01U5 


trees  are  common  in  Syria  and  Palestine,  and.  are 
largely  cultivated  there  for  the  sake  of  supplying  food 
to  the  caterpillars  of  the  silk-worm,  which  are  bred 
in  great  number's.  The  mulberry-tree  is  too  well 
known  to  render  further  remarks  necessary.  [W.  H.j 


MOTHS  nigra  (Mulberry). 


SYCAMORE  (n»p&?,  Shik'mdh: 
trvKo/j-opea  or  ffvKOfJiopaia,  in  the  N.  T. :  Syca- 
morus,  morus,  ficetum).  The  Hebrew  word  occurs 
in  the  0.  T.  only  in  the  plural  form  masc.  and  once 
fern.,  Ps.  Ixxviii.  47  ;  and  it  is  in  the  LXX.  always 
translated  by  the  Greek  word  CVK^IVOS.  The  two 
Greek  words  occur  only  once  each  in  the  N.  T., 
ffvKd.fj.tvos  (Luke  xvii.  6),  and  ffvKoncopea  (Luke 
xix.  4).  Although  it  may  be  admitted  that  the 
Sycamine  is  properly,  and  in  Luke  xvii.  6,  the 
Mulberry,  and  the  Sycamore  the  Fig-mulberry,  or 
Sycamore-fig  (Ficus  Sycomorus),  yet  the  latter  is 
the  tree  generally  referred  to  in  the  0.  T.,and  called 
by  the  Sept.  sycamine,  as  1  K.  x.  27 ;  1  Chr.  xxvii. 
28  ;  Ps.  Ixxviii.  47  ;  Am.  vii.  14.  Dioscorides  ex 
pressly  says  Sv/coVopoj/,  fviot  Se  Kal  rovro  <rvi«i- 
fjnvov  \4yovo~i,  lib.  i.  cap.  180.  Compare  Gese- 
nius,  Thesaurus  Heb.  p.  1476  6 ;  Winer,  Rwb.  ii. 
65  ff. ;  Rosenmiiller,  Alterthumskunde,  B.  iv. 
s.  281  if. ;  Celsius,  ffierob.  i.  310. 

The  Sycamore,  or  Fig-mulberry  (from  CTVKOV, 
fig,  and  fiSpov,  mulberry'),  is  in  Egypt  and  Palestine 
a  tree  of  great  importance  and  verj*  extensive  use. 
It  attains  the  size  of  a  walnut-tree,  has  wide- 
spreading  branches,  and  affords  a  delightful  shade. 
On  this  account  it  is  frequently  planted  by  the 
Its  leaves  are  heart-shaped,  downy  on 


the  under  side,  and  fragrant.  The  fruit  grows 
directly  from  the  trunk  itself  on  little  sprigs,  and 
in  clusters  like  the  grape.  To  make  it  eatable,  each 


Amos  gays  of  himself  he  was 


03: 


t.  e.   a 


<ruKo.ti.iva.  :  Vulg.  vellicam  sycamina  ; 
cutter  of  the  fruit  for  the  purpose  of  ripening  it. 
is  the  very  word  used  by  Theophrastus. 

b  See  Wilkinson's  Ancient  Egyptians,  ii.   110,  Loixt 
1^54.     "For  coffins,   boxes    tables,  doors,    and    other 


SYCAMORE 

fruit,  three  or  four  days  befo:  e  gathering,  must,  ii 
is  said,  be  punctured  with  a  sharp  instrument  01 
the  finger-nail.  Comp.  Theophrastus,  De  Caus 
Plant,  i.  17,  §9 ;  Hist.  PI.  iv.  2,  §1  ;  Pliny, 
N.  H.  xiii.  7  ;  Forsk&l,  Descr.  Plant,  p.  182.  This 
was  the  original  employment  of  the  prophet  Amos, 
as  he  says  vii.  14.*  Hasselquist  (Trav.  p.  260 
Lond.  1766)  says,  "the  fruit  of  this  tree  tastes 
pretty  well ;  when  quite  ripe  it  is  soft,  watery, 
somewhat  sweet,  with  a  very  little  portion  of  an 
aromatic  taste."  It  appears,  however,  that  a 
species  of  gall  insect  (Cynipt  Sycomori)  often  spoils 


FifUf  Sycomonu. 


much  of  the  fruit.  "  The  tree,"  Hasselquist  adds, 
"  is  wounded  or  cut  by  the  inhabitants  at  the  time 
it  buds,  for  without  this  precaution,  as  they  say,  it 
will  not  bear  fruit"  (p.  261).  In  form  and  smell 
and  inward  structure  it  resembles  the  fig,  and  hence 
its  name.  The  tree  is  always  verdant,  and  bears 
fruit  several  times  in  the  year  without  being  con 
fined  to  fixed  seasons,  and  is  thus,  as  a  permanent 
food-bearer,  invaluable  to  the  poor.  The  wood  of 
the  tree,  though  very  porous,  is.  exceedingly  durable. 
It  suffers  neither  from  moisture  nor  heat.  The 
Egyptian  mummy  coffins,  which  are  made  of  itf 
are  still  perfectly  sound  after  an  entombment  of 
thousands  of  years.  It  was  much  used  for  doors, 
and  large  furniture,  such  as  sofas,  tables,  and  chairs.1* 


objects  which  required  large  and  thick  planks,  for  idols 
and  wooden  statues,  the  sycamore  was  principally  em 
ployed  ;  and  from  the  quantity  discovered  in  the  tombs 
alone,  it  is  evident  that  toe  tree  was  -ultivated  to  a 
great  extent."  Don,  however,  believed  that  the  mummy- 
cases  of  the  Egyptians  were  made  of  the  wood  o; 
the  C'ordia  Myxa,  a  tree  which  furnishes  the  Sebestet 


SYCHAR 

So  great  was  tiie  value  of  these  trees,  that  David 
appointed  for  them  in  his  kingdom  a  specieJ  over 
seer,  as  he  did  for  the  olives  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  28) ;  and 
it  is  mentioned  as  one  of  the  heaviest  of  Egypt's 
calamities,  that  her  sycamores  were  destroyed  by 
hailstones  (Ps.  Ixxviii.  47).  That  which  is  called 
Sycamore  in  N.  America,  the  Occidental  Plane  or 
Button-wood  tree,  has  no  resemblance  whatever  to 
the  sycamore  of  the  Bible ;  the  name  is  also  applied 
to  a  species  of  maple  (the  Acer  Pseudo-platanus  or 
False-plane),  which  is  much  used  by  turners  and 
millwrights.  [C.  E.  S.] 

SY'CHAK  (Zvxdp  in  K  A  C  D ;  but  Rec.  Text 
Stx^P  with  B:  Sichar ;  but  Codd.  Am.  and  Fuld. 
Sychar:  Syriac,  Socar}.  A  place  named  only  in 
John  iv.  5.  Jt  is  specified  as  "  a  city  of  Samaria 
called  Sychar,  near  the  ground  which  Jacob  gave  to 
Joseph  his  son ;  and  there  was  the  well  of  Jacob." 

Jerone  believed  that  the  name  was  merely  a 
copyist's  error  for  Sychem ;  but  the  unanimity  of 
the  MSS.  is  sufficient  to  dispose  of  this  supposition. 

Sychar  was  either  a  name  applied  to  the  town  of 
Shechem,  or  it  was  an  independent  place.  1.  The 
first  of  these  alternatives  is  now  almost  universally 
accepted.  In  the  words  of  Dr.  Robinson  (Bib.  Res. 
ii.  290),  "  In  consequence  of  the  hatred  which 
existed  between  the  Jews  and  the  Samaritans,  and 
in  allusion  to  their  idolatry,  the  town  of  Sichem 
leceived,  among  the  Jewish  common  people,  the  by 
name  Sychar."  This  theory  may  be  correct,  but 
the  only  support  which  can  be  found  for  it  is  the 
very  imperfect  one  afforded  by  a  passage  in  Isaiah 
(xxviii.  1,  7),  in  which  the  prophet  denounces  the 
Ephraimites  as  shiccorim — "  drunkards;"  and  by  a 
passage  in  Habakkuk  (ii.  18)  in  which  the  words 
more/i  sheker,  "  a  teacher  of  lies,"  are  supposed  to 
contain  an  allusion  to  Moreh,  the  original  name  of 
the  district  of  Shechem ,  and  to  the  town  itself.  But 
this  is  surely  arguing  in  a  circle.  And  had  such  a 
nickname  been  applied  to  Shechem  so  habitually  as 
its  occurrence  in  St.  John  would  seem  to  imply, 
there  would  be  some  trace  of  it  in  those  passages 
of  the  Talmud  which  refer  to  the  Samaritans,  and  in 
which  every  term  of  opprobrium  and  ridicule  that 
can  be  quoted  or  invented  is  heaped  on  them.  It  may 
be  affirmed,  however,  with  certainty  that  neither  in 
Targum  nor  Talmud  is  there  any  mention  of  such  a 
thing.  Lightfoot  did  not  know  of  it.  The  numerous 
treatises  on  the  Samaritans  are  silent  about  it,  and 
recent  close  search  has  failed  to  discover  it. 

Presuming  that  Jacob's  well  was  then,  where  it  is 
now  shown,  at  the  entrance  of  the  valley  of  Nablns, 
hheohem  would  be  too  distant  to  answer  to  the 
words  of  St.  John,  since  it  must  have  been  more 
than  a  mile  off. 

"  A  city  of  Samaria  called  Sychar,  near  to  the 
plot  of  ground  which  Jacob  gave  to  Joseph  " — 
surely  these  are  hardly  the  terms  in  which  such  a 
place  as  Shechem  would  be  described ;  for  though 
it  was  then  perhaps  at  the  lowest  ebb  of  its  fortunes, 
yet  the  tenacity  of  places  in  Syria  to  name  and  fame 
is  almost  proverbial. 


SYCHAR 


139ft 


plums.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  the 
wood  of  the  Ficus  Sycomwrus  was  extensively  used  in 
ancient  days.  The  dry  climate  of  Egypt  might  have 
helped  to  have  preserved  the  timber,  which  must  have 
been  valuable  in  a  country  where  large  timber-trees  are 
scarce. 

»  The  text  of  Eusebius  reads  0  =  9  miles;  but  this  is 
corrected  by  Jerome  to  3. 

b  The  tomb  or  monument  alluded  to  in  these  two 
must  haw-  occupied  the  pUre  of  the  Moslem 


There  is  not  much  force  in  the  argument  that 
St.  Stephen  uses  the  name  Sychem  in  speaking  of 
Shechen..  for  he  is  recapitulating  the  ancient  history, 
and  the  names  cf  the  Old  Testament  narrative  (\u. 
the  LXX.  form)  would  come  most  naturally  to  his 
mouth.  But  the  earliest  Christian  tradition,  in  the 
persons  of  Eusebius  and  the.  Bourdeaux  Pilgrim — 
both  in  the  early  part  of  the  4th  century — discrimi 
nates  Shechem  from  Sychar.  Eusebius  (Onomast. 
~5,vx.ap  and  Aou£t£)-  says  that  Sychar  was  in  front  of 
the  city  of  Neapolis ;  and,  again,  that  it  lay  by  the 
side  of  Luza,  which  was  "three  miles  from  Neapolis. 
Sychem,  on  the  other  hand,  he  places  in  the  suburbs 
of  Neapolis  by  the  tomb  of  Joseph.  The  Bour 
deaux  Pilgrim  describes  Sechim  as  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain,  and  as  containing  Joseph's  monument b 
and  plot  of  ground  (villa).  And  he  then  proceeds 
to  say  that  a  thousand  paces  thence  was  the  place 
called  Sechar. 

And  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  of  the 
predilection  of  Orientals  for  the  water  of  certain 
springs  or  wells  (Porter,  Handbook,  342),  it  does 
appear  remarkable,  when  the  very  large  number  ot 
sources  in  Nablus  itself  is  remembered,  that  a  woman 
should  have  left  them  and  come  out  a  distance  01 
more  than  a  mile.  On  the  other  hand,  we  need 
not  suppose  that  it  was  her  habit  to  do  so ;  it  may 
have  been  a  casual  visit. 

2.  In  favour  of  Sychar  having  been  an  independ 
ent  place  is  the  fact  that  a  village  named  'Askar 

still  exists6  at  the  south-east  foot  of 
Ebal,  about  north-east  of  the  Well  of  Jacob,  and- 
about  half  a  mile  from  it.  Whether  this  is  the  vil 
lage  alluded  to  by  Eusebius,  and  Jerome,  and  the 
Bourdeaux  Pilgrim,  it  is  impossible  to  tell.  The 
earliest  notice  of  it  which  the  writer  has  been  able 
to  discover  is  in  Quaresmius  (Elacidatio,  ii.  808  6). 
It  is  uncertain  if  he  is  speaking  of  himself  or 
quoting  Brocardus.  If  the  latter,  he  had  a  different 
copy  from  that  which  is*  d  published.  It  is  an  im 
portant  point,  because  there  is  a  difference  of  more 
than  four  centuries  between  the  two,  Brocardus 
having  written  about  1280,  and  Quaresmius  about 
1630.  The  statement  is,  that  "on  the  left  of  the 
well,"  »'.  e.  on  the  north,  as  Gerizim  has  just  been 
spoken  of  as  on  the  right,  "  is  a  large  city  (oppidum 
magnum},  but  deserted  and  in  ruins,  which  is  be 
lieved  to  have  been  the  ancient  Sichem The 

natives  told  me  that  they  called  the  place  Istar." 

A  village  like  'Askar  •  answers  much  more  ap 
propriately  to  the  casual  description  of  St.  John 
than  so  large  and  so  venerable  a  place  as  Shechem. 

On  the  other  hand  there  is  an  etymological  diffi 
culty  in  the  way  of  this  identification.  'Askar  begins 
with  the  letter  'Ain,  which  Sychar  does  not  appear 
to  have  contained  ;  a  letter  too  stubborn  and  enduring 
to  be  easily  either  dropped  or  assumed  in  a  name. 

In  favour  of  the  theory  that  Sychar  was  a  "  nick 
name"  of  Shechem,  it  should  not  be  overlocked  that 
St.  John  appears  always  to  use  the  expression  \fy6- 
fji.fi/os,  "  called,"  to  denote  a  soubriquet  or  title 

tomb  of  Yusuf,  now  shown  at  the  foot  of  Gerizim,  not 
far  from  the  east  gate  of  Nablus. 

Dr.  Rosen,  in  Zeitschrift  der  D.  M.  G.  xiv.  634.  Van 
de  Velde  (S.  &  P.  ii.  333)  proposes  'Askar  as  the  native 
place  of  Judas  Iscariot. 

Perhaps  this  is  one  of  the  variations  spoken  of  by 
Robinson  (ii.  539). 

The  identity  of  Askar  with  Sychar  is  supported  b/ 
Dr.  Thomson  (Land  and  Book,  ch.  xxxi.),  and  by  Mr.  Wil 
.lams  in  the  Diet,  of  Geogr.  (ii.  412  b). 

4  U  2 


1390 


SYCHEM 


borne  by  place  or  person  in  addition  to  the  name, 
or  to  attach  it  to  a  place  remote  and  little  known. 
Instances  of  the  former  practice  are  xi.  16,  xx.  24, 
xix.  13,  17;  of  the  latter,  xi.  54. 

These  considerations  have  been  stated  not  so  much 
with  the  hope  of  leading  to  any  conclusion  on  the 
identity  of  Sychar,  which  seems  hopeless,  as  with 
the  desire  to  shew  that  the  ordinary  explanation  is 
not  nearly  so  obvious  as  it  is  usually  assumed 
to  be.  rG  1 


SY'CHEM  (2ux6/»:  Sicbem;  Cod.  Amiat.  £)/- 
chem).  The  Greek  form  of  the  word  Shechem,  the 
name  of  the  well  known  city  of  Central  Palestine. 
It  occurs  in  Acts  vii.  16  only.  The  main  interest 
of  the  passage  rests  on  its  containing  two  of  those 
numerous  and  singular  variations  from  the  early 
history,  as  told  in  the  Pentateuch,  with  which  the 
speech  of  St.  Stephen"  abounds.  [STEPHEN.]  This 
single  verse  exhibits  an  addition  to,  and  a  discrepancy 
from,  the  earliw  account.  (1)  The  patriarchs  are 
said  in  it  to  have  been  buried  at  Sychem,  whereas 
in  the  0.  T.  this  is  related  of  the  bones  of  Joseph 
alone  (Josh.  xxiv.  32).  (2)  The  sepulchre  at 
Sychem  is  said  to  have  been  bought  from  Emmor 
by  Abraham  :  whereas  in  the  0.  T.  it  was  the 
cave  of  M-ichpelah  at  Kirjath-arba  which  Abraham 
bought  and  made  into  his  sepulchre,  and  Jacob 
who  bought  the  plot  of  ground  at  Shechem  from 
Hamor  (Gen.  xxxiii.  19).  In  neither  of  these  cases 
is  there  any  doubt  of  the  authenticity  of  the  present 
Greek  text,  nor  has  any  explanation  been  put  for 
ward  which  adequately  meets  the  difficulty  —  if 
difficult  it  be.  That  no  attempt  should  have 
beeu  made  to  reconcile  the  numerous  and  obvious 
discrepancies  contained  in  the  speech  of  St.  Stephen 
by  altering  the  MSS.  is  remarkable,  and  a  cause  of 
great  thankfulness.  Thankfulness  because  we  are 
thus  permitted  to  possess  at  once  a  proof  that  it  is 
possible  to  be  as  thoroughly  inspired  by  the  Spirit 
of  God  as  was  Stephen  on  this  occasion,  and  yet 
have  remained  ignorant  or  forgetful  of  minute  facts, 
—  and  a  broad  and  conspicuous  seal  to  the  unimport 
ance  of  such  slight  variations  in  the  different  ac 
counts  of  the  Sacred  History,  as  long  as  the  general 
tenor  of  the  whole  remains  harmonious. 

A  bastard  variation  of  the  name  Sychem,  viz. 
iSiCHEM,  is  found,  and  its  people  are  mentioned  as  — 

SY'CHEMITE,  THE  (rlv  5uX€/*:  ffevaeus), 
in  Jud.  v.  16.  This  passage  is  remarkable  for 
giving  the  inhabitants  of  Shechem  an  independent 
place  among  the  tribes  of  the  country  who  were 
dispossessed  at  the  conquest.  [G.] 

SYE'LUS  (2vr)A.os  ;  Alex.  'HcrufjAos  :  om.  in 
Vulg.)=jEHiEL  3  (1  Esd.  i.  8;  comp.  2  Chr. 
xxxv.  8). 

SYE  NE,  properly  SEVENEH  (fU)D  :  Si^vr?  : 
Syene},  a  town  of  Egypt  on  the  frontier  of  Cush 
or  Ethiopia.  The  prophet  Ezekiel  speaks  of  the 
desolation  of  Egypt  "  from  Migdol  to  Seveneh,  even 
unto  the  lorder  of  Cush  "  (xxix.  10),  and  of  its 
people  being  slain  "  from  Migdol  to  Seveneh  "  (xxx. 
6).  Migdol  was  on  the  eastern  border  [MIGDOL], 
and  Seveneh  is  thus  rightly  identified  with  the  town 
of  Syene,  which  was  always  the  last  town  of  Egypt 
on  the  south,  though  at  one  time  included  in  the 
nome  Nubia.  Its  ancient  Egyptian  name  is  SUN 
(Brugsch,  Gcogr.  Inschrift.  i.  155,  tab.  i.,  No.  55), 


a  These  are  examined  at  great  length,  and  elaborately 
loconclled,  in  the  New  Testament  of  Canon  Wurdsworih, 
."860,  pp.  65-69. 


SYNAGOGUE 

preserved  in  the  Coptic  COT^-ft,  C€ttOIlj 
and  the  Arabic  Aswan.  The  modern  town  is 
slightly  to  the  north  of  the  old  site,  which  is  marked 
by  an  interesting  early  Arab  burial-ground,  covered 
with  remarkable  tombstones,  having  inscriptions 
in  the  Cufic  character.  Champollion  suggests  the 

derivation   C<L,    catsative,    OlfHltj    CntCri, 

"  to  open,"  as  though  it  signified  th».  opening  or  key 
of  Egypt  (L'Egypte,  i.  161-166),  and  this  is  the 
meaning  of  the  hieroglyphic  name.  [R.  S.  P.] 

SYNAGOGUE  (Swayuyfi  :  Si/nagoga).— 
It  may  be  well  to  note  at  the  outset  the  points  of 
contact  between  the  history  and  ritual  of  the  syna 
gogues  of  the  Jews,  and  the  facts  to  which  the 
inquiries  of  the  Biblical  student  are  principally 
directed.  (1.)  They  meet  us  as  the  great  charac 
teristic  institution  of  the  later  phase  ot  Judaism. 
More  even  than  the  Temple  and  its  services,  in  the 
time  of  which  the  N.  T.  treats,  they  at  once  repre 
sented  and  determined  the  religious  life  of  the 
people.  (2.)  We  cannot  separate  them  from  the 
most  intimate  connexion  with  our  Lord's  life  and 
ministry.  In  them  He  worshipped  in  His  youth, 
and  in  His  manhood.  Whatever  we  can  learn  of 
the  ritual  which  then  prevailed  tells  us  of  a  worship 
which  He  recognised  and  sanctioned ;  which  for  that 
reason,  if  for  no  other,  though,  like  the  statelier 
services  of  the  Temple,  it  was  destined  to  pass  away, 
is  worthy  of  our  respect  and  honour.  They  were 
the  scenes,  too,  of  no  small  portion  of  His  work. 
In  them  were  wrought  some  of  His  mightiest  works 
of  healing  (Mark  i.  23 ;  Matt.  xii.  9 ;  Luke  xiii. 
1 1).  In  them  were  spoken  some  of  the  most  glo 
rious  of  His  recorded  words  (Luke  iv.  16*;  John  vi. 
59) ;  many  more,  beyond  all  reckoning,  which  are  not 
recorded  (Matt.  iv.  23,  xiii.  54  ;  John  xviii.  20, 
etc.,  etc.).  (3.)  There  are  the  questions,  leading 
us  back  to  a  remoter  past :  In  what  did  the  wor 
ship  of  the  synagogue  originate  ?  what  type  was  it 
intended  to  reproduce?  what  customs,  alike  in 
nature,  if  not  in  name,  served  as  the  starting-point 
for  it?  (4.)  The  synagogue,  with  all  that  be 
longed  to  it,  was  connected  with  the  future  as  well 
as  with  the  past.  It  was  the  order  with  which  the 
first  Christian  believers  were  most  familiar,  from 
which  they  were  most  likely  to  take  the  outlines, 
or  even  the  details,  of  the  worship,  organisation, 
government  of  their  own  society.  Widely  diverg 
ent  as  the  two  words  and  the  things  they  represented 
afterwards  became,  the  Ecclesia  had  its  starting- 
point  in  the  Synagogue. 

Keeping  these  points  in  view,  it  remains  to  deal 
with  the  subject  in  a  somewhat  more  formal  manner. 

I.  Name. — (1.)  The  Aramaic  equivalent  KJ18W3 
first  appears  in  the  Targum  of  Onkelos  as  a  sub 
stitute  for  the  Hebrew  HIV  ( =  congregation)  in 
the  Pentateuch  (Leyrer,  ut  infr.}.  The  more  pre 
cise  local  designation,  nn03H  TV2  (Beth  ha-Cen- 
neseth= House  of  gathering),  belongs  to  a  yet  later 
date.  This  is,  in  itself,  tolerably  strong  evidence 
that  nothing  precisely  answering  to  the  later  syna 
gogue  was  recognised  before  the  Exile.  If  it  had 
been,  the  name  was  quite  as  likely  to  have  been 
perpetuated  as  the  thing. 

(2.)  The  word  (rvvaywyfi,  not  unknown  in  clas 
sical  Greek  (Thuc.  ii.  18,  Plato,  Republ  526  D), 
became  prominent  in  that  of  the  Hellenists.  It 
appears  in  the  LXX.  as  the  translation  of  not  less 
than  twenty-one  Hebrew  words  in  which  the  idea 
cf  a  gathering  is  implied  (Trornm.  Concordant,  s.  v.) 


SYNAGOGUE 

With  most  of  these  we  have  nothing,  to  do.     Two 
of  them  are  more  noticeable.     It  is  used  130  times 
for  mjJ,  where  the  prominent  idea  is  that  of  an 
appointed  meeting  (Gesenius,  s.  v.},  and  25  times 
for  ?Hp,  a  meeting  called  together,  and  therefore 
more  commonly   translated   in  the  LXX.   by   e/c- 
K\i)ffia.     In  one  memorable  passage  (Prov.  v.  14), 
the  two  words,  e/c/c\7;(ria  and  a-vvaytay-f],  destined 
to  have  such  divergent  histories,  to  be  representa 
tives  of  such  contrasted  systems,  appear  in  close 
juxtaposition.     In  the  books  of  the  Apocrypha  the 
word,  as  in  those  of  the  0.  T.,  retains  its  general 
meaning,  and  is  not  used  specifically  for  any  recog 
nised  place  of  worship.    For  this  the  received  phrase 
seems  to  be  r6iros  irpoffevxys  (1  Mace.   iii.  46, 
3  Mace.  vii.  20).     In  the  N.  T.,  however,  the  local 
meaning  is  the  dominant  one.    Sometimes  the  word 
is  applied  to  the  tribunal  which  was  connected  with 
or  sat  in  the  synagogue  in  the  narrower  sense  (Matt. 
x.  17,  xxiii.  34;  Mark  xiii.  9  ;  Luke  xxi.  12,  xii. 
11).     Within  the  limits  of  the  Jewish  Church  it 
perhaps  kept  its  ground  as  denoting  the  place  of 
meeting  of  the  Christian  brethren  (Jas.  ii.  2).     It 
seems  to  have  been  claimed  by  some  of  the  pseudo- 
Judaising,  half-Gnostic  sects  of  the  Asiatic  Churches 
for  their  meetings  (Rev.  ii.  9).     It  was  not  altoge 
ther  obsolete,  as  applied  to  Christian  meetings,  in 
the  time  of  Ignatius  (Ep.  ad  Trail,  c.  5,  ad  Polyc. 
c.  3).     Even  in  Clement  of  Alexandria   the   two 
words  appear  united  as  they  had  done  in  the  LXX. 
(CTT!  T}]V  ffwayayfyv  €KKA.7j<rias,  Strom,  vi.  p.  633). 
Afterwards  when  the  chasm  between  Judaism  and 
Christianity  became  wider,  Christian  writers  were 
fond  of  dwelling  on  the  meanings  of  the  two  words 
which  practically  represented  them,  and  showing 
how  far  the  Synagogue  was  excelled  by  the  Ecclesia 
(August.  Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixxx. ;  Trench,  Synonyms 
of  N.  T.  §i.).    The  cognate  word,  however,  cvva^is 
was  formed  or  adopted  in  its  place,  and  applied  to 
the  highest  act  of  worship   and   communion    for 
which  Christians  met  (Suicer,  Thes.  s.  v.). 

II.  History. — (1.)  Jewish  writers  have  claimec 
for  their  synagogues  a  veiy  remote  antiquity.  In 
well-nigh  every  place  where  the  phrase  "  before 
the  Lord  "  appears,  they  recognise  in  it  a  known 
sanctuary,  a  fixed  place  of  meeting,  and  therefore  a 
synagogue  (Vitringa,  De  Synag.  pp.  271  et  seq.~) 
The  Targum  of  Onkelos  finds  in  Jacob's  "  dwelling 
in  tents  "  (Gen.  xxv.  27)  his  attendance  at  a  syna 
gogue  or  house  of  prayer.  That  of  Jonathan  find 
them  in  Judg.  v.  9,  and  in  "  the  calling  of  assem 
blies  "  of  Is.  i.  13  (Vitringa,  pp.  271-315). 

(2.)  Apart  from  these  far-fetched  interpretations 
we  know  too  little  of  the  life  of  Israel,  both  befor 
and  under  the  monarchy,  to  be  able  to  say  with 
certainty  whether  there  was  anything  at  all  corres 
ponding  to  the  synagogues  of  later  date.  On  the 
one  hand,  it  is  probable  that  if  new  moons  and 
sabbaths  were  observed  at  all,  they  must  have  been 
attended  by  some  celebration  apart  from,  as  well  as 
at,  the  Tabernacle  or  the  Temple  (1  Sam.  xx.  5; 
2  K.  iv.  23).  On  the  other,  so  far  as  we  find 
traces  of  such  local  worship,  it  seems  to  have  fallen 
too  readily  into  a  fetich-religion,  sacrifices  to  ephods 
and  teraphim  (Judg.  viii.  27,  xvii.  5)  in  groves  and 
on  high-places,  offering  nothing  but  a  contrast  to 
the  "reasonable  service/''  the  prayers,  psalms,  in- 

»  The  passage  is  not  without  its  difficulties.  The  in 
terpretation  given  above  is  supported  by  the  LXX., 
Vulg.,  ?.ud  A.V.  It  is  continued  by  'lie  geiieial  consensus 


SYNAGOGUE 


1307 


traction  in  the  Law,  of  the  later  synagogue.     The 
pecial   mission  of  the  Priests  and    Levites   under 
Jehoshaphat  (2  Chr.  xvii.  7-9)   shows  that  there 
was  no  regular  provision  for  reading  the  "  book  ot 
;he  law  of  the  Lord  "  to  the  people,  and  makes  it 
>robable  that  even  the  rule  which  prescribed  that  ii 
ihould  be  read  once  every  seven  years  at  the  feast 
)f  Tabernacles  had  fallen  into  disuse  (Deut.  xxxi.  10). 
With  the  rise  of  the  prophetic  order  we  trace  a 
more  distinct  though  still  a  partial  approximation. 
Wherever  there  was  a  company  of  such  prophets 
there  must  have  been  a  life  analogous  in  many  of 
ts  features  to  that  of  the  later  Essenes  and  Thera- 
peutae,  to  that  of  the  coenobia  anc   monasteries  of 
Christendom.     In  the  abnormal  sta^a  of  the  polity 
of  Israel  under  Samuel,  they  appear  to  have  aimed 
at  purifying  the  worship  of  the  high-places  from 
dolatrous  associations,  and  met  on  fixed  days  for 
sacrifice    and    psalmody    (1   Sam.   ix.   12,  x.   5). 
The  scene  in  1  Sam.  xix.  20-24  indicates  that  the 
meetings  were  open  to  any  worshippers  who  might 
choose   to   come,  as  well  as  to  "  the  sons  of  the 
prophets,"  the  brothers  of  the  order  themselves. 
Later  on,  in  the  time  of  Elisha,  the  question  of  the 
Shunammite's  husband  (2  K.  iv.  23),  "  Wherefore 
wilt  thou  go  to  him  (the  prophet)  to-day  ?     It  is 
neither  new  moon  nor  sabbath ,"  implies  frequent 
periodical  gatherings,  instituted  or  perhaps  revived 
by  Elijah  and  his  successors,  as  a  means  of  sus 
taining  the  religious  life  of  the  northern  kingdom, 
and  counteracting  the  prevalent  idolatry.    The  date 
of  Ps.  Ixxiv.  is  too  uncertain  for  us  to  draw  any 
inference  as  to  the  nature  of  the  "  synagogues  oi 
God  "  (ta   nVjO,  meeting-places  of  God),  which 
the  invaders  are  represented  as  destroying  (v.  8). 
It  may  have  belonged  to  the  time  of  the  Assyrian 
or  Chaldaean  invasion  (Vitringa,  Synag.  pp.  396- 
405).    It  has  been  referred  to  that  of  the  Maccabees 
(De  Wette,  Psalmen,  in  loc.),  or  to  an  intermediate 
period  when  Jerusalem  was  taken  and  the  land  laid 
waste  by  the  army  of  fiagoses,  under  Artaxerxes  II. 
(Ewald,  Poet.  Such.  ii.  358).     The  "assembly  ot 
the  elders,"  in  Ps.  cvii.  32,  leaves  us  in  like  un 
certainty. 

(3.)  "During  the  exile,  in  the  abeyance  of  the 
Temple-worship,  the  meetings  of  devout  Jews  pro 
bably  became  more  systematic  (Vitringa,  De  Synag. 
pp.  41G-429;  Jost,  Judenthum,  i.  168;  Bornitms. 
De  Synagog.  in  Ugolini,  Thes.  xxi.),  and  n.-ust  have 
helped  forward  the  change  which  appeais  so  con 
spicuously  at  the  time  of  the  return.  The  repeated 
mention  of  gatherings  of  the  elders  of  Israel,  sitting 
before  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  and  hearing  his  word 
(Ez.  viii.  1,  xiv.  1,  xx.  1,  xxxiii.  31),  implies  thi 
transfer  to  the  land  of  the  captivity  of  the  custom 
|  that  had  originated  in  the  schools  of  the  prophets. 
One  remarkable  passage  may  possibly  contain  a 
more  distinct  reference  to  them.  Those  who  still 
remained  in  Jerusalem  taunted  the  prophet  and  his 
companions  with  their  exile,  as  outcasts  from  the 
blessings  of  the  sanctuary.  "  Get  ye  far  from 
the  Lord ;  unto  us  is  this  land  given  in  a  posses 
siou."  The  prophet's  answer  is,  that  it  was  not  so 
Jehovah  was  as  truly  with  them  in  their  "  little 
sanctuary  "  as  He  had  been  in  the  Temple  at  Jeru 
salem.  His  presence,  not  the  outward  glory,  was 
itself  the  sanctuary  (Ez.  xi.  15,  16).»  The  whole 
history  of  Ezra  presupposes  the  habit  of  solemn, 


of  Jewish  interpreters.  (Vatablus,  in  Crit.  Sac.  in  loco; 
Calmet,  s.  v.  Synagogue.')  The  other  renderings  (comp. 
Ewald  aud  Kosemii Oiler,  in  loc.\  "  1  will  be  to  them  t 


1398 


SYNAGOGUE 


probably  of  periodic  meetings  (Ezr.  viii.  15  ;  Neh. 
viii.  2,  ix.  1  ;  Zech.  vii.  5).  To  that  period  ac 
cordingly  we  may  attribute  the  revival,  if  not  the 
institution  of  synagogues.  The  "ancient  days" 
of  which  St.  James  speaks  (Acts  xv.  21)  may,  at 
least,  go  back  so  far.  Assuming  Ewald's  theory  as 
to  the  date  and  occasion  of  Ps.  Ixxiv.,  there  must, 
at  some  subsequent  period,  have  been  a  great  de 
struction  of  the  buildings,  and  a  consequent  sus 
pension  of  the  services.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  striking 
that  they  are  not  in  any  way  prominent  in  the 
Maccabaean  history,  either  as  objects  of  attack,  or 
rallying  points  of  defence,  unless  we  are  to  see  in 
the  gathering  of  the  persecuted  Jews  at  Maspha 
(Mizpah)  as  at  a  "  place  where  they  prayed  afore 
time  in  Israel"  (1  Mace.  iii.  46),  not  only  a 
reminiscence  of  its  old  glory  as  a  holy  place,  but 
the  continuance  of  a  more  recent  custom.  When 
that  struggle  was  over,  there  appears  to  have  been 
a  freer  development  of  what  may  be  called  the 
synagogue  parochial  system  among  the  Jews  of 
Palestine  and  other  countries.  The  influence  of 
John  Hyrcanus,  the  growing  power  of  the  Pharisees, 
the  authority  of  the  Scribes,  the  example,  probably, 
of  the  Jews  of  the  "  dispersion  "  (Vitringa,  p.  426), 
would  all  tend  in  the  same  direction.  Well-nigh 
every  town  or  village  had  its  one  or  more  syna 
gogues.  Where  the  Jews  were  not  in  sufficient 
numbers  to  be  able  to  erect  and  fill  a  building, 
there  was  the  irpoffevx'f])  or  place  °f  prayer,  some 
times  open,  sometimes  covered  in,  commonly  by  a 
running  stream  or  on  the  sea-shore,  in  which 
devout  Jews  and  proselytes  met  to  worship,  and, 
perhaps,  to  read  (Acts  xvi.  13;  Jos.  Ant.  xiv. 
10,  23  ;  Juven.  Sat.  iii.  296).b  Sometimes  the 
term  irpofffvx'h  (=n?Sri  JV2)  was  applied  even 
to  an  actual  synagogue  (Jos.  Vit.  c.  54). 

(4.)  It  is  hardly  possible  to  overestimate  the 
influence  of  the  system  thus  developed.  To  it  we 
may  ascribe  the  tenacity  with  which,  after  the 
Maccabaean  struggle,  the  Jews  adhered  to  the 
religion  of  their  fathers,  and  never  again  relapsed 
into  idolatry.  The  people  were  now  in  no  danger 
of  forgetting  the  Law,  and  the  external  ordinances 
that  hedged  it  round.  If  pilgrimages  ^were  still 
made  to  Jerusalem  at  the  great  feasts,  the  habitual 
religion  of  the  Jews  in,  and  yet  more  out  of  Pales 
tine  was  connected  much  moie  intimately  with 
the  synagogue  than  with  the  Temple.  Its  simple, 
edifying  devotion,  in  which  mind  and  heart  could 
alike  enter,  attracted  the  heathen  proselytes  who 
might  have  been  repelled  by  the  bloody  sacrifices  of 
the  Temple,  or  would  certainly  have  been  driven 
from  it  unless  they  could  make  up  their  minds  to 
submit  to  circumcision  (Acts  xxi.  28 ;  comp. 
PROSELYTES).  Here  too,  as  in  the  cognate  order 
of  the  Scribes,  there  was  an,  influence  tending  to 


SYNAGOGUE 

diminish  and  ultimately  almost  to  destroy  the 
authority  of  the  hereditary  priesthood.  The  ser 
vices  of  the  synagogue  required  no  sons  of  Aaion  ; 
yave  them  nothing  more  than  a  complimentary 
precedence.  [PRIESTS  ;  SCRIBES.]  The  way  was 
silently  prepared  for  a  new  and  higher  order,  which 
should  rise  in  "  the  fulness  of  time "  out  of  the 
decay  and  abolition  of  both  the  priesthood  and  the 
Temple.  In  another  way  too  the  synagogues  every 
where  prepared  the  way  for  that  order.  Not 
"  Moses  "  only  but  "  the  Prophets  "  were  read  in 
them  every  Sabbath  day,  and  thus  the  Messianic 
hopes  of  Israel,  the  expectation  of  a  kingdom  of 
Heaven,  were  universally  diffused. 

III.  Structure. — (1.)  The  size  of  a  synagogue, 
like  that  of  a  church  or  chapel,  varied  with  the 
population.  We  have  no  reason  for  believing  that 
there  were  an)'  fixed  laws  of  proportion  tor  its  di 
mensions,  like  those  which  are  traced  in  the  Taber 
nacle  and  the  Temple.  Its  position  was,  however, 
determinate.  It  stood,  if  possible,  on  the  highest 
ground,  in  or  near  the  city  to  which  it  belonged. 
Failing  this,  a  tall  pole  rose  from  the  roof  to  render 
it  conspicuous  (Leyrer.  s.  v.  Synag.  in  Herzog's 
Real-Encycl.}.  And  its  direction  too  was  fixed. 
Jerusalem  was  the  Kibleh  of  Jewish  devotion.  The 
synagogue  was  so  constructed,  that  the  worshippers 
as  they  entered,  and  as  they  prayed,  looked  toward 
itc  (Vitringa,  pp.  178,  457).  The  building  was 
commonly  erected  at  the  cest  of  the  district,  whe 
ther  by  a  church-rate  'evied  for  the  purpose,  or  by 
free  gifts,  must  remain  uncertain  (Vitringa,  p. 
229).  Sometimes  it  was  built  by  a  rich  Jew,  or 
even  as  in  Luke  vii.  5,  by  a  friendly  proselyte.  In 
the  later  stages  of  Eastern  Judaism  it  was  often 
erected,  like  the  mosques  of  Mahometans,  near  the 
tombs  of  famous  Rabbis  or  holy  men.  When  the 
building  was  finished  it  was  set  apart,  as  the 
Temple  had  been,  by  a  special  prayer  of  dedication . 
From  that  time  it  had  a  consecrated  character.  The 
common  acts  of  life,  eating,  drinking,  reckoning  up 
accounts,  were  forbidden  in  it.  No  one  was  to 
pass  through  it  as  a  short  cut.  Even  if  it  ceased 
to  be  used,  the  building  was  not  to  be  applied  to 
any  base  purpose — might  not  be  turned,  e.  g.  into  a 
bath,  a  laundry,  or  a  tannery.  A  scraper  stood 
outside  the  door  that  men  might  rid  themselves, 
before  they  entered,  of  anything  that  would  be  de 
filing  (Leyrer,  I.  c.,  and  Vitringa). 

(2.;  In  the  internal  arrangement  of  the  syna 
gogue  we  trace  an  obvious  analogy,  mutatis  mu 
tandis,  to  the  type  of  the  Tabernacle.  At  the  upper 
or  Jerusalem  end  stood  the  Ark,  the  chest  which, 
like  the  older  and  more  sacred  Ark,  contained  the 
Book  of  the  Law.  It  gave  to  that  end  the  name 
and  character  of  a  sanctuary  (iO^H).  The  same 
thought  was  sometimes  expressed  by  its  being  called 


sanctuary,  for  a  little  time,"  or  "in  a  little  measure," 
give  a  less  satisfactory  meaning.  The  language  of  the 
later  Jews  applied  the  term  "  sanctuary  "  to  the  ark-end 
of  the  synagogue  (infra). 

b  We  may  trace  perhaps  in  this  selection  of  localities, 
like  the  "  sacri  fontis  nemus  "  of  Juv.  Sat.  iii.  13,  the 
re-appearance,  freed  from  its  old  abominations,  of  the 
attachment  of  the  Jews  to  the  -vorship  of  the  groves,  of 
the  charm  which  led  them  to  bow  down  under  "  every 
green  tree  "  (Is.  Ivii.  5  ;  Jer.  ii.  20). 

c  The  practice  of  a  fixed  Kibleh  (=  direction)  in 
prayer  was  clearly  very  ancient,  and  commended  itself  to 
some  special  necessities  of  the  Eastern  character.  In 
h».  xx viii.,  ascribed  to  David,  we  have  probably  the 


earliest  trace  of  It  (De  Wette,  in  Zoc.).  It  is  recognised 
in  the  dedication  prayer  of  Solomon  (1  K.  viii.  29  et  al.). 
It  appears  as  a  fixed  rule  in  the  devotions  of  Daniel 
(Dan.  vi.  10).  It  was  adopted  afterwards  by  Mahomet, 
and  the  point  of  the  Kibleh,  after  some  lingering  reverence 
to  the  Holy  City,  transferred  from  Jerusalem  to  the 
Kaaba  of  Mecca.  The  early  Christian  practice  of  praying 
towards  the  East  indicates  a  like  feeling,  and  probably 
originated  in  the  adoption  by  the  Churches  of  Europe 
and  Africa  of  the  structure  of  the  synagogue.  The 
position  of  the  altar  in  those  churches  rested  on  a  like 
analogy.  The  table  of  the  Lord,  bearing  witness  of  th« 
blood  of  the  New  Covenant,  took  the  place  of  the  Ark  which 
contained  the  Law  that  was  the  groundwork  of  the  Old. 


SYNAGOGUE 

after  the  name  of  Aaron  (Buxtorf,  Synag.  Jud.  ch. 
x.),  and  was  developed  still  further  in  the  name  of 
Cypbsrfth,  or  Mercy-seat,  given  to  the  lid,  or  door 
of  the  chest,  and  in  the  Veil  which  hung  before  it 
(Titringa,  p.  181).  This  part  of  the  synagogue 
was  naturally  the  place  of  honour.  Here  were  the 
7Tf)(aroKa6f5ptai,  after  which  Pharisees  and  Scribes 
strove  so  eagerly  (Matt,  xxiii.  6),  to  which  the 
wealthy  and  honoured  worshipper  was  invited 
'James  ii.  2,  3).  Here  too,  in  front  of  the  Ark, 
still  reproducing  the  type  of  the  Tabernacle,  was 
the  eight-branched  lamp,  lighted  only  on  the  greater 
festivals.  Besides  this,  there  was  one  lamp  kept 
burning  perpetually.  Others,  brought  by  devout 
worshippers,  were  lighted  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Sabbath,  i.e.  on  Friday  evening  (Vitringa,  p.  198).d 
A  little  further  towards  the  middle  of  the  building 
was  a  raised  platform,  on  which  several  persons 
could  stand  at  once,  and  in  the  middle  of  this  rose 
a  pulpit,  in  which  the  Reader  stood  to  read  the 
lesson  or  sat  down  to  teach.  The  congregation 
were  divided,  men  on  one  side,  women  on  the  other, 
a  low  partition,  fhe  or  six  feet  high,  running  be 
tween  them  (Thilo,  De  Vit.  Contempl.  ii.  476). 
The  arrangements  of  modern  synagogues,  for  many 
centuries,  have  made  the  separation  more  complete 
by  placing  the  women  in  low  side-galleries,  screened 
off  by  lattice- work  (Leo  of  Modena,  in  Picart,  Ce- 
rem.  Relig.  i.)..  Within  the  Ark,  as  above  stated, 
were  the  rolls  of  the  sacred  books.  The  rollers 
round  which  they  were  wound  were  often  elabo 
rately  decorated,  the  cases  for  them  embroidered  or 
enamelled,  according  to  their  material.  Such  cases 
were  customary  offerings  from  the  rich  when  they 
brought  their  infant-children  on  the  first  anniver 
sary  of  their  birthday,  to  be  blessed  by  the  Rabbi 
of  the  synagogue.6  As  part  of  the  fittings  we  have 
also  to  note  (1.)  another  chest  for  the  Haphtaroth, 
or  rolls  of  fhe  prophets.  (2.)  Alms-boxes  at  or 
near  the  door,  after  the  pattern  of  those  at  the 
Temple,  one  for  the  poor  of  Jerusalem,  the  other 
for  local  charities.*  (3.)  Notice-boards,  on  which 
were  written  the  names  of  offenders  who  had  been 
"  put  out  of  the  synagogue."  (4.)  A  chest  for 
trumpets  and  other  musical  instruments,  used  at 
the  New  Years,  Sabbaths,  and  other  festivals  (Vi 
tringa,  Leyrer,  I.  c.). 

IV.  Officers. — (1.)  In  smaller  towns  there  was 
often  but  one  Rabbi  (Vitringa,  p.  549).  Whc-c 
a  fuller  organization  was  possible,  there  was  a 
college  of  Elders  (D^pt  =  irpefffivrepoi,  Luke  vii. 
3)  presided  over  by  one  who  was  KOT'  e£oxV>  & 
apxHrvvdytayos  (Luke  viii.  41,  49,  xiii.  14; 
Acts  xviii.  8,  17).  To  these  elders  belonged  a 
variety  of  synonymes,  each  with  a  special  signifi 
cance.  They  were  D^WIS  (Parnasim=r7rotfi€i'€s, 
Eph.  iv.  1 1),  watching  over  their  flock,  TrpoeffTw- 
T€S,  yyovfjievoi,  as  ruling  over  it  (1  Tim.  v.  17; 


SYNAGOGUE 

Heb.  xiii.  7).  With  their  head,  they  forme  1  a  kind 
of  Chapter,  managed  the  affairs  of  the  synagogue, 
possessed  the  power  of  excommunicating  (Yitringa, 
pp.  549-621,  727). 

(2.)  The  most  prominent  functionary  in  a  large 
synagogue  was  known  as  the  rivK>  (Sh$liach  = 
legatus),  the  officiating  minister  who  acted  as  the 
delegate  of  the  congregation,  and  was  therefore  ihe 
chief  reader  of  prayers,  &c.,  in  their  name.  The 
conditions  laid  down  for  this  office  remind  us  of  St. 
Paul's  rule  for  the  choice  of  a  bishop.  He  was  to  be 
active,  of  full  age,  the  father  of  a  family,  not  rich 
or  engaged  in  business,  possessing  a  good  voice,  apt 
to  teach  (comp.  1  Tim.  iii.  1-7  ;  Tit.  i.  6-9).  In 
him  we  find,  as  the  name  might  lead  us  to  expect, 
the  prototype  of  the  &yye\os  fKK\i)ffias  of  Rev.  i. 
20,  ii.  1,  &c.  (Vitringa,  p.  934). 

(3.)  The  Chazzdn  (JJPI),  or    uir^erfc  of  the 

synagogue  (Luke  iv.  20)  had  duties  of  a  lower 
kind  resembling  those  of  the  Christian  deacon,  or 
sub-deacon.  He  was  to  open  the  doors,  to  get  the 
building  ready  for  service.  For  him  too  there 
were  conditions  like  those  for  the  legatus.  Like  the 
legatus  and  the  elders,  he  was  appointed  by  the 
imposition  of  hands  (Vitringa,  p.  83ti).  Prac 
tically  he  often  acted  during  the  week  as  school 
master  of  the  town  or  village,  and  in  this  way 
came  to  gain  a  prominence  which  placed  him  nearly 
on  the  same  level  as  the  legatus. 

(4.)  Besides  these  there  were  ten  men  attached 
to  every  synagogue,  whose  functions  have  been  the 
subject-matter  of  voluminous  controversy .«  They 
were  known  as  the  Batlanim  (D'O/EIH  =  Otiosi), 
and  no  synagogue  was  complete  without  them.  They 
were  to  be  men  of  leisure,  not  obliged  to  labour  for 
their  livelihood,  able  therefore  to  attend  the  week 
day  as  well  as  the  Sabbath  services.  By  some 
(Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.  in  Matt.  iv.  23,  and,  in  part, 
Vitringa,  p.  532)  they  have  been  identified  with 
the  above  officials,  with  the  addition  of  the  alms- 
collectors.*  Rhenferd,  however  (Ugolini,  Thes.  vol. 
xxi.),  sees  in  them  simply  a  body  of  men,  perma 
nently  on  duty,  making  up  a  congregation  (ten 
being  the  minimum  number1),  so  that  there  might 
be  no  delay  in  beginning  the  service  at  the  projwi 
hours,  and  that  no  single  worshipper  might  go 
away  disappointed.  The  latter  hypothesis  is  sup 
ported  by  the  fact  that  there  was  a  like  body  of 
men,  the  Stationarii  or  Viri  Statiouis  of  Jewish 
Archaeologists,  appointed  to  act  as  permanent  repre 
sentatives  of  the  congregation  in  the  services  of  the 
Temple  (Jost,  Gesch.  Judenth.  i.  168-172).  It  is 
of  course  possible  that,  in  many  cases  the  same 
persons  may  have  united  both  characters,  and  been, 
e.  g.  at  once  Otiosi  and  alms-collectors. 

(5.)  It  will  be  seen  at  once  how  closely  the 
organisation  of  the  synagogue  was  reproduced  in 
that  of  the  Ecclesia.  Here  also  there  was  the  single 


d  Here  also  the  customs  of  the  Eastern  Church,  the 
votive  silver  lamps  hanging  before  the  shrines  and  holy 
places,  bring  the  old  practice  vividly  before  our  eyes. 

«  The  custom,  it  may  be  noticed,  connects  itself  with  the 
memorable  history  of  those  who  "  brought  young  children  " 
to  Jesus  that  He  should  touch  them  (Mark  x.  13). 

f  If  this  practice  existed,  as  is  probable,  in  the  first 
century,  it  throws  light  upon  the  special  stress  laid  by 
St.  Paul  on  the  collection  for  the  "poor  saints"  in  Jeru 
salem  (1  Cor.  xvi.  &c.).  The  Christian  Churches  were 
not  to  be  behind  the  Jewish  Synagogues  in  their  contri 
butions  to  the  Palestine  Relief  Fund. 

«  The  two  treatises  De  decem  Otvosis,  by  Rhenferd  and 


Vitringa,  in  Ugolini  fs  Thesaurus,  vol.  xxi.,  occupy  more 
than  700  folio  pages.  The  present  writer  has  not  read 
them  through.  Is  there  any  one  living  who  has  ? 

h  Lightfoot's  classification  is  as  follows.  The  Ten 
consisted  of  three  Judges,  the  Legatus,  whom  this  writer 
identifies  with  the  Chazzan,  three  Parnasim,  whom  he 
identifies  with  alms-collectors  and  compares  to  the  dea 
cons  of  the  church,  the  Targumist  or  interpreter,  the 
schoolmaster  and  his  assistant.  The  whole  is,  however 
very  conjectural. 

i  This  was  based  on  a  fantastic  inference  from  Num. 
xiv.  S?  The  ten  unfaithful  spies  were  spoken  ol  as  an 
"  evil  congivgativn  "  Sanlttdr.  iv.  6,  in  Lightfoot.  i.  c. 


1400 


SYNAGOGUE 


presbyter-bishop  [BISHOP]  in  small  towns,  a  council 
of  presbyters  under  one  head  in  large  cities.  The 
legatus  of  the  synagogue  appears  in  the  ayj€\os 
(Rev.  i.  20,  ii.  1),  perhaps  also  in  the  air6(TTO\os 
of  the  Christian  Church.  To  the  elders  as  such 
is  given  the  name  of  Shepherds  (E'ph.  iv.  11; 
1  Pet.  v.  1).  They  are  known  also  as  •fjyov/j.evoi 
(Heb.  xiii.  7).  Even  the  transfer  to  the  Christian 
proselytes  of  the  once  distinctively  sacerdotal  name 
of  lepcvs,  foreign  as  it  was  to  the  feelings  of  the 
Christians  of  the  Apostolic  Age,  was  not  without 
its  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  synagogue.  Sceva, 
the  exorcist  Jew  of  Ephesus,  was  probably  a  "  chief 
priest"  in  this  sense  (Acts  xix.  14).  In  the  edicts 
of  the  later  .Roman  emperors,  the  terms  up;£f  epeus 
and  icpfvs  are  repeatedly  applied  to  the  rulers  of 
synagogues  (Cod.  Theodos.  De  Jud.,  quoted  by  Vi- 
tringa,  De  decem  Otiosis,  in  Ugolini,  Thes.  xxi.). 
Possibly,  however,  this  may  have  been,  in  part, 
owing  to  the  presence  of  the  scattered  priests,  after 
the  destruction  of  the  Temple,  as  the  Rabbis  or 
elders  of  what  was  now  left  to  them  as  their  only 
sanctuary.  To  them,  at  any  rate,  a  certain  pre 
cedence  was  given  in  the  synagogue  services.  They 
were  invited  first  to  read  the  lessons  for  the  day. 
The  benediction  of  Num.  vi.  22,  was  reserved  for 
them  alone. 

V.  Worship.—  (1.)  The  ritual  of  the  synagogue 
was  to  a  large  extent  the  reproduction  (here  also,  as 
with  the  fabric,  with  many  inevitable  changes)  of 
the  statelier  liturgy  of  the  Temple.  This  is  not  the 
place  for  an  examination  of  the  principles  and  struc 
ture  of  that  liturgy,  or  of  the  baser  elements,  wild 
Talmudic  legends,  curses  against  Christians  under 
the  name  of  Epicureans,  and  other  extravagances 
which  have  mingled  with  it  (McCaul,  Old  Paths, 
ch.  xvii.,  xix.).  It  will  be  enough,  in  this  place,  to 
notice  in  what  way  the  ritual,  no  less  than  the 
organisation,  was  connected  with  the  facts  of  the 
N.  T.  history,  and  with  the  life  and  order  of  the 
Christian  Church.  Here  too  we  meet  with  multi 
plied  coincidences.  It  would  hardly  be  an  exag 
geration  to  say  that  the  worship  of  the  Church.was 
identical  with  that  of  the  Synagogue,  modified  (1.) 
by  the  new  truths,  (2.)  by  the  new  institution  of 
the  Supper  of  the  Lord,  (3.)  by  the  spiritual  Cha 
rismata. 

(2.)  From  the  synagogue  came  the  use  of  fixed 
forms  of  prayer.  To  that  the  first  disciples  had 
been  accustomed  from  their  youth.  They  had  asked 
their  Master  to  give  them  a  distinctive  one,  and  he 
had  complied  with  their  request  (Luke  xi.  1),  as 
the  Baptist  had  done  before  for  his  disciples,  as 
every  Kabbi  did  for  his.  The  forms  might  be 
and  were  abused.  The  Pharisee  might  in  syna 
gogues,  or,  when  the  synagogues  were  closed,  in 
the  open  street,  recite  aloud  the  devotions  appointed 
for  hours  of  prayer,  might  gabble  through  the 
Shema  ("  Hear  0  Israel,"  &c.  from  Deut.  vi.  4), 
his  Kaddish,  his  Shemoneh  Esreh,  the  eighteen 
Berachoth  or  blessings,  with  the  "  vain  repetition  " 
which  has  reappeared  in  Christian  worship.  But 
for  the  disciples  this  was,  as  yet,  the  true  pattern 
of  devotion,  and  their  Master  sanctioned  it.  To 
their  minds  there  would  seem  nothing  inconsistent 
v/ith  true  heart  worship  in  the  recurrence  of  a 
fixed  order  (Kara  rd^iv,  1  Cor.  xiv.  40),  of  the 
same  prayers,  hymns,  doxologies,  such  as  all  litur 
gical  study  leads  us  to  think  of  as  existing  in 
the  Apostolic  Age.  If  the  gifts  of  utterance  which 
characterised  the  firs*  period  of  that  age  led  tor  a 
time  to  greater  freedom,  to  unpremeditated  prayer, 


SYNAGOGUE 

if  that  was  m  its  turn  succeeded  by  the  renewed 
predominance  of  a  formal  fixed  order,  the  alterna 
tion  and  the  struggle  which  have  reappeared  in  sc 
many  periods  of  the  history  of  the  Church  were  not 
without  their  parallel  in  that  of  Judaism.  Then 
also,  was  a  protest  against  the  rigidity  of  an  un 
bending  form.  Eliezer  of  Lydda,  a  contemporary 
of  the  second  Gamaliel  (circ.  A.D.  80-115),  taught 
that  the  legatus  of  the  synagogue  should  discard 
even  the  Shemoneh  Esreh,  the  eighteen  fixed 
prayers  and  benedictions  of  the  daily  and  Sabbath 
services,  and  should  pray  as  his  heart  prompted 
him.  The  offence  against  the  formalism  into  which 
Judaism  stiffened,  was  apparently  too  great  to  be 
forgiven.  He  was  excommunicated  (not,  indeed, 
avowedly  on  this  ground),  and  died  at  Caesarea 
(Jost,  Gesch.  Judenth.  ii.  36,  45). 

(3.)  The  large  admixture  of  a  didactic  element 
in  Christian  worship,  that  by  which  it  was  distin 
guished  from  all  Gentile  forms  of  adoration,  was 
derived  from  the  older  order.  "  Moses  "  was  "  read 
in  the  synagogues  every  Sabbath-day"  (Acts  xv. 
21),  the  whole  Law  being  read  consecutively,  so  as 
to  be  completed,  according  to  one  cycle,  in  three 
years,  according  to  that  which  ultimately  prevailed 
and  determined  the  existing  divisions  of  the  Hebrew 
text  (BIBLE,  and  Leyrer,  I.  c.),  in  the  52  weeks 
of  a  single  year.  The  writings  of  the  Prophets 
were  read  as  second  lessons  in  a  corresponding 
order.  They  were  followed  by  the  Derash,  the 
\6yos  irapaKXT] trews  (Acts  xiii.  15),  the  exposition, 
the  sermon  of  the  synagogue.  The  first  Christian 
synagogues,  we  must  believe,  followed  this  order 
with  but  little  deviation.  It  remained  for  them 
before  long  to  add  "the  other  Scriptures"  which 
they  had  learnt  to  recognise  as  more  precious  even 
than  the  Law  itself,  the  "  prophetic  word  "  of  the 
New  Testament,  which  not  less  truly  than  that  of 
the  Old,  came,  in  epistle  or  in  narrative,  from  the 
same  Spirit  [SCRIPTURE].  The  synagogue  use  of 
Psalms  again,  on  the  plan  of  selecting  those  which 
had  a  special  fitness  for  special  times,  answered  to 
that  which  appears  to  have  prevailed  in  the  Church 
of  the  first  three  centuries,  and  for  which  the  simple 
consecutive  repetition  of  the  whole  Psalter,  in  a 
day  as  in  some  Eastern  monasteries,  in  a  week  as 
in  the  Latin  Church,  in  a  month  as  in  the  English 
Prayer-book  is,  perhaps,  a  less  satisfactory  sub 
stitute. 

(4.)  To  the  ritual  of  the  synagogue  we  may  pro 
bably  trace  a  practice  which  has  sometimes  been  a 
stumbling-block  to  the  student  of  Christian  anti 
quity,  the1  subject-matter  of  fierce  debate  among 
Christian  controversialists.  Whatever  account  may 
be  given  of  it,  it  is  certain  that  Prayers  for  the 
Dead  appear  in  the  Church's  worship  as  soon  as  we 
have  any  trace  of  it  after  the  immediate  records  of 
the  Apostolic  age.  It  has  well  been  described  hy  a 
writer,  whom  no  one  can  suspect  of  Romish  ten 
dencies,  as  an  "immemorial  practice."  Though 
"  Scripture  is  silent,  yet  antiquity  plainly  speaks." 
The  prayers  "  have  found  a  place  in  every  early 
liturgy  of  the  world "  (Ellicott,  Destiny  of  the 
Creature,  Senn.  vi.).  How,  indeed,  we  may  ask, 
could  it  have  been  otherwise  ?  The  strong  feeling 
shown  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  that  it  was 
not  "  superfluous  and  vain "  to  pray  for  the  dead 
(2  Mace.  xii.  44),  was  sure,  under  the  influence  of 
the  dominant  Pharisaic  Scribes,  to  shew  itself  in  the 
devotions  of  the  synagogue.  So  far  as  we  trace 
oack  these  devotions,  we  may  say  that  there  also 
the  practice  is  "  immemorial,"  as  old  at  least  or 


SYNAGOGUE 

the  traditions  of  the  Rabbinic  fathers  (Buxtorf,  De 
Synag.  pp.  709,  710  ;  McCaul,  Old  Paths,  ch. 
xxxviii.).  There  is  a  probability  indefinitely  great 
that  prayers  for  the  departed  (the  Kaddish  of 
later  Judaism)  were  familiar  to  the  synagogues 
of  Palestine  and  other  countries,  that  the  early 
Christian  believers  were  not  startled  by  them 
as  an  innovation,  that  they  passed  uncondemned 
even  by  our  Lord  Himself.  The  writer  already 
quoted  sees  a  probable  reference  to  them  in  2  Tim. 
8.  18  (Ellicott,  Past.  Epistles,  in  loc.).  St.  Paul, 
remembering  Onesiphorus  as  one  whose  "  house  " 
had  been  bereaved  of  him,  prays  that  he  may  find 
mercy  of  the  Lord  "in  that  day."  Prayers  tor  the 
dead  can  hardly,  therefore,  be  looked  upon  as  anti- 
Scriptural.  If  the  English  Church  has  wisely  and 
rightly  eliminated  them  from  her  services,  it  is  not 
because  Scripture  says  nothing  of  them,  or  that 
their  antiquity  is  not  primitive,  but  because,  in 
such  a  matter,  experience  is  a  truer  guide  than 
the  silence  or  the  hints  of  Scripture,  or  than  the 
voice  of  the  most  primitive  antiquity. 

(5.)  The  conformity  extends  also  to  the  times 
of  prayer.  In  the  hours  of  service  this  was  obvi 
ously  the  case.  The  third,  sixth,  and  ninth  hours 
were,  in  the  times  of  the  N.  T.  (Acts  iii.  1,  x.  3,  9), 
and  had  been,  probably,  for  some  time  before  (Ps. 
Iv.  17  ;  Dan.  vi.  10),  the  fixed  times  of  devotion, 
known  then,  and  still  known,  respectively  as  the 
Shacharith,  the  Mincha,  and  the  'Ardbith ;  they  had 
not  only  the  prestige  of  an  authoritative  trad'ition, 
but  were  connected  respectively  with  the  names  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  to  whom,  us  to  the 
first  originators,  their  institution  was  ascribed 
'^Buxtorf,  Synag.  p.  280).  The  same  hours,  it  is 
well  known,  were  recognised  in  the  Church  of  the 
second,  probably  in  that  of  the  first  century  also 
(Clem.  Al.  Strom.  1.  c. ;  Tertull.  De  Orat.  c.  xxv.). 
The  sacred  days  belonging  to  the  two  systems  seem, 
at  first,  to  present  a  contrast  rather  than  a  resem 
blance  ;  but  here,  too,  there  is  a  symmetry  which 
points  to  an  original  connexion.  The  solemn  days 
of  the  synagogue  were  the  second,  the  fifth,  and  the 
seventh,  the  last  or  Sabbath  being  the  conclusion 
of  the  whole.  In  whatever  way  the  change  was 
brought  about,  the  transfer  of  the  sanctity  of  the 
Sabbath  to  the  Lord's  Day  involved  a  corresponding 
change  in  the  order  of  the  week,  and  the  first,  the 
fourth,  and  the  sixth  became  to  the  Christian  so 
ciety  what  the  other  days  had  been  to  the  Jewish, 

(6.)  The  following  suggestion  as  to  the  mode  in 
which  this  transfer  was  effected,  involves,  it  is  be 
lieved,  fewer  arbitrary  assumptions  than  any  other 
[comp.  LORD'S  DAY,  SABBATH],  and  connects  it 
self  with  another  interesting  custom,  common  to 
the  Church  and  the  Synagogue.  It  was  a  Jewish 
custom  to  end  the  Sabbath  with  a  feast,  in  which 
they  did  honour  to  it  as  to  a  parting  king.  The 
feast  was  held  in  the  synagogue.  A  cup  of  wine, 
over  which  a  special  blessing  had  been  spoken,  was 
handed  round  (Jost,  Gesch.  Judenth.  i.  180).  It 
is  obvious  that,  so  long  as  the  Apostles  and  their 
followers  continued  to  use  the  Jewish  mode  of 


SYNAGOGUE 


HOI 


k  It  has  always  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  word  was 
obviously  coined  for  the  purposes  of  Christian  life,  and  is 
applied  in  the  first  instance  to  the  supper  (1  Cor.  xi.  20), 
afterwards  to  the  day  (Rev.  i.  10). 

m  One  point  of  contrast  is  as  striking  as  these  points  of 
resemblance.  The  Jew  prayed  with  his  head  covered, 
with  the  Tallitli  drawn  over  his  ears  and  re-aching  to  the 
cboulders.  The  Greek,  however,  habitually  in  worship 
*3  in  other  acts,  went  bare-headed ;  and  the  Apobtie  oi 


reckoning,  so  long  i.  e.  as  they  fraternized  with 
their  brethren  of  the  stock  of  Abraham,  this  would 
coincide  in  point  of  time  with  their  Sciirvov  on  the 
first  day  of  the  week.  A  supper  on  what  we  should 
call  Sunday  evening  would  have  been  to  them  on 
the  second.  By  degrees,  as  has  been  shown  else 
where  [LORD'S  SUPPER],  the  time  became  later, 
passed  on  to  midnight,  to  the  early  dawn  of  th? 
next  day.  So  the  Lord's  Supper  ceased  to  be  a  sup 
per  really.  So,  as  the  Church  rose  out  of  Judaism, 
the  supper  gave  its  holiness  to  the  coming,  instead 
of  deriving  it  from  the  departing  day.  The  day 
came  to  be  KvpiaK-fi,  because  it  began  with  the 
Stlirvov  KvpiaK6v.k  Gradually  the  Sabbath  ceased 
as  such  to  be  observed  at  all.  The  practice  of 
observing  both,  as  in  the  Church  of  Rome  up  to  the 
fifth  century,  gives  us  a  trace  of  the  transition 
period. 

(7.)  From  the  synagogue  lastly  came  many  less 
conspicuous  practices,  which  meet  us  in  the  litur 
gical  life  of  the  first  three  centuries.  Ablution, 
entire  or  partial,  before  entering  the  place  of  meet 
ing  (Heb.  x.  22  ;  John  xiii.  1-15  ;  Tertull.  De  Orat. 
cap.  xi.) ;  standing  and  not  kneeling,  as  the  attitude 
of  prayer  (Luke  xviii.  11  ;  Tertull.  ibid.  cap.  xxiii.^; 
the  arms  stretched  out  (Tertull.  ibid.  cap.  xiii.') ;  the 
face  turned  towards  the  Kibleh  of  the  East  ^Ciem. 
Al.  Strom.  1.  c.);  the  responsive  Amen  of  the 
congregation  to  the  prayers  and  benedictions  of  the 
elders  (1  Cor.  xiv.  16).m  In  one  strange  exceptional 
custom  of  the  Church  of  Alexandria  we  trace  the 
wilder  type  of  Jewish,  of  Oriental  devotion.  There, 
in  the  closing  responsive  chorus  of  the  prayer,  the 
worshipper  not  only  stretched  out  their  necks  and 
lifted  up  their  hands,  but  leapt  up  with  wild  ges 
tures  (rovs  T€  ir68as  eVe7eipo/i€j/),  as  if  they 
would  fain  rise  with  their  prayers  to  heaven  itself 
(Clem.  Al.  Strom,  vii.  40).n  This,  too,  reproduced  a 
custom  of  the  synagogue.  Three  times  did  the  whole 
body  of  worshippers  leap  up  simultaneously  as  they 
repeated  the  great  Ter-*sanctus  hymn  of  Isaiah  vi. 
(Vitringa,  p.  1100  et  seq. ;  Buxtorf,  cap.  x.). 

VI.  Judicial  Functions. — (1.)  The  language  of 
the  N.T.  shows  that  the  officers  of  the  synagogue 
exercised  in  certain  cases  a  judicial  power.  The 
synagogue  itself  was  the  place  of  trial  (Luke  xii. 
11  ;  xxi.  12) ;  even,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  of  the 
actual  punishment  of  scourging  (Matt.  x.  17  ;  Mark 
xiii.  9).  They  do  not  appear  to  have  had  the 
right  of  inflicting  any  severer  penalty,  unless, 
under  this  head,  we  may  include  that  of  excom 
munication,  or  "  putting  a  man  out  of  the 
synagogue "  (John  xii.  42,  xvi.  2),  placing  him 
under  an  anathema  (1  Cor.  xvi.  22  ;  Gal.  i.  8,  9), 
"delivering  him  to  Satan"  (1  Cor.  v.  5 ;  1  Tim. 
i.  20).  (Meyer  and  Stanley,  in  loc.)  In  some 
cases  they  exercised  the  right,  even  outside  the 
limits  .of  Palestine,  of  seizing  the  persons  of  the 
accused,  and  sending  them  in  chains  to  take  their 
trial  before  the  Supreme  Council  at  Jerusalem  (Acts 
ix.  2  ;  xxii.  5). 

(2.)  It  is  not  quite  so  easy,  however,  to  define 
the  nature  of  the  tribunal,  and  the  precise  limits  of 


the  Gentile  Churches,  renouncing  all  early  prejudices, 
recognises  this  as  more  fitting,  more  natural,  more  in 
harmony  with  the  right  relation  of  the  sexes  (1  Cor. 
xi.  4). 

n  The  same  curious  practice  existed  in  the  l?th  cen 
tury,  and  is  perhaps  not  yet  extinct  in  the  Church  of 
Abyssinia,  in  this,  as  in  other  things,  preserving  more  thai) 
any  other  Christian  society,  the  type  of  Judaism  (Luclolf 
nisi.  Ailkiw.  iii.  6  ;  Stanley,  Eastern  Church,  p.  12). 


1402    SYNAGOGUE,  THE  GREAT 

its  jurisdiction.  In  two  of  the  passages  referred  to 
'Matt.  x.  17;  Mark  xiii.  9)  they  are  carefully 
distinguished  from  the  ffvveSpta,  or  councils,  yet 
both  appear  as  instruments  by  which  the  spirit  of 
religious  persecution  might  fasten  on  its  victims. 
The  explanation  commonly  given  that  the  council 
sat  in  the  synagogue,  and  was  thus  identified  with 
it,  is  hardly  satisfactory  (Leyrer,  in  Herzog's 
Real-Encyc.  "  Synedrien  ").  It  seems  more  pro 
bable  that  the  council  was  the  larger  tribunal 
of  23,  which  sat  in  every  city  [COUNCIL],  iden 
tical  with  that  of  the  seven,  with  two  Levites  as 
assessors  to  each,  which  Josephus  describes  as  acting 
in  the  smaller  provincial  towns  (Ant.  iv.  8,  §14  ; 
B.  J.  ii.  20,  §5),°  and  that  under  the  term  syna 
gogue  we  are  to  understand  a  smaller  court,  pro- 
bab]/  that  of  the  Ten  judges  mentioned  in  the 
Talmud  (Gem.  Hieros.  Sanhedr.  1.  c.),  consisting 
either  of  the  eldeis,  the  chazzan,and  the  legatus,  or 
otherwise  (as  Herzfeld  conjectures,  i.  392)  of  the 
ten  Batlanim,  or  Otiosi  (see  above,  IV.  4). 

(3.)  Here  also  we  trace  the  outline  of  a  Christian 
institution.  The  eKKXrjaia,  either  by  itself  or  by 
appointed  delegates,  was  to  act  as  a  Court  of  Arbi 
tration  in  all  disputes  among  its  members.  The 
elders  of  the  Church  were  not,  however,  to  descend 
to  the  trivial  disputes  of  daily  life  (TO  jSiom/ca). 
For  these  any  men  of  common  sense  and  fairness, 
however  destitute  of  official  honour  and  position 
(pi  fj-ovQevr)/j.€voi),  would  be  enough  (1  Cor.  vi. 
1-8).  For  the  elders,  as  for  those  of  the  synagogue, 
were  reserved  the  graver  offences  against  religion 
and  morals.  In  such  cases  they  had  power  to 
excommunicate,  to  "  put  out  of"  the  Ecclesia, 
which  had  taken  the  place  of  the  synagogue,  some 
times  by  their  own  authority,  sometimes  with  the 
consent  of  the  whole  society  (1  Cor.  v.  4).  It  is 
worth  mentioning  that  Hammond  and  other  com 
mentators  have  seen  a  reference  to  these  judicial 
functions  in  James  ii.  2-4.  The  special  sin  of 
those  who  fawned  upon  the  rich  was,  on  this  view, 
that  they  were  "judges  of  evil  thoughts,"  carrying 
respect  of  persons  into  their  administration  of  jus 
tice.  The  interpretation,  however,  though  inge 
nious,  is  hardly  sufficiently  supported.  [E.  H.  P.] 

SYNAGOGUE,     THE    GREAT 


The  institution  thus  described,  though 

not  Biblical  in  the  sense  of  occurring  as  a  word  in 
the  Canonical  Scriptures,  is  yet  too  closely  con 
nected  with  a  large  number  of  Biblical  facts  and 
names  to  be  passed  over.  In  the  absence  of  direct 
historical  data,  it  will  be  best  to  put  together  the 
traditions  or  conjectures  of  Rabbinic  writers. 

(1.)  On  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  Babylon,  a 
great  council  was  appointed,  according  to  these  tra 
ditions,  to  re-organise  the  religious  life  of  the 
people.  It  consisted  of  120  members  (Megilloth, 
176,  18c),  and  these  were  known  as  the  men  of 
the  Great  Synagogue,  the  successors  of  the  pro 
phets,  themselves,  in  their  turn,  succeeded  by  scribes 
prominent,  individually,  as  teachers  (Pirke  Aboth, 
i.  1).  Ezra  was  recognised  as  president.  Among 
the  other  members,  in  part  together,  in  part  suc 
cessively,  were  Joshua,  the  High  Priest,  Zerubba- 
bel,  and  their  companions,  Daniel  and  the  three 
"children,"  the  prophets  Haggai,  Zechariah,  Ma- 
lachi,  the  rulers  Nehemiah  and  Mordecai,  Their 
aim  was  to  restore  agaiu  tne  ctown,  or  g«jry  of 

0  The  identification  of  these  two  is  due  to  an  inge- 
n'rus  conjecture  by  (Jrotius  (on  Matt,  v  21).  The  acl- 


SYNTYCHE 

Israel,  i.e.  to  reinstate  in  its  majesty  the  uanu 
of  God  as  Great,  Mighty,  Terrible  (Deut.  vji.  21. 
x.  17 ;  Neh.  i.  5,  ix.  32  ;  Jer.  xxxii.  18 ;  Dan.  ix. 
4).  To  this  end  they  collected  all  the  sacred 
writings  of  former  ages  ar.d  their  own,  and  so  com 
pleted  the  canon  of  the  O.T.  Their  work  included 
the  revision  of  the  text,  and  this  was  settled  by  the 
introduction  of  the  vowel  points,  which  have  been 
handed  down  to  us  by  the  Masoretic  editors.  They 
instituted  the  feast  of  Purim.  They  organised  the 
ritual  of  the  synagogue,  and  gave  their  sanction  to 
the  Shemoneh  Esreh,  the  eighteen  solemn  bene 
dictions  in  it  (Evvald,  Gesch.  iv.  193).  Their  de 
crees  were  quoted  afterwards  as  those  of  the  elders 
(the  Trpffffivrepoi  of  Mark  vii.  3,  the  apxaioi 
of  Matt.  v.  21,  27,  33),  the  Dibre  Sopkerim  (  = 
words  of  the  scribes),  which  were  of  more  authority 
than  the  Law  itself.  They  left  behind  them  the 
characteristic  saying,  handed  down  by  Simon  *the 
high-priest,  the  last  member  of  the  order,  "Be 
cautious  in  judging ;  train  up  many  scholars ;  set 
a  hedge  about  the  Law"  (Pirke  Aboth,  i.  1). 
[SCRIBES.] 

(2.)  Much  of  this  is  evidently  uncertain.  The 
absence  of  any  historical  mention  of  such  a  body, 
not  only  in  the  O.T.  and  the  Apocrypha,  but  in 
Josephus,  Philo,  and  the  Seder  Olam,  so  that  the 
earliest  record  of  it  is  found  in  the  Pirke  Aboth, 
circ.  the  second  century  after  Christ,  had  led  some 
critics  (e.g.  De  Wette,  J.  D.  Michaelis)  to  reject 
the  whole  statement  as  a  Rabbinic  invention,  resting 
on  no  other  foundation  than  the  existence,  after  the 
exile,  of  a  Sanhedrim  of  71  or  72  members,  charged 
with  supreme  executive  functions.  Ewald  (Gesch. 
fsr.  iv.  192)  is  disposed  to  adopt  this  view,  ana 
looks  on  the  number  120  as  a  later  element,  intro 
duced  for  its  symbolic  significance.  Jost  (Gesch. 
des  Jud.  i.  41)  maintains  that  the  Greek  origin  of 
the  word  Sanhedrim  points  to  its  later  date,  and 
that  its  functions  were  prominently  judicial,  while 
those  of  the  so-called  Great  Synagogue  were  promi 
nently  legislative.  He  recognises,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  probability  that  120  was  used  as  a  round 
number,  never  actually  made  up,  and  thinks  that 
the  germ  of  the  institution  is  to  be  found  in  the 
85  names  of  those  who  are  recorded  as  having 
joined  in  the  solemn  league  and  covenant  of  Neh.  x. 
1-27.  The  narrative  of  Neh.  viii.  13  clearly  im 
plies  the  existence  of  a  body  of  men  acting  as  coun 
sellors  under  the  presidency  of  Ezra,  and  these  may 
have  been  (as  Jost,  following  the  idea  of  another 
Jewish  critic,  suggests)  an  assembly  of  delegates 
from  all  provincial  synagogues — a  synod  (to  use  the 
terminology  of  a  later  time)  of  the  National  Church. 
The  Pirke  Aboth,  it  should  be  mentioned,  speaks  of 
the  Great  Synagogue  as  ceasing  to  exist  before  the 
historical  origin  of  the  Sanhedrim  (x.  1),  and  it  is 
more  probable  that  the  latter  rose  out  of  an  attempt 
to  reproduce  the  former  than  that  the  former  was 
only  the  mythical  transfer  of  the  latter  to  an  earlier 
time.  (Comp.  Leyrer,  s.  v.  Synagoge,  die  grosse,  in 
Herzog's  Encyclop.}  [E.  H.  P.] 

SYN'TYCHE  (Swrvxr)  •  Syntyche\  a  female 
member  of '  the  Church  of  Philippi,  mentioned  (Phil.  iv. 
2,  3)  along  with  another  named  EUODIAS  (or  rather 
Euodia).  To  what  has  been  said  under  the  latter 
head  the  following  may  be  added.  The  Apostle's 
injunction  to  these  two  women  is,  that  they  should 
live  in  harmony  with  one  another ;  from  which  we 

dition  of  two  scribes  or  secretaries  c^akea  tlie  uiunbe.  h; 
both  cases  equal. 


SYRACUSE 

infer  that  they  had,  more  or  less,  failed  in  this  re 
spect.  Such  harmony  was  doubly  important,  if 
they  held  an  office,  as  deaconesses,  in  the  Church : 
and  it  is  highly  probable  that  this  was  the  case. 
They  had  afforded  to  St.  Paul  active  co-operation 
under  difficult  circumstances  (ev  T<£>  tvayyehlcp 
(rvvf]6\"f](Tdv  fjLOi,  ver.  2),  and  perhaps  there  were 
at  Philippi  other  women  of  the  same  class  (alrives, 
ib.).  At  all  events  this  passage  is  an  illustration 
of  what  the  Gospel  did  for  women,  and  women  for 
the  Gospel,  in  the  Apostolic  times :  and  it  is  the  more 
interesting,  as  having  reference  to  that  Church  which 
v/as  the  first  founded  by  St.  Paul  in  Europe,  and  the 
first  member  of  which  was  LYDIA.  Some  thoughts 
on  this  subject  will  be  found  in  Riliiet,  Comm.  sur 
VEpitre  aux  Philipp.  pp.  311-314.  [J.  S.  H.] 

SY'KACUSE  (2vpa.Kov<rat :  Syracusa).  The 
celebrated  city  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Sicily.  St. 
Paul  arrived  thither  in  an  Alexandrian  ship  from 
Melita,  on  his  voyage  to  Rome  (Acts  xxviii.  12). 
The  magnificence  which  Cicero  describes  as  still  re 
maining  in  his  time,  was  then  no  doubt  greatly  im 
paired.  The  whole  of  the  resources  of  Sicily  had  been 
exhausted  in  the  civil  wars  of  Caesar  and  Pompey, 
and  the  piratical  warfare  which  Sextus  Pompeius, 
the  youngest  son  of  the  latter,  subsequently  carried 
on  against  the  triumvir  Octavius.  Augustus  restored 
Syracuse,  as  also  Catana  and  Centoripa,  which  last 
had  contributed  much  to  the  successful  issue  of  his 
struggle  with  Sextus  Pompeius.  Yet  the  island 
Ortygia,  and  a  very  small  portion  of  the  mainland 
adjoining,  sufficed  for  the  new  colonists  and  the  rem 
nant  of  the  former  population.  But  the  site  of 
Syracuse  rendered  it  a  convenient  place  for  the 
African  corn-ships  to  touch  at,  for  the  harbour  was 
an  excellent  one,  and  the  fountain  Arethusa  in  the 
island  furnished  an  unfailing  supply  of  excellent 
water.  The  prevalent  wind  in  this  part  of  the 
Mediterranean  is  the  W.N.W.  This  would  carry 
the  vessels  from  the  corn  region  lying  eastward  o'f 
Cape  Bon,  round  the  southern  point  of  Sicily,  Cape 
Pachynus,  to  the  eastern  shore  of  the  island.  Creep 
ing  up  under  the  shelter  of  this,  they  would  lie  either 
in  the  harbour  of  Messana,  or  at  Rhegium,  until  the 
<vind  changed  to  a  southern  point  and  enabled  them 
to  fetch  the  Campanian  harbours,  Puteoli  or  Gaeta, 
or  to  proceed  as  far  as  Ostia.  In  crossing  from 
Africa  to  Sicily,  if  the  wind  was  excessive,  or  varied 
two  or  three  points  to  the  northward,  they  would 
naturally  bear  up  for  Malta, — and  this  had  pro 
bably  been  the  case  with  the  "  Twins,"  the  ship  in 
which  St.  Paul  found  a  passage  after  his  shipwreck 
on  the  coast  of  that  island.  Arrived  in  Malta,  they 
watched  for  the  opportunity  of  a  wind  to  take 
them  westward,  and  with  such  a  one  they  readily 
made  Syracuse.  To  proceed  further  while  it  con 
tinued  blowing  would  have  exposed  them  to  the 
dangers  of  a  lee-shore,  and  accordingly  they  re 
mained  '« three  days."  They  then,  the  wind  having 
probably  shifted  into  a  westerly  quarter  so  as  to 
give  them  smooth  water,  coasted  the  shore  and 
made  (TrepteXfloVres  Ka.ri}VT-riffa^ev  ets)  Rhegium. 
After  one  day  there,  the  wind  got  round  still  more 
and  blew  from  the  south ;  they  therefore  weighed, 
and  arrived  at  Puteoli  in  the  course  of  the  second 
day  of  the  run  (Acts  xxviii.  12-14). 

In  the  time  of  St.  Paul's  voyage,  Sicily  did  not 
supply  the  Romans  with  corn  to  the  extent  it  had 
done  in  the  time  of  King  Hiero,  and  in  a  less  degree 
as  late  as  the  time  of  Cicero.  It  is  an  error,  how 
ever,  to  suppose  that  the  soil  was  exhausted  ;  for 
Strabo  expressly  says,  that  for  corn,  and  some  other 


SYRIA 


14C3 


sroductions,  Sicily  even  surpassed  Italy.  But  the 
country  had  become  depopulated  by  the  long  series 
of  wars,  and  when  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  Roma 
ler  great  nobles  turned  vast  tracts  into  pasture, 
In  the  time  of  Augustus,  the  whole  of  the  centre 
of  the  island  was  occupied  in  this  manner,  and 
among  its  exports  (except  from  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  volcanic  region,  where  excellent  wine  was 
produced),  flit  stock,  hides,  and  wool  appear  to 
nave  been  the  prominent  articles.  These  grazing 
and  horse-breeding  farms  were  kept  up  by  slave 
labour;  and  this  was  the  reason  that  the  whole 
island  was  in  a  chronic  state  of  disturbance,  owing 
to  the  slaves  continually  running  away  and  forming 
bands  of  brigands.  Sometimes  these  became  so 
formidable  as  to  require  the  aid  of  regular  military 
operations  to  put  them  down  ;  a  circumstance  of 
which  Tiberius  Gracchus  made  use  as  an  argument 
n  favour  of  his  measure  of  an  Agrarian  law  (Ap- 
pian,  B.  C.  i.  9),  which  would  have  reconverted  the 
spacious  grass-lands  into  small  arable  farms  culti 
vated  by  Roman  freemen. 

In  the  time  of  St.  Paul  there  were  only  five  Ro 
man  colonies  in  Sicily,  of  which  Syracuse  was  one. 
The  others  were  Catana,  Tauromenium,  Thermae, 
and  Tyndaris.  Messana  too,  although  not  a  colony, 
was  a  town  filkd  with  a  Roman  population.  Pro 
bably  its  inhabitants  were  merchants  connected 
with  the  wine  trade  of  the  neighbourhood,  of  which 
Messana  was  the  shipping  port.  Syracuse  and 
Panormus  were  important  as  strategical  points, 
and  a  Roman  force  was  kept  up  at  each.  Sicels, 
Sicani,  Morgetes,  and  Iberes  (aboriginal  inhabitants 
of  the  island,  or  very  early  settlers),  still  existed  in 
the  interior,  in  what  exact  political  condition  it  is 
impossible  to  say ;  but  most  likely  in  that  of  vil 
leins.  Some  few  towns  are  mentioned  by  Pliny 
as  having  the  Latin  franchise,  and  some  as  paying 
a  fixed  tribute  ;  but  with  the  exception  of  the  five 
colonies,  the  owners  of  the  soil  of  the  island  were 
mainly  great  absentee  proprietors,  and  almost  all 
its  produce  came  to  Rome  (Strabo,  vi.  c.  2  ; 
Appian,  B.  C.  iv.  84  seqq.,  v.  15-118;  Cicero, 
Verr.  iv.  53;  Plin.  N.  H.  iii.  8).  [J.  W.  B.] 

SYRIA  (DTO :  2upta :  Syria)  is  the  term  used 
throughout  our  version  for  the  Hebrew  Aram,  as 
well  as  for  the  Greek  Sv/u'o.  The  Greek  writers 
generally  regarded  it  as  a  contraction  or  corruption 
of  Assyria  (Herod,  vii.  63  ;  Scylax,  Peripl.  p.  80  ; 
Dionys".  Perieg.  970-975;  Eustath.  Comment, &&  loc. 
&c.).  But  this  derivation  is  exceedingly  doubtful. 
Most  probably  Syria  is  for  Tsyria,  the  country  about 
Tsur  (1-1V),  or  Tyre,  which  was  the  first  of  the 
Syrian  towns  known  to  the  Greeks.  The  resem 
blance  to  Assyria  (Tlt^K)  is  thus  purely  accidental ; 
and  the  two  words  must  be  regarded  as  in  reali'y 
completely  distinct. 

1 .  Geographical  extent, — It  is  very  difficult  to 
fix  the  limits  of  Syria.  The  Hebrew  Aram  seems 
to  commence  on  the  northern  frontier  of  Palestine, 
and  to  extend  thence  northward  to  the  skills  of 
Taurus,  westward  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  east 
ward  probably  to  the  Khabour  river.  Its  chief 
divisions  are  Aram-Dammesek,  or  "  Syria  of  Da- 
]  mascus,"  Aram-Zobah,  or  "  Syria  of  Zobah,"  Aram- 
|  Naharaim,  "  Mesopotamia,"  or  "  Syria  of  the  Two 
Rivers,"  and  Padan-Aram,  "  the  plain  Syria,"  or 
"  the  plain  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains."  Of  these 
we  cannot  be  mistaken  in  identifying  tho>  first  with 
the  rich  country  about  Damascus,  lying  betwejr 
Auti-libanus  and  the  desert,  and  the  last  with  tU« 


1404 


SYRIA 


district  about  Harran  and  Orfah,  the  flat  country 
stretching  out  from  the  western  extremity  of  Mons 
Masius  towards  the  true  source  of  the  Khabour  at 
Ras-el-Ain.  Aram-Naharaim  seems  to  be  a  term 
including  this  last  tract,  and  extending  beyond  it, 
though  how  far  beyond  is  doubtful.  The  "two 
rivers"  intended  are  probably  the  Tigris  and  the 
Euphrates,  which  approach  very  near  each  other  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Diarbekr  ;  and  Aram-Naha 
raim  may  have  originally  been  applied  especially  to 
the  mountain  tract  which  here  separates  them.  If 
BO,  it  no  doubt  gradually  extended  its  meaning  ;  for 
in  Gen.  xxiv.  10  it  clearly  includes  the  district 
about  Harran,  the  Padan-Aram  of  other  places. 
Whether  the  Scriptural  meaning  ever  extends  much 
beyond  this  is  uncertain.  It  is  perhaps  most  pro 
bable  that,  as  the  Mesopotamia  of  the  later  Greeks, 
so  the  Aram-Naharaim  of  the  Hebrews  was  limited 
to  the  north-western  portion  of  the  country  con 
tained  between  the  two  great  streams.  [See  MESO 
POTAMIA.]  Aram-Zobah  seems  to  be  the  tract 
between  the  Euphrates  and  Coelesyria ;  since,  on 
the  one  hand,  it  reaches  down  to  the  Great  River 
(2  Sam.  viii.  3,  x.  16),  and  on  the  other  excludes 
Hamath  (2  Sam.  viii.  9,  10).  The  other  divisions 
of  Aram,  such  as  Aram-Maachah  and  Aram-beth- 
Rechob,  are  more  difficult  to  locate  with  any  cer 
tainty.  Probably  they  were  portions  of  the  tract 
intervening  between  Anti-libanus  and  the  desert. 

The  Greek  writers  used  the  term  Syria  still 
more  vaguely  than  the  Hebrews  did  Aram.  On 
the  one  hand  they  extended  it  to  the  Euxine,  in 
cluding  in  it  Cappadocia,  and  even  Bithynia  (Herod. 
i.  72,  76,  ii.  104;  Strab.  xvi.  1,  §2;  Dionys. 
Perieg.  972) ;  on  the  other  they  carried  it  to  the 
borders  of  Egypt,  and  made  it  comprise  Philistia 
and  Edom  (Herod,  iii.  5 ;  Strab.  xvi.  2,  §2). 
Again,  through  the  confusion  in  their  minds  be 
tween  the  Syrians  and  the  Assyrians,  they  some 
times  included  the  country  of  the  latter,  and  even 
its  southern  neighbour  Babylonia,  in  Syria  (Strab. 
xvi.  1,  §2).  Still  they  seem  always  to  "have  had  a 
feeling  that  Syria  Proper  was  a  narrower  region. 
Herodotus,  while  he  calls  the  Cappadocians  and  the 
Assyrians  Syrians,  gives  the  name  of  Syria  only  to 
the  country  lying  on  the  Mediterranean  between 
Cilicia  and  Egypt  (ii.  106,  157,  159,  iii.  6,  91). 
Dionysius,  who  speaks  of  two  Syrias,  an  eastern 
and  a  western,  assigns  the  first  place  to  the  latter 
(Perieg.  895).  Strabo,  like  Herodotus,  has  one 
Syria  only,  which  he  defines  as  the  maritime  tract 
between  Egypt  and  the  Gulf  of  Issus.  The  ordi 
nary  use  of  the  term  Syria,  by  the  LXX.  and  New 
Testament  writers,  is  even  more  restricted  than  this. 
They  distinguish  Syria  from  Phoenicia  on  the  one 
hand,  and  from  Samaria,  Judaea,  Idumaea,  &c.,  on 
the  other.  In  the  present  article  it  seems  best  to 
take  the  word  in  this  narrow  sense,  and  to  regard 
Syria  as  bounded  by  Amanus  and  Taurus  on  the 
north,  by  the  Euphrates  and  the  Arabian  desert  on 
the  east,  by  Palestine,  or  the  Holy  Land,  on  the 
scuth,  by  the  Mediterranean  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Orontes,  and  then  by  Phoenicia  upon  the  west. 
The  tract  thus  circumscribed  is  about  300  miles 
long  from  north  to  south,  and  from  50  to  150  miles 
broad.  It  contains  an  area  of  about  30,000  square 
miles. 

2.  General  physical  features. — The  general  cha 
racter  of  the  tract  is  mountainous,  as  the  Hebrew 
name  Aram  (from  a  root  signifying  "  height")  suf 
ficiently  implies.  On  the  west,  two  longitudinal 
ekaius,  running  parallel  with  the  coast  at  no  great 


SYRIA 

distance  from  one  another,  extend  along  two-lairds 
of  the  length  of  Syria,  from  the  latitude  of  Tyre  tc 
that  of  Antioch.  These  chains,  towards  the  south, 
were  known  respectively  as  Libanus  and  Anti- 
libanus,  after  which,  about  lat.  35°,  the  more 
western  chain,  Libanus,  became  Bargylus;  whils 
the  eastern,  sinking  into  comparative  insignificance, 
was  without  any  special  appellation.  In  the  lati 
tude  of  Antioch  the  longitudinal  chains  are  met  by 
the  chain  of  Amauus,  an  outlying  barrier  of  Taurus, 
having  the  direction  of  that  range,  which  in  this 
part  is  from  south-west  to  north-east.  From  this 
point  northwards  to  the  true  Taurus,  which  here 
bounded  Syria,  and  eastward  to  the  Euphrates 
about  Bireh-jik  and  Sumeisat,  the  whole  tract  ap 
pears  to  consist  of  mountains  infinitely  ramified ; 
below  which,  towards  Sajur  and  Aleppo,  are  some 
elevated  plains,  diversified  with  ranges  of  hills,  while 
south  of  these,  in  about  lat.  36°,  you  enter  the 
desert.  The  most  fertile  and  valuable  tract  of 
Syria  is  the  long  valley  intervening  between  Li 
banus  and  Anti-libanus,  which  slopes  southward 
from  a  point  a  little  north  of  Baalbek,  and  is  there 
drained  by  the  Litany ;  while  above  that  point  the 
slope  is  northward,  and  the  streams  form  the 
Orontes,  whose  course  is  in  that  direction.  The 
northern  mountain  region  is  also  fairly  productive ; 
but  the  soil  of  the  plains  about  Aleppo  is  poor,  and 
the  eastern  flank  of  the  Anti-libanus,  except  in  one 
place,  is  peculiarly  sterile.  The  exception  is  at  the 
lower  or  southern  extremity  of  the  chain,  where 
the  stream  of  the  Barada  forms  the  rich  and  de 
lightful  tract  already  described  under  the  head  of 
DAMASCUS. 

3.  The  Mountain  Ranges. — (a)  Lebanon.  Of  the 
various  mountain  ranges  of  Syria,  Lebanon  possesses 
the  greatest  interest.  It  extends  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Litany  to  Arka,  a  distance  of  nearly  100 
miles,  and  is  composed  chiefly  of  Jura  limestone, 
but  varied  with  sandstone  and  basalt.  It  culmi 
nates  towards  its  northern  extremity,  half-way  be 
tween  Tripoli  and  Beyrut,  and  at  this  point  at 
tains  an  elevation  of  nearly  10,000  feet  (Robinson, 
Bibl.  Researches,  iii.  547).  Anciently  it  was 
thickly  wooded  with  cypresses,  cedars,  and  firs; 
but  it  is  now  very  scantily  clothed.  As  a  minute 
description  of  its  present  condition  has  been  already 
given  in  the  proper  place,  it  is  unnecessary  to  pro 
long  the  present  account.  [LEBANON.]  (b\  Anti- 
libanus.  This  range,  as  the  name  implies,'  stands 
over  against  Lebanon,  running  in  the  same  direc 
tion,  $'.  e.  nearly  north  and  south,  and  extending  the 
same  length.  It  is  composed  of  Jura  limestone, 
oolite,  and  Jura  dolomite.  The  culminating  point 
is  Hennon,  at  the  southern,  or  rather  the  south 
eastern  end  of  the  chain ;  for  Anti-libanus,  unlike 
Libanus,  bifurcates  at  its  lower  extremity,  dividing 
into  two  distinct  ridges,  between  which  flows  the 
stream  of  the  Hasbeya.  Hermon  is  thought  to 
exceed  the  height  of  9000  feet,  (c)  Bargylus. 
Mount  Bargylus,  called  now  Jebel  Nosairi  towards 
the  south,  and  towards  the  north  Jebel  Kraad,  ex 
tends  from  the  mouth  of  the  Nahr-el-Kebir  (Eleu 
therus),  nearly  opposite  Hems,  to  the  vicinity  of 
Antioch,  a  distance  of  rather  more  than  100  miles. 
It  is  separated  from  Lebanon  by  a  comparatively 
level  tract,  15  or  20  miles  broad  (El-JBukeva), 
through  which  flows  the  stream  called  El-Kebir. 
Mount  Bargylus  is  broader  than  Lebanon,  and 
throws  out  a  number  of  short  spurs  east  and  west, 
both  towards  the  sea  and  towards  the  valley  of  the 
Oroutes.  One  of  the  western  sfurs  terminates  iu a 


SYRIA 

remarkable  headland,  known  to  the  ancients  as 
Mount  Casms,  and  now  called  Jebel-cl-Akra,  or  the 
"  Bald  Mountain,"  which  rises  abruptly  from  the  sea 
to  a  height  exceeding  5000  feet.  At  the  northern 
extremity  of  Bargylus,  where  it  overhangs  the 
lower  course  of  the  Orontes,  was  Daphne,  the  deli- 
dous  suburb  of  Antioch,  and  the  favourite  haunt  of 
its  luxurious  populace.  t  (d}  Amanus.  North  of 
the  mouth  of  the  Orontes.  between  its  course  and 
the  eastern  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Issus  (Iskanderun), 
lies  the  range  of  Amanus,  which  extends  from 
the  south-west  end  of  the  gulf,  in  a  north-easterly 
direction,  a  distance  of  85  or  90  miles,  and  finally 
forms  a  junction  with  Taurus  in  about  long. 
36°  25'.  Amanus  divides  Syria  from  Cilicia,  and 
is  a  stony  range  with  bold  rugged  peaks  and  conical 
summits,  formed  of  serpentines  and  other  secondary 
rocks  supporting  a  tertiary  formation.  Its  average 
elevation  is  5000  feet,  and  it  terminates  abruptly  at 
Ras-el-Khanzir,  in  a  high  cliff  overhanging  the  sea. 
There  are  only  two  or  three  passes  across  it ;  and 
one  alone,  that  of  Beilan,  is  tolerably  commodious. 
Amanus,  like  Anti-libanus,  bifurcates  at  its  south 
western  extremity,  having,  besides  its  termination 
at  the  Ras-el-Khanzir,  another,  now  called  Musa 
Dagh,  which  approaches  within  about  six  miles  of 
the  mouth  of  the  Orontes,  and  seems  to  be  the 
Pieria  of  Strabo  (xvi.  2,  §8).  This  spur  is  of 
limestone  formation.  The  flanks  of  Amanus  are 
well  clothed  with  forests  of  pine,  oak,  and  larch,  or 
copses  of  myrtle,  arbutus,  oleander,  and  other 
shrubs.  The  range  was  well  known  to  the  Assy 
rians,  who  called  it  Khamana,  and  n<.  t  unfrequently 
cut  timber  in  it,  which  was  conveyed  thence  to 
their  capital. 

4.  The  .fibers.  — The  principal  rivers  of  Syria 
are  the  Litany  and  the  Orontes.  The  Litany  springs 
from  a  small  lake  situated  in  the  middle  of  the 
Coele-syrian  valley,  about  six  miles  to  the  south 
west  of  Baalbek.  Hence  it  descends  the  valley 
called  El-Bukaa,  with  a  course  a  little  west  of 
south,  sending  out  on  each  side  a  number  of  canals 
for  irrigation,  and  receiving  rills  from  the  opposite 
ranges  of  Libanus  and  Anti-libanus,  which  com 
pensate  for  the  water  given  off.  The  chief  of  these 
is  called  El-Burdony,  and  descends  from  Lebanon 
near  Zahleh.  The  Bukaa  narrows  as  it  proceeds 
southwards,  and  terminates  in  a  gorge,  through 
whi3h  the  Litany  forces  itself  with  a  course  which 
is  still  to  the  south-west,  flowing  deep  between 
high  precipices,  and  spanned  by  a  bold  bridge  of  a 
single  arch,  known  as  the  Jisr  Burghus.  Having 
emerged  from  the  ravine,  it  flows  first  south-west 
by  west,  and  then  nearly  due  south,  till  it  reaches 
the  latitude  of  Tyre,  when  meeting  the  mountains 
of  Upper  Galilee,  it  is  forced  to  bend  to  the  west, 
and,  passing  with  many  windings  through  the  low 
coast  tract,  enters  the  sea  about  5  miles  north  of 
the  great  Phoenician  city.  The  entire  course  of  the 
stream,  exclusive  of  small  windings  is  about  80 
miles.  The  source  of  the  Orontes  is  but  about  15 
miles  from  that  of  the  Liliny.  A  little  north  of 
Baalbek,  the  highest  point  or  water-shed  of  the 
Coele-syrian  valley  is  reached,  and  the  ground 
begins  to  descend  northwards.  A  small  rill  breaks 
out  from  the  foot  of  Anti-libanus,  which,  after 
flowing  nearly  due  north  for  15  miles  across  the 
plain,  meets  another  greater  source  given  out  by 
Lebanon  in  lat.  34°  22',  which  is  now  considered 
the  true  "  head  of  the  stream."  The  Orontes  from 
this  point  flows  down  the  valley  to  the  north-east, 
Mid  passing  through  the  Bahr-el-Kades — a  lake 


SYRIA 


1405 


about  6  miles  long  and  2  broal — approaches  Hems 
(Einesa),  which  it  leaves  on  its  right  bank.  It  then 
flows  for  20  miles  nearly  due  north ;  after  which, 
on  approaching  Hamah,  (Hamath),  it  makes  a 
slight  bend  to  the  east  round  the  base  of  the  Jebel 
Erbayn,  and  then,  entering  the  rich  pasture  country 
of  El-Ghab,  runs  north-west  and  north  to  Jisr 
Hadid.  The  tributaries  which  it  receives  in  this 
part  of  its  course  are  many  but  small,  the  only  one 
of  any  importance  being  the  Wady-el-Saruj,  which 
enters  it  from  the  west  a  little  below  Hamath.  At 
Jisr  Hadid,  or  "  the  Iron  Bridge,"  the  course  of 
the  Orontes  suddenly  changes.  Pi-evented  by  the 
range  of  Amanus  from  flowing  any  further  to  the 
north,  it  sweeps  round  boldly  to  the  west,  and  re 
ceiving  a  large  tributary — the  Kara-Su — from  the 
north-east,  the  volume  of  whose  water  exceeds 
its  own,  it  enters  the  broad  valley  of  Antioch, 
"  doubling  back  here  upon  itself,  and  flowing  to 
the  south-west."  In  this  part  of  its  course  the 
Orontes  has  been  compared  to  the  Wye  (Stanley, 
Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  409).  The  entire  length 
of  the  stream  is  estimated  at  above  200  miles.  Its 
modern  name  is  the  Nahr-el-Asi,  or  "  Rebel 
Stream,"  an  appellation  given  to  it  on  account  of 
its  violence  and  impetuosity  in  many  parts  of  its 
course. 

The  other  Syrian  streams  of  some  consequence, 
besides  the  Litany  and  the  Orontes,  are  the  Barada, 
or  river  of  Damascus,  the  Koweik,  or  river  of 
Aleppo,  and  the  Sajur,  a  tributary  of  the  Euphrates. 
The  course  of  the  Barada  has  already  been  de 
scribed  under  the  head  of  Damascus.  [DAMASCUS.] 
The  Koweik  rises  in  the  highlands  south  of  Ain 
Tab,  from  two  sources,  one  of  which  is  known  as 
the  Baloklu-Su,  or  "  Fish-River."  It  seems  to  be 
the  Chalus  of  Xenophon  (Anab.  i.  4,  §9).  Its 
course  is  at  first  east,  but  soon  becomes  south,  or  a 
little  west  of  south,  to  Aleppo,  after  which  it  me 
anders  considerably  through  the  high  plain  south 
of  that  city,  finally  terminating  in  a  marsh  known 
as  El-Matkh.  The  Sajur  rises  a  little  further  to 
the  north,  in  the  mountains  north  of  Ain- Tab.  Its 
course  for  the  first  25  miles  is  south-east,  after 
which  it  runs  east  for  15  or  20  miles,  finally  re 
suming  its  first  direction,  and  flowing  by  the  town 
of  Sajur  into  the  Euphrates.  It  is  a  larger  river 
than  the  Koweik,  though  its  course  is  scarcely  so 
long. 

5.  The  flakes. — The  principal  lakes  of  Syria  are 
the  Agh-Dengiz,  or  Lake  of  Antioch ;  the  Sabakhah, 
or  Salt  Lake,  between  Aleppo  and  Balis ;  the  Bahr- 
el-Kades,  on  the  upper  Orontes  ;  and  the  Bahr-el- 
Merj,  or  Lake  of  Damascus,  (a)  The  Lake  of  An 
tioch  is  an  oblong  fresh-water  basin,  10  miles  long 
by  7  broad,  situated  to  the  north  of  the  Orontes, 
where  it  sweeps  round  through  the  plain  of  Umkt 
before  receiving  the  Kara-Su.  It  is  formed  by  the 
waters  of  three  large  streams — tlie  Kara-Su,  the 
Afrin,  and  the  Asicad — which  collect  the  drainage 
of  the  great  mountain  tract?  lying  north-east  and 
east  of  Antioch,  between  the  36th  and  37th  pa 
rallels.  It  has  been  argued,  from  the  silence  of 
Xeuophon  and  Strabo,  that  this  lake  did  not  exist 
in  ancient  times  (Rennell,  Illustrations  of  the  Expe 
dition  of  Cyrus,  p.  65),  but  modern  investigations 
pursued  upon  the  spot  are  thought  to  disprove  this 
theory  (Ainsworth,  Researches  in  Mesopotamia, 
p.  299).  The  waters  flow  into  the  lake  on  the  east 
and  north,  and  flow  out  of  it  at  its  south-west 
angle  by  a  broad  and  deep  stream,  known  as  the 
Kara-Su,  which  falls  into  the  Orontes  a  few  miles 


1406 


SYRIA 


above  Antioch.  (6)  The  Setbakhah  is  a  salt  lake, 
into  which  only  insignificant  streams  How,  and 
which  has  no  outlet.  It  lies  midway  between  Balis 
and  Aleppo,  the  route  between  these  places  passing 
along  its  northern  shore.  It  is  longer  than  the  Lake 
of  Antioch,  but  narrower,  being  about  13  miles 
from  east  to  west,  and  4  miles  only  from  north  to 
south,  even  where  it  is  widest,  (c)  The  Bahr-cl- 
Kades  is  smaller  than  either  of  the  foregoing  lakes. 
It  has  been  estimated  at  8  miles  long  and  3  broad 
(Pococke,  Description  of  the  East,  i.  140),  and 
ugtin  at  6  miles  long  and  2  broad  (Chesney, 
Euphrates  Exp.  i.  394),  but  has  never  been  accu 
rately  measured.  Pococke  conjectures  that  it  is  of 
recent  formation ;  but  his  only  reason  seems  to  be 
the  silence  of  ancient  writers,  which  is  scarcely  suf 
ficient  to  prove  the  point.  (J)  The  Bahr-el-Merj, 
like  the  piece  of  water  in  which  the  Koweik  or 
river  of  Aleppo  ends,  scarcely  deserves  to  be  called 
a  lake,  since  it  is  little  better  than  a  large  marsh. 
The  length,  according  to  Col.  Chesney,  is  9  miles, 
and  the  breadth  2  miles  (Euphrat.  Exp.  i.  503) ; 
but  the  size  seems  to  vary  with  the  seasons,  and 
v/ith  the  extent  to  which  irrigation  is  used  along 
the  course  of  the  Barada.  A  recent  traveller,  who 
traced  the  Barada  to  its  termination,  found  it  divide 
a  few  milos  below  Damascus,  and  observed  that 
each  branch  terminated  in  a  marsh  of  its  own; 
while  a  neighbouring  stream,  the  Awaadj,  com 
monly  regarded  as  a  tributary  of  the  Barada,  also 
lost  itself  in  a  third  marsh  separate  from  the  other 
two  (Porter  in  Geograph.  Journ.  xxvi.  43-46). 

6.  The  Great  Valley. — By  far   the  most  im 
portant  part  of  Syria,  and  on  the  whole  its  most 
striking  feature,  is  the  great  valley  which  reaches 
from  the  plain  of  Umk,  near  Antioch,  to  the  narrow 
gorge  on  which  the  Litany  enters  in  about  lat. 
33°  30'.     This  valley,  which  runs  nearly  parallel 
with  the  Syrian  coast,  extends  the  length  of  230 
miles,  and  has  a  width  varying  from  6  or  8  tc  15 
or  20  miles.     The  more  southern  portion  of  it  was 
known  to  the  ancients   as   Coele-Syria,  or  "  the 
Hollow  Syria,"  and   has    been   already  described. 
[COELESYKIA.]     In  length  this  portion  is  rather 
more  than  100  miles,  terminating  with  a  screen  of 
hills  a  little  south  of  Hems,  at  which  point  the 
north-eastern  direction  of  the  valley  also  ceases, 
and  it  begins  to  bend  to  the  north-west.    The  lower 
valley  from  Hems  downward  is  broader,  generally 
speaking,  and  richer  than  the  upper  portion.     Here 
was   "  Hamath   the   Great"    (Am.  vi.    2),   now 
Hamah;   and  here  too  was  Apameia,  a  city  but 
little  inferior  to  Antioch,  surrounded  by  rich  pas 
tures,  where  Seleucus  Nicator  was  wont  to  feed  500 
elephants,  300  stallion  horses,  and  30,000  mares 
(Strab.  xvi.  2,  §10).     The  whole  of  this  region  is 
fertile,  being  watered  not  only  by  the  Orontes,  but 
by  the  numerous  affluents  which  flow  into  it  from 
the  mountain  ranges  enclosing  the  valley  on  either 
side. 

7.  The  Northern  Highlands. — Northern  Syria, 
especially  the  district  called  Commagene',  between 
Taurus  and  the  Euphrates,  is  still  very  insufficiently 
explored.     It  seems  to  be  altogether   an  elevated 
tract,  consisting  of  twisted  spurs  from  Taurus  and 
Amanus,  with  narrow  valleys  between  them,  which 
open  out  into  bare  and  sterile  plains.     The  valleys 
themselves  are  not  very  fertile.     They  are  watered 
by  small  streams,  producing  often  abundant  fish. 

0  The  root  of  this  name  appears  In  the  early  Assyrian 
inscriptiunj:  as  that  of  a  people,  the  Qummulcli,  or  Qum- 


SYRIA 

and,  for  the  mo?;  part,  flowing  into  the  Orontos  01 
the  Euphrates.  A  certain  number  of  the  mort 
central  ones,  however,  unite,  and  constitute  the 
"  river  of  Aleppo  "  which,  unable  to  reach  either  of 
the  Oceanic  streams,  forms  (as  we  have  seen)  a  lake 
or  marsh,  wherein  its  waters  evaporate.  Along  the 
couise  of  the  Euphrates  there  is  rich  land  and 
abundant  vegetation  ;  but  the  character  of  the 
country  thence  to  the  valley  of  the  Orontes  is  bare 
and  woodless,  except  in  the  vicinity  of  the  towns, 
where  fruit-trees  are  cultivated,  and  orchards  and 
gardens  make  an  agreeable  appearance.  Most  of 
this  region  is  a  mere  sheep-walk,  which  grows  more 
and  more  harsh  and  repulsive  as  we  approach  the 
south,  whwe  it  gradually  mingles  with  the  desert. 
The  highest  elevation  of  the  plateau  between  the 
two  rivers  is  1500  feet ;  and  this  height  is  reached 
soon  after  leaving  the  Euphrates,  while  towards  the. 
west  the  decline  is  gradual. 

8.  The  Eastern  Desert. — East   of  the   inner 
mountain-chain,  and  south  of  the  cultivable  ground 
about   Aleppo,   is   the   great    Syrian    Desert,    an 
"  elevated  dry  upland,  for  the  most  part  of  gypsum 
and   marls,  producing   nothing   but  a  few   spare 
bushes  of  wormwood,  and  the  usual  aromatic  plants 
of  the  wilderness."     Here  and  there  bare  and  stony 
ridges  of  no  great  height  cross  this  arid  region,  but 
fail  to  draw  water  from  the  sky,  and  have,  conse 
quently,  no  streams  flowing  from  them.     A  few 
wells  supply  the  nomad  population  with  a  brackish 
fluid.     The  region  is  traversed  with  difficulty,  and 
has   never   been   accurately  surveyed.     The   most 
remarkable  oasis  is  at  Palmyra,  where  there  are 
several  small   streams   and   abundant  palm-trees. 
[See  TADMOR.]     Towards  the  more  western  part 
of  the  region  along  the  foot  of  the  mountain-range 
which  there  bounds  it,  is  likewise  a  good  deal  of 
tolerably  fertile  country,  watered  by  the  stream? 
which  flow  eastward  from  the  range,  and  after  a 
longer  or  a  shorter  course  are  lost  in  the  desert. 
The  best  known  and  the  most  productive  of  these 
tracts,  which  seem  stolen  from  the  desert,  is  the 
famous  plain  of  Damascus — the  el-Ghutah  and  el' 
Merj  of  the  Arabs — already  described  in  the  account 
given  of  that   city.     [DAMASCUS.]     No  rival  to 
this  "  earthly  paradise  "  is  to  be  found  along  the 
rest  of  the  chain,  since  no  other  stream  flows  down 
from  it  at  all  comparable  to  the  Barada ;  but  wher 
ever  the  eastern  side  of  the  chain  has  been  visited, 
a  certain  amount  of  cultivable  territory  has  been 
found  at  its  foot ;  corn  is  grown  in  places,  and 
olive-trees  are  abundant  (Burckhardt,   Travels  in 
Syria,  pp.  -124-129 ;  Pococke,  Description  of  the 
East,  vol.  ii.  p.  146).     Further  from  the  hills  all 
is  bare  and  repulsive ;  a  dry  hard  desert  like  that 
of  the  Sinaitic  peninsula,  with  a  soil  of  marl  and 
gravel,  only  rarely  diversified  with  sand. 

9.  Chief  Divisions. — According  to  Strabo,  Syria 
Proper  was  divided  into  the  following  districts : — 
1.  CommagSne' ;   2.  Cyrrhestica ;   3.  Seleucis  ;   4. 
Coele-syria;    and   5.  Damascene".     If  we  take  its 
limits,  however,  as  laid  down  above  (§  1),  we  mus*, 
add  to  these  districts  three  others:    Chalybonitis 
or  the  country  about  Aleppo  ;  Chalcis  or  Chalcidice, 
a  small  tract  south  of  this,  about  the  lake  in  which 
the  river  of  Aleppo  ends;  and  Palmyrene',  or  the 
desert  so  far  as  we  consider  it  to  have  been  Syrian. 
(a)  Commagene*  lay  to   the   north.     Its   capi-tal 
was  Samosata  or  Sumeisat.     The  territory  is  said 


muhJci.    They  dwell,  however,  east  of  the  Euphrates 
between  Sumeisat  and  Diarbekr. 


SYRIA 

to  have  been  fairly  fertile,  but  small ;  and  from . 
this  we  may  gather  that  it  did  not  descend  lower 
than  about  Ain-Tab.  (6)  From  Ain-Tab,  or  per 
haps  from  a  point  higher  up,  commenced  Cirrhestica 
or  Cyristica.  It  was  bounded  on  the  north  by 
Commagene',  on  the  north-west  by  Amanus,  on  the 
west  and  south-west  by  Seleucis,  and  on  the  south 
by  Chalybonitis  or  the  region  of  Chalybon.  Both 
it  and  Commaggne'  reached  eastward  to  the  Eu 
phrates.  Cyrrhestica  was  so  called  from  its  capital 
Cyrrhus,  which  seems  to  be  the  modern  Corns. 
It  included  Hierapolis  (Bambuk),  Batnae  (Dahab?}, 
and  Gindarus  (Gindaries).  (c)  Chalybonitis 
adjoined  Cyrrhestica  on  the  south,  lying  between 
that  region  and  the  desert.  It  extended  probably 
from  the  Euphrates,  about  Balis,  to  Mount  St. 
Simoon  (Amguli  Dagh).  Like  Cyrrhestica,  it  de 
rived  its  name  from  its  capital  city,  which  was 
Chalybon,  now  corrupted  into  Haleb,  or  Aleppo. 
(£?•)  Chalcidice"  was  south  of  the  more  western  por 
tion  of  Chalybonitis,  and  was  named  from  i«t>  capital, 
Chalcis,  which  seems  to  be  marked  by  the  modern 
Kennasserin,  a  little  south  of  the  lake  in  which  the 
river  of  Aleppo  ends  (Pococke,  Travels,  ii.  149). 
(e)  Seleucis  lay  between  Cyrrhestica,  Chalybonitis, 
and  Chalcis  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Mediterranean 
on  the  other.  It  was  a  large  province,  and  con 
tained  four  important  subdivisions,  1.  Seleucis 
Proper  or  Pieria,  the  little  corner  between  Amanus 
and  the  Orontes,  with  its  capital,  Seleucia,  on  the 
const,  above  the  mouth  of  the  Orontes;  2.  Antio- 
chis,  the  region  about  Antioch ;  3.  Laodicgne',  the 
coast  tract  between  the  mouth  of  the  Orontes  and 
Phoenicia,  named  after  its  capital,  Laodiceia  (still 
called  Ladikiyeh],  which  was  an  excellent  port,  and 
situated  in  a  most  fertile  district  (Strab.  xvi.  2,  §9)  ; 
and  4.  Apamend,  consisting  of  the  valley  of  the 
Orontes  from  Jisr  Hadid  to  Hamah,  or  perhaps  to 
Hems,  and  having  Apamea  (now  Famieti)  for  its 
chief  city.  (/)  Coele-syria  lay  south  of  Apamea, 
being  the  continuation  of  the  Great  Valley,  and  ex 
tending  from  Hems  to  the  gorge  in  which  the  valley 
ends.  The  chief  town  of  this  region  was  Heliopolis 
(Baalbek},  (g)  Damascene"  included  the  whole 
cultivable  tract  between  the  bare  range  which 
breaks  away  from  Anti-libanus  in  lat.  33°  30',  and 
the  hills  which  shut  in  the  valley  of  the  Awaj  on 
the  south.  It  lay  east  of  Coele-syria  and  south-west  of 
Palmyrene'.  (A)  Palmyrene'  was  the  name  applied 
to  the  whole  of  the  Syrian  Desert.  It  was  bounded 
on  the  east  by  the  Euphrates,  on  the  north  by 
Chalybonitis  and  Chalcidice,  on  the  west  by  Apa- 
mene'  and  Coele-syria,  and  on  the  south  by  the  great 
desert  of  Arabia. 

10.  Principal  towns. — The  chief  towns  of  Syria 
may  be  thus  arranged,  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the 
order  of  their  importance:  1.  Antioch;  2.  Da 
mascus  ;  3.  Apameia ;  4.  Seleucia  ;  5.  Tadmor  or 
Palmyra ;  6.  Laodiceia  ;  7.  Epiphaneia  (Hamath) 
8.  Samosata ;  9.  Hierapolis  (Mabog)  ;  10.  Chaly 
bon ;  11.  Emesa ;  12.  Heliopolis;  13.  Laodiceia 
ad  Libanum;  14.  Cyrrhus;  15.  Chalcis;  16. 
Poseideium  ;  17.  Heracleia;  18.  Gindarus;  19. 
Zeugma;  20.  Thapsacus.  Of  these,  Samosata, 
Zeugma,  Thapsacus,  are  on  the  Euphrates  ;  Seleucia, 
Laodiceia,  Poseideium,  and  Heracleia,  on  the  sea 
shore  ;  Antioch,  Apameia,  Epiphaneia,  and  Emesa 
(Hems)  on  the  Orontes ;  Heliopolis  and  Laodiceia  ad 
Libanum,  in  Coele-syria ;  Hierapolis.  Chalybon, 
Cyrrhus,  Chalcis,  and  Gindarus,  in  the  northern 
highlands ;  Damascus  on  the  skirts,  and  Palmyra 
ui  the  centre  of  the  eastern  desert. 


SYRIA 


1407 


11.  History. — The  first  occupants  of  Syria 
appear  to  have  been  of  Hamitic  descent.  The 
Canaanitish  races,  the  Hittites,  Jebusites,  Amorites, 
&c.,  are  connected  in  Scripture  with  Egypt  and 
Ethiopia,  Gush  and  Mizraim  (Gen.  x.  6  and  15-18) ; 
and  even  independently  of  this  evidence,  there  seems 
to  be  sufficient  reason  for  believing  that  the  races 
in  question  stood  in  close  ethnic  connexion  with  the 
Cushite  stock  (Eawlinson's  Herodotus,  iv.  243-245). 
These  tribes  occupied  not  Palestine  only,  but  also 
Lower  Syria,  in  very  early  times,  as  we  may  gather 
from  the  fact  that  Hamuth  is  assigned  to  them  iu 
Genesis  (x.  18).  Afterwards  they  seem  to  have 
become  possessed  of  Upper  Syria  also,  for  when  the 
Assyrians  first  push  their  conquests  beyond  the 
Euphrates,  they  find  the  Hittites  (Khatti)  esta- 
bhshed  in  strength  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Great 
River.  After  a  while  the  first  comers,  who  wera 
still  to  a  great  extent  nomads,  received  a  Shemitio 
infusion,  which  most  probably  came  to  them  from 
the  south-east.  The  family  of  Abraham,  whose 
original  domicile  was  in  Lower  Babylonia,  may, 
perhaps,  be  best  regarded  as  furnishing  us  with  a 
specimen  of  the  migratory  movements  of  the  peiiod. 
Another  example  is  that  of  Chedorlaonier  with  his 
confederate  kings,  of  whom  one  at  least — Amraphel 
— must  have  been  a  Shemite.  The  movement  may 
have  begun  before  the  time  of  Abraham,  and  hence, 
perhaps,  the  Shemitic  names  of  many  of  the  inhabi 
tants  when  Abraham  first  comes  into  the  country, 
as  Abimeleoh,  Melchizedek,  Eliezer,  &c.b  The  only 
Syrian  town  whose  existence  we  find  distinctly 
marked  at  this  time  is  Damascus  (Gen.  xiv.  15  ; 
XT.  2),  which  appears  to  have  been  already  a  place 
of  some  importance.  Indeed,  in  one  tradition, 
Abraham  is  said  to  have  been  king  of  Damascus  for 
a  time  (Nic.  Dam.  Fr.  30)  ;  but  this  is  quite  un 
worthy  of  credit.  Next  to  Damascus  must  be 
placed  Hamath,  which  is  mentioned  by  Moses  as  a 
well-known  place  (Nam.  xiii.  21,  xxxiv.  8),  and 
appears  in  Egyptian  p^apyri  of  the  time  of  the 
eighteenth  dynasty  (Cambridge  Essays,  1858,  p. 
268).  Syria  at  this  time,  and  for  many  centuries 
afterwards,  seems  to  have  been  broken  up  among  a 
number  of  petty  kingdoms.  Several  of  these  are 
mentioned  in  Scripture,  as  Damascus,  Kehob, 
Maachah,  Zobah,  Geshur,  &c.  We  also  hear  oc 
casionally  of  "  the  kings  of  Syria  and  of  the  Hit 
tites"  (1  K.  x.  29;  2  K.  vii.  6)— an  expression 
indicative  of  that  extensive  subdivision  of  the  tract 
among  numerous  petty  chiefs  which  is  exhibited  to 
us  very  clearly  in  the  early  Assyrian  inscriptions. 
At  various  times  different  states  had  the  pre 
eminence  ;  but  none  was  ever  strong  enough  to 
establish  an  authority  over  the  others. 

The  Jews  first  come  into  hostile  contact  with 
the  Syrians,  under  that  name,  in  the  time  of 
David.  The  wai«  of  Joshua,  however,  must  have 
often  been  with  Syrian  chiefs,  with  whom  he  dis 
puted  the  possession  of  the  tract  about  Lebanon 
and  Hermon  (Josh.  xi.  2-18).  After  his  time  the 
Syrians  were  apparently  undisturbed,  until  David 
began  his  aggressive  wars  upon  them.  Claiming 
the  frontier  of  the  Euphrates,  which  God  had 
promised  to  Abraham  (Gen.  xv.  18),  David  made 
war  on  Hadadezer,  king  of  Zobah,  whom  he 
defeated  in  a  great  battle,  killing  18,000  of  his 
men,  and  taking  from  him  1000  chariotsj  700 


b  It  is  possible,  however,  that  trese  names  may  ie  tbj 
Shemitic  equivalents  of  the  real  names  of  these 
which  names  might  in  that  case  have  been  Hainltic, 


1408  SYRIA  SYRIA 

their  exactions,  grew  rich  with  thi  wealth  which 
now  flowed  into  it  on  all  si.les.  The  luxury 
and  magnificence  of  Antioch  were  extraordinary. 
Broad  straight  streets,  with  colonnades  from  end 
to  end,  temples,  statues,  arches,  bridges,  a  royal 
palace,  and  various  other  public  buildings  dispersed 
throughout  it,  made  the  Syrian  capital  by  far  the 
most  splendid  of  all  the  cities  of  the  East.  At 
the  same  time,  in  the  provinces,  other  towns  of 
large  size  were  growing  up.  Seleucia  in  Pieria, 
Apameia,  and  both  Laodiceias  were  foundations  of 
the  Seleucidae,  as  their  names  sufficiently  indi 
cate.  Weak  and  indolent  as  were  many  of  these 
monarchs,  it  would  seem  that  they  had  a  here 
ditary  taste  for  building ;  and  so  each  aimed  at 
outdoing  his  predecessors  in  the  number,  beauty, 
and  magnificence  of  his  constructions.  As  the 
history  of  Syria  under  the  Seleucid  princes  has 
been  already  given  in  detail,  in  the  articles  treating 
of  each  monarch  [ANTIOCHUS,  DEMETRIUS,  SE- 
LEUCUS,  &c.],  it  will  be  unnecessary  here  to  do 
more  than  sum  it  up  generally.  The  most  flour 
ishing  period  was  the  reign  of  the  founder,  Nicator. 
The  empire  was  then  almost  as  large  as  that  of 
the  Achaemenian  Persians,  for  it  at  one  time 
included  Asia  Minor,  and  thus  reached  from  the 
Egean  to  India.  It  was  organised  into  satrapies, 
of  which  the  number  was  72.  Trade  flourished 
greatly,  old  lines  of  traffic  being  restored  and  new 
ones  opened.  The  reign  of  Nicator's  son,  Antio- 
chus  I.,  called  Soter,  was  the  beginning  of  the 
decline,  which  was  progressive  from  his  date,  with 
only  one  or  two  slight  interruptions.  Soter  lost 
territory  to  the  kingdom  of  Pergamus,  and  failed 
in  an  attempt  to  subject  Bithynia.  He  was  also 
unsuccessful  against  Egypt.  Under  his  son,  An- 
tiochus  II.,  called  0e<$9,  or  •'  the  God,"  who 
ascended  the  throne  in  B.C.  261,  the  disintegration 
of  the  empire  proceeded  more  rapidly.  The  revolt 
of  Parthia  in  B.C.  256,  followed  by  that  of  Bactria 
in  B.C.  254,  deprived  the  Syrian  kingdom  of  some 
of  its  best  provinces,  and  gave  it  a  new  enemy 
which  shortly  became  a  rival  and  finally  a  supe 
rior.  At  the  same  time  the  war  with  Egypt  was 
prosecuted  without  either  advantage  or  glory. 

satrap,  Megabazus,  to  raise  the  standard  of  revolt  j  Fresh  losses  were  suffered  in  the  reign  of  Seleucus 
against  Artaxerxes  Longimanus  (B.C.  447).  After  |  II.  (Callinicus),  Antiochus  the  Second's  successor, 
this  we  hear  little  of  Syria  till  the  year  of  the  j  While  Callinicus  was  engaged  in  Egypt  against 
battle  of  Issus  (B.C.  333),  when  it  submitted  to  Ptolemy  Euergetes,  Eumenes  of  Pergamus  obtained 
Alexander  without  a  struggle.  possession  of  a  great  part  of  Asia  Minor  (B.C. 

Upon  the  death  of  Alexander  Syria  became,  for  j  242) ;  and  about  the  same  time  Arsaces  II.,  king 
the  first  time,  the  head  of  a  great  kingdom.  On  !  of  Parthia,  conquered  Hyrcania  and  annexed  it  to 
the  division  of  the  provinces  among  his  generals  his  dominions.  An  attempt  to  recover  this  latter 
(B.C.  321),  Seleucus  Nicator  received  Mesopotamia  !  province  cost  Callinicus  his  crown,  as  he  was 
and  Syria :  and  though,  in  the  twenty  years  of  j  defeated  and  made  prisoner  by  the  Parthians  (B.C. 
struggle  which  followed,  this  country  was  lost  and  i  226).  In  the  next  reign,  that  of  Seleucus  III. 
won  repeatedly,  it  remained  finally,  with  the  (Ceraunus),  a  slight  reaction  set  in.  Most  of  Asia 

Minor  was  recovered  for  Ceraunus  by  his  wife's 
nephew,  Achaeus  (B.C.  224),  and  he  was  pre- 


Horsemen,  and  20,000  footmen  (2  Sam.  viii.  3,  4, 
13).  The  Damascene  Syrians,  having  endeavoured 
to  succour  their  kinsmen,  were  likewise  defeated 
with  great  loss  (ib.  ver.  5) ;  and  the  blow  so 
weakened  them  that  they  shortly  afterwards  sub 
mitted  and  became  David's  subjects  (ver.  6). 
Ivobah,  however,  was  far  from  being  subdued  as 
yet.  When,  a  few  years  later,  the  Ammonites 
determined  on  engaging  in  a  war  with  David,  and 
applied  to  the  Syrians  for  aid,  Zobah,  together 
with  Beth-Rehob,  sent  them  20,000  footmen,  and 
two  other  Syrian  kingdoms  furnished  13,000  (2 
Sam.  x.  6).  This  army  being  completely  defeated 
by  Joab,  Hadadezer  obtained  aid  from  Mesopotamia 
(ib.  ver.  16),  and  tried  the  chance  of  a  third  battle, 
which  likewise  went  against  him,  and  produced  the 
general  submission  of  Syria  to  the  Jewish  monarch. 
The  submission  thus  begun  continued  under  the 
reign  of  Solomon,  who  "  reigned  over  all  the  king 
doms  from  the  river  (Euphrates)  unto  the  land 
of  the  Philistines  and  unto  the  border  of  Egypt ; 
they  brought  presents  and  served  Solomon  all  the 
days  of  his  life''  (1  K.  iv.  21).  The  only  part  of 
Syria  which  Solomon  lost  seems  to  have  been  Damas 
cus,  where  an  independent  kingdom  was  set  up  by 
Kezon,  a  native  of  Zobah  (1  K.  xi.  23-25).  On 
the  separation  of  the  two  kingdoms,  soon  after  the 
accession  of  Rehoboam,  the  remainder  of  Syria  no 
doubt  shook  off  the  yoke.  Damascus  now  became 
decidedly  the  leading  state,  Hamath  being  second 
to  it,  and  the  northern  Hittites,  whose  capital  was 
Carchemish  near  Bambuk,  third.  [CARCHEMISH.] 
The  wars  of  this  period  fall  most  properly  into 
the  history  of  Damascus,  and  have  already  been 
described  in  the  account  given  of  that  city.  [DA 
MASCUS.]  Their  result  was  to  attach  Syria  to 
the  great  Assyrian  empire,  from  which  it  parsed 
to  the  Babylonians,  after  a  short  attempt  on  the 
part  of  Egypt  to  hold  possession  of  it,  which  was 
frustrated  by  Nebuchadnezzar.  From  the  Baby 
lonians  Syria  passed  to  the  Persians,  under  whom 
it  formed  a  satrapy  in  conjunction  with  Judaea, 
Phoenicia,  and  Cyprus  (Herod,  iii.  91;.  Its  re 
sources  were  still  great,  and  probably  it  was  his 
confidence  in  them  which  encouraged  the  Syrian 


exception  of  Coele-syria,  in  the  hands  of  the  prince 
to  whom  it  was  originally  assigned.     That  prince, 


whose  dominions  reached  from  the  Mediterranean  j  paring  to  invade  Pergamus  when  he  died  poisoned. 
to  the  Indus,  and  from  the  Oxus  to  the  Southern  |  His  successor  and  brother,  Antiochus  III.,  though 


Ocean,  having,  as  he  believed,  been  exposed  to 
great  dangers  on  account  of  the  distance  from 
Greece  of  his  original  capital,  Babylon,  resolved 
immediately  upon  his  victory  of  Ipsus  (B.C.  301) 
to  fix  his  metropolis  in  the  West,  and  settled  upon 
Syria  as  the  fittest  place  for  it.  Antioch  was 
begun  in  B.C.  300,  and,  being  finished  in  a  few 
years,  was  made  the  capital  of  Seleucus'  kingdom. 
The  whole  realm  was  thenceforth  ruled  from  this 
i-*eiitre,  and  Syria,  which  had  long  been  the  prey 
of  stronger  countries,  and  had  been  exhausted  by 


he  gained  the  surname  of  Great  from  the  grandeur 
of  his  expeditions  and  the  partial  success  of  some 
of  them,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  really  done 
anything  towards  raising  the  empire  from  its 
declining  condition,  since  his  conquests  on  the  side 
of  Egypt,  consisting  of  Coele-syria,  Phoenicia,  and 
Palestine,  formed  no  sufficient  compensation  for  thj 
loss  of  Asia  Minor,  which  he  was  forced  to  cede  tc 
Rome  for  the  aggrandisement  of  the  rival  kingdom 
of  Pergamus  (B.C.  190).  Even  had  the  territorial 
balance  been  kept  more  even,  the  ill  policy  of 


SYRIA 

waking  Rome  an  etemy  'of  the  Syrian  kingdom, 
with  which  Antiochus  the  Great  is  taxable,  would 
have    necessitated    cur   placing    him   among    the 
princes   to   whom   its   ultimate  ruin   was   mainly 
owing.     Towards  the  East,  indeed,  he  did  some 
thing,  if  not  to  thrust  back  the  Parthians,  at  any 
rate  to  protect  his  empire  from  their  aggressions. 
But  the  exhaustion  consequent  upon  his  constant 
wars  and  signal  defeats — more  especially  those  of 
Raphia  and  Magnesia — left  Syria  far  more  feeble 
at   his   death  than   she   had  been  at  any  former 
period.     The  almost  eventless  reign  of  Seleucus  IV. 
(Philopator),  his  son  and  successor  (B.C.  187-175), 
is  sufficient  proof  of  this  feebleness.     It  waa  not 
till    twenty    years    of   peace    had    recruited    the 
resources  of  Syria  in  men  and  money,   that  An 
tiochus   IV.    (Epiphanes),   brother  of  Philopator, 
ventured  on  engaging  in  a  great  war  (B.C.  171) — 
a  war  for   the   conquest  of  Egypt.      At  first   it 
teemed  as  if  the  attempt  would  succeed.     Egypt 
was  on  the  point  of  yielding  to  her  foe  of  so  many 
years,  when  Rome,  following  out  her  traditions  of 
hostility  to  Syrian  power  and  influence,  interposed 
her  mediation,  and  deprived  Epiphanes  of  all  the 
fruits    of  his   victories    (B.C.    168).      A   greater 
injury   was,   about   the    same    time   (B.C.    167), 
inflicted  on  Syria  by  the  folly  of  Epiphanes  him 
self.     Not  content  with  replenishing  his  treasury 
by  the  plunder  of  the  Jewish  temple,  he  madly 
ordered  the  desecration  of  the  Holy  of  Holies,  and 
thus  caused  the  revolt  of  the  Jews,  which  proved 
a  permanent  loss  to  the  empire  and  an  aggravation 
of  its  weakness.      After   the   death  of  Epiphanes 
the  empire  rapidly  verged  to  its  fall.     The  regal 
power  fell  into  the  hands  of  an  infant,  Antiochus  V. 
(Eupator),  son  of  Epiphanes  (B.C.  164)  ;  the  nobles 
contended  for   the    regency;    a  pretender   to   the 
crown  started  up  in  the  person  of  Demetrius,  son 
of  Seleucus  IV. ;    Rome   put   in   a  claim  to  ad 
minister  the  government;  and  amid  the  troubles 
thus  caused,  the  Parthians,  under  Mithridates  I., 
overran   the   eastern   provinces   (B.C.    164),    con 
quered  Media,  Persia,  Susiana,  Babylonia,  &c.,  and 
advanced  their  frontier  to  the  Euphrates.     It  was 
in   vain  that   Demetrius   II.   (Nicator)    made   an 
attempt  (B.C.  142)  to  recover  the  lost  territory ; 
his  boldness  cost  him  his  liberty ;  while  a  similar 
attempt  on  the  part  of  his  successor,  Antiochus  VII. 
(Sidetes),  cost  that  monarch  his  life  (B.C.  128). 
Meanwhile,  in  the  shorn  Syrian  kingdom,  disorders 
of  every  kind  were  on  the  increase ;  Commagend 
revolted  and  established   her   independence;    civil 
wars,   murders,   mutinies   of  the   troops,   rapidly 
succeeded  one  another ;    the   despised   Jews   were 
called  in  by  both  sides  in  the  various  struggles  ; 
and  Syria,  in  the  space  of  about  ninety  years,  from 
B.C.  154  to  B.C.  64,  had  no  fewer  than  ten  sove 
reigns.     All  the  wealth  of  the  country  had  been 
by  this  time  dissipated;  much  had  flowed  Rome- 
wards  in  the  shape  of  bribes  ;  more,  probably,  had 
been  spent  on  the  wars ;  and  still  more  had  been 
wasted   by   the   kings   in   luxury   of  every  kind. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  Romans  showed  no 
eagerness  to  occupy  the  exhausted  region,  which 
passed    under   the    power   of  Tigranes,    king    of 
Armenia,  in  B.C.  83,  and  was  not  made  a  province 
of  the  Roman  Empire  till  after  Pompey's  complete 
defeat  of  Mithridates  and  his  ally  Tigranes,  B.C.  64 
The  chronology  of  this  period  has  been  well  worked 
out  by  Clinton  (F.  H.  vol.  iii.  pp.  308-346),  from 
whom  the  following  table  of  the  kings,  with  the 
dates  of  their  accession,  is  taken : — 
VOL.  HT. 


SYRIA 


1409 


Kings. 

Length  of 
Keigu. 

Date  of 
Accession. 

1.  Seleucus  Nicator  . 

32  years. 

Oct.    312 

2.  Antiochus  Soter  . 

»    ., 

Jan.  280 

3.  Antiochus  Theus 

15      ,, 

Jan.  261 

4.  Seleucus  Callinicus 

20      ,, 

Jan.  248 

5.  Seleucus  Ceraunus 

3     ,, 

Aug.  226 

6.  Antiochus  Magnus 

36     ,, 

Aug.  223 

7.  Seleucus  Philopator 

12     ,, 

Oct.    187 

8.  Antiochus  Epiphanes      . 

11      ,, 

Aug.  175 

9.  Antiochus  Eupator 

2     ,, 

Dec.   164 

10.  Demetrius  Soter  . 

12     ,, 

Nov.  162 

11.  Alexander  Bala    . 

5     ,, 

Aug.  15C 

12.  Demetrius  Nicator    (1st) 
reign)                                  \ 

9     ,, 

Nov.  146 

13.  Antiochus  Sidetes     .     . 

9     ,, 

Feb.  137 

14.  Demetrius  Nicator  (2nd  1 
reign  )                                   \ 

3     ,, 

Feb.   128 

15.  Antiochus  Grypus     .     . 

13     ,, 

Aug.  125 

16.  Antiochus  Cyzenicus 

18     ,, 

113 

17.  Antiochus  Eusebes   and  7 

PhiHppus    5 

12     ,, 

95 

18.  Tigranes    

14     tt 

83 

19.  Antiochus  Aslaticus 

4     ., 

10 

As  Syria  holds  an  important  place,  not  only  in 
the  Old  Testament,  but  in  the  New,  some  account 
of  its  condition  under  the  Romans  must  now  be 
given.  That  condition  was  somewhat  peculiar. 
While  the  country  generally  was  fonned  into  a 
Roman  province,  under  governors  who  were  at  first 
propraetors  or  quaestors,  then  proconsuls,  and 
finally  legates,  there  were  exempted  from  the  direct 
rule  of  the  governor,  in  the  first  place,  a  number  of 
"  free  cities,"  which  retained  the  administration  of 
their  own  affairs,  subject  to  a  tribute  levied  accord 
ing  to  the  Roman  principles  of  taxation  ;  and  2ndly, 
a  number  of  tracts,  which  were  assigned  to  petty 
princes,  commonly  natives,  to  be  ruled  at  their 
pleasure,  subject  to  the  same  obligations  with  the 
free  cities  as  to  taxation  (Appian,  Syr.  50).  The 
free  cities  were  Antioch,  Seleucia,  Apameia,  Epi- 
phaneia,  Tripolis,  S idon,»  and  Tyre  ;  the  principali 
ties,  Commagene',  Chalcis  ad  Belum  (near  Baalbek), 
Arethusa,  Abila  or  Abilen^,  Palmyra,  and  Da 
mascus.  The  principalities  were  sometimes  called 
kingdoms,  sometimes  tetrarchies.  They  were  esta 
blished  where  it  was  thought  that  the  natives  were 
so  inveterately  wedded  to  their  own  customs,  and  so 
well  disposed  for  revolt,  that  it  was  necessary  to 
consult  their  feelings,  to  flatter  the  national  vanity, 
and  to  give  them  the  semblance  without  the- sub 
stance  of  freedom,  (a)  Commagen^  was  a  king 
dom  (regnum).  It  had  broken  off  from  Syria 
during  the  later  troubles,  and  become  a  separate 
state  under  the  government  of  a  branch  of  the  Se- 
leucidae,  who  affected  the  names  of  Antiochus  and 
Mithridates.  The  Romans  allowed  this  condition 
of  things  to  continue  till  A.D.  17,  when,  upon  the 
death  of,  Antiochus  III.,  they  made  Commagen^S 
into  a  province  ;  in  which  condition  it  continued  till 
A.D.  38,  when  Caligula  gave  the  crown  to  An 
tiochus  IV.  (Epiphanes),  the  son  of  Antiochus  III. 
Autiochus  IV.  continued  king  till  A.D.  72,  when  he 
was  deposed  by  Vespasian,  and  Commagen^  was 
finally  absorbed  into  the  Empire.  He  had  a  son, 
called  also  Antiochus  and  Epiphanes,  who  was  be 
trothed  to  Drusilla,  the  sister  of  "  King  Agrippa," 
and  afterwards  the  wire  of  Felix,  the  procurator  of 
Judaea.  (6)  Chalcis  "  ad  Belum  "  was  not  the  city 
so  called  near  Aleppo,  which  gave  name  to  tht 
district  of  Chalcidice,  but  a  town  of  less  importance 
near  Heliopolis  (BaaibeK),  whence  probably  thf 
suffix  "  ad  Belum."  It  is  mentioned  in  this  con- 

4  X 


1410 


SYRIA 


SYRIA 


uexion  by  Strabo  (xvi.  2,  §10),  and  Josef  ras  says  occupied  a  different  position  fiom  the  rert  of  tlit 

thai  it  was  under  Lebanon  (Ant.  xiv.  7,  §4),  so  Syrian  principalities.     It  was  in  no  sense  dependent 

that  there  cannot  be  much  doubt  as  to  its  posi-  upon  Rome  (Plin.  H.  N.  v.  25),  but,  relying   on 

tion.    It  must  have  been  in  the  "  Hollow  Syria" —  its  position,  claimed  and  exercised  the  right  of  self- 

the  modern  Bukaa — to  the  south  of  Baalbek  (Jo-  government  from  the  breaking  up  of  the  Syrian 

seph.  B.  J.  i.  9,  §2),  and  therefore  probably  at  kingdom  to  the  reign  of  Trajan.     Antony  made  an 

Anjar,  where  there  are  large  ruins  (Robinson,  Bibl.  attempt  against  it,  B.C.  41,  but  failed.     It  was  not 

Res.   iii.  496,  497).     This  too  was  generally,  or  till  Trajan's  successes  against  the  Parthians,  between 

perhaps  always,  a  "kingdom."     Pompey  found  it  A.D.  114  and  A.D.  116,  that  Palmyra  was  added  to 

under  a  certain  Ptolemy,  "  the  son  of  Mennaeus,"  the  Empire.     (/)  Damascus  is  the  last  of  the  prin- 

and  allowed  him  to  retain  possession  of  it,  together  cipalities  which  it  is  necessary  to  notice  here.     It 

with  certain  adjacent  districts.    From  him  it  passed  appears  to  have  been  left  by  Pompey  in  the  hand? 

to  his  son,   Lysanias,  who  was  put  to  death  by  of  an  Arabian  prince,  Aretas,  who,  however,  was  to 

Antony  at  the  instigation  of  Cleopatra  (ab.  B.C.  pay  a  tribute  for  it,  and  to  allow  the  Romans  to 

34),  after  which  we  find  its  revenues  farmed  by  occuj /  it  at  their  pleasure  with  a  garrison  (Joseph. 

Lysanias'  steward,  Zenodorus,  the  royalty  being  in  Ant.  xiv.  4,  §5;  5,  §1 ;  11,  §7).     This  state  ot' 

abeyance  (Joseph.  Ant.  xv.  10,  §1).     In  B.C.  22  things  continued  most  likely  to  the  settlement  of 

Chalcis  was  added  by  Augustus  to  the  dominions  of  the  Empire  by  Augustus,  when  Damascus  was  at- 

Herod  the  Great,  at  whose  death  it  probably  passed  tached  to  the  province  of  Syria.     During  the  r«  st 

to  his  son  Philip  (ib.  xvii.  11,  §4).     Philip  died  of  Augustus'  reign,  and  during  the  entire  reign  of 

A.D.  34;  and  then  we  lose  sight  of  Chalcis,  until  Tiberius,  this  arrangement  was  in  force  ;  but.it  seems 

Claudius  in  his  first  year  (A.D.  41)  bestowed  it  on  probable  that  Caligula  on  his  accession  separated 

a  Herod,  the  brother  of  Herod  Agrippa  L,  still  as  a  Damascus  from  Syria,  and  gave  it  to  another  Aretas, 


"  kingdom."  From  this  Herod  it  passed  (A.D.  49) 
to  his  nephew,  Herod  Agrippa  II.,  who  held  it  only 
three  or  four  years,  being  promoted  from  it  to 


who  was  king  of  Petra,  and  a  relation  (son  ?)  of  the 
former.  [See  ARETAS.]  Hence  the  fact,  noted  by 
St.  Paul  (2  Cor.  xi.  32),  that  at  the  time  of  his 


better  government  (ID.  xx.  7,  §1).  Chalcis  then  conversion  Damascus  was  held  by  an  "  ethnarch  of 
fell  to  Agrippa's  cousin,  Aristobulus,  son  of  the  king  Aretas."  The  semi-independence  of  Damascus 
first  Herod ian  king,  under  whom  it  remained  till  is  thought  to  have  continued  through  the  reigns  of 
A.D.  73  (Joseph.  B.  J.  vii.  7,  §1).  About  this  Caligula  and  Claudius  (from  A.D.  37  to  A.D.  54), 
time,  ov  soon  after,  it  ceased  to  be  a  distinct  go-  but  to  have  come  to  an  end  under  Nero,  when  the 
vernment.  being  finally  absorbed  into  the  Roman  district  was  probably  re-attached  to  Syria, 
province  of  Syria,  (c)  Arethusa  (now  Resturi)  The  b'st  of  the  governors  of  Syria,  from  its  con- 
was  for  a  time  separated  from  Syria,  and  go-  quest  by  the  Romans  to  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
vemed  by  phylarchs.  The  city  lay  on  the  right  salem,  has  been  made  out  with  a  near  approach  to 
bank  of  the  Orontes  between  Hamah  and  Hems,  accuracy,  and  is  as  follows : — 
rather  nearer  to  the  former.  In  the  government 
were  included  the  Emiseni,  or  people  of  Hems 
(Emesa),  so  that  we  may  regard  it  as  comprising 
the  Orontes  valley  from  the  Jebel  Erbayn,  at  least 
as  higli  as  the  Bahr-el-Kades,  or  Baheiret-Hems, 
the  lake  of  Hems.  Only  two  governors  are  known, 
Sampsiceramus,  and  Jamblichus,  his  son  (Strab. 
xvi.  2,  §10).  Probably  this  principality  was  one 
of  the  first  absorbed,  (d)  Abil6n£,  so  called  from 
its  capital  Abila,  was  a  "tetrarchy."  It  was 
situated  to  the  east  of  Anti-libanus,  on  the  route 
between  Baalbek  and  Damascus  (Itin.  Ant.}. 
Ruins  and  inscriptions  mark  the  site  of  the  capital 
(Robinson,  Bib.  Res.  iii.  479-482),  which  was  at 
the*village  called  El  Suk,  on  the  river  Barada,  just 
where  it  breaks  forth  from  the  mountains.  The 
limits  of  the  territory  are  uncertain.  We  first  hear 
of  this  tetrarchy  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel  (iii.  1),  where 
it  is  said  to  have  been  in  the  possession  of  a  certain 
Lysanias  at  the  commencement  of  St.  John's  mi 
nistry,  which  was  probably  A.  D.  27.  Of  this 
Lysanias  nothing  more  is  known;  he  certainly 
cannot  be  the  Lysanias  who  once  held  Chalcis ;  since 
that  Lysanias  died  above  -sixty  years  previously. 
Eleven  years  after  the  date  mentioned  by  St.  Luke, 
A.D.  38,  the  heir  of  Caligula  bestowed  "  the  te 
trarchy  of  Lysanias,"  by  which  Abilend  is  no  doubt 
intended,  on  the  elder  Agrippa  (Joseph.  Ant.  xviii. 
6,  §10),  and  four  years  later  Claudius  confirmed 
the  same  prince  in  the  possession  of  the  "  Abila  of 
Lysanias"  (ib.  xix.  5,  §1).  Finally,  in  A.D.  53, Clau 
dius,  among  other  grants,  conferred  on  the  younger 
Agrippa  "  Abila,  which  had  been  the  tetrarchy  of 
Lysahias"  (ib.  xx.  7,  §1).  Abila  was  taken  by  Pla- 
?idus,  one  of  the  generals  of  Vespasian,  in  B.C.  69 
(Joseph.  Bell  Jud.  iv!  7,  §6),  and  thenceforth  was 
annexed  to  Syria,  (c]  Palmyra  appears  to  have  j 


Names. 

M.  Aemilius  Scaurus  . 

L.  Marcius  Philippus  . 
Lentulus  Marcellinus  . 
Gabinius          .    . 

Titles  of  office 

f  Quaestor  pro 
(     praetore  . 
.  Propraetor  . 
.  Propraetor  . 

Date  of          Date  of 
entering       quitting 
office.          office. 

B.C.  62         B.C.  61 
61               59 

59               57 
56               55 
55               53 
53               51 

51               47 
47              46 
46               44 
hority   from    the 
dispossess  Bassus, 

B.C.  43     .  B.C.  42 
.     41     .     .     40 
.     40     .     .     33 
38               as 

Crassus    .... 

Quaestor 

M.  Calpurnius  Bibulus 
Sext.  Julius  Caesar 
Q.  Caecilius  Bassus 
(Q.  Cornificius      .    .  . 
(L.  Statius  Murcus  .   . 
(Q.  Marcius  Crispus     . 
C.  Cassius  -Longinus    . 
L.  Decidius  Saxa     .    . 
P.  Ventidius  Bassus    . 
C  Sosius 

.  Proconsul    . 

.  Praetor   .    . 
/  received    aut 
\     Senate  to 
1     but  failed.) 
.  Proconsul     . 
.  Legatus  .    . 
.  Legatus  .    . 

L.  Munatius  Plancus  . 
L.  Calpurnius  Bibulus 
Q  Didius 

.  Legatus  .    . 

.    35     . 

.     32 

.  Legatus  .    . 

.     31     . 
.     30 
.     29     . 
.     24 
.     22     . 
.     19(?) 
.     15 
.     11     . 
7     . 
.       3     . 
A.D.  5 

.     17     . 
.     19 
.     22     . 
.     35     . 
.     39     . 
.     42     . 
.     48     . 
.     51     . 
.     60     , 
.     63 
.     65     . 
.     67 

.     31 
.     29 
.     20 

A.D.  5 

17 
.     19 

.    33 
.    39 
.    42 
.    48 
.     51 
.     60 
.     63 

.     67 
.     69 

M.  Valerius  Messalla  . 

.  Legatus  .    . 

M.  Vipsanius  Agrippa 
M.  Tullius     .... 
M.  Vipsanius  Agrippa 
M.Titius  
C.  Sentius  Saturninus  . 
P.  Quintilius  Varus     . 
P.  Sulpicius  Quirinus  . 
Q.    Caecilius     Metellus 
Creticus  Silanus  .    . 
M.  Calpurnius  Piso 
On.  Sentius  Saturninus 
L.  Pomponius  Flaccus 
L  Vitellius 

.  Legatus  .    . 
.  Legatus   .    . 
.  Legatus  .    . 
.  Legatus  .    . 
.  Legatus   .    . 
.  Legatus  .    . 
.  Legatus  .    . 

i  Legatus   .     . 

.  Legatus  .    . 
.  Prolegatus   . 
.  Propraetor  . 
Legatus  .    . 

.  T^ecratus  . 

Vibius  Marsus    ....  Legatus  .    . 
C.  Cassius  Longinus     .    .  Legatus   .    . 
T.  Numidius*  Quadratus  Legatus  .     . 
Domitius  Corbulo    .    .    .  Legatus  .    . 
Cinclus                               T.perat.ns 

C.  Cestius  Gallus    .     . 
P.  Licinius  Mucianus  . 

.  Legatus  .    . 
.  Legatus  .    . 

Called  "  Vinidius     by  Tacitus. 


SYRIA 

The  history  of  Syria  during  this  period  may  be 
Slimmed  up  in  a  few  words.  Down  to  the  battle  of 
Pharsalia,  Syria  was  fairly  tranquil,  the  only  troubles 
being  with  the  Arabs,  who  occasionally  attacked 
the  eastern  frontier.  The  Roman  governors  laboured 
hard  to  raise  the  condition  of  the  province,  taking 
great  pains  to  restore  the  cities,  which  had  gone  to 
decay  under  the  later  Seleucidae.  Gabinius,  pro 
consul  in  the  years  56  and  55  B.C.,  made  himself 
particularly  conspicuous  in  works  of  this  kind. 
After  Pharsalia  (B.C.  46)  the  troubles  of  Syria  were 
renewed.  Julius  Caesar  gave  the  province  to  his 
relative  Sextus  in  B.C.  47  ;  but  Pompey's  party 
was  still  so  strong  in  the  East,  that  in  the  next 
year  one  of  his  adherents,  Caecilius  Bassus,  put 
Sextus  to  death,  and  established  himself  in  the  go 
vernment  so  firmly  that  he  was  able  to  resist  for 
three  years  three  proconsuls  appointed  by  the  Senate 
to  dispossess  him,  and  only  finally  yielded  upon 
tex-ms  which  he  himself  offered  to  his  antagonists. 
Many  of  the  petty  princes  of  Syria  sided  with  him, 
and  some  of  the  nomadic  Arabs  took  his  pay  and 
fought  under  his  banner  (Strab.  xvi.  2,  §10).  Bassus 
had  but  just  made  his  submission,  when,  upon  the 
assassination  of  Caesar,  Syria  was  disputed  between 
Cassius  and  Dolabella,  the  friend  of  Antony,  a  dis 
pute  terminated  by  the  suicide  of  Dolabella,  B.C. 
43,  at  Laodiceia,  where  he  was  besieged  by  Cassius. 
The  next  year  Cassius  left  his  province  and  went  to 
Philippi,  where,  after  the  first  unsuccessful  engage 
ment,  he  too  committed  suicide.  Syria  then  fell  to 
Antony,  who  appointed  as  his  legate,  L.  Decidius 
Saxa,  in  B.O1.  41.  The  troubles  of  the  empire  now 
tempted  the  Parthians  to  seek  a  further  extension 
of  their  dominions  at  the  expense  of  Rome,  and 
Pacorus,  the  crown-prince,  son  of  Arsaces  XIV., 
assisted  by  the  Roman  refugee,  Labienus,  overran 
Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  defeating  Antony's  generals, 
and  threatening  Rome  with  the  loss  of  all  her  Asiatic 
possessions  (B.C.  40-39).  Ventidius,  however,  in 
B.C.  38,  defeated  the  Parthians,  slew  Pacorus,  and 
recovered  for  Rome  her  former  boundary.  A  quiet 
time  followed.  From  B.C.  38  to  B.C.  31  Syria 
was  governed  peaceably  by  the  legates  of  Antony, 
and,  after  his  defeat  at  Actium  and  death  at  Alex 
andria  in  that  year,  by  those  of  Augustus.  In  B.C. 
27  took  place  that  formal  division  of  the  provinces 
between  Augustus  and  the  Senate  from  which  the 
imperial  administrative  system  dates ;  and  Syria, 
being  from  its  exposed  situation  among  the  pro- 
vinciae  principis,  continued  to  be  ruled  by  legates, 
who  were  of  consular  rank  (consulares)  and  bore 
severally  the  full  title  of  "  Legatus  Augusti  pro 
praetore."  During  the  whole  of  this  penoi  the 
province  enlarged  or  contracted  its  limits  according 
as  it  pleased  the  reigning  emperor  tc  bestow  tracts 
of  knd  on  the  native  princes,  or  to  resume  them 
and  place  them  under  his  legate.  Judaea,  when 
attached  in  this  way  to  Syria,  occupied  a  peculiar 
position.  Partly  perhaps  on  account  of  its  remote 
ness  from  the  Syrian  capital,  Antioch,  partly  no 
doubt  because  of  the  peculiar  character  of  its  people, 
it  was  thought  best  to  make  it,  in  a  certain  sense, 
a  separate  government.  A  special  procurator  was 
therefore  appointed  to  rule  it,  who  was  subordinate 
to  the  governor  of  Syria,  but  within  his  own  pro 
vince  had  the  power  of  a  legatus.  [See  JUDAEA.] 
Syria  continued  without  serious  disturbance  from 
the  expulsion  of  the  Parthians  (B.C.  38)  to  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Jewish  war  (A.D.  66).  In  B.C. 
19  it  was  visited  by  Augustus,  and  in  A.D.  18-19 
by  Germauicus  whc  died  at  Antioch  in  the  last- 


SYRO-PHOENICIAN 


1411 


named  year.  In  A.D.  44-47  it  was  the  scene  of 
a  severe  famine.  [See  AGABUS.]  A  little  earliet 
Christianity  had  begun  to  spread  into  it,  partly  by 
means  of  those  who  "  were  scattered  "  at  the  time 
of  Stephen's  persecution  (Acts  xi.  19),  partly  by 
the  exertions  of  St.  Paul  (Gal.  i.  21).  The  Syrian 
Church  soon  grew  to  be  one  of  the  most  flourishing 
(Acts  xiii.  1,  xv.  23,  35,  41,  &c.).  Here  the  name 
of  "Christian"  first  arose — at  the  outset  no  doubt 
a  gibe,  but  thenceforth  a  glory  and  a  boast.  Antioch, 
the  capital,  became  as  early  probably  as  A.D.  44 
the  see  of  a  bishop,  and  was  soon  recognised  as  a 
patriarchate.  The  Syrian  Church  is  accused  ot 
laxity  both  in  faith  and  morals  (Newman,  Arums, 
p.  10)  ;  but,  if  it  must  admit  the  disgrace  of  having 
given  birth  to  Lucian  and  Paulus  of  Samosata, 
it  can  claim  on  the  other  hand  the  glory  of  such 
names  as  Ignatius,  Theophilus,  Ephraem,  and  Ba- 
bylas.  It  suffered  without  shrinking  many  grievous 
persecutions ;  and  it  helped  to  make  that  emphatic 
protest  against  worldliness  and  luxuriousness  of 
living  at  which  monasticism,  according  to  its  ori 
ginal  conception,  must  be  considered  to  have  aimed. 
The  Syrian  monks  were  among  the  most  earnest 
and  most  self-denying  ;  and  the  names  of  Hilarion 
and  Simon  Stylites  are  enough  to  prove  that  a 
most  important  part  was  played  by  Syria  in  the 
ascetic  movement  of  the  4th  and  5th  centuries. 

(For  the  geography  of  Syria,  see  Pococke's  De 
scription  of  the  East,  vol.  ii.  pp.  88-209  ;  Burck- 
hardt's  Travels  in  Syria  aiid  the  Holy  Land,  pp. 
1-309 ;  Robinson's  Later  Biblical  Researches,  pp. 
419-625 :  Stanley's  Sinai  and  Palestine,  pp.  403- 
414;  Porter's  Five  Years  in  Damascus;  A  ins- 
worth's  Travels  in  the  Track  of  the  Ten  Thousand, 
pp.  57-70  ;  Researches,  &c.,  p.  290  et  seaq.  For 
the  history  under  the  Seleucidae,  see  (besides  the 
original  sources)  Clinton's  Fasti  Hellenici,  vol.  iii. 
Appendix  iii.  pp.  308-346  ;  Vaillant's  Imperium 
Seleucidarum,  and  Frolich's  Annales  Rerum  et 
Regum  Syriae.  For  the  history  under  the  Romans, 
see  Norisius,  Cenotaphia  Pisana,  Op.  vol.  iii.  pp. 
424-531.)  [G.  R.] 

SYRIAC  VERSIONS.  [VERSIONS,  SYRIAC.] 

SY'RO- PHOENICIAN  (Sv^o^Wo-a, 
~2,vpo(poivi(r(Ta,  or  2upa  Qoivicrffa :  Syro-Phoenissa} 
occurs  only  in  Mark  vii.  26.  The  coinage  of  the 
words,  "  Syro-Phoenicia,"  and  "  Syro-Phoenicians," 
seems  to  have  been  the  work  of  the  Romans,  though 
it  is  difficult  to  say  exactly  what  they  intended  by 
the  expressions.  It  has  generally  been  supposed 
that  they  wished  to  distinguish  the  Phoenicians  ot 
Syria  from  those  of  Africa  (the  Carthaginians)  ; 
and  the  term  "  Syrophoenix  "  has  been  regarded  as 
the  exact  converse  to  "  Libyphoemx  "  (Alford,  in 
loc.\  But  the  Libyphoenices  are  not  the  Phoe 
nicians  (of  Africa  generally — they  are  a  peculiar 
race,  half-African  and  half- Phoenician  ("  mixtun 
Punicum  Afris  genus,"  Liv.  xxi.  22).  The  Syro- 
Phoenicians,  therefore,  should,  on  this  analogy,  be 
a  mixed  race,  half-Phoenicians  and  half-Syrians. 
This  is  probably  the  sens 3  of  the  word  in  the 
satirists  Lucilius  (ap.  Non.  Marc.  De  proprietat. 
serm.  iv.  431)  and  Juvenal  (Sat.  viii.  159),  who 
would  regard  a  mongrel  Oriental  as  peculiarly 
contemptible. 

In  later  times  a  geographic  sense  of  the  terms 
superseded  the  ethnic  one.  The  Emperor  Hadrian 
divided  Syria  into  three  parts,  Syria  Proper,  Syro- 
Phoenice,  and  Syria  Palaestina ;  and  henceforth  t 
Syro- Phoenician  meant  a  native  of  this  aub-pre 

4X2 


1412 


TAANACH 


\nnce  (Lucian,  De  Cone.  Deor.  §4),  which  included 
Phoenicia  Proper,  Damascus,  and  Palmyrene. 

As  the  geographic  sense  had  not  come  into  use 
m  St.  Mark's  time,  and  as  the  ethnic  one  would  be 
a  refinement  unlikely  in  a  sacred  writer,  it  is  per 
haps  most  probable  that  he  really  wrote  ~2,vpa 
QoivHrcra,  "  a  Phoenician  Syrian,"  which  is  found 
in  some  copies. 

St.  Matthew  uses  "  Canaanitish  "  (Xoj/r.ra^a)  in 
the  place  of  St.  Mark's  "  Syro-Phoenician,"  or 
"  Phoenician  Syrian,"  on  the  same  ground  that  the 
LXX.  translate  Canaan  by  Phoenicia  (*otj/i/crj). 
The  terms  Canaan  and  Phoenicia  had  succeeded  one 
another  as  geographical  names  in  the  same  country ; 
and  Phoenicians  were  called  "  Canaanites,"  just 
as  Englishmen  are  called  "  Britous."  No  con 
clusion  as  to  the  identity  of  the  Canaanites  with 
the  Phoenicians  can  properly  be  drawn  from  the 
indifferent  use  of  the  two  terms.  (See  Rawlinscn's 
Herodotus,  vol.  iv.  pp.  243-245.)  [G.  R.] 


TA'ANACH  0|JJJF) : 
BaAaS ;  Alex,  ©avax,  Tai/«x,  6K0ai/aa5,  @ei/»/ax, 
©aavax''  Thanac,  Thanac/i).  An  ancient  Ca 
naanitish  city,  whose  king  is  enumerated  amongsfthe 
thirty-one  conquered  by  Joshua  (Josh.  xii.  21).  It 
came  into  the  hands  of  the  half  tribe  of  Manasseh 
(Josh.  xvii.  11,  xxi.  25;  1  Chr.  vii.  29),  though  it 
would .  appear  to  have  lain  outside  their  boundary 
and  within  the  allotment  of  either  Issachar  or  Asher 
(Josh.  xvii.  11),  probably  the  former.  It  was  be 
stowed  on  the  Kohathite  Levites  (Josh.  xxi.  25). 
Taanach  was  one  of  the  places  in  which,  either 
from  some  strength  of  position,  or  from  the  ground 
near  it  being  favourable  for  their  mode  of  fighting, 
the  Aborigines  succeeded  in  making  a  stand  (Josh, 
xvii.  12  ;  Judg.  i.  27) ;  and  in  the  great  struggle 
of  the  Canaanites  under  Sisera  against  Deborah  and 
Barak,  it  appears  to  have  formed  the  head-quarters 
of  their  army  (Judg.  v.  19).  After  this  defeat  the 
Canaanites  of  Taanach  were  probably  made,  like  the 
rest,  to  pay  a  tribute  (Josh.  xvii.  13  ;  Judg.  i.  28), 
but  in  the  town  they  appear  to  have  remained  to 
the  last.  Taanach  is  almost  always  named  in  com 
pany  with  Megiddo,  and  they  were  evidently  the 
chief  towns  of  that  fine  rich  district  which  forms 
the  western  portion  of  the  great  plain  of  Esdraelon 
(1  K.  iv.  12). 

There  it  is  still  to  be  found.  The  identification 
of  Ta'annuk  with  Taanach,  may  be  taken  as  one  of 
the  surest  in  the  whole  Sacred  Topography.  It  was 
known  to  Eusebius,  who  mentions  it  twice  in  the 
Onomasticon  (Qaavdx  and  0m/o^)  as  a  "  very  large 
village,"  standing  between  3  and  4  Roman  miles 
from  Legio — the  ancient  Megiddo.  It  was  known 
to  hap-Parchi,  the  Jewish  mediaeval  traveller,  and 
it  still  stands  about  4  miles  south-east  of  Lejjun, 
retaining  its  old  name  with  hardly  the  change  of  a 
letter.  The  ancient  town  was  planted  on  a  large 
mound  at  the  termination  of  a  long  spur  or  pro 
montory,  which  runs  out  northward  from  the  hills 
of  Macasseh  into  the  plain,  and  leaves  a  recess  or 
baj,  subordinate  to  .he  main  plain  on  its  north 
side  and  between  re  and  Lejjun.  The  modern 
namlet  clings  to  the  S.W.  base  of  the  mound  (Rob. 
ii.  316,  329;  Van  de  Velde,  i.  358;  Stanley, 
Jewish  Church,  321,  822). 


TAhBATH 

In  one  passage  the  name  is  slightly  changed  both 
in  original  and  A.  V.  [TANACH.]  [G.I 

TA'ANATH-SHI'LOH  (H^  ™Nn  :  ®1]- 

vacra  Kal  SeAATjtra  ;  Alex.  Tyi/aO  a^Kw  :  Tanath- 
Selo}.  A  place  named  once  only  (Josh.  xvi.  6)  as 
one  of  the  landmarks  of  the  boundary  of  Ephraim, 
but  of  which  boundary  it  seems  impossible  to  as 
certain.  All  we  can  tell  is,  that  at  this  part  the 
enumeration  is  from  west  to  east,  Janohah  being 
east  of  Taanath  Shiloh.  With  this  agrees  the 
statement  of  Eusebius  (Onomasticon},  who  places 
Janohah  12,  and  Thenath,  or  as  it  was  then  called 
Thena,*  10  Roman  miles  east  of  Neapolis.  Janohah 
has  been  identified  with  some  probability  at  Yanun, 
on  the  road  from  Ndblus  to  the  Jordan  Valley. 
The  name  Tana,  or  Ain  Tana,  seems  to  exist  in 
that  direction.  A  place  of  that  name  was  seen  by 
Robinson  N.E.  of  Mejdel  (B.  R.  iii.  295),  and  it  is 
mentioned  by  Barth  (Ritter,  Jordan,  471),  but 
without  any  indication  of  its  position.  Much  stress 
cannot  however  be  laid  on  Eusebius's  identification. 
In  a  list  of  places  contained  in  the  Talmud  (Je 
rusalem  Megillah  i.),  Taanath  Shiloh  is  said  to  be 
identical  with  SHILOH.  This  has  been  recently  re 
vived  by  Kurtz  ( Gesch.  des  Alt.  Bundes,  ii.  70).  His 
view  is  that  Taanath  was  the  ancient  Canaanite 
name  of  the  place,  and  Shiloh  the  Hebrew  name, 
conferred  on  it  in  token  of  the  "  rest "  which  allowed 
the  tabernacle  to  be  established  there  after  the  con 
quest  of  the  country  had  been  completed.  This  is 
ingenious,  but  at  present  it  is  a  mere  conjecture, 
and  it  is  at  variance  with  the  identification  of  Eu 
sebius,  with  the  position  of  Janohah,  and,  as  far  as 
it  can  be  inferred,  of  Michmethah,  which  is  men 
tioned  with  Taanath  Shiloh  in  Josh.  xvi.  6.  [G.] 

TAB'AOTH(Ta/3ac£0;  AleK.Ta^fl:  ToblociK). 
TABBAOTH  (1  Esd.  v.  29). 

TAB'BAOTH  (TO2D:  TajSacSfl;  Alex.  Taj8- 
pa<!>e :  Tabbaoth,  Tebbaoth).  The  children  of  Tab- 
baoth  were  a  family  of  Nethinim  who  returned 
with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  43  ;  Neh.  vii.  46).  The 
name  occurs  in  the  form  TABAOTH  in  1  Esd.  v.  29. 

TAB'BATH  (H3D  :  Taflde ;  Alex.  Ta/3a0  . 
Tebbath).  A  place  mentioned  only  in  Judg.  vii.  22, 
in  describing  the  flight  of  the  Midianite  host  after 
Gideon's  night  attack.  The  host  fled  to  Beth-shittah, 
to  Zererah,  to  the  brink  of  Abel-meholah  on  (?JJ)» 
Tabbath,  Beth-shittah  may  be  Shuttah,  which  lies 
on  the  open  plain  between  Jebel  Fukua  and  Jebel 
Duhy,  4-  miles  east  of  Ain  Jalud,  the  probable  scene 
of  Gideon's  onslaught.  Abel-meholah  was  no  doubt 
in  the  Jordan  Valley,  though  it  may  not  have  been 
so  much  as  8  miles  south  of  Beth-shean,  where 
Eusebius  and  Jerome  would  place  it.  But  no 
attempt  seems  to  have  been  made  to  identify  Tab- 
bath,  nor  does  any  name  resembling  it  appear  in  the 
books  or  maps,  unless  it  be  Tiibukhat- Fahil,  i.e. 
"  Terrace  of  Fahil."  This  is  a  very  striking  na 
tural  bank,  600  feet  in  height  (Rob.  iii.  325),  with 
a  long,  horizontal,  and  apparently  flat  top,  which  is 
embanked  against  the  western  face  of  the  mountains 
east  of  the  Jordan,  and  descends  with  a  very  steep 
front  to  the  river.  It  is  sucn  a  remarkable  object 
in  the  whole  view  of  this  part  of  the  Jordan  Valley 
that  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  it  did  not  bear  a 
distinctive  name  in  ancient  as  well  as  modern  times. 


a  Ptolemy  names  Thena  and  Neapolis  as  the  two  chiel 
towns  of  the  district  of  Samaria  (cap.  16,  quoted  in  Kelundj 
Pal.  461). 


TABERNACLE 

At  any  rate,  there  is  no  doubt  that,  wk.-ther  this 
Tubukah  represent.*  Tabbath  or  not,  the  atter  was 
somewhere  about  this  part  of  the  Ghor.  [G-] 

TAB'EAL  (tallD  :  Ta0dj\:  Taheel).  Pro 
perly  "  Tabeel,"  the  'pathach  being  due  to  the  pause 
(Gesen.  Lehrg.  §52,  16;  Heh.  Gr.  §29,  4 c).  The 
eon  of  Tabeal  was  apparently  an  Ephraimite  in  the 
army  of  Pekah  the  son  of  Remaliah,  or  a  Syrian  in 
the  army  of  Rezin,  when  they  went  up  to  besiege 
Jerusalem  in  the  reign  of  Ahaz  (Is.  vii.  6).  The 
Aramaic  form  of  the  name  favours  the  latter  sup 
position  [comp.  TABRIMMON].  The  Targum  of 
Jonathan  renders  the  name  as  an  appellative,  "  and 
we  will  make  king  in  the  midst  of  her  him  who 
seems  good  to  us"  (tfA  "IBOI  ]D  IV).  Rashi  by 
Gematria  turns  the  name  into  K?D~1,  Rimla,  by 
which  apparently  he  would  understand  Remaliah. 

TA»BBL(V»|3O:  Tafcfa:  Thabeel}.  An 
officer  of  the  Persian  government  in  Samaria  in  the 
reign  of  Artaxerxes  (Ezr.  iv.  7).  His  name  appears 
to  indicate  that  he  was  a  Syrian,  for  it  is  really  the 
same  as  that  of  the  Syrian  vassal  of  Rezin  who  is 
called  in  our  A.  V.  "  Tabeal."  Add  to  this  that 
the  letter  which  he  and  his  companions  wrote  to 
the  king  was  in  the  Syrian  or  Aramaean  language. 
Gesenius,  however  (Jes.  i.  280),  thinks  that  he 
may  have  been  a  Samaritan.  He  is  called  TABEL- 
Lirjs  in  1  Esd.  ii.  16.  The  name  of  Tobiel  the 
lather  of  Tobit  is  probably  the  same.  [ W.  A.  W.] 

TABEL'LITJS  (TajBe'AAios :  Sabellna).  (1 
Esdr.  ii.  16.)  [TABEEL.] 

T  ABE  RAH  (rnjnfl:  tpirvpiffp6s).  The 
name  ot  a  place  in  the  wilderness  of  Paran,  given 
from  the  fact  of  a  "  burning"  among  the  people  by 
the  "  fire  of  the  Lord"  which  there  took  place  (Num. 
xi.  3,  Deut.  ix.  22).  It  has  not  been  identified  and 
is  not  mentioned  among  the  list  of  encampments  in 
Num.  xxxiii.  [H.  H.] 

TABERING  (niB^hO :  Qeeyytpevcu :  mur 
mur  antes).  The  obsolete  word  thus  used  in  the 
A.  V.  of  Nah.  ii.  7  requires  some  explanation.  The 
Hebrew  word  connects  itself  with  5jfl,  "a  timbrel," 
and  the  image  which  it  brings  before  us  in  this 
passage  is  that  of  the  women  of  Nineveh,  led  away 
into  captivity,  mourning  with  the  plaintive  tones 
of  doves,  and  beating  on  their  breasts  in  anguish, 
as  women  beat  upon  their  timbrels  (comp.  Ps. 
Ixviii.  25  [26],  where  the  same  verb  is  used).  The 
LXX.  and  Vulg.,  as  above,  make  no  attempt  at 
giving  the  exact  meaning.  The  Targum  of  Jona 
than  gives  a  word  which,  like  the  Hebrew,  has  the 
meaning  of  "  tympanizantes."  The  A.  V.  in  like 
manner  reproduces  the  original  idea  of  the  words. 
The  "  tabour "  or  "  tabor  "  was  a  musical  instru 
ment  of  the  drum-type,  wliich  with  the  pipe 
foraied  the  band  of  a  country  village.  We  retain 
a  trace  at  once  of  the  word  and  of  the  thing  in  the 
"  tabourine  "  or  "  tambourine  "  of  modem  music, 
in  the  "  tabret "  of  the  A.  V.  and  older  English 
writers.  To  "  tabour,"  accordingly,  is  to  beat  with 
loud  strokes  as  men  beat  upon  such  an  instrument. 
The  verb  is  found  in  this  sense  in  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  The  Tamer  Tamed  ("I  would  tabor 
her  "),  and  answers  with  a  singular  felicity  to  the 
exact  meaning  of  the  Hebrew.  [E.  H.  P.] 

TABERNACLE  (jSCfe,  ^HN  :  o/cTjHj  :  ta- 
bernaculmn).  The  description  of  the  Tabernacle 
an,l  ite  materials  will  be  found  under  TEMPLE. 


TABERNACLE 


1413 


The  writer  of  that  article  holds  that  he  cannot  deal 
satisfactorily  with  the  structural  order  and  propor 
tions  of  the  one  without  discussing  also  those  cf  the 
other.  Here,  therefore,  it  remains  for  us  to  treat — 
(1)  of  the  word  and  its  synonyms  ;  (2)  cf  the 
history  of  the  Tabernacle  itself;  (3)  of  its  relation 
to  the  religious  life  of  Israel ;  (4)  of  the  theories  of 
later  times  respecting  it. 

I.  The  Word  and  its  Synonyms.  — -(1.)  The 
first  word  thus  used  (Ex.  xxv.  9)  is  |36^D  (Mish- 
cdri),  formed  from  pfcJJ  =  to  settle  down  or  dwell, 
and  thus  itself  =  dwelling.  It  connects  itself  with 
the  Jewish,  though  not  Scriptural,  word  Shechinah, 
as  describing  the  dwelling-place  of  the  Divine  Glory. 
It  is  noticeable,  however,  that  it  is  not  applied  in 
prose  to  the  common  dwellings  of  men,  the  tents  of 
the  Patriarchs  in  Genesis,  or  those  of  Israel  in  the 
wilderness.  It  seems  to  belong  rather  to  the  speech 
of  poetry  (Ps.  Ixxxvii.  2  ;  Cant.  i.  8).  The  loftier 
character  of  the  word  may  obviously  havo  helped  to 
determine  its  religious  use,  and  justifies  translators 
who  have  the  choice  of  synonyms  like  "  tabernacle" 
and  "  tent "  in  a  like  preference. 

(2.)  Another  word,  however,  is  also  used,  more 
connected  with  the  common  life  of  men ;  ?ntf 
(ohel),  the  "  tent "  of  the  Patriarchal  age,  of  Abra 
ham,  and  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob  (Gen.  ix.  21,  &c.). 
For  the  most  part,  as  needing  something  to  raise  it, 
it  is  used,  when  applied  to  the  Sacred  Tent,  with 
some  distinguishing  epithet.  In  one  passage  only 
(1  K.  i.  39)  does  it  appear  with  this  meaning  by 
itself.  The  LXX.  not  distinguishing  between  the 
two  words  gives  oTcrjj^  for  both.  The  original 
difference  appears  to  have  been  that  Pfl'K  repre 
sented  the  outermost  covering,  the  black  goat's  hair 
curtains  ;  f3&^3,  the  inner  covering,  the  curtains 
which  rested  on  the  boards  (Gesenius,  s.  t?.).  The 
two  words  are  accordingly  sometimes  joined,  as  in 
Ex.  xxxix.  32,  xl.  2,'  6,  29  (A.  V.  "  the  tabernacle 
of  the  tent").  Even  here,  however,  the  LXX. 
gives  ffK^v^i  only,  with  the  exception  of  the  var. 
lect.  of  17  a-Krjv^  TTJS  (T/eeirfjs  in  Ex.  xl.  29. 

(3.)  JV2  (Baith},  oT/coy,  domus,  is  applied  to  tne 
Tabernacle  in  Ex.  xxiii.  19,  xxxiv.  26  ;  Josh.  vi. 
24,  ix.  23 ;  Judg.  xviii.  31,  xx.  18,  as  it  had  been, 
apparently,  to  the  tents  of  the  Patriarchs  (Gen. 
xxxiii.  17).  So  far  as  it  differs  from  the  two  pre 
ceding  words,  it  expresses  more  definitely  the  idea 
of  a  rixed  settled  habitation.  It  was  therefore  fitter 
for  the  sanctuary  of  Israel  after  the  people  were 
settled  in  Canaan,  than  during  their  wanderings, 
For  us  the  chief  interest  of  the  word  lies  in  its  hav 
ing  descended  from  a  yet  older  order,  the  first 
word  ever  applied  in  the  0.  T.  to  a  local  sanctuary, 
"BETH-EL,"  "  the  house  of  God  "  (Gen.  xxviii.  17, 
22),  keeping  its  place,  side  by  side,  with  other 
words,  tent,  tabernacle,  palace,  temple,  synagogue, 
and  at  last  outliving  all  of  them,  rising,  in  the 
Christian  Ecclesia,  to  yet  higher  uses  (1  Tim.  iii. 
15). 

(4.)  trip  (Kodesh),  BHpB  (Mikddsh\  07/007*0, 
ayiaffT-hpiov,  rb  aytov,  TO.  ciyia,  sanctuarium,  the 
holy,  consecrated  place,  and  therefore  applied,  ac 
cording  to  the  graduated  scale  of  holiness  of  which 
the  Tabernacle  bore  witness,  sometimes  to  the  whole 
structure  (Ex.  xxv.  8  ;  Lev.  xii.  4),  sometimes  to 
the  court  into  which  none  but  the  priests  might 
enter  (Lev.  iv.  6;  Num.  iii.  38,  iv.  12),  sometimes  to 
the  innermost  sanctuary  of  all,  the  Holy  of  Holies 


U14 


TABERNACLE 


(Lev.  iv.  6?).  Here  also  the  word  had  an  earlier 
starting-point  and  a  far-reaching  history.  EN- 
MISHPAT,  the  city  of  judgment,  the  seat  of  some  old 
oracle,  had  been  also  KADESH,  the  sanctuary  (Gen. 
dv.  7:  Ewald,  Gesch.  Isr.  ii.  307).  The  name 
El  Khuds  clings  still  to  the  walls  of  Jerusalem. 

(5.)  ^H  (ffecdl),  va6s,  templum,  as  mean 
ing  the  Stately  building,  or  palace  of  Jehovah 
(1  Chr.  xxix.  1,  19),  is  applied  more  commonly  to 
the  Temple  (2  K.  xxiv.  13,  &c.),  but  was  used 
also  (probably  at  the  period  when  the  thought  of 
the  Temple  had  affected  the  religious  nomenclature 
of  the  time)  of  the  Tabernacle  at  Shiloh  (1  Sam. 
i.  9,  iii.  3)  and  Jerusalem  (Ps.  v.  7).  In  either 
case  the  thought  which  the  word  embodies  ia,  that 
the  "tent,"  the  "house,"  is  royal,  the  dwelling- 
place  of  the  great  king. 

(6.)  The  two  words  (1)  and  (2)  receive  a  new 
meaning  in  combination  (a.)  with  "IJJiO  (moed), 
and  (6.)  with  TVnjJn  (ha'eduth).  To  understand 
the  full  meaning  of  the  distinctive  titles  thus 
formed  is  to  possess  the  key  to  the  significance  of 
the  whole  Tabernacle,  (a.)  The  primary  force  of 
"jy  is  "  to  meet  by  appointment,"  and  the  phrase 

TyiD  7>nV?  has  therefore  the  meaning  of  "a  place 
of  or  for'  a  fixed  meeting."  Acting  on  the  belief 
that  the  meeting  in  this  case  was  that  of  the  wor 
shippers,  the  A.  V.  has  uniformly  rendered  it  by 
"  tabernacle  of  the  congregation  "  (so  Seb.  Schmidt, 
"tentoriumconventus;"  and  Luther,  "Stiftehutte" 
in  which  Stift  =  Pfarrkirche),  while  the  LXX.  and 
Vulg.,  confounding  it  with  the  other  epithet,  have 
rendered  both  by  TJ  ffKfjv^  rov  fjiapTvpiov,  and 
'« tabemaculum  testimonii."  None  of  these  render 
ings,  however,  bring  out  the  real  meaning  of  the 
word.  This  is  to  be  found  in  what  may  be  called 
the  focus  classicus,  as  the  interpretation  of  all 
words  connected  with  the  Tabernacle.  "  This  shall 
be  a  continual  burnt-offering  ...  at  the  door  ot 
the  tabernacle  of  meeting  (Ty'lD)  where  I  will 
meet  you  OV-1K.  yvcoo-0-fjaofj.ai)  to  speak  there  unto 
thee.  And  there  will  I  meet  (Witt,  Ta£o/*cw)  with 
the  children  of  Israel.  And  I  vfi\\  sanctify  ('•flKHjp) 

the  tabernacle  of  meeting and  I  will  dwell 

Ofl^G?)  among  the  children  of  Israel,  and  will  be 
their  God.  And  they  shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord 
their  God"  (Ex.  xxix.  42-46).  The  same  central 
thought  occurs  in  Ex.  xxv.  22,  "There  I  will  meet 
with  thee"  (comp.  also  Ex.  xxx.  6,  36;  Num.  xvii. 
4).  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  "congregation"  is 
inadequate.  Not  the  gathering  of  the  worshippers 
only,  but  the  meeting  of  God  with  His  people,  to 
commune  with  them,  to  make  himself  known  to 
them,  was  what  the  name  embodied.  Ewald  has 
accordingly  suggested  Offenbarungszelt  =  Tent  of 
Revelation,  as  the  best  equivalent  (Alterthumer, 
p.  130).  This  made  the  place  a  sanctuary.  Thus 
it  was  that  the  tent  was  the  dwelling,  the  house  ot 
God  (Bahr,  Symbolik,  i.  81). 
(7.)  The  other  compound  phrase,  (6.) 

as  connected   with    "J-1JJ   (=  to   bear  witness),  is 
rightly    rendered   by    rj    o-Krjv))    TOV    paprvpiov, 


TABERNACLE 

tabemaculum  testimonii,  die  Wohnung  des  Zeuq- 
nisses,  "the  tent  of  the  testimony"  (Num.  ix.  15) 
"the  tabernacle  of  witness"  (Num.  xvii.  7,  xviii. 
2).  In  this  case  the  tent  derives  its  name  from 
that  which  is  the  centre  of  its  holiness.  The  two 
tables  of  stone  within  the  ark  are  emphatically  the 
testimony  (Ex.  xxv.  16,  21,  xxxi.  18).  They  were 
to  all  Israel  the  abiding  witness  of  the  nature  and 
will  of  God.  The  tent,  by  virtue  of  its  relation  to 
them,  became  the  witness  of  its  own  significance  as 
the  meeting-place  of  God  and  man.  The  probable 
connexion  of  the  two  distinct  names,  iu  sense  as 
well  as  in  sound  (Bahr,  Symb.  i.  83 ;  Ewald,  Alt. 
p.  230),  gave,  of  course,  a  force  to  each  which  no 
translation  can  represent. 

II.  History. — (1.)  The  outward  history  of  the 
Tabernacle  begins  with  Ex.  xxv.  It  comes  after  the 
first  great  group  of  Laws  (xix.-xxiii.),  after  the  eove- 
nant  with  the  people,  after  the  vision  of  the  Divine 
Glory  (xxiv.).  For  forty  days  and  nights  Moses 
is  in  the  mount.  Before  him  there  lay  a  problem, 
as  measured  by  human  judgment,  of  gigantic,  diffi 
culty.  In  what  fit  symbols  was  he  to  embody  the 
great  truths,  without  which  the  nation  would  sink 
into  brutality  ?  In  what  way  could  those  symbols 
be  guarded  against  the  evil  which  he  had  seen  in 
Egypt,  of  idolatry  the  most  degrading?  He  was 
not  left  to  solve  the  problem  for  himself.  There 
rose  before  him,  not  without  points  of  contact  with 
previous  associations,  yet  in  no  degree  formed  out 
of  them,  the  "  pattern  "  of  the  Tabernacle.  The 
lower  analogies  of  the  painter  and  the  architect 
seeing,  with  their  inward  eye,  their  completed 
work,  before  the  work  itself  begins,  may  help  us  to 
understand  how  it  was  that  the  vision  on  the 
mount  included  all  details  of  form,  measurement, 
materials,  the  order  of  the  ritual,  the  apparel  of  the 
priests."  He  is  directed  in  his  choice  of  the  two 
chief  artists,  Bezaleel  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,*  Aholiab 
of  the  tribe  of  Dan  (xxxi.).  The  sin  of  the 
golden  calf  apparently  postpones  the  execution. 
For  a  moment  it  seems  as  if  the  people  were  to  be 
left  without  the  Divine  Presence  itself,  without  any 
recognised  symbol  of  it  (Ex.  xxxiii.  3).  As  in  a 
transition  period,  the  whole  future  depending  on 
the  penitence  of  the  people,  on  the  intercession  of 
their  leader,  a  tent  is  pitched,  probably  that  of 
Moses  himself,  outside  the  camp,  to  be  provisionally 
the  Tabernacle  of  Meeting.  There  the  mind  of  the 
Lawgiver  enters  into  ever-closer  fellowship  with 
the  mind  of  God  (Ex.  xxxiii.  11),  learns  to  think  of 
Him  as  ".merciful  and  gracious"  (Ex.  xxxiv.  6), 
in  the  strength  of  that  thought  is  led  back  to  the 
fulfilment  of  the  plan  which  had  seemed  likely  to 
end,  as  it  began,  in  vision.  Of  this  provisional 
Tabernacle  it  has  to  be  noticed,  that  there  was  as 
yet  no  ritual  and  no  priesthood.  The  people  went 
out  to  it  as  to  an  oracle  (Ex.  xxxiii.  7).  Joshua 
though  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  had  free  access  to 
it  (Ex.  xxxiii.  11). 

(2.)  Another  outline  Law  was  however  given, 
another  period  of  solitude,  like  the  first,  followed. 
The  work  could  now  be  resumed.  The  people 
offered  the  necessary  materials  in  excess  of  what 
was  wanted  (Ex.  xxxvi.  5,  6).  Other  workmen 
(Ex.  xxxvi.  2)  and  work-women  (Ex.  xxxv.  25) 


a  An  Interesting  parallel  is  found  in  tbe  preparations 
(or  the  Temple.  There  also  the  extremest  minutiae  were 
among  the  things  which  the  Lord  made  David  "  to  under 
stand  in  writing  by  His  hand  upon  him,"  i.  e.  by  an  in 
v.ard  Illumination  which  seemed  to  exclude  the  slov 


process  of  deliberation  and  decision  (1  Chr.  xxviii.  19;. 

b  The  prominence  of  artistic  power  in  the  genealogies 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah  is  worth  noticing  (1  Chr.  iv.  4,  14, 
21,  23).  Dan,  also,  in  the  person  of  Hiram,  is  after wara* 
conspicuous  (2  Chr.  ii.  14 ;  comp.  1  K.  vii.  13, 14). 


TABERNACLE 

p'.aced  themselves  under  the  direction  of  Bezaleel 
and  Aholiab.  The  parts  were  completed  separately, 
and  then,  on  the  first  day  of  the  second  year  from 
the  Exodus,  the  Tabernacle  itself  was  erected  and  the 
ritual  appointed  for  it  begun  (Ex.  xl.  2"). 

(3.)  The  position  of  the  new  Tent  was  itself 
significant.  It  stood,  not,  like  the  provisional 
Tabernacle,  at  a  distance  from  the  camp,  but  in  its 
veiy  centre.  The  multitude  of  Israel,  hitherto 
scattered  with  no  fixed  order,  were  now,  within  a 
month  of  its  erection  (Num.  ii.  2),  grouped  round 
it,  as  around  the  dwelling  of  the  unseen  Captain  of 
the  Host,  in  a  fixed  order,  according  to  their  tribal 
rank.  The  Priests  on  the  east,  the  other  three 
families  of  the  Levites  on  the  other  sides,  were 
closest  in  attendance,  the  "  body-guard  "  of  the  Great 
King.  [LEVITES.]  In  the  wider  square,  Judah, 
Zebulun,  Issachar,  were  on  the  east;  Ephraim, 
Manasseh,  Benjamin,  on  the  west ;  the  less  conspicu 
ous  tribes,  Dan,  Asher,  Naphtali,  on  the  north ; 
Reuben,  Simeon,  Gad,  on  the  south  side.  When 
the  army  put  itself  in  order  of  march,  the  position 
of  the  Tabernacle,  carried  by  the  Levites,  was  still 
central,  the  tribes  of  the  east  and  south  in  front, 
those  of  the  north  and  west  in  the  rear  (Num.  ii.). 
Upon  it  there  rested  the  symbolic  cloud,  dark  by 
day,  and  fiery  red  by  night  (Ex.  xl.  38).  When 
the  cloud  removed,  the  host  knew  that  it  was  the 
signal  for  them  to  go  forward  (Ex.  xl.  36,  37  ; 
Num.  ix.  17).  As  long  as  it  remained,  whether 
for  a  day,  or  month,  or  year,  they  continued  where 
they  were  (Num.  ix.  15-23).  Each  march,  it 
must  be  remembered,  involved  the  breaking-up  of 
the  whole  structure,  all  the  parts  being  carried  on 
waggons  by  the  three  Levite  families  of  Kohath, 
Gershon,  and  Merari,  while  the  "  sons  of  Aaron  " 
prepared  for  the  removal  by  covering  everything 
in  the  Holy  of  Holies  with  a  purple  cloth  (Num. 
iv.  6-15). 

(4.)  In  all  special  facts  connected  with  the 
Tabernacle,  the  original  thought  reappeai-s.  It  is 
the  place  where  man  meets  with  God.  There  the 
Spirit  "  comes  upon"  the  seventy  Elders,  and  they 
prophesy  (Num.  xi.  24,  25).  Thither  Aaron  and 
Miriam  are  called  out,  when  they  rebel  against  the 
servant  of  the  Lord  (Num.  xii.  4).  There  the 
"  glory  of  the  Lord  "  appears  after  the  unfaithful- 
ness  of  the  twelve  spies  (Num.  xiv.  10),  and  the 
rebellion  of  Korah  and  his  company  (Num.  xvi.  19, 
42),  and  the  sin  of  Meribah  (Num.  xx.  6).  Thither, 
when  there  is  no  sin  to  punish,  but  a  difficulty  to 
be  met,  do  the  daughters  of  Zelophehad  come  to 
bring  their  cause  "  before  the  Lord  "  (Num.  xxvii. 
2).  There,  when  the  death  of  Moses  draws  near, 
is  the  solemn  "  charge"  given  to  his  successor  (Deut. 
xxxi.  14). 

(5.)  As  long  as  Canaan  remained  unconquered, 
and  the  people  were  still  therefore  an  army,  the 
Tabernacle  was  probably  moved  from  place  to 
place,  wherever  the  host  of  Israel  was,  for  the  time, 
encamped,  at  Gilgal  (Jesh.  iv.  19),  in  the  valley 
between  Ebal  and  Gerizim  (Josh.  viii.  30-35); 
again,  at  the  head-quarters  of  Gilgal  (Josh.  ix.  6,  x. 
15,  43)  ;  and,  finally,  as  at  "the  place  which  the 
Lord  had  chosen,"  at  Shiloh  (Josh.  ix.  27,  xviii.  1). 
The  reasons  of  the  choice  are  not  given.  Partly, 
perhaps,  its  central  position,  partly  its  belonging  to 

c  The  occurrence  of  the  same  distinctive  word  in  Ex. 
xxzviii.  8,  implies  a  recognised  dedication  of  some  kind, 
by  which  women  bound  themselves  to  the  service  of  the 
Tabernacle,  probably  as  singers  and  dancers.  What  we 
find  under  Eli  was  the  corruption  -jf  the  original  practice 


TABERNACLE 


1416 


the  powerful  tribe  of  Ephraim,  the  tribe  of  the 
great  captain  of  the  host,  may  have  detenniued  tha 
preference.  There  it  continued  during  the  wholt 
period  of  the  Judges,  the  gathering-point  for  "the 
heads  of  the  fathers  "  of  the  tribes  (Josh.  xix.  51), 
for  councils  of  peace  or  war  (Josh.  xxii.  12  ;  Judg. 
xxi.  12),  for  annual  solemn  dances,  in  which  the 
women  of  Shiloh  were  conspicuous  (Judg.  xxi.  21). 
There,  too,  as  the  religion  of  Israel  sank  towards 
the  level  of  an  orgiastic  Heathenism,  troops  oi 
women  assembled,6  shameless  as  those  of  Midian, 
worshippers  of  Jehovah,  and,  like  the  iep($5oi;A.o 
of  heathen  temples,  concubines  of  His  priests  ( 1  Sam. 
ii.  22).  It  was  far,  however,  from  being  what  it 
was  intended  to  be,  the  one  national  sanctuary,  the 
witness  against  a  localized  and  divided  worship. 
The  old  religion  of  the  high  places  kept  its  ground. 
Altars  were  erected,  at  first  under  protest,  and 
with  reserves,  as  being  not  for  sacrifice  (Josh.  xxii. 
26),  afterwards  freely  and  without  scruple  (Judg. 
vi.  24,  xiii.  19).  Of  the  names  by  which  the 
one  special  sanctuary  was  known  at  this  period, 
those  of  the  "  House,"  or  the  "  Temple,"  of  Jehovah 
(1  Sam.  i.  9,  24,  iii.  3,  15)  are  most  prominent. 

(6.)  A  state  of  things  which  was  rapidly  assimi 
lating  the  worship  of  Jehovah  to  that  of  Ashtaroth, 
or  Mylitta,  needed  to  be  broken  up.  The  Ark  of 
God  was  taken  and  the  sanctuary  lost  its  glory; 
and  the  Tabernacle,  though  it  did  not  perish,  never 
again  recovered  itd  (1  Sam.  iv.  22).  Samuel,  at 
once  the  Luther  and  the  Alfred  of  Israel,  who  had 
grown  up  within  its  precincts,  treats  it  as  an 
abandoned  shrine  (so  Ps.  Ixxviii.  60),  and  sacrifices 
elsewhere,  at  Mizpeh  (1  Sam.  vii.  9),  at  Ramah 
(ix.  12,  x.  3),  at  Gilgal  (x.  8,  xi.  15).  It  pro 
bably  became  once  again  a  moveable  sanctuary,  less 
honoured  as  no  longer  possessing  the  symbol  of  the 
Divine  Presence,  yet  cherished  by  the  priesthood, 
and  some  portions,  at  least,  of  its  ritual,  kept  up. 
For  a  time  it  seems,  under  Saul,  to  have  been 
settled  at  NOB  (l^Sam.  xxi.  1-6),  which  thus 
became  what  it  had  not  been  before — a  priestly 
city.  The  massacre  of  the  priests  and  the  flight  of 
Abiathar  must,  however,  have  robbed  it  yet  furthei 
of  its  glory.  It  had  before  lost  the  Ark.  It  now 
lost  the  presence  of  the  High-Priest,  and  with  it 
the  oracular  ephod,  the  URIM  and  the  THUMMIM 
(1  Sam.  xxii.  20,  xxiii.  6).  What  change  of  for 
tune  then  followed  we  do  not  know.  The  fact 
that  all  Israel  was  encamped,  in  the  last  days  of 
Saul  at  Gilboa,  and  that  there  Saul,  though  without 
success,  inquired  of  the  Lord  by  Urim  (1  Sam. 
xxviii.  4-6),  makes  it  probable  that  the  Tabernacle, 
as  of  old,  was  in  the  encampment,  and  that  Abia 
thar  had  returned  to  it.  In  some  way  or  other,  it 
found  its  way  to  Gibeon  (1  Chr.  xvi.  39).  The 
anomalous  separation  of  the  two  things  which,  in 
the  original  order,  had  been  joined,  brought  about 
yet  greater  anomalies  ;  and,  while  the  ark  remained 
at  Kirjath-jearim,  the  Tabernacle  at  Gibeon  con 
nected  itself  with  the  worship  of  the  high-places 
(1  K.  iii.  4).  The  capture  of  Jerusalem  and  the  erec 
tion  there  of  a  new  Tabernacle,  with  the  ark,  of  which 
the  old  had  been  deprived  (2  Sam.  vi.  17 ;  1  Chr. 
xv.  1).  left  it  little  more  than  a  traditional,  histori 
cal  sanctity.  It  retained  only  the  old  altar  of 
burnt-offerings  (1  Chr.  xxi.  29).  Such  as  it  was, 


(comp.  Ewald,  Alterth.  297).    In  the  dances  of  Judg.  x*i. 
21,  we  have  a  stage  of  transition. 

'i  Ewald  (Geschichte,  ii.  540)  infers  that  Sbltoh  itsell 
was  conquered  and  laid  waste. 


1416 


TABEKNACLE 


however,  neither  king  nor  people  could  bring 
themselves  to  sweep  it  away.  The  double  ser 
vice  went  on ;  Zadok,  as  high-priest,  officiated  at 
<3ibeon  (1  Chr.  xvi.  39)  ;  the  more  recent,  more 
prophetic  service  of  psalms  and  hymns  and  music, 
under  Asaph,  gathered  round  the  Tabernacle  at 
Jerusalem  (1  Chr.  xvi.  4,  37).  The  divided  wor 
ship  continued  all  the  days  of  David.  The  sanctity 
of  both  places  was  recognised  by  SOLOMON  on  his 
accession  (1  K.  iii.  15;  2  Chron.  i.  3).  But  it 
was  time  that  the  anomaly  should  cease.  As  long 
as  it  was  simply  Tent  against  Tent,  it  was  difficult 
to  decide  between  them.  The  purpose  of  David 
fulfilled  by  Solomon,  was  that  the  claims  of  both 
should  merge  in  the  higher  glory  of  the  Temple. 
Some,  Abiathar  probably  among  them,  clung  to  the 
old  order,  in  this  as  in  other  things  [SOLOMON ; 
URIM  AND  THUMMIM],  but  the  final  day  at  last 
came,  and  the  Tabernacle  of  Meeting  was  either 
taken  down,e  or  left  to  perish  and  be  forgotten. 
So  a  page  in  the  religious  history  of  Israel  was 
closed.  So  the  disaster  of  Shiloh  led  to  its  natural 
consummation. 

III.  Relation  to  the  religious  life  of  Israel. — 
(1.)  Whatever  connexion  may  be  traced  between 
other  parts  of  the  ritual  of  Israel  and  that  of  the 
nations  with  which  Israel  had  been  brought  into 
contact,  the  thought  of  the  Tabernacle  meets  us  as 
entirely  new.*  The  «  house  of  God  "  [BETHEL] 
of  the  Patriarchs  had  been  the  large  "pillar  of 
stone"  (Gen.  xxviii.  18, 19),  bearing  record  of  some 
high  spiritual  experience,  and  tending  to  lead  men 
upward  to  it  (Bahr,  Symbol,  i.  93),  or  the  grove 
which,  with  its  dim,  doubtful  light,  attuned  the 
souls  of  men  to  a  divine  awe  (Gen.  xxi.  33).  The 
temples  of  Egypt  were  stately  and  colossal,  hewn  iii 
the  solid  rock,  or  built  of  huge  blocks  of  granite,  as 
unlike  as  possible  to  the  sacred  Tent  of  Israel.  The 
command  was  one  in  which  we  can  trace  a  special 
fitness.  The  stately  temples  belonged  to  the  house 
of  bondage  which  the^  were  leaving.  The  sacred 
places  of  their  fathers  were  in  the  land  towards 
which  they  were  journeying.  In  the  mean  while, 
they  were  to  be  wanderers  in  the  wilderness.  To 
have  set  up  a  Bethel  after  the  old  pattern  would 
have  been  to  make  that  a  resting-place,  the  object 
then  or  afterwards  of  devout  pilgrimage ;  and  the 
multiplication  of  such  places  at  the  different  stages 
of  their  march  would  have  led  inevitably  to  poly 
theism.  It  would  have  failed  utterly  to  lead  them 
to  the  thought  which  they  needed  most — of  a  Divine 
Presence  never  absent  from  them,  protecting,  ruling, 
judging.  A  sacred  tent,  a  moving  Bethel,  was  the 
fit  sanctuary  for  a  people  still  nomadic.?  It  was 
capable  of  being  united  afterwards,  as  it  actually 
came  to  be,  with  "the  grove"  of  the  older  cultus 
(Josh.  xxiv.  26). 

(2.)  The  structure  of  the  Tabernacle  was  obvi 
ously  determined  by  a  complex  and  profound  sym 
bolism  ;  but  its  meaning  remains  one  of  the  things 
at  which  we  can  but  dimly  guess.  No  interpreta 
tion  is  given  in  the  Law  itself.  The  explanations 
of  Jewish  writers  long  afterwards  are  manifestly 

«  The  language  of  2  Chr.  v.  5,  leaves  it  doubtful 
whethpr  the  Tabernacle  there  referred  to  was  that  at 
Jerusalem  or  Gibeon.  (But  see  Joseph.  Ant.  viii.  4,  $1.) 

f  Spencer  (De  leg.  Hebraeoi:  iii.  3)  labours  hard,  but 
not  successfully,  to  prove  that  the  tabernacles  of  Moloch 
of  Amos  v.  26,  were  the  prototypes  of  the  Tent  of  Meet 
ing.  It  has  to  be  remembered,  however,  (1)  that  the  word 
used  in  Amos  (siccuth)  is  never  used  of  the  Tabernacle, 
yj»d  mesas  something  very  different;  and  (2)  that  the 


TABEKNACLE 

wide  of  the  mark.  That  which  meets  us  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  application  of  the  types 
of  the  Tabernacle  to  the  mysteries  of  Redemption, 
was  latent  till  those  mysteries  were  made  known. 
And,  yet,  we  cannot  but  believe  that,  as  each  por 
tion  of  the  wonderful  order  rose  before  the  inward 
eye  of  the  lawgiver,  it  must  have  embodied  dis 
tinctly  manifold  truths  which  he  apprehended  him 
self,  and  sought  to  communicate  to  others.  It 
entered,  indeed,  into  the  order  of  a  Divine  educa 
tion  for  Moses  and  for  Israel ;  and  an  education  by 
means  of  symbols,  no  less  than  by  means  of  words, 
presupposes  an  existing  language.  So  far  from 
shrinking,  therefore,  as  men  have  timidly  and  un 
wisely  shrunk  (Witsius,  Aegyptiaca,  in  Ugolini, 
Tkes.  i.)  from  asking  what  thoughts  the  Egyptian 
education  of  Moses  would  lead  him  to  connect  with 
the  symbols  he  was  now  taught  to  use,  we  may 
see  in  it  a  legitimate  method  of  inquiry — almost 
the  only  method  possible.  Where  that  fails,  the 
gap  may  be  filled  up  (as  in  Bahr,  Symbol,  passim) 
from  the  analogies  of  other  nations,  indicating, 
where  they  agree,  a  wide- spread  primeval  symbol 
ism.  So  far  from  labouring  to  prove,  at  the  price 
of  ignoring  or  distorting  facts,  that  everything  was 
till  then  unknown,  we  shall  as  little  expect  to  find 
it  so,  as  to  see  in  Hebrew  a  new  and  heaven- 
born  language,  spoken  for  the  first  time  on  Sinai, 
written  for  the  first  time  on  the  Two  Tables  of  the 
Covenant. 

(3.)  The  thought  of  a  graduated  sanctity,  li*e 
that  of  the  outer  court,  the  Holy  Place,  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  had  its  counterpart,  often  the  same  numbei 
of  stages,  in  the  structure  of  Egyptian  temples 
(Bahr,  i.  216).  The  interior  Adytum  (to  proceed 
from  the  innermost  recess  outward)  was  small  in 
proportion  to  the  rest  of  the  building,  and  com 
monly,  as  in  the  Tabernacle  (Joseph.  Aid.  ii.  6,  §3), 
was  at  the  western  end  (Spencer,  iii.  2),  and  was 
unlighted  from  without. 

In  the  Adytum,  often  at  least,  was  the  sacred  ARK, 
the  culminating  point  of  holiness,  containing  the 
highest  and  most  mysterious  symbols,  winged 
figures,  generally  like  those  of  the  cherubim  (Wilk 
inson,  Anc.  Egypt,  v.  275  ;  Kenrick,  Egypt,  i.  460), 
the  emblems  of  stability  and  life.  Here  were  out 
ward  points  of  resemblance.  Of  all  elements  ot 
Egyptian  worship  this  was  one  which  could  be  trans 
ferred  with  least  hazard,  with  most  gain.  No  one 
could  think 'that  the  Ark  itself  was  the  likeness  oi 
the  God  he  worshipped.  When  we  ask  what  gave 
the  Ark  its  holiness,  we  are  led  on  at  once  to  the 
infinite  difference,  the  great  gulf  between  the  two 
systems.  That  of  Egypt  was  predominantly  cos- 
mical,  starting  from  the  productive  powers  of  nature. 
The  symbols  of  those  powers,  though  not  originally 
involving  what  we  know  as  impurity,  tended  to  it 
fatally  and  rapidly  (Spencer,  iii.  1  ;  Warburton,  Di 
vine  Legation,  II.  4  note).  That  of  Israel  was  pre 
dominantly  ethical.  The  nation  was  taught  to  think 
of  God,  not  chiefly  as  revealed  in  nature,  but  as  ma 
nifesting  Himself  in  and  to  the  spirits  of  men.  In  the 
Ark  of  the  Covenant,  as  the  highest  revelation  then 


Moloch-worship  represented  a  defection  of  the  people  sub 
sequent  to  the  erection  of  the  Tabernacle.  On  these  grounds 
then,  and  not  from  any  abstract  repugnance  to  the  idea  of 
such  a  transfer,  I  abide  by  the  statement  in  the  text. 

e  Analogies  of  like  wants  met  in  a  like  way,  with  nc 
ascertainable  historical  connexion,  are  to  be  found  among 
the  laetulians  and  other  tribes  of  northern  Africa  (Sil. 
Itat.  iii.  289),  and  in  the  Sacred  Tent  of  the  Carthaginian 
encampments  (Diod.  Sic.  xx.  65). 


TABERNACLE 


TABERNACLE 


1417 


possible  of  the  Divine  Nature,  were  the  two  tables  of  I  mercy-seat,  cherubim,  the  very  walls,  were  all  over- 
stone,  on  which  were  graven,  by  the  teaching  of  the  1  laid  with  gold,  the  noblest  of  all  metals,  the  symbol 
Divine  Spirit,  and  therefore  "by  "the  finger  of  I  of  light  and  purity,  sun-Hght  itself  as  it  were,  fixed 
God,"fc  the  great  unchanging  laws  of  human  duty  I  and  embodied,  the  token  of  the  incorruptible,  of  the 
which  had  been  proclaimed  on  Sinai.  Here  the  |  glory  of  a  great  king  (Bahr,  i.  282).  It  was  not 
lesson  taught  was  plain  enough.  The  highest  know-  without  meaning  that  all  this  lavish  expenditure  oi 


ledge  was  as  the  simplest,  the  esoteric  as  the  exo 
teric.  In  the  depths  of  the  Holy  of  Holies,  and  for 
the  high-priest  as  for  all  Israel,  there  was  the  reve 
lation  of  a  righteous  Will  requiring  righteousness  in 
man  (Saalschiitz,  Archaol.  c.  77).  And  over  the 
Ark  was  the  Cophereth  (MKRCY-SEAT"),  so  called 
with  a  twofold  reference  to  the  root-meaning  of  the 
word.  It  covered  the  Ark.  It  was  the  witness  of 
a  mercy  covering  sins.  As  the  "  footstool "  of 
God,  the  "  throne  "  of  the  Divine  Glory,  it  declared 
that  over  the  Law  which  seemed  so  rigid  and  un 
bending  there  rested  the  compassion  of  ONE  forgiv 


ing  "  iniquity  and  transgression."  * 
Mercy-seat  were   the  CHERUBIM, 


And  over  the 
reproducing  in 


part  at  least,  the  symbolism  of  the  great  Hamitic 
i-aces,  forms  familiar  to  Moses  and  to  Israel,  needing 
no  description  for  them,  interpreted  for  us  by  the 
fuller  vision  of  the  later  prophets  (Ezek.  i.  5-13,  x. 
8-15,  xli.  19),  or  by  the  winged  forms  of  the  imagery 
of  Egypt.  Representing  as  they  did  the  manifold 
powers  of  nature,  created  life  in  its  highest  form 
(Bahr,  i.  341)  their  "  over-shadowing  wings," 
"meeting"  as  in  token  of  perfect  harmony,  de 
clared  that  nature  as  well  as  man  found  its  highest 
glory  in  subjection  to  a  Divine  Law,  that  men  might 
take  refuge  in  that  Order,  as  under  "  the  shadow 
of  the  wings"  of  God  (Stanley,  Jewish  Church, 
p.  98).  Placed  where  those  and  other  like  figures 
were,  in  the  temples  of  Egypt,  they  might  be  hin 
drances  and  not  helps,  might  sensualize  instead  of 
purifying  the  worship  of  the  people.  But  it  was 
part  of  the  wisdom  which  we  may  reverently  trace 
in  the  order  of  the  Tabernacle,  that  while  Egyptian 
symbols  are  retained,  as  in  the  Ark,  the  Cherubim, 
the  URIM  and  the  THUMMIM,  their  place  is  changed. 
They  remind  the  high-priest,  the  representative  of 
the  whole  nation,  of  the  truths  on  which  the  order 
rests.  The  people  cannot  bow  down  and  worship 
that  which  they  never  see. 

The  material  not  less  than  the  forms,  in  the  Holy 
3f  Holies  was  significant.  The  acacia  or  shittim- 
wood,  least  liable,  of  woods  then  accessible,  to  decay, 
anight  well  represent  the  imperishableness  of  Divine 
Truth,  of  the  Laws  of  Duty  (Bahr,  i.  286).  Ark, 


h  The  equivalence  of  the  two  phrases,  "by  the  Spirit 
of  God,"  and  "by  the  finger  of  God,"  is  seen  by  com 
paring  Matt  xii.  28,  and  Luke  xi.  20.  Comp.  also  the 
language  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  (Strom,  vi.  $133)  and 
the  use  of  "  the  hand  of  the  Lord  "  in  1  K.  xviii.  46 ; 
2  K.  iii.  15  ;  Ezek.  i.  3,  iii.  14 ;  1  Chr.  xxviii.  19. 

l  Ewald,  giving  to  1S3,  the  root  of  C&phereth,  the 
meaning  of  "  to  scrape,"  "  erase,"  derives  from  that 
meaning  the  idea  implied  in  the  LXX.  lAatrnjptov,  and 
denies  that  the  word  ever  signified  eniOeua  (Alterth. 
p.  128, 129). 

k  A  full  discussion  of  the  subject  is  obviously  impos 
sible  here,  but  it  may  be  useful  to  exhibit  briefly  the 
chief  thoughts  which  have  been  connected  with  the 
numbers  that  are  most  prominent  in  the  language  of 
symbolism.  Arbitrary  as  some  of  them  may  seem,  a 
sufficient  induction  to  establish  each  will  be  found  in 
BShr's  elaborate  dissertation,  i.  128-255,  and  other  works. 
Comp.  Wilkinson,  Anc.  Kg.  iv.  190-199 ;  Leyrer  in 
Herzog'i  Krwjclop.  "  Stiftshiitte." 

ONE— The    Godhead,   Eternity,   Life,  Creative  Force, 
the  f3un,  Man 


what  was  most  costly  was  placed  where  none  might 
gaze  on  it.  The  gold  thus  offered  taught  man,  that 
the  noblest  acts  of  beneficence  and  sacrifice  are  not 
those  which  are  done  that  they  may  be  seen  of  men, 
but  those  which  are  known  only  to  Him  who  "  seeth 
in  secret"  (Matt.  vi.  4).  Dimensions  also  had  their 
meaning.  Difficult  as  it  may  be  to  feel  sure  that 
e  have  the  key  to  the  enigma,  there  can  be  but  little 
doubt  that  the  older  religious  systems  of  the  world 
did  attach  a  mysterious  significance  to  each  separate 
number  ;  that  the  training  of  Moses,  as  afterwards 
the  far  less  complete  initiation  of  Pythagoras  in  the 
symbolism  of  Egypt,  must  have  made  that  trans 
parently  clear  to  him,  which  to  us  is  almost  impe 
netrably  dark>  To  those  who  think  over  the  words 
of  two  great  teachers,  one  heathen  (Plutarch,  De 
Is.  et  Os.  p.  411),  and  one  Christian  (Clem.  Al. 
Strom,  vi.  p.  84-87 \  who  had  at  least  studied  as 
far  as  they  could  the  mysteries  of  the  religion  of 
Egypt,  and  had  inherited  pait  of  the  old  system, 
the  precision  of  the  numbers  in  the  plan  of  the 
Tabernacle  will  no  longer  seem  unaccountable.  I  f 
in  a  cosmical  system,  a  right-angled  triangle  with 
the  sides  three,  four,  five,  represented  the  triad  of 


Osiris, 


Orus,  creative  force,  receptive  matter, 


the  universe  of  creation  (Plutarch,  I.  c.),  the  perfect 
cube  of  the  Holy  of  Holies,  the  constant  recurrence 
of  the  numbers  4  and  10,  may  well  be  accepted  as 
symbolizing  order,  stability,  perfection  (Bahr,  i. 
225).» 

(4.)  Into  the  inner  sanctuary  neither  people  ncr 
the  priests  as  a  body  ever  entered.  Strange  as  it 
may  seem,  that  in  which  everything  represented 
light  and  life  was  left  in  utter  darkness,  in  profound 
solitude.  Once  only  in  the  year,  on  the  DAY  OF 
ATONEMENT,  might  the  high-priest  enter.  The 
strange  contrast  has,  however,  its  parallel  in  the 
spiritual  life.  Death  and  life,  light  and  darkness,  are 
wonderfully  united.  Only  through  death  can  we 
truly  live.  Only  by  passing  into  the  "  thick  dark 
ness  "  where  God  is  (Ex.  xx.  21  ;  1  K.  viii.  12),  can 
we  enter  at  all  into  the  "  light  inaccessible,"  in 
which  He  dwells  everlastingly.  The  solemn  annuul 
entrance,  like  the  withdrawal  of  symbolic  forms  frcm 


Two— Matter,  Time,  Death,  Receptive  Capacity,  the 

Moon,  Woman. 

THBEE  (as  a  number,  or  in  the  triangle)— The  Universe 
in  connexion  with  God,  the  Absolut*  in  itself, 
the  Unconditioned,  God. 

FOUK  (the  number,  or  in  the  square  or  cube) — Con 
ditioned  Existence,  the  World  as  created,  Divine 
Order,  Revelation. 

SEVEN  (as  =  3  +  4)— The  Union  of  the  World  and 
God,  Rest  (as  in  the  Sabbath),  Peace,  Blessing, 
Purification. 
TEN  (as  =  I  +  2  +  3  +  4)— Completeness,  moral  and 

physical.  Perfection. 

FIVE— Perfection  half  attained,  Incompleteness. 
TWELVE— The  Signs  of  the  Zodiac,  the  Cycle  of  the 
Seasons;    in  Israel   the   ideal  number  of   the 
people,  of  the  Covenant  of  God  with  them. 
"»  The  symbol  reappears  in  the  most  startling  form  in 
the  closing  visions  of  the  Apocalypse.    There  the  hea 
venly  Jerusalem  is  described,  in  words  which  absolutely 
exclude  the  literalism  which  has  sometimes  been  blinrtlj 
applied  to  it,  as  a  city  four-square,  12,000  furlongs  lr 
length  and  breadth  un.l  height  (Rev.  xxi.  16). 


1418 


TABERNACLE 


the  gaze  of  the  people,  was  itself  part  of  a  wise 
and  Divine  order.  Intercourse  with  Egypt  had 
shown  how  easily  the  symbols  of  Truth  might  be 
come  common  and  familiar  things,  yet  without 
symbols,  the  truths  themselves  might  be  forgotten. 
Both  dangers  were  met.  To  enter  once,  and  once 
only  in  the  year,  into  the  awful  darkness,  to  stand 
before  the  Law  of  Duty,  before  the  presence  of  the 
God  who  gave  it,  not  in  the  stately  robes  that  be 
came  the  representative  of  God  to  man,  but  as  re 
presenting  man  in  his  humiliation,  in  the  garb  of 
the  lower  priests,  bare-footed  and  ia  the  linen 
ephod,  to  confess  his  own  sins  and  the  sins  of  the 
people,  this  was  what  connected  the  Atonement-day 
(Cippur)  with  the  Mercy-seat  (CopheretK}.  And 
to  come  there  with  blood,  the  symbol  of  life,  touch 
ing  with  that  blood  the  mercy-seat,  with  incense, 
the  symbol  of  adoration  (Lev.  xvi.  12-14),  what 
did  that  express  but  the  truth,  (1.)  that  man  must 
draw  near  to  the  righteous  God  with  no  lower 
offering  than  the  pure  worship  of  the  heart,  with 
the  living  sacrifice  of  body,  soul,  and  spirit ;  (2.) 
that  could  such  a  perfect  sacrifice  be  found,  it 
would  have  a  mysterious  power  working  beyond 
itself,  in  proportion  to  its  perfection,  to  cover  the 
multitude  of  sins  ? 

(5.)  From  all  others,  from  the  high-priest  at  all 
other  times,  the  Holy  of  Holies  was  shrouded  by 
the  double  VEIL,  bright  with  many  colours  and 
strange  forms,  even  as  curtains  of  golden  tissue  were 
to  be  seen  hanging  before  the  Adytum  of  an  Egyp 
tian  temple,  a  strange  contrast  often  to  the  bestial 
form  behind  them  (Clem.  Al,  Paed.  iii.  4).  In  one 
memorable  instance,  indeed,  the  \eil  was  the  wit 
ness  of  higher  and  deeper  thoughts.  On  the  shrine 
of  Isis  at  Sais,  there  were  to  be  read  words  which, 
though  pointing  to  a  pantheistic  rather  than  an  ethical 
religion,  were  yet  wonderful  in  their  loftiness, 
"  I  am  all  that  has  been  (irav  rb  yeyw6s},  and  is, 
and  shall  be,  and  my  veil  no  mortal  hath  withdrawn  " 
(dire/ccU.wJ/ej/)  (de  Is.  et  Osir.  p.  394).  Like,  and 
yet  more,  unlike  the  truth,  we  feel  that  no  such 
words  could  have  appeared  on  the  veil  of  the  Taber 
nacle.  In  that  identification  of  the  world  and  God, 
all  idolatry  was  latent,  as  in  the  faith  of  Israel  in 
the  I  AM,  all  idolatry  was  excluded.0  In  that 
despair  of  any  withdrawal  of  the  veil,  of  any  revela 
tion  of  the  Divine  Will,  there  were  latent  all  the  aits 
of  an  unbelieving  priestcraft,  substituting  symbols, 
pomp,  ritual  for  such  a  revelation.  But  what  then 
was  the  meaning  of  the  veil  which  met  the  gaze  of 
the  priests  as  they  did  service  in  the  sanctuary  ? 
Colours  in  the  art.  of  Egypt  were  not  less  significant 
than  number,  and  the  four  bright  colours,  probably, 
after  the  fashion  of  that  art,  in  parallel  bands,  blue 
symbol  of  heaven,  and  purple  of  kingly  glory,  and 
crimson  of  life  and  joy,  and  white  of  light  and 
purity  (Bahr,  i.  305-330),  formed  in  their  combi 
nation  no  remote  similitude  of  the  rainbow,  which 
of  old  had  been  a  symbol  of  the  Divine  covenant 
with  man,  the  pledge  of  peace  and  hope,  the  sign  of 
the  Divine  Presence  (Ez.  i.  28  ;  Ewald,  Alterth.  p. 
333).  Within  the  veil,  light  and  truth  were  seen  in 
their  unity.  The  veil  itself  represented  the  infinite 
variety,  the  iro\VTroiKi\os  <ro<f>la  of  the  Divine 
order  in  Creation  (Eph.  iii.  10).  And  there  again 
'vere  seen  copied  upon  the  veil,  the  mysterious 
forms  of  the  cherubim ;  how  many,  or  in  what  atti- 

n  The  name  Jehovah,  it  h&s  been  well  said,  was  '•  the 
reading  asunder  of  the  veil  of  Sais."  ('Stanley,  Jewisfi 
Church,  p.  110,) 


TABEilNACLE 

tude,  or  of  what  size,  or  in  what  material,  v/e  art 
not  told.  The  words  "  cunning  work "  in  Ex. 
xxxvi.  35,  applied  elsewhere  to  combinations  of  em 
broidery  and  metal  (Ex.  xxviii.  15,  xxxi.  4),  jus- 
tify  perhaps  the  conjecture  that  here  also  they 
were  of  gold.  In  the  absence  of  any  other  evidence 
it  would  have  been,  perhaps,  natural  to  think  that 
they  reproduced  on  a  larger  scale,  the  number  and 
the  position  of  those  that  were  over  the  mercy-seat. 
The  visions  of  Ezekiel,  however,  reproducing,  as  they 
obviously  do,  the  forms  with  which  his  priestly  life 
had  made  him  familiar,  indicate  not  less  than  four 
(c.  i.  and  x.),  and  those  not  all  alike,  having  seve 
rally  the  faces  rf  a  man,  a  lion,  an  ox,  and  an  eagle, 
strange  symbolic  words,  which  elsewhere  we  should 
have  identified  with  idolatry,  but  which  here  were 
bearing  witness  against  it,  emblems  of  the  manifold 
variety  of  creation  as  at  once  manifesting  and  con 
cealing  God. 

(6.)  The  outer  sanctuary  was  one  degree  less 
awful  in  its  holiness  than  the  inner.  Silver,  the 
type  of  Human  Purity,  took  the  place  of  gold,  the 
type  of  the  Divine  Glory  (Bahr,  i.  284).  It  was 
to  be  trodden  daily  by  the  priests,  as  by  men  who 
lived  in  the  perpetual  consciousness  of  the  nearness 
of  God,  of  the  mystery  behind  the  veil.  Barefooted 
and  m  ganu.^cs  of  white  linen,  like  the  priests  of 
Isis  [PRIESTS],  they  accomplished  their  ministra 
tions.  And  here,  too,  there  were  other  emblems  of 
Divine  realities.  With  no  opening  to  admit  light 
from  without,  it  was  illumined  only  by  the  golden 
LAMP  with  its  seven  lights,  one  taller  than  the 
others,  as  the  Sabbath  is  more  sacred  than  the 
other  days  of  the  week,  never  all  extinguished 
together,  the  perpetual  symbol  of  all  derived  gifts 
of  wisdom  and  holiness  in  man,  reaching  their 
mystical  perfection  when  they  shine  in  God's  sanc 
tuary  to  His  glory  (Ex.  xxv.  31,  xxvii.  20;  Zech. 
iv.  1-14).  The  SKEW-BREAD,  the  "  bread  of  faces," 
of  the  Divine  Presence,  not  unlike  in  outward  form 
to  the  sacred  cakes  which  the  Egyptians  placed 
before  the  shrines  of  their  gods,  served  as  a  token 
that,  though  there  was  no  form  or  likeness  of  the 
Godhead,  He  was  yet  there,  accepting  all  offerings, 
recognising  in  particular  that  special  offering  which 
represented  the  life  of  the  nation  at  once  in  the 
distinctness  of  its  tribes  and  in  its  unity  as  a 
people  (Ewald,  Alterth.  p.  120).  The  meaning  of 
the  ALTAR  OF  INCENSE  was  not  less  obvious.  The 
cloud  of  fragrant  smoke  was  the  natural,  almoot  the 
universal,  emblem  of  the  heart's  adoration  (Ps.  cxli. 
2).  The  -incense  sprinkled  on  the  shew-bread  and 
the  lamp  taught  men  that  all  other  offerings  needed 
the  intermingling  of  that  idoration.  Upon  that 
altar  no  "  strange  fire  "  was  to  be  kindled.  When 
fresh  fire  was  needed  it  was  to  be  taken  from  th« 
ALTAR  OF  BURNT-OFFERING  in  the  outer  cour* 
(Lev.  ix.  24,  x.  1).  Very  sinking,  as  compared 
with  what  is  to  follow,  is  the  sublimity  and  the 
purity  of  these  symbols.  It  is  as  though  the 
priestly  order,  already  leading  a  consecrated  life, 
were  capable  of  understanding  a  higher  language 
which  had  to  be  translated  into  a  lower  for  those 
that  were  still  without  (Saalschiitz,  Archdol.  §77). 
(7.)  Outside  the  tent,  but  still  within  the  con 
secrated  precincts,  was  the  COURT,  fenced  in  by  an. 
enclosure,  yet  open  to  all  the  congregation  as  well 
as  to  the  Levites,  those  only  excepted  who  were 
ceremonially  unclean.  No  Gentile  might  pass  beyond 
the  curtains  of  the  entrance,  but  every  member  of 
the  priestly  nation  might  thus  far  '*  draw  near  "  to 
the  presence  of  Jehovah.  Here  therefore  stood  the 


TABERNACLE 

ALTAR  OP  BURNT-OFFERINGS,  at  which  SACRI 
FICES  in  all  their  varieties  were  offered  by  penitent 
or  thankful  worshippers  (Ex.  xxvii.  1-8;  xxxviii. 
I),  the  brazen  LAVER  at  which  those  worshippers 
purified  themselves  before  they  sacrificed,  the  priests 
before  they  entered  into  the  sanctuary  (Ex.  xxx. 
17-21).  Here  the  graduated  scale  of  holiness  ended. 
What  Israel  was  to  the  world,  fenced  in  and  set 
apart,  that  the  Court  of  the  Tabernacle  was  to  the 
surrounding  wilderness,  just  as  the  distinction  be 
tween  it  and  the  sanctuary  answered  to  that  between 
the  sons  of  Aaron  and  other  Israelites,  just  as  the 
idea  of  holiness  culminated  personally  in  the  high- 
priest,  locally  in  the  Holy  of  Holies. 

IV.  Theories  of  later  times. — (1.)  It  is  not  prc- 
bable  that  the  elaborate  symbolism  of  such  a  struc 
ture  was  understood  by  the  rude  and  sensual  multi 
tude  that  came  out  of  Egypt.  In  its  fulness  per 
haps  no  mind  but  that  of  the  lawgiver  himself  ever 
entered  into  it,  and  even  for  him,  one-half,  and  that 
the  highest,  of  its  meaning  must  have  been  alto 
gether  latent.  Yet  it  was  not  the  less,  was  perhaps 
the  more  fitted,  on  that  account  to  be  an  instru 
ment  for  the  education  of  the  people.  To  the  most 
ignorant  and  debased  it  was  at  least  a  witness  of 
the  nearness  of  the  Divine  King.  It  met  the  crav- 
ins:  of  the  human  heart  which  prompts  to  worship, 
with  an  order  which  was  neither  idolatrous  nor  im 
pure.  It  taught  men  that  their  fleshly  nature  was 
the  hindrance  to  worship;  that  it  rendered  them 
unclean  ;  that  only  by  subduing  it,  killing  it,  as 
they  killed  the  bullock  and  the  goat,  could  they 
offer  up  an  acceptable  sacrifice ;  that  such  a  sacri 
fice  was  the  condition  of  forgiveness,  a  higher  sacri 
fice  than  any  they  could  otf'er  the  ground  of  that 
forgiveness.  The  sins  of  the  past  were  considered 
is  belonging  to  the  fleshly  nature  which  was  slain 
ind  offered,  not  to  the  true  inner  self  of  the  wor 
shipper.  More  thoughtful  minds  were  led  inevitably 
to  higher  truths.  They  were  not  slow  to  see  in  the 
Tabernacle  the  parable  of  God's  presence  manifested 
in  Creation.  Darkness  was  as  His  pavilion  (2  Sam. 
xxii.  12).  He  has  made  a  Tabernacle  for  the  Sun 
(Ps.  xix.  4).  The  heavens  were  spread  out  like  its 
curtains.  The  beams  of  His  chambers  were  in  the 
mighty  waters  (Ps.  civ.  2,  3 ;  Is.  xl.  22 ;  Lowth, 
De  Sac.  Poes.  viii.).  The  majesty  of  God  seen  in 
the  storm  and  tempest  was  as  of  one  who  rides 
upon  a  cherub  (2  Sam.  xxii.  11).  If  the  words, 
"  He  that  dwelleth  between  the  cherubim,"  spoke 
on  the  one  side  of  a  special,  localised  manifestation 
of  the  Divine  Presence,  they  spoke  also  on  the  other 
of  that  Presence  as  in  the  heaven  of  heavens,  in  the 
light  of  setting  suns,  in  the  blackness  and  the  flashes 
of  the  thunder-clouds. 

(2.)  The  thought  thus  uttered,  essentially  poetical 
in  its  nature,  had  its  fit  place  in  the  psalms  and 
hymns  of  Israel.  It  lost  its  beauty,  it  led  men  on 
a  false  track,  when  it  was  formalised  into  a  system. 
At  a  time  when  Judaism  and  Greek  philosophy 
were  alike  effete,  when  a  feeble  physical  science 
which  could  read  nothing  but  its  own  thoughts  in 
the  symbols  of  an  older  and  deeper  system,  was 
after  its  own  fashion  rationalising  the  mythology 
of  heathenism,  there  were  found  Jewish  writers 
willing  to  apply  the  same  principle  of  interpretation 

0  It  is  curious  to  note  how  in  Clement  of  Alexandria 
the  two  systems  of  interpretation  cross  each  other,  lead 
ing  sometimes  to  extravagances  like  those  in  the  text, 
Eometimes  to  thoughts  at  once  lofty  and  true.  Some  of 
Uiesc  have  been  already  noticed.  Others,  not  to  be 


TABERNACLE 


1419 


to  the  Tabernacle  and  its  order.  In  that  way,  it 
seemed  to  them,  they  would  secure  the  respect  even 
of  the  men  of  letters  who  could  not  bring  them 
selves  to  be  Proselytes.  The  result  appears  in 
Josephus  and  in  Philo,  in  part  also  in  Clement  <\f 
Alexandria  and  Origen.  Thus  interpreted,  the  eniirf 
significance  of  the  Two  Tables  of  the  Covenant  anO 
their  place  within  the  Ark  disappeared,  and  the 
truths  which  the  whole  order  represented  became 
cosmical  instead  of  ethical.  If  the  special  idiosyn 
crasy  of  one  writer  (Philo,  De  Profug.)  led  him 
to  see  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  and  the  Sanctuary  that 
which  answered  to  the  Platonic  distinction  between 
the  visible  (c«V07r  cf)  and  the  spiritual  (vo-nrd}, 
the  coarser,  less  intelligent  Josephus  goes  still  more 
completely  into  the  new  system.  The  Holy  of 
Holies  is  the  visible  firmament  in  which  God  dwells, 
the  Sanctuary  as  the  earth  and  sea  which  men  in 
habit  (Ant.  in.  6,  §4,  7  ;  7,  §7).  The  twelve  loaves 
of  the  shew-bifad  represented  the  twelve  months  01 
the  year,  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac.  The  seven 
lamps  were  the  seven  planets.  The  four  colours 
of  the  veil  were  the  four  elements  (a-TOix*"*)?  air, 
fire,  water,  earth.  Even  the  wings  of  the  cherubim 
were,  in  the  eyes  of  some,  the  two  hemispheres  of 
the  universe,  or  the  constellations  of  the  Greater  and 
the  Lesser  Bears!  (Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  v.  §35). 
The  table  of  shew-bread  and  the  altar  of  incense 
stood  on  the  north,  because  north  winds  were  most 
fruitful,  the  lamp  on  the  south  because  the  motions 
of  the  planets  were  southward  (ib.  §34,  35).  We 
need  not  follow  such  a  system  of  interpretation  fur 
ther.  It  was  not  unnatural  that  the  authority  with 
which  it  started  should  secure  for  it  considerable 
respect.  We  find  it  re-appearing  in  some  Christian 
writers,  Chrysostom  (Horn,  in  Joann.  Bapt.)  and 
Theodoret  (Quaest.  in  Exod.} — in  some  Jewish, 
Ben  Uzziel,  Kimchi,  Abarbanel  (Bahr,  i.  103  etseq.}. 
It  was  well  for  Christian  thought  that  the  Church 
had  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Apoca 
lypse  of  St.  John  that  which  helped  to  save  it  from 
the  pedantic  puerilities  of  this  physico-theology.0 

(3.)  It  will  have  been  clear  from  all  that  has 
been  said  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  has  not 
been  looked  on  as  designed  to  limit  our  inquiry 
into  the  meaning  of  the  symbolism  of  the  Taber 
nacle,  and  that  there  is  consequently  no  ground  for 
adopting  the  system  of  interpreters  who  can  see  in 
it  nothing  but  an  aggregate  of  types  of  Christian 
mysteries.  Such  a  system  has,  in  fact,  to  choose 
between  two  alternatives.  Either  the  meaning  was 
made  clear,  at  least  to  the  devout  worshippers  of  old, 
and  then  it  is  no  longer  true  that  the  mystery  was 
hid  "  from  ages  and  generations,"  or  else  the  mys 
tery  was  concealed,  and  then  the  whole  order  was 
voiceless  and  unmeaning  as  long  as  it  lasted,  then 
only  beginning  to  be  instructive  when  it  wa& 
"  ready-  to  vanish  away."  Rightly  viewed  there 
is,  it  is  believed,  no  antagonism  between  the  inter 
pretation  which  staits  from  the  idea  of  symbols  oi 
Great,  Eternal  Truths,  and  that  which  rests  on  the 
idea  of  types  foreshadowing  Christ  and  His  Work, 
and  His  Church.  If  the  latter  were  the  highesV 
manifestation  of  the  former  (and  this  is  the  key 
note  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews),  then  the  two 
systems  run  parallel  with  each  other.  The  type 


passed  over,  are,  that  the  seven  lamps  set  forth  the  varied 
degrees  and  forms  (iroAv/xepcos  KO.!  TroXwrpoTroas)  of  God's 
Revelation,  the  form  and  the  attitude  of  the  Cherubim,  the 
union  of  active  ministry  and  grateful,  ceaselesa  contem 
plation  (Strom,  v.  $36,  37). 


1420 


TABERNACLE 


may  help  us  to  understand  the  symbol.  The  sym 
bol  may  guard  us  against  misinterpreting  the  type. 
That  the  same  things  were  at  once  symbols  and 
types  may  take  its  place  among  the  proofs  of  an 
insight  and  a  foresight  more  than  human.  Not 
the  veil  of  nature  only  but  the  veil  of  the  flesh, 
the  humanity  of  Christ,  at  once  conceals  and  mani 
fests  the  Eternal's  Glory.  The  rending  of  that 
veil  enabled  all  who  had  eyes  to  see  and  hearts  to 
believe,  to  enter  into  the  Holy  of  Holies,  into  the 
Divine  Presence,  and  to  see,  not  less  clearly  than  the 
High  Priest,  as  he  looked  on  the  ark  and  the  Mercy 
Seat,  that  Righteousness  and  Love,  Truth  and 
Mercy  were  as  one.  Blood  had  been  shed,  a  life 
had  been  offered  which,  through  the  infinite  power 
of  its  Love,  was  able  to  atone,  to  satisfy,  to  purify.f 
(4.)  We  cannot  here  follow  out  that  strain  of  a 
higher  mood,  and  it  would  not  be  profitable  to  enter 
into  the  speculations  which  later  writers  have  en 
grafted  on  the  first  great  thought.  Those  who  wish 
to  enter  upon  that  line  of  inquiry  may  find  mate 
rials  enough  in  any  of  the  greater  commentaries 
on  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  (Owen's,  Stuart's, 
Bleek's,  Tholuck's,  Delitzsch's,  Alford's),  or  in 
special  treatises,  such  as  those  of  Van  Till  (De  Tab- 
ernac.  in  Ugolini,  Thes.  viii.) ;  Bede  (Eocpositio 
Mystica  et  Moralis  Mosaici  Tabernaculi}  ;  Witsius 
(De  Tabern.  Lcvit.  Mysteriis,  in  Miscell.  Sacr.). 
Strange,  outlying  hallucinations,  like  those  of  an 
cient  Rabbis,  inferring  from  "  the  pattern  showed 
to  Moses  in  the  Mount,"  the  permanent  existence  of 
a  heavenly  Tabernacle,  like  in  form,  structure, 
proportions  to  that  which  stood  in  the  wilderness 
(Leyrer,  /.  c.),  or  of  later  writers  who  have  seen  in 
it  (not  in  the  spiritual  but  the  anatomical  sense  of 
the  word)  a  type  of  humanity,  representing  the 
outer  bodily  framework,  the  inner  vital  organs 
(Friederich,  Symb.  der  Mos.  Stifteshutte  in  Leyrer, 
1.  c. ;  and  Ewald,  Alt.  p.  338),  may  be  dismissed 
with  a  single  glance : 

"  Non  ragionamm'  di  lor,  ma  guarda  e  passa." 

(5.)  It  is  not  quite  as  open  to  us  to  ignore  a 
speculative  hypothesis  which,  though  in  itself  un 
substantial  enough,  has  been  lately  revived  under 
circumstances  which  have  given  it  prominence.  It 
has  been  maintained  by  Von  Bohlen  and  Vatke 
(Bahr,  i.  117,  273)  that  the  commands  and  the  de 
scriptions  relating  to  the  Tabernacle  in  the  Books 
of  Moses  are  altogether  unhistorical,  the  result  of 
the  effort  of  some  late  compiler  to  ennoble  the 
cradle  of  his  people's  history  by  transferring  to  a 
remote  antiquity  what  he  found  actually  existing 
in  the  Temple,  modified  only  so  far  as  was  neces 
sary  to  fit  it  in  to  the  theory  of  a  migration  and  a 
wandering.  The  structuie  did  not  belong  to  the 
time  of  the  Exodus,  if  indeed  there  ever  was  an 
Exodus.  The  Tabernacle  thus  becomes  the  myth 
ical  aftergrowth  of  the  Temple,  not  the  Temple  the 
historical  sequel  to  the  Tabernacle.  It  has  lately 
been  urged  as  tending  to  the  same  conclusion  that 
the  circumstances  connected  with  the  Tabernacle  in 
the  Pentateuch  are  manifestly  unhistorical.  The 
whole  congregation  of  Israel  are  said  to  meet  in  a 
court  which  could  not  have  contained  more  than  a 
few  hundred  men  (Colenso,  Pentateuch  and  Book  of 
Joshua,  P.  I.  c.  iv.  v.).  The  number  of  priests  was 


p  Th«  allusions  to  the  Tabernacle  in  the  Apocalypse 
are,  as  might  be  expected,  full  of  interest.  As  in  a  vision, 
which  loses  sight  of  all  time  limits,  the  Temple  of  the 
Tabernacle  is  seen  in  heaven  (Rev.  xv.  5),  and  yet  in 


TABERNACLE 

utterly  inadequate  for  the  services  of  the  Taber* 
nacle  (Ibid,  c.  xx.).  The  narrative  of  the  head- 
money  collection,  of  the  gifts  of  the  people,  is  full 
of  anachronisms  (Ibid.  c.  xiv.). 

(6.)  Some  of  these  objections — those,  e.  g.  as  to 
the  number  of  the  first-born,  and  the  dispropor 
tionate  smallness  of  the  priesthood,  have  been  met 
by  anticipation  in  remarks  under  PRIESTS  and  LE- 
VITES,  written  some  months  before  the  objections, 
in  their  present  form,  appeared.  Others  bearing 
upon  the  general  veracity  of  the  Pentateuch  his 
tory  it  is  impossible  to  discuss  here.  It  will  be 
sufficient  to  noii.ce  such  as  bear  immediately  upon 
the  subject  of  this  article.  (1.)  It  may  be  said  that 
this  theory,  like  other  similar  theories  as  to  the 
history  of  Christianity,  adds  to  instead  of  diminish 
ing  difficulties  and  anomalies.  It  may  be  possible 
to  make  out  plausibly  that  what  purports  to  be  the 
first  period  of  an  institution,  is,  with  all  its  docu 
ments,  the  creation  of  the  second  ;  but  the  question 
then  comes  how  we  are  to  explain  the  existence  of 
the  second.  The  world  rests  upon  an  elephant,  and 
the  elephant  on  a  tortoise,  but  the  footing  of  the 
tortoise  is  at  least  somewhat  insecure.  (2.)  What 
ever  may  be  the  weight  of  the  argument  drawn 
from  the  alleged  presence  of  the  whole  congregation 
at  the  door  of  the  Tabernacle  tells  with  equal  force 
against  the  historical  existence  of  the  Temple  and 
the  narrative  of  its  dedication.  There  also  when 
the  population  numbered  some  seven  or  eight  mil 
lions  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  9),  "  all  the  men  of  Israel " 
(1  K.  viii.  2),  all  "  the  congregation  "  (ver.  5),  all 
the  children  of  Israel  (ver.  63)  were  assembled,  and 
the  king  "  blessed"  all  the  congregation  (ver.  14, 
55).  (3.)  There  are,  it  is  believed,  undesigned 
touches  indicating  the  nomade  life  of  the  wilderness. 
The  wood  employed  for  the  Tabernacle  is  not  the 
sycamore  of  the  valleys  nor  the  cedar  of  Lebanon, 
as  afterwards  in  the  Temple,  but  the  shittim  of  the 
Sinaitic  peninsula.  [SniTTAH-TREE,  SHITTIM.] 
The  abundance  of  fine  linen  points  to  Egypt,  the 
seal  or  dolphin  skins  ("  badgers"  in  A.  V.,  but  see 
Gesenius  s.  v.  t^HF!)  to  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea. 
[BADGER-SKINS,  Appendix  A.]  The  Levites  are 
not  to  enter  on  their  office  till  the  age  of  thirty, 
as  needing  for  their  work  as  bearers  a  man's  full 
strength  (Num.  iv.  23,  30).  Afterwards  when 
their  duties  are  chiefly  those  of  singers  and  gate 
keepers,  they  were  to  begin  at  twenty  (1  Chr.  xxiii. 
24).  Would  a  later  history  again  have  excluded 
the  priestly  tribe  from  all  share  in  the  structure  of 
the  Tabernacle,  and  left  it  in  the  hands  of  mythical 
persons  belonging  to  Judah,  and  to  a  tribe  then  so 
little  prominent  as  that  of  Dan?  (4.)  There  re 
mains  the  strong  Egyptian  stamp  impressed  upor 
well-nigh  every  part  of  the  Tabernacle  and  its  ritual, 
and  implied  in  other  incidents.  [Comp.  PRIESTS, 
LEVITES,  URIM  AND  THUMMIM.  BRAZEN  SER 
PENT.]  Whatever  bearing  this  may  have  on  our 
views  of  the  things  themselves,  it  points,  beyond 
all  doubt,  to  a  time  when  the  two  nations  had  been 
brought  into  close  contact,  when  not  jewels  of 
silver  and  gold  only,  but  treasures  of  wisdom,  art, 
knowledge  were  "  borrowed  "  by  one  people  from 
the  other.  To  what  other  period  in  the  history 
before  Samuel  than  that  of  the  Exodus  of  the  Pen- 


the  heavenly  Jerusalem  there  is  no  Temple  seen  (xxi. 
22).  And  in  the  heavenly  Temple  there  is  no  longer  anj 
veil;  it  is  open,  and  the  ark  of  the  covenant  is  clearly 
seen  (xi.  19) 


TABERNACLES,  THE  FEAST  OF 


1421 


tateuuh  can  we  refer  that  intercourse  ?  When  was 
it  likely  that  a  wild  tribe,  with  difficult/  keep 
ing  its  ground  against  neighbouring  nations,  would 
have  adopted  such  a  complicated  ritual  from  a 
system  so  alien  to  its  own?  So  it  is  that  the 
wheel  comes  full  circle.  The  facts  which  when 
urged  by  Spencer,  with  or  without  a  hostile  pur 
pose,  were  denounced  as  daring  and  dangerous  and 
unsettling,  are  now  seen  to  be  witnesses  to  the  an 
tiquity  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  and  so  to  the  sub 
stantial  truth  of  the  Mosaic  history.  They  are 
used  as  such  by  theologians  who  in  various  degrees 
enter  their  protest  against  the  more  destructive 
criticism  of  our  own  time  (Hengstenberg,  Egypt 
and  the  Books  of  Moses ;  Stanley,  Jewish  Church, 
lect.  iv.\  (5.)  We  may,  for  a  moment,  put  an 
imaginary  case.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  records 
of  the  0.  T.  had  given  us  in  1  and  2  Sam.  a  history 
like  that  wtich  men  now  seek  to  substitute  for 
what  is  actually  given,  had  represented  Samuel 
as  the  first  great  preacher  of  the  worship  of  Elo- 
him,  Gad,  or  some  later  prophet  as  introducing 
for  the  first  time  the  name  and  worship  of  Jeho 
vah,  and  that  the  0.  T.  began  with  this  (Colenso, 
P.  II.  c.  xxi.).  Let  us  then  suppose  that  some 
old  papyrus,  freshly  discovered,  slowly  deciphered, 
gave  us  the  whole  or  the  greater  part  of  what 
we  now  find  in  Exodus  and  Numbers,  that  there 
was  thus  given  an  explanation  both  of  the  actual 
condition  of  the  people  and  of  the  Egyptian  element 
so  largely  intermingled  with  their  ritual.  Can  we 
not  imagine  with  what  jubilant  zeal  the  Books  of 
Samuel  would  then  have  been  "  critically  ex 
amined,"  what  inconsistencies  would  have  been 
detected  in  them,  how  eager  men  would  have  been 
to  prove  that  Samuel  had  had  credit  given  him 
for  a  work  which  was  not  his,  that  not  he,  but 
Moses,  was  the  founder  of  the  polity  and  creed  of 
Israel,  that  the  Tabernacle  on  Zion,  instead  of  com 
ing  fresh  from  David's  creative  mind,  had  been 
preceded  by  the  humbler  Tabernacle  in  the  Wilder 
ness?  [E.  H.  P.] 

TABERNACLES,  THE  FEAST  OF  (JPI 
niSDn  :  eopT$7  <JKi\vuiv  :  feriae  tabernaculorum  : 
f]DNil  3n,  Ex.  xxiit.  16,  "  the  feast  of  ingather 
ing  :"  (TKTjj/oTnjy/a,  John  vii.  2  ;  Jos.  Ant.  viii. 
4,  §5  :  o-KTji/at,  Philo,  De  Sept.  §24 :  y  ffK-rirfi, 
Plut.  Sympos.  iv.  6,  2),  the  third  of  the  three 
great  festivals  of  the  Hebrews,  which  lasted  from 
the  15th  till  the  22nd  of  Tisri. 

I.  The  following  are  the  principal  passages  in 
the  Pentateuch  which  refer  to  it :  Exod.  xxiii.  16, 
where  it  is  spoken  of  as  the  Feast  of  Ingathering, 
and  is  brought  into  connexion  with  the  other  festi 
vals  under  their  agricultural  designations,  the  Feast 
of  Unleavened  Bread  and  the  Feast  of  Harvest ; 
Lev.  xxiii.  34-36,  39-43,  where  it  is  mentioned  as 
commemorating  the  passage  of  the  Israelites  through 
the  desert ;  Deut.  xvi.  13-15,  in  which  tkere  is  no 
notice  of  the  eighth  day,  and  it  is  treated  as  a  thanks 
giving  for  the  harvest;  Num.  xxix.  12-38,  where 
there  is  an  enumeration  of  the  sacrifices  which  be- 


"  The  word  i"l3p  means  "  a  hut,"  and  is  to  be  distin 
guished  from  ?n'X»  "  a  tent  of  akins  or  cloth,"  which  is 
the  term  applied  to  the  Tabernacle  of  the  Congregation. 
Bee  Geuen.  s.  «. 

b  This  is  the  view  of  the  Rabbinists,  which  appears  to 
be  countenanced  by  a  comparison  of  v.  40  with  v.  42. 
But  the  Karaites  held  that  the  boughs  here  mentioned 
ware  for  nr  other  purpose  than  to  cover  the  huts,  and 


long  to  the  festival;  Deut.  xxxi.  10-13,  wheie  the 
injunction  is  given  for  the  public  reading  of  the  Li\* 
in  the  Sabbatical  year,  at  fhe  Feast  of  Tabernacles. 
In  Neh.  viii.  there  is  an  account  of  the  observance 
of  the  feast  by  Ezra,  from  which  several  additional 
particulars  respecting  it  may  be  gathered. 

II.  The  time  of  the  festival  fell  in  the  autumn, 
when  the  whole  of  the  chief  fruits  of  the  ground, 
the  corn,  the  wine,  and  the  oil,  were  gathered  in 
(Ex.  xxiii.  16;  Lev.  xxiii.  39;  Deut.  xvi.  13-15). 
Hence  it  is  spoken  of  as  occurring  "  in  the  end  of 
the  year,  when  thou  hast  gathered  in  thy  labours 
out  of  the  field."  Its  duration  'was  strictly  only 
seven  days  (Deut.  xvi.  13  ;  Ez.  xlv.  25).  But  it 
was  followed  by  a  day  of  holy  convocation,  dis 
tinguished  by  sacrifices  of  its  own,  which  was 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  an  eighth  day  (Lev.  xxiii. 
36  ;  Neh.  viii.  18). 

During  the  seven  days  the  Israelites  were  com 
manded  to  dwell  in  booths  or  huts  *  formed  of  the 
boughs  of  trees.  These  huts,  when  the  festival 
was  celebrated  in  Jerusalem,  were  constructed  in 
the  courts  of  houses,  on  the  roofs,  in  the  court  o. 
the  Temple,  in  the  street  of  the  water  gate,  and  ill 
the  street  of  the  gate  of  Ephraim.  The  boughs  wer< 
of  the  olive,  palm,  pine,  myrtle,  and  other  trees 
with  thick  foliage  (Neh.  viii.  15,  16).  The  com 
mand  in  Lev.  xxiii.  40  is  said  to  have  been  so 
understood, b  that  the  Israelites,  from  the  first  day 
of  the  feast  to  the  seventh,  earned  in  their  hands 
"  the  fruit  (as  in  the  margin  of  the  A.  V.,  not 
branches,  as  in  the  text)  of  goodly  trees,  with 
branches  of  palm  trees,  boughs  of  thick  trees,  and 
willows  of  the  brook." 

According  to  Rabbinical  tradition,  each  Israelite 
used  to  tie  the  branches  into  a  bunch,  to  be 
carried  in  his  hand,  to  which  the  name  lulab  c  was 
given.  The  '*  fruit  of  goodly  trees  "  is  generally 
taken  by  the  Jews  to  mean  the  citron.*  But 
Josephus  (Ant.  iii.  10,  §4)  says  that  it  was  the 
fruit  of  the  persed,  a  tree  said  by  Pliny  to  have 
been  conveyed  from  Persia  to  Egypt  (Hist.  Nat. 
xv.  13),  and  which  some  have  identified  with  the 
peach  (Mains per sica}.  The  boughs  of  thick  trees 
were  understood  by  Onkelos  and  others  to  be 
myrtles  (D^DTH),  but  that  no  such  limitation  to 

a  single  species  could  have  been  intended  seems  to 
be  proved  by  the  boughs  of  thick  trees  and  myrtle 
branches  being  mentioned  together  (Neh.  viii.  15). 
The  burnt-offerings  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles 
were  by  far  more  numerous  than  those  of  any  other 
festival.  It  is  said  that  the  services  of  the  priests 
were  so  ordered  that  each  one  of  the  courses  was 
employed  during  the  seven  days  (Succah,  v.  6). 
There  were  offered  on  each  day  two  rams,  fourteen 
lambs,  and  a  kid  for  a  sin-offering.  But  what  was 
most  peculiar  was  the  arrangement  of  the  sacrifices 
of  bullocks,  in  all  amounting  to  seventy.  Thirteen 
were  offered  on  the  first  day,  twelve  on  the  second, 
eleven  on  the  third,  and  so  on,  reducing  the  number 
by  one  each  day  till  the  seventh,  when  seven  bul 
locks  only  were  offered  (Num.  xxix.  12-38). 


that  the  willow  branches  were  merely  for  tying  the  ports 
of  the  huts  together. 

c  The  word  3>1?  strictly  means  simply  a  palm 
branch.  Buxt.  Lex.  Talm.  c.  1143;  Carpzo.*.  App  Crit. 
p.  416  ;  Drusius,  Not.  Maj.  in  Lev.  xxiii. 

d  3V"inK.  So  Onkelos,  Jonathan,  and  Sucodh  Set 
Buxt,  Lex'.  Talm.  su 


i422 


TABERNACLES,  THE  FEAST  OP 


The  eighth  day  was  a  day  of  holy  convocation  of  |  mcnced  had  ended),  both  men  and  women  assembled 


peculiar  solemnity,  and,  with  the  seventh  day  of 
the  Passover,  and  the  day  of  Pentecost,  was  desig 
nated  nK¥JJ  [PASSOVER,  §2,  note1].  We  are 
told  that  on  the  morning  of  this  day  the  Hebrews 
left  their  huts  and  dismantled  them,  and  took  ip 
their  abode  again  in  their  houses.  The  special  offer 
ings  of  the  day  were  a  bullock,  a  ram,  seven  lambs, 
and  a  goat  for  a  sin-offering  (Num.  xxix.  36  38).e 

When  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  fell  on  a  Sabbatical 
year,  portions  of  the  Law  were  read  each  day  in 
public,  to  men,  women,  children,  and  strangers 
'vDeut.  xxxi.  10-13,.  It  is  said  that,  in  the  time 
of  the  Kings,  the  king  himself  used  to  read  from  a 
wooden  pulpit  erected  in  the  court  of  the  women, 
and  that  the  people  were  summoned  to  assemble  by 
sound  of  trumpet.'  Whether  the  selections  were 
made  from  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  only,  or  from 
the  other  books  of  the  Law  also,  is  a  question.  But 
according  to  the  Mishna  (Sota,  vi.  8,  quoted  by 
Raland)  the  portion*  read  were  Deut.  i.  1-vi.  4, 
xi.  13-xiv.  22,  xiv.  23-xvi.  22,  xviii.  1-14,  xxvii. 
1-xxviii.  68  (see  Fagius  and  Rosenmiiller  on  Deut. 
xixi.  11  :  Lightfoot,  Temple  Service,  c.  xvii.). 
We  find  Ezra  reading  the  Law  during  the  festival 
"  day  by  day,  from  the  first  day  to  the  last  day  " 
(Neh.  viii.  18).? 

III.  There  are  two  particulars  in  the  observance 
of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  which  appear  to  be  re 
ferred  to  in  the  New  Testament,  but  are  not  noticed 
in  the  Old.  These  were,  the  ceremony  of  pouring 
out  some  water  of  the  pool  of  Siloam,  and  the  dis 
play  of  some  great  lights  in  the  court  of  the  women. 

We  are  told  that  each  Israelite,  in  holiday  attire, 
having  made  up  his  lulab,  before  he  broke  his  fast 
(Fagius  in  Lev.  xxiii.),  repaired  to  the  Temple  with 
the  lulab  in  one  hand  and  the  citron  in  the  other, 
at  the  time  of  the  ordinary  morning  sacrifice. 
The  parts  of  the  victim  were  laid  upon  the  altar. 
One  of  the  priests  fetched  some  water  in  a  golden 
ewer  from  the  pool  of  Siloam,  which  he  brought 
into  the  court  through  the  water  gate.  As  he 
entered  the  trumpets  sounded,  and  he  ascended  the 
slope  of  the  altar.  At  the  top  of  this  were  fixed 
two  silver  basins  with  small  openings  at  the  bottom. 
Wine  was  poured  into  that  on  the  eastern  side,  and 
the  water  into  that  on  the  western  side,  whence  it 
was  conducted  by  pipes  into  the  Cedron  (Maimon. 
ap.  Carpzov.  p.  419).  The  hallel  was  then  sung, 
and  when  the  singers  reached  the  first  verse  of  Ps. 
cxviii.  all  the  company  shook  their  lulabs.  This 
gesture  was  repeated  at  the  25th  verse,  and  again 
when  they  sang  the  29th  verse.  The  sacrifices 
which  belonged  to  the  day  of  the  festival  were  then 
offered,  and  special  passages  from  the  Psalms  were 
chanted. 

In  the  evening  (it  would  seem  after  the  day  of 
holy  convocation  with  which  the  festival  had  corn- 


in  the  court  of  the  women,  expressly  to  hold  a 
rejoicing  for  the  drawing  of  the  water  of  Siloam. 
On  this  occasion,  a  degree  of  unrestrained  hilarity 
was  permitted,  such  as  would  have  been  unbecoming 
while  the  ceremony  itself  was  going  on,  in  the 
presence  of  the  altar  and  in  connexion  with  the 
offering  of -the  morning  sacrifice  (Succah,  iv.  9,  v.  1 , 
and  the  passage?  from  the  Gem.  given  by  Lightfoot, 
Temple  Service,  §4). 

At  the  same  time  there  were  set  up  in  the  court 
two  lofty  stands,  each  supporting  four  great  lamps. 
These  were  lighted  on  each  night  of  the  festival. 
It  is  said  that  they  cast  their  light  over  nearly  the 
whole  compass  of  the  city.  The  wicks  were 
furnished  from  the  cast-off  garments  of  the  priests, 
and  the  supply  of  oil  was  kept  up  by  the  sons  t  f 
the  priests.  Many  in  the  assembly  carried  flam- 
beaux.  A  body  of  Levites,  stationed  on  the  /tfteen 
steps  leading  up  to  the  women's  court,  played  in 
struments  of  music,  and  chanted  the  fifteen  psalms 
which  are  called  in  the  A.  V.  Songs  of  Degrees 
(Ps.  cxx.-cxxxiv.).  Singing  and  dancing  were 
afterwards  continued  for  some  time.  The  same 
ceremonies  in  the  day,  and  the  same  joyous  meeting 
in  the  evening,  were  renewed  on  each  of  the  seven 
days. 

It  appears  to  be  generally  admitted  that  the 
words  of  our  Saviour  (John  vii.  37,  38) — "  If  any 
man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink.  He 
that  believeth  on  me,  as  the  Scripture  hath  said, 
out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of  living  water  " — 
were  suggested  by  the  pouring  out  of  the  water  ot 
Siloam.  The  Jews  seem  to  have  regarded  the  rite 
as  symbolical  of  the  water  miraculously  supplied  to 
their  fathers  from  the  rock  at  Meribah.  But  they 
also  gave  to  it  a  more  strictly  spiritual  significa 
tion,  in  accordance  with  the  use  to  which  our  Lord 
appears  to  turn  it.  Maimonides  (note  in  Succah} 
applies  to  it  the  very  passage  which  appeai-s  to 
be  referred  to  by  our  Lord  (Is.  xii.  3) — "  There 
fore  with  joy  shall  ye  draw  water  out  of  the  wells 
of  salvation."  The  two  meanings  are  of  course 
perfectly  harmonious,  as  is  shown  by  the  use  which 
St.  Paul  makes  of  the  historical  fact  (1  Cor.  x.  4) 
— "they  drank  of  that  spiritual  rock  that  followed 
them :  and  that  rock  was  Christ." 

But  it  is  very  doubtful  what  is  meant  by  "  the 
last  day,  that  great  day  of  the  feast."  It  would 
seem  that  either  the  last  day  of  the  feast  itself, 
that  is  the  seventh,  or  the  last  day  of  the  religious 
observances  of  the  series  of  anmuirl  festivals,  the 
eighth,  must  be  intended.  But  there  seems  to 
have  been  nothing,  according  to  ancient  testimony, 
to  distinguish  the  seventh,  as  a  great  day,  com 
pared  with  the  other  days ;  it  was  decidedly  in 
ferior,  in  not  being  a  day  of  holy  convocation, 
and  in  its  number  of  sacrifices,  to  the  first  day.k 


e  The  notion  of  Munster,  Godwin,  and  others,  that  the 
eighth  day  was  called  "  the  day  of  palms,"  is  utterly 
without  foundation.  No  trace  of  such  a  designation  is 
found  in  any  Jewish  writer.  It  probably  resulted  from  a 
theory  that  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  must,  like  the  Pass 
over  and  Pentecost,  have  a  festival  to  answer  to  it  in  the 
calendar  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  that  "  the  day  of 
palms  "  passed  into  Palm  Sunday. 

f  A  story  is  told  of  Agrippa  that  when  he  was  once 
performing  this  ceremony,  as  he  came  to  the  words  "  thou 
may'st  not  set  a  stranger  over  thee  which  is  not  thy 
brother,"  the  thought  of  his  foreign  blood  occurred  to 
him,  and  he  was  affected  to  tears.  But  the  bystanders 
e.noouragort  him,  crying  out  "  Fear  not,  Agrippa  !  Thou 


art  our  brother."    Lightfoot,  T.  S.  c.  xvii. 

g  Dean  Alford  considers  that  there  may  be  a  reference 
to  the  public  reading  of  the  Law  at  the  Feast  of  Taber 
nacles,  John  vii.  19—"  Did  not  Moses  give  you  the  law? 
and  yet  none  of  you  keepeth  the  law  " — even  if  that  year 
was  not  the  Sabbatical  year,  and  the  observance  did  no* 
actually  take  place  at  the  time. 

h  But  Buxtorf,  who  contends  that  St.  John  speaks  of  tht 
seventh  day,  says  that  the  modern  Jews  of  his  time  called 
that  day  "  the  Great  Hosanna,"  and  distinguished  it  by  a 
greater  attention  than  usua  to  their  personal  appearance, 
and  by  performing  certain  peculiar  rites  in  the  synagogue 
(Sj/n.  Jud.  xxi.) 


TABERNACLES,  THE  FEAST  OF 


1423 


On  the  other  hand,  it  is  nearly  certain  that  the 
ceremony  of  touring  out  the  water  did  not  take 
place  on  the  eighth  day,1  though  the  day  might 
have  been,  by  ».n  easy  licence,  called  the  great  day 
of  the  feast  (2  Mace.  x.  6;  Joseph.  Ant.  iii.  10,  §4; 
Philo,  De  Sept.  §24).  Dean  Alford  reasonably 
supposes  that  the  eighth  day  may  be  meant,  and 
that  the  reference  of  our  Lord  was  to  an  ordinary 
and  well-known  observance  of  the  feast,  though  it 
was  not,  at  the  very  time,  going  on. 

We  must  resort  to  some  such  explanation,  if  we 
adopt  the  notion  that  our  Lord's  words  (John  viii. 
12)—"  I  am  the  light  of  the  world  " — refer  to  the 
great  lamps  of  the  festival.  The  suggestion  must 
have  arisen  in  the  same  way,  or  else  from  the 
apparatus  for  lighting  not  being  removed,  although 
the  festival  had  come  to  an  end.  It  should,  how 
ever,  be  remarked  that  Bengel,  Stier,  and  some 
others,  think  that  the  words  refer  to  the  light  of 
morning  which  was  then  dawning.  The  view  that 
may  be  taken  of  the  genuineness  of  John  viii.  1-11 
will  modify  tha  probability  of  the  latter  interpre 
tation. 

IV.  There  are  many  directions  given  in  the 
Mishna  for  the  dimensions  and  construction  of  the 
huts.  They  were  not  to  be  lower  than  teM  palms, 
nor  higher  than  twenty  cubits.  They  were  to  stand 
by  themselves,  and  not  to  rest  on  any  external  sup 
port,  nor  to  be  under  the  shelter  of  a  larger  building, 
or  of  a  tree.  They  were  not  to  be  covered  with 
skins  or  cloth  of  any  kind,  but  only  with  boughs, 
or,  in  part,  with  reed  mats  or  laths.  They  were 
to  be  constructed  expressly  for  the  festival,  out  of 
new  materials  Their  forms  might  vary  in  accord 
ance  with  the  taste  of  the  owners.k  According  to 
some  authorities,  the  Israelites  dwelt  in  them  during 
the  whole  period  of  the  festival  (Sifri,  in  Reland), 
but  others  said  it  was  sufficient  if  they  ate  fourteen 
meals  in  them,  that  is,  two  on  each  day  (Succah, 
ii.  6).  Persons  engaged  in  religious  service,  the  sick, 
nurses,  women,  slaves,  and  minors,  were  excepted 
altogether  from  the  obligation  of  dwelling  in  them, 
and  some  indulgence  appears  to  have  been  given 
to  all  in  very  tempestuous  weather  (Succah,  i.  ii. ; 
Miinster  on  Lev.  xxiii.  40 ;  Buxt.  Syn.  Jud.  c. 
xxi.). 

The  furniture  of  the  huts  was  to  be,  according  to 
most  authorities,  of  the  plainest  description.  There 
was  to  be  nothing  which  was  not  fairly  necessary. 
It  would  seem,  however,  that  there  was  no  strict 
rule  on  this  point,  and  that  there  was  a  consider 
able  difference  according  to  the  habits  or  circum 
stances  of  the  occupant m  (Carpzov,  p.  415  ;  Buxt. 
Syn.  Jud.  p.  451). 

It  is  said  that  the  altar  was  adorned  throughout 
the  seven  days  with  sprigs  of  willows,  one  of  which 
each  Israelite  who  came  into  the  court  brought 
with  him.  The  great  number  of  the  sacrifices  has 
been  already  noticed.'  The  number  of  public  vic 
tims  offered  on  the  first  day  exceeded  those  of  any 
day  in  the  yea-r  (Menach.  xiii.  5).  But  besides 
these,  the  Chagigahs  or  private  peace-offerings 
[PASSOVER,  ii.  3,  f.]  were  more  abundant  than  at 
any  other  time  ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
the  whole  of  the  sacrifices  nearly  outnumbered  all 
those  offered  at  the  other  festivals  put  together. 
It  belongs  to  the  character  of  the  feast  that  on  each 

1  R.  Jehuda,  however,  said  that  the  water  was  poured 
out  on  eight  days.  Succdh,  iv.  9,  with  Bartenora's  note. 

«  There  are  some  curious  figures  of  different  forms  of 
huts,  and  of  the  great  lights  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles, 


day  the  trumpets  of  the  Temple  Are  said  to  have 
sounded  twenty-one  times. 

V.  Though  all  the  Hebrew  annual  festivtls  vswe 
seasons  of  rejoicing,  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  was, 
in  this  respect,  distinguished  above  them  all.     The 
huts  and  the  lulabs  must  have  made  a  gay  and 
striking  spectacle  over  the  city  by  day,  and  the 
lamps,  the  flambeaux,  the  music,  and  the  joyous 
gatherings  in  -the  court  of  the  Temple  must  have 
given  a  still  more  festive  character  to  the  night. 
Hence,  it  was  called  by  the  Rabbis  jn,  the  festival. 
vtor  t&x'hi''     There  is  a  proverb  in  Succak  (v.  1), 
"  He  who   has    never   seen    the   rejoicing  at   the 
pouring  out  of  the  water  of  Siloam  has  never  seen 
rejoicing  in  his  life."      Maimonides   says  that  he 
who  failed  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  in  contri 
buting  to  the  public  joy  according  to  his  means, 
incurred  especial   guilt  ^Carpzov,  p.  419).     The 
feast  is  designated  by  Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  4,  §1) 

ayitardTf)  Kal  /J-eyiffTTj,  and  by  Philo,  eoprwv 
Its  thoroughly  festive  nature  is  showr 
in  the  accounts  of  its  observance  in  Josephus  (Ant, 
viii.  4.  §1,  xv.  33),  as  well  as  in  the  accounts  of  its 
celebration  by  Solomon,  Ezra,  and  Judas  Macca 
Daeus.  From  this  fact,  and  its  connexion  with  the 
ngathering  of  the  fruits  of  the  year,  especially  the 
vintage,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  Plutarch  should 
have  likened  it  to  the  Dionysiac  festivals,  calling  i« 
Qvp<ro<popia  and  KpaT-qpocpopia  (Sympos.  iv.).  The 
account  which  he  gives  of  it  is  curious,  but  it  is 
not  much  to  our  purpose  here.  It  contains  about 
as  much  truth  as  the  more  famous  passage  on  the 
Hebrew  nation  in  the  fifth  book  of  the  History  01 
Tacitus. 

VI.  The  main  purposes  of  the  Feast  of  Taber 
nacles  are  plainly  set  forth  (Ex.  xxiii.  16,  and  Lev 
xxiii.  43).     It  was  to  be  at  once  a  thanksgiving 
for  the  harvest,  and  a  commemoration  of  the  timt 
when  the  Israelites  dwelt  in  tents  during  their  pas 
sage  through  the  wilderness.     In  one  of  its  mean 
ings,  it  stands  in  connexion  with  the  Passover,  as 
the  Feast  of  A  bib,  the  month  of  green  ears,  when 
the  first  sheaf  of  barley   was   offered   before   the 
Lord ;  and  with  Pentecost,  as  the  feast  of  harvest, 
when  the  first   loaves  of  the    year   were    waved 
before  the  altar :  in  its  other  meaning,  it  is  related 
to  the  Passover  as  the  great  yearly  memorial  of 
the  deliverance  from  the  destroyer,  and  from  the 
tyranny  of  Egypt.      The  tents  of  the  wilderness 
furnished  a  home  of  freedom  compared  with  the 
house  of  bondage   out   of  which   they  had   been 
brought.      Hence   the  Divine  Word  assigns  as   a 
reason  for  the  command  that  they  should  dwell  in 
huts  during  the  festival,  "  that  your  generations 
may  know  that  I  made  the  children  of  Israel  to 
dwell  In  booths,  when  I  brought  them  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt "  (Lev.  xxiii.  43). 

But .  naturally  connected  with  this  exultation  in 
their  regained  freedom,  was  the  rejoicing  in  the 
more  perfect  fulfilment  of  God's  promise,  in  the 
settlement  of  His  people  in  the  Holy  Land.  Hence 
the  festival  became  an  expression  of  thanksgiving 
for  the  rest  and  blessing  of  a  settled  abode,  and, 
as  connected  with  it,  for  the  regular  annual  cul 
tivation  of  the  ground,  with  the  storing  up  o: 
the  corn  and  the  wine  and  the  oil,  by  which  the 
prosperity  of  the  nation  was  promoted  and  the  fetir 


in  Surenhusius'  Mishna,  vol.  ii. 

m  There  is  a  lively  description  of  some  of  the  huts  uses 
by  the  Jews  in  modern  times  in  La  Vie  Juive  en  Alt-.ax 
p.  170,  &c. 


1424  TABERNACLES,  THE  FEAST  OF 

•A  famine  put  into  a  remoter  distance.  Thus  the 
agricultural  and  the  historical  ideas  of  the  feast 
became  essentially  connected  with  ea?h  other. 

But  besides  this,  Philo  saw  in  this  feast  a  witness 
for  the  original  equality  of  all  the  members  of  the 
chosen  race.  All,  during  the  week,  poor  and  rich,  the 
inhabitant  alike  of  the  palace  or  the  hovel,  lived  in 
huts  which,  in  strictness,  were  to  be  of  the  plainest 
and  most  ordinary  materials  and  construction.0 
From  this  point  of  view  the  Israelite  would  be 
reminded  with  still  greater  edification  of  the  perilous 
and  toilsome  march  of  his  forefathers  through  the 
desert,  when  the  nation  seemed  to  be  more  imme 
diately  dependent  on  God  for  food,  shelter  and  pro 
tection,  while  the  completed  harvest  stored  up  for 
the  coming  winter  set  before  him  the  benefits  he  had 
derived  from  the  possession  of  the  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey  which  had  been  of  old  pro 
mised  to  his  race. 

But  the  culminating  point  of  this  blessing  was 
the  establishment  of  the  central  spot  of  the  national 
worship  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  Hence  it  was 
evidently  fitting  that  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles 
should  be  kept  with  an  unwonted  degree  of  obser 
vance  at  the  dedication  of  Solomon's  Temple  (1  K. 
viii.  2,  65 ;  Joseph.  Ant.  viii.  4,  §5),  again,  after 
the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  by  Ezra  (Neh.  viii. 
13-18),  and  a  third  time  by  Judas  Maccabaeus 
when  he  had  driven  out  the  Syrians  and  restored 
the  Temple  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah  (2  Mace. 
x.  5-8). 

The  origin  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  is  by  some 
connected  with  Succoth,  the  first  halting-place  of 
the  Israelites  on  their  march  out  of  Egypt;  and  the 
huts  are  taken  not  to  commemorate  the  tents  in  the 
wilderness,  but  the  leafy  booths  {succotk}  in  which 
they  lodged  for  the  last  time  before  they  entered  the 
desert.  The  feast  would  thus  call  to  mind  the 
transition  from  settled  to  nomadic  life  (Stanley, 
Sinai  and  Palestine,  Appendix,  §89). 

Carpzov,  A  pp.  Grit.  p.  414;  Bahr,  Symbulik,  ii. 
624  ;  Buxt.  Syn.  Jud.  c.  xxi. ;  Keland,  Ant.  iv.  5  ; 
Lightfoot,  Temple  Service,  xvi.  and  Exercit.  in 
Joan.  vii.  2,  37  ;  Otho,  Lex.  Rob.  230  ;  the  treatise 
Succah,  in  the  Mishna,  with  Surenhusius'  Notes  ; 
Hupfeld,  De  Fest.  Hebr.  pt.  ii.  Of  the  monographs 
on  the  subject  the  most  important  appear  to  be, 
lkenius,Z>e  Libatione  Aquae  in  Fest.  Tab.;  Groddek, 
De  Ceremonia  Palmarum  in  Fest.  Tab.  (in  Ugolini, 
vol.  xviii.),  with  the  Notes  of  Dachs  on  Succah,  in 
the  Jerusalem  Gemara.  [S.  C.] 

TAB'ITHA  (To/3i0a:  Tabitha),  also  called 
Dorcas  (Aop/cos)  by  St.  Luke:  a  female  disciple  of 
Joppa,  "  full  of  good  works,"  among  which  that  of 
making  clothes  for  the  poor  is  specifically  men 
tioned.  While  St.  Peter  was  at  the  neighbouring 
town  of  Lydda,  Tabitha  died,  upon  which  the  disci 
ples  at  Joppa  sent  an  urgent  message  to  the  Apostle, 


TABOR 

begging  him  to  come  to  them  wit  lout  delay.  It  h 
not  quite  evident  from  the  narrative  whether  thoy 
looked  for  any  exercise  of  miraculous  power  on  Ins 
part,  or  whether  they  simply  wished  for  Christian 
consolation  under  what  they  regarded  as  the  common 
calamity  of  their  Church;  but  the  miracle  recently 
performed  on  Eneas  (Acts  ix.  34),  and  the  expression 
in  ver.  38  (5ie,\0e?i/  eo>s  7]u.dv},  lead  to  the  former 
supposition.  Upon  his  arrival  Peter  foui  *  *:.e  de 
ceased  already  prepared  for  burial,  and  laid  tut  in  aE 
•ipper  chamber,  where  she  was  surrounded  by  the 
recipients  and  the  tokens  of  her  chanty.  After  the 
example  of  our  Saviour  in  the  house  of  Jairus 
(Matt.  ix.  25;  Mark  v.  40),  "  Peter  put  them  all 
forth,"  prayed  for  the  Divine  assistance,  and  then 
commanded  Tabitha  to  arise  (comp.  Mark  v.  41  ; 
Luke  viii.  54).  She  opened  her  eyes  and  sat  up, 
and  then,  assisted  by  the  Apostle,  rose  from  hei 
couch.  This  great  miracle,  as  we  are  further  told, 
produced  an  extraordinary  effect  in  Joppa,  and  was 
the  occasion  of  many  conversions  there  (Acts  ix. 
36-42). 

The  name  of  "  Tabitha"  (KJV2P)  is  the  Aramaic 
form  answering  to  the  Hebrew  il^V,  a  "  female 
gazelle,"  the  gazelle  being  regarded  in  the  East, 
among  both  Jews  and  Arabs,  as  a  standard  oi 
beauty, — indeed,  the  word  ^1¥  properly  means 
"  beauty."  St.  Luke  gives  "  Dorcas  "  as  the 
Greek  equivalent  of  the  name.  Similarly  we 
find  dopKas  as  the  LXX.  rendering  of  MJ¥  in 
Deut.  xii.  15,  22  ;  2  Sam.  ii.  18  ;  Prov.  vi.  5.'  It 
has  been  inferred  from  the  occurrence  of  the  two 
names,  that  Tabitha  was  a  Hellenist  (see  Whitby 
in  loc.}.  This,  however,  does  not  follow,  even  if 
we  suppose  that  the  two  names  were  actually  borne 
by  her,  as  it  would  seem  to  have  been  the  prac 
tice  even  of  the  Hebrew  Jews  at  this  period  to 
have  a  Gentile  name  in  addition  to  their  Jewish 
name.  But  it  is  by  no  means  clear  from  the  lan 
guage  of  St.  Luke  that  Tabitha  actually  bore  the 
name  of  Dorcas.  All  he  tells  us  is  that  the  nam.? 
of  Tabitha  means  "  gazelle  "  (Sop/cos),  and,  for  tho 
benefit  of  his  Gentile  readers,  he  afterwards  speak 
of  her  by  the  Greek  equivalent.  At  the  same  time 
it  is  very  possible  that  she  may  have  been  known 
by  both  names  ;  and  we  learn  from  Josephus  (J5.  J. 
iv.  3,  §5)  that  the  name  of  Dorcas  was  not  un 
known  in  Palestine.  Among  the  Greeks,  also,  as  we 
gather  from  Lucret.  iv.  1154,  it  was  a  term  of  en 
dearment.  Other  examples  of  the  use  of  the  namt 
will  be  found  in  Wetstein,  in  loc.  [W.  B.  J.] 

TA'BOR  and  MOUNT  » TABOR  (ibjR  in, 
probably  =  height,  as  in  Simonis'  Onomasticon, 
p.  300:  Taiepdp,  opos  0a)3cfy>,  ©aflofy,  but  rb 
'Irafivpiov  in  Jer.  and  Hosea,  and  in  Josephus,  who 
has  also  'Arapftvpiov:  Tkabor),  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  remarkable  of  the  single  rnoun- 


»  Some  Jewish  authorities  and  others  connect  with  this 
the  fact  that  in  the  month  Tisri  the  weather  becomes 
rather  cold,  and  hence  there  was  a  degree  of  self-denial,  at 
least  for  the  rich,  in  dwelling  in  huts  (Jos.  Ant.  lii.  10,  $  4 ; 
Buxt  Syn.  Jud.  p.  447  ;  Kel.  Ant.  iv.  5).  They  see  in 
this  a  reason  why  the  commemoration  of  the  journey 
through  the  desert  should  have  been  fixed  at  this  season 
of  the  year.  The  notion  seems,  however,  not  to  be  in 
keeping  with  the  general  character  of  the  feast,  the  time 
of  which  appears  to  have  beei  determined  entirely  on 
agricultural  grcund.  Hence  the  appropriateness  of  the 
language  of  the  prophet,  Zech.  xiv.  16,  17  ;  comp.  Exod. 
j-slii.  16;  Deut  x  rt.  13-17.  As  little  worthy  of  more 


than  a  passing  notice  is  the  connecting  the  fall  of  Jericho 
with  the  Festival  (Godwyn,  p.  72 ;  Keland,  iv.  5),  and  of 
tte  seventy  bullocks  offered  during  the  seven  days  being 
a  symbol  of  the  seventy  Geutile  nations  (Reland,  iv.  5 ; 
Bochart,  Phaleg,  i.  15).  But  of  somewhat  more  interest 
is  the  older  notion  found  in  Onkelos,  that  the  shade  of  the 
branches  represented  the  cloud  by  day  which  sheltered 
the  Israelites.  He  renders  the  words  in  Lev.  xxiii.  43— 
"  that  I  made  the  children  of  Israel  to  dwell  under  the 
shadow  of  a  cloud." 

I  »  The  full  form  occurs  in  Judg.  iv.  6,  12,  14  ;  that  of 
Tnbor  only  in  Josh.  xix.  22;  Judg.  viii.  18  ;  Ps. 

!  12  ;  Jer  xivi  18;   Hos.  v.  1. 


TABOR. 


- 


\ievt  of  Mount  Tabor  Irom  the  S.W..  Iroui  a  sketch  taken  in  1S42  by  W.  Tipping,  Esq.,  and  engraved  by  hi»  permission. 


tains  in  Paler-tine.  It  was  a  Rabbinic  saying  (and 
shows  the  Jewish  estimate  of  the  attractions  of 
the  locality)  that  the  Temple  ought  of  right  10 
have  been  built  here,  but  was  required  by  an 
oxpress  revelation  to  be  erected  on  Mount  Moriah. 
It  rises  abruptly  from  the  north-eastern  arm  of 
the  Plain  of  Ksdraelon,  and  stands  entirely  insu 
lated,  except  on  the  west,  where  a  narrow  ridge 
connects  it  with  the  hills  of  Nazareth.  It  pre 
sents  to  the  eye,  as  seen  from  a  distance,  a 
beautiful  appearance,  being  so  symmetrical  in  its 
proportions,  and  rounded  off  like  a  hemisphere  or 
the  segment  of  a  circle,  yet  varying  somewhat 
as  viewed  from  different  directions.  The  body  of 
the  mountain  consists  of  the  peculiar  limestone  of 
the  country.  It  is  studded  with  a  comparatively 
dense  forest  of  oaks,  pistacias,  and  other  trees  and 
bushes,  with  the  exception  of  an  occasional  opening 
on  the  sides  and  a  small  uneven  tract  on  the 
summit.  The  coverts  afford  at  present  a  shelter 
for  wolves,  wild  boars,  lynxes,  and  various  rep 
tiles.  Its  height  is  estimated  at  1000  feet,  but 
may  be  somewhat  less  rather  than  more.  Its  an 
cient  name,  as  already  suggested,  indicates  its  ele 
vation,  though  it  does  not  rise  much,  if  at  all, 
above  some  of  the  other  summits  in  the  vicinity. 
It  is  now  called  Jebel  et-  Tur.  It  lies  about  six 
or  eight  miles  almost  due  east  from  Nazare*.h. 
The  writer,  in  returning  to  that  village  towards 
the  close  of  the  day  (May  3rd,  1852).  found 
the  sun  as  it  went  down  in  the  west  shining 
directly  in  his  face,  with  hardly  any  deviation  to 
the  right  hand  or  the  left  by  a  single  turn  of  the 
path.  The  ascent  is  usually  made  on  the  west  side, 
near  the  little  village  of  Deburieh,  probably  the 
ancient  Daberath  (Josh.  xix.  12),  though  it  can 
be  made  with  entire  ease  in  other  places.  It 
requires  three-quarters  of  an  hour  or  an  hour  to 
reach  the  top  The  path  is  circuitous  and  at 
times  steep,  but  not  so  much  so  as  to  render  it 

VOL.  Ill 


difficult  to  ride  the  entire  way.  The  trees  and 
bushes  are  generally  so  thick  as  to  intercept  the 
prospect;  but  now  and  then  the  traveller  as  he 
ascends  comes  to  an  open  spot  which  reveals  tc 
him  a  magnificent  view  of  the  plain.  One  of  the 
most  pleasing  aspects  of  the  landscape,  as  seen 
from  such  points,  in  the  season  of  the  early  har 
vest,  is  that  presented  in  the  diversified  appearance 
of  the  fields.  The  different  plots  of  ground  exhibit 
various  colours,  according  to  the  state  of  culti 
vation  at  the  time.  Some  of  them  are  red,  where 
the  land  has  been  newly  ploughed  up,  owing  to 
the  natural  properties  of  the  soil ;  others  yellow 
or  white,  where  the  harvest  is  beginning  to  ripen 
or  is  already  ripe ;  and  others  green,  being  covered 
with  grass  or  springing  grain.  As  they  are  con 
tiguous  to  each  other,  or  intermixed,  these  parti 
coloured  plots  present,  as  looked  down  upon  from 
above,  an  appearance  of  gay  checkered  work  which 
is  singularly  beautiful.  The  top  of  Tabor  consists 
of  an  irregular  platform,  embracing  a  circuit  of 
half-an-hour's  walk  and  commanding  wide  view* 
of  the  subjacent  plain  from  end  to  end.  A  copious 
dew  falls  here  during  the  warm  months.  Travel 
lers  who  have  spent  the  night  there  have  found 
their  tents  as  wet  in  the  morning  as  if  they  had 
been  drenched  with  rain. 

It  is  the  universal  judgment  of  those  who  have 
stood  on  the  spot  that  the  panorama  spread  befor» 
them  as  they  look  from  Tabor  includes  as  great  a 
variety  of  objects  of  natural  beauty  and  of  sacred 
and  historic  interest  as  any  one  to  be  seen  from 
any  position  in  the  Holy  Land.  On  the  east  the 
waters  of  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  not  less  than  fifteen 
miles  distant,  are  seen  glittering  through  the 
clear  atmosphere  in  the  deep  bed  where  they 
repose  so  quietly.  Though  but  a  small  portion  ot 
the  surface  of  the  lake  can  be  distinguished,  the 
entire  outline  of  its  basin  can  be  traced  on  every 
side.  In  the  same  direction  the  eye  follows  the 

4  Y 


1426 


TABOR 


course  of  the  Jordan  for  many  miles;  while  still 
further  east  it  rests  upon  a  boundless  perspective 
of  hills  and  valleys,  embracing  the  modern  Haurdn, 
and  further  south  the  mountains  of  the  ancient 
Gilead  and  Bashan.  The  dark  line  which  skirts 
the  horizon  on  the  west  is  the  Mediterranean  ; 
the  rich  plains  of  Galilee  fill  up  the  intermediate 
spara  as  far  as  the  foot  of  Tabor.  The  ridge  of 
Carmel  lifts  its  head  in  the  north-west,  though 
the  portion  which  lies  directly  on  the  sea  is  not 
distinctly  visible.  On  the  north  and  north-east 
we  behold  the  last  ranges  of  Lebanon  as  they 
rise  into  the  hills  about  Safed,  overtopped  in  the 
reai-  by  the  snow-capped  Hermon,  and  still  nearer 
to  us  the  Horns  of  Hattin,  the  reputed  Mount  of 
the  Beatitudes.  On  the  south  are  seen,  first  the 
summits  of  Gilboa,  which  David's  touching  elegy 
on  Saul  and  Jonathan  has  fixed  for  ever  in  the 
memory  of  mankind,  and  further  onward  a  con 
fused  view  of  the  mountains  and  valleys  which 
occupy  the  central  part  of  Palestine.  Over  the 
heads  of  Duhy  and  Gilboa  the  spectator  looks  into 
the  valley  of  the  Jordan  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Beisan  (itself  not  within  sight),  the  ancient  Beth- 
<hean,  on  whose  walls  the  Philistines  hung  up 
the  headless  trunk  of  Saul,  after  their  victory  over 
Israel.  Looking  across  a  branch  of  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon,  we  behold  Endor,  the  abode  of  the 
•sorceress  whom  the  king  consulted  on  the  night 
before  his  fatal  battle.  Another  little  village 
clings  to  the  hill-side  of  another  ridge,  on  which 
we  gaze  with  still  deeper  interest.  It  is  Nain, 
the  village  of  that  name  in  the  New  Testament, 
where  the  Saviour  touched  the  bier,  and  restored 
to  life  the  widow's  son.  The  Saviour  must  have 
passed  often  at  the  foot  of  this  mount  in  the  course 
of  his  journeys  in  different  parts  of  Galilee.  It 
is  not  surprising  that  the  Hebrews  looked  up  with 
so  much  admiration  to  this  glorious  work  of  the 
Creator's  hand.  The  same  beauty  rests  upon  its 
orow  to-day,  the  same  richness  of  verdure  refreshes 
the  eye,  in  contrast  with  the  bleaker  aspect  of  so 
many  of  the  adjacent  mountains.  The  Christian 
traveller  yields  spontaneously  to  the  impression  of 
wonder  and  devotion,  and  appropriates  as  his  own 
the  language  of  the  psalmist  (Ixxxix.  11,  12)  : — 
"  The  heavens  are  thine,  the  earth  also  is  lliine; 

The  world  and  the  fulness  thereof,  thou  hast  founded 
them. 

The  north  and  the  south  thou  hast  created  them ; 

Tabor  and  Hermon  shall  rejoice  in  thy  name." 

Tabor  does  not  occur  in  the  New  Testament,  but 
makes  a  prominent  figure  in  the  Old.  The  Book 
of  Joshua  (xix.  22)  mentions  it  as  the  boundary 
between  Issacharand  Zebulon  (see  ver.  12).  Barak, 
at  the  command  of  Deborah,  assembled  his  forces 
on  Tabor,  and,  on  the  arrival  of  the  opportune 
moment,  descended  thence  with  "  ten  thousand 
men  after  him "  into  the  plain,  and  conquered 
Sisera  on  the  banks  of  the  Kishon  (Judg.  iv.  6-15). 
The  brothers  of  Gideon,  each  of  whom  "  re 
sembled  the  children  of  a  king,"  were  murdered 
here  by  Zebah  and  Zalmunna  (Judg.  viii.  18,  19). 
Some  writers,  after  Herder  and  others,  think  that 
Tabor  is  intended  when  it  is  said  of  Issachar  and 


b  Professor  Stanley,  in  his  Notices  of  Localities  visited 
i<nth  tfi£  Prince  of  Wales,  has  mentioned  some  particulars 
attached  to  the  modern  history  of  Tabor  which  appear  to 
have  escaped  former  travellers.  "  The  fortress,  of  which 
tiie  ruins  crown  the  summit,  had  evidently  four  gateways, 
like  those  by  which  the  great  Roman  camps  of  our  own 


TABOR 

Zebulon  in  Deut.  xxxiii.  19,  that  "  they  shall  call  , 
the  people  unto  the  mountain ;  th  ;*re  they  shall 
offer  sacrifices  of  righteousness."  Stanley,  who 
holds  this  view  (Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  351), 
remarks  that  he  was  struck  with  the  aspect  of 
the  open  glades  on  the  summit  as  specially  fitted 
for  the  convocation  of  festive  assemblies,  and  could 
well  believe  that  in  some  remote  age  it  may  have 
been  a  sanctuary  of  the  northern  tribes,  if  not  of 
the  whole  nation.  The  prophet  in  Hos.  v.  1, 
reproaches  the  priests  and  royal  family  with  having 
"  been  a  snare  on  Mizpah  and  a  net  spread  upon 
Tabor."  The  charge  against  them  probably  is 
that  they  had  set  up  idols  and  practised  heathenish 
rites  on  the  high  places  which  were  usually 
selected  for  such  worship.  The  comparison  in  Jer. 
xlvi.  18,  "As  Tabor  is  among  the  mountains  and 
Carmel  by  the  sea,"  imports  apparently  that  those 
heights  were  proverbial  for  their  conspicuousness, 
beauty,  and  strength. 

Dr.  Robinson  (Researches,  ii.  353)  has  thus 
described  the  ruins  which  are  to  be  seen  at  present 
on  the  summit  of  Tabor.  "  All  around  the  top  are 
the  foundations  of  a  thick  wall  built  of  large 
stones,  some  of  which  are  bevelled,  shoving  that 
the  entire  wall  was  perhaps  originally  of  that  cha 
racter.  In  several  parts  are  the  remains  of  towers 
and  bastions.  The  chief  remains  are  upon  the 
ledge  of  rocks  on  the  south  of  the  little  basin,  and 
especially  towards  its  eastern  end ;  here  are — in 
indiscriminate  confusion  —  walls,  and  arches,  and 
foundations,  apparently  of  dwelling-houses,  as  well 
as  other  buildings,  some  of  hewn,  and  some  of 
large  bevelled  stones.  The  walls  and  traces  of  a 
fortress  are  seen  here,  and  further  west  along  the 
southern  brow,  of  which  one  tall  pointed  arch  of  a 
Saracenic  gateway  is  still  standing,  and  bears  the 
name  of  Bab  el-Hawa,  '  Gate  of  the  Wind.'  Con 
nected  with  it  are  loopholes,  and  others  are  seen 
near  by.  These  latter  fortifications  bel®ng  to  the 
era  of  the  Crusades ;  but  the  large  bevelled  stones 
we  refer  to  a  style  of  architecture  not  later  than 
the  times  of  tne  Romans,  before  which  period, 
indeed,  a  town  and  fortress  already  existed  on 
Mount  Tabor.  In  the  days  of  the  crusaders,  too, 
and  earlier,  there  were  here  churches  and  monaste 
ries.  The  summit  has  many  cisterns,  now  mostly 
dry."  The  same  writer  found  the  thermometer 
here,  10  A.M.  (June  18th),  at  98°  F.,  at  sunrise  at 
64°,  and  at  sunset  at  74°.  The  Latin  Christians 
have  now  an  altar  here,  at  which  their  priests  from 
Nazareth  perform  an  annual  mass.  The  Greeks 
also  have  a  chapel,  where,  on  certain  festivals,  they 
assemble  for  the  celebration  of  religious  rites.b 

Most  travellers  who  have  visited  Tabor  in  recent 
times  have  found  it  utterly  solitary  so  far  as 
regards  the  presence  of  human  occupants.  It  hap 
pened  to  the  writer  on  his  visit  here  to  meet, 
unexpectedly,  with  four  men  who  had  taken  up 
their  abode  in  this  retreat,  so  well  suited  to 
encourage  the  devotion  of  religious  devotees.  One 
of  them  was  an  aged  priest  of  the  Greek  Church, 
a  native  of  Wallachia,  named  Erinna,  according  to 
his  own  account  more  than  a  hundred  years  old, 
who  had  come  here  to  await  the  final  advent  of 


country  were  entered.  By  one  of  these  gateways  my 
attention  was  called  to  an  Arabic  inscription,  said  to  be 
the  only  one  on  the  mcuntain."  It  records  the  building 
or  rebuilding  cf  "this  blessed  fortress"  by  the  order  oi 
the  Sultan  Abu  Bekr  on  his  return  from  the  East  A.H 


TABOR 

Christ.  His  story  was  an  interesting  one.  In  his  I 
early  years  "  he  received  an  intimation  in  his  sleep 
that  he  was  to  build  a  church  on  a  mountain  shown 
to  him  in  his  dream.  He  wandered  through  many 
countries,  and  found  his  mountain  at  last  in  Tabor. 
There  he  lived,  and  collected  money  from  pilgrims, 
which  at  his  death,  a  few  years  ago,  amounted  to 
a  sufficient  sum  to  raise  the  church,  which  is 
approaching  completion.  He  was  remarkable  for 
his  long  beard  and  for  a  tame  panther,  which,  like 
the  ancient  hermits,  he  made  his  constant  com 
panion "  (Stanley,  Localities,  191-2).  He  was  a 
man  of  huge  physical  proportions,  and  stood  forth 
as  a  good  witness  for  the  efficacy  of  the  diet  of  milk 
and  herbs,  on  which,  according  to  his  own  account, 
he  subsisted.  The  other  three  men  were  natives 
of  the  same  province.  Two  of  them,  having  been 
to  Jerusalem  and  the  Jordan  on  a  pilgrimage,  had 
taken  Tabor  in  their  way  on  their  return  home 
ward,  where,  finding  unexpectedly  the  priest, 
whom  they  happened  to  know,  they  resolved  to 
remain  with  him  for  a  time.  One  of  them  was 
deliberating  whether  he  should  not  take  up  his 
permanent  abode  there.  The  fourth  person  was 
a  young  man,  a  relative  of  the  priest,  who  seemed 
to  have  taken  on  himself  the  filial  office  of  caring 
for  his  aged  friend  in  the  last  extremity.  In  the 
monastic  ages  Tabor,  in  consequence,  partly,  of  a 
belief  that  it  was  the  scene  of  the  Saviour's  trans 
figuration,  was  crowded  with  hermits.  It  was  one 
of  the  shrines  from  the  earliest  period  which 
pilgrims  to  the  Holy  Land  regarded  it  as  a  sacred 
duty  to  honour  with  their  presence  and  their 
prayers.  Jerome,  in  his  Itinerary  of  Paula,  writes, 
"  Scandebat  montem  Thabor,  in  quo  transriguratus 
est  Dominus;  aspiciebat  procul  Hermon  et  Her- 
monim  et  campos  latissimos  Galilaeae  (Jesreel),  in 
quibus  Sisara  prostratus  est.  Torrens  Cison  qui 
mediam  planitiem  dividebat,  et  oppidum  juxta, 
Nairn,  monstrabantur." 

This  idea  that  our  Saviour  was  transfigured  on 
Tabor  prevailed  extensively  among  the  early  Chris 
tians,  who  adopted  legends  of  this  nature,  and 
reappears  often  still  in  popular  religious  works. 
If  one  might  choose  a  place  which  he  would  deem 
peculiarly  fitting  for  so  sublime  a  transaction,  there 
is  none  certainly  which  would  so  entirely  satisfy 
our  feelings  in  this  respect  as  the  lofty,  majestic, 
beautiful  Tabor.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to 
acquiesce  in  the  correctness  of  this  opinion.  It  is 
susceptible  of  proof  from  the  Old  Testament,  and 
trom  later  history,  that  a  fortress  or  town  existed 
on  Tabor  from  very  early  times  down  to  B.C.  50 
or  53 ;  and,  as  Josephus  says  (Bell.  Jud.  iv.  1,  §8) 
that  he  strengthened  the  fortifications  of  a  city 
there,  about  A.D.  60,  it  is  morally  certain  that 
Tabor  must  have  been  inhabited  during  the  inter 
vening  period,  that  is,  in  the  days  of  Christ. 
Tabor,  therefore,  could  not  have  been  the  Mount 
of  Transfiguration ;  for  when  it  is  said  that  Jesus 
took  his  disciples  "  up  into  a  high  mountain  apart 
and  was  transfigured  before  them"  (Matt.  xvii.  1,  2), 
we  must  understand  that  He  brought  them  to  the 
summit  of  the  mountain,  where  they  were  alone 
by  themselves  (/car*  tStW).  It  is  impossible  to 
ascertain  with  certainty  what  place  is  entitled  to 
the  glory  of  this  marvellous  scene.  The  evan 
gelists  record  the  event  in  connexion  with  a  journey 
of  the  Saviour  to  Caesarea  Philippi,  near  the 
sources  of  the  Jordan.  It  is  conjectured  that  the 
Transfiguration  may  have  taken  place  on  one  of  the 
summits  of  Mount  Hermon  in  that  vicinity.  See 


TACHE 


Hitter's  Erdkunr"?,  xv.  394  sq.  ;  »nc. 
stein's  Leben  Jesu,  p.  309.  For  the  history  oi 
the  tradition  which  connects  Tabor  v^'th  th? 
TransfiguratioH,  consult  Robinson's  Rcsearcnes,  ii. 
358,  9.  [H.  B.  H,J 

TA'BOK  (inn  :  0axxe'«  5  Alex-  ©a£«p  : 
Thabor)  is  mentioned  in  the  lists  of  1  Chr.  vi.  as  ? 
city  of  the  Merarite  Levites,  in  the  tribe  of  Ze- 
bulun  (ver.  77).  The  catalogue  of  Levitical  cities 
in  Josh.  xxi.  does  not  contain  any  name  answering 
to  this  (comp.  vers.  34,  35-).  But  the  list  of  the 
towns  of  Zebulun  (Ib.  xix.)  contains  the  name  of 
CHISLOTH-TABOR  (ver.  12).  It  is  therefore,  pos 
sible,  either  that  Chisloth-Tabor  is  abbreviated  into 
Tabor  by  the  chronicler,  or  that  by  the  time  these 
later  lists  were  compiled,  the  Merarites  had  esta 
blished  themselves  on  the  sacred  mountain,  and  that 
Tabor  is  Mount  Tabor.  [G.] 

TA'BOR,  THE  PLAIN  OP  (nbPl  jft«  : 
T]  Spvs  0oj8c6p:  quercus  Thabor}.  It  has  been 
already  pointed  out  [see  PLAIN,  p.  8906],  that 
this  is  an  incorrect  translation,  and  should  be  THE 
OAK  OF  TABOR.  It  is  mentioned  in  1  Sam.  x.  3, 
only  as  one  of  the  points  in  the  homeward  journey 
of  Saul  after  his  anointing  by  Samuel.  It  was  the 
next  stage  in  the  journey  after  "  Rachel's  sepulchre 
at  Zelzach."  But  unfortunately,  like  so  many  of 
the  other  spots  named  in  this  interesting  passage, 
the  position  of  the  Oak  of  Tabor  has  not  yet  been 
fixed. 

Ewald  seems  to  consider  it  certain  (gewiss)  that 
Tabor  and  Deborah  are  merely  different  modes  of 
pronouncing  the  same  name,  and  he  accordingly 
identifies  the  oak  of  Tabor  with  the  tree  under 
which  Deborah,  Rachel's  nurse,  was  buried  (Gen. 
xxxv.  8),. and  that  again  with  the  palm,  under  which 
Deborah  the  prophetess  delivered  her  oracles  (Gesc/i. 
iii.  29,  i.  390,  ii.  489),  and  this  again  with  the 
Oak  of  the  old  Puophet  near  Bethel  (ib.  iii. 
444).  But  this,  though  most  ingenious,  can  only 
be  received  as  a  conjecture,  and  the  position  on 
wnich  it  would  land  us — "between  Ramah  and 
Bethel "  ( Judg.  iv.  5),  is  too  far  from  Rachel's  se 
pulchre  to  fall  in  with  the  conditions  of  the  nar 
rative  of  Saul's  journey,  as  long  as  we  hold  that  to 
be  the  traditional  sepulchre  near  Bethlehem.  A 
further  opportunity  for  examining  this  most  puz 
zling  route  will  occur  under  ZELZAH  ;  but  the 
writer  is  not  sanguine  enough  to  hope  that  any 
light  can  be  thrown  on  it  in  the  present  state  of 
our  knowledge.  [G.] 

TABEET.     [TIMBREL.] 

TAB'KIMON  (Jfemp  :  Taj8epe/i«  ;  Alex.  Ta- 
fisvpa-rifjLd  :  Tabremon).  Properly.  Tabrimmon,  i.  e. 
:t  good  is'Rimmon,"  the  Syrian  god;  compare  the 
analogous  forms  Tobiel,  Tobiah,  and  the  Phoenician 
Tab-aram  (Gesen.  Man.  Phoen.  456).  The  father  of 
Benhadad  I.,  king  of  Svria  in  the  reign  of  Asa 
(1  K.  xv.  18). 

TACHB(D^i?:  /cpuco?:  circulus,  fibula).  The 
wo,'d  thus  rendered  occurs  only  in  the  description 
of  i,he  structure  of  the  tabernacle  and  its  fittings 
(Eju  xxvi.  6,  11,  33,  xxxv.  11,  xxxvi.  13,  xxxix. 
33),  and  appears  to  indicate  the  small  hooks  by 
which  a  curtain  is  suspended  to  the  rings  from 
which  it  hangs,  or  connected  vertically,  as  in  thi 
case  of  the  veil  of  the  Holy  of  Holies,  with  the 
loops  of  another  curtain.  The  history  of  the  Englhl 

4  Y  2 


1428 


TACHMONITF,  THE 


word  is  philologically  interesting,  as  presenting 
points  of  contact  with  many  different  languages. 
The  Gaelic  and  Br»ton  branches  of  the  Keltic  family 
give  tac,  or  tach,  in  the  sense  of  a  nail  or  hook. 
The  latter  meaning  appears  in  the  attaccare,  stac- 
care,  of  Italian,  in  the  attacker,  detacher,  of  French. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  the  tak  of  Dutch,  and  the 
Zacke  of  German,  we  have  a  word  of  like  sound  and 
kindred  meaning.  Our  Anglo-Saxon  taccan  and  Emr . 
lish  take  (to  seize  as  with  a  hook  ?)  are  probably 
connected  with  it.  In  later  use  the  word  has  slightly 
altered  both  its  form  and  meaning,  and  the  tack  is 
no  longer  a  hook,  but  a  small  flat-headed  nail  (comp. 
Diez,  Roman.  Worterb.  s.  v.  Tacco).  [E.  H.  P.] 

TACH'MONITE,  THE  (»3b3rV) :  &  Xaj/«- 
ycuos :  sapientissimus).  "  The  Tachmonite  (pro 
perly,  Tachcemonite)  that  sat  in  the  seat,"  chief 
among  David's  captains  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  8),  is  in 
1  Chr.  xi.  1 1  called  "  Jashobeam  an  Hachmonite," 
or,  as  the  margin  gives  it,  "  son  of  Hachmoni." 
The  Geneva  version  has  in  2  Sam.  xxiii.  8,  "  He 
that  sate  in  the  seate  of  wisedome,  being  chiefe  of 
the  princes,  was  Adino  of  Ezni,"  regarding  "  Tach- 
raonite  "  as  an  adjective  derived  from  D3H,  chdcdm. 

"  wise,"  and  in  this  derivation  following  Kimchi. 
Kennicott  has  shown,  with  much  appearance  of  pro 
bability,  that  the  words  H3^2  2B»,  yosheb  bas- 

shebeth,  "  he  that  sat  in  the  seat,"  are  a  corruption 
of  Jashobeam,  the  true  name  of  the  hero,  and  that 
the  mistake  arose  from  an  error  of  the  transcriber, 
who  carelessly  inserted  J"Q^2  from  the  previous 

verse  where  it  occurs.  He  further  considers  "  the 
Tachmonite"  a  corruption  of  the  appellation  in 
Chronicles,  "  son  of  Hachmoni,"  which  was  the 
family  or  local  name  of  Jashobeam.  ' '  The  name  here 
in  Samuel  was  at  first  ^DDHn,  the  article  H  at 
the  beginning  having  been  corrupted  into  a  Tl ;  for 
the  word  p  in  Chronicles  is  regularly  supplied  in 
Samuel  by  that  article"  (Dissert,  p.  82).  There 
fore  he  concludes  "  Jashobeam  the  Hachmonite  "  to 
have  been  the  true  reading.  Josephus  (Ant.  vii. 
12,  §4)  calls  him  'leWajuos  vibs  'Axe/tatou,  which 
favours  Kennicott 's  emendation.  [W.  A.  W.] 

TADMOR  Oblfi  :  0oe5>op :  Palmira),  called 
"  Tadmor  in  the  wilderness "  (2  Chr.  viii.  4). 
There  is  ro  reasonable  doubt  that  this  city,  said  to 
have  been  built  by  Solomon,  is  the  same  as  the 
one  known  to  tb.3  Greeks  and  Romans  and  to 
modern  Europe  by  the  name,  in  some  form  or 
other,  of  Palmyra  (Ua\iJ.vpd,  Ua\fj.ipd,  Palmira). 
The  identity  of  the  two  cities  results  from  the 
following  circumstances :  1st,  The  same  city  is  spe 
cially  mentioned  by  Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  6,  §1)  as 
bearing  ir.  his  time  the  name  of  Tadmor  among  the 
Syrians,  nd  Palmyra  among  the  Greeks ;  and  in 
his  Latin  translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  Jerome 
translates  Tadmor  by  Palmira  (2  Chr.  viii.  4). 
2ndly,  The  modem  Arabic  name  of  Palmyra  is 
substantially  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  word,  being 
Tadmur  or  Tathmur.  3rdly,  The  word  Tadmor 
has  nearly  the  same  meaning  as  Palmyra,  signifying 
pi-obably  the  "  City  of  Palms,"  from  Tamar,  a  Palm ; 
and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  Arabic  word  for  Palma, 
a  Spanish  town  on  the  Guadalquivir,  which  is  said 
to  be  called  Tadmir  (see  Gesenius  in  his  Thesaurus, 
p.  345).  4thly,  The  name  Tadmor  or  Tadmor 
actually  occurs  as  the  name  of  the  city  in  Aramaic 
and  Greek  inscriptions  which  have  been  found 
there,  •''•thly,  In  the  Chronicles,  the  city  is  men- 


TADMOR 

tioned  as  having  been  built  by  Solomon  after  his 
conquest  of  Hamath  Zobah,  and  it  is  named  in  con 
junction  with  ''all  the  store-cities  which  he  builc 
in  Hamath."  This  accords  fully  with  the  situation 
of  Palmyra^HAMATH] ;  and  there  is  no  other  known 
city,  either  in  the  desert  or  not  in  the  desert,  which 
can  lay  claim  to  the  name  of  Tadmor. 

In  addition  to  the  passage  in  the  Chronicles,  there 
is  a  passage  in  the  Book  of  Kings  (1  K.  ix.  18)  in 
which,  according  to  the  marginal  reading  (Keri),  the 
statement  that  Solomon  built  Tadmor,  likewise 
occurs.  But  on  referring  to  the  original  text 
(Cethib},  the  word  is  found  to  be  not  Tadmor, 
but  Tamar.  Now,  as  all  the  other  towns  men 
tioned  in  this  passage  with  Tamar  are  in  Palestine 
(Gezer,  Beth-horon,  Baalath),  as  it  is  said  of 
Tamar  that  it  was  "  in  the  wilderness  in  the  land," 
and  as,  in  Ezekiel's  prophetical  description  of  the 
Holy  Land,  there  is  a  Tamar  mentioned  as  one  of 
the  borders  of  the  land  on  the  south  (Ez.  xlvii. 
19),  where,  as  is  notorious,  there  is  a  desert,  it  is 
probable  that  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Kings  did 
not  really  mean  to  refer  to  Palmyra,  and  that  the 
marginal  reading  of"  Tadmor  "  was  founded  on  the 
passage  in  the  Chronicles  (see  Thenius,  Exegetisches 
Handbuch,  1  K.  ix.  18). 

If  this  is  admitted,  the  suspicion  naturally  sug 
gests  itself,  that  the  compiler  of  the  Chronicles  may 
have  misapprehended  the  original  passage  in  the 
Book  of  Kings,  and  may  have  incorrectly  written 
"Tadmor"  instead  of '''Tamar."  On  this  hypothesis 
there  would  have  been  a  curious  circle  of  mistakes ; 
and  the  final  result  wotld  be,  that  any  supposed 
connexion  between  Solomon  and  the  foundation  of 
Palmyra  must  be  regarded  as  purely  imaginary. 
This  conclusion  is  not  necessarily  incorrect  or  un 
reasonable,  but  there  are  not  sufficient  reasons  for 
adopting  it.  In  the  first  place,  the  Tadmor  ol 
the  Chronicles  is  not  mentioned  in  connexion  with 
the  same  cities  as  the  Tamar  of  the  Kings,  so  there 
is  nothing  cogent  to  suggest  the  inference  that  the 
statement  of  the  Chronicles  was  copied  from  the 
Kings.  Secondly,  admitting  the  historical  correct 
ness  of  the  statement  that  the  kingdom  of  Solomon 
extended  from  Gaza,  near  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  to 
Tiphsah  or  Thapsacus,  on  the  Euphrates  (1  K.  iv. 
24;  comp.  Ps.  Ixxii.  8,  9),  it  would  be  in  the 
highest  degree  probable  that  Solomon  occupied  and 
garrisoned  such  a  very  important  station  for  con 
necting  different  parts  of  his  dominions  as  Palmyra. 
And,  even  without  reference  to  military  and  political 
considerations,  it  would  have  been  a  masterly  po 
licy  in  Solomon  to  have  secured  Palmyra  as  a  point 
of  commercial  communication  with  the  Euphrates, 
Babylon,  and  the  Persian  Gulf.  It  is  evident  that 
Solomon  had  large  views  of  commerce ;  and  as  we 
know  that  he  availed  himself  of  the  nautical  skill 
of  the  Tyrians  by  causing  some  of  his  own  sub 
jects  to  accompany  them  in  distant  voyages  from  a 
port  on  the  Red  Sea  (1  K.  ix.  26,  27,  28,  x.  22), 
it  is  unlikely  that  he  should  have  neglected  trade 
by  land  with  such  a  centre  of  wealth  and  civiliza 
tion  as  Babylon.  But  that  great  city,  though  so 
nearly  in  the  same  latitude  with  Jerusalem  that 
there  is  not  the  difference  of  even  one  degree  be 
tween  them,  was  separated  from  Jerusalem  by  a 
great  desert,  so  that  regular  direct  communication 
between  the  two  cities  was  impracticable.  In 
a  celebrated  passage,  indeed,  of  Isaiah  (xl.  3),  con 
nected  with  "  the  voice  of  him  that  crieth  ir. 
the  wilderness,"  images  are  introduced  of  a  direct 
return  of  the  Jewish  exiles  from  Babylon  through 


TAUMOR 

Vhe  Jesert.  Such  a  route  was  known  to  the 
Bedawm  of  the  desert;  and  may  have  been  excep 
tionally  passed  ov«v.  by  others ;  but  evidently  these 
images  are  only  poetical,  and  it  may  be  deemed 
indisputable  that  the  successive  caravans  of  Jews 
wno  returned  to  their  own  land  from  Babylon 
R7-rived  from  the  same  quarter  as  Nebuchadnezzar 
and  the  Chaldaeans  (Jer.  i.  14,  15,  x.  22,  xxv.  9), 
viz.,  from  the  North.  In  fact,  Babylon  thus  be 
came  so  associated  with  the  North  in  the  minds  of 
the  Jews,  that  in  one  passage  of  Jeremiah*  (xxiii.  8) 
it  is  called  "  the  North  country,"  and  it  is  by  no 
means  impossible  that  many  of  the  Jews  may  have 
been  ignorant  that  Babylon  was  nearly  due  east 
from  Jerusalem,  although  somewhat  more  than 
600  miles  distant.  Now,  the  way  in  which  Pal 
myra  would  have  been  useful  to  Solomon  in  trade 
between  Babylon  and  the  west  is  evident  from  a 
glance  at  a  good  map.  By  merely  following  the 
road  up  the  stream  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Euphrates,  the  traveller  goes  in  a  north-westerly 
direction,  and  the  width  of  the  desert  becomes  pro 
portionally  less,  till  at  length,  from  a  point  on  the 
Euphrates,  there  are  only  about  120  miles  across 
the  desert  to  Palmyra,1*  and  thence  about  the  same 
distance  across  the  desert  to  Damascus.  From 
Damascus  there  were  ultimately  two  roads  into 
Palestine,  one  on  each  side  of  the  Jordan ;  and 
there  was  an  easy  communication  with  Tyre  by 
Paneias,  or  Caesarea  Philippi,  now  Banias.  It  is 
true  that  the  Assyrian  and  Chaldee  armies  did  not 
cross  the  desert  by  Palmyra,  but  took  the  more  cir 
cuitous  road  by  Hamath  on  the  Orontes:  but  this 
was  doubtless  owing  to  the  greater  facilities  which 
that  route  afforded  for  the  subsistence  of  the  cavalry 
of  which  those  armies  were  mainly  composed.  For 
mere  purposes  of  trade,  the  shorter  road  by  Pal 
myra  had  some  decided  advantages,  as  long  as  it 
was  thoroughly  secure.  See  Movers,  Das  Phoniz- 
ische  Alterthum,  3ter  Thei>,  p.  243,  &c. 

Hence  there  are  not  sufficiently  valid  reasons  for 
.denying  the  statement  in  the  Chronicles  that  Solo 
mon  built  Tadmor  in  the  wilderness,  or  Palmyra. 
As,  however,  the  city  is  nowhere  else  mentioned 
in  the  whole  Bible,  it  would  be  out  of  place  to 
enter  into  a  long,  detailed  history  of  it  on  the 
present  occasion.  The  following  leading  facts,  how 
ever,  may  be  mentioned.  The  first  author  of  anti 
quity  who  mentions  Palmyra  is  Pliny  the  Elder 
(Hist.  Nat.  v.  26),  who  says,  "  Palmira  nobilis 
urbs  situ,  divitiis  soli  et  aquis  amoenis  vasto  undique 
ambitu  arenis  includit  agros  ;  "  and  then  proceeds 
to  speak  of  it  as  placed  apart,  as  it  were  between 
the  two  empires  of  the  Romans  and  the  Parthians, 
and  as  the  first  object  of  solicitude  to  each  at  the 
commencement  of  war.  Afterwai'ds  it  was  men 
tioned  by  Appian  (De  Bell.  Civil,  v.  9),  in  refer 
ence  to  a  still  earlier  period  of  time,  in  connection 
with  a  design  of  Mark  Antony  to  let  his  cavalry 
plunder  it.  The  inhabitants  are  said  to  have 
withdrawn  themselves  and  their  effects  to  a  strong 
position  on  the  Euphrates — and  the  cavalry  entered 
an  empty  city.  In  the  second  century  A.D. 
it  seems  to  have  been  beautified  by  the  Emperor 
Hadrian,  as  may  be  inferred  from  a  statement  of 


TADMOR 


1429 


I  Stephanus  of  Byzantium  as  to  the  name  of  the  city 
I  having  been  changed  to  Hadrianopolis  (s.  u.  IlaA- 
fjLvpd).  In  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  A.D. 
it  became  a  Roman  colony  under  Caracalla  (211- 
217  A.D.),  and  received  the  jus  Italicum.  Subse 
quently,  in  the  reign  of  Gallienus,  the  Roman 
Senate  invested  Odenathus,  a  senator  of  lalmyra, 
with  the  regal  dignity,  on  account  of  his  services  in 
defeating  Sapor  king  of  Persia.  On  the  assassination 
of  Odenathus,  his  celebrated  wife  Zenobia  seems  to 
have  conceived  the  design  of  erecting  Palmyra  into 
an  independent  monarchy ;  and,  in  prosecution  of 
this  object,  she,  for  a  while,  successfully  resisted  the 
Roman  arms.  She  was  at  length  defeated  and  taken 
captive  by  the  Emperor  Aurelian  (A.D.  273),  who 
left  a  Roman  garrison  in  Palmyra.  This  garrison 
was  massacred  in  a  revolt ;  and  Aurelian  punished 
the  city  by  the  execution  not  only  of  those  who 
were  taken  in  arms,  but  likewise  of  common  pea 
sants,  of  old  men,  women,  and  children.  From  this 
blow  Palmyra  never  recovered,  though  there  are 
proofs  of  its  having  continued  to  be  inhabited  until 
the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  There  is  a 
fragment  of  a  building,  with  a  Latin  inscription, 
bearing  the  name  of  Diocletian  ;  and  there  arc 
existing  walls  of  the  city  of  the  age  of  the  Em 
peror  Justinian.  In  .1172,  Benjamin  of  Tudeb 
found  4000  Jews  there;  and  at  a  later  period 
Abulfeda  mentioned  it  as  full  of  splendid  ruins. 
Subsequently  its  very  existence  had  become  un 
known  to  modern  Europe,  when,  in  1691  A.D.,  it 
was  visited  by  some  merchants  from  the  English 
factory  in  Aleppo;  and  an  account  of  their  dis 
coveries  was  published  in  169 5,  in  the  Philosophical 
Transactions  (vol.  xix.  No.  217,  p.  83,  No.  218, 
p.  129).  In  1751,  Robert  Wood  took  drawings 
of  the  ruins  on  a  very  large  scale,  which  he 
published  in  1753,  in  a  splendid  folio  work,  under 
the  title  of  The  Ruins  of  Palmyra,  otherwiSi> 
Tadmor  in  the  Desert.  This  work  still  continue* 
to  be  the  best  on  Palmyra;  and  its  valuable  en 
gravings  fully  justify  the  powerful  impression  which 
the  ruins  make  on  every  intelligent  traveller  who 
crosses  the  desert  to  visit  them.  The  colonnade 
and  individual  temples  are  inferior  in  beauty  and 
majesty  to  those  which  may  be  seen  elsewhere — • 
such,  for  example,  as  the  Parthenon,  and  the  re 
mains  of  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  at  Athens :  and 
there  is  evidently  no  one  temple  equal  to  the  Temple 
of  the  Sun  at  Baalbek,  which,  as  built  both  at  about 
the  same  period  of  time  and  in  the  same  order  of 
architecture,  suggests  itself  most  naturally  as  an 
object  of  comparison.  But  the  long  lines  of 
Corinthian  columns  at  Palmyra,  as  seen  at  a  dis 
tance,  are  peculiarly  imposing ;  and  in  their  geneial 
effect  and  apparent  vastness,  they  seem  to  surpass 
all  other  ruins  of  the  same  kind.  All  the  buildings 
to  which  these  columns  belonged  were  probably 
erected  in  the  second  and  third  centuries  of  our 
aera.  Many  inscriptions  are  of  later  date ;  but 
no  inscription  earlier  than  the  second  century  seems 
yet  to  have  been  discovered. 

For  further  information  consult  the  original  au 
thorities  for  the  history  of  Palmyra  in  the  Scriptores 
Historiae  Augustae,  Triginta  Tyranni,  xiv.,  Divus 


»  A  misunderstanding  of  this  passage  has  counte 
nanced  the  ideas  of  those  who  believe  in  a  future  second 
return  of  the  Jews  to  Palestine.  This  belief  may,  under 
peculiarly  favourable  circumstances,  lead  hereafter  to  its 
own  realization.  It  has  not,  however,  been  hitherto 
really  proved  that  a  second  dispersion  or  a  second  return 
of  the  Jews  was  ever  contemplated  by  any  Hebrew 


prophet. 

The  exact  latitude  and  longitude  of  Palmyra  do  not 
seem  to  have  been  scientifically  taken.  Mr.  Wood  men 
tions  that  his  party  had  no  quadrant  with  them,  and 
there  is  a  disagreement  between  various  maps  and  Red- 
graphical  works.  According  to  Mr.  Johnston,  the  positlou 
is,  lat.  34°  18'  N.,  and  long.  38°  13'  E. 


1430 


TAHAN 


TAHPANHES 


Aurelianus,  xxvi. ;  Eutropius,  ix.  cap.  10,  11,  12.  |  history    of  the    city;    and   Gibbon,    in    the   llth 


In  1696  A.D.,  Abraham  Seller  published  a  most 
instructive  work  entitled,  The  Antiquities  of  Pal 
myra,  containing  th,  History  of  the  Mty  and  its 
Emperors,  which  contains  several  Crock  inscrip 
tions,  with  translations  and  explanations.  The 
Preface  to  Wood's  work  likewise  contains  a  detailed 


chapter  of  the  Decline  and  Fall,  has  given  an 
account  of  Palmy  i\  with  his  usual  vigour  and 
accuracy.  For  an  interesting  account  of  the  pre 
sent  state  of  the  ruins  see  Porter's  Handbook  for 
Syria  and  Palestine,  pp.  543-549,  and  Beaufort's 


Egyptian  Sepulclires,  &c.  i. 


[E.  T.I 


Kolas  of  Taamor  or  I  sumyia. 


TA'HAN  (]nn:  Tavdx,  ©aev.  Thehen, 
Thaan).  A  descendant  of  Ephraim,  but  of  what 
degree  is  uncertain  (Num.  xxvi.  35).  In  1  Chr. 
vii.  25  he  appears  as  the  son  of  Telah. 


TA'HANITES,  THE 


:    &  TavaXi  : 


Thehenitae}.     The  descendants  of  the  preceding,  a 
branch  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  (Num.  xxvi.  35). 


TA'HATH 


:  0ad0:   Thahath).      1.  A 


Kohathite  Levite,  ancestor  of  Samuel  and  Heman 
(1  Chr.  vi.  24,  37  [9,  22]). 

2.  (0ae£5;  Alex.  0ad».)  According  to  the  pre 
sent   text,    son    of    Bered,    and    great-grandson    of 
Ephraim  (1  Chr.  vii.  20).     Burrington,  however 
(Geneal.  i.  273),  identifies  Tahath  with  Tahan,  the 
son  of  Ephraim. 

3.  (2oa0;  Alex.  No/iee.)  Grandson  of  the  pre 
ceding,  as  the  text  now  stands  (1  Chr.  vii.  20). 
But  Burrington  considers  him  as  a  son  of  Ephraim 
(ii.  tab.  xix.).     In  this  case  Tahath  was  one  of  the 
sons  of  Ephraim  who  were  slain  by  the  men  of 
Gath  in  a  raid  made  upon  their  cattle. 

TA'HATH  (nnfl:  KaradO).  The  name  of  a 
aesert-station  of  the  Israelites  between  Makheloth 
and  Tarah  (Num.  xxxiii.  26).  The  name,  signifying 
•'  under"  or  "  below/'  may  relate  to  the  level  of 
the  ground.  The  site  lias  not  been  identified. 

Tachta,  from  the  same  root,  is  the  common  word 
employed  to  designate  the  lower  one  of  the  double 
villages  so  common  in  Syria,  the  upper  one  being 
/oka.  Thus  Beitur  el-foka  is  the  upper  Beth-horon, 
Beitur  el-tachta  the  lower  one.  [H.  H.] 

TAH'PANHES,  TEHAPH'NEHES,  TA- 

HAP'ANES  (pmann,  on^rm,  wann,  the 

<ast  form   in   text,   but  Keri  has  first  :    Ta0j>us, 


Tdtyvai:  Taphnis,  Taphne).  A  citj  of  Egypt,  of 
importance  in  the  time  of  the  prophets  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel.  The  name  is  evidently  Egyptian,  and  closely 
resembles  that  of  the  Egyptian  queen  TAHPENES. 

The  Coptic  name  of  this  place,  T"A.c£>It£.Cj 
(Quatremfcre,  Mem.  Geog.  et  Hist.  i.  297,  298),  is 
evidently  derived  from  the  LXX.  form  :  the  Gr. 
and  Lat.  forms,  Ao^rat,  Hdt.,  Aa^i/rj,  Steph.  Byz.. 
Dafno,  Itin.  Ant.,  are  perhaps  nearer  to  the  Egyp 
tian  original  (see  Parthey,  Zur  Erdkunde  des  Alien 
Aegyptens,  p.  528). 

Tahpanhes  was  evidently  a  town  of  Lower  Egypt 
near  or  on  the  eastern  border.  When  Johanan  and 
the  other  captains  went  into  Egypt  "  they  came  t« 
Tahpanhes"  (Jer.  xliii.  7).  Here  Jeremiah  pro 
phesied  the  conquest  of  the  country  by  Nebuchad 
nezzar  (8-13).  Ezekiel  foretells  a  battle  to  be 
there  fought  apparently  by  the  king  of  Babylon 
just  mentioned  (xxx.  18).  The  Jews  in  Jeremiah 'e 
time  remained  here  'vJer.  xliv.  1).  It  was  an  im 
portant  town,  being  twice  mentioned  by  the  latter 
prophet  with  Noph  or  Memphis  (ii.  16,  xlvi.  14), 
as  well  as  in  the  passage  last  previously  cited.  Here 
stood  a  house  of  Pharaoh  Hophra  before  which 
Jeremiah  hid  great  stones,  where  the  throne  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  would  afterwards  be  set,  and  his 
pavilion  spread  (xliii.  8-10).  It  is  mentioned 
with  "  Ramesse  and  all  the  land  of  Gesen  "  in  Jud. 
i.  9.  Herodotus  calls  this  place  Daphnae  of  Pelu- 
sium  (Ad<f>vai  at  rirjAouo-(ot),  and  relates  that 
Psammetichus  I.  here  had  a  garrison  against  the 
Arabians  and  Syrians,  as  at  Elephantine  against 
the  Ethiopians,  and  at  Marea  against  Libya,  adding 
that  in  his  own  time  the  Persians  had  garrisons  at 
Daphnae  and  Elephantine  (ii.  30).  Daphnae  was 
therefore  a  very  important  post  under  the  xxtith 
dynasty.  According  to  Stephanus  it  was  near 
Pelusium  (s.  u.). 


TAHFENES 

In  the  Iti-Mrary  of  Antoninus  this  town,  called 
Dafno,  is  placed  16  Roman  miles  to  the  south-west 
of  Pelusium  (ap.  Parthey,  Map  vi.,  where  observe 
that  thj  name  of  Pelusium  is  omitted).  This  posi- 
lior  seems  to  agree  with  that  of  Tel-Defenneh, 
which  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson  supposes  to  mark  the 
site  of  Daphnae  (Modern  Egypt  and  Thebes,  i.  447, 
448).  This  identification  favours  the  inland  posi 
tion  of  the  site  of  Pelusium,  if  we  may  trust  to  the 
distance  stated  in  the  Itinerary.  [SlN.]  Sir  G. 
Wilkinson  (I.  c.)  thinks  it  was  an  outpost  of 
Pelusium.  It  may  be  observed  that  the  Camps,  T& 
STpaT^TreSa,  the  fixed  garrison  of  lonians  and 
Carians  established  by  Psammetichus  I.,  may  pos 
sibly  have  been  at  Daphnae.  Can  the  name  be 
of  Greek  origin?  If  the  HANES  mentioned  by 
Isaiah  (xxx.  4)  be  the  same  as  Tahpanhes,  as  we 
have  suggested  (s.  t\),  this  conjecture  must  be  dis 
missed.  No  satisfactory  Egyptian  etymology  of  this 

name  has  been  suggested,  Jablonski's  f"J~^4>e- 
GITGP.,  "the  head"  or  "beginning  of  the 
age"  (Opusc.  i.  343),  being  quite  untenable,  nor 
has  any  Egyptian  name  resembling  it  been  dis 
covered."  The  name  of  Queen  TAHPENES  throws 
no  light  upon  this  matter.  [R.  S.  P.] 

TAH'PENES  (D^ann  :  0e/ee/*f»/a:  Taphnes), 
a  proper  name  of  an  Egyptian  queen.  She  was  wife 
of  the  Pharaoh  who  received  Hadad  the  Edomite, 
and  who  gave  him  her  sister  in  marriage  (1  K.  xi. 
18-20).  In  the  LXX.  the  latter  is  called  the  elder 
sister  of  Thekemina,  and  in  the  addition  to  ch.  xii. 
Shishak  (Susakim)  is  said  to  have  given  Ano,  the 
elder  sister  of  Thekemina  his  wife,  to  Jeroboam. 
It  is  obvious  that  this  and  the  earlier  statement 
are  irreconcileable,  even  if  the  evidence  from  the 
probable  repetition  of  an  elder  sister  be  set  aside, 
and  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  the  name 
of  Shishak's  chief  or  only  wife,  KARAAMAT,  does 
not  support  the  LXX.  addition.  [SHISHAK.]  There 
is  therefore  but  one  Tahpenes  or  Thekemina.  At 
the  time  to  which  the  narrative  refers  there  were 
probably  two,  if  not  three,  lines  ruling  in  Egypt, 
the  Tanites  of  the  xxist  dynasty  in  the  lower 
country,  the  high-priest  kings  at  Thebes,  but  pos 
sibly  they  were  of  the  same  line,  and  perhaps  one 
of  the  last  faineants  of  the  Rameses  family.  To 
the  Tanite  line,  as  apparently  then  the  most  power 
ful,  and  as  holding  the  territory  nearest  Palestine, 
the  Pharaoh  in  question,  as  well  as  the  father-in- 
law  of  Solomon,  probably  belonged.  If  Manetho's 
list  be  correct  he  may  be  conjectured  to  have  been 
Psusennes.  [PHAKAOH.]  No  name  that  has  any 
near  resemblance  to  either  Tahpenes  or  Thekemina 
has  yet  been  found  among  those  of  the  period  (see 
Lepsius,  KQnigsbuch},  [R.  S.  P.] 

TAHBE'A  (jnnn:  ®apdx;  Alex.  &apd : 
Thar aa).  Son  of  Micah,  and  grandson  of  Mephi- 
bosheth  (1  Chr.  ix.  41).  In  the  parallel  list  of 
1  Chr.  viii.  35  his  name  appears  as  TAREA. 

TAH'TIM   HOD'SHI,   THE  LAND  OF 

OKnn  D^rinn  yy&  '•  els  rrjv  ®a$a.aSi)v  %  tariv 
Naj8a(rai;  Alex,  yrfv  eOaow  aSatrcu:  terra  inferiora 
Hodsi).  One  of  the  places  visited  by  Joab  during 
his  census  of  the  land  of  Israel.  It  occurs  between 
Gilead  and  Dan-jaan  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  6).  The  name 
has  puzzled  all  the  interpreters.  The  old  versions 


TALMAl 


1431 


*  Dr.  Bragsch,  following  Mr.  Heath  (Exodus  Papyri, 
p.  1T4),  identifies  the  fort  TeBHeT  with  Tahpanhes;  bnt 
tblb  name  does  not  seem  to  us  sufficiently  near  either  to 


throw  no  light  upon  it.  Fiirst  (Handucb.  i.  380) 
proposes  to  separate  the  "  Land  of  the  Tachtim  " 
from  "  Hodshi,"  and  to  read  the  latter  as  Harshi  — 
the  people  of  Harosheth  (comp.  Judg.  iv.  2).  The- 
nius  restores  the  text  of  the  LXX.  to  read  "  the  Land 
of  Bashan,  which  is  Edrei."  This  in  itself  is  feasible, 
although  it  is  certainly  very  difficult  to  connect  it 
with  the  Hebrew.  Ewald  (Gesch.  iii.  207)  proposes 
to  read  Hermon  for  Hodshi;  and  Gesenius  (Tkes. 
450  a)  dismisses  the  passage  with  a  vie  pro  sano 
habendum. 

There  is  a  district  called  the  Ard  et-tahta,  to  the 
E.N.E.  of  Damascus,  which  recalls  the  old  name  — 
but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  any  Israelite  was 
living  so  far  from  the  Holy  Land  in  the  time  of 
David.  [G.] 


TALENT  (")33:    T^avrov.    talentum),  the 

greatest  weight  of  the  Hebrews.  Its  Hebrew  name 
properly  signifies  "  a  circle"  or  "globe,"  and  was 
perhaps  given  to  it  on  account  of  a  form  in  which 
it  was  anciently  made.  The  Assyrian  name  of  the 
talent  is  tikun  according  to  Dr.  Hincks. 

The  subject  of  the  Hebrew  talent  will  be  fully 
discussed  in  a  later  article  [WEIGHTS].     [R.  S.  P.] 


TALI'THA  CU'Ml  (ra\^  Kovp.i: 


Two  Syriac  words  (Mark  v.  41), 
signifying  "  Damsel,  arise." 

The  word  NSJ"I  vtD  occurs  in  the  Chaldee  para 
phrase  of  Prov.  ix.  3,  where  it  signifies  a  girl;  and 
Lightfoot  (Horae  Heb.  Mark  v.  41)  gives  an  in 
stance  of  its  use  in  the  same  sense  by  a  Rabbinical 
writer.  Gesenius  (Thesaurus,  550)  derives  it  from 
the  Hebrew  H^D,  a  lamb.  The  word  *D^p  is  both 
Hebrew  and  Syriac  (2  p.  fern.  Imperative,  Kal,  and 
Peal),  signifying  stand,  arise. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  last  clause  of  this 
verse,  after  Cumij  is  not  found  in  the  Syriac  ver 
sion. 

Jerome  (Ep.  Ivii.  ad  Pammachium,  Opp.  torn.  i. 
p.  308,  ed.  Vallars.)  records  that  St.  Mark  was 
blamed  for  a  false  translation  on  account  of  the 
insertion  of  the  words,  "  I  say  unto  thee  ;"  but 
Jerome  points  to  this  as  an  instance  of  the  superi 
ority  of  a  free  over  a  literal  translation,  inasmuch 
as  the  words  inserted  serve  to  show  the  emphasis  of 
our  Lord's  manner  in  giving  this  command  on  His 
own  personal  authority.  [W.  T.  B.] 

TALMA'J  OE^ft  :  ©eAa^i,  0oAa/zt,  ©oAjJ  ; 

Alex.  ©eAa/ieiV,  ®o\nal,  ©a^ei  :  Tholmai].  1.  One 
of  the  three  sons  of  "  the  Anak,"  who  were  driven 
out  from  their  settlement  in  Kirjath-Arba,  and 
slain  by  the  men  of  Judah,  under  the  command 
of  Caleb  (Num.  xiii.  22  ;  Josh.  xv.  14  ;  Judg. 
i.  10). 

2.  (0oA./u  in  2  Sam.,  ®o\/nat  in  1  Chr.;  Alex. 
®o\iJ.et,  ©oAo^cu,  ©oAjwat:  Tholmal,  Tholomcti.} 
Son  of  Ammihud,  king  of  Geshur  (2  Sam.  iii.  3, 
xiii.  37  ;  1  Chr.  iii.  2).  His  daughter  Maachah 
was  one  of  the  wives  of  David  and  mother  of  Absa 
lom.  He  was  probably  a  petty  chieftain  dependent 
on  David,  and  his  wild  retreat  in  Bashan  afforded  a 
shelter  to  his  grandson  after  the  assassination  oi 
Amnon. 


the  Hebrew  or  to  the  Greek  (Geogr.  Inechr.  I.  SOO,  301 
Taf.  Ivi.  no.  1728). 


TALMON 


L432 

TAL'MON  (jto^Q  :  TeAjMSis  but  TcAajuiV  in 
Neh.  xi.  19;  Alex.  Te\/j.dv,  To\/j.wt>,  TeAo/ietr  : 
Telrnori).  The  head  of  a  family  of  doorkeepers  in 
the  Temple,  "  the  porters  for  the  camps  of  the  sons 
ui  Levi"  (1  Chr.  ix.  17;  Neh.  xi.  19).  Some  of 
his  descendants  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii. 
42;  Neh.  vii.  45),  and  were  employed  in  their 
hereditary  office  in  the  days  of  Nehemiah  and  Ezra 
(Neh.  xii.  25),  for  the  proper  names  in  this  passage 
must  be  considered  as  the  names  of  families. 

TAL'SAS  (2a\6as:  Tkalsas}.  ELASAH  (1  Esd. 


TA'MAH(nOP):  ©Tj/xa;  FA  H^a0:  T/tema). 
The  children  of  Tamah,  or  Thamah  (Ezr.  ii.  53), 
were  among  the  Nethinim  who  returned  with 
Zerubbabel  (Neh.  vii.  55). 

TA'MAB  (IDn  =  «'  palm-tree  ").     The  name 
at  three  women  remarkable  in  the  history  of  Israel. 
1.  (Qdpap :   Thamar).     The  wife  successively  of 
the  two  sous  of  Judah,  ER  and  ONAN  (Gen.  xxxviii. 
6-30).     Her  importance   in   the   sacred  narrative 
depends  on  the  great  anxiety  to  keep  up  the  lineage 
of  Judah.     It  seemed  as  if  the  family  were  on  the 
point  of  extinction.    ER  and  ONAN  had  successively 
perished  suddenly.     Judah 's  wife  Bathshuah  died  ; 
and  there   only  remained  a   child   Shelah,    arhom 
Judah  was  unwilling   to    trust   to  the  dangerous 
union,  as  it  appeared,  with  Tamar,  lest  he  should 
meet  with  the  same  fate  as  his  brothers.     That  he 
should,  however,  many  her  seems  to  have  been  re 
garded  as  part  of  the  fixed  law  of  the  tribe,  whence 
its  incorporation  into  the  Mosaic  Law  in  after  times 
(Deut.  xxv.  5 ;  Matt.  xxii.  24) ;  and,  as  such,  Tamar 
was  determined  not  to  let  the  opportunity  escape 
through   Judah's   parental   anxiety.      Accordingly 
she   resorted   to  the  desperate    expedient    of   en 
trapping  the  father  himself  into  the  union  which 
he  feared  for  his  son.     He,  on  the  first  emergence 
from  his  mourning  for  his  wife,  went  to  one  of 
the  festivals  often  mentioned  in  Jewish  history  as 
attendant  on  sheep-shearing.    He  wore  on  his  finger 
the  ring  of  his  chieftainship ;  he  carried  his  staff  in 
his  hand ;  he  wore  a  collar  or  necklace  round  his 
neck.     He  was  encountered  by  a  veiled  woman  on 
the  road  leading  to  Timnath,  the  future  birthplace 
of  Samson,  amongst  the  hills  of  Dan.     He  took  her 
for  one  of  the  unfortunate  women  who  were  conse 
crated  to  the  impure  rites  of  the  Canaanite  worship, 
[SODOMITES.]     He  promised  her,  as  the  price  oJ 
his  intercourse,  a  kid  from  the  flocks  to  which  he 
was  going,  and  left  as  his  pledge  his  ornaments 
and  his  staff.     The  kid  he  sent  back  by  his  shep 
herd   (LXX.),   Hirah  of  Adullam.      The  woman 
could  nowhere  be  found.      Months  afterwards  it 
was    discovered   to   be  his    own    daughter-in-la\ 
Tamar  who  had  thus  concealed  herself  under  th 
ceil  or  mantle,  which  she  cast  off  on  her  return 
home,  where  she  resumed  the  seclusion  and  dress  o 
a  widow.    She  was  sentcncel  to  be  burnt  alive,  anc 
was    only    saved   by  the   discovery,  through   the 
pledges  which  Judah  h?d  left,  that   her  seducei 
was  no  l°ss  than  the  chieftain  of  the  tribe.     He 
had  the  magucnimity  to  recognise  tha*  she  had  been 
driven  into  this  crime  by  his  own  neglect  of  hi; 
promise  to  give  her  in  marriage  to  his  youngest  son 
"  She  hath  been  more  righteous  than  I .  —  and  hi 
knew  her  again  no  more"  (Gen.  xxxviii.  26);    Th 
fruit  of  this  intercourse  were  twins,  PHAREZ  an< 
ZAKAH,  and  through   Pharez   the  sacred  line  wa 


TAMAR 

continued.  Hence  the  prominence  given  to  Tauiat 
in  the  nuptial  benediction  oi  the  tribe  of  Judal 
(Ruth  iv.  12),  and  in  the  genealogy  of  our  LorA 
(Matt.  i.  3). 

The  story  is  important  (1.)  as  showing  the  sig 
nificance,   from  early  times,  attached  to   the  con- 
inuance  of  the  line  of  Judah ;  (2.)  as  a  glimpse 
nto  the  rough  manners  of  the  patriarchal   time ; 
3.)  as  the  germ  of  a  famous  Mosaic  law. 

2.  (©Tjuap  ;  Alex.  0a,tiap  ;  Joseph.     &afj.dpa  : 
Thamar.}     Daughter  of  David  ?.nd  Maachah  the 
Geshurite  princess,   and    thus   sister   of  Absalom 
2  Sam.  xiii.  1-32  ;  1  Chr.  iii.   9  ;  Joseph.  Ant. 
rii.  8,  §1).     She  and  her  brother  were  alike  re- 
narkable  for  their  extraordinary  beauty.     Her  name 
Palm-tree ")  may  have  been  given  her  on  this 
account.      This    fatal   beauty    inspired   a    frantic 
passion  in  her  half-brother  Arnnon,  the  eldest  son 
>f  David  by  Ahinoam.      He  wasted   away  from 
he   feeling  that  it  was  impossible  to  gratify  his 
desire,    "for   she  was    a    virgin" — the   narrative 
5  it   uncertain   whether   from   a  scruple   on 
lis  part,  or   from  the  seclusion  in  which  in  her 
unmarried  state  she  was  kept.    'Morning  by  morni 
ng,  as  he  received  the  visits  of  his  friend  JONA- 
DAB,  he  is  paler  and  thinner   (Joseph.  Ant.  vii. 
8,  §1).    Jonadab  discovers  the  cause,  and  suggests  to 
lim  the  means  of  accomplishing  his  wicked  pur 
pose.     He  was  to  feign  sickness.     The  king,  whc 
appears  to  have  entertained  a  considerable  affection, 
almost  awe,  for  him,  as  the  eldest  son  (2  Sam.  xiii. 
5,  21 :  LXX.),  came  to  visit  him  ;  and  Amnon  en 
treated  the  presence  of  Tamar,  on  the  pretext  that 
she  alone  could  give  him  food  that  he  would  eat. 
What  follows  is  curious,  as  showing  the  simplicity 
of  the  royal  life.    It  would  almost  seem  that  Tamar 
was  supposed  to  have  a  peculiar  art  of  baking  pa 
latable  cakes.     She  came  to  his  house  (for  each 
prince  appears  to  have  had  a  separate  establishment), 
took  the  dough  and  kneaded  it,  and  then  in  his 
presence  (for  this  was  to  be  a  part  of  his  fancy, 
as  though  there  were  something  exquisite  in  the 
manner  of  her  performing  the  work)  kneaded  it  a 
second  time  into  the  form  of  cakes.    The  name  given 
to  these  cakes  ( lebibah},  "  heart-cakes,"  has  been 
variously  explained  :  "  hollow  cakes  " — "  cakes  with 
some  stimulating  spices"  (like  our  word  cordial} — 
cakes  in  the  shape  of  a  heart  (like  the  Moravian 
geriihrte  herzen,  Thenius,  ad  loc.) — cakes  "  the  de 
light  of  the  heart."     Whatever  it  be,  it  implies 
something  special  and  peculiar.     She  then  took  the 
pan,  in  which  they  had  been  baked,  and  poured 
them  all  out  in  a  heap  before  the  prince.     This 
operation  seems  to  have  gone  on  in  an  outer  room 
on  which  Amnon's  bedchamber  opened.     He  caused 
his  attendants  to  retire— called  her  to  the  inner  room 
and  there  accomplished  his  design.    In  her  touching 
remonstrance  two  points  are  remarkable.   First,  the 
expression  of  the  infamy  of  such  a  crime  "  in  Israel," 
implying  the  loftier  standard  of  morals  that  prevailed, 
as  compared  with  other  countries  at  that  time ;  and, 
secondly,  the  belief  that  even  this  standard  might 
be  overborne  lawfully  by  royal  authority — "  Speak 
to  the  Fiig,  for  he  will  not  withhold  me  from  thee." 
This  expression  has  led  to  much  needless  explanation, 
from  its  contradiction  to  Lev.  xviii.  9,  xx.  17  ;  Deut. 
xxvii.  22  :  as,  e.  gr.,  that,  her  mother  Maachah  not 
being  a  Jewess,  there  was  no  proper  legal  relation 
ship  between   her    and  Amnon;   or  that  she  was 
ignorant  of  the  law  ;  or  that  the  Mosaic  laws  were 
not  then   in   existence  (Thenius,  ad  loc.}.      It    i« 
enough  to  suppose,  what  evidently  her  whole  speec! 


TAMAR 

Uiij/iics,  that  the  king  liad  a  dispensing  power, 
wliicli  was  conceived  to  cover  even  extreme  cases. 

The  brutal  hatred  of  Amnon  succeeding  to  his 
brutal  passion,  and  the  indignation  of  Tamar  at  his 
barbarous  insult,  even  surpassing  her  indignation 
at  his  shameful  outrage,  are  pathetically  and  gra 
phically  told,  and  in  the  narrative  another  glimpse 
is  given  us  of  the  manners  of  the  royal  household. 
The  unmarried  princesses,  it  seems,  were  distin 
guished  by  robes  or  gowns  with  sleeves  (so  the 
LXX.,  Joseph  us,  &c.,  take  the  word  translated  in 
the  A.  V.  "  divers  colours ").  Such  was  the 
dress  worn  by  Tamar  on  the  present  occasion,  and 
when  the  guard  at  Amnon's  door  had  thrust  her 
out  and  closed  the  door  after  her  to  prevent  her  re 
turn,  she,  in  her  agony,  snatched  handfuls  of  ashes 
from  the  ground  and  threw  them  on  her  hair,  then 
tore  off  her  royal  sleeves,  and  clasped  her  bare  hands 
upon  her  head,  and  rushed  to  and  fro  through  the 
streets  screaming  aloud.  In  this  state  she  encoun 
tered  her  brother  Absalom,  who  took  her  to  his 
house,  where  she  remained  as  if  in  a  state  of 
widowhood.  The  king  was  afraid  or  unwilling  to 
interfere  with  the  heir  to  the  throne,  but  she  was 
avenged  by  Absalom,  as  Dinah  had  been  by  Simeon 
and  Levi,  and  out  of  that  vengeance  grew  the  series 
of  calamities  which  darkened  the  close  of  David's 
reign. 

The  story  of  Tamar,  revolting  as  it  is,  has  the 
interest  of  revealing  to  us  the  interior  of  the  royal 
household  beyond  that  of  any  other  incident  of 
those  times.  (1 .)  The  establishments  of  the  princes. 
(2.)  The  simplicity'  of  the  royal  employments. 
(3.}  The  dress  of  the  princesses.  (4.)  The  relation 
of  the  king  to  the  princes  and  to  the  law. 

3.  (07j/i<zp;  Alex.  &a/mdp :  Thamar.}  Daughter 
of  Absalom,  called  probably  after  her  beautiful  aunt, 
and  inheriting  the  beauty  of  both  aunt  and  father 
(2  Sam.  xiv.  7).  She  was  the  sole  survivor  of 
the  house  of  Absalom  ;  and  ultimately,  by  her 
marriage  with  Uriah  of  Gibeah,  became  the  mother 
of  Maachah,  the  future  queen  of  Judah,  or  wife 
of  Abijah  (1  K.  xv.  2),  Maachah  being  called 
after  her  great-grandmother,  as  Tamar  after  her 
aunt.  [A.  P.  S.] 

TA'MAB  (TOJJ :  ©ai/my*  in  both  MSS.  : 
Thamar].  A  spot  on  the  south-eastern  frontier  of 
Judah,  named  in  Ezek.  xlvii.  19,  xlviii.  28  only, 
evidently  called  from  a  palm-tree.  If  not  Hazazon 
Tamar,  the  old  name  of  Engedi,  it  may  be  a  place 
called  Thamar  in  the  Onomasticon  ("  Hazazon 
Tamar"),  a  day's  journey  south  of  Hebron.  The 
Peutinger  Tables  give  Thamar  in  the  same  direc 
tion,  and  Robinson  (B.  R.  ii.  198,  201)  identifies 
the  place  with  the  ruins  of  an  old  fortress  at 
Kurnub.  De  Saulcy  (Narr.  i.  ch.  7)  endeavours 
to  establish  a  connexion  between  Tamar  and  the 
Kalaat  embarrheg,  at  the  mouth  of  the  ravine  of 
that  name  on  the  S.W.  side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  on 
the  ground  (amongst  others)  that  the  names  are 
similar.  But  this,  to  say  the  least,  is  more  than 
doubtful.  [A.  P.  S.] 

TAM'MUZ  (Wfcfln  :  6  ®awov(:  Adonis). 
Properly  "  the  Tammuz,"  the  article  indicating 
that  at  some  time  or  other  the  word  had  been  re 
garded  as  an  appelktive,  though  at  the  time  of  its 


fc  Ez.  xlvii.  19  contains  an  instance  of  the  double 
translation  not  Infrequent  in  the  present  text  of  the 
LXX.,  aw 


TAMMUZ 

occurrence  and  subsequently  it  may  have  beei> 
applied  as  a  proper  name.  As  it  is  found  once  only 
in  the  0.  T.,  and  then  in  a  passage  of  extreme  ob 
scurity,  it  is  not  surprising  that  man)  conjectures 
have  been  formed  concerning  it ;  arJ  as  none  of  the 
opinions  which  have  been  expressed  rise  above  the 
importance  of  conjecture,  it  will  be  the  object  of 
this  article  to  set  them  forth  as  clearly  as  possibltj 
and  to  give  at  least  a  history  of  what  has  been  said 
upon  the  subject. 

In  the  sixth  year  of  the  captivity  of  Jehoiachin , 
in  the  sixth  month  and  on  the  fifth  day  of  the 
month,  the  prophet  Ezekiel  as  he  sat  in  his  house 
surrounded  by  the  elders  of  Judah,  was  transported 
in  spirit  to  the  far  distant  Temple  at  Jerusalem. 
The  hand  of  the  Lord  God  was  upon  him,  and  led 
him  "  to  the  door  of  the  gate  of  the  house  of  Je 
hovah,  which  was  towards  the  north  ;  and  behold 
there  the  women  sitting,  weeping  for  the  Tam 
muz."  Some  translate  the  last  clause  "  causing 
the  Tammuz  to  weep,"  and  the  influence  which  this 
rendering  has  upon  the  interpretation  will  be  seen 
hereafter.  If  T'1?3D  be  a  regularly  formed  Hebrew 
word,  it  must  be  derived  either  from  a  root  fD3 
or  TDPl  (comp.  the  forms  Fl-"J?N,  P3H),  which  is  not 
known  to  exist.  To  remedy  this  defect  Fiirst  (Handwb. 
s.  v.)  invents  a  root,  to  which  he  gives  the  significa 
tion  "  to  be  strong,  mighty,  victorious,"  and  transi 
tively,  "  to  overpower,  annihilate."  It  is  to  be  re 
gretted  that  this  lexicographer  cannot  be  contented  to 
confess  his  ignorance  of  what  is  unknown.  Roediger 
(in  Gesen.  Thes.  s.  v.)  suggests  the  derivation  from  a 
root,  DDD  =  TTE  J  according  to  which  T-IDfi  is  a  con 
traction  of  T'lfJOJn,  and  signifies  a  melting  away, 

dissolution,  departure,  and  so  the  a.<pa.v  iff  fibs  *AS(«j- 
j/tSos,  or  disappearance  of  Adonis,  which  waj 
mourned  by  the  Phoenician  women,  and  after  them 
by  the  Greeks.  But  the  etymology  is  unsound, 
and  is  evidently  contrived  so  as  to  connect  the  name 
Tammuz  with  the  general  tradition  regarding  it. 

The  ancient  versions  supply  us  with  no  help. 
The  LXX.,  the  Targum  of  Jonathan  Ben  Uzziel,  the 
Peshito  Syriac,  and  the  Arabic  in  Walton's  Polyglot, 
merely  reproduce  the  Hebrew  word.  The  Vulgate 
alone  gives  Adonis  as  a  modern  equivalent,  and 
this  rendering  has  been  eagerly  adopted  by  subse 
quent  commentators,  with  but  few  exceptions.  It 
is  at  least  as  old,  therefore,  as  Jerome,  and  the  fact 
of  his  having  adopted  it  shows  that  it  must  have 
embodied  the  most  credible  tradition.  In  his  note 
upon  the  passage  he  adds  that  since,  according  to 
the  Gentile  fable,  Adonis  had  been  slain  in  the  month 
of  June,  the  Syrians  give  the  name  of  Tammuz  to 
this  month,  when  they  celebrate  to  him  an  anni 
versary  solemnity,  in  which  he  is  lamented  by  the 
women  tas  dead,  and  afterwards  coming  to  life  again 
is  celebrated  with  songs  and  praises.  In  another 
passage  (ad  Paulinum,  Op.  i.  p.  102,  ea.  Basil. 
1565)  he  laments  that  Beth'fehem  was  oversha 
dowed  by  a  grove  of  Tammuz,  that  is,  of  Adonis, 
and  that  "  in  the  cave  where  the  infant  Christ  once 
cried,  the  lover  of  Venus  was  bewailed."  Cyril  of 
Alexandria  (in  Oseam,  Op.  iii.  79,  ed.  Paris,  1638), 
and  Theodoret  (in  Ezech.*),  give  the  same  explana 
tion,  and  are  followed  by  the  author  of  the  Chro- 
nicon  Paschale.  The  only  exception  to  this  uni 
formity  is  in  the  Syriac  translation  of  Melito's 
Apology,  edited  by  Dr.  Cureton  in  his  Spicilegium 
Syriacum.  The  date  of  the  translation  is  unknown  ; 
the  original  if  genuine  must  belong  to  the  secouJ 


U34 


TAMMUZ 


century.  The  following  is  a  literal  rendering  of 
the  Syr.ac  :  "  The  sons  of  Phoenicia  worshipped 
Balthi,  the  queen  of  Cyprus.  For  she  loved  Tamuzo 
the  son  of  Cuthar,  the  king  of  the  Phoenicians, 
and  forsook  her  kingdom  and  came  and  dwelt  in 
Gebal,  a  fortress  of  the  Phoenicians.  And  at  that 
time  she  made  all  the  villages  a  subject  to  Cuthar 
the  king.  For  before  Tamuzo  she  had  loved  Ares, 
and  committed  adultery  with  him,  and  Hephaestus 
her  husband  caught  her,  and  was  jealous  of  her. 
And  he  (i.  e.  Ares)  came  and  slew  Tamuzo  on  Leba 
non  while  he  made  a  hunting  among  the  wild  boars  .b 
And  from  that  time  Balthi  remained  in  Gebal,  and 
died  in  the  city  of  Aphaca,  where  Tamuzo  was 
buried  "  (p.  25  of  the  Syriac  text).  We  have  here 
very  clearly  the  Greek  legend  of  Adonis  reproduced 
with  a  simple  change  of  name.  Whether  this 
change  is  due  to  the  translator,  as  is  not  impro 
bable,  or  whether  he  found  "  Tammuz  "  in  the 
original  of  Melito,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Be  this 
as  it  may,  the  tradition  embodied  in  the  passage 
quoted,  is  probably  as  valuable  as  that  in  the  same 
author  which  regards  Serapis  as  the  deification  of 
Joseph.  The  Syriac  lexicographer  Bar  Bahlul 
(10th  cent.),  gives  the  legend  as  it  had  come  down 
to  his  time.  "  Tomuzo  was,  as  they  say,  a  hunter 
shepherd  and  chaser  of  wild  beasts  ;  who  when  Be- 
lathi  loved  him  took  her  away  from  her  husband. 
And  when  her  husband  went  forth  to  seek  her  To 
muzo  slew  him.  And  with  regard  to  Tomuzo  also, 
there  met  him  in  the  desert  a  wild  boar  and  slew 
him.  And  his  father  made  for  him  a  great  lamen 
tation  and  weeping  in  the  month  Tomuz  :  and  Be- 
lathi  his  wife,  she  too  made  a  lamentation  and 
mourning  over  him.  And  this  tradition  was  handed 
down  among  the  heathen  people  during  her  lifetime 
and  after  her  death,  which  same  tradition  the  Jews 
received  with  the  rest  of  the  evil  festivals  of  the 
people,  and  in  fhat  month  Tomuz  used  to  make  for 
him  a  great  feast.  Tomuz  ako  is  the  name  of  one 
of  the  months  of  the  Syrians."  c  In  the  next  cen 
tury  the  legend  assumes  for  the  first  time  a  different 
form  in  the  hands  of  a  Rabbinical  commentator. 
Rabbi  Solomon  Isaaki  (Rashi)  has  the  following 
note  on  the  passage  in  Ezekiel.  "  An  image  which 
the  women  made  hot  in  the  inside,  and  its  eyes 
were  of  lead,  and  they  melted  by  reason  of  the  heat 
of  the  burning  and  it  seemed  as  if  it  wept  ;  and 
they  (the  women)  said,  He  asketh  for  offerings. 

Tammuz  is  a  word  signifying  burning,  as  ^  ?J? 


^r5  ™$.  (Dan-  "i-  19)>  and  rrw  nw  Nj 

(ibid.  ver.  22)."  And  instead  of  rendering  "  weep 
ing  for  the  Tammuz,"  he  gives,  what  appears  to 
be  the  equivalent  in  French,  "  faisantes  pleurer 
r^chauffig."  It  is  clear,,  therefore,  that  Rashi  re 
gards  Tammuz  as  an  appellative,  derived  from  the 
Chaldee  root  NJK,  &zd,  "to  make  hot."  It  is 
equally  clear  that  his  etymology  cannot  be  defended 
for  an  instant.  In  the  12th  century  (A.D.  1161), 
Solomon  ben  Abraham  Parchon  in  his  lexicon,  com 
piled  at  Salerno  from  the  works  of  Jehuda  Chayug, 
And  Abulwalid  Merwau  ben  Gannach,  has  the  fol 
lowing  observations  upon  Tammuz.  "  It  is  the 
likeness  of  a  reptile  which  they  make  upon  the  water, 
and  the  water  is  collected  in  it  and  flows  through 

*  Not  "  Cyprians,"  as  Dr.  Cureton  translates. 
b  Dr.  Cureton's  emendation  of  this  corrupt  passage  seems 
tie  only  one  which  can  be  adopted. 
«  In  this  translation  I  have  followed  the  MS.  of  Bar 


TAMMUZ 

its  holes,  and  it  seems  as  if  it  wept.  But  the- 
month  called  Tammuz  is  Persian,  and  so  are  all  ou; 
months ;  none  of  them  is  from  the  sacred  tongue, 
though  they  are  written  in  the  Scripture  they  are 
Persian ;  but  in  the  sacrei  tongue  the  first  month, 
the  second  month,"  &c.  At  the  close  of  this  cen 
tury  we  meet  for  the  first  time  with  an  entirely 
new  tradition  repeated  by  R.  David  Kimchi,  both 
in  his  Lexicon  and  in  his  Commentary,  from  the 
Moreh  Nebuchim  of  Maimonides.  "  In  the  month 
Tammuz  they  made  a  feast  of  an  idol,  and  the 
women  came  to  gladden  him ;  and  some  say  that  by 
crafty  means  they  caused  the  water  to  come  into 
the  eyes  of  the  idol  which  is  called  Tammuz,  and  it 
wept,  as  if  it  asked  them  to  worship  it.  And  some 
interpret  Tammuz  '  the  burnt  one,'  as  if  from  Dan. 
iii.  19  (see  above), ».  e.  they  wept  over  him  because 
he  was  burnt ;  for  they  used  to  burn  their  sons  and 
their  daughters  in  the  fire,  and  the  women  used  to 
weep  over  them.  .  .  .  But  the  Kab,  the  wise,  the 
great,  our  Rabbi  Moshe  bar  Maimon,  of  blessed  me 
mory,  has  written,  that  it  is  found  written  in  one 
of  the  ancient  idolatrous  books,  that  there  was  a 
man  of  the  idolatrous  prophets,  and  his  name  was 
Tammuz.  And  he  called  to  a  certain  king  and  com 
manded  him  to  serve  the  seven  planets  and  the  twelve 
signs.  And  that  king  put  him  to  a  violent  death, 
and  on  the  night  of  his  death  there  were  gathered 
together  all  the  images  from  the  ends  of  the  earth 
to  the  temple  of  Babel,  to  the  golden  image  which 
was  the  image  of  the  sun.  Now  this  image  was 
suspended  between  heaven  and  earth,  and  it  fell 
down  in  the  midst  of  the  temple,  and  the  images 
likewise  (fell  down)  round  about  it,  and  it  told 
them  what  had  befallen  Tammuz  the  prophet. 
And  the  images  all  of  them  wept  and  lamented  all 
the  night ;  and,  as  it  came  to  pass,  in  the  morning 
all  the  images  flew  away  to  their  own  temples  in 
the  ends  of  the  earth.  And  this  was  to  them  for 
an  everlasting  statute;  at  the  beginning  of  the  firs: 
day  of  the  month  Tammuz  each  year  they  lamented 
and  wept  over  Tammuz.  And  some  interpret  Tam 
muz  as  the  name  of  an  animal,  for  they  used  to 
worship  an  image  which  they  had,  and  the  Targum 
of  (the  passage)  D"K  DN  D"¥  16WB1  (Is.  xxxiv. 

14)  is  j^rnna  pn&n  jnsnjw.  But  in  most 

copies  ptlOn  is  written  with  two  vaws."  The 
book  of  the  ancient  idolaters  from  which  Maimonides 
quotes,  is  the  now  celebrated  work  on  the  Agri 
culture  of  the  Nabatheans,  to  which  reference  will 
be  made  hereafter.  Ben  Melech  gives  no  help,  and 
Abendan^  merely  quotes  the  explanations  given  by 
Rashi  and  Kimchi. 

The  tradition  recorded  by  Jerome,  which  identi 
fies  Tammuz  with  Adonis,  has  been  followed  by 
most  subsequent  commentators :  among  others  by 
Vatablus,  Castellio,  Cornelius  a  Lapide,  Osiander, 
Caspar  Sanctius,  Lavater,  Villalpandus,  Sclden, 
Simonis,  Calmet,  and  in  later  times  by  J.  D. 
Michaelis,  Gesenius,  Ben  Zeb,  Rosenmiiller,  Maurer, 
Ewald,  Havernick,  Hitzig,  and  Movers.  Luther 
and  others  regarded  Tammuz  as  a  name  of  Bacchus. 
That  Tammuz  was  the  Egyptian  Osiris,  and  that 
his  worship  was  introduced  to  Jerusalem  from 
Egypt,  was  held  by  Calvin,  Piscator,  Junius, 
Leusden,  and  Pfeiffer.  This  view  depends  chiefly 

Bahlul  in  the  Cambridge  University  Library,  the  readings 
of  which  seem  preferable  in  many  respects  to  those  in  th« 
extract  furnished  by  Bernstein  to  fbwolsen  (Die  Ssabier 
fcc.  ii.  206). 


TAMMUZ 

upon  a  false  etymology  proposed  by  Kircher,  which 
connects  the  word  Tammuz  with  the  Coptic  tamut, 
to  hide,  and  so  makes  it  signify  the  hidden  or  con 
cealed  one  ;  and  therefore  Osiris,  the  Egyptian  king 
slain  by  Typho,  whose  loss  was  commanded  by  Isis 
to  be  yearly  lamented  in  Egypt.  The  women 
weeping  for  Tammuz  are  in  this  case,  according  to 
Junius,  the  priestesses  of  Isis.  The  Egyptian  origin 
of  the  name  Tammuz  has  also  been  defended  by  a 
reference  to  the  god  Amuz,  mentioned  by  Plutarch 
and  Herodotus,  who  is  identical  with  Osiris.  There 
is  good  reason,  however,  to  believe  that  Amuz  is  a 
mistake  for  Amun.  That  something  corresponding 
to  Tammuz  is  found  in  Egyptian  proper  names,  as 
they  appear  in  Greek,  cannot  be  denied.  To/ucta, 
an  Egyptian,  appears  in  Thucydides(viii.  31)  as  a 
Persian  officer,  in  Xenophon  (Anab,  i.  4,  §2)  as  an 
admiral.  The  Egyptian  pilot  who  heard  the  mys 
terious  voice  bidding  him  proclaim,  "  Great  Pan  is 
dead,"  was  called  Qa.fj.ovs  (Plutarch,  De  Defect. 
Orac.  17).  The  names  of  the  Egyptian  kings, 
Qov/i/iftxns.  Tffywffis,  and  e^vcris,  mentioned  by 
Manetho  (Jos.  c.  Ap.  i.  14,  15),  have  in  turn 
beea  compared  with  Tammuz ;  but  unless  some 
more  certain  evidence  be  brought  forward  than  is 
found  in  these  apparent  resemblances,  there  is  little 
reason  to  conclude  that  the  worship  of  Tammuz 
was  of  Egyptian  origin. 

It  seems  perfectly  clear,  from  what  has  been  said, 
that  the  name  Tammuz  affords  no  clue  to  the 
iden tin' cation  of  the  deity  whom  it  designated.  The 
slight  hint  given  by  the  prophet  of  the  nature  of 
the  worship  and  worshippers  of  Tammuz  has  been 
sufficient  to  connect  them  with  the  yearly  mourn 
ing  for  Adonis  by  the  Syrian  damsels.  Beyond  this 
we  can  attach  no  especial  weight  to  the  explana 
tion  of  Jerome.  It  is  a  conjecture  and  nothing  more, 
and  does  not  appear  to  represent  any  tradition.  All 
that  can  be  said  therefore  is,  that  it  is  not  impos 
sible  that  Tammuz  may  be  a  name  of  Adonis  the 
sun-god,  but  that  there  is  nothing  to  prove  it. 
The  town  of  Byblos  in  Phoenicia  was  the  head 
quarters  of  the  Adonis-worship.d  The  feast  in  his 
honour  was  celebrated  each  year  in  the  temple  oi 
Aphrodite  on  the  Lebanon6  (Lucian,  De  Dea  Syrd, 
§6),  with  rites  partly  sorrowful,  partly  joyful.  The 
Emperor  Julian  was  present  at  Antioch  when  the 
same  festival  was  held  (Amm.  Marc.  xxii.  9,  §13). 
It  lasted  seven  days  (Amm.  Marc.  xx.  1),  the 
period  of  mourning  among  the  Jews  (Ecclus.  xxii 
12;  Gen.  1.  10;  1  Sam.  xxxi.  13;  Jud.  xvi.  24) 
the  Egyptians  (Heliodor.  Aeth.  vii.  11),  and  the 
Syrians  (Lucian,  De  Dea  Syrd,  §52),  and  began 
with  the  disappearance  (o<j>an<r/ids)  of  Adonis 
Then  followed  the  search  (<^T77<m)  made  by  the 
women  after  him.  His  body  was  represented  by  a 
wooden  image  placed  in  the  so-called  "  gardens  oi 
Adonis"  ('ASc^i/iSos  /CTJTTOJ),  which  were  earthenware 
vessels  filled  with  mould,  and  planted  with  wheat, 
barley,  lettuce,  and  fennel.  They  were  exposed  by 
the  women  to  the  heat  of  the  sun,  at  the  house- 
doors  or  in  the  "  Porches  of  Adonis ;"  and  the 
withering  of  the  plants  was  regarded  as  symbolical 
of  the  slaughter  of  the  youth  by  the  fire-god 
Mars.  In  one  of  these  gardens  Adonis  was  found 
again,  whence  the  fable  says  he  was  slain  by  the 
boar  in  the  lettuce  (d^cffcrj^  Aphaca?),  and  was 
there  found  by  Aphrodite.  The  finding  again 


TAMMUZ 


1435 


eupetns)  was  the  commencement  of  a  wake,  ao 
companied  by  all  the  usages  which  in  the  East 
attend  such  a  ceremony — prostitution,  cutting  ofl 
the  hair  (comp.  Lev.  six.  28,  29,  xx..  5  ;  Dent. 
xiv.  1),  cutting  the  breast  with  knives  (Jer.  xvi.  6), 
and  playing  on  pipes  (comp.  Matt.  ix.  23).  The 
image  of  Adonis  was  then  washed  and  anointed 
with  spices,  placed  in  a  coffin  on  a  bier,  and  the 
wound  made  by  the  boar  was  shown  on  the  figure. 
The  people  sat  on  the  ground  round  the  bier,  with 
their  clothes  rent  (comp.  Ep.  of  Jer.  31,  32),  and 
the  women  howled  and  cried  aloud.  The  whole 
terminated  with  a  sacrifice  for  the  dead,  and  the 
burial  of  the  figure  of  Adonis  (see  Movers,  Phoe- 
nizier,  i.  c.  7).  According  to  Lucian,  some  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Byblos  maintained  that  the  Egyp 
tian  Osiris  was  buried  among  them,  and  that  the 
mourning  and  orgies  were  in  honour  of  him,  and 
not  of  Adonis  (De  Dea  Syrd,  §7).  This  is  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  legend  of  Osiris  as  told  by  Plut 
arch  (De  Is.  et  Os.}.  Lucian  further  relates  that, 
on  the  same  day  on  which  the  women  of  Byblos 
every  year  mourned  for  Adonis,  the  inhabitants  of 
Alexandria  sent  them  a  letter,  enclosed  in  a  vessel 
which  was  wrapped  in  rushes  or  papyrus,  an 
nouncing  that  Adonis  was  found.  The  vessel  was 
cast  into  the  sea,  and  carried  by  the  current  to 
Byblos  (Procopius  on  Is.  xviii.).  It  is  called  by 
Lucian  $vfi\ivT}v  Ke<pa\^v,  and  is  said  to  have 
traversed  the  distance  between  Alexandria  and 
Byblos  in  seven  days.  Another  marvel  related  by 
the  same  narrator  is  that  of  the  river  Adonis 
(Nahr  Ibra/iirri),  which  flows  down  from  the 
Lebanon,  and  once  a  year  was  tinged  with  blood, 
which,  according  to  the  legend,  came  from  the 
wounds  of  Adonis  (comp.  Milton,  P.  L.  i.  460) ; 
but  a  rationalist  of  Byblos  gave  him  a  different 
explanation,  how  that  the  soil  of  the  Lebanon  was 
naturally  very  red-coloured,  and  was  earned  down 
into  the  river  by  violent  winds,  and  so  gave  a 
bloody  tinge  to  the  water ;  and  to  this  day,  says 
Mr.  Porter  (Handb.  p.  187),  "after  every  storm 
that  breaks  upon  the  brow  of  Lebanon,  the  Adonis 
still  '  runs  purple  to  the  sea.'  The  rushing  waters 
tear  from  the  banks  red  soil  enough  to  give  them  a 
ruddy  tinge,  which  poetical  fancy,  aided  by  popular 
credulity,  converted  into  the  blood  of  Thammuz." 

The  time  at  which  these  rites  of  Adonis  were 
celebrated  is  a  subject  of  much  dispute.  It  is  not 
so  important  with  regard  to  the  passage  in  Ezekiel, 
for  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  reason  for  sup 
posing  that  the  time  of  the  prophet's  vision  was 
coincident  with  the  time  at  which  Tammuz  was 
worshipped.  Movers,  who  maintained  the  con 
trary,  endeavoured  to  prove  that  the  celebration 
was  in  the  late  autumn,  the  end  of  the  Syrian 
year,  and  corresponded  with  the  time  of  the  au 
tumnal  equinox.  He  relies  chiefly  for  his  conclu 
sion  on  the  account  given  by  Ammianus  Marcel- 
linus  (xxii.  9,  §13)  of  the  feast  of  Adonis,  which 
was  being  held  at  Antioch  when  the  Emperor  Julian 
entered  the  city.  It  is  clear,  from  a  letter  of  the 
Emperor's  (Ep.  Jul.  52),  that  he  was  in  Antioch 
before  the  first  of  August,  and  his  entry  may  there 
fore  have  taken  place  in  July,  the  Tammuz  of  the 
Syrian  year.  This  time  agrees  moreover  with  the 
explanation  of  the  symbolical  meaning  of  the  rites 
given  by  Ammianus  Marcellinus  (xxii.  9,  §15), 


d  There  was  a  temple  at  Amathus,  in  Cyprus,  shared 
toy  Adonis  and  Aphrodite  (Pans.  ix.  41,  $2) ;  and  the  wor 
ship  of  Adonis  is  said  to  have  coiae  from  Cyprus  to  Athens 


in  the  time  of  the  Persian  War. 

e  Said  to  have  been  founded  by  Kuiyra&,  the  reputoJ 
father  of  Adonis. 


i486 


TAMMUZ 


that  they  were  a  token  of  the  fruits  cut  down  in 
tLcir  prime.  Now  at  Aleppo  (Russell,  Aleppo,  i. 
72)  the  harvest  is  all  over  before  the  end  of  June, 
and  we  may  fairly  conclude  that  the  same  was  the 
case  at  Antioch.  Add  to  this  that  in  Hebrew 
istronomieal  works  TI^H  H^pD,  tekuphath  Tam- 
nuz  is  the  "  summer  solstice  ;"  and  it  seems  more 
reasonable  to  conclude  that  the  Adonis  feast  of  the 
Phoenicians  and  Syrians  was  celebrated  rather  as 
the  summer  solstice  than  as  the  autumnal  equinox. 
At  this  time  the  sun  begins  to  descend  among  the 
wintry  signs  (Kenrick,  Phoenicia,  310). 

The  identification  of  Tammuz  with  an  idolatrous 
prophet,  which  has  already  been  given  in  a  quota 
tion  from  Maimonides,  who  himself  quotes  from 
the  Agriculture  of  the  Nabatheans,  has  been  re 
cently  revived  by  Prof.  Chwolson  of  St.  Peters 
burg  (  Ueber  Tammuz,  &c.  1860).  An  Arab  writer 
of  the  10th  century,  En-Nedim,  in  his  book  called 
Fihrist  el-Ulum,  says  (quoting  from  Abii  Sa'id 
Wahb  ben  Ibrahim)  that  in  the  middle  of  the  month 
Tammuz  a  feast  is  held  in  honour  of  the  god  Ta'uz. 
The  women  bewailed  him  because  his  lord  slew 
him  and  ground  his  bones  in  a  mill,  and  scattered 
them  to  the  winds.  In  consequence  of  this  the 
women  ate  nothing  during  the  feast  that  had  been 
ground  in  a  mill  (Chwolson,  Die  Ssabier,  &c.  ii. 
27).  Prof.  Chwolson  regards  Ta-'uz  as  a  cor 
ruption  of  Tammuz ;  but  the  most  important  pas 
sage  in  his  eyes  is  from  the  old  Babylonian  book 
called  the  Agriculture  of  the  Nabatheans,  to  which 
he  attributes  a  fabulous  antiquity.  It  was  written, 
he  maintains,  by  one  Qut'ami,  towards  the  end  of 
the  14th  century  B.C.,  and  was  translated  into 
Arabic  by  a  descendant  of  the  ancient  Chaldeans, 
whose  name  was  Ibn  Washiyyah.  As  Professor 
Chwolson's  theory  has  been  strongly  attacked, 
and  as  the  chief  materials  upon  which  it  is  founded 
are  not  yet  before  the  public,  it  would  be  equally 
premature  to  take  him  as  an  authority,  or  to  pro 
nounce  positively  against  his  hypothesis,  though, 
judging  from  present  evidence,  the  writer  of  this 
article  is  more  than  sceptical  as  to  its  truth. 
Qut'ami  then,  in  that  dim  antiquity  from  which 
he  speaks  to  us,  tells  the  same  story  of  the  prophet 
Tammuz  as  has  already  been  given  in  the  quota 
tion  from  Kimchi.  It  was  read  in  the  temples 
after  prayers,  to  an  audience  who  wept  and  wailed ; 
and  so  great  was  the  magic  influence  of  the  tale  that 
Qut'ami  himself,  though  incredulous  of  its  truth, 
was  unable  to  restrain  his  tears.  A  part,  he 
thought,  might  be  true,  but  it  referred  to  an  event 
so  far  removed  by  time  from  the  age  in  which  he 
lived  that  he  was  compelled  to  be  sceptical  on  many 
points.  His  translator,  Ibn  Washiyyah,  adds  that 
Tammuz  belonged  neither  to  the  Chaldeans  nor  to 
the  Canaanites,  nor  to  the  Hebrews,  nor  to  the 
Assyrians,  but  to  the  ancient  people  of  Janban. 
This  last,  Chwolson  conjectures,  may  be  the 
Shemitic  name  given  to  the  gigantic  Cushite  abori 
gines  of  Chaldea,  whom  the  Shemitic  Nabatheans 
found  when  they  first  came  into  the  country,  and 
from  whom  they  adopted  certain  elements  of  their 
worship.  Thus  Tammuz,  or  Tammuzi,  belongs 
to  a  religious  epoch  in  Babylonia  which  preceded 
the  Shemitic  (Chwolson,  Ueberreste  d.  AltbabyL 
Lit.  p.  19).  Ibn  Washiyyah  says  moreover  that 
all  the  Sabians  of  his  time,  both  those  of  Babylonia 
and  of  Harran,  wept  and  wailed  for  Tammuz  in  the 
month  which  was  named  after  him,  but  that  none 
of  them  preserved  any  tradition  of  the  origin  of  the 
worship.  This  fact  alone  appears  to  militate  strongly 


TAPPUAH 

against  the  trutn  of  Ibn  Washiyyah's  story  as  ta 
the  manner  in  which  he  discovered  the  works  he 
professed  to  translate.  It  has  been  due  to  Professor 
Chwolson's  reputation  to  give  in  brief  the  substance 
of  his  explanation  of  Tammuz  :  but  it  must  be 
confessed  that  he  throws  little  light  upon  the  obscu 
rity  of  the  subject. 

In  the  Targum  of  Jonathan  en  Gen.  viii.  5,  "  the 
tenth  month"  is  translated  "  the  month  Tammuz." 
According  to  Castell  (Lex.  Hept.},  tamuz  is  usvil 
in  Arabic  to  denote  "  the  heat  of  summer  ;"  and 
Tamuzi  is  the  name  given  to  the  Pharaoh  who 
cruelly  treated  the  Israelites.  [W.  A,  W.] 

TA'NACH  O^fi :  y  Tavdx ;  Alex,  rj  Qwdx: 

Thanach}.  A  slight  variation,  in  the  vowel- points 
alone,  of  the  name  TAANACH.  It  occurs  in  Josh, 
xxi.  25  only.  [G.] 

TANHU'METH  (HDmr) :  Qava^de,  ©ame- 
jue'0  ;  Alex.  ®ave/j.dv  in  2  K. :  Thanehumeth).  The 
father  of  Seraiah  in  the  time  of  Gedaliah  (2  K.  xxv. 
23  ;  Jer.  xl.  8).  In  the  former  passage  he  is  called 
"  the  Netophathite,"  but  a  reference  to  the  parallel 
narrative  of  Jeremiah  will  show  that  some  words- 
have  dropped  out  of  the  text. 

TANIS  (T«£w),  Jud.  i.  10.     [ZOAN.] 

TA'PHATH  (HatD  ;  T^de  ;  Alex.  Tabard  : 
TaplietK),  The  daughter  of  Solomon,  who  was 
married  to  Ben-Abinadab,  one  of  the  king's  twelve 
commissariat  officers  (1  K.  iv.  11). 

TA'PHON  (f}  Te<J><6  ;  Joseph.  Tox^a  or  »TV 
X6av:  Thopo:  Syr.  Tefos).  One  of  the  cities  in 
Judaea  fortified  by  Bacchides  (1  Mace.  ix.  50).  It 
is  probably  the  BETH-TAPPUAH  of  the  Old  Test 
which  lay  near  Hebron.  The  form  given  by 
Josephus  suggests  Tekoa,  but  Grimm  (Exeg, 
Handbuch)  has  pointed  out  that  his  equivalent  for 
that  name  is  ©efecoe ;  and  there  is  besides  too  much 
unanimity  among  the  Versions  to  allow  of  its  being 
accepted.  [G.j 

TAPPU'AH  (man :  LXX.  omits  in  both  MSS. : 
Taphphua).  1.  A  city  of  Judah,  in  the  district  of  the 
Shefelah,  or  lowland  (Josh.  xv.  34).  It  is  a 
member  of  the  group  which  contains  Zoreah, 
Zanoah,  and  Jarmuth ;  and  was  therefore  no  doubt 
situated  on  the  lower  slopes  of  the  mountains  of  the 
N.W.  portion  of  Judah,  about  12  miles  W.  of  Jeru 
salem,  where  these  places  have  all  been  identified 
with  tolerable  probability.  It  is  remarkable  that 
the  name -should  be  omitted  in  both  MSS.  of  the 
LXX.  The  Syriac  Peshito  has  Pathuch,  which, 
when  connected  with  the  Enam  that  follows  it  in 
the  list,  recals  the  Pathuch -enay-im  of  Gen.  xxxviii. 
14,  long  a  vexed  place  with  the  commentators. 
[See  ENAM,  549  &.]  Neither  Tappuah  nor  Pathuch 
have  however  been  encountered.  This  Tappuah 
must  not  be  confounded  either  with  the  Beth- 
Tappuah  near  Hebron,  or  with  the  Land  of  Tap 
puah  in  the  territory  of  Ephraim.  It  is  uncertain 
which  of  the  three"  is  named  in  the  list  of  the 
thirty-one  kings  in  Josh.  xii. 

2.  (Ta<|>ou,  0o</>e'0;  Alex.  E(/></>ove,  0a$0«0 : 
Taphphua).  A  place  on  the  boundary  of  the  "  chil 
dren  of  Joseph"  (Josh.  xvi.  8,  xvii.  8).  Its  full 
name  was  probably  En-tappuah  (xvii.  7),  and  it 
had  attached  to  it  a  district  called  the  Land  of 

a  It  is  probable  that  the  v  is  the  sign  of  the  accusativt 
case.  Jericho,  Eminaus,  and  Bethel,  in  the  same  para 
graph,  are  certainly  in  the  accusative 


TAPPUAH 

Tappuah  (xvh.  8).  This  document  is  evidently  in 
so  imperfect  or  confused  a  state  that  it  is  impossible 
to  ascertain  from  it  the  situation  of  the  places  it 
names,  especially  as  comparatively  few  of  them 
have  been  yet  met  with  on  the  ground.  But  from 
the  apparent  connexion  between  Tappuah  and  the 
Nachal  Kanah,  it  seems  natural  to  look  for  the 
former  somewhere  to  the  S.W.  of  Ndblus,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Wady  Falaik,  the  most  likely 
claimant  for  the  Kanah.  We  must  await  further 
investigation  in  this  hitherto  unexplored  region 
before  attempting  to  form  any  conclusion.  [G.] 

TAPPU'AH  (Han:  ©cwrofo;  Alex 
Thaphphu).  One  of  the  sons  of  Hebron,  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah  (1  Chr.  ii.  43).  It  is  doubtless  the  same 
asBETH-TAPPUAM,uow  Te/uh,  near  a  Hebron  ;  and 
the  meaning  of  the  record  is  that  Tappuah  was 
colonized  by  the  men  of  Hebron.  [G.] 

TAPPU'AH,  THE  LAND  OF  (H-IBn  jn«  : 

Vat.  omits  ;  Alex,  r;  777  0a0<|>&>0  :  terra  Taphphuae). 
A  district  named  in  the  specification  of  the  boundary 
between  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  (Josh.  xvii.  8).  It 
apparently  lay  near  the  torrent  Kanah  (probably  the 
Wady  Falaik),  but  the  name  has  not  yet  been  met 
with  at  all  in  the  central  district  of  Palestine.  [G.] 
TA'BAH  (rnfl:  Tapde:  Num.  xxxiii.  27). 
A  desert-station  of  the  Israelites  between  Tahath 
and  Mithcah,  not  yet  identified  with  an 
site. 


TARPELITJSS 


1437 


known 


TAR'ALAH 


y     no 
[H.  H. 


] 
;   Alex.  0a- 


paXo :  Tharald).  One  of  the  towns  in  the  allot 
ment  of  Benjamin  (Josh,  xviii.  27  only).  It  is 
named  between  Irpeel  and  Zelah  ;  but  nothing 
certain  is  known  of  the  position  of  either  of  those 
places,  and  no  name  at  all  resembling  Taralah  has 
yet  been  discovered.  Schwarz's  identification  (with 
"  Thaniel "  Daniyal),  near  Lydd,  is  far-fetched  in 
etymology,  and  unsuitable  as  to  position  ;  for  there 
is  nothing  to  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Ben- 
jamites  had  extended  themselves  so  far  to  the  west 
when  the  lists  of  Joshua  were  drawn  up.  [G.] 

TARE'A  (JTINP)  :  ®apdx  ;  Alex,  ©apee  : 
Tharaa).  The  same  as  Tahrea,  the  son  of  Micah 
(1  Chr.  viii.  35),  the  Hebrew  letters  N  and  PI  being 
interchanged,  a  phenomenon  of  rare  occurrence 
(Gesen.  fhes.  p.  2). 

TARES  (C'C<»"a :  zizania).  There  can  be  little 
loubt  that  the  £iGdvia  of  the  parable  (Matt.  xiii. 
25)  denote  the  weed  called  "  darnel "  (Lolium 
temulenturn),  a  widely  distributed  grass,  and  the 
only  species  of  the  order  that  has  deleterious  pro 
perties.  The  word  used  by  the  Evangelist  is  an 
Oriental,  and  not  a  Greek  term.  It  is  the  Arabic 
s  -- 

and    the   zonin    (J^'lT)    of  the 

Talmud  (Buxtorf,  Lex.   Talm.  s.  v.).     The  deii- 

s 
vation   of   the   Arabic   word,    from    zdn    (     \ 

"  nausea,"  is  well  suited  to  the  character  of  the 
plant,  the  grains  of  which  produce  vomiting  anc 
purging,  convulsions,-  and  even  death.  Volney 
(Trav.  ii.  306)  experienced  the  ill  effects  of  eating 
its  seeds ;  and  "  the  whole  of  the  inmates  of  the 


•  The  principal  valley  of  the  town  of  Hebron  is  called 
Wady  Tuffah  (Map  to  Rosen's  paper  in  Zeitsch.  I).  M.  G 
iu4.  and  p.  481) 


Sheffield  workhouse  were  attacked  some  years  ago 
with  symptoms  supposed  to  be  produced  by  their 
oatmeal  having  been  accidentally  adulterated  with 
lolium"  (Engl.  Cyc.  s.  v.  Lolium).  The  darnel 
before  it  comes  into  ear  is  very  similar  in  ap 
pearance  to  wheat;  hence  the  command  that  the 
zizania  should  be  left  to  the  harvest,  lest  while 
men  plucked  up  the  tares  "  they  should  root  up 
also  the  wheat  with  them."  Prof.  Stanley,  how 
ever  (S.  and  P.  p.  426),  speaks  of  women  anc 
children  picking  out  from  the  wheat  in  the  corn 
fields  of  Samaria  the  tall  green  stalks,  still  called  br 
;he  Arabs  zuican.  "  These  stalks."  he  continues, 
if  sown  designedly  throughout  the  fields,  would 
;  inseparable  from  the  wheat,  from  which,  even 
when  growing  naturally  and  by  chance,  they  are  at 
first  sight  hardly  distinguishable."  See  also  Thom 
son  (  The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  420) : — "  The 
grain  is  just  in  the  proper  stage  to  illustrate  the 
parable.  In  those  parts  where  the  grain  has  headed 
ont,  the  tares  have  done  the  same,  and  then  a  child 
cannot  mistake  them  for  wheaf  or  barley  ;  but 
where  both  are  less  developed,  the  closest  scrutiny 
will  often  fail  to  detect  them.  Even  the  farmers, 
who  in  this  country  generally  weed  their  fields,  do 
not  attempt  to  separate  the  one  from  the  other.' 
The  grain-growers  in  Palestine  believe  that  the 
zuwdn  is  merely  a  degenerate  wheat ;  that  in  wet 
seasons  the  wheat  turns  to  tares.  Dr.  Thomson 
asserts  that  this  is  their  fixed  opinion.  It  is  curious 
to  observe  the  retention  of  the  fallacy  through  many 
ages.  "  Wheat  and  zunin"  says  Lightfoot  (//»/•. 
Heb.  on  Matt.  xiii.  25),  quoting  from  the  Talmud, 
"  are  not  seeds  of  different  kinds."  See  also  Buxtort 
(Lex.  Talm.  s.  v.  pJIT) ' — "  Zizania,  species  tritici 
degeneris,  sic  dicti,  quod  scortando  cum  bono  tritico, 
in  pejorem  naturam  degenerat."  The  Roman  writers 
appear  to  have  entertained  a  similar  opinion  with 
respect  to  some  of  the  cereals :  thus  Pliny  (N.  H. 
xviii.  17),  borrow.ing  probably  from  Theophrastus, 
asserts  that  "  barley  will  degenerate  into  the  oat." 
The  notion  that  the  zizania  of  the  parable  are 
merely  diseased  or  degenerate  wheat  has  been  de 
fended  by  P.  Brederod  (see  his  letter  to  Schultetus 
in  Exercit.  Evang.  ii.  cap.  65),  and  strangely 
adopted  by  Trench,  who  (Notes  on  the  Parables, 
p.  91,  4th  ed.)  regards  the  distinction  of  these  two 
plants  to  be  "a  falsely  assumed  fact."  If  the 
zizania  of  the  parable  denote  the  Lolium  temu- 
lentum,  and  there  cannot  be  any  reasonable  doubt 
about  it,  the  plants  are  certainly  distinct,  and  the 
L.  temulentum  has  as  much  right  to  specific  dis 
tinction  as  any  other  kind  of  grass.  [W.  H.] 

TARGUMS.     [VERSIONS,  CHALDEE.] 
TARPE'LITES,    THE  (N^BTO : 

\aioi ;  Alex.  Tap<f>a\\aioi :  Tharphalaei).  A  race 
of  colonists  who  were  planted  in  the  cities  of  Sa 
maria  after  the  captivity  of  the  northern  kingdom 
of  Israel  (Ezr.  iv.  9).  They  have  not  been  iden 
tified  with  any  certainty.  Junius  and  others  have 
found  a  kind  of  resemblance  in  name  to  the  Tar- 
pelites  in  the  Tapyri  (Tairovpof)  of  Ptolemy  (vi.  2, 
§6),  a  tribe  of  Media  who  dwelt  eastward  of  Ely- 
mais,  but  the  resemblance  is  scarcely  more  than 
apparent.  They  are  called  by  Strabo  Tdirvpoi  (xi. 
514,  515,  520,  523).  Others,  with  as  little  proba 
bility,  have  sought  to  recognise  the  Tarpdites  in  the 
Tarpetes  (TapTrrjres,  Strab.  xi.  495),  a  Maeotic  race, 
In  the  Peshito-Syriac  the  resemblance  is  greater,  for 
they  are  there  called  Tarpoye.  Fiirst  (Ifandn:lj^) 


1438 


TARSHISH 


TARSHISII 


says  in  no  case  can  Tarpel,  the  country  of  the  Tar- 
pelites,  be  the  Phoenician  Tripolis.  [W.  A.  W.] 
TAR'SHISH  (B»Bhn:  edpvtis:  Thaws; 
Gen.x.4).  1.  Probably  Tartessus ;  Gr.  TapTTjffff6s. 
A  city  and  emporium  of  the  Phoenicians  in  the 
south  of  Spain.  In  Psalm  Ixxii.  10,  it  seems 
applied  to  a  large  district  of  country ;  perhaps,  to 
that  portion  of  Spain  which  was  known  to  the 
Hebrews  when  that  Psalrn  was  written.  And  the 
word  may  have  been  likewise  used  in  this  sense  in 
Gen.  x.  4,  where  Knobel  ( Volkertafel  der  Genesis, 
G lessen,  1850,  ad  loc.}  applies  it  to  the  Tuscans, 
though  he  agrees  with  nearly  all  biblical  critics  in 
regarding  it  elsewhere  as  synonymous  with  Tar 
tessus.  The  etymology  is  uncertain. 

With  three  exceptions  in  the  Book  of  Chronicles, 
which  will  be  noticed  separately  (see  below,  No.  2), 
the  following  are  references  to  all  the  passages  in 
the  Old  Testament,  in  which  the  word  "  Tarshish  " 
occurs ;  commencing  with  the  passage  in  the  Book 
of  Jonah,  which  shows  that  it  was  accessible  from 
Yapho,  Yafa,  or  Joppa,  a  city  of  Palestine  with  a 
well-known  harbour  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea  (Jon. 
i.  3,  iv.  2  ;  Gen.  x.  4  ;  1  Chr.  i.  7  ;  Is.  ii.  16,  xxiii. 
I,  6, 10, 14,  Ix.  9,  Ixvi.  19 ;  Jer.  x.  9  ;  Ez.  xxvii.  12, 
25,  xxxviii.  13  ;  1  K.  x.  22,  xxii.  48  [49] ;  Ps.  xlviii. 
8,  Ixvii.  10).     On  a  review  of  these  passages,   it 
will  be  seen  that  not  one  of  them  furnishes  direct 
proof  that  Tarshish  and  Tartessus  were  the  same 
cities.     But  their  identity  is  rendered  highly  pro 
bable  by  the  following  circumstances.     1st.  There 
is  a  very  close  similarity  of  name  between  them, 
Tartessus  being  merely  Tarshish  in  the  Aramaic 
form,  as  was  first  pointed  out  by  Bochart  (Phaleg, 
lib.  iii.  cap.  7).     Thus  the  Hebrew  word  Ashshur 
=  Assyria,  is  in  the  Aramaic  form  Athur,  Attur, 
.uid  in   Greek   'Aroupta  (Strabo,   xvi.  1,  2),  and 
'Arvpia  (Dion  Cass.,  Ixviii.  26) — though,  as  is  well 
Known,  the  ordinary  Greek  form  was  'Affffvpta. 
Again,  the  Hebrew  word  Bashan,  translated  in  the 
same  form  in  the  A.  V.  of  the  Old  Testament,  is 
Bathan  or  Buthnan  in  Aramaic,  and  Baravaia  in 
Greek  ;  whence  also  Batanaea  in  Latin  (see  Bux- 
torfii  Lexicon  Chaldaicum  Talmudicum  et  Rabbini- 
cum,  s.  vv.).  Moreover,  there  are  numerous  changes 
of  the  same  kind  in  common  words ;  such  as  the 
Aramaic   numeral   8,   tamnei,   which   corresponds 
with  the  Hebrew  word  shemoneh ;  and  telag,  the 
Aramaic  word  for  "  snow,"  which  is  the  same  word 
as  the  Hebrew  sheleg  (see  Gesenius,    Thesaurus, 
p.  1344).    And  it  is  likely  that  in  some  way  which 
cannot  now  be  explained,  the  Greeks  received  the 
word  "  Tarshish  "  from  the  Phoenicians  in  a  partly 
Aramaic  form,  just  as  they  received  in  that  form 
many  Hebrew  letters  of  the  alphabet.     The  last 
sh  of  Tarshish a  would  naturally  be  represented  by 
the  double  s  in  the  Greek  ending,  as  the  sound  and 
letter   sh  was  unknown  to   the  Greek    language 
[SHIBBOLETH.]     2ndly.  There  seems  to  have  been 
a  special  relation  between  Tarshish  and  Tyre,  as 
there  was  at  one  time  between  Tartessus  and  the 
Phoenicians.     In  the  23rd  chapter  of  Isaiah,  there 
is  something  like  an  appeal  to  Tarshish  to  assert  its 
independence  (see  the  notes  of  Rosenmiiller,  Gese 
nius,  and  Ewald,  on  verse  18).     And  Arrian  (De 
Exped.  Alexandra,  ii.  16,  §3)  expressly  states  tha 
Tartessus  was  founded  or  colonized  by  the  Phoeni 


clans,  saying  —  QOIVIK 
has  been  suggested  that  this  is  a  mistake  on  thp 
part  of  Arrian,  because  Diodorus  (xxv.  14)  re 
presents  Hamilcar  as  defeating  the  Iberians  and 
Tartessians,  which  lias  been  thought  to  imply  that 
he  latter  were  not  Phoenicians.  But  it  is  to  be 
emembered  that  there  was  a  river  in  Hispania 
ketica  called  Tartessus,  as  well  as  a  city  of  that 
lame  (Strabo,  iii.  p.  148),  and  it  may  easily  have 
)een  the  case  that  tribes  which  dwelt  on  its  banks 
may  have  been  called  Tartessians,  and  may  have 
jeen  mentioned  under  this  name,  as  defeated  by 
Hamilcar.  Still,  this  would  be  perfectly  compatible 
with  the  fact,  that  the  Phoenicians  established  there 
a  factory  or  settlement  called  Tartessus,  which  had 
dominion  for  a  while  over  the  adjacent  territory. 
t  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  likewise,  that  Arrian, 
who  must  be  pronounced  on  the  whole  to  be  a  judi 
cious  writer,  had  access  to  the  writings  of  Me- 
nander  of  Ephesus,  who  translated  some  of  the 
Tyrian  archives  into  Greek  (Joseph.  Ant  ix.  14, 
§2),  and  it  may  be  presumed  Arrian  consulted 
;hose  writings,  when  he  undertook  to  give  some 
account  of  Tyre,  in  reference  to  its  celebrated  siege 
jj  Alexander,  in  connexion  with  which  he  makes 
lis  statement  respecting  Tartessus. 

3rdly.  The  articles  which  Tarshish  is  stated  by 
the  prophet  Ezekiel  to  have  supplied  to  Tyre,  are 
arecisely  such  as  we  know  through  classical  writers 
X)  have  been  productions  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula. 
Ezekiel  specifies  silver,  iron,  lead,  and  tin  (Ez.  xxvii. 
12),  and  in  regard  to  each  of  these  metals  as  connected 
with  Spain,  there  are  the  following  authorities.  As 
to  silver,  Diodorus  says  (v.  35),  speaking  of  Spain 
possessing  this  metal  in  the  greatest  abundance 
and  of  the  greatest  beauty  (ffx^6v  n  irXeiarov 
Kal  Kd\\i<TTOv},  and  he  particularly  mentions 
that  the  Phoenicians  made  a  great  profit  by  this 
metal,  and  established  colonies  in  Spain  on  its  ac 
count,  at  a  time  when  the  mode  of  working  it  was 
unknown  to  the  natives  (comp.  Aristot.  de  Mirabil. 
c.  135,  87).  This  is  confirmed  by  Pliny,  who  says 
(Nat.  Hist,  xxxiii.  31),  "  Argentum  reperitur  —  in 
Hispania  pulcherrimum  ;  id  quoque  in  sterili  solo, 
atque  etiam  montibus;"  and  he  proceeds  to  say 
that  wherever  one  vein  has  been  found,  another 
vein  is  found  not  far  off.  With  regard  to  iron  and 
lead,  Pliny  says,  "  metallis  plumbi,  ferri,  aeris, 
argenti,  auri  tota  ferme  Hispania  scatet"  (Nat. 
Hist.  iii.  4).  And  as  to  lead,  more  especially,  this 
is  so  true  even  at  present,  that  a  writer  on  Mines 
and  Mining  in  the  last  edition  of  the  Encyc.  Sri* 
tannica,  p.  242,  states  as  follows:  —  "Spain  pos 
sesses  numerous  and  valuable  lead-mines.  The 
most  important  are  those  of  Linares,  which  are  si 
tuated  to  the  east  of  Bailcn  near  the  Sierra  Morena. 
They  have  been  long  celebrated,  and  perhaps  no 
known  mineral  field  is  naturally  so  rich  iu  lead  as 
this."  And,  lastly,  in  regard  to  tin,  the  trade  of 
Tarshish  in  this  metal  is  peculiarly  significant,  and 
taken  in  conjunction  with  similarity  of  name  and 
other  circumstances  already  mentioned,  is  reason 
ably  conclusive  as  to  its  identity  with  Tartessu?. 
For  even  now  the  countries  in  Europe,  or  on  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea  where  tin  is  found 
are  very  few  ;  and  in  reference  to  ancient  times,  it 
would  *be  difficult  to  name  any  such  countries 
except  Iberia  or  Spain.  Lusitania,  which  was  some- 


a  It  is  unsafe  to  lay  any  stress  on  Tarseium  (Tap 
ar/toi/),  which  Stephanus  of  Byzantium  says  (s.  v.)  was  £ 
city  near  the  Columns  of  Hercules.  Stephanus  wa 
probably  misled  by  a  passage  to  which  he  refers 


Polybius,  iii.  24.  The  Tapo^iov  of  Polybius  conW 
scarcely  have  been  very  far  from  the  Pvlcliruii  Pro 
moDtorium  of  Carthage. 


TAKSniSH 

what  less  in  extent  than  Portugal,  and  Cornwall  hi 
Great  Britain.  Now  if  the  Phoenicians,  for  pur 
poses  of  trade,  really  made  coasting  voyages  on  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  as  far  as  to  Great  Britain,  no 
emporium  was  more  favourably  situated  for  such 
voyages  than  Tartessus.  If,  however,  in  accord 
ance  with  the  views  of  Sir  G.  Cornewall  Lewis,  it 
is  deemed  unlikely  that  Phoenician  ships  made 
such  distant  voyages  (Historical  Survey  of  the 
Astronomy  of  the  Ancients,  p.  455),  it  may  be 
added,  that  it  is  improbable,  and  not  to  bt  admitted 
as  a  fact  without  distinct  prcof,  that  nearly  600 
years  before  Christ,  when  Ezekiel  wrote  his  pro 
phecy  against  Tyre,  they  should  have  supplied  the 
nations  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  with 
British  Tin  obtained  by  the  mouths  of  the  Rhone. 
Diodorus  indeed  mentions,  (v.  38),  that  in  his 
time  tin  was  imported  into  Gaul  from  Britain, 
and  was  then  conveyed  on  horseback  by  traders 
across  Gaul  to  Massilia,  and  the  Roman  colony 
of  Narbo.  But  it  would  be  a  very  different  thing 
to  assume  that  this  was  the  case  so  many  centu 
ries  earlier,  when  Rome,  at  that  tirne  a  small  and 
insignificant  town,  did  not  possess  a  foot  of  land 
in  Gaul ;  and  when,  according  to  the  received  sys 
tems  of  chronology,  the  settlement  of  Massilia  had 
only  just  been  founded  by  the  Phocaeans.  As 
countries  then  from  which  Tarshish  was  likely  to 
obtain  its  tin,  there  remain  only  Lusitania  and 
Spain.  And  in  regard  to  both  of  these,  the  evi 
dence  of  Pliny  the  Elder  at  a  time  when  they 
were  flourishing  provinces  of  the  Roman  empire, 
remains  on  record  to  show  that  tin  was  found  in 
each  of  them  (Hist.  Nat.  xxxiv.  47).  After  men 
tioning  that  there  were  two  kinds  of  lead,  viz. 
black  lead,  and  white  lead,  the  latter  of  which  was 
called  "Cassiteros"  by  the  Greeks,  and  was  fabu 
lously  reported  to  be  obtained  in  islands  of  the  At 
lantic  Sea,  Pliny  proceeds  to  say,  "  Nunc  cerium 
est  in  Lusitanid  gigni,  et  in  Gallaecid ;"  and  he 
goes  on  to  describe  where  it  is  found,  and  the  mode 
of  extracting  it  (compare  Pliny  himself,  iv.  34, 
and  Diodorus,  I.  c.,  as  to  tin  in  Spain).  It  may  be 
added  that  Strabo,  on  the  authority  of  Poseidonius, 
bad  made  previously  a  similar  statement  (iii.  147), 
though  fully  aware  that  in  his  time  tin  was  like 
wise  brought  to  the  Mediterranean,  through  Gaul 
by  Massilia,  from  the  supposed  Cassiterides  or 
Tin  Islands.  Moreover,  as  confirming  the  state 
ment  of  Strabo  and  Pliny,  tin-mines  now  actually 
exist  in  Portugal;  both  in  parts,  which  belonged 
to  ancient  Lusitania,  and  in  a  district  which 
formed  part  of  ancient  Gallicia.b  And  it  is  to 
be  borne  in  mind  that  Seville  on  the  Guadalquivir, 
which  has  free  communication  with  the  sea,  is 
only  about  80  miles  distant  from  the  Portuguese 
frontier. 

Subsequently  when  Tyre  lost  its  independence, 
the  relation  between  it  and  Tarshish  was  probably 
altered,  and  for  a  while,  the  exhortation  of  Isaiah 
xxiii.  10,  may  have  been  realised  by  the  inhabitants 
passing  through  their  land,  free  as  a  river.  This 
independence  of  Tarshish,  combined  with  the  over 
shadowing  growth  of  the  Carthaginian  power, 
would  explain  why  in  after  times  the  learned  Jews 
do  not  seem  to  have  known  where  Tarshish  was. 
Thus,  although  in  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the 
Pentateucn,  the  Hebrew  word  was  as  closely  fol 
lowed  as  it  could  be  in  Greek  (Qapcreis,  in  which 


TAKSHISH 


1439 


b  Viz,  in  the  provinces  of  Porto,  Beira,  and  Braganza. 
t*pecimejis  were  in  the  International  Exhibition  of  1862. 


tne  9  is  mere.y  H  without  a  point,  and  «i  is  equi 
valent  to  i,  according  to  the  pronunciation  in  mo 
dern  Greek),  the  Septuagint  translators  of  Isaiah 
and  Ezekiel  translate  the  word  by  "  Carthage  "  and 
"the  Carthaginians"  (Is.  xxiii.  1,  10,  14;  Ez. 
xxvii.  12,  xxxviii.  13);  and  in  the  Targum  of  the 
Book  of  Kings  and  of  Jeremiah,  it  is  translated 
"  Africa,"  as  is  pointed  out  by  Gesenius  (IK.  xxii. 
48 ;  Jer.  x.  9).  In  one  passage  of  the  Septuagint 
(Is.  ii.  16),  and  in  others  of  the  Targum,  the  word 
s  translated  sea ;  which  receives  apparently  some 
countenance  from  Jerome,  in  a  note  on  Is.  ii.  16, 
herein  he  states  that  the  Hebrews  believe  that 
Tharsis  is  the  name  of  the  sea  in  their  own  lan 
guage.  And  Josephus,  misled,  apparently,  by  the 
Septuagint  translation  of  the  Pentateuch,  which  he 
misinterpreted,  regarded  Tharsis  as  Tarsus  in  Cilicia 
(Ant.  i.  6,  §1),  in  which  he  was  followed  by  other 
Jews,  and  (using  Tarsus  in  the  sense  of  all  Cilicia) 
by  one  learned  writer  in  modern  times.  See  Hart- 
mann's  Aufkldrungen  vbcr  Asien,  vol.  i.  p.  69,  as 
quoted  by  Winer,  s.  v. 

It  tallies  with  the  ignorance  of  the  Jews  respect- 
ng  Tarshish,  and  helps  to  account  for  it,  that  in 
Strabo's  time  the  emporium  of  Tartessus  had  long 
ceased  to  exist,  and  its  precise  site  had  become  a 
subject  of  dispute.  In  the  absence  of  positive  proof, 
we  may  acquiesce  in  the  statement  of  Strabo  (iii. 
p.  148),  that  the  river  Baetis  (now  the  Guadal 
quivir)  was  formerly  called  Tartessus,  that  the  city 
Tartessus  was  situated  between  the  two  arms  by 
V'hich  the  river  flowed  into  the  sea,  and  that  the 
adjoining  country  was  called  Tartessis.  But  there 
were  two  other  cities  which  some  deemed  to  have 
been  Tartessus ;  one,  Gadir,  or  Gadira  (Cadiz) 
(Sallust,  Fragm.  lib.  ii. ;  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  iv.  36, 
and  Avienus,  Descript.  Orb.  Terr.  614)  ;  and  the 
other,  Carteia,  in  the  Bay  of  Gibraltar  (Strabo,  iii. 
p.  151 ;  Ptolem.,  ii.  4  ;  Pliny,  iii.  3  ;  Mela,  ii.  6). 
Of  the  three,  Carteia,  which  has  found  a  learned 
supporter  at  the  present  day  (Ersch  and  Gruber's 
Encyclopadie,  s.  v.),  seems  to  have  the  weakest 
claims,  for  in  the  earliest  Greek  prose  work  extant, 
Tartessus  is  placed  beyond  the  columns  of  Hercules 
(Herodotus,  iv.  152);  and  in  a  still  earlier  fraginent 
of  Stesichorus  (Strabo,  iii.  p.  148),  mention  is  made 
of  the  river  Tartessus,  whereas  there  is  no  stream 
near  Carteia  (=  El  Roccadillo)  which  deserves  to  be 
called  more  than  a  rivulet.  Strictly  speaking,  the 
same  objection  would  apply  to  Gadir;  but,  for 
poetical  uses,  the  Guadalquivir,  which  is  only  20 
miles  distant,  would  be  sufficiently  near.  It  was, 
perhaps,  in  reference  to  the  claim  of  Gadir  that 
Cicero,  in  a  letter  to  Atticus  (vii.  3),  jocosely  calls 
Balbus,  a  native  of  that  town,  "  Tartessium  istum 
tuum."  But  Tartessius  was,  likewise,  used  by 
poets  to  express  the  extreme  west  where  the  sun 
set  (OVid,  Metam.  xiv.  416 ;  Silius  Italicus,  x.  358 ; 
compare  Sil.  Ital.,  iii.  399). 

Literature. — For  Tarshish,  see  Bochart,  Phaleg, 
lib.  iii.  cap.  7  ;  Winer,  Biblisches  RealwSrterbuch, 
s.  v. ;  and  Gesenius,  Thesaurus  Ling.  Hebr.  et 
Chald.  s.  v.  For  Tartessus,  see  a  learned  Paper  of 
Sir  G.  Cornewall  Lewis,  Notes  and  Queries,  2nd 
Series,  vol.  vii.  p.  189-191. 

2.  If  the  Book  of  Chronicles  is  to  be  followed, 
there  would  seem  to  have  been  a  Tarshish,  acces 
sible  from  the  Red  Sea,  in  addition  to  the  Tarshish 
of  the  south  of  Spain.  Thus,  with  regard  to  the 
ships  of  Tarshish,  which  Jehoshaphat  caused  to  be 
constructed  at  Ezion  Geber  on  the  Aelanitic  Gulf  o! 
the  Red  Sea  d  K.  xxii.  48),  it  is  said  in  tbi 


1440 


TARSHISH 


Chronicles  (2  Chr.  xx.  36)  that  they  were  made  to 
go  to  Tarshish ;  and  in  like  manner  the  navy  of 
ships  which  Solomon  had  previously  made  in  Ezion 
Geber  (1  K.  ix.  26;,  is  said  in  the  Chronicles 
(2  Chr.  ix.  21)  to  have  gone  to  Tarshish  with  the 
servants  of  Hiram.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
the  author  of  these  passages  in  the  Chronicles  con 
templated  a  voyage  to  Tarshish  in  the  south  of 
Spain  by  going  round  what  has  since  been  called 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Sir  G.  Cornewall  Lewis 
(Notes  and  Queries,  2nd  series,  vol.  vi.  61-64, 
81-83)  has  shown  reasons  to  doubt  whether  the 
circumnavigation  of  Africa  was  ever  effected  by  the 
Phoeniciaus,  even  in  the  celebrated  voyage  which 
Herodotus  says  (iv.  42)  they  made  by  Neco's  orders  ; 
but  at  any  rate  it  cannot  be  seriously  supposed 
that,  according  to  the  Chronicles,  this  great  voyage 
was  regularly  accomplished  once  in  three  years  in 
the  reign  of  Solomon.  Keil  supposes  that  the 
vessels  built  at  Ezion  Geber,  as  mentioned  in  1  K. 
xxii.  49,  50,  were  really  destined  for  the  trade  to 
Tarshish  in  Spain,  but  that  they  were  intended  to 
be  transported  across  the  isthmus  of  Suez,  and  to  be 
launched  in  one  of  the  havens  of  Palestine  on  the 
Mediterranean  Sea.  (See  his  Notes  ad  locum. 
Engl.  Transl.)  But  this  seems  improbable ;  and 
the  two  alternatives  from  which  selection  should  be 
made  seem  to  be,  1st.  That  there  were  two  emporia 
or  districts  called  Tarshish,  viz.  one  in  the  south  of 
Spain,  and  one  in  the  Indian  Ocean ;  or,  2ndly, 
That  the  compiler  of  the  Chronicles,  misappre 
hending  the  expression  "  ships  of  Tarshish," 
supposed  that  they  meant  ships  destined  to  go  to 
Tarshish ;  whereas,  although  this  was  the  original 
meaning,  the  words  had  come  to  signify  large0 
Phoenician  ships,  of  a  particular  size  and  descrip 
tion,  destined  for  long  voyages,  just  as  in  English 
"  East  Indiaman "  was  a  general  name  given  to 
vessels,  some  of  which  were  not  intended  to  go  to 
India  at  all.  The  first  alternative  was  adopted  by 
Bochart,  Phaleg,  lib.  iii.  c.  7,  and  has  probably 
been  the  ordinary  view  of  those  who  have  per 
ceived  a  difficulty  in  the  passages  of  the  Chronicles; 
but  the  second,  which  was  first  suggested  by  Vi- 
tringa,  has  been  adopted  by  the  acutest  Biblical 
critics  of  our  own  time,  such  as  De  Wette,  Intro 
duction  to  the  Old  Testament,  Parker's  translation, 
Boston,  1843,  p.  267,  vol.  ii. ;  Winer,  Biblisches 
RealicSrterbuch,  s.v. ;  Gesenius,  Thesaurus  Linguae 
Heb.  et  Chald.  s.v.,  and  Ewald,  Geschiohte  des 
Volkes  Israel,  vol.  iii.  1st  edit.  p.  76  ;  and  is 
acknowledged  by  Movers,  Uzber  die  Chronikeln, 
1834,  254,  and  Havernick,  Spezielle  Elnleitung  in 
das  Alte  Testament,  1839,  vol.  ii.  p.  237.  This 
alternative  is  in  itself  by  far  the  most  probable,  and 
ought  not  to  occasion  any  surprise.  The  compiler 
of  the  Chronicles,  who  probably  lived  in  the  time 
of  Alexander's  successors,  had  the  Book  of  Kings 
before  him,  and  in  copying  its^accounts,  occasionally 
used  later  and  more  common  words  for  words  older 
and  more  unusual  (De  Wette,  I.e.  p.  206).  It  is 
probable  that  during  the  Persian  domination  Tartes- 
sus  was  independent  (Herodotus  i.  163)  ;  at  any 
rate,  when  first  visited  by  the  Greeks,  it  appears  to 

c  Sir  Emerson  Tennent  has  pointed  out  and  translated 
a  very  instructive  passage  in  Xenophon,  Econom.  cap. 
viii.,  In  which  there  is  a  detailed  description  of  a  large 
Phoenkiin  vessel,  TO  ju.eya  irKolov  TO  QOIVIKOV.  This  seems 
to  have  struck  Xenophon  with  the  same  kind  of  admira 
tion  which  every  one  feels  who  becomes  acquainted  for 
the  first  time  with  the  arrangements  of  an  English  man 
vif  war.  Sk"5  Km:ycl.  Britcmnica,  8th  ed.  s.  v.  "  Tarshish." 


TA11SHISH 

h,tve  had  its  own  kings.  It  ir,  not,  thereftre,  bv 
any  means  unnatural  that  the  old  trad?  of  the 
Phoenicians  with  Tarshish  had  ccasod  to  to  undei- 
stood  ;  and  the  compiler  of  the  Chronicles,  when  he 
read  of  "  ships  of  Tarshish,"  presuming,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  that  they  were  destined  for  Tarshish,  con 
sulted,  as  he  thought,  the  convenience  of  his  readeus 
by  inserting  the  explanation  as  part  of  the  text. 

Although,  however,  the  point  to  which  the  fleet 
of  Solomon  and  Hiram  went  once  in  three  years  did 
not  bear  the  name  of  Tarshish,  the  question  here 
arises  of  what  that  point  was,  however  it  was 
called  ?  AnJ  the  reasonable  answer  seems  to  be 
India,  or  the  Indian  Islands.  This  is  shown  by  the 
nature  of  the  imports  with  which  the  fleet  returned, 
which  are  specified  as  "  gold,  silver,  ivory,  apes,, 
and  peacocks"  (1  K.  x.  22).  The  gold'  might 
possibly  have  been  obtained  from  Africa,  or  from 
Ophir  in  Arabia  [OPHIR],  and  the  ivory  and  the 
apes  might  likewise  have  been  imported  from 
Africa ;  but  the  peacocks  point  conclusively,  not  to 
Africa,  but  to  India.  One  of  the  English  transla 
tors  of  Cuvier's  Animal  Kingdom,  London,  1829, 
vol.  viii.  p.  136,  says,  in  reference  to  this  bird: 
"  It  has  long  since  been  decided  that  India  was  the 
cradle  of  the  peacock.  It  is  in  the  countries  of 
Southern  Asia,  and  the  vast  Archipelago  of  the 
Eastern  Ocean,  that  this  bird  appears  to  have  fixed 
its  dwelling,  and  to  live  in  a  state  of  freedom.  All 
travellers  who  have  visited  these  countries  make 
mention  of  these  birds.  Thevenot  encountered 
great  numbers  of  them  in  the  province  of  Guzzerat ; 
Ta vernier  throughout  all  India,  and  Payrard  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Calcutta.  Labillardiere  tells  us 
that  peacocks  are  common  in  the  island  of  Java." 
To  this  may  be  added  the  statement  of  Sir  William 
Jardine,  Naturalist's  Library,  vol.  xx.  p.  147. 
There  are  only  two  species  "  known  ;  both  inhabit 
the  continent  and  islands  of  India  " — so  that  the 
mention  of  the  peacock  seems  to  exclude  the  possi 
bility  of  the  voyage  having  been  to  Africa.  Mr. 
Crawfurd,  indeed,  in  his  excellent  Descriptive  Dic 
tionary  of  the  Indian  Islands,  p.  310,  expresses  an 
opinion  that  the  birds  are  more  likely  to  have  been 
parrots  than  peacocks ;  and  he  objects  to  the  pea 
cock,  that,  independent  of  its  great  size,  it  is  o\ 
delicate  constitution,  which  would  make  it  nearly 
impossible  to  convey  it  in  small  vessels  and  by  a 
long  sea  voyage.  It  is  proper,  however,  to  mention, 
on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Gould,  whose  splendid 
works  on  birds  are  so  well  known,  that  the  peacock 
is  by  no  means  a  bird  of  delicate  constitution,  and 
that  it  would  bear  a  sea  voyage  very  well.  Mr. 
Gould  observes  that  it  might  be  easily  fed  during  a 
long  voyage,  as  it  lives  on  grain  ;  and  that  it  would 
merely  have  been  necessary,  in  order  to  keep  it  in 
a  cage,  to  have  cut  off  its  train  ;  which,  it  is  to  be 
observed,  falls  off  of  itself  and  is  naturally  renewed 
once  a  year. 

The  inference  to  be  drawn  from  the  importation 
of  peacocks  is  confirmed  by  the  Hebrew  name  for 
the  ape  and  the  peacock.  Neither  of  these  names 
is  of  Hebrew,  or  ev-en  Shemitic,  origin ;  and  each 
points  to  India.d  Thus  the  Hebrew  word  for  ape  is 


d  The  word  "  shenhabbim  "  =  ivory,  is  likewise  usually 
regarded  as  of  Indian  origin,  "  ibha "  being  in  Sanscrit, 
"  elephant."  But  "  shenhabbim,"  or  "  shenhavlm,"  as 
the  word  would  be  without  points,  is  nowhere  used  foi 
ivory  except  in  connection  with  this  voyage,  the  usua 
word  for  ivory  being  shen  by  itself.  The.  conjecture  01 
Rodiger  in  Gesenius's  Thesaurus,  3.  v.  is  very  probable, 
that  the  correct  reading  is  D'Onn  32*.  ivory  ^and^  ebon- 


TA11SH1SU 

Ktph,  vrhile  the  Sanscrit  word  is  kapi  (see  Gesenins 
and  Fiirst,  s.  v.,  and  Max  Muller,  On  the  Science 
vf  Language,  p.  190).  Again,  the  Hebrew  word 
for  peacock  is  tukki,  which  cannot  be  explained 
in  Hebrew,  but  is  akin  to  tcka  in  the  Tamil  lan 
guage,  in  which  t  is  likewise  capable  of  explanation. 
Thus,  the  Rev.  Dr.  K.  Cald well,' than  whom  there  is 
no  greater  authority  on  the  Tamil  language,  writes 
as  follows  from  Palamcottah,  Madras,  June  12, 
1862. — "  Toka6  is  a  well  recognized  Tamil  word 
for  peacock,  though  now  used  only  in  poetry.  The 
Sanscrit  sikki  refers  to  the  peculiar  crest  of  the  pea 
cock,  and  means  (avis)  cristata ;  the  Tamil  toka 
refers  to  the  other  and  still  more  marked  peculiarity 
of  the  peacock,  its  tail  (i.  e.  its  train),  and  means 
(avis)  caudata.  The  Tamil  toka  signifies,  accord 
ing  to  the  dictionaries, '  plumage,  the  peacock's  tail, 
the  peacock,  the  end  of  a  skirt,  a  flag,  and,  lastly,  a 
woman  '  (a  comparison  of  gaily-dressed  women  with 
peacocks  being  implied).  The  explanation  of  all 
these  meanings  is,  that  toka  literally  means  that 
which  hangs — a  hanging.  Hence  tokhai,  another 
form  of  the  same  word  in  provincial  use  in  Tamil 
(see  also  the  togai  of  Rodiger  in  Gesenius's  The- 
taunis,  p.  1502),  means  'skirt,'  and  in  Telugu, 
toka  means  a  tail."  It  is  to  be  observed,  however, 
that,  if  there  was  any  positive  evidence  of  the 
voyage  having  been  to  Africa,  the  Indian  origin  of 
the  Hebrew  name  for  ape  and  peacock  would  not  be 
of  much  weight,  as  it  cannot  be  proved  that  the 
Hebrews  first  became  acquainted  with  the  name  of 
these  animals  through  Solomon's  naval  expeditions 
from  Ezion  Geber.  Still,  this  Indian  origin  of  those 
names  must  be  regarded  as  important  in  the  ab 
sence  of  any  evidence  in  favour  of  Africa,  and  in 
conjunction  with  the  fact  that  the  peacock  is  an 
Indian  and  not  an  African  bird. 

It  is  only  to  be  added,  that  there  are  not  suffi 
cient  data  for  determining  what  were  the  ports  in 
India  or  the  Indian  Islands  which  were  reached  by 
the  fleet  of  Hiram  and  Solomon.  Sir  Emerson 
Tennent  has  made  a  suggestion  of  Point  de  Galle, 
in  Ceylon,  on  the  ground  that  from  three  centuries 
before  the  Christian  era  there  is  one  unbroken  chain 
of  evidence  down  to  the  present  time,  to  prove  that 
it  was  the  grand  emporium  for  the  commerce  of 
all  nations  east  of  the  Red  Sea.  [See  article  TAR- 
SHISH,  above.]  But  however  reasonable  this  sugges 
tion  may  be,  it  can  only  be  received  as  a  pure 
conjecture,  inasmuch  as  there  is  no  evidence  that 
any  emporium  at  all  was  in  existence  at  the  Point 
de  Galle  700  years  earlier.  It  can  scarcely  be 
doubted  that  there  will  always  henceforth  be  an 
emporium  at  Singapore ;  and  it  might  seem  a  spot 
marked  out  by  nature  for  the  commerce  of  nations  ; 
yet  we  know  how  fallacious  it  would  be,  under  any 
circumstances,  to  argue  2000  years  hence  that  it 
must  have  been  a  great  emporium  in  the  twelfth 
century,  or  even  previous  to  the  nineteenth  century, 
of  the  Christian  era.  [E.  T.] 

TAK'SUS  (Taptrefc).  The  chief  town  of  CILICIA, 
'•  no  mean  city "  in  other  respects,  but  illustrious 
to  all  ti  lie  as  the  birthplace  and  early  residence  of 
the  Apostle  Paul  (Acts  ix.  11,  xxi.  39,  xxii.  3). 
It  is  simply  in  this  point  of  view  that  the  place  is 


TARSUS 


1441 


«=  alien  habiiim,  which  is  remarkably  confirmed  by  a  pas 
sage  in  Ezekiel  (xxvii.  15),  where  be  speaks  of  the  men  of 
Ded&n  having  brought  to  Tyre  horns  of  ivory  and  ebony, 


•  The  Greeks  received  the  peacock  through  the  Per 
sians,   as  is  shown   ty   the    Greek   name    taos,  TOWS, 
VOL.  in. 


mentioned  in  the  three  passages  just  referred  to 
And  the  only  other  passages  in  which  the  name  oo 
curs  arc  Acts  ix.  oO  and  xi.  25,  which  give  th< 
limits  of  that  residence  in  his  native  town  whick 
succeeded  the  first  visit  to  Jerusalem  after  his  con« 
version,  and  preceded  his  active  ministerial  work 
at  Antioch  and  elsewhere  (compare  Acts  xxii.  21 
and  Gal.  i.  21).  Though  Tarsus,  however,  is  not 
actually  mentioned  elsewhere,  there  is  little  <loubt 
that  St.  Paul  was  there  at  the  beginning  of  his 
second  and  third  missionary  journeys  (Acts  xv.  41, 
xviii.  23). 

Even  in  the  flourishing  period  of  Greek  history 
it  was  a  city  of  some  considerable  consequence 
(Xen.  Anab.  i.  2,  §23).  After  Alexander's  con 
quests  had  swept  this  way  (Q.  Curt.  iii.  5),  and 
the  Seleucid  kingdom  was  established  at  Antioch, 
Tarsus  usually  belonged  to  that  kingdom,  though 
for  a  time  it  was  under  the  Ptolemies.  In  the  Civil 
Wars  of  Rome  it  took  Caesar's  side,  and  on  the 
occasion  of  a  visit  from  him  had  its  name  changed 
to  Juliopolis  (Caes.  Bell.  Alex.  66;  Dion  Cass. 
xlvii.  26).  Augustus  made  it  a  "  free  city."  We 
are  not  to  suppose  that  St.  Paul  had,  or  could 
have,  his  Roman  citizenship  from  this  circum 
stance,  nor  would  it  be  necessary  to  mention  this, 
but  that  many  respectable  commentators  have 
fallen  into  this  error.  We  ought  to  note,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  circumstances  in  the  social 
state  of  Tarsus,  which  had,  or  may  be  conceived 
to  have  had,  an  influence  on  the  Apostle's  train 
ing  and  character.  It  was  renowned  as  a  plaa 
of  education  under  the  early  Roman  emperors 
Strabo  compares  it  in  this  respect  to  Athens  and 
Alexandria,  giving,  as  regards  the  zeal  for  learning 
showed  by  the  residents,  the  preference  to  Tarsus 
(xiv.  673).  Some  eminent  Stoics  resided  here, 
among  others  Athenodorus,  the  tutor  of  Augustus, 
and  Nestor,  the  tutor  of  Tiberius.  Tarsus  also  was 
a  place  of  much  commerce,  and  St.  Basil  describes 
it  as  a  point  of  union  for  Syrians,  Cilicians,  Isau- 
rians,  and  Cappadocians  (Basil,  Ep.  Euseb.  Samos. 
Episc.}. 

Tarsus  was  situated  in  a  wide  and  fertile  plain 
on  the  banks  of  the  Cydnus,  the  waters  of  which 
are  famous  for  the  dangerous  fever  caught  by  Alex 
ander  when  bathing,  and  for  the  meeting  of  Antony 
and  Cleopatra.  This  part  of  Cilicia  was  intersected 
in  Roman  times  by  good  roads,  especially  one  cross 
ing  the  Taurus  northwards  by  the  "  Cilician  Gates" 
to  the  neighbourhood  of  Lystra  and  Iconium,  the 
other  joining  Tarsus  with  Antioch,  and  passing 
eastwards  by  the  "  Amanian  "  and  "  Syrian  Gates." 
No  ruins  of  any  importance  remain.  The  following 


Coin  of  Tarsus. 


which  is  nearly  identical  with  the  Persian  name  tafis, 
JJ^.     The  fact  that  the  peacock  is  mentioned  foi 

the  first  time  in  Aristophanes,  Aws,  102,  269  (beinj 
unknown  to  the  Homeric  Poems)  agrees  with  this  Perslaj 
origin. 


1442 


TARTAK 


authorities  may  be  consulted :  — Belley  iu  vol.  xxvii, 
of  the  Academic  dcs  Inscript. ;  Beaufort's  Kara- 
mania,  p.  275;  Leake's  Asia  Minor,  p.  214 ;  Barker's 
Lares  and  Penates,  pp.  31,  173,  187.  [J.  S.  H.] 

TARTAK  (prnFl:  ®apedic:  Tharthac).  One 

of  the  gods  of  the  Avite,  or  Avvite,  colonists  who 
were  planted  in  the  cities  of  Samaria  after  the  re 
moval  of  the  tribes  by  Shalrnaneser  (2  K.  xvii.  31). 
According  to  Rabbinical  tradition,  Tartak  is  said  to 
have  been  worshipped  under  the  form  of  an  ass 
(Talm.  Babl.  Sanhedrin,  fol.  636).  From  this  it 
has  been  conjectured  that  this  idol  was  the  Egyptian 
Typho,  but  though  in  the  hieroglyphics  the  ass  is 
the  symbol  of  Typho,  it  was  so  far  from  being  re 
garded  as  an  object  of  worship,  that  it  was  consid 
ered  absolutely  unclean  (Plut.  7s.  et  Os.  c.  14). 
A  Persian  or  Pehlvi  origin  has  been  suggested  for 
Tartak,  according  to  which  it  signifies  either  "  in 
tense  darkness,"  or  "  hero  of  darkness,"  or  the 
underworld,  and  so  perhaps  some  planet  of  ill-luck 
as  Saturn  or  Mars  (Gesen.  Thes. ;  Fvirst,  Handwb.). 
The  Carmanians,  a  warlike  race  on  the  Persian 
Gulf,  worshipped  Mars  alone  of  all  the  gods,  and 
sacrificed  an  ass  in  his  honour  (Strabo,  xv.  p.  727). 
Perhaps  some  trace  of  this  worship  may  have  given 
rise  to  the  Jewish  tradition.  [W.  A.  W.] 

TARTAN  (jnifl :  ©apflai/,  ta.v6.Bav,  or  Tap- 
a6dv :  Tharthan),  which  occurs  only  in  2  K.  xviii. 
17,  and  Is.  xx.  1,  has  been  generally  regarded  as  a 
proper  name.  (Gesen.  Lex.  Heb.  s.  v. ;  Winer, 
Realworterbuch ;  Kitto,  Bibl.  Cyclopaed.,  &c.) 
Winer  assumes,  on  account  of  the  identity  of  name, 
that  the  same  person  is  intended  in  the  two  places. 
Kitto,  with  more  caution,  notes  that  this  is  uncer 
tain.  Recent  discoveries  make  it  probable  that  in 
Tartan,  as  in  Rabsaris  and  Rabshakeh,  we  have  not 
a  proper  name  at  all,  but  a  title  or  official  designa 
tion,  like  Pharaoh  or  Surena."  The  Assyrian  Tar 
tan  is  a  general,  or  commander-in-chief.  It  seems 
as  if  the  Greek  translator  of  2  Kings  had  an  inkling 
of  the  truth,  and  therefore  prefixed  the  article  to  all 
three  names  (a7re<rreiAe  f$a<ri\€vs  '  Affffvpicov  rbv 
&ap6av  Kal  rbv  'Pa<f>ls  (?)  /col  rbv  'Patyditrji' 
irpis  T}>V  j8a<nA.6a  'E^e/dcw),  which  he  very  rarely 
prefixes  to  the  names  of  persons  where  they  are  first 
mentioned. 

If  this  be  the  true  account  of  the  term  Tartan, 
we  must  understand  in  2  K.  xviii.  17,  that  Senna 
cherib  sent  "  a  general,"  together  with  his  "  chief 
eunuch  ''  and  "  chief  cup-bearer,"  on  an  embassy 
to  Hezekiah,  and  in  Is.  xx.  1  that  "  a  general  " — 
probably  a  different  person — was  employed  by 
Sargon  against  Ashdod,  and  succeeded  in  taking  the 
city.  [G.  R.] 

TAT'NAI  (»ttin  :  ®a.vQa.vat;  Alex.  ©aMoraf : 
Thathanai :  Simonis,  Gesenius,  Fiirst),  Satrap 
(nnS)  of  the  province  west  of  the  Euphrates  in  the 
time  of  Darius  Hystaspis  and  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  v. 
3,  6,  vi.  6, 13).  [SHETHAR-BOZNAI.]  The  name 
is  thought  to  be  Persian.  [A.  C.  H.] 

TAVERNS,  THE  THREE.  [THREE 
TAVERNS.] 

TAXES.  In  the  history  of  Israel,  as  of  other 
nations,  the  student  who  desires  to  form  a  just 
estimate  of  the  social  condition  of  the  people  must 


*  Surena,  the  Parthian  term  for  "  a  general,"  was  often 
mistaken  for  a  proper  name  by  the  classical  writers. 
(Btrab.  xvl.  1  $23 ;  Appian,  BelL  Forth,  p.  140 ;  Dion 


TAXES 

take  into  account  the  taxes  which  they  had  to 
pay.  According  as  these  are  light  or  heavy  may 
vary  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  a  nation. 
To  them,  though  lying  in  the  background  of  his 
tory,  may  often  be  traced,  as  to  the  true  motive- 
power,  many  political  revolutions.  Within  the 
limits  of  the  present-  article,  it  will  not  be  possible 
to  do  more  than  indicate  the  extent  and  form  of 
taxation  in  the  several  periods  of  Jewish  history 
and  its  influence  on  the  life  of  the  people. 

I.  Under  the  Judges,  according  to  the  theocratic 
government  contemplated  by  the  law,  the  only  pay 
ments  obligatory  upon  the  people  as  of  permanent 
obligation  were  the  TITHES,  the  FIRST  FRUITS,  the 
REDEMPTION-MONEY  of  the  first-born,  and  other 
offerings  as  belonging  to  special  occasions  [PRIESTS]. 
The  payment  by  each  Israelite  of  the  half-shekel 
as    "  atonememVmoney,"   for  the    service   of  the 
tabernacle,   on   taking   the    census  of  the   people 
(Ex.  xxx.   13),  does  not  appear  to  have  had  the 
character  of  a  recurring  tax,  but  to  have   been 
supplementary  to   the  free-will   offerings   of  Ex. 
xxv.  1-7,  levied  for  the  one  purpose  of  the  con 
struction   of  the    sacred   tent.      In   later    times, 
indeed,  after  the  return  from  Babylon,  there  was 
an  annual  payment  for  maintaining  the  fabric  and 
services  of  the  Temple;    but  the  fact   that   this 
begins  by  the  voluntary  compact  to  pay  one-third 
of  a  shekel   (Neh.  x.  32)   shows  that   till   then 
there  was  no  such  payment  recognised  as  neces 
sary.     A  little  later  the  third  became  a  half,  and 
under  the  name  of  the  didrachma  (Matt.  xvii.  24) 
was  paid  by  every  Jew,  in  whatever  part  of  the 
world  he  might  be  living  (Jos.  Ant.  xviii.  9,  §1). 
Large  sums  were  thus  collected  in  Babylon  and 
other  eastern  cities,  and  were  sent  to  Jerusalem 
under  a  special  escort  (Jos.  Ant.  1.  c. ;  Cic.  pro 
Flacc.  c.  28).     We  have  no  trace  of  any  further 
taxation  than  this  during  the  period  of  the  Judges. 
It  was  not  in  itself  heavy:  it  was  lightened  by 
the  feeling  that  it  was   paid  as  a   religious   act. 
In  return  for  it  the  people  secured  the  celebration 
of  their  worship,  and  the  presence  among  them  ot 
a  body  of  men  acting  more  or  less  efficiently  a£ 
priests,  judges,  teachers,  perhaps  also  as  physicians. 
[PRIESTS.]     We  cannot  wonder  that  the   people 
should  afterwards  look  back  to  the  good  old  days 
when  they  had  been  so  lightly  burdened. 

II.  The  kingdom,  with  its  centralised  govern- 
ment  and  greater  magnificence,  involved,  of  course, 
a  larger  expenditure,  and  therefore  a  heavier  taxa 
tion.   .  This  may  have  come,  during  the  long  his 
tory  of  the  monarchy,  in  many  different  forms, 
according  to  the  financial  necessities  of  the  times. 
The  chief  burdens  appear  to  have  been:   (1)  A 
tithe  of  the  produce  both  of  the  soil  and  of  live 
stock,    making,    together   with    the    ecclesiastical 
tithe,  20  per  cent,  on  incomes  of  this  nature  (1 
Sam.  viii.   15,  17).     (2)  Forced  military  service 
for  a  month  every  year  (1  Sam.  viii.   12  ;    1   K. 
ix.  22 ;  1  Chr.  xxvii.  1).     (3)  Gifts  to  the  king, 
theoretically   free,   like   the    old    Benevolences  of 
English  taxation,  but  expected  as  a  thing  of  course, 
at  the  commencement  of  a  reign  (1  Sam.  x.  2T> 
or  in  time  of  war  (comp.  the  gifts  of  Jesse,  1  Sam. 
xvi.  20,  xvii.  18).     In  the  case  of  subject-princes 
the  gifts,  still  made  in  kind,  armour,  horses,  gold, 
silver,  &c.,  appear  to  have  been  regularly  assessed 


Cass.  xl.  16;  Plut.  Crass,  p.  561,  E,  &c.)  Tacitue  is 
the  first  author  who  seems  to  be  aware  that  it  is  a  tilk 
(Ann.  vi.  42). 


TAXES 

Cl  K.  x.  25;  2  Chr.  ix.  24).  Whether  th.s 
was  ever  the  case  with  the  presents  from  Israelite 
subjects  must  remain  uncertain.  (4)  Import 
duties,  chiefly  on  the  produce  of  the  spice  districts 
of  Arabia  (1  K.  x.  15).  (5)  The  monopoly  of 
certain  branches  of  commerce,  as,  for  example, 
that  of  gold  (1  K.  ix.  28,  xxii.  48),  fine  linen  or 
byssus  from  Egypt  (1  K.  x.  28),  and  horses  (ib. 
ver.  29).  (6)  The  appropriation  to  the  king's  use 
of  the  early  crop  of  hay  (Am.  vii.  1).  This  may, 
however,  have  been  peculiar  to  the  northern  king 
dom  or  occasioned  by  a  special  emergency  (Ewald, 
Proph.  in  loc.)." 

It  is  obvious  that  burdens  such  as  these,  coming 
npon  a  people  previously  unaccustomed  to  them, 
must  have  been  almost  intolerable.  Even  under 
Saul  exemption  from  taxes  is  looked  on  as  a 
sufficient  reward  for  great  military  services  (1 
Sam.  xvii.  25).  Under  the  outward  splendour 
and  prosperity  of  the  reign  of  Solomon  there  lay 
the  deep  discontent  of  an  over-taxed  people,  and 
it  contributed  largely  to  the  revolution  that  fol 
lowed.  The  people  complain  not  of  Solomon's 
idolatry  but  of  their  taxes  (1  K.  xii.  4).  Of  all 
the  king's  officers  he  whom  they  hate  most  is 
ADORAM  or  ADONIRAM,  who  was  "  over  the  tri 
bute  "  (1  K.  xii.  18).  At  times,  too,  in  the  history 
of  both  the  kingdoms  there  were  special  burdens. 
A  tribute  of  50  shekels  a  head  had  to  be  paid  by 
Menahem  to  the  Assyrian  king  (2  K.  xv.  20),  and 
under  his  successor  Hoshea,  this  assumed  the  form 
of  an  annual  tribute  (2  K.  xvii.  4;  amount  not 
stated).  After  the  defeat  of  Josiah  by  Pbaraoh- 
Necho,  in  like  manner  a  heavy  income-tax  had  to 
be  imposed  on  the  kingdom  of  Judah  to  pay  the 
tribute  demanded  by  Egypt  (2  K.  xxiii.  35),  and 
the  change  of  masters  consequent  on  the  battle  of 
Carchemish  brought  in  this  respect  no  improve 
ment  (Jos.  Ant.  x.  9,  §1-3). 

III.  Under  the  Persian  empire,  the  taxes  paid 
oy  the  Jews  were,  in  their  broad  outlines,  the 
same  in  kind  as  those  of  other  subject  races.  The 
financial  system  which  gained  for  Darius  Hystaspis 
the  name  of  the  "  shopkeeper  king "  (/caTnjAos, 
Herod,  iii.  89),  involved  the  payment  by  each 
satrap  of  a  fixed  sum  as  the  tribute  due  from  his 
province  (ibid.),  and  placed  him  accordingly  in  the 
position  of  a  publicanus,  or  farmer  of  the  revenue, 
exposed  to  all  the  temptation  to  extortion  and 
tyranny  inseparable  from  such  a  system.  Here, 
accordingly,  we  get  glimpses  of  taxes  of  many 
kinds.  In  Judaea,  as  in  other  provinces,  the 
inhabitants  had  to  provide  in  kind  for  the  main 
tenance  of  the  governor's  household  (comp.  the 
case  of  Themistocles,  Thuc.  i.  138,  and  Herod,  i. 
192,  ii.  98),  besides  a  money-payment  of  40  shekels 
3  day  (Neh.  v.  14,  15).  In  Ezr.  iv.  18,  20, 
vii.  24,  we  get  a  formal  enumeration  of  the 
three  great  branches  of  the  revenue.  (1)  The 
["HO,  fixed,  measured  payment,  probably  direct 
taxation  (Grotius).  (2)  V?2,  the  excise  or  octroi 
an  articles  of  consumption  (Gesen.  s.  v.).  (3)  "Spil, 
probably  the  toll  payable  at  bridges,  fords,  or 
certain  stations  on  the  high  road.  The  influence 
of  Ezra  secured  for  the  whole  ecclesiastical  order, 
from  the  priests  down  to  the  Nethinim,  an  immu 
nity  from  all  three  (Ezr.  vii.  24) ;  but  the  burden 


TAXES 


1443 


pressed  heavily  on  the  great  body  of  the  people, 
and  they  complained  bitterly  both  of  this  and  of 
the  ayyap-fjiov,  or  forced  service,  to  which  they  and 
their  cattle  were  liable  (Neh.  ix.  37).  They  were 
compelled  to  mortgage  their  vinevards  and  fields, 
borrowing  money  at  12  per  cent.,  the  interest  being 
payable  apparently  either  in  money  or  in  kind  (Neh. 
v.  1-11).  Failing  payment,  the  creditors  exercised 
the  power  (with  or  without  the  mitigation  of  the 
year  of  JUBILEE)  of  seizing  the  persons  of  the 
debtors  and  treating  them  as  slaves  (Neh.  v.  5 ; 
comp.  2  K.  iv.  1).  Taxation  was  leading  at 
Jerusalem  to  precisely  the  same  evils  as  those 
which  appeared  from  like  causes  in  the  early 
history  of  Rome.  To  this  cause  may  probably 
be  ascribed  the  incomplete  payment  of  tithes  or 
offerings  at  this  period  (Neh.  xiii.  10,  12;  Mai. 
iii.  8),  and  the  consequent  necessity  of  a  special 
poll-tax  of  the  third  part  of  a  shekel  for  the  ser 
vices  of  the  Temple  (Neh.  x.  32).  What  could  be 
done  to  mitigate  the  evil  was  done  by  Nehemiah, 
but  the  taxes  continued,  and  oppression  and  injus 
tice  marked  the  government  of  the  province  accord 
ingly  (Eccl.  v.  8).b 

IV.  Under  the  Egyptian  and  Syrian  kings  the 
taxes  paid  by  the  Jews  became  yet  heavier.     The 
"  farming  "  system  of  finance  was  adopted  in  its 
worst  form.     The  Persian  governors  had  had  to 
pay  a  fixed  sum  into  the  treasury.     Now  the  taxes 
were  put  up  to  auction.     The   contract  sum  for 
those  of  Phoenicia,   Judaea,    Samaria,   had   been 
estimated  at  about  8000  talents.    An  unscrupulous 
adventurer  (e.  g.  Joseph,  under  Ptolemy  Euergetes) 
would  bid  double  that  sum,  and  would  then  go 
down  to  the  province,  and  by  violence  and  cruelty, 
like  that  of  Turkish  or  Hindoo  collectors,  squeeze 
out  a  large  margin  of  profit  for  himself  (Jos.  Ant. 
xii.  4,  §1-5). 

Under  the  Syrian  kings  we  meet  with  an  inge 
nious  variety  of  taxation.  Direct  tribute  (<j>opot\ 
an  excise  duty  on  ^alt,  crown-taxes  (ffre^ai/ot, 
golden  crowns,  or  their  value,  sent  yearly  to  the 
king),  one-half  the  produce  of  fruit  trees,  one-third 
that  of  corn  land,  a  tax  of  some  kind  on  cattle: 
these,  as  the  heaviest  burdens,  are  ostentatiously 
enumerated  in  the  decrees  of  the  two  Demetriuses 
remitting  them  (1  Mace.  x.  29,  30 ;  xi.  35).  Even 
after  this,  however,  the  golden  crown  and  scarlet 
robe  continue  to  be  sent  (1  Mace.  xiii.  39).  The 
proposal  of  the  apostate  Jason  to  farm  the  revenues 
at  a  rate  above  the  average  (460  talents,  while 
Jonathan — 1  Mace.  xi.  28 — pays  300  only),  and 
to  pay  150  talents  more  for  a  licence  to  open  a 
circus  (2  Mace.  iv.  9),  gives  us  a  glimpse  oi 
another  source  of  revenue.  The  exemption  given 
by  Antiochus  to  the  priests  and  other  ministers, 
with  the  deduction  of  one-third  for  all  the  residents 
in  Jerusalem,  was  apparently  only  temporary  (Jos. 
Ant.  xii.  3,  §3). 

V.  The   pressure    of  Roman-  taxation,    if   not 
absolutely  heavier,  was  probably  more  galling,  as 
being  more  thorough   and  systematic,    more   dis 
tinctively  a  mark   of  bondage.      The   capture   of 
Jerusalem  by  Pompey  was  followed  immediately 
by  the  imposition  of  a  tribute,  and  within  a  short 
time  the  sum  thus  taken  from  the  resources  of  the 
country  amounted  to   10,000   talents    (Jos.   Ant. 
xiv.  4,  §4,  5).     The  decrees  of  Julius  Caesar  showed 


a  The  history  of  the  drought  in  the  reign  of  Ahab 
(1  K.  xviii.  5)  shows  that  in  such  cases  a  power  like  tnis 
must  have  been  eBientlal  to  the  support  of  the  cavalry  of 


the  royal  army. 

b  The  later  date  of  the  book  is  assumed  in  this  refe 
ranee.    Comp.  ECCLESIASTES. 

>  2.  Z 


1444 


TAXES 


a  characteristic  desire  to  lighten  the  burdens  that 
pressed  upon  the  subjects  of  the  republic.  The 
tribute  was  not  to  be  farmed.  It  was  not  to  be 
levied  at  all  in  the  Sabbatic  year.  One-fourth 
only  was  demanded  in  the  year  that  followed  (Jos. 
Ant.  xiv.  10,  §5,  6).  The  people,  still  under  the 
government  of  Hyrcanus,  were  thus  protected 
against  their  own  rulers.  The  struggle  of  the 
republican  party  after  the  death  of  the  Dictator 
brought  fresh  burdens  upon  the  whole  of  Syria, 
and  Cassius  levied  not  less  than  700  talents  from 
Judaea  alone.  Under  Herod,  as  might  be  expected 
from  his  lavish  expenditure  in  public  buildings, 
the  taxation  became  heavier.  Even  in  years  of 
famine  a  portion  of  the  produce  of  the  soil  was 
seized  for  the  royal  revenue  (Jos.  Ant.  xv.  9,  §1), 
and  it  was  not  till  the  discontent  of  the  people 
became  formidable  that  he  ostentatiously  dimin 
ished  this  by  one- third  (Jos.  Ant.  xv.  10,  §4).  It 
was  no  wonder  that  when  Herod  wished  to  found  a 
new  city  in  Trachonitis,  and  to  attract  a  population 
of  residents,  he  found  that  the  most  effective  bait 
was  to  promise  immunity  from  taxes  (Jos.  Ant. 
vii.  2,  §1),  or  that  on  his  death  the  people  should 
je  loud  in  their  demands  that  Archelaus  should 
felease  them  from  their  burdens,  complaining 
specially  of  the  duty  levied  on  all  sales  (Jos.  Ant. 
xvii.  8,  §4). 

When  Judaea  became  formally  a  Roman  pro 
vince,  the  whole  financial  system  of  the  Empire 
came  as  a  natural  consequence.  The  taxes  were 
systematically  farmed,  and  the  publicans  appeared 
as  a  new  curse  to  the  country.  [PUBLICANS.] 
The  Portoria  were  levied  at  harbours,  piers,  and 
the  gates  of  cities.  These  were  the  reArj  of  Matt. 
xvii.  24;  Rom.  xiii.  7.  In  addition  to  this  there 
was  the  Krjvffos  or  poll-tax  (Cod.  D.  gives  eiri- 
K€<{>d\aiov  in  Mark  xii.  15)  paid  by  every  Jew, 
and  looked  upon,  for  that  reason,  as  the  special 
badge  of  servitude.  It  was  about  the  lawfulness 
of  this  payment  that  the  rabbis  disputed,  while 
they  were  content  to  acquiesce  in  the  payment  of 
the  customs  (Matt.  xxii.  17;  Mark  xii.  13;  Luke 
xx.  20).  It  was  against  this  apparently  that  the 
struggles  of  Judas  of  Galilee  and  his  followers 
were  chiefly  directed  (Jos.  Ant.  xviii.  1,  §6 ; 
B.  J.  ii.  8,  §1).  United  with  this,  as  part  of  the 
same  system,  there  was  also,  in  'all  probability,  a 
property-tax  of  some  kind.  Quirinus,  after  the 
deposition  of  Archelaus,  was  sent  to  Syria  to 
complete  the  work — begun,  probably,  at  the  time 
of  our  Lord's  birth — of  valuing  and  registering 
property  [CVRENIUS,  TAXING],  and  this  would 
hardly  have  been  necessary  for  a  mere  poll-tax. 
The  influence  of  Joazar  the  high-priest  led  the 
people  generally  (the  followers  of  Judas  and  the 
Pharisee  Sadduc  were  the  only  marked  exceptions) 
to  acquiesce  in  this  measure  and  to  make  the 
required  returns  (Jos.  Ant.  xviii.  1,  §1) ;  but  their 
discontent  still  continued,  and,  under  Tiberius, 
they  applied  for  some  alleviation  (Tac.  Ann.  ii. 
42).  In  addition  to  these  general  taxes,  the  inha 
bitants  of  Jerusalem  were  subject  to  a  special 
house-duty  about  this  period;  Agrippa,  in  his 
desire  to  reward  the  good-will  of  the  people,  re 
mitted  it  (Jos.  Ant.  xix.  6,  §3). 

II  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  in  this,  as  in 
most  other  cases,  an  oppressive  taxation  tended 
greatly  to  demoralise  the  people.  Many  of  the 


TAXING 

most  glaring  faults  of  the  Jewish  character  art 
di'.Unctly  traceable  to  it.  The  fierce,  vindictive 
cruelty  of  the  Galilaeans,  the  Zealots,  the  Sicarii, 
w-'is  its  natural  fruit.  It  was  not  the  least 
striking  proof  that  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  and 
His  disciples  was  more  than  the  natural  outrush  of 
popular  feeling,  that  it  sought  to  raise  men  to  the 
higher  region  in  which  all  such  matters  were  regarded 
?s  things  indifferent;  and,  instead  of  expressing  the 
popular  impatience  of  taxation,  gave,  as  the  true 
counsel,  the  precept  "  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things 
that  are  Caesar's,"  "  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due, 
custom  to  whom  custom."  [E.  H.  P.J 

TAXING.  I.  (ft  airoypaQ-fi-  descriptfo,  Luke 
ii.  2 ;  professio,  Acts  v.  37).  The  cognate  verb 
airoypd<pe(Tdai  in  like  manner  is  rendered  by  "  to 
be  taxed  "  in  the  A.  V.,a  while  the  Vulgate  employs 
"  ut  describeretur  universus  orbis"  in  Luke  ii.  1, 
and  "  ut  profiterentur  singuli "  in  ver.  3.  Both  the 
Latin  words  thus  used  are  found  in  classical  writers 
with  the  meaning  of  a  registration  or  formal  return 
of  population  or  property  (Cic.  Verr.  ii.  3,  §47 ; 
de  Off.  i.  7  ;  Sueton  Tiber.  30).  The  English  word 
conveys  to  us  more  distinctly  the  notion  of  a  tax 
or  tribute  actually  levied,  but  it  appears  to  have 
been  used  in  the  16th  century  for  the  simple  assess 
ment  of  a  subsidy  upon  the  property  of  a  given 
county  (Bacon,  Hen.  VII.  p.  67),  or  the  registra 
tion  of  the  people  for  the  purpose  of  a  poll-tax 
(Camden,  Hist,  of  Eliz.}.  This  may  account  for 
the  choice  of  the  word  by  Tindal  in  lieu  of  "  de 
scription  "  and  "  profession,"  which  Wyclif,  fol 
lowing  the  Vulgate,  had  given.  Since  then  "  taxing " 
has  kept  its  ground  in  most  English  versions  with 
the  exception  of  "tribute"  in  the  Geneva,  and 
"  enrolment"  in  the  Rhemish  of  Acts  v.  37.  The 
word  airoypcup-f)  by  itself  leaves  the  question  whe 
ther  the  returns  made  were  of  population  or  pro 
perty  undetermined.  Josephus,  using  the  words 
f)  airori^<ns  T&V  OIKTIWV  (Ant.  xviii.  1,  §1)  as 
an  equivalent,  shows  that  "  the  taxing  "  of  which 
Gamaliel  speaks  included  both.  That  connected 
with  the  Nativity,  the  first  step  towards  the  com 
plete  statistical  returns,  was  probably  limited  to  the 
former  (Greswell,  Harmony,  i.  542).  In  either  case 
"  Census "  would  have  seemed  the  most  natural 
Latin  equivalent,  but  in  the  Greek  of  the  N.  T., 
and  therefore  probably  in  the  familiar  Latin  of  the 
period,  as  afterwards  in  the  Vulg.,  that  word  slides 
off  into  the  sense  of  the  tribute  actually  paid  (Matt. 
xxii.  17,  xvii.  24). 

II.  Two  distinct  registrations,  or  taxings,  are 
mentioned  in  the  N.  T.,  both  of  them  by  St.  Luke. 
The  first  is  said  to  have  been  the  result  of  an  edict 
of  the  emperor  Augustus,  that  "  til  the  wor.d  (i.  e, 
the  Roman  empire)  should  be  taxed"  (curoypd- 
<{>cffQai  iraffav  r^]V  ot/cou/ieVrjy)  (Luke  ii.  1),  and 
j  is  connected  by  the  Evangelist  with  the  name  of 
Cyrenius,  or  Quirinus.  The  second,  and  mere  im 
portant  (y  a-jroypaty-fi,  Acts  v.  37),  is  referred  to  in 
the  report  of  Gamaliel's  speech,  and  is  there  dis 
tinctly  associated,  in  point  of  time,  with  the  revolt 
of  Judas  of  Galilee.  The  account  of  Josephus  (Ant. 
xviii.  1,  §1 ;  B.  J.  ii.  8,  §1)  brings  together  the 
two  names  which  St.  Luke  keeps  distinct,  with  an 
interval  of  several  years  between  them.  Cyrenius 
comes  as  governor  of  Syria  after  the  deposition  of 
Archelaus,  accompanied  by  Coponius  as  procurator 
of  Judaea.  He  is  sent  to  make  an  assessment  of  the 


•  In  Heb.   xiii.    23 


airoyeypa/jLuevuv 


where  the  idea  is  that  of  the  registration  of  the 


first-born  as  citizens  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  the  A.  V 
has  simply  "  written,"  the  Vulg.  "qui  conscript!  sum." 


TAXING 

value  of  i  nperty  in  Syria  (no  intimation  being 
given  of  its  extension  to  the  OIKOI/JUCJ/TJ),  and  it  is 
this  which  rouses  Judas  ard  his  followers  to  their 
rebellion.  The  chronological  questions  presented 
by  these  apparent  discrepancies  have  been  discussed, 
BO  far  as  they  are  connected  with  the  name  of  the 
governor  of  Syria,  under  Cv/RENlUS.  An  account 
of  the  tumults  caused  by  the  taxing  will  be  found 
under  JUDAS  OF  GALILEE. 

III.  There  are,  however,  some  other  questions 
connected  with  the  statement  of  Luke  ii.  1-3,  which 
call  for  some  notice. 

(1.)  The  truth  of  the  statement  has  been  ques 
tioned  by  Strauss  (Leben  Jesu,  i.  28)  and  De  Wette 
(Comm.  in  loc.\  and  others,  on  the  ground  that 
neither  Josephus  nor  any  other  contemporary  writer 
mentions  a  census  extending  over  the  whole  empire 
at  this  period  (A.U.C.  750).  An  edict  like  this, 
causing  a  general  movement  from  the  cities  where 
men  resided  to  those  in  which,  for  some  reason  or 
other,  they  were  to  be  registered,  must,  it  is  said, 
have  been  a  conspicuous  fact,  such  as  no  historian 
would  pass  over.  (2.)  Palestine,  it  is  urged  further, 
was,  at  this  time,  an  independent  kingdom  under 
Herod,  and  therefore  would  not  have  come  under 
the  operation  of  an  imperial  edict.  (3.)  If  such  a 
measure,  involving  the  recognition  of  Roman  so 
vereignty,  had  been  attempted  under  Herod,  it  would 
have  roused  the  same  resistance  as  the  undisputed 
census  under  Quirinus  did  at  a  later  period.  (4.) 
The  statement  of  St.  Luke  that  "  all  went  to  be 
taxed,  every  one  into  his  own-  city,"  is  said  to  be 
inconsistent  with  the  rules  of  the  Roman  census, 
which  took  cognizance  of  the  place  of  residence  only, 
not  of  the  place  of  birth.  (5.)  Neither  in  the 
Jewish  nor  the  Roman  census  would  it  have  been 
necessary  for  the  wife  to  travel  with  her  husband 
in  order  to  appear  personally  before  the  registrar 
(censitor}.  The  conclusions  from  all  these  objec 
tions  are,  that  this  statement  belongs  to  legend,  not 
to  history  ;  that  it  was  a  contrivance,  more  or  less 
ingenious,  to  account  for  the  birth  at  Bethlehem 
(that  being  assumed  in  popular  tradition  as  a  pre 
conceived  necessity  for  the  Messiah)  of  one  whose 
kindred  lived,  and  who  himself  had  grown  up  at 
Nazareth ;  that  the  whole  narrative  of  the  Infancy 
of  our  Lord,  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel,  is  to  be  looked 
on  as  mythical.  A  sufficient  defence  of  that  narra 
tive  may,  it  is  believed,  be  presented  within  com 
paratively  narrow  limits. 

(1.)  It  must  be  remembered  that  our  history  of 
this  portion  of  the  reign  of  Augustus  is  defective. 
Tacitus  begins  his  Annals  with  the  emperor's  death. 
Suetonius  is  gossiping,  inaccurate,  and  ill-arranged. 
Dion  Cassius  leaves  a  gap  from  A.u.C.  748  to  756, 
with  hardly  any  incidents.  Josephus  does  not  pro 
fess  to  give  a  history  of  the  empire.  It  might  easily 
be  that  a  general  census,  circ.  A.U.C.  749-750, 
should  remain  unrecorded  by  them.  If  the  measure 
was  one  of  frequent  occurrence,  it  would  be  all 
the  more  likely  to  be  passed  over.  The  testimony 
of  a  writer,  like  St.  Luke,  obviously  educated  and 
well  informed,  giving  many  casual  indications  of  a 
study  of  chronological  data  (Luke  i.  5,  iii. ;  Acts 
xxiv.  27),  and  of  acquaintance  with  the  Herodian 
family  (Luke  viii.  3,  xxiii.  8  ;  Acts  xii.  20,  xiii.  1) 
and  other  official  people  (Acts  xxiii.-xxvi.),  recog 
nising  distinctly  the  later  and  more  conspicuous 
avoypcufrfi,  must  be  admitted  as  fair  presumptive 
evidence,  hardly  to  be  set  aside  in  the  absence  of 
any  evidence  to  the  contrary.  How  hazardous  such 
an  ijifercnce  from  the  silence  of  historians  would  be7 


TAXING 


1445 


we  may  judge  from  the  fact  that  there  was  un 
doubtedly  a  geometrical  survey  of  the  empire  at 
some  period  in  the  reign  of  Augustus,  01"  which 
none  of  the  above  writers  take  any  notice  (comp. 
the  extracts  from  the  Rei  Agrariae  Scriptores  in 
Greswell,  Harmony,  i.  p.  537).  It  has  been  argued 
further  that  the  whole  policy  of  Augustus  rested  on 
a  perpetual  communication  to  the  central  govern 
ment  of  the  statistics  of  all  parts  of  the  empire.  The 
inscription  on  the  monument  of  Ancyra  (Gruter, 
Corpus  Inscript.  i.  230)  names  three  general  cen 
suses  in  the  years  A.u.C.  726,  746,  767  (comp. 
Sueton.  Octav.  c.  28;  Greswell,  Harm.  i.  p.  535). 
Dion  Cass.  (Iv.  13)  mentions  another  in  Italy  in 
A.U.C.  757.  Others  in  Gaul  are  assigned  to  A.U.C. 
727,  741,  767.  Strabo  (vi.  4,  §2)  writing  early  in 
the  reign  of  Tiberius  speaks  of  /u£a  rwv  Kaff  Tinas 
Ti/j.-f)ff€<i)i',  as  if  they  were  common  things.  In 
A.U.C.  726,  when  Augustus  offered  to  resign  his 
power,  he  laid  before  the  senate  a  "  rationarium 
imperil "  (Sueton.  Octav.  c.  28).  After  his  death, 
in  like  manner,  a  "  breviarium  totius  imperii  "  was 
produced,  containing  full  returns  of  the  population, 
wealth,  resources  of  all  parts  of  the  empire,  a  care 
ful  digest  apparently  of  facts  collected  during  the 
labours  of  many  years  (Sueton.  Octav.  c.  101 ;  Dion 
Cass.  Iv. ;  Tacit.  Ann.  i.  11).  It  will  hardly  seem 
strange  that  one  of  the  routine  official  steps  in  this 
process  should  only  be  mentioned  by  a  writer  who 
like  St.  Luke,  had  a  special  reason  for  noticing  it. 
A  census,  involving  property-returns,  and  the  direct 
taxation  consequent  on  them,  might  excite  atten 
tion.  A  mere  airoypafyii  would  have  little  in  it 
to  disturb  men's  minds,  or  force  itself  upon  a 
writer  of  history. 

There  is,  however,  some  evidence,  more  or  less 
circumstantial,  in  confirmation  of  St.  Luke's  state 
ment.  (1.)  The  inference  drawn  from  the  silence  of 
historians  may  be  legitimately  met  by  an  inference 
drawn  from  the  silence  of  objectors.  It  never  oc 
curred  to  Celsus,  or  tucian,  or  Porphyry,  questioning 
all  that  they  could  in  the  Gospel  history,  to  question 
this.  (2.)  A  remarkable  passage  in  Suidas  (s.  v. 
a-jroypaQ'f])  mentions  a  census,  obviously  differing 
from  the  three  of  the  Ancyran  monument,  and 
agreeing,  in  some  respects,  with  that  of  St.  Luke. 
It  was  made  by  Augustus  not  as  censor,  but  by  his 
own  imperial  authority  (86£av  avry  ;  comp.  e|7)A0e 
$6y/j.a>  Luke  ii.  1).  The  returns  were  collected 
by  twenty  commissioners  of  high  rank.  They  in 
cluded  property  as  well  as  population,  and  extended 
over  the  whole  empire.  (3.)  Tertullian,  incident 
ally,  writing  controversially,  not  against  a  heathen, 
but  against  Marcion,  appeals  to  the  returns  of  the 
census  for  Syria  under  Sentius  Saturninus  as  acces 
sible  to  all  who  cared  to  search  them,  and  proving 
the  birth  of  Jesus  in  the  city  of  David  (Tert.  adv. 
Marc.  iv.  19).  Whatever  difficulty  the  difference 
of  names  may  present  [comp.  C YRENIUS]  ,  here  is, 
at  any  rate,  a  strong  indication  of  the  fact  of  a 
census  of  population,  circ.  A.U.C.  749,  and  there 
fore  in  harmony  with  St.  Luke's  narrative.  (4.) 
Greswell  (Harm.  i.  476,  iv.  6)  has  pointed  to  some 
circumstances  mentioned  by  Josephus  in  the  last 
year  of  Herod's  life,  and  therefore  coinciding  with 
the  time  of  the  Nativity,  which  imply  some  special 
action  of  the  Roman  government  in  Syria,  the  nature 
of  which  the  historian  carelessly  or  deliberately  suj> 
presses.b  When  Herod  attend's  the  council  at  Be- 


*>  The  fulness  with  which  Josephus  dwells  on  the  history 
cf  David's  census  and  the  tone  in  which  he  eptake  of  it 


TAXING 

rytus  there  ai »  mentioned  as  present,  besides  Satur- 
ninus  and  the  Procurator,  of  irepl  Tl&aviov  irpe- 
(T/Jfis,  as  though  the  officer  thus  named  had  come, 
accompanied  by  other  commissioners,  for  some  pur 
pose  which  gave  him  for  the  time  almost  co-ordinate 
influence  with  the  governor  of  Syria  himself  (S.  J. 
i.  27,  §2).  Just  after  this  again,  Herod,  for  some- 
unexplained  reason,  found  it  necessary  to  administer 
to  the  whole  people  an  oath,  not  of  allegiance  to 
himself,  but  of  goodwill  to  the  emperor ;  and  this 
oath  6000  of  the  Pharisees  refused  to  take  (Joseph. 
Ant.  xvii.  2,  §4;  B.  J.  i.  29,  §2).  This  statement 
implies,  it  is  urged,  some  disturbing  cause  affecting 
the  public  tranquillity,  a  formal  appearance  of  all 
citizens  before  the  king's  officers,  and  lastly,  some 
measure  specially  distasteful  to  the  Pharisees.  The 
narrative  of  St  Luke  offers  an  undesigned  explana 
tion  of  these  phenomena. 

(2.)  The  second  objection  admits  of  as  satisfac 
tory  an  answer.  The  statistical  document  already 
referred  to  included  subject-kingdoms  and  allies, 
no  less  than  the  provinces  (Sueton.  I.  c.).  If 
Augustus  had  any  desire  to  know  the  resources  of 
Judaea,  the  position  of  Herod  made  him  neither 
willing  nor  able  to  resist.  From  first  to  last  we 
meet  with  repeated  instances  of  subservience.  He 
does  not  dare  to  try  or  punish  his  sons,  but  refers 
their  cause  to  the  emperor's  cognizance  (Joseph. 
Ant.  xvi.  4,  §1,  xvii.  5,  §8).  He  holds  his  king 
dom  on  condition  of  paying  a  fixed  tribute.  Per 
mission  is  ostentatiously  given  him  to  dispose  of 
the  succession  to  his  throne  as  he  likes  best  (Joseph. 
Ant.  xvi.  4,  §5).  He  binds  his  people,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  emperor  (Joseph. 
Ant.  xvii.  2,  §4).  The  threat  of  Augustus  that  he 
would  treat  Herod  no  longer  as  an  ally  but  as  a 
subject  (Joseph.  Ant.  xvi.  9,  §3),  would  be  fol 
lowed  naturally  enough  by  some  such  step  as  this, 
and  the  desire  of  Herod  to  regain  his  favour  would 
lead  him  to  acquiesce  in  it. 

(3.)  We  need  not  wonder  that  the  measure  should 
have  been  carried  into  effect  without  any  popular 
outbreak.  It  was  a  return  of  the  population  only, 
not  a  valuation  of  property ;  there  was  no  imme 
diate  taxation  as  the  consequence.  It  might  offend 
a  party  like  the  Pharisees.  It  was  notf  likely  to 
excite  the  multitude.  Even  if  it  seemed  to  some 
the  prognostication  of  a  coming  change,  and  of 
direct  government  by  the  Roman  emperor,  we  know 
that  there  was  a  large  and  influential  party  ready 
to  welcome  that  change  as  the  best  thing  that 
could  happen  for  their  country  (Joseph.  Ant.  xvii. 
11,  §2). 

(4.)  The  alleged  inconsistency  of  what  St.  Luke 
narrates  is  precisely  what  might  be  expected  under 
the  known  circumstances  of  the  case.  The  census, 
though  Roman  in  origin,  was  effected  by  Jewish 
instrumentality,  and  in  harmony  therefore  with 
Jewish  customs.  The  alleged  practice  is,  however, 
doubtful,  and  it  has  been  maintained  (Huschke, 
ilber  den  Census,  &c.  in  Winer  "  Schatzung ") 
that  the  inhabitants  of  the  provinces  were,  as  far 
as  possible,  registered  in  their  forum  originis — not 
in  the  place  in  which  they  were  only  residents.  It 
may  be  noticed  incidentally  that  the  journey  from 
Nazareth  to  Bethlehem  belongs  to  a  time  when 
Galilee  and  Judaea  were  under  the  same  ruler,  and 
would  therefore  have  been  out  of  the  question  (as 
the  subject  of  one  prince  would  certainly  not  be 


(Ant.  vii.  13>  make  it  probable  that  there  may  have 
boon  a  superstitious  unwillingness  to  speak  of  this  popu- 


TEKOA 

registered  as  belonging  to  another)  after  the  deatl 
of  Herod  the  Great.  The  circumstances  of  the  Nati 
vity  indicate,  if  they  do  not  prove,  that  Joseph  went 
there  only  for  personal  enrolment,  not  because  he 
was  the  possessor  of  house  or  land. 

(5.)  The  tast  objection  as  to  the  presence  of  the 
Virgin,  wnere  neither  Jewish  nor  Roman  pVactice 
would  have  required  it,  is  perhaps  the  most  frivolous 
and  vexatious  of  all.  If  Mary  were  herself  of  the 
house  and  lineage  of  David,  there  may  have  been 
special  reasons  for  her  appearance  at  Bethlehem. 
In  any  case  the  Scripture  narrative  is  consistent 
with  itself.  Nothing  could  be  more  natural,  look 
ing  to  the  unsettled  state  of  Palestine  at  this  period, 
than  that  Joseph  should  keep  his  wife  under  his 
own  protection,  instead  of  leaving  her  by  herself 
n  an  obscure  village,  exposed  to  danger  and  re 
proach.  In  proportion  to  the  hopes  he  had  been 
taught  to  cherish  of  the  birth  of  a  Son  of  David, 
in  proportion  also  to  his  acceptance  of  the  popular 
belief  that  the  Christ  was  to  be  born  in  the  city  of 
David  (Matt.  ii.  5  ;  John  vii.  42),  would  be"  his 
desire  to  guard  against  the  accident  of  birth  in  the 
despised  Nazareth  out  of  which  "  no  good  thing' ' 
could  come  (John  i.  46). 

The  literature  connected  with  this  subject  is,  as 
might  be  expected,  very  extensive.  Every  com 
mentary  contains  something  on  it.  Meyer,  Words 
worth,  and  Alford  may  be  consulted  as  giving  the 
latest  summaries.  Good  articles  will  be  found  under 
"  Schatzung  "  in  Winer,  Realwb. ;  and  Herzog's  Real- 
Encyclop.  A  very  full  and  exhaustive  discussion 
of  all  points  connected  with  the  subject  is  given  by 
Spanheim,  Dubia  Evang.  ii.  3-9 ;  and  Richardus, 
Diss.  de  Censu  Augusti,  in  Menthen's  Thesaurus, 
i.  428 ;  comp.  also  Ellicott,  Hulsean  Lectures, 
p.  57.  [E.  H.  P.] 

TE'BAH(niO:  TajBeV.  Tohee}.  Eldest  of  the 

sons  of  Nahor,  by  his  concubine  Reumah  (Gen.  xxii. 
24).  Josephus  calls  him  TajScuos  (Ant.  i.  6,  §5). 

TEBALI'AH  (-iH^lp :   TajSAaf;  Alex.  Ta- 

&e\ias :  Tabelias).  Third  son  of  Hosah  of  the 
children  of  Merari  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  11). 

TEB'ETH.     [MONTH.] 

TEHIN'NAH  (Hjnn  :  0oi^x;  Alex.  6<m£: 
Tehinna).  The  father  or  founder  of  Ir-Nahash,  the 
city  of  Nahash,  and  son  of  Eshton  (1  Chr.  iv.  12). 
His  name  only  occurs  in  an  obscure  genealogy  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah,  among  those  who  are  called  "  the 
men  of  Rechah." 

TEIL-TEEE.     [OAK.] 
TEKO'A  and    TEKO'AH   Qjipfl,   but   in 
2  Sam.  xiv.  2  only,  nyipPl :  ©exoue  and  0ex«e ; 

Joseph.  ®6/ccwe,  ©e/cwa :  Thecue},  a  town  in  the 
tribe  of  Judah  (2  Chr.  xi.  6,  as  the  associated  places 
show),  on  the  range  of  hills  which  rise  near  Hebron, 
and  stretch  eastward  towards  the  Dead  Sea.  These 
hills  bound  the  view  of  the  spectator  as  he  looks  to 
the  south  from  the  summit  of  the  Mount  of  Olives. 
Jerome  (in  Amos,  Prooem.}  says  that  Tekoa  was 
six  Roman  miles  from  Bethlehem,  and  that  as  he 
wrote  (in  Jerem.  vi.  1)  he  had  that  village  daily 
before  his  eyes  (Thekoam  quotidie  oculis  cemunus). 
In  his  Onomasticon  (art.  Eethei,  'E/cfleuKe')  're  re 
presents  Tekoa  as  nine  miles  onJf  from  Jerusalem ; 


lation  census,  which  would  aot  apply  to  the  property 
assessment  of  Oiiirinns. 


TEKOA 

but  elsewhere  he  agrees  with  Eusebius  in  making 
the  distance  twelve  miles.  In  the  latter  case  he 
reckons  by  the  way  of  Bethlehem,  the  usual  course 
in  going  from  the  one  place  to  the  other ;  but  there 
may  have  been  also  another  and  shorter  way,  to 
which  he  has  reference  in  the  other  computation. 
Some  suggest  (Bachiene,  Paldstina,  ii.  p.  60)  that 
an  error  may  have  crept  into  Jerome's  text,  and 
that  we  should  read  twelve  there  instead  of  nine. 
In  2  Chr.  xx.  20  (see  also  1  Mace.  ix.  33),  mention 
is  made  of  "  the  wilderness  of  Tekoa,"  which  must 
be  understood  of  the  adjacent  region  on  the  east  of 
the  town  (see  infra),  which  in  its  physical  cha 
racter  answers  BO  entirely  to  that  designation.  It 
is  evident  from  the  name  (derived  from  yjpPI,  "  to 
strike,"  said  of  driving  the  stakes  or  pins  into  the 
ground  for  securing  the  tent),  as  well  as  from  the 
manifest  adaptation  of  the  region  to  pastoral  pur 
suits,  that  the  people  who  lived  here  must  have 
been  occupied  mainly  as  shepherds,  and  that  Tekoa 
in  its  best  days  could  have  been  little  more  than  a 
cluster  of  tents,  to  which  the  men  returned  at  in 
tervals  from  the  neighbouring  pastures,  and  in  which 
their  families  dwelt  during  their  absence. 

The  biblical  interest  of  Tekoa  arises,  not  so  much 
from  any  events  which  are  related  as  having  occurred 
there,  as  from  its  connexion  with  various  persons 
who  are  mentioned  in  Scripture.  It  is  not  enu 
merated  in  the  Hebrew  catalogue  of  towns  in  Judah 
(Josh.  xv.  49),  but  is  inserted  in  that  passage  of 
the  Septuagint.  The  "  wise  woman "  whom  Joab 
employed  to  effect  a  reconciliation  between  David 
and  Absalom  was  obtained  from  this  place  (2  Sam. 
xiv.  2).  Here  also,  Ira,  the  son  of  Ikkesh,  one  of 
David's  thirty  "  mighty  men  "  (D^23)  was  born, 
and  was  called  on  that  account  "the  Tekoite" 
(2  Sam.  xxiii.  26).  It  was  one  of  the  places  which 
Rehoboam  fortified,  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign, 
as  a  defence  against  invasion  from  the  south  (2  Chr. 
xi.  6).  Some  of  the  people  from  Tekoa  took  part 
in  building  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  after  the  return 
from  the  Captivity  (Neh.  iii.  5,  27).  In  Jer.  vi. 
1,  the  prophet  exclaims,  "Blow  the  trumpet  in 
Tekoa  and  set  up  a  sign  of  fire  in  Beth-Haccerem  " — 
the  latter  probably  the  "  Frank  Mountain,"  the  cone- 
shaped  hill  so  conspicuous  from  Bethlehem.  It  is 
the  sound  of  the  trumpet  as  a  warning  of  the  ap 
proach  of  enemies,  and  a  signal-fire  kindled  at  night 
for  the  same  purpose,  which  are  described  here  as 
so  appropriately  heard  and  seen,  in  the  hour  of 
danger,  among  the  mountains  of  Judah.  But  Tekoa 
is  chiefly  memorable  as  the  birthplace  of  the  prophet 
Amos,  who  was  here  called  by  a  special  voice  from 
heaven  to  leave  his  occupation  as  "  a  herdman " 
and  "  a  gatherer  of  wild  figs,"  and  was  sent  forth 
thence  to  testify  against  the  sins  of  the  kingdom  of 
Israel  (Amos  vii.  14).  Accustomed  to  such  pur 
suits,  he  must  have  been  familiar  with  the  solitude 
of  the  desert,  and  with  the  dangers  there  incident 
to  a  shepherd's  life.  Some  effect  of  his  peculiar 
training  amid  such  scenes  may  be  traced,  as  critics 
think  (De  Wette,  Einl.  ins  Alte  Test.  p.  356),  in 
the  contents  and  style  of  his  prophecy.  Jerome 
(ad  Am.  i.  2)  says,  "  .  .  .  .  etiam  Amos  prophetam 
qui  pastor  de  pastoribus  fuit  et  pastor  non  in  locis 
cultis  et  arboribus  ac  vineis  consitis,  aut  certe  inter 
sylvas  et  prata  virentia,  sed  in  lata  eremi  vastitate, 
in  qua  versatur  leonum  feritas  et  interfectio  pecorum, 
ftrtis  suae  usum  esse  senaonibus"  Compare  Am. 
ii.  13,  iii.  4,  12.  iv.  1,  vi.  12,  vii.  1 ;  and  see  the 
•wriking  remarks  of  Dr.  Puseyj  Introd.  to  Amos. 


TEKOA 


1447 


In  the  genealogies  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  ii.  24,  and 
iv.  5)  Ashur,  a  posthumous  son  of  Hezron  and  a 
brother  of  Caleb,  is  there  mentioned  as  the  fathei 
of  Tekoa,  which  appears  to  mean  that  he  was  the 
founder  of  Tekoa,  or  at  least  the  owner  of  tlut  vil 
lage.  See  Roediger  in  Gesen.  Thesaur.  iii.  p.  1518 

Tekoa  is  known  still  as  Tekua,  and,  though  it 
lies  somewhat  aside  from  the  ordinary  route,  has 
been  visited  and  described  by  several  recent  tra 
vellers.  The  writer  was  there  on  the  21st  of  April, 
1852,  during  an  excursion  from  Jerusalem  by  the 
way  of  Bethlehem  and  Urtds.  Its  distance  from 
Beit  Lahm  agrees  precisely  with  that  assigned  by 
the  early  writers  as  the  distance  between  Tekoa 
and  Bethlehem.  It  is  within  sight  also  of  the 
"  Frank  Mountain,"  beyond  question  the  famous 
Herodium,  or  site  of  Herod's  Castle,  which  Josephus 
(B.  J.  iv.  9,  §5)  represents  as  near  the  ancient 
Tekoa.  It  lies  on  an  elevated  hill,  which  spreads 
itself  out  into  an  irregular  plain  of  moderate  ex 
tent.  Its  "  high  position "  (Robinson,  Bib.  Jties. 
i.  486)  "  gives  it  a  wide  prospect.  Toward  the 
north-east  the  land  slopes  down  towards  Wady 
Khureitun ;  on  the  other  sides  the  hill  is  surrounded 
by  a  belt  of  level  table  knd;  beyond  which  are 
valleys,  and  then  other  higher  hills.  On  the  south, 
at  some  distance,  another  deep  valley  runs  off  south 
east  towards  the  Dead  Sea.  The  view  in  this  direc 
tion  is  bounded  only  by  the  level  mountains  of 
Moab,  with  frequent  bursts  of  the  Dead  Sea,  seen 
through  openings  among  the  rugged  and  desolate 
intervening  mountains."  The  scene,  on  the  occa 
sion  of  the  writer's  journey  above  referred  to,  was 
eminently  a  pastoral  one,  and  gave  back  no  doubt  a 
faithful  image  of  the  olden  times.  There  were  two 
encampments  of  shepherds  there,  consisting  of  tents 
covered  with  the  black  goat-skins  so  commonly  used 
for  that  purpose ;  they  were  supported  on  poles  and 
turned  up  in  part  on  one  side,  so  as  to  enable  a 
person  without  to  look  into  the  interior.  Flocks 
were  at  pasture  near  the  tents  and  on  the  remoter 
hill-sides  in  eveiy  direction.  There  were  horses  and 
cattle  and  camels  also,  though  these  were  not  so 
numerous  as  the  sheep  and  goats.  A  well  of  living 
water,  on  the  outskirts  of  the  village,  was  a  centre 
of  great  interest  and  activity ;  women  were  coming 
and  going  with  their  pitchers,  and  men  were  filling 
the  troughs  to  water  the  animals  which  they  had 
driven  thither  for  that  purpose.  The  general  aspect 
of  the  region  was  sterile  and  unattractive ;  though 
here  and  there  were  patches  of  verdure,  and  some 
of  the  fields,  which  had  yielded  an  early  crop,  had 
been  recently  ploughed  up,  as  if  for  some  new  species 
of  cultivation.  Fleecy  clouds,  white  as  the  driven 
snow,  were  floating  towards  the  Dead  Sea,  and  their 
shadows,  as  they  chased  each  other  over  the  land 
scape,  seemed  to  be  fit  emblems  of  the  changes  in 
the  destiny  of  men  and  nations,  of  which  there  waa 
so  much  to  remind  one  at  such  a  time  and  in  such 
a  place.  Various  ruins  exist  at  Tekoa,  such  as  the 
walls  of  houses,  cisterns,  broken  columns,  and  heaps 
of  building  stones.  Some  of  these  stones  have  the 
so-called  "bevelled"  edges  which  are  supposed  to 
show  a  Hebrew  origin.  There  was  a  convent  here 
at  the  beginning  of  the  6th  century,  and  a  Chris 
tian  settlement  in  the  time  of  the  Crusaders;  and 
undoubtedly  most  of  these  remains  belong  to  modern 
times  rather  than  ancient.  Among  these  should  be 
mentioned  a  baptismal  font,  sculptured  out  of  a 
limestone  block,  three  feet  and  nine  inches  deep, 
with  an  internal  diameter  at  the  top  of  four  feet, 
and  designed  evidently  for  baptism  as  administered 


1448 


TEKOA 


in  the  Greek  Church.  It  stands  m  the  ope;i  air, 
like  a  similar  one  which  the  writer  saw  at  Jufna, 
near  Beitin,  the  ancient  Bethel.  See  moi-e  fully  in 
the  Christian  Review  (New  York,  1853,  p.  519). 

Near  Teku'a,  among  the  same  mountains,  on 
the  brink  of  a  frightful  precipice,  are  the  ruins  of 
Khureitun,  possibly  a  corruption  of  Kerioth  (Josh. 
xv.  25),  and  in  that  case  perhaps  the  birthplace  of 
Judas  the  traitor,  who  was  thence  called  Iscariot, 
».  e.  "  man  of  Kerioth."  It  is  impossible  to 
survey  the  scenery  of  the  place,  and  not  feel  that  a 
dark  spirit  would  find  itself  in  its  own  element 
amid  the  seclusion  and  wildness  of  such  a  spot. 
High  up  from  the  bottom  of  the  ravine  is  an  open 
ing  in  the  face  of  the  rocks  which  leads  into  an 
immense  subterranean  labyrinth,  which  many  sup 
pose  may  have  been  the  Cave  of  Adullam,  in  which 
David  and  his  followers  sought  refuge  from  the 
pursuit  of  Saul.  It  is  large  enough  to  contain 
hundreds  of  men,  and  is  capable  of  defence  against 
almost  any  attack  that  could  be  made  upon  it  from 
without.  When  a  party  of  the  Turks  fell  upon  Teku'a 
and  sacked  it,  A.D.  1138,  most  of  the  inhabitants, 
anticipating  the  danger,  fled  to  this  cavern,  and  thus 
saved  their  lives.  It  may  be  questioned  (Robin 
son,  i.  481)  whether  this  was  the  actual  place  of 
David's  retreat,  but  it  illustrates,  at  all  events,  that 
peculiar  geological  formation  of  the  country,  which 
accounts  for  such  frequent  allusions  to  "  dens  and 
caves  "  in  the  narrations  of  the  Bible.  The  writer 
was  told,  as  a  common  opinion  of  the  natives,  that 
some  of  the  passages  of  this  particular  excavation 
extended  as  far  as  to  Hebron,  several  miles  distant, 
and  that  all  the  cord  at  Jerusalem  would  not  be 
sufficient  to  serve  as  clue  for  traversing  its  wind 
ings.  [ODOLLAM.] 

One  of  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  in  Christian  times 
seems  to  have  borne  the  name  of  Tekoa.  Arculf,  at 
any  rate,  mentions  the  "  gate  called  Tecuitis  "  in 
his  enumeration  of  the  gates  of  the  city  (A.D.  700). 
It  appears  to  have  led  down  into  the  valley  of  the 
Kedron,  probably  near  the  southern  end  of  the 
East  wall.  But  his  description  is  not  very  clear. 
Can  it  be  to  this  that  St.  Jerome  alludes  in  the 
singular  expression  in  the  Epit.  Paulae  (§12), 

revertar  Jerosolymam  et  .per  Thecuam  atque 

Amos,  rutilantem  montis  Oliveti  Crucem  aspic- 
iam.  The  Church  of  the  Ascension  on  the  summit 
of  Olivet  would  be  just  opposite  a  gate  in  the  East 
wall,  and  the  "  glittering  cross"  would  be  particu 
larly  conspicuous  if  seen  from  beneath  its  shadow. 
There  is  no  more  primd  facie  improbability  in  a 
Tekoa  gate  than  in  a  Bethlehem,  Jaffa,  or  Da 
mascus  gate,  all  which  still  exist  at  Jerusalem. 
But  it  is  strange  that  the  allusions  to  it  should  be 
so  rare,  and  that  the  circumstances  which  made 
Tekoa  prominent  enough  at  that  period  to  cause  a 
gate  to  be  named  after  it  should  have  escaped 
preservation.  [H.  B.  H.] 

TEKO'A  (Sflpfl :  0eK«e :  Th€cue~).  A  name 
occurring  in  the  genealogies  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  ii.  24, 
iv.  5),  as  the  son  of  Ashur.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  the  town  of  Tekoa  is  meant,  and  that  the 
notice  implies  that  the  town  was  colonized  or 
founded  by  a  man  or  a  town  of  the  name  of 
ASHCTR.  [G.] 

TEKO'iTE,  THE  oy'pfln ;  in  chron.  «yipfin : 

b  ©e/cweiTTjs,  6  ®€Ku,  6  06/CWJ/61T7JS  i  de  Thequa, 


TELAIM 

Thecuiies).  IRA  ben-Ikkesh,  one  of  David's  war 
riors,  is  thus  designated  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  26;  1  Chr. 
xi.  28,  xxvii.  9).  The  common  people  among  THE 
TEKOITES  displayed  great  activity  in  the  repairs  oi 
the  wall  of  Jerusalem  under  Nehemiah.  They 
undertook  two  lengths  of  the  rebuilding  (Neh.  iii. 
5,  27).  It  is  however  specially  mentioned  that  their 
"  lords"  (DiTJlK)  took  no  part  in  the  work.  [G.] 


a  In  this  instance  his  rendering  is  more  worthy  of  notiu; 
bpcauae  it  would  have  been  easy  for  him  to  have  inter- 


TEL-A'BIB  (intf-ri:  nerwpos:  ad  acer- 
mm  novarum  fruguni}  was  probably  a  city  of 
Chaldaea  or  Babylonia,  not  of  Upper  Mesopotamia, 
as  generally  imagined.  (See  Calmet  on  Ez.  iii.  15, 
and  Winer,  ad  voc.~)  The  whole  scene  of  Ezekiel's 
preaching  and  visions  seems  to  have  been  Chaldaea 
Proper  ;  and  the  river  Chebar,  as  already  observed 
[see  CHEBAR],  was  not  the  K/iabour,  but  a  branch 
of  the  Euphrates.  Ptolemy  has  in  this  region  a 
Thel-bencane  and  a  Thal-atha  (Geograph.  v.  20)  ; 
but  neither  name  can  be  identified  with  Tel-abib, 
unless  we  suppose  a  serious  corruption.  The  ele 
ment  "  Tel  "  in  Tel-abib,  is  undoubtedly  "  hill." 
[t  is  applied  in  modern  times  by  the  Arabs  espe- 
ially  to  the  mounds  or  heaps  which  mark  the  site 
of  ruined  cities  all  over  the  Mesopotamian  plain,  an 
application  not  very  remote  from  the  Hebrew  use, 
according  to  which  "  Tel  "  is  "  especially  a  heap  of 
stones  "  (Gesen.  ad  we.).  It  thus  forms  the  first 
syllable  in  many  modern,  as  in  many  ancient  names, 
throughout  Babylonia,  Assyria,  and  Syria.  (See 
Assemann,  Bibl.  Orient,  iii.  pt.  ii.  p.  784.) 

The  LXX.  have  given  a  translation  of  the  term, 
by  which  we  can  see  that  they  did  not  regard  it  as 
a  proper  name,  but  which  is  quite  inexplicable. 
The  Vulgate  likewise  translates,  and  correctly 
enough,  so  far  as  Hebrew  scholarship  is  concerned  ; 
but  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the 
word  is  really  a  pi'oper  name,  and  therefore  ought 
not  to  be  translated  at  all.  [G.  R.] 

TE'LAH  (rhfi  :  OaXee's  ;  Alex.  0oAe  :  Thole}. 
A  descendant  of  Ephraim,  and  ancestor  of  Joshua 
(1  Chr.  vii.  25). 

TEL'AIM  (D^tSH.with  the  article:  tvTa\- 

•yciAots  in  both  MSS.,  and  so  also  Joseph  us  :  quasi 
agnos).  The  place  at  which  Saul  collected  and  num 
bered  his  forces  before  his  attack  on  Amalek  (1  Sam. 
xv.  4,  only).  It  may  be  identical  with  TELEM,  the 
southern  position  of  which  would  be  suitable  for  an 
expedition  against  Amalek  ;  and  a  certain  support  is 
given  to  this  by  the  mention  of  the  name  (Thailam 
or  Thelam)  in  the  LXX.  of  2  Sam.  iii.  12.  On  the 
other  hand  the  reading  of  the  LXX.  in  1  Sam.  xv 
4  (not  only  in  the  Vatican  MS.,  but  also  in  the 
Alex.,  usually  so  close  an  adherent  of  the  Hebrew 
text),  and  of  Josephus  (Ant.  vi.  7,  §2),.  who  is  not 
given  to  follow  a  the  LXX.  slavishly—  viz.  Gilgal, 
is  remarkable  ;  and  when  the  frequent  connexion  of 
that  sanctuary  with  Saul's  history  is  recollected, 
it  is  almost  sufficient  to  induce  the  belief  that  in 
this  case  the  LXX.  and  Josephus  have  preserved  the 
right  name,  and  that  instead  of  Telaim  we  should, 
with  them,  read  Gilgal.  It  should  be  observed, 
however,  that  the  Hebrew  MSS.  exhibit  no  varia 
tion  in  the  name,  and  that,  excepting  the  LXX. 
and  the  Targum,  the  Versions  all  agree  with  the 
Hebrew.  The  Targum  renders  it  "  lambs  of  the 
Passover,"  according  to  a  curious  fancy,  mentioned 
elsewhere  in  the  Jewish  books  (  Yalkut  on  1  Sam. 

preted  the  name  as  the  Rabbis  do,  with  whose  traditions 
he  was  well  acquainted 


TELASSAR 

sv.  4,  &o.),  that  the  army  met  at  the  Passover, 
Mid  thai  the  census  was  taken  by  counting  the 
••»  lambs.  This  is  partly  endorsed  by  Jerome  in  the 
Vulgate.  [G.] 


1449 


TELAS'SAR  (Tfc:  0ae<r0eV, 
Thelassar,  Thalassar')  is  mentioned  in  2  K.  xix.  12, 
and  in  Is.  xxxvii.  12  as  a  city  inhabited  by  "  the 
children  of  Eden,"  which  had  been  conquered,  and 
was  held  in  the  time  of  Sennacherib  by  the  Assy 
rians.  In  the  former  passage  the  name  is  rather 
differently  given  both  in  Hebrew  and  English. 
[THELASAR.]  In  both  it  is  connected  with  Gozan 
(Gauzanitis),  Haran  (Carrhae,  now  Harran),  and 
Rezeph  (the  liazappa  of  the  Assyrian  Inscriptions), 
all  of  which  belong  to  the  hill  country  above  the 
Upper  Mesopotamian  plain,  the  district  from  which 
rise  the  Khahur  and  Belik  rivers.  [See  MESOPO 
TAMIA,  GOZAN,  and  HARAN.]  It  is  quite  in 
accordance  with  the  indications  of  locality  which 
arise  from  this  connection,  to  find  Eden  joined  in 
another  passage  (Ez.  xxvii.  23)  with  Haran  and 
Asshur.  Telassar,  the  chief  city  of  a  tribe  known 
as  the  Beni  Eden,  must  have  been  in  Western  Me 
sopotamia,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Harran  and 
Orfa.  It  would  be  uncritical  to  attempt  to  fix  the 
locality  more  exactly.  The  name  is  one  which 
might  have  been  given  by  the  Assyrians  to  any 
place  where  they  had  built  a  temple  to  Asshur,  c 
and  hence  perhaps  its  application  by  the  Targums  to 
the  Resen  of  Gen.  x.  1  2,  which  must  have  been  on  the 
Tigris,  near  Nineveh  and  Calah.  [RESEN.]  [G.  K.] 


TEL'EM  (D:  Mcu«f/Kd;  Alex.  Te\e/x:  Te 
lem).  One  of  the'  cities  in  the  extreme  south  of 
Judah  (Josh.  xv.  24).  It  occurs  between  ZIPH 
(not  the  Ziph  of  David's  escape)  and  BEALOTH  : 
but  has  not  been  identified.  The  name  Dhulldm  is 
found  in  Van  de  Velde's  map,  attached  to  a  district 
immediately  to  the  north  of  the  Kubbet  el-Saul,  south 
of  el  Milh  and  Ar'arah  —  a  position  very  suitable  ; 
but  whether  the  coincidence  of  the  name  is  merely 
accidental  or  not,  is  not  at  present  ascertainable. 
Telem  is  identified  by  some  with  Telaim,  which  is 
found  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  1  Sam.  xv.  4  ;  but 
there  is  nothing  to  say  either  for  or  against  this. 

The  LXX.  of  2  Sam.  iii.  12,  in  both  MSS.,  ei- 
hibits  a  singular  variation  from  the  Hebrew  text. 
Instead  of  "on  the  spot"  (VfiHfl,  A.  V.  incor 
rectly,  "  on  his  behalf")  they  read'  «  to  Thailam  (or 
Thelam)  where  he  was."  If  this  variation  should 
be  substantiated,  there  is  some  probability  that 
Telem  or  Telaim  is  intended.  David  was  at  the 
time  king,  and  quartered  in  Hebron,  but  there  i 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  had  relinquished  his 
marauding  habits  ;  and  the  south  country,  where 
Telem  lay,  had  formerly  been  a  favourite  field  fo 
his  expeditions  (1  Sam.  xxvii.  8-11). 

The  Vat.  LXX.  in  Josh.  xix.  7,  adds  the  name 
Qa\xd,  between  Remmon  and  Ether,  to  the  towns 
of  Simeon.  This  is  said  by  Eusebius  (Onomast.) 
and  Jerome  to  have  been  then  existing  as  a  very 
large  village  called  Thella,  1  6  miles  south  of  Eleu- 
theropolis.  It  is  however  claimed  as  equivalent  to 
TOCHEN.  [G.] 


TEMA 

TEL'EM  (Dta  :  TeA^j/  ;  Alex. 
Telem) .  A  porter  or  doorkeeper  of  the  Temple  in 
he  time  of  Ezra,  who  had  married  a  foreign  wife 
Ezr.  x.  24).  He  is  probably  the  same  as  TALMON 
n  Neh.  xii.  25,  the  name  being  that  of  a  family 
ather  than  of  an  individual.  In  1  Esd.  ix.  25  he 
called  TOLBANES. 

TEL-HAR'SA,  or  TEL-HAR'ESHA  (^>n 
:  0eAap7j(T<£  :  Thelharsa)  was  one  of  the 
Babylonian  towns,  or  villages,  from  which  some 
fews,  who  "  could  not  show  their  father's  house, 
lor  their  seed,  whether  they  were  of  Israel,"  re- 
,urned  to  Judaea  with  Zerubbabel  (Ez.  ii.  59  ;  Neh. 
vii.  61).  Gesenius  renders  the  term  "Hill  of  the 
Wood "  (Lex.  ad  voc.).  It  was  probably  in  the 
ow  country  near  the  sea,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Tel-Melah  and  Cherub ;  but  we  cannot  identify  it 
with  any  known  site.  [G.  R.] 


TEL-ME'LAH  (fofl  :  ©eA/ieAe'x,  ®e*- 
yueAe'0:  Thelmala)  is  joined  with  Tel-Harsa  and 

Cherub  in  the  two  passages  already  cited  under 
TEL-HARSA.  It  is  perhaps  the  Thelme  of  Ptolemy 
;V.  20),  which  some  wrongly  read  as  Theame 
'0EAMH  for  0EAMH),  a  city  of  the  low  salt  tract 
near  the  Persian  Gulf,  whence  probably  the  name, 
which  means  ''Hill  of  Salt"  (Gesen.  Lex.  Heb. 
sub  we.).  Cherub,  which  may  be  pretty  surely 
identified  with  Ptolemy's  Chiripha  (Xipupd),  was 
n  the  same  region.  [G.  R.] 

TE'MA  (KO'Tl  :  Qcupdv  :  Thema).  The  ninth 
son  of  Ishmael  (Gen.  xxv.  15;  1  Chr.  i.  30); 
whence  the  tribe  called  after  him,  mentioned  in  Job 
vi.  19,  "  The  troops  of  Tema  looked,  the  companies 
of  Sheba  waited  for  them,"  and  by  Jeremiah  (xxv. 
23),  "  Dedan,  Tema,  and  Buz;"  and  also  the  land 
occupied  by  this  tribe  :  "  The  burden  upon  Arabia. 
In  the  forest  in  Arabia  shall  ye  lodge,  0  ye  tra 
velling  companies*  of  Dedanim.  The  inhabitants  of 
the  land  of  Tema  brought  water  to  him  that  was 
thirsty,  they  prevented  with  their  bread  him  that 
fled  "  (Is.  xxi.  13,  14). 

The  name  is  identified  satisfactorily  with  Teyma, 


,  a  small   town  on   the  confines  of  Syria, 

between  it  and  Wadi-1-Kura,  on  the  road  of  the 
Damascus  pilgrim-caravan  (Mardsid,  s.  v.).  It  is 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Doomat-el-Jendel,  which 
agrees  etymologically  and  by  tradition  with  the 
Ishmaelite  DUMAH,  and  the  country  of  Keydar,  or 
KEDAR.  Teyma  is  a  well-known  town  and  district, 
and  is  appropriate  in  every  point  of  view  as  the 
chief  settlement  of  Ishmael's  son  Tema.  It  is  com 
manded  by  the  castle  called  El-Ablak  (or  El-Ablak 
el-Fard),  of  Es-Semaw-al  (Samuel)  Ibn-'Adiya  the 
Jew,  a  contemporary  of  Imra-el-Keys  (A.D.  550 
cir.)  ;  but  according  to  a  tradition  it  was  built  by 
Solomon,  which  points  at  any  rate  to  its  antiquity 
(comp.  El-Bekree,  in  Mardsid,  iv.  23)  ;  now  in  ruins, 
described  as  being  built  of  rubble  and  crude  bricks, 
and  said  to  be  named  El-Ablak  from  having  white 
ness  and  redness  in  its  structure  (Mardsid,  s,  v. 


b  A  similar  fancy  in  reference  to  the  name  BEZEK 
(1  Sam.  xi.  8)  is  found  in  the  Midrash.  It  is  taken  lite 
rally  as  meaning  "  broken  pieces  of  pottery,"  by  which 
as  by  counters,  the  numbering  was  effected.  Bczek  and 
Telaim  are  considered  by  the  Talmudists  as  two  of  tht- 
len  numberings  of  Israel,  past  and  future 

c  It  would    signify  simply  "  the    Hill   of  Asshur.' 


Compare  Tei-ane,  "  the  Hill  of  Ana,"  a  name  which 
seems  to  have  been  applied  in  later  times  to  the  city 
called  by  the  Assyrians  "  Asshur,"  and  marked  by  the 
ruins  at  Kileli  Sherghat.  (Steph.  Byz.  ad  voc.  TeAdwj.) 

d  The  passage  is  in  such  confusion  in  the  Vatican  MS., 
that  it  is  difficult  rightly  to  assign  the  words,  and  liapos 
siblo  to  infer  anything  from  the  3quivalente. 


1450 


TEMAN 


Ablak).  This  fortress  seems,  like  that  of  Doomat- 
el-Jendel,  to  be  one  of  the  strongholds  that  must 
have  protected  the  caravan  route  along  the  northern 
frontier  of  Arabia ;  and  they  recall  the  passage  fol 
lowing  the  enumeration  of  the  sons  of  Ishmael* 
"  These  [are]  the  sons  of  Ishmael,  and  these  [are] 
their  names,  by  their  towns,  and  by  their  castles; 
twelve  princes  according  to  their  nations"  (Gen. 
xxv.  16). 

Teyma  signifies  "  a  desert,"  "  an  untilled  dis 
trict,"  &c.  Freytag  (s.  •».)  writes  the  name  with 
out  a  long  final  alif,  but  not  so  the  Mardsid. 

Ptolemy  (xix.  6)  mentions  6^/j.Tj  in  Arabia  De- 
serta,  which  may  be  the  same  place  as  the  existing 
Teyma.  The  LXX.  reading  seems  to  have  a  refer 
ence  to  TEMAN,  which  see.  [E.  S.  P.] 

TE'MAN  (|O*n:  ®aip.av:  Theman).  1.  A 
son  of  Eliphaz,  son  of  Esau  by  Adah  (Gen.  xxxvi. 
11 ;  1  Chr.  i.  36,  53),  afterwards  named  as  a  duke 
(phylarch)  of  Edom  (ver.  15),  and  mentioned  again 
in  the  separate  list  (vv.  40-43)  of  "  the  names  of 
the  rulers  [that  came]  of  Esau,  according  to  their 
families,  after  their  places,  by  their  names ;"  end 
ing,  "  these  be  the  dukes  of  Edom.  according  to 
their  habitations  in  the  land  of  their  possession:  he 
[is]  Esau  the  father  of  the  Edomites." 

2.  A  country,  and  probably  a  city,  named  after 
the  Edomite  phylarch,  or  from  which  the  phylarch 
took  his  name,  as  may  be  perhaps  inferred  from  the 
verses  of  Gen.  xxxvi.  just  quoted.  The  Hebrew 
signifies  "  south,"  &c.  (see  Job  ix.  9 ;  Is.  xliii.  6  ; 
besides  the  use  of  it  to  mean  the  south  side  of  the 
Tabernacle  in  Ex.  xxvi.  and  xxvii.,  &c.) ;  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  land  of  Teman  was  a  southern 
portion  of  the  land  of  Edom,  or,  in  a  wider  sense, 
that  of  the  sons  of  the  East,  the  Beui-kedem.  Te 
man  is  mentioned  in  five  places  by  the  Prophets, 
in  four  of  which  it  is  connected  with  Edom, 
showing  it  to  be  the  same  place  as  that  indicated  in 
the  list  of  the  dukes ;  twice  it  is  named  with  Dedan 
— "  Concerning  Edom,  thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts : 
[Is]  wisdom  no  more  in  Teman  ?  is  counsel  perished 
from  the  prudent  ?  is  their  wisdom  vanished  ?  Flee 
ye,  turn  back,  dwell  deep,  0  inhabitants  of  Dedan  " 
(Jer.  xlix.  7,  8)  ;  and  "1  will  make  it  [Edom] 
desolate  from  Teman ;  and  they  of  Dedan  shall  fall 
by  the  sword"  (Ez.  xxv.  13).  This  connection  with 
the  great  Keturahite  tribe  of  Dedan  gives  addi 
tional  importance  to  Teman,  and  helps  to  fix  its 
geographical  position.  This  is  further  defined  by  a 
passage  in  the  chapter  of  Jer.  already  cited,  verses 
20,  21,  where  it  is  said  of  Edom  and  Teman,  "The 
earth  is  moved  at  the  noise  of  their  fall ;  at  the  cry 
the  noise  thereof  was  heard  in  the  Red  Sea  (yam 
Suf);'  In  the  sublime  prayer  of  Habakkuk,  it  is 
written,  "  God  came  from  Teman,  and  the  Holy 
One  from  mount  Paran  "  (iii.  3).  Jeremiah,  it  has 
been  seen,  speaks  of  the  wisdom  of  Teman ;  and 
the  prophecy  of  Obadiah  implies  the  same  (8,  9), 
"  Shall  I  not  in  that  day,  saith  the  Lord,  even 
destroy  the  wise  (men)  out  of  Edom,  and  under 
standing  out  of  the  mount  of  Esau?  And  thy 
[mighty]  men,  0  Teman.  shall  be  dismayed."  In 
wisdom,  the  descendants  of  Esau,  and  especially  the 
inhabitants  of  Teman,  seem  to  have  been  pre-eminent 
among  the  sons  of  the  East. 

In  common  with  most  Edomite  names,  Teman 
appears  to  have  been  lost.  The  occupation  of  the 
country  by  the  Nabathaeans  seems  to  have  oblite 
rated  almost  all  of  the  traces  (always  obscure)  of  the 
emigratory  tribes  of  the  desert.  It  is  not  iikcly  that 


TEMPLE 

much  ca^  ever  be  done  by  modern  research  to  clear 
up  the  early  history  of  this  part  of  the  "  east  coun 
try."  True,  Eusebius  and  Jerome  mention  Teman 
as  a  town  in  their  day  distant  15  miles  (according 
to  Eusebius)  from  Petra,  and  a  Roman  post.  Tlu 
identification  of  the  existing  Maan  (see  Burckhardt 
with  this  Teman  may  be  geographically  correct, 
but  it  cannot  rest  on  etymological  grounds. 

The  gentilic  noun  of  Teman  is  "OD^f)  (Job  ii.  11  ; 
xxii.  1),  and  Eliphaz  the  Temanite  was  one  of  the 
wise  men  of  Edom.  The  gen.  n.  occurs  also  in 
Gen.  xxxvi.  34,  where  the  land  of  Temani  (so  in  the 
A.  V.)  is  mentioned.  [E.  S.  P.] 

TE'MANI.     [TEMAN.] 

TE'MANITE.     [TEMAN.] 

TE'MENI  On:  Qat^dv:   Themani).    Son 


of  Ashur,  the  father  of  Tekoa,  by  his  wife  Naarah 
(1  Chr.  iv.  6). 

TEMPLE.  There  is  perhaps  no  building  of  the 
ancient  world  which  has  excited  so  much  attention 
since  the  time  of  its  destruction  as  the  Temple 
which  Solomon  built  at  Jerusalem,  and  its  successor 
as  rebuilt  by  Herod.  Its  spoils  were  considered 
worthy  of  forming  the  principal  illustration  of  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  of  Roman  triumphal  arches, 
and  Justinian's  highest  architectural  ambition  was 
that  he  might  surpass  it.  Throughout  the  middle 
ages  it  influenced  to  a  considerable  degree  the  forms 
oif  Christian  churches,  and  its  peculiarities  were  the 
watchwords  and  rallying  points  of  all  associations 
of  builders.  Since  the  revival  of  learning  in  the 
16th  century  its  arrangements  have  employed  the 
pens  of  numberless  learned  antiquarians,  and  archi 
tects  of  every  country  have  wasted  their  science  in 
trying  to  reproduce  its  forms. 

But  it  is  not  only  to  Christians  that  the  Temple 
of  Solomon  is  so  interesting  ;  the  whole  Mahomedan 
world  look  to  it  as  the  foundation  of  all  architec 
tural  knowledge,  and  the  Jews  still  recall  its  glories 
and  sigh  over  their  loss  with  a  constant  tenacity, 
unmatched  by  that  of  any  other  people  to  any  other 
building  of  the  ancient  world. 

With  all  this  interest  and  attention  it  might 
fairly  be  assumed  that  there  was  nothing  more  to 
be  said  on  such  a  subject  —  that  every  source  of  in 
formation  had  been  ransacked,  and  every  form  of 
restoration  -long  ago  exhausted,  and  some  settlement 
of  the  disputed  points  arrived  at  which  had  been 
generally  accepted.  This  is,  however,  far  from  being 
the  case,  and  few  things  would  be  more  curious 
than  a  collection  of  the  various  restorations  that 
have  been  proposed,  as  showing  what  different 
meanings  may  be  applied  to  the  same  set  of  simple 
architectural  terms. 

The  most  important  work  on  this  subject,  and 
that  which  was  principally  followed  by  restorers 
in  the  17th  and  18th  centuries,  was  that  of  the 
brothers  Pradi,  Spanish  Jesuits,  better  known  as 
Villalpandi.  Their  work  was  published  in  folio  at 
Rome,  1596-1604,  superbly  illustrated.  Their  idea 
of  Solomon's  Temple  was,  that  both  in  dimensions 
and  arrangement  it  was  very  like  the  Escurial  in 
Spain.  But  it  is  by  no  means  clear  whether  the 
Escurial  was  being  built  while  their  book  was  in 
the  press,  in  order  to  look  like  the  Temple,  or  whe 
ther  its  authors  took  their  idea  of  the  Temple  from 
the  palace.  At  all  events  their  design  is  so  much  the 
more  beautiful  and  commodious  of  the  two,  that  we 
cannot  but  regret  that  Herrera  was  not  employed  on 
the  book,  and  the  Jesuits  set  to  build  the  palace. 


TEMPLE 

When  the  French  expedition  to  Egypt,  in  the  first 
j  «ars  of  this  century,  had  iiiade  the  world  familiar 
ninth  the  wonderful  architectural  remains  of  that 
country,  every  one  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 
Solomon's  Temple  must  have  been  designed  after  an 
Egyptian  model,  forgetting  entirely  how  hateful 
that  land  of  bondage  was  to  the  Israelites,  and  how 
completely  all  the  ordinances  of  their  religion  were 
opposed  to  the  idolatries  they  had  escaped  from — 
forgetting,  too,  the  centuries  which  had  elapsed 
«.inne  the  Exode  before  the  Temple  was  erected,  and 
how  little  communication  of  any  sort  there  had 
been  between  the  two  countries  in  the  interval. 

The  Assyrian  discoveries  of  Botta  and  Layarc 
have  within  the  last  twenty  years  given  an  entirely 
new  direction  to  the  researches  of  the  restorers,  and 
this  time  with  a  very  considerable  prospect  of  suc 
cess,  for  the  analogies  are  now  true,  and  whatever 
can  be  brought  to  bear  on  the  subject  is  in  the  right 
direction.  The  original  seats  of  the  progenitors  of 
the  Jewish  races  were  in  Mesopotamia.  Their  lan 
guage  was  practically  the  same  as  that  spoken  on 
the  banks  of  the  Tigris.  Their  historical  traditions 
were  consentaneous,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  judge, 
almost  all  the  outward  symbolism  of  their  religions 
was  the  same,  or  nearly  so.  Unfortunately,  how 
ever,  no  Assyrian  temple  has  yet  been  exhumed  of 
a  nature  to  throw  much  light  ou  this  subject,  and 
we  are  still  forced  to  have  recourse  to  the  later 
buildings  at  Persepolis,  or  to  general  deductions,  from 
the  style  of  the  nearly  contemporary  secular  build 
ings  at  Nineveh  and  elsewhere,  for  such  illustrations 
as  are  available.  These,  however,  nearly  suffice  for 
all  that  is  required  for  Solomon's  Temple.  For  the 
details  of  that  erected  by  Herod  we  must  look  to 
Home. 

Of  the  intermediate  Temple  erected  by  Zerubbabel 
we  know  very  little,  but,  from  the  circumstance  of 
its  having  been  erected  under  Persian  influences 
contemporaneously  with  the  buildings  at  Perscpoiis, 
it  is  perhaps  the  one  of  which  it  would  be  most  easy 
to  restore  the  details  with  anything  like  certainty. 

Before  proceeding,  however,  to  investigate  the 
arrangements  of  the  Temple,  it  is  indispensable  first 
carefully  to  determine  those  of  the  Tabernacle  which 
Moses  caused  to  be  erected  in  the  Desert  of  Sinai 
immediately  after  the  promulgation  of  the  Law 
from  that  mountain.  For,  as  we  shall  presently 
see,  the  Temple  of  Solomon  was  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  an  exact  repetition  of  that  earlier  Temple, 
differing  only  in  being  erected  of  more  durable 
materials,  and  with  exactly  double  the  dimensions  of 
its  prototype,  but  still  in  every  essential  respect  so 
identical  that  a  knowledge  of  the  one  is  indispen 
sable  in  order  to  understand  the  other. 
TABERNACLE. 

The  written  authorities  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Tabernacle  are,  first,  the  detailed  account  to  be 
found  in  the  26th  chapter  of  Exodus,  and  repeated 


TEMPLE 


1451 


n  the  36th,  verses  8  to  38,  without  any  vaiiation 
beyond  the  slightest  possible  abridgement.  Secondly, 
;he  account  given  of  the  building  by  Josephus 
Ant.  iii.  6),  which  is  so  nearly  a  repetition  of  the 
account  found  in  the  Bible  that  we  may  feel 
assured  that  he  had  no  really  important  authority 
jefore  him  except  the  one  which  is  equally  accessible 
to  us.  Indeed  we  might  almost  put  his  account  ou 
one  side,  if  it  were  not  that,  being  a  Jew,  and  so 
much  nearer  the  time,  he  may  have  had  access  to 
some  traditional  accounts  which  may  have  enabled 
him  to  realize  its  appearance  more  readily  than  we 
can  do,  and  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew  technical 
terms  may  have  enabled  him  to  understand  what 
we  might  otherwise  be  unable  to  explain. 

The  additional  indications  contained  in  the  Tal 
mud  and  in  Philo  are  so  few  and  indistinct,  and  are 
besides  of  such  doubtful  authenticity,  that  they 
practically  add  nothing  to  our  knowledge,  and  may 
safely  be  disregarded. 

For  a  complicated  architectural  building  these 
written  authorities  probably  would  not  suffice 
without  some  remains  or  other  indications  to  sup 
plement  them  ;  but  the  arrangements  of  the  Taber 
nacle  were  so  simple  that  they  are  really  all  that 
are  required.  Every  important  dimension  was  either 
5  cubits  or  a  multiple  of  5  cubits,  and  all  the  ar 
rangements  in  plan  were  either  squares  or  double 
squares,  so  that  there  really  is  no  difficulty  in 
putting  the  whole  together,  and  none  would  ever 
have  occurred  were  it  not  that  the  dimensions  of 
the  sanctuary,  as  obtained  from  the  "  boards  "  that 
formed  its  walls,  appear  at  first  sight  to  be  one 
thing,  while  those  obtained  from  the  dimensions  of 
the  curtains  which  covered  it  appear  to  give  another, 
and  no  one  has  yet  succeeded  in  reconciling  these 
with  one  another  or  with  the  text  of  Scripture.  The 
apparent  discrepancy  is,  however,  easily  explained, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  and  never  would  have 
occurred  to  any  one  who  had  lived  long  under 
canvas  or  was  fomiliar  with  the  exigencies  of  tent 
architecture. 

Outer  Enclosure. — The  court  of  the  Tabernacle 
was  surrounded  by  canvas  screens — in  the  East 
called  Kannauts — and  still  universally  used  to  en 
close  the  private  apartments  of  important  person 
ages.  Those  of  the  Tabernacle  were  5  cubits  in 
height,  and  supported  by  pillars  of  brass  5  cubits 
apart,  to  which  the  curtains  were  attached  by  hooks 
and  fillets  of  silver  (Ex.  xxvii.  9,  &c.).  This  en 
closure  was  only  broken  on  the  eastern  side  by  the 
entrance,  which  was  20  cubits  wide,  and  closed  by 
curtains  of  fine  twined  linen  wrought  with  needle 
work,  and  of  the  most  gorgeous  colours. 

The  space  enclosed  within  these  screens  was  a 
double  square,  50  cubits,  or  75  feet  north*  and 
south,  and  100  cubits  or  150  ft.  east  and  west.  In 
the  'outer  or  eastern  half  was  placed  the  altar  of 
burnt-offerings,  described  in  Ex.  xxvii.  1-8,  and  be- 


•  The  cubit  used  throughout  this  article  is  assumed  to 
be  the  ordinary  cubit,  of  the  length  of  a  man's  fore-arm 
from  the  elbow-joint  to  the  tip  of  the  middle  finger,  or 
18  Greek  inches,  equal  to  18i  English  inches.  There 
seems  to  be  littie  doubt  but  that  the  Jews  also  used  oc 
casionally  a  shorter  cubit  of  5  handbreaths,  or  15  inches 
but  only  (in  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained)  in  speaking  o1 
vessels  or  of  metal  work,  and  never  applied  it  to  buildings 
After  the  Babylonish  Captivity  they  seem  also  occasion 
ally  to  have  employed  the  Babylonian  cubit  of  7  hand- 
breadths,  or  21  inches.  This,  however,  can  evidently 
have  no  application  to  the  Tabernacle  or  Solomon's 
f  emple,  which  was  erected  before  the  Captivity ;  uor 


can  it  be  available  to  explain  the  peculiarities  of  Herod's 
Temple,  as  Josephus,  who  is  our  principal  authority 
regarding  it,  most  certainly  did  always  employ  the  Greek 
cubit  of  18  inches,  or  400  to  1  stadium  of  600  Greek  feet ; 
and  the  Talmud,  which  is  the  only  other  authority, 
always  gives  the  same  number  of  cubits  where  we  can  be 
certain  they  are  speaking  of  the  same  thing ;  so  that  we 
may  feel  perfectly  sure  they  both  were  using  the  same 
measure.  Thus,  whatever  other  cubits  the  Jews  may 
have  used  for  other  purposes,  we  may  rest  assured  that 
for  the  buildings  referred  to  in  this  article  the  cubit  of  ft 
inchee,  aud  that  only,  was  the  one  employed. 


1452 


TEMPLE 


tween  it  and  the  Tabernacle  the  laver  (Ant.  in.  6, 
§2),  at  which  the  priests  washed  their  hands  and 
feet  on  entering  the  Temple. 

.1       f  '    1 


ALTAR  OF 
BURNT  OFFERINGS 


Hffh 


Cubits. 


10        20        30       40       60        60        70  75  Feet. 
No.  1.— Plan  of  the  Outer  Court  of  the  Tabernacle. 

In  the  square  towards  the  west  was  situated  the 
Temple  or  Tabernacle  itself.  The  dimensions  in 
plan  of  this  structure  are  easily  ascertained.  Jo- 
sephus  states  them  (Ant.  iii.  6,  §3)  as  30  cubits  long 
by  10  broad,  or  45  feet  by  15,  and  the  Bible  is 
scarcely  less  distinct,  as  it  says  that  the  north  and 
south  walls  were  each  composed  of  twenty  upright 
boards  (Ex.  xxvi.  15,  &c.),  each  board  one  cubit 
and  a  half  in  width,  and  at  the  west  end  there 
were  six  boardr,  equal  to  9  cubits,  which,  with 
the  angle  boards  or  posts,  made  up  the  10  cubits 
of  Josephus. 

Each  of  these  boards  was  furnished  with  two 
tenons  at  its  lower  extremity,  which  fitted  rnto 
silver  sockets  placed  on  the  ground.  At  the  top  at 
least  they  were  jointed  and  fastened  together  by 
bars  of  shittim  or  acacia  wood  run  through  rings 
of  gold  (Ex.  xxvi.  26).  Both  authorities  agree  that 
there  were  five  bars  for  each  side,  but  a  little  diffi 
culty  arises  from  the  Bible  describing  (ver.  28)  a 
middle  bar  which  reached  from  end  to  end.  As 
v/e  shall  presently  see.  this  bar  was  probably 
applied  to  a  totally  different  purpose,  and  we  may 
therefore  assume  for  the  present  that  Josephus' 


TEMPLE 

description  of  the  mode  in  which  they  were  applied 
is  the  correct  one: — "  Every  one,"  he  says  (Ant.  iii 
6,  §3),  "  of  the  pillars  or  boards  had  a  ring  of  gold 
affixed  to  its  front  outwards,  into  which  were  inserted 
bars  gilt  with  gold,  each  of  them  5  cubits  long,  and 
these  bound  together  the  boards  ;  the  head  of  one 
bar  running  into  another  after  the  manner  of  one 
tenon  inserted  into  another.  But  for  the  wall  be 
hind  there  was  only  one  bar  that  went  through  all 
the  boards,  into  which  one  of  the  ends  of  the  bars  on 
both  sides  was  inserted." 

So  far,  therefore,  everything  seems  certain  and 
easily  understood.  The  Tabernacle  was  an  oblong 
rectangular  structure,  30  cubits  long  by  10  broad, 
open  at  the  eastern  end,  and  divided  internally  into 
two  apartments.  The  Holy  of  Holies,  into  which 
no  one  entered — not  even  the  priest,  except  on  very 
extraordinary  occasions — was  a  cube,  10  cubits 
square  in  plan,  and  10  cubits  high  to  the  top  of  the 
wall.  In  this  was  placed  the  Mercy-seat,  sur 
mounted  by  the  cherubim,  and  on  it  was  placed 
the  Ark,  containing  the  tables  of  the  Law.  In  front 
of  these  was  an  outer  chamber,  called  the  Holy 
Place — 20  cubits  long  by  10  broad,  and  10  high, 
appropriated  to  the  use  of  the  priests.  In  it  were 
placed  the  golden  candlestick  on  one  side,  the  table 
of  shew-bread  opposite,  and  between  them  iu  the 
centre  the  altar  of  incense. 


Mo.  2.  -The  Tabernacle,  showing  one  half  ground  plan  and  cno 
half  as  covered  by  the  curtains. 

The  roof  of  the  Tabernacle  was  formed  by  3, 
or  rather  4,  sets  of  curtains,  the  dimensions  of  two 
of  which  are  given  with  great  minuteness  both  in  the 
Bible  and  by  Josephus.  The  innermost  (Ex.  xxvi.  1 , 
&c.),  of  fine  twined  linen  according  to  our  trans 
lation  (Josephus  calls  them  wool:  (pltov,  Ant.  iii. 
6,§  4),  were  ten  in  number,  each  4  cubits  wide  and 
28  cubits  long.  These  were  of  various  colours,  and 
ornamented  with  cherubim  of  "cunning  work." 
Five  of  these  were  sewn  together  so  as  to  form  largei 


TEMPLE 

curtains,  each  20  cubits  by  28,  and  these  two  again 
were  joined  together,  when  used,  by  fifty  gold  buckles 
or  clasps. 

Above  these  were  placed  curtains  of  goats'  hair, 
each  4  cubits  wide  by  30  cubits  long,  but  eleven 
in  number;  these  were  also  sewn  together,  six  into 
one  curtain,  and  five  into  the  other,  and,  when 
used,  were  likewise  joined  together  by  fifty  gold 
buckles. 

Over  these  again  was  thrown  a  curtain  of  ranis' 
skins  with  the  wool  on,  dyed  red,  and  a  fourth  cover 
ing  is  also  specified  as  being  of  badgers' skins,  so  named 
in  the  A.  V.,  but  which  probably  really  consisted  of 
seal-skins.  [BADGER-SKINS  in  Appendix  A.]  This 
did  not  of  course  cover  the  rams'  skins,  but  most 
probably  was  only  used  as  a  coping  or  ridge  piece 
to  protect  the  junction  of  the  two  curtains  of  rams' 
skins  which  were  laid  on  each  slope  of  the  roof,  and 
probably  only  laced  together  at  the  top. 

The  question  which  has  hitherto  proved  a  stum 
bling  block  to  restorers  is,  to  know  how  these  cur 
tains  were  applied  as  a  covering  to  the  Tabernacle. 
Strange  to  say,  this  has  appeared  so  difficult  that, 
with  hardly  an  exception,  they  have  been  content 
to  assume  that  they  were  thrown  over  its  walls  as 
a  pall  is  thrown  over  a  coffin,  and  they  have  thus 
cut  the  Gordian  knot  in  defiance  of  all  probabi 
lities,  as  well  as  of  the  distinct  specification  of  the 
Pentateuch.  To  this  view  of  the  matter  there  are 
several  important  objections. 

First.  If  the  inner  or  ornamental  curtain  was  so 
•used,  only  about  one-third  of  it  would  be  seen ; 
9  cubits  on  each  side  would  be  entirely  hidden  be 
tween  the  walls  of  the  Tabernacle  and  the  goats'- 
hair  curtain.  It  is  true  that  Bahr  (Symbolik  des 
Mosaischen  Cultus),  Neumann  (Der  Stiftshutte, 
1861),  and  others,  try  to  avoid  this  difficulty  by 
hanging  this  curtain  so  as  to  drape  the  walls  inside  ; 
but  for  this  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  authority,  and 
the  tbrm  of  the  curtain  would  be  singularly  awk 
ward  and  unsuitable  for  this  purpose.  If  such  a 
thing  were  intended,  it  is  evident  that  one  curtain 
would  have  been  used  as  wall-hangings  and  another 
as  a  ceiling,  not  one  great  range  of  curtains  all 
joined  the  same  way  to  hang  the  walls  all  round 
and  form  the  ceiling  at  the  same  time. 

A  second  and  more  cogent  objection  will  strike 
anyone  who  has  ever  lived  in  a  tent.  It  is,  that 
every  drop  of  rain  that  fell  on  the  Tabernacle  would 
fall  through  ;  for,  however  tightly  the  curtains  might 
be  stretched,  the  water  could  never  run  over  the 
edge,  and  the  sheep  skins  would  only  make  the 
matter  worse,  as  when  wetted  their  weight  would 
depress  the  centre,  and  probably  tear  any  curtain 
that  could  be  made,  while  snow  lying  on  such  a 
roof  would  certainly  tear  the  curtains  to  pieces. 

But  a  third  and  fatal  objection  is,  that  this  ar 
rangement  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  Scripture. 
We  are  there  told  (Ex.  xxvi.  9)  that  half  of  one  of 
the  goats'-hair  curtains  shall  be  doubled  back  in 
front  of  the  Tabernacle,  and  only  the  half  of  another 
(ver.  12)  hang  down  behind ;  and  (ver.  13),  that 
one  cubit  shall  hang  down  on  each  side — whereas 
this  arrangement  makes  10  cubits  hang  down  all 
round,  except  in  front. 

The  solution  of  the  difficulty  appeal's  singularly 
obvious.  It  is  simply,  that  the  tent  had  a  ridge, 
as  all  tents  have  had  from  the  days  of  Moses  down 
to  the  present  day;  and  we  have  also  very  little 
difficiilty  in  predicating  that  the  angle  formed  by 
the  two  sides  of  the  roof  at  the  ridge  was  a  right 
angle — not  only  because  it  is  a  reasonable  and  usual 


TEMPLE  1453 

angle  for  such  a  roof,  and  one  that  would  most 
likely  be  adopted  in  so  regular  a  building,  but  be 
cause  its  adoption  reduces  to  harmony  the  only  ab 
normal  measurement  in  the  whole  building.  As 
mentioned  above,  the  principal  curtains  were  only 
28  cubits  in  length,  and  consequently  not  a  mul 
tiple  of  5  ;  but  if  we  assume  a  right  angle  at  the 
ridge,  each  side  of  the  slope  was  14  cubits,  aiU 
142  +  142  =  392,  and  20s  =  400,  two  number;, 
which  aro  pi-actically  identical  in  tent-building. 


y 

H 

t- 

^ 

/         " 

CQ 

3 

\ 

n 

10 

v)                   O 

20   CUBITS 

2 

5              £ 

3 

a 

3 

o 

,_ 

•o 

"s  CUBITS: 

<              10   CUBITS            > 

S 

5  CUBITS 

No.  3.— Diagram  of  the  Dimensions  of  the  Tabernacle  in  Section. 

The  base  of  the  triangle,  therefore,  formed  by  the 
roof  was  20  cubits,  or  in  other  words,  the  roof  of 
the  Tabernacle  extended  5  cubits  beyond  the  walls, 
not  only  in  front  and  rear,  but  on  both  sides ;  and 
it  may  be  added,  that  the  width  of  the  Tabernacle 
thus  became  identical  with  the  width  of  the  entrance 
to  the  enclosure ;  which  but  for  this  circumstance 
would  appear  to  have  been  disproportionately  large. 

With  these  data  it  is  easy  to  explain  all  the  other 
difficulties  which  have  met  previous  restorers. 

First.  The  Holy  of  Hofies  was  divided  from  the 
Holy  Place  by  a  screen  of  four  pillars  supporting 
curtains  which  no  one  was  allowed  to  pass.  But, 
strange  to  say,  .in  the  entrance  there  were  five 
pillars  in  a  similar  space.  Now,  no  one  would  put 
a  pillar  in  the  centre  of  an  entrance  without  a 
motive;  but  the  moment  a  ridge  is  assumed  it 
becomes  indispensable. 

It  may  be  assumed  that  all  the  five  pillars  were 
spaced  within  the  limits  of  the  10  cubits  of  the 
breadth  of  the  Tabernacle,  viz.  one  in  the  centre, 
two  opposite  the  two  ends  of  the  walls,  and  the 
other  two  between  them ;  but  the  probabilities  are 
so  infinitely  greater  that  those  two  last  were  beyond 
those  at  the  angles  of  the  tent,  that  it  is  hardly 
worth  while  considering  the  first  hypothesis.  By 
the  one  here  adopted  the  pillars  in  front  would,  like 
every  thing  else,  be  spaced  exactly  5  cubits  apart. 

Secondly.  Josephus  twice  asserts  (Ant.  iii.  6, 
§4)  that  the  Tabernacle  was  divided  into  three 
parts,  though  he  specifies  only  two — the  Adytum 
and  the  Pronaos.  The  third  was  of  course  the 
porch,  5  cubits  deep,  which  stretched  across  the 
width  of  the  house. 

Thirdly.  In  speaking  of  the  western  end,  the 
Bible  always  uses  the  plural,  as  if  there  were  two 
sides  there.  There  was,  of  course,  at  least  one  pillar 
in  the  centre  beyond  the  wall, — there  may  have 
been  five, — so  that  there  practically  were  two  sides 
there.  It  may  also  be  remarked  that  the  Penta 
teuch,  in  speaking  (Ex.  xxvi.  12)  of  this  after  part 
calls  it  Mishcan,  or  the  dwelling,  as  contradistin 
guished  from  Ohel,  or  the  tent,  which  applies  tc 
the  whole  structure  covered  by  the  curtains. 

Fourthly .    We  now  understand  why  there  are  10 


1454 


TEMPLE 


breadths  in  the  under  curtains,  and  11  in  the 
upper.  It  was  that  they  might  break  joint — in 
other  words,  that  the  seam  of  the  one,  and  espe 
cially  the  great  joining  of  the  two  divisions,  might 
be  over  the  centre  of  the  lower  curtain,  so  as  to 
prevent  the  rain  penetrating  through  the  joints.  It 
may  also  be  remarked  that,  as  the  two  cubits  which 
were  in  excess  at  the  west  hung  at  an  angle,  the 
depth  of  fringe  would  be  practically  about  the  same 
as  on  the  sides. 

With  these  suggestions,  the  whole  description  in 
the  Book  of  Exodus  is  so  easily  understood  that  it 
is  not  necessary  to  dilate  further  upon  it ;  there  are, 
however,  two  points  which  remain  to  be  noticed,  but 
more  with  reference  to  the  Temple  which  succeeded 
it  than  with  regard  to  the  Tabernacle  itself. 

The  first  is  the  disposition  of  the  side  bars  of 
shittim-wood  that  joined  the  boards  together.  At 
first  sight  it  would  appeal-  that  there  were  4  short 
and  one  long  bar  on  each  side,  but  it  seems  impos 
sible  to  see  how  these  could  be  arranged  to  accord 
with  the  usual  interpretation  of  the  text,  and  very 
improbable  that  the  Israelites  would  have  carried 
about  a  bar  45  feet  long,  when  5  or  6  bars  would 
have  answered  the  purpose  equally  well,  and  5 
rows  of  bars  are  quite  unnecessary,  besides  being  in 
opposition  to  the  words  of  the  text. 

The  explanation  hinted  at  above  seems  the  most 
reasonable  one — that  the  five  bars  named  (vers.  26 
and  27)  were  joined  end  to  end,  as  Josephus  asserts, 
and  the  bar  mentioned  (ver.  28)  was  the  ridge-pole 
of  the  roof.  The  words  of  the  Hebrew  text  will 
equally  well  bear  the  translation — "  and  the  middle 
bar  which  is  between,"  instead  of  "  in  the  midst  of 
the  boards,  shall  reach  from  end  to  end.''  This 
would  appear  a  perfectly  reasonable  solution  but  for 
the  mechanical  difficulty  that  no  pole  could  be  made 
stiff  enough  to  bear  its  own  weight  and  that  of  the 
curtains  over  an  extent  of  45  feet,  without  inter 
mediate  supports.  A  ridge-rope  could  easily  be 
stretched  to  twice  that  distance,  if  required  for  the 
purpose,  though  it  too  would  droop  in  the  centre. 
A  pole  would  be  a  much  more  appropriate  and  likely 
architectural  arrangement — so  much  so,  that  it 
seems  more  than  probable  that  one  was  employed 
with  supports.  One  pillar  in  the  centre  where  the 
curtains  were  joined  would  be  amply  sufficient  for  all 
practical  purposes ;  and  if  the  centre  board  at  the 


TEMPLE 

back  of  the  Holy  of  Holies  was  15  cubits  hlgli 
(which  there  is  nothing  to  contradict),  the  whole 
would  be  easily  constructed.  Still,  as  no  intermu 
supports  are  mentioned  either  by  the  Bible  or  Jo 
sephus,  the  question  of  how  the  ridge  was  formed 
and  supported  must  remain  an  open  one,  incapable 
of  proof  with  our  present  knowledge,  but  it  is  one 
to  which  we  shall  have  to  revert  presently. 

The  other  question  is— were  the  sides  of  the 
Verandah  which  surrounded  the  Sanctuary  closed  or 
left  open  ?  The  only  hint  we  have  that  this  was 
done,  is  the  mention  of  the  western  sides  always 
in  the  plural,  and  the  employment  of  Mishcan 
and  Ohel  throughout  this  chapter,  apparently  in 
opposition  to  one  another,  Mishcan  always  seem 
ing  to  apply  to  an  enclosed  space,  which  was  or 
might  be  dwelt  in,  Ohel  to  the  tent  as  a  whole  01 
to  the  covering  only  ;  though  here  again  the  point 
is  by  no  means  so  clear  as  to  be  decisive. 

The  only  really  tangible  reason  for  supposing  the 
sides  were  enclosed  is,  that  the  Temple  of  Solomon 
was  surrounded  on  all  sides  but  the  front,  by  a 
range  of  small  cells  5  cubits  wide,  in  which  the 
priests  resided  who  were  specially  attached  to  the 
service  of  the  Temple. 

It  would  have  been  so  easy  to  have  done  this 
in  the  Tabernacle,  and  its  convenience — at  night  at 
least — so  great,  that  I  cannot  help  suspecting  it  wa8 
the  case. 

It  is  not  easy  to  ascertain,  with  anything  like 
certainty,  at  what  distance  from  the  tent  the  tent- 
pegs  were  fixed.  It  could  not  be  less  on  the  sides 
than  7  cubits,  it  may  as  probably  have  been  10. 
In  front  and  rear  the  central  peg  could  hardly  have 
been  at  a  less  distance  than  20  cubits ;  so  that  it 
is  by  no  means  improbable  that  from  the  front  to 
rear  the  whole  distance  may  have  been  80  cubits, 
and  from  side  to  side  40  cubits,  measured  from  peg 
to  peg ;  and  it  is  this  dimension  that  seems  to  have 
governed  the  pegs  of  the  enclosures,  as  it  would 
just  allow  iv,om  for  the  fastenings  of  the  enclosure 
on  either  side,  and  for  the  altar  and  lavyr  in  front. 
It  is  scarcely  worth  while,  however,  insisting 
strongly  on  these  and  some  other  minor  points. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  explain  with  the  wood 
cuts  all  the  main  points  of  the  proposed  restoration, 
and  to  show  that  it  is  possible  to  reconstruct  the 
Tabernacle  in  strict  conformity  with  every  word 


4.— South- East  View  ot  the  TabernaeJc.  as  restored 


TEMPLE 

and  every  indication  of  the  sacred  text,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  show  that  the  Tabernacle  was  a  rea 
sonable  tent-like  structure,  admirably  adapted  to 
the  purposes  to  which  it  was  applied. 

SOLOMON'S  TEMPLE. 

The  Tabernacle  accompanied  the  Israelites  in  all 
their  wanderings,  and  remained  their  only  Holy 
Place  or  Temple  till  David  obtained  possession  of 
'erusalem,  and  erected  an  altar  in  the  threshing- 
floor  of  Araunah,  on  the  spot  where  the  altar  of 
the  Temple  always  afterwards  stood.  He  also 
brought  the  Ark  out  of  Kirjath-jearim  (2  Sam.  vi. 
2  ;  1  Chr.  xiii.  6)  and  prepared  a  tabernacle  for  it 
in  the  new  city  which  he  called  after  his  own  name. 
Both  these  were  brought  up  thence  by  Solomon 
(2  Chr.  v.  5);  the  Ark  placed  in  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  but  the  Tabernacle  seems  to  have  been  put 
on  one  side  as  a  relic  (1  Chr.  xxiii.  32).  We  have 
no  account,  however,  of  the  removal  of  the  original 
Tabernacle  of  Moses  from  Gibeon,  nor  anything 
that  would  enable  us  to  connect  it  with  that  one 
which  Solomon  removed  out  of  the  City  of  David 
(2  Chr.  v.  5).  In  fact,  from  the  time  of  the  build 
ing  of  the  Temple,  we  lose  sight  of  the  Tabernacle 
altogether.  It  was  David  who  first  proposed  to  re 
place  the  Tabernacle  by  a  more  permanent  building, 
but  was  forbidden  for  the  reasons  assigned  by  the 
prophet  Nathan  (2  Sam.  vii.  5,  &c.),  and  though 
he  collected  materials  and  made  arrangements,  the 
execution  of  the  task  was  left  for  his  son  Solomon. 

He,  witn  the  assistance  of  Hiram  king  of  Tyre, 
commenced  this  great  undertaking  in  the  fourth  year 
of  his  reign,  and  completed  it  in  seven  years,  about 
1005  B.C.  according  to  the  received  chronology. 

On  comparing  the  Temple,  as  described  in  1  Kings 
vi.  and  2  Chronicles  ii.  and  by  Josephus  vii.  3,  with 
the  Tabernacle,  as  just  explained,  the  first  thing 
that  strikes  us  is  that  all  the  arrangements  were 
identical,  and  the  dimensions  of  every  part  were 
exactly  double  those  of  the  preceding  structure. 
Thus  the  Holy  of  Holies  in  the  Tabernacle  was  a 
cube,  10  cubits  each  way ;  in  the  Temple  it  was 
20  cubits.  The  Holy  Place  or  outer  hall  was  10 
cubits  wide  by  20  long  and  10  high  in  the  Taber 
nacle.  In  the  Temple  all  these  dimensions  were 
exactly  double.  The  porch  in  the  Tabernacle  was 
5  cubits  deep,  in  the  Temple  10  :  its  width  in  both 
instances  being  the  width  of  the  house.  The  chambers 
round  the  House  and  the  Tabernacle  were  each  5 
cubits  wide  on  the  ground-floor,  the  difference  being 
that  in  the  Temple  the  two  walls  taken  together 
made  up  a  thickness  of  5  cubits,  thus  making  10 
cubits  for  the  chambers. 

Taking  all  these  parts  together,  the  ground-plan 
of  the  Temple  measured  80  cubits  by  40 ;  that  of 
the  Tabernacle,  as  we  have  just  seen,  was  40  by  20  ; 
and  what  is  more  striking  than  even  this,  is  that 
though  the  walls  were  10  cubits  high  in  the  one 
and  20  cubits  in  the  other,  the  whole  height  of  the. 
Tabernacle  was  15,  that  of  the  Temple  30  cubits; 
the  one  roof  rising  5,  the  other  1 0  cubits  above  the 
height  of  the  internal  walls.b  So  exact  indeed  is  this 
coincidence,  that  it  not  only  confirms  to  the  fullest 
extent  the  restoration  of  the  Tabernacle  which  has 
just  been  explainsd,  but  it  is  a  singular  confirmation 

b  In  the  Apocrypha  there  is  a  passage  which  beare 
curiously  and  distinctly  on  this  subject.  In  Wisd.  ix.  8  it 
is  said, "  Thou  hast  commanded  me  (i.  e.  Solomon)  to  build 
R  Temple  in  Thy  Holy  mount,  and  an  altar  in  the  city 
wherein  Thou  dwellest,  a  resemblance  of  the  Holy  Taber- 
»ade  which  Thou  ha?t  prepared  from  the  beginning." 


TEMPLE 


1455 


ot  the  minute  accuracy  which  characterised  the 
writers  of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  Books  of  Kings 
and  Chronicles  in  this  matter ;  for  not  only  are  we 
able  to  check  the  one  by  the  other  at  this  distance 
of  time  with  perfect  certainty,  but,  now  that  w? 
know  the  system  on  which  they  were  constructed 
we  might  almost  restore  both  edifices  from  Josephu?' 
account  of  the  Temple  as  re-erected  by  Herod,  of 
which  more  hereafter. 


No.  5.— Plan  of  Solomon's  Temple,  showing  the  disposition  of  tU 
chambers  in  two  stories. 

The  proof  that  the  Temple,  as  built  by  Solomon, 
was  only  an  enlarged  copy  of  the  Tabernacle,  goes 
far  also  to  change  the  form  of  another  important 
question  which  has  been  long  agitated  by  the  stu 
dents  of  Jewish 'antiquities,  inasmuch  as  the  in 
quiry  as  to  whence  the  Jews  derived  the  plan  and 
design  of  the  Temple  must  now  be  transferred  to  the 
earlier  type,  and  the  question  thus  stands,  Whence 
did  they  derive  the  scheme  of  the  Tabernacle? 

From  Egypt? 

There  is  not  a  shadow  of  proof  that  the  Egyptians 
ever  used  a  moveable  or  tent-like  temple,  neither  the 
pictures  in  their  temples  nor  any  historical  records 
point  to  such  a  form,  nor  has  any  one  hitherto  ven 
tured  to  suggest  such  an  origin  for  that  structure. 

From  Assyria  ? 

Here  too  we  are  equally  devoid  of  any  authority 
or  tangible  data,  for  though  the  probabilities  cer 
tainly  are  that  the  Jews  would  rather  adopt  a  form 
from  the  kindred  Assyrians  than  from  the  hated 
strangers  whose  land  they  had  just  left,  we  have 
nothing  further  to  justify  us  in  such  an  assumption. 

From  Arabia  ? 

It  is  possible  that  the  Arabs  may  have  used 
moveable  tent-like  temples.  They  were  a  people 
nearly  allied  in  race  with  the  Jews.  Moses'  father- 
in-law  was  an  Arab,  and  something  he  may  have 
seen  there  may  have  suggested  the  form  he  adopted. 
But  beyond  this  we  cannot  at  present  go.c 


0  The  only  thing  resembling  it  we  know  of  is  the 
Holy  Tent  of  the  Carthaginians,  mentioned  by  DiodoruE 
Siculus,  xx.  65,  which,  in  consequence  of  a  sudden  change 
of  wind  at  night  blowing  the  flames  from  the  altar  or 
which  victims  were  being  sacrificed,  towards  TT/V  ieptb 
JI/,  it  took  fire,  a  circumstance  which  spread  such 


1456 


NO.  6.— Tomb  of  Darius  near  f  ersepoiu. 


For  the  present,  at  least,  it  must  suffice  to  know 
that  the  form  of  the  Temple  was  copied  from  the 
Tabernacle,  and  that  any  architectural  ornaments 
that  may  have  been  added  were  such  as  were  usu 
ally  employed  at  that  time  in  Palestine,  and  more 
especially  at  Tyre,  whence  most  of  the  artificers  were 
obtained  who  assisted  in  its  erection. 

So  far  as  the  dimensions  above  quoted  are  con 
cerned,  everything  is  as  clear  and  as  certain  as  any 
thing  that  can  be  predicated  of  any  building  of 
which  no  remains  exist,  but  beyond  this  there  are 
certain  minor  problems  by  no  means  so  easy  to  re 
solve,  but  fortunately  they  are  of  much  less  im 
portance.  The  first  is  the 

Height.— That  given  in  1  K.  vi.  2— of  30  cubits 
— is  so  reasonable  in  proportion  to  the  other  dimen 
sions,  that  the  matter  might  be  allowed  to  rest 
there  were  it  not  for  the  assertion  (2  Chr.  iii.  4} 
that  the  height,  though  apparently  only  of  the 
porch,  was  120  cubits  =180  feet  (as  nearly  as  may 


consternation  throughout  the  army  as  to  lead  to  its 
destruction. 

The  Carthaginians  were  a  Shemitic  people,  and  seem  to 
have  carried  their  Holy  Tent  about  with  their  armies, 


be  the  height  ot  the  steeple  of  St.  Martin's  in  the 
Fields).  This  is  so  unlike  anything  we  know  of  in 
ancient  architecture,  that  having  no  counterpart  in 
the  Tabernacle,  we  might  at  first  sight  feel  almost 
justified  hi  rejecting  it  as  a  mistake  or  interpolation, 
but  for  the  assertion  (2  Chr.  iii.  9)  that  Soloraon 
overlaid  the  upper  chambers  with  gold,  and  2  K. 
xxiii.  12,  where  the  altars  on  the  top  of  the  upper 
chambers,  apparently  of  the  Temple,  are  mentioned. 
In  addition  to  this,  both  Josephus  and  the  Talmud 
persistently  assert  that  there  was  a  superstructure 
on  the  Temple  equal  in  height  to  the  lower  part, 
and  the  total  height  they,  in  accordance  with  the 
Book  of  Chronicles,  call  120  cubits  or  180  feet 
(Ant.  viii.  3,  §2).  It  is  evident,  however,  that  he 
obtains  these  dimensions  first  by  doubling  the 
height  of  the  lower  Temple,  making  it  60  instead 
of  30  cubits,  and  in  like  manner  exaggerating 
every  other  dimension  to  make  up  this  quantity. 
Were  it  not  for  these  authorities,  it  would  satisfy 


and  to  have  performed  sacrifices  in  front  of  it,  precisely 
as  was  done  by  the  Jews,  excepting,  of  course,  the  nature 
of  the  victims. 


TEMPLE 

all  the  real  exigencies  of  the  case  if  we  assumed 
that  the  upper  chamber  occupied  the  space  between 
th3  roof  of  the  Holy  Place  and  the  root  ot  the 
Temple.  Ten  cubits  or  15  feet,  even  after  deduct 
ing  the  thickness  of  the  two  roofs,  is  sufficient  to 
constitute  such  an  apartment  as  history  would  lead 
us  to  suppose  existed  there.  But  the  evidence  that 
there  was  something  beyond  this  is  so  strong  that 
it  cannot  be  rejected. 

In  looking  through  the  monuments  of  antiquity 
for  something  to  suggest  what  this  might  be,  the 
only  thing  that  occurs  is  the  platform  or  Talar  that 
existed  on  the  roofs  of  the  Palace  Temples  at  Perse- 
polis — as  shown  in  Woodcut  No.  6,  which  represents 
the  Tomb  of  Darius,  and  is  an  exact  reproduction  of 
the  facade  of  the  Palace  shown  in  plan,  Woodcut 
No.  9.  It  is  true  these  were  erected  five  centuries 
after  the  building  of  Solomon's  Temple;  but  they  are 
avowedly  copies  in  stone  of  older  Assyrian  forms,  and 
as  such  may  represent,  with  more  or  less  exactness, 
contemporary  buildings.  Nothing  in  fact  could  re 
present  more  correctly  "  the  altars  on  the  top  of  the 
upper  chambers  "  which  Josiah  beat  down  (2  K. 
ixiii.  12)  than  this,  nor  could  anything  more  fully 
meet  all  the  architectural  or  devotional  exigencies  of 
the  case ;  but  its  height  never  could  have  been  60 
cubits,  or  even  30,  but  it  might  very  probably  be 
the  20  cubits  which  incidentally  Josephus  (xv.  11, 
§3)  mentions  as  "  sinking  down  in  the  failure  of  the 
foundations,  but  was  so  left  till  the  days  of  Nero." 
There  can  be  little  doubt  but  that  the  part  referred 
to  in  this  paragraph  was  some  such  superstructure 
as  that  shown  in  the  last  woodcut ;  and  the  incidental 
mention  of  20  cubits  is  much  more  to  be  trusted 
than  Josephus'  heights  generally  are,  which  he  seems 
systematically  to  have  exaggerated  when  he  was 
thinking  about  them. 

Jachin  and  Boaz. — There  are  no  features  con 
nected  with  the  Temple  of  Solomon  which  have 
given  rise  to  so  much  controversy,  or  been  so  diffi 
cult  to  explain,  as  the  form  of  the  two  pillars  of 
brass  which  were  set  up  in  the  porch  of  the  house. 
It  has  even  been  supposed  that  they  were  not  pillars 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  but  obelisks  ;  for 
this,  however,  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any 
authority.  The  porch  was  30  feet  in  width, 
(Bid.  a  roof  of  that  extent,  even  if  composed  of  a 


TEMPLE 


1451! 


No.  7.-Cornice  of  lily-work  Rt  Penwspolis. 

?OL.  in. 


wooden  beam,  would  not  only  look  painfully  weak 
,vithout  some  support,  but,  in  fact,  almost  irnpos- 
iible  to  construct  with  the  imperfect  science  of  these 
Jays.  Another  difficulty  arises  from  the  fact  that 
.heBook  of  Chronicles  nearly  doubles  the  dimensions 
jiven  in  Kings  ;  but  this  arises  from  the  systematic 
•eduplication  of  the  height  which  misled  Josephus ; 
and  if  we  assume  the  Temple  to  have  been  60  cubits 
ligh,  the  height  of  the  pillars,  as  given  in  the  Book 
)f  Chronicles,  would  be  appropriate  to  support  the 
:-oof  of  its  porch,  as  those  in  Kings  are  the  proper 
leight  for  a  temple  30  cubits  high,  which  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe 
was  the  true  dimension. 
According  to  1  K.  vii.  15 
et  scq.,  the  pillars  were 
18  cubits  high  and  12  in 
circumference,  with  capi 
tals  rive  cubits  in  height. 
Above  this  was  (ver.  19, 
another  member,  called  also 
chapiter  of  lily-work,  four 
cubits  in  height,  but  which 
from  the  second  mention 
of  it  in  ver.  22  seems  more 
probably  to  have  been  an 
entablature,  which  is  neces 
sary  to  complete  the  order. 
As  these  members  make 
out  27  cubits,  leaving  3 
cubits  or  4J  feet  for  the 
slope  of  the  roof,  the  whole 
design  seems  reasonable  and 
proper. 

If  this  conjecture  is  cor 
rect,  we  have  no  great  diffi 
culty  in  suggesting  that  the 
lily-work  must  have  been 
something  like  the  Perse- 
politan  cornice  (Woodcut 
No.  7),  which  is  p-obably 
nearer  in  style  to  that  of 
the  buildings  at  Jerusalem 
than  anything  else  we 
know  of. 

It  seems  almost  in  vain 
to  try  and  speculate  on 
what  was  the  exact  form 
of  the  decoration  of  these 
celebrated  pillars.  The 
nets  of  checker-work  and 
wreaths  of  chain-work, 
and  the  pomegranates,  &c., 
are  all  features  applicable 
to  metal  architecture;  and 
though  we  know  that  the 
old  Tartar  races  did  use 
metal  architecture  every 
where,  and  especially  in 
bronze,  from  the  very  na 
ture  of  the  material  every 
specimen  has  perished,  and 
we  have  now  no  representations  from  which  we  can 
restore  them.  The  styles  we  are  familiar  with  were 
all  derived  more  or  less  from  wood,  or  from  stone 
with  wooden  ornaments  repeated  in  the  harder 
material.  Even  at  Persepolis.  though  we  may  feel 
certain  that  everything  we  see  there  had  a  wooden 
prototype,  and  may  suspect  that  much  of  their 
wooden  ornamentation  was  derived  from  the  earlier 
metal  forms,  stiil  ii  i;  so  far  removed  from  the 
original  source  that  in  the  present  stete  of  oui 

5  A 


No.  8.— Pillar  of  Northern 
Portico  at  Persepolis. 


1458 


TEMPLE 


knowledge,  it  is  dangerous  to  insist  too  closely  on 
any  point.  Notwithstanding  this,  the  pillars  at 
Persepolis,  of  which  Woodcut  No.  8  is  a  type,  are 
probably  more  like  Jaehin  and  Boaz  than  any  other 
pillars  which  have  reached  us  from  antiquity,  and 
give  a  better  idea  of  the  immense  capitals  of  these 
columns  than  we  obtain  from  any  other  examples  ; 
but  being  in  stone,  they  are  far  more  simple  and 
less  ornamental  than  they  would  have  been  in  wood, 
and  infinitely  less  so  than  their  metal  prototypes. 

Internal  Supports. — The  existence  of  these  two 
pillars  in  the  porch  suggests  an  inquiry  which  has 
hitherto  been  entirely  overlooked  :  Were  there  any 
pillars  in  the  interior  of  the  Temple  ?  Considering 
that  the  clear  space  of  the  roof  was  20  cubits,  or 
30  feet,  it  may  safely  be  asserted  that  no  cedar 
beam  could  be  laid  across  this  without  sinking  in 
the  centre  by  its  own  weight,  unless  trussed  or 
supported  from  below.  There  is  no  reason  what 
ever  to  suppose  that  the  Tyrians  in  those  days  were 
acquainted  with  the  scientific  forms  of  carpentry 
implied  in  the  first  suggestion,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  they  should  have  resorted  to  them  even 
if  they  knew  how ;  as  it  cannot  be  doubted  but 
that  architecturally  the  introduction  of  pillars  in  the 
interior  would  have  increased  the  apparent  size  and 
improved  the  artistic  effect  of  the  building  to  a  very 
considerable  degree. 

If  they  were  introduced  at  all,  there  must  have 
been  four  in  the  sanctuary  and  ten  in  the  hall,  not 
necessarily  equally  spaced",  in  a  transverse  direction, 
but-  probably  standing  6  cubits  from  the  walls, 
leaving  a  centre  aisle  of  8  cubits. 

The  only  building  at  Jerusalem  whose  construc 
tion  throws  any  light  on  this  subject  is  the  House 
of  the  Forest  of  Lebanon.  [PALACE.]  There  the 
pillars  were  an  inconvenience,  as  the  purposes  of  the 
hall  were  state  and  festivity  ;  but  though  the  pillars 
in  the  palace  had  nothing  to  support  above  the  roof, 
they  were  speced  probably  10,  certainly  not  more 
than  12  J,  cubits  apart.  If  Solomon  had  been  able 
to  roof  a  claar  space  of  20  cubits,  he  certainly 
would  not  have  neglected  to  do  it  there. 

At  Persepolis  there  is  a  small  building,  called 
the  Palace  or  Temple  of  Darius  (Woodcut  No.  9), 
which  more  closely  resembles  the  Jewish  Temple 
than  any  other  building  we  are  acquainted  with. 
It  has  a  porch,  a  central  hall,  an  adytum — the  plan 
of  which  cannot  now  be  made  out — and  a  range  of 
small  chambers  on  either  side.  The  principal  dif- 


No.  9.— Palace  of  Darius  at  Pcrsepolis     Scale  of  V)  feet  to  1  inch 


TEMPLE 

ference  is  that  it  has  four  pillars  in  its  porch  instead 
of  two,  and  consequently  four  rows  in  its  interioi 
hall  instead  of  half  that  number,  as  suggested  above. 
All  the  buildings  at  Persepolis  have  their  floori 
equally  crowded  with  pillars,  and,  as  there  is  nc 
doubt  but  that  they  borrowed  this  peculiarity  from 
Nineveh,  there  seems  no  a  priori  reason  why  Solo 
mon  should  not  have  adopted  this  expedient  to  get 
over  what  otherwise  would  seem  an  insuperable 
constructive  difficulty. 

The  question,  in  fact,  is  very  much  the  same  that 
met  us  in  discussing  the  construction  of  the  Taber 
nacle.  No  internal  supports  to  the  roofs  of  either 
of  these  buildings  are  mentioned  anywhere.  But 
the  difficulties  of  construction  without  them  would 
have  been  so  enormous,  and  their  introduction  so 
usual  and  so  entirely  unobjectionable,  that  we  can 
hardly  understand  their  not  being  employed.  Either 
building  was  possible  without  them,  but  certainly 
neither  in  the  least  degree  probable. 

It  may  perhaps  add  something  to  the  probability 
of  their  arrangement  to  mention  that  the  ten  bases 
for  the  lavers  which  Solomon  made  would  stand 
one  within  each  inter-column  on  either  hand, 
wheie  they  would  be  beautiful  and  appropriate 
ornaments.  Without  some  such  accentuation  of 
the  space,  it  seems  difficult  to  understand  what  they 
were,  and  why  ten. 

Chambers. — The  only  other  feature  which  re 
mains  to  be  noticed  is  the  application  of  three  tiers 
of  small  chambers  to  the  walls  of  the  Temple  exter 
nally  on  all  sides,  except  that  of  the  entrance. 
Though  not  expressly  so  stated,  these  were  a  sort  of 
monastery,  appropriated  to  the  residence  of  the 
priests  who  were  either  permanently  or  in  turn 
devoted  to  the  service  of  the  Temple.  The  lowest 
storey  was  only  5  cubits  in  width,  the  next  6, 
and  the  upper  7,  allowing  an  offset  of  1  cubit  on 
the  side  of  the  Temple,  or  of  9  inches  on  each  side, 
on  which  the  flooring  joists  rested,  so  as  not  to 
cut  into  the  walls  of  the  Temple.  Assuming  the 
wall  of  the  Temple  at  the  level  of  the  upper  cham 
bers  to  have  been  2  cubits  thick,  and  the  outer 
wall  one — it  could  not  well  have  been  less — this 
would  exactly  make  up  the  duplication  of  the 
dimension  found  as  before  mentioned  for  the  verandah 
of  the  Tabernacle. 

It  is,  again,  only  at  Persepolis  that  we  find  any 
thing  at  all  analogous  to  this  ;  but  in  the  plan  last 
quoted  as  that  of  the  Palace  of  Darius,  we  find  a 
similar  range  on  either  hand.  The 
palace  of  Xerxes  possesses  this  feature 
also ;  but  in  the  great  hall  there,  and 
its  counterpart  at  Susa,  the  place  of 
these  chambers  is  supplanted  by  lateral 
porticoes  outside  the  walls  that  sur 
rounded  the  central  phalanx  of  pillars. 
Unfortunately  our  knowledge  of  Assy 
rian  Temple  architecture  is  too  limited 
to  enable  us  to  say  whether  this  feature 
was  common  elsewhere,  and  though 
something  very  like  it  occurs  in  Bud 
dhist  Viharas  in  India,  these  latter  are 
comparatively  so  modern  that  their  dis 
position  hardly  bears  on  the  inquiry. 

Outer  Court. — The  enclosure  of  the 
Temple  consisted,  according  to  the  Biblp 
(1  K.  vi.  36),  of  a  low  wall  of  three 
courses  of  stones  and  a  row  of  cedar 
beams,  both  prcbably  highly  orna 
mented.  As  it  is  more  than  probable 
that  the  same  duplication  of  dimension' 


TEMPLE 

took  place  in  this  as  in  all  the  other  features  of  the 
Tabernacle,  we  may  safely  assume  that  it  was  10 
cubits,  or  15  feet,  in  height,  and  almost  certainly 
100  cubits  north  and  south,  and  200  east  and  west. 
There  is  no  mention  in  the  Bibla  of  any  porti 
coes  or  gateways  or  any  architectural  ornaments  of 
this  enclosure,  tor  though  names  which  were  after 
wards  transferred  to  the  gates  of  the  Temple  do  occur 
in  1  Chr.  ix.,  xxiv.,  and  xxvi.,  this  was  before  the 
Temple  itself  was  built;  and  although  Josephus 
does  mention  such,  it  must  be  recollected  that  he  was 
writing  five  centuries  after  its  total  destruction,  and 
he  was  too  apt  to  confound  the  past  and  the  pre 
sent  in  his  descriptions  of  buildings  which  did  not 
then  exist.  There  was  an  eastern  porch  to  Herod's 
Temple,  which  was  called  Solomon's  Porch,  and 
Josephus  tells  us  that  it  was  built  by  that  monarch  ; 
but  of  this  there  is  absolutely  no  proof,  and  as  neither 
in  the  account  of  Solomon's  building  nor  in  any 
subsequent  repairs  or  incidents  is  any  mention  made 
of  such  buildings,  we  may  safely  conclude  that  they 
did  not  exist  before  the  time  of  the  great  rebuilding 
immediately  preceding  the  Christian  era. 

TEMPLE  OF  ZERUBBABEL. 

We  have  very  few  particulars  regarding  the 
Temple  which  the  Jews  erected  after  their  return 
from  the  Captivity  (cir.  520  B.C.),  and  no  descrip 
tion  that  would  enable  us  to  realize  its  appearance. 
But  there  are  some  dimensions  given  in  the  Bible 
and  elsewhere  which  are  extremely  interesting  as 
affording  points  of  comparison  between  it  and  the 
Temples  which  preceded  it,  or  were  erected  after  it. 

The  first  and  most  authentic  are  those  given  in 
the  Book  of  Ezra  (vi.  3),  when  quoting  the  decree  of 
Cyrus,  wherein  it  is  said,  "  Let  the  house  be  builded, 
the  place  where  they  offered  sacrifices,  and  let  the 
foundations  thereof  be  strongly  laid ;  the  height 
thereof  threescore  cubits,  and  the  breadth  thereof 
threescore  cubits,  with  three  rows  of  great  stones 
and  a  row  of  new  timber."  Josephus  quotes  this 
passage  almost  literally  (xi.  4,  §6),  but  in  doing  so 
enables  us  with  certainty  to  translate  the  word  here 
called  Bow  as  "  Storey  "  (8<fyios) — as  indeed  the 
sense  would  lead  us  to  infer — for  it  could  only  apply 
to  the  three  storeys  of  chambers  that  surrounded 
Solomon's,  and  afterward's  Herod's  Temple,  and 
with  this  again  we  come  to  the  wooden  Talar  which 
surmounted  the  Temple  and  formed  a  fourth  storey. 
It  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  that  this  dimension 
of  60  cubits  in  height  accords  perfectly  with  the 
words  which  Josephus  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Herod  (xv.  11,  §1)  when  he  makes  him  say  that 
the  Temple  built  after  the  Captivity  wanted  60 
cubits  of  the  height  of  that  of  Solomon.  For  as  he 
had  adopted,  as  we  have  seen  above,  the  height  of 
120  cubits,  as  written  in  the  Chronicles,  for  that 
Temple,  this  one  remained  only  60. 

The  other  dimension  of  60  cubits  in  breadth,  is 
20  cubits  in  excess  of  that  of  Solomon's  Temple, 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  its  correctness,  for 
we  find  both  from  Josephus  and  the  Talmud  that 
it  was  the  dimension  adopted  for  the  Temple  when 
rebuilt,  or  rather  repaired  by  Herod.  At  the  same 
time  we  have  no  authority  for  assuming  that  any 
increase  was  made  in  the  dimensions  of  either  the 


TEMPLE 


1459 


•«  In  recounting  the  events  narrated  by  Ezra  (x.  9), 
Josephus  says  (Ant.  xi.  5,  $4)  that  the  asaembly  there 
referred  to  took  place  in  the  upper  room,  ev  r<S  vnepcoia 
TOV  iepou,  which  would  be  a  very  curious  illustration 
of  the  use  of  that  apartment  if  it  could  be  depended 


Holy  Place  or  the  Holy  of  Holies,  since  we  find  that 
these  were  retained  in  Ezekiel's  description  of  an 
ideal  Temple — and  were  afterwards  those  of  Herod's, 
And  as  this  Temple  of  Zerubbabel  was  still  standing 
in  Herod's  time,  and  was  more  strictly  speaking  re 
paired  than  rebuilt  by  him,  we  cannot  conceive  that 
any  of  its  dimensions  were  then  diminished.  We 
are  left  therefore  with  the  alternative  of  assuming 
that  the  porch  and  the  chambers  all  round  were  20 
cubits  in  width,  including  the  thickness  of  the 
walls,  instead  of  10  cubits,  as  in  the  earlier  build 
ing.  This  may  perhaps  to  some  extent  be  accounted 
for  by  the  introduction  of  a  passage  between  the 
Temple  and  the  rooms  of  the  priest's  lodgings  in 
stead  of  each  being  a  thoroughfare,  as  must  cer 
tainly  have  been  the  case  in  Solomon's  Temple. 

This  alteration  in  the  width  of  the  Pteromata 
made  the  Temple  100  cubits  in  length  by  60  in 
breadth,  with  a  height,  it  is  said,  of  60  cubits,  in 
cluding  the  upper  room  or  Talar,  though  we  cannot 
help  suspecting  that  this  last  dimension  is  some 
what  in  excess  of  the  truth. d 

The  only  other  description  of  this  Temple  is  found 
in  Hecataeus  the  Abderite,  who  wrote  shortly  after 
the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great.  As  quoted  by  Jo 
sephus  (cont.  Ap.  i.  22),  he  says,  that  "  In  Jerusalem 
towards  the  middle  of  the  city  is  a  stone  walled  en 
closure  about  500  feet  in  length  (ws  TrepTaTrXeflpos), 
and  100  cubits  in  width,  with  double  gates,"  in 
which  he  describes  the  Temple  as  being  situated. 

The  last  dimension  is  exactly  what  we  obtained 
above  by  doubling  the  width  of  the  Tabernacle  en 
closure  as  applied  to  Solomon's  Temple,  and  may 
therefore  be  accepted  as  tolerably  certain,  but  the 
500  feet  in  length  exceeds  anything  we  have  yet 
reached  by  200  feet.  It  may  be  that  at  this  age  it 
was  found  necessary  to  add  a  court  for  the  women  or 
the  Gentiles,  a  sort  of  Narthex  or  Galilee  for  those 
who  could  not  enter  the  Temple.  If  this  or  these 
together  were  100  cubits  square,  it  would  make  up 
the  "  nearly  5  plethra"  of  our  author.  Hecataeus 
also  mentions  that  the  altar  was  20  cubits  square 
and  10  high.  And  although  he  mentions  the 
Temple  itself,  he  unfortunately  does  not  supply  us 
with  any  dimensions. 

From  these  dimensions  we  gather,  that  if  "  the 
Priests  and  Levites  and  Elders  of  families  were  dis 
consolate  at  seeing  how  much  more  sumptuous  the  old 
Temple  was  than  the  one  which  on  account  of  their 
poverty  they  had  just  been  able  to  erect"  (Ezr.  iii. 
12  ;  Joseph.  Ant.  xi.  4,  §2),  it  certainly  was  not  be 
cause  it  was  smaller,  as  almost  every  dimension  had 
been  increased  one-third  ;  but  it  may  have  been  that 
the  carving  and  the  gold,  and  other  ornaments  of 
Solomon's  Temple  far  surpassed  this,  and  the  pillars 
of  the  portico  and  the  veils  may  all  have  been  far 
more  splendid,  so  also  probably  were  the  vessels ; 
and  all  this  is  what  a  Jew  would  mourn  over  'ar 
more  than  mere  architectural  splendour.  In  speak 
ing  of  these  Temples  we  must  always  bear  in  mind 
that  their  dimensions  were  practically  very  far  in 
ferior  to  those  of  the  Heathen.  Even  that  of  Ezra 
is  not  larger  than  an  average  parish  church  of  the 
last  century — Solomon's  was  smaller.  It  was  the 
lavish  display  of  the  precious  metals,  the  elaboration 
of  carved  ornament,  and  the  beauty  of  the  textile 


upon,  but  both  the  Hebrew  and  LXX.  are  so  clear  thiat 
it  was  in  the  "  street,"  or  "  place  "  of  the  Temple,  that 
we  cannot  base  any  argument  upon  it,  though  it  is 
curious  as  indicating  what  was  paseing  in  the  mind  o1 
Josephus. 

5  A  2 


1460 


TEMPLE 


fabrics,  which  made  up  their  splendour  arid  rendered 
them  so  precious  in  the  eyes  of  the  people,  and 
there  can  consequently  be  no  greater  mistake  than 
to  judge  of  them  by  the  number  of  cubits  they 
measured.  They  were  Temples  of  a  Shemitic,  not 
of  a  Celtic  people. 

TEMPLE  OF  EZEKIEL. 

The  vision  of  a  Temple  which  the  prophet  Ezekiel 
saw  while  residing  on  the  banks  of  the  Chebar  in 
Babylonia  in  the  25th  year  of  the  Captivity,  does 
not  add  much  to  our  knowledge  of  the  subject.  It 
is  not  a  description  of  a  Temple  that  ever  was  built 
or  ever  could  be  erected  at  Jerusalem,  and  can  con 
sequently  only  be  considered  as  the  beau  ideal  of 
what  a  Shemitic  Temple  ought  to  be.  As  such  it 
would  certainly  be  interesting  if  it  could  be  correctly 
restored,  but  unfortunately  the  difficulties  of  making 
out  a  complicated  plan  from  a  mere  verbal  descrip 
tion  are  very  great  indeed,  and  are  enhanced  in  this 
instance  by  our  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  Hebrew  architectural  terms,  and  it 
may  also  be  from  the  prophet  describing  not  what 
he  actually  knew,  but  only  what  he  saw  in  a  vision. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  we  find  that  the  Temple  itself 
was  of  the  exact  dimensions  of  that  built  by  Solo 
mon,  viz.  an  adytum  (Ez.  xl.  1-4),  20  cubits  square, 
a  naos,  20  X  40,  and  surrounded  by  cells  of  10  cubits' 
width  including  the  thickness  of  the  walls,  the 
whole,  with  the  porch,  making  up  40  cubits  by  80, 
or  very  little  more  than  one  four-thousandth  part 
of  the  whole  area  of  the  Temple :  the  height  un 
fortunately  is  not  given.  Beyond  this  were  various 
courts  and  residences  for  the  priests,  and  places  for 
sacrifice  and  other  ceremonies  of  the  Temple,  till 
he  comes  to  the  outer  court,  which  measured  500 
reeds  on  each  of  its  sides ;  each  reed  (Ez.  xl.  5)  was 
6  Babylonian  cubits  long,  viz.  of  cubits  each  of  one 
ordinary  cubit  and  a  handbreadth,  or  21  inches.  The 


TEMPLE 

reed  was  therefore  10  feet  6  inches,  and  the  side  con- 
sequently  5250  Greek  feet,  or  within  a  few  feet  of 
an  English  mile,  considerably  more  than  the  whole 
area  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  Temple  included  ! 

It  has  been  attempted  to  get  over  this  difficulty 
by  saying  that  the  prophet  meant  cubits,  not  reeds ; 
but  this  is  quite  untenable.  Nothing  can  be  more 
clear  than  the  specification  of  the  length  of  the 
reed,  and  nothing  more  careful  than  the  mode  in 
which  reeds  are  distinguished  from  cubits  through 
out  ;  as  for  instance  in  the  two  next  verses  (6  and  7 
where  a  chamber  and  a  gateway  are  mentioned,  each 
of  one  reed.  If  cubit  were  substituted,  it  would 
be  nonsense. 

Notwithstanding  its  ideal  character,  the  whole  is 
extremely  curious,  as  showing  what  were  the  aspira 
tions  of  the  Jews  in  this  direction,  and  how  different 
they  were  from  those  of  other  nations ;  and  it  is 
interesting  here,  inasmuch  as  there  can  be  little 
doubt  but  that  the  arrangements  of  Herod's  Temple 
were  in  a  groat  measure  influenced  by  the  descrip 
tion  here  given.  The  outer  court,  for  instance,  with 
its  porticoes  measuring  400  cubits  each  way,  is  an 
exact  counterpart  on  a  smaller  scale  of  the  outer 
court  of  Ezekiel's  Temple,  and  is  not  found  in  either 
Solomon's  or  Zerubbabel's;  and  so  too,  evidently, 
are  several  of  the  internal  arrangements. 

TEMPLE  OF  HEROD. 

For  our  knowledge  of  the  last  and  greatest  of  the 
Jewish  Temples  we  are  indebted  almost  wholly  to 
the  works  of  Josephus,  with  an  occasional  hint  from 
the  Talmud. 

The  Bible  unfortunately  contains  nothing  to  assist 
the  researches  of  the  antiquary  in  this  respect. 
With  true  Shemitic  indifference  to  such  objects,  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament  do  not  furnish  a 
single  hint  which  would  enable  us  to  ascertain 
either  what  the  situation  or  the  dimensions  of  th« 


COURT       OF     GENTILES 


JL 


STOA  BASILIC* 


Ho.  10.  -Temple  of  Herod  restored    Scale  of  200  feet  to  1 


TEMPLE 

Temple  were,  nor  any  characteristic  feature  of  its 
architecture.  But  Josephus  knew  the  spot  per 
sonally,  and  his  horizontal  dimensions  are  so  mi 
nutely  accurate  that  we  almost  suspect  he  had 
before  his  eyes,  when  writing,  some  ground-plan  of 
the  building  prepared  in  the  quartermaster-general's 
department  of  Titus's  army.  They  form  a  strange 
contrast  with  his  dimensions  in  height,  which, 
with  scarcely  an  exception,  can  be  shown  to  be 
exaggerated,  generally  doubled.  As  the  buildings 
were  all  thrown  down  during  the  siege,  it  was  im 
possible  to  convict  him  of  error  in  respect  to  eleva 
tions,  but  as  regards  plan  he  seems  always  to  have 
had  a  wholesome  dread  of  the  knowledge  of  those 
among  whom  he  was  living  and  writing. 

The  Temple  or  naos  itself  was  in  dimensions  and 
arrangement  very  similar  to  that  of  Solomon,  or 
rather  that  of  Zerubbabel— more  like  the  latter  ; 
but  this  was  surrounded  by  an  inner  enclosure  of 
great  strength  and  magnificence,  measuring  as  nearly 
as  can  be  made  out  180  cubits  by  240,  and  adorned 
by  porches  and  ten  gateways  of  great  magnificence  ; 
and  beyond  this  again  was  an  outer  enclosure  mea 
suring  externally  400  cubits  each  way,  which  was 
adorned  with  porticoes  of  greater  splendour  than  any 
we  know  of  attached  to  any  temple  of  the  ancient 
world :  all  showing  how  strongly  Roman  influence 
was  at  work  in  enveloping  with  Heathen  magni 
ficence  the  simple  templar  arrangements  of  a  Shemitic 
people,  which,  however,  remained  nearly  unchanged 
amidst  all  this  external  incrustation. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  [JERUSALEM, 
vol.  i.  pp.  1019-20]  that  the  Temple  was  certainly 
situated  in  the  S.W.  angle  of  the  area  now  known  as 
the  Haram  area  at  Jerusalem,  and  it  is  hardly  neces 
sary  to  repeat  here  the  arguments  there  adduced  to 
prove  that  its  dimensions  were  what  Josephus  states 
them  to  be,  400  cubits,  or  one  stadium,  each  way. 

At  the  time  when  Herod  rebuilt  it  he  enclosed  a 
space  "  twice  as  large"  as  that  before  occupied  by  the 
Temple  and  its  courts  (B.  J.  i.  21,  §1),  an  expres 
sion  that  probably  must  not  be  taken  too  literally, 
at  least  if  we  are  to  depend  on  the  measurements  of 
Hecataeus.  According  to  them  the  whole  area  of 
Herod's  Temple  was  between  four  and  five  times 
greater  than  that  which  preceded  it.  What  Herod 
did  apparently  was  to  take  in  the  whole  space  between 
the  Temple  and  the  city  wall  on  its  eastern  side,  and 
to  add  a  considerable  space  on  the  north  and  south 
to  support  the  porticoes  which  he  added  there. 

As  the  Temple  terrace  thus  became  the  principal 
defence  of  the  city  on  the  east  side,  there  were  no 
gates  or  openings  in  that  direction,*  and  being  situ 
ated  on  a  sort  of  rocky  brow — as  evidenced  from 
its  appearance  in  the  vaults  that  bound  it  on  this 
side — it  was  at  all  future  times  considered  unattack- 
able  from  the  eastward.  The  north  side,  too,  where 
not  covered  by  the  fortress  Antonia,  became  part 
of  the  defences  of  the  city,  and  was  likewise  with 
out  external  gates.  But  it  may  also  have  been  that, 
as  the  tombs  of  the  kings,  and  indeed  the  general 
cemetery  of  Jerusalem,  were  situated  immediately 
to  the  northward  of  the  Temple,  there  was 
some  religious  feeling  in  preventing  too  ready  access 

«  The  Talmtid,  it  is  true,  does  mention  a  gate  as  exist 
ing  in  the  eastern  wall,  but  its  testimony  on  this  point  is 
eo  unsatisfactory  and  in  such  direct  opposition  to  Jose 
phus  and  the  probabilities  of  the  case,  that  it  may  safely 
be  disregarded. 

f  Owing  to  the  darkness  of  the  place,  blocked  up  as  it 
now  is,  and  the  ruined  state  of  the  capital,  it  is  not  easy 
K>  jjet  a  correct  deliueatiop  of  it.  This  is  to  be  regretted, 


TEMPLE 


1461 


trom  the  Temple  to  the  bury  ing-places  (Ez.  yliii 
7-9). 

On  the  south  side,  which  was  enclosed  by  th« 
wall  of  Ophel,  there  were  double  gates  nearly  in 
the  centre  (Ant.  xv.  11,  §5).  These  gates  still 
exist  at  a  distance  of  about  365  feet  from  the 
south-western  angle,  and  are  perhaps  the  only 
architectural  features  of  the  Temple  of  Herod  which 
remain  in  situ.  This  entrance  consists  of  a  double 
archway  of  Cyclopes  architecture  on  the  level  of 
the  ground,  opening  into  A  square  vestibule  mea 
suring  40  feet  each  way.  In  the  :\1iv  of  this  is  a 
pillar  crowned  by  a  capital  of  the  flreek — rather 
than  Roman — Corinthian  order  (Woodcut  No.  11)  ; 
the  acanthus  alternating  with  the  water-leaf,  as  in 
the  Tower  of  the  Winds  at  Athens,  and  other  Greek 
examples,  but  which  was  an  arrangement  abandoned 
by  the  Romans  as  early  as  the  time  of  Augustus,  and 
never  afterwards  employed.'  From  this  pillar  spring 
four  flat  segmental  arches,  and  the  space  between  these 


No.  11.— Capital  of  Pillar  in  Vestibule  of  southern  en 


is  roofed  by  flat  domes,  constructed  apparently  on 
the  horizontal  principle.  The  walls  of  this  vestibule 
are  of  the  same  bevelled  masonry  as  the  exterior ; 
but  either  at  the.  time  of  erection  or  subsequently 
the  projections  seem  to  have  been  chiselled  off  in 
some  parts  so  as  to  form  pilasters.  From  this  a 
double  tunnel,  nearly  200  feet  in  length,  leads  to  a 
flight  of  steps  which  rise  to  the  surface  in  the 
court  of  the  Temple,  exactly  at  that  gateway 
of  the  inner  Temple  which  led  to  the  altar,  and  i& 
the  one  of  the  four  gateways  on  this  side  by  which 
anyone  arriving  from  Ophel  would  naturally  wish 
to  enter  the  inner  enclosure.  It  seems  to  have  been 
this  necessity  that  led  to  the  external  gateway  being 
placed  a  little  more  to  the  eastward  than  the  exacl 
centre  of  the  enclosure,  where  naturally  we  should 
otherwise  have  looked  for  it. 

We  learn  from  the  Talmud  ( Mid.  ii.  6),  that  the 
gate  of  the  inner  Temple  to  which  this  passage  led 
was  called  the  "  Water  Gate ;"  and  it  is  interesting 
to  be  able  to  identify  a  spot  so  prominent  in  the  de 
scription  of  Nehemiah  (xii.  37).  The  Water  Gate  is 
more  often  mentioned  in  the  mediaeval  references  to 
the  Temple  than  any  other,  especially  by  Mahomedan 
authors,  though  by  them  frequently  confounded 
with  the  outer  gate  at  the  other  end  of  this  passage. 

as  a  considerable  controversy  has  arisen  as  to  its  exact 
character.  It  may  therefore  be  interesting  to  mention 
that  the  drawing  made  by  the  architectural  draughtsman 
who  accompanied  M.  Kenan  in  his  late  scientific  expedi 
tion  to  Syria  confirms  to  the  fullest  extent  the  character 
of  the  architecture,  as  shown  in  the  view  given 
from  Mr.  Arundale's  drawing. 


1462 


TEMPLE 


Tosvards  the  westward  there  were  four  gateways 
to  the  external  enclosure  of  the  Temple  {Ant.  xv.  1 1, 
§5),  and  the  positions  of  three  of  these  can  still  be 
traced  with  certainty.  The  first  or  most  southern  led 
over  the  bridge  the  remains  of  which  were  identified  by 
Dr.  Robinson  (of  which  a  view  is  given  in  art.  JERU 
SALEM,  vol.  i.  p.  1019),  and  joined  the  Stoa  Basi 
lica  of  the  Temple  with  the  royal  palace  (Ant.  ib.). 
The  second  was  that  discovered  by  Dr.  Barclay,  270 
feet  from  the  S.W.  angle,  at  a  level  of  17  feet  below 
that  of  the  southern  gates  just  described.  The  site 
of  the  third  is  so  completely  covered  by  the  build 
ings  of  the  Meckine*  that  it  has  not  yet  been  seen, 
but  it  will  be  found  between  200  and  250  teet  from 
the  N.W.  angle  of  the  Temple  area ;  for,  owing  to 
the  greater  width  of  the  southern  portico  beyond 
that  on  the  northern,  the  Temple  itself  was  not  in 
the  centre  of  its  enclosure,  but  situated  more 
towards  the  north.  The  fourth  was  that  which 
led  over  the  causeway  which  still  exists  at  a  dis 
tance  of  600  feet  from  the  south-western  angle. 

In  the  time  of  Solomon,  and  until  the  area  was 
enlarged  by  Herod,  the  ascent  from  the  western 
valley  to  the  Temple  seems  to  have  been  by  an 
external  flight  of  stairs  (Neh.  xii.  37  ;  1  K.  x.  5, 
&c.),  similar  to  those  at  Persepolis,  and  like  them 
probably  placed  laterally  so  as  to  form  a  part  of  the 
architectural  design.  When,  however,  the  Temple 
came  to  be  fortified  «  modo  arcis  "  (Tacit.  H.  v.  12), 
the  causeway  and  the  bridge  were  established  to 
afford  communication  with  the  upper  city,  and  the 
two  intermediate  lower  entrances  to  lead  to  the 
lower  city,  or,  as  it  vjas  originally  called,  "  the  city 
of  David." 

Cloisters. — The  most  magnificent  part  of  the 
Temple,  in  an  architectural  "point  of  view,  seems 
certainly  to  have  been  the  cloisters  which  were 
added  to  the  outer  court  when  it  was  enlarged  by 
Herod.  It  is  not  quite  clear  if  there  was  not  an 
eastern  porch  before  this  time,  and  if  so,  it  may  have 
been  nearly  on  the  site  of  that  subsequently  erected  ; 
but  on  the  three  other  sides  the  Temple  area  was  so 
extended  at  the  last  rebuilding  that  there  can  be  no 
doubt  but  that  from  the  very  foundations  the  terrace 
walls  and  cloisters  belonged  wholly  to  the  last  period. 

The  cloisters  in  the  west,  north,  and  east  side  were 
composed  of  double  rows  of  Corinthian  columns,  25 
cubits  or  37  feet  6  inches  in  height  (B.  J.  v.  5,  §2) 
with  flat  roofs,  and  resting  against  the  outer  wall 
of  the  Temple.  These,  however,  were  immeasurably 
surpassed  in  magnificence  by  the  royal  porch  or  Stoa 
Basilica  which  overhung  the  southern  wall.  This 
is  so  minutely  described  by  Joseph  us  (Ant.  xv.  11, 
§5)  that  there  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  its 
arrangement  or  ascertaining  its  dimensions.  It  con 
sisted  (in  the  language  of  Gothic  architecture)  of  a 
nave  and  two  aisles,  that  towards  the  Temple  being 
open,  that  towards  the  country  closed  by  a  wall. 
The  breadth  of  the  centre  aisle  was  45  feet ;  of  the 
side  aisles  30  from  centre  to  centre  of  the  pillars; 
their  height  50  feet,  and  that  of  the  centre  aisle 
100  feet.  Its  section  was  thus  something  in  excess 
of  that  of  York  Cathedral,  while  its  total  length 
was  one  stadium  or  600  Greek  feet,  or  100  feet  in 
excess  of  York,  or  our  largest  Gothic  cathedrals. 


TEMPLE 

This  magnificent  structure  was  supported  by  165 
Corinthian  columns,  arranged  in  four  rows,  forty  in 
each  row — the  two  odd  pillars  forming  apparently 
a  screen  at  the  end  of  the  bridge  leading  to  the 
palace,  whose  axis  was  coincident  with  that  of  the 
Stoa,  which  thus  formed  the  principal  entrance 
from  the  city  and  palace  to  the  Temple. 

At  a  short  distance  from  the  front  of  these 
cloisters  was  a  marble  screen  or  enclosure,  3  cubits 
in  height,  beautifully  ornamented  with  carving,  but 
bearing  inscriptions  in  Greek  and  Roman  characters 
forbidding  any  Gentile  to  pass  within  its  boundaries, 
Again,  at  a  short  distance  within  this  was  a  flight 
ef  steps  supporting  the  terrace  or  platform  on  which 
the  Temple  itself  stood.  According  to  Josephus 
(B.  J.  v.  5,  §2)  this  terrace  was  15  cubits  or  22 \ 
feet  high,  and  was  approached  first  by  fourteen  steps, 
each  we  may  assume  about  one  foot  in  height,  at 
the  top  of  which  was  a  berm  or  platform,  10  cubits 
wide,  called  the  Chel ;  and  there  were  again  in  the 
depth  of  the  gateways  five  or  six  steps  more  leading 
to  the  inner  court  of  the  Temple,  thus  making  20 
or  21  steps  in  the  whole  height  of  22 $  feet.  To  the 
eastward,  where  the  court  of  the  women  was  situated, 
this  arrangement  was  reversed  ;  five  steps  led  to 
the  Chel,  and  fifteen  from  that  to  the  court  of  the 
Temple. 

The  court  of  the  Temple,  as  mentioned  above, 
was  very  nearly  a  square.  It  may  have  been 
exactly  so,  for  we  have  not  all  the  details  to  enable 
us  to  feel  quite  certain  about  it.  The  Middoth  says 
it  was  187  cubits  E.  and  W.,  and  137  N.  and  S. 
(ii.  6).  But  on  the  two  last  sides  there  were  the 
gateways  with  their  exhedrae  and  chambers,  which 
may  have  made  up  25  cubits  each  way,  though, 
with  such  measurements  as  we  have,  it  appears 
they  were  something  less. 

To  the  eastward  of  this  was  the  court  of  the 
women,  the  dimensions  of  which  are  not  given  by 
Josephus,  but  are  in  the  Middoth,  as  137  cubits 
square — a  dimension  we  may  safely  reject,  first, 
from  the  extreme  improbability  of  the  Jews  allotting 
to  the  women  a  space  more  than  ten  times  greater 
than  that  allotted  to  the  men  of  Israel  or  to  the 
Levites,  whose  courts,  according  to  the  same  au 
thority,  were  respectively  137  by  11  cubits;  but, 
more  than  this,  from  the  impossibility  of  finding 
room  for  such  a  court  while  adhering  to  the  other 
dimensions  given.B  If  we  assume  that  the  enclosure 
of  the  court  of  the  Gentiles,  or  the  Chel,  was  nearly 
equidistant  on  all  four  sides  from  the  cloisters,  its 
dimension  must  have  been  about  37  or  40  cubits 
east  and-  west,  most  probably  the  former. 

The  great  ornament  of  these  inner  courts  seems 
to  have  been  their  gateways,  the  three  especially 
on  the  north  and  south  leading  to  the  Temple  court 
These,  according  to  Josephus,  were  of  great  height, 
strongly  fortified  and  ornamented  with  great  ela 
boration.  But  the  wonder  of  all  was  the  great 
eastern  gate  leading  from  the  court  of  the  womer 
to  the  upper  court.  This  seems  to  have  been  th* 
pride  of  the  Temple  area — covered  with  carving 
richly  gilt,  having  apartments  over  it  (Ant.  xv 
11,  §7),  more  like  the  Gopura  h  of  an  Indian  tempi* 
than  anything  else  we  are  acquainted  with  in  archi- 


g  It  does  not  appear  difficult  to  account  for  this  extra 
ordinary  excess.  The  Rabbis  adopted  the  sacred  number 
of  Ezekiel  of  500  for  their  external  dimensions  of  the 
Temple,  without  caring  much  whether  it  meant  reeds  or 
cubits,  and  though  the  commentators  say  that  they  only 
meant  the  smaller  cubit  of  15  inches,  or  625  feet  in  all, 
tins  explanation  will  not  hold  good,  as  all  their  other 


measurements  agree  so  closely  with  those  of  Josephue 
that  they  evidently  were  using  the  same  cubit  of  18 
inches.  The  fact  seems  to  be,  that  having  erroneously 
adopted  500  cubits  instead  of  400  for  the  external  dimen 
sions,  they  had  100  cubits  to  spare,  and  introduced  then' 
where  no  authority  existed  to  show  they  were  wrong 
•>  Handbook  of  Architecture,  p.  93  et  seq. 


TEMPLE 

tecture.  It  was  also  in  all  probability  the  one  called 
the  "  Beautiful  Gate  "  in  the  New  Testament. 

Immediately  within  this  gateway  stood  the  altar 
of  burnt-offerings,  according  to  Josephus  (B.  J.  \. 
5,  §6),  50  cubits  square  and  15  cubits  high,  with 
an  ascent  to  it  by  an  inclined  plane.  The  Talmud 
reduces  this  dimension  to  32  cubits  (Middoth,  iii. 
1),  and  adds  a  number  of  particulars,  which  make 
it  appear  that  it  must  have  been  like  a  model  of  the 
Babylonian  or  other  Assyrian  temples.  On  the 
north  side  were  the  rings  and  stakes  to  which  the 
victims  were  attached  which  were  brought  in  to 
be  sacrificed ;  and  to  the  south  an  inclined  plane  led 
down,  as  before  mentioned,  to  the  Water  Gate — so 
called  because  immediately  in  front  of  it  was  the 
great  cistern  excavated  in  the  rock,  first  explored 
and  described  by  Dr.  Barclay  (City  of  the  Great 
King,  p.  526),  from  which  water  was  supplied  to 
the  Altar  and  the  Temple.  And  a  little  beyond 
this,  at  the  S.W.  angle  of  the  Altar  was  an  open 
ing  (Middoth,  iii.  3),  through  which  the  blood  of 
the  victims  flowed1  westward  and  southward  to 
the  king's  garden  at  Siloam. 

Both  the  Altar  and  the  Temple  were  enclosed  by 
a  low  parapet  one  cubit  in  height,  placed  so  as  to 
keep  the  people  separate  from  the  priests  while 
the  latter  were  performing  their  functions. 

Within  this  last  enclosure  towards  the  westward 
stood  the  Temple  itself.  As  before  mentioned,  its 
internal  dimensions  were  the  same  as  those  of  the 
Temple  of  Solomon,  or  of  that  seen  by  the  Prophet 
in  a  vision,  viz.  20  cubits  or  30  feet,  by  60  cubits 
or  90  feet,  divided  into  a  cubical  Holy  of  Holies,  and 
a  holy  place  of  2  cubes ;  and  there  is  no  reason 
whatever  for  doubting  but  that  the  Sanctuary 
always  stood  on  the  identically  same  spot  in  which 
it  had  been  placed  by  Solomon  a  thousand  years 
before  it  was  rebuilt  by  Herod. 

Although  the  internal  dimensions  remained  the 
same,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  but  that  the 
whole  plan  was  augmented  by  the  Pteromata  or 
surrounding  parts  being  increased  from  10  to  20 
cubits,  so  that  the  third  Temple  like  the  second, 
measured  60  cubits  across,  and  100  cubits  east  and 
west.  The  width  of  the  fa9ade  was  also  augmented 
by  wings  or  shoulders  (B.  J.  v.  5,  §4)  projecting 
20  cubits  each  way,  making  the  whole  breadth 
100  cubits,  or  equal  to  the  length.  So  far  all 
seems  certain,  but  when  we  come  to  the  height, 
every  measurement  seems  doubtful.  Both  Josephus 
and  the  Talmud  seem  delighted  with  the  truly 
Jewish  idea  of  a  building  which,  without  being  a 
cube,  was  100  cubits  long,  100  broad,  and  100 
high — and  everything  seems  to  be  made  to  bend  to 
this  simple  ratio  of  proportion.  It  may  also  be 
partly  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  ascertaining  heights 
as  compared  with  horizontal  dimensions,  and  the 
tendency  that  always  exists  to  exaggerate  these 
latter,  that  may  have  led  to  some  confusion,  but 
from  whatever  cause  it  arose,  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  believe  that  the  dimensions  of  the  Temple  as 

4  A  channel  exactly  corresponding  to  that  described  in 
the  Talmud  has  been  discovered  by  Signer  Pierotti, 
running  towards  the  south-west.  In  his  published  ac 
counts  he  mistakes  it  for  one  flowing  north-east,  in  direct 
contradiction  to  the  Talmud,  which  is  our  only  authority 
on  the  subject. 

k  As  It  is  not  easy  always  to  realize  figured  dimensions, 
it  may  assist  those  who  are  not  in  the  habit  of  doing  so 
to  state  that  the  western  facade  and  nave  of  Lincoln  Ca 
thedral  are  nearly  the  same  as  those  of  Herod's  Temple. 
lliui.  the  facade  with  its  shoulders  is  about  100  cubits  wide. 


TEMPLE 


1463 


regards  height,  were  what  they  were  asserted  to  be 
by  Josephus,  and  specified  with  such  minute  detail 
in  the  Middoth  (iv.  6).  This  authority  makes 
the  height  of  the  floor  6,  of  the  hall  40  cubits ; 
the  roofing  5  cubits  in  thickness ;  then  the  coena- 
oulum  or  upper  room  40,  and  the  roof,  parapet, 
&c.,  9 ! — all  the  parts  being  named  with  the  most 
detailed  particularity. 

As  the  Adytum  was  certainly  not  more  than  20 
cubits  high,  the  first  40  looks  very  like  a  duplica 
tion,  and  so  does  the  second  ;  for  a  room  20  cubits 
wide  and  40  high  is  so  absurd  a  proportion  that 
it  is  impossible  to  accept  it.  In  fact,  we  cannot 
help  suspecting  that  in  this  instance  Josephus  was 
guilty  of  systematically  doubling  the  altitude  of  the 
building  he  was  describing,  as  it  can  be  proved  he 
did  in  some  other  instances.11 

From  the  above  it  would  appear,  that  in  so  far 
as  the  horizontal  dimensions  of  the  various  parts  of 
this  celebrated  building,  or  their  arrangement  in 
plan  is  concerned,  we  can  restore  every  part  with 
very  tolerable  certainty ;  and  there  does  not  appeal- 
either  to  be  very  much  doubt  as  to  their  real  height. 
But  when  we  turn  from  actual  measurement  and 
try  to  realize  its  appearance  or  the  details  of  its 
architecture,  we  launch  into  a  sea  of  conjecture  with 
very  little  indeed  to  guide  us,  at  least  in  regard  to 
the  appearance  of  the  Temple  itself. 

We  know,  however,  that  the  cloisters  of  the 
outer  court  were  of  the  Corinthian  order,  and  from 
the  appearance  of  nearly  contemporary  cloisters  at 
Palmyra  and  Baalbec  we  can  judge  of  their  effect. 
There  are  also  in  the  Haram  area  at  Jerusalem  a 
number  of  pillars  which  once  belonged  to  these  colon 
nades,  and  so  soon  as  any  one  will  take  the  trouble  to 
measure  and  draw  them,  we  may  restore  the  cloisters 
at  all  events  with  almost  absolute  certainty. 

We  may  also  realize  very  nearly  the  general  ap 
pearance  of  the  inner  fortified  enclosure  with  its 
gates  and  their  accompaniments,  and  we  can  also 
restore  the  Altar,  but  when  we  turn  to  the  Temple 
itself,  all  is  guess  work.  Still  the  speculation  is  so 
interesting,  that  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  say 
a  few  words  regarding  it. 

In  the  first  place  we  are  told  (Ant.  xv.  11,  §5) 
that  the  priests  built  the  Temple  itself  in  eighteen 
months,  while  it  took  Herod  eight  years  to  com 
plete  his  part,  and  as  only  priests  apparently  were 
employed,  we  may  fairly  assume  that  it  was  not  a 
rebuilding,  but  only  a  repair — it  may  be  with  ad 
ditions — which  they  undertook.  We  know  also  from 
Maccabees,  and  from  the  unwillingness  of  the  priestr 
to  allow  Herod  to  undertake  the  rebuilding  at  al] 
that  the  Temple,  though  at  one  time  desecrated, 
was  never  destroyed ;  so  we  may  fairly  assume  that 
a  great  pail  of  the  Temple  of  Zerubbabel  was  still 
standing,  and  was  incorporated  in  the  new. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  with  the  Temple 
of  Solomon,  it  is  nearly  certain  that  the  style  of  the 
second  Temple  must  have  been  identical  with  that  of 
the  buildings  we  are  so  familiar  with  at  Fersepolis 


The  nave  is  60  cubits  wide  and  60  high,  and  if  you  divide 
the  aisle  into  three  storeys  you  can  have  a  correct  idea 
of  the  chambers;  and  if  the  nave  with  its  clerestory  were 
divided  by  a  floor,  they  would  correctly  represent  the 
dimensions  of  the  Temple  and  its  upper  rooms.  The 
nave,  however,  to  the  transept,  is  considerably  more  than 
100  cubits  long,  while  the  facade  is  only  between  50  and 
60  cubits  high.  Those,  therefore,  who  adhere  to  the  written 
text,  must  double  its  height  in  imagination  to  realize  its 
appearance,  but  my  own  conviction  is  that  the  Temple  was 
not  higher  in  reality  than  the  facade  of  the  cathedral. 


1464 


TEMPLE 


and  Susa.  In  fact  the  Woodcut  No.  6  correctly  re 
presents  the  second  Temple  in  so  far  as  its  details  are 
concerned ;  for  we  must  not  be  led  away  with  the 
modern  idea  that  different  people  built  in  different 
styles,  which  they  kept  distinct  and  practised  only 
within  their  own  narrow  limits.  The  Jews  were 
too  closely  connected  with  the  Persians  and  Baby 
lonians  at  this  period  to  know  of  any  other  style, 
and  in  fact  their  Temple  was  built  under  the  super 
intendence  of  the  very  parties  who  were  erecting 
the  contemporary  edifice  at  Persepolis  and  Susa. 

The  question  still  remains  how  much  of  this 
building  or  of  its  details  were  retained,  or  how 
much  of  Roman  feeling  added.  We  may  at  once 
dismiss  the  idea  that  anything  was  borrowed  from 
Egypt.  That  country  had  no  influence  at  this 
period  beyond  the  limits  of  her  own  narrow  valley, 
and  we  cannot  trace  one  vestige  of  her  taste  or  feeling 
in  anything  found  in  Syria  at  or  about  this  epoch. 

Turning  to  the  building  itself,  we  find  that  the 
only  things  that  were  added  at  this  period  were  the 
wings  to  the  facade,  and  it  may  consequently  be 
surmised  that  the  fa9ade  was  entirely  remodelled 
at  this  time,  especially  as  we  rind  in  the  centre  a 
great  arch,  which  was  a  very  Roman  feature,  and 
very  unlike  anything  we  know  of  as  existing  before. 
This,  Josephus  says,  was  25  cubits  wide  and  70 
high,  which  is  so  monstrous  in  proportion,  and, 
being  wider  than  the  Temple  itself,  so  unlikely, 
that  it  may  safely  be  rejected,  and  we  may  adopt 
in  its  stead  the  more  moderate  dimensions  of  the 
Middoth  (iii.  7),  which  makes  it  20  cubits  wide 
by  40  high,  which  is  not  only  more  in  accordance 
with  the  dimensions  of  the  building,  but  also  with 
the  proportions  of  Roman  architecture.  This  arch 
occupied  the  centre,  and  may  easily  be  restored ;  but 
what  is  to  be  done  with  the  37  cubits  on  either 
hand  ?  Were  they  plain  like  an  unfinished  Egyptian 
propylon,  or  covered  with  ornament  like  an  Indian 
Gopura  ?  My  own  impression  is  that  the  facade  on 
either  hand  was  covered  with  a  series  of  small 
arches  and  panels  four  storeys  in  height,  and  more 
like  the  Tak  Kesra  at  Ctesiphon m  than  any  other 
building  now  existing.  It  is  true  that  nearly  five 
centuries  elapsed  between  the  destruction  of  the  one 
building  and  the  erection  of  the  other.  But  Herod's 
Temple  was  not  the  last  of  its  race,  nor  was 
Nushirvan's  the  first  of  its  class,  and  its  pointed 
arches  and  clumsy  details  show  just  such  a  degrada 
tion  of  style  as  we  should  expect  from  the  interval 
which  had  elapsed  between  them.  We  know  so  little 
of  the  architecture  of  this  part  of  Asia  that  it  is  im 
possible  to  speak  with  certainty  on  such  a  subject, 
but  we  may  yet  recover  many  of  the  lost  links  which 
connect  the  one  with  the  other,  and  so  restore  the 
earlier  examples  with  at  least  proximate  certainty. 

Whatever  the  exact  appearance  of  its  details  may 
have  been,  it  may  safely  be  asserted  that  the  triple 
Temple  of  Jerusalem — the  lower  court,  standing  on 
its  magnificent  terraces — the  inner  court,  raised  on 
its  platform  in  the*  centre  of  this — and  the  Temple 
itself,  rising  out  of  this  group  and  crowning  the 
whole — must  have  formed,  when  combined  with  the 

»>  Handbook  of  Architecture,  p.  375. 

11  Ewald  is  disposed  to  think  that  even  in  the  form  in 
which  we  have  the  Commandments  there  are  some  addi 
tions  made  at  a  later  period,  and  that  the  second  and  the 
fourth  commandments  were  originally  as  briefly  impe 
rative  as  the  sixth  or  seventh  (Gesch.  Isr.  ii.  206)..  The 
difference  between  the  reason  given  in  Ex.  xx.  11  for  the 
fourth  commandment,  and  that  stated  to  have  been  given 
In  Deut.  v.  15.  makes,  perhaps,  such  a  conjecture  possible. 


TEN  COMMANDMENTS 

beauty  of  its  situation,  one  of  the  most  splendid  arciiV 
tectural  combinations  of  the  ancient  world.     [J.  F.] 

TEN  COMMANDMENTS.  (1.)  The  po 
pular  name  in  this,  as  in  so  many  instances,  is 
not  that  of  Scripture.  There  we  have  the  "  ten 
words"  (D'Hl'^n  rnt^y  j  TO  Se/co  p^uara  ;  verba 
decem),  not  the  Ten  Commandments  (Ex.  xxxiv.  28 ; 
Deut.  iv.  13,  x.  4,  Heb.).  The  difference  is  not 
altogether  an  unmeaning  one.  The  word  of  God, 
the  "  word  of  the  Lord,"  the  constantly  recurring 
term  for  the  fullest  revelation,  was  higher  than  any 
phrase  expressing  merely  a  command,  and  carried 
with  it  more  the  idea  of  a  self-fulfilling  power.  If  on 
the  one  side  there  was  the  special  contrast  to  which 
our  Lord  refers  between  the  commandments  of  God 
and  the  traditions  of  men  (Matt.  xv.  3),  the  arrogance 
of  the  Rabbis  showed  itself,  on  the  other,  in  placing 
the  words  of  the  Scribes  on  the  same  level  as  the  words 
of  God.  [Comp.  SCRIBES.]  Nowhere  in  the  later 
books  of  the  0.  T.  is  any  direct  reference  made  to 
their  number.  The  treatise  of  Philo,  however,  irepl 
rotv  Se'/ca  \oyltav,  shows  that  it  had  fixed  itself  on 
the  Jewish  mind,  and  later  still,  it  gave  occasion  to 
the  formation  of  a  new  word  ("  The  Decalogue  "  7, 
5eKa\o7os,  first  in  Clem.  Al.  Paed.  iii.  12),  which 
has  perpetuated  itself  in  modern  languages.  Other 
names  are  even  more  significant.  These,  and  these 
alone,  are  "  the  words  of  the  covenant,"  the  un 
changing  ground  of  the  union  between  Jehovah  and 
His  people,  all  else  being  as  a  superstructure,  acces 
sory  and  subordinate  (Ex.  xxxiv.  28).  They  are 
also  the  Tables  of  Testimony,  sometimes  simply 
"  the  testimony,"  the  witness  to  men  of  the  Divine 
will,  righteous  itself,  demanding  righteousness  in 
man  (Ex.  xxv.  16,  xxxi.  18,  &c.).  It  is  by  virtue 
of  their  presence  in  it  that  the  Ark  becomes,  in  it* 
turn,  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  (Num.  x.  33, 
&c.),  that  the  sacred  tent  became  the  Tabernacle 
of  Witness,  of  Testimony  (Ex.  xxxviii.  21,  &c.). 
[TABERNACLE.]  They  remain  there,  throughout 
the  glory  of  the  kingdom,  the  primeval  relics  of  a 
hoar  antiquity  (IK.  viii.  9),  their  material,  the 
writing  on  them,  the  sharp  incisive  character  of  the 
laws  themselves  presenting  a  striking  contrast  to 
the  more  expanded  teaching  of  a  later  time.  Not 
less  did  the  commandments  themselves  speak  of  the 
earlier  age  when  not  the  silver  and  the  gold,  but 
the  ox  and  the  ass  were  the  great  representatives  of 
wealth  a  (comp.  1  Sam.  xii.  3). 

(2.)  The  circumstances  in  which  the  Ten  great 
Words  were  first  given  to  the  people,  surrounded 
them  with'  an  awe  which  attached  to  no  other 
precept.  In  the  midst  of  the  cloud,  and  the  dark 
ness,  and  the  flashing  lightning,  and  the  fiery 
smoke,  and  the  thunder,  like  the  voice  of  a  trumpet, 
Moses  was  called  to  receive  the  Law  without  which 
the  people  would  cease  to  b;  a  holy  nation.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  Scripture  unites  two  facts  which  men 
separate.  God,  and  not  man,  was  speaking  to  the 
Israelites  in  those  terrors,  and  yet  in  the  language  of 
later  inspired  teachers,  other  instrumentality  was  not 
excluded.1*  The  law  was  "  ordained  by  angels  "  (Gal. 


Scholia  which  modern  annotators  put  into  the  margin  are 
in  the  existing  state  of  the  0.  T.  incorporated  into  the 
text.  Obviously  both  forms  could  not  have  appeared 
written  on  the  Two  Tables  of  Stone,  yet  Ueut  v.  15,  22 
not  only  states  a  different  reason,  but  affirms  that  "aU 
these  words"  were  thus  written.  Keil  (Comm.  on  Ex. 
xx.)  seems  on  this  point  disposed  to  agree  with  Ewald, 

b  Buxtorf,  it  is  true,  asserts  that  Jewish  interpreters 
wltb  Viardly  an  exception,  maintain  that  "  Deum  verbs 


TEN  COMMANDMENTS 

iii.  19),  "spoken  by  angels"  (Heb.  ii.  2,,  received 
as  the  ordinance  of  angels  (Acts  vii.  53).  The 
agency  of  those  whom  >he  thoughts  of  the  Psalmist 
connected  with  the  winds  and  the  flaming  fire  (Ps. 
civ.  4;  Heb.  i.  7^  was  present  also  on  Sinai.  And 
the  part  of  Moses  himself  was,  as  the  language  of 
St.  Paul  (Gal.  iii.  19)  affirms,  that  of  "a  mediator." 
He  stood  "  between  "  the  people  and  the  Lord,  "  to 
show  them  the  word  of  the  Lord"  (Deut.  v.  5), 
while  they  stood  afar  off,  to  give  form  and  distinct 
ness  to  what  would  else  have  been  terrible  and 
overwhelming.  The  "voice  of  the  Lord"  which 
they  heard  in  the  thunderings  and  the  sound  of  the 
trumpet,  "  full  of  majesty,"  "  dividing  the  flames 
of  fire"  (Ps.  xxix.  3-9),  was  for  him  a  Divine 
word,  the  testimony  of  an  Eternal  will,  just  as  in  the 
parallel  instance  of  John  xii.  29,  a  like  testimony  led 
some  to  say,  "  it  thundered,"  while  others  received 
the  witness.  No  other  words  were  proclaimed  in 
like  manner.  The  people  shrank  even  from  this 
nearness  to  the  awful  presence,  even  from  the  very 
echoes  of  the  Divine  voice.  And  the  record  was 
as  exceptional  as  the  original  revelation.  Of  no 
other  words  could  it  be  said  that  they  were  written 
as  these  were  written,  engraved  on  the  Tables  of 
Stone,  not  as  originating  in  man's  contrivance  or 
sagacity,  but  by  the  power  of  the  Eternal  Spirit,  by 
the  -'finger  of  God"  (Ex.  xxxi.  18,  xxxii.  16; 
comp.  note  on  TABERNACLE). 

(3.)  The  number  Ten  was,  we  can  hardly  doubt, 
itself  significant  to  Moses  and  the  Israelites.  The 
received  symbol,  then  and  at  all  times,  of  com 
pleteness  (Bahr,  Symbolik,  i.  175-183),  it  taught 
the  people  that  the  Law  of  Jehovah  was  perfect 
(Ps.  xix.  7).  The  fact  that  they  were  written  not 
on  one,  but  on  two  tables,  probably  in  two  groups 
of  five  each  (infra),  taught  men  (though  with  some 
variations  from  the  classification  of  later  ethics)  the 
great  division  of  duties  towards  God,  and  duties 
towards  our  neighbour,  which  we  recognise  as  the 
groundwork  of  every  true  Moral  system.  It  taught 
them  also,  five  being  the  symbol  of  imperfection 
(Bahr,  i.  183-187),  how  incomplete  each  set  of  duties 
would  be  when  divorced  from  its  companion.  The 
recurrence  of  these  numbers  in  the  Pentateuch  is  at 
once  frequent  and  striking.  Ewald  (Gesch.  Isr.  ii. 
212-217)  has  shown  by  a  large  induction  how  con 
tinually  laws  and  precepts  meet  us  in  groups  of 
five  or  ten.  The  numbers,  it  will  be  remembered, 
meet  us  again  as  the  basis  of  all  the  proportions  of 
the  Tabernacle.  [TEMPLE.]  It  would  show  an 
ignorance  of  all  modes  of  Hebrew  thought  to  ex 
clude  this  symbolic  aspect.  We  need  not,  however, 
shut  out  altogether  that  which  some  writers  (e.  g. 
Grotius,  De  Decal.  p.  36)  have  substituted  for  it, 
the  connexion  of  the  Ten  Words  with  a  decima] 
system  of  numeration,  with  the  ten  fingers  on  which 
a  man  counts.  Words  whbh  were  to  be  the  rule  o: 
life  for  the  poor  as  well  as  the  learned,  the  ground 
work  of  education  for  all  children,  might  well  be 
connected  with  the  simplest  facts  and  processes  ii 
man's  mental  growth,  and  thus  stamped  more  in 
delibly  on  the  memory.0 

(4.)  In  what  way  the  Ten  Commandments  wer 
to  be  divided  has,  however,  been  a  matter,  of  much 


Decalogi  per  se  immediate  locutum  esse"  (Diss.  de 
Decal.).  The  language  of  Josephus,  however  (Ant.  xv.  5 
$3),  not  less  than  that  of  the  N.  T.,  shows  that  at  one  tim< 
the  traditions  of  the  Jewish  schools  pointed  to  the  opposite 
conclusion. 
c  Bahi  absorbed  in  symbolism,  has  nothing  for  thi 


TEN  COMMANDMENTS      1465 

ontrovorsy.     At  least  four  distinct  arrangements 
>resent  themselves. 

(a.)  In  the  received  teaching  of  the  Latin  Church 
•esting  on  :hat  of  St.  Augustine  (Qu.  in  Ex.  71, 
%p.  ad  Januar.  c.  xi.,  De  Decal.  &c.,  &c.)  the  first 
Table  contt^ned  three  commandments,  the  second 
he  other  seven.  Partly  on  mystical  grounds,  be 
cause  the  Tables  thus  symbolized  the  Trinity  of 
Divine  Persons,  and  the  Eternal  Sabbath,  partly  as 
seeing  in  it  a  true  ethical  division,  he  adopted  this 
classification.  It  involved,  however,  and  in  part 
jroceeded  from  an  alteration  in  the  received  ar 
rangement.  What  we  know  as  the  first  and  second 
were  united,  and  consequently  the  Sabbath  law 
appeared  at  the  close  of  the  First  Table  as  the 
third,  not  as  the  fourth  commandment.  The  com 
pleteness  of  the  number  was  restored  in  the  Second 
fable  by  making  a  separate  (the  ninth)  command 
of  the  precept,  "  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neigh 
bour's  wife,"  which  with  us  forms  part  of  the 
tenth.  It  is  an  almost  fatal  objection  to  this 
order  that  in  the  First  Table  it  confounds,  where  it 
ought  to  distinguish,  the  two  sins  of  polytheism 
and  idolatry ;  and  that  m  the  Second  it  introduces 
an  arbitrary  and  meaningless  distinction.  The 
later  theology  of  the  Church  of  Rome  apparently 
adopted  it  as  seeming  to  prohibit  image-worship 
only  so  far  as  it  accompanied  the  acknowledgment 
of  another  God  (Catech.  Trident,  iii.  2,  20). 

(6.)  The  familiar  division,  referring  the  first  four 
to  our  duty  towards  God,  and  the  six  remaining  to 
our  duty  towards  man,  is,  on  ethical  grounds,  simple 
and  natural  enough.  If  it  is  not  altogether  satisfying, 
it  is  because  it  tails  to  recognise  the  symmetry  which 
gives  to  the  number  five  so  great  a  prominence, 
and,  perhaps  also,  because  it  looks  on  the  duty  of 
the  fifth  commandment  from  the  point  of  view  of 
modern  ethics  rather  than  from  that  of  the  ancient 
Israelites,  and  the  first  disciples  of  Christ  (infra'). 

(c.)  A  modification  of  (a.)  has  been  adopted  by 
later  Jewish  jvriters  (Jonathan  ben  Uzziel,  Aben 
Ezra,  Moses  ben  Nachman,  in  Suicer,  Thes.  s.  v. 
8e«aAo70s).  Retaining  the  combination  of  the  first 
and  second  commandments  of  the  common  order, 
they  have  made  a  new  "  word  "  of  the  opening  de 
claration,  "  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God  which  brought 
thee  out  of  the  land  cf  Egypt,  out  of  the  house  of 
bondage,"  and  so  have  avoided  the  necessity  of  the 
subdivision  of  the  tenth.  The  objection  to  this 
division  is,  (1)  that  it  rests  on  no  adequate  authority, 
and  (2)  that  it  turns  into  a  single  precept  what  is 
evidently  given  as  the  groundwork  ot  the  whole 
body  of  laws. 

(d.}  Rejecting  these  three,  there  remains  that 
recognised  by  the  older  Jewish  writers,  Josephus 
(iii.  6,  §G)  and  Philo  (De  Decal.  i.),  and  sup 
ported  ably  and  thought  cully  by  Ewald  (Gesch. 
Isr.  ii.  208),  which  place.-  five  commandments  in 
each  Table ;  and  thus  preserves  the  pentad  and 
decad  grouping  which  pervades  the  whole  code. 
A  modern  jurist  would  perhaps  object  that  this 
places  the  fifth  commandment  in  a  wrong  position, 
that  a  duty  to  parents  is  a  duty  towards  our  neigh 
bour.  From  the  Jewish  point  of  view,  it  is  be 
lieved,  the  place  thus  given  to  that  commandment 


natural  suggestion  but  two  notes  of  admiration  (! !).  The 
analogy  of  Teu  Great  Commandments  in  the  moral  law 
of  Buddhism  might  have  shown  him  how  naturally  men 
crave  for  a  number  that  thus  helps  them.  A  true  sysV;irj 
was  as  little  likely  to  ignore  the  natural  craving  as  a  false. 
(Comp.  note  in  Ewald,  Gesch.  Isr.  ii.  20?.) 


146G      TEN  COMMANDMENTS 

was  essentially  the  right  one.  Instead  of  duties 
towards  God,  and  duties  towards  our  neighbours, 
we  must  th.nk  of  the  First  Table  as  containing  all 
that  belonged  to  the  Eutre'jSem  of  the  Greeks,  to 
the  1'ietas  of  the  Romans,  duties  i.  e.  with  no  cor 
responding  rights,  while  the  Second  deals  with  duties 
which  involve  rights,  and  come  therefore  under 
the  head  of  Justitia.  The  duty  of  honouring,  i.  e. 
supporting,  parents  came  under  the  former  head. 
As  soon  as  the  son  was  capable  of  it,  and  the 
parents  required  it,  it  was  an  absolute,  uncon 
ditional  duty.  His  right  to  any  maintenance  from 
them  had  ceased.  He  owed  them  reverence,  as 
he  owed  it  to  his  Father  in  heaven  (Heb.  xii.  9). 
He  was  to  show  piety  (evaefisiv)  to  them  (1  Tim. 
v.  4).  What  made  the  "  Corban  "  casuistry  of  the 
Scribes  so  specially  evil  was,  that  it  was,  in  this 
way,  a  sin  against  the  piety  of  the  First  Table, 
not  merely  against  the  lower  obligations  of  the 
second  (Mark  vii.  11;  comp.  PIETY).  It  at  least 
harmonises  with  this  division  that  the  second,  third, 
fourth,  and  fifth  commandments,  all  stand  on  the 
same  footing  as  having  special  sanctions  attaching  to 
them,  while  the  others  that  follow  are  left  in  their 
simplicity  by  themselves,  as  though  the  reciprocity  of 
rights  were  in  itself  a  sufficient  ground  for  obedience.** 
(5.)  To  these  Ten  Commandments  we  find  in 
the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  an  eleventh  added  :  — 
i  '  But  when  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  have  breught 
thee  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  whither  thou  goest  to 
possess  it,  thou  shalt  set  thee  up  two  great  stones, 
and  shalt  plaister  them  with  plaister,  and  shalt 
write  upon  these  stones  all  the  words  of  this  Law. 
Moreover,  after  thou  shalt  have  passed  over  Jordan, 
thou  shalt  set  up  those  stones  which  I  command 
thee  this  day,  on  Mount  Gerizim,  and  thou  shalt 
build  there  an  altar  to  the  Lord  thy  God,  an  altar 
of  stones  :  thou  shalt  not  lift  up  any  iron  thereon. 
Of  unhewn  stones  shalt  thou  build  that  altar  to  the 
Lord  thy  God,  and  thou  shalt  offer  on  it  burnt- 
offerings  to  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  thou  shalt  sacri 
fice  peace-offerings,  and  shalt  eat  them  there,  and 
thou  shalt  rejoice  before  the  Lord  thy  God  in  that 
mountain  beyond  Jordan,  by  the  way  where  the 
sun  goeth  down,  in  the  land  of  the  Canaanite  that 
dwelleth  in  the  plain  country  over  against  Gilgal, 
by  the  oak  of  Moreh,  towards  Sichem  "  (Walton, 
(Bibl.  Folyglott.).  In  the  absence  of  any  direct 
evidence  we  can  only  guess  as  to  the  history  of 
this  remarkable  addition.  (1.)  It  will  be  seen  that 
the  whole  passage  is  made  up  of  two  which  are 
found  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  Deut.  xxvii.  2-7,  and 
xi.  30,  with  the  substitution,  in  the  former,  of 
Gerizim  for  Ebal.  (2.)  In  the  absence  of  con 
firmation  from  any  other  version,  Ebal  must,  as 
far  as  textual  criticism  is  concerned,  be  looked  upon 
as  the  true  reading,  Gerizim  as  a  falsification, 
casual  or  deliberate,  of  the  text.  (3.)  Probably  the 
choice  of  Gsrizim  as  the  site  of  the  Samaritan 
temple  was  determined  by  the  fact  that  it  had  been 
the  Mount  of  Blessings,  Ebal  that  of  Curses.  Pos 
sibly,  as  Walton  suggests  (Prolegom.  c.  xi.),  the 
difficulty  of  understanding  how  the  latter  should 
have  been  chosen  instead  of  the  former,  as  a  place 

d  A  further  confirmation  of  the  truth  of  this  division  is 
found  in  Rom.  xiii.  9.  St.  Paul,  summing  up  the  duties 
"briefly  comprehended"  in  the  one  great  Law,  "Thou 
Bhalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself,"  enumerates  the  last 
five  commandments,  but  makes  no  mention  of  the  fifth. 


a  1.  ?n&$  ;  oucos,  <TKT}vri  ;  tabernaculum,  tentorium  ; 
often  in  A  V,  "  tabernacle." 


TENT 

Tor  sacrifice  and  offering,  may  have  led  them  to  look 
on  the  reading  Ebal  as  erroneous.  They  were  un 
willing  to  expose  themselves  to  the  taunts  of  their 
Judaeau  enemies  by  building  a  temple  on  the  Hill 
of  Curses.  They  would  claim  the  inheritance  cl 
the  blessings.  They  would  set  the  authority  of 
their  text  against  that  of  the  scribes  of  the  Great 
Synagogue.  One  was  as  likely  to  be  accepted  as 
the  other.  The  "  Hebrew  verity  "  was  not  then 
acknowledged  as  it  has  been  since.  (4.)  In  othe" 
repetitions  or  transfers  in  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch 
we  may  perhaps  admit  the  plea  which  Walton 
makes  in  its  behalf  (1.  c.),  that  in  the  first  forma 
tion  of  the  Pentateuch  as  a  Codex,  the  transcribers 
had  a  large  number  of  separate  documents  to  copy, 
and  that  consequently  much  was  left  to  the  dis 
cretion  of  the  individual  scribe.  Here,  however, 
that  excuse  is  hardly  admissible.  The  interpolation 
has  every  mark  of  being  a  bold  attempt  to  claim 
for  the  schismatic  worship  on  Gerizim  the  solemn 
sanction  of  the  voice  on  Sinai,  to  place  it  on  the 
same  footing  as  the  Ten  great  Words  of  God.  The 
guilt  of  the  interpolation  belonged  of  course  only  to 
the  first  contrivers  of  it.  The  later  Samaritans 
might  easily  come  to  look  on  their  text  as  the  true 
one,  on  that  of  the  Jews  as  corrupted  by  a  fraudu 
lent  omission.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  Jewish 
scribes  that  they  were  not  tempted  to  retaliate,  and 
that  their  reverence  for  the  sacred  records  prevented 
them  from  suppressing  the  history  which  connected 
the  rival  sanctuary  with  the  blessings  of  Gerizim. 

(6.)  The  treatment  of  the  Ten  Commandments 
in  the  Targum  of  Jonathan  ben  Uzziel  is  not  with 
out  interest.  There,  as  noticed  above,  the  first  and 
second  commandments  are  united,  to  make  up  the 
second,  and  the  words  "  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God," 
&c.,  are  given  as  the  first.  More  remarkable  is  the 
addition  of  a  distinct  reason  for  the  last  five  com 
mandments  no  less  than  for  the  first  five.  "  Thou 
shalt  commit  no  murder,  for  because  of  the  sins  of 
murderers  the  sword  goeth  forth  upon  the  world." 
So  in  like  manner,  and  with  the  same  formula, 
"death  goeth  forth  upon  the  world  "  as  the  punish 
ment  of  adultery,  famine  as  that  of  theft,  drought 
as  that  of  false  witness,  invasion,  plunder,  captivity 
as  that  of  covetousness  (Walton,  Bibl.  Polyglott.}. 
(7.)  The  absence  of  any  distinct  reference  to  the 
Ten  Commandments  as  such  in  the  Pirke  Aboth 
(  =  Maxims -of  the  Fathers)  is  both  strange  and 
significant.  One  chapter  (ch.  v.)  is  expressly  given 
to  an  enumeration  of  all  the  Scriptural  facts  which 
may  be  grouped  in  decades,  the  ten  words  of  Cre 
ation,  the  ten  generations  from  Adam  to  Noah,  and 
from  Noah  to  Abraham,  the  ten  trials  of  Abraham, 
the  ten  plagues  of  Egypt,  and  the  like,  but  the  ten 
divine  words  find  no  place  in  the  list.  With  all  their 
ostentation  of  profound  reverence  for  the  Law,  the 
teaching  of  the  Rabbis  turned  on  other  points  than 
the  great  laws  of  duty.  In  this  way,  as  in  others, 
they  made  void  the  commandments  of  God  that 
they  might  keep  their  own  traditions. — Compare 
Stanley,  Jeicish  Church,  Lect.  vii.,  in  illustration  of 
many  of  the  points  here  noticed.  [E.  H.  P.] 

TENT.a     Among  the  leading  characteristics  of 


7  ;    tentorium  ;    opposed   to    JT3> 


house.'' 

3.  H3D  (succah),  only  once  "  tent"  (2  Sam.  xi.  11). 


;  lupanar ;  Arab.  £jjj 

with  art.  prefixed,  comes  alcola  (Span.)  and  "  alcove 
(Kusscll,  Aleppo,  i.  30) :  only  once  used  (Num.  xxv.  8). 


TENT 


1167 


Arao  Tent  (Layard) 


tne  tiomade  races,  those  two  have  always  been  num- 
bertd,  whose  origin  has  been  ascribed  to  Jabal  the 
son  of  Lamech  (Gen.  iv.  20),  viz.,  to  be  tent- 
dwellers  and  keepers  of  cattle.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  forefathers  of  the  Hebrew  race ;  nor  was 
it  until  the  return  into  Canaan  from  Egypt  that 
the  Hebrews  became  inhabitants  of  cities,  and  it 
may  be  remarked  that  the  tradition  of  tent-usage 
survived  for  many  years  later  in  the  Tabernacle  of 
Shiloh,  which  consisted,  as  many  Arab  tents  still 
consist,  of  a  walled  enclosure  covered  with  curtains 
fMishna,  Zebachim,  xiv.  6  ;  Stanley,  8.  and  P.  p. 
233).  Among  tent-dwellers  of  the  present  day  must 
be  reckoned,  (1 .)  the  great  Mongol  and  Tartar  hordes 
of  central  Asia,  whose  tent-dwellings  are  sometimes 
of  gigantic  dimensions,  and  who  exhibit  more  con- 
lrivanc*>  both  in  the  dwellings  themselves  and  in 
their  method  of  transporting  them  from  place  to 
place  than  is  the  case  with  the  Arab  races  (Marco 
Polo,  Tran.  p.  128,  135,  211,  ed.  Bohn;  Hor.  3 
Od.  xxiv.  10;  Gibbon,  c.  xxvi.,  vol.  iii.  p.  298, 
ed.  Smith).  (2.)  The  Bedouin  Arab  tribes,  who 
inhabit  tents  which  are  probably  constructed  on  the 
same  plan  as  those  which  were  the  dwelling-places 
»f  Abraham  and  of  Jacob  (Heb.  xi.  9).  A  tent  or 
pavilion  on  a  magnificent  scale,  constructed  for 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus  at  Alexandria,  is  described 
by  Athenaeus,  v.  196  foil. 

An  Arab  tent  is  minutely  described  by  Burckhardt. 
It  is  called  beit,  "  house  ;"  its  covering  consists  of 
stuff,  about  three-quarters  of  a  yard  broad,  made  of 
black  goats-hair  (Cant.  i.  5  ;  Shaw,  Trav.  p.  220), 
laid  parallel  with  the  tent's  length.  This  is  sufficient 
to  resist  the  heaviest  rain.  The  tent-poles,  called 
umud,  or  columns,  are  usually  nine  in  number, 
placed  in  three  groups,  but  many  tents  have  only 
one  pole,  others  two  or  three.  The  ropes  which 
nold  the  tent  in  its  place  are  fastened,  not  to  the 
tent-cover  itself,  but  to  loops  consisting  of  a  leathern 
thong  tied  to  the  ends  of  a  stick,  round  which  is 
twisted  a  piece  of  old  cloth,  which  is  itself  sewed  to 
the  tent-cover.  The  ends  of  the  tent-ropes  are 
fastened  to  short  sticks  or  pins,  called  wed  or  aoutad, 
which  are  driven  into  the  ground  with  a  mallet 


(Judg.  iv.  21;.  [PiN.J  Round  the  back  and  sides 
of  the  tents  runs  a  piece  of  stuff  removable  at 
pleasure  to  admit  air.  The  tent  is  divided  into 
two  apartments,  separated  by  a  carpet  partition 
drawn  across  the  middle  of  the  tent  and  fastened  to 
the  three  middle  posts.  The  men's  apartment  is 
usually  on  the  right  side  on  entering,  and  the  wo 
men's  on  the  left ;  but  this  usage  varies  in  different 
tribes,  and  in  the  Mesopotamia!!  tribes  the  contrary 
is  the  rule.  Of  the  three  side  posts  on  the  men's 
side,  the  first  and  third  are  called  yed  (hand) ;  and 
the  one  in  the  middle  is  rather  higher  than  the 
other  two.  .  Hooks  are  attached  to  these  posts  for 
hanging  various  articles  (Gen.  xviii.  10;  Jud.  xiii. 
6  ;  Niebuhr,  Voy.  i.  187  ;  Layard,  Nin.  and  Bao. 
p.  261).  [PILLAR.]  Few  Arabs  have  more  than 
one  .tent,  unless  the  family  be  augmented  by  the 
families  of  a  son  or  a  deceased  brother,  or  in  case 
the  wives  disagree,  when  the  master  pitches  a  tent 
for  one  of  them  adjoining  his  own.  The  separate 
tents  of  Sarah,  Leah,  Rachel,  Zilpah,  and  Bilhah, 
may  thus  have  been  either  separate  tents  or  apart 
ments  in  the  principal  tent  in  each  case  (Gen.  xxiv. 
67,  xxxi.  33).  When  the  pasture  near  an  encamp 
ment  is  exhausted,  the  tents  are  taken  down,  packed 
on  camels  and  removed  (Is.  xxxviii.  12 ;  Gen. 
xxvi.  17,  22,  25).  The  beauty  of  an  Arab  encamp 
ment  is  noticed  by  Shaw  (Trav.  p.  221  ;  see  Num. 
xxiv.  5).  Those  who  rannot  afford  more  complete 
tents,  are  content  to  hang  a  cloth  from  a  tree  by 
way  of  shelter.  In  choosing  places  for  encamp 
ment,  Arabs  prefer  the  neighbourhood  of  trees,  for 
the  sake  of  the  shade  and  coolness  which  they  afford 
(Gen.  xviii.  4,  8 ;  Niebuhr,  L  c.).  In  observing 
the  directions  of  the  Law  respecting  the  feast  of 
Tabernacles,  the  Rabbinical  writers  laid  down  as  a 
distinction  between  the  ordinary  tent  and  the  booth, 
succah,  that  the  latter  must  in  no  case  be  covered 
by  a  cloth,  but  be  restricted  to  boughs  of  trees  as 
its  shelter  (Succah,  i.  3).  In  hot  weather  the  Arabs 
of  Mesopotamia  often  strike  their  tents  and  betake 
themselves  to  sheds  of  reeds  and  grass  on  the  bank 
of  the  river  (Layard,  Nineveh,  i.  123;  Burckhardt, 
Notes  on  Bed.  i.  37,  46 ;  Volney,  Trav.  i.  398 


1468 


TERAH 


Layard,  Nin.  and  Bab.  p.  171,  175  ;  Niebuhr,  Voi). 
'•  I-  c.).  [H.  W.  P.] 


TE'EAH  (rnfl  :  Qdfta,  Qdpa  in  Josh.  ;  Alex. 
Qdpa,  exc.  Gen.  xi.  28  :  Thare).  The  father  of 
Abram,  Nahor,  and  Haran,  and  through  them  the 
ancestor  of  the  great  families  of  the  Israelites,  Ish- 
maelites,  Midianites,  Moabites,  and  Ammonites 
VGen.  xi.  24-32).  The  account  given  of  him  in 
the  0.  T.  narrative  is  veiy  brief.  We  learn  from 
it  simply  that  he  was  an  idolater  (Josh.  xxiv.  2), 
that  he  dwelt  beyond  the  Euphrates  in  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees  (Gen.  xi.  28),  and  that  in  the  south 
westerly  migration,  which  from  some  unexplained 
cause  he  undertook  in  his  old  age,  he  went  with  his 
son  Abram,  his  daughter-in-law  Sarai,  and  his 
grandson  Lot,  "  to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  and 
they  came  unto  Haran,  and  dwelt  there  "  (Gen.  xi. 
31).  And  finally,  "the  days  of  Terah  were  two 
hundred  and  five  years  :  and  Terah  died  in  Haran  " 
(Gen.  xi.  32).  In  connexion  with  this  last-men 
tioned  event  a  chronological  difficulty  has  arisen 
which  may  be  noticed  here.  In  the  speech  of 
Stephen  (Acts  vii.  4)  it  is  said  that  the  further 
migration  of  Abram  from  Haran  to  the  land  of 
Canaan  did  not  take  place  till  after  his  father's 
death.  Now  as  Terah  was  205  years*  old  when  he 
died,  and  Abram  was  75  when  he  left  Haran  (Gen. 
xii.  4),  it  follows  that,  if  the  speech  of  Stephen  be 
correct,  at  Abram's  birth  Terah  must  have  been 
130  years  old  ;  and  therefore  that  the  order  of  his 
sons  —  Abram,  Nahor,  Haran  —  given  in  Gen.  xi.  26, 
27,  is  not  their  order  in  point  of  age.  [See  LOT, 
1436.]  Lord  Arthur  Hervey  says  (Geneal.  pp.  82, 
83),  "  The  difficulty  is  easily  got  over  by  supposing 
that  Abram,  though  named  first  on  account  of  his 
dignity,  was  not  the  eldest  son,  but  probably  the 
youngest  of  the  three,  born  when  his  father  was  130 
years  old—  a  supposition  with  which  the  marriage 
of  Nahor  with  his  elder  brother  Haran's  daughter, 
Milcah,  and  the  apparent  nearness  of  age  between 
Abram  and  Lot,  and  the  three  generations  from 
Nahor  to  Kebecca  corresponding  to  only  two,  from 
Abraham  to  Isaac,  are  in  perfect  harmony."  From 
the  simple  facts  of  Terah's  lite  recorded  in  the  0.  T. 
has  been  constructed  the  entire  legend  of  Abram 
which  is  current  in  Jewish  and  Arabian  traditions. 
Terah  the  idolater  is  turned  into  a  maker  of  images, 
and  "  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  "  is  the  original  of  the  "  fur 
nace"  into  which  Abram  was  cast  (comp.  Ez.  v.  2). 
Rashi's  note  on  Gen.  xi.  28  is  as  follows  :—  "  '  In 
the  presence  of  Terah  his  father  :'  in  the  lifetime  of 
his  lather.  And  the  Midrash  Hagada  says  that  he 
died  beside  his  father,  for  Terah  had  complained  of 
Abram  his  son,  before  Nimrod,  that  he  had  broken 
his  images,  and  he  cast  him  into  a  furnace  of  fire. 
And  Haran  was  sitting  and  saying  in  his  heart,  If 
Abram  overcome  I  am  on  his  side,  and  if  Nimrod 
overcome  I  am  on  his  side.  And  when  Abram  was 
saved  they  said  to  Haran,  On  whose  side  art  thou  ? 
He  said  to  them,  I  am  on  Abram's  side.  So  they 
cast  him  into  the  furnace  of  fire  and  he  was  burnt; 
and  this  is  [what  is  meant  by]  Ur  Casdim  (Ur  of 
the  Chaldees)."  In  Beres!dth"Rabba  (Par.  17)  the 
story  is  told  of  Abraham  being  left  to  sell  idols  in 
his  father's  stead,  which  is  repeated  in  Weil's 
Biblical  Legends,  p.  49.  The  whole  legend  de 
pends  upon  the  ambiguity  of  the  word  IDj},  which 
signifies  "  to  make  "  and  "  to  serve  or  worship," 

*  The  Sam,  text  and  version  make  him  145,  and  &o 
aroUt  this  difficulty. 


TERAPHIM 

so  that  Terah,  who  in  the  Biblical  narrative  is  outy 
a  worshipper  of  idols,  is  in  the  Jewish  tradition  an 
image-maker ;  and  about  this  single  point  the  whole 
story  has  grown.  It  certainly  was  unknown  to 
Jose"ph;j3,  who  tells  nothing  of  Terah,  except  that 
it  was  grief  for  the  death  of  his  son  Haran  that 
induced  him  to  quit  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  (Ant.  i. 
6,  §  6). 

In  the  Jewish  traditions  Terah  is  a  prince  and  a 
great  man  in  the  palace  of  Nimrod  ( Jellinek,  Bet  ham- 
^Midrash,  p.  27),  the  captain  of  his  army  (Sepher 
Hayyashar},  his  son-in-law  according  to  the  Arabs 
(Beer,  Leben  Abrahams,  p.  97).  His  wife  is  called 
in  the  Talmud  (Baba  Bathra,  fol.  9 la)  Amtelai, 
or  Emtelai,  the  daughter  of  Carnebo.  In  the  Book 
of  the  Jubilees  she  is  called  Edna,  the  daughter 
of  Arena,  or  Aram ;  and  by  the  Arabs  Adna 
(D'Herbelot,  art.  Abraham-,  Beer,  p.  97).  Ac 
cording  to  D'Herbelot,  the  name  of  Abraham's 
father  was  Azar  in  the  Arabic  traditions,  and 
Terah  was  his  grandfather.  Elmakin,  quoted  by 
Hottinger  (Smegma  Orientale,  p.  281),  says  that, 
after  the  death  of  Yuna,  Abraham's  mother,  Terah 
took  another  wife,  who  bare  him  Sarah.  He  adds 
that  in  the  days  of  Terah  the  king  of  Babylon  made 
war  upon  the  country  in  which  he  dwelt,  and  that 
Hazrun,  the  brother  of  Terah,  went  out  against 
him  and  slew  him  ;  and  the  kingdom  of  Babylon 
was  transferred  to  Nineveh  and  Mosul.  For  all 
these  traditions,  see  the  Book  of  Jashar,  and  the 
works  of  Hottinger,  D'Herbelot,  Weil,  and  Beer 
above  quoted.  Philo  (De  Somniis)  indulges  in 
some  strange  speculations  with  regard  to  Terah's 
name  and  his  migration.  [W.  A.  W.] 

TER'APHBl  (D'BTO  :  eepaflv,  rb  OepaQelv, 

ra  Oepacpiv,  KevoTdtyia,  elSo>Aa,  •yXvitTO.,  5?jA'jj, 
a,irofyQfyy6iJi.tvoi :  tkeraphim,  statua,  idola,  simu 
lacra,  figurae  idolorum,  idololatria},  only  in  plural, 
images  connected  with  magical  rites.  The  subject 
of  teraphim  has  been  fully  discussed  in  art.  MAGIC 
(ii.  195-197),  and  it  is  therefore  unnecessary  her? 
to  do  more  than  repeat  the  results  there  stated. 
The  derivation  of  the  name  is  obscure.  In  one 
case  a  single  statue  seems  to  be  intended  by  the 
plural  (1  Sam.  xix.  13,  16).  The  teraphim  carried 
away  from  Laban  by  Rachel  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  very  small ;  and  the  image  (if  one  be  in 
tended),  hidden  in  David's  bed  by  Michal  to  deceive 
Saul's  messengers,  was  probably  of  the  size  of 
a  man,  and  perhaps  in  the  head  and  shoulders, 
if  not  lower.,  of  human  or  like  form  ;  but  David's 
sleeping-room  may  have  been  a  mere  cell  without  a 
window,  opening  from  a  large  apartment,  which 
would  render  it  necessary  to  do  no  more  than  fill 
tne  bed.  Laban  regarded  his  teraphim  as  gods ; 
and,  as  he  was  not  ignorant  of  the  true  God,  it 
would  therefore  appear  that  they  were  used  by 
those  who  added  corrupt  practices  to  the  patri 
archal  religion.  Teraphim  again  are  included  among 
Miuih's  images,  which  were  idolatrous  objects  con 
nected  with  heretical  corruptions  rather  than  with 
heathen  worship  (Judg.  xvii.  3-5,  \viii.  17, 18,  20\ 
Teraphim  were  consulted  for  oracular  answers  oy 
the  Israelites  (Zech.  x.  2  ;  comp.  Judg.  xviii.  5,  6  ; 
1  Sam.  xv.  22,  23,  xix.  13,  16,  LXX. ;  ana  2  K. 
xxiii.  24),  and  by  the  Babylonians,  in  the  case  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  (Ez.  xxi.  19-22).  There  is  no  evi 
dence  that  they  were  ever  worshipped.  Though 
not  frequently  mentioned,  we  find  they  were  used  by 
the  Israelites  in  the  time  of  the  Judges  and  of  Saul, 
and  until  the  reign  of  Josiah,  who  put  them  away 


TEBESH 

;2  K.  xxiii.  24  .  and  apparently  again  after  the 
Captivity  (Zecn.  x.  2).  "  [U.  S.  P.] 

TER'ESH  (fchfl  :  orr.  iu  Vat.  and  Alex.  ;  FA. 

third  hand  has  ®dpas,  &dppas  :  Thares],  One  of 
the  two  eunuchs  who  kept  the  door  of  the  palace 
of  Ahasuerus,  and  whose  plot  to  assassinate  the  king 
was  discovered  by  Mordecai  (Esth.  ii.  21,  vi.  2). 
He  was  hanged.  Josephus  calls  him  Theodestes 
{Ant.  xi.  6,  §4),  and  says  that  the  conspiracy  was 
detected  by  Barnabazus,  a  servant  of  one  of  the 
eunuchs,  who  was  a  Jew  by  birth,  and  who  revealed 
it  to  Mordecai.  According  to  Josephus,  the  conspi 
rators  were  crucified. 

TER'TIUS  (Teprio*  :  Tertius)  was  the  amanu 
ensis  of  Paul  in  writing  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
(Rom.  xvi.  22).  He  was  at  Corinth,  therefore,  and 
Cenchreae,  the  port  of  Corinth,  at  the  time  when 
the  Apostle  wrote  to  the  Church  at  Rome.  It  is 
noticeable  that  Tertius  intercepts  the  message  which 
Paul  sends  to  the  Roman  Christians,  and  inserts  a 
greeting  of  his  own  in  the  first  person  singular 
(a(rird£o[j.cu  670?  Te'jmos).  Both  that  circumstance 
and  .  he  frequency  of  the  name  among  the  Romans 
may  indicate  that  Tertius  was  a  Roman,  and  was 
known  to  those  whom  Paul  salutes  at  the  close  of 
the  letter.  Se.cundus  (Acts  xx.  4)  is  another  in 
stance  of  the  familiar  usage  of  the  Latin  ordinals 
employed  as  proper  names.  The  idle  pedantry 
which  would  make  him  and  Silas  the  same  person 

because  tertius  and  *£>vt?  mean  the  same  in  Latin 


and  Hebrew,  hardly  deserves  to  be  mentioned  (see 
Wolf,  Curae  Philologicae,  torn.  iii.  p.  295).  In 
regard  to  the  ancient  practice  of  writing  letters 
from  dictation,  see  Becker's  Gallus,  p.  180. 
Nothing  certain  is  known  of  Tertius  apart  from  this 
passage  in  the  Romans.  No  credit  is  due  to  the 
writers  who  speak  of  him  as  bishop  of  Iconium  (see 
Fabricius,  Lux  Evangelica,  p.  117).  [H.B.  H.] 

TE'TA  (Vat.  omits  ;  Alex.ArrjTa:  Topa).  The 
form  under  which  the  name  HATITA,  one  of  the 
doorkeepers  of  the  Temple,  appears  in  the  lists  of 
1  Esd.  v.  28. 

TERTUL'LUS  (TcPTv\\os,  a  diminutive 
form  from  the  Roman  name  Tertius,  analogous  to 
Lucullus  from  Lucius,  Fabullus  from  Fabius,  &c.), 
"a  certain  orator"  (Acts  xxiv.  1)  who  was  re 
tained  by  the  High  Priest  and  Sanhedrim  to  accuse 
the  Apostle  Paul  at  Caesarea  before  the  Roman 
Procurator  Antonius  Felix.  [PAUL.]  He  evi 
dently  belonged  to  the  class  of  professional  orators, 
multitudes  of  whom  were  to  be  found  not  only  in 
Rome,  but  in  other  parts  of  the  empire,  to  which 
they  had  betaken  themselves  in  the  hope  of  finding 
occupation  at  the  tribunals  of  the  provincial  magis 
trates.  Both  from  his  name,  and  from  the  great 
probability  that  the  proceedings  were  conducted  in 
Latin  (see  especially  Milman,  Bampton  Lectures  for 
1827,  p.  185,  note\  we  may  infer  that  Tertullus 
was  of  Roman,  or  at  all  events  of  Italian  origin. 
The  Sanhedrim  would  naturally  desire  to  secure  his 
.-services  on  account  of  their  own  ignorance  both  of 
the  Latin  language  and  of  the  ordinary  procedure  of 
a  Roman  law-court. 

The  exordium  of  his  speech  is  designed  to  con 
ciliate  the  good  will  of  the  Procurator,  and  is  ac 
cordingly  overcharged  with  flattery.  There  is  a 
strange  contrast  between  the  opening  clause  — 


TETRARCH 

iru\\rjs  eipT\vt)s  rvyxdvovres  8ta  ffov — and  the 
brief  summary  of  the  Procurator's  administration 
given  by  Tacitus  (Hist.  v.  9): — "Aatonius  Felix 
per  omnem  saevitiam  ac  libidinern,  jus  regium 
servili  ingenio  exercuit"  (comp.  Tac.  Ann.  xii.  54). 
But  the  commendations  of  Tertullus  were  not 
altogether  unfounded,  as  Felix  had  really  suc 
ceeded  in  putting  down  several  seditious  move 
ments.  [FELIX.]  It  is  not  very  easy  to  deter 
mine  whether  St.  Luke  has  preserved  the  oration 
of  Tertullus  entire.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  the 
elaborate  and  artificial  opening,  which  can  hardly 
be  other  than  an  accurate  report  of  that  part  ot 
the  speech  ;  and  on  the  other  hand  we  have  a  nar 
rative  which  is  so  very  dry  and  cor.cl'e,  that,  it 
there  were  nothing  more,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  why 
the  orator  should  have  been  called  in  at  all.  The 
difficulty  is  increased  if,  in  accordance  with  the 
greatly  preponderating  weight  of  external  authority, 
we  omit  the  words  in  vers.  6-8,  Kal  Kara  rbv 
Tifj-erepov  .  .  ,  ep%e<r0cu  eirl  ae.  On  the  whole 
it  seems  most  natural  to  conclude  that  the  histo 
rian,  who  was  almost  certainly  an  ear-witness, 
merely  gives  an  abstract  of  the  speech,  giving  how 
ever  in  full  the  most  salient  points,  and  those  which 
had  the  most  forcibly  impressed  themselves  upon 
him,  such  as  the  exordium,  and  the  character 
ascribed  to  St.  Paul  (ver.  5). 

The  doubtful  reading  in  vers.  6-8,  to  which  re 
ference  has  already  been  made,  seems  likely  to  re 
main  an  unsolved  difficulty.  Against  the  external 
evidence  there  would  be  nothing  to  urge  in  favoui 
of  the  disputed  passage,  were  it  not  that  the  state 
ment  which  remains  after  its  removal  is  not  merely 
extremely  brief  (its  brevity  may  be  accounted  for 
in  the  manner  already  suggested),  but  abrupt  and 
awkward  in  point  of  construction.  It  may  be  added 
that  it  is  easier  to  refer  Trap'  ov  (ver.  8)  to  the 
Tribune  Lysias  than  to  Paul.  For  arguments 
founded  on  the  words  KCU  KO.T&  .  .  .  Kpivetv 
(ver.  6) — arguments  which  are  dependent  on  the 
genuineness"  of  the  disputed  words — see  Lardner, 
Credibility  of  the  Gospel  History,  b.  i.  ch.  2  ; 
Biscoe,  On  the  Acts,  ch.  vi.  §16. 

We  ought  not  to  pass  over  without  notice  a 
strange  etymology  for  the  name  Tertull  us  proposed 
by  Calmet,  in  the  place  of  which  another  has  been 
suggested  by  his  English  editor  (ed.  1830),  who 
takes  credit  for  having  rejected  "  fanciful  and  im 
probable"  etymologies,  and  substituted  improve 
ments  of  his  own.  Whether  the  suggestion  is  an 
improvement  in  this  case  the  reader  will  judge : — 
"  Tertullus,  TepTuAAos,  liar,  impostor,  from  repa- 
roXoyos,  a  teller  of  stories,  a  cheat.  [Qy.  was  his 
true  appellation  Ter-  Tullius,  « thrice  Tully,'  that 
is,  extremely  eloquent,  varied  by  Jewish  wit  into 
Tertullus?]"  [W.  B.  J.] 

TESTAMENT,  NEW.    [NEW  TESTAMENT.] 
TESTAMENT,  OLD.     [OLD  TESTAMENT.] 

TETRARCH  (rerpapx^s).  Properly  the  sove 
reign  or  governor  of  the  fourth  part  of  a  country. 
On  the  use  of  the  title  in  Thessaly,  Galatia,  and 
Syria,  consult  the  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman 
Antiquities,  "  Tetrarcha,"  and  the  authorities 
there  referred  to.  "  In  the  later  period  of  the  re- 
public  and  under  the  empire,  the  Romans  seem  to 
have  used  the  title  (as  also  those  of  ethnarch  and 
phylarch)  to  designate  those  tributary  princes  who 
were  not  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  called 


1470 


TETRARCH 


kings."  In  the  New  Testament  we  mept  r.th 
the  des.gnation.  either  actually  or  in  the  form 
of  its  derivative  rerpapx^v,  applied  to  three 
persons : — 

(1.)  Herod  Antipas  (Matt.  xiv.  1  ;  Luke  hi.  1, 
19,  ix.  7  ;  Acts  xiii.  1),  who  is  commonly  distin 
guished  as  "  Herod  the  tetrarch,"  although  the  title 
of  "king"  is  also  assigned  to  him  both  by  St. 
Matthew  (xiv.  9)  and  by  St.  Mark  (vi.  14, 
22  sqq.).  St.  Luke,  as  might  be  expected,  inva 
riably  adheres  to  the  formal  title,  which  would 
be  recognized  by  Gentile  readers.  Herod  is  de 
scribed  by  the  last-named  Evangelist  (ch.  iii.  1)  as 
"tetrarch  of  Galilee;"  but  his  dominions,  which 
were  bequeathed  to  him  by  his  father  Herod  the 
Great,  embraced  the  district  of  Peraea  beyond  the 
Jordan  (Joseph.  Ant.  xvii.  8,  §1):  this  bequest 
was  confirmed  by  Augustus  (Joseph.  B.  J.  ii. 
6,  §3).  After  the  disgrace  and  banishment  of  An 
tipas,  his  tetrarchy  was  added  by  Caligula  to  the 
kingdom  of  Herod  Agrippa  I.  (Ant.  xviii.  7,  §2). 
[HEROD  ANTIPAS.] 

(2.)  Herod  Philip  (the  son  of  Herod  the  Great 
and  Cleopatra,  not  the  husband  of  Herodias),  who 
is  said  by  St.  Luke  (iii.  1)  to  have  been  "  tetrarch 
of  Ituraea,  and  of  the  region  of  Trachonitis."  Jo- 
sephus  tells  us  that  his  father  bequeathed  to  him 
Gaulonitis,  Trachonitis,  and  Paneas  (Ant.  xvii.  8, 
§1),  and  that  his  father's  bequest  was  confirmed 
by  Augustus,  who  assigned  to  him  Batanaea,  Tra 
chonitis,  and  Auranitis,  with  certain  parts  about 
Jamnia  belonging  to  the  "house  of  Zenodorus" 
(B.  J.  ii.  6,  §3).  Accordingly  the  territories  of 
Philip  extended  eastward  from  the  Jordan  to  the 
wilderness,  and  from  the  borders  of  Peraea  north 
wards  to  Lebanon  and  the  neighbourhood  of  Da 
mascus.  After  the  death  of  Philip  his  tetrarchy 
was  added  to  the  province  of  Syria  by  Tiberius 
(Ant.  xviii.  4,  §6),  and  subsequently  conferred  by 
Caligula  on  Herod  Agrippa  I.,  with  the  title  of 
king  (Ant.  xviii.  6,  §10).  [HEROD  PHILIP  I.; 
HEROD  AGRIPPA  J.j 

(3.)  Lysanias,  who  is  said  (Luke  iii.  1)  to  have 
been  "  tetrarch  of  Abilene,"  a  small  district  sur 
rounding  the  town  of  Abila,  in  the  fertile  valley  of 
the  Barada  or  Chrysorrhoas,  between  Damascus  and 
the  mountain-range  of  Antilibanus.  [ABILENE.] 
There  is  some  difficulty  in  fixing  the  limits  of  this 
tetrarchy,  and  in  identifying  the  person  of  the 
tetrarch.  [LYSANIAS.]  We  learn,  however,  from 
Josephus  (Ant.  xviii.  6,  §10,  six.  5,  §1)  that  a 
Lysanias  had  been  tetrarch  of  Abila  before  the  time 
of  Caligula,  who  added  this  tetrarchy  to  the  domi 
nions  of  Herod  Agrippa  I. — an  addition  which  was 
confirmed  by  the  emperor  Claudius. 

It  remains  to  inquire  whether  the  title  of  tetrarch, 
as  applied  to  these  princes,  had  any  reference  to  its 
etymological  signiHcation.  We  have  seen  that  it 
was  at  this  time  probably  applied  to  petty  princes 
without  any  such  determinate  meaning.  But  it 
appears  from  Josephus  (Ant.  xvii.  11,  §4;  B.  J. 
ii.  6,  §3)  that  the  tetrarchies  of  Antipas  and  Philip 
were  regarded  as  constituting  each  a  fourth  part  of 
their  father's  kingdom.  For  we  are  told  that  Au 
gustus  gave  one-half  of  Herod's  kingdom  to  his  son 
Archelaus,  with  the  appellation  of  ethnarch,  and 
with  a  promise  of  the  regal  title ;  and  that  he 
divided  the  remainder  into  the  two  tetrarchies. 
Moreover,  the  revenues  of  Archelaus,  drawn  from 
his  territory,  which  included  Judaea,  Samaria,  and 
Idumaea,  amounted  to  400  talents,  the  tetrarchies 


THANK  OFFERING 

of  Philip  and  Antipas  producing  200  talents  ench 
We  conclude  that  in  these  two  cases,  at  least,  the  title 
was  used  in  its  strict  and  literal  sense.  [W.  B.  J.j 

THADDAE'US  (0a88atos  :  Thaddaeus),  a 
name  in  St.  Mark's  catalogue  of  the  twelve  Apostles 
(Mark  iii.  18)  in  the  great  majority  of  MSS. 
In  St.  Matthew's  catalogue  (Matt.  x.  3)  the  cor 
responding  place  is  assigned  to  ©aSSotbs  by  the 
Vatican  MS.  (B),  and  to  AejSjSotos  by  the  Codex 
Bezae  (D).  The  Received  Text,  following  the  first 
correction  of  the  Codex  Ephraemi  (C)  —  where  the 
original  reading  is  doubtful  —  as  well  as  several 
cursive  MSS.,  reads  AeyfySalos  6  eVt/cATjflels  ©o5- 
Scuos.  We  are  probably  to  infer  that  Aefificuos, 
alone,  is  the  original  reading  of  Matt.  x.  3,  and 
0aS5a?os  of  Mark  iii.  18.  By  these  two  Evangelists 
the  tenth  place  among  the  Apostles  is  given  to 
Lebbaeus  or  Thaddaeus,  the  eleventh  place  being 
given  to  Simon  the  Canaanite.  St.  Luke,  in  both 
his  catalogues  (Luke  vi.  15;  Acts  i.  13),  places 
Simon  Zelotes  tenth  among  the  Apostles,  and  assigns 
the  eleventh  place  to  'louSos  'laiccapov.  As  the 
other  names  recorded  by  St.  Luke  are  identical 
with  those  which  appear  (though  in  a  different 
order)  in  the  first  two  Gospels,  it  seems  scarcely 
possible  to  doubt  that  the  three  names  of  Judas, 
Lebbaeus,  and  Thaddaeus  were  borne  by  one  and  the 
same  pei-son.  [JUDE;  LEBBAEUS.]  [W.  B.  J.] 


THA'HASH  (&r\F\  :  Tox<fe  :  Thahas).  Son  of 

Nahor  by  his  concubine  Reumah  (Gen.  xxii.  24). 
He  is  called  Tavaos  by  Josephus  (Ant.  i.  6,  §5). 

THA'MAH  (n»JJ  :  Oe^uo:  Themd).  "The 
children  of  Thamah  "  were  a  family  of  Nethinim 
who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  53).  The 
name  elsewhere  appears  in  the  A.  V.  as  TAMAH. 

THA'MAR  (edpap  :  Tkamar).  TAMAR  1 
(Matt.  i.  3). 

THAM'NATHA  (?)  ®afj.va8d  :  Thamnata). 
One  of  the  cities  of  Judaea  fortified  by  Bacchides 
after  he  had  driven  the  Maccabees  over  the  Jordan 
(1  Mace.  ix.  50).  Thamnatha  no  doubt  represents 
an  ancient  TIMNATH,  possibly  the  present  Tibneh, 
half-way  between  Jerusalem  and  the  Mediterranean. 
Whether  the  name  should  be  joined  to  Pharathoni, 
which  follows  it,  or  whether  they  should  be  inde 
pendent,  is  matter  of  doubt.  [PHARATHON.]  [G.] 

THANK-OFFERING,  or  PEACE-OF 
FERING  (D'D^P  HIT,  or  simply  D^P,  and 


in  Amos  v.  22,  D/>£>  :  ©vffia  o-corrjpioy,  a 
occasionally  elp^viK-f)  :  hosUapacificorum,pacifica). 
the  properly  eucharistic  offering  among  the  Jews, 

n  its  theory  resembling  the  MEAT-OFFERING,  and 
therefore  indicating  that  the  offerer  was  already  re 
conciled  to,  and  in  covenant  with,  God.  Its  cere 
monial  is  described  in  Lev.  iii.  The  nature  of  the 
victim  was  left  to  the  sacrificer;  it  might  be  male 
or  female,  of  the  flock  or  of  the  herd,  provided  that 

t  was  unblemished  ;  the  hand  of  the  sacrificer  was 
laid  on  its  head,  the  fat  burnt,  and  the  blood 
sprinkled,  as  in  the  burnt-offering;  of  the  flesh, 
the  breast  and  right  shoulder  were  given  to  the 
priest  ;  the  rest  belonged  to  the  sacrificer,  to  be 
eaten,  either  on  the  day  of  sacrifice,  or  on  the  next 
day  (Lev.  vii.  11-18,  29-34),  except  in  the  case  of 
the  firstlings,  which  belonged  to  the  priest  alonf 


THAKA 

xziii.  20).  The  eating  of  the  flesh  01  the  meat 
offering  was  considered  a  partaking  of  the  "  table 
of  the  Lord  ;"  and  on  solemn  occasions,  as  at  the 
dedication  of  the  Temple  oi  Soloinon,  it  was  con 
ducted  on  an  enormous  scale,  and  became  a  great 
national  feast. 

The  peace-offerings,  unlike  other  sacrifices,  were 
not  ordained  to  be  offered  in  fixed  and  regular 
course.  The  meat-offering  was  regularly  ordained 
as  the  eucharistic  sacrifice  ;  and  the  only  constantly 
recurrtng  peace-offering  appears  to  have  been  that 
of  the  two  firstling  lambs  at  Pentecost  (Lev.  xxiii. 
19).  The  general  principle  of  the  peace-offering 
seems  to  have  been,  that  it  should  be  entirely  spon 
taneous,  offered  as  occasion  should  arise,  from  the 
feeling  of  the  sacrificer  himself.  "  If  ye  offer  a 
sacrifice  of  peace-offerings  to  the  Lord,  ye  shall  offer 
it  at  your  own  will"  (Lev.  xix.  5).  On  the  first 
institution  (Lev.  vii.  11-17),  peace-offerings  are 
divided  into  "  offerings  of  thanksgiving,"  and 
"  vows  or  free-will  offerings  ;"  of  which  latter  class 
the  offering  by  a  Nazarite,  on  the  completion  of 
his  vow,  is  the  most  remarkable  (Num.  vi.  14). 
The  very  names  of  both  divisions  imply  complete 
freedom,  and  show  that  this  sacrifice  differed  from 
others,  in  being  considered  not  a  duty,  but  a 
privilege. 

We  find  accordingly  peace-offerings  offered  for 
the  people  on  a  great  scale  at  periods  of  unusual 
solemnity  or  rejoicing:  as  at  the  first  inaugura 
tion  of  the  covenant  (Ex.  xxiv.  5),  at  the  first  con 
secration  of  Aaron  and  of  the  Tabernacle  (Lev.  ix. 
18),  at  the  solemn  reading  of  the  Law  in  Canaan 
by  Joshua  (Josh.  viii.  31),  at  the  accession  of  Saul 
\\  Sam.  xi.  15),  at  the  bringing  of  the  ark  to 
Mount  Zion  by  David  (2  Sam.  vi.  17),  at  the  con 
secration  of  the  Temple,  and  thrice  every  year  after 
wards,  by  Solomon  (1  K.  viii.  63,  ix.  25),  and  at 
the  great  passover  of  Hezekiah  (2  Chr.  xxx.  22). 
In  two  cases  only  (Judg.  xx.  26  ;  2  Sam.  xxiv.  25) 
peace-offerings  are  mentioned  as  offered  with  burnt- 
offerings  at  a  time  of  national  sorrow  and  fasting. 
Here  their  force  seems  to  have  been  precatory  rather 
than  eucharistic.  [See  SACRIFICE.]  [A.  B.] 

THA'BA(0dipa:  Thare).  TERAH  the  father  of 

Abraham  (Luke  iii.  34). 

THAK'KA  (Thara\  Esth.  xii.  1.  A  corrupt 
form  of  the  name  TERESH. 


THEBES 


1471 


THAK'SHISH  (P'Bhn  :  eap<r«s  :  TMrsis). 
1.  In  this  more  accurate  form  the  translators  of  the 
A.  V.  have  given  in  two  passages  (I  K.  x.  22,  xxii. 
48)  the  name  elsewhere  presented  as  TARSHISH. 
In  the  second  passage  the  name  is  omitted  in  both 
MSS.  of  the  LXX.,  while  the  Vulgate  has  in  mart. 

2.  ('Pa/ieo-o-cu  ;  Alex,  ©aptreis  :  Tkarsis.}  A 
Benjamite,  one  of  the  family  of  Bilhan  and  the  house 
of  Jediael  (1  Chr.  vii.  10  only).  The  variation  in 
the  Vatican  LXX.  (Mai)  is  very  remarkable.  [G.] 

THAS'SI  (Oao-o-i,  ©ao-o-fs:  Thasi,Hassii'.  Syr. 
The  surname  of  Simon  the  son  of  Matta- 


thias  ( I  Mace.  ii.  3).  [MACCABEES,  vol.  ii.  p.  166 .] 
The  derivation  of  the  word  is  uncertain.  Mbhaelis 
suggests  N2HP1,  Chald.  "  the  fresh  grass  springs 

up,"  i.  e.  "the  spring  is  come,"  in  reference  to  the 
tranquillity  first  secured  during  the  supremacy  of 
Simon  (Grimm,  ad  1  Mace.  ii.  3).  This  seems  very 
far-fetched.  Winer  (Eealwb.  "  Simon")  suggests  a 
connexion  with  ODD,  fervere,  as  Grotius  (ad  foe.) 


seems  to  have  done  before  him.  in  Josephus  (Ant. 
xii.  6,  §1)  the  surname  is  written  Marflfjs,  with 
various  readings  Qa^s,  ®aQ-i]s.  [B.  F.  W.I 

THEATRE  (Biarpov :  theatrori).  For  the 
general  subject,  see  Diet,  of  Ant.  pp.  995-998. 
For  the  explanation  of  the  biblical  allusions,  two  or 
three  points  only  require  notice.  The  Greek  term, 
like  the  corresponding  English  term,  denotes  the 
place  where  dramatic  performances  are  exhibited , 
and  also  the  scene  itself  or  spectacle  which  is  wit 
nessed  there.  It  occurs  in  the  first  or  local  sense 
in  Acts  xix.  29,  where  it  is  said  that  the  multitude 
at  Ephesus  rushed  to  the  theatre,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  excitement  stirred  up  against  Paul  and  his 
associates  by  Demetrius,  in  order  to  consider  what 
should  be  done  in  reference  to  the  charges  against 
them.  It  may  be  remarked  also  (although  the 
word  does  not  occur  in  the  original  text  or  in  our 
English  version)  that  it  was  in  the  theatre  at  Cae- 
sarea  that  Herod  Agrippa  I.  gave  audience  to  the 
Tyrian  deputies,  and  was  himself  struck  with  death, 
because  he  heard  so  gladly  the  impious  acclamations 
of  the  people  (Acts  xii.  21-23).  See  the  remark 
ably  confirmatory  account  of  this  event  in  Josephus 
(Ant.  xix.  8,  §2).  Such  a  use  of  the  theatre  for 
public  assemblies  and  the  transaction  of  public  bu 
siness,  though  it  was  hardly  known  among  the 
Romans,  was  a  common  practice  among  the  Greeks. 
Thus  Valer.  Max.  ii.  2:  Legati  in  theatrum,  ut  est 
consuetude)  Graeciae,  introducti.  Justin  xxii.  2 : 
Veluti  reipublicae  statum  formaturus  in  theatrvm 
ad  contionem  vocari  jussit.  Corn.  Nep.  Timol.  4, 
§2 :  Veniebat  in  theatrum,  cum  ibi  concilium  plebis 
hciberetur.  The  other  sense  of  the  term  "  theatre  " 
occurs  in  1  Cor.  iv.  9,  where  the  Common  Version 
renders :  "  God  hath  set  forth  us  the  apostles  last, 
as  it  were  appointed  to  death ;  for  we  are  made 
(rather,  were  made,  Qearpov  e-yei/^flrj^ej/)  a  spec 
tacle  unto  the  world,  and  to  angels,  and  to  men." 
Instead  of  "  spectacle "  (so  also  Wiclif  and  the 
Rhemish  translators  after  the  Vulgate),  some  might 
prefer  the  more  energetic  Saxon,  "  gazing  -stock," 
as  in  Tyndale,  Cranmer,  and  the  Geneva  version. 
But  the  latter  would  be  now  inappropriate,  if  it 
includes  the  idea  of  scorn  or  exultation,  since  the 
angels  look  down  upon  the  sufferings  of  the  martyrs 
with  a  very  different  interest.  Whether  "  theatre" 
denotes  more  here  than  to  be  an  object  of  earnest 
attention  (0ea/ia),  or  refers  at  the  same  time  to  the 
theatre  as  the  place  where  criminals  were  some 
times  brought  forward  for  punishment,  is  not  agreed 
among  interpreters.  In  Heb.  xii.  1,  where  the  writer 
speaks  of  our  having  around  us  "  so  great  a  cloud  ol 
witnesses"  (TOCTOVTOV  UXOVTCS  irepiiceiu.evoi'  TJJUUV 
ve<f>os  /jiapTvpcav),  he  has  in  mind  no  doubt  the  ago 
nistic  scene,  in  which  Christians  are  viewed  as  running 
a  race,  and  not  the  theatre  or  stage  where  the  eyes 
of  the  spectators  are  fixed  on  them.  [H.  B.  H.] 

THEBES  (pON-fcfc  :  Qriftai,  &t6<nro\is, 
/j.€pls  ' AfJLficav ;  in  Jer.  rbv  'Ajj.fj.aw  rbv  vlov 
OUTTJS  :  Alexandria,  Al.  populorum,  tumultus  Alex- 
andriae,  No-Amon  :  A.V.,  No,  the  multitude  of 
No,  populous  No). — A  chief  city  of  ancient 
Egypt,  long  the  capital  of  the  .ipper  country,  and 
the  seat  of  the  Diospolitan  dynasties,  that  ruled 
over  all  Egypt  at  the  era  of  its  highest  splendour. 
Upon  the  monuments  this  city  bears  three  distinct 
names — that  of  the  Nome,  a  sacred  name,  and  tht 
name  by  which  it  is  commonly  known  in  profane 
history.  Of  the  twenty  Nomes  or  districts  into 
which  Upper  Egypt  was  divided,  the  fourth  i.ri 


1472 


THEBES 


order,  proceeding  northward  from  Nubia,  *  \»  de 
signated  in  the  hieroglyphics  as  ZJm — the  Pha- 
thyrite  of  the  Greeks — and  Thebes  appears  as  the 
"  Za'm-citj,"  the  principal  city  or  metropolis  of 
the  Za'm  Nome,  in  later  times  the  name  Za'm 
was  applied  in  common  speech  to  a  particular 
locality  on  the  western  side  of  Thebes. 

The  sacred  name  of  Thebes  was  P-amen,  "  the 
abode  of  Amon,"  which  the  Greeks  reproduced  in 
their  Diospolis  (Aibs  Tr6\is),  especially  with  the 
addition  the  Great  (f)  /jLeyd\r]},  denoting  that  this 
was  the  chief  seat  of  Jupiter-Ammon,  and  distin 
guishing  it  from  Diospolis  the  Less  (^  /juxpa). 
.No-Amon  is  the  name  of  Thebes  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  (Jer.  xlvi.  25;  Nah.  iii.  8).  Eze- 
kiel  uses  No  simply  to  designate  the  Egyptian 
seat  of  Ammon,  which  the  Septuagint  translates 
by  Diospolis  (Ez.  xxx.  14,  16).  Gesenius  defines 
this  name  by  the  phrase  "  portion  of  Ammon," 
i.  e.  the  possession  of  the  god  Ammon,  as  the  chief 
seat  of  his  worship. 

The  name  of  Thebes  in  the  hieroglyphics  is 
explained  under  No- AMON. 

The  origin  of  the  city  is,  lost  in  antiquity. 
Niebuhr  is  of  opinion  that  Thebes  was  much  older 
than  Memphis,  and  that  "  after  the  centre  of  Egyp 
tian  life  was  transferred  to  Lower  Egypt,  Memphis 
acquired  its  greatness  through  the  ruin  of  Thebes  " 
{Lectures  on  Ancient  History,  Lect.  vii.).  Other 
authorities  assign  priority  to  Memphis.  But  both 
cities  date  from  our  earliest  authentic  knowledge  of 
Egyptian  history.  The  first  allusion  to  Thebes  in 
classical  literature  is  the  familiar  passage  of  the  Iliad 
(ix.  381-385) :— "  Egyptian  Thebes,  where  are  vast 
treasures  laid  up  in  the  houses ;  where  are  a  hun 
dred  gates,  and  from  each  two  hundred  men  go 
forth  with  horses  and  chariots."  Homer — speaking 
with  a  poet's  licence,  and  not  with  the  accuracy  of 
a  statistician — no  doubt  incorporated  into  his  verse 
the  glowing  accounts  of  the  Egyptian  capital  cur 
rent  in  his  time.  Wilkinson  thinks  it  conclusive 
against  a  literal  understanding  of  Homer,  that  no 
traces  of  an  ancient  city-wall  can  be  found  at  Thebes, 
and  accepts  as  probable  the  suggestion  of  Diodorus 
Siculus  that  the  "  gates "  of  Homer  may  have 
been  the  propylaea  of  the  temples : — ' '  Non  centum 
portas  habuisse  urbem,  sed  multa  et  ingentia  tem- 
plorum  vestibula"  (i.  45,  7).  In  the  time  of 
Diodorus,  the  city- wall,  if  any  there  was,  had  already 
disappeared,  and  the  question  of  its  existence  in 
Homer's  time  was  in  dispute.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  regard  the  "  gates"  of  Homer  as  temple- 
porches  is  to  make  these  the  barracks  of  the  army, 
since  from  these  gates  the  horsemen  and  chariots 
issue  forth  to  war.  The  almost  universal  custom 
of  walling  the  cities  of  antiquity,  and  the  poet's 
reference  to  the  gates  as  pouring  forth  troops,  point 
strongly  to  the  supposition  that  the  vast  area  of 
Thebes  was  surrounded  with  a  wall  having  many 
gates. 

Homer's  allusion  to  the  treasures  of  the  city,  and 
to  the  size  of  its  standing  army,  numbering  20,000 
chariots,  shows  the  early  repute  of  Thebes  for 
wealth  and  power.  Its  fame  as  a  great  capital  had 
crossed  the  sea  when  Greece  was  yet  in  its  infancy 
as  a  nation.  It  has  been  questioned  whether  Hero 
dotus  visited  Upper  Egypt,  (see  Diet,  of  Greek 
and  Rom.  Geog.  art.  "  Thebes"),  but  he  says, 
11 1  went  to  Heliopolis  and  to  Thebes,  expressly  to 
try  whether  the  priests  of  those  places  would  agree 
in  their  accounts  with  the  priests  at  Memphis " 
Herod,  ii.  3V  Afterwards  he  describes  the  features 


THEBES 

of  the  Nile  valley,  and  the  chief  points  and  distanceo 
upon  the  river,  as  only  an  eye-witness  would  be 
likely  to  record  them.  He  informs  us  that  "  from 
Heliopolis  to  Thebes  is  nine  days'  sail  up  the  river, 
the  distance  4800  stadia ....  and  the  distance  from 
the  sea  inland  to  Thebes  6120  stadia"  (Herod,  ij. 
8,  9).  In  chap.  29  of  the  same  book  he  states  that 
he  ascended  the  Nile  as  high  as  Elephantine".  Hero 
dotus,  however,  gives  no  particular  account  of  th<? 
city,  which  in  his  time  had  lost  much  of  its  ancient 
grandeur.  He  alludes  to  the  temple  of  Jupiter 
there,  with  its  ram-headed  image,  and  to  the  fact 
that  goats,  never  sheep,  were  offered  in  sacrifice. 
In  the  1st  century  before  Christ,  Diodorus  visited 
Thebes,  and  he  devotes  several  sections  of  his  general 
work  to  its  history  and  appearance.  Though  he 
saw  the  city  when  it  had  sunk  to  quite  secondary 
importance,  he  preserves  the  tradition  of  its  early 
grandeur — its  circuit  of  140  stadia,  the  size  of  its 
public  edifices,  the  magnificence  of  its  temples,  the 
number  of  its  monuments,  the  dimensions  of  ita 
private  houses,  some  of  them  four  or  five  stories 
high — all  giving  it  an  air  of  grandeur  and  beauty 
surpassing  not  only  all  other  cities  of  Egypt,  but 
of  the  world.  Diodorus  deplores  the  spoiling  of  its 
buildings  and  monuments  by  Cambyses  (Diod.  i.  45, 
46).  Strabo,  who  visited  Egypt  a  little  later — at 
about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era — thus  de 
scribes  (xvii.  p.  816)  the  city  under  the  name  Dios 
polis  : — "  Vestiges  of  its  magnitude  still  exist  which 
extend  80  stadia  in  length.  There  are  a  great  number 
of  temples,  many  of  which  Cambyses  mutilated.  The 
spot  is  at  present  occupied  by  villages.  One  part  of 
it,  in  which  is  the  city,  lies  in  Arabia ;  another  is  in 
the  country  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  vhere  is 
the  Memnonium."  Strabo  here  makes  the  Nile  the 
dividing  line  between  Libya  and  Arabia.  The 
temples  of  Karnak  and  Luxor  are  on  tne  eastern 
side  of  the  river,  where  was  probably  tho  main 
part  of  the  city.  Strabo  gives  the  following  de 
scription  of  the  twin  colossi  still  standing  upon  the 
western  plain : — "  Here  are  two  colossal  figures  near 
one  another,  each  consisting  of  a  single  stone.  One 
is  entire;  the  upper  parts  of  the  other,  from  the 
chair,  are  fallen  down — the  effect,  it  is  sail,  of  an 
earthquake.  It  is  believed  that  once  a  day  a  noise, 
as  of  a  slight  blow,  issues  from  the  part  of  the 
statue  which  remains  in  the  seat,  and  on  its  base. 
When  I  was  at  those  places,  with  Aelius  Gallus, 
and  numerous  friends  and  soldiers  about  him,  I 
heard  a  noise  at  the  first  hour  of  the  day,  but  whe 
ther  proceeding  from  the  base,  or  from  the  colossus, 
or  produced  on  purpose  by  some  of  those  standing 
around  the  base,  1  cannot  confidently  assert.  For, 
from  the  uncertainty  of  the  cause,  I  am  inclined  to 
believe  anything  rather  than  that  stones  disposed 
in  that  manner  could  send  forth  sound"  (xvii. 
§46).  Simple,  honest,  sceptical  Strabo !  Eighteen 
centuries  later,  the  present  writer  interrogated  these 
same  stones  as  to  the  ancient  mystery  of  sound ; 
and  not  at  sunrise,  but  in  the  glaring  noon,  the 
status  emitted  a  sharp,  clear  sound  like  the  ringing 
of  a  disc  of  brass  under  a  sudden  concussion.  This 
was  produced  by  a  ragged  urchin,  who,  for  a  few 
piastres,  clambered  up  the  knees  of  the  "  vocal 
Memnon,"  and  there  effectually  concealing  himself 
from  observation,  struck  with  a  hammer  a  sonorous 
stone  in  the  lap  of  the  statue.  Wilkinson,  who  was 
one  of  the  first  to  describe  this  sounding  stone, 
conjectures  that  the  priests  had  a  secret  chamber  in 
the  body  of  the  statue,  from  which  they  could 
strike  it  unobserved  at  the  instant  of  satirise :  thus 


THEBES 

pjoducing  in  the  credulous  multitude  the  notion 
of  a  supernatural  phenomenon.  It  is  difficult  to 
conceive,  however,  that  such  a  trick,  performed  in 
open  day,  could  have  escaped  detection,  and  we  are 
therefore  left  to  share  the  mingled  wonder  and 
scepticism  of  Strabo  (see  Wilkinson ;  also  Thomp 
son's  Photographic  Views  of  Egypt,  Past  and  Pre 
sent,  p.  156). 

Pliny  speaks  of  Thebes  in  Egypt  as  known  to 
fame  as  "  a  hanging  city,"  i.  e,  built  upon  arches, 
so  that  an  army  could  be  led  forth  from  beneath 
the  city  while  the  inhabitants  above  were  wholly 
unconscious  of  it.  He  mentions  also  that  the  river 
flows  through  the  middle  of  the  city.  But  he 
questions  the  story  of  the  arches,  because,  "  if  this 
had  really  been  the  case,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
Homer  would  have  mentioned  it,  seeing  that  he 
has  celebrated  the  hundred  gates  of  Thebes."  Do 
not  the  two  stories  possibly  explain  each  other? 
May  there  not  have  been  near  the  river-line  arched 
buildings  used  as  barracks,  from  whose  gateways 
issued  forth  20,000  chariots  of  war  ? 

But,  in  the  uncertainty  of  these  historical  allu 
sions,  the  monuments  of  Thebes  are  the  most  reli 
able  witnesses  for  the  ancient  grandeur  of  the  city. 
These  are  found  in  almost  equal  proportions  upon 
both  sides  of  the  river.  The  parallel  ridges  which 
skirt  the  narrow  Nile  valley  upon  the  east  and  west 
from  the  northern  limit  of  Upper  Egypt,  here  sweep 
outward  upon  either  side,  forming  a  circular  plain 
whose  diameter  is  nearly  ten  miles.  Through  the 
centre  of  this  plain  flows  the  river,  usually  at  this 
point  about  half  a  mile  in  width,  but  at  the  inun 
dation  overflowing  the  plain,  especially  upon  the 
western  bank,  for  a  breadth  of  two  or  more  miles. 
Thus  the  two  colossal  statues,  which  are  several 
hundred  yards  from  the  bed  of  the  low  Nile,  have 
accumulated  about  their  bases  alluvial  deposit  to 
the  depth  of  seven  feet. 

The  plan  of  the  city,  as  indicated  by  the  principal 
monuments,  was  nearly  quadrangular,  measuring 
two  miles  from  north  to  south,  and  four  from  east 
to  west.  Its  four  great  landmarks  were,  Karnak 
and  Luxor  upon  the  eastern  or  Arabian  side,  and 
Qoornah  and  Medeenet  Haboo  upon  the  western  or 
Libyan  side.  There  are  indications  that  each  of 
these  temples  may  have  been  connected  with  those 
facing  it  upon  two  sides  by  grand  dromoi,  lined 
with  sphinxes  and  other  colossal  figures.  Upon  the 
western  bank  there  was  almost  a  continuous  line 
of  temples  and  public  edifices  for  a  distance  of  two 
miles,  from  Qoornah  to  Medeenet  Haboo ;  and  Wil 
kinson  conjectures  that  from  a  point  near  the  latter, 
perhaps  in  the  line  of  the  colossi,  the  •'  Royal 
Street"  ran  down  to  the  river,  which  was  crossed 
by  a  ferry  terminating  at  Luxor  on  the  eastern 
side.  The  recent  excavations  and  discoveries  of 
M.  Mariette,  now  in  course  of  publication  (1863), 
may  enable  us  to  restore  the  ground-plan  of  the 
city  and  its  principal  edifices  with  at  least  proxi 
mate  accuracy. 

It  does  not  enter  into  the  design,  nor  would  it 
fall  within  the  limits  of  this  article,  to  give  a 
minute  description  of  these  stupendous  monuments. 
Not  only  are  verbal  descriptions  everywhere  ac 
cessible  through  the  pages  of  Wilkinson,  Kenrick, 
and  other  standard  writers  upon  Egypt,  but  the 
magnificently  illustrated  work  of  Lepsius,  already 
completed,  the  companion  work  of  M.  Mariette, 
just  referred  to,  and  multiplied  photographs  of  the 
principal  ruins,  are  within  easy  reach  of  the  scholar 
through  the  munificence  of  public  libraries.  A  mere 

^rOL.  U  f 


THEBKS 


1473 


outline  of  the  groups  of  ruins  must  here  suffice. 
Beginning  at  the  northern  extremity  on  the  western 
bank,  the  first  conspicuous  ruins  are  Jiose  of  * 
palace-temple  of  the  nineteenth  dynasty,  and  there 
fore  belonging  to  the  middle  style  of  Egyptian 
architecture.  It  bears  the  name  Mencphtheion, 
suggested  by  Champollion  because  it  appears  tc 
have  been  founded  by  Menephthah  (the  Osirei  of 
Wilkinson),  though  built  principally  by  his  son 
the  great  Rameses.  The  plan  of  the  building  is 
much  obscured  by  mounds  of  rubbish,  but  some 
of  the  bas-reliefs  are  in  a  fine  state  of  preservation. 
There  are  traces  of  a  dromos,  128  feet  in  length, 
with  sphinxes,  whose  fragments  here  and  there 
remain.  This  building  stands  upon  a  slight  ele 
vation,  nearly  a  mile  from  the  river,  in  the  now 
deserted  village  of  old  Qoornah. 

Nearly  a  mile  southward  from  the  Menephtheion 
are  the  remains  of  the  combined  palace  and  temple 
known  since  the  days  of  Strabo  as  the  Memnonium. 
An  examination  of  its  sculptures  shows  that  this 
name  was  inaccurately  applied,  since  the  building 
was  clearly  erected  by  Kameses  II.  Wilkinson 
suggests  that  the  title  Miamun  attached  to  the 
name  of  this  king  misled  Strabo  in  his  designation 
of  the  building.  The  general  form  of  the  Mem 
nonium  is  that  of  a  parallelogram  in  three  main 
sections,  the  interior  areas  being  successively  nar 
rower  than  the  first  court,  and  the  whole  ter 
minating  in  a  series  of  sacred  chambers  beautifully 
sculptured  and  ornamented.  The  proportions  M 
this  building  are  remarkably  fine,  and  its  remains 
are  in  a  sufficient  state  of  preservation  to  enable 
one  to  reconstruct  its  plan.  From  the  first  court 
or  area,  nearly  180  feet  square,  there  is  an  ascent 
by  steps  to  the  second  court,  140  feet  by  170. 
Upon  three  sides  of  this  area  is  a  double  colonnade, 
and  on  the  south  side  a  single  row  of  Osiride 
pillars,  facing  a  row  of  like  pillars  on  the  north, 
the  other  columns  being  circular.  Another  ascent 
leads  to  the  hall,  100  X  133,  which  originally 
had  forty-eight  huge  columns  to  support  its  solid 
roof.  Beyond  the  hall  are  the  sacred  chambers. 
The  historical  sculptures  upon  the  walls  and 
columns  of  the  Memnonium  are  among  the  most 
finished  and  legible  of  the  Egyptian  monuments. 
But  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  these  ruins 
is  the  gigantic  statue  of  Rameses  II.,  once  a  single 
block  of  syenite  canred  to  represent  the  king  upon 
his  throne,  but  now  scattered  in  fragments  upon  the 
floor  of  the  first  hall.  The  weight  of  this  statue 
has  been  computed  at  887  tons,  and  its  height  at 
75  feet.  By  measurement  of  the  fragments,  the 
writer  found  the  body  51  feet  around  the  shoulders, 
the  arm  11  feet  6  inches  from  shoulder  to  elbow, 
and  the  foot  10  feet  10  inches  in  length,  by  4  feet 
8  inches  in  breadth.  This  stupendous  monolith 
must  have  been  transported  at  least  a  hundred 
miles  from  the  quarries  of  Assouan.  About  a 
third  of  a  mile  farther  to  the  south  are  the  two 
colossal  statues  already  referred  to,  one  of  which 
is  familiarly  known  as  "  the  vocal  Menanon."  The 
height  of  each  figure  is  about  53  feet  above  the 
plain. 

Proceeding  again  toward  the  south  for  about  the 
same  distance,  we  find  at  Medeenet  Haboo  ruins 
upon  a  more  stupendous  scale  than  at  any  other 
point  upon  the  western  bank  of  Thebes.  These 
consist  of  a  temple  founded  by  Thothmes  I.,  but 
which  also  exhibits  traces  of  the  Ptolemaic  archi 
tecture  in  the  shape  of  pyramidal  towers,  gate 
ways,  colonnades,  acd  vestibules,  inscribed  with  the 

ft  B 


1474 


THEBES 


memorials  of  the  Roman  ei'a  in  Egypt.  This 
temple,  even  with  all  its  additions,  is  compara 
tively  small ;  but  adjacent  to  it  is  the  magnificent 
ruin  known  as  the  southern  Kameseion,  the  palace- 
temple  of  Rameses  III.  The  general  plan  of  this 
building  corresponds  with  those  above  described ; 
a  series  of  grand  courts  or  halls  adorned  with 
columns,  conducting  to  the  inner  pavilion  of  the 
king  or  sanctuary  of  the  god.  The  second  court 
is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  Egypt  for  the 
massiveness  of  its  columns,  which  measure  24  feet 
in  height  by  a  circumference  of  nearly  23.  Within 
this  area  are  the  fallen  columns  of  a  Christian 
church,  which  once  established  the  worship  of  the 
true  God  in  the  very  sanctuary  of  idols  and  amid 
their  sculptured  images  and  symbols.  This  temple 
presents  «>ome  of  the  grandest  effects  of  the  old 
Egyptian  architecture,  and  its  battle-scenes  are  a 
valuable  contribution  to  the  history  of  Rameses  III. 
Behind  this  long  range  of  temples  and  palaces 
are  the  Libyan  hills,  which,  for  a  distance  of  five 
miles,  are  excavated  to  the  depth  of  several  hun 
dred  feet  for  sepulchral  chambers.  Some  of  these 
are  of  vast  extent — one  tomb,  for  instance,  having 
a  total  area  of  22,217  square  feet.  A  retired  valley 
in  the  mountains,  now  known  as  Beeban-el-Melook, 
seems  to  have  been  appropriated  to  the  sepulchres 
of  kings.  Some  of  these,  in  the  number  and  variety 
of  their  chambers,  the  finish  of  their  sculptures, 
and  the  beauty  and  freshness  of  their  frescoes,  are 
among  the  most  remarkable  monuments  of  Egyptian 
grandeur  and  skill.  It  is  from  the  tombs  especially 
that  we  learn  the  manners  and  customs  of  domestic 
life,  as  from  the  temples  we  gather  the  record  of 
dynasties  and  the  history  of  battles.  The  preserva 
tion  of  these  sculptured  and  pictorial  records  is  due 
mainly  to  the  dry  ness  of  the  climate.  The  sacred- 
ness  with  which  the  Egyptians  regarded  their  dead 
preserved  these  mountain  catacombs  from  molesta 
tion  during  the  long  succession  of  native  dynasties, 
and  the  sealing  up  of  the  entrance  to  the  tomb  for 
the  concealment  of  the  sarcophagus  from  human 
observation  until  its  mummied  occupant  should  re 
sume  his  long-suspended  life,  has  largely  secured 
the  city  of  the  dead  from  the  violence  of  invaders 
and  the  ravages  of  time.  It  is  from  the  adornments 
of  these  subterranean  tombs,  often  distinct  and  fresh 
as  when  prepared  by  the  hand  of  the  artist,  that 
we  derive  our  principal  knowledge  of  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  Egyptians.  Herodotus  himself 
is  not  more  minute  and  graphic  than  these  silent 
but  most  descriptive  walls.  The  illustration  and 
confirmation  which  they  bring  to  the  sacred  nar 
rative,  so  well  discussed  by  Hengstenberg,  Osborn, 
Poole,  and  others,  is  capable  of  much  ampler 
treatment  than  it  has  yet  received.  Eveiy  inci 
dent  in  the  pastoral  and  agricultural  life  of  the 
Israelites  in  Egypt  and  in  the  exactions  of  their 
servitude,  every  art  employed  in  the  fabrication 
of  the  tabernacle  in  the  wilderness,  every  allusion 
to  Egyptian  rites,  customs,  laws,  finds  some 
counterpart  or  illustration  in  this  picture-history 
of  Egypt ;  and  whenever  the  Theban  cemetery 
shall  be  thoroughly  explored,  and  its  symbols 
and  hieroglyphics  fully  interpreted  by  science, 
we  shall  have  a  commentary  of  unrivalled  interest 
and  value  upon  the  books  of  Exodus  and  Leviticus, 
as  well  as  the  later  historical  books  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures.  The  art  of  photography  is  already  con 
tributing  to  this  result  by  furnishing  scholars  with 
materials  for  the  leisurely  study  of  the  pictorial 
and  monumental  records  of  Egypt. 


THEBES 

The  eastern  side  of  the  river  is  distinguished  by 
the  remains  of  Luxor  and  KarnaK,  the  latter  bein£ 
of  itself  a  city  of  temples.  The  main  colonnade  «.  1 
Luxor  faces  the  river,  but  its  principal  entrance 
looks  northward  towards  Karnak,  with  which  it 
was  originally  connected  by  a  dromos  6000  feet  in 
length,  lined  on  either  side  with  sphinxes.  At  this 
entrance  are  two  gigantic  statues  of  Rameses  II.,  one 
upon  each  side  of  the  grand  gateway ;  and  in  front 
of  these  formerly  stood  a  pair  of  beautifully  wrought 
obelisks  of  red  granite,  one  of  which  new  graces  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  at  Paris. 

The  approach  to  Karnak  from  the  south  is  marked 
by  a  series  of  majestic  gateways  and  towers,  which 
were  the  appendages  of  later  times  to  the  original 
structure.  The  temple  properly  faces  the  river, 
i.  e.  toward  the  north-west.  The  courts  and  pro- 
pylaea  connected  with  this  structure  occupy  a  space 
nearly  1 800  feet  square,  and  the  buildings  represent 
almost  every  dynasty  of  Egypt,  from  Sesortasen  I. 
to  Ptolemy  Euergetes  I.  Courts,  pylons,  obelisks, 
statues,  pillars,  everything  pertaining  to  Karnak, 
are  on  the  grandest  scale.  Nearest  the  river  is  an 
area  measuring  275  feet  by  329,  which  once  had  a 
covered  corridor  on  either  side,  and  a  double  row 
of  columns  through  the  centre,  leading  to  the 
entrance  of  the  hypostyle  hall,  the  most  wonderful 
monument  of  Egyptian  architecture.  This  grand 
hall  is  a  forest  of  sculptured  columns ;  in  the  cen- 
ti-al  avenue  are  twelve,  measuring  each  66  feet  in 
height  by  12  in  diameter,  which  formerly  supported 
the  most  elevated  portion  of  the  roof,  answering  to 
the  clerestory  in  Gothic  architecture ;  on  either  side 
of  these  are  seven  rows,,  each  column  nearly  42  feet 
high  by  9  in  diameter,  making  a  total  of  134  pillars 
in  an  area  measuring  170  feet  by  330.  Most  of 
the  pillars  are  yet  standing  in  their  original  site, 
though  in  many  p>aces  the  roof  has  fallen  in.  A 
moonlight  view  of  this  hall  is  the  most  weird  and 
impressive  scene  to  be  witnessed  among  all  the  ruins 
of  antiquity — the  Coliseum  of  Rome  not  excepted. 
With  our  imperfect  knowledge  of  mechanic  arts 
among  the  Egyptians,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive 
how  the  outer  wall  of  Karnak — forty  feet  in  thick 
ness  at  the  base,  and  nearly  a  hundred  feet  high — 
was  built ;  how  single  blocks  weighing  several  hun 
dred  tons  were  lifted  into  their  place  in  the  wall, 
or  hewn  into  obelisks  and  statues  to  adorn  its  gates  ; 
how  the  majestic  columns  of  the  Grand  Hall  were 
quarried, "sculptured,  and  set  up  in  mathematical 
order;  and  how  the  whole  stupendous  structure 
was  reared  as  a  fortress  in  which  the  most  ancient 
civilization  of  the  world,  as  it  were  petrified  or 
fossilized  in  the  very  flower  of  its  strength  and 
beauty,  might  defy  the  desolations  of  war,  and  the 
decay  of  centuries.  The  grandeur  of  Egypt  is  here 
in  its  architecture,  and  almost  every  pillar,  obelisk, 
and  stone  tells  its  historic  legend  of  her  greatest 
monarchs. 

We  have  alluded,  in  the  opening  of  this  article, 
to  the  debated  question  of  the  priority  of  Thebes  to 
Memphis.  As  yet  the  data  are  not  sufficient  for 
its  satisfactory  solution,  and  Egyptologists  are  not 
agreed.  Upon  the  whole  we  may  conclude  that 
before  the  time  of  Menes  there  was  a  local  sove 
reignty  in  the  Thebaid,  but  the  historical  nationality 
of~Egypt  dates  from  the  founding  of  Memphis. 
"  It  is  probable  that  the  priests  of  Memphis  and 
Thebes  differed  in  their  representations  of  early  his 
tory,  and  that  each  sought  to  extol  the  glory  of 
their  own  city.  The  history  of  Herodotus  turu-j 
about  Memphis  ac  a  centre;  he  mentions  Thebes 


THEBES 

only  incidentally,  and  does  not  describe  or  allude  to 
one  of  its  monnments.  Diodorus,  on  the  contrary, 
;s  full  in  his  description  of  Thebes,  and  says  little 
of  Memphis.  But  the  distinction  of  Upper  and 
Lower  Egypt  exists  in  geological  structure,  in  lan 
guage,  in  religion,  and  in  historical  tradition  "  (Ken- 
rick).  A  careful  digest  of  the  Egyptian  and  Greek 
authorities,  the  Turin  papyrus,  and  the  monumental 
tablets  of  Abydos  and  Karnak,  gives  this  general 
outline  of  the  early  history  of  Egypt : — That  before 
Memphis  was  built,  the  nation  was  mainly  confined 
to  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  and  subdivided  politically 
into  several  sovereignties,  of  which  Thebes  was  one  ; 
that  Menes,  who  was  a  native  of  This  in  the  The- 
baid,  centralised  the  government  at  Memphis,  and 
united  the  upper  and  lower  countries ;  that  Mem 
phis  retained  its  pre-eminence,  even  in  the  hereditary 
succession  of  sovereigns,  until  the  twelfth  and  thir 
teenth  dynasties  of  Manetho,  when  Diospolitan  kings 
appear  in  his  lists,  who  brought  Thebes  into  pro 
minence  as  a  royal  city ;  that  when  the  Shepherds 
or  Hyksos,  a  nomadic  race  from  the  east,  invaded 
Egypt  and  fixed  their  capital  at  Memphis,  a  native 
Egyptian  dynasty  was  maintained  at  Thebes,  at 
times  tributary  to  the  Hyksos,  and  at  times  in 
military  alliance  with  Ethiopia  against  the  invaders ; 
until  at  length,  by  a  general  uprising  of  the  The- 
baid,  the  Hyksos  were  expelled,  and  Thebes  became 
the  capital  of  all  Egypt  under  the  resplendent 
eighteenth  dynasty.  This  was  the  golden  era  of 
the  city  as  we  have  already  described  it  from  its 
monuments.  The  names  and  deeds  of  the  Thothmes 
and  the  Rameses  then  figure  upon  its  temples  and 
palaces,  representing  its  wealth  and  grandeur  in 
architecture,  and  its  prowess  in  arms.  Then  it  was 
that  Thebes  extended  her  sceptre  over  Libya  and 
Ethiopia  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  over 
Syria,  Media,  and  Persia ;  so  that  the  walls  of  her 
palaces  and  temples  are  crowded  with  battle-scenes 
in  which  all  contiguous  nations  appear  as  captives 
or  as  suppliants.  This  supremacy  continued  until 
the  close  of  the  nineteenth  dynasty,  or  for  a  period 
of  more  than  five  hundred  years;  but  under  the 
twentieth  dynasty — the  Diospolitan  house  of  Ra 
meses  numbering  ten  kings  of  that  name — the  glory 
of  Thebes  began  to  decline,  and  after  the  close  of 
that  dynasty  her  name  no  more  appears  in  the  lists 
of  kings.  Still  the  city  was  retained  as  the  capital, 
in  whole  or  in  part,  and  the  achievements  of  Shi- 
shonk  the  Bubastite,  of  Tirhakah  the  Ethiopian, 
and  other  monarchs  of  celebrity,  are  recorded  upon 
its  walls.  The  invasion  of  Palestine  by  Shishonk 
is  graphically  depicted  upon  the  outer  wall  of  the 
grand  hall  of  Karnak,  and  the  names  of  several 
towns  in  Palestine,  as  well  as  the  general  name  of 
"  the  land  of  the  king  of  Judah,"  have  been  de 
ciphered  from  the  hieroglyphics.  At  the  later  in 
vasion  of  Judea  by  Sennacherib,  we  find  Tirhakah, 
the  Ethiopian  monarch  of  the  Thebaid,  a  powerful 
ally  of  the  Jewish  king.  But  a  century  later, 
Ezekiel  proclaims  the  destruction  of  Thebes  by  the 
arm  of  Babylon: — "I  will  execute  judgments  in 
No ;"  "  I  will  cut  off  the  multitude  of  No  ;"  "  No 
shall  be  rent  asunder,  and  Noph  [Memphis]  shall 
have  distresses  daily  "  (Ez.  xxx.  14-16)  ;  and  Jere 
miah,  predicting  the  same  overthrow,  says,  "  The 
Lord  of  Hosts,  the  God  of  Israel  saith,  Behold,  I 
will  punish  the  multitude  of  No,  and  Pharaoh,  and 
Egypt,  with  their  gods  and  their  kings."  The  Per 
sian  invader  completed  the  destruction  that  the 
Babylonian  had  begun  ;  the  hammer  of  Cambyses 
levelled  the  proud  statue  of  Rameses,  and  his  torch 


THEMAN 


1475 


consumed  the  temples  and  palac»s  of  the  city  of  the 
hundred  gates.  No-Ammon,  the  shrine  of  the 
Egyptian  Jupiter,  "  that  was  situate  among  the 
rivers,  and  whose  rampart  was  the  sea,"  sank  from 
its  metropolitan  splendour  to  the  position  of  a  mere 
provincial  town  ;  and,  notwithstanding  the  spasmodic 
efforts  of  the  Ptolemies  to  revive  its  ancient  glory. 
became  at  last  only  the  desolate  and  ruined  sepulchre 
of  the  empire  it  had  once  embodied.  It  lies  to-da) 
a  nest  of  Arab  hovels  amid  crumbling  columns  and 
drifting  sands.  [J.  P.  T.] 


THE'BEZ  (fin  :  &^s,  ©a^aai  ;  Alex.  ©at- 
jSats,  ©a/xoo-ec  Thebes).  A  place  memorable  for  the 
death  of  the  bravo  Abimelech  (Judg.  ix.  50  BX  After 
suffocating  a  thousand  of  the  Shechemrites  in  the 
hold  of  Baal-berith  by  the  smoke  of  green  wood  — 
an  exploit  which  recals  the  notorious  feat  of  a 
modei'n  French  general  in  Algeria  (Eccl.  i.  9,  10) 
—  he  went  off  with  his  band  to  Thebez.  The  town 
was  soon  taken,  all  but  one  tower,  into  which  the 
people  of  the  place  crowded,  and  which  was  strong 
enough  to  hold  out.  To  this  he  forced  his  way,  and 
was  about  to  repeat  the  barbarous  stratagem  which 
had  succeeded  so  well  at  Shechem,  when  the  frag 
ment  of  millstone  descended  and  put  an  end  to  his 
turbulent  career.  The  story  was  well  known  in 
Israel,  and  gave  the  point  to  a  familiar  maxim  in 
the  camp  (2  Sam.  xi.  21). 

Thebez  is  rrot  mentioned  again  in  the  Bible.  But 
it  was  known  to  Eusebius  and  Jerome.  In  their 
day  the  village  still  bore  its  old  name,  and  was 
situated  "in  the  district  of  Ncapolis,"  13  Roman 
miles  therefrom,  on  the  road  to  Scythopolis  (Onom. 
®-fl&i)s).  There  it  still  is;  its"  name—  Tubas  — 
hardly  changed  ;  the  village  on  a  rising  ground  to 
the  left  of  the  road,  a  thriving,  compact,  and  strong- 
looking  place,  surrounded  by  immense  woods  of 
olives,  and  by  perhaps  the  best  cultivated  land  in 
all  Palestine.  It  was  known  to  hap-Parchi  in  the 
13th  century  (Zunz's  Benjamin,  ii.  426),  and  is 
mentioned  occasionally  by  later  travellers.  But 
Dr.  Robinson  appears  to  have  been  the  first  to  recog 
nise  its  identity  with  Thebez  (B.  R.  iii.  305).  [G.] 

THECO'E,  THE  WILDERNESS  OF  (rfr 
epTjjtiov  0e/co>e  :  desertum  Thecuae).  The  wild  un 
cultivated  pastoral  tract  lying  around  the  town  of 
Tekoa,  more  especially  to  the  east  of  it  (1  Mace,  ix, 
33).  In  the  Old  Test.  (2  ChrJ  xx.  20)  it  is  men 
tioned  by  the  term  Midbar,  which  answers  to  the 
Greek  eprj/uos. 

Thecoe  is  merely  the  Greek  form  of  the  name 
TEKOA.  [G.] 


THEL'ASAE  p^fcn  :  ©aeo-flcV  ;  Alex,  ©a- 
\a(T<rap  :  Thelassar).  Another  form  of  the  name 
examined  under  TEL-ASSAR.  It  occurs  2  K.  xix. 
12.  The  A.  V.  is  unfortunate  in  respect  of  this 
name,  for  it  has  contrived  to  give  the  contracted 
Hebrew  form  in  the  longest  English  shape,  and 


vice  versa. 


THELER'SAS  (©eXepo-Ss:  Thelharsa),  1  Esd. 
v.  36.  The  Greek  equivalent  of  the  name  TEL- 

HARSAS. 

THE'MAN  (©at/xav :  Theman],  Bar.  iii.  22, 23. 

[TEMAN.] 

a  In  the  Hebrew  text  Thebez  occurs  twice  in  the  verse, 
but  in  the  LXX.  it  stands  thus,  "  And  Abimelech  went  out 
of  Bethelberith  (Vulg.  inde)  and  fell  upon  Thebes,"  «fcc 

5  B   2 


1476 


THEOCANUS 


THEOCA'NUS  (Qcwicavos ;  Alex.  Qwicav6s: 
T/iecarri),  TIKVAH  the  lather  of  Jahaziah  (1  Esd. 
ix.  U\ 

THEODOTUS  (0e<J5oTos:  Theodotius,  Theo- 
dorus).  An  envoy  sent  by  Nicanor  to  Judas  Mace, 
c.  B.C.  162  (2  Mace.  xiv.  19).  [B.  F.  W.] 

THEOPH'ILUS  (0e<tyiAos).  1.  The  per.son 
to  whom  St.  Luke  inscribes  his  Gospel  and  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  (Luke  i.  3;  Acts  i.  1).  The  im 
portant  part  played  by  Theophilus,  as  having  imme 
diately  occasioned  the  composition  of  these  two 
books,  together  with  the  silence  of  Scripture  con 
cerning  him,  has  at  once  stimulated  conjecture,  and 
left  the  field  clear  for  it.  Accordingly  we  meet 
with  a  considerable  number  and  variety  of  theories 
concerning  him. 

(1.)  Several  commentators,  especially  among  the 
Fathers,  have  been  disposed  to  doubt  the  personality 
of  Theophilus,  regarding  the  name  either  as  that  of 
a  fictitious  person,  or  as  applicable  to  every  Chris 
tian  reader.  Thus  Origen  (Horn.  i.  in  ZMC.)  raises 
the  question,  but  does  not  discuss  it,  his  object  being 
merely  practical.  He  says  that  all  who  are  beloved 
of  God  are  Theophili,  and  may  therefore  appropriate 
to  themselves  the  Gospel  which  was  addressed  to 
Theophilus.  Epiphanius  (Haeres.  li.  p.  429)  speaks 
doubtfully :  fir  vuv  rivl  ®€o^i\cf  r6rf  ypaQcov 
e \eyev,  J)  Travr]  a.vQp&irq>  ®ebv  ayaircovn.  Salvi- 
finus  (Epist.  ix.  ad  Saloninm}  apparently  assumes 
that  Theophilus  had  no  historical  existence.  He 
justifies  the  composition  of  a  work  addressed  "  Ad 
Ecclesiam  Catholicam,"  under  the  name  of  Timo- 
theus,  by  the  example  of  the  Evangelist  St.  Luke, 
who  addressed  his  Gospel  nominally  to  a  particular 
man,  but  really  to  "  the  love  of  God :"  "  nam  sicut 
Theophili  vocabulo  amor,  sic  Timothei  honor  divini- 
tatis  exprimitur."  Even  Theophylact,  who  believes 
in  the  existence  of  Theophilus,  takes  the  opportunity 
of  moralizing  upon  his  name :  Ka\  iras  5e  fodpuiros 
d  e  o  (/>  i  A. );  s,  Ka\  K  p  a  r  o  s  Kara  ru>v  iraOatv  ava- 
Sfi^dfJ.evos,  ®c6<f)t\6s  earn  KpoTicrros,  ?»s 
Kal  &£ios  T<p  OVTI  effrlv  aicoveiv  TQV  EucryyeAtou 
(Argum.  in  Liu:.}.  Among  modern  co  mine  n  tat  Ois 
Hammond  and  Leclerc  accept  the  allegorical  view : 
Erasmus  is  doubtful,  but  on  the  whole  believes 
Theophilus  to  have  had  a  real  existence. 

(2.)  From  the  honourable  epithet  KpdrKTTe,  ap 
plied  to  Theophilus  in  Luke  i.  3,  compared  with 
the  use  of  the  same  epithet  as  applied  by  Claudius 
Lysias  and  Tertullus  severally  to  Felix,  and  by 
St.  Paul  to  Festus  (Acts  xxiii.  26,  xxiv.  3,  xxvi. 
25),  it  has  been  argued  with  much  probability,  but 
not  quite  conclusively,  that  he  was  a  person  in  high 
official  position.  Thus  Theophylact  (Argum.  in 
Luc.}  conjectures  that  he  was  a  Roman  governor, 
or  a  person  of  senatorial  rank,  grounding  his  con 
jecture  expressly  on  the  use  of  KpAriffrf.  Oecu- 
menius  (ad  Act.  Apost.  i.  1)  tells  us  that  he  was  a, 
governor,  but  gives  no  authority  for  the  assertion 
The  traditional  connexion  of  St.  Luke  with  Antioch 
has  disposed  some  to  look  upon  Antioch  as  the 
abode  of  Theophilus,  and  possibly  as  the  seat  of  his 
government.  Bengel  believes  him  to  have  been  an 
inhabitant  of  Antioch,  "  ut  veteres  testantur."  The 
belief  may  partly  have  grown  out  of  a  story  in  the 
so-called  Recognitions  of  St.  Clement  (lib.  x.),  which 
represents  a  certain  nobleman  of  Antioch  of  that 
name  to  have  been  converted  by  the  preaching  of 
St.  Peter,  and  to  have  dedicated  his  own  house  as  a 
church,  in  which,  as  we  are  told,  the  Apostle  fixed 
his  episcopal  ser.t.  Bengel  thinks  that  the  omission 


THEOPHILUS 

it'  Kpdria-Tf  in  Acts  i.  1  proves  that  St.  Luke  was 
m  more  familiar  terms  with  Theophilus  than  \\  hen 
ie  composed  his  Gospel. 

(3.)  In  the  Syriac  Lexicon  extracted  from  the 
Lexicon  Heptaglotton  of  Castell,  and  edited  by 
Michaelis  (p.  948),  the  following  description  of 
Theophilus  is  quoted  from  Bar  Bahlul,  a  Syrian 
lexicographer  of  the  10th  century: — "  Theophilus, 
primus  credentium  et  celeberrimus  apud  Alexan 
drienses,  qui  cum  aliis  Aegyptiis  Lucam  rogabat, 
ut  eis  Evangelium  scriberet."  In  the  inscription 
of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Luke  in  the  Syriac 
version  we  are  told  that  it  was  published  at  Alex 
andria.  Hence  it  is  inferred  by  Jacob  Hase  (Bibl. 
Bremcnsis  Class,  iv.  Fasc.  iii.  Diss.  4,  quoted  Ly 
Michaelis,  Introd.  to  the  N.  T.,  vol.  iii.  ch.  vi.  §4, 
ed.  Marsh)  and  by  Beiigel  (Ordo  Temporum,  p.  196, 
ed.  2),  that  Theophilus  was,  as  asserted  by  Bar 
Bahlul,  a  convert  of  Alexandria.  This  writer  ven 
tures  to  advance  the  startling  opinion  that  Theo 
philus,  if  an  Alexandrian,  was  no  other  than  the 
celebrated  Philo,  who  is  said  to  have  borne  the 
Hebrew  name  of  Jedidiah  (PPTT,  ».  e.  ©e<ty>iAos). 

It  hardly  seems  necessary  to  refute  this  theory,  as 
Michaelis  has  refuted  it,  by  chronological  argu 
ments. 

(4.)  Alexander  Morns  ( Ad  quaedam  loca  Nov. 
Foed.  Notae:  ad  Luc.  i.  1)  makes  the  rather  ha 
zardous  conjecture  that  the  Theophilus  of  St.  Luke 
is  identical  with  the  person  who  is  recorded  by 
Tacitus  (Ann.  ii.  55)  to  have  been  condemned  for 
fraud  at  Athens  by  the  court  of  the  Areopagus. 
Grotius  also  conjectures  that  he  was  a  magistrate 
of  Achaia  baptized  by  St.  Luke.  The  conjecture  of 
Grotius  must  rest  upon  the  assertion  of  Jerome 
(an  assertion  which,  if  it  is  received,  renders  that 
of  Alex.  Morus  possible,  though  certainly  most  im 
probable),  namely,  that  Luke  published  his  Gospel 
in  the  parts  of  Achaia  and  Boeotia  (Jerome,  Comm. 
in  Matt.  Prooem.). 

(5.)  It  is  obvious  to  suppose  that  Theophilus 
was  a  Christian.  But  a  different  view  has  been 
entertained.  In  a  series  of  Dissertations  in  the 
Bibliotheca  Bremensis,  of  which  Michaelis  gives  a 
resume'm.  the  section  already  referred  to,  the  notion 
that  he  was  not  a  Christian  is  maintained  by  different 
writers,  and  on  different  grounds.  Heumann,  one  of 
the  contributors,  assuming  that  he  was  a  Roman 
governor,  argues  that  he  could  not  be  a  Christian, 
because  no  Christian  would  be  likely  to  have  such 
a  charge  entrusted  to  him.  Another  writer,  Theo 
dore  Hase,  believes  that  the  Theophilus  of  Luke 
was  no  other  than  the  deposed  High  Priest  Theo 
philus  the  son  of  Ananus,  of  whom  more  will  be 
said  presently.  Michaelis  himself  is  inclined  to 
adopt  this  theory.  He  thinks  that  the  use  of  the 
word  Karyx'flQ'ns  in  Luke  i.  4,  proves  that  Theo 
philus  had  an  imperfect  acquaintance  with  the  facts 
of  the  Gospel  (an  argument  of  which  Bishop  Marsh 
very  properly  disposes  in  his  note  upon  the  passage 
of  Michaelis),  and  further  contends,  from  th«  fv 
7]fuv  of  Luke  i.  1,  that  he  was  not  a  member  of  the 
Christian  community.  He  thinks  it  probable  that 
the  Evangeli.*<t  wrote  his  Gospel,  during  the  impri 
sonment  of  St.  Paul  at  Caesarea,  and  addressed  it  to 
Theophilus  as  one  of  the  heads  of  the  Jewish  nation. 
According  to  this  view,  it  would  be  regarded  as  a 
sort  of  historical  apology  for  the  Christian  faith. 

In  surveying  this  series  of  conjectures,  and  of 
traditions  which  are  nothing  more  than  conjectures 
we  find  it  easier  to  determine  what  is  to  be  re 


THKRAS 

jpcted  than  what  we  are  to  accept.  In  the  first 
place,  we  may  safely  reject  the  Patristic  notion  that 
Theophilus  was  either  a  fictitious  person,  or  a  mere 
personification  of  Christian  love.  Such  a  personifi 
cation  is  alien  from  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testa 
ment  writers,  and  the  epithet  KpAriffre  is  a  sufficient 
evidence  of  the  historical  existence  of  Theophilus.  It 
does  not,  indeed,  prove  that  he  was  a  governor,  but  it 
makes  it  most  probable  that  he  was  a  person  of  high 
rank.  His  supposed  connexion  with  Antioch,  Alex 
andria,  or  Achaia,  rests  on  too  slender  evidence 
either  to  claim  aJceptance  or  to  need  refutation  ; 
and  the  view  of  Theodore  Hase,  although  endorsed 
by  Michaelis,  appears  to  be  incontestably  negatived 
by  the  Gentile  complexion  of  the  Third  Gospel. 
The  grounds  alleged  by  Heumann  for  his  hypo 
thesis  that  Theophilus  was  not  a  Christian  are  not  at 
all  trustworthy,  as  consisting  of  two  very  disputable 
premises.  For,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  not  at  all 
evident  that  Theophilus  was  a  Roman  governor  ;  and 
in  the  second  place,  even  if  we  assume  that  at  that 
time  no  Christian  would  be  appointed  to  such  an  office 
(an  assumption  which  we  can  scarcely  venture  to 
make),  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  no  person  in 
that  position  would  become  a-Christian.  In  fact,  we 
have  an  example  of  such  a  conversion  in  the  case  of 
Sergius  Paulus  (Acts  xiii.  12).  In  the  article  on 
the  GOSPEL  OF  LUKE  [vol.  ii.  p.  155  a],  reasons 
are  given  for  believing  that  Theophilus  was  "  not  a 
native  of  Palestine  .  .  .  not  a  Macedonian,  nor  an 
Athenian,  nor  a  Cretan.  But  that  he  was  a  native  of 
Italy,  and  perhaps  an  inhabitant  of  Rome,  is  probable 
from  similar  data."  All  that  can  be  conjectured  with 
my  degree  of  safety  concerning  him,  comes  to  this, 
that  he  was  a  Gentile  of  rank  and  consideration, 
who  came  under  the  influence  of  St.  Luke,  or  (not 
improbably)  under  that  of  St.  Paul,  at  Rome,  and 
was  converted  to  the  Christian  faith.  It  has  been 
observed  that  the  Greek  of  St.  Luke,  which  else 
where  approaches  more  nearly  to  the  classical  type 
than  that  of  the  other  Evangelists,  is  purer  and 
more  elegant  in  the  dedication  to  Theophilus  than 
in  any  other  part  of  his  Gospel. 

2.  A  Jewish  High-Priest,  the  son  of  Annas  or 
Ananus,  brother-in-law  to  Caiaphas  [ANNAS ;  CAIA- 
PHAS],  and  brother  and  immediate  successor  of 
Jonathan.  The  Roman  Prefect  Vitellius  came  to 
Jerusalem  at  the  Passover  (A.D.  37),  and  deposed 
Caiaphas,  appointing  Jonathan  in  his  place.  In  the 
same  year,  at  the  feast  of  Pentecost,  he  came  to 
Jerusalem,  and  deprived  Jonathan  of  the  High 
Priesthood,  which  he  gave  to  Theophilus  (Joseph. 
Ant.  xviii.  4,  §3,  xviii.  5,  §3).  Theophilus  was 
removed  from  his  post  by  Herod  Agrippa  I.,  after 
the  accession  of  that  prince  to  the  government  of 
Judaea  in  A.D.  41,  so  that  he  must  have  continued 
in  office  about  five  years  (Joseph.  Ant.  xix.  6,  §2). 
Theephilus  is  not  mentioned  by  name  in  the  New 
Testament ;  but  it  is  most  probable  that  he  was  the 
High  Priest  who  granted  a  commission  to  Saul  to 
proceed  to  Damascus,  and  to  take  into  custody  any 
believers  whom  he  might  find  there.  [W.  B.  J.] 

THE'RAS(9e'pa:  Thia:  Syr.  Tharan).  The 
equivalent  in  1  Esd.  viii.  41,  61,  for  the  AHAVA 
of  the  parallel  passage  in  Ezra.  Nothing  whatever 
appears  to  be  known  of  it. 

THER'MELETH  (&€P^\4e :  Thclmela), 
\  Esd.  v.  36.  The  Greek  equivalent  of  the  name 
TEL-MELAH. 

THESSALONIANS,  FIRST  EPISTLE 
TO  THE.  1.  The  date  of  the  Epistle  is  made  out 


THESSALONIANS 


1477 


approximately  in  the  following  way.  During  the 
course  of  his  second  missionary  journey,  probably 
in  the  year  52,  St.  Paul  founded  the  Church  of 
Thessalonica.  Leaving  Thessalonica  he  passed  oi; 
to  Beroea.  From  Beroea  he  went  to  Athens,  and 
from  Athens  to  Corinth  (Acts  x^ii.  1— xviii.  18). 
With  this  visit  to  Corinth,  which  extends  over  a 
period  of  two  years  or  thereabouts,  his  second  mis 
sionary  journey  closed,  for  from  Corinth  he  returned 
to  Jerusalem,  paying  only  a  brief  visit  to  Ephesus  on 
the  way  (xviii.  20,  21).  Now  it  appears  that,  when 
this  Epistle  was  written,  Silvanus  and  Timotheus 
were  in  the  Apostle's  company  (1  Thess.  i.  1  ;  comp. 
2  Thess.  i.  1) — a  circumstance  which  confines  the 
date  to  the  second  missionary  journey,  for  though 
Timotheus  was  with  him  on  several  occasions  after 
wards,  the  name  of  Silvanus  appears  for  the  last 
time  in  connexion  with  St.  Paul  during  this  visit 
to  Corinth  (Acts  xviii.  5;  2  Cor.  i.  ]9).  The 
Epistle  then  must  have  been  written  in  the  in 
terval  between  St.  Paul's  leaving  Thessalonica  and 
the  close  of  his  residence  at  Corinth,  i.  e.  according 
to  the  received  chronology  within  the  years  52-54". 
The  following  considerations  however  narrow  the 
limits  of  the  possible  date  still  more  closely.  (1.) 
When  St.  Paul  wrote,  he  had  already  visited,  and 
probably  left  Athens  (1  Thess.  iii.  l).  (2.)  Having 
made  two  unsuccessful  attempts  to  revisit  Thessa 
lonica,  he  had  despatched  Timothy  to  obtain  tidings 
of  his  converts  there.  Timothy  had  returned  before 
the  Apostle  wrote  (iii.  2,  6).  (3.)  St.  Paul  speaks 
of  the  Thessalonians  as  "  ensamples  to  ill  that 
believe  in  Macedonia  and  Achaia,"  adding  that  "  in 
every  place  their  faith  to  Godward  was  spread 
abroad"  (i.  7,  8) — language  prompted  indeed  by 
the  overflowing  of  a  grateful  heart,  and  therefore 
not  to  be  rigorously  pressed,  but  still  implying 
some  lapse  of  time  at  least.  (4.)  There  are  several 
traces  of  a  growth  and  progress  in  the  condition 
and  circumstances  of  the  Thessalonian  Church.  Per 
haps  the  mention  of  "  rulers  "  in  the  Church  (v. 
12)  ought  not  to  be  adduced  as  proving  this,  since 
some  organisation  would  be  necessary  from  the  very 
beginning.  But  there  is  other  evidence  besides. 
Questions  had  arisen  relating  to  the  state  of  those 
who  had  fallen  asleep  in  Christ,  so  that  one  or  more 
of  the  Thessalonian  converts  must  have  died  in  the 
interval  (iv.  13-18).  The  storm  of  persecution 
which  the  Apostle  had  discerned  gathering  on  the 
horizon  had  already  burst  upon  the  Christians  of 
Thessalonica  (iii.  4,  7).  Irregularities  had  crept  in 
and  sullied  the  infant  purity  of  the  Church  (iv.  4, 
v.  14).  The  lapse  of  a  few  months  however  would 
account  for  these  changes,  and  a  much  longer  time 
cannot  well  be  allowed.  P\>r  (5)  the  letter  was 
evidently  written  by  St.  Paul  immediately  on  the 
return  of  Timothy,  in  the  fulness  of  his  gratitude 
for  the  joyful  tidings  (iii.  6).  Moreover,  (6)  the 
Second  Epistle  also  was  written  before  he  left  Co 
rinth,  and  there  must  have  been  a  sufficient  interval 
between  the  two  to  allow  of  the  growth  of  fresh 
difficulties,  and  of  such  communication  between  the 
Apostle  and  his  converts  as  the  case  supposes.  We 
shall  not  be  far  wrong  therefore  in  placing  the 
writing  of  this  Epistle  early  in  St.  Paul's  residence 
at  Corinth,  a  few  months  after  he  had  founded  the 
Church  at  Thessalonica,  at  the  close  of  the  year  52 
or  the  beginning  of  53.  The  statement  in  the  sub 
scription  appearing  in  several  MSS.  and  versions, 
that  it  was  written  "from  Athens  "  is  a  superficial 
inference  from  1  Thess.  iii.  1,  to  \vhich  no  weight 
ehould  be  attached.  The  ~iews  of  critics  who  have 


1478 


THESSALONIANS,  FIKST  EPISTLE  TO  THE 


assigned  to  this  Epistle  a  later  date  than  the  second 
missionary  journey  are  stated  and  refuted  in  the 
Introductions  of  Koch  (p.  23,  &c.),  and  Liinemann, 
(§3). 

2.  The  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  then  (for 
the  second  followed  the  first  after  no  long  interval) 
are  the  earliest  of  St.  Paul's  writings — perhaps  the 
earliest  written  records  of  Christianity.  They  belong 
to  that  period  which  St.  Paul  elsewhere  styles  "  the 
beginning  of  the  Gospel"  (Phil.  iv.  15).  They 
present  the  disciples  in  the  first  flush  of  love  and 
devotion,  yearning  for  the  day  of  deliverance,  and 
straining  their  eyes  to  catch  the  first  glimpse  of 
their  Lord  descending  amidst  the  clouds  of  heaven, 
till  in  their  feverish  anxiety  they  forget  the  sober 
business  of  life,  absorbed  in  this  one  engrossing 
thought.  It  will  be  remembered  that  a  period  of 
about  five  years  intervenes  before  the  second  group 
of  Epistles — those  to  the  Corinthians,  Galatians,  and 
Romans — were  written,  and  about  twice  that  period 
to  the  date  of  the  Epistles  of  the  Roman  Captivity. 
It  is  interesting  therefore  to  compare  the  Thessa- 
lonian  Epistles  with  the  later  letters,  and  to  note 
the  points  of  difference.  These  differences  are  mainly 
threefold.  (1.)  In  the  general  style  of  these  earlier 
letters  there  is  greater  simplicity  and  less  exuberance 
of  language.  The  brevity  of  the  opening  salutation 

is  an  instance  of  this.    "  Paul to  the  Church 

of  the  Thessalonians  in  God  the  Father  and  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  grace  and  peace  to  you"  (1 
Thess.  i.  1 ;  comp.  2  Thess.  i.  1).  The  closing  bene 
diction  is  correspondingly  brief: — "The  grace  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be  with  you"  (1  Thess.  v. 
28;  comp.  2  Thess.  iii.  18).  And  throughout  the 
Epistles  there  is  much  more  evenness  of  style, 
words  are  not  accumulated  in  the  same  way,  the 
syntax  is  less  involved,  parentheses  are  not  so  fre 
quent,  the  turns  of  thought  and  feeling  are  less 
sudden  and  abrupt,  and  altogether  there  is  less 
intensity  and  variety  than  we  find  in  St.  Paul's 
later  Epistles.  (2.)  The  antagonism  to  St.  Paul 
is  not  the  same.  The  direction  of  the  attack  has 
changed  in  the  interval  between  the  writing  of 
these  Epistles  and  those  of  the  next  group.  Here 
the  opposition  comes  from  Jews.  The  admission 
of  the  Gentiles  to  the  hopes  and  privileges  of  Mes 
siah's  kingdom  on  any  condition  is  repulsive  to 
them.  They  "  forbad  the  Apostle  to  speak  to  the 
Gentiles  that  they  might  be  saved"  (ii.  16).  A 
period  of  five  years  changes  the  aspect  of  the  contro 
versy.  The  opponents  of  St.  Paul  are  now  no  longer 
Jews,  so  much  as  Judaizing  Christians  (Ewald, 
Jahrb.  iii.  249;  Sertdschr.,  p.  14).  The  question 
of  the  admission  of  the  Gentiles  has  been  solved 
by  time,  for  they  have  "  taken  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  by  storm."  But  the  antagonism  to  the 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  having  been  driven  from 
its  first  position,  entrenched  itself  behind  a  second 
barrier.  It  was  now  urged  that  though  the  Gen 
tiles  may  be  admitted  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  the 
only  door  of  admission  is  the  Mosaic  covenant-rite 
of  circumcision.  The  language  of  St.  Paul  speaking 
of  the  Jewish  Christians  in  this  Epistle  shows  that 
the  opposition  to  his  teaching  had  not  at  this  time 
assumed  this  second  phase.  He  does  not  yet  regard 
them  as  the  disturbers  of  the  peace  of  the  Church, 
the  false  teachers  who  by  imposing  a  bondage  of 
ceremonial  observance^  frustrate  the  free  grace  of 
God.  He  can  still  point  to  them  as  examples  to 
his  converts  at  Thessalonica  (ii.  14).  The  change 
indeed  was  imminent,  the  signs  cf  the  gathering 
3torm  had  alreadv  appeared  (Gal,  ii.  11),  but 


hitherto  they  were  faint  and  indistinct,  and  had 
scarcely  darkened  the  horizon  of  the  Gertile 
Churches.  (3.)  It  will  be  no  surprise  that  the 
doctrinal  teaching  of  the  Apostle  does  not  beat 
quite  the  same  aspect  in  these  as  in  the  later 
Epistles.  Many  of  the  distinctive  doctrines  01 
Christianity,  which  are  inseparably  connected  with 
St.  Paul's  name,  though  implicitly  cwitained  in  the 
teaching  of  these  earlier  letters — as  indeed  they  fol 
low  directly  from  the  true  conception  of  the  Person 
of  Christ — were  yet  not  evolved  and  distinctly 
enunciated  till  the  needs  of  the  Church  drew  them 
out  into  prominence  at  a  later  date.  It  has  often 
been  observed  for  instance,  that  there  is  in  the 
Epistles  to  the  Thessalouians  no  mention  of  the 
characteristic  contrast  of  "  faith  and  works  ;"  that 
the  word  "justification  "  does  not  once  occur ;  that 
the  idea  of  dying  with  Christ  and  living  with 
Christ,  so  frequent  in  St.  Paul's  later  writings,  is 
absent  in  these.  It  was  in  fact  the  opposition  of 
Judaizing  Christians,  insisting  on  a  strict  ritualism, 
which  led  the  Apostle  somewhat  later  to  dwell  at 
greater  length  on  the  true  doctrine  of  a  saving 
faith,  and  the  true  conception  of  a  godly  life.  But 
the  time  had  not  yet  come,  and  in  the  Epistles  to 
the  Thessalonians,  as  has  been  truly  observed,  the 
Gospel  preached  is  that  of  the  coming  of  Christ, 
rather  than  of  the  cross  of  Christ.  There  are  many 
reasons  why  the  subject  of  the  second  advent  should 
occupy  a  larger  space  in  the  earliest  stage  of  the 
Apostolical  teaching  than  afterwards.  It  was  closely 
bound  up  with  the  fundamental  fact  of  the  Gospel, 
the  resurrection  of  Christ,  and  thus  it  formed  a 
natural  starting-point  of  Christian  doctrine.  It 
afforded  the  true  satisfaction  to  those  Messianic 
hopes  which  had  drawn  the  Jewish  converts  to  the 
fold  of  Christ.  It  was  the  best  consolation  and 
support  of  the  infant  Church  under  persecution, 
which  must  have  been  most  keenly  felt  in  the  first 
abandonment  of  worldly  pleasures  and  interests, 
More  especially,  as  telling  of  a  righteous  Judge  who 
would  not  overlook  iniquity,  it  was  essential  to 
that  call  to  repentance  which  must  everywhere  pre 
cede  the  direct  and  positive  teaching  of  the  Gospel. 
"  Now  He  commandeth  all  men  everywhere  to  re 
pent,  for  He  hath  appointed  a  day  in  the  which  He 
will  judge  the  world  in  righteousness  by  that  man 
whom  He  hath  ordained,  whereof  He  hath  given 
assurance  unto  all  men  in  that  He  raised  him  from 
the  dead"  (Acts  xvii.  30,  31). 

3.  The  occasion  of  this  Epistle  was  as  follows 
St.  Paul  had  twice  attempted  to  revisit  Thessa 
lonica,  and  both  times  had  been  disappointed.  Thus 
prevented -from  seeing  them  in  person,  he  had  sent 
Timothy  to  .inquire  and  report  to  him  as  to  then- 
condition  (iii.  1-5).  Timothy  returned  with  most 
favourable  tidings,  reporting  not  only  their  pro 
gress  in  Christian  faith  and  practice,  but  also  their 
strong  attachment  to  their  old  teacher  (iii.  6-10). 
The  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians  is  the  out 
pouring  of  the  Apostle's  gratitude  on  receiving  this 
welcome  news.  At  the  same  time  the  report  of 
Timothy  was  not  unmixed  with  alloy.  There  were 
certain  features  in  the  condition  of  the  Thessalonian 
Church  which  called  for  St.  Paul's  interference,  and 
to  which  he  addresses  himself  in  his  letter  (1.) 
The  very  intensity  of  their  Christian  faith,  dwelling 
too  exclusively  on  the  day  of  the  Lord's  coming, 
had  been  attended  with  evil  consequences.  On  the 
one  hand  a  practical  inconvenience  had  arisen.  In 
their  feverish  expectation  of  this  great  crisis,  som* 
had  been  led  to  neglect  their  ordinary  business,  as 


THESSALONIANS,  FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THE 


1479 


hough  the  daily  concerns  of  life  were  of  no  account, !  language  had  been  misrepresented,  and  he  was  ac 
cused  of  setting  up  <i  rival  sovereign  to  the  Roman 
Emperor. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  language  of  these  Epistles 
diverges  from  the  narrative  of  St.  Luke  on  two  or 


in  the  immediate  presence  of  so  vast  a  change  (iv.  11 
comp.  2  Thess.  n.  1,  iii.  6,  11,  12).  On  the  other 
hand  a  theoretical  difficulty  had  been  felt.  Certain 
members  of  the  Church  had  died,  and  there  was 
great  anxiety  lest  they  should  be  excluded  from  any 
in  the  glories  of  the  Lord's  advent  (iv.  13-18). 


three  points  in  such  a  way  as  to  establish  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  two  accounts,  and  even  to  require 


St.  Paul  rebukes  the  irregularities  of  the  former,  some  explanation.  (1.)  The  first  of  these  relates  to 
and  dissipates  the  fears  of  the  latter.  (2.)  The  I  the  composition  of  the  Church  of  Thessalonica.  In 
flame  of  persecution  had  broken  out,  and  the  Thes-  the  First  Epistle  St.  Paul  addresses  his  readers  dis 

tinctly  as  Gentiles,  who  had  been  converted  from 
idolatry  to  the  Gospel  (i.  9,  10).  In  the  Acts  we  are 
told  that  "  some  (of  the  Jews)  believed  .  .  .  and  ot 
the  devout  Greeks  (i.  e.  proselytes)  a  great  multi 
tude,  and  of  the  chief  women  iiot  a  few"  (xvii.  4). 


salonians  needed  consolation  and  encouragement 
under  their  sore  trial  (ii.  14,  iii.  2-4).  (3.)  An 
unhealthy  state  of  feeling  with  regard  to  spiritual 
gifts  was*  manifesting  itself.  Like  the  Corinthians 


at  a  later  day,  they  needed  to  be  reminded  of  the 
superior  value  of  "  prophesying,"  compared  with 
other  gifts  of  the  Spirit  which  they  exalted  at  its 
expense  (v.  19,  20).  (4.)  There  was  the  danger, 
which  they  shared  in  common  with  most  Gentile 
Churches,  of  relapsing  into  their  old  heathen  profli 
gacy.  Against  this  the  Apostle  offers  a  word  in 
season  (iv.  4-8).  We  need  not  suppose  however 
that  Thessalonica  was  worse  in  this  respect  than 
other  Greek  cities. 

4.  Yet  notwithstanding  all  these  drawbacks,  the 
condition  of  the  Thessalonian  Church  was  highly 
satisfactory,  and  the  most  cordial  relations  existed 
between  St.  Paul  and   his   converts   there.     This 
honourable  distinction  it  shares  with  the  other  great 
Church  of  Macedonia,  that  of  Philippi.      At  all 
times,  and  amidst  every  change  of  circumstance,  it 
is  to  his   Macedonian  Churches   that  the  Apostle 
turns  for  sympathy  and  support.    A  period  of  about 
ten  years  is  interposed  between  the  First  Epistle  to 
the  Thessalonians  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians, 
and  yet  no  two  of  his  letters  more  closely  resemble 
each  other  in  this  respect.     In  both  he  drops  his 
official  title  of  Apostle  in  the  opening  salutation, 
thus  appealing  rather  to  their  affection  than  to  his 
own  authority ;  in  both  he  commences  the  body  of 
his  letter  with  hearty  and  unqualified  commendation 
of  his  converts;  and  in  both  the  same  spirit  of  con 
fidence  and  warm  affection  breathes  throughout. 

5.  A  comparison  of  the  narrative  in  the  Acts 
with  the  allusions  in  this  and  the  Second  Epistle  to 
the  Thessalonians  is  instructive.    With  some  striking 
coincidences,  there  is  just  that  degree  of  divergence 
which  might  be  expected  between  a  writer  who 
had  borne  the  principal  part  in  the  scenes  referred 
to,  and  a  narrator  who  derives  his  information  from 
others,  between  the  casual  half-expressed  allusions 
of  a  familiar  letter  and  the  direct  account  of  the 
professed  historian. 

Passing  over  patent  coincidences,  we  may  single 
out  one  of  a  more  subtle  and  delicate  kind.  It 
arises  out  of  the  form  which  the  accusation  brought 
against  St.  Paul  and  his  companions  at  Thessalonica 
takes  in  the  Aole:  "All  these  do  contrary  to  the 
decrees  of  Caesar,  saying  that  there  is  another  king, 
one  Jesus"  (xvii.  7).  The  allusions  in  the  Epistles 
to  the  Thessalonians  enable  us  to  understand  the 
ground  of  this  accusation.  It  appears  that  the  king 
dom  of  Christ  had  entered  largely  into  his  oral  teach 
ing  in  this  city,  as  it  does  into  that  of  the  Epistles 


If  for  (T6)8(tyieVcoj/  'E\\T]V(i>v  we  read 
Kal  "E,\\i]v<av  ,  "  proselytes  and  Greeks,"  the  diffi 
culty  vanishes  ;  but  though  internal  probabilities 
are  somewhat  in  favour  of  this  reading,  the  array 
of  direct  evidence  (now  reinforced  by  the  Cod.  Si- 
naiticus)  is  against  it.  But  even  if  we  retain  the 
common  reading,  the  account  of  St.  Luke  does  not 
exclude  a  number  of  believers  converted  directly 
from  heathendom  —  indeed,  if  we  may  argue  from 
the  parallel  case  at  Beroea  (xvii.  12),  the  "  women  " 
were  chiefly  of  this  class:  and,  if  any  divergence  re 
mains,  it  is  not  greater  than  might  be  expected 
in  two  independent  writers,  one  of  whom,  not 
being  an  eye-witness,  possessed  only  a  partial  and 
indirect  knowledge.  Both  accounts  alike  convey 
the  impression  that  the  Gospel  made  but  little  pro 
gress  with  the  Jews  themselves.  (2.)  In  the  Epistle 
the  persecutors  of  the  Thessalonian  Christians  are 
represented  as  their  fellow-countrymen,  i.  e.  as 
heathens  (UTT&  T&V  iSicav  <rvfjl(pv\€Ta>v,  ii.  14), 
whereas  in  the  Acts  the  Jews  are  regarded  as  the 
bitterest  opponents  of  the  faith  (xvii.  5).  This  is 
fairly  met  by  Paley  (Horae  Paul.  ix.  No.  5),  who 
points  out  that  the  Jews  were  the  instigators  of  the 
persecution,  which  however  they  were  powerless 
of  themselves  to  carry  out  without  aid  from  the 
heathen,  as  may  be  gathered  even  from  the  nar 
rative  of  St.  Luke.  We  may  add  also,  that  the 


expression  idiot 


need  not  be  restricted 


to  the  heathen  population,  but  might  include  many 
Hellenist  Jews  who  must  have  been  citizens  of  the 
free  town  of  Thessalonica.  (3.)  The  narrative  ot 
St.  Luke  appears  to  state  that  St.  Paul  remained 
only  three  weeks  at  Thessalonica  (xvii.  2),  whereas 
in  the  Epistle,  though  there  is  no  direct  mention  of 
the  length  of  his  residence  among  them,  the  whole 
language  (i.  4,  ii.  4-11)  points  to  a  much  longer 
period.  The  latter  part  of  the  assertion  seems  quite 
correct;  the  former  needs  to  be  modified.  In  the 
Acts  it  is  stated  simply  that  for  three  Sabbath  days 
(three  weeks)  St.  Paul  taught  in  the  synagogue. 
The  silence  of  the  writer  does  not  exclude  subsequent 
labour  among  the  Gentile  population,  and  indeed 


as  much  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  success  of  his 
preaching,  which  exasperated  the  Jewss  against  him. 
(4.)  The  notices  of  the  movements  of  Silas  and 
Timotheus  in  the  two  documents  do  not  accord  at 
first  sight.  In  the  Acts  St.  Paul  is  conveyed  away 
secretly  from  Beroea  to  escape  the  Jews.  Arrived  at 


themselves.     He  had  charged  his  new  converts  to  I  Athens,  he  sends  to  Silas  and  Timothy,  wnom  he 
await  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  God  from  heaven,  as 
their  deliverer  (i.    1.0).     He  had  dwelt  long  and 
earnestly  (irpofiira/JLev  ito^.  8i((j.apTvpdu.eda)  on  the 


had  left  behind  at  Beroea,  urging  them  to  join  him 
as  soon  as  possible  (xvii.  14-16).  It  is  evident 
from  the  language  of  St.  Luke  that  the  Apostle 


terrors  of  the  judgment  which  would  overtake  the  |  expects  them  to  join  him  at  Athens.  Yet  we  hear 
wicked  (iv.  6).  He  had  even  explained  at  length  the  I  nothing  more  of  them  for  some  time,  when  at  length 
signs  which  would  usher  in  the  last  day  (2  Thess.  |  after  St.  Paul  had  passed  on  to  Corinth,  and  several 
ii«  5).  Either  from  rcalicc  or  in  ignorance  such  I  incidents  had  occuired  since  his  arrival  there,  we 


1480 


THESSALONIANS,  FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THE 


are  told  that  Silas  and  Timotheus  came  from  Mace 
donia  (xviii.  o).  From  the  First  Epistle,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  gather  the  following  facts.  St.  Paul 
there  tells  us  that  they  (r)jU6?s,  i.  e.  himself,  and  pro 
bably  Silas),  no  longer  able  to  endure  the  suspense, 
"consented  to  be  left  alone  at  Athens,  and  sent 
Timothy  their  brother"  to  Thessalonica  (hi.  1,  2). 
Timothy  returned  with  good  news  (iii.  6)  (whether 
to  Athens  or  Corinth  does  not  appear),  and  when  the 
two  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  were  written,  both 
Timothy  and  Silas  were  with  St.  Paul  (1  Thess.  i. 
1  ;  2  Thess.  i.  1 ;  comp.  2  Cor.  i.  19).  Now,  though 
we  may  not  be  prepared  with  Paley  to  construct 
an  undesigned  coincidence  out  of  these  materials, 
yet  on  the  other  hand  there  is  no  insoluble  diffi 
culty;  for  the  events  may  be  arranged  in  two  different 
ways,  either  of  which  will  bring  the  narrative  of  the 
Acts  into  accordance  with  the  allusions  ot  the  Epistle, 
(i.)  Timotheus  was  despatched  to  Thessalonica,  not 
from  Athens,  but  from  Beroea,  a  supposition  quite 
consistent  with  the  Apostle's  expression  of  "con 
senting  to  be  left  alone  at  Athens."  In  this  case 
Timotheus  would  take  up  Silas  somewhere  in  Ma 
cedonia  on  his  return,  and  the  two  would  join  St. 
Paul  in  company ;  not  however  at  Athens,  where 
he  was  expecting  them,  but  later  on  at  Corinth, 
some  delay  having  arisen.  This  explanation  how 
ever  supposes  that  the  plurals  "  we  consented,  we 
sent"  (fvSoK'hffafj.ev,  ^ire/it^a/iei'),  can  refer  to  St. 
Paul  alone.  The  alternative  mode  of  reconciling 
the  accounts  is  as  follows: — (ii.)  Timotheus  and 
Silas  did  join  the  Apostle  at  Athens,  where  we  learn 
from  the  Acts  that  he  was  expecting  them.  From 
Athens  he  despatched  Timotheus  to  Thessalonica,  so 
that  he  and  Silas  (rjfieTs]  had  to  forego  the  services 
of  their  fellow-labourer  for  a  time.  This  mission 
is  mentioned  in  the  Epistle,  but  not  in  the  Acts. 
Subsequently  he  sends  Silas  on  some  other  mission, 
not  recorded  either  in  the  history  or  the  Epistle ; 
probably  to  another  Macedonian  Church,  Philippi 
for  instance,  from  which  he  is  known  to  have  re 
ceived  contributions  about  this  time,  and  with  which 
therefore  he  was  in  communication  (2  Cor.  xi.  9  ; 
comp.  Phil.  iv.  14-16 ;  see  Koch,  p.  15).  Silas  and 
Timotheus  returned  together  from  Macedonia  and 
joined  the  Apostle  at  Corinth.  This  latter  solu 
tion,  if  it  assumes  more  than  the  former,  has  the 
advantage  that  it  preserves  the  proper  sense  of  the 
plurai  "  we  consented,  we  sent,"  for  it  is  at  least 
doubtful  whether  St.  Paul  ever  uses  the  plural  of 
himself  alone.  The  silence  of  St.  Luke  may  in  this 
case  be  explained  either  by  his  possessing  only  a 
partial  knowledge  of  the  circumstances,  or  by  his 
passing  over  incidents  of  which  he  was  aware,  as 
unimportant. 

6.  This  Epistle  is  rather  practical  than  doc 
trinal.  It  was  suggested  rather  by  personal  feeling, 
than  by  any  urgent  need,  which  might  have  formed 
a  centre  of  unity,  and  impressed  a  distinct  character 
on  the  whole.  Under  these  circumstances  we  need 
not  expect  to  trace  unity  of  purpose,  or  a  continuous 
argument,  and  any  analysis  must  be  more  or  less 
artificial.  The  body  of  the  Epistle,  however,  may 
Conveniently  be  divided  into  two  parts,  the  former 
of  which,  extending  over  the  first  three  chapters,  is 
chiefly  taken  up  with  a  retrospect  of  the  Apostle's 
relation  to  his  Thessalonian  converts,  and  an  expla 
nation  of  his  present  circumstances  and  feelings 
while  the  latter,  comprising  the  4th  and  5th  chap 
ters,  contains  some  seasonable  exhortations.  At  the 
close  of  each  of  these  divisions  is  a  prayer,  com 
mencing  with  the  same  words,  "  May  G  xl  Him 


self,"  etc.,  and  expressed  in  somewhat  similar  lan 
guage. 

The  following  is  a  table  of  contents : — 

Salutation  (i.  1). 

1.  Narrative  portion  (i.  2-iii.  13).    . 

(1.)  i.  2-10.  The  Apostle  gratefully  record* 
their  conversion  to  the  Gospel  and  pro 
gress  in  the  faith. 

(2."l  ii.  1-12.  He  reminds  them  how  pure  anc 
blameless  his  life  and  ministry  among 
them  had  been. 

(3.)  ii.  13-16.  He  repeats  his  thanksgiving 
for  their  conversion,  dwelling  especially 
on  the  persecutions  which  they  had  en 
dured. 

(4.)  ii.  17-iii.  10.  He  describes  his  own  sus 
pense  and  anxiety,  the  consequent  mission 
of  Timothy  to  Thessalonica,  and  the  en 
couraging  report  which  he  brought  back. 

(5.)  iii.  11-13.  The  Apostle's  prayer  for  tl  e 
Thessalonians. 

2.  Hortatory  portion  (iv.  1-v.  24). 

1.)  iv.  1-8.  Warning  against  impurity. 

2.)  iv.  9-12.  Exhortation  to  brotherly  love 

and  sobriety  of  conduct. 
(3.)  iv.  13-v.  11.  Touching  the  Advent   of 

the  Lord. 
(a.)  The  dead  shall  have  their  place  in  the 

resurrection,  iv.  13-18. 
(6.)  The  time  however  is  uncertain,  v.  1-3. 
(c.)  Therefore   all    must  be   watchful,    v. 

4-11. 

(4.)  v.  12-15.  Exhortation  to  orderly  living 

and  the  due  performance  of  social  duties. 

(5.)  v.  16-22.  Injunctions  relating  to  prayer 

and  spiritual  matters  generally. 
(6.)  v.  23,  24.  The  Apostle's  prayer  for  the 

Thessalonians. 

The  Epistle  closes  with  personal  injunctions  and 
a  benediction  (v.  25-28). 

7.  The  external  evidence  in  favour  of  the  genuine 
ness  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians  it 
chiefly  negative,  but  this  is  important  enough. 
There  is  no  trace  that  it  was  ever  disputed  at  any 
age  or  in  any  section  of  the  Church,  or  even  by 
any  individual,  till  the  present  century.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  allusions  to  it  in  writers  before  the 
close  of  the  2nd  century  are  confessedly  faint  and 
uncertain — a  circumstance  easily  explained,  when 
we  remember  the  character  of  the  Epistle  itself,  its 
comparatively  simple  diction,  its  silence  on  the  most 
important  doctrinal  questions,  and,  generally  speak« 
ing,  the  absence  of  any  salient  points  to  arrest  the 
attention  and  provoke  reference.  In  Clement  of 
Rome  there  are  some  slight  coincidences  of  language, 
perhaps  not  purely  accidental  (c.  38,  KUTCI  iravra 
fi/XapHTTe'iv  OUT<£,  comp.  1  Thess.v*  1 8 ;  ib.  ffw&aCw 
ovv  jj/juv  o\ov  rb  (Tto/jLa  €V  X.,  I.,  comp.  1  Thess.  v. 
23).  Ignatius  in  two  passages  (Polyc.  1,  and 
Ephes.  10)  seems  to  be  reminded  of  St.  Paul's  ex 
pression  aSia\€fnrr(as  irpoffevxeffOf  (1  Thess.  v. 
17),  but  in  both  passages  of  Ignatius  the  word 
dSmAeiTTTcws,  in  which  the  similarity  mainly  con 
sists,  is  absent  in  the  Syriac,  and  is  therefore  pro 
bably  spurious.  The  supposed  references  in  Poly. 
carp  (c.  iv.  to  1  Thess.  v.  17,  and  c.  ii.  to  1  Thess. 
v.  22)  are  also  unsatisfactory.  It  is  more  impor 
tant  to  observe  that  the  Epistle  was  included  in  th€ 
Old  Latin  and  Syriac  Versions,  that  it  is  found  in 
the  Canon  of  the  Muratorian  fragment,  and  that  it 
was  also  contained  in  that  of  Marciou.  Toward? 


THESSALONIANS,  SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE 


1481 


the  close  of  tnc  2nd  century  from  Irenaeus  down 
wards,  we  find  this  Epistle  directly  quoted  and 
ascribed  to  St.  Paul. 

The  evidence  derived  from  the  character  of  the 
Epistle  itself  is  so  strong  that  it  may  fairly  be 
called  irresistible.  It  would  be  impossible  to  enter 
into  the  question  of  style  here,  but  the  reader  may 
be  referred  to  the  Introduction  of  Jowett,  who  has 
handled  this  subject  very  fully  and  satisfactorily. 
An  equally  strong  argument  may  be  drawn  also 
from  the  matter  contained  in  the  Epistle.  Two  in 
stances  of  this  must  suffice.  In  the  first  place,  the 
fineness  and  delicacy  of  touch  with  which  the 
Apostle's  relations  towards  his  Thessalonian  converts 
are  drawn — his  yearning  to  see  them,  his  anxiety 
in  the  absence  of  Timothy,  and  his  heartfelt  re 
joicing  at  the  good  news — are  quite  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  clumsy  forgeries  of  the  early  Church.  In 
the  second  place,  the  writer  uses  language  which, 
however  it  may  be  explained,  is  certainly  coloured 
by  the  anticipation  of  the  speedy  advent  of  the 
Lord — language  natural  enough  on  the  Apostle's 

wn  lips,  but  quite  inconceivable  in  a  forgery 
written  after  his  death,  when  time  had  disappointed 
these  anticipations,  and  when  the  revival  or  mention 
of  them  would  serve  no  purpose,  and  might  seem  to 
discredit  the  Apostle.  Such  a  position  would  be 
an  anachronism  in  a  writer  of  the  2nd  century. 

The  genuineness  of  this  Epistle  was  first  ques 
tioned  by  Schrader  {Apostel  Paulus),  who  was  fol 
lowed  by  Baur  (Paulus,  p.  480).  The  latter 
writer  has  elaborated  and  systematized  the  attack. 
The  arguments  which  he  alleges  in  favour  of  his 
view  have  already  been  anticipated  to  a  great  extent. 
They  are  briefly  controverted  by  Liinemann,  and 
more  at  length  and  with  great  fairness  by  Jowett. 
The  following  is  a  summary  of  Baur's  arguments 
(i.)  He  attributes  great  weight  to  the  general  cha 
racter  of  the  epistle,  the  difference  of  style,  and  espe 
cially  the  absence  of  distinctive  Pauline  doctrines — 
a  peculiarity  which  has  already  been  remarked  upon 
and  explained,  §  2.  (ii.)  In  the  mention  of  the 
"  wrath  "  overtaking  the  Jewish  people  (ii.  16), 
Baur  sees  an  allusion  to  the  destruction  of  Jeru 
salem,  and  therefore  a  proof  of  the  later  date  of  the 
Epistle.  The  real  significance  of  these  words  will 
be  considered  below  in  discussing  the  apocalyptic 
uassage  in  the  Second  Epistle,  (iii.)  He  urges  the 
contradictions  to  the  account  in  the  Acts — a  strange 
argument  surely  to  be  brought  forward  by  Baur, 
who  postdates  and  discredits  the  authority  of  that 
narrative.  The  real  extent  and  bearing  of  these 
divergences  has  been  already  considered,  (iv.)  He 
discovers  references  to  the  Acts,  which  show  that 
the  Epistle  was  written  later.  It  has  been  seen 
however  that  the  coincidences  are  subtle  and  inci 
dental,  and  the  points  of  divergence  and  primd 
facie  contradictions,  which  Baur  himself  allows,  and 
imioed  insists  upon,  are  so  numerous  as  to  preclude 
the  supposition  of  copying.  Schleiermacher  (Einl.  ins 
N.  T.  p.  150)  rightly  infers  the  independence  of 
the  Epistle  on  these  grounds,  (v.)  He  supposes 
passages  in  this  Epistle  to  have  been  borrowed  from 
the  acknowledged  letters  of  St.  Paul.  The  resem 
blances  however  which  he  points  out  are  not 
greater  than,  or  indeed  so  great  as,  those  in  other 
Epistles,  and  bear  no  traces  of  imitation. 

8.  A  list  of  the  Patristic  commentaries  com 
prising  the  whole  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  will  be 
found  in  the  article  on  the  EPISTLE  TO  THE  RO 
MANS.  To  this  list  should  be  added  the  work  of 

Thsodore  of  Mopsuestia,  a  portion  of  which  con 


taining  the  shorter  Epistles  from  (relations  onwards  is 
preserved  in  a  Latin  translation.  The  part  relating 
to  the  Thessalonians  is  at  present  only  accessible  in 
the  compilation  of  Rabanus  Maurus  (where  it  is 
quoted  under  the  name  of  Ambrose),  which  ought 
to  be  read  with  the  corrections  and  additions  given 
by  Dom  Pitra  (Spicil.  Solesm,  i.  p.  133).  This 
commentary  is  attributed  by  Pitra  to  Hilary  of 
Poitiers,  but  its  true  authorship  was  pointed  out  by 
Hort  (Journal  of  Class,  and  Sacr.  Phil.  iv.  p. 
302).  The  portion  of  Cramer's  Catena  relating  to 
this  Epistle  seems  to  be  made  up  of  extracts  from 
Chrysostom,  Severianus,  and  Theodore  of  Mop 
suestia. 

For  the  more  important  recent  works  on  the 
whole  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles  the  reader  may  again 
be  referred  to  the  article  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Ro 
mans.  The  notes  on  the  Thessalonians  in  Meyer's 
Commentary  are  executed  by  Liinemann.  Of 
special  annotators  on  the  Thessalonian  Epistles,  the 
chief  are,  in  Germany,  Flatt  (1829),  Pelt  (1830), 
Schott  (1834),  and  Koch  (2nd  ed.  1855,  the  First 
Epistle  alone),  and  in  England  Jowett  (2nd  ed. 
1859)  and  Ellicott  (2nd  ed.  1862).  [J.  B.  L.] 

THESSALONIANS,  SECOND  EPISTLE 
TO  THE.  1.  This  Epistle  appears  to  have  been 
written  from  Corinth  not  very  long  after  the  First, 
for  Silvanus  and  Timotheus  were  still  with  St. 
Paul  (i.  1).  In  the  former  letter  we  saw  chiefly 
the  outpouring  of  strong  personal  affection,  occa 
sioned  by  the  renewal  of  the  Apostle's  intercourse 
with  the  Thessalonians,  and  the  doctrinal  and 
hortatory  portions  are  there  subordinate.  In  the 
Second  Epistle,  on  the  other  hand,  his  leading 
motive  seems  to  have  been  the  desire  of  correcting 
errors  in  the  Church  of  Thessalonica.  We  notice 
two  points  especially  which  call  forth  his  rebuke. 
First,  it  seems  that  the  anxious  expectation  of  the 
Lord's  advent,  instead  of  subsiding,  had  gained 
ground  since  the  writing  of  the  First  Epistle.  They 
now  looked  upon  this  great  crisis  as  imminent,  and 
their  daily  avocations  were  neglected  in  consequence. 
There  were  expressions  in  the  First  Epistle  which, 
taken  by  themselves,  might  seem  to  favour  this 
view ;  and  at  all  events  such  was  falsely  represented 
to  be  the  Apostle's  doctrine.  He  now  writes  to 
soothe  this  restless  spirit  and  quell  their  apprehen 
sions  by  showing  that  many  things  must  happen 
first,  and  that  the  end  was  not  yet,  referring  to 
his  oral  teaching  at  Thessalonica  in  confirmation  of 
this  statement  (ii.  1-12,  iii.  6-12).  Secondly,  the 
Apostle  had  also  a  personal  ground  of  complaint. 
His  authority  was  not  denied  by  any,  but  it  was 
tampered  with,  and  an  unauthorised  use  was  made 
of  his  name.  It  is  difficult  to  ascertain  the  exact 
circumstances  of  the  case  from  casual  and  indirect 
allusions,  and  indeed  we  may  perhaps  infer  from 
the  vagueness  of  the  Apostle's  own  language  that 
he  himself  was  not  in  possession  of  definite  informa 
tion  ;  bixt  at  all  events  his  suspicions  were  aroused. 
Designing  men  might  misrepresent  his  teaching  in 
two  ways,  either  by  suppressing  what  he  actually 
had  written,  or  said,  or  by  forging  letters  and  in 
other  ways  representing  him  as  teaching  what  he 
had  not  taught.  St.  Paul's  language  hints  in  dif 
ferent  places  at  both  these  modes  of  false  dealing. 
He  seems  to  have  entertained  suspicions  of  this  dis 
honesty  even  when  he  wrote  the  First  Epistle.  At 
the  close  of  that  Epistle  he  binds  the  Thessalonians 
by  a  solemn  oath,  "  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  tc 
see  that  the  Epistle  is  read  "to  all  the  holy 
brethren"  (v.  27) — a  charge  unintelligible  in  itself 


1482 


THESSALONIANS   SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE 


and  oiily  to  be  explained  by  supposing  some 
misgivings  in  the  Apostle's  mind.  Before  the 
Second  Epistle  ir,  written,  his  suspicions  seem  to 
have  been  confirmed,  for  there  are  two  passages 
which  allude  to  these  misrepresentations  of  hfe 
teaching.  In  the  first  of  these  he  tells  them  in 
vague  language,  which  may  refer  equally  well  to  a 
false  interpretation  put  upon  his  own  words  in  the 
First  Epistle,  or  to  a  supplemental  letter  forged  in 
his  name,  "  not  to  be  troubled  either  by  spirit  or 
by  word  or  by  letter,  as  coming  from  us,  as  if  the 
day  of  the  Lord  were  at  hand."  They  are  not  to 
be  deceived,  he  adds,  by  any  one,  whatever  means 
he  employs  (Kara  /iTjSeVo  rpoirov,  ii.  2,  3).  In  the 
second  passage  at  the  close  of  the  Epistle  he  says, 
"  The  salutation  of  Paul  with  mine  own  hand, 
which  is  a  token  in  every  Epistle :  so  I  write " 
(iii.  17) — evidently  a  precaution  against  forgery. 
With  these  two  passages  should  be  combined  the 
expression  in  iii.  14,  from  which  we  infer  that  he 
now  entertained  a  fear  of  direct  opposition  : — "  If 
any  man  obey  not  our  word  conveyed  by  our 
Epistle,  note  that  man." 

It  will  be  seen  then  that  the  teaching  of  the 
Second  Epistle  is  corrective  of,  or  rather  supple 
mental  to,  that  of  the  First,  and  therefore  presup 
poses  it.  Moreover,  the  First  Epistle  bears  on  its 
face  evidence  that  it  is  the  first  outpouring  of  his 
affectionate  yearnings  towards  his  converts  after  his 
departure  from  Thessalonica ;  while  on  the  other 
hand  the  Second  Epistle  contains  a  direct  allusion 
to  a  previous  letter,  which  may  suitably  be  referred 
to  the  First : — "  Hold  fast  the  tradition  which  ye 
were  taught  either  by  word  or  by  letter  from  us  " 
(ii.  15).  We  can  scarcely  be  wrong  therefore  in 
maintaining  the  received  order  of  the  two  Epistles. 
It  is  due  however  to  the  great  names  of  Grotiu_ 
and  of  Ewald  (Jahrb.  iii.  p.  250 ;  Sendschr.  p.  16) 
to  mention  that  they  reverse  the  order,  placing  the 
Second  Epistle  before  the  First  in  point  of  time — 
on  different  grounds  indeed,  but  both  equally  in 
sufficient  to  disturb  the  traditional  order,  supported 
as  it  is  by  the  considerations  already  alleged. 

2.  This  Epistle,  in  the  range  of  subject  as  well 
as  in  style  and  general  character,  closely  resembles 
the  First ;  and  the  remarks  made  on  that  Epistle 
apply  for  the  most  part  equally  well  to  this.  The 
structure  also  is  somewhat  similar,  the  main  body 
of  the  Epistle  being  divided  into  two  parts  in  the 
same  way,  and  each  part  closing  with  a  prayer 
(ii.  16,  17,  iii.  16 ;  both  commencing  with  avrbs 
8e  6  Kvpios}.  The  following  is  a  table  of  con 
tents  :— 

The  opening  salutation  (i.  1,  2). 

1.  A  general  expression  of  thankfulness  and  inte 
rest,  leading  up  to  the  difficulty  about  the  Lord's 
Advent  (i.  3-ii.  17). 

(1.)  The  Apostle  pours  forth  his  thanksgiving 
for  their  progress  in  the  faith  ;  he  encou 
rages  them  to  be  patient  under  persecu 
tion,  reminding  them  of  the  judgment  to 
come,  and  prays  that  they  may  be  pre 
pared  to  meet  it  (i.  3-12). 

(2.)  He  is  thus  led  to  correct  the  erroneous 
idea  that  the  judgment  is  imminent, 
pointing  out  that  much  must  happen 
first  (ii.  1-12). 

(3  )  He  repeats  his  thanksgiving  and  exhorta 
tion,  and  concludes  this  portion  with  a 
prayer  (ii.  13-17). 


2.  Direct  exhortation  (iii.  1-16). 

(1.)  He  urges  them  to  pray  for  him,  and  .Con 
fidently  anticipates  their  progress  iu  the 
faith  (iii.  1-5). 

(2.)  He  reproves  the  idle,  disorderly,  and  dis 
obedient,  and   charges   the   faithful   to 
withdraw  from  such  (iii.  6-15). 
This  portion  again  closes  with  a  prayer  (iii.  1 6), 
The  Epistle  ends  with  a  special  direction  and  bene 
diction  (iii.  17,  18). 

3.  The  external  evidence  in  favour  of  the  Second 
Epistle  is  somewhat  more  definite  than  that  which 
can  be  brought  in  favour  of  the  First.     It  seems  to 
be  referred  to  in  one  or  two  passages  of  Polycarp 
(iii.  15,  in  Polyc.  c.  11,  and  possibly  i.  4  in  the 
same  chapter ;   cf.   Polyc.  c.  3,  and  see  Lardner, 
pt.  ii.  c.  6)  ;  and  the  language  in   which  Justin 
Martyr  (Dial.  p.  336  D)  speaks  of  the  Man  of  Sin 
is  so  similar  that  it  can  scarcely  be  independent  of 
this  Epistle.     The  Second  Epistle,  like  the  First,  i& 
found  in  the  canons  of  the  Syriac  and  Old  Latin 
Versions,  and  in  those  of  the  Muratorian  fragment 
and  of  the  heretic  Marcion ;  is  quoted  expressly  nnd 
by  name  by  Irenaeus  and  others  at  the  close  of  tht 
second  century,  and  was  universally  received  by  the 
Church.     The  internal  character  of  the  Epistle  too, 
as  in  the  former  case,  bears  the  strongest  testimony 
to  its  Pauline  origin.     (See  Jowett,  i.  143.) 

Its  genuineness  in  fact  was  never  questioned 
until  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  Objec 
tions  were  first  started  by  Christ.  Schmidt  (EinL 
ins  N.  T.  1804).  He  has  been  followed  by  Schrader 
(Apostel  Pauhis),  Kern  (Tubing.  Zeitschr.f.  Theol. 
1839,  ii.  p.  145),  and  Baur  (Paulus  der  'Apostel). 
De  Wette  at  first  condemned  this  Epistle,  but  after 
wards  withdrew  his  condemnation  and  frankly  ac 
cepted  it  as  genuine. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  this  Epistle  has  been 
rejected  by  some  modern  critics  who  acknowledge 
the  First  to  be  genuine.  Such  critics  of  course 
attribute  no  weight  to  arguments  brought  against 
the  First,  such  as  we  have  considered  already.  The 
apocalyptic  passage  (ii.  1-12)  is  the  great  stumbling- 
block  to  them.  It  has  been  objected  to,  either  as 
alluding  to  events  subsequent  to  St.  Paul's  death, 
the  Neronian  persecution  for  instance;  or  as  betray 
ing  religious  views  derived  from  the  Montanism 
of  the  second  century ;  or  lastly,  as  contradicting 
St.  Paul's  anticipations  expressed  elsewhere,  espe 
cially  in  the  First  Epistle,  of  the  near  approach  of 
the  Lord's  advent.  That  there  is  no  reference  to 
Nero,  we  shall  endeavour  to  show  presently.  That 
the  doctiine  of  an  Antichrist  did  not  start  into 
being  with'  Montanism,  is  shown  from  the  allusions 
of  Jewish  writers  even  before  the  Christian  era 
(see  Bertholdt,  Christ,  p.  69  ;  Gfrorer,  Jahrh.  des 
ffeils,  pt.  ii.  p.  257) ;  and  appears  still  more  clearly 
from  the  passage  of  Justin  Martyr  referred  to  in  a 
former  paragraph.  That  the  language  used  of  the 
Lord's  coming  in  the  Second  Epistle  does  not  con 
tradict,  but  rather  supplement  the  teaching  of  the 
First — postponing  the  day  indeed,  but  still  antici 
pating  its  approach  as  probable  within  the  Apostle's 
lifetime — may  be  gathered  both  from  expressions 
in  the  passage  itself  (e.  g.  rer.  7,  "  is  already 
working"),  and  from  other  parts  of  the  Epistla 
(i.  7,  8).  Other  special  objections  to  the  Epistk 
will  scarcely  command  a  hearing,  and  must  neces 
sarily  be  passed  over  here. 

4.  The  most  striking  feature  in  the  Epistle  is 
this  apocalyptic  passage,  announcing  tne  revelation 


THE8SALONIAN8,  SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE 


1483 


of  the  "  Man  of  Sin"  (ii.  1-12)  ;  and  it  will  not  be 
Irrelevant  to  investigate  its  meaning,  bearing  as  it 
does  on  the  circumstances  under  which  the  Epistle 
was  written,  and  illustrating  this  aspect  of  the 
Apostle's  teaching.  He  had  dwelt  much  on  the  sub 
ject  ;  for  he  appeals  to  the  Thessalonians  as  knowing 
this  truth,  and  reminds  them  that  he  had  told  them 
these  things  when  he  was  yet  with  them. 

(I.)  The  passage  speaks  of  a  great  apostasy  which 
is  to  usher  in  the  advent  of  Christ,  the  great  judg 
ment.  There  are  three  prominent  figures  in  the 
picture,  Christ,  Antichrist,  and  the  Restrainer.  An 
tichrist  is  described  as  the  Man  of  Sin,  the  Son  of 
Perdition,  as  the  Adversary  who  exalteth  himself 
abova  all  that  is  called  God,  as  making  himself  out 
to  be  God.  Later  on  (for  apparently  the  reference 
is  the  same)  he  is  styled  the  "mystery  of  lawlessness," 
"  the  lawless  one."  The  Restrainer  is  in  one  place 
spoken  of  in  the  masculine  as  a  person  (6  KOLT^WV ), 
in  another  in  the  neuter  as  a  power,  an  influence 
(rb  KOTe^oy).  The  "  mystery  of  lawlessness  "  is 
already  at  work.  At  present  it  is  checked  by  the 
Restrainer ;  but  the  check  will  be  removed,  and  then 
it  will  break  out  in  all  its  violence.  Then  Christ 
will  appear,  and  the  enemy  shall  be  consumed  by 
the  breath  of  His  mouth,  shall  be  brought  to  naught 
by  the  splendour  of  His  presence. 

(II.)  Many  different  explanations  have  been  of 
fered  of  this  passage.  By  one  class  of  interpreters 


them.  Following  this  ar.alogy,  we  may  agree  witb 
the  Praeterists  that  St.  Panl  is  referring  to  events 
which  fell  under  his  own  cognizance  ;  for  indeed  the 
Restrainer  is  said  to  be  restraining  now,  and  the 
mystery  of  iniquity  to  be  already  working :  while 
at  the  same  time  we  may  accept  the  Futurist  view, 
that  the  Apostle  is  describing  the  erd  of  all  things, 
and  that  therefore  the  prophecy  has  not  yet  re 
ceived  its  most  striking  and  complete  fulfilment. 
This  commingling  of  the  immediate  and  paitial  with 
the  final  and  universal  manifestation  of  God's  judg 
ments,  characteristic  of  all  prophecy,  is  rendered 
more  easy  in  St.  Paul's  case,  because  he  seems  to 
have  contemplated  the  end  of  all  things  as  possibly, 
or  even  probably,  near  at  hand  ;  and  therefore  the 
particular  manifestation  of  Antichrist,  which  he 
witnessed  with  his  own  eyes,  would  naturally  be 
merged  in  and  identified  with  the  final  Antichrist, 
in  which  the  opposition  to  the  Gospel  will  cul 
minate. 

(IV.)  If  this  view  be  correct,  it  remains  to  inquire 
what  particular  adversary  of  the  Gospel,  and  what 
particular  restraining  influence,  St.  Paul  may  have 
had  in  view.  But,  before  attempting  to  approximate 
to  an  explanation,  we  may  clear  the  way  bv  laying 
down  two  rules.  First.  The  imagery  of  the  passage 
must  be  interpreted  mainly  by  itself,  and  by  th* 
circumstances  of  the  time.  The  symbols  may  bo 
borrowed  in  some  cases  from  the  Old  Testament; 


it  has  been  referred  to  circumstances  which  passed    they  may  reappear  in  other  parts  of  the  New.    But 

».:4.i,:«    AU -      • i-     -  P  AT.  _    *         ii   »  •  .     i  »i          .1 


within  the  circle  of  the  Apostle's  own  experience, 
the  events  of  his  own  lifetime,  or  the  period  im 
mediately  following.  Others  again  have  seen  in 
it  the  prediction  of  a  crisis  yet  to  be  realized,  the 
end  of  all  things.  The  former  of  these,  the  Prae 
terists,  have  identified  the  "Man  of  Sin"  with 
divers  historical  characters — with  Caligula,  Nero, 
Titus,  Simon  Magus,  Simon  son  of  Giora,  the 
high-priest  Ananias,  &c.,  and  have  sought  for  a 
historical  counterpart  to  the  Restrainer  in  like  man 
ner.  The  latter,  the  Futurists,  have  also  given 
various  accounts  of  the  Antichrist,  the  mysterious 
power  of  evil  which  is  already  working.  To  Pro 
testants  for  instance  it  is  the  Papacy  ;  to  the  Greek 
Church,  Mohammedanism.  And  in  the  same  way 
each  generation  and  each  section  in  the  Church  has 
regarded  it  as  a  prophecy  of  that  particular  power 
which  seemed  to  them  and  in  their  own  time  to  be 
most  fraught  with  evilto  the  true  faith.  A  good 
account  of  these  manifold  interpretations  will  be 
found  in  Liinemann's  Commentary  on  the  Epistle, 
j>.  204  ;  Schlussbem.  zu  ii.  1-12.  See  also  Alford, 
Proleg. 

(III.)  Now  in  arbitrating  between  the  Praeterists 
and  the  Futurists,  we  are  led  by  the  analogy  of 
other  prophetic  announcements,  as  well  as  by  the 
language  of  the  passage  itself,  to  take  a  middle 
course.  Neither  is  wholly  right,  and  yet  both  are 
to  a  certain  extent  right.  It  is  the  special  charac 
teristic  of  prophecy  to  speak  of  the  distant  future 
through  the  present  and  immediate.  The  persons 
and  events  falling  within  the  horizon  of  the  pro 
phet  s  own  view,  are  the  types  and  representatives 
of  greater  figures  and  crises  far  off,  and  as  yet  but 
dimly  discerned.  Thus  the  older  prophets,  while 
speaking  of  a  delivery  from  the  temporary  oppres 
sion  of  Egypt  or  Babylon,  spoke  also  of  Messiah's 
kingdom.  Thus  our  Lord  himself,  foretelling  the 
doom  which  was  even  then  hanging  over  the  holy 
city,  glances  at  the  future  judgment  of  the  world  as 
typified  and  portrayed  in  this ;  and  the  two  are  so 
interwoven  that  it  is  impossible  to  disentangle 


we  cannot  be  sure  that  the  same  image  denotes 
exactly  the  same  thing  in  both  cases.  The  lan 
guage  describing  the  Man  of  Sin  is  borrowed  to  some 
extent  from  the  representation  of  Antiochus  Epi- 
phanes  in  the  Book  of  Daniel,  but  Antiochus  cannot  be 
meant  there.  The  great  adversary  in  the  Revelation 
seems  to  be  the  Roman  power ;  but  it  may  be  widely 
different  here.  There  were  even  in  the  Apostolic 
age  "many  Antichrists;"  and  we  cannot  be  suie 
that  the  Antichrist  present  to  the  mind  of  St.  Paul 
was  the  same  with  the  Antichrist  contemplated 
by  St.  John.  Secondly.  In  all  figurative  passages 
it  is  arbitrary  to  assume  that  a  person  is  denoted 
where  we  find  a  personification.  Thus  the  "  Man 
of  Sin  "  here  need  not  be  an  individual  man ;  it 
may  be  a  body  of  men,  or  a  power,  a  spiritual  in 
fluence.  In  the  case  of  the  Restrainer  we  seem  to 
have  positive  ground  for  so  interpreting  it,  since  in 
one  passage  the  neuter  gender  is  used,  "  the  thing 
which  restraineth "  (rb  Kare'xoj/),  as  if  syno 
nymous.  (See  Jowett's  Essay  On  the  Man  <.j 
Sin,  i.  p.  178,  rather  for  suggestions  as  to  the 
mode  of  interpretation,  than  for  the  conclusion  he 
arrives  at.) 

(V.)  When  we  inquire  then,  what  St.  Paul 
had  in  view  when  he  spoke  of  the  "  Man  of  Sin " 
and  the  Restrainer,  we  can  only  hope  to  get  even 
an  approximate  answer  by  investigating  the  cir 
cumstances  of  the  Apostle's  life  at  this  epoch. 
Now  we  find  that  the  chief  opposition  to  the  Gospel, 
and  especially  to  St.  Paul's  preaching  at  this  time 
arose  from  the  Jews.  The  Jews  had  conspired 
against  the  Apostle  and  his  companions  at  Thessa- 
lonica,  and  he  only  saved  himself  by  secret  flight. 
Thence  they  followed  him  to  Beroea,  which  he 
hurriedly  left  in  the  same  way.  At  Corinth, 
whence  the  letters  to  the  Thessalonians  were 
written,  they  persecuted  him  still  further,  raising  a 
cry  of  treason  against  him,  and  bringing  him  before 
the  Roman  proconsul.  These  incidents  explain  the 
strong  expressions  he  uses  of  them  in  these  Epistles, 
"  They  slew  the  Lord  Jesus  and  the  prophets,  smd  pel- 


1484 


THESSALONICA 


secuted  the  Apostles  ;  they  are  hateful  to  God  ;  they 
are  the  common  enemies  of  mankind,  whom  the 
Divine  wrath  (?)  opyf]}  at  length  overtakes"  (1 
Thess.  ii.  15,  16).  With  these  facts  in  view,  it 
seems  on  the  whole  probable  that  the  Antichrist  is 
represented  especially  by  Judaism.  With  a  pro 
phetic  insight  the  Apostle  foresaw,  as  he  contem 
plated  the  moral  and  political  condition  of  the  race, 
tne  approach  of  a  great  and  overwhelming  cata 
strophe.  And  it  is  not  improbable  that  our  Lord's 
predictions  of  the  vengeance  which  threatened 
Jerusalem  blended  with  the  Apostle's  vision,  and 
gave  a  colour  to  this  passage.  If  it  seem  strange 
that  "  lawlessness "  should  be  mentioned  as  the 
distinguishing  feature  of  those  whose  very  zeal  for 
"  the  Law "  stimulated  their  opposition  to  the 
Gospel,  we  may  appeal  to  our  Lord's  own  words 
(Matt,  xxiii.  28),  describing  the  Jewish  teachers: 
"  within  they  are  full  of  hypocrisy  and  lawlessness 
(avo/j.ias)."  Corresponding  to  this  view  of  the 
Antichrist,  we  shall  probably  be  correct  in  regard 
ing  the  Roman  Empire  as  the  restraining  power,  for 
so  it  was  taken  by  many  of  the  Fathers,  though 
without  altogether  understanding  its  bearing.  It 
was  to  Roman  justice  and  Roman  magistrates  that 
the  Apostle  had  recourse  at  this  time  to  shield  him 
from  the  enmity  of  the  Jews,  and  to  check  their 
violence.  At  Philippi,  his  Roman  citizenship  ex 
torted  an  ample  apology  for  ill-treatment.  At 
Thessalonica,  Roman  kw  secured  him  fair  play. 
At  Corinth,  a  Roman  proconsul  acquitted  him  of 
frivolous  charges  brought  by  the  Jews.  It  was 
only  at  a  later  date  under  Nero,  that  Rome  became 
the  antagonist  of  Christendom,  and  then  she  also 
in  turn  was  fitly  portrayed  by  St.  John  as  the 
type  of  Antichrist.  Whether  the  Jewish  opposition 
to  the  Gospel  entirely  exhausted  St.  Paul's  con 
ception  of  the  "  mystery  of  lawlessness  "  as  he  saw 
it  "  already  working  "  in  his  own  day,  or  whether 
other  elements  did  not  also  combine  with  this  to 
complete  the  idea,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  More 
over  at  this  distance  of  time  and  with  our  imper 
fect  information,  we  cannot  hope  to  explain  the 
exact  bearing  of  all  the  details  in  the  picture.  But 
following  the  guidance  of  history,  we  seem  justified 
in  adopting  this  as  a  probable,  though  only  a 
partial,  explanation  of  a  very  difficult  passage. 

5.  A  list  of  commentaries  has  been  given  in  the 
article  on  the  First  Epistle.  [J.  B.  L.] 

THESSALONTCA  (Oeo-o-oXoj/t/crj).  The  ori 
ginal  name  of  this  city  was  Thernia ;  and  that  part 
of  the  Macedonian  shore  on  which  it  was  situated 
("  M-edio  flexu  litoris  sinus  Thermaici,"  Plin.  H.  N. 
iv.  10)  retained  through  the  Roman  period  the  de 
signation  of  the  Thermaic  Gulf.  The  history  of 
the  city  under  its  earlier  name  was  of  no  great  note 
•xsee  Herod,  vii.  128  seqq. ;  Thucyd.  i.  61,  ii.  29  ; 
Aesch.  Defals.  Leg.  p.  31).  It  rose  into  importance 
with  the  decay  of  Greek  nationality.  Cassander 
the  son  of  Antipater  rebuilt  and  enlarged  it,  and 
named  it  after  his  wife  Thessalonica,  the  sister  of 
Alexander  the  Great.  The  first  author  in  which  the 
new  appellation  occurs  is  Polybius  (xxiii.  4).  The 
name  ever  since,  under  various  slight  modifications, 
has  been  continuous,  and  the  city  itself  has  never 
ceased  to  be  eminent.  Saloniki  (though  Adrian- 

a  Timothy  is  not  mentioned  in  any  part  of  the  direct 
narrative  of  what  happened  at  Thessalonica,  though  he 
appears  as  St.  Paul's  companion  before  at  Philippi  (Acts 
xvi.  1-13),  and  afterwards  at  Beroea  (xvii.  14,  t5);  but 
from  his  subsequent  mission  to  Thessalonica  (I  Thejs.  ill. 


THESSALONICA 

ople  may  possibly  be  larger^  is  still  the  most  im 
portant  town  of  European  Turkey,  next  after  Con' 
stantinople. 

Under  the  Romans,  when  MACEDONIA  was  divided 
into  four  governments,  Thessalonica  was  made  tin 
capital  of  the  second  (Liv.  xlv.  29);  afterwards, 
when  the  whole  was  consolidated  into  one  province, 
this  city  became  practically  the  metropolis.  Notices 
of  the  place  now  become  frequent.  Cicero  was  here 
in  his  exile  (pro  Plane.  41),  and  some  of  his  letters 
were  written  from  hence  during  his  journeys  to 
and  from  his  own  province  of  Cilicia.  During 
the  first  Civil  War  it  was  the  head-quarters  of  the 
Pompeian  party  and  the  Senate  (Dion  Cass.  xli.  20). 
During  the  second  it  took  the  side  of  Octavius 
(Pint.  Brut.  46  ;  Appian,  B.  C.  iv.  118),  whence 
apparently  it  reaped  the  honour  and  advantage  of 
being  made  a  "free  city"  (libera  civitas,  Plin, 
/.  c.),  a  privilege  which  is  commemorated  on  some 
of  its  coins.  Strabo  in  the  first  century  speaks  of 
Thessalonica  as  the  most  populous  city  in  Macedonia 
(/ioAicTTa  TU>V  &\\<av  euovSpeT),  similar  language 
to  which  is  used  by  Lucian  in  the  second  century 
(Asin.  46). 

Thus  we  are  brought  to  St.  Paul's  visit  (with 
Silas  and  Timothy)  »  during  his  second  missionary 
journey,  and  to  the  introduction  of  Christianity 
into  Thessalonica.  Three  circumstances  must  heie 
be  mentioned,  which  illustrate  in  an  important  man 
ner  this  visit  and  this  journey,  as  well  as  the  two 
Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  which  the  Apostle 
wrote  from  Corinth  very  soon  after  his  departure 
from  his  new  Macedonian  con  veils.  (1.)  This  was 
the  chief  station  on  the  great  Roman  Road,  called  the 
Via  Egnatia,  which  connected  Rome  with  the  whole 
region  to  the  north  of  the  Aegean  Sea.  St.  Paul  was 
on  this  road  at  NEAPOLIS  (Acts  xvi.  11)  and  PHI 
LIPPI  (xvi.  12-40),  and  his  route  from  the  latter 
place  (xvii.  1)  had  brought  him  through  two  of  the 
well-known  minor  stations  mentioned  in  the  Itine 
raries.  [AMPHIPOLIS;  APOLLONIA.]  (2.)  Placed 
as  it  was  on  this  great  Road,  and  in  connexion  with 
other  important  Roman  ways  ("  posita  in  gremio 
imperii  Romani,"  to  use  Cicero's  words),  Thessa 
lonica  was  an  invaluable  centre  for  the  spread  of 
the  Gospel.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that, 
besides  its  inland  communication  with  the  rich 
plains  of  Macedonia  and  with  far  more  remote 
regions,  its  maritime  position  made  it  a  great  empo 
rium  of  trade  'by  sea.  In  fact  it  was  nearly,  if  not 
quite,  on  a  level  with  Corinth  and  Ephesus  in  its 
share  of  the  commerce  of  the  Levant.  Thus  we  see 
the  force  of  what  St.  Paul  says  in  his  First  Epistle, 
shortly  after  leaving  Thessalonica — a<p  vfilav  e|ifj- 
X^TCU  6  \6yos  <rov  Kvpiov  ov  /j.6vov  eV  rfj  Mo/f6- 
5o»/i<f  Kal  ev  rij  'Axafe,  aAA5  eV  iravrl  r6iry  (i.  8). 
(3.)  The  circumstance  noted  in  Acts  xvii.  1,  that 
here  was  the  synagogue  of  the  Jews  in  this  part  of 
Macedonia,  had  evidently  much  to  do  with  the 
Apostle's  plans,  and  also  doubtless  with  his  success. 
Trade  would  inevitably  bring  Jews  to  Thessalo 
nica:  and  it  is  remarkable  that,  ever  since,  they 
have  had  a  prominent  place  in  the  annals  of  the 
city.  They  are  mentioned  in  the  seventh  century 
during  the  Sclavonic  wars  ;  and  again  in  the  twelfth 
by  Eustathius  and  Benjamin  of  Tudela.  In  the 


1-7  ;  see  Acts  xviii.  5),  and  the  mention  of  his  name  in 
the  opening  salutation  of  both  Epistles  to  the  Thessalo 
nians,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  he  had  been  with  th< 
Apostle  throughout. 


THESSALONICA. 


1485 


fifteenth  century  there  was  a  grant  influx  of  Spanish  . 
Jews.    At  the  present  day  the  numbers  of  residents  ! 
in  the  Jewish  quarter  (in  the  south-east  part  of  the  ' 
town)  are  estimated  at  10,000  or  20,000,  out  of  an 
aggregate  population  of  60,000  or  70,000. 

The  first  scene  of  the  Apostle's  work  at  Thessa- 
lonica  was  the  Synagogue.  According  to  his  custom 
he  began  there,  arguing  from  the  Ancient  Scrip 
tures  (Acts  xvii.  2,  3)  :  and  the  same  general  results 
followed,  as  in  other  places.  Some  believed,  both 
Jews  and  proselytes,  and  it  is  particularly  added, 
that  among  these  were  many  influential  women 
'ver.  4) ;  on  which  the  general  body  of  the  Jews, 
stirred  up  with  jealousy,  excited  the  Gentile  nopu- 
lation  to  persecute  Paul  and  Silas  (vers.  5-10  It 
is  stated  that  the  ministrations  among  the  'jews 
continued  for  three  weeks  (ver.  2).  Not  that  we 
are  obliged  to  limit  to  this  time  the  whole  stay  of 
the  Apostles  at  Thessalonica.  A  flourishing  Church 
was  certainly  formed  there :  and  the  Epistles  show 
that  its  elements  were  much  more  Gentile  than 
Jewish.  St.  Paul  speaks  of  the  Thessalonians  as 
having  turned  "  from  idols  ;"  and  he  does  not  here, 
as  in  other  Epistles,  quote  the  Jewish  Scriptures. 
!n  all  respects  it  is  important  to  compare  these  two 
letters  with  the  narrative  in  the  Acts ;  and  such 
references  have  the  greater  freshness  from  the  short 
interval  which  elapsed  between  visiting  the  Thessa 
lonians  and  writing  to  them.  Such  expressions  as 
tv  0\tyei  Tro\\fj  (1  Thess.  i.  6),  and  cv  iro\\$ 
ayoavi  (ii.  2),  sum  up  the  suffering  and  conflict 
which  Paul  and  Silas  and  their  converts  went  through 
at  Thessalonica.  (See  also  1  Thess.ii.  14,15,  iii.  3, 4; 
2  Thess.  i.  4-7.)  The  persecution  took  place  through 
the  instrumentality  of  worthless  idlers  (rtav  070- 
patcav  &v5pas  rivas  irovnpovs,  Acts  xvii.  5),  who, 
instigated  by  the  Jews,  raised  a  tumult.  The  house 
of  Jason,  with  whom  the  Apostles  seem  to  have  been 
residing,  was  attacked ;  they  themselves  were  not 
found,  but  Jason  was  brought  before  the  authorities 
on  the  accusation  that  the  Christians  were  trying 


to  set  up  a  new  King  in  opposition  to  the  Emperor  ; 
a  guarantee  (T^>  iKav6i/)  was  taken  from  Jason  and 
others  for  the  maintenance  of  the  peace,  and  Paul 
and  Silas  were  sent  away  by  night  southwards  to 
BEROEA  (Acts  xvii.  5-10).  The  particular  charge 
brought  against  the  Apostles  receives  an  illustra 
tion  from  the  Epistles,  where  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
is  prominently  mentioned  (1  Thess.  ii.  12  ;  2  Thess. 
i.  5).  So  again,  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection  is 
conspicuous  both  in  St.  Luke's  narrative  (xvii.  3',, 
and  in  the  first  letter  (I.  10,  iv.  14,  16).  if  we  pass 
from  these  points  to  such  as  are  personal,  we  are 
enabled  from  the  Epistles  to  complete  the  picture  of 
St.  Paul's  conduct  and  attitude  at  Thessalonica,  as 
regards  his  love,  tenderness,  and  zeal,  his  care  of 
individual  souls,  and  his  disinterestedness  (see  1 
Thess.  i.  5,  ii.  1-10).  As  to  this  last  point,  St. 
Paul  was  partly  supported  here  by  contributions 
from  Philippi  (Phil.  iv.  15,  16),  partly  by  th* 
labour  of  his  own  hands,  which  he  diligently  prac 
tised  for  the  sake  of  the  better  success  of  the  Gospel, 
and  that  he  might  set  an  example  to  the  idle  and 
selfish.  (He  refers  very  expressly  to  what  he  had 
said  and  done  at  Thessaionica  in  regard  to  this 
point.  See  1  Thess.  ii.  9,  iv.  1  1  ;  comparing  2  Thess. 
iii.  8-12.)  [THESSALONIANS,  EPISTLES  TO.]  To 
complete  the  account  of  St.  Paul's  connexion  with 
Thessalonica,  it  must  be  noticed  that  he  was  cer 
tainly  there  again,  though  the  name  of  the  city 
is  not  specified,  on  his  third  missionary  journey, 
both  in  going  and  returning  (Acts  xx.  1-3).  Pos 
sibly  he  was  also  there  again,  after  his  libera 
tion  from  his  fii-st  imprisonment.  See  Phil.  i.  25, 
26,  ii.  24,  for  the  hope  of  revisiting  Macedonia, 
entertained  by  the  Apostle  at  Rome,  and  1  Tim. 
i.  3  ;  2  Tim.  iv.  13  ;  Tit.  iii.  12,  for  subsequent 
journeys  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Thessalonica. 

Of  the  first  Christians  of  Thessalonica,  we  are  able 
to  specify  by  name  the  above-mentioned  Jason  (who 
ma  be  the  same  as  the  Aostle's  own  kinsman  men 

conjee 


may  be  the  same  as  the  Apostle's  own  kinsma 
tioned   in    Rom.   xvi.  21),  Demas  fat  least 


i486 


THESSALONIOA 


rurally ;  see  2  Tim.  iv.  10),  Gams,  wuo  shared  ] 
Nome  of  St.  Paul's  perils  at  Ephesus  (Acts  xix.  29), 
Seoundus  vwho  accompanied  him  from  Macedonia 
<o  Asia  on  the  eastward  route  of  his  third  missionary 
journey,  and  was  probably  concerned  ir»  the  business 
of  the  collection ;  see  Acts  xx.  4),  and  especially 
Aristarchus  (who,  besides  being  mentioned  here 
with  Secundus,  accompanied  St.  Paul  on  his  voyage 
to  Rome,  and  had  therefore  probably  been  with  him 
during  the  whole  interval,  and  is  also  specially  re 
ferred  to  in  two  of  the  Epistles  written  during  the 
first  Roman  imprisonment.  See  Acts  xxvii.  2  ; 
Col.  iv.  10;  Philem.  24;  also  Acts  xix.  29,  for  his 
association  with  the  Apostle  at  Ephesus  in  the  ear 
lier  part  of  the  third  journey). 

We  must  recur,  however,  to  the  narrative  in  the 
Acts,  for  the  purpose  of  noticing  a  singularly  accu 
rate  illustration  which  it  affords  of  the  political 
constitution  of  Thessalonica.  Not  only  is  the  demus 
mentioned  (rbv  Sri/j-ov,  Acts  xvii.  5)  in  harmony 
with  what  has  been  above  said  of  its  being  a  "  free 
city,"  but  the  peculiar  title,  politarchs  (itoXn-dpxo-s, 
ib.  6),  of  the  chief  magistrates.  This  term  occurs 
in  no  other  writing  ;  but  it  may  be  read  to  this 
day  conspicuously  on  an  arch  of  the  early  Imperial 
times,  which  spans  the  main  street  of  the  city. 
From  this  inscription  it  would  appear  that  the 
number  of  politarchs  was  seven.  The  whole  may 
be  seen  in  Boeckh,  Corp.  Insc.  No.  1967. 

This  seems  the  right  place  for  noticing  the  other 
remains  at  Thessalonica.  The  arch  first  mentioned 
(called  the  Varddr  gate)  is  at  the  western  extremity 
of  the  town.  At  its  eastern  extremity  is  another 
Roman  arch  of  later  date,  and  probably  commemorat 
ing  some  victory  of  Constantine.  The  main  street, 
which  both  these  arches  cross,  and  which  intersects 
the  city  from  east  to  west,  is  undoubtedly  the  line 
of  the  Via  Egnatia.  Near  the  course  of  this  street, 
and  between  the  two  arches,  are  four  Corinthian 
columns  supporting  an  architrave,  and  believed  by 
some  to  have  belonged  to  the  Hippodrome,  which  is 
so  famous  in  connection  with  the  history  of  Theo- 
dosius.  Two  of  the  mosques  have  been  anciently 
heathen  temples.  The  city  walls  are  of  late  Greek 
construction,  but  resting  on  a  much  older  foundation, 
with  hewn  stones  of  immense  thickness.  The  castle 
contains  the  fragments  of  a  shattered  triumphal 
arch,  erected  in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 

A  word  must  be  said,  in  conclusion,  on  the  later 
ecclesiastical  history  of  Thessalonica.  For  during 
several  centuries  this  city  was  the  bulwark,  not 
simply  of  the  later  Greek  Empire,  but  of  Oriental 
Christendom,  and  was  largely  instrumental  in  the 
conversion  of  the  Slavonians  and  Bulgarians.  Thus 
it  received  the  designation  of  "  the  Orthodox  City ;" 
and  its  struggles  are  very  prominent  in  the  writings 
of  the  Byzantine  historians.  Three  conspicuous 
passages  are,  its  capture  by  the  Saracens,  A.D.  904 
Uo.  Cameniata.  De  Excidio  Thessaionicensi,  with 
Theophanes  Continuatus,  1838)  ;  by  the  Crusaders 
in  1185  (Nicetas  Choniates,  De  Andron.  Comneno, 
1835;  also  Eustath.  De  Thessalonica  a  Latmis 
captd,  in  the  same  vol.  with  Leo  Grammaticus, 
1842) ;  and  finally  by  the  Turks  under  Amurath 
II.  in  1430  (Jo.  Anagnostes,  De  Thessalonicensi 
Excidio  Narratio,  with  Phrantzes  and  Cananus, 
1838).  The  references  are  to  the  Bonn  editions. 
A  very  large  part  of  the  population  at  the  present 


»  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  remind  the  reader  of  some  fine 
jemarks,  in  illustratron  of  Luke's  historical  accuracy,  in 
fholuck's  Glaubwiirdigkeit  der  Evang.  Geschichte,  pp. 


THEUDAS 

day  is  Greek;  and  Thessalonica  imy  shll  be  destined 
;o  take  a  prominent  part  in  struggles  connected 
;vith  nationality  and  religion. 

The  travellers  to  whom  it  is  most  important  ta 
refer,  as  having  given  full  accounts  of  this  place, 
re  Clarke  (Travels  in  Europe,  &c.,  1810-1823), 
Sir  H.  Holland  (Travels  in  the  Ionian  Isles,  &c., 
1815),  Cousinery  ( Voyage  dans  la  Macedoine, 
1831),  and  Leake  (Northern  Greece,  1835).  An 
antiquarian  essay  on  the  subject  by  the  Abbe  Belley 
will  be  found  in  the  Memoires  de  I'Academie  dcs 
Inscriptions,  torn,  xxxviii.  Sect.  Hist.  pp.  121-146. 
But  the  most  elaborate  work  is  that  of  Tafel,  the 
first  part  of  which  was  published  at  Tubingen  in 
1835.  This  was  afterwards  reprinted  as  "  Prole 
gomena"  to  the  Dissertatio  de  Thessalonica  ejusque 
Agro  Geographico,  Berlin,  1839.  With  this  should 
be  compared  his  work  on  the  Via  Egnatia.  The 
Commentaries  on  the  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians 
of  course  contain  useful  compilations  on  the  subject. 
Among  these,  two  of  the  most  copious  are  those  of 
Koch  (Berlin,  1849)  and  Liinemann  (Gottingen, 
1850),  [J.  S.  H.] 


Coin  of  Thessalonica. 

THEU'DAS  (0eu5as :  Theodas:  and  probably 
rn'lfl),  the  name  of  an  insurgent  mentioned  in 
Gamaliel's  speech  before  the  Jewish  council  (Acts, 
v.  35-39)  at  the  time  of  the  arraignment  of  the 
Apostles.  He  appeared,  according  to  Luke's  ac 
count,  at  the  head  of  about  four  hundred  men ;  he 
sought  not  merely  to  lead  the  people  astray  by  false 
doctrine,  but  to  accomplish  his  designs  by  violence ; 
he  entertained  a  high  conceit  of  himself  (\4*yu>v 
flva'i  TWO.  eooToV) ;  was  slain  at  last  (avyptQi)^, 
and  his  party  was  dispersed  and  brought  to  nothing 
(5ie\v9rjffav  ital  fyevovro  ets  ovSfv}.  Josephus 
(Ant.  xx.  5,  §1)  speaks  of  a  Theudas  who  played  a 
similar  part  in  the  time  of  Claudius,  about  A.D.  44, 
i.  e.  some  ten  or  twelve  years  at  least  later  than 
the  delivery  of  Gamaliel's  speech ;  and  since  Luke 
places  his  Theudas,  in  the  order  of  time,  before 
Judas  the  Galilean,  who  made  his  appearance  soon 
after  the  dethronement  of  Archelaus,  i.  e.  A.D.  6  or 
7  (Jos.  B.  /.  ii.  8,  §1 ;  Ant.  xviii.  1,  §6,  xx.  5,  §2), 
it  has  been  charged  that  the  writer  of  the  Acts 
either  fabricated  the  speech  put  into  the  rnouth  of 
Gamaliel,  or  has  wrought  into  it  a  transaction 
which  took  place  thirty  years  or  more  after  the 
time  when  it  is  said  to  have  occurred  (see  Zeller, 
Die  Apostelgeschichte,  pp.  132,  seq.).  Here  we 
may  protest,  at  the  oatset,  against  the  injustice  of 
hastily  imputing  to  Luke  so  gross  an  error;  for 
having  established  his  character  in  so  many  deci 
sive  instances  in  which  he  has  alluded,  in  the 
course  of  the  Acts,  to  persons,  places,  customs,  and 
events  in  sacred  and  profane  history,  he  has  a  right 
to  the  presumption  that  he  was  well  informed  also 
as  to  the  facts  in  this  particular  passage.*  Every 
principle  of  just  criticism  demands  that,  instead  of 


IGl-m,  375-389.  See  also  Ebrard,  Evangelische  Kriti.^ 
pp.  678,  sq. ;  and  Lechler,  Das  ApostoliscJie  Zeitalter, 
pp.  6,  sq. 


THEUDA.S 

distrusting  him  as  soon  as  he  goes  beyond  our  means 
of  verification,  we  should  avail  ourselves  of  any 
supposition  for  the  purpose  of  upholding  his  credi 
bility  which  the  conditions  of  the  case  will  allow. 

Various  solutions  of  the  difficulty  have  been 
offered.  The  two  following  have  been  suggested  as 
especially  commending  themselves  by  their  fulfil 
ment  of  every  reasonable  requisition,  and  as  ap 
proved  by  learned  and  judicious  men: — (1.)  Since 
Luke  represents  Theudas  as  having  preceded  Judas 
the  Galilean  [see  vol.  i.  p.  1160],  it  is  certain  that 
he  could  not  have  appeared  later,  at  all  events, 
ih&n  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Herod  the  Great. 
The  very  year,  now,  of  that  monarch's  death  was 
remarkably  turbulent ;  the  land  was  overrun  with 
belligerent  parties,  under  the  direction  of  insurrec 
tionary  chiefs  or  fanatics.  Josephus  mentions  but 
three  of  these  disturbers  by  name ;  he  passes  over 
the  others  with  a  general  allusion.  Among  those 
whom  the  Jewish  historian  has  omitted  to  name, 
may  have  been  the  Theudas  whom  Gamaliel  cites 
as  an  example  of  unsuccessful  innovation  and  in 
subordination.  The  name  was  not  an  uncommon 
one  (Winer,  Realwb.  ii.  609) ;  and  it  can  excite 
no  surprise  1nat  one  Theudas,  who  was  an  in 
surgent,  should  have  appeared  in  the  time  of  Au 
gustus,  and  another,  fifty  years  later,  in  the  time  of 
Claudius.  As  analogous  to  this  supposition  is  the 
fact  that  Josephus  gives  an  account  of  four  men 
named  Simon,  who  followed  each  other  within  forty 
years,  and  of  three  named  Judas,  within  ten  years, 
who  were  all  instigators  of  rebellion.  This  mode  of 
reconciling  Luke  with  Josephus  is  affirmed  by 
Lardner  (Credibility,  vol.  i.  p.  429),  Bengel, 
Kuinoel,  Olshausen,  Anger  (de  Tempp.  in  Act. 
Apost.  Ratione,  p.  185),  Winer,  and  others. 

(2.)  Another  explanation  (essentially  different 
only  as  proposing  to  identify  the  person)  is,  that 
Luke's  Theudas  may  have  been  one  of  the  three  in 
surgents  whose  names  are  mentioned  by  Josephus 
in  connexion  with  the  listurbances  which  took  place 
about  the  time  of  Herod's  death.  Sonntag  (  Theol. 
Stud.  u.  Kritik.  1837,  p.  622,  &c.)  has  advanced 
this  view,  and  supported  it  with  much  learning  and 
ability.  He  argues  that  the  Theudas  referred  to  by 
Gamaliel  is  the  individual  who  occurs  in  Joseohus 
under  the  name  of  Simon  (B.  J.  ii.  4,  §2  -,  Ant. 
xvii.  10,  §6),  a  slave  of  Herod,  who  attempted  to 
make  himself  king,  amid  the  contusion  which  at 
tended  the  vacancy  of  the  throne  when  that  monarch 
died.  He  urges  the  following  reasons  for  that 
opinion :  first,  this  Simon,  as  he  was  the  most  noted 
among  those  who  disturbed  the  public  peace  at  that 
time,  would  be  apt  to  occur  to  Gamaliel  as  an  illus 
tration  of  his  point ;  secondly,  he  is  described  as  a 
man  of  the  same  lofty  pretensions  (dvai  &£ios 
f\Tri(Tas  irap'  dvrivovv  =  \4yuv  eivai  riva  tawrAv); 
thirdly,  he  died  a  violent  death,  which  Josephus 
does  not  mention  as  true  of  the  other  two  insur 
gents  ;  fourthly,  he  appears  to  have  had  compara 
tively  few  adherents,  in  conformity  with  Luke's 
oxrel  TtrpaKOfficav ;  and,  lastly,  his  having  been 
originally  a  slave  accounts  for  the  twofold  appella 
tion,  since  it  was  very  common  among  the  Jews  to 
assume  a  different  name  on  changing  their  occupa 
tion  or  mode  of  life.  It  is  very  possible,  therefore, 
that  Gamaliel  speaks  of  him  as  Theudas,  because, 
having  borne  that  name  so  long  at  Jerusalem,  he 
was  best  known  by  it  to  the  members  of  the  San 
hedrim  ;  and  that  Josephus,  on  the  contrary ,  who 
wrote  for  Romans  and  Greeks,  speaks  of  him  as 
Simon,  because  it  was  under  that  name  that  he  set 


THIEVES,  THE  TWO 

iiimself  up  as  king,  and  in  that  way  acquii  ed  his 
foreign  notoriety  (see  Tacit.  Hist.  v.  9). 

There  can  be  no  valid  objection  to  either  of  the 
ibregoing  suppositions :  both  are  reasonable,  and 
both  must  be  disproved  before  Luke  can  be  justly 
charged  with  having  committed  an  anachronism  in 
;he  passage  under  consideration.  So  impartial  a 
witness  as  Jost,  the  historian  of  the  Jews  (Ge- 
schichte  der  Israeliten,  ii.  Anh.  p.  76),  admits  the 
•easonableness  of  such  combinations,  and  holds  in 
this  case  to  the  credibility  of  Luke,  as  well  as  that 
of  Josephus.  The  considerate  Lardner  (Credibility, 
vol.  i.  p.  433),  therefore,  could  well  say  here,  "  In 
deed  I  am  surprised  that  any  learned  man  should 
find  it  hard  to  believe  that  there  were  two  impostors 
of  the  name  of  Theudas  in  the  compass  of  forty 
years."  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  advert  to  other 
modes  of  explanation.  Josephus  was  by  no  means 
infallible,  as  Strauss  and  critics  of  his  school  may 
almost  be  said  to  take  for  granted  ;  and  it  is  possible 
certainly  (this  is  the  position  of  some)  that  Jose 
phus  himself  may  have  misplaced  the  time  of 
Theudas,  instead  of  Luke,  who  is  charged  with  that 
oversight.  Calvin's  view  that  Judas  the  Galilean 
appeared  not  after  but  before  Theudas  (juera 
TOVTov  =  insuper  vel  praeterea],  and  that  the  ex 
amination  of  the  Apostles  before  the  Sanhedrim 
occurred  in  the  time  of  Claudius  (contrary  to  the 
manifest  chronological  order  of  the  Acts),  deserves 
mention  only  as  a  waymark  of  the  progress  which 
has  been  made  in  Biblical  exegesis  since  his  time. 
Among  other  writers,  in  addition  to  those  already 
mentioned,  who  have  discussed  this  question  or 
touched  upon  it,  are  the  following: — Wieseler, 
Chronologic  der  Apost.  Zeitalters,  1 38 :  Neander, 
Geschichte  der  Pflanzung,  i.  75,  76 ;  Guerike, 
Beitrdge  zur  Einleit.  ins  N.  Test.  90;  Baum- 
garten,  Apostelgeschichte,  i.  114;  Lightfoot,  Hor. 
Hebr.  ii.  704 ;  Biscoe,  History  of  the  Acts,  428 ; 
and  Wordsworth's  Commentary,  ii.  26. 

[H.  B.  H.] 

THIEVES,  THE  TWO.  The  men  who  under 
this  name  appear  in  the  history  of  the  crucifixion 
were  robbers  (Xriffrai)  rather  than  thieves  (KA.C- 
Trraf),  belonging  to  the  lawless  bands  by  which 
Palestine  was  at  that  time  and  afterwards  infested 
(Jos.  Ant.  x-vii.  10,  §8,  xx.  8,  §10).  Against  these 
brigands  every  Roman  procurator  had  to  wage  con 
tinual  war  (Jos.  B.  J.  ii.  13,  §2).  The  parable 
of  the  Good  Samaritan  shows  how  common  it  was 
for  them  to  attack  and  plunder  travellers  even  on 
the  high  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  (Luke  x. 
30).  It  was  necessary  to  use  an  armed  police  to 
encounter  them  (Luke  xxii.  52).  Often,  as  in  the 
case  of  Barabbas,  the  wild  robber  life  was  connected 
with  a  fanatic  zeal  for  freedom,  which  turned  the 
marauding  attack  into  a  popular  insurrection  (Mark 
xv.  7).  For  crimes  such  as  these  the  Romans  had 
but  one  sentence.  Crucifixion  was  the  penalty  at 
once  of  the  robber  and  the  rebel  (Jos.  B.  J.  ii. 
13,  §2). 

Of  the  previous  history  of  the  two  who  suffered 
on  Golgotha  we  know  nothing.  They  had  been 
tried  and  condemned,  and  were  waiting  their  execu 
tion  before  our  Lord  was  accused.  It  is  probable 
enough,  as  the  death  of  Barabbas  was  clearly  ex 
pected  at  the  same  time,  that  they  were  among  the 
ffva'Tcurtao'Tai  who  had  been  imprisoned  with  him,, 
and  had  taken  part  in  the  insurrection  in  which 
zeal,  and  hate,  and  patriotism,  and  lirst  of  plunder 
were  mingled  in  wild  confusion. 

They  had  expected  to  die  witn   Tesus  Ba«  a)  bt*s. 


J488        THIEVES,  THE  TWO 

[Comp.  BAR  A  DBAS.]  They  find  themselves  with 
one  who  bore  the  same  name,  but  wno  was  described 
in  the  superscription  on  his  cross  as  Jesus  of  Naza 
reth.  They  could  hardly  fail  to  have  he\rd  some 
thing  of  his  fame  as  a  prophet,  of  his  triumphal 
entry  as  a  king.  They  now  find  him  sharing  the 
same  fate  as  themselves,  condemned  on  much  the 
eame  charge  (Luke  xxiii.  .5).  They  too  would  bear 
their  crosses  to  the  appointed  place,  while  He  fainted 
hy  the  way.  Their  garments  would  be  parted 
among  the  soldiers.  For  them  also  there  would  be 
the  drugged  wine,  which  He  refused,  f*>  dull  the 
sharp  pain  of  the  first  hours  on  the  cross.  They 
catch  at  first  the  prevailing  tone  of  scoru.  A  king 
of  the  Jews  who  could  neither  save  himself  nor 
help  them,  whose  followers  had  not.  even  fought 
for  him  (John  xviii.  36),  was  strangely  unlike  the 
many  chieftains  whom  they  had  probably  known 
claiming  the  same  title  (Jos.  Ant.  rrii.  10,  §8), 
strangely  unlike  the  "  notable  prisoner  "  for  whom 
they  had  not  hesitated,  it  would  see  IB,  to  incur  the 
risk  of  bloodshed.  But  over  one  of  them  there 
came  a  change.  The  darkness  which,  at  noon,  was 
beginning  to  steal  over  the  sky  awed  him,  and  the 
divine  patience  and  silence  and  meekness  of  the 
sufferer  touched  him.  He  looked  back  upon  his 
past  life,  and  saw  an  infinite  evil.  He  looked  to 
the  man  dying  on  the  cross  beside  him,  and  saw  an 
infinite  compassion.  There  indeed  was  one  unlike  all 
other"  kings  of  the  Jews"  whom  the  robber  had 
ever  known.  Such  an  one  must  be  all  that  He  had 
claimed  to  be.  To  be  forgotten  by  that  king  seems 
to  him  now  the  most  terrible  of  all  punishments ; 
to  take  part  in  the  triumph  of  His  return,  the  most 
blessed  of  all  hopes.  The  yearning  prayer  was 
answered,  not  in  the  letter,  but  in  the  spirit.  To 
him  alone,  of  all  the  myriads  who  had  listened  to 
Him,  did  the  Lord  speak  of  Paradise  [comp.  PARA 
DISE],  waking  with  that  word  the  thoughts  of  a 
purer  past  and  the  hopes  of  an  immediate  rest. 
But  its  joy  was  to  be  more  than  that  of  fair  groves 
and  pleasant  streams.  "  Thou  shalt  be  with  me." 
He  should  be  remembered  there. 

We  cannot  wonder  that  a  history  of  such  won 
derful  interest  should  at  all  times  have  fixed  itself 
on  men's  minds,  and  led  them  to  speculate  and  ask 
questions  which  we  have  no  data  to  answer.  The 
simplest  and  truest  way  of  looking  at  it  has  been 
that  of  those  who,  from  the  great  Alexandrian 
thinker  (Origen,  in  Rom.  iii.)  to  the  writer  of  the 
most  popular  hymn  of  our  own  times,  have  seen  in 
the  "  dying  thief"  the  first  great  typical  instance 
that  "  a  man  is  justified  by  faith  without  the  deeds 
of  the  law."  Even  those  whose  thoughts  were  less 
deep  and  wide  acknowledged  that  in  this  and  other 
like  cases  the  baptism  of  blood  supplied  the  place 
of  the  outward  sign  of  regeneration  (Hilar.  De 
Trinit.  c.  x. ;  Jerome,  Ep.  xiii.).  The  logical  spe 
culations  of  the  Pelagian  controversy  overclouded, 
in  this  as  in  other  instances,  the  clear  judgment 
of  Augustine.  Maintaining  the  absolute  necessity 
of  baptism  to  salvation,  he  had  to  discuss  the  ques 
tion  whether  the  penitent  thief  had  been  baptised 
or  not,  and  he  oscilhtes,  with  melancholy  indecision, 
between  the  two  answers.  At  times  he  is  disposed 
to  rest  contented  with  th;  solution  which  had  satis 
fied  others.  Then  again  he  ventures  on  the  con 
jecture  that  the  water  which  sprang  forth  from  the 
pierced  side  had  sprinkled  him,  and  so  had  been  a 
sufficient  baptism.  Finally,  yielding  to  the  iuex- 
jrable  logic  of  a  sacramental  theory,  he  rests  in  the 
Assumption  that  he  probably  had  been  baptised 


TH1MNATHAH 

before,  either  in  his  prison  or  before  he  entered  on 
his  robber-life  (comp.  De  Animd,  i.  11,  iii.  1'J; 
Serm.  de  Temp.  130  ;  Retract,  i.  26,  iii.  18,  55). 

Other  conjectures  turn  more  on  the  circum 
stances  of  the  histoiy.  Bengel,  usually  acute,  here 
overshoots  the  mark,  and  finds  in  the  Lord's  words 
to  him,  dropping  all  mention  of  the  Messianic  king 
dom,  an  indication  that  the  penitent  thief  was  a 
Gentile,  the  impenitent  a  Jew,  and  that  thus  the 
scene  on  Calvary  was  typical  of  the  position  of  the 
two  Churches  (Gnomon  N.  T.  in  Luke  xxiii.).  Stier 
(  Words  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  in  loc.)  reads  in  the 
words  of  reproof  (ov5e  <j>ofifj  ffv  riv  Q&v)  the  lan 
guage  of  one  who  had  all  along  listened  with  grief 
and  horror  to  the  revilings  of  the  multitude,  the 
burst  of  an  indignation  previously  suppressed.  The 
Apocryphal  Gospels,  as  usual,  do  their  best  to  lower 
the  divine  history  to  the  level  of  a  legend.  They 
follow  the  repentant  robber  into  the  unseen  world. 
He  is  the  first  to  enter  Paradise  of  all  mankind. 
Adam  and  Seth  and  the  patriarchs  find  him  already 
there  bearing  his  cross.  Michael  the  archangel  had 
led  him  to  the  gate,  and  the  fiery  sword  had  turned 
aside  to  let  him  pass  (Evang.  Nicod.  ii.  10). 
Names  were  given  to  the  two  robbers.  Demas  or 
Dismas  was  the  penitent  thief,  hanging  on  the 
right,  Gestas  the  impenitent  on  the  left  (Evang. 
Nicod.  i.  10  ;  Narrat.  Joseph,  c.  3).  The  ciy  of 
entreaty  is  expanded  into  a  long  wordy  prayer 
(Narr.  Jos.  1.  c.),  and  the  promise  suffers  the  same 
treatment.  The  history  of  the  Infancy  is  madf 
prophetic  of  that  of  the  Crucifixion.  The  holy 
family,  on  their  flight  to  Egypt,  come  upon  a  band 
of  robbers.  One  of  them,  Titus  (the  names  ar< 
different  here),  has  compassion,  purchases  the  silence 
of  his  companion,  Dumachus,  and  the  infant  Christ 
prophesies  that  after  thirty  years  Titus  shall  be 
crucified  with  him,  and  shall  go  before  him  intc 
Paradise  {Evang.  Infant,  c.  23).  As  in  other 
instances  [comp.  MAGI],  so  in  this,  the  fancy  of 
inventors  seems  to  have  been  fertile  in  names. 
Bede  (Collectan.}  gives  Matha  and  Joca  as  those 
which  prevailed  in  his  time.  The  name  given  in 
the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus  has,  however,  kept  its 
ground,  and  St.  Dismas  takes  his  place  in  the 
hagiology  of  the  Syrian,  the  Greek,  and  the  Latin 
Churches. 

All  this  is,  of  course,  puerile  enough.  The 
captious  objections  to  the  narrative  of  St.  Luke  as 
inconsistent  with  that  of  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark, 
and  the  inference  drawn  from  them  that  both  are 
more  or  less  legendary,  are  hardly  less  puerile 
(Strauss,  Leben  Jesu,  ii.  519  ;  Ewald,  Christus, 
Gesch.  v.  438).  The  obvious  answer  to  this  is 
that  which  has  been  given  by  Oiigen  (Horn.  35 
in  Matt.},  Chrysostom  (Horn.  88  in  Matt.},  and 
others  (comp.  Suicer,  s.  v.  A.T7<rHjs).  Both  began 
by  reviling.  One  was  subsequently  touched  with 
sympathy  "and  awe.  The  other  explanation,  given 
by  Cyprian  (De  Passione  Domini],  Augustine  (De 
Cons.  Evang.  iii.  16),  and  others,  which  forces 
the  statement  of  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  into 
agreement  with  that  of  St.  Luke  by  assuming  a 
synecdoche,  or  syllepsis,  or  enallage,  is,  it  is  be 
lieved,  far  less  satisfactory.  The  technical  word 
does  but  thinly  veil  the  contradiction  which  this 
hypothesis  admits  but  does  not  explain.  [E.  H.  P.] 


THIMNA'THAH  (nmEn  :  ®anva0d  ;  Alex. 
Qa.fji.va  :  Themnatha}.  A  town  in  the  allotment  o* 
Dan  (Josh.  xix.  43  only).  It  is  named  between 
Klon  and  Ekron.  The  name  is  the  same  as  that  oi 


THISBE 

the  residence  of  Samson's  wife  (inaccurately  given 
in  A.  V.  TIMNAH)  ;  but  the  position  of  that  place, 
which  seems  to  agree  with  the  modem  Tibneh 
below  ZareaJi,  is  not  so  suitable,  being  fully  ten 
miles  from  Aklr,,  the  representative  of  Ekron. 
Timnah  appears  to  have  been  almost  as  common  a 
naroe  as  Gibeah,  and  it  is  possible  that  there  may 
have  been  another  in  the  allotment  of  Dan  besides 
that  represented  by  Tibneh.  [G.] 

THIS'BE  (0f(Tj8i7,  or  efjSi?).  A  name  found 
only  in  Tob.  i.  2,  as  that  of  a  city  of  Naphtali  from 
which  Tobit's  ancestor  had  been  carried  captive 
by  the  Assyrians.  The  real  interest  of  the  name 
resides  in  the  fact  that  it  is  maintained  by  some 
interpreters  (Hiller,  Onom.  236,  947;  Reland,  Pal. 
1035)  to  be  the  place  which  had  the  glory  of  giving 


THOMAS 


1489 


birth  to  ELIJAH  THE  TISHBITE.  This,  hoiverer, 
is,  at  the  best,  very  questionable,  and  derives  its 
main  support  from  the  fact  that  the  word  employed 
in  1  K.  xvii.  1  to  denote  the  relation  of  Elijah  to 
Gilead,  if  pointed  as  it  now  stands  in  the  Received 
Hebrew  Text,  signifies  that  he  was  not  a  native  of 
Gilead  but  merely  a  resident  there,  and  came  ori 
ginally  from  a  different  and  foreign  district.  But  it 
is  also  possible  to  point  the  word  so  that  the  sentence 
shall  mean  "  from  Tishbi  of  Gilead,"  in  which  case 
all  i%elation  between  the  great  Prophet  and  Thisbe  of 
Naphtali  at  once  falls  to  the  ground.  [Sre  Tisiiui'i  E.] 
There  is  however  a  truly  singular  variation  in  the 
texts  of  the  passage  in  Tobit,  a  glance  at  which  will 
show  how  hazardous  it  is  to  base  any  definite  topo 
graphical  conclusions  upon  it' — 


A.  V. 

VULGATE. 

LXX. 

REVISED  GREEK  TEXT. 

VETUB  LATIKA. 

Out  of  Thisbe  which 
is  at  the  right  hand 
of  that  city  which  is 
called  properly  Neph- 
thali  in  Galilee  above 
Aser.*  [Marg.  or 
Kedesh  of  Nephthali 
in  Galilee,  Judg.  iv. 
6.] 

Out  of  the  tribe 
and  city  of  Neph 
thali  which  is  in 
the  upper  parts 
of  Galilee  above 
Naasson,  behind 
the  road  which 
leads  to  the  west, 
having  on  the 
left  hand  the  city 
of  Sephet. 

Out  of  Tbisbe 
which  is  at  the 
right  hand  of 
KudiosofNeph- 
thaleim  in  Gali 
lee  above  Aser. 

Out  of  Thibe  which 
is  at  the  right  hand 
of  Kudion  of  Neph- 
thaleim  in  Upper  Ga 
lilee  above  Asser,  be 
hind  the  setting  sun 
on  the  right  of  Pho- 
gor  (Peor). 

Out  of  the  city  of  Bihil 
which  is    on   the    right 
hand  of  Edisse,  a  city  of 
Nephthalim  in  Upper  Ga 
lilee  over  against  Naason, 
behind  fie  road  which 
leads  to  the  west  on  the 
left  of  Raphain. 
[Another  MS.  reads  Ge- 
briel,  Cydiscus,  and  Ra- 
phaim,  for  Bihil,  Edisse, 
and  Raphain.] 

*  i.  e.  probably, 
Hazor. 

Assuming  that  Thisbc,  and  not  Thibe,  is  the  cor 
rect  reading  of  the  name,  it  has  been  conjectured 
(apparently  for  the  first  time  by  Keil,  Comm.  iiber 
die  K&nige,  247)  that  it  originated  in  an  erroneous 
rendering  of  the  Hebrew  word  ^nt^fiD,  which  word 
in  fact  occurs  in  the  Hebrew  version  of  the  passage, 
and  may  be  pointed  in  two  ways,  so  as  to  mean  either 
"  from  the  inhabitants  of,"  or  "  from  Tishbi,"  i.  e. 
Thisbe.  The  reverse  suggestion,  in  respect  of  the 
same  word  in  1  K.  xvii.  1,  has  been  already  alluded 
to.  [TISHBITE.]  But  this,  though  very  ingenious, 
and  quite  within  the  bounds  of  possibility,  is  at 
present  a  mere  conjecture,  since  none  of  the  texts  sup 
port  it,  and  there  is  no  other  evidence  in  its  favour. 

No  name  resembling  Thisbe  or  Thibe  has  been 
yet  encountered  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Kedes  or 
Safed,  but  it  seems  impossible  to  suppose  that  the 
minute  definition  of  the  Latin  and  Revised  Greek 
Texts — equalled  in  the  sacred  books  only  by  the 
well-known  description  of  the  position  of  Shiloh  in 
Judg.  xxi.  19 — can  be  mere  invention.  [G-] 

THISTLE.    [THORNS  and  THISTLES.] 

THOM'AS  (0w/i5s :  Thomas),  one  of  the  Apos 
tles.  According  to  Eusebius  (H.  E.  i.  13)  his  real 
name  was  Judas.  This  may  have  been  a  mere  confu 
sion  with  Thaddaeus,  who  is  mentioned  in  the  extract. 
But  it  may  also  be  that  Thomas  was  a  surname. 
The  word  NJOKH,  Thama,*  means  '*  a  twin ;"  and  so 
it  is  translated  in  John  xi.  16,  xxi.  2,  6  SiSvfjios. 
Out  of  this  name  has  grown  the  tradition  that  he 
had  a  twin-sister,  Lydia  (Patres  Apost.  p.  272), 
t>r  that  he  was  a  twin-brother  of  our  Lord  (Thilo, 
Acta  Thomae,  p.  94) ;  which  last,  again,  would 


»  In  Cant.  vii.  4,  it  is  simply  QKfl.  exactly  our 
"  Torn."  The  frequency  of  the  name  in  England  is  de 
rived  not  from  the  Apostle,  but  fmra  St.  Thomas  of 


VOL.  III. 


confirm  his  identification  with  Judas  (comp.  Matt, 
xiii.  55). 

He  is  said  to  have  been  born  at  Antioch  (Patres 
Apost.  pp.  272,  512). 

In  the  catalogue  of  the  Apostles  he  is  coupled 
with  Matthew  in  Matt.  x.  3,  Mark  iii.  18,  Luke 
vi.  15,  and  with  Philip  in  Acts  i.  13. 

All  that  we  know  of  him  is  derived  from  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  ;  and  this  amounts  to  three  traits, 
which,  howeve/,  so  exactly  agree  together,  that, 
slight  as  they  are,  they  place  his  character  before  us 
with  a  precision  which  belongs  to  no  other  of  the 
twelve  Apostles,  except  Peter,  John,  and  Judas 
Iscariot.  This  character  is  that  of  a  man,  slow  to 
believe,  seeing  all  the  difficulties  of  a  case,  subject 
to  despondency,  viewing  things  on  the  darker  side, 
arid  yet  full  of  ardent  love  for  his  Master. 

The  first  trait  is  his  speech  when  our  Lord  deter 
mined  to  face  the  dangers  that  awaited  Him  in  Judaea 
on  his  journey  to  Bethany.  Thomas  said  to  his  fellow- 
disciples,  "  Let  us  also  go  (KO!  ^uets)  that  we  may 
die  with  Him"  (John  xi.  16).  He  entertained  no 
hope  of  His  escape— he  looked  on  the  journey  as 
leading  to  total  ruin ;  but  he  determined  to  share 
the  peril.  "  Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust 
in  Him." 

The  second  was  his  speech  during  the  Last  Supper. 
"  Thomas  saith  unto  Him,  Lord,  we  know  not 
whither  thou  goest,  and  how  can  we  know  the  way  " 
(xiv.  5)  ?  It  was  the  prosaic,  incredulous  doubt  as 
to  moving  a  step  in  the  unseen  future,  and  yet  an 
eager  inquiry  to  know  how  this  step  was  to  be  taken 

The  third  was  after  the  Resurrection.  He  wife 
absent — possibly  by  accident,  perhaps  characteristi 
cally — from  the  first  assembly  when  Jesus  had  ap 
peared.  The  others  told  him  what  they  had  seen. 
He  broke  forth  into  an  exclamation,  the  terms  ol 
which  convey  to  us  at  once  the  vehemence  of  hi* 
doubt,  and  at  the  same  timo  the  vivid  picture  thit 

5  C 


1490 


THOMAS 


his  mind  retained  of  his  Master's  form  as  he  had 
last  seen  Him  lifeless  on  the  cross.  "  Except  I  see 
in  his  hands  the  print  of  the  nails,  and  put  my 
finger  into  the  print  of  the  nails,  and  thrust  my 
hand  into  his  side,  I  will  not,  I  cannot,  believe  " 
ov  /irj  irtffTfvffa)),  John  xx.  25. 

On  the  eighth  day  he  was  with  them  at  their 
gathering,  perhaps  in  expectation  of  a  recurrence 
of  the  visit  of  the  previous  week  ;  and  Jesus  stood 
amongst  them.  He  uttered  the  same  salutation, 
"  Peace  be  unto  you  ;"  and  then  turning  to  Thomas, 
as  if  this  had  been  the  special  object  of  His  appearance, 
uttered  the  words  which  convey  as  strongly  the  sense 
of  condemnation  and  tender  reproof,  as  those  of 
Thomas  had  shown  the  sense  of  hesitation  and 
doubt.  "  Bring  thy  finger  hither  [o>8e — as  if  Him 
self  pointing  to  His  wounds]  and  see  my  hands ; 
and  bring  thy  hand  and  thrust  it  in  my  side ;  and 
do  not  become  (^  ylvov}  unbelieving  (&TTIO-TOS), 
but  believing  (TTIO  r6s]  ."  "  He  answers  to  the  words 
that  Thomas  had  spoken  to  the  ears  of  his  fellow- 
disciples  only ;  but  it  is  to  the  thought  of  his  heart 
rather  than  to  the  words  of  his  lips  that  the 

Searcher  of  hearts  answers Eye,  ear,  and 

touch,  at  once  appealed  to,  and  at  once  satisfied — 
the  form,  the  look,  the  voice,  the  solid  and  actual 
body :  and  not  the  senses  only,  but  the  mind  satis 
fied  too  ;  the  knowledge  that  searches  the  very  reins 
and  the  hearts ;  the  love  that  loveth  to  the  end, 
infinite  and  eternal"  (Arnold's  Serm.  vi.  238). 

The  effect b  on  Thomas  is  immediate.  The  con 
viction  produced  by  the  removal  of  his  doubt  became 
deeper  and  stronger  than  that  of  any  of  the  other 
Apostles.  The  words  in  which  he  expressed  his 
belief  contain  a  far  higher  assertion  of  his  Master's 
divine  nature  than  is  contained  in  any  other  ex 
pression  used  by  Apostolic  lips,  "  My  Lord,  and  my 
God."  Some  have  supposed  that  ictipios  refers  to 
the  human,  6*6s  to  the  divine  nature.  This  is  too 
artificial.  It  is  more  to  the  point  to  observe  the 
exact  terms  of  the  sentence,  uttered  (as  it  were)  in 
astonished  awe.  "  It  is  then  my  Lord  and  my 
God !"  e  And  the  word  "  my  "  gives  it  a  personal 
application  to  himself.  Additional  emphasis  is 
given  to  this  declaration  from  its  being  the  last 
incident  narrated  in  the  direct  narrative  of  the 
Gospel  (before  the  supplement  of  ch.  xxi.),  thus 
corresponding  to  the  opening  words  of  the  pro 
logue.  "  Thus  Christ  was  acknowledged  on  earth 
to  be  what  St.  John  had  in  the  beginning  of  his 
Gospel  declared  Him  to  be  from  all  eternity ;  and 
the  words  of  Thomas  at  the  end  of  the  20th  chapter 
do  but  repeat  the  truth  which  St.  John  had  stated 
before  in  his  own  words  at  the  beginning  of  the 
first "  (Arnold's  Serm.  vi.  401). 

The  answer  of  our  Lord  sums  up  the  moral  of 
the  whole  narrative :  "  Because d  thou  hast  seen  me, 
thou  hast  believed:  blessed  are  they  that  have 
not  seen  me,  and  yet  have  believed "  (xx.  29). 
By  this  incident,  therefore,  Thomas,  "  the  Doubt 
ing  Apostle,"  is  raised  at  once  to  the  Theologian  in 
the  original  sense  of  the  word.  "  Ab  eo  dubitatum 
est,"  says  Augustine,  "  ne  a  nobis  dubitaretur." 
It  is  this  feature  of  his  character  which  has  been 
caught  in  later  ages,  when  for  the  first  time  its 
peculiar  lesson  became  apparent.  In  the  famous 


b  It  is  useless  to  speculate  whether  he  obeyed  our 
Lord's  Invitation  to  examine  the  wounds.  The  im 
pression  is  that  be  did  not. 

c  It  is  obviously  of  no  dogmatic  importance  whether 
the  words  are  an  address  or  a  description.  That  they  are 


THORNS  AND  THISTLES 

statue  of  him  by  Thorwaldsen  in  the  church  at 
Copenhagen,  he  stands,  the  thoughtful,  meditative 
sceptic,  with  the  rule  in  his  hand  for  the  due 
measuring  of  evidence  and  argument.  This  scene 
was  one  of  the  favourite  passages  of  the  English 
theologian  who  in  this  century  gave  so  great  an 
impulse  to  the  progress  of  free  inquiiy  combined 
with  fervent  belief,  of  which  Thomas  is  so  remark 
able  an  example.  Two  discourses  on  this  subject 
occur  in  Dr.  Arnold's  published  volumes  of  Ser 
mons  (v.  312,  vi.  233).  Amongst  the  last  wordx 
which  he  repeated  before  his  own  sudden  death 
(Life  and  Correspondence,  7th  ed.  617)  was  the 
blessing  of  Christ  on  the  faith  of  Thomas. 

In  the  N.  T.  we  hear  of  Thomas  only  twice  again, 
once  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  with  the  seven  disciples, 
where  he  is  ranked  next  after  Peter  (John  xxi.  2), 
and  again  in  the  assemblage  of  the  Apostles  aftei 
the  Ascension  (Acts  i.  13). 

The  close  of  his  life  is  filled  with  traditions  or 
legends  ;  which,  as  not  resting  on  Biblical  grounds, 
may  be  briefly  despatched. 

The  earlier  traditions,  as  believed  in  the  4th  cen 
tury  (Eus.  H.  E.  i.  13,  iii.  1  ;  Socrat.  H.  E.  i.  19), 
represent  him  as  preaching  in  Parthia  or  Persia, 
and  as  finally  buried  at  Edessa  (Socr.  H.  E.  iv.  18). 
Chrysostom  mentions  his  grave  at  Edessa,  as  being 
one  of  the  four  genuine  tombs  of  Apostles  ;  the 
other  three  being  Peter,  Paul,  and  John  (Horn,  in 
Heb.  20).  With  his  burial  at  Edessa  agrees  the 
story  of  his  sending  Thaddaeus  to  Abgarus  with 
our  Lord's  letter  (Eus.  H.  E.  i.  13). 

The  later  traditions  carry  him  further  East,  and 
ascribe  to  him  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  Church 
in  Malabar,  which  still  goes  by  the  name  of  "  the 
Christians  of  St.  Thomas  ;  "  and  his  tomb  is  shown 
in  the  neighbourhood.  This,  however,  is  now  usually 
regarded  as  arising  from  a  confusion  with  a  latei 
Thomas,  a  missionary  from  the  Nestorians. 

His  martyrdom  (whether  in  Persia  or  India)  is 
said  to  have  been  occasioned  by  a  lance  ;  and  is 
commemorated  by  the  Latin  Church  on  Dec.  21, 
by  the  Greek  Church  on  Oct.  6,  and  by  the  Indians 
on  July  1. 

(For  these  traditions  and  their  authorities,  see 
Butler's  Lives  of  the  Saints,  Dec.  21).  An  apocry 
phal  "  Gospel  of  Thomas  "  (chiefly  relating  to  the 
Infancy)  is  published  in  Tischendorf's  Evangelia 
Apocrypha.  The  Apocryphal  "Acts  of  Thomas"  by 
Thilo  (Codex  Apocryphus).  [A.  P.  S.j 

THOMO'I(0oAtof:  Coesi}.  THAMAH  or  TAMAH 
(1  Esd.  v.  32). 

THOKNS  and  THISTLES.  There  appear 
to  be  eighteen  or  twenty  Hebrew  words  which  point 
to  different  kinds  of  prickly  or  thorny  shrubs,  but 
the  context  of  the  passages  where  the  several  terms 
occur  affords,  for  the  most  part,  scarcely  a  single 
clue  whereby  it  is  possible  to  come  to  anything 
like  a  satisfactory  conclusion  with  regard  to  their 
respective  identifications.  These  words  are  variously 
rendered  in  the  A.  V.  by  "  thorns,"  "  briers," 
"  thistles,"  &c.  It  were  a  hopeless  task  to  enter 
into  a  discussion  of  these  numerous  Hebrew  terms  ; 
we  shall  not  therefore  attempt  it,  but  confine  our 
remarks  to  some  of  the  most  important  names,  and 


the  latter,  appears  from  the  use  of  the  nominative  6 
The  form  6  0e6s  proves  nothing,  as  this  is  used  tor  the 
vocative.    At  the  same  time  it  should  be  observed  thar 
the  passage  is  said  to  Christ,  elnev  avrw. 
«»  "  Thomas"  (®w/xa)  is  omitted  in  ihe  best  MSS. 


THORNS  AND  THISTLES 

those  which  seem  to  afford  some  slight  indications 
as  to  the  plants  they  denote. 

1.  Atdd  (ItDN  :  77  fid/j.i>os:  :  rhamnus)  occurs  as 
the  name  of  some  spinous  plant  in  Judg.  ix.  14,  15, 
where  the  A.  V.  renders  it  by  "  bramble  "  (Marg. 
"  thistle  "),  and  in  Ps.  Iviii.  9  (A.  V.  "  thorns  "). 
The  plant  in  question  is  supposed  to  be  Lycium  Eu- 
ropaeum,  or  L.  afrum  (Box-thorn),  both  of  which 
species  occur  in  Palestine  (see  Strand,  Flor.  Palaest. 
Nos.  124,  125).  Dioscorides  (i.  119)  thus  speaks 
of  the  'Pa/ui/os  :  "  The  Rhamnus,  which  some  call 
persephonion,  others  leucacantha,  the  Romans  White 
thorn,  or  Cerbalis,  and  the  Carthaginians  atadin-, 
is  a  shrub  which  grows  around  hedges  ;  it  has  erect 
branches  with  sharp  spines,  like  the  oxyacantka 
(  Hawthorn?),  but  with  small,  oblong,  thick,  soft 
leaves."  Dioscorides  mentions  three  kinds  of 
rhamnus,  two  of  which  are  identified  by  Sprengel, 
in  his  Commentary,  with  the  two  species  of  Lycium 
mentioned  above."  See  Belon,  Observations  de 
Plus.  Sing.  &c.,  ii.  ch.  78;  Rauwolff,  Trav.  B. 
iii.  ch.  8  ;  Prosper  Alpinus,  De  Plant.  Aegypt. 
p.  21;  Celsius,  Hierob.  i.  p.  199.  The  Arabic 


name  of  this  plant  (JsJol,  dtdd)  is  identical  with 
the  Hebrew  ;  but  it  was  also  known  by  the  name 

-  o    ^ 
of  'Ausej. 


Lycium  Europaewn. 

Lycium  Europaeum  is  a  native  of  the  south  of 
Europe  and  the  north  of  Africa;  in  the  Grecian 
islands  it  is  common  in  hedges  (English  Cyclop. 

a  In  his  Hist.  Rei  Herb.,  however,  he  refers  the  pa/xvo? 
to  tbe  Zizyphus  vulgaris. 


THORNS  AND  THIS1LE8     1491 

"  Lycium  ").  See  also  the  passages  in  Bebn  and 
Rauwolff  cited  above. 

2.  Chedek  (pTH  :  &Kav6a,  tr^s  fitrpcayoav  . 
spina,  paliurus}  occurs  in  Prov.  xv.  19,  "The  way 
of  the  slothful  is  as  an  hedge  of  Chedek  (A.  V. 
'  thorns'),"  and  in  Mic.  vii.  4,  where  the  A.  V.  has 
"  brier."  The  Alexand.  LXX.,  in  the  former  pas 
sage,  interprets  the  meaning  thus,  "  The  ways  of 
the  slothful  are  strewed  with  thorns."  Celsiu? 
(Hierob.  ii.  35),  referring  the  Heb.  term  to  the 

5  .-  .. 

Arabic  Chadak  (o*Xs>),  is  of  opinion  that  some 
spinous  species  of  the  Solanum  is  intended.  The 
Arabic  term  clearly  denotes  some  kind  of  Solanum  ; 
either  the  S.  melongela,  var.  esculentum,  or  the 
S.  Sodomeum  ("apple  of  Sodom").  Both  these 
kinds  are  beset  with  prickles ;  it  is  hardly  probable, 
however,  that  they  are  intended  by  the  Heb.  word. 
Several  varieties  of  the  Egg-plant  are  found  in 
Palestine,  and  some  have  supposed  that  the  famed 
Dead  Sea  apples  are  the  fruit  of  the  S.  Sodomeum 
when  suffering  from  the  attacks  of  some  insect; 
but  see  on  this  subject  VINE  OF  SODOM.  The 
Heb.  term  may  be  generic,  and  intended  to  denote 
any  thorny  plant  suitable  for  hedges. 

3.  Choach  (HIPl :  &KO.V,  &Kav6a,  O.KX.I  6x>  fviJiri : 
paliurus,  lappa,  spina,  tribulus},  a  word  of  very 
uncertain  meaning  which  occurs  in  the   sense   of 
some   thorny  plant  in  Is.  xxxiv.   13,  Hos.  ix.  6, 
Prov.  xxvi.  9,  Cant,  ii.  2, 2  K.  xiv.  9,  "  the  choach 
of  Lebanon  sent  to  the  cedar  of  Lebanon,"  &c.     See 
also  Job  xxxi.  40  :  "  Let  choach  (A.  V.  « thistles '} 
grow  instead  of  wheat."      Celsius  (Hierob.  i.   p. 
477)  believes  the  black-thorn  (Prunus  sylvestris} 
is  denoted,  but  this  would   not  suit   the  passage 
in  Job  just  quoted,  from  which  it  is  probable  that 
some  thorny  weed  of  a  quick  growth  is  intended. 
Perhaps  the  term  is  used  in  a  wide  sense  to  signify 
any   thorny   plant  ;    this    opinion    may,  perhaps, 
receive   some  slight  confirmation  from  the  various 
renderings  of  the  Hebrew  word  as  given  by   the 
LXX.  and  Vulgate. 

4.  Dardar  (^FTft :  rpifiohos :  tribultts}  'is  men 
tioned  twice  in  connexion  with  the  Heb.  kots  (f  1p), 
viz.  in  Gen.  iii.  18,  "  thorns  and  thistles"  (A.  V.), 
and  in  Hos.  x.  8,  "  the  thorn  and  the  thistle  shall 
come  up  on  their  altars."     The  Greek  rpt&o\os 
occurs  in  Matt.  vii.  16,  "  Do  men  gather  figs  of 
thistles?"    See  also  Heb.  vi.  8,  where  it  is  rendered 

briers  "  by  the  A.  V.  There  is  some  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  the  plant  or  plants  indicated  by 
the  Greek  rpipoXos  and  the  Latin  tribulus.  Of 
the  two  kinds  of  land  tribuli  mentioned  by  the 
Greeks  (Dioscorides,  iv.  15;  Theophrastns,  Hist. 
Plant,  vi.  7,  §5),  one  is  supposed  by  Sprengel, 
Stackhouse,  Royle,  and  others,  to  refer  to  the 
Tribulus  ^errestris,  Linn.,  the  other  to  the  Fagonia 
Cretica;  but  see  Schneider's  Comment,  on  Theo- 
phrastus  L  c.,  and  Du  Molin  (Flore  Poetique 
Ancienne,  p.  305),  who  identifies  the  tribulus  of 
Virgil  with  the  Centaurea  cakitrapa,  Linn. 
("  star  -  thistle  ").  Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  p.  128) 
argues  in  favour  of  the  Fagonia  Arabica,  of  which 
a  figure  is  given  in  Shaw's  Travels  (Catal.  Plant. 
No.  229) ;  see  also  Forsk&l,  Flor.  Arab.  p.  88.  It 
is  probable  that  eitner  the  Tribulus  terrestris, 
which,  however,  is  not  a  spiny  or  thorny  plant,  but 
has  spines  on  the  fruit,  or  else  the  C.  calcitrapa,  ic 
the  plant  which  is  more  particularly  intended  ly 
the  word  dardar. 

5  C  2 


K92    THORNS  AND  THISTLES 


THBAOIA 


Tribulttf  Tcvettng. 


5.  Shamir  ("VE)),  almost  always  found  in  con 
nexion  with  the  word  shaith  (fl^),  occurs  in  several 
places  of  the  Hebrew  text ;  it  is  variously  rendered 
by  the  LXX.,  x*Pffos>  xfyTos,  Se^pis,  tiypooffTis, 
£rjpa.  According  to  Abu'lfadl,  cited  by  Celsius 

(Hierob.  ii.  188),  "  the  Samur  (^*.)  of  the  Arabs 
is  a  thorny  tree  ;  it  is  a  species  of  Sidra  which  does 
not  produce  fruit."  No  thorny  plants  are  more 
conspicuous  in  Palestine  and  the  Bible  Lands  than 
different  kinds  of  Rhamnaceae  such  as  Paliurus 
aculeatus  (Christ's  Thorn),  and  Zizyphus  Spina 
Christi ;  this  latter  plant  is  the  nebk  of  the  Arabs, 
which  grows  abundantly  in  Syria  and  Palestine, 
both  in  wet  and  dry  places  ;  Dr.  Hooker  noticed  a 
specimen  nearly  40  ft.  high,  spreading  as  widely  as 
a  good  Qitercus  ilex  in  England.  The  nebk  fringes 
the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  and  flourishes  on  the 
marshy  banks  of  the  Lake  of  Tiberias ;  it  forms 
either  a  shrub  or  a  tree,  and,  indeed,  is  quite  com 
mon  all  over  the  country.  The  Arabs  have  the 
terms  Salam,  Sidra,  Dhal,  Nabca,  which  appear  to 
denote  either  varieties  or  different  species  of  Paliurus 
and  Zizyphus,  or  different  states  perhaps  of  the  same 
tree  ;  but  it  is  a  difficult  matter  to  assign  to  each  its 
particular  signification.  The  Naatsots  (pVW)  of 
Is.  vii.  19,  Iv.  13,  probably  denotes  some  species  of 
Zizyphus.  The  "  crown  of  thorns  "  which  was 
put  in  derision  upon  our  Lord's  head  just  before 
his  crucifixion,  was  probably  composed  of  the  thorny 
twigs  of  the  nebk  (Zizyphus  Spina  Christi}  men 
tioned  above  ;  being  common  everywhere,  they 
could  readily  be  procured.  "This  plant,"  says 
Hasselquist  (Trcm.  p.  288),  "was  very  suitable 
for  the  purpose,  as  it  has  many  sharp  thorns,  and 
its  flexible,  pliant,  and  round  branches  might  easily 
be  plaited  in  the  form  of  a  crown ;  and  what,  in 
my  opinion,  seems  to  be  the  greatest  proof  is,  that 
the  leaves  much  resemble  those  of  ivy,  as  they  are 
a  very  deep  green .b  Perhaps  the  enemies  of  Christ 
would  have  a  plant  somewhat  resembling  that  v/ith 
which  emperors  and  generals  were  used  to  be 
crowned,  that  there  might  be  calumny  even  in  the 
punishment."  Still,  as  Rosenmiiller  (Bib.  Bot. 
p.  201)  remarks,  "  there  being  so  many  kinds  of 
tnomy  plants  in  Palestine,  all  conjectures  must 


b  HssBelfjuist  must  have  Intended  to  restrict  the  simi 
larity  here  spoken  ot  entirely  to  the  colour  of  the  leaves, 


remain  uncertain,  and  can  never  lead  to  any  satis- 
factory  result."  Although  it  is  not  possible  to  fix 
upon  any  one  definite  Hebrew  word  as  the  repre 
sentative  of  any  kind  of  "  thistle,"  yet  there  can  be 
no  doubt  this  plant  must  be  occasionally  alluded  to. 
Hasselquist  (Trav.  p.  280)  noticed  six  species  of 
Cardui  and  Cnici  on  the  road  between  Jerusalem 
and  Rama;  and  Miss  Beaufort  speaks  of  giant 
thistles  of  the  height  of  a  man  on  horseback,  which 
she  saw  near  the  ruins  of  Fellham  (Egyptian  Sep. 
and  Syrian  Shrines,  ii.  45,  50).  We  must  also 
notice  another  thorny  plant  and  very  troublesome 
weed,  the  rest-harrow  (Ononis  spinosci),  which 
covers  entire  fields  and  plains  both  in  Egypt  and 
Palestine,  and  which,  as  Hasselquist  says  (p.  289), 
is  no  doubt  referred  to  in  some  parts  of  the  Holy 
Scripture. 

Dr.  Thomson  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  59) 
illustrates  Isa.  xxxiii.  12,  "  the  people  shall  be  as 
the  burning  of  lime,  as  thorns  cut  up  shall  they  be 
burned  in  the  fire,"  by  the  following  observation, 
"  Those  people  yonder  are  cutting  up  thorns  with 
their  mattocks  and  pruning-hooks,  and  gathering 
them  into  bundles  to  be  burned  in  these  burnings 
of  lime.  It  is  a  curious  fidelity  to  real  life  that 
when  the  thorns  are  merely  to  be  destroyed,  they 
are  never -cut  up,  but  set  on  fire  where  they  grow. 
They  are  cut  up  only  for  the  lime-kiln."  See  also 
p.  342  for  other  Scriptural  allusions.  [W.  H.] 

THRA'CIA  (QpaKiat  ^).  A  Thracian  horseman 
is  incidentally  mentioned  in  2  Mace.  xii.  35,  appa- 
T'ently  one  of  the  bodyguard  of  Gorgias,  governor  of 
Idumaea  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  Thrace  at 
this  period  included  the  whole  of  the  country  within 
the  boundary  of  the  Strymon,  the  Danube,  and  the 
coasts  of  the  Aegean,  Propontis,  and  Euxine — all 
the  region,  in  fact,  now  comprehended  in  Bulgaria 
and  Roumelia.  In  the  early  times  it  was  inhabited 
by  a  number  of  tribes,  each  under  its  own  chief, 
having  a  name  of  its  own  and  preserving  its  own 
customs,  although  the  same  general  character  of 
ferocity  and  addiction  to  plunder  prevailed  through 
out.  Thucydides  describes  the  limits  of  the  country 
ht  the  period  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  when  Sitakes 
king  of  the  Odrysae,  who  inhabited  the  valley  of 
the  Hebrus  (Maritza],  had  acquired  a  predominant 


for  the  plants  do  not  in  the  slightest  degree  resemble  each 
other  in  the/orm  of  the  leaves. 


THRASEAS 

j.ower  in  the  country,  and  derived  what  was  for ' 
those  days  a  large  revenue  from  it.  This  revenue, 
however,  seems  to  have  arisen  mainly  out  of  his 
relations  with  the  Greek  trading  communities  esta 
blished  on  different  points  of  his  seaboard.  Some  of 
the  clans,  even  within  the  limits  of  his  dominion, 
still  retained  their  independence  ;  but  after  the  esta 
blishment  of  a  Macedonian  dynasty  under  Lysima- 
chus,  the  central  authority  became  more  powerful ; 
and  the  wars  on  a  large  scale  which  followed  the 
death  of  Alexander  furnished  employment  for  the 
martial  tendencies  of  the  Thracians,  who  found  a 
demand  for  their  services  as  mercenaries  every 
where.  Cavalry  was  the  arm  which  they  chiefly 
furnished,  the  rich  pastures  of  Roumelia  abounding 
in  horses.  From  that  region  came  the  greater  part 
of  Sitalces's  cavalry,  amounting  to  nearly  50,000. 

The  only  other  passage,  if  any,  containing  an 
allusion  to  Thrace,  to  be  found  in  the  Bible,  is  Gen. 
x.  2,  where — on  the  hypothesis  that  the  sons  of 
Japhet,  who  are  enumerated,  may  be  regarded  as 
the  eponymous  representatives  of  different  branches 
of  the  Japetian  family  of  nations — Tiras  has  by 
some  been  supposed  to  mean  Thrace  ;  but  the  only 
ground  for  this  identification  is  a  fancied  similarity 
between  the  two  names.  A  stronger  likeness,  how 
ever,  might  be  urged  between  the  name  Tiras  and  that 
of  the  Tyrsi  or  Tyrseni,  the  ancestors  of  the  Italian 
Etruscans,  whom,  on  the  strength  of  a  local  tradi 
tion,  Herodotus  places  in  Lydia  in  the  ante-historical 
times.  Strabo  brings  forward  several  facts  to  show 
that,  in  the  early  ages,  Thracians  existed  on  the 
Asiatic  as  well  as  the  European  shore ;  but  this  cir 
cumstance  furnishes  very  little  help  towards  the 
identification  referred  to.  (Herodotus,  i.  94,  v.  3, 
scqq.  i  Thucydides,  ii.  97  ;  Tacitus,  AnnaL  iv.  35  ; 
Herat.  Sat.  i.  6.)  [J.  W.  B.] 

THRASE'AS  (0pa<ro?os  ;  Tharsaeas).  Father 
of  Apollonius  (1).  2  Mace.  iii.  5.  [APOLLON1US.] 

THREE  TAVERNS  (TpeTs  Tafiepvai :  Tres 
Tabernae\  a  station  on  the  Appian  Road,  along  which 
St.  Paul  travelled  from  Puteoli  to  Rome  (Acts  xxviii. 
1 5).  The  distances,  reckoning  southwards  from  Rome, 
are  given  as  follows  in  the  Antonine  Itinerary, "  to 
Aricia,  16  miles;  to  Three  Taverns,  17  miles;  to 
Appii  Forum,  10  miles ;"  and,  comparing  this  with 
what  is  observed  still  along  the  line  of  road,  we 
have  no  difficulty  in  coming  to  the  conclusion  that 
"Three  Taverns"  was  near  the  modern  Cisterna. 
For  details  see  the  Diet,  of  Greek  and  Rom.  Gcog. 
ii.  12266,  12916. 

Just  at  this  point  a  road  came  in  from  Antium 
on  the  coast.  This  we  learn  from  what  Cicero  says 
of  a  journey  from  that  place  to  his  villa  at  Formiae 
(Att.  ii.  12).  There  is  no  doubt  that  "  Three  Ta 
verns"  was  a  frequent  meeting-place  of  travellers. 
The  point  of  interest  as  regards  St.  Paul  is  that  he 
met  here  a  group  of  Christians  who  (like  a  previous 
group  whom  he  had  mot  at  APPII  FORUM)  came 
from  Rome  to  meet  him  in  consequence  of  having 
hecji  of  his  arrival  at  PUTEOLI.  A  good  illustra 
tion  of  this  kind  of  intercourse  along  the  Appian 
Way  is  supplied  by  Josephus  (Ant.  xvii.  12,  §1)  in 
his  account  of  the  journey  of  the  pretender  Herod- 
Alexander.  He  landed  at  Puteoli  (Dicaearchia)  to 
gain  over  the  Jews  that  were  there  ;  and  "  when 
the  report  went  about  him  that  he  was  coming  to 
Rome,  the  whole  multitude  of  the  Jews  that  were 
there  went  out  to  meet  him,  ascribing  it  to  Divine 
i'rovidcuce  that  he  had  so  unexpectedly  escaped." 

[J.S  H.] 


THRONE 


14CJS 


THRESHING.     [AGRICULTURE,  i.  p.  31.] 

THRESHOLD.  1.  [see  GATE].  2.  Of  the 
o  words  so  rendered  in  A.  V.,  one,  miphth&n  * 
seems  to  mean  sometimes,  as  the  Targum  explains 
t,  a  projecting  beam  or  corbel,  at  a  higher  point 
than  the  threshold  properly  so  called  (Ez.  ix.  3, 
x.  4,  18). 

THRESHOLDS,  THE  ('BDNPJ  :  cV  T$ 
ffvvayayeiv :  vestibule?).  This  word,  ha-Asuppi, 
appears  to  be  inaccurately  rendered  in  Neh.  xii.  25, 
though  its  real  force  has  perhaps  not  yet  been 
discovered.  The  "  house  of  the  Asuppim  "  (JV3 
ptfrfyor  simply  "  the  Asuppim,"  is  mentioned 

in  1  Chr.  xxvi.  15, 17,  as  a  part,  probably  a  gate,  of 
the  enclosure  of  the  "  House  of  Jehovah,"  i.  e.  the 
Tabernacle,  as  established  by  David — apparently  at 
its  S.W.  corner.  The  allusion  in  Neh.  xii.  25  is 
undoubtedly  to  the  same  place,  as  is  shown  not 
only  by  the  identity  of  the  name,  but  by  the  refer 
ence  to  David  (ver.  24 ;  compare  1  Chr.  xxv.  1). 
Asuppim  is  derived  from  a  root  signifying  "  to 
gather"  (Gesenius,  Thes.  131),  and  in  the  absence 

my  indication  of  what  the  "  house  of  the  Asup 
pim  "  was,  it  is  variously  explained  by  the  lexico 
graphers  as  a  storechamber  (Gesenius)  or  a  place  of 
assembly  (Fiirst,  Bertheau).  The  LXX.  in  1  Chr. 
xxvi.  have  ol/cos  'EfftQeij' :  Vulg.  domus  seniorum 
concilium.  On  the  other  hand  the  Targum  renders 
the  word  by  fj'lp^,  "  a  lintel,"  as  if  deriving  it  from 
S|D.  [G.] 

THRONE  (KD3).  The  Hebrew  term  cistf 
applies  to  any  elevated  seat  occupied  by  a  person  in 
authority,  whether  a  high-priest  (1  Sam.  i.  9),  a 
judge  (Ps.  cxxii.  5),  or  a  military  chief  (Jer.  i.  15). 
The  use  of  a  chair  in  a  country  where  the  usual 
postures  were  squatting  and  reclining,  was  at  all 
times  regarded  as  a  symbol  of  dignity  (2  K.  iv. 
10  ;  Prov.  ix.  14).  In  order  to  specify  a  throne  in 
our  sense  of  the  term,  it  was  necessary  to  add  to 
cisse  the  notion  of  royalty :  hence  the  frequent  oc 
currence  of  such  expressions  as  "  the  throne  of  the 
kingdom"  (Deut.  xvii.  18;  1  K.  i.  46;  2  Chr.  vii. 
18).  The  characteristic  feature  in  the  royal  throne 
was  its  elevation  :  Solomon's  tin-one  was  approached 
by  six  steps  (1  K.  x.  19 ;  2  Chr.  ix.  18) ;  and  Je 
hovah's  throne  is  described  as  "  high  and  lifted  up  " 
(Is.  vi.  1).  The  materials  and  workmanship  were 
costly :  that  of  Solomon  is  described  as  a  "  throne 
of  ivory "  (».  e.  inlaid  with  ivory),  and  overlaid 
with  pure  gold  in  all  parts  except  where  the  ivory 
was  apparent.  It  was  furnished  with  arms  or 
"  stays,"  after  the  manner  of  the  Assyrian  chair 
of  state  depicted  on  the  next  page.  The  steps 
were  also  lined  with  pairs  of  lions,  the  number 
of  them  being  perhaps  designed  to  correspond 
with  that  of  the  tribes  of  Israel.  As  to  the 
form  of  the  chair,  we  are  only  informed  in  1  K. 
x.  19  that  "the  top  was  round  behind"  (appa 
rently  meaning  either  that  the  back  was  rounded 
off  at  the  top,  or  that  there  was  a  circular  canopy 
over  it) :  in  lieu  of  this  particular  we  are  told  in 
2  Chr.  ix.  18  that  "  there  was  a  footstool  cf  gold, 
fastened  to  the  throne,"  but  the  verbal  agreement 
of  the  descriptions  in  other  respects  leads  to  the  pre 
sumption  that  this  variation  arises  out  of  a  cor 
rupted  text  (Thenius,  Comm.  in.  1  K.  /.  c.),  t 
presumption  which  is  favoured  by  the  fact  that  th« 


.  litnen  (see  Gea.  1141). 


J4U4  THUMMIM 

terras  KQ3  and  the  Hophal  form 
nowhere  else.  The  king  sat  on  his  throne  on  state 
occasions,  as  when  granting  audiences  (1  K.  ii.  19, 
xxii.  10;  Esth.  v.  1),  receiving  homage  (2  K. 
xi.  19),  or  administering  justice  (Prov.  xx.  8). 


Assyrian  throne  or  chair  of  state  (Layard,  Kituteh,  ii.  301). 

At  such  times  he  appeared  in  his  royal  robes  (1  K. 
xxii.  10;  Jon.  iii.  6;  Acts  xii.  21).  The  throne 
was  the  symbol  of  supreme  power  and  dignity  (Gen. 
xii.  40),  and  hence  was  attributed  to  Jehovah  both 
in  respect  to  his  heavenly  abode  (Ps.  xi.  4,  ciii. 
19  ;  Is.  Ixvi.  1 ;  Acts  vii.  49  ;  Rev.  iv.  2),  or  to  his 
earthly  abode  at  Jerusalem  (Jer.  iii.  17),  and  more 
particularly  in  the  Temple  (Jer.  xvii.  12  ;  Ez.  xliii. 
7).  Similarly,  "to  sit  upon  the  throne,"  implied 
the  exercise  of  regal  power  (Deut.  xvii.  18  ;  1  K. 
xvi.  11  ;  2  K.  x.  30 ;  Esth.  i.  2),  and  "  to  sit  upon 
the  throne  of  another  person,"  succession  to  the 
royal  dignity  (1  K.  i.  13).  In  Nehemiah  iii.  7,  the 
term  cisse  is  applied  to  the  official  residence  of  the 
governor,  which  appears  to  have  been  either  on  cr 
near  to  the  city  wall.  [W.  L.  B.] 

THUMMIM.     [URIM  and  THUMMIM.] 
THUNDER  (DJTI).     In  a  physical  point  of 

view,  the  most  noticeable  feature  in  connexion  with 
thunder  is  the  extreme  rarity  of  its  occurrence  during 
the  summer  months  in  Palestine  and  the  adjacent 
countries.  From  the  middle  of  April  to  the  middle 
of  September  it  is  hardly  ever  heard.  Robinson, 
indeed,  mentions  an  instance  of  thunder  in  the  early 
part  of  May  {Researches,  i.  430),  and  Russell  in 
Tuly  (Aleppo,  ii.  289),  but  in  each  case  it  is  stated 
•/>  be  a  most  unusual  event.  Hence  it  was  selected 
by  Samuel  as  a  striking  expression  of  the  Divine 
•lispleasure  towards  the  Israelites : — "  Is  it  not  wheat 
harvest  to-day  ?  I  will  call  upon  the  Lord,  and  he 
shall  send  thunder  and  rain"  (1  Sam.  xii.  17). 
Rain  in  harvest  was  deemed  as  extraordinary  as 
snow  in  summer  (Prov.  xxvi.  1),  and  Jerome  asserts 
tfeit  he  had  never  witnessed  it  in  the  latter  part  of 
June,  or  in  July  (Comm.  on  Am.  iv.  7) :  the  same 
observations  apply  equally  to  thunder,  which  is 
rarely  unaccompanied  with  rain  (Russell,  i.  72,  ii. 
285).  In  the  imaginative  philosophy  of  the  He 
brews,  thunder  was  regarded  as  the  voice  of  Jehovah 
(Job  xxxvii.  2,  4,  5,  xi.  9 ;  Ps.  xviii.  13,  xxix. 
3-9  ;  Is.  xxx.  30,  31),  who  dwelt,  behind  the 


THYATIHA 

thunder-cloud  (Ps.  Ixxxi.  7).  Hence  thiuv'ter  is 
occasionally  described  in  the  Hebrew  by  the  term 
"voices"  (Ex.  ix.  23,  28;  1  Sam.  xii.  17). 
Hence  the  people  in  the  Gospel  supposed  that 
the  voice  of  the  Lord  was  the  sound  of  thut.dei 
(John  xii.  29).  Thunder  was,  to  the  mind  c( 
the  Jew,  the  symbol  of  Divine  power  (Pa.  xvu. 
3,  &c.),  and  vengeance  (1  Sam.  ii.  10 ;  2  Sam. 
xxii.  14  ;  Ps.  Ixxvii.  18 ;  Is.  xxix.  6 ;  Rev.  viii. 
5).  It  was  either  the  sign  or  the  instrument  oi 
His  wrath  on  numerous  occasions,  as  during  the 
plague  of  hail  in  Egypt  (Ex.  ix.  23,  28),  at  the  pro 
mulgation  of  the  Law  (Ex.  xix.  16),  at  the  discom 
fiture  of  the  Philistines  (1  Sam.  vii.  10),  and  when 
the  Israelites  demanded  a  king  (1  Sam.  xii.  17). 
The  term  thunder  was  transferred  to  the  war-shout 
of  a  military  leader  (Job  xxxix.  25),  and  hence  Je 
hovah  is  described  as  "  causing  His  voice  to  be 
j  heard"  in  the  battle  (Is.  xxx.  30).  It  is  also  used 
as  a  superlative  expression  in  Job  xxvi.  14,  where 
the  "  thunder  of  his  power  "  is  contrasted  with  the 
"  little  portion,"  or  rather  the  gentle  whisper  that 
can  be  heard.  In  Job  xxxix.  19,  "  thunder  "  is  a 
mistranslation  for  "  a  flowing  mane."  [W.  L.  B.] 
THYATI'RA  (&vdreipa,  -rk:  civitas  Thyati- 
renorurn).  A  city  on  the  Lycus,  founded  by  Seleucus 
Nicator.  It  was  one  of  the  many  Macedonian  colonies 
established  in  Asia  Minor,  in  the  sequel  of  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  Persian  empire  by  Alexander.  It  lay  to 
the  left  of  the  road  from  Pergamus  to  Sardis,  on 
the  southern  incline  of  the  watershed  which  sepa 
rates  the  valley  of  the  Caicus  (JBakyrtchai)  from 
that  of  the  Hermus,  oa  the  very  confines  of  IVlysia 
and  Ionia,  so  as  to  be  sometimes  reckoned  within 
the  one,  and  sometimes  within  the  other.  In 
earlier  times  it  had  borne  the  names  of  Pelopia, 
Semiramis,  and  Euhippia.  At  the  commencement 
of  the  Christian  era,  the  Macedonian  element  so 
preponderated  as  to  give  a  distinctive  character  to 
the  population ;  and  Strabo  simply  calls  it  a  Mace 
donian  colony.  The  original  inhabitants  had  pro 
bably  been  distributed  in  hamlets  round  about, 
when  Thyatira  was  founded.  Two  of  these,  the 
inhabitants  of  which  are  termed  Areni  and  Nagdemi, 
are  noticed  in  an  inscription  of  the  Roman  times. 
The  resources  of  the  neighbouring  region  may  be 
inferred  both  from  the  name  Euhippia  and  from 
the  magnitude  of  the  booty  which  was  carried  oil 
in  a  foray  conducted  jointly  by  Eumenes  of  Per 
gamus  and  a  force  detached  by  the  Roman  admiral 
from  Canae,  during  the  war  against  Antiochus. 
During  the  campaign  of  B.C.  190,  Thyatira  formed 
the  base  of  the  king's  operations ;  and  after  his  de 
feat,  whfch  took  place  only  a  few  miles  to  the  south 
of  the  city,  it  submitted,  at  the  same  time  with  its 
neighbour  Magnesia-on-Sipylus,  to  the  Romans,  and 
was  included  in  the  territory  made  over  by  them  to 
their  ally  the  Pergameue  sovereign. 

During  the  continuance  of  the  Attalic  dynasty, 
Thyatira  scarcely  appears  in  history ;  and  of  the 
various  inscriptions  which  have  been  found  on  the 
site,  now  called  Ak  ffissar,  not  one  unequivocally 
belongs  to  earlier  times  than  those  of  the  Roman 
empire.  The  prosperity  of  the  city  seems  to  have 
received  a  new  impulse  under  Vespasian,  whose 
acquaintance  with  the  East,  previously  to  mounting 
the  imperial  throne,  may  have  directed  his  attention 
to  the  development  of  the  resources  of  the  Asiatic 
cities.  A  bilingual  inscription,  in  Greek  and  Latin, 
belonging  to  the  latter  part  of  his  reign,  shows  him 
to  have  restored  the  roads  in  the  domain  of  Thya 
tira.  From  others,  between  this  time  and  that 


THYATIRA 

of  Caracalla,  there  is  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
tcany  corporate  guilds  in  the  city.  Bakers,  potters, 
burners,  weavers,  robemakers,  and  dyers  (ol  f3a<pe'is\ 
are  specially  mentioned.  Of  these  last  there  is  a 
notice  in  no  less  than  three  inscriptions,  so  that 
dyeing  apparently  formed  an  important  part  of  the 
industrial  activity  of  Thyatira,  as  it  did  of  that  of 
Colossae  and  Laodicaea.  With  this  guild  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Lydia,  the  seller  of  purple  stuffs 
(irop^>vp6ir(a\i.s),  from  whom  St.  Paul  met  with  so 
favourable  a  reception  at  Philippi  (Acts  xvi.  14), 
was  connected. 

The  principal  deity  of  the  city  was  Apollo,  wor 
shipped  as  the  sun-god  under  the  surname  Tyrimnas. 
He  was  no  doubt  introduced  by  the  Macedonian 
colonists,  for  the  name  is  Macedonian.  One  of  the 
three  mythical  kings  of  Macedonia,  whom  the  ge 
nealogists  placed  before  Perdiccas — the  first  of  the 
Temenidae  that  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  recognize 
— is  so  called ;  the  other  two  being  Caranus  and 
Coenus,  manifestly  impersonations  of  the  chief  and 
the  tribe.  The  inscriptions  of  Thyatira  give  Tyrimnas 
the  titles  of  irp6iro\is  and  vpovdrtap  6e6s  ;  and  a 
special  priesthood  was  attached  to  his  service.  A 
priestess  of  Artemis  is  also  mentioned,  probably  the 
administratrix  of  a  cult  derived  from  the  earlier 
times  of  the  city,  and  similar  in  its  nature  to  that 
of  the  Ephesian  Artemis.  Another  superstition, 
of  an  extremely  curious  nature,  which  existed  at 
Thyatira,  seems  to  have  been  brought  thither  by 
some  of  the  corrupted  Jews  of  the  dispersed  tribes. 
A  fane  stood  outside  the  walls,  dedicated  to  Sam- 
batha — the  name  of  the  sibyl  who  is  sometimes 
called  Chaldaean,  sometimes  Jewish,  sometimes 
Persian — in  the  midst  of  an  enclosure  designated 
"  the  Chaldaeaii's  court "  (TOU  XaASaiou  irepi- 
j8o\os).  This  seems  to  lend  an  illustration  to  the 
obscure  passage  in  Rev.  ii.  20,  21,  which  Grotius 
interprets  of  the  wife  of  the  bishop.  The  drawback 
against  the  commendation  bestowed  upon  the  angel 
of  the  Thyatiran  Church  is  that  he  tolerates  "  that 
woman,  that  Jezebel,  who,  professing  herself  to  be 
a  prophetess,  teaches  and  deludes  my  servants  into 
committing  fornication  and  eating  things  offered  to 
idols."  Time,  however,  is  given  her  to  repent ; 
and  this  seems  to  imply  a  form  of  religion  which 
had  become  condemnable  from  the  admixture  of 
foreign  alloy,  rather  than  one  idolatrous  ab  initio. 
Now  there  is  evidence  to  show  that  in  Thyatira 
there  was  a  great  amalgamation  of  races.  Latin 
inscriptions  are  frequent,  indicating  a  considerable 
influx  of  Italian  immigrants ;  and  in  some  Greek 
inscriptions  many  Latin  words  are  introduced. 
Latin  and  Greek  names,  too,  are  found  accumulated 
on  the  same  individuals, — such  as  Titus  Antonius 
Alfenus  Arignotus,  and  Julia  Severina  Stratonicis. 
But  amalgamation  of  different  races,  in  pagan  na 
tions,  always  went  together  with  a  syncretism  of 
different  religions,  every  relation  of  life  having  its 
religious  sanction.  If  the  sib/1  Sambatha  was  really 
A  Jewess,  lending  her  aid  to  this  proceeding,  and 
not  discountenanced  by  the  authorities  of  the  Judaeo- 
Christian  Church  at  Thyatira,  both  the  censure  and 
its  qualification  become  easy  of  explanation. 

It  seems  also  not  improbable  that  the  imagery  of 
the  description  in  Rev.ii.  18,  6  %xuv  r°vs  bfyQa.\i*.ovs 
ai/rov  us  (f>\6ya  Trvpbs,  Kal  ol  ir65es  O.VTOV  '6/j.oiot 
Xa\Ko\L&dvcp,  may  have  been  suggested  by  the 
current  pagan  representations  of  the  tutelary  deity  of 
th-3  city.  See  a  parallel  case  at  Smyrna.  [SMYRNA,] 

Besides  the  cults  which  have  been  mentioned, 
there  is  evidence  of  a  deification  of  Rome,  of  Ila- 


THYINE  WOOD 

Arian,  and  of  the  imperial  family.  Games  were 
celebrated  in  honour  of  Tyrimnas,  of  Hercules,  and 
of  the  reigning  emperor.  On  the  coins  before  th* 
imperial  times,  the  heads  of  Bacchus,  of  Athene, 
and  of  Cybele,  are  also  found  :  but  the  inscriptions 
only  indicate  a  cult  of  the  last  of  these. 

(Strabo,  xiii.  c.  4;  Piiny,  N.  H.  v.  .31;  Liv, 
xxxvii.  8,  21,  44;  Polybius,  xvi.  1,  xxxii.  25; 
Stephanus  Byzant.  sub  v.  &vdretpa  ;  Boeckh,  7n- 
script.  Grace.  Thyatir.,  especially  Nos.  3484-3499  j 
Suidas,  v.  2oyUj8^07j ;  Aelian,  Var.  Hist.  xii.  35 , 
Clinton,  F.  H.  ii.  221  j  Hoffmann,  Griechenland, 
ii.  1714.)  [J.  W.  B.] 

THYINE  WOOD  (tf\ov  flftw :  lignum 
thyimim}  occurs  once  only,  viz.  in  Rev.  xviii.  12, 
where  the  margin  has  "  sweet"  (wood).  It  is  men 
tioned  as  one  of  the  valuable  articles  of  commerce 
that  should  be  found  no  more  in  Babylon  (Rome), 
whose  fall  is  here  predicted  by  St.  John.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  wood  here  spoken  of  is  that 
of  the  Thuya  articulata,  Desfont^the  Cattitris  quad- 
rivalvis  of  present  botanists.  This  tree  was  much 
prized  by  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  on  account 


Thuyn  articvtata. 

of  the  beauty  of  its  wood  for  various  ornamental 
purposes.  It  is  the  0veia  of  Theophrastus  {Hist. 
Plant,  iii.  4,  §§2,  6) ;  the  Qtivov  &\ov  of  Dios- 
corides  (i.  21).  By  the  Romans  the  tree  was  called 
citrus,  the  wood  citrum.  It  is  a  native  of  Barbary, 
and  grows  to  the  height  of  15  to  25  feet.  Pliny 
(JV.  H.  xiii.  15)  says  that  the  citrus  is  found  abun 
dantly  in  Mauretania.  He  speaks  of  a  mania  amongst 
his  countiymen  for  tables  made  of  its  wood  ;  and 
tells  us  that  when  the  Roman  ladies  were  upbraided 
by  their  husbands  for  their  extravagance  in  pearls, 
they  retorted  upon  them  their  excessive  fondness  for 
tables  made  of  this  wood.  Fabulous  prices  were 
given  for  tables  and  other  ornamental  furniture 
made  of  citrus  wood  (see  Pliny,  I.  c.).  The 
Greek  and  Roman  writers  frequently  allude  to 
this  wood.  See  a  number  of  references  in  Cel 
sius,  Hicrob.  ii.  25.  The  roof  of  the  mosque  at 


1496 


TIBERIAS 


Cordova,  built  in  the  9th  cent.,  is  of  "  thyine  wood  " 
(Loudon's  Arboretum,  iv.  2463).  Lady  Calicott 
says  the  wood  is  dark  nut-brown,  close  grained,  and 
very  fragrant.*  The  resin  known  by  the  name  of 
Satdarach  is  the  produce  of  this  tree,  which  belongs 
to  the  cypress  tribe  (Cupressineae),  of  the  nat.  order 
Coniferae.  [W.  H.] 

TIBE'RIAS   (Ttj8ept(£s:   Tiberias),  a   city  in 
the  time  of  Christ,  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee ;  first  men 
tioned  in  the  New  Testament  (John  vi.  1,  23,  xxi. 
1),  and  then  by  Josephus  (Ant.  xviii.,  Bel.  Jvd. 
ii.  9,  §1),  who  states  that  it  was  built  by  Herod 
Antipas,  and  was  named  by  him  in  honour  of  the 
emperor  Tiberius.     It  was  probably  a  new  town, 
and  not  a  restored   or  enlarged  one  merely;    for 
"Rakkath"  (Josh.  xix.  35),  which  is  said  in  the 
Talmud  to  have  occupied  the  same  position,  lay  in 
the  tribe  of  Naphtali  (if  we  insist  on  the  boundaries 
as   indicated   by   the   clearest  passages),   whereas 
Tiberias   appears   to  have  been   within  the  limits 
of  Zebulun  (Matt.  iv.  13).     See  Winer,  Realw.  ii. 
p.  619.     The  same  remark  may  be  made  respect 
ing  Jerome's  statement,  that  Tiberias  succeeded  to 
the  place  of  the  earlier  Chinnereth  (Onomasticon, 
sub  voce) ;  for  this  latter  town,  as  may  be  argued 
from  the  name  itself,  must  have  been  further  north 
than  the  site  of  Tiberias.     The  tenacity  with  which 
its  Roman  name  has  adhered  to  the  spot  (see  infra} 
indicates  the  same  fact;   for,  generally  speaking, 
foreign  names  in  the  East  applied  to  towns  pre 
viously  known  under  names  derived  from  the  native 
dialect,  as  e.  g.  Epiphania  for  Hammath  (Josh.  xix. 
35),  Palmyra  for  Tadmor  (2  Chr.  viii.  4),  Ptole- 
mais  for  Akko  (Acts  xxi.  7),  lost  their  foothold  as 
soon  as  the  foreign  power  passed  away  which  had 
imposed  them,  and  gave  place  again  to  the  original 
appellations.     Tiberias  was  the  capital  of  Galilee 
from  the  time  of  its  origin  until  the  reign  of  Herod 
Agrippa  II.,  who  changed  the  seat  of  power  back 
again  to  Sepphoris,  where  it  had  been  before  the 
founding  of  the  new  city.     Many  of  the  inhabitants 
were  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  foreign  customs  pre 
vailed  there  to  such  an  extent  as  to  give  offence  to 
the  stricter  Jews  [HERODIANS].  Herod,  the  founder 
of  Tiberias,   had  passed  most  of  his  early  life  in 
Italy,  and  had  brought  with  him  thence  a  taste  for 
the  amusements  and  magnificent  buildings,  with 
which  he  had  been  familiar  in  that  country.     He 
built  a  stadium  there,  like  that  in  which  the  Roman 
youth  trained  themselves  for  feats  of  rivalry  and 
war.     He  erected  a  palace,  which  he  adorned  with 
figures  of  animals,   "  contrary,"  as  Josephus  says 
(Vit.  §12,  13,  64),  "to  the  law  of  our  country 
men."     The  place  was  so  much  the  less  attractive 
to  the  Jews,  because,  as  the  same  authority  states 
{Ant.  xviii.  2,  §3),  it  stood  on  the  site  of  an  ancien 
burial-ground,  and  was  viewed,  therefore,  by  the 
more  scrupulous  among  them  almost  as  a  pollutec 
and  forbidden  locality.     Coins  of  the  city  of  Tiberias, 
are  still  extant,  which  are  referred  to  the  times  o 
Tiberias,  Trajan,  and  Hadrian. 

The  ancient  name  has  survived  in  that  of  th< 
modern  Tubarieh,  which  occupies  unquestionably  th 
original  site,  except  that  it  is  confined  to  narrowe 
limits  than  those  of  the  original  city.  Near  Tuba 
rteh,  about  a  mile  further  south  along  the  shore 
are  the  celebrated  warm  baths,  which  the  Roman 
naturalists  (Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  v.  15)  reckoned  among 

»  "  It  is  highly  balsamic  and  odoriferous,  the  resin,  n 
doubt,  preventing  the  ravages  of  insects  us  well  as  th 
influence  of  the  air"  (Loudon's  Arb.  I.  c  . 


TIBERIAS 

le  greatest  known  curiosities  of  the  world. 
ATH.]      The   intermediate   space   between    these 
aths  and  the  town  abounds  with  the  traces  of  ruins>, 
uch  as  the  foundations  of  walls,  heaps  of  stone, 
locks  of  granite,  and  the  like ;  and  it  cannot  be 
oubted,  therefore,  that  the  ancient  Tiberias  occu- 
ied  also  this  ground,  and  was  much  more  extensive 
nan  its  modern  successor.     From  such  indications, 
nd  from  the  explicit  testimony  of  Josephus,  who 
ays  (Ant.   xviii.   2,   §3)  that   Tiberias  was  near 
^mmaus  ('A/i/xoot;s) ,  or  the  Warm  Baths,  there  can 
>e  no  uncertainty  respecting  the  identification  of  the 
ite  of  this  important  city.     It  stood  anciently  as 
ow,  on  the  western  shore,  about  two-thirds  of  the 
way  between  the  northern  and  southern  end  of  the 
3ea  of  Galilee.     There  is  a  margin  or  strip  of  land 
,here  between  the  water  and  the  steep  hills  (which 
Isewhcre  in  that  quarter  come  down  so  boldly  to 
he  edge  of  the  lake),  about  two  miles  long  and  a 
uarter  of  a  mile  broad.     The  tract  in  question  is 
Wewhat  undulating,  but  approximates  to  the  cha- 
acter  of  a  plain.     Tubarieh,  the   modern   town, 
>ccupies  the  northern  end  of  this  parallelogram,  and 
he  Warm  Baths  the  southern  extremity ;  so  that 
he  more  extended  city  of  the  Roman  age  must  have 
overed  all,   or  nearly  all  of  the  peculiar  ground 
whose  limits  are  thus  clearly  defined.     (See  Rc- 
)inson's  Sib.  Res.,  ii.   380  ;    and  Porter's  Hand 
book,  ii.  421.)     The  present  Tubarie/i  has  a  rect 
angular  form,  is  guarded  by  a  strong  wall  on  the 
and  side,  but  is  left  entirely  open  towards  the  sea. 
A  few  palm-trees  still  remain  as  witnesses  of  the 
uxuriant    vegetation    which    once    adorned    this 
garden  of  the  Promised  Land,  but  they  are  greatly 
nferior  in  size  and  beauty  to  those  seen  in  Egypt. 
The  oleander  grows  here  profusely,  almost  rivalling 
,hat  flower  so   much   admired   as   found   on   the 
neighbouring  Plain  of  Gennesaret.     The  people,  as 
f  old,  draw  their  subsistence  in   part  from  the 
adjacent    lake.     The  spectator  from   his   position 
lere  commands  a  view  of  almost  the  entire  expanse 
of  the  sea,  except  the  southern  part,  which  is  cut 
off  by  a  slight  projection  of  the  coast.     The  preci 
pices  on  the  opposite  side  appear  almost  to  overhang 
the  water,  but  on  being  approached  are  found  to 
stand  back  at  some  distance,  so  as  to  allow  travellers 
to  pass  between  them  and  the  water.     The  lofty 
Hermon,    the  modern   Jebel-esh-Sheikh*    with   its 
glistening  snow-heaps,  forms  a  conspicuous  object 
of  the  landscape  in  the   noiih-east.     Many  rock- 
tombs  exist  in  the  sides  of  the  hills,  behind  the 
town,  some  of  them  no  doubt  of  great  antiquity, 
and  constructed  in  the  best  style  of  such  monu 
ments.     The  climate  here  in  the  warm  season  is 
very  hot  and  unhealthy ;  but  most  of  the  tropical 
fruits,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  valley  of  the  Jordan, 
become  ripe  very  early,  and,  with  industry,  might 
be  cultivated  in  great  abundance  and  perfection. 
The    article    on   GENNESARET  [vol.    i.   p.  675] 
should  be  read  in  this  connexion,  since  it  is  the  rela 
tion  of  Tiberias  to  the  surrounding  region  and  the 
lake,  which  gave  to  it  its  chief  importance  in  the 
first  Christian  age.     The  place  is  four  and  a  half 
hours  from  Nazareth,  one  hour  from  Mejdel,  pos- 
sibly  the  ancient  Magdala,  and  thirteen  hours,  by  the 
shortest  route,  from  Bdnids  or  Caesarea  Philippi. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  Gospels  give  us  no  in 
formation,  that  the  Saviour,  who  spent  so  much  oi 
his  public  life  in  Galilee,  ever  visited  Tiberias.  The 
surer  meaning  of  the  expression,  "  He  went  away 
beyond  the  sea  of  Galilee  of  Tiberias"  in  John  vi.  1 
TTJS  0aAa<rcT7]s  TTJS  TaAtAaias  TTJS  Ti/3« 


TIBERIAS 

p«£5os),  is  not  that  Jesus  embarked  from  Tiberias, 
but,  as  Meyer  remarks,  that  He  crossed  from  the 
west  side  of  the  Galilean  sea  of  Tiberias  to  the 
opposite  side.  A  reason  has  been  assigned  for  this 
singular  fact,  which  may  or  may  not  account  for  it. 
As  Herod,  the  murderer  of  John  the  Baptist,  resided 
most  of  the  time  in  this  city,  the  Saviour  may  have 
kept  purposely  away  from  it,  on  account  of  the 
sanguinary  and  artful  (Luke  xiii.  32)  character  of 
that  ruler.  It  is  certain,  from  Luke  xxiii.  8,  that 
though  Herod  had  heard  of  the  fame  of  Christ,  he 
never  saw  Him  in  person  until  they  met  at  Jeru 
salem,  and  never  witnessed  any  of  his  miracles.  It 
is  possible  that  the  character  of  the  place,  so  much 
like  that  of  a  Roman  colony,  may  have  been  a 
reason  why  He  who  was  sent  to  the  lost  sheep  of 
the  house  of  Israel,  performed  so  little  labour  in  its 
vicinity.  The  head  of  the  lake,  and  especially  the 
Plain  of  Gennesaret,  where  the  population  was  more 
dense  and  so  thoroughly  Jewish,  formed  the  central 
point  of  his  Galilean  ministry.  The  feast  of  Herod 
and  his  courtiers,  before  whom  the  daughter  of 
Herodias  danced,  and  in  fulfilment  of  the  tetrarch's 
rash  oath  demanded  the  head  of  the  dauntless  re 
former,  was  held  in  all  probability  at  Tiberias,  the 
capital  of  the  province.  If,  as  Josephus  mentions 
(Ant.  xviii.  5,  §2),  the  Baptist  was  imprisoned 
at  the  time  in  the  castle  of  Machaerus  beyond 
the  Jordan,  the  order  for  his  execution  could  have 
been  sent  thither,  and  the  bloody  trophy  forwarded 
to  the  implacable  Herodias  at  the  palace  where  she 
usually  resided.  Gams  (Johannes  der  Taufer  im 
Gefiingniss,  p.  47,  &c.)  suggests  that  John,  instead 
of  being  kept  all  the  time  in  the  same  castle,  may 
have  been  confined  in  different  places,  at  different 
times.  The  three  passages  already  referred  to  are 
the  only  ones  in  the  New  Testament  which  men 
tion  Tiberias  by  name,  viz.  John  vi.  1,  and  xxi.  1 
(in  both  instances  designating  the  lake  on  which 
the  town  was  situated),  and  John  vi.  23,  where 
boats  are  said  to  have  come  from  Tiberias  near  to 
the  place  at  which  Jesus  had  supplied  miraculously 
the  wants  of  the  multitude.  Thus  the  lake  in 
the  time  of  Christ,  among  its  other  appellations, 
bore  also  that  of  the  principal  city  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  ;  and  in  like  manner,  at  the  present  day, 
Bohr  Tubaneh,  "  Sea  of  Tubarieh,"  is  almost  the 
only  name  under  which  it  is  known  among  the  inha 
bitants  of  the  country. 

Tiberias  has  an  interesting  history,  apart  from  its 
strictly,  Biblical  associations.  It  bore  a  conspicuous 
part  in  the  wars  between  the  Jews  and  the  Romans. 
The  Sanhedrim,  subsequently  to  the  fall  of  Jeru 
salem,  after  a  temporary  sojourn  at  Jamnia  and 
Sepphoris,  became  fixed  there  about  the  middle  of 
the  2nd  century.  Celebrated  schools  of  Jewish 
learning  flourished  there  through  a  succession  of 
several  centuries.  The  Mishna  was  compiled  at 
this  place  by  the  great  Rabbi  Judah  Hakkodesh 
(A.D.  190).  The  Masorah,  or  body  of  traditions, 
•which  transmitted  the  readings  of  the  Hebrew  text 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  preserved  by  means  of 
the  vowel  system  the  pronunciation  of  the  Hebrew, 
originated  in  a  great  measure  at  Tiberias.  The 
place  passed,  under  Constantine,  into  the  power  of 
the  Christians  ;  and  during  the  period  of  the  Cru 
sades  was  lost  and  won  repeatedly  by  the  different 
combatants.  Since  that  time  it  has  been  possessed 
successively  by  Persians,  Arabs,  and  Turks;  and 
contains  now,  under  the  Turkish  rule,  a  mixed 
population  of  Mahommedans,  Jews,  and  Christians, 
variously  estimated  at  from  two  to  four  thousand. 


TIBERIUS 


1497 


The  Jews  constitute,  perhaps,  one-fourth  of  the 
entire  number.  They  regard  Tiberias  as  one  of  the 
four  holy  places  (Jerusalem,  Hebron,  Safed,  are  the 
others),  in  which,  as  they  say,  prayer  must  be 
offered  without  ceasing,  or  the  world  would  fall 
back  instantly  into  chaos.  One  of  their  singular 
opinions  is  that  the  Messiah  when  He  appears  will 
emerge  from  the  waters  of  the  lake,  and,  landing 
at  Tiberias,  proceed  to  Safed,  and  there  establish  his 
throne  on  the  highest  summit  in  Galilee.  In  addi 
tion  to  the  language  of  the  particular  country,  as 
Poland,  Germany,  Spain,  from  which  they  or  their 
families  emigrated,  most  of  the  Jews  here  speak  also 
the  Rabbinic  Hebrew,  and  modern  Arabic.  They 
occupy  a  quarter  in  the  middle  of  the  town,  adjacent 
to  the  lake  ;  just  north  of  which,  near  the  shore,  is 
a  Latin  convent  and  church,  occupied  by  a  solitary 
Italian  monk.  Tiberias  suffered  terribly  from  the 
great  earthquake  in  1837,  and  has  not  yet  recovered 
by  any  means  from  the  effects  of  that  disaster.  In 
1852,  the  writer  of  this  article  (later  travellers 
report  but  little  improvement)  rode  into  the  city 
over  the  dilapidated  walls  ;  in  other  parts  of  them 
not  overthrown,  rents  were  visible  from  top  to 
bottom,  and  some  of  the  towers  looked  as  if  they 
had  been  shattered  by  battering-rams.  It  is  sup 
posed  that  at  least  seven  hundred  of  the  inhabitants 
were  destroyed  at  that  time.  This  earthquake  was 
severe  and  destructive  in  other  parts  of  Galilee.  It 
was  a  similar  calamity  no  doubt,  such  as  had  left 
a  strong  impression  on  the  minds  of  the  people,  to 
which  Amos  refers,  at  the  beginning  of  his  prophecy, 
as  forming  a  well-known  epoch  from  which  other 
events  were  reckoned.  There  is  a  place  of  inter 
ment  near  Tiberias,  in  which  a  distinguished  Rabbi 
is  said  to  be  buried  with  14,000  of  his  disciples 
around  him.  The  grave  of  the  Arabian  philo 
sopher  Lokman,  as  Burckhardt  states,  was  pointed 
out  here  in  the  14th  century.  Raumer's  Paldstina 
(p.  125)  mentions  some  of  the  foregoing  facts,  and 
others  of  a  kindred  nature.  The  later  fortunes  of 
the  place  are  sketched  somewhat  at  length  in  Dr. 
Robinson's  Biblical  Researches,  iii.  267-274  (ed. 
1841).  It  is  unnecessary  to  specify  other  works, 
as  Tiberias  lies  in  the  ordinary  route  of  travellers 
in  the  East,  and  will  be  found  noticed  more  or  less 
fully  in  most  of  the  books  of  any  completeness  in 
this  department  of  authorship. 

Professor  Stanley,  in  his  Notices  of  some  Locali 
ties,  &c.  (p.  193),  has  added  a  few  charming 
touches  to  the  admirable  description  already  given 
in  his  Sinai  and  Pal.  (368-82).  [H.  B.  H.] 


TIBE'RIAS,  THE   SEA  OF   (r, 

TTJS  TifiepidSos  :  mare  Tiberiadis").  This  term  is 
found  only  in  John  xxi.  1,  the  other  passage  in 
which  it  occurs  in  the  A.  V.  (ib.  vi.  1.)  being,  if 
the  original  is  accurately  rendered,  "  the  sea  of 
Galilee,  of  Tiberias."  St.  John  probably  uses  the 
name  as  more  familiar  to  non-residents  in  Palestine 
than  the  indigenous  name  of  the  "  sea  of  Galilee," 
or  "  sea  of  Gennesaret,"  actuated  no  doubt  by  the 
same  motive  which  has  induced  him  so  constantly  to 
translate  the  Hebrew  names  and  terms  which  he  uses 
(such  as  Rabbi,  Rabboni,  Messias,  Cephas,  Siloam, 
&c.)  into  the  language  of  the  Gentiles.  [GENNE- 
SAUET  SEA  OF/I  '  [G.] 

TIBE  RIUS  (TijSepios  :  in  full,  Tiberius  Clau 
dius  Nero),  the  second  Roman  emperor,  successor 
of  Augustus,  who  began  to  reign  A.D.  14,  and 
reigned  until  A.D.  37.  Pie  was  the  son  of  Tiberius 
Claudius  Nero  and  Livia,  and  hence  a  stepson  of 


1498 


TIBERIUS 


Augustus.  He  was  born  at  Rome  on  the  16th  of 
No /em her,  B.C.  45.  He  became  emperor  in  his 
fifty-fifth  y3ar,  after  having  distinguished  himself  as 
a  commander  in  various  wars,  and  having  evinced 
talents  of  a  high  order  as  an  orator,  and  an  admi 
nistrator  of  civil  affairs.  His  military  exploits  and 
those  of  Drusus,  his  brother,  were  sung  by  Horace 
(Carm.  iv.  4,  14).  He  even  gained  the  reputation 
of  possessing  the  sterner  virtues  of  the  Roman  cha 
racter,  and  was  regarded  as  entirely  worthy  of  the 
imperial  honours  to  which  his  birth  and  supposed 
personal  merits  at  length  opened  the  way.  Yet  on 
being  raised  to  the  supreme  power,  he  suddenly 
became,  or  showed  himself  to  be,  a  veiy  different 
man.  His  subsequent  life  was  one  of  inactivity, 
sloth,  and  self-indulgence.  He  was  despotic  in  his 
government,  cruel  and  vindictive  in  his  disposition. 
He  gave  up  the  affairs  of  the  state  to  the  vilest 
favourites,  while  he  himself  wallowed  in  the  very 
kennel  ot  all  that  was  low  and  debasing.  The  only 
palliation  of  his  monstrous  crimes  and  vices  which 
can  be  offered  is,  that  his  disgust  of  life,  occasioned 
by  his  early  domestic  troubles,  may  have  driven  him 
at  last  to  despair  and  insanity.  Tiberius  died  at 
the  age  of  seventy-eight,  after  a  reign  of  twenty- 
three  years.  The  ancient  writers  who  supply  most 
of  our  knowledge  respecting  him  are  Suetonius, 
Tacitus  (who  describes  his  character  as  one  of 
studied  dissimulation  and  hypo 
crisy  from  the  beginning),  AnnaL 
i.-vi. ;  Veil.  Paterc.  L.  ii.  94, 
etc. ;  and  Dion  Cass.  xlvi.-xlviii. 
The  article  in  the  Diet,  of 
Gr.  and  Rom.  Biog.  (vol.  iii. 
pp.  1117-1127)  furnishes  a  co 
pious  outline  of  the  principal 
events  in  his  life,  and  holds  him 
up  m  his  true  light  as  deserving  the  scorn  and 
flJbhorrence  of  men. 

The  city  of  TIBERIAS  took  its  name  from  this 
emperor.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  Saviour's  public 
life,  and  some  of  the  introductory  events  of  the 
apostolic  age,  must  have  fallen  within  the  limits 
of  his  administration.  The  memorable  passage  in 
Tacitus  (AnnaL  xv.  44)  respecting  the  origin  of 
the  Christian  sect,  places  the  crucifixion  of  the  Re 
deemer  under  Tiberius :  "  Ergo  abolendo  rumori 
(that  of  his  having  set  fire  to  Rome)  Nero  subdidit 
reos,  et  quaesitissimis  poenis  affecit,  quos  per  fla- 
gitia  invisos  vulgus  Christianos  appellabat.  Auctor 
nominis  ejus  Christus  Tiberio  imperitante  per  pro- 
curatorem  Pentium  Pilatum  supplicio  affectus  erat." 
The  martyrdom  of  Stephen  belongs  in  all  proba- 
b.iity  to  the  last  year,  or  last  but  one  of  this  reign. 
Jn  Luke  iii.  1  he  is  termed  Tiberius  Caesar ;  John 
the  .Baptist,  it  is  there  said,  began  his  ministry  in  the 
fifteenth  yenr  of  his  reign  (rj'ye/j.ovia).  This  chro- 
iioJogical  notation  is  an  important  one  in  deter 
mining  the  year  of  Christ's  birth  and  entrance  on 
his  public  work  [ JESUS  CHRIST,  vol.  i.  p.  1074]. 
Augustus  admitted  Tiberius  to  a  share  in  the  em 
pire  two  or  three  years  before  his  own  death ;  and 
it  is  a  question,  therefore,  whether  the  fifteenth 
year  of  which  Luke  speaks,  should  be  reckoned  from 
the  time  of  the  co-partnership,  or  from  that  when 
Tiberius  began  to  reign  alone.  The  former  is  the 
computation  more  generally  adopted  ;  but  the  data 
wnich  relate  to  this  point  in  the  chronology  of  the 
Saviour's  life,  maybe  reconciled  easily  with  the  one 
view  or  the  other.  Some  discussion,  more  or  less 
extended,  in  reference  to  this  inquiry  will  be  found 
in  Krafft's  Chronoloyie,  p.  66 ;  Sopp's  Lebcn  Christi, 


Coin  of  Tiberius. 


TIGLATH-PILESKR 

.  1,  &c.  ;  Friedlieb's  Leben  Jcsu  Christi,  47,  &c.  ,' 
Ebrard's  Kritik,  184  ;  Tischendorf's  Synopsis,  xvi.  ; 
Greswell's  Dissertations,  i.  334  ;  and  Robinson's 
Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  181.  [H.  B.  H.] 

TIB'HATH  (rmp  :  Marafce     Thebath},  a 

city  of  Hadadezer,  king  of  Zobah  (1  Chr.  xviii.  8), 
which  in  2  Sam.  viii.  8  is  called  Betah,  probably 
by  an  accidental  transposition  of  the  first  two 
letters.  Its  exact  position  is  unknown,  but  ii 
Aram-Zobah  is  the  country  between  the  Euphrates 
and  Coelesyria  [see  SYRIA],  we  must  look  for  Tib- 
hath  on  the  eastern  skirts  of  the  Anti-Libanus,  or 
of  its  continuation,  the  Jebel  Shahshabu  and  the 
Jebel  Rieha.  [G.  R.] 

IB'NI(^nFl:  ®afj.vi:  Thebni).    After  Zimri 

had  burnt  himself  in  his  palace,  there  was  a  division 
in  the  northern  kingdom,  half  of  the  people  follow 
ing  Tibni  the  son  of  Ginath,  and  half  following 
Omri  (1  K.  xvi.  21,  22).  Omri  was  the  choice  of 
the  army.  Tibni  was  probably  put  forward  by  the 
people  of  Tirzah,  which  was  then  besieged  by  Omri 
and  his  host.  The  struggle  between  the  contending 
factions  lasted  four  years  (comp.  1  K.  xvi.  15,  23)  ; 
but  the  only  record  of  it  is  given  in  the  few  words 
of  the  historian  :  "  The  people  that  followed  Omri 
prevailed  against  the  people  that  followed  Tibni  the 
son  of  Ginath  ;  so  Tibni  died,  and  Omri  reigned." 
The  LXX.  add  that  Tibni  was  bravely  seconded  by 
his  brother  Joram,  for  they  tell  us,  in  a  clause  which 
Ewald  pronounces  to  be  undoubtedly  genuine,  "and 
Thamni  and  Joram  his  brother  died  at  that  time  ;  and 
Ambri  reigned  after  Thamni."  [W.  A.  W.] 


TIDAL  (jnn:    ®apyd\:    Thadal}  is  men 

tioned  only  in  Gen.  xiv.  1,  9.  He  there  appears 
among  the  kings  confederated  with,  and  subordi- 
nate  to,  Chedorlaomer,  the  sovereign  of  Elam,  M  ho 
leads  two  expeditions  from  the  country  about  the 
mouth  of  the  Tigris  into  Syria.  The  name,  Tidal, 
is  certainly  an  incorrect  representation  of  the  ori 
ginal.  If  the  present  Hebrew  text  is  accepted, 
the  king  was  called  Thid'al  ;  while,  if  the  Sep- 
tuagint  more  nearly  represents  the  original,*  his 
name  was  Thargal,  or  perhaps  Thurgal.  This  last 
rendering  is  probably  to  be  preferred,  as  the  name 
is  then  a  significant  one  in  the  early  Hamitic  dialect 
of  the  lower  Tigris  and  Euphrates  country  —  Thur 
gal  being  "  the  great  chief"—  &a<ri\ti>s  '6  p.4-yas 
(naqa  wazarka)  of  the  Persians  Thargal  is  calleJ 
"  king  of  nations  "  (D^'lS  "^O),  by  which  it  is 

reasonable  to  understand  that  ne  was  a  chief  over 
various  nomadic  tribes  to  wh-^m  no  special  tract  of 
country  could  be  assigned,  suice  at  different  times 
of  the  year  they  inhabited  different  portions  of  Lower 
Mesopotamia.  This  is  the  case  with  the  Arabs  oi 
these  parts  at  the  present  day.  Thargal,  however, 
should  from  his  name  have  been  a  Turanian.  [G.  R.] 

TIG'LATH  -  PILE'SER 


p,  ®ay\a<t>a\\a<rdp  : 
Phalasar}.  In  1  Chr.  v.  26,  and  again  in  2  Chr.  xxviii 
20,  the  name  of  this  king  is  written  "lCO(?S"ni7ty 
"  Tilgath-pilneser  ;"  but  in  this  form  there  is  a 
double  corruption.  The  native  word  reads  as 


»  The  LXX.  evidently  read  Jpn  for  JTin.  aiwi 
therefore  wrote  ®apyd\,  representing  the  y  by  a  y.  The 
Alex.  Codex,  however,  has  0AAFA,  which  origiraliy  was 
doubtless  ©AArA,  agreeing  so  far  with  tho  prciiout 
Hebrew  text. 


TIGLATH-PILESER 

n<jnlti-fal-tsira,  for  which  the  Tiglath-pil-eser  of 
2  Kings  is  a  fair  equivalent.  The  signification  of 
the  name  is  somewhat  doubtful.  M.  Oppert  ren- 
'lers  it,  "  Adoratio  [sit]  filio  Zodiaci,"  and  ex 
plains  "  the  son  of  the  Zodiac  "  as  Nin,  or  Hercules 
{Expedition  Stientifique  en  Me'sopotamie,  ii.  352;. 

Tiglath-Pileser  is  the  second  Assyrian  king  men- 
*ioned  in  Scripture  as  having  come  into  contact 
with  the  Israelites.  He  attacked  Samaria  in  the 
reign  of  Pekah,  on  what  ground  we  are  not  told, 
but  probably  because  Pekah  withheld  his  tribute, 
and,  having  entered  his  territories,  "  took  Ijon,  and 
Abel-beth-maachah,  and  Janoah,  and  Kedesh,  and 
Kazor,  and  Gilead,  and  Galilee,  and  all  the  land  of 
Naphtali,  and  carried  them  captive  to  Assyria" 
(2  K.  xv.  29) :  thus  "  lightly  afflicting  the  land  of 
Zebulun  and  the  land  of  Naphtali "  (Is.  ix.  1) — 
the  most  northern,  and  so  the  most  exposed  portion 
of  the  country.  The  date  of  this  invasion  cannot 
at  present  be  fixed ;  but  it  was,  apparently,  many 
years  afterwards  that  Tiglath-Pileser  made  a  second 
expedition  into  these  parts,  which  had  more  im 
portant  results  than  his  former  one.  It  appears 
that,  after  the  date  of  his  first  expedition,  a  close 
league  was  formed  between  Rezin,  king  of  Syria, 
and  Pekah,  having  for  its  special  object  the  humi 
liation  of  Judaea,  and  intended  to  further  generally 
the  interests  of  the  two  allies.  At  first  great  suc 
cesses  were  gained  by  Pekah  and  his  confederate 
(2  K.  xv.  37 ;  2  Chr.  xxviii.  6-8) ;  but,  on  their 
proceeding  to  attack  Jerusalem  itself,  and  to  threaten 
Ahaz,  who  was  then  king,  with  deposition  from  his 
throne,  which  they  were  about  to  give  to  a  pre 
tender,  "  the  son  of  Tabeal "  (Is.  vii.  6),  the  Jewish 
monarch  applied  to  Assyria  for  assistance,  and  Tig 
lath-Pileser,  consenting  to  aid  him,  again  appeared 
at  the  head  of  an  army  in  these  regions.  He  first 
marched,  naturally,  against  Damascus,  which  he 
took  (2  K.  xvi.  9),  razing  it  (according  to  his  own 
statement)  to  the  ground,  and  killing  Rezin,  the 
Damascene  monarch.  After  this,  probably,  he  pro 
ceeded  to  chastise  Pekah,  whose  country  he  entered 
on  the  north-east,  where  it  bordered  upon  "  Syria 
of  Damascus."  Here  he  overran  the  whole  district 
to  the  east  of  Jordan,  no  longer  "  lightly  afflicting  " 
Samaria,  but  injuring  her  far  "  more  grievously,  by 
the  way  of  the  sea,  in  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles" 
(Is.  ix.  1),  carrying  into  captivity  "  the  Reubenites, 
the  Gadites,  and  the  half  tribe  of  Manasseh  "  (1  Chr. 
v.  26),  who  had  previously  held  this  country,  and 
placing  them  in  Upper  Mesopotamia  from  Harran 
to  about  Nisibis  (ib.).  Thus  the  result  of  this 
expedition  was  the  absorption  of  the  kingdom  of 
Damascus,  and  of  an  important  portion  of  Samaria, 
into  the  Assyrian  empire  ;  and  it  further  brought  the 
kingdom  of  Judah  into  the  condition  of  a  mere  tri 
butary  and  vassal  of  the  Assyrian  monarch. 

Before  returning  into  his  own  land,  Tiglath-Pileser 
had  an  interview  with  Ahaz  at  Damascus  (2  K.  xvi. 
10).  Here  doubtless  was  settled  the  amount  of  tri 
bute  which  Judaea  was  to  pay  annually;  and  it 
may  be  suspected  that  here  too  it  was  explained  to 
Ahaz  by  his  suzerain  that  a  certain  deference  to  the 
Assyrian  gods  was  due  on  the  part  of  all  tributaries, 
who  were  usually  required  to  set  up  in  their  capital 
"  the  Laws  of  Asshur,"  or  "  altars  to  the  Great 
Gods"  [see  vol.  i.  p.  132  a].  The  "  altar"  which 
Ahaz  "  saw  at  Damascus,"  and  of  which  he  sent  the 


TIGLATH-PILESER 


1499 


pattern  to  Urijah  the  priest  (2  K.  xvi.  10,  11),  was 
probably  such  a  badge  of  subjection. 

This  is  all  that  Scripture  tells  us  of  Tiglath- 
Pileser.  He  appears  to  have  succeeded  Pul,  and  to 
have  been  succeeded  by  Shalmaneser ;  to  have  beon 
contemporary  with  Rezin,  Pekah,  and  Ahaz ;  and 
therefore  to  have  ruled  Assyria  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  eighth  century  before  our  era.  From 
his  own  inscriptions  we  learn  that  his  reign  lasted 
at  least  seventeen  years;  that,  besides  warring  in 
Syria  and  Samaria,  he  attacked  Babylonia,  Media, 
Armenia,  and  the  independent  tribes  in  the  upper 
regions  of  Mesopotamia,  thus,  like  the  other  great 
Assyrian  monarchs,  warring  along  the  whole  fron 
tier  of  the  empire ;  and  finally,  that  he  was  (pro 
bably)  not  a  legitimate  prince,  but  an  usurper  and 
the  founder  of  a  dynasty.  This  last  fact  is  gathered 
from  the  circumstance  that,  whereas  the  Assyrian 
kings  generally  glory  in  their  ancestry,  Tiglath- 
Pileser  omits  all  mention  of  his,  not  even  recording 
his  father's  name  upon  his  monuments.  It  accords 
remarkably  with  the  statements  of  Berosus  (in 
Euseb.  C/iron.  Can.  i.  4)  and  Herodotus  (i.  95), 
that  about  this  time,  »'.  e.  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  eighth  century  B.C.,  there  was  a  change  of 
dynasty  in  Assyria,  the  old  family,  which  had  ruled 
for  520  (526)  years,  being  superseded  by  another 
not  long  before  the  accession  of  Sennacherib.  The  • 
authority  of  these  two  writers,  combined  with  the 
monumental  indications,  justifies  us  in  concluding 
that  the  founder  of  the  Lower  Dynasty  or  Empire, 
the  first  monarch  of  the  New  Kingdom,  was  the 
Tiglath-Pileser  of  Scripture,  whose  date  must  cer 
tainly  be  about  this  time,  and  whose  monuments 
show  him  to  have  been  a  self-raised  sovereign.  The 
exact  date  of  the  change  cannot  be  positively  fixed  \ 
but  it  is  probably  marked  by  the  era  of  Nabonassar 
in  Babylon,  which  synchronises  with  B.C.  747. 
According  to  this  view,  Tiglath-Pileser  reigned  cer 
tainly  from  B.C.  747  to  B.C.  730,  and  possibly 
a  few  years  longer,  being  succeeded  by  Shalmaneser 
at  least  as  early  as  B.C.  725.»  [SHALMANESER.] 

The  circumstances  under  which  Tiglath-Pileser 
obtained  the  crown  have  not  come  down  to  us  from 
any  good  authority ;  but  there  is  a  tradition  on  the 
subject  which  seems  to  deserve  mention.  Alexander 
Polyhistor,  the  friend  of  Sylla,  who  had  access  to 
the  writings  of  Berosus,  related  that  the  first  As 
syrian  dynasty  continued  from  Ninus,  its  founder, 
to  a  certain  Beleus  (Pul),  and  that  he  was  succeeded 
by  Beletaras,  a  man  of  low  rank,  a  mere  vine 
dresser  (<j>vTovpy6s^,  who  had  the  charge  of  the 
gardens  attached  to  the  royal  palace.  Beletaras, 
he  said,  having  acquired  the  sovereignty  in  an  extra 
ordinary  way,  fixed  it  in  his  own  family,  in  which 
it  continued  to  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  Nine 
veh  (Fr.  Hist.  Gr.  iii.  210).  It  can  scarcely  be 
doubted  that  Beletaras  here  is  intended  to  represent 
Tiglath-Pileser,  Belgtar  being  in  fact  another  mode 
of  expressing  the  native  Pal-tsira  or  Palli-tsir 
(Oppert),  which  the  Hebrews  represented  by 
Pileser.  Whether  there  is  any  truth  in  the  tra 
dition  may  perhaps  be  doubted.  It  bears  too  near 
a  resemblance  to  the  Oriental  stories  of  Cyrus, 
Gyges,  Amasis,  and  others,  to  have  in  itself  much 
claim  to  our  acceptance.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
harmonises  with  the  remarkable  fact — unparalleled 
in  the  rest  of  the  Assyrian  records — that  Tiglath' 


a  In  the  Assyrian  Chronological  Canon,  of  which  there 
are  tour  copies  in  the  British  Museum,  all  more  or  less 
^agmentury,  the  reign  of  Tiglath-l'ilcser  seems  to  be 


reckoned  at  either   16  or  17  years.      (See  Aitenatum 
No.  1812,  p.  84.) 


1500 


TIGRIS 


Pileser  is  absolutely  silent  on  the  subject  of  his 
ancestry,  neither  mentioning  his  father's  name,  nor 
making  any  allusion  whatever  to  his  birth,  descent, 
or  parentage. 

Tiglath-Pileser's  wars  do  not,  generally,  appear 
to  have  been  of  much  importance.  In  Babylonia 
he  took  Sippara  (Sepharvaim),  and  several  places  of 
less  note  in  the  northern  portion  of  the  country ; 
but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  penetrated  far,  or 
to  have  come  into  contact  with  Nabonassar,  who 
reigned  from  B.C.  74-7  to  B.C.  733  at  Babylon.  In 
Media,  Armenia,  and  Upper  Mesopotamia,  he  ob 
tained  certain  successes,  but  made  no  permanent 
conquests.  It  wao  on  his  western  frontier  only  that 
his  victories  advanced  the  limits  of  the  empire. 
The  destruction  of  Damascus,  the  absorption  of 
Syria,  and  the  extension  of  Assyrian  influence  over 
Judaea,  are  the  chief  events  of  Tiglath-Pileser's 
reign,  which  seems  to  have  had  fewer  external 
triumphs  than  those  of  most  Assyrian  monarchs. 
Probably  his  usurpation  was  not  endured  quite 
patiently,  and  domestic  troubles  or  dangers  acted 
as  a  check  upon  his  expeditions  against  foreign 
countries. 

No  palace  or  great  building  can  be  ascribed  to 
this  king.  His  slabs,  which  are  tolerably  numerous, 
show  that  he  must  have  built  or  adorned  a  residence 
at  Calah  (Nimrud),  where  they  were  found ;  but, 
as  they  were  not  discovered  in  situ,  we  cannot  say 
anything  of  the  edifice  to  which  they  originally 
belonged.  They  bear  marks  of  wanton  defacement; 
and  it  is  plain  that  the  later  kings  purposely  injured 
them ;  for  not  only  is  the  writing  often  erased,  but 
the  slabs  have  been  torn  down,  broken,  and  used 
as  building  materials  by  Esar-haddon  in  the  great 
palace  which  he  erected  at  Calah,  the  southern 
capital  [see  vol.  i.  p.  573.]  The  dynasty  of  Sargon 
was  hostile  to  the  first  two  princes  of  the  Lower 
Kingdom,  and  the  result  of  their  hostility  is  that 
we  have  far  less  monumental  knowledge  of  Shal- 
maneser  and  Tiglath-Pileser  than  of  various  kings 
of  the  Upper  Empire.  [G.  K.] 

TIGRIS  (Tiypis :  Tygris,  Tigris)  is  used  by 
the  LXX.  as  the  Greek  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew 
Hiddekel  (/Ejjn) ;  and  occurs  also  in  several  of 

the  apocryphal  books,  as  in  Tobit  (vi.  1),  Judith 
(i.  6),  and  Ecclesiasticus  (xxiv.  25).  The  meaning, 
and  various  forms,  of  the  word  have  been  considered 
under  HIDDEKEL.  It  only  remains,  therefore,  in 
the  present  article,  to  describe  the  course  and 
character  of  the  stream. 

The  Tigris,  like  the  Euphrates,  rises  from  two 
principal  sources.  The  most  distant,  and  therefore 
the  true,  source  is  the  western  one,  which  is  in 
/at.  38°  10',  long.  39°  20'  nearly,  a  little  to  the 
south  of  the  high  mountain  lake  called  Goljik  or 
Golenjik,  in  th*;  peninsula  formed  by  the  Euphrates 
where  it  sweeps  round  between  Palou  and  Telek. 
The  Tigris'  source  is  near  the  south-western  angle 
of  the  lake,  and  cannot  be  more  than  two  or  three 
miles  from  the  channel  of  the  Euphrates.  The 
course  of  the  Tigris  is  at  first  somewhat  north  of 
east,  but  after  pursuing  this  direction  for  about 
25  miles  it  makes  a  sweep  round  to  the  south, 
and  descends  by  Afghani  Maden  upon  Diarbekr. 
Here  it  is  already  a  river  of  considerable  size,  and 
is  crossed  by  a  bridge  of  ten  arches  a  little  below 
that  city  (Niebuhr,  Voyage  en  Arabic,  p.  326). 
It  then  turns  suddenly  to  the  east,  and  flows  in  this 
direction,  past  Osman  Kieui  to  Til,  where  it  once 
more  alters  its  course  and  takes  that  south-easterlv 


TIGRIS 

direction,  which  it  pursues,  with  certain  slight 
variations,  to  its  final  junction  with  the  Euphrates. 
At  Osman  Kieui  it  receives  the  second  or  Eastern 
Tigris,  which  descends  from  Niphates  (the  modern 
Ala-Tagh)  with  a  course  almost  ^ue  south,  and, 
collecting  on  its  way  the  waters  of  a  large  number 
of  streams,  unites  with  the  Tigris  half-way  between 
Diarbekr  and  Til,  in  long.  41°  nearly.  The  courses 
of  the  two  streams  to  the  point  of  junction  are  re 
spectively  150  and  100  miles.  A  little  below  the 
junction,  and  before  any  other  tributary  of  im 
portance  is  received,  the  Tigris  is  150  yards  wide 
and  from  three  to  four  feet  deep.  Near  Til  a 
large  stream  flows  into  it  from  the  north-east, 
bringing  almost  as  much  water  as  the  main  channel 
ordinarily  holds  (Layard,  Nineveh  and  Babylon, 
p.  49).  This  branch  rises  near  Billi,  in  northern 
Kurdistan,  and  runs  at  first  to  the  north-east,  but 
presently  sweeps  round  to  the  north,  and  proceeds 
through  the  districts  of  Shattak  and  Boktan  with 
a  general  westerly  course,  crossing  and  recrossing 
the  line  of  the  38th  parallel,  nearly  to  Sert,  whence 
it  flows  south-west  and  south  to  Til.  From  Til 
the  Tigris  runs  southward  for  20  miles  through 
a  long,  narrow,  and  deep  gorge,  at  the  end  of 
which  it  emerges  upon  the  comparatively  low  but 
still  hilly  country  of  Mesopotamia,  near  Jezireh. 
Through  this  it  flows  with  a  course  which  is  south- 
south-east  to  Mosul,  thence  nearly  south  to  Kileh- 
Sherghat,  and  again  south-south-east  to  Samara, 
where  the  hills  end  and  the  river  enters  on  the  great 
alluvium.  The  course  is  now  more  irregular. 
Between  Samara  and  Baghdad  a  considerable  bend 
is  made  to  the  east;  and,  after  the  Shat-el-Hie  is 
thrown  off  in  lat.  32°  30',  a  second  bend  is  made 
to  the  north,  the  regular  south-easterly  course 
being  only  resumed  a  little  above  the  32nd  parallel, 
from  which  point  the  Tigris  runs  in  a  toler 
ably  direct  line  to  its  junction  with  the  Euphrates 
at  Kurnah.  The  length  of  the  whole  stream,  ex 
clusive  of  meanders,  is  reckoned  at  1 146  miles.  It 
can  be  descended  on  rafts  during  the  flood  season 
from  Diarbekr,  which  is  only  150  miles  from  its 
source  ;  and  it  has  been  navigated  by  steamers  of 
small  draught  nearly  up  to  Mosul.  From  Diarbekr 
to  Samara  the  navigation  is  much  impeded  by 
rapids,  rocks,  and  shallows,  as  well  as  by  artificial 
bunds  or  dams,  which  in  ancient  times  were  thrown 
across  the  stream,  probably  for  purposes  of  irriga 
tion.  Below  Samara  there  are  no  obstructions ; 
the  river  is  deep,  with  a  bottom  of  soft  mud  ;  the 
stream  moderate ;  and  the  course  very  meandering. 
The  average  width  of  the  Tigris  in  this  part  of  its 
course  is'  200  yards,  while  its  depth  is  very  con 
siderable. 

Besides  the  three  head-streams  of  the  Tigris, 
which  have  been  already  described,  the  river  re 
ceives,  along  its  middle  and  lower  course,  no  fewer 
than  five  important  tributaries.  These  are  the 
river  of  Zakko  or  Eastern  Khabour,  the  Great  Zab 
(Zab  Ala),  the  Lesser  Zab  (Zab  A&fal),  the 
Adhem,  and  the  Diyaleh  or  ancient  Gyndes.  All 
these  rivers  flow  from  the  high  range  of  Zagros, 
which  shuts  in  the  Mesopotamia!!  valley  on  the 
east,  and  is  able  to  sustain  so  large  a  number  of 
great  streams  from  its  inexhaustible  springs  and 
abundant  snows.  From  the  west  the  Tigris  obtains 
no  tributary  of  the  slightest  importance,  for  the 
Tharthar,  which  fs  said  to  have  once  : cached  it, 
now  ends  in  a  salt  lake,  a  little  below  Tekrit* 
Its  volume,  however,  is  continually  increasing  as  it 
descends,  in  consequence  of  the  great  bulk  of  water 


TIGRIS 

brought  into  it  from  the  east,  particularly  by  the 
Great  Zaband  the  Diyaleh  ;  and  in  its  lower  course 
it  is  said  to  be  a  larger  stream  and  to  carry  a  greater 
body  than  the  Euphrates  (Chesney,  Euphrates 
Expedition,  i.  62). 

The  Tigris,  like  the  Euphrates,  has  a  flood 
season.  Early  iu  the  month  of  March,  in  conse 
quence  of  the  melting  of  the  snows  on  the  southern 
Hank  of  Niphates,  the  river  rises  rapidly.  Its 
breadth  gradually  iucreases  at  Diarbekr  from  100 
or  120  to  250  yards.  The  stream  is  swift  and 
turbid.  The  rise  continues  through  March  and 
April,  reaching  its  full  height  generally  in  the  first 
or  second  week  of  May.  At  this  time  the  country 
about  Baghdad  fe  often  extensively  flooded,  not, 
however,  so  much  from  the  Tigris  as  from  the 
overflow  of  the  Euphrates,  which  is  here  poured 
into  the  eastern  stream  through  a  canal.  Further 
down  the  river,  in  the  territory  of  the  Beni-Lam 
Arabs,  between  the  32nd  and  31st  parallels,  there 
is  a  great  annual  inundation  on  both  banks.  About 
the  middle  of  May  the  Tigris  begins  to  fall,  and  by 
midsummer  it  has  reached  its  natural  level.  In 
October  and  November  there  is  another  rise  and 
fall  in  consequence  of  the  autumnal  rains;  but  com 
pared  with  the  spring  flood  that  of  autumn  is  in 
significant. 

The  Tigris  is  at  present  better  fitted  for  pur 
poses  of  traffic  than  the  Euphrates  (Layard,  Nineveh 
and  Babylon,  p.  475)  ;  but  in  ancient  times  it  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  much  used  as  a  line  of  trade. 
The  Assyrians  probably  floated  down  it  the  timber 
which  they  were  in  the  habit  of  cutting  in  Amanus 
and  Lebanon,  to  be  used  for  building  pui-poses  in 
their  capital ;  but  the  general  line  of  communica 
tion  between  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Persian 
Gulf  was  by  the  Euphrates.  [See  vol.  i.  p.  591.] 
According  to  the  historians  of  Alexander  (Arrian, 
Exp.  Al.  vii.  7;  comp.  Strab.  xv.  3,  §4),  the 
Persians  purposely  obstructed  the  navigation  of  the 
lower  Tigris  by  a  series  of  dams  which  they  threw 
across  from  bank  to  bank  between  the  embouchure 
and  the  city  of  Opis,  and  such  trade  as  there  was 
along  its  course  proceeded  by  land  (Strab.  ibid.} 
It  is  probable  that  the  dams  were  in  reality  mad< 
for  another  purpose,  namely,  to  raise  the  level  of  the 
waters  for  the  sake  of  irrigation ;  but  they  would 
undoubtedly  have  also  the  effect  ascribed  to  them 
unless  in  the  spring  flood  time,  when  they  might 
have  been  shot  by  boats  descending  the  river.  Thus 
there  may  always  have  been  a  certain  amount  01 
traffic  down  the  stream  ;  but  up  it  trade  would 
scarcely  have  been  practicable  at  any  time  furthei 
than  Samara  or  Tekrit,  on  account  of  the  natural 
obstructions,  and  of  the  great  force  of  the  stream 
The  lower  part  of  the  course  was  opened  by  Alex 
ander  (Arrian,  vii.  7)  ;  and  Opis,  near  the  mouth  o 
the  Diyaleh,  became  thenceforth  known  as  a  mart 
(ffjur6piov},  from  which  the  neighbouring  district 
drew  the  merchandise  of  India  and  Arabia  (Strab 
xvi.  1,  §9).  Seleucia,  too,  which  grew  up  sooi 
?.tler  Alexander,  derived  no  doubt  a  portion  of  it 
prosperity  from  the  facilities  for  trade  offered  bj 
this  great  stream. 

We   find   but   little   mention   of  the   Tigris   i 
Scripture.     It  appeal's  indeed  under  the  name  o 
Hiddekel,  among  the  rivers  of  Eden  (Gen.  ii.  14) 
and  is  there  coirectly  described  as  "running  east 
ward  to  Assyria."     But  after  this  we  hear  no  mor 
of  it,  if  we  except  one  doubtful  allusion  in  Nahum 
(ii.  6),  until  the  Captivity,  when  it  becomes  we" 
known  to    the  prophet  Daniel,  who  had  to  cross 


TILE 


1501 


his  journeys  to  and  from  Susa  (Shushan).  With 
)aniel  it  is  "  the  Great  River"—  Vnjn  "!i13n—  an 
xpressioa  commonly  applied  to  the  Euphrates  ;  and 
y  its  side  he  sees  some  of  his  most  important  visions 
Dan.  x.  to  xii.).  No  other  mention  of  the  Tigris 
eems  to  occur  except  in  the  apocryphal  books  ;  and 
icre  it  is  unconnected  with  any  real  history. 

The  Tigris,  in  its  upper  course,  anciently  ran 
nrough  Armenia  and  Assyria.  Lower  down,  from 
bout  the  point  where  it  enters  on  the  alluvial  plain, 
;  separated  Babylonia  from  Susiana.  In  the  wars 
>etween  the  Romans  and  the  Parthians,  we  find  it 
onstitutiug,  for  a  short  time  (from  A.D.  114  to 
k..D.  117),"  the  boundary  line  between  these  two 
mpires.  Otherwise  it  has  scarcely  been  of  any 
(olitical  importance.  The  great  chain  of  Zagros  is 
he  main  natural  boundary  between  Western  and 
Central  Asia;  and  beyond  this,  the  next  defensible 
ine  is  the  Euphrates.  Historically  it  is  found  that 
ither  the  central  power  pushes  itself  westward  to 
hat  river  ;  or  the  power  ruling  the  west  advances 
>astward  to  the  mountain  barrier. 

The  water  of  the  Tigris,  in  its  lower  course,  is 
rellowish,  and  is  regarded  as  unwholesome.  The 
stream  abounds  with  fish  of  many  kinds,  which  are 
>ften  of  a  large  size  (see  Tobit  vi.  11,  and  compare 
Strab.  xi.  14,  §8).  Abundant  water-fowl  float  on 
;he  waters.  The  banks  are  fringed  with  palm- 
;rees  and  pomegranates,  or  clothed  with  jungle  and 
reeds,  the  haunt  of  the  wild  -boar  and  the  lion. 

(The  most  important  notices  of  the  Tigris  to  be 
found  in  the  classical  writers  are  the  following  : 
Strabo,  xi.  14,  §8,  and  xvi.  1,  §9-13;  Arrian, 
Exped.  Alex.  vii.  7;  and  Plin.  H.  N.  vi.  27. 
The  best  modern  accounts  are  those  of  Col.  Chesney, 
Euphrates  Expedition,  i.  16,  &c.,  and  Winer,  Real- 
jcorterbuch,  ii.  622,  623;  with  which  may  be 
compared  Layard,  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  49-51, 
and  464-476  ;  Loftus,  Chaldaea  and  Susiana, 
3-8  ;  Jones  in  Transactions  of  the  Geographical 
Society  of  Bombay,  vol.  ix.  ;  Lynch  in  Journal  of 

eographicaj  Society,  vol.  ix.  ;  and  Rawlinson's 
Herodotus,  i.  552,  553.)  [G.  R.] 

TIK'VAH  (mj?n:  ©e/courfv;  Alex.  0€KKoe  : 
Thecua}.  1.  The  'father  of  Shallum  the  husband 
of  the  prophetess  Huldah  (2  K.  xxii.  14).  He  is 
called  TIKVATH  in  the  A.  V.  of  2  Chr.  xxxiv.  22. 
2.  (0e/co>e;  Alex.  ©eKoue:  T/iccue.)  The  father 
of  Jahaziah  (Ezr.  x.  15).  In  1  Esd.  ix.  14  he  is 
called  THEOCANUS. 


TIK'VATH  (nnpin  ;  Keri,  nnpn  ;  properly 
Tokehath  or  Tokhath:  0eK«e;  Alex.  QaKovde  : 
Thecuath).  TIKVAH  the  father  of  Shallum  (2  Chr. 
xxxiv.  22). 

TILE.  For  general  information  on  the  subject 
see  the  articles  BRICK,  POTTERY,  SEAL.  The  ex 
pression  in  the  A.  V.  rendering  of  Luke  v.  19, 
"through*  the  tiling,"  has  given  much  trouble  to 
expositors,  from  the  fact  that  Syrian  houses  are  in 
general  covered,  not  with  tiles,  but  with  plaster 
terraces.  Some  suggestions  towards  the  solution  of 
this  difficulty  have  been  already  given.  [HOUSE,  vol. 
i.  p.  837.]  An  additional  one  may  here  be  offered. 
1.  Terrace-roofs,  if  constructed  improperly,  or  at 
the  wrong  season  of  the  year,  are  apt  to  crack,  and 
to  become  so  saturated  with  rain  as  to  be  easily 
penetrable.  May  not  the  roof  of  the  house  in  which 
our  Lord  performed  his  miracle,  h;ive  been  i:i  thife 


1502 


TILGATH-PILNESER 


condition.,  and  been  pierced,  or,  to  use  St.  Mark's  b 
ward,  "  broken  up,"  by  the  bearers  of  the  paralytic  ? 
(Arundell,  Trav.  in  Asia  Minor,  i.  171  ;  Russell, 
Aleppo,  i.  35). 

2.  Or  may  the  phrase  "  through  the  tiling"  be 
accounted  for  thus?  Greek  houses  were  often,  if 
not  always,  roofed  with  tiles  (Pollux,  vii.  161  ; 
Vitruvius,  iii.  3).  Did  not  St.  Luke,  a  native,  pro 
bably,  of  Greek  Antioch,  use  the  expression  "  tiles," 
as  the  form  of  roof  which  was  most  familiar  to 
himself  and  to  his  Greek  readers  without  reference 
to  the  particular  material  of  the  roof  in  question  ? 
(Euseb.  H.  E.  iii.  4;  Jerome,  Prol.  to  Com.  on 
St.  Matth.  vol.  vii.  p.  4  ;  Conybeare  and  Hovvson, 
St.  Paul,  i.  367.)  It  may  perhaps  be  worth  re 
marking  that  houses  in  modem  Antioch,  at  least 
many  of  them,  have  tiled  roofs  (Fisher,  Views  in 
Syria,  i.  19,  vi.  56).  [H.  W.  P.] 

TIL'GATH-PILNE'SER 


,  ®ay- 

a(J>afj.a(rdp,  ®a\ya(j)€\\ab'dp  ;  Alex.  ®ay\uQ  (pa\- 
vaffap  :  Theglatphalnasar,  Tkelgathphalnasar}.  A 
variation,  and  probably  a  corruption,  of  the  name 
TIGLATII-PILESER.  It  is  peculiar  to  the  Books  of 
Chronicles,  being  found  in  1  Chr.  v.  6,  26  ;  2  Chr. 
xxviii.  20.  [G.] 

TI'LON  (jiVin  ;  Ken,  jft'fl  :  'IvAv  ;  Alex. 
®iX(av  :  Thilon}.  One  of  the  four  sons  of  Shimon, 
whose  family  is  reckoned  in  the  genealogies  of 
Judah  (1  Chr.  iv.  20). 

TIMAE'US  (Tlpaios:  Timaeus).  The  father 
of  the  blind  man,  Bar-timaeus,  who  was  restored  to 
sight  by  Jesus  as  He  left  Jericho  (Mark  x.  46). 

TIMBREL,  TABRET.  By  these  words  the 
A.  V.  translates  the  Heb.  f]fl,  toph,  which  is  de 
rived  from  an  imitative  root  occurring  in  many 
languages  not  immediately  connected  with  each  other. 

2  J 

It  is  the  same  as  the  Arabic  and  Persian  <j^  ,  duff, 
which  in  Spanish  becomes  adufe,  a  tambourine. 
The  root,  which  signifies  to  beat  or  strike,  is  found 
in  the  Greek  rviravov  or  rvpiravov,  Lat.  tympanum, 
It.  tamburo,  Sp.  tambor,  Fr.  tambour,  Prov.  tabor, 
Eng.  tabor,  tabouret,  timbrel,  tambourine,  A.  S. 
dubban,  to  strike,  Eng.  tap,  and  many  others.0  In 
Old  English  tabor  was  used  for  any  drum.  Thus 
Rob.  of  Gloucester,  p.  396  (ed.  Hearne,  1810)  : 

"  Vor  of  trompes  and  of  tabors  the  Saracens  made  there 

So  gret  noise,  that  Cristenmen  al  distourbed  were." 
In  Shakspere's  time  it  seems  to  have  become  an 
instrument  of  peace,  and  is  thus  contrasted  with  the 
drum  :  "  I  have  known  when  there  was  no  music 
with  him  but  the  drum  and  fife  ;  and  now  had  he 
rather  hear  the  tabor  and  the  pipe"  {Much  Ado, 
ii.  3).  Tabouret  and  tabourine  are  diminutives  of 
tabor,  and  denote  the  instrument  now  known  as  the 
tambourine  :  — 

"  Or  Mimoe's  whistling  to  his  tabouret, 
Selling  a  laughter  for  a  cold  meal's  meat." 

HALL,  Sat.  iv.  1,  78. 

Tabret  is  a  contraction  of  tabouret.  The  word  is 
retained  in  the  A.  V.  from  Coverdale's  translation 


b  e£opu£a«>Tes  (Mark  ii.  4). 

c  It  is  usual  for  etymologists  to  quote  the  Arab,  tunbur 
as  the  original  of  tambour  and  tabor ;  but  unfortunately 
tLo  tunbtir  is  a  guitar,  and  not  a  drum  (Russell's  Aleppo, 
1 162,  2nA  ed.).  The  parallel  Arabic  word  is  tabl,  which 


TIMBREL 

in  all  passages  exoeri  Is.  xxx.  3'J,  whera  it  is 
omitted  in  Coverdale.  and  Ez.  xxviii.  13,  where  it 
is  rendered  "  beauty." 

The  Heb.  toph  is  undoubtedly  the  instrument 
described  by  travellers  as  the  duff  or  diff  of  the 
Arabs.  It  was  used  in  very  early  times  by  the 
Syrians  of  Padan-aram  at  their  merry-makings 
(Gen.  xxxi.  27).  It  was  played  principally  by 
women  (Ex.  xv.  20  ;  Judg.  xi.  34  ;  1  Sam.  xviii.  6  ; 
Ps.  Ixviii.  25  [26])  as  an  accompaniment  to  tha 
song  and  dance  (comp.  Jud.  iii.  7),  and  appears  to 
have  been  worn  by  them  as  an  ornament  (Jer.  xxxi. 
4).  The  toph  was  one  of  the  instruments  played 
by  the  young  prophets  whom  Saul  met  on  his 
return  from  Samuel  (1  Sam.  x.  5),  and  by  the 
Levites  in  the  Temple-band  (2  Sam.  vi.  5 ;  1  Chr. 
xiii.  8).  It  accompanied  the  merriment  of  feasts 
(Is.  v.  12,  xxiv.  8),  and  the  joy  of  triumphal  pro 
cessions  (Judg.  xi.  34 ;  1  Sam.  xviii.  6),  when  the 
women  came  out  to  meet  the  warriors  returning 
from  victory,  and  is  everywhere  a  sign  of  happiness 
and  peace  (Job  xxi.  12;  Is.  xxx.  32  ;  Jer.  xxxi.  4). 
So  in  the  grand  triumphal  entry  of  God  into  His 
Temple,  described  in  strong  figures  in  Ps.  Ixviii., 
the  procession  is  made  up  by  the  singers  who 
marched  in  front,  and  the  players  on  stringed  in 
struments  who  brought  up  the  rear,  while"  round 
them  all  danced  the  young  maidens  with  their 
timbrels  (Ps.  Ixviii.  25  [26]). 

The  diff  of  the  Arabs  is  described  by  Russell 
{Aleppo,  p.  94,  1st  ed.)  as  "  a  hoop  (sometimes 
with  pieces  of  brass  fixed  in  it  to  make  a  jingling) 
over  which  a  piece  of  parchment  is  distended.  It 
is  beat  with  the  fingers,  and  is  the  true  tympanum 
of  the  ancients,  as  appears  from  its  figure  in  several 
relievos,  representing  the  orgies  of  Bacchus  and 
rites  of  Cybele."  The  same  instrument  was  used 
by  the  Egyptian  dancing-women  whom  Hasselquist 
saw  {Trav.  p.  59,  ed.  1766).  In  Barbary  it  is 
called  tar,  and  "  is  made  like  a  sieve,  consisting 
(as  Isidore d  describes  the  tympanum)  of  a  rim  or 
thin  hoop  of  wood  with  a  skin  of  parchment 
stretched  over  the  top  of  it.  This  serves  for  the 
bass  in  all  their  concerts,  which  they  accordingly 
touch  very  artfully  with  their  fingers,  or  with  the 
knuckles  or  palms  of  their  hands,  as  the  time  and 
measure  require,  or  as  force  and  softness  are  to  be 
communicated  to  the  several  parts  of  the  per  form  - 
ance  "  (Shaw,  Trav.  p.  202). 


Tar.     (Lane's  Modern  Egyptians,  366,  5th  ed.) 

The  tympanum  was  used  in  the  feasts  of  Cybele 
(Her.  iv.  76),  and  is  said  to  have  been  the  inven 
tion  of  Dionysus  and  Rhea  (Eur.  Bacch.  59).  It 
was  played  by  women,  who  beat  it  with  the  palms 


denotes  a  kind  of  drum,  and  is  the  same  with  the  Rabb. 
Heb.  tabld,  and  Span.  atMbal,  a  kettle-dran.    The  instru 
ment  and  the  word  may  have  come  to  us  .through  the 
Saracens, 
d  Orig.  iii.  Si 


TIMNA 

of  their  hands  (Ovid,  Met.  iv.  29),  and  Juvenal 
(Sat,  iii.  64)  attributes  to  it  a  Syrian  origin  : 
"  Jam  pridem  Syrus  in  Tiberirn  defluxit  Orontea 

Kt  linguam,  et  mores  et  cum  tibicine  chordas 

Obliquas,  necnon  gentilia  tympana  secum 

Vexit." 

Fn  the  same  way  the  tabor  is  said  to  have  been 
introduced  into  Europe  by  the  Crusaders,  who 
adopted  it  from  the  Saracens,  to  whom  it  was 
peculiar  (see  Du  Cange's  note  on  De  Joinville's 
Hist,  du  Roy  Saint  Louis,  p.  61). 

The  author  of  Shilte  Haggibborim  (c.  2)  gives 
the  Greek  Kv/j.pa\ov  as  the  equivalent  of  toph,  and 
says  it  was  a  hollow  basin  of  metal,  beaten  with  a 
stick  of  brass  or  iron. 

The  passage  of  Ezekiel  (xxviii.  13)  is  obscure,  and 
appears  to  have  been  early  corrupted.  Instead  of 
^pSfl,  "  thy  tabrets,"  the  Vulg.  and  Targum 
read  Tp£)\  "  thy  beauty,"  which  is  the  rendering 
adopted  in  Coverdale's  and  Oanmer's  Bibles.  The 
LXX.  seem  to  have  read  ^3'lP),  as  in  ver.  1 6.  If 
the  ordinary  text  be  adopted,  there  is  no  reason 
for  taking  toph,  as  Jerome  suggests,  in  the  sense 
of  the  setting  of  a  gem,  "  pala  qua  gemma  conti- 
n;tur."  [W.  A.  W.] 

TIM'NA,  TIM'NAH  (JJJEJV.  ®a/m£ : 
Thamna).  1.  A  concubine  of  Eliphaz  son  of 
Esau,  and  mother  of  Amalek  (Gen.  xxxvi.  12;  in 
1  Chr.  i.  36  named  as  a  son  of  Eliphaz) :  it  may 
be  presumed  that  she  was  the  same  as  Timna,  sister 
of  Ix)tan,  and  daughter  of  Seir  the  Horite  (ver.  22, 
and  1  Chr.  i.  39). 

2.  A  duke,  or  phylarch,  of  Edom  in  the  last  list 
mGen.  xxxvi.  40-43  (1  Chr.  i.  51-54),  where  the 
dukes  are  named  "  according  to  their  families,  after 
their  places,  by  their  names  ....  according  to 
their  habitations :"  whence  we  may  conclude,  as  in 
the  case  of  TEMAN,  that  Timnah  was  also  the  name 
of  a  place  or  a  district.  [E.  S.  P.] 

TIM'NAH  (njlpfl).  A  name  which  occurs, 
simple  and  compounded,  and  with  slight  variations 
of  form,  several  times,  in  the  topography  of  the  Holy 
Land.  The  name  is  derived  by  the  lexicographers 
(Gesenius,  Simonis,  Furst)  from  a  root  signifying 
to  "  portion  out,  or  •  divide ;"  but  its  frequent 
occurrence,  and  the  analogy  of  the  topographical 
names  of  other  countries,  would  rather  imply  that 
it  referred  to  some  natural  feature  of  the  country. 

1.  (\i/3a,  ©a/tva;  Alex.  VOTOV,  0a/xz/a;  Joseph. 
Ga/mi:  Thamna,  Thamnan.~)  A  place  which 
formed  one  of  the  landmarks  on  the  north  boun 
dary  of  the  allotment  of  Judah  (Josh.  xv.  10).  It 
was  obviously  near  the  western  end  of  the  boundary, 
being  between  Bethshemesh  and  the  "  shoulder  of 
Ekron."  It  is  probably  identical  with  the  THIM- 
NATHAH  of  Josh.  xix.  43,  one  of  the  towns  of  Dan, 
also  named  in  connexion  with  Ekron,  and  that  again 
with  the  Timnath,  or  more  accurately  Timnathah,  of 
Samson,  and  the  Thamuatha  of  the  Maccabees.  Its 
belonging  at  that  time  to  Dan  would  explain  its 
Absence  from  the  list  of  the  towns  of  Judah  (Josh. 
xv.),  though  mentioned  in  describing  the  course  of 
the  boundary.  The  modern  representative  of  all 
these  various  forms  of  the  same  name  is  probably 
Tibneh,  a  village  about  two  miles  west  of  Ain  Shems 
(Bethshemesh),  among  the  broken  undulating  coun 
try  by  which  the  central  mountains  of  this  part  of 


TIMNATH 


1503 


a  The  LXX.,  as  above,  derived  it  from  teman,  the 
South. 


Palestine  descend  to  the  maritime  plain.  It  has  beeii 
shown  in  several  other  cases  [KEILAH,  &•' .]  that  this 
district  contained  towns  which  in  the  lists  are  enu 
merated  as  belonging  to  the  plain.  Timnah  is  pro 
bably  another  instance  of  the  same  thing,  for  in  2  Chr. 
xxviii.  1 8  a  place  of  the  same  name  is  mentioned 
as  among  the  cities  of  the  Shefelah,  which  from  ita 
occurrence  with  Bethshemesh,  Gideroth,  Gimzo,  all 
more  or  less  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ekron,  is  pro 
bably  the  same  as  that  just  described  as  in  the 
hills.  After  the  Danites  had  deserted  their  original 
allotment  for  the  north,  their  towns  would  naturally 
fall  into  the  hands  of  Judah,  or  of  the  Philistines,  as 
the  continual  struggle  between  them  might  happen 
to  fluctuate. 

In  the  later  history  of  the  Jews  Timnah  must 
have  been  a  conspicuous  place.  It  was  fortified  by 
Bacchides  as  one  of  the  most  important  military 
posts  of  Judaea  (1  Mace.  ix.  50),  and  it  became 
the  head  of  a  district  or  toparchy,  which  was  called 
after  its  name,  and  was  reckoned  the  fourth  in 
order  of  importance  among  the  fourteen  into  which 
the  whole  country  was  divided  at  the  time  of  Ves 
pasian's  invasion  (Joseph.  B.  J.  iii.  3,  §5;  and  see 
Pliny,  v.  14). 

Tibneh  is  now  spoken  of  as  "  a  deserted  site " 
(Rob.  ii.  16),  and  not  a  single  Western  traveller 
appears  to  have  visited  it,  or  even  to  have  seen  it, 
though  its  position  is  indicated  with  tolerable  cer 
tainty.  [TiMNATH.] 

2.  {Qa.jjivo.Qa  ;  Alex.  ®a(j.va:  Thamna.^  A  town 
in  the  mountain  district  of  Judah  (Josh.  xv.  57). 
It  is  named  in  the  same  group  with  Maon,  Ziph, 
and  Carmel,  which  are  known  to  have  been  south 
of  Hebron.  It  is,  therefore,  undoubtedly  a  distinct 
place  from  that  just  examined.  [G-] 

TIM'NATH.  The  form  in  which  the  translators 
of  the  A.  V.  inaccurately  present  two  names  which 
are  certainly  distinct,  though  it  is  possible  that  they 
refer  to  the  same  place. 

1.  TIMNAH  (rtiDfl,  f.  e.  Timnah :  Qafiva : 
Thamnatha],  The  scene  of  the  adventure  of  Judah 
with  his  daughter-in-law  Tamar  (Gen.  xxxviii.  12, 
13,  14).  There  is  nothing  here  to  indicate  its 
position.  The  expression  "  went  up  to  Timnah  " 
(ver.  12)  indicates  that  it  was  on  higher  ground 
than  the  spot  from  which  Judah  started.  But  as 
we  are  ignorant  where  that  was,  the  indication  is 
of  no  service.  It  seems  to  have  been  the  place 
where  Judah's  flocks  were  kept.  There  was  a  road 
to  it  (A.  V.  "  way  ").  It  may  be  identified  either 
with  the  Timnah  in  the  mountains  of  Judah,  which 
was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Carmel  where  Nabal 
kept  his  huge  flocks  of  sheep ;  or  with  the  Tim 
nathah  so  familiar  in  the  story  of  Samson's  con 
flicts.  In  favour  of  the  latter  is  the  doubtful 
suggestion  named  under  ENAM  and  TAPPUAH, 
that  in  the  words  translated  "  an  open  place " 
there  is  a  reference  to  those  two  towns.  In  favour 
of  the  former  is  the  possibility  of  the  name  in 
Gen.  xxxviii.  being  not  Timnah  but  Timiiathah 
(as  in  the  Vulgate),  which  is  certainly  the  name 
of  the  Philistine  place  connected  with  Samson. 
More  than  this  cannot  be  said. 

The  place  is  named  in  the  specification  of  the 
allotment  of  the  tribe  of  Dan,  where  the  A.  V. 
exhibits  it  accurately  as  THIMNATHAH,  and  its 
name  doubtless  survives  in  the  modern  Tibneh 
which  is  said  to  lie  below  Zarcah,  about  thrc« 
miles  to  the  S.W.  of  it,  where  the  great  Wady  ss~ 
j  S&rdr  issues  upon  the  plain. 


TIMNATH-HERES 


1504 

2.  TlMNATHAH  (nnj»n:  QanvaQa;  Joseph. 
Ba/jivd :  Thamnatha).  The  residence  of  Samson's 
wife  (Judg.  xiv.  1,  2,  5).  It  was  then  in  the  oc 
cupation  of'  the  Philistines.  It  contained  vineyards, 
haunted  however  by  such  uwage  animals  as  indi 
cate-that  the  population  was  but  sparse.  It  was  on 
higher  ground  than  Ashkelon  (xiv.  19),  but  lower 
than  Zorah,  which  we  may  presume  was  Samson's 
starting  point  (xiii.  25).  "  [G.] 

TIM'NATH-HE'RES  (Dnn  T\)ftft:  ®a^a- 
Qapes ;  Alex.  ®a/j.vadap  ea>s :  Thamnath  Sare). 
The  name  under  which  the  city  and  burial  place  of 
Joshua,  previously  called  TIMNATH-SERAH,  is  men 
tioned  in  Judg.  ii.  9.  The  constituent,  consonants 
of  the  word  are  the  same,  but  their  order  is  reversed. 
The  authorities  differ  considerably  in  their  explana 
tions.  The  Jews  adopt  Heres  as  the  real  name ; 
interpret  it  to  mean  the  sun  ;  and  see  in  it  a 
reference  to  the  act  of  making  the  sun  stand  still, 
which  is  to  them  the  greatest  exploit  of  Joshua's  life. 
Others  (as  Fiirst,  i.  442),  while  accepting  Heres  as 
the  original  form,  interpret  that  word  as  "  clay," 
and  as  originating  in  the  character  of  the  soil. 
Others  again,  like  Ewald  (Gesch.  ii.  347,  8),  and 
Bertheau  (On  Judges),  take  Serah  to  be  the  ori 
ginal  form,  and  Heres  an  ancient  but  unintentional 
error.  [G.] 

TIM'NATH-SE'RAH 


IJBn :  0o/iop- 

®a/j.va6a(Taxdpa ;  Alex.  ®ap.vaQ  <rapa, 
;  Joseph.  Qa^vd:  Thamnath  Seraa, 
Thamnath  Sare).  The  name  of  the  city  which  at 
his  request  was  presented  to  Joshua  after  the  par 
tition  of  the  country  was  completed  (Josh.  xix.  50) ; 
and  in  "  the  border"  of  which  he  was  buried  (xxiv. 
30).  It  is  specified  as  "  in  Mount  Ephraim  on  the 
north  side  of  Mount  Gaash."  In  Judg.  ii.  9,  the 
name  is  altered  to  TIMNATH-HERES.  The  latter  form 
is  that  adopted  by  the  Jewish  writers,  who  inter 
pret  Heres  as  meaning  the  sun,  and  account  for  the 
name  by  stating  that  the  figure  of  the  sun  (temu- 
nath  ha-cheres)  was  carved  upon  the  sepulchre,  to 
indicate  that  it  was  the  tomb  of  the  man  who  had 
caused  the  sun  to  stand  still  (Rashi,  Comment,  on 
both  passages).  Accordingly,  they  identify  the 
place  with  Kefar  cheres,  which  is  said  by  Rabbi 
Jacob  (Carmoly,  Itineraires,  &c.,  186),  hap-Parchi 
(Asher's  Benj.  434),  and  other  Jewish  travellers 
down  to  Schwarz  in  our  own  day  (151),  to  be 
about  5  miles  S.  of  Shechem  (Nablus).  No  place 
with  that  name  appears  on  the  maps,  the  closest 
approach  to  it  being  Kefr-Harit,  which  is  more 
nearly  double  that  distance  S.S.W.  of  Nablus. 
Wherever  it  be,  the  place  is  said  by  the  Jews  still 
to  contain  the  tombs  of  Joshua,  of  Nun,  and  of 
Caleb  (Schwarz,  15t). 

Another  and  more  promising  identification  has, 
however,  been  suggested  in  our  own  day  by  Dr. 
Eli  Smith  (Bibl.  Sacra,  1843).  In  his  journey 
from  Jifna  to  Mejdel-  Yaba,  about  six  miles  from 
the  former,  he  discovered  the  ruins  of  a  considerable 
town  on  a  gentle  hill  on  the  left  (south)  of  the 
road.  Opposite  the  town  (apparently  to  the  south) 
was  a  much  higher  hill,  m  the  north  side  of  which 
are  several  excavated  sepulchres,  which  in  size  and 
in  the  richness  and  character  of  their  decorations 
resemble  the  so-called  "  Tombs  of  the  Kings "  at 
Jerusalem.  The  whole  bears  the  name  of  Tibneh, 
and  although  without  further  examination  it  can 
hardly  be  affirmed  to  be  the  Timnah  of  Joshua,  yet 
the  identification  appears  probable. 


TIMOTHEUS 

Timnath-Serah  and  the  tomb  of  its  illustrious 
owner  were  shown  in  the  time  of  Jerome,  who 
mentions  them  in  the  Epitaphium  Paulae  (§13) 
Beyond  its  being  south  of  Shechem,  he  gives  no  u.di- 
cation  of  its  position,  but  he  dismisses  it  with  the 
following  characteristic  remark,  a  fitting  tribut  ?  to 
the  simple  self-denial  of  the  great  soldier  of  Israel  :  — 
"  Satisque  mirata  est,  quod  distributor  pof&essionurn 
sibi  montana  et  aspera  delegisset."  [G.] 


TIM'NITE,  THE  (^»nn  :  TOV  Ba^ef  ;  Alex. 

6  ®a^va.Qaios  :  Thamnathaeus),  that  is,  the  Timn.x- 
thite  (as  in  the  Alex.  LXX.,  and  Vulg.).  Samson  s 
father-in-law  (Judg.  xv.  6). 


TI'MON  (Tijuwj/:  Tin-tan).  One  of  the  seven. 
commonly  called  "deacons"  [DEACON],  who  were 
appointed  to  act  as  almoners  on  the  occasion  of  com 
plaints  of  partiality  being  raised  by  the  Hellenistic 
Jews  at  Jerusalem  (Acts  vi.  1-6).  Like  his  col 
leagues,  Timon  bears  a  Greek  name,  from  which, 
taken  together  with  the  occasion  of  their  appoint 
ment,  it  has  been  inferred  with  much  probability  that 
the  seven  were  themselves  Hellenists.  The  name  of 
Timon  stands  fifth  in  the  catalogue.  Nothing  fur 
ther  is  known  of  him  with  certainty  ;  but  in  the 
"  Synopsis  de  Vita  et  Morte  Prophetarum  Apostolo- 
rum  et  Discipulorum  Domini,"  ascribed  to  Dorotheus 
of  Tyre  (Bibl.  Patrum,  iii.  p.  149),  we  are  in 
formed  that  he  was  one  of  the  "  seventy-two  "  dis 
ciples  (the  catalogue  of  whom  is  a  mere  congeries 
of  New  Testament  names"),  and  that  he  afterwards 
became  bishop  of  Bostra  (?  "  Bostra  Arabum"), 
where  he  suffered  martyrdom  by  fire.  [W.  B.  J.I 

TIMOTHEUS  (Tf/wfoeos).  1.  A  "captain 
of  the  Ammonites  "  (1  Mace.  v.  6),  who  was  de 
feated  on  several  occasions  by  Judas  Maccabaeus, 
B.C.  164  (1  Mace.  v.  6,  11,  34-44).  He  was  pro 
bably  a  Greek  adventurer  (comp.  Jos.  Ant.  xii.  8, 
§1),  who  had  gained  the  leadership  of  the  tribe. 
Thus  Josephus  (Ant.  xiii.  8,  §1,  quoted  by  Grimm, 
on  1  Mace.  v.  6)  mentions  one  "  Zeno,  surnamed 
Cotylas,  who  was  despot  of  Kabbah"  in  the  time  of 
Johannes  Hyrcanus. 

2.  In  2  Mace,  a  leader  named  Timotheus  is  men 
tioned  as  haAang  taken  part  in  the  invasion  of  Nica- 
nor  (B.C.  166:  2  Mace,  viiu  30,  ix.  3).  At  a  later 
time  he  made  great  preparations  for  a  second  attack 
on  Judas,  but  was  driven  to  a  stronghold,  Gazara, 
which  was  stormed  by  Judas,  and  there  Timotheus 
was  taken  and  slain  (2  Mace.  x.  24-37).  It  has 
been  supposed  that  the  events  recorded  in  this  latter 
narrative  are  identical  with  those  in  1  Mace.  v.  6-8, 
an  idea  rendered  more  plausible  by  the  similarity 
of  the  names  Jazer  and  Gazara  (in  Lat.  Gazer, 
Jazare,  Gazara).  But  the  name  Timotheus  was 
veiy  common,  and  it  is  evident  that  Timotheus  the 
Ammonite  leader  was  not  slain  at  Jazer  (1  Mace. 
v.  34)  ;  and  Jazer  was  on  the  east  side  of  Jordan, 
while  Gazara  was  almost  certainly  the  same  as 
Gezer.  [JAAZER  ;  GAZARA.]  It  may  be  urged 
further,  in  support  of  the  sxibstantial  accuracy  of 
2  Mace.,  that  the  second  campaign  of  Judas  against 
Timotheus  (1)  (1  Mace.  v.  27-44)  is  given  in 
2  Mace.  xii.  2-24,  after  the  account  of  the  capture 
of  Gazara  and  the  death  of  Timotheus  (2)  there. 
Wernsdorff  assumes  that  all  the  differences  in  tin 
narratives  are  blunders  in  2  Mace.  (De  fide  Libr. 
Mace.  §lxx.),  and  in  this  he  is  followed  by  Grimm 
(on  2  Mace.  x.  24,  32).  But,  if  any  reliance  is  to 
be  placed  on  2  Mace.,  the  differences  of  place  rmd 
circumstances  are  rightly  taken  by  PatritiuE  to 


TIMOTHEUS 

mark  different   events  (De   Libr.  Mace.  §  xxxii. 
p.  259). 

3.  The  Greek  name  of  TIMOTHY  (Acts  xvi.  1, 
xvii.  14,  &c.).  He  is  called  by  this  name  in  the 
A.  V.  in  every  case  except  2  Cor.  i.  1,  Philem.  1, 
Heb.  xiii.  23,  and  the  Epistles  addressed  to  him. 

[B.  F.  W.] 

TIM'OTHY(TV<#6oy:  Timotheus}.    The  dis 
ciple  thus  named  was  the  son  of  one  of  those  mixed 
marriages   which,   though   condemned   by   stricter 
Jewish  opinion,  and  placing  their  offspring  on  all 
but  the  lowest  step  in  the  Jewish  scale  of  prece 
dence,*  were  yet  not  uncommon  in  the  later  periods 
of  Jewish  history.     The  father's  name  is  unknown : 
Va   /ras  a  Greek,  f.  e.  a  Gentile  by  descent  (Acts 
xvi.  1,  3).   If  in  any  sense  a  proselyte,  the  fact  that 
the  issue  of  the  marriage  did  not  receive  the  sign 
of  the  covenant  would  render  it  probable  that  he 
belonged  to  the  class  of  half-converts,  the  so-called 
Proselytes  of  the  Gate,  not  those  of  Righteousness 
[comp.  PROSELYTES].     The  absence  of  any  per 
sonal  allusion  to  the  father  in  the  Acts  or  Epistles 
suggests  the  inference  that  he  must  have  died  or 
disappeared  during  his  son's  infancy.     The  care  of 
the  boy  thus  devolved  upon  his  mother  Eunice  and 
her   mother   Lois    (2    Tim.  i.    5).      Under    their 
training   his   education  was   emphatically   Jewish. 
"  From  a  child"  he  learnt  (probably  in  the  LXX. 
version)    to    "  know  the  Holy  Scriptures "  daily.. 
The  language  of  the  Acts  leaves  it  uncertain  whe 
ther  Lystra  or  Derbe  were  the  residence  of  the 
devout  family.     The  latter  has  been  inferred,  but 
without  much  likelihood,  from  a  possible  construc 
tion  of  Acts  xx.  4,  the  former  from  Acts  xvi.  1,  2 
<^comp.  Neander,  Pfl.  und  Leit.  i.  288  ;  Alford  and 
Huther,  in  loc.}.     In  either  case  the  absence  of  any 
indication  of  the  existence  of  a  synagogue  makes 
this  devout  consistency  more  noticeable.     We  may 
think   here,   as   at   Philippi,   of   the   few   devout 
women  going  forth  to  their  daily  worship  at  some 
river-side  oratory  (Conybeare  and  Howson,  i.  211). 
The  reading  irapa  rivuv,  in  2  Tim.  iii.  14,  adopted 
by  Lachmann  and  Tischendorf,   indicates   that  il 
was  from  them  as  well  as  from  the  Apostle  that 
the  young  disciple  received  his  first  impression  o: 
Christian  truth.     It  would  be  natural  that  a  cha 
racter   thus    fashioned   should    retain    throughou 
something  of  a  feminine  piety.     A  constitution  fai 
from  robust  (1  Tim.  v.  23),  a  morbid  shrinking 
from  opposition  and  responsibility  (1  Tim.  iv.  12 
16,  v.  20,   21,   vi.  11-14;    2  Tim.  ii.   1-7),  a 
sensitiveness  even  to  tears  (2  Tim.  i.  4),  a  ten> 
dency  to   an   ascetic   rigour   which    he    had    no 
strength  to  bear  (1  Tim.  v.  23),  united,  as  it  often 
is,  with  a  temperament  exposed  to  some  risk  from 
"  youthful  lusts"*  (2  Tim.  ii.  22)  and  the  softe: 
emotions  (1  Tim.  v.  2) — these  we  may  well  thin! 
of  as  characterising  the  youth  as  they  afterwards 
characterised  the  man. 

The  arrival  of  Paul  and  Barnabas  in  Lycaonu 
(Acts  xiv.  6)  brought  the  message  of  glad-tiding 
to  Timotheus  and  his  mother,  and  they  received  i 
with  "unfeigned  faith"  (2  Tim.  i,  5).  If 
Lystra,  as  seems  probable  from  2  Tim.  iii.  11,  h 


TIMOTHX 


1505 


a  The  children  of  these  marriages  were  known  a 
Mamzerim  (bastards),  and  stood  just  above  the  NETHINIM 
This  was,  however,  caetcris  paribus.  A  bastard  who  wa 
a  wise  student  of  the  Law  was,  in  theory,  above 
ignorant  high-priest  (Gem.  Hieros.  fforajoth,  fol.  84,  i 
Lightfoot,  Hor.  Heb.  in  Matt,  xxiii.  14);  and  the  ediicatio 
of  Timotheus  (2  Tim.  iii.  15)  may  therefore  have  helpe< 
VOL.  III. 


my  have   witnessed  the   half-completed    wwsifice, 
e  half-finished  martyrdom,  of  Acte  xiv.  19.     The 
reaching  of  the  Apostle  on   his  return  from  his 
iort  circuit  prepared  him  for  a  life  of  suffering 
Acts   xiv.   22).      From   that   time   his   life   and 
ducation  must  have  been  under  the  direct  super- 
tendence  of  the  body  of  elders  (ib.  23).     During 
he  interval  of  seven  years  between  the  Apostle's 
rst   and  second  journeys,   the  boy   grew  up   to 
nanhood.      His  zeal,  probably  his  asceticism,  be- 
.ame   known  both  at  Lystra  and  Iconium.      The 
nention  of  the  two  Churches  as  united  in  testifying 
o  his  character  (Acts  xvi.  2),  leads  us  to  believe 
hat  the  early  work  was  prophetic  of  the  later,  that 
e  had  been  already  employed  in  what  was  after- 
irards  to  be  the  great  labour  of  his  life,  as  "  the 
messenger  of  the  Churches,"  and  that  it  was  his 
ried  fitness  for  that  office  which  determined  St. 
'aul's  choice.     Those  who  had  the  deepest  insight 
nto  character,  and  spoke  with  a  prophetic  utter- 
ince,  pointed  to  him  (1  Tim.  i.  1 8,  iv.  14),  as  others 
ad  pointed  before  to  Paul   and  Barnabas  (Acts 
iii.  2),  as  specially  fit  for  the  missionary  work  in 
irhich  the  Apostle  was  engaged.     Personal  feeling 
ed  St.  Paul  to  the  same  conclusion  (Acts  xvi.  3), 
nd  he  was  solemnly  set  apart  (the  whole  assembly 
)f  the  elders  laying  their  hands  on  him,  as  did 
he  Apostle  himself)  to  do  the  work  and  possibly 
,o  bear  the  title  of  Evangelist  (1  Tim.  iv.  14; 
}  Tim.  i.  6,  iv.  5).e     A  great  obstacle,  however, 
presented  itself.     Timotheus,  though  inheriting,  as 
t  were,  from  the  nobler  side  (Wetstein,  in  loc.\ 
and    therefore    reckoned    as    one   of  the  seed  'of 
Abraham,   had  been   allowed  to  grow  up   to   the 
ge  of  manhood  without  the  sign  of  circumcision, 
and  in  this  point  he  might  seem  to  be  disclaiming 
the  Jewish  blood  that  was  in  him  and  choosing  to 
ake  up  his  position  as  a  heathen.     Had  that  been 
is  real  position,  it  would  have  been  utterly  incon 
sistent  with  St.  Paul's  principle  of  action  to  urge 
on  him  the  necessity  of  circumcision  (1  Cor.  vii. 
18;  Gal.  ii.  3,  v.  2).     As  it  was,  his  condition 
was   that  of 'a  negligent,  almost  of  an  apostate 
Israelite;   and,  though  circumcision  was  nothing, 
and  uncircumcision  was  nothing,  it  was  a  serious 
question  whether  the  scandal  of  such  a  position 
should  be  allowed  to  frustrate  all  his  efforts  as  an 
Evangelist.      The  fact  that  no   offence  seems  lo 
have  been  felt  hitherto  is  explained  by  the  pre 
dominance  of  the  Gentile  element  in  the  churches 
of  Lycaonia  (Acts  xiv.  27).     But  his  wider  work 
would  bring  him  into  contact  with  the  Jews,  who 
had  already  shown  themselves  so  ready  to  attack, 
and   then   the  scandal   would  come    out.      They 
might  tolerate  a  heathen,  as  such,  in  the  synagogue 
or  the  church,  but  an  uncircumcised  Israelite  would 
be  to  them  a  horror  and  a  portent.     With  a  special 
view  to  their  feelings,  making  no  sacrifice  of  prin 
ciple,  the  Apostle,  who  had  refused  to  permit  the 
circumcision   of  Titus,    "took    and   circumcised" 
Timotheus  (Acts  xvi.  3)  ;  and  then,  as  conscious 
of  no  inconsistency,  went  en  his  way  distributing 
the  decrees  of  the  council  of  Jerusalem,  the  great 
charter   of  the   freedom    of  the  Gentiles  (ib.  4). 
Henceforth  Timotheus  was  one  of  his  most  constant 


to  overcome  the  prejudice  which  the  Jews  would  naturally 
have  against  him  on  this  ground. 

b  Comp.  the  elaborate  dissertation,  De  j>ea>Tepi<cais  em- 
0vpua«,  by  Bosius,  in  Base's  Thesaurus,  vol.  ii. 

e  Iconium  has  been  suggested  by  Conybeare  and  How- 
son  (\.  289)  as  the  probable  scene  of  the  ordtaatiou. 

5  D 


1500 


TIMOTHY 


wnnpanions.  Not  since  he  parted  from  Barnabas 
had  he  found  one  whose  heart  so  answered  to  his 
own.  If  Barnabas  had  been  as  the  brother  and 
friend  of  early  days,  he  had  now  found  one  whom 
he  could  claim  as  his  own  true  son  by  ,a  spiritual 
parentage  (1  Cor.  iv.  17;  1  Tim.  i.*2;  2  Tim. 
i.  2).  They  and  Silvaiius,  and  probably  Luke 
also,  journeyed  to  Philippi  (Acts  xvi.  12),  and 
there  already  the  young  Evangelist  was  conspicuous 
t  once  for  his  filial  devotion  and  his  zeal  (Phil. 
ii.  22).  His  name  does  not  appear  in  the  account 
of  St.  Paul's  work  at  Thessalonica,  and  it  is  possible 
that  he  remained  some  time  at  Philippi,  and  then 
acted  as  the  messenger  by  whom  the  members  of 
that  Church  sent  what  they  were  able  to  give  for 
the  Apostle's  wants  (Phil.  iv.  15).  He  appears, 
however,  at  Beroea,  and  remains  there  when  Paul 
and  Silas  are  obliged  to  leave  (Acts  xvii.  14),  going 
on  afterwards  to  join  his  master  at  Athens  (I 
Thess.  iii.  2).  From  Athens  he  is  sent  back  to 
Thessalonica  (ib.),  as  having  special  gifts  for  com 
forting  and  teaching.  He  returns  from  Thessa 
lonica,  not  to  Athens  but  to  Corinth,d  and  his 
uame  appears  united  with  St.  Paul's  in  the  opening 
words  of  both  the  letters  written  from  that  city  to 
the  Thessalonians  (1  Thess.  i.  1;  2  Thess.  i.  1). 
Here  also  he  was  apparently  active  as  an  Evan 
gelist  (2  Cor.  i.  19),  and  on  him,  probably,  with 
some  exceptions,  devolved  the  duty  of  baptising 
the  new  converts  (1  Cor.  i.  14).  Of  the  next  five 
years  of  his  life  we  have  no  record,  and  can  infer 
nothing  beyond  a  continuance  of  his  active  service 
as  St.  Paul's  companion.  When  we  next  meet 
with  him  it  is  as  being  sent  on  in  advance  when 
the  Apostle  was  contemplating  the  long  journey 
which  was  to  include  Macedonia,  Achaia,  Jeru 
salem,  and  Rome  (Acts  six.  22).  He  was  sent  to 
"  bring  "  the  churches  "  into  remembrance  of  the 
ways"  of  the  Apostle  (1  Cor.  iv.  17).  We  trace 
in  the  words  of  the  "  father  "  an  anxious  desire  to 
guard  the  son  from  the  perils  which,  to  his  eager 
but  sensitive  temperament,  would  be  most  trying 
(I  Cor.  xvi.  10).  His  route  would  take  him 
through  the  churches  which  he  had  been  instru 
mental  in  founding,  and  this  would  give  him  scope 
for  exercising  the  gifts  which  were  afterwards  to 
be  displayed  in  a  still  more  responsible  office.  It 
is  probable,  from  the  passages  already  referred  to, 
that,  after  accomplishing  the  special  work  assigned 
to  him,  he  returned  by  the  same  route  and  met 
St.  Paul  according  to  a  previous  arrangement  (1 
Cor.  xvi.  11),  and  was  thus  with  him  when  the 
second  epistle  was  written  to  the  Church  of 
Corinth  (2  Cor.  i.  1).  He  returns  with  the 
Apostle  to  that  city,  and  joins  in  messages  of 
greeting  to  the  disciples  whom  he  had  known 
personally  at  Corinth  and  who  had  since  found 
their  way  to  Rome  (Rom.  xvi.  21).  He  forms 
one  of  the  company  of  friends  who  go  with  St. 


TIMOTHY 

Paul  to  Philippi  and  then  sail  by  tnemsdves, 
waiting  for  his  arrival  by  a  different  ship  (Acts 
xx.  3-6).  Whether  he  continued  his  journey  to 
Jerusalem,  and  what  became  of  him  during  St. 
Paul's  two  years'  imprisonment,  are  points  on 
which  we  must  remain  uncertain.  The  language 
of  St.  Paul's  address  to  the  elders  of  Ephesus 
(Acts  xx.  1 7-35)  renders  it  unlikely  that  he  was 
then  left  there  with  authority.  The  absence  of 
his  name  from  Acts  xxvii.  in  like  manner  leads  to 
the  conclusion  that  he  did  not  share  in  the  perilous 
voyage  to  Italy.  He  must  have  joined  him,  how 
ever,  apparently  soon  after  his  arrival  in  Rome, 
and  was  with  him  when  the  Epistles  to  the  Phi- 
lippians,  to  the  Colossians,  and  to  Philemon  were 
written  (Phil.  i.  1,  ii.  19  ;  Col.  i.  1 ;  Philem.  1). 
All  the  indications  of  this  period  point  to  incessant 
missionary  activity.  As  before,  so  now,  h«  is  to 
precede  the  personal  coming  of  the  Apostle,  in 
specting,  advising,  reporting  (Phil.  ii.  19-23),  car 
ing  especially  for  the  Macedonian  Churches  as  no 
one  else  could  care.  The  special  messages  of  greeting 
sent  to  him  at  a  later  date  (2  Tim.  iv.  21)  show 
that  at  Rome  also,  as  elsewhere,  he  had  gained 
the  warm  affection  of  those  among  whom  he  minis 
tered.  Among  those  most  eager  to  be  thus 
remembered  to  him,  we  find,  according  to  a  fairly 
supported  hypothesis,  the  names  of  a  Roman  noble 
[PrjDENS],  of  a  future  bishop  of  Rome  [LiNUS], 
and  of  the  daughter  of  a  British  king  [CLAUDIA  j 
(Williams,  Claudia  and  Pudens ;  Conybeare  anc 
Howson,  ii.  501  ;  Alford,  Excursus  in  Greek  Test. 
iii.  104).  It  is  interesting  to  think  of  the  young 
Evangelist  as  having  been  the  instrument  by  which 
one  who  was  surrounded  by  the  fathomless  impurity 
of  the  Roman  world  was  called  to  a  higher  life,  and 
the  names  which  would  otherwise  have  appeared 
only  in  the  foul  epigrams  of  Martial  (i.  32,  iv.  13. 
v.  48,  xi.  53)  raised  to  a  perpetual  honour  in  the 
salutations  of  an  apostolic  epistle.*  To  this  period 
of  his  life  (the  exact  time  and  place  being  un 
certain)  we  may  probably  refer  the  imprisonment 
of  Heb.  xiii.  23,  and  the  trial  at  which  he  "  wit 
nessed  the  good  confession"  not  unworthy  to  be 
likened  to  that  of  the  Great  Confessor  before  Pilate 
(1  Tim.  vi.  13). 

Assuming  the  genuineness  and  the  later  date  of 
the  two  epistles  addressed  to  him  [comp.  the  following 
article],  we  are  able  to  put  together  a  few  notices 
as  to  his  later  life.  It  follows  from  1  Tim.  i.  3 
that  he  and  his  master,  after  the  release  of  the 
latter  from  his  imprisonment,  revisited  the  pro 
consular  Asia,  that  the  Apostle  then  continued  his 
journey  to  Macedonia/  while  the  disciple  remained, 
half-reluctantly,  even  weeping  at  the  separation 
(2  Tim.  i.  4),  at  Ephesus,  to  check,  if  possible, 
the  outgrowth  of  heresy  and  licentiousness  which 
had  sprung  up  there.  The  time  during  which  he 
was  thus  to  exercise  authority  as  the  delegate  of  an 


a  Dr.  Wordsworth  infers  from  2  Cor.  ix.  11,  and  Acts 
xviii.  5,  that  he  brought  contributions  to  the  support  of 
the  Apc«tle  from  the  Macedonian  Churches,  and  thus  re 
leased  him  from  his  continuous  labour  as  a  tent-maker. 

e  Th:  writer  has  to  thank  Prof.  Lightfoot  for  calling  his 
attention  to  an  article  ("They  of  Caesar's  Household")  in 
Journ.  of  Class,  and  Sacred  Philology,  No.  X.,  in  which  the 
hypothesis  is  questioned,  on  the  ground  that  the  Epigrams 
are  later  than  the  Epistles,  and  that  they  connect  the 
name  of  Pudens  with  heathen  customs  and  vices.  On  the 
other  hand  it  may  be  urged  that  the  bantering  tone  of  the 
Kpigrams  forbids  us  to  take  them  as  evidences  of  cha 
racter.  Pudens  tells  Martial  that  he  does  not  "  like  his 
poems."  "  Oh,  that  is  because  you  read  too  many  at  a 


time  "  (iv.  29).  He  begs  him  to  correct  their  blemishes. 
"You  want  an  autograph  copy  then,  do  you?"  (vii.  11,. 
The  slave  En-  or  Eucolpos  (the  name  is  possibly  a  wilful 
distortion  of  Eubulus)  does  what  might  be  the  fulfilment 
of  a  Christian  vow  (Acts  xviii.  18),  and  this  is  the  occa 
sion  of  the  suggestion  which  seems  most  damnatory  (v.  48), 
With  this  there  mingles  however,  as  in  iv.  13,  vi.  68, 
the  language  of  a  more  real  esteem  than  is  common  in 
Martial  (comp.  some  good  remarks  in  Rev.  W.  B.  Gal 
loway,  A  Clergyman's  Holidays,  pp.  35-49). 

f  Dr.  Wordsworth,  in  an  interesting  note  on  2  Tim, 
i.  16,  supposes  the  parting  to  have  been  in  consequence  of 
St.  Paul's  second  arrest,  and  sees  in  this  the  expknatba 
of  the  tears  of  Tiniothcus. 


TIMOTHY 

Aportld— a  vicar  apostolic  rather  than  a  bishop — 
was  of  uncertain  duration  (1  Tim.  iii.  14).  The 
position  in  which  he  found  -himself  might  well 
vnake  him  anxious.  He  had  to  rule  presbyters, 
most  of  whom  were  older  than  himself  (1  Tim. 
iv.  12),  to  assign  -to  each  a  stipend  in  proportion 
to  his  work  (>b.  v.  17),  to  receive  and  decide  on 
charges  that  might  be  brought  against  them  (ib.  v. 
1,  19,  20),  to  regulate  the  almsgiving  and  the 
sisterhoods  of  the  Church  (ib.  v.  3-10),  to  ordain 
presbyters  and  deacons  (ib.  iii.  1-13).  There  was 
the  risk  of  being  entangled  in  the  disputes,  preju 
dices,  covetousness,  sensuality  of  a  great  city.  There 
was  the  risk  of  injuring  health  and  strength  by  an 
overs' rained  asceticism  (ib.  iv.  4,  v.  23).  Leaders 
of  rival  sects  were  there — Hymenaeus,  Philetus, 
Alexander — to  oppose  and  thwart  hie  (1  Tim.  i. 
20  ;  2  Tim.  ii.  17,  iv.  14,  15).  The  iiam?  of  his 
ueloved  teacher  was  no  longer  honoured  as  it  had 
been  ;  the  strong  affection  of  former  days  had 
vanished,  and  "Paul  the  aged"  had  become  un 
popular,  the  object  of  suspicion  and  dislike  (comp. 
Acts  xx.  37  and  2  Tim.  i.  15).  Only  in  the 
narrowed  circle  of  the  faithful  few,  Aquila,  Pris- 
cilla,  Mark,  and  others,  who  were  still  with  him, 
was  he  likely  to  find  sympathy  or  support  (2  Tim. 
iv.  19).  We  cannot  wonder  that  the  Apostle, 
knowing  these  trials,  and,  with  his  marvellous 
power  of  bearing  another's  burdens,  making 
them  his  own,  should  be  full  of  anxiety  and 
fear  for  his  disciple's  steadfastness;  that  admoni 
tions,  appeals,  warnings  should  follow  each  other 
in  rapid  and  vehement  succession  (1  Tim.  i.  18, 
iii.  15,  iv.  14,  v.  21,  vi.  11).  In  the  second 
epistle  to  him  this  deep  personal  feeling  utters 
itself  yet  more  fully.  The  friendship  of  fifteen 
years  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  all  memories 
connected  with  it  throng  upon  the  mind  of  the 
old  man,  now  ready  to  be  offered,  the  blameless 
youth  (2  Tim.  iii.  15),  the  holy  household  (ib.  i. 
5),  the  solemn  ordination  (ib.  i.  6),  the  tears  at 
parting  (ib.  i.  4).  The  last  recorded  words  of 
the  Apostle  express  the.  earnest  hope,  repeated  yet 
more  earnestly,  that  he  might  see  him  once  again 
(ib.  iv.  9,  21).  Timotheus  is  to  come  before 
winter,  to  bring  with  him  the  cloak  for  which  in 
that  winter  there  would  be  need  (2  Tim.  iv.  13). 
We  may  hazard  the  conjecture  that  he  reached 
nim  in  time,  and  that  the  last  hours  of  the  teacher 
were  soothed  by  the  presence  of  the  disciple  whom 
he  loved  so  truly.  Some  writers  have  even  seen 
n  Heb.  xiii.  23  an  indication  that  he  shared  St. 
Paul's  imprisonment  and  was  released  from  it  by 
the  death  of  Nero  (Conybeare  and  Howson,  ii.  502  ; 
Neander,  Pfl.  und  Lett.  i.  552).  Beyond  this  all  is 
apocryphal  and  uncertain.  He  continues,  according 
to  the  old  traditions,  to  act  as  bishop  of  Ephesus 
(Euseb.  H.  E.  iii.  14),  and  dies  a  martyr's  death 
under  Domitian  or  Nerva  (Niceph.  H.  E.  iii.  11). 
The  great  festival  of  Artemis  (the  Karaydtyiov  of 
that  goddess)  led  him  to  protest  against  the  licence 
and  frenzy  which  accompanied  it.  The  mob  were 
roused  to  fury,  and  put  him  to  death  with  clubs 
(comp.  Polycrates  and  Simeon  Metaphr.  in  Hen- 
Schen's  Acta  Sanctorum,  Jan.  24).  Some  later 
critics — Schleiermacher,  Mayerhoff — have  seen  in 
him  the  author  of  the  whole  or  part  of  the  Acts 
(Olshausen,  Commentar.  ii.  612). 

A  somewhat  startling  theory  as  to  the  inter 
vening  period  of  his  life  has  found  favour  with 
Calmet  (&.  v.  Timothee),  Tillemont  (r .  147),  and 
others.  If  he  continued,  according  to  the  received 


TIMOTHY,  El'ISTLES  TO     150? 

tradition,  to  be  bishop  of  Kphesus,  then  he,  and  no 
other,  must  have  been  the  "  angel  "  of  that  church 
to  whom  the  message  of  Hev.  ii.  1-7  was  ad 
dressed.  It  may  be  urged,  as  in  some  degree 
confirming  this  view,  that  both  the  praise  and  the 
blame  of' that  message  are  such  as  harmonise  with 
the  impressions  as  to  the  character  of  Timotheus 
derived  from  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles.  The 
refusal  to  acknowledge  the  self-styled  Apostles, 
the  abhorrence  of  the  deeds  of  the  Nicolaitans ,  the 
unwearied  labour,  all  this  belongs  to  "  the  man  of 
God  "  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  And  the  fault  is 
"0  less  characteristic.  The  strong  language  of  St. 
Paul's  entreaty  would  lead  us  to  expect  that  the 
temptation  of  such  a  man  would  be  to  fall  away 
from  the  glow  of  his  "  first  love,"  the  zeal  of  his 
first  faith.  The  promise  of  the  Lord  of  the 
Churches  is  in  substance  the  same  as  that  implied 
in  the  language  of  the  Apostle  (2  Tim.  ii.  4-6). 

The  conjecture,  it  should  be  added,  has  been 
passed  over  unnoticed  by  most  of  the  recent  com 
mentators  on  the  Apocalypse  (comp.  Alford  and 
Wordsworth,  in  too.}.  Trench  (Seven  Churches  of 
Asia,  p.  64.)  contrasts  the  "angel"  of  Rev.  ii. 
with  Timotheus  as  an  "  earlier  angel "  who,  with 
the  generation  to  which  he  belonged,  had  passed 
away  when  the  Apocalypse  was  written.  It  must 
be  remembered,  however,  that,  at  the.  time  of 
St.  Paul's  death,  Timotheus  was  still  "  young/' 
probably  not  more  than  thirty-five,  that  he  might, 
therefore,  well  be  living,  even  on  the  assumption  of 
the  later  date  of  the  Apocalypse,  and  that  the 
traditions  (  valeant  quantum)  place  his  death  after 
that  date.  Bengel  admits  this,  but  urges  the 
objection  that  he  was  not  the  bishop  of  any  single 
diocese,  but  the  superintendent  of  many  churches. 
This  however  may,  in  its  turn,  be  traversed,  by 
the  answer  that  the  death  of  St.  Paul  may  have 
made  a  great  difference  in  the  work  of  one  who  had 
hitherto  been  employed  in  travelling  as  his  repre 
sentative.  The  special  charge  committed  to  him 
in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  might  not  unnaturally 
give  fixity  to  a  life  which  had  previously  been 
wandering. 

An  additional  fact  connected  with  the  name  of 
Timothy  is  that  two  of  the  treatises  of  the  Pseudo- 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite  are  addressed  to  him  (Dt 
Hierarch.  Coel.  i.  1  ;  comp.  Le  Nourry,  Dissert. 
c.  ix.,  and  Halloix,  Quaest.  iv.  in  Migne's  edition). 

[E.  H.  P.] 

TIMOTHY,  EPISTLES  TO.  Authorship. 
— The  question  whether  these  Epistles  were  written 
by  St.  Paul  was  one  to  which,  till  within  the  last 
half-century,  hardly  any  answer  but  an  affirmative 
one  was  thought  possible.  They  are  reckoned  among 
the  Pauline  Epistles  in  the  Muratorian  Canon  and 
the  Peshito  version.  Eusebius  (JET.  E.  iii.  25) 
places  them  among  the  dpoXoyotneva  of  the  N.  T., 
and,  while  recording  the  doubts  which  affected  the 
2nd  Epistle  of  St.  Peter  and  the  other  ovriXeyJ- 
p.sva,  knows  of  none  which  affect  these.  They  are 
;ited  as  authoritative  by  Tertuilian  (De  Praescr. 
c.  25;  ad  Uxorem,  i.  7),  Clement  of  Alexandria 
(Strom,  ii.  11),  Irenaeus  (Adv.  Haer.  iv.  16,  §3, 
ii.  14,  §8).  Parallelisms,  implying  quotation,  in 
some  cases  with  close  verbal  agreement,  are  found 
in  Clem.  Rom.  1  Cor.  c.  29  (comp.  1  Tim.  ii.  8); 
Ignat.  ad  Magn.  c.  8  (1  Tim.  i.  4)  ;  Polycarp,  c.  4 
(comp.  1  Tim.  vi.  7,  8)  ;  Theophilus  of  Antioch 
ad  Autol.  iii.  126  (comp.  1  Tim.  ii.  1,  2).  There 
were  indeed  some  notable  exceptions  to  this  con' 
sensus.  The  three  Pastoral  Epistles  were  all  re- 

5  D  2 


1508    TIMOTHY,  EPISTLES  TO 

jected  by  Marciou  (Tertull.  ado.  Marc.  v.  21 ; 
Iren.  i.  29),  Basilides,  and  other  Gnostic  teachers 
(Hieron.  Praef.  in  Titum}.  Tatian,  while  strongly 
maintaining  the  genuineness  of  the  Epistle  to  Titus, 
denied  that  of  the  other  two  (Hieron.  *&.).  In 
these  instances  we  are  able  to  discern  a  dogmatic 
reason  for  the  rejection.  The  sects  which  these 
leaders  represented  could  not  but  feel  that  they 
were  condemned  by  the  teaching  of  the  Pastoral 
Epistles.  Origen  mentions  some  who  excluded 
2  Tim.  from  the  Canon  for  a  very  different  reason. 
The  names  of  Jannes  and  Jambres  belonged  to 
an  Apocryphal  history,  and  from  such  a  history 
St.  Paul  never  would  have  quoted  (Origen,  Comm. 
in  Matt.  117). 

The  Pastoral  Epistles  have,  however,  been  sub 
jected  to  a  more  elaborate  scrutiny  by  the  criticism 
of  Germany.  The  first  doubts  were  uttered  by 
J.  C.  Schmidt.  These  were  followed  by  the  Send- 
schreiben  of  Schleiermacher,  who,  assuming  the 
genuineness  of  2  Tim.  and  Titus,  undertook,  on 
that  hypothesis,  to  prove  the  spuriousness  of  1  Tim. 
Bolder  critics  saw  that  the  position  thus  taken  was 
untenable,  that  the  three  Epistles  must  stand  or 
fall  together.  Eichhorn  (Einl.  iii.)  and  De  Wette 
(Einleit.)  denied  the  Pauline  authorship  of  all  three. 
There  was  still,  however,  an  attempt  to  maintain 
their  authority  as  embodying  the  substance  of  the 
Apostle's  teaching,  or  of  letters  written  by  him, 
on  the  hypothesis  that  they  had  been  sent  forth 
after  his  death  by  some  over-zealous  disciple,  who 
wished,  under  the  shadow  of  his  name,  to  attack 
the  prevailing  errors  of  the  time  (Eichhorn,  »'&.). 
One  writer  (Schott,  Isagoge  Hist.  Grit.  p.  324) 
ventures  on  the  hypothesis  that  Luke  was  the 
writer.  Baur  (Die  sogenannten  Pastoral-Brief '#), 
here  as  elsewhere  more  daring  than  others,  assigns 
them  to  no  earlier  period  than  the  latter  half  of 
the  second  century,  after  the  death  of  Polycarp  in 
A.D.  167  (p.  138).  On  this  hypothesis  2  Tim.  was 
the  earliest,  1  Tim.  the  latest  of  the  three,  each 
probably  by  a  different  writer  (p.  72-76).  They 
grew  out  of  the  state  of  parties  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and,  like  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke  and  the 
Acts,  were  intended  to  mediate  between  the  extreme 
Pauline  and  the  extreme  Petrine  sections  of  the 
Church  (p.  58).  Starting  from  the  data  supplied 
by  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  the  writers,  first 
of  2  Tim.,  then  of  Titus,  and  lastly  of  1  Tim., 
aimed,  by  the  insertion  of  personal  incidents,  mes 
sages,  and  the  like,  at  giving  to  their  compilations 
an  air  of  verisimilitude  (p.  70). 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  statement  that 
the  question  of  authorship  is  here  more  than  usually 
important.  There  can  be  no  solution  as  regards 
these  Epistles  like  that  of  an  obviously  dramatic 
and  therefore  legitimate  personation  of  character, 
such  as  is  possible  in  relation  to  the  authorship 
of  Ecclesiastes.  If  the  Pastoral  Epistles  are  not 
Pauline,  the  writer  clearly  meant  them  to  pass 
as  such,  and  the  animus  decipiendi  would  be  there 
in  its  most  flagrant  form.  They  would  have 
to  take  their  place  with  the  Pseudo-Clementine 
Homilies,  or  the  Pseudo-Ignatian  Epistles.  Where 
we  now  see  the  traces,  full  of  life  and  interest,  of 
the  character  of  "  Paul  the  aged,"  firm,  tender, 
zealous,  loving,  we  should  have  to  recognise  only 
the  tricks,  sometimes  skilful,  sometimes  clumsy, 
of  some  unknown  and  dishonest  controversialist. 

Consequences  such  as  these  ought  not,  it  is  true, 
to  lead  us  to  suppress  or  distort  one  iota  of  evi 
dence.  They  may  well  make  us  cautious,  in  ex- 


TIMOTHY,  EPISTLES  TO 

amining  the  evidence,  not  to  admit  conclusions  thai 
are  wider  than  the  premises,  nor  to  take  the  pre 
mises  themselves  for  granted.  The  task  of  ex 
amining  is  rendered  in  some  measure  easier  Vy  the 
fact  that,  in  the  judgment  of  most  critics,  hostile  as 
well  as  friendly,  the  three  Pastoral  Epistles  stand 
on  the  same  ground.  The  intermediate  hypotheses 
of  Schleiermacher  (supra)  and  Credner  (Einl.  ins 
N.  71.),  who  looks  on  Titus  as  genuine,  2  Tim.  as 
made  up  out  of  two  genuine  letters,  and  1  Tim.  as 
altogether  spurious,  may  be  dismissed  as  individual 
eccentricities,  hardly  requiring  a  separate  notice. 
In  dealing  with  objections  which  take  a  wider  range. 
we  are  meeting  those  also  which  are  confined  to 
one  or  two  out  of  the  three  Epistles. 

The  chief  elements  of  the  alleged  evidence  of 
spuriousness  may  be  arranged  as  follows : — 

I.  Language. — The  style,  it  is  urged,  is  different 
from  that  of  the  acknowledged  Pauline  Epistles 
There  is  less  logical  continuity,  a  want  of  order 
and  plan,  subjects  brought  up,  one  after  the  other, 
abruptly  (Schleiermacher).  Not  less  than  fifty 
words,  most  of  them  striking  and  characteristic, 
are  found  in  these  Epistles  which  are  not  found  in 
St.  Paul's  writings  (see  the  list  in  Conybeare  and 
Howson,  App.  I.,  and  Huther's  Einkit.}.  The 
formula  of  salutation  (x<fy>ts,  eAeos,  elp^vij},  half- 
technical  words  and  phrases,  like  eucrejSeta  and  its 
cognates  (1  Tim.  ii.  2,  iii.  16,  vi.  6,  et  al.},  irapa- 
Karae-nK-fi  (1  Tim.  i.  18,  vi.  20  ;  2  Tim.  i.  12,  14, 
ii.  2),  the  frequently-recurring  IFKTT^S  6  \6yos 
(1  Tim.  i.  15,  iii.  1,  iv.  9  ;  2  Tim.  ii.  11),  the  use 
of  vyia.ivovffa  as  the  distinctive  epithet  of  a  true 
teaching,  these  and  others  like  them  appear  here 
for  the  first  time  (Schleierm.  and  Baur).  Some  of 
these  words,  it  is  urged,  <pav€povvt  cTTK^apeta, 
o-wfipj  (pus  airpSffirov,  belong  to  the  Gnostic  ter 
minology  of  the  2nd  century. 

On  the  other  side  it  may  be  said,  (1)  that  there 
is  no  test  so  uncertain  as  that  of  language  and  style 
thus  applied ;  how  uncertain  we  may  judge  from 
the  fact  that  Schleiermacher  and  Neander  find  no 
stumbling-blocks  in  2  Tiro,  and  Titus,  while  they 
detect  an  un-Pauline  character  in  1  Tim.  A  dif 
ference  like  that  which  marks  the  speech  of  men 
divided  from  each  other  by  a  century  may  be  con 
clusive  against  the  identity  of  authorship,  but  short 
of  that  there  is  hardly  any  conceivable  divergency 
which  may  not  coexist  with  it.  The  style  of  one 
man  is  stereotyped,  formed  early,  and  enduring  long. 
The  sentences  move  after  an  unvarying  rhythm ;  the 
same  words  recur.  That  of  another  changes,  more 
or  less,  from  year  to  year.  As  his  thoughts  expand 
they  call  for  a  new  vocabulary.  The  last  works 
of  such  a  writer,  as  those  of  Bacon  and  of  Burke, 
may  be  florid,  redundant,  figurative,  while  the 
earlier  were  almost  meagre  in  their  simplicity.  In 
proportion  as  the  man  is  a  solitary  thinker,  or  a 
strong  assertor  of  his  own  will,  will  he  tend  to  the 
former  state.  In  proportion  to  his  power  of  re 
ceiving  impressions  from  without,  of  sympathising 
with  others,  will  be  his  tendency  to  the  latter. 
Apart  from  all  knowledge  of  St.  Paul's  character, 
the  alleged  peculiarities  are  but  of  little  weight  in 
the  adverse  scale.  With  that  knowledge  we  may 
see  in  them  the  natural  result  of  the  intercourse 
with  men  in  many  lands,  of  that  readiness  to  be 
come  all  things  to  all  men,  which  could  hardly  fail 
to  show  itself  in  speech  as  well  as  in  action.  Each 
group  of  his  Epistles  has,  in  like  manner,  its  cha 
racteristic  words  and  phrases.  (2)  If  this  is  tru< 
generally,  it  is  so  yet  more  emphatically  when  th« 


TIMOTHY,  EPISTLES  TO 

circumstances  of  authorship-  are  different.  Thf» 
language  of  a  Bishop's  Charge  is  not  that  of  his 
letters  to  his  private  friends.  The  Epistles,  which 
St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  churches  as  societies,  might 
well  differ  from  those  which  he  wrote,  in  the 
full  freedom  of  open  speech,  to  a  familiar  friend, 
to  his  own  "  true  son."  It  is  not  strange  that  we 
should  find  in  the  latter  a  Luther-like  vehemence 
of  expression  (e.  g.  KfKavo'rrfpiaa'/j.fvoav,  1  Tim.  iv. 
2,  StairapaTpi^al  Sie^fla/jjueVcoj'  av0pu>irci>v  rbv 
vovv,  1  Tim.  vi.  5,  (Te<r«pet^i6j/a  a/j.apriais,  2  Tim. 
iii.  6)1  mixed  sometimes  with  words  that  imply  that 
which  few  great  men  have  been  without,  a  keen 
sense  of  humour,  and  the  capacity,  at  least,  for  satire 
(e.  g.  ypawtifis  pvOovs,  1  Tim.  iv.  7 ;  <f>\vapoi 
Kal  iTff*(pyoi,  1  Tim.  v.  13;  TfrvQuTcu,  1  Tim. 
vi.  4;  yaa-Tfpfs  apyai,  Tit.  i.  12).  (3)  Other 
letters,  again,  were  dictated  to  an  amanuensis.  These 
have  every  appearance  of  having  been  written  with 
his  own  hand,  and  this  can  hardly  have  been  with 
out  its  influence  on  their  style,  rendering  it  less 
diffuse,  the  transitions  more  abrupt,  the  treatment 
of  each  subject  more  concise.  In  this  respect  it 
may  be  compared  with  the  other  two  autograph 
Epistles,  those  to  the  Galatians  and  Philemon.  A 
list  of  words  given  by  Alford  (iii.  Proleg.  c.  vii.) 
shows  a  considerable  resemblance  between  the  former 
of  the  two  and  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  (4)  It  may 
be  added,  that  to  whatever  extent  a  forger  of  spu 
rious  Epistles  would  be  likely  to  form  his  style 
after  the  pattern  of  the  recognised  ones,  so  that 
men  might  not  be  able  to  distinguish  the  counterfeit 
from  the  true,  to  that  extent  the  diversity  which 
has  been  dwelt  on  is,  within  the  limits  that  have 
oeen  above  stated,  not  against,  but  for  the  genuine 
ness  of  these  Epistles.  (5)  Lastly,  there  is  the 
positive  argument  that  there  is  a  large  common 
element,  both  of  thoughts  and  words,  shared  by 
these  Epistles  and  the  others.  The  grounds  of  faith, 
the  law  of  life,  the  tendency  to  digress  and  go  off 
at  a  word,  the  personal,  individualising  affection, 
the  free  reference  to  his  own  sufferings  for  the 
truth,  all  these  are  in  both,  and  by  them  we 
recognise  the  identity  of  the  writer.  The  evidence 
can  hardly  be  given  within  the  limits  of  this  article, 
but  its  weight  will  be  felt  by  any  careful  student. 
The  coincidences  are  precisely  those,  in  most  in 
stances,  which  the  forger  of  a  document  would 
have  been  unlikely  to  think  of,  and  give  but  scanty 
support  to  the  perverse  ingenuity  which  sees  in 
these  resemblances  a  proof  of  compilation,  and  there 
fore  of  spuriousness. 

II.  It  has  been  urged  (chiefly  by  Eichhorn, 
Einl.  p.  315)  against  the  reception  of  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  that  they  cannot  be  fitted  in  to  the  records 
of  St.  Paul's  life  in  the  Acts.  To  this  there  is  a 
threefold  answer.  (1)  The  difficulty  has  been 
enormously  exaggerated.  If  the  dates  assigned  to 
them  must,  to  some  extent,  be  conjectural,  there 
are,  at  least,  two  hypotheses  in  each  case  (infra] 
which  rest  on  reasonably  good  grounds.  (2)  If 
the  difficulty  were  as  great  as  it  is  said  to  be,  the 
mere  fact  that  we  cannot  fix  the  precise  date  of 
three  letters  in  the  life  of  one  of  whose  ceaseless 
labours  and  journeyings  we  have,  after  all,  but 
fragmentary  lecords,  ought  not  to  be  a  stumbling- 
block.  Tht  hypothesis  of  a  release  from  the  im 
prisonment  with  which  the  history  of  the  Acts 
ends  removes  all  difficulties ;  and  if  this  be  rejected 
(Baur,  p.  67),  as  itself  not  resting  on  sufficient  evi 
dence,  there  is,  in  any  case,  a  wide  gap  of  which  we 
^uow  nothing.  It  may  at  least  claim  to  be  a  theory 


TIMOTHY.  EPISTLES  TO     i509 

which  explains  phenomena.  (3)  Here,  as  befoi  e,  the 
reply  is  obvious,  that  a  man  composing  countertVu 
Epistles  would  have  been  likely  to  make  them 
square  with  the  acknowledged  records  of  the  life. 

III.  The  three  Epistles  present,  it  is  said,  a  rnrre 
developed  state  of  Church  organisation  «uid  doctrine 
than   that  belonging  to  the  lifetime  of  St.  Paul. 

(1)  The  rule  that  the  bishop  is  to  be  "  the  husband 
of  one  wife"  (1  Tim.  iii.  2  ;  Tit.  i.  6)  indicates  the 
strong  opposition  to  second  marriages  which  cha 
racterised   the   2nd  century  (Baur,  pp.  113-120) 

(2)  The  "younger  widows"  of  1  Tim.  v.  11  can- 
not  possibly  be  literally  widows.     If  they  were,  St. 
Paul,   in  advising  them   to  marry,   would  be  c.x- 
cluding  them,  according  to  the  rule  of  1  Tim.  v.  9, 
from  all  chance  of  sharing  in  the  Church's  bounty. 
It  follows  therefore  that  the  word  x^Pal  is  us(^» 
as  it  was  in  the  2nd  centuiy,  in  a  wider  sense,  as 
denoting   a   consecrated    life    (Baur,   pp.  42-49). 

(3)  The  rules  affecting'  the  relation  of  the  bishops 
and  elders  indicate  a  hierarchic  development  cha 
racteristic  of  the  Petrine  element,  which   became 
dominant   in  the   Church   of  Rome    in  the  post- 
Apostolic   period,    but    foreign    altogether   to   the 
genuine  Epistles  of  St.  Paul   (Baur,  pp.  80-89). 

(4)  The  term  atpfTii<6s  is  used  in  its  later  sense, 
and  a  formal  procedure  against  the  heretic  is  recog 
nised,  which  belongs  to  the  2nd  century  rather  than 
the  1st.     (5)  The  upward  progress  from  the  office 
of  deacon  to  that  of  presbyter,  implied  in  1  T»m- 
iii.  13,  belongs  to  a  later  period  (Baur,  1.  c.). 

It  is  not  difficult  to  meet  objections  which  con 
tain  so  large  an  element  of  mere  arbitrary  assump 
tion.  (1)  Admitting  Baur's  interpretation  of  1 
Tim.  iii.  2  to  be  the  right  one,  the  rule  which 
makes  monogamy  a  condition  of  the  episcopal  office 
is  very  far  removed  from  the  harsh,  sweeping  cen 
sures  of  all  second  marriages  which  we  find  in 
Athenagoras  and  Tertullian.  (2)  There  is  not  a 
shadow  of  proof  that  the  "  younger  widows  "  were 
not  literally  such.  The  x*?Pai  °f  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  are,  like  those  of  Acts  vi.  1,  ix.  39,  women 
dependent  on  the  alms  of  the  Church,  not  necessarily 
deaconesses,  or  engaged  in  active  laboui-s.  The  rule 
fixing  the  age  of  sixty  for  admission  is  all  but  con 
clusive  against  Baur's  hypothesis.  (3)  The  use  of 
tirlffKOiroi  and  Trpfffftvrepoi  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles 
as  equivalent  (Tit.  i.  5,  7),  and  the  absence  of  any 
intermediate  order  between  the  bishops  and  deacons 
(1  Tim.  iii.  1-8),  are  quite  unlike  what  we  find  in 
the  Ignatian  Epistles  and  other  writings  of  the  2nd 
century.  They  are  in  entire  agreement  with  the 
language  of  St.  Paul  (Acts  xx.  17,  28  ;  Phil.  i.  1). 
Few  feature  of  these  Epistles  are  more  striking 
than  the  absence  of  any  high  hierarchic  system. 
(4)  The  word  alp*TiK6s  has  its  counterpart  in  the 
aipeffets  of  1  Cor.  xi.  19.  The  sentence  upon 
Hymenaeus  and  Alexander  (1  Tim.  i.  20)  has  a 
precedent  in  that  of  1  Cor.  v.  5.  (5)  Th*  best 
interpreters  do  not  see  in  1  Tim.  iii.  13  the  tran 
sition  from  one  office  to  another  (comp.  Ellicott, 
in  loc.,  and  DEACON).  If  it  is  there,  the  assump 
tion  that  such  a  change  is  foreign  to  the  Apostolic 
age  is  entirely  an  arbitrary  one. 

IV.  Still    greater   stress  is  laid  on  the  indica 
tions  of  a  later  date  in  the  descriptions  of  the  false 
teachers  noticed   in  the    Pastoral    Eistles.     These 
point,  it  is  said,  uumistakeably  to  Marcion  and  his 
followers.      In    the    avriQfffeis    rrjs    i]/ev8<i>vv/jiov 
yvti}fff(as  (1  Tim.  vi.  20;  there  is  a  direct  reference 
to  the  treatise  which  he  wrote  under  the  title  of 

tting  forth  the  contradiction  between 


1510     TIMOTHY;  EPISTLES  TO 

ihe  Old  and  New  Testament  (Baur,  p.  26).  The 
'genealogies"  of  1  Tim.  i.  4,  Tit.  iii.  9,  in  like 
manner,  point  to  the  Aeons  of  the  Valentinians  and 
Ophites  (ibid.  p.  12).  The  "  forbidding  to  marry, 
and  commanding  to  abstain  from  meats,"  fits  in 
to  Marcion's  system,  not  to  that  of  the  Judaizing 
teachers  of  St.  Paul's  time  (ibid.  p.  24).  The 
assertion  that  "the  law  is  good"  (1  Tim.  i.  8)  im 
plies  a  denial,  like  that  of  Marcion,  of  its  divine 
authority.  The  doctrine  that  the  "Resurrection 
was  past  already"  (2  Tim.  ii.  18),  was  thoroughly 
Gnostic  in  its  character.  In  his  eagerness  to  find 
tokens  of  a  later  date  everywhere,  Baur  sees  in  the 
writer  of  these  Epistles  not  merely  an  opponent  of 
Gnosticism,  but  one  in  part  infected  with  their 
teaching,  and  appeals  to  the  doxologies  of  1  Tim.  i.  17, 
vi.  15,  and  their  Christology  throughout,  as  having 
a  Gnostic  stamp  on  them  (pp.  28-33). 

Carefully  elaborated  as  this  part  of  Baur's  attack 
has  been,  it  is  perhaps  the  weakest  and  most  capri 
cious  of  all.  The  false  teachers  of  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  are  predominantly  Jewish,  j/o/xo5tSo<r/caA.ot 
(1  Tim.  i.  7),  belonging  altogether  to  a  different 
school  from  that  of  Marcion,  giving  heed  to  "  Jewish 
fables  "  (Tit.  i.  4)  and  "disputes  connected  with  the 
Law"  (Tit.  iii.  9).  Of  all  monstrosities  of  Exegesis 
few  are  more  wilful  and  fantastic  than  that  which 
finds  in  vo/j.ofii§d(rKa\oi  Antinomian  teachers  and 
in  fiaxal  vofjuttal  Antinomian  doctrine  (Baur,  p. 
17).  The  natural  suggestion  that  in  Acts  xx.  30, 
31,  St.  Paul  contemplates  the  rise  and  progress  of  a 
like  perverse  teaching,  that  in  Col.  ii.  8-23  we  have 
the  same  combination  of  Judaism  and  a  self-styled 
yv&ffis  (1  Tim.  vi.  20)  or  tyiXoffotyia.  (Col.  ii.  8), 
leading  to  a  like  false  asceticism,  is  set  aside  sum 
marily  by  the  rejection  both  of  the  Speech  and  the 
Epistle  as  spurious.  Even  the  denial  of  the  Resur 
rection,  we  may  remark,  belongs  as  naturally  to 
the  mingling  of  a  Sadducaean  element  with  an  Eastern 
mysticism  as  to  the  teaching  of  Marcion.  The  self- 
contradictory  hypothesis  that  the  writer  of  1  Tim. 
is  at  once  the  strongest  opponent  of  the  Gnostics, 
and  that  he  adopts  their  language,  need  hardly  be 
refuted.  The  whole  line  of  argument,  indeed,  first 
misrepresents  the  language  of  St.  Paul  in  these 
Epistles  and  elsewhere,  and  then  assumes  the  entire 
absence  from  the  first  century  of  even  the  genus  of 
the  teaching  which  characterised  the  second  (comp. 
Neander,  Pfl.  und  Lett.  i.  p.  401 ;  Heydenreich, 
p,  64). 

Date. — Assuming  the  two  Epistles  to  Timothy  to 
have  been  written  by  St.  Paul,  to  what  period  of  his 
life  are  they  to  be  referred?  The  question  as  it 
affects  each  Epistle  may  be  discussed  separately. 

First  Epistle  to  Timothy. — Tlw  direct  data  in  this 
instance  are  very  few.  (1)  i.  3,  implies  a  journey 
of  St.  Paul  from  Ephesus  to  Macedonia,  Timothy 
remaining  behind.  (2)  The  age  of  Timothy  is 
described  as  vttrns  (iv.  12).  (3)  The  general 
resemblance  between  the  two  Epistles  indicates  that 
they  were  written  at  or  about  the  same  time. 
Three  hypotheses  have  been  maintained  as  fulfilling 
these  conditions. 

(A)  The  journey  in  question  has  been  looked  on 
as  an  unrecorded  episode  in  the  two  years'  work 
at  Ephesus  of  Acts  xix.  10. 

(B)  It  has  been  identified  with  the  journey  of 
Acts  xx.  1 ,  after  the  tumult  at  Ephesus. 

On  either  of  these  suppositions  the  date  of  the 
Epistle  has  been  fixed  at  various  periods  after  St. 
Paul's  arrival  at  Ephesus,  before  the  conclusion  of 
his  first  imprisonment  at  Rome. 


TIMOTHY,  EPISTLES  TO 

(C)  It  has  been  placed  in  the  interval  I  Between 
St.  Paul's  first  and  second  imprisonments  at 
Rome. 

Of  these  conjectures,  A  and  B  have  the  merit 
of  bringing  the  Epistle  within  the  limit  of  the  au 
thentic  records  of  St.  Paul's  life,  but  they  have 
scarcely  any  other.  Against  A,  it  may  be  urged 
that  a  journey  to  Macedonia  would  hardly  have  been 
passed  over  in  silence  either  by  St.  Luke  in  the 
Acts,  or  by  St.  Paul  himself  in  writing  to  the  Co 
rinthians.  Against  B,  that  Timothy,  instead  of 
remaining  at  Ephesus  whea  the  Apostle  left,  had 
gone  on  into  Macedonia  before  him  (Acts  xix.  22). 
The  hypothesis  of  a  possible  return  is  traversed  by 
the  fact  that  he  is  with  St.  Paul  in  Macedonia  at 
the  time  when  2  Cor.  was  written  and  sent  off. 
In  favour  of  C  as  compared  with  A  or  B,  is  the 
internal  evidence  of  the  contents  of  the  Epistle. 
The  errors  against  which  Timothy  is  warned  are 
present,  dangerous,  portentous.  At  the  time  of  St. 
Paul's  visit  to  Miletus  in  Acts  xx.,  ».  e.,  according 
to  those  hypotheses,  subsequent  to  the  Epistle,  they 
are  still  only  looming  in  the  distance  (ver.  30).  All 
the  circumstances  referred  to,  moreover,  imply  the 
prolonged  absence  of  the  Apostle.  Discipline  had 
become  lax,  heresies  rife,  the  economy  of  the  Church 
disordered.  It  was  necessary  to  check  the  chief 
offenders  by  the  sharp  sentence  of  excommunication 
(1  Tim.  i.  20).  Other  Churches  called  for  his 
counsel  arid  directions,  or  a  sharp  necessity  took 
him  away,  and  he  hastens  on,  leaving  behind  him, 
with  full  delegated  authority,  the  disciple  in  whom 
he  most  confided.  The  language  of  the  Epistle 
a]"'j  has  a  bearing  on  the  date.  According  to  the 
hypotheses  A  and  B,  it  belongs  to  the  same  periods 
as  1  and  2  Cor.  and  the  Ep.  to  the  Romans,  or, 
at  the  latest,  to  the  same  group  as  Philippians  and 
Ephesians  ;  and,  in  this  case,  the  differences  of 
style  and  language  are  somewhat  difficult  to  explain. 
Assume  a  later  date,  and  then  there  is  room  for 
the  changes  in  thought  and  expression  which,  in  a 
character  like  St.  Paul's,  were  to  be  expected  as 
the  years  went  by.  The  only  objections  to  the 
position  thus  assigned  are — (l)"the  doubtfulness  of 
the  second  imprisonment  altogether,  which  has  been 
discussed  in  another  place  [PAUL]  ;  and  (2),  the 
*'  youth  "  of  Timothy  at  the  time  when  the  letter 
was  written  (iv.  12).  In  regard  to  the  latter,  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  that,  on  the  assumption  of  the  later 
date,  the  disciple  was  probably  not  more  than  34 
or  35,  and  that  this  was  young  enough  for  one 
who  was  to  exercise  authority  over  a  whole  body 
of  Bishop-presbyters,  many  of  them  older  than 
himself  (v.  1). 

Second  Epistle  to  Timothy. — The  number  of 
special  names  and  incidents  in  the  2nd  Epistle  make 
the  chronological  data  more  numerous.  It  will  be 
best  to  bring  them,  as  far  as  possible,  together, 
noticing  briefly  with  what  other  facts  each  connects 
itself,  and  to  what  conclusion  it  leads.  Here  also 
there  are  the  conflicting  theories  of  an  earlier  and 
later  date,  (A)  during  the  imprisonment  of  Acts 
xxviii.  30,  and  (B)  during  the  second  imprison 
ment  already  spoken  of. 

(1)  A  parting  apparently  recent,  under  circum 
stances  of  special  sorrow  (i.  4).    Not  decisive.    The 
scene  at  Miletus  (Acts  xx.  37)  suggests  itself,  if  we 
assume  A.     The  parting  referred  u>  in  1  Tim.  i.  3 
might  meet  B. 

(2)  A  general  desertion  of  the  Apostle  even  by 
the  dkciples  of  Asia  (i.  15).     Nothing  in  the  Acts 
indicates  anything  like  this  before  the   imprison 


TIMOTHY,  EPISTLES  TO 

ment  of  Acts  xxviii.  30.  Everything  in  Acts  xix. 
and  xx.,  and  not  less  the  language  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Ephesians,  speaks  of  general  and  strong  atfec- 
tion.  This,  therefore,  so  far  as  it  goes,  must  be 
placed  on  the  side  of  B. 

(3)  The  position  of  St.  Paul  as  suffering  (i.  12), 
in  bonds  (ii.  9),  expecting  "the  time  of  his  de 
parture"   (iv.  6),  forsaken  by  almost  all  (iv.  16). 
Not  quite  decisive,  but  tending  to  B  rather  than  A. 
The  language  of  the  Epistles  belonging  to  the  first 
imprisonment  imply,  it  is  true,  bonds.  (Phil.  i.  13, 
16  ;  Eph.  iii.  1,  vi.  20),  but  in  all  of  them  the  Apostle 
is  surrounded  by  many  friends,  and  is  hopeful,  and 
confident  of  release  (Phil.  i.  25  ;  Philem.  22). 

(4)  The  mention  of  Onesiphorus,  and  of  services 
rendered  by  him  both  at  Rome  and  Ephesus  (i.  16- 
18).     Not  decisive  again,  but  the  tone  is  rather 
that  of  a  man  looking  back  on  a  past  period  of  his 
life,  and  the  order  of  the  names  suggests  the  thought 
of  the  ministrations  at  Ephesus  being  subsequent  to 
those  at  Rome.     Possibly  too  the  mention  of  "  the 
household,"    instead  of  Onesiphorus  himself,   may 
imply  his  death  in   the  interval.     This  therefore 
tends  to  B  rather  than  A. 

(5)  The   abandonment   of  St.   Paul  by   Demas 
(iv.   10).     Strongly  in  favour  of  B.     Demas  was 
with  the  Apostle  when  the  Epistles  to  the  Colossians 
(iv.  14)  and  Philemon  (24)  were  written.     2  Tim. 
must  therefore,  in  all  probability,  have  been  written 
after  them  ;  but,  if  we  place  it  anywhere  in  the 
first  imprisonment,  we  are  all  but  compelled  a  by 
the  mention  of  Mark,  for  whose  coming  the  Apostle 
asks  in  2  Tim.   iv.   11,  and  who  is  with  him  in 
Col.  iv.  10,  to  place  it  at  an  earlier  age. 

(6)  The  presence  of  Luke  (iv.  11).    Agrees  well 
enough  with  A  (Col.  iv.  14),  but  is  perfectly  com 
patible  with  B. 

(7)  The  request  that  Timothy  would  bring  Mark 
(iv.  11).     Seems  at  first,  compared  as  above,  with 
Col.  iv.  14,  to  support  A,  but,  in  connexion  with 
the  mention  of  Demas,  tends  decidedly  to  B. 

(8)  Mention  of  Tychicus  as  sent  to  Ephesus  (iv. 
12).     Appears,  as  connected  with  Eph.  vi.  21,  22, 
Col.  iv.  7,  in  favour  of  A,   yet,  as  Tychicus  was 
continually  employed  on  special   missions  of  this 
kind,  may  just  as  well  fit  in  with  B. 

(9)  The  request  that  Timothy  would  bring  the 
cloak  and  books  left  at  Troas  (iv.  13).     On  the  as 
sumption  of  A,  the  last  visit  of  St.  Paul  to  Troas 
would  have  been  at  least  four  or  five,  years  before, 


tunities  enough  for  his  regaining  what  he  had  left. 
In  that  case,  too,  the  circumstances  of  the  journey 
present  no  trace  of  the  haste  and  suddenness  which 
the  request  more  than  half  implies.  On  the  whole, 
then,  this  must  be  reckoned  as  in  favour  of  B. 

(10)  «•  Alexander  the  coppersmith  did  me  much 
evil,"  "  greatly  withstood  cur  words  "  (iv.  14,15). 
The  part  taken  by  a  Jew  of  this  name  in  the  uproar 
of  Acts  xix.,  and  the  natural  connexion  of  the  xa*-~ 
Kfvs  with  the  artisans  represented  by  Demetrius, 
suggest  a  reference  to  that  event  as  something  recent, 
and  so  far  support  A.    On  the  other  hand,  the  name 
Alexander  was  too  common  to  make  us  certain  as  to 
the  identity,  and  if  it  were  the  same,  the  hypothesis 
of  a  later  date  only  requires  us  to  assume  what  was 
probable  enough,  a  renewed  hostility. 

(11)  The  abandonment  of  the  Apostle  in  his  first 


TIMOTH  Y.  EPISTLES  TO    1511 

defence  (cnroXoytci),  and  his  deliverance  "  from  the 
mouth  of'the  lion"  (iv.  16,  17).  Fits  in  as  a  pos 
sible  contingency  with  either  hypothesis,  but,  like 
the  mention  of  Demas  in  (5),  must  belong,  at  any 
rate,  to  a  time  much  later  than  any  of  the  other 
Epistles  written  from  Rome. 

(12)  "  Erastus  abode  at  Corinth,  but  Trophimus 
I  lei't  at  Miletus  sick"  (iv.  20).     Language,  as  in 

j  (9),  implying  a  comparatively  recent  visit  to  both 
places.  If,  however,  the  letter  were  written  during 
the  first  imprisonment,  then  Trophimus  had  not 
been  left  at  Miletus,  but  had  gone  on  with  St.  Paul 
to  Jerusalem  (Acts  xxi.  29),b  and  the  mention  of 
Erastus  as  remaining  at  Corinth  would  have  been 
superfluous  to  one  who  had  left  that  city  at  the 
same  time  as  the  Apostle  (Acts  xx.  4). 

(13)  "  Hasten  to  come  before  winter."     Assum 
ing  A,  the  presence  of  Timothy  in  Phil.  i.  1 ;  Col.  i. 
1 ;  Philem.  1,  might  be  regarded  as  the  consequence 
of  this  ;  but  then,  as  shown  in  (5)  and  (7),  there 
are  almost  insuperable  difficulties  in  supposing  this 
Epistle  to  have  been  written  before  those  three. 

(14)  The   salutations    from    Eubulus,    Pudens, 
Linus,  and  Claudia.     Without  laying  much  stress 
on  this,  it  may  be  said  that  the  absence  of  these 
rames  from  all  the  Epistles,  which,  according  to  A, 
belong  to  the  same  period,  would  be  difficult  to 
explain.     B  leaves  it  open  to  conjecture  that  they 
were  converts  of  more  recent  date.     They  are  men 
tioned  too  as  knowing  Timothy,  and  this  implies,  as 
at  least  probable,  that  he  had  already  been  at  Rome, 
and  that  this  letter  to  him  was  consequently  later 
than  those  to  the  Philippians  and  Colossians. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  believed  that  the  evidence 
preponderates  strongly  in  favour  of  the  later  date, 
and  that  the  Epistle,  if  we  admit  its  genuineness,  is 
therefore  a  strong  argument  for  believing  that  the 
imprisonment  of  Acts  xxviii.  was  followed  by  a 
period  first  of  renewed  activity  and  then  of  suffering. 

Places. —  In  this  respect  as  in  regard  to  time, 
1  Tim.  leaves  much  to  conjecture.  The  absence  of 
any  local  reference  but  that  in  i.  3,  suggests  Mace 
donia  or  some- neighbouring  district.  In  A  and  other 
MSS.  in  the  Peshito,  Ethiopic,  and  other  versions, 
Laodicea  is  named  in  the  inscription  as  the  place 
whence  it  was  sent,  but  this  appears  to  have  grown 
out  of  a  traditional  belief  resting  on  very  insufficient 
grounds,  and  incompatible  with  the  conclusion  which 
has  been  above  adopted,  that  this  is  the  Epistle 
referred  to  in  Col.  iv.  16  as  that  from  Laodicea 
(Theophyl.  in  foe.).  The  Coptic  version  with  as 
little  likelihood  states  that  it  was  written  from 
Athens  (Huther,  Einleit.). 

The  Second  Epistle  is  free  from  this  conflict  oi 
conjectures.  With  the  solitary  exception  of  Bottger, 
who  suggests  Caesarea,  there  is  a  consensus  in  favour 
of  Rome,  and  everything  in  the  circumstances  and 
names  of  the  Epistle  leads  to  the  same  conclusion 
(i&tf.).  , 

Structure  and  Characteristics. — The  peculiarities 
of  language,  so  far  as  they  affect  the  question  of  au 
thorship,  have  been  already  noticed.  Assumbg 
the  genuineness  of  the  Epistles,  some  characteristic 
features  remain  to  be  noticed. 

(1)  The  ever-deepening  sense  in  St.  Paul's  heart 
of  the  Divine  Mercy,  of  which  he  was  the  object, 
as  shown  in  the  insertion  of  eXeos  in  the  salutations 
«f  both  Epistles,  and  in  the  ij\^0iiv  of  1  Tim.  i.  13. 


*•  The  qualifying  words  might  have  been  omitted,  but 
for  the  fact  that  it  has  been  suggested  that  Demas,  having 
forsaken  St.  Paul  "cucnted  and  returned  (Lardner. 


b  The  conjecture  that  the  "  leaving "  referred  to  tooV 
place  during  the  voyage  of  Acts  xxvii.  is  purely  arbitrary 
aud  at  variance  with  verb.  5  and  6  of  that  chapter. 


1512 


TIN 


(2)  The  greater  abruptness  of  the  Second  Epistle. 
From  first  to  last  there  is  no  plan,  no  treatment  of 
subjects  carefully  thought  out.     All  speaks  of  strong 
overflowing  emotion,  memories  of  the  past,  anxieties 
about  the  future. 

(3)  The  absence,  as  compared  with  St.  Paul's 
other  Epistles,  of  Old  Testament  references.     This 
may  connect  itself  with  the  fact  just  noticed,  that 
these  Epistles  are  not  argumentative,  possibly  also 
with  the  request  for  the  "  books  and  parchments  " 
which  had  been  left  behind  (2  Tim.  iv.  13).     He 
may  have  been  separated  for  a  time  from  the  If  pit 
ypdwuara,  which  were  commonly  his  companions. 

(4)  The  conspicuous  position   of  the   "faithful 
sayings"  as   taking   the   place   occupied  in  other 
Epistles  by  the  0.  T.  Scriptures.      The  way  in 
which  these  are  cited  as  authoritative,  the  variety 
of  subjects  which  they  cover,  suggest  the  thought 
that  in  them  we  have  specimens  of  the  prophecies 
of  the  Apostolic  Church  which  had  most  impressed 
themselves  on  the  mind  of  the  Apostle,  and  of  the 
disciples  generally.     1  Cor.  xiv.  shows  how  deep  a 
reverence  he  was  likely  to  feel  for  such  spiritual 
utterances.     In   1  Tim.  iv.  1,  we  have  a  distinct 
reference  to  them. 

(5)  The  tendency  of  the  Apostle's  mind  to  dwell 
more  on  the  universality  of  the  redemptive  work  of 
Christ  (1  Tim.  ii.  3-6,  iv.  10),  his  strong  desire  that 
all  the  teaching  of  his  disciples  should  be  "  sound  " 
(vytaivovffa),   commending  itself  to  minds  in   a 
healthy  state,   his  fear  of  the  corruption  of  that 
teaching  by  moi'bid  subtleties. 

(6)  The   importance   attached   by  him   to    the 
practical  details  of  administration.     The  gathered 
experience  of  a  long  life  had  taught  him  that  the 
life  and  well-being  of  the  Church  required  these  for 
its  safeguards. 

(7)  The  recurrence  of  doxologies  (1  Tim.  i.  17, 
vi.  15,  16  ;    2  Tim.  iv.  18)  as  from  one  living 
perpetually  in  the  presence  of  God,  to  whom  the 
language  of  adoration  was  as  his  natural  speech. 

It  has  been  thought  desirable,  in  the  above  dis 
cussion  of  conflicting  theories,  to  state  them  simply 
as  they  stand,  with  the  evidence  on  which  they  rest, 
without  encumbering  the  page  with  constant  re 
ference  to  authorities.  The  names  of  writers  on  the 
N.  T.  in  such  a  case,  where  the  grounds  of  reason 
ing  are  open  to  all,  add  little  or  nothing  to  the 
weight  of  the  conclusions  drawn  from  them.  Full 
particulars  will,  however,  be  found  in  the  intro 
ductions  of  Alford,  Wordsworth,  Huther,  Davidson, 
Wiesinger,  Hug.  Conybeare  and  Howson  (App.  i.) 
give  a  good  tabular  summary  both  of  the  objections 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  Epistles  and  of  the  answers 
to  them,  and  a  clear  statement  in  favour  of  the  later 
date.  The  most  elaborate  argument  in  favour  of  the 
earlier  is  to  be  found  in  N.  Lardner,  History  of  Apost. 
and  Evang.  (  Works,  vi.  pp.  315-375).  [E.  H.  P.] 


TIN  (  /H3  :  Kaffffirepos  :  stannum).  Among 
the  various  metals  found  among  the  spoils  of  the 
Midianites,  tin  is  enumerated  (Num.  xxxl,  22), 
It  was  known  to  the  Hebrew  metal-workers  as  an 
alloy  of  other  metals  (Is.  i.  25  ;  Ez.  xxii.  18,  20). 
The  markets  of  Tyre  were  supplied  with  it  by  the 
ships  of  Tarshish  (Ez.  xxvii.  12).  It  was  used  for 
plummets  (Zech.  iv.  10),  and  was  so  plentiful  as  to 
furnish  the  writer  of  Ecclesiasticus  (xlvii.  18)  with 
a  tigure  by  which  to  express  the  wealth  of  Solomon, 
whom  he  apostrophizes  thus:  "Thou  didst  gather 
fold  as  tin,  and  didst,  multiply  silver  as  lead."  In 
the  Homeric  limes  the  Greeks  were  familiar  with  it. 


TIN 

Twenty  layers  of  tin  were  in  Agamemnon's  cuirass 
given  him  by  Kinyres  (//.  xi.  25),  and  twenty  bosses 
of  tin  were  upon  his  shield  (//.  xi.  34).  Copper, 
tin,  and  gold  were  used  by  Hephaestus  in  welding 
the  famous  shield  of  Achilles  (//.  xviii.  474).  The 
fence  round  the  vineyard  in  the  device  upon  it  was 
of  tin  (//.  xviii.  564),  and  the  oxen  were  wrought 
of  tin  and  gold  (ibid.  574).  The  greaves  of  Achilles ; 
made  by  Hephaestus,  were  of  tin  beaten  fine,  close 
fitting  to  the  limb  (II.  xviii.  612,  \ti.  592).  His 
shield  had  two  folds  or  layers  of  t.n  between  two 
outer  layers  of  bronze  and  an  inner  layer  of  gold 
(//.  xx.  271).  Tin  was  used  in  ornamenting  chariots 
(//.  xxiii.  503),  and  a  cuirass  of  bronze  overlaid 
with  tin  is  mentioned  in  IL  xxiii.  561.  No  allu 
sion  to  it  is  found  in  the  Odyssey.  The  melting 
of  tin  in  a  smel ting-pot  is  mentioned  by  Hesiod 
(Tfieog.  862). 

Tin  is  not  found  in  Palestine.  Whence,  then,  did 
the  ancient  Hebrews  obtain  their  supply?  "  Only 
three  countries  are  known  to  contain  any  consider 
able  quantity  of  it :  Spain  and  Portugal,  Cornwall 
and  the  adjacent  parts  of  Devonshire,  and  the  islands 
of  Junk,  Ceylon,  and  Banca,  in  the  Straits  of  Ma 
lacca"  (Kenrick,  Phoenicia,  p.  212).  According 
to  Diodorus  Siculus  (v.  46)  there  were  tin-mines  in 
the  island  of  Panchaia,  of?  the  east  coast  of  Arabia, 
but  the  metal  was  not  exported.  '  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  mines  of  Britain  were  the 
chief  source  of  supply  to  the  ancient  world.  Mr. 
Cooley,  indeed,  writes  very  positively  (Maritime 
and  Inland  Discovery,  i.  131)  :  "  There  can  be  no 
difficulty  in  determining  the  country  from  which 
tin  first  arrived  in  Egypt.  That  metal  has  been  in 
all  ages  a  principal  export  of  India :  it  is  enume 
rated  as  such  by  Arrian,  who  found  it  abundant  ic 
the  ports  of  Arabia,  at  a  time  when  the  supplies  of 
Rome  flowed  chiefly  through  that  channel.  The 
tin-mines  of  Banca  are  probably  the  richest  in  the 
world ;  but  tin  was  unquestionably  brought  from 
the  West  at  a  later  period."  But  it  has  been 
shown  conclusively  by  Dr.  George  Smith  (The  Cas- 
siterides,  Lend.  1863)  that,  so  far  from  such  a 
statement  being  justified  by  the  authority  of  Arrian, 
the  facts  are  all  the  other  way.  After  examining 
the  commerce  of  the  ports  of  Abyssinia,  Arabia,  and 
India,  it  is  abundantly  evident  that,  "  instead  of  its 
coming  from  the  East  to  Egypt,  it  has  been  invari 
ably  exported  from  Egypt  to  the  East"  (p.  23). 
With  regard  to  the  tin  obtained  from  Spain,  although 
the  metal  was  found  there,  it  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  produced  in  sufficient  quantities  to  supply 
the  Phoenician  markets.  Posidonius  (in  Strab.  iii. 
p.  147)'  relates  that  in  the  country  of  the  Artabri, 
in  the  extreme  N.W.  of  the  peninsula,  the  ground 
was  bright  with  silver,  tin,  and  white  gold  (mixed 
with  silver),  which  were  brought  down  by  the 
rivers  ;  but  the  quantity  thus  obtained  could  not 
have  been  adequate  to  the  demand.  At  the  present 
day  the  whole  surface  bored  for  mining  in  Spain  is 
little  more  than  a  square  mile  (Smith,  Cassiterides, 
p.  46).  We  are  therefore  driven  to  conclude  that 
it  was  from  the  Cassiterides,  or  tin  districts  of 
Britain,  thai  the  Phoenicians  obtained  the  great 
bulk  of  this  commodity  (Sir  G.  C.  Lewis,  Hist. 
Survey  of  the  Astr.  of  the  Anc.  p.  451),  and  that 
this  was  done  by  the  direct  voyage  from  Gades.  It 
is  true  that  at  a  later  period  (Strabo,  iii.  147)  tin 
was  conveyed  overland  to  Marseilles  by  a  thirty 
days'  journey  (Diod.  Sic.  v.  2);  but  Strabo  (iii. 
175)  tells  us  that  the  Phoenicians  alone  carried  oil 
this  traffic  in  former  times  from  Gades,  concealing 


TIPHSAH 

the  passage  from  every  one  ;  and  that  on  one  occa 
sion,  when  the  Komans  followed  one  of  their  vessels 
iu  order  to  discover  the  source  of  supply,  the  master 
of  the  ship  ran  upon  a  shoal,  leading  those  who 
followed  him  to  destruction.  In  course  of  time, 
however,  the  Romans  discovered  the  passage.  In 
Ezekiel,  «  the  trade  in  tin  is  attributed  to  Tarshish, 
as  '  the  merchant'  for  the  commodity,  without  any 
mention  of  the  place  whence  it  was  procured" 
(Cassiterides,  p.  74);  and  it  is  after  the  time  of 
Julius  Caesar  that  we  first  hear  of  the  overland 
traffic  by  Marseilles. 

Pliny  (vi.  36)  identifies  the  cassiteros  of  the 
Greeks  with  the  plumbum  album  or  candidum  of 
the  Komans,  which  is  our  tin.  Stannum,  he  says, 
is  obtained  from  an  ore  containing  lead  and  silver, 
and  is  the  first  to  become  melted  in  the  furnace. 
It  is  the  same  which  the  Germans  call  Werk,  and  is 
apparently  the  meaning  of  the  Hebr.  bedil  in  Is.  i. 
25.  The  etymology  of  cassiteros  is  uncertain. 
From  the  fact  that  in  Sanscrit  kastira  signifies 
"  tin,"  an  argument  has  been  derived  in  favour  of 
India  being  the  source  of  the  ancient  supply  of  this 
metal,  but  too  much  stress  must  not  be  laid  upon 
it.  [LEAD.]  [W.  A.  W.j 

TIPH'SAH    (np^n:      0epcr<£  :      Thaphsa, 

Thapsa]  is  mentioned  in  1  K.  iv.  24  as  the  limit 
of  Solomon's  empire  towards  the  Euphrates,  and  in 
2  K.  xv.  16  it  is  said  to  have  been  attacked  by 
Menahem,  king  of  Israel,  who  "  smote  Tiphsah  and 
all  that  were  therein,  and  all  the  coasts  thereof." 
It  is  generally  admitted  that  the  town  intended,  at 
Any  rate  in  the  former  passage,  is  that  which  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  knew  under  the  name  of 
Fhapsacus  (0at|/o«:oy),  situated  in  Northern  Syria, 
at  the  point  where  it  was  usual  to  cross  the 
Euphrates  (Strab.  xvi.  1,  §21).  The  name  is 
therefore,  reasonably  enough,  connected  with  HDS 
"to  pass  over"  (Winer,  RealwSrterbuch,  ii.  618), 
and  is  believed  to  correspond  in  meaning  to  the 
Greek  iropos,  the  German  furt,  and  our  "  ford." 

Thapsacus  was  a  town  of  considerable  importance 
in  the  ancient  world.  Xenophon,  who  saw  it  in 
the  time  of  Cyrus  the  younger,  calls  it  "  great  and 
prosperous  "  (/teyoArj  Kal  €v5ai/j.cav,  Anab.  i.  4, 
§11).  It  must  have  been  a  place  of  considerable 
trade,  the  land-traffic  between  East  and  West  pass 
ing  through  it,  first  on  account  of  its  ford  way 
(which  was  the  lowest  upon  the  Euphrates),  and 
then  on  account  of  its  bridge  (Strab.  xvi.  1,  §23), 
while  it  was  likewise  the  point  where  goods  were 
both  embarked  for  transport  down  the  stream  (Q. 
Curt.  x.  1),  and  also  disembarked  from  boats  which 
had  come  up  it,  to  be  conveyed  on  to  their  final 
destination  by  land  (Strab.  xvi.  3,  §4).  It  is  a 
fair  conjecture  that  Solomon's  occupation  of  the 
place  was  connected  vrith  his  efforts  to  establish  a 
line  of  trade  with  Central  Asia  directly  across  the 
continent,  and  that  Tadmor  was  intended  as  a 
resting-place  on  the  journey  to  Thapsacus. 

Tkipsacus  was  the  place  at  which  armies  march 
ing  east  or  west  usually  crossed  the  "  Great  River." 
It  was  there  that  the  Ten  Thousand  first  learnt  the 
real  intentions  of  Cyrus,  and,  consenting  to  aid  him 
m  his  enterprise,  passed  the  stream  (Xen.  Anab.  i. 
4,  §11).  There  too  Darius  Codomannus  crossed  on 


a  This  is  clear  from  the  very  name  of  the  place,  and  is 
xmfirmed  by  modern  researches.  When  the  natives  told 
Cyrus  that  the  stream  had  acknowledged  him  as  its  king, 
bluing  never  been  forded  until  his  army  waded  through  it, 


TIRAS  1513 

his  flight  from  Issus  (Arr.  Exp.  Al.  ii.  13) ;  and 
Alexander,  following  at  his  leisure,  made  hi?,  pas- 
sage  at  the  same  point  (ib.  iii.  7).  A  briJge  of 
boats  was  usually  maintained  at  the  place  bv  the 
Persian  kings,  which  was  of  course  broken  up  wneii 
danger  threatened.  Even  then,  however,  the  stream 
could  in  general  be  ibrded,  unless  in  the  flood- 
season  .• 

It  has  been  generally  supposed  that  the  site  of 
Thapsacus  was  the  modern  Deir  (D'Anville,  Hen- 
nell,  Vaux,  &c.).  But  the  Euphrates  expedition 
proved  that  there  is  no  ford  at  Deir,  and  indeed 
showed  that  the  only  ford  in  this  part  of  the  course 
of  the  Euphrates  is  at  Suriyeh,  45  miles  below 
Balis,  and  1 65  above  Deir  (Ainsworth,  Travels  in 
the  Track  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  p.  70).  This  then 
must  have  been  the  position  of  Thapsacus.  Here 
the  river  is  exactly  of  the  width  mentioned  by 
Xenophon  (4  stades  or  800  yards),  and  here  for 
four  months  in  the  winter  of  1841-1842  the  river 
had  but  20  inches  of  water  (ib.  p.  72). 

"  The  Euphrates  is  at  this  spot  full  of  beauty 
and  majesty.  Its  stream  is  wide  and  its  waters 
generally  clear  and  blue.  Its  banks  are  low  and 
level  to  the  left,  but  undulate  gently  to  the  right. 
Previous  to  arriving  at  this  point  the  course  of  the 
river  is  southerly,  but  here  it  turns  to  the  east, 
expanding  more  like  an  inland  lake  than  a  river, 
and  quitting  (as  Pliny  has  described  it)  the  Pal- 
myrean  solitudes  for  the  fertile  Mygdonia"  (ib.) 
A  paved  causeway  is  visible  on  either  side  of  the 
Euphrates  at  Suriyeh,  and  a  long  line  of  mounds 
may  be  traced,  disposed,  something  like  those  oi 
Nineveh,  in  the  form  of  an  irregular  parallelogram. 
These  mounds  probably  mark  the  site  of  the  ancient 
city.  [G.  R.] 

TI'KAS  (DTfi  :  0e/v»s :  Thiras}.  The 
youngest  son  of  Japheth  (Gei.  x.  2).  As  the  name 
occurs  only  in  the  ethnological  table,  we  have  no 
clue,  as  far  as  the  Bible  is  concerned,  to  guide  us 
as  to  'the  identification  of  it  with  any  particular 
people.  Ancient  authorities  generally  fixed  on  the 
Thracians,  as  presenting  the  closest  verbal  approxi 
mation  to  the  name  (Joseph.  Ant.  i.  6,  §1 ;  Jerome, 
in  Gen.  x.  2 ;  Targums  Pseudoj.  and  Jerus.  on 
Gen.  I.e.  ;  Targ.  on  1  Chr.  i.  5):  the  occasional 
rendering  Persia  probably  originated  in  a  corruption 
of  the  original  text.  The  correspondence  between 
Thrace  and  Tiras  is  not  so  complete  as  to  be  con 
vincing  ;  the  gentile  form  ®pq£  brings  them  nearer 
together,  but  the  total  absence  of  the  i  in  the 
Greek  name  is  observable.  Granted,  however,  the 
verbal  identity,  no  objection  would  arise  on  ethno 
logical  grounds  to  placing  the  Thracians  among 
the  Japhetic  races.  Their  precise  ethnic  position 
is  indeed  involved  in  great  uncertainty ;  but  all 
authorities  agree  in  their  general  Indo-European 
character.  The  evidence  of  this  is  circumstantial 
rather  than  direct.  The  language  has  disappeared, 
with  the  exception  of  the  ancient  names  and  tha 
single  word  bria,  which  forms  the  termination  of 
Mesembria,  Selymbria,  &c.,  and  is  said  to  signify 
"  town  "  (Strab.  vii.  p.  319).  The  Thracian  stock 
was  represented '  in  later  times  by  the  Getae,  and 
these  again,  still  later,  by  the  Daci,  each  of  whom 
inherited  the  old  Thracian  tongue  (Strab.  vii. 
p.  303).  But  this  circumstance  throws  little  light 


they  calculated  on  his  ignorance,  or  thought  he  would  not 
examine  too  strictly  Into  the  groundwork  of  a  complimeuC 
(See  Xen.  Anab.  i.  4,  $11.) 


1514          TIRATHITES,  THE 

on  the  subject;  for  the  Dacian  language  has  also 
disappeared,  though  fragments  of  its  vocabulary 
may  possibly  exist  either  in  Wallachian  dialects  or 
perhaps  in  the  Albanian  language  (Diefenbach,  Or. 
Eur.  p.  68).  If  Grimm's  identification  of  the 
Getae  with  the  Goths  were  established,  the  Teu 
tonic  affinities  of  the  Thracians  would  be  placed 
beyond  question  (Gesch.  Deuts.  Spr.  i.  178)  ;  but 
this  view  does  not  meet  with  general  acceptance. 
The  Thracians  are  associated  in  ancient  history  with 
the  Pelasgians  (Strab.  ix.  p.  401),  and  the  Trojans, 
with  whom  they  had  many  names  in  common 
yStrab.  xiii.  p.  590) ;  in  Asia  Minor  they  were 
represented  by  the  Bithynians  (Herod,  i.  28,  vii. 
75).  These  circumstances  lead  to  the  conclusion 
that  they  belonged  to  the  Indo-European  family, 
but  do  not  warrant  us  in  assigning  them  to  any 
particular  branch  of  it.  Other  explanations  have 
been  offered  of  the  name  Tiras,  of  which  we  may  notice 
the  Agathyrsi,  the  first  part  of  the  name  (Ago) 
being  treated  as  a  prefix  (Knobel,  Vdlkert.  p.  129)  ; 
Taurus  and  the  various  tribes  occupying  that  range 
(Ivalisch,  Comm.  p.  246)  ;  the  river  Tyras,  Dnies 
ter,  with  its  cognominous  inhabitants,  the  Tyritae 
(Havernick,  Einkit.  ii.  231;  Schulthess,  Parad. 
p.  194)  ;  and,  lastly,  the  maritime  Tyrrheni  (Tuch, 
in  Gen.  1.  c.).  [W.  L.  B.] 

TI'KATHITES,  THE  (D'njpn  :  rofcef/t ; 
Alex.  Apyadiei/j.:  Canentes}.  One  of  the  three 
families  of  Scribes  residing  at  Jabez  (1  Chr.  ii.  55), 
the  others  being  the  Shimeathites  and  Suchathites. 
The  passage  is  hopelessly  obscure,  and  it  is  perhaps 
impossible  to  discover  whence  these  three  families 
derived  their  names.  The  Jewish  commentators, 
playing  with  the  names  in  true  Shemitic  fashion,  in 
terpret  them  thus :  —  "  They  called  them  Tira- 
thim,  because  their  voices  when  they  sung  resounded 
loud  (JT)R) ;  and  Shimeathites  because  they  made 
themselves  heard  (#££>)  in  reading  the  Law." 

The  SHIMEATHITES  having  been  inadvertently 
omitted  in  their  proper  place,  it  may  be  as  well  to 
give  here  the  equivalents  of  the  name  (D^fl^Et^ . 
2ja,ua0tei/ti :  Resonantes],  L^-] 

TIKE  (INS).  An  ornamental  headdress  worn 
on  festive  occasions  (Ez.  xxiv.  17,  23).  The  term 
peer  is  elsewhere  rendered  "  goodly  "  (Ex.  xxxix. 
28);  "bonnet"  (Is.  iii.  20;  Ez.  xliv.  18);  and 
"  ornament  "  (Is.  Ixi.  10).  For  the  character  of 
the  article,  see  HEADDRESS.  [W.  L.  B.] 

TIB'HAKAH  (Hjjrnn  :  Gapaicd:  Tharacd). 
King  of  Ethiopia,  Cush\pa(ri\€vs  PdQitiruv,  LXX.), 
the  opponent  of  Sennacherib  (2  K.  xix.  9 ;  Is. 
xxxvii.  9).  While  the  king  of  Assyria  was  "  warring 
against  Libnah,"  in  the  south  of  Palestine,  he  heard 
of  Tirhakah's  advance  to  fight  him,  and  sent  a 
second  time  to  demand  the  surrender  of  Jerusalem. 
This  was  B.C.  cir.  713,  unless  we  suppose  that  the 
expedition  took  place  in  the  24th  instead  of  the 
14th  year  of  Hezekiah,  which  would  bring  it  to 
B.C.  cir.  703.  If  it  were  an  expedition  later  than 
that  of  which  the  date  is  mentioned,  it  must  have 
been  before  B.C.  cir.  698,  Hezekiah's  last  year. 
But  if  the  reign  of  Manasseh  is  reduced  to  35 
years,  these  dates  would  be  respectively  B.C.  cir. 
693,  6*3,  and  678,  and  these  numbers  might  have 
to  be  slightly  modified,  the  fixed  date  of  the  cap 
ture  of  Samaria,  B.C.  721,  being  abandoned. 

According  to  Manetho's  epitomists,  Tarkos  or 
Turakos  was  the  third  and  last  kinp;  of  the  xxvth 


TIRSHATHA 

dynasty,  which  was  of  Ethiopians,  and  reigned  18 
(Air.)  or  20  (Eus.)  years.  [So.]  From  one  )f  tbd 
Apis-Tablets  we  learn  that  a  bull  Apis  was  bcni  in 
his  26th  year,  and  died  at  the  end  of  the  20th  ol 
Psammetichus  I.  of  the  xxvith  dynasty.  Its  life 
exceeded  20  years,  and  no  Apis  is  stated  to  have 
lived  longer  than  26.  Taking  that  sum  as  the 
most  probable,  we  should  date  Tirhakah's  accession 
B.C.  cir.  695,  and  assign  him  a  reign  of  26  years. 
In  this  case  we  should  be  obliged  to  take  the  latei 
reckoning  of  the  Biblical  events,  were  it  not  for  the 
possibility  that  Tirhakah  ruled  over  Ethiopia  before 
becoming  king  of  Egypt.  In  connexion  with  this 
theory  it  must  be  observed,  that  an  earlier  Ethi 
opian  of  the  same  dynasty  is  called  in  the  Bible 
"  So,  king  of  Egypt,"  while  this  ruler  is  called 
"  Tirhakah,  king  of  Ethiopia/'  and  that  a  Pharaoh  is 
spoken  of  in  Scripture  at  the  period  of  the  latter,  and 
also  that  Herodotus  represents  the  Egyptian  opponent 
of  Sennacherib  as  Sethos,  a  native  king,  who  may 
however  have  been  a  vassal  under  the  Ethiopian. 

The  name  of  Tirhakah  is  written  in  hieroglyphics 
TEHARKA.  Sculptures  at  Thebes  commemorate 
his  rule,  and  at  Gebel-Berkel,  or  Napata,  he  con 
structed  one  temple  and  part  of  another.  Of  the 
events  of  his  reign  little  else  is  known,  and  the  ac 
count  of  Megasthenes  (ap.  Strabo  xv.  p,  686j,  that 
he  rivalled  Sesostris  as  a  warrior  and  reached  the 
Pillars  of  Hercules,  is  not  supported  by  other  evi 
dence.  It  is  probable  that  at  the  close  of  his  reign 
he  found  the  Assyrians  too  powerful,  and  retired  to 
his  Ethiopian  dominions.  [R.  S.  P.] 

TIR'HANAH(n:rnn:  QapdfjL]  Alex.eapx™'- 
Tharand).  Son  of  Caleb  ben-Hezron  by  his  con 
cubine  Maachah  (1  Chr.  ii.  48j. 

TIR'IA  (Kn;n :  0*p«£;  Alex.  ®<npi<i :  Thiria} 
Son  of  Jehaleleel  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  (1  Chr. 
iv.  16). 

TIESHA'THA  (always  written  with  the  article, 
NJJKhnn  :  hence  the  LXX.  give  the  word  'A0ep- 
ffaadd  (Ezr.  ii.  63 ;  Neh.  vii.  65),  and  'Apra/xrowrflef 
(Neh.  x.  1) :  Vulg.  Athersatha).  The  title  of  the 
governor  of  Judaea  under  the  Persians,  derived  by 
Gesenius  from  a  Persian  root  signifying  "  stern," 
"  severe."  He  compares  the  title  Gestrenger  Herr 
formerly  given  to  the  magistrates  of  the  free  and 
imperial  cities  of  Germany.  Compare  also  our  ex 
pression,  "  most  dread  sovereign."  It  is  added  as 
a  title  after  the  name  of  Nehemiah  (Neh.  viii.  9, 
x.  1  [Heb.  2]);  and  occurs  also  in  three  other 
places,  Ezr.  ii.  (ver.  63),  and  the  repetition  of  that 
account  in  Neh.  vii.  (vers.  65-70),  where  probably  it 
is  intended  to  denote  Zerubbabel,  who  had  held  the 
office  before  Nehemiah.  In  the  margin  of  the 
A.  V.  (Ezr.  ii.  63  ;  Neh.  vii.  65,  x.  1)  it  is  rendemi 
"  governor ;"  an  explanation  justified  by  Neh.  xii.  26, 
where  "Nehemiah  the  governor,"  nflSSH  (Pecha, 
possibly  from  the  same  root  as  the  word  we  write 
Pacha,  or  Pasha),  occurs  instead  of  the  more  usual 
expression,  "  Nehemiah  the  Tirshatha."  This  word, 
nnQ,  is  one  of  very  common  occurrence.  It  is, 
twice  applied  by  Nehemiah  to  himself  (v.  14,  18), 
and  by  the  prophet  Haggai  (i.  1,  ii.  2,  21)  to  Zerub 
babel.  According  to  Gesenius,  it  denotes  the  prefect 
or  governor  of  a  province  of  less  extent  than  a 
satrapy.  The  word  is  used  of  officers  and  governors 
under  the  Assyrian  (2  K.  xviii.  24,  Is.  xxxvi.  9), 
Babylonian  (Jer.  Ii.  57,  Ez.  xxiii.  6,  23  ;  see  also 
Ezr.  v.  3,  14,  vi.  7,  Daii.  iii.  2,  3,  27,  vi.  7  [HeU 


TIBZAH 

8]),  Median  (Jer.  U.  28),  and  Persian  (Esth.  viii.  9, 
fx.  3)  monarchies.  And  under  this  last  we  find 
it  applied  to  the  rulers  of  the  provinces  bordered 
by  the  Euphrates  (Ezr.  viii.  36,  Neh.  ii.  7,  9,  iii. 
7),  and  to  the  governors  of  Judaea,  Zerubbabel  and 
Nehemiah  (compare  Mai.  i.  8).  It  is  found  also  at 
an  earlier  period  in  the  times  of  Solomon  (1  K.  x. 
15,  2  Chr.  ix.  14)  and  Benhadad  king  of  Syria 
(1  K.  xx.  24)  :  from  which  last  place,  compared 
with  others  (2  K.  xviii.  24,  Is.  xxxvi.  9),  we  find 
that  military  commands  were  often  held  by  these 
governors  ;  the  word  indeed  is  often  rendered  by  the 
A.  V.,  either  in  the  text  or  the  margin,  "  captain." 
By  thus  briefly  examining  the  sense  of  Pecha, 
which  (though  of  course  a  much  more  general  and 
less  distinctive  word)  is  given  as  an  equivalent  to 
Tirshatha,  we  have  no  difficulty  in  forming  an  opinion 
as  to  the  general  notion  implied  in  it.  We  have,  how 
ever,  no  sufficient  information  to  enable  us  to  explain 
in  detail  in  what  consisted  the  special  peculiarities 
in  honour  or  functions  which  distinguished  the  Tir 
shatha  from  others  of  the  same  class,  governors, 
captains,  princes,  rulers  of  provinces.  [E.  P.  E.] 


TISHUITE,  THE 


1516 


TIR'ZAH 


f.   e.    Thirza  : 


Thersci).  The  youngest  of  the  five  daughters  of 
Zelophehad,  \yhose  case  originated  the  law  that  in 
the  event  of  a  man  dying  without  male  issue  his 
property  should  pass  to  his  daughters  (Num.  xxvi. 
o3,  xxvii.  1,  xxxvi.  •!!  ;  Josh.  xvii.  3).  [ZELO 
PHEHAD.]  [G.] 

TIR'ZAH  (n^lfi  :  ©opera,  06p<rS,  ®ap<rei\a; 
Alex.  ®ep/*a,  0ep<ra,  ®ep<ri\a  :  Thersci).  An 
ancient  Canaanite  city,  whose  king  is  enumerated 
amongst  the  twenty-one  overthrown  in  the  conquest 
of  "the  countiy  (Josh.  xii.  24).  From  that  time 
nothing  is  heard  of  it  till  after  the  disruption  of 
Israel  and  Judah.  It  then  reappears  as  a  royal 
city  —  the  residence  of  Jeroboam  (1  K.  xiv.  b  17),  and 
of  his  successors,  Baasha  (xv.  21,  33),  Elah  (xvi. 
8,  9),  and  Zimri  (ib.  15).  It  contained  the  royal 
sepulchres  of  one  (xvi.  6),  and  probably  all  the 
first  four  kings  of  the  northern  kingdom.  Zimri 
was  besieged  there  by  Omri,  and  perished  in  the 
flames  of  his  palace  (ib.  18).  The  new  king  con 
tinued  to  reside  there  at  first,  but  after  six  years  he 
removed  to  a  new  city  which  he  built  and  named 
Shomion  (Samaria),  and  which  continued  to  be  the 
capital  of  the  northern  kingdom  till  its  fail.  Once, 
and  once  only,'  does  Tirzah  reappear,  as  the  seat  of 
the  conspiracy  of  Menahem  ben-Gaddi  against  the 
.wretched  Shallum  (2  K.  xv.  14,  16);  but  as  soon 
as  his  revolt  had  proved  successful,  Menahem  re 
moved  the  seat  of  his  government  to  Samaria,  and 
Tirzah  was  again  left  in  obscurity. 

Its  reputation  for  beauty  throughout  the  country 
must  have  been  wide-spread.  It  is  in  this  sense 
that  it  is  mentioned  in  the  c  Song  of  Solomon,  where 
the  juxtaposition  of  Jerusalem  is  sufficient  proof  of 


the  estimation  in  which  it  was  held—"  Beautiful 
as  Tirzah,  comely  as  Jerusalem  "  (Cant.  vi.  4).  The 
LXX.  (euSo/cta)  and  Vulg.  (suavis)  do  not,  however, 
take  tirtsah  as  a  proper  name  in  this  passage. 

Eusebius  (Onomast.  ®apai\dd)  mentions  it  ir. 
connexion  with  Menahem,  and  identifies  it  with  a 
"  village  of  Samaritans  in  Batanaea."  There  is, 
however,  nothing  in  the  Bible  to  lead  to  the  inference 
that  the  Tirzah  of  the  Israelite  monarchs  was  on  the 
east  of  Jordan.  It  does  not  appear  to  be  mentioned 
by  the  Jewish  topographers,  or  any  of  the  Christian 
travellers  of  the  middle  ages,  except  Brocardus, 
who  places  "  Thersa  on  a  high  mountain,  three 
leagues  (leucae}  from  Samaria  to  the  eeast"  (De- 
scriptio,  cap.  vii.).  This  is  exactly  the  direction, 
and  very  nearly  the  distance,  of  Telluzah,  a  place 
in  the  mountains  north  of  Nabliis,  which  was  visited 
by  Dr.  Robinson  and  Mr.  Van  de  Velde  in  1852 
(B.  R.  iii.  302;  Syr.  and  Pal.  iii.  334).  The 
town  is  on  an  eminence,  which  towards  the  east  is 
exceedingly  lofty,  though,  being  at  the  edge  of  the 
central  highlands,  it  is  more  approachable  from  the 
west.  The  place  is  large  and  thriving,  but  with 
out  any  obvious  marks  of  antiquity.  The  name 
may  very  probably  be  a  corruption  of  Tirzah  ;  but 
beyond  that  similarity,  and  the'  general  agreement 
of  the  site  with  the  requirements  of  the  narrative, 
there  is  nothing  at  present  to  establish  the  identifi 
cation  with  certainty.  L^O 

TISH'BITE,  THE  (»3BW  :   &  0ecrj8e*Ti7S  ; 

Alex.  f0e<rj8tT7js:  Thesbites).  The  well-known  de 
signation  of  Elijah  (1  K.  xvii.  1,  xxi.  17,  28  ;  2  K, 
i.  3,  8,  ix.  36). 

(1.)  The  name  naturally  points  to  a  place  called 
Tishbeh  (Fiirst),  Tishbi,  or  rather  perhaps  Tesheb, 
as  the  residence  of  the  prophet.  And  indeed  tha 
word  »nPn»,  -which  follows  it  in  1  K.  xvii.  1, 


and  which  in  the  received  Hebrew  Text  is  so  pointed 
as  to  mean  "from  the  residents,"  may,  without 
violence  or  grammatical  impropriety,  be  pointed  to 
read  "  from  Tishbi."  This  latter  reading  appears 
to  have  been  followed  by  the  LXX.  (6  0ecr0etT7|5 
6  6/c  ©co-jSwy);  Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  13,  §2,  iro- 
\ecas  ©eo-jSwi'rjs),  and  the  Targum  (l^'inD^, 
"  from  out  of  Toshab")  ;  and  it  has  the  support  of 
Ewald  (Gesch.  iii.  468  note}.  It  is  also  supported 
by  the  fact,  which  seems  to  have  escaped  notice, 
that  the  word  does  not  in  this  passage  contain 
the  1  which  is  present  in  each  one  of  the  places 
where  3,W}F\  is  used  as  a  mere  appellative  noun. 
Had  the  1  been  present  in  1  K.  xvii.  1,  the  inter 
pretation  "from  Tishbi"  could  never  have  been 
proposed. 

Assuming,  however,  that  a  town  is  alluded  to, 
as  Elijah's  native  place,  it  is  not  necessary  to  infer 
that  it  was  itself  in  Gilead,  as  Epiphanius,  Adricho- 
mius,  eCastell,  and  others  have  imagined  ;  for  the 


»  In  this  passage  the  order  of  the  names  is  altered 
hi  the  Hebrew  text  from  that  preserved  in  the  other 
passages— and  still  more  so  in  the  LXX. 

b  The  LXX.  version  of  the  narrative  of  which  this  verse 
forms  part,  amongst  other  remarkable  variations  from  the 
Hebrew  text,  substitutes  Sarira,  that  is,  Zereda,  for  Tirzah. 
In  this  they  are  supported  by  no  other  version. 

c  Its  occurrence  here  on  a  level  with  Jerusalem  has 
been  held  to  indicate  that  the  Song  of  Songs  was  the 
work  of  a  writer  belonging  to  the  northern  kingdom. 
But  surely  a  poet,  and  so  ardent  a  poet  as  the  author 
3f  the  Song  of  Songs,  may  have  been  sufficiently 


dependent  of  political  considerations  to  go  out  of  his 
own  country— if  Tirzah  can  be  said  to  be  out  of  the 
country  of  a  native  of  Judah — for  a  metaphor. 

<«  It  will  be  observed  that  the  name  stood  in  the  LXX. 
of  2  K.  xv.  14  in  Eusebius'  time  virtually  in  the  same 
strange  un-hebrew  form  that  it  now  does. 

e  Schwarz  (150)  seems  merely  to  repeat  this  passage. 

f  The  Alex.  MS.  omits  the  word  in  1  K.  xvii.  1,  and 
both  MSS.  omit  it  in  xxi.  28,  which  they  cast,  with  the 
whole  passage,  in  a  different  form  from  the  Hebrew  text. 

g  This  lexicographer  pretends  to  have  been  in  possession 
of  some  special  information  as  to  the  situation  of  the  place, 


1510  TITANS 

word  3£^Jn,  which  in  the  A.  V.  is  rendered  by  the 
general  term  "  inhabitant,"  has  really  the  special 
force  of  "resident"  or  even11  "stranger."  This, 
and  the  fact  that  a  place  with  a  similar  name  is  not 
elsewhere  mentioned,  has  induced  the  commentators1 
and  lexicographers,  with  few  exceptions,  to  adopt 
the  name  "  Tishbite "  as  referring  to  the  place 
THISBE  in  Naphtali,  which  is  found  in  the  LXX. 
text  of  Tobit  i.  2.  The  difficulty  in  the  way  of  this 
is  the  great  uncertainty  in  which  the  text  of  that 
passage  is  involved,  as  has  already  been  shown  under 
the  head  of  THISBE  ;  an  uncertainty  quite  sufficient 
to  destroy  any  dependence  on  it  as  a  topographical 
record,  although  it  bears  the  traces  of  having  ori 
ginally  been  extremely  minute.  Bunsen  (Bibelwerk, 
note  to  1  K.  x  vii.  1 )  suggests  in  support  of  the  reading 
"  the  Tishbite  from  Tishbi  of  Gilead  "  (which  how- 
over  he  does  not  adopt  in  his  text),  that  the  place 
may  have  been  purposely  so  described,  iu  order  to 
distinguish  it  from  the  town  of  the  same  name  in 
Galilee. 

(2.)  But  ^5^nn  has  not  always  been  read  as  a 
proper  name,  referring  to  a  place.  Like  ^t^HD, 
though  exactly  in  reverse,  it  has  been  pointed  so  as 
to  make  it  mean  "  the  stranger."  This  is  done  by 
Michaelis  in  the  Text  of  his  interesting  Bibel  fur 
Uhgelehrten — "  der  Fremdling  Elia,  einer  von  den 
Fremden,  die  in  Gilead  wohnhaft  waren  ;  "  and  it 
throws  a  new  and  impressive  air  round  the  prophet, 
who  was  so  emphatically  the  champion  of  the  God  of 
Israel.  But  this  suggestion  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  adopted  by  any  other  interpreter,  ancient  or 
modern. 

The  numerical  value  of  the  letters  ^ETl  is  712, 
on  which  account,  and  also  doubtless  with  a  view  to 
its  correspondence  with  his  own  name,  Elias  Levita 
entitled  his  work,  in  which  712  words  are  explained, 
Sepher  Tishbi  (Bartolocci,  i.  1406).  [G.] 

TI'TANS  (Tiraves,  of  uncertain  derivation). 
These  children  of  Uranus  (Heaven)  and  Gaia  (Earth) 
were,  according  to  the  earliest  Greek  legends,  the 
vanquished  predecessors  of  the  Olympian  gods,  con 
demned  by  Zeus  to  dwell  in  Tartarus,  yet  not  with 
out  retaining  many  relics  of  their  ancient  dignity 
(Aesch.  Prom.  Vinct.  passim).  By  later  (Latin) 
poets  they  were  confounded  with  the  kindred  Gi 
gantes  (Hor.  Od.  iii.  4,  42,  &c.),  as  the  traditions 
of  the  primitive  Greek  faith  died  away ;  and  both 
terms  were  transferred  by  the  Seventy  to  the  Re- 
phaim  of  ancient  Palestine.  [GiANT.]  The  usual 
Greek  rendering  of  Rephaim  is  indeed  Tiyavrts 
(Gen.  xiv.  5;  Josh.  xii.  4,  &c.),  or,  with  a  yet 
clearer  reference  to  Greek  mythology,  ynyeveis 
(Prov.  ii.  18,  ix.  18),  and  6eo/j.dxoi  (Symmach. 
Prov.  ix.  18,  xxi.  16;  Job  xxvi.  5).  But  in  2  Sam. 
v.  18,  22,  "  the  valley  of  Rephaim"  is  represented 
by  ^  KOI  Act  s  T<av  nrdvoav  instead  of  ^  Kot\as  rwv 
•yiyavrcav,  1  Chr.  xi.  15,  xiv.  9,  13 ;  and  the  same 
rendering  occurs  in  a  Ilexapl.  text  in  2  Sam.  xxiii. 
13.  Thus  Ambrose  defends  his  use  of  a  classical 
allusion  by  a  reference  to  the  Old  Latin  version  of 
2  Sam.  v.,  which  preserved  the  LXX.  rendering 
(De  fde,  iii.  1,  4,  Nam  et  gigantes  et  vallem  Ti- 


TITHE 

tanum  prcphetici  sermonis  series  non  refugit.  Et 
Esaias  Sirenas  .  .  .  dixit).  It  can  therefore  occa 
sion  no  surprise  that  in  the  Greek  version  of  the 
triumphal  hymn  of  Judith,  "  the  sons  of  the  Titans  " 
(viol  TiTdvuv :  Vulg.  filii  Ttfyn :  Old  Latin,  filii 
Dathan;  f.  Tela;  f.  bellatorwn)  stands  parallel 
with  "high  giants,"  fyi]\ol  TlyaiTfs,  where  the 
original  text  probably  had  D'NSTl  and  Dni23.  The 
word  has  yet  another  interesting  point  of  connexion 
with  the  Bible  ;  for  it  may  have  been  from  some 
vague  sense  of  the  struggle  of  the  infernal  and 
celestial  powers,  dimly  shadowed  forth  in  the  clas 
sical  myth  of  the  Titans,  that  several  Christian 
fathers  inclined  to  the  belief  that  Tfirdv  was  the 
mystic  name  of  "  the  beast"  indicated  in  Rev.  xiii. 
18  (Iren.  v.  30,  3  ...  "divinum  putatur  apud 
multos  esse  hoc  nomen  .  .  .  et  ostentationem  quan- 
dam  continet  ultionis  .  .  .  et  alias  autem  et  anti- 
quum,  et  fide  dignum,  et  regale,  magis  autem  et 
tyrannicum  nomen  .  .  .  ut  ex  multis  colligamus 
ne  forte  Titan  vocetur  qui  veniet ").  [B.  F.  W.] 

TITHE.*  Without  inquiring  into  the  reason 
for  which  the  number  tenb  has  been  so  frequently 
preferred  as  a  number  of  selection  in  the  cases  of 
tribute-offerings,  both  sacred  and  secular,  voluntary 
and  compulsory,  we  may  remark  that  numerous 
instances  of  its  use  are  found  both  in  profane  and 
also  in  Biblical  history,  prior  to  or  independently 
of  the  appointment  of  the  Levitical  tithes  under 
the  Law.  In  Biblical  history  the  two  prominent 
instances  are — 1.  Abram  presenting  the  tenth  of  all 
his  property,  according  to  the  Syriac  and  Arabic 
versions  of  Heb.  vii.  and  S.  Jarchi  in  his  Com.,  but 
as  the  passages  themselves  appear  to  show,  of  the 
spoils  of  his  victory,  to  Melchizedek  (Gen.  xiv.  20  ; 
Heb.  vii.  2,  6;  Joseph.  Ant.  i.  10,  §2  ;  Selden,  On 
Tithes,  c.  1).  2.  Jacob,  after  his  vision  at  Luz, 
devoting  a  tenth  of  all  his  property  to  God  in  case 
he  should  return  home  in  safety  (Gen.  xxviii.  22). 
These  instances  bear  witness  to  the  antiquity  of 
tithes,  in  some  shape  or  other,  previous  to  tlie 
Mosaic  tithe-system.  But  numerous  instances  are 
to  be  found  of  the  practice  of  heathen  nations, 
Greeks,  Romans,  Carthaginians,  Arabians,  of  apply 
ing  tenths  derived  from  property  in  general,  from 
spoil,  from  confiscated  goods,  or  from  commercial 
profits,  to  sacred,  and  quasi-sacred,  and  also  to  fiscal 
purposes,  viz.  as  consecrated  to  a  deity,  presented 
as  a  reward  to  a  successful  general,  set  apart  as  a 
tribute  to  a  sovereign,  or  as  a  permanent  source  of 
revenue.  Among  other  passages,  the  following  may 
be  cited:  1  Mace.  xi.  35;  Herod,  i.  89,  iv.  152,  v. 
77,  vii.  132,  ix.  81;  Diod.  Sic.  v.  42,  xi.  33,  xx. 
14;  Paus.  v.  10,  §2,  x.  10,  §1;  Dionys.  Hal.  . 
19,  23 ;  Justin  xviii.  7,  xx.  3 ;  Arist.  Oecon.  ii.  2  ; 
Liv.  v.  21 ;  Polyb.  ix.  39  ;  Cic.  Verr.  ii.  3,  6,  and 
7  (where  tithes  of  wine,  oil,  and  "  minutae  fruges," 
are  mentioned),  Pro  Leg.  Manil.  6;  Plut.  Age*,  c. 
19,  p.  389;  Pliny,  N.  H.  xii.  14;  Macrob.  Sat 
iii.  6  ,  Xen.  Hell.  i.  7,  10,  iv.  3,  21 ;  Rose,  Inscr. 
Gr.  p.  215}  Gibbon,  vol.  iii.  p.  301,  ed.  Smith; 
and  a  remarkable  instance  of  fruits  tithed  and 
offered  to  a  deity,  and  a  feast  made,  of  which  the 


He  says  (Lex.  Helrr.  ed.  Michaelis),  "  Urbs  in  tribu  Gad, 
Jebaa  inter  et  Saron."  Jebaa  should  be  Jecbaa  (i.  e.  Jog- 
behah)  and  this  strange  bit  of  confident  topography  is 
probably  taken  from  the  map  of  Adrichomius,  made  on 
the  principle  of  inserting  every  name  mentioned  in  the 
Bible,  known  or  unknown. 

fc  There  is  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  meaning  of  SK^fl- 
See  Gen.  xxiii.  4  ("  sojourner  "),  Ex.  xii.  45  ("  foreigner  "), 
l.-ev.  7.xv.  C  ("stranger"),  Ts.  xxxix.  12  (" sojourner "). 


It  often  occurs  in  connexion  with  "13,  "  an  alien,"  as  in 
Lev.  xxv.  23, 35,40,  47  6,1  Chr.  xxix.  15.  Besides  the  above 
passages,  Ushab  is  found  in  Lev.  xxii.  10,  xxv.  45,  47  a. 

»  Reland,  Pal.  1035;  Gesenius,  Thes.  1352  b,  &c.  &C. 

>  &««•>»;  decimae:  and  pl'ir.  JinbyO  ;  an 
;  decimas;  from  "^JJ,  "ten." 
Fhilo  derives  Sena,  from  $e'xe<r0cu  (De  X.  Orac.  ii.  184| 


TITHE 

people  of  the  district  partook,  in  Xen.  Exp.  Cyr. 
v.  3,  9,  answering  thus  to  the  Hebrew  poor  man's 
tithe-feast  to  be  mentioned  below. 

The  first  enactment  of  the  Law  in  respect  of 
tithe  is  the  declaration  that  the  tenth  of  all  pro 
duce,  as  well  as  of  flocks  and  cattle,  belongs  to 
Jehovah,  and  must  be  offered  to  Him.  2.  That  the 
tithe  was  to  be  paid  in  kind,  or,  if  redeemed,  with  an 
addition  of  one-fifth  to  its  value  (Lev.  xxvii.  30-33). 
This  tenth,  called  Terumoth,  is  ordered  to  be  assigned 
to  the  Levites,  as  the  reward  of  their  service,  and  it 
is  ordered  further,  that  they  are  themselves  to  de 
dicate  to  the  Lord  a  tenth  of  these  receipts,  which 
is  to  be  devoted  to  the  maintenance  of  the  high 
ly  riest  (Num.  xviii.  21-28). 

This  legislation  is  modified  or  extended  in  the 
Book  of  Deuteronomy, i.  e.  from  thirty-eight  to  forty 
years  later.  Commands  are  given  to  the  people, 
1.  to  bring  their  tithes,  together  with  their  votive 
and  other  offerings  and  first-fruits,  to  the  chosen 
centre  of  worship,  the  metropolis,  there  to  be  eaten 
in  festive  celebration  in  company  with  their  children, 
their  servants,  and  the  Levites  (Deut.  xii.  5-18). 
I.  After  warnings  against  idolatrous  or  virtually 
idolatrous  practices,  and  the  definition  of  clean  as 
distinguished  from  unclean  animals,  among  which 
latter  class  the  swine  is  of  obvious  importance  in 
reference  to  the  subject  of  tithes,  the  legislator 
proceeds  to  direct  that  all  the  produce  of  the  soil 
shall  be  tithed  every  year  (ver.  17  seems  to  sLow 
that  corn,  wine,  and  oil,  alone  are  intended),  and 
that  these  tithes  with  the  firstlings  of  the  flock  and 
herd  are  to  be  eaten  in  the  metropolis.  3.  But  in 
case  of  distance,  pei'mission  is  given  to  convert  the 
produce  into  money,  which  is  to  be  taken  to  the 
appointed  place,  and  there  laid  out  in  the  purchase 
of  food  for  a  festal  celebration,  in  which  the  Levite 
is,  by  special  command,  to  be  included  (Deut.  xiv. 
22-27).  4.  Then  follows  the  direction,  that  at 
the  end  of  three  years,  i.  e.  in  the  course  of  the 
third  and  sixth  years  of  the  Sabbatical  period,  all  the 
tithe  of  that  year  is  to  be  gathered  and  laid  up 
"  within  the  gates,"  f.  e.  probably  in  some  central 
place  in  each  district,  not  at  the  metropolis;  and 
that  a  festival  is  to  be  held,  in  which  the  stranger, 
the  fatherless,  and  the  widow,  together  with  the 
Levite,  are  to  partake  (ib.  vers.  28,  29).  5.  Lastly, 
it  is  ordered  that  after  taking  the  tithe  in  each  third 
year,  "  which  is  the  year  of  tithing,"  c  an  excul 
patory  declaration  is  to  be  made  by  every  Israelite, 
that  he  has  done  his  best  to  fulfil  the  divine  com 
mand  (Deut.  xxvi.  12-14).d 

From  all  this  we  gather,  1.  That  one-tenth  of  the 
whole  produce  of  the  soil  was  to  be  assigned  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  Levites.  2.  That  out  of  this 
the  Levites  were  to  dedicate  a  tenth  to  God,  for 
the  use  of  the  high-priest.  3.  That  a  tithe,  in  all 
probability  a  second  tithe,  was  to  be  applied  to 
festival  purposes.  4.  That  in  every  third  year, 
either  this  festival  tithe  or  a  third  tenth  was  to  be 
eaton  in  company  with  the  poor  and  the  Levites. 
The  question  arises,  were  there  three  tithes  taken 
in  this  third  year ;  or  is  the  third  tithe  only  the 
second  under  a  different  description  ?  That  there 
were  two  yearly  tithes  seems  clear,  both  from  the 
general  tenor  of  the  directions  and  from  the  LXX. 
rendering  of  Deut.  xxvi.  12.  But  it  must  be  allowed 
that  the  third  tithe  is  not  without  support.  1.  Jo- 


TITHE 


1517 


sephus  distinctly  says  that  one-tenth  was  to  be  given 
to  the  priests  and  Levites,  one-tenth  was  to  be  ap 
plied  to  feasts  in  the  metropolis,  and  that  a  tenth 
besides  these  (TOITTJV  irpbs  avrais]  was  every  third 
year  to  be  given  to  the  poor  (Ant.  iv.  8,  §8,  and 
22).  2.  Tobit  says,  he  gave  one-tenth  to  the  priests, 
one-tenth  he  sold  and  spent  at  Jerusalem,  i.  e.  com 
muted  according  to  Deut.  xiv.  24,  25,  and  another 
tenth  he  gave  away  (Tob.  i.  7,  8).  3.  St.  Jerome 
says  one-tenth  was  given  to  the  Levites,  out  of  which 
they  gave  one-tenth  to  the  priests  (SeuTepoSeKarrj) ; 
a  second  tithe  was  applied  to  festival  purposes,  and 
a  third  was  given  to  the  poor  (jrTa>xo8eK(irri} 
(Com.  on  Ezek.  xiv.  vol.  i.  p.  565).  Spencer  thinks 
there  were  three  tithes.  Jennings,  with  Mede, 
thinks  there  were  only  two  complete  tithes,  but 
that  in  the  third  year  an  addition  of  some  sort  was 
made  (Spencer,  De  Leg.  Hebr.  p.  727  ;  Jennings 
Jew.  Ant.  p.  183). 

On  the  other  hand,  Maimonides  says  the  third  and 
sixth  years'  second  tithe  was  shared  between  the  poor 
and  the  Levites,  f.  e.  that  there  was  no  third  title 
(De  Jur.  Paup.  vi.  4).  Selden  and  Michaelis  re 
mark  that  the  burden  of  three  tithes,  besides  the 
first-fruits,  would  be  excessive.  Selden  thinks  that 
the  third  year's  tithe  denotes  only  a  different  appli 
cation  of  the  second  or  festival  tithe,  and  Michaelis. 
that  it  meant  a  surplus  after  the  consumption  ol 
the  festival  tithe  (Selden,  On  Tithes,  c.  2,  p.  13; 
Michaelis,  Laws  of  Moses,  §192,  vol.  iii.  p.  143, 
ed.  Smith).  Against  a  third  tithe  may  be  added 
Reland,  Ant.  Hebr.  p.  359  ;  Jahn,  Ant.  §389 ; 
Godwyn,  Moses  and  Aaron,  p.  Ib6,  and  Carpzov, 
p.  621,  622 ;  Keil,  Bibl.  Arch.  §71,  i.  337  ;  Saal- 
schiitz,  Hebr.  Arch.  i.  70 ;  Winer,  Realwb.  s.  v. 
Zehnte.  Knobel  thinks  the  tithe  was  never  taken 
in  full,  and  that  the  third  year's  tithe  only  meant 
the  portion  contributed  in  that  year  (Com.  on  Deut. 
xiv.  29,  m  Kurzgef.  Exeg.  Hdbuch.~).  Ewald 
thinks  that  for  two  years  the  tithe  was  left  in  great 
measure  to  free-will,  and  that  the  third  year's  tithe 
only  was  compulsory  (AlterthUm.  p.  346). 

Of  these  opinions,  that  which  maintains  three 
separate  and  complete  tithings  seems  improbable,  as 
imposing  an  excessive  burden  on  the  land,  and  not 
easily  reconcileable  with  the  other  directions ;  yet 
there  seems  no  reason  for  rejecting  the  notion  of 
two  yearly  tithes,  when  we  recollect  the  especial 
promise  of  fertility  to  the  soil,  conditional  on  ob 
servance  of  the  commands  of  the  Law  (Deut.  xxviii.). 
There  would  thus  be,  1.  a  yearly  tithe  for  the 
Levites  ;  2.  a  second  tithe  for  the  festivals,  which 
last  would  every  third  year  be  shared  by  the  Levites 
with  the  poor.  It  is  this  poor  man's  tithe  which 
Michaelis  thinks  is  spoken  of  as  likely  to  be  con 
verted  to  the  king's  use  under  the  regal  dynasty 
(1  Sam.  viii.  15,  17  ;  Mich.  Laws  of  Moses,  vol.  i. 
p.  299).  Ewald  thinks  that  under  the  kings  the 
ecclesiastical  tithe  system  reverted  to  what  he  sut- 
poses  to  have  been  its  original  free-will  character 
It  is  plain  that  during  that  period  the  tithe-system 
partook  of  the  general  neglect  into  which  the  ob 
servance  of  the  Law  declined,  and  that  Hezekiah, 
among  his  other  reforms,  took  effectual  means  to 
revive  its  use  (2  Chr.  xxxi.  5,  12,  19).  Similar 
measures  were  taken  after  the  Captivity  by  Nehe- 
miah  (Neh.  xii.  44),  and  in  both  these  cases  special 
officers  were  appointed  to  take  charge  of  the  storee 


The  LXX.  has  here  eav 


a.7ro£t/caT(i<rac 


trav  TO  eniSeKarov  T<av  yevvr)fJ.a.T<av  TT}S  yi)?  <rov  iv  T«J 
eret  TO>  TpiVw  TO  SevTfpov  eniBeitarov  6u>(/«.« 
TO)  AeviVrj,  K.  T.  A. 


1518 


TITUS  MANLIUS 


and  storehouses  for  the  purpose.  The  practice  of 
tithing  especially  for  relief  of  the  poor,  appears  to 
have  subsisted  even  in  Israel,  for  the  prophet  Amos 
speaks  of  it,  though  in  an  ironical  tone,  as  existing 
in  his  day  (Am.  iv.  4).  But  as  any  degeneracy  in 
the  national  faith  would  be  likely  to  have  an  effect 
on  the  tithe-system,  we  find  complaint  of  neglect  in 
this  respect  made  by  the  prophet  Malachi  (iii.  8, 
10).  Yet,  notwithstanding  partial  evasion  or  omis 
sion,  the  system  itself  was  continued  to  a  late  period 
in  Jewish  history,  and  was  even  carried  to  excess 
by  those  who,  like  the  Pharisees,  atfected  peculiar 
exactness  in  observance  of  the  Law  (Heb.  vii.  5-8  ; 
Matth.  xxiii.  23 ;  Luke  xviii.  1-2  ;  Josephus,  Ant. 
xx.  9,  §2  ;  Vit.  c.  15). 

Among  details  relating  to  the  tithe  payments 
mentioned  by  Rabbin  cal  writers  may  be  noticed : 
(1)  That  in  reference  to  the  permission  given  in 
case  of  distance  (Deut.  xiv.  24),  Jews  dwelling  in 
Babylonia,  Ammon,  Moab,  and  Egypt,  were  consi 
dered  as  subject  to  the  law  of  tithe  in  kind  (Reland, 
iii.  9,  2,  p.  355).  (2)  In  tithing  sheep  the  custom 
was  to  enclose  them  in  a  pen,  and  as  the  sheep 
went  out  at  the  opening,  every  tenth  animal  was 
marked  with  a  rod  dipped  in  vermilion.  This  was 
the  "passing  under  the  rod."  The  Law  ordered 
that  no  inquiry  should  be  made  whether  the  animal 
were  good  or  bad,  and  that  if  the  owner  changed  it, 
both  the  original  and  the  changeling  were  to  be  re 
garded  as  devoted  (Lev.  xxvii.  32,  33  ;  Jer.  xxxiii. 
13;  Becoroth,  ix.  7  ;  Godwyn,  M.  and  A.  p.  136, 
vi.  7).  (3)  Cattle  were  tithed  in  and  after  Au 
gust,  corn  in  and  after  September,  fruits  of  trees 
in  and  after  January  (Godwyn,  p.  137,  §9) ; 
Buxtorf,  Syn.  Jud.  c.  xii.  p.  282,  283.  (4) 
"  Corners  "  were  exempt  from  tithe  (Peak,  i.  6). 
(5)  The  general  rule  was  that  all  edible  articles 
not  purchased,  were  titheable,  but  that  products 
not  specified  in  Deut.  xiv.  23,  were  regarded  as 
doubtful.  Tithe  of  them  was  not  forbidden,  but 
was  not  required  (Maaseroth,  i.  1 ;  Demai,  i.  1  ; 
Carpzov,  App.  Bibl.  p.  619,  620).  [H.  W.  P.] 

TITUS  MAN'LIUS.    [MANLIUS.] 

TI'TUS  (Tiros  :  Titus}.  Our  materials  for  the 
biography  of  this  companion  of  St.  Paul  must  be 
drawn  entirely  from  the  notices  of  him  in  the  Second 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  the  Galatians,  and  to 
Titus  himself,  combined  with  the  Second  Epistle  to 
Timothy.  He  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Acts  at  all. 
The  reading  Tirov  'loixrrov  in  Acts  xviii.  7  is  too 
precarious  for  any  inference  to  be  drawn  from  it. 
Wieseler  indeed  lays  some  glight  stress  upon  it 
(Chronol.  des  Apost.  Zeit.  Gott.  1848,  p.  204), 
but  this  is  in  connexion  with  a  theory  which  needs 
every  help.  As  to  a  recent  hypothesis,  that  Titus 
and  Timothy  were  the  same  person  (R.  King,  Who 
was  St.  Titus?  Dublin,  1853),  it  is  certainly  in 
genious,  but  quite  untenable. 

Taking  the  passages  in  the  Epistles  in  the  chrono 
logical  order  of  the  events  referred  to,  we  turn  first 
to  Gal.  ii.  1,  3.  We  conceive  the  journey  men 
tioned  here  to  be  identical  with  that  (recorded  in 
Acts  xv.)  in  which  Paul  and  Barnabas  went  from 
Antioch  to  Jerusalem  to  the  conference  which  was 
to  decide  the  question  of  the  necessity  of  circum 
cision  to  the  Gentiles.  Here  we  see  Titus  in  close 
association  with  Paul  and  Barnabas  at  Antioch  .a  He 
goes  v'th  them  to  Jerusalem.  He  is  in  fact  one  of 


a  His  birth-place  may  have  been  here  ;  but  this  is  quite 
uncertain.    The  name,  which  is  Roman,  proves  nothing. 


TITUS 

the  rives  &\\oi  of  Acts  xv.  2,  who  were  deputed  t« 
accompany  them  from  Antioch.  His  circumcision 
was  either  not  insisted  on  at  Jerusalem,  or,  if  de 
manded,  was  firmly  resisted  (OVK  yvayKdo-Bi* 
TrepirfjLyOrivai}.  He  is  rery  emphatically  spoken  o; 
as  a  Gentile  ("EAArj*/),  by  which  is  most  probably 
meant  that  both  his  parents  were  Gentiles.  Here 
is  a  double  contrast  from  Timothy,  who  was  circum 
cised  by  St.  Paul's  own  directions,  and  one  of  whose 
parents  was  Jewish  (Acts  xvi.  1,  3  ;  2  Tim.  i.  5- 
iii.  15).  Titus  would  seem,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
council,  to  have  been  specially  a  representative  of 
the  church  of  the  uncircumcision. 

It  is  to  our  purpose  to  remark  that,  in  the  pas 
sage  cited  above,  Titus  is  so  mentioned  as  apparently 
to  imply  that  he  had  become  personally  known  to 
the  Galatian  Christians.  This,  again,  we  combine 
with  two  other  circumstances,  viz.  that  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  and  the  Second  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  were  probably  written  within  a  few 
months  of  each  other  [GALATIANS,  EPISTLE  TO], 
and  both  during  the  same  journey.  From  the  latter 
of  these  two  Epistles  we  obtain  fuller  notices  of 
Titus  in  connexion  with  St.  Paul. 

After  leaving  Galatia  (Acts  xviii.  23),  and  spend 
ing  a  long  time  at  Ephesus  (Acts  xix.  1-xx.  1), 
the  Apostle  proceeded  to  Macedonia  by  way  of  Troas. 
Here  he  expected  to  meet  Titus  (2  Cor.  ii.  13),  who 
had  been  sent  on  a  mission  to  Corinth.  In  this  hope 
he  was  disappointed  [ TROAS],  but  in  Macedonia 
Titus  joined  him  (2  Cor.  vii.  6,  7,  13-15).  Here 
we  begin  to  see  not  only  the  above-mentioned  fact 
of  the  mission  of  this  disciple  to  Corinth,  and  the 
strong  personal  affection  which  subsisted  between 
him  and  St.  Paul  (ev  rf)  irapovffia  avrov,  vii.  7), 
but  also  some  part  of  the  purport  of  the  mission 
itself.  It  had  reference  to  the  immoralities  at 
Corinth  rebuked  in  the  First  Epistle,  and  to  the 
effect  of  that  First  Epistle  on  the  offending  church. 
We  learn  further  that  the  mission  was  so  far  suc 
cessful  and  satisfactory:  avayye\\<av  r^v  vfjtuv 
(irnrod-riffiv  (vii.  7),  e\vir^0ijrf  els  ncrdvoiav  (vii. 
9),  r}]v  irdvrtav  vfj.a>v  viraKo^v  (vii.  15)  ;  and  we 
are  enabled  also  to  draw  from  the  chapter  a  strong 
conclusion  regarding  the  warm  zeal  and  sympathy 
of  Titus,  his  grief  for  what  was  evil,  his  rejoicing 
over  what  was  good  :  rfj  irapaKX^ffet  $  Trape/cATjfl?? 
e<J>'  vfj.1v  (vii.  7) ;  avoTreiravrai  rb  irv€v/j.a  avrov 
airb  trdvruv  vfjL&v  (vii.  13)  ;  ra  cnr\a.yxva  O-VTOV 
Tr€pio~<ror€pcas  ets  VUMS  fffriv  (vii.  15).  But  if  we 
proceed  further,  we  discern  another  part  of  the 
mission  with  which  he  was  entrusted.  This  had 
reference  to  the  collection,  at  that  time  in  progress, 
for  the  poor  Christians  of  Judaea  (KaQ&s  irpo- 
evfip£aro,  viii.  6),  a  phrase  which  shows  that  he 
had  been  active  and  zealous .  in  the  matter,  while 
the  Corinthians  themselves  seem  to  have  been  rather 
remiss.  This  connexion  of  his  mission  with  the 
gathering  of  these  charitable  funds  is  also  proved  by 
another  passage,  which  contains  moreover  an  im 
plied  assertion  of  his  integrity  in  the  business  (li-fi 
n  eTTAeoi/e'/cTTjo-ej/  vfj.as  Tiros ;  xii.  18),  and  a 
statement  that  St.  Paul  himself  had  sent  him  on 
the  errand  (irapfKaXetra  Tirov,  i&.).  Thus  we 
are  prepared  for  what  the  Apostle  now  proceeds  to 
do  after  his  encouraging  conversations  with  Titus 
regarding  the  Corinthian  Church.  He  sends  him 
back  from  Macedonia  to  Corinth,  in  company  with 
two  other  trustworthy  Christians  [TROPHIMUS, 
TYCHICUS],  bearing  the  Second  Epistle,  and  with 
an  earnest  request  (irapa.Ka\€<rai,  viii.  6,  "fa 
Trapa.K\T)(nv,  viii.  17)  that  he  woald  see  to  the 


TITUS 

Completion  of  the  collection,  which  he  had  zealously 
promoted  on  his  late  visit  (tva  KaBws  Trpofffip&TO, 
OU'TWS  ttal  eVtTeAeV??,  viii.  6),  Titus  himself  being 
in  nowise  backward  in  undertaking  the  commission. 
On  a  review  of  all  these  passages,  elucidating  as  they 
do  the  characteristics  of  the  man,  the  duties  he  dis 
charged,  and  his  close  and  faithful  co-operation  with 
St.  Paul,  we  see  how  much  meaning  there  is  in 
fhe  Apostle's  short  and  forcible  description  of  him 
'^dre  virep  Tirov,  Koivuvbs  e|ubr  ical  els  vp-as 
^0vv€py6s,  viii.  23). 

All  that  has  preceded  is  drawn  from  direct  state 
ments  in  the  Epistles  ;  but  by  indirect  though  fair 
inference  we  can  arrive  at  something  further,  which 
gives  coherence  to  the  rest,  with  additional  elucida 
tions  of  the  close  connexion  of  Titus  with  St.  Paul 
and  the  Corinthian  Church.  It  has  generally  been 
considered  doubtful  who  the  aScXQoi  were  (1  Cor. 
xvi.  11,  12)  that  took  the  First  Epistle  to  Corinth. 
Timothy,  who  had  been  recently  sent  thither  from 
Ephesus  (Acts  xix.  22),  could  not  have  been  one  of 
them  (ehv  e\9r)  TI/JL.  1  Cor.  xvi.  10),  and  Apollos 
declined  the  commission  (1  Cor.  xvi.  12).  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  messengers  who  took  that 
first  letter  were  Titus  and  his  companion,  whoever 
that  might  be,  who  is  mentioned  with  him  in  the 
second  letter  (irape«d'\e<ra  Tirov,  Kttl  ffvvairf- 
crretAa  rbv  a$€\<p6v,  2  Cor.  xii.  18).  This  view 
was  held  by  Macknight,  and  very  clearly  set  forth 
by  him  (Transl.  of  the  Apostolical  Epistles,  with 
Comm.  Edinb.  1829,  vol.  i.  pp.  451,  674,  vol.  ii. 
pp.  2,  7,  124).  It  has  been  more  recently  given 
by  Professor  Stanley  (Corinthians,  2nd  ed.  pp. 
348,  492),b  but  it  has  been  worked  out  by  no  one 
so  elaborately  as  by  Professor  Lightfoot  (Camb. 
Journal  of  Classical  and  Sacred  Philology,  ii.  201, 
202).  As  to  the  connexion  between  the  two  con 
temporaneous  missions  of  Titus  and  Timotheus, 
this  observation  may  be  made  here,  that  the  dif 
ference  of  the  two  errands  may  have  had  some  con 
nexion  with  a  difference  in  the  characters  of  the  two 
agents.  If  Titus  was  the  firmer  and  more  energetic 
of  the  two  men,  it  was  natural  to  give  him  the  task 
of  enforcing  the  Apostle's  rebukes,  and  urging  on 
the  flagging  business  of  the  collection. 

A  considerable  interval  now  elapses  before  we 
come  upon  the  next  notices  of  this  disciple.  St. 
Paul's  first  imprisonment  is  concluded,  and  his 
last  trial  is  impending.  In  the  interval  between 
the  two,  he  and  Titus  were  together  in  Crete 
(airf\nr6v  fft  cv  Kp^rri,  Tit.  i.  5).  We  see  Titus 
remaining  in  the  island  when  St.  Paul  left  it,  and 
receiving  there  a  latter  written  to  him  by  the 
Apostle.  From  this  letter  we  gather  the  following 
biographical  details : — In  the  first  place  we  learn 
that  he  was  originally  converted  through  St.  Paul's 
instrumentality :  this  must  be  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase  yvbffiov  TSKVOV,  which  occurs  so  empha 
tically  in  the  opening  of  the  Epistle  (i.  4).  Next 
we  learn  the  various  particulars  of  the  responsible 
duties  which  he  had  to  discharge  in  Crete.  He  is 
to  complete  what  St.  Paul  had  been  obliged  to  leave 
unfinished  ('{va  TO  \eiirovra  GiriSiopQuffrj,  i.  5), 
and  he  is  to  organise  the  Church  throughout  the 
island  by  appointing  presbyters  in  every  city  [GOR- 
TYNA  ;  LASAEA]  .  Instructions  are  given  as  to  the 
suitable  character  of  such  presbyters  (vers.  6-9)  ; 
and  we  learn  further  that  we  have  here  the  repeti- 

b  There  is  some  danger  of  confusing  Titus  and  the 
brother  (2  Cor.  xii.  18)  i.  c  the  brethren  of  1  Cor.  xvi.  11, 
1.2,  who  (according  to  this  view)  took  the  first  letter,  with 


TITUS 

tion  of  instructions  previously  furnished  by  word  of 
mouth  (is  eyu  aoi  SteTa|aJu7?i>,  ver.  5).  Next 
he  is  to  control  and  bridle  (tin<rToui£eiv,  ver.  11) 
the  restless  and  mischievous  Judaizers,  and  he  is  tc 
be  peremptory  in  so  doing  (eAe7^e  avrovs  OTrord- 
fj.oos,  ver.  13).  Injunctions  in  the  same  spirit  are 
reiterated  (ii.  1,  15,  iii.  8),  He  is  to  urge  the 
duties  of  a  decorous  and  Christian  life  upon  the 
women  (ii.  3-5),  some  of  whom  (irpffffivTiSas, 
ii.  3)  possibly  had  something  of  an  official  character 
(/ca\o8i8ao7caA.ous,  'Iva  <ra><£poj/i£axn  rets  peas, 
vers.  3,  4).  He  is  to  be  watchful  over  his  OWD 
conduct  (ver.  7) ;  he  is  to  impress  upon  the  slaves 
the  peculiar  duties  of  their  position  (ii.  9,  10) ;  he 
is  to  check  all  social  and  political  turbulence  (iii.  1), 
and  also  all  wild  theological  speculations  (iii.  9) ; 
and  to  exercise  discipline  on  the  heretical  (iii.  10). 
When  we  consider  all  these  particulars  of  his  duties, 
we  see  not  only  the  confidence  reposed  in  him  by 
the  Apostle,  but  the  need  there  was  of  determination 
and  strength  of  purpose,  and  therefore  the  proba 
bility  that  this  was  his  character ;  and  all  this  is 
enhanced  if  we  bear  in  mind  his  isolated  and  unsup 
ported  position  in  Crete,  and  the  lawless  and  immoral 
character  of  the  Cretans  themselves,  as  testified  by 
their  own  writers  (i.  12,  13).  [CRETE.] 

The  notices  which  remain  are  more  strictly  per 
sonal.  Titus  is  to  look  for  the  arrival  in  Crete  of 
Artemas  and  Tychicus  (iii.  12),  and  then  he  is  to 
hasten  (a-irovo'a<rovj  to  join  St.  Paul  at  Nicopolis, 
where  the  Apostle  is  pioposing  to  pass  the  winter 
(»&.).  Zenas  and  Apollos  are  in  Crete,  or  expected 
there  ;  for  Titus  is  to  send  them  on  thtir  journey, 
and  supply  them  with  whatever  they  need  for  it 
(iii.  13).  It  is  observable  that  Titus  and  Apollos 
are  brought  into  juxtaposition  here,  as  they  were 
before  in  the  discussion  of  the  mission  from  Ephesus 
to  Corinth. 

The  movements  of  St.  Paul,  with  which  these 
later  instructions  to  Titus  are  connected,  are  con 
sidered  elsewhere.  [PAUL  ;  TIMOTHY.]  We 
need  only  observe  here  that  there  would  be  great 
difficulty  in  inserting  the  visits  to  Crete  and  Nico 
polis  in  any  of  the  journeys  recorded  in  the  Acts, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  other  objections  to  giving  the 
Epistle  any  date  anterior  to  the  voyage  to  Rome. 
[TiTUS,  EPISTLE  TO.]  On  the  other  hand,  there 
is  no  difficulty  in  arranging  these  circumstances,  if 
we  suppose  St.  Paul  to  have  travelled  and  written 
after  being  liberated  from  Rome,  while  thus  we 
gain  the  further  advantage  of  an  explanation  of 
what  Paley  has  well  called  the  affinity  of  this 
Epistle  and  the  first  to  Timothy.  Whether  Titus 
did  join  the  Apostle  at  Nicopolis  we  cannot  tell. 
But  we  naturally  connect  the  mention  of  this  place 
with  what  St.  Paul  wrote  at  no  great  interval  of 
time  afterwards,  in  the  last  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles 
(TtVos  ets  AoAjuaTuu/,  2  Tim.  iv.  10)  ;  for 
Dalmatk  lay  to  the  north  of  Nicopolis,  at  no  great 
distance  from  it.  [NICOPOLIS.]  From  the  form 
of  the  whole  sentence,  it  seems  probable  that  this 
disciple  had  been  with  St.  Paul  in  Rome  during  his 
final  imprisonment :  but  this  cannot  be  asserted 
confidently.  The  touching  words  of  the  Apostle 
in  this  passage  might  seem  to  imply  some  reproach, 
and  we  might  draw  from  them  the  conclusion  that 
Titus  became  a  second  Demas :  but  on  the  wholfc 
this  seems  a  harsh  and  unnecessary  judgment. 


Titus  and  the  brethren  (2  Cor.  viii.  16-24)  who  took 
second  letter. 


1520         TITUS,  EPISTLE  TO 

Whatever  else  remains  is  legendary,  though  it 
may  contain  elements  of  truth.  Titus  is  connected 
by  tradition  with  Dalmatia,  and  he  is  said  to  have 
been  an  object  of  much  reverence  in  that  region. 
This,  however,  may  simply  be  a  result  of  the  pas 
sage  quoted  immediately  above  :  and  it  is  observable 
that  of  all  the  churches  in  modern  Dalmatia  (Neale's 
Ecdesiological  Notes  on  Dalm.  p.  175)  not  one  is 
dedicated  to  him.  The  traditional  connexion  of 
Titus  with  Crete  is  much  more  specific  and  con 
stant,  though  here  again  we  cannot  be  certain  of 
the  facts.  He  is  said  to  have  been  permanent 
bishop  in  the  island,  and  to  have  died  there  at  an 
advanced  age.  The  modern  capital,  Candia,  appears 
to  claim  the  honour  of  being  his  burial-place  (Cave's 
Apostolici,  1716,  p.  42).  In  the  fragment,  De  Vita 
et  Actis  Titi,  by  the  lawyer  Zenas  (Fabric.  Cod. 
Apoc.  N.  T.  ii.  831,  832),  Titus  is  called  Bishop 
of  Gortyna:  and  on  the  old  site  of  Gortyna  is  a 
ruined  church,  of  ancient  and  solid  masonry,  which 
bears  the  name  of  St.  Titus,  and  where  service  is 
occasionally  celebrated  by  priests  from  the  neigh 
bouring  hamlet  of  Metropolis  (E.  Falkener,  Re 
mains  in  Crete,  from  a  MS.  History  of  Candia 
by  Onorio  Belli,  p.  23).  The  cathedral  of  Megalo- 
Castron,  in  the  north  of  the  island,  is  also  dedicated 
to  this  saint.  Lastly,  the  name  of  Titus  was  the 
watchword  of  the  Cretans  when  they  were  invaded 
by  the  Venetians:  and  the  Venetians  themselves, 
after  their  conquest  of  the  island,  adopted  him  to 
some  of  the  honours  of  a  patron  saint ;  for,  as  the 
response  after  the  prayer  for  the  Doge  of  Venice 
was  "  Sancte  Marce,  tu  nos  adjuva,"  so  the  response 
after  that  for  the  Duke  of  Candia  was  "  Sancte 
Tite,  tu  nos  adjuva "  (Pashley's  Travels  in  Crete, 
i.  6,  175).* 

We  must  not  leave  unnoticed  the  striking,  though 
extravagant,  panegyric  of  Titus  by  his  successor  in 
the  see  of  Crete,  Andreas  Cretensis  (published,  with 
Amphilochius  and  Methodius,  by  Combefis,  Paris, 
1644).  This  panegyric  has  many  excellent  points: 
e.  g.  it  incorporates  well  the  more  important  pas 
sages  from  the  2nd  Ep.  to  the  Corinthians.  The 
following  are  stated  as  facts.  Titus  is  related  to 
the  Proconsul  of  the  island :  among  his  ancestors 
are  Minos  and  Rhadamanthus  (of  €/c  Aid's).  Early 
in  life  he  obtains  a  copy  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures, 
and  learns  Hebrew  in  a  short  time.  He  goes  to 
Judaea,  and  is  present  on  the  occasion  mentioned 
in  Acts  i.  15.  His  conversion  takes  place  before 
that  of  St.  Paul  himself,  but  afterwards  he  attaches 
himself  closely  to  the  Apostle.  Whatever  the  value 
of  these  statements  may  be,  the  following  descrip 
tion  of  Titus  (p.  156)  is  worthy  of  quotation  : — 
6  TTpwros  TTJS  K.pr)T<av  fKK\rifftas  flejiteAtos*  TTJS 
aA.7/0e/as  o  ffrvXos'  TO  TTJS  Triffretas  epetorjxa' 
T&V  €vayye\LK(av  K^pvyfidrcav  i)  affiyr^ros 
crd\iriy£'  rb  fyr)\bv  TTJS  HauAou  yXdnrr^s  OTTTJ- 
XT7M«.  [J.  S.  H.] 

TITUS,  EPISTLE  TO.  There  are  no  spe 
cialties  in  this  Epistle  which  require  any  very  ela 
borate  treatment  distinct  from  the  other  Pastoral 
Letters  of  St.  Paul.  [TIMOTHY,  EPISTLES  TO.] 
If  those  two  were  not  genuine,  it  would  be  diffi 
cult  confidently  to  maintain  the  genuineness  of  this. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Epistles  to  Timothy  are 
received  as  St.  Paul's,  there  is  not  the  slightest 
reason  for  doubting  the  authorship  of  that  to  Titus. 
Amidst  the  various  combinations  which  are  found 


«  The  day  on  which  Titus  is  commemorated  is  Jan. 
ilh  in  the  l^atin  Calendar,  and  Aug.  2fth  in  the  Greek. 


TITUS,  EPISTLE  TO 

among  those  who  have  been  sceptical  on  the  sub 
ject  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  there  is  no  instance  oi 
the  rejection  of  that  before  us  on  the  part  of  those 
who  have  accepted  the  other  two.  So  far  indeed 
as  these  doubts  are  worth  considering  at  all,  the 
argument  is  more  in  favour  of  this  than  of  either 
of  those.  Tatian  accepted  the  Epistle  to  Titus, 
and  rejected  the  other  two.  Origen  mentions  some 
who  excluded  2  Tim.,  but  kept  1  Tim.  with  Titus. 
Schleiermacher  and  Neander  invert  this  process  of 
doubt  in  regard  to  the  letters  addressed  to  Timothy, 
but  believe  that  St.  Paul  wrote  the  present  letter 
to  Titus.  Credner  too  believes  it  to  be  genuine, 
though  he  pronounces  1  Tim.  to  be  a  forgery,  and 
2  Tim.  a  compound  of  two  epistles. 

To  turn  now  from  opinions  to  direct  external 
evidence,  this  Epistle  stands  on  quite  as  firm  a 
ground  as  the  others  of  the  Pastoral  group,  if  not  a 
firmer  ground.  Nothing  can  well  be  more  explicit 
than  the  quotations  in  Irenaeus,  C.  Haeres.  i.  16,  3 
(see  Tit.  iii.  10),  Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  i.  350  (see 
i.  12),  Tertull.  De  Praescr.  Haer.  c.  6  (see  iii.  10, 
11),  and  the  reference,  also  Adv.  Marc.  v.  21 ;  to 
say  nothing  of  earlier  allusions  in  Justin  Martyr, 
Dial.  c.  Tryph.  47  (see  iii.  4),  which  caii  hardly 
be  doubted,  Theoph.  Ad  Autol.  ii.  p.  95  (see  iii.  5), 
iii.  p.  126  (see  iii.  1),  which  are  probable,  and  Clem. 
Rom.  i.  Cor.  2  (see  iii.  1),  which  is  possible. 

As  to  internal  features,  we  may  notice,  in  the  first 
place,  that  the  Epistle  to  Titus  has  all  the  charac 
teristics  of  the  other  Pastoral  Epistles.  See,  for  in 
stance,  7rto"Tbs  6  \6yos  (iii.  8)  vyiaivovcra  5i5o- 
o-/coAfo  (i.  9,  ii.l,  comparing  i.  13,  ii.  8),  ffufypoveiv, 
ffuHppav,  (rw(pp6v<i)s  (i.  8,  ii.  5,  6,  12),  fftar^pios, 
ffurJip,  ffdfy  (i-  3,  4,  ii.  10,  11,  13,  iii.  4,  5,  7), 
'lovSa'iKol  fj.vdoi  (i.  14,  comparing  iii.  9),  eiri<pdv€ta 
(ii.  13),  tixre'jSeia  (i.  1),  eAeos  (iii.  5  ;  in  i.  4  the 
word  is  doubtful).  All  this  tends  to  show  that  this 
Letter  was  written  about  the  same  time  and  under 
similar  circumstances  with  the  other  two.  But. 
on  the  other  hand,  this  Epistle  has  marks  in  its 
phraseology  and  style  which  assimilate  it  to  the 
general  body  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  Such  may 
fairly  be  reckoned  the  following : — Kt)pvy/j.art  ft 
fTTKTTevdrjV  e*y<«l  (i.  3) ;  the  quotation  from  a 
heathen  poet  (i.  12) ;  the  use  of  dSd'tfj/xos  (i.  16)  ; 
the  "  going  off  at  a  word"  (trwrripos  .  .  .  ^iretydvTj 
ybp  .  .  .  ffcar-fjpios  .  .  .  ii.  10,  11)  ;  and  the  modes 
in  which  the  doctrines  of  the  Atonement  (ii.  13) 
and  of  Free  Justification  (iii.  5-7)  come  to  the  sur 
face.  As  to  any  difficulty  arising  from  supposed 
indications  of  advanced  hierarchical  arrangements,  it 
is  to  be  observed  that  in  this  Epistle  irpeo-pvTfpos 
and  eTriir/coTros  are  used  as  synonymous  (ft/a  Kai  a- 
(TTrjo-Tjs  Trpefffivrepovs  .  .  .  5e?  yap  rbv  eiri- 
ffKoirov.  .  .  .  i.  5,  7),  just  as  they  are  in  the  address 
at  Miletus  about  the  year  58  A.D.  (Acts  xx.  17,  28). 
At  the  same  time  this  Epistle  has  features  of  ite 
own,  especially  a  certain  tone  of  abruptness  and 
severity,  which  probably  arises  partly  out  of  the 
circumstances  of  the  Cretan  population  [CRETE], 
partly  out  of  the  character  of  Titus  himself.  If  all 
these  things  are  put  together,  the  phenomena  are 
seen  to  be  very  unlike  what  would  be  presented  by 
a  forgery,  to  say  nothing  of  the  general  overwhelm 
ing  difficulty  of  imagining  who  could  have  been  the 
!  writer  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  if  it  were  not  St. 
i  Paul  himself. 

Concerning  the  contents  of  this  Epistle,  some 
thing  has  already  been  said  in  the  article  on 
TITUS.  No  veiy  exact  subdivision  is  either  neces 
sary  or  possible.  After  the  introductory  salutation; 


TITUS,  EPISTLE  TO 

which  has  marked  peculiarities  (i.  1-4),  Titus  is 
enjoined  to  appoint  suitable  presbyters  in  the  Cretan 
Church,  and  specially  such  as  shall  be  sound  in 
doctrine  and  able  to  refute  error  (5-9).  The 
Apostle  then  passes  to  a  description  of  the  coarse 
character  of  the  Cretans,  as  testified  by  their  own 
writers,  and  the  mischief  caused  by  Judaizing  error 
among  the  Christians  of  the  island  (10-16).  In 
opposition  to  this,  Titus  is  to  urge  sound  and  prac 
tical  Christianity  on  all  classes  (ii.  1-10),  on  the 
older  men  (ii.  2),  on  the  older  women,  and  espe 
cially  in  regard  to  their  influence  over  the  younger 
women  (3-5),  on  the  younger  men  (6-8),  on  slaves 
(9,  10),  taking  heed  meanwhile  that  he  himself  is  a 
pattern  of  good  works  (ver.  7).  The  grounds  of  all 
this  are  given  in  the  free  grace  which  trains  the 
Christian  to  self-denying  and  active  piety  (11,  12), 
iTi  the  glorious  hope  of  Christ's  second  advent  (ver. 
13),  and  in  the  atonement  by  which  He  has  pur 
chased  us  to  be  His  people  (ver.  14).  All  which 
lessons  Titus  is  to  urge  with  fearless  decision  (ver. 
5  5).  Next,  obedience  to  rulers  is  enjoined,  with  gen 
tleness  and  forbearance  towards  all  men  (iii.  1,  2), 
these  duties  being  again  rested  on  our  sense  of  past 
sia  (ver.  3),  and  on  the  gift  of  new  spiritual  life 
and  free  justification  (4-7).  With  these  practical 
duties  are  contrasted  those  idle  speculations  which 
are  to  be  carefully  avoided  (8,9)  ;  and  with  regard 
to  those  men  who  are  positively  heretical,  a  peremp 
tory  charge  is  given  (10,  11).  Some  personal  allu 
sions  then  follow :  Artemas  or  Tychicus  may  be 
expected  at  Crete,  and  on  the  arrival  of  either  of 
them  Titus  is  to  hasten  to  join  the  Apostle  at  Nico- 
polis,  where  he  intends  to  winter ;  Zenas  the  lawyer 
also,  and  Apollos,  are  to  be  provided  with  all  that  is 
necessary  for  a  journey  in  prospect  (12, 13).  Finally, 
before  the  concluding  messages  of  salutation,  an  ad 
monition  is  given  to  the  Cretan  Christians,  that 
they  give  heed  to  the  duties  of  practical  useful 
piety  (14,  15). 

As  to  the  time  and  place  and  other  circumstances 
of  the  writing  of  this  Epistle,  the  following  scheme 
of  filling  up  St.  Paul's  movements  after  his  first 
imprisonment  will  satisfy  all  the  conditions  of  the 
case : — We  may  suppose  him  (possibly  after  accom 
plishing  his  long-projected  visit  to  Spain)  to  have 
gone  to  Ephesus,  and  taken  voyages  from  thence, 
first  to  Macedonia  and  then  to  Crete,  during  the 
former  to  have  written  the  First  Epistle  to  Timothy, 
and  after  returning  from  the  latter  to  have  written 
the  Epistle  to  Titus,  being  at  the  time  of  despatching 
it  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Nicopolis,  to  which 
place  he  went,  taking  Miletus  and  Corinth  on  the 
way.  At  Nicopolis  we  may  conceive  him  to  have 
been  finally  apprehended  and  taken  to  Rome,  whence 
he  wrote  the  Second  Epistle  to  Timothy.  Other 
possible  combinations  may  be  seen  in  Birks  (Horae 
Apostoliccte,  at  the  end  of  his  edition  of  the 
Horae  Paulinae,  pp.  299-301),  and  in  Wordsworth 
(Greek  Testament,  Pt.  iii.  pp.  418,  421).  It  is 
an  undoubted  mistake  to  endeavour  to  insert  this 
Epistle  in  any  period  of  that  part  of  St.  Paul's  life 
which  is  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 
There  is  in  this  writing  that  unmistakeable  dif 
ference  of  style  (as  compared  with  the  earlier 
Epistles)  which  associates  the  Pastoral  Letters 
with  one  another,  and  with  the  latest  period  of 
St.  Paul's  life;  and  it  seems  strange  that  this 
should  have  been  so  slightly  observed  by  good 
»cholars  and  exact  chronologists,  e.  g.  Archdn. 
Evans  (Script.  Biog.  iii.  327-333),  and  Wieseler 
(Ckronol.  des  Apost.  Zeitalt.  329-355),  who,  ap- 

VOL.  m. 


TOB,  THE  LAND  OB 


1521 


proaohihg  the  subject  in  very  different  ways,  agree 
in  thinking  that  this  letter  was  written  at  Ephesus 
(between  1  and  2  Cor.),  wnen  the  Apostle  was  in 
the  early  part  of  his  third  missionary  journey 

Acts  xix.). 

The  following  ti-st  of  Commentaries  on  the  Pas 
toral  Epistles  may  be  useful  for  1  and  2  Tim.,  as 
well  as  for  Titus.  Besides  the  general  Patristic 
commentaries  on  all  St.  Paul's  Epistles  (Chryso- 
stom,  Theodoret,  Theophylact,  Jerome,  Bede,  Al- 
cuin),  the  Mediaeval  (Oecumenius,  Euthymius, 
Aquinas),  those  of  the  Reformation  period  (Luther 
Melancthon,  Calvin),  the  earlier  Roman  Catholic 
(Justiniani,  Cornelius  a  Lapide,  Estius),  the  Pro 
testant  commentaries  of  the  17th  century  (Cocceius, 
Grotius,  &c.),  and  the  recent  annotations  on  the 
whole  Greek  Testament  (Rosenmiiller.  De  Wette, 
Alford,  Wordsworth,  &c.),  the  following  on  the 
Pastoral  Epistles  may  be  specified : — Dailld,  Expo 
sition  (1  Tim.  Genev.  1661,  2  Tim.  Genev.  1659, 
Tit.  Par.  1655)  ;  Heydenreich,  Die  Pastor  albriefe 
Pauli  erldutert  (Hadam.  1826,  1828)  ;  Flatt, 

Vorlesungen  uber  die  Br.  P.  an  Tim.  u.  Tit. 
(Tub.  1831);  Mack  (Roman  Catholic),  Comm. 
uber  die  Pastor  albriefe  (Tub.  1836)  ;  Matthies, 
Erkldrung  der  Pastor albr.  (Greifsw.  1840);  Huther 
(part  of  Meyer's  Commentary,  Gott.  1850) ;  Wies- 
inger  (in  continuation  of  Olshausen,  Koenigsb. 
1850),  translated  (with  the  exception  of  2  Tim.) 
in  Clark's  Foreign  Theolog.  Lib.  (Edinb.  1851), 
and  especially  Ellicott  (Pastoral  Epistles,  2nd  Ed. 
London,  1861),  who  mentions  in  his  Preface  a  Danish 
commentary  by  Bp.  Moller,  and  one  in  modern 
Greek,  Swe'/cSTj/ios  'IcpaTiitSs,  by  Coray  (Par. 
1831).  Besides  these,  there  are  commentaries  on 

1  Tim.  and  2  Tim.  by  Mosheim  (Hamb.  1755),  and 
Leo  (Lips.  1837,  1850),  on  1  Tim.  by  Fleischmann 
(Tub.   1791),  and  Wegscheider  (Gott.   1810),  on 

2  Tim.  by  J.  Barlow  and  T.  Hall  (Lond.  1632 
and   1658),  and  by  Brochner  (Hafn.   1829),  on 
Tit.  by  T.  Taylor  (London,  1668),  Van  Haven 
(Hal.   1742)   and  Kuinoel    (Comment.  Theol.   ed. 
Velthusen,  Ruperti  et  Kuinoel).      To  these  must 
be  added  what  is  found  in  the  Critici  Sacri,  Supp. 
ii.,  v.,  vii.,  and  a  still  fuller  list  is  given  in  Darling's 
Cyclopaedia  Bibliographica,   Pt.  ii.  Subjects,  pp. 
1535,  1555,  1574.  [J.  S.  H.] 

TI'ZITE,  THE  ('Y'fln:  Vat.  and  FA.  & 
'leaffel',  Alex.  Ooxraei :  Thosaites).  The  designa 
tion  of  Joha,  the  brother  of  Jediael  and  sou  of 
Shimri,  one  of  the  heroes  of  David's  army  named  in 
the  supplementary  list  of  1  Chr.  xi.  45.  It  occurs 
nowhere  else,  and  nothing  is  known  of  the  place 
or  family  which  it  denotes.  [G.] 

TO'AH  (nifi  :  0oo,5 ;  Alex.  ®oove :  Thohu). 
A  Kohathite  Levite,  ancestor  of  Samuel  and  Heman 
(1  Chr.  vi.  34  [19]).  The  name  as  it  now  stands  may 
be  a  fragment  of  "  Nahath  "  (comp.  ver.  26,  34). 

TOB-ADONI'JAH  (nWK  3'lD :  TapaSo 
vias  :  Thobadonias}.  One  "of  the  Levites  sent  by 
Jehoshaphat  through  the  cities  of  Judah  to  teach 
the  Law  to  the  people  (2  Chr.  xvii.  8). 

TOB,  THE  LAND  OF  (lltD  pK :  yr>  T£)3 : 
terra  Tob}.  The  place  in  which  jephthah  took 
refuge  when  expelled  from  home  by  his  halC 
brother  (Judg.  xi.  3)  ;  and  where  he  remained, 
at  the  head  of  a  band  of  freebooters,  til;  he  was 
brought  back  by  the  sheikhs*  of  Gilead  (ver.  5). 


a  The  word  is 


T,  which  exactly  answers  to  sheikhs, 
5   K 


1522 


TOBIA1I 


The  narrative  implies  that  the  land  of  Tob  was 
not  far  distant  from  Gilead :  at  the  same  time,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  it  must  have  lain  out  towards 
the  eastern  deserts.  It  is  undoubtedly  mentioned 
again  in  2  Sam.  x.  6,  8,  as  one  of  the  petty  Aramite 
kingdoms  or  states  which  supported  the  Ammonites 
in  their  great  conflict  with  David.  In  the  Autho 
rized  Version  the  name  is  presented  literatim  as 
Jshtob,  i.  e.  Man  of  Tob,  meaning,  according  to  a 
common  Hebrew  idiom,  the  "  men  of  Tob."  After 
an  immense  interval  it  appears  again  in  the  Macca- 
baean  history  (I  Mace.  v.  13).  Tob  or  Tobie  was 
vhen  the  abode  of  a  considerable  colony  of  Jews, 
numbering  at  least  a  thousand  males.  In  2  Mace, 
xii.  17  its  position  is  defined  very  exactly  as  at  or 
near  Charax,  750  stadia  from  the  strong  town 
f!aspis,  though,  as  the  position  of  neither  of  these 
places  is  known,  we  are  not  thereby  assisted  in  the 
recovery  of  Tob.  [TOBIE  ;  TUBIENI.] 

Ptolemy  (Geogr.  v.  19)  mentions  a  place  called 
®avfta  as  lying  to  the  S.W.  of  Zobah,  and  therefore 
possibly  to  the  E.  or  N.E.  of  the  country  of  Ammon 
proper.  In  Stephanus  of  Byzantium  and  in  Eckhel 
(Doctr.  Numm.  iii.  352),  the  names  Tubai  and 
Tabeni  occur. 

No  identification  of  this  ancient  district  with 
any  modern  one  has  yet  been  attempted.  The 
name  Tell  Dobbe  (Burckhardt,  Syria,  April  25), 
or,  as  it  is  given  by  the  latest  explorer  of  those 
regions,  Tell  Dibbe  (Wetzstein,  Map],  attached  to  a 
ruined  site  at  the  south  end  of  the  Leja,  a  few 
miles  N.W.  of  Kenawat,  and  also  that  of  ed  Dab, 
some  twelve  hours  east  of  the  mountain  el  Kuleib,  are 
both  suggestive  of  Tob.  But  nothing  can  be  said, 
at  present,  as  to  their  connexion  with  it.  [G.] 

TOBI'AH  (njaitt :  T«/3fos,  TwjSi'a:  Tobia). 
1.  "  The  children  of  Tobiah  "  were  a  family  who 
returned  with  Zerubbabel,  but  were  unable  to 
prove  their  connexion  with  Israel  (Ezr.  ii.  60 ;  Neh. 
vii.  62). 

2.  (Tobias.)  "  Tobiah  the  slave,  the  Ammonite," 
played  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  rancorous  oppo 
sition  made  by  Sanballat  the  Moabite  and  his  ad 
herents  to  the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem.  The  two 
races  of  Moab  and  Ammon  found  in  these  men  fit 
representatives  of  that  hereditary  hatred  to  the 
Israelites  which  began  before  the  entrance  into 
Canaan,  and  was-  not  extinct  when  the  Hebrews 
had  ceased  to  exist  as  a  nation.  The  horrible  story 
of  the  origin  of  the  Moabites  and  Ammonites,  as  it 
was  told  by  the  Hebrews,  is  an  index  of  the  feeling 
of  repulsion  which  must  have  existed  between  these 
hostile  families  of  men.  In  the  dignified  rebuke  ol 
Nehemiah  it  received  its  highest  expression :  *'  ye 
have  no  portion,  nor  right,  nor  memorial  in  Jeru 
salem  "  (Neh.  ii.  20).  But  Tobiah,  though  a  slave 
^Neh.  ii.  10,  19),  unless  this  is  a  title  of  oppro 
brium,  and  an  Ammonite,  found  means  to  ally  him 
self  with  a  priestly  family,  and  his  son  Johanan 
married  the  daughter  of  Meshullam  the  son  o 
Berechiah  (Neh.  vi.  18).  He  himself  was  the  son- 
in-law  of  Shechaniah  the  son  of  Arah  (Neh.  vi.  17) 
and  these  family  relations  created  for  him  a  strong 
faction  among  the  Jews,  and  may  have  had  some 
thing  to  do  with  the  stern  measures  which  Ezra 
found  it  necessary  to  take  to  repress  the  inter 
marriages  with  foreigners.  Even  a  grandson  of  the 
high-priest  Eliashib  had  married  a  daughter  of  San 
ballat  ^Neh.  xiii.  28).  In  xiii.  4  Eliashib  is  said  tc 
have  been  allied  to  Tobiah,  which  would  imply  r 
relationship  of  some  kind  between  Tobiah  and  San 


TOBIJAH 

jallat,  though  its  nature  is  not  mentioned.  Th* 
evil  had  spread  so  far  that  the  leaders  of  the  |e:pl« 
were  compelled  to  rouse  their  religious  antipathies 
>y  reading  from  the  law  of  Moses  the  strong  pro- 
libition  that  the  Ammonite  and  the  Moabite  should 

ot  come  into  the  congregation  of  God   for  eve? 

Neh.  xiii.  1).  Ewald  (Gesch.  iv.  173)  conjectures 
that  Tobiah  had  been  a  page  ("  slave  ")  at  the  Per 
sian  court,  and,  being  in  favour  there,  had  been 
>romoted  to  be  satrap  of  the  Ammonites.  But  it 

Imost  seems  that  against  Tobiah  there  was  a 
stronger  feeling  of  animosity  than  against  Sanballat, 

nd  that  this  animosity  found  expression  in  the 
epithet  "  the  slave,"  which  is  attached  to  his  name. 
[t  was  Tobiah  who  gave  venom  to  the  pitying  scorn 
of  Sanballat  (Neh.  iv.  3),  and  provoked  the  bitter 
cry  of  Nehemiah  (Neh.  iv.  4,  5) ;  it  was  Tobiah 
who  kept  up  communications  with  the  factious 
Jews,  and  who  sent  letters  to  put  their  leader  in 
fear  (Neh.  vi.  17,  19)  ;  but  his  crowning  act  of 

nsult  was  to  take  up  his  residence  in  the  Temple 

n  the  chamber  which  Eliashib  had  prepared  for 
lim  in  defiance  of  the  Mosaic  statute.  Nehemiah'? 
patience  could  no  longer  contain  itself,  "  therefore,'* 
tie  says,  "  I  cast  forth  all  the  household  stuff  or 
Tobiah  out  of  the  chamber,"  and  with  this  sum 
mary  act  Tob.'ah  disappears  from  history  (Neh.  xiii 
7,  8).  [W.  A.  W.] 

TOBI'AS.  The  Greek  form  of  the  name  TOBIAH 
or  TOBIJAH.  1.  (TwjSfay.  Thobias,  Tobias.)  The 
son  of  Tobit,  and  central  character  in  the  book  of 
that  name.  [TOBIT,  BOOK  OF.] 

2.  The  father  of  Hyrcanus,  apparently  a  man  of 
great  wealth  and  reputation  at  Jerusalem  in  the 
time  of  Seleucus  Philopator  ^cir.  B.C.  187).  In  the 
high-priestly  schism  which  happened  afterwards 
[MENELAUS],  "the  sons  of  Tobias"  took  a  con 
spicuous  part  (Joseph.  Ant.  xii.  5,  §1).  One  of  these, 
Joseph,  who  raised  himself  by  intrigue  to  high 
favour  with  the  Egyptian  court,  had  a  son  named 
Hyrcanus  (Joseph.  Ant.  xii.  4,  §2).  It  has  been 

>posed  that  this  is  the  Hyrcanus  referred  to  in 
2  Mace.  iii.  1 1 ;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that,  for  some 
unknown  reason  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Maccabees), 
the  whole  family  were  called  after  their  grandfather, 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  father's  name.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  natural  recurrence  of  names  in  successive 
generations  makes  it  more  probable  that  the  Hyr 
canus  mentioned  in  Josephus  was  a  nephew  of  the 
Hyrcanus  in  2  Mace.  (Comp.  Ewald,  Gesch.  d.  V.  I. 
iv.  309 ;  Grimm,  ad  Mace.  1.  c.)  [B.  F.  W.] 

TQBEB,  THE  PLACES  OF  (iv  TO?*  Tou- 
jBi'ov:  in  locis  Tubin :  Syr.  Tubiri).  A  district  which 
in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees  was  the  seat  of  an 
extensive  colony  of  Jews  (1  Mace.  v.  13).  It  is  in 
all  probability  identical  with  the  Land  of  Tob  men 
tioned  in  the  history  of  Jephthah.  [See  also  Tu- 
BIENI.]  [G.] 

TOBI'EL  (^I'lD,  "  the  goodness  of  God  :" 
TwjSnjA. :  Thobiel,  Tobiel),  the  father  of  Tobit  and 
grandfather  of  Tobias  (1),  Tob.  i.  1 .  The  name  may 
be  compared  with  Tabael  (Ta/Se^X).  [TABAEL.] 

[B.  F.  W.] 

TOBI'JAH  (-irVniD :  Ta>£fas  :  T/wbias).  1. 
One  of  the  Levites  sent  by  Jehoshaphat  to  teach 
the  Law  in  the  cities  of  Judah  (2  Chr.  xvii.  8). 

2.  (ot  xp^(rilj-01  avTTjs:  Tobias.)  One  of  the 
Captivity  in  the  time  of  Zechariah,  in  whose  pitk- 
sence  the  prophet  was  commanded  to  take  crowni 
of  silver  and  gold  and  put  them  on  the  heai  01 


TOBIT 

Joshua  the  high-priest  (Zech.  vi.  10).  In  ver.  14 
his  name  appears  in  the  shortened  form  n^'ltS- 
Rosenmiiller  conjectures  that  he  was  one  of  a  depu 
tation  who  came  up  to  Jerusalem,  from  the  Jews 
vho  still  remained  in  Babylon,  with  contributions 
of  gold  and  silver  for  the  Temple.  But  Maurer 
considei-s  that  the  offerings  were  presented  by  Tobijah 
and  his  companions,  because  the  crowns  were  com 
manded  to  be  placed  in  the  Temple  as  a  memorial  of 
their  visit  and  generosity.  [W.  A.  W.] 

TO'BIT  (T«j8efo,  Twflefr,  TwjBfr :  Vulg.  To 
bias  ;  Vet.  Lat.  Tobi,  Thobi,  Tobis},  the  son  of  To- 
biel  (To/8t^\ ;  Thobiel,  Tobiel)  and  father  of  Tobias 
(Tob.  i.  1,  &c.).  [TOBIT,  BOOK  OF.]  The  name 
appears  to  answer  to  ^IIO,  which  occurs  frequently 
in  later  times  (Fritzsclie,  ad  Tob.  i.  1),  and  not  (as 
Welte,  Einl.  65)  to  n»3it3  ;  yet  in  that  caseT«£fc, 
according  to  the  analogy  of  Aevfs  (^7),  would  have 
been  the  more  natural  form.  The  etymology  of 
the  word  is  obscure.  Ilgen  translates  it  simply 
"  my  goodness ;"  Fritzsche,  with  greater  probability, 
regards  it  as  an  abbreviation  of  i"l*31tD,  comparing 
Mf\xt  (Luke  iii.  24,  28),  'J5JH,  *c.  (od  Tob.  1.  c.). 
The  form  in  the  Vulgate  is"  of  no  weight  against 
the  Old  Latin,  except  so  far  as  it  shows  the  reading 
of  the  Chaldaic  text  which  Jerome  used,  in  which 
the  identity  of  the  names  of  the  father  and  son  is 
directly  affirmed  (i.  9,  Vulg.).  [B.  F.  W.] 

TO'BIT,  BOOK  OP.  The  book  is  called 
simply  Tobit  (To>j8iT,  TwjSei'r)  in  the  old  MSS. 
At  a  later  time  the  opening  words  of  the  book,  Bf- 
/8Aoy  \6yuv  Ta>&ir,  were  taken  as  a  title.  In  Latin 
MSS.  it  is  styled  Tobis,  Liber  Thobis,  Liber  Tobiae 
(Sabatier,  706),  Tobit  et  Tobias,  Liber  utriusque 
Tobiae  (Fritzsche,  Einl.  §1). 

1.  Text.— The  book  exists  at  present  in  Greek, 
Latin,  Syriac,  and  Hebrew  texts,  which  differ  more 
or  less  from  one  another  in  detail,  but  yet  on  the 
whole  are  so  far  alike  that  it  is  reasonable  to  sup 
pose  that  all  were  derived  from  one  written  original, 
which  was  modified  in  the  course  of  translation  or 
transcription.  The  Greek  text  is  found  in  two 
distinct  recensions.  The  one  is  followed  by  the 
mass  of  the  MSS.  of  the  LXX.,  and  gives  the  oldest 
text  which  remains.  The  other  is  only  fragmentary, 
and  manifestly  a  revision  of  the  former.  Of  this, 
one  piece  (i.  1-ii.  2)  is  contained  in  the  Cod.  Sinai- 
ticus  (  =  Cod.  Frid.  Augusfcmus),  and  another  in 
three  later  MSS.  (44,  106,  107,  Holmes  and  Par 
sons;  vi.  9-xiiv.  ;  Fritzsche,  Exeg.  Handb.  71- 
110).  The  Latin  texts  are  also  of  two  kinds. 
'rhe  common  (Vulgate)  text  is  due  to  Jerome,  who 
formed  it  by  a  very  hasty  revision  of  the  old  Latin 
version  with  the  help  of  a  Chaldee  copy,  which  was 
translated  into  Hebrew  for  him  by  an  assistant  who 
was  master  of  both  languages.  The  treatment  o 
the  text  in  this  recension  is  very  arbitrary,  as  might 
be  expected  from  the  description  which  Jerome  gives 
of  the  mode  in  which  it  was  made  (comp.  Praef. 
in  Tob.  §4) ;  and  it  is  of  very  little  critical  value, 
for  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  accurately  the 
different  elements  which  are  incorporated  in  it 
The  ante-Hieronymian  (Vetus  Latina)  texts  are 
far  more  valuable,  though  these  present  consider 
able  variations  among  themselves,  as  generally  hap 
pens,  and  represent  the  revised  and  not  the  original 
Greek  text.  Sabatier  has  given  one  text  from  these 
MSS.  of  the  eighth  century,  and  also  added  variou 
readings  from  another  MS.,  formerly  in  the  possession 


TOBIT,  BOOK  OF 


1523 


f  Christina  of  Sweden,  which  contains  a  distinct 
ersion  of  a  considerable  part  of  the  book,  i.-vi.  12 
Bibl.  Lat.  ii.  p.  706).    A  third  text  is  found  in  the 
quotations  of  the  Speculum,  published  by  Mai  Spi- 
.  Rom.  ix.  21-23.     The  Hebrew  versions  are  of 
no  great  weight.     One,  which  was  published  by  P. 
S'agius  (1542)  after  a  Constantinopolitan  edition  of 
1517,  is  closely  moulded  on  the  common  Greek 
;ext  without  being  a  servile  translation  (Fritzsche, 
§4).     Another,  published  by  S.  Munster  (1542, 
.),  is  based  upon  the  revised  text,  but  is  extremely 
free,  and  is  rather  an  adaptation  than  a  version. 
Both  these  versions,  with  the  Syriac,  are  reprinted 
n  Walton's  Polyglott,  and  are  late  Jewish  works  of 
uncertain  date  (Fritzsche,  I.e.  Ilgen,  ch.  xvii.  ff.) 
The  Syriac  version  is  of  a  composite  character.    At 
far  as  ch.  vii.  9  it  is  a  close  rendering  of  the  common 
reek  text  of  the  LXX.,  but  from  this  point  to  the 
end  it  follows  the  revised  text,  a  fact  which  is  no 
ticed  in  the  margin  of  one  of  the  MSS. 

2.  Contents. — The  outline  of  the  book  is  as  fol 
lows.  Tobit,  a  Jew  of  the  tribe  of  Naphtali,  who 
strictly  observed  the  law  and  remained  faithful  to 
the  Temple-service  at  Jerusalem  (i.  4-8),  was  carried 
captive  to  Assyria  by  Shalmaneser.  While  in  cap 
tivity  he  exerted  himself  to  relieve  his  countrymen, 
which  his  favourable  position  at  court  (ayopaffr-ffs, 
i.  13,  "  purveyor  ")  enabled  him  to  do,  and  at  this 
time  he  was  rich  enough  to  lend  ten  talents  of  silver 
to  a  countryman,  Gabael  of  Rages  in  Media.  But 
when  Sennacherib  succeeded  his  father  Shalmaneser, 
the  fortune  of  Tobit  was  changed.  He  was  accused 
of  burying  the  Jews  whom  the  king  had  put  to 
death,  and  was  only  able  to  save  himself,  his  wife 
Anna,  and  his  son  Tobias,  by  flight.  On  the  accession 
of  Esarhaddon  he  was  allowed  to  return  to  Nineveh, 
at  the  intercession  of  his  nephew,  Achiacharus,  wh  • 
occupied  a  high  place  in  the  king's  household  (i. 
22) ;  but  his  zeal  for  his  countrymen  brought  him 
into  a  strange  misfortune.  As  he  lay  one  night  in 
the  court  of  his  house,  being  unclean  from  having 
buried  a  Jew  whom  his  son  had  found  strangled  in 
the  market-place,  sparrows  "  muted  warm  dung 
into  his  eyes,"  and  he  became  blind.  Being  thus 
disabled,  he  was  for  a  time  supported  by  Achi 
acharus,  and  after  his  departure  (read  fvopevSij,  h. 
10)  by  the  labour  of  his  wife.  On  one  occasion 
he  falsely  accused  her  of  stealing  a  kid  which  had 
been  added  to  her  wages,  and  in  return  she  re 
proached  him  with  the  miserable  issue  of  all  hia 
righteous  deeds.  Grieved  by  her  taunts  he  prayed 
to  God  for  help ;  and  it  happened  that  on  the  same 
day  Sara,  his  kinswoman  (vi.  10,  11),  the  only 
daughter  of  Raguel,  also  sought  help  from  God 
against  the  reproaches  of  her  father's  household. 
For  seven  young  men  wedded  to  her  had  perished 
on  their  marriage  night  by  the  power  of  the  evil 
spirit  Asmodeus  [ASMODEUS]  ;  and  she  thought 
that  she-  should  "  bring  her  father's  old  age  with 
sorrow  unto  the  grave"  (iii.  10).  So  Raphael  was 
sent  to  deliver  both  from  their  sorrow.  In  the 
mean  time  Tobit  called  to  mind  the  money  which  he 
had  lent  to  Gabael,  and  despatched  Tobias,  with 
many  wise  counsels,  to  reclaim  it  (iv.).  On  this 
Raphael  (under  the  form  of  a  kinsman,  Azarias) 
offered  himself  as  a  guide  to  Tobias  on  his  journey 
to  Media,  and  they  "  went  forth  both,  and  the 
young  man's  dog  with  them,"  and  Anna  was  com 
forted  for  the  absence  of  her  son  (v.).  When  they 
reached  the  Tigris,  Tobias  was  commanded  by  Ra 
phael  to  take  "  the  heart,  and  liver,  and  gall  "  of  "  a 
fish  which  leaped  out  of  the  river  and  would  have 

fc  E  2 


1524 


TOBIT,  BOOK  OP 


devoured  him,"  and  instructed  how  to  use  the 
first  two  against  Asmodeus,  for  Sara,  Raphael  said, 
was  appointed  to  be  his  wife  (vi.).  So  when  they 
reauiieu  Ecbatana  they  were  entertained  by  Raguel, 
and  in  accordance  with  the  words  of  the  angel,  Sara 
Was  given  to  Tobias  in  marriage  that  night,  and 
Asmodeus  was  *'  driven  to  the  utmost  parts  of 
Egypt,"  where  "  the  angel  bound  him  "  (vii.,  viii.). 
After  this  Raphael  recovered  the  loan  from  Gabael 
(ix.),  and  Tobias  then  returned  with  Sara  and  half 
her  father's  goods  to  Nineve  (x.).  Tobit,  informed 
by  Anna  of  their  son's  approach,  hastened  to  meet 
him.  Tobias  by  the  command  of  the  angel  applied 
the  fish's  gall  to  his  father's  eyes  and  restored  his 
sight  (xi.).  After  this  Raphael  addressing  to  both 
W  jrds  of  good  counsel  revealed  himself,  and  "  they 
saw  him  no  more  "  (xii.).  On  this  Tobit  expressed 
his  gratitude  in  a  fine  psalm  (xiii.)  ;  and  he  lived  to 
see  the  long  prosperity  of  his  son  (xiv.  1,2).  After 
his  death  Tobias,  according  to  his  instruction,  re 
turned  to  Ecbatana,  and  "  before  he  died  he  heard  of 
the  destruction  of  Nineve,"  of  which  "  Jonas  the 
prophet  spake"  (xiv.  15,  4). 

3.  Historical  character. — The  narrative  which 
has  been  just  sketched,  seems  to  have  been  received 
without  inquiry  or  dispute  as  historically  true  till 
the  rise  of  free  criticism  at  the  Reformation.  Luther, 
while  warmly  praising  the  general  teaching  of  the 
book  (comp.  §6),  yet  expressed  doubts  as  to  its 
literal  truth,  and  these  doubts  gradually  gained  a 
wide  currency  among  Protestant  writers.  Bertholdt 
(Einl.  §579)  has  given  a  summary  of  alleged  errors 
in  detail  (e.g.  i.  1,  2,  of  Napthali,  compared  with 
2  K.  xv.  29 ;  vi.  9,  Rages,  said  to  have  been  founded 
by  Sel.  Nicator),  but  the  question  turns  rather 
upon  the  general  complexion  of  the  history  than 
upon  minute  objections,  which  are  often  captious 
and  rarely  satisfactory  (comp.  Welte,  Einl.  pp. 
84-94).  This,  however,  is  fatal  to  the  supposition 
that  the  book  could  have  been  completed  shortly 
after  the  fall  of  Nineveh  (B.C.  606  ;  Tob.  xiv.  15), 
and  written  in  the  main  some  time  before  (Tob. 
xii.  20).  The  whole  tone  of  the  narrative  bespeaks 
a  later  age ;  and  above  all,  the  doctrine  of  good  and 
evil  spirits  is  elaborated  in  a  form  which  belongs  to 
a  period  considerably  posterior  to  the  Babylonian 
Captivity  (Asmodeus,  iii.  8,  vi.  14,  viii.  3  ;  Raphael, 
xii.  15).  The  incidents  again,  are  completely  iso 
lated,  and  there  is  no  reference  to  them  in  any  part 
of  Scripture  (tha  supposed  parallels,  Tob.  iv.  15 
(16)  H  Matt.  vii.  12;  Tob.  xiii.  16-18  ||  Rev. 
xxi.  18,  are  mere  general  ideas),  nor  in  Josephus 
or  Philo.  And  though  the  extraordinary  character 
of  the  details,  as  such,  is  no  objection  against  the 
reality  of  the  occurrences,  yet  it  may  be  fairly 
urged  that  the  character  of  the  alleged  miraculous 
events,  when  taken  together,  is  alien  from  the  ge 
neral  character  of  such  events  in  the  historical  books 
of  Scripture,  while  there  is  nothing  exceptional  in 
the  circumstances  of  the  persons,  as  in  the  case  of 
Daniel  [DANIEL,  vol.  i.  p.  394],  which  might  serve 
to  explain  this  difference.  On  all  these  grounds  it 
may  certainly  be  concluded  that  the  narrative  is 
not  simply  history,  and  it  is  superfluous  to  inquire 
how  far  it  is  based  upon  facts.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  some  real  occurrences,  preserved  by  tradition, 
furnished  the  basis  of  the  narrative,  but  it  does  not 
follow  by  any  means  that  the  elimination  of  the 
extraordinary  details  will  leave  behind  pure  history 
(so  Ilgen).  As  the  book  stands  it  is  a  distinctly- 
didactic  narrative.  Its  point  lies  in  the  moral 
lesson  which  it  conveys,  and  not  in  the  incidents. 


TOBIT,  BOOK  OF 


The  incidents  furnish  Inely  pictuies  of  Ihe 
which  the  author  wished  to  inculcate,  but  the 
lessons  themselves  are  independent  of  them.  No*" 
can  any  weig\it  be  laid  on  the  minute  exactness 
with  which  apparently  unimportant  details  are 
described  (e.  g.  the  genealogy  and  dwelling-place 
of  Tobit,  i.  1,  2  ;  the  marriage  festival,  \i\i.  20, 
xi.  18,  19,  quoted  by  Ilgen  and  Welte),  as  prov 
ing  the  reality  of  the  events,  for  such  particularity 
is  characteristic  of  Eastern  romance,  and  appears 
again  in  the  Book  of  Judith.  The  writer  in  com 
posing  his  story  necessarily  observed  the  ordinary 
form  of  a  historical  narrative. 

4.  Original  Language  and  Revisions.  —  In  the 
absence  of  all  direct  evidence,  considerable  doubt  has 
been  felt  as  to  the  original  language  of  the  book. 
The  superior  clearness,  simplicity,  and  accuracy  of 
the  LXX.  text  prove  conclusively  that  this  is  nearer 
the  original  than  any  other  text  which  is  known,  if 
it  be  not,  as  some  have  supposed  (  Jahn  and  Fritzsche 
doubtfully),  the  original  itself.  Indeed,  the  argu 
ments  which  have  been  brought  forward  to  show 
that  it  is  a  translation  are  far  from  conclusive.  The 
supposed  contradictions  between  different  parts  of  the 
book,  especially  the  change  from  the  first  (i.-iii.  6) 
to  the  third  person  (iii.  7-xiv.),  from  which  Ilgen 
endeavoured  to  prove  that  the  narrative  was  made 
up  of  distinct  Hebrew  documents,  carelessly  put 
together,  and  afterwards  rendered  by  one  Greek 
translator,  are  easily  explicable  on  other  grounds  ; 
and  the  alleged  mistranslations  (iii.  6  ;  iv.  19,  &c.) 
depend  rather  on  errors  in  interpreting  the  Greek 
text,  than  on  errors  in  the  text  itself.  The  style, 
again,  though  harsh  in  parts,  and  far  from  the 
classical  standard,  is  not  more  so  than  some  books 
which  were  undoubtedly  written  in  Greek  (e.  g.  the 
Apocalypse)  ;  and  there  is  little,  if  any  thing,  in  it 
which  points  certainly  to  the  immediate  influence 
of  an  Aramaic  text.  (i.  4,  ets  irdffas  ras  ywfas 
TOV  alcouos,  comp.  Eph.  iii.  21  ;  i.  22,  e/c  Seurepos; 
iii.  1  5,  Iva  ri  /JLOI  ^v  ;  v.  1  5,  riva  ffoi  etro/ucu 
/j.i<r6bv  SiSdvai',  xiv.  3,  irpofffBero  </>o/3er<r0ai,  &c.) 
To  this  it  may  be  added  that  Origen  was  not  ac 
quainted  with  any  Hebrew  original  (Ep.  ad  Afric. 
13)  ;  and  the  Chaldee  copy  which  Jerome  used, 
as  far  as  its  character  can  be  ascertainal,  was  evi 
dently  a  later  version  of  the  story.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  no  internal  evidence  against  the  sup 
position  that  the  Greek  text  is  a  translation.  Some 
difficulties  appear  to  be  removed  by  this  supposition 
(e.  g.  ix.  6)  ;  and  if  the  consideration  of  the  date 
and  place  of  the  composition  of  the  book  favour  this 
view,  it  may  rightly  be  admitted.  The  Greek  offers 
some  peculiarities  in  vocabulary:  —  i.  6,  -irpcaTo- 
Kovpia,  i.e.  T]  airapx^]  f&v  Kovpuv,  Deut.  xviii.  4  ; 
i.  7,  airoirpari^o^ai  ;  i.  21,  e/c  \oyi  aria  ;  ii.  3, 
ffrpayya\6d),  &c.  :  and  in  construction,  xiii.  7, 
ayaXXiaffQai  T^V  fityaXtoffvvTiv  ;  xn.4,  SucaiovvQal 
TLVI  ;  vi.  19,  irpoffdyciv  nvi  (intrans.)  ;  vi.  6, 
eyyi&iv  eV,  &c.  But  these  furnish  no  argument 
on  either  side. 

The  various  texts  which  remain  have  already 
been  enumerated.  Of  these,  three  varieties  may  be 
distinguished  :  (1)  the  LXX.  ;  (2)  the  revised  Greek 
text,  followed  by  the  Old  Latin  in  the  main,  and  by 
the  Syriac  in  part;  and  (3)  the  Vulgvte  Latin. 
The  Hebrew  versions  have  no  critical  value. 
(1)  The  LXX.  is  followed  by  A.  V.,  and  has  been 
already  characterized  as  the  standard  to  which  "the 
others  are  to  be  referred.  (2)  The  revised  text, 
first  brought  distinctly  into  notice  by  Fritzsche 
(Einl.  §5),  is  based  on  the  LXX.  Greek,  which  is 


TOBIT,  BOOK  OF 

at  one  time  extended,  and  then  compressed,  with  a 
view  to  greater  fulness  and  clearness.  A  few  of 
the  variations  in  the  first  chapter  will  indicate  it* 
character: — Ver.  2,  ®i(rftT]S,  add.  oTrlffca 
fj\iov  e£  apurrepaJv  Qoyup  ;  ver.  8,  ofs 
given  at  length  rots  bpfyavdis  Kal  TOIS 
v.T.A.. ;  ver.  18,  e/c  TT)S  'lovdaias,  add.  fv  r)/j.epais 
TTIS  Kpivews  ^s  eTroiTjtrei'  e£  avrov  6  jScKTtAeus 
rov  ovpavov  Trepl  rcav  ^\a(T<^p.iS)v  £>v  e'/3Aa<r- 
^>"fl/j.T](rev  ;  ver.  22,  oivoxoos,  ap-^ioivox^os. 
(3)  The  Vulgate  text  was  derived  in  part  from  a 
Chaldee  copy  which  was  translated  by  word  of 
mouth  into  Hebrew  for  Jerome, who  in  turn  dictated 
a  Latin  rendering  to  a  secretary.  (Praef.  in  Tob. : 
....  Exigitis  ut  librum  Chaldaeo  sermone  con- 
Bcriptum  ad  Latinum  stylum  traham  ....  Feci 
satis  desiderio  vestro,  non  tamen  meo  studio  .... 
Et  quia  vicina  est  Chaldaeorum  lingua  sermoni 
Hebraico,  utriusque  linguae  peritissimum  loquacem 
reperiens  unius  diei  laborern  arripui,  et  quidquid 
ille  mi  hi  Hebraicis  verbis  expressit,  hoc  ego,  accito 
not;xio,  sermonibus  Latinis  exposui.)  It  is  evident 
that  in  this  process  Jerome  made  some  use  of  the 
Old  Latin  version,  which  he  follows  almost  verbally 

•;n  a  few  places:  iii.  3-6;  iv.  6,  7,  11,  23,  &c. ; 
but  the  greater  part  of  the  version  seems  to  be  an 
independent  work.  On  the  whole,  it  is  more  concise 
than  the  Old  Latin ;  but  it  contains  interpolations 
and  changes,  many  of  which  mark  the  asceticism  of 
a  late  age:  ii.  12-14  (parallel  with  Job);  iii.  17-23 
(expansion  of  iii.  14) ;  vi.  17  ff.  (expansion  of  vi. 
18);  ix.  11,  12;  xii.  13  (et  quia  acceptus  eras 
Deo,  necesse  fuit  ut  tcntatio  probaret  te). 

5.  Date  and  place  of  Composition. — The  data 
for  determining  the  age  of  the  book  and  the  place 
where  it  was  compiled  are  scanty,  and  conse 
quently  very  different  opinions  have  been  enter- 

.  tained  on  these  points.  Eichhorn  (Einl.  pp.  408  ft'.) 
places  the  author  after  the  time  of  Darius  Hystaspis 
without  fixing  any  further  limit  of  age  or  country. 
Bertholdt,  insisting  (wrongly)  on  the  supposed  date 
of  the  foundation  of  Rages  [RAGES],  brings  the  book 
considerably  later  than  Seleucus  Nicator  (cir.  B.C. 
250-200),  and  supposes  that  it  was  written  by  a  Ga- 
lilaean  or  Babylonian  Jew,  from  the  prominence  given 
to  those  districts  in  the  narrative  (Einl.  pp.  2499, 
2500).  De  Wette  leaves  the  date  undetermined,  but 
argues  that  the  author  was  a  native  of  Palestine 
(Einl.  §311).  Ewald  (Geschichte,  iv.  233-238) 
fixes  the  composition  in  the  far  East,  towards  the 
close  of  the  Persian  period  (cir.  350  B.C.).  This 
last  opinion  is  almost  certainly  correct.  The  su- 

.  perior  and  inferior  limits  of  the  date  of  the  book 
seem  to  be  defined  with  fair  distinctness.  On  the 
one  hand  the  detailed  doctrine  of  evil  spirits  points 
clearly  to  some  time  after  the  Babylonian  Captivity  ; 
and  this  date  is  definitely  marked  by  the  reference 
to  a  now  Temple  at  Jerusalem,  "  not  like  the  first" 
(Tob.  xiv.  5  ;  comp.  Ezr.  iii.  12).  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  the  Jews  were 
threatened  with  any  special  danger  when  the  narra 
tive  was  written  (as  in  Judith),  and  the  manner  in 
which  Media  is  mentioned  (xiv.  4)  implies  that  the 
Persian  monarchy  was  still  strong.  Thus  its  date 
will  fall  somewhere  within  the  period  between  the 
close  of  the  work  of  Nehemiah  and  the  invasion  of 
Alexander  (cir.  B.C.  430-334).  The  contents  of  the 
book  furnish  also  some  due  to  the  place  where  it 
was  written.  $ot  only  is  there  an  accurate  know 
ledge  of  the  scenes  described  (Ewald,  233),  but  the 
incidents  have  a  local  colouring.  The  continual 
reference  to  almsgiving  and  the  burial  of  the  dead, 


TOBIT,  BOOK  OF  1525 

and  the  stress  which  is  laid  upon  the  right  per 
formance  of  worship  at  Jerusalem  by  those  who 
are  afar  off  (i.  4),  can  scarcely  be  due  to  an  effort 
of  imagination,  but  must  rather  have  been  oeoa- 
sioned  by  the  immediate  experience  of  the  writer. 
This  would  suggest  that  he  was  living  out  of  Pales 
tine,  in  some  Persian  city,  perhaps  Babylon,  where 
his  countrymea  were  exposed  to  the  capricious 
cruelty  of  heathen  governors,  and  in  danger  of  neg 
lecting  the  Temple-service.  Glimpses  are  also  given 
of  the  presence  of  the  Jews  at  court,  not  only  ir 
the  history  (Tob.  i.  22),  but  also  in  direct  counsel 
(xii.  7,  /J.v(rrr]ptof  /Sao^Aews  /caA&v  Kpfyai),  whicl. 
better  suit  such  a  position  than  any  other  (corop. 
xiii.  3).  If  these  conjectures  as  to  the  date  and 
place  of  writing  be  correct,  it  follows  that  we  must 
assume  the  existence  of  a  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  ori 
ginal.  And  even  ff  the  date  of  the  book  be  brought 
much  lower,  to  the  beginning  of  the  second  century 
B.C.,  which  seems  to  be  the  latest  possible  limit, 
it  is  equally  certain  that  it  must  have  been  written 
in  some  Aramaic  dialect,  as  the  Greek  literature  of 
Palestine  belongs  to  a  much  later  time;  and  the  re 
ferences  to  Jerusalem  seem  to  show  that  the  book 
could  not  have  been  composed  in  Egypt  (i.  4,  xiv. 
5),  an  inference,  indeed,  which  may  be  deduced 
from  its  general  contents.  As  long  as  the  book 
was  held  to  be  strict  history  it  was  supposed  that  it 
was  written  by  the  immediate  actors,  in  accordance 
with  the  direction  of  the  angel  (xii.  20).  The  pas 
sages  where  Tobit  speaks  in  the  first  person  (i.-iii. 
6,  xiii.)  were  assigned  to  his  authorship.  The  in 
tervening  chapters  to  Tobit  or  Tobias.  The  descrip 
tion  of  the  close  of  the  life  of  Tobit  to  Tobias  (xiv. 
1-11);  and  the  concluding  verses  (xiv.  12-15)  to 
one  of  his  friends  who  survived  him.  If,  however, 
the  historical  character  of  the  narrative  is  set  aside, 
there  is  no  trace  of  the  person  of  the  author. 

6.  History. — The  history  of  the  book  is  in  the 
main  that  of  the  LXX.  version.  While  the  con 
tents  of  the  LXX.,  as  a  whole,  were  received  as  ca 
nonical,  the  Book  of  Tobit  was  necessarily  included 
without  further  inquiry  among  the  books  of  Holy 
Scripture.  [CANON.]  The  peculiar  merits  of  .the 
book  contributed  also  in  no  small  degree  to  gain  for 
it  a  wide  and  hearty  reception.  There  appeai-s  to 
be  a  clear  reference  to  it  in  the  Latin  version  of  the 
Epistle  of  Polycarp  (c.  10,  eleemosyna  de  morte 
liberat,  Tob.  iv.  10,  xii.  9).  In  a  scheme  of  the 
Ophites,  if  there  be  no  corruption  in  the  text,  To 
bias  appears  among  the  prophets  (Iren.  i.  30,  11). 
Clement  of  Alexandria  (Strom,  ii.  23,  §139,  TOVTO 
I3pax*cas  f)  ypcKp-rj  SeS^Aw/cev  flpr)Kv'ia,  Tob.  iv. 
16)  and  Origen  practically  use  the  book  as  ca» 
nonical ;  but  Origen  distinctly  notices  that  neither 
Tobit  nor  Judith  were  received  by  the  Jews,  and 
rests  the  authority  of  Tobit  on  the  usage  of  the 
Churches  (Ep.  ad  Afric.  13,  'E/8po?oi  T$  Tiafiiq 
ov  xpcavTat.  .  .  .  oAA',  eTrei  \pSsvT 0.1  T<j3  TwjStoi 
at  fKK\i}ff'mi  .  .  .  De  Orat.  1,  §14,  rrj  TOV  Tca^r 
&i/3\cp  avTiXe-yovffLV  ol  e*c  irfpno^s  o>s  ufy  eV- 
8ia6'f]KCf)  .  .  .).  Even  Athanasius  when  writing 
without  any  critical  regard  to  the  Canon  quotes 
Tobit  as  Scripture  (Apol.  c.  Arian.  §11,  us  y£- 
ypaTTTat,  Tob.  xii.  7) ;  but  when  he  gives  a  formal 
list  of  the  Sacred  Books,  he  definitely  excludes  it 
from  the  Canon,  and  places  it  with  other  apocry 
phal  books  among  the  writings  which  were  "  to  be 
read  by  those  who  were  but  just  entering  on  Chris 
tian  teaching,  and  desirous  to  be  instructed  in  the 
rules  of  piety"  (Ep.  Fest.  p.  1177,  ed.  Migoe), 
In  the  Latin  Church  Tobit  found  a  much  more  de- 


1520 


TOBIT,  BOOK  OF 


cided  acceptance.  Cyprian,  Hilary,  and  Lucifer, 
quote  it  as  authoritative  (Cypr.  De  Orat.  Dom. 
32 ;  Hil.  Pict.  In  Psalm,  cxxix.  7 ;  yet  comp. 
Prol.  in  Ps.  xv. ;  Lucif.  Pro  Athan.  i.  p.  871). 
Augustine  includes  it  with  the  other  apocrypha  of 
*.he  LXX.  among  "  the  books  which  the  Christian 
Church  received  "  (De  Doctr.  Christ,  ii.  8),a  and  in 
this  he  was  followed  by  the  mass  of  the  later  Latin 
fathers  [comp.  CANON,  vol.  i.  p.  256,  &c.].  Am 
brose  in  especial  wrote  an  essay  on  Tobias,  treat 
ing  of  the  evils  of  usury,  in  which  he  speaks  of 
the  book  as  "  prophetic "  in  the  strongest  terms 
(De  Tobid,  1,1;  comp.  Hexaem.  vi.  4).  Jerome 
however,  followed  by  Ruffinus,  maintained  the 
purity  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  of  the  0.  T.,  and,  as 
has  been  seen,  treated  it  very  summarily  (for  later 
authorities  see  CANON).  In  modern  times  the 
moral  excellence  of  the  book  has  been  rated  highly, 
except  in  the  heat  of  controversy.  Luther  pro 
nounced  it,  if  only  a  fiction,  yet  "  a  truly  beautiful, 
wholesome,  and  profitable  fiction,  the  work  of  a 
gifted  poet.  ...  A  book  useful  for  Christian  read 
ing"  (ap.  Fritzsche,  Einl.  §11).  The  same  view 
is  held  also  in  the  English  Church.  A  passage  from 
Tobit  is  quoted  in  the  Second  Book  of  Homilies  as 
the  teaching  "  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  Scripture  " 
(Of  Almsdeeds,  ii.  p.  391,  ed.  Corrie);  and  the 
Trayer-book  offers  several  indications  of  the  same 
feeling  of  respect  tor  the  book.  Three  verses  are 
retained  among  the  sentences  used  at  the  Offertory 
(Tob.  iv.  7-9) ;  and  the  Preface  to  the  Marriage 
Service  contains  a  plain  adaptation  of  Jerome's 
version  of  Tob.  vi.  17  (Hi  namque  qui  conjugium 
ita  suscipiunt  ut  Deum  a  se  et  a  sua  mente  exclu- 
dant,  et  suae  libidini  ita  vacent,  sicut  equus  et 
mulus  quibus  non  est  intellectus,  habet  potestatem 
daemonium  super  eos).  In  the  First  Book  of  Edward 
VI.  a  reference  to  the  blessing  of  Tobias  and  Sara 
by  Raphael  was  retained  in  the  same  service  from 
the  old  office  in  place  of  the  present  reference  to 
Abraham  and  Sarah ;  and  one  of  the  opening  clauses 
of  the  Litany,  introduced  from  the  Sarum  Breviary, 
is  a  reproduction  of  the  Vulgate  version  of  Tob. 
iii.  3  (Ne  vindictam  sumas  de  peccatis  meis,  neque 
reminiscaris  delicta  mea  vel  parentum  meorum). 

7.  Religious  character. — Few  probably  can  read 
the  book  in  the  LXX.  text  without  assenting  heart 
ily  to  the  favourable  judgment  of  Luther  on  its 
merits.  Nowhere  else  is  there  preserved  so  complete 
and  beautiful  a  picture  of  the  domestic  life  of  the 
Jews  after  the  Return.  There  may  be  symptoms 
of  a  tendency  to  formal  righteousness  of  works,  but 
as  yet  the  works  are  painted  as  springing  from 
a  living  faith.  The  devotion  due  to  Jerusalem  is 
united  with  definite  acts  of  charity  (i.  6-8)  and 
with  the  prospect  of  wider  blessings  (xiii.  11).  The 
giving  of  alms  is  not  a  mere  scattering  of  wealth, 
but  a  real  service  of  love  (i.  16,  17,  ii.  1-7,  iv. 
7-11,  16),  though  at  times  the  emphasis  which  is 
laid  upon  the  duty  is  exaggerated  (as  it  seems)  from 
the  special  circumstances  in  which  the  writer  was 
placed  (xii.  9,  xiv.  10).  Of  the  special  precepts 
one  (iv.  15,  &  nurris  (U7;5ei/l  irot^o-T/y)  contains  the 
negative  side  of  the  golden  rule  of  conduct  (Matt, 
vii.  12),  which  in  this  partial  form  is  found  among 


TOBIT,  BOOK  OF 

the  maxims  of  Confucius.  But  it  is  chiefly  in  thr, 
exquisite  tenderness  of  the  portraiture  of  domestic 
life  that  the  bo^k  excels.  The  parting  of  Tobias 
and  his  mother,  the  consolation  of  Tobit  (v.  1 7-22), 
the  affection  of  Raguel  (vii.  4-8),  the  anxious  wait 
ing  of  the  parents  (x.  1-7),  the  son's  return  (ix.  4, 
xi.),  and  even  the  unjust  suspiciousness  of  the  sorrow 
of  Tobit  and  Anna  (ii.  11-14)  are  painted  with  a 
simplicity  worthy  of  the  best  times  of  the  patriarchs.1* 
Almost  every  family  relation  is  touched  upon  with 
natural  grace  and  affection  :  husband  and  wife,  paren 
and  child,  kinsmen ,  near  or  distant,  masterand  servant, 
are  presented  in  the  most  varied  action,  and  always 
with  life-like  power  (ii.  13,  14,  v.  17-22,  vii.  16, 
viii,  4-8,  x.  1-7,  xi.  1-13,  i.  22,  ii.  10,  vii.  3-8,  v. 
14,  15,  xii.  1-5,  &c.).  Prayer  hallows  the  whole 
conduct  of  life  (ir.  19,  vi.  17,  viii.  5-8,  &c.)  ;  and 
even  in  distress  there  is  confidence  that  in  the  end 
all  will  be  well  (iv.  6,  14,  19),  though  there  is  no 
clear  anticipation  of  a  future  personal  existence 
(iii.  6).  The  most  remarkable  doctrinal  feature  in 
the  book  is  the  prominence  given  to  the  action  of 
spirits,  who,  while  they  are  conceived  to  be  subject 
to  the  passion",  of  men  and  material  influences  (As- 
modeus),  aro  yet  not  affected  by  bodily  wants,  and 
manifested  only  by  their  own  will  (Raphael,  xii.  19). 
Powers  of  evil  (tiaindviov,  irvev/j.a  irovnp6v,  iii.  8, 
17,  vi.  7, 14, 17)  are  represented  as  gaming  the  means 
of  injuring  men  by  sin  [ASMODEUS],  while  they 
are  driven  away  and  bound  by  the  exercise  of  faith 
and  prayer  (viii.  2,  3).  On  the  otner  hand  Raphael 
comes  among  men  as  "  the  healer "  (comp.  Dill- 
mann,  Das  Buck  ffenoch,  c.  20),  and  by  the  mis 
sion  of  God  (in.  17,  xii.  18),  restores  those  whose 
good  actions  he  has  secretly  watched  (xii.  12,  13), 
and  "the  remembrance  of  whose  prayers  he  has 
brought  before  the  Holy  One"  (xii.  12).  This 
ministry  of  intercession  is  elsewhere  expressly  re 
cognized.  Seven  holy  angels,  of  whom  Raphael  is 
one,  are  specially  described  as  those  "  which  present 
the  prayers  of  the  Saints,  and  which  go  in  and  out 
before  the  glory  of  God"  (xii.  15).  It  is  charac 
teristic  of  the  same  sense  of  the  need  of  some  being 
to  interpose  between  God  and  man  that  singular 
prominence  is  given  to  the  idea  of  "  the  glory  of 
God,"  before  which  these  archangels  appear  as 
priests  in  the  holiest  place  (viii.  15,  xii.  15)  ;  and  in 
one  passage  "the  angel  of  God"  (v.  16,  21)  occu 
pies  a  position  closely  resembling  that  of  the  Word 
in  the  Targums  and  Philo  (De  mut.  nom.  §13, 
&c.).  Elsewhere  blessing  is  rendered  to  "  all  the 
holy  angels"  (xi.  14,  fb\oyrip.tvoi  as  contrasted 
with  fv\oynr6s :  comp.  Luke  i.  42),  who  are  them 
selves  united  with  "the  elect"  in  the  duty  oi 
praising  God  for  ever  (viii.  15).  This  mention  or 
"  the  elect "  points  to  a  second  doctrinal  feature  of 
the  book,  which  it  shares  with  Baruch  alone  of  th^ 
apocryphal  writings,  the  firm  belief  in  a  gloricus 
restoration  of  the  Jewish  people  (xiv.  5,  xiii.  9-18). 
But  the  restoration  contemplated  is  national,  and 
not  the  work  of  a  universal  Saviour.  The  Temple 
is  described  as  "  consecrated  and  built  for  all  ages  " 

;i.   4),   the   feasts   are    "an   everlasting   decree" 
i.  6),  and  when  it  is  restored  "  the  streets  of  Jeru 
salem  shall  say  .  .  .  Blessed  be  God  which  hath 


»  This  is  expressed  still  more  distinctly  in  the  Speculum 
(p.  1127,  C.,  ed.  Par.  1836):  "Non  sunt  omittendi  et  bi 
Qibri]  quos  quidem  ante  Salvatoris  adventum  constatesse 
conscriptos,  sed  eos  non  receptos  a  Juducis  recipit  tamen 
ejnsdem  Sslvatoris  ecclesia."  The  preface  from  which 
these  words  are  taken  is  followed  by  quotations  from 
Wisdom.  Kcclesiasticus  and  Tobi;. 


b  In  this  connexion  may  be  noticed  the  incident,  which 
is  without  a  parallel  in  Scripture,  and  seems  more  natural 
to  the  West  than  to  the  East,  the  companionship  of  the 
dog  with  Tobias  (v.  ]  6,  xi.  4 :  comp.  Ambr.  Hexaem.  vi 
4,  17:  "  Mutae  specie  bestiae  sanctus  Raphael,  angelne 
Tobiae  juvenis  .....  ad  rclationem  gratiae  erudiebat 
aflectum  ")• 


TOC1IKN 

extolled  it  for  ever"  (xni.  18).     In  all  there  is  not 
the  slightest  trace  of  the  belief  in  a  personal  Messiah. 

8.  Comparisons   have  often  been  made  between 
the  Book  of  Tobit  and  Job,  but  from  the  outline 
which  has  been  given  it  is  obvious  that  the  resem 
blance  is  only  superficial,  though  Tob.  ii.  14  was 
probably   suggested    by  Job  ii.  9,   10,  while  the 
differences  are  such  as  to  mark  distinct  periods.     In 
Tobit  the  sorrows  of  those  who  are  afflicted  are  laid 
at  once  in  prayer  before  God,  in  perfect  reliance  on 
His  final  judgment,  and  then  immediately  relieved 
by  Divine  interposition.     In  Job  the  real  conflict  is 
in  the  soul  of  the  sufferer,  and  his  relief  comes  at 
length   with  humiliation  and  repentance  (xlii.  6). 
The  one  book  teaches  by  great  thoughts  ;  the  other 
bj  clear  maxims  translated  into  touching  incidents. 
The  contrast   of  Tobit   and   Judith  is  still   more 
instructive.     These  books  present  two  pictures  of 
Jewish  life  and  feeling,  broadly  distinguished  in  all 
their  details,  and  yet  mutually  illustrative.     The 
one  represents  the  exile  prosperous  and  even  power 
ful  in  a  strange  land,  exposed  to  sudden  dangers, 
cherishing  his  national  ties,  and  looking  with  un 
shaken  love  to  the   Holy  City,  but   still  mainly 
occupied  by  the  common  duties  of  social  life;  the 
other  portrays  a  time  of  reproach  and  peril,  when 
national  independence  was  threatened,  and  a  righteous 
cause  seemed  to  justify  unscrupulous  valour.     The 
one  gives  the  popular  ideal  of  holiness  of  living, 
the  other  of  courage  in  daring.     The  one  reflects 
the  current  feeling  at  the  close  of  the  Persian  rule, 
the  other  during  the  straggles  for  freedom. 

9.  The  first  complete  edition  of  the  book  was  by 
K.  D.  Ilgen  (Die  Gesch.  Tobis  .  .  .  mit  .  .  .  einer 
JEinleitung  versehen,  Jen.  1800),  which,  in  spite  of 
serious  defects  due  to  the  period  at  which  it  was  pub 
lished,  contains  the  most  full  discussion  of  the  con 
tents.    The  edition  of  Fritzsche  (Exeget.  Handb.  ii., 
Leipzig,  1853)  is  concise  and  scholarlike,  but  leaves 
some  points  without  illustration.     In  England  the 
book,  like  the  rest  of  the  Apocrypha,  seems  to  have 
fallen  into  most  undeserved  neglect.       [B.  F.  W.] 

TO'CHEN  (jDh:  ©OKKO.  ;  Alex.  0oxx«"  : 
Thocheri).  A  place  mentioned  (1  Chr.  iv.  32  only) 
amongst  the  towns  of  Simeon.  In  the  parallel  list 
of  Josh.  (xix.  7)  there  is  nothing  corresponding 
to  Tochen.  The  LXX.,  however,  adds  the  name 
Thalcha  between  Remmon  and  Ether  in  the  latter 
passage ;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  this  may  be 
the  remnant  of  a  Tochen  anciently  existing  in  the 
Hebrew  text,  though  it  has  been  considered  as  an 
indication  of  Telem.  [G.] 

TOGAK'MAH  (HD-liPl :  ©op-yapd:  Thogor- 
ma).  A  son  of  Gomer,  "and  brother  of  Ashkenaz 
and  Riphath  (Gen.  x.  3).  it  has  been  already 
shown  that  Togarmah,  as  a  geographical  term,  is 
connected  with  Armenia,*  and  that  the  subsequent 
notices  of  the  name  (Ez.  xxvii.  14,  xxxviii.  6) 
accord  with  this  view.  [ARMENIA.]  It  remains 
for  us  to  examine  into  the  ethnology  of  the  Arme 
nians  with  a  view  to  the  position  assigned  to  them 
in  the  Mosaic  table.  The  most  decisive  statement 
respecting  them  in  ancient  literature  is  furnished  by 
Herodotus,  who  says  that  they  were  Phrygian 
colonists,  that  they  were  armed  in  the  Phrygian 
fashion,  and  were  associated  with  the  Phrygians 
under  the  same  commander  (Herod,  vii.  73).  The 

a  The  name  itself  may  possibly  have  reference  to  Ar 
menia,  for,  according  to  Grimm  (Gesch.  Deutsch.  Spr.  ii. 
i25).  Togarmah  conies  from  the  Sanscrit  toka.  "tribe," 


TOI 


1527 


remark  of  Eudoxus  (Steph.  Byz.  s.  v.  '\pufvla 
that  the  Armenians  resemble  the  Phrygians  in  many 
respects  in  language  (rrj  tytavfi  iro\\a  typvyi&vai 
tends  in  the  same  direction.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  understand  the  statement  of  Herodotus  as  imply 
ing  more  than  a  common  origin  of  the  two 
peoples  ;  for,  looking  at  the  general  westward  pro 
gress  of  the  Japhetic  races,  and  on  the  central 
position  which  Armenia  held  in  regard  to  their 
movements,  we  should  rather  infer  that  Phrygia 
was  colonized  from  Armenia,  than  vice  versa.  The 
Phrygians  were  indeed  reputed  to  have  had  their 
first  settlements  in  Europe,  and  thence  to  have 
crossed  into  Asia  (Herod,  vii.  73),  but  this  must 
be  regarded  as  simply  a  retrograde  movement  of  a 
section  of  the  great  Phrygian  race  in  the  direction 
of  their  original  home.  The  period  of  this  move 
ment  is  fixed  subsequently  to  the  Trojan  war  (Strab. 
xiv.  p.  680),  whereas  the  Phrygians  appear  as  an 
important  race  in  Asia  Minor  at  a  far  earlier  period 
(Strab.  vii.  p.  321  ;  Herod,  vii.  8,  11).  There  can  be 
little  doubt  but  that  they  were  once  the  dominant 
race  in  the  peninsula,  and  that  they  spread  west 
ward  from  the  confines  of  Armenia  to  the  shores  of 
the  Aegaean.  The  Phrygian  language  is  undoubt 
edly  to  be  classed  with  the  Indo-European  family. 
The  resemblance  between  words  in  the  Phrygian 
and  Greek  tongues  was  noticed  by  the  Greeks  them 
selves  (Plat.  CratyL  p.  410),  and  the  inscriptions 
still  existing  in  the  former  are  decidedly  Indo- 
Euiopean  (Rawlinson's  Herod,  i.  666).  The  Ar 
menian  language  presents  many  peculiarities  which 
distinguish  it  from  other  branches  of  the  Indo- 
European  family  ;  but  these  may  be  accounted  for 
partly  by  the  physical  character  of  the  country, 
and  partly  by  the  large  amount  of  foreign  admix 
ture  that  it  has  experienced.  In  spite  of  this, 
however,  no  hesitation  is  felt  by  philologists  in 
placing  Armenian  among  the  Indo-European  lan 
guages  (Pott,  Etym.  Forsch.  Introd.  p.  32  ;  Die- 
fenbach,  Orig.  Europ.  p.  43).  With  regard  to  the 
ancient  inscriptions  at  Wan,  some  doubt  exists; 
some  of  J,hem,  but  apparently  not  the  most 
ancient,  are  thought  to  bear  a  Turanian  character 
(Layard's  Nin.  and  Bab.  p.  402  ;  Rawlinson's 
Herod.  i.  652)  ;  but,  even  were  this  fully  estab 
lished,  it  fails  to  prove  the  Turanian  character  of 
the  population,  inasmuch  as  they  may  have  been 
set  up  by  foreign  conquerors.  The  Armenians 
themselves  have  associated  the  name  of  Togarmah 
with  their  early  history  in  that  they  represent  the 
founder  of  their  race,  Haik,  as  a  son  of  Thorgom 
(Moses  Choren.  i.  4,  §9-11}.  [W.  L.  B.] 

TO'HU  (-inn  :  ©o*ce  ;  Alex.  Qoov  :  Thoku). 
An  ancestor  of  Samuel  the  prophet,  perhaps  the 
same  as  TOAH  (1  Sam.  i.  1  ;  comp.  1  Chr.  vi.  34). 


:  @oov]  Alex.  Gael:  Thou).  King 
of  Hapath  on  the  Orontes,  who,  after  the  defeat  of 
his  powerful  enemy  the  Syrian  king  Hadadezer  by 
the  army  of  David,  sent  his  son  Joram,  or  Hadoram, 
to  congratulate  the  victor  and  do  him  homage  with 
presents  of  gold  and  silver  and  brass  (2  Sam.  viii. 
9,  10).  "  For  Hadadezer  had  wars  with  Toi,"  and 
Ewald  (Gesch.  iii.  199)  conjectures  that  he  may 
have  even  reduced  him  to  a  state  of  vassalage. 
There  was  probably  some  policy  in  the  conduct  of 
Toi,  and  his  object  may  have  been,  as  Josephus  says 


and  Arma  =  Armenia,  which  he  further  connects  with 
Hermino  the  son  of  Hannus. 


1528 


TOLA 


it  was  (Ant.  vii.  5,  §4),  to  buy  off  the  conqueror 
with  the  "  vessels  of  ancient  workmanship  "  (o-fteifoj 
TTJS  apxatas  /caTO(r/ceu7js)  which  he  presented. 

TO'LA  (yVin  :  ®u\d  :  Thala).     1.  The  firsts 


bora  of  Issachar,  and  ancestor  of  the  Tolaites  (Gen. 
xlvi.  13;  Num.  xxvi.  23;  1  Chr.  vii.  1,  2),  who  in 
the  time  of  David  numbered  22,600  men  of  valour. 
2.  Judge  of  Israel  after  Abimelech  (Judg.  x.  1, 
2).  He  is  described  as  "  the  son  of  Puah,  the  son 
of  Dodo,  a  man  of  Issachar."  In  the  LXX.  and 
Vulg.  he  is  made  the  son  of  Abimelech's  uncle, 
Dodo  (*nn)  being  considered  an  appellative.  But 
Gideon,  Abimelech's  father,  was  a  Manassite.  Tola 
jidged  Israel  for  twenty-three  years  at  Shamir  in 
Mount  Ephraim,  where  he  died  and  was  buried. 


TO'LAD 


,    Alex.   0a>Aa5: 


Tholad}.  One  of  the  towns  of  Simeon  (1  Chr. 
iv.  29),  which  was  in  the  possession  of  the  tribe 
up  to  David's  reign,  probably  to  the  time  of  the 
census  taken  by  Joab.  In  the  lists  of  Joshua  the 
name  is  given  in  the  fuller  form  of  EL-TOLAD.  [G.] 


TO'LAITES,    THE 


:     6  0o>Aa?  : 


ThoMtae).     The  descendants  of  Tola  the  sou  of 
Issachar  (Num.  xxvi.  23). 

TOL'BANES  (ToA/Sc^s  :  Tolbanes).  TELEM, 
one  of  the  porters  in  the  days  of  Ezra  (1  Esd. 
ix.  25). 

TOMB.  Although  the  sepulchral  arrange 
ments  of  the  Jews  have  necessarily  many  points  of 
contact  with  those  of  the  surrounding  nations,  they 
are  still  on  the  whole  —  like  everything  else  that 
people  did  —  so  essentially  different,  that  it  is  most 
unsafe  to  attempt  to  elucidate  them  by  appealing  to 
the  practice  of  other  races. 

It  has  been  hitherto  too  much  the  fashion  to 
look  to  Egypt  for  the  prototype  of  every  form  of 
Jewish  art  ;  but  if  there  is  one  thing  in  the  Old 
Testament  more  clear  than  another,  it  is  the  abso 
lute  antagonism  between  the  two  peoples,  and  the 
abhorrence  of  everything  Egyptian  that  prevailed 
from  first  to  last  among  the  Jewish  people.  From 
the  burial  of  Sarah  in  the  cave  of  Machpelah  (Gen. 
xxiii.  19)  to  the  funeral  rites  prepared  for  Dorcas 
(Acts  ix.  37),  there  is  no  mention  of  any  sarco 
phagus,  or  even  coffin,  in  any  Jewish  burial.  No 
pyramid  was  raised  —  no  separate  hypogeum  of  any 
individual  king,  and  what  is  most  to  be  regretted 
by  modern  investigators,  no  inscription  or  painting 
which  either  recorded  the  name  of  the  deceased, 
or  symbolized  the  religious  feeling  of  the  Jews 
towards  the  dead.  It  is  true  of  course  that  Jacob 
dying  in  Egypt  was  embalmed  (Gen.  1.  2),  but  it 
was  only  in  order  that  he  might  be  brought  to 
be  entombed  in  the  cave  at  Hebron,  and  Joseph 
as  a  naturalized  Egyptian  and  a  ruler  in  the  land 
was  embalmed  ;  and  it  is  also  mentioned  as  some 
thing  exceptional  that  he  was  put  into  a  coffin,  and 
was  so  brought  by  the  Israelites  out  of  the  land 
and  laid  with  his  forefathers.  But  these,  like  the 
burning  of  the  body  of  Saul  [see  BURIAL],  were 
clearly  exceptional  cases. 

Still  less  were  the  rites  of  the  Jews  like  those  of 
the  Pelasgi  or  Etruscans.  With  that  people  the 
graves  of  the  dead  were,  or  were  intended  to  be,  in 
every  respect  similar  to  the  homes  of  the  living. 
The  lucumo  lay  in  his  robes,  the  warrior  in  his 
armour,  on  the  bed  on  which  he  had  reposed  in  life, 
surrounded  by  the  furniture  the  vessels,  and  the 


TOMB 

ornaments  which  had  adorned  his  dwelling  wheu 
alive,  as  if  he  were  to  live  again  in  a  naw  world 
with  the  same  wants  and  feelings  as  before.  Beside* 
this,  no  tall  stele",  and  no  sepuknral  mound,  has 
yet  been  found  in  the  hills  or  plains  of  Judaea 
nor  have  we  any  hint  either  in  the  Bible  or  Jose- 
phus  of  any  such  having  existed  which  could  be 
traced  to  a  strictly  Jewish  origin. 

In  very  distinct  contrast  to  all  this,  the  sepul 
chral  rites  of  the  Jews  were  marked  with  the  same 
simplicity  that  characterized  all  their  religious  ob 
servances.  The  body  was  washed  and  anointed 
(Mark  xiv.  8,  xvi.  1 ;  John  xix.  39,  &c.),  wrapped 
in  a  clean  linen  cloth,  and  borne  without  any  funeral 
pomp  to  the  grave,  where  it  was  laid  without  any 
ceremonial  or  form  of  prayer.  In  addition  to  this, 
with  kings  and  great  persons,  there  seems  to  have 
been  a  "great  burning"  (2  Chr.  xvi.  14,  xxi.  19 
Jer.  xxxiv.  5) :  all  these  being  measures  more 
suggested  by  sanitary  exigencies  than  by  any  hank 
ering  after  ceremonial  pomp. 

This  simplicity  of  rite  led  to  what  may  be 
called  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  Jewish  se 
pulchres — the  deep  loculus — which,  so  far  as  is 
now  known,  is  universal  in  all  purely  Jewish  rock- 
cut  tombs,  but  hardly  known  elsewhere.  Its  form 
will  be  understood  by  referring  to  the  annexed  dia 
gram,  representing  the  forms  of  Jewish  sepulture. 


No.  1. — Diagram  of  Jewish  Sepulclire. 


In  the  apartment  marked  A,  there  are  twelve  such 
loculi,  about  2  feet  in  width  by  3  feet  high.  On 
the  ground-floor  these  generally  open  on  the  level  of 
the  floor ;  when  in  the  upper  storey,  as  at  C,  on  z, 
ledge  or  platform,  on  which  the  body  might  be  laid 
to  be  anointed,  and  on  which  the  stones  might  rest 
which  closed  the  outer  end  of  each  loculus. 

The  shallow  loculus  is  shown  in  chamber  B,  but 
was  apparently  only  used  when  sarcophagi  were 
employed,  and  therefore,  so  far  as  we  know,  only 
during  the  Graeco-Roman  period,  when  foreign  cus 
toms  came  to  be  adopted.  The  shallow  loculua 
would  have  been  singularly  inappropriate  and  incon» 
venient,  where  an  unembalmed  body  was  laid  out 
to  decay — as  there  would  evidently  be  no  means  of 
shutting  it  off  from  the  rest  of  the  catacomb.  The 
deep  loculus  on  the  other  hand  was  as  strictly  con 
formable  with  Jewish  customs,  and  could  easily  be 
closed  by  a  stone  fitted  to  the  end  and  luted  into 
the  groove  which  usually  exists  there. 

This  fact  is  especially  interesting  as  it  affords  a 
key  to  much  that  is  otherwise  hard  to  be  understood 
in  certain  passages  in  the  New  Testament.  Thus 
in  John  xi.  39,  Jesus  says,  "  Take  away  the  stone," 
and  (ver.  40)  "they  took  away  the  stone"  with 
out  difficulty,  apparently  which  cou.d  hardly  have 


TOMB 

been  the  case  had  it  been  such  a  rock  as  would  be 
required  to  close  the  entrance  of  a  cave.  And  chap, 
xx.  1,  the  same  expression  is  used,  "  the  stone  is 
taken  away ;"  and  though  the  Greek  word  in  the 
other  three  Evangelists  certainly  implies  that  it 
was  rolled  away,  this  would  equally  apply  to  the 
stone  at  the  mouth  of  the  loculus,  into  which  the 
Maries  must  have  then  stooped  down  to  look  in. 
Jn  fact  the  whole  narrative  is  infinitely  more  clear 
and  intelligible  if  we  assume  that  it  was  a  stone 
closing  the  end  of  a  rock-cut  grave,  than  if  we  sup 
pose  it  to  have  been  a  stone  closing  the  entrance 
or  door  of  a  hypogeum.  In  the  latter  case  the 
stone  to  close  a  door — say  6  feet  by  3  feet,  could 
hardly  have  weighed  less  than  3  or  4  tons,  and 
could  not  have  been  moved  without  machinery. 

There  is  one  catacomb — that  known  as  the 
"Tombs  of  the  Kings" — which  is  closed  by  a  stone 
rolling  across  its  entrance ;  but  it  is  the  only  one, 
and  the  immense  amount  of  contrivance  and  fitting 
which  it  has  required  is  sufficient  proof  that  such 
an  arrangement  was  not  applied  to  any  other  of  the 
numerous  rock  tombs  around  Jerusalem,  nor  could 
the  traces  of  it  have  been  obliterated  had  it  anywhere 
existed.  From  the  nature  of  the  openings  where  they 
are  natural  caverns,  and  the  ornamental  form  of  their 
doorways  where  they  are  architecturally  adorned,  it 
is  evident,  except  in  this  one  instance,  that  they  could 
not  have  been  closed  by  stones  rolled  across  their  en 
trances  ;  and  consequently  it  seems  only  to  be  to  the 
closing  of  the  loculi  that  these  expressions  can  refer. 
But  until  a  more  careful  and  more  scientific  ex 
ploration  of  these  tombs  is  made  than  has  hitherto 
been  given  to  the  public,  it  is  difficult  to  feel  quite 
certain  on  this  point. 

Although,  therefore,  the  Jews  were  singularly 
free  from  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  funereal  mag 
nificence,  they  were  at  all  stages  of  their  independent 
existence  an  eminently  burying  people. 

From  the  time  of  their  entrance  into  the  Holy 
Land  till  their  expulsion  by  the  Romans,  they  seem 
to  have  attached  the  greatest  importance  to  the 
possession  of  an  undisturbed  resting-place  for  the 
bodies  of  their  dead,  and  in  all  ages  seem  to  have 
shown  the  greatest  respect,  if  not  veneration,  for 
the  sepulchres  of  their  ancestors.  Few,  however, 
jould  enjoy  the  luxury  of  a  rock-cut  tomb.  Taking 
all  that  are  known,  and  all  that  are  likely  to  be 
discovered,  there  are  not  probably  500,  certainly 
not  1000,  rock-cut  loculi  in  or  about  Jerusalem, 
and  as  that  city  must  in  the  days  of  its  prosperity 
have  possessed  a  population  of  from  30,000  to  40,000 
souls,  it  is  evident  that  the  bulk  of  the  people  must 
then,  as  now,  have  been  content  with  graves  dug  in 
the  earth ;  but  situated  as  near  the  Holy  Places  as 
their  means  would  allow  their  obtaining  a  place. 
The  bodies  of  the  kings  were  buried  close  to  the 
Temple  walls  (Ezek.  xliii.  7-9),  and  however  little 
they  may  have  done  in  their  life,  the  place  of  their 
burial  is  carefully  recorded  in  the  Chronicles  of  the 
Kings,  and  the  cause  why  that  place  was  chosen  is 
generally  pointed  out,  as  if  that  record  was  not  only 
the  most  important  event,  but  the  final  judgment 
on  the  life  of  the  king. 

Tombs  of  the  Patriarchs. — Turning  from  these 
Considerations  to  the  more  strictly  historical  part 
of  the  subject,  we  find  that  one  of  the  most  striking 
events  in  the  life  of  Abraham  is  the  purchase  of 
the  field  of  E^hron  the  Hittite  at  Hebron,  in  which 
was  the  cave  of  Machpelah,  in  order  that  he 
U)ight  therein  bury  Sarah  his  wife,  and  that  it 
might  be  a  sepulchre  for  himself  and  his  children. 


TOMB 


1529 


His  refusing  to  accept  the  prh  ilege  cf  burying  there 
as  a  gift  when  offered  to  him,  shows  the  import' 
an<;e  Abraham  attached  to  the  transaction,  and  his 
insisting  on  purchasing  and  paying  for  it  (Gen. 
xxiii.  20),  in  order  that  it  might  be  "  made  sure 
unto  him  for  the  possession  of  a  burying-place." 
There  he  and  his  immediate  descendants  were  laid 
3700  years  ago,  and  there  they  are  believed  to 
rest  now ;  but  no  one  in  modern  times  has  seen 
their  remains,  or  been  allowed  to  enter  into  the  cave 
where  they  rest. 

A  few  years  ago,  Signor  Pierotti  says,  he  was 
allowed,  in  company  with  the  Pasha  of  Jerusalem, 
to  descend  the  steps  to  the  iron-grating  that  closes 
the  entrance,  and  to  look  into  the  cave.  What  he 
seems  to  have  seen  was — that  it  was  a  natural 
cavern,  untouched  by  the  chisel  and  unaltered  by 
art  in  any  way.  Those  who  accompanied  the 
Prince  of  Wales  in  his  visit  to  the  Mosque  were  not 
permitted  to  see  even  this  entrance.  All  they  saw 
was  the  round  hole  in  the  floor  of  the  Mosque 
which  admits  light  and  air  to  the  cave  below.  The 
same  round  opening  exists  at  Neby  Samwil  in  the 
roof  of  the  reputed  sepulchre  of  the  Prophet  Samuel, 
and  at  Jerusalem  there  is  a  similar  opening  into 
the  tomb  under  the  Dome  of  the  rock.  In  the 
former  it  is  used  by  the  pious  votaries  to  drop  pe 
titions  and  prayers  into  the  tombs  of  patriarchs  and 
prophets.  The  latter  having  lost  the  tradition  of 
its  having  been  a  burying-place,  the  opening  only 
now  serves  to  admit  light  into  the  cave  below. 

Unfortunately  none  of  those  who  have  visited 
Hebron  have  had  sufficient  architectural  knowledge 
to  be  able  to  say  when  the  church  or  mosque  which 
now  stands  above  the  cave  was  erected ;  but  there 
seems  no  great  reason  for  doubting  that  it  is  a 
Byzantine  church  erected  there  between  the  age  of 
Constant! ne  and  that  of  Justinian.  From  such  in 
dications  as  can  be  gathered,  it  seems  of  the  later 
period.  On  its  floor  axe  sarcophagi  purporting  to 
be  those  of  the  patriarchs  ;  but,  as  is  usual  in  Eastern 
tombs,  they  are  only  cenotaphs  representing  those 
that  stand  below,  and  which  are  esteemed  too  sacred 
for  the  vulgar  to  approach. 

Though  it  is  much  more  easy  of  access,  it  is 
almost  as  difficult  to  ascertain  the  age  of  the  wall 
that  encloses  the  sac.red  precincts  of  these  tombs. 
From  the  account  of  Josephus  (£.  J.  iv.  7),  it  does 
not  seem  to  have  existed  m  his  day,  or  he  surely 
would  have  mentioned  it ;  and  such  a  citadel  could 
hardly  fail  to  have  been  of  warlike  importance  in 
those  troublous  times.  Besides  this,  we  do  not 
know  of  any  such  enclosure  encircling  any  tombs 
or  sacred  place  in  Jewish  times,  nor  can  we  conceive 
any  motive  for  so  secluding  these  graves. 

There  are  not  any  architectural  mouldings  abou* 
this  wall  which  would  enable  an  archaeologist  to 
approximate  its  date ;  and  if  the  bevelling  is  as 
sumed  to  be  a  Jewish  arrangement  (which  is  very 
far  from  being  exclusively  the  case),  on  the  other 
hand  it  may  be  contended  that  no  buttressed  wail 
of  Jewish  masonry  exists  anywhere.  There,  is  in 
fact  nothing  known  with  sufficient  exactness  to 
decide  the  question,  but  the  probabilities  certainly 
tend  towards  a  Christian  or  Saracenic  origin  for  tht 
whole  structure  both  internally  and  externally. 

Aaron  died  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Hor  (Num. 
xx.  28,  xxxiii.  39),  and  we  are  led  to  infer  he  was 
buried  there,  though  it  is  not  so  stated ;  and  we 
have  no  details  of  his  tomb  which  would  lead  us  to 
suppose  that  anything  existed  there  earlier  than  the 
Mahoinedan  Kubr  that  now  crowns  the  bill  over- 


1530 


TOMB 


looking  Petra,  and  it  is  at  the  same  time  extremely 
•doubtful  whether  that  is  the  Mount  Hor  where  the 
High-Priest  died. 

Moses  died  in  the  plains  of  Moab  (Deut.  xxxiv.  6), 
and  was  buried  there,  "  but  no  man  knoweth  his 
sepulchre  to  this  day,"  which  is  a  singular  utterance, 
as  being  the  only  instance  in  the  Old  Testament  of  a 
sepulchre  being  concealed,  or  of  one  being  admitted 
to  be  uii known. 

Joshua  was  buried  in  his  own  inheritance  in 
Timnath-Serah  (Josh.  xxiv.  30),  and  Samuel  in  his 
own  house  at  Ramah  (1  Sam.  xxv.  ] ),  an  expression 
which  we  may  probably  interpret  as  meaning  in 
the  garden  attached  to  his  house,  as  it  is  scarcely 
probable  it  would  be  the  dwelling  itself.  We  know, 
however,  so  little  of  the  feelings  of  the  Jews  of  that 
age  on  the  subject  that  it  is  by  no  means  impro 
qable  but  that  it  may  have  been  in  a  chamber  or 
loculus  attached  to  the  dwelling,  and  which,  if 
closed  by  a  stone  carefully  cemented  into  its  place, 
would  have  prevented  any  annoyance  from  the  cir- 
cuimstance.  Joab  (1  K.  ii.  34)  was  also  buried  "  in 
his  own  house  in  the  wilderness."  In  fact  it  appears 
that  from  the  time  when  Abraham  established  the 
burying-place  of  his  family  at  Hebron  till  the  time 
when  David  fixed  that  of  his  family  in  the  city 
which  bore  his  name.  4uc  Jewish  rulers  had  no  fixed 
f>r  favourite  place  of  sepulture.  Each  was  buried 
on  his  own  property,  or  where  he  died,  without 
much  caring  either  for  the  sanctity  or  convenience 
of  the  place  chosen. 

Tomb  of  the  Kings. — Of  the  twenty-two  kings  of 
Judah  who  reigned  at  Jerusalem  from  1048  to  590 
B.C.,  eleven,  or  exactly  one-half,  were  buried  in  one 
hypogeum  in  the  "  city  of  David."  The  names  of 
the  kings  so  lying  together  were  David,  Solomon, 
Rehoboam,  Abijah,  Asa,  Jehoshaphat,  Ahaziah, 
Amaziah,  Jotham,  Hezekiah,  and  Josiah,  together 
with  the  good  priest  Jehoiada.  Of  all  these  it  is 
merely  said  that  they  were  buried  in  "  the  sepul 
chres  of  their  fathers"  or  "'of  the  kings"  in  the 
city  of  David,  except  of  two— Asa  and  Hezekiah. 
Of  the  first  it  is  said  (2  Chr.  xvi.  14),  «  they 
buried  him  in  his  own  sepulchres  which  he  had  made 
for  himself  in  the  city  of  David,  and  laid  him  in 
the  bed  [loculus?],  which  was  filled  with  sweet 
odours  and  divers  spices  prepared  by  the  apothe 
caries'  art,  and  they  made  a  very  great  burning  for 
him."  It  is  not  quite  clear,  however,  from  this, 
whether  this  applies  to  a  new  chamber  attached  to 
the  older  sepulchre,  or  to  one  entirely  distinct, 
though  in  the  same  neighbourhood.  Of  Hezekiah  it 
is  said  (2  Chr.  xxxii.  33),  they  buried  him  in  "  the 
chiefest  [or  highest]  of  the  sepulchres  of  the  sons  of 
David,"  as  if  there  were  several  apartments  in  the 
hypogeum,  though  it  may  merely  be  that  they  ex 
cavated  for  him  a  chamber  above  the  others,  as  we 
find  frequently  done  in  Jewish  sepulchres. 

Two  more  of  these  kings  (Jehoram  and  Joash) 
were  buried  also  in  the  city  of  David,  "  but  not  in 
the  sepulchres  of  the  kings."  The  first  because 
of  the  sore  diseases  of  which  he  died  (2  Chr.  xxi. 
20)  ;  the  second  apparently  in  consequence  of  his 
disastrous  end  (2  Chr.  xxiv.  25) ;  and  one  king, 
Uzziah  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  23),  was  buried  with  his 
fathers  in  the  "  field  of  the  burial  of  the  kings,"  be 
cause -he  was  a  leper.  All  this  evinces  the  ex 
treme  care  the  Jews  took  in  the  selection  of  the 
burying-places  of  their  kings,  and  the  importance 
they  attached  to  the  record.  It  should  also  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  highest  honour  which  could  be  be 
stowed  on  the  good  priest  Jehoiada  (2  Chr.  xstv.  lb) 


TOMB 

was  that  "  they  buried  him  in  the  city  of  David 
among  the  kings,  because  he  had  done  good  in 
Israel,  both  toward  God  and  toward  His  House." 

The  passage  in  Nehemiah  iii.  16,  and  in  Ezekiel 
xliii.  7,  9,  together  with  the  reiterated  assertion  of 
the  Books  of  Kings  and  Chronicles  that  these 
sepulchres  were  situated  in  the  city  of  David,  leave 
no  doubt  but  that  they  were  on  Zion  [see  JERU 
SALEM],  or  the  Eastern  Hill,  and  in  the  immediate 
proximity  of  the  Temple.  They  were  in  fact  certainly 
within  that  enclosure  now  known  as  the  "  Haram 
Area ;"  but  if  it  is  asked  on  what  exact  spot,  we 
must  pause  for  further  information  before  a  reply 
can  be  given. 

This  area  has  been  so  altered  by  Roman,  Chiistian, 
and  Moslem,  during  the  last  eighteen  centuries, 
that,  till  we  can  explore  freely  below  the  surface, 
much  that  is  interesting  must  be  hidden  from  us 
It  is  quite  clear,  however,  that  the  spot  was  wel. 
known  during  the  whole  of  the  Jewish  period,  in 
asmuch  as  the  sepulchres  were  again  and  again 
opened  as  each  king  died ;  and  from  the  tradition 
that  Hyrcanus  and  Herod  opened  these  sepulchres 
(Ant.  xiii.  8,  §4 ;  xvi.  7,  §1).  The  accounts  of  thes« 
last  openings  are,  it  must  be  confessed,  somewhat 
apocryphal,  resting  only  on  the  authority  of  Jo 
seph  us  ;  but  they  prove  at  least  that  he  considered 
there  could  be  no  difficulty  in  finding  the  place. 
It  is  very  improbable,  however,  from  what  we 
know  of  the  extreme  simplicity  of  the  Jewish 
sepulchral  rites,  that  any  large  sum  should  have 
been  buried  in  David's  tomb,  and  have  escaped  not 
only  the  Persian  invaders,  but  their  own  necessitous 
rulers  in  the  time  of  their  extremest  need.  It  is 
much  more  probable  that  Hyrcanus  borrowed  the 
treasure  of  the  Temple,  and  invented  this  excuse ; 
whereas  the  story  of  Herod's  descent  is  so  like  that 
told  more  than  1000  years  afterwards,  by  Benjamin 
of  Tudela,  that  both  may  be  classed  in  the  same 
category.  It  was  a  secret  transaction,  if  it  took 
place,  regarding  which  rumour  might  fashion  what 
wondrous  tales  it  pleased,  and  no  one  could  contra 
dict  them ;  but  his  having  built  a  marble  steld 
(Ant.  xvi.  7,  §1)  in  front  of  the  tomb  may  have 
been  a  fact  within  the  cognisance  of  Joseph  us,  and 
would  at  all  events  serve  to  indicate  that  the  sepul 
chre  was  rock-cut,  and  its  site  well  known. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge  from  this  and  other  indi 
cations,  it  seems  probable  there  was  originally  a 
natural  cavern  in  the  rock  in  this  locality,  which 
may  afterwards  have  been  improved  by  art,  and  in 
the  sides  of  which  loculi  were  sunk,  in  which  the 
bodies  of  the  eleven  kings  and  of  the  good  High- 
Priest  were  laid,  without  sarcophagi  or  coffin,  but 
"  wound  in  linen  clothes  with  the  spices,  as  the 
manner  of  the  Jews  is  to  bury  "  (John  xix.  40). 

Besides  the  kings  above  enumerated,  Manasseh 
was,  according  to  the  Book  of  Chronicles  (2  Chr. 
xxxiii.  20)  buried  in  his  own  house,  which  the  BOOK 
of  Kings  (2  K.  xxi.  18)  explains  as  the  "  garden  of 
his  own  house,  the  garden  of  Uzza,"  where  his 
son  Amon  was  buried,  also,  it  is  said,  in  his  own 
sepulchre  (ver.  26),  but  we  have  nothing  that  would 
enable  us  to  indicate  where  this  was ;  and  Ahaz, 
the  wicked  king,  was,  according  to  the  Book  of 
Chronicles  (2  Chr.  xxviii.  27)  "  buried  in  the  city, 
even  in  Jerusalem,  and  they  brought  him  not  into 
he  sepulchres  of  the  kings  of  Israel."  The  fact  of 
these  three  last  kings  having  been  idolaters,  though 
one  reformed,  and  their  having  all  three  been  buried 
pparently  in  the  city,  proves  what  importance  the 
Jews  attached  to  the  locality  of  the  sepulchre,  but 


TOMB 


1531 


No.  2.— Plan  of  the  "  Tombs  ol  the  Prophets."    From  De  Saulcy. 


also  tends  to  show  that  burial  within  the  city,  or 
the  enclosure  of  a  dwelling,  was  not  so  repulsive  to 
Iheir  feelings  as  is  generally  supposed.  It  is  just 
possible  that  the  rock-cut  sepulchre  under  the 
western  wall  of  the  present  Church  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  may  be  the  remains  of  such  a  cemetery 
as  that  in  which  the  wicked  kings  were  buried. 

This,  with  many  other  cognate  questions,  must 
be  relegated  for  further  information ;  for  up  to  the 
present  time  we  have  not  been  able  to  identify  one 
single  sepulchral  excavation  about  Jerusalem  which 
can  be  said  with  certainty  to  belong  to  a  period 
anterior  to  that  of  the  Maccabees,  or,  more  cor 
rectly,  to  have  been  used  for  burial  before  the  time 
of  the  Romans. 

The  only  important  hypogetim  which  is  wholly 
Jewish  in  its  arrangements,  and  may  consequently 
belong  to  an  earlier  or  to  any  epoch,  is  that  known 
as  the  Tombs  of  the  Prophets  in  the  western  flank 
of  the  Mount  of  Olives.  It  has  every  appearance  of 
having  originally  been  a  natural  cavern  improved  by 
art,  and  with  an  external  gallery  some  140  feet  in  ex 
tent,  into  which  twenty-seven  deep  or  Jewish  loculi 
open.  Other  chambers  and  loculi  have  been  com 
menced  in  other  parts,  and  in  the  passages  there  are 
spaces  where  many  other  graves  could  have  been 
located,  all  which  would  tend  to  show  that  it  had 
been  disused  before  completed,  and  consequently  was 
very  modern ;  but  be  this  as  it  may,  it  has  no 
architectural  mouldings — no  sarcophagi  or  shallow 
loculi,  nothing  to  indicate  a  foreign  origin,  and 
may  therefore  be  considered.,  if  not  an  early,  at 
least  as  the  most  essentially  Jewish  of  the  sepul 
chral  excavations  in  this  locality — every  other  im 
portant  sepulchral  excavation  being  adorned  with 
architectural  features  and  details  betraying  most 
anmistakeably  their  Greek  or  Roman  origin,  and 
fixing  their  date  consequently  as  subsequent  to  that 


of  the  Maccabees;  or  in  other  words,  like  every 
other  detail  of  pre-Christian  architecture  in  Jeru 
salem,  they  belong  to  the  140  years  that  elapsed 
from  the  advent  of  Poinpey  till  the  destruction  of 
the  city  by  Titus. 

Graeco-Roman  Tombs. — Besides  the  tombs  above 
enumerated,  there  are  around  Jerusalem,  in  the 
Valleys  of  Hinnom  and  Jehoshaphat,  and  on  the  pla 
teau  to  the  nt>rth,  a  number  of  remarkable  rock-cut 
sepulchres,  with  more  or  less  architectural  decora 
tion,  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  ascertain  that  they 
are  all  of  nearly  the  same  age,  and  to  assert  with 
very  tolerable  confidence  that  the  epoch  to  which 
they  belong  must  be  between  the  introduction  of 
Roman  influence  and  the  destruction  of  the  city  by 
Titus.  The  proof  of  this  would  be  easy  if  it  were 
not  that,  like  eveiything  Jewish,  there  is  a  remark 
able  absence  of  inscriptions  which  can  be  assumed 
to  be  integral.  The  excavations  in  the  Valley  of 
Hinnom  with  Greek  inscriptions  are  comparatively 
modern,  the  inscriptions  being  all  of  Christian  im 
port  and  of  such  a  nature  as  to  render  it  extremely 
doubtful  whether  the  chambers  were  sepulchral  at 
all,  and  not  rather  the  dwellings  of  ascetics,  and 
originally  intended  to  be  used  for  this  purpose. 
These,  however,  are  neither  the  most  important  nor 
the  most  architectural — indeed  none  of  those  in  that 
valley  are  so  remarkable  as  those  in  the  other  locali 
ties  just  enumerated.  The  most  important  of  those 
in  the  Valley  of  Hinnom  is  that  known  as  the 
"  Retreat-place  of  the  Apostles."  It  is  an  unfinished 
excavation  of  extremely  late  date,  and  many  of  the 
others  look  much  more  like  the  dwellings  for  the 
living  than  the  resting-places  of  the  dead. 

In  the  village  of  Siloam  there  is  a  monolithic  cell 
of  singularly  Egyptian  aspect,  which  De  Saulcy 
(  Voyage  autour  de  la  Mcr  Mortc,  ii.  306)  assumes 
to  be  a  chapel  of  Solomon's  Egyptian  wife.  It  La 


1532 


TOMB 


probably  of  very  much  more  modern  date,  and  is 
more  Assyrian  than  Egyptian  in  character ;  but  as 
he  is  probably  quite  correct  in  stating  that  it  is  not 
sepulchral,  it  is  only  necessary  to  mention  it  here 
in  order  that  it  may  not  be  confounded  with  those 
that  are  so.  It  is  the  more  worthy  of  remark  as 
one  of  the  great  difficulties  of  the  subject  arises 
from  travellers  too  readily  assuming  that  every 
cutting  in  the  rock  must  be  sepulchral.  It  may 
be  so  in  Egypt,  but  it  certainly  was  not  so  at 
Cyrene  or  Petra,  where  many  of  the  excavations 
were  either  temples  or  monastic  establishments,  and 
it  certainly  was  not  universally  the  case  at  Jeru 
salem,  though  our  information  is  frequently  too 
scanty  to  enable  us  always  to  discriminate  exactly 
to  which  class  the  cutting  in  the  rock  may  belong. 

The  principal  remaining  architectural  sepulchres 
may  be  divided  into  three  groups. 

First,  those  existing  in  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat, 
and  known  popularly  as  the  Tombs  of  Zechariah, 
of  St.  James,  and  of  Absalom. 

Second,  those  known  as  the  Tombs  of  the  Judges, 
and  the  so-called  Jewish  tomb  about  a  mile  north 
of  the  city. 

Third,  that  known  as  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings, 
about  half  a  mile  north  of  the  Damascus  Gate. 

Of  the  three  first-named  tombs  the  most  southern 


No.  3. -So-called  "  Tomb  of  Zech 

is  known  as  that  ot  Zechariah,  a  popular  name 
which  there  is  not  even  a  shadow  of  tradition 
to  justify.  It  consists  of 
a  square  solid  basement, 
measuring  18  feet  6  inches 
each  way,  and  20  feet  high 
to  the  top  of  the  cornice. 
On  each  face  are  four  en 
gaged  Ionic  columns  be 
tween  antae,  and  these  are 
surmounted,  not  by  an 
Egyptian  cornice,  as  is 
usually  asserted,  but  by 
one  of  purely  Assyrian 
type,  such  as  is  found  at 

Khoisabad  (Woodcut  No.  4).  As  the  Ionic  or  voluted 
wder  came  also  from  Assyria,  this  example  is  in 


No.  4.— Section  of  Stylobate 
at  Khorsabad. 


TOMB 

fact  a  more  pure  specimen  of  the  Ionic  order  thiiri 
any  found  in  Europe,  where  it  was  always  list*! 
by  the  Greeks  with  a  quasi-Doric  cornice.  Not> 
withstanding  this,  in  the  form  of  the  volutes*— th? 
egg-and-dart  moulding  beneath,  and  every  detail  — 
it  is  so  distinctly  Roman  that  it  is  impossible  to 
assume  that  it  belongs  to  an  earlier  age  than  that 
of  their  influence. 

Above  the  cornice  is  a  pyramid  rising  at  rather  a 
sharp  angle,  and  hewn  like  all  the  rest  out  of  the 
solid  rock.  It  may  further  be  remarked  that  onl  v 
the  outward  face,  or  that  fronting  Jerusalem,  is 
completely  finished,  the  other  three  being  only 
blocked  out  (De  Saulcy,  ii.  303),  a  circumstance 
that  would  lead  us  to  suspect  that  the  works  may 
have  been  interrupted  by  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  or 
some  such  catastrophe,  and  this  may  possibly  also 
account  for  there  being  no  sepulchre  on  its  rear,  ii 
such  be  really  the  case. 

To  call  this  building  a  tomb  is  evidently  a  mis 
nomer,  as  it  is  absolutely  solid — hewn  out  of  the 
living  rock  by  cutting  a  passage  round  it.  It  has 
no  internal  chambers,  nor  even  the  semblance  of  a 
doorway.  From  what  is  known  of  the  explorations 
carried  on  by  M.  Kenan  about  Byblus,  we  should 
expect  that  the  tomb,  properly  so  called,  would  be 
an  excavation  in  the  passage  behind  the  monolith — 
but  none  such  has  been  found,  probably  it  was 
never  looked  for — and  that  this  monolith  is  the 
stel3  or  indicator  of  that  fact.  If  it  is  so,  it  is  very 
singular,  though  very  Jewish,  that  any  one  should 
take  the  trouble  to  carve  out  such  a  monument 
without  putting  an  inscription  or  symbol  on  it  to 
mark  its  destination  or  to  tell  in  whose  honour  it 
was  erected. 

The  other,  or  so-called  Tomb  of  Absalom,  figured 
in  vol.  i.  p.  14,  is  somewhat  larger,  the  base  being 
about  21  teet  square  in  plan,  and  probably  23  or  24 


No.  5.— Angle  of  Tomb  of  Absalom.    From  De  bautoy. 

x>  the  top  of  the  cornice.     Like  the  other,  it  is  of  tha 
Uomun  Ionic  order,  surmounted  by  a  cornice  of  Icnir 


TOMB 


TOMB 


1533 


type;  but  between  the  pillars  and  the  cornice  a '  fov  the  reception  of  sarcophagi,  and  so  in  Heating  a 
frieze,  unmistakeably  of  the  Roman  Doric  order,  is  post-Jewish  date  for  the  whole  or  at  least  for  that 
introduced,  so  Roman  as  to  be  in  itself  quite  sufficient  j  part  of  the  excavation. 


to  fix  its  epoch.  It  is  by  no  means  clear  whether 
it  had  originally  a  pyramidical  top  like  its  neigh 
bour.  The  existence  of  a  square  blocking  above 
he  cornice  would  lead  us  to  suspect  it  had  not ;  at 
all  events,  either  at  the  time  of  its  excavation  or 
subsequently,  this  was  removed,  and  the  present 
very  peculiar  termination  erected,  raising  its  height 
to  over  60  feet.  At  the  time  this  was  done  a 
chamber  was  excavated  in  the  base,  we  must  |  of  any  age  if  it  were  not  for  its  distance  from  the 


The  hypogeum  known  as  the  Tombs  of  the 
Judges  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  cata 
combs  around  Jerusalem,  containing  about  sixty 
deep  loculi,  arranged  in  three  storeys ;  the  upper 
storeys  with  ledges  in  front  to  give  convenient 
access,  and  to  support  the  stones  that  closed  them ; 
the  lower  flush  with  the  ground : »  the  whole,  con 
sequently,  so  essentially  Jewish  that  it  might  be 


assume  for  sepulchral  purposes,  though  how  a  body 
could  be  introduced  through  the  narrow  hole  above 
the  cornice  is  by  no  means  clear,  nor,  if  inserted, 


town,  and  its  architectural  character.  The  Intter, 
as  before  stated,  is  identical  with  that  of  the  Tomb 
of  Jehoshaphat,  and  has  nothing  Jewish  about  it. 


how  disposed  of  in  the  two  very  narrow  loculi  that  j  It  might  of  course  be  difficult  to  prove  this,  as  we 
evist.  know  so  little  of  what  Jewish  architecture  really 

The  great  interest  of  this  excavation  is  that  im-  •  is ;  but  we  do  know  that  the  pediment  is  more 
mediately  in  rear  of  the  monolith  we  do  find  just  essentially  a  Greek  invention  than  any  other  part 
sdch  a  sepulchral  cavern  as  we  should  expect.  It  of  their  architecture,  and  was  introduced  at  least 
is  called  the  Tomb  of  Jehoshaphat,  with  about  the  not  previously  to  the  age  of  the  Cypselidae,  and  this 
same  amount  of  discrimination  as  governed  the  peculiar  form  not  till  long  afterwards,  and  this  par- 
nomenclature  of  the  others,  but  is  now  closed  by  j  ticular  example  not  till  after  an  age  when  the  de- 
the  rubbish  and  stones  thrown  by  the  pious  at  the  '  based  Roman  of  the  Tomb  of  Absalom  had  become 
Tomb  of  the  Undutiful  Son,  and  consequently  its  possible, 
internal  arrangements  are  unknown ;  but  externally 
it  is  crowned  by  a  pediment  of  considerable  beauty, 
and  in  the  same  identical  style  as  that  of  the  Tombs  i 
of  the  Judges,  mentioned  further  on — showing  that  | 
these  two  at  least  are  of  the  same  age,  and  this  one  ' 
at  least  must  have  been  subsequent  to  the  excava-  j 
tion  of  the  monolith  ;  so  that  we  may  feel  perfectly 
certain  that  the  two  groups  are  of  one  age,  even 
if  it  should  not  be  thought  quite  clear  what  that 
age  may  be. 

The  third  tomb  of  this  group,  called  that  of  St. 
James,  is  situated  between  the  other  two,  and  is  of 


No.  7.— Fagade  of  the  Tombs  of  the  Judges. 

The  same  remarks  apply  to  the  tomb  without 
a  name,  and  merely  called  "  a  Jewish  Tomb,"  m 
this  neighbourhood,  with  bevelled  facets  over  its 
facade,  but  with  late  Roman  Doric  details  at  its 
angles,  sufficient  to  indicate  its  epoch ;  but  there  is 
nothing  else  about  these  tombs  requiring  especial 
mention. 

Tombs  of  Herod. — The  last  of  the  great  groups 
enumerated  above  is  that  known  as  the  Tombs  of 
the  Kings — Kebur  es  Sultan — or  the  Royal  Caverns, 
so  called  because  of  their  magnificence,  and  also 
because  that  name  is  applied  to  them  by  Josephus, 
who  in  describing  the  third  wall  mentions  them 
(B.  J.  v.  4,  §2).  He  states  that  "  the  wall 
reached  as  far  as  the  Tower  Psephinus,  and  then 
extended  till  it  came  opposite  the  Monuments 
(p.vri^(<av)  of  Helena.  It  then  extended  further 
to  a  great  length  till  it  passed  by  the  Sepulchral 
Caverns  of  the  Kings,"  &c.  We  have  thus  first 
the  Tower  Psephinus,  the  site  of  which  is  very 
tolerably  ascertained  on  the  ridge  above  the  Pool 
Birket  Mamilla ;  then  the  Monument  of  Hekna, 
and  then  at  some  distance  eastward  these  Royal 
Caverns. 

They  are  twice  again  mentioned  under  the  title 
of  'HpcSSov  Ju»rjjueuoj'.  First,  when  Titus,  ap 
proaching  from  the  north,  ordered  the  ground  to 


'P    ,  .  9 


soFT 


No.  a-Plan  of  Tomb  of  St  Jamee. 

a  very  different  character.  It  consists  (see  Plan) 
of  a  verandah  with  two  Doric  pillars  in  antis, 
which  may  be  characterised  as  belonging  to  a  very 
Late  Greek  order  rather  than  a  Roman  example. 
Behind  this  screen  are  several  apartments,  which  in 
another  locality  we  might  be  justified  in  calling  a 
rock-cut  monastery  appropriated  to  sepulchral  pur 
poses,  but  in  Jeuusalem  we  know  so  little  that  it  is 
necessary  to  pause  before  applying  any  such  desig 
nation.  In  the  rear  of  all  is  an  apartment,  appa 
rently  unfinished,  with  three  shallow  loculi  meant 


a  PierottI,  in  his  published  Plan  of  Jerusalem,  adds  a  i  is  mistaken.  Woodcut  No.  1  is  taken  from  his  plar,  ^cf. 
asrcophagus  chamber  with  shallow  loculi,  but  as  both  j  used  as  a  diagram  rather  tban  as  representing  tne  exact 
wxiles  and  De  Saulcy  omit  this,  it  is  probable  the  Italian  |  facts  of  the  case. 


1534 


TOMB 


be  cleared  from  Scopus — which  is  tolerably  well 
known — up  to  those  Monuments  of  Herod  (2?. «/. 
v.  3,  §2) ;  and  lastly  in  the  description  of  the 
civcumvallation  (B.  J.  v.  12,  §2),  where  they  are 
mentioned  after  passing  the  Monument  of  Ananus 
and  Pompey's  Camp,  evidently  on  the  ridge  where 
Psephinus  afterwards  stood,  and  on  the  north  of 
the  city. 

These  three  passages  refer  S3  evidently  to  one 
and  the  same  place,  that  no  one  would  probably 
ever  have  doubted — especially  when  taken  in  con 
junction  with  the  architecture — but  that  these 
caverns  were  the  tombs  of  Herod  and  his  family, 
were  it  not  for  a  curious  contradiction  of  himself 
in  the  works  of  Joseph  us,  which  has  led  to  con 
siderable  confusion.  Herod  died  at  Jericho,  and 
the  most  probable  account  (Ant.  xvii.  8,  §3)  would 
lead  us  to  suppose  (it  is  not  so  stated)  that  his  body 
was  brought  to  Jerusalem,  where  the  funeral  pro 
cession  was  formed  on  a  scale  and  with  a  magnifi 
cence  which  would  have  been  impossible  at  such  a 
place  as  Jericho  without  long  previous  preparation ; 
and  it  then  goes  on  to  say,  "  and  so  they  went 
eight  stadia  to  [the]  Herodium,  for  there,  by  his 
own  command,  he  was  to  be  buried  " — eight  stadia, 
or  one  mile,  being  the  exact  distance  between  the 
royal  palace  and  these  tombs. 

The  other  account  (B.  J.  i.  33,  §9 )  repeats  the 
details  of  the  procession,  and  nearly  in  the  same 
words,  but  substitutes  200  for  8,  which  has  led 
to  the  belief  that  he  was  buried  at  Jebel  Fur- 
reidis,  where  he  had  erected  a  palace  60  stadia 
south  of  Jerusalem,  and  170  from  Jericho.  Even 
then  the  procession  must  have  passed  tnrough  Jeru 
salem,  and  this  hardly  would  have  been  the  case 
without  its  being  mentioned ;  but  the  great  difficulty 
is  that  there  is  no  hint  anywhere  else  of  Herod's 
intention  to  be  buried  there,  and  the  most  extreme 
improbability  that  he  should  wish  to  be  interred  so 
far  from  the  city  where  all  his  predecessors  were 
laid.  Though  it  would  be  unpardonable  to  alter 
the  text  in  order  to  meet  any  particular  view,  still 
when  an  author  makes  two  statements  in  direct 
contradiction  the  one  to  the  other,  it  is  allowable  to 
choose  the  most  conformable  with  probability ;  and 
this,  added  to  his  assertion  that  Herod's  Tombs  were 
in  this  neighbourhood,  seems  to  settle  the  question. 

The  architecture  (Woodcut  No.  8)  exhibits  the 
same  ill-understood  Roman  Doric  arrangements  as 


No.  a— Fagade  of  Herod's  Tombs,  from  a  Photograph. 

are  found  in  all  these  tombs,  mixed  with  bunches  of 
grapes,  which  first  appear  on  Maccabean  coins,  and 


TOMB 

foliage  which  is  local  and  peculiar,  and,  so  far  a? 
anything  is  known  elsewhere,  might  be  of  any  age. 
Its  connexion,  however,  with  that  of  the  Tombs  of 
Jehoshaphat  and  the  Judges  fixes  it  to  the  same 
epoch. 

The  entrance  doorway  of  this  tomb  is  below  the 
level  of  the  ground,  and  concealed,  as  far  as  any 
thing  can  be  said  to  be  so  which  is  so  archi 
tecturally  adorned ;  and  it  is  remarkable  as  the 
only  instance  of  this  quasi-concealment  at  Jeru 
salem.  It  is  closed  by  a  very  curious  and  elabo 
rate  contrivance  of  a  rolling  stone,  often  described, 
but  very  clumsily  answering  its  purpose.  This 
also  is  characteristic  of  its  age,  as  we  know  from 
Pausanias  that  the  structural  marble  monument  of 
Queen  Helena  of  Adiabene  was  remarkable  for  a 
similar  piece  of  misplaced  ingenuity.  Within,  the 
tomb  consists  of  a  vestibule  or  entrance-hall  about 
20  feet  square,  from  which  three  other  squaro 
apartments  open,  each  surrounded  by  deep  loculi. 
These  again  possess  a  peculiarity  not  known  in  any 
other  tomb  about  Jerusalem,  of  having  a  square 
apartment  either  beyond  the  head  of  the  loculus  or 
on  one  side:  as,  for  instance  (Woodcut  No.  9), 
A  A  have  their  inner  chambers  A'  A7  within,  but 
B  and  B,  at  B'  B',  on  one  side.  What  the  purpose 
of  these  was  it  is  difficult  to  guess,  but  at  all 
events  it  was  not  Jewish. 

But  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  peculiarity  of 
the  hypogeum  is  the  sarcophagus  chamber  D,  in 
which  two  sarcophagi  were  found,  one  of  which 
was  brought  home  by  De  Saulcy,  and  is  now  in 
the  Louvre.  It  is  of  course  quite  natural  that  a 
Roman  king  who  was  buried  with  such  Roman 
pomp  should  have  adopted  the  Roman  mode  of 
sepulture  ;  and  if  this  and  that  of  St.  James  are  the 
only  sarcophagi  chambers  at  Jerusalem,  this  alone 
should  settle  the  controversy ;  and  all  certainly 
tends  to  make  it  more  and  more  probable  that  this 
was  really  the  sepulchre  of  Herod. 

If  the  sarcophagus  now  in  the  Louvre,  which 
came  from  this  chamber,  is  that  of  Herod,  it  is  the 
most  practical  illustration  that  has  yet  come  to 
light  of  a  theory  which  has  recently  been  forcing 
itself  on  the  attention  of  antiquarians.  According 
to  this  new  view,  it  is  not  necessary  that  furniture, 
or  articles  which  can  be  considered  as  such,  must 
always  follow  the  style  of  the  architecture  of  the 
day.  They  must  have  done  so  always  in  Egypt, 
in  Greece,  or  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  might  have 
deviated  from  it  at  Rome,  and  may  probably  have 
done  so  at  Jerusalem,  among  a  people  who  had  no 
art  of  their  own,  as  was  the  case  with  the  Jews. 
The  discord  in  fact  may  not  have  been  more  offensive 
to  them  than  the  Louis  Quatorze  furniture  is  to  us, 
with  which  we  adorn  our  Classical  and  Gothic 
buildings  with  such  cosmopolite  impartiality.  If 
this  is  so,  the  sarcophagus  may  have  been  made  for 
Herod.  If  this  hypothesis  is  not  tenable,  it  may 
belong  to  any  age  from  the  time  of  the  Maccabees 
to  that  of  Justinian,  most  probably  the  latter,  for 
it  certainly  is  not  Roman,  and  has  no  connexion 
with  the  architecture  of  these  tombs. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  there  seems  no  reason  for 
doubting  but  that  all  the  architectural  tombs  oi 
Jerusalem  belong  to  the  age  of  the  Romans,  like 
everything  that  has  yet  been  found  either  at  Pctra 
Boalbec,  Palmyra,  or  Damascus,  or  even  among  tht 
stone  cities  of  the  Hauran.  Throughout  Syria,  in 
fact,  there  is  no  important  architectural  example 
which  is  anterior  to  their  day  ;  and  all  the  speci 
mens  which  can  be  called  Classical  are  strong!) 


TOMB 


.535 


0          5         10  20  30    FT 


No.  9. — Plan  of  Tombs  of  Herod.     From  De  Saulcy. 


marked  with  the  impress  of  the  peculiar  forms  of 
Roman  art. 

Tomb  of  Helena  of  Adiabene.  —  There  was  one 
other  very  famous  tomb  at  Jerusalem,  which  can 
not  be  passed  over  in  silence,  though  not  one  vestige 
of  it  exists  —  for  the  simple  reason,  that  though 
Queen  Helena  of  Adiabene  was  converted  to  the 
.Jewish  faith,  she  had  not  so  fully  adopted  Jewish 
ft-elings  as  to  think  it  necessary  she  should  be 
buried  under  ground.  On  the  contrary,  we  are 
told  that  "  she  with  her  brother  were  buried  in  the 
pyramids  which  she  had  ordered  to  be  constructed 
at  a  distance  of  three  stadia  from  Jerusalem  " 
(Ant.  xx.  4,  §3).  This  is  confirmed  by  Pausanias 
(viii.  16),  who,  besides  mentioning  the  marble  door 
of  very  apocryphal  mechanism  which  closed  it? 
entrance,  speaks  of  it  as  a  TaQos  in  the  same  sense 
1:1  which  he  understands  the  mausoleum  at  Hali- 
carnasstis  to  have  been  a  structured  tomb,  which 
he  could  not  have  done  if  this  were  a  cave,  as  some 
have  supposed. 

The  specification  of  the  locality  by  Josephus  is  so 
minute  that  we  have  no  difficulty  in  ascertaining 
whereabouts  the  monument  stood.  It  was  situated 
outside  the  third  wall,  near  a  gate  between  the 
Tower  Psephinus  and  the  Royal  Caverns  (B.  J.  v. 
22,  and  v.  4,  §2).  These  last  are  perfectly  known, 
and  the  tower  with  very  tolerable  approximate 
certainty,  for  it  Was  placed  on  the  highest  point  of 
the  ridge  between  the  hollow  in  which  the  Birket 
Mamilla  is  situated  and  the  upper  valley  of  the 


Kedron  ;    they 


consequently   either   exactly 


where  marked  on  the  plan  ;n  vol.  i.  p.  1018,  or  it 
may  be  a  little  more  to  the  eastward. 

They  remained  sufficiently  entire  in  the  4th 
century  to  form  a  conspicuous  object  in  the  land 
scape,  to  be  mentioned  by  Eusebius,  and  to  be 


tinct  idea  of  what  the  appearance  of  this  remarkable 
monument  must  have  been,  if  we  compare  the 
words  descriptive  of  it  in  the  various  authors  who 
have  mentioned  it  with  the  contemporary  monu 
ments  in  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  If  we  place 
together  in  a  row  three  such  monuments  as  the 
Tomb  of  Zechariah,  or  rather  two  such,  with  the 
monument  of  Absalom  between  them,  we  have 
such  an  edifice  as  will  answer  to  the  Pyramid  or 
Josephus,  the  Taphos  of  Pausanias,  the  Stele's  of 
Eusebius,  or  the  Mausoleum  of  Jerome.  But  it 
need  hardly  be  added,  that  not  one  of  these  expres 
sions  applies'to  an  underground  excavation.  Accord 
ing  to  this  view  of  the  matter,  the  entrance  would 
be  under  the  Central  Cippus,  which  would  thus 
form  the  ante-room  to  the  two  lateral  pyramids, 
in  one  of  which  Helena  herself  reposed,  and  in  the 
other  the  remains  of  her  brother. 

Since  the  destruction  of  the  city  by  Titus,  none 
of  the  native  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  have  been 
in  a  position  to  indulge  in  much  sepulchral  mag 
nificence,  or  perhaps  had  any  taste  for  this  class 
of  display;  and  we  in  consequence  find  no  rock- 
cut  hypogea,  and  no  structural  monuments  that 
arrest  attention  in  modem  times.  The  people,  how 
ever,  still  cling  to  their  ancient  cemeteries  in  the 
Valley  of  Jehoshaphat  with  a  tenacity  singularly 
characteristic  of  the  East.  The  only  difference 
being,  'that  the  erection  of  the  Wall  of  Agrippa, 
which  now  forms  the  eastern  boundary  of  the 
Haram  Area,  has  pushed  the  cemetery  further 
towards  the  Kedron,  or  at  least  cut  off  the  upper 
and  nobler  part  of  it.  And  the  contraction  of  the 
city  on  the  north  has  enabled  the  tombs  to  ap 
proach  nearer  the  limits  of  the  modern  town  than 
was  the  case  in  the  days  when  Herod  the  Great  and 
Helena  of  Adiabene  were  buried  "  on  the  sides  ot 


emarked  by  those  who   accompanied  Sta.   Paula  I  the  north." 

(Euseb.  ii.  12;   Hieron.  Epitaph.  Pavlae)  on  herj      The  only  remarkable  exception  to  this  assertion 

journey  to  Jerusalem.  '  is   that   splendid    Mausoleum    which    Constantine 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  forming  a  tolerably  dis-  I  erected  over  what  he  believed  to  be  the  Tomb  of 


1536    TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

Christ,  and  which  still  exists  at  Jerusalem,  known 
to  Moslems  as  the  Dome  of  the  Rock  ;  to  Christians 
as  the  Mosque  of  Omar. 

The  arguments  for  its  authenticity  have  already 
been  sufficiently  insisted  upon  in  the  article  JERU 
SALEM,  in  the  first  volume,  and  its  general  form 
and  position  shown  in  the  woodcut,  p.  1022.  It 
will  not,  therefore,  be  necessaiy  to  go  over  this 
ground  again.  Externally  its  appearance  was  very 
much  altered  by  the  repairs  of  Suleiman  the  Mag 
nificent,  when  the  city  had  returned  to  the  posses 
sion  of  the  Moslems  alter  the  retreat  of  the  Cru 
saders,  and  it  has  consequently  lost  much  of  its 
original  Byzantine  character ;  but  internally  it  re 
mains  much  as  it  was  left  by  its  founder ;  and  is 
Tiow — with  the  exception  of  a  few  Indian  tombs — 
ihemost  magnificent  sepulchral  monument  in  Asia, 
and  is,  as  it  ought  to  be,  the  most  splendid  Chris 
tian  sepulchre  in  the  world.  [J.  F.] 

TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF.  The  unity 
of  the  human  race  is  most  clearly  implied,  if  not 
positively  asserted,  in  the  Mosaic  writings.  The 
general  declaration,  "  So  God  created  man  in  His  own 
image,  .  .  .  male  and  female  created  He  them" 
(Gen.  i.  27),  is  limited  as  to  the  mode  in  which  the 
act  was  carried  out,  by  the  subsequent  narrative  of 
the  creation  of  the  protoplast  Adam,  who  stood  alone 
on  the  earth  amidst  the  beasts  of  the  iield,  until  it 
pleased  Jehovah  to  create  "  an  help  meet  for  him  " 
out  of  the  very  substance  of  his  body  (Gen.  ii.  22). 
From  this  original  pair  sprang  the  whole  ante 
diluvian  population  of  the  world,  and  hence  the 
author  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  conceived  the  unity  of 
the  human  lace  to  be  of  the  most  rigid  nature — not 
simply  a  generic  unity,  nor  again  simply  a  specific 
unity  (for  unity  of  species  may  not  be  inconsistent 
with  a  plurality  of  original  centres),  but  a  specific 
based  upon  a  numerical  unity,  the  species  being 
nothing  else  than  the  enlargement  of  the  individual. 
Such  appears  to  be  the  natural  meaning  of  the  first 
chapters  of  Genesis,  when  taken  by  themselves — 
much  more  so  when  read  under  the  reflected  light 
of  the  New  Testament ;  for  not  only  do  we  meet 
with  references  to  the  historical  fact  of  such  an 
origin  of  the  human  race — e.  g.  in  St.  Paul's  de 
claration  that  God  "  hath  made  of  one  blood  every 
nation  of  men  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth"* 
(Acts  xvii.  26) — but  the  same  is  evidently  implied 
in  the  numerous  passages  which  represent  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  counterpart  of  Adam  in  regard  to  the 
universality  of  His  connection  with  the  human  race. 
Attempts  have  indeed  been  made  t/>  show  that  the 
idea  of  a  plurality  of  original  pairs  is  not  incon 
sistent  with  the  Mosaic  writings ;  but  there  is  a 
wide  distinction  between  a  view  not  inconsistent 
with,  and  a  view  drawn  from,  the  words  of  the 
author  :  the  latter  is  founded  upon  the  facts  he  re 
lates,  as  well  as  his  mode  of  relating  them ;  the 
former  takes  advantage  of  the  weaknesses  arising 
out  of  a  concise  or  unmethodical  style  of  composi 
tion.  Even  if  such  a  view  could  be  sustained  in 
reference  to  the  narrative  of  the  original  creation  of 
man,  it  must  inevitably  fail  in  reference  to  the 
history  of  the  repopulation  of  the  world  in  the  post 
diluvian  age  ;  for  whatever  objections  may  be  made 

a  The  force  of  the  Apostle's  statement  is  inadequately 
given  in  the  A.V.,  which  gives  "  for  to  dwell"  as  the 
result,  instead  of  the  direct  object  of  the  principal  verb. 

>>  The  project  has  been  restricted  by  certain  critics  to 
the  Karaites,  or,  at  all  events.,  to  a  mere  section  of  the 
nuinau  race.  This  and  various  other  questions  arising 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

to  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  history  of  the  Flood, 
it  is  at  all  events  clear  that  the  Historian  believed 
in  the  universal  destruction  of  the  human  race 
with  the  exception  of  Noah  and  his  family,  and 
consequently  that  the  unity  of  the  human  race  was 
once  more  reduced  to  one  of  a  numerical  character. 
To  Noah  the  historian  traces  up  the  whole  post 
diluvian  population  of  the  world  : — "  These  are  the 
three  sons  of  Noah :  and  of  them  was  the  whole 
earth  overspread"  (Gen.  ix.  19). 

Unity  of  language  is  assumed  by  the  sacred  his 
torian  apparently  as  a  corollary  of  the  unity  of 
race.  No  explanation  is  given  of  the  origin  of 
speech,  but  its  exercise  is  evidently  regarded  as  co 
eval  with  the  creation  of  man.  No  support  can  be 
obtained  in  behalf  of  any  theory  on  this  subject 
from  the  first  recorded  instance  of  its  exercise 
("  Adam  gave  names  to  all  cattle  "),  for  the  simple 
reason  that  this  notice  is  introductory  to  what  fol 
lows  :  "  but  for  Adam  there  was  not  found  an  help 
meet  for  him  "  (Gen.  ii.  20).  It  was  not  so  much 
the  intention  of  the  writer  to  state  the  fact  of  man's 
power  of  speech,  as  the  fact  of  the  inferiority  of  all 
other  animals  to  him,  and  the  consequent  necessity 
for  the  creation  of  woman.  The  proof  of  that  in 
feriority  is  indeed  most  appropriately  made  to  con 
sist  in  the  authoritative  assignment  of  names,  im 
plying  an  act  of  reflection  on  their  several  natures 
and  capacities,  and  a  recognition  of  the  offices  which 
they  were  designed  to  fill  in  the  economy  of  the 
world.  The  exercise  of  speech  is  thus  most  hap 
pily  connected  with  the  exercise  of  reflection,  and 
the  relationship  between  the  inner  act  of  the  mind 
(\6yos  evSmfleros)  and  the  outward  expression 
(\6yos  irpotyopiKos)  is  fully  recognized.  Speech 
being  thus  inherent  in  man  as  a  reflecting  being, 
was  regarded  as  handed  down  from  father  to  son  by 
the  same  process  of  imitation,  by  which  it  is  still  per 
petuated.  Whatever  divergences  may  have  arisen 
in  the  antediluvian  period,  no  notice  is  taken  of 
them,  inasmuch  as  their  effects  were  obliterated  . 
by  the  universal  catastrophe  of  the  Flood.  The 
original  unity  of  speech  was  restored  in  Noah, 
and  would  naturally  be  retained  by  his  descendants 
as  long  as  they  were  held  together  by  social  and 
local  bonds.  Accordingly  we  are  informed  that  for 
some  time  "  the  whole  earth  was  of  one  lip  and  the 
same  words"  (Gen.  xi.  1),  i.e.  both  the  vocal 
sounds  and  the  vocables  were  identical — an  ex 
haustive,  but  not,  as  in  the  A.  V.,  a  tautologous 
description  of  complete  unitv.  Disturbing  causes 
were,  however,  early  at  work  to  dissolve  this  two 
fold  union  of  community  and  speech.  The  human 
family b  endeavoured  to  check  the  tendency  to 
separation  by  the  establishment  of  a  great  cen 
tral  edifice,  and  a  city  which  should  serve  as  the 
metropolis  of  the  whole  world.  They  attempted  to 
carry  out  this  project  in  the  wide  plain  of  Baby 
lonia,  a  locality  admirably  suited  to  such  an  object 
from  the  physical  and  geographical  peculiarities  of 
the  country.  The  project  was  defeated  by  the  in 
terposition  of  Jehovah,  who  determined  to  "  con 
found  their  language,  so  that  they  might  not  under 
stand  one  another's  speech."  Contemporaneously 
with,  and  perhaps  as  the  result  of,  this  confusion 


out  of  the  narrative  are  discussed  by  Vitringa  in  hia 
Observ.  Sacr.  i.  1,  $2-8 ;  6,  $1-4.  Although  the  restriction 
above  noticed  is  not  irreconcilable  with  the  text,  it  inter 
feres  with  the  ulterior  object  for  which  the  narrative 
was  probably  inserted,  viz.,  to  reconcile  the  manifest 
diversity  of  language  with  the  idea  of  an  original  unity. 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

of  tongues,  the  people  were  scattered  abroad  from 
thence  upon  the  face  of  ail  the  earth,  and  the 
memory  of  the  great  event  was  preserved  in  the 
name  Babel  (  =  confusion).  The  ruins  of  the  tower 
are  identified  by  M.  Oppert,  the  highest  authority 
on  Babylonian  antiquities,  with  the  basement  of 
the  great  mound  of  Birs-Nimrud,  the  ancient  Bor- 
sippa.c 

Two  points  demand  our  attention  in  reference 
to  this  narrative,  viz.  the  degree  to  which  the  con 
fusion  of  tongues  may  be  supposed  to  have  extended, 
and  the  connection  between  the  confusion  of  tongues 
and  the  dispersion  of  nations.  (1.)  It  is  unneces 
sary  to  assume  that  the  judgment  inflicted  on  the 
builders  of  Babel  amounted  to  a  loss,  or  even  a  sus 
pension,  of  articulate  speech.  The  desired  objecf. 
would  be  equally  attained  by  a  miraculous  fore- 
stalment  of  those  dialectical  differences  cf  language 
which  are  constantly  in  process  of  production,  but 
which,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  require  time 
and  variations  of  place  and  habits  to  reach  such  a 
point  of  maturity  that  people  are  unable  to  under 
stand  one  another's  speech.  The  elements  of  the 
one  original  language  may  have  remained,  but  so 
disguised  by  variations  of  pronunciation,  and  by  the 
introduction  of  new  combinations,  as  to  be  practically 
obliterated.  Each  section  of  the  human  family 
may  have  spoken  a  tongue  unintelligible  to  the  re 
mainder,  and  yet  containing  a  substratum  which 
was  common  to  all.  Our  own  experience  suffices 
to  show  how  completely  even  dialectical  differences 
render  strangers  unintelligible  to  one  another ;  and 
if  we  further  take  into  consideration  the  differences 
of  habits  and  associations,  of  which  dialectical  dif 
ferences  are  the  exponents,  we  shall  have  no  diffi 
culty  in  accounting  for  the  result  described  by  the 
sacred  historian.  (2.)  The  confusion  of  tongues 
and  the  dispersion  of  nations  aie  spoken  of  in  the 
Bible  as  contemporaneous  events.  "  So  the  Lord 
scattered  them  abroad"  is  stated  as  the  execution 
of  the  Divine  counsel,  "  Let  us  confound  their  lan 
guage."  The  divergence  of  the  various  families 
into  distinct  tribes  and  nations  ran  parallel  with 
the  divergence  of  speech  into  dialects  and  languages, 
and  thus  the  10th  chapter  of  Genesis  is  posterior  in 
historical  sequence  to  the  events  recorded  in  the 
llth  chapter.  Both  passages  must  be  taken  into 
consideration  in  any  disquisition  on  the  early  for 
tunes  of  the  human  race.  We  propose  therefore  to 
inquire,  in  the  first  place,  how  far  modern  re 
searches  into  the  phenomena  of  language  favour  the 
idea  that  there  was  once  a  time  when  "  the  whole 
earth  was  of  one  speech  and  language ;"  and,  in  the 
second  place,  whether  the  ethnological  views  exhi 
bited  in  the  Mosaic  table  accord  with  the  evidence 
furnished  by  history  and  language,  both  in  regard 
to  the  special  facts  recorded  in  it,  and  in  the  general 
Scriptural  view  of  a  historical  or,  more  properly,  a 
gentilic  unity  of  the  human  race.  These  questions, 
though  independent,  yet  exercise  a  reflexive  influ 
ence  on  each  other's  results.  Unity  of  speech  does 
net  necessarily  involve  unity  of  race,  nor  yet  vice 
versa  ;  but  each  enhances  the  probability  of  the 
other,  and  therefore  the  arguments  derived  from 
language,  physiology,  and  history,  may  ultimately 
furnish  a  cumulative  amount  of  probability  which 
will  fall  but  little  below  demonstration. 

(A.)  The  advocate  of  the  historical  unity  of  lan 
guage  has  to  encounter  two  classes  of  opposing 
argumsnts ;  one  arising  out  of  the  differences,  the 


•  See  the  Appendix  to  this  article. 
VOL-   Til. 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF     1537 

!  other   out    of  the    resemblances    of  existing   lac. 

1  guages.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  urged  that  the 
differences  are  of  so  decisive  and  specific  a  character 
as  to  place  the  possibility  of  a  common  ori^ii. 
wholly  out  of  the  question  ;  on  the  other  hand  that 
the  resemblances  do  not  necessitate  the  theory  of  a 
historical  unity,  but  may  be  satisfactorily  accounted 
for  on  psychological  principles.  It  will  be  our 
object  to  discuss  the  amount,  the  value,  and  the 
probable  origin  of  the  varieties  exhibited  by  lan 
guages,  with  a  view  to  meet  the  first  class  of  objec 
tions.  But  before  proceeding  to  this,  we  will  make 
a  few  remarks  on  the  second  class,  inasmuch  as 
these,  if  established,  would  nullify  any  conclusion 
that  might  be  drawn  from  the  other. 

A  psychological  unity  is  not  necessarily  opposed 
to  a  gentilic  unity.  It  is  perfectly  open  to  any 
theorist  to  combine  the  two  by  assuming  that  the 
language  of  the  one  protoplast  was  founded  on 
strictly  psychological  principles.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  psychological  unity  does  not  necessitate  a 
gentilic  unity.  It  permits  of  the  theory  of  a  plu 
rality  of  protoplasts,  who  under  the  influence  of 
the  same  psychological  laws  arrived  at  similar  inde 
pendent  results.  Whether  the  phenomena  of  lan 
guage  are  consistent  with  such  a  theory,  we  think 
extremely  doubtful ;  certainly  they  cannot  furnish 
the  basis  of  it.  The  whole  question  of  the  origin 
of  language  lies  beyond  the  pale  of  historical  proof, 
and  any  theory  connected  with  it  admits  neither 
of  being  proved  nor  disproved.  We  know,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  language  is  communicated  from 
one  generation  to  another  solely  by  force  of  imita 
tion,  and  that  there  is  no  play  whatever  for  the 
inventive  faculty  in  reference  to  it.  But  in  what 
manner  the  substance  of  language  was  originally  pro 
duced,  we  do  not  know.  No  argument  can  be  derived 
against  the  common  origin  from  analogies  drawn 
from  the  animal  world,  and  when  Professor  Agassu 
compares  similarities  of  language  with  those  of  the 
cries  of  animals  (v.  Bohlen's  Introd.  to  Gen.  ii. 
278),  he  leaves  out  of  consideration  the  important 
fact  that  language  is  not  identical  with  sound,  and 
that  the  words  of  a  rational  being,  however  origi 
nally  produced,  are  perpetuated  in  a  manner  wholly 
distinct  from  that  whereby  animals  learn  to  utter 
their  cries.  Nor  does  the  internal  evidence  of  lan 
guage  itself  reveal  the  mystery  of  its  origin ;  for 
though  a  very  large  number  of  words  may  be 
referred  either  directly  or  mediately  to  the  prin 
ciple  of  onomatopoeia,  there  are  others,  as,  for 
instance,  the  first  and  second  personal  pronouns, 
which  do  not  admit  of  such  an  explanation.  In 
short,  this  and  other  similar  theories  cannot  be 
reconciled  with  the  intimate  connexion  evidently' 
existing  between  reason  and  speech,  and  which  is 
so  well  expressed  in  the  Greek  language  by  the 
application  of  the  term  \6yos  to  each,  reason  being 
nothing  .else  than  inward  speech,  and  speech  nothing 
else  than  outward  reason,  neither  of  them  pos 
sessing  an  independent  existence  without  the  other. 
As  we  conceive  that  the  psychological,  as  opposed 
to  the  gentilic,  unity  involves  questions  connected 
with  the  origin  of  language,  we  can  only  say  that 
in  this  respect  it  falls  outside  the  range  of  oui 
inquiry. 

Reverting  to  the  other  class  of  objections,  we 
proceed  to  review  the  extent  of  the  differences 
observable  in  the  languages  of  the  world,  in  order 
to  ascertain  whether  they  are  such  as  to  preclude 
the  possibility  of  a  common  origin.  Such  a  revie  w 
must  necessarily  be  imperfect,  both  from  the  maov, 

5  F 


1538     TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

aitude  of  the  subjvct,  and  also  from  the  position  of 
the  linguistic  science  itself,  which  as  yet  has  hardly 
advanced  beyond  the  stage  of  infancy.  On  the 
latter  point  we  would  observe  that  the  most  im 
portant  links  between  the  various  language  fami 
lies  may  yet  be  discovered  in  languages  that  are 
either  unexplored,  or,  at  all  events,  unplaced.  Mean 
while,  no  one  can  doubt  that  the  tendency  of  all 
linguistic  research  is  in  the  direction  of  unity. 
Already  it  has  brought  within  the  bonds  of  a  well 
established  relationship  languages  so  remote  from 
each  other  in  external  guise,  in  age,  and  in  geo 
graphical  position  as  Sanscrit  and  English,  Celtic 
and  Greek.  It  has  done  the  same  for  other  gioups 
of  languages  equally  widely  extended,  but  present 
ing  less  opportunities  of  investigation.  It  has  re 
cognised  affinities  between  languages  which  the 
ancient  Greek  ethnologist  would  have  classed  under 
the  head  of  "  barbarian  "  in  reference  to  each  other, 
and  even  in  many  instances  where  the  modern  phi 
lologist  has  anticipated  no  relationship.  The  lines 
of  discovery  therefore  point  in  one  direction,  and 
favour  the  expectation  that  the  various  families 
may  be  combined  by  the  discovery  of  connecting 
links  into  a  single  family,  comprehending  in  its 
capacious  bosom  all  the  languages  of  the  world. 
But  should  such  a  result  never  be  attained,  the 
probability  of  a  common  origin  would  still  remain 
unshaken ;  for  the  failure  would  probably  be  due  to 
the  absence,  in  many  classes  and  families,  of  that 
chain  of  historical  evidence,  which  in  the  case  of  the 
Indo-European  and  Shemitic  families  enables  us  to 
trace  their  progress  for  above  3000  years.  In 
many  languages  no  literature  at  all,  in  many  others 
no  ancient  literature  exists,  to  supply  the  philo 
logist  with  materials  for  comparative  study :  in 
these  cases  it  can  only  be  by  laborious  research  into 
existing  dialects,  that  the  original  forms  of  words 
can  be  detected  amidst  the  incrustations  and  trans- 
mutAtions  with  which  time  has  obscured  them. 

In  dealing  with  the  phenomena  of  language,  we 
should  duly  consider  the  plastic  nature  of  the  ma 
terial  out  of  which  it  is  formed,  and  the  numerous 
influences  to  which  it  is  subject.  Variety  in  unity 
is  a  general  law  of  nature,  to  which  even  the  most 
stubborn  physical  substances  yield  a  ready  obe 
dience.  In  the  case  of  language  it  would  be  difficult 
to  lay  any  bounds  to  the  variety  which  we  might 
h  priori  expect  it  to  assume.  For  in  the  first  place 
it  is  brought  into  close  contact  with  the  spirit  of 
man,  and  reflects  with  amazing  fidelity  its  endless 
variations,  adapting  itself  to  the  expression  of  each 
feeling,  the  designation  of  each  object,  the  working 
of  each  cast  of  thought  or  stage  of  reasoning  power. 
Secondly,  its  sounds  are  subject  to  external  influ 
ences,  such  as  peculiarities  of  the  organ  of  speech, 
the  result  either  of  natural  conformation,  of  geo 
graphical  position,  or  of  habits  of  life  and  associa 
tions  of  an  accidental  character.  In  the  third  place, 
it  is  generally  affected  by  the  state  of  intellectual 
and  social  culture  of  a  people,  as  manifested  more 
especially  in  the  presence  or  absence  of  a  standard 
literary  dialect,  and  in  the  processes  of  verbal  and 
syntactical  structure,  which  again  react  on  the  very 
core  of  the  word,  and  produce  a  variety  of  sound- 

d  1.  That  prepositions  are  reducible  to  pronominal 
roots  may  be  illustrated  by  the  following  instances.  The 
Greek  ano,  with  its  cognates  the  German  ab  and  our  of, 
10  derived  from  the  demonstrative  base  a,  whence  also 
the  Sanscrit  dpa  (Bopp,  $1000);  irpo  and  ?rapa  are  akin 
to  the  Sansc.  prd  and  para,  secondary  fonsations  of  the 
above  mentioned  apa  (Bopp.  $1009).  The  only  prepo- 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

muta4..ons.  Lastly,  it  is  subjected  to  the  wear  and 
tear  of  time  and  use,  obliterating,  as  in  an  old 
coin,  the  original  impress  of  the  word,  reducing  it 
in  bulk,  producing  new  combinations,  and  occa 
sionally  leading  to  singular  interchanges  of  sound 
and  idea.  The  varieties,  resulting  from  the  modi- 
tying  influences  above  enumerated,  may  be  reduced 
to  two  classes,  according  as  they  affect  the  formal 
or  the  radical  elements  of  language.  On  each  of 
these  subjects  we  propose  to  make  a  few  remarks. 

I.  Widely  as  languages  now  differ  from  each 
other  in  external  form,  the  raw  material  (if  we 
may  use  the  expression)  out  of  which  they  have 
sprung  appears  to  have  been  in  all  cases  the  same. 
A  substratum  of  significant  monosyllabic  roots 
underlies  the  whole  structure,  supplying  the  mate 
rials  necessary  not  only  for  ordinary  predication, 
but  also  for  what  is  usually  termed  the  "growth" 
of  language  out  of  its  primary  into  its  more  com 
plicated  forms.  It  is  necessary  to  point  this  out 
clearly  in  order  that  we  may  not  be  led  to  suppose 
that  the  elements  of  one  language  are  in  them 
selves  endued  with  any  greater  vitality  than  those 
of  another.  Such  a  distinction,  if  it  existed,  would 
go  far  to  prove  a  specific  difference  between  lan 
guages,  which  could  hardly  be  reconciled  with  the 
idea  of  their  common  origin.  The  appearance  of 
vitality  arises  out  of  the  manipulation  of  the  roots 
by  the  human  mind,  and  is  not  inherent  in  the 
roots  themselves. 

The  proofs  of  this  original  equality  are  furnished 
by  the  languages  themselves.  Adopting  for  the 
present  the  threefold  morphological  classification 
into  isolating,  agglutinative,  aud  inflecting  lan 
guages,  we  shall  find  that  no  original  element  exists 
in  the  one  which  does  not  also  exist  in  the  other. 
With  regard  to  the  isolating  class,  the  terms  "  mo 
nosyllabic  "  and  "  radical,"  by  which  it  is  other 
wise  described,  are  decisive  as  to  its  character. 
Languages  of  this  class  are  wholly  unsusceptible 
of  grammatical  mutations :  there  is  no  formal  dis 
tinction  between  verb  and  noun,  substantive  and 
adjective,  preposition  and  conjunction :  there  are  no 
inflections,  no  case-  or  person-terminations  of  any 
kind :  the  bare  root  forms  the  sole  and  whole  sub 
stance  of  the  language.  In  regard  to  the  other  two 
classes,  it  is  necessary  to  establish  the  two  distinct 
points,  (1)  that  the  formal  elements  represent 
roots,  and  (2)  that  the  roots  both  of  the  formal 
and  the  radical  elements  of  the  word  are  mono 
syllabic.  Now,  it  may  be  satisfactorily  proved 
by  analysis  that  all  the  component  parts  of  both 
inflecting  and  agglutinative  languages  are  reducible 
to  two  kinds  of  roots,  predicable  and  pronominal  j 
the  former  supplying  the  material  element  of  verbs, 
substantives,  and  adjectives,  the  latter  that  of  con 
junctions,  prepositions,  and  particles ;  while  each 
kind,  but  more  particularly  the  pronominal,  supply 
the  formal  element,  or,  in  other  words,  the  termi 
nations  of  verbs,  substantives,  and  adjectives.  The 
full  proofs  of  these  assertions  would  involve  nothing 
less  than  a  treatise  on  comparative  grammar:  we 
can  do  no  more  than  adduce  in  the  accompanying 
note  a  few  illustrations  of  the  various  points  to 
which  we  have  adverted.*1  Whether  the  two  classes 


sition  which  appears  to  spring  from  a  predicable  base  ia 
trans,  with  its  cognates  durch  and  through,  which  are 
reterred  to  the  verbal  root  tar  (Bopp,  1018). 

2.  That  conjunctions  are  similarly  reducible  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  familiar  instances  of  on,  quod,  *nd 
"  that,"  indifferently  used  as  pronouns  or  coujunctlon* 
The  Latin  si  is  connected  with  the  pronoun  si-bi ;  and  «', 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

of  roots,  practicable  and  pronominal,  are  further 
reducible  to  one  class,  is  a  point  that  has  been  dis 
cussed,  but  has  not  as  yet  been  established  (Bopp's 
Compar.  Gram.  §105 ;  Max  Miiller's  Lectures,  p. 
269).  We  have  further  to  show  that  the  roots  of 
agglutinative  and  inflecting  languages  are  mono 
syllabic.  This  is  an  acknowledged  characteristic  of 
the  Iiido- European  family  ;  monosyllabism  is  indeed 
the  only  feature  which  its  roots  have  in  common  ; 
in  c*.her  respects  they  exhibit  every  kind  of  varia 
tion  from  a  uniliteral  root,  such  as  »  (ire),  up  to 
combinations  of  five  letters,  such  as  scand  (scan- 
dere),  the  total  number  of  admissible  forms  of  root 
amounting  to  no  less  than  eight  (Schleicher,  §20(3). 
la  the  Shemitic  family  monosyllabism  is  not  a 
prirnd  facie  characteristic  of  the  root :  on  the  con 
trary,  the  verbal6  stems  exhibit  bisyllabism  with 
such  remarkable  uniformity,  that  it  would  lead  to 
the  impression  that  the  roots  also  must  have  been 
trisyllabic.  The  bisyllabism,  however,  of  the  She- 
mitic  stem  is  in  reality  triconsonantalism,  the 
vowels  not  forming  any  part  of  the  essence  of  the 
root,  but  being  wholly  subordinate  to  the  conso 
nants.  It  is  at  once  apparent  that  a  triconsonantal 
and  even  a  quadriconsonantal  root  may  be  in  cer 
tain  combinations  unisyllabic.  But  further,  it  is 
more  than  probable  that  the  triconsonantal  has  been 
evolved  out  of  a  biconsonantal  root,  which  must 
necessarily  be  unisyllabic  if  the  consonants  stand, 
as  they  invariably  do  in  'Shemitic  roots,  at  the 
beginning  and  end  of  the  word.  With  regard  to 
the  agglutinative  class,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the 
same  law  which  we  have  seen  to  prevail  in  the 
isolating  and  inflecting  classes,  prevails  also  in  this, 
holding  as  it  does  an  intermediate  place  between 
those  opposite  poles  in  the  world  of  language. 

From  the  consideration  of  the  crude  materials  of 
language,  we  pass  on  to  the  varieties  exhibited  in 
its  structure,  with  a  view  to  ascertain  whether  in 
these  there  exists  any  bar  to  the  idea  of  an  original 
unity.  (1.)  Revelling  to  the  classification  already 
noticed,  we  have  to  observe,  in  the  first  place,  that 
the  principle  on  which  it  is  based  is  the  nature  of 
the  connection  existing  between  the  predicable  and 
the  relational  or  inflectional  elements  of  a  word.  In 
the  isolating  class  these  two  are  kept  wholly  dis- 


together  with  the  Sansc.  yddi,  with  the  relative  base  ya 
(Bopp,  $994). 

3.  That  the  suffixes  forming  the  inflections  of  verbs 
and  nouns  are  nothing  else  than  the  relics  of  either 
predicable  or  pronominal  roots,  will  appear  from  the 
following  instances,  drawn  (1)  from  the  Indo-European 
languages,  and  (2)  from  the  Ural-Altaian  languages. 
(1)  The  -(xi  in  Si'Sco/ai  is  connected  with  the  root  whence 
spring  the  oblique  cases  of  the  personal  pronoun  ey«i ; 
the  -<r  in  St&us  is  the  remains  of  crv  ;  and  the  T  in  eori 
(for  which  an  <r  is  substituted  in  Si&oo-i)  represents  the 
Sanscrit  ta,  which  reappears  in  auro?  and  in  the  oblique 
cases  of  the  article  (Bopp,  $$434,  443,  456).  So  again, 
the  -o-  in  the  nominative  Ao-yos  represents  the  Sanscrit 
pronominal  root  sa,  and  the  -d  of  the  neuter  quid  the 
Sanscrit  ta  (Schleicher's  Ctmpend.  $246) ;  tile  genitive 
terminations  -os,  -oio  (originally  -00-010),  and  hence  -ow 
~  tLe  Sanscrit  sya,  another  form  of  sa  (Schleicher,  $252) ; 
the  dative  (or  more  properly  the  locative)  -&>  or  -01  is 
referable  to  the  demonstrative  root  i  (Schleicher,  $254); 
and  the  accusative  -v  (originally  -/u.)  to  a  pronominal 
case,  probably  am,  which  no  longer  appears  in  its  simple 
form  (Schleicher,  $249).  (2)  In  the  Ural-Altaian  languages, 
we  find  that  the  terminations  of  the  verb?  gerunds,  and 
participles  ive  referable  to  significant  roots;  as  in  Turkish 
the  active  affix  £  or  d  to  a  root  signifying  "  to  do " 
(Ewald,  Sprachw.  Abh.  ii.  27),  and  in  Hungarian  the  fao- 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF     1539 

tinct  :  relational  ideas  are  expressed  by  juxta 
position  or  by  syntactical  arrangement,  and  not  by 
any  combination  of  the  roots.  In  the  agglutinative 
class  the  relational  elements  are  attached  to  the 
principal  or  predicable  theme  by  a  mechanical  kind 
of  junction,  the  individuality  of  each  being  pre 
served  even  in  the  combined  state.  In  the  inflecting 
class  the  junction  is  of  a  more  perfect  character, 
and  may  be  compared  to  a  chemical  combination, 
the  predicable  and  relational  elements  being  so  fused 
together  as  to  present  the  appearance  of  a  single 
and  indivisible  word.  It  is  clear  that  there  exists 
no  insuperable  barrier  to  original  i  nity  in  these 
differences,  from  the  simple  fact  that  every  inflect 
ing  language  must  once  have  been  agglutinative, 
and  every  agglutinative  language  once  isolating. 
If  the  predicable  and  relational  elements  of  an  iso 
lating  language  be  linked  together,  either  to  the 
eye  or  the  ear,  it  is  rendered  agglutinative;  if  the 
material  and  formal  parts  are  pronounced  as  one 
word,  eliminating,  if  necessary,  the  sounds  that 
resist  incorporation,  the  language  becomes  inflecting. 
(2.)  In  the  second  place,  it  .should  be  noted  that 
these  three  classes  are  not  separated  from  each 
other  by  any  sharp  line  of  demarcation.  Not  only 
does  each  possess  in  a  measure  the  quality  pre 
dominant  in  each  other,  but  moreover  each  gra 
duates  into  its  neighbour  through  its  bordering 
members.  The  isolating  languages  are  not  wholly 
isolating  :  they  avail  themselves  of  certain  words  as 
relational  particles,  though  these  still  retain  else 
where  their  independent  character:  they  also  use 
composite,  though  not  strictly  compound  words. 
The  agglutinative  are  not  wholly  agglutinative:  the 
Finnish  and  Turkish  classes  of  the  Ural-Altaian 
family  are  in  certain  instances  inflectional,  the  rela 
tional  adjunct  being  fully  incorporated  with  the 
predicable  stem,  and  having  undergone  a  large 
amount  of  attrition  for  that  purpose.  Nor  again 
are  the  inflectional  languages  wholly  inflectional: 
Hebrew,  for  instance,  abounds  with  agglutinative 
forms,  and  also  avails  itself  largely  of  separate 
particles  for  the  expression  of  relational  ideas :  our 
own  language,  though  classed  as  inflectional,  retains 
nothing  more  than  the  vestiges  of  inflection,  and  is 
iu  many  respects  as  isolating  and  juxtapositional  as 

titive  affix  t  to  te,  "  to  do,"  the  passive  affix  I  to  te,  "  to 
become;"  the  affix  of  possibility  hao  to  hat,  "to  work' 
kc.  (Pulszky,  in  Philol.  Trans.  1859,  p.  115). 

e  Monosyllabic  substantives  are  not  unusual  in  Hebrew, 
as  instanced  in  3&$>  |3»  &c.  It  is  unnecessary  to  regard 
these  as  truncated  forms  from  bisyllabic  roots. 

1  That  the  Shemitic  languages  ever  actually  existed  in 
a  state  of  monosyllabism  is  questioned  by  Italian,  partly 
because  the  surviving  monosyllabic  languages  have  never 
emerged  from  their  primitive  condition,  and  partly  be 
cause  he  conceives  synthesis  and  complexity  to  be  ante 
rior  in  the  history  of  language  to  analysis  and  simplicity 
(Hist.  Gen.  i.  98-100).  The  first  of  these  object!  ms  s 
based  upon  the  assumption  that  languages  are  developed 
only  in  the  direction  of  syntheticism ;  but  this,  as  we 
shall  hereafter  show,  is  not  the  only  possible  form  ci 
development,  and  it  is  just  because  the  monosyllabic  lan 
guages  have  adopted  another  method  of  perfecting  them 
selves,  that  they  have  remained  in  their  original  stage. 
The  second  objection  seems  to  involve  a  violation  of  the 
natural  order  of  things,  and  to  be  inconsistent  with  the 
evidence  afforded  by  language  itself;  for,  though  there  is 
undoubtedly  a  tendency  in  language  to  pass  from  the 
synthetical  to  the  analytical  state,  it  is  no  less  clear  fronj 
the  elements  of  synthetic  forms  that  they  mus:  Imv* 
originally  existed  in  an  analytical  state. 

5  F  2 


1640    TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 


my  language  of  that  class.     While,  therefore,  the  \  which  things  are  regulated  (Max  Miiller,  in  Philos, 


classification  holds  good  with  regard  to  the  pre 
dominant  characters  of  the  classes,  it  does  not  imply 
differences  of  a  specific  nature.  (3.)  But  further, 
the  morphological  varieties  of  language  are  not  con 
fined  to  the  exhibition  of  the  single  principle  hitherto 
described.  A  comparison  between  the  westerly 
branches  of  the  Ural-Altaian  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  Indo-European  on  the  other,  belonging  respec 
tively  to  the  agglutinative  and  inflectional  classes, 
will  show  that  the  quantitative  amount  of  syn 
thesis  is  fully  as  prominent  a  point  of  contrast  as 
the  qualitative.  The  combination  of  primary  and 
subordinate  terms  may  be  more  perfect  in  the 
Indo-European,  but  it  is  more  extensively  employed 
in  the  Ural-Altaian  family.  The  former,  for  in 
stance,  appends  to  its  verbal  stems  the  notions  of 
time,  number,  person,  and  occasionally  of  interro 
gation  ;  the  latter  further  adds  suffixes  indicative 
of  negation,  hypothesis,  causativeness,'  reflexiveness, 
and  other  similar  ideas,  whereby  the  word  is  built 
up  tier  on  tier  to  a  marvellous  extent.  The  former 
appends  to  its  substantival  stems  suffixes  of  case 
and  number ;  the  latter  adds  governing  particles, 
rendering  them  post-positional  instead  of  pre-posi- 
tional,  and  combining  them  synthetically  with  the 
predicate  stem.  If,  again,  we  compare  the  Shemitic 
with  ths  Indo-European  languages,  we  shall  find  a 
morphological  distinction  of  an  equally  diverse 
character.  In  the  former  the  grammatical  category 
is  expressed  by  internal  vowel-changes,  iu  the  latter 
by  external  suffixes.  So  marked  a  distinction  has 
not  unnaturally  been  constituted  the  basis  of  a 
classification,  wherein  the  languages  that  adopt  this 
system  of  internal  flection  stand  by  themselves  as  a 
separate  class,  in  contradistinction  to  those  which 
either  use  term i national  additions  for  the  same  pur 
pose,  or  which  dispense  wholly  with  inflectional 
forms  (Bopp's  Comp.  Gr,  i.  102).  The  singular 
use  of  prefbrmatives  in  the  Coptic  language  is, 
again,  a  morphological  peculiarity  of  a  very  decided 
character.  And  even  within  the  same  family,  say 
the  Indo-European,  each  language  exhibits  an  idio 
syncrasy  in  its  morphological  character,  whereby  it 
stands  out  apart  from  the  other  members  with  a 
decided  impress  of  individuality.  The  inference  to 
be  drawn  from  the  number  and  character  of  the 
differences  we  have  noticed,  is  favourable,  rather  than 
otherwise,  to  the  theory  of  an  original  unity.  Start 
ing  from  the  same  common  ground  of  monosyllabic 
roots,  each  language-family  has  cai'ried  out  its  own 
special  line  of  development,  following  an  original  im 
pulse,  the  causes  and  nature  of  which  must  remain 
probably  for  ever  a  matter  of  conjecture.  We  can 
perceive,  indeed,  in  a  general  way,  the  adaptation  of 
certain  forms  of  speech  to  certain  states  of  society. 
The  agglutinative  languages,  for  instance,  seem  to 
be  specially  adapted  to  the  nomadic  state  by  the  pro 
minence  and  distinctness  with  which  they  enunciate 
the  leading  idea  in  each  word,  an  arrangement 
whereby  communication  would  be  facilitated  be 
tween  tribes  or  families  that  associate  only  at  inter 
vals.  We  might  almost  imagine  that  these  languages 
derived  their  impress  of  uniformity  and  solidity 
from  the  monotonous  steppes  of  Central  Asia,  which 
have  in  all  ages  formed  their  proper  habitat.  So, 
again,  the  inflectional  class  reflects  cultivated  thought 
and  social  organisation,  and  its  languages  have  hence 
ooen  termed  "  state  "  or  "  political."  Monosyllabism, 


of  Hist.  i.  285).  We  should  hesitate,  however,  tc 
press  this  theory  as  furnishing  an  adequate  ex 
planation  of  the  differences  observable  in  language- 
families.  The  Indo-European  languages  attained 
their  high  organisation  amid  the  samci  scenes  and 
in  the  same  nomad  state  as  those  wherein  the 
agglutinative  languages  were  nurtured,  and  we 
should  be  rather  disposed  to  regard  both  the  lan 
guage  and  the  higher  social  status  of  the  former  as 
the  concurrent  results  of  a  higher  mental  organisa 
tion. 

If  from  words  we  pass  on  to  the  varieties  of  syn 
tactical  arrangement,  the  same  degree  of  analogy 
will  be  found  to  exist  between  class  and  class,  or 
between  family  and  family  in  the  same  class ;  in 
other  words,  no  peculiarity  exists  in  one  which  does 
not  admit  of  explanation  by  a  comparison  with 
others.  The  absence  of  all  grammatical  forms  in 
an  isolating  language  necessitates  a  rigid  collocation 
of  the  words  in  a  sentence  according  to  logical  prin 
ciples.  The  same  law  prevails  to  a  vei  y  great  extent 
in  our  own  language,  wherein  the  subject,  verb,  and 
object,  01-  the  subject,  copula,  and  predicate,  gene 
rally  hold  their  relative  positions  in  the  order  ex 
hibited,  the  exceptions  to  such  an  arrangement  being 
easily  brought  into  harmony  with  that  general  law. 
In  the  agglutinative  languages  the  law  of  arrange 
ment  is  that  the  principal  word  should  come  last 
in  the  sentence,  every  qualifying  clause  or  word 
preceding  it,  and  being  as  it  were  sustained  by  it. 
The  syntactical  is  thus  the  reverse  of  the  verbal 
structure,  the  principal  notion  taking  the  precedence 
in  the  latter  (Ewald,  Sprachw.  Abh.  ii.  29).  There 
is  in  this  nothing  peculiar  to  this  class  of  languages, 
beyond  the  greater  uniformity  with  which  the  ar 
rangement  is  adhered  to :  it  is  the  general  rule  in 
the  classical,  and  the  occasional  rule  in  certain  of  the 
Teutonic  languages.  In  the  Shemitic  family  the 
reverse  arrangement  prevails :  the  qualifying  adjec 
tives  follow  the  noun  to  which  they  belong,  and 
the  verb  generally  stands  first :  short  sentences  are 
necessitated  by  such  a  collocation,  and  hence  more 
room  is  allowed  for  the  influence  of  emphasis  in 
deciding  the  order  of  the  sentence.  In  illustration 
of  grammatical  peculiarities,  we  may  notice  that 
in  the  agglutinative  class  adjectives  qualifying 
substantives,  or  substantives  placed  in  apposition 
with  substantives,  remain  undeclined :  in  this  case 
the  process  may  be  compared  with  the  formation 
of  compound  words  in  the  Indo-European  languages, 
where  the  final  member  alone  is  inflected.  So  again 
the  omission  of  a  plural  termination  in  nouns  fol 
lowing  a  numeral  may  be  paralleled  with  a  similar 
usage  in  our  own  language,  where  the  terms 
"  pound  "  or  "  head  "  are  used  collectively  after  a 
numeral.  We  may  again  cite  the  peculiar  manner 
of  expressing  the  genitive  in  Hebrew.  This  Is 
effected  by  one  of  the  two  following  methods — 
placing  the  governing  noun  in  the  status  con- 
structus,  or  using  the  relative  pronoun?  with  a  pre 
position  before  the  governed  case.  The  first  of 
these  processes  appears  a  strange  inversion  of  the 
laws  of  language ;  but  an  examination  into  the 
origin  of  the  adjuncts,  whether  prefixes  or  affixes, 
used  in  other  languages  for  the  indication  of  the 
genitive,  will  show  that  they  have  a  more  intimate 
connection  with  the  governing  than  with  the 
governed  word,  and  that  they  are  generally  re« 


on  the  other  hand,  is  pronounced  to  be  suited  to  the    solvable  into  either  relative  or  personal  pronouns. 
most  primitive  stage  of  thought  and  society ,  wherein 
the   larnily  or  the   individual   is  the  standard  by 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

which  serve  the  simple  purpose  of  connecting  the 
two  words  together  (Garnett's  Essays,  pp.  2 1 4-227). 
The  same  end  may  be  gained  by  connecting  the 
words  in  pronunciation,  wh'ich  would  lead  to  a  rapid 
utterance  of  the  first,  and  cousequently  to  the  changes 
which  are  witnessed  in  the  status  constructus.  The 
second  or  periphrastic  process  is  in  accordance  with 
the  general  method  of  expressing  the  genitive;  for 
the  expression  "  the  Song  which  is  to  Solomon  " 
strictly  answers  to  "  Solomon's  Song,"  the  s  repre 
senting  (according  to  Bopp's  explanation)  a  com 
bination  of  the  demonstrative  sa  and  the  relative  ya. 
It  is  thus  that  the  varieties  of  construction  may  be 
shown  to  be  consi?  ent  with  unity  of  law,  and  that 
they  therefore  furnish  no  argument  against  a  com 
mon  origin. 

Lastly,  it  may  be  shown  that  the  varieties  of 
language  do  not  arise  from  any  constitutional  in 
equality  of  vital  energy.  Nothing  is  more  remark 
able  than  the  compensating  power  apparently  in- 
herent  in  all  language,  whereby  it  finds  the  means 
of  reaching  the  level  of  the  human  spirit  through 
a  faithful  adherence  to  its  own  guiding  principle. 
The  isolating  languages,  being  shut  out  from  the 
manifold  advantages  of  verbal  composition,  attain 
their  object  by  multiplied  combinations  of  radical 
sounds,  assisted  by  an  elaborate  system  of  accentua 
tion  and  intonation.  In  this  manner  the  Chinese 
language  has  framed  a  vocabulary  fully  equal  to 
the  demands  made  upon  it ;  and  though  this  mode 
of  development  may  not  commend  itself  to  our 
notions  as  the  most  effective  that  can  be  devised, 
yet  it  plainly  evinces  a  high  susceptibility  on  the 
part  of  the  linguistic  faculty,  and  a  keen  perception 
of  the  correspondence  between  sound  and  sense. 
Nor  does  the  absence  of  inflection  interfere  with 
the  expression  even  of  the  most  delicate  shades  of 
meaning  in  a  sentence;  a  compensating  resource  is 
found  partly  in  a  multiplicity  of  subsidiary  terms 
expressive  of  plurality,  motion,  action,  &c.,  and 
partly  in  strict  attention  to  syntactical  arrange 
ment.  The  agglutinative  languages,  again,  are  de 
ficient  in  compound  words,  and  in  this  respect  lack 
the  elasticity  and  expansiveness  of  the  Indo-European 
family;  but  they  are  eminently  synthetic,  and  no 
one  can  fail  to  admire  the  regularity  and  solidity 
with  which  its  words  are  built  up,  suffix  on  suffix, 
and,  when  built  up,  are  suffused  with  an  uniformity 
of  tint  by  the  law  of  vowel  -harmony.1-  The  Shemitic 
languages  have  worked  out  a  different  principle  of 
growth,  evolved,  not  improbably,  in  the  midst  of  a 
conflict  between  the  systems  of  prefix  and  suffix, 
whereby  the  stem,  being  as  it  were  enclosed  at  both 
extremities,  was  precluded  from  all  external  incre 
ment,  and  was  forced  back  into  such  changes  as  could 
be  effected  by  a  modification  of  its  vowel  sounds. 
But  whatever  may  be  the  origin  of  the  system  of 
internal  inflection,  it  must  be  conceded  that  the 
results  are  very  effective,  as  regards  both  economy 
of  material,  and  simplicity  and  dignity  of  style. 

The  result  of  the  foregoing  observations  is  to 

h  The  action  of  this  law  is  as  follows : — The  vowels  are 
divided  into  three  classes,  which  we  may  term  sharp, 
inedial,  ard  flat :  the  first  and  the  last  cannot  be  com 
bined  in  any  fully  formed  word,  but  all  the  vowels  must 
be  either  of  the  two  first,  or  of  the  two  last  classes.  The 
suffixes  must  always  accord  with  the  root  in  regard  to  the 
quality  of  its  vowel-sounds,  and  hence  the  necessity  of 
having  double  forms  for  all  the  suffixes  to  meet  the  sharp 
or  the  flat  character  of  the  root.  The  practice  is  probably 
referable  to  the  same  principle  which  assigned  so  remark 
able  a  prominence  to  the  root  As  the  root  sustains  the 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF     1541 

show  that  the  formal  varieties  of  language  present 
no  obstacle  to  the  theory  of  a  common  origin. 
Amid  these  varieties  there  may  be  discerned  mani 
fest  tokens  of  unity  in  the  original  material  out  of 
which  language  was  formed,  in  the  stages  of  forma 
tion  through  which  it  has  passed,  in  the  general 
principle  of  grammatical  expres>ion,  and,  lastly,  in 
the  spirit  and  power  displayed  in  the  development 
of  these  various  formations.  Such  a  result,  though 
it  does  not  prove  the  unity  of  language  in  respect  to 
its  radical  elements,  nevertheless  tends  to  establish 
the  a  priori  probability  of  this  unity ;  for  if  all 
connected  with  the  forms  of  language  may  b<: 
referred  to  certain  general  laws,  if  nothing  in  that 
department  owes  its  origin  to  chance  or  arbitrary 
appointment,  it  surely  favours  the  presumption  that 
the  same  principle  would  extend  to  the  formation 
of  the  roots,  which  are  the  very  core  and  kernel  ol 
language.  Here  too  we  might  expect  to  find  the 
operation  of  fixed  laws  of  some  kind  or  other,  pro 
ducing  results  of  an  uniform  character;  hore  too 
actual  variety  may  not  be  inconsistent  with  triginal 
unity. 

II.  Before  entering  on  the  subject  of  the  radical 
identity  of  languages,  we  must  express  our  con 
viction  that  the  time  has  not  yet  arrived  for  a 
decisive  opinion  as  to  the  possibility  of  establishing 
it  by  proof.  Let  us  briefly  review  the  difficulties 
that  beset  the  question.  Every  word  as  it  appears 
in  an  organic  language,  whether  written  or  spoken, 
is  resolvable  into  two  distinct  elements,  which  we 
have  termed  predicable  and  formal,  the  first  being 
what  is  commonly  called  the  root,  the  second  the 
grammatical  termination.  In  point  of  fact  both  ,of 
these  elements  consist  of  independent  roots  ;  and  in 
order  to  prove  the  radical  identity  of  two  languages, 
it  must  be  shown  that  they  agree  in  both  respects, 
that  is,  in  regard  both  to  the  predicable  and  the 
formal  roots.  As  a  matter  of  experience  it  is  found 
that  the  formal  elements,  consisting  for  the  most  part 
of  pronominal  bases,  exhibit  a  greater  tenacity  of  life 
than  the  others ;  and  hence  agreement  of  inflectional 
forms  is  juslly  regarded  as  furnishing  a  strong  pre 
sumption  of  general  radical  identity.  Even  foreign 
elements  are  forced  into  the  formal  mould  of  the 
language  into  which  they  are  adopted,  and  thus 
bear  testimony  to  the  original  character  of  that 
language.  But  though  such  a  formal  agreement 
supplies  the  philologist  with  a  most  valuable  instru 
ment  of  investigation,  it  cannot  be  accepted  as 
a  substitute  for  complete  radical  agreement:  this 
would  still  remain  to  be  proved  by  an  independent 
examination  of  the  predicable  elements.  The  diffi 
culties  connected  with  these  latter  aie  many  and 
varied.  Assuming  that  two  languages  or  language- 
families  are  under  comparison,  the  phonological 
laws  of  each  must  be  investigated  in  order  to  arrive, 
in  the  first  place,  at  the  primary  forms  of  words  in 
the  language  in  which  they  occur,  and,  in  the 
second  place,  at  the  corresponding  forms  in  the  lan 
guage  which  constitutes  the  l  other  member  or  corn- 
series  of  suffixes,  its  vowel-sound  becomes  not  unnaturally 
the  key-note  of  the  whole  strain,  facilitating  the  pi  ocesse9 
of  utterance  to  the  speaker,  and  of  perception  to  the  hearer, 
and  communicating  to  the  word  the  uniformity  which 
is  so  characteristic  of  the  whole  structure  of  these  lan 
guages. 

»  Grimm  was  the  first  to  discover  a  regular  sysU.ni  o< 
displacement  of  sounds  (lautverschiebung)  pervading  tho 
Gothic  and  Low  German  languages  as  compared  with 
Greek  and  Latin.  According  to  this  system,  the  Gothic 
substitutes  aspirates  for  tenues  (h  for  Gr  A:  or  Lat.  1,  th 


1542    TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

parison,  as  done  by  Grimm  for  the  Teutonic  as 
compared  with  the  Sanscrit  and  the  classical  lan 
guages.  The  genealogy  of  sound,  as  we  may  term 
it,  must  be  followed  up  by  a  genealogy  of  significa 
tion,  a  mere  outward  accordance  of  sound  and  sense 
in  two  terms  being  of  no  value  whatever,  unless  a 
radical  affinity  be  proved  by  an  independent  ex 
amination  of  the  cognate  words  in  each  case.  It 
still  remains  to  be  inquired  how  far  the  ultimate 
accordance  of  sense  and  sound  may  be  the  result  of 
onomatopoeia,1*  of  mere  borrowing,  or  of  a  possible 
mixture  of  languages  on  equal  terms.  The  final 
stage  in  etymological  inquiry  is  to  decide  the  limit 
to  which  comparison  may  be  carried  in  the  primi 
tive  strata  of  language — in  other  words,  how  far 
roots,  as  ascertained  from  groups  of  words,  may  be 
compared  with  roots,  and  reduced  to  yet  simpler 
elementary  forms.  Any  flaw  in  the  processes  above 
described  will  of  course  invalidate  the  whole  result. 
Even  where  the  philologist  is  provided  with  ample 
materials  for  inquiry  in  stores  of  literature  ranging 
over  long  periods  of  time,  much  difficulty  is  experi 
enced  in  making  good  each  link  in  the  chain  of 
agreement ;  and  yet  in  such  cases  the  dialectic 
varieties  have  been  kept  within  some  degree  of  re 
straint  by  the  existence  of  a  literary  language, 
which,  by  impressing  its  authoritative  stamp  on 
certain  terms,  has  secured  both  their  general  use 
and  their  external  integrity.  Where  no  literature 
exists,  as  is  the  case  with  the  general  mass  of  lan 
guages  in  the  world,  the  difficulties  are  infinitely 
increased  by  the  combined  effects  of  a  prolific  growth 
of  dialectic  forms,  and  an  absence  of  all  means  of 
tracing  out  their  progress.  Whether  under  these 
circumstances  we  may  reasonably  expect  to  esta 
blish  a  radical  unity  of  language,  is  a  question 
which  each  person  must  decide  for  himself.  Much 
may  yet  be  done  by  a  larger  induction  and  a  scien 
tific  analysis  of  languages  that  are  yet  compara 
tively  unknown.  The  tendency  hitherto  has  been 
to  enlarge  the  limits  of  a  "family"  according  as 
the  elements  of  affinity  have  been  recognised  in 
outlying  members.  These  limits  may  perchance  be 
still  more  enlarged  by  the  discovery  of  connecting 
links  between  the  language-families,  whereby  the 
criteria  of  relationship  will  be  modified,  and  new 
elements  of  internal  unity  be  discovered  amid  the 
manifold  appearances  of  external  diversity. 

Meanwhile  we  must  content  ourselves  with  stating 
the  present  position  of  the  linguistic  science  in  re 
ference  to  this  important  topic.  In  the  first  place 
the  Indo-European  languages  have  been  reduced  to 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

an  acknowledged  and  well  defined  relationship  :  Ihey 
form  one  of  the  two  families  included  under  the 
head  of  "  inflectional  "  in  the  morphological  classi 
fication.  The  other  family  in  this  class  is  the  (so- 
called)  Shemitic,  the  limits  of  which  are  not  equally 
well  defined,  inasmuch  as  it  may  b*  extended  over 
what  are  termed  the  sub-Shemitic  languages,  in 
cluding  the  Egyptian  or  Coptic.  The  criteria  of 
the  proper  Shemitic  family  (i.  e.  the  Aramean, 
Hebrew,  Arabic,  and  Ethiopic  languages)  are  dis 
tinctive  enough;  but  the  connexion  between  the 
Shemitic  and  the  Egyptian  is  not  definitely  esta 
blished.  Some  philologists  are  inclined  to  clam 
for  the  latter  an  independent  position,  intermediate 
between  the  Indo-European  and  Shemitic  families 
(Bunsen's  Phil,  of  Hist.  i.  185,  ff.).  The  aggluti 
native  languages  of  Europe  and  Asia  are  combined 
by  Prof.  M.  Miiller  in  one  family  named  "  Tur 
anian."  It  is  conceded  that  the  family  bond  in  this 
case  is  a  loose  one,  and  that  the  agreement  in  roots 
is  very  partial  (Lectures,  pp.  290-292).  Many 
philologists  of  high  standing,  and  more  particularly 
Pott  (Ungleich.  Mensch.  Rassen,  p.  232),  deny  the 
family  relationship  altogether,  and  break  up  the 
agglutinative  languages  into  a  great  number  of 
families.  Certain  it  is  that  within  the  Turnnian 
circle  there  are  languages,  such,  for  instance,  as 
the  Ural-Altaian,  which  show  so  close  an  affinity 
to  each  other  as  to  be  entitled  to  form  a  separate 
division,  either  as  a  family  or  a  subdivision  of  a 
family:  and  this  being  the  case,  we  should  hesitate 
to  put  them  on  a  parity  of  footing  with  the  re 
mainder  of  the  Turanian  languages.  The  Caucasian 
group  again  differs  so  widely  from  the  other  mem 
bers  of  the  family  as  to  make  the  relationship  very 
dubious.  The  monosyllabic  languages  of  south 
eastern  Asia  are  not  included  in  the  Turanian  family 
by  Prof.  M.  Miiller  (Led.  pp.  290,  326),  apparentlj 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  not  agglutinative  ;  but 
as  the  Chinese  appears  to  be  connected  radically 
with  the  Burmese  (Humboldt's  Versckied.  p.  368), 
with  the  Tibetan  (Ph.  of  Hist.  i.  393-395),  and 
with  the  Ural-Altaian  languages  (Schott  in  Abli. 
Ab.  Berl.  1861,  p.  172),  it  seems  to  have  a  good 
title  to  be  placed  in  the  Turanian  family.  With 
regard  to  the  American  and  the  bulk  of  the  African 
languages,  we  are  unable  to  say  whether  they  can 
be  brought  under  any  of  the  heads  already  men 
tioned,  or  whether  they  stand  by  themselves  as 
distinct  families.  The  former  are  referred  by  writers 
of  high  eminence  to  an  Asiatic  or  Turanian  origin 
(Bunsen,  Phil,  of  Hist.  ii.  Ill;  Latham's  Man 


for  t,  and  /  for  p) ;  tenues  for  medials  (t  for  d,  p  for  b, 
and  k  for  g) ;  and  medials  for  aspirates  (g  tor  Gr.  ch  or 
Lat.  h,  d  for  Gr.  th,  and  b  for  Lat.  /  or  Gr.ph)  (Gesch. 
Dents.  Spr.  i.  393).  We  may  illustrate  the  changes  by 
comparing  heat  t  with  cor  or  KapSia;  thou  with  tu',jive 
with  irefiire  (TreVre),  or  father  with  pater;  two  vrith  duo  ; 
knee  with  yow  ;  goose  with  \Wi  dare  w^n  0<*po«»  5  bear 
with  fero  or  $e'pu>.  What  has  thus  been  done  for  the 
Teutonic  languages,  has  been  carried  out  by  Schleicher 
in  his  Compendium  for  each  class  of  the  Indo-European 
family. 

Jt  is  a  delicate  question  to  decide  whether  in  any 
givtn  language  the  onomatopoetic  words  that  may  occur  ! 
are  original  or  derived.    Numerous  coincidences  of  sound  I 
and  sense  occur  in  different  languages  to  which  little  or 
no  value  is  attached  by  etymologists  on  the  ground  that 
they  are  oncmatopoetic.     But  evidently  these  may  have  j 
been  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  and  i 
from  language   to   language,  and  may   have  as   true  a 
genealogy  as  any  other  terms  not  bearing  that  character.  | 


For  instance,  the  Hebrew  lu'a  (JJ-1  /)  expresses  in  its  very 
sound  the  notion  of  swallowing  or  gulping,  the  word  con 
sisting,  as  Renan  has  remarked  (H.  G.  i.  460),  of  a  lingual 
and  a  guttural,  representing  respectively  the  tongue  and 
the  throat,  which  are  chiefly  engaged  in  the  operation  of 
swallowing.  In  the  Indo-European  languages  we  meet 
with  a  large  class  of  words  containing  the  same  elements 
and  conveying,  more  or  less,  the  same  meaning,  such  as 
Aei'^w,  Atx;u.deo,  ligurio,  lingua,  gula,  "  lick,"  and  others. 
These  words  may  have  had  a  common  source,  but,  because 
they  are  onomatopoetic  in  their  character,  they  are  ex 
cluded  as  evidence  of  radical  affinity.  This  exclusion 
may  be  carried  too  far,  though  it  is  difficult  to  point  out 
where  it  should  stop.  But  even  onomatopoetic  words 
bear  a  specific  character,  and  the  names  given  in  imita 
tion  of  the  notes  of  birds  differ  materially  in  different 
languages,  apparently  from  the  perception  of  some  subtle 
analogy  with  previously  existing  sounds  cr  Ideas.  The 
subject  is  one  of  great  interest,  and  may  yet  play  an  im 
portant  part  in  the  history  of  language. 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

smd  his  Migrat.  p.  186) ;  the  latter  to  the  Shemitic 
family  (Latham,  p.  148). 

The  problem  that  awaits  solution  is  whether  the 
several  families  above  specified  can  be  reduced  to  a 
eingle  family  by  demonstrating  their  radical  identity. 
It  would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  that  this  identity 
should  be  coextensive  with  the  vocabularies  of  the 
various  languages ;  it  would  naturally  be  confined 
to  such  ideas  and  objects  as  are  common  to  mankind 
generally.  Even  within  this  circle  the  difficulty  of 
proving  the  identity  may  be  infinitely  enhanced  by 
the  absence  of  materials.  There' are  indeed  but  two 
families  in  which  these  materials  are  found  in  any 
thing  like  sufficiency,  viz.  the  Indo-European  and 
the  Shemitic,  and  even  these  furnish  us  with  no 
historical  evidence  as  to  the  earlier  stages  of 
their  growth.  We  find  each,  at  the  most  remote 
literary  period,  already  exhibiting  its  distinctive 
character  of  stem-  and  word-formation,  leaving  us 
to  infer,  as  we  best,  may,  from  these  phenomena  the 
processes  by  which  they  had  reached  that  point. 
Hence  there  arises  abundance  of  room  for  difference 
of  opinion,  and  the  extent  of  the  radical  identity 
will  depend  very  much  on  the  view  adopted  as  to 
these  earlier  processes.  If  we  could  accept  in  its 
entirety  the  system  of  etymology  propounded  by 
the  analytical  school  of  Hebrew  scholars,  it  would 
not  be  difficult  to  establish  a  very  large  amount  of 
radical  identity;  but  we  cannot  regard  as  esta 
blished  the  prepositional  force  of  the  initial  letters, 
as  stated  by  Delitzsch  in  his  Jeshurun  (pp.  166, 
173,  note),  still  less  the  correspondence  between 
these  and  the  initial  letters  of  Greek  and  Latin 
words01  (pp.  170-172).  The  striking  uniformity 
of  bisyllabism  in  the  verbal  stems  is  explicable 
only  on  the  assumption  that  a  single  principle 
underlies  the  whole  ;  and  the  existence  of  groups fl 
of  words  differing  slightly  in  form,  and  having  the 
same  radical  sense,  leads  to  the  presumption  that 
this  principle  was  one  not  of  corn  position,  but  of 
euphonism  and  practical  convenience.  This  pre- 

m  Several  of  the  terms  compared  by  him  are  onomato- 
poetic,  as  pdrak  (/rac-ture),  pdtash  (rraTaercreu'),  and 
kdlap,  and  in  each  of  these  cases  the  initial  letter  forms 
part  of  the  onomatopoeia.  In  others  the  initial  letter  in 
the  Greek  is  radical,  as  in  /Sao-tAeveii/  (Pott's  Et.  Forsch. 
ii.  272),  SpvnTeiv  (i.  229),  and  o-raAa^eii/  (i.  197).  '  In 
others  again  it  is  euphonic,  as  in  p8d\\eiv.  Lastly,  we 
are  unable  to  see  how  turap  and  tdrep  admit  of  close 
comparison  with  Spv^eiv  and  rpffaiv.  It  shows  the  un 
certainty  of  such  analogies  that  Gesenius  compares 

tarap  with  Spvir-reiv,  and  kdlap  (5]73)  with  y\v<f>ei.v, 
which  Delitzsch  compares  with  khulap  (fpH).  An  at 
tempt  to  establish  a  large  amount  of  radical  identity  by 
means  of  a  resolution  of  the  Hebrew  word  into  its  compo 
nent  and  significant  elements  may  be  seen  in  the  Philo- 
lag.  Trans,  for  1858,  where,  for  instance,  the  6a  in  the 
Hebrew  bakash,  is  compared  with  the  Teutonic  prefix 
be;  the  dor  in  dar-kash  with  the  Welsh  dar  in  dar-paru; 
and  the  chaph  in  chaphash  with  the  Welsh  cy/'in  cyfaros. 
n  These  groups  are  sufficiently  common  in  Hebrew. 
We  will  take  as  an  instance  the  following  one :— WH&. 
&ty\,  &&?,  t^D3,  and  6?E3,  all  conveying  the  idea 
of  "  dash  "  or  "  strike."  Or,  again,  the  following  group, 
with  the  radical  sense  of  slipperiness :  —  2?>  <"!2^> 

nziS.  in1?-  a^n.  t£n.  *£D.  tj^.'&c.  A  ciassis- 

catory  lexicon  of  such  groups  would  assist  the  etyu»olo- 
piral  inquiry. 
•  Such  a  classification  is  attempted  !-y  Boettkher,  in 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF    1543 

sumption  is  still  further  favoured  by  an  analysis  of 
the  letters  forming  the  stems,  showing  that  the 
third  letter  is  in  many  instances  a  reduplication, 
and  in  others  a  liquid,  a  nasal,  or  a  sibilant,  intro 
duced  either  as  the  initial,  the  medial,  or  the  final 
letter.  The  Hebrew  alphabet  admits  of  a  classi 
fication0  based  on  the  radical  character  of  the 
letter  according  to  its  position  in  the  stem.  The 
effect  of  composition  would  have  been  to  produce, 
in  the  first  place,  a  greater  inequality  in  the  length 
of  the  words,  and,  in  the  second  place,  a  greater 
equality  in  the  use  of  the  various  organic  sounds. 

After  deducting  largely  from  the  amount  of  ety 
mological  correspondence  based  on  the  analytical 
tenets,  there  still  remains  a  considerable  amount  of 
radical  identity  which  appears  to  be  above  suspi 
cion.  It  is  impossible  to  produce  in  this  place  a 
complete  list  of  the  terms  in  which  that  identity  is 
manifested.  In  the  subjoined  note  f  we  cite  some 
instances  of  agreement,  which  cannot  possibly  be 
explained  on  the  principle  of  direct  onomatopoeia, 
and  which  would  therefore  seem  to  be  the  common 
inheritance  of  the  Indo-European  and  Shemitic 
families.  Whether  this  agreement  is,  as  Kenan 
suggests,  the  result  of  a  keen  susceptibility  of  the 
onomatopoetic  facultv  in  the  original  framers  of 
the  words  (Hist.  Gen.  i.  465),  is  a  point  that  can 
neither  be  proved  nor  disproved.  But  even  if  it 
were  so,  it  does  not  fo'bw  that  the  words  were  not 
framed  before  the  separation  of  the  families.  Our 
list  of  comparative  words  might  be  much  enlarged, 
if  we  were  to  include  comparisons  based  on  the 
reduction  of  Shemitic  roots  to  a  bisyllabic  form. 
A  list  of  such  words  may  be  found  in  Delitzsch's 
Jeshurun,  pp.  177-180.  In  regard  to  pronouns 
and  numerals,  the  identity  is  but  partial.  We 
may  detect  the  t  sound,  which  forms  the  dis 
tinctive  sound  of  the  second  personal  pronoun  in 
the  Indo-European  languages,  in  the  Hebrew  attdh, 
and  in  the  personal  terminations  of  the  perfect 
tense;  but  the  m,  which  is  the  prevailing  sound  of 


Bunsen,  Philos.  of  Hist.  ii.  357.    After  stating  what  letters 
may  be  inserted  either  at  the  beginning,  middle,  or  end  ot 
the  root,  he  enumerates  those  which  are  always  radical  in 
the  several  positions ;  3,  for  instance,  in  the  beginning 
and  middle,  but  not  at  the  end ;  •)  and  JO  in  the  begin 
ning  only  ;  Q  and  ty  in  the  middle  and  at  the  end,  but 
not  in  the  beginning.    We  are  not  prepared  to  accept 
this  classification  as  wholly  correct,  but  we  adduce  It  in 
illustration  of  the  point  above  noticed, 
p  |"1p,  cornu,  horn. 
":]DO,  /u.«ry<o,  misceo,  mix. 
"ipS,  circa,  circle. 
P'lN,  Germ,  erde,  eurth. 
p/H,  glaber,  glisco,  Germ,  glatt.  alh,1?: 
D-13.  D3»  DiJ,  cum,  <ruv,  KOU*«. 

A.eo5,  plenut,  Germ.  vc>li.  ttIL 
purus,  pure. 
2>  H13,  vorare,  j8op<£. 
Q,  $epu>,  j8apvs,/m>,  bear. 

p<a,  epula. 
"ID,  amarus. 
rn3,  curtus. 
jnr  senre. 

D-lb,  Sansc.  mnih,  muth,  mith  (Filrst  Lex.  S.  V.), 
whence  by  the  introduction  of  r  the  Jjatir.  m<rr&. 


1544    TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

the  first  personal  pronoun  in  the  former,  is  sup 
planted  by  an  n  in  the  latter.  The  numerals  shcsh 
and  sheba,  for  "  six "  and  "  seven,"  accord  with 
the  Indo-European  forms:  those  representing  the 
numbers  from  "one"  to  "five"  <*fe  possibly, 
though  not  evidently,  identical.1!  With  regard  to 
the  other  language-families,  it  will  not  be  expected, 
after  the  observations  already  made,  that  we  should  . 
attempt  the  proof  of  their  radical  identity.  The  ! 
Oral-Altaian  languages  have  been  extensively  j 
studied,  but  are  hardly  ripe  for  comparison. 
Occasional  resemblances  have  been  detected  in 
grammatical  forms  *  and  in  the  vocabularies  ;  •  but 
the  value  of  these  remains  to  be  proved,  and  we 
must  await  the  results  of  a  more  extended  research 
into  this  and  other  regions  of  the  world  of  language. 

(B.)  We  pass  on  to  the  second  point  proposed  for 
consideration,  viz.,  the  ethnological  views  expressed 
in  the  Bible,  and  more  particularly  in  the  10th 
chapter  of  Genesis,  which  records  the  dispersion  of 
nations  consequent  on  the  Confusion  of  Tongues. 

1.  The  Mosaic  table  does  not  profess  to  describe 
the  process  of  the  dispersion  ;  but  assuming  that 
dispersion  as  a  fait  accompli,  it  records  the  ethnic 
relations  existing:  between  the  various  nations  af 
fected  by  it.  These  relations  are  expressed  under 
the  guise  of  a  genealogy  ;  the  ethnological  character 
of  the  document  is,  however,  clear  both  from  the 
names,  some  of  which  are  gentilic  in  form,  as  Lu- 
dim,  Jebusite,  &c.,  others  geographical  or  local,  as 
Mizraim,  Sidon,  &c. ;  and  again  from  the  formu 
lary,  which  concludes  each  section  of  the  subject 
"  after  their  families,  after  their  tongues,  in  their 
countries,  and  in  their  nations"  (vei-s.  5,  20,  31). 
Incidentally,  the  table  is  geographical  as  well  as 
ethnological ;  but  this  arises  out  of  the  practice  of 
designating  nations  by  the  countries  they  occupy. 
It  has  indeed  been  frequently  surmised  that  the  ar 
rangement  of  the  table  is  purely  geographical,  and 
this  idea  is  to  a  certain  extent  favoured  by  the  pos 
sibility  of  explaining  the  names  Shem,  Ham,  and 
Japheth  on  this  principle ;  the  first  signifying  the 
"high"  lands,  the  second  the  "hot"  or  "low" 
lands,  and  the  third  the  "  broad,"  undefined  regions 
of  the  north.  The  three  families  may  have  been 
so  located,  and  such  a  circumstance  could  not 
have  been  unknown  to  the  writer  of  the  table. 
But  neither  internal  nor  external  evidence  satis 
factorily  prove  such  to  have  been  the  leading 
idea  or  principle  embodied  in  it;  for  the  Japhetites 
are  mainly  assigned  to  the  "isles"  or  maritime 
districts  of  the  west  and  north-west,  while  the 
Shemites  press  down  into  the  plain  of  Mesopo 
tamia,  and  the  Hamites,  on  the  other  hand,  occupy 
the  high  lauds  of  Canaan  and  Lebanon.  We  hold, 
therefore,  the  geographical  as  subordinate  to  the 
ethnographical  element,  and  avail  ourselves  of  the 
former  only  as  an  instrument  for  the  discovery  of 
the  latter. 

The  general  arrangement  of  the  table  is  as  fol 
lows  : — The  whole  human  race  is  referred  back  to 
Noah's  three  sons,  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japheth.  The 
Shemites  are  described  last,  apparently  that  the 


TONGUES.  CONFUSION  OF 

continuity  of  the  narrative  may  not  be  further  dis 
turbed;  and  the  Hamites  stand  next  to  the  Shemiies, 
in  order  to  show  that  these  were  more  closoly  relate*! 
to  each  other  than  to  the  Japhetites.  The  compa 
rative  degrees  of  affinity  are  expressed,  partly  by 
coupling  the  names  together,  as  in  the  cases  of  Eli- 
shah  and  Tarshish,  Kittim  and  Dodanim  (ver.  4), 
and  partly  by  representing  a  genealogical  descent, 
as,  when  the  nations  just  mentioned  are  said  to  be 
"  sons  of  Javan."  An  inequality  may  be  observed 
in  the  length  of  the  genealogical  lines,  which  in  the 
case  of  Japheth  extends  only  to  one,  in  Ham  to  two, 
in  Shem  to  three,  and  even  four  degrees.  This  in 
equality  clearly  arises  out  of  the  varying  interest 
taken  in  the  several  lines  by  the  author  of  the  table, 
and  by  those  for  whose  use  it  was  designed.  We 
may  lastly  observe,  that  the  occurrence  of  the  same 
name  in  two  of  the  lists,  as  in  the  case  of  Lud 
(vers.  13,  22),  and  Sheba  (vers.  7,  28),  possibly 
indicates  a  fusion  of  the  races. 

The  identification  of  the  Biblical  with  the  histo 
rical  or  classical  names  of  nations,  is  by  no  means 
an  easy  task,  particularly  where  the  names  are  not 
subsequently  noticed  in  the  Bible.  In  these  cases 
comparisons  with  ancient  or  modern  designations 
are  the  only  resource,  and  where  the  designation  is 
one  of  a  purely  geographical  character,  as  in  the 
case  of  Riphath  compared  with  Eipaei  monies,  or 
Mash  compared  with  Masius  mons,  great  doubt 
must  exist  as  to  the  ethnic  force  of  the  title,  inas 
much  as  several  nations  may  have  successively 
occupied  the  same  district.  Equal  doubt  arises 
where  names  admit  of  being  treated  as  appellatives, 
and  so  of  being  transferred  from  one  district  to  an 
other.  Recent  research  into  Assyrian  and  Egyptian 
records  has  in  many  instances  thrown  light  on  the 
Biblical  titles.  In  the  former  we  find  Meshech  and 
Tubal  noticed  under  the  forms  Miishai  and  Tuplai, 
while  Javan  appears  as  the  appellation  of  Cyprus, 
where  the  Assyrians  first  met  with  Greek  civiliza 
tion.  In  the  latter  the  name  Phut  appears  under 
the  form  of  Fount,  Hittite  as  Khita,  Cush  as  Keesh, 
Canaan  as  Kanana,  &c. 

1.  The  Japhetite  list  contains  fourteen  names,  of 
which  seven  represent  independent,  and  the  remainder 
affiliated  nations,  as  follows : — (i.)  Gomer,  con 
nected  ethnically  with  the  Cimmerii,  Cimbri  (?), 
and  Cymry  ;  and  geographically  with  Crimea.  As 
sociated  with  Gomer  are  the  three  following: — (a) 
Ashkenaz,  generally  compared  with  lake  Ascanius 
in  Bithynia,  but  by  Knobel  with  the  tribe  Asaei,  As, 
or  Ossetes  in  the  Caucasian  district.  On  the  whole 
we  prefer  Hasse's  suggestion  of  a  connexion  between 
this  name  and  that  of  the  Axenus,  later  the  Eux- 
inus  Pontus.  (6)  Riphath,  the  Kipaei  Morites,  which 
Knobel  connects  etymologically  and  geographically 
with  Carpates  Mons.  (c)  Togarmah,  undoubtedly 
Armenia,  or  a  portion  of  it.  (ii.)  Magog,  the  Scy 
thians.  (iii.)Madai,  Media,  (iv.)  Javan,  the  lonians, 
as  a  general  appellation  for  the  Hellenic  race,  with 
whom  are  associated  the  four  following  :  —  («) 
Elishah,  the  Aeolians,  less  probably  identified  with 
the  district  Elis.  (6)  Tarshish,  at  a  later  period 


9  See  Rbdiger's  note  in  Gesen.  Gramm.  p.  165.  The 
identity  even  of  shesh  and  "  six  "  has  been  questioned,  on 
the  ground  that  the  original  form  of  the  Hebrew  word 
was  shtt  and  of  the  Aryan  ksvaks  (Philol.  Trans.  1860, 
p.  131) 

1  Several  such  resemblances  are  pointed  out  by  Ewald 
in  hit?  Spracltw.  Abhartd.,  ii.  p.  18,  34  note. 

*  The  following  verbal  resemblances  in  Hungarian  and 


Sanscrit  have  been  noticed :—egy  and  eka,  "one;"  hat 
and  shash,  "  six ;"  het  and  saptan,  "  seven ;"  tiz  and 
dasan,  "  ten ;"  ezsr  od  sahasra,  "  thousand ;"  beka  and 
"bheka,  "frog;"  arany  and  hiranja,  "gold"  (rhilol. 
Trans,  for  1858,  p.  25).  Proofs  of  a  more  intimate  rela 
tionship  between  the  Finnish  and  Indo-European  lan 
guages  arc  adduced  n  a  paper  en  the  subject  In  the 
I'hilol  Trans,  for  1^60,  p.  231  ff. 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

wf  Biblical  history  certainly  identical  with  Tartessus 
iu  Spain,  to  which,  however,  there  are  objections  as 
regards  the  table,  partly  from  the  too  extended  area 
thus  given  to  the  Mosaic  world,  and  partly  because 
Tartessus  was  a  Phoenician,  and  consequently  not  a 
Japhetic  settlement.  Knobel  compares  the  Tyrseni, 
Tyrrhcni,  and  Tusci  of  Italy  ;  but  this  is  preca 
rious,  (c)  Kittim,  the  town  Citium  in  Cyprus. 
(d)  Dodanim,  the  Dardani  of  Illyria  and  Mysia: 
Dodona  is  sometimes  compared,  (v.)  Tubal,  the 
Tibareni  in  Pontus.  (vh)  Me.shech,  the  Moschi  in 
tlie  north-western  part  of  Armenia.  (vii.)  Tiras, 
perhaps  Thracia. 

2.  The  Hamitic  list  contains  thirty  names,  of 
which  four  represent  independent,  and  the  remainder 
affiliated  nations,  as  follows :— (i.)  Cush,  in  two 
branches,  the  western  or  African  representing 
Acthiopia,  the  Keesh  of  the  old  Egyptian,  and  the 
eastern  or  Asiatic  being  connected  with  the  names 
of  the  tribe  Cossaei,  the  district  Cissia,  and  the 
province  Susiana  or  Khuzistan.  With  Cush  are 
associated  : — (a)  Seba,  the  Sabaei  of  Yemen  in 
south  Arabia.  (6)  Havilah,  the  district  Khdwldn 
in  the  same  part  of  the  peninsula,  (c)  Sabtah,  the 
town  Sabatha  in  Hadramaut.  (d)  Raamah,  the 
town  Rhegma  on  the  south-eastern  coast  of  Arabia, 
with  whom  are  associated: — (a2)  Sheba,  a  tribe 
probably  connected  ethnically  or  commercially  with 
the  one  of  the  same  name  already  mentioned,  but 
located  on  the  west  coast  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  (62) 
Dedan,  also  on  the  west  coast  of  the  Persian  Gulf, 
where  the  name  perhaps  still  survives  in  the  island 
Dadan.  (<?)  Sabtechah,  perhaps  the  town  Samy- 
dace  on  the  coast  of  the  Indian  Ocean  eastward  of 
the  Persian  Gulf.  (/)  Nimrod,  a  personal  and 
not  a  geographical  name,  the  representative  of  the 
eastern  Cushites.  (ii.)  Mizraim,  the  two  Misrs,  i.e. 
Upper  and  Lower  Egypt,  with  whom  the  following 
seven  are  connected : — (a)  Ludim,  according  to 
Knobel  a  tribe  allied  to  the  Shemitic  Lud,  but  settled 
in  Egypt ;  others  compare  the  river  Laud  (Plin.  v. 
2),  and  the  Lewatah,  a  Berber  tribe  on  the  Syrtes. 
(6)  Anamim,  according  to  Knobel  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Delta,  which  would  be  described  in  Egyptian 
by  the  term  sanemhit  or  tsanemhit,  "  northern  dis 
trict,"  converted  by  the  Hebrews  into  Anamim. 
(c)  Naphtuhim,  variously  explained  as  the  people 
of  Nepkthys,  i.  e.  the  northern  coast  district  (Bo- 
chart),  and  as  the  worshippers  of  Phthah,  meaning 
the  inhabitants  of  Memphis,  (c?)  Pathrusim,  Upper 
Egyp*  the  name  being  explained  as  meaning  in  the 
Egyptian  ''the  south"  (Knobel).  (e}  Casluhiin, 
COSIKS  mons,  Cassiotis,  and  Cassium,  eastward  of 
the  Delta  (Knobel) :  the  ^olchians,  according  to  Bo- 
chart,  but  this  is  unlikely.  i /)  Caphtorim,  most 
probably  the  district  about  Coptos  in  Upper  Egypt 
[CAPHTOR]  ;  the  island  of  Crete  according  to  many 
modern  critics,  Cappadocia  according  to  the  older 
interpreters.  (gr)  Phut,  the  Punt  of  the  Egyptian 
rnscriptions,  meaning  the  Libyans,  (iii.)  Canaan, 
the  geographical  position  of  which  calls  for  no  re 
mark  in  this  place.  The  name  has  been  variously 
explained  as  meaning  the  "low"  land  of  the  coast 
district,  or  the  "  subjection  "  threatened  to  Canaan 
personally  (Gen.  ix.  25).  To  Canaan  belong  the  fol 
lowing  eleven  : — (a)  Sidon,  the  well-known  town  of 
that  name  in  Phoenicia.  (6)  Heth,  or  the  Hittites 
of  Biblical  history,  (c)  The  Jebusite,  of  Jebus  or 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF    1545 

Jerusalem,  (d}  The  Amorite  frequently  mentioned 
n  Biblical  history,  (e}  The  Girgasite,  the  same 
as  the  Girgashites.  (/)  The  Hivite,  variously  ex 
plained  to  mean  the  occupants  of  the  "  interior ' 
'Ewald),  or  the  dwellers  in  "villages"  (Gesen.). 
(g)  The  Arkite,  of  Area,  north  of  Tripoli*,  at  the 
bot  of  Lebanon.  (A)  The  Sinite,  of  Sin  or  Sinnat 
places  in  the  Lebanon  district,  (i)  The  Arvadite. 
of  Aradus  on  the  coast  of  Phoenicia,  (j  )  The  Ze- 
marite,  of  Simyra  on  the  Eleutherus. '  \K)  Trw 
Hamathite,  of  Hamath,  the  classical  Epiplumia,  on 
the  Orontes. 

3.  The  Shemitic  list  contains  twenty-five  names, 
of  which  five  refer  to  independent,  and  the  remainder 
to  affiliated  tribes,  as  follows  : — (i.)  Elam,  the  tribe 
Elymaei  and  the  district  Elymais  in  Susiana.  (ii.) 
Asshur,  Assyria  between  the  Tigris  and  the  range 
f  Zagrus.  (iii .)  Arphaxad,  Arrapachitis  in  northern 
Assyria,  with  whom  are  associated: — (a)  Salah,  a 
personal  and  not  a  geographical  title,  indicating  a 
migration  of  the  people  represented  by  him  ;  Salah's 
son  (a2)  Eber,  representing  geographically  the  dis 
trict  across  $.  e.  eastward  of)  the  Euphrates ;  and 
Eber's  two  sons  (a3)  Peleg,  a  personal  name  indi 
cating  a  "  division  "  of  this  branch  of  the  Shemitic 
family,  and  (63)  Joktan,  representing  generally  the 
inhabitants  of  Arabia,  with  the  following  thirteen 
sons  of  Joktan,  viz.: — (a4)  Almodad,  probably  re 
presenting  the  tribe  of  Jurkum  near  Mecca,  whose 
leader  was  named  Mudad.  (64)  Sheleph,  the  Sala- 
peni  in  Yemen,  (c4)  Hazarmaveth,  Hadramaui, 
in  southern  Arabia,  (d4}  Jerah.  (e4}  Hadoram, 
the  Adramitae  on  the  southern  coast,  in  a  district 
of  Hadramaut.  (/4)  Uzal,  supposed  to  represent 
the  town  Szanaa  in  south  Arabia,  as  having  been 
founded  by  Asal.  (g*)  Diklah.  (A4)  Obal,  or,  as 
in  1  Chr.  i.  22,  Ebal,  which  latter  is  identified  by 
Knobel  with  the  Gebanitae  in  the  south-west,  (i4) 
Abimael,  doubtfully  connected  with  the  distri.-.t 
Mahra,  eastward  of  Hadramaut,  and  with  the 
towns  Mara  and  Mali,  (y4 )  Sheba ,  the  Sabaei  of 
south-western  Arabia,  about  Mariaba.  (#*)  Ophir, 
probably  Adane  on  the  southern  coast,  but  see 
article.  (/4)  Havilah,  the  district  Khawlan  in 
the  north-west  of  Yemen,  (m4)  Jobab,  possibly 
the  Jobariiae  of  Ptolemy  (vi.  7,  §24),  for  which 
Jobabitae  may  originally  have  stood,  (iv.)  Lud, 
generally  compared  with  Lydia,  but  explained 
by  Knobel  as  referring  to  the  various  aboriginal 
tribes  in  and  about  Palestine,  such  as  the  Ama- 
lekites,  Rephaites,  Emim,  &c.  We  cannot  consider 
either  of  these  views  as  well  established.  Lydia 
itself  lay  beyond  the  horizon  of  the  Mosaic  table: 
as  to  the  Shemitic  origin  of  its  population,  conflict 
ing  opinions  are  entertained,  to  which  we  shall  hav? 
occasion  to  advert  hereafter.  Knobel's  view  has  iu 
its  favour  the  probability  that  the  tribes  refeired 
to  would  be  represented  in  the  table;  it  is,  how 
ever,  wholly  devoid  of  historical  confirmation,  with 
the  exception  of  an  Arabian  tradition  that  Arnlik 
was  one  of  the  sons  of  Laud  or  Lawad,  the  son  ol 
Shem.*  (v.)  Aram,  the  general  name  for  Syria 
and  northern  Mesopotamia,  with  whom  the  following 
j  are  associated : — (a)  Uz,  probably  the  Aesitae  of  Pto 
!  lemy.  (6)  Hul,  doubtful,  but  best  connected  with 
j  the  name  Huleh,  attaching  to  a  district  north  ol 
{  Lake  Merom.  (c)  Gether,  not  idei  f'tfed.  (d}  Mash 
Masius  Mons,  in  the  north  of  Mesopotamia. 


t  This  tradition  probably  originated  in  the  desire  to  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  it  is  that,  in  the  opinion  o> 
form  a  connecting  link  between  the  Mosaic  table  and  the  |  its  originator,  there  was  an  element  which  was  neithe 
various  elements  of  the  Arabian  population  TLie  only  Ishmaelite  nor  JokUnid  (Ewald,  Gesch  \.  339,  note). 


1546    TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OP 

There  is  yet  one  name  noticed  in  the  tab.e  viz. : 
Philistim,  which  occurs  in  the  Hamitic  division, 
but  without  any  direct  assertion  of  Hamitic  descent. 
The  terms  used  in  the  A.  V.  "  out  of  whom  (Cas- 
luhim)  came  Philistim  "  (ver.  14),  would  naturally 
imply  descent ;  but  the  Hebrew  text  only  warrants 
the  conclusion  that  the  Philistines  sojourned  in  the 
land  of  the  Casluhim.  Notwithstanding  this,  we 
believe  the  intention  of  the  author  of  the  table  to 
have  been  to  allirm  the  Hamitic  origin  of  the  Phi 
listines,  leaving  undecided  the  particular  branch, 
whether  Casluhim  or  Caphtorim,  with  which  it  was 
more  immediately  connected. 

The  total  number  of  names  noticed  in  the  table, 
including  Philistim,  would  thus  amount  to  70, 
which  was  raised  by  patristic  writers  to  72. 
These  totals  afforded  scope  for  numerical  compari 
sons,  and  also  for  an  estimate  of  the  number  of 
nations  and  languages  to  be  found  on  the  earth's 
surface.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  Bible  itself 
furnishes  no  ground  for  such  calculations,  inas 
much  as  it  does  not  in  any  case  specify  the  numbers. 

Before  proceeding  further,  it  would  be  well  to 
discuss  a  question  materially  affecting  the  historical 
value  of  the  Mosaic  table,  viz. :  the  period  to  which 
it  refers.  On  this  point  very  various  opinions  are 
entertained.  Knobel,  conceiving  it  to  represent  the 
commercial  geography  of  the  Phoenicians,  assigns 
it  to  about  1200  B.C.  (  Vdlkert.  pp.  4-9),  and  Ke 
nan  supports  this  view  (Hist.  Gen.  i.  40),  while 
others  allow  it  no  higher  an  antiquity  than  the 
period  of  the  Babylonish  Captivity  (v.  Bohlen's 
Gen.  ii.  207;  Winer,  Ewb.  ii.  665).  Internal 
evidence  leads  us  to  refer  it  back  to  the  age  of 
Abraham  on  the  following  grounds:  —  (1)  The 
Canaanites  were  as  yet  in  undisputed  possession  of 
Palestine.  (2)  The  Philistines  had  not  concluded 
their  migration.  (3)  Tyre  is  wholly  unnoticed,  an 
omission  which  cannot  be  satisfactorily  accounted 
for  on  the  ground  that  it  is  included  under  the 
name  either  of  Heth  (Knobel,  p.  323),  or  of  Sidon 
(v.  Bohlen,  ii.  241).  (4)  Various  places  such  as 
Simyra,  Sinna,  and  Area,  are  noticed,  which  had 
fallen  into  insignificance  in  later  times.  (5) 
Kittim,  which  in  the  age  of  Solomon  was  under 
Phoenician  dominion,  is  assigned  to  Japheth,  and 
the  same  may  be  said  of  Tarshish,  which  in  that 
age  undoubtedly  referred  to  the  Phoenician  empo 
rium  of  Tartessus,  whatever  may  have  been  its 
earlier  significance.  The  chief  objection  to  so  early 
a  date  as  we  have  ventured  to  propose,  is  the  notice 
of  the  Medes  under  the  name  Madai.  The  Aryan 
nation,  which  bears  this  name  in  history,  appears 
not  to  have  reached  its  final  settlement  until  about 
900  B.C.  (Rawlinson's  Herod,  i.  404).  But  on  the 
other  hand,  the  name  Media  may'  well  have  be 
longed  to  the  district  before  the  arrival  of  the  Aryan 
Medes,  whether  it  were  occupied  by  a  tribe  of 
kindred  origin  to  them  or  by  Turanians ;  and  this 
probability  is  to  a  certain  extent  confirmed  by  the 
notice  of  a  Median  dynasty  in  Babylon,  as  reported 
by  Berosus,  so  early  as  the  25th  century  B.C. 
(Rawlinson,  i.  434).  Little  difficulty  would  be 
found  in  assigning  so  early  a  date  to  the  Medes,  if 
the  Aryan  origin  of  the  allied  kings  mentioned  in 
Gen.  xiv.  1  were  thoroughly  established,  in  accord 
ance  with  Kenan's  view  (I!.  G.  i.  61)  :  on  this 
point,  however,  we  have  our  doubts. 

The  Mosaic  table  is  supplemented  by  ethnological 


TONGUES.  CONFUSION  OF 

i  notices  relating  to  the  vaiious  divisions  of  the 
Terachite  family.  These  belonged  to  the  Shemitio 
division,  being  descended  fiom  Arphaxad  through 
Peleg,  with  whom  the  line  terminates  in  the  table. 
Keu,  Serug,  and  Nahor  form  the  intermediate  links 
between  Peleg  and  Terah  (Gen.  xi.  18-25),  with 
whom  began  the  movement  that  termini  .ed  in  the 
occupation  of  Canaan  and  the  adjacent  districts  by 
certain  branches  of  the  family.  The  original  seat 
of  Terah*  was  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  (Gen.  xi.  28): 
thence  he  migrated  to  Haran  (Gen.  xi.  31),  where 
a  section  of  his  descendants,  the  representatives  of 
Nahor,  remained  (Gen.  xxiv.  10,  xxvii.  43,  xxix. 
4  ff.),  while  the  two  branches,  represented  by 
Abraham  and  Lot,  the  son  of  Haran,  crossed  the 
Euphrates  and  settled  in  Canaan  and  the  adjacent 
districts  (Gen.  xii.  5).  From  Lot  sprang  the 
Moabites  and  Ammonites  (Gen.  xix.  30-38) :  from 
Abraham  the  Ishmaelites  through  his  son  Ishmael 
(Gen.  xxv.  12),  the  Israelites  through  Isaac  ana 
Jacob,  the  Edomites  through  Isaac  and  Esau  (Gen. 
xxxvi.),  and  certain  Arab  tribes,  of  whom  the 
Midianites  are  the  most  conspicuous,  through  the 
sons  of  his  concubine  Keturah  (Gen.  xxv.  1-4). 

The  most  important  geographical  question  in 
connexion  with  the  Terachites  concerns  their  ori 
ginal  settlement.  The  presence  of  the  Chaldees  in 
Babylonia  at  a  subsequent  period  of  scriptural  history 
has  led  to  a  supposition  that  they  were  a  Hamitic 
people,  originally  belonging  to  Babylonia,  and  thence 
transplanted  in  the  7th  and  8th  centuries  to  north 
ern  Assyria  (Rawlinson's  Herod,  i.  319).  We  do 
not  think  this  view  supported  by  Biblical  notices. 
It  is  more  consistent  with  the  general  direction  of 
the  Terachite  movement  to  look  for  Ur  in  northern 
Mesopotamia,  to  the  east  of  Haran.  That  the  Chal 
dees,  or,  according  to  the  Hebrew  nomenclature, 
the  Kasdim,  were  found  in  that  neighbourhood,  is 
indicated  by  the  name  Chesed  as  one  of  the  sons  of 
Nahor  (Gen.  xxii.  22),  and  possibly  by  the  name 
Arphaxad  itself,  which,  according  to  Ewald  (Gesch. 
i.  378),  means  "  fortress  of  the  Chaldees."  In 
classical  times  we  find  the  Kasdim  still  occupying 
the  mountains  adjacent  to  Arrapachitis,  the  Biblical 
Arpachsad,  under  the  names  Chaldaei  (Xen.  Anab. 
iv.  3,  §§1-4)  and  Gordyaei  or  Carduchi  (Strab. 
xvi.  p.  747),  and  here  the  name  still  has  a  vital 
existence  under  the  form  of  Kurd.  The  name 
Kasdim  is  explained  by  Oppert  as  meaning  "  two 
rivers,"  and  thus  as  equivalent  to  the  Hebrew 
Naharaim  and  the  classical  Mesopotamia  (Zeit. 
Morg.  Ges.  xi.  137).  We  receive  this  explanation 
with  reserve ;  but,  as  far  as  it  goes,  it  favours  the 
northern-  locality.  The  evidence  for  the  antiquity 
of  the  southern  settlement  appeal's  to  be  but  small, 
if  the  term  Kaldai  does  not  occur  in  the  Assyrian 
inscriptions  until  the  9th  century  B.C.  (Rawlinson 
i.  449).  We  therefore  conceive  the  original  seat 
of  the  Chaldees  to  have  be^n  in  the  north,  whence 
they  moved  southwards  along  the  course  of  the 
Tigris  until  they  reached  Babylon,  where  we  find 
them  dominant  in  the  7th  century  B.C.  Whether 
they  first  entered  this  country  as  mercenaries, 
and  then  conquered  their  employers,  as  suggested 
by  Renan  (H.  G.  i.  68),  must  remain  uncertain; 
but  we  think  the  suggestion  supported  by  the 
circumstance  that  the  name  was  afterwards  trans 
ferred  to  the  v/hole  Babylonian  population.  The 
sacerdotal  character  of  the  Chaldees  is  certainly 


A  connexion   between   the  names   Tevah  'and  Tra- 
nitis    Ilarau  and  Ilauran.  is  suggested   by  Kenan 


(Hist.  Gen.  i.  29).     This,  however,  is  inconsistent  with 
the  position  generally  assigned  to  Haran. 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

difficult  to  reconcile  with  this  or  any  other  hypo 
thesis  on  the  subject. 

Returning  to  the  Terachites,  we  find  it  impossible 
to  define  the  geographical  limits  of  theii  settlements 
with  precision.  They  intermingled  w..h  the  pre 
viously  existing  inhabitants  of  the  countries  inter 
vening  between  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Euphrates, 
and  hence  we  find  an  Aram,  an  Uz,  and  a  Chesed 
Among  the  descendants  of  Nahor  (Gen.  xxii.  21,  22), 
a  Dedan  and  a  Sheba  among  those  of  Abraham  by 
Keturah  (Gen.  xxv.  3),  and  an  Amalek  among  the 
descendants  of  Esau  (Gen.  xxxvi.  12).  Few  of  the 
numerous  tribes  which  sprang  from  this  stock  at 
tained  historical  celebrity.  The  Israelites  must  of 
course  be  excepted  from  this  description ;  so  also 
the  Nabateans,  if  they  are  to  be  regarded  as  repre 
sented  by  the  Nebaioth  of  the  Bible,  as  to  which  there 
is  some  doubt  (Quatremere,  Melanges,  p.  59).  Of 
the  rest,  the  Moabites,  Ammonites,  Midianites,  and 
Edoraites  are  chiefly  known  for  their  hostilities  with 
the  Israelites,  to  whom  they  were  close  neighbours. 
The  memory  of  the  westerly  migration  of  the  Israel 
ites  was  perpetuated  in  the  name  Hebrew,  as  refer 
ring  to  their  residence  beyond  the  river  Euphrates 
(Josh.  xxiv.  3). 

Besides  the  nations  whose  origin  is  accounted  for 
in  the  Bible,  we  find  other  early  populations  men 
tioned  in  the  course  of  the  history  without  any 
notice  of  their  ethnology.  In  this  category  we  may 
place  the  Horims,  who  occupied  Edom  before  the 
descendants  of  Esau  (Deut.  ii.  12,  22);  the  Ama- 
lekites  of  the  Sinaitic  peninsula ;  the  Zuzims  and 
Zamzummims  of  Peraea  (Gen.  xiv.  5;  Deut.  ii. 
20) ;  the  Rephaims  of  Bashan  and  of  the  valley 
near  Jerusalem  named  after  them  (Gen.  xiv.  5; 
2  Sam.  v.  18) ;  the  Emims  eastward  of  the  Dead 
Sea  (Gen.  xiv.  5)  ;  the  Avims  of  the  southern  Phi 
listine  plain  (Deut.  ii.  23) ;  and  the  Anakims  of 
southern  Palestine  (Josh.  xi.  21).  The  question 
lirises  whether  these  tribes  were  Karaites,  or  whe 
ther  they  represented  an  earlier  population  which 
preceded  the  entrance  of  the  Karaites.  The  latter 
view  is  supported  by  Knobel,  who  regards  the 
majority  of  these  tribes  as  Shemites,  who  preceded 
the  Canaanites,  and  communicated  to  them  the 
Shemitic  tongue  (Volkert.  pp.  204,  315).  No 
evidence  can  be  adduced  in  support  of  this  theory, 
which  was  probably  suggested  by  the  double  diffi 
culty  of  accounting  for  the  name  of  Lud,  and  of 
explaining  the  apparent  anomaly  of  the  Karaites 
and  Terachites  speaking  the  same  language.  Still 
less  evidence  is  there  in  favour  of  the  Turanian 
origin,  which  would,  we  presume,  be  assigned  to 
these  tribes  in  common  with  the  Canaanites  proper, 
in  accordance  with  a  current  theory  that  the  first 
wave  of  population  which  overspread  western  Asia 
belonged  to  that  branch  of  the  human  race  (Raw- 
linson's  Herod,  i.  645,  note).  To  this  theory  we 
shall  presently  advert:  meanwhile  we  can  only 
observe,  in  reference  to  these  fragmentary  popu 
lations,  that,  as  they  intermingled  with  the  Canaan 
ites,  they  probably  belonged  to  the  same  stock  (comp. 
Num.  xiii.  22 ;  Judg.  i.  10).  They  may  perchance 
have  belonged  to  an  earlier  migration  than  the 
Canaanitish,  and  may  have  been  subdued  by  the 
later  comers  (  but  this  would  not  necessitate  a  dif 
ferent  origin.  The  names  of  these  tribes  and  of 
their  abodes,  as  instanced  in  Gen.  xiv.  5;  Deut.  ii. 
23  ;  Num.  xiii.  22,  bear  a  Shemitic  character  (Ewald, 
Gesch.  i.  311),  anil  the  only  objection  to  their  Ca- 
uaanitish  origin  arising  out  of  these  names  would 
be  in  connexion  with  Zamzummim,  which,  according 


IONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF    1547 

to  Renan  (H.  G.  p.  35,  note),  is  formed  on  the 
same  principle  as  the  Greek  fidpfiapos,  and  in  thia 
case  implies  at  all  events  a  dialectical  difference. 

Having  thus  surveyed  the  ethnological  statements 
contained  in  the  Bible,  it  remains  for  us  to  inquire 
now  far  they  are  based  on,  or  accord  with,  physio 
logical  or  linguistic  principles.  Knobel  maintains 
that  the  threefold  division  of  the  Mosaic  table  i* 
founded  on  the  physiological  principle  of  colour, 
Shem,  Ham,  and  Japheth  representing  respectively 
the  red,  black,  and  white  complexions  prevalent  in 
the  different  regions  of  the  then  known  world  (  Vi'l- 
kert.  pp.  11-13).  He  claims  etymological  support 
for  this  view  in  respect  to  Ham  (  =  "dark")  and 
Japheth  (  =  "fair"),  but  not  in  respect  to  Shem, 
and  he  adduces  testimony  to  the  fact  that  such 
differences  of  colour  were  noted  in  ancient  times. 
The  etymological  argument  weakens  rather  than 
sustains  his  view  ;  for  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that 
the  principle  of  classification  would  be  embodied  in 
two  of  the  names  and  not  also  in  the  third :  the 
force  of  such  evidence  is  wholly  dependent  upon  its 
uniformity.  With  regard  to  the  actual  prevalence 
of  the  hues,  it  is  quite  consistent  with  the  physicr.l 
character  of  the  districts  that  the  Hamites  of  the 
south  should  be  dark,  and  the  Japhetites  of  the 
north  fair,  and  further  that  the  Shemites  should 
hold  an  intermediate  place  in  colour  as  in  geogra 
phical  position.  But  we  have  no  evidence  that  this 
distinction  was  strongly  marked.  The  "  redness  " 
expressed  in  the  name  Edom  probably  referred  to 
the  soil  (Stanley,  8.  $  P.  p.  87) :  the  Erythraeum 
Mare  was  so  called  from  a  peculiarity  in  its  own 
tint,  arising  from  the  presence  of  some  vegetable 
substance,  and  not  because  the  red  Shemites  bordered 
on  it,  the  black  Cushites  being  equally  numeroiv 
on  its  shores :  the  name  Adam,  as  applied  to  the 
Shemitic  man,  is  ambiguous,  from  its  reference  to 
soil  as  well  as  colour.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Phoenicians  (assuming  them  to  have  reached  the 
Mediterranean  seaboard  before  the  table  was  com 
piled)  were  so  called  from  their  red  hue,  and  yet 
are  placed  in  the  table  among  the  Hamites.  The 
argument  drawn  from  the  red  hue  of  the  Egyptian 
deity  Typhon  is  of  little  value  until  it  can  b« 
decisively  proved  that  the  deity  in  question  repre  - 
sented  the  Shemitee.  This  is  asserted  by  Renau 
(H.  G.  i.  38),  who  endorses  Knobel's  view  as  far 
as  the  Shemites  are  concerned,  though  he  does  not 
accept  his  general  theory. 

The  linguistic  difficulties  connected  with  the 
Mosaic  table  are  very  considerable,  and  we  cannot 
pretend  to  unravel  the  tangled  skein  of  conflicting 
opinions  on  the  subject.  The  primary  difficulty 
arises  out  of  the  Biblical  narrative  itself,  and  is 
consequently  of  old  standing — the  difficulty,  namely, 
of  accounting  for  the  evident  identity  of  language 
spoken  by  the  Shemitic  Terachites  and  the  Hamitic 
Canaanites.  Modern  linguistic  research  has  rather 
enhanced  than  removed  this  difficulty.  The  alter 
natives  hitherto  offered  as  satisfactory  solutions, 
namely,  that  the  Terachites  adopted  the  language 
of  the  Canaanites,  or  the  Canaanites  that  of  the 
Terachites,  are  both  inconsistent  with  the  enlarged 
area  which  the  language  is  found  to  cover  on  each 
side.  Setting  aside  the  question  of  the  high  im 
probability  that  a  wandering  nomadic  tribe,  such 
as  the  Terachites,  would  be  able  to  impose  its  lan 
guage  on  a  settled  and  powerful  nation  like  the 
Canaanites,  it  would  still  remain  to  be  explained 
how  the  Cushites  and  other  Hamitic  tribes,  who 
did  not  come  into  contact  with  the  Terachites, 


1548    TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

acquired  the  snme  general  type  of  language.  And 
on  the  other  hand,  assuming  that  what  are  called 
Shemitic  languages  were  really  Hamitic,  we  have  to 
explain  the  extension  of  the  Hamitic  area  over 
Mesopotamia  and  Assyria,  which,  according  to  the 
table  and  the  general  opinion  of  ethnologists,  be- 
longtd  wholly  to  a  non-Hamitic  population.  A 
further  question,  moreover,  arises  out  of  this  ex 
planation,  viz. :  what  was  the  language  of  the  Te- 
rachites  before  they  assumed  this  Hamitic  tongue  ? 
This  question  is  answered  by  J.  G.  M tiller,  in 
Herzog's  R.  E.  xiv.  238,  to  "the  effect  that  the 
Shemites  originally  spoke  an  Indo-European  lan 
guage — a  view  which  we  do  not  expect  to  see 
generally  adopted. 

Restricting  ourselves,  for  the  present,  to  the  lin 
guistic  question,  we  must  draw  attention  to  the  fact 
that  there  is  a  well-defined  Hamitic  as  well  as  a 
Shemitic  class  of  languages,  and  that  any  theory 
which  obliterates  this  distinction  must  fall  to  the 
ground.  The  Hamitic  type  is  most  highly  deve 
loped,  as  we  might  expect,  in  the  country  which 
was,  par  excellence,  the  land  of  Ham,  viz.  Egypt ; 
and  whatever  elements  of  original  unity  with  the 
Shemitic  type  may  be  detected  by  philologists, 
practically  the  two  were  as  distinct  from  each  other 
in  historical  times,  as  any  two  languages  could 
possibly  be.  We  are  not  therefore  prepared  at  once 
to  throw  overboard  the  linguistic  element  of  the 
Mosaic  table.  At  the  same  time  we  recognize  the 
extreme  difficulty  of  explaining  the  anomaly  of 
Hamitic  tribes  speaking  a  Shemitic  tongue.  It  will 
not  suffice  to  say,  in  answer  to  this,  that  these 
tribes  were  Shemites ;  for  again  the  correctness  of 
the  Mosaic  table  is  vindicated  by  the  differences 
of  social  and  artistic  culture  which  distinguish  the 
Shemites  proper  from  the  Phoenicians  and  Cushites 
using  a  Shemitic  tongue.  The  former  are  charac 
terised  by  habits  of  simplicity,  isolation,  £.nd  ad 
herence  to  patriarchal  ways  of  living  and  thinking  ; 
the  Phoenicians,  on  the  other  hand,  were  emi 
nently  a  commercial  people ;  and  the  Cushites  are 
identified  with  the  massive  architectural  erections 
of  Babylonia  and  South  Arabia,  and  with  equally 
extended  ideas  of  empire  and  social  progress. 

The  real  question  at  issue  concerns  the  language, 
not  of  the  whole  Hamitic  family,  but  of  the  Ca- 
naanites  and  Cushites.  With  regard  to  the  former, 
various  explanations  have  been  offered — such  as 
Knobel's,  that  they  acquired  a  Shemitic  language 
from  a  prior  population,  represented  by  the  Refaites, 
Zuzim,  Zamzummim,  &c.  (Yolkert.  p.  315);  or 
Bunsen's,  that  they  were  a  Shemitic  race  who  had 
long  sojourned  in  Egypt  (Phil,  of  Hist.  i.  191) — 
neither  of  which  are  satisfactory.  With  regard  to 
the  latter,  the  only  explanation  to  be  offered  is  that 
a  Joktanid  immigration  supervened  on  the  original 
Hamitic  population,  the  result  being  a  combination 
of  Cushitic  civilization  with  a  Shemitic  language 
(Renan,  i.  322).  Nor  is  it  unimportant  to  men 
tion  that  peculiarities  have  been  discovered  in  the 
Cushite  Shemitic  of  Southern  Arabia  which  suggest 
a  close  affinity  with  the  Phoenician  forms  (Renan, 
i.  318).  We  are  not,  however,  without  expecta 
tion  that  time  and  research  will  clear  up  much  of 
tha  mystery  that  now  enwraps  the  subject.  There 
are  two  directions  to  which  we  may  hopefully  turn 
for  light,  namely  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  with  re 
gard  to  each  of  which  we  make  a  few  remarks. 

That  the  Egyptian  language  exhibits  many 
striking  points  of  resemblance  to  the  Shemitic  type 
is  acknowledged  on  all  sides.  It  is  also  allowed 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

that  the  resemblances  are  of  a  valuable  character, 
being  observable  in  the  pronouns,  numerals,  in 
agglutinative  forms,  in  the  treatment  of  vowels. 
and  other  such  points  (Renan,  i.  84  85).  There 
is  not,  however,  an  equal  degree  of  agreemen- 
among  scholars  as  to  the  deductions  to  be  drawn 
from  these  resemblances.  While  mnny  recognize  ic 
them  the  proofs  of  a  substantial  identity,  and  hence 
regard  Hamitism  as  an  early  stage  of  Shemitism, 
others  deny,  either  on  general  or  on  special  grounds, 
the  probability  of  such  a  connexion.  When  we  find 
such  high  authorities  js  Bunsen  on  the  former  side 
(Phil,  of  Hist.  i.  186-189,  ii.  3),  and  Renan  (i.  86) 
on  the  other,  not  to  mention  a  long  array  of  scholars 
who  have  adopted  each  view,  it  would  be  presump 
tion  dogmatically  to  assert  the  correctness  or  in 
correctness  of  either.  We  can  only  point  to  the 
possibility  of  the  identity  being  established,  and  to 
the  further  possibility  that  connecting  links  may  be 
discovered  between  the  two  extremes,  which  may 
serve  to  bridge  over  tha  gulf,  and  to  render  the 
use  of  a  Shemitic  language  by  a  Hamitic  race  less 
of  an  anomaly  than  it  at  present  appears  to  be. 

Turning  eastward  to  the  banks  of  the  Tigris  and 
Euphrates,  and  the  adjacent  countries,  we  find 
ample  materials  for  research  in  the  inscriptions  re 
cently  discovered,  the  examination  of  which  has 
not  yet  yielded  undisputed  results.  The  Mosaic 
table  places  a  Shemitic  population  in  Assyria  and 
Elam,  and  a  Cushitic  one  in  Babylon.  The  proba 
bility  of  this  being  ethnically  (as  opposed  to  geo 
graphically)  true  depends  parti v  on  the  age  assigned 
to  the  table.  There  can  be  no  question  that  at  a 
late  period  Assyria  and  Elam  were  held  by  non- 
Shemitic,  probably  Aryan  conquerors.  But  if  we 
carry  the  table  back  to  the  age  of  Abraham,  the 
case  may  have  been  different ;  for  though  Elam 
is  regarded  as  etymologically  identical  with  Iran 
(Renan,  i.  41),  this  is  not  conclusive  as  to  the 
Iranian  character  of  the  language  in  early  times. 
Sufficient  evidence  is  afforded  by  language  that  the 
basis  of  the  population  in  Assyria  was  Shemitic 
(Renan,  i.  70;  Knobel,  pp.  154-156):  and  it  is 
by  no  means  improbable  that  the  inscriptions  be 
longing  more  especially  to  the  neighbourhood  of 
Susa  may  ultimately  establish  the  fact  of  a  Shemitic 
population  in  Elam.  The  presence  of  a  Cushitic 

! copulation  in  Babylon  is  an  opinion  very  generally 
icld  on  linguistic  grounds  ;  and  a  close  identity  is 
said  to  exist  between  the  old  Babylonian  and  the 
Mahri  language,  a  Shemitic  tongue  of  an  ancien-. 
type  still  living  in  a  district  of  Ifadramaut,  ir. 
Southern  Arabia  (Kenan,  H.  GA.  60).  In  addition 
to  the  Cushitic  and  Shemitic  elements  in  the  popu 
lation  of  Babylonia  and  the  adjacent  districts,  the 
presence  of  a  Turanian  element  has  been  inferred 
from  the  linguistic  character  of  the  early  inscrip 
tions.  We  must  here  express  our  conviction  thai 
the  ethnology  of  the  countries  in  question  is  con 
siderably  clouded  by  the  undefined  use  of  the  terms 
Turanian,  Scythic,  and  the  like.  It  is  frequently 
difficult  to  decide  whether  these  terms  are  used  in  a 
linguistic  sense,  as  equivalent  to  agglutinative,  or 
in  an  ethnic  sense.  The  presence  of  a  certain  amourt 
of  Turanianism  in  the  former  does  not  involve  its 
presence  in  the  latter  sense.  The  old  Babylonian  and 
Susianian  inscriptions  may  be  more  agglutinative 
than  the  later  ones,  but  this  is  only  a  proof  of 
their  belonging  to  an  earlier  stage  of  the  language, 
and  does  not  of  itself  indicate  a  foreign  population 5 
and  if  these  early  Babylonian  inscriptions  graduate 
into  the  Shemitic,  as  is  asserted  even  by  the  advo 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

•sites  of  the  Tmaniaii  theory  (Kavvlinson's  Herod,  i. 
142,  445),  the  presence  of  an  ethnic  Turanianism 
cannot  possibly  be  inferred.  Added  to  this,  it  is 
inexplicable  how  tha  presence  of  a  large  Scythic 
population  in  the  Achaemenian  period,  to  which 
many  of  the  Susianian  inscriptions  belong,  could 
escape  the  notice  of  historians.  The  only  Scythic 
tribes  noticed  by  Herodotus  in  his  review  of  the 
Persian  empire  are  the  Parthians  and  the  Sacae,  the 
former  of  whom  are  known  to  have  lived  in  the 
north,  while  the  latter  probably  lived  in  the  extreme 
east,  where  a  memorial  of  them  is  still  supposed  to 
exist  in  the  name  Seistan,  representing  the  ancient 
Sacastene.  Even  with  regard  to  these,  Scythic 
may  not  mean  Turanian ;  for  they  may  have  be 
longed  to  the  Scythians  of  history  (the  Skolots),  for 
whom  an  Indo-European  origin  is  claimed  (Rawlin- 
son's  Herod,  iii.  197).  The  impression  conveyed 
by  the  supposed  detection  of  so  many  heterogeneous 
elements  in  the  old  Babylonian  tongue  (Rawlinson, 
i,  442,  444,  646,  notes)  is  not  favourable  to  the 
general  results  of  the  researches. 

With  regard  to  Arabia,  it  may  safely  be  asserted 
that  the  Mosaic  table  is  confirmed  by  modern  re 
search.  The  Cushitic  element  has  left  memorials 
of  its  presence  in  the  south  in  the  vast  ruins  of 
March  and  Sana  (Kenan,  i.  318),  as  well  as  in  the 
influence  it  has  exercised  on  the  Himyaritic  and 
Maliri  languages,  as  compared  with  the  Hebrew. 
The  Joktanid  element  forms  the  basis  of  the  Arabian 
population,  the  Shemitic  character  of  whose  language 
needs  no  proof.  With  regard  to  the  Ishmaelite 
element  in  the  north,  we  are  not  aware  of  any 
linguistic  proof  of  its  existence,  but  it  is  confirmed 
by  the  traditions  of  the  Arabians  themselves. 

It  remains  to  be  inquired  how  far  the  Japhetic 
stock  represents  the  linguistic  characteristics  of  the 
Indo-European  and  Turanian  families.  Adopting  the 
twofold  division  of  the  former,  suggested  by  the 
name  itself,  into  the  eastern  and  western  ;  and  sub 
dividing  the  eastern  into  the  Indian  and  Iranian, 
and  the  western  into  the  Celtic,  Hellenic,  Illyrian, 
Italian,  Teutonic,  Slavonian,  and  Lithuanian  classes, 
\ve  are  able  to  assign  Madai  (Jferfta)  and  Togarmah 
(Armenia)  to  the  Iranian  class;  Javan  (Ionian) 
and  Elishah  ( Aeolian)  to  the  Hellenic ;  Corner 
conjecturally  to  the  Celtic ;  and  Dodanim,  also  con- 
jecturally,  to  the  Illyrian.  According  to  the  old 
interpreters,  Ashkenaz  represents  the  Teutonic  class, 
while,  according  to  Knobel,  the  Italian  would  be 
represented  by  Tarshish,  whom  he  identifies  with  the 
Etruscans  ;  the  Slavonian  by  Magog ;  and  the  Lithu- 
an.ui  possibly  by  Tiras  (pp.  90,  68,  130).  The 
sairu-  writer  also  identifies  Riphath  with  the  Gauls, 
as  distinct  from  the  Cymry  or  Comer  (p.  45)  ; 
whila  Kittim  is  referred  by  him  not  improbably 
to  the  Carian;;,  who  at  one  period  were  predominant 
on  the  islands  adjacent  to  Asia  Minor  (p.  98 \  The 
evidence  for  these  identifications  varies  in  strength, 
but  in  no  instance  approaches  to  demonstration. 
Beyond  the  general  probability  that  the  main 
brandies  of  the  human  family  would  be  repre 
sented  in  the  Mosaic  table,  we  regard  much  that 
has  be^n  advanced  on  this  subject  as  highly  pre 
carious.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  conceded 
tiiat  the  subject  is  an  open  one,  and  that  as  there  is 
no  possibility  of  proving,  so  also  none  of  disproving, 
the  correctness  of  these  conjectures.  Whether  the 

*  The  total  amount  of  the  Shemitic  population  at  pre- 
Hdit  is  computed  to  be  only  30  millions,  while  the  Indo- 
Eivropean  is  computed  at  400  millions  (Renan,  i.  43,  note). 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF     1549 

Turanian  family  is  fairly  represented  in  the  Mosaic 
table  may  be  doubted.  Those  who  advocate  the 
Mongolian  origin  of  the  Scythians  would  naturally 
regard  Magog  as  the  representative  of  this  family  ; 
and  even  those  who  dissent  from  the  Mongolian 
theory  may  still  not  unreasonably  conceive  that  the 
title  Magog  applied  broadly  to  all  the  noma.l  tribes 
of  Northern  Asia,  whether  Indo-European  or  Tu 
ranian.  Tubal  and  Meschech  remain  to  be  con 
sidered:  Knobel  identifies  these  respectively  with 
the  Iberians  and  the  Ligurians  (pp.  Ill,  119);  and 
if  the  Finnish  character  of  the  Basque  language 
were  established,  he  would  regard  the  Iberians  as 
certainly,  and  the  Ligurians  as  probably  Turanians, 
the  relics  of  the  first  wave  of  population  which  is 
supposed  to  have  once  overspread  the  whole  of  the 
European  continent,  and  of  which  the  Finns  in  the 
north,  and  the  Basques  in  the  south,  are  the  sole 
surviving  representatives.  The  Turanian  character 
of  the  two  Biblical  races  above  mentioned  has  been 
otherwise  maintained  on  the  ground  of  the  identity 
of  the  names  Meschech  and  Muscovite  (Kawlinsou'a 
Herod,  i.  652). 

II.  Having  thus  reviewed  the  ethnic  relations  of 
the  nations  who  fell  within  the  circle  of  the  Mosaic 
table,  we  propose  to  cast  a  glance  beyond  its  limits, 
and  inquire  how  far  the  present  results  of  ethno-' 
logical  science  support  the  general  idea  of  the  unity 
of  the  human  race,  which  underlies  the  Mosaic 
system.  The  chief  and  in  many  instances  the  only 
instrument  at  our  command  for  ascertaining  the 
relationship  of  nations  is  language.  In  its  general 
results  this  instrument  is  thoroughly  trustworthy, 
and  in  each  individual  case  to  which  it  is  applied 
it  furnishes  a  strong  primd  facie  evidence  ;  but  its 
evidence,  if  unsupported  by  collateral  proofs,  is  not 
unimpeachable,  in  consequence  of  the  numerous  in 
stances  of  adopted  languages  which  have  occurred 
within  historical  times.  This  drawback  to  the  valuo 
of  the  evidence  of  language  will  not  materially 
affect  our  present  inquiry,  inasmuch  as  we  shall 
confine  ourselves  as  much  as  possible  to  the  general 
results. 

The  nomenclature  of  modern  ethnology  is  not 
identical  with  that  of  the  Bible,  partly  from  the 
enlargement  of  the  area,  and  partly  from  the 
general  adoption  of  language  as  the  basis  of  classifi 
cation.  The  term  Shemitic  is  indeed  retained,  not, 
however,  to  indicate  a  descent  from  Shem,  but  the 
use  of  languages  allied  to  that  which  was  current 
among  the  Israelites  in  historical  times.  Hamitic 
also  finds  a  place  in  modern  ethnology,  but  as  sub 
ordinate  to,  or  co-ordinate  with,  Shemitic.  Japhetic 
is  superseded  mainly  by  Indo-European  or  Aryan. 
The  various  nations,  or  families  of  nations,  which 
find  no  place  under  the  Biblical  titles  are  classed  by 
certain  ethnologists  under  the  broad  title  of  Tura 
nian,  while  by  others  they  are  broken  up  into  divi 
sions  more  or  less  numerous. 

The  first  branch  of  our  subject  will  be  to  trace 
the  extension  of  the  Shemitic  family  beyond  the 
limits  assigned  to  it  in  the  Bible.  The  most 
marked  characteristic  of  this  family,  as  compared 
with  the  Indo-European  or  Turanian,  is  its  in 
elasticity.  Hemmed  in  both  by  natural  barriers 
and  by  the  superior  energy  and  expansiveness  of 
the  Aryan  and  Turanian  races,  it  retains  to  the  pre 
sent  day  the  status  quo  of  early  times.1  The  only  7 

y  Eastward  of  the  Tigris  a  Shemitic  population  ha? 
been  supposed  to  exist  in  Afghanistan,  where  the  Pushtu 
language  has  been  regarded  as  leai  ing  a  Shemitic  cha 


1550    TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 


tendency  to    sians 


direction  in  which  it  has  exhibited  any 
expand  has  been  about  the  shores  cf  the  Mediter 
ranean,  and  even  here  its  activity  was  of  a  sporadic 
character,  limited  to  a  single  branch  of  the  family, 
viz.  the  Phoenicians,  and  to  a  single  phase  of  ex 
pansion,  viz.  commercial  colonies.  In  Asia  Minor 
we  find  tokens  of  Shemitic  presence  in  Cilicia,  which 
was  connected  with  Phoenicia  both  by  tradition 
(Herod,  vii.  91),  and  by  language,  as  attested  by  ex 
isting  coins  (Gesen.  Mon.  Phoen.  iii.  2)  :  in  Pam- 
phylia,  Pisidia,  and  Lycia,  pails  of  which  were 
occupied  by  the  Solymi  (Plin.  v.  24;  Herod,  i. 
173),  whose  name  bears  a  Shemitic  character,  and 
who  are  reported  to  have  spoken  a  Shemitic  tongue 
'Euseb.  Praep.  Ev.  ix.  9),  a  statement  confirmed 
by  the  occurrence  of  other  Shemitic  names,  such  as 
Phoenix  and  Cabalia,  though  the  subsequent  pre 
dominance  of  an  Aryan  population  in  these  same 
districts  is  attested  by  the  existing  Lycian  inscrip 
tions:  again  in  Caria,  though  the  evidence  arising 
out  of  the  supposed  identity  of  the  names  of  the 
gods  Osogo  and  Clnysaoreus  with  the  Outrcooy  and 
Xpvffup  of  Sanchuniathon  is  called  in  question 
(Kenan,  H.  G.  i.  49) :  and,  ^astly,  in  Lydia,  where 
the  descendants  of  Lud  are  located  by  many  authori 
ties,  and  where  the  prevalence  of  a  Shemitic  lan 
guage  is  asserted  by  scholars  of  the  highest  standing, 
among  whom  we  may  specify  Bunsen  and  Lassen, 
in  spite  of  tokens  of  the  contemporaneous  presence 
of  the  Aryan  element,  as  instanced  in  the  name 
Sardis,  and  in  spite  also  of  the  historical  notices  of 
an  ethnical  connexion  with  Mysia  (Herod,  i.  171). 
Whether  the  Shemites  ever  occupied  any  portion  of 
the  plateau  of  Asia  Minor  may  be  doubted.  In  the 
opinion  of  the  ancients  the  later  occupants  of  Cap- 
padocia  were  Syrians,  distinguished  from  the  mass 
of  their  race  by  a  lighter  hue,  and  hence  termed 
Leucosyri  (Strab.  xii.  p.  542) ;  but  this  statement 
is  traversed  by  the  evidences  of  Aryanism  afforded 
by  the  names  of  the  kings  and  deities,  as  well  as  by 
the  Persian  character  of  the  religion  (Strab.  \v.  p. 
733).  If  therefore  the  Shemites  ever  occupied  this 
district,  they  must  soon  have  been  brought  under 
the  dominion  of  Aryan  conquerors  (Diefenbach,  Orig. 
Europ.  p.  44).  The  Phoenicians  were  ubiquitous 
on  the  islands  and  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  :  in 
Cyprus,  where  they  have  left  tokens  of  their  pre 
sence  at  Citium  and  other  places  ;  in  Crete  ;  in 
Malta,  where  they  were  the  original  settlers  (Diod. 
Sic.  v.  12);  on  the  mainland  of  Greece,  where  their 
presence  is  betokened  by  the  name  Cadmus  ;  in 
Samos,  Same,  and  Samothrace,  which  bear  Shemitic 
names;  in  los  and  Tenedos,  once  known  by  the 
name  of  Phoenice ;  in  Sicily,  where  Panormus, 
Motya,  and  Soloeis  were  Shemitic  settlements;  in 
Sardinia  (Diod.  Sic.  v.  35) ;  on  the  eastern  and 
southern  coasts  of  Spain  ;  and  on  the  north  coast  of 
Africa,  which  was  lined  with  Phoenician  colonies 
from  the  Syrtis  Major  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules. 
They  must  also  have  penetrated  deeply  into  the 
interior,  to  judge  from  Strabo's  stateme.it  of  the 
destruction  of  three  hundred  towns  by  the  Pharu- 

racter.  A  theory  Las  consequently  been  started  that 
the  people  speaking  it  represent  the  ten  tribes  of  Israel 
(Forster's  Prim.  Lang.  iii.  241).  We  believe  the  supposed 
Shemitic  resemblances  to  be  unfounded,  and  that  the 
Pushtu  language  holds  an  intermediate  place  between 
the  Iranian  and  Indian  classes,  with  the  latter  of  which 
it  possesses  in  common  the  lingual  or  cerebral  sounds 
(Diefenbach,  Or.  Eur.  p.  37). 

1  We  use  the  qualifying  expression  "  at  present,"  partly 
because  it  is  not  improbable  tLat  new  classes  may  be  heie- 


and  Nigritians  (Strab.  xvii.  p.  820).  Still  in 
none  of  the  countries  we  have  mentioned  did  they 
supplant  the  original  population :  they  were  con 
querors  and  settlers,  bjt  no  more  than  this. 

The  bulk  of  the  North  African  languages,  both 
in  ancient  and  modern  times,  though  not  Shemitic 
in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  so  far  resemble 
that  type  as  to  have  obtained  the  title  of  sub- 
Shemitic.  In  the  north  the  old  Numidian  language 
appears,  from  the  prevalence  o(  the  syllable  Mas  in 
the  name  Masst/ln,  &c..  to  be  allied  to  the  modera 
Berber ;  and  the  same  conclusion  has  been  drawn 
with  regard  to  the  Libyan  tongue.  The  Berber,  in 
turn,  together  with  the  Touarick  and  the  great 
body  of  the  North  African  dialects,  is  closely  alliec 
to  the  Coptic  of  Egypt,  and  therefore  falls  under  the 
title  of  Hamitic,  or,  according  to  the  more  usual 
nomenclature,  sub-Shemitic  (Renan,  //.  G.  i.  201, 
202).  Southwards  of  Egypt  the  Shemitic  type  is 
reproduced  in  the  majority  of  the  Abyssinian  lan 
guages,  particularly  in  the  Gheez,  and  in  a  less 
marked  degree  in  the  Amharic,  the  Saho,  and  the 
Galla;  and  Shemitic  influence  may  be  traced  along 
the  whole  east  coast  of  Africa  as  far  as  Mozambique 
(Renan,  i.  336-340).  As  to  the  languages  of  the 
interior  and  of  the  south  there  appears  to  be  a  con 
flict  of  opinions,  the  writer  from  whom  we  have 
just  quoted  denying  any  trace  of  resemblance  to  thr 
Shemitic  type,  while  Dr.  Latham  asserts  very  con 
fidently  that  connecting  links  exist  between  the  sub- 
Shemitic  languages  of  the  north,  the  Negro  lan 
guages  in  the  centre,  and  the  Caffre  languages  of 
the  south  ;  and  that  even  the  Hottentot  language 
is  not  so  isolated  as  has  been  generally  supposed 
(Man  and  his  Migr.  pp.  134-148).  Bunsen  sup 
ports  this  view  as  far  as  the  languages  north  of  the 
equator  are  concerned,  but  regards  the  southern  as 
rather  approximating  to  the  Turanian  type  (Phil, 
of  Hist.  i.  178,  ii.  20).  It  is  impossible  as  yet  to 
form  a  decided  opinion  on  this  large  subject. 

A  question  of  considerable  interest  remains  yot 
to  l>e  noticed,  namely,  whether  we  can  trace  the 
Shemitic  family  back  to  its  original  cradle.  In  the 
case  of  the  Indo-European  family  this  can  be  done 
with  a  high  degree  of  probability ;  and  if  an  original 
unity  existed  between  these  stocks,  the  domicile  of 
the  one  would  necessarily  be  that  of  the  other.  A 
certain  community  of  ideas  and  traditions  favours 
this  assumption,  and  possibly  the  frequent  allusions 
to  the  east  in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis  may 
contain  a  reminiscence  of  the  direction  in  which 
the  primeval  abode  lay  (Renan,  H.  G.  i.  476).  The 
position  of  this  abode  we  shall  describe  presently. 

The  Indo-European  family  of  languages,  as  at 
present8  constituted,  consists  of  the  following  nine 
classes: — Indian,*  Iranian,  Celtic,  Italian,  Albanian, 
Greek,  Teutonic,  Lithuanian,  and  Slavonian.  Geo 
graphically,  these  classes  may  be  grouped  together 
in  two  divisions — Eastern  and  Western — the  former 
comprising  the  two  first,  the  latter  the  seven  re 
maining  classes.  Schleicher  divides  what  we  have 
termed  the  Western  into  two — the  South-west  Eu- 

after  added,  as,  for  instance,  an  Anatolian,  to  describe  the 
languages  of  Asia  Minor,  and  partly  because  there  may 
have  been  other  classes  once  in  existence,  which  have 
entirely  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

a  Professor  M.  Miiller  adopts  the  termination  -ic,  ii> 
order  to  shew  that  classes  are  intended.  This  appears 
unnecessaiy,  when  it  is  specified  that  the  arrangement  i* 
one  of  classes,  and  not  of  single  languages.  Moreover,  in 
common  usage,  the  termination  does  not  necessarily  carrjf 
the  idea  of  a  class. 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

popean,  and  the  North  European — in  the  former  of 
vhich  he  places  the  Greek,  Albanian,  Italian,  and 
Celtic,  in  the  latter  the  Slavonian,  Lithuanian,  and 
Teutonic  (Compend.  i.  5).  Prof.  M.  Miiller  com 
bines  the  Slavonian  and  Lithuanian  classes  in  the 
Windic,  thus  reducing  the  number  to  eight.  These 
dasses  exhibit  various  degrees  of  affinity  to  each 
other,  which  are  described  by  Schleicher  in  the  fol 
lowing  manner: — The  earliest  deviation  from  the 
common  language  of  the  family  was  effected  by  the 
Slavopo-Tentonic  branch.  After  another  interval 
a  second  bifurcation  occurred,  which  separated  what 
we  may  term  the  Graeco-Italo-Celtic  branch  from 
the  Aryan.  The  former  held  together  for  a  while, 
and  then  threw  off  the  Greek  (including  probably 
the  Albanian),  leaving  the  Celtic  and  Italian  still 
connected :  the  final  division  of  the  two  latter  took 
place  after  another  considerable  interval.  The  first- 
mentioned  branch — the  Slavono- Teutonic — remained 
intact  for  a  period  somewhat  longer  than  that  which 
witnessed  the  second  bifurcation  of  the  original 
stock,  and  then  divided  into  the  Teutonic  and 
Slavono-Lithuanian,  which  latter  finally  broke  up 
into  its  two  component  elements.  The  Aryan 
branch  similarly  held  together  for  a  lengthened 
period,  and  then  bifurcated  into  the  Indian  and 
Iranian.  The  conclusion  Schleicher  draws  from 
these  linguistic  affinities  is  that  the  more  easterly 
of  the  European  nations,  the  Slavonians  and  Teu 
tons,  were  the  first  to  leave  the  common  home  of 
the  Indo-European  race ;  that  they  were  followed 
by  the  Celts,  Italians,  and  Greeks;  and  that  the 
Indian  and  Iranian  branches  were  the  last  to  com 
mence  their  migrations.  We  feel  unable  to  accept 
this  conclusion,  which  appears  to  us  to  be  based  on 
the  assumption  that  the  antiquity  of  a  language  is 
to  be  measured  by  its  approximation  to  Sanscrit. 
Looking  at  the  geographical  position  of  the  repre 
sentatives  of  the  different  language-classes,  we 
should  infer  that  the  most  westerly  were  the 
earliest  immigrants  into  Europe,  and  therefore  pro 
bably  the  earliest  emigrants  from  the  primeval  seat 
of  the  race  ;  and  we  believe  this  to  be  confirmed  by 
linguistic  proofs  of  the  high  antiquity  of  the  Celtic 
as  compared  with  the  other  branches  of  the  Indo- 
European  family  (Bunsen,  Phil,  of  Hist.  i.  168). 

The  original  seat  of  the  Indo-European  race  was 
on  the  plateau  of  Central  Asia,  probably  to  the 
westward  of  the  Bolor  and  Mustagh  ranges.  The 
Indian  branch  can  be  traced  back  to  the  slopes  of 
Himalaya  by  the  geographical  allusions  in  the  Vedic 
hymns  (M.  Muller's  Led.  p.  2Ul)  ;  in  confirmation 
of  which  we  may  adduce  the  circumstance  that  the 
only  tree  for  which  the  Indians  have  an  appellation 
in  common  with  the  western  nations,  is  one  which 
in  India  is  found  only  on  the  southern  slope  of  that 
range  (Pott,  Etym.  Forsch.  i.  110).  The  westward 
progress  of  the  Iranian  tribes  is  a  matter  of  his 
tory,  and  though  we  cannot  trace  this  progress  back 
to  its  fountain-head,  the  locality  above  mentioned 
best  accords  with  the  traditional  belief  of  the  Asiatic 
Aryans  and  with  the  physical  and  geographical  re 
quirements  of  the  case  (Kenan,  H.  G.  i.  481). 

The  routes  by  which  the  various  western  branches 
reached  their  respective  localities,  can  only  be  con 
jectured.  We  may  suppose  them  to  have  succes 
sively  crossed  the  plateau  of  Iran  until  they  reached 
Armenia,  whence  they  might  follow  either  a  north 
erly  course  across  Caucasus,  and  by  the  shore  of  the 
Black  Sea,  or  a  direct  westerly  one  along  the  plateau 
of  Awa  Minor,  -which  seems  destined  by  nature  to 
be  tfic  bridge  between  tbs  two  continents  of  Europe 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF    1551 

and  Asia.  A  third  route  has  been  s  trniised  for  a 
portion  of  the  Celtic  stock,  viz.,  al<  ng  the  north 
coast  of  Africa,  and  across  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar 
into  Spain  (Bunsen,  Ph.  of  H.  i.  148),  but  we  see 
little  confirmation  of  this  opinion  beyond  the  fact 
of  the  early  presence  of  the  Celtae  in  that  peninsula, 
which  is  certainly  difficult  to  account  for. 

The  eras  of  the  several  migrations  are  again  very 
much  a  matter  of  conjecture.  The  original  move 
ments  belong  for  the  most  part  to  the  ante-historical 
age,  and  we  can  do  no  more  than  note  the  period  at 
which  we  first  encounter  the  several  nations.  That 
the  Indian  Aryans  had  reached  the  mouth  of  the 
Indus  at  all  events  before  1000  B.C.,  appears  from 
the  Sanscrit  names  of  the  articles  which  Solomon 
imported  from  that  country  [INDIA],  The  presence 
of  Aryans  on  the  Shemitic  frontier  is  as  old  as  the 
composition  of  tho  Mosaic  table ;  and,  according  to 
some  authorities,  is  proved  by  the  names  of  the 
confederate  kings  in  the  age  of  Abraham  (Gen.  xiv. 
1;  Kenan,  H.  G.  i.  61).  The  Aryan  Medes  are 
mentioned  in  the  Assyrian  annals  about  900  B.C. 
The  Greeks  were  settled  on  the  peninsula  named 
after  them,  as  well  as  on  the  islands  of  the  Aegaean 
long  before  the  dawn  of  history,  and  the  Italians 
had  reached  their  quarters  at  a  yet  earlier  period. 
The  Celtae  had  reached  the  west  of  Europe  at 
all  events  before,  probably  veiy  long  before,  the, 
age  of  Hecataeus  (500  B.C.) ;  the  latest  branch  of 
this  stock  arrived  there  about  that  period  ac 
cording  to  Bunsen 's  conjecture  (Ph.  of  H.  i.  152). 
The  Teutonic  migration  followed  at  a  long  interval 
after  the  Celtic  :  Pytheas  found  them  already  seated 
on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic  in  the  age  of  Alexander 
the  Great  (Plin.  xxxvii.  11),  and  the  term  glesiim 
itself,  by  which  amber  was  described  in  that  district, 
belongs  to  them  (Diefenbach,  Or.  Eur.  p.  359). 
The  earliest  historical  notice  of  them  depends  on 
the  view  taken  of  the  nationality  of  the  Teutones, 
who  accompanied  the  Cimbri  on  their  southern  ex 
pedition  in  113-102  B.C.  If  these  were  Celtic,  as 
is  not  uncommonly  thought,  then  we  must  look  to 
Caesar  and  Tacitus  for  the  earliest  definite  notices 
of  the  Teutonic  tribes.  The  Slavonian  immigration 
was  nearly  contemporaneous  with  the  Teutonic 
(Bunsen,  Ph.  of  H.  i.  72) :  this  stock  can  be  traced 
back  to  the  Veneti  or  Venedag  of  Northern  Ger 
many,  first  mentioned  by  Tacitus  (Germ.  46),  from 
whom  the  name  Wend  is  probably  descended.  The 
designation  of  Slavi  or  Sclavi  is  of  comparatively 
late  date,  and  applied  specially  to  the  western 
branch  of  the  Slavonian  stock.  The  Lithuanians  are 
probably  represented  by  the  Galindae  and  Sudeni  of 
Ptolemy  (iii.  5,  §2 1 ),  the  names  of  which  tribes  have 
been  preserved  in  all  ages  in  the  Lithuanian  district 
(Diefenbach,  p.  202).  They  are  frequently  iden 
tified  with  the  Acstui,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that 
they  may  have  adopted  the  title,  which  was  a 
geographical  one  (  =  the  east  men) :  the  Aestui  of 
Tacitus,  however,  were  Germans.  In  the  above 
statements  we  have  omitted  the  problematical  iden 
tifications  of  the  northern  stocks  with  the  earlier 
nations  of  history  :  we  may  here  mention  that  the 
Slavonians  are  not  unfrequently  regarded  as  the 
representatives  of  the  Scythians  (Skolots)  and  the 
Sarmatians  (Knobei,  Volkeri.  p.  69).  The  writer 
whom  w<»  have  juet  cited,  also  endeavours  to  con 
nect  the  Lithuanians  with  the  Agathyrsi  (p.  130',. 
So  again  Grimm  traced  the  Teutonic  stock  to  tl  F. 
Getae,  whom  he  identified  with  the  Goths  (Gesch, 
Dent.  Spr.  i.  178). 

It  may  be  asked  whether  the  Aryan  race  were  tec 


15 52  TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

fii-st  comers  in  the  lands  which  they  occupied  in 
historical  times,  or  whether  they  superseded  an 
earlier  population.  With  regard  to  the  Indian 
branch  this  question  can  be  answered  decisively : 
the  vestiges  of  an  aboriginal  population,  which  once 
covered  the  plains  of  Hindostan,  still  exist  in  the 
southern  extremity  of  the  peninsula,  as  weii  as  in 
isolated  localities  elsewhere,  as  instanced  in  the  case 
of  the  Brahus  of  the  north.  Not  only  this,  but 
the  Indian  class  of  languages  possesses  a  peculiarity 
of  sound  (the  lingual  or  cerebral  consonants;  which 
is  supposed  to  have  been  derived  from  this  popu 
lation  and  to  betoken  a  fusion  of  the  conquerors 
and  the  conquered  (Schleicher,  Compend.  i.  141). 
The  languages  of  this  early  population  are  classed 
as  Turanian  (M.  Miiller,  Lect.  p.  399).  We  are 
unable  to  lind  decided  traces  of  Turanians  on  the 
plateau  of  Iran.  The  Sacae,  of  whom  we  have 
already  spoken,  were  Scythians,  and  so  were  the 
Parthians,  both  by  reputed  descent  (Justin,  xli.  1) 
and  by  habits  of  life  (Strab.  xi.  p.  515)  ;  but  we 
cannot  positively  assert  that  they  were  Turanians, 
inasmuch  as  the  term  Scythian  was  also  applied,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  Skolots,  to  Indo-Europeans.  In 
the  Caucasian  district  the  Iberians  and  others  may 
have  been  Turanian  in  early  as  in  later  times ;  but 
it  is  difficult  to  unravel  the  entanglement  of  races 
and  languages  in  that  district.  In  Europe  there 
exists  in  the  present  day  an  undoubted  Turanian 
population  eastward  of  the  Baltic,  viz.,  the  Finns, 
who  have  been  located  there  certainly  since  the 
time  of  Tacitus  (Germ.  46),  and  who  probably  at 
an  earlier  period  had  spread  more  to  the  southwards, 
but  had  been  gradually  thrust  back  by  the  advance 
of  the  Teutonic  and  Slavonian  nations  (Diefenbach, 
0.  E.  p.  209).  There  exists  again  in  the  south  a  po 
pulation  whose  language  (the  Basque,  or,  as  it  is  enti 
tled  in  its  own  land,  the  Euskara)  presents  numerous 
points  of  affinity  to  the  Finnish  in  grammar,  though 
its  vocabulary  is  wholly  distinct.  We  cannot  con 
sider  the  Turanian  character  of  this  language  as  fully 
established,  and  we  are  therefore  unable  to  divine 
the  ethnic  affinities  of  the  early  Iberians,  who  are 
generally  regarded  as  the  progenitors  of  the  Basques. 
We  have  already  adverted  to  the  theory  that  the 
Finns  in  the  north  and  the  Basques  in  the  south 
are  the  surviving  monuments  of  a  Turanian  popu 
lation  which  overspread  the  whole  of  Europe  before 
the  arrival  of  the  Indo- Europeans.  This  is  a  mere 
theory  which  can  neither  be  proved  nor  disproved. b 
It  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  assign 
to  the  various  subdivisions  of  the  Indo-European 
stock  their  respective  areas,  or,  where  admixture 
has  taken  place,  their  relative  proportions.  Lan 
guage  and  race  are,  as  already  observed,  by  no 
means  coextensive.  The  Celtic  race,  for  instance, 
which  occupied  Gaul,  Northern  Italy,  large  portions 
of  Spain  and  Germany,  and  even  penetrated  across 
the  Hellespont  into  Asia  Minor,  where  it  gave  name 
to  the  province  of  Galatia,  is  now  represented  lin 
guistically  by  the  insignificant  populations,  among 
whon;  the  Welsh  and  the  Gaelic  or  Erse  languages 
rotain  a  lingering  existence.  The  Italian  race,  on 
the  other  hand,  which  must  have  been  well  nigh  an 
nihilated  by  or  absorbed  in  the  overwhelming  masses 
of  the  northern  hordes,  has  imposed  its  language 
outside  the  bounds  of  Italy  over  the  peninsula  of 
Spain,  France,  and  Wallachia.  But,  while  the  races 
have  so  intermiugl-ed  as  in  many  instances  to  lose  all 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

trace  of  their  original  individuality,  the  bioad  fkc' 
of  their  descent  from  one  or  other  of  the  branches 
of  the  Indo-European  family  remains  unaffected.  It 
is,  indeed,  impossible  to  affiliate  all  the  nations 
whose  names  appear  on  the  roll  of  history,  to  the 
existing  divisions  of  that  family,  in  consequence  of 
the  absence  or  the  obscurity  of  ethnological  criteria. 
Where,  for  instance,  shall  we  place  the  languages 
of  Asia  Minor  and  the  adjacent  districts?  •  The 
Phrygian  approximates  perhaps  to  the  Greek,  aal 
yet  it  differs  from  it  materially  bt  th  in  form  and 
vocabulary  (Rawlinson's  Herod,  i.  666)  :  still  more 
is  this  the  case  with  the  Lycian,  which  appears  to 
possess  a  vocabulary  wholly  distinct  from  its  kin 
dred  languages  (Id.  i.  669,  677-679).  The  Ar 
menian  is  ranged  under  the  Iranian  division :  yet 
this,  as  well  as  the  language  of  the  Caucasian 
Ossetes,  whose  indigenous  name  of  Ir  or  Iron 
seems  to  vindicate  for  them  the  same  relationship, 
are  so  distinctive  in  their  features  as  to  ren.ier  the 
connexion  dubious.  The  languages  prevalent  in 
the  mountainous  district,  answering  to  the  ancient 
Pontus,  are  equally  peculiar  (Diefenbach,  0.  fL 
p.  51).  Passing  to  the  westward  we  encounter  th* 
Thracians,  reputed  by  Herodotus  (v.  3)  the  mo»-- 
powerful  nation  in  the  world,  the  Indians  excepted : 
yet  but  one  woi'd  of  their  language  (bria  =  "  town  ") 
has  survived,  and  all  historical  traces  of  the  people 
have  been  obliterated.  It  is  true  that  they  are 
represented  in  later  times  by  the  Getae,  and  these 
in  turn  by  the  Daci,  but  neither  of  these  can  be 
tracked  either  by  histoiy  or  language,  unless  we 
accept  Grimm's  more  than  doubtful  identification 
which  would  connect  them  with  the  Teutonic 
branch.  The  remains  of  the  Scythian  language  are 
sufficient  to  establish  the  Indo-European  affinities  01 
that  nation  (Rawlinson's  Herod,  iii.  196-203),  but 
insufficient  to  assign  to  it  a  definite  place  in  the 
family.  The  Scythians,  as  well  as  most  of  the  no 
mad  tribes  associated  with  them,  are  lost  to  the  eyt 
of  the  ethnologist,  having  been  either  absorbed  into 
other  nationalities  or  swept  away  by  the  ravages  ci 
war.  The  Sarmatae  can  be  traced  down  to  the 
lazyges  of  Hungary  and  Podlachia,  in  which  latter 
district  they  survived  until  the  10th  century  of  our 
era  (Diet,  of  Geog.  ii.  8),  and  then  they  also  vanish. 
The  Albanian  language  presents  a  problem  of  a 
different  kind  :  materials  for  research  are  not  want 
ing  in  this  case,  but  no  definite  conclusions  have  as 
yet  been  drawn  from  them:  the  people  who  use 
this  tongue,  the  Skipetores  as  they  call  themselves, 
are  generally  regarded  as  the  representatives  of  the 
old  Illyrians,  who  in  turn  appear  to  have  been 
closely  connected  with  the  Thracians  (Strab.  vii. 
p.  315;  Justin,  xi.  1),  the  name  Dardani  being 
found  both  in  Illyria  and  on  the  shores  of  the 
Hellespont:  it  is  not,  therefore,  improbable  that 
the  Albanian  may  contain  whatever  vestiges  of  the 
old  Thracian  tongue  still  survive  (Diefenbach,  0.  E. 
p.  68).  In  the  Italic  peninsula  the  Etruscan  tongue 
remains  as  great  an  enigma  as  ever:  its  Indo- 
European  character  is  supposed  to  be  established, 
together  with  the  probability  of  its  being  a  mixed 
language  (Bunsen's  Ph.  of  ff.  i.  85-88).  The  res aJt 
of  researches  into  the  Umbrian  language,  as  repre 
sented  in  the  Eugubine  tablets,  the  earliest  of  which 
date  from  about  400  B.C. ;  into  the  Sabellian,  as 
represented  in  the  tablets  of  Vellclri  and  Antino  ; 
and  into  the  Oscan,  of  which  the  remains  are  nu- 


b  We  must  be  understood  as  speaking  of  linguistic  and 
ethnological  proofs   furnished    by    populations  existing 


within  historical 


witnout  reference  to  the 


logical  questions  relating  to  the  antiquity  of  man. 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

znerous,  have  decided  their  position  as  members  of 
the  Italic  class  (id.  i.  90-94).  The  same  cannot  be 
asserted  of  the  Messapian  or  lapygian  language, 
which  stands  apart  from  all  neighbouring  dialects. 
Its  Indo-European  character  is  affirmed,  but  no 
ethnological  conclusion  can  as  yet  be  drawn  from 
the  scanty  information  afforded  us  (id.  i.  94). 
Lastly,  within  the  Celtic  area  there  are  ethnological 
problems  which  we  cannot  pretend  to  solve.  The 
Ligurians,  for  instance,  present  one  of  these  pro 
blems  :  were  they  Celts,  but  belonging  to  an  earlier 
migration  than  the  Celts  of  history  ?  Their  name 
has  been  referred  to  a  Welsh  original,  but  on  this 
no  great  reliance  can  be  placed,  as  it  would  be  in 
this  case  a  local  ( =  coastmeri)  and  not  an  ethnical 
title,  and  might  have  been  imposed  on  them  by  the 
Celts.  They  evidently  hold  a  posterior  place  to 
the  Iberians,  inasmuch  as  they  are  said  to  have 
driven  a  section  of  this  people  across  the  Alps  into 
Italy.  That  they  were  distinct  from  the  Celts  is 
asserted  by  Strabo  (ii.  p.  128),  but  the  distinction 
may  have  been  no  greater  than  exists  between  the 
British  and  the  Gaelic  branches  of  that  race.  The 
admixture  of  the  Celts  and  Iberians  in  the  Spanish 
peninsula  is  again  a  somewhat  intricate  question, 
which  Dr.  Latham  attempts  to  explain  on  the 
ground  that  the  term  Celt  (KeA/rat)  really  meant 
Iberian  (Ethn.  of  Eur.  p.  35).  That  such  questions 
as  these  should  arise  on  a  subject  which  carries  us 
back  to  times  of  hoar  antiquity,  forms  no  ground 
for  doubting  the  general  conclusion  that  we  can 
account  ethnologically  for  the  population  of  the 
European  continent. 

The  Shemitic  and  Indo-European  families  cover 
after  all  but  an  insignificant  portion  of  the  earth's 
surface :  the  large  areas  of  Northern  and  Eastern 
Asia,  the  numerous  groups  of  islands  that  line  its 
coast  and  stud  the  Pacific  in  the  direction  of  South 
America,  and  again  the  immense  continent  of 
America  itself,  stretching  well  nigh  from  pole  to 
pole,  remain  to  be  accounted  for.  Historical  aid 
is  almost  wholly  denied  to  the  ethnologist  in  his 
researches  in  these  quarters;  physiology  and 
language  are  his  only  guides.  It  can  hardly, 
therefore,  be  matter  of  surprise,  if  we  are  unable 
to  obtain  certainty,  or  even  a  reasonable  degree  of 
probability,  on  this  part  of  our  subject.  Much  has 
been  done ;  but  far  more  remains  to  be  done  before 
the  data  for  forming  a  conclusive  opinion  can  be 
obtained.  In  Asia,  the  languages  fall  into  two 
large  classes — the  monosyllabic,  and  the  aggluti 
native.  The  former  are  represented  ethnologically 
by  the  Chinese,  the  latter  by  the  various  nations 
classed  together  by  Prof.  M.  Miiller  under  the 
common  head  of  Turanian.  It  is  unnecessary  for 
us  to  discuss  the  correctness  of  his  view  in  regard 
ing  all  these  nations  as  members  of  one  and  the 
same  family.  Whether  we  accept  or  reject  his 
theory,  the  fact  of  a  gradation  of  linguistic  types 
and  of  connecting  links  between  the  various 
branches  remains  unaffected,  and  for  our  present 
purpose  the  question  is  of  comparatively  little 
moment.  The  monosyllabic  type  apparently  be 
tokens  the  earliest  movement  from  the  common 
home  of  the  human  race,  and  we  should  therefore 
assign  a,  chronological  priority  to  the  settlement  of 
the  Chinese  in  the  east  and  south-east  of  the  conti 
nent.  The  agglutinative  languages  fall  geogj  i  >hi- 
cally  into  two  divisions,  a  northern  and  southern. 
The  northern  consists  of  a  well-defined  group,  or 
family,  designated  by  German  ethnologists  the 
Ural -Altaian.  It  consists  of  the  following  five 

VOL.  III. 


TONGUES,  CCNFUSION  OF     1553 

branches: — (1)  The  Tungusian,  covering  a  largd 
area,  east  of  the  river  Yenisei,  between  lake  Baikal 
and  the  Tunguska.  (2)  The  Mongolian,  which 
prevails  over  the  Great  Desert  of  Gobi,  and  amon^ 
the  Kalmucks,,  wherever  their  nomad  habits  lead 
them  on  the  steppes  either  of  Asia  or  Europe,  i  n 
the  latter  of  which  they  are  found  about  the  lower 
course  of  the  Volga.  (3)  The  Turkish,  covering 
an  immense  area  from  the  Mediterranean  in  the 
south-west  to  the  river  Lena  in  the  north-east; 
in  Europe  spoken  by  the  Osmanli,  who  form  the 
governing  class  in  Turkey ;  by  the  Nogai,  between 
the  Caspian  and  the  Sea  of  A'ZOV  ;  and  by  various 
Caucasian  tribes.  (4)  The  Samoiedic,  on  the  co>ist 
of  the  Arctic  Ocean,  between  the  White  Sea  in  the 
west  and  the  river  Anabara  in  the  east.  (5)  The 
Finnish,  which  is  spoken  by  the  Finns  and  Lapps  ; 
by  the  inhabitants  of  Esthonia  and  Livonia  to  the 
south  of  the  Gulf  of  Finland  ;  by  various  tribes 
about  the  Volga  (the  Tcheremissians  and  Mordvi- 
niaus),  and  the  Kama  (the  Votiakes  and  Permians); 
and,  lastly,  by  the  Magyars  of  Hungary.  The 
southern  branch  is  subdivided  into  the  following 
four  classes: — (1)  The  Tamulian,  of  the  south  ot 
Hindostan.  (2)  The  Bhotiya,  of  Tibet,  the  sub- 
Himalayan  district  (Nepaul  and  Bhotan),  and  the 
Lohitic  languages  east  of  the  Brahmapootra.  (3) 
The  Tai,  in  Siam,  Laos,  Anam,  and  Pegu.  (4)  The 
Malay,  of  the  Malay  peninsula,  and  the  adjacent 
islands ;  the  latter  being  the  original  settlement  of 
the  Malay  race,  whence  they  spread  in  compara 
tively  modern  times  to  the  mainland. 

The  early  movements  of  the  races  representing 
these  several  divisions,  can  only  be  divined  by  lin 
guistic  tokens.  Prof.  M.  Miiller  assigns  to  the 
northern  tribes  the  following  chronological  order : 
— Tungusian,  Mongolian,  Turkish,  and  Finnish; 
and  to  the  southern  division  the  following : — Tai 
Malay,  Bhotiya,  and  Tamulian  (Ph.  of  H.  i.  481) 
Geographically  it  appears  more  likely  that  the 
Malay  preceded  the  Tai,  inasmuch  as  they  occu 
pied  a  more  southerly  district.  The  later  move 
ments  of  the  European  branches  of  the  northern 
division  can  be  traced  historically.  The  Turkish 
race  commenced  their  westerly  migration  from  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Altai  range  in  the  1st  century 
of  our  era ;  in  the  6th  they  had  reached  the  Cas 
pian  and  the  Volga;  in  the  llth  and  12th  the 
Turcomans  took  possession  of  their  present  quarters 
south  of  Caucasus:  in  the  13th  the  Osmanli  made 
their  first  appearance  in  Western  Asia ;  about  the 
middle  of  the  14th  they  crossed  from  Asia  Minor 
into  Europe;  and  in  the  middle  of  the  15th  they 
had  established  themselves  at  Constantinople.  The 
Finnish  race  is  supposed  to  have  been  originally 
settled  about  the  Ural  range,  and  thence  to  have 
migrated  westward  to  the  shores  of  the  Baltic, 
which  they  had  reached  at  a  period  anterior  to  the 
Christian  era ;  in  the  7th  century  a  branch  pressed 
southwards  to  the  Danube,  and  founded  the  king 
dom  of  Bulgaria,  where,  however,  they  have  long 
ceased  to  have  any  national  existence.  The  Ugrian 
tribes,  who  are  the  early  representatives  of  the 
Hungarian  Magyars,  approached  Europe  from  Asi? 
in  the  5th  and  settled  in  Hungary  in  the  9th  cen 
tury  of  oui  era.  The  central  point  from  which  the 
various  branches  of  the  Turanian  family  radiated 
would  appear  to  be  about  lake  Baikal.  With 
regard  to  the  ethnology  of  Oceania  and  America  we 
|  can  say  but  little,  the  languages  of  the  formei 
are  generally  supposed  to  be  connected  with  th« 
Malay  class  (Buiisen,  Ph.  of  II.  ii.  1 14),  but  the 

5  G 


1554    TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

relations,  both  linguistic  and  ethnological,  existing 
uetween  the  Malay  and  the  black,  or  Negrito  popu 
lation,  which  is  found  on  many  of  the  groups  of 
islands,  are  not  well  defined.  The  approximation 
in  language  is  far  greater  than  in  physiology 
^Latham's  Essays,  pp.  213,  218;  Garnett's  Es 
says,  p.  310),  and  in  certain  cases  amounts  to 
identity  (Kennedy's  Essays,  p.  85)  ;  but  the  whole 
subject  is  at  present  involved  in  obscurity.  The 
polysynthetic  languages  of  North  America  are  re 
garded  as  emanating  from  the  Mongolian  stock 
(Bunsen,  Ph.  of  H.  ii.  Ill),  and  a  close  affinity  is 
said  to  exist  between  the  North  American  and  the 
Kamskadale  and  Korean  languages  on  the  opposite 
coast  of  Asia  (Latham,  Man  and  his  Migr.  p.  185). 
The  conclusion  drawn  from  this  would  be  that  the 
population  of  America  entered  by  way  of  Bearing' s 
Straits.  Other  theories  have,  however,  been  broached 
on  this  subject.  It  has  been  conjectured  that  the 
chain  of  islands  which  stretches  across  the  Pacific 
may  have  conducted  a  Malay  population  to  South 
America;  and,  again,  an  African  origin  has  been 
claimed  for  the  Caribs  of  Central  America  (Ken 
nedy's  Essays,  pp.  100-123). 

In  conclusion,  we  may  safely  assert  that  the  ten 
dency  of  all  ethnological  and  linguistic  research  is 
to  discover  the  elements  of  unity  amidst  the  most 
striking  external  varieties.  Already  the  myriads 
of  the  human  race  are  massed  together  into  a  few 
large  groups.  Whether  it  will  ever  be  possible  to 
go  beyond  this,  and  to  show  the  historical  unity  of 
these  groups,  is  more  than  we  can  undertake  to  say. 
But  we  entertain  the  firm  persuasion  that  in  their 
broad  results  these  sciences  will  yield  an  increasing 
testimony  to  the  truth  of  the  Bible. 

[The  authorities  referred  to  in  the  foregoing 
article  are : — M.  Miiller,  Lectures  on  the  Science  of 
Language,  1862  ;  Bunsen,  Philosophy  of  History, 
2  vols.,  1854 ;  Renan,  Histoire  Generate  des  Lan- 
gues  Semitiques,  3rd  ed.  1863  ;  Knobel,  Vdlker- 
tafel  der  Genesis,  1850;  W.  von  Humboldt,  Ueber 
die  Verschiedenheit  des  menschlichen  Sprachbaues, 
1836  ;  Delitzsch,  Jeshurun,  1858  ;  Transactions  of 
the  Philological  Society  ;  Rawlinson,  Herodotus, 
4  vols.,  1858 ;  Pott,  Etymologische  Forschungen, 
1833;  Garnett,  Essays,  1859;  Schleicher,  Com 
pendium  der  vergleichenden  Grammatik,  1861 ;  Die- 
fenbach,  Origines  Europeae,  1861  ;  Ewald,  Sprach- 
wissenschaftliche  Abhandlangen,  1862.]  [W.L.B.] 

APPENDIX. — TOWER  OF  BABEL. 

The  Tower  of  Babel  forms  the  subject  of  a  pre 
vious  article  [BABEL,  TOWER  OF];  but  in  conse 
quence  of  the  discovery  of  a  cuneiform  inscription, 
in  which  the  Tower  is  mentioned  in  connexion  with 
the  Confusion  of  Tongues,  the  eminent  cuneiform 
scholar  Dr.  Oppert  has  kjndly  sent  the  following 
addition  to  the  present  article. 

The  history  of  the  confusion  of  languages  was 
presented  at  Babylon,  as  we  learn  by  the  testi 
monies  of  classical  and  Babylonian  authorities 
(Abydenus,  Fragm.  Hist.  Graec.  ed.  Didot,  vol. 
iv.).  Only  the  Chaldeans  themselves  did  not  admit 
the  Hebrew  etymology  of  the  name  of  their  metro- 
jx>lis ;  they  derived  it  from  Bab-el,  the  door  of  El 
'Kronos  or  Saturnus),  whom  Diodorus  Siculus 
elates  to  have  been  the  planet  most  adored  by  the 
I  .abj  lonians. 

The  Talmudists  say  that  the  true  site  of  the 
Tower  of  Babel  was  at  Borsif,  the  Greek  Borsippa, 
the  Bi-s  Nimrud,  seven  miles  and  a  half  from  Hillah, 
i>.\V.,  and  nearly  eleven  miles  from  the  northern 


TONGUES,  CONFUSION  OF 

ruins  of  Babylon.  Several  passages  state  that  the 
air  of  Borsippa  makes  forgetful  (rO£>D  "PIN, 
avir  mashkakh]  ;  and  one  rabbi  says  that  Borsif  is 
Bulsif,  the  Confusion  of  Tongues  (Bereshit  A'a&ia, 
f.  42,  1).  The  Babylonian  name  of  this  locality 
is  Barsip  or  Barzipa,  which  we  explain  by  Towe* 
of  Tongues.  The  French  expedition  to  Mesopotamia 
found  at  the  Birs  Nimrud  a  clay  cake,  dated  from 
Barsip  the  30th  day  of  the  6th  month  of  the  16th 
year  of  Nabonid,  and  the  discoveiy  confirmed  the  hy 
pothesis  of  several  travellers,  who  had  supposed  the 
Birs  Nimrud  to  contain  the  remains  of  Borsippa. 

Borsippa '  (the  Tongue  Tower)  was  fonnerly  a 
suburb  of  Babylon,  when  the  old  Babel  was  merely 
restricted  to  the  northern  ruins,  before  the  great 
extension  of  the  city,  whjch,  according  to  ancient 
writers,  was  the  greatest  that  the  sun  ever  warmed 
with  its  beams.  Nebuchadnezzar  included  it  in  the 
great  circumvallation  of  480  stades,  but  left  it  oat 
of  the  second  wall  of  360  stades;  and  when  the 
exterior  wall  was  destroyed  by  Darius,  Borsippa 
became  independent  of  Babylon.  The  historical 
writers  respecting  Alexander  state  that  Borsippa 
had  a  great  sanctuary  dedicated  to  Apollo  and 
Artemis  (Strab.  xvi.  p.  739 ;  Stephanus  Byz.  s.  v. 
~B6pffiTnra},  and  the  former  is  the  building  elevated 
in  modem  times  on  the  very  basement  of  the  old 
Tower  of  Babel. 

This  building,  erected  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  is  the 
same  that  Herodotus  describes  as  the  Tower  of 
Jupiter  Belus.  In  our  Expedition  to  Mesopotamia  c 
we  have  given  a  description  of  this  ruin,  and  proved 
our  assertion  of  the  identity.  This  tower  of  He 
rodotus  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  pyramid  de 
scribed  by  Strabo,  and  which  is  certainly  to  be  seen 
in  the  remains  called  now  Babil  (the  Hujellibeh  of 
Rich).  The  temple  of  Borsippa  is  written  with  an 
ideogram,*1  composed  of  the  signs  for  house  and  spirit 
(aniraa),  the  real  pronunciation  of  which  was  pro 
bably  Sarakh,  tower. 

The  temple  consisted  of  a  large  substructure,  a 
stade  (600  Babylonian  feet)  in  breadth,  and  7 5  feet 
in  height,  over  which  were  built  seven  other  stages 
of  25  feet  each.  Nebuchadnezzar  gives  notice  oi 
this  building  in  the  Borsippa  inscription.  He 
named  it  the  temple  of  the  Seven  Lights  of  the 
Earth,  i.  e.  the  planets.  The  top  was  the  temple  of 
Nebo,  and  in  the  substructure  (igar]  was  a  temple 
consecrated  to  the  god  Sin,  god  of  the  month.  This 
building,  mentioned  in  the  East  India  House  in 
scription  (col.  iv.  1.  61),  is  spoken  of  by  Herodotus 
(i.  181  &c.). 

Here  follows  the  Borsippa  inscription: — "  Nabu 
chodonosor,  king  of  Babylon,  shepherd  of  peoples, 
who  attests  the  immutable  affection  of  Merodach, 
the  mighty  ruler-exalting  Nebo;  the  saviour,  the 
wise  man  who  lends  his  ears  to  the  orders  of  the 
highest  god ;  the  lieutenant  without  reproach,  the 
repairer  of  the  Pyramid  and  the  Tower,  eldest  son 
of  Nabopallassar,  king  of  Babylon. 

"  We  say :  Merodach,  the  great  master,  has  cre 
ated  me  :  he  has  imposed  on  me  to  reconstruct  his 
building.  Nebo,  the  guardian  over  the  legions  of  the 
heaven  and  the  earth,  has  charged  my  hands  with 
the  sceptre  of  justice. 

"  The  Pyramid  is  the  temple  of  the  heaven  and  the 
earth,  the  seat  of  Merodach,  the  chief  of  the  gods 
the  place  of  the  oracles,  the  spot  of  his  rest,  I  have 
adorned  in  the  form  of  a  cupola,  with  shining  gold. 


c  Expedition  en  Mtsopotamie,  \.  208.    Compare  alst 
the  trigonometrical  survey  of  the  river  in  the  plates, 
a  BIT.  ZI.  DA  in  syllabic  characters. 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF 

"  The  Tower,  the  eternal  house,  which  I  founded 
and  built,  I  have  completed  its  magnificence  with 
silver,  gold,  other  metals,  stone,  enamelled  bricks, 
fir  and  pine. 

"  The  first,  which  is  the  house  of  the  earth's  base, 
the  most  ancient  monument  of  Babylon,  I  built  and 
finished  it;  I  have  highly  exalted  its  head  with 
bricks  covered  with  copper.' 

"  We  say  for  the  other,  that  is,  this  edifice,  the 
house  of  the  Seven  Lights  of  the  Earth,  the  most 
ancient  monument  of  Borsippa :  A  former  king 
built  it  (they  reckon  42  ages),  but  he  did  not  com 
plete  its  head.  Since  a  remote  time  people  had 
abandoned  it,  without  order  expressing  their  words. 
Since  that  time,  the  earthquake  and  the  thunder 
had  dispersed  its  sun-dried  clay ;  the  bricks  of  the 
casing  had  been  split,  and  the  earth  of  the  interior 
nad  been  scattered  in  heaps.  Merodach,  the  great 
lord,  excited  my  mind  to  repair  this  building.  I 
lid  not  change  the  site,  nor  did  I  take  away  the 
foundation-stone.  In  a  fortunate  month,  an  aus 
picious  day,  I  undertook  to  build  porticoes  around 
the  crude  brick  masses,  and  the  casing  of  burnt 
bricks.  I  adapted  the  circuits.  I  put  the  inscrip 
tion  cf  my  name  in  the  Kitir  of  the  porticoes. 

"  I  set  my  hand  to  finish  it,  and  to  exalt  its  head. 
As  it  had  been  in  former  times,  so  I  founded,  I 
made  it ;  as  it  had  been  in  ancient  days,  so  I  exalted 
its  summit. 

"  Nebo,  son  of  himself,  ruler  who  exaltest  Mero 
dach,  be  propitious  to  my  works  to  maintain  my 
authority.  Grant  me  a  life  until  the  remotest 
time,  a  sevenfold  progeny,  the  stability  of  my 
throne,  the  victory  of  my  sword,  the  pacification  of 
foes,  the  triumph  over  the  lands  !  In  the  columns 
of  thy  eternal  table,  that  fixes  the  destinies  of  the 
heaven  and  of  the  earth,  bless  the  course  of  my  days, 
inscribe  the  fecundity  of  my  race. 

"  Imitate,  0  Merodach,  king  of  heaven  and  earth, 
the  father  who  begot  thee;  bless  my  buildings, 
strengthen  my  authority.  May  Nebuchadnezzar, 
the  king-repairer,  remain  before  thy  face  ! " 

This  allusion  to  the  Tower  of  the  Tongues  is  the 
only  one  that  has  as  yet  been  discovered  in  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions.'  The  story  is  a  Shemitic 
and  not  only  a  Hebrew  one,  and  we  have  no  reason 
whatever  to  doubt  of  the  existence  of  the  same 
story  at  Babylon. 

The  ruins  of  the  building  elevated  on  the  spot 
whertf  the  story  placed  the  tower  of  the  dispersion 
of  tongues,  have  therefore  a  more  modern  origin, 
but  interest  nevertheless  by  their  stupendous  ap 
pearance  [OPPERT.] 

TONGUES,  GIFT  OF.— I.  The  history  of  a 
word  which  has  been  used  to  express  some  special, 
wonderful  fact  in  the  spiritual  life  of  man  is  itself 
full  of  interest.  It  may  be  a  necessary  preparation 
for  the  study  ot  the  fact  which  that  word  repre 
sents. 

FAccTTa,  or  y\wffffa,  the  word  employed  through 
out  the  N.  T.  for  the  gift  now  unler  consideration, 
is  used — (1.)  for  the  bodily  organ  of  speech;  (2.) 
for  a  foreign  word,  imported  and  half-naturalised  in 
Greek  (Arist.  Rhet.  iii.  2,  §14),  a  meaning  which  the 
words  "  gloss "  and  "  glossary  "  preserve  for  us ;  (3.) 
in  Hellenistic  Greek,  after  the  pattern  of  the  corre 
sponding  Hebrew  word  (JIG^T),  for  "speech"  or 
"  language  "  (Gen.  x.  5 ;  Dan.  i.  4,  &c.  &c.). 

«  This  manner  of  building  is  expressly  mentioned  by 
PhUoslratus  ( A  poll.  Tyan.  L  25)  as  Babylonian. 
'  See  Expedition  en  Mesopotamie,  torn.  i.  200. 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF         1555 

Each  of  these  meanings  might  be  the  starting- 
point  for  the  application  of  the  word  to  the  gift  of 
tongues,  and  each  accordingly  has  found  those  who 
have  maintained  that  it  is  so.  (A).  Eichhorn  anil 
Bardili  (cited  by  Bleek,  Stud.  u.  Krit.  1829,  p. 
8,  et  seq.),  and  to  some  extent  Bunsen  (Hippolytus> 
i.  9),  starting  from  the  first,  see  in  the  so-called 
gift  an  inarticulate  utterance,  the  cry  as  of  a  brute 
creature,  in  which  the  tongue  moves  while  the  lips 
refuse  their  office  in  making  the  sounds  definite  and 
distinct.  (B).  Bleek  himself  (ut  supr.  p.  33) 
adopts  the  second  meaning,  and  gives  an  interesting 
collection  of  passages  to  prove  that  it  was,  in  the 
time  of  the  N.  T.,  the  received  sense.  He  infers 
from  this  that  to  speak  in  tongues  was  to  use  un 
usual,  poetic  language — that  the  speakeis  were  in  a 
high-wrought  excitement  which  showed  itself  in 
mystic,  figurative  terms.  In  this  view  he  had 
been  preceded  by  Ernesti  (Opusc.  Theolog. ;  see 
Morning  Watch,  iv.  101)  and  Herder  (Die  Gabe 
der  Sprache,  pp.  47,  70),  the  latter  of  whom  ex 
tends  the  meaning  to  special  mystical  interpreta 
tions  of  the  0.  T.  (C).  The  received  traditional 
view  starts  from  the  third  meaning,  and  sees  in 
the  gift  of  tongues  a  distinctly  linguistic  power. 

We  have  to  see  which  of  these  views  has  most  to 
commend  it.  (A),  it  is  believed,  does  not  meet 
the  condition  of  answering  any  of  the  facts  of  the 
N.  T-.,  and  errs  in  ignoring  the  more  prominent 
meaning  of  the  word  in  later  Greek.  (B),  though 
true  in  some  of  its  conclusions,  and  able,  as  far  as 
they  are  concerned,  to  support  itself  by  the  autho 
rity  of  Augustine  (comp.  De  Gen.  ad  lit.  xii.  8, 
"  linguam  esse  cum  quis  loquatur  obscuras  et  mvs- 
ticas  significationes"),  appears  faulty,  as  faiHng 
(1)  to  recognise  the  fact  that  the  sense  of  the  word 
in  the  N.  T.  was  more  likely  to  be  determined  by 
that  which  it  bore  in  the  LXX.  than  by  its  meaning 
in  Greek  historians  or  rhetoricians,  and  (2)  to  meet 
the  phenomena  of  Acts  ii.  (C)  therefore  commends 
itself,  as  in  this  respect  starting  at  least  from  the 
right  point,  and  likely  to  lead  us  to  the  truth 
(comp.  Olshausen,  Stud.  u.  Krit.  1829,  p.  538). 

II.  The  chief  passages  from  which  we  have  to 
draw  our  conclusion  as  to  the  nature  and  purpose 
of  the  gift  in  question,  are — (1.)  Mark  xvi.  17; 
(2.)  Acts  ii.  1-13,  x.  46,  xiz.  6  ;  (3.)  1  Cor.  xii.  xiv. 
It  deserves  notice  that  the  chronological  sequence  of 
these  passages,  as  determined  by  the  date  of  their 
composition,  is  probably  just  the  opposite  of  that 
of  the  periods  to  which  they  severally  refer.     The 
first   group   is  later  than  the  second,   the  second 
than  the  third.      It   will   be  expedient,    however, 
whatever  modifications  this  fact  may  suggest  after 
wards,  to  deal  with  the  passages  in  their  commonly 
received  order. 

III.  The  promise  of  a  new  power  coming  from 
the  Divine  Spirit,  giving  not  only  comfort  and  insight 
into  truth,,  but  fresh  powers  of  utterance  of  some 
kind,  appears  once  and  again  in  oui  Lord's  teaching. 
The  disciples  are  to  take  no  thought  what  they  shall 
speak,  for  the  Spirit  of  their  Father  shall  speak  in 
them  (Matt.  x.  19,  20;  Mark  xiii.  11).     The  lips 
of  Galilean  peasants  are  to  speak  freely  and  boldly 
before  kings.     The  only  condition  is  that  they  are 
"  not  to  premeditate  " — to  yield  themselves  alto- 
gether  to  the  power  that  works  on  them.     Thus 
they  shall  have  given   to   them    "  a  mouth   and 
wisdom"   wruch  no  adversary  shall  be  able  "  tr 


K  Several  scholars,  we  know,  do  not  agree  with  us 
We  gave  our  reasons  five  years  ago,  and  our  antagonist* 
have  not  yet  refuted  them. 

5  G  2 


I5bt>         TONGUES,  GIFT  OP 

gainsay  or  resist."  In  Mark  xvi.  17  we  have  a  . 
more  definite  term  employed:  "They  shall  speak 
with  new  tongues  (KUIVOIS  y\(6ff(ratij."  Starting, 
as  above,  from  (C),  it  can  hardly  be  questioned 
that  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  promise  is  that  the 
disciples  should  speak  in  new  languages  which  they 
had  not  learnt  as  other  men  learn  them.  It  must 
be  remembered,  however,  that  the  critical  questions 
connected  with  Mark  xvi.  9-20  (comp.  Meyer, 
Tischendorf,  Alford,  in  loc.}  make  it  doubtful 
whether  we  have  here  the  language  of  the  Evange 
list — doubtful  therefore  whether  we  have  the  ipsis- 
sima  verba  of  the  Lord  himself,  or  the  nearest 
approximation  of  some  early  transcriber  to  the 
contents  of  the  section,  no  longer  extant,  with 
which  the  Gospel  had  originally  ended.  In  this 
case  it  becomes  possible  that  the  later  phenomena, 
or  later  thoughts  respecting  them,  may  have  de 
termined  the  language  in  which  the  promise  is  re 
corded.  On  either  hypothesis,  the  promise  deter 
mines  nothing  as  to  the  nature  of  the  gift,  or  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  to  be  employed.  It  was 
to  be  a  "  sign."  It  was  not  to  belong  to  a  chosen 
few  only — to  Apostles  and  Evangelists.  It  was  to 
"follow  them  that  believed" — to  be  among  the 
fruits  of  the  living  intense  faith  which  raised  men 
above  the  common  level  of  their  lives,  and  brought 
them  within  the  kingdom  of  God. 

IV.  The  wonder  of  the  day  of  Pentecost  is,  in  its 
broad  features,  familiar  enough  to  us.  The  days 
since  the  Ascension  had  been  spent  as  in  a  ceaseless 
ecstasy  of  worship  (Luke  xxiv.  53).  The  120  dis 
ciples  were  gathered  together,  waiting  with  eager 
expectation  for  the  coming  of  posver  from  on  high — 
of  the  Spirit  that  was  to  give  them  new  gifts  of 
utterance.  The  day  of  Pentecost  was  come,  which 
they,  like  all  other  Israelites,  looked  on  as  the  wit 
ness  of  the  revelation  of  the  Divine  Will  given  on 
•Sinai.  Suddenly  there  swept  over  them  "  the 
sound  as  of  a  rushing  mighty  wind,"  such  as 
Ezekiel  had  heard  in  the  visions  of  God  by  Chebar 
(i.  24,  xliii.  2),  at  all  times  the  recognised  symbol 
of  a  spiritual  creative  power  (comp.  Ez.  xxxvii. 
1-14;  Gen.  i.  2;  1  K.  xix.  11;  2  Chr.  v.  14; 
Ps.  civ.  3,  4).  With  this  there  was  another  sign 
associated  even  more  closely  with  their  thoughts 
of  the  day  of  Pentecost.  There  appeared  unto  them 
"  tongues  like  as  of  fire."  Of  old  the  brightness 
had  been  seen  gleaming  through  the  "  thick  cloud  " 
(Ex.  xix.  18),  or  "  enfolding"  the  Divine  glory  (Ez. 
i.  4).  Now  the  tongues  were  distributed  (5ia/*ept- 
£o/iej/at),  lighting  upon  each  of  them.*  The  out 
ward  symbol  was  accompanied  by  an  inwai'd 
change.  They  were  "  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit," 
as  the  Baptist  and  their  Lord  had  been  (Luke  i. 

»  The  sign  in  this  case  had  its  starting-point  in  the 
traditional  belief  of  Israelites.  There  had  been,  it  was  said, 
tongues  of  fire  on  the  original  Pentecost  (Schneckenburger, 
Beitrcige,  p.  8,  referring  to  Buxtorf,  De  Synag.,  and  Philo, 
De  Decal.").  The  later  Kabbis  were  not  without  their 
legends  of  a  like  "  baptism  of  fire."  Nicodemus  ben  Go- 
rion  and  Jochauan  ben  Zaccai,  men  of  great  holiness  and 
wisdom,  went  into  an  upper  chamber  to  expound  the  Law, 
and  the  house  began  to  be  full  of  fire  (Lightfoot,  Harm. 
iii.  14 ;  Schoettgen,  HOT.  Heb.  in  Acts  ii.). 

b  It  deserves  notice  that  here  also  there  are  analogies 
in  Jewish  belief.  Every  word  that  went  forth  from  the 
mouth  of  God  on  Sinai  was  said  to  have  been  divided  into 
the  seventy  languages  of  the  sons  of  men  (Wetstein,  on 
Acts  ii.)  ;  and  the  bath-kol,  the  echo  of  the  voice  of  God, 
was  heard  by  every  man  in  his  own  tongue  (Schnecken 
burger,  Beitrdge).  So,  as  regards  the  power  of  speaking, 
there  was  a  tradition  that  *,he  great  Rabbis  of  the  Sanlie- 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF 

15,  iv.  1),  though  they  themselves  had  as  yet  no 
experience  of  a  like  kind.  "  They  began  to  sp^euk 
with  other  tongues  as  the  Spirit  e^ave  them  utter 
ance."  The  narrative  that  follows  leaves  hardly 
any  room  for  doubt  that  the  writer  meant  to  con 
vey  the  impression  that  the  disciples  were  heard 
to  speak  in  languages  of  which  they  had  no  col 
loquial  knowledge  previously.  The  direct  state 
ment,  "  They  heard  them  speaking,  each  man  in 
his  own  dialect,"  the  long  list  of  nations,  the  words 
put  into  the  lips  of  the  hearers — these  can  scarcely 
be  reconciled  with  the  theories  of  Bleek,  Herder, 
and  Bunsen,  without  a  wilful  distortion  of  the  evi 
denced  What  view  are  we  to  take  of  a  pheno 
menon  so  marvellous  and -exceptional  ?  What  views 
have  men  actually  taken  ?  (1.)  The  prevalent  belief 
of  the  Church  has  been,  that  in  the  Pentecostal 
gift  the  disciples  received  a  supernatural  knowledge 
of  all  such  languages  as  they  needed  for  their  work 
as  Evangelists.  The  knowledge  was  permanent, 
and  could  be  used  at  their  own  will,  as  though  h 
had  been  acquired  in  the  common  order  of  things. 
With  this  they  went  forth  to  preach  to  the  nations. 
Differences  of  opinion  are  found  as  to  special  points. 
Augustine  thought  that  each  disciple  spoke  in  all 
languages  (De  Verb.  Apost.  clxxv.  3)  ;  Chrysostom 
that  each  had  a  special  language  assigned  to  him, 
and  that  this  was  the  indication  of  the  country 
which  he  was  called  to  evangelize  (H<nn.  in  Act. 
ii.).  Some  thought  that  the  number  of  languages 
spoken  was  70  or  75,  after  the  number  of  the  sons 
of  Noah  (Gen.  x.)  or  the  sons  of  Jacob  (Gen.  xlvi.), 
or  120,  after  that  of  the  disciples  (comp.  Baronius, 
Annal.  i.  197).  Most  were  agreed  in  seeing  in  the 
Pentecostal  gift  the  antithesis  to  the  confusion  of 
tongues  at  Babel,  the  witness  of  a  restored  unity. 
"  Poena  linguarum  dispersit  homines,  donum  lin- 
guarum  disperses  in  unum  populum  collegit " 
(Grotius,  in  loc.}. 

Widely  diffused  as  this  belief  has  been,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  it  goes  beyond  the  data  with 
which  the  N.  T.  supplies  us.  Each  instance  of  the 
gift  recorded  in  the  Acts  connects  it,  not  with  the 
work  of  teaching,  but  with  that  of  praise  and 
adoration ;  not  with  the  normal  order  of  men's 
lives,  but  with  exceptional  epochs  in  them.  It 
came  and  went  as  the  Spirit  gave  men  the  power 
of  utterance — in  this  respect  analogous  to  the  other 
gift  of  prophecy  with  which  it  was  so  often  associ 
ated  (Acts  ii. 'l6,  17,  xix.  6) — and  was  not  pos 
sessed  by  them  as  a  thing  to  be  used  this  way  or 
that,  according  as  they  chose.c  The'  speech  of  St. 
Peter  which  follows,  like  most  other  speeches  ad 
dressed  to  a  Jerusalem  audience,  was  spoken  appa 
rently  in  Aramaic.d  When  St.  Paul,  who  "  spake 


drim  could  speaK  all  the  seventy  languages  of  the  world. 

«  The  first  discussion  whether  the  gift  of  tongues  was 
bestowed  "  per  modum  habitus "  with  which  1  am  ac 
quainted  is  found  in  Salmasius,  De  Ling.  Ht\>r.  (quoted  by 
Thilo,  De,  Ling.  Ignit.  in  Menthen's  Thesaurus,  ii.  497), 
whose  conclusion  is  in  the  negative.  Even  Calmet  admits 
that  it  was  not  permanent  (Comm.  in  loc.).  Compare  also 
Wetstein,  in  loc. ;  and  Olshausen,  Stud.  u.  Krit.  1829, 
p.  546. 

a  I>.  Stanley  suggests  Greek,  as  addressed  to  the  Hel 
lenistic  Jews  who  were  present  in  such  large  numbers 
(Excurs.  on  Gift  of  Tongues,  Corinthians,  p.  260, 2nd  ed.). 
That  St.  Peter  and  the  Apostles  could  speak  a  provincial 
Greek  is  probable  enough ;  but  in  this  instance  the  speech 
is  addressed  chiefly  to  the  permanent  dwellers  at  Jeru 
salem  (Acts  ii.  22,  36),  and  was  likely,  like  that  of  St.  Paul 
(Acts  x>i.  40),  to  be  spoken  in  their  tongue.  To  most  o! 
the  Hellenistic  hearers  this  would  be  intelligible  enough. 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OP 

:vith  tongues  more  than  all,"  was  at  Lystra,  there 
la  no  mention  made  of  his  using  the  language  of 
Lycaonia.  It  is  almost  implied  that  he  did  not 
understand  it  (Acts  xiv.  11).  Not  one  word  in 
the  discussion  of  spiritual  gifts  in  1  Cor.  xii.-xiv. 
implies  that  the  gift  was  of  this  nature,  or  given 
for  this  purpose.  If  it  had  been,  the  Apostle  would 
surely  have  told  those  who  possessed  it  to  go  and 
preach  to  the  outlying  nations  of  the  heathen  world, 
instead  of  disturbing  the  Church  by  what,  on  this 
hypothesis,  would  have  been  a  needless  and  offensive 
ostentation  (comp.  Stanley,  Corinthians,  p.  261,  2nd 
ed.).  Without  laying  much  stress  on  the  tradition 
that  St.  Peter  was  followed  in  his  work  by  Mark  as 
an  interpreter  (fp^vevr^s)  (Papias,  in  Euseb.  H.E. 
iii.  30),  that  even  St.  Paul  was  accompanied  by 
Titus  in  the  same  character — "  quia  non  potuit 
divinorum  sensuum  majestatem  digno  Graeci  elo- 
quii  sennone  explicare"  (Hieron.  quoted  by  Estius 
in  2  Cor.  ii.) — they  must  at  least  be  received  as 
testimonies  that  the  age  which  was  nearest  to  the 
phenomena  did  not  take  the  same  view  of  them  as 
those  have  done  who  lived  at  a  greater  distance. 
The  testimony  of  Irenaeus  (Adv.  Haer.  vi.  6), 
sometimes  urged  in  support  of  the  common  view, 
in  reality  decides  nothing,  and,  as  far  as  it  goes, 
tends  against  it  (infra).  Nor,  it  may  be  added, 
within  the  limits  assigned  by  the  providence  of 
God  to  the  working  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  was 
such  a  gift  necessary.  Aramaic,  Greek,  Latin,  the 
three  languages  of  the  inscription  on  the  cross,  were 
media  of  intercourse  throughout  the  empire.  Greek 
alone  sufficed,  as  the  N.  T.  shows  us,  for  the 
Churches  of  the  West,  for  Macedonia  and  Achaia, 
for  Pontus,  Asia,  Phrygia.  The  conquests  of  Alex 
ander  and  of  Rome  had  made  men  diglottic  to  an 
extent  which  has  no  parallel  in  history.  (2.)  Some 
interpreters,  influenced  in  part  by  these  facts,  have 
seen  their  way  to  another  solution  of  the  difficulty 
by  changing  the  character  of  the  miracle.  It  lay 
not  in  any  new  power  bestowed  on  the  speakers, 
bui  in  the  impression  produced  on  the  hearers. 
Words  tthich  the  Galilean  disciples  uttered  in  their 
own  tongue  were  heard  by  those  who  listened  as  in 
their  native  speech.  This  view  we  find  adopted  by 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  (De  Spir.  Sanct.},  discussed,  but 
not  accepted,  by  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  (Orat. 
xliv.),  and  reproduced  by  Erasmus  (in  foe.).  A 
modification  of  the  same  theory  is  presented  by 
Schneckenburger  (Beitrage),  and  in  part  adopted 
by  Olshausen  (I.  c.)  and  Neander  (Pflanz.  u.  Lett. 
i.  15).  The  phenomena  of  somnambulism,  of  the 
so-called  mesmeric  state,  are  referred  to  as  analo 
gous.  The  speaker  was  en  rapport  with  his  hearers  ; 
the  latter  shared  the  thoughts  of  the  former,  and 
so  heard  them,  or  seemed  to  hear  them,  in  their 
own  tongues. 

There  are,  it  is  believed,  weighty  reasons  against 
both  the  earlier  and  later  forms  of  this  hypothesis. 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF         1557 

believe  what  was  not  actually  the  fact.  (4.)  It  is 
altogether  inapplicable  to  the  phenomena  of  1  Cor. 
xiv. 

(3.)  Critics  of  a  negative  school  have,  as  might 
be  expected,  adopted  the  easier  course  of  rejecting  the 
narrative  either  altogether  or  in  part.  The  state 
ments  do  not  come  from  an  eye-witness,  and  may 

an  exaggerated  report  of  what  actually  took 
jlace  —  a  legend  with  or  without  a  historical  founda 
tion.  Those  who  recognise  such  a  groundwork  see 
n  "  the  rushing  mighty  wind,"  the  hurricane  of  a 
thunderstorm,  the  fresh  breeze  of  morning  ;  in  the 
'  tongues  like  as  of  fire,"  the  flashings  of  the 
ilectric  fluid  ;  in  the  "  speaking  with  tongues,"  the 
oud  screams  of  men,  not  all  Galileans,  but  coming 
Tom  many  lands,  overpowei'ed  by  strong  excite 
ment,  speaking  in  mystical,  figurative,  abrupt  ex 
clamations.  They  see  in  this  "  the  cry  of  the  new 
born  Christendom."  (Bunsen,  Hippolytus.  ii.  12; 
Ewald,  Gesch.  Isr.  vi.  110;  Bleek,  /.  c.;  Herder, 
I.  c.)  From  the  position  occupied  by  these  writers, 
such  a  view  was  perhaps  natural  enough.  It  does 
not  fall  within  the  scope  of  this  article  to  discuss  in 
detail  a  theory  which  postulates  the  incredibility  ot 
any  fact  beyond  the  phenomenal  laws  of  nature, 
and  the  falsehood  of  St.  Luke  as  a  narrator. 

V.  What,  then,  are  the  facts  actually  brought 
before  us  ?  What  inferences  may  be  legitimately 
drawn  from  them  ? 

(1.)  The  utterance  of  words  by  the  disciples,  in 
other  languages  than  their  own  Galilean  Aramaic, 
is,  as  has  been  said,  distinctly  asserted. 

(2.)  The  words  spoken  appear  to  have  been  de 
termined,  not  by  the  will  of  the  speakers,  but  by 
the  Spirit  which  "  gave  them  utterance."  The  out 
ward  tongue  of  flame  was  the  symbol  of  the  "  burn 
ing  fire"  within,  which,  as  in  the  case  of  the  older 
prophets,  could  not  be  repressed  (Jer.  xx.  9). 


(3.)  The  word  used,  airotyQeyyfffdai,  not  merely 
,  has  in  the  LXX.  a  special,  though  not  an 
exclusive,  association  with  the  oracular  speech  of 
true  or  false  prophets,  and  appears  to  imply  some 
peculiar,  perhaps  musical,  solemn  intonation  (comp. 
1  Chr.  xxv.  1  ;  Ez.  xiii.  9  ;  Trommii  Concordant. 
s.  v.  ;  Grotius  and  Wetstein,  in  loc.  ;  Andrewes, 
Whitsunday  Sermons,  i.). 

(4.)  The  "tongues"  were  used  as  an  instru 
ment,  not  of  teaching  but  of  praise.  At  first,  in 
deed,  there  were  none  present  to  be  taught.  The 
disciples  were  by  themselves,  all  sharing  equally  ra 
the  Spirit's  gifts.  When  they  were  heard  by  others, 
it  was  as  proclaiming  the  praise,  the  mighty  and 
great  works,  of  God  (fj.cyate'ia).  What  they  uttered 
was  not  a  warning,  or  reproof,  or  exhortation,  but 
a  doxology  (Stanley,  1.  c.  ;  Baumgarten,  Apostel- 
gcsch.  §3).  When  the  work  of  teaching  began,  it 
was  in  the  language  of  the  Jews,  and  the  utterance 
of  tongues  ceased. 

(5.)  Those  who  spoke  them  seemed  to  others  to 


It  is  at  variance  with  the  distinct  statement  \  be  under  the  influence  of  some  strong  excitement, 


of  Acts  ii.  4,  "  They  began  to  speak  with  other 
tongues."  (2.)  It  at  once  multiplies  the  miracle, 
and  degrades  its  character.  Not  the  120  disciples, 
but  the  whole  multitude  of  many  thousands,  are  in 
this  case  the  subjects  of  it.  The  gift  no  longer 
connects  itself  with  the  work  of  the  Divine  Spirit, 
following  on  intense  faith  and  earnest  prayer,  but 
is  a  irere  physical  prodigy  wrought  upon  men  who 
are  altogether  wanting  in  the  conditions  of  capacity 
for  such  a  supernatural  power  (Mark  xvi.  17). 
(3.)  It  involves  an  element  of  falsehood.  The 
miracle,  on  this  view,  was  wrought  to  make  men 


full  of  new  wine."  They  were  not  as  other  men, 
or  as  they  themselves  had  been  before.  Some  re 
cognised,  indeed,  that  they  were  in  a  higher  state, 
but  it  was  one  which,  in  some  of  its  outward  fea 
tures,  had  a  counterfeit  likeness  in  the  lower. 
When  St.  Paul  uses  —  in  Eph.  v.  18,  19  (v\i]pov<r9^ 
)  —  the  all  but  selfsame  word  which  St. 


Luke  uses  here  to  describe  the  state  of  the  disciplej 
(lir\-fi<TQi](Tav  irvcvparos  oytou),  it  is  to  contrast  it 
with  "  being  drunk  with  wine,"  to  associate  it  with 
"  psalms  and  hymns,  and  spiritual  songs." 

(6.)  Questions  as  to  the  mode  of  operation  of  a 


1558         TONGUES,  GIF!  OF 

power  above  the  common  laws  of  bodily  or  mental 
lite  lead  us  to  a  region  where  our  words  should  be 
"  wary  and  few."  There  is  the  risk  of  seeming  to 
reduce  to  the  known  order  of  nature  that  which  is 
by  confession  above  and  beyond  it.  In  this  and 
in  other  cases,  however,  it  may  be  possible,  with 
out  irreverence  or  doubt — following  the  guidance 
which  Scripture  itself  gives  us — to  trace  in  what 
way  the  new  power  did  its  work,  and  brought 
about  such  wonderful  results.  It  must  be  remem 
bered,  then,  that  in  all  likelihood  such  words  as 
they  then  uttered  had  been  heard  by  the  disciples 
before.  At  every  feast  which  they  had  ever  at 
tended  from  their  youth  up,  they  must  have  been 
brought  into  contact  with  a  crowd  as  varied  as 
that  which  was  present  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
the  pilgrims  of  each  nation  uttering  their  praises 
and  doxologies.  The  difference  was,  that,  before,  the 
Galilean  peasants  had  stood  in  that  crowd,  neither 
heeding,  nor  understanding,  nor  remembering  what 
they  heard,  still  less  able  to  reproduce  it ;  now  they 
had  the  power  of  speaking  it  clearly  and  freely. 
The  Divine  work  would  in  this  case  take  the  form 
of  a  supernatural  exaltation  of  the  memory,  not  of 
imparting  a  miraculous  knowledge  of  words  never 
heard  before.  We  have  the  authority  of  John  xiv. 
26  for  seeing  in  such  an  exaltation  one  of  the 
special  works  of  the  Divine  Comforter. 

(7.)  The  gift  of  tongues,  the  ecstatic  burst  of 
praise,  is  definitely  asserted  to  be  a  fulfilment  of 
the  prediction  of  Joel  ii.  28.  The  twice-repeated 
burden  of  that  prediction  is,  "I  will  pour  out  my 
Spirit,"  and  the  effect  on  those  who  receive  it  is 
that  "they  shall  prophesy."  We  may  see  there 
fore  in  this  special  gift  that  which  is  analogous  to 
one  element  at  least  of  the  •trpoQrjTeta  of  the  0.  T. ; 
but  the  element  of  teaching  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
excluded.  In  1  Cor.  xiv.  the  gift  of  tongues  and 
irpo^-rjreta  (in  this,  the  N.  T.  sense  of  the  word) 
are  placed  in  direct  contrast.  We  are  led,  there 
fore,  to  look  for  that  which  answers  to  the  Gift  of 
Tongues  in  the  other  element  of  prophecy  which  is 
included  in  the  0.  T.  use  of  the  word ;  and  this  is 
found  in  the  ecstatic  praise,  the  burst  of  song,  which 
appears  under  that  name  in  the  two  histories  of  Saul 
(1  Sam.  x.  5-13,  xix.  20-24),  and  in  the  sex-vices  of 
the  Temple  (1  Chr.  xxv.  3). 

(8.)  The  other  instances  in  the  Acts  offer  essen 
tially  the  same  phenomena.  By  implication  in 
xiv.  15-19,  by  express  statement  in  x.  47,  xi.  15, 
17,  xix.  6,  it  belongs  to  special  critical  epochs,  at 
which  faith  is  at  its  highest,  and  the  imposition  of 
the  Apostles'  hands  brought  men  into  the  same 
state,  imparted  to  them  the  same  gift,  as  they  had 
themselves  experienced.  In  this  case,  too,  the  exer 
cise  of  the  gift  is  at  once  connected  with  and  dis 
tinguished  from  "  prophecy"  in  its  N.  T.  sense. 

VI.  The  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  supplies 
fuller  data.  The  spiritual  gifts  are  classified  and 
compared,  arranged,  apparently,  according  to  their 
worth,  placed  under  regulation.  This  fact  is  in  itself 
significant.  Though  recognised  as  coming  from  the 
one  Divine  Spirit,  they  are  not  therefore  exempted 
from  the  control  of  man's  reason  and  conscience. 
The  Spirit  acts  through  the  calm  judgment  of  the 
Apostle  or  the  Church,  not  less  but  more  autho 
ritatively  than  in  the  most  rapturous  and  wonderful 
utterances.  The  facts  which  may  be  gathered  are 
briefly  these: 

(1.)  The  phenomena  of  the  gift  of  tongues  were 
rot  confined  to  one  Church  or  section  of  a  Church. 
It  we  Hud  them  at  Jerusalem,  Ephesus,  Corinth,  by 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF 

implication  at  Thessalonica  also  (1  Thess.  v.  1&). 
we  may  well  believe  that  they  were  frequently  re- 
curring  wherever  the  spirits  of  men  A*  ere  pissing 
through  the  same  stages  of  experience. 

(2.)  The  comparison  of  gifts,  in  both  the  lists 
given  by  St.  Paul  (1  Cor.  xii.  8-10,  28-30),  places 
that  of  tongues,  and  the  interpretation  of  tongues, 
lowest  in  the  scale.  They  are  not  among  the  greater 
gifts  which  men  are  to  "  covet  earnestly  "  (1  Cor. 
xii.  31,  xiv.  5).  As  signs  of  a  life  quickened  into 
expression  where  before  it  had  been  c  ead  and  dumb, 
the  Apostle  could  wish  that  "they  all  spake  with 
tongues "  (1  Cor.  xiv.  5),  could  rejoice  that  he 
himself  "  spake  with  tongues  more  than  they  all" 
(1  Cor.  xiv.  18).  It  was  good  to  have  known  the 
working  of  a  power  raising  them  above  the  common 
level  of  their  consciousness.  They  belonged,  how 
ever,  to  the  childhood  of  the  Christian  life,  nc?t  to  its 
maturity  (1  Cor.  xiv.  20).  They  brought  with 
them  the  risk  of  disturbance  (ibid.  23).  The  only 
safe  rule  for  the  Church  was  not  to  *'  forbid  them  " 
(ibid.  39),  not  to  "quench"  them  (1  Thess.  v.  19), 
lest  in  so  doing  the  spiritual  life  of  which  this  was 
the  first  utterance  should  be  crushed  and  extin 
guished  too,  but  not  in  any  way  to  covet  or  excite 
them.  This  language,  as  has  been  stated,  leaves 
it  hardly  possible  to  look  on  the  gift  as  that  of  a 
linguistic  knowledge  bestowed  for  the  purpose  oi 
evangelising. 

(3.)  The  main  characteristic  of  the  "tongue" 
(now  used,  as  it  were,  technically,  without  the 
epithet  "  new  "  or  "  other")  e  is  that  it  is  unintel 
ligible.  The  man  "  speaks  mysteries,"  prays,  blesses, 
gives  thanks,  in  the  tongue  (e»>  irvevpaTt  as  equi 
valent  to  £v  y\(&ffffrj,  1  Cor.  xiv.  15,  16),  but  no 
one  understands  him  (a.Kovei\  He  can  hardly  be 
said,  indeed,  to  understand  himself.  The  irvev/ua 
in  him  is  acting  without  the  co-operation  of  the 
vovs  (1  Cor.  xiv.  14).  He  speaks  not  to  men,  but 
to  himself  and  to  God  (comp.  Chrysost.  Horn.  35,  in 
1  Cor.').  In  spite  of  this,  however,  the  gift  might 
and  did  contribute  to  the  building  up  of  a  man's  own 
life  (1  Cor.  xiv.  4).  This  might  be  the  only  way 
in  which  some  natures  could  be  roused  out  of  the 
apathy  of  a  sensual  life,  or  the  dulness  of  a  formal 
ritual.  The  ecstasy  of  adoration  which  seemed  to 
men  madness,  might  be  a  refreshment  unspeakable 
to  one  who  was  weary  with  the  subtle  question 
ings  of  the  intellect,  to  whom  all  familiar  and  ir- 
telligible  words  were  fraught  with  recollections  of 
controversial  bitterness  or  the  wanderings  of  doubt 
(comp.  a  passage  of  wonderful  power  as  to  this  use 
of  the  gift  by  Edw.  Irving,  Morning  Watch,  v. 
p.  78). 

(4.)  The  peculiar  nature  of  the  gift  leads  the 
Apostle  into  what  appears,  at  first,  a  contradic 
tion.  "  Tongues  are  for  a  sign,"  not  to  believers, 
but  to  those  who  do  not  believe ;  yet  the  effect  on 
unbelievers  is  not  that  of  attracting  but  repelling. 
A  meeting  in  which  the  gift  of  tongues  was  exer 
cised  without  restraint,  would  seem  to  a  heathen 
visitor,  or  even  to  the  plain  common-sense  Chris 
tian  (the  ISi^r-ns,  the  man  without  a  x^lfffjia\  to 
be  an  assembly  of  madmen.  The  history  of  the 
day  of  Pentecost  may  help  us  to  explain  the  pa 
radox.  The  tongues  are  a  sign.  They  witness  that 
the  daily  experience  of  men  is  not  the  limit  of  their 
spiritual  poweit>.  They  disturb,  startle,  awaken,  aro 
given  els  TO  fKTr\-f)TTeff6cu  (Chrysost.  Horn.  36,  in 


•  The  reader  will  hardly  need  to  be  reminder!  that 
unknown  "  is  an  interpolation  of  the  A.  V. 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF 

1  Cor.),  but  they  are  not,  and  cannot  be,  the  grounds 
uf  conviction  and  belief  (so  Const.  Apost.  viii.). 
They  involve  of  necessity  a  disturbance  of  the  equi 
librium  between  the  understanding  and  the  feelings. 
Therefore  it  is  that,  for  those  who  believe  already, 
prophecy  is  the  greater  gift.  Five  clear  words 
spoken  from  the  mind  of  one  man  to  the  mind  and 
conscience  of  another,  are  better  than  ten  thousand 
of  these  more  startling  and  wonderful  phenomena. 
(5.)  There  remains  the  question  whether  these  also 
were  ' '  tongues  "  in  the  sense  of  being  languages, 
of  which  the  speakers  had  little  or  no  previous  know 
ledge,  or  whether  we  are  to  admit  here,  though  not  in 
Acts  ii.,  the  theories  which  see  in  them  only  unusual 
forms  of  speech  (Bleek),  or  inarticulate  cries  (Bun- 
sen),  or  all  but  inaudible  whisperings  (Wieseler,  in 
Olshausen,  in  /oc.).  The  question  is  not  one  for  a 
dogmatic  assertion,  but  it  is  believed  that  there  is 
a  preponderance  of  evidence  leading  us  to  look  on 
the  phenomena  of  Pentecost  as  representative.  It 
must  have  been  from  them  that  the  word  tongue  de 
rived  its  new  and  special  meaning.  The  companion 
of  St.  Paul,  and  St.  Paul  himself,  were  likely  to  use 
the  same  word  in  the  same  sense.  In  the  absence 
of  a  distinct  notice  to  the  contrary,  it  is  probable 
that  the  gift  would  manifest  itself  in  the  same 
form  at  Corinth  as  at  Jerusalem.  The  "  divers 
kinds  of  tongues  "  (1  Cor.  xii.  28),  the  "  tongues  of 
men"  (1  Cor.  xiii.  1),  point  to  differences  of  some 
kind,  and  it  is  at  least  easier  to  conceive  of  these  as 
differences  of  language  than  as  belonging  to  utter 
ances  all  equally  wild  and  inarticulate.  The  position 
maintained  by  Lightfoot  (Harm,  of  Gosp.  on  Acts  ii.), 
that  the  gift  of  tongues  consisted  in  the  power  of 
speaking  and  understanding  the  true  Hebrew  of  the 
O.  T.,  may  seem  somewhat  extravagant,  but  there 
seems  ground  for  believing  that  Hebrew  and  Aramaic 
words  had  over  the  minds  of  Greek  converts  at 
Corinth  a  power  which  they  failed  to  exercise  when 
translated,  and  that  there  the  utterances  of  the 


tongues  were  probably  in  whole,  or  in  part,  in 
language.  Thus,  the  "  Maranatha  "  of  1  Cor. 
22,  compared  with  xii.  3,  leads  to  the  inference  that 
that  word  had  been  spoken  under  a  real  or  counter 
feit  inspiration.  It  was  the  Spirit  that  led  men  to 
cry  Abba,  as  their  recognition  of  the  fatherhood  of 
God  (Rom.  viii.  15 ;  Gal.  iv.  6).  If  we  are  to  attach 
any  definite  meaning  to  the  "  tongues  of  angels  "  in 
1  Cor.  xiii.  1 ,  it  must  be  by  connecting  it  with  the 
words  surpassing  human  utterance,  which  St.  Paul 
neard  as  in  Paradise  (2  Cor.  xii.  4),  and  these  again 
with  the  great  Hallelujah  hymns  of  which  we  read 
in  the  Apocalypse  (Rev.  xix.  1-6  ;  Stanley,  I.  c. ; 
Ewald,  Gesch.  Isr.  vi.  p.  117).  The  retention  of 
other  words  like  Hosanna  and  Sabaoth  in  the  worship 
of  the  Church,  of  the  Greek  formula  of  the  Kyrie 
Eleison  in  that  of  the  nations  of  the  West,  is  an  ex 
emplification  of  the  same  feeling  operating  in  other 
ways  after  the  special  power  had  ceased. 

(6.)  Here  also,  as  in  Acts  ii.,  we  have  to  think 
of  some  peculiar  intonation  as  frequently  charac 
terising  the  exercise  of  the  "  tongues."  The  analogies 
which  suggest  themselves  to  St.  Paul's  mind  are 

(1  Cor. 

singing  in  the 
spirit"  (1  Cor.  xiv.  15),  but  not  with  the  under 
standing  also,  the  strain  of  ecstatic  melody  must 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF          1559 

hava  been  all  that  the  listeners  could  perceive 
To  '-sing  and  make  melody,"  is  specially  charac 
teristic  of  those  who  are  filled  with  the  Spirit 
(Eph.  v.  19).  Other  forms  of  utterance  less  dis 
tinctly  musical,  yet  not  less  mighty  to  stir  the 
minds  of  men,  we  may  trace  in  the  "  cry  "  (Rom. 
vi.i.  15  ;  Gal.  iv.  6)  and  the  "  Ineffable  groanings" 
(Rom.  viii.  26)  which  are  distinctly  ascribed  tc 
the  work  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  To  those  whc 
know  the  wonderful  power  of  man's  voice,  as  the 
organ  of  his  spirit,  the  strange,  unearthly  charm 
which  belongs  to  some  of  its  less  normal  states, 
the  influence  even  of  individual  words  thus  uttered, 
especially  of  words  belonging  to  a  language  which 
is  not  that  of  our  common  life  (comp.  Hilar .  Diac. 
Comm.  in  1  Cor.  xiv.),  it  will  not  seem  strange 
that,  even  in  the  absence  of  a  distinct  intellectual 
consciousness,  the  gift  should  take  its  place  among 
the  means  by  which  a  man  "  built  up "  his  own 
life,  and  might  contribute,  if  one  were  present  to 
expound  his  utterances,  to  "edify"  others  also.f 

(7.)  Connected  with  the  "  tongues,"  there  was, 
as  the  words  just  used  remind  us,  the  correspond- 


ing  power  of  interpretation, 
any  listener  (1  Cor.  xiv.  27). 


It  might  belong  to 
It  might  belong  to 


the  speaker  himself  when  he  returned  to  the  ordi 
nary  level  of  conscious  thought  (1  Cor.  xiv.  13). 
Its  function,  according  to  the  view  that  has  been 
here  taken,  must  have  been  twofol'd.  The  inter 
preter  had  first  to  catch  the  foreign  words,  Aramaic 
or  others,  which  had  mingled  more  or  less  largely 
with  what  was  uttered,  and  then  to  find  a  meaning 
and  an  order  in  what  seemed  at  first  to  be  without 
either,  to  follow  the  loftiest  flights  and  most  intri 
cate  windings  of  the  enraptured  spirit,  to  trace  the 
subtle  associations  which  linked  together  words  and 
thoughts  that  seemed  at  first  to  have  no  point  of 
contact.  Under  the  action  of  one  with  this  insight 


the  wild  utterances  of  the  "  tongues ' 
a  treasure-house   of  deep  truths. 


might  become 
Sometimes,   it 


that  "^ould  appear,   not  even   this  was  possible.     The 


those  of  the  pipe,  the  harp,  the  trumpet 
xiv.  7,  8).     In  the  case  of  one  "  singing 


t  Neander  (Pflanz.  u.  Leit.  i.  15)  refers  to  the  effect 
produced  by  the  preaching  of  St.  Bernard  upon  hearers 
who  did  not  understand  one  word  of  the  Latin  in  which 
ha  pieafbed  (Opp.  ii.  J1&,  ed.  Mabillon)  as  an  instance  of 


power  might  be  simply  that  of  sound.  As  the  pipe 
or  harp,  played  boldly,  the  hand  struck  at  random 
over  the  strings,  but  with  no  $iaffro\-f),  no  musical 
interval,  wanted  the  condition  of  distinguishable 
melody,  so  the  "  tongues,"  in  their  extremest  form, 
passed  beyond  the  limits  of  interpretation.  There 
might  be  a  strange  awfulness,  or  a  strange  sweet 
ness  as  of  "  the  tongues  of  angels,"  but  what  it 
meant  was  known  only  to  God  (1  Cor.  xiv.  7-11). 
VII.  (1.)  Traces  of  the  gift  are  found,  as  has 
been  said,  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans,  the  Gala- 
tians,  the  Ephesians.  From  the  Pastoral  Epistles, 
from  those  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  John,  they  are  alto 
gether  absent,  and  this  is  in  itself  significant.  The 
life  of  the  Apostle  and  of  the  Church  has  passed 
into  a  calmer,  more  normal  state.  Wide  truths, 
abiding  graces,  these  are  what  he  himself  lives  in 
and  exports  others  to  rest  on,  rather  than  exceptional 
however  marvellous.  The  *'  tongues  " 


are  already  "  ceasing  "  (1  Cor.  xiii.  8),  as  a  thing 
belonging  to  the  past.  Love,  which  even  when 
"  tongues  "  were  mightiest,  he  had  seen  to  be  above 
all  gifts,  has  become  more  and  more,  all  in  all,  to  him. 
(2.)  It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  disappear 
ance  of  the  "  tongues  "  was  gradual.  As  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  draw  the  precise  line  of  de- 


this.  Like  phenomena  are  related  of  St.  Antony  of  Padua 
and  St.  Vincent  Ferrer  (Acta  Sanctorum,  June  24  anO 
April  5),  of  which  this  is  probably  the  explanation, 
(Comp.  also  Wolff,  Cutae  rhiloloy  in  N.  T.  Ans  a.) 


1560         TONGUES,  GIFT  OF 

marcation  when  the  irpo^rfln  of  the  Apostolic  age 
passed  into  the  5(Sa<r/eaA.ia  that  remained  perma 
nently  in  the  Church,  so  there  must  have  been  a 
time  when  "  tongues  "  were  still  heard,  though  less 
frequently,  and  with  less  striking  results.  The  tes 
timony  of  Irenaeus  (Adv.  Hacr.  v.  6)  that  there 
were  brethren  in  his  time  «*  who  had  prophetic 
gifts,  and  spoke  through  the  Spirit  in  all  kinds  of 
tongues,"  though  it  does  not  prove,  what  it  has 
sometimes  been  alleged  to  prove,  the  permanence  of 
the  gift  in  the  individual,  or  its  use  in  the  work  of 
evangelising  (Wordsworth  on  Acts  ii.),  must  be 
admitted  as  evidence  of  the  existence  of  phenomena 
like  those  which  we  have  met  with  in  the  Church 
of  Corinth.  For  the  most  part,  however,  the  part 
which  they  had  filled  in  the  worship  of  the  Church 
was  supplied  by  the  "  hymns  and  spiritual  songs  " 
of  the  succeeding  age.  In  the  earliest  of  these,  dis 
tinct  in  character  from  either  the  Hebrew  psalms  or 
the  later  hymns  of  the  Church,  marked  by  a  strange 
mixture  of  mystic  names,  and  half-coherent  thoughts 
(such  e.g.  as  the  hymn  with  which  Clement  of 
Alexandria  ends  his  Uai8ayuy6s,  and  the  earliest 
Sibylline  verses)  some  have  seen  the  influence  of  the 
ecstatic  utterances  in  which  the  strong  feelings  of 
adoration  had  originally  shown  themselves  (Nitzsch, 
Christl.  Lehre,  ii.  p.  268). 

After  this,  within  the  Church  we  lose  nearly  all 
traces  of  them.  The  mention  of  them  by  Eusebius 
(Ccmm.  in  Ps.  xlvi.)  is  vague  and  uncertain.  The 
tone  in  which  Chrysostom  speaks  of  them  (Comm. 
in  1  Cor.  xiv.)  is  that  of  one  who  feels  the  whole 
subject  to  be  obscure,  because  there  are  no  pheno 
mena  within  his  own  experience  at  all  answering  to 
it.  The  whole  tendency  of  the  Church  was  to 
maintain  reverence  and  order,  and  to  repress  all 
approaches  to  the  ecstatic  state.  Those  who  yielded 
to  it  took  refuge,  as  in  the  case  of  Tertullian 
(infra],  in  sects  outside  the  Church.  Symptoms 
of  what  was  then  looked  on  as  an  evil,  snowed 
themselves  in  the  4th  century  at  Constantinople — 
wild,  inarticulate  cries,  words  passionate  but  of  little 
meaning,  almost  convulsive  gestures — and  were  met 
by  Chrysostom  with  the  sternest  possible  reproof 
(Horn,  in  Is.  vi.  2,  ed.  Migne,  vi.  p.  100). 

VIII.  (1.)  A  wider  question  of  deep  interest  pre 
sents  itself.  Can  we  find  in  the  religious  history 
of  mankind  any  facts  analogous  to  the  manifesta 
tion  of  the  "  tongues  "  ?  Recognising,  as  we  do.  the 
great  gap  which  separates  the  work  of  the  Spirit 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost  from  all  others,  both  in  its 
origin  and  its  fruits,  there  is,  it  is  believed,  no  reason 
for  rejecting  the  thought  that  there  might  be  like 
phenomena  standing  to  it  in  the  relation  of  fore- 
shadowings,  approximations,  counterfeits.  Other 
•^a.piffp.a.'ra  of  the  Spirit,  wisdom,  prophecy,  helps, 
governments,  had  or  have  analogies,  in  special  states 
of  men's  spiritual  life,  at  other  times  and  under 
other  conditions,  and  so  may  these.  The  three  cha 
racteristic  phenomena  are,  as  has  been  seen,  (1)  an 
ecstatic  state  of  partial  or  entire  unconsciousness, 
the  human  vvil-1  being,  as  it  were,  swayed  by  a 
power  above  itself;  (2)  the  utterance  of  words  in 
tones  startling  and  impressive,  but  often  conveying 
no.  distinct  meaning;  (3)  the  use  of  languages 


if  PEEP.  The  word,  omitted  in  its  place,  deserves  a  sepa 
rate  notice.  It  is  used  in  the  A.  V.  of  Is.  viii.  19,  x.  14, 
as  the  equivalent  of  ^VSV,  "  to  chirp"  or  "  cry."  The 
I  •atln  pipio,  from  which'  it  comes,  is,  like  the  Hebrew, 
ononmtopoetic,  and  is  used  to  express  the  wailing  cry  of 
youn«  chickens  or  infant  children.  In  this  sense  it  is 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF 

which  the  speaker  at  other  times  was  unable  to  con- 
verse  in. 

(2.)  The  history  of  the  0.  T.  presents  us  with 
some  instances  in  which  the  gift  of  prophecy  has 
accompaniments  of  this  nature.  The  word  includes 
something  more  than  the  utterance  of  a  distinct 
message  of  God.  Saul  and  his  messengers  com? 
under  the  power  of  the  Spirit,  and  he  lies  on  the 
ground,  all  night,  stripped  of  his  kingly  armour, 
and  joining  in  the  wild  chant  of  the  company  of 
prophets,  "r  pouring  out  his  own  utterances  to  the 
sound  of  their  music  (1  Sam.  xix.  24  ;  comp.  Stan- 
ley,  /.  c.). 

(3.)  We  cannot  exclude  the  false  prophets  and 
diviners  of  Israel  from  the  range  of  our  inquiry. 
As  they,  in  their  work,  dress,  pretensions,  were 
counterfeits  of  those  who  truly  bore  the  name,  so 
we  may  venture  to  trace  in  other  things  that  which 
resembled,  more  or  less  closely,  what  had  accom 
panied  the  exercise  of  the  Divine  gift.  And  here 
we  have  distinct  records  of  strange,  mysterious  in 
tonations.  The  ventriloquist  wizards  (of  67700-- 
Tpfytufloi,  ot  e/c  TTJS  H.oi\ias  Qcavovffiv}  "  peep g 
and  mutter"  (Is.  viii.  19).  The  "voice  of  one 
who  has  a  familiar  spirit,"  comes  low  out  of  the 
ground  (Is.  xxix.  4).  The  false  prophets  simulate 
with  their  tongues  (fK^d\\ovras  Trpo^rctas 
j\(afffffjs,  LXX.)  the  low  voice  with  which  the 
true  prophets  announced  that  the  Lord  had  spoken 
(Jer.  xxiii.  31  ;  comp.  Gesen.  Thes.  s.  v.  DN3). 

(4.)  The  quotation  by  St.  Paul  (1  Cor.  xiv.  21) 
from  Is.  xxviii.  1 1  ("  With  men  of  other  tongues 
(eV  eT€poy\<!>ffffois)  and  other  lips  will  I  speak 
unto  this  people  "),  has  a  significance  of  which  we 
ought  not  to  lose  sight.  The  common  interpreta 
tion  sees  in  that  passage  only  a  declaration  that 
those  who  had  refused  to  listen  to  the  Prophets 
should  be  taught  a  sharp  lesson  by  the  lips  of  alien 
conquerors.  Ewald  (Prophet,  in  loc.),  dissatisfied 
with  this,  sees  in  the  new  teaching  the  voice  ot 
thunder  striking  terror  into  men's  minds.  St.  Paul, 
with  the  phenomena  of  the  "  tongues  "  present  to 
his  mind,  saw  in  them  the  fulfilment  of  the  Pro 
phet's  words.  Those  who  turned  aside  from  the 
true  prophetic  message  should  be  left  to  the  darker, 
"  stammering,"  more  mysterious  utterances,  which 
were  in  the  older,  what  the  "  tongues  "  were  in  the 
later  Ecclesia.  A  remarkable  parallel  to  the  text 
thus  interpreted  is  found  in  Hos.  ix.  7.  There  also 
the  people  are  threatened  with  the  withdrawal  of 
the  true  prophetic  insight,  and  in  its  stead  there  is 
to  be  the  wild  delirium,  the  ecstatic  madness  of  the 
counterfeit  (comp.  especially  the  LXX.,  6  irpo^T^r 
6  irapea-TTjKcSs,  foOpcoiros  6  TTV€VfJi.aTO<f)6poi). 

(5.)  The  history  of  heathen  oracles  presents,  it 
need  hardly  be  said,  examples  of  the  orgiastic  state, 
the  condition  of  the  /J.O.VTIS  as  distinct  from  the 
7rpo(J>^T7?s,  in  which  the  wisest  of  Greek  thinkers 
recognised  the  lower  type  of  inspiration  (Plato, 
Timaeus,  72  B ;  Bleek,  /.  c.).  The  Pythoness  and 
the  Sibyl  are  as  if  possessed  by  a  power  which  they 
cannot  resist.  They  labour  under  the  afflatus  of 
the  god.  The  wild,  unearthly  sounds  (*«  nee  mor- 
tale  sonans"),  often  hardly  coherent,  burst  from 
their  lips.  It  remains  for  interpreters  to  collect  the 


used  in  the  first  of  these  passages  for  the  low  cry  of  th« 
false  soothsayers,  in  the  second  for  that  of  birds  whom 
the  hand  of  the  spoiler  snatches  from  their  nests.  In 
Is.  xxxviii.  14,  where  the  same  word  is  tised  in  the 
Hebrew,  the  A.  V.  gives,  "  Like  a  crane  or  a  swallow,  so 
did  I  chatter." 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF 

scattered  utterances,  and  to  give  them  shape  and 
meaning  ( Virg.  Aen.  vi.  45,  98,  ct  seq.). 

(6.)  More  distinct  parallels  are  found  in  the  ac 
counts  cf  the  wilder,  more  excited  sects  which  have, 
from  time  to  time,  appeared  in  the  history  of  Chris 
tendom.  Tertullian  (de  Anim.  c.  9),  as  a  Montanist, 
claims  the  "  revelationum  charismata  "  as  given  to 
a  sister  of  that  sect.  They  came  to  her  "  inter 
dominica  solemnia;"  she  was,  "per  ecstasin,  in 
spiritu,"  conversing  with  angels,  and  with  the 
Lord  himself,  seeing  and  hearing  mysteries  ("  sacra- 
menta"),  reading  the  hearts  of  men,  prescribing 
remedies  for  those  who  needed  them.  The  move 
ment  of  the  Mendicant  orders  in  the  13th  century, 
the  prophesyings  of  the  16th  in  England,  the  early 
history  of  the  disciples  of  George  Fox,  that  of  the 
Jansenists  in  France,  the  Revivals  under  Wesley  and 
Whitefield,  those  of  a  later  date  in  Sweden,  Ame 
rica,  and  Ireland  have,  in  like  manner,  been  fruitful 
in  ecstatic  phenomena  more  or  less  closely  resem 
bling  those  which  we  are  now  considering. 

(7.)  The  history  of  the  French  prophets  at  the 
commencement  of  the  18th  century  presents  some 
facts  of  special  interest.  The  terrible  sufferings 
caused  by  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
were  pressing  with  intolerable  severity  on  the  Hu 
guenots  of  the  Cevennes.  The  persecuted  flocks  met 
together  with  every  feeling  of  faith  and  hope  strung 
to  its  highest  pitch.  The  accustomed  order  of 
worship  was  broken,  and  labouring  men,  children, 
and  female  servants,  spoke  with  rapturous  eloquence 
as  the  messengers  of  God.  Beginning  in  168G,  then 
crushed  for  a  time,  bursting  forth  with  fresh  vio 
lence  in  1700,  it  soon  became  a  matter  of  almost 
European  celebrity.  Refugees  arrived  in  London 
in  1706,  claiming  the  character  of  prophets  (Lacy, 
Cry  from  the  Desert ;  N.  Peyrat,  Pastors  in  the 
Wilderness).  An  Englishman,  John  Lacy,  became 
first  a  convert  and  then  a  leader.  The  convulsive 
ecstatic  utterances  of  the  sect  drew  down  the  ridicule 
of  Shaftesbnry  ( On  Enthusiasm].  Calamy  thought 
it  necessary  to  enter  the  lists  against  their  preten 
sions  (Caveat  against  the  New  Prophets).  They 
gained  a  distinguished  proselyte  in  Sir  R.  Bulkley, 
a  pupil  of  Bishop  Fell's,  with  no  inconsiderable 
learning,  who  occupied  in  their  proceedings  a  position 
which  reminds  us  of  that  of  Henry  Drummond 
among  the  followers  of  Irving  (Bulkley 's  Defence 
of  the  Prophets).  Here  also  there  was  a  strong 
contagious  excitement.  Nicholson,  the  Baxter  of 
the  sect,  published  a  confession  that  he  had  found 
himself  unable  to  resist  it  {Falsehood  of  the  New 
Prophets),  though  he  afterwards  came  to  look  upon 
his  companions  as  "  enthusiastick  impostors."  What 
is  specially  noticeable  is,  that  the  gift  of  tongues 
was  claimed  by  them.  Sir  R.  Bulkley  declares 
that  he  had  heard  Lacy  repeat  long  sentences  in 
Latin,  and  another  speak  Hebrew,  though,  when  not 
in  the  Spirit,  they  were  quite  incapable  of  it  (Nar 
rative,  p.  92).  The  characteristic  thought  of  all 
the  revelations  was,  that  they  were  the  true  chil 
dren  of  God.  Almost  every  oracle  began  with 
"  My  child  !  "  as  its  characteristic  word  (Peyrat,  i. 
235-313).  It  is  remarkable  that  a  strange  Revi 
valist  movement  was  spreading,  nearly  at  the  same 
time,  through  Silesia,  the  chief  feature  of  which  was 
that  boys  and  girls  of  tender  age  were  almost  the 
only  subjects  of  it,  and  that  they  too  spoke  and 


TONGUES,  GIFT  OF        1561 

fiayed  with  a  wonderful  power  (Lacy,  Relationt 
&>.,  p.  31 ;  Bulkley,  Narrative,  p.  46). 

(8.)  The  so-called  Unknown  Tongues,  which 
manifested  themselves  first  in  the  west  of  Scotland, 
and  afterwards  in  the  Caledonian  Church  in  Regent 
Square,  present  a  more  striking  phenomenon,  and 
the  data  for  judging  of  its  nature  are  more  copious. 
Here,  more  than  in  most  other  cases,  there  were 
the  conditions  of  long,  eager  expectation,  fixed 
brooding  over  one  central  thought,  the  mind  strained 
to  a  preternatural  tension.  Suddenly,  now  from 
one,  now  from  another,  chiefly  from  women,  devout 
but  illiterate,  my&terious  sounds  were  heard. 
Voices,  which  at  other  times  were  harsh  and  un- 
pleasing,  became,  when  "singing  in  the  Spirit," 
perfectly  harmonious h  (Cardale,  Narrative,  in 
Morning  Watch,  ii.  871,  872).  Those  who  spoke, 
men  of  known  devotion  and  acuteness,  bore  witness 
to  their  inability  to  control  themselves  (Baxter, 
Narrative,  pp.  5,  9,  12),  to  their  being  led,  they 
knew  not  how,  to  speak  in  a  "  triumphant  chant " 
(ibid.  pp.  4^,  81).  The  man  over  whom  they 
exercised  so  strange  a  power,  has  left  on  record  his 
testimony,  that  to  him  they  seemed  to  embody  a 
more  than  earthly  music,  leading  to  the  belief  that 
the  "  tongues"  of  the  Apostolic  age  had  been  as  the 
archetypal  melody  of  which  all  the  Church's  chants 
and  hymns  were  but  faint,  poor  echoes  (Oliphant's 
Life  of  Irving,  ii.  208).  To  those  who  were 
without,  on  the  other  hand,  they  seemed  but  an 
unintelligible  gibberish,  the  yells  and  groans  of 
madmen  (Newspapers  of  1831,  passim).  Some 
times  it  was  asserted  that  fragments  of  known 
languages,  Spanish,  Italian,  Greek,  Hebrew,  were 
mingled  together  in  the  utterances  of  those  who 
spoke  in  the  power  (Baxter,  Narrative,  pp.  133, 134). 
Sometimes  it  was  but  a  jargon  of  mere  sounds 
(ibid.).  The  speaker  was  commonly  unable  to  in 
terpret  what  he  uttered.  Sometimes  the  office  was 
undertaken  by  another.  A  clear  and  interesting 
summary  of  the  history  of  the  whole  movement  is 
given  in  Mrs.  Oliphant's  Life  of  Irving,  vol.  ii. 
Those  who  wish  to  trace  it  through  all  its  stages 
must  be  referred  to  the  seven  volumes  of  the 
Morning  Watch,  and  especially  to  Irving's  series  of 
papers  on  the  Gifts  of  the  Spirit,  in  vols.  iii.,  iv. 
and  v.  Whatever  other  explanation  may  be 
given  of  the  facts,  there  exists  no  ground  for  im 
puting  a  deliberate  imposture  to  any  of  the  persons 
who  were  most  conspicuous  in  the  movement. 

(9.)  In  certain  exceptional  states  of  mind  and 
body  the  powers  of  memory  are  known  to  receive  a 
wonderful  and  abnormal  strength.  In  the  delirium 
of  fever,  in  the  ecstasy  of  a  trance,  men  speak  in 
their  old  age  languages  which  they  have  never  heard 
or  spoken  since  their  earliest  youth.  The  accent  of 
their  common  speech  is  altered.  Women,  ignorant 
and  untaught,  repeat  long  sentences  in  Greek,  Latin, 
Hebrew,  which  they  had  once  heard,  without,  in 
any  degree,  understanding  or  intending  to  remember 
them.  In  all  such  cases  the  marvellous  power  is 
the  accompaniment  of  disease,  and  passes  away 
when  the  patient  returns  to  his  usual  state,  to  the 
healthy  equilibrium  and  interdependence  of  the  life  of 
sensation  and  of  thought  (Abercrombie,  Intellectual 
Powers,  pp.  140-143  ;  Winslow,  Obscure  Diseases 
of  the  Brain,  pp.  337,  360,  374  ;  Watson, 
Principles  and  Practice  of  Physic,  i.  128).  The 


h  Oomp.  the  independent  testimony  of  Archdeacon  Stop-  •  a»d  unaccountable."  He  recognised  precisely  the  same 
ford.  He  had  listened  to  the  "  unknown  tongue,"  and  had  sounds  in  the  Irish  Revivals  of  1859  (  Work  and  Counter' 
found  it  "  a  sound  such  as  I  never  heard  before,  unearthly  I  u-vrk,  p.  11). 


1562         TONGUES,  GIFT  OF 

Mediaeval  belief  that  this  power  of  speaking  in 
tongues  belonged  to  those  who  were  posses^d  by 
evil  spirits  rests,  obviously,  upon  like  psychological 
phenomena  (Peter  Martyr,  Loci  Communes,  i.  c.  10  ; 
Bayle,  Dictionn.  s.  v.  "Grandier"). 

IX.  These  phenomena  have  been  brought  to 
gether  in  order  that  we  may  see  how  far  they  re 
semble,  how  far  they  differ  from,  those  which  we 
have  seen  reason  to  believe  constituted  the  outward 
signs  of  the  Gift  of  Tongues.  It  need  not  startle  or 
*'  offend  "  us  if  we  find  the  likeness  between  the  true 
and  the  counterfeit  greater,  at  first  sight,  than  we 
expected.  So  it  was  at  the  Churches  of  Corinth  and 
of  Asia.  There  also  the  two  existed  in  the  closest 
approximation  ;  and  it  was  to  no  outward  sign,  to  no 
speaking  with  languages,  or  prediction  of  the  future, 
that  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  pointed  as  the  crucial 
test  by  which  men  were  to  distinguish  between 
them,  but  to  the  confession  on  the  one  side,  the 
denial  on  the  other,  that  Jesus  was  the  Lord 
(1-  Cor.  xii.  3 ;  1  John  iv.  2,  3).  What  may  be 
legitimately  inferred  from  such  facts  is  the  existence, 
in  the  mysterious  constitution  of  man's  nature,  of 
powers  which  are,  for  the  most  part,  latent,  but 
which,  under  given  conditions,  may  be  roused  into 
activity.  Memory,  imagination,  speech,  may  all  be 
intensified,  transfigured,  as  it  were,  with  a  new 
glory,  acting  independently  of  any  conscious  or 
deliberate  volition.  The  exciting  causes  may  be 
disease,  or  the  fixed  concentration  of  the  senses  or 
of  thought  on  one  object,  or  the  power  of  sympathy 
with  those  who  have  already  passed  into  the 
abnormal  state.  The  life  thus  produced  is  at  the 
furthest  pole  from  the  common  life  of  sensation, 
habit,  forethought.  It  sees  what  others  do  not  see, 
hears  what  they  do  not  hear.  If  there  be  a  spiritual 
power  acting  upon  man,  we  might  expect  this  phase 
of  the  life  of  the  human  soul  to  manifest  its  opera 
tions  most  clearly.  Precisely  because  we  believe 
in  the  reality  of  the  Divine  work  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost,  we  may  conceive  of  it  as  using  this  state 
as  its  instrument,  not  as  introducing  phenomena, 
in  all  respects  without  parallel,  but  as  carrying  to 
its  highest  point,  what,  if  good,  had  been  a  fore 
shadowing  of  it,  presenting  the  reality  of  what,  if 
evil,  had  been  the  mimiciy  and  counterfeit  of  good. 
And  whatever  resemblances  there  may  be,  the  points 
of  difference  are  yet  greater.  The  phenomena 
which  have  been  described  are,  with  hardly  an  ex 
ception,  morbid  ;  the  precursors  or  the  consequences 
of  clearly  recognisable  disease.  The  Gift  of  Tongues 
was  bestowed  on  men  in  full  vigour  and  activity, 
preceded  by  no  frenzy,  followed  by  no  exhaustion. 
The  Apostles  went  on  with  their  daily  work  of 
teaching  and  organising  the  Church.  The  form 
which  the  new  power  assumed  was  determined 
partly,  it  may  be,  by  deep-lying  conditions  of  man's 
mental  and  spiritual  being,  within  which,  as  self- 
imposed  limits,  the  Spirit  poured  from  on  high  was 
pleased  to  work,  partly  by  the  character  of  the. 
people  for  whom  this  special  manifestation  was 
given  as  a  sign.  New  powers  of  knowledge, 
memory,  utterance,  for  which  education  and  habit 
could  not  at  all  account,  served  to  waken  men  to 
the  sense  of  a  power  which  they  could  not  measure, 
a  Kingdom  of  God  into  which  they  were  called  to 
enter.  Lastly,  let  us  remember  the  old  rule  holds 
good,  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  Other 
phenomena,  presenting  approximate  resemblances, 


TOPARCHY 

have  ended  in  a  sick  man's  dreams,  in  a  fevere-.l 
frenzy,  in  the  narrowness  of  a  sect.  They  grew 
out  of  a  passionate  brooding  over  a  single  thought, 
often  over  a  single  word  j1  and  the  end  has  shown 
that  it  was  not  well  to  seek  to  turn  back  God's 
order  and  to  revive  the  long-buried  past.  The 
gift  of  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  the  starting-point 
of  the  long  history  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  the 
witness,  in  its  very  form,  of  a  universal  family 
gathered  out  of  all  nations. 

But  it  was  the  starting-point  only.  The  new 
ness  of  the  truth  then  presented  to  the  world,  the 
power  of  the  first  experience  of  a  higher  life,  the 
longing  expectation  in  men's  minds  of  the  Divine 
kingdom,  may  have  made  this  special  manifestation, 
at  the  time,  at  once  inevitable  and  fitting.  It 
belonged,  however,  to  a  critical  epoch,  not  to  the 
continuous  life  of  the  Church.  It  implied  a  dis 
turbance  of  the  equilibrium  of  man's  normal  state. 
The  high-wrought  ecstasy  could  not  continue,  might 
be  glorious  and  blessed  for  him  who  had  it,  a  sign, 
as  has  been  said,  for  those  who  had  it  not ;  but  it 
was  not  the  instrument  for  building  up  the  Church. 
That  was  the  work  of  another  gift,  the  prophecy 
which  came  from  God,  yet  was  addressed  from  the 
mind  and  heart  of  one  man  to  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  his  brethren.  When  the  overflowing  fulness  of 
life  had  passed  away,  when  "  tongues"  had  "  ceased," 
and  prophecy  itself,  in  its  irresistible  power,  had 
"failed,"  they  left  behind  them  the  lesson  they 
were  meant  to  teach.  They  had  borne  their  wit 
ness,  and  had  done  their  work.  They  had  taught 
men  to  believe  in  one  Divine  Spirit,  the  giver  of  all 
good  gifts,  "  dividing  to  every  man  severally  as  He 
will ; "  to  recognise  His  inspiration,  not  only  in  the 
marvel  of  the  "  tongues,"  or  in  the  burning  words 
of  prophets,  but  in  all  good  thoughts,  in  the  right 
judgment  in  all  things,  in  the  excellent  gift  ot 
Charity.  [E.  H.  P.] 

TOPARCHY  (ToTropxio).  A  term  applied  in 
one  passage  of  the  Septuagint  (1  Mace.  xi.  28)  to 
indicate  three  districts  to  which  elsewhere  (x.  30, 
xi.  34)  the  name  vofj.6s  is  given.  In  all  these 
passages  the  English  Version  employs  the  term 
"  governments."  The  three  "  toparchies"  in  ques 
tion  were  Apherima  ('A<paip€fjia),  Lydda,  and 
Ramath.  They  had  been  detached  from  Samaria, 
Peraea,  and  Galilee  respectively,  some  time  before 
the  war  between  Demetrius  Soter  and  Alexander 
Bala.  Each  of  the  two  belligerents  endeavoured  to 
win  over  Jonathan,  the  Jewish  High-Priest,  to  their 
side,  by  allowing  him,  among  other  privileges,  th« 
sovereign,  power  over  these  districts  without  any 
payment  of  land-tax.  The  situation  of  Lydda  is 
doubtful ;  for  the  toparchy  Lydda,  of  which  Pliny 
speaks  (v.  14),  is  situated  not  in  Peraea,  but  on  the 
western  side  of  the  Jordan.  Apherima  is  con 
sidered  by  Grotius  to  denote  the  region  about 
Bethel,  captured  by  Abijah  from  Jeroboam  (2  Chr. 
xiii.  19).  Ramath  is  probably  the  famous  strong 
hold,  the  desire  of  obtaining  which  led  to  the  un 
fortunate  expedition  of  the  allied  sovereigns,  Ahab 
and  Jehoshaphat  (IK.  xxii.). 

The  "  toparchies "  seem  to  have  been  of  the 
nature  of  agaliks,  and  the  passages  in  which  the 
word  roirdpx'ns  occurs,  all  harmonize  with  the 
view  of  that  functionary  as  the  aga,  whose  duty 
would  be  to  collect  the  taxes  and  administer  justice 
in  all  cases  affecting  the  revenue,  and  who,  for  the 


»  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  interpolated  word 
unknown,"  in  the  A.  V.  of  1  Cor.  adv.,  was  the  starting- 


point  of  the  peculiarly  unintelligible  character  of  most  of 
the  Irvicgik  utterances. 


TOPAZ 

purpose  of  enforcing  payment,  would  have  the  com 
mand  of  a  small  military  force.  He  would  thus  be 
the  lowest  m  the  hierarchy  of  a  despotic  administra 
tion  to  whom  troops  would  be  entrusted  ;  and  hence 
the  taunt  in  2  K.  xviii.  24,  and  Is.  xxxvi.  9  ;  -nwt 


TOPHETH 


1563 


TOV  icvpov  fj.ov  TUV  eAaxirwc  ;  "  How 
wilt  thou  resist  a  single  toparch,  one  of  the  very 
least  of  my  lord's  slaves  ?"  But  the  essential  character 
of  the  toparch  is  that  of  a  fiscal  officer,  and  his  mili 
tary  character  is  altogether  subordinate  to  his  civil. 
H^nce  the  word  is  employed  in  Gen.  xli.  34,  for  the 
"  officers  over  the  land,"  who  were  instructed  to 
buy  up  the  fifth  part  of  the  produce  of  the  soil 
during  the  seven  years  of  abundance.  In  Dan.  iii. 
3,  Theodotion  uses  the  word  in  a  much  more  exten 
sive  sense,  making  it  equivalent  to  "  satraps,"  and 
the  Eng.  Version  renders  the  original  by  "princes;" 
but  the  original  word  here  is  not  the  same  as  in  Dan. 
iii.  2,  27,  and  vi.  7,  in  every  one  of  which  cases  a 
subordinate  functionary  is  contemplated.  [J.  W.  B.] 

TOPAZ  (i"npS,  pitdah  :  Toirdfav.  topazius). 

The  topaz  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  is 
generally  allowed  to  be  our  chrysolite,  while  their 
chrysolite  is  our  topaz.  [CHRYSOLITE,  App.  A.] 
Bellermann,  however  (Die  Urim  und  Thummim, 
p.  39),  contends  that  the  topaz  and  the  chrysolite  of 
the  ancients  are  identical  with  the  stones  denoted 
by  these  terms  at  the  present  day.  The  account 
which  Pliny  (N.  H.  xxxvii.  8)  gives  of  the  topazos 
evidently  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  that  stone  is 
our  chrysolite  ;  "  the  topazos,"  he  says,  "  is  still  held 
in  high  estimation  for  its  green  tints."  According 
to  the  authority  of  Juba,  cited  by  Pliny,  the  topaz 
is  derived  from  an  island  in  the  Red  Sea  called 
"  Topazos  ;  "  it  is  said  that  this  island,  where  these 
precious  stones  were  procured,  was  surrounded  by 
fogs,  and  was,  in  consequence,  often  sought  for  by 
navigators,  and  that  hence  it  received  its  name,  the 
term  "  topazin  "  signifying,  in  the  Troglodyte  tongue, 
"  to  seek  "  (?).  The  pitdah,  which,  as  has  already 
been  stated,  probably  denotes  the  modern  chrysolite, 
was  the  second  stone  in  the  first  row  of  the  high- 
priest's  breast-plate  (Ex.  xxviii.  17,  xxxix.  10)  ;  it 
was  one  of  the  jewels  that  adorned  the  apparel  of 
the  king  of  Tyre  (Ezek.  xxviii.  13)  ;  it  was  the 
bright  stone  that  garnished  the  ninth  foundation 
of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  (Rev.  xxi.  20)  ;  in  Job 
xxviii.  19,  where  wisdom  is  contrasted  with  precious 
articles,  it  is  said  that  "  thepitddh  of  Ethiopia  shall 
not  equal  it."  Chrysolite,  which  is  also  known  by 
the  name  of  olivine  and  peridot,  is  a  silicate  of  mag- 
nesi.  and  iron  ;  it  is  so  soft  as  to  lose  its  polish  unless 
worn  with  care  (Mineralogy,  and  Crystallography, 
by  Mitchell  and  Tennant,  p.  512).  The  identity  of 
the  roir^iov  with  the  PHES  of  the  Heb.  Bible 
is  sufficiently  established  by  the  combined  autho 
rities  of  the  LXX.,  the  Vulg.,  and  Josephus,  while 
that  of  the  Toird&ov  with  our  chrysolite  is,  it 
appears  to  us,  proved  beyond  a  doubt  by  those 
writers  who  have  paid  most  attention  to  this  ques 
tion.  See  Braun,  De  Vest.  Sac.  Heb.  p.  641,  ed. 
1680.  [W.  H.] 

TO'PHEL  (^ah  :  To(p6\  :  Thophel).  A  place 
mentioned  Deut.  i.  1,  which  has  been  probably 
identified  with  Tufileh  on  a  wady  of  the  same  name 
running  north  of  Bozra  towards  the  N.W.  into  the 
Ghor  and  S.E.  corner  of  the  Dead  Sea  (Robinson, 
u.  570).  This  latter  is  a  most  fertile  region,  hav 
ing  many  springs  and  rivulets  flowing  into  the  Gilo: 


and  large  plantations  of  fruit-trees,  whence  figs  are 
exported.  The  bird  katta,  a  kind  of  partridge,  is 
found  there  in  great  numbers,  and  the  steinbock 
pastures  in  herds  of  forty  or  fifty  together  (Burck 
nardt,  Holy  Land,  405-6).  [H.  H.] 

TO'PHETH,  and  once  TO'PHET,  (fish). 
Generally  with  the  article  (2  K.  xxiii.  10 ;  Jer.  vii. 
31,  32,  xix.  6,  13,  14).  Three  times  without  it 
(Jer.  vii.  32,  xix.  It,  12).  Once  not  only  without 
it,  but  with  an  affix,  nfiStfl,  Tophteh  (Is.  xxx.  33). 
In  Greek,  Ta#e'0,  Tax^/9,  and  0o<J>0c£  (Steph.  Lex. 
Foe.  Peregrin.  ;  Biel,  Thes.).  In  the  Vulgate, 
Thopheth.  In  Jerome,  Tophet.  It  is  not  men 
tioned  by  Josephus. 

It  lay  somewhere  east  or  south-east  of  Jerusa 
lem,  for  Jeremiah  went  out  by  the  Sun-gate,  or 
east  gate,  to  go  to  it  (Jer.  xix.  2).  It  was  in  "  the 
Valley  of  the  Son  of  Hinnom  "  (vii.  31 ),  which  is 
"  by  tne  entry  of  the  east  gate  "  (xix.  2).  Thus  it 
was  not  identical  with  Hinnom,  as  some  have 
written,  except  in  the  sense  in  which  Paradise  is 
identical  with  Eden,  the  one  being  part  of  the 
other.  It  was  in  Hinnom,  and  was  perhaps  one  of 
its  chief  groves  or  gardens.  It  seems  also  to  have 
been  part  of  the  king's  gardens,  and  watered  by 
Siloam,  perhaps  a  little  to  the  south  of  the  present 
Birket  el-Hamra.  The  name  Tophet  occurs  only  in 
the  Old  Testament  (2  K.  xxiii.  10  ;  Is.  xxx.  33  ; 
Jer.  vii.  31,  32,  xix.  6,  11,  12,  13,  14).  The  New 
does  not  refer  to  it,  nor  the  Apocrypha.  Jerome 
is  the  first  who  notices  it ;  but  we  can  see  that 
by  his  time  the  name  had  disappeared,  for  he  dis 
cusses  it  very  much  as  a  modern  commentator 
would  do,  only  mentioning  a  green  and  fruitful 
spot  in  Hinnom,  watered  by  Siloam,  where  he 
assumes  it  was  :  "  Delubrum  Baal,  nemus  ac  lucus, 
Siloe  fontibus  irrigatus"  (In  Jer.  vii.).  If  this 
be  the  case,  we  must  conclude  that  the  valley 
or  gorge  south  of  Jerusalem,  which  usually  goes 
by  the  name  of  Hinnom,  is  not  the  Ge-Ben- 
Hinnom  of  the  Bible.  Indeed,  until  comparatively 
modern  timts,  that  southern  ravine  was  never  so 
named.  Hinnom  by  old  writers,  western  and 
eastern,  is  always  placed  east  of  the  city,  and  coi> 
responds  to  what  we  call  the  "  Mouth  of  the 
Tyropoeon,"  along  the  southern  bed  and  banks  of 
the  Kedron  (Jerome,  De  Locis  Hebr.  and  Comm.  in 
Matt.  x.  28;  Ibn  Batutah,  Travels;  Jalal  Addin's 
History  of  the  Temple;  Felix  Fabri),  and  was 
reckoned  to  be  somewhere  between  tne  Potter's 
Field  and  the  Fuller's  Pool. 

Tophet  has  been  variously  translated.  Jerome 
says  latitudo  ;  others  garden  ;  others  drum ;  others 
place  of  burning  or  burying  ;  others  abomination 
(Jerome,  Noldius,  Gesenius,  Bochart,  Simonis, 
Onom.).  The  most  natural  seems  that  suggested 
by  the  occurrence  of  the  word  in  two  consecutive 
verses,' in  the  one  of  which  it  is  a  tabret,  and  in  the 
other  Tophet  (Is.  xxx.  32,  33).  The  Hebrew  words 
are  nearly  identical ;  and  Tophet  was  probably  the 
king's  "  music-grove"  or  garden,  denoting  ori 
ginally  nothing  evil  or  hateful.  Certainly  there  is 
no  proof  that  it  took  its  name  from  the  drums 
beaten  to  drown  the  cries  of  the  burning  victims 
that  passed  through  the  fire  to  Moloch.  As  Chin- 
neroth  is  the  harp-sea,  so  Tophet  is  the  tabret-grovt 
or  valley.  This  might  be  at  first  part  of  the  royal 
garden,  a  spot  of  special  beauty,  with  a  royal  \illa 
in  the  midst,  like  the  Pasha's  palace  at  Shubra, 
near  Cairo.  Afterwards  it  was  defiled  by  idols, 
and  polluted  by  the  sacrifices  of  Baal  and  the  free 


1564 


TOPHETH 


of  Moloch.  Then  it  became  the  plnce  of  abomina 
tion,  the  very  gate  or  pit  of  hell.  The  pious 
kings  defiled  it,  and  threw  down  its  altars  and 
high  places,  pouring  into  it  all  the  filth  of  the  city, 
till  it  became  the  "  abhorrence  "  of  Jerusalem  ;  for 
to  it  primarily,  though  not  exhaustively,  the  pro 
phet  refers : — 

They  shall  go  forth  and  gaze 

On  the  carcases  of  the  transgressors  against  me : 

For  their  worm  shall  not  die, 

And  their  fire  shall  not  be  quenched, 

And  they  shall  be  an  abhorrence  to  all  flesh. 

(Is.  Ixvi.  24.) 

In  Kings  and  Jeremiah  the  name  is  "  the  Tophet," 
but  in  Isaiah  (xxx.  33)  it  is  Tophteh ;  yet  the  places 
are  probably  the  same  so  far,  only  in  Isaiah's  time 
the  grove  might  be  changing  its  name  somewhat, 
and  with  that  change  taking  on  the  symbolic  mean 
ing  which  it  manifestly  possesses  in  the  prophet's 
prediction : — 

Set  in  order  in  days  past  has  been  Tophteh ; 

Surely  for  the  king  it  has  been  made  ready. 

He  hath  deepened,  he  hath  widened  it  ;a 

The  pile  thereof,  fire  and  wood,  he  hath  multiplied. 

The  breath  of  Jehovah,  like  a  stream  of  brimstone, 

Doth  set  it  on  fire. 

I*  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  LXX.  translate  the 
above  passage  in  a  peculiar  way:  irpb  inu.fp£>v 
aTrairr)6-i]<Tri,  "  thou  shalt  be  required  from  of 
old,"  or  perhaps  "  before  thy  time ;"  but  Jerome 
translates  the  LXX.  as  if  their  word  had  been 
f^airardu  (or  adereta,  as  Procopius  reads  it),  and 
not  cbroiTew,  "  tu  ante  dies  decipieris"  adding 
this  comment :  "  Dicitur  ad  ilium  quod  ab  initio 
seipse  deceperit,  regnum  suum  arbitrans  sempi- 
ternum,  cum  preparata  sint  Gehenna  et  etema 
supplicia."  In  that  case  the  Alexandrian  trans 
lators  perhaps  took  nflSn  for  the  second  person 
singular  masculine  of  the  future  Piel  of  nflS), 
to  persuade  or  deceive.  It  may  be  noticed  that 
Michaelis  renders  it  thus:  "Tophet  ejus,  q.  d. 
rogus  ejus."  In  Jer.  xix.  6,  13,  the  Sept.  trans 
late  Tophet  by  Sufa-roxm,  StaTrtVrwj/,  which  is  not 
easily  explained,  except  on  the  supposition  of  a 
marginal  gloss  having  crept  into  the  text  instead 
of  the  proper  name  (see  Jerome ;  and  also  Spohn 
on  the  Greek  version  of  Jer.  Pref.  p.  18,  and  Notes 
on  chaps,  xix.  xiii.). 

In  Jer.  (vii.  32,  xix.  6)  there  is  an  intimation 
that  both  Tophet  and  Gehianom  were  to  lose  their 
names,  and  to  be  called  "  4he  valley  of  slaughter" 
(nrinn  SOS,  Ge-ha-H&i-egdh*}.  Without  ven 
turing  on  the  conjecture  that  the  modern  Deraj 
can  be  a  relic  of  Jfaregdh,  we  may  yet  say  that 
this  lower  part  of  the  Kedron  is  "  the  valley  of 
slaughter,"  whether  it  ever  actually  bore  this  name 
or  not.  It  was  not  here,  as  ^ome  have  thought, 
that  the  Assyrian  was  slain  by  the  sword  of  the 
destroying  angel.  That  slaughter  seems  to  have 
taken  place  to  the  west  of  the  city,  probably  on  the 
spot  afterwards  called  from  the  event,  "  the  valley 
of  the  dead  bodies  "  (Jer.  xxxi.  40).  The  slaughter 
from  which  Tophet  was  to  get  its  new  name  was 
not  till  afterwards.  In  all  succeeding  ages,  blood 
has  flowed  there  in  streams ;  corpses,  buried  and 
unburied,  have  filled  up  the  hollows ;  and  it  may 
be  that  underneath  the  modern  gardens  and  ter- 

»  Of  the  literal  Tophet  it  is  said,  "  They  shall  bury  in 
lophet,  till  there  be  noplace  "  (Jer.  vii.  32).  Of  the  sym- 
fcolical  Tophet  it  is  said  above  "  He  hath  deepened  and 


TORTOISE 

races  there  lie  not  only  the  debris  of  the  city,  hut 
the  bones  and  dust  of  millions  —  Romans  Persians, 
Jews,  Greeks,  Crusaders,  Moslems.  What  future 
days  and  events  may  bring  is  not  for  us  to  say. 
Perhaps  the  prophet's  words  are  not  yet  exhausted. 

Strange  contrast  between  Tophet's  first  and  last  1 
Once  the  choice  grove  of  Jerusalem's  choicest  val 
ley  ;  then  the  place  of  defilement  and  death  and 
fire  ;  then  the  "  valley  of  slaughter  "  !  Once  the 
royal  music-grove,  where  Solomon's  singers,  with 
voice  and  instrument,  regaled  the  king,  the  court, 
and  the  city;  then  the  temple  of  Baal,  the  high 
place  of  Moloch,  resounding  with  the  cries  of  burn 
ing  infants  ;  then  (in  symbol)  the  place  where  is 
the  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth.  Once  prepared 
for  Israel's  king,  as  one  of  his  choicest  villas  ;  then 
degraded  and  defiled,  till  it  becomes  the  place  pre 
pared  for  "  the  King  "  at  the  sound  of  whose  fall 
the  nations  are  to  shake  (Ez.  xxxi.  16)  ;  and  as 
Paradise  and  Eden  passed  into  Babylon,  so  Tophet 
and  Ben  Hinnom  pass  into  Gehenna  and  the  lake 
of  fire.  These  scenes  seem  to  have  taken  hold  of 
Milton's  mind  ;  for  three  times  over,  within  fifty 
lines,  he  refers  to  "  the  opprobrious  hill,"  the 
"  hill  of  scandal,"  the  "  offensive  mountain,"  and 
speaks  of  Solomon  making  his  grove  in 

"  The  pleasant  valley  of  Hinnom,  Tophet  thence 
And  black  Gehenna  called,  the  type  of  hell." 

Many  of  the  old  travellers  (see  Felix  Fabri,  vol. 
i.  p.  391)  refer  to  Tophet,  or  Toph  as  they  call  it, 
but  they  give  no  infoiination  as  to  the  locality. 
Every  vestige  of  Tophet  —  name  and  grove  —  is 
gone,  and  we  can  only  guess  at  the  spot  ;  yet  the 
references  of  Scripture  and  the  present  features  of 
the  locality  enable  us  to  make  the  guess  with  the 
same  tolerable  nearness  as  we  do  in  the  case  of 
Gethsemane  or  Scopus.  [H.  B.] 

TOE'MAH  (n»nn  :   fr  Kpvtyrj  ;   Alex,  /iera 

Stapuv  :  dam)  occurs  only  in  the  margin  of  Judg. 
ix.  31,  as  the  alternative  rendering  of  the  Hebrew 
word  which  in  the  text  is  given  as  "  privily."  By 
a  few  commentators  it  has  been  conjectured  that 
the  word  was  originally  the  same  with  ARUM  AH  in 
ver.  41  —  one  or  the  other  having  been  corrupted 
by  the  copyists.  This  appears  to  have  been  first 
started  by  Kimchi.  It  is  adopted  by  Junius  and 
Tremellius  ;  but  there  is  little  to  be  said  either  for 
or  against  it,  and  it  will  probably  always  remain  a 
mere  conjecture.  [G.] 

TORTOISE  (2V,  tsdb:  6  KpoKo8ei\o.s  6  %«P- 
ffaios  :  crocodilus).  The  tsdb  occurs  only  in  Lev. 
xi.  29,  as  the  name  of  some  unclean  animal.  Bochari 
(Hieroz.  ii.  463)  with  much  reason  refers  the  Heb. 

5  ~ 
term  to  the  kindred  Arabic  dhab  (c^*^)>  "  a  large 


kind  of  lizard,"  which,  from  the  description  of  it  as 
given  by  Damir,  appears  to  be  the  Psammosauncs 
Scincus,  or  Monitor  terrestris  of  Cuvier  (H.  A.  ii 
26).  This  lizard  is  the  waran  el-hard  of  the  Arabs 
i.  e.  the  land-waran,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
waran  el-bahr,  i.  e.  the  water-lizard  (Monitor  Ni- 
loticus).  It  is  common  enough  in  the  deserts  of 
Palestine  and  N.  Africa.  It  is  no  doubt  the  Kpoitd- 
SetAos  xePffc"os  of  Herodotus  (iv.  192).  See  alsc 
Dioscorides  (ii.  71),  who  mentions  it,  or  perhaps 


widened  it." 

b  Can  the  Eroge  of  Josephus  (Ant.  ix.  10,  $4)  have  any 
connexion  with  the,  Haregdh  of  Jeremiah  i 


TOU 

tlie  Scincus  officinalis,  under  the  name 
Gesenius  derives  the  Heb.  word  from 
move  slo 


TRACHONITIS 


1505 


[W.H.I 


TO'U  (Wh  :  @o>a  ;  Alex.  QcoojJ :  Thoii}.  Toi, 
king  of  Hamath  (1  Chr.  xviii.  9,  10). 

TOWER."  For  towers  as  parts  of  city-walk, 
or  as  strongholds  of  refuge  for  villages,  see  FENCED 
CITIES,  JERUSALEM,  i.  1021-1027,  and  HANA- 
NEEL.  Watch-towers  or  fortified  posts  in  frontier  or 
exposed  situations  are  mentioned  in  Scripture,  as  the 
tower  of  Edar,  &c.  (Gen.  xxxv.  21 ;  Mic.  iv.  8;  Is. 
xxi.  5,  8,  11 ;  Hab.  ii.  1 ;  Jer.  vi.  27  ;  Cant.  vii.  4) ; 
the  tower  of  Lebanon,  perhaps  one  of  David's 
"  garrisons,"  netsib  (2  Sam.  viii.  6 ;  Raiimer,  Pal. 
p.  29).  Such  towers  or  outposts  for  the  defence  of 
wells,  and  the  protection  of  flocks  and  of  commerce, 
were  built  by  Uzziah  in  the  pasture  -  grounds 
(Midbar)  [DESERT],  and  by  his  son  Jotham  in 
the  forests  (Choreshim)  of  Judah  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  10, 
xxvii.  4).  Remains  of  such  fortifications  may  still 
be  seen,  which,  though  not  perhaps  themselves  of 
remote  antiquity,  yet  very  probably  have  succeeded 
to  more  ancient  structures  built  in  the  same  places 
for  like  purposes  (Robinson,  ii.  81,  85, 180  ;  Roberts, 
Sketches,  pi.  93).  Besides  these  military  structures, 
we  read  in  Scripture  of  towers  built  in  vineyards  as 
an  almost  necessary  appendage  to  them  (Is.  v.  2 ; 
Matt.  xxi.  33  ;  Mark  xii.  1).  Such  towers  are  still 
in  use  in  Palestine  in  vineyards,  especially  near 
Hebron,  and  are  used  as  lodges  for  the  keepers  of 
the  vineyards.  During  the  vintage  they  are  filled 
with  the  persons  employed  in  the  work  of  gathering 
the  grapes  (Robinson,  i.  213,  ii.  81 ;  Martineau,  East. 
Zz/<?,p.434;  De  Saulcy,  from.  i.  546).  [H.  W.  P.] 

TOWN-CLEKK(7pa/z/xaTe^:  scribci).  The 
title  ascribed  in  our  Version  to  the  magistrate  at 
Ephesus  who  appeased  the  mob  in  the  theatre  at 
the  time  of  the  tumult  excited  by  Demetrius  and 


hifc  fellow-craftsmen  (Acts  xix.  35).  The  other 
primary  English  versions  translate  in  the  same  way, 
except  those  from  the  Vulgate  (Wiclif,  the  Rhemish), 
which  render  "  scribe."  A  digest  of  Boeckh's  views, 
in  his  Staatshaushaltung,  respecting  the  functions 
of  this  officer  at  Athens  (there  were  three  grades 
of  the  order  there),  will  be  found  in  Diet,  of  Ant. 
p.  459  sq.  The  ypa/i/uareus  or  "  town-clerk  "  at 
Ephesus  wa\  no  doubt  a  more  important  person  in 
that  city  thai  any  of  the  public  officers  designated 
by  that  term  Jn  Greece  (see  Greswell's  Dissertations, 
iv.  152).  The  title  is  preserved  on  various  ancient 
coins  (Wetstein,  Nov.  Test.  ii.  586  ;  Akermann's 
Numismatic  Illustrations,  p.  53),  which  illustrate 
fully  the  rank  and  dignity  of  the  office.  It  would 
appear  that  what  may  have  been  the  original  ser 
vice  of  this  class  of  men,  viz.  to  record  the  laws 
and  decrees  of  the  state,  and  to  read  them  in  public, 
embraced  at  length,  especially  under  the  ascendency 
of  the  Romans  in  Asia  Minor,  a  much  wider  sphere 
of  duty,  so  as  to  make  them,  in  some  instances,  in 
effect  the  heads  or  chiefs  of  the  municipal  govern 
ment  (Winer,  Realw.  i.  649).  They  were  autho 
rised  to  preside  over  the  popular  assemblies  and 
submit  votes  to  them,  and  are  mentioned  on  marbles 
as  acting  in  that  capacity.  In  cases  where  they 
were  associated  with  a  superior  magistrate,  they 
succeeded  to  his  place  and  discharged  his  functions 
when  the  latter  was  absent  or  had  died.  "  On  the 
subjugation  of  Asia  by  the  Romans,"  says  Baum- 
stark  (Pauly's  Encyclopaedic,  iii.  949),  "  ypa/ji.- 
jUaTe?s  were  appointed  there  in  the  character  of 
govern^'-s  of  single  cities  and  districts,  who  even 
placed  their  names  on  the  coins  of  their  cities, 
caused  the  year  to  be  named  from  them,  and  some 
times  were  allowed  to  assume  the  dignity,  or  at 
least  the  name,  of  'Apxtfpfvs."  This  writer  refers 
as  his  authorities  to  Schwartz,  Dissertatio  de  ypafM- 
fj.ar€vfft,  Magistrate,  Civitatum  Asiae  Proconsulis 
(Altorf,  1735)  ;  Van  Dale,  Dissertat.  v.  425  ;  Span- 
heim,  De  Usu  et  Praest.  Numin.  i.  704.  A  good 
note  on  this  topic  will  be  found  in  the  New  Eng- 
lander  (U..S.  A.),  x.  144. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  from  Luke's  account,  as 
llustrated  by  ancient  records,  that  the  Ephesian 
town-clerk  acted  a  part  entirely  appropriate  to  the 
character  in  which  he  appears.  The  speech  deli 
vered  by  him,  it  may  be  remarked,  is  the  model  ot 
a  popular  harangue.  He  argues  that  such  excite 
ment  as  the  Ephesians  evinced  was  undignified, 
nasmuch  as  they  stood  above  all  suspicion  in 
religious  matters  (Ants  xix.  35,  36)  ;  that  it  was 
unjustifiable,  since  they  could  establish  nothing 
against  the  men  whom  they  accused  (ver.  37)  ;  that 
t  was  unnecessary,  since  other  means  of  redress 
were  open  to  them  (vers.  38,  39)  ;  and,  finally,  it 
neither  pride  nor  a  sense  of  justice  availed  anything, 
"ear  of  the  Roman  power  should  restrain  them  from 
such  .illegal  proceedings  (ver.  40).  [H.  B.  H.J 


TRACHONITIS  (Tpaxo^ns  :  Trachonifui). 
This  place  is  mentioned  only  once  in  the  Bible.     In 


*  1-  JH2,  pn2,  and  J-irO  ;  eTraX^s  ;  from  (113, 
"  search,"  "  explore,"  a  searcher  or  watcher  ;  and 
hense  the  notion  of  a  watch-tower.  In  Is.  xxxil.  14, 
the  tower  of  Ophel  is  probably  meant  (Neh.  iii.  26; 
Ges.  198). 


,  and 


;  turris  ; 


from  713,  "  become  great  "  (Ges.  265),  used  sometimes 
as  a  proper  name.    [Mir.DOL.] 


3.  11 VD  ;  irerpa;  munttio;  only  once  "tower,"  Hab. 
1.1        ,  T 

4.  7SV  ;  ol/cos ;  domus ;  only  in  2  K.  v.  24.    [OPHEL.] 

5.  i"!33,  usually  "corner/'  twice  only  "tower,"  Zcph 
.  16,  iii.  6  ;  ywia.;  angulus. 

nSVp  ;  (TKOTrid;  specula',  "watch-tower."    [Miz< 

PAH.]     *    :    ' 

7.  231^0  ;  6xvpu>Ma;  robur;  only  in  po^ry. 


1566 


TRACHONITIS 


Lukeih.  1  we  read  that  Philip  "was  tetrarch  of  | 
Ituraea,  teal  Tpax^viriSos  x(*>Pas  j"  an(^  ^  appeal's 
that  this  "  Trachonite  region,"  in  addition  to  the 
little  province  of  Trachonitis,  included  parts  of 
Auranitis,  Gaulanitis,  and  Batanaea  (Joseph.  Ant. 
xvii.  8,  §1,  and  11,  §4). 

Trachonitis  is,  in  all  probability,  the  Greek  equi 
valent  for  the  Aramaic  Argob.  The  Targumists 
render  the  word  3IHK,  in  Deut.  iu,  14,  by  K3D"ltD. 
According  to  Gesenius,  231N  signifies  "  a  heap  of 
stones,"  from  the  root  H3"l,  "  to  pile  up  stones." 
So  TpaxuriTis  or  Tpax<t>t>  is  a  "  rugged  or  stony 
tract."  William  of  Tyre  gives  a  curious  etymology 
of  the  word  Trachonitis  :  —  "  Videtur  autem  uobis  a 
traconibus  dicta.  Tracones  enim  dicuntur  occulti 
et  subterranei  meatus,  quibus  ista  regio  abundat  " 
(Gest.  Dei  per  Francos,  p.  895).  Be  this  as  it  may, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  whole  region  abounds 
in  caverns,  some  of  which  are  cf  vast  extent.  Strabo 
refers  to  the  caves  in  the  mountains  beyond  Trachon 
(Geog.  xvi.),  and  he  affirms  that  one  of  them  is  so 
large  that  it  would  contain  4000  men.  The  writer 
has  visited  some  spacious  caves  in  Jebel  Hauran, 
and  in  the  interior  of  the  Lejah. 

The  situation  and  boundaries  of  Trachonitis  can 
be  defined  with  tolerable  accuracy  from  the  notices 
in  Josephus,  Strabo,  and  other  writers.  From 
Josephus  we  gather  that  it  lay  south  of  Damascus, 
and  east  of  Gaulanitis,  and  that  it  bordered  on 
Auranitis  and  Batanaea  (B.  J.  iv.  1,  §1,  i.  20,  §4, 
iii.  10,  §7).  Strabo  says  there  were  8i5o  Tpax<ai/€s 
(Geog.  xvi.).  From  Ptolemy  we  learn  that  it  bor 
dered  on  Batanaea,  near  the  town  of  Saccaea  (Geog. 
xv.).  In  the  Jerusalem  Gemara  it  is  made  to  extend 
as  far  south  as  Bostra  (Lightfoot,  Opp.  ii.  473). 
Kusebius  and  Jerome,  though  they  err  in  confound 
ing  it  with  Ituraea,  yet  the  latter  rightly  defines 
its  position,  as  lying  between  Bostra  and  Damascus 
(Onom.  s.  v.).  Jerome  also  states  that  Kenath  was 
one  of  its  chief  towns  (Onom.  s.  v.  "  Canath"). 

From  these  data  we  have  no  difficulty  in  fixing 
the  position  of  Trachonitis.  It  included  the  whole 


of  the  modem  province  called  el-Lejah 
>*Jth  a  section  of  the  plain  southward,  and  also  a 
part  of  the  western  declivities  of  Jebel  Haursln. 
This  may  explain  Strabo's  two  iiachons.  The 
identity  of  the  Lejah  and  Trachonitis  does  not  rest 
merely  on  presumptive  evidence.  On  the  northern 
border  of  the  province  are  the  extensive  ruins  of 
Musmeih,  where,  on  the  door  of  a  beautiful  temple, 
Burckhardt  discovered  an  inscription,  from  which 
it  appears  that  this  is  the  old  city  of  Phocus,  and 
the  capital  of  Trachonitis  (^rpoKca/jLia  Tpax&vos, 
Trav.  in  Syr.  117).  The  Lejah  is  bounded  on  the 
east  by  the  mountains  of  Batanaea  (now  Jebel 
Hauran),  on  whose  slopes  are  the  ruins  of  Saccaea 
and  Kenath  ;  on  the  south  by  Auranitis  (now 
Hauran),  in  which  are  the  extensive  ruins  of  Bostra  ; 
on  the  west  by  Gaulanitis  (now  Jaulan)  ;  and  on 
the  north  by  Ituraea  (now  Jedur)  and  Damascus. 
If  all  other  proofs  were  wanting,  a  comparison  of 
the  features  of  the  Lejah  with  the  graphic  descrip 
tion  Josephus  gives  of  Trachonitis  would  be  suffi 
cient  to  establish  the  identity.  The  inhabitants,  he 
says,  "  had  neither  towns  nor  fields,  but  dwelt  in 
saves  that  served  as  a  refuge  both  for  themselves 
and  their  flocks.  They  had,  besides,  cisterns  of 
water  and  well-stored  granaries,  and  were  thus  able 

0  In  Mark  v.  42  and  xvi.  8  it  is  used  simply  for  astonish- 
rnev/t  mingled  with  awe,  not  for  the  trance  state. 


TRANCE 

to  remain  long  in  obscurity  and  to  defy  theii 
enemies.  The  doors  of  their  caves  are  so  narrow 
that  but  one  man  can  enter  at  a  time,  while  within 
they  are  incredibly  large.  The  ground  above  is 
almost  a  plain,  but  it  is  covered  with  rugged  rocks, 
and  is  difficult  of  access,  except  where  a  guide 
points  out  the  paths.  These  paths  do  not  run  in  a 
straight  course,  but  have  many  windings  and  turns "' 
(Ant.  xv.  10,  §1).  A  description  of  the  Lejah  has 
been  given  above  [ARGOB],  with  which  this  may 
be  compared. 

The  notices  of  Trachonitis  in  history  are  few  and 
brief.  Josephus  affirms  that  it  was  colonised  by 
Uz  the  son  of  Aram  (Ant.  i.  6,  §4).  His  next 
reference  to  it  is  when  it  was  held  by  Zenodorus, 
the  bandit-chief.  Then  its  inhabitants  made  fre 
quent  raids,  as  their  successors  do  still,  upon  the 
territories  of  Damascus  (Ant.  xv.  10,  §1).  Au 
gustus  took  it  from  Zenodorus,  and  gave  it  to 
Herod  the  Great,  on  condition  that  he  should  repress 
the  robbers  (Ant.  xvi.  9,  §1).  Herod  bequeathed 
it  to  his  son  Philip,  and  his  will  was  confirmed  by 
Caesar  (B.  J.  ii.  6,  §3).  This  is  the  Philip  referred 
to  in  Luke  iii.  1.  At  a  later  period  it  passed  into 
the  hands  of  Herod  Agrippa  (B.  J.  iii.  3,  §5). 
After  the  conquest  of  this  part  of  Syria  by  Cornelius 
Palma,  in  the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  we 
hear  no  more  of  Trachonitis  (Burckhardt,  Trav. 
in  Syr.  110  sq. ;  Porter,  Damascus,  ii.  240-275; 
Journ.  Geog.  Soc.  xxviii.  250-252).  [J.  L.  P.] 

TRANCE  (^Kffracris :  excessus).  (1.)  In  the 
only  passage  (Num.  xxiv.  4,  16)  in  which  this  word 
occurs  in  the  English  of  the  0.  T.  there  is,  as  the 
italics  shew,  no  corresponding  word  in  Hebrew, 

simply  7EO,  "falling,"  for  which  the  LXX.  gives 
ei/  virvcp,  and  the  Vulg.  more  literally  qui  cadit. 
The  Greek  fKffraffis  is,  however,  used  as  the  equi 
valent  for  many  Hebrew  words,  signifying  dread, 
fear,  astonishment  (Trommii  Concordant.}.  In  the 
N.  T.  we  meet  with  the  word  three  times  (Acts  x. 
10,  xi.  5,  xxii.  17),  the  Vulgate  giving  "  excessus" 
in  the  two  former,  "  stupor  mentis  "  in  the  latter. 
Luther  uses  "  entziickt "  in  all  three  cases.  The 
meaning  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  words  is  obvious 
enough.  The  eKcrraffis  is  the  state  in  which  a 
man  has  passed  out  of  the  usual  order  of  his  life, 
beyond  the  usual  limits  of  consciousness  and  voli 
tion.  "Excessus,"  in  like  manner,  though  in 
classical  Latin  chiefly  used  as  an  euphemism  for 
death,  became,  in  ecclesiastical  writers,  a  synonyms 
for  the  condition  of  seeming  death  to  the  outer 
world,  which  we  speak  of  as  a  trance.  "  Hanc 
vim  ecstasiu  dicimus,  excessum  sensus,  et  amentiae 
instar"  (Tertull.  de  An.  c.  45).  The  history  of 
the  English  word  presents  an  interesting  parallel. 
The  Latin  "  transitus"  took  its  place  also  among  the 
euphemisms  for  death.  In  early  Italian  "  essere  in 
transito,"  was  to  be  as  at  the  point  of  death,  the 
pnssage  to  another  world.  Passing  into  French,  it 
also,  abbreviated  into  "  transe,"  was  applied,  not  to 
death  itself,  but  to  that  which  more  or  less  resembled 
it  (Diez,  Roman.  Worterbuch,  s.v.  "transito"). 

(2.)  Used  as  the  word  is  by  Luke,"  "  the  physi 
cian,"  and,  in  this  special  sense,  by  him  only,  in  the 
N.  T.,  it  would  be  interesting  to  inquire  what 
precise  meaning  it  had  in  the  medical  terminology 
of  the  time.  From  the  time  of  Hippocrates,  who 
uses  it  to  describe  the  loss  of  conscious  perception,1 


b  The  distinction  drawn  by  Hippocrates  and  Galen 
between   eKo-rao-eis    o-iyaxra*    and    eVar. 


TRANCE 

it  had  probably  borne  the  connotation  which  It 
has  had,  with  shades  of  meaning  for  good  or  evil, 
ever  since.  Thus,  Hesychius  gives  as  the  account  of 
a  man  in  an  ecstasy,  that  he  is  6  els  eaurbv  ^77  &v. 
Apuleius  (Apologia},  speaks  of  it  as  "  a  change 
from  the  earthly  mind  (curb  rov  yrfvov  <f>povr}- 
/uoToy)  to  a  divine  and  spiritual  condition  both  of 
character  and  life."  Tertullian  (I.  c.)  compares  it 
to  the  dream-state  in  which  the  soul  acts,  but 
not  through  its  usual  instruments.  Augustine 
(Confess,  ix.  11)  describes  his  mother  in  this  state 
as  "abstracta  a  praesentibus,"  and  gives  a  descrip 
tion  of  like  phenomena  in  the  case  of  a  certain 
Kesti  tutus  (de  Civ.  Dei,  xiv.  24). 

(3.)  We  may  compare  with  these  statements  the 
more  precise  definitions  of  modern  medical  science. 
There  the  ecstatic  state  appears  as  one  form  of 
catalepsy.  In  catalepsy  pure  and  simple,  there  is 
"  a  sudden  suspension  of  thought,  of  sensibility,  of 
voluntary  motion."  "  The  body  continues  in  any 
attitude  in  which  it  may  be  placed ;  "  there  are  no 
signs  of  any  process  of  thought ;  the  patient  con 
tinues  silent.  In  the  ecstatic  form  of  catalepsy,  on 
the  other  hand,  "  the  patient  is  lost  to  all  external 
impressions,  but  wrapt  and  absorbed  in  some  object 
of  the  imagination."  The  man  is  "as  if  out 
of  the  body."  "  Nervous  and  susceptible  per 
sons  are  apt  to  be  thrown  into  these  trances 
under  the  influence  of  what  is  called  mesmerism. 
There  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  high  degree  of 
mental  excitement.  The  patient  utters  the  most 
enthusiastic  and  fervid  expressions  or  the  most 
earnest  warnings.  The  character  of  the  whole 
frame  is  that  of  intense  contemplative  excitement. 
He  believes  that  he  has  seen  wonderful  visions  and 
heard  angular  revelations"  (Watson,  Principles 
and  Practice,  Lect.  xxxix.  ;  Copland,  Diet,  of  Me 
dicine,  s.  v.  "  Catalepsy  ").  The  canses  of  this  state 
are  to  be  traced  commonly  to  strong  religious  im 
pressions  ;  but  some,  though,  for  the  most  part,  not 
the  ecstatic,  phenomena  of  catalepsy  are  producible 
by  the  concentration  of  thought  on  one  object,  or  of 
the  vision  upon  one  fixed  point  (Quart.  Rev.  xciii. 
pp.  510-522,  by  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter;  comp. 
URIM  and  THUMMIM),  and,  in  some  more  excep 
tional  cases,  like  that  mentioned  by  Augustine 
(there,  however,  under  the  influence  of  sound, 
*'  ad  imitatas  quasi  lamentantis  cujuslibet  hominis 
voces"),  and  that  of  Jerome  Cardan  (Far.  Eer. 
viii.  43),  men  have  been  able  to  throw  themselves 
into  a  cataleptic  state  at  will. 

(4.)  Whatever  explanation  may  be  given  of  it,  it 
is  true  of  many,  if  not  of  most,  of  those  who  have 
left  the  stamp  of  their  own  character  on  the  reli 
gious  history  of  mankind,  that  they  have  been  liable 
to  pass  at  times  into  this  abnormal  state.  The 
union  of  intense  feeling,  strong  volition,  long-con 
tinued  thought  (the  conditions  of  all  wide  and 
'asting  influence),  aided  in  many  cases  by  the  with 
drawal  from  the  lower  life  of  the  support  which  is 
needed  to  maintain  a  healthy  equilibrium,  appears 
to  have  been  more  than  the  "  earthen  vessel "  will 
bear.  The  words  which  speak  of  "an  ecstasy  of 
adoration "  are  often  literally  true.  The  many 
visions,  the  journey  through  the  heavens,  the  so- 
called  epilepsy  of  Mahomet,  were  phenomena  of 


answers  obviously  to  that  of  later  writers  between  pure 
and  ecstatic  catalepsy  (comp.  Foesius,  Oeconom.  Hippocrat. 
E.  V.  tKerratris). 

*  Analogous  to  this  is  the  statement  of  Aristotle  (Prol. 
C.  30)  that  the  ueAayxoAtKoi  speak  often  in  wild  bursts  of 


TRANCE  1567 

this  nature.  Of  three  great  mediaeval  teachers,  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  Joannes 
Scotus,  it  is  recorded  that  they  would  fall  into  the 
ecstatic  state,  remain  motionless,  seem  as  if  dead, 
sometimes  for  a  whole  day,  and  then,  returning  to 
consciousness,  speak  as  if  they  had  drunk  deep  of 
divine  mysteries  (Gualtferius,  Crit.  Sac.  on  Acts  x. 
10).  The  old  traditions  of  Aristeas  and  Epimeni- 
des,  the  conflicts  of  Dunstan  and  Luther  with  the 
powers  of  darkness,  the  visions  of  Savonarola,  and 
George  Fox,  and  Swedenborg,  and  Bohmen,  are 
generically  analogous.  Where  there  has  been  no 
extraordinary  power  to  influence  others,  other 
conditions  remaining  the  same,  the  phenomena 
have  appeared  among  whole  classes  of  men  and 
women  in  proportion  as  the  circumstances  of 
their  lives  tended  to  produce  an  excessive  suscepti 
bility  to  religious  or  imaginative  emotion.  The 
histoiy  of  monastic  orders,  of  American  and  Irish 
revivals,  gives  countless  examples.  Still  more 
noticeable  is  the  fact  that  many  of  the  impro- 
visatori  of  Italy  are  "  only  able  to  exercise  their 
gift  when  they  are  in  a  state  of  ecstatic  trance,  and 
speak  of  the  gift  itself  as  something  morbid  "  c  (Cop 
land,  I.e.);  while  in  strange  contrast  with  their 
earlier  history,  and  pointing  perhaps  to  a  national 
character  that  has  become  harder  and  less  emo 
tional,  there  is  the  testimony  of  a  German  physician 
(Frank),  who  had  made  catalepsy  a  special  study, 
that  he  had  never  met  with  a  single  case  of  it  among 
the  Jews  (Copland,  J.c.).d 

(5.)  We  are  now  able  to  take  a  true  estimate  of 
the  trances  of  Biblical  histoiy.  As  in  other  things, 
so  also  here,  the  phenomena  are  common  to  higher 
and  lower,  to  true  and  false  systems.  The  nature 
of  man  continuing  the  same,  it  could  hardly  be 
that  the  awfulness  of  the  Divine  presence,  the 
terrors  of  Divine  judgment,  should  leave  it  in  the 
calm  equilibrium  of  its  normal  state.  Whatever 
made  the  impress  of  a  truth  more  indelible,  what 
ever  gave  him  to  whom  it  was  revealed  more  power 
over  the  hearts  of  others,  might  well  take  its  place 
in  the  Divine  education  of  nations  and  individual 
men.  We  may  not  point  to  trances  and  ecstasies  as 
proofs  of  a  true  Revelation,  but  still  less  may  we 
think  of  them  as  at  all  inconsistent  with  it.  Thus, 
though  we  have  not  the  word,  we  have  the  thing 
in  the  "  deep  sleep"  (tKcTTaais,  LXX.),  the  "  horror 
of  great  darkness,"  that  fell  on  Abraham  (Gen.  xv. 
12).  Balaam,  as  if  overcome  by  the  constraining 
power  of  a  Spirit  mightier  than  his  own,  "sees  the 
vision  of  God,  falling,  but  with  opened  eyes" 
(Num.  xxiv.  4).  Saul,  in  like  manner,  when  the 
wild  chant  of  the  prophets  stirred  the  old  depths 
of  feeling,  himself  also  "prophesied"  and  "fell 
down  "  (most,  if  not  all,  of  his  kingly  clothing  being 
thrown  off  in  the  ecstasy  of  the  moment),  "  all  that 
day  and  all  that  night"  (1  Sam.  xix.  24).  Some 
thing  there  was  in  Jeremiah  that  made  men  say 
of  him  that  he  was  as  one  that  "  is  mad  and  maketh 
himself  a  prophet"  (Jer.  xxix.  26).  In  Ezekiel  the 
phenomena  appear  in  more  wonderful  and  awful 
forms.  He  sits  motionless  for  seven  days  in  the 
stupor  of  astonishment,  till  the  word  of  the  Lord 
comes  to  him  (Ez.  iii.  15).  The  "  hand  of  the 
Lord  "  falls  on  him,  and  he  too  sees  the  «  visions  of 


poetry,  and  as  the  Sibyls  and  others  who  are  inspired 


eoi. 

A  fuller  treatment  of  U>e  whole  subject  than  can  b« 
entered  on  here  may  be  found  in  the  chaptei  on  Les  Mvi- 
tiques  in  Maury,  La  Magie  it  I' Asirolooie. 


1 568        TRESPASS-OFFERING 

God,"  and  hears  the  voice  of  the  Almighty,  is 
"  lifted  up  between  the  earth  and  heaven ,"  and  passes 
from  the  river  of  Chebar  to  the  Lord's  house  in 
Jerusalem  (Ez.  viii.  3). 

(6.)  As  other  elements  and  forms  of  the  prophetic 
work  were  revived  in  "  the  Apostles  and  Prophets  " 
of  the  N.  T.,  so  also  was  this.  More  distinctly  even 
than  in  the  0.  T.  it  becomes  the  medium  through 
which  men  rise  to  see  clearly  what  before  was  dim 
and  doubtful,  in  which  the  mingled  hopes  and  fears 
and  perplexities  of  the  waking  state  are  dissipated 
at  once.  Though  different  in  form,  it  belongs  to 
the  same  class  of  phenomena  as  the  GIFT  OF 
TONGUES,  and  is  connected  with  "  visions  and 
revelations  of  the  Lord."  In  some  cases,  indeed, 
it  is  the  chosen  channel  for  such  revelations.  To 
the  "trance"  of  Peter  in  the  city,  where  all  out 
ward  circumstances  tended  to  bring  the  thought  of 
an  expansion  of  the  Divine  kingdom  more  distinctly 
before  him  than  it  had  ever  been  brought  before, 
we  owe  the  indelible  truth  stamped  upon  the  heart 
of  Christendom,  that  God  is  "  no  respecter  of 
persons,"  that  we  may  not  call  any  man  "  com 
mon  or  unclean"  (Acts  x.,  xi.).  To  the  "  trance  " 
of  Paul,  when  his  work  for  his  own  people 
seemed  utterly  fruitless,  we  owe  the  mission  which 
was  the  starting-point  of  the  history  of  the  Uni 
versal  Church,  the  command  which  bade  him  "  de 
part  .  .  .  far  hence  unto  the  Gentiles  "  (Acts  xxii. 
17-21).  Wisely  for  the  most  part  did  that  Apostle 
draw  a  veil  over  these  more  mysterious  experiences. 
He  would  not  sacrifice  to  them ,  as  others  have  often 
sacrificed,  the  higher  life  of  activity,  love,  prudence. 
He  could  not  explain  them  to  himself.  "  In  the 
body  or  out  of  the  body  "  he  could  not  tell,  but  the 
outer  world  of  perception  had  passed  away,  and  he 
had  passed  in  spirit  into  "  paradise,"  into  "  the 
third  heaven,"  and  had  heard  "  unspeakable  words  " 
(2  Cor.  xii.  1-4).  Those  trances  too,  we  may  be 
lieve,  were  not  without  their  share  in  fashioning 
his  character  and  life,  though  no  special  truth  came 
distinctly  out  of  them.  United  as  they  then  were, 
but  as  they  have  seldom  been  since,  with  clear  per 
ceptions  of  the  truth  of  God,  with  love  wonderful 
in  its  depth  and  tenderness,  with  energy  unresting, 
and  subtle  tact  almost  passing  into  "  guile,"  they 
made  him  what  he  was,  the  leader  of  the  Apostolic 
band,  emphatically  the  "master  builder"  of  the 
Church  of  God  (comp.  Jowett,  Fragment  on  the 
Character  of  St.  Paul).  [E.  H.  P.] 

TRESPASS-OFFERING.  [SIN-OFFERING.] 

TRIAL.  Information  on  the  subject  of  trials 
under  the  Jewish  law  will  be  found  in  the  articles 
on  JUDGES  and  SANHEDRIM,  and  also  in  JESUS 
CHRIST.  A  few  remarks,  however,  may  here  be 
added  on  judicial  proceedings  mentioned  in  Scrip 
ture,  especially  such  as  were  conducted  before 
foreigners. 

(1.)  The  trial  of  our  Lord  before  Pilate  was,  in  a 
legal  sense,  a  trial  for  the  offence  laesae  majestatis  ; 
one  which,  under  the  Julian  Law,  following  out  that 
of  the  Twelve  Tables,  would  be  punishable  with 
death  (Luke  xxiii.  2,  38 ;  John  xix.  12,  15  ; 
Dig.  iv.  1,  3). 

(2.)  The  trials  of  the  Apostles,  of  St.  Stephen, 
and  of  St.  Paul  before  the  high-priest,  were  con 
ducted  according  to  Jewish  rules  (Acts  iv.,  v.  27, 
vi.  12,  xxii.  30,  xxiii.  1). 

(3.)  The  trial,  if  it  may  be  so  called,  of  St.  Paul 
urtd  Silas  at  Philippi,  was  held  before  the  duumviri, 
fir,  as  they  are  called,  ffrparriyoi,  praetors,  on  the 


TRIBUTE 

charge  of  innovation  in  religitu — a  crime  punish- 
able  with  banishment  or  death  (Acts  xvi.  19,  22 , 
Diet,  of  Antiq.  "Colonia,"  p.  318  ;  Conybeai-e  ani 
Howson,  i.  345,  355,  356). 

(4.)  The  interrupted  trial  of  St.  Paul  before  the 
pro-consul  Gallic,  was  an  attempt  made  by  the 
Jews  to  establish  a  charge  of  the  same  kind  (Acts 
xviii.  12-17  ;  Conybeare  and  Howson,  i.  492-496). 

(5.)  The  trials  of  St.  Paul  at  Caesarea  (Acts  xxiv., 
xxv.,  xxvi.)  were  conducted  according  to  Roman 
rules  of  judicature,  of  which  the  procurators  Felix 
and  Festus  were  the  recognised  administrators. 
(a.)  In  the  first  of  these,  before  Felix,  we  observe 
the  employment,  by  the  plaintiffs,  of  a  Roman 
advocate  to  plead  in  Latin.  [ORATOH.]  (6.)  The 
postponement  (ampliatio)  of  the  trial  after  St. 
Paul's  reply  (Diet,  of  Antiq.  "  Judex,"  p.  647). 
(c.)  The  free  custody  in  which  the  accused  was 
kept,  pending  the  decision  of  the  j  udge  (Acts  xxiv. 
23-26).  The  second  formal  trial,  before  Festus, 
was,  probably,  conducted  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
former  one  before  Felix  (Acts  xxv.  7,  8),  but  it  pre 
sents  two  new  features :  (a.)  the  appeal,  appellatio 
or  provocitio,  to  Caesar,  by  St.  Paul  as  a  Roman 
citizen.  The  right  of  appeal  ad  populum,  or  to  the 
tribunes,  became,  under  the  Empire,  transferred 
to  the  emperor,  and,  as  a  citizen,  St.  Paul  availed 
himself  of  the  right  to  which  he  was  entitled,  even 
in  the  case  of  a  provincial  governor.  The  effect 
of  the  appeal  was  to  remove  the  case  at  once  to  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  emperor  (Conybeare  and  How- 
son,  ii.  360;  Diet,  of  Antiq.  "  Appellatio,"  p.  107  ; 
Dig.  xlix.  1,  4).  (6.)  The  conference  of  the  pro 
curator  with  "the  council"  (Acts  xxv.  12).  This 
council  is  usually  explained  to  have  consisted  of  the 
assessors,  who  sat  on  the  bench  with  the  praetor  as 
consiliarii  (Suet.  Tib.  33  ;  Diet,  of  Antiq.  "  Asses 
sor,"  p.  143 ;  Grotius,  On  Acts  xxv.;  Conybeare  and 
Howson,  ii.  358,  361).  But  besides  the  absence  of 
any  previous  mention  of  any  assessors  (see  below), 
the  mode  of  expression  (ruAAaA^tras  /zero  rov 
ffvpfiovXlov  seems  to  admit  the  explanation  of 
conference  with  the  deputies  from  the  Sanhedrim 
(rb  (Tu/ij8.).  St.  Paul's  appeal  would  probably  be 
in  the  Latin  language,  and  would  require  explana 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  judge  to  the  deputation  of 
accusers,  before  he  carried  into  effect  the  inevitable 
result  of  the  appeal,  viz.  the  dismissal  of  the  case 
so  far  as  they  were  concerned. 

(6.)  We  have,  lastly,  the  mention  (Acts  xix.  38) 
of  a  judicial  assembly  which  held  its  session  at 
Ephesus,  in  which  occur  the  terms  ayopcuoi  (i.  e. 
jjfj.epai}  &yovrai,  and  avdviraroi.  The  former 
denotes  'the  assembly,  then  sitting,  of  provincial 
citizens  forming  the  conventus,  out  of  which  the 
proconsul,  avdinraros,  selected  "  judices  "  to  sit  as 
his  assessors.  The  avQinraroi  would  thus  be  the 
judicial  tribunal  composed  of  the  proconsul  and  his 
assessors.  In  the  former  case,  at  Caesarea,  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine  that  there  could  be  any  con 
ventus  and  any  provincial  assessors.  There  the 
only  class  of  men  qualified  for  such  a  function 
would  be  the  Roman  officials  attached  to  the  pro 
curator  ;  but  in  Proconsular  Asia  such  assemblies 
are  well  known  to  have  existed  (Diet,  of  Antiq. 
"  Provincia,"  pp.  965,  966,  967). 

Early  Christian  practice  discouraged  resort  to 
heathen  tribunals  in  civil  matters  (1  Cor.  vi.  1). 

[H.  W.  P.] 

TRIBUTE  (i-a  SiSpox^o,  didrachma,  Matt, 
xvii.  24  ;  KyvGos,  census,  ib.  25). 

(1.)  The  chief  Biblical  facts  connected  with  fta 


TRIBUTE 

tribute  have  been  already  given  under 
TAXES.  A  few  remain  to  be  added  in  connexion 
with  the  word  which  in  the  above  passage  is  thus 
rendered,  inaccurately  enough,  in  the  A.  V.  The 
payment  of  the  half-shekel  (=  halt- stcter  =  two 
drachmae)  was  (as  has  been  said)  [TAXES],  though 
resting  on  an  ancient  precedent  (Ex.  xxx.  13),  yet, 
in  its  character  as  a  fixed  annual  rate,  of  late  origin. 
It  was  proclaimed  according  to  Rabbinic  rules,  on 
the  first  of  Adar,  began  to  be  collected  on  the 
15th,  and  was  due,  at  latest,  on  the  first  of  Nisan 
(Mishna,  Shekalim,  i.  f.  7  ;  Surenhusius,  pp.  260, 
261).  It  was  applied  to  defray  the  general  ex 
penses  of  the  Temple,  the  morning  and  evening 
sacrifice,  the  incense,  wood,  shew-bread,  the  red 
neifers,  the  scape-goat,  &c.  (Shekal.  1.  c.  in  Light- 
foot,  Hor.  Heb.  on  Matt.  xvii.  24).  After  the 
destruction  of  the  Temple  it  was  sequestrated  by 
Vespasian  and  his  successors,  and  transferred  to  the 
Temple  of  the  Capitoline  Jupiter  (Joseph.  B.  J. 
vii.  6,  §6). 

(2.)  The  explanation  thus  given  of  the  "  tribute  " 
of  Matt.  xvii.  24,  is  beyond  all  doubt,  the  true  one. 
To  suppose  with  Chrysostom,  Augustine,  Maldo- 
natus,  and  others,  that  it  was  the  same  as  the 
tribute  (/crji/o-os)  paid  to  the  Roman  emperor  (Matt, 
xxii.  17),  is  at  variance  with  the  distinct  statements 
of  Josephus  and  the  Mishna,  and  takes  away  the 
whole  significance  of  our  Lord's  words.  It  may  be 
questioned,  however,  whether  the  full  significance 
of  those  words  is  adequately  brought  out  in  the 
popular  interpretation  of  them.  As  explained  by 
most  commentators,  they  are  simply  an  assertion 
by  our  Lord  of  His  divine  Sonship,  an  implied 
rebuke  of  Peter  for  forgetting  the  truth  which  he 
had  so  recently  confessed  (comp.  Wordsworth, 
Alford,  and  others)  :  "  Then  are  the  children  (viol) 
free;"  Thou  hast  owned  me  as  the  Son  of  the 
Living  God,  the  Son  of  the  Great  King,  of  the  Lord 
of  the  Temple,  in  whose  honour  men  pay  the  Temple- 
tribute  ;  why,  forgetting  this,  dost  thou  so  hastily 
make  answer  as  if  I  were  an  alien  and  a  stranger  ? 
True  as  this  exegesis  is  in  part,  it  fails  to  account 
for  some  striking  facts.  (1.)  The  plural,  not  the 
singular  is  used — "then  are  the  children  free." 
The  words  imply  a  class  of  "sons"  as  contrasted 
with  a  class  of  aliens.  (2.)  The  words  of  our  Lord 
here  must  be  interpreted  by  his  language  elsewhere. 
The  "  sons  of  the  kingdom  "  are,  as  in  the  Hebrew 
speech  of  the  0.  T.,  those  who  belong  to  it,  in  the 
Apostolic  language  "  heirs  of  the  kingdom  "  (Matt, 
viii.  12,  xiii.  38  ;  Jam.  ii.  5 ;  Rom.  viii.  17),  "sons 
of  God,"  "  children  of  their  Father  in  Heaven." 
(3.)  The  words  that  follow,  "  Give  unto  them 
for  me  and  thee,"  place  the  disciple  as  standing,  at 
least  in  some  degree,  on  the  same  ground  as  his 
Master.  The  principle  involved  in  the  words  "  then 
are  the  children  free  "  extends  to  him  also.  Pay 
ment  is  made  for  both,  not  on  different,  but  on  the 
same  grounds. 

(3.)  A  fuller  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  the  case 
may  help  us  to  escape  out  of  the  trite  routine  of 
commentators,  and  to  rise  to  the  higher  and  broader 
truth  implied  in  our  Lord's  teaching.  The  Temple- 
rate,  as  above  stated,  was  of  comparatively  late 
origin.  The  question  whether  the  costs  of  the 
morning  and  evening  sacrifice  ought  to  be  defrayed 
by  such  a  fixed  compulsory  payment,  or  left  to  the 
free-will  offerings  of  the  people,  had  been  a  con 
tested  point  between  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees, 
and  the  former  had  carried  the  day  after  a  long 
struggle  and  debate,  lasting  from  the  1st  to  thp 

VOfc.  III. 


TRIBUTE 


1569 


8th  day  of  Nisan.  So  great  was  the  tiiumph  iu 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  party,  that  they  kept  the 
anniversary  as  a  kind  of  half  festival.  The  Temple- 
rate  question  was  to  them  what  the  Church-rate 
question  has  been  to  later  Conservatives  (Jost,  Ge- 
schichte  des  Judenthums,  r.  218).  We  have  to 
remember  this  when  we  come  to  the  narrative  ol 
St.  Matthew.  In  a  hundred  different  wayj,  on  the 
questions  of  the  Sabbath,  of  fasting,  of  unwashed 
hands  and  the  like,  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  had 
been  in  direct  antagonism  to  that  of  the  Pharisees. 
The  collectors  of  the  rate,  probably,  from  the  nature 
of  their  functions,  adherents  of  the  Pharisee  party, 
now  come,  half-expecting  opposition  on  this  point 
also.  Their  words  imply  that  he  had  not  as  yet 
paid  the  rate  for  the  current  year.  His  life  of  con 
stant  wandering,  without  a  home,  might  seem 
like  an  evasion  of  it.  They  ask  tauntingly, 
"  Will  he  side,  on  this  point,  with  their  Sadducee 
opponents  and  refuse  to  pay  it  altogether  ?"  The 
answer  of  Peter  is  that  of  a  man  who  looks  on  the 
payment  as  most  other  Jews  looked  on  it.  With  no 
thought  of  any  higher  principle,  of  any  deeper 
truth,  he  answers  at  once,  "  His  Master  will  of 
course  pay  what  no  other  religious  Israelite  would 
refuse."  The  words  of  his  Lord  led  him  to  the 
truth  of  which  the  Pharisees  were  losing  sight. 
The  offerings  of  the  children  of  the  kingdom  should 
be  free,  and  not  compulsory.  The  Sanhedrim,  by 
making  the  Temple-offering  a  fixed  annual  tax,  col 
lecting  it  as  men  collected  tribute  to  Caesar,  were 
lowering,  not  raising  the  religious  condition  and 
character  of  the  people.  They  were  placing  every 
Israelite  on  the  footing  of  a  "  stranger,"  not  on  that 
of  a  "  son."  The  true  principle  for  all  such  offer 
ings  was  that  which  St.  Paul  afterwards  asserted, 
following  in  his  Master's  footsteps,  "  not  grudg 
ingly,  or  of  necessity,  for  God  loveth  a  cheerful 
giver."  In  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  any 
man  could  claim  the  title  of  a  Son  of  God,  in  that 
proportion  was  he  "  free"  from  this  forced  exaction. 
Peter,  therefore,  ought  to  have  remembered  that 
here  at  least,  was  one  who,  by  his  own  confession  as 
the  Son  of  the  Living  God,  was  ipso  facto  exempted. 

(4.)  The  interpretation  which  has  now  been  given 
leads  us  to  see,  in  these  words,  a  precept  as  wide 
and  far-reaching  as  the  yet  more  memorable  one, 
"  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  be  Caesar's, 
and  unto  God  the  things  that  be  God's."  They 
condemn,  instead  of  sanctioning,  the  compulsory 
payments  which  human  policy  has  so  often  substi 
tuted  for  the  "cheerful  gifts"  which  alone  God 
loves.  But  the  words  which  follow  condemn  also 
the  perversity  which  leads  men  to  a  spurious  mar 
tyrdom  in  resisting  such  payments.  "  Lest  w« 
should  offend  them  .  .  .  give  unto  them  for  me 
and  thee."  It  is  better  to  comply  with  the  pay 
ment  than  to  startle  the  weak  brethren,  or  run 
counter  to  'feelings  that  deserve  respect,  or  lay  an 
undue  stress  on  a  matter  of  little  moment.  In  such 
quarrels,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  both  parties 
are  equally  in  the  wrong.  If  the  quarrel  is  to 
find  a  solution,  it  must  be  by  a  mutual  acknow 
ledgment  that  both  have  been  mistaken. 

(5.)  It  is  satisfactory  to  find  that  some  inter 
preters  at  least,  have  drawn  near  to  the  true  mean 
ing  of  one  of  the  most  characteristic  and  pregnant 
sayings  in  the  whole  cycle  of  our  Lord's  teaching. 
Augustine  (Quaestiones  Evangel.  Ixxv.),  though 
missing  the  main  point,  saw  that  what  was  true  of 
the  Lord  and  of  Peter  was  true  of  all  ("  Salvator 
autem,  cum  pro  se  of  P»»t.ro  dari  jubet.  pro  omnibus 


1570 


TRIBUTE-MONEY 


txsylvisse  videtur  ").  Jerome  (ad  loc.)  sees  in  the 
words,  a  principle  extending  in  some  form  or  other, 
to  all  believers  ("  Nos  pro  illius  honore  tributa  non 
reddimus,  et  quasi  filii  Regis  a  vectigalibus  im- 
munes  sumus"),  though  his  words  claim  an  exemp 
tion  which  if  true  at  times  of  the  Christian  clergy, 
has  never  been  extended  to  the  body  of  Christian  laity. 
Calvin,  though  adhering  to  the  common  explanation, 
is  apparently  determined  chiefly  by  his  dislike  of  the 
inferences  drawn  from  the  other  explanation  by 
Papists  on  the  one  side,  and  Anabaptists  on  the 
other,  as  claiming  an  exemption  from  obedience  in 
matters  of  taxation  to  the  civil  magistrate.  Luther 
(Annot.  in  Matt,  xvii.)  more  boldly,  while  dwelling 
chiefly  on  the  friendly  pleasantry  which  the  story 
represents  as  passing  between  the  master  and  the 
disciple,*  seizes,  with  his  usual  acuteness,  the  true 
point.  "  Qui  fit  (this  is  his  paraphrase  of  the  words 
of  Christ)  mi  Petre,  ut  a  te  petant,  cum  sis  Regis 
tilius.  .  .  .  Vade  et  scito  nos  esse  in  alio  regno  reges 
?t  filios  regis.  Sinito  illis  suum  regnum,  in  quo 
sumus  hospites.  .  .  .  Filii  regni  sumus,  sed  non  hujus 
regni  mundani."  Tindal  (Marg.  Note  on  Matt, 
xvii.  26)  in  like  manner,  extends  the  principle,  "  So 
is  a  Christian  man  free  in  all  things  .  .  .  yet  payeth 
he  tribute,  and  submitteth  himself  to  all  men  for 
his  brother's  sake."  [E.  H.  P.] 

TRIBUTE-MONEY.    [TAXES;  TRIBUTE.] 

TRIP'OLIS  (<h  TpiVoXis).  The  Greek  name 
of  a  city  of  great  commercial  importance,  which 
served  at  one  time  as  a  point  of  federal  union  for 
Aradus,  Sidon,  and  Tyre.  What  its  Phoenician 
name  was  is  unknown  ;  but  it  seems  not  impossible 
that  it  was  Kadytis,  and  that  this  was  really  the 
place  captured  by  Neco  of  which  Herodotus  speaks 
(ii.  159,  iii.  5).  Kadytis  is  the  Greek  form  of  the 
Syrian  Kedut/ia,  "the  holy,"  a  name  of  which  a 
relic  still  seems  to  survive  in  the  Nuhr-Kadish,  a 
river  which  runs  through  Tarablous,  the  modern 
representative  of  Tripolis.  All  ancient  federations 
had  for  their  place  of  meeting  some  spot  consecrated 
to  a  common  deity,  and  just  to  the  south  of  Tripolis 
was  a  promontory  which  went  by  the  name  of 
8eoG  irpSffwirov.  [PENIEL,  p.  768,  a.] 

It  was  at  Tripolis  that,  in  the  year  351  B.C.,  the 
plan  was  concocted  for  the  simultaneous  revolt  of 
the  Phoenician  cities  and  the  Persian  dependencies 
in  Cyprus  against  the  Persian  king  Ochus.  Al 
though  aided  by  a  league  with  Nectanebus  king  of 
Egypt,  this  attempt  failed,  and  in  the  sequel  great 
part  of  Sidon  was  burnt  and  the  chief  citizens 
destroyed.  Perhaps  the  importance  of  Tripolis  was 
increased  by  this  misfortune  of  its  neighbour,  for 
soon  after,  when  Alexander  invaded  Asia,  it  appears 
as  a  port  of  the  first  order.  After  the  battle  of 
Issus  some  of  the.  Greek  officers  in  Darius's  service 
retreated  thither,  and  not  only  found  ships  enough 
to  carry  themselves  and  8000  soldiers  away,  but  a 
number  over  and  above,  which  they  burnt  in  order 
to  preclude  the  victor  from  an  immediate  pursuit  of 
them  (Arrian,  ii.  13).  The  destruction  of  Tyre  by 
Alexander,  like  that  of  Sidon  by  Ochus,  would 
naturally  tend  rather  to  increase  than  diminish  the 
mpoitance  of  Tripolis  as  a  commercial  port.  When 
Demetrius  Soter,  the  son  of  Seleucus,  succeeded  in 
wresting  Syria  fiom  the  young  son  of  Antiochus 
^B.C.  161),  he  landed  there  and  made  the  place  the 
base  of  his  operations.  It  is  this  circumstance  to 


1  "  Es  muss  ja  cin  fein,  freundlich,  lieblich  Geseilschaft 
cein  gewcst  inter  Christum  et  disdpulos  suos." 


TROAS 

which  allusion  is  made  in  the  only  passage  in  which 
Tripolis  is  mentioned  in  the  Bible  (2  Mace.  xiv.  1\ 
The  prosperity  of  the  city,  so  far  as  appears,  con 
tinued  down  to  the  middle  of  the  6th  century  of  th; 
Christian  era.  Dionysius  Periegetes  applies  to  it 
the  epithet  \nrapr)V  in  the  3rd  century.  In  the 
Peutinger  Table  (which  probably  was  compiled  in 
the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Theodosius)  it  appears  en 
the  great  road  along  the  coast  of  Phoenicia  ;  and  at 
Orthosia  (the  next  station  to  it  northwards)  the 
roads  which  led  respectively  into  Mesopotamia  and 
Cilicia  branched  oft'  from  one  another.  The  pos 
session  of  a  good  harbour  in  so  important  a  point 
for  land-traffic,  doubtless  combined  with  the  rich 
ness  of  the  neighbouring  mountains  in  determining 
the  original  choice  of  the  site,  which  seems  to  have 
been  a  factory  for  the  purposes  of  trade  established 
by  the  three  great  Phoenician  cities.  Each  of  these 
held  a  portion  of  Tripolis  surrounded  by  a  fortified 
wall,  like  the  Western  nations  at  the  Chinese  ports. 
But  in  A.D.  543  it  was  laid  in  ruins  by  the  terrible 
earthquake  which  happened  in  the  month  of  July 
of  that  year,  and  overthrew  Tyre,  Sidon,  Berytus, 
and  Byblus  as  well.  On  this  occasion  the  appear 
ance  of  the  coast  was  much  altered.  A  large  por 
tion  of  the  promontory  Theuprosopon  (which  in 
the  Christian  times  had  its  name,  from  motives  of 
piety,  changed  to  Lithoprosopon)  fell  into  the  sea, 
and,  by  the  natural  breakwater  it  constituted, 
created  a  new  port,  able  to  contain  a  considerable 
number  of  large  vessels.  The  ancient  Tripolis  was 
finally  destroyed  by  the  Sultan.  El  Mansour  in  the 
year  1289  A.D. ;  and  the  modern  Tarablous  is 
situated  a  couple  of  miles  distant  to  the  east,  and 
is  no  longer  a  port.  El  Myna,  which  is  perhaps 
on  the  site  of  the  ancient  Tripolis,  is  a  small  fishing- 
village.  Tarablous  contains  a  population  of  15  or 
16,000  inhabitants,  and  is  the  centre  of  one  of  the 
four  pashalics  of  Syria.  It  exports  silk,  tobacco,  galls, 
and  oil,  grown  in  the  lower  parts  of  the  mountain 
at  the  foot  of  which  it  stands  ;  and  performs,  on  a 
smaller  scale,  the  part  which  was  formerly  taken 
by  Tripolis  as  the  entrepot  for  the  productions  of  a 
most  fertile  region  (Diod.  Sic.  xvi.  41 ;  Strabo,  xvi. 
c.  2  ;  Vossius  ad  Melam,  i.  12  ;  Theophanes,  Chrono- 
graphia,  sub  anno  6043).  [J.  W.  B.] 

TRO'AS  (Tppas).  The  city  from  which  St.  Paul 
first  sailed,  in  consequence  of  a  divine  intimation, 
to  carry  the  Gospel  from  Asia  to  Europe  (Acts  xvi. 
8,  11)— where  he  rested  for  a  short  time  on  the 
northward  road  from  Ephesus  (during  the  next  mis 
sionary  journey)  in  the  expectation  of  meeting  Titus 
(2  Cor.  ii.  12,  13) — where  on  the  return  south 
wards  (during  the  same  missionary  journey)  he  met 
those  who  had  preceded  him  from  Philippi  (Acts 
xx.  5,  6),  and  remained  a  week,  the  close  of  which 
(before  the  journey  to  Assos)  was  marked  by  the 
raising  of  Eutychus  from  the  dead  during  the  pro 
tracted  midnight  discourse — and  where,  after  an 
interval  of  many  years,  the  Apostle  left  (during  a 
journey  the  details  of  which  are  unknown)  a  cloak 
and  some  books  and  parchments  in  the  house  of 
Carpus  (2  Tim.  iv.  13)^— deserves  the  careful  atten 
tion  of  the  student  of  the  N.ew  Testament. 

The  full  name  of  the  city  was  Alexandreia  Troas 
(Liv.  xxxv.  42),  and  sometimes  it  was  called  simply 
Alexandreia,  as  by  Pliny  (ff.  N.  v.  33)  and  Strati 
(xiii.  p.  593),  sometimes  simply  Troas  (as  in  the 
N.  T.  and  the  Ant.  Itin.  See  Wesseling,  p.  334;. 
The  former  part  of  the  name  indicates  the  period 
at  which  it  was  founded.  It  was  first  built  by 
Antigonus,  under  the  name  of  Autigoneia  Troao 


TROGYLLIUM 

and  p<x>pled  with  the  inhabitants  of  some  neigh 
bouring  cities.  Afterwards  it  was  embellished  by 
Lysimachus,  and  named  Alexandreia  Troas.  Its 
situation  was  on  the  coast  of  MYSIA,  opposite  the 
S.R.  extremity  of  the  island  of  Tenedos. 

Under  the  Romans  it  was  one  of  the  most  im 
portant  towns  of  the  province  of  ASIA.  It  was  the 
chief  point  of  arrival  and  departure  for  those  who 
went  by  sea  between  Macedonia  and  the  western 
Asiatic  districts ;  and  it  was  connected  by  good 
roads  with  other  places  on  the  coast  and  in  the 
interior.  For  the  latter  see  the  map  in  Leake's 
Asia  Minor.  The  former  cannot  be  better  illus 
trated  than  by  St.  Paul's  two  voyages  between 
Troas  and  Philippi  (Acts  xvi.  11,  12,  xx.  6),  one 
of  which  was  accomplished  in  two  days,  the  other 
in  five.  At  this  time  Alexandreia  Troas  was  a 
colonia  with  the  Jus  Italicum.  This  strong  Roman 
connexion  can  be  read  on  its  coins.  The  Romans 
had  a  peculiar  feeling  connected  with  the  place,  in 
consequence  of  the  legend  of  their  origin  from  Troy. 
Suetonius  tells  us  that  Julius  Caesar  had  a  plan  of 
making  Troas  the  seat  of  empire  (Caes.  79).  It 
may  perhaps  be  inferred  from  the  words  of  Horace 
[Carm.  iii.  3,  57)  that  Augustus  had  some  such 
dreams.  And  even  the  modern  name  Eski-Stamboul 
(or  "  Old  Constantinople  ")  seems  to  commemorate 
the  thought  which  was  once  in  Constantino's  mind 
(Zosim.  ii.  30 ;  Zonar.  xiii.  3),  who,  to  use  Gibbon's 
words,  "  before  he  gave  a  just  preference  to  the 
situation  of  Byzantium,  had  conceived  the  design 
of  erecting  the  seat  of  empire  on  this  celebrated 
spot,  from  which  the  Romans  derived  their  fabulous 
origin." 

The  ruins  at  Eski-Stamboul  are  considerable. 
The  most  conspicuous,  however,  especially  the  re 
mains  of  the  aqueduct  of  Herodes  Atticus,  did  not 
exist  when  St.  Paul  was  there.  The  walls,  which 
may  represent  the  extent  of  the  city  in  the  Apostle's 
time,  enclose  a  rectangular  space,  extending  above 
a  mile  from  east  to  west,  and  nearly  a  mile  from 
north  to  south.  That  which  possesses  most  interest 
for  us  is  the  harbour,  which  is  still  distinctly  trace 
able  in  a  basin  about  400  feet  long  and  200  broad. 
Descriptions  in  greater  or  less  detail  are  given  by 
Pococke,  Chandler,  Hunt  (in  Walpole's  Memoirs), 
Clarke,  Prokesch,  and  Fellows.  [J.  S.  H.] 

TROGYL'LIUM  [see  SAMOS].  Samos  is  ex 
actly  opposite  the  rocky  extremity  of  the  ridge  of 
Mycale,  which  is  called  Tp<ayv\\iov  in  the  N.  T. 
(Acts  xx.  15)  and  by  Ptolemy  (v.  2),  and  Tpot- 
yi\iov  by  Strabo  (xiv.  p.  636).  The  channel  is 
extremely  narrow.  Strabo  (/.  c.)  makes  it  about 
a  mile  broad,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  our  Admi 
ralty  Charts  (1530  and  1555).  St.  Paul  sailed 
through  this  channel  on  his  way  to  Jerusalem  at 
the  close  of  his  third  missionary  journey  (Acts,  I.  c.). 
The  navigation  of  this  coast  is  intricate ;  and  it  can 
oe  gathered  from  Acts  xx.  6,  with  subsequent  notices 
of  the  days  spent  on  the  voyage,  that  it  was  the  time 
of  dark  moon  Thus  the  night  was  spent  at  Trogyl- 
Jium.  Jt  is  interesting  to  observe  that  a  little  to 
the  east  of  the  extreme  point  there  is  an  anchorage, 
irhich  is  still  called  St.  Paul's  Port.  [J.  S.  H.] 

TROOP,  BAND.    These  words  have  a  peculiar 


R  Trophimus  was  no  doubt  at  Miletus  on  the  occasion 
recorded  in  Acts  xx.  15-38,  but  it  is  most  certain  that  he 
v/as  not  left  there.  The  theory  also  that  he  was  left  there 
on  the  voyage  to  Rome  is  preposterous;  for  the  wind 
forced  St.  Paul's  vessel  to  ran  direct  from  the  S.W.  corner 


TROPHIMUS  1571 

signification  in  many  passages  of  the  0.  T.,  which 
is  apt  to  be  overlooked,  and  the  knowledge  of  which 
throws  a  brighter  light  upon  them.  They  are  em- 
ployed  to  represent  the  Hebrew  word  "VH3,  gedud, 
which  has  invariably  the  force  o\  an  irregular  body 
of  people,  large  or  small,  united  not  for  the  purj^se 
of  defence  or  regular  aggression,  like  an  army,  but 
with  the  object  of  marauding  ana  plunder.  [See 
MOAB,  vol.  ii.  395,  note,  where  the  term  gtdud 
is  examined.]  In  addition  to  the  instances  of  its 
use  there  named,  it  may  be  observed  that  our 
translators  have  in  a  few  cases  tried  to  bring  out 
its  meaning  more  strongly;  as  in  1  Chr.  xii.  21, 
"  band-of-the-rovers ;"  Hos.  vi.  9,  and  vii.  1, "  troop- 
of-robbers."  [G.] 

TROPH'IMUS  (Tpo>iM<>s).  Of  the  three 
passages  where  this  companion  of  St.  Paul  is  men 
tioned,  the  first  associates  him  very  closely  with 
TYCHICUS  (Acts  xx.  4),  and  the  last  seems  in  some 
degree  to  renew  the  association,  and  in  reference  to 
the  same  geographical  district  (2  Tim.  iv.  20 ;  see. 
ver.  12),  while  the  intermediate  one  separates  him 
entirely  from  this  connexion  (Acts  xxi.  29). 

From  the  first  of  these  passages  we  learn  that 
Tychicus,  like  Trophimus,  was  a  native  of  ASIA 
('Affiavot),  and  that  the  two  were  among  those 
companions  who  travelled  with  the  Apostle  in  the 
course  of  the  third  missionaiy  journey,  and  during 
part  of  the  route  which  he  took  in  returning  from 
Macedonia  towards  Syria.  From  what  we  know 
concerning  the  collection  which  was  going  on  at 
this  time  for  the  poor  Christians  in  Judaea,  we  are 
disposed  to  connect  these  two  men  with  the  business 
of  that  contribution.  This,  as  we  shall  see,  suggests 
a  probable  connexion  of  Trophimus  with  another 
circumstance. 

Both  he  and  Tychicus  accompanied  St.  Pau. 
from  Macedonia  as  far  as  Asia  (&XP1  T^s  'Atn'as 
I.  c.),  but  Tychicus  seems  to  have  remained  there 
while  Trophimus  proceeded  with  the  Apostle  to  Jeru 
salem.  There  he  was  the  innocent  cause  of  the 
tumult  in  which  St.  Paul  was  apprehended,  and 
from  which  the  voyage  to  Rome  ultimately  re 
sulted.  Certain  Jews  from  the  district  of  Asia  saw 
the  two  Christian  missionaries  together,  and  sup 
posed  that  Paul  had  taken  Trophimus  into  the 
Temple  (Acts  xxi.  27-29).  From  this  passage  we 
learn  two  new  facts,  viz.  that  Trophimus  was  a 
Gentile,  and  that  he  was  a  native,  not  simply  of 
Asia,  but  of  EPHESUS. 

A  considerable  interval  now  elapses,  during 
which  we  have  no  trace  of  either  Tychicus  or 
Trophimus ;  but  in  the  last  letter  written  by  St. 
Paul,  shortly  before  his  martyrdom,  from  Rome, 
he  mentions  them  both  (Tvx^v  ewreoTeiAa  els 
*E(f>€(rov,  2  Tim.  iv.  12;  Tp6<f>ifiov  air f \nrov  eV 
MiA^Ttp  affOevovvra,  ib.  20).  From  the  last  of 
the  phrases  we  gather  simply  that  the  Apostle  had 
no  long  time  before  been  in  the  Levant,  that  Trophi 
mus  had  been  with  him,  and  that  he  had  been  left 
in  infirm  health  at  Miletus.  Of  the  further  details 
we  are  ignorant ;  but  this  we  may  say  here,  that 
while  there  would  be  considerable  difficulty  in  ac 
commodating  this  passage  to  any  part  of  the  re 
corded  narrative  previous  to  the  voyage  to  Rome,a 
all  difficulty  vanishes  on  the  supposition  of  two  im- 


of  Asia  Minor  to  the  E.  end  of  Crete  (Acts  xxvii.  7).  We 
may  add,  that  when  Trophimus  was  left  in  sickness  i>t 
Miletus,  whenever  that  might  be,  he  was  within  easy 
reach  of  his  home-friends  at  Ephesus,  as  we  see  froi« 
Acts  xx.  17 

5  H  2 


1572 


TRUMPET 


prisonments,  and  a  journey  in  the  Levant  between 
them. 

What  was  alluded  to  above  as  probable,  is  that 
Trophimus  was  one  of  the  two  brethren  who,  with 
TITUS,  conveyed  the  2nd  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
(2  Cor.  viii.  16-24).  The  argument  is  so  well 
stated  by  Professor  Stanley,  that  we  give  it  in  his 
words: — "  Trophimus  was,  like  Titus,  one  of  the 
few  Gentiles  who  accompanied  the  Apostle ;  an 
Kphesian,  and  therefore  likely  to  have  been  sent 
by  the  Apostls  from  Ephesus  with  the  First  Epistle, 
or  to  have  accompanied  him  from  Ephesus  now ;  he 
was,  as  is  implied  of  '  this  brother,'  whose  praise 
was  in  all  the  Churches,  well  known ;  so  well 
known  that  the  Jews  of  Asia  [Minor?]  at  Jeru 
salem  immediately  recognised  him ;  he  was  also 
especially  connected  with  the  Apostle  on  this  very 
mission  of  the  collection  for  the  poor  in  Judaea. 
Thus  far  would  appear  from  the  description  of  him 
in  Acts  xxi.  29.  From  Acts  xx.  4  it  also  appears 
that  he  was  with  St.  Paul  on  his  return  from  this 
very  visit  to  Corinth  "  (Stanley's  Corinthians,  2nd 
idit.  p.  492). 

The  ttory  in  the  Greek  Menology  that  Trophimus 
was  one  of  the  seventy  disciples  is  evidently  wrong ; 
the  legend  that  he  was  beheaded  by  Nero's  orders  is 
possibly  true.  [J.  S.  H.] 

TRUMPET.    [CORNET.] 

TRUMPETS,  FEAST  OF  (njtt"tf}  D1S 
Num.  xxix.  1  ;  fjfjLcpa  atinaaias ;  dies  clangoris 
et  tubarum ;  nV-l"!^  fTOT,  Lev.  xxiii.  24  ;  nvyp.6- 
ffvvov  <ra\iriyyav ;  sabbatum  mempriale  dangen- 
tibus  tubis:  in  the  Mishna,  JWJ1  BW  "the 
beginning  of  the  year"),  the  feast  of  the  new  moon, 
which  fell  on  the  first  of  Tizri.  It  differed  from 
the  ordinary  festivals  of  the  new  moon  in  several 
important  particulars.  It  was  one  of  the  seven 
days  of  Holy  Convocation.  [FEASTS.]  Instead  of 
the  mere  blowing  of  the  trumpets  of  the  Temple  at 
the  time  of  the  offering  of  the  sacrifices,  it  was  "  a 
day  of  blowing  of  trumpets."  In  addition  to  the 
daily  sacrifices  and  the  eleven  victims  offered  on  the 
first  of  every  month  [NEW  MOON],  there  were 
offered  a  young  bullock,  a  ram,  and  seven  lambs  of 
the  first  year,  with  the  accustomed  meat  offerings, 
and  a  kid  for  a  sin  offering  (Num.  xxix.  1-6).  The 
regular  monthly  offering  was  thus  repeated,  with 
the  exception  of  one  young  bullock. 

It  is  said  that  both  kinds  of  trumpet  were  blown 
in  the  temple  on  this  day,  the  straight  trumpet 
(rm'^n.)  and  the  cornet  (TB^E?  and  pg),  and 

that  elsewhere  any  one,  even  a  child,  might  blow  a 
cornet  (Reland,  iv.  7,  2;  Carpzov,  p.  425;  fiosh 
Hash.  i.  2;  JUBILEE,  p.  1149,  note  c;  CORNET). 
When  the  festival  fell  upon  a  Sabbath,  the  trumpets 
were  blown  in  the  Temple,  but  not  out  of  it  (Rosh 
Hash.  iv.  1). 

It  has  been  conjectured  that  Ps.  Ixxxi.,  one  of  the 
songs  of  Asaph,  was  composed  expressly  for  the 
Feast  of  Trumpets.  The  Psalm  is  used  in  the  ser 
vice  for  the  day  by  the  modern  Jews.  As  the  third 
verse  is  rendered  in  the  LXX.,  the  Vulgate,  and  the 
A.V.,  this  would  seem  highly  probable — "Blow 
up  the  trumpet  in  the  new  moon,  the  time  ap 
pointed,  on  our  solemn  feast  day."  But  the  best 
authorities  understand  the  word  translated  new 
moon  (HD3)  to  menu  full  moon.  Hence  the  Psalm 
would  more  properly  belong  to  the  service  for  one 
uf  the  festivals  whicli  take  place  at  the  full  moon, 


TRYPHENA 

the  Passover,  or  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  (Gewu, 
Thes.  s.  v.;  Rosenmiiller  and  Hengstenberg  on  Ps. 
Ixxxi.). 

Various  meanings  have  been  assigned  to  the  Feast 
of  Trumpets.  Maimonides  considered  that  its  pur 
pose  was  to  awaken  the  people  from  their  spiritual 
slumber  to  prepare  for  the  solemn  humiliation  of 
the  Day  of  Atonement,  which  followed  it  within 
ten  days.  This  may  receive  some  countenance  from 
Joel  ii.  15,  "  Blow  the  trumpet  (~\8\W)  in  Zion, 
sanctify  a  fast,  call  a  solemn  assembly."  Some 
have  supposed  that  it  was  intended  to  introduce  the 
seventh  or  Sabbatical  month  of  the  year,  which  was 
especially  holy  because  it  was  the  seventh,  and  be 
cause  it  contained  the  Day  of  Atonement  and  the 
Fe&st  of  Tabernacles  (Fagius  in  Lev.  xxiii.  24  ; 
Buxt.  Syn.  Jud.  c.  xxiv.).  Philo  and  some  early 
Christian  writers  regarded  it  as  a  memorial  of  the 
giving  of  the  Law  on  Sinai  (Philo,  vol.  v.  p.  46, 
ed.  Tauch.  ;  Basil,  in  Ps.  Ixxxi.  ;  Theod.  Quaest. 
xxxii.  in  Lev.).  But  there  seems  to  be  no  sufficient 
reason  to  call  in  question  the  common  opinion  of 
Jews  and  Christians,  that  it  was  the  festival  of  the 
New  Year's  Day  of  the  civil  year,  the  first  of  Tizri, 
the  month  which  commenced  the  Sabbatical  year 
and  the  year  of  Jubilee.  [JcBiLEE,  p.  1152.]  If 
the  New  Moon  Festival  was  taken  as  the  consecra 
tion  of  a  natural  division  of  time,  the  month  in 
which  the  earth  yielded  the  last  ripe  produce  of  the 
season,  and  began  again  to  foster  seed  for  the  supply 
of  the  future,  might  well  be  regarded  as  the  first 
month  of  the  year.  The  fact  that  Tizri  was  the 
great  month  for  sowing  might  thus  easily  have  sug 
gested  the  thought  of  commemorating  on  this  day 
the  finished  work  of  Creation,  when  the  sons  of  God 
shouted  for  joy  (Job  xxxviii.  7).  The  Feast  of 
Trumpets  thus  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  anniversary 
of  the  birthday  of  the  world  (Mishna,  JRosh  Hash. 
i.  1  ;  Hupfeld,  De  Fest.  Heb.  ii.  p.  13  ;  Buxt.  Syn. 
Jud.  c.  xxiv.). 

It  was  an  odd  fancy  of  the  Rabbis  that  on  this 
day.  every  year,  God  judges  all  men,  and  that  they 
pass  before  Him  as  a  flock  of  sheep  pass  before  a 
shepherd  (Bosh  Hash.  i.  2).  [S.  C.] 

TRYPHE'NA  and  TRYPHOSA  (Tptyaiva 
ical  Tpvty&ffa).  Two  Christian  women  at  Rome, 
who,  among  those  that  are  enumerated  in  the  con 
clusion  of  St.  Paul's  letter  to  that  city,  receive  a 
special  salutation,  and  on  the  special  ground  that 
they  are  engaged  there  in  "  labouring  in  the  Lord  " 
(Rom.  xvi.  12).  They  may  have  been  sisters,  but 
it  is.  more  likely  that  they  were  fellow-deaconesses, 
and  among  the  predecessors  of  that  large  number  of 
official  women  who  ministered  in  the  Church  of 
Rome  at  a  later  period  (Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  vi.43); 
for  it  is  to  be  observed  that  they  are  spoken  of  as 
at  that  time  occupied  in  Christian  service  (TOS 
KOTricaffas},  while  the  salutation  to  Persis,  in  the 
same  verse,  is  connected  with  past  service  (%TIS 


We  know  nothing  more  of  these  two  sister- 
workers  of  the  Apostolic  time  ;  but  the  name  of 
one  of  them  occurs  curiously,  with  other  nameS 
familiar  to  us  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  in  the  Apo 
cryphal  Acts  of  Paul  and  Thecla.  There  Try- 
phena  appears  as  a  rich  Christian  widow  of  Anti- 
och,  who  gives  Thecla  a  refuge  in  her  house,  and 
sends  money  to  Paul  for  the  relief  of  the  poor. 
(See  Jones,  On  the  Canon,  ii.  371,  380.)  It  is  im 
possible  to  discern  any  trace  of  probability  in  thif 
part  of  the  legend. 


TKYPHON 

It  io  an  interesting  fact  that  the  columbaria  of 
"  Caesar's  household  "  in  the  Vigna  Codini,  near 
Porto,  S.  Scbastiano,  contain  the  name  Tryphena, 
as  well  as  other  names  mentioned  in  this  chapter, 
Philologus  and  Julia  (ver.  15),  and  also  Amplias 
(ver.  8).— Wordsworth's  Tour  in  Italy  (1862), 
ii.  173.  [J.  S.  H.J 

TKY'PHON  (Tpfywv).  A  usurper  of  the  Syrian 
throne.  His  proper  name  was  Diodotus  (Strab.  xvi. 
2,  10  ;  App.  Syr.  68),  and  the  surname  Tryphon 
was  given  to  him,  or,  according  to  Appian,  adopted 
by  him,  after  his  accession  to  power.  He  was  a 
native  of  Cariana,  a  fortified  place  in  the  district  of 
Apamea,  where  he  was  brought  up  (Strab.  L  c,). 
In  the  time  of  Alexander  Balas  he  was  attached  to 
the  court  (App.  /.  c.  Sov\os  ruv  jSaenAeW;  Diod. 
fr.  xxi.  ap.  Mull.  Hist.  Gr.  fragm.  ii.  17,  <rrpa- 
Ttiy6s ;  1  Mace.  xi.  39,  rwv  irapa  'A\e|.) ;  but 
towards  the  close  of  his  reign  he  seems  to  have 
joined  in  the  conspiracy  which  was  set  on  foot  tc 
transfer  the  crown  of  Syria  to  Ptol.  Philometor 
(1  Mace.  xi.  13;  Diod.  I.  c.).  After  the  death  of 
Alexander  Balas  he  took  advantage  of  the  unpopu 
larity  of  Demetrius  II.  to  put  forward  the  claims  of 
Antiochus  VI.,  the  young  son  of  Alexander  (1  Mace, 
xi.  39 ;  B.C.  145).  After  a  time  he  obtained  the 
support  of  Jonathan,  who  had  been  alienated  from 
Demetrius  by  his  ingratitude,  and  the  young  king 
was  crowned  (B.C.  144).  Tryphon,  however,  soon 
revealed  his  real  designs  on  the  kingdom,  and,  fear 
ing  the  opposition  of  Jonathan,  he  gained  possession 
of  his  person  by  treachery  (1  Mace.  xii.  39-50), 
and  after  a  short  time  put  him  to  death  (1  Mace, 
xiii.  23).  As  the  way  seemed  now  clear,  he  mur 
dered  Antiochus  and  seized  the  supreme  power 
(1  Mace.  xiii.  31,  32),  which  he  exercised,  as  far 
as  he  was  able,  with  violence  and  rapacity  (1  Mace, 
xiii.  34).  His  tyranny  again  encouraged  the  hopes 
of  Demetrius,  who  was  engaged  in  preparing  an 
expedition  against  him  (B.C.  141),  when  he  was 
taken  prisoner  (1  Mace.  xiv.  1-3),  and  Tryphon 
retained  the  throne  (Just,  xxxvi.  1 ;  Diod.  -Leg. 
xxxi.)  till  Antiochus  VII.,  the  brother  of  Demetrius, 
drove  him  to  Dora,  from  which  he  escaped  to 
Orthosia  in  Phoenicia  (1  Maec.  xv.  10-14,  37-39 ; 
B.C.  139).  Not  long  afterwards,  being  hard  pressed 
by  Antiochus,  he  committed  suicide,  or,  according 
to  other  accounts,  was  put  to  death  by  Antiochus 
(Strab.  xiv.  5,  2  ;  App.  Syr.  68,  'Avrioxos — 
KTfivei .  .  .  crvv  Tr&vif  iro\\q> ).  Josephus  (Ant.  xiii. 
7,  §2)  adds  that  he  was  killed  at  Apainea,  the  place 
which  he  made  his  head-quarters  (Strab.  xvi.  2, 
10).  The  authority  of  Tryphon  was  evidently 
very  partial,  as  appears  from  the  growth  of  Jewish 
independence  under  Simon  Maceabaeus ;  and  Strabo 
describes  him  as  one  of  the  chief  authors  of  Cilician 
piracy  (xiv.  3,  2).  His  name  occurs  on  the  coins 
of  ANTIOCHUS  VI.  [vol.  i.  p.  77],  and  he  also  struck 
serins  in  his  own  name.  [ANTIOCHUS  ;  DEME 
TRIUS.]  [B.  F.  W.] 


TUBAL 


1573 


Coin  of  Tryphon. 


a  Knobel  connects  these  Iberians  of  the  East  and  West, 
.uiJ  consideis  the  Tibarcni  to  have  been  a  branch  of  this 


TEYPHO'SA.  [TRYPHENA  and  TBYPHOSA.] 
TU'BAL  (talfl  ;  bnn  in  Gen.  x.  2,  Ez.  xxxii. 
26,  xxxix.  1 :  ©ojSeA,  except  in  Ez.  xxxix.  1,  where 
Alex.  Qofiep:  Thubal,  but  in  Is.  Ixvi.  19,  Italia). 
In  the  ancient  ethnological  tables  of  Genesis  and 
1  Chr.,  Tubal  is  reckoned  with  Javan  and  Meshecft 
among  the  sons  of  Japheth  (Gen.  x.  2  ;  1  Chr. 
i.  5).  The  three  are  again  associated  in  the  enu 
meration  of  the  sources  of  the  wealth  of  Tyre; 
Tavan,  Tubal,  and  Meshech,  brought  slaves  and 
copper  vessels  to  the  Phoenician  markets  (Ez.  xxvii. 
13).  Tubal  and  Javan  (Is.  ixvi.  19),  Meshech  and 
Tubal  (Ez.  xxxii.  26,  xxxviii.  2,  3,  xxxix.  1),  are 
nations  of  the  north  (Ez.  xxxviii.  15,  xxxix.  2).  Jo 
sephus  (Ant.  i.  6,  §1)  identifies  the  descendants  of 
Tubal  with  the  Iberians,  that  is — not,  as  Jerome 
would  understand  it,  Spaniards,  but — the  inhabitants 
of  a  tract  of  countiy,  between  the  Caspian  and 
Euxine  Seas,  which  nearly  corresponded  to  the  mo 
dern  Georgia.*  This  approximates  to  the  view  of 
Bochart  (Phaleg,  iii.  12),  who  makes  the  Moschi 
and  Tibareni  represent  Meshech  and  Tubal.  These 
two  Colchian  tribes  are  mentioned  together  in  He 
rodotus  on  two  occasions ;  first,  as  forming  part  of 
the  19th  satrapy  of  the  Persian  empire  (iii.  94), 
and  again  as  being  in  the  army  of  Xerxes  under  the 
command  of  Ariomardus  the  son  of  Darius  (vii. 
78).  The  Moschi  and  Tibareni,  moreover,  are 
"  constantly  associated,  under  the  names  of  Muskai 
and  Tuplai,  in  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  "  (Sir  H. 
Kawlinson  in  Rawlinson's  Her.  i.  p.  535).  The 
Tibareni  are  said  by  the  Scholiast  on  Apollonius 
Khodius  (ii.  1010)  to  have  been  a  Scythian  tribe, 
and  they  as  well  as  the  Moschi  are  probably  to  be 
referred  to  that  Turanian  people,  who  in  very  early 
times  spread  themselves  over  the  entire  region 
between  the  Mediterranean  and  India,  the  Persian 
Gulf  and  the  Caucasus  (Rawlinson,  Her.  i.  p.  535). 
In  the  time  of  Sargon,  according  to  the  inscriptions, 
Ambris,  the  son  of  Khuliya,  was  hereditary  chief 
of  Tubal  (the  southern  slopes  of  Taurus).  He  "  had 
cultivated  relations  with  the  kings  of  Musak  and 
Vararat  (Mesh'ech  and  Ararat,  or  the  Moschi  and 
Armenia)  who  were  in  revolt  against  Assyria, 
and  thus  drew  upon  himself  the  hostility  of  the 
great  king"  (ibid.  i.  p.  169,  note3).  In  former 
times  the  Tibareni  were  probably  more  important, 
and  the  Mocchi  and  Tibareni,  Meshech  and  Tubal, 
may  have  been  names  by  which  powerful  hordes  of 
Scythians  were  known  to  the  Hebrews.  But  in 
history  we  only  hear  of  them  as  pushed  to  tha 
furthest  limits  of  their  ancient  settlements,  and  oc 
cupying  merely  a  strip  of  coast  along  the  Euxine. 
Their  neighbours  the  Chaldeans  were  in  the  same 
condition.  In  the  time  of  Herodotus  the  Moschi 
and  Tibareni  were  even  more  closely  connected  thafi 
at  a  later  period,  for  in  Xenophon  we  find  them 
separated  by  the  Macrones  and  Mossy noeci  (Anab. 
v.  5,  §1 ;'  Plin.  vi.  4,  &c.).  The  limits  of  the  ter 
ritory  of  the  Tibareni  are  extremely  difficult  to  de 
termine  with  any  degree  of  accuracy.  After  a  part 
of  the  10,000  Greeks  on  their  retreat  with  Xe 
nophon  had  embarked  at  Cerasus  (perhaps  near 
the  modern  Kerasoun  Dere  Su],  the  rest  marched 
along  the  coast,  and  soon  came  *o  the  boundaries  of 
the  Mossyuoeci  (Anab.  v.  4,  §2).  They  traversed 
the  country  occupied  by  this  people  in  eight  days 
and  then  came  to  the  Chalybes,  and  after  them  to 


widely- spread  Turanian  family,  known  to  the  Hebrews 
as  Tubal  (  Volkertafd  d.  Gen.  $13). 


i574 


TUBAL-CAIN 


Ihe  Tibarem.  The  eastern  limit  of  the  Tibareni 
>ras  therefore  about  80  or  90  miles  along  the 
coast  W.  of  Cerasus.  Two  days'  march  through 
Tibarene  brought  the  Greeks  to  Cotyora  (Anab.  v. 
5,  §3),  and  they  were  altogether  three  days  in 
pissing  through  the  country  (Diod.  Sic.  xiv.  30). 
Now  from  C.  Jasouium  to  Boon,  according  to 
Arrian  (Perif*.  16),  the  distance  was  90  stadia,  90 
more  to  Cotyora,  and  60  from  Cotyora  to  the 
river  Melanthius,  making  in  all  a  coast  line  of  240 
stadia,  or  three  days'  march.  Professor  Kawlinson 
(Her.  iv.  181)  conjectures  that  the  Tibareni  occu 
pied  the  coast  between  Cape  Yasoun  (Jasonium) 
and  the  River  Melanthius  (Melet  IrmaK),  but  if  we 
follow  Xenophon,  we  must  place  Boon  as  their 
western  boundary,  one  day's  march  from  Cotyora, 
and  their  eastern  limit  must  be  sought  some  10 
miles  east  of  the  Melet  Irmak,  perhaps  not  far  from 
the  modern  Aptar,  which  is  3J  hours  from  that 
river.  The  anonymous  author  of  the  Periplus  of 
the  Euxine  says  (33)  that  the  Tibareni  formerly 
dwelt  west  of  Cotyora  as  far  as  Polemonium,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Pouleman  chai,  l£  mile  east  of 
Fitsdh. 

Jn  the  time  of  Xenophon  the  Tibareni  were  an 
independent  tribe  (Anab.vii.  8,  §25).  Long  before 
this  they  were  subject  to  a  number  of  petty  chiefs, 
which  was  a  principal  element  of  their  weakness, 
and  rendered  their  subjugation  by  Assyria  more 
easy.  Dr.  Hincks  (quoted  by  Rawlinson,  Herod, 
i.  380,  note  1)  has  found  as  many  as  twenty-four 
kings  of  the  Tuplai  mentioned  in  the  inscriptions. 
They  are  said  by  Apollonius  Rhodius  to  have  been 
rich  in  flocks  (Arg.  ii.  377).  The  traffic  in  slaves 
and  vessels  of  copper  with  which  the  people  of 
Tubal  supplied  the  markets  of  Tyre  (Ez.  xxvii.  13) 
still  further  connects  them  with  the  Tibareni.  It  is 
well  known  that  the  regions  bordering  on  the 
1  'ontus  Euxinus  furnished  the  most  beautiful  slaves, 
and  that  the  slave  traffic  was  an  extensive  branch 
of  trade  among  the  Cappadocians  (Polyb.  iv.  38, 
§4;  Hor.  Ep.  i.  6,  39;  Pens.  Sat.  vi.  77  ;  Mart. 
Ep.  vi.  77,  x.  76,  &c.).  The  coPPer  of  the  Mos- 
synoeci,  the  neighbours  of  the  Tibareni,  was  cele 
brated  as  being  extremely  bright,  and  without  any 
admixture  of  tin  (Arist.  De  Mir.  Auscult.  62)  ; 
and  the  Chalybes,  who  lived  between  these  tribes, 
were  long  famous  for  their  craft  as  metal-smiths. 
We  must  not  forget,  too,  the  copper-mines  of 
Chalvar  in  Armenia  (Hamilton,  As.  Min.  i.  173). 

The  Arabic  Version  of  Gen.  x.  2  gives  Chorasan 
and  China  for  Meshech  and  Tubal ;  in  Eusebius 
(see  Bochart)  they  are  Illyria  and  Thessaly.  The 
Talmudists  (Yoma,  fol.  10,  2),  according  to 
Bochart,  define  Tubal  as  "  the  home  of  the  Uniaci 
(*p*31N),"  whom  he  is  inclined  to  identify  with 
the  Huns  (Phaleg,  iii.  12).  They  may  perhaps 
take  their  name  from  Oenoe,  the  modern  Unieh,  a 
town  on  the  south  coast  of  the  Black  Sea.  not  far 
from  Cape  Yasoun  (Jasonium),  and  so  in  the  im 
mediate  neighbourhood  of  the  Tibareni.  In  the 
Targum  of  R.  Joseph  on  1  Chr.  (ed.  Wilkins) 
^"OWI  is  given  as  the  equivalent  of  Tubal,  and 
Wilkins  renders  it  by  Bithynia.  But  the  reading 
in  this  passage,  as  well  as  in  the  Targums  of  Jeru 
salem  and  of  Jonathan  on  Gen.  x.  is  too  doubtful 
to  be  followed  as  even  a  traditional  authority. 

[W.  A.  W.] 

TU'BAL-CA'IN  (}£  S>1D :  6  e^eA  :  Tabal- 
SClin}.  The  son  of  Lamech  the  Cainite  by  his  wife 
Zillah  (Gen.  iv.  22).  He  is  called  "  a  furbisher  of 


TUKPENTINE-TREE 

every  cutting  instrument  of  copper  and  iron."  The 
Jewish  legend  of  later  times  associates  him  with  his 
father's  song.  "  Lamech  was  blind,"  says  the  story 
as  told  by  Rashi,  "  and  Tubal-Cain  was  leading 
him  ;  and  he  saw  Cain,  and  he  appeared  to  him 
like  a  wild  beast,  so  he  told  his  father  to  draw  his 
bow,  and  he  slew  him.  And  when  he  knew  that  it 
was  Cain  his  ancestor  he  smote  his  hands  together 
and  struck  his  son  between  them.  So  he  slew  him, 
and  his  wives  withdraw  from  him,  and  he  concili 
ates  them."  In  this  story  Tubal-Cain  is  the  "  young 
man  "  of  the  song.  Rashi  apparently  considers  the 
name  of  Tubal-Cain  as  an  appellative,  for  he  makes 
him  director  of  the  works  of  Cain  for  making 
weapons  of  war,  and  connects  "  Tubal  "  with 
73R,  tabbel,  to  season,  and  so  to  prepare  skil 
fully.  He  appears  moreover  to  huve  pointed  it 
/OlFl,  tobel,  which  seems  to  have  been  the  reading 
of  the  LXX.  and  Joseph  us.  According  to  the 
writer  last  mentioned  (Ant.  i.  2,  §2),  Tubal-Cain 
was  distinguished  for  his  prodigious  strength  and 
his  success  in  war. 

The  derivation  of  the  name  is  extremely  obscure. 
Hasse  (Entdeckungen,  ii.  37,  quoted  by  Knobel  on 
Gen.  iv.  22)  identifies  Tubal-Cain  with  Vulcan  ; 
and  Buttmann  (Mythol.  i.  164)  not  only  compares 
these  names,  but  adds  to  the  comparison  the  TeA- 
X'VfS  of  Rhodes,  the  first  workers  in  copper  and 
iron  (Strabo,  xiv.  654),  and  Dwalinn,  the  demon 
smith  of  the  Scandinavian  mythology.  Gesenius 
proposed  to  consider  it  a  hybrid  word,  compounded 

of  the  Pers.    \L,  ^j",  tupal,  iron  slag,  or  scoria, 


and   the  Arab. 


}   kain,  a  smith  ;    but   this 


etymology  is  more  than  doubtful.  The  Scythian 
race  TUBAL,  who  were  coppersmiths  (Ez.  xxvii.  13), 
naturally  suggest  themselves  in  connexion  with 
Tubal-Cain.  -  [W.  A.  W.] 

TUBIE'NI  (ToujSt^ot  ;  Alex.  Tovfeivoi  :  Tu- 
bianaei}.  The  "  Jews  called  Tubieni  "  lived  about 
Charax,  750  stadia  from  a  strongly-fortified  city 
called  Caspis  (2  Mace.  xii.  17).  They  were  doubt 
less  the  same  who  are  elsewhere  mentioned  as  living 
in  the  towns  of  Toubion  (A.  V.  TOBIE),  which 
again  is  probably  the  same  with  the  TOB  of  the 
Old  Testament.  [G.] 

TURPENTINE-TREE  (repfavOos,  repe- 
frivQos  :  -terebinthus}  occurs  only  once,  viz.  in  the 
Apocrypha  (Ecclus.  xxiv.  16),  where  wisdom  is 
compared  with  the  "  turpentine-tree  that  stretch  eth 
forth  her  branches."  The  Tepej8»/0os  or  rcp/j-ivdoj 
of  the  Greeks  is  the  Pistacia  terebinthus,  terebinth' 
tree,  common  in  Palestine  and  the  East,  supposed 
by  some  writers  to  represent  the  eldh  (i"DK)  cf 
the  Hebrew  Bible.  [OAK.]  The  terebinth,  though 
not  generally  so  conspicuous  a  tree  in  Palestine  as 
some  of  the  oaks,  occasionally  grows  to  a  large  size. 
See  Robinson  (B.  B.  ii.  222,  3),  who  thus  speaks  of  it. 
"  The  Butm"  (the  Arabic  name  of  the  terebinth) 
"  is  not  an  evergreen,  as  often  represented,  but  its 
small  lancet-shaped  leaves  fall  in  the  autumn, 
and  are  renewed  in  the  spring.  The  flowers  are 
small,  and  followed  by  small  oval  berries,  hanging 
in  clusters  from  two  to  five  inches  long,  resembling 
much  those  of  the  vine  when  the  grapes  are  just 
get.  From  incisions  in  the  trunk  there  is  said  to 
flow  a  sort  of  transparent  balsam,  constituting  a 
very  pure  and  fine  species  of  turpentine,  with  an 
agreeable  odour  like  citron  or  jessamine,  and  a  wild 


TURTLE 

taste,  and  hardening  gradually  into  a  transparent 
gum.  In  Palestine  nothing  seems  to  be  known  of 
this  product  of  the  butra  !"  The  terebinth  belongs 
to  the  Nat.  Order  Anacardiaceae,  the  plants  of 
which  order  generally  contain  resinous  secretions. 

[W.  H.] 


TURTLE 


1575 


Pittana  terebinth™. 

TURTLE,  TURTLE-DOVE  (Tin,  tor: 
rpvywv :  turtur :  generally  in  connexion  with  HJ V> 
yondk,  "dove").  [DOVE.]  The  name  is  phonetic, 
evidently  derived  from  the  plaintive  cooing  of  the 
bird.  The  turtle-dove  occurs  first  in  Scripture  in 
Gen.  xv.  9,  where  Abram  is  commanded  to  offer 
it  along  with  other  sacrifices,  and  with  a  young 
pigeon  prill,  gdzdl).  In  the  Levitical  law  a  pair 
of  turtle-doves,  or  of  young  pigeons,  are  constantly 
prescribed  as  a  substitute  for  those  who  were  too 
poor  to  provide  a  lamb  or  a  kid,  and  these  birds 
were  admissible  either  as  trespass,  sin,  or  burnt- 
offering.  In  one  instance,  the  case  of  a  Nazarite 
having  been  accidentally  defiled  by  a  dead  body,  a 
•>h-  of  turtle-doves  or  young  pigeons  were  specially 
enjoined  (Num.  vi.  10).  It  was  in  accordance  with 
the  provision  in  Lev.  xii.  6  that  the  mother  of  our 
Lord  made  the  offering  for  her  purification  (Luke 
ii.  U4).  During  the  early  period  of  Jewish  history, 
there  is  no  evidence  of  any  other  bird  except  the 
pigeon  having  been  domesticated,  and  up  to  the 
time  of  Solomon,  who  may,  with  the  peacock,  have 
introduced  other  gallinaceous  birds  from  India,  it 
was  probably  the  only  poultry  known  to  the  Israel 
ites.  To  this  day  enormous  quantities  of  pigeons 
are  kept  in  dove-cots  in  all  the  towns  and  villages 
of  Palestine,  and  several  of  the  fancy  races  so  fami 
liar  in  this  country  have  been  traced"  to  be  of  Syrian 
origin.  The  offering  of  two  young  pigeons  must 
have  been  one  easily  within  the  reach  of  the  poorest, 
:,nd  the  offerer  was  accepted  according  to  that  he 
had,  and  not  according  to  that  he  had  not.  The 
admission  of  a  pair  of  turtle-doves  was  perhaps  a 
yet  further  concession  to  extreme  poverty;  for,  un 
like  the  pigeon,  the  turtle  from  its  migratory 
nat'ire  and  timid  disposition,  has  nevei  yet  been 
kept  in  a  state  of  free  domestication ;  but  being  ex 


tremely  numerous,  and  resorting  especially  to  gar 
dens  for  nidification,  its  young  might  easily  be 
fo'.md  and  captured  by  those  who  did  not  even 
possess  pigeons. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  the  palm-dove  (Turtur 
aegyptiacus,  Temm.)  may  in  some  measure  have 
supplied  the  sacrifices  in  the  wilderness,  for  it  is 
found  in  amnzing  numbers  vvherever  the  palm-tree 
occurs,  whether  wild  or  cultivated.  In  most  of  the 
oases  of  North  Africa  and  Arabia  every  tree  is  the 
home  of  two  or  three  pairs  of  these  tame  and  elegant 
birds.  In  the  crown  of  many  of  the  date-trees  nve 
or  six  nests  are  placed  together ;  and  the  writer  has 
frequently,  in  a  palm-grove,  brought  down  ten 
brace  or  more  without  moving  from  his  post.  In 
such  camps  as  Elim  a  considerable  supply  of  these 
doves  may  have  been  obtained. 

From  its  habit  of  pairing  for  life,  and  its  fidelity 
for  its  mate,  it  was  a  symbol  of  purity  and  an 
appropriate  offering  (comp.  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  x.  52). 
The  regular  migration  of  the  turtle-dove  and  ita 
return  in  spring  are  alluded  to  in  Jer.  viii.  7,  "The 
turtle  and  the  crane  and  the  swallow  observe  tha 
time  of  their  coming  ;"  and  Cant.  ii.  11,  12,  "  The 
winter  is  past  .  .  .  and  the  voice  of  the  turtle  is 
heard  in  our  land."  So  Pliny,  "  Hyeme  mutis,  a 
vere  vocalibus ;"  and  Arist.  Hist.  An.  ix.  8, 
"  Turtle-doves  spend  the  summer  in  cold  countries, 
the  winter  in  warm  ones."  Although  elsewhere 
(viii.  5)  he  makes  it  hybernate  (^wAet).  There  is, 
indeed,  no  more  grateful  proof  of  the  return  of 
spring  in  Mediterranean  countries  than  the  voice 
of  the  turtle.  One  of  the  first  birds  to  migrate 
northwards,  the  turtle,  while  other  songsters  are 
heard  chiefly  in  the  morning,  or  only  at  inter 
vals,  immediately  on  its  arrival  pours  forth  from 
eveiy  garden,  grove,  and  wooded  hill  its  melan 
choly  yet  soothing  ditty,  unceasingly  from  early 
dawn  till  sunset.  It  is  from  its  plaintive  note 
doubtless  that  David  in  Ps.  Ixxiv.  1 9,  pouring  forth 
his  lament  to  God,  compares  himself  to  a  turtle 
dove. 

From  the  abundance  of  the  dove  tribe  and  their 
importance  as?  an  article  of  food  the  ancients  discri 
minated  the  species  of  Columbidae,  more  accurately 
than  of  many  others.  Aristotle  enumerates  five 
species,  which  are  not  all  easy  of  identification,  as 
but  four  species  are  now  known  commonly  to  in 
habit  Greece.  In  Palestine  the  number  of  species 
is  probably  greater.  Besides  the  rock-dove  (Co- 
lumba  livia,  L.),  very  common  on  all  the  rocky 
parts  of  the  coast  and  in  the  inland  ravines,  where 
it  remains  throughout  the  year,  and  from  which 
all  the  varieties  of  the  domestic  pigeon  are  derived, 
the  ringdove  (Columba  palumbus,  L.)  frequents  all 
the  wooded  districts  of  the  country.  The  stock-dove 
(Columba  aenas,  L.)  is  as  generally,  but  mere 
sparingly  distributed.  Another  species,  allied  either 
to  this  or  to  Columba  livia,  has  been  observed  in 
the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  perhaps  Col.  leuconoia, 
Vig.  See  Ibis,  vol.  i.  p.  35.  The  turtle-dove 
(Turtur  auritus,  L.)  is,  as  has  been  stated,  most 
abundant,  and  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  an  allied 
species,  the  palm-dove,  or  Egyptian  turtle  (Turtur 
aegyptiacus,  Temm.),  is  by  no  means  uncommon. 
This  bird,  most  abundant  among  the  palm-trees  in 
Egypt  and  North  Africa,  is  distinguished  from  the 
common  turtle-dove  by  its  ruddy  chesnut  colour, 
its  long  tail,  smaller  size,  and  the  absence  of  tha 
collar  on  the  neck.  It  does  not  migrate,  but  from 
the  similarity  of  its  note  and  habits,  it  is  not  pro- 
bable  tha'  it  was  distinguished  by  the  ancients. 


L576 


TYCHICUS 


The  large  Indian  turtle  (Turtur  gelashs,  Temtn.) 
has  also  been  stated,  though  without  authority,  to 
occur  in  Palestrae.  Other  species,  as  the  well- 
known  collared  dove  (Turtur  risoria,  L.)  have  been 
incorrectly  included  as  natives  of  Syria.  [H.  B.  T.J 


Turtur  aegyptiacus. 

TY'CHICUS  (TVXIKOS).  A  companion  of  St. 
Paul  on  some  of  his  journeys,  and  one  of  his  fellow- 
labourers  in  the  work  of  the  Gospel.  He  is  men 
tioned  in  five  separate  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
^nd  in  four  cases  explicitly,  in  the  fifth  very  pro 
bably,  he  is  connected  with  the  district  of  Asia. 
(I)  In  Acts  xx.  4,  he  appears  as  one  of  those  who 
accompanied  the  Apostle  through  a  longer  or 
shorter  portion  of  his  return-journey  from  the 
third  missionary  circuit.  Here  he  is  expressly 
called  (with  Trophimus)  'A.(riav6s :  but  while 
Trophimus  went  with  St.  Paul  to  Jerusalem 
(Actsxxi.  29),  Tychicus  was  left  behind  in  Asia, 
probably  at  Miletus  (Acts  xx.  15,  38).  (2)  How 
Tychicus  was  employed  in  the  interval  before  St. 
Paul's  first  imprisonment  we  cannot  tell:  but  in 
that  imprisonment  he  was  with  the  Apostle  again, 
as  we  see  from  Col.  iv.  7,  8.  Here  he  is  spoken 
of,  not  only  as  "  a  beloved  brother,"  but  as  "  a 
faithful  minister  and  fellow-servant  in  the  Lord ;" 
and  he  is  to  make  known  to  the  Colossians  the 
present  circumstances  of  the  Apostle  (T&  KCXT'  ejte 
TrdvTa  yvvpifffi),  and  to  bring  comfort  to  the 
Colossians  themselves  (ft/a  irapa«:a\eV?7  ras  /copSms 
v(j.wv).  From  this  we  gather  that  diligent  service 
and  warm  Christian  sympathy  were  two  features 
of  the  life  and  character  of  Tychicus.  Colossae  was 
in  Asia ;  but  from  the  fact  that  of  Onesimus,  who 
is  mentioned  immediately  afterwards,  it  is  said,  '6s 
fffriv  e|  u/ueDr,  whereas  Tychicus  is  not  so  styled, 
we  naturally  infer  that  the  latter  was  not  a  native 
of  that  city.  These  two  men  were  doubtless  the 
bearers  both  of  this  letter  and  the  following,  as  well 
as  that  to  Philemon.  (3)  The  language  concerning 
Tychicus  in  Eph.  vi.  21,  22,  is  very  similar,  though 
not  exactly  in  the  same  words.  And  it  is  the  more 
important  to  notice  this  passage  carefully,  because 
it  is  the  only  personal  allusion  in  the  Epistle,  and 


TYEANNTJS 

is  of  some  considerable  value  as  a  subsidiary  argu 
ment  for  its  authenticity.  If  this  was  a  circular 
letter,  Tychicus,  who  bore  a  commission  to  Colossae, 
and  who  was  probably  well  known  in  various  parts 
of  the  province  of  Asia,  would  be  a  very  proper 
person  to  see  the  letter  duly  delivered  and  read. 

(4)  The  next  references  are  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles, 
the  first  in  chronological  order  being  Tit.  iii.  12. 
Here  St.  Paul  (writing  possibly  from  Ephesus)  says 
that  it  is  probable  he  may  send  Tychicus  to  Crete, 
about  the  time  when  he  himself  goes  to  Nicopolis. 

(5)  In  2  Tim.  iv.  12  (written  at  Rome  during  the 
second   imprisonment)   he   says,  "  I  am  herewith 
sending  Tychicus  to  Ephesus."     At  least  it  seems 
natural,  with    Dr.  Wordsworth,  so  to  render  airi- 
(rreiAa,  though  Bp.  Ellicott's  suggestion   is   also 
worth  considering,  that  this  mission  may  have  been 
connected  with  the  carrying  of  the  first  Epistle. 
(See  their  notes  on  the  passage.)     However  this 
may  be,  we  see  this  disciple  at  the  end,  as  we  saw 
him  at  the  beginning,  connected  locally  with  Asia, 
while  also  co-operating  with  St.  Paul.     We  have 
no  authentic  information  concerning   Tychicus  in 
any  period  previous,  to    or    subsequent   to    these 
five  Scriptural  notices.     The  tradition  which  places 
him  afterwards  as  bishop  of  Chalcedon  in  Bithynia 
is  apparently  of  no  value.     But  there  is  much  pro 
bability  in  the  conjecture  (Stanley's  Corinthians, 
2nd  ed.  p.  493)  that  Tychicus  was  one  of  the  two 
"  brethren  "  (Trophimus  being  the  other)  who  were 
associated  with  Titus  (2  Cor.  viii.  16-24)  in  con 
ducting  the  business  of  the  collection  for  tne  poor 
Christians  in  Judaea.     As  arguments  for  this  view 
we  may  mention  the  association  with  Trophimus, 
the  probability  that  both  were  Ephesians,  the  oc 
currence  of  both  names    in  the  second  Epistle  to 
Timothy  (see  2  Tim.  iv.  20),  the  chronological  and 
geographical  agreement  with  the  circumstances  of  the 
third  missionary  journey,  and  the  general  language 
used  concerning  Tychicus  in  Colossians  and  Ephesians. 
[ASIA  ;  EPHESUS  ;  TROPHIMUS.]          [J.  S.  H.] 

TYEAN'NUS  (Tfyawos).  The  name  of  a  man 
in  whose  school  or  place  of  audience  Paul  taught 
the  Gospel  for  two  years,  during  his  sojourn  at 
Ephesus  (see  Acts  xix.  9).  The  halls  or  rooms  of 
the  philosophers  were  called  axo\al  among  the 
later  Greeks  (Liddell  and  Scott,  s.  v.)  ;  and  as  Luke 
applies  that  term  to  the  auditorium  in  this  instance, 
the  presumption  is  that  Tyrannus  himself  was  a 
Greek,  and  a  public  teacher  of  philosophy  or 
rhetoric.  He  and  Paul  must  have  occupied  the 
room  at  different  hours ;  whether  he  hired  it  out 
to  the  Christians  or  gave  to  them  the  use  of  it  (in 
either  case  he  must  have  been  friendly  to  them)  is 
left  uncertain.  Meyer  is  disposed  to  consider  that 
Tyrannus  was  a  Jewish  rabbi,  and  the  owner  of 
a  private  synagogue  or  house  for  teaching  (JV3 
S^YlD).  But,  in  the  first  place,  his  Greek  name, 

and  the  fact  that  he  is  not  mentioned  as  a  Jew 
or  proselyte,  disagree  with  that  supposition ;  and, 
in  the  second  place,  as  Paul  repaired  to  this  man's 
school  after  having  been  compelled  to  leave  the 
Jewish  synagogue  (Acts  xix.  9),  it  is  evident  that 
he  took  this  course  as  a  means  of  gaining  access  to 
the  heathen;  an  object  which  he  would  naturally 
seek  through  the  co-operation  of  one  of  their  own 
number,  and  not  by  associating  himself  with  a  Jew 
or  a  Gentile  adherent  of  the  Jewish  faith.  In 
spoaking  of  him  merely  as  a  certain  Tyrnnnus 
(Tvpavvov  Tiv6s\  Luke  indicates  certainly  that  he 
was  not  a  believer  at  first ;  though  it  is  natural 


TYKE 

enough  to  think  that  he  may  have  become  sucn  as 
the  result  of  his  acquaintance  with  the  Apostle. 
Hemsen  (Der  Apostel  Paulus,  p.  218)  throws  out 
the  idea  that  the  hall  may  have  belonged  to  the 
authorities  of  the  city,  and  have  derived  its  name 
from  the  original  proprietor.  [H.  B.  H.] 

TYKE  (liV,  "IV,  i.e.  Tzor:  Tvpos:  Tyrus: 
Josh.  xix.  29  ;  2  Sam.  xxiv.  7 ;  Is.  xxiii.  1 ;  Ez. 
xxvi.  15,  xxvii.  2,  &c.).  A  celebrated  commercial 
city  of  antiquity,  situated  in  Phoenicia,  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  in  latitude  33°  17' 
N.  (Admiral  Smythe's  Mediterranean,  p.  469). 
Its  Hebrew  name  "  Tz6r  "  signifies  a  rock  ;  which 
well  agrees  with  the  site  of  Stir,  the  modern  town, 
on  a  rocky  peninsula,  formerly  an  island.  From 
the  word  "  Tzor  "  were  derived  two  names  of  the 
city,  in  which  the  first  letters  differed  from  each 
other,  though  both  had  a  feature  of  their  common 
parent:  1st,  the  Aramaic  word  Tura,  whence  the 
Greek  word  Turos,  probably  pronounced  Tyros, 
which  finally  prevailed  in  Latin,  and,  with  slight 
changes,  in  the  modern  languages  of  the  West ;  and,' 
2ndly,  Sara,  or  Sarra,  which  occurs  in  Plautus 
(True.  ii.  6,  58,  "  purpuram  ex  Sara  tibi  attuli "), 
and  which  is  familiar  to  scholars  through  the  well- 
known  line  of  Virgil,  "  Ut  gemma"  bibat,  et  Sarrano 
dormiat  ostro"  (Georg.  ii.  506;  comp.  Aul.  Cell, 
xiv.  6  ;  Silius  Italicus,  xv.  203 ;  Juvenal,  x.  30). 
According  to  a  passage  of  Probus  (ad  Virg.  Georg. 
ii.  115),  as  quoted  by  Mr.  Grote  (History  of  Greece, 
iii.  353),  the  form  "Sara"  would  seem  tc  have 
accurred  in  one  of  the  Greek  epics  now  lost,  which 
passed  under  the  name  of  Homer.  Certainly,  this 
form  accords  best  with  the  modern  Arabic  name  of 
Kur. 

PALAETYRUS,  or  Old  Tyre.  There  is  no  doubt 
that,  previous  to  the  siege  of  the  city  by  Alexander 
the  Great,  Tyre  was  situated  on  an  island  ;  but,  ac 
cording  to  the  tradition  of  the  inhabitants,  if  we  may 
believe  Justin  (xi.  10),  there  was  a  city  on  the  main 
land  before  there  was  a  city  on  the  island ;  and  the 
tradition  receives  some  colour  from  the  name  of 
Palaetyrus,  or  Old  Tyre,  which  was  borne  in  Greek 
times  by  a  city  on  the  continent,  30  stadia  to  the 
south  (Strabo,  xii.  11,  24).  But  a  difficulty  arises 
in  supposing  that  Palaetyrus  was  built  before  Tyre, 
as  the  word  Tyre  evidently  means  "  a  rock,"  and 
few  persons  who  have  visited  the  site  of  Palaetyrus 
can  seriously  suppose  that  any  rock  on  the  surface 
there  can  have  given  rise  to  the  name.  To  escape 
this  difficulty,  Hengstenberg  makes  the  suggestion 
that  Palaetyrus  meant  Tyre  that  formerly  existed  ; 
"  quae  quondam  fuit ;"  and  that  the  name  was  in 
troduced  after  the  destruction  of  the  greater  part  of 
it  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  to  distinguish  it  from  that 
part  of  Tyre  which  continued  to  be  in  existence 
(De  rebus  Tyriorum,  p.  26).  Movers,  justly  deem 
ing  this  explanation  unlikely,  suggests  that  the 
original  inhabitants  of  the  city  on  the  mainland 
possessed  the  island  as  part  of  their  territory,  and 
named  their  city  from  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  island,  though  the  island  itself  was  not  then 
inhabited  (Das  Phonizische  Alterthum,  vol.  ii. 
pt.  i.  p.  173).  This  explanation  is  possible;  but 
other  explanations  are  equally  possible.  For  ei- 


TYRE 


1577 


ample,  the  Phoenician  name  of  it  may  have  been 
the  Old  City  ;  and  this  may  have  been  translated 
"  Palaetyrus  "  in  Greek.  Or,  if  the  inhabitants  oi 
the  mainland  migrated  to  the  island,  they  may 
afterwards,  at  some  time  or  other,  have  given  to 
the  city  which  they  left  the  name  of  Old  Tyre, 
without  its  being  necessarily  implied  that  the  city 
had  ever  borne  simply  the  name  of  Tyre.  Or  some 
accidental  circumstance,  now  beyond  the  reach  ol 
conjecture,  may  have  led  to  the  name  ;  just  as  for 
some  unaccountable  reason  Roma  Vecchia,  or  Old 
Rome,  is  the  nfMne  given  in  the  Roman  Campagna 
(as  is  stated  on  the  high  authority  of  Mr.  H.  E. 
Bunbury)  to  ruins  of  the  age  of  Caracalla  situated 
between  the  roads  leading  to  Frascati  and  Albano, 
although  there  are  no  traces  there  of  any  Old  Town, 
and  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  that 
there  is  any  historical  foundation  whatever  for  the 
name.  And  this  again  would  tally  with  Mr.  Grote's 
remark,  who  observes  (I.  c.)  that  perhaps  the  Phoe 
nician  name  which  the  city  on  the  mainland  bore 
may  have  been  something  resembling  Palae-Tyrtis 
in  sound  but  not  coincident  in  meaning.  It  is  im 
portant,  however,  to  bear  in  mind  that  this  question 
regarding  Palaetyrus  is  merely  archaeological,  and 
that  nothing  in  Biblical  history  is  affected  by  it. 
Nebuchadnezzar  necessarily  besieged  the  portion  of 
the  city  on  the  mainland,  as  he  had  no  vessels  with 
which  to  attack  the  island;  but  it  is  reasonably 
certain  that,  in  the  time  of  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel,  the 
heart  or  core  of  the  city  was  on  the  island.  The  city 
of  Tyre  was  consecrated  to  Hercules  (Melkarth) 
who  was  the  principal  object  of  worship  to  the  inha 
bitants  (Quintus  Curtius,  iv.  2 ;  Strabo,  XVi.  p. 
757)  ;  and  Arrian  in  his  History  says  that  the 
temple  on  the  island  was  the  most  ancient  of  all 
temples  within  the  memory  of  mankind  (ii.  16). 
It  cannot  be  doubted,  therefore,  that  the  island  had 
long  been  inhabited.  And  with  this  agree  the  ex 
pressions  as  to  Tyre  being  "  in  the  midst  of  the 
seas"  (Ezek.  xxvii.  25,  26);  and  even  the  threat 
against  it  that  it  should  be  made  like  the  top  of  a 
rock  to  spread  nets  upon  (see  Des  Vignoles'  Chro 
nologic  de  I'Histoire  S'ainte,  Berlin,  1738,  vol.  ii. 
p.  25).  As,  however,  the  space  on  the  island  was 
limited,  it  is  very  possible  that  the  population  on 
the  mainland  may  have  exceeded  the  population  on 
the  island  (see  Movers,  L  c.  p.  81). 

Whether  built  before  or  later  than  Palaetyrus, 
the  renowned  city  of  Tyre,  though  it  laid  claims  to 
a  very  high  antiquity  »  (Is.  xxiii.  7 ;  Herodot.  ii. 
14 ;  Quintus  Curtius,  iv.  4),  is  not  mentioned 
either  in  the  Iliad  or  in  the  Odyssey ;  but  no  infer 
ence  can  be  legitimately  drawn  from  this  fact  as 
to  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  the  city  at  the 
time  when  those  poems  were  composed.  The  tribe 
of  Canaanites  which  inhabited  the  small  tract  of 
country  which  may  be  called  Phoenicia  Proper 
[PHOENICIA]  was  known  by  the  generic  name  of 
Sidonians  (Judg.  xviii.  7  ;  Is.  xxiii.  2,  4,  12  ;  Josh, 
xiii.  6  ;  Ez.  xxxii.  30) ;  and  this  name  undoubtedly 
included  Tyrians,  the  inhabitants  being  of  the  same 
race,  and  the  two  cities  being  less  than  20  English 
miles  distant  from  each  other.  Hence  when  Solo 
mon  sent  to  Hiram  king  of  Tyre  for  cedar-trees  out 


•  According  to  Herodotus,  the  priests  at  Tyre  told  him 
that  their  city  had  been  founded  2300  years  before  his 
visit.  Supposing  he  was  at  Tyre  in  450  B.C.,  this  would 
make  the  date  of  its  foundation  2750  B.C.  Josephus 
makes  t!ie  more  sober  statement,  probably  founded  on 
Meiunder's  history,  tliat  it  was  founded  230  years  before 


the  commencement  of  the  building  of  Solomon's  temple. 
Under  any  circumstances,  Josephus  could  not,  with  his 
ideas  and  chronology,  have  accepted  the  date  of  the  Tyrinn 
priests ;  for  then  Tyre  would  have  been  founded  before 
the  era  of  the  Deluge.  See  an  instructive  passage  as  to  the 
chronology  of  Josephus  in  Ant.  viii.  3,  $1. 


1578 


TYRE 


of  Lebanon  to  be  hewn  by  Hiram's  subjects,  he 
reminds  Hiram  that  "  there  is  not  among  us  any 
that  can  skill  to  hew  timber  like  the  Sidouians" 
(I  K.  v.  6).  Hence  Virgil,  who,  in  his  very  first 
mention  of  Carthage,  expressly  states  that  it  was 
founded  by  colonists  from  Tyre  (Aen.  i.  12),  after 
wards,  with  perfect  propriety  and  consistency,  calls 
it  the  Sidonian  city  (Aen.  i.  677,  678,  iv.  545. 
See  Des  Vignoles,  1.  c.  p.  25.)  And  in  like  manner, 
when  Sidonians  are  spoken  of  in  the  Homeric  Poems 
(II.  vi.  290,xxiii.  743  ;  Od.  iv.  84,  xvii.  424),  this 
might  comprehend  Tyrians ;  and  the  mention  of  the 
city  Sidon,  while  there  is  no  similar  mention  of  Tyre, 
would  be  fully  accounted  for — if  it  were  necessary  to 
account  for  such  a  circumstance  at  all  in  a  poem — 
by  Sidon's  having  been  in  early  times  more  flour 
ishing  than  Tyre.  It  is  worthy,  likewise,  of  being 
noted,  that  Tyre  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Penta 
teuch  ;  but  here,  again,  though  an  inference  may 
be  drawn  against  the  importance,  no  inference  can 
be  legitimately  drawn  against  the  existence,  of 
Tyre  in  the  times  to  which  the  Pentateuch  refers. 

In  the  Bible,  Tyre  is  named  for  the  first  time  in 
the  Book  of  Joshua  (xix.  29),  where  it  is  adverted 
to  as  a  fortified  city  (in  the  A.  V.  "  the  strong 
city"),  in  reference  to  the  boundaries  of  the  tribe  of 
Asher.  Nothing  historical,  however,  turns  upon 
this  mention  of  Tyre;  for  it  is  indisputable  that 
the  tribe  of  Asher  never  possessed  the  Tyrian  terri 
tory.  According  to  the  injunctions  of  the  Pentateuch, 
indeed,  all  the  Canaanitish  nations  ought  to  have 
been  exterminated:  but,  instead  of  this,  the  Israelites 
dwelt  among  the  Sidonians  or  Phoenicians,  who 
were  inhabitants  of  the  land  (Judg.  i.  31,  32), 
«tnd  never  seem  to  have  had  any  war  with  that 
intelligent  race.  Subsequently,  in  a  passage  of 
Samuel  (2  Sam.  xxiv,  7),  it  is  stated  that  the 
enumerators  of  the  census  in  the  reign  of  David 
went  in  pursuance  of  their  mission  to  Tyre,  amongst 
other  cities,  which  must  be  understood  as  implying, 
not  that  Tyre  was  subject  to  David's  authority,  but 
merely  that  a  census  was  thus  taken  of  the  Jews  resi 
dent  there.  But  the  first  passages  in  the  Hebrew 
historical  writings,  or  in  ancient  history  generally, 
which  afford  glimpses  of  the  actual  condition  of  Tyre, 
are  in  the  Book  of  Samuel  (2  Sam.  v.  11),  in  connec 
tion  with  Hiram  king  of  Tyre  sending  cedar-wood 
and  workmen  to  David,  for  building  him  a  palace ; 
and  subsequently  in  the  Book  of  Kings,  in  connec 
tion  with  the  building  of  Solomon's  temple.  One 
point  at  this  period  is  particularly  worthy  or  atten 
tion.  In  contradistinction  from  all  the  other  most 
celebrated  independent  commercial  cities  out  of 
Phoenicia  in  the  ancient  and  modern  world,  Tyre 
was  a  monarchy  and  not  a  republic  ;  and,  notwith 
standing  its  merchant  princes,  who  might  have  been 
dbemcd  likely  to  favour  the  establishment  of  an 
aristocratical  commonwealth,  it  continued  to  pre 
serve  the  monarchical  form  of  government  until  its 
final  loss  of  independence.  Another  point  is  the 
skill  in  the  mechauical  arts  which  seems  to  have 
been  already  attained  by  the  Tyrians.  Under  this 
head,  allusion  is  not  specially  made  to  the  excel 
lence  of  the  Tyrians  in  felling  trees ;  for,  through 
vicinity  to  the  forests  of  Lebanon,  they  would  as 
naturally  have  become  skilled  in  that  art  as  the  back- 


b  It  may  be  interesting  to  compare  the  distance  from 
which  the  limestone  was  brought  with  which  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  was  built.  It  was  hewn  from  quarries  in  the 
Isle  of  Portland,  and  was  sent  to  London  round  the  North 
fr'oreland  up  the  river  Thames.  The  distance  to  London  in 


TYRE 

woodsmen  of  America.  But  what  is  peculia:ly 
noteworthy  is  that  Tyrians  had  become  workers  iu 
brass  or  copper  to  an  extent  which  implies  consider 
able  advancement  in  art.  In  the  enumeration  of 
the  various  works  in  brass  executed  by  the  Tyrian 
artists  whom  Solomon  sent  for,  there  are  lilies, 
palm-trees,  oxen,  lions,  and  cherubim  (1  K.  vii. 
1 3-45).  The  manner  in  which  the  cedar- wood  and 
fir-wood  was  conveyed  to  Jerusalem  is  likewise 
interesting,  partly  from  the  similarity  of  the  sea 
voyage  to  what  may  commonly  be  seen  on  the 
Rhine  at  the  present  day,  and  partly  as  giving  a 
vivid  idea  of  the  really  short  distance  between  Tyre 
and  Jerusalem.  The  wood  was  taken  in  floats  to 
Joppa  (2  Chr.  ii.  16;  1  K.  v.  9),  a  distance  of 
less  than  74  geographical  miles.  In  the  Mediter 
ranean  during  summer  there  are  times  when  this 
voyage  along  the  coast  would  have  been  perfectly 
sate,  and  when  the  Tyrians  might  have  reckoned 
confidently,  especially  at  night,  on  light  winds  to 
fill  the  sails  which  were  probably  used  on  such 
occasions.  From  Joppa  to  Jerusalem  the  distance 
was  about  32  miles  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  by 
this  route  the  whole  distance  between  the  two  cele 
brated  cities  of  Jerusalem  and  Tyre  was  not  more 
than  106b  geographical,  or  about  122  English, 
miles.  Within  such  a  comparatively  short  distance 
(which  by  land,  in  a  straight  line,  was  about  20  miles 
shorter)  it  would  be  easy  for  two  sovereigns  to 
establish  personal  relations  with  each  other ;  morr 
especially  as  the  northern  boundary  of  Solomon's 
kingdom,  in  one  direction,  was  the  southern  boundary 
of  Phoenicia.  Solomon  and  Hiram  may  frequently 
have  met,  and  thus  laid  the  foundations  of  a  political 
alliance  in  personal  friendship.  If  by  messengers 
they  sent  riddles  and  problems  for  each  other  to 
solve  (Joseph.  Ant.  viii.  5,  §3;  c.  Apion.  i.  17), 
they  may  previously  have  had,  on  several  occasions, 
a  keen  encounter  of  wits  in  convivial  intercourse. 
In  this  way,  likewise,  Solomon  may  have  become 
acquainted  with  the  Sidonian  women  who,  with 
those  of  other  nations,  seduced  him  to  Polytheism 
and  the  worship  of  Astarte  in  his  old  age.  Similar 
remarks  apply  to  the  circumstances  which  may  have 
occasioned  previously  the  strong  affection  of  Hiram 
for  David  (1  K.  v.  1). 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  evident  that  under 
Solomon  there  was  a  close  alliance  between  the 
Hebrews  and  the  Tyrians.  Hiram  supplied  Solo 
mon  with  cedar  wood,  precious  metals,  and 
men,  and  gave  him  sailors  for  the  voyage  to  Ophir 
and  India,  while  on  the  other  hand  Solomon  gnve 
Hiram  supplies  of  corn  and  oil,  ceded  to  him  some 
cities,  and  permitted  him  to  make  use  of  soim 
havens  on  the  Red  Sea  (1  K.  ix.  11-14,  26-28, 
x.  22).  These  friendly  relations  survived  for  a 
time  the  disastrous  secession  of  the  Ten  Tribes,  and 
a  century  later  Ahab  married  a  daughter  of  Eth- 
baal,  king  of  the  Sidonians  (1  K.  xvi.  31),  who, 
according  to  Menander  (Josephus,  Ant.  viii.  13, 
§2),  was  daughter  of  Ithobal,  king  of  Tyre.  As 
she  was  zealous  for  her  national  religion,  she  seems 
te  have  been  regarded  as  an  abomination  by  the 
pious  worshippers  of  Jehovah ;  but  this  led  to  no 
special  prophetical  denunciations  against  Tyre. 
The  case  became  different,  however,  when  mercan- 


Sulo- 
\vork- 
Owhir 


a  straight  line  from  the  North  Foreland  alone  is  of  itseli 
about  twelve  miles  greater  than  from  Tyre  to  Joppa; 
while  the  distance  from  the  Isle  of  Portland  to  the  North 
Fureland  is  actually  three  times  as  great. 


TYEE 

tile  cupidity  induced  the  Tyriaus  and  the  neigh 
bouring  Phoenicians  to  buy  Hebrew  captives  from 
their  enemies  and  to  sell  them  as  slaves  to  the 
Greeks  [PHOENICIA,  p.  1001]  and  Edormtes. 
From  this  time  commenced  denunciations,  and,  at 
first,  threats  of  retaliation  (Joel  iii.  4-8 ;  Amos  i. 
9,  10):  and  indeed,  though  there  might  be  peace, 
there  could  not  be  sincere  friendship  between  the 
two  nations.  But  the  likelihood  of  the  denuncia 
tions  being  fulfilled  first  arose  from  the  progressive 
conquests  of  the  Assyrian  monarchs.  It  was  not 
probable  that  a  powerful,  victorious,  and  ambitious 
neighbour  could  resist  the  temptation  of  endeavour 
ing  to  subjugate  the  small  strip  of  land  between 
the  Lebanon  and  the  sea,  so  insignificant  in  extent, 
but  overflowing  with  so  much  wealth,  which  by 
the  Greeks  was  called  Phoenicia,  [PHOENICIA.] 
Accordingly,  when  Shahnaneser,  king  of  Assyria, 
had  taken  the  city  6f  Samaria,  had  conquered  the 
kingdom  of  Israel  and  carried  its  inhabitants  into 
captivity,  he  turned  his  arms  against  the  Phoeni 
cian  cities.  At  this  time,  Tyre  had  reached  a  high 
point  of  prosperity.  Since  the  reign  of  Hiram,  it 
had  planted  the  splendid  colony  of  Carthage  (143 
years  and  eight  months,  Joseph  us  says,  after  the 
building  of  Solomon's  temple,  c.  Apion,  i.  18);  it 
possessed  the  island  of  Cyprus,  with  the  valuable 
mines  of  the  metal  "  copper"  (so  named  from  the 
island) ;  and,  apparently,  the  city  of  Sidon  was 
subject  to  its  sway.  But  Shalmaneser  seems  to 
have  taken  advantage  of  a  revolt  of  the  Cyprians  ; 
-and  what  ensued  is  thus  related  by  Menander,  who 
translated  the  archives  of  Tyre  into  the  Greek  lan 
guage  (see  Josephus,  Ant.  ix.  14,  §2):  "  Elulaeus 
reigned  36  years  (over  Tyre).  This  king,  upon  the 
revolt  of  the  Kittaeans  (Cyprians),  sailed  with  a 
fleet  against  them,  and  reduced  them  to  submission. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  king  of  the  Assyrians  at 
tacked  in  war  the  whole  of  Phoenicia,  but  soon 
made  peace  with  all,  and  turned  back.  On  this, 
Sidon  and  Ace  (i.e.  Akko  or  Acre)  and  Palaetyrus 
revolted  from  the  Tynans,  with  many  other  cities 
which  delivered  themselves  up  to  the  king  of  Assyria. 
Accordingly,  when  the  Tyrians  would  not  submit  to 
him,  the  king  returned  and  fell  upon  them  again,  the 
Phoenicians  having  furnished  him  with  60  ships  and 
800  rowers.  Against  these  the  Tyrians  sailed  with 
12  ships,  and,  dispersing  the  fleet  opposed  to  them, 
they  took  five  hundred  men  prisoners.  The  reputa 
tion  of  all  the  citizens  in  Tyre  was  hence  increased. 
Upon  this  the  king  of  the  Assyrians,  moving  off  his 
army,  placed  guards  at  their  river  and  aqueducts  to 
prevent  the  Tyrians  from  drawing  water.  This 
continued  for  five  years,  and  still  the  Tyrians  held 
out,  supplying  themselves  with  water  from  wells." 
It  is  in  reference  to  this  siege  that  the  prophecy 
against  Tyre  in  the  writings  entitled  Isaiah,  chap, 
xxiii.,  was  uttered,  if  it  proceeded  from  the  Pro 
phet  Isaiah  himself:  but  this  point  will  be  again 
noticed. 

After  the  siege  of  Tyre  by  Shalmaneser  (which 
must  have  taken  place  not  long  after  721  B.C.), 
Tyre  remained  a  powerful  state  with  its  own  kings 
(Jer.  xxv.  22,  xxvii.  3;  Ez.  xxviii.  2-12),  remark 
able  for  its  wealth,  with  territory  on  the  main 
land,  and  protected  by  strong  fortifications  (Ez. 
xxviii.  5,  xxvi.  4,  6,  8,  10,  12,  xxvii.  11  ;  Zech. 
ix.  3).  Our  knowledge  of  its  condition  thencefor- 
wurd  until  the  siege  by  Nebuchadnezzar  depends 
entirely  on  various  notices  of  it  by  the  Hebrew  pro 
phets  ;  but  some  of  these  notices  are  singularly  full, 
and  especially,  the  ^enty-seventh  chapter  of  Ezekiel 


TYRE  1579 

furnishes  us,  on  some  points,  with  details  such  aj 
have  scarcely  come  down  to  us  respecting  any  one 
city  of  antiquity,  excepting  Rome  and  Athens.  "One 
point  especially  arrests  the  attention,  that  Tyre, 
like  its  splendid  daughter  Carthage,  employed  mer 
cenary  soldiers  (Ez.  xxvii.  10,  11).  This  has  been 
the  general  tendency  in  commercial  cities  on  account 
of  the  high  wages  which  may  be  obtained  by 
artisans  in  a  thriving  community,  compared  with 
the  ordinary  pay  of  a  soldier  ;  and  Tyre  had  been 
unable  to  resist  the  demoralizing  temptation.  In 
its  service  there  were  Phoenicians  from  Arvad, 
Aethiopians  obtained  through  the  commerce  of 
Egypt,  and  hardy  mountaineers  from  Persia.  This 
is  the  first  time  that  the  name  of  Persia  occurs  in 
the  remains  of  ancient  literature,  before  its  sons 
founded  a  great  monarchy  on  the  ruins  of  the 
Chaldaean  empire.  We  may  conceive  them  like  the 
Swiss,  who,  poor,  faithful,  and  brave,  have  during 
many  centuries,  until  the  last  few  years,  deemed  en 
listment  in  foreign  service  a  legitimate  source  of  gain. 
Independently,  however,  of  this  fact  respecting  Tyrian 
mercenary  soldiers,  Ezekiel  gives  interesting  details 
respecting  the  trade  of  Tyre.  On  this  head,  without 
attempting  to  exhaust  the  subject,  a  few  leading 
points  may  be  noticed.  The  first  question  is  as  to 
the  countries  from  which  Tyre  obtained  the  precious 
metals;  and  it  appears  that  its  gold  came  from 
Arabia  by  the  Persian  Gulf  (v.  22),  just  as  in  the 
time  of  Solomon  it  came  from  Arabia  by  the  Red 
Sea  [OPHIR].  Whether  the  Arabian  merchants, 
whose  wealth  was  proverbial  in  Roman  classical 
times  (Horace,  Oct.  i.  29,  1),  obtained  their  gold 
by  traffic  with  Africa  or  India,  or  whether  it  was 
the  product  of  their  own  country,  is  uncertain  ;  but 
as  far  as  the  latter  alternative  is  concerned,  the 
point  will  probably  be  cleared  up  in  the  progress  of 
geological  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
silver,  iron,  lead,  and  tin  of  Tyre  came  from  a  very 
different  quarter  of  the  world,  viz.  from  the  South 
of  Spain,  where  the  Phoenicians  had  established 
their  settlement  of  Tarshish,  or  Tartessus.  As  to 
copper,  we  should  have  presumed  that  it  was  ob 
tained  from  the  valuable  mines  in  Cyprus ;  but  it 
is  mentioned  here  in  conjunction  with  Javan,  Tubal, 
and  Meshech,  which  points  to  the  districts  on  the 
south  of  the  Black  Sea,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Armenia,  in  the  southern  line  of  the  Caucasus, 
between  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Caspian.  The 
country  whence  Tyre  was  supplied  with  wheat  was 
Palestine.  This  point  has  been  already  noticed 
elsewhere  [PHOENICIANS,  p.  1002]  as  helping  to 
explain  why  there  is  no  instance  on  record  of  war 
between  Tyre  and  the  Israelites.  It  may  be  added 
that  the  value  of  Palestine  as  a  wheat-country  to 
Tyre  was  greatly  enhanced  by  its  proximity,  as  there 
was  scarcely  a  part  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  on  the 
west  of  the  River  Jordan  which  was  distant  more 
than  a  hundred  miles  from  that  great  commercial 
city.  The  extreme  points  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah 
would  be  somewhat  more  distant ;  but  the  wheat 
probably  came  from  the  northern  part  of  Palestine. 
Tyre  likewise  obtained  from  Palestine  oil,  honey, 
and  balm,  but  not  wine  apparently,  notwithstand 
ing  the  abundance  of  grapes  and  wine  in  Judah 
(Gen.  xlix.  11).  The  wine  was  imported  from 
Damascus,  and  was  called  wine  of  Helbon,  which 
was  probably  not  the  product  of  the  country  ad 
joining  the  celebrated  city  of  that  name,  but  came 
from  the  neighbourhood  of  Damascus  itself  (see 
Porter's  Handbook  for  Syria,  vol.  ii.  p.  495: 
compare  Atheuacus,  i.  51 X  The  Bedawin  Arabs 


1580 


TYRE 


Supplied  Tyre  with  lambs  and  rams  and  goats,  for 
the  rearing  of  which  their  mode  of  life  was  so  well 
adapted.  Egypt  furnished  linen  for  sails,  and  doubt 
less  for  other  purposes,  and  the  dyes  from  shell 
fish,  which  afterwards  became  such  a  source  of 
profit  to  the  Tyrians,  were  imported  from  the 
Peloponnesus  (compare  the  "  Laconicas  purpuras  " 
of  Horace,  Od.  ii.  18,  7,  and  Pliny  ix.  40). 
Lastly,  from  Dedan  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  an  island 
occupied  possibly  by  a  Phoenician  colony,  horns  of 
ivory  and  ebony  were  imported,  which  must  origi 
nally  have  been  obtained  from  India  (Ez.  xxvii.  10, 
11,  22,  12,  13,  17,  18,  21,  7,  15). 

In  the  midst  of  great  prosperity  and  wealth, 
which  was  the  natural  result  of  such  an  extensive 
trade  (Ez.  xxviii;  4),  Nebuchadnezzar,  at  the  head 
of  an  irmy  of  the  Chaldees,  invaded  Judaea,  and 
captured  Jerusalem.  As  Tyre  was  so  near  to 
Jerusalem,  and  as  the  conquerors  were  a  fierce 
and  formidable  race  (Hab.  i.  6),  led  by  a  general 
of  undoubted  capacity,  who  had  not  long  before 
Inimbled  the  power  of  the  Egyptians,  it  would 
naturally  be  supposed  that  this  event  would  have 
excited  alarm  and  terror  amongst  the  Tyrians. 
Instead  of  this,  we  may  infer  from  Ezekiel's  state 
ment  (xxvi.  2)  that  their  predominant  feeling  was 
one  of  exultation.  At  first  sight  this  appears 
strange  and  almost  inconceivable;  but  it  is  ren 
dered  intelligible  by  some  previous  events  in  Jewish 
history.  Only  34  years  before  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  commenced  the  celebrated  .Reformation 
of  Josiah,  B.C.  622.  This  momentous  religious 
revolution,  of  which  a  detailed  account  is  given  in 
two  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Kings  (2  K.  xiii. 
xxiii.),  and  which  cannot  be  too  closely  studied  by 
any  one  who  wishes  to  understand  the  Jewish 
Annals,  fully  explains  the  exultation  and  malevo 
lence  of  the  Tyrians.  In  that  Keformation,  Josiah 
had  heaped  insults  on  the  gods  who  were  the 
objects  of  Tyrian  veneration  and  love,  he  had  con 
sumed  with  fire  the  sacred  vessels  used  in  their 
worship,  he  had  burnt  their  images  and  defiled 
their  high  places — not  excepting  even  the  high 
place  near  Jerusalem,  which  Solomon  the  friend  of 
Hiram  had  built  to  Ashtoreth  the  Queen  of  Heaven, 
and  which  for  more  than  350  years  had  been 
a  striking  memorial  of  the  reciprocal  good-will 
which  once  united  the  two  monarchs  and  the  two 
nations.  Indeed,  he  seemed  to  have  endeavoured 
to  exterminate  their  religion,  for  in  Samaria  (2  K. 
xxiii.  20)  he  had  slain  upon  the  altars  of  the  high 
places  all  their  priests.  These  acts,  although  in 
their  ultimate  results  they  may  have  contributed 
powerfully  to  the  c  diffusion  of  the  Jewish  religion, 
must  have  been  regarded  by  the  Tyrians  as  a  series 
of  sacrilegious  and  abominable  outrages ;  and  we 
can  scarcely  doubt  that  the  death  in  battle  of 
Josiah  at  Megiddo,  and  the  subsequent  destruction 
of  the  city  and  Temple  of  Jerusalem  were  hailed 
by  them  with  triumphant  joy  as  instances  of  divine 
retribution  in  human  affairs. 

This  joy,  however,  must  soon  have  given  way 
to  other  feelings,  when  Nebuchadnezzar  invaded 
Phoenicia,  and  laid  siege  to  Tyre.  That  siege 
lasted  thirteen  years  (Joseph,  c.  Apion.  i.  21),  and 
it  is  still  a  disputed  point,  which  will  be  noticed 
sqarately  in  this  article,  whether  Tyre  was  actually 
taken  by  Nebuchadnezzar  on  this  occasion.  How- 


c  It  was  owing  to  this  Reformation  of  Josiah  that  when 
tJQe  Jews  were  carried  into  captivity  by  Nebuchadnezzar  a 
tiiciiuiatiuu  hud  arisen  untainted  by  idolatry,  and  yet 


TYRE 

ever  this  may  be,  it  is  probable  that,  on  some  tcrma 
or  other,  Tyre  submitted  to  the  Chaldees.  This 
would  explain,  amongst  other  points,  an  expeditioi 
of  A  pries,  the  Pharaoh-Hophra  of  Scripture,  against 
Tyre,  which  probably  happened  not  long  after,  and 
which  may  have  been  dictated  by  obvious  motives 
of  self-defence  in  order  to  prevent  the  naval  power 
of  Tyre  becoming  a  powerful  instrument  of  attack 
ing  Egypt  in  the  hands  of  the  Chaldees.  In  this 
expedition  Apries  besieged  Sidon,  fought  a  naval 
battle  with  Tyre,  and  reduced  the  whole  of  the  coast 
of  Phoenicia,  though  this  could  not  have  had  lasting 
effects  (Herod,  ii.  161;  Diod.  i.  68;  Movers,  Das 
Phonizische  Alterthum,  vol.  ii.  p.  451).  The  rule 
of  Nebuchadnezzar  over  Tyre,  though  real,  may 
have  been  light,  and  in  the  nature  of  an  alliance ; 
and  it  may  have  been  in  this  sense  that  Merbal,  a 
subsequent  Tynan  king,  was  sent  for  to  Babylon 
(Joseph,  c.  Apion.  i.  21).  Durtog  the  Persian  domi 
nation  the  Tyrians  were  subject  in  name  to  the  Per 
sian  king,  and  may  have  given  him  tribute.  With 
the  rest  of  Phoenicia,  they  had  submitted  to  the 
Persians,  without  striking  a  blow ;  perhaps,  through 
hatred  of  the  Chaldees;  perhaps,  solely  from  pru 
dential  motives.  But  their  connexion  with  the 
Persian  king  was  not  slavish.  Thus,  when  Cam- 
byses  ordered  them  to  join  in  an  expedition  against 
Carthage,  they  refused  compliance,  on  account  of 
their  solemn  engagements  and  parental  relation  to 
that  colony :  and  Cambyses  did  not  deem  it  right  to 
use  force  towards  them  (Herod,  iii.  19).  Afterward! 
they  fought  with  Persia  against  Greece,  and  fur 
nished  vessels  of  war  in  the  expedition  of  Xerxes 
against  Greece  (Herod,  vii.  98) ;  and  Mapen,  the 
son  of  Sirom  the  Tynan,  is  mentioned  amongst  those 
who,  next  to  the  commanders,  were  the  most  re 
nowned  in  the  fleet.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that 
at  this  time  Tyre  seems  to  have  been  inferior  M 
power  to  Sidon.  These  two  cities  were  less  thaii 
twenty  English  miles  distant  from  each  other  ;  and 
it  is  easy  to  conceive  that  iii  the  course  of  centuries 
their  relative  importance  might  fluctuate,  as  would 
be  very  possible  in  our  own  country  with  two  neigh 
bouring  cities,  such,  for  example,  as  Liverpool  and 
Manchester.  It  is  possible  also  that  Tyre  may  have 
been  seriously  weakened  by  its  long  struggle  against 
Nebuchadnezzar.  Under  the  Persian  dominion, 
Tyre  and  Sidon  supplied  cedar  wood  again  to  the 
Jews  for  the  building  of  the  second  Temple  ;  and 
this  wood  was  sent  by  sea  to  Joppa,  and  thence 
to  Jerusalem,  as  had  been  the  case  with  the  mate- 
rials  for  the  first  Temple  in  the  time  of  Solomon 
(Ezra,  iii.  7).  Under  the  Persians  likewise  Tyre 
was  visited  by  an  historian,  from  whom  we  might 
have  derived  valuable  information  respecting  its 
condition  (Herod,  ii.  44).  But  the  information 
actually  supplied  by  him  is  scanty,  as  the  motive 
of  his  voyage  seems  to  have  been  solely  to  visit 
the  celebrated  temple  of  Melkarth  (the  Phoenician 
Hercules),  which  was  situated  in  the  island,  and 
was  highly  venerated.  He  gives  no  details  as  to 
the  city,  and  merely  specifies  two  column*  which 
he  observed  in  the  temple,  one  of  gold,  and  the 
other  of  emerald  ;  or  rather,  as  is  reasonably  con 
jectured  by  Sir  Gardiner  Wilkinson,  oi  green 
glass  (Rawliuson's  Herodotus,  ii.  81,  82).  Towards 
the  close  of  the  following  century,  B.C.  332, 
Tyre  was  assailed  for  the  third  time  by  a  great 


many  of  them  probably  free  from  the  intense  scrupulous 
ness  in  ceremonial  observances  which  prevailed  subse 
quently. 


TYRE 

conqueror  :  and  it  some  uncertainty  hangs  over  the 
Eiege  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  the  results  of  the  siege 
by  Alexander  were  clear  and  undeniable.  It  was 
essential  to  th»  success  of  his  military  plans  that 
the  Phoenician  fleet  should  be  at  his  command,  and 
that  he  should  not  be  liable  through  their  hostility 
to  have  his  communications  by  seti  with  Greece  and 
Macedonia  suddenly  cut  off;  and  he  accordingly 
summoned  all  the  Phoenician  cities  to  submit  to 
his  rule.  All  the  rest  of  them,  including  Aradus, 
By  bins  and  Sidon,  complied  with  his  demands,  and 
the  seamen  of  those  cities  in  the  Persian  fleet  brought 
away  their  ships  to  join  him.  Tyre  alone,  calculat 
ing  probably  at  first  on  the  support  of  those  seamen, 
refused  to  admit  him  within  its  walls — and  then 
ensued  a  memorable  siege  which  lasted  seven  months, 
and  the  success  of  which  was  the  greatest  of  all  the 
achievements  which  Alexander  up  to  that  time  had 
attempted.  It  is  not  necessary  to  give  here  the 
details  of  that  siege,  which  may  be  found  in  Arrian 
and  Quintus  Curtius,  and  in  all  good  Grecian  his 
tories,  such  as  those  of  Bishop  Thirlwall  and  Mr. 
Grote.  It  may  be  sufficient  to  say,  that  at  that 
time  Tyre  was  situated  on  an  island  nearly  half  a 
mile  from  the  mainland — that  "  it  was  completely 
surrounded  by  prodigious  walls,  the  loftiest  portion 
of  which  on  the  side  fronting  the  mainland  reached 
a  height  not  less  than  150  feet;"  and  that  not 
withstanding  his  persevering  efforts,  he  could  not 
have  succeeded  in  his  attempt,  if  the  harbour  of 
Tyre  to  the  north  had  not  been  blockaded  by  the 
Cyprians,  and  that  to  the  south  by  the  Phoenicians, 
thus  affording  an  opportunity  to  Alexander  for 
uniting  the  island  to  the  mainland  by  an  enormous 
artificial41  mole.  Moreover,  owing  to  internal  dis 
turbances,  Carthage  was  unable  to  afford  any  assist 
ance  to  its  parent  state. 

The  immediate  results  of  the  capture  by  Alex 
ander  were  most  disastrous  to  it,  as  its  brave 
defenders  were  put  to  death ;  and,  in  accordance 
with  the  barbarous  policy  of  ancient  times,  30,000 
of  its  inhabitants,  including  slaves,  free  females 
and  free  children  were  sold  as  slaves  (Arrian,  iv. 
24,  §9  ;  Diodorus,  xvii.  46).  It  gradually,  how 
ever,  recovered  its  prosperity  through  the  immi 
gration  of  fresh  settlers,  though  its  trade  is  said  to 
have  suffered  by  the  vicinity  and  rivalry  of  Alex 
andria.  Under  the  Macedonian  successors  of  Alex 
ander,  it  shared  the  fortunes  of  the  Seleucidae,  who 
bestowed  on  it  many  privileges ;  and  there  are  still 
in  existence  coins  of  that  epoch  with  a  Phoenician 
and  Greek  inscription  (Eckhel,  Doctr.  Nummorum 
Vet.  vol.  iii.  p.  379,  &c. ;  Gesenius,  Monumenta 
Phoenicia*,  pp.  262-264,  and  Tab.  34).  Under 
the  Romans,  at  first  it  continued  to  enjoy  a  kind 
of  freedom ;  for  Josephus  mentions  that  when  Cleo 
patra  presi:«d  Antony  to  include  Tyre  and  Sidon 
in  a  gift  of  Phoenician  and  Jewish  territory  which 
he  made  to  her,  he  steadily  refused,  knowing  them  to 
have  been  "  free  cities  from  their  ancestors"  (Ant. 
xv.  4,  §1).  Subsequently,  however,  on  the  arrival 

d  That  Tyre  was  on  an  island,  previous  to  its  siege  by 
Alexander,  is  one  of  the  most  certain  facts  of  history ;  but 
on  examining  the  locality  at  the  present  day  few  persons 
would  suspect  from  existing  appearances  that  there  was  j 
anything   artificial    in    the    formation    of   the   present  i 
peninsula. 

•  Pliny  the  elder  gives  an  account  of  the  Phoenician  j 
shell-fish  (ix.  60,  61),  and  states  that  from  the  larger  ones  j 
the  dye  was  extracted,  after  taking  off  the  shell :  but  that  ' 
Ihe  small  fish  were  crushed  alive  together  with  the  shells. 
Mr.  Wilde,  an  intelligent  modern  traveller,  observed  at 

I 


TYRE 


1581 


of  Augustus  in  the  East,  he  is  said  to  have  dopviv^l 
the  two  cities  of  their  liberties  for  seditious  conduct 
(eSov\(i>(Tarot  Dion  Cassius,  Ixiv.  7).  Still  the 
prosperity  of  Tyre  in  the  time  of  Augustus  was 
undeniably  great.  Strabo  gives  an  account  of  it  at 
that  period  (xvi.  2,  23),  and  speaks  of  the  great 
wealth  which  it  derived  from  the  dyes  of  the  cele 
brated  Tyrian  purple,  which,  as  is  well  known, 
were  extracted  from  shell-fish  found  on  the  coast, 
belonging  to  a  species  of  the  genus  Murex.  In  the 
days  of  Ezekiel,  the  Tyrians  had  imported  purple 
from  the  Peloponnesus ;  but  they  had  since  learned 
to  extract  the  dye  for  themselves ;  and  they  had  the 
advantage  of  having  shell-fish  on  their  coast  better 
adapted  for  this  purpose  even  than  those  on  the 
Lacedaemonian  coast  (Pausanias,  iii.  21,  §6).  Strabo 
adds,  that  the  great  number  of  dyeing  works  ren 
dered  tlie  city  unpleasant  as  a  place  of  residence.8 
He  further  speaks  of  the  houses  as  consisting  of 
many  stories,  even  of  more  than  in  the  houses  at 
Rome — which  is  precisely  what  might  be  expected 
in  a  prosperous  fortified  city  of  limited  area,  in 
which  ground-rent  would  be  high.  Pliny  the  Elder 
gives  additional  informatioH  respecting  the  city,  for 
in  describing  it  he  says  that  the  circumference  of 
the  city  proper  (i.  e.  the  city  on  the  peninsula)  was 
22  stadia,  while  that  of  the  whole  city,  includ 
ing  Palaetyrus,  was  19  Roman  miles  (Nat.  Hist. 
v.  17).  The  accounts  of  Strabo  and  Pliny  have 
a  peculiar  interest  in  this  respect,  that  they  tend  to 
convey  an  idea  of  what  the  city  must  have  been, 
when  visited  by  Christ  (Matt.  xv.  21  ;  Mark  vii. 
24).  It  was  perhaps  more  populous  than  Jeru 
salem  [JERUSALEM,  p.  1025],  and  if  so,  it  was  un 
doubtedly  the  largest  city  which  he  is  known  to 
have  visited.  It  was  not  much  more  than  thirty 
miles  distant  from  Nazareth,  where  Christ  mainly 
lived  as  a  carpenter's  son  during  the  greater  part 
of  his  life  (Matt.  ii.  23,  iv.  12,  13,  18;  Mark 
vi.  3).  We  may  readily  conceive  that  He  may 
often  have  gone  to  Tyre,  while  yet  unknown  to  the 
world ;  and  whatever  uncertainty  there  may  be  as 
to  the  extent  to  which  the  Greek  language  was 
likely  to  be  spoken  at  Nazareth,  at  Tyre  and  in  its 
neighbourhood  there  must  have  been  excellent  oppor 
tunities  for  conversation  in  that  language,  with  which 
He  seems  to  have  been  acquainted  (Mark  vii.  26). 
From  the  time  of  Christ  to  the  beginning  of  the  5th 
century,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that,  as  far  as  was 
compatible  with  the  irreparable  loss  of  independence, 
Tyre  continued  in  uninterrupted  prosperity ;  and 
about  that  period  Jerome  has  on  record  very  striking 
testimony  on  the  subject,  which  has  been  often 
quoted,  and  is  a  landmark  in  Tyrian  history  (see 
Gesenius's  Jesaia,  vol.  i.  p.  714).  Jerome,  in  his 
Commentaries  on  Ezekiel,  comes  to  the  passage  in 
which  the  prophet  threatens  Tyre  with  the  approach 
of  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon  (Ez.  xxvi.  7)  ; 
and  he  then,  amongst  other  points,  refers  to  the 
verse  in  which  the  prophet  predicts  of  Tyre,  "  Thou 
shalt  be  built  no  more,"  saying  that  this  raises  a 


Tyve  numerous  round  holes  cut  in  the  solid  sandstone 
rock,  in  which  shells  seem  to  have  been  crushed.  They 
were  perfectly  smooth  on  the  inside ;  and  many  of  them 
were  shaped  exactly  like  a  modern  iron  pot,  broad  and  flat 
at  the  bottom,  and  narrowing  toward  the  top.  Many  of 
these  were  filled  with  a  breccia  of  shells;  in  other  places 
this  breccia  lay  in  heaps  in  the  neighbourhood.  All  tho 
shells  were  of  one  species,  and  were  undoubtedly  tuo 
Murex  Irunculus.  See  Narrative  of  a  Voyage  to  Madeira, 
Teneriffe,  and  along  the  Shores  of  the  Mediterranean 
Dublin,  1844. 


1582 


TYRE 


question  as  to  how  a  city  can  be  said  not  to  be 
built  any  more,  whfch  we  see  at  the  present  day 
the  most  noble  and  the  most  beautiful  city  of  Phoe 
nicia.  "  Quodque  sequitur:  nee  aedificaberis  ultra, 
ridetur  facere  quaestionem  quomodo  non  sit  aedifi- 
eata,  quam  hodie  cemimus  Phoenices  nobilissimam 
et  pulchcrrimam  civitatem."  He  afterwards,  in  his 
remarks  on  the  3rd  verse  of  the  27th  chapter,  in 
which  Tyre  is  called,  "  a  merchant  of  the  people 
for  many  isles,"  says  that  this  continues  down  to 
his  time,  so  that  commercial  dealings  of  almost  all 
nations  are  carried  on  in  that  city — "quod  quidem 
usque  hodie  per  sever  at,  ut  omnium  propemodo  gen 
tium  in  ilia  exerceantur  commercial'  Jerome's 
Commentaries  on  Ezekiel  are  supposed  to  have  been 
written  about  the  years  411-414  A.D.  (see  Smith's 
Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Biography,  vol. 
ii.  p.  465),  so  that  his  testimony  respecting  the 
prosperity  of  Tyre  bears  date  almost  precisely  a 
thousand  years  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by 
Nebuchadnezzar,  B.C.  588.  As  to  the  passage  in 
which  Ezekiel  states  that  Tyre  shall  be  built  no 
more,  Jerome  says  the  meaning  is,  that  "  Tyre  will 
be  no  more  the  Queen  of  Nations,  having  its  own 
king,  as  was  the  case  under  Hiram  and  other  kings, 
but  that  it  was  destined  to  be  always  subject,  either 
to  the  Chaldeans,  or  to  the  Macedonians,  or  to  the 
Ptolemies,  or  at  last  to  the  Romans."  At  the  same 
time  Jerome  notices  a  meaning  given  to  the  passage 
by  some  interpreters,  that  Tyre  would  not  be  built 
in  the  last  days ;  but  he  asks  of  such  intei-preters, 
"  How  they  will  be  able  to  preserve  the  part  attri 
buted  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  especially  as  we  read 
in  what  follows,  that  Nebuchadnezzar  besieged 
Tyre,  but  had  no  reward  of  his  labour  (xxix.  18), 
and  that  Egypt  was  given  over  to  him  because  in 
besieging  Tyre  he  had  served  the  purpose  of  God." 
When  Jerome  spoke  of  Tyre's  subjection  to  the 
Romans,  which  had  then  lasted  more  than  four  hun 
dred  years,  he  could  scarcely  have  anticipated  that 
another  subjugation  of  the  country  was  reserved  for 
it  from  a  new  conquering  power,  coming  not  from 
the  North,  but  from  the  South.  In  the  7th  century 
A.D.  took  place  the  extraordinary  Arabian  revolution 
under  Mahomet,  which  has  given  a  new  religion 
to  so  many  millions  of  mankind.  In  the  years  633- 
638  A.D.  all  Syria  and  Palestine,  from  the  Dead 
Sea  to  Antioch,  was  conquered  by  the  Khalif  Omar. 
This  conquest  was  so  complete,  that  in  both  those 
countries  the  language  of  Mahomet  has  almost  totally 
supplanted  the  language  of  Christ.  In  Syria,  there 
are  only  three  villages  where  Syriac  (or  Aramaic) 
is  the  vernacular  language.  In  Palestine,  it  is  not 
the  language  of  a  single  native:  and  in  Jerusalem,  to 
a  stranger  who  understands  what  is  involved  in  this 
snomentous  revolution,  it  is  one  of  the  most  sug 
gestive  of  all  sounds  to  hear  the  Muezzin  daily  call 
Mahometans  to  prayers  in  the  Arabic  language  of 
Mahomet,  within  the  sacred  precincts  where  once 
stood  the  Temple,  in  which  Christ  worshipped  in 
Hebrew,  or  in  Aramaic.  (As  to  the  Syriac  language, 
see  Porter's  Handbook  for  Syria  and  Palestine,  vol. 
ii.  p.  551.)  But  even  this  conquest  did  not  cause 
the  overthrow  of  Tyre.  The  most  essential  condi 
tions  on  which  peace  was  granted  to  Tyre,  as  to 
other  Syrian  cities,  were  the  payment  of  a  poll-tax, 
the  obligation  to  give  board  and  lodging  for  three 
days  to  tv^ery  Muslem  traveller,  the  wearing  a 
peculiar  dress,  the  admission  of  Muslems  into  the 
churches,  the  doing  away  with  all  crosses  and  all 
pounds  of  bells,  the  avoiding  of  all  insulting  ex 
pressions  towards  the  Mahometan  religion,  and  the 


TTBE 

prohibition  to  ride  on  horseback  or  to  build  new 
churches.  (See  Weil's  Geschichte  der  Chalifer,  bd.  i. 
81-82.)  Some  of  these  conditions  were  humiliating, 
and  nearly  heart-breaking ;  but  if  submitted  to,  the 
lives  and  private  property  of  the  inhabitants  re 
mained  untouched.  Accordingly,  at  the  time  of  the 
Crusades  Tyre  was  still  a  flourishing  city,  when  it 
surrendered  to  the  Christians  on  the  27th  of  June, 
1124.  It  had  early  been  the  seat  of  a  Christian 
bishopric,  and  Cassius,  bishop  of  Tyre,  is  named  as 
having  been  present  at  the  Council  of  Caesarea 
towards  the  close  of  the  2nd  century  (Relaud, 
Palestine,  1054);  and  now,  in  the  year  after  its 
capture  by  the  Crusaders,  William,  a  Frenchman, 
was  made  its  archbishop.  This  archbishop  has  left 
on  record  an  account  of  the  city,  which  gives  a  high 
idea  of  its  wealth  and  great  military  strength.  (See 
Wilhelmi  Tyrensis  Historia,  lib.  xiii.  cap.  5.)  And 
his  statements  are  confirmed  by  Benjamin  of  Tudela, 
who  Tinted  it  in  the  same  century.  (See  Purchas's 
Pilgrims,  ii.  1443.)  The  latter  writer,  who  died  in 
1173,  says:  "Nor  do  I  think  any  haven  in  the 
world  to  be  like  unto  tnis.  The  city  itself,  as  I 
have  said,  is  goodly,  and  in  it  there  are  about  four 
hundred  Jews,  among  whom  some  are  very  skilful 
in  disciplinary  readings,  and  especially  Ephraim  the 
Egyptian  judge,  and  Mair,  and  Carchesona,  and 
Abraham,  the  head  of  the  university.  Some  of  the 
Jews  there  have  ships  at  sea  for  the  cause  of  gain. 
There  are  artificial  workmen  in  glass  there,  who 
make  glass,  called  Tyrian  glass,  the  most  excellent, 
and  of  the  greatest  estimation  in  all  countries.  The 
best  and  most  approved  sugar  is  also  found  there.' 
In  fact,  at  this  period,  and  down  to  the  close  of  the 
13th  century,  there  was  perhaps  no  city  in  the 
known  world  which  had  stronger  claims  than  Tyre 
to  the  title  of  the  "  Eternal  City,"  if  experience  had 
not  shewn  that  cities  as  well  as  individuals  were 
subject  to  decay  and  dissolution.  Tyre  had  been 
the  parent  of  colonies,  which  at  a  distant  period 
had  enjoyed  a  long  life  and  had  died ;  and  it  had 
survived  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years  its  greatest 
colony,  Carthage.  It  had  outlived  Aegyptian  Thebes, 
and  Babylon,  and  ancient  Jerusalem.  It  had  seen 
Grecian  cities  rise  and  fall ;  and  although  older  than 
them  all,  it  was  in  a  state  of  great  prosperity  when 
an  illustrious  Roman,  who  had  been  sailing  from 
Aegina  to  Megara,  told  Cicero,  in  imperishable 
words,  of  the  corpses  or  carcases  of  cities,  the 
oppidorum  cadavera,  by  which  in  that  voyage  he 
had  been  in  every  direction  encompassed  (Ep.  ad 
Familiar,  iv.  5).  Rome,  it  is  true,  was  still  in 
existence  in  the  13th  century;  but,  in  comparison 
with  Tyre,  Rome  itself  was  of  recent  date,  its  now 
twice  consecrated  soil  having  been  merely  the  haunt 
of  shepherds  or  robbers  for  some  hundred  years  after 
Tyre  was  wealthy  and  strong.  At  length,  however, 
the  evil  day  of  Tyre  undoubtedly  arrived.  It  had 
been  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  in  the  hands 
of  Christians,  when  in  March,  A.D.  1291,  the  Sultan 
of  Egypt  and  Damascus  invested  Acre,  then  known 
to  Europe  by  the  name  of  Ptolemais,  and  took  it  by 
storm  after  a  siege  of  two  months.  The  result  was 
told  in  the  beginning  of  the  next  century  by 
Marinus  Sanutus,  a  Venetian,  in  the  following 
words :  "  On  the  same  day  on  which  Ptolemais 
was  taken,  the  Tyrians,  at  vespers,  leaving  the  city 
empty,  without  the  stroke  of  a  sword,  without  the 
tumult  of  war,  embarked  on  board  their  vessels, 
and  abandoned  the  city  to  be  occupied  freely  by 
their  conquerors.  On  the  morrow  the  Saracens 
entered,  no  one  attempting  to  prevent  thorn,  nnd 


TYRE 

they  dd  what  they  pleased."  ( Liber  Sccretorum 
fidclium  Crucis,  lib.  iii.  cap.  22. )f 

This  was  the  turning-point  in  the  history  of  Tyre, 
1879  years  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebu 
chadnezzar  ;  and  Tyre  has  not  yet  recovered  from 
the  blow.  In  the  first  half  of  the  14th  century  i1 
was  visited  by  Sir  John  Maundeville,  who  says 
speaking  of  "  Tyre,  which  is  now  called  Stir,  here 
was  once  a  great  and  goodly  city  of  the  Christians 
but  the  Saracens  have  destroyed  it  in  great  part ; 
and  they  guard  that  haven  carefully  for  fear  of  the 
Christians"  (Wright's  Early  Travels  in  Palestine, 
p.  141).  About  A.D.  1610-11  it  was  visited  by 
Sandys,  who  said  of  it :  "  But  this  once  famous 
Tyre  is  now  no  other  than  a  heap  of  ruins  j  yel 
have  they  a  reverent  aspect,  and  do  instruct  the 
pensive  beholder  with  their  exemplary  frailty.  It 
hath  two  harbours,  that  on  the  north  side  the 
fairest  and  best  throughout  all  the  Levant  (which 
the  cursours  enter  at  their  pleasure)  ;  the  other 
choked  with  the  decayes  of  the  city."  (Purchas's 
Pilgrims,  ii.  1393.)  Towards  the  close  of  the  sam 
century,  in  1 697  A.D.,  Maundrell  says  of  it,  "  On  th 
north  side  it  has  an  old  Turkish  castle,  besides  which 
there  is  nothing  here  but  a  mere  Babel  of  broken 
walls,  pillars,  vaults,  &c.,  there  being  not  so  much 
as  an  entire  house  left.  Its  present  inhabitants  are 
only  a  few  poor  wretches  that  harbour  in  vaults 
and  subsist  upon  fishing."  (See  Harris,  Voyages  ana 
Travels,  ii.  846.)  Lastly,  without  quoting  at  length 
Dr.  Richard  Pococke,  who  in  1737-40  A.D.  stated 
(see  vol.  x.  of  Pinkerton's  Voyages  and  Travels, 
p.  470)  that,  except  some  janizaries,  there  were  few 
other  inhabitants  in  the  city  than  two  or  three 
Christian  families,  the  words  of  Haspelquist,  the 
Swedish  naturalist,  may  be  recorded,  as  they  mark 
the  lowest  point  of  depression  which  Tyre  seems  to 
have  reached.  He  was  there  in  May  1751  A.D., 
and  he  thus  speaks  of  his  visit :  "  We  followed  the 

sea  shore and  came  to  Tyre,  now  called  Zur, 

where  we  lay  all  night.  None  of  these  cities,  which 
formerly  were  famous,  are  so  totally  ruined  as  this 
except  Troy.  Zur  now  scarcely  can  be  called  a 
miserable  village,  though  it  was  formerly  Tyre,  the 
quoen  of  the  sea.  Here  are  about  ten  inhabitants. 
Turks  and  Christians,  who  live  by  fishing."  (See 
Hasselquist,  Voyages  and  Travels  in  the  Levant, 
London,  1766.)  A  slight  change  for  the  better 
began  soon  after.  Volney  states  that  in  1766  A.D. 
the  Metawileh  took  possession  of  the  place,  and 
built  a  wall  round  it  twenty  feet  high,  which  existed 
when  he  visited  Tyre  nearly  twenty  years  afterwards. 
At  that  time  Volney  estimated  the  population  at 
fifty  or  sixty  poor  families.  Since  the  beginning  of 
the  present  century  there  has  been  a  partial  revival 
of  prosperity.  But  it  has  been  visited  at  different 
times  during  the  last  thirty  years  by  biblical  scholars, 
such  as  Professor  Robinson  (Bib.  Res.  ii.  463-471), 
Canon  Stanley  (Sinai  and  Palestine,  270),  and  M. 
Ernest  RenanS  (Letter  in  the  Moniteur,  July  11, 


TYRE 


1583 


1861),  who  all  concur  in  the  account  of  its  general 
aspect  of  desolation.  Mr.  Porter,  who  resided  several 
years  at  Damascus,  and  had  means  of  obtaining  cor 
rect  information,  states  in  1858  that  "the  modem 
town,  or  rather  village,  contains  from  3000  to  4000 
inhabitants,  about  one-half  being  Metawileh,  and 
the  other  Christians"  (Handbook  for  Travellers  in 
Syria  and  Palestine,  p.  3'91).  Its  great  inferiority 
to  Beyrout  for  receiving  vessels  suited  to  the  re 
quirements  of  modern  navigation  will  always  pre 
vent  Tyre  from  becoming  again  the  most  important 
commercial  city  on  the  Syrian  coast.  It  is  reserved 
to  the  future  to  determine  whether  with  a  good 
government,  and  with  peace  in  the  Lebanon,  it  may 
not  increase  in  population,  and  become  again  com 
paratively  wealthy. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  proper  to  consider  two  ques 
tions  of  much  interest  to  the  Biblical  student,  which 
have  been  already  noticed  in  this  article,  but  'which 
could  not  then  be  conveniently  discussed  fully.  1st. 
The  date  arid  authorship  of  the  prophecy  against 
Tyre  in  Isaiah,  chap,  xxiii. ;  and  2ndly,  the  ques 
tion  of  whether  Nebuchadnezzar,  after  his  long 
siege  of  Tyre,  may  be  supposed  to  have  actually 
taken  it. 

On  the  first  point  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  as 
there  were  two  sieges  of  Tyre  contemporaneous 
with  events  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament,  viz. 
that  by  Shalmaneser,  king  of  Assyria,  in  the  reign 
of  Hezekiah,  and  the  siege  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  king 
of  the  Chaldees,  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  in 
588  B.C.,  and  as  Isaiah  was  living  during  the 
former  siege,  but  must  have  been  dead  considerably 
more  than  a  hundred  years  at  the  time  of  the  latter 
siege,  it  is  probable,  without  denying  predictive  pro 
phecy,  that  the  prophecy  relates  to  the  first  siege,  if 
it  was  written  by  Isaiah.  As  the  prophecy  is  in  the 
collection  of  writings  entitled  "  Isaiah,"  there  would 
formerly  not  have  been  any  doubt  that  it  was  written 
by  that  prophet.  But  it  has  been  maintained  by 
eminent  Biblical  critics  that  many  of  the  writings 
under  the  title  of  his  name  were  written  at  the  time  of 
the  Babyloniaji  Captivity.  This  seems  to  be  the  least 
open  to  dispute  in  reference  to  the  prophecies  com 
mencing  with  "  Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye  my  people," 
in  the  1st  verse  of  the  40th  chapter,  concerning 
which  the  following  facts  seem  to  the  writer  of 
the  present  article  to  be  well  established.11  1st. 
These  prophecies  are  different  in  style  from  the  un 
disputed  writings  of  Isaiah.  2ndly.  They  do  not 
predict  that  the  Jews  will  be  carried  away  into 
captivity  at  Babylon,  but  they  presuppose  that  the 
Jews  are  already  in  captivity  there  at  the  time 
when  the  prophecies  are  uttered ;  that  Jerusalem  is 
desolate,  and  that  the  Temple  is  burnt  (Is.  Ixiv. 

10,  11,  xliv.  26,  28,  xlv.  13,  xlvii.  5,  6,  Iii.  2,  9, 

11.  3,  11,  17-23).     3rdly.  The  name  of  Cyrus,  who 
conquered  Babylon  probably  at  least  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  after  the  death  of  Isaiah  is  mentioned  in 
them  twice  (xliv.  28,  xlv.  1):  and  4thly,  there  is 


f  A  copy  of  this  work  is  In  Gesta,  Dei  per  Francos. 
danoviae,  1611. 

s  M.  Ernest  Kenan  says  there  has  been  no  subsidence  of 
the  land,  owing  to  earthquakes  or  other  causes;  and  that 
the  west  of  the  island  has  the  same  level  as  in  ancient 
.imes.  Mr.  Wilde  had  spoken  with  great  caution  on  this 
point,  pp.  383-385.  It  is  still  very  desirable  that  the 
peninsula  and  the  adjoining  coast  should  be  minutely 
examined  by  an  experienced  practical  geologist  There 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  city  has  suffered  from 
earthquakes.  See  Porter,  I.  c. ;  and  compare  Seneca,  Nat. 
Qi»:st.  vi.  l-ll.  Strabc,  xv.  p.  757,  and  J-^'J.1,  xl.  2,  i. 


h  Doubts  as  to  the  authorship  of  these  chapters  were 
first  suggested  by  Doderlcin  in  1781,  in  a  review  of  Kopp'3 
ranslation  of  Lowth's  Jsaiah.  Since  1781  their  later 
date  has  been  a<xepted  by  Eichhorn,  Rosenmiiller,  De 
Wette,  Gesenius,  Winer,  Ewald,  Hitzig,  Knohel,  Herz- 
"eld,  Bleek,  Geiger,  and  Davidson,  and  by  numerals  other 
Hebrew  scholars.  The  evidence  has  been  nowhere  stated 
more  clearly  than  by  Gesenius  in  his  Jesaia  (part  ii. 
>p.  18-35,  Leipzig,  1821).  [On  the  other  hand,  the  writer 
>f  the  article  ISAIAH  in  the  present  W^rk  maintains  the 
unity  of  the  book.— ED.] 


1584 


TYRE 


no  external  contemporary  evidence  between  the 
time  of  Isaiah  and  the  time  of  Cyrus  to  prove  that 
these  prophecies  were  then  in  existence.  But  al 
though  in  this  way  the  evidence  of  a  later  date 
is  peculiarly  cogent  in  reference  to  the  40th  and 
following  chapters,  there  is  also  reasonable  evidence 
of  the  later  date  of  several  other  chapters,  such,  for 
example,  as  the  13th  and  14th  (on  which  observe 
particularly  the  four  first  verses  of  the  14th  chapter) 
and  chapters  xxiv.-xxvii.  Hence  there  is  no  a  priori 
difficulty  in  admitting  that  the  23rd  chapter,  re 
specting  Tyre,  may  likewise  have  been  written  at  the 
time  of  the  Chaldean  invasion.  Yet  this  is  not  to  be 
assumed  without  something  in  the  nature  of  pro- 
.  bable  proof,  and  the  real  point  is  whether  any  such 
proof  can  be  adduced  on  this  subject.  Now  although 
Hitzig  (Der  Prophet  Jesaja,  Heidelberg,  1833, 
y.  272)  undertakes  to  show  that  there  is  a  difference 
of  language  between  Isaiah's  genuine  prophecies  and 
the  23rd  chapter,  and  although  Ewald  (Die  Pro 
pheten  des  Alten  Bundes,  vol.  i.  p.  238),  who 
refers  it  to  the  siege  of  Tyre  by  Shalmaneser,  be 
lieves  the  23rd  chapter,  on  the  grounds  of  style 
and  language,  to  have  been  written  by  a  younger 
contemporary  and  scholar  of  Isaiah,  not  by  Isaiah 
himself,  it  is  probable  that  the  majority  of  scholars 
will  be  mainly  influenced  in  their  opinions  as  to 
the  date  of  that  chapter  by  their  view  of  the 
meaning  of  the  13th  verse.  In  the  A.  V.  the  be 
ginning  of  the  verse  is  translated  thus :  "  Behold 
the  land  of  the  Chaldeans,  this  people  was  not  till 
the  Assyrian  founded  it  for  them  that  dwell  in  the 
wilderness  " — and  this  has  been  supposed  by  some 
able  commentators,  such  as  Rosenmiiller  and  Hitzig 
(ad  loc.\  to  imply  that  the  enemies  with  which  the 
Tyrians  were  threatened  were  the  Chaldees  under 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  not  the  Assyrians  under  Shal 
maneser.  If  this  is  the  meaning,  very  few  critics 
would  now  doubt  that  the  prophecy  was  composed 
in  the  time  of  Nebuchadnezzar;  and  there  is  cer 
tainly  something  remarkable  in  a  supposed  mention 
of  the  Chaldees  by  such  an  early  writer  as  Isaiah, 
inasmuch  as,  with  the  possible  exceptions  in  the 
mention  of  Abraham  and  Abraham's  family  as 
having  belonged  to  "  Ur  of  the  Chaldees"  (Gen.  xi. 
28,  31,  xv.  7),  the  mention  of  the  Chaldees  by 
Isaiah  would  be  the  earliest  in  the  Bible.  The  only 
other  passage  respecting  which  a  doubt  might  be 
raised  is  in  the  Book  of  Job  (i.  17) — a  work,  how 
ever,  which  seems  to  the  author  of  this  article  to 
have  been  probably  written  later  than  Isaiah.*  But 
the  13th  verse  of  the  chapter  attributed  to  Isaiah  by 
no  means  necessarily  implies  that  the  Chaldees  under 
Nebuchadnezzar  were  attacking  Tyre,  or  were  about 
to  attack  it.  Accepting  the  ordinary  version,  it  would 
be  amply  sufficient  that  Chaldees  should  be  formid 
able  mercenaries  in  the  Assyrian  army.  This  is 
the  interpretation  of  Gesenius  (Commentar  ilber  den 
Jesaia,  ad  loc.),  who  goes  still  farther.  Founding 
his  reasoning  on  the  frequent  mention  by  Xenophon 
of  Chaldees,  as  a  bold,  warlike,  and  predatory  tribe 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Armenia,  and  collecting 
scattered  notices  round  this  fundamental  fact,  he 
conjectures  that  bands  of  them,  having  served  either 
as  mercenaries  or  as  vrslunteere  in  the  Assyrian 
army,  had  received  lands  for  their  permanent  settle- 


*  In  the  total  absence  of  external  evidence  nothing  in 
favour  of  an  earlier  date  can  be  adduced  to  outweigh  one 
Circumstance  long  since  noticed  among  numerous  others 
by  Gesenius  (Geschickte  der  Hebraischen  Sprdcke  und 

Schrift),  that  the  Aramaic  plural  jvO  occurs  twelve 


TYRE 

mant  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  not  loijg  before 
the  invasion  of  Shalmaneser  (see  Xenophon,  Cyro- 
paed.  iii.  2,  §§7,  12;  Anab.  iv.  3,  §4,  v.  5,  §9, 
vii.  8,  §14).  So  great  is  our  ignorance  of  the 
Chaldees  previous  to  their  mention  in  the  Bible, 
that  this  conjecture  of  Gesenius  cannot  be  disproved. 
There  is  not  indeed  sufficient  positive  evidence  for 
it  to  justify  its  adoption  by  an  historian  of  the 
Chaldees ;  but  the  possibility  of  its  being  true 
should  make  us  hesitate  to  assume  that  the  13th 
verse  is  incompatible  with  the  date  ordinarily  as 
signed  to  the  prophecy  in  which  it  occurs.  But, 
independently  of  these  considerations,  the  beginning 
of  the  13th  verse  is  capable  of  a  totally  different 
translation  from  that  in  the  Authorized  Version.  It 
may  be  translated  thus :  "  Behold  the  land  of  the 
Chaldees,  the  people  is  no  more,  Assyria  has  given 
it  [the  land]  to  the  dwellers  in  the  wilderness." 
This  is  partly  in  accordance  with  Ewald's  transla 
tion,  not  following  him  in  the  substitution  of  "  Ca- 
naanites"  (which  he  deems  the  correct  reading)  for 
"  Chaldees  " — and  then  the  passage  might  refer  to 
an  unsuccessful  a'ebellion  of  the  Chaldees  against 
Assyria,  and  to  a  consequent  desolation  of  the  land 
of  the  Chaldees  by  their  victorious  rulers.  One 
point  may  be  mentioned  in  favour  of  this  view,  that 
the  Tyrians  are  not  warned  to  look  at  the  Chaldees 
in  the  way  that  Habakkuk  threatens  his  contempo 
raries  with  the  hostility  of  that  "  terrible  and 
dreadful  nation,"  but  the  Tyrians  are  warned  to 
look  at  the  land  of  the  Chaldees.  Here,  again,  we 
know  so  little  of  the  history  of  the  Chaldees,  that 
this  interpretation,  likewise,  cannot  be  disproved. 
And,  on  the  whole,  as  the  burden  of  proof  rests 
with  any  one  who  denies  Isaiah  to  have  been  the 
author  of  the  23rd  chapter,  as  the  13th  verse  is  a 
very  obscure  passage,  and  as  it  cannot  be  proved 
incompatible  with  Isaiah's  authorship,  it  is  per 
missible  to  acquiesce  in  the  Jewish  tradition  on  the 
subject. 

2ndly.  The  question  of  whether  Tyre  was  actually 
taken  by  Nebuchadnezzar  after  his  thirteen  years' 
siege  has  been  keenly  discussed.  Gesenius,  Winer, 
and  Hitzig  decide  it  in  the  negative,  while  Heng- 
stenberg  has  argued  most  fully  on  the  other  side. 
Without  attempting  to  exhaust  the  subject,  and 
assuming,  in  accordance  with  Movers,  that  Tyre,  as 
well  as  the  rest  of  Phoenicia,  submitted  at  last  to 
Nebuchadnezzar,  the  following  points  may  be 
observed  respecting  the  supposed  capture: — 1st. 
The  evidence  of  Ezekiel,  a  contemporary,  seems 
to  be  against  it.  He  says  (xxix.  18)  that  "  Nebu 
chadnezzar  king  of  Babylon  caused  his  army  to 
serve  a  great  service  against  Tyre ;"  that  "  every 
head  was  made  bald,  and  every  shoulder  was 
peeled,  yet  had  he  no  wages,  nor  his  army  for 
Tyrus,  for  the  service  that  he  served  agains-t 
it ;"  and  the  obvious  inference  is  that,  however 
great  the  exertions  of  the  army  may  have  been 
in  digging  entrenchments  or  in  casting  up  earth 
works,  the  siege  was  unsuccessful.  This  is  con 
firmed  by  the  following  verses  (19,  20),  in  which 
it  is  stated  that  the  land  of  Egypt  will  be  given  to 
Nebuchadnezzar  as  a  compensation,  or  wages,  to 
him  and  his  army  for  their  having  served  against 
Tyre.  Movers,  indeed,  asserts  that  the  only  mean- 
times  in  the  book  (iv.  2;  xii.  11;  xv.  13;  xviii.  2; 
xxvi.  4;  xxxii.  11,  14;  xxxiii.  8,  32;  xxxiv.  3;  sxxv. 
16 ;  xxxviii.  2).  [But  ther.e  aro  strong  reasons  for  as 
signing  an  earlier  'Me  to  the  book:  see  JOB,  j>.  1095." 


TYKK 

ing  of  tho  expression  that  Nebuchadnezzar  and  his 
army  had  no  wages  for  their  service  against  Tyre 
is,  that  they  did  not  plunder  the  city.  But  to  a 
virtuous  commander  the  best  reward  of  besieging  a 
city  is  to  capture  it ;  and  it  is  a  strange  sentiment 
to  attribute  to  the  oupreme  Being,  or  to  a  prophet, 
i  that  a  general  and  his  armv  received  no  wages  for 
capturing  a  city,  because  they  did  not  plunder  it. 
2ndly.  Josephus,  who  had  access  to  historical 
writings  on  this  subject  which  have  not  reached 
our  tinier  although  he  quotes  Phoenician  'writers 
who  show  that  Nebuchadnezzar  besieged  Tyre 
(Ant.  x.  11,  §1  ;  c.  Apion.  23),  neither  states 
on  his  own  authority,  nor  quotes  any  one  else 
as  stating,  that  Nebuchadnezzar  took  it.  3rdly. 
The  capture  of  Tyre  on  this  occasion  is  not  men 
tioned  by  any  Greek  01  Roman  author  whose  writ 
ings  are  now  in  existence.  4thly.  In  the  time  of 
Jerome  it  was  distinctly  stated  by  some  of  his  con 
temporaries  that  they  had  read,  amongst  other  his 
tories  on  this  point,  histories  of  Greeks  and  Phoe 
nicians,  and  especially  of  Nicolaus  Damascenus,  in 
which  nothing  was  said  of  the  k  siege  of  Tyre  by  the 
Chaldees :  and  Jerome,  in  noticing  this  fact,  does 
not  quote  any  authority  of  any  kind  for  a  counter- 
statement,  but  contents  himself  with  a  general  alle 
gation  that  many  facts  are  related  in  the  Scriptures 
which  are  not  found  in  Greek  works,  and  that  "  we 
ought  not  to  acquiesce  in  the  authority  of  those 
whose  perfidy  and  falsehood  we  detest "  (see  Com 
ment,  ad  Ezechielem,  xxvi.  7).  On  this  view  of 
the  question  there  would  seem  to  be  small  reason 
for  believing  that  the  city  was  actually  captured, 
were  it  not  for  another  passage  of  Jerome  in  his 
Commentaries  on  the  passage  of  Ezekiel  already 
quoted  (xxix.  18),  in  which  he  explains  that  the 
meaning  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  having  received  no 
wages  for  his  warfare  against  Tyre  is,  not  that  he 
failed  to  take  the  city,  but  that  the  Tyrians  had 
previously  removed  everything  precious  from  it 
in  ships,  so  that  when  Nebuchadnezzar  entered 
the  city  he  found  nothing  there.  This  interpreta 
tion  has  been  admitted  by  one  of  the  most  distin 
guished  critics  of  our  own  day  (Ewald,  Die 
Propheten  des  Alien  Bundes,  ad  loc.)  who,  deeming 
it  probable  that  Jerome  had  obtained  the  informa 
tion  from  some  historian  whose  name  is  not  given, 
accepts  as  historical  this  account  of  the  termination 
of  the  siege.  This  account  therefore,  as  far  as  in 
quirers  of  the  present  day  are  concerned,  rests  solely 
on  the  authority  of  Jerome ;  and  it  thus  becomes 
important  to  ascertain  the  principles  and  method 
which  Jerome  adopted  in  writing  his  Commentaries. 
It  is  peculiarly  fortunate  that  Jerome  himself  has 
left  on  record"  some  valuable  information  on  this 
point  in  a  letter  to  Augustine,  for  the  understanding 
of  which  the  following  brief  preliminary  explanation 
will  be  sufficient: — In  Jerome's  Commentaries  on 
the  second  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians, 
when  adverting  to  the  passage  (vers.  11-14)  in 
which  St.  Paul  states  that  he  had  withstood  Peter 
to  the  face,  "  because  he  was  to  be  blamed "  for 
requiring  Christians  to  comply  with  the  observances 
of  the  Jewish  ritual  law,  Jerome  denies  that  there 
was  any  real  difference  of  opinion  between  the  two 
Apostles,  and  asserts  that  they  had  merely  made 
a  preconcerted  arrangement  of  apparent  difference , 


TYRE  1586 

in  order  that  those  who  approved  of  circumcision 
might  plead  the  example  of  Peter,  and  that  those 
who  were  unwilling  to  be  circumcised  might  extol 
the  religious  liberty  of  Paul.  Jerome  then  goes 
en  to  say  that  "  the  fact  of  simulation  being 
i-seful,  and  occasionally  permissible,  is  taucht  by 
the  example  of  Jehu  king  of  Israel,  who  nevei 
would  have  been  able  to  put  the  priests  of  Baal 
to  death  unless  he  had  feigned  willingness  to 
worship  an  idol,  Baying,  •'  Ahab  served  Baal  a 
little,  but  Jehu  shall  serve  him  much.' "  On 
this  Augustine  strongly  remonstrated  with  Jerome 
in  two  letters  which  are  marked  56  and  67  in 
Jerome's  Correspondence.  To  these  Jerome  re 
turned  an  answer  in  a  letter  marked  112,  in  which 
he  repudiates  the  idea  that  he  is  to  be  held  re 
sponsible  for  all  that  is  contained  in  his  Com 
mentaries,  and  then  frankly  confesses  how  he  com 
posed  them.  Beginning  with  Origen,  he  enumerates 
several  writers  whose  Commentaries  he  had  read., 
specifying,  amongst  others,  Laodicenus,  who  had 
lately  left  the  Church,  and  Alexander,  an  old  heretic. 
He  then  avows  that  having  read  them  all  he  sent 
for  an  amanuensis,  to  whom  he  dictated  sometimes 
his  own  remarks,  sometimes  those  of  others,  with 
out  paying  strict  attention  either  to  the  order  or 
the  words,  and  sometimes  not  even  to  the  meaning. 
"  Itaque  ut  simpliciter  fatear,  legi  haec  omnia,  et  in 
mente  mea  plurima  coacervans,  accito  notario,  vel 
mea,  vel  aliena  dictavi,  nee  ordinis,  nee  verborum, 
interdum  nee  sensuum  memor  "  (see  Migne's  Edi 
tion  of  Jerome,  vol.  i.  p.  918).  Now  if  the  bearing 
of  the  remarks  concerning  simulation  for  a  pious 
purpose,  and  of  the  method  which  Jerome  fol 
lowed  in  the  composition  of  his  Commentaries  is 
seriously  considered,  it  cannot  but  throw  doubt  on 
his  uncorroborated  statements  in  any  case  wherein 
a  religious  or  theological  interest  may  have  ap 
peared  to  him  to  be  at  stake. 

Jerome  was  a  very  learned  man,  perhaps  the  most 
learned  of  all  the  Fathers.  He  was  also  one  of  the 
very  few  among  them  who  made  themselves  ac 
quainted  with  the  Hebrew  language,  and  in  this,  as 
well  as  in  other  points,  he  deserves  gratitude  for 
the  services  which  he  has  rendered  to  Biblical  lite 
rature.  He  is,  moreover,  a  valuable  witness  to  facts, 
when  he  can  be  suspected  of  no  bias  concerning 
them,  and  especially  when  they  seem  contrary  to 
his  religious  prepossessions.  But  it  is  evident,  from 
the  passages  in  his  writings  above  quoted,  that  he 
had  not  a  critical  mind,  and  that  he  can  scarcely  be 
regarded  as  one  of  those  noble  spirits  who  prefer 
truth  to  supposed  pious  ends  which  may  be  attained 
by  its  violation.  Hence,  contrary  to  the  most  natural 
meaning  of  the  prophet  Ezekiel's  words  (xxix.  18), 
it  would  be  unsafe  to  rely  on  Jerome's  sole  authority 
for  the  statement  that  Nebuchadnezzar  and  his  army 
eventually  captured  Tyre. 

Literature. — For  information  on  this  head,  see 
PHOENICIANS,  p.  1006.  In  addition  to  the  works 
there  mentioned,  see  Robinson's  Bibl.  Res.  ii.  461- 
471  ;  Stanley's  Sinai  and  Palestine,  264-268 ; 
Porter's  Handbook  for  Syria  and  Palestine,  pp.  390- 
396 ;  Hengstenberg,  De  Rebus  Tyriorum,  Berlin, 
1832;  and  Ritter's  Erdkunde,  vol.  xvii.  1st  part, 
3rd  book,  pp.  320-379.  Professor  Robinson,  iu 
addition  to  his  instructive  history  of  Tyre,  has  pub- 


k  Hengstenberg  (Z>e  Rebus  Tyriorum,  p.  75)  .says  that 
this  silence  of  the  Greek  and  Phoenician  historians  proves 
too  much,  as  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  city  was  besieged 
by  Nebuchadnezzar.  To  *his  Hitzig  replies,  that  the 

VOL.  III. 


historians  could  only  have  omitted  to  mention  the  siego, 
because  the  siege  had  not  been  followed  by  the  capture  of 
the  citv  (Der  Prophet  Jesaja,  p.  278). 

51 


1583 


TYKUS 


iished,  in  the  Appendix  to  his  third  volume,  n  detailed 
list,  which  is  useful  for  the  knowledge  of  Tyre,  of 
works  by  authors  who  had  themselves  travelled  or 
.resided  in  Palestine.  See  likewise  an  excellent  ac 
count  of  Tyre  by  Gesenius  in  his  Jesaia,  i.  707-719, 
and  by  Winer,  s.  v.,  in  his  Bibl.  Rcalvcort.  [E.  T.j 


Coin  of  Tyre. 

TY'KUS.  This  form  is  employed  in  the  A.  V. 
of  the  Books  of  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Hosea  (Joel  has 
"  Tyre  "),  Amos,  Zechariah,  2  Esdras,  Judith,  and 
the  Maccabees,  as  follows:  Jer.  xxv.  22,  xxvii.  3, 
xlvii.  4  ;  Ezek.  xxvi.  2, 3, 4, 7, 15,  xxvii.  2,  3, 8,  32, 
xxviii.  2,  12,  xxix.  18 ;  Hos.  ix.  13 ;  Am.  i.  9,  10; 
Zech.  ix.  2,  3;  2  Esd.  i.  11 ;  Jud.  ii.  28  ;  1  Mace 
v.  15 ;  2  Mace.  iv.  18,  32,  44,  49. 


U 


Ac 


U'CAL  (/3K,  and  in  some  copies 
cording  to  the  received  text  of  Prov.  xxx.  1,  Ithiel 
and  Ucal  must  be  regarded  as  proper  names,  and  if 
so,  they  must  be  the  names  of  disciples  or  sons  of 
Agur  the  son  of  Jakeh,  an  unknown  sage  among 
the  Hebrews.  But  there  is  great  obscurity  about 
the  passage.  The  LXX.  translate  TOIS  iriffTevovai 
Bey  Kal  Travofj.a.1 :  the  Vulgate,  cum  quo  est  Deus, 
et  qui  Deo  sccum  morante  confortatus.  The  Arabic 
follows  the  LXX.  to  some  extent ;  the  Targum  re 
produces  Ithiel  and  Ucal  as  proper  names,  and  the 
Syriac  is  corrupt,  Ucal  being  omitted  altogether. 
Luther  represents  the  names  as  Leithiel  and  Uchal. 
De  Wette  regards  them  as  proper  names,  as  do  most 
translators  and  commentators.  Junius  explains 
both  as  referring  to  Christ.  The  LXX.  probably 
*  VJ-IDtfS.  The  Veneto-Greek  has  KCU 

v:v 

P38O.     Cocceius  must  have  pointed 
"  T  : 

the  words  thus,  TO&0  ?K  *JV&? '»  "I  ^ave  laboured 
for  God  and  have  obtained,"  and  this,  with  regard 
to  the  first  two  words  must  have  been  the  reading 
of  J.  D.  Michaelis,  who  renders,  "  I  have  wearied 
myself  for  God,  and  have  given  up  the  investiga^ 
tion,"  applying  the  words  to  a  man  who  had  be 
wildered  himself  with  philosophical  speculations 
about  the  Deity,  and  had  been  compelled  to  give  up 
the  search.  Bertheau  also  (Die  Spriiche  Sal.  Einl. 
xvii.)  sees  in  the  words,  "I  have  wearied  myseli 
for  God,  I  have  wearied  myself  for  God,  and  have 
fainted  "  (73JS1),  an  appropriate  commencement  to 
the  series  of  proverbs  which  follow.  Hitzig's  view 
is  substantially  the  same,  except  that  he  points  the 
last  word  7-&0  and  renders,  "  and  I  became  dull ;' 

applying  it  to  the  dimness  which  the  investigation 
prodr.c«sd  upon  the  eye  of  the  mind  (Die  Spr.  Sal 
p.  316).  Bunsen  (Bibelwerk,  i.  p.  clxxx.)  follows 


ULAI 

tertheau's  punctuation,  but  regards  7N  'JT5O  ou 

ts  first  occurrence  as  a  symbolical  name  of  the 
iker.  "  The  saying  of  the  man  '  I-have-wearied« 
myself-for-God;'  I  have  wearied  myself  for  God,  | 
and  have  fainted  away."  There  is,  however,  one 
atal  objection  to  this  view,  if  there  wero  uo  others, 
nd  that  is,  that  the  verb  H&6,  "  to  be  wearied," 
owhere  takes  after  it  the  accusative  of  the  object 
f  weariness.  On  this  account  alone,  therefore,  we 
must  reject  all  the  above  explanations.  If  Bertheau's 
jointing  be  adopted,  the  only  legitimate  translation 
)f  the  words  is  that  given  by  Dr.  Davidson  (fntrod. 
i.  338),  "  I  am  weary,  0  God,  I  am  weary,  0 
God,  and  am  become  weak."  Ewald  considers  bcth 
thiel  and  Ucal  as  symbolical  names,  employed  by 
;he  poet  to  designate  two  classes  of  thinkers  to 
whom  he  addresses  himself,  or  rather  he  combines 
joth  names  in  one, "  God-with-me-and-I-am-strong," 
and  bestows  it  upon  an  imaginary  character,  whom 
\e  introduces  to  take  part  in  the  dialogue.  The 
lame  '  God-with-me,'  says  Keil  (Hiivernick,  Einl. 
ii.  p.  412),  "denotes  such  as  gloried  in  a  more  in 
timate  communion  with  God,  an^  a  higher  insight 
and  wisdom  obtained  thereby,"  while  '  I-am-strong,' 
indicates  "  the  so-called  strong  spirits  who  boast  of 
their  wisdom  and  might,  and  deny  the  holy  God,  so 
that  both  names  most  probably  represent  a  class  ot 
freethinkers,  who  thought  themselves  superior  to 
the  revealed  law,  and  in  practical  atheism  indulged 
the  lusts  of  the  flesh."  It  is  to  be  wished  that  in  this 
case,  as  in  many  others,  commentators  had  observed 
the  precept  of  the  Talmud,  "  Teach  thy  tongue  to 
say,  « I  do  not  know.' "  [W.  A.  W.] 

U'EL  C^WK  :  OWTJA.:  Vel}.  One  of  the  family 
of  Bani,  who  during  the  Captivity  had  married  a 
foreign  wife  (Ezr.  x.  34).  Called  JUEL  in  1  Esd. 
ix.  34. 

U'KNAZ  (Ujp-1 :  Kej/€'£:  Cenez).  In  the  margin 
of  1  Chr.  iv.  15  the  words  "even  Kenaz  "  in  the 
text  are  rendered  "  Uknaz,"  as  a  proper  name. 
Apparently  some  name  has  been  omitted  before 
Kenaz,  for  the  clause  begins  "  and  the  sons  of  Elah," 
and  then  only  Kenaz  is  given.  Both  the  LXX.  and 
Vulg.  omit  the  conjunction.  In  the  Peshito  Syriac, 
which  is  evidently  corrupt,  Kenaz  is  the  third  son 
of  Caleb  the  son  of  Jephunneh. 

ULA-'I  (^-1N  :  Ouj8a\ :  Ulai]  is  mentioned  by  \ 
Daniel  (viii.  2, 16)  as  a  river  near  to  Susa,  where  he 
saw  his  vision  of  the  ram  and  the  he-goat.  It  has  been 
generally  identified  with  the  Eulaeus  of  the  Greek 
and  Roman  geographers  (Marc.  Heracl.  p.  18 
AIT.  Exp.  Al.  vii.  7 ;  Strab.  xv.  3,  §22  ;  Ptol.  vi. 
3  ;  Pliny,  H.  N.  vi.  31),  a  large  stream  in  the  im 
mediate  neighbourhood  of  that  city.  This  identifi 
cation  may  be  safely  allowed,  resting  as  it  does  on 
the  double  ground  of  close  verbal  resemblance  in 
the  two  names,  and  complete  agreement  as  to  the 
situation. 

Can  we,  then,  identify  the  Eulaeus  with  any 
existing  stream  ?  Not  without  opening  a  contro 
versy,  since  there  is  no  point  more  disputed  among 
comparative  geographers.  The  Eulaeus  has  been 
by  many  identified  with  the  Choaspes,  which  ia 
undoubtedly  the  modern  Kerkhah,  an  affluent  of 
the  Tigris,  flowing  into  it  a  little  below  Kurnali. 
By  others  it  has  been  regarded  as  the  Kuran,  a  large 
river,  considerably  further  to  the  eastward,  which 
enters  the  Khor  Bamishir  near  Mohammerah, 
Some  have  even  suggested  that  it  may  have  bet-u 


ITLAt 

t,he  Shapur  or  Sha'ur,  a  small  stream  which  rises 
a  few  miies  N.  W.  of  Susa,  and  flows  by  the  ruins 
into  the  Dizful  stream,  an  affluent  of  the  Kuran. 

The  general  grounds  on  which  the  Eulaeus  has 
been  identified  with  the  Choaspes,  and  so  with  the 
Kerkhah  (Salmasius,  Rosenmiiller,  Wahl,  Kitto, 
&c.)  are,  the  mention  of  each  separately  by  ancient 
writers  as  "  the  river  of  Susa,"  and  (more  espe 
cially)  the  statements  made  by  some  (Strabo,  Plin.) 
that  the  water  of  the  Eulaeus,  by  others  (Herod., 
Athen.,  Pint.,  Q.  Curtius),  that  that  of  the  Cho 
aspes  was  the  only  water  tasted  by  the  Persian 
kings.  Against  the  identification  it  must  be  no 
ticed  that  Strabo,  Pliny,  Solinus,  and  Polyclitus 
(ap.  Strab.  xv.  3,  §4)  regard  the  rivers  as  distinct, 
and  that  the  lower  course  of  the  Eulaeus,  as  de 
scribed  by  Arrian  (Exp.  AL  vii.  7)  and  Pliny  (//.  N. 
vi.  26),  is  such  as  cannot  possibly  be  reconciled  with 
that  of  the  Kerkhah  river. 

The  grounds  for  regarding  the  Eulaeus  as  the 
Kuran  are  decidedly  stronger  than  those  for  identi 
fying  it  with  the  Kerkhah  or  Choaspes.  No  one 
i"an  compare  the  voyage  of  Nearchus  in  Arrian's 
fndica  with  Arrian's  own  account  of  Alexander's 
descent  of  the  Eulaeus  (vii.  7)  without  seeing  that 
the  Eulaeus  of  the  one  narrative  is  the  Pasitigris  of 
the  other  ;  and  that  the  Pasitigris  is  the  Kuran  is 
almost  universally  admitted.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
said  that  all  accounts  of  the  lower  Eulaeus — those 
of  Arrian,  Pliny,  Polyclitus,  and  Ptolemy — identify 
it,  beyond  the  possibility  of  mistake,  with  the 
lower  Kuran,  and  that  so  far  there  ought  to  be 
no  controversy.  The  difficulty  is  with  respect  to 
the  upper  Eulaeus.  The  Eulaeus,  according  to 
Pliny,  surrounded  the  citadel  of  Susa  (vi.  "27} , 
whereas  even  the  Dizful  branch  of  the  Kuran  does 
not  come  within  six  miles  of  the  ruins.  It  lay  to 
the  west,  not  only  of  the  Pasitigris  (Kuran},  but 
also  of  the  Coprates  (river  of  Dizful],  according  to 
Diodorus  (xix.  18,  19).  So  far,  it  might  be  the 
Shapur,  but  for  two  objections.  The  Shapur  is  too 
small  a  stream  to  have  attracted  the  general  notice 
of  geographers,  and  its  water  is  of  so  bad  a  character 
that  it  can  never  have  been  chosen  for  the  royal 
table  (Geograph.  Journ.  ix.  p.  70).  There  is  also 
an  important  notice  in  Pliny  entirely  incompatible 
with  the  notion  that  the  short  stream  of  the  Shapur, 
which  rises  in  the  plain  about  five  miles  to  the 
N.  N.  W.  of  Susa,  can  be  the  true  Eulaeus.  Pliny 
says  (vi.  31)  the  Eulaeus  rose  in  Media,  and  flowed 
through  Mesobatene.  Now  this  is  exactly  true  of 
the  upper  Kerkhah,  which  rises  near  Hamadan 
(Ecbatana),  and  flows  down  the  district  of  Mah- 
sabadan  (Mesobatene). 

The  result  is  that  the  various  notices  of  ancient 
writers  appear  to  identify  the  upper  Eulaeus  with 
the  upper  Kerkhah,  and  the  lower  Eulaeus  (quite 
unmistakeably)  with  the  lower  Kuran.  .  Does  this 
apparent  confusion  and  contradiction  admit  of  expla 
nation  and  reconcilement? 

A  recent  survey  of  the  ground  has  suggested  a 
satisfactory  explanation.  It  appears  that  the  Ker 
khah  once  bifurcated  at  Pai  Pul,  about  20  miles 
N.  W.  of  Susa,  sending  out  a  branch  which  passed 
east  of  the  ruins,  absorbing  into  it  the  Shapur,  and 
flowing  on  across  the  plain  in  a  S.  S.  E.  direction 
till  it  fell  into  the  Kuran  at  Ahwaz  (Loftus, 
Ckaldaea  and  Susiana,  pp.  424,  425).  Thus,  the 
upper  Kerkhah  and  the  lower  Kuwait  were  In  old 


UNCLEAN  MEATS 


1587 


«•  This  looks  at  first  sight  like  a  misplacement  of  the 
name  Rechob  from  its  proper  position  further  on  in  the 
verse  Rechob,  however,  is  usually  *Pad/3. 


times  united,  and  might  be  viewed  as  forming  a 
single  stream.  The  name  Eulaeus  (  Ufa!)  seems  to 
have  applied  most  properly  to  the  eastern  brancn 
stream  from  Pai  Pul  to  Ahwaz  ;  the  stream  above 
Pai  Pul  was  sometimes  called  the  Eulaeus,  but  was 
more  properly  the  Choaspes,  which  was  also  the 
sole  name  of  the  western  branch  (or  present  course) 
of  the  Kerkhah  from  Pai  Pul  to  the  Tigris.  The 
name  Pasitigris  was  proper  to  the  upper  Kuran 
from  its  source  to  its  junction  with  the  Eulaeus, 
after  which  the  two  names  we»'e  equally  applied  to 
the  lower  river.  The  Dizful  stream,  which  was 
riot  very  generally  known,  was  called  the  Coprates. 
It  is  believed  that  this  view  of  the  river  names  will 
reconcile  and  make  intelligible  all  the  notices  oi 
them  contained  in  the  ancient  writers. 

It  follows  from  this  that  the  water  which  the 
Persian  kings  drank,  both  at  the  court,  and  when 
they  travelled  iibroad,  was  that  of  the  Kerkhah, 
taken  probably  from  the  eastern  branch,  or  proper 
Eulaeus,  which  washed  the  walls  of  Susa,  and 
(according  to  Pliny)  was  used  to  strengthen  its 
defences.  This  water  was,  and  still  is,  believed  to 
possess  peculiar  lightness  (Strab.  xv.  3,  §22  5  Geo 
graph.  Journ.  ix.  p.  70),  and  is  thought  to  be  at 
onoe-  more  wholesome  and  more  pleasant  to  the 
taste  than  almost  any  other.  (On  the  controversy 
concerning  this  stream  the  reader  may  consult  Kin- 
neir,  Persian  Empire,  pp.  100-106;  Sir  H.  Raw- 
linson,  in  Geograph.  Journ.  ix.  pp.  84-93  ;  Layard, 
in  the  same,  xvi.  pp.  91-94  ;  and  Loftus,  Chaldaea 
and  Susiana,  pp.  424-431.)  [G.  R.] 

U'LAM  (D^K;  OvXdfj.:  Ularri).  1.  A  dt 
scendant  of  Gilead  the  grandson  of  Manasseh,  and 
father  of  Bedan  (1  Chr.  vii.  17). 

2.  (Al\d/a  ;  Alex.  Ov\up.}  The  first-born  of 
Eshek,  the  brother  of  Azel,  a  descendant  of  the 
house  of  Saul.  His  sons  were  among  the  famous 
archers  of  Benjamin,  and  with  their  sons  and  grand 
sons  made  up  the  goodly  family  of  150  (1  Chr. 
viii.  39,  40). 

UL'LA  (K^J :  'O\d ;  Alex.  'flAet :  Olid).  An 
Asherite,  head  of  a  family  in  his  tribe,  a  mighty 
man  of  valour,  but  how  descended  does  not  appeal 
(1  Chr.  vii.  39).  Perhaps,  as  Junius  suggests,  he 
may  be  a  son  of  Ithran  or  Jether;  and  we  may 
further  conjecture  that  his  name  may  be  a  cor 
ruption  of  Ara. 

UM'MAH  (H»y ;  'APX*'£a;  'A^a:  Amma}. 
One  of  the  cities  of  the  allotment  of  Asher  (Josh, 
xix.  30  only).  It  occurs  in  company  with  Aphek 
and  Rehob ;  but  as  neither  of  these  have  been  iden 
tified,  no  clue  to  the  situation  of  Ummah  is  gained 
thereby.  Dr.  Thomson  (Bibl.  Sacra,  1855,  p. 
822,  quoted  by  Van  de  Velde)  was  shown  a  place 
called  'Alma  in  ihe  highlands  on  the  coast,  about 
five  miles  E.N.E.  of  Has  en-Nakhura,  which  is  not 
dissimilar  in  name,  and  which  he  conjectures  may 
be  identical  with  Ummah.  But  it  is  quite  uncer 
tain.  'Alma  is  described  in  The  Land  and  th& 
Book,  chap.  xx.  [G.] 

UNCLEAN  MEATS.  These  were  things 
strangled,  or  dead  of  themselves,  or  through  beasts  or 
birds  of  prey  ;  whatever  beast  did  not  both  part  the 
hoof  and  chew  the  cud  ;  and  certain  other  smaller  ani 
mals  rated  as  "  creeping  things  "  b  (fit?)  ;  certain 

~~vT  Lev.  xi.  29-30  forbids  eating  the  weasel,  the  mouse, 
the  tortoise,  the  ferret,  the  chameleon,  the  lizard,  the 
snail  and  the  mole.  The  LXX.  has  in  place  of  the  tor- 

5  I  2 


1588 


UNCLEAN  MEATS 


UNCLEAN  MEATS 


classes  of  birds  •  mentioned  in  Lev.  xi.  and  Deut. 
xiv.  twenty  or  twenty-one  in  all ;  whatever  in  the 
waters  had  not  both  fins  and  scales ;  whatever 
winged  insect  had  not  besides  four  legs  the  two 
nind-legs  for  leaping ; d  besides  things  offered  in 
sacrifice  to  idols ;  and  all  blood  or  whatever  con 
tained  it  (sa-re  perhaps  the  blood  of  fish,  as  would 
appear  from  that  only  of  beast  and  bird  being  for 
bidden,  Lev.  vii.  26),  and  therefore  flesh  cut  from 
the  live  animal;  as  also  all  fat,  at  any  rate  that 
disposed  in  masses  among  the  intestines,  and  pro 
bably  wherever  discernible  and  separable  among 
the  flesh  (Lev.  iii.  14-17,  vii.  23).  The  eating  of 
blood  was  prohibited  even  to  "the  stranger  that 
sojoumeth  among  you  "  (Lev.  xvii.  10,  12, 13, 14), 
an  axtension  which  we  do  not  trace  in  other  dietary 
precepts ;  e.  g.  the  thing  which  died  of  itself  was 
to  be  given  "  unto  the  stranger  that  is  in  thy  gates," 
Deut.  xiv.  21.  As  regards  blood,  the  prohibition 
indeed  dates  from  the  declaration  to  Noah  against 
'*  flesh  with  the  life  thereof  which  is  the  blood 
thereof,"  in  Gen.  ix.  4,  which  was  perhaps  regarded 
by  Moses  as  still  binding  upon  all  Noah's  descendants. 
The  grounds,  however,  on  which  the  similar  pre 
cept  of  the  Apostolic  Council,  in  Acts  xv.  20,  21, 
appears  based,  relate  not  to  any  obligation  resting 
still  unbroken  on  the  Gentile  world,  but  to  the  risk 
of  promiscuous  offence  to  the  Jews  and  Jewish 
Christians,  "/or  Moses  of  old  time  hath  in  every 
city  them  that  preach  him."  Hence  this  abstinence 
is  reckoned  amongst  "  necessary  things  "  (TO  eiraj/- 
ery/ees),  and  "  things  offered  to  idols,"  although  not 
solely,  it  may  be  presumed,  on  the  same  grounds, 
are  placed  in  the  same  class  with  "  blood  and  things 
strangled "  (a.TTfxeff^ai  ftSu\oQ^Tti)v  Kal  a'1/u.aros 
Kal  TTVIKTOV,  vv.  28,  29).  Besides  these,  we  find 
the  prohibition  twice  recurring  against  "seething 
a  kid  in  its  mother's  milk."  It  is  added,  as  a  final 
injunction  to  the  code  of  dietary  precepts  in  Deut. 
xiv.,  after  the  crowning  declaration  of  ver.  21,  "/or 
thou  art  an  holy  people  unto  the  Lord  thy  God  ;" 
but  in  Exod.  xxiii.  19,  xxxiv.  26,  the  context  relates 
to  the  bringing  firstfruits  to  the  altar,  and  to  the 
"  Angel "  who  was  to  "  go  before "  the  people. 
To  tnis  precept  we  shall  have  occasion  further  to 
return. 

The  general  distinction  of  clean  and  unclean  is 
rightly  observed  by  Michaelis  (Smith's  Translation, 


Art.  ccii.  &c.)  to  have  its  parallel  amongst  all 
nations,  there  being  universally  certain  creatures 
regarded  as  clean,  i.  e.  fit  for  food,  and  the  rest  ait 
the  opposite  (comp.  Lev.  xi.  47).  With  the  greater 
number  of  nations,  however,  this  is  only  a  tradi 
tional  usage  based  merely  perhaps  either  on  an  in 
stinct  relating  to  health,  or  on  a  repugnance  which 
is  to  be  regarded  as  an  ultimate  fact  in  itself,  and 
of  which  no  further  account  is  to  be  given.  Thus 
Michaelis  (as  above)  remarks  that  in  a  certain  part 
of  Germany  rabbits  are  viewed  as  unclean,  i.  e.  are 
advisedly  excluded  from  diet.  Our  feelings  as  re 
gards  the  frog  and  the  snail,  contrasted  with  those 
of  continentals,  supply  another  close  parallel.  Now, 
it  is  not  unlikely  that  nothing  more  than  this  is 
intended  in  the  distinction  between  "  clean "  and 
"  unclean  "  in  the  directions  given  to  Noah.  The 
intention  seems  to  have  been  that  creatures  recog 
nized,  on  whatever  ground,  as  unfit  for  human  food, 
should  not  be  preserved  in  so  large  a  proportion  as 
those  whose  number  might  be  diminished  by  that 
consumption.  The  dietary  code  of  the  Egyptians, 
and  the  traditions  which  have  descended  amongst 
the  Arabs,  unfortified,  certainly  down  to  the  time 
of  Mahomet,  and  in  some  cases  later,  by  any  legis 
lation  whatever,  so  far  as  we  know,  may  illustrate 
the  probable  state  of  the  Israelites.  If  the  Law 
seized  upon  such  habits  as  were  current  among  the 
people,  perhaps  enlarging  their  scope  and  range,  the 
whole  scheme  of  tradition,  instinct,  and  usage  so 
enlarged  might  become  a  ceremonial  barrier,  having 
a  relation  at  once  to  the  theocratic  idea,  to  the 
general  health  of  the  people,  and  to  their  separate- 
ness  as  a  nation. 

The  same  personal  interest  taken  by  Jehovah  in 
his  subjects,  which  is  expressed  by  the  demand  for 
a  ceremonially  pure  state  on  the  part  of  every 
Israelite  as  in  covenant  with  Him,  regarded  also 
thio  particular  detail  of  that  purity,  viz.  diet. 
Thus  the  prophet  (Is.  Ixvi.  17),  speaking  in  His 
name,  denounces  those  that  "sanctify  themselves 
(consecrate  themselves  to  idolatry),  eating  swine's 
flesh,  and  the  abomination,  and  the  mouse,"  and 
those  "  which  remain  among  the  graves  and  lodge  in 
the  monuments,  which  eat  swine's  flesh,  and  broth 
of  abominable  things  is  in  their  vessels  "  (Ixv.  4). 
It  remained  for  a  higher  Lawgiver  to  announce  that 
"  there  is  nothing  from  without  a  man  that  enter- 


toise,  the  KpoKoSeiAos  o  x«p<raio?,  and  instead  of  the  snail 
(put  before  the  lizard,  <ravpo),  the  xaXa/Sci-nj?. 

c  In  the  LXX.  of  Lev.  xi.  14,  two  birds  only  ate  men 
tioned,  TOV  yvwa  Kal  rov  IKTIVOV,  and  in  the  parallel  pas 
sage  of  Deut.  xiv.  13  the  same  two  ;  but  in  the  Heb.  of 
the  latter  passage  only  our  present  text  has  three  birds' 
names.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  one  of  these,  i"l&O> 
rendered  "  glede "  by  the  A.V.,  is  a  mere  corruption  of 
HN^I,  found  both  in  Deut.  and  in  Lev.,  for  which  the 
LXX.  gives  ^ty,  and  the  Vulgate  Milvius.  So  Maimon. 
took  it  (Bochart,  Hieroz.  ii.  33,  353).  Thus  we  have 
twenty  birds  named  as  unclean,  alike  in  the  Heb.  and 
in  the  LXX.  of  Lev.  xi.  13-19,  and  of  many  of  these  the 
identification  is  very  doubtful.  Bochart  says  (p.  354), 
"  nomina  avium  immundarum  recenset  Maimon.,  inter- 
pretari  ne  conatus  quidem  est."  In  the  Heb.  of  Deut.  xiv. 
we  have,  allowing  for  the  probable  corruption  of  one 
name,  the  same  twenty,  but  in  the  LXX.  only  nineteen ; 
"  every  raven  after  his  kind "  (iravra.  Kopaxa.  Kai  TO. 
ojuota  avrta),  of  Lev.  being  omitted,  and  the  other  names, 
although  the  same  as  those  of  Lev.,  yet  having  a  different 
order  and  grouping  after  the  first  eight.  Thus  Lev.  xi.  It, 
consists  of  the  three,  ica.1  wK.ri.K6pa.Ka.,  KCU  KarapaKrriv , 
IMI  I/3ev;  whereas  Deut.  xiv.  16,  which  should  corres 


pond,  contains  ital  eptaSibv,  KCU  KVKVOV,  Kal  t0tv.  Also 
the  ITTO^,  "hoopoe,"  and  the  irop^vpiW,  "coot,"  figure 
in  both  the  LXX.  lists.  . 

d  In  Lev.  xi.  21  the  keri  has  P^T^N,  against  the 
N  ?"1^N  of  the  cethib.  It  is  best  to  adopt  the  former, 
and  view  the  last  part  of  the  verse  as  constituting  a  class 
that  may  be  eaten  from  among  a  larger  doubtful  class  of 
"  flying  creeping-things,"  the  differentia  consisting  in 
their  having  four  feet,  and  a  pair  of  hind-legs  to  spring 
with.  The  A.V.  is  here  obscure.  "All  fowls  that 
creep,"  and  "  every  flying  creeping  thing,"  standing  in 
Lev.  xi.  20,  21  for  precisely  the  same  Heb.  phrase,  ren 
dered  by  the  LXX.  TO.  epTrero  rOtv  trereLvtav ',  and  "  legs 
above  their  feet  to  leap,"  not  showing  that  the  dutitict 
larger  springing  legs  of  the  locust  or  cicada  are  meant ; 

where  the  Heb.  'V^D,  and  LXX.  ai/wrepov  seem  to 
express  the  upward  projection  of  these  legs  above  the 
creature's  back.  So  Bochart  takes  it  (p.  452),  who  a 
prefers  "^  in  the  reading  above  given ;  "  ita  enirn  Hebraei 
omnes;"  and  so,  he  adds,  the  Samar.  Pent.  He  states 
that  locusts  are  salted  for  food  in  Egypt  (iv.  7,  491-2 ; 
wrap.  Hasselquist,  231-233).  The  edible  class  is  enu 
merated  in  four  species.  No  precept  is  found  in  Deut 
relating  to  these. 


UNCLEAN  MEATS 

mg  into  him  can  defile  him  "  (Mark  vii.  15).  The 
fat  was  claimed  as  a  burnt  offering  and  the  blood 
enjoyed  the  highest  -  sacrificial  esteem.  In  the  two 
combined  the  entire  victim  was  by  representation 
offered,  and  to  transfer  either  to  human  use  was  to 
deal  presumptuously  with  the  most  holy  things. 
But  besides  this,  the  blood  was  esteemed  as  "  the 
life  "  of  the  creature,  and  a  mysterious  sanctity  be 
yond  the  sacrificial  relation  thereby  attached  to  it. 
Hence  we  read,  "  whatsoever  soul  it  be  that  eateth 
any  manner  of  blood,  even  that  soul  shall  be  cut 
off  from  his  people  "  (Lev.  vii.  27,  comp.  xvii.  10, 
14).  Whereas  the  offender  in  other  dietary  respects 
was  merely  "  unclean  until  even  "  (xi.  40,  xvii.  15). 

Blood  was  certainly  drunk  in  certain  heathen 
rituals,  especially  those  which  related  to  the  solemn 
ization  of  a  covenant,  but  also  as  a  pledge  of  idola 
trous  worship  (Ps.  xvi.  4;  Ezek.  xxxiii.  25).  Still 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  blood  has  ever  been 
a  common  article  of  food,  and  any  lawgiver  might 
probably  reckon  on  a  natural  aversion  effectually 
fortifying  his  prohibition  in  this  respect,  unless 
under  some  bewildering  influence  of  superstition. 
Whether  animal  qualities,  grosser  appetites,  and 
inhuman  tendencies  might  be  supposed  by  the  He 
brews  transmitted  into  the  partaker  of  the  blood  of 
animals,  we  have  nothing  to  show :  see,  however, 
Josephus,  Ant.  iii.  11,  §2. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  practical  effect  of  the 
rule  laid  down  is  to  exclude  all  the  caniicora 
among  quadrupeds,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  interpret 
the  nomenclature,  the  raptor es  among  birds.  This 
suggests  the  question  whether  they  were  excluded 
as  being  not  averse  to  human  carcases,  and  in  most 
Eastern  countries  acting  as  the  servitors  of  the 
battle-field  and  the  gibbet.  Even  swine  have  been 
known  so  to  feed ;  and,  further,  by  their  constant 
runcation  among  whatever  lies  on  the  ground,  sug 
gest  impurity,  even  if  they  were  not  generally  foul 
feeders.  Amongst  fish  those  which  were  allowed 
contain  unquestionably  the  most  wholesome  va 
rieties,  save  that  ftey  exclude  the  oyster.  Pro 
bably,  however,  sea-fishing  was  little  practised  by 
the  Israelites;  and  the  Levitical  rules  must  be 
understood  as  referring  backwards  to  their  experi 
ence  of  the  produce  of  the  Nile,  and  forwards  to 
their  enjoyment  of  the  Jordan  and  its  upper  lakes. 
The  exclusion  of  the  camel  and  the  hare  from 
allowable  meats  is  less  easy  to  account  for,  save 
that  the  former  never  was  in  common  use,  and  is 
generally  spoken  of  in  reference  to  the  semi-barba 
rous  desert  tribes  on  the  eastern  or  southern  border 
land,  some  of  whom  certainly  had  no  insuperable 
repugnance  to  his  flesh  ;•  although  it  is  so  impos 
sible  to  substitute  any  other  creature  for  the  camel 
as  the  "  ship  of  the  desert,"  that  to  eat  him,  espe 
cially  where  so  many  other  creatures  give  meat  so 
much  preferable,  would  be  the  worst  economy  pos 
sible  in  an  Eastern  commissariat — that  of  destroying 


UNCLEAN  MEATS          1539 

the  best,  or  rat'uer  the  only  conveyance,  in  order  to 
obtain  the  most  indifferent  food.  The  haref  was 
long  supposed,  even  by  eminent  naturalists,*  to 
ruminate,  and  certainly  was  eaten  by  the  Egyptians. 
The  horse  and  ass  would  be  generally  spared  from 
similar  reasons  to  those  which  exempted  the  camel. 
As  regards  other  cattle  the  young  males  would  be 
those  universally  preferred  for  food,  no  more  of 
that  sex  reaching  maturity  than  were  needful  for 
breeding,  whilst  the  supply  of  milk  suggested  the 
copious  preservation  of  the  female.  The  duties  of 
draught  would  require  another  rule  in  rearing  neat- 
cattle.  The  labouring  steer,  man's  fellow  in  the 
field,  had  a  life  somewhat  ennobled  and  sanctified 
by  that  comradeship.  Thus  it  seems  to  have  been 
quite  unusual  to  slay  for  sacrifice  or  food,  as  in  1  K. 
xix.  21,  the  ox  accustomed  to  the  yoke.  And  per 
haps  in  this  case,  as  being  tougher,  the  flesh  was  not 
roasted  but  boiled.  The  case  of  Araunah's  oxen  is 
not  similar,  as  cattle  of  all  ages  were  useful  in  the 
threshing  floor  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  22).  Many  of  these 
restrictions  must  be  esteemed  as  merely  based  on 
usage,  or  arbitrary.  Practically  the  law  left  among 
the  allowed  meats  an  ample  variety,  and  no  incon 
venience  was  likely  to  arise  from  a  prohibition  to  eat 
camels,  horses,  and  asses.  Swine,  hares,  &c.  would 
probably  as  nearly  as  possible  be  exterminated  in  pro 
portion  as  the  law  was  observed,  and  their  economic 
room  filled  by  other  creatures.  Wunderbar  (Biblisch- 
Talm.  Medicin,  part  ii.  p.  50)  refers  to  a  notion 
that  "  the  animal  element  might  only  with  great 
circumspection  and  discretion  be  taken  up  into  the 
life  of  man,  in  order  to  avoid  debasing  that  human 
life  by  assimilation  to  a  brutal  level,  so  that  thereby 
the  soul  might  become  degraded,  profaned,  filled 
with  animal  affections,  and  disqualified  for  drawing 
near  to  God."  He  thinks  also  that  we  may  notice 
a  meaning  in  '*  the  distinction  between  creatures  of 
a  higher,  nobler,  and  less  intensely  animal  organ 
ization  as  clean,  and  those  of  a  lo-ver  and  incom 
plete  erganization  as  unclean,"  and  that  the  insect* 
provided  with  four  legs  and  two  others  for  leap 
ing  are  of  a*  higher  or  more  complete  type  than 
others,  and  relatively  nearer  to  man.  This  seems 
fanciful,  but  may  nevertheless  have  been  a  view 
current  among  Rabbinical  authorities.  As  regards 
birds,  the  raptores  have  commonly  tough  and  in» 
digestible  flesh,  and  some  of  them  are  in  all  warm 
countries  the  natural  scavengers  of  all  sorts  of 
carrion  and  offal.  This  alone  begets  an  instinctive 
repugnance  towards  them,  and  associates  them  with 
what  was  beforehand  a  defilement.  Thus  to  kill 
them  for  food  would  tend  to  multiply  various  sources 
of  uncleanness.1*  Porphyry  (Abstin.  iv.  7,  quoted  by 
Winer)  says  that  the  Egyptian  priests  abstained  from 
all  fish,  from  all  quadrupeds  with  solid  hoofs,  01 
having  claws,  or  which  were  not  horned,  and  from 
all  carnivorous  birds.  Other  curious  parallels  have 
been  found  amongst  more  distant  nations.1 


•  The  camel,  it  may  be  observed,  is  the  creature  most 
near  the  line  of  separation,  for  the  foot  is  partially  cloven 
but  Incompletely  so,  and  he  Is  also  a  ruminant. 

'  The  jfiSP,  "coney,"  A.V.,  Lev.  xi.  5,  Deut.  xiv.  1, 
Ps.  civ.  18,  Piov,  *  KX.  26,  is  probably  the  jerboa. 

8  See  a  correspondence  on  the  question  in  The  Standard 
and  most  Dther  London  newspapers,  April  2nd,  1863. 

h  Bochart  (Hieroz.  ii.  33,  355, 1.  43)  mentions  various 
symbolical  meanings  as  conveyed  by  the  precepts  regard 
ing  birds  :  "  Aves  rapaces  prohibuit  utarapinaaverteret, 
nocturnas,  ut  abjicerent  opera  tenebrarum  et  se  proderent 
lads  llli™,  lacustros  et  riparias,  quarum  vlctua  est  im- 


purissimus,  ut  ab  omni  Jmmumlfi  cor  arceret.  Struthio- 
nem  denique.qui  e  terra  non  attollltur,  ut  terrenis  relictis 
ad  ea  tenderent  quae  sursam  sunt.  Quae  interpretatio  non 
nostra  est  sed  veterum."  He  refers  to  Barnabas,  Epist.  x. ; 
Clemens  Alex.  Strom,  v. ;  Origen,  Homil.  in  Levit. ;  No- 
vatian,  De  Cibis  Judaic,  cap.  iii. ;  Cyril,  contra  Julian. 
lib.  ix. 

1  Winer  refers  to  Von  Bohlen  (Genesis,  88)  as  find 
ing  the  origin  of  the  clean  and  unclean  animals  in  the 
Zendavesta,  in  that  the  latter  are  the  creation  of  Ahri- 
man,  whereas  man  is  ascribed  to  that  of  Ormuzd.  FI« 
rejects,  however,  and  quite  rightly,  the  notion  that  Per. 
!  sian  institutions  exercised  any  influence  over  Hebrew  onet 


1590 


UNCLEAN  MEATS 


But  as  Orientals  have  minds  sensitive  to  teaching 
by  types,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  such  cere 
monial  distinctions  not  only  tended  to  keep  Jew  and 
Gentile  apart,  but  were  a  perpetual  reminder  to  the 
former  that  he  and  the  latter  were  not  on  one  level 
before  God.  Hence,  when  that  economy  was  changed, 
we  find  that  this  was  the  very  symbol  selected  to 
instruct  St.  Peter  in  the  truth  that  God  was  not  a 
"  respecter  of  persons."  The  vessel  filled  with 
"  fourfooted  beasts  of  the  earth,  and  wild  beasts, 
and  creeping  things,  and  fowls  of  the  air,"  was  ex 
pressive  of  the  Gentile  world,  to  be  put  now  on  a 
level  with  the  Israelite,  through  God's  "  purifying 
their  hearts  by  faith."  A  sense  of  this  their  pre 
rogative,  however  dimly  held,  may  have  fortified 
'he  members  of  the  privileged  nation  in  their  struggle 
with  the  persecutions  of  the  Gentiles  on  this  very 
point.  It  was  no  mere  question  of  which  among 
several  means  of  supporting  life  a  man  chose  to 
adopt,  when  the  persecutor  dictated  the  alternative 
of  swine's  flesh  or  the  loss  of  life  itself,  but  whether 
he  should  surrender  the  badge  and  type  of  that 
privilege  by  which  Israel  stood  as  the  favoured 
cation  before  God  (1  Mace.  i.  63,  64  ;  2  Mace.  vi. 
IS,  /ii;  1).  The  same  feeling  led  to  the  exagge 
ration  of  the  Mosaic  regulations,  until  it  was 
'  unlawful  for  a  man  that  was  a  Jew  to  keep  com 
pany  with  or  come  unto  one  of  another  nation  " 
(Acts  x.  28)  ;  and  with  such  intensity  were  badges 
of  distinction  cherished,  that  the  wine,  bread,  oil, 
cheese,  or  anything  cooked  by  a  heathen,1*  were 
declared  unlawful  for  a  Jew  to  eat.  Nor  was  this 
strictness,  however  it  might  at  times  be  pushed  to 
an  absurdity,  without  foundation  in  the  nature  of 
the  case.  The  Jews,  as,  during  and  after  the  return 
from  captivity,  they  found  the  avenues  of  the  world 
opening  around  them,  would  find  their  intercourse 
with  Gentiles  unavoidably  increased,  and  their  only 
way  to  avoid  an  utter  relaxation  of  their  code 
would  lie  in  somewhat  overstraining  the  precepts  of 
prohibition.  Nor  should  we  omit  the  tendency  of 
those  who  have  no  scruples  to  "  despise"  those  who 
hav?,  and  to  parade  their  liberty  at  the  expense  of 
these  latter,  and  give  piquancy  to  the  contrast  by 
wanton  tricks,  designed  to  beguile  the  Jew  from 
his  strictness  of  observance,  and  make  him  un 
guardedly  partake  of  what  he  abhorred,  in  order  to 
heighten  his  confusion  by  derision.  One  or  two 
instances  of  such  amusement  at  the  Jew's  expense 
would  drive  the  latter  within  the  entrenchments  of 
an  universal  repugnance  and  avoidance,  and  make 
him  seek  the  safe  side  at  the  cost  of  being  counted 
a  churl  and  a  bigot.  Thus  we  may  account  for 
the  refusal  of  the  "  king's  meat"  by  the  religious 
captives  (Dan.  i.  8),  and  for  the  similar  conduct 
recorded  of  Judith  (xii.  2.)  and  Tobit  (Tob.  i.  11) ; 
and  in  a  sim-ilar  spirit  Shakspeare  makes  Shylock  say, 
"  I  will  not  cat  with  you,  drink  with  you,  nor  pray 
with  you"  (Merchant  of  Venice,  Act  I.  Sc.  iii.). 
As  regards  things  offered  to  idols,  all  who  own  one 
God  meet  on  common  ground ;  but  the  Jew  viewed 
the  precept  as  demanding  a  literal  objective  obe 
dience,  and  had  a  holy  horror  of  even  an  uncon 
scious  infraction  of  the  law:  hence,  as  he  could 
never  know  what  had  received  idolatrous  conse 
cration,  his  only  safety  lay  in  total  abstinence; 
whereas  St.  Paul  admonishes  the  Christian  to  ab 
stain,  "  for  his  sake  that  showed  it  and  for  conscience 


UNCLEAN  MEATS 

sake,"  from  a  thing  said  to  have  been  consecrate! 
to  a  false  god,  but  not  to  parade  his  conscientious 
scruples  by  interrogating  the  butcher  at  his  stall 
or  the  host  in  his  guest-chamber  (1  Cor.  x.  25-20), 
and  to  give  opposite  injunctions  would  doubtless  in 
his  view  have  been  "  compelling  the  Gentiles  to  live 
as  did  the  Jews"  (tou8at£eij/,  Gal.  ii.  14). 

The  prohibition  to  "  seethe  a  kid  in  his  mother's 
milk"  has  caused  considerable  difference  of  opinion 
amongst  commentators.  Michaelis  (Art.  ccx.) 
thought  it  was  meant  merely  to  encourage  the  uso, 
of  olive  oil  instead  of  the  milk  or  butter  of  an 
animal,  which  we  commonly  use  in  cookery,  where 
the  Orientals  use  the  former.  This  will  not  satisfy 
any  mind  by  which  the  clue  of  symbolism,  so  blindly 
held  by  the  Eastern  devotee,  and  so  deeply  inter 
woven  in  Jewish  ritual,  has  been  once  duly  seized. 
Mercy  to  the  beasts  is  one  of  the  under-currents 
which  permeate  that  law.  To  soften  the  feelings 
and  humanise  the  character  was  the  higher  and 
more  general  aim.  When  St.  Paul,  commenting  on 
a  somewhat  similar  precept,  says,  "  Doth  God  care 
for  oxen,  or  saith  He  it  altogether  for  our  sakes  ?  " 
he  does  not  mean  to  deny  God's  care  for  oxen,  but 
to  insist  the  rather  on  the  more  elevated  and  more 
human  lesson.  The  milk  was  the  destined  support 
of  the  young  creature  :  viewed  in  reference  to  it, 
the  milk  was  its  "  li:e,"  and  had  a  relative  sanctity 
resembling  that  of  the  forbidden  blood  (comp.  Juv. 
xi.  68,  "  qui  plus  lactis  habet  quam  sanguinis," 
speaking  of  a  kid  destined  for  the  knife).  No  doubt 
the  abstinence  irom  the  forbidden  action,  in  the  case 
of  a  young  creature  already  dead,  and  a  dam  un 
conscious  probably  of  its  loss,  or  whose  consciousness 
such  an  use  of  her  milk  could  in  nowise  quicken, 
was  based  on  a  sentiment  merely.  But  the  practical 
consequence,  that  milk  must  be  foregone  or  elsewhere 
obtained,  would  |  revent  the  sympathy  from  being 
an  empty  one.  It  v  ould  not  be  the  passive  emotion 
which  becomes  weaker  by  repetition,  for  want  of  an 
active  habit  with  which  to  ally  itself.  And  thus  its 
operation  would  lie  in  indirectlv  quickening  sym 
pathies  for  the  brute  creation  at  all  other  times. 
The  Talmudists  took  an  extreme  view  of  the  precept, 
as  forbidding  generally  the  cooking  of  flesh  in  milk 
(Mishna,  Chollin,  viii.  ;  Hottinger,  Leg.  ffebr. 
117,  141,  quoted  by  Winer). 

It  remains  to  mention  the  sanitary  aspect  of  the 
case.  Swine  are  said  to  be  peculiarly  liable  to  dis 
ease  in  their  own  bodies.  This  probably  means  that 
they  are  more  easily  led  than  other  creatures  to  the 
foul  feeding  which  produces  it ;  and  where  the  ave 
rage  heat  is  great,  decomposition  rapU,  and  malaria 
easily  excited,  this  tendency  in  the  animal  is  more 
mischievous  than  elsewhere.  A  ineazel  or  mezel. 
from  whence  we  have  "  measled  pork,"  is  the  old 
English  word  for  a  "  leper,"  and  it  is  asserted  that 
eating  swine's  flesh  in  Syria  and  Egypt  tends  to 
produce  that  disorder  (Bartholini,  De  Morbis  BibL 
viii.  ;  Wunderbar,  p.  51).  But  there  is  an  in- 
definiteness  about  these  assertions  which  prevents 
our  dealing  with  them  scientifically.  Meazel  or 
mezel  may  well  indeed  represent  "leper,"  but 
which  of  all  the  morbid  symptoms  classed  under 
that  head  it  is  to  stand  for,  and  whether  it  means 
the  same,  or  at  least  a  parallel  disorder,  in  man  anJ 
in  pig,  are  indeterminate  questions.  [LEPER.]  The 
prohibition  on  eating  fat  was  salubrious  in  a  rngion 


at  the  earliest  period  of  the  latter,  and  connects  it  with  the 
efforts  of  some  "  den  Pentateuch  recht  Jung  und  die  Idecn 
•Jos  Zendavesta  recht  alt  zu  macheu."  See  UNCLEANNESS 


for  other  resemblances  between  Persian  and  Hebrew  ritual 
k  Winer  also  refers  to  Aboda  Zara,  II.  2-6,  V.  2,  Hot- 
linger,  Leg.  Hcbr.,  117,  141. 


UNCLEANNESS 

where  skin  diseases  are  frequent  and  virulent,  and 
that  on  blood  had,  no  doubt,  a  similar  tendency. 
The  case  of  animals  dying  of  themselves  needs  no 
remark :  the  mere  wish  to  ensure  avoiding  disease, 
in  case  they  had  died  in  such  a  state,  would  dictate 
the  rule.  Yet  the  beneficial  tendency  is  veiled 
under  a  ceremonial  difference,  for  the  "  stranger " 
dwelling  by  the  Israelite  was  allowed  it,  although 
the  latter  was  forbidden.  Thus  is  their  distinctness 
before  God,  as  a  nation,  ever  put  prominently  for 
ward,  even  where  more  common  motives  appear  to 
have  their  turn.  As  regards  the  animals  allowed 
for  food,  comparing  them  with  those  forbidden, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  on  which  side  the  balance 
of  wholesomeness  lies.  Nor  would  any  dietetic 
economist  fail  to  pronounce  in  favour  of  the  Levi- 
tical  dietary  code  as  a  whole,  as  ensuring  the  maxi 
mum  of  public  health,  and  yet  of  national  distinct 
ness,  procured,  however,  by  a  minimum  of  the 
inconvenience  arising  from  restriction. 

Bochart's  Hierozoicon\  Forskal's  Descripiiones 
Animalium,  etc.,  quae  in  Itinere  Orientals  Observa- 
vit,  with  his  Icones  Serum  Naturalium,  and  Rosen- 
miiller's  Handbuch  der  Bibl.  Alterthumskunde,  vol. 
iv.,  Natural  History,  may  be  consulted  on  some  of 
the  questions  connected  with  this  subject ;  also  more 
generally,  Moses  Maimonides,  De  Cibis  Vetitis ; 
Keinhard,  De  Cibis  Hebraeorum  Prohibits.  [H.  H.] 

UNCLEANNESS.  The  distinctive  idea  at 
tached  to  ceremonial  uncleanness  among  the  Hebrews 
was,  that  it  cut  a  person  off  for  the  time  from 
social  privileges,  and  left  his  citizenship  among  God's 
people  for  the  while  in  abeyance.  It  did  not  merely 
require  by  law  a  certain  ritual  of  purification,  in 
order  to  enhance  the  importance  of  the  priesthood, 
but  it  placed  him  who  had  contracted  an  unclean- 
ness  in  a  position  of  disadvantage,  from  which 
certain  ritualistic  acts  alone  could  free  him.  These 
ritualistic  acts  were  primarily  the  means  of  recalling 
the  people  to  a  sense  of  the  personality  of  God,  and 
of  the  reality  of  the  bond  in  which  the  Covenant  had 
placed  them  with  him.  As  regards  the  nature  of 
the  acts  themselves,  they  were  in  part  purely  cere 
monial,  and  in  part  had  a  sanitary  tendency ;  as  also 
had  the  personal  isolation  in  which  the  unclean  were 
placed,  acting  to  some  extent  as  a  quarantine,  under 
circumstances  where  infection  was  possible  or  sup- 
posable.  It  is  remarkable  that,  although  many  acts 
having  no  connexion  specially  with  cleansing  entered 
into  the  ritual,  the  most  frequently  enjoined  method 
of  removing  ceremonial  pollution  was  that  same 
washing  which  produces  physical  cleanliness.  Nor 
can  we  adequately  comprehend  the  purport  and 
spirit  of  the  Lawgiver,  unless  we  recognize  on  either 
side  of  the  merely  ceremonial  acts,  often  apparently 
enjoined  for  the  sake  of  solemnity  alone,  the  spiritual 
and  moral  benefits  on  the  one  side,  of  which  they 
spake  in  shadow  only,  and  the  physical  correctives 
or  preventives  on  the  other,  which  they  often  in 
substance  conveyed.  Maimonides  and  some  other 
expositors,  whilst  they  apparently  forbid,  in  reality 
practise  the  rationalizing  of  many  ceremonial  precepts 
(Wunderbar,  Biblisch  -  Talmudische  Medicin,  2«° 
Ileft,  4). 

There  is  an  intense  reality  in  the  fact  of  the 
Divine  Law  taking  hold  of  a  man  by  the  ordinary 
infirmities  of  flesh,  and  setting  its  stamp,  as  it 
were,  in  the  lowest  clay  of  which  he  is  moulded. 

"  Compare  the  view  of  the  modern  Persians  in  this 
respect.  Chardin's  Voyages,  vol.  II.  343,  chap.  iv.  "  Le 
xirps  se  presente  devant  Dieu  comme  1'ame  ;  il  faut  done 


UNCLEANNESS 


1591 


And  indeed,  things  which  would  be  unsuited  to  the 
spiritual  dispensation  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
which  might  even  sink  into  the  ridiculous  by  toe 
close  a  contact  with  its  sublimity,  have  their  proper 
place  in  a  law  of  temporal  sanctions,  directly  iffect- 
ing  man's  life  in  this  world  chiefly  or  solely.  The 
sacredness  attached  to  the  human  body  is  parallel  to 
that  which  invested  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  itself. 
It  is  as  though  Jehovah  thereby  would  teach  them 
that  the  "  very  hairs  of  their  head  were  all  num 
bered"  before  Him,  and  that  "in  His  book  were  all 
their  members  written."  Thus  was  inculcated,  so 
to  speak,  a  bodily  holiness.*  And  it  is  remarkable 
indeed,  that  the  solemn  precept,  "Ye  shall  be  holy; 
for  I  am  holy,"  is  used  not  only  where  moral  duties 
are  enjoined,  as  in  Lev.  xix.  2,  but  equally  so  where 
purely  ceremonial  precepts  are  delivered,  as  in  xi. 
44,  45.  So  the  emphatic  and  recurring  period, 
"  I  am  the  Lord  your  God,"  is  found  added  to  the 
clauses  of  positive  ooservance  as  well  as  to  those  re 
lating  to  the  grandest  ethical  barriers  of  duty.  The 
same  weight  of  veto  or  injunction  seems  laid  on  all 
alike  :  e.  g.  "  Ye  shall  not  make  any  cuttings  in 
your  flesh  for  the  dead,  nor  print  any  marks  upon 
you :  1  am  the  Lord,"  and  "  Thou  shalt  rise  up 
before  the  hoary  head,  and  honour  the  face  of  .the 
old  man,  and  fear  thy  God:  I  am  the  Lord"  (xix. 
28,  32).  They  had  His  mark  set  in  their  flesh, 
and  all  flesh  on  which  that  had  passed  had  received, 
as  it  were,  the  broad  arrow  of  the  king,  and  was 
really  owned  by  him.  They  were  preoccupied  by 
that  mark  of  ownership  in  all  the  leading  relations- 
of  life,  so  as  to  exclude  the  admission  of  any  rival 
badge. 

Nor  were  they  to  be  only  "  separated  from  other 
people,"  but  they  were  to  be  "  holy  unto  God" 
(xx.  24,  26),  "  a  kingdom  of  priests,  and  a  holy 
nation."  Hence  a  number  of  such  ordinances  re 
garding  outward  purity,  which  in  Egypt  they  had 
seen  used  only  by  the  priests,  were  made  publicly 
obligatory  on  the  Hebrew  nation. 

The  importance  to  physical  well-being  of  the  in 
junctions  which  required  frequent  ablution,  under 
whatever  special  pretexts,  can  be  but  feebly  appre 
ciated  in  our  cooler  and  damper  climate,  where 
there  seems  to  be  a  less  rapid  action  of  the  atmo 
sphere,  as  well  as  a  state  of  the  frame  less  disposed 
towards  the  generation  of  contagion,  and  towards 
morbid  action  generally.  Hence  the  obvious  utility 
of  reinforcing,  by  the  sanction  of  religion,  obser 
vances  tending  in  the  main  to  that  healthy  state 
which  is  the  only  solid  basis  of  comfort,  even 
though  in  certain  points  of  detail  they  were  bur 
densome.  The  custom  of  using  the  bath  also  on 
occasions  of  ceremonious  introduction  to  persons  oi 
rank  or  importance  (Ruth  iii.  3 ;  Judith  x.  3),  well 
explains  the  special  use  of  it  on  occasions  of  religious 
ministration,  viewed  as  a  personal  appearing  befoie 
God  ;  whence  we  understand  the  office  of  the  lavers 
among  the  arrangements  of  the  Sanctuary  (Ex. 
xxx.  18-2 1 ;  1  K.  vii.  38,  39  ;  comp.  Ex.  xix.  10, 14  ; 
1  Sam.  xvi.  5  ;  Josh.  iii.  5;  2  Chr.  xxx.  17).  The 
examples  of  parallel  observances  among  the  nations 
of  antiquity,  will  suggest  themselves  easily  to  the 
classical  student  without  special  references.  The 
closest  approximation,  however,  to  the  Mosaic  ritual 
in  this  respect,  is  said  to  be  found  in  the  code  of 
Menu  ( Winer,  "  Reinigkeit,"  313,  note). 

qu'il  soit  pur,  tant  pour  parler  a  Dicu  que  pour  out  w 
duns  Ic  lieu  consacre  a  son  cultc." 


1592 


UNCLEANNESS 


To  the  priests  was  ordinarily  referred  the  exposi 
tion  of  the  law  of  uncleanness,  as  may  be  gathered 
from  Hagg.  ii.  11.  Uncleanness,  as  referred  to  man, 
may  be  arranged  in  three  degrees  ;  (1 )  that  which 
defiled  merely  "  until  even,"  and  was  removed  by 
bathing  and  washing  the  clothes  at  the  end  of  it — 
such  were  all  contacts  with  dead  animals;  (2)  that 
graver  sort  which  defiled  for  seven  days,  an.i  was 
removed  by  the  use  of  the  "  water  of  separation  " — 
such  were  all  defilements  connected  with  the  human 
corpse ;  (3)  uncleanness  from  the  morbid,  puerperal, 
or  menstrual  state,  lasting  as  long  as  that  morbid 
state  lasted — but  see  further  below ;  and  in  the  case 
of  leprosy  lasting  often  for  life. 

It  suffices  barely  to  notice  the  spiritual  signi 
ficance  which  the  law  of  carnal  ordinances  veiled. 
This  seems  sometimes  apparent,  as  in  Deut.  xxi. 
6-8  (comp.  Ps.  xxvi.  6,  Ixxiii.  13),  yet  calling  for 
a  spiritual  discernment  in  the  student ;  and  this  is 
the  point  of  relation  between  these  "  divers  wash 
ings"  and  Christian  Baptism  (1  Pet.  iii.  21). 
Those  who  lacked  that  gift  were  likely  to  confound 
the  inward  with  the  outward  purification,  or  to  fix 
their  regards  exclusively  on  the  latter. 

As  the  human  person  was  itself  the  seat  of  a 
covenant-token,  so  male  and  female  had  each  their 
ceremonial  obligations  in  proportion  to  their  sexual 
differences.  Further  than  this  the  increase  of  the 
nation  was  a  special  point  of  the  promise  to  Abra 
ham  and  Jacob,  and  therefore  their  fecundity  as 
parents  was  under  the  Divine  tutelage,  beyond  the 
general  notion  of  a  curse,  or  at  least  of  God's  dis 
favour,  as  implied  in  barrenness.  The  ''  blessings 
of  the  breasts  and  of  the  womb"  were  His  (Gen. 
xlix.  25),  and  the  law  takes  accordingly  grave  and, 
as  it.  were,  paternal  cognizance  of  the  organic  func 
tions  connected  with  propagation.  Thus  David 
could  feel,  "Thou  hast  possessed  my  reins:  thou 
hast  covered  me  in  my  mother's  womb"  (Ps. 
cxxxix.  13)  ;  and  St.  Paul  found  a  spiritual  analogy 
in  the  fact  that  "  God  had  tempered  the  body  to 
gether,  having  given  more  abundant  honour  to  that 
part  which  lacked  "  (1  Cor.  xii.  24).  The  changes 
of  habit  incident  to  the  female,  and  certain  abnormal 
states  of  either  sex  in  regard  to  such  functions,  are 
touched  on  reverently,  and  with  none  of  the 
Aesculapian  coldness  of  science — for  the  point  of 
view  is  throughout  from  the  Sanctuary  (Lev.  xv. 
31);  and  the  purity  of  the  individual,  both  moral 
and  physical,  as  well  as  the  preservation  of  the 
race,  seems  included  in  it.  There  is  an  emphatic 
reminder  of  human  weakness  in  the  fact  of  birth 
and  death — man's  passage  alike  into  and  out  of  his 
mortal  state — being  marked  with  a  stated  pollution. 
Thus  the  birth  of  the  infant  brought  defilement  on 

b  Comp.  Herod,  ii.  64,  where  it  appears  that  after  such 
mte*course  an  Egyptian  could  not  enter  a  sanctuary 
without  first  bathing. 

c  Ancient  Greek  physicians  assert  that,  in  southern 
countries,  the  symptoms  of  the  puerperal  state  continue 
longer  when  a  woman  has  borne  a  daughter  than  when  a 
son.  Michaelis  (Smith's  Translation'),  Art.  214. 

<i  Winer  quotes  a  remarkable  passage  from  Pliny, 
ff.lf.  vii.  13,  specifying  the  mysteriously  mischievous  pro 
perties  ascribed  in  popular  superstition  to  the  menstrual 
flux ;  e.  g.,  buds  and  fruits  being  blighted,  steel  blunted, 
dogs  driven  mad  by  it,  and  the  like.  But  Pliny  has  evi- 
dsntly  raked  together  all  sorts  of  "  old  wives'  fables," 
without  any  attempt  at  testing  their  truth,  and  is  there 
fore  utterly  untrustworthy.  More  to  the  purpose  is  his 
quotation  of  Haller,  Elem.  Physiol.  vii.  148,  to  the  effect 
that  this  opini.m  of  the  virulent  and  baneful  effects  of 


UNCLEAXNESS 

its  mother,  which  she,  except  so  far  as  necessarily 
isolated  by  the  nature  of  the  circumstances,  propa 
gated  around  her.  Nay,  the  conjugal  act  itself11 
or  a»y  act  resembling  it,  though  done  involun 
tarily  (vv.  16-18),  entailed  uncleanness  for  a 
day.  The  corpse,  on  the  other  hand,  bequeathed 
a  defilement  of  seven  days  to  all  who  handled  it, 
to  the  "  tent "  or  chamber  of  death,  ar.d  to  sundry 
things  within  it.  Nay,  contact  with  one  slain  in 
the  field  of  battle,  or  with  even  a  human  bone  or 
grave,  was  no  less  effectual  to  pollute,  than  that 
with  a  corpse  dead  by  the  course  of  nature  (Num. 
xix.  11-18).  This  shows  that  the  source  of  pollu 
tion  lay  in  the  mere  fact  of  death,  and  seems  to 
mark  an  anxiety  to  fix  a  sense  of  the  connexion  of 
death,  even  as  or  birth,  with  sin,  deep  in  the  heart 
of  the  nation,  by  a  wide  pathology,  if  we  may  FX> 
call  it,  of  defilement.  It  is  as  though  the  pool  cf 
human  corruption  was  stirred  anew  by  whatever 
passed  into  or  out  of  it.  For  the  special  cases  of 
male,  female,  and  intersexual  defilemeut,  see  Lev. 
xii.,  xv.  Wunderbar,  Biblisch- Talmudische  Medi- 
cin,  pt.  iii.  19-20,  refers  to  Mishna,  Zabim,  ii.  2, 
Nasir,  ix.  4,  as  understanding  by  the  symptoms 
mentioned  in  Lev.  xv.  2-8  the  gonorrhoea  beniyna, 
The  same  authority  thinks  that  the  plague  "  for 
Peor's  sake"  (Num.  xxv.  1,  8,  9 ; '  Deut.  iv.  3; 
Josh.  xxii.  17),  was  possibly  a  sypnilitic  affection 
derived  from  the  Moabites.  [ISSUE  ;  MEDICINE.] 
The  duration  of  defilement  caused  by  the  birth  of 
a  female  infant,  being  double  that  due  to  a  male, 
extending  respectively  to  eighty0  and  forty  days  in  all 
(Lev.  xii.  2-5),  may  perhaps  represent  the  woman's 
heavier  share  in  the  first  siu  and  first  curse  (Gen. 
iii.  16;  1  Tim.  ii.  14).  For  a  man's  "issue,"  be 
sides  the  uncleanness  while  it  lasted,  a  probation  of 
seven  days,  including  a  washing  on  the  third  day, 
is  prescribed.  Similar  was  the  period  in  the  case  of 
the  woman,  and  in  that  of  intercourse  with  a  woman 
so  affected  (Lev.  xv.  13,  28,  24).  Such  an  act. 
during  her  menstrual  separation*  was  regarded  as 
incurring,  beyond  uncleanness,  the  penalty  of  both 
the  persons  being  cut  off  from  among  their  people 
(xx.  18).  We  may  gather  from  Gen.  xxxi.  35, 
that  such  injunctions  were  agreeable  to  established 
traditional  notions.  The  propagation  of  unclean- 
ness  from  the  person  to  the  bed,  saddle,  clothes, 
&c.,  and  through  them  to  other  persons,  is  apt  to 
impress  the  imagination  with  an  idea  of  the  loath 
someness  of  such  a  state  or  the  heinousness  of  such 
acts,  more  forcibly  by  far  than  if  the  defilement  clove 
to  the  first  person  merely  (Lev.  xv.  5,  6,  9,  12, 
17,  20,  22-24,  26,  27).  It  threw  a  broad  margin 
around  them,  and  warned  all  off  by  amply  defined 
boundaries.  One  expression  in  ver.  8.  seems  to 


this  secretion  proceeded  from  Asia,  and  was  imported 
into  Europe  by  the  Arabians ;  which,  however,  lacks  dae 
foundation,  and  which  Pliny's  language  so  far  contradicts. 
The  laws  of  Menu  are  said  to  be  more  stringent  on  this 
head  than  the  Mosaic.  The  menstrual  affection  begins 
at  an  earlier  age,  and  has  periods  oi  longer  duration  with 
oriental  women  than  with  those  of  our  own  climate.  That 
Greek  religion  recognized  some  of  the  Levitical  pollu 
tions  is  plain  from  Eurip.  Tphig.  Taw.  380  foil.,  where 
we  read  of  a  goddess— TJTIS,  pporiov  fj.ev  rjv  TIS  ai//TjToi 
$>6vov,  r)  KOL  Ao^eias,  17  ve/cpoi)  Oi^r)  xepoiv,  /Saj/nwi' 
itreipyet,  fj.v<rapbv  tos  Tjyovju.eV7j.  A  fragment  of  the  same 
poet,  adduced  by  Mr.  Paley  ad  loc.  cit.t  is  even  more 
closely  in  point.  It  is,  •naXXevna.  8'  e^atv  ei^ara  $euyai 
yeve<riv  re  fiportav  Kal  peKpoflijKT/s  *,v  \piju Trro/u.ei'os,  TTJK 
r'e/ixi//vxu>i>  /Spaxrij/  efieorcoj'  7re</>u\ay/^ai.  Comp.  ahiu 
Theophr.  Char.  17. 


UNCLEANNESS 

Have  misled  Winer  into  supposing  that  an  issue  of 
rheum  (Sehleimfluss)  was  perhaps  intended.  That 
"  spitting,"  in  some  cases  where  there  was  no 
disease  in  question,  conveyed  defilement,  seems 
implied  in  Num.  xii.  14,  and  much  more  might 
=uch  an  act  so  operate,  from  one  whose  malady 
made  him  a  source  of  pollution  even  to  the  touch. 

As  regards  the  propagation  of  uncleanness  the 
Law  of  Moses  is  not  quite  clear.  We  read  (Num. 
xix.  22),  "  Whatsoever  the  unclean  person  toucheth 
shall  be  unclean ;"  but  there  uncleanness  from  con 
tact  with  the  corpse,  grave,  &c.,  is  the  subject  of  the 
chapter  which  the  injunction  closes  ;  and  this  is  con 
firmed  by  Hagg.  ii.  13,  where  "  one  that  is  unclean 
by  a  dead  body  "  is  similarly  expressly  mentioned. 
Also  from  the  command  (Num.  v.  2-4)  to  "put 
the  unclean  out  of  the  camp  ;"  where  the  "  leper," 
the  one  "  that  hath  an  issue,"  and  the  one  "  defiled 
oy  the  dead,"  are  particularized,  we  may  assume 
that  the  minor  pollution  for  one  day  only  was  not 
communicable,  and  so  needed  not  to  be  "  put  forth." 
It  is  observable  also  that  the  major  pollution  of  the 
"  bsue  "  communicated  by  contact  the  minor  pollu 
tion  only  (Lev.  xv.  5-11).  Hence  may  perhaps  be 
deduced  a  tendency  in  the  contagiousness  to  exhaust 
itself;  the  minor  pollution,  whether  engendered  by 
the  major  or  arising  directly,  being  non-communi 
cable.  Thus  the  major  itself  would  expire  after 
one  remove  from  its  original  subject.  To  this 
pertains  the  distinction  mentioned  by  Lightfoot 
( ffor.  Hebr.  on  Matt.  .xv.  2),  viz.  that  between 
KDt2  "  unclean,"  and  TIDQ  "  profane  "  or  "  pol 
luted,"  m  tnat  the  latter  does  not  pollute  another 
beside  itself  nor  propagate  pollution.  In  the 
ancient  commentary  on  Num.  known  as  "  Siphri "  • 
(ap.  Ugol.  Thes.  xv.  346),  a  greater  transmissibility 
of  polluting  power  seems  assumed,  the  defilement 
being  there  traced  through  three  removes  from  the 
original  subject  of  it ;  but  this  is  no  doubt  a  Rab 
binical  extension  of  the  original  Levitical  view. 

Michaelis  notices  a  medical  tendency  in  the  restric 
tion  laid  on  coition,  whereby  both  parties  were  un 
clean  until  even  ;  he  thinks,  and  with  some  reason, 
that  the  law  would  operate  to  discourage  polygamy, 
and,  in  monogamy,  would  tend  to  preserve  the 
health  of  the  parents  and  to  provide  for  the  healthi 
ness  of  the  offspring.  The  uncleanness  similarly 
imposed  upon  self-pollution  (Lev.  xv.  16  ;  Deut. 
xxiii.  10),  even  if  involuntary,  would  equally 
exercise  a  restraint  both  moral  and  salutary  to 
health,  and  suggest  to  parents  the  duty  of  vigilance 
•ver  their  male  children  (Michaelis,  Art.  ccxiv.- 
ccxvii.). 

With  regard  to  uncleanness  arising  from  the 
lower  animals,  Lightfoot  (Hor.  Hebr.  on  Lev. 
xi.-xv.)  remarks,  that  all  which  were  unclean  to 
touch  when  dead  were  unclean  to  eat,  but  not 
conversely ;  and  that  all  which  were  unclean  to  eat 
were  unclean  to  sacrifice,  but  not  conversely  ;  since 
"  multa  edere  licet  quae  non  sacrificari,  et  multa 
tangere  licet  quae  non  edere."  For  uncleanness  in 
matters  of  food  see  UNCLEAN  MEATS.  All  ani 
mals,  however,  if  dying  of  themselves,  or  eaten 
with  the  blood,  were  unclean  to  eat.  [BLOOD.]  The 
carcase  also  of  any  animal  unclean  as  regards  diet, 
however  dying,  defiled  whatever  person  it,  or  any 
part  of  it,  touched.  By  the  same  touch  any  gar 
ment,  sack,  skin,  or  vessel,  together  with  its  con- 


UNGLEASNES8 


1593 


e  The  passage  in  the  Latin  version  is,  "  Si  vasa  quae 
tangunt  hominem,  qui  tangat  vasa,  quae  tangant  mor- 
ianm,  sunt  immunda,"  &c. 

f  Bishop  Colenso  appears  to  have  misapplied  this,  as 


tents,  became  unclean,  and  was  to  be  purified  by 
washing  or  scouring  ;  or  if  an  earthen  vessel,  was  tc 
be  broken,  just  as  the  Brahmins  break  a  vessel  out 
of  which  a  Christian  has  drunk.  Further,  the 
water  in  which  such  things  had  been  purified  com 
municated  their  uncleanness ;  and  even  seed  for 
sowing,  if  wetted  with  water,  became  unclean  by 
touch  of  any  carrion,  or  unclean  animal  when  dead. 
All  these  defilements  were  "  until  even  "  only,  save 
the  eating  "  with  the  blood,"  the  offender  in  which 
respect  was  to  "  be  cut  off"  (Lev.  xi.  xvii.  14). 

It  should  further  be  added,  that  the  same  sentence 
of  "cutting  off,"  was  denounced  against  all  who 
should  "  do  presumptuously "  in  respect  even  of 
minor  defilements ;  by  which  we  may  understand 
all  contempt  of  the  legal  provisions  regarding  them. 
The  comprehensive  term  "  defilement,"  also  in 
cludes  the  contraction  of  the  unlawful  marriages 
and  the  indulgence  of  unlawful  lusts,  as  denounced 
in  Lev.  xviii.  Even  the  sowing  heterogeneous 
seeds  in  the  same  plot,  the  mixture  of  materials  in 
one  garment,  the  sexual  admixture  of  cattle  with  a 
diverse  kind,  and  the  ploughing  with  diverse  ani 
mals  in  one  team,  although  not  formally  so  classed, 
yet  seem  to  fall  under  the  same  general  notion, 
save  in  so  far  as  no  specified  term  of  defilement  or 
mode  of  purification  is  prescribed  (Lev.  xix.  19 ; 
Deut.  xxii.  9-11  ;  comp.  Michaelis,  as  above,  ccxx.). 
In  the  first  of  these  cases  the  fruit  is  pronounced 
"  defiled,"  which  Michaelis  interprets  as  a  consecra 
tion,  t.  e.  confiscation  of  the  crop  far  the  uses  of  the 
priests. 

The  fruit  of  trees  was  to  be  counted  "  as  uncir- 
cumcised,"  i.  e.  unclean  for  the  first  three  years,  in 
the  fourth  it  was  to  be  set  apart  as  "  holy  to  praise 
the  Lord  withal,"  and  eaten  commonly  not  till  the 
fifth.  Michaelis  traces  an  economic  effect  in  this 
regulation,  it  being  best  to  pluck  off  the  blossom  in 
the  early  years,  and  not  allow  the  tree  to  bear 
fruit  till  it  had  attained  to  some  maturity  (ibid. 
ccxxii.). 

The  directions  in  Deut.  xxiii.  10-13,  relate  to 
the  avoidance'of  impurities  in  the  case  of  a  host  en 
camped,*  as  shown  in  ver.  9,  and  from  the  mention 
of  "  enemies  "  in  ver.  1 4.  The  health  of  the  army 
would  of  course  suffer  from  the  neglect  of  sucn 
rules;  but  they  are  based  on  no  such  ground  of 
expediency,  but  on  the  scrupulous  ceremonial  purity 
demanded  by  the  God  whose  presence  was  in  the 
midst  of  them.  We  must  suppose  that  the  rule 
which  expelled  soldiers  under  certain  circumstances 
of  pollution  from  the  camp  for  a  whole  day,  was 
relaxed  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy,  as  otherwise  it 
would  have  placed  them  beyond  the  protection  of 
their  comrades,  and  at  the  mercy  of  the  hostile 
host.  As  regards  the  other  regulation,  it  is  pa  it 
of  the  teaching  of  nature  herself  that  an  assembl'xl 
community  should  reject  whatever  the  human  body 
itself  expels.  And  on  this  ground  the  Levitical 
Law  seems  content  to  let  such  a  matter  rest,  for  it 
annexes  no  stated  defilement,  nor  prescribes  any 
purification. 

Amongst  causes  of  defilement  should  be  noticed 
the  fact  that  the  ashes  of  the  red  heifer,  burnt 
whole,  which  were  mixed  with  water  and  became  the 
standing  resource  for  purifying  uncleanness  in  the 
second  degree,  themselves  became  a  source  of  defile 
ment  to  all  who  were  dean,  even  as  of  purification 

though  it  were  required  of  the  host  of  Israel  i.e.  th« 
whole  body  of  the  people,  throughout  the  whole  of  thoij 
wanr'Bring  in  tte  wilderness.  The  Pentateuch,  d-c.  ch.  vl 
39 


1594 


UNCLEANNESS 


to  the  unclean,  and  so  the  water.  Thus  the  priest  j 
and  Levite,  who  administered  this  purification  in 
their  respective  degrees,  were  themselves  made  un 
clean  thereby,  but  in  the  first  or  lightest  degree 
only  (Num.  xix.  7,  foil.).  Somewhat  similarly  the 
scape-goat,  who  bore  away  the  sins  of  the  people, 
defiled  him  who  led  him  into  the  wilderness,  and 
the  bringing  forth  and  burning  the  sacrifice  on  the 
Great  Day  of  Atonement  had  a  similar  power.  This 
lightest  form  of  uncleanness  was  expiated  by  bath 
ing  the  body  and  washing  the  clothes.  Besides  the 
water  of  purification  made  as  aforesaid,  men  and 
women  in  their  "  issues,"  were,  after  seven  days, 
reckoned  from  the  cessation  of  the  disorder,  to  bring 
two  turtle-doves  or  young  pigeons  to  be  killed  by 
the  priests.  The  purification  after  child-bed  is  well 
known  from  the  N.  T. ;  the  law,  however,  pri 
marily  required  a  lamb  and  a  bird,  and  allowed  the 
poor  to  commute  for  a  pair  of  birds  as  before. 
That  for  the  leper  declared  clean  consisted  of  two 
stages :  the  first,  not  properly  sacrificial,  though 
involving  the  shedding  of  blood,  consisted  in  bring 
ing  two  such  birds,  the  one  of  which  the  priest 
killed  over  spring-water  with  which  its  blood  was 
mingled,  and  the  mixture  sprinkled  seven  times  on 
the  late  leper,  with  an  instrument  made  of  cedar- 
wood,  scarlet  wool,  and  hyssop ;  the  living  bird  was 
then  dipped  in  it,  and  let  fly  away,  symbolizing  -S 
probably  the  liberty  to  which  the  leper  would  be 
entitled  when  his  probation  and  sacrifice  were  com 
plete,  even  as  the  slaughtered  bird  signified  the 
discharge  of  the  impurities  which  his  blood  had 
contained  during  the  diseased  state.  The  leper 
might  now  bathe,  shave  himself,  and  wash  his 
clothes,  and  come  within  the  town  or  camp,  nor 
was  every  place  which  he  entered  any  longer  pol 
luted  by  him  (Mishna,  Negaim,  xiii.  1 1  ;  Celim,  i.  4), 
he  was,  however,  relegated  to  his  own  house  or 
tent  for  seven  days.  At  the  end  of  that  time  he 
was  scrupulously  to  shave  his  whole  body,  even  to 
his  eyebrows,  and  wash  and  bathe  as  before.  The 
final  sacrifice  consisted  of  two  lambs,  and  an  ewe 
sheep  of  the  first  year  with  flour  and  oil,  the  poor 
being  allowed  to  bring  one  lamb  and  two  birds  as 
before,  with  smaller  quantities  of  flour  and  oil. 
For  the  detail  of  the  ceremonial,  some  of  the  features 
of  which  are  rather  singular,  see  Lev.  xiv.  Lepers 
were  allowed  to  attend  the  synagogue  worship, 
where  separate  seats  were  assigned  them  (Negaim, 
xiii.  12). 

All  these  kinds  of  uncleanness  disqualified  for 
hcly  functions :  as  the  layman  so  affected  might 
not  approach  the  congregation  and  the  sanctuary, 
so  any  priest  who  incurred  defilement  must  abstain 
from  the  holy  things  (Lev.  xxii.  2-8).  The  High- 
Priest  was  forbidden  the  customary  signs  of  moui'ning 
for  father  or  mother,  ' '  for  the  crown  of  the  anointing 
oil  of  his  God  is  upon  him  "  (Lev.  xxi.  10-12),  and 
beside  his  case  the  same  prohibition  seems  to  have 
been  extended  to  the  ordinary  priests.  At  least 
we  have  an  example  of  it  in  the  charge  given  to 
Eleazar  and  Ithamar  on  their  brethren's  death  (Lev. 
x.  6).  From  the  specification  of  "  father  or  mother," 
we  may  inter  that  he  was  permitted  to  mourn  for 
his  wife,  and  so  Maimonides  (de  Luctu,  cap.  ii.,  iv., 

8  i.  e.  Conveying  in  symbol  only  a  release  from  the 
ritate  to  which  the  leper,  whilst  such,  was  sentenced. 
It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  duality  of  the  symbol 
arose  from  the  natural  impossibility  of  representing  life 
and  death  in  the  same  creature,  aud  that  both  the  birds 
involve  a  complete  representation  of  the  Death,  Resur 
rection,  and  Ascension  which  procure  the  Christian 


UNCLEANNESS 

v.)  explains  the  text.  Further,  from  the  special 
prohibition  of  Ezekiel,  who  was  a  priest,  to  mourn 
for  his  wife  (Ez.  xxiv.  15,  foil.),  we  know  that  to 
mourn  for  a  wife  was  generally  permitted  to  the 
priests.  Among  ordinary  Israelites,  the  man  or 
woman  who  had  an  issue,  or  the  latter  while  iu 
the  menstrual  or  puerperal  state,  might  not,  ac 
cording  to  the  Rabbins,  enter  even  the  mount  on 
which  the  Temple  stood;  nor  might  the  intra-muial 
space  be  entered  by  any  Israelite  in  mourning.  In 
Jerusalem  itself,  according  to  the  same  authorities, 
a  dead  body  might  not  be  allowed  to  pass  the  night, 
nor  even  the  bones  of  one  be  carried  through  its 
streets ;  neither  was  any  cultivation  allowed  there, 
for  fear  of  the  dung,  &c.,  to  which  it  might  give 
rise  (Maimonides,  Const  it.  de  Temp.  cap.  vii.  xiv.- 
xvi.).  No  bodies  were  to  be  interred  within  towns, 
unless  seven  chief  men,  or  the  public  voice,  bade  the 
interment  there;  and  every  tomb  within  a  town 
was  to  be  carefully  walled  in  (ibid.  xiii.).  If  a 
man  in  a  state  of  pollution  presumed  to  enter  the 
sanctuary,  he  was  obliged  to  offer  a  sacrifice  as  well 
as  suffer  punishment.  The  sacrifice  was  due  under 
the  notion  that  the  pollution  of  the  sanctuary 
needed  expiation,  and  the  punishment  was  either 
whipping,  the  *'  rebel's  beating,"  which  meant  leav 
ing  the  offender  to  the  mercies  of  the  mob,  "  cutting 
off  from  the  congregation,"  or  death  "  by  the  hand 
of  heaven  "  (Lightfoot,  Hor.  Hebr.  on  Levit.  xv. ; 
Ugolini,  Thes.  xvi.  126). 

As  regards  the  special  case  of  the  leper,  see 
LEPROSY.  To  the  remarks  there  made,  it  may  be 
added  that  the  priests,  in  their  contact  with  the 
leper  to  be  adjudged,  were  exempted  from  the  law 
of  defilement ;  that  the  garb  and  treatment  of  the 
leper  seems  to  be  that  of  one  dead  in  the  eye  of  the 
Law,  or  rather  a  perpetual  mourner  for  his  own 
estate  of  death  with  "  clothes  rent  and  head  bare," 
the  latter  being  a  token  of  profound  affliction  and 
prostration  of  spirit  among  an  Oriental  people, 
which  no  conventional  token  among  ourselves  can 
adequately  parallel.  The  fatal  cry,  NED,  NEE' 

"  unclean,  unclean !"  was  uttered  not  only  by  the 
leper,  but  by  all  for  whose  uncleanness  no  remedy 
could  be  found  (Pesichtha,  §2  ;  Ugol.  Thes.  xvi. 
40).  When  we  consider  the  aversion  to  leprous 
contact  which  prevailed  in  Jewish  society,  and 
that  whatever  the  leper  touched  was,  as  if  touched 
by  a  corpse,  defiled  seven  days,  we  see  the  happy 
significance  of  our  Lord's  selecting  the  touch  as 
his  means  of  healing  the  leper  (Lightfoot,  Hor. 
Hebr.  on  Matt.  viii.  2)  ;  as  we  also  appreciate 
better  the  bold  faith  of  the  woman,  and  ho\r 
daringly  she  overstepped  conventional  usage  based 
on  the  letter  of  the  Law,  who  having  the  "  issue  ot 
blood,"  hitherto  incurable,  "  came  behind  him  and 
touched  the  hem  of  his  garment,"  confident  that  not 
pollution  to  him  but  cleansing  t©  herself  would  be 
the  result  of  that  touch  (Luke  viii.  43,  foil.). 

As  regards  the  analogies  which  the  ceremonial 
of  other  Oriental  nations  offers,  it  may  be  men 
tioned  that  amongst  the  Arabs  the  touching  a  corpse 
still  defiles  (Burckhardt,  80).  Beyond  this,  M. 
Chardin  in  his  account  of  the  religion  of  the  Per- 


Atonement.  This  would  of  course,  however,  escape  the 
notice  of  the  worshipper.  Christ,  with  His  own  blood, 
"  entered  the  holy  places  not  made  with  hands,"  as  the 
living  bird  soared  up  to  the  visible  firmament  with  the 
blood  of  its  fellow.  We  may  compare  the  two  goats 
completing  apparently  one  similar  joint-symbol  on  the 
day  of  Atonement. 


UNDERGJRDING 

sians  (  Voyages  en  Perse,  vol.  ii.  348,  foil.),  enters 
into  particulars  which  show  a  singularly  close  cor 
respondence  with  the  Levitical  code.  This  will  be 
seen  by  quoting  merely  the  headings  of  some  of  his 
chapters  and  sections.  Thus  we  find  under  "  chap. 
iv.  1CTC  pai-tie,  Des  purifications  qui  se  font  avec 
d'eau.  2^  partie,  De  1'immondicite  ;  lere  section,  De 
I'impurete  quJ  se  contracte  semine  coitus;  2de 
section,  De  J'.mpurete'  qui  arrive  aux  femmes  par 
les  pertes  do  san^,  De  I'impurete'  des  pertesde  sang 
ordinaires,  De  I'impuret^  des  pertes  de  sang  extra 
ordinaire,  De  1'impuretd  des  pertes  de  sang  des 
couches.  3crac  partie,  De  la  purification  des  corps 
morts."  We  may  compare  also  with  certain  Levi 
tical  precepts  the  following:  "Si  un  chien  boit 
duns  un  vase  ou  leche  quelqtie  plat,  il  faut  e"eurer 
le  vase  avec  de  la  terre  nette,  et  puis  le  laver  deux 
fois  d'eau  nette,  et  il  sera  net."  It  is  remarkable 
also  that  these  precepts  apply  to  the  people  not  qua 
they  are  Mahomedans,  but  qua  they  are  Persians,  as 
they  are  said  to  shun  even  Mahomedans  who  are  not 
of  the  same  ritual  in  regard  to  these  observances. 

For  certain  branches  of  this  subject  the  reader 
may  be  referred  to  the  treatises  in  the  Mishua 
named  Niddah  (menstruata),  Parah  (vacca  rufa}, 
Tehoroth  (Puritates],  Zabbim  ^ftuxu  laborantes\ 
Celim  (vasa'),  Miscath  Arlah  (arborum  praeputia')  • 
also  to  Maimon.  lib.  v.  Issure  Biak  (prohibitae 
coitiones],  Niddah  (ut  sup.},  Maccaloth  Assuroth 
(cibi  prohibit!}.  [II.  H.] 

UNDERGIRDING,  Acts  xxvii.  17.  [SHIP, 
p.  1283  a.] 

UNICORN"  (DNH,  r&'w;  D*fcO,  reeym-,  or 
D^j  reym  :  fjLovoKepws,  a8p6s  :  rhinoceros,  uni- 
cornis),  the  unhappy  rendering  by  the  A.  V., 
following  the  LXX.,  of  the  Hebrew  Seem,  a  word 
which  occurs  seven  times  in  the  0.  T.  as  the  name 
of  some  large  wild  animal.  More,  perhaps,  has 
been  written  on  the  subject  of  the  unicorn  of  the 
ancients  than  on  any  other  animal,  and  various  are 
the  opinions  which  have  been  given  as  to  the  crea 
ture  intended.  The  Reem  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  how 
ever,  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  one-horned 
animal  mentioned  by  Ctesias  (Indica,  iv.  25-27), 
Aelian  (Nat.  Anim.  xvi.  20),  Aristotle  (Hist.  Anim. 
ii.  2,  §8),  Pliny  (N.  H.  viii.  21),  and  other  Greek 
and  Roman  writers,  as  is  evident  from  Deut.  xxxiii. 
17,  where,  in  the  blessing  of  Joseph,  it  is  said,  "  His 
glory  is  like  the  firstling  of  his  bullock,  and  his 
horns  are  like  the  horns  of  a  unicorn"  (\pp 
DK"]),  not,  as  the  text  of  the  A.  V.  renders  it, 
"  the  horns  of  unicorns."  The  two  horns  of  the 
Reem  are  "  the  ten  thousands  of  Ephraim  and  the 
thousands  of  Manasseh"  —  the  two  tribes  which 
sprang  from  one,  i.  e.  Joseph,  as  two  horns  from  one 
head.  This  text,  most  appropriately  referred  to  by 
Schultens  (Comment,  in  Job.  xxxix.  9),  puts  a  one- 
horned  animal  entirely  out  ot  the  question,  and  in 
consequence  disposes  of  the  opinion  held  by  Bruce 
(  Trav.  v.  89)  and  others,  that  some  species  of  rhino 
ceros  is  denoted,  or  that  maintained  by  some  writers 
that  the  Rgem  is  identical  with  some  one-horned 
animal  said  to  have  been  seen  by  travellers  in  South 
Africa  and  in  Thibet  (see  Barrow's  Travels  in  8. 
Africa,  i.  312-318.  and  Asiatic  Journal,  xi.  154), 
and  identical  with  the  veritable  unicorn  of  Greek 
and  Latin  writers  !  Bochart  (Hieroz.  ii.  335)  con 
tends  that  the  Hebrew  Riem  is  identical  with  the 


Arabic  Rim 


,  which  is  usually  referred  to 


UNICORN 

the  Oryx  leucoryx,  the  white  antelope  of  North 
Africa,  and  at  one  time  perhaps  an  inhabitant  ol 
Palestine.  Bochart  has  been  followed  by  Rosen* 
muller,  Winer,  and  others.  Arnold  Boot  (Animad. 
Sacr.  iii.  8,  Lond.  1644),  with  much  better  reason, 
conjectures  that  some  species  of  Urus  or  wild-ox  is 
the  Reem  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  He  has  been 
followed  by  Schultens  (Comment,  in  Jobum  xxxix. 
9,  who  translates  the  term  by  Bos  sylvestris :  this 
learned  writer  has  a  long  and  most  valuable  note 
on  this  question),  by  Parkhurst  (Heb.  Lex.  s.  v. 
EJH).  Maurer  (Comment,  in  Job.  1.  c.),  Dr.  Harrio 
(Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bible),  and  by  Gary  (Notes  on 
Job,  1.  c.).  Robinson  (Bib.  Res.  ii.  412)  and  Ge- 
senius  (Thcs.  s.  v.)  have  little  doubt  that  the 
buffalo  (Bubalus  buffalus]  is  the  R8em  of  the  Bible. 
Before  we  proceed  to  discuss  these  several  claimants 
to  represent  the  Rtem,  it  will  be  well  to  note  the 
Scriptural  allusions  in  the  passages  where  the  term 
occurs.  The  great  strength  of  the  RSem  is  men 
tioned  in  Num.  xxiii.  22,  Job  xxxix.  11 ;  his  having 
two  horns  in  Deut.  xxxiii.  17  ;  his  fierce  nature  in 
Ps.  xxii.  21 ;  his  indomitable  disposition  in  Job 
xxxix.  9-11 ;  the  active  and  playful  habits  of  the 
young  animal  are  alluded  to  in  Ps.  xxix.  6  ;  while  in 
Is.  xxxiv.  6,  7,  where  Jehovah  is  said  to  be  preparing 
"  a  sacrifice  in  Bozrah,"  it  is  added,  "  the  Reemim 
shall  come  down,  and  the  bullocks  with  the  bulls." 

The  claim  of  any  animal  possessed  of  a  single 
horn  to  be  the  Reem  has  already  been  settled,  for 
it  is  manifestly  too  much  to  assume,  as  some 
writers  have  done,  that  the  Hebrew  term  does  not 
always  denote  the  same  animal.  Little  can  be 
urged  in  favour  of  the  rhinoceros,  for  even  allow 
ing  that  the  two-horned  species  of  Abyssinia  (R. 
bicornis}  may  have  been  an  inhabitant  of  the 
woody  districts  near  the  Jordan  in  Biblical  times, 
this  pachyderm  must  be  out  of  the  question,  as  one 
which  would  have  been  forbidden  to  be  sacrificed 
by  the  Law  of  Moses,  whereas  the  Riem  is  men 
tioned  by  Isaiah  as  corning  down  with  bullocks 
and  rams  to  the  Lord's  sacrifice.  "  Omnia  ani- 
malia,"  says  Rosenmiiller  (Schol.  in  Is.  1.  c.),  "ad 
sacrificia  idonea  in  unum  congregantur."  Again, 
the  skipping  of  the  young  Reem  (Ps.  xxix.  6)  is 
scarcely  compatible  with  the  habits  of  a  rhinoceros. 
Moreover  this  animal  when  unmolested  is  not 
generally  an  object  of  much  dread,  nor  can  we 
believe  that  it  ever  existed  so  plentifully  in  the 
Bible  lands,  or  even  would  have  allowed  itself  to 
have  been  sufficiently  often  seen  so  as  to  be  the 
subject  of  frequent  attention,  the  rhinoceros  being 
an  animal  of  retired  habits. 

With  regard  to  the  claims  of  the  Oryx  leucoryx, 
it  must  be  observed  that  this  antelope,  like  the  rest 
of  the  family,  is  harmless  unless  wounded  or  hard 
pressed  by  the  hunter,  nor  is  it  remarkable  for  the 
possession  of  any  extraordinary  strength.  Figures 
of  the  Oryx  occur  frequently  on  the  Egyptian 
sculptures,  "  being  among  the  animals  tamed  by 
the  Egyptians  and  kept  in  great  numbers  in  their 
preserves  "  (Wilkinson's  Anc.  Egypt,  i.  227,  ed. 
1854).  Certainly  this  antelope  can  never  be  the  fierce 
indomitable  ESem  mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Job. 

Considering  therefore  that  the  Reem  is  spoken 
of  as  a  two-horned  animal  of  great  strength  and 
ferocity,  that  it  was  evidently  well  known  and 
often  seen  by  the  Jews,  that  it  is  mentioned  as  an 
animal  fit  for  sacrificial  purposes,  and  that  it  is 
frequently  associated  with  bulls  and  oxen,  we  think 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  some  species  of  wild-ox 
is  intended.  The  allusion  in  Ps.  xcii.  10,  "  Biu 


1506 

thou  shalt  lift  up,  as  a  Reeyra,  my  horn,"  seems 
to  point  to  the  mode  in  which  the  Bovidae  use 
•Jieir  horns,  lowering  the  head  and  then  tossing  it 
up.       But    it    is    impossible    to   determine    what 
particular  species  of  wild-ox  is  signified.     At  pre 
sent  there    is    no    existing   example    of  any   wild 
bovine  animal  found  in  Palestine ;   but  negative 
evidence  in  this  respect  must  not  be  interpreted  as  ! 
affording  testimony   against    the   supposition  that  j 
wild   cattle   formerly   existed    in   the  Bible  lauds.  | 
The  lion,  for  instance,  was  once  not  unfrequently  | 
met  with  in  Palestine,  as  is  evident  from  Biblical ' 
allusions,  but  no  traces  of  living  specimens  exist  j 
now.     Dr.  Roth  found  lions'  bones  in  a  gravel  bed j 
of  the  Jordan  some  few  years  ago,  and  it  is  not 
improbable  that  some  future  explorer  may  succeed 
in  discovering  bones  and  skulls  of  some  huge  ex 
tinct   Urus,  allied  perhaps  to  that  gigantic  ox  of 
the   Hercynian  forests   which  Caesar  (Bell.  Gall. 
vi.  20)  describes  as  being  of  a   stature   scarcely 
below  that  of  an  elephant,  and  so  fierce  as  to  spare 
neither  man  nor  beast  should  it  meet  with  either. 
"  Notwithstanding  assertions  to  the  contrary,"  says 
Col.  Hamilton  Smith  (Kitto's  Cycl.  art.  "Reem"), 
"  the  Urus  and  the  Bison  were  spread  anciently  ! 
from  the  Rhine  to  China,  and  existed  in  Thrace  j 
and  Asia  Minor;  while  they,  or  allied  species,  are  | 
still   found   in   Siberia    and   the    forests    both   ofj 
Northern  and  Southern  Persia.     Finally,  though  ' 
the  Buffalo  was  not  found  anciently  farther  west  \ 
than  Aracoria,  the  gigantic  Gaur  (Bibos  gaurus}  \ 
and   several   congeners   are    spread    over    all   thei 
mountain  wildernesses  of  India  and  the  Sheriff-al- 
Wady ;  and  a  further  colossal  species  roams  with 
other  wild  bulls  in  the  valleys  of  Atlas." 

Some  have  conjectured  that  the  Reem  denotes  j 
the  wild  buffalo.  Although  the  Chainsa,  or  tame 
buffalo,  was  not  introduced  into  Western  Asia  until 
the  Arabian  conquest  of  Persia,  it  is  possible  that 
some  wild  species,  Bubalus  arnee,  or  B.  brachycerus, 
may  have  existed  formerly  in  Palestine.  We  are, 
however,  more  in  favour  of  some  gigantic  Urus.* 

Numerous  references  as  to  the  povoKepus  of  the 
ancients  will  be  found  in  Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii. 
cap.  27),  Winer  (Bib.  Realw.  "  Einhorn" ;)  but  no 
further  notice  of  this  point  is  taken  here  except  to 
observe  that  the  more  we  study  it  the  more  con 
vinced  we  are  that  the  animal  is  fabulous.  The 
supposed  unicorns  of  which  some  modem  travellers 
speak  have  never  been  seen  by  trustworthy  wit 
nesses.*  [W.  H.] 

UN'NI.  1.  (»ajj:  'E\i«H,  'HA«*cf;  FA  Aw: 
Ani.)  One  of  the  Levite  doorkeepers  (A.  V. 
"  porters ")  appointed  to  play  the  psaltery  "  on 
alamoth "  in  the  service  of  the  sacred  Tent,  as 
settled  by  David  (1  Chr.  xv.  18,  20). 

2.  (13^,  but  in  Keri  *ty  :  Vat.  and  Alex,  omit : 
FA  lava'i:  Anni.~)  A  second  Levite  (unless  the 
family  of  the  foregoing  be  intended)  concerned  in 
the  sacred  office  after  the  Return  from  Babylon 
(Neh.  xii.  9). 

U'PHAZ  (TB-1K:  M<w0a£  'Q.<pd£:  Ophaz, 
obryzum},  Jer.  x.  9  ;  Dan.  x.  5.  [OpniR,  p.  637  &.] 


UR 

UK  ("»1K  :  X6pa :  Ur]  occurs  in  Gei.esis  only, 
and  is  there  mentioned  as  the  land  of  Haran's  na 
tivity  (Gen.  xi.  28),  the  place  from  which  Ttvah 
and  Abraham  started  "  to  go  into  the  land  of 
Canaan"  (xi.  31).  It  is  called  in  Genesis  "  Ur  of 
the  Chaldaeans"  (DH^3  11K),  while  in  -the  Acts 
St.  Stephen  places  it,  by  implication,  in  Mesopo 
tamia  (vii.  2,  4).  These  are  all  the  indications 
which  Scripture  furnishes  as  to  its  locality.  As  they 
are  clearly  insufficient  to  fix  its  site,  the  chief  tra 
ditions  and  opinions  on  the  subject  will  be  first  con 
sidered,  and  then  an  attempt  will  be  made  to  decide, 
by  the  help  of  the  Scriptural  notices,  between  them. 

One  tradition  identifies  Ur  with  the  modern 
Orfah.  There  is  some  ground  for  believing  that 
this  city,  called  by  the  Greeks  Edessa,  had  also  the 
name  of  Orrha  as  early  as  the  time  of  Isidore  (ab. 
B.C.  150) ;  and  the  tradition  connecting  it  with 
Abraham  is  perhaps  not  later  than  St.  Ephraem 
(A.D.  330-370),  who  makes  Nimrod  king  of  Edessa, 
among  other  places  (Comment,  in  Gen.  Op.  vol.  i. 
p.  58,  B.).  According  to  Pocock  (Description  of 
the  East,  vol.  i.  p.  159),  that  Ur  is  Edessa  or 
Orfah  is  "  the  universal  opinion  of  the  Jews  ; " 
and  it  is  also  the  local  belief,  as  is  indicated  by  the 
title,  "  Mosque  of  Abraham,"  borne  by  the  chief 
religious  edifice  of  the  place,  and  the  designation, 
"Lake  of  Abraham  the  Beloved,"  attached  to  the 
pond  in  which  are  kept  the  sacred  fish  (Ainsworth, 
Travels  in  the  Track,  &c.,  p.  64;  comp.  Pocock, 
i.  159,  and  Niebuhr,  Voyage  en  Arable,  p.  330). 

A  second  tradition,  which  appears  in  the  Talmud, 
and  in  some  of  the  early  Arabian  writers,  finds  Ur 
in  Warka,  the  'Opxo'rj  of  the  Greeks,  and  probably 
the  Erech  of  Holy  Scripture  (called  'Ope'x  by  the 
LXX.).  This  place  bears  the  name  of  ffuruk  in 
the  native  inscriptions,  and  was  in  the  country 
known  to  the  Jews  as  "  the  land  of  the  Chaldaeans." 

A  third  tradition,  less  distinct  than  either  of 
these,  but  entitled  to  at  least  equal  attention,  dis 
tinguishes  Ur  from  Warka,  while  still  placing  it  in 
the  same  region  (see  Journal  of  Asiatic  Society, 
vol.  xii.  p.  481,  note  2).  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  city  whereto  this  tradition  points  is  that 
which  appears  by  its  bricks  to  have  been  called  Hur 
by  the  natives,  and  which  is  now  represented  by 
the  ruins  at  Mughcir,  or  Umgheir,  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Euphrates,  nearly  opposite  to  its  junc 
tion  with  the  Shat-el-Hie.  The  oldest  Jewish  tra 
dition  which  we  possess,  that  quoted  by  Eusebius 
from  Eupolemus*  (Praep.  Ev.  ix.  17),  who  lived 
about  B.C.  150,  may  be  fairly  said  to  intend  this 
place  ;  .for  by  identifying  Ur  (Uria)  with  the  Baby 
lonian  city,  known  also  as  Camarina  and  "ihaldae- 
opolis,  it  points  to  a  city  of  the  Moon,  which  Hur 
was — Kamar  being  "the  Moon"  in  Arabic,  and 
Khaldi  the  same  luminary  in  the  Old  Armenian 

An  opinion,  unsupported  by  any  tradition,  ro- 
mains  to  be  noticed.  Bochart,  Calmet,  Bunsen, 
and  others,  identify  "  Ur  of  the  Chaldees "  with 
a  place  of  the  name,  mentioned  by  a  single  late 
writer — Ammianus  Marcellinus — as  "  a  castle" 
existing  in  his  day  in  Eastern  Mesopotamia,  between 
Hatra  (El  ffadhr)  and  Nisibis  (Anim.  Marc, 


»  There  appears  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  ancient  lake- 
inhabitants  of  Switzerland  towards  the  close  of  the  stone 
period  succeeded  in  taming  the  urus.  "  In  a  tame 
state,"  says  Sir  C.  Lyell  (Antiquity  of  Man,  p.  24),  "  its 
bones  were  somewhat  less  massive  and  heavy,  and  its 
iorns  wore  somewhat  smaller  than  in  wild  individuals." 

b  The  reader  will  find  a  full  discussion  of  the  "  Unicorn 


of  the  Ancients  "  in  the  writer's  article  in  the  Ann.  ami 
Mag.  of  Nat.  Hist.  November,  1862. 

c  The  words  of  Eusebius  are:  AeKd-rri  -yeve^,  ^nj(rtv 
[EvjroAejmos],  ci/  TrdAet  TT}S  Ba/Su  Aortas  KajuaptVij,  rjr 
Ttfes  Aeyeiv  TroAiv  Ovpiyv,  elrai  Se 
XaAiSauov  TroAtv,  fv  roivw  SeKarrj  yeveq 


(Ill 

xxv.  3).  The  chief  arguments  in  favour  of  this 
site  seem  to  be  the  identity  of  name  and  the  posi 
tion  of  the  place  between  Arrapachitis,  which  is 
thought  to  have  been  the  dwelling-place  of  Abra 
ham's  ancestors  in  the  time  of  Arphaxad,  and 
Haran  (Harran).  whither  he  went  from  Ur. 

It  will  be  seen,  that  of  the  four  localities  thought 
to  have  a  claim  to  be  regarded  as  Abraham's  city, 
two  are  situated  in  Upper  Mesopotamia,  between 
tlia  Mons  Masius  and  the  Sinjar  range,  while  the 
other  two  are  in  the  alluvial  tract  near  the  sea,  at 
least  400  miles  further  south.  Let  us  endeavour 
first  to  decide  in  which  of  these  two  regions  Ur  is 
more  probably  to  be  sought. 

That  Chaldaea  was,  properly  speaking,  the 
southern  part  of  Babylonia,  the  region  bordering 
upon  the  Gulf,  will  be  admitted  by  all.  Those 
who  maintain  the  northern  emplacement  of  Ur 
argue,  that  with  the  extension  of  Chaldaean  power 
the  name  travelled  northward,  and  became  co 
extensive  with  Mesopotamia ;  but,  in  the  first  place, 
there  is  no  proof  that  the  name  Chaldaea  was  ever 
extended  to  the  region  above  the  Sinjar;  and 
secondly,  if  it  was,  the  Jews  at  any  rate  mean  by 
Chaldaea  exclusively  the  lower  country,  and  call 
the  upper,  Mesopotamia  or  Padan-Aram  (see  Job  i. 
17;  Is.  xiii.  19,  xliii.  14,  &c.).  Again,  there  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  Babylonian  power  was 
established  beyond  the  Sinjar  in  these  early  times. 
On  the  contrary,  it  seems  to  have  been  confined  to 
Babylonia  Proper,  or  the  alluvial  tract  below  Hit 
and  Tekrit,  until  the  expedition  of  Chedorlaomer, 
which  was  later  than  the  migration  of  Abraham. 
The  conjectures  of  Ephraem  Syrus  and  Jerome, 
who  identify  the  cities  of  Nimrod  with  places  in 
the  upper  Mesopotamian  country,  deserve  no  credit. 
The  names  all  really  belong  to  Chaldaea  Proper. 
Moreover,  the  best  and  earliest  Jewish  authorities 
place  Ur  in  the  low  region.  Eupolemus  has  been 
already  quoted  to  this  effect.  Josephus,  though 
less  distinct  upon  the  point,  seems  to  have  held 
the  same  view  (Ant.  i.  6).  The  Talmudists  also 
are  on  this  side  of  the  question ;  and  local  tra 
ditions,  which  may  be  traced  back  nearly  to  the 
Hegira,  make  the  lower  country  the  place  of  Abra 
ham's  birth  and  early  life.  If  Orfah  has  a  Mosque 
and  a  Lake  of  Abraham,  Cutha  near  Babylon  goes 
by  Abraham's  name,  as  the  traditional  scene  of  all 
his  legendary  miracles. 

Again,  it  is  really  in  the  lower  country  only  that 
a  name  closely  corresponding  to  the  Hebrew  "1-1K 
is  found.  The  cuneiform  Hur  represents  "V)K  letter 
for  letter,  and  only  differs  from  it  in  the  greater 
strength  of  the  aspirate.  Isidore's  Orrha  (yO^a) 
differs  from  'Ur  considerably,  and  the  supposed  Ur 
of  Ammianus  is  probably  not  Ur,  but  Adur.* 

The  argument  that  Ur  should  be  sought  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Arrapachitis  and  Seruj,  because 
the  names  Arpbaxad  and  Serug  occur  in  the  gene 
alogy  of  Abraham  (Bunsen,  Egypt's  Place  &c., 
iii.  366,  367),  has  no  weight  till  it  is  shown 
that  the  human  names  in  question  are  really  con 
nected  with  the  places,  which  is  at  present  assumed 
somewhat  boldly.  Arrapachitis  comes  probably  from 
Arapkha,  an  old  Assyrian  town  of  no  great  conse 
quence  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tigris,  above  Nineveh, 
which  has  only  three  letters  in  common  with  Ar 
phaxad  (1KOS"]N)  ;  and  Seruj  is  a  name  which 


UR 


1597 


a  The  MS.  reading  is  "  Adur  venere;"   "ad  Ur"  is 
an  emendation  ;>f  the  commentators.     The  former  is  to 


does  not  appear  in  Mesopotamia  till  Icng  aftei  the 
Christian  era.  It  is  rarely,  if  ever,  that  we  can 
extract  geographical  information  from  the  names  in 
an  historical  genealogy ;  and  certainly  in  the  pre 
sent  case  nothing  seems  to  have  been  gained  by  the 
ttempt  to  do  so. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  we  may  regard  it  ye 
iolerably  certain  that  "  Ur  of  the  Chaldees"  was  a 
place  situated  in  the  real  Chaldaea — the  low  country 
near  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  only  question  that 
emains  in  any  degree  doubtful  is,  whether  Warka 
or  Mugheir  is  the  true  locality.  These  places  are 
not  far  apart ;  and  either  of  them  is  sufficiently 
suitable.  Both  are  ancient  cities,  probably  long 
anterior  to  Abraham.  Traditions  attach  to  both, 
but  perhaps  more  distinctly  to  Warka.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  seems  certain  that  Warka,  the  native 
name  of  which  was  Huruk,  represents  the  Erech  of 
Genesis,  which  cannot  possibly  be  the  Ur  of  the 
same  Book.  Mugheir,  therefore,  which  bore  the 
exact  name  of  '  Ur  or  Hur,  remains  with  the  best 
claim,  and  is  entitled  to  be  (at  least  provisionally) 
regarded  as  the  city  of  Abraham. 

If  it  be  objected  to  this  theory  that  Abraham, 
having  to  go  from  Mugheir  to  Palestine,  would  not 
be  likely  to  take  Haran  (Harran]  on  his  way,  more 
particularly  as  he  must  then  have  crossed  the  Eu 
phrates  twice,  the  answer  would  seem  to  be,  that 
the  movement  was  not  that  of  an  individual  but  o/ 
a  tribe,  travelling  with  large  flocks  and  herds, 
whose  line  of  migration  would  have  to  be  deter 
mined  by  necessities  of  pasturage,  and  by  the  friendly 
or  hostile  disposition,  the  weakness  or  strength  of  the 
tribes  already  in  possession  of  the  regions  which 
had  to  be  traversed.  Fear  of  Arab  plunderers  (Job 
i.  15)  may  very  probably  have  caused  the  emi 
grants  to  cross  the  Euphrates  before  quitting  Baby 
lonia,  and  having  done  so,  they  might  naturally 
follow  the  left  bank  of  the  stream  to  the  Belik,  up 
which  they  might  then  proceed,  attracted  by  its 
excellent  pastures,  till  they  reached  Harran.  As  a 
pastoral  tribe  proceeding  from  Lower  Babylonia  to 
Palestine  must  ascend  the  Euphrates  as  high  as  the 
latitude  of  Aleppo,  and  perhaps  would  find  it  best 
to  ascend  nearly  to  Bir,  Harran  was  but  a  little 
out  of  the  proper  route.  Besides,  the  whole  tribe 
which  accompanied  Abraham  was  not  going  to 
Palestine.  Half  the  tribe  were  bent  on  a  less  distant 
journey ;  and  with  them  the  question  must  have 
been,  where  could  they,  on  or  near  the  line  of  route, 
obtain  an  unoccupied  territory. 

If  upon  the  grounds  above  indicated  Mugheir 
may  be  regarded  as  the  true  "  Ur  of  the  Chaldees," 
from  which  Abraham  and  his  family  set  out,  some 
account  of  its  situation  and  history  would  seem  to 
be  appropriate  in  this  place.  Its  remains  have  been 
very  carefully  examined,  both  by  Mr.  Loftus  and 
Mr.  Taylor,  while  its  inscriptions  have  been  deci 
phered  and  translated  by  Sir  Henry  liawlinson. 

'Ur  or  Hur,  now  Mugheir,  or  Um-Mugheir,  "  the 
bitumened,"  or  "  the  mother  of  bitumen,"  is  one  of 
the  most  ancient,  if  not  the  most  ancient,  of  the 
Chaldaean  sites  hitherto  discovered.  It  lies  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Euphrates,  at  the  distance  of  about 
six  miles  from  the  present  course  of  the  stream,  nearly 
opposite  the  point  where  the  Euphrates  receives  the 
Sliat-el-Hie  from  the  Tigris.  It  is  now  not  less 
than  125  miles  from  the  sea  ;  but  there  are  ground^ 
for  believing  that  it  was  anciently  a  maritime  town, 


be  preferred,  since  Ainmianus  does  not  use  "  ad  "  after 
"  venio." 


1598 


Ull 


IJK1 


Ruins  of  Temple  at  Mugheir  (Loftus). 


and  that  its  present  inland  position  has  been  caused 
by  the  rapid  growth  of  the  alluvium.  The  remains 
cf  buildings  are  generally  of  the  most  archaic  cha 
racter.  They  cover  an  oval  space,  1000  yards 
long  by  800  broad,  and  consist  principally  of  a 
number  of  low  mounds  enclosed  within  an  enceinte, 
which  on  most  sides  is  nearly  perfect.  The  most 
remarkable  building  is  near  the  northern  end  of  the 
ruins.  It  is  a  temple  of  the  true  Chaldaean  type, 
built  in  stages,  of  which  two  remain,  and  composed 
of  brick,  partly  sun-burnt  and  partly  baked,  laid 
chiefly  in  a  cement  of  bitumen.  The  bricks  of  this 
building  bear  the  name  of  a  certain  (Trukh,  who  is 
regarded  as  the  earliest  of  the  Chaldaean  monu 
mental  kings,  and  the  name  may  possibly  be  the 
same  as  that  of  Orchamus  of  Ovid  (Metaph.  iv. 
212).  His  supposed  date  is  B.C.  2000,  or  a  little 
earlier.  'Ur  was  the  capital  of  this  monarch,  who 
had  a  dominion  extending  at  least  as  far  north 
as  Niffer,  and  who,  by  the  grandeur  of  his  con 
structions,  is  proved  to  have  been  a  wealthy 
and  powerful  prince.  The  great  temple  appears 
to  have  been  founded  by  this  king,  who  dedi 
cated  it  to  the  Moon-god,  Hurki,  from  whom  the 
town  itself  seems  to  have  derived  its  name.  Ilgi, 
son  of  Urukh,  completed  the  temple,  as  well  as 
certain  other  of  his  father's  buildings,  and  the  kings 
who  followed  upon  these  continued  for  several  gene 
rations  to  adorn  and  beautify  the  city.  'Ur  retained 
its  metropolitan  character  for  above  two  centuries, 
and  even  after  it  became  second  to  Babylon,  was  a 
great  city,  with  an  especially  sacred  character.  The 
notions  entertained  of  its  superior  sanctity  led  to  its 
being  used  as  a  cemetery  city,  not  only  during  the 
time  of  the  early  Chaldaean  supremacy,  but  through 
out  the  Assyrian  and  even  the  later  Babylonian 
period.  It  is  in  the  main  a  city  of  tombs.  By  far 
the  greater  portion  of  the  space  within  the  enceinte  is 
occupied  by  graves  of  one  kind  or  another,  while  out 
side  the  enclosure,  the  whole  space  for  a  distance  of 
several  hundred  yards  is  a  thickly-occupied  burial- 
ground.  It  is  believed  that  'Ur  was  for  1800  years 


a  site  to  which  the  dead  were  brought  from  vast 
distances,  thus  resembling  such  places  as  Kerbela. 
and  A'edjif,  or  Meshed  Ali,  at  the  present  day. 
The  latest  mention  that  we  find  of 'Ur  as  an  existing 
place  is  in  the  passage  of  Eupolemus  already  quoted, 
where  we  learn  that  it  had  changed  its  name,  and 
was  called  Camarina.  It  probably  fell  into  decay 
under  the  Persians,  and  was  a  mere  ruin  at  the  time 
of  Alexander's  conquests.  Perhaps  it  was  the  place 
to  which  Alexander's  informants  alluded  when  they 
told  him  that  the  tombs  of  the  old  Assyrian  kings 
were  chiefly  in  the  great  marshes  of  the  lower 
country  (Arrian,  Exp^Alex.  vii.  22).  [G.  R.] 

UKBA'NE  (Ovppavos:  Urbanus).  It  would 
have  been  better  if  the  word  had  been  written  URBAN 
in  the  Authorised  Version.  For  unlearned  readers 
sometimes  mistake  the  sex  of  this  Christian  disciple, 
who  is  in  the  'ong  list  of  those  whom  St.  Paul  salutes 
in  writing  to  Rome  (Rom.  xvi.  9).  We  have  no 
means,  however,  of  knowing  more  about  Urbanus, 
except,  indeed,  that  we  may  reasonably  conjecture 
from  the  words  that  follow  (rbv  crvvep'ybv  TJ/.I&' 
fv  Xpio'Tp)  that  he  had  been  at  some  time  in 
active  religious  co-operation  with  he  Apostle.  Eacn 
of  those  who  are  saluted  just  before  and  just  after 
is  simply  called  rbv  ayairrjT^v  yuou.  The  name  is 
Latin.  [J.  S.  H.] 

U'KI  (n-18  :  Oupems,  Ex.  xxxi.  2 ;  Ovpias,  Ex, 
xxxv.  30,  2  Chr.  i.  5;  Owpf,  1  Chr.  li.  20;  Alex. 
Ovpi,  except  in  2  Chr. :  ZTrt).  1.  The  father  of 
Bezaleel  one  of  the  architects  of  the  tabernacle 
(Ex.  xxxi.  2,  xxxv.  30,  xxxviii.  22 ;  1  Chr.  ii.  20 ; 
2  Chr.  i.  5).  He  was  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and 
grandson  of  Caleb  ben-Hezron,  his  father  being 
Hur,  who,  according  to  tradition,  was  the  husband 
of  Miriam. 

2.  ('ASoi.)     The   father   of  Geber,   Solomon's 
commissariat  officer  in  Gilead  (IK.  iv.  19). 

3.  ('fiSoufl  ;  Alex.  'flSoue.)     One  of  the  gate 
keepers  of  the  temple,  who  had  married  a  foreign 
wife  in  the  time  of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  24"), 


URIAH 

IIRI'AH  (n»"VlN,  "  light  of  Jehovah  :"  Ovpias  . 
Uriels').  I.  Ono  of  the  thirty  commanders  of  the 
thirty  bands  into  which  the  Israelite  army  of  David 
was  divided  (1  Chr.  xi.  41 ;  2  Sam.  xxiii.  39).  Like 
others  of  David's  officers  (Ittai  of  Gath  ;  Ishbosheth 
the  Canaanite,  2  Sam.  xxiii.  8,  LXX. ;  Zelek  the 
Ammonite,  2  Sam.  xxiii.  37)  he  was  a  foreigner — a 
Hittite.  His  name,  however,  and  his  manner  of 
speech  (2  Sam.  xi.  11)  indicate  that  he  had  adopted 
the  Jewish  religion.  He  married  Bathsheba,  a 
woman  of  extraordinary  beauty,  the  daughter  of 
Eliam — possibly  the  same  as  the  son  of  Ahithophel, 
and  one  of  his  "brother  officers  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  34)  ; 
and  hence,  perhaps,  as  Professor  Blunt  conjectures 
(Coincidences,  II.  x.),  Uriah's  first  acquaintance 
with  Bathsheba.  It  may  be  inferred  from  Nathan's 
parable  (2  Sam.  xii.  3)  that  he  was  passionately 
devoted  to  his  wife,  and  that  their  union  was  cele 
brated  in  Jerusalem  as  one  of  peculiar  tenderness. 
He  had  a  house  at  Jerusalem  underneath  the  palace 
(2  Sam.  xi.  2).  In  the  first  war  with  Ammon  he 
followed  Joab  to  the  siege,  and  with  him  remained 
encamped  in  the  open  field  (ib.  11).  He  returned  to 
Jerusalem,  at  an  order  from  the  king,  on  the  pre 
text  of  asking  news  of  the  war, — really  in  the  hope 
that  his  return  to  his  wife  might  cover  the  shame 
of  his  own  crime.  The  king  met  with  au  unex 
pected  obstacle  in  the  austere,  soldier-like  spirit 
which  guided  all  Uriah's  conduct,  and  which  gives 
us  a  high  notion  of  the  character  and  discipline  of 
David's  officers.  He  steadily  refused  to  go  home, 
or  partake  of  any  of  the  indulgences  of  domestic 
life,  whilst  the  ark  and  the  host  were  in  booths  and 
his  comrades  lying  in  the  open  air.  He  partook  of 
the  royal  hospitality,  but  slept  always  at  the  gate 
of  the  pakce  till  the  last  night,  when  the  king  at  a 
feast  vainly  endeavoured  to  entrap  him  by  intoxi 
cation.  The  soldier  was  overcome  by  the  debauch, 
but  still  retained  his  sense  of  duty  sufficiently  to 
insist  on  sleeping  at  the  palace.  On  the  morning 
of  the  third  day,  David  sent  him  back  to  the  camp 
with  a  letter  (as  in  the  stoiy  of  Bellerophon),  con 
taining  the  command  to  Joab  to  cause  his  destruc 
tion  in  the  battle.  Josephus  (Ant.  vii.  7,  §1)  adds, 
that  he  gave  as  a  reason  an  imaginary  offence  of 
Uriah.  None  such  appears  in  the  actual  letter. 
Probably  to  an  unscrupulous  soldier  like  Joab  the 
absolute  will  of  the  king  was  sufficient. 

The  device  of  Joab  was,  to  observe  the  part  of 
the  wall  of  Rabbath-Ammon,  where  the  greatest 
force  of  the  besieged  was  congregated,  and  thither, 
as  a  kind  of  forlorn  hope,  to  send  Uriah.  A  sally 
took  place.  Uriah  and  the  officers  with  him 
advanced  as  far  as  the  gate  of  the  city,  and  were 
there  shot  down  by  the  archers  on  the  wall.  It 
seems  as  if  it  had  been  an  established  maxim  of 
Israelitish  warfare  not  to  approach  the  wall  of  a 
besieged  city ;  and  one  instance  of  the  fatal  result 
was  always  quoted,  as  if  proverbially,  against  it — 
the  sudden  and  ignominious  death  of  Abimelech  at 
Thebez,  which  cut  short  the  hopes  of  the  then  rising 
monarchy.  This  appears  from  the  fact  (as  given  in 
the  LXX.)  that  Joab  exactly  anticipates  what  the 
king  will  say  when  he  hears  of  the  disaster. 

Just  as  Joab  had  forewarned  the  messenger,  the 
king  broke  into  a  furious  passion  on  hearing  of  the 
loss,  and  cited,  almost  in  the  very  words  which 
Joab  had  predicted,  the  case  of  Abimelech.  (The 
only  variation  is  the  omission  of  the  name  of  the 
grandfather  of  Abimelech,  which,  in  the  LXX.,  is 
Ner  instead  of  Joash.)  The  messenger,  as  instructed 
by  Joab,  calmly  continued,  and  ended  the  story  with 


URIAH 


J599 


tlie  words  :  "  Thy  servant  aiso,  Uriah  the  Hi  tt  te,  is 
dead."  In  a  moment  David's  anger  is  appoastd.  He 
sends  an  encouraging  message  to  Joab  on  the  unav<  id- 
able  chances  of  war,  and  urges  him  to  continue  uie 
siege.  It  is  one  of  the  touching  parts  of  the  story 
that  Uriah  falls  unconscious  of  his  wife's  dishonour. 
She  hears  of  her  husband's  death.  The  narrative 
gives  no  hint  as  to  her  shame  or  remorse.  She 
"  mourned  "  with  the  usual  signs  of  grief  as  a  widow  ; 
and  then  became  the  wife  of  David  (2  Sam.  xi.  27). 
Uriah  remains  to  us,  preserved  by  this  tragical 
incident,  an  example  of  the  chivalrous  and  devoted 
characters  that  were  to  be  found  amongst  the 
Canaanites  serving  in  the  Hebrew  army.  [A.  P.  S.] 

2.  High-priest  in  the  reign  of  Ahaz  (Is.  viii.  2 ; 
2  K.  xvi.  10-16).  We  first  hear  of  him  as  a  witness 
to  Isaiah's  prophecy  concerning  Maher-shalal-hash- 
baz,  with  Zechariah,  the  son  of  Jeberechiah.  He  is 
probably  the  same  as  Urijah  the  priest,  who  built 
the  altar  for  Ahaz  (2  K.  xvi.  10).  If  this  be  so, 
the  prophet  summoned  him  as  a  witness  probably  on 
account  of  his  position  as  high-priest,  not,  on 
account  of  his  personal  qualities ;  though,  as  the 
incident  occurred  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Ahaz,  Uriah's  irreligious  subserviency  may  not 
yet  have  manifested  itself.  When  Ahaz,  after  his 
deliverance  from  Rezin  and  Pekah  by  Tiglath-Pileser, 
went  to  wait  upon  his  new  master  at  Damascus,  he 
saw  there  an  altar  which  pleased  him,  and  sent  the 
pattern  of  it  to  Uriah  at  Jerusalem,  with  orders  to 
have  one  made  like  it  against  the  king's  return. 
Uriah  zealously  executed  the  idolatrous  command, 
and  when  Ahaz  returned,  not  only  allowed  him  to  offer 
sacrifices  upon  it,  but  basely  complied  with  all  his 
impious  directions.  The  new  altar  was  accordingly 
set  in  the  court  of  the  temple,  to  the  east  of  where 
the  brazen  altar  used  to  stand ;  and  the  daily  sacri 
fices,  and  the  burnt-offerings  of  the  king  and  people, 
were  offered  upon  it ;  while  the  brazen  altar,  having 
been  removed  from  its  place,  and  set  to  the  north 
of  the  Syrian  altar,  was  reserved  as  a  private  altar 
for  the  king^to  inquire  by.  It  is  likely,  too,  that 
Uriah's  compliances  did  not  end  here,  but  that  he 
was  a  consenting  party  to  the  other  idolatrous  and 
sacrilegious  acts  of  Ahaz  (2  K.  xvi.  17,  18,  xxiii.  5, 
11,  12;  2  Chr.  xxviii.  23-25). 

Of  the  parentage  of  Uriah  we  know  nothing. 
He  probably  succeeded  Azariah,  who  was  high- 
priest  in  the  reign  of  Uzziah,  and  was  succeeded  by 
that  Azariah  who  was  high-priest  in  the  reign  of 
Hezekiah.  Hence  it  is  probable  that  he  was  son 
of  the  former  and  father  of  the  latter,  it  being  by 
no  means  uncommon  among  the  Hebrews,  as  among 
the  Greeks,  for  the  grandchild  to  have  the  grand 
father's  name.  Probably,  too,  he  may  have  been  de. 
scended  from  that  Azariah  who  must  have  been 
high-priest  in  the  reign  of  Asa.  But  he  has  no 
place  in  the  sacerdotal  genealogy  (1  Chr.  vi.  4-15), 
in  which  there  is  a  great  gap  between  Amariah  in 
ver.  11,  and  Shallum  the  father  of  Hilkiah  in  ver. 
13.  [HIGH-PRIEST,  p.  810.]  It  is  perhaps  a  legi 
timate  inference  that  Uriah's  line  terminated  in  his 
successor,  Azariah,  and  that  Hilkiah  was  descended 
through  another  branch  from  Amariah,  who  was 
priest  in  Jehoshaphat's  reign. 

3.  A  priest  of  the  family  of  Hakkoz  (in  A.  V. 
wrongly  Koz),  the  head  of  the  seventh  course  of 
priests.  (See  1  Chr.  xxiv.  10.)  It  does  not  ap 
pear  when  this  Urijah  lived,  as  he  is  only  named 
as  the  father  or  ancestor  of  Meremoth  in  the  days 
of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  (Ezr.  viii.  S3;  Neh.  lii. 
4,  21}.  In  Neh.  his  name  is  UuiJAH.  [A.  0.  H,] 


1600 


URIAS 


URI'AS    (O&pfas:    Unas).     1.    URIAH,  the 

husband  of  Bathsheba  (Matt.  i.  6). 

2.  URIJAH,  3  (1  Esd.  ix.  43;  comp.  N*h 
viii.  4). 

U'RIEL,  "  the  fire  of  God,"  an  angel  named 
only  in  2  Esdr.  iv.  1,  36,  v.  20,  x.  28.  In  the 
second  of  these  passages  he  is  called  "  the  archangel." 

U  KIEL  (b^n-lN  :  Ovpifa  :  Z7he/).  1.  A 
Kohathite  Levite,  son  of  Tahath  (1  Chr.  vi.  24  [9]  ). 
If  the  genealogies  were  reckoned  in  this  chapter  from 
father  to  son,  Uriel  would  be  the  same  as  Zephaniah 
in  ver.  36  ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
this  is  the  case. 

2.  Chief  of  the  Kohathites  in  the  reign  of  David 
(1  Chr.  xv.  5,  11).     In  this  capacity  he  assisted, 
together  with  120  of  his  brethren,  in  bringing  up 
the  ark  from  the  house  of  Obed-edom. 

3.  Uriel  of  Gibeah  was  the  father  of  Maachah,  or 
Michaiah,  the  favourite  wife  of  Rehoboam,  and  mother 
of  Abijah  (2  Chr.  xiii.  2).     In  2  Chr.  xi.  20  she  is 
called  "  Maachah  the  daughter  of  Absalom  ;"  and 
Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  10,  §1)  explains  this  by  saying 
that  her  mother  was  Tamar,  Absalom's  daughter. 
Rashi  gives  a  long  note  to  the  effect  that  Michaiah 
was  called  Maachah  after  the  name  of  her  daughter- 
in-law  the  mother  of  Asa,  who  was  a  woman  of 
renown,  and  that  her  father's  name  was  Uriel  Abi- 
shalom.      There  is  no  indication,   however,   that 
Absalom,  like  Solomon,  had  another  name,  although 
in  the  Targum  of  R.  Joseph  on  Chronicles  it  is  said 
that  the  father  of  Maachah  was  called  Uriel  that 
the  name  of  Absalom  might  not  be  mentioned. 

UEI'JAH  (nn-lK  :  Ovpl&s  :  Urios).  1.  Urijah 
the  priest  in  the  reign  of  Ahaz  (2  K.  xvi.  10), 
probably  the  same  as  URIAH,  2. 

2.  (Ovpia.}  A  priest  of  the  family  of  Koz,  or 
hak-Koz,  the  same  as  URIAH,  3. 

3.  (Ovptas  :  Una.}  One  of  the  priests  who  stood 
at  Ezra's  right-hand  when  he  read  the  Law  to  the 
people  (Neh.  viii.  4). 

4.  (-inn-lK  :    Unas).     The  son  of  Shemaiah  of 
Kirjath-jearim.     He  prophesied  in  the  days  of  Je- 
hoiakim  concerning  the  land  and  the  city,  just  as 
Jeremiah  had  done,  and  the  king  sought  to  put  him 
to  death  ;  but  he  escaped,  and  fled  into  Egypt.    His 
retreat  was  soon  discovered:  Elnathan  and  his  men 
brought  him  up  out  of  Egypt,  and  Jehoiakim  slew 
him  with  the  sword,  and  cast  his  body  forth  among 
the  graves  of  the  common  people  (Jer.  xxvi.  20-23). 
The  story  of  Shemaiah  appears  to  be  quoted  bv 
the  enemies  of  Jeremiah  as  a  reason  for  putting  him 
to  death  ;  and,  as  a  reply  to  the  instance  of  Micah 
the  Morasthite,  which  Jeremiah's  friends  gave  as 
a  reason  why  his  words  should  be  listened  to  and 
his  life  spared.     Such,  at  least,  is  the  view  adopted 
by  Rashi.  [W.  A.  W.] 


URIM  AND  THUMMIM  (Dn-1«, 
Sfacoais  Kal  oA^fleta:  doctrina  et  veritas). 

I.  (1.)  When  the  Jewish  exiles  were  met  on 
their  return  from  Babylon  by  a  question  which  they 
had  no  data  for  answering,  they  agreed  to  postpone 
the  settlement  of  the  difficulty  till  there  should  rise 

a  '1  ce  exceptions  to  the  consensus  are  just  wortn  notic 
ing.  (1)  Bellarmine  wishing  to  defend  the  Vulg.  trans 
lation,  suggested  the  derivation  of  Urim  from  i"l"V  — 
'to  teach;"  and  Thummim  from  j£fc$,  "to  be  true." 
fKuxtorf.  Diss.  de  Ur.  et.  Th.)  (2)  ThuLitnini  has  been 


URIM  AND  THUMMTM 

up  "  a  Priest  with  Urim  and  Thummim  "  (Ezr.  ii 
63  ;  Neh.  vii.  65).  The  inquiry,  what  those  Unn 
and  Thummim  themselves  were,  seems  likely  tc 
wait  as  long  for  a  final  and  satisfying  answer.  Ou 
every  side  we  meet  with  confessions  of  ignorance — 
"  Non  constat "  (Kimchi),  "Nescimus"  (Aben- 
Ezra),  "  Difficile  est  invenire  "  (Augustine),  varied 
only  by  wild  and  conflicting  conjectures.  It  would 
be  comparatively  an  easy  task  to  give  a  catalogue  of 
these  hypotheses,  and  transcribe  to  any  extent  the 
learning  which  has  gathered  round  them.  To 
attempt  to  follow  a  true  historical  method,  and  so 
to  construct  a  theory  which  shall,  at  least,  include 
all  the  phenomena,  is  a  more  arduous,  but  may  be 
a  more  profitable  task. 

(2.)  The  starting-point  of  such  an  inquiry  must 
be  from  the  words  which  the  A.  V.  has  left  untrans 
lated.  It  will  be  well  to  deal  with  each  separately. 

(A.)  In  Urim,  Hebrew  scholars,  with  hardly 
an  exception,  have  seen  the  plural  of  Tltf  (=  light, 
or  fire).  The  LXX.  translators,  however,  appear 
to  have  had  reasons  which  led  them  to  another 
rendering  than  that  of  <f>oos,  or  its  cognates.  They 
give  fi  STjAaxns  (Ex.  xxviii.  30  ;  Ecclus.  xlv.  10), 
and  ST}AOI  (Num.  xxvii.  21 ;  Deut.  xxxiii.  8 ; 
1  Sam.  xxviii.  6),  while  in  Ezr.  ii.  63,  and  Neh. 
vii.  65,  we  have  respectively  plural  and  singular 
participles  of  <Jwrt£b.  In  Aquila  and  Theodotion 
we  find  the  more  literal  (pear iff /*oi.  The  Vulg., 
following  the  lead  of  the  LXX.,  but  going  further 
astray,  gives  doctrina  in  Ex.  xxviii.  30  and  Deut. 
xxxiii.  8,  omits  the  word  in  Num.  xxvii.  21,  para 
phrases  it  by  "per  sacerdotes"  in  1  Sam.  xxviii. 
6,  and  gives  "judicium"  in  Ecclus.  xlv.  10,  as  the 
rendering  of  STjAoxns.  Luther  gives  Licht.  The  lite 
ral  English  equivalent  would  of  course  be  "  lights ;" 
but  the  renderings  in  the  LXX.  and  Vulg.  indicate, 
at  least,  a  traditional  belief  among  the  Jews  that 
the  plural  form,  as  in  Elohim  and  other  like  words, 
did  not  involve  numerical  plurality. 

(B.)  Thummim.  Here  also  there  .is  almost  a 
consensus*  as  to  the  derivation  from  DJR  (  =  perfec 
tion,  completeness)  ;  but  the  LXX.,  as  before,  uses 
the  closer  Greek  equivalent  re\eios  but  once  (Ezr. 
ii.  63),  and  adheres  elsewhere  to  a\T)0€ia ;  and  the 
Vulg.,  giving  " perfecttis"  there,  in  like  manner 
gives  "  veritas "  in  all  other  passages.  Aquila 
more  accurately  chooses  TeAeiw<ms.  Luther,  in 
his  first  edition,  gave  Volligkeit,  but  afterwards 
rested  in  Recht.  What  has  been  said  as  to  the 
plural  of  Urim  applies  here  also.  "  Light  and  Per 
fection  "  would  probably  be  the  best  English  equi 
valent.  The  assumption  of  a  hendiadys,  so  that  the 
two  words  =  "  perfect  illumination  "  (Carpzov,  App. 
Grit.  i.  5 ;  Bahr,  Symbolik,  ii.  p.  135),  is  unneces 
sary  and,  it  is  believed,  unsound.  The  mere  phrase, 
as  such,  leaves  it  therefore  uncertain  whether  each 
word  by  itself  denoted  many  things  of  a  given  kind, 
or  whether  the  two  taken  together  might  be  re 
ferred  to  two  distinct  objects,  or  to  one  and  the  same 
object.  The  presence  of  the  article  n>  an(i  yet  morc 
of  the  demonstrative  J1K  before  each,  is  rather  in 
favour  of  distinctness.  In  Deut.  xxxiii.  8,  we  have 
separately,  "  Thy  Thummim  and  thy  Urim,"  the 
first  order  being  inverted.  Urim  is  found  alone  in 
Num.  xxvii.  21 ;  1  Sam.  xxvih.  6 ;  Thummim 


derived  from  DKfl  contr.  Dfl  =  "  a  twin,"  on  the  theory 
that  the  two  groups  of  gems,  six  on  each  side  the  breast 
plate,  were  what  constituted  tte  Urim  and  'I  bumrniir. 
(R.  A/arias,  in  Buxtorf,  I  c.) 


UKIM  AND  THUMMIM 

never  by  itself,  unless  with  Ziillig  we  find  it  in 
Ps.  xvi.  5. 

II.  (1.)  Scriptural  Statements. — The  mysterious 
words  meet  us  for  the  first  time,  as  if  they  needed 
no  explanation  in  the  description  of  the  High- 
Priest's  apparel.  Over  the  EPHOD  there  is  to  be  a 
"breastplate  of  judgment"  (tDSfc^pH  jK>n,  \oyeiov 
K0i(recBS,b  rationale  judicii),  of  gold,  scarlet,  purple, 
and  fine  linen,  folded  square  and  doubled,  a  "  span" 
in  length  and  width.  In  it  are  to  be  set  four  rows 
of  precious  stones,  each  stone  with  the  name  of  a 
tribe  of  Israel  engraved  on  it,  that  Aaron  may 
"  bear  them  upon  his  heart."  Then  comes  a  fur 
ther  order.  Inside  the  breastplate,  as  the  Tables  of 
the  Covenant  were  placed  inside  the  Ark  (the  pre 
position  />N  is  used  in  both  cases,  Ex.  xxv.  16, 
xxviii.  30),  are  to  be  placed  "  the  Urim  and  the 
Thummim,"  the  Light  and  the  Perfection;  and 
they,  too,  are  to  be  on  Aaron's  heart,  when  he 
goes  in  before  the  Lord  (Ex.  xxviii.  15-30).  Not 
a  word  describes  them.  They  are  mentioned  as 
things  already  familiar  both  to  Moses  and  the 
people,  connected  naturally  with  the  functions  of 
the  High-Priest,  as  mediating  between  Jehovah  and 
His  people.  The  command  is  fulfilled  (Lev.  viii.  8). 
They  pass  from  Aaron  to  Eleazar  with  the  sacred 
Ephod,  and  other  pontificalia  (Num.  xx.  28).  When 
Joshua  is  solemnly  appointed  to  succeed  the  great 
hero-lawgiver,  he  is  bidden  to  stand  before  Eleazar, 
the  priest,  "  who  shall  ask  counsel  for  him  after 
th.2  judgment  of  Urim,"  and  this  counsel  is  to  deter 
mine  the  movements  of  the  host  of  Israel  (Num. 
xxvii.  21).  In  the  blessings  of  Moses,  they  appear 
as  the  crowning  glory  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  ("  Thy 
Thummim  and  thy  Urim  are  with  thy  Holy  One  "), 
the  reward  of  the  zeal  which  led  them  to  close 
their  eyes  to  everything  but  "  the  Law  and  the 
Covenant "  (Deut.  ^xxiii  8,  9).  Once,  and  once 
only,  are  they  mentioned  by  name  in  the  history  of 
the  Judges  and  the  monarchy.  Saul,  left  to  his 
self-chosen  darkness,  is  answered  "  neither  by 
dreams,  nor  by  Urim,  nor  by  prophet"  (1  Sam. 
xxviii.  6).  There  is  no  longer  a  priest  with.  Urim 
and  Thummim  (rots  ^xart^ova'i.  ical  TO?S  TeXeiois, 
Ezr.  ii.  63  ;  6  tycariacav,  Neh.  vii.  65)  to  answer 
hard  questions.  When  will  one  appear  again  ?  The 
Sou  of  Sirach  copies  the  Greek  names  (5ri\oi, 
dA.7}0eia)  in  his  description  of  Aaron's  garments, 
but  throws  no  light  upon  their  meaning  or  their 
use  (Ecclus.  xlv.  10).c 

(2.)  Besides  these  direct  statements,  there  are 
others  in  which  we  may,  without  violence,  trace  a 
reference,  if  not  to  both,  at  least  to  the  Urim. 
When  questions  precisely  of  the  nature  of  those 
described  in  Num.  xxvii.  21  are  asked  by  the 
leader  of  the  people,  and  answered  by  Jehovah 
'Judg.  i.  1,  xx.  18) — when  like  questions  are  asked 
by  Saul  of  the  High-Priest  Ahiah,  "wearing  an 
ephod"  (1  Sam.  xiv.  3,  18) — by  David,  as  soon  as 
he  has  with  him  the  presence  of  a  High-Priest  with 


URIM  AND  TI1UMMLM       1601 


b  The  LXX.  rendering,  so  different  from  the  literal 
meuiing,  must  have  originated  either  (1)  from  a  false 
etymology,  as  if  the  word  was  derived  from  5^113  =  "  to 
divine  "  (Gen.  xliv.  15) ;  or  (2)  from  the  oracular  use  made 
of  the  breast-plate;  or  (3)  from  other  associations  connected 
with  both  the  former  (infra ).  The  Vulg.  simply  follows 
the  LXX.  Seb.  Schmidt  gives  the  more  literal  "pectorale." 
14  Breast-plate  "  is,  perhaps,  somewhat  misleading, 

c  The  A.V.,  singularly  enough,  retranslates  the  Greek 
words  back  into  the  Hebrew,  and  gives  "  Urim  and 
Thummim  "  as  if  they  were  proper  names. 

VOL.  III. 


his  ephod  (1  Sam.  xxiii.2,  12,  xxx.  7,  8)  — 
legitimately  infer  that  the  treasures  which  the 
ephod  contained  were  the  conditions  am?  media 
of  his  answer.  The  questions  are  in  almost  all 
cases  strategical  ,d  "  Who  shall  go  up  for  us  against 
the  Canaanites  first?"  (Judg.  i.  l,so  xx.  18),  "  Will 
the  men  of  Keilah  deliver  me  and  my  men  into  the 
hand  of  Saul?"  (1  Sam.  xxiii.  12),  or,  at  least,  na 
tional  (2  Sam.  xxi.  1).  The  answer  is,  in  all  cases 
very  brief,  but  more  in  form  than  a  simple  Yes  01 
No.  One  question  only  is>  answered  at  a  time. 

(3.)  It  deserves  notice  before  we  pass  beyond  the 
range  of  Scriptural  data,  that  in  some  cases  of  de 
flection  from  the  established  religious  order,  we 
find  the  ephod  connected  not  with  the  Urim,  but 
with  the  TEKAPHIM,  which,  in  the  days  of  Laban, 
if  not  earlier,  had  been  conspicuous  in  Aramaic 
worship.  Micah,  first  consecrating  one  of  his  own 
sons,  and  then  getting  a  Levite  as  his  priest,  makes 
for  him  "  an  ephod  and  teraphim  "  (Judg.  xvii.  5, 
xviii.  14,  20).  Throughout  the  history  of  the 
northern  kingdom  their  presence  at  Dan  made  it  a 
sacred  place  (Judg.  xviii.  30),  and  apparently  de 
termined  Jeroboam's  choice  of  it  as  a  sanctuary,, 
When  the  prophet  Hosea  foretells  the  entire  sweep 
ing  away  of  the  system  which  the  Ten  Tribes  had 
cherished,  the  point  of  extremest  destitution  is, 
that  "  they  shall  be  many  days  ....  without  an 
ephod,  and  without  teraphim"  (Hos.  iii.  4),  de 
prived  of  all  counterfeit  oracles,  in  order  that  they 
may  in  the  end  "  return  and  seek  the  Lord."6  It 
seems  natural  to  infer  that  the  teraphim  were,  in 
these  instances,  the  unauthorized  substitutes  for 
the  Urim.  The  inference  is  strengthened  by  the 
fact  that  the  LXX.  uses  here,  instead  of  teraphim, 
the  same  word  (S^Xwi/)  which  it  usually  gives 
for  Urim.  That  the  teraphim  were  thus  used 
through  the  whole  history  of  Israel  may  be  interred 
from  their  frequent  occurrence  in  conjunction  with 
other  forms  of  divination.  Thus  we  have  in  1  Sam. 
xv.  23,  "witchcraft"  and  "teraphim"  (A.  V. 
"  idolatry  "„  in  2  K.  xxiii.  24,  "  familiar  spirits," 
"  wizards,  and  'teraphim  "  (A.  V.  "  images  ").  The 
king  of  Babylon,  when  he  uses  divination,  consults 
them  (Ez.  xxi.  21).  They  speak  vanity  (Zech.  x.  2). 

III.  Theories—  (1.)  For  the  most  part  we  have 
to  deal  with  independent  conjectures  rather  than 
with  inferences  from  these  data.  Among  the 
latter,  however,  may  be  noticed  the  notion  that,  as 
Moses  is  not  directed  to  make  the  Urim  and  Thum 
mim,  they  must  have  had  a  supernatural  origin, 
specially  created,  unlike  anything  upon  earth  (R. 
ben  Nachman  and  Hottinger  in  Buxtorf,  Diss.  de 
U.  et  T.  in  Ugolini,  xii.).  It  would  be  profitless 
to  discuss  so  arbitrary  an  hypothesis. 

(2.)  A  favourite  view  of  Jewish  and  of  some 
Christian  writers  has  been,  that  the  Urim  and 
Thummim  were  identical  with  the  twelve  stones 
on  which,  the  names  of  the  Tribes  of  Israel  were 
engraved,  and  the  mode  in  which  an  oracle  was 
given  was  by  the  illumination,  simultaneous  or 


a  On  this  account,  probably,  the  High-Priest  was  to  go 
out  to  battle  (Num.  xxxl.  6),  as,  in  his  absence,  there  was 
to  be  a  Sacerdos  Castrensis.  [PRIESTS,] 

«  The  writer  cannot  bring  himself  with  Pusey  (Comm. 
in  loc.),  to  refer  the  things  named  by  the  Prophet,  partly  to 
the  true,  partly  to  the  false  ritual ;  still  less  with  Spencer 
(Diss.  de  Ur.  et  2%.).  to  see  in  all  of  them  things  which 
the  Prophet  recognises  as  right  and  good.  It  is  simpler 
to  take  them  as  describing  the  actual  polity  and  ritual 
in  which  the  Northern  kingdom  had  gloried,  and  of 
it  was  to  be  deprived. 

5  K 


1602     URIM  AND  THUMMIM 

successive,  of  the  letters  which  were  to  make  up  the 
answer  (Jalkut  Sifre,  Zohar  in  Exod.  f.  105; 
Maimonides.  R.  ben  Nachman,  in  Buxtorf,  I.  c.  ; 
Drusius,  in  Grit.  Sac.  on  Ex.  xxviii.  ;  Chrysostom, 
Grotius,  ct  a/.).  Josephus  (Ant.  iii.  7,  §5)  adopts 
another  form  of  the  same  story,  and,  apparently 
identifying  the  Urim  and  Thummim  with  the  sar- 
donyxes  on  the  shoulders  of  the  ephod,  says  that 
they  were  bright  before  a  victory,  or  when  the  sacri 
fice  was  acceptable,  dark  when  any  disaster  was 
impending.  Epiphanius  (de  xii.  gemm.},  and  the 
writer  quoted  by  Suidas  (s.  v.  'E<f>oi^8),  present  the 
stilus  thought  in  yet  another  form.  A  single  dia 
mond  (  aScios  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  breast 


plate  prognosticated  peace  when  it  was  bright,  war 
when  it  was  red,  death  when  it  was  dusky.  It  is 
conclusive  against  such  views  (1)  that,  without 
any  evidence,  without  even  an  analogy,  they  make 
unauthorized  additions  to  the  miracles  of  Scripture  ; 
(2)  that  the  former  identify  two  things  which,  in 
Ex.  xxviii.,  are  clearly  distinguished  ;  (3)  that 
the  latter  makes  no  distinction  between  the  Urim 
and  the  Thummim,  such  as  the  repeated  article  leads 
us  to  infer. 

(3.)  A  theory,  involving  fewer  gratuitous  as 
sumptions,  is  that  in  the  middle  of  the  ephod,  or 
within  its  folds,  there  was  a  stone  or  plate  of  gold 
on  which  was  engraved  the  sacred  name  of  Jehovah, 
the  Shem-hammephorash  of  Jewish  cabbalists,'  and 
that  by  virtue  of  this,  fixing  his  gaze  on  it,  or 
reading  an  invocation  which  was  also  engraved  with 
the  name,  or  standing  in  his  ephod  before  the 
mercy-seat,  or  at  least  before  the  veil  of  the 
sanctuary,  he  became  capable  of  prophesying,  hear 
ing  the  Divine  voice  within,  or  listening  to  it  as  it 
proceeded,  in  articulate  sounds,  from  the  glory  of 
the  Shechinah  (Buxtorf,  L  c.  7  :  Lightfoot,  vi. 
278  ;  Braunius,  de  Vestitu  Hebr.  ii.  ;  Saalschiitz, 
Archdolog.  ii.  363).  Another  form  of  the  same 
thought  is  found  in  the  statement  of  Jewish  writers, 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  spake  sometimes  by  Urim, 
sometimes  by  prophecy,  sometimes  by  the  Bath-Kol 
(Seder  Olam,  c.  xiv.  in  Braunius,  L  c.),  or  that  the 
whole  purpose  of  the  unknown  symbols  was  "  ad 
excitandam  prophetiam  "  (R.  Levi  ben  Gershon,  in 
Buxtorf,  L  c.  ;  Kimchi,  in  Spencer,  L  c.).  A  more 
eccentric  form  of  the  "  writing  "  theory  was  pro 
pounded  by  the  elder  Carpzov,  who  maintained  that 
the  Urim  and  Thummim  were  two  confessions  of 
faith  in  the  Messiah  and  the  Holy  Spirit  (Carpzov, 
App.  Crit.  i.  5). 

(4.)  Spencer  (de  U.  et  T.)  presents  a  singular 
union  of  acuteness  and  extravagance.  He  rightly 
recognises  the  distinctness  of  the  two  things  which 
others  had  confounded.  Whatever  the  Urim  and 
Thummim  were,  they  were  not  the  twelve  stones, 
and  they  were  distinguishable  one  from  the  other. 
They  were  placed  inside  the  folds  of  the  doubled 
Choshen.  Resting  on  the  facts  referred  to,  he 
inferred  the  identity  of  the  Urim  and  the  Teraphim.? 
This  was  an  instance  in  which  the  Divine  wisdom 
accommodated  itself  to  man's  weakness,  and  allowed 
the  debased  superstitious  Israelites  to  retain  a  frag 
ment  of  the  idolatrous  system  of  their  fathers,  in 
order  to  wean  them  gradually  from  the  system  as 
a  whole.  The  obnoxious  name  of  Teraphim  was 

<  A  wilder  form  of  this  belief  is  found  iii  the  cabba 
listic  book  Zohar.  There  the  Urim  is  said  to  have  had 
tix?  Divine  name  in  42,  the  Tmimmim  in  72  letters.  The 
notion  was  probably  derived  from  the  Jewish  invocations 
of  books  like  the  Clavicula  Salomonis.  [SOLOMON.] 

S  He  had  been  preceded  in  this  view  by  Joseph  Mede 


URIM  AND  THUMMIM 

dropped.  The  thing  itself  was  retained.  The  very 
name  Urim  was,  he  argued,  identical  in  meaning 
with  Teraphim.*  It  was,  therefore,  a  small  image 
probably  in  human  form.  So  far  the  hypothesis 
has.  at  least,  the  merit  of  being  inductive  and 
historical,  but  when  he  comes  to  the  question  how 
it  was  instrumental  oracularly,  he  passes  ir<to  the 
most  extravagant  of  all  assumptions.  The  image, 
when  the  High-Priest  questioned  it,  spoke  by  the 
mediation  of  an  angel,  with  an  articulate  human 
voice,  just  as  the  Teraphim  spoke,  in  like  man 
ner,  by  the  intervention  of  a  demon  !  In  dealing 
with  the  Thummim,  which  he  excludes  altogether 
from  the  oracular  functions  of  the  Urim,  Spencer 
adopts  the  notion  of  an  Egyptian  archetype,  which 
will  be  noticed  further  on. 

(5.)  Michaelis  (Laws  of  Moses,  v.  §52)  gives 
his  own  opinion  that  the  Urim  and  Thummim  were 
three  stones,  on  one  of  which  was  written  Yes,  on 
another  No,  while  the  third  was  left  blank  or 
neutral.  The  three  were  used  as  lots,  and  the  High- 
Priest  decided  according  as  the  one  or  the  other 
was  drawn  out.  He  does  not  think  it  worth  while 
to  give  one  iota  of  evidence ;  and  the  notion  does 
notappeasr  to  have  been  more  than  a  passing  caprice. 
It  obviously  fails  to  meet  the  phenomena.  Lots 
were  familiar  enough  among  the  Israelites  (Num. 
xxvi.  55 ;  Josh.  xiii.  6,  et  al. ;  1  Sam.  xiv.  41 ; 
Prov.  xvi.  33),  but  the  Urim  was  something  solemn 
and  peculiar.  In  the  cases  where  the  Urim  was 
consulted,  the  answers  were  always  more  than  a 
mere  negative  or  affirmative. 

(6.)  The  conjecture  of  Ziillig  (Comm.  in  Apoc< 
Exc.  ii.)  though  adopted  by  Winer  (Rwb.)  can 
hardly  be  looked  on  as  more  satisfying.  With  him 
the  Urim  are  bright,  t.  e.  cut  and  polished, 
diamonds,  in  form  like  dice  ;  the  Thummim  per 
fect,  t.  e.  whole,  rough,  uncut  ones,  each  class  with 
inscriptions  of  some  kind  engraved  on  it.  He  sup 
poses  a  handful  of  these  to  have  been  carried  in  the 
pouch  of  the  High-Priest's  Choshen,  and  when  he 
wished  for  an  oracle,  to  have  been  taken  out  by 
him  and  thrown  on  a  table  or,  more  probably,  ou 
the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  As  they  fell  their  posi 
tion,  according  to  traditional  rules  known  only  to 
the  high- priestly  families,  indicated  the  answer. 
He  compares  it  with  fortune-telling  by  cards  or 
coffee-grounds.  The  whole  scheme,  it  need  hardly 
be  said,  is  one  of  pure  invention,  at  once  arbitrary 
and  offensive.  It  is  at  least  questionable  whether 
the  Egyptians  had  access  to  diamonds,  or  knew  the 
art  of  polishing  or  engraving  them.  [DIAMOND.] 
A  handful  of  diamond  cubes,  large  enough  to  have 
words  or  monograms  engraved  on  them,  is  a  thing 
which  has  no  parallel  in  Egyptian  archaeology,  nor, 
indeed,  any  where  else. 

(7.)  The  latest  Jewish  interpreter  of  eminence 
(Kalisch,  on  Ex.  xxviii.  31),  combining  parts  of 
the  views  (2)  and  (3),  identifies  the  Urim  and 
Thummim  with  the  twelve  tribal  gems,  looks  on 
the  name  as  one  to  be  explained  by  a  hendiadys 
(Light  and  Perfection  =  Perfect  illumination),  and 
believes  the  High  -  Priest,  by  concentrating  his 
thoughts  on  the  attributes  they  represented,  to  have 
divested  himself  of  all  selfishness  and  prejudice,  and 
so  to  have  passed  into  a  true  prophetic  state.  In 


(Diss.  I.  c.  35),  who  pointed  out  the  strong  resemblance 
if  not  the  identity,  of  the  two. 

The  process  of  proof  is  ingenious,  but  hardly  con 
vincing.  Urim  =  " lights,  fires;"  Seraphim  =  " the 
burning,  or  fiery  ones  ; "  and  Teraphim  is  but  the  same 
word,  with  an  Aramaic  substitution  of  H  for  K>- 


' 


URI1M  AttD  THUMMIM 

what  he  says  on  this  point  there  is  much  that  is  both 
beautiful  and  true.  Lightfbot,  it  may  be  added,  had 
taken  the  same  view  (ii.  407,  vi.  278),  and  that  given 
above  in  (3)  converges  to  the  same  result. 

IV.  One  more  Theory. — (1.)  It  may  seem 
venturesome,  after  so  many  wild  and  conflicting 
conjectures,  to  add  yet  another.  If  it  is  believed 
that  the  risk  of  falling  into  one  as  wild  and  baseless 
need  not  deter  us,  it  is  because  there  are  materials 
within  our  reach,  drawn  from  our  larger  knowledge 
of  antiquity,  and  not  less  from  our  fuller  insight 
into  the  less  common  phenomena  of  consciousness, 
which  were  not,  to  the  same  extent,  within  the 
reach  of  our  fathers. 

(2.)  The  starting-point  of  our  inquiry  may  be 
found  in  adhering  to  the  conclusions  to  which  the 
Scriptural  statements  lead  us.  The  Urim  were  not 
identical  with  the  Thummim,  neither  of  them 
identical  with  the  tribal  gems.  The  notion  of  a 
hendiadys  (almost  always  the  weak  prop  of  a  weak 
theory)  may  be  discarded.  And,  seeing  that  they 
are  mentioned  with  no  description,  we  must  infer 
that  they  and  their  meaning  were  already  known, 
if  not  to  the  other  Israelites,  at  least  to  Moses.  If 
we  are  to  look  for  their  origin  anywhere,  it  must 
be  in  the  customs  and  the  symbolism  of  Egypt. 

(3.)  We  may  start  with  the  Thummim,  as  pre 
senting  the  easier  problem  of  the  two.  Here  there 
is  at  once  a  patent  and  striking  analogy.  The 
priestly  judges  of  Egypt,  with  whose  presence  and 
garb  Moses  must  have  been  familiar,  wore,  each  of 
them,  hanging  on  his  neck,  suspended  on  a  golden 
chain,  a  figure  which  Greek  writers  describe  as  an 
image  of  Truth  ('AA.^0em,  as  in  the  LXX.)  often 
with  closed  eyes,  made  sometimes  of  a  sapphire  or 
Dther  precious  stones,  and,  therefore  necessarily 
small.  They  were  to  see  in  this  a  symbol  of  the 
purity  of  motive,  without  which  they  would  be 
unworthy  of  their  office.  With  it  they  touched 
the  lips  of  the  litigant  as  they  bade  him  speak  the 
truth,  the  whole,  the  perfect  truth  (Diod.  Sic.  i. 
48,75;  Aelian,  Var.  Hist.  xiv.  34).  That  this 
parallelism  commended  itself  to  the  most  learned  of 
the  Alexandrian  Jews  we  may  infer  (1)  from  the 
deliberate  but  not  obvious  use  by  the  LXX.  of  the 
word  a\J]Qeta,  as  the  translation  of  Thummim; 
(2)  from  a  remarkable  passage  in  Philo  (de  Vit. 
Mos.  iii.  11),  in  which  he  says  that  the  breastplate 
[\6'/iov  )  of  the  High-Priest  was  made  strong  that 
he  might  wear  as  an  image  ('/vet  a*ya\[j.aTO<f>opT]} 
the  two  virtues  which  were  so  needful  for  his 
office.  The  connexion  between  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Egyptian  symbol  was  first  noticed,  it  is  believed, 
by  Spencer  (I.  c.).  It  was  met  with  cries  of  alarm. 
No  single  custom,  rite,  or  symbol,  could  possibly 
have  been  transferred  from  an  idolatrous  system 
into  that  of  Israel.  There  was  no  evidence  of  the 
antiquity  of  the  Egyptian  practice.  It  was  pro 
bably  copied  from  the  Hebrew  (Witsius,  Aegyptiaca, 
ii.  10,  11,  12,  in  Ugolini,  i. ;  Riboudealdus,  de 
Urim  et  Th.  in  Ugolini,  xii. ;  Patrick,  Comm.  in 
Ex.  xxviii.).  The  discussion  of  the  principle 
mvolved  need  not  be  entered  on  here.  Spencer's 
way  of  putting  the  case,  assuming  that  a  debased 


1  It  may  be  reasonably  urged  indeed  that  in  such  cases 
the  previous  connexion  with  a  false  system  is  a  reason 
for,  and  not  against  the  use  of  a  symbol  in  itself  expres 
sive.  The  Priests  of  Israel  were  taught  that  they  were 
not  to  have  lower  thoughts  of  the  light  and  perfection 
which  they  needed  than  the  Priests  of  Ra. 

k  It  is  right  to  add  that  the  Egyptian  origin  is  rejected 
both  by  Bahr  (Symbolik,  II.  p.  164)  and  Ewald  (Alter- 


URTM  AND  THUMMIM       1603 

form  of  religion  was  given  in  condescension  to  th« 
superstitions  of  a  debased  people,  made  it,  indeed, 
needlessly  offensive,  but  it  remains  true,  that  a 
revelation  of  any  kind  must,  to  be  intelligible, 
use  pre-existent  words,  and  that  those  words, 
whether  spoken  or  symbolic,  may  therefore  be 
taken  from  any  language  with  which  the  recipients 
of  the  revelation  are  familiar.1  In  this  instance  the 
prejudice  has  worn  away.  The  most  orthodox  ot 
German  theologians  accept  the  once  startling  theory, 
and  find  in  it  a  proof  of  the  veracity  of  the  Penta 
teuch  (Hengstenberg,  Egypt  and  the  five  Books  of 
Moses,  c.  vi.).  It  is  admitted,  partially  at  least, 
by  a  devout  Jew  (Kalisch,  on  Ex.  xxviii.  31).k 
And  the  missing  Knk  of  evidence  h^s  been  found. 
The  custom  was  not,  as  had  been  said,  of  late  origin, 
but  is  found  on  the  older  monuments  of  Egypt. 
There,  round  the  neck  of  the  judge,  are  seen  the 
two  figures  of  Thmei,  the  representative  of  Themis, 
Truth,  Justice  (Wilkinson,  Ancient  Egyptians, 
v.  28).  The  coincidence  of  sound  may,  it  is  true, 
be  accidental,  but  it  is  at  least  striking.  In  the 
words  which  tell  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  in  close  con 
nexion  with  the  Thummim  as  its  chief  glory,  that 
it  did  the  stern  task  of  duty,  blind  to  all  that  could 
turn  it  aside  to  evil,  "  saying  to  his  father  and  his 
mother,  I  have  not  seen  him  "  (Deut.  xxxiii.  9),  we 
may  perhaps  trace  a  reference  to  the  closed  eyes  of 
the  Egyptian  Thmei. 

(4.)  The  way  is  now  open  for  a  further  inquiry. 
We  may  legitimately  ask  whether  there  was  any 
symbol  of  Light  standing  to  the  Urim  in  the  same 
relation  as  the  symbolic  figure  of  Truth  stood  to  the 
Thummim.  And  the  answer  to  that  question  is  as 
follows.  On  the  breast  of  well-nigh  every  member 
of  the  priestly  caste  of  Egypt  there  hung  a  pec 
toral  plate,  corresponding  in  position  and  in  size  to 
the  Choshen  of  the  High-Priest  of  Israel.  And  in 
many  of  these  we  find,  in  the  centre  of  the  pectorale, 
right  over  the  heart  of  the  priestly  mummy,  as  the 
Urim  was  to  be  "  on  the  heart  "  of  Aaron,  what 
was  a  known  symbol  of  Light  (see British  Museum, 
First  Egyptian  Room,  Cases  67,  69,  70,  88,  89. 
Second  ditto,  Cases  68,  69,  74).  In  that  -symbol 
were  united  and  embodied  the  highest  religious 
thoughts  to  which  man  had  then  risen.  It  repre 
sented  the  Sun  and  the  Universe,  Light  and  Life, 
Creation  and  Resurrection.  The  material  of  the 
symbol  varied  according  to  the  rank  of  the  wearer. 
It  might  be  of  blue  porcelain,  or  jasper,  or  cornelian, 
or  lapis  lazuli,  or  amethyst.  Prior  to  our  knowing 
what  the  symbol  was,  we  should  probably  think  it 
natural  and  fitting  that  this,  like  the  other,  should 
have  been  transferred  from  the  lower  worship  to  the 
higher,  from  contact  with  falsehood  to  fellowship 
with  truth.  Position,  size,  material,  meaning,  every 
thing  answers  the  conditions  of  the  problem. 

(5.)  But  the  symbol  in  this  case  was  the  mystic 
Scarabaeus ;  and  it  may  seem  to  some  startling  and 
incredible  to  suggest  that  such  an  emblem  could 
have  been  borrowed  for  such  a  purpose.  It  is 
perhaps  quite  as  difficult  for  us  to  understand  how 
it  could  ever  have  come  to  be  associated  with  such 
ideas.  We  have  to  throw  ourselves  back  into  a 


thum.  p.  307-9),  but  without  sufficient  grounds.  Ewald'i 
treatment  of  the  whole  subject  is,  indeed,  at  once  super 
ficial  and  inconsistent.  In  the  AUerthiimer  (1.  c.)  ho 
speaks  of  the  Urim  and  Thummim  as  lots,  adopting  Mi- 
chaelis's  view.  In  his  Fropheten  (i.  15)  he  speaks  of  the 
High-Priest  fixing  his  ga/e  on  them  to  bring  himself  into 
the  prophetic  state. 

5  K  2 


1604       UICIM  AND  THUMMIM 

stage  of  human  progress,  a  phase  of  human  thought, 
the  most  utterly  unlike  any  that  comes  within  our 
experience.  Out  of  the  mud  which  the  Nile  left 
in  its  flooding,  men  saw  myriad  forms  of  Ike  issue. 
That  of  the  Scarabaeus  was  the  most  conspicuous. 
It  seemed  to  them  self-generated,  called  into  being 
by  the  light,  the  child  only  of  the  sun.  Its  glossy 
wing-cases  reflecting  the  bright  rays  made  it  seem 
like  the  sun  in  miniature.  It  became  at  once  the 
emblem  of  Ha,  the  sun,  and  its  creative  power 
(Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  v.  4,  §21;  Euseb.  Praep. 
Evctng.  iii.  4  ;  Brugsch,  Liber  Metempsychoseos, 
p.  33  ;  Wilkinson,  Ancient  Egyptians,  iv.  295, 
v.  26,  476).  But  it  came  also  out  of  the  dark 
earth,  after  the  flood  of  waters,  and  was  therefore 
the  symbol  of  life  rising  out  of  death  in  new  forms  ; 
of  a  resurrection  and  a  metempsychosis  (Brugsch, 
1.  c.  and  Aegypt.  Alterth.  p.  32).  So  it  was  that 
not  in  Egypt  only,  but  in  Etruria  and  Assyria  and 
other  countries,  the  same  strange  emblems  reap 
peared  (Dennis,  Cities  and  Sepulchres  of  Etruria, 
introd.  Ixxiii.  ;  Layard,  Nineveh,  ii.  214).  So  it 
was  that  men,  forgetting  the  actual  in  the  ideal, 
invested  it  with  the  title  of  Movoye^s  (Horapollo, 
ffierotjl.  1.  c.  10),  that  the  more  mystic,  dreamy, 
Gnostic  sects  adopted  it  into  their  symbolic  lan 
guage,  and  that  semi-Christian  Scarabaei  are  found 
with  the  sacred  words  Jao,  Skjaoth,  or  the  names 
of  angels  engraved  on  them  (Bellermann,  Ueber  die 
Scqrahaen-Gemmen,  i.  10),  just  as  the  mystic 
Tau,  or  Crux  ansata,  appears,  in  spite  of  its  original 
meaning,  on  the  monuments  of  Christian  Egypt 
(Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egypt,  v.  283).  In  older  Egypt 
it  was,  at  any  rate,  connected  with  the  thought  of 
Divine  illumination,  found  in  frequent  union  with 
the  symbolic  eye,  the  emblem  of  the  providence  of 
God,  and  with  the  hieroglyphic  invocation,  "Tu 
radians  das  vitam  puris  hominibus"  (Brugsch's 
translation,  Liber  Metemps.  p.  33).  It  is  obvious 
that  in  such  a  case,  as  with  the  Crux  ansata,  the 
Scarabaeus  is  neither  an  idol,  nor  identified  with 
idolatry  .m  It  is  simply  a  word  as  much  the  mere 
exponent  of  a  thought  as  if  it  were  spoken  with 
the  lips,  or  written  in  phonetic  characters.  There 
is  nothing  in  its  Egyptian  origin  or  its  animal 
form  which  need  startle  us  any  more  than  the  like 
origin  of  the  Ark  or  the  Thumnrj;^,  or  the  like 
foi-m  in  the  BRAZEN  SERPENT,  or  the  fourfold 
symbolic  figures  of  the  Cherubim.  It  is  to  be  added, 
that  Joseph  by  his  marriage  with  the  daughter  of 
the  Priest  of  On,  the  priest  of  the  sun-god  Ra,  and 
Moses,  as  having  been  trained  in  the  learning  of 
the  Egyptians,  and  probably  among  the  priests  of 
the  same  ritual,  and  in  the  same  city,  were  certain 
to  be  acquainted  with  the  sculptured  word,  and 
with  its  meaning.  For  the  latter,  at  any  rate,  it 
would  need  no  description,  no  interpretation.  Deep 
set  in  the  Choshen,  between  the  gems  that  repre 
sented  Israel,  it  would  set  forth  that  Light  and 

m  The  symbolic  language  of  one  nation  or  age  will,  of 
course,  often  be  unintelligible,  and  even  seem  ludicrous 
to  another.  They  will  take  for  granted  that  men  have 
worshipped  what  they  manifestly  respected.  Would  it 
be  easy  to  make  a  Mahometan  understand  clearly  the 
meaning  of  the  symbols  of  the  four  Evangelists  as  used  in 
the  ornamentations  of  English  Churches?  Would  an 
English  congregation,  not  archaeologists,  bear  to  be  told 
that  they  were  to  engrave  on  their  seals  a  pelican  or  a 
Qsh,  asa  type  of  Christ  ?  (Clem.  Alex.  PaedagAii.  11,  §59.) 

»  The  words  of  Epiphanius  are  remarkable,  TJ  STjAuxm,  : 


UKIM  AND  rilUMMIM 

Truth  were  the  centre  of  the  nation's  life.  Belong 
ing  to  the  breastplate  of  judgment,  it  would  beat 
witness  that  the  High-Priest,  in  his  c">cular  acts. 
needed  above  all  things  spotless  integrity  and  Divine 
illumination.  It  fulfilled  all  the  conditions  and 
taught  all  the  lessons  whit'h  Jewish  or  Christian 
writers  have  connected  with  the  Urim. 

(6.)  (A.)  Have  we  any  data  for  determining 
the  material  of  the  symbol  ?  The  following  tend 
at  least  to  a  definite  conclusion:  (1)  If  the  stone 
was  to  represent  light,  it  would  probably  be  one 
in  which  light  was,  as  it  were,  embodied  in  its 
purest  form,  colourless  and  clear,  diamond  or  rock- 
crystal.  (2)  The  traditions  quoted  above  from 
Suidas  and  Epiphanius  confirm  this  inference." 
(3)  It  is  accepted  as  part  of  Ziillig's  theory,  by 
Dean  Trench  (Epistles  to  Seven  Churches,  p.  125).° 
The  "  white  stone  "  of  Rev.  ii.  17,  like  the  other 
rewards  of  him  that  overcometh,  declared  the  truth 
of  the  Universal  Priesthood.  What  had  been  the 
peculiar  treasure  of  the  house  of  Aaron  should  be 
bestowed  freely  on  all  believers. 

(B.)  Another  fact  connected  with  the  symbol 
enables  us  to  include  one  of  the  best  supported  of 
the  Jewish  conjectures.  As  seen  on  the  bodies  of 
Egyptian  priests  and  others  it  almost  always  bore 
an  inscription,  the  name  of  the  god  whom  the  priest 
served,  or,  more  commonly,  an  invocation,  from  the 
Book  of  the  Dead,  or  some  other  Egyptian  liturgy 
(Brugsch,  Lib.  Metemps.  1.  c.).  There  would  here, 
also,  be  an  analogy.  Upon  the  old  emblem,  ceasing, 
it  may  be,  to  bear  its  old  distinctive  form,P  there 
might  be  the  "  new  name  written,"  the  Tetragram- 
maton,  the  Shem-hammephorash  of  later  Judaism, 
directing  the  thoughts  of  the  priest  to  the  true 
Lord  of  Life  and  Light,  of  whom,  unlike  the  Lord 
of  Life  in  the  Temples  of  Egypt,  there  was  no 
form  or  similitude,  a  Spirit,  to  be  worshipped 
therefore  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

(7.)  We  are  now  able  to  approach  the  question, 
"  In  what  way  was  the  Urim  instrumental  in 
enabling  the  High-Priest  to  give  a  true  oracular 
response  ? "  We  may  dismiss,  with  the  more 
thoughtful  writers  already  mentioned  (Kimchi,  on 
2  Sam.  xxv.,  may  be  added),  the  gratuitous  pro 
digies  which  have  no  existence  but  in  the  fancies  of 
Jewish  or  Christian  dreamers,  the  articulate  voice 
and  the  illumined  letters.  There  remains  the  con 
clusion  that,  in  some  way,  they  helped  him  to  rise 
out  of  all  selfishness  and  hypocrisy,  out  of  all  cere 
monial  routine,  and  to  pass  into  a  state  analogous 
to  that  of  the  later  prophets,  and  so  to  become 
capable  of  a  new  spiritual  illumination.  The 
modus  operandi  in  this  case  may,  it  is  believed, 
be  at  least  illustrated  by  some  lower  analogies  in 
the  less  common  phenomena  of  consciousness. 
Among  the  most  remarkable  of  such  phenomena 
is  the  change  produced  by  concentrating  the 
thoughts  on  a  single  idea,  by  gazing  stedfastly  on  a 


For  the  reasons  stated  above,  in  discussing  Ztillig's  j 


theory,  the  writer  finds  himself  unable  to  agree  with  Dean 
Trench  as  to  the  diamond  being  certainly  the  stone  in 
question.  So  far  as  he  knows,  no  diamonds  have  as  yet 
been  found  among  the  jewels  of  Egypt.  Rock-crystal 
seems  therefore  the  more  probable  of  the  two. 

p  Changes  in  the  form  of  an  emblem  till  it  ceases  to 
bear  any  actual  resemblance  to  its  original  prototype, 
re  familiar  to  all  students  of  symbolism.  The  Crwo 
ansata,  the  Tau,  which  was  the  sign  of  life,  is,  perhaps, 
the  most  striking  instance  (Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egypt,  v. 
283).  Gesenius,  in  like  manner,  in  his  Monumenta  Plio& 
nicia  ii.  «8,  69,  70),  gives  engravings  of  Scarabaei  in 
which  nothing  but  the  oval  form  is  left. 


UKIM  AND  THUMMIM 

single  fixed  point.  The  brighter  and  more  dazzling 
the  point  upon  which  the  eyes  are  turned  the  more 
rapidly  is  the  change  produced.  The  life  of  per 
ception  is  interrupted.  Sight  and  hearing  fail  to 
fulfil  their  usual  functions.  The  mind  passes  into 
a  state  of  profound  abstraction,  and  loses  all  distinct 
personal  consciousness.  Though  not  asleep  it  may 
see  visions  and  dream  dreams.  Under  the  sug 
gestions  of  a  will  for  the  time  stronger  than  itself, 
it  maybe  played  on  like  "a  thinking  automaton."  1 
When  *x)t  so  played  on,  its  mental  state  is  deter 
mined  by  the  "  dominant  ideas"  which  were  im 
pressed  upon  it  at  the  moment  when,  by  its  own 
act,  it  brought  about  the  abnormal  change  (Dr.  W.  B. 
Carpenter  in  Quarterly  Rev.  xciii.  pp.  510,  522). 

(8.)  We  are  familiar  with  these  phenomena 
chiefly  as  they  connect  themselves  with  the  lower 
forms  of  mysticism,  with  the  tricks  of  electro- 
biologists,  and  other  charlatans.  Even  as  such 


they  present  points  of  contact  with  many  facts  of  swered.*     After  a  time,  he  passed  into   the  new, 


interest  in  Scriptural  or  Ecclesiastical  History. 
Independent  of  many  facts  in  monastic  legends  of 
which  this  is  the  most  natural  explanation,  we 
may  see  in  the  last  great  controversy  of  the  Greek 
Church  a  startling  proof  how  terrible  may  be  the 
influence  of  these  morbid  states  when  there  is  no 
healthy  moral  or  intellectual  activity  to  counteract 
them.  For  three  hundred  years  or  more  the  rule 
of  the  Abbot  Simeon  of  Xerocercos,  prescribing  a 
process  precisely  analogous  to  that  described  above, 
was  adopted  by  myriads  of  monks  in  Mount  Athos 
and  elsewhere.  The  Christianity  of  the  East 
seemed  in  danger  of  giving  its  sanction  to  a  spiritual 
suicide  like  that  of  a  Buddhist  seeking,  as  his 
highest  blessedness,  the  annihilation  of  the  Nir- 
wana.  Plunged  in  profound  abstraction,  their  eyes 
fixed  on  the  centre  of  their  own  bodies,  the 
Quietists  of  the  14th  century  (•f)ffvxa.<TTal,  o^a- 
\otyvxiitol)  enjoyed  an  unspeakable  tranquillity, 
believed  themselves  to  be  radiant  with  a  Divine 
glory,  and  saw  visions  of  (he  uncreated  light  which 
had  shone  on  Tabor.  Degrading  as  the  whole  matter 
seems  to  us,  it  was  a  serious  danger  then.  The 
mania  spread  like  an  epidemic,  even  among  the  laity. 
Husbands,  fathers,  men  of  letters,  and  artisans  gave 
themselves  up  to  it.  It  was  important  enough 
to  be  the  occasion  of  repeated  Synods,  in  which 
emperors,  patriarchs,  bishops  were  eager  to  take 
part,  and  mostly  in  favour  of  the  practice,  and  the 
corollaries  deduced  from  it  (Fleury,  Hist.  Eccles. 
xcv.  9;  Gieseler,  Ch.  Hist.  §129;  Maury,  La 
Magie  et  FAstrologie,  pp.  429-30). 

(9.)  It  is  at  least  conceivable,  however,  that, 
within  given  limits,  and  in  a  given  stage  of  human 
progress,  the  state  which  seems  so  abnormal,  might 
have  a  use  as  well  as  an  abuse.  In  the  opinion 
of  one  of  the  foremost  among  modem  physiologists, 
the  processes  of  hypnotism  would  have  their  place 
in  a  perfect  system  of  therapeutics  (Quart.  Review, 
1.  c.).  It  is  open  to  us  to  believe  that  they  may, 
in  the  less  perfect  stages  of  the  spiritual  history  of 
mankind,  have  helped  instead  of  .hindering.  In  this 
way  only,  it  may  be,  the  sense-bound  spirit  could 
abstract  itself  from  the  outer  world,  and  take  up 
the  attitude  of  an  expectant  tranquillity.  The 

i  The  word  is  used,  of  course,  iu  its  popular  sense,  as  a 
toy  moving  by  machinery.  Strictly  speaking,  automatic 
force  is  just  the  element  which  has,  for  the  time,  dis 
appeared. 

*  The  prayer  of  Ps.  xliii.  3,  "  Send  out  thy  light  and  thy 
truth,"  though  it  does  not  contain  the  words  Urim  and 
Thumniim,  speaks  obviously  of  that  which  they  sym- 


UK1M  AND  THUMMIM      1605 

eutire  suppression  of  human  consciousness,  as  in  the 
analogous  phenomena  of  an  ecstatic  state  [comp. 
TRANCE],  the  surrender  of  the  entire  man  to  be 
played  upon,  as  the  hand  plays  upon  the  harp,  may, 
at  one  time,  have  been  an  actual  condition  of  the 
inspired  state,  just 'as  even  now  it  is  the  only  concep 
tion  which  some  minds  are  capable  of  forming  of  the 
fact  of  inspiration  in  any  form  or  at  any  time.  Bear 
ing  this  in  mind,  we  may  represent  to  ourselves  the 
process  of  seeking  counsel  "  by  Urim ."  The  question 
brought  was  oneaffecting  the  well-being  of  the  nation, 
or  its  army,  or  its  king.  The  inquirer  spoke  in  a  low 
whisper,  asking  one  question  only  at  a  time  (Gem. 
Bab.  Joma,  in  Mede,  /.  c.).  The  High- Priest,  fixing 
his  gaze  on  the  "  gems  oracular"  that  lay  "on  his 
heart,"  fixed  his  thoughts  on  the  Light  and  the 
Perfection  which  they  symbolised,  on  the  Holy 
Name  inscribed  on  them*  The  act  was  itself  a 
prayer,  and,  like  other  prayers,  it  might  be  an- 


mysterious,  half-ecstatic  state."  All  disturbing 
elements — selfishness,  prejudice,  the  fear  of  man- 
were  eliminated.  He  received  the  insight  which 
he  craved.  Men  trusted  in  his  decisions  as  with  us 
men  trust  the  judgment  which  has  been  purified 
by  prayer  for  the  help  of  the  Eternal  Spirit,  more 
than  that  which  grows  only  out  of  debate,  and 
policy,  and  calculation. 

(10.)  It  is  at  least  interesting  to  think  that  a 
like  method  of  passing  into  this  state  of  insight  was 
practised  unblamed  in  the  country  to  which  we  have 
traced  the  Urim,  and  among  the  people  for  whose 
education  this  process  was  adapted.  We  need  not 
think  of  Joseph,  the  pure,  the  heaven-taught,  the 
blameless  one,  as  adopting,  still  less  as  falsely  pre 
tending  to  adopt,  the  dark  arts  of  a  system  of  im 
posture  (Gen.  xliv.  5,  15).  For  one  into  whose 
character  the  dream-element  of  prevision  entered  so 
largely,  there  would  be  nothing  strange  in  the  use 
of  media  by  which  he  might  superinduce  at  will  the 
dream-state  which  had  come  to  him  in  his  youth 
unbidden,  with  no  outward  stimulus  ;  and  the  use 
of  the  cup  b^y  which  Joseph  "Divined"  was  pre 
cisely  analogous  to  that  which  has  been  now  de 
scribed.  To  fill  the  cup  with  water,  to  fix  the  eye 
on  a  gold  or  silver  coin  in  it,  or,  more  frequently, 
on  the  dazzling  reflection  of  the  sun's  rays  from  it, 
was  an  essential  part  of  the  Kv\iKOfj.avreta,  the 
of  ancient  systems  of  divination 
(Maury,  La  Magie  et  VAstrologie,  pp.  426-28 ; 
Kalisch,  Genesis,  in  /oc.).  In  the  most  modern 
form  of  it,  among  the  magicians  of  Cairo,  the  boy'? 
fixed  gaze  upon  the  few  drops  of  ink  in  the  palm  o( 
his  hand  answers  the  same  purpose  and  produces 
the  same  result  (Lane,  Mod.  Egypt.  I.  c.  xii).  The 
difference  between  the  true  and  the  false  in  thes* 
cases  is  however  far  greater  than  the  superficial 
resemblance.  To  enter  upon  that  exceptional  state 
with  vague  stupid  curiosity,  may  lead  to  an  im 
becility  which  is  the  sport  of  every  casual  suggestion. 
To  pass  into  it  with  feelings  of  hatred,  passion,  lust, 
may  add  to  their  power  a  fearful  intensity  for  evil, 
till  the  state  of  the  soul  is  demoniac  rather  than 
human.  To  enter  upon  it  as  the  High-Priest 
entered,  with  the  prayer  of  faith,  might  in  like 


bolised,  and  may  be  looked  upon  as  an  echo  of  the  High 
Priest's  prayer  in  a  form  in  which  it  might  be  tsed  by 
any  devout  worshipper. 

8  The  striking  exclamation  of  Saul,  "  Withdraw  thy 
hand ! "  when  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  Urim  was  n»t 
longer  needed,  was  clearly  an  interruption  oftllis  pro. 
cess  (1  Sam.  xiv.  19). 


1606       URIM  AND  THUMMIM 

manner  inten&'fy  what  was  noblest  and  truest  in  him, 
and  fit  him  to  be  for  the  time  a  vessel  of  the  Truth. 

(11.)  It  may  startle  us  at  first  to  think  that 
any  physical  media  should  be  used  in  a  divine  order 
to  bring  about  a  spiritual  result,  still  more  that 
those  media  should  be  the  same  as  are  found  else 
where  in  systems  in  which  evil  is  at  least  prepon 
derant  ;  yet  here  too  Scripture  and  History  present 
us  with  very  striking  analogies.  In  other  forms  of 
worship,  in  the  mysteries  of  Isrs,  in  Orphic  and 
Corybantian  revels,  music  was  used  to  work  the 
Worshippers  into  a  state  of  orgiastic  frenzy.  In  the 
mystic  fraternity  of  Pythagoras  it  was  employed 
before  sleep,  that  their  visions  might  be  serene  and 
pure  (Plutarch,  De  Is.  et  Osir.  ad  fin.).  Yet  the 
same  instrumentality  bringing  about  a  result  analo 
gous  at  least  to  the  latter,  probably  embracing 
elements  of  both,  was  used  from  the  first  in  the 
gatherings  of  the  prophets  (1  Sam.  x.  5).  It 
soothed  the  vexed  spirit  of  Saul  (1  Sam.  xvi.  23)  ; 
it  wrought  on  him,  when  it  came  in  its  choral 
power,  till  he  too  burat  into  the  ecstatic  song 
(1  Sam.  xix.  20-24).  With  one  at  least  of  the 
greatest  of  the  prophets  it  was  as  much  the  pre 
paration  for  his  receiving  light  and  guidance  from 
above  as  the  gaze  at  the  Urim  had  been  to  the 
High-Priest.  "  Elisha  said  .  .  .  '  Now  bring  me  a 
minstrel.'  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  the  minstrel 
played,  that  the  hand  of  the  Lord  came  upon  him  " 
(2  K.  iii.  15).« 

(12.)  The  facts  just  noticed  point  to  the  right 
answer  to  the  question  which  yet  remains,  as  to 
the  duration  of  the  Urim  and  the  Thummim,  and 
the  reasons  of  their  withdrawal.  The  statement  of 
Josephus  (Ant.  iii.  7,  §5-7)  that  they  had  con 
tinued  to  shine  with  supernatural  lustre  till  within 
two  hundred  years  of  his  own  time  is  simply  a 
Jewish  fable,  at  variance  with  the  direct  confession 
of  their  absence  on  the  return  from  the  Captivity 
(Ezr.  ii.  63),  and  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees 
(1  Mace.  iv.  £  6,  xiv.  41).  As  little  reliance  is  to 
be  placed  on  the  assertion  of  other  Jewish  writers, 
that  they  continued  in  activity  till  the  time  of  the 
Babylonian  Exile  (Sota,  p.  43;  Midrash  on  Song 
of  Sol.  in  Buxtorf,  I.  c.).  It  is  quite  inconceivable, 
had  it  been  so,  that  there  should  have  been  no 
single  instance  of  an  oracle  thus  obtained  during 
the  whole  history  of  the  monarchy  of  Judah.  The 
facts  of  the  case  are  few,  but  they  are  decisive. 
Never,  after  the  days  of  David,  is  the  Ephod,  with 
its  appendages,  connected  with  counsel  from  Jehovah 
(so  Carpzov,  App.  Grit.  i.  5).  Abiathar  is  the  last 
priest  who  habitually  uses  it  for  that  purpose 
(1  Sam.  xxiii.  6,  9,  xxviii.  6  ;  probably  also  2  Sam. 
xxi.  1).  His  name  is  identified  in  a  strange  tradi 
tion  embodied  in  the  Talmud  (Sanhedr.  f.  19,  1,  in 
Lightfoot,  xi.  386)  with  the  departed  glory  of  the 
Urim  and  the  Thummim.  And  the  explanation  of 
these  facts  is  not  far  to  seek.  Men  had  been 
taught  by  this  time  another  process  by  which  the 
spiritual  might  at  once  assert  its  independence  of 
the  sensuous  life,  and  yet  retain  its  distinct  per 
sonal  consciousness — a  process  less  liable  to  per- 

*  That  "  the  hand  of  the  Liord  "  was  the  recognised  ex 
pression  for  this  awful  consciousness  of  the  Divine  pre 
sence  we  find  from  the  visions  of  Ezekiel  (i.  3,  iii.  14, 
et  al.),  and  1  K.  xviii.  46.  It  helps  us  obviously  to  de 
termine  the  sense  of  the  corresponding  phrase,  "  with 
the  finger  of  God,"  in  Ex.  xxxi.  18.  Comp.  too,  the 
equivalence,  in  our  Lord's  teaching,  of  viie  two  forms. 
"  If  I  with  the  fiuger  of  God  (Luke  xi.  20  =  •  by  the 
Spirit  of  God,'  Matt.  xii.  28)  cast  out  devils." 


USUBY 

version,  leading  to  higher  and  more  continuous 
illumination.  Through  the  sense  of  hearing,  not 
through  that  of  sight,  was  to  be  wrought  the 
subtle  and  mysterious  change.  Music — in  its  map 
vellous  variety,  its  subtle  sweetness,  its  spirit- 
stirring  power — was  to  be,  for  all  time  to  come, 
the  lawful  help  to  the  ecstasy  )f  praise  and  prayer, 
opening  heart  and  soul  to  new  and  higher  thoughts. 
The  utterances  of  the  prophets,  speaking  by  the 
word  of  the  Lord,  were  to  supersede  the  oracles  of 
the  Urim.  The  change  which  about  this  period  passed 
over  the  speech  of  Israel  was  a  witness  of  the  moral 
elevation  which  that  other  change  involved.  "  He 
that  is  now  called  a  prophet  was  beforetime  called 
a  seer"  ( I  Sam.  ix.  9).  To  be  the  mouthpiece,  the 
spokesman,  of  Jehovah  was  higher  than  to  see  visions 
of  the  future,  however  clear,  whether  of  the  armies 
of  Israel  or  the  lost  asses  of  Kish. 

(13.)  The .  transition  was  probably  not  made 
without  a  struggle.  It  was  accompanied  by,  even 
if  it  did  not  in  part  cause,  the  transfer  of  the  Pon 
tificate  from  one  branch  of  the  priestly  family  to 
another.  The  strange '  opposition  of  Abiathar  to 
the  will  of  David,  at  the  close  of  his  reign,  is  intel- 
lijT^e  on  the  hypothesis  that  he,  long  accustomed, 
as  holding  the  Ephod  and  the  Urim,  to  guide  the 
king's  councils  by  his  oracular  answers,  viewed, 
with  some  approach  to  jealousy,  the  growing  influ 
ence  of  the  prophets,  and  the  accession  of  a  prince 
who  had  grown  up  under  their  training.  With  him 
at  any  rate,  so  far  as  we  have  any  knowledge,  the 
Urim  and  the  Thummim  passed  out  of  sight.  It 
was  well,  we  may  believe,  that  they  did  so.  To 
have  the  voices  of  the  prophets  in  their  stead  was 
to  gain  and  not  to  lose.  So  the  old  order  changed, 
giving  place  to  the  new.  If  the  fond  yearning  of 
the  Israelites  of  the  Captivity  had  been  fulfilled, 
and  a  priest  had  once  again  arisen  with  Urim  and 
with  Thummim,  they  would  but  have  taken  their 
place  among  the  "  weak  and  beggarly  elements " 
which  were  to  pass  away.  All  attempts,  from  the 
Rule  of  Simeon  to  the  Spiritual  Exercises  of  Loyola, 
to  invert  the  Divine  order,  to  purchase  spiritual  ecsta 
sies  by  the  sacrifice  of  intellect  and  of  conscience, 
have  been  steps  backward  into  darkness,  not  for 
ward  into  light.  So  it  was  that  God,  in  many  dif 
ferent  measures  and  many  different  fashions  (TTO\V- 
/iep&Js  Kal  iroXvTp6iru>s},  spake  in  time  past  unto 
the  Fathers  (Heb.  i.  1).  So  it  is,  in  words  that 
embody  the  same  thought,  and  draw  from  it  a 
needful  lesson,  that 

"  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world."  u 
[E.H.P.] 

USURY.  Information  on  the  subject  of  lending 
and  borrowing  will  be  found  under  LOAN.  It  need 
only  be  remarked  here  that  the  practice  of  mort 
gaging  land,  sometimes  at  exorbitant  interest,  grew 
up  among  the  Jews  during  the  Captivity,  in  direct 
violation  of  the  law  (Lev.  xxy.  36,  37  ;  Ez.  xviii.  8, 
13,  17).  We  find  the  rate  reaching  1  in  100  per 
month,  corresponding  to  the  Roman  centesimae 
usurae,  or  12  per  cent,  per  annum— a  rate  which 


»  In  addition  to  the  authorities  cited  in  the  text,  one 
has  to  be  named  to  which  the  writer  has  not  been 
able  to  get  access,  and  which  he  knows  only  through  the 
Thesaurus  of  Gesenius.  Bellermann,  whose  treatises  ou 
the  Scarabaei  are  quoted  above,  has  also  written,  1*0 
Urim  und  Thummim,  die  altesten  Gemmen.  He  appar 
ently  identifies  the  Urim  and  Thurnmim  with  the  otfias 
of  the  breastplate. 


UTA 

Niebuhr  considers  to  have  been  borrowed  from 
abroad,  and  which  is,  or  has  been  till  quite  lately, 
a  very  usual  or  even  a  minimum  rate  in  the  East 
(Nieb.  Hist,  of  Rome,  iii.  57,  Engl.  Tr.;  Volney, 
Trav.  ii.  254,  note;  Chardin,  Voy.  vi.  122).  Yet 
the  law  of  the  Kuran,  like  the  Jewish,  forbids  all 
usury  (Lane,  M.  E.  i.  132  ;  Sale,  Kurdn,  c.  30). 
The  laws  of  Menu  allow  18  and  even  24  per  cent, 
as  an  interest  rate ;  but,  as  was  the  law  in  Egypt, 
accumulated  interest  was  not  to  exceed  twice  the 
original  sum  lent  (Laws  of  Menu,  c.  viii.  140, 141, 
151  ;  Sir  W.  Jones,  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.' 295;  Diod. 
i.  9,  79).  This  Jewish  practice  was  annulled  by 
Nehemiah,  and  an  oath  exacted  to  ensure  its  discon 
tinuance  (Neh.  v.  3-13  ;  Selden,  De  Jur.  Nat.  vi. 
10  ;  Hofmann,  Lexio.  "  Usura  ").  [H.  W.  P.] 

U'TA  (Ovra:  Utha)  1  Esdr.  v.  30.  It  appears 
to  be  a  corruption  of  AKKUB  (Ezr.  ii.  45). 

U'THAI  (TVIS; :  TvuQi :  Alex.  Tu>Qi :  OtheT). 
1.  The  son  of  Ammihud,  of  the  children  of  Pharez, 
the  son  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  ix.  4).  He  appears  to 
have  been  one  of  those  who  dwelt  in  Jerusalem  after 
the  Captivity.  In  Neh.  xi.  4  he  is  called  "ATHAIAH 
the  son  of  Uzziah." 

2.  (Oii8at :  Uthai.)  One  of  the  sons  of  Bigvai, 
who  returned  in  the  second  caravan  with  Ezra 
(Ezr.  viii.  14). 

U'THII  (Ou0t)  1  Esdr.  viii.  40.     [UTHAI  2]. 

UZ(f1JJ;  OtfC,  ^ls,  "fly:  Us,  Hus).  This 
aame  is  applied  to — 1.  A  son  of  Aram  (Gen.  x.  23), 
and  consequently  a  grandson  of  Shem,  to  whom  he 
is  immediately  referred  in  the  more  concise  gene 
alogy  of  the  Chronicles,  the  name  of  Aram  being 
omitted*  (1  Chr.  i.  17).  2.  A  son  of  Nahor 
by  Milcah  (Gen.  xxii.  21;  A.  V.  Huz).  3. 
A  son  of  Dishan,  and  grandson  of  Seir  (Gen 
xxxvi.  28).  4.  The  country  in  which  Job  lived 
(Job  i.  1).  As  the  genealogical  statements  of  the 
Book  of  Genesis  are  undoubtedly  ethnological,  and 
in  many  instances  also  geographical,  it  may  be 
fairly  surmised  that  the  coincidence  of  names  in 
the  above  cases  is  not  accidental,  but  points  to  a 
fusion  of  various  branches  of  the  Shemitic  race  in  a 
certain  locality.  This  surmise  is  confirmed  by  the 
circumstance  that  other  connecting  links  may  be 
discovered  between  the  same  branches.  For  in 
stance,  Nos.  1  and  2  have  in  common  the  names 
Aram  (comp.  Gen.  x.  23,  xxii.  21)  and  Maachah 
as  a  geographical  designation  in  connexion  with  th 
former  (1  Chr.  xix.  6),  and  a  personal  one  in  con 
nexion  with  the  latter  (Gen.  xxii.  24).  Nos.  2  anc 
4  have  in  common  the  names  Buz  and  Buzite 
(Gen.  xxii.  21 ;  Job  xxxii.  2),  Chesed  and  Chasdim 
(Gen.  xxii.  22 ;  Job  i.  17,  A.  V.  "  Chaldaeans ") 
Shuah,  a  nephew  of  Nahor,  and  Shuhite  (Gen.  xxv 
2 ;  Job  ii.  11),  and  Kedem,  as  the  country  whithe: 
Abraham  sent  Shuah,  together  with  his  other  chil 
dren  by  Keturah,  and  also  as  the  country  where  Job 
lived  (Gen.  xxv.  6;  Job  i.  3).  Nos.  3  and  4 
again,  have  in  common  Eliphaz  (Gen.  xxxvi.  10  ;  Jot 
ii.  11),  and  Teman  and  Temanite  (Gen.  xxxvi.  11 
Job  ii.  11).  The  ethnological  fact  embodied  in 
the  above  coincidences  of  names  appears  to  be  as 
follows: — Certain  branches  of  the  Aramaic  family 
beiug  both  more  ancient  and  occupying  a  mor 

a  The  LXX.  inserts  the  words  KOL  viol  'Apo/u,  before  th 
iiotice  of  Uz  and  his  brothers :  but  for  this  there  is  n 
authority  in  the  Hebrew.  For  a  parallel  instance  o 
conciseness  see  ver.  4. 

b  The  printed  edition  of  the  Mardsid  writes  the  name 


UZAL 


1607 


ortherly  position  than  the  others,  coalesced  with 
ranches  of  the  later  Abrahamids,  holding  a  some 
what  central  position  in  Mesopotamia  and  Palestine, 
nd  again  with  branches  of  the  still  later  Edomites 
f  the  south,  after  they  had  become  a  distinct  race 
•om  the  Abrahamids.  This  conclusion  would  re- 
eive  confirmation  if  the  geographical  position  of 
Jz,  as  described  in  the  Book  of  Job,  harmonized 
ith  the  probability  of  such  an  amalgamation.  As 
ar  as  we  can  gather,  it  lay  either  east  or  south-east 
Palestine  (Job  i.  3  ;  see  BENE-KEDEM)  ;  adja- 
ent  to  the  Sabaeans  and  the  Chaldaeans  (Job  i. 
5,  17),  consequently  northward  of  the  southern 
Arabians,  and  westward  of  the  Euphrates  ;  and, 
astly,  adjacent  to  the  Edomites  of  Mount  Seir,  who 
at  one  period  occupied  Uz,  probably  as  conquerors 
'Lam.  iv.  21),  and  whose  troglodyte  habits  are 
>robably  described  in  Job  xxx.  6,  7.  The  posi- 
ion  of  the  country  may  further  be  deduced  from 
he  native  lands  of  Job's  friends,  Eliphaz  the 
Temanite  being  an  Idumean,  Elihu  the  Buzite 
)eing  probably  a  neighbour  of  the  Chaldeans, 
or  Buz  and  Chesed  were  brothers  (Gen.  xxii. 
21,  22),  and  Bildad  the  Shuhite  being  one  of  the 
Bene-Kedem.  Whether  Zophar  the  Naamathite  is 
to  be  connected  with  Naamah  in  the  tribe  of  Judah 
Josh.  xv.  41)  may  be  regarded  as  problematical  : 
f  he  were,  the  conclusion  would  be  further  esta- 
alished.  From  the  above  data  we  infer  that  the 
[and  of  Uz  corresponds  to  the  Arabia  Deserta  ot 
classical  geography,  at  all  events  to  so  much  of  it 
as  lies  north  of  the  30th  parallel  of  latitude.  This 
district  has  in  all  ages  been  occupied  by  nomadic 
tribes,  who  roam  from  the  borders  of  Palestine  to 
the  Euphrates,  and  northward  to  the  confines  ol 
Syria.  Whether  the  name  of  Uz  survived  to  clas 
sical  times  is  uncertain  :  a  tribe  named  Aesitae 
alrai)  is  mentioned  by  Ptolemy  (v.  19,  §2): 
this  Bochart  identifies  with  the  Uz  of  Scripture 
by  altering  the  reading  into  Auovrai  (Phaleg,  ii.  8)  ; 
but,  with  the  exception  of  the  rendering  in  the  LXX. 
(ev  xcopas  TT;  AfxririSi,  Job  i.  1;  comp.  xxxii.  2), 
there  is  nothing  to  justify  such  a  change.  Gesenius 
(Thes.  p.  1003)  is  satisfied  with  the  form  Aesitae 
as  sufficiently  corresponding  to  Uz.  [W.  L.  B.] 

U'ZAIpWK:  E^af;  FA.  Edeh  Ozi).  The 
father  of  Palal,  who  assisted  Nehemiah  in  rebuilding 
the  city  wall  (Neh.  iii.  25). 

U'ZAL  (^MK  ;  Sainar. 

Uzal,  Huzaf).  The  sixth  son  of  Joktan  (Gen. 
x.  27  ;  1  Chr.  i.  21),  whose  settlements  are  clearly 
traced  in  the  ancient  name  of  San'a,  the  capital 
city  of  the  Yemen,  which  was  originally  Awzal, 

^o£ 
Jhjt  (Ibn-Khaldoon,  ap.  Caussin,  Essai,  i.  40, 

foot-note  ;  Mardsid,  s.  v.  ;  Gesen.  Lex.  s.  v.  ;  Bun- 
sen's  Bibelwerk,  &c.).b  It  has  disputed  the  right 
to  be  the  chief  city  of  the  kingdom  of  Sheba  from 
the  earliest  ages  of  which  any  traditions  have  come 
down  to  us;  the  rival  cities  being  SHEBA  (the 
Arabic  Seba),  and  SEPHAR  (or  Zafar).  Unlike 
one  or  both  of  these  cities  which  passed  occasionally 
into  the  hands  of  the  people  of  HAZARMAVETH 
(Hadramawt),  it  seems  to  have  always  belonged  to 
the  people  of  Sheba  ;  and  from  its  position  in  the 


Oozal,  and  says,  "It  is  said  that  its  name  was  Ooza"l< 
and  when  the  Abyssinians  arrived  at  it,  and  saw  it  tc 
be  beautiful,  they  said  '  San'a,'  which  means  beautiful ; 
therefore  it  was  called  San'a." 


1608 


UZZA 


centre  of  the  best  portion  of  that  kingdom,  it  must 
always  have  been  an  important  city,  though  pro 
bably  of  less  importance  than  Seba  itself.  Niebuhr 
(Descr.  201,  seq.}  says  that  it  is  a  walled  town, 
situate  i»>  an  elevated  country,  in  lat.  15°  2',  and 
with  a  stream  (after  heavy  rains)  running  through 
it  (from  the  mountain  of  Sawafee,  El-Idreesee,  i. 
50),  and  another  larger  stream  a  little  to  the  west, 
with  country-houses  and  villages  on  its  banks. 
It  has  a  citadel  on  the  site  of  a  famous  temple, 
called  Beyt-Ghumdan,  said  to  have  been  founded 
by  Shoorabeel;  which  was  razed  by  order  of 
Othman.  The  houses  and  palaces  of  San'a,  Nie 
buhr  says,  are  finer  than  those  of  any  other  town 
of  Arabia;  and  it  possesses  many  mosques,  pub 
lic  baths,  and  caravanserais.  El-Idreesee's  account 
of  its  situation  and  flourishing  state  (i.  50,  quoted 
dlso  by  Bochart,  Phaleg,  xxi.)  agrees  with  that 
of  Niebuhr.  Ya"koot  says,  "  San'a  is  the  greatest 
city  in  the  Yemen,  and  the  most  beautiful  of 
them.  It  resembles  Damascus,  on  account  of 
the  abundance  of  its  trees  (or  gardens),  and  the 
rippling  of  its  waters  "  (M'ushtarak,  s.  v.,  comp.  Ibn- 
El-Wardee  MS.);  and 'the  author  of  the  Mardsid 
(said  to  be  Yakoot)  says,  "It  is  the  capital  of  the 
Yemen  and  the  best  of  its  cities ;  it  resembles 
Damascus,  on  account  of  the  abundance  of  its 
fruits"  (s.  v.  San'a). 

Uzal,  or  Awzal,  is  most  probably  the  same  as  the 
Auzara  (AflCa/30)?  or  Ausara  (A.v(rapa)  of  the 
classics,  by  the  common  permutation  of  /  and  r. 
Pliny  (N.  H,  xii.  16)  speaks  of  this  as  belonging 
to  the  Gebanitae ;  and  it  is  curious  that  the  ancient 
division  (or  "  mikhlaf  ")  of  the  Yemen  in  which  it 
is  situate,  and  which  is  called  Sinhan,  belonged  to  a 
very  old  confederacy  of  tribes  named  Jenb,  or 
Genb,  whence  the  Gebanitae  of  the  classics ;  another 
division  being  also  called  Mikhldf  Jenb  {Mardsid, 
s.  vv.  mikhla'f  and  jenb,  and  Mushtarak,  s.  v.  jenh). 
Bochart  accepts  Ausara  as  the  classical  form  of 
Uzal  (Phaleg,  1.  c.),  but  his  derivation  of  the  name 
of  the  Gebanitae  is  purely  fanciful. 

Uzal  is  perhaps  referred  to  by  Ezek.  (xxvii.  19), 
translated  in  the  A.V.  "  Javan,"  going  to  and  fro, 
Heb.  ^>NND.  A  city  named  Yawan,  or  Yawan, 
in  the  Yemen,  is  mentioned  in  the  Kdmoos  (see 
Gesenius,  Lex.  and  Bochart,  I,  c.).  Commentators 
are  divided  in  opinion  respecting  the  correct  reading 
of  this  passage ;  but  the  most  part  are  in  favour  of 
the  reference  to  Uzal.  See  also  JAVAN.  [E.  S.  P.] 

UZ'ZA  (KJJJ :  'AC« :  Oza).  I.  A  Benjamite 
of  the  sons  of  Ehud  (1  Chr.  viii.  7).  The  Targum  on 
Esther  makes  him  one  of  the  ancestors  of  Mordecai. 

2.  ('O(c£.)  Elsewhere  called  UZZAH  (1  Chr.  xiii. 
7,  9,  10,  11). 

3.  ('A&o,  'o£i ;  'A£ci,  'OCt :  Aza.)   The  children 
of  Uzza  were  a  family  of  Nethinim  who  returned 
with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  49 ;  Neh.  vii.  51). 

4.  (W :  'OC«  ;  Alex.  'A#  :   Oza}.     Properly 
'  Uzzah."     As   the  text   now  stands,  Uzzah  is  a 

descendant  of  Merari  (1  Chr.  vi.  29  [14]);  but 
thare  appears  to  be  a  gap  in  the  verse  by  which  the 
sons  of  Gershom  are  omitted,  for  Libui  and  Shimei 
are  elsewhere  descendants  of  Gershom,  and  not  of 
Merari.  Perhaps  he  is  the  same  as  Zina  (H^T),  or 
Zizah  (HPT),  the  son  of  Shimei  (1  Chr.  xxiii.  10, 
11) ;  for  these  names  evidently  denote  the  same  per 
son  and,  in  Hebrew  character,  are  not  unlike  Uzzah. 
UZ'ZA,  THE  GARDEN  OF 


UZZAH 

7ros'O£ci:  hortus  Aza).  The  spot  in  which  Manasseh 
king  of  Judah,  and  his  son  Amon,  were  both 
buried  (2  K.  xxi.  18,  26).  It  was  the  garden 
attached  to  Manasseh's  palace  (ver.  18,  and  2  Chr. 
xxxiii.  20),  and  therefore  presumably  was  in  Jeru 
salem.  The  fact  of  its  mention  shows  that  it  was  not 
where  the  usual  sepulchres  of  the  kings  wei'e.  No 
clue,  however,  is  afforded  to  its  position.  Josephus 
(Ant.  x.  3,  §2)  simply  reiterates  the  statement  of 
the  Bible.  It  is  ingeniously  suggested  by  Corne 
lius  a  Lapide,  that  the  garden  was  so  called  from 
being  on  the  spot  at  which  Uzza  died  during  the 
removal  of  the  Ark  from  Kirjath-jearim  to  Jeru 
salem,  and  which  is  known  to  have  retained  his 
name  for  long  after  the  event  (2  Sam.  vi.  8). 
There  are  some  grounds  for  placing  this  in  Jeru 
salem,  and  possibly  at  or  near  the  threshing-floor 
of  Araunah.  [NACHON,  p.  455,  and  note.] 

The  scene  of  Uzza's  death  was  itself  a  threshing- 
floor  (2  Sam.  vi.  6),  and  the  change  of  the  word 
from  this,  goren,  fill,  into  gan,  f 2,  garden,  would 
not  be  difficult  or  improbable.  But  nothing  certain 
can  be  said  on  the  point. 

Bunsen  (Bibelwerk,  note  on  2  Kv  xxi.  18)  on  the 
strength  of  the  mention  of  "  palaces  "  in  the  same 
paragraph  with  Ophel  (A.V.  "  forts  ")  in  a  denun 
ciation  of  Isaiah  (xxxii.  14),  asserts  that  a  palace 
was  situated  in  the  Tyropoeon  valley  at  the  foot 
of  the  Temple  mount,  and  that  this  was  in  all  pro 
bability  the  palace  of  Manasseh  and  the  site  of  the 
Garden  of  Uzza.  Surely  a  slender  foundation  for 
such  a  superstructure  !  [G-] 

UZ'ZAH  (NJJJ  in  2  Sam.  vi.  3,  elsewhere  H-T^ : 

'O$  ;  Alex.  *A&,  'ACC« :  Oza).  One  of  the  sons 
of  Abinadab,  in  whose  house  at  Kirjath-jearim  the 
ark  rested  for  20  years.  The  eldest  son  of  Abina 
dab  (1  Sam.  vii.  1)  seems  to  have  been  Eleazar, 
who  was  consecrated  to  look  after  the  ark.  Uzzah 
probably  was  the  second,  and  Ahioa  the  third. 
They  both  accompanied  its  removal,  when  David 
first  undertook  to  carry  it  to  Jerusalem.  Ahio 
apparently  went  before  the  cart — the  new  cart 
(1  Chr.  xiii.  7) — on  which  it  was  placed,  and 
Uzzah  walked  by  the  side  of  the  cart.  The  proces 
sion,  with  all  manner  of  music,  advanced  as  far  as 
a  spot  variously  called  "the  threshing-floor  "  (1  Chr. 
xiii.  9),  "  the  threshing-floor  of  Chidon "  (ib. 
Heb.  LXX. ;  Jos.  Ant.  vii.  4,  §2),  "  the  threshing- 
floor  of  Nachor "  (2  Sam.  vi.  6,  LXX.),  "  the 
threshing-floor  of  Nachon  "  (ib.  Heb.).  At  this 
point — perhaps  slipping  over  the  smooth  rock — the 
oxen  (or,  LXX.,  "  the  calf")  stumbled  (Heb.}  or 
"overturned  the  ark"  (LXX.).  Uzzah  caught  it 
to  prevent  its  falling. 

He  died  immediately,  by  the  side  of  the  ark.  His 
death,  by  whatever  means  it  was  accomplished,  was 
so  sudden  and  awful  that,  in  the  sacred  language  of 
the  Old  Testament,  it  is  ascribed  directly  to  the 
Divine  anger.  "  The  anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled 
ao-ainst  Uzzah,  and  God  smote  him  there."  "  For  his 

°          L  •     L 
erior,"  75^^75?,  adds  the  present  Hebrew  text, 

not  the  LXX. ;  "  because  he  put  his  hand  to  the 
ark"  (1  Cbr.  xiii.  10).  The  error  or  sin  is  not 
explained.  Josephus  (Ant.  vii.  4,  §2)  makes  it  tc 
be  because  he  touched  the  ark  not  being  a  priest. 
Some  have  supposed  that  it  was  because  the  ark  was 
in  a  cart,  and  not  (Ex.  xxv.  14)  carried  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  Levites.  But  the  narrative  seems 


a  The  LXX.  for  "Ahio"  read  "his brethren." 


UZZEN-SHERAH 

bo  imply  that  it  was  simply  the  rough,  hasty 
dandling  of  the  sacred  coffer.  The  event  produced 
a  deep  sensation.  David,  with  a  mixture  of  awe 
and  resentment,  was  afraid  to  carry  the  ark  further  ; 
and  the  place,  apparently  changing  its  ancient  name,b 
was  henceforth  called  "  Perez-Uzzah,"  the  "  break 
ing,"  or  "  disaster"  of  Uzzah  (2  Sam.  vi.  8  ;  1  Chr. 
xiii.  11  ;  Jos.  Ant.  vii.  4,  §2). 

There  is  no  proof  for  the  assertion  that  Uzzah 
was  a  Levite.  [A.  P.  S.] 


UZZIAH 


1609 


UZ'ZEN-SHE  KAH  (rngP  ftK  :  Kal  viol 
'Oftb',  Serjpa  :  Ozensara).  A  town  founded  or  re 
built  by  Sherah,  an  Ephraimite  woman,  the  daugh 
ter  either  of  Ephraim  himself  or  of  Beriah.  It  is 
named  only  in  1  Chr.  vii.  24,  in  connexion  with 
the  two  Beth-horons.  These  latter  stiJl  remain 
probably  in  precisely  their  ancient  position,  and 
called  by  almost  exactly  their  ancient  names  ;  but 
no  trace  of  Uzzen-Sherah  appears  to  have  been  yet 
discovered,  unless  it  be  in  Beit  Sira,  which  is 
shown  in  the  maps  of  Van  de  Velde  and  Tobler  as 
on  the  N.  side  of  the  Wady  Suleiman,  about  three 
miles  S.W.  of  Beitur  et-tahta.  It  is  mentioned  by 
Robinson  (in  the  lists  in  Appendix  to  \o\.  iii.  of 
B.R.  1st  edit.  p.  120);  and  also  by  Tobler  (Site 
Wanderung,  188). 

The  word  ozen  in  Hebrew  signifies  an  "  ear  ;  " 
and  assuming  that  uzzen  is  not  merely  a  modifi 
cation  of  some  unintelligible  Canaauite  word,  it 
may  point  to  an  earlike  projection  or  other  natural 
feature  of  the  ground.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
Aznoth-Tabor,  in  which  aznoth  is  perhaps  related 
to  the  same  root. 

It  has  been  proposed  to  identify  Uzzen-Sherah 
with  Timnath-Serah  ;  but  the  resemblance  between 
the  two  names  exists  only  in  English  (mXfc?  and 
mD),  and  the  identification,  tempting  as  it  is  from 
the  fact  of  Sherah  being  an  ancestress  of  Joshua, 
cannot  be  entertained. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  LXX.  (in  both 
MSS.)  give  a  different  turn  to  the  passage,  by  the 
addition  of  the  word  ^331  before  Uzzen.  Sherah, 
in  the  former  part  of  the  verse,  is  altogether 
omitted  in  the  Vat.  MS.  (Mai),  and  in  the  Alex. 
given  as  Soopa.  [G.] 


:  'Otf  :  Ozii  short  for  njflj,  "  Je 

hovah  is  my  strength."  Compare  Uzziah,  Uzziel). 
1.  Son  of  Bukki,  and  father  of  Zerahiah,  in  the 
line  of  the  high-priests  (1  Chr.  vi.  5,  51  ;  Ezr. 
vii.  4).  Though  Uzzi  was  the  lineal  ancestor  of 
Zadok,  it  does  not  appear  that  he  was  ever  high- 
priest.  Indeed,  he  is  included  in  those  descendants 
of  Phinehas  between  the  high-priest  Abishua  ('Io>- 
(rrjTTos)  and  Zadok,  who,  according  to  Josephus 
(Ant.  viii.  1),  were  private  persons.  He  must 
have  been  contemporary  with,  but  rather  earlier 
than,  Eli.  In  Josephus's  list  Uzzi  is  unaccountably 
transformed  into  JONATHAN. 

2.  Son  of  Tola  the  son  of  Issachar,  and  father  of 
five  sons,  who  were  all  chief  men  (1  Chr.  vii.  2,  3.  ) 

3.  Son  of  Bela,  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  (1  Chr. 
vii.  7). 

4.  Another,  or  the  same,  from  whom  descended 
some   Benjamite   houses,   which    were    settled    at 
Jerusalem  after  the  return  from  captivity  (1  Chr. 
ix.  8). 

5.  A  Levite,  son  of  Bani,  and  overseer  of  the 


b  For  the  conjecture  that  this  was  the  GARDEN  OF 
UZZA  mentioned  in  the  later  history,  sec  the  preceding 
article. 


Levites  dwelling  at  Jerusalem,  in  the  time  of  Nehe- 
miah  (Neh.  xi.  22). 

6.  A  priest,  chief  of  the  father's-house  of  Je- 
daiah,  in  the  time  of  Joiakim  the  high-priest  (Neh, 
xii.  19). 

7.  One  of  the  priests  who  assisted  Ezra  in  the 
dedication  of  the  wall  of  Jerusalem  (Neh.  xii.  42) 
Perhaps  the  same  as  the  preceding.        [A.  C.  H.] 

UZZI'A  (fcWy :  '00a;  Alex.  'O&ia:  Ozia). 
One  of  David's  guard,  and  apparently,  from  his 
appellation  "  the  Ashterathite,"  a  native  of  Ashta- 
roth  beyond  Jordan  (1  Chr.  xi.  44). 

UZZrAH(n»-TJ>:  'AC«|^«y  in  Kings,  'Ofa; 
elsewhere  ;  Alex/'d'xo^ay  in  2  K.  xv.  13  :  Ozias, 
but  Azarias  in  2  K.  xv.  13). 

1.  Uzziah  king  of  Judah.  In  some  passages  his 
name  appears  in  the  lengthened  form  -in'W  (2  K. 
xv.  32,  34;  2  Chr.  xxvi.  xxvii.  2  ;  Is.  \.  l',  vi.  1, 
vii.  1),  which  Gesenius  attributes  to  an  error  of 
the  copyists,  iVT^  and  fl'lty  being  nearly  identical, 
or  "  to  an  exchange  of  the  names  as  spoken  by  the 
common  people,  ss  being  pronounced  for  sr."  This 
is  possible,  but  there  are  other  instances  of  the 
princes  of  Judah  (not  of  Israel)  changing  their 
names  on  succeeding  to  the  throne,  undoubtedly 
in  the  later  history,  and  perhaps  in  the  earlier, 
as  Jehoahaz  to  Ahaziah  (2  Chr.  xxi.  17),  though 
this  example  is  not  quite  certain.  [AHAZIAH, 
No.  2.]  After  the  murder  of  Amaziah,  his  son 
Uzziah  was  chosen  by  the  people  to  occupy  the 
vacant  throne,  at  the  age  of  16 ;  and  for  the  greater 
part  of  his  long  reign  of  52  years  he  lived  in  the 
fear  of  God,  and  showed  himself  a  wise,  active, 
and  pious  ruler.  He  began  his  reign  by  a  suc 
cessful  expedition  against  his  father's  enemies  the 
Edomites,  who  had  revolted  from  Judah  in  Jehoram's 
time,  80  years  before,  and  penetrated  as  far  as  the 
head  of  the  Gulf  of  'Akaba,  where  he  took  the  im 
portant  place  of  Elath,  fortified  it,  and  probably 
established  it  as  a  mart  for  foreign  commerce,  which 
Jehoshapha^  had  failed  to  do.  This  success  is  re 
corded  in  the  2nd  Book  of  Kings  (xiv.  22),  but  froir. 
the  2nd  Book  of  Chronicles  (xxvi.  1,  &c.)  we  learn 
much  more.  Uzziah  waged  other  victorious  wars  ic 
the  south,  especially  against  the  Mehunim,  or  people 
of  Ma&n,  and  the  Arabs  of  Gurbaal.  A  fortified  town 
named '  Maan  still  exists  in  Arabia  Petraea,  south 
of  the  Dead  Sea.  The  situation  of  Gurbaal  is  un 
known.  (For  conjectures,  more  or  less  probable, 
see  Ewald,  Gesch.  \.  321  ;  MEHUNIM  ;  GUR 
BAAL.)  Such  enemies  would  hardly  maintain  a 
long  resistance  after  the  defeat  of  so  formidable  a 
tribe  as  the  Edomites.  Towards  the  west,  Uzziah 
fought  with  equal  success  against  the  Philistines, 
levelled  to  the  ground  the  walls  of  Gath,  Jabneh, 
and  Ashdod,  and  founded  new  fortified  cities  in  the 
Philistine  territory.  Nor  was  he  less  vigorous  in 
defensive  than  offensive  operations.  He  strengthened 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem  at  their  weakest  points, 
furnished  them  with  formidable  engines  of  war, 
and  equipped  an  army  of  307,500  men  with  the 
best  inventions  of  military  art.  He  was  also  a 
great  patron  of  agriculture,  dug  wells,  built  towers 
in  the  wilderness  for  the  protection  of  the  flocks, 
and  cultivated  rich  vineyards  and  arable  land  on 
his  own  account.  He  never  deserted  the  worship  of 
the  true  God,  and  was  much  influenced  by  Zecha- 
riah,  a  prophet  who  is  only  mentioned  in  connexion 
with  him  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  5) ;  for,  as  he  must  have 
died  before  Uzziah,  he  cannot  be  the  same  as  the 


1610 


UZZIAH 


£echariah  of  Is.  viii.  2.  So  the  southern  kingdom 
was  raised  to  a  condition  of  prosperity  which  it  had 
not  known  since  the  death  of  Solomon ;  and  as  the 
power  of  Israel  was  gradually  falling  away  in  the 
Matter  period  of  Jehu's  dynasty,  that  of  Judah  ex 
tended  itself  over  the  Ammonites  and  Moabites,  and 
other  tribes  beyond  Jordan,  from  whom  Uzziah 
exacted  tribute.  See  2  Chr.  xxvi.  8,  and  Is.  xvi. 
1-5,  from  which  it  would  appear  that  the  annual 
tribute  of  sheep  (2  K.  iii.  4)  was  revived  either 
during  this  reign  or  soon  after.  The  end  of  Uzziah 
was  less  prosperous  than  his  beginning.  Elated 
with  his  splendid  career,  he  determined  to  burn 
incense  on  the  altar  of  God,  but  was  opposed  by  the 
nigh -priest  Azariah  and  eighty  others.  (See  Ex.  xxx. 
7,  8 ;  Num.  xvi.  40,  xviii.  7.)  The  king  was  en 
raged  at  their  resistance,  and,  as  he  pressed  forward 
with  his  censer,  was  suddenly  smitten  with  leprosy, 
a  disease  which,  according  to  Gerlach  (in  loco),  is 
often  brought  out  by  violent  excitement.  In  2  K. 
xv.  5  we  are  merely  told  that  "  the  Lord  smote 
the  king,  so  that  he  was  a  leper  unto  the  day  of 
his  death,  and  dwelt  in  a  several  house ;"  but  his 
invasion  of  the  priestly  office  is  not  specified.  This 
catastrophe  compelled  Uzziah  to  reside  outside  the 
city,  so  that  the  kingdom  was  administered  till  his 
death  by  his  son  Jotham  as  regent.  Uzziah 
buried  "  with  his  fathers,"  yet  apparently  not 
actually  in  the  royal  sepulchres  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  23). 
During  his  reign  an  earthquake  occurred,  which, 
though  not  mentioned  in  the  historical  books,  was 
apparently  very  serious  in  its  consequences,  for  it 
is  alluded  to  as  a  chronological  epoch  by  Amos 
(i.  1),  and  mentioned  in  Zech.  xiv.  5,  as  a  con 
vulsion  from  which  the  people  "  fled."  [EARTH 
QUAKE.]  Josephus  (Ant.  ix.  10,  §4)  connects  it 
with  Uzziah 's  sacrilegious  attempt  to  offer  incense, 
but  this  is  very  unlikely,  as  it  cannot  have  occurred 
later  than  the  17th  year  of  his  reign  [AMOS].  The 
first  six  chapters  of  Isaiah's  prophecies  belong  to 
this  reign,  and  we  are  told  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  22)  that 
a  full  account  of  it  was  written  by  that  prophet. 
Some  notices  of  the  state  of  Judah  at  this  time 
may  also  be  obtained  from  the  contemporary  pro 
phets  Hosea  and  Amos,  though  both  of  these 
laboured  more  particularly  in  Israel.  We  gather 
from  their  writings  (Hos.  iv.  15,  vi.  11  ;  Am.  vi.  1), 
as  well  as  from  the  early  chapters  of  Isaiah,  that 
though  the  condition  of  the  southern  kingdom  was 
far  superior,  morally  and  religiously,  to  that  of  the 
northern,  yet  that  it  was  by  no  means  free  from 
the  vices  which  are  apt  to  accompany  wealth  and 
prosperity.  At  the  same  time  Hosea  conceives 
bright  hopes  of  the  blessings  which  were  to  arise 
from  it ;  and  though  doubtless  these  hopes  pointed 
to  something  far  higher  than  the  brilliancy  of 
Uzziah's  administration,  and  though  the  return  of 
the  Israelites  to  "  David  their  king "  can  only  be 
adequately  explained  of  Christ's  kingdom,  yet  the 
prophet,  in  contemplating  the  condition  of  Judah 
at  this  time,  was  plainly  cheered  by  the  thought 
that  there  God  was  really  honoured,  and  His  wor 
ship  visibly  maintained,  and  that  therefore  with  it 
was  bound  up  every  hope  that  His  promises  to  His 
people  would  be  at  last  fulfilled  (Hos.  i.  7,  iii.  3). 
It  is  to  be  observed,  with  reference  to  the  general 
character  of  Uzziah's  reign,  that  the  writer  of  the 
Second  Book  of  Chronicles  distinctly  states  that  his 
lawless  attempt  to  burn  incense  was  the  only  ex 
ception  to  the  excellence  of  his  administration 
(2  Chr.  xxvii.  2).  His  reign  lasted  from  B.C. 
808-9  to  756-7.  [G.  E.  L.  (.'.] 


VAJEZATHA 

2.  ('OCi'o:  Ozias.}  A  Kohathite  Levite,  ami  an 
cestor  of  Samuel  (1  Chr.  vi.  24  [9]). 

3.  A  priest  of  the  sons  of  Harim,  who  had  takefi 
a  foreign  wife  in  the  days  of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  21). 

4.  ('ACta  :  Aziam.}  Father  of  Athaiah,  or  Utha: 
(Neh.  xi.  4). 

5.  (-irTO:  'OCuxs:   Ozias).      Father  of  Jeho- 
nathan,  one  of  David's  overseers  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  25). 


:  'OCei^A,  Ex.  vi.  18;   else 

where  'Oft-^A:  Oziel:  "God  is  my  strength"). 
1.  Fourth  son  of  Kohath,  father  of  Mishael,  Elza- 
phan  or  EHzaphan,  and  Zithri,  and  uncle  to  Aaron 
(Ex.  vi.  18,  22  ;  Lev.  x.  4).  The  family  descended 
from  him  were  called  Uzzielites,  and  Elizaphan, 
the  chief  of  this  family,  was  also  the  chief  father  of 
the  Kohathites,  bv  Divine  direction,  in  the  time  of 
Moses  (Num.  iii.  "l9,  27,  30),  although  he  seems 
to  have  been  the  youngest  of  Kohath's  sons  (1  Chr. 
vi.  2,  18j.  The  house  of  Uzziel  numbered  112 
adults,  under  Amminadab  their  chief,  at  the  time 
of  the  bringing  up  of  the  ark  to  Jerusalem  by  King 
David  (1  Chr.  xv.  10). 

2.  A  Simeonite  captain,  son  of  Ishi,  who,  after 
the  successful  expedition  of  his  tribe  to  the  valley  of 

was  Gedor,  went  with  his  three  brethren,  at  the  head 
of  five  hundred  men,  in  the  days  of  Hczekiah,  to 
Mount  Seir,  and  smote  the  remnant  of  the  Ama- 
lekites,  who  had  survived  the  previous  slaughter 
of  Saul  and  David,  and  took  possession  of  their 
country,  and  dwelt  there  "  unto  this  day  "  (1  Chr. 
iv.  42  ;  see  Bertheau). 

3.  Head  of  a  Benjamite  house,  of  the  sons  of 
Bela  (1  Chr.  vii.  7). 

4.  A  musician,  of  the  sons  of  Heman,  in  David's 
reign  (1  Chr.  xxv.   4),  elsewhere   called   Azareel 
(ver.  18).  Compare  Uzziah  and  Azariah. 

5.  A  Levite,  of  the  sons  of  Jeduthun,  who  in  the 
days  of  King  Hezekiah  took  an  active  part  in  cleansing 
and  sanctifying  the  Temple,  after  all  the  pollutions 
introduced  by  Ahaz  (2  Chr.  xxix.  14,  19). 

6.  Son  of  Harhaiah,  probably  a  priest  in  the 
days  of  Nehemiah,  who  took  part  in  repairing  the 
wall  (Neh.  iii.  8).     He  is  described  as  "  of  the 
goldsmiths,"  ».  e.  of  those  priests  whose  hereditary 
office  it  was  to  repair  or  make  the  sacred  vessels,  as 
may  be  gathered  from  the  analogy  of  the  apothe 
caries,  mentioned  in  the  same  verse,  who  are  de 
fined  1  Chr.  ix.  30.     The  goldsmiths  are  also  men 
tioned  Neh.  iii.  31,  32.     That  this  Uzziel  was  a 
priest  is  also  probable  from  his  name  (No.  1),  and 
from    the  circumstance  that  Malchiah,   the   gold 
smith's  son,  was  so.  [A.  C.  H.] 


UZ'ZIELITES,  THE  (>Vn  : 

'O^A  :  Ozielitae,  Ozihelitae).  The  descendants 
of  Uzziel,  and  one  of  the  four  great  families  into 
which  the  Kohathites  were  divided  (Num.  iii.  27  ; 
1  Chr.  xxvi.  23). 


VAJEZATHA  («nn  :  Zaj8ou0a?os  ;  FA. 
ZajSouSeflai' :  Jezathd).  One  of  the  ten  sons  of 
Haman  whom  the  Jews  slew  in  Shushan  (Esth. 
ix.  9).  Geseuius  derives  his  name  from  the  Pers. 

s  yj  »'  "  white,  "Germ,  weiss ;  but  Fiirst  suggests 
as  more   probable  that   it  is  a  compound  of  the 


VALE,  VALLEY 

Zend  vahja\  "  better,"  an  epithet  of  the  Ized  haorna, 
and  zata,  "  born,"  and  so  "  born  of  the  Ized 
haoma."  But  such  etymologies  are  little  to  be 
trusted. 

VALE,  VALLEY.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
state  that  these  words  signify  a  hollow  sweep  of 
ground  between  two  more  or  less  parallel  ridges  of 
high  land.  Vale  is  the  poetical  or  provincial  form. 
It  is  in  the  nature  of  the  case  that  the  centre  of  a 
valley  should  usually  be  occupied  by  the  stream 
which  forms  the  drain  of  the  high  land  on  either 
side,  and  from  this  it  commonly  receives  its  name  ; 
as,  the  Valley  of  the  Thames,  of  the  Colne,  of  the 
Nile.  It  is  also,  though  comparatively  seldom, 
called  after  some  town  or  remarkable  object  which 
it  contains ;  as,  the  Vale  of  Evesham,  the  Vale  of 
White-horse. 

Valley  is  distinguished  from  other  terms  more 
or  less  closely  related;  on  the  one  hand,  from  "  glen," 
"  ravine,"  "  gorge,"  or  <$  dell,"  which  all  express  a 
depression  at  once  more  abrupt  and  smaller  than  a 
valley ;  on  the  other  hand,  from  "  plain,"  which, 
though  it  may  be  used  of  a  wide  valley,  is  not 
ordinarily  or  necessarily  so. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  with  this  quasi-precision 
of  meaning  the  term  should  not  have  been  em 
ployed  with  more  restriction  in  the  Authorised 
Version  of  the  Bible. 

The  structure  of  the  greater  part  of  the  Holy 
Land  does  not  lend  itself  to  the  formation  of  valleys 
in  our  sense  of  the  word.  The  abrupt  transitions 
of  its  crowded  rocky  hills  preclude  the  existence  of 
any  extended  sweep  of  valley ;  and  where  one  such 
does  occur,  as  at  Hebron,  or  on  the  south-east  of 
Gerizim,  the  irregular  and  unsymmetrical  positions 
of  the  enclosing  hills  rob  it  of  the  character  of  a 
valley.  The  nearest  approach  is  found  in  the  space 
between  the  mountains  of  Gerizim  and  Ebal,  which 
contains  the  town  of  Nablus,  the  ancient  Shechem. 
This,  however,  by  a  singular  chance,  is  not  men 
tioned  iu  the  Bible.  Another  is  the  "  Valley  of 
Jezreel " — the  undulating  hollow  which  intervenes 
between  Gilboa  (Jebel  Fukua),  and  the  so-called 
Little  Hermon  (Jebel  Duliy}. 

Valley  is  employed  in  the  Authorised  Version  to 
render  rive  distinct  Hebrew  words. 

1.  'J-Zmek  (plOV:    Qapay}-,  Koi\ds,  also    very 

rarely  ireSiov,  avX&v,  and  E/J.CK  or  A^e/c).  This 
appears  to  approach  more  nearly  to  the  general 
sense  of  the  English  word  than  any  other,  and  it  is 
satisfactory  to  find  that  our  translators  have  inva 
riably,  without  a  single  exception,  rendered  it  by 
"  valley."  Its  root  is  said  to  have  the  force  of 
deepness  or  seclusion,  which  Professor  Stanley  has 
ingeniously  urged  may  be  accepted  in  the  sense  of 
lateral  rather  than  of  vertical  extension,  as  in  the 
modern  expression,—  a  deep  house,  a  deep  recess.  It 
is  connected  with  several  places  ;  but  the  only  one 
which  can  be  identified  with  any  certainty  is  the 
Emek  of  Jezreel,  already  mentioned  as  one  of  the 
nearest  approaches  to  an  English  valley.  The  other 
Emeks  are : — Achor,  Ajalon,  Baca,  Berachah,  Beth- 
rehob,  Elah,  Gibeon,  Hebron,  Jehoshaphat,  Keziz, 
Kephaim,  Shaveh,  Siddim,  Succoth,  and  of  ha- 
Charuts  or  *'  the  decision  "  (Joel  iii.  14). 

2.  G'afor  Ge  (K»|  or  N\3 :  $&pa.y£).     Of  this 

natural  feature  there  is  fortunately  one  example 
remaining  which  can  be  identified  with  certainty — 
the  deep  hollow  which  encompasses  f.he  S.W.  and 
S.  of  Jerusalem,  and  whnh  is  without  doubt  iden- 


VALE,  VALLEY  1G11 

tical  with  the  Ge-hinnom  or  Ge-ben-hinnom  of  th<a 
0.  T.  This  identification  appears  to  establish  the 
Ge  as  a  deep  and  abrupt  ravine,  with  steep  sides 
and  narrow  bottom.  The  term  is  derived  by  the 
lexicographers  from  a  root  signifying  to  flow  to 
gether  ;  but  Professor  Stanley,  influenced  probably 
by  the  aspect  of  the  ravine  of  Hinnom,  proposes  to 
connect  it  with  a  somewhat  similar  root  (ITS), 
which  has  the  force  of  rending  or  bursting,  and 
which  perhaps  gave  rise  to  the  name  Gihon,  the 
famous  spring  at  Jerusalem. 

Other  Ges  mentioned  in  the  Bible  are  those  of 
Gedor,  Jiphthah-el,  Zeboim,  Zephathah,  that  of 
salt,  that  of  the  craftsmen,  that  on  the  north  side 
of  Ai,  and  that  opposite  Beth  Peor  in  Moab. 

3.  Nuchal  (?nj  :  $dpay£,  x^^^povs}.     This 
is  the  word  which  exactly  answers  to  the  Arabic 
wady,  and  has  been  already  alluded  to  in  that  con 
nexion.   [PALESTINE,  p.  676  a ;  RIVER,  p.  1045  6.] 
It  expresses,  as  no  single  English  word  can,  the  bed 
of  a  stream  (often  wide  and  shelving,  and  like  a 
"Bailey"  in  character,  which  in  the  rainy  season 
may  be  nearly  filled  by  a  foaming  torrent,  though 
for   the  greater  part  of  the   year  dry),   and  the 
».*ream  itself,   which  after  the  subsidence  of  the 
rains  has  shrunk  to  insignificant  dimensions.     To 
autumn   travellers  in  the   south  of  France   such 
appearances  are  familiar;   the  wide   shallow  bed 
strewed  with  water-worn  stones  of  all  sizes,  amongst 
which  shrubs  are  growing  promiscuously,  perhaps 
crossed  by  a  bridge  of  four  or  five  arches,  under 
the  centre  one  of  which  brawls  along  a  tiny  stream, 
the  sole  remnant  of  the  broad  and  rapid  river  which 
a  few  months  before  might  have  carried  away  the 
structure  of  the  bridge.     Such  is  the  nearest  like 
ness  to  the  wadys  of  Syria,  excepting  that — owing 
to  the  demolition  of  the  wood  which  formerly  shaded 
the  country,  and  prevented  too  rapid  evaporation 
after  rain — many  of  the  latter  are  now  entirely 
and  constantly  dry.    To  these  last  it  is  obvious  that 
the  word  "valley"  is  not  inapplicable.     It  is  em 
ployed  in  th*e  A.  V.  to  translate  nachal,  alternating 
with  "  brook,"  "  river,"    and  "  stream."     For  a 
list  of  the  occurrences  of  each,  see  Sinai  and  Pal. 
App.  §38. 

4.  Bill  ah  (\W\fc :  inSlov).    This  term  appears 

to  mean  rather  a  plain  than  a  valley,  wider  than 
the  latter,  though  so  far  resembling  it  as  to  be  en 
closed  by  mountains,  like  the  wide  district  between 
Lebanon  and  Anti-Lebanon,  which  is  still  called  the 
Beka'a,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Amos.  [PLAIN, 
p.  889  6.]  It  is  rendered  by  "  valley "  in  Deut. 
xxxiv.  3  ;  Josh.  xi.  8,  17,  xii.  7 ;  2  Chr.  xxxv.  22  ; 
Zech.  xii.  11. 

5.  has-Shefeldh  (P^B^n :  T&  ireSiov,  rj  wetoi^). 

This  is  the  only  case  in  which  the  employment  of 
the  term  "valley"  is  really  unfortunate.  The 
district  to  which  alone  the  name  has-Shefeldh  is 
applied  in  the  Bible  has  no  resemblance  whatever 
to  a  valley,  but  is  a  broad  swelling  tract  of  many 
hundred  miles  in  area,  which  sweeps  gently  down 
from  the  mountains  of  Judah 

"  To  mingle  with  the  bounding  main" 
of  the  Mediterranean.  [See  PALESTINE,  p.  672  ; 
PLAINS,  p.  890  6  ;  SEPHELA,  p.  1199,  &c.j  It  is 
rendered  "  the  vale  "  in  Deut.  i.  7 ;  Josh.  x.  40 ; 
1  K.  x.  27  ;  2  Chr.  i.  15 ;  Jer.  xxxiii.  13 ;  and  "  the 
valley"  or  "valleys"  in  Josh.  ix.  1,  xi.  2,  16, 
xii.  8,  xv.  33  ;  Judg.  i.  9  ;  Jer.  xxxii.  44.  [G.~] 


1612 


VANIAH 


VANTAH(rPJ1:  Ovovavia;  Alex.  Ovovvla  ; 
FA.  Oviepe:  Vania],  One  of  the  sons  of  Bani, 
who  put  away  his  foreign  wife  at  Ezra's  command 
'Ezr.  x.  36). 


VASH'NI  (>:n  :  2avi  :  Vasseni).  The  first 
born  of  Samuel  as  the  text  now  stands  (1  Chr.  vi. 
28  [13]).  But  in  1  Sam.  viii.  2  the  name  of  his 
iirstborn  is  Joel.  Most  probably  in  the  Chronicles 
the  name  of  Joel  has  dropped  out,  and  "  Vashni  " 
is  a  corruption  of  ^Ife?),  "  and  (the)  second."  The 

Peshito  Syriac  has  amended  the  text,  and  rendered 
"  The  sons  of  Samuel,  his  firstborn  Joel,  and  the 
name  of  his  second  son  Abiah."  In  this  it  is  fol 
lowed  by  the  Arabic  of  the  London  Polyglott. 

VASH'TI  (W1:  'Ao-riV;  Ourfemj,  Joseph.  : 
Vashti  :  "a  beautiful  woman,"  Pers.).  The 


"  queen  "  (nSpDn)  of  Ahasuerus,  who,  for  re 
fusing  to  show  herself  to  the  king's  guests  at  the 
royal  banquet,  when  sent  for  by  the  king,  incurred 
his  wrath,  and  was  repudiated  and  deposed  (Esth. 
i.);  when  Esther  was  substituted  in  her  place. 
Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  identify  her 
with  historical  personages  ;  as  by  Ussher  with 
Atossa,  the  wife  of  Darius  Hystaspis,  and  by  J. 
Capellus  with  Parysatis,  the  mother  of  Ochus  ; 
but,  as  was  said  of  Esther  (like  the  *«  threesewe 
queens"  in  Cant.  vi.  8,  9*),  it  is  far  more  pro 
bable  that  she  was  only  one  of  the  inferior  wives, 
dignified  with  the  title  of  queen,  whose  name 
has  utterly  disappeared  from  history.  [ESTHER.] 
This  view  of  Vashti's  position  seems  further  to 
tally  exactly  with  the  narrative  of  Ahasuerus's 
order,  and  Vashti's  refusal,  considered  with  refer 
ence  to  the  national  manners  of  the  Persians.  For 
Plutarch  (Conjug.  pr  accept.  c.  16)  tells  us,  in 
agreement  with  Herod,  v.  18,  that  the  kings  of 
Persia  have  their  legitimate  wives  to  sit  at  table 
with  them  at  their  banquets,  but  that,  when  they 
choose  to  riot  and  drink,  they  send  their  wives 
away  and  call  in  the  concubines  and  singing-girls. 
Hence,  when  the  heart  of  Ahasuerus  "  was  merry 
with  wine,"  he  sent  for  Vashti,  looking  upon  her 
only  as  a  concubine  ;  she,  on  the  other  hand,  con 
sidering  herself  as  one  of  the  KovpiSiai  ywaiKes, 
or  legitimate  wives,  refused  to  come.  See  Winer, 
Realwb.  Josephus's  statement  (Ant.  xi.  6,  §1), 
that  it  is  contrary  to  the  customs  of  the  Persians 
for  their  wives  to  be  seen  by  any  men  but  their  own 
husbands,  is  evidently  inaccurate,  being  equally 
contradicted  by  Herodotus,  v.  18,b  and  by  the  Book 
of  Esther  itself  (v.  4,  8,  12,  &c.).  [A.  C.  H.] 

VEIL.  Under  the  head  of  DRESS  we  have 
already  disposed  of  various  terms  improperly  ren 
dered  "veil"  in  the  A.V.,  such  as  mitpachath 
(Tttith  iii.  15),  tsaiph  (Gen.  xxiv.  65,  xxxviii.  14, 
19),  and  radid  (Cant.  v.  7  ;  Is.  iii.  23),  These 
have  beeu  explained  to  be  rather  shawls,  or 
mantles,  which  might  at  pleasure  be  drawn  over 
the  face,  but  which  were  not  designed  for  the 
special  purpose  of  veils.  It  remains  for  us  to  notice 
the  following  terms  which  describe  the  veil  proper  : 


VEIL 

— (1.)  Masvehf  used  of  the  veil  whi:h 
assumed  when  he  came  down  from  the  mount  (Kx. 
xxxiv.  33-35).  A  cognate  word,  sAth,d  occurs  iu 
Gen.  xlix.  11  as  a  general  term  for  a  man's  rai 
ment,  leading  to  the  inference  that  the  masveh 
also  was  an  ample  outer  robe  which  might  be 
drawn  over  the  face  when  required.  The  context., 
however,  in  Ex.  xxxiv.  is  conclusive  as  to  the  object 
for  which  the  robe  was  assumed,  and,  whatever 
may  have  been  its  size  or  form,  it  must  have  been 
used  as  a  veil.  (2.)  Mispdchoth,e  used  of  the 
veils  which  the  false  prophets  placed  upon  their 
heads  (Ezek.  xiii.  18,  21  ;  A.  V.  "  kerchiefs  ").  The 
word  is  understood  by  Gesenius  (Thes.  p.  965)  of 
cushions  or  mattresses,  but  the  etymology  (sdphach, 
to  pour)  is  equally,  if  not  more  favourable,  to  the 
sense  of  &  flowing  veil,  and  this  accords  better  with 
the  notice  that  they  were  to  be  placed  "  upon  the 
head  of  every  stature,"  implying  that  the  length  of 
the  veil  was  proportioned  to  the  height  of  the 
wearer  (Fiirst,  Lex.  s.  v.  ;  Hitzig  in  Ez.  I.e.). 
(3.)  R£'al6th,f  used  of  the  light  veils  worn  by 
females  (Is.  iii.  19;  A.V.  "mufflers"),  which 
wei'e  so  called  from  their  rustling  motion.  The 
same  term  is  applied  in  the  Mishiia  (Sab.  6,  §6) 
to  the  veils  worn  by  Arabian  women.  (4.)  Tsam- 
mdh,8  understood  by  the  A.V.  of  "locks"  of  hair 
(Cant.  iv.  1,  3,  vi.  7;  Is.  xlvii.  2),  and  so  by 
Winer  (Ewb.  "  Schleier  ") ;  but  the  contents  of 
the  passages  in  which  it  is  used  favour  the  sense  of 
veil,  the  wearers  of  the  article  being  in  each  case 
highly  born  and  handsomely  dressed.  A  cognate 
word  is  used  in  the  Targum  (Gen.  ixiv.  65)  of  the 
robe  in  which  Rebecca  enveloped  herself. 

With  regard  to  the  use  of  the  veil,  it  is  impor 
tant  to  observe  that  it  was  by  no  means  so  general 
in  ancient  as  in  modern  times.  At  present,  females 
are  rarely  seen  without  it  in  Oriental  countries,  so 
much  so  that  in  Egypt  it  is  deemed  more  requisite 
to  conceal  the  face,  including  the  top  and  back  of 
the  head,  than  other  parts  of  the  person  (Lane,  i. 
72).  Women  are  even  delicate  about  exposing 
their  heads  to  a  physician  for  medical  treatment 
(Russell's  Aleppo,  i.  246).  In  remote  districts, 
and  among  the  lower  classes,  the  practice  is  not  so 
rigidly  enforced  (Lane,  i.  72).  Much  of  the  scru 
pulousness  in  respect  to  the  use  of  the  veil  dates 
from  the  promulgation  of  the  Koran,  which  forbade 
women  appearing  unveiled  except  in  the  presence  of 
their  nearest  relatives  (Kor.  xxxiii.  55,  59).  In 
ancient  times,  the  veil  was  adopted  only  in  excep 
tional  cases,  either  as  an  article  of  ornamental  dress 
(Cant.  iv.  1,  3,  vi.  7),  or  by  betrothed  maidens  in 
the  presence  of  their  future  husbands,  especially  at 
the  time  of  the  wedding  (Gen.  xxiv.  65,  xxix.  25 
[MARRIAGE]),  or,  lastly,  by  women  of  loose  cha 
racter  for  purposes  of  concealment  (Gen.  xxxviii. 
14).  But,  generally  speaking,  women  both  mar 
ried  and  unmarried  appeared  in  public  with  their 
faces  exposed,  both  among  the  Jews  (Gen.  xii.  14, 
xxiv.  16,  xxix.  10 ;  1  Sam.  i.  12),  and  among  the 
Egyptians  and  Assyrians,  as  proved  by  the  in 
variable  absence  of  the  veil  in'the  sculptures  and 
paintings  of  these  peoples. 

Among  the  Jews  of  the  New  Testament  age  it 
appears  to  have  been  customary  for  the  \vomeu  tc 


owi.  $'  eKacrros    avrwi/   TroAAas    fj.ev 

,  TroAAqJ  5'  en  TrXewas  TraAAaxas  KTaJirai  (Herod. 

135). 

b  "  It  is  the  custom  of  UB  Persians,  when  we  make  a 


great  feast,  to  invite  both  our  concubines  and  our  wives 
to  sit  down  with  us." 

d  n-io. 


n'Ajn. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (AETHIOPIO) 


1613 


oover  their  heads  (not  necessarily  their  faces)  when 
engaged  in  public  worship.  For,  St.  Paul  repro 
bates  the  disuse  of  the  veil  by  the  Corinthian 
women,  as  implying  an  assumption  or  equality 
with  the  other  sex,  and  enforces  the  covering  of  the 
head  as  a  sign  h  of  subordination  to  the  authority  of 
the  men  (I  Cor.  xi.  5-15).  The  same  passage 
leads  to  the  conclusion  that  the  use  of  the  talfth, 
with  which  the  Jewish  males  cover  their  heads  in 
prayer,  is  a  comparatively  modern  practice;  inas 
much  as  the  apostle,  putting  a  hypothetical  case, 
states  that  every  man  having  anything  on  his  head 
dishonours  his  head,  i.e.  Christ,  inasmuch  as  the  use 
of  the  veil  would  imply  subjection  to  his  fellow-men 
rather  than  to  the  Lord  (1'Cor.  xi.  4).  [W.  L.  B.] 

VEIL  OF  THE  TABEKNACLE  AND 
TEMPLE.  [TABERNACLE;  TEMPLE.] 

VERSIONS,  ANCIENT,  OF  THE  OLD 
AND  NEW  TESTAMENTS.  On  the  aiici«.t 
versions  in  general,  see  Walton's  Prolegomena ; 
Simon,  Histoire  Critique  •  Marsh's  Michaelis ; 
Eichhorn's  Einkitung  ;  Hug's  Einleitung  ;  De 
Wette's  Einleitung  ;  Havernick's  Einleitung  ;  Da 
vidson's  Introduction  ;  Reuss,  Geschichte  des 
Neuen  Testaments ;  Home's  Introduction  by  Ayre 
(vol.  ii.)  and  Tregelles  (vol.  iv.)  ;  Scrivener's  Plain 
Introduction ;  Bleek's  Einleitung. 

There  were  two  things  which,  in  the  early  cen 
turies  after  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
were  closely  connected :  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel,  leading  to  the  diffused  profession  of  the 
Christian  faith  amongst  nations  of  varied  lan 
guages  ;  and  the  formation  of  versions  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  for  the  use  of  the  Churches  thus  gathered 
in  varied  countries.  In  fact,  for  many  ages  the 
spread  of  Christianity  and  the  appearance  of  ver 
nacular  translations  seem  to  have  gone  almost  con 
tinually  hand  in  hand.  The  only  exceptions, 
perhaps,  were  those  regions  in  which  the  Christian 
profession  did  not  extend  beyond  what  might  be 
called  the  civilized  portion  of  the  community,  and 
in  which  also  the  Greek  language,  diffused  through 
the  conquests  of  Alexander,  or  the  Latin,  the  con 
comitant  of  the  dominion  of  Rome,  had  taken  a 
deeply-rooted  and  widely-extended  hold.  Before 
the  Christian  era,  the  Greek  version  of  the  Old 
Testament,  commonly  termed  the  Septuagint,  and 
the  earlier  Targums  (if,  indeed,  any  were  written 
so  early)  supplied  every  want  of  the  Jews,  so  far 
as  we  can  at  all  discover.  And  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Old  Testament 
had  produced  some  considerable  effect  beyond  the 
mere  Jewish  pale  :  for  thus  the  comparatively 
large  class  of  proselytes  which  we  find  existing  in 
the  time  of  our  Lord  and  his  Apostles  must  appa 
rently  have  been  led  to  embrace  a  religion,  not  then 
commended  by  the  holiness  of  its  professors  or  by 
external  advantages,  but  only  accredited  by  its 
doctrines,  which  professed  to  be  given  by  the  Reve 
lation  of  God  (as,  indeed,  they  were);  and  which, 
in  setting  forth  the  unity  of  God,  and  in  the  con 
demnation  of  all  idolatry,  supplied  a  need,  not 
furnished  by  anything  which  professed  to  be  a 
system  of  positive  religion  as  held  by  the  Greek, 
Latin,  or  Egyptian  priests. 

In  making  inquiry  as  to   the  versions  formed 


h  The  term  e£ovon'a  In  1  Cor.  xi.  W=sign  of  authority, 
Just  as  £acaA.eia  in  Diod.  Sic.  i.  47 = sign  of  royalty. 


after  the  spread  of  Christianity,  we  rarely  find  any 
indication  as  to  the  translators,  01  the  particular  cir 
cumstances  under  which  they  wore  executed.  All 
we  can  say  is,  that  those  who  had  learned  that  the 
doctrines  of  the  Apostles, — namely,  that  in  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God  there  is  forgiveness  o' 
sins  and  eternal  lite  through  faith  in  his  propitiatorj 
sacrifice, — are  indeed  the  truth  of  God  ;  and  who 
knew  that  the  New  Testament  contains  the  records 
of  this  religion,  and  the  Old  the  preparation  of  God 
for  its  introduction  through  promises,  types,  and  pro 
phecies,  did  not  long  remain  without  possessing 
these  Scriptures  in  languages  which  they  under 
stood.  The  appearance  of  vernacular  translations 
was  a  kind  of  natural  consequence  of  the  formation 
of  Churches. 

We  have  also  some  indications  that  parts  of  the 
New  Testament  were  translated,  not  by  those  who 
received  the  doctrines,  but  by  those  who  opposed 
them  ;  this  was  probably  done  in  order  the  more 
tuocpssfully  to  guard  Jews  and  proselytes  to  Ju 
daism  against  the  doctrines  of  the  Cross  of  Christ, 
:*  to  the  Jews  a  stumbling-block." 

Translations  of  St.  John's  Gospel  and  of  the 
Af**  of  the  Apostles  into  the  Hebrew  dialect,  are 
mentioned  in  the  very  curious  narration  given  by 
Epiphanius  (l.  xxx.  3,  12)  respecting  Joseph  of 
Titterias ;  he  speaks  of  their  being  secretly  pre- 
s*rved  by  the  Jewish  teachers  of  that  city.  But 
these  or  any  similar  versions  do  not  appear  to  have 
been  examined,  much  less  used,  by  any  Christians. 
TLey  deserve  a  mention  here,  however,  as  being 
translations  of  parts  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
former  existence  of  which  is  recorded. 

In  treating  of  the  ancient  versions  that  have 
come  down  to  us,  in  whole  or  in  part,  they  will  be 
described  in  the  alphabetical  order  of  the  languages. 
It  may  be  premised  that  in  most  of  them  the  Old 
Test,  is  not  a  version  from  the  Hebrew,  but  merely 
a  secondary  translation  from  the  Septuagint  in  some 
one  of  its  early  forms.  The  value  of  these  second 
ary  versions  is  but  little,  except  as  bearing  on  the 
criticism  of*  the  text  of  the  LXX.,  a  department  or 
Biblical  learning  in  which  they  will  be  found  of  much 
use,  whenever  a  competent  scholar  shall  earnestly 
engage  in  the  revision  of  that  Greek  version  of  the 
Old  Test.,  pointing  out  the  corrections  introduced 
through  the  labours  of  Origen.  [S.  P.  T.] 

AETHIOPIC  VERSION.— Christianity  was  in  • 
troduced  into  Aethiopia  in  the  4th  century,  through 
the  labours  of  Frumentius  and  Aedesius  of  Tyre, 
who  had  been  made  slaves  and  sent  to  the  king 
(Theodoret,  Hist.  Eccl.  i.  23  ;  Socr.  i.  19  ;  Sozo- 
men,  ii.  24).  Hence  arose  the  episcopal  see  of 
Axum,  to  which  Frumentius  was  appointed  by 
Athanasius.  The  Aethiopic  version  which  we 
possess  is  in  the  ancient  dialect  of  Axum;  hence 
some  have  ascribed  it  to  the  age  of  the  earliest  mis 
sionaries;  but  from  the  general  character  of  the 
version  itself,  this  is  improbable  ;  and  the  Abyssi- 
nians  themselves  attribute  it  to  a  later  period ; 
though  their  testimony  is  of  but  little  value  by 
itself;  for  their  accounts  are  very  contradictory, 
and  some  of  them  even  speak  of  its  having  been 
translated  from  the  Arabic ;  which  is  certainly  in 
correct. 

The  Old  Testament,  as  well  as  the  New,  was 
executed  from  the  Greek. 

In  1513  Potken  published  the  Aethiopic  Psalter 
at  Rome :  he  received  this  portion  of  the  Scriptures 
from  some  Abyssinians  with  whom  he  had  met; 


16U 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (ARABIC) 


whom,  however,  he  called  Chaldaeans,  and  their 
language  Chaldee. 

In  1548-9,-  the  Aethiopic  New  Test,  was  also 
printed  at  Rome,  edited  by  three  Abyssinians :  they 
sadly  complained  oi '  the  difficulties  under  which 
they  laboured,  from  the  printers  having  been  occu 
pied  on  what  they  were  unable  to  read.  They 
speak  of  having  had  to  fill  up  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  Book  of  Acts  by  translating  from  the  Latin 
and  Greek:  in  this,  however,  there  seems  to  be 
some  overstatement.  The  Roman  edition  was 
reprinted  in  Walton's  Polyglott ;  but  (according  to 
Ludolf )  all  the  former  errors  were  retained,  and 
new  ones  introduced.  When  Bode  in  1753  pub 
lished  a  careful  Latin  translation  of  the  Aethiopic 
text  of  Walton,  he  supplied  Biblical  scholars  in 
general  with  the  means  of  forming  a  judgment  as 
10  this  version,  which  had  been  previously  impos 
sible,  except  to  the  few  who  were  acquainted  with 
the  language. 

In  1826-30,  a  new  edition,  formed  by  a  collation 
of  MSS.,  was  published  under  the  care  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Pell  Platt  (formerly  Follow  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge),  whose  object  was  not  strictly 
critical,  but  rather  to  give  to  the  Abyssinians  their 
Scriptures  for  ecclesiastical  use  in  as  good  a  form 
as  he  conveniently  could,  consistently  with  MS. 
authority.  From  the  notes  made  by  Mr.  Platt  in 
the  course  of  his  collations,  it  is  evident  that  the 
translation  had  been  variously  revised.  The  differ 
ences  of  MSS.  had  appeared  so  marked  to  Ludolf 
that  he  supposed  that  there  must  have  been  two 
ancient  versions.  But  Mr.  Platt  found,  in  the 
course  of  his  examination,  that  where  certain  MSS. 
differ  widely  in  their  readings,  some  other  copy 
would  introduce  both  readings  either  in  a  conflate 
form,  or  simply  in  the  way  of  repetition.  The 
probability  appears  to  be  that  there  was  originally 
one  version  of  the  Gospels ;  but  that  this  was  after 
wards  revised  with  Greek  MSS.  of  a  different  com 
plexion  of  text ;  and  that  succeeding  copyists  either 
adopted  one  or  the  other  form  in  passages ;  or  else, 
by  omitting  nothing  from  text  or  margin,  they 
formed  a  confused  combination  of  readings.  It 
appears  probable  that  all  the  portion  of  the  New 
Test,  after  the  Gospels  originated  from  some  of  the 
later  revisers  of  the  former  part ;  its  paraphrastic 
tone  accords  with  this  opinion.  We  can  only  form 
a  judgment  from  the  printed  texts  of  this  version, 
until  a  collation  of  the  MSS.  now  known  shall  be 
so  executed  as  to  be  available  for  critical  use. 

As  it  is,  we  find  in  the  copies  of  the  version, 
readings  which  show  an  affinity  with  the  older 
class  of  Greek  MSS.,  intermingled  with  others 
decidedly  Byzantine.  Some  of  the  copies  known 
show  a  stronger  leaning  to  the  one  side  or  the 
other ;  and  this  gives  a  considerable  degree  of 
certainty  to  the  conclusion  on  the  subject  of 
revision. 

An  examination  of  the  version  proves  both  that 
it  was  executed  from  the  Greek,  and  also  that  the 
translator  made  such  mistakes  that  he  could  hardly 
have  been  a  person  to  whom  Greek  was  the  native 
tongue.  The  following  instances  (mostly  taken 
from  C.  B.  Michaelis)  prove  this :  '6pia  is  con 
founded  with  5peo  (or  oprj)  ;  Matt.  iv.  13,  "in 
monte  Zabulon  ; "  xix.  1,  "  in  monies  Judaeae  trans 
Jordanem."  Acts  iii.  20,  Trpo/eexeipioyieVor  is  ren 
dered  as  "quern  praeunxit"  (7rpo/ce%pi0"juej'oi')  ;  ii. 
37,  Konfv{)yi)ffa.v  "  aperti  sunt  quoad  cor  eorum  " 
i Ka.Trivoiyqa'u.v )  ;  xvi.  25,  tir-riKpouvTO  avTtav  oi 
"percussa  sunt  vincula  eorum"  (eirenpov- 


ovro  avT&v  oi  5e0-juof).  Matt.  v.  25.  vvvowv  ifi 
rendered  as  intellitjetis  (evvoStv);  Luke  viii.  29, 
Kal  Treats  (pt/Aacro-Ojuei/o?,  "  a  parvulis  custodi- 
tus,"  as  if  TraiSiois.  Rom.  vii.  11,  elTjiraTTjiref, 
"  conculcavit,"  as  if  e|e7raTrj<re»'.  Rev.  iv.  3. 
?pts,  "  sacerdotes,"  as  if  iepeTs.  The  meaning  cf 
words  alike  in  spelling  is  confounded  :  thus,  1  Cor. 
xii.  28,  "  Posuit  Dominus  anrem  ecclesiae,"  from 
the  differing  meanings  of  OT2.  Also  wrong  ren 
derings  sometimes  seem  to  have  originated  with 
false  etymology :  thus,  Matt.  v.  22,  "  Qui  autem 
dixerit  fratrem  suum  pannosum"  pa/ca  having  beon 
connected  with  pa/cos. 

Bode's  Latin  version,  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made,  enabled  critical  scholars  to  use 
the  Roman  text  with  much  confidence.  The  late 
Mr.  L.  A.  Prevost,  of  the  British  Museum,  executed 
for  Dr.  Tregelles  a  comparison  of  the  text  of  Mr. 
Platt  with  the  Roman,  as  reprinted  in  Walton, 
together  with  a  literal  rendering  of  the  variations ; 
this  gave  him  the  critical  use  of  both  texts.  The 
present  Bishop  of  Gloucester,  Dr.  Ellicott,  speaking 
with  the  personal  advantage  possessed  by  a  scholar 
himself  able  to  use  both  Aethiopie  texts  of  the  New 
Test.,  draws  attention  to  the  superiority  of  that 
edited  by  Mr.  Platt :  after  speaking  (Aids  to  Faith, 
p.  381)  of  the  non-paraphrastic  character  of  the 
ancient  versions  of  the  New  Test,  in  general,  Dr. 
Ellicott  adds  in  a  note :  "  It  may  be  noticed  that 
we  have  specified  the  Aethiopic  version  a?  that 
edited  by  Mr.  Pell  Platt.  The  Aethiopic  version 
found  in  Walton's  Polyglott  often  degenerates  into 
a  paraphrase,  especially  in  difficult  passages." 

The  Old  Test,  of  this  version,  made  from  the 
LXX.  (as  has  been  already  specified),  has  been  sub 
jected  apparently  (with  the  exception  of  the  Psalms) 
to  very  little  critical  examination.  A  complete 
edition  of  the  Aethiopic  Old  Test,  has  been  com 
menced  by  Dilhriann ;  the  first  portion  of  which 
appeared  in  1853. 

Literature. — Potken,  Preface  to  the  Aethiopic 
Psalter,  Rome,  1513;  C.  B.  Michaelis,  Preface 
to  Bode's  Collation  of  St.  Matthew,  Halle,  1749  ; 
Bode,  Latin  Translation  of  the  Aethiopic  New 
Test.  Brunswick,  1753 ;  T.  P.  Platt,  MS.  Notes 
made  in  the  Collation  of  Aethiopic  MSS.,  and 
Private  Letters  sent  to  Tregelles ;  L.  A.  Prevost, 
MS.  Collation  of  the  Text  of  Platt  with  the  Roman- 
and  Translation  of  Variations,  executed  for  Tre- 
gettcs ;  A.  "Dillmann,  Aethiopische  Bibeliibersets- 
ung  in  Herzog's  Real-Encyklopadie.  [S.  P.  T.] 

ARABIC  VERSIONS.— To  give  a  detailed  ac 
count  of  'the  Arabic  versions  would  be  impossible, 
without  devoting  a  much  larger  space  to  the  subject 
than  would  be  altogether  in  its  place  in  a  Dictionary 
of  the  Bible :  for  the  versions  themselves  do  not, 
owing  to  their  comparatively  late  date,  possess  any 
primary  importance,  even  for  critical  studies ;  and 
thus  many  points  connected  with  these  translations 
are  rather  of  literary  than  strictly  Biblical  interest. 
The  versions  of  the  Old  Test,  must  be  considered 
separately  from  those  of  the  New ;  and  those  from 
the  Hebrew  text  must  be  treated  apart  from  those 
formed  from  the  LXX. 

(I.)  Arabic  versions  of  the  Old  Test. 

(A.)  Made  from  the  Hebrew  text. 

Rabbi  Saadiah  Haggaon,  the  Hebrew  commentator 
of  the  10th  century,  translated  portions  (some 
think  the  whole)  of  the  0.  T.  into  Arabic.  His 
version  of  the  Pentateucn  was  printed  at  Constan 
tinople,  in  1546.  The  Paris  Polyglott  contains  tl* 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (ARABIC) 


Wit, 


tame  version  from  a  MS.  differing  m  many  of  its 
readings  :  this  was  reprinted  by  Walton.  It  seems 
as  if  copyists  had  in  parts  altered  the  version  con 
siderably.  The  version  of  Isaiah  by  Saadiah  was 
printed  by  Paulus,  at  Jena,  in  1791,  from  a  Bod 
leian  MS.  •  the  same  library  contains  a  MS.  of  his 
version  of  Job  and  of  the  Psalms.  Kimchi  quotes 
his  version  of  Hosea. 

The  Book  of  Joshua  in  the  Paris  and  Walton's 
Polyglotts  is  also  from  the  Hebrew ;  and  this  R6- 
diger  states  to  be  the  fact  in  the  case  of  the  Poly- 
glott  text  of  1  K.  xii. ;  2  K.  xii.  16  ;  and  of  Neh. 
i.-ix.  27. 

Other  portions,  translated  from  Hebrew  in  later 
times,  do  not  require  to  be  even  specified  here. 

But  it  was  not  the  Jews  only  who  translated  into 
Arabic  from  the  original.  There  is  also  a  version 
of  the  Pentateuch  of  the  Samaritans,  made  by  Abu 
Said.  He  is  stated  to  have  clearly  had  the  transla 
tion  of  Saadiah  before  him,  the  phraseology  of 
which  he  often  follows,  and  at  times  he  must  have 
used  the  Samaritan  version.  It  is  considered  that 
this  work  of  Abu  Said  (of  which  a  portion  has  been 
printed)  is  of  considerable  use  in  connection  with 
the  history  of  the  text  of  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch. 
[See  SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH,  ii.  3.] 

(B.)  Made  from  the  Peshito  Syriac. 

This  is  the  base  of  the  Arabic  text  contained  in 
the  Polyglotts  of  the  Books  of  Judges,  Ruth, 
Samuel,  Kings,  and  Nehemiah  (with  the  exception 
mentioned  above  in  these  last-named  books). 

In  some  MSS.  there  is  contained  a  translation 
from  the  ffexaplar-Sjiiac  text,  which  (though  a 
recent  version)  is  of  some  importance  for  the  criti 
cism  of  that  translation. 

(C.)  Made  from  the  LXX. 

The  version  in  the  Polyglotts  of  the  books  not 
specified  above.* 

Another  text  of  the  Psalter  in  Justiniani  Psalter- 
ium  Octuplum,  Genoa,  1516. 

The  Arabic  versions  existing  in  MS.  exhibit  very 
various  forms :  it  appears  as  if  alterations  had  been 
made  in  the  different  countries  in  which  they  had 
been  used ;  hence  it  is  almost  an  endless  task  to 
discriminate  amongst  them  precisely. 

(II.)  Arabic  versions  of  the  New  Test. 

The  printed  editions  of  the  Arabic  New  Test, 
must  first  be  specified  before  their  text  can  be  de 
scribed. 

1.  The  Roman  editio  princeps  of  the  four  Gospels, 
1590-91  (issued  both  with  and  without  an  inter 
linear  Latin  version.     Reissued,  with  a  new  title, 
p.  1619 ;  and  again,  with  a  bibliographical  preface, 
1774). 

2.  The  Erpenian  Arabic.     The  whole  New  Test, 
edited  by  Erpenius,  1616,  at  Leyden,  from  a  MS. 
of  the  13th  or  14th  century. 

3.  The  Arabic  of  the  Paris  Polyglott,  1645.     In 
the  Gospels  this  follows  mostly  the  Roman  text ;  in 
the  Epistles  a  MS.  from  Aleppo  was  used.     The 
Arabic  in  Walton's  Polyglott  appears  to  be  simply 
taken  from  the  Paris  text. 

4.  The  Carshuni  Arabic  text  (i.  e.  in  Syriac  let- 


a  Cardinal  Wiseman  (On  the  Miracles  of  the  New 
Test.  Essays  i.  172-176,  240-244)  gives  a  curious  investi 
gation  of  the  origin  and  translation  of  this  Arabic 
Psalter,  and  of  the  occasional  use  of  the  Hebrew  text, 
arid  sometimes  of  the  Syriac  version. 

»>  Adlcr  (Reise  nach  Rom,  p.  184)  gives  a  citation  from 
D.  Viiicenzio  Juan  de  Lastanosa,  who  says  in  his  Museo 


tersj,  tne  Syriac  and  Arabic  New  Test.,  published  at 
Rome,  in  1703.  For  this  a  MS.  brought  froir 
Cyprus  was  used. 

StoiT  proved,  that  in  all  these  editions  the  Gospels 
are  really  the  same  translation,  however  it  may 
have  been  modified  by  copyists  ;  especially  when 
the  Syriac,  or  Memphitic,  stand  by  the  side. 

Juynboll,  in  his  description  of  an  Arabic  Codei 
at  Franeker  (1838),  threw  new  light  on  the  origin 
of  the  Arabic  Gospels.  He  proves  that  the  Frane 
ker  Codex  coincides  in  its  general  text  with  the 
Roman  editio  prince ps,  and  that  both  follow  (the 
Latin  Vulgate,  so  that  Raymundi,  the  Roman 
editor,  must  not  be  accused  of  having  Latinized 
the  text.  The  greater  agreement  of  the  Polyglott 
text  with  the  Greek  he  ascribes  to  the  influence 
of  an  Aleppo  MS.,  which  the  Paris  editor  used. 
Juynboll  then  identifies  the  text  of  the  Franeker 
MS.  (and  of  the  Roman  edition)  with  the  version 
made  in  the  8th  century  by  John,  Bishop  of  Se 
ville.  The  question  to  be  considered  thus  becomes, 
Was  the  Latin  the  basis  of  the  version  of  the  Gos 
pels?  and  did  some  afterwards  revise  it  with  the 
Greek?  or,  was  it  taken  from  the  Greek?  and 
Wis  the  alteration  to  suit  the  Latin  a  later  work? 
If  the  former  supposition  be  correct,  then  the  ver 
sion  of  John  -of  Seville  may  have  been  the  first ;  if 
the  latter,  then  all  thnt  was  done  by  the  Spanish 
bishop  must  have  been  to  adapt  an  existing  Arabic 
version  to  the  Latin. 

Gildemeister,  in  his  communications  to  Tischen- 
dorf  (Gr.  Test.  1859.  Prolegg.  ccxxxix.),  endea 
vours  to  prove,  that  all  the  supposed  connexion  of 
this  (or  apparently  of  any)  version  with  John  of 
Seville  is  a  mistake.  The  words,  however,  of 
Mariana,  the  Spanish  historian,  are  express.  He 
says,  under  the  year  737,  "  His  aequalis  Joannes 
Hispalensis  Praesul  divinos  libros  lingua  Arabica 
donabat  utriusque  nationis  saluti  consulens;  quo- 
niam  Arabicae  linguae  multus  usus  erat  Christianis 
aeque  atque  Mauris ;  Latina  passim  ignorabatur. 
Ejus  interpretationis  exempla  ad  nostram  aetatem 
(«'.  e.  A.D.  \600)  conservata  sunt,  extantque  non 
uno  in  loco  in  Hispania."b  Gildemeister  says, 
indeed,  that  this  was  entirely  caused  from  a  mis 
understanding  of  what  had  been  stated  by  Roderic 
of  Toledo,  the  first  who  says  anything  on  the  sub 
ject.  He  adds  that  John  of  Seville  lived  really  in 
the  10th  century,  and  not  in  the  8th :  if  so,  he 
must  be  a  different  person  apparently  from  the 
Bishop,  of  the  same  name,  about  whom  Mariana 
could  hardly  have  been  misinformed.  It  does  not 
appear  as  if  Juynboll's  details  and  arguments  were 
likely  to  be  set  aside  through  the  brief  fragments  of 
Gildemeister's  letters  to  Tischendorf,  which  the 
latter  has  published. 

In  the  Erpenian  Arabic  the  latter  part  is  a  trans 
lation  from  the  Peshito-Syriac ;  the  Epistles  not 
found  m  that  version  and  the  Apocalypse  are  said 
to  be  from  the  Memphitic. 

The  latter  part  of  the  text  in  the  Polyglotts  is 
from  the  Greek.  Various  Arabic  translations  of 
portions  of  the  New  Test,  exist  in  MS. :  they  do  not 
require  any  especial  enumeration  here. 


de  las  Medallas  desconoddas,  Huesca,  1645,  p.  115,  "  El 
santo  Arcobispo  Don  Juan  traduxo  la  sagrada  escritura 
en  Arabigo,  par  cuya  intercessiva  hizo  Dios  muchos  mila- 
gros  i  los  Moros  le  llamavan  Caid  almateran."  Adler 
conjectures  this  designation  to  be 


1616 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT    ARMENIAN) 


Literature. — Malanimeus,  Preface  to  life  reissue, 
in  1774,  of  ihe  Roman  edition  of  the  Arabic  Gos 
pels  ;  Storr,  Dissertatio  inauguralis  critica  de 
Evangeliis  Arabicis,  Tubingen,  1775  ;  Juynboll, 
Letterkundige  Bijdragen  ( Tvcec.de  Stukje.  Beschrij- 
ving  van  een  Arabischen  Codex  der  Franeker  Bib- 
itotheek,  bevattende  de  vier  Evangelien,  gewlgd  van 
eenige  opmeringen,  welke  de  letterkundige  Geschie- 
denis  van  de  Arabische  Vertaling  der  Evangelien 
betrefferi),  Leyden,  1838;  Wiseman,  On  the  Mi 
racles  of  the  New  Testament.  [S.  P.  T.] 

ARMENIAN  VERSION.— Before  the  5th  cen 
tury  the  Armenians  are  said  to  have  used  the  Syriac 
alphabet ;  but  at  that  time  Miesrob  is  stated  to  have 
invented  the  Armenian  letters.  Soon  after  this  it 
is  said  that  translations  into  the  Armenian  language 
commenced,  at  first  from  the  Syriac.  Miesrob,  with 
his  companions,  Joseph  and  Eznak,  began  a  version 
of  the  Scriptures  with  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  and 
completed  all  the  Old  Test.  ;  and  in  the  New,  they 
used  the  Syriac  as  their  basis,  from  their  inability 
to  obtain  any  Greek  books.  But  when,  in  the  year 
431,  Joseph  and  Eznak  returned  from  the  council 
of  Ephesus,  bringing  with  them  a  Greek  copy  of 
the  Scriptures,  Isaac,  the  Armenian  Patriarch,  and 
Miesrob,  threw  aside  what  they  had  already  done, 
in  order  that  they  might  execute  a  version  from 
the  Greek.  But  now  arose  the  difficulty  of  their 
want  of  a  competent  acquaintance  with  that  language: 
to  remedy  this,  Eznak  and  Joseph  were  sent  with 
Moses  Choreneusis  (who  is  himself  the  narrator  of 
these  details)  to  study  that  language  at  Alexandria. 
There  they  made  what  Moses  calls  their  third 
translation;  the  first  being  that  f  om  the  Syriac, 
and  the  second  that  which  had  been  attempted 
without  sufficient  acquaintance  with  the  Greek 
tongue.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that  the  former 
attempts  were  used  as  far  as  they  could  be,  and 
that  the  whole  was  remodelled  so  as  to  suit  the 
Greek. 

The  first  printed  edition  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  in  Armenian  appeared  at  Amsterdam 
in  1666,  under  the  care  of  a  person  commonly 
termed  Oscan,  or  Uscan,  and  described  as  being  an 
Armenian  bishop  (Hug,  however,  denies  that  Uscan 
was  his  name,  and  Eichhorn  denies  that  he  was  a 
bishop).  From  this  editio  princeps  others  were 
printed,  in  which  no  attempt  was  made  to  do  more 
than  to  follow  its  text ;  although  it  was  more  than 
suspected  that  Uscan  had  by  no  means  faithfully 
adhered  to  MS.  authority.  Zohrab,  in  1789,  pub 
lished  at  Venice  an  improved  text  of  the  Armenian 
New  Test.;  and  in  1805  he  and  his  coadjutors 
completed  an  edition  of  the  entire  Armenian  Scrip 
tures,  for  which  not  only  MS.  authority  was  used 
throughout,  but  also  the  results  of  collations  of 
MSS.  were  subjoined  at  the  foot  of  the  pages.  The 
basis  was  a  MS.  written  in  the  14th  century,  in 
Cilicia ;  the  whole  number  employed  is  said  to  have 
been  eight  of  the  entire  Bible,  twenty  of  the  New 
Test.,  with  several  more  of  particular  portions, 
such  as  the  Psalms.  Tischeadorf  states  that  Aucher, 
of  the  monastery  of  St.  Lazarus  at  Venice,  informed 
him  that  he  and  some  of  his  fellow -monks  had 
undertaken  a  new  critical  edition  :  this  probably 
would  contain  a  repetition  of  the  various  collations 
of  Zohrab,  together  with  those  of  other  _MSS. 

The  critical  editors  of  the  New  Test,  appear  all 
of  them  to  have  been  unacquainted  with  the  Arme 
nian  language ;  the  want  of  a  Latin  translation  of 
*his  version  has  made  it  thus  impossible  for  them 


to  use  it  as  a  critical  authority,  except  by  the  aic 
of  others.  Some  readings  were  thus  communicated 
to  Mill  by  Louis  Piques  ;  Wetstein  received  still 
more  from  La  Croze ;  Griesbach  was  aided  by  a 
collation  of  the  New  Test,  of  1789,  made  by  Bre- 
denkamp  of  Hamburg.  Scholz  speaks  of  having 
been  furnished  with  a  collation  of  the  text  of  1805 
but  either  this  was  done  very  partially  and  incor 
rectly,  or  else  Scholz  made  but  little  use  (and  that 
without  real  accuracy)  of  the  collation.  These 
partial  collations,  however,  were  by  no  means  such 
as  to  supply  what  was  needed  for  the  real  critical 
use  of  the  version  ;  and  as  it  was  known  that  Uscan's 
text  was  thoroughly  untrustworthy  for  critical  pur 
poses,  an  exact  collation  of  the  Venice  text  of  1805 
became  a  desideratum  ;  Dr.  Charles  Rieu  of  the 
British  Museum  undertook  the  task  for  Tregelles, 
thus  supplying  him  with  a  valuable  portion  of  th> 
materials  for  his  critical  edition  of  the  Greek  Testa 
ment.  By  marking  the  words,  and  noting  the 
import  of  the  various  readings,  and  the  discre 
pancies  of  Uscan's  text,  Rieu  did  all  that  was 
practicable  to  make  the  whole  of  the  labour  of 
Zohrab  available  for  those  not  like  himself  Arme 
nian  scholars. 

It  had  been  long  noticed  that  in  the  Armenian 
New  Test,  as  printed  by  Uscan  1  John  v.  7  is 
found:  those  who  aie  only  moderately  acquainted 
with  criticism  \Vuuld  feel  assured  that  this  must  be 
an  addition,  and  that  it  could  not  be  part  of  the 
original  translation.  Did  Uscan  then  introduce  it 
from  the  Vulgate  ?  he  seems  to  have  admitted  that 
in  some  things  he  supplied  defects  in  his  MS.  by 
translations  from  the  Latin.  It  was,  however,  saic 
that  Haitho  king  of  Armenia  (1224-70),  had  in 
serted  this  verse:  that  he  revised  the  Armenian 
version  by  means  of  the  Latin  Vulgate,  and  that  he 
translated  the  prefaces  of  Jerome  (and  also  those 
which  are  spurious)  into  Armenian.  Hence  a  kind 
ofstispici&n  attached  itself  to  the  Armenian  version, 
and  its  use  was  accompanied  by  a  kind  of  doubt 
whether  or  not  it  was  a  critical  authority  which 
could  be  safely  used.  The  known  fact  that  Zohrab 
had  omitted  1  John  v.  7,  was  felt  to  be  so  far  satis 
factory  that  it  showed  that  he  had  not  found  it  in 
his  MSS.,  which  were  thus  seen  to  be  earlier  than 
the  introduction  of  this  corruption.  But  the  col 
lation  of  Dr.  Rieu,  and  his  statement  of  the  Arme 
nian  authorities,  set  forth  the  character  of  the  version 
distinctly  in  this  place  as  well  as  in  the  text  in 
general.  Dr.  Rieu  says  of  1  John  v.  7,  that  out  of 
eighteen  MSS.  used  by  Zohrab,  one  only,  and  that, 
written.  A.D.  1656,  has  the  passage  as  in  the  Ste 
phanie  Greek  text.  In  one  ancient  MS.  the  reading 
is  found  from  a  recent  correction.  Thus  there  is 
no  ground  for  supposing  that  it  was  inserted  by 
Haitho.  or  by  any  one  till  the  time  when  Uscan 
lived.  The  wording,  howevei,  of  Uscan  in  this 
place,  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  MS.  of  1656  : 
so  that  each  seems  to  have  been  independently  bor 
rowed  from  the  Latin.  That  Uscan  did  this,  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt ;  for  in  the  immediate 
context  Uscan  accords  with  the  Latin  in  opposition 
to  all  collated  Armenian  MSS. :  thus  in  ver.  6,  he 
follows  the  Latin  "  Christus  est  veritas ;"  in  ver. 
20  he  has,  instead  of  eV/*e»<,  the  subjunctive  an 
swering  to  simus:  even  in  this  minute  point  the 
Armenian  MSS.  definitely  vary  from  Uscan.  In 
iii.  11,  for  ayairw^v,  Uscan  stands  alone  in  agree 
ing  with  the  Vulgate  diligatis.  These  are  proofs  of 
the  employment  of  the  Vulgate  either  by  Uscan,  or 
by  some  one  else  who  prepared  the  MS.  from  which 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (EGYPTIAN) 


be  printed.  There  are  many  other  passages  in 
which  alterations  or  considerable  additions  (see  for 
instance  Matt.  xvi.  2,  3,  xxiii.  14;  John  viii.  1-11  ; 
Acts  xv.  34,  xxiii.  24,  xxviii.  25),  are  proofs  that 
Uscan  agrees  with  the  Vulgate  against  all  known 
MSS.  (These  variations  in  the  two  texts  of  Uscan 
and  Zohrab,  as  well  as  the  material  readings  of 
Armenian  MSS.  are  inserted  in  Tregelles's  Greek 
Test,  on  Dr.  Rieu's  authority.) 

But  systematic  revision  with  the  Vulgate  is  not 
to  be  found  even  in  Uscan's  text  :  they  differ  greatly 
in  characteristic  readings  ;  though  here  and  there 
throughout  there  is  some  mark  of  an  influence 
drawn  from  the  Vulgate.  And  as  to  accordances 
with  the  Latin,  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that 
there  is  any  proof  of  alterations  having  been  made 
in  the  days  of  King  Haitho. 

Some  have  spoken  of  this  version  as  though  it 
had  been  made  from  the  Peshito  Syriac,  and  not 
from  the  Greek  ;  the  only  grounds  for  such  a  notion 
can  be  the  facts  connected  with  part  of  the  history 
of  its  execution.  There  are,  no  doubt,  a  few  read 
ings  which  show  that  the  translators  had  made 
some  use  of  the  Syriac4  ;  but  these  are  only  excep 
tions  to  the  general  texture  of  the  version  :  an  addi 
tion  from  John  xx.  21,  brought  into  Matt,  xxviii. 
18,  in  both  the  Armenian  and  the  Peshito  is  pro 
bably  the  most  marked. 

The  collations  of  MSS.  show  that  some  amongst 
them  differ  greatly  from  the  rest  :  it  seems  as  if  the 
variations  did  not  in  such  cases  originate  in  Arme 
nian,  but  they  must  have  sprung  from  some  recast 
ing  of  the  text  and  its  revision  by  Greek  copies. 
There  may  perhaps  be  proof's  of  the  difference 
between  the  MS.  brought  from  Ephesus,  and  the 
copies  afterwards  used  at  Alexandria  ;  but  thus 
much  at  least  is  a  certain  conclusion,  that  compa 
rison  with  Greek  copies  of  different  kinds  must  at 
some  period  have  taken  place.  The  omission  of 
the  last  twelve  verses  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel  in 
the  older  Armenian  copies,  and  their  insertion  in 
the  later,  may  be  taken  as  a  proof  of  some  effective 
revision. 

The  Armenian  version  in  its  general  texture  is  a 
valuable  aid  to  the  criticism  of  the  text  of  the  New 
Test.  :  it  was  a  worthy  service  to  rehabilitate  it  as 
a  critical  witness  as  to  the  general  reading  of  certain 
Greek  copies  existing  in  the  former  half  of  the  5th 
century. 

Literature.  —  Moses  Chorenensis,  Historiae  Ar- 
menenicae  Libri  iii.  ed.  Guliel.  et  Georg.  Whis- 
ton,  1736  ;  Rieu  (Dr.  Charles),  MS.  collation  of 
the  Armenian  text  of  Zohrab,  and  translation  of  the 
various  readings  made  for  Tregelles.  [S.  P.  T.] 

CHALDEE  VERSIONS.  [TARGUMS,  p.  1637.] 

EGYPTIAN  VERSIONS.—  I.  THE  MEMPHITIC 
VERSION.  —  The  version  thus  designated  was  for  a 
considerable  time  the  only  Egyptian  translation 
known  to  scholars  ;  Coptic  was  then  regarded  as  a 
sufficiently  accurate  and  definite  appellation.  But 
when  the  fact  was  established  that  there  were  at 
least  two  Egyptian  versions,  the  name  Coptic  was 
found  to  be  indefinite,  and  even  unsuitable  for  the 
translation  then  so  termed  :  for  in  the  dialect  of 
Upper  Egypt  there  was  another  ;  and  it  is  from  the 
ancient,  Coptos  in  Upper  Egypt  that  the  term  Coptic 
is  taken.  Thus  Copto-Memphitic,  or  more  simply 
Memphitic,  is  the  better  name  for  the  version  in  the 
dialect  of  Lower  Egypt. 

When   Egyptian  translations  were  made  we  do 


not  know:  we  find,  however,  that  in  the  middle  of 
VOL.  III. 


1617 

the  4th  cent u  17  the  Egyptian  language  was  in  great 
use  amongst  the  Christian  inhabitants  of  that 
country  ;  for  the  rule  of  Pachomius  for  the  monks  is 
stated  to  have  been  drawn  up  in  Egyptian,  and  to 
have  been  afterwards  translated  into  Greek.  It  was 
prescribed  that  every  one  of  the  monks  (estimated 
at  seven  thousand)  for  whom  this  rule  in  Egyptian 
was  drawn  up,  was  to  learn  to  read  (whether  so 
disposed  or  not),  so  as  to  le  able  at  least  to  read 
the  New  Test,  and  the  Psalms.  The  whole  narra 
tion  presupposes  that  there  was  in  Upper  Egypt  a 
translation. 

So,  too,  also  in  Lower  Egypt  in  the  same  century. 
For  Palladium  found  at  Nitria  the  Abbot  John  of 
Lycopolis,  who  was  well  acquainted  with  the  New 
Test.,  but  who  was  ignorant  of  Greek ;  so  that  he 
could  only  converse  with  him  through  an  inter 
preter,  there  seems  to  be  proof  of  the  ecclesiastical 
use  of  the  Egyptian  language  even  before  this  time. 
Those  who  know  what  the  early  ChristiaH  worship 
was,  will  feel  how  cogent  is  the  proof  that  the  Scrip 
tures  had  then  been  translated. 

When  the  attention  of  European  scholars  was  di 
rected  to  the  language  and  races  of  modern  Egypt, 
it  was  found  that  while  the  native  Christians'  use 
only  Arabic  vernacularly,  yet  in  their  services  and 
in  the  public  reading  of  the  Scriptures  they  employ 
a  dialect  of  the  Coptic.  This  is  the  version  now 
termed  Memphitic.  When  MSS.  had  been  brought 
from  Egypt,  Thomas  Marshall,  an  Englishman,  pre 
pared  in  the  latter  part  of  the  16th  century  an  edi 
tion  of  the  Gospels  ;  the  publication  of  which  was 
prevented  by  his  death.  From  some  of  the  readings 
having  been  noted  by  him  Mill  was  able  to  use  them 
for  insertion  in  his  Greek  Test. ;  they  often  differ 
(sometimes  for  the  better)  from  the  text  published 
by  Wilkins.  Wilkins  was  a  Prussian  by  birth ; 
in  1716  he  published  at  Oxford  the  first  Memphitic 
New  Test.,  founded  on  MSS.  in  the  Bodleian,  and 
compared  with  some  at  Rome  and  Paris.  That 
he  did  not  execute  the  work  in  a  very  satisfac 
tory  manner  would  probably  now  be  owned  by  every 
one ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  no  one  else  did 
it  at  all.  Wilkins  gave  no  proper  account  of  the 
MSS.  which  he  used,  nor  of  the  variations  which 
he  found  in  them:  his  text  seems  to  be  in  many 
places  a  confused  combination  of  what  he  took  from 
various  MSS.  ;  so  that  the  sentences  do  not  properly 
connect  themselves,  even  (it  is  said)  in  grammatical 
construction.  And  yet  for  130  years  this  was  the 
only  Memphitic  edition. 

In  1846-8,  Schwartze  published  at  Berlin  an 
edition  of  the  Memphitic  Gospels,  in  which  he  em 
ployed  MSS.  in  the  Royal  Library  there.  These 
were  almost  entirely  modem  transcripts  ;  but  with 
these  limited  materials  he  produced  a  far  more  satis 
factory  work  than  that  of  Wilkins.  At  the  foot  of 
the  page  he  gave  the  variations  which  he  found  in 
his  copies ;  and  subjoined  there  was  a  collation  of 
the  Memphitic  and  Thebaic  versions  with  Lach 
mann's  Greek  Test.  (1842),  and  the  firrt  of  Tisch- 
endorf  (1841).  There  are  also  such  references  to 
the  Latin  version  of  Wilkins,  that  it  almost  aeeins 
as  if  he  supposed  that  all  who  used  his  edition 
would  also  have  that  of  Wilkins  before  them. 

The  death  of  Schwartze  prevented  the  continua 
tion  of  his  labours.  Since  then  Boetticher's  editions, 
first  of  the  Acts  and  thf  n  of  the  Epistles,  have  ap 
peared  ;  these  are  not  in  a  form  which  is  available 
for  the  use  of  those  who  are  themselves  unacquainted 
with  Egyptian:  the  editor  gives  as  his  reason  for 
issuing  a  bare  text,  that  he  intended  soon  to  publish 

5  L 


1018 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (EGYPTIAN) 


a  work  of  his  own  in  which  he  would  fully  employ 
the  authority  of  the  ancient  versions.  Several  years 
have  since  passed,  and  Boetticher  does  not  seem  to 
give  any  further  prospect  of  the  issue  of  such  volume 
on  the  ancient  versions. 

In  1848-52,  a  magnificent  edition  of  the  Meni- 
phifcic  New  Test,  was  published  by  the  Society  for 
'Promoting  Christian  Knowledge,  under  the  editorial 
care  of  the  Rev.  R.  T.  Lieder  of  Cairo.  In  its  pre 
paration  he  followed  MSS.  without  depending  on 
the  text  of  Wilkins.  There  is  no  statement  of  the 
variations  of  the  authorities,  which  would  have 
hardly  been  a  suitable  accompaniment  of  an  edition 
intended  solely  for  the  use  of  the  Coptic  churches, 
and  in  which,  while  the  Egyptian  text  which  is 
read  aloud  is  printed  in  large  characters,  there  is  at 
the  side  a  small  column  in  Arabic  in  order  that  the 
readers  may  themselves  be  able  to  understand  some 
thing  of  what  they  read  aloud. 

It  is  thus  impossible  to  give  a  history  of  this 
version :  we  find  proof  that  such  a  translation  ex- 
vsted  iu  early  times,  we  find  this  now  (and  from 
time  immemorial)  in  church  use  in  Egypt ;  when 
speaking  of  its  internal  character  and  its  value  as 
to  textual  criticism  (after  the  other  Egyptian  ver 
sions  have  been  described),  it  will  be  found  that 
there  are  many  considerations  which  go  far  to  prove 
the  identity  of  what  we  now  have,  with  that  which 
must  have  existed  at  an  early  period. 

The  Old  Testament  of  this  version  was  made  from 
the  LXX.  Of  this,  Wilkins  edited  the  Pentateuch 
in  1731 ;  the  Psalter  was  published  at  Rome  in 
1744.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Tattam  edited  the  Minor  Pro 
phets  in  1836,  Job  in  1846,  and  the  Major  Prophets 
in  1852.  Bardelli  published  Daniel  in  1849. 

II.  THE  THEBAIC  VERSION. — The  examination 
of  Egyptian  MSS.  in  the  last  century  showed  that 
besides  the  Memphitic  there  is  also  another  version 
in  a  cognate  Egyptian  dialect.  To  this  the  name 
Sahidic  was  applied  by  some,  from  an  Arabic  de- 
signation  for  Upper  Egypt  and  its  ancient  language. 
It  is,  however,  far  better  to  assign  to  this  version  a 
name  not  derived  from  the  language  of  the  Arabian 
occupants  of  that  land:  thus  Copto-Thebaic  (as 
styled  by  Giorgi),  or  simply  Thebaic,  is  far  prefer 
able.  The  first  who  attended  much  to  the  subject 
of  this  version  was  Woide,  who  collected  readings 
from  MSS.  which  he  communicated  to  Cramer  in 
1779.  In  1785  Mingarelli  published  a  few  por 
tions  of  this  version  of  the  New  Test,  from  the 
Kanian  MSS.  In  1789  Giorgi  edited  very  valu 
able  Greek  and  Thebaic  fragments  f  St.  John's 
Gospel,  which  appear  to  belong  to  the  fifth  century. 
Miinter,  in  1787,  had  published  a  fragment  of 
Daniel  in  this  version  ;  and  in  1789  he  brought  out 
portions  of  the.  Epistles  to  Timothy,  together  with 
readings  which  he  had  collected  from  MSS.  in  other 
parts  of  the  New  Test.  In  the  following  year 
Mingarelli  printed  Mark  xi.  29-xv.  22,  from  MSS. 
which  had  recently  been  obtained  by  Nani;  but 
owing  to  the  editor's  death  the  unfinished  sheets 
were  never,  properly  speaking,  published.  A  few 
copies  only  seem  to  have  been  circulated :  they  are 
the  more  valuable  from  the  fact  of  the  MSS.  having 
been  destroyed  by  the  persons  into  whose  hands  they 
fell,  and  from  their  containing  a  portion  of  the  New 
Test. not  found,  it  appears,  in  any  known  MS.  Woide 
was  now  busily  engaged  in  the  collection  of  portions 
of  the  Thebaic  Scriptures:  he  had  even  issued  a 
Prospectus  of  such  an  edition  in  1778.  Woide's 
death  took  place  before  his  edition  was  completed. 
In  J799,  however,  it  appeared  under  the  editorial 


care  of  Ford.  In  this  work  all  the  portions  found 
by  Woide  himself  were  given,  as  well  as  those  pub 
lished  by  Mingarelli  in  his  lifetime  ;  but  not  only 
were  Mingarelli' s  posthumous  sheets  passed  by,  but 
also  all  that  had  been  published  by  Miinter  and 
Giorgi,  as  well  as  the  transcripts  of  Miinter  from 
the  Borgian  MSS.,  which  Ford  might  have  used  for 
his  edition.  This  collection  of  fragments  contains 
the  greater  part  of  the  Thebaic  New  Test.  They 
might,  however,  be  greatly  amplified  out  of  what 
are  mentioned  by  Zoega,  as  found  in  the  Borgian 
MSS.  (now  in  the  Propaganda),  in  his  catalogue 
published  in  1810  after  his  death.  It  could  hardly 
have  been  thought  that  this  definite  account  of  ex 
isting  Thebaic  fragments  would  have  remained  for 
more  than  half  a  century  without  some  Egyptian 
scholar  having  rescued  the  inedited  portions  of  this 
version  from  their  obscurity ;  and  surely  this  would 
not  have  been  the  case  if  Biblical  critics  had  been 
found  who  possess  Egyptian  learning. 

In  the  Memphitic  Gospels  of  Schwartze  there  ii 
not  only,  as  has  been  already  mentioned,  a  collation 
subjoined  of  the  Thebaic  text,  but  also  the  criticisms 
of  that  learned  editor  on  both  Ford  and  Woide, 
neither  of  whom,  in  his  judgment,  possessed  suffi 
cient  editorial  competency.  In  this  opinion  he  was 
perhaps  correct;  but  still  let  it  be  observed,  that  if 
it  had  not  been  for  the  labours  of  Woide  (of  which 
Ford  was  simply  the  coutinuer),  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  but  that  the  Thebaic  New  Test,  would 
remain  unprinted  still.  Had  this  been  the  case  the 
loss  to  textual  criticism  would  have  been  great. 

III.  A  THIRD  EGYPTIAN  VERSION. — Some 
Egyptian  fragments  were  noticed  by  both  Miinter 
and  Giorgi  amongst  the  Borgian  MSS.,  which  in 
dialect  differ  both  from  the  Memphitic  and  Thebaic. 
These  fragments,  of  a  third  Egyptian  translation, 
were  edited  by  both  these  scholars  independently  in 
the  same  year  (1789).  In  what  part  of  Egypt  this 
third  dialect  was  used,  and  what  should  be  its 
distinctive  name,  has  been  a  good  deal  discussed. 
Arabian  writers  mention  a  third  Egyptian  dialect 
under  the  name  of  Sashmuric,  and  this  has  by  some 
been  assumed  as  the  appellation  for  this  version. 
Giorgi  supposed  that  this  was  the  dialect  of  the 
Ammonian  Oasis  ;  in  this  Miinter  agreed  with  him  ; 
and  thus  they  called  the  version  the  Ammonian. 
There  is  in  fact  no  certainty  on  the  subject :  but  as 
the  affinities  of  tr»  dialort  are  r?o«?]y  allied  to  the 
Thebaic,  .and  as  it  n«»  ueen  shown  that  Bashmur  is 
the  district  of  Lower  Egypt  to  the  east  of  the  Delta, 
it  seems  by  no  means  likely  that  it  can  belong  to  a 
region  so  far  from  the  Thebaid.  Indeed  it  has  been 
reasonably  doubted  whether  the  slight  differences 
(mostly  those  of  orthography)  entitle  this  to  be 
considered  to  be  a  really  different  dialect  from  the 
Thebaic  itself. 

After  the  first  portions  of  this  version,  others 
were  transcribed  independently  by  Zoega  and  Engel- 
breth,  and  their  transcripts  appeared  respectively 
in  1810  and  1811.  The  latter  of  these  scholars 
accompanied  his  edition  with  critical  remarks,  ana 
the  text  of  the  other  Egyptian  versions  on  the  same 
page  for  purposes  of  comparison. 

The  Character  and  critical  use  of  the  Egyptian 
Versions. — It  appears  that  the  Thebaic  version  may 
reasonably  claim  a  higher  antiquity  than  the  Mem 
phitic.  The  two  translations  are  independent  of 
each  _ther,  and  both  spring  from  Greek  copies.  The 
Thebaic  has  been  considered  to  be  the  older  of  the 
two,  partly  from  it  having  been  thought  that  a 
book  in  the  Thebaic  dialect  quotes  this  version,  and 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (GOTHIC) 


1615 


from  what  was  judged  to  be  the  antiquity  of  the 
book  so  referred  to.  There  are  other  grounds  less 
precarious.  If  the  Memphitic  version  exhibits  s 
general  agreement  with  the  text  current  at  Alex 
andria  in  the  third  century,  it  is  not  unreasonable 
to  suppose  that  it  either  belongs  to  that  age,  or  at 
least  to  one  not  very  remote.  Now  while  this  is 
the  case  it  is  also  to  be  noticed  that  the  Thebaic 
seems  to  have  been  framed  from  a  text  in  which 
there  was  a  much  greater  admixture,  and  that  not 
vising  from  the  later  revisions  which  moulded  it 
into  the  transition  text  of  the  fourth  century  (com 
mencing  probably  at  Antioch),  but  exactly  in  the 
opposite  direction :  so  that  the  contents  of  the  two 
versions  would  seem  to  show  that  the  antiquity  of 
the  Thebaic  is  most  to  be  regarded,  but  that  the 
Memphitic  is  often  preferable  as  to  the  goodness  of 
its  readings,  as  well  as  in  respect  to  dialect. 

It  is  probable  that  the  more  Hellenized  region  of 
Lower  Egypt  would  not  require  a  vernacular  ver 
sion  at  so  early  a  period  as  would  the  more 
thoroughly  Egyptian  region  of  the  Thebaid.  There 
are  some  marks  of  want  of  polish  in  the  Thebaic ; 
the  Greek  words  which  are  introduced  are  changed 
into  a  barbarous  form  ;  the  habitual  introduction  of 
an  aspirate  shows  either  an  ignorance  of  the  true 
Greek  sounds,  or  else  it  seems  like  a  want  of  polish 
in  the  dialect  itself.  That  such  a  mode  of  express 
ing  Greek  words  in  Egyptian  is  not  needed,  we  can 
see  from  its  non-existence  in  the  Memphitic. 

The  probable  conclusions  seem  to  be  these  :• — that 
the  Thebaic  version  was  made  in  the  early  part  of 
the  third  century,  for  the  use  of  the  common  people 
among  the  Christians  in  Upper  Egypt ;  that  it  was 
formed  from  MSS.  such  as  were  then  current  in 
the  regions  of  Egypt  which  were  distant  from  Alex 
andria  ;  that  afterwards  the  Memphitic  version  was 
executed  in  what  was  the  more  polished  dialect, 
from  the  Greek  copies  of  Alexandria ;  and  that  thus 
in  process  of  time  the  Memphitic  remained  alone  in 
ecclesiastical  use.  Possibly  the  disuse  of  the  Thebaic 
in  the  Egyptian  churches  did  not  take  place  until 
Arabic  was  fast  becoming  the  vernacular  tongue  of 
that  land.  It  will  be  well  for  those  whose  studies 
enable  them  personally  to  enter  on  the  domain  of 
Egyptian  literature,  to  communicate  to  Biblical 
scholars  the  results  of  new  researches. 

The  value  of  these  versions  in  textual  criticism, 
even  though  they  are  known  only  through  defective 
channels,  is  very  high.  In  some  respect  they  afford 
the  same  kind  of  evidence  relative  to  the  text  cur 
rent  in  Egypt  in  the  early  centuries,  as  do  the  Old 
Latin  and  the  version  of  Jerome  for  that  in  use  in 
the  West.  [VULGATE.] 

A  tew  remarks  only  need  be  made  respecting  the 
third  Egyptian  version.  The  fragments  of  this  fol 
low  the  Thebaic  so  closely  as  to  have  no  independent 
character.  This  version  does  however  possess  critical 
value,  as  furnishing  evidence  in  a  small  portion  not 
known  in  the  Thebaic.  The  existence  of  the  third 
version  is  a  farther  argument  as  to  the  early  ex 
istence  and  use  of  the  Thebaic,  for  this  seems  to  be 
ibrmed  from  it  by  moulding  it  into  the  colloquial 
dialect  of  some  locality. 

Literature. — Schwartze,  Quatuor  Evanqelia  in 
Dialecto  Linguae  Copticae  Memphitica,  1846-7  ; 
Woide,  Novi  Testamenti  Fragmenta  Sahidica 
(i.e.  Thebaica),  [Appendix  ad  Cod.  Alex.],  1799; 
Mingarelli,  Aegyptiorum  Codicum  Reliquiae,  1785, 
&c.  ;  Miinter,  Commentatio  de  indole  Versionis 
N.  T.  Sahidicac,  1789 ;  Giorgi,  Fragmentum  Ev. 
&  Joan.  Graeco-Copto- Thebaicum,  1789;  Zoega, 


Catalogus  Codicum  Copticorwn  Mawuscriptonvm 
qui  in  Museo  Borgiano  Velitris  adservantur,  1810  ; 
Engelbreth,  Fragmenta  Basmurico-Coptica  Veterit 
et  Novi  Testamenti,  1811.  [S.  P.  T.] 

GOTHIC  VERSION.— In  the  year  o!8  the 
Gothic  bishop  and  translator  of  Scripture,  Ulphilax, 
was  born.  He  succeeded  Theophilus  as  bishop  of 
the  Goths  in  348,  when  he  subscribed  a  confession 
rejecting  the  orthodox  creed  of  Nicaea ;  through 
him  it  is  said  that  the  Goths  in  general  adopted 
A  nanism;  it  may  be,  however,  more  correct  to 
consider  that  Arianism  (or  Semi-Arianism)  had  al 
ready  spread  amongst  the  Goths  inhabiting  within 
the  Roman  Empire,  as  well  as  amongst  the  Greeks 
and  Latins.  Theophilus,  the  predecessor  of  Ulphilas, 
had  been  present  at  the  council  of  Nicaea,  and  had 
subscribed  the  Homo-ousion  confession.  The  great 
work  of  Ulphilas  was  his  version  of  the  Scriptures, 
a  translation  in  which  few  traces,  if  any  (except  in 
Phil.  ii.  6),  can  be  found  of  his  peculiar  and  erro 
neous  dogmas.  In  388  Ulphilas  visited  Constan 
tinople  to  defend  his  heterodox  creed,  and  while 
there  he  died. 

In  the  5th  century  the  Eastern  Goths  occupied 
and  governed  Italy,  while  the  Western  Goths  took 
possession  of  Spain,  where  they  ruled  till  the  be 
ginning  of  the  8th  century  Amongst  the  Goths 
in  both  these  countries  can  the  use  of  this  version 
be  traced.  It  must  in  fact  have  at  one  time  been 
the  vernacular  translation  of  a  large  portion  of 
Europe. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  16th  century  the  ex 
istence  of  a  MS.  of  this  version  was  known,  through 
Morillon  having  mentioned  that  he  had  observed 
one  in  the  library  of  the  monastery  of  Werden  on 
the  Ruhr  in  Westphalia.  He  transcribed  the  Lord's 
Prayer  and  some  other  parts,  which  were  after 
wards  published,  as  were  other  verses  copied  sooi 
after  by  Arnold  Mercator. 

In  1648,  almost  at  the  conclusion  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  the  Swedes  took  that  part  of  Prague 
on  the  left  of  the  Moldau  (Kleine  Seite),  and 
amongst  the  spoils  was  sent  to  Stockholm  a  copy  of 
the  Gothic  Gospels,  known  as  the  Codex  Argenteus. 
This  MS.  is  generally  supposed  to  be  the  same  that 
Morillon  had  seen  at  Werden  ;  but  whether  the 
same  or  not,  it  had  been  long  at  Prague  when  found 
there  by  the  Swedes,  for  Strenius,  who  died  in  1601, 
mentions  it  as  being  there.  The  Codex  Argenteus 
was  taken  by  the  Swedes  to  Stockholm  ;  but  on  the 
abdication  of  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden,  a  few 
years  later,  it  disappeared.  In  1655  it  was  in  the 
possession  of  Isaac  Vossins  in  Holland,  who  had 
been  the  queen's  librarian ;  to  him  therefore  it  is 
probable  that  it  had  been  given,  and  not  to  the 
queen  herself,  by  the  general  who  brought  it  from 
Prague.  In  1662  it  was  repurchased  for  Sweden 
by  Count  Magnus  Gabriel  de  la  Gardie,  who  caused 
it  to  be  splendidly  bound,  and  placed  it  in  the 
library  of  the  University  of  Upsal,  where  it  now 
remains. 

While  the  book  was  in  the  hands  of  Vossius  a 
transcript  was  made  of  its  text,  from  which  Junius, 
his  uncle,  edited  the  first  edition  of  the  Gothic 
Gospels  at  Dort  in  1665:  the  Anglo-Saxon  Gospels, 
edited  by  Marshall,  accompanied  the  Gothic  text. 
The  labours  of  other  editors  succeeded :  Stiern- 
hielm,  1671;  Benzel  and  Lye,  1750;  and  others 
comparatively  recent.  The  MS.  is  written  on  vellum 
that  was  once  purple,  in  silver  letters,  except  those 
at  the  beginning  of  sections,  which  are  golden  Ttai 

5  L  2 


1620 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (GREEK) 


Gospels  have  many  lacunae:  it  is  calculated  that 
when  entire  it  consisted  of  320  folios;  there  are 
now  but  188.  The  uniformity  of  the  writing  is 
wonderful:  so  that  it  has  been  thought  whether 
each  letter  was  not  formed  by  a  hot  iron  impressing 
the  gold  or  silver,  used  just  as  bookbinders  put  on 
the  lettering  to  the  back  of  a  book.  It  is  pretty 
certain  that  this  beautiful  and  elaborate  MS.  must 
have  been  written  in  the  6th  century,  probabl-y  in 
Upper  Italy  when  under  the  Gothic  sovereignty. 
Some  in  the  last  century  supposed  that  the  language 
of  this  document  is  not  Gothic,  but  Prankish — an 
opinion  which  was  set  at  rest  by  the  discovery  in 
Italy  of  Ostro-Gothic  writings,  about  which  there 
could  be  no  question  raised.  Some  Visi-Gothic 
monuments  in  Spain  were  evidence  on  the  same 
side. 

Knittel,  in  1762,  edited  from  a  Wolfenbiittel  pa- 
'impsest  some  portions  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
in  Gothic,  in  which  the  Latin  stood  by  the  side  of 
the  version  of  Ulphilas.  This  discovery  first  made 
known  the  existence  of  any  pail  of  a  version  of  the 
Epistles.  The  portions  brought  to  light  were  soon 
afterwards  used  by  Ihre  in  the  collection  of  re 
marks  on  Ulphilas  edited  in  1773  by  Buscaing. 

But  as  it  was  certain  that  in  obscure  places  the 
Codex  Argenteus  had  been  not  very  correctly  read, 
Ihre  laboured  to  copy  it  with  exactitude,  and  to 
form  a  Latin  version :  what  he  had  thus  prepared 
was  edited  by  Zahn  in  1805. 

New  light  dawned  on  Ulphilas  and  his  version  in 
1817.  While  the  late  Cardinal  Mai  was  engaged 
in  the  examination  of  palimpsests  in  the  Ambrosian 
Library  at  Milan,  of  which  he  was  at  that  time  a 
librarian,  he  noticed  traces  of  some  Gothic  writing 
under  that  of  one  of  the  codices.  This  was  found 
to  be  part  of  the  Books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  In 
making  further  examination,  four  other  palimpsests 
were  found  which  contained  portions  of  the  Gothic 
Version.  Mai  deciphered  these  MSS.  in  conjunction 
with  Count  Carlo  Ottavio  Castiglione,  and  their 
labours  resulted  in  the  recovery,  besides  a  few  por 
tions  of  the  Old  Test.,  «f  almost  the  whole  of  the 
thirteen  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  and  some  parts  of  the 
Gospels. 

The  edition  of  Gabelentz  and  Loebe  (1836-45) 
contains  all  that  has  been  discovered  of  the  Gothic 
Version,  with  a  Latin  translation,  notes,  and  a 
Gothic  Dictionary  and  Grammar.  These  editors 
were  at  the  pains  to  re-examine,  at  Upsal  and  Milan, 
the  MSS.  themselves.  They  have  thus,  it  appears, 
succeeded  in  avoiding  the  repetition  of  errors  made 
by  their  predecessors.  The  Milan  palimpsests  were 
chemically  restored  when  the  mode  of  doing  this 
was  not  as  well  known  as  it  is  at  present ;  the 
whole  texture  of  the  vellum  seems  stained  and 
spoiled,  and  thus  it  is  not  an  easy  task  to  read  the 
ancient  writing  correctly.  Those  who  have  them 
selves  looked  at  the  Wolfenbiittel  palimpsest  from 
which  Knittel  edited  the  portions  of  Romans,  and 
who  have  also  examined  the  Gothic  palimpsests  at 
Milan,  will  probably  agree  that  it  is  less  difficult  to 
read  the  unrestored  MS.  at  Wolfenbiittel  than  the 
restored  MSS.  at  Milan.c  This  must  be  borne  in 
mind  if  we  would  appreciate  the  labours  of  Gabe 
lentz  and  Loebe. 

In  1854  Uppstrom  published  an  excellent  edition 
of  the  text  of  the  Codex  Argenteus,  with  a  beautiful 
facsimile.  Ten  leaves  of  the  MS.  were  then  rniss- 

0  Such  is  the  writer's  judgment  from  his  own  exami 
nation  of  the  palimpsest  at  Wolfenbiittel,  and  of  those  /it 


ing,  and  Uppstrom  tells  a  rather  ungratifying  storj 
that  they  had  been  stolen  bf  some  English  tra 
veller.  It  is  a  satisfaction,  however,  that  a  few 
years  afterwards  the  real  thief  on  his  death-bed 
restored  the  missing  leaves ;  and,  though  stolen,  it 
was  not  by  anyone  out  of  Sweden.  Uppstrom  edited 
them  as  a  supplement  in  1857. 

In  1855-6  Massmann  issued  an  excellent  small 
edition  of  all  the  Gothic  portions  of  the  Scriptures 
known  to  be  extant.  He  accompanies  the  Gothic 
text  with  the  Greek  and  the  Latin,  and  there  are  a 
Grammar  and  Vocabulary  subjoined.  This  edition 
is  said  to  be  more  correct  than  that  of  Gabelentz  and 
Loebe.  Another  edition  of  Ulphilas  by  F.  L.  Stamm 
appeared  at  Paderborn  in  1858. 

As  an  ancient  monument  of  the  Gothic  language 
the  version  of  Ulphilas  possesses  great  interest ;  as 
a  version  the  use  of  which  was  once  extended 
widely  through  Europe,  it  is  a  monument  of  the 
Christianization  of  the  Goths ;  and  as  a  version 
known  to  have  been  made  in  the  4th  century,  and 
transmitted  to  us  in  ancient  MSS.,  it  has  its  value 
in  textual  criticism,  being  thus  a  witness  to  readings 
which  were  current  in  that  age.  In  certain  passages 
it  has  been  thought  that  there  is  some  proof  of  the 
influence  of  the  Latin ;  and  this  has  been  regarded 
as  confirmed  by  the  order  of  the  Gospels  in  the 
Codex  Argenteus,  being  that  of  some  of  the  Old  Latin 
MSS.,  Matthew,  John,  Luke,  Mark.  But  if  the  pecu 
liarities  pointed  out  were  borrowed  in  the  Gothic 
from  the  Latin,  they  must  be  considered  rather  as  ex 
ceptional  points,  and  not  such  as  affect  the  general 
texture  of  the  version,-  for  its  Greek  origin  is  not 
to  be  mistaken.  This  is  certain  from  the  manner 
in  which  the  Greek  constructions  and  the  forms  of 
compound  words  are  imitated.  The  very  mistakes 
of  rendering  are  proofs  of  Greek  and  not  Latin 
origin.  The  marks  of  conformity  to  the  Latin  may 
have  been  introduced  into  the  version  in  the  case 
of  MSS.  copied  in  Italy  during  the  rule  in  that 
land  of  the  Gothic  sovereigns.  The  Wolfenbiittel 
palimpsest  has  Latin  by  the  side  of  the  Gothic. 

The  Greek  from  which  the  version  was  made 
must  in  many  respects  have  been  what  has  been 
termed  the  transition  text  of  the  4th  century; 
another  witness  to  which  is  the  revised  form 
of  the  Old  Latin,  such  as  is  found  in  the  Codex 
Brixianus  (this  revision  being  in  fact  the  Italci). 
[VULGATE.] 

In  all  eases  in  which  the  readings  of  the  Gothic 
confirm  those  of  the  most  ancient  authorities,  the 
united  testimony  must  be  allowed  to  possess  especial 
weight. 

Literature. — Waitz,   Ueber  das  Lcben  und  d\e 
Lehre  des    Ulphila,   1840;  Gabelentz  and  Loebe, 
Ulphilas  (Prolegomena],  1836-43;  Uppstrom, Codei 
Argenteus,  1854  (Decem  Codicis  Argentei  rediviv 
folia,  1857) ;  Massmann,  Utjilas,  1857.      [S.  P.  TV 

GREEK  VERSIONS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTA 
MENT. 

1.  SEPTUAGINT. — In  addition    to    the 
article  on  this  version  [SKPTUAGINT]  a  few  point 
may  be  noted  here. 

(I.)  Name. — In  all  discussions  relative  to 
name  of  Septuagint,  so  universally  appropriated  t 
the  Greek  version  of  Alexandria,  the  scholion  dis 
covered  by  Osann  and  published  by  l!itschl  ought 
to  be  considered.  The  origin  of  this  Latin  scholion 


Milan ;  but  of  course  he  never  saw  the  latter  prior  to 
their  restoration. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (GKKEK) 


16'2l 


is  curious.  The  substance  of  it  is  stated  to  have 
been  extracted  from  Callimachus  and  Eratosthenes, 
the  Alexandrian  Librarians,  by  Tzetzes,  and  from 
his  Greek  note  an  Italian  of  the  loth  century  has 
formed  the  Latin  scholion  in  question.  The  writer 
has  been  speaking  of  the  collecting  of  ancient  Greek 
poems  carried  on  at  Alexandria  under  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus,  and  then  he  thus  continues:  "Nam 
rex  ille  philosophis  affertissimus  (corr.  '  differtissi- 
mus,'  Kitschl,  '  affectissimus,'  Thiersch)  et  caeteris 
omnibus  auctoribus  claris,  disquisitis  impensa  regiae 
munificentiae  ubique  temvrum  quantum  valuit  vo- 
luminibus  opera  Demetrii  Phalerei  phzxa  senum 
dims  bibliothecas  fecit,  alteram  extra  regiam  altei  am 
autem  in  regia."  The  scholion  then  goes  on  to 
speak  of  books  in  many  languages :  "  quae  summa 
diligentia  rex  ille  in  suam  linguam  fecit  ab  optimis 
interpretibus  converti." d  Bernhardy  reads  instead 
of  "phzxa  senum,"  "et  Ixx  senum,"  And  this 
correction  is  agreed  to  by  Thiersch,  as  it  well  may 
hft :  some  correction  is  manifestly  needed,  and  this 
appears  to  be  right.  This  gives  us  seventy  elders 
associated  in  the  formation  of  the  Library.  The  tes 
timony  comes  to  us  from  Alexandrian  authority  ; 
and  this,  if  true  (or  even  if  believed  to  be  true), 
would  connect  the  Septuagint  with  the  Library ;  a 
designation  which  might  most  easily  be  applied  to  a 
version  of  the  Scriptures  there  deposited ;  and,  let 
the  translation  be  once  known  by  such  a  name, 
then  nothing  would  be  more  probable  than  that  the 
designation  should  be  applied  to  the  translators. 
This  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  step  in  the  forma 
tion  of  the  fables.  Let  the  Septuagint  be  first  known 
as  applying  to  the  associates  in  the  collection  of  the 
Library,  then  to  the  Library  itself,  and  then  to  that 
particular  book  in  the  Library  which  to  so  many 
had  a  far  greater  value  than  all  its  other  contents. 
Whether  more  than  the  Pentateuch  was  thus  trans 
lated  and  then  deposited  in  the  Royal  Library  is  a 
separate  question. 

(II.)  The  Connexion  of  the  Pentateuch  in  the 
LXX.  with  the  Samaritan  Text. — It  was  long  ago 
remarked  that  in  the  Pentateuch  the  Samaritan 
copy  and  the  LXX.  agree  in  readings  which  differ 
from  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Jews.  This  has  been 
pointed  out  as  occurring  in  perhaps  two  thousand 
places.  The  conclusion  to  which  some  thus  came 
was  that  the  LXX.  must  have  been  translated  from 
a  Samaritan  copy. 

But,  on  many  grounds,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
admit  this,  even  if  it  were  found  impossible  to  ex 
plain  the  coincidences.  For  (i.)  it  must  be  taken 
into  account  that  if  the  discrepancies  of  the  Sama 
ritan  and  Jewish  copies  be  estimated  numerically, 
the  LXX.  will  be  found  to  agree  far  more  fre 
quently  with  the  latter  than  the  former,  (ii.)  In 
the  cases  of  considerable  and  marked  passages  oc 
curring  in  the  Samaritan  which  are  not  in  the 
Jewish,  the  LXX.  does  not  contain  them,  (iii.)  In 
the  passages  in  which  slight  variations  are  found, 
both  in  the  Samaritan,  and  LXX.,  from  the  Jewish 
text,  they  often  differ  amongst  themselves,  and  the 
amplification  of  the  LXX.  is  less  than  that  of  the 
Samaritan,  (iv.)  Some  of  the  small  amplifications 
m  which  the  Samaritan  seems  to  accord  with  the 
LXX.  are  in  such  incorrect  and  non-idiomatic  He 
brew  that  it  is  suggested  that  these  must  be  trans- 
lotions,  and,  if  so,  probably  from  the  LXX.  (v.) 

<»  See  Thiersch,  De  Pentateuchi  -xisione  Alexandrina, 
pp.  8,  9.     Erlangen,  1841. 
"  Eicbborn  and  those  who  have  f  illowed  him  st>- te  this 


The  amplifications  of  the  LXX.  and  Samaritan  often 
resemble  each  other  greatly  in  character,  as  if  similar 
false  criticism  had  been  applied  to  the  text  in  each 
case.  But  as,  in  spite  of  all  similarities  such  as 
these,  the  Pentateuch  of  the  LXX.  is  more  Jewish 
than  Samaritan,  we  need  not  adopt  the  notion  of 
translation  from  a  Samaritan  Codex,  which  would 
involve  the  subject  in  greater  difficulties,  and  leave 
more  points  to  be  explained.  (On  some  of  the  sup 
posed  agreements  of  the  LXX.  with  the  Samaritan, 
see  Bishop  Fitzgerald  in  Kitto's  Journal  of  Sacred 
Literature,  Oct.  1848,  pp.  324-332.) 

(III.)  T/ie  Liturgical  Origin  of  Portions  of  the 
LXX. — This  is  a  subject  for  inquiry  which  has 
received  but  little  attention,  not  so  much,  probably, 
as  its  importance  deserves.  It  was  noticed  by  Tre- 
gelles  many  years  ago  that  the  headings  of  certain 
Psalms  in  the  LXX.  coincide  with  the  liturgical 
directions  in  the  Jewish  Prayer-Book :  the  results 
were  at  a  later  period  communicated  in  Kitto's 
Journal  of  Sacred  Literature,  April,  1852,  pp. 
207-9.  The  results  may  be  briefly  stated :— The 
23rd  Psalm,  LXX.  (24th,  Hebrew),  is  headed  in 
the  LXX.,  TT}S  fjnas  ffaftftdrov ;  so  too  in  Hebrew,  in 
De  Sola's  Prayers  of  the  Sephardim,  Jl^fcOn  DV1 : 
Ps.  xlvii.,  LXX.  (Heb.  xlviii.),  Seyrepot  <ra0&a.Tov, 
*}&  DV^ :  Ps.  xciii.,  LXX.  (Heb.  xciv.),  rcrpdSi 
ffaZPdrov,  »y»3n  DV!?:  Ps.  xcii.,  LXX.  (Heb. 
xciii.),  ets  T^V  -rj/j-fpav  TOV  irpoffaPfidTOv,  DV7 
i&&.  There  appear  to  be  no  Greek  copies  extant 
which  contain  similar  headings  for  Psalms  Ixxxi, 
and  Ixxx.  (Heb.  Ixxxii.  and  Ixxxi.),  which  the  Jewish 
Prayer-Book  appropriates  to  the  third  and  fifth 
days ;  but  that  such  once  existed  in  the  case  of  the 
latter  Psalm  seems  to  be  shown  from  the  Latin 
Psalterium  Vetus  having  the  prefixed  quinta  sab- 
bati,  HS*Dn  Dl^.  Prof.  Delitzsch  in  his  Com 
mentary  on  the  Psalms  has  recently  pointed  out 
that  the  notation  of  these  Psalms  in  the  LXX.  is  in 
accordance  with  certain  passages  in  the  Talmud. 

It  is  wdtthy  of  inquiry  whether  variations  in 
other  passages  of  the  LXX.  from  the  Hebrew  text 
cannot  at  times  be  connected  with  liturgical  use, 
and  whether  they  do  not  originate  in  part  from 
rubrical  directions.  It  seems  to  be  at  least  plain 
that  the  Psalms  were  translated  from  a  copy  pre 
pared  for  synagogue  worship. 

2.  AQUILA. — It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  in  the 
second  century  there  were  three  versions  executed 
of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  into  Greek.  The 
first  of  these  was  made  by  Aquila.  a  native  of  Si  nope 
in  Pontus,  who  had  become  a  proselyte  to  Judaism. 
The  Jerusalem  Talmud  (see  Bartolocci,  Bibliotheca 
Rabb.  iv.  281)e  describes  him  as  a  disciple  of  Kalw 
Akiba;  and  this  would  place  him  in  some  part  of 
the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian  (A.D.  117-138). 
It  is  supposed  that  the  object  of  his  version  was  to 
aid  the  Jews  in  their  controversies  with  the  Chris 
tians  :  and  that  as  the  latter  were  in  the  habit  of 
employing  the  LXX.,  they  wished  to  have  a  version 
of  thei'r  own  on  which  they  could  rely.  It  is  very 
probable  that  the  Jews  in  many  Greek-speaking 
countries  were  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  He 
brew  to  refer  for  themselves  to  the  original,  and 
thus  they  wished  to  hav-e  such  a  Greek  translatiou 
as  they  tnight  use  with  confidence  in  their  discus- 

on  the  authority  of  Irenaeus,  instead  of  that  of  the  JCTU 
salem  Talmud,  a  confusion  which  needs  to  be  explicitly 
smd  not  merely  tacitly  corrected. 


1622 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  .G 


sions.  Such  controversies  were  (it  must  be  re 
membered)  a  new  thing.  Prior  to  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel,  there  were  none  besides  the  Jews  who 
used  the  Jewish  Scriptures  as  a  means  of  learning 
God's  revealed  truth,  except  those  who  either  par 
tially  or  wholly  became  proselytes  to  Judaism. 
But  now  the  Jews  saw  to  their  grief,  that  their 
Scriptures  were  made  the  instruments  for  teaching 
the  principles  of  a  religion  which  they  regarded  as 
nothing  less  than  an  apostasy  from  Moses. 

This,  then,  is  9  probable  account  of  the  origin  of 
this  version.  Extreme  literality  and  an  occasional 
polemical  bias  appear  to  be  its  chief  characteristics. 
The  idiom  of  the  Greek  language  is  very  often  vio 
lated  in  order  to  produce  what  was  intended  should 
be  a  very  literal  version  ;  and  thus,  not  only  sense 
but  grammar  even  was  disregarded  :  a  sufficient 
instance  of  this  is  found  in  his  rendering  the  Hebrew 
particle  J"1X  by  <rvv,  as  in  Gen.  i.  1,  crvv  rbv 
ovpavbv  KOI  avv  TTJV  yriv,  "  quod  Graeca  et 
Latina  lingua  omnino  non  recipit,"  as  Jerome 
says.  Another  instance  is  furnished  by  Gen.  v.  5, 
teal  %£t\<Tfv  'ASctyi  rptdKoi'Ta  eros  ical  £vva.K6<na 


It  is  sufficiently  attested  that  this  version  was 
formed  for  controversial  purposes:  a  proof  of  which 
may  be  found  in  the  rendering  of  particular  pas 
sages,  such  as  Is.  vii.  14,  where  nD?JJ,  in  the 

LXX.  TrapOevos,  is  by  Aquila  translated  veavis  ; 
nuch  renderings  might  be  regarded  perhaps  rather  as 
modes  of  avoiding  an  argument  than  as  direct  falsi 
fication.  There  certainly  was  room  for  a  version 
which  should  express  the  Hebrew  more  accurately 
than  was  done  by  the  LXX. ;  but  if  this  had  been 
thoroughly  carried  out  it  would  have  been  found 
that  in  many  important  points  of  doctrine — such, 
for  instance,  as  in  the  Divinity  of  the  Messiah  and 
the  rejection  of  Israel,  the  true  rendering  of  the 
Hebrew  text  would  have  been  in  far  closer  con 
formity  with  the  teaching  of  the  New  Test,  than 
was  the  LXX.  itself.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that 
one  polemical  object  was  to  make  the  citations  in 
the  New  Test,  from  the  Old  appear  to  be  incon 
clusive,  by  producing  other  renderings  (often  pro 
bably  more  literally  exact)  differing  from  the  LXX., 
or  even  contradicting  it.  Thus  Christianity  might 
seem  to  the  Jewish  mind  to  rest  on  a  false  basis. 
But  in  many  cases  a  really  critical  examiner  would 
have  found  that  in  points  of  important  doctrine  the 
New  Test,  definitely  rejects  the  reading  of  the 
LXX.  (when  utterly  unsuited  to  the  matter  in 
hand),  and  adopts  the  reading  of  the  Hebrew. 

It  is  mentioned  that  Aquila  put  forth  a  second 
edition  (i.  e.  revision)  of  his  version,  in  which  the 
Hebrew  was  yet  more  servilely  followed,  but  it  is 
not  known  if  this  extended  to  the  whole,  or  only  to 
three  books,  namely,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  Daniel, 
of  which  there  are  fragments. 

Aquila  eften  appears  to  have  so  closely  sought  to 
follow  the  etymology  of  the  Hebrew  words,  that 
not  only  does  his  version  produce  no  definite  idea, 
but  it  does  not  even  suggest  any  meaning  at  all. 
If  we  possessed  it  perfect  it  would  have  been  of 
great  value  as  to  the  criticism  of  the  Hebrew  text, 
though  often  it  would  be  of  no  service  as  to  its 
real  understanding. 

That  this  version  was  employed  for  centuries  by 
the  Jews  themselves  is  proved  indirectly  by  the 
146th  Novella  of  Justinian:  TT\TJV  oi  5i&  TTJS  'EA- 


)i>  aA/V  a? 


\onras    avrols    airoK\eifiv 

Vfia.'s,  &5ftav  SiSo/mev  Kai  rfj  'Afft'Xav 

KO.V   et    a\\6<f>v\os   (Kf?vos    Kal    ov  /Lurpiay  2irl 

rivSiv  A€|ea)i/    f^p  Tpbs  rovs  €|85ojU^Koz/Ta  r^v 

Sicxpwviav. 

3.  THEODOTION.— The  second  version,  of  which 
we  have  information  as  executed  in  the  second  cen 
tury,  is  that  of  Theodotion.  He  is  stated  to  have 
been  an  Ephesian,  and  he  seems  to  be  most  generally 
described  as  an  Ebiohite  :  if  this  is  correct,  his  work 
was  probably  intended  for  those  semi-Christians 
who  may  have  desired  to  use  a  version  of  their 
own  instead  of  employing  the  LXX.  with  the 
Christians,  or  that  of  Aquila  with  the  Jews. 

But  it  may  be  doubted  if  the  name  of  translation 
can  be  rightly  applied  to  the  work  of  Theodotior 
I  it  is  rather  a  revision  of  the  LXX.  with  the  Hebrew 
text,  so  as  to  bring  some  of  the  copies  then  in  use 
into  more  conformity  with  the  original.  This  he 
was  able  to  do  (with  the  aid  probably  of  some  in 
structors)  so  as  to  eliminate  portions  which  had 
been  introduced  into  the  LXX.,  without  really  being 
an  integral  part  of  the  version  ;  and  also  so  as  to 
bring  much  into  accordance  with  the  Hebrew  in 
other  respects.  But  his  own  knowledge  of  Hebrew 
was  evidently  very  limited;  and  thus  words  and 
parts  of  sentences  were  left  untranslated ;  the  He 
brew  being  merely  written  with  Greek  letters. 

Theodotion  as  well  as  Aquila  was  quoted  by 
Irenaeus ;  and  against  both  there  is  the  common 
charge  laid  of  corrupting  texts  which  relate  to  ths 
Messiah :  some  polemical  intention  in  such  pas 
sages  can  hardly  be  doubted.  The  statement  of 
Epiphanius  that  he  made  his  translation  in  the 
reign  of  Commodus  accoixls  well  with  its  having 
been  quoted  by  Irenaeus ;  but  it  cannot  be  correct 
if  it  is  one  of  the  translations  referred  to  by  Justin 
Martyr  as  giving  interpretations  contrary  to  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  New  Test. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  version  was 
much  used  by  Christians  :  probably  many  changes 
in  the  text  of  the  LXX.  were  adopted  from  Theo 
dotion  :  this  may  have  begun  before  the  Biblical 
labours  of  Origen  brought  the  various  versions  into 
one  conspectus.  The  translation  of  the  Book  of 
Daniel  by  Theodotion  was  substituted  for  that  of  the 
LXX.  in  ecclesiastical  use  as  early  at  least  as  part 
of  the  third  century.  Hence  Daniel,  as  rendered  or 
revised  by  Theodotion,  has  so  long  taken  the  place 
of  the  time  LXX.,  that  their  version  of  this  book 
was  supposed  not  to  be  extant ;  and  it  has  only  been 
found  in  one  MS.  In  most  editions  of  the  LXX. 
Theodotion's  version  of  Daniel  is  still  substituted  for 
that  which  really  belongs  to  that  translation. 

4.  SYMMACHUS  is  stated  by  Eusebius  and  Jerome 
to  have  been  an  Ebionite :  so  too  in  the  Syrian  ac 
counts  given  by  Assemani;  Epiphanius,  however, 
and  others  style  him  a  Samaritan.  There  may  have 
been  Ebionites  from  amongst  the  Samaritans,  who 
constituted  a  kind  of  separate  sect ;  and  these  may 
have  desired  a  version  of  their  own  ;  or  it  may  be 
that  as  a  Samaritan  he  made  this  version  for  some  of 
that  people  who  employed  Greek,  and  who  had  learned 
to  receive  more  than  the  Pentateuch.  But  perhaps 
to  such  motives  was  added  (if  indeed  this  were  not 
the  only  cause  of  the  version)  a  desire  for  a  Greek 
translation  not  so  unintelligibly  bald  as  that  of 
Aquila,  and  not  displaying  such  a  want  of  Hebrew 
learning  as  that  of  Theodotion.  It  is  probable  that 
if  this  translation  of  Symmachus  had  appeared  prior 
to  the  time  of  Irenaeus,  it  would  have  been  men 
tioned  by  him  ;  and  this  agrees  with  what  Kpi- 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (GREEK) 

phanius   says,  namely,    that   he  lived    under    the 
Emperor  Severus 


The  translation  which  he  produced  was 


as  probably 
eral    hrase 


bettei  than  the  others  as  to  sense  and  general  phrase 
ology.  When  Jerome  speaks  of  a  second  edition  he 
may  probably  mean  some  revision,  more  or  less 
complete,  which  he  executed  after  his  translation 
was  first  made  :  it  could  hardly  be  a  retranslatiou. 
or  anything  at  all  tantamount  thereto. 

5.  THE  FIFTJV  SIXTH,  AND  SEVENTH  VER- 
JIONS.  —  Besides  tne  translations  of  Aquila,  Sym- 
machus,  and  Theodotion,  the  great  critical  work  of 
Origen  comprised  as  to  portions  of  the  Old  Test. 
three  other  versions,  placed  for  comparison  with 
the  LXX.  ;  which,  from  their  being  anonymous, 
are  only  known  as  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh; 
designations  taken  from  the  places  which  they  re 
spectively  occupied  in  Origen  's  columnar  arrange 
ment.  Ancient  writers  seem  not  to  have  been  uni 
form  in  the  notation  which  they  applied  to  these 
versions  ;  and  thus  what  is  cited  from  one  by  its 
number  of  reference  is  quoted  by  others  under  a 
different  numeral. 

These  three  partial  translations  were  discovered 
by  Origen  in  the  course  of  his  travels  in  connexion 
with  his  great  work  of  Biblical  criticism.  Euse- 
bius  says  that  two  of  these  versions  (but  without 
designating  precisely  which)  were  found,  the  one  at 
Jericho,  and  the  other  at  Nicopolis  on  the  gulf  of 
Actium.  Epiphanius  says,  that  what  he  terms  the 
Sfth,  was  found  at  Jericho,  and  the  sixth  at  Nico 
polis  ;  while  Jerome  speaks  of  the  fifth  as  having 
been  found  at  the  latter  place. 

The  contents  of  the  fifth  version  appear  to  have 
been  the  Pentateuch,  Psalms,  Canticles,  and  the 
minor  prophets  :  it  seems  also  to  be  referred  to  in 
the  Syro-Hexaplar  text  of  the  second  book  of  Kings  : 
it  may  be  doubted  if  in  all  these  books  it  was  com 
plete,  or  at  least  if  so  much  were  adopted  by 
Origen.  The  existing  fragments  prove  that  the 
translator  used  the  Hebrew  original  ;  but  it  is  also 
certain  that  he  was  aided  by  the  work  of  former 
translators. 

The  sixth  version  seems  to  have  been  just  the 
»<inie  in  its  contents  as  the  fifth  (except  2  Kings)  : 
and  thus  the  two  may  have  been  confused:  this 
translator  also  seems  to  have  had  the  other  versions 
before  him.  Jerome  calls  the  authors  of  the  fifth 
and  sixth  "  Judaicos  translators  ;"  but  the  trans 
lator  of  this  must  have  been  a  Christian  when  he  | 
executed  his  work,  or  else  the  hand  of  a  Christian 
reviser  must  have  meddled  with  it  before  it  was 
employed  by  Grigen  ;  which  seems  from  the  small 
interval  of  time  to  be  hardly  probable.  For  in 


1623 

relics  of  Origen's  Hexapla,  by  Montfaucoc  and  t>v 
Bardht. 


Hab.  iii.  15  Vhe  translation  runs,  eA6S  TOV  ffW" 
<rai  rbv  \a.6v  (rov  Sia  'Irjirov  TOV  xpurTov  (row. 

Of  the  seventh  version  very  few  fragments  re 
main.  It  seems  to  have  contained  the  Psalms  and 
minor  prophets  5  and  the  translator  was  probably  a 
Jew. 

From  the  references  given  by  Origen,  or  by  those 
who  copied  from  his  columnar  arrangement  and  its 
results  (or  who  -added  to  such  extracts),  it  has  been 
thought  that  other  Greek  versions  were  spoken  of. 
Of  these  6  'E&pcuos  probably  refers  to  the  Hebrew 
text,  or  to  something  drawn  from  it:  6  'S.vpos  to 
the  Old  Syriac  version  :  rJ)  2,afJ.apeiTiKbv  probably 
a  reference  to  the  Samaritan  text,  or  some  Samaritan 
gloss:  6  'E\\r)viKbs,  6  "AAAoy,  6  aveiriypcupos 
some  unspecified  version  or  versions. 

The  existing  fragments  of  these  varied  versions 
iro  mostly  to  be  found  in  the  editions  of  the 


[For  an  account  of  the  use  made  of  these  versions 
by  Origen,  and  its  results,  see  SEPTUAGLNT.] 

6.  THE  VENETO-GREEK  VERSION.— A  MS.  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  in  the  library  of  St.  Mark 
at  Venice,  contains  a  peculiar  version  of  the  Penta 
teuch,  Proverbs,  Ecclesia»tes,  Canticles,  Ruth  La 
mentations,  and  Daniel.  All  of  these  books,  except 
the  Pentateuch,  were  published  by  Villoison  at 
Strasburg  in  1784;  the  Pentateuch  "was  edited  by 
Ammon  at  Erlangen  in  1790-91.  The  version 
itself  is  thought  to  be  four  or  five  hundred  years, 
older  than  the  one  MS.  in  which  it  has  been  trans 
mitted  ;  this,  however,  is  so  thoroughly  a  matter 
of  opinion,  that  there  seems  no  absolute  reason  for 
determining  that  this  one  MS.  may  not  be  the 
original  as  well  ao  the  only  one  in  existence.  It  is 
written  in  one  very  narrow  column  on  each  page  ; 
the  leaves  follow  each  other  in  the  Hebrew  order, 
so  that  the  book  begins  at  what  we  should  call  the 
end.  An  examination  of  the  MS.  suggested  the 
opinion  that  it  may  have  been  written  on  the 
broad  inner  margin  of  a  Hebrew  MS. :  and  that  for 
some  reason  the  Hebrew  portion  had  been  cut  away, 
leaving  thus  a  Greek  MS.  probably  unique  as  to 
its  form  and  arrangement.  As  to  the  translation 
itself,  it  is  on  any  supposition  too  recent  to  be  of 
consequence  in  criticism.  It  may  be  said  briefly 
that  the  translation  was  made  from  the  Hebrew, 
although  the  present  punctuation  and  accentuation 
is  often  not  followed,  and  the  translator  was  no 
doubt  acquainted  with  some  other  Greek  versions. 
The  language  of  the  translation  is  a  most  strange 
niixture  of  astonishing  and  cacophonous  barbarism 
with  attempts  at  Attic  elegance  and  refinement. 
The  Doric',  which  is  employed  to  answer  to  the 
Chaldean  portions  of  Daniel,  seems  to  be  an  indi 
cation  of  remarkable  affectation. 

THE  GREEK  OF  ST.  MATTHEW'S  GOSPEL.— 
Any  account  of  the  Greek  versions  of  Holy  Scrip 
ture  would  be  incomplete  without  some  allusion 
to  the  fact,'  that  if  early  testimonies  and  ancient 
opinion  unitedly  are  to  have  some  weight  when 
wholly  uncontradicted,  then  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  original  language  of  the  Gospel  of  St. 
Matthew  was  Hebrew,  and  that  the  text  which  has 
been  transmitted  to  us  is  really  a  Greek  transla 
tion. 

It  may  be  briefly  stated  that  every  early  writer 
who  mentions  that  St.  Matthew  wrote  a  Gospel  at 
all  says  that  he  wrote  in  Hebrew  (that  is  in  the 
Syro-Chaldaic),  and  in  Palestine  in  the  first  cen 
tury  ;  so  that  if  it  be  assumed  that  he  did  not 
write  in  Hebrew  but  in  Greek,  then  it  may  well  be 
asked,  what  ground  is  there  to  believe  that  he  wrote 
any  narrative  of  our  Lord's  life  on  earth  ? 

Every  early  writer  that  has  come  down  to  us 
uses  the  Greek  of  St.  Matthew,  and  this  with  the 
definite  recognition  that  it  is  a  translation ;  hence 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  Greek  copy  belongs  to  the 
Apostolic  age,  having  been  thus  authoritatively 
used  from  and  up  to  thattime.  Thus  the  question 
is  not  the  authority  of  the  Greek  translation,  which 
comes  from  the  time  when  the  Churches  enjoyed 
apostolic  guidance,  but  whether  there  was  a  Hebrew 
original  from  which  it  had  been  translated. 

The  witnesses  to  the  Hebrew  original  were  men 
sufficiently  competent  to  attest  so  simple  a  fact, 
especially  seeing  that  they  are  relied  on  in  what  is 
far  more  important, — that  St.  Matthew  wrote  a 
Gospel  at  all.  Papias,  in  the  beginning  of  the  second 


1624 


VEB8IONS,  ANCIENT  (SLAVONIC) 


century,  repeats  apparently  the  words  of  John  the 
Presbyter,  an  immediate  disciple  of  our  Lord,  that 
"  Matthew  wrote  the  oracles  in  the  Hebrew  dialect." 
Irenaeus,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  same  century,  is 
equally  explicit;  in  connexion  with  the  Indian 
mission  of  Pantaenus  in  the  same  age,  we  learn  that 
he  found  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  in  the  very  Hebrew 
letters.  In  the  next  century  Origen,  the  laborious 
investigator  and  diligent  inquirer,  says,  that  the  re 
ceived  account  was  that  St.  Matthew  had  written  the 
first  Gospel,  and  that  it  was  in  Hebrew.  So  too  in 
the  next  century,  Epiphanius  and  Jerome,  both  of 
whom,  like  Origen,  were  acquainted  with  Hebrew. 
Jurome  also  mentions  the  very  copies  of  this  Hebrew 
original  which  were  extant  in  his  time,  and  which 
he  transcribed.  He  shows  indeed  that  the  copies 
then  circulated  amongst  the  Nazarenes  had  been 
variously  interpolated  :  but  this  would  not  affect 
the  antecedent  fact.  So  too  Epiphariius  shows  that 
the  document  had  been  variously  depraved :  but 
this  does  not  set  aside  what  it  originally  was. 

To  follow  the  unanimous  agreement  of  later 
writers  is  needless  ;  but  what  can  be  said  on  the 
other  side?  What  evidence  is  adduced  that  St. 
Matthew  wrote  in  Greek?  None  whatever:  but 
simply  some  a  priori  notions  that  he  ought  to  have 
done  so  are  advanced:  then  it  is  truly  stated  that 
the  Greek  Gospel  does  not  read  as  though  it  had 
about  it  the  constraint  of  a  translation;  and  then 
it  is  said  that  perhaps  the  witnesses  for  the 
Hebrew  original  were  mistaken.'  "  But  (says 
Principal  Campbell)  is  the  positive  testimony  of 
witnesses,  delivered  as  of  a  well-known  fact,  to  be 
overturned  by  a  mere  supposition,  a  perhaps  ?  for 
that  the  case  is  really  as  they  suppose  no  shadow  of 
evidence  is  pretended"  (Works,  ii.  171). 

For  another  theory,  that  St.  Matthew  wrote  both 
in  Hebrew  and  also  in  Greek,  there  is  no  evidence  : 
the  notion  is  even  contradicted  by  the  avowed 
ignorance  of  the  early  Christian  writers  as  to  whose 
hand  formed  the  Greek  version  which  they  accepted 
as  authoritative.  To  them  there  was  nothing  self- 
contradictory  (as  some  have  said)  in  the  notion  of 
an  authoritative  translation.  As  it  can  be  shown 
that  the  public  use  of  the  four  Gospels  in  Greek  was 
universal  in  the  churches  from  the  apostolic  age,  it 
proves  to  us  that  apostolic  sanction  must  have  been 
the  ground  of  this  usage ;  this  surely  is  sufficient 
to  authorize  the  Greek  Gospel  that  we  have. 

Erasmus  seems  to  have  been  the  Urst  to  suggest 
that  the  Greek  is  the  original  of  the  Apostle :  at 
least  no  writer  earlier  than  Erasmus  has  been 
brought  forward  as  holding  the  opinion :  in  this 
many  have  followed  him  on  what  may  be  called  very 

t  The  manner  in  which  the  testimony  of  competent 
witnesses  has  been  not  only  called  in  question,  but  set 
aside,  is  such  as  would  cast  doubt  on  any  historical  fact 
competently  attested ;  and  the  terms  applied  to  the  wit 
nesses  themselves,  are  such  as  seem  to  show  that  argu 
ment  being  vain,  it  is  needful  to  have  recourse  to  some 
thing  else ;  not  mere  assertion  as  opposed  to  the  definite 
evidence,  but  a  mode  of  speaking  of  the  witnesses  them 
selves  and  of  misrepresenting  their  words,  which  would  not 
be  ventured  on  in  common  matters.  Thus  a  writer  who 
is  well  and  justly  esteemed  on  other  subjects,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Wm.  Lindsay  Alexander,  sets  aside  the  evidence  and 
the  statements  of  Jerome  in  this  manner  — "  The  one 
who  says  he  bad  seen  the  [Hebrew]  gospel  is  Jerome ; 
but  his  evidence  about  it  is  so  conflicting  that  it  is  not 
worth  a  rush.  First  he  says  he  has  seen  it,  and  is  sure 
that  it  is  the  original  of  the  Greek  gospel;  then  he 
eoftens  down  with  '  it  is  called  by  most  people  Matthew's 
authentic,'  '  as  most  believe,'  and  so  on.  Now  he  says, 


subjective  grounds.  Erasmus  also  advanced  <he 
opinion  that  Irenaeus  against  Heresies  was  written  by 
him  in  Latin.  For  this  he  had  just  as  good  grounds 
as  for  the  Greek  original  of  St.  Matthew.  As  to 
Irenaeus  no  one  appears  to  follow  Erasmus ;  why 
should  so  many  adhere  to  his  bold  opinion  (opposed 
by  so  much  evidence  and  supported  by  none) 
relative  to  St.  Matthew  ?  On  the  revival  of  letters 
there  was  much  curiosity  expressed  for  the  reco 
very  of  a  copy  of  St.  Matthew's  Hebrew  original. 
Pope  Nicholas'V.  is  said  to  have  offered  five  thousand 
ducats  for  a  copy :  this  probably  suggested  the  re- 
translations  into  Hebrew  of  this  Gospel  published  in 
the  following  century  by  Sebastian  Munster  and 
others.  [S.  P.  T.] 

LATIN  VERSIONS.     [VULGATE.] 

SAMARITAN  VERSIONS.  [SAMARITAN  PEN 
TATEUCH,  p.  11136.] 

SLAVONIC  VERSION.  In  the  year  862 
there  was  a  desire  expressed,  or  an  inquiry  mad* 
for  Christian  teachers  in  Moravia,  and  in  the  follow 
ing  year  the  labours  of  missionaries  began  amongst 
them.  We  need  not  consider  the  Moravia  in  which 
these  services  were  commenced  to  be  precisely  re 
stricted  to  or  identified  with  the  region  which  now 
bears  that  name,  for  in  the  ninth  century  Great 
Moravia  was  of  far  wider  extent;  and  it  was 
amongst  the  Slavonic  people  then  occupying  this 
whole  region,  that  the  effort  for  Christianization 
was  put  forth.  But  while  this  farther  extent  of 
Moravia  is  admitted,  it  is  also  to  be  recollected  that 
the  province  of  Moravia,  of  which  Briinn  is  the 
metropolis,  is  not  only  the  nucleus  of  Moravia,  but 
that  also  the  inhabitants  of  that  country,  still  re 
taining  as  they  do  their  Slavonian  tongue,  rightly 
consider  themselves  as  the  descendants  and  suc 
cessors  of  those  who  were  then  Christianized. 
Thus,  in  1862  they  commemorated  the  thousandth 
anniversary  of  their  having  taken  this  step,  and 
in  1863  they  celebrated  the  thousandth  from  the 
actual  arrival  of  missionaries  amongst  them.  These 
missionaries  were  Cyrillus  and  Methodius,  two 
brothers  from  Thessalonica :  to  Cyrillus  is  ascribed 
the  invention  of  the  Slavonian  alphabet,  and  the 
commencement  of  the  translation  of  the  Scripture. 
Neander  truly  says  that  he  was  honourably  'iis- 
tinguished  from  all  other  missionaries  of  that 
period  in  not  having  yielded  to  the  prejudice  which 
represented  the  languages  of  rude  nations  as  too 
profane  for  sacred  uses  ;  and  by  not  having  shrunk 
from  any  toil  which  was  necessary  in  order  to  be 
come  accurately  acquainted  with  the  language  o« 


'  Who  translated  it  into  Greek  is  unknown ; '  and  pre 
sently,  with  amusing  self-complacency  and  oblivious- 
ness,  he  tells  us,  '  I  myself  translated  it  into  Greek  and 
Latin ! '  Why  there  is  not  a  small-debt  court  in  the 
country  where  such  a  witness  would  not  be  hooted  to  the 
door."  Would  such  modes  of  reasoning  be  adopted  if  it 
were  not  desired  to  mystify  the  subject  ?  Who  cannot 
see  that  Jerome  says  that  It  is  unknown  who  had  made 
the  Greek  translation  then  current  for  centuries  ?  And 
who  imagines  that  he  identified  with  that  version  the 
one  which  he  had  recently  made  from  the  document 
found  at  Beroea?  But  thus  it  is  that  this  is  substituted 
for  argument  on  this  subject.  Dr.  Land,  in  the  Journal 
of  Sacred  Literature,  Oct.  1858,  boldly  asserts,  "  We  may 
safely  say  that  there  is,  in  probability  as  well  as  in  direct 
testimony,  a  weight  as  heavy  in  the  scale  of  the  Greek 
text  as  in  that  of  the  Hebrew,  not  to  go  farther."  But, 
n  fact,  there  is  no  testimony,  direct  or  indirect,  foi 
a  Greek  original  of  St.  Matthew. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC) 


1625 


the  people  amongst  whom  he  laboured.  Cyrillus 
appears  to  have  died  at  Rome  in  868,  while 
Methodius  continued  for  many  years  to  be  the 
bishop  of  the  Slavonians.  He  is  stated  to  have 
continued  his  brother's  translation,  although  how 
much  they  themselves  actually  executed  is  quite  un 
certain  ;  perhaps  much  of  the  Old  Testament  was 
not  translated  at  all  in  that  age,  possibly  not  for 
many  centuries  after. 

The  Old  Testament  is,  as  might  be  supposed,  a 
version  from  the  LXX.,  but  what  measure  of  re 
vision  it  may  since  have  received  seems  to  be  by  no 
means  certain.  As  the  oldest  known  MS.  of  the 
whole  Bible  is  of  the  year  1499,  it  may  reasonably 
be  questioned  whether  this  version  may  not  in  large 
portions  be  comparatively  modern.  This  could  only 
be  set  at  rest  by  a  more  full  and  accurate  know 
ledge  being  obtained  of  Slavonic  Biblical  MSS. 
Dobrowsky  however  mentions  (Griesbach's  Gr.  Test. 
ii.,  xxxiii.)  that  this  MS.  (his  1),  and  two  others 
copied  from  it,  are  the  only  Slavonic  MSS.  of  the 
entire  Bible  existing  in  Russia.  If  it  be  correct 
that  the  MSS.  which  he  terms  2  and  3  are  copied 
from  this,  there  are  strong  reasons  for  believing  that 
it  was  not  completed  for  some  years  subsequently 
to  1499.  The  oldest  MSS.  of  any  part  of  this  ver 
sion  is  an  Evangeliarium,  in  Cyrillic  characters,  of 
the  year  1 056 ;  that  at  Rheims  (containing  the 
Gospels)  on  which  the  kings  of  France  used  to  take 
their  coronation  oath,  is  nearly  as  old.  One,  con 
taining  the  Gospels^at  Moscow,  is  of  the  year  1144. 

The  first  printed  portion  was  an  edition  of  the 
Gospels  in  Wallachia,  in  1512;  in  1575  the  same 
portion  was  printed  at  Wilna ;  and  in  1581  the 
whole  Bible  was  printed  at  Ostrog  in  Volhynia; 
from  this  was  taken  the  Moscow  edition  of  166i>,  in 
which,  however,  there  was  some  revision,  at  least  so 
far  as  the  insertion  of  1  John  v.  7  is  concerned. 

Wetstein  cited  a  few  readings  from  this  version ; 
Alter  made  more  extracts,  which  were  used  bj 
Griesbach,  together  with  the  collations  sent  to  him 
by  Dobrowsky,  both  from  MSS.  and  printed  edi 
tions.  We  thus  can  say,  with  some  confidence, 
that  the  general  text  is  such  as  would  have  been 
expected  in  the  ninth  century  :  some  readings  from 
the  Latin  have,  it  appears,  been  introduced  in 
places :  this  arises  probably  from  the  early  Slavonian 
custom  of  reading  the  Gospel  in  Latin  before  they 
did  it  in  their  own  tongue. 

Dobrowsky  paid  particular  attention  in  his  colla 
tions  to  the  copies  of  the  Apocalypse  :  it  has  been, 
however,  long  suspected  that  that  book  formed  no 
portion  of  this  version  as  originally  made.  We  can 
now  go  farther  and  say  definitely  that  the  Apo 
calypse,  as  found  in  some  at  least  of  the  Slavonic 
copies,  could  not  be  anterior  to  the  appearance  of 
the  first  edition  of  the  Gr.  Test,  of  Erasmus  in 
1516.  For  there  are  readings  in  the  Apocalypse  of 


Erasmus  which  are  entirely  devoid  of  any  support 
from  Greek  MSS.  This  can  be  said  confidently, 
since  the  one  Greek  copy  used  by  PZrasmus  has  been 
identified  and  described  by  Prof.  Delitzsch.*  It  is 
now  therefore  known  that  peculiarities  as  to  error 
in  Erasmus's  text  of  the  Apocalypse,  as  it  first 
appeared,  are  in  several  places  due  not  to  th? 
MS.  from  which  he  drew,  but  to  the  want  of  cart, 
in  his  edition.  And  thus,  whatever  agrees  with 
such  peculiarities  must  depend  on,  and  thus  be 
subsequent  to,  the  Erasmian  text.  In  Rev.  ii.  13, 
the  Erasmian  text  has  the  peculiar  reading,  lv 


rjiJ.epa.is 


for  this   no  MS.  was  cited 


by  Griesbach,  and  all  his  authority,  besides  the 
Erasmian  edition,  was  in  fact  "  Slav.  3,  4,"  i.  e. 
two  MSS.  collated  by  Dobrowsky  ;  one  of  these  is 
said  by  him  to  be  copied  from  the  oldest  Slavonic 
MS.  of  the  whole  Bible  :  if,  therefore,  it  agrees 
with  it  in  this  place,  it  shows  that  the  Slavonic 
MS.  must,  in  that  part  at  least,  be  later  than  the 
year  1516.  The  only  Greek  authority  for  this 
reading,  equals,  is  the  margin  of  92,  the  Dublin 
MS.,  famous  as  containing  1  John  v.  7:  in  which 
the  Gospels  belong  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  cen 
tury  ;  the  Acts  and  Epistles  are  somewhat  later,  and 
the  Apocalypse  was  added  about  the  year  1580.k 
There  seems  to  be  another  Slavonic  text  of  the 
Apocalypse  contained  in  Dobrowsky's  10,  but 
whether  it  is  older  than  the  one  already  mentioned 


is  doubtful. 
SYRIAC  VERSIONS. 


[S.  P.  T.] 
I.  OF  THE  OLD  TESTA- 


A.  From  the  Hebrew. — In  the  early  timees  of 
Syrian  Christianity  there  was  executed  a  version 
of  the  Old  Testament  from  the  original  Hebrew,  the 
use  of  which  must  have  been  as  widely  extended  as 
was  the  Christian  profession  amongst  that  people. 
Ephraem  the  Syrian,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  4th 
century,  gives  abundant  proof  of  its  use  in  general 
by  his  countrymen.  When  he  calls  it  OUR  VEft- 

7          y*     9 

SIGN,  •  A  n  e*,Vn  j^  (joes  not  appear  to  be  in  op 
position  t»  any  other  Syriac  translation  (for  no 
other  can  be  proved  to  have  then  existed),  but  in 
contrast  to  the  original  Hebrew  text,  or  to  those 
in  other  languages.1  At  a  later  period  this  Sy 
riac  translation  was  designated  Peshito, 
(Simple)  ;  or,  as  in  the  preface  of  Bar-Hebraeus  to 

his  Thesaurus  Arcanorum, 

{Simple  version).  It  is  probable  that  this  name  'vas 
applied  to  the  version  after  another  ha/1  bf.'en 
formed  from  the  Hexaplar  Greek  text.  In  the 
translation  made  from  Origen's  revision  of  the 
LXX.,  the  critical  marks  introduced  by  him  were 
retained,  and  thus  every  page  and  every  part  was 


g  Handschriftliche  Funde  von  Franz  Delitzsch.  Erstes 
Heft,  Die  Erasmischen  Entstellungen  des  Textes  der 
Apocalypse,  nachgewiesen  aus  dem  verloren  geglaubten 
Codex  Reuchlini,  1861. 

Handscbriftliche  Funde  von  Franz  Delitzsch,  mit  Bei- 
tragen  von  S.  P.  Tregelles.  Zweites  Heft,  neue  Studien 
liber  den  Codex  Reuchlini,  &c.,  1862.  [Also  with  the 
English  Title,  "  Manuscript  Discoveries  by  Francis  De 
litzsch,  with  additions  by  S.  P.  Tregelles.  Part  II.,  New 
Studies  on  the  Codex  Reuchlini,  and  new  results  in  the 
textual  history  of  the  Apocalypse,  drawn  from  the 
libraries  of  Munich,  Vienna,  Rome,  &c.,  1862."] 

*  This  Greek  authority  is  the  one  denoted  by  92. 
Tiflchendorf  (following  a  misprint  in  Tregellea's  Greek 


and  English  Revelation,  1844)  gives  it  91**.  That  would 
signify  a  correction  in  a  later  hand  in  91;  which  is  the 
modern  supplement  to  the  Vatican  MS.,  in  which  such 
a  correction  has  been  sought  in  vain. 

i  Ephraemi  Opera  Syr.  i.  380  (on  1  Sam.  xxiv.  4).    He 
is  simply  comparing  the  Hebrew  phrase  and  the  Syriac 


1626 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT 


marked  with  asterisks  and  cbeli,  from  whicn  the 
muslation  from  the  Hebrew  was  free.  It  might, 
therefore,  be  but  natural  for  a  bare  text  to  be  thus 
designated,  in  contrast  to  the  marks  and  the  cita 
tions  of  the  different  Greek  translators  found  in  the 
version  from  the  Hexaplar  Greek.  This  translation 
from  the  Hebrew  has  always  been  the  ecclesiastical 
version  of  the  Syrians ;  and  when  it  is  remembered 
how  in  the  5th  century  dissensions  and  divisions 
were  introduced  into  the  Syrian  Churches,  and  how 
from  that  time  the  Monophysites  and  those  termed 
Nestorians  have  been  in  a  state  of  unhealed  oppo 
sition,  it  shows  not  only  the  antiquity  of  this  ver 
sion,  but  also  the  deep  and  abiding  hold  which  it 
must  have  taken  on  the  mind  of  the  people,  that 
this  version  was  firmly  held  fast  by  both  of  these 
opposed  parties,  as  well  as  by  those  who  adhere  to  the 
Greek  Church,  and  by  the  Maronites.  Its  existence 
and  use  prior  to  their  divisions  is  sufficiently  proved 
by  Ephraem  alone.  But  how  much  older  it  is  than 
that  deacon  of  Edessa  we  have  no  evidence.  From 
Bar-Hebraeus  (in  the  13th  century)  we  learn  that 
theie  were  three  opinions  as  to  its  age ;  some  say 
ing  that  the  version  was  made  in  the  reigns  of 
Solomon  and  Hiram,  some  that  it  was  translated 
by  Asa,  the  priest  who  was  sent  by  the  King  of 
Assyria  to  Samaria,  and  some  that  the  version  was 
made  in  the  days  of  Adai  the  apostle  and  of  Abga- 
rus,  King  of  Osrhoene  (at  which  tim^,  he  adds,  the 
Simple  version  of  the  New  Test,  was  also  made).k 
The  first  of  these  opinions  of  course  implies  that 
the  books  written  before  that  time  were  then  trans 
lated  ;  indeed,  a  limitation  of  somewhat  the  same 
kind  would  apply  to  the  second.  The  ground  of 
the  first  opinion  seems  to  have  been  the  belief  that 
the  Tyrian  king  was  a  convert  to  the  profession  of  the 
true  and  revealed  faith  held  by  the  Israelites ;  and 
that  the  possession  of  Holy  Scripture  in  the  Syriac 
tongue  (which  they  identified  with  his  own)  was  a 
necessary  consequence  of  this  adoption  of  the  true 
belief:  this  opinion  is  mentioned  as  having  been 
held  by  some  of  the  Syrians  in  the  9th  century. 
The  second  opinion  (which  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  cited  from  any  Syriac  writer  prior  to  Bar- 
llebraeus),  seems  to  have  some  connexion  with  the 
formation  of  the  Samaritan  version  of  the  Penta 
teuch.  As  that  version  is  in  an  Aramaean  dialect, 
any  one  who  suppo'sed  that  it  was  made  immedi 
ately  after  the  mission  of  the  priest  from  Assyria, 
might  say  that  it  was  then  first  that  an  Aramaean 
translation  was  executed;  and  this  might  after 
wards,  in  a  sort  of  indefinite  manner,  have  been 
connected  with  what  the  Syrians  themselves  used. 
.Tames  of  Edessa  (in  the  latter  half  of  the  7th  cen 
tury)  had  held  the  third  of  the  opinions  mentioned 
by  Bar-Hebraeus,  who  cites  him  in  support  of  it, 
and  accords  with  it. 

It  is  highly  improbable  that  any  part  of  the 
Syriac  version  is  older  than  the  advent  of  our  Lord  ; 
those  who  placed  it  under  Abgarus,  King  of  Edessa, 
seem  to  have  argued  on  the  account  that  the  Syrian 
people  then  received  Christianity ;  and  thus  they 
supposed  that  a  version  of  the  Scriptures  was  a 
accessary  accompaniment  of  such  conversion.  All 
that  the  account  shows  clearly  is,  then,  that,  it  was 
believed  to  belong  to  the  earliest  period  of  the 
Christian  faith  among  them :  an  opinion  with 
which  all  that  we  kngw  on  the  subject  accords  well. 
Thus  Ephraem,  in  the  4th  century,  not  only  shows 
that  it  was  then  current,  but  also  gives  the  im- 


\Vi»>man,  H'jrae  fyriacae,  9C 


pression  that  this  had  even  then  beea  long  the  «we. 
For  in  his  commentaries  he  gives  explanations  ol 
terms  which  were  even  then  obscure.  This  might 
have  been  from  age :  if  so,  the  version  was  made 
comparatively  long  before  his  days :  or  it  might 
be  from  its  having  been  in  a  dialect  different  from 
that  to  which  he  was  accustomed  at  Edessa.  In 
this  case,  then,  the  translation  was  made  in  some 
other  part  of  Syria ;  which  would  hardly  have 
been  done,  unless  Christianity  had  at  such 'a  time 
been  more  diffused  there  than  it  was  at  Edessa, 
The  dialect  of  that  city  is  stated  to  have  been  the 
purest  Syriac ;  if,  then,  the  version  was  made  for 
that  place,  it  would  no  doubt  have  been  a  monu 
ment  of  such  purer  dialect.  Probably  the  origin  of 
the  Old  Syriac  version  is  to  be  compared  with  that 
of  the  Old  Latin  [see  VULGATE]  ;  and  that  it  differed 
as  much  from  the  polished  language  of  Edessa  as  did 
the  Old  Latin,  made  in  the  African  Province,  from 
the  contemporary  writers  of  Rome,  such  as  Tacitus. 

Even  though  the  traces  of  the  origin  of  this  ver 
sion  of  the  Old  Test,  be  but  few,  yet  it  is  of  im 
portance  that  they  should  be  marked ;  for  the  Old 
Syriac  has  the  peculiar  value  of  being  the  first  ver 
sion  from  the  Hebrew  original  made  for  Christian 
use ;  and,  indeed,  the  only  translation  of  the  kind 
before  that  of  Jerome,  which  was  made  subse 
quently  to  the  time  when  Ephraem  wrote.  Thia 
Syriac  commentator  may  have  termed  it  "OUR  ver 
sion,"  in  contrast  to  all  others  then  current  (for 
the  Targums  were  hardly  versions),  which  weit- 
merely  reflections  of  the  Greek  and  not  of  the 
Hebrew  original. 

The  pi-oof  that  this  version  was  made  from  the 
Hebrew  is  twofold :  we  have  the  direct  statements 
of  Ephraem,  who  compares  it  in  places  with  the 
Hebrew,  and  speaks  of  this  origin  as  a  fact ;  ana 
who  is  confirmed  (if  that  had  been  needful)  by  later 
Syrian  writers  ;  we  find  the  same  thing  as  evident 
from  the  internal  examination  of  the  version  itself. 
Whatever  internal  change  or  revision  it  may  have 
received,  the  Hebrew  groundwork  of  the  translation 
is  unmistakable.  Such  indications  of  revision  must 
be  afterwards  briefly  specified. 

The  first  printed  edition  of  this  version  was  that 
which  appeared  in  the  Paris  Polyglott  of  Le  Jay  in 
1645;  it  is  said  that  the  editor,  Gabriel  Sionita,  a 
Maronite,  had  only  an  imperfect  MS.,  and  that, 
besides  errors,  it  was  defective  as  to  whole  passages, 
and  even  as  to  entire  books.  This  last  charge  seenis 
to  be  so  made  as  if  it  were  to  imply  that  books 
were  omitted  besides  those  of  the  Apocrypha,  a 
part  which  Sionita  confessedly  had  not.  He  i* 
stated  to  have  supplied  the  deficiencies  by  translat 
ing  into  Syriac  from  the  Vrulgate.  It  can  hardly 
be  supposed  but  that  there  is  some  exaggeration  in 
these  statements.  Sionita  may  have  filled  up  occa 
sional  hiatus  in  his  IMS. ;  but  it  requires  very  defi 
nite  examination  before  we  can  fully  credit  that  he 
thus  supplied  whole  books.  It  seems  needful  to 
believe  that  the  defective  books  were  simply  those 
in  the  Apocrypha,  which  he  did  not  supply.  The 
result,  however,  is,  that  the  Paris  edition  is  but  an 
infirm  groundwork  for  our  speaking  with  confidence 
of  the  text  of  this  version. 

In  Walton's  Polyglott,  1657,  the  Paris  text  is 
reprinted,  but  with  the  addition  of  the  Apocrypha! 
books  which  had  been  wanting.  It  was  generally 
said  that  Walton  had  done  much  to  amend  the 
texts  upon  MS.  authority ;  birt  the  late  Prof.  Lee 
denies  this,  stating  that  "  the  only  addition  made 
by  Walton  was  some  Apocryphal  look-H."  From 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC) 


1627 


Walton's  Polyglott,  Kir-sch,  in  1787,  published  a 
separate  edition  of  the  Pentateuch.  Of  the  Syria 
Psaltei  there  have  been  many  editions.  The  first 
of  the^e.,  as  mentioned  by  Eichhorn,  appeared  ii 
1610;  it  has  by  the  side  an  Arabic  version.  In 
1625  there,  were  two  editions;  the  one  at  Paris 
edited  by  Gabriel  Sionita,  and  one  at  Leyden  by 
Erpenius  from  two  MSS.  These  have  since  been 
repeated  ;  but  anterior  to  them  all,  it  is  mentioned 
tiuvt  the  seven  penitential  Psalms  appeared  at  Romi 
in  1584. 

In  the  punctuation  given  in  the  Polyglotts,  a 
system  was  introduced  which  was  in  part  a  pecu 
liarity  of  Gabriel  Sionita  himself.  This  has  to  be 
borne  in  mind  by  those  who  use  either  the  Pari; 
Polyglott  or  that  of  Walton  ;  for  in  many  word: 
there  is  a  redundancy  of  vowels,  and  the  "form  of 
some  is  thus  exceedingly  changed. 

When  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  pro 
posed  more  than  forty  years  ago  to  issue  the  Syriac 
Old  Testament  for  the  first  time  in  a  separate 
volume,  the  late  Prof.  Lee  was  employed  to  make 
such  editorial  preparations,  as  could  be  connected 
with  a  mere  revision  of  the  text,  without  any  speci 
fication  of  the  authorities.  Dr.  Lee  collated  for  the 
purpose  six  Syriac  MSS.  of  the  Old  Test,  in  general, 
and  a  very  ancient  copy  of  the  Pentateuch  :  he  also 
used  in  part  the  commentaries  of  Ephraem  and  of 
Bar-Hebraeus.  From  these  various  sources  he 
constructed  his  text,  with  the  aid  of  that  found 
already  in  the  Polyglotts.  Of  course  the  corrections 
depended  on  the  editor's  own  judgment;  and  the 
want  of  a  specification  of  the  results  of  collations 
leaves  the  reader  in  doubt  as  to  what  the  evidence 
may  be  in  those  places  in  which  there  is  a  departure 
from  the  Polyglott  text.  But  though  more  in 
formation  might  be  desired,  we  have  in  the  edition 
of  Lee  a  veritable  Syriac  text,  from  Syriac  autho 
rities,  and  free  from  the  suspicion  of  having  been 
formed  in  modern  times,  by  Gabriel  Sionita's  trans 
lating  portions  from  the  Latin. 

But  we  have  now  in  this  country,  in  the  MS. 
treasures  brought  from  the  Nitrian  valleys,  the 
means  of  far  more  accurately  editing  this  version. 
Even  if  the  results  should  not  appear  to  be  striking, 
a  thorough  use  of  these  MSS.  would  place  this 
version  on  such  a  basis  of  diplomatic  evidence  as 
would  show  positively  how  this  earliest  Christian 
translation  from  the  Hebrew  >vas  read  in  the  6th  or 
7th  century,  or  possibly  still  earlier:1  we  thus 
could  use  the  Syriac  with  a  fuller  degree  of  con 
fidence  in  the  criticism  of  the  Hebrew  text,  just  as 
we  can  the  more  ancient  versions  of  the  new  for 
the  criticism  of  the  Greek. 

In  the  beginning  of  1849,  the  late  excellent 
Bibl:cal  scholar,  the  Rev.  John  Rogers,  Canon  of 
Exetrr,  pubiishjd  "Reasons  why  a  New  Edition 
of  the  Peschito,  or  ancient  Syriac  Version  of  the 
Old  Testament,  should  be  published."  In  this  in 
teresting  pamphlet,  addressed  to  the  late  Abp.  of 
Canterbury,  Canon  Rogers  speaks  of  the  value  of 
the  version  itself,  its  importance  in  criticism,  the 
existing  editions,  their  defects,  the  sources  of  emen 
dation  now  possessed  by  this  country,  in  the 
Nitrian  MSS.  especially,  "  now  [1849J  under  the 
care  of  the  Rev.  Win.  Cureton,  who  is  making 
known  to  the  public  the  treasures  of  the  library  of 
the  Monastery  of  St.  Mary  Deipara,  in  the  Nitrian 
desert  in  Egypt,  thus  happily  obtained."  He 


1  The  Pentateuch  could  probably  be  given  on  a 
of  Hie  fifth  century. 


adverts  to  the  facility  which  would  be  afforded  for 
the  proper  publication  of  the  proposed  edition, 
from  type  having  been  of  late  prepared  representing 
the  proper  Estrangelo  Syriac  character,  of  which 
Dr.  Cureton  was  even  then  making  use  in  printing 
his  text  of  the  Syriac  Gospels,  &c.  If  it  had  been  an 
honour  to  this  country  to  issue  the  collations  of 
Kennicott  for  the  Hebrew  Old  Test.,  and  of  Holmes 
for  the  LXX.,  might  not  this  proposed  Syriac  edi 
tion  be  a  worthy  successor  to  such  works  ?  The 
plan  proposed  by  Canon  Rogers  for  its  execution 
was  this : — to  take  the  Syriac  MS.  which  appeared 
to  be  the  best  in  each  portion  of  the  Old  Test.,  both 
on  the  ground  of  goodness  and  antiquity :  let  this 
be  printed,  and  then  let  collations  be  made  by 
various  scholars  in  interleaved  copies;  the  whole 
of  the  results  might  then  be  published  in  the  same 
form  as  De  Rossi's  Variae  Lectiones  to  the  Hebrew 
Bible.  Canon  Rogers  gives  a  few  hints  as  to  what 
he  thought  would  be  probable  results  from  such 
a  collation.  He  did  not  expect  that  the  differences 
from  the  printed  Syriac  would  be  very  great ;  but 
still  there  would  be  a  far  greater  satisfaction  as  to 
the  confidence  with  which  this  version  might  be 
quoted,  especially  in  connexion  with  the  criticism 
of  the  Hebrew  original.  By  way  of  illustration  he 
pointed  out  a  good  many  passages,  in  which  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  the  defects  in  the  printed 
Syriac  arise  from  the  defectiveness  of  the  copy  or 
copies  on  which  it  was  based.  He  also  showed  it 
to  be  a  point  of  important  inquiry,  whether  in  places 
in  which  the  printed  Syriac  agrees  with  the  LXX., 
the  Syriac  has  been  altered  ;  or  whether  both  may 
preserve  the  more  ancient  reading  of  Hebrew  copies 
once  extant.  The  reasons  why  such  a  Syriac  text 
should  be  prepared  and  published,  and  why  such 
collations  should  be  made,  are  thus  summed  up  by 
Canon  Rogers :  "  1st.  Because  we  have  no  printed 
text  from  ancient  and  approved  MSS.  2nd.  Be 
cause  the  Latin  version  in  Walton's  Polyglott  oftei, 
fails  to  convey  the  sense  of  the  Syriac.  3rd.  Be 
cause  there  are  many  omissions  in  the  printed  text 
which  may  perhaps  be  supplied  in  a  collation  of 
early  MSS.  4th.  Because  the  facilities  now  given 
to  the  study  of  Hebrew  make  it  desirable  that  new 
facilities  should  also  be  given  to  the  study  of  the 
cognate  languages.  5th.  Because  it  is  useless  to 
accumulate  ancient  and  valuable  Biblical  MSS.  at 
the  British  Museum,  if  those  MSS.  are  not  applied 
to  the  purposes  of  sacred  criticism.  6th.  Because 
"n  comparing  the  Syriac  with  the  Hebrew  original, 
many  points  of  important  and  interesting  investi 
gation  will  arise.  Finally,  Because  it  is  neither 
creditable  to  the  literary  character  of  the  age,  nor 
;o  the  theological  position  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
and,  that  one  of  our  most  ancient  versions  of  the 
3ible  should  continue  in  its  present  neglected  state." 
These  considerations  of  the  late  Canon  Rogers  are 
worthy  of,  being  thus  repeated,  not  only  as  being 
-he  deliberate  judgment  of  a  good  Biblical  scholar, 
)ut  also  as  pointing  out  practically  the  objects  to 
be  sought  in  making  proper  use  of  the  Biblical 
materials  which  are  at  our  hands,  and  of  which 
he  scholars  of  former  ages  had  not  the  benefit. 

There  was  a  strong  hope  expressed  soon  after  the 
ssue  of  Canon  Rogers's  appeal,  that  the  work  would 
ave  been  formally  placecl  in  a  prooer  manner  in  the 
lands  of  the  Rev.  Wm.  Cureton,  and  that  thus  it 
vould  have  been  accomplisned  under  his  superin- 
endence,  at  the  Oxford  University  Press.  Canon 
lowers  announced  this  in  an  -Appendix  to  hit 
mnphlet.  But  this  has  not  been  effected.  It  may 


1028 


still  be  hoped  that  Dr.  Cureton  will  edit  at  leas 
the  Pentateuch  from  3  very  ancient  copy:  bu 
there  is  not  now  in  this  country  the  practical  en 
couragement  to  such  Biblical  studies  as  require  th 
devotion  of  time,  labour,  and  attention  (as  well  a 
pecuniary  expense),  which  in  the  last  century  Ken 
nicott  and  Holmes  received. 

But  if  the  printed  Syriac  text  rests  on  by  n< 
means  a  really  satisfactory  basis,  it  may  be  asked 
How  can  it  be  said  positively  that  what  we  have  is 
the  same  version  substantially  that  was  used  by 
Ephraem  in  the  4th  century  ?  Happily,  we  hav 
the  same  means  of  identifying  the  Syriac  with  tha 
anciently  used,  as  we  have  of  showing  that  the 
modem  Latin  Vulgate  is  substantially  the  version 
executed  by  Jerome.  We  admit  that  the  common 
printed  Latin  has  suffered  in  various  ways,  and  ye 
a*,  the  bottom  and  in  its  general  texture  it  is  un- 
<*<Hibtedly  the  work  of  Jerome :  so  with  the  Peshito 
or  cne  Old  Test.,  whatever  errors  of  judgment  were 
committed  by  Gabriel  Sionita,  the  first  editor,  and 
however  little  has  been  done  by  those  who  should 
have  corrected  these  things  on  MS.  authority,  the 
identity  of  the  version  is  too  certain  for  it  to  be 
thus  destroyed,  or  even  (it  may  be  said)  materially 
obscured. 

From  the  citations  of  Ephraem,  and  the  single 
words  on  which  he  makes  remarks,  we  have  suffi 
cient  proof  of  the  identity  of  the  version  :  even 
though  at  times  he  also  furnishes  proof  that  the 
copies  as  printed  are  not  exactly  as  he  read.  The 
following  may  be  taken  as  instances  of  accordance  : 
they  are  mostly  from  the  places  (see  Wiseman,  H. 
Syr.  122,  &c.)  in  which  Ephraem  thinks  it  needful 
to  explain  a  Syrian  word  in  this  version,  or  to 
discuss  its  meaning,  either  from  its  having  become 
antiquated  in  his  time,  or  from  its  being  unused  in 
the  same  sense  by  the  Syrians  of  Edessa.  Thus, 

Gen.  i.  1,  £\^  is  used  in  Syriac  as  answering  to 
the  Hebrew  J"IN.  The  occurrence  of  this  word 
Ephraem  mentions,  giving  his  own  explanation : 

»•  2,  oiQ^iO    <7IO<£;  x.  9,  for  TV  "1133,  the 

O    O  7 

Syriac  has  jjZ|^A,A*J,  which  Ephraem  men 
tions  as  being  a  term  which  the  Persians  also  use. 

Gen.  xxx.  14,  for  Dl|i<<Tl<:!  there  is  j^*O*^*,  a 
word  which  Ephraem  mentions  as  being  there, 
and  the  possible  meaning  of  which  he  discusses. 

O      -X         O 

Exod.  xxviii.  4,  \ZLQ\  j£>  stands  for  the  Hebrew 

o  *         «. 
|K>n  ;  Ephraem  reads  it  |^pn|^£>;  and  explains 

*        V 

the    meaning:  —  xxxviii.    4,    ^>.£1D    O^DID) ; 

D  V 

xxxviii.    16,     (rQVri    (VnVlJJp)  ;      xxviii.    40, 
(niyaaiD) ;  Num.  xi.  7,  for  1|  there  is 

i  word  equally,  it  seems,  meaning 
coriander  •  which  was,  however,  unknown  to  Eph- 
ra.T.:,  M  fcr  expounds  it  as  though  it  meant  food  of 

0       V         */    '        * 

all  kinds,  as  if  |Z't.n-g     >i>O.     1  Sam.  xxiii.  28, 
for    J&D  ;     2  Sam.   vih     7, 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC) 

merely   retaining   the   Hebrew   word 


.          T. 

Syriac  form.      1  K.  x.  11,  )Zo£lQ 


11, 


2  K.  iii.  4, 


Job 


xli.  13, 


the  Heb. 


Is.  iii.  2?, 


;  JerJi.41, 


Zech.  v.  7, 


In  these 


passages,  and  in  several  others,  the  words  of  the 
Peshito  are  cited  by  Ephraem  because  of  their 
obscuiity,  and  of  the  need  that  they  had  of 
explanation. 

The  proof  that  the  version  which  has  come  down 
to  us  is  substantially  that  used  by  the  Syrians  in 
the  4th  century,  is  perhaps  more  definite  from  the 
comparison  of  words  than  it  would  have  been  from 
the  comparison  of  passages  of  greater  length  ;  be 
cause  in  longer  citations  there  always  might  lie 
some  ground  for  thinking  that  perhaps  the  MS.  cf 
Ephraem  might  have  been  conformed  to  later  Syriac 
copies  of  the  Sacred  Text;  while,  with  regard  to 
peculiar  words,  no  such  suspicion  can  have  any 
place,  since  it  is  on  such  words  still  found  in  the 
Peshito  that  the  remarks  of  Ephraem  are  based. 
The  fact  that  he  sometimes  cites  it  differently  from 
what  we  now  read,  only  shows  a  variation  of  copies, 
perhaps  ancient,  or  perhaps  such  as  is  found  merely 
'.n  the  printed  text  that  we  have. 

From  Ephraem  having  mentioned  translators  of 
this  version,  it  has  been  concluded  that  it  was  the 
work  of  several  :  a  thing  probable  enough  in  itself, 
but  which  could  hardly  be  proved  from  the  occur 
rence  of  a  casual  phrase,  nor  yet  from  variations  in 
;he  rendering  of  the  same  Hebrew  word  ;  such  va 
riations  being  found  in  almost  all  translations,  even 
when  made  by  one  person  —  that  of  Jerome,  for 
'nstance  ;  and  which  it  would  be  almost  impossible 
;o  avoid,  especially  before  the  time  when  concord 
ances  and  lexicons  were  at  hand.  Variations  in 
)hraseology  give  a  far  surer  ground  for  supposing 
several  translators. 

It  has  been  much  discussed  whether  this  transla- 
ion  were  a  Jewish  or  a  Christian  work.  Some, 
vho  have  maintained  that  the  translator  was  a  Jew, 
lave  argued  from  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew  and 
lis  mode  of  rendering.  But  these  consideration 
wove  nothing.  Indeed,  it  might  well  be  deleted 
f  in  that  age  a  Jew  would  have  formed  anything 
except  a  Chaldee  Targum  ;  and  thus  diffuseness  ol 
>araphrase  might  be  expected  instead  of  closeness  of 
.ranslation.  There  need  be  no  reasonable  objection 
nade  to  the  opinion  that  it  is  a  Christian  work. 
ndeed  it  is  difficult  to  suppose,  that  before  the  dif- 
usion  of  Christianity  in  Syria,  the  version  could 
lave  been  needed. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  Syriac  in  general  sup 

ports  the  Hebrew  text  that  we  have  :  how  far  argu 

ments  may  be  raised  upon  minute  coincidences  or 

variations  cannot  be  certainly  known  until  the  an- 

ient  text  of  the  version  is  better  established.     Oc- 

.asionally,   however,  it   is   clear   that  the   Syriac 

ranslator  read  one  consonant  for  another  in  the 

Hebrew,    and    translated    accordingly  ;    at    times 

nother  vocalization  of  the  Hebrew  was  followed. 

A  resemblance  has  been  pointed  out  between  the 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC) 


1629 


Syriac  aud  the  reading  of  some  of  the  Chaldee  Tar- 
gums  :  if  the  Targum  is  the  older,  it  is  not  unlikely 
that  the  Syriac  translator,  using  every  aid  in  his 
power  to  obtain  an  accurate  knowledge  of  what  he 
was  rendering,  examined  the  Targums  in  difficult 
passages.  This  is  not  the  place  for  formally  discuss 
ing  the  date  and  origin  of  the  Targums  [see  below, 
TARGUMS]  ;  but  if  (as  seems  almost  certain)  the 
Targums  which  have  come  down  to  us  are  almost 
without  exception  more  recent  than  the  Syriac 
version,  still  they  are  probably  the  successors  of  ear 
lier  Targums,  which  by  amplification  have  reached 
their  present  shape.  Thus,  if  existing  Tcirgums 
are  more  recent  than  the  Syriac,  it  may  happen 
that  their  coincidences  arise  from  the  use  of  a 
common  source — an  earlier  Targum. 

But  there  is  another  point  of  inquiry  of  more 
importance:  it  is,  how  far  has  this  version  been 
affected  by  the  LXX.  ?  and  to  what  are  we  to  attri 
bute  this  influence  ?  It  is  possible  that  the  influence 
of  the  LXX.  is  partly  to  be  ascribed  to  copyists  and 
revisers ;  while  in  part  this  belonged  to  the  version 
as  originally  made.  For,  if  a  translator  had  access 
to  another  version  while  occupied  in  making  his 
own,  he  might  consult  it  in  cases  of  difficulty  ;  and 
thus  he  might  unconsciously  follow  it  in  other 
parts.  Even  knowing  the  words  of  a  particular 
translation  may  affect  the  mode  of  rendering  in 
another  translation  or  revision.  And  thus  a  tinge 
from  the  LXX.  may  have  easily  existed  in  this  ver 
sion  from  the  first,  even  though  in  whole  books  it 
may  riot  be  found  at  all.  But  when  the  extensive 
use  of  the  LXX.  is  remembered,  and  how  soon  it 
was  superstition  sly  imagined  to  have  been  made  by 
direct  inspiration,  so  that  it  was  deemed  canonically 
authoritative,  we  cannot  feel  wonder  that  readings 
from  the  LXX.  should  have  been  from  time  to  time 
introduced ;  this  may  have  commenced  probably 
before  a  Syriac  version  had  been  made  from  the 
Hexaplar  Greek  text ;  because  in  such  revised  text 
of  the  LXX.  the  additions,  &c.,  in  which  that  ver 
sion  differed  from  the  Hebrew,  would  be  so  marked 
that  they  would  hardly  seem  to  be  the  authoritative 
and  genuine  text. 

Some  comparison  with  the  Greek  is  probable  even 
before  the  time  of  Ephraem  ;  for,  as  to  the  Apocry 
phal  books,  while  he  cites  some  of  them  (though 
not  as  Scripture),  the  Apocryphal  additions  to 
Daniel  and  the  Books  of  Maccabees  were  not  yet 
found  in  Syriac.  Whoever  translated  any  of  these 
books  from  the  Greek,  may  easily  have  also  com 
pared  with  it  in  some  places  the  books  previously 
translated  from  the  Hebrew. 

In  the  Book  of  Psalms  this  version  exhibits  many 
peculiarities.  Either  the  translation  of  the  Psalter 
must  be  a  work  independent  of  the  Peshito  in 
general,  or  else  it  has  been  strangely  revised  and 
altered,  not  only  from  the  Greek,"*  but  also  from 
liturgical  use.  Perhaps,  indeed,  the  Psalms  are  a 
different  version ;  and  that  in  this  respect  the  prac 
tice  of  the  Syrian  Churches  is  like  that  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  Church  of  England 
in  using  liturgically  a  different  version  of  the  book 
so  much  read  ecclesiastically. 

It  is  stated  that,  after  the  divisions  of  the  Syrian 
Church,  there  were  revisions  of  this  one  version  by 
the  Monophysites  and  by  the  Nestorians :  probably 

m  Perhaps  as  to  this  the  version  of  the  Psalms  from 
the  Greek  made  by  Polycarp  (to  be  mentioned  presently) 
has  not  been  sufficiently  taken  into  account.  Indeed, 
remarkably  little  attention  appears  to  have  been  paid  to 
the  evidence  that  such  a  version  existed. 


it  would  be  found,  if  the  subject  could  be  fully 
investigated,  that  there  were  in  the  hands  of  dif 
ferent  parties  copies  in  which  the  ordinary  accident* 
of  transcription  had  introduced  variations. 

The  Karkaphensian  recension  mentioned  by  Bar- 
Hebraeus  was  only  known  by  name  prior  to  the 
investigations  of  Wiseman  ;  it  is  found  in  two  MSS. 
in  the  Vatican;  it  was  formed  for  the  use  of 
Monophysites ;  there  is  peculiarity  in  the  punc 
tuation  introduced,  by  a  leaning  towards  the 
Greek  ;  but  it  is,  as  to  its  substance,  the  Peshito 
version. 

B.  The  Syriac  version  from  the  Hexaplar  Greek 
Text.— The  only  Syriac  version  of  the  Old  Test, 
up  to  the  6th  century  was  apparently  the  Peshito. 
The  first  definite  intimation  of  a  portion  of  the 
Old  Testament  translated  from  the  Greek  is  through 
Moses  Aghelaeus.  This  Syriac  writer  lived  in  the 
middle  of  the  6th  century.  He  made  a  translation 
of  the  Glaphyra  of  Cyril  of  Alexandria  from  Greek 
into  Syriac  ;  and,  in  the  prefixed  Epistle,  he  speaks 
of  the  versions  of  the  New  Test,  and  the  Psalter, 
"  which  Polycarp  (rest  his  soul !),  the  Chorepiscopus, 
made  in  Syriac  for  the  faithful  Xenaias,  the  teacher 
of  Mabug,  worthy  of  the  memory  of  the  good."" 
We  thus  see  that  a  Syriac  version  of  the  Psalms 
had  a  similar  origin  to  the  Philoxenian  Syriac  New 
Test.  We  know  that  the  date  of  the  latter  was 
A.D.  508  ;  the  Psalter  was  probably  a  contempo 
raneous  work.  It  is  said  that  the  Nestorian  patri 
arch,  Marabba,  A.D.  552,  made  a  version  from  the 
Greek;  it  does  not  appear  to  be  in  existence,  so 
that,  if  ever  it  was  completely  executed,  it  was 
probably  superseded  by  the  Hexaplar  version  of 
Paul  of  Tela  ;  indeed  Paul  may  have  used  it 
as  the  basis  of  his  work,  adding  marks  of  refer 
ence,  &c. 

This  version  by  Paul  of  Tela,  a  Monophysite, 
was  made  in  the  beginning  of  the  7th  century ;  for 
its  basis  he  used  the  Hexaplar  Greek  text — that  is, 
the  LXX.,  with  the  corrections  of  Origen,  the  aster 
isks,  obeli,  &c.,  and  with  the  references  to  the  other 
Greek  version*. 

The  Syro-Hexaplar  version  was  made  on  the 
principle -of  following  the  Greek,  word  for  word,  as 
exactly  as  possible.  It  contains  the  marks  intro 
duced  by  Origen ;  and  the  references  to  the  versions 
of  Aquila,  Symmachus,  Theodotion,  &c.  In  fact, 
it  is  from  this  Syriac  version  that  we  obtain  our 
most  accurate  acquaintance  with  the  results  of  the 
critical  labours  of  Origen. 

Andreas  Masius,  in  his  edition  of  the  Book  of 
Joshua,0  first  used  the  results  of  this  Syro-Hexa 
plar  text ;  for,  on  the  authority  of  a  MS.  in  his 
possession,  he  revised  the  Greek,  introducing  aster 
isks  and  obeli,  thus  showing  what  Origen  had  done, 
how  much  he  had  inserted  in  the  text,  and  what 
he  had  marked  as  not  found  in  the  Hebrew.  The 
Syriac  MS.  used  by  Masius  has  been  long  lost; 
though  in  this  day,  after  the  recovery  of  the  Codex 
Reuchlini  of  the  Apocalypse  (from  which  Erasmus 
first  edited  that  book)  by  Prof.  Delitzsch,  it  could 
hardly  be  a  cause  for  surprise  if  this  Svriac  Codex 
were  again  found. 

It  is  from  a  MS.  in  the  Ambrosian  Library  at 
Milan  that  we  possess  accurate  means  of  knowing 
this  Syriac  versit-1.  The  MS.  in  question  contains 


n  Assemani,  Jtibliotheca  Orientcdis,  ii.  83;  where, 
however,  the  obscure  Syriac  is  turned  into  still  more  ob 
scure  Latin. 

0  Josuae  imperatoris  historia  illustrata  ntque  explicate 
ab  Andrea  Masio.  Antwerp.  1574. 


1630 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC, 


the  Psalms,  Job,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Canticles, 
Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  minor  prophets,  Jeremiah, 
Baruch,  Daniel,  Ezekiel,  and  Isaiah.  Norberg  pub 
lished,  at  Lund  in  1787,  the  Books  of  Jeremiah 
mid  Ezekiel,  from  a  transcript  which  he  had  made 
of  the  MS.  at  Milan.  In  1788,  Bugati  published 
at  Milan  the  Book  of  Daniel ;  he  also  edited  the 
Psalms,  the  printing  of  which  had  been  completed 
before  his  death  in  1816;  it  was  published  in 
1820.  The  rest  of  the  contents  of  the  Milan  Codex 
(with  the  exception  of  the  Apocryphal  books)  was 
published  at  Berlin  in  1835,. by  Middeldorpf,  from 
the  transcript  made  by  Norberg  ;  Middeldorpf  also 
added  the  4th  (2nd)  Book  of  Kings  from  a  MS.  at 
Paris. 

Besides  these  portions  of  this  Syriac  version,  the 
MSS.  from  the  Nitrian  monasteries  now  in  the 
British  Museum  would  add  a  good  deal  more : 
amongst  these  there  are  six,  from  which  much 
might  be  drawn,  so  that  part  of  the  Pentateuch 
and  other  books  may  be  recovered.*  These  MSS. 
are  like  that  at  Milan,  in  having  the  marks  of  Ori- 
gen  in  the  text ;  the  references  to  readings  in  the 
margin  ;  and  occasionally  the  Greek  word  itself  is 
thus  cited  in  Greek. 

Dr.  Antonio  Ceriani,  of  the  Ambrosian  Library 
at  Milan,  after  having  for  a  considerable  time  pro 
posed  to  edit  the  portions  of  the  Syro-Hexaplar 
Codex  of  Milan  which  had  hitherto  remained  in 
MS.,  commenced  such  a  work  in  1861  (Monumenta 
Sacra  et  Profana,  Opera  Collegii  Bibliothccae 
Arnbrosianae},  the  first  part  of  the  Syriac  text 
being  Baruch,  Lamentations,  and  the  Epistle  of 
Jeremiah.  To  this  work  Ceriani  subjoined  a  colla 
tion  of  some  of  the  more  important  texts,  and  cri 
tical  notes.  A  second  part  has  since  appeared.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  he  may  thus  edit  the  whole 
MS.,  and  that  the  other  portions  of  this  version 
known  to  be  extant  may  soon  appear  in  print. 

The  value  of  this  version  for  the  criticism  of,  the 
LXX.  is  very  great.  It  supplies,  as  far  as  a  ver 
sion  can,  the  lost  work  of  Origen. 

The  list  of  versions  of  the  Old  Test,  into  Syriac 
often  appears  to  be  very  numerous ;  but  on  exami 
nation  it  is  found  that  many  translations,  the  names 
of  which  appear  in  a  catalogue,  are  really  either 
such  as  never  had  an  actual  existence,  or  else  that 
they  are  either  the  version  from  the  Hebrew,  or 
else  that  from  the  Hexaplar  text  of  the  LXX.,  under 
different  names,  or  with  some  slight  revision.  To 
enumerate  the  supposed  vei-sions  is  needless.  It  is 
only  requisite  to  mention  that  Thomas  of  Harkel, 
whose  work  in  the  revision  of  a  translation  of  the 
New  Test,  will  have  to  be  mentioned,  seems  also  to 
have  made  a  translation  from  the  Greek  into  Syriac 
of  some  of  the  Apocryphal  books — at  least,  the  sub 
scriptions  in  certain  MSS.  state  this. 


II.  THE  SYRIAC  NEW  TESTAMENT  VERSIONS. 

A.  The  Peshito  Syriac  N.  T.  (Text  of  Wid- 
manstadt,  and  Curcton's  Gospels.) 

In  whatever  forms  the  Syriac  New  Test,  may 
have  existed  prior  to  the  time  of  Philoxenus  (the 
beginning  of  the  sixth  century),  who  caused  a  new 
translation  to  be  made,  it  will  be  more  convenient 
to  consider  all  such  most  ancient  translations  or 
revisions  together ;  even  though  there  may  be  rea 
sons  afterwards  assigned  for  not  regarding  the  version 
of  the  earlier  ages  of  Christianity  as  absolutely  one. 

It  may  stand  as  an  admitted  fact  that  a  ver 
sion  of  the  New  Test,  in  Syriac  existed  in  the 
2nd  century  ;  and  to  this  we  may  refer  the  state 
ment  of  Eusebius  respecting  Hegesippus,  that  he 
"  made  quotations  from  the  Gospel  according  to  the 
Hebrews  and  the  Syriac,"  e/c  re  rov  tca9'  'Efipal- 
ovs  €vayy€\iov  Kal  TOV  ~%vpia.Kov  {Hist.  Keel. 
iv.  22).  It  seems  equally  certain  that  in  the  4th 
century  such  a  version  was  as  well  known  of  the 
New  Test,  us  of  the  Old.  It  was  the  companion  of 
the  Old  Test,  translation  made  from  the  Hebrew, 
and  as  such  was  in  habitual  use  in  the  Syriac 
Churches.  To  the  translation  in  common  use 
amongst  the  Syrians,  orthodox,  Monophysite,  or 
Nestorian,  from  the  5th  century  and  onward,  the 
name  of  Peshito  has  been  as  commonly  applied  in 
the  New  Test,  as  the  Old.  In  the  7th  century  at 
least  the  version  so  current  acquired  the  name  of 

J.X)«_£>,  old,  in  contrast  to  that  which  was  then 
formed  and  revised  by  the  Monophysites. 

Though  we  have  no  certain  data  as  to  the  origir. 
of  this  version,  it  is  probable  on  every  ground  that 
a  Syriac  translation  of  the  New  Test,  was  an  ac 
companiment  of  that  of  the  Old  ;  whatever  therefore 
bears  on  the  one,  bears  on  the  othei  also. 

There  seem  to  be  but  few  notices  of  the  old 
Syriac  Version  in  early  writers.  Cosmas  Indico- 
pleustes,  in  the  former  half  of  the  6th  century,  inci 
dentally  informs  us  that  the  Syriac  translation  doei* 
not  contain  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  2  and  3 
John,  and  Jude.  This  was  found  to  be  correct 
when  a  thousand  years  afterwards  this  ancient 
translation  became  again  known  to  Western  scholars. 
In  1552,  Moses  of  Mardin  came  to  Rome  to  Pope 
Julius  III.,  commissioned  by  Ignatius  the  Jacobite 
(Monophysite)  patriarch,  to  state  his  religious  opi 
nions,  to  effect  (it  is  said)  a  union  with  the  Romish 
Church,  and  to  get  the  Syriac.  New  Test,  printed. 
In  this  last  object  Moses  failed  both  at  Rome  and 
Venice.  At  Vienna  he  was,  however,  successful. 
Widmanstadt,  the  chancellor  of  the  Emperor  Ferdi 
nand  I.,  had  himself  learned  Syriac  from  Theseus 
Ambrosius  many  years  previously  ;  and  through  his 
influence  the  emperor  undertook  the  charge  of  an 


9  The  following  is  the  notation  of  these  MSS.,  and  their 
K/ntents  and  dates : — 

12,133  (besides  the  Peshito  Exodus) ;  Joshua  (defective), 

cent.  vii.  "  Translated  from  a  Greek  MS.  of  the  Hex- 

apla,  collated  with  one  of  the  Tetrapla." 
.2,134,  Exodus.    A.D.  697. 
1 1,434,  Psalms  formed  from  two  MSS.  cent.  viii.  (with  the 

Song  of  the  Three  Children  subjoined  to  the  second). 

.Both  MSS.  are  defective.    Subscription,  "  According  to 

th2  LXX." 
H,437,  Numbers  and  1  Kings,  defective  (cent.  vii.  or 

viii.).    The  subscription  to  1  Kings  says  that  it  was 

translated  into  Syriac  at  Alexaudria  in  the  year  927 

U.D.  616). 


14,442,  Genesis,  defective  (with  1  Sam.  Peshito).  "  Ac 
cording  to  the  LXX."  (cent.  vi.). 

17,103,  Judges  and  Ruth,  defective  (cent.  vii.  or  viii.). 
Subscription  to  Judges,  "According  to  the  LXX.:"  to 
Ruth,  "  From  the  Tetrapla  of  the  LXX." 

The  notes  on  these  MSS.  made  by  the  present  wrilor 
in  1857  have  been  kindly  compared  and  amplified  by  Mr 
William  Wright  of  the  British  Museum. 

Rordam  issued  at  Copenhagen  in  1S59  the  first  portion 
of  an  edition  of  the  MS.  17,103:  another  part  has  sine*- 
been  published.  Some  of  these  MSS.  were  written  in  the 
same  century  in  which  the  version  was  made.  They 
may  probably  be  depended  on  as  giving  the  text  witi 
general  accuracy. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC, 


1631 


edition,  which  appeared  in  1555,  through  the  joint 
labours  of  Widmanstadt,  Moses,  and  Postell.  Some 
copies  were  afterwards  issued  with  the  date  of  1562 
on  the  back  of  the  title.* 

In  having  only  three  Catholic  epistles,  this  Syriac 
New  Test,  agreed  with  the  description  of  Cosmas  ;  the 
Apocalypse  was  also  wanting,  as  well  as  the  section 
John  viii.  1-11  ;  this  last  omission,  and  some  other 
points,  were  noticed  in  the  list  of  errata.  The 
editors  appear  to  have  followed  their  MSS.  with 
great  fidelity,  so  that  the  edition  is  justly  valued. 
In  subsequent  editions  endeavours  were  made  con- 
jecturally  to  amend  the  text  by  introducing  1  John 
v.  7  and  other  portions  which  do  not  belong  to  this 
translation.  One  of  the  principal  editions  is  that 
of  Leusden  and  Schaaf ;  in  this  the  text  is  made  as 
full  as  possible  by  supplying  every  lacuna  from 
any  source ;  in  the  punctuation  there  is  a  strange 
peculiarity,  that  in  the  former  part  Leusden  chose 
to  follow  a  sort  of  Chaldee  analogy,  while  on  his 
death  Schaaf  introduced  a  regular  system  of  Syriac 
vocalization  through  all  the  rest  of  the  volume. 
The  Lexicon  which  accompanies  this  edition  is  of 
groat  value.  This  edition  was  first  issued  in  1708  : 
more  copies,  however,  have  the  date  1709;  while 
some  have  the  false  and  dishonest  statement  on  the 
title  page,  "  Secunda  editio  a  mendis  purgata,"  and 
the  date  1717.  The  late  Professor  Lee  published 
an  edition  in  1816,  in  which  he  corrected  or  altered 
the  text  on  the  authority  of  a  few  MSS.  This  is  so 
far  independent  of  that  of  Widmanstadt.  It  is, 
however,  very  far  short  of  being  really  a  critical 
edition.  In  1828,  the  edition  of  Mr.  William 
Greenfield  (often  reprinted  from  the  stereotype 
plates),  was  published  by  Messrs.  Bagster:  in  this 
the  text  of  Widmanstadt  was  followed  (with  the 
vowels  fully  expressed),  and  with  certain  supple 
ments  within  brackets  from  Lee's  edition.  For  the 
collation  with  Lee's  text  Greenfield  was  not  re 
sponsible.  There  are  now  in  this  country  excellent 
materials  for  the  formation  of  a  critical  edition  of 
this  version :  it  may,  however,  be  said,  that  as  in 
its  first  publication  the  MSS.  employed  were  ho 
nestly  used,  it  is  in  the  text  of  Widmanstadt  in  a  far 
better  condition  than  is  the  Peshito  Old  Testament. 

This  Syriac  Version  has  been  variously  esti 
mated  :  some  have  thought  that  in  it  they  had  a 
genuine  and  unaltered  monument  of  the  second,  or 
perhaps  even  of  the  first  century.  They  thus  na 
turally  upheld  it  as  almost  co-ordinate  in  authority 
with  the  Greek  text,  and  as  being  of  a  period  ante 
rior  to  any  Greek  copy  extant.  Others  finding  in 
it  indubitable  marks  of  a  later  age,  were  inclined 
to  deny  that  it  had  any  claim  to  a  very  remote  an 
tiquity ;  thus  La  Croze  thought  that  the  commonly 
printed  Syriac  New  Test,  is  not  the  Peshito  at  all, 


but  the  Philoxenian  executed  in  the  beginning  of 
the  6th  century.  The  fact  is,  that  this  version  is 
transmitted  to  us  contains  marks  of  antiquity,  and 
also  traces  of  a  later  age.  The  two  things  are  so 
blended,  that  if  either  class  cf  phaenomena  alone 
were  regarded,  the  most  opposite  opinions  might  be 
formed.  The  opinion  of  Wetstein  was  one  of  the 
most  perverse  that  could  be  devised :  he  found  in 
this  version  readings  which  accord  with  the  Latin  ; 
and  then,  acting  on  the  strange  system  of  criticism 
which  he  adopted  in  his  later  years,  he  asserted 
that  any  such  accordance  with  the  Latin  wae  a 
proof  of  corruption  from  that  version :  so  that  with 
him  the  proofs  of  antiquity  became  the  tokens  of 
later  origin,  and  he  thus  assigned  the  translation  to 
the  seventh  century.  With  him  the  real  indication'- 
of  later  readings  were  only  the  marks  of  the  very 
reverse.  Michaelis  took  very  opposite  ground  to 
that  of  Wetstein ;  lie  upheld  its  antiquity  and  au 
thority  very  strenuously.  The  former  point  could 
be  easily  proved,  if  one  class  of  readings  alone  were 
considered ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  contents 
of  the  version  itself.  But  on  the  other  hand  there 
are  difficulties,  for  very  often  readings  of  a  much 
more  recent  kind  appear  ;  it  was  thus  thought  that 
it  might  be  compared  with  the  Latin  as  found  in 
the  Codex  Brixianus,  in  which  there  is  an  ancien* 
groundwork,  but  also  the  work  of  a  reviser  is  ma 
nifest.  Thus  the  judgment  formed  by  Griesbach 
seems  to  be  certainly  the  correct  one  as  to  the  pecu 
liarity  of  the  text  of  this  version:  he  says  (using 
the  terms  proper  to  his  system  of  recensions) ; 
"  Nulli  harum  recensionum  Syriaca  versio,  prout  qui- 
dem  typis  excusa  est,  similis,  verum  nee  ulli  prorsus 
dissimilis  est.  In  multis  concinit  cum  Alexandria 
recensione,  in  pluribus  cum  Occidental!,  in  non- 
nullis  etiam  cum  Constantinopolitana,  ita  tamen  ut 
quae  in  hanc  posterioribus  demum  seculis  invecta 
sunt,  pleraque  repudiet.  Diversis  ergo  temporibus 
ad  Graecos  codices  plane  diver  bos  iterum  iterumque 
recognita  esse  videtur"  (Nov.  Test.  Proleg.  Ixxv.). 
IH  a  note  Griesbach  introduced  the  comparison  of 
the  Codex  Bvixianus,  "  Illustrari  hoc  potest  codi- 
cum  nonnullorum  Latinorum  exemplo,  qui  priscam 
quidem  versionem  ad  Occidentalem  recensionem  ac- 
commodatam  representant,  sed  passim  ad  juniores 
libros  Graecos  refictam.  Ex  hoc  genere  est  Brixi 
anus  Codex  Latinus,  qui  non  raro  a  Graeco-Latinis 
et  vetustioribus  Latinis  omnibus  solus  discedit,  et 
in  Graecorum  partes  transit."  *  Some  proof  that 
the  text  of  the  Common  printed  Peshito  has  been 
re-wrought,  will  appear  when  it  is  compared  with 
the  Curetoniati  Syriac  Gospels. 

Let  it  be  distinctly  remembered  that  this  is  ao 
new  opinion ;  that  it  is  not  the  peculiar  notion  of 
Tregelles,  or  of  any  one  individual ;  for  as  the 


i  The  date  of  1555  appears  repeatedly  in  the  body  of 
the  volume  ;  at  the  end  of  the  Gospels,  May  18,  1355  ; 
St.  Paul's  Epp.,  July  18,  1555;  Acts,  Aug.  14,  1555; 
Cath.  Epp.  and  the  conclusion,  Sep.  27,  1555.  The  vo 
lume  is  dedicated  to  the  Emperor  Ferdinand,  and  the 
contents  mention  three  other  dedications  to  other  mem 
bers  of  the  Imperial  house.  All  of  these  three  are  often 
wanting,  and  two  of  them,  addressed  to  the  Archdukes 
Ferdinand  and  Charles,  are  not  only  generally  wanting, 
but  it  is  even  said  that  no  copy  is  known  in  which  they 
are  found. 

r  Griesbach's  most  matured  Judgment  on  this  subject 
ss-as  thus  given  :—"  Interpolation es  autem  e  locis  Evan- 
E?liorum  parallelis,  quales  apud  Syrum,  Matt,  xxviii.  18, 
Luc.  ix.  39,  item  Matt.  xxii.  22,  23,  Mar.  vi.  11,  xiii.  14, 
Ls*c,  Iv.  13,  deprehenduntur,  non  magis  quum  addita- 


menta  e  lectionariis  librls  in  sacrum  contextum  traducta 
velut  Luc,  xv.  11,  aut  liturgicum  illud  assumeutum  Matt. 

vi.  13,  vitia  sunt  TJJ  KOIVYJ  propria Quin  plerasque 

interpolationes  modo  enumerates,  cum  aliis  ejusmodl 
generis  multis,  quae  nunc  in  versione  Syriaca  extant, 
primitus  ab  ea  abfuisse  et  seriori  demum  tempore  in  earn 
irrepsisse,  plane  mini  persuasum  est.  Verisshne  enim 
clar.  Hugius  (  .  .  .  coll.  prolegomenis  in  majorem  m°am 
N.  T.  editionem,  Hal.  1796,  vol.  1.  p.  Ixxv.)  animad 
vertit,  versionem  hanc  a  Diorthote  quodam  videri  recog- 
nitam  fuisse  ac  castigatam.  Id  quod  quinto  seculo 
ineunte,  antequam  ecclesiae  orientates  Mestorianfs  et 
Monophysiticis  rixTs  discinderentur,  eventsse  susplcor 
et  in  epistolis  magis  adhuc  quarn  in  Evangeliis  locum 
Mabuissc  autumo."  Commentariits  Criticus  II. 
VMftZ,  11.  111.  1811. 


1632 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIA C) 


question  lias  been  re-opened,  it  has  been  treated  as 
if  this  Mere  some  theory  newly  invented  to  serve  a 
purpose.  The  Rev.  F.  H.  Scrivener,  whose  labours 
in  the  collation  of  Greek  MSS.,  and  whose  care  in 
editing  Codex  Augiensis  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  de 
serve  very  high  commendation,  avowed  himself 
many  years  ago  an  ardent  admirer  of  the  Peshito- 
Syriac.  But  even  then  he  set  aside  its  authority 
very  often  when  it  happened  to  adhere  to  the 
ancient  Greek  text,  to  the  other  ancient  versions, 
and  to  the  early  Fathers,  in  opposition  to  the  later 
copies.  But  when  the  judgment  of  Griesbach 
respecting  the  common  printed  Syriac  had  been  re 
peated  and  enforced  by  Tregelles  (Home's  Introd. 
vol.  iv.  265),  Scrivener  came  forward  as  its  cham 
pion.  In  his  Introduction  to  Codex  Augiensis,  Mr. 
Scrivener  says,  "  How  is  this  divergency  of  the 
Peshito  version  from  the  text  of  Codex  B  explained 
by  Tregelles  ?  He  feels  of  course  the  pressure  of 
the  argument  against  him,  and  meets  it,  if  not  suc 
cessfully,  with  even  more  than  his  wonted  boldness. 
The  translation  degenerates  in  his  hands  into  '  the 
version  commonly  printed  as  the  Peshito.'  Now 
let  us  mark  the  precise  nature  of  the  demand  here 
made  on  our  faith  by  Dr.  Tregelles.  He  would 
persuade  us  that  the  whole  Eastern  Church,  dis 
tracted  as  it  has  been,  and  split  into  hostile  sections 
for  the  space  of  1400  years,  orthodox  and  Jacobite, 
Nestorian  and  Maronite  alike,  those  who  could  agree 
in  nothing  else,  have  laid  aside  their  bitter  jealousies 
in  order  to  substitute  in  their  monastic  libraries  and 
liturgical  services,  another  and  a  spurious  version  in 
the  room  of  the  Peshito,  that  sole  surviving  mo 
nument  of  the  first  ages  of  the  Gospel  in  Syria! 
Nay,  more,  that  this  wretched  forgery  has  deceived 
Orientalists  profound  as  Michaelis  •  and  Lowth,  has 
passed  without  suspicion  through  the  ordeal  of 
searching  criticism  to  which  every  branch  of  Sacred 
literature  has  been  subjected  during  the  last  half 
century !  We  will  require  solid  reasons,  indeed, 
before  we  surrender  ourselves  to  an  hypothesis  as 
novel  as  it  appears  violently  improbable  "  (pp.  xiv. 
xv.).  Mr.  Scrivener's  warmth  of  declamation  might 
have  been  spared :  no  one  calls  the  Peshito  "  a  spu 
rious  version,"  "  wretched  forgery,"  &c.,  it  is  not 
suggested  that  the  Syrian  Churches  agreed  in  some 
strange  substitution :  all  that  is  suggested  is,  that 
at  the  time  of  the  transition  Greek  text,  before  the 
disruption  of  the  Syrian  Churches,  the  then  existing 
Syriac  version  was  revised  and  modernized  in  a  way 
analogous  to  that  in  which  the  Latin  was  treated 
in  Cod.  Brixianus.  On  part  of  Mr.  Scrivener's 
statements  the  Rev.  F.  J.  A.  Hort  has  well  re 
marked  : — "  The  text  may  have  been  altered  and 
corrupted  between  the  first  or  second,  and  fifth  cen 
turies.  This  is  all  that  Dr.  Tregelles  has  supposed, 
though  Mr.  Scrivener  assails  him  with  unseemly 
violence,  as  if  he  had  represented  the  vulgar  text  as 
'  a  wretched  forgery.'  Mr.  Scrivener's  rashness  is 
no  less  remarkable  in  calling  this  a  '  novel  hypo 
thesis,'  when  in  fact  it  is  at  least  as  old  as  Gries 
bach  .  .  .  There  is  neither  evidence  nor  internal 
probability  against  the  supposition  that  the  Old 
Syriac  version  was  revised  into  its  present  form 
...  in  the  4th  or  even  3rd  century,  to  make 
it  accord  with  Greek  MSS.  then  current  at  Antioch, 


•  .Even  Mlcbaelis  did  not  think  it  needful  to  assume 
that  the  Peshito  had  been  transmitted  without  any 
change.  '-In  using  the  Syriac  version,  we  must  never 
forppt  tluit  our  present  editions  are  very  imperfect,  and 
Dot  conclude  that  every  reading  of  the  Syriac  printed 


Edessa,  or  Nisibis :  and  without  some  such  supposi 
tion  the  Syriac  text  must  remain  an  inexplicable 
phaenomonon,  unless  we  bring  the  Greek  and  Latin 
texts  into  conformity  with  it  by  contradicting  the 
full  and  clear  evidence  which  we  do  possess  respecting 
them.  All  that  we  have  now  said  might  have  been 
alleged  before  the  Curetonian  Syriac  was  discovered  : 
the  case  is  surely  strengthened  in  a  high  degree  by 
the  appearance  (in  a  MS.  assigned  to  the  5th  cen 
tury)  of  a  Syriac  version  of  the  Gospels,  bearing 
clear  marks  of  the  highest  antiquity  in  its  manifest 
errors  as  well  as  in  its  choicest  readings.  The  ap 
propriation  of  the  name  '  Peshito,'  appeal's  to  ur 
wholly  unimportant,  except  for  rhetorical  pur- 
poses."1 

These  remarks  of  Mr.  Hort  will  suffice  in  rescu 
ing  the  opinion  stated  by  Tregelles  from  the  charge 
of  novelty  or  rashness:  indeed,  the  supposition  as 
stated  by  Griesbach,  is  a  simple  solution  of  various 
difficulties ;  for  if  this  be  not  the  fact,  then  every 
other  most  ancient  document  or  monument  of  the 
New  Test,  must  have  been  strangely  altered  in  its 
text.  The  number  of  difficulties  (otherwise  inex 
plicable)  thus  solved,  is  about  a  demonstration  of 
its  truth.  Mr.  Scrivener,  however,  seems  incapable 
of  apprehending  that  the  revision  of  the  Peshito  is 
an  opinion  long  ago  held :  he  says  since,  "  I  know  no 
other  cause  for  suspecting  the  Peshito,  than  that  its 
readings  do  not  suit  Dr.  Tregelles,  and  if  this  fact 
be  enough  to  convict  it  of  corruption,  I  am  quite 
unable  to  vindicate  it."  B  Why,  then,  do  not  the 
readings  "suit"  Dr.  Tregelles?  Because,  if  they 
were  considered  genuine,  we  should  have  (to  use 
Mr.  Hort's  words)  to  "  bring  the  Greek  and  Latin 
texts  into  conformity  with  it,  by  contradicting  the 
full  and  clear  evidence  which  we  do  possess  re 
specting  them." 

Whether  the  whole  of  this  version  proceeded 
from  the  same  translator  has  been  questioned.  It 
appears  to  the  present  writer  probable  that  the 
New  Test,  of  the  Peshito  is  not  from  the  same  hand 
as  the  Old.  Not  only  may  Michaelis  be  right  in 
supposing  a  peculiar  translator  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  but  also  other  parts  may  be  from  different 
hands ;  this  opinion  will  become  more  general  the 
more  the  version  is  studied.  The  revisions  to  which 
the  version  was  subjected  may  have  succeeded  in 
part,  but  not  wholly,  in  effacing  the  indications  of  a 
plurality  of  translators.  The  Acts  and  Epistles 
seem  to  .be  either  more  recent  than  the  Gospels, 
though  far  less  revised ;  or  else,  if  coeval,  far  more 
corrected  by  later  Greek  MSS. 

There  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  supposing  that 
this  version  ever  contained  the  four  Catholic 
Epistles  and  the  Apocalypse,  now  absent  from  it, 
not  only  in  the  printed  editions  but  also  in  the 
MSS. 

Some  variations  in  copies  of  the  Peshito  have  been 
regarded  as  if  they  might  be  styled  Monophysite 
and  Nestorian  recensions :  but  the  designation  would 
be  far  too  definite ;  for  the  differences  are  not  suf 
ficient  to  warrant  the  classification. 

The  MSS.  of  the  Karkaphensian  recension  (as  it 
has  been  termed)  of  the  Peshito  Old  Test,  contain 
also  the  New  with  a  similar  character  of  text. 

The  Curetonian  Syriac  Gospels. — "  Comparative 


text  was  the  reading  of  the  Greek  MS.  of  the  first  een 
tury."  Marsh's  Michaelis,  ii.  46. 

t  Journal  of  Classical  and  Sacred  Philology  (Cam 
bridge),  Feb.  1860.  378-9. 

«  "Plain  Introduction,"  p.  424,foot-notf. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC; 


1633 


criticism >J  shows  the  true  character  of  every 
document,  whether  previously  known  or  newly 
brought  to  light,  which  professes  to  contain  the 
early  text  of  the  New  Test.  By  comparative  cri 
ticism  is  not  meant  such  a  mode  of  examining 
authorities  as  that  to  which  Mr.  Scrivener  has 
applied  this  term,  but  such  a  use  of  combined  evi 
dence  as  was  intended  and  defined  by  the  critic  by 
whom  the  expression  was  (for  convenience  sake) 
introduced  :  that  is,  the  ascertainment  that  readings 
are  in  ancient  documents,  or  rest  on  ancient  evi 
dence  (whether  early  citations,  versions,  or  MSS.), 
and  then  the  examination  of  what  documents  con 
tain  such  readings,  and  thus  within  what  limits  the 
inquiry  for  the  ancient  text  may  be  bounded.  Thus 
a  document,  in  itself  modern,  may  be  proved  to  be 
ancient  in  testimony:  a  version,  previously  un 
known,  may  be  shown  to  uphold  a  very  early  text. 
For  purposes  of  comparative  criticism  early  read 
ings,  known  to  be  false,  have  often  as  definite  a  value 
in  the  chain  of  proof  as  those  which  are  true.  In 
the  process  of  comparative  criticism  nothing  is  as 
sumed,  but  point  after  point  is  established  by  inde 
pendent  testimony ;  and  thus  the  character  of  the 
text  of  MSS.,  of  ancient  versions,  and  of  patristic 
citations,  is  upheld  by  their  accordance  with  facts 
attested  by  other  witnesses,  of  known  age  and  cer 
tain  transmission. 

It  was  reasonable  to  suppose  with  Griesbach  that 
the  Syriac  version  must  at  one  time  have  existed  in 
a  form  different  from  that  in  the  common  printed 
text:  it  was  felt  by  Biblical  scholars  to  be  a  mere 
assumption  that  the  name  Pcshito  carried  with  it 
some  hallowed  prestige ;  it  was  established  that  it 
was  a  groundless  imagination  that  this  version, 
as  edited,  had  been  known  from  the  earliest  ages 
as  the  original  monument  of  Syrian  Christianity. 
Hence  if  it  could  be  shown  that  an  earlier  version 
(or  earlier  basis  of  the  same  version)  had  existed, 
there  was  not  only  no  a  priori  objection,  but  even 
a  demonstrated  probability  (almost  certainty)  that 
this  had  been  the  case.  When  it  is  remembered 
how  little  we  know  historically  of  the  Syriac  ver 
sions,  it  must  be  felt  as  an  assumption  that  the 
form  of  text  common  from  the  fifth  century  and 
onward  was  the  original  version.  In  1848  Tre- 
gelles  (see  Davidson's  Introduction  to  the  New  Test. 
vol.  i.  p.  429)  suggested  that  «•  the  Nitrian  MSS. 
when  collated  may  exhibit  perhaps  an  earlier  text." 
This  was  written  without  any  notion  that  it  was 
an  ascertained  fact  that  such  a  MS.  of  the  Gospels 
existed,  and  that  the  full  attention  of  a  thorough 
Syriac  scholar  had  been  devoted  to  its  illustration 
and  publication. 

Among  the  MSS.  brought  from  the  Nitrian  monas 
teries  in  1842,  Dr.  Cureton  noticed  a  copy  of  the 
Gospels,  differing  greatly  from  the  common  text: 
and  this  is  the  form  of  text  to  which  the  name  of 


*  It  is  very  certain  that  many  who  profess  a  peculiar 
admiration  for  the  Peshito  do  this  rather  from  some 
traditional  notion  than  from  minute  personal  acquaint 
ance.  They  suppose  that  it  has  some  prescriptive  right 
to  the  first  rank  amongst  versions,  they  praise  ite  ex 
cellencies,  which  they  have  not  personally  Investigated, 
and  they  do  not  care  to  know  wherein  it  is  defective. 
Every  error  in  translation,  every  doubtful  reading,  every 
supposed  defect  in  the  one  known  MS.  of  the  Curetonian 
Gospels,  has  been  enumerated  by  those  who  wish  to 
depreciate  that  version,  and  to  detract  from  the  critical 
merits  of  its  discoverer  and  editor.  But  many  of  the 
supposed  defects  are  really  the  very  opposite ;  and  if 
they  similarly  examined  the  Peshito,  they  might  find 
VOL.  III. 


Curetonian  Syriac  has  been  rightly  applied.  Every 
criterion  which  proves  the  common  Peshito  not  to 
exhibit  a  text  of  extreme  antiquity.,  equally  proves 
the  early  origin  of  this.  The  discovery  is  in  fact 
that  of  the  object  which  was  wanted,  the  want  of 
which  had  been  previously  ascertained.  Dr.  Cureton 
considers  that  the  MS.  of  the  Gospels  is  of  the  fifth 
century,  a  point  in  which  all  competent  judges  are 
probably  agreed.  Some  persons  indeed  have  sought 
to  depreciate  the  text,  to  point  out  its  difference* 
from  the  Peshito,  to  regard  all  such  variations  as 
corruptions,  and  thus  to  stigmatise  the  Curetoniaii 
Syriac  as  a  corrupt  revision  of  the  Peshito,  bar 
barous  in  language  and- false  in  readings."  This 
peremptory  judgment  is  as  reasonable  as  if  the  old 
Latin  in  the  Codex  Vercellensis  were  called  an  igno 
rant 'revision  of  the  version  of  Jerome.  The  judg 
ment  that  the  Curetonian  Syriac  is  older  than  the 
Peshito  is  not  the  peculiar  opinion  of  Cureton, 
Alford,y  Tregelles,  or  Biblical  scholars  of  the  school 
of  ancient  evidence  in  this  country,  but  it  is  also 
that  of  continental  scholars,  such  as  Ewald,  and 
apparently  of  the  late  Prof.  Bleek.« 

The  MS.  contains  Matt,  i.-viii.  22,  x.  31-xxu.. 
25.  Mark,  the  four  last  verses  only.  John  i.  1- 
42,  iii.  6-vii.  37,  xiv.  11-29;  Luke  ii.  48-iii.  16, 
vii.  33-xv.  21,  xvii.  24-xxiv.  41.  It  would  have 
been  a  thing  of  much  value  if  a  perfect  copy  of 
this  version  had  come  down  to  us  ;  but  as  it  is, 
we  have  reason  greatly  to  value  the  discovery  of 
Dr.  Cureton,  which  shows  how  truly  those  critics 
have  argued  who  concluded  that  such  a  version 
must  have  existed ;  and  who  regarded  this  as  a 
proved  fact,  even  when  not  only  no  portion  of  the 
version  was  known  to  be  extant,  but  also  when  even 
the  record  of  its  existence  was  unnoticed.  For 
there  is  a  record  showing  an  acquaintance  with  this 
version,  to  which,  as  well  as  to  the  version  itself, 
attention  has  been  directed  by  Dr.  Cureton.  Bar 
Salibi,  bishop  of  Amida  in  the  12th  century,  in  a 
passage  translated  by  Dr.  C.  (in  discussing  the  omis 
sion  of  three  kjnga  in  the  genealogy  in  St.  Matthew) 
says  : — "  There  is  found  occasionally  a  Syriac  copy, 
made  out  of  the  Hebrew,  which  inserts  these  three 
kings  in  the  genealogy;  but  that  afterwards  it 
speaks  of  fourteen  and  not  of  seventeen  generations, 
because  fourteen  generations  has  been  substituted 
for  seventeen  by  the  Hebrews  on  account  of  their 
holding  to  the  septenary  number,"  &c.» 

It  shows  then  that  Bar  Salibi  knew  of  a  Syriac 
text  of  the  Gospels  in  which  Ahaziah,  Joash,  and 
Amaziah  were  inserted  in  Matt.  i.  8 ;  there  is  the 
same  reading  in  the  Curetonian  Syriac  :  but  this 
might  have  been  a  coincidence.  But  in  ver. 
17  the  Curetonian  text  has,  in  contradiction  to 
ver.  8,  fourteen  generations  and  not  seventeen:  and 
so  had  the  copy  mentioned  by  Bar  Salibi :  the 
former  point  might  be  a  mere  coincidence ;  the 


more  fault  with  it  and  with  its  translator.  The  last 
fourteen  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  as  they  have  come 
down  to  us  in  the  Peshito,  present  far  more  grounds  for 
comment  than  an  equal  portion  of  the  Curetonian.  The 
Peshito  is  a  very  valuable  version,  although  overpraised 
by  some  injudicious  admirers,  who  (even  if  they  have  read 
it)  have  never  closely  and  verbally  examined  it.  Many 
have  evidently  never  looked  farther  than  the  Gospels, 
even  though  aided  by  SchaaPs  Latin  interpretation. 

y  "Perhaps  the  earliest  and  most  important  of  all  the 
versions."    Alford's  Gr.  Test.  Proteg.  vol.  i.  114,  ed.  4. 

*  See  Bleek's  Einleitung  in  das  Jf.  Test.  p.  723,/«rf-»iote. 

»  For  the  Syriac  of  this  part  of  the  passage  from  Bai 
Salibi,  see  Assemani,  Bibliotheca  Orientalis,  if.  160. 

5  M 


1634 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC) 


latter,  however,  shows  such  a  kind  of  union  in 
contradiction  as  proves  the  identity  very  convinc 
ingly.  Thus,  though  this  version  was  unknown  in 
Europe  prior  to  its  discovery  by  Dr.  Cureton,  it 
must  in  the  12th  century  have  been  known  as  a 
text  sometimes  found,  and  as  mentioned  by  the 
Monophysite  Bishop,  it  might  be  more  in  use 
amongst  his  co-religionists  than  amongst  others. 
Perhaps,  as  its  existence  and  use  is  thus  recorded  in 
the  12th  century,  some  further  discovery  of  Syriac 
MSS.  may  furnish  us  with  another  copy  so  as  to 
supply  the  defects  of  the  one  happily  recovered. 

la  examining  the  Curetonian  text  with  the  com 
mon  printed  Peshito,  we  often  find  such  identity  of 
phrase  and  rendering  as  to  show  that  they  are  not 
wholly  independent  translations:  then,  again,  we 
raeet  with  such  variety  in  the  forms  of  words,  &c. 
as  seems  to  indicate  that  in  the  Peshito  the 
phraseology  had  been  revised  and  refined.b  But  the 
great  (it  might  be  said  characteristic)  difference  be 
tween  the  Curetonian  and  the  Peshito  Gospels  is  in 
their  readings;  for  while  the  latter  cannot  in  its 
present  state  be  deemed  an  unchanged  production  of 
the  second  century,  the  former  bears  all  the  marks 
of  extreme  antiquity,  even  though  in  places  it  may 
have  suffered  from  the  introduction  of  readings  cur 
rent  in  very  early  times. 

The  following  are  a  few  of  the  very  many  cases 
in  which  the  ancient  reading  is  found  in  the  Cure 
tonian,  and  the  later  or  transition  reading  in  the 
Peshito.  For  the  general  authorities  on  the  sub 
ject  of  each  passage,  reference  must  be  made  to  the 
notes  in  critical  editions  of  the  Greek  New  Test. 

Matt.  xix.  17,  ri  jtte  epcar&s  irepl  rov  aya6ov  ; 
the  ancient  reading,  as  we  find  in  the  best  authori 
ties,  and  as  we  know  from  Origen ;  so  the  Cure 
tonian:  ri  /*€  Ae'yety  a.yaQ6v;  the  common  text 
with  the  Peshito.  Matt.  xx.  22,  the  clause  of  the 
common  text,  Kal  rb  frairriffna  b  €7^  fiaTrri£o/j.at 
(and  the  corresponding  part  of  the  following  verse) 
are  in  the  Peshito ;  while  we  know  from  Origen 
that  they  were  in  his  day  a  peculiarity  of  St.  Mark  : 
omitted  in  the  Curetonian  with  the  other  best  au 
thorities.  In  fact,  except  the  Peshito  and  some  re 
vised  Latin  copies,  there  is  no  evidence  at  all  extant 
for  these  words  prior  to  the  fifth  century.  Matt.  v. 
4,  5  :  here  the  ancient  order  of  the  beatitudes,  as 
supported  by  Origen,  Tertullian,  the  canons  of  Eu- 
sebius,  and  Hilary,  is  that  of  placing  paKdpioi  ol 
irpaeis,  K.  r.  \.  before  /uLaKapiot  ot  Trci/floOi/Tcy, 
ic.  T.  A. ;  here  the  Curetonian  agrees  with  the  dis 
tinct  testimonies  for  this  order  against  the  Peshito. 
In  Matt.  i.  18,  we  know  from  Irenaeus  that  the 
name  "  Jesus  "  was  not  read;  and  this  is  confirmed 
by  the  Curetonian  :  in  fact,  the  common  reading, 
however  widely  supported,  could  not  have  ori 
ginated  until  'lyffovs  xPlffTbs  was  treated  as  a 
combined  proper  name,  otherwise  the  meaning  of 
rov  8£  'Irjffov  xpurrov  f]  ytveo'is  would  not  be 
"  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ,"  but  « the  birth  of 
Jesus  as  the  Christ."  Here  the  Curetonian  reading 
is  in  full  accordance  with  what  we  know  of  the 
second  century  in  opposition  to  the  Peshito.  In 
Matt.  vi.  4  the  Curetonian  omits  avr6s]  in  the 
same  ver.  and  in  ver.  6  it  omits  ei/  ry  Qavcpqi :  in 
each  case  with  the  best  authorities,  but  against  the 
Peshito.  Matt.  v.  44,  has  been  amplified  by  copy 
ists  in  an  extraordinary  manner:  the  words  in 


o  A.  collation  of  an  ancient  Syriac  MS.  of  the  Gospels 
(Rich,  7,167  in  the  British  Museum)  showed  that  the 
Syrians  were  In  the  habit  of  reforming  their  cotries  in 


brackets  show  the  amplifications,  and  the  place 
from  which  each  was  taken  :  fyk  5c  A^yw  VIJLIV, 
robs  e%0pous  VJJLWV  [cuAc-yetTe  robs 
vs  vfias,  Luke  vi.  28,  /caA<£s  TTOJ€?T« 
rovs  jjMrovvras  i/pas,  Ibid.  27],  Kal  7rpo(reu%e<r0< 
VTTfp  rS>v  [tirnpea&vrwv  vpas  Kal,  Ibid.  35] 
8ta>KoWu>j'  V/JLUS.  The  briefer  form  is  attested  by 
Irenaeus,  Clement,  Origen,  Cyprian,  Eusebius,  etc.  ; 
and  though  the  inserted  words  and  clauses  are  found 
in  almost  all  Greek  MSS.  (except  Codices  Vaticanus 
and  Sinaiticus),  and  in  many  versions  including 
the  Peshito,  thet/  are  not  in  the  Curetonian  Syriac. 
Of  a  similar  kind  are  Matt,  xviii.  35,  ra  irapa- 
irr<a(j.ara  avrwv  ;  Luke  viii.  54,  e/c/3aAaJf  e|a> 
trdvra<>  Kal  ;  Luke  ix.  7,  UTT'  avrov  ;  ix.  54,  us 
Kal  'HAias  e7roirj(rei/  :  xi.  2,  yevrjd-firo)  rb  fleATj/ua 
arov  &s  ei/  ovpavy  Kal  tirl  rfjs  7775  :  xi.  29,  rov 
7rpo(/>77TOu  :  xi.  44,  ypa/j./j.arf'is  Kal  $apt<ra?oi 
viroKpirai  :  John  iv.  43,  Kal  cbrTjAflei/  ;  v.  16,  /col 
effirovv  avrbv  airoKrelvai  :  vi.  51,  *(\v  ey<a  Sctxru  : 
vi.  69,  rov  favros. 

These  are  but  a  few  samples  of  the  variations 
which  exist  between  the  Curetonian  Syriac  and  the 
Peshito  as  to  the  kind  of  text  :  the  instances  of 
this  might  be  increased  almost  indefinitely.  Those 
acquainted  with  critical  results  will  know  that 
some  of  those  here  specified  are  crucial  texts  in 
points  of  Comparative  Criticism.  Such  a  com 
parison  not  only  shows  the  antiquity  of  the  text  of 
the  Curetonian  Syriac,  but  it  also  affords  abundant 
proof  that  the  Peshito  must  have  been  modernized 
and  revised. 

The  antiquity  of  the  Curetonian  text  is  also 
shown  by  the  occurrence  of  readings  which  were, 
as  we  know,  early  current,  even  though  rightly  re 
pudiated  as  erroneous  :  several  of  these  are  in  the 
Curetonian  Syriac;  it  may  suffice  to  refer  to  the 
long  addition  after  Matt.  xx.  28. 

The  Curetonian  Syriac  presents  such  a  text  as  we 
might  have  concluded  would  be  current  in  the 
second  century:  the  Peshito  has  many  features 
which  could  not  belong  to  that  age  ;  unless,  indeed, 
we  are  ready  to  reject  established  facts,  and  those 
of  a  very  numerous  kind  :  probably,  at  least,  two 
thousand. 

It  is  not  needful  for  very  great  attention  to  be 
paid  to  the  phraseology  of  the  Curetonian  Syriac 
in  order  to  see  that  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew 
differs  in  mode  of  expression  and  various  other  par 
ticulars  from  what  we  find  in  the  rest.  This  may 
lead  us  again  to  look  at  the  testimony  of  Bar  Salibi; 
he  tolls  us,  when  speaking  of  this  version  of  St. 
Matthew,  "  there  is  found  occasionally  a  Syriac 
copy  made  out  of  the  Hebrew:"  we  thus  know 
that  the  opinion  of  the  Syrians  themselves  in  the 
12th  century  was  that  this  translation  of  St.  Mat 
thew  was  not  made  from  the  Greek,  but  from  the 
Hebrew  original  of  the  Evangelist:  such,  too,  is 
the  judgment  of  Dr.  Cureton  :  "  this  Gospel  of  St. 
Matthew  appears  at  least  to  be  built  upon  the 
original  Aramaic  text,  which  was  the  work  of  the 
Apostle  himself."  (Preface  to  Syriac  Gospels, 
P-  ^.) 

Dr.  Cureton  rightly  draws  attention  to  the  pecu 
liar  title  prefixed  to  the  Gospel  by  St.  Matthew, 

Now  what 


ever   be   the   meaning   of   the   word  dampharsho 


some  respects.  The  grammatical  forms,  &c.,  of  this  MS. 
are  much  more  ancient  than  those  of  the  text  of  Wid- 
manstadt,  who  has  been  followed  by  successive  editors. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (SYRIAC) 


1636 


here  brought  m  —  whether  it  signifies  "  the  distinct 
Gospel  of  Matthew,"  as  rendered  by  Cureton,  or 
"  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  set  fwth  "  \i.  e.  for  lessons 
throughout  the  ecclesiastical  year],  as  Bernstein 
advances,  supporting  his  opinion  by  a  passage  in 
Assemani  (which  can  hardly  here  apply,  as  this  copy 
is  not  so  "  set  forth"),  or  if  it  means  (as  some  have 
objected),  "the  Gospel  of  Matthew  explained"  — 
still  there  must  be  some  reason  why  the  first 
Gospel  should  be  thus  designated,  and  not  the 
others.  But  the  use  of  the  cognate  Hebrew  verb 
in  the  Old  Test,  may  afford  us  some  aid  as  to  what 
kind  of  explanation  is  meant,  if  indeed  that  is  the 
meaning  of  the  term  here  used.  In  the  description 
of  the  reading  of  the  law  in  Neh.  viii.  8,  we  are 
told,  "  So  they  read  in  the  book  of  the  law  distinctly 
(CjhblD),  and  gave  the  sense,  and  caused  the  people 

to  understand  the  reading."  The  word  here  used 
has  been  regarded  by  able  scholars  as  implying  an 
interpretation  from  the  ancient  Hebrew  into  the 
form  of  Aramaean  then  current.  Such  a  Mepho- 
rash,  when  written,  would  be  the  germ  of  the 
Targum  of  after  ages.  (See  below,  p.  1638a.) 
The  same  word  may  be  used  in  the  heading  of 
St.  Matthew's  Gospel  in  the  same  sense  —  as  being 
an  explanation  from  one  Shemitic  tongue  or  dialect 
into  another,  just  as  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  turned 
from  one  form  of  Hebrew  into  pure  Syriac  would  be. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  if  St.  Matthew's  Hebrew 
(or  Chaldaic)  Gospel  was  before  the  translator,  why 
should  he  have  done  more  than  copy  into  Syriac 
letters  ?  Why  translate  at  all  ?  It  is  sufficient,  in 
reply,  to  refer  to  the  Chaldaic  portions  of  Daniel 
and  Ezra,  and  to  the  Syriac  version  made  from 
them.  In  varying  dialects  it  sometimes  happens 
that  the  vocabulary  in  use  differs  more  than  the 
grammatical  forms.  The  verbal  identity  may  often 
be  striking,  even  though  accompanied  with  frequent 
variation  of  terms. 

We  know  from  Jerome  that  the  Hebrew  St. 
Matthew  had  IflD  where  the  Greek  has  ^irioixnov. 
We  do  not  find  that  word  here,  but  we  read  for 
both  eirioiHTiov  and  a-fj^eov  at  the  end  of  the 


verse,  .i>CQ^  ^-c,  "  constant  of  the  day." 
This  might  have  sprung  from  the  interpretation, 
"  morrow  by  morrow,"  given  to  "11110  ;  and  it  may 
be  illustrated  by  Old  Test,  passages,  e.  g.  Num.  iv. 

°      v 
7,  where  TEMJil   DIT>  is  rendered  by  pC**^ 


Those  who  think  that  if  this  Syriac 

version  had  been  made  from  St.  Matthew's  Hebrew, 
we  ought  to  find  "1P1D  here,  forget  that  a  trans 
lation  is  not  a  verbal  transfusion. 

We  know  from  Eusebius  that  Hegesippus  cited 
from  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  and 
from  the  Syriac.  Now  in  a  fragment  of  Hegesippus 
(Routh,  i.  219),  there  is  the  quotation,  fjMKapioi  of 
i>(j>0a\(j.ol  V/J.UV  of  jSAeTroWes  /cot  TO  &ra  V/JLUV  T&. 
aKovovra,  words  which  might  be  a  Greek  render 
ing  from  Matt.  xiii.  16,  as  it  stands  in  this  Syriac 
Gospel  as  we  have  it,  or  probably  also  in  the  Hebrew 
work  of  the  Apostle  himself.  Every  notice  of  the 
rind  is  important  ;  and  Dr.  Cureton,  in  pointing  it 
out,  has  furnished  students  with  one  of  the  varied 
data  through  which  a  right  conclusion  may  be 
reached. 

Every  successive  investigation,  on  the  part  of 
competent  scholars,  aids  in  the  proof  that  the 
Curetonian  Gospels  are  an  older  form  than  those  in 


the  Peshito ;  that  the  Peshito  is  a  revision  replete 
with  readings  unknown  in  the  2nd  century  (and 
often  long  after)  ;  and  thnt  the  Curetonian  text  pos 
sesses  the  highest  critical  as  well  as  historical  value. 

The  more  the  evidence,  direct  and  indirect,  i& 
weighed,  the  more  established  it  appears  will  be 
the  judgment  that  the  Curotonian  Syriac  of  St. 
Matthew's  Gospel  was  translated  from  the  Apostle's 
Hebrew  (Syro-Chaldaic)  original,  although  injured 
since  by  copyists  or  revisers. 

B.  The  Philoxenian  St/riac  Version,  and  its 
revision  by  Thomas  of  Harkel. — Philoxenus,  or 
Xenaias,  Bp.  of  Hierapolis  or  Mabug  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  6th  century  (who  was  one  of  those 
Monophysites  who  subscribed  the  Henoticon  of  the 
Emperor  Zeno),  caused  Polrcarp,  his  Chorepiscopus, 
to  make  a  new  translation  of  the  New  Test,  into 
Syriac.  This  was  executed  in  A.D.  508,  and  it  is 
generally  termed  Philoxenian  from  its  promoter.* 

This  version  has  not  been  transmitted  to  us  in 
the  form  in  which  it  was  first  made ;  we  only  poa 
sess  a  revision  of  it,  executed  by  Thomas  of  Harkel 
in  the  following  centuiy  (The  Gospels,  A.D.  616). 
Pococke,  in  1630,d  gives  an  extract  from  Bar  Salibi, 
in  which  the  version  of  Thomas  of  Harkel  is  men 
tioned;  and  though  Pococke  did  not  know  what 
version  Thomas  had  made,  he  speaks  of  a  Syriac 
translation  of  the  Gospels  communicated  to  him  by 
some  learned  man  whom  he  does  not  name,  which 
from  its  servile  adherence  to  the  Greek  was  no 
doubt  the  Harklean  text.  In  the  Bibliotheca  Ori- 
entalis  of  Assemani  there  were  further  notices  of 
the  work  of  Thomas ;  and  in  1730  Samuel  Palmer 
sent  from  the  ancient  Amida  (now  Diarbekr)  Syriac 
MSS.  to  Dr.  Gloucester  Ridley,  in  which  the  ver 
sion  is  contained.  Thus  he  had  two  copies  of  the 
Gospels,  and  one  of  all  the  rest  of  the  New  Test., 
except  the  end  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and 
the  Apocalypse.  No  other  MSS.  appear  to  have 
yet  come  to  light  which  contain  any  of  this  version 
beyond  the  Gospels.  From  the  subscriptions  we 
learn  that  the^  text  was  revised  by  Thomas  with 
three  (some  copies  say  two)  Greek  MSS.  One  Greek 
copy  is  similarly  mentioned  at  the  close  of  the 
Catholic  Epistles. 

Ridley  published,  in  1761 ,  an  account  of  the  MSS. 
in  his  possession,  and  a  notice  of  this  version.  He 
had  intended  to  have  edited  the  text :  this  was  how 
ever  done  by  White,  at  different  times  from  1778 
to  1803.  After  the  publication  of  the  Gospels,  the 
researches  of  Adler  brought  more  copies  into  notice 
of  that  part  of  the  Harklean  text.  From  one  of  the 
MSS.  in  the  Vatican,  St.  John's  Gospel  was  edited 
by  Bernstein  in  1851.  It  will  be  noticed  that  this 
version  differs  from  the  Peshito,  in  containing  all 
the  seven  Catholic  Epistles. 

In  describing  this  version  as  it  has  come  down  to 
us,  the  text  is  the  first  thing  to  be  considered.  This 
is  characterized  by  extreme  literality:  the  Syriac 
idiom  is  constantly  bent  to  suit  the  Greek,  and 
everything  is  in  some  manner  expressed  in  the 
Greek  phrase  and  order.  It  is  difficult  to  ima 
gine  that  it  could  have  been  intended  for  ecclesi 
astical  reading.  It  is  not  independent  of  the  Peshito, 
the  words,  &c.,  of  which  are  often  emjdoyed.  As 
to  the  kind  of  Greek  text  that  it  represents  't  is 
just  what  might  have  been  expected  in  the  6th 
century.  The  work  of  Thomas  in  the  text  itself  ia 


c  See  Moses  Agheiaeus  in  Assemani,  Biblioth.  Orient. 
ii.  83. 
d  Preface  to  the  Syriac  edition  of  2  Pfet.  Sec. 

5  M  2 


1636 


VERSIONS,  AVOIENT  (SYRIAC) 


seen  in  the  introduction  of  obeli,  by  which  passages 
which  he  rejected  were  condemned ;  and  of  asterisks, 
with  which  his  insertions  were  distinguished.  His 
model  in  all  this  was  the  Hexaplar  Greek  text. 
The  MSS.  which  were  used  by  Thomas  were  of  a 
different  kind  from  those  employed  in  making  the 
version  ;  they  represented  in  general  a  much  older 
and  purer  text.  The  margin  of  the  Harklean  re 
cension  contains  (like  the  Hexaplar  text  of  the 
LXX.)  readings,  mostly  apparently  from  the  Greek 
MSS.  used.  It  has  been  questioned  whether  these 
readings  are  not  a  comparison  with  the  Peshito  ;  if 
any  of  them  are  so,  they  have  probably  been  intro 
duced  since  the  time  of  Thomas.  It  is  probable 
that  the  Philoxenian  version  was  very  literal,  but 
that  the  slavish  adaptation  to  the  Greek  is  the  work 
of  Thomas ;  and  that  his  text  thus  bore  about  the 
same  relation  to  that  of  Philoxenus  as  the  Latin 
Bible  of  Arias  Montanus  does  to  that  of  his  prede 
cessor  Pagninus.  For  textual  criticism  this  version 
is  a  good  authority  as  to  the  text  of  its  own  time, 
at  least  where  it  does  not  merely  follow  the  Peshito. 
The  amplifications  in  the  margin  of  the  Book  of  Acts 
bring  a  MS.  used  by  Thomas  into  close  comparison 
with  the  Codex  Bezae.  One  of  the  MSS.  of  the 
Gospels  sent  to  Ridley  contains  the  Harklean  text, 
with  some  revision  by  Bar  Salibi. 

C.  Syriac  Versions  of  portions  wanting  in  the 
Peshito.— I.  The  second  Epistle  of  Peter,  the  second 
and  third  of  John,  and  that  of  Jude.  The  fact  has 
been  already  noticed,  that  the  Old  Syriac  Version 
did  not  contain  these  Epistles.  They  were  published 
by  Pococke  in  1630,  from  a  MS.  in  the  Bodleian. 
The  version  of  these  Epistles  so  often  agrees  with 
what  we  have  in  the  Harklean  recension,  that  the 
one  is  at  least  dependent  on  the  other.  The  sugges 
tion  of  Dr.  Davidson  (Biblical  Criticism,  ii.  196), 
that  the  text  of  Pococke  is  that  of  Philoxenus  be 
fore  it  was  revised  by  Thomas,  seems  most  probable. 
But  if  it  is  objected,  that  the  translation  does  not 
show  as  great  a  knowledge  of  Greek  as  might  have 
been  expected  in  the  translation  of  the  rest  of  the 
Philoxenian,  it  must  be  remembered  that  here  he  had 
not  the  Peshito  to  aid  him.  In  the  Paris  Polyglott 
these  Epistles  were  added  to  the  Peshito,  with  which 
they  have  since  been  commonly  printed,  although 
they  liave  not  the  slightest  relation  to  that  version. 

11.  The  Apocalypse. — In  1627  De  Dieu  edited  a 
Syriac  version  of  the  Apocalypse,  from  a  MS.  in  the 
Leyden  Library,  wiitten  by  one  "  Caspar  from  the 
land  of  the  Indians,"  who  lived  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  16th  century.  A  MS.  at  Florence,  a" 
written  by  this  Caspar,  has  a  subscription  stating 
that  it  was  copied  in  1582  from  a  MS.  in  the  writ 
ing  of  Thomas  of  Harkel,  in  A.D.  622.  If  this  is 
correct  it  shows  that  Thomas  by  himself  would 
have  been  but  a  poor  translator  of  the  N.  T.  But 
the  subscription  seems  to  be  of  doubtful  authority  ; 
and  until  the  Rev.  B.  Harris  Cowper  drew  attention 


*  The  Rev.  B.  Harris  Cowper  has  courteously  com 
municated  the  following  notice  relative  to  the  Syriac 
Apocalypse  in  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum:  "The  MS, 
No.  7185  of  the  14th  century  does  not  contain  the  actual 
text  of  the  Apocalypse,  but  a  brief  commentary  upon 
it— upon  paper,  and  not  quite  perfect ;  the  text  seem- 
ing  to  be  that  of  our  printed  books.     The  text  of  the 
Apocalypse   is    apparently   all    found    in    No.    17,127, 
a  commentary    upon    the    book  of  the   llth  century. 
This  also  seems  to  be  of  the  same  text  as  the  primed 
edition." 

*  De  Dieu  says  that  this  Syriac  MS.  contained  "  omnia 
T.   SyriacI,  quae  in  prioribus   deerant  editionibns. 


to  a  more  ancient  copy  of  the  version,  we  might 
well  be  somewhat  uncertain  if  this  were  really  an 
ancient  work.6  It  is  of  small  critical  value,  anl 
the  MS.  from  which  it  was  edited  is  inctrrectly 
written.  It  was  in  the  MS.  which  Abp.  Ussher 
sent  as  a  present  to  De  Dieu  in  1631,  in  which  the 
whole  of  the  Syriac  N.  T.  is  said  to  have  been  con 
tained  (of  what  version  is  unknown),  that  having 
been  the  only  complete  MS.  of  the  kind  described  ;* 
and  of  this  MS.,  in  comparison  with  the  text  of  the 
Apocalypse  printed  by  De  Dieu,  Ussher  says,  "  the 
Syriac  lately  set  out  at  Leyden  may  be  amended  by 
my  MS.  copy"  (Todd's  Walton,  i.  196,  note). 
This  book,  from  the  Paris  Polyglott  and  onward, 
has  been  added  to  the  Peshito  in  this  translation. 
Some  have  erroneously  called  this  Syriac  Apocalypse 
the  Philoxenian,  a  name  to  which  it  has  no  title : 
the  error  seems  to  have  originated  from  a  verbal 
mistake  in  an  old  advertisement  of  Greenfield's  edi 
tion  (for  which  he  was  not  responsible),  which  said 
"the  Apocalypse  and  the  Epistles  not  found  in  the 
Peschito,  are  given  from  the  Philoxenian  version." 
III.  The  Syriac  Version  of  John  viii.  1-11. — 
From  the  MS.  sent  by  Abp.  Ussher  to  De  Dieu,  the 
latter  published  this  section  in  1631.  From  De 
Dieu  it  was  inserted  in  the  London  Polyglott,  with 
a  reference  to  Ussher's  MS.,  and  hence  it  has  passed 
with  the  other  editions  of  the  Peshito,  where  it  is 
a  mere  interpolation. 

A  copy  of  the  same  version  (essentially)  is  found 
in  Ridley's  Codex  Barsalibaei,  where  it  is  attributed 
to  Maras,  A.D.  622  :  Adler  found  it  also  in  a  Paris 
MS.  ascribed  to  Abbas  Mar  Paul. 

Bar  Salibi  cites  a  different  version,  out  of  Maras, 
Bp.  of  Amida,  through  the  chronicle  of  Zacharias  of 
Melitina.  See  Assemani  (Biblioth.  Orient,  ii.  53 
and  170),  who  gives  the  introductory  words.  Pro 
bably  the  version  edited  is  that  of  Paul  (as  stated 
in  the  Paris  MS.),  and  that  of  Maras  the  one  cited 
by  Bar  Salibi ;  while  in  Ridley's  MS.  the  two  are 
confounded.  The  Paul  mentioned  is  apparently 
Paul  of  Tela,  the  translator  of  the  Hexaplar  Greek 
text  into  Syriac. 

D.  THE  JERUSALEM  SYRIAC  LECTIONARY.— 
The  MS.  in  the  Vatican  containing  this  version  was 
pretty  fully  described  by  S.  E.  Assemani  in  1756, 
in  the  Catalogue  of  the  MSS.  belonging  to  that 
Library ;  but  so  few  copies  of  that  work  escaped 
destruction  by  fire,  that  it  was  virtually  unpublished, 
and  its  contents  almost  unknown.  Adler,  who  at 
Copenhagen  had  the  advantage  of  studying  one  of 
the  few  copies  of  this  Catalogue,  drew  public  atten 
tion  to  this  peculiar  document  in  his  Kurze  Ueber- 
sicht  seiner  biblischkritischen  Eeise  nach  Rom, 
pp.  118-127  (Altona,  1783),  and  still  further,  in 
1789,  in  his  valuable  examination  of  the  Syriac 
versions.  The  MS.  was  written  in  A.D.  1031, 
in  peculiar  Syriac  writing ;  the  portions  are  of 
course  those  for  the  different  festivals,  some  parts 

Does  this  mean  that  it  merely  contained  what  was  pre 
viously  wanting,  or  the  whole,  including  such  parts? 
It  seems  strange  if  this  section  of  St.  John  stood  m  it 
alone.  This  makes  it  seem  as  if  the  interpretation 
given  above  were  the  true  one.  Ussher's  own  description 
is  this:— "I  have  received  the  parcels  of  the  N.  Test, 
[in  Syriac]  which  hitherto  we  have  wanted  in  that  lan 
guage,  viz.,  the  history  of  the  adulterous  woman,  the  2nd 
Epistle  of  Peter,  the  2nd  and  3rd  Epistles  of  St.  John, 
the  Epistle  of  Jude,  and  the  Revelation ;  as  also  a  small 
tractate  of  Ephrem  Syrus  in  his  own  language."  Abp. 
Ussher  to  Dr.  Samuel  Ward  June  23,  1626  (Todd's  Life  ft' 
194). 


YEKSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TAKGUM) 


1037 


of  the  Gospels  not  being  there  at  all.  The  dialect 
is  not  common  Syriac  ;  it  was  termed  the  Jerusalem 
Syriac,  from  its  being  supposed  to  resemble  the 
Jerusalem  Talmud  in  language  and  other  points. 
The  grammar  is  peculiar  ;  the  forms  almost  Chaldee 
rather  than  Syriac  ;  two  characters  are  used  for 
expressing  F  and  P. 

For  critical  purposes  this  Lectionary  has  a  far 
higher  value  than  it  has  for  any  other  :  its  readings 
often  coincide  with  the  oldest  and  best  authorities.  It 
is  not  yet  known  as  to  its  entire  text  ;  for  except  a 
small  specimen,  no  part  has  been  printed  ;  Adler, 
however,  selected  large  numbers  of  readings,  which 
have  been  commonly  used  by  critics  from  that  time 
and  onward.  In  Adler's  opinion  its  date  as  a  ver 
sion  would  be  from  the  4th  to^the  6th  century  ; 
but  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  it  is  of  so  early 
an  age,  or  that  any  Syrians  then  could  havr  used  so 
corrupt  a  dialect.  It  may  rather  be  supposed  to  be 
a  translation  made  from  a  Greek  Lectionary,  never 
having  existed  as  a  substantive  translation  :  to  what 
age  its  execution  should  be  assigned  seems  wholly 
uncertain.  (A  further  account  of  the  MS.  of  this 
version,  drawn  up  from  a  comparison  of  Assemani's 
description  in  the  Vatican  Catalogue,  and  that  of 
Adler,  with  the  MS.  itself  in  the  Vatican  Library, 
made  by  the  present  writer,  is  given  in  Home's 
Introd.  iv.  284-287,  where,  however,  "  Jerusalem 
Targum  "  twice  stands  for  Talmud.} 

It  appears,  from  the  statement  of  Dr.  Ceriani  of 
Milan,  that  Count  Marescalchi  has  met  with  a  MS. 
of  this  Lectionary,  and  that  he  has  long  had  the 
intention  of  publishing  it. 

On  the  Syriac  Versions.  —  Adler,  N.  T.  Versiones 
Syriacae,  Simplex,  Philoxeniana  et  Hierosoly- 
mitana  denuo  examinatae,  1789  ;  Wiseman,  Horae 
Syriacae,  1827  ;  Ridley,  De  Syriacarum  N.  Foe- 
deris  versionum  indole  atque  urn,  &c.,  1761  ; 
Winer,  Commentatio  de  versionis  N.  T.  Syriacae 
usu  critico  caute  instituendo,  1823;  Wichelhaus, 
be  Novi  Test,  versione  Syriaca  antiqua  quam 
Peschitho  vacant,  1850  ;  Bernstein,  De  Charklensi 
N.  T.  translatione  Syriaca  commentatio,  1857  ; 
Cureton,  Antient  Recension  of  the  Syriac  Gospels 
(Preface,  &c.)>  1858-  [S-  P-  T0 


TARGUM  (D-inn,  from  Drift;  Arab. 

to  translate,  explain)  ;  a  Chaldee  word  of  uncertain 
origin,  variously  derived  from  the  roots  DJ"I,  Dpi 

(comp.  Arab.  ^J»i>  {$)>  &C0>  ^  even  identified 
with  the  Greek  rpdyri/j.a,  dessert  (Fr.  dragees), 
(trop.  TpayfifjiaTa  rtav  \6y<avt  Dion.  Hal.  Rhet. 
10,  18),  which  occurs  often  in  the  Talmud  as  ^D 
KD^"ttD,  or  NlO^in  ("such  as  dates,  almonds, 
nuts,"  &c.  Pes.  1196):  —  the  general  term  for  the 
CHALDEE,  or,  more  accurately  ARAMAIC  VER 
SIONS  of  the  Old  Testament. 

The  injunction  to  "  read  the  Book  of  the  Law 
before  all  Israel  ....  the  men,  and  women,  and 
children,  and  the  strangers,"  on  the  Feast  of  Taber 
nacles  of  every  Sabbatical  year,  as  a  means  of  solemn 
instruction  and  edification,  is  first  found  in  Deut. 
xxxi.  10-13.  How  far  the  ordinance  was  observed 
in  early  times  we  have  no  means  of  judging.  It 
would  appear,  however,  that  such  readings  did 


•  "  Ten  kinds  of  families  went  up  from  Babylon  : 
Priests,  Levites,  Israelites,  profaned  C9^n.  those  whose 
fathers  are  priests,  but  whose  mothers  are  not  fit  for 
priestly  marriage);  proselytes,  freedmen,  bastards  (or 
rather  those  bora  in  illegal  wedlock) ;  Nethinim  f  lnw««, 


take  place  in  the  days  of  Jeremiah.  Certain  it  ij 
that  among  the  first  acts  undertaken  by  Ezra 
towards  the  restoration  of  the  primitive  religion 
and  public  worship  is  reported  his  reading  "  before 
the  congregation,  both  of  men  and  women  "  of  the 
returned  exiles,  "  in  the  Book  in  the  Law  of  God" 
(Neh.  viii.  2,  8).  Aided  by  those  men  of  learning 
and  eminence  with  whom,  according  to  tradition, 
he  founded  that  most  important  religious  and  poli 
tical  body  called  the  Great  Synagogue,  or  Men 
of  the  Great  Assembly  (n^VJJn  nDJ3  *8WK,  536- 
167),  he  appears  to  have  succeeded  in  so  firmly 
establishing  regular  and  frequent  public  readings 
in  the  Sacred  Records,  that  later  authorities  almost 
unanimously  trace  this  hallowed  custom  to  times 
immemorial — nay  to  the  time  of  Moses  himself. 
Such  is  the  statement  of  Josephus  (c.  Ap.  ii.  17); 
and  we  read  in  the  Acts,  xv.  21,  "  For  Moses  ot 
old  time  hath  in  every  city  them  that  preach  him, 
being  read  in  the  synagogue  every  sabbath-day." 
So  also  Jer.  Meg.  5.  1 :  "  Ezra  has  instituted  for 
Israel  that  the  maledictions  in  the  Pentateuch 
should  also  be  read  in  public,"  &c.  Further,  Meg. 
31  6,  "Ezra  instituted  ten  things,  vie.,  that  there 
should  be  readings  in  the  Law  also  in  the  afternoon 
service  of  Sabbath,  on  the  Monday,  and  on  the 

Thursday,  &c But  was  not  this  instituted 

before  in  the  desert,  as  we  find  '  they  went  for 
three  days  and  found  no  water'  (water  meaning 
the  Law,  as  Is.  Iv.  1  is  fancifully  explained  by 
the  Haggada),  until  the  'prophets  among  them' 
arranged  the  three  weekly  readings?  But  Ezra 
only  reinstituted  them,"  comp.  also  B.  Kama, 
82  a,  &c.  To  these  ancient  readings  in  the  Pen 
tateuch  were  added,  in  the  course  of  time,  readings 
in  the  Prophets  (in  some  Babylonian  cities  even  in 
the  Hagiographa),  which  were  called  JTHDOn, 
Haftaroth ;  but  when  and  how  these  were  intro 
duced  is  still  matter  of  speculation.  Former  inves 
tigators  (Abudraham,  Elias  Levita,  Vitringa,  &c.) 
almost  unanimously  trace  their  origin  to  the  Syrian 
persecutions,  during  which  all  attention  to  the  Law 
was  strictly  prohibited,  and  even  all  the  copies  of  it 
that  were  found  were  ruthlessly  destroyed ;  so  that,  as 
a  substitute  for  the  Pentateuchical  Parasha,  a  some 
what  corresponding  portion  of  the  Prophets  was  read 
in  the  synagogue,  and  the  custom,  once  introduced, 
remained  fixed.  Recent  scholars,  on  the  other 
hand,  without  much  show  of  reason,  as  it  would 
appear,  variously  hold  the  Haftarah  to  have  sprung 
from  the  sermon  or  homiletic  exercise  which  accom 
panied  the  reading  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  took  ifg 
exordium  (as  Haftarah,  by  an  extraordinary  lin 
guistic  stretch,  is  explained  by  Frankel)  from  a  pro 
phetic  passage,  adapted  in  a  manner  to  the  Mosaic 
text  under  consideration  ;  or,  again,  they  imagine  the 
Haftarah  to  have  taken  its  rise  spontaneously  during 
the"  exile  itself,  and  that  Ezra  retained  and  enforced 
it  in  Palestine. 

If,  however,  the  primitive  religion  was  re-estab 
lished,  together  with  the  second  Temple,  in  more 
than  its  former  vigour,  thus  enabling  the  small 
number  of  the  returned  exiles — and  these,  according 
to  tradition,  the  lowest  of  the  low,  the  poor  in 
wealth,  in  knowledge,  and  in  ancestry,*  the  very  out 
casts  and  refuse  of  the  nation  as  it  were  b — to  found 

menials  of  the  Temple);  '•plJlK'  (' about  whose  lineage 

there  is   silence,'— of  unknown  fathers) ;   and  ^D^0& 

•  foundlings,  of  unknown  father  and  mother ' "  (Kidd.  4, 1). 

b  "  Ezra,  on  leaving  Babylon,  made  it  Uke  untopw*. 

flour  " 


1638 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


Open  1i»e  ruins  of  Zion  one  of  the  most  important  and 
lasting  spiritual  commonwealths  that  has  ever  been 
known,  there  was  yet  one  thing  which  neither  au 
thority  nor  piety,  neither  academy  nor  synagogue, 
could  restore  to  its  original  power  and  glory — the  He 
brew  language.  Ere  long  it  was  found  necessary  to 
translate  the  national  books,  in  order  that  the  nation 
from  whose  midst  they  had  sprung  might  be  able  to 
understand  them.  And  if  for  the  Alexandrine,  or 
rather  the  whole  body  of  Hellenistic  Jews,  Greek 
translations  had  to  be  composed,  those  who  dwelt 
on  the  hallowed  soil  of  their  forefathers  had  to 
receive  the  sacred  word  through  an  Aramaic  medium. 
The  word  tJHlQD,  Mephorash,  "  explanatory," 
"  clearly,"  or,  as  the  A.  V.  has  it,  *'  distinctly,"  used 
in  the  above-quoted  passage  of  Neh.  viii.  8,  is  in 
the  Talntud  explained  by  "Targum."c  Thus  to 
Ezra  himself  is  traced  the  custom  of  adding  trans 
lations  in  the  then  popular  idiom — the  Aramaic 
— to  the  periodical  readings  (Jer.  Meg.  28  6 ;  J. 
Ned.  iv.,  Bab.  Ned.  i. ;  Maim.  Hilch.  Teph.  xii.  §10, 
&c.),  for  which  he  is  also  reported  to  have  fixed  the 
Sabbaths,  the  Mondays  and  Thursdays — the  two 
latter  the  market  and  law- days,  when  the  villagers 
oame  to  town — of  every  week  (Jer.  Meg.  i.  1 ;  Baba 
Kama,  82  a).  The  gradual  decay  of  the  pure 
Hebrew  vernacular,  among  the  n  ultitude  at  least, 
may  be  accounted  for  in  many  ways.  The  Midrash 
very  strikingly  points  out,  among  the  characteristics 
of  the  long  sojourn  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  that  they 
neither  changed  their  language,  nor  their  names,  nor 
the  shape  of  their  garments,  during  all  that  time. 
The  bulk  of  their  community — shut  up,  as  it  were,  in 
the  small  province  of  Goshen,  almost  exclusively  re 
duced  to  intercourse  with  their  own  race  and  tribes, 
devoted  only  to  the  pasture  of  their  flocks,  and  per 
haps  to  the  tilling  of  their  soil — were  in  a  condition 
infinitely  more  favourable  for  the  retention  of  all 
the  signs  and  tokens  of  their  nationality  than  were 
the  Babylonian  captives.  The  latter  scattered  up 
and  down  the  vast  empire,  seem  to  have  enjoyed 
everywhere  full  liberty  of  intercommunication  with 
the  natives — very  similar  in  many  respects  to  them 
selves — to  have  been  utterly  unrestrained  in  the 
exercise  of  every  profession  and  trade,  and  even  to 
have  risen  to  the  highest  offices  of  state  ;  and  thus, 
during  the  comparatively  short  space,  they  struck 
root  so  firmly  in  the  land  of  their  exile,  that  when 
opportunity  served,  they  were,  on  the  whole,  loth  to 
return  to  the  Land  of  Promise.  What  more  natural 
than  that  the  immigrants  under  Zerubbabel,  and  still 
more  those  who  came  with  Ezra — several  generations 
of  whose  ancestors  had  been  settled  in  Babel — should 
have  brought  back  with  them  the  Aramaic,  if  not 
as  their  vernacular,  at  all  events  as  an  idiom  with 
which  they  were  perfectly  familiar,  and  which  they 


c  "' And  they  read  in  the  book  of  the  Law  of  God 
clearly  (JJ^QJO),  and  gave  the  understanding,  so 
that  they  understood  the  reading:' — 'in  the  book  of 
the  Law'— this  is  Mikra,  the  original  reading  in  the 
I'entateuch;  '  fejn^QJO,  clearly '  — this  is  Targum" 
(Meg.  3  a ;  Ned.  37  6).  To  this  tradition  also  might 
bo  referred  the  otherwise  rather  enigmatical  passage 
(Sanh.  2lb):  "Originally,"  says  Mar  Sutra,  "the 
Law  was  given  to  Israel  in  Ibri  writing  and  the  holy 
(H^rew)  language.  It  was  again  given  to  them  in 
the  dajw  >f  Ezra  ia  the  Ashurith  writing  and  the  Aramaic 
language,"  &c. 

<*  "  The  youths  who  went  to  combat  at  Antiochia  have 
been  victorious." 

•  "  Perished  has  the  army  which  the  enemy  thought 
to  lead  against  the  Temple." 


may  partly  have  continued  to  use  as  their  collo 
quial  language  in  Palestine,  as,  in  fact,  they  had 
had  to  use  it  in  Babylon  ?  Continuous  later  immi 
grations  from  the  "  Captivity  "  did  not  fail  to  re 
inforce  and  further  to  spread  the  use  of  the  same 
tongue.  All  the  decrees  and  official  communica 
tions  addressed  to  the  Jews  by  their  Persian  masters 
were  in  Aramaic  (Ezr.  Neh.  passim),  Judaea  being 
considered  only  as  part  of  the  Syrian  satrapy. 
Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  old  colonists  in 
Palestine  (2  K.  xvii.  24)  were  Samaritans,  who  had 
come  from  "  Aram  and  Babel,"  and  who  spoke 
Chaldee  ;  that  intermarriages  with  women  from 
Ashdod,  Ammon,  and  Moab  had  been  common 
(Neh.  xiii.  23) ;  that  Phoenicia,  whose  merchants 
(Tyrians,  Neh.  xiii.  16)  appear  to  have  settled  in 
Palestine,  and  to  have  established  commercial  rela 
tions  with  Judaea  and  Galilee,  contains  large  ele 
ments  of  Chaldee  in  its  own  idiom.  Thus  it  came  to 
pass  that  we  find  in  the  Book  of  Daniel,  for  instance, 
a  somewhat  forced  Hebrew,  from  which,  as  it  would 
seem,  the  author  gladly  lapses  into  the  more  fa 
miliar  Aramaic  (comp.  ii.  4,  &c.) ;  that  oracles 
were  received  by  the  High-priests  Johanan '  and 
Simon  the  Just e  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  (during  the 
Syrian  wans)  in  Aramaic  (Sotah,  33,  a.)  ;  and  that, 
in  short,  some  time  before  the  Hasmonean  period, 
this  was  the  language  in  which  were  couched 
not  only  popular  sayings,  proverbs,  and  the  like 
(WTTTTO9.  Beresh.  R.  107  d;  Tanch.  17  a; 
Midr.  Tehill.  23d;  51  /,  &c.  &c.),  but  official  and 
legal  documents  (Mishna  Ketub.  4,  8;  Toseftah 
Sabb.  c.  8  ;  Edujoth,  8, 4,— c.  130  B.C.),  even  certain 
prayers' — of  Babylonian  origin  probably — and  in 
which  books  destined  for  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
were  written.*  That,  indeed,  the  Hebrew  Lan 
guage — the  "  language  of  Kenaan  "  (Is.  six.  18),  or 
«  Jehudith"  (2  K.  xviii.  26,  28  ;  Is.  xxxvi.  11)  or 
the  Bible— -became  more  and  more  the  language  ot 
the  few,  the  learned,  the  Holy  Language, 
BHpn,  or,  still  more  exactly,  KBHIp  JV3 
"  Language  of  the  Temple,"  set  aside  almost  ex 
clusively  for  the  holy  service  of  religion:  be  it 
the  Divine  Law  and  the  works  in  which  this 
was  contained  (like  the  Mishna,  the  Boraithot, 
Mechilta,  Sifri,  Sifra,  the  older  Midrashim,  and 
very  many  portions  of  the  Talmud),  or  the  cor 
respondence  between  the  different  academies  (witness 
the  Hebrew  letter  sent  from  Jerusalem  to  Alex 
andria  about  100  B.C.,  Chag.  Jer.  ii.  2),  or  be 
it  the  sacred  worship  itself  in  temple  and  syna 
gogue,  which  was  almost  entirely  carried  on  in  pure 
Hebrew. 

If  the  common  people  thus  gradually  had  lost  all 
knowledge  of  the  tongue  in  which  were  written  the 


f  Introduction  to  the  Haggadah  for  the  Pesach 

XlDr6)  :  "  Sucn  was  the  Dread  of  ml8ery  wmch  our 
fathers  ate  in  the  land  of  Mizrajim.  Whoever  is  needy, 
he  come  and  eat  with  us ;  whoever  is  in  want,  he  come 
and  celebrate  the  Pesach.  This  year  here,  next  year 
in  the  land  of  Israel;  this  year  slaves,  next  year  free 
men."  The  Kaddish,  to  which  afterwards  a  certain  signi 
fication  as  a  prayer  for  the  dead  was  given,  and  which 
begins  as  follows :  "  Let  there  be  magnified  and  sancti 
fied  the  Great  Name  in  the  world  which  He  has  created 
according  to  His  will,  and  which  He  rules  as  His  king 
dom,  during  your  life  and  your  days,  and  the  life  of  the 
whole  house  of  Israel,  speedily  and  in  a  near  time,  and 
say  ye,  «  Amen :  Be  the  Great  Name  praised  for  ever  ano 
evermore,' "  &c. 

S  Megillath  Taanith.  &c. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


1G3D 


books  *o  be  read  to  them,  i;  naturally  followed  (in 
order  "  that  they  might  understand  them ")  that 
recourse  must  be  had  to  a  translation  into  the  idiom 
with  which  they  were  familiar — the  Aramaic.  That 
farther,  since  a  bare  translation  could  not  in  all 
cases  suffice,  it  was  necessary  to  add  to  the  transla 
tion  an  explanation,  more  particularly  of  the  more 
iifficult  and  obscure  passages.  Both  translation 
and  explanation  were  designated  by  the  term 
Targum.  In  the  course  of  time  there  sprang  up 
a  guild,  whose  special  office  it  was  to  act  as 
interpreters  in  both  senses  (Meturgeman11),  while 
formerly  the  learned  alone  volunteered  their  ser 
vices.  These  interpreters  were  subjected  to  certain 
bonds  and  regulations  as  to  the  form  and  sub 
stance  of  their  renderings.  Thus  (comp.  Mishna 
Meg.  passim ;  Mass.  Sofer.  xi.  1 ;  Maimon.  Hilch. 
Tephlll.  12,  §11  ff;  Orach  Chaj.  145,  1,  2), 
"  neither  the  reader  nor  the  interpreter  are  to  raise 
their  voices  one  above  the  other;"  "they  have  to 
wait  for  each  other  until  each  have  finished  his 
verse  ;"  "  the  Meturgeman  is  not  to  lean  against  a 
pillar  or  a  beam,  but  to  stand  with  iear  and  r.'ith 
reverence;"  "he  is  not  to  use  a  written  Targum, 
but  he  is  to  deliver  his  translation  viva  voce  " — lest  it 
might  appear  that  he  was  reading  out  of  the  Torah 
itself,  and  thus  the  Scriptures  be  held  responsible 
for  what  are  his  own  dicta ;  "  no  more  than  one 
verse  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  three  in  the  Prophets 
[a  greater  licence  is  given  for  the  Book  of  Esther] 
shall  be  read  and  translated  at  a  time ; "  "  that 
there  should  be  not  more  than  one  reader  and  one 
interpreter  for  the  Law,  while  for  the  Prophets  one 
reader  and  one  interpreter,  or  two  interpreters,  are 
allowed,"  &c.  (comp.  Cor.  xiv.  21  ff;  xii.  30;  27, 
28).  Again  (Mishna  Meg.  and  Tosiftah,  ad  loc.\ 
certain  passages  liable  to  give  offence  to  the  multi 
tude  are  specified,  which  may  be  read  in  the  syna 
gogue  and  translated ;  others,  which  may  be  read 
but  not  translated ;  others,  again,  which  may 
neither  be  read  nor  translated.  To  the  first  class l 
belong  the  account  of  the  Creation — a  subject  not 
to  be  discussed  publicly,  on  account  of  its  most 
vital  bearing  upon  the  relation  between  the  Creator 
and  the  Kosmos,  and  the  nature  of  both :  the  deed 
of  Lot  and  his  two  daughters  (Gen.  xix.  31) ;  of 
Judah  and  Tamar  (Gen.  xxxviii.)  ;  the  first  account 
of  the  making  of  the  golden  calf  (Ex.  xxxii.); 
all  the  curses  in  the  Law  ;  the  deed  of  Amnon  and 
Tamar  (2  Sam.  xiii.)  ;  of  Absalom  with  his  father's 
concubines  (2  Sam.  xvi.  22) ;  the  story  of  the 
woman  of  Gibeah  (Judg.  xix.).  These  are  to  be 
read  and  translated — being  mostly  deeds  which 
carried  their  own  punishments  with  them.  To  be 
read  but  not  translated  arek  the  deed  of  Reuben 
with  his  father's  concubine  (Gen.  xxv.  22);  the 
latter  portion  of  the  story  of  the  golden  caii  (Ex. 
xxxii.) ;  the  benediction  of  the  priests  (on  ac 
count  of  its  awful  nature).  And  neither  to  be  read 
nor  translated  are  the  deed  of  David  and  Bath- 
sheba  (2  Sam.  xi.  and  xii.),  and  according  to  one 
the  story  of  Amnon  and  Tamar  (2  Sam.  xiii.). 
(Both  the  latter  stories,  however,  are,  in  Mishna 
Meg.  iv.  10,  enumerated  among  those  of  the  second 
class,  which  are  to  be  read  but  not  translated.) 

Altogether  these  Meturgemanim  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  held  generally  in  very  high  respect ;  one 


of  the  reasons  being  probably  that  they  were  paid 
(two  Selaim  at  one  time,  according  to  Midr.  R. 
Gen.  98),  and  thus  made  (what  P.  Aboth  especially 
inveighs  against)  the  Torah  "  a  spade  to  dig  with 
it."  "  No  sign  of  blessing,"  it  was  said,  moreover, 
could  rest  upon  the  profit  they  made  by  their 
calling,  since  it  was  money  earned  on  the  Sabbath ' 
(Pes.  4  6).  Persons  unfit  to  be  readers,  as  those 
whose  clothes  were  so  torn  and  ragged  that  their 
limbs  became  visible  through  the  rents  (PHIID), 
their  appearance  thus  not  corresponding  to  the 
reverence  due  to  the  sacred  word  itself,  or  Wind 
men,  were  admitted  to  the  office  of  a  Meturgeman ; 
and,  apart  from  there  not  being  the  slightest  au 
thority  attached  to  their  interpretations,  they  were 
liable  to  be  stopped  and  silenced,  publicly  and 
ignominiously,  whenever  they  seemed  to  overstep 
the  bounds  of  discretion.  At  what  time  the  regu 
lation  that  'they  should  not  be  under  fifty  years  of 
age  (in  odd  reference  to  the  "men  of  fifty,"  Is.  iii. 
3,  mentioned  in  Juchas.  44,  2)  came  into  use,  we 
are  not  able  to  decide.  The  Mishna  certainly  speaks 
even  of  a  minor  (under  thirteen  years)  as  being 
allowed  both  to  read  and  to  act  as  a  Meturgeman 
(comp.  Mishna  Meg.  passim).  Altogether  they 
appear  to  have  borne  the  character  of  empty-headed, 
bombastic  fools.  Thus  Midr.  Koh.  has  to  Eccl.  vii. 
5  :  "  '  It  is  better  to  hear  the  rebuke  of  the  wise : ' 
— these  are  the  preachers  (Darshanim) — '  than  for 
a  man  to  hear  the  song  of  fools:' — these  are  the 
Meturgemanim,  who  raise  their  voices  in  sing-song, 
,  or  with  empty  fancies)  : — '  that  the  people 
may  hear.' "  And  to  ix.  17 :  "  '  The  words  of 
wise  men  are  heard  in  quiet ' — these  are  the  preach 
ers  (Darshanim) — '  more  than  the  cry  of  him  that 
ruleth  among  fools' — these  are  the  Meturgemanim 
who  stand  above  the  congregation."  And  though 
both  passages  may  refer  more  especially  to  those 
Meturgemanim  (Emoras,  speakers,  expounders)  who 
at  a  later  period  stood  by  the  side  of  the  Cha- 
cham,  or  president  of  the  Academy,  the  preacher 
KOT'  e|oxV  (himself  seated  on  a  raised  dais),  and 
repeated  with  a  loud  voice,  and  enlarged  upon  what 
the  latter  had  whispered  into  their  ear  in  Hebrew 

\\tih  li>  BTlA  DDH,  comp.  Matt.  x.  27, 
"  What  ye  hear  in  the  ear,  that  preach  ye  upon  the 
housetops"),  yet  there  is  an  abundance  of  instances 
to  show  that  the  Meturgeman  at  the  side  of  the 
reader  was  exposed  to  rebukes  of  a  nature,  and  is 
spoken  of  in  a  manner,  not  likely  to  be  employed 
towards  any  but  men  low  in  the  social  scale. 

A  fair  notion  of  what  was  considered  a  proper 
Targum  may  be  gathered  from  the  maxim  pre 
served  in  the  Talmud  (Kidd.  49.  a]  (i  Whosoever 
translates  [as  Meturgeman]  a  verse  in  its  closely 
exact  form  [without  proper  regard  to  its  real  mean 
ing]  is  a  liar,  and  whosoever  adds  to  it  is  impious 
and  a  blasphemer,  e.  g.,  the  literal  rendering  into 
Chaldee'  of  the  verse,  «  They  saw  the  God  of 
Israel '  (Ex.  xxiv.  10),  is  as  wrong  a  translation  as 
'They  saw  the  angel  of  God  ;'  the  proper  render 
ing  being,  '  They  saw  the  glory  of  the  God  ol 
Israel.' "  [Comp.  SAMAR.PENT.  p.  11146].  Other 
instances  are  found  in  the  Mishna  (Meg.  iv.  8)  ; 
"  Whosoever  renders  the  text  (Lev.  xviii.  21)  'And 
thou  shalt  not  let  any  of  thy  seed  pass  through  the 


(Ar- 

arm.  Sargmanitil ;  Ital.,  Turcimanno;  Fr. 
Engl.,  Dragoman,  &c. 


1  Comprised  in  the  mnemonic  formula. 

5  (Meg, 

if  in, 


1640 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TAKGUM) 


lire  to  Molech,'  by  '  Thou  shalt  not  give  thy  seed 
to  be  carried  over  to  heathenism  (or  to  an  Aramite 
woman) '  [i.  e.  as  the  Gemara  ad  loc. ;  Jer.  Sanh. 
P,  and  Sifri  on  Deut.  xviii.  10,  explain  it,  one  who 
marries  an  Aramaic  woman ;  for  although  she 
may  become  a  proselyte,  she  is  yet  sure  to  bear 
enemies  to  him  and  to  God,  since  the  mother  will 
in  the  end  cany  his  children  over  to  idolatrous 
worship;]  as  also  he  who  enlarges  upon  (or  figu 
ratively  explains)  the  sections  relative  to  incest 
(Lev.  xviii.) — he  shall  forthwith  be  silenced  and 
publicly  rebuked."  Again  (comp.  Jer.  Ber.  v.  1 ; 
Meg.  iv.  10),  "  Those  who  translate  '  0  my  people, 
children  of  Israel,  as  I  am  merciful  in  heaven,  so 
shall  ye  be  merciful  on  earth:' — 'Cow  or  ewe,  it 
and  her  young  ye  shall  not  kill  in  one  day '  (Lev. 
xxii.  28) — they  do  not  well,  for  they  represent  the 
Laws  of  God  [whose  reasons  no  man  dare  try  to 
fathom]  as  mere  axioms  of  mercy ;"  and,  it  is 
added,  "  the  short-sighted  and  the  frivolous  will 
say, « Lo !  to  a  bird's-nest  He  extends  His  mercy, 
but  not  to  yonder  miserable  man  .  .  .'" 

The  same  causes  which,  in  the  course  of  time, 
lad  to  the  writing  down — after  many  centuries  of  oral 
transmission — of  the  whole  body  of  the  Traditional 
Law,  the  very  name  of  which  (HQ  PJDK'  miD, 
"oral  law,"  in  contradistinction  to  UrDlS?  mil"!, 
or  "  written  law  ")  seemed  to  imply  that  it  should 
never  become  a  fixed,  immutable  code,  engendered 
also,  and  about  the  same  period,  as  it  would  appear, 
written  Targums :  for  certain  portions  of  the  Bible, 
at  least.™ 

The  fear  of  the  adulterations  and  mutilations 
which  the  Divine  Word— amid  the  troubles  within 
and  without  the  Commonwealth — must  undergo 
at  the  hands  of  incompetent  or  impious  exponents, 
broke  through  the  rule,  that  the  Targum  should 
only  be  oral,  lest  it  might  acquire  undue  authority 
^comp.  Mishna  Meg.  iv.  5,  10;  Tosifta,  ib.  3; 
Jer.  Meg.  4,  1 ;  Bab.  Meg.  24a ;  Sota,  396).  Thus, 
if  a  Targum  of  Job  is  mentioned  (Sab.  115a;  Tr. 
Soferim,  5,  15 ;  Tosifta  Sab.  c.  14 ;  Jer.  Sabb.  16, 
1)  as  having  been  highly  disapproved  by  Gamaliel 
the  Elder  (middle  of  first  centuiy,  A.D.),  who  caused 
it  to  be  hidden  and  buried  out  of  sight : — we  find,  on 
the  other  hand,  at  the  end  of  the  second  centuiy,  the 
practice  of  reading  the  Targum  generally  commended, 
and  somewhat  later  Jehoshua  ben  Levi  enjoins  it 
as  a  special  duty  upon  his  sons.  The  Mishna  even 
contains  regulations  about  the  manner  (Jad.  iv.  5) 
in  which  the  Targum  is  to  be  written.  Bui  even 
in  their  written,  and,  as  we  may  presume,  authori 
tatively  approved  form,  the  Targums  were  of  com 
paratively  small  weight,  and  of  no  canonical  value 
whatsoever.  The  Sabbath  was  not  to  be  broken  for 
their  sake  as  it  was  lawful  to  do  for  the  Scripture 
in  the  original  Hebrew  (Sab.  115a).  The  Targum 
does  not  defile  the  hands  (for  the  purpose  of  touch 
ing  consecrated  food)  as  do  the  Chaldee  portions  of 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah  (Yad.  iv.  5). 

The  gradual  growth  of  the  Code  of  the  written 
Targum,  such  as  now  embraces  almost  the  whole 
of  the  0.  T.,  and  contains,  we  may  presume,  but 

«  As,  according  to  Frankel,  the  LXX.  was  only  a  partial 
translation  at  first.  Witness  the  confusion  in  the  last 
dmptera  of  Exodus,  which,  as  mere  repetitions  (of  chaps. 
xxv.  and  xxix.),  were  originally  left  untranslated. 

Saadia  in  a  similar  manner  uses  the  forrrulas 
Dr     \  J       m  repetitions 


few  snatches  of  the  primitive  Targums^  (a  shrouded 
in  deep  obscurity.  We  shall  not  fail  to  indicate 
the  opinions  arrived  at  as  to  the  date  and  author* 
ship  of  the  individual  versions  in  their  due  places  ; 
but  we  must  warn  the  reader  beforehand,  that  no 
positive  results  have  been  attained  as  yet,  save  that 
nearly  all  the  names  and  dates  hitherto  commonly 
attached  to  them  must  be  rejected.  And  we 
fear  that,  as  long  at  least  as  the  Targum  shares 
the  fate  of  the  LXX.,  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch, 
the  Midrash,  the  Talmud,  &c.  :  —  viz.,  that  a  really 
critical  edition  remains  a  thing  occasionally  dreamt 
of,  but  never  attempted  ;  —  so  long  must  we  aban 
don  the  hope  of  getting  any  nearer  a  final  solu 
tion  of  this  and  many  other  still  more  important 
questions.  The  utter  corruption,  moreover,  of  the 
Targum,  bitterly  complained  of  already  by  Elias 
Levita  —  (an  author,  be  it  observed,  of  very  mode 
rate  attainments,  but  absurdly  overrated  by  certain 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  by  those  who  copied  his 
usually  shallow  dicta  without  previous  examina 
tion)  —  debars  us  from  more  than  half  its  use.  And 
yet  how  fertile  its  study  could  be  made  ;  what 
light  it  might  be  made  capable  of  throwing  upon 
the  Bible  itself,  upon  the  history  of  the  earliest 
development  of  Biblical  studies,  versions,  and  upon 
the  Midrash  —  both  the  Halachah  and  Haggadah-  — 
snatches  of  which,  in  their,  as  it  were,  liquid  stages, 
lie  embedded  in  the  Targums  :  —  all  this  we  need  net 
urge  here  at  length. 

Before,  however,  entering  into  a  more  detailed 
account,  we  must  first  dwell  for  a  short  time  on  the 
Midrash*  itself,  of  which  the  Targum  forms  part. 

The  centre  of  all  mental  activity  and  religious 
action  among  the  Jewish  community,  after  the 
return  from  Babylon,  was  the  Scriptural  Canon 
collected  by  the  Soferim,  or  Men  of  the  Great 
Synagogue.  These  formed  the  chief  authority  on 
the  civil  and  religious  law,  and  their  authority 
was  the  Pentateuch.  Their  office  as  expounders 
and  commentators  of  the  Sacred  Records  was  two 
fold.  They  had,  firstly,  to  explain  the  exact 
meaning  of  such  prohibitions  and  ordinances  con 
tained  in  the  Mosaic  Books  as  seemed  not  explicit 
enough  for  the  multitude,  and  the  precise  applica 
tion  of  which  in  former  days,  had  been  forgotten 
during  the  Captivity.  Thus,  e.  g.,  geneial  terms, 
like  the  "  work  "  forbidden  on  the  Sabbath,  were  by 
them  specified  and  particularized  ;  not  indeed 
according  to  their  own  arbitrary  and  individual 
views,  but  according  to  tradition  traced  back  to 
Sinai  itself.  Secondly,  laws  neither  specially  con 
tained  nor  even  indicated  in  the  Pentateuch  were 
inaugurated  by  them  according  to  the  new  wants 
of  the  times  and  the  ever-shifting  necessities  of  the 
growing  Commonwealth  (Geseroth,  Tekanoth}. 
Nor  were  the  latter  in  all  cases  given  on  the  sole 
authority  of  the  Synod  ;  but  they  were  in  most 
cases  traditional,  and  certain  special  letters  or  signs 
in  the  Scriptures,  seemingly  superfluous  or  out  ot 
place  where  they  stood,  were,  according  to  fixed 
hermeneutical  rules,  understood  to  indicate  the  in 
hibitions  and  prohibitions  (Gedarim,  "  Fences  "), 
newly  issued  and  fixed.  But  Scripture,  which  had 


(Arab.          j^),  first  used  in  2  Cbr.  xiii 

22,  xxiv.  27  ;  "  Commentary,"  in  the  sense  of  Caesar's  "  Com 
mentaries,"  enlargement,  embellishment,  complement,  &c 
(A.  V.  stwy  .').  The  compilers  of  Chronicles  seem  to  have 
used  such  promiscuous  works  treating  of  biblical  person 
ages  and  events,  provided  they  contained  aught  that  served 
the  tendency  of  the  book. 


VEKSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


1641 


for  this  purpose  to  be  studied  uioet  minutely  and 
unremittingly — the  most  careful  ana  scrutinizing 
attention  being  paid  even  to  its  outward  lorm  and 
semblance — was  also  used,  and  more  especially  in 
its  non-legal,  prophetical  parts,  for  homiletic  pur 
poses,  as  a  wide  field  of  themes  for  lectures,  ser 
mons,  and  religious  discourses,  both  in  and  out  of 
the  Synagogue : — at  every  solemnity  in  public  and 
private  life.  This  juridical  and  homiletical  ex 
pounding  and  interpreting  of  Scripture — the  germs 
of  both  of  which  are  found  still  closely  intertwined 
and  bound  up  with  each  other  in  the  Targum — is 
called  darash,  and  the  avalanche  of  Jewish  litera 
ture  which  began  silently  to  gather  from  the  time 
of  the  return  from  the  exile  and  went  on  rolling 
uninterruptedly — however  dread  the  events  which 
bcfel  the  nation — until  about  a  thousand  years  after 
ihe  destruction  of  the  second  Temple,  may  be  com 
prised  under  the  general  name  Midrash  —  "ex 
pounding."  The  two  chief  branches  indicated  are, 
Halachah  C]?n,  "  to  go  "),  the  rule  by  which  to 
go,  =  binding,  authoritative  law  ;  and  Haggadah 


if  the  former  was  the  iron  bulwark  around  the 
nationality  of  Israel,  which  every  one  was  ready  at 
every  moment  to  defend  to  his  last  breath,  the 
latter  was  a  maze  of  flowery  walks  within  those 


That  gradually  the  Haggadah  pre- 
of 


fortress-walls. 

ponderated  and  became  the  Midrash  tear* 
the  people,  is  not  surprising.  We  shall  notice  how 
each  successive  Targum  became  more  and  more  im 
pregnated  with  its  essence,  and  frcm  a  version  be 
came  a  succession  of  short  homiletics.  This  difference 
between  the  two  branches  of  Midi-ash  is  strikingly 
pointed  in  the  following  Talmudical  story:  "  R. 
Chia  b.  Abba,  a  Halachist,  and  R.  Abbahu,  a  Hag- 
gadist,  once  came  together  into  a  city  and  preached. 
The  people  flocked  to  the  latter,  while  the  former's 
discourses  remained  without  a  hearer.  Thereupon 
the  Haggadist  comforted  the  Halachist  with  a  para 
ble.  Two  merchants  come  into  a  city  and  spread 
their  wares,  —  the  one  rare  pearls  and  precious 
stones;  the  other  a  ribbon,  a  ring,  glittering 
trinkets:  around  whom  will  the  multitude  throng? 
Formerly,  wh  »n  life  was  not  yet  bitter  labour, 


to  saj  ")  =  saying    Legend,  —  flights   cf  '  Law 
fancy,  darting   up   from  tb.3  Divine  word.      The 
Halachah,  treating  more  especially  the  Pentateuch 


the  people  had  leisure  for  the  deep  word  of  the 


as  the  legal  part  of  the  0.  T.,  bears  towards  this 
book  the  relation  of  an  amplified  and  annotated 
Code  ;  these  amplifications  and  annotations,  be  it 
well  understood,  not  being  new  laws,  formerly  un 
heard  of,  deduced  in  an  arbitrary  and  fanciful 
manner  from  Scripture,  but  supposed  to  be  simul 
taneous  oral  revelations  hinted  at  in  the  Scripture  : 
in  any  case  representing  not  the  human  but  the 
Divine  interpretation,  handed  down  through  a  named 
authority  (Kabbala,  Shemata  —  "  something  received, 
heard  ").  The  Haggadah,  on  the  other  hand,  held 
especial  sway  over  the  wide  field  of  ethical,  poetical, 
prophetical,  and  historical  elements  of  the  O.T., 
but  was  free  even  to  interpret  its  legal  and  his 
torical  passages  fancifully  and  allegorically.  The 
whole  Bible,  with  all  its  tones  and  colours,  be 
longed  to  the  Haggadah,  and  this  whole  Bible  she 
transformed  into  an  endless  series  of  themes  for  her 
most  wonderful  and  capricious  variations.  "  Pro 
phetess  of  the  Exile,"  she  took  up  the  hallowed 
verse,  word  or  letter,  and,  as  the  Halaohah  pointed 
out  in  it  a  special  ordinance,  she,  by  a  most  inge 
nious  exegetical  process  of  her  own,  showed  to  the 
wonder-struck  multitude  how  the  woeful  events 
under  which  they  then  groaned  were  hinted  at  in 
it,  and  how  in  a  manner  it  predicted  even  their 
future  issue.  The  aim  of  the  Haggadah  being 
the  purely  momentary  one  of  elevating,  comfort 
ing,  edifying  its  audience  for  the  time  being,  it 
did  not  pretend  to  possess  the  slightest  autho 
rity.  As  its  method  was  capricious  and  arbitrary, 
so  its  cultivation  was  open  to  every  one  whose 
heart  prompted  him.  It  is  saga,  tale,  gnome, 
parable,  allegory,  —  poetry,  in  short,  of  its  own 
most  strange  kind,  springing  up  from  the  sacred 
soil  of  Scripture,  wild,  luxuriant,  and  tangled,  like 
a  primeval  tropical  forest.  If  the  Halachah  used 
the  Scriptural  word  as  a  last  and  most  awful 
resort,  against  which  there  was  no  further  appeal, 
the  Haggadah  used  it  as  the  golden  nail  on  which 
to  hang  its  gorgeous  tapestry:  as  introduction,  re 
frain,  text,  or  fundamental  stanza  for  a  gloss  ;  and 


now  it  stands  in  need  of  comfortings  and 


The  first  collections  of  the  Halachah — embracing 
the  whole  field  of  juridico-political,  religious,  and 
practical  life,  both  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
nation :  the  human  and  Divine  law  to  its  most  mi 
nute  and  insignificant  details — were  instituted  by 
Hillel,  Akiba,  and  Simon  B.  Gamaliel ;  but  the 
final  redaction  of  the  general  code,  Mishna,0  to 
which  the  later  Toseftahs  and  Boraithas  form  sup 
plements,  is  due  to  Jehudah  Hannassi  in  220  A.D. 
Of  an  earlier  date  with  respect  to  the  contents,  but 
committed  to  writing  in  later  times,  are  the  three 
books :  Sifra,  or  Torath  Kohanim  (an  amplification 
of  Leviticus),  Sifri  (of  Numbers  and  Deuteronomy), 
and  Mechiltha  (of  a  portion  of  Exodus).  The 
masters  of  the  Mishnaic  period,  after  the  Soferim, 
are  the  Tannaim,  who  were  followed  by  the  Amo- 
raim.  The  discussions  and  further  amplifications 
of  the  Mishjia  by  the  latter,  form  the  Ge,nara 
(Complement),  a  work  extant  in  two  redactions, 
viz.  that  of  Palestine  or  Jerusalem  (middle  of  4th 
centuiy),  and  of  Babylon  (5th  century  A.D.),  which, 
together  with  the  Mishna,  are  comprised  under  the 
name  Talmud.  Here,  however,  though  the  work 
is  ostensibly  devoted  to  HalacJiah,  an  almost  equal 
share  is  allowed  to  Haggadah.  The  Haggadistic 
mode  of  treatment  was  threefold :  either  the  simple 
understanding  of  words  and  things  (Peshai^  cr  the 
homiletic  application,  holding  up  the  rmr  or  of 
Scripture  to  the  present  (DerasA),  or  a  mystic  in 
terpretation  (Sod],  the  second  of  which  chiefly 
found  its  way  into  the  Targum.  On  its  minute 
division  into  special  and  general,  ethical,  historical, 
esoteric,  &c.,  Haggadah,  we  cannot  enter  here. 
Suffice  it  to  add  that  the  most  extensive  collections 
of  it  which  have  survived  are  Midi-ash  Kabbah 
(commenced  about  700,  concluded  about  1100  A.D.), 
comprising  the  Pentateuch  and  the  five  Megilloth, 
and  the  Pesikta  (about  700  A.D.),  which  contains 
the  most  complete  cycle  of  Pericopes,  but  the  very 
existence  of  which  had  until  lately  been  forgotten, 
surprisingly  enough,  through  the  very  extracts 
made  from  it  (Jalkut,  Pesikta  Rabbathi,  Sutarta, 
&c.). 


0  Mishna,  from  sJiana,  "  to  learn,"  "  learning,"  pot.  as 
erroneously  translated  of  old,  arid  repeated  ever  since, 
A<a i VMKTI?,  "repetition;"  but  corresponding  exactly 


with  Talmud,  (from  lamad,  "to  learn"),  and  To: ah 
(from  7io>-e/i),  "  to  teach:  "all  throe  terms  meaning  "  itm 
study,"  by  way  of  eminence. 


1642 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


From  this  indispensable  digression  we  return  to 
the  subject  of  Targum.  The  Targuins  now  extant 
are  as  follows : — 

I.  Targum  on  the  Pentateuch,  known  as  that  of 
Onkelos. 

II.  Targum  on  the  first  and  last  prophets,  known 
as  that  of  Jonathan  Ben-Uzziel. 

III.  Targum  on  the  Pentateuch,  likewise  known 
is  that  of  Jonathan  Ben-Uzziel. 

IV.  Targum    on   portions    of   the    Pentateuch, 
known  ns  Targum  Jerushalmi. 

V.  Targuins  on   the   Hagiographa,   ascribed   to 
Joseph  the  Blind,  viz. :  — 

1.  Targum  on  Psalms,  Job,  Proverbs. 

2.  Targum  on  the  five  Megilloth  (Song  of  Songs, 
Ruth,  Lamentations,  Esther,  Ecclesiastes). 

3.  Two  (not  three,  as  commonly  stated)  other 
Targums  to  Esther :  a  smaller  and  a  larger,  the  latter 
known  as  Targum  Sheni,  or  Second  Targum. 

VI.  Targum  to  Chronicles 

VII.  Targum  to  Daniel,  known  from  an  unpub 
lished  Persian  extract,  and  hitherto   not  received 
among  the  number. 

VIII.  Targum  on  the  Apocryphal  pieces  of  Esther. 

We  have  hinted  before  that  neither  any  of  the 
names  under  which  the  Targums  hitherto  went, 
nor  any  of  the  dates  handed  down  with  them, 
have  stood  the  test  of  recent  scrutiny.  Let  it, 
however,  not  for  a  moment  be  supposed  that  a 
sceptic  Wolfian  school  has  been  at  work,  and  with 
hypercritical  and  wanton  malice  has  tried  to  annihi 
late  the  hallowed  names  of  Onkelos,  Jonathan,  and 
Joseph  the  Blind.  It  will  be  seen  from  what 
follows  that  most  of  these  names  have  or  may  have 
a  true  historical  foundation  and  meaning  ;  but  un 
critical  ages  and  ignorant  scribes  have  perverted 
this  meaning,  and  a  succession  of  most  extraordi 
nary  misreadings  and  strangest  {/<rrepa  irp6Tcpa — 
some  even  of  a  very  modern  date — have  produced 
rare  confusion,  and  a  chain  of  assertions  which  dis 
solve  before  the  first  steady  gaze.  That,  notwith 
standing  all  this,  the  implicit  belief  in  the  old  names 
and  dates  still  reigns  supreme  will  surprise  no  one 
who  has  been  accustomed  to  see  the  most  striking 
and  undeniable  results  of  investigation  and  criticism 
quietly  ignored  by  contemporaries,  and  forgotten 
by  generations  which  followed,  so  that  the  same 
work  had  to  be  done  very  many  times  over  again 
oefore*a  certain  fact  was  allowed  to  be  such. 

We  shall  follow  the  order  indicated  above : — 

I.  THE  TARGUM  OF  ONKELOS. 

It  will  be  necessary,  before  we  discuss  this  work 
itself,  to  speak  of  the  person  of  its  reputed  author 
as  far  as  it  concerns  us  here.  There  are  few  more 
contested  questions  in  the  whole  province  of  Biblical, 
nay  general  literature,  than  those  raised  on  this 
head.  Did  an  Onkelos  ever  exist  ?  Was  there 
more  than  one  Onkelos  ?  Was  Onkelos  the  real 
form  of  his  name?  Did  he  translate  the  Bible 
at  all,  or  part  of  it?  And  is  this  Targum  the 
translation  he  made  ?  Do  the  dates  of  his  life 
and  this  Targum  tally  ?  &c.  &c.  The  ancient 
accounts  of  Onkelos  are  avowedly  of  the  most 
corrupted  and  confused  kind  :  so  much  so  that 
both  ancient  and  modern  investigators  have  failed  to 
reconcile  and  amend  them  so  as  to  gain  general  satis 
faction,  and  opinions  remain  widely  divergent.  This 
being  the  case,  we  think  it  our  duty  to  lay  the 
whole — not  very  voluminous — evidence,  collected 
loth  frois  the  body  of  Talmudical  and  post-Tal- 


mudical  (so-called  Rabbinical)  and  patristic  writing* 
before  the  reader,  in  order  that  he  may  j  .idge  for 
himself  how  far  the  conclusions  to  which  we  shali 
point  may  be  right. 

The  first  mention  of  "  Onkelos  " — a  name  vari 
ously  derived  from  Kicolaus  (Geiger),  *Ovo/j.a  /coAos 
[sic]  (Renan),  Homunculus,  Avunculus,  &c. — more 
fully  «•  Onkelos  the  Proselyte,"  is  found  in  the  To- 
siftah,  a  work  drawn  up  shortly  after  the  Mishna. 
Here  we  learn  (I.)  that  «*  Onkelos  the  Proselyte  " 
was  so  serious  in  his  Adherence  to  the  newly-adopted 
(Jewish)  faith,  th;  he  threw  his  share  in  hi.* 
paternal  inheritance  into  the  Dead  Sea  (Tos.  Demai, 
vi.  9).  (2.)  At  the  funeral  of  Gamaliel  the  Elder 
(1st  century  A.D.)  he  burnt  more  than  70  minae 
worth  of  spices  in  his  honour  (Tos.  Shabb.  8).  (3.) 
This  same  story  is  repeated,  with  variations  (Tos. 
Semach.  8).  (4.)  He  is  finally  mentioned,  by  way 
of  corroboration  to  different  Halachas,  in  connexion 
with  Gamaliel,  in  three  more  places,  which  complete 
our  references  from  the  Tosiftah  (Tos.  Mikv.  6, 
1 ;  Kelim,  iii.  2,  2 ;  Chag.  3,  1).  The  Babylonian 
Talmud,  the  source  to  which  we  turn  our  attention 
next,  mentions  the  name  Onkelos  four  times :  (1 .)  As 
"  Onkelos  the  Proselyte,  the  son  of  Kalonikos  "  (Cal- 
linicus?  Cleonicus?),  the  son  of  Titus'  sister,  who, 
intending  to  become  a  convert,  conjured  up  the 
ghosts  of  Titus,  Balaam,  and  Christ  [the  latter  name 
is  doubtful],  in  order  to  ask  them  what  nation  was 
considered  the  first  in  the  other  world.  Their 
answer  that  Israel  was  the  favoured  one  decided  him 
(Gitt.  56).  (2.)  As  "  Onkelos  the  son  of  Kalony- 
mus"  (Cleonymus?)  (AbodaSar.  11  a.).  It  is  there 
related  of  him  that  the  emperor  (Kaisar}  sent  three 
Roman  cohorts  to  capture  him,  and  that  he  con 
verted  them  all.  (3.)  In  Baba  Bathra  99  a  (Bo- 
raitha),  "Onkelos  the  Proselyte"  is  quoted  as  an 
authority  on  the  question  of  the  form  of  the  Che 
rubim.  And  (4.)  The  most  important  passage — 
because  on  it  mid  it  alone,  in  the  wide  realm  of 
ancient  literature,  has  been  founded  the  general  belief 
that  Onkelos  is  the  author  of  the  Targum  now  cur 
rent  under  this  name — is  found  in  Meg.  3  a.  It 
reads  as  follows : — "  R.  Jeremiah,  and,  according  to 
others,  R.  Chia  bar  Abba,  said:  The  Targum 
to  the  Pentateuch  was  made  by  the  «  Proselyte 
Onkelos,'  from  the  mouth  of  R.  Eliezer  and  R. 
Jehoshua ;  the  Targum  to  the  Prophets  was  made 
by  Jonathan  ben  Uzziel  from  the  mouth  of  Haggai, 
Zechariah,  and  Malachi.  .  .  .  But  have  we  not 
been  taught  that  the  Targum  existed  from  the  tinw 
of  Ezra?  .  .  .  Only  that  it  was  forgotten,  and 
Onkelos  restored  it."  No  mention  whatever  is  to 
be  found  of  Onkelos  either  in  the  Jerusalem  Talmud, 
redacted  about  a  hundred  years  before  the  Baby 
lonian,  nor  in  the  Church  fathers — an  item  of  nega 
tive  evidence  to  which  we  shall  presently  draw 
further  attention.  In  a  Midi-ash  collection,  com 
pleted  about  the  middle  of  the  12th  century,  we 
find  again  "  Onkelos  the  Proselyte "  asking  an  old 
man,  "  Whether  that  was  all  the  love  God  bore 
towards  a  proselyte,  that  he  promised  to  give  him 
bread  and  a  garment?  Whereupon  the  old  man 
replied  that  this  was  all  for  which  the  Patriarch 
Jacob  prayed  (Gen.  xxviii.  20)."  The  Book  Zohar, 
of  late  and  very  uncertain  date,  makes  "  Onkelos  " 
a  disciple  of  Hillel  and  Shammai.  Finally,  a 
MS.,  also  of  a  very  late  and  uncertain  date,  in 
the  library  of  the  Leipzig  Senate  (B.  H.  17), 
relates  of  "  Onkelos,  the  nephew  of  Titus/'  that  he 
asked  the  emperor's  advice  as  to  what  merchandize 
he  thought  it  was  profitable  to  trade  in.  Tin1  '^m 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT 


1643 


peror  told  him  that  that  should  be  bought  which 
was  cheap  in  the  market,  since  it  was  sure  to  rise 
in  price.  Whereupon  Onkelos  went  on  his  way. 
Us  repaired  to  Jerusalem,  and  studied  the  Law 
under  R.  Eleazar  and  R.  Jehoshua,  and  his  face  be 
came  wan.  When  he  returned  to  the  court,  one 
of  the  courtiers  observed  the  pallor  of  his  coun 
tenance,  and  said  to  Titus,  "  Onkelos  appears  to 
have  studied  the  Law."  Interrogated  by  Titus,  he 
admitted  the  fact,  adding  that  he  had  done  it  by 
his  advice.  No  nation  had  ever  been  so  exalted, 
and  none  was  now  held  cheaper  among  the  nations 
than  Israel :  "  therefore,"  he  said,  "  I  concluded  that 
in  the  end  none  would  be  of  higher  price." 

This  is  all  the  information  to  be  found  in  ancient 
authorities  about  Onkelos  and  the  Targum  which 
bears  his  name.  Surprisingly  enough,  the  latter  is 
well  known  to  the  Babylonian  Talmud  (whether  to 
the  Jerusalem  Talmud  is  questionable)  and  the 
Midrashim,  and  is  often  quoted,  but  never  once  as 
Targum  Onkelos.  The  quotations  from  it  are  in 
variably  introduced  with  p^J"inD*l3,  "  -As  we 
[Babvlonians]  translate ;"  and  the  version  itself  is 
called  (e.  g.  Kiddush.  49a)  pi  DU^fl,  "  Our 
Targum,"  exactly  as  Ephraim  Syrus  (Opp.  i.  380) 
speaks  of  the  Peshito  as  "  Our  translation." 

Yet  we  find  on  the  other  hand  another  current 
version  invariably  quoted  in  the  Talmud  by  the  name 
of  its  known  author,  viz.  D^pV  DIDD,  "  the 
[Greek]  Version  of  Akilas :"  a  circumstance  which, 
by  showing  that  it  was  customary  to  quote  the 
author  by  name,  excites  suspicion  as  to  the  rela 
tion  of  Onkelos  to  the  Targum  Onkelos.  Still 
more  surprising,  however,  is,  as  far  as  the  person 
of  Onkelos  is  concerned  (whatever  be  the  dis 
crepancies  in  the  above  accounts),  the  similarity 
between  the  incidents  related  of  him  and  those  re 
lated  of  Akilas.  The  latter  (D^pV,  D^pN)  is 
said,  both  in  Sifra  (Lev.  xxv.  7)  and  the  Jerusalem 
Talmud  (Deraai,  xxvii.d),  to  have  been  bom  in 
Pontus,  to  have  been  a  proselyte,  to  have  thrown 
his  paternal  inheritance  into  an  asphalt  lake  (T. 
Jer.  Demai,  25of),  to  have  translated  the  Torah 
before  R.  Eliezer  and  R.  Joshua,  who  praised  him 
(1D?p,  in  allusion  perhaps  to  his  name,  85/^pJJ) ; 
or,  according  to  other  accounts,  before  R.  Akiba 
(comp.  Jer.  Kidd.  1,  1,  2,  &c. ;  Jer.  Meg.  1, 
11;  Babli  Meg.  3a).  We  learn  further  that  he 
lived  in  the  time  of  Hadrian  (Chag.  2,  1),  that  he 
was  the  son  of  the  Emperor's  sister  (Tanch.  28,  1), 
that  he  became  a  convert  against  the  Emperor's  will 
(ib.  and  Shem.  Rabba,  146c),  and  that  he  consulted 
Eliezer  and  Jehoshua  about  his  conversion  (Ber.  R. 
78cJ;  comp.  Midr.  Koh.  1026).  First  he  is  said 
to  have  gone  to  the  former,  and  to  have  asked  him 
whether  that  was  all  the  love  God  bore  a  proselyte, 
that  He  promised  him  bread  and  a  garment  (Gen. 
xxviii.  20).  "See,"  he  said,  "what  exquisite  birds 
and  other  delicacies  I  now  have :  even  my  slaves 
do  not  care  for  them  any  longer."  Whereupon 
R.  Eliezer  became  wroth,  and  said,  "  Is  that  for 
which  Jacob  prayed,  '  And  give  me  bread  to  eat 
and  a  garment  to  wear,'  so  small  in  thine  eyes  ? — 
Comes  he,  the  proselyte,  and  receives  these  things 
without  any  trouble  !" — And  Akilas,  dissatisfied, 

t  Greek  quotations:— Gen.  xvii.  1,  in  Beresh.  Rab.  51  b  ; 
Lev.  xxiii.  40,  Jer.  Succah,  3,  5,  fol.  53d  (comp.  Vaj. 
Rab.  200  d)  ;  Is.  iii.  20,  Jer.  Shabb.  6,  4,  fol.  8  b ;  Ez.  xvi. 
10,  Midr.  Thren.  58  c  ;  Ez.  xxiii.  43,  Vaj.  Rab.  203  d ; 
Ps.  xlviii.  15  (Masor.  T.,  xivii.  according  to  LXX.),  Jer. 
tle«  2.  3,  fol.  736  ;  Prov.  xviii.  21,  Vaj.  Rab.  fol.  2036; 


left  the  irate  Master  and  went  to  R  Joshua.  He 
pacified  him,  and  explained  to  him  that  "  Bread  " 
meant  the  Divine  Law,  and  ''  Garment,"  the  Talith, 
or  sacred  garment  to  be  worn  during  prayer. 
'•  And  not  this  alone,  he  continued,  but  the 
Proselyte  may  marry  his  daughter  to  a  Priest, 
and  his  offspring  may  >«come  a  High-Priest,  and 
offer  burnt-offerings  in  the  Sanctuary."  More 
striking  still  is  a  Greek  quotation  from  Onkelos, 
the  Chaldee  translator  ''.Midr.  Echa,  58c),  which 
in  reality  is  found  in  and  quoted  (Midr.  Shir 
hashir.  27c?)  from  Akilas,  the  Greek  translator. 

That  Akilas  is  no  other  than  Aquila  ('AwuAas), 
the  well-known  Greek  translator  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  we  need  hardly  add.  He  is  a  native  of  Pontus 
(Iren.  adv.  Haer.  3,  24;  Jer.  De  Vir.  EL  c.  54 ; 
Philastr.  De  Haer.  §90).  He  lived  under  Hadrian 
(Epiph.  De  Pond,  et  Mens.  §12).  He  is  called  the 
ireuBeptSes  (Chron.  Alex.  irwQepos)  of  the  Emperor 
(ib.  §14),  becomes  a  convert  to  Judaism  (§15), 
whence  he  is  called  the  Proselyte  (Iren.  ib. ;  Jerome 
to  Is.  viii.  14,  &c.),  and  receives  instructions  from 
Akiba  (Jer.  ib.}.  He  translated  the  0.  T.,  and  his 
Version  was  considered  of  the  highest  import  and 
authority  among  the  Jews,*especially  those  unac 
quainted  with  the  Hebrew  language  (Euseb.  Praep. 
Ev.  1.  c. ;  Augustin,  Civ.  D.  xv.  23  ;  Philastr.  Haer. 
90  ;  Justin,  Novell.  146).  Thirteen  distinct  quota 
tions  P  from  this  Version  are  preserved  in  Talmud 
and  Midrash,  and  they  tally,  for  the  most  part, 
with  the  corresponding  passages  preserved  in  the 
Hexapla ;  and  for  those  even  which  do  not  agree, 
there  is  no  need  to  have  recourse  to  corruptions. 
We  know  from  Jerome  (on  Ezek.  iii.  15)  that  Aquila 
prepared  a  further  edition  of  his  Version,  called  by 
the  Jews  KO.T'  aicpipeiav,  and  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  assume,  caeteris  paribus,  that 
the  differing  passages  belong  to  the  different  editions. 

If  then  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  as  to  the 
identity  of  Aquila  and  Akilas,  we  may  well  now  go 
a  step  further,  and  from  the  threefold  accounts  ad 
duced, — so  strikingly  parallel  even  in  their  anachro 
nisms  and  centortions — safely  argue  the  identity, 
as  of  Akilas  and  Aquila,  so  of  Onkelos  *  the  trans- 
lator,'  with  Akilas  or  Aquila.  Whether  m  reality 
a  proselyte  of  that  name  had  been  in  existence 
at  an  earlier  date — a  circumstance  which  might  ex 
plain  part  of  the  contradictory  statements  ;  and  whe 
ther  the  difference  of  the  forms  is  produced  through 
the  y  (ng,  nk),  with  which  we  find  the  name  some 
times  spelt,  or  the  Babylonian  manner,  occasionally 
to  insert  an  n,  like  in  Adrianus,  which  we  always 
find  spelt  Andrianus  in  the  Babylonian  Talmua  ;  or 
whether  we  are  to  read  Gamaliel  II.  for  Gamaliel 
the  Elder,  wre  cannot  here  examine ;  anything 
connected  with  the  person  of  an  Onkelos  no 
longer  concerns  us,  since  he  is  not  the  author  of 
the  Targum ;  indeed,  as  we  saw,  only  once  ascribed 
to  him  in  the  passage  of  the  Babylonian  Talmud 
(Meg.  3a),  palpably  corrupted  from  the  Jerusalem 
Talmud  (Meg.  i.  9).  And  not  before  the  9th  cen 
tury  (Pirke  der.  Eliezer  to  Gen.  xlv.  27)  does  this 
mischievous  mistake  seem  to  have  struck  root,  and 
even  from  that  time  three  centuries  elapsed,  during 
which  the  Version  was  quoted  often  enough,  but 
without  its  authorship  being  ascribed  to  Onkelos. 


Esth.  i.  6,  Midr.  Esth.  120  d ;  Dan.  v.  5,  Jer.  Joma,  3,  8,  fol, 
41a.— Heorew  quotations,  re-translated  from  the  Greek:— 
Lev.  xix.  20,  Jer.  Kid.  i.  1,  fol.  59  a ;  Dan.  viii.  13,  Ber.  Rub, 
'24c.— Chaldee  quotations:— Prov.  xxv.  11;  Bercsli.  Rab. 
104  b;  Is.  v.  6,  Midr.  Koh.  113 c,  d. 


1644  VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  .'TARGUM) 

From  all  this  it  follows  that  those  who,  in  the  }  Aos  SouAetW  rrj  efipaiKij  Ae|et  ^«5eSwAte» 
face  of  this  overwhelming  mass  of  evidence,  would 
fain  retain  Onkelos  in  the  false  position  of  trans 
lator  of  our  Targum,  must  be  ready  to  admit  that 
there  were  two  men  living  simultaneously  of  most 
astoundingly  similar  names;  both  proselytes  to  Ju 
daism,  both  translators  of  the  Bible,  both  disciples 
of  R.  Eliezer  and  R.  Jehoshua ;  it  being  of  both 
reported  by  the  same  authorities  that  they  trans 
lated  the  Bible,  and  that  they  were  disciples  of 
the  two  last-mentioned  Doctors ;  both  supposed  to 
be  nephews  of  the  reigning  emperor,  who  disap 
proved  of  their  conversion  (for  this  account  comp. 
Dion  Cass.  Ixvii.  14,  and  Deb.  Rab.  2  ;  where  Do- 
mitian  is  related  to  have  had  a  near  relative  executed 
for  his  inclining  towards  Judaism),  and  very  many 
more  palpable  improbabilities  of  the  same  description. 

The  question  now  remains,  why  was  this  Targum 
called  that  of  Onkelos  or  Akilas?  It  is  neither  a 
translation  of  it,  nor  is  it  at  all  done  in  the  same  spirit. 
All  that  we  learn  about  the  Greek  Version  shows  us 
that  its  chief  aim  and  purpose  was,  to  counteract  the 
LXX.  The  latter  had  at  that  time  become  a  mass 
of  arbitrary  corruptions — especially  with  respect  to 
the  Messianic  passages — as  well  on  the  Christian 
as  on  the  Jewish  side.  It  was  requisite  that  a 
translation,  scrupulously  literal,  should  be  given 
into  the  hands  of  those  who  were  unable  to  read 
the  original.  Aquila,  the  disciple,  according  to 
one  account,  of  Akiba;  the  same  Akiba  who  ex 
pounded  (darasfy  for  Halachistic  purposes  the  seem 
ingly  most  insignificant  Particles  in  the  Scripture 
(c.  g.  the  DK,  sign  of  accusative  ;  Gen.  R.  1 ;  Tos. 
She'b.  1;  Talm.  Sheb.  26a),  fulfilled  his  task 
according  to  his  master's  method.  "  Non  solum 
verba  sed  et  etymologias  verborum  transferre  co- 
natus  est.  .  .  .  Quod  Hebraei  non  solum  habent 
&p9pa  sed  et  Trp6apdpa,  ille  /ca/co^VjAcos  et  syllabas 
interpreted r  et  litteras,  dictatque  <rvv  rbv  ovpa- 
vbv  /col  cr  v  v  'V  yyv  quod  graeca  et  latina  lingua 
non  recipit"  (Jer.  de  Opt.  Gen.  interpret.).  Tar 
gum  Onkelos,  on  the  other  hand,  is,  if  not  quite 
a  paraphrase,  yet  one  of  the  very  freest  versions. 
Nor  do  the  two  translations,  with  rare  exceptions, 
agree  even  as  to  the  renderings  of  proper  nouns, 
which  each  occasionally  likes  to  transform  into 
something  else.  But  there  is  a  reason.  The  Jews 
in  possession  of  this  most  slavishly  accurate  Greek 
Bible-text,  could  now  on  the  one  hand  successfully 
combat  arguments,  brought  against  them  from 
interpolated  LXX.  passages,  and  on  the  other 
follow  the  expoundings  of  the  School  and  the  Ha- 
lachah,  based  upon  the  letter  of  the  Law,  as  closely 
as  if  they  had.  understood  the  original  itself.  That 
.1  version  of  this  description  often  marred  the  sense, 
mattered  less  in  times  anything  but  favourable  to 
the  literal  meaning  of  the  Bible.  It  thus  gradually 
became  such  a  favourite  with  the  people,  that  its 
renderings  were  household  words.  If  the  day  when 
the  LXX.  was  made  was  considered  a  day  of  distress 
like  the  one  on  which  the  golden  calf  was  cast,  and 
was  actually  entered  among  the  fast  days  (8th 
Tebeth  ;  Meg.  Taanith) ;— this  new  version,  which 
was  to  dispel  the  mischievous  influences  of  the  older, 
earned  for  its  author  one  of  the  most  delicate  com 
pliments  in  the  manner  of  the  time.  The  verse  of 
the  Scripture  (Ps.  xlv.  3),  "Thou  art  more  beautiful 
(jofjefita)  than  the  sons  of  men,"  was  applied  to 
him — in  allusion  to  Gen.  ix.  27,  where  it  is  said  that 

Japhet,  (i.  e.  the  Greek  language),  should  one  day  i  ^uu  «,CHKU.IJ,  ..v  UiU».  ~ 

dwell  in  the  tents  of  Shem  (i.  e.  Israel),  Meg.  1,11,'  tion  took  place  as  soon  afterwards  ^s  may  reasonably 
71  5  and  c;  9  b,  Ber.  Rab.  40  6.— O8*-«  7op  'A«u-    be  supposed.     Further  corroborative  arguments  ai? 


irapa  'lou- 
&c.  (Orig.  aa 
Afric.  2). 

What,  under  these  circumstances,  is  more  natural 
than  to  suppose  that  the  new  Chaldee  Version — at 
least  as  excellent  in  its  way  as  the  Greek — was 
started  under  the  name  which  had  become  expressive 
of  the  type  and  ideal  of  a  Bible-translation  ;  that,  in 
fact,  it  should  be  called  a  Targum  done  in  the  manner 
of  Aquila: — Aquila- Targum.  Whether  the  title  of 
recommendation  was,  in  consideration  of  the  merits 
of  the  work  upon  which  it  was  bestowed,  gladly  en 
dorsed  and  retained — or  for  aught  we  know,  was  n:>t 
bestowed  upon  it  until  it  was  generally  found  to  be  of 
such  surpassing  merit,  we  need  not  stop  to  argue. 

Being  thus  deprived  of  the  dates  which  a  close 
examination  into  the  accounts  of  a  translator's  life 
might  have  furnished  us,  we  must  needs  try  to  fix 
the  time  of  our  Targum  as  approximately  as  we  can 
by  the  circumstances  under  which  it  took  its  rise, 
and  by  the  quotations  from  it  which  we  meet  in  early 
works.  Without  unnecessarily  going  into  detail,  we 
shall  briefly  record,  what  we  said  in  tiie  introduc 
tion,  that  the  Targum  was  begun  to  be  committed 
to  writing  about  the  end  of  the  2nd  century,  A.D. 
So  far,  however,  from  its  superseding  the  oral 
Targum  at  once,  it  was  on  the  contrary  strictly  for 
bidden  to  read  it  in  public  (Jer.  Meg.  4,  I).  Nor 
was  there  any  uniformity  in  the  version.  Down 
to  the  middle  of  the  2nd  century  we  find  the 
masters  most  materially  differing  from  each  other 
with  respect  to  the  Targum  of  ceitain  passages, 
(Seb.  54  a.)  and  translations  quoted  not  to  be  found 
in  any  of  our  Targums.  The  necessity  must  thus 
have  pressed  itself  upon  the  attention  of  the  spiritual 
leaders  of  the  people  to  put  a  stop  to  the  fluctuating 
state  of  a  version,  which,  in  the  course  of  time 
must  needs  have  become  naturally  surrounded  with 
a  halo  of  authority  little  short  of  that  of  the  ori 
ginal  itself.  We  shall  thus  not  be  far  wrong  in 
placing  the  work  of  collecting  the  different  frag 
ments  with  their  variants,  and  reducing  them  into 
one — finally  authorized  Version — about  the  end  ol 
the  3rd,  or  the  beginning  of  the  4th  century,  and 
in  assigning  Babylon  to  it  as  the  birthplace.  li 
was  at  Babylon,  that  about  this  time  the  light  of 
learning,  extinguished  in  the  blood-stained  fields  oJ 
Palestine,  shone  with  threefold  vigour.  The  Aca 
demy  at  Nahardea,  founded  according  to  legend 
during  the  Babylonian  exile  itself,  had  gathered 
strength  in  the  same  degree  as  the  numerous 
Palestinian  schools  began  to  decline,  and  when  in 
259  A.'D.  that  most  ancient  school  was  destroyed, 
there  were  three  others  simultaneously  flourish 
ing  in  its  stead: — Tiberias,  whither  the  college 
of  Palestinian  Jabneh  had  been  transferred  in  the 
time  of  Gamaliel  III.  (200)  ;  Sora,  founded  by 
Chasda  of  Kafri  (293) ;  and  Pumbadita  founded  by 
R.  Jehudah  b.  Jecheskeel  (297).  And  in  Babylon 
for  well  nigh  a  thousand  years  "  the  crown  of  the 
Law "  remained,  and  to  Babylon,  the  seat  of  the 
"  Head  of  the  Golah "  (Dispersion),  all  Israel, 
scattered  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  looked  for  its 
spiritual  guidance.  That  one  of  the  first  deeds 
of  these  Schools  must  have  been  the  fixing  oi 
the  Targum,  as  soon  as  the  fixing  of  it  became 
indispensable,  we  may  well  presume ;  and  as  we  see 
the  text  fluctuating  down  to  the  middle  of  the 
2nd  century,  we  must  needs  assume  that  the  redao- 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


1645 


found  for  B«bylon  as  the  place  of  its  final  redaction, 
although  Palestine  was  the  country  where  it  grew 
and  developed  itself.  Many  grammatical  and  idio- 
matical  signs — the  substance  itself,  i.  e.  the  words, 
being  Palestinian — point,  as  far  as  the  scanty  ma 
terials  in  our  hands  permit  us  to  draw  conclusions 
as  to  the  true  state  of  language  in  Babylon,  to  that 
countiy.  The  Targum  further  exhibits  a  greater 
linguistic  similarity  with  the  Babylonian,  than 
with  the  Palestinian  Gemara.  Again,  terms  are 
found  in  it  which  the  Talmud  distinctly  mentions 
as  peculiar  to  Babylon,i  not  to  mention  Persian 
words,  which  on  Babylonian  soil  easily  found 
their  way  into  our  work.  One  of  the  most  striking 
hints  is  the  unvarying  translation  of  the  Targum 
of  the  word  "1H3,  "  River,"  by  Euphrates,  the 
River  of  Babylon.  Need  we  further  point  to 
the  terms  above  mentioned,  under  which  the 
Targum  is  exclusively  quoted  in  the  Talmud  and 
the  Midrashim  of  Babylon,  viz.,  "  Our  Targum," 
"  As  we  translate,"  or  its  later  designation  (Aruch, 
Rashi,  Tosafbth,  &c.)  as  the  "  Targum  of  Babel  "  ? 
Were  a  further  proof  needed,  it  might  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  the  two  Babylonian  Schools,  which, 
holding  different  readings  in  various  places  of  the 
Scripture,  as  individual  traditions  of  their  own, 
consequently  held  different  readings  in  the  Targum 
ever  since  the  time  of  its  redaction. 

The  opinions  developed  here  are  shared  more  or 
less  by  some  of  the  most  competent  scholars  of  our 
day :  for  instance,  Zunz  (who  now  repudiates  the 
dictum  laid  down  in  his  Gottesdienstl.  Vortr.,  that 
the  translation  of  Oiikelos  dates  from  about  the 
middle  of  the  first  century,  A.D.  ;  comp.  Geiger, 
Zeitschr.  1843,  p.  179,  note  3),  Gratz,  Levy,  Herz- 
feld,  Geiger,  Frankel,  &c.  The  history  of  the  in 
vestigation  of  the  Targums,  more  especially  that  of 
Onkelos,  presents  the  usual  spectacle  of  vague 
speculations  and  widely  contradictory  notions, 
held  by  different  investigators  at  different  times. 
Suffice  it  to  mention  that  of  old  authorities,  Reuchin 
puts  the  date  of  the  Targum  as  far  back  as  the 
time  of  Isaiah — notwithstanding  that  the  people, 
as  we  are  distinctly  told,  did  not  understand  even 
a  few  Aramaic  words  in  the  time  of  Jeremiah. 
Following  Asaria  de  Rossi  and  Eliah  Levita  (who, 
for  reasons  now  completely  disposed  of,  assumed 
the  Targnm  to  have  first  taken  its  rise  in  Babylon 
during  the  Captivity),  Bellarmin,  Sixtus  Senensis, 
Aldret,  Bartolocci,  Rich.  Simon,  Hottinger,  Walton, 
Thos.  Smith,  Pearson,  Allix,  Wharton,  Prideaux, 
Schickard,  take  the  same  view  with  individual 
modifications.  Pfeiffer,  B.  Meyer,  Steph.  Morinus, 
on  the  other  hand,  place  its  date  at  an  extremely 
late  period,  and  assign  it  to  Palestine.  Another 
School  held  that  the  Targum  was  not  written 
until  after  the  time  of  the  Talmud— so  Wolf, 
Havermann,  partly  Rich.  Simon,  Hornbeck,  Job. 
Morinus,  &c. :  and  their  reasons  are  both  the  oc 
currence  of  "  Talmudical  Fables "  in  the  Targum 
and  the  silence  of  the  Fathers.  The  former  is  an 
argument  to  which  no  reply  is  needed,  since  we  do 
not  see  what  it  can  be  meant  to  prove,  unless  the 
"  Rabbinus  Talmud  "  has  floated  before  their  eyes, 
rlio,  according  to  '  Henricus  Seynensis  Capucinus  ' 
(Ann.  EccL  torn.  i.  261),  must  have  written  all  this 
gigantic  literature,  ranging  over  a  thousand  years, 
out  of  his  own  head,  in  which  case,  indeed,  every 


»  girl."  is  rendered  by  &01")  i 
they  call  in  Babylon  a  young  girl," 
13  a). 


for  tnus 


dictum  on  record,  dating  before  or  after  the  com 
pilation  of  the  Talmud,  and  in  the  least  resembling 
a  passage  or  story  contained  therein,  must  be  a  pla 
giarism  from  its  sole  venerable  author.  The  latter 
argument,  viz.  the  silence  of  the  Fathers,  more 
especially  of  Origen,  Jerome,  and  Spiphanius,  has 
been  answered  by  Walton  ;  and  what  we  have  said 
will  further  corroborate  his  arguments  to  the  effect, 
that  they  did  not  mention  it,  not  because  it  did  not 
exist  in  their  days,  but  because  they  either  knew 
nothing  of  it,  or  did  not  understand  it."  In  the  person 
of  an  Onkelos,  a  Chaldee  translator,  the  belief  has 
been  general,  and  will  remain  so,  as  long  as  the 
ordinary  Handbooks — with  rare  exceptions — do  not 
care  to  notice  the  uncon tested  results  of  contem 
porary  investigation.  How  scholars  within  the  last 
century  have  endeavoured  to  reconcile  the  contra 
dictory  accounts  about  Onkelos,  more  particularly 
how  they  have  striven  to  smooth  over  the  difficulty 
of  their  tallying  with  those  of  Akilas — as  far  as  either 
had  come  under  their  notice — for  this  and  other 
minor  points  we  must  refer  the  reader  to  Eichhom, 
Jahn,  Berthold,  Havernick,  &c. 

We  now  turn  to  the  Targum  itself. 

Its  language  is  Chaldee,  closely  approaching  in 
purity  of  idiom  to  that  of  Ezra  and  Daniel.  It  follows 
a  sober  and  clear,  though  not  a  slavish  exegesis,  and 
keeps  as  closely  and  minutely  to  the  text  as  is  at  all 
consistent  with  its  purpose,  viz.,  to  be  chiefly,  and 
above  all,  a  version  for  the  people.  Its  explanations 
of  difficult  and  obscure  passages  bear  ample  witness 
to  the  competence  of  those  who  gave  it  its  final 
shape,  and  infused  into  it  a  rare  unity.  Even  where 
foreign  matter  is  introduced,  or,  as  Berkowitz  in  his 
Hebrew  work  Oteh  Or  keenly  observes,  where  it 
most  artistically  blends  two  translations :  one  literal, 
and  one  figurative,  into  one;  it  steadily  keeps  in 
view  the  real  sense  of  the  passage  in  hand.  It  is 
always  concise  and  clear,  and  dignified,  worthy  of 
the  grandeur  of  its  subject.  It  avoids  the  legend 
ary  character  with  which  all  the  later  Targums 
entwine  the  Biblical  word,  as  far  as  ever  cir 
cumstances  would  allow.  Only  in  the  poetical 
passages  it  was  compelled  to  yield — though  re 
luctantly — to  the  popular  craving  for  Haggadah  ; 
but  even  here  it  chooses  and  selects  with  rare  taste 
and  tact. 

Generally  and  broadly  it  may  be  stated  that 
alterations  are  never  attempted,  save  for  the 
sake  of  clearness ;  tropical  terms  are  dissolved  by 
judicious  circumlocutions,  for  the  correctness  of 
which  the  authors  and  editors  —  in  possession  of 
the  living  tradition  of  a  language  still  written,  if 
not  spoken  in  their  day — certainly  seem  better  judges 
than  some  modern  critics,  who  through  their  own 
incomplete  acquaintance  with  the  idiom,  injudi 
ciously  blame  Onkelos.  Highly  characteristic  is 
the  aversion  of  the  Targum  to  anthropopathies  and 
anthropomorphisms ;  in  fact,  to  any  term  which 
could  in  the  eyes  of  the  multitude  lower  the  idea 
of  the  Highest  Being.  Yet  there  are  many  pas 
sages  retained  in  which  human  affections  and  qua 
lities  are  attributed  to  Him.  He  speaks,  He  sees. 
He  hears,  He  smells  the  odour  of  sacrifice,  is  angry, 
repents,  &c.  : — the  Targum  thus  showing  itself  en 
tirely  opposed  to  the  allegorising  and  symbolising 
tendencies,  which  in  those,  and  still  more  in  later 
days,  were  prone  to  transform  Biblical  history 
itself  into  the  most  extraordinary  legends  and  fairy 
tales  with  or  without  a  moral.  The  Tavgum,  how 
ever,  while  retaining  terms  like  the  arm  of  God, 
the  right  hand  of  God,  the  finger  of  God  —  for 


1646 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TAKGUM) 


Power,  Providence,  &c. — replaces  terms  like  foot, 
front,  back  of  God,  by  the  fitting  figurative  mean 
ing.  We  must  notice  further  its  repugnance  to 
bring  the  Divine  Being  into  too  close  contact,  as 
it  were,  with  man.  It  erects  a  kind  of  reverential 
barrier,  a  sort  of  invisible  medium  of  awful  reve 
rence  between  the  Creator  and  the  creature.  Thus 
terms  like ' '  the  Word  "  (Logos  =  8  insc.  6m),  "  the 
Shechinah  "  (Holy  Presence  of  God's  Majesty,  "  the 
Glory"),  further,  human  beings  talking  not  to,  but 
"  before  "  God,  are  frequent.  The  same  care,  in  a 
minor  degree,  is  taken  of  the  dignity  of  the  persons 
of  the  patriarchs,  who,  though  the  Scripture  may 
expose  their  weaknesses,  were  not  to  be  held  up  in 
their  iniquities  before  the  multitude  whose  ances 
tors  and  ideals  they  were.  That  the  most  curious 
tfvrepa  TrpoVepa  and  anachronisms  occur,  such  as 
Jacob  studying  the  Torah  in  the  academy  of  Shem, 
&c.,  is  due  tc  the  then  current  typifying  tendencies 
of  the  Haggadah.  Some  extremely  cautious,  withal 
poetical,  alterations  also  occur  when  the  patriarchs 
speak  of  having  acquired  something  by  violent 
means :  as  Jacob  (Gen.  xlviii.  22),  by  his  "  sword 
and  bow,"  which  two  words  become  in  the  Tar- 
gum,  "  prayers  and  supplications."  But  the  points 
which  will  have  to  be  considered  chiefly  when  the 
Targum  becomes  a  serious  study — as  throwing  the 
clearest  light  upon  its  time,  and  the  ideas  then 
in  vogue  about  matters  connected  with  religious 
belief  and  exercises — are  those  which  treat  of 
prayer,  study  of  the  law,  prophecy,  angelology,  and 
the  Messiah. 

The  only  competent  investigator  who,  after  Winer 
(De  Onkeloso,  1820),  but  with  infinitely  more  mi 
nuteness  and  thorough  knowledge  of  the  subject, 
has  gone  fully  into  this  matter,  is  Luzzatto.  Con 
sidering  the  vast  importance  of  this,  the  oldest  Tar- 
gum,  for  biblical  as  well  as  for  linguistic  studies  in 
general, — not  to  mention  the  advantages  that  might 
accrue  from  it  to  other  branches  of  learning,  such 
as  geography,  history,  &c. :  we  think  it  advisable 
to  give — for  the  first  time — a  brief  sketch  of  the 
results  of  this  eminent  scholar.  His  classical, 
though  not  rigorously  methodical,  Oheb  Ger  (1830) 
is,  it  is  true,  quoted  by  every  one,  but  in  reality 
known  to  but  an  infinitely  small  number,  although 
it  is  written  in  the  most  lucid  modern  Hebrew. 

He  divides  the  discrepancies  between  Text  and 
Targurn  into  four  principal  classes. 

(A.)  Where  the  language  of  the  Text  has  been 
changed  in  the  Targum,  but  the  meaning  of  the 
former  retained. 

(B.)  Where  both  language  and  meaning  were 
changed. 

(C.)  Where  the  meaning  was  retained,  but  addi 
tions  were  introduced. 

(D.)  Where  the  meaning  was  changed,  and  addi 
tions  were  introduced. 

He  further  subdivides  these  four  into  thirty-two 
classes,  to  nil  of  which  he  adds,  in  a  most  thorough 
and  accurate  manner,  some  telling  specimens.  Not 
withstanding  the  apparent  pedantry  of  his  method, 
and  the  undeniable  identity  which  necessarily  must 
exist  between  some  of  his  classes,  a  glance  over 
their  whole  body,  aided  by  one  or  two  examples  in 


each  case,  will  enable  us  to  gain  as  char  an  insighl 
into  the  manner  and  *' genius"  of  the  Onkelos- 
Targum  as  is  possible  without  the  study  of  the 
work  itself. 

(A.)  Discrepancies  where  the  language  of  the  text 
has  been  chanp-ed  in  the  Targum,  but  the  meaning 
of  the  former  has  been  retained. 

1 .  Alterations  owing  to  the  idiom :  e.  g.  the  sin 
gular,'  "  Let  there  be  \sit~]  lights  "  (Gen.  i.  14),  is 
transformed  into  the  plur.8  [smi]  in  the  Targum 
"  man  and  woman,"*  as  applied  to  the   animals 
(Gen.  vii.  2),  becomes,  as  unsuitable  in  the  Aramaic, 
"  male  and  female."  n 

2.  Alterations   out   of  reverence   towards   God, 
more  especially  for  the  purpose  of  doing  away  with 
all  ideas  of  a  plurality  of  the  Godhead :  e.  g.  the 
terms  Adonai,  Elohim,  are   replaced  by  Jehovah, 
lest  these  might  appear  to  imply  more  than  one 
God.     Where  Elohim  is  applied  to  idolatry  it  is 
rendered  "  Error."  * 

3.  Anthropomorphisms,  where  they  could  be  mis 
understood  and  construed  into  a  disparagement  or 
a  lowering  of  the  dignity  of  the  Godhead  among 
the  common  people,  are  expunged:  e.  g.  for  "And 
God  smelled  a  sweet  smell "  (Gen.  viii.  21),  Onkelos 
has,  "  And   Jehovah  received   the   sacrifice   with 
grace ;"  for  "  And  Jehovah  went  r  down  to  see  the 
city"  (Gen.  xi.  5),  "And  Jehovah  revealed*  Him 
self,"  a  term  of  frequent  use  in  the  Targum  for 
verbs  of  motion,  such  as  "  to  go  down,"  "  to  go 
through,"  &c.,  applied  to  God.   "  I  shall  pass  over* 
you"  (Ex.  xii.  13),  the  Targum  renders,  "  I  shall 
protect  you."  b   Yet  only  anthropomorphisms  which 
clearly  stand  figuratively  and  might  give  offence, 
are  expunged,  not  as  Maimonides,  followed  by  nearly 
all  commentators,    holds,  all  anthropomorphisms, 
lor  words  like  "  hand,  finger,  to  speak,  see,"  &c. 
(see  above),  are  retained.      But  where  the  words 
remember,  think  of,c  &c.,  are  used  of  God,  they 
always,  whatever  their  tense  in  the  text,  stand  in 
the  Targum  in  the  present ;  since  a  past  or  future 
would  imply  a  temporary  forgetting  on  the  part  of 
the  Omniscient.*1     A  keen  distinction  is  here  also 
established  by  Luzzatto  between  *tn  and  ^73,  the 
former  used  of  a  real,  external  seeing,  the  latter  of 
a  seeing  "  into  the  heart." 

4.  Expressions  used  of  and  to  God  by  men  are 
brought  more  into  harmony  with  the  idea  of  His 
dignity.     Thus  Abraham's  question,  "  The  Judge 
of  the  whole  ->arth,  should  he  not  (JO)  do  justice?" 
(Gen.  xviii.  25) is  altered  into  the  affirmative:  "  The 
Judge  .  .  .  verily  He  will  do  justice."     Laban,  who 
speaks  of  his  gods  e  in  the  text,  is  made  to  speak  of 
bis  religion  f  only  in  the  Targum. 

5.  Alterations  in  honour  of  Israel  and  their  an 
cestors.     Rachel  "  stole  "f  the  Teraphim  (xxxi.  19) 
is  softened  into  Rachel  "  took ;"  h  Jacob  "  fled " 
from  Laban  (Ib.  22),  into  "  went " ; k  "  The  sons 
of  Jacob  answered    Shechem   with  craftiness " r 
(xxxiv.  13),  into  "with  wisdom."" 

6.  Short  glosses  introduced  for  the  better  under 
standing  of  the  text :  "  for  it  is  my  mouth  that 
speaks    to   you"    (xiv.    12),   Joseph   said   to   his 
brethren:  Targum,  "  in  your  tongue,"  °  ».  e.  with- 
out  an  interpreter.     "  The  people  who  had  made 


"  And  there  is  no  forgetting  before  the  throne  of  Th} 
glory." 


c  -or. 

Comp.  Prayer  for  Kosh  hashana,  '" 


1  mn 


VERSIONS.  ANCIENT  jTARGUM) 


1647 


the  calf ;'  (Ex.  rzrii.  35)  Targum,  "  worshipped,"  P 
since  ^ot  they,  but  Aaron  made  it. 

7.  Explanation  of  tropical  and  allegorical  expres 
sions:  "Be  fruitful  (lit.  'creep,'  from   p1K>)  and 
multiply"  (Gen.  i.  28),  is  altered  into  "bear  chil 
dren;"  1  "  thy  brother  Aaron  shall  be  thy  prophet"* 
(Ex.  vii.  1 ),  into  "  thy  interpreter  "  •  (Meturgeman) ; 
"I  madethee  a  god  (Elohim)  to  Pharaoh"  (Ex.  vii. 
1),  into  "  a  master  ;"  *  "  to  ahead  and  not  to  a  tail " 
(Deut.  xxviii.  13),  into  "to  a  strong  man  and  not 
to  a  weak ;"  n  and  finally,  "  Whoever  gays  of  his 
father  and  his   mother,   I  saw  them  not"   (Deut. 
xxr'ii.  9),  into  "  Whoever  is  not  merciful*  towards 
.••is  lather  and  his  mother." 

8.  Tending  to  ennoble  the  language :  the  "  wash 
ing  "  of  Aaron  and  his  sons  is  altered  into  "  sancti 
fying  v  ; "  the  "  carcasses  "  »  of  the  animals  of  Abra 
ham    (Gen.  xv.  11)  become  "pieces;"*  " anoint 
ing  "b  becomes  "  elevating,  raising;"0  "the  wife 
of  the  bosom,"  d  "  wife  of  the  covenant."  c 

9.  The  last  of  the  classes  where  the  terms  are 
altered,  but  the  sense  is  retained,  is  that  in  which 
a  change  of  language  takes  place  in  order  to  in 
troduce  the  explanations  of  the  oral  law  and  the 
traditions:  e.g.  Lev.  xxiii.  11,  "On  the  morrow 
after  the  Sabbath f  (i.  e.  the  feast  of  the  unleavened 
bread)  the  priest  shall  wave  it  (the  sheaf),"  Onkelos 
for  Sabbath,  f  east-day  f     For  frontlets  fi  f  Deut.  vi. 
8),  Tefillin  (phylacteries).1 

(B.)  Change  of  both  the  terms  and  the  meaning. 

10.  To  avoid  phrases  apparently  derogatory  to 
the  dignity  of  the  Divine  Being:  "  Am  I  in  God's 
stead  ?  "  k  becomes    in   Onkelos,    "  Dost  thou  ask 
Tchildren]    from    me  ? m   from    before    God   thou 
shouldst  ask  them"  (Gen.  xxx.  2). 

11.  In  order  to  avoid  anthropomorphisms  of  an 
objectionable  kind.  "  With  the  breath  of  Thy  nose"  •» 
("  blast  of  Thy  nostrils,"  A.  V.,  Ex.  xv.  8),  becomes 
"  With  the  word  of  Thy  mouth."  °     "  And  I  shall 
spread  my  hand  over  thee"P  (Ex.  xxxiii.  22),  is 
transformed  into  "  I  shall  with  my  word  protect 
thee."  i    "  And  thou  shalt  see  my  back  parts,'  but 
my  face 8  shall   not   be   seen "    (Ex.  xxxiii.  23) : 
"  And  thou  shalt  see  what  is  behind  me,*  but  thai 
which  is  before  me^  shall  not  be  seen"  (Deut. 


xxxiii.  12). 

12.  For  the  sake  of  religious  euphemisms: 
"And  ye  shall  be  like  God"*  (Gen.  iii.  5),  is 


altered  into  "  like  princes."  1  "A  laughter  *  has 
God  made  me"  (Gen.  xxi.  6),  into  "A  joy*  He 
gives  me  "  —  "  God  "  being  entirely  omitted. 

13.  In  honour  of  the  nation  and  its  ancestors: 


11 


DTP 


k  *13K  'T*  nnnn 
n    BK  nmi 


nooi 
nnn 
piiii 


e.  g.  "  Jacob  was  an  upright  mar.,  a  dweller  in 
tents  "b  (Gen.  xxv.  27),  becomes  "  an  upright  man, 
frequenting  the  house  of  learning."0  "  One  of  the 
people d  might  have  lain  with  thy  wife"  (Gen. 
xxvi.  10) — "  One  singled  out  among  ..ne  people,'  a 
i.  e.  the  king.  "Thy  brother  came  uid  took  my 
blessing  with  deceit"'  (Gen.  xxvii.  35),  becomes 
"  with  wisdom  "P 

14.  In  order  to  avoid  similes  objectionable  on 
aesthetical  grounds.     "  And  he  will  bathe  his  foot 


And  he  will  have  many  delicacies1  of 


in  oil" 

a  king  "  (Deut.  xxxiii.  24). 

15.  In  order  to  ennoble  the  language.     "  And 
man  became  a  living  being  "k  (Gen.  ii.  7)  —  "  And 
it  became  in  man   a   speaking  spirit."  m     "  How 
good  are  thy  tents*  0  Jacob"  —  "How  good  are 
thy  lands,0  0  Jacob  "  (Num.  xxiv.  5). 

16.  In  favour  of  the  Oral  Law  and  the  Rabbinical 
explanations     "  And  go  into  the  land  of  Moriah  "  P 
(Gen.  xxii.  2),  becomes  "  into  the  land  of  worship" 
(the  future  place  of  the  Temple).     "  Isaac  went 
to  walks  in  the  field"  (Gen.  xxiv.  63),  is  rendered 
"to  pray."*     [Comp.  SAM.  PENT.,  p.  11146]. 
"  Thou  shalt  not  boil  a  kid  •  in   the  milk  of  ita 
mother"  (Ex.  xxxiv.  26)—  as  meat  and  milk,*  ac 
cording  to  the  Halachah. 

(C.)  Alterations  of  words  (circumlocutions,  addi 
tions,  &c.)  without  change  of  meaning. 

17.  On  account  of  the  difference  of  idiom  :  e.  g. 
"  Her  father's  brother"  u  (  =  relation),  (Gen.  xxix. 
12),  is  rendered  "  The  son  of  her  father's  sister."* 
"  What  God  does  T  (future)  he  has  told  Pharaoh" 
(Gen.  xli.  28)—"  What  God  will  do,"»  &c. 

1  8.  Additions  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  expres 
sions  apparently  derogatory  to  the  dignity  of  the 
Divine  Being,  by  implying  polytheism  and  the  like  : 
"  Who  is  like  unto  Thee*  among  the  gods  ?"  is  ren 
dered,  "  There  is  none  like  unto  Thee,b  Thou  art 
God  "  (Ex.  xv.  11).  "  And  they  sacrifice  to  demons 
who  are  no  gods  "  c  —  "  of  no  use  "  d  (Deut.  xxxii.  17). 

19.  In  order  to  avoid  erroneous  notions  implied 
in  certain  vejrbs  and  epithets  used  of  the  Divine 
Being  :  e.  g.  "  And  the  Spirit  of  God  e  moved  " 
(Gen.  i.  2)  —  "  A  wind  from  before  the  Lord."  f 
"And  Noah  built  God  an  altar  "»  (Gen.  viii.  20) 


— "  an  altar  before  h  the  Lord."     "  And  God '  was 
g.  |  with  the  boy"  (Gen.  xxi.  20)—"  And  the  word  of 

"The  moun- 


syn 


in 


God  k  was  in  the  aid  of  the  boy." 
tain  of  God"  (Ex.  iii.  1)  —  "The  mountain  upon 
which  was  revealed  the  glory™  of  God."  "The 
staff  of  God"  (Ex.  iv.  20)—  "The  staff  with 
which  thou  hast  done  the  miracles  before  n  God." 


1  -puan  k  rvn 

nil1?  DiKi  nim 


p  nmo          q  m. 

N3l"6ia-  [Abraham  Instituted,  according  to  tha 
Midi-ash,  the  morning-  (Sbaharith),  Isaac  the  afternoou- 
(Minha),  and  Jacob  the  evening-prayer  (Maarib).] 


n>nj> 


h  'n  Dip 


11    > 

v    b  1:0  in  ^ 

jnn  n^ 

»rin  DIP  jo  nil 

4  f^« 

•»  n  Dip  j*: 


1648 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


"  And  I  shall  see0  what  will  be  their  end"—"  It 
is  open  (revealed)  before  me,"P  &c.  The  Divine 
Being  is  in  tact  very  rarely  spoken  of  without  that 
spiritual  medium  mentioned  before ;  it  being  con 
sidered,  as  it  were,  a  want  of  proper  reverence  to 
speak  to  or  of  Him  directly.  The  terms  "  Before  " 
(Dip),  "  Word "  (Atyos,  «"!»'»),  "  Glory " 
(tW),  "Majesty"  (nT03B>),  are  also  constantly 
used  instead  of  the  Divine  name  :  e.  g.  "  The  voice 
of  the  Lord  God  was  heard"  (Gen.  iii.  8) — "The 
voice  of  the  Word."  ''  And  He  will  dwell  in  the 
tents  of  Shem"  (ix.  27) — "And  the  Shechina 
[Divine  Presence]  will  dwell."  "  And  the  Lord 
went  up  from  Abraham  "  (Gen.  xvii.  22) — "  And 
the  glory  of  God  went  up."  "  And  God  came  to 
Abimelech  "  (Gen.  xx.  3) — "  And  the  word  from 
[before]  God  came  to  Abimelech." 

20.  For  the  sake  of  improving  seemingly  irre- 
rerential  phrases  in  Scripture.     "  Who  is  God  that 
I  should  listen  unto  His  voice?"  (Ex.  v.  2) — "  The 
name  of  God  has  not  been  revealed  to  me,  that  I 
should  r?ceive  His  word."  «l 

21.  In  honour  of  the  nation  and  its  ancestors. 
"  And  Israel  said  to  Joseph,  Now  I  shall  gladly 
die  "r  (Gen.  xlvi.  30),  which  might  appear  frivolous 
in  the  mouth  of  the  patriarch,  becomes  "  I  shall  be 
comforted  *  now."    "  And  he  led  his  flock  towards  * 
the  desert"  (Ex.  iii.  1) — "  towards  a  good  spot  of 
pasture"  in  the  desert." 

22.  In  honour  of  the  Law  and  the  explanation  of 
ivs  obscurities.     "  To  days  and  years  "  (Gen.  i.  14) 
— "  that   days   and   years   should   be   counted  by 
them."  *     "A  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil " 
— "  A  tree,  and  those  who  eat  its  fruits  7  will  dis 
tinguish  between  good  and  evil."     "  I  shall  not 
further  curse  for  the  sake  of1   man  "    (viii.  21) 
— "  through  the  sina  of  man."     "  To  the  ground 
shall  not  be  forgiven  the  blood b  shed  upon  it " 
(Num.  xxv.  33) — "the  innocent*  blood." 

23.  For  the  sake  of  avoiding  similes,  metony- 
mical  and  allegorical  passages,  too  difficult  for  the 
comprehension  of  the  multitude :  e.  g.  "  Thy  seed 
like   the   dust   of  the    earth"    (Gen.  xiii.   16) — 
"  mighty d  as  the  dust  of  the  earth."     "I  am  too 
small  for  all  the  benefits  "  (Gen.  xxxii.  10) — "  My 
good  deeds6  are  small."     "  And  the  Lord  thy  God 
will  circumcise  thy  heart "— "  the  folly  of  thy 
heart." f 

24.  For  the  sake  of  elucidating  apparent  obscuri 
ties,  &c.,  in  the  written  Law.     "  Therefore  shall  a 
man  leave  his  father  and  his  mother"  (Gen.  ii. 
24) — "  the  home  " e  (not  really  his  parents).   "  The 
will  of  Him  who  dwelleth  in  the  bush  " — "  of  Him 
that  dwelleth  in  heaven*1  [whose  Shechinah  is  in 
heaven],  and  who  revealed  Himself  in  the  bush  to 
Moses." 

25.  In  favour  of  the  oral  Law  and  the  traditional 
explanations  generally.     "  He  punishes  the  sins  of 
the  parents  on  their  children  "  (Ex.  xx.  5),  has  the 


fcipan  »!? 


*  pm 


wot 


addition,  "  when  the  children  follow  the  sins  oi 
their  parents  "  (cornp.  Ez.  xviii.  19).  "  The  right 
eous  and  the  just  ye  shall  not  kill "  (Ex.  xxiii.  7) 
— "  He  who  has  left  the  tribunal  as  innocent,  thou 
shalt  not  kill  him,"  f.  e.,  according  to  the  Halacha^ 
he  is  not  to  be  arraigned  again  for  the  same  crime. 
"  Doorposts  "  (mcsusotli)  (Deut.  vi.  9) — "  And 
thou  shalt  write  them  .  .  .  and  affix  them  upon  the 
posts,"  &c. 

(D.)  Alteration  of  language  and  meaning. 

26.  In  honour  of  the  Divine  Being,  to  avoid  ap 
parent  multiplicity  or  a  likeness.     "  Behold  man 
will  be  like  one  of  us,  knowing  good  and  evil " 
(Gen.  iii.  22) — "  He  will  be  the  only  one  in  the 
world l  to  know  good  and  evil."     "  For   who   is 
a  God  in  heaven  and  on  earth  who  could  do  like 
Thy  deeds  and  powers?"  (Deut.  iii.  24)—"  Thou 
art  God,  Thy  Divine  Presence   (Shechinah)  is  in 
heaven  b  above,  and  reigns  on  earth  below,  and  there 
is  none  who  does  like  unto  Thy  deeds,"  &c. 

27.  Alteration   of  epithets    employed   of  God. 
"And  before  Thee  shall  I  hide  myself  "m  (Gen. 
iv.  14) — "  And  before  Thee  it  is  not  possible  to 
hide.""   "  This  is  my  God  and  I  will  praise0  Him, 
the  God  of  my  father  and  I  will  extol P  Him"  (Ex. 
xv.  2) — "  This  is  my  God,  and  I  will  build  Him  a 
sanctuary ;  1  the  God  of  my  fathers,  and  I  will  pray 
before  Him."  T     "  In  one  moment  I  shall  go  up  in 
thy  midst  and  annihilate  thee  " — "  For  one  hour 
will  I  take  away  my  majesty  •  from  among  thee  " 
(since  no  evil  can  come  from  above). 

28.  For  the  ennobling  of  the  sense.     "  Great  is 
Jehovah    above   all  gods" — "Great  is   God,  and 
there  is  no  other  god  beside  Him."   "  Send  through 
him  whom  thou  wilt  send  "  (Ex.  iv.  13) — "  through 
him  who  is  worthy  to  be  sent." 

29.  In  honour  of  the  nation  and  its  ancestors. 
"  And  the  souls  they  made*  in  Haran  "  (Gen.  xii. 
5) — "  the  souls  they  made  subject  to  the  Divine 
Law n  in  Haran."     "And  Isaac  brought  her  into 
the  tent  of  his  mother  Sarah"  (Gen."xxiv.  67) — 
"  And  lo  righteous  were  her  works,*  like  the  works 
of  his  mother  Sarah."     "  And  he  bent  his  shoulder 
to  bear,  and  he  became  a  tributary  servant "  (Gen. 
xlix.  15) — "  And  he  will  conquer  the  cities  of  the 
nations  and  destroy  their  dwelling-places,  and  those 
that  will  remain  there  will  serve  him  and  pay  tri 
bute  to  him."     "  People,  foolish  and  not  wise  " 
(Deut.  xxxii.  6) — "  People  who  has  received  the 
Law  and  has  not  become  wise."  ? 

30.  Explanatory  of  tropical   and   metonymical 
phrases-.     "  And  besides  thee  no  man  shall  raise  his 
hand  and  his  foot  in  the  whole  land  of  Egypt" 
(Gen.  xli.  44) — "  There  shall  not  a  man  raise  his  hand 
to  seize  a  weapon,  and  his  foot  to  ride  on  a  horse." 

31.  To  ennoble  or  improve  the  language.   "  Coats 
of  skin"  (Gen.  iii.  21) — "  Garments  of  honour8 
on  the  skin   of  their   flesh."      "  Thy  two  daugh- 


xmniy  ppm 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


ters  who  are  foa.sd  yith  thee"  (Gen.  xix.  15)  — 
"  who  were  found  faithful  with  thee."  "  May 
Reuben  .'.ive  and  not  die"  (Deut.  xxxiii.  6) — "  May 
Reuben  live  in  the  everlasting  life." 

The  foregoing  examples  will,  we  trust.,  be  found 
to  bear  out  sufficiently  the  judgment  given  above  on 
this  Targum.  In  spite  of  its  many  and  important 
discrepancies,  it  never  for  one  moment  forgets  its 
aim  of  being  a  clear,  though  free,  translation  for 
the  people,  and  nothing  more.  Wherever  it 
deviates  from  the  literalness  of  the  text,  such  a 
course,  in  its  case,  is  fully  justified — nay,  neces 
sitated — either  by  the  obscurity  of  the  passage, 
or  the  wrong  construction  that  naturally  would 
be  put  upon  its  wording  by  the  multitude.  The 
explanations  given  agree  either  with  the  real  sense, 
or  develop  the  current  tradition  supposed  to  under 
lie  it.  The  specimens  adduced  by  other  investi 
gators,  however  differently  classified  or  explained, 
are  easily  brought  under  the  foregoing  heads. 
They  one  and  all  tend  to  prove  that  Onkelos, 
whatever  the  objections  against  single  instances, 
is  one  of  the  most  excellent  and  thoroughly 
competent  interpreters.  A  few  instances  only 
—  and  they  are  very  few  indeed  —  may  be  ad 
duced,  where  even  Onkelos,  as  it  would  appear, 
"dormitat."  Far  be  it  from  us  for  one  moment 
to  depreciate,  as  has  been  done,  the  infinitely 
superior  knowledge  both  of  the  Hebrew  and  Chaldee 
idioms  on  the  part  of  the  writers  and  editors  of 
our  document,  or  to  attribute  their  discrepancies 
from  modern  translations  to  ignorance.  They  drank 
from  the  fullness  of  a  highly  valuable  traditional 
exegesis,  as  fresh  and  vigorous  in  their  days  as 
the  Hebrew  language  itself  still  was  in  the  circles 
of  the  wise,  the  academies  and  schools.  But 
we  have  this  advsatage,  that  words  which  then 
were  obsolete,  and  whose  meaning  was  known  no 
longer — only  guessed  at — are  to  us  familiar  by  the 
numerous  progeny  they  have  produced  in  cognate 
idioms,  known  to  us  through  the  mighty  spread  of 
linguistic  science  in  our  days ;  and  if  we  are  not 
aided  by  a  traditional  exegesis  handed  down  within 
and  without  the  schools,  perhaps  ever  since  the  days 
of  the  framing  of  the  document  itself,  neither  are 
we  prejudiced  and  fettered  by  it.  Whatever  may  be 
implied  and  hidden  in  a  verse  or  word,  we  have  no 
reason  to  translate  it  accordingly,  and,  for  the  attain 
ing  of  this  purpose,  to  overstrain  the  powers  of  the 
roots.  Among  such  small  shortcomings  of  our 
translator  may  be  mentioned  that  he  appears  to 
have  erroneously  derived  HNK'  (Gen.  iv.  7)  from 
NE>3  ;  that  nrG13  (xx.  6)  is  by  him  rendered 

TQK  (Gen- xli-  43)  by  vchch  &ON; 

fDeut.    xxiv.    5)    13N  ;    and    the    like. 
Comp.  however  the  Commentators  on    these  pas- 


The  bulk  of  the  passages  generally  adduced  as 
proofs  of  want  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  Onkelos 
have  to  a  great  part  been  shown  in  the  course  of  the 
.bregoing  specimens  to  be  intentional  deviations; 
many  other  passages  not  mentioned  merely  instance 
the  want  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  his  critics. 

Some  places,  again,  exhibit  that  blending  of  two 
distinct  translations,  of  which  we  have  spoken;  the 
catchword  being  apparently  taken  in  two  different 
senses.  Thus  Gen.  xxii.  1.3,  where  he  translates: 
"  And  Abraham  lifted  up  his  eyes  after  these,  and 
behold  there  was  a  ram  ;"  he  has  not  "  in  his  per 
plexity  "  mistranslated  THX  for  "IflN,  but  he  has 
only  placed  for  the  sake  of  clearness  the  "IflN  after 

VOL.  III. 


the  verb  (he  saw),  instead  of  the  noun  (ram)  ;  and 
the  NIP!,  which  is  moreover  wanting  in  some  texts, 
has  been  added,  not  as  a  translation  of  TIK  or  IHtf. 
but  in  order  to  make  the  passage  more  lucid  still. 
A  similar  instance  of  a  double  translation  is  found  in 
Gen.  ix.  6 :  "  Whosoever  sheds  a  man's  blood,  by 
man  shall  his  blood  be  shed  " — rendered  "  Whoso 
ever  sheds  the  blood  of  man,  by  witnesses  through 
the  sentence  of  the  judges  shall  his  blood  be  shed  ;" 
D1N3,  by  man,  being  taken  first  as  "  witness," 
and  then  as  "judges." 

We  may  fuither  notice  the  occurrence  of  two 
Messianic  passages  in  this  Targum  :  the  one,  Gen. 
xlix.  10,  Shiloh  ;  the  other,  Num.  xxiv.  17, 
"  sceptre:  "  both  rendered  "  Messiah." 

A  fuller  idea  of  the  "  Genius "  of  Onkelos  as 
Translator  and  as  Paraphrast,  may  be  arrived  at 
from  the  specimens  subjoined  in  pp.  1659-61. 

We  cannot  here  enter  into  anything  like  a  minute 
account  of  the  dialect  of  Onkelos  or  of  any  other 
Targum.  Regarding  the  linguistic  shades  of  the 
different  Targums,  we  must  confine  ourselves  to 
the  general  remark,  that  the  later  the  version, 
the  more  corrupt  and  adulterated  its  language. 
Three  dialects,  however,  are  chiefly  to  be  distin 
guished :  as  in  the  Aramaic  idiom  in  geneial, 
which  in  contradistinction  to  the  Syriac,  or  Chris 
tian  Aramaic,  may  be  called  Judaeo-Ammaic,  so 
also  in  the  different  Targums ;  and  their  recognition 
is  a  material  aid  towards  fixing  the  place  of  their 
origin;  although  we  must  warn  the  reader  that 
this  guidance  is  not  always  to  be  relied  upon. 

1.  The  Galilean  dialect,  known  and  spoken  of  al 
ready  in  the  Talmud  as  the  one  which  most  carelessly 
confounds  its  sounds,  vowels  as  well  as  consonants. 
•'  The  Galileans  are  negligent  with  respect  to  their 
language,*  and  care  not  for  gi'ammatical  forms  "  b 
is  a  common  saying  in  the  Gemara.  We  learn  that 
they  did  not  distinguish  properly  between  B  and  P 
(3>  3),  saying  'Papula  instead  of  Tabula,  between 
Ch  and  K  (3  and  p)  saying  x*'lPl°s  f°r  Kvpios.  Far 
less  could  they  distinguish  between  the  various  gut 
turals,  as  is  cleverly  exemplified  in  the  story  where 
a  Judaean  asked  a  Galilean,  when  the  latter  wanted 
to  buy  an  1DK,  whether  he  meant  "UpJJ  (wool), 
or  *1£NI  (a  lamb),  or  "IDC!  (wine),  or  Sbl"!  (an 

ass).  The  next  consequence  of  this  their  disregard 
of  the  gutturals  was,  that  they  threw  them  often  off 
entirely  at  the  beginning  of  a  word  per  aphaeresin. 
Again  they  contracted,  or  rather  wedged  together, 
words  of  the  most  dissimilar  terminations  and  be 
ginnings.  By  confounding  the  vowels  like  the  con 
sonants,  they  often  created  entirely  new  words  and 
forms.  The  Mappik  H  (H)  became  Ch  (somewhat 
similar  to  the  Scotch  pronunciation  of  the  initial  H). 
As  the  chief  reason  for  this  Galilean  confusion  of 
tongues  (for  which  comp.  Matt.  xxvi.  73 ;  Mark 
xiv.  70)  may  be  assigned  the  increased  facility  of 
intercourse  with  the  neighbouring  nations  owing  to 
their  northern  situation. 

2.  The  Samaritan  Dialect,  a  mixture  of  vulgar 
Hebrew  and  Aramean,  in  accordance  with  the  origin 
of  the  people  itself.    Its  chief  characteristics  are  the 
frequent  use  of  the  Ain  (which  not  only  stands  for 
other  gutturals,  but  is  even  used  as  mater  lect.oms), 
the  commutation  of  the  gutturals  in  general,  and  the 

ndiscriminate  use  of  the  mute  consonants  3  for  "), 
2  for  3,  H  for  p,  &c. 

3.  The  Judaean    or  Jerusalem    Dialect    (comp 


VPBpn 


r,  N 


1650 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGTTM) 


Ned.  66  6)  scarcely  ever  pronounces  the  gutturals 
at  the  end  properly,  often  throws  them  off  entirely. 
Jeshu&,  becomes  Jeshu  ;  Sheba — Shib.  Many  words 
are  peculiar  to  this  dialect  alone.  The  appellations 
of  "  door,"  c  **  light,"  A  "  reward,"  e  £c.,  are 
totally  different  from  those  used  in  the  other  dia- 
'ects.  Altogether  all  the  peculiarities  of  provin- 
jalism.  shortening  and  lengthening  of  vowels,  idiom- 
itic  phrases  and  words,  also  an  orthography  of  its 
own,  generally  with  a  fuller  and  broader  vocalisa 
tion,  are  noticeable  throughout  both  the  Targums 
and  the  Talmud  of  Jerusalem,  which,  for  the  fur 
ther  elucidation  of  this  point  as  of  many  others 
have  as  yet  not  found  an  investigator. 

The  following  recognised  Greek  words,  the  greater 
part  of  which  also  occur  in  the  Talmud  and 
Midrash,  are  found  in  Onkelos:  Ex.  xxviii.  25, 
f)87]puAA0s;  Ex.  xxviii.  11,  G  yXvfy{\;  Gen.  xxviii. 
17,  h  t'StctfTTjy ;  Lev.  xi.  30,  *  KwAeSrrjy ;  Ex.  xxviii. 
19,  fc0pdkias  (Plin.  xxxvii.  68);  Ex.  xxxix.  11, 
m  KapxTjSdj'iot,  comp.  Pes.  der.  Kan.  xxxii.  (Carbun- 
cnli);  Deut.  xx.  20,  n  xap6.K(ap.a.  (Ber.  R.  xcviii.)  ; 
Ex.  xxviii.  20,°xp«A«*  5  Num.  xv.  38,  Deut.  xxii.  12, 
P  KpdcrirfSov ;  Ex.  xxx.  34,  «JKI<TTOS;  Gen.  xxxvii. 
28,  *  \ytiov  ;  Ex.  xxiv.  16,  §<f>ap(ros;  Ex.  xxvi.  6, 
1  TT^PTTTJ  ;  Gen.  vi.  14,  tt  tempos ;  Ex.  xxviii.  19, 
E  Keyxp°s  (Plin.  xxxvii.  4).  To  these  may  be  added 
the  unrecognised  f  /cepo/xts  (Ex.  xxi.  18),  *  AtjSpo^- 
X"ns,  or  \epp6x-n  (Gen.  xxx.  14),  &c. 

The  following  short  rules  on  the  general  mode 
of  transcribing  the  Greek  Letters  in  Aramaic  and 
Syriac  (Targum,  Talmud,  Midrash,  &c.),  may  not 
be  out  of  place: — 

T  before  palatals,  pronounced  like  v,  becomes  3. 
Z  is  rendered  by  T. 

H  appears  to  have  occasionally  assumed  the  pro 
nunciation  of  a  consonant  (Digamma) ;  and  a  1  is 
inserted. 

0  is  71,  T  13.     But  this  rule,  even  making  al 
lowances  for  corruptions,  does  not  always  seem  to 
have  been  strictly  observed. 
K  is  p,  sometimes  D. 

M,  which  before  labials  stands  in  lieu  of  a  v,  be 
comes  3  :  occasionally  a  3  is  inserted  before  labials 
where  it  is  not  found  in  the  Greek  word. 

E,  generally  D3,  sometimes,  however,  |3  or  ¥3. 

IT   is   Q,   sometimes,    however,   it   is  softened 

into  3.  . 

P  is  sometimes  altered  into  ?  or  3. 

'P  incomes  either  m  or  "in  at  the  beginning  of  a 

word. 

35  either  D  or  T. 
The  spiritus  asper,  which  in  Greek  is  dropped  in 
the  middle  of  a  word,  reappears  again  sometimes 
(ffvvfSpoi — SanAedrin).  Even  the  lenis  is  repre 
sented  sometimes  by  a  H  at  the  beginning  of  a 
word  ;  sometimes,  however,  even  the  asper  is 
dropped. 

As  to  the  vowels  no  distinct  rule  is  to  be  laid 
down,  owing  principally  to  the  original  want  o 
vowel-points  in  our  texts. 

Before  double  consonants  at  the  beginning  of  a 
word  an  K  prostheticum  is  placed,  so  as  to  rendei 
the  pronunciation  easier.  The  terminations  are  fre 
quently  Hebraised : — thus  01  is  sometimes  renderec 
by  the  termination  of  the  Masc.  PI.  D\  &c. 


tor  823 
or  " 


A  curious  and  instructive  comparison  may  be 
nstituted,  between  this  mode  of  transcription  of 
he  Greek  letters  into  Hebrew,  and  that  of  the 
lebrew  letters  into  Greek,  as  found  chiefly  in  the 
XX. 

S  sometimes  inaudible  (spirit,  /en.)  'Ao/>ct/>, 
E\/cavo  ;  sometimes  audible  (as  spirit,  asper},  'A/3- 

fji.,  'HAias. 

=  j8 :  'Pe£eKKa;  sometimes  (p :  'IaKe/3£6<J>,  some- 
imes  v:  "Paav,  sometimes  /*£:  Zepo  jUj8a£«A, 
ometimes  it  is  completely  changed  into  p. :  'lo^uvera 
2  Chr.  xxvi.  6). 

3  =  7:  T6fjLfp,  sometimes  K:  AW^K,  sometimes 
X :  Sepo^x- 

*1  =  5:  once=r  Marpatfl  (Gen.  xxxvi.  39). 

PI  =  N,  either  spirit,  asp.  like  'Ofioppd,  or  spir 
'en.  like  'AjSeA. 

1  =  u,  not  the  vowel,  but  our  v:  "Eva,  Aet>£: 
thus  also  ov  (as  the  Greek  writers  often  express 
the  Latin  v  by  ou):  'leffffovd:  sometimes  =  &: 
2oj8u  (Gen.  xiv.  5) ;  sometimes  it  is  entirely  left 
out,  'A<rri  for  Vashti. 

T  =  ^,  sometimes  <r:  2a/3ou\^»/,  Xa<r&i ;  rarely 
Boi;|  (Gen.  xxii.  21). 

PI,  often  entirely  omitted,  or  represented  by  a 
spir.  len.  in  the  beginning,  or  the  reduplication  o{ 
the  vowel  in  the  middle  or  at  the  end  of  the  word , 
sometimes  =  x  '•  ^P-  '•>  sometimes  =  K  :  Taj3e»c 
fGen.  xxii.  24). 

13  =  r:  2o^>aT ;  sometimes  =  8:  *ou5  (Gen.  x. 
6);  or  9:  'EXt^aAeCS  (2  Sam.  v.  16). 

=  t :  'Io/cct>j3,  or  I  before  p  (*!) :  'lepe/j-ias.  Be 
tween  several  vowels  it  is  sometimes  entirely 
omitted:  'IcwaScL 

D  =  X  '•  Xuvadv ;  sometimes  K  :  2a/3a0a/co  (Gen. 
x.  7);  rarely  =  y:  ra</)0o>pei/i. 

7,  3,  ")  =  A,  v,  p]  but  they  are  often  found  in 
terchanged  :  owing  perhaps  to  the  similarity  of  the 
Greek  letters.  3  is  sometimes  also  rendered  /*  (see 
above). 

D  =  /x,  sometimes  /3 :  Ne|8p<$5,  2ej8Aa  (1  Chr 
i.  47). 

6^  and  D  =  ff :  SvjuetSi',  Srjefp,  Sir. 

y  =  spir.  len.:  'E<ppdv]  sometimes  =7  (£)  To  . 

fJLOpf>a\  sometimes  K,  'Ap&6ic  (Gen.  xxiii.  2")T 

£)  =  </>:  4>aAe'7,  or  IT  :  SaAiraaS. 

V=«r:  2tSctf>/ ;  sometimes^":  O#C  (Gen.  x.  23; 
Cod.  Alex.yfls;  xxii.  21:  yn|). 

p  =  K  :  Ba\dK  ;  sometimes  x  :  XerTOvpd  ;  also 
7:  XeAe'y. 

H  =  0 :  'Ia<p49 ;  sometimes  T  :  Tox<k- 

As  to  the  Bible  Text  from  which  the  Targum 
was  prepared,  we  can  only  reiterate  that  we  have 
no  certainty  whatever  on  this  head,  owing  to  the 
extraordinarily  corrupt  state  of  our  Targum  texts. 
Pages  upon  pages  of  Variants  have  been  gathered  by 
Cappellus,  Kennicott,  Buxtorf,  De  Rossi,  Clericus, 
Luzzatto,  and  others,  by  a  superficial  comparison  oi 
a  few  copies  only,  and  those  chiefly  printed  ones. 
Whenever  the  very  numerous  MSS.  shall  be  col 
lated,  then  the  learned  world  may  possibly  come 
to  certain  probable  conclusions  on  it.  It  would 
appear,  however,  that  broadly  speaking,  our  present 
Masoretic  text  has  been  the  one  from  which  th 


0  (KDS)  D1"O  (Mich.  Lex.  Syr.  435,  makes  it  Persian) 

p  JOQDTO  q  HE'D  '  D1t37 

u  omp 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TAKGUM) 


1051 


Onk.  Version  was,  if  not  made,  yet  edited,  at  all 
events ;  unless  we  assume  that  late  hands  have 
been  intentionally  busy  in  mutually  assimilating 
text  and  translation.  Many  of  the  inferences  drawn 
by  De  Rossi  and  others  from  the  discrepancies  of 
the  version  to  discrepancies  of  the  original  from 
the  Masor.  Text,  must  needs  be  rejected  if  Onkelos' 
method  and  phraseology,  as  we  have  exhibited  it, 
are  taken  into  consideration.  Thus,  wh  :n,  Ex. 
xziv.  7,  "  before  the  people  "  is  found  in  Onkelos, 
while  our  Hebrew  text  reads  "in  the  ears,"  it 
by  no  means  follows  that  Onkelos  read  '•JtN^  : 
it  is  simply  his  way  of  explaining  the  unusual 
phrase,  to  which  he  remains  faithful  throughout. 
Or,  "  Lead  the  people  unto  the  place  (A.V.)  of 
wnich  I  have  spoken"  (Ex.  xxxii.  34),  is  solely 
Onkelos'  translation  of  1£>K  ta,  sail,  the  place, 
and  no  DlpJD  need  be  conjectured  as  having  stood 
in  Onkelos'  copy;  as  also,  Ex.  ix.  7,  his  addition 
*'  From  the  cattle  of  '  the  children  of '  Israel  " 
does  not  prove  a  \J3  to  have  stood  in  his  Codex. 

And  this  also  settles  (or  rather  leaves  unsettled), 
the  question  as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  Targumic 
Texts,  such  as  we  have  them.  Considering  that 
no  MS.  has  as  yet  been  found  older  than  at  most 
600  years,  even  the  careful  comparison  of  all  those 
that  do  exist  would  not  much  further  our  know 
ledge.  As  far  as  those  existing  are  concerned,  they 
teem  with  the  most  palpable  blunders, — not  to  speak 
of  variants,  owing  to  sheer  carelessness  on  the  part 
of  the  copyists ; — but  few  are  of  a  nature  damaging 
the  sense  materially.  The  circumstance  that  Text 
and  Targum  were  often  placed  side  by  side,  column 
by  column,  must  have  had  no  little  share  in  the  in 
correctness,  since  it  was  but  natural  to  make  the 
Targum  resemble  the  Text  as  closely  as  possible, 
while  the  nature  of  its  material  differences  was  often 
unknown  to  the  scribe.  In  fact,  the  accent  itself  was 
made  to  fit  both  the  Hebrew  and  the  Chaldee  wher 
ever  a  larger  addition  did  not  render  it  utterly  im 
possible.  Thus  letters  are  inserted,  omitted,  thrust 
in,  blotted  out,  erased,  in  an  infinite  number  of  places. 
But  the  difference  goes  still  further.  In  some  Co 
dices  synonymous  terms  are  used  most  arbitrarily  as 
it  would  appear :  ilJTlK  and  NDDltf  earth,  D*1N 
and  KKOK  man,  miN  and  "pHO  path,  HIPI*  and 
D^n?tf,  Jehovah  and  Elohim,  are  found  to  replace 
each  other  indiscriminately.  In  some  instances,  the 
Hebrew  Codex  itself  has,  to  add  to  the  confusion, 
been  emendated  from  the  Targum. 

A  Masorah  has  been  written  on  Onkelos,  with 
out,  however,  any  authority  being  inherent  in  it, 
and  without,  we  should  say,  much  value.  It  has 
never  been  printed,  nor,  as  far  as  we  have  been  able 
to  ascertain,  is  there  any  MS.  now  to  be  found  in 
this  country,  or  in  any  of  the  public  libraries  abroad. 
What  has  become  of  Buxtorf's  copy,  which  he 
intended  to  add  to  his  never  printed  "  Babylonia  " — 
a  book  devoted  to  this  same  subject — we  do  not 
know.  Luzzatto  has  lately  found  such  a  "  Ma 
sorah  "  in  a  Pentateuch  MS.,  but  he  only  mentions 
some  variants  contained  in  it.  Its  title  must  not 
mislead  the  reader;  it  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  Masorah  of  the  Bible,  but  is  a  recent 
work,  like  the  Masorah  of  the  Talmud,  which  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  Talmud  Text. 

The  MSS.  of  Onkelos  are  extant  in  great  num 
bers — a  circumstance  easily  explained  by  the  in 
junction  that  it  should  be  read  every  Sabbath  at 
home,  if  not  in  the  Synagogue.  The  Bodleian  has 
5,  the  British  Museum  2,  Vienna  6,  Augsburg  1, 


Nuremberg  2,  Altdorf  I,  Cailsruhe  3.  Stuttgart  2, 
Erfurt  3,  Dresden  1,  Leipsic  1,  Jena  I,  Dessau  1, 
Helmstadt  2,  Berlin  4,  Breslau  1,  Briegl,  Kegens- 
burg  I,  Hamburg  7,  Copenhagen  2,  Upsafa  1 
Amsterdam  1,  Paris  8,  Molsheim  1,  Venice  6, 
Turin  2,  Milan  4,  Leghorn  1,  Sienna  1,  Genoa  1, 
Florence  5,  Bologna  2,  Padua  1,  Trieste  2, 
Parma  about  40,  Rome  18  more  or  less  complete 
Codd.  containing  Onkelos. 

Editio  Princeps,  Bologna  1482,  fol.  (Abr.  b. 
Chajjim)  with  Hebr.  Text  and  ftishi.  Later  Edd. 
Soria  1490,  Lisbon  1491,  Constantinople  1505: 
from  these  were  taken  the  texts  in  the  Compluten- 
sian  (1517)  and  the  Venice  (Bomberg)  Polyglotts 
(1518,  1526,  1547-49),  and  Buxtorf's  Rabbinical 
Bible  (1619).  This  was  followed  by  the  Pails 
Polyglott  (1645),  and  Walton's  (1657).  A  recent 
and  much  emendated  edition  dates  Wilna  1852. 

Of  the  extraordinary  similarity  between  Onkelos 
and  the  Samaritan  version  we  have  spoken  under 
SAMARITAN  PENTATEUCH  [p.  1114].  There  also 
will  be  found  a  specimen  of  both,  taken  from  the 
Barberini  Codex.  Many  more  points  connected 
with  Onkelos  and  his  influence  upon  later  Herme- 
neutics  and  Exegesis,  as  well  as  his  relation  to 
earlier  or  later  versions,  we  have  no  space  to  enlarge 
upon,  desirable  as  an  investigation  of  these  points 
might  be.  We  have,  indeed,  only  been  induced  to 
dwell  so  long  upon  this  single  Targum,  because  in 
the  first  instance  a  great  deal  that  has  been  said 
here  will,  mutatis  mutandis,  hold  good  also  for  the 
other  Targums;  and  further,  because  Onkelos  is 
THE  CIIALDEE  VERSION  /car*  e|oxV>  while,  from 
Jonathan  downwards,  we  more  and  more  leave  the 
province  of  Version  and  gradually  arrive  from  Para 
phrase  to  Midrash-Haggadah.  We  shall  therefore 
not  enter  at  any  length  into  these,  but  confine  our 
selves  chiefly  to  main  results. 

II.  TARGUM  ON  THE  PROPHETS 

viz.  Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel,  Kings,  Isaiah,  Jere 
miah,  Ezekiel,  and  the  twelve  Minoi  Prophets, — - 
called  TARGUM*  OP  JONATHAN  BEN  UZZIEL. 

Next  in  time  and  importance  to  Onkelos  on  the 
Pentateuch  stands  the  Targum  on  the  Prophek,, 
which  in  our  printed  Edd.  and  MSS. — none  older, 
we  repeat  it,  than  about  600  years — is  ascribed  to 
Jonathan  ben  Uzziel,  of  whom  the  Talmud  contains 
the  following  statements: — (1.)  "  Eighty  disciples 
had  Hillel  the  Elder,  thirty  of  whom  were  worthy 
that  the  Shechinah  (Divine  Majesty)  should  rest 
upon  them ,  as  it  did  upon  Moses  our  Lord ;  peace  be 
upon  him.  Thirty  of  them  were  worthy  that  the  sun 
should  stand  still  at  their  bidding  as  it  did  at  that 
of  Joshua  ben  Nun.  Twenty  were  of  intermediate 
worth.  The  greatest  of  them  all  was  Jonathan  b. 
Uzziel,  the  least  R.  Johanan  b.  Saccai ;  and  it  was 
said  of  R.  Johanan  b.  Saccai,  that  he  left  not  (unin- 
vestigated)  the  Bible,  the  Mishna,  the  Gemara,  the 
Halachahs,  the  Haggadahs,  the  subtleties  of  the 
Law,  and  the  subtleties  of  the  Soferim  .  .  .  .  ; 
the  easy  things  and  the  difficult  things  [from  the 
most  awful  Divine  mysteries  to  the  common  po 
pular  proverbs]  ...  If  this  is  said  of  the  lea:;: 
of  them,  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  greatest,  i,e.  Jo 
nathan  b.  Uzziel?"  (Bab.  Bath.  134 a;  comp. 
Succ.  28  a).  (2.)  A  second  passage  (see  Onkelos) 
referring  more  especially  to  our  present  subject, 
reads  as  follows :  "  Tho  Targum  of  Onkelos  was 
made  by  Onkelos  the  Proselyte  from  the  mouth 
of  R.  Elie~er  and  R.  Jehoshua,  and  that  of  th« 
Prophets  by  Jonathan  b.  Uzziel  from  the  me  nth 

.'»  N  3 


1652 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUflO 


of  Haggai,  Zechariah,  and  Malachi.  And  in  that 
hour  was  the  Land  of  Israel  shaken  three  hundred 
parasangs.  .  .  .  And  a  voice  was  heard,  saying, 
*  Who  is  this  who  has  revealed  my  secrets  unto  the 
sons  of  man  ?  '  Up  rose  Jonathan  ben  Uzziel  and 
said :  *  It  is  I  who  have  revealed  Thy  secrets  to  the 
sons  of  man.  .  .  .  But  it  is  known  and  revealed 
before  Thee,  that  not  for  my  honour  have  I  done 
it,  nor  for  the  honour  of  my  father's  house,  but 
for  Thine  honour ;  that  the  disputes  may  cease  in 
Israel/  .  .  .  And  he  further  desired  to  reveal  the 
Targum  to  the  Hagiographa,  when  a  voice  was 
nenrd  : — '  Enough.'  And  why  ? — because  the  day 
of  the  Messiah  is  revealed  therein  (Meg.  3a)." 
Wonderful  to  relate,  the  sole  and  exclusive  autho 
rity  for  the  general  belief  in  the  authorship  of 
Jonathan  b.  Uzziel,  is  this  second  Hagadistic 
passage  exclusively  ;  which,  if  it  does  mean  any 
thing,  does  at  all  events  not  mean  our  Targum, 
which  is  found  mourning  over  the  "  Temple  in 
ruins,"  full  of  invectives  against  Rome  (Sam.xi.5; 
Is.  xxxiv.  9,  &c.  &c.),  mentioning  Armillus  (Is.  x. 
4)  (the  Antichrist),  Germania  (Ez.  xxxviii.  6): — 
not  to  dwell  upon  the  thousand  and  one  other 
internal  and  external  evidences  against  a  date  ante 
rior  to  the  Christian  era.  If  interpolations  must 
be  assumed, — and  indeed  Rashi  speaks  already  of 
corruptions  in  his  MSS. — such  solitary  additions 
are  at  all  events  a  very  different  thing  from  a 
wholesale  system  of  intentional  and  minute  inter 
polation  throughout  the  bulky  work.  But  what 
is  still  more  extraordinary,  this  belief — long  and 
partly  still  upheld  most  reverentially  against  all 
difficulties — is  completely  modern :  that  is,  not 
older  than  at  most  600  years  (the  date  of  our 
oldest  Targum  MSS.),  and  is  utterly  at  variance 
with  the  real  and  genuine  sources :  the  Talmud,  the 
Midrash,  the  Babylonian  Schools,  and  every  autho 
rity  down  to  Hai  Gaon  (12th  cent.).  Frequently 
quoted  as  this  Targum  is  in  the  ancient  works,  it 
is  never  once  quoted  as  the  Targum  of  Jonathan. 
But  it  is  invariably  introduced  with  the  formula : 
"  R.  Joseph*  (bar  Chama,  the  Blind,  euphemistically 
called  the  clear-sighted,  the  well-known  President 
of  Pumbaditha  in  Babylonia,  who  succeeded  Rabba 
in  319  A.D.)  says,"  &c.  (Moed  Katon  26  a,  Pesach. 
68  a,  Sanh.  946).  Twice  even  it  is  quoted  in 
Joseph's  name,  and  with  the  addition,  "  Without 
the  Targum  to  this  verse  (due  to  him)  we  could 
not  understand  it."  This  is  the  simple  state  of  the 
case  :  and  for  more  than  two  hundred  years  critics 
have  lavished  all  their  acumen  to  defend  what  never 
had  any  real  existence,  or  at  best  owed  its  ap 
parent  existence  to  a  heading  added  by  a  superficial 
scribe. 

The  date  which  the  Talmud  thus  in  reality 
assigns  to  our  Targum  fully  coincides  with  our 
former  conclusions  as  to  the  date  of  written  Tar- 
gums  in  general.  And  if  we  may  gather  thus 
much  from  the  legend  that  to  write  down  the 
Targum  to  the  Prophets  was  considered  a  much 
bolder  undertaking — and  one  to  which  still  more 
reluctantly  leave  was  given — than  a  Targum  on 
the  Pentateuch,  we  shall  not  be  far  wrong  in 
placing  this  Targum  some  time,  although  not  long, 
after  Onkelos,  or  about  the  middle  of  the  fourth  cen 
tury  ; — the  latter  years  of  R.  Joseph,  who,  it  is 
said,  occupied  himself  chiefly  with  the  Targum 
when  he  had  become  blind.  The  reason  given  for 


a  "  Sinai,"  "  Possessor  of  Wheat,"  in  allusion  to  his  vast 
mastery  over  the  traditions 


that  reluctance  is,  although  hypeiV>l5cnlly  eyyrcfjetl, 
perfectly  clear:  "The  Targum  on  the  Piophete 

revealed  the  secrets" — that  is,  it  allowed  fiee 
scope  to  the  wildest  fantasy  to  run  riot  upon  the 
prophetic  passages  —  tempting  through  their  very 
obscurity, — and  to  utter  explanations  and  interpret 
ations  relative  to  present  events,  and  oracles  of  its 
own  for  future  times,  which  might  be  fraught  with 
grave  dangers  in  more  than  one  respect.  The  Targum 
on  the  Pentateuch  (permitted  to  be  committed  to 
writing,  Meg.  3  a  ;  Kidd.  69  a)  could  not  but  be, 
even  in  its  written  form,  more  sober,  more  dignified, 
more  within  the  bounds  of  fixed  and  well  known 
traditions,  than  any  other  Targum  ;  since  it  had  ori 
ginally  been  read  publicly,  and  been  checked  by  the 
congregation  as  well  as  the  authorities  present ; — 
as  we  have  endeavoured  to  explain  in  the  Intro 
duction.  There  is  no  proof,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  more  than  fragments  from  the  Prophets  having 
ever  been  read  and  translated  in  the  synagogue. 
Whether,  however,  R.  Joseph  was  more  than  the 
redactor  of  this  the  second  part  of  the  Bible- 
Targutn,  which  was  originated  in  Palestine,  and 
was  reduced  to  its  final  shape  in  Babylon,  we  can 
not  determine.  He  may  perhaps  have  made  consi 
derable  additions  of  his  own,  by  filling  up  gaps 
or  rejecting  wrong  versions  of  some  parts.  So 
much  seems  certain,  that  the  schoolmen  of  his 
Academy  were  the  collectors  and  revisers,  and  he 
gave  it  that  stamp  of  unity  which  it  now  pos 
sesses,  spite  of  the  occasional  difference  of  style: — 
adapted  simply  to  the  variegated  hues  and  dictions 
of  its  manifold  biblical  originals. 

But  we  do  not  mean  to  reject  in  the  main  either 
of  the  Talmud ical  passages  quoted.  We  believe  that 
there  was  such  a  man  as  Jonathan  b.  Uzziel,  that 
he  was  one  of  the  foremost  pupils  of  Hillel,  and  also 
that  he  did  translate,  either  privately  or  publicly, 
parts  of  the  prophetical  books ;  chiefly,  we  should 
say,  in  a  mystical  manner.  And  so  startling  were  his 
interpretations — borne  aloft  by  his  high  fame — that 
who  but  prophets  themselves  could  have  revealed 
them  to  him  ?  And,  going  a  step  further,  who  could 
reveal  prophetic  allegories  and  mysteries  of  all  the 
prophetic  books,  but  those  who,  themselves  the  last 
in  the  list,  had  the  whole  body  of  sacred  oracles 
before  them?  This  appears  to  us  the  only  ra 
tional  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  facts: — as 
they  stand,  not  as  they  are  imagined.  That  nothing 
save  a  few  snatches  of  this  original  paiaphrase  or 
Midrash  could  be  embodied  in  our  Targum,  we  need 
not  urge.  Yet  for  these  even  we  have  no  proof. 
Zunz,  the  facile  princeps  of  Targumic  as  well  as 
Midrashic  investigation,  who,  as  late  as  1830 
( Gottesd.  Vbrtr.\  still  believed  himself  in  the  mo 
dern  notion  of  Jonathan's  authorship  ("  first  half 
of  first  century,  A.D."),  now  utterly  rejects  the 
notion  of  "  our  possessing  anything  of  Jonathan 
ben  Uzziel"  (Geiger's  Zeitschr.' 1837 ,  p.  250). 

Less  conservative  than  our  view,  however,  are  the 
views  of  the  modern  School  (Rappoport,  Luzzatto, 
Frankel,  Geiger,  Levy,  Bauer,  Jahn,  Bertholdta 
Levysohn,  &G.),  who  riot  only  reject  the  author 
ship  of  Jonathan,  but  also  utterly  deny  that  there 
was  any  ground  whatsoever  for  assigning  a  Targum 
to  him,  as  is  done  in  the  Talmud.  The  passage, 
they  say,  is  not  older,  but  younger  than  our  Targum, 
and  in  fact  does  apply,  erroneously  of  course,  to  this, 
and  to  no  other  work  of  a  similar  kind.  The  popular 
cry  for  a  great  "name,  upon  which  to  hang" — in 
Talmudical  phraseology — all  that  is  cherished  and 
venerated >  and  the  wish  of  those  eager  to  impart  if 


VKKSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


1653 


this  Version  a  lasting  authority,  found  in  Jonathan 
the  most  fitting  person  to  father  it  upon.  Was  he 
not  the  greatest  of  the  great,: "  who  had  been  dusted 
with  the  dust  of  Hillel's  feet  ?  "  He  was  the  wisest 
cf  the  wise,  the  one  most  imbued  with  knowledge 
human  and  divine,  of  ail  those  eighty,  the  least  of 
whom  was  worthy  that  the  sun  should  stay  its 
course  at  his  bidding.  Nay,  such  were  the  flames  b 
that  arose  from  his  glowing  spirit,  says  the  hyper 
bolic  Haggadah,  that  "  when  he  studied  in  the  Law, 
the  very  birds  that  flew  over  him  in  the  air,  were 
consumed  by  fire"  (nisrephue — not,  as  Landau,  in 
the  preface  to  his  Aruch,  apologetically  translates, 
became  Seraphs).  At  the  same  time  we  readily 
grant  that  we  see  no  reason  why  the  great  Hillel 
himself,  or  any  other  much  earlier  and  equally 
eminent  Master  of  the  Law,  one  of  the  Soferim 
perhaps,  should  not  have  been  fixed  upon. 

Another  suggestion,  first  broached  by  Drusius, 
and  long  exploded,  has  recently  been  revived  under 
•i  somewhat  modified  form.  Jonathan  (Godgiven), 
Drusius  said,  was  none  else  but  Theodotion  (God- 
giveii),  the  second  Greek  translator  of  the  Bible 
after  the  LXX.,  who  had  become  a  Jewish  prose 
lyte.  Considering  that  the  latter  lived  under 
Commodus  II.,  and  the  former  at  the  time  of 
Christ;  that  the  latter  is  said  to  have  translated 
the  Prophets  only  (neither  the  Pentateuch,  nor 
the  Hagiographa),  while  the  former  translated  the 
whole  Bible;  that  Jonathan  translated  into  Ara 
maic  and  Theodotion  into  Greek, — not  to  mention 
the  fact  that  Theodotion  was,  to  say  the  least, 
a  not  very  competent  translator,  since  "  ignorance 
or  negligence"  (Montfaucon,  Pref.  to  Hexapla), 
or  both,  must  needs  be  laid  at  the  door  of  a  trans 
lator,  who,  when  in  difficulties,  simply  transcribes 
the  hard  Hebrew  words  into  Greek  characters,  with 
out  troubling  himself  any  further ;  d  while  the 
mastery  over  both  the  Hebrew  and  the  Aramaic  dis 
played  in  the  Jonathanic  Version  are  astounding : — 
considering  all  this,  we  need  not  like  Walton  ask 
caustically,  why  Jonathan  ben  Uzziel  should  not 
rather  be  identified  with  the  Emperor  Theodosius, 
whose  name  also  is  "  Godgiven ;" — but  dismiss  the 
suggestion  as  Carpzov  long  since  dismissed  it.  We 
are,  however,  told  now  (Luzzatto,  Geiger,  &c.),  that 
as  the  Babylonian  Targum  on  the  Pentateuch  was 
called  a  Targum  "  in  the  manner  of  Aquila  or 
Onkelos,"  i.e.  of  sterling  value,  so  also  the  con 
tinuation  of  the  Babylonian  Targum,  which  em 
braced  the  Prophets,  was  called  a  Targum  "in  the 
manner  of  Theodotion  "  =  Jonathan ;  and  by  a 
further  stretch,  Jonathan-Theodotion  became  the 
Jonathan  b.  Uzziel.  We  cannot  but  disagree  with 
this  hypothesis  also — based  on  next  to  nothing,  and 
carried  to  more  than  the  usual  length  of  speculation. 
While  Akyla  is  quoted  continually  in  the  Talmud, 
and  is  deservedly  one  of  the  best  known  and  best 
beloved  characters,  every  trait  and  incident  of 
whose  personal  history  is  told  even  twice  over,  not 
the  slightest  trace  of  such  a  person  as  Theodotion 
is  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  Talmudical  litera 
ture.  What,  again,  was  it  that  could  have  acquired 
so  transcendent  a  fame  for  his  translation  and  him 
self,  that  a  Version  put  into  the  mouths  of  the  very 
prophets  should  be  called  after  him,  "  in  order  that 
the  people  should  like  it"? — a  translation  which 

b  The  simile  of  the  fire — "  as  the  Law  was  given  in  fire 
un  Siuai  " — is  a  very  favourite  cue  in  the  Midrash. 

A  e.  jJ.,  Lev.  vii.  13,  7132,  T.  foyywA.,  or  $tyyovA.,  by  j 


was,  in  fact,  deservedly  unknown,  and,  properly 
speaking,  no  translation  at  all.  It  was,  as  \\e 
learn,  a  kind  of  private  emendation  of  some  LXX. 
passages,  objectionable  to  the  pious  Proselyte  in 
their  then  corrupted  state.  It  was  only  the  Book 
of  Daniel  which  was  retained  from  Theodotion's 
pen,  because  iu  this  book  the  LXX.  had  become 
past  correction.  If,  moreover,  the  intention  was 
"  to  give  the  people  a  Hebrew  for  a  Greek  name, 
because  the  latter  might  sound  too  foreign,"  it 
was  an  entirely  gratuitous  one.  Greek  names 
abound  in  the  Talmud,  and  even  names  begin 
ning  with  Theo  like  Theodorus  are  to  be  found 
there. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  opinion  has  been  broached 
that  this  Targum  was  a  post-Talmudical  produc 
tion,  belonging  to  the  7th  or  8th  cent.  A.D.  For 
this  point  we  need  only  refer  to  the  Talmudical 
quotations  from  it.  And  when  we  further  add, 
that  Jo.  Morinus,  a  man  as  conspicuous  by  his  want 
of  knowledge  as  by  his  most  ludicrous  attacks  upon 
all  that  was  "  Jewish  "  or  "  Protestant"  (it  was  he, 
e.g.  who  wished  to  see  the  "forged"  Masoretic  Code 
corrected  from  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  q.v.y  is  the 
chief,  and  almost  only,  defender  of  this  theory,  we 
have  said  enough.  On  the  other  theory  of  there 
being  more  than  one  author  to  our  Targum  (Eich- 
horn,  Bertholdt,  De  Wette),  combated  fiercely  by 
Gesenius,  Havernick,  and  others,  we  need  not 
further  enlarge,  after  what  we  have  already  said.  It 
certainly  is  the  work,  not  of  one,  or  of  two,  but  of 
twenty,  of  fifty  and  more  Meturgemanim,  Hag- 
gadists,  and  Halachists.  The  edition,  however, 
we  repeat  it  advisedly,  has  the  undeniable  stamp  of 
one  master-mind ;  and  its  individual  workings,  its 
manner  and  peculiarity  are  indelibly  impressed  upon 
the  whole  labour  from  the  first  page  to  the  last. 
Such,  we  hold,  must  be  the  impression  upon  every 
attentive  reader  ;  more  especially,  if  he  judiciously 
distinguishes  between  the  first  and  the  last  prophets. 
That  in  the  historical  relations  of  the  former,  the 
Version  must  be,  on  the  whole,  more  accurate  and 
close  (although  here  too,  as  we  shall  show,  Hag 
gadah  often  takes  the  reins  out  of  the  Meturgeman's 
or  editor's  hands),  while  in  the  obscurer  Oracles 
of  the  latter  the  Midrash  reigns  supreme :  is  exactly 
what  the  history  of  Targumic  development  leads  us 
to  expect. 

And  with  this  we  have  pointed  out  the  general  cha 
racter  of  the  Targum  under  consideration.  Gradu 
ally,  perceptibly  almost,  the  translation  becomes  the 
TpdyT)p.a,  a  frame,  so  to  speak,  of  allegory,  parable, 
myth,  tale,  and  oddly  masked  history — such  as  we  are 
wont  to  see  in  Talmud  and  Midrash,  written  under 
the  bloody  censorship  of  Esau-Rome ;  interspersed 
with  some  lyrical  pieces  of  rare  poetical  value.  It 
becomes,  in  short,  like  the  Haggadah,  a  whole  system 
of  Eastern  phantasmagorias  whirling  round  the  sun 
of  the  Holy  Word  of  the  Seer.  Yet,  it  is  always 
aware  of  being  a  translation.  It  returns  to  its 
verse  after  long  excurses,  often  in  next  to  no  per 
ceptible  connexion  with  it.  Even  in  the  midst  of 
the  full  swing  of  fancy,. swayed  to  and  fro  ly  the 
many  currents  of  thought  that  arise  out  of  a  single 
word,  snatches  of  the  verse  from  which  the  flight  was 
taken  will  suddenly  appear  on  the  surface  like  a  re 
frain  or  a  keynote,  showing  that  in  reality  there  is  a 

way  of  emendation ;  Lev.  xiii.  6,  nHSDD»  Meur<f>da  ,• 
ib.  riNfcJ>.  2ij0;  Lev.  xviii.  23,  ^an,  0<i/3e\;  IB.  Ixiv.  ft 


1(554 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


mnnexion,  though  hidden  to  the  uninitiated.     For 
long  periods  again,  it  adheres  most  strictly  to  its  text 
and  to  its  verse,  and  translates  most  conscientiously 
*nd  closely.     It  may  thus  fairly  be  described  as 
holding  in  point  of  interpretation  and  enlargement 
of  the  text,  the  middle  place  between  Onkelos,  who 
only  in  extreme  cases  deviates  into  paraphrase,  and 
the  subsequent  Targums,  whose  connexion  with  their 
texts  is  frequently  of  the  most  flighty  character. 
Sometimes  indeed  our  Targum  coincides  so  entirely 
with    Onkelos,— being,    in    fact,    df  one    arid    the 
same  origin   and    growth,  and   a   mere  continua 
tion  and  completion  as  it  were  of  the  former  work, 
that  this  similarity  has  misled  critics  into  specu 
lations  of  the  priority  in  date   of  either  the   one 
or  the  other.    Havernick,  e.  g.  holds — against  Zunz 
— that  Onkelos  copied,  plagiarised  in  fact,  Jonathan. 
We  do  not  see,  quite  apait  from  our  placing  Onkelos 
first,  why  either  should  have  used  the  other.     The 
three   passages  (Judg.  v.  26  and  Deut.  xxii.  5 ; 
2  K.  xiv.  6  and  Deut.  xxiv.  16 ;  Jer.   xlviii.  45, 
46   and   Num.   xxi.    28,  29)    generally  adduced, 
do  not  in  the  first  place  exhibit  that  literal  close 
ness  which  we  are  led  to  expect,  and  which  alone 
could  be   called    "copying;"    and   in   the   second 
place,   the  two  last  passages  are-  not,  as  we  also 
thought  we   could   infer   from  the  words  of  the 
writers  on  either  side,  extraneous  paraphrastic  addi 
tions,  but  simply  the  similar  translations  of  similar 
texts :  while   in  the   first   passage  Jonathan  only 
refers  to  a-n  injunction  contained  in  the  Pentateuch- 
verse  quoted.     But  even  had  we  found  such  para 
phrastic  additions,  apparently  not  belonging  to  the 
subject,  we  should   have   accounted   for  them  by 
certain   traditions — the   common   property  of  the 
Whole  generation, — being  recalled  by  a  certain  word 
or  phrase  in    the  Pentateuch    to   the  memory  of 
the  one  translator  ;  and  by  another  word  or  phrase 
in  the  Prophets  to  the  memory  of  the  other  trans 
lator.     The  interpretation  of  Jonathan,  where  it 
adheres  to  the  text,  is  mostly  very  comet  in  a 
philosophical   and   exegetical   sense,    closely  literal 
even,  provided  the  meaning  of  the  original  is  easily 
to  be  understood  by  the  people.     When,  however, 
similes  are  used,  unfamiliar  or  obscure  to  the  people, 
it  unhesitatingly  dissolves  them  and  makes  them 
easy  in   their  mouths   like   household  words,  by 
adding  as  much  of  explanation  as  seems  fit ;  some 
times,  it  cannot  be  denied,  less  sagaciously,  even 
incorrectly,   comprehending   the  original  meaning. 
Yet  we  must  be  very  cautious  in  attributing  to  a 
Version  which  altogether  bears  the  stamp  of  thorough 
competence  and  carefulness  that  which  may  be  single 
corruptions  or  inteipolations,  as  we  find  them  some 
times  indicated   by   an   introductory    "  Says   the 
Prophet"*:  although,  as  stated  above,  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  attribute  the  passages  displaying  an  ac 
quaintance  with  works  written  down  to  the  4th 
century,  and  exhibiting  popular  notions  current  at 
that  time,   to  the  Targum  in   its  original  shape. 
Generally  speaking,  and  holding  the  difference  be 
tween  the  nature  of  the  Pentateuch  (supposed  to 
contain  in  its  very  letters  and  signs  Halachistic  re 
ferences,  and  therefore  only  to  be  handled  by  the 
Meturgeman  with  the  greatest  care)  and  that  of  the 
Prophets  (freest  Homiletes  themselves)  steadily  in 
view  — the   rules   laid   down    above  with   respect 
to  the  discrepancies  between  Original  and  Targum, 


'  1  Sam.  ii.  10 ;  2  Sam.  xxiii.  3 ;  1  K.  iv.  33  ;  Is.  iv.  2, 
e,  x.  27,  xi.  1,  6,  xv.  2,  xvi.  1,  5,  xxviii.  5,  xlii.  1, 


in  Onkelot,  liold  good  also  with  Jonathan.  Antiiro 
pomorphisms  it  avoids  saref'uliy.  Geographical 
names  are,  in  most  cases,  retained  as  in  the  Original, 
and  where  translated,  they  are  generally  correct. 
Its  partiality  for  Israel  never  goes  so  far  that  any 
thing  derogatory  to  the  character  of  the  people 
should  be  willingly  suppressed,  although  a  certain 
reluctance  against  dwelling  upon  its  iniquities  and  pu 
nishments  longer  than  necessary,  is  visible.  Where, 
however,  that  which  redounds  to  the  praise  of  the 
individual — more  especially  of  heroes,  kings,  pro 
phets — and  of  the  community,  is  contained  in  the 
text,  there  the  paraphrase  lovingly  tarries.  Future 
bliss,  in  this  world  and  the  world  to  come,  libera 
tion  from  the  oppressor,  restoration  of  the  Sanc 
tuary  on  Mount  Zion,  of  the  Kingdom  of  Jehovah 
and  the  House  of  David,  the  re-establishment  of 
the  nation  and  of  its  full  and  entire  independence, 
as  well  as  of  the  national  worship,  with  all  the 
primitive  splendour  of  Priest  and  Levite,  singer 
and  musician  and  prophet  —  these  are  the  fa 
vourite  dreams  of  the  people  and  of  Jonathan,  and 
no  link  is  overlooked  by  which  those  strains  may 
be  drawn  in  as  variations  to  the  Biblical  theme.  Of 
Messianic  passages,  Jonathan  has  pointed  out  those 
mentioned  below' ;  a  number  not  too  large,  if  we  con 
sider  how,  with  the  increased  misery  of  the  people, 
their  ardent  desire  to  see  their  Deliverer  appear  speedi  ly 
must  have  tried  to  find  as  many  places  in  the  Bible  as 
possible,  warranting  His  arrival.  So  far  from  their 
being  suppressed  (as,  by  one  of  those  unfortunate 
accidents  that  befall  sometimes  a  long  string  of  in 
vestigators,  who  are  copying  their  information  at 
third  and  fourth  hand,  has  been  unblushingly  as 
serted  by  almost  everybody  up  to  Gesenius,  who 
found  its  source  in  a  misunderstood  sentence  of 
Carpzov},  they  are  most  prominently,  often  al 
most  pointedly  brought  forward.  And  there  is 
a  decided  polemical  animus  inherent  in  them — 
temperate  as  far  as  appearance  goes,  but  containing 
many  an  unspoken  word  :  such  as  a  fervent  human 
mind  pressed  down  by  all  the  woes  and  terrors, 
written  and  unwritten,  would  whisper  to  itself  in 
the  depths  of  its  despair.  These  passages  extol 
most  rapturously  the  pomp  and  glory  of  the  Messiah 
to  come — by  way  of  contrast  to  the  humble  appear 
ance  of  Christ :  and  all  the  places  where  suffering 
and  misery  appear  to  be  the  lot  forecast  to  the 
Anointed,  it  is  Israel,  to  whom  the  passage  is 
referred  by  the  Targum. 

Of  further  dogmatical  and  theological  pecu 
liarities  (and  this  Targum  will  one  day  prove 
a  mine  jof  instruction  chiefly  in  that  direction,  be 
sides  the  other  vast  advantages  inherent  in  it, 
as  in  the  older  Targums,  for  linguistic,  patristic, 
geographical,  historical,  and  other  studies)  we  may 
mention  briefly  the  "Stars  of  God"  (Is.  xiv.  13; 
comp.  Dan.  viii.  10 ;  2  Mace.  ix.  10,  being  referred 
- — in  a  similar  manner — to  "  the  people  of  Israel ;") 
the  doctrine  of  the  second  death  (Isa.  xxii.  14,  Ixv. 
15),  &c.  As  to  the  general  nature  of  its  idiom,  what 
we  have  said  above  holds  good  here.  Likewise 
our  remarks  on  the  relation  between  the  text  of  the 
Original  of  Onkelos,  and  its  own  text,  may  stand  for 
Jonathan,  who  never  appears  to  differ  from  the 
Masoretic  text  without  a  very  cogent  reason.  Yet, 
since  Jonathan's  MSS.,  though  very  much  smaller 
in  number,  are  in  a  still  worse  plight  than  those 


xliii.  10,  xiv.  1,  Hi.  13,  liii.  10;  Jer.  xxlii.  5,  xxx.  21 
xxxiii.  13,  15;  Hos.  ill.  5,  xiv.  8;  Mic.  iv.  8,  v  2,  18. 
Zcch.  iii.  8,  iv.  7,  vi.  12,  x.  4. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


1650 


of  Onkelos,  we  cannot  speak  with  great  certainty 
on  this  point.  Respecting,  however,  the  individual 
language  and  phraseology  of  the  translation,  it  lacks 
to  a  certain,  though  small,  degree,  the  clearness  and 
transparency  of  Onkelos;  and  is  somewhat  alloyed 
with  foreign  words.  Not  to  such  a  degree,  however, 
that  we  cannot  fully  endorse  Carpzov's  dictum : 
"  Cujus  nitor  sermonis  Chaldaei  et  dictionis  laudatur 
puritas,  ad  Onkelosum  proxime  accedens  et  parum 
deflectensapuro  twrsoque  Chaldaismo  biblico"  (Grit. 
Sacr.  p.  461),  and  incline  to  the  belief  of  Wolf 
(BibL  Hebr.  ii.  1165):  "  Quae  vero,  vel  quod  ad 
voces  novas  et  barbaras,  vel  ad  res  aetate  ejus  infe- 
riores,  aut  futilia  nonnulla,  quamvis  pauca  triplicis 
hujus  generis  exstent,  ibi  occurrunt,  ex  merito  fal- 
earii  cujusdam  ingenio  adscribuntur."  Of  the 
manner  and  style  of  this  Targum,  the  few  subjoined 
specimens  will  we  hope  give  an  approximate  idea. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  notice  a  feature  of  our 
Targum,  not  the  least  interesting  perhaps,  in  relation 
to  general  or  " human "  literature:  viz.,  that  the 
Shemitic  fairy  and  legendary  lore,  which  for  the  last 
two  thousand  years—  as  far  as  we  can  trace  it, — has 
grown  up  in  East  and  West  to  vast  glittering  moun 
tain-ranges,  is  to  a  very  great  extent  to  be  found, 
in  an  embryo  state,  so  to  say,  in  this  our  Targum. 
When  the  literary  history  of  those  most  wonderful 
circles  of  medieval  sagas— the  sole  apparent  fruit 
brought  home  by  the  crusaders  from  the  Eastern 
battle-fields  —  shall  come  to  be  written  by  a 
competent  and  thorough  investigator,  he  will  have 
to  extend  his  study  of  the  sources  to  this  despised 
"fabulosus"  Targum  Jonathan  ben  Uzziel.  And 
the  entire  world  of  pious  biblical  legend,  which 
Islam  has  said  and  sung  in  the  Arabic,  Persian, 
Turkish,  and  all  its  other  tongues,  to  the  delight 
of  the  wise  and  the  simple  for  twelve  centuries  now, 
is  contained  almost  fully  developed,  from  beginning 
to  end,  but  clearer,  purer,  and  incomparably  more 
poetically  conceived,  in  our  Targum-Haggadah. 

The  Editio  Princeps  dates  Leiria,  1494.  The 
later  editions  are  embodied  in  the  Antwerp,  Paris, 
and  London  Polyglotts.  Several  single  books  have 
likewise  been  repeatedly  edited  (comp.  Wolff, 
Le  Long,  Roseumuller,  &c.). 

JUDGES  V. 


AUTHORISED 
VERSION. 


1  THEN  sang  Deborah 
and  Barak  the  son  of 
Abinoam  on  that  day, 
saying, 


2  Praise  ye  the  LORD  for 
the  avenging  of  Israel, 
when  the  people  willingly 
offered  themselves. 


TARGUM 

[JONATHAN-BEN-UZZIEL] 

TO  THE  PROPHETS. 


1  AND  Deborah  and  Ba 
rak  the  son  of  Abinoara 
gave  praise  for  the  miracle 
and  the  salvation  which 
were  wrought  for  Israel 
on  that  day,  and  spake  : 

2  When  the  children  of 
Israel    rebel   against   the 
Law,    then    the    nations 
come  over  them  and  drive 

-i  them  out  of  their  cities  ; 
but  when  they  return  to  do  the  Law,  then  they 
are  mighty  over  their  enemies,  and  drive  them 
out  from  the  whole  territory  of  the  land  of 
Israel.  Thus  has  been  broken  Sisera  and  all 
his  armies  to  his  punishment,  and  to  a  miracle 
and  a  salvation  for  Israel.  Then  the  wise 
returned  to  sit  in  the  houses  of  tne  synagogue 
.  .  .  and  to  teach  unto  the  people  the  doctrine 
of  the  Law.  Therefore  praise  ye  and  bless  the 
Lord. 


AUTHORISED 
VERSION. 


3  Hear,  O  ye  kings ;  give 
ear,  O  ye  princes  ;  I,  even 
I,  will  sing  unto  the 
LORD  ;  I  will  sing  praise 
to  the  LORD  God  of  Israel. 


TARGUM 

[JONATHAN-BEN- L'ZZIEL] 
TO  THE  PROPHETS. 


3  Hear,    ye    kings    (ye 
who  came   with  Sisra  to 
the   battle-array),    listen, 
ye  rulers   [ye  who   wer« 
with   Jabin   the   king   of 

—  Kenaan :  not  with  your 
armies  nor  with  your  power  have  ye  con 
quered  and  become  mighty  over  the  house  of 
Israel] — said  Deborah  in  prophecy  before  God  : 
I  praise,  give  thanks  and  blessings  before  the 
Lord,  the  God  of  Israel. 

4  [O    Lord,    Thy    Law 

Thou  gavest  to 
Israel,  when  they  trans 
gress  it,  then  the  nations 


them 


but 


4  LORD,  when  thou  went- 


est  out  of  Seir,  when  thou 


marchedst  out  of  the  field 


of  Edom,  the  earth  trem- 


dropped,  the  clouds  also 


when  they  return   to  it, 


then  they  become  power 
ful  over   their  enemies.] 


0  Lord,  on  the  day  when  Thou  didst  reveal 


Thyself  to  give  it  unto  them  from  Seir,  Thou 


becamest  manifest  unto  them  in  the  splendour 


of  Thy  glory  over  the  territories  of   Edom  : 


the  earth  trembled,  the  heavens  showered  down, 


the  clouds  dropped  rain. 


The  mountains  melted 


The  mountains  trem- 


from  before  the  LORD,  even 


bled  before  the  Lord,  the 


that  Sinai  from  before  the 


mountains  of  Tabor,   the 


LORD  God  of  Israel. 


mountain  of  Hermon,  and 
the  mountain  of  Carmel, 
spake  with  each  other,  and  said  one  to  the 
other :  Upon  me  the  Shechinah  will  rest,  and 
to  me  will  It  come.  But  the  Shechinah  rested 
upon  Mount  Sinai,  which  is  the  weakest  and 
smallest  of  all  the  mountains.  .  .  .  This  Sinai 
trembled  and  shook,  and  its  smoke  went  up  as 
goes  up  the  smoke  of  an  oven  :  because  of  the 
glory  of  the  God  of  Israel  which  had  manifested 
itself  upon  it. 
6  When  they  transgress- 


6  In  the  days  of  Sham- 
gar  the  son  of  Anath,  in 
the  days  of  Jael,  the  high 
ways  were*  unoccupied, 
and  the  travellers  walked 
through  byways. 


7  The  inhabitants  of  the 
villages  ceased,  they  ceased 
in  Israel,  until  that  I  De 
borah  arose,  that  I  arose 
a  mother  in  Israel. 


8  They  chose  new  gods ; 
then  was  war  in  the  gates  : 
was  there  a  shield  or  spear 
seen  among  forty  thousand 
in  Israel  ? 


ed  in  the  days  of  Shamgar 
the  son  of  Anath  in  the 
days  of  Jael,  ceased  the 
wayfarers  :  they  who  had 
walked  in  well-prepared 
ways  had  again  to  walk  in 
furtive  paths. 

7  Destroyed    were    the 
open  cities  of  the  land  of 
Israel :    their  inhabitants 
were  shaken  off  and  driven 
about,  until  I,   Deborah, 
was  sent  to  prophesy  over 
the  house  of  Israel. 

8  When  the  children  of 
Israel  went  to  pray  unto 
new  idols  [errors],  which 
recently  had  come  to  be 
worshipped,   with  which 
their  fathers  did  not  con- 

|  cern  themselves,  there  came  over  them  the 
|  nations  and  drove  them  out  of  their  cities  :  but 
when  they  returned  to  the  Law,  they  could  not 
prevail  against  them  until  they  made  themselves 
strong,  and  Sisra  went  up  against  them,  the 
enemy  and  the  adversary,  with  forty  thousand 
chiefs  of  troops,  with  fifty  thousand  holders  of 
the  sword,  with  sixty  thousand  holders  of  spears, 
with  seventy  thousand  ho'iders  of  shields,  with 
eighty  thousand  throwers  of  arrows  and  slings, 
besides  nine  hundred  iron  chariots  which  he  hud 
with  him,  and  his  own  chariots.  All  these  thou 
sands  and  all  these  hosts  could  not  stand  before 
Baniii  and  tlie  ten  thousand  men  he  hud  will:  him, 


1656 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM 


AUTHORISED 
VERSION. 


9  My  heart  is  toward  the 
governors  of  Israel,  that 
offered  themselves  -will 
ingly  among  the  people. 
Bless  ye  the  LORD. 


TARGUM 

[JONATHAN-BEN-UZZIEL] 
TO  THE  PROPHETS. 


9  Spake  Deborah  in  pro 
phecy  :  I  am  sent  to  praise 
the  scribes  of  Israel,  who, 
while  this  tribulation  last 
ed,  ceased  not  to  study  in 
the  Law  :  and  it  redounds 
well  unto  them  who  sat  in  the  houses  of  con 
gregation,  wide  open,  and  taught  the  people 
the  doctrine  of  the  Law,  and  praised  and  ren 
dered   thanks   before  the 
Lord. 

10  Speak,  ye  that  ride  10  Those  who  had  inter- 
on  white  asses,  ye  that  sit  rupted  their  occupations 
in  judgment,  and  walk  by  are  riding  on  asses  covered 
the  way.  with  many-coloured  capa- 

•'  risons,  and  they  ride  about 

freely  in  all  the  territory  of  Israel,  and  con 
gregate  to  sit  in  judgment.  They  walk  in  their 
old  ways,  and  are  speaking  of  the  power  Thou 
hast  shown  in  the  land  of  Israel,  &c. 


JUDGES  XI. 


39  AND  it  came  to  pass, 
at  the  end  of  two  months, 
that  she  returned  unto 
her  father,  who  did  with 
her  according  to  his  vow 
waich  he  had  vowed  :  and 
she  knew  no  man.  And  it ! 
was  a  custom  in  Israel. 


39  AND  it  was  at  the 
end  of  two  months,  and 
she  returned  to  her  father, 
and  he  did  unto  her  ac 
cording  to  the  vow  which 
he  had  vowed:  and  she 
had  known  no  man.  And  it 
became  a  statute  in  Israel. 


no  man  should  offer  up  his  son  or  his  daughter 
as  a  burnt-offering,  as  Jephta  the  Gileadite 
did,  who  asked  not  Phinehas  the  priest.  If 
he  had  asked  Phinehas  the  priest,  then  he 
would  have  dissolved  his  vow  with  money  [for 
animal  sacrifices]. 


1  SAM.  II. 


D  Hannah  prayed, 
id,    My  heart  re 
in     the     LORD  ; 
orn  is  exalted  in 
RD  ;  my  mouth  is 
d  over  mine  ene- 
ecause  I  rejoice  in 
•ation. 

1  AND  Hannah  prayed 
in  the  spirit  of  prophecy, 
and    said  :    [Lo,    my  son 
Samuel  will  become  a  pro 
phet  over  Israel  ;  in,  his 
days    they  will  be   freed 
from  the  hand  of  the  Phi 
listines  ;  and  through  his 
hands  shall  be  done  unto 

joiceth 


I  them  wondrous  and  mighty  deeds :  therefore] 
I  be  strong  my  heart  in  the  portion  which  God 
j  gave  me.  [And  also  Heman  the  son  of  J'oel,  the 
son  of  my  son  Samuel,  shall  arise,  he  and  his 
fourteen  sons,  to  say  praise  with  nablia  (harps  ?) 
and  cythers,  with  their  brethren  the  Levites, 
|  to  sing  in  the  house  of  the  sanctuary  :  there 
fore]  Let  my  horn  be  exalted  in  the  gift  which 
God  granted  unto  me.  [And  also  on  the 
I  miraculous  punishment  that  would  befal  the 
i  Philistines  who  would  bring  back  the  ark 
of  the  Lord  in  a  new  chariot,  together  with 
a  sin-offering  :  therefore  let  the  congrega- 
i  tion  of  Israel  say]  I  will  open  my  mouth 
|  to  speak  great  things  over  my  enemies  j  be- 
—  cause  I  rejoice  in  thy 

salvation. 

2  There  is  none  holy  as  2  [Over  Sanherib  the 
the  LORD:  for  there  is  king  of  Ashur  did  she 
Qor.e  beside  thee,  neither  |  prophesy,  and  she  said  : 


AUTHORISED 
VERSION. 


TARGUM 

[  JONATHAN-BEN-UZZIEI  ] 
TO  THE  PROPHETS. 


is  there  any  rock  like  our  j  He  will  arise  with  all  hh 
God.  !  armies     over    Jerusalem, 

and  a  great  sign  \vill  be 


done  with  him.  There  shall  fall  the  corpses  of 
his  troops  :  Therefore  praise  ye  all  the  peoples 
and  nations  and  tongues,  and  cry]  :  There  is 
none  holy  but  God  ;  there  is  not  beside  Thee  ; 
and  Thy  people  shall  say,  There  is  none 
mighty  but  our  God. 
3  [Over  Nebuchadnez- 


3  Talk  no  more  so  ex 
ceeding  proudly ;  let  not 
arrogancy  come  out  of 
your  mouth  :  for  the  LORD 
is  a  God  of  knowledge, 
and  by  him  actions  are 
weighed. 


4  The  bows  of  the 
mighty  are  broken,  and 
they  that  sttimbled  are 
girded  with  strength. 


zar  the  king  of  Babel  did 
she  prophesy  and  say  :  Ye 
Chaldeans,  and  all  nations 
who  will  once  rule  over 
Israel]  Do  not  speak 
grandly ;  let  no  blasphemy 
go  out  from  your  mouth  : 
for  God  knows  all,  and 
over  all  his  servants  he 
extends  his  judgment ; 
also  from  you  he  will  take 
punishment  of  your  guilt. 
4  [Over  the  kingdom 
Javan  she  prophesied  and 
said]  The  bows  of  the 
mighty  ones  [of  the  Ja- 
vanites]  will  be  broken  ; 
[and  those  of  the  house  of 
the  Asmoneans]  who  are 
weak,  to  them  will  be 
done  miracles  and  mighty 
deeds. 


1  SAM.  XVII. 


8  AND  he  stood  and 
cried  unto  the  armies  of 
Israel,  and  said  unto 
them,  Why  are  ye  come 
out  to  set  your  battle  in 
array  ?  Am  not  I  a  Philis 
tine,  and  ye  servants  to 
Saul?  choose  you  a  man 
for  you,  and  let  him  come 
down  to  me. 


8  AND  he  arose,  and 
he  cried  unto  the  armies 
of  Israel,  and  said  unto 
them  :  Why  have  you 
put  yourselves  in  battle 
array?  Am  I  not  the 
Philistine,  and  you  the 
servants  of  Saul ?  [I 
am  Goliath  the  Philistine 
from  Gath,  who  have  killed 
the  two  sons  of  Eli,  the 
priests  Chofna  and  Pinehas,  and  carried  cap 
tive  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of  the  Lord,  I  who 
have  carried  it  to  the  house  of  Dagon,  my 
Error,  and  it  has  been  there  in  the  cities 
of  the  Philistines  seven  months.  And  in  every 
battle  which  the  Philistines  have  had  I  went 
at  the  head  of  the  army,  and  we  conquered 
in  the  battle,  and  we  strew  the  killed  like  the 
dust  of  the  earth,  and  until  now  have  the 
Philistines  not  thought  me  worthy  to  become 
captain  of  a  thousand  over  them.  And  you,  O 
children  of  Israel,  what  mighty  deed  has  Saul 
the  son  of  Kish  from  Gibeah  done  for  you 
that  you  made  him  king  over  you  ?  If  he  is  a 
valiant  man,  let  him  come  out  and  do  battle 
with  me;  but  if  he  is  a  weak  man],  then 
choose  for  yourselves  a  man,  and  let  him  come 
out  against  me,  &c. 


1  KINGS  XIX. 


11,  12  AND  he  said,  Go 
forth,  and  stand  upon  the 
mount  before  the  LORU. 
And,  behold,  the  LORD 


11,  12  AND  he  said  [tc 
Elijah],  Arise  and  stand  or 
the  mountain  before  the 
Lord.  And  Gotl  revealed 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 
III. 


AUTHORISED 
VERSION. 

TARGUM                  L 
[JONATHAN-BEN  -UZZIEL] 
TO  THE  PROPHETS. 

passed  by,  and  a  great  and 
strong    wind     rent     the 
mountains,  and  brake  in 
pieces    the  rocks,    before 
the  LORD  ;  but  the  LORD 
was  not  in  the  wind  :  and 
after  the  wind  an  earth 
quake  ;  but  the  LORD  was 
not   in   the    earthquake  : 
And  after  the  earthquake 
a  fire  ;  but  the  Lord  was 
not  in  the  fire  :  and  after 
the  fire  a  still  small  voice. 

himself  :  and  before  him  a    I 
host  of  angels  of  the  wind,    t 
cleaving     the    mountain    v 
and    breaking    the  rocks    l 
before  the  Lord  ;  but  not    j 
in  the  host  of  angels  was    a 
the  Shechinah.  And  after 
the  host  of  the  angels  of 
the  wind  came  a  host  of    ( 
angels  of  commotion  ;  but    , 
not  in  the   host  of   the 
angels  of  commotion  was    ^ 
the     Shechinah     of    the    e 
Lord.    And  after  the  host    ^ 
mmotion  came    a   host  of 
not  in   the    host  of  the    ' 
tie  Shechinah  of  the  Lord.    c 
the  angels  of  the  fire  came    * 
voices  singing  in  silence. 
13   And   it    was  when    t 
Elijah  heard  this,  he  hid    < 
his  face  in  his  mantle,  and 
he  went  out  and  he  stood 
at  the  door  of  the  cave  ; 
and,  lo  !  with  him  was  a 
voice,  saying,  What  doest 
thou  here,  O  Elijah  1   &c. 

I 

13 
Elijah 
wrapp 
mantl 
stood 
of  the 
tlisre 
him,  a 
thoul 

of  the  angels  of  co 
angels  of  fire  ;  but 
angels  of  fire  was  t 
But  after  the  host  of 

And  it  was  so,  when 
heard   it,  that  he 
ed   his   face  in  his 
B,  and  went  out,  and 
in  the  entering  in 
cave  :  and,  behold, 
came  a  voice  unto 
nd  said,  What  doest 
lere,  Elijah] 

ISAIAH  XXXIII. 

22 
judge 
lawgi 
*ing; 

FOR  the  LORD  is  our 
the   LORD   is   our 
rer,  the  LORD  is  our 
he  will  save  us. 

22  FOR  the  Lord  is  our 
judge,  who  delivered  us 
with  his  power  from  Miz- 
raim  ;    the   Lord   is   our 
teacher,  for  He  has  given 
;he  Torah  frum  Sinai  ;  the 
le  will  deliver  us,  and  give 
ion  from  the  army  of  Gog. 

as  the  doctrine  of 
Lord  is  our  king  :   I 
us  righteous  restitul 

JEREM.  X. 

11 
unto 
havei 
and  t 
shall, 
and 
heave 

THUS  shall  ye  say 
them,  The  gods  that 
lot  made  the  heavens 
he  earth,  even  they 
jerish  from  the  earth, 
from  under  these 
ns. 

11  THIS  is  the  copy  of 
the  letter  which  Jeremiah 
the   prophet   sent  to  the 
remaining  ancient  ones  of 
the   captivity  in    Babel  : 
"  And  if  the  nations  among 
whom  you   are   will   say 
unto    you,   Pray  to    our 
of  Israel,  then  you   shall 
speak  in   this  wise  :     The 
you  pray  are  Errors  which 
2y  cannot  rain   from   hea- 
cause   fruit  to  grow  from 
ud  their  worshippers  will 
rth,  and  will  be  destroyed 
avens. 

Errors  :  —  O   house 
answer   thus,  and 
Enors  unto  which 
are  of  no  use  :   th 
ven  ;   they  cannot 
the  earth.     They  r 
perish  from  the  ea 
irom  under  these  lu 

MlCAH  VI. 

4  1 

out  o 
and  i 
then 
I  sen 
Aaro 

"'OR  I  brought  thee  up 
f  the  land  of  Egypt, 
edeemed  thee  out  oi 
ouse  of  servants  ;  and 
t  before  thee  Moses, 
n,  and  Miriam. 

thee  the  tradition  o 
atone  for  the  peoj 
1  the  women 

4  FOR  I  have  taken  thee 
out  from  the  land  of  Miz- 
raim,  and   have  released 
thee   from   the  house   of 
thy  bondage  :    and  have 
sent  before  thee  three  pro- 
-  phets  ;    Moses,    to   teach 
f  the  ordinances  ;  Aaron,  to 
le  :    and  Miriam,  to  teach 

1657 
JOHATHAN-BEK- 


and   IV.   TARGUM    OP 

UZZIEL  AND  JEHUSHALMI-TARGUM  ON  THE  PEN 
TATEUCH. 

Onkelos  and  Jonathan  on  the  Pentateuch  and 
Prophets,  whatever  be  their  exact  date,  place,  au 
thorship  and  editorship,  are,  as  we  have  endea 
voured  to  show,  the  oldest  of  existing  Targums,  and 
belong,  in  their  present  shape,  to  Babylon  and  the 
Babylonian  academies  flourishing  between  the  3rd 
and  4th  centuries  A.D.  But  precisely  as  two  parallel 
and  independent  developments  of  the  Oral  Law 

have  sprung  up  in  the  Palestinian  and 
Babylonian  Talmuds  respectively,  so  also  recent  in 
vestigation  has  proved  to  demonstration  the  exist 
ence  of  two  distinct  cycles  of  Targums  on  the 

Written  Law  (irOlSPn)—  i.  e.  the  entire  body  of 
the  Old  Testament.  Both  are  the  offspring  of  the 
old,  primitive  institution  of  the  public  "  reading 
and  translating  of  the  Torah,"  which  for  many 
hundred  years  had  its  place  in  the  Palestinian 
synagogues.  The  one  first  collected,  revised,  and 
edited  in  Babylon,  called  —  more  especially  that 
part  of  it  which  embraced  the  Pentateuch  (Onkelos) 
—  the  Babylonian,  Ours,  by  way  of  eminence,  on 
account  of  the  superior  authority  inherent  in  aL 
the  works  of  the  Madinchae  (Babylonians,  in  contra 
distinction  to  the  Maarbae  or  Palestinians).  The 
other,  continuing  its  oral  life,  so  to  say,  down  to  a 
much  later  period,  was  written  and  edited  —  less 
carefully,  or  rather  with  a  much  more  faithful 
retention  of  the  oldest  and  youngest  fancies  of  Me- 
turgemanim  and  Darshanim  —  on  the  soil  of  Judaea 
itself.  Of  this  entire  cycle,  however,  the  Penta 
teuch  and  a  few  other  books  and  fragmentary  pieces 
only  have  survived  entire,  while  of  most  of  the  other 
books  of  the  Bible  a  few  detached  fragments  are  all 
that  is  known,  and  this  chiefly  from  quotations. 
The  injunction  above  mentioned  respecting  the  sab 
batical  reading  of  the  Targum  on  the  Pentateuch  — 
nothing  is  said  of  the  Prophets  —  explains  the  fact, 
to  a  certain  axtent,  how  the  Pentateuch  Targum  has 
been  religiously  preserved,  while  the  others  have 
perished.  This  circumstance,  also,  is  to  be  taken 
into  consideration,  that  Palestine  was  in  later  cen 
turies  well-nigh  cut  off  from  communication  with 
the  Diaspora,  while  Babylon,  and  the  gigantic 
literature  it  produced,  reigned  paramount  over  all 
Judaism,  as,  indeed,  down  to  the  10th  century,  the 
latter  continued  to  have  a  spiritual  leader  in  the 
person  of  the  Resh  Gelutha  (Head  of  the  Golah), 
residing  in  Babylon.  As  not  the  least  cause  of  the 
loss  of  the  great  bulk  of  the  Palestinian  Targum 
may  also  be  considered  the  almost  uninterrupted 
martyrdom  to  which  those  were  subjected  who  pre 
ferred,  under  all  circumstances,  to  live  and  die  in 
the  Land  of  Promise. 

However  this  may  be,  the  Targum  on  the  Pen 
tateuch  has  come  down  to  us  :  and  not  in  one,  but 
in  two  recensions.  More  surprising  still,  the  one 
hitherto  considered  a  fiagment,  because  of  its  em 
bracing  portions  only  of  the  individual  books,  has 
in  reality  never  been  intended  to  embrace  any 
further  portion,  and  we  are  thus  in  the  possession 
of  two  Palestinian  Targums,  preserved  in  their 
original  forms.  The  one,  which  extends  from  the 
first  verse  of  Genesis  to  the  last  of  Deuteronomy,  is 
known  under  the  name  of  Targum  Jonathan  (ben 
Uzziel)  or  Pseudo-Jonathan  on  the  Pentateuch. 
The  other,  interpreting  single  verses,  often  single 
words  only,  is  extant  in  the  following  proportions  : 


1658 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


a  third  on  Genesis,  a  /ourth  on  Deuteronomy,  a 
fifth  on  Numbers,  thn.-e-twentieths  on  Exodus,  and 
about  one-fourteenth  on  Leviticus.  The  latter  is 
generally  called  Targum  Jerushalmi,  or,  down  to 
'.he  llth  century  (Hai  Gaon,  Chananel),  Targum 
Erets  Israel,  Targum  of  Jerusalem  or  of  the  land 
of  Israel.  That  Jonathan  ben  Uzziel,  the  same  to 
whom  the  prophetical  Targum  is  ascribed,  and  who 
is  reported  to  have  lived  either  in  the  5th-4th 
century  B.C.,  or  about  the  time  of  Christ  himself 
(see  above),  could  have  little  to  do  with  a  Tar 
gum  which  speaks  of  Constantinople  (Num.  xxiv. 
19,  24],  describes  very  plainly  the  breaking-up  of 
the  West-Roman  Empire  (Num.  xxiv.  19-24), 
mentions  the  Turks  (Gen.  x.  2),  and  even  Mo 
hammed's  two  wives,  Chadidja  and  Fatime  (Gen. 
xxi.  21),  and  which  exhibits  not  only  the  fullest 
acquaintance  with  the  edited  body  of  the  Baby 
lonian  Talmud,  by  quoting  entire  passages  from  it, 
but  adopts  its  peculiar  phraseology : — not  to  mention 
the  complete  disparity  between  the  style,  language, 
and  general  manner  of  the  Jonathanic  Targum  on 
the  Prophets,  and  those  of  this  one  on  the  Pentateuch, 
strikingly  palpable  at  first  sight, — was  recognised 
by  early  investigators  (Morinus,  Pfeiffer,  Walton, 
&c.),  who  soon  overthrew  the  old  belief  in  Jonathan 
b.  Uzziel's  authorship,  as  upheld  by  Menahem 
Rekanati,  Asariah  de  Rossi,  Gedaljah,  Galatin,  Fagius, 
&c.  But  the  relation  in  which  the  two  Targums, 
so  similar  and  yet  so  dissimilar,  stood  to  each  other, 
how  they  arose,  and  where  and  when — all  these 
questions  have  for  a  long  time,  in  the  terse  words 
of  Zunz,  caused  many  of  the  learned  such  dire 
misery,  that  whenever  the  "Targum  Hieiosolymi- 
tanum  comes  up,"  they,  instead  of  information  on  it 
and  its  twin-brother,  prefer  to  treat  the  reader  to  a 
round  volley  of  abuse  of  them.  Not  before  the 
first  half  of  this  century  did  the  fact  become  fully 
and  incontestibly  established  (by  the  simple  pro 
cess  of  an  investigation  of  the  sources),  that  both 
Targums  were  in  reality  one — that  both  were  known 
down  to  the  14th  century  under  no  other  name 
than  Targum  Jerushalmi — and  that  some  forgetful 
scribe  about  that  time  must  have  taken  the  abbre 
viation  ^TI-'T.  J'  over  one  of  the  two  documents, 
and,  instead  of  dissolving  it  into  Targum- Jerushalmi, 
dissolved  it  erroneously  into  what  he  must  till 
then  have  been  engaged  in  copying — viz.,  Targum- 
Jonathan,  sc.  ben  Uzziel  (on  the  Prophets).  This 
error,  fostered  by  the  natural  tendency  of  giving 
a  well-known  and  far-famed  name — without  in 
quiring  too  closely  into  its  accuracy — to  a  hitherto 
anonymous  and  comparatively  little  known  ver 
sion,  has  been  copied  again  and  again,  until  it  found 
its  way,  a  hundred  years  later,  into  print.  Of 
<he  intermediate  stage,  when  only  a  few  MSS.  had 
received  the  new  designation,  a  curious  fact,  which 
Azariah  de  Rossi  (Cod.  37  6)  mentions,  gives  evi 
dence.  "  I  saw,"  he  says,  "  two  complete  Targums 
on  the  whole  Pentateuch,  word  for  word  alike; 
one  in  Reggio,  which  was  described  in  the  margin, 
4  Targum  of  Jonathan  b.  Uzziel ; '  the  other  in 
Mantua,  described  at  the  margin  as  '  Targum  Je 
rushalmi.'  "  In  a  similar  manner  quotations  from 
either  in  the  Aruch  confound  the  designation.  Ben 
jamin  Mussaphia  (d.  1674),  the  author  of  additions 
aud  Dorrections  to  the  Aruch,  has  indeed  pronounced 
it  as  his  personal  conjecture  that  both  may  be  one 
Slid  the  same,  and  Drusius,  Mendelssohn,  Rappo- 
port,  and  others  shared  his  opinion.  Yet  the 
difficulty  of  their  obvious  dissimilarity,  if  they 
were  identical,  remained  to  be  accounted  for.  ZUUE 


tries  to  solve  it  by  assuming  that  Pjeudo-Jonar 
than  is  the  original  Targum,  and  that  the  frag 
mentary  Jerushalmi  is  a  collection  of  variants  to 
it.  The  circumstance  of  its  also  containing  por 
tions  identical  with  the  codex,  to  which  it  is  sup 
posed  to  be  a  collection  of  readings,  he  explains  by 
the  negligence  of  the  transcriber.  Frankel,  how 
ever,  followed  by  Traub  and  Levysohn,  has  gone  a 
step  further.  From  the  very  identity  of  a  propor 
tionately  large  number  of  places,  amounting  to 
about  thirty  in  each  book,  and  from  ceitain  pal 
pable  and  consistent  differences  which  run  through 
both  recensions,  they  have  arrived  at  a  different 
conclusion,  which  seems  to  carry  conviction  on  the 
face  of  it,  viz.,  that  Jerushalmi  is  a  collection 
of  emendations  and  additions  to  single  portions, 
phrases,  and  words  of  Onkelos,  and  Pseudo-Jo 
nathan  a  further  emendated  and  completed  edition 
to  the  whole  Pentateuch  of  Jerushalmi-Onkelos 
The  chief  incentive  to  a  new  Targum  on  the  Penta 
teuch  (that  of  Onkelos  being  well  known  in  Pales 
tine),  was,  on  the  one  hand,  the  wish  to  explain 
such  of  the  passages  as  seemed  either  obscure  in 
themselves  or  capable  of  greater  adaptation  to  the 
times ;  and  on  the  other  hand  the  great  and  para 
mount  desire  for  legendary  lore,  and  ethical  and  ho- 
miletical  motives,  intertwined  with  the  very  letter  of 
Scripture,  did  not  and  could  not  feel  satisfied  with 
the  (generally)  strictly  literal  version  of  Onkelos, 
as  soon  as  the  time  of  eccentric,  prolix,  oral  Targums 
had  finally  ceased  in  Palestine  too,  and  written 
Targums  of  Babylon  were  introduced  as  a  substi 
tute,  once  for  all.  Hence  variants,  exactly  as  found 
in  Jerushalmi,  not  to  the  whole  of  Onkelos,  but  to 
such  portions  as  seemed  most  to  require  "  improve 
ment  "  in  the  direction  indicated.  And  how  much 
this  thoroughly  paraphrastic  version  was  preferred 
to  the  literal  is,  among  other  signs,  plainly  visible 
from  the  circumstance  that  it  is  still  joined,  for 
instance,  to  the  reading  of  the  Decalogue  on  the 
Feast  of  Weeks  in  the  synagogue.  At  a  later  period 
the  gaps  were  filled  up,  and  the  whole  of  the  exist 
ing  Jerushalmi  was  recast,  as  far  again  as  seemed 
fitting  and  requisite.  This  is  the  Jonathan,  so  called 
for  the  last  four  hundred  years  only.  And  thus 
the  identity  in  some,  and  the  divergence  in  othei 
places  finds  its  most  natural  solution. 

The  Jerushalmi,  in  both  its  recensions,  is  written 
in  the  Palestinensian  dialect,  the  peculiarities  of 
which  we  have  briefly  characterised  above.  It  is 
older  than  the  Masora  and  the  conquest  of  Western 
Asia  by  the  Arabs.  Syria  or  Palestine  must  be 
its  birthplace,  the  second  half  of  the  7th  century 
its  date,  since  the  instances  above  given  will  not 
allow  of  any  earlier  time.  "Its  chief  aim  and  pur 
pose  is,  especially  in  its  second  edition,  to  form  an 
entertaining  compendium  of  all  the  Halachah  and 
Haggadah,  which  refers  to  the  Pentateuch,  and  take? 
its  stand  upon  it.  And  in  this  lies  its  chief  use  to 
us.  There  is  hardly  a  single  allegory,  parable,  mystic 
digression,  or  tale  in  it  which  is  not  found  in  the 
other  haggadistic  writings — Mishna,  Talmud,  Me- 
chilta,  Sifra,  Sifri,  &c. ;  and  both  Winer  and  Peter- 
mann,  not  to  mention  the  older  authorities,  have 
wrongly  charged  it  with  inventing  its  interpreta 
tions.  Even  where  no  source  can  be  indicated,  the 
author  has  surely  only  given  utterance  to  the  lead 
ing  notions  and  ideas  of  his  times,  extravagant  and 
abstruse  as  they  may  oftentimes  appear  to  our  mo 
dern  Western  minds.  Little  value  is  inherent  in  its 
critical  emendations  on  the  exegesis  of  Onkelos.  It 
sometimes  endeavours  either  to  find  an  entirely  ue'JV 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


1659 


ugnificat  on  for  a  word,  and  then  it  often  falls  into 
grave  errors,  or  it  restores  interpretations  rejected 
by  Onkelos,  only  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that 
translation  is  quite  a  secondary  object  with  Jeru- 
shalmi.  It  adheres,  however,  to  the  general  method 
followed  by  Onkelos  and  Jonathan.  It  dissolves 
similes  and  widens  too  concise  diction.  Geogra 
phical  names  it  alters  into  those  current  in  its  own 
day.  It  avoids  anthropomorphism?  as  well  as  an- 
thropopathisms.  The  strict  distinction  between  the 
Divine  Being  and  man  is  kept  up,  and  the  word 
Dip  "  before  "  is  put  as  a  kind  of  medium  between 
the  former  and  the  latter,  no  less  than  the  other 
— "  Shechinah,"  "  Word,"  "  Glory,"  &c.  It  never 
uses  Elohim  where  the  Scripture  applies  it  to 
man  or  idols.  The  same  care  is  taken  to  extol 
the  good  deeds  of  the  people  and  its  ancestors, 
and  to  slur  over  and  excuse  the  evil  ones,  &c. : — 
all  this,  however,  in  a  much  more  decided  and 
exaggerated  form  than  either  in  Onkelos  or  Jona 
than.  Its  language  and  grammar  are  very  cor 
rupt  ;  it  abounds — chiefly  in  its  larger  edition, 
the  Pseudo- Jonathan — in  Greek,  Latin,  Persian,  and 
Arabic  words ;  and  even  making  allowances  for  the 
many  blunders  of  ignorant  scribes,  enough  will 
remain  to  pronounce  the  diction  ungrammatical  in 
very  many  places. 

Thus  much  briefly  of  the  Jerushalmi  as  one  and 
the  same  work.  We  shall  now  endeavour  to  point 
out  a  few  characteristics  belonging  to  its  two 
recensions  respectively.  The  first,  Jerushalmi  /car' 
f&x'fiv,  knows  veiy  little  of  angels  ;  Michael  is 
the  only  one  ever  occurring:  in  Jonathan,  on  the 
other  hand,  angelology  flourishes  in  great  vigour : 


to  the  Biblical  Michael,  Galriel,  Uriel,  are  added 
the  Angel  of  Death,  Samael,  Sagnugael,  Shachassai, 
Usiel ;  seventy  angels  descend  with  God  to  see  the 
building  of  the  Babylonian  tower  ;  nine  hundred 
millions  of  punishing  angels  go  through  Egypt  dur 
ing  the  night  of  the  Exodus,  &c.  Jerushalmi  makes 
use  but  rarely  of  Halachah  and  Haggadah,  while 
Jonathan  sees  the  text  as  it  were  only  through  the 
medium  of  Haggadah  :  to  him  the  chief  end.  Hence 
Jonathan  has  many  Midrashim  not  found  in  Jeru 
shalmi,  while  he  does  not  omit  a  single  one  con 
tained  in  the  latter.  There  are  no  direct  historical 
dates  in  Jerushalmi,  but  many  are  found  in  Jona 
than,  and  since  all  other  signs  indicate  that  but  a 
short  space  of  time  intervenes  between  the  two, 
the  late  origin  of  either  is  to  a  great  extent 
made  manifest  by  these  dates.  The  most  striking 
difference  between  them,  however,  and  the  one 
which  is  most  characteristic  of  either,  is  this,  that 
while  Jerushalmi  adheres  more  closely  to  the  lan 
guage  of  the  Mishna,  Jonathan  has  greater  affinity  to 
that  of  the  Talmud.  Of  either  we  subjoin  short 
specimens,  which,  for  the  purpose  of  easier  compari 
son,  and  reference,  we  have  placed  side  by  side  with 
Onkelos.  The  Targum  Jerushalmi  was  first  printed 
in  Bomberg's  Bible,  Venice,  1518,  ff.,  and  was  re 
printed  in  Bomberg's  edd.,  and  in  Walton,  vol.  iv. 
Jonathan  to  the  Pentateuch,  a  MS.  of  which  was 
first  discovered  by  Ashur  Purinz  in  the  Library  of 
the  family  of  the  Puahs  in  Venice,  was  printed  for 
the  first  time  in  1590,  as  "  Targum  Jonathan  ben 
Uzziel,"  at  Venice,  reprinted  at  Hanau,  1618, 
Amsterdam,  1640,  Prague,  1646,  Walton,  vol. 
iv.,  &c. 


GENESIS  III.  17-24. 


TARGUM 

AUTHORISED 

VERSION. 

ONKELOS. 

TAHGUM 
JERUSHALMI. 

First  Recension. 

[JONATHAN-BEN-UZZIEL] 
JERUSHALMI. 
Second  Recension. 

17   AND   unto   Adam    he 

17  AND  to  Adam  he  said, 



1  7  AND  to  Adam  he  said, 

said,    Because    thou    hast 

For  that  thou  hast  accepted 

Because  thou  hast  received 

hearkened  unto  the  voice 

the  word  of  thy  wife,  and 

the  word  of  thy  wife,  and 

of  thy  wife,  and  hast  eaten 

hast  eaten  from  the  tree  of 

hast  eaten  from  the  fruit 

of  the   tree,    of  which    I 

which  I  have  commanded 

of  the   tree,    of  which   I 

commanded   thee,    saying, 

unto  thee,  and  said,  Thou 

commanded     thee,     Thou 

Thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it  : 

shalt    not    eat    from    it  : 

shalt    not    eat    from    it  : 

cursed   is   the  ground  for 

cursed  shall  the  earth  be 

cursed  be   the   earth,   be 

thy  sake  ;  in  sorrow  shalt 

for  thy  sake  ;  with  trouble 

cause  it  has  not  shown  un 

thou  eat  of  it  all  the  days 

shalt  thou  eat  of  it  all  tts 

to  thee  thy  fault  ;  in  sor 

of  thy  life  ; 

days  of  thy  life  ; 

row  shalt  thou  eat  of  it  all 

the  days  of  thy  life  ; 

18    Thorns      also      and 

18    And       thorns      and 

18    And       thorns      and 

18    And      thorns       ani 

thistles  shall  it  bring  forth 

thistles   it  shall  grow  for 

thistles   shall   it    multiply 

thistles    shall    grow    and 

to   thee  ;    and  thou   shalt 

thee  ;  and  thou  shalt  eat 

for  thee  ;  and  thou  shalt  eat 

multiply  for  thy  sake  ;  and 

eat  the  herb  of  the  field  ; 

the  grass  of  the  field  ; 

the  grass  that  is  on  the  face 

thou   shalt   eat   the  grass 

of  the  earth.     Then  began 

that  is  on  the  face  of  the 

Adam   and   said,    I    pray, 

field.    Adam  answered  and 

through  (the  Mercy  that  is 

said,  I  pray,  by  the  Mercy 

before  Thee,   Jehovah,   let 

that   is    before   Thee,    Je 

us  not  be  accounted  before 

hovah,   that  we  may  not 

Thee  as  the  beasts  that  eat 

be  deemed   like   unto   the 

the  grass  on  the  face  of  the 

beasts,  that  we  should  cat 

field  :    may    we    be    per 

grass  that  is  on  the  face  of 

mitted   to   arise    and    toil 

the  field  ;  may  we  be  al 

with  the  toil  of  our  hands, 

lowed  to  arise  and  toil  with 

and  eat  food  from  the  fruits 

the  toiling  of  our  hands, 

of  the    earth  ;    and   thus 

and  eat  food  from  the  food 

may  there  be  a  difference 

of  the  earth,  and  thus  maj 

before  Thee   between    the 

there  be  a  distinction  now 

sons  of  man  and  the  off 

before  Thee,  between   the 

spring  of  cattle. 

sons  of  men  and  the  off 

spring  of  cattle. 

1660 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TAKGUM) 


AUTHORISED 

VERSION. 

ONKELOS. 

TARGUM 
JERUSHALMI. 
First  Recension. 

TARGUM 

[JONATHAN-BEN-UZXili) 

JERUSHALMI. 
Second  Recension. 

19  In   the   sweat  of  thy 

19  In  the   sweat  of  thy 

19  ...    In   the   toil  of 

face  shalt  thou  eat  bread, 

face  shalt  thou  eat  bread, 

the  palm  of  thy  hand  shalt 

till  thou  return  unto  the 

until  thou  returnest  unto 

thou  eat  food,  until  thcu 

ground  ;  for  out  of  it  wast 

the  earth  fi-om  which  thou 

returnest    unto    the    dust 

thou  taken  :  for  dust  thou 

art   created  :  for  dust  art 

from     which     thou    wert 

art,  and   unto   dust   shalt 

thou,    and   to    dust    shalt 

created  :  for  dust  art  thou, 

thou  return. 

thou  return. 

and  to  dust  shalt  thou  re 

turn  :    for  from   the   dust 

thou  wilt  once  rise  to  give 

judgment  and  account  for 

all  that  thou   hast    done, 

on  the   day  of  the  great 

Judgment. 

20'  And  Adam  called  his 

20  And  Adam  called  the 

20  And  Adam  called  the 

wife's  name  Eve  ;  because 

name  of  his  wife  Chavah  ; 

name  of  his  wife  Chavah  ; 

she  was  the  mother  of  all 

for  that  she  was  the  mother 

for  she  is  the  mother  of  all 

living. 

of  all  sons  of  man. 

the  sons  of  man. 

21  Unto  Adam  also  and 

21  And  Jehovah  Elohim 

21  And  Jehovah  Elohim 

to  his  wife  did  the  LORD 

made  unto  Adam  and  his 

made  unto  Adam  and  his 

God  make  coats  of  skins, 

wife  garments  of  glory,  on 

wife  garments  of  honour, 

and  clothed  them. 

the  skin  of  their  flesh,  and 

from  the  skin  of  the  ser 

clothed  them. 

pent  which  he  had  cast  out 

of  it,  on  the  skin  of  their 

flesh,     instead     of     their 

beauty  which  they  had  cast 

off  ;  and  he  clothed  them. 

22  And    the    LORD   God 

22  And  Jehovah  Elohim 

22  And  the  Word  of  Je 

22  And  Jehovah  Elohim 

said,   Behold,  the   man  is 

said,  Behold  Adam  is  the 

hovah    Elohim   said,    Lo  ! 

said   to    the    angels    that 

become   as   onn    of  us,    to 

only    one    in    the    world 

man,    whom  I  created,  is 

were    ministering     before 

know  good  and  evil  :  and 

knowing  good   and   evil  : 

alone  in  this  world,  as  I 

him,   Lo  !  there   is  Adam 

now,  lest  he  put  forth  his 

perchance  now  he   might 

am    alone   in   the  highest 

alone  on  the  earth,  as  I 

hand,  and  take  also  of  the 

stretch  forth  his  hand  and 

Heavens  ;   mighty  nations 

am   alone   in   the  highest 

tree  of  life,  and  eat,  and 

take  also  from  the  tree  of 

will  spring  from  him  ;  from 

Heavens,    and    there  will 

live  for  ever  : 

life,  and  eat,  ar.d  live  for 

him  also  will  arise  a  people 

spring  from  him  those  who 

evermore. 

that    will    know   to    dis 

know    to    distinguish    be 

tinguish  between  good  and 

tween    good   and   evil  :  if 

evil  :  now  it  is  better  to 

he  had  kept  the  command 

expel  him  from  the  garden 

ment    I     commanded,    he 

of  Eden,  before  he  stretch 

would  have  been  living  and 

out  his  hand  and  take  also 

lasting,  like  the  tree  of  life, 

from  the  fruits  of  the  tree 

for  evermore.     Now  since 

of  life,  and  cat,  and  live 

he   has   not  kept   what  I 

for  ever. 

commanded,     "We     decree 

against  him  and  expel  him 

from  the  garden  of  Eden. 

before  he  may  stretch  out 

his  hand  and  take  from  the 

fruits  of  the  tree  of  life  ; 

, 

for  if  he  ate  therefrom  he 

would  live  and  remain  for 

ever. 

23  Therefore   the    LORD 

23  And  Jehovah  Elohim 

23  And  Jehovah  Elohim 

God  sent  him  forth  from 

sent  him  from  the  garden 

expelled     him    from     the 

the  garden  of  Eden,  to  till 

of  Eden,  to  till  the  earth 

garden   of  Eden,   and  he 

the   ground    from  whence 

whence  he  was  created. 

went  and  he  settled  on  the 

he  was  taken. 

Mount   of  Moriah,  to  till 

the  earth  of  which  he  was 

created. 

24  So  he  drove   out  the 

24  And    he     drove    out 

24    And     He      expelled 

24  And    He     drove    out 

man  ;  and  he  placed  at  the 

Adam  ;  and  he  placed  be 

Adam,  and  caused  to  reside 

Adam  from  where  He  had 

east  of  the  garden  of  Eden 

fore    the    garden  of  Eden 

the  splendour  of  His  She- 

made  to  reside  the  glory 

Cherubims,  [!]  and  a  flam 

the  Cherubim  and  the  sharp 

chin  ah  from  the  beginning 

of    His    Shechinah    from 

ing    sword   which    turned 

sword,    which     turns     to 

at  the  east  of  the  garden  of 

the  beginning  between  the 

every  way,  to  keep  the  way 

guard  the  way  to  the  tree 

Eden,  above  the  two  Cheru 

two  Cherubim.    Before  He 

of  the  tree  of  life. 

of  life. 

bim.     Two  thousand  years 

created  the  world  He  has 

before     the     world     was 

created  the  Law  :  He  bus 

created,     he    created    the 

prepared    the    garden    of 

Law,  and  prepared  Gehin- 

Eden    for   the   Righteous, 

nom  [Hell]  and  Gan  Eden 

that  they  shall  eat  and  de 

t 

[Paradise]  :    He  prepared 

light  in  the  fruits  of  the 

Gan  Eden  for  the  Right 

tree,    because    they    have 

eous,  that   they    may   eat 

acted  during  their  life  ac 

and  delight  in  the  fruits  of 

cording  to  the  doctrine  o! 

VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


1651 


AUTH. 
VERSION. 


ONKELOS. 


TARGUM  JEHUSIIALMI. 
First  Recension. 


[JONATHAN-BEN-UZZIEJ,] 

JERUSHALMI. 

Second  Recension. 


the  tree,  because  they  kept  the  command 
ments  of  the  Law  in  this  world,  and  pre 
pared  Gehinnom  for  the  wicked,  for  it  is 
like  unto  a  sharp  sword  that  eats  from 
both  sides  ;  He  has  prepared  within  it 
sparks  of  light  and  coals  which  consume 
the  wicked,  to  punish  them  in  the  future 
world  for  their  not  having  kept  the  com 
mandments  of  the  Law.  For  the  tree  of 
life  that  is  the  Law;  whosoever  keeps 
it  in  this  world,  he  will  live  and  last  like 
the  tree  of  life  :  good  is  the  Law  to  whom 
soever  keeps  it  in  this  world,  like  the  fruit 
of  the  tree  of  life  in  the  world  to  come. 


the  Law  in  this  world,  and  have  kept 
its  commandments  :  He  has  prepared  the 
Gehinnom  for  the  wicked,  which  is  likened 
unto  a  sharp  sword  that  eats  from  twc 
sides  :  He  prepared  within  it  sparks  of 
light  and  coals  of  fire  to  judge  with  them 
the  wicked  who  rebelled  in  their  lives 
against  the  doctrine  of  the  Law.  Better 
is  this  Law  to  him  who  acts  according  to 
it  than  the  fruits  of  the  tree  of  life,  for 
the  Word  of  Jehovah  has  prepared  for 
him  who  keeps  it,  that  he  shall  live  and 
walk  in  the  paths  of  tbe  way  of  the  life 
of  the  future  world. 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  OF  DEUTERONOMY,  v.  1-3. 


AUTHORISED 
VERSION. 

ONKELOS. 

TARGUM 
JERUSHALMI. 

First  Recension. 

TARGUM 

[JONATHAN-BEN-UZZIEI,] 

JERUSHALMI. 
Second  Recension. 

1  AND   Moses    went    up 

1  AND   Moses    ascended 

1  AND    Moses    ascended 

1   AND    Moses    ascended 

from  the   plains  of  Moab 

from   the    encampment  of 

from  the  plain  of  Moab  to 

from  the  plains  of  Moab  to 

unto  the  mountain  of  Nebo, 

Moab  to  the  mountain  of 

the  mountain  of  Nebo,  the 

the  mountain  of  Nebo,  the 

to  the  top  of  Pisgah,  that 

Nebo:    the  head    of    the 

summit  of  the  hill  which 

summit     of     the     height 

is    over    against    Jericho. 

height    that     is     opposite 

is  opposite  Jericho.     And 

which  is  over  against  Je 

And  the  LORD  shewed  him 

Jericho.         And    Jehovah 

God  showed  him  the  whole 

richo,  and  the  word  of  Je 

all  the  land  of  Gilead,  unto 

showed  him  all  the    land 

land  :  Gilead  unto  Dan  of 

hovah  showed  him  all  the 

Dan, 

of  Gilead  unto  Dan. 

Caesarea. 

mighty  ones  of  the  land  : 

the  powerful  deeds  which 

Jephtha  from  Gilead  would 

do,   and   the  victories    of 

Samson  the  son  of  Manoah, 

from  the  tribe  of  Dan. 

2  And  all  Naphtali,  and 

2  And  all  Naphtali  and 

2  And  all    the    Jand  of 

2  And       the      thousand 

the  land  of  Ephraim,  and 

the  land  of  Ephraim  and 

Naphtali,  and  the  land  of 

princes  from  the  house  of 

Manasseh,  and  all  the  land 

Manasseh,  and  all  the  land 

Ephraim    and    Manasseh, 

Naphtali  who  joined  issue 

of  Judah,  unto  the  utmost 

of  Judah  to  the  hindmost 

and  the  whole  land  of  Ju 

with  Balak,  and  the  kings 

sea, 

sea. 

dah,  to  the  hindmost  sea. 

whom   Joshua  the  son  of 

• 

Nun    from    the     tribe   of 

Efraim,    would    kill,     and 

the  power   of  Gideon  the 

son  of  Joash  from  the  tribe 

of  Manasseh,  and  all  the 

kings   of  Israel,    and   the 

kingdom  of  the  house  of 

Judah  who  would  rule  in 

the  land  until  the  second 

Sanctuary   would   be    laid 

low. 

8  And  the  south,  and  the 

3  And  the  west  and  the 

3  And  west,  and  the  plain 

3  And  the  king  of  the 

plain  of  the  valley  of  Jeri 

plain  of  the  valley  of  Jeri 

of  the  valley  of  Jericho  the 

south  who  would  join  the 

cho,  the  city  of  palm  trees, 

cho  the  city  of  the  palms, 

city  which    produces   the 

king  of  the  north   to  de 

unto  Zoar. 

unto  Zoar. 

palms,  that  is  Zeer. 

stroy  the    inhabitants    of 
t.hft  land,  and  the  Ammon- 

ites  and  Moabites,  the  inhabitants  of  the  valleys  who  would  oppress  Israel,  and  the  exile  cf  the 
disciples  of  Elija  who  would  be  driven  out  from  the  plain  of  Jericho,  and  the  exile  of  the  disciples  of 
Elisha  who  would  be  driven  out  from  the  city  of  palms  by  their  brethren,  the  house  of  Israel :  vwo 
hundred  thousand  men.  And  the  woes  of  each  generation  and  the  punishment  of  Armalgus 
[Armillus]  the  evil  one  and  the  battle-array  of  Gog.  And  in  this  great  misery  Michael  will  arise  with 
the  sword :  to  save,  &c. 


V.  FARGUMS  OF  "  JOSEPH  THE  BLIND"  ON 
THE  HAGIOGRAPHA. 

•'  When  Jonathan  ben  Uzziel  began  to  paraphrase 
the  Cethubim"  (Hagiographa),  we  read  in  the  Tal- 
mudical  passage  before  quoted,  :-  a  mysterious  voice 
was  heard  saying:  It  is  enough.  Thou  hast  re 
vealed  the  secrets  of  the  Prophets—  why  wouldst 


thou  also  reveal  those  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ? " — 
It  would  thus  appear,  that  a  Targum  to  these 
books  (Job  excepted)  was  entirely  unknown  up 
to  a  very  late  j>eriod.  Those  Targums  on  the 
Hagiographa  which  we  now  possess  have  been  at 
tributed  vaguoly  to  different  authors,  it  being 
assumed  in  the  first  instance  that  they  were  the 
work  of  one  mui.  Now  it  was  Akylus  the  Greek 


1662 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGUM) 


translator,  mentioned  in  Bereshith  Rabba  (see 
above)  ;  now  Onkelos,  the  Chaldee  translator  of  the 
Pentateuch,  his  mythical  double ;  now  Jonathan 
b.  Uzziel,  or  Joseph  (Jose)  the  Blind  (see  above). 
But  the  diversity  in  the  different  parts  of  the  work 
warring  too  palpably  against  the  unity  of  author 
ship,  the  blindness  of  the  last-named  authority 
seemed  to  show  the  easiest  way  out  of  the  difficulty. 
Joseph  was  supposed  to  have  dictated  it  to  different 
disciples  at  different  periods,  and  somehow  every 
one  of  the  amanuenses  infused  part  of  his  own 
individuality  into  his  share  of  the  work.  Popular 
belief  thus  fastened  upon  this  Joseph  the  Blind, 
since  a  name  the  work  must  needs  have,  and 
to  him  in  most  of  the  editions,  the  Targum  is 
affiliated.  Yet,  if  ever  he  did  translate  the  Hagio- 
grapha,  certain  it  is  that  those  which  we  possess 
are  not  by  his  or  his  disciples'  hands — that  is,  of 
the  time  of  the  4th  century.  Writers  of  the  13th 
century  already  refuted  this  notion  of  Joseph's  au 
thorship,  for  the  assumption  of  which  there  never 
was  any  other  ground  than  that  he  was  mentioned 
in  the  Talmud,  like  Onkelos-Akylas  and  Jonathan, 
in  connection  with  Targum ;  and,  as  we  saw,  there 
is  indeed  reason  to  believe  that  he  had  a  share  in 
the  redaction  of  "  Jonathan "  to  the  Prophets, 
which  falls  in  his  time.  Between  him  and  our 
hagiographical  Targums,  however,  many  centuries 
must  have  elapsed.  Yet  we  do  not  even  venture  to 
assign  to  them  more  than  an  approximate  round 
date,  about  1000  A.D.  Besides  the  Targums  to 
the  Pentateuch  and  the  Prophets,  those  now  extant 
range  over  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job,  the  five  Megilloth, 
i.  e.  Song  of  Songs,  Ruth,  Lamentations,  Esther, 
Ecclesiastes  ;  the  Chronicles  and  Daniel.  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  alone  are  left  without  a  Targum  at 
present ;  yet  we  can  hardly  help  believing  that  ere 
long  one  will  also  be  found  to  the  latter,  as  the 
despaired-of  Chronicles  was  found  in  the  17th 
century,  and  Daniel — a  sure  trace  of  it  at  least — so 
recently,  that  as  yet  nobody  has  considered  it  worth 
his  while  to  take  any  notice  of  it.  We  shall  divide 
these  Targums  into  four  groups:  Proverbs,  Job, 
Psalms  ; — Megilloth  ; — Chronicles  ; — and  Daniel. 

1.  TARGUM  ON  PSALMS,  JOB,  PROVERBS. 

Certain    linguistic    and    other    characteristics  s 
exhibited  by  these  three  Targums,  lead  to  the  con- 


|  elusion  that  they  are  nearly  contemporaneous  pro 
ductions,  and  that  their  birthplace  is,  most  likely, 
\  Syria.  While  the  two  former,  however,  are  mere 
paraphrases,  the  Targum  un  Proverbs  comes  nearer 
to  our  idea  of  a  version  than  almost  any  Targum, 
except  perhaps  that  of  Onkelos.  It  adheres  as 
closely  to  the  original  text  as  possible.  The  most 
remarkable  feature  about  it,  however,  and  one 
which  has  given  rise  to  endless  speculations  and 
discussions,  is  its  extraordinary  similarity  to  the 
Syriac  Version.  It  would  indeed  sometimes  seem 
as  if  they  had  copied  each  other  —  an  opinion 
warmly  advocated  by  Dathe,  who  endeavoured  to 
prove  that  the  Chaldee  had  copied  or  adapted  the 
Syrian,  there  being  passages  in  the  Targum  which 
could,  he  assumed,  only  be  accounted  for  by  a 
misunderstanding  of  the  Syriac  translation>  It 
has,  on  the  other  hand,  been  argued  that  there  are 
a  greater  number  of  important  passages  which  dis 
tinctly  show  that  the  Targumist  had  used  an 
original  Hebrew  text,  varying  from  that  of  thr 
Syriac,  and  had  also  made  use  of  the  LXX.  against 
the  latter.1  The  Syriasms  would  easily  be  accounted 
for  by  the  Aramaic  idiom  itself,  the  forms  of  which 
vary  but  little  from,  and  easily  merge  into,  the 
sister  dialect  of  Syria.  Indeed  nearly  all  of  them 
are  found  in  the  Talmud,  a  strictly  Aramaic 
work.  It  has  been  supposed  by  others  that  neither 
of  these  versions,  as  they  are  now  in  our  hands, 
exhibit  their  original  form.  A  late  editor,  as  it 
were,  of  the  (mutilated)  Targum,  might  have 
derived  his  emendations  from  that  version  which 
came  nearest  to  it,  both  in  language  and  in  close 
adherence  to  the  Hebrew  text — viz.,  the  Syriac  ; 
and  there  is  certainly  eveiy  reason  to  conclude  from 
the  woefully  faulty  state  in  which  this  Targum  is 
found  (Luzzatto  counts  several  hundred  corrupt 
readings  in  it),  that  many  and  clumsy  hands  must 
have  been  at  work  upon  the  later  Codd.  The  most 
likely  solution  of  the  difficulty,  however,  seems  to  be 
that  indicated  by  Frankel — viz.,  that  the  LXX.  is 
the  common  source  of  both  versions,  but  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  Aramaic  has  also  made  use  of  the 
Hebrew  and  the  Greek — of  the  latter,  however, 
through  the  Syriac  medium.  As  a  specimen  of  the 
curious  similarity  of  both  versions,  the  following 
two  verses  from  the  beginning  of  the  book  may  find 
a  place  here : — 


CHAP.  I.  2-3. 


TARGUM  (Ver.  2). 


SYR.  (Ver.  2). 


Ver.  3. 


Ver.  3. 


]ICLO>)JO 


K  e.  g.  The  use  of  the  word  '•p^tf  for  angel  in  Targ.  | 
Ps.  and  Job,  the  J,  affixed  to  the  3rd  p.  plur.  praef.  Peal, 
the  infin.  with  praef.  £,  besides  several  more  or  less  unusual 
Greek  and  Syriac  words  common  to  all  three. 


h  e  g.,  ch.  xxix.5,  the  Heb.  word 


city,"  is  rend 


ered 


,  •'  city,"  in  Syr.  Targum  translates  $0*12. 


'  a  lie,"  which  is  only  to  be  accounted  for  by  a  misunder 
standing  or  misreading  of  the  Syriac  J.£5i_.D,  where  for 


the  second  c  iheChaldee  translator  reaJ  a  t, 


i  Prov.  xxvi.  10,  the  Masoretic  text  reads  : 
LXX.  TroAAa  xei/AacJera 

;  Targ.  K 

thus  adopting  exactly  the  reading  of  the  LXX.  against 


the  received  text:  xxix.21, 


.  quoted 


in  the  same  manner  in  Talm.  Succah.  52  b  ;  LXX.  os  »ea- 
Taern-aTaAa  e<  TraiSb?  oi/cenjs  earou.  :  evidently  reading 
n»PP  "ny=Targ.  *1,-U  N-QJ^.  Comp.  also  xxvil 
16,  xxx.  30,  &c. 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TABGUM) 


1663 


Compare  also  vers.  5,  6,  8,  10,  12,  13  ;  ch.  ii. 
vers.  9,  10,  13-15;  iii.  2-9,  &c. 

Ws  must  not  omit  to  observe  that  no  early  Jew 
ish  commentator — Rashi,  Ibn  Ezra,  &c. — mentions 
the  Targum  either  to  Proverbs,  or  to  Job  and 
Psalms.  Nathan  ben  Jechiel  (12th  century)  is  the 
first  who  quotes  it. 

Respecting  the  two  latter  Targums  of  this  group, 
Psalms  and  Job,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  they 
are,  more  or  less,  mere  collections  of  fragments. 
That  there  must  have  existed  paraphrases  to  Job  at 
a  very  early  period  follows  from  the  Talmudical 
passages  which  we  quoted  in  the  introduction — nay, 
we  almost  feel  inclined  to  assume  that  this  book, 
considered  by  the  learned  as  a  mere  allegory  ("  Job 
never  was,  and  never  was  created,"  is  the  dictum 
found  in  the  Talmud,  Baba  Bathra,  15  a:  i.e. 
he  never  had  any  real  existence,  but  is  a  poetical, 
though  sacred,  invention),  opened  the  list  of  written 
paraphrases.  How  much  of  the  primitive  version 
is  embodied  in  the  one  which  we  possess  it  is  of 
course  next  to  impossible  to  determine,  more  espe 
cially  in  the  state  of  infancy  in  which  the  investiga 
tion  of  the  Targums  as  yet  remains.  So  much, 
however,  is  palpable,  that  the  Targums  of  both 
Psalms  and  Job  in  their  present  shape  contain  relics 
of  different  authors  in  different  times :  some  para- 
phrasts,  some  strictly  translators.  Very  frequently 
a  second  version  of  the  same  passage  is  introduced 
by  the  formula  1HK  013*171,  "  another  Targum," 
and  varies  most  widely  from  its  predecessor;  while, 
more  especially  in  the  Psalms,  a  long  series  of 
chapters  translated  literally,  is  followed  by  another 
series  translated  in  the  wildest  and  most  fancifal 
character.  The  Cod.  Erpen.  still  exhibits  these  va 
rious  readings,  as  such,  side  by  side,  on  its  margin ; 
thence,  however,  they  have  in  our  printed  editions 
found  their  way  into  the  text.  How  much  of  these 
variants,  or  of  the  entire  text,  belongs  to  the  Pales 
tinian  Cycles,  which  may  well  have  embraced  the 
whole  Torah : — or  whether  they  are  to  be  considered 
exclusively  the  growth  of  later  times,  and  have  thus 
but  a  very  slender  connexion  with  either  the  original 
Babylonian  or  the  Palestinian  Targum-works,  future 
investigation  must  determine. 

The  most  useful  in  this  group  is  naturally  the 
Targum  on  Proverbs,  it  being  the  one  which  trans 
lates  most  closely,  or  rather  the  only  one  which 
does  translate  at  all.  Besides  the  explanation  it 
gives  of  difficult  passages  in  the  text,  its  peculiar 
affinity  to  the  Syriac  Version  naturally  throws  some 
light  upon  both,  and  allows  of  emendations  in  and 
through  either.  As  to  Job  and  Psalms,  their  chief 
use  lies  in  their  showing  the  gradual  dying  stages 
of  the  idiom  in  which  they  are  written,  and  also  in 
their  being  in  a  manner  guides  to  the  determination 
of  the  date  of  certain  stages  of  Haggadah. 

2,  3.  TARGUMS  ON  THE  FIVE  MEGILLOTH. 

These  Targums  are  likewise  not  mentioned  before 
the  12th  century,  when  the  Aruch  quotes  them 
.severally : — although  Esther  must  have  been  trans 
lated  at  a  very  early  period,  since  the  Talmud 
already  mentions  a  Targum  on  it.  Of  this,  we 
need  hardly  add,  no  trace  is  found  in  our  present 
Targum.  The  freedom  of  a  "  version  "  can  go  no 
further  than  it  does  in  these  Targums  on  the  Me 
g-Moth.  They  are,  in  fact,  mere  Haggadah,  and 
bear  the  most  striking  resemblance  to  the  Midrash 
on  the  respective  books.  Curiously  enough,  the 
gndual  preponderance  of  the  Paraphrase  over  the 
text  is  noticeable  in  the  following  order  :  Ruth, 


Lamentations,  Ecclesiastes,  Esther,  Song  of  Songs. 
The  latter  is  fullest  to  overflowing  of  those  "  ntigae 
atque  frivolitates"  which  have  so  sorely  tried 
the  temper  of  the  wise  and  grave.  Starting  from 
the  almost  comical  notion  that  all  they  founi  in 
the  books  of  Mohammedanism  and  of  Judaism,  of 
Rome  and  of  Greece,  if  it  seemed  to  have  any 
reference  to  "  Religio,"  however  unsupported,  and 
however  plainly  bearing  the  stamp  of  poetry — 
good  or  bad — on  its  face,  must  needs  be  a  religious 
creed,  and  the  creed  forced  upon  every  single  be 
liever  : — they  could  not  but  get  angry  with  mere 
'  day-dreams'  being  interspersed  with  the  sacred 
literature  of  the  Bible.  Delitzsch,  a  scholar  of 
our  generation,  says  of  the  Targums  in  general 
that  "  history  becomes  in  them  most  charming, 
most  instructive  poetry  ;  but  this  poetry  is  not  the 
invention,  the  phantasma  of  the  writer,  but  the  old 
and  popular  venerable  tradition  or  legend  ....  the 
Targums  are  poetical,  both  as  to  their  contents  and 
form  "  (Gesch.  d.  Jud.  Poesie,  p.  27)  :  and  further, 
"  The  wealth  of  legend  in  its  gushing  fullness 
did  not  suffer  any  formal  bounds ;  legend  bursts 
upon  legend,  like  wave  upon  wave,  not  to  be 
dammed  in  even  by  any  poetical  forms.  Thus  the 
Jerusalem  Targum  in  its  double  Recensions  [to  the 
Pentateuch"),  and  the  Targums  on  the  five  Megilloth 
are  the  most  beautiful  national  works  of  art, 
through  which  there  runs  the  golden  thread  of 
Scripture,  and  which  are  held  together  only  by  the 
unity  of  the  idea  "  (p.  135).  Although  we  do  not 
share  Delitzsch's  enthusiasm  to  the  full  extent,  yet 
we  cannot  but  agree  with  him  that  there  are,  to 
gether  with  stones  and  dust,  many  pearls  of  precious 
price  to  be  gathered  from  these  much  despised, 
because  hardly  known,  books. 

The  dialect  of  these  books  occupies  the  mean 
between  the  East  and  West  Aramean,  and  there 
is  a  certain  unity  of  style  and  design  about  all  the 
five  books,  which  fully  justifies  the  supposition 
that  they  are,  one  and  all,  the  work  of  one  author. 
It  may  be  that,  taken  in  an  inverted  series,  they 
mark  the  successive  stages  of  a  poet's  life ;  glow 
ing,  rapturous,  overflowing  in  the  first ;  stately, 
sober,  prosy  in  the  last.  As  to  the  time  of  its 
writing  or  editing,  we  have  again  to  repeat,  that 
it  is  most  uncertain,  but  unquestionably  belongs  to 
a  period  much  later  than  the  Talmud.  The  Book 
of  Esther,  enjoying  both  through  its  story-like  form 
and  the  early  injunction  of  its  being  read  or  heard  by 
every  one  on  the  Feast  of  Purim,  a  great  circulation 
and  popularity,  has  been  targumised  many  times, 
and  besides  the  one  embodied  in  the  five  Megilloth, 
there  are  two  more  extant  (not  three,  as  generally 
stated  :  the  so-called  third  being  only  an  abbrevia 
tion  of  the  first),  which  are  called  respectively  the 
first :  a  short  one  without  digressions,  and  the  second 
— (Targum  sheni)  :  a  larger  one,  belonging  to  the 
Palestinian  Cycle.  The  latter  Targum  is  a  collection 
of  Eastern  romances,  broken  up  and  arranged  to 
the  single  verses :  of  gorgeous  hues  and  extravagant 
imagination,  such  as  ai:e  to  be  met  with  in  the 
Adshaib  or  Chamis,  or  any  Eastern  collection  of 
legends  and  tales. 

VI.  TARGUM  ON  THF.  BOOK  OF  CHRONICLES. 

This  Targum  was  unknown,  as  we  said  before, 
up  to  a  very  recent  period.  In  1680,  it  was  edited 
for  the  first  time  from  an  Erfurt  MS.  by  M.  F.  Beck, 
and  in  17 15  from  a  more  complete  as  well  as  correct 
MS.  at  Cambridge,  by  D.  Wilkins.  The  name  of 
Hungary  occurring  in  if,  and  its  frequent  use  of  the 


VERSIONS,  ANCIENT  (TARGTM) 


Jerusalcm-Targum  to  the  Pentateuch,  amounting 
sometimes  to  simple  copying  (comp.  the  Genealo 
gical  Table  in  chap,  i.,  &c.),  show  sufficiently  that 
its  author  is  neither  "  Jonathan  b.  Uzziel "  nor 
"  Joseph  the  Blind,"  as  has  been  suggested.  But 
the  language,  style,  and  the  Haggadah,  with  which 
it  abounds,  point  to  a  late  period  and  point  out  Pa 
lestine  as  the  place  where  it  was  written.  Its  use 
must  be  limited  to  philological,  historical,  and  geo 
graphical  studies ;  the  science  of  exegesis  will  profit 
little  by  it.  The  first  edition  appeared  under  the 
title  Parapkrasis  Chaldaica  libr.  Chronicorum,  cura 
M.  F.  Beckii,  2  torn.  Aug.  Virid.  1680-83.  4to. ;  the 
second  by  D.  Wilkins,  Paraphrases . . .  auctore  R. 
Josepho,  &c.  Amst.,  1715,  4to.  The  first  edition 
has  the  advantage  of  a  large  number  of  very  learned 
flotes,  the  second  that  of  a  comparatively  more  cor 
rect  and  complete  text. 

VII.  THE  TARGUM  TO  DANIEL. 

It  is  for  the  first  time  that  this  Targum,  for  the 
non-existence  of  which  many  and  weighty  reasons 
were  given  (that  the  date  of  the  Messiah's  arrival 
was  hidden  in  it,  among  others),  is  here  formally  in 
troduced  into  the  regular  rank  and  file  of  Targums, 
although  it  has  been  known  for  now  more  than  five- 
and-twenty  years.  Munk  found  it,  not  indeed  in  the 
Original  Aramaic,  but  in  what  appears  to  him  to 
be  an  extract  of  it  written  in  Persian.  The  MS. 
(Anc.  Fond,  No.  45,  Imp.  Library)  is  inscribed 
"  History  of  Daniel,"  and  has  retained  only  the  first 
words  of  the  Original,  which  it  translates  likewise 
into  Persian.  This  language  is  then  retained 
throughout. 

After  several  legends  known  from  other  Targums, 
follows  a  long  prophecy  of  Daniel,  from  which  the 
book  is  shown  to  have  been  written  after  the  first 
Crusade.  Mohammad  and  his  successors  are  men 
tioned,  also  a  king  who  coming  from  Europe  (t&C 
ftODTl)  will  go  to  Damascus,  and  kill  the  Ish- 
maelitic  (Mohammedan)  kings  and  princes ;  he  will 
break  down  the  minarets  (iTlfcOD),  destroy  the 
mosques  (Xni3DD),  and  no  one  will  after  that 
dare  to  pronounce  the  name  of  the  Profane  (71 DD 
=  Mohammad).  The  Jews  will  also  have  to  suffer 
great  misfortunes  (as  indeed  the  knightly  Crusaders 
won  their  spurs  by  dastardly  murdering  the  help 
less  masses,  men,  women,  and  children,  in  the 
Ghettos  along  the  Rhine  and  elsewhere,  before  they 
started  to  deliver  the  Holy  tomb).  By  a  sudden 
transition  the  Prophet  then  passes  on  to  the  "  Mes 
siah,  son  of  Joseph,"  to  Gog  and  Magog,  and 
to  the  "  true  Messiah,  the  son  of  David."  Munk 
rightly  concludes  that  the  book  must  have  been 
composed  in  the  12th  century,  when  Christian 
kings  reigned  for  a  brief  period  over  Jerusalem 
(Notice  sur  Saadia,  Par.  1838). 

VIII.  There  is  also  a  Chaldee  translation  extant 
of  the  apocryphal  pieces  of  Esther,  which,  entirely 
lying  apart  from  our  task,  we  confine  ourselves  to 
mention  without  further  entering  into  the  subject. 
De  Rossi  has  published  them  with  Notes  and  Dis 
sertations.  Tubingen,  1783,  8vo. 

Further  fragments  of  the  PALESTINIAN  TARGUM. 

Besides  the  complete  books  belonging  to  the  Pales 
tinian  Cycle  of  Targum  which  we  have  mentioned, 
and  the  portions  of  it  intersected  as  "  Another 
Reading,"  '*  Another  Targum,"  into  the  Babylonian 
Versions,  there  are  extant  several  independent  frag 
ments  of  it.  Nor  need  we  as  yet  despair  of  rind 


ing  still  further  j  ortions,  perhaps  one  day  to  s** 
it  restored  entirely.  There  is  all  the  more  hope 
for  this,  as  the  Targum  has  not  been  lost  very  long 
yet.  Abudraham  quotes  the  Targum  Jerushalmi 
to  Samuel  (i.  9,  13).  Kirachi  has  preserved  several 
passages  from  it  to  Judges  (xi.  1,  consisting  of  47 
words);  to  Samuel  (i.  17,  18:  106  words);  and 
Xings'(i.  22,  21  :  68  words ;  ii.  4,  1  :  174  words , 
iv.  6:  55  words;  iv.  7:  72  words;  xiii.  21 :  9 
words),  under  the  simple  name  of  Toseftah,  i.e.  Ad 
dition,  or  Additional  Targum.  Luzzatto  has  also 
lately  found  fragments  of  the  same,  under  the 
names  "  Targum  of  Palestine,"  "  Targum  of  Je 
rushalmi,"  "  Another  Reading,"  &c.,  Li  an  African 
Codex  written  5247  A.M.  =  1487  A.D.,  viz.  to 
1  Sam.  xviii.  19;  2  Sam.  xii.  12  ;  1  Kings  v.  9,  v. 
11,  v.  13,  x.  18,  x.  26,  xiv.  13;  to  Hosea  i.  1  ; 
Obad.  i.  1. — To  Isaiah,  Rashi  (Isaaki,  not  as  people 
still  persist  in  calling  him,  Jarchi),  Abudraham  and 
Farissol  quote  it :  and  a  fragment  of  the  Targum 
to  this  prophet  is  extant  in  Cod.  Urbin.  Vatican 
No.  1,  containing  about  120  werds,  and  beginning: 
"  Prophecy  of  Isaiah,  which  he  prophesied  at  the 
end  of  his  prophecy  in  the  days  of  Manasseh  the 
Son  of  Hezekiah  the  King  of  the  Tribe  of  the  House 
of  Judah  on  the  17th  of  Tamuz  in  the  hour  when 
Manasseh  set  up  an  idol  in  the  Temple,"  &c.  Isaiah 
predicts  in  this  his  own  violent  death.  Parts  of  this 
Targum  are  also  found  in  Hebrew,  in  Pesiktah 
Rabbathi  6  a,  and  Yalkut  Isa.  58  d.  A  Jerusalem 
Targum  to  Jeremiah  is  mentioned  by  Kimchi ;  to 
Ezekiel  by  R.  Simeon,  Nathan  (Aruch),  and  likewise 
by  Kimchi,  who  also  speaks  of  a  further  additional 
Targum  to  Jonathan  for  this  Book.  A  "  Targum- 
Jerushalmi "  to  Micah  is  known  to  Rashi,  and  of 
Zechariah  a  fragment  has  been  published  in  Bruns 
(Repert,  Pt.  15,  P.  174)  from  a  Reuchlinian  MS. 
(Cod.  354,  Kennic.  25),  written  1106.  The  passage, 
found  as  a  marginal  gloss  to  Zech.  xii.  10,  reads  as 
follows : — 

"  Targum  Jerushalmi.  And  I  shall  pour  out  upon 
the  House  of  David  and  the  inhabitants  of  Jeru 
salem  the  spirit  of  prophecy  and  of  prayer  for  truth. 
And  after  this  shall  go  forth  Messiah  the  Son  of 
Efraim  to  wage  war  against  Gog.  And  Gog  will 
kill  him  before  the  city  of  Jerushalaim.  They 
will  look  up  to  me  and  they  will  ask  me  where 
fore  the  heathens  have  killed  Messiah  the  Son  of 
Efraim.  They  will  then  mourn  over  him  as  mourn 
father  and  mother  over  an  only  son,  and  they  will 
wail  over  him  as  one  wails  over  a  firstborn." — A 
Targum  Jerushalmi  to  the  third  chapter  of  Ha- 
bakkuk,  quoted  by  Rashi,  is  mentioned  by  de  Rossi 
(Cod.  265  and  405,  both  13th  century).  It  has  been 
suggested  that  a  Targum  Jerushalmi  on  the  Pro 
phets  only  existed  to  the  Haftarahs,  which  had  at 
one  time  been  translated  perhaps,  like  the  portion 
from  the  Law,  in  public ;  but  we  have  seen  that 
entire  books,  not  to  mention  single  chapters,  pos 
sessed  a  Palestinian  Targum,  which  never  were  in 
tended  or  used  for  the  purpose  of  Haftarah.  And 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  origin  of  this 
Targum  to  the  Prophets  is  precisely  similar  to,  and 
perhaps  contemporaneous  with,  that  which  we  traced 
to  that  portion  which  embraces  the  Pentateuch. 
The  Babylonian  Version,  the  "  Jonathan  "-Targum, 
though  paraphrastic,  did  not  satisfy  the  apparently 
more  imaginative  Palestinian  public.  Thus  from 
heaped-up  additions  and  marginal  glosses,  the  stop 
to  a  total  re-writing  of  the  entire  Codex  in  the 
manner  and  ta'te  of  the  later  times  and  the  dif 
ferent  locality,  was  easy  enough  From  a  critique 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


of  the  work  as  such,  however,  we  must  naturally 
keep  aloof,  as  long  as  we  have  only  the  few  speci 
mens  named  to  judge  from.  But  its  general  spirit 
and  tendency  are  clear  enough.  So  is  also  the  ad 
vantage  to  which  even  the  minimum  that  has  sur 
vived  may  some  day  be  put  by  the  student  of  Mid- 
rashic  literature,  as  we  have  briefly  indicated  above. 

We  cannot  conclude  without  expressing  the  hope 
— probably  a  vain  one — that  linguistic  studies  may 
soon  turn  in  the  direction  of  that  vast  and  most  in 
teresting,  as  well  as  important,  Aramaic  literature, 
of  which  the  Targums  form  but  a  small  item. 

The  writer  finally  begs  to  observe  that  the  trans 
lations  of  all  the  passages  quoted  from  Talmud  and 
Midrash,  as  well  as  the  specimens  from  the  Targum, 
have  been  made  by  him  directly  from  the  respective 
originals. 

N.  Pfeiffer,  Critica  Sacr. ;  Tho.  Smith,  Diatribe ; 
Gerhard,  De  Script.  Sacr.;  Helvicus,  De  Chald. 
Bibl.  Paraphr.  ;  Varen,  De  Targ.  Onkel.  ;  Wolf, 
Bibl.  Hebr.  ;  Carpzov,  Critica  Sacra  ;  Joh. 
Morinus,  Exercitt.  Bibl.  ;  Schickard,  Bechin. 
Happer. ;  Jerar,  Proleg.  Bibliae ;  Rivet,  fsagoge 
ad  S.  S. ;  Allix,  Judic.  Eccles.  Jud. ;  Huet,  De 
Claris  Interpp.  ;  Leusden,  Philol.  Hebr. ;  Prideaux, 
Connect. ;  Rambach,  Inst.  Herm.  Sacr.  ;  Elias 
Levita,  Meturgeman  ;  Tishbi ;  Luzzatto,  Olieb 
Ger  ;  Perkovitz,  Otch  Or  ;  Winer,  Onkelos  ; 
Anger,  De  Onkeloso  ;  Vitringa,  Synagoga  ; 
Azariah  De  Rossi,  Meor  Enajim;  Petermann,  De 
duabus  Pent.  Paraphr.  •  Dathe,  DC  ratione  con 
sensus  vers.  Chald.  et  Syr.  Prov.  Sal. ;  Lovy,  in 
Geiger's  Zeitschr.  •  Levysohn  and  Traub  in  Frankel's 
Monatsschr.  ;  Zunz,  Gottesdienstl.  Vortrdge  ; 
Geiger,  Urschrift ;  Frankel,  Vorstudien  zur  LXX. ; 
Beitragef.  Pal.  Exeg.  Zeitschrift ;  Monatsschrift ; 
Geiger,  Zeitschrift;  Furst,  Orient;  Hall.  Allg. 
Liter.  Zeitg.  1821  and  1832  ;  Introductions  of 
Walton,  Eichhom,  Keil,  Havernick,  Jahn,  Herbst, 
Bertheau,  Davidson,  &c.;  Gesenius.  Jesaia  ;  Home, 
Anich  :  Geschichten  of  Jost,  Herzfeld,  Gi  atz,  &c. ; 
Delitzsch,  Gesch.  d.  Jud.  Poesie;  Sach's  Beitrage; 
Fiirst,  Chald.  Gramm.;  E.  Deutsch  in  Westerm. 
Monatschr.,  1859  ;  Zeitschrift  and  Verhand- 
lungen  der  Deutschen  Morgenland.  Gesellsch., 
&c.  &c.  [E.  D.] 

VERSION,  AUTHORISED.  The  history 
of  the  English  translations.  01  the  Bible  connects 
itself  with  many  points  of  interest  in  that  of  the 
nation  and  the  Church.  The  lives  of  the  indivi 
dual  translators,  the  long  struggle  with  the  indif 
ference  or  opposition  of  men  in  power,  the  religious 
condition  of  the  people  as  calling  for,  or  affected  by, 
the  appearance  of  the  translation,  the  time  and  place 
and  form  of  the  successive  editions  by  which  the  j 
demand,  when  once  created,  was  supplied ; — each  of  j 
these  has  furnished,  and  might  again  furnish,  ma 
terials  for  a  volume.  It  is  obvious  that  the  work 
now  to  be  done  must  lie  within  narrower  limits ; 
and  it  is  proposed,  therefore,  to  exclude  all  that  be 
longs  simply  to  the  personal  history  of  the  men,  or 
the  general  history  of  the  time,  or  that  comes  within 
the  special  province  of  Bibliography.  What  will 
be.  aimed  at  will  be  to  give  an  account  of  the  several 
versions  as  they  appeared  ;  to  ascertain  the  qualifi 
cations  of  the  translators  for  the  work  which  they 


undertook,  and  the  ;)rinciples  on  which  they  acted ; 
to  form  an  estimate  of  the  final  result  of  their 
labours  in  the  received  Version,  and,  as  consequent 
on  this,  of  the  necessity  or  desirableness  of  a  new 
or  revised  translation ;  and,  finally,  to  give  such  a 
survey  of  the  literature  of  the  subject  as  may  help 
the  reader  to  obtain  a  fuller  knowledge  for  hirnseif. 

I.  EARLY  TRANSLATIONS. — It  was  asserted  by- 
Sir  Thomas  More,  in  his  anxiety  to  establish  a 
point  against  Tyndal,  that  he  had  seen  English 
translations  of  the  Bible,  which  had  bmi  made 
before  Wycliffe,  and  that  these  were  approved  by 
the  Bishops,  and  were  allowed  by  them  to  be  read 
by  laymen,  and  even  by  devout  women  (Dialogues, 
ch.  viii-xiv.  col.  82).  There  seem  good  grounds, 
however,  for  doubting  the  accuracy  of  this  state 
ment.  No  such  translations — versions,  i.  e.  of 
the  entire  Scriptures — are  now  extant.  No  traces 
of  them  appear  in  any  contemporary  writer. 
Wycliffe's  great  complaint  is,  that  there  is  no 
translation  (Forshall  and  Madden,  Wycliffe's  Bible, 
Pref.  p.  xxi.  Prol.  p.  59).  The  Constitutions  of 
Archbishop  Arundel  (A.D.  1408)  mention  two  only, 
and  these  are  Wycliffe's  own,  and  the  one  based  on 
his  and  completed  after  his  death.  M ore's  statement 
must  therefore  be  regarded  either  as  a  rhetorical 
exaggeration  of  the  fact  that  parts  of  the  Bible  had 
been  previously  translated,  or  as  rising  out  of  a  mis 
take  as  to  the  date  of  MSS.  of  the  Wycliffe  version. 
The  history  of  the  English  Bible  will  therefore  begin, 
as  it  has  begun  hitherto,  with  the  work  of  the  first 
great  reformer.  One  glance,  however,  we  may  give, 
in  passing,  to  the  earlier  history  of  the  English 
Church,  and  connect  some  of  its  most  honoured 
names  with  the  great  work  of  making  the  truths 
of  Scripture,  or  parts  of  the  Books  themselves,  it 
not  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  accessible  to  the  people. 
We  may  think  of  Caedmon  as  embodying  the  whole 
history  of  the  Bible  in  the  alliterative  metre  of 
Anglo-Saxon  poetry  (Bede,  Hist.  Eccl.  iv.  24)  ;  of 
Aldhelm,  Bishop  of  Sherborne,  in  the  7th  century, 
as  rendering  the,  Psalter  ;  of  Bede,  as  translating  in 
the  last  hours  of  his  life  the  Gospel  of  St.  John 
(Ejnst.  Cuthberti}  ;  of  Alfred,  setting  forth  in  his 
mother-tongue  as  the  great  ground-work  of  his 
legislation,  the  four  chapters  of  Exodus  (xx.-xxiii.) 
that  contained  the  first  code  of  the  laws  of  Israel 
(Pauli's  Life  of  Alfred,  ch.  v.).  The  wishes  of 
the  great  king  extended  further.  He  desired  that 
"all  the  free-born  youth  of  his  kingdom  should 
be  able  to  read  the  English  Scriptures"8  (Ibid.). 
Portions  of  the  Bible,  some  of  the  Psalms,  and 
extracts  from  other  Books,  were  translated  by  him 
for  his  own  use  and  that  of  his  children.  The 
traditions  of  a  later  date,  seeing  in  him  the  repre 
sentative  of  all  that  was  good  in  the  old  Saxon 
time,  made  him  the  translator  of  the  whole  Bible 
(Ibid.  Supp.  to  ch.  v.). 

The  work  of  translating  was,  however,  carried  on 
by  others.  One  Anglo-Saxon  version  of  the  four 
Gospels,  interlinear  with  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate, 
known  as  the  Durham  Book,  is  found  in  the  Cot- 
tonian  MSS.  of  the  British  Museum,  and  is  referral 
to  the  9th  or  10th  century.  Another,  known  as 
the  RushWorth  Gloss,  and  belonging  to  the  same 
period,  is  in  the  Bodleian  Litrary  at  Oxford. 


•  bo  Paull  (Eng.  transl.).  But  would  "  Englisc  gewrlt"  that  MS.  differs  most  from  the  textus  receptus  of  the  N.  T. 
mean  "  the  Scriptures  "  exclusively?  Do  not  the  words  of  |  Another  is  its  publication  by  Foxe  the  Martyrologist  iu 
Alfred  point  to  a  general  as  well  as  a  religious  education  ?  j  1 571 ,  at  the  request  of  Abp.  Parker.  It  was  subsequently 

b  One  interesting  fact  connected  with  this  version  is    edited  by  Dr.  Marshall  in  1665. 
lhat  its  text  agrees  with  that  of  the  Codex  Bez»e  where        Jt  may  be  noticed,  as  bearing  upon  a  question  afterward? 

VOL.  in.  5  ° 


1066 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


Another,  of  a  somewhat  later  date,  is  in  the  same 
collection,  and  in  the  library  of  0.  C.  College,  Cam 
bridge.  The  name  of  Aldhelm,  Bishop  of  Sher- 
borne,  is  connected  with  a  version  of  the  Psalms ; 
that  of  Aelfric,  with  an  Epitome  of  Scripture  His 
tory,  including  a  translation  of  many  parts  of  the 
historical  Books  of  the  Bible  (Lewis,  Hist,  of 
Transl.  ch.  I. ;  Forshall  and  Madden,  Preface ; 
Bagster's  English  Hexapla,  Pref.).  The  influence 
of  Norman  ecclesiastics,  in  the  reigns  that  preceded 
or  followed  the  Conquest,  was  probably  adverse  to 
the  continuance  of  this  work.  They  were  too  far 
removed  from  sympathy  with  the  subjugated  race 
to  care  to  educate  them  in  their  own  tongue.  The 
spoken  dialects  of  the  English  of  that  period  would 
naturally  seem  to  them  too  rude  and  uncouth  to 
be  the  channel  of  Divine  truth.  Pictures,  mys 
teries,  miracle  plays,  rather  than  books,  were  the 
instruments  of  education  for  all  but  the  few  who, 
in  monasteries  under  Norman  or  Italian  superin 
tendence,  devoted  themselves  to  the  study  of 
theology  or  law.  In  the  remoter  parts  of  England, 
however,  where  their  influence  was  less  felt,  or  the 
national  feeling  was  stronger,  there  were  those  who 
carried  on  the  succession,  and  three  versions  of  the 
Gospels,  in  the  University  Library  at  Cambridge, 
in  the  Bodleian,  and  in  the  British  Museum,  be 
longing  to  the  llth  or  12th  century,  remain  as 
attesting  their  labours.  The  metrical  paraphrase 
of  the  Gospel  history,  known  as  the  Ormulum,  in 
alliterative  English  verse,  ascribed  to  the  latter 
half  of  the  12th  century,  is  the  next  conspicuous 
monument,  and  may  be  looked  upon  as  indicating  a 
desire  to  place  the  facts  of  the  Bible  within  reach 
of  others  than  the  clergy. «  The  13th  century,  a 
time  in  England,  as  throughout  Europe,  of  reli 
gious  revival,  witnessed  renewed  attempts.  A 
prose  translation  of  the  Bible  into  Norman-French, 
circ.  A.D.  1260,  indicates  a  demand  for  devotional 
reading  within  the  circle  of  the  Court,  or  of  the 
wealthier  merchants,  or  of  convents  for  women  of 
high  rank.  Further  signs  of  the  same  desire  are 
found  in  three  English  versions  of  the  Psalms — one 
towards  the  close  of  the  13th  century ;  another  by 
Schorham.  circ.  A.D.  1320  ;  another — with  other 
canticles  from  the  O.T.  and  N.T.— by  Richard 
Rolle  of  Hampole,  circ.  1349  ;  the  last  being 
accompanied  by  a  devotional  exposition :  and  in  one 
of  the  Gospels  of  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke,  and  of  all 
St.  Paul's  Epistles  (the  list  includes  the  Apocryphal 
Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans),  in  the  Library  of  C.  C. 
College,  Cambridge.  The  fact  stated  by  Arch 
bishop  Arundel  in  his  funeral  sermon  on  Anne  of 
Bohemia,  wife  of  Richard  II.,  that  she  habitually 
read  the  Gospels  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  with  divers 
expositions,  was  probably  true  of  many  others  of 
high  rank.*  It  is  interesting  to  note  these  facts, 
not  as  detracting  from  the  glory  of  the  great  Re- 


tbe  subject  of  much  discussion,  that  in  this  and  the  other 
Anglo-Saxon  versions  the  attempt  is  made  to  give  verna 
cular  equivalents  even  for  the  words  which,  as  belonging 
to  a  systematic  theology,  or  for  other  reasons,  most  later 
versions  have  left  practically  untranslated.  Thus  baptisma 
Is  "fyllith"  (washing) ;  poenitentia,  "  doed-bote"  (redress 
for  evil  deeds).  Se  scribae  are  "bocere"  (bookmen). 
Synagogues  "  gesamnungum  "  (meetings) ;  amen,  "  soth- 
lice  "  (in  sooth)  ;  and  phylacteries,  "  healsbec  "  (neck- 
books).  See  Lewis,  Hist,  of  Translations,  p.  9. 

«  The  Ormulum,  edited  by  Dr.  White,  was  printed  at 
the  Oxford  University  Press  in  1852. 

d  Chronologically,  of  course,  the  Gospels  thus  referred 
fe  mny  have  been  Wycliffe's  translation ;  but  the  strong 


former  of  the  14th  century,  but  as  showing  that 
for  him  also  there  had  been  a  preparation ;  that 
what  he  supplied  met  a  demand  which  hail  for 
many  years  been  gathering  strength.  It  is  almost 
needless  to  add  that  these  versions  started  from 
nothing  better  than  the  copies  of  the  Vulgate, 
more  or  less  accurate,  which  each  translator  had 
before  him  (Lewis,  ch.  I. ;  Forshall  and  Madden 
Preface}. 

II.  WYCLIFFE  (b.  1324  ;  d.  1384).— (1).  It  is 
singular,  and  not  without  significance,  that  the  first 
translation  from  the  Bible  connected  with  the  name 
of  Wycliffe  should  have  been  that  of  part  of  the 
Apocalypse.*  The  Last  Age  of  the  Church  (A.D. 
1356)  translates  and  expounds  the  vision  in  which 
the  Reformer  read  the  signs  of  his  own  times,  the 
sins  and  the  destruction  of  "  Antichrist  and  his 
meynee"  (  =  multitude).  Shortly  after  this  he 
completed  a  version  of  the  Gospels,  accompanied  by 
a  commentary  "  so  that  pore  Cristen  men  may 
some  dele  know  the  text  of  the  Gospel,  with  the 
comyn  sentence  of  olde  holie  doctores  "  (Preface}. 
Wycliffe,  however,  though  the  chief,  was  not  the 
only  labourer  in  the  cause.  The  circle  of  English 
readers  was  becoming  wider,  and  they  were  not 
content  to  have  the  Book  which  they  honoured 
above  all  others  in  a  tongue  not  their  own.1 
Another  translation  and  commentary  appear  to 
have  been  made  about  the  same  time,  in  ignorance 
of  Wycliffe's  work,  and  for  the  "  manie  lewid 
men  that  gladlie  would  kon  the  Gospelle,  if  it  were 
draghen  into  the  Englisch  tung."  The  fact  that 
many  MSS.  of  this  period  are  extent,  containing 
in  English  a  Monotessaron,  or  Harmony  of  the 
Gospels,  accompanied  by  portions  of  the  Epistles, 
or  portions  of  the  0.  T.,  or  an  epitome  of 
Scripture  history,  or  the  substance  of  St.  Paul's 
Epistles,  or  the  Catholic  Epistles  at  full  length, 
with  indications  more  or  less  distinct,  cf  Wycliffe's 
influence,  shows  how  wide-spread  was  the  feeling, 
that  the  time  had  come  for  an  English  Bible. 
(Forshall  and  Madden,  Pref.  pp.  xhi.-xvii.";  These 
preliminary  labours  were  followed  up  by  a  com 
plete  translation  of  the  N.T.  by  Wycliffe  himself. 
The  O.T.  was  undertaken  by  his  coadjutor,  Nicholas 
de  Hereford,  but  was  interrupted  probably  by  a 
citation  to  appear  before  Archbishop  Arundel  in 
1382,  and  ends  abruptly  (following  so  far  the  order 
of  the  Vulgate)  in  the  middle  of  Baruch.  Many 
of  the  MSS.  of  this  version  now  extant  present  a 
different  recension  of  the  text,  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  work  of  Wyclifle  and  Hereford  was  revised 
by  Richard  Purvey,  circ.  A.D.  1388.  To  him  also 
is  ascribed  the  interesting  Prologue,  in  which  the 
translator  gives  an  account  both  of  his  purpose  and 
his  method.  (Forshall  and  Madden,  Pref.  p.  xxv.) 

(2).  The  former  was,  as  that  of  Wycliffe  had 
been,  to  give  an  English  Bible  to  the  English 


opposition  of  Arundel  to  the  work  of  the  Reformer 
makes  it  probable  that  those  which  the  queen  used  be- 
longed  to  a  different  school,  like  that  of  the  versions  just 
mentioned. 

e  The  authorship  of  this  book  has  however  been  disputed 
(comp.  Todd's  Preface). 

t  "  One  comfort  is  of  knightes ;  they  saveren  much 
the  Gospelle,  and  have  wille  to  read  in  Englische  the 
Gospelle  of  Christes  life  "  (Wycliffe,  Prologue).  Compare 
the  speech  ascribed  to  John  of  Gaunt  (13  Ric.  II.) .  "  We 
will  not  be  the  dregs  of  all,  seeing  other  nations  have 
the  law  of  God,  which  is  the  law  of  our  faith,  written 
in  their  own  language  '  (Foxe,  Pref.  tv  Saxon  Gotpels 
I^ewis,  p.  2S»J. 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


1667 


people.  He  appeals  to  the  authority 
Alfred,  and  of  Grost£te,  to  the  examples  of 
**  Frenshe,  and  Beemers  (Bohemians),  and  Britons." 
He  answers  the  hypocritical  objections  that  men 
were  not  holy  enough  for  such  a  work  ;  that  it  was 
wrong  for  "idiots"  to  do  what  the  great  doctors 
of  the  Church  had  left  undone.  He  hopes  "  to 


of  Bede,  of   Spiryt,  author  of  all  wisedom,  and  cunnyn^e  and 


truthe,  dresse  (  =  train)  him  in  his  work,  and  suffei 
him  not  for  to  err"  (Forshall  and  Madden.  Prol 
p.  60). 

(3).  The  extent  of  the  circulation  gained  by  thie 
version  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that,  in 
spite  of  all  the  chances  of  time,  and  all  the  system- 


make  the  sentence  as  trewe  and  open  in  Englishe  i  atic  efforts  for  its  destruction  made  by  Archbishop 
as  it  -s  in  Latine,  or  more  trewe  and  open."  j  Arundel  and   others,  not  less  than  150  copies  are 

It  need  hardly  be  said,  as  regards  the  method  of  j  known  to  be  extant,  some  of  them  obviously  made 

for  persons  of  wealth  and  rank,  others  apparently 
for  humbler  readers.  It  is  significant  as  bearing, 
either  on  the  date  of  the  two  works,  or  on  the 
position  of  the  writers,  that  while  the  quotations 
from  Scripture  in  Langton's  Vision  of  Piers  Plow 
man  are  uniformly  given  in  Latin,  those  in  the 
Pcrsone's  Tale  of  Chaucer  are  given  in  English, 
which  for  the  most  part  agrees  substantially  with 
WyclifiVs  translation. 

(4).  The  following  characteristics  may  be  noticed 
as  distinguishing  this  version:  (1)  The  general 
homeliness  of  its  style.  The  language  of  the  Court 
or  of  scholars  is  as  far  as  possiulo  avoided,  and  that 
of  the  people  followed.  In  this  respect  the  principle 
has  been  acted  on  by  later  translators.  The  style 
of  Wycliffe  is  to  that  of  Chaucer  as  Tyndal's  is  to 
Surrey's,  or  that  of  the  A.  V.  to  Ben  Jonson's. 
(2)  The  substitution,  in  many  cases,  of  English 
equivalents  for  quasi-technical  words.  Thus  we 


the  translator,  that  the  version  was  based  entirely 
upon  the  Vulgate.*  If,  in  the  previous  century, 
scholars  like  Grostete  and  Roger  Bacon,  seeking 
knowledge  in  other  lands,  and  from  men  of  other 
races,  had  acquired,  as  they  seem  to  have  done, 
some  knowledge  both  of  Greek  and  Hebrew,  the 
succession  had,  at  all  events,  not  been  perpetuated. 
The  war  to  be  waged  at  a  later  period  with  a 
different  issue  between  Scholastic  Philosophy  a-nd 
"  Humanity "  ended,  in  the  first  struggle,  in  the 
j-iumph  of  the  former,  and  there  was  probably  no 
one  at  Oxford  among  Wycliffe's  contemporaries 
who  could  have  helped  him  or  Purvey  in  a  transla 
tion  from  the  original.  It  is  something  to  find  at 
such  a  time  the  complaint  that  "  learned  doctoris 
taken  littel  heede  to  the  lettre,"  the  recognition  that 
the  Vulgate  was  not  all  sufficient,  that  "  the  texte 
of  oure  bokis  "  (he  is  speaking  of  the  Psalter,  and 
the  difficulty  of  understanding  it)  "  discordeth  much 
from  the  Ebreu."h  The  difficulty  which  was  thus 
felt  was  increased  by  the  state  of  the  Vulgate  text. 
The  translator  complains  that  what  the  Church 
had  in  view  was  not  Jerome's  version,  but  a  later 
and  corrupt  text ;  that  "  the  comune  Latyne  Bibles 
han  more  neede  to  be  corrected  as  manie  as  I  have 
seen  in  my  life,  than  hath  the  Englishe  Bible  late 
translated."  To  remedy  this  he  had  recourse  to 
collation.  Many  MSS.  were  compared,  and  out  of 
this  comparison,  the  true  reading  ascertained  as  far 
as  possible.  The  next  step  was  to  consult  the 
Glossa  Ordinaria,  the  commentaries  of  Nicholas 
de  Lyra,  and  others,  as  to  the  meaning  of  any 
difficult  passages.  After  this  (we  recognise  here, 
perhaps,  a  departure  from  the  right  order)  gram 
mars  were  consulted.  Then  came  the  actual  work 
of  translating,  which  he  aimed  at  making  idiomatic 
rather  than  literal.  As  he  went  on,  he  submitted 
his  work  to  the  judgment  of  others,  and  accepted 
their  suggestions.1  It  is  interesting  to  trace  these 
early  strivings  after  the  true  excellence  of  a  transla 
tor  ;  yet  more  interesting  to  take  note  of  the 
spirit,  never  surpassed,  seldom  equalled,  in  later 
translators,  in  which  the  work  was  done.  No 
where  do  we  find  the  conditions  of  the  work, 
intellectual  and  moral,  more  solemnly  asserted. 
"  A  translator  hath  grete  nede  to  studie  well  the 
sentence,  both  before  and  after,"  so  that  no  equi 
vocal  words  may  mislead  his  readers  or  himself, 
and  then  also  "he  hath  nede  to  lyve  a  clene  life, 
and  be  ful  devout  in  preiers,  and  have  not  his  wit 
occupied  about  worldli  things,  that  the  Holie 


find  "  fy  "  or  "  fogh  "  instead  of  "  Raca 
v.  22);  "they    were  washed"    in  Matt. 


(Matt. 
iii.  6; 


"  richesse"  for  "  mammon"  (Luke  xvi.  9,  11,13); 
"bishop"  for  "  high-priest"  (passim}.  (3)  The 
extreme  literalness  with  which,  in  some  instances, 
even  at  the  cost  of  being  unintelligible,  the  Vulgate 
text  is  followed,  as  in  2  Cor.  i.  17-19. 

III.  TYNDAL. — The  work  of  Wycliffe  stands  by 
itself.  Whatever  power  it  exercised  in  preparing 
the  way  for  the  Reformation  of  the  16th  century, 
it  had  no  perceptible  influence  on  later  transla 
tions.  By  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  its  English 
was  already  obsolescent,  and  the  revival  of  classical 
scholarship  led  men  to  feel  dissatisfied  with  a  ver 
sion  which  had  avowedly  been  made  at  second 
hand,  not  from  the  original.  With  Tyndal,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  enter  on  a  continuous  succession 
He  is  the  patriarch,  in  no  remote  ancestry,  of  the 
Authorised  Version.  With  a  consistent,  unswerv 
ing  purpose,  he  devoted  his  whole  life  to  this  one 
work ;  and  through  dangers  and  difficulties,  amid 
enemies  and  treacherous  friends,  in  exile  and  loneli 
ness,  accomplished  it.  More  than  Cranmer  or 
Ridley  he  is  the  true  hero  of  the  English  Reforma 
tion.  While  they  were  slowly  moving  onwards, 
halting  between  two  opinions,  watching  how  the 
Court-winds  blew,  or,  at  the  best,  making  the 
most  of  opportunities,  he  set  himself  to  the  task 
without  which,  he  felt  sure,  Reform  would  be  im 
possible,  which,  once  accomplished,  would  render 
it  inevitable.  "  Ere  many  years,"  he  said,  at  the 
age  of  thirty-six  (A.D.  1520),  he  would  cause  "a 


»  A  crucial  instance  is  that  of  Gen.  iii.  15  :  "  She  shall 
tr«le  thy  head." 

t  This  knowledge  is,  however,  at  second  hand,  "bi 
witnesse  of  Jerom,  of  Lire,  and  other  expositouris." 

*  It  is  worth  while  to  give  his  own  account  of  this 
process  : — "  First  this  simple  creature,"  his  usual  way  of 
speaking  of  himself,  "  hedde  myche  travaile,  with  diverse 
felawis  and  helperis,  to  gedere  manie  elde  bibles,  and 
cthere  doctorii),  and  comune  glosis,  and  to  make  oo  Latyn 
bible  sumdel  trewe,  and  thanne  to  studie  it  of  the  new, 
the  text  with  the  glosr,  and  othere  doctoris,  as  he  mizte, 


and  special!  Lire  on  the  elde  testament,  that  helpid  full 
myche  in  this  werk,  the  thridde  time  to  counsel  with 
elde  grammarians  and  elde  dyvynis  of  harde  wordes  and 
barde  sentences  how  those  mizte  best,  be  understode  and 
translated,  the  iiijth  tyme  to  translate  as  clearlie  as  he 
coude  to  the  sentence,  and  to  have  manie  good  felawis 
and  kunnynge  at  the  correcting  of  the  translacioun  " 
(Preface,  c.  xv.).  The  note  at  the  close  tf  the  preface 
on  the  grammatical  idioms  of  different  languages,  th* 
many  English  equivalents,  e.g.,  for  the  Latin  ablative 
absolute,  shews  considerable  discernment. 

£  O  2 


1668 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


boy  that  driveth  the  plougn "  to  know  more  of 
Scripture  than  the  great  body  of  the  clergy  then 
knew  (Foxe,  in  Anderson's  Annals  of  English  Bible, 
i.  36).  We  are  abie  to  form  a  fairly  accurate 
estimate  of  his  fitness  for  the  work  to  which  he 
thus  gave  himself.  The  change  which  had  come 
over  the  Universities  of  Continental  Europe  since 
the  time  of  WyclifTe  had  affected  those  of  England. 
Greek  had  been  taught  in  Pans  in  1458.  The  first 
Greek  Grammar,  that  of  Constantine  Lascaris,  had 
been  printed  in  1476.  It  was  followed  in  1480 
by  Craston's  Lexicon.  The  more  enterprising 
scholars  of  Oxford  visited  foreign  Universities  for 
the  sake  of  the  new  learning.  Grocyn  (d.  1519), 
Linacre  (d.  1524),  Colet  (d.  1519),  had,  in  this 
way,  from  the  Greeks  whom  the  fall  of  Con 
stantinople  had  scattered  over  Europe,  or  from 
their  Italian  pupils,  learnt  enough  to  enter,  in 
their  turn,  upon  the  work  of  teaching.  When 
Erasmus  visited  Oxford  in  1497,  he  found  in  these 
masters  a  scholarship  which  even  he  could  admire. 
Tyndal,  who  went  to  Oxford  circ.  1500,  must 
have  been  within  the  range  of  their  teaching.  His 
two  great  opponents,  Sir  Thomas  More  and  Bishop 
Tonstal,  are  known  to  have  been  among  their 
pupils.  It  is  significant  enough  that  p.fter  some 
years  of  study,  Tyndal  left  Oxford  and  went  to 
Cambridge.  Such  changes  were,  it  is  true,  com 
mon  enough.  The  fame  of  any  great  teacher 
would  draw  round  him  men  from  other  Univer 
sities,  from  many  lands.  In  this  instance,  the 
reason  of  Tyndal's  choice  is  probably  not  far  to 
s«ek  (Walter,  Biog.  Notice  to  lyndal's  Doctrinal 
Treatises],  Erasmus  was  in  Cambridge  from 
1509  to  1514.  All  tha.t  we  know  of  Tyndal's 
character  and  life,  the  fact  especially  that  he  had 
made  translations  of  portions  of  the  N.T.  as  early 
as  1 502  (Offer,  Life  of  Tyndal,  p.  9),  leads  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  resolved  to  make  the  most  of 
the  presence  of  one  who  was  emphatically  tLx 
scholar  and  philologist  of  Europe.  It  must  be 
remembered,  too,  that  the  great  scheme  of  Cardinal 
Ximenes  was  just  then  beginning  to  interest  the 
minds  of  all  scholars.  The  publication  of  the 
Complutensian  Bible,  it  is  true,  did  not  take 
place  till  1520  ;  but  the  collection  of  MSS.  and 
other  preparations  for  it  began  as  early  as  1504. 
In  the  mean  time  Erasmus  himself,  in  1516, 
brought  out  the  first  published  edition  of  the 
Greek  Testament;  and  it  was  thus  made  acces 
sible  to  all  scholars.  Of  the  use  made  by  Tyndal 
of  these  opportunities  we  have  evidence  in  his 
coming  up  to  London  (1522),  in  the  vain  hope  of 
persuading  Tonstal  (known  as  a  Greek  scholar,  an 
enlightened  Humanist)  to  sanction  his  scheme  of 
rendering  the  N.  T.  into  English,  arid  bringing  a 
translation  of  one  of  the  orations  of  Isocrates  as  a 
proof  of  his  capacity  for  the  work.  The  attempt 
was  not  successful.  "  At  the  last  I  understood  not 
only  that  there  was  no  room  in  my  Lord  of  Lon 
don's  palace  to  translate  the  N.T.,  but  also  that 
there  was  no  place  to  do  it  in  all  England  "  (Pref. 
to  Five  Books  of  Moses). 


k  The  boast  of  Bacon,  that  any  one  using  hjks  method 
could  learn  Hebrew  and  Greek  within  a  week,  bold  as  it 
is,  shews  that  he  knew  something  of  both  (De  Laude  Sac 
Script,  c.  28). 

i  As  Indicating  progress,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  the 
first  Hebrew  professor,  Robert  Wakefield,  was  appointed 
at  Oxford  in  1530,  and  that  Henry  VIlI.'s  secretary,  Pace 
knew  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Cbaldee. 

•"  The  existence  of  a  translation  of  Jonah  by  Tyiidal 


It  is  not  so  easy  to  say  how  far  at  this  time  anj 
knowledge  of  Hebrew  was  attainable  at  the  English 
universities,  or  how  far  Tyndal  had  used  any  means 
of  access  that  were  open  to  him.  It  is  probable 
that  it  may  have  been  known,  in  some  measure, 
to  a  few  bolder  than  their  fellows,  at  a  time  far 
earlier  than  the  introduction  of  Greek.  The  large 
body  of  Jews  settled  in  the  cities  of  England 
must  have  possessed  a  knowledge,  more  or  less  ex 
tensive,  of  their  Hebrew  books.  On  their  banish 
ment,  to  the  number  of  16,000,  by  Edward  I., 
these  books  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  monks,  super- 
stitiously  reverenced  or  feared  by  most,  yet  drawing 
some  to  examination,  and  then  to  study.  Groste'te, 
it  is  said,  knew  Hebrew  as  well  as  Greek.  Roger 
Bacon  knew  enough  k  to  pass  judgment  on  the  Vul 
gate  as  incorrect  and  misleading.  Then,  however, 
came  a  period  in  which  linguistic  studies  were 
thrown  into  the  background,  and  Hebrew  became 
an  unknown  speech  even  to  the  best-read  scholars. 
The  first  signs  of  a  revival  meet  us  towards  the 
close  of  the  15th  century.  The  remarkable  fact 
that  a  Hebrew  Psalter  was  printed  at  Soncino  in 
1477  (forty  years  before  Erasmus's  Greek  Testa 
ment),  the  Pentateuch  in  1482,  the  Prophets  in 
1486,  the  whole  of  the  0.  T.  in  1488,  that  by 
1496  four  editions  had  been  published,  and  by 
1596  not  fewer  than  eleven  (Whitaker,  Hist,  ana 
Crit.  Inquiry,  p.  22),  indicates  a  demand  on  the 
paii  of  the  Christian  students  of  Europe,  not  less 
than  on  that  of  the  more  learned  Jews.  Here  also 
the  progress  of  the  Complutensian  Bible  would 
have  attracted  the  notice  of  scholars.  The  cry 
raised  by  the  "Trojans"  of  Oxford  in  1519  (chiefly 
consisting  of  the  friars,  who  from  the  time  of 
Wycliffe  had  all  but  swamped  the  education  of 
the  place)  against  the  first  Greek  lectures — that  to 
study  that  language  would  make  men  Pagans,  that 
to  study  Hebrew  would  make  them  Jews — shows 
that  the  latter  study  as  well  as  the  former  was  the 
object  of  their  dislike  and  fear »  (Anderson,  i.  24 ; 
Hallam,  Lit.  of  Eur.  i.  403). 

Whether  Tyndal  had.  in  this  way  gained  any 
knowledge  of  Hebrew  before  he  left  England  in 
1524  may  be  uncertain.  The  fact  that  in  1530-31 
he  published  a  translation  of  Genesis,  Deuteronomy, 
and  Jonah,™  may  be  looked  on  as  the  first-fruits 
of  his  labours,  the  work  of  a  man  who  was 
giving  this  proof  of  his  power  to  translate  from 
the  original  (Anderson,  Annals,  i.  209-288).  We 
may  perhaps  trace,  among  other  motives  for  the 
many  wanderings  of  his  exile,  a  desire  to  visit 
the  cities  Worms,  Cologne,  Hamburgh,  Antwerp 
(Anderson,  pp.  48-64),  where  the  Jews  lived 
in  greatest  numbers,  and  some  of  which  were 
famous  for  their  Hebrew  learning.  Of  at  least  a 
fair  acquaintance  with  that  language  we  have,  a 
few  years  later,  abundant  evidence  in  the  table  of 
Hebrew  words  prefixed  to  his  translation  of  the 
five  books  of  Moses,  and  in  casual  etymologies 
scattered  through  his  other  works,  e.  g.  Mammon 
(Parable  of  Wicked  Mammon,  p.  68 n),  Cohen 
(Obedience,  p.  255),  Abel  Mizraim  (p.  347),  Pesah 


previously  questioned  by  some  editors  and  biographers, 
has  been  placed  beyor"1  a  doubt  by  the  discovery  of  a  copy 
relieved  to  be  unique)  in  the  possession  of  the  Ven.  Lard 
Arthur  Hervey.  It  is  described  in  a  letter  by  him  to  the 
Bury  Post  of  Feb.  3,  1862,  transferred  shortly  afterwards 
to  the  Ath&n(Bum. 

•>  The  references  to  Tyndal  are  given  to  the  P«uke7 
Society  edition. 


,  AUTHORISED 


%p.  353';.  A  remark  (Preface  to  Obedience •,  p  148) 
shows  how  well  he  had  ejitered  into  the  general 
•pirit  of  the  language.  "  The  properties  of  the 
Hebrew  tongue  agreetha  thousand  times  more  with 
the  Englishe  than  with  the  Latine.  The  manner  of 

r  iking  is  in  both  one,  so  that  in  a  thousand  places 
u  needest  not  but  to  translate  it  into  Englishe 
word  for  word."     When  Spalatir  describes  him  in 
1534  it  is  as  one  well-skilled  in  seven  languages,  and 
one  of  these  is  Hebrew  °  (Anderson,  i.  397). 

The  N.  T.  was,  however,  the  great  object  of  his 
ct.re.  Fiit,t  the  Gospels  of  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark 
were  published  tentatively,  then  in  1525  the  whole 
of  the  N.  T.  was  printed  in  4to.  at  Cologne  and  in 
small  8vo.  at  Worms.P  The  work  was  the  fruit  of  a 
self-sacrificing  zeal,  aud  the  zeal  was  its  own  reward. 
In  England  it  was  received  with  denunciations.  Ton- 
stal,  Bishop  of  London,  preaching  at  Paul's  Cross, 
asserted  that  there  were  at  least  2000  errors  in  it, 
and  ordered  all  copies  of  it  to  be  bought  up  and 
burnt.  An  Act  of  Parliament  (35  Hen.  VIII.  cap.  1) 
forbade  the  use  of  all  copies  of  Tyndal's  "  false  trans 
lation."  Sir  T.  More  (Dialogues,  1.  c.  Supplication 
of  Souls,  Confutation  of  Tmdal's  Ansvcer)  entered 
the  lists  against  it,  and  accused  the  translator  of 
heresy,  bad  scholarship,  and  dishonesty,  of  "  corrup 
ting  Scripture  after  Luther's  counsel."  The  treat 
ment  which  it  received  from  professed  friends  was 
hardly  less  annoying.  Piratical  editions  were  printed, 
often  carelessly,  by  trading  publishers  at  Antwerp.*! 
A  scholar  of  his  own,  George  Joye,  undertook  (in 
1534)  to  improve  the  version  by  bringing  it  into 
closer  conformity  with  the  Vulgate,  and  made  it  the 
vehicle  of  peculiar  opinions  of  his  own,  substituting 
"  life  after  this  life,"  or  "  verie  life,"  for  "  resur 
rection,"  as  the  translation  of  avAffraais.  (Comp. 
Tyndal's  indignant  protest  in  Pref.  to  edition  of 
1 534.)  Even  the  most  zealous  reformers  in  England 
seemed  disposed  to  throw  his  translation  overboard, 
and  encouraged  Coverdale  (infra)  in  undertaking 
another.  In  the  mean  time  the  work  went  on. 
Editions  were  printed  one  after  another.'  The 
last  appeared  in  1535,  just  before  his  death,  "dili 
gently  compared  with  the  Greek,"  presenting  for 
the  first  time  systematic  chapter-headings,  and 
with  some  peculiarities  in  spelling  specially  in 
tended  for  the  pronunciation  of  the  peasantry 
(Offor,  Life,  p.  82).  His  heroic  life  was  brought 
to  a  close  in  1536.  We  may  cast  one  look  on 
its  sad  end — the  treacherous  betrayal,  the  Judas- 
kiss  of  the  false  friend,  the  imprisonment  at  Vil- 
yorden,  the  last  prayer,  as  the  axe  was  about  to 
fall,  "  Lord,  open  the  King  of  England's  eyes."§ 


0  Hallam's  assertion  that  Tyndal's  version  "  was  avow 
edly  taken  from  Luther's"  originated  probably  in  an 
inaccurale  reminiscence  of  the  title-page  of  Coverdale's 
(Lit.  of  Europe,  i.  526). 

P  The  only  extant  copy  of  the  8vo.  edition  is  in  the 
Library  of  the  Baptist  College  at  Bristol.  It  was  repro 
duced  in  1862  in  fac~simile  by  Mr.  Francis  Fry,  Bristol, 
the  impression  being  limited  to  111  copies.  Mr.  Fry 
proves,  by  a  careful  comparison  of  type,  size,  water-mark, 
and  the  like,  with  those  of  other  books  from  the  same 
press,  that  it  was  printed  by  Peter  Schoeffer  of  Worms. 

<>  In  two  of  these  (1534  and  1535)  the  words,  "  This  cup 
Is  the  New  Testament  in  my  blood,"  in  1  Cor.  xi.  were 
omitted  (Anderson,  i.  415).  By  a  like  process  Mr. 
Anderson  (i.  63)  fixes  Cologne  as  the  place,  and  Peter 
Quentel  as  the  printer  of  the  4to. 

'  The  localities  of  the  editions  are  not  without  interest. 
Hamburgh,  Cologne,  Worms,  in  1525  ;  Antwerp  in  1526, 
'27,  '28;  Marlborow  (=  Marburg)  in  1529;  Strasburg 
(Joye's  edit.)  in  1531 ;  Bergen-op-Zoom  in  1533  (Joye's); 
Johnc.  vi.  at  Nuremberg  in  1533;  Antwerp  in  1534  (Cotton, 


The  work  to  which  a  lite  was  thus  noljly  devoted 
was  as  nobly  done.  To  Tyndal  belongs  tlie  honoul 
of  having  given  the  first  example  of  a  translation 
based  on  true  principles,  and  the  excellence  of  later 
versions  has  been  almost  in  exact  proportion  as  thcj 
followed  his.  Believing  that  every  part  of  Scripture 
had  one  sense  and  one  only,  the  sense  in  the  mind  oi 
the  writer  (Obedience,  p.  304),  he  made  it  his  work, 
using  all  philological  helps  that  were  accessible,  to 
attain  that  sense.  Believing  that  the  duty  of  a 
translator  was  to  place  his  readers  as  neariy  .°.i 
possible  on  a  level  with  those  for  whom  the  book* 
were  originally  written,  he  looked  on  all  the  later 
theological  associations  that  had  gathered  round  the 
words  of  the  N.  T.  as  hindrances  rather  than  helps, 
and  sought,  as  far  as  possible,  to  get  rid  of  them. 
Not  "grace,"  but  "favour,"  even  in  John  i.  17 
(in  edition  of  1525)  ;  not  "  charity,"  but  "  love  ;" 
not  "  confessing,"  but  "  acknowledging  ;"  not 
"penance,"  but  "repentance;"  not  "  priests,"  but 
"seniors"  or  "elders;"  not  "salvation,"  but 
"  health  ;"  not  "church,"  but  "congregation,"  are 
instances  of  the  changes  which  were  then  looked  on 
as  startling  and  heretical  innovations  (Sir  T.  More, 
I.  c.).  Some  of  them  we  are  now  familial-  with.  In 
others  the  later  versions  bear  traces  of  a  reaction 
in  favour  of  the  older  phraseology.  In  this,  as  in 
other  things,  Tyndal  was  in  advance,  not  only  of 
his  own  age,  but  of  the  age  that  followed  him.  To 
him,  however,  it  is  owing  that  the  versions  of  the 
English  Church  have  throughout  been  popular,  and 
not  scholastic.  All  the  exquisite  grace  and  sim 
plicity  which  have  endeared  the  A.  V.  to  men  of  the 
most  opposite  tempers  and  contrasted  opinions — to 
J.  H.  Nowman  (Dublin  Review,  June,  1853)  and 
J.  A.  fcroude — is  due  mainly  to  his  clear-sighted 
trutbfuln^s.*  The  desire  to  make  the  Bible  a  people's 
book  led  him  in  one  edition  to  something  like  a 
provincial,  rather  than  a  national  translation,  but 
on  the  whole  it  kept  him  free  from  the  besetting 
danger  of  the  time,  that  of  writing  for  scholars, 
not  for  the  people;  of  a  version  full  of  "  ink- 
horn  "  phrases,  not  in  the  spoken  language  of  the 
English  nation.  And  throughout  there  is  the  per 
vading  stamp,  so  often  wanting  in  other  like  works, 
of  the  most  thorough  truthfulness.  No  word  has 
been  altered  to  court  a  king's  favour,  or  please 
bishops,  or  make  out  a  case  for  or  against  a  p|r- 
ticular  opinion.  He  is  working  freely,  not  ill  the 
fetters  of  prescribed  rules.  With  the  most  entire 
sincerity  he  could  say,  "  I  •  all  God  to  record, 
against  the  day  we  shall  f.ppear  before  our  Lord 
Jesus  to  give  a  reckoning  of  our  doings,  that  I 


Printed  Editions,  pp.  4-6). 

•  Two  names  connect  themselves  sadly  with  this  vei  • 
sion.  A  copy  of  the  edition  of  1534  was  presented  specially 
to  Anne  Boleyn,  and  is  now  extant  in  the  British  Museum 
Several  passages,  such  as  might  be  marked  for  devotional 
use,  are  underscored  in  red  ink.  Another  reforming  Lady. 
Joan  Bocher,  was  known  to  have  been  active  in  circulating 
Tyndal's  N.  T.  (Neal,  i.  43;  Strype,  Mem.  1.  c.  26). 

»  The  testimony  of  a  Roman  Catholic  scholar  is  worth 
quoting :— "  In  point  of  perspicacity  and  noble  simplicity, 
propriety  of  idiom  and  purity  of  style,  no  English  version 
has  as  yet  surpassed  it"  (Geddes,  Prospectus  for  a  new 
Translation,  p.  89).  The  writer  cannot  forbear  adding 
Mr.  Froude's  judgment  in  his  own  words :— "  The  pe 
culiar  genius,  if  such  a  word  may  be  permitted,  which 
breathes  through  it,  the  mingled  tenderness  and  majesty, 
the  Saxon  simplicity,  the  preternatural  grandeur,  cu- 
cqualled,  unapproached,  in  the  attempted  improvements 
of  modern  scholars,— all  are  here,  and  bear  the  impress 
of  the  mind  of  one  man,  and  that  man  William  Tyndal ' 
(Hist,  of  Eng.  iii.  84). 


1G70 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


never  altered  one  syllable  of  God's  word  against 
my  conscience,  nor  would  this  day,  if  all  that  is  in 
the  world,  whether  it  be  pleasure,  honour,  or  riches, 
might  be  given  me  "  (Anderson,  i.  349). 

IV.  COVERDALE. — (1.)  A  complete  translation  of 
the  Bible,  different  from  Tyndal's,  bearing  the  name 
of  Miles  Coverdale,  printed  probably  at  Zurich, 
appeared  in  1535.  The  undertaking  itself,  and  the 
choice  of  Coverdale  as  the  translator,  were  probably 
due  to  Cromwell.  Tyndal's  controversial  treatises, 
and  the  polemical  character  of  his  prefaces  and  notes, 
had  irritated  the  leading  ecclesiastics  and  embittered 
the  mind  of -the  king  himself  against  him.  All  that 
he  had  written  was  publicly  condemned.  There 
was  no  hope  of  obtaining  the  king's  sanction  for 
anything  that  bore  his  name.  But  fhe  idea  of  an 
English  translation  began  to  find  favour.  The  rup 
ture  with  the  see  of  Rome,  the  marriage  with  Anne 
Boleyn,  made  Henry  willing  to  adopt  what  was 
urged  upon  him  as  the  surest  way  of  breaking  for 
ever  the  spell  of  the  Pope's  authority.  The  bishops 
even  began  to  think  of  the  thing  as  possible.  It 
was  talked  of  in  Convocation.  They  would  take  it 
in  hand  themselves.  The  work  did  not,  however, 
make  much  progress.  The  great  preliminary  ques 
tion  whether  "  venerable "  words,  such  as  hostia, 
penance,  pascha,  holocaust,  and  the  like,  should  be 
retained,  was  still  unsettled  (Anderson,  i.  414). u 
Not  till  "  the  day  after  doomsday  "  (the  words  are 
Cranmer's}  were  the  English  people  likely  to  get 
their  English  Bible  from  the  bishops  (ib.  i.  577). 
Cromwell,  it  is  probable,  thought  it  better  to  lose 
no  further  time,  and  to  strike  while  the  iron  was 
hot.  A  divine  whom  he  had  patronised,  though 
not,  like  Tyndal,  feeling  himself  called  to  that  spe 
cial  work  (Pref.  to  Coverdale' s  Bible),  was  willing 
to  undertake  it.  To  him  accordingly  it  was  en 
trusted.  There  was  no  stigma  attached  to  his  name, 
and,  though  a  sincere  reformer,  neither  at  that  time 
nor  afterwards  did  he  occupy  a  sufficiently  promi 
nent  position  to  become  an  object  of  special  perse 
cution." 

(2.)  The  work  which  was  thus  executed  was  done, 
as  might  be  expected,  in  a  very  different  fashion 
from  Tyndal's.  Of  the  two  men,  one  had  made 
this  the  great  object  of  his  life,  the  other,  in  his 
own  language,  "  sought  it  not,  neither  desired  it," 
but  accepted  it  as  a  task  assigned  him.  One  pre 
pared  himself  for  the  work  by  long  years  of  labour  in 
Greek  and  Hebrew.  The  other  is  content  to  make 
a  translation  at  second  hand  "  out  of  the  Douche 
(Luther's  German  Version)  and  the  Latine."7  The 

n  A  list  of  such  words,  99  in  number,  was  formally  laid 
before  Convocation  by  Gardiner  in  1542,  with  the  pro 
posal  that  they  should  be  left  untranslated,  or  Englished 
with  as  little  change  as  possible  (Lewis,  Hist.  ch.  2). 

*  It  is  uncertain  where  this  version  was  printed,  the 
title-page  being  silent  on  that  point.  Zurich,  Cologne, 
and  Frankfort  have  all  been  conjectured.  Coverdale  is 
known  to  have  been  abroad,  and  may  have  come  in 
contact  with  Luther. 

y  There  seems  something  like  an  advertising  tact  hi 
this  title-page.  A  scholar  would  have  felt  that  there 
was  no  value  in  any  translation  but  one  from  the  original. 
But  the  "Douche  "  would  serve  to  attract  the  Reforming 
party,  who  held  Luther's  name  in  honour;  while  the 
"  Latine  "  would  at  least  conciliate  the  conservative  feel 
ing  of  Gardiner  and  his  associates.  Whitaker,  however, 
maintains  that  Coverdale  knew  more  Hebrew  than  he 
chose,  at  this  time,  to  acknowledge,  and  refers  to  his  trans 
lation  of  one  difficult  passage  ("  Ye  take  youre  pleasure 
under  the  okes  and  under  all  grene  trees,  the  children 
boyinge  sluine  in  the  valleys,"  Is.  Ivii.  5)  as  proving  an 


one  aims  at  a  rendering  which  shall  be  the  truest 
and  most  exact  possible.  The  other  loses  himself  in 
weak  commonplace  as  to  the  advantage  of  using 
many  English  words  for  one  and  the  same  word 
in  the  original,  and  in  practice  oscillates  between 
"  penance  "  and  "  repentance,"  "  love  "  and  "  cha 
rity,"  "  priests "  and  "  elders,"  as  though  one  set 
of  words  were  as  true  and  adequate  as  the  other 
(Preface,  p.  19).  In  spite  of  these  weaknesses, 
however,  there  is  much  to  like  in  the  spirit  and 
temper  of  Coverdaie.  He  is  a  second-rate  man, 
labouring  as  such  contentedly,  not  ambitious  to 
appear  other  than  he  is.  He  thinks  it  a  gr^at  gain 
that  there  should  be  a  diversity  of  translations.  He 
acknowledges,  though  he  dare  not  name  it,  the  ex 
cellence  of  Tyndal's  version,1  and  regrets  the  mis 
fortune  which  left  it  incomplete.  He  states  frankly 
that  he  had  done  his  work  with  the  assistance  of 
that  and  of  five  others.8  If  the  language  of  his 
dedication  to  the  king,  whom  he  compares  to  Moses, 
David,  and  Josiah,  seems  to  be  somewhat  fulsome 
in  its  flattery,  it  is,  at  least,  hardly  more  offensive 
than  that  of  the  Dedication  of  the  A.  V.,  and  there 
was  more  to  palliate  it.b 

(3.)  An  inspection  of  Coverdale's  version  serves 
to  show  the  influence  of  the  authorities  he  fol 
lowed.*  The  proper  names  of  the  0.  T.  appear  for 
the  most  part  in  their  Latin  form,  Elias,  Eliseus, 
Ochozias;  sometimes,  as  in  Esay  and  Jeremy,  in 
that  which  was  familiar  in  spoken  English.  Some 
points  of  correspondence  with  Luther's  version  are 
not  without  interest.  Thus  "  Cush,"  which  in 
Wycliffe,  Tyndal,  and  the  A.  V.  is  uniformly  ren 
dered  "  Ethiopia,"  is  in  Coverdale  "  Morians'  land  " 
(Ps.  Ixviii.  31 ;  Acts  viii.  27,  &c.),  after  the 
"  Mohrenlande "  of  Luther,  and  appears  in  this 
form  accordingly  in  the  P.  B.  version  of  the  Psaims. 
The  proper  name  Rabshakeh  passes,  as  in  Luther, 
into  the  "  chief  butler"  (2  K.  xviii.  17;  Is.  xxxvi. 
11).  In  making  the  sons  of  David  "  priests  "  (2  Sam. 
viii.  1 8),  he  followed  both  h is  authorities.  'Eirifficoiroi 
are  "bishops"  in  Acts  xx.  28  ("  overseers"  in  A.  V.). 
"  Shiloh,"  in  the  prophecy  of  Gen.  xlix.  10,  becomes 
"  the  worthy,"  after  Luther's  "  der  Held."  "  They 
houghed  oxen "  takes  the  place  of  "  they  digged 
down  a  wall,"  in  Gen.  xlix.  6.  The  singular  word 
"  Lamia"  is  taken  from  the  Vulg.,  as  the  English 
rendering  of  Ziim  ("  wild  beasts,"  A.  V.)  in  Is. 
xxxiv.  14.  The  "  tabernacle  ••*  witness,"  where 
the  A.  V.  has  "  congregation,''  shows  the  same 
influence.  In  spite  of  Tyndal,  the  Vulg.  "plena 
gratia,"  in  Luke  i.  28,  leads  to  *'  full  of  grace ;'' 


independent  judgment  against  the  authority  of  Luther 
and  the  Vulgate  (Hist,  and  Grit.  Enquiry,  p.  52). 

>  "  If  thou  [the  reader]  be  fervent  in  prayer,  God  sha)! 
not  only  send  thee  it  [the  Bible]  in  a  better  [version]  by 
the  ministration  of  those  that  began  it  before,  but  shall 
also  move  the  hearts  of  those  that  before  meddled  not 
withal." 

a  The  five  were  probably— (1)  The  Vulgate.  (2)  Luther's 
(3)  The  German  Swiss  version  of  Zurich,  (41  ttoe  Latin  ol 
Pagninus,  (5)  Tyndal's.  Others,  however,  have  conjec 
tured  a  German  translation  of  the  Vulgate  earlier  than 
Luther's,  and  a  Dutch  version  from  Luther  (Whitaker,  Hist 
and  Crit.  Enquiry,  p.  49). 

b  He  leaves  it  to  the  king,  e.  g.,  "  to  correct  his  transla 
tion,  to  amend  it,  to  improve  [=  condemn]  it,  yea,  and 
clean  to  reject  it,  if  your  godly  wisdom  shall  think 
necessary." 

c  Ginsburg  (App.  to  CdheletTi)  has  shewn  that,  with 
regard  to  one  book  at  least  of  the  0.  T.,  Coverdale  fol 
lowed  the  German-Swiss  version  printed  at  Zurich  in 
1531,  with  un  almost  servile  obsequiousness. 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


1671 


while  we  have,  on  the  other  hand,  "  congregation 
throughout  the  N.  T.  for  €KK\i](rta,  and  "  love " 
instead  of  "  charity  "  in  1  Cor.  xiii.  It  was  the  result 
of  the  same  indecision  that  his  language  as  to  the 
Apocrypha  lacks  the  sharpness  of  that  of  the  more 
zealous  reformers.  "  Baruch  "  is  placed  with  the 
canonical  books,  after  "  Lamentations."  Of  the  rest 
Oe  says  that  they  are  "  placed  apart,"  as  "  not  held 
by  ecclesiastical  doctoi's  in  the  same  repute  "  as  the 
other  Scriptures,  but  this  is  only  because  there  are 
"dark  sayings"  which  seem  to  differ  from  the 
"open  Scripture."  He  has  no  wish  that  they 
should  be  "  despised  or  little  set  by."  "  Patience 
and  study  would  show  that  the  two  were  agreed. 

(4.)  What  has  been  stated  practically  disposes  of 
the  claim  which  has  sometimes  been  made  for  this 
version  of  Coverdale's,  as  though  it  had  been  made 
from  the  original  text  (Anderson,  i.  564 ;  Whitaker, 
Hist .  and  Grit.  Inquiry,  p.  58).  It  is  not  improbable, 
however,  that  as  time  went  on  he  added  to  his  know 
ledge.  The  letter  addressed  by  him  to  Cromwell 
{Remains,  p.  492,  Parker  Soc.)  obviously  asserts, 
somewhat  ostentatiously,  an  acquaintance  "  not  only 
with  the  standing  text  of  the  Hebrew,  with  the  inter 
pretation  of  the  Chaldee  and  the  Greek,"  but  also 
with  "the  diversity  of  reading  of  all  texts."  He,  at 
any  rate,  continued  his  work  as  a  pains-taking  editor. 
Fresh  editions  of  his  Bible  were  published,  keeping 
their  ground  in  spite  of  rivals,  in  1537, 1539,  1550, 
1553.  He  was  called  in  at  a  still  later  period  to 
assist  in  the  Geneva  version.  Among  smaller  facts 
connected  with  this  edition  may  be  mentioned  the  ap 
pearance  of  Hebrew  letters — of  the  name  Jehovah — 


in  the  title-page 


,  and  again  in  the  margin  of 


the  alphabetic  poetry  of  Lamentations,  though  not 
of  Ps.  cxix.  The  plural  form  "  Biblia"  is  retained 
in  the  title-page,  possibly  however  in  its  later  use 
as  a  singular  feminine  [comp.  BIBLE].  There  are  no 
notes,  no  chapter-headings,  no  divisions  into  verses. 
The  letters  A,  B,  C,  D,  in  the  margin,  as  in  the  early 
editions  of  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  are  the  only 
helps  for  finding  places.  Marginal  references  point 
to  parallel  passages.  The  0.  T.,  especially  in  Genesis, 
has  the  attraction  of  woodcuts.  Each  book  has  a 
table  of  contents  prefixed  to  it.d 

V.  MATTHEW.  —  (1.)  In  the  year  1537,  a  la-rge 
folio  .Bible  -appeared  as  edited  and  dedicated  to  the 
king,  by  Thomas  Matthew.  No  one  of  that  name 
appears  at  all  prominently  in  the  religious  history 
of  Henry  VIII.,  and  this  suggests  the  inference  that 
the  name  was  pseudonymous,  adopted  to  conceal  the 
real  translator.  The  tradition  which  connects  this 
Matthew  with  John  Rogers,  the  proto-martyr  of 
the  Marian  persecution,  is  all  but  undisputed.  It 
rests  (I)  on  the  language  of  the  indictment  and 
sentence  which  describe  him  (Foxe,  Acts  and  Monu- 
inents,  p.  1029,  1563  ;  Chester,  Life  of  Rogers,  pp. 
418-423)  as  Joannes  Rogers  alias  Matthew,  as  if 
it  were  a  matter  of  notoriety  ;  (2)  the  testimony  of 
Foxe  himself,  as  representing,  if  not  personal  know 
ledge,  the  current  oelief  of  his  time  ;  (3)  the  occur 
rence  at  the  close  of  a  short  exhortation  to  the 
irtudy  of  Scripture  in  the  Preface,  of  the  initials 
J.  R.;«  (4)  internal  evidence.  This  subdivides 
itself,  (a.)  Rogers,  who  had  graduated  at  Pembroke 
Coll.  Cambridge  in  1525,  and  had  sufficient  fame 
to  be  invited  to  the  new  Cardinal's  College  at 
Oxford,  accepted  the  office  of  chaplain  to  the  mer 


chant  adventurers  of  Antwerp,  and  there  became 
acquainted  with  Tyndal,  two  years  betore  the 
latter's  death.  Matthew's  Bible,  as  might  be 
expected,  if  this  hypothesis  were  true,  repro&uces 
Tyndal's  work,  in  the  N.  T.  entirely,  in  the  0.  T. 
as  far  as  2  Chr.,  the  rest  being  taken  with  -c- 
casional  modifications  from  Coverdale.  (&.)  Ihc 
language  of  the  Dedication  is  that  of  one  who 
has  mixed  much,  as  Rogers  mixed,  with  foreign 
reformers.  "This  hope  have  the  godlie  even  in 
strange  countries,  in  your  grace's  godliness." 

(2.)  The  printing  of  the  book  was  begun  appar 
ently  abroad,  and  was  can-fed  on  as  far  as  the  end 
of  Isaiah.  At  that  point  a  new  pagination  begins, 
and  the  names  of  the  London  printers,  Grafton  and 
Whitechurch,  appear.  The  history  of  the  book  was 
probably  something  like  this :  Coverdale's  transla 
tion  had  not  given  satisfaction — least  of  all  were  the 
more  zealous  and  scholar-like  reformers  contented 
with  it.  As  the  only  complete  English  Bible,  it 
was,  however,  as  yet,  in  possession  of  the  field- 
Tyndal  and  Rogers,  therefore,  in  the  year  preceding 
the  imprisonment  of  the  former,  determined  on 
another,  to  include  0.  T.,  N.  T.,  and  Apocrypha, 
but  based  throughout  on  the  original.  Left  to 
himself,  Rogers  carried  on  the  work,  probably  at 
the  expense  of  the  same  Antwerp  merchant  who 
had  assisted  Tyndal  (Poyntz),  and  thus  got  as  far 
as  Isaiah.  The  enterprising  London  printers,  Graf- 
ton  and  Whitechurch,  then  came  in  (Chester,  Life 
of  Rogers,  p.  29).  It  would  be  a  good  speculation 
to  enter  the  market  with  this,  and  so  drive  out 
Coverdale's,  in  which  they  had  no  interest.  They 
accordingly  embarked  a  considerable  capital,  500/., 
and  then  came  a  stroke  of  policy  which  may  be 
described  as  a  miracle  of  audacity.  Rogers's  name, 
known  as  the  friend  of  Tyndal,  is  suppressed,  and 
the  simulacrum  of  Thomas  Matthew  disarms  suspi 
cion.  The  book  is  sent  by  Grafton  to  Cranmer. 
He  reads,  approves,  rejoices.  He  would  rather 
have  the  news  of  its  being  licensed  than  a  thousand 
pounds  (Chester,  pp.  425-427).  Application  is 
then  made  both  by  Grafton  and  Cranmer  to  Crom 
well.  The  Sing's  license  is  granted,  but  the  pub 
lisher  wants  more.  Nothing  less  than  a  monopoly 
for  five  years  will  give  him  a  fair  margin  of  profit. 
Without  this,  he  is  sure  to  be  undersold  by  pirati 
cal,  inaccurate  editions,  badly  printed,  on  inferior 
paper.  Failing  this,  he  trusts  that  the  king  will 
order  one  copy  to  be  bought  by  every  incumbent, 
and  six  by  every  abbey.  If  this  was  too  much,  the 
king  might,  at  least,  impose  that  obligation  on  all 
the  popishly-inclined  clergy.  That  will  bring  in 
something,  besides  the  good  it  may  possibly  do  them 
(Chester,  p.  430).  The  application  was,  to  some 
extent,  successful.  A  copy  was  ordered,  by  royal 
proclamation,  to  be  set  up  in  every  church,  the 
cost  being  divided  between  the  clergy  and  the 
parishioners.  This  was,  therefore,  the  first  Autho 
rised  Version.  It  is  scarcely  conceivable,  however, 
that  Henry  could  have  read  the  book  which  he  thus 
sanctioned,  or  known  that  it  was  substantially 
identical  with  what  had  been  publicly  stigmatised 
in  his  Acts  of  Parliament  (ut  supra).  What  had 
before  given  most  offence  had  been  the  polemic  cha 
racter  of  Tyndal's  annotations,  and  here  were  notes 
bolder,  and  more  thorough  still.  Even  the  significant 
W.  T.  does  not  appear  to  have  attracted  notice. 


0  A  careful  reprint,  though  not  a  fac-simile,  of  Cover- 
dale's  version  has  been  published  by  Bagster  (1838). 
«  These  ornamental    initials    are   furiously  selected. 


H.  R.  for  the  king's  name,  VV.  T.  (at  the  end  of  the  O  T.) 
for  William  Tyndal,  R.  G.  for  Richard  Grafton  tlie 
printer. 


1672 


VEKSION,  AUTHORISED 


(3.)  What  has  been  said  of  Tyndal's  Version 
applies,  of  coui-se,  to  this.  There  are,  however, 
signs  of  a  more  advanced  knowledge  of  Hebrew. 
All  the  technical  words  connected  with  the  Psalms, 
Neginoth,  Shiggaion,  Sheminith,  &c.,  are  elaborately 
explained.  Ps.  ii.  is  printed  as  a  dialogue.  The 
names  of  the  Hebrew  letters  are  prefixed  to  the 
verses  of  Lamentations.  Reference  is  made  to  the 
Chaldee  Paraphrase  (Job  vi.),  to  Rabbi  Abraham 
Oob  xix.),  to  Kimchi  (Ps.  iii.).  A  like  range 
of  knowledge  is  shown  in  the  N.  T.  Strabo  is 
quoted  to  show  that  the  Magi  were  not  kings, 
Macrobius  as  testifying  to  Herod's  ferocity  (Matt, 
ii.),  Erasmus's  Paraphrase  on  Matt,  xiii.,  xv.  The 
popular  identification  of  Mary  Magdalene  with  "  the 
woman  that  was  a  sinner"  is  discussed,  and  re 
jected  (Luke  x.).  More  noticeable  even  than  in 
Tyndal  is  the  boldness  and  fullness  of  the  exegetical 
notes  scattered  throughout  the  book.  Strong  and 
earnest  in  asserting  what  he  looked  on  as  the  cen 
tral  truths  of  the  Gospel,  there  was  in  Rogers  a 
Luther-like  freedom  in  other  things  which  has  not 
appeared  again  in  any  authorised  translation  or 
popular  commentary.  He  guards  his  readers 
against  looking  on  the  narrative  of  Job  i.  as  literally 
true.  He  recognises  a  definite  historical  starting- 
point  for  Ps.  xlv.  ("  The  sons  of  Korah  praise  Solo 
mon  for  the  beauty,  eloquence,  power,  and  noble 
ness,  both  of  himself  and  of  his  wife"),  Ps.  xxii. 

("  David  declareth  Christ's  dejection and  all, 

under  figure  of  himself"),  and  the  Song  of  Solomon 
("  Solomon  made  this  balade  for  himself  and  his 
wife,  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh,  under  the  shadow  of 
himself,  figuring  Christ,"  &c.).  The  chief  duty  of 
the  Sabbath  is  "  to  minister  the  fodder  of  the  Word 
to  simple  souls,"  to  be  "  pitiful  over  the  weariness 
of  such  neighbours  as  laboured  sore  all  the  week 
long."  "  When  such  occasions  come  as  turn  our 
rest  to  occupation  and  labour,  then  ought  we  to 
ramember  that  the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and 
not  man  for  the  Sabbath  "  (Jer.  xvii.).  He  sees  in 
the  Prophets  of  the  N.  T.  simply  "  expounders  of 
Holy  Scripture"  (Acts  xv.).  To  the  man  living 
in  faith,  "  Peter's  fishing  after  the  resurrection,  and 
all  deeds  of  matrimony  are  pure  spiritual;"  to 
those  who  are  not,  "learning,  doctrine,  contempla 
tion  of  high  things,  preaching,  study  of  Scripture, 
founding  of  churches  and  abbeys,  are  works  of  the 
flesh  "  (Pref.  to  Romans  ).'  "  Neither  is  outward 
circumcision  or  outward  baptism  worth  a  pin  of 
themselves,  save  that  they  put  us  in  remembrance 
to  keep  the  covenant"  (1  Cor.  vii.).  "He  that 
desireth  honour,  gaspeth  after  lucre.  .  .  .  castles, 
parks,  lordships  ....  desireth  not  a  work,  much 
less  a  good  work,  and  is  nothing  less  than  a  bishop  " 
(1  Tim.  iii.),  Ez.  xxxiv.  is  said  to  be  "  against 
bishops  and  curates  that  despise  the  flock  of  Christ " 
The  &yye\os  e/c/c\rjrrms  of  Rev.  ii.  and  iii.  appears 
(as  in  Tyndal)  as  "  the  messenger  of  the  congrega 
tion."  Strong  protests  against  Purgatory  are  found 
in  notes  to  Ez.  xviii.  and  1  Cor.  iii.,  and  in  the 
"  Table  of  Principal  Matters  "  it  is  significantly 
stated  under  the  word  Purgatory  that  "  it  is  not  in 
the  Bible,  but  the  purgation  and  remission  of  our 
sins  is  made  us  by  the  abundant  mercy  of  God." 
The  Preface  to  the  Apocrypha  explains  the  name, 
and  distinctly  asserts  the  inferiority  of  the  books. 
No  notes  aie  added,  and  the  translation  is  taken 


f  The  long  preface  to  the  Romans  (seven  folio  pages) 
was  substantially  identical  with  that  in  Tyndal's  edition 
of  1534. 


from  Coverdale,  as  if  it  had  not  been  worth  while  tc 
give  much  labour  to  it. 

(4.)  A  few  points  of  detail  remain  to  bo  noticed. 
In  the  order  of  the  books  of  the  N.  T.  Rogers  fol 
lows  Tyndal,  agreeing  with  the  A.  V.  as  far  as  the 
Epistle  to  Philemon.  This  is  followed  by  the 
Epistles  of  St.  John,  then  that  to  the  Hebrews,  then 
those  of  St.  Peter,  St.  James,  and  St.  Jude. 
Woodcuts,  not  very  freely  introduced  elsewhere, 
are  prefixed  to  every  chapter  in  the  Revelation. 
The  introduction  of  the  "Table"  mentioned  above 
gives  Rogers  a  claim  to  be  the  Patriarch  of  Con 
cordances,  the  "father"  of  all  such  as  write  in 
Dictionaries  of  the  Bible.  Reverence  fo'-  the  He 
brew  text  is  shown  by  his  striking  out  the  three 
verses  which  the  Vulgate  has  {^.aed  to  Ps.  xiv.  In 
a  later  edition,  published  at  laris,  not  by  Rogers 
himself,  but  by  Grafton,  under  Coverdale's  superin 
tendence,  in  1539,  the  obnoxious  Prologue  and 
Prefaces  were  suppressed,  and  the  notes  systemati 
cally  expurgated  and  toned  down.  The  book  was 
in  advance  of  the  age.  Neither  booksellers  nor 
bishops  were  prepared  to  be  responsible  for  it. 

VI.  TAVERNER  (1539).     (1.)  The  boldness  of 
the  pseudo-Matthew  had,  as  has  been  said,  fright 
ened  the   ecclesiastical  world   from   its   propriety. 
Coverdale's  Version  was,  however,  too  inaccurate  to 
keep  its  ground.     It  was  necessary  to  find  another 
editor,  and  the  printers  applied  to  Richard  Taverner. 
But   little  is  known  of  his  life.     The   fact  that, 
though  a  layman,  he  had  been  chosen  as  one  of  the 
canons  of  the  Cardinal's  College  at  Oxford  indicates 
a  reputation  for  scholarship,  and  this  is  confirmed 
by  the  character  of  his  translation.     It  professes,  in 
the  title-page,  to  be  "  newly  recognised,  with  great 
diligence,  after  the  most  faithful  exemplars."     The 
editor  acknowledges  "  the  labours  of  others  (i.  e, 
Tyndal,  Coverdale,  and  Matthew,  though  he  does  not 
name  them)  who  have  neither  undiligently  nor  un- 
learnedly  travelled,"  owns  that  the  work  is  not  one 
which  can  be  done  "absolutely"  (».  e.  completely) 
by  one  or  two  persons,  but  requires  "  a  deeper  con 
ferring  of  many  learned  wittes  together,  and  also 
a  juster  time,  and  longer  leisure ;"  but  the  thing 
had  to  be  done ;  he  had  been  asked  to  do  it.   He  had 
"  used  his  talent"  as  he  could. 

(2.)  In  most  respects  this  may  be  described  as 
an  expurgated  edition  of  Matthew's.  There  is  a 
Table  of  Principal  Matters,  and  there  are  notes; 
but  the  notes  are  briefer,  and  less  polemical.  The 
passages  quoted  above  are,  e.  g.  omitted  wholly  or 
in  part.  The  Epistles  follow  the  same  order  as 
before. 

VII.  CRANMER.      (1.)  In   the   same   year  as 
Taverner 's,  and  coming  from  the  same  press,  ap 
peared  an  English  Bible,  in  a  more  stately  folio 
printed  with  a  more  costly  type,  bearing  a  highei 
name  than  any  previous  edition.     The  title-page  is 
an  elaborate  engraving,  the  spirit  and  power  of  which 
indicate  the  hand  of  Holbein.    The  king,  seated  on 
his  throne,  is  giving  the  Verbum  Dei  to  the  bishops 
and  doctors,  and  they  distribute  it  to  the  people, 
while  doctors  and  people  are  all  joining  in  cries  of 
"  Vivat  Rex"     It  declares  the  book  to  be  "  truly 
translated  after  the  verity  of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek 
texts  "  by  "  divers  excellent  learned  men,  expert  in 
the  foresaid  tongues."     A  preface,  in  April,  1540, 
with  the  initials  T.  C.,  implies  the  archbishop's 
sancticsi.     In  a  later  edition  (Nov.  1540),  his  narns 
appears  on  the  titlepage,  and  the  names  of  his  coad 
jutors  are  given,  Cuthbert  (Tonstal)  Bishop  of  Dur 
ham,  and  .Nicholas  (Heath)  Bishop  of  Rochester 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


1673 


but  tliis  does  not  exclude  the  possibility  of  others 
oaving  been  employed  for  the  first  edition. 

(2.)  Cranmer's  Version  presents,  as  might  be  ex 
pected,  many  points  of  interest.  The  prologue  gives 
a  more  complete  ideal  of  what  a  translation  ought 
to  be  than  we  have  as  yet  seen.  Words  not  in  the 
original  are  to  be  printed  in  a  different  type.  They 
are  added,  even  when  "  not  wanted  by  the  sense," 
to  satisfy  those  who  have  "  missed  them  "  in  previ 
ous  translations,  »'.  e.  they  represent  the  various 
readings  of  the  Vulgate  where  it  differs  from  the 
Hebrew.  The  sign  *  indicates  diversity  in  the 
Chaldee  and  Hebrew.  It  had  been  intended  to  give 
all  these,  but  it  was  found  that  this  would  have 
taken  too  much  time  and  space,  and  the  editors 
purposed  therefore  to  print  them  in  a  little  volume  by 
themselves.  The  frequent  hands  (<®*)  in  the  margin, 
in  like  manner,  show  an  intention  to  give  notes  at  the 
end  ;  but  Matthew's  Bible  had  made  men  cautious, 
and,  as  there  had  not  been  time  for  "  the  King's 
Council  to  settle  them,"  they  were  omitted,  and  no 
help  given  to  the  reader  beyond  the  marginal  refer 
ences.  In  absence  of  notes,  the  lay-reader  is  to  sub 
mit  himself  to  the  "  godly-learned  in  Christ  Jesus." 
There  is,  as  the  title-page  might  lead  us  to  expect, 
a  greater  display  of  Hebrew  than  in  any  previous 
version.  The  Books  of  the  Pentateuch  have  their 
Hebrew  names  given,  Bereschith  (Genesis),  Velle 
Schemoth  (Exodus),  and  so  on.  1  and  2  Chr.  in  like 
manner  appear,  as  Dibre  Haiamim.  In  the  edition 
of  1541,  many  proper  names  in  the  0.  T.  appear  in 
the  fuller  Hebrew  form,  as  e.  g.  Amaziahu,  Jere- 
miahu.  In  spite  of  this  parade  of  learning,  how 
ever,  the  edition  of  1539  contains,  perhaps,  the 
most  startling  blunder  that  ever  appeared  under 
the  sanction  of  an  archbishop's  name.  The  editors 
adopted  the  Preface  whioh,  in  Matthew's  Bible,  had 
been  prefixed  to  the  Apocrypha.  In  that  preface 
the  common  traditional  explanation  of  the  name 
was  concisely  given.  They  appear,  however,  to 
have  shrunk  from  offending  the  conservative  party 
in  the  Church  by  applying  to  the  books  in  question 
so  damnatory  an  epithet  as  Apocrypha.  They 
.  ooked  out  for  a  word  more  neutral  and  respectful, 
and  found  one  that  appeared  in  some  MSS.  of  Je 
rome  so  applied,  though  in  strictness  it  belonged  to 
an  entirely  different  set  of  books.  They  accordingly 
substituted  that  word,  leaving  the  preface  in  all 
other  respects  as  it  was  before,  and  the  result  is  the 
somewhat  ludicrous  statement  that  the  "  books  were 
called  Hagiographa."  because  "  they  were  read  in 
secret  and  apart "  ! 

(3.)  A  later  edition  in  1541  presents  a  few  modi 
fications  worth  noticing.  It  appears  as  "  authorised" 
to  be  "  used  and  frequented "  in  every  church  in 
the  kingdom."  The  introduction,  with  all  its 
elaborate  promise  of  a  future  perfection  disappears, 
and,  in  its  place,  there  is  a  long  preface  by  Cranmer, 
avoiding  as  much  as  possible  all  references  to  other 
translations,  taking  a  safe  Via  Media  tone,  blaming 
those  who  "  refuse  to  read,"  on  the  one  hand,  and 
"  inordinate  reading,"  on  the  other.  This  neutral 
character,  so  characteristic  of  Cranmer's  policy,  was 
doubtless  that  which  enabled  it  to  keep  its  ground 
during  the  changing  moods  of  Henry's  later  years. 
It  was  reprinted  again  and  again,  and  was  the 
Authorised  Version  of  the  English  Church  till  1568 
• — the  interval  of  Mary's  reign  excepted.  From  it, 
accordingly,  were  taken  most,  if  not  all,  the  portions 
at' Scripture  in  the  Prayer  Books  of  1549  and  1552. 


K  Such,  e.g.,  as  "  worthy  fruits  of  penance." 


The  Psalms,  as  a  whole,  the  quotations  from  Scrip 
ture  in  the  Homilies,  the  sentences  in  the  Com- 
munion  Services,  and  some  phrases  elsewhere,^  stih 
preserve  the  remembrance  of  it.  The  oscillating 
character  of  the  book  is  shown  in  the  use  of  "  love  " 
instead  of  "  charity  "  in  1  Cor.  xiii. ;  and  "  congre 
gation  "  instead  of  "  church  "  generally,  after  Tyn- 
dal ;  while  in  1  Tim.  iv.  14,  we  have  the  singuiai 
rendering,  as  if  to  gain  the  favour  of  his  opponents, 
"  with  authority  of  priesthood."  The  plan  of  indi 
cating  doubtful  texts  by  a  smaller  type  was  ad 
hered  to,  and  was  applied,  among  other  passages,  to 
Ps.  xiv.  5,  6,  7,  and  the  more  memorable  text  of 
1  John  v.  7.  The  translation  of  1  Tim.  iii.  16, 
"  All  Scripture  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  is  pro 
fitable,"  &c.,  anticipated  a  construction  of  that  text 
which  has  sometimes  been  boasted  of,  and  sometimes 
attacked,  as  an  innovation.  In  this,  however,  Tyndal 
had  led  the  way. 

VIII.  GENEVA.— (1.)  The  experimental  transla 
tion  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  by  Sir  John  Cheke 
into  a  purer  English  than  before  (Strype,  Life  of 
Cheke,  vii.  3),  had  so  little  influence  on  the  versions 
that  followed  that  it  hardly  calls  for  more  than  a 
passing  notice,  as  showing  that  scholars  were  as 
yet  unsatisfied.  The  reaction  under  Mary  gave  a 
check  to  the  whole  work,  as  far  as  England  was  con 
cerned  ;  but  the  exiles  who  fled  to  Geneva  entered  oa 
it  with  more  vigour  than  ever.  Cranmer's  Version 
did  not  come  up  to  their  ideal.  Its  size  made  it  too 
costly.  There  were  no  explanatory  or  dogmatic  notes. 
It  followed  Coverdale  too  closely ;  and  where  it 
deviated,  did  so,  in  some  instances,  in  a  retrograde 
direction.  The  Genevan  refugees — among  them 
Whittingham,  Goodman,  Pullain,  Sampson,  and 
Coverdale  himself — laboured  "  for  two  years  or 
more,  day  and  night."  They  entered  on  their 
"great  and  wonderful  work"  with  much  "fear 
and  trembling."  Their  translation  of  the  N.  T.  was 
"  diligently  revised  by  the  most  approved  Greek 
examples"  (MSS.  or  editions?)  (Preface}.  The 
N.  T.,  translated  by  Whittingham,  was  printed  by 
Conrad  Badiusjn  1557,  the  whole  Bible  in  1560. 

(2.)  Whatever  may  have  been  its  faults,  the 
Geneva  Bible  was  unquestionably,  for  sixty  years, 
the  most  popular  of  all  versions.  Largely  imported 
in  the  early  years  of  Elizabeth,  it  was  printed  :n 
England  in  1561,  and  a  patent  of  monopoly  given 
to  James  Bodleigh.  This  was  transferred,  in  1576, 
to  Barker,  in  whose  family  the  right  of  printing 
Bibles  remained  for  upwards  of  a  century.  Not  less 
than  eighty  editions,  some  of  the  whole  Bible,  were 
printed  between  1558  and  1611.  It  kept  its  ground 
for  some  time  even  against  the  A.  V.,  and  gave  way, 
as  it  were,  slowly  and  under  protest.  The  causes  of 
this  general  acceptance  are  not  difficult  to  ascertain. 
The  volume  was,  in  all  its  editions,  cheaper  and 
more  portable — a  small  quarto,  instead  of  the  large 
folio  of  Cranmer's  "  Great  Bible."  It  was  the  first 
Bible  which  laid  aside  the  obsolescent  black  letter, 
and  appeared  in  Roman  type.  It  was  the  first 
which,  following  the  Hebrew  example,  recognised 
the  division  into  verses,  so  dear  to  the  preachers  or 
hearers  of  sermons.  It  was  accompanied,  in  most 
of  the  editions  after  1578,  by  a  Bible  Dictionary  of 
considerable  merit.  The  notes  were  often  really 
helpful  in  dealing  with  the  difficulties  of  Scripture, 
and  were  looked  on  as  spiritual  and  evangelical. 
It  was  accordingly  the  version  specially  adopted  by 
the  great  Puritan  party  through  the  whole  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  and  far  into  that  of  James.  As  might, 
be  expected,  it  was  based  :>n  Tyndal's  Version,  ofter 


1674 


VKKSION,  AUTHORISED 


returning  to  it  whore  tlio  intermediate  renderings 
had  had  tlic  character  of  a  compromise. 

C.I.)  Some  peculiarities  arc  worthy  of  special 
notice: — (\}  It,  professes  a  desire  to  restore  the 
"true  writing"  of  many  Uehrew  names,  and  we 
meet  accordingly  with  forms  like  I/.hak  ( Isaac  V 
Jaacoh,  and  the  "like.  ('2}  It  omits  the  name  of  St. 
Paul  from  the  title  of  the  Kpistle  to  the  Hebrews; 
and,  in  a  short  Preface,  leaves  the  autliorship  an 
open  question.  ('•'•}  It  avows  the  principle  of 
putting  all  words  not  in  the  original  in  Italics. 
(•\^  It  presents,  in  a  Calendar  prefixed  to  the  l'>il>le, 
something  like  a  declaration  of  war  against  the  esta 
blished  order  ot'  the  Church's  lessons,  commemo 
rating  Scripture  tacts,  and  the  deaths  of  the  great, 
Reformers,  luit  ignoring  saints'  days  altogether. 
(4)  It  was  the  first  Knglish  I'.ihle  which  entirely 
omit  toil  the  Apocrypha,  (('••}  The  notes  were  cha 
racteristically  Swiss,  not  only  in  their  theology,  but 
m  their  jxtlitics.  They  made  allegiance  to  kings 
dependent  UJXHI  the  soundness  of  their  faith,  and  in 
one  instance  (jiote  on  'J  Chr.  xv.  1O  at  least 
seemed,  to  the  easily  startled  .lames  1..  to  favour 
tyrannicide.* 

(4.)  The  circumstances  of  the  early  introduction 
<>f  the  (Jcneva  Version  nre  worth  mentioning,  it 
only  as  showing  in  how  diiVerent  a  -spirit  (lie  groat 
tat  hers  of  the  Knglish  Reformation,  the  most  con 
servative  of  Anglican  theologians,  acted  t'rom  that 
which  has  too  often  animated  their  siuvessors.  Men 
talk  now  of  dilferent  tnmslations  and  various  read 
ings  as  likely  to  undermine  the  faith  of  the  people. 
\Ylieu  application  was  made  to  Archbishop  Parker, 
in  1  .''tl.r>,  to  support.  Bodleigh's  application  for  a 
licence  to  reprint  the  (Geneva  Version  in  PJmo.,  he 
Wrote  to  Cecil  in  its  favour,  lie  was  at  the  time 
looking  forward  to  the  work  he  afterwards  accom 
plished,  of  "  one  other  special  Bible  for  the 
Churches,  to  be  set  forth  as  convenient  time  an  1 
leisure  should  permit  ;"  but  in  the  mean  time  it 
would  "  nothing  hinder,  but  rather  doo  much  good, 
to  have  diversity  of  translations  and  readings" 
(Strype,  IA/«  of  Parker^  iii.  6).*  In  many  of  tae 
latent-prints  of  this  edition  the  N.  T.  purports  to 
be  based  upon  Bezti's  I^atin  Version;  and  the  notes 
are  said  to  be  taken  from  .lone.  Camer,  P.  l.eseler, 
Villerius.  and  Kr.  .Innius. 

l\.  Tiir  BISHOPS'  p.iisi.K.— ;1.)  The  facts  just 
Mated  will  account  for  tho  wish  of  Archbishop 
Parker,  in  spite  of  his  liberal  tolerance,  to  bring 
out  another  version  which  might  establish  its 
claims  against  that  of  C.encva.  (Jreat  preparations 
were  made.  The  correspondence  of  Parker  with 
his  Suffragans  presents  some  points  of  interest .  as 
.-howing  how  little  agreement  there  was  as  to  the 
true  theory  of  a  translation.  Thus  while  Sandys, 
Bishop  of  \Yoivester.  tiuds  fault  with  the  "  common 
translation"  ^(Jeiicva  ?\  as  "  following  Minister  too 
much,"  and  so  "  swerving  much  t'rom  the  Hebrew." 
Cuest,  Bishop  of  St.  Ibvid's.  who  took  the  Psalms, 
acted  on  the  principle  ot'  translating  them  so  as  to 
agivo  with  the  N.  T.  quotations.  "  for  the  avoiding 
ot  ollence;"  and  Cox.  Uishop  of  Kly,  wliile  laying 


down  the  sensible  rule  that  "  inkhorn  terms  were  ta 

be  avoided,"  also  went  on  to  add  "  that  the  usual 
terms  were  to  l>e  retained  so  far  forth  as  the  Hebrew 
will  well  bear"  iStrype,  /'nr/rr,  iii.  t>).  The  prin- 
ciple  of  pions  frauds,  of  distorting  the  truth  for  tJie 

sake  of  edification,  has  perhaps  often  I n  acted  on 

by  other  translators.  It  has  not  often  been  so  ex 
plicitly  avowed  as  in  the  first  of  these  surest  ions. 
The  bishojis  thus  consulted,  eight  in  number, 
together  with  some  deans  and  professors,  brought 
out  the  tVuit  of  their  labours  in  a  magnificent  folio 
( 1  :>t'>S  and  1  ,r>7-).  Kverything  had  U-en  done  to  make 
it  attractive.  A  long  erudite  preface  vindicate, 
the  right  of  the  people  to  read  the  Scriptures, 
find  (quoting  the  authority  of  Bishop  Kisher)  ad- 
mitte«l  the  position  which  later  divines  have  often 
been  slow  to  admit,  that  "  there  be  yet  in  the 
(iospel  many  dark  places  which,  without  all  doubt, 
to  the  posterity  shall  be  made  much  more  open." 
Wood-engravings  of  a  much  higher  character  than 
those  of  the  (Jeneva  P>ihle  were  scattered  profusely, 
especially  in  (lenesis.  Three  portraits  of  the  Queen, 
the  Karl  of  Leicester,  and  Loixi  Bnrleigh,  beautiful 
specimens  of  copperplate  engraving,  appeared  on  the 
titlcpages  of  the  several  parts. k  A  map  ot' Palestine 
was  given,  with  degrees  of  latitude  and  longitude, 
in  the  edition  of  lf>7'2.  A  most  elaborate  series  of 
genealogical  tables,  prepared  by  Hugh  Broughton, 
the  great  Kahhi  of  the  age  (of  whom  more  hereafter"), 
but  ostensibly  by  Speed  the  antiquary  (Broughtonl 
name  being  in  disfavour  with  the  bishops^,  was  pre 
fixed  ^Strype,  l\trln>r,  iv.  'JO;  Lightt'oot,  Life  of 
/>n>u<jhtoH}.  In  some  points  it  t'ollowed  previoiu 
translations,  and  was  avowedly  based  on  Cranmcr's 
"A  new  edition  was  necessary."  "This  had  led 
some  well-disposed  men  to  recogni/.e  it  again,  not  as 
condemning  the  former  translation,  which  has  IHYH 
followed  mostly  of  any  other  translation,  excepting 
the  original  text"  (JVef.  of  1572).  Cranmer's 
Prologue  was  reprinted.  The  (Jeneva  division  into 
verses  was  adopted  throughout. 

(JO  Some  peculiarities,  however,  appear  for  the 
first  and  last  time.  (1)  The  Books  of  the  Bible 
are  classified  as  legal,  historical,  sapiential,  and  prt>- 
photic.  This  was  easy  enough  for  the  0.  T.,  but 
the  application  of  the  same  idea  to  the  N.T.  pro 
duced  some  rather  curious  combinations.  The  (Jos- 
pels,  the  Catholic  Kpistles,  and  those  to  Titus.  Phi 
lemon,  and  the  Hebrews,  are  grouped  together  as 
legal.  St.  Paul's  other  Kpistles  as  sapiential  :  the 
Acts  appear  as  the  one  historical,  the  Revelation 
as  the  one  prophetic  Book.  (2)  It  is  the  only 
Bible  in  which  many  passages,  sometimes  nearly 
a  whole  ohapter,  have  been  marked  for  the  ex 
press  purpose  of  being  omitted  when  the  chapters 
were  read  in  the  public  service  of  the  Church. 
(J>"|  One  edition  contained  the  older  version  of  the 
Psalms  t'rom  Matthew's  Bible,  in  parallel  columns 
with  that  now  issued,  a  true  and  practical  ac 
knowledgment  of  the  benefit  of  a  diversity  of 
tnmslations.  ^4}  The  initials  of  the  translators 
were  attached  to  the  Ixvks  which  they  had  seve 
rally  undertaken.  The  work  was  .lone  on  tin.  plan 


h  'Hie  note  ••  Herein  lie  showed  thnt  he  lacked  ».eal,  for  I 
*he  ontitit  to  liave  died,"  was  prolvably  one  which  Scotch 
lanalK-s    had    handled    in    connexion   with    tlx'    name   of 

Jamart  mother. 

'    The  Geneva  Version,  as  published  by  Rirker.  is  that 
|H>pnlarly  known  a.--  tin  -/,'mv/u >•  Hible.  from  its  rendering 
i>f  Hen.  Hi.  ?.     It  had  however  Iven  prccixlcd  in  this  by 
Life  ft, 


The  fitness  of  these  illustratii-ns  is  open  to  question, 
till  num^  incongnions  found  their  way  into  the 
text  of  the  edition  of  1ST*  and  the  feelings  of  the  Puritans 
were  shocked   by  seeing  a   woodcut    of  NYptune   in   the 
initial  letters  of  Jonah.  Micah.  and  Naluun.  while  that  ot 
the   Kp.  to  the   Hebrews    went    so    far   a.-*  to  git 
and  the  Swan.     There  must,  to  say  the  Ic.iM.  1 
xry  slovenly  editorship  to  permit  tins 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


of  limited,  not  joint  liability.  (5)  litre,  as  in  the 
ijsueva,  there  is  the  attempt  to  give  the  Hebrew 
proper  names  more  accurately,  as,  e.  f/.,  in  Heva, 

Isahae,  U/iahu,  &i  .          , 

(4.)  Of  all  the  English  versions,  the  Bishop's 
Bible  had  probably  the  least  success.  It  did  not 
command  the  respect  of  scholars,  and  its  size  and 
cost  were  far  from  meeting  the  wants  of  the  people. 
Its  circulation  apjx\irs  to  have  been  practically 
limited  to  the  churches  which  were  ordered  to  be 
supplied  with  it.  It,  had  however,  at  any  rate,  the 
right  to  boast  of  some  good  Hebrew  scholars  among 
the  translators.  One  of  them.  Bishop  Alley,  had 
written  a  Hebrew  Grammar;  and  though  vehe 
mently  attacked  by  Broughton  (Townley,  l,itcranj 
Jli.ttoru  of  ilu>  liihlc,  iii'.  190),  it  was  defended  as 
vigorously  by  Kulke,  and,  together  with  the  A.  V., 
received  from  Selden  the  praise  of  being  "the  best 
translation  in  the  world"  (Table  Talk,  Works,  iii. 


X.  UIIKIMS  AND  DOUAY.—  (1.)  The  successive 
changes  in  the  Protestant  versions  of  the  Scriptures 
were,  as  might  be  expected,  matter  of  triumph  to 
the  controversialists  of  the  Latin  Church.  Some 
saw  in  it  an  argument  against  any  translation  of 
Scripture  info  the  spoken  language  of  the  people. 
Others  pointed  derisively  to  the  want  of  unity 
which  these  changes  displayed.  There  were  some, 
however,  who  took  the  line  which  Sir  T.  More  and 
(iardiner  had  taken  under  Henry  VIII.  They  did 
not  object  to  the  principle  of  an  English  translation. 
They  only  charged  all  the  versions  hitherto  made  with 
l>eing  false,  corrupt,  heretical.  To  this  there  was  the 
ready  retort,  that  they  had  done  nothing:  that  their 
bishops  in  the  reign  of  Henry  had  promised,  but 
had  not  performed.  It  was  felt  to  be  necessary 
that  they  should  take  some  steps  which  might  en 
able  them  to  turn  the  edge  of  this  reproach  ,  and 
the  English  refugees  who  were  settled  at  Rheims  — 
Martin,  Allen  (afterwards  cardinal),  and  Bristow  — 
undertook  the  work.  Gregory  Martin,  who  had 
graduated  at  Cambridge,  had  signalized  himself  by 
an  attack  on  the  existing  versions,"  and  had  been 
answered  in  an  elaborate  treatise  by  Fulke,  Master 
of  Catherine  Hal!,  Cambridge  (A  Defence  of  the 
Sincere  and  True  Translation,  &c.).  The  charges  are 
mostly  of  the  same  kind  as  those  brought  by  Sir 
T.  More  against  Tyndal.  "  The  old  time-honoured 
words  were  discarded.  The  authority  of  the  LXX. 
and  Vulgate  was  set  at  nought  when  the  trans 
lator's  view  of  the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  and 
I!  reek  dill'ered  from  what  he  found  in  them."  The 
new  model  translation  was  to  avoid  these  faults. 
It  was  to  command  the  respect  at  once  of  priests 
and  people.  After  an  incubation  of  some  years  it 
was  published  at  Rheims  in  1582.  Though  Martin 
was  competent,  to  translate  from  the  Greek,  it  pro- 
fe.ssed  to  be  based  on  "  the  authentic  text  of  the 
Vulgate."  Notes  were  added,  as  strongly  dogmatic 
as  those  ot  the  Geneva  Bible,  and  often  keenly  con- 
t  rovei  sial.  The  work  of  translation  was  completed 
somewhat  later  by  the  publication  of  the  0.  T.  at 
iVmay  in  UiOO.  The  language  was  precisely  what 
might  have  been  expected  from  men  who  adopted 
Gardiner's  ideal  of  what  a  translation  ought  to  be. 
At  every  page  we  stumble  on  "  strange  ink-horn 
words,"  which  never  had  been  English,  and  never 

111  "  A  discovery  of  the  manifold  corruptions  of  Holy 
Script  ures  by  the  II  ere  tikes  of  our  days,  specially  of  the 
sectaries."  The  language  of  this  and  other  like 
was,  ;us  might  be  expected,  very  abusive.  The 
Hible,  in  I'roU^lunt  translations,  was  "not  God's  word, 


could    be,   such,  c.  </.,  as 


1675 

the   Pasche  aod   the 


Azymes"  (Mark  xvi.  1),  "the  arch-synagogue' 
(Mark  v.  ;>f>),  "in  prepuce"  (Kom.  ir.  9),  "  *&au 
rate  with  the  fallacie  of  sin  (Heb.  iii.  13),  "a 
greater  hoste  "  (Heb.  xi.  4),  "  this  is  the  annuntia- 
tion"  (I  John  v.  5),  "  pre-ordinate  "  (Acts  xiii. 
48),  "  the  justifications  of  our  Lord"  (Luke  i.  »i), 
"what  is  to  me  and  thee  "  (John  ii.  4),  "longa 
nimity"  (Rom.  ii.  4),  "purge  the  old  leaden  that 
you  may  be  a  new  paste,  as  you  are  azymes  " 
(1  Cor.  iv.  7),  "  you  are  evacuated  from  Christ" 
(Gal.  v.  4),  and  so  on.u 

(2.)  A  style  such  as  this  had,  as  might  be  ex 
pected,  but  few  admirers.  Among  those  few,  how 
ever,  we  find  one  great  name.  Bacon,  who  leave* 
the  great  work  of  the  reign  of  James  unnoticed, 
and  quotes  almost  uniformly  from  the  Vulgate, 
goes  out  of  his  way  to  praise  the  Rhemish  Version 
for  having  restored  "  charity  "  to  the  place  from 
which  Tyndal  had  expelled  it,  in  1  Cor.  xiii.  (Of 
the  Pacification  of  the  Church). 

XI.  AUTHORISED  VERSION.  —  (1.)  The  position 
of  the  English  Church  in  relation  to  the  versions 
in  use  at  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  James 
was  hardly  satisfactory.  The  Bishops'  Bible  was 
sanctioned  by  authority.  That  cf  Geneva  had  the 
strongest  hold  on  the  affections  of  the  people. 
Scholars,  Hebrew  scholars  in  particular,  found 
grave  fault  with  both.  Hugh  Broughton,  who 
spoke  Hebrew  as  if  it  had  been  his  mother-tongue, 
denounced  the  former  as  being  full  of  "  traps  and 
pitfalls,"  "  overthrowing  all  religion,"  and  pro 
posed  a  new  revision  to  be  effected  by  an  English 
Septuagint  (72),  with  power  to  consult  gardeners, 
artists,  and  the  like,  about  the  words  connected 
with  their  several  callings,  and  bound  to  submit 
their  work  to  "  one  qualified  for  difficulties."  This 
ultimate  referee  was,  of  course,  to  be  himself 
(Strype,  Whttgift,  iv.  19,  23).  Unhappily,  neither 
his  temper  nor  his  manners  were  such  as  to  win 
favour  for  this  suggestion.  Whitgift  disliked  him, 
worried  him,  drove  him  into  exile.  His  feeling 
was,  however,  shared  by  others  ;  and  among  the 
demands  of  the  Puritan  representatives  at  the 
Hampton  Court  Conference  in  1604  (Dr.  Reinolds 
being  the  spokesman.),  was  one  for  a  new,  or,  at 
least,  a  revised  translation.  The  special  objections 
which  they  urged  were  neither  numerous  (three 
passages  only  —  Ps.  cv.  28,  cvi.  30,  Gal.  iv.  25, 
were  referred  to)  nor  important,  and  we  must  con 
clude  either  that  this  part  of  their  case  had  not 
been  carefully  got  up,  or  that  the  bullying  to 
which  they  were  exposed  had  had  the  desired  effect 
of  throwing  them  into  some  confusion.  The  bishops 
treated  the  difficulties  which  they  did  raise  with 
supercilious  scorn.  They  were  "  trivial,  old,  and 
often  answered."  Bancroft  raised  the  cry  of  alarm 
which  a  timid  Conservatism  has  so  often  raised 
since.  "  If  every  man's  humour  were  to  be  fol 
lowed,  there  would  be  no  end  of  translating" 
(Vanlwell,  Conferences,  p.  188\  Cranmer's  words 
seemed  likely  to  be  fulfiPed  again.  Had  it  been 
left  to  the  bishops,  wd  might  have  waited  for 
the  A.V.  "till  the  day  after  doomsday."  Even 
when  the  work  was  done,  and  the  translators 
acknowledgad  that  the  Hampton  Court  Conference 
had  been  the  starting-point  of  it,  they  could  not 


but  the  devil's." 

»  Even  Roman  Catholic  divines  have  felt  the  superiority 
of  the  A  V.,  and  Challoner,  In  his  editions  of  the  N.  T.  in 
1748,  and  the  Hible,  17(i3,  often  follows  it  in  preference  tc 
lh«  liheluis  and  Pouuy  translations. 


1676 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


resist  the  temptation  of  a  fling  at  their  opponent*. 
The  objections  to  the  Bishops'  Bible  had,  they  said, 
been  nothing  more  than  a  shift  to  justify  the 
refusal  of  the  Puritans  to  subscribe  to  the  Com 
munion  Book  (Preface  to  A.V.).  But  the  king 
disliked  the  politics  of  the  Geneva  Bible.  Either 
repeating  what  he  had  heard  from  others,  or 
exercising  his  own  judgment,  he  declared  that 
there  was  as  yet  no  good  translation,  and  that 
that  was  the  worst  of  all.  Nothing,  however, 
was  settled  at  the  Conference  beyond  the  hope 
thus  held  out. 

(2.)  But  the  king  was  not  forgetful  of  what  he 
thought  likely  to  be  the  glory  of  his  reign.  The 
work  of  organising  and  superintending  the  arrange 
ments  for  a  new  translation  was  one  specially  con 
genial  to  him,  and  in  1606  the  task  was  accordingly 
commenced.  The  selection  of  the  fifty-four  scho 
lars0  to  whom  it  was  entrusted,  seems,  on  the 
whole,  to  have  been  a  wise  and  fair  one.  Andrews, 
Saravia,  Overal,  Montague,  and  Barlow,  represented 
the  "higher"  party  in  the  Church;  Remolds, 
Chaderton,  and  Lively  that  of  the  Puritans.P  Scho 
larship  unconnected  with  party  was  represented  by 
Henry  Savile  and  John  Boys.  One  name  is  indeed 
conspicuous  by  its  absence.  The  greatest  Hebrew 
scholar  of  the  age,  the  man  who  had,  in  a  letter  to 
Cecil  (1595),  urged  this  very  plan  of  a  joint  transla 
tion,  who  had  already  translated  several  books  of 
the  O.T.  (Job,  Ecclesiastes,  Daniel,  Lamentations) 
was  ignomiuiously  excluded.  This  may  have  been, 
in  part,  owing  to  the  dislike  with  which  Whitgift 
and  Bancroft  had  all  along  regarded  him.  But  in 
part,  also,  it  was  owing  to  Broughton's  own  cha 
racter.  An  unmanageable  temper  showing  itself 
in  violent  language,  and  the  habit  of  stigmatising 
those  who  differed  from  him,  even  on  such  questions 
as  those  connected  with  names  and  dates,  as  here 
tical  and  atheistic,  must  have  made  him  thoroughly 
impracticable ;  one  of  the  men  whose  presence 
throws  a  Committee  or  Conference  into  chaos.i 

(3.)  What  reward  other  than  that  of  their  own 
consciences  and  the  judgment  of  posterity  were  the 
men  thus  chosen  to  expect  for  their  long  and  labo- 
lious  task?  The  king  was  not  disposed  to  pay 
them  out  of  his  state  revenue.  Gold  and  silver 
were  not  always  plentiful  in  the  household  of  the 
English  Solomon,  and  from  him  they  received 
nothing  (Heywood,  State  of  Auth,  Bibl.  Revision). 
There  remained,  however,  an  ingenious  form  of 
liberality,  which  had  the  merit  of  being  inexpen 
sive.  A  king's  letter  was  sent  to  the  archbishops 
and  bishops,  to  be  transmitted  by  them  to  their 
chapters,  commending  all  the  translators  to  their 
favourable  notice.  They  were  exhorted  to  contri 
bute  in  all  1000  marks,  and  the  king  was  to  be 
informed  of  each  man's  liberality.  If  any  livings 
in  their  gift,  or  in  the  gift  of  private  persons, 
became  vacant,  the  king  was  to  be  informed  of  it, 
that  he  might  nominate  some  of  the  translators  to 
the  vacant  preferment.  Heads  of  colleges,  in  like 
manner,  were  enjoined  to  give  free  board  and 
lodging  to  such  divines  as  were  summoned  from  the 


country  to  labour  in  the  great  work  (Strype, 
Whitgift,  iv.).  That  the  king  might  take  his 
place  as  the  director  of  the  whole,  a  copy  of  fifteen 
instructions  was  sent  to  each  translator,  and  appa 
rently  circulated  freely  in  both  Universities. 

(4.)  The  instructions  thus  given  will  be  found 
in  Fuller  (I.  c.),  and  with  a  more  accurate  text  in 
Burnet  (Reform.  Records).  It  will  not  be  necessary 
to  give  them  here  in  full ;  but  it  will  be  interesting 
to  note  the  bearing  of  each  clause  upon  the  work 
in  hand,  and  its  relation  to  previous  versions. 
(1)  The  Bishops'  Bible  was  to  be  followed,  and  as, 
little  altered  as  the  original  will  permit.  This 
was  intended  probably  to  quiet  the  alarm  of  those 
who  saw,  in  the  proposal  of  a  new  version,  a  con 
demnation  of  that  already  existing.  (2)  The  names 
of  prophets  and  others  were  to  be  retained,  as 
nearly  as  may  be  as  they  are  vulgarly  used.  This 
was  to  guard  against  forms  like  Izhak,  Jeremiahu, 
&c.,  which  had  been  introduced  in  some  versions, 
and  which  some  Hebrew  scholars  were  willing  !•> 
introduce  more  copiously.  To  it  we  owe  probably 
the  forms  Jeremy,  Elias,  Osee,  Core,  in  the  N.T. 
(3)  The  old  ecclesiastical  words  to  be  kept,  as  the 
word  Church  not  to  be  translated  Congregation. 
The  rule  was  apparently  given  for  the  sake  of  this 
special  application.  "Charity,"  in  1  Cor.  xiii. 
was  probably  also  due  to  it.  The  earlier  versions, 
it  will  be  remembered,  had  gone  on  the  opposite 
principle.  (4)  When  any  word  hath  divers  signi 
fications,  that  to  be  kept  which  hath  been  most 
commonly  used  by  the  most  eminent  fathers,  being 
agreeable  to  the  propriety  of  the  place  and  the 
analogy  of  faith.  Thi?,  like  the  former,  tends  to 
confound  the  functions  of  the  preacher  and  the 
translator,  and  substitutes  ecclesiastical  tradition 
for  philological  accuracy.  (5)  The  division  of  the 
chapters  to  be  altered  either  not  at  all,  or  as  little 
as  possible.  Here,  again,  convenience  was  more  in 
view  than  truth  and  accuracy,  and  the  result  is 
that  divisions  are  perpetuated  which  are  manifestly 
arbitrary  and  misleading.  (6)  No  marginal  notes 
to  be  affixed  but  only  for  the  explanation  of  Hebrew 
and  Greek  words.  This  was  obviously  directed 
against  the  Geneva  notes,  as  the  special  objects  of 
the  king's  aversion.  Practically,  however,  in 
whatever  feeling  it  originated,  we  may  be  thankful 
that  the  A.V.  came  out  as  it  did,  without  note  or 
comment.  The  open  Bible  was  placed  in  the  hands 
of  all  readers.  The  work  of  interpretation  was  left 
free.  Had  an  opposite  course  been  adopted,  we 
might  have  had  the  tremendous  evil  of  a  whole 
body  of  Exegesis  imposed  upon  the  Church  by 
authority,  reflecting  the  Calvinism  of  the  Synod  of 
Dort,  the  absolutism  of  James,  the  high-flying 
prelacy  of  Bancroft.  (7)  Such  quotations  of  places 
to  be  marginally  set  down  as  may  serve  for  fit 
reference  of  one  Scripture  to  another.  The  prin 
ciple  that  Scripture  is  its  own  best  interpreter  was 
thus  recognised,  but  practically  the  marginal  refer 
ences  of  the  A.V.  of  1611  were  somewhat  scanty, 
most  of  those  now  printed  having  been  added  in 
later  editions.  (8  and  9)  State  plan  of  translation. 


0  Only  forty-seven  names  appear  in  the  king's  list 
(,Burn;t,  Reform.  Records).  Seven  may  have  died,  or  de 
clined  to  act;  or  it  may  have  been  intended  that  there 
should  be  a  final  Committee  of  Revision.  A  full  list  is 
given  by  Fuller  (Ch.  Hist,  x.) ;  and  is  reproduced,  with 
biographical  particulars,  by  Todd  and  Anderson. 

p  This  side  was,  however,  weakened  by  the  death  of 
Reiuolds  and  Lively  during  the  progress  of  the  work. 


The  loss  of  the  latter,  Hebrew  professor  at  Cambridge  foe 
thirty  years,  was  every  way  deplorable. 

1 1t  deserves  notice  that  Broughton  is  the  only  English 
translator  who  has  adopted  the  Eternal  as  the  equivalent 
for  Jehovah,  as  in  Ire  French  version.  To  him  also 
perhaps,  more  than  to  any  other  divine,  we  owe  the  true 
interpretation  of  the  Descent  into  Hell. 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


1671 


Each  company  of  translators  is  to  take  its  own 
books ;  each  person  to  bnng  his  own  corrections. 
The  company  to  discuss  them,  and  having  fiu.shed 
*heir  wovk,  to  send  it  on  to  another  company,  arid 
so  on.  (10)  Provides  for  differences  of  opinion 
between  two  companies  by  referring  them  to  a 
general  meeting.  (11)  Gives  power,  in  cases  of 
difficulty,  to  consult  any  scholars.  (12)  Invites 
suggestions  from  any  quarter.  (13)  Names  the 
directors  of  the  work:  Andrews,  Dean  of  West 
minster;  Baulow,  Dean  of  Chester  ;  and  the  Regius 
Professors  of  Hebrew  and  Greek  at  both  Univer 
sities.  (14)  Names  translations  to  be  followed 
when  they  agree  more  with  the  original  than  the 
Bishops'  Bible,  sc.  Tyndal's,  Coverdale's,  Matthew's, 
Whitchurch's,  (Cranmer's),  and  Geneva.  (15) 
Authorises  Universities  to  appoint  three  or  four 
overseers  of  the  work. 

(5.)  It  is  not  known  that  any  of  the  correspond 
ence  connected  with  this  work,  or  any  minute  of 
the  meetings  for  conference  is  still  extant.  Nothing 
is  more  striking  than  the  silence  with  which  the 
version  that  was  to  be  the  inheritance  of  the  Eng 
lish  people  for  at  least  two  centuries  and  a  half  was 
ushered  into  the  world.  Here  and  there  we  get 
glimpses  of  scholai-s  coming  from  their  country 
livings  to  their  old  college  haunts  to  work  diligently 
at  the  task  assigned  them  (Peck,  Desiderata  Curiosa, 
ii.  87).  We  see  the  meetings  of  translators,  one 
man  reading  the  chapter  which  he  has  been  at 
work  on,  while  the  others  listen,  with  the  original, 
or  Latin,  or  German,  or  Italian,  or  Spanish  versions 
in  their  hands  (Selden,  Table  Talk}.  We  may  re 
present  to  ourselves  the  differences  of  opinion, 
settled  by  the  casting  vote  of  the  "odd  man,"  or 
by  the  strong  overbearing  temper  of  a  man  like 
Bancroft,*  the  minority  comforting  themselves  with 
the  thought  that  it  was  no  new  thing  for  the  truth 
to  be  outvoted  (Gell,  Essay  towards  Amendment 
of  last  Eng.  transl.  of  Bible,  p.  321)."  Dogmatic 
interests  were  in  some  cases  allowed  to  bias  th-s 
translation,  and  the  Calvinism  of  one  party,  the  pre- 
latic  views  of  another,  were  both  represented  at  the 
expense  of  accuracy  (Gell,  I.  c.).* 

(6.)  For  three  years  the  work  went  on,  the  sepa 
rate  companies  comparing  notes  as  directed.  When 
the  work  drew  towards  its  completion  it  was  neces 
sary  to  place  it  under  the  care  of  a  select  few. 
Two  from  each  of  the  three  groups  were  accordingly 
selected,  and  the  six  met  in  London,  to  superintend 
the  publication.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  we  find 
any  more  definite  remuneration  than  the  shadowy 
promise  held  out  in  the  king's  letter,  of  a  share  in 
the  1000  marks  which  Deans  and  Chapters  would 
not  contribute.  The  matter  had  now  reached  its 


*  Miles  Smith,  himself  a  translator  and  the  writer  of 
the  Preface,  complained  of  Bancroft  that  there  was  no 
contradicting  him  (Beard,  Revised  Eng.  Bible). 

*  Geil's  evidence,  as  having  been  chaplain  to  Archbishop 
Abbot,  carries  some  weight  with  it.     His  works  are  to  be 
found  in  the  Brit.  Mus.  Library,  Mr.  Scrivener's  statement 
to  the  contrary  being  apparently  an  oversight  (Supplement 
to  A.  V.ofN.  T.  p.  101). 

*  The  following  passages  are  those  commonly  referred 
to  in  support  of  this  charge :  (1)  The  rendering  "  such  as 
should  be  saved,"  in  Acts  ii.  47.    (2)  The  insertion  of 
the  words  "  any  man  "  in  Heb.  x.  38  ("  the  just  shall  live 
by  faith,  but  if  any  man  draw  back,"  &c.),  to  avoid  an 
inference  unfavourable  to  the  doctrine  of  Final  Perse 
verance.    (3)  The  use  of  "  bishopric,"  in  Acts  i.  20,  of 
'  oversight,"  in  1  Pet.  v.  2,  of  "bishop,"  in  1  Tim.  iii.  1, 
&c.   aud  "overseers,"  in  Acts  xx.  28,  in  order  to  avoid 
the  identification  of  Bishops  and  Elders.    (4)  The  chapter- 


business  stage,  and  the  Company  of  Stationers 
thought  it  expedient  to  give  the  six  editors  thirty 
pounds  each,  in  weekly  payments,  for  their  nine 
months'  labour.  The  final  correction,  and  the  task 
of  writing  the  arguments  of  the  several  books,  was 
given  to  Bilson,  bishop  of  Winchester,  and  Dr. 
Miles  Smith,  the  latter  of  whom  also  wrote  the 
Dedication  and  the  Preface.  Of  these  two  documents 
the  first  is  unfortunately  familiar  enough  to  us, 
and  is  chiefly  conspicuous  for  its  servile  adulation." 
James  I.  is  "  that  sanctified  person,"  "  enriched  with 
singular  and  extraordinary  graces,"  that  had  ap 
peared  "  as  the  sun  in  his  strength."  To  him  they 
appeal  against  the  judgment  of  those  whom  they 
describe,  h-  somewhat  peevish  accents,  as  "  Popish 
persons  or  ..elf-conceited  brethren."  The  Preface 
to  the  Readd  is  more  interesting,  as  throwing  light 
upon  the  prir?iples  on  which  the  translators  acted* 
They  "  never  thought  that  they  should  need  to 
make  a  new  translation,  nor  yet  to  make  of  a 
bad  one  a  good  one."  "  Their  endeavour  was  to 
make  a  good  one  better,  or  out  of  many  good  ones 
one  principal  good  one."  They  claim  credit  for 
steering  a  middle  course  between  the  Puritans  who 
"  left  the  old  ecclesiastical  words,"  and  the  obscurity 
of  the  Papists  "  retaining  foreign  words  of  purpose 
to  darken  the  sense."  They  vindicate  the  practice, 
in  which  they  indulge  very  freely,  of  translating 
one  word  in  the  original  by  many  English  words, 
partly  on  the  intelligible  ground  that  it  is  not 
always  possible  to  find  one  word  that  will  express 
all  the  meanings  of  the  Greek  or  Hebrew,  partly  on 
the  somewhat  childish  plea  that  it  would  be  unfair 
to  choose  some  words  for  the  high  honour  of  being 
the  channels  of  God's  truth,  and  to  pass  over  others 
as  unworthy. 

(7.)  The  version  thus  published  did  not  all  at 
once  supersede  those  already  in  possession.  The  fact 
that  five  editions  were  published  in  three  years, 
shows  that  there  was  a  good  demand.  But  the 
Bishops'  Bible  probably  remained  in  many  Churches, 
(Andrews  takes  his  texts  from  it  in  preaching  before 
the  king  as  Lite  as  1621),  and  the  popularity  of  the 
Geneva  Version  is  shown  by  not  less  than  thirlaen 
reprints,  in  whole  or  in  part,  between  1611  and  1617. 
It  is  not  easy  to  ascertain  the  impression  which  the 
A.  V.  made  at  the  time  of  its  appearance.  Pro 
bably,  as  in  most  like  cases,  it  was  far  less  for  good  or 
evil  than  friends  or  foes  expected.  The  Puritans,  and 
the  religious  portion  of  the  middle  classes  generally, 
missed  the  notes  of  the  Geneva  book  (Fullei,  Ch. 
Hist.  x.  50,  51).  The  Romanists  spoke  as  uauai, 
of  the  unsettling  effect  of  these  frequent  changes, 
and  of  the  marginal  readings  as  leaving  men  in  doubt 
what  was  the  truth  of  Scripture.*  One  frantic  cry 

heading  of  Ps.  cxlix.  in  1611  (since  altered),  "  The  Prophet 
exhorteth  to  praise  God  for  that  power  which  he  hath 
given  the  Church  to  bind  the  consciences  of  men."  Blunt 
(Duties  of  a  Parish  Prinst,  Lect.  II.)  appears,  in  this  ques 
tion,  on  the  side  of  the  prosecution ;  Trench  (On  the  A.  V 
of  the  N.  T.  c.  x.)  on  that  of  the  defence.  The  charge  of  an 
undue  bias  against  Rome  in  1  Cor.  xi.  27,  Gal.  v.  6,  Heb. 
xiii.  4,  is  one  on  w^iich  an  acquittal  may  be  pronounced 
with  little  or  no  hesitation. 

"  It  may  be  at  least  pleaded,  in  mitigation,  that  the  flattery 
of  the  translators  i^  outdone  by  that  of  Francis  Bacon. 

1  Whitaker's  answer,  by  anticipation,  to  the  charge  ia 
worth  quoting:  "No  inconvenience  will  follow  if  inter 
pretations  or  versions  of  Scripture,  when  they  have  become 
obsolete,  or  ceased  to  be  intelligible,  may  be  fcfterwardu 
changed  or  corrected"  (Dissert,  on  Script,  p.  222,  Parket 
Soc.  ed.).  The  wiser  divines  of  the  English  Church  hax! 
not  then  learnt  to  raise  the  cry  of  finality. 


1678 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


was  heard  from  Hugh  Broughton  the  rejected 
(Works,  p.  661),  who  "  would  rather  be  torn  in 
pieces  by  wild  horses  than  impose  such  a  version 
on  the  poor  churches  of  England."  Selden,  a  few 
years  later,  gives  a  calmer  and  more  favourable 
judgment.  It  is  "the  best  of  all  translations  as 
giving  the  true  sense  of  the  original."  This,  how 
ever,  is  qualified  by  the  remark  that  "  no  book  in 
the  world  is  translated  as  the  Bible  is,  word  for 
word,  with  no  regard  to  the  difference  of  idioms. 
This  is  well  enough  so  long  as  scholars  have  to  do 
with  it,  but  when  it  comes  among  the  common 
people,  Lord!  what  gear  do  they  make  of  it!" 
(Table- Talk}.  The  feeling  of  which  this  was  the 
expression,  led  even  in  the  midst  of  the  agitations 
of  the  Commonwealth  to  proposals  for  another  revi 
sion,  which,  after  being  brought  forward  in  the 
Grand  Committee  of  Religion  in  the  House  of  Com 
mons  in  Jan.  1656,  was  referred  to  a  sub-com 
mittee,  acting  under  Whitelocke,  with  power  to 
consult  divines  and  report.  Conferences  were  ac 
cordingly  held  frequently  at  Whitelocke's  house,  at 
which  we  find,  mingled  with  less  illustrious  names, 
those  of  Walton  and  Cudworth.  Nothing,  how 
ever,  came  of  it  (Whitelocke,  Memorials,  p.  564  ; 
Collier,  Ch.  Hist.  ii.  9).  No  report  was  ever  made, 
and  with  the  Restoration  the  tide  of  conservative 
feeling,  in  this  as  in  other  things,  checked  all  plan 
of  further  alteration.  Many  had  ceased  to  care  for 
the  Bible  at  all.  Those  who  did  care  were  content 
with  the  Bible  as  it  was.  Only  here  and  there  was 
a  voice  raised,  like  R.  Cell's  (ut  supra],  declaring 
that  it  had  defects,  that  it  bore  in  some  things  the 
stamp  of  the  dogmatism  of  a  party  (p.  321). 

(8.)  The  highest  testimony  of  this  period  is  that 
of  Walton.  From  the  editor  of  the  Polyglott,  the 
few  words  ''inter  omnes  eminet"  meant  a  good 
deal  (Pref.}.  With  the  reign  of  Anne  the  tide  of 
glowing  panegyric  set  in.  It  would  be  easy  to  put 
together  a  long  catena  of  praises  stretching  from 
that  time  to  the  present.  With  many,  of  course, 
this  has  been  only  the  routine  repetition  of  a  tradi 
tional  boast.  "Our  unrivalled  Translation,"  and 
"  our  incomparable  Liturgy,"  have  been,  equally, 
phrases  of  course.  But  there  have  been  witnesses 
of  a  far  higher  weight.  In  proportion  as  the  Eng 
lish  of  the  18th  century  was  infected  with  a  La 
tinised  or  Gallicised  style,  did  those  who  had  a 
purer  taste  look  with  reverence  to  the  strength  and 
purity  of  a  better  time  as  represented  in  the  A.  V. 
Thus  Addison  dwells  on  its  ennobling  the  coldness 
of  modem  languages  with  the  glowing  phrases  of 
Hebrew  (Spectator,  No.  405),  and  Swift  confesses 
that  "  the  translators  of  the  Bible  were  masters  of 
an  English  style  far  fitter  for  that  work  than  any 
we  see  in  our  present  writings  "  (Letter  to  Lord 
Oxford}.  Each  half-century  has  naturally  added 
to  the  prestige  of  these  merits.  The  language  of 
the  A.  V.  has  intertwined  itself  with  the  contro 
versies,  the  devotion,  the  literature  of  the  English 
people.  It  has  gone,  wherever  they  have  gone,  over 
the  face  of  the  whole  earth.  The  most  solemn  and 
tender  of  individual  memories  are,  for  the  most  part, 
associated  with  it.  Men  leaving  the  Church  of 
England  for  the  Church  of  Rome  turn  regretfully 
with  a  yearning  look  at  that  noble  "  well  of  Eng 
lish  undefiled,"  which  they  are  about  to  exchange 
for  the  uncouth  monstrosities  of  Rheims  and  Douay. 
In  this  case  too,  as  in  so  many  others,  the  position 
of  the  A.  V.  has  been  strengthened,  less  by  the  skill 
ot  its  defenders  than  by  the  weakness  of  its  assail 
ants.  While  fiom  time  to  time,  scholars  and  divines 


(Lowth,  Newcome,  Waterland,  Trench,  Ellicott), 
have  admitted  the  necessity  of  a  revision,  those  wht 
have  attacked  the  present  version  and  produced  new 
ones  have  been,  for  the  most  part,  men  of  narrow 
knowledge  and  defective  taste  (Purver,  and  Har- 
wood,  and  Bellamy,  and  Conquest),  just  able  to 
pick  out  a  few  obvious  faults,  and  snowing  their 
competence  for  the  task  by  entering  on  the  work 
of  translating  or  revising  the  whole  Bible  single- 
handed.  One  memorable  exceptian  must  not,  how 
ever,  be  passed  over.  Hallam  (Lit.  of  Europe,  iii. 
ch.  2,  ad  fin.}  records  a  brief  but  emphatic  protest 
against  the  "  enthusiastic  praise "  which  has  been 
lavished  on  this  translation.  "  It  may,  in  the  eyes 
of  many,  be  a  better  English,  hut  it  is  not  the 
English  of  Daniel,  or  Raleigh,  or  Bacon,  ...  It 
abounds,  in  fact,  especially  in  the  0.  T.,  with  obso-. 
lete  phraseology,  and  with  single  words  long  since 
abandoned,  or  retained  only  in  provincial  use."  The 
statement  may,  it  is  believed,  be  accepted  as  an 
encomium.  If  it  had  been  the  English  of  the  men 
of  letters  of  James's  reign,  would  it  have  retained 
as  it  has  done,  for  two  centuries  and  a  half,  its  hold 
on  the  mind,  the  memory,  the  affections  of  the 
English  people  ? 

XII.  SCHEMES  FOR  A  REVISION. — (1.)  A  notice 
of  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  at  various 
times  to  bring  about  a  revision  of  the  A.  V.  though 
necessarily  brief  and  imperfect,  may  not  be  without 
its  use  for  future  labourers.  The  first  half  of  the 
18th  century  was  not  favourable  for  such  a  work. 
An  almost  solitary  Essay  for  a  New  Translation 
by  H.  R.  (Ross),  1702,  attracted  little  or  no  notice 
(Todd,  Life  of  Walton,  i.  134).  A  Greek  Testa 
ment  with  an  English  translation,  singularly  vulgar 
and  offensive,  was  published  in  1729,  of  which 
extracts  are  given  by  Lewis  (Hist,  of  TransL  ch.  v.). 
With  the  slight  revival  of  learning  among  the 
scholars  of  the  latter  half  of  that  period  the  subject 
was  again  mooted.  Lowth  in  a  Visitation  Sermon 
(1758),  and  Seeker  in  a  Latin  Speech  intended  for 
Convocation  (1761),  recommended  it.  Matt.  Pilk- 
ington  in  his  Remarks  (1759),  and  Dr.  Thomas 
Brett,  in  an  Essay  on  Ancient  Versions  of  the 
Bible  (1760),  dwelt  on  the  importance  of  consulting 
them  with  reference  to  the  0.  T.  as  well  as  the 
N.  T.,  with  a  view  to  a  more  accurate  text  than 
that  of  the  Masoretic  Hebrew,  the  former  insisting 
also  on  the  obsolete  words  which  are  scattered  in  the 
A.  V.,  and  giving  a  useful  Alphabetic  list  of  them. 
A  folio  New  and  literal  translation  of  the  whole 
Bible  by  Anthony  Purver,  a  Quaker  (1764),  was  a 
more  ambitious  attempt.  He  dwells  at  some  length 
on  the  "  obsolete,  uncouth,  clownish  "  expressions 
which  disfigure  the  A.  V.  He  includes  in  his  list 
such  words  as  "  joyous,"  "  solace,"  "  damsel," 
"  day-spring,"  "bereaved,"  "  marvels,"  "bondmen. ' 
He  substitutes  "  he  hearkened  to  what  he  said,"  foi 
"  he  hearkened  to  his  voice ;"  "  eat  victuals,"  for 
"eat  bread"  (Gen.  iii.  19)  ;  "  was  in  favour  with," 
for  "found  grace  in  the  eyes  of;"  "was  angry," 
for  "  his  wrath  was  kindled."  In  spite  of  this 
defective  taste,  however,  the  work  has  considerable 
merit,  is  based  upon  a  careful  study  of  the  original, 
and  of  many  of  the  best  commentators,  and  may  be 
contrasted  favourably  with  most  of  the  single-handed 
translations  that  have  followed.  It  was,  at  any  rate, 
far  above  the  depth  of  degradation  and  folly  which 
was  reached  in  Harwood's  Literal  Translation  of  tte 
N.  T.  "  with  freedom,  spirit,  and  elegance"  (1768). 
Hfere  again,  a  few  samples  are  enough  to  show  the 
character  of  the  whole.  "  The  young  lady  is  not 


VERSION,  AUTHORISED 


167(J 


-lead"  (Mark  v.  39).  "  A  gentleman  of  splendid 
family  and  opulent  fortune  had  two  sons"  (Luke  xv. 
11).  "The  clergyman  said,  You  have  given  him 
the  only  right  and  proper  answer"  (Mark  xii.  32). 
"  We  shall  not  pay  the  common  debt  of  nature,  but 
by  a  soft  transition,  &c."  (1  Cor.  xv.  51). 

(2.)  Biblical  revision  was  happily  not  left  entirely 
in  such  hands  as  these.  A  translation  by  Worsley 
•'  according  to  the  present  idiom  of  the  English 
tongue"  (1770)  was,  at  least,  less  offensive.  Durell 
(Preface  to  Job\  Lowth  (Preface  to  Isaiah),  Blayney 
(Pref.  to  Jeremiah,  1 784) ,  were  all  strongly  in  favour 
of  a  new,  or  revised  translation.  Durell  dwells  most 
on  the  arbitrary  additions  and  omissions  in  the 
A.  V.  of  Job,  on  the  total  absence  in  some  cases, 
of  any  intelligible  meaning.  Lowth  speaks  chiefly 
of  the  faulty  state  of  the  text  of  the  0.  T.,  and 
urges  a  correction  of  it,  partly  from  various  read 
ings,  partly  from  ancient  versions,  partly  from  con 
jecture.  Each  of  the  three  contributed,  in  the  best 
way,  to  the  work  which  they  had  little  expectation 
of  seeing  accomplished,  by  labouring  steadily  at  a 
single  book  and  committing  it  to  the  judgment  of 
the  Church  .7  Kennicott's  labours  in  collecting 
MSS.  of  the  0.  T .  issued  in  his  State  of  the  present 
Hebrew  Text  (1753,  59),  and  excited  expectations 
that  there  might  before  long  be  something  like  a 
basis  for  a  new  version  in  a  restored  original. 

A  more  ambitious  scheme  was  started  by  the 
Roman  Catholic  Dr.  Geddes,  in  his  Prospectus  for 
a  New  Translation  (1786).  His  remarks  on  the 
history  of  English  translations,  his  candid  acknow 
ledgment  of  the  excellences  of  the  A.  V.,  and  espe 
cially  of  Tyndal's  work  as  pervading  it,  his  critical 
notes  on  the  true  principles  of  translation,  on  the 
A.  V.  as  falling  short  of  them,  may  still  be  read 
with  interest.  He  too  like  Lowth  finds  fault  with 
the  superstitious  adherence  to  the  Masoretic  text, 
with  the  undue  deference  to  lexicons,  and  disregard 
of  versions  shown  by  our  translators.  The  proposal 
was  well  received  by  many  Biblical  scholars,  Lowth, 
Kennicott,  and  Barrington,  being  foremost  among 
its  patrons.  The  work  was  issued  in  parts,  accord 
ing  to  the  terras  of  the  Prospectus,  but  did  not  get 
further  than  2  Chron.  in  1792,  when  the  death  of  the 
translator  put  a  stop  to  it.  Partly  perhaps  owing 
to  its  incompleteness,  but  still  more  from  the  ex 
treme  boldness  of  a  Preface,  anticipating  the  conclu 
sions  of  ?»  later  criticism,*  Dr.  Geddes's  translation 
tVil  rapidly  into  disfavour.  A  Sermon  by  White 
(famous  for  his  Bampton  Lectures)  in  1779,  and 
two  Pamphlets  by  J.  A.  Symonds,  Professor  of 
Modern  History  at  Cambridge,  the  first  on  the 
Gospels  and  the  Acts,  in  1789 ;  the  second  on  the 
Epistles,  in  1794,  though  attacked  in  an  Apology 
for  the  Liturgy  and  Church  of  England  (1795), 
helped  to  keep  the  discussion  from  oblivion. 

(3.)  The  revision  of  the  A.  V.,  like  many  other 
salutary  reforms,  was  hindered  by  the  French  Re 
volution.  In  1792,  Archbishop  Newcome  had  pub 
lished  an  elaborate  defence  of  such  a  scheme,  citing 
a  host  of  authorities  (Doddridge,  Wesley,  Campbell, 
in  addition  to  those  already  mentioned),  and  taking 

y  Whatever  be  the  demerits  of  Lowth's  Isaiah,  it  de 
serves  something  better  than  the  sarcasm  of  Hurd,  that 
"  its  only  use  was  to  shew  how  little  was  to  be  expected 
from  any  new  translation."  As  the  Boswell  of  Warburton, 
Hurd  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  attacking  an  old 
antagonist  of  his  master's. 

1  "  1  will  not  pretend  to  say  that  it  [the  history  of  the 
Pentateuch]  is  entirely  unmixed  with  the  leaven  of  the 
heroic  ages.  Let  the  father  of  Hebrew  be  tried  by  the 


the  same  line  as  Lowth.  Revised  translaCicos  of 
the  N.  T.  were  published  by  Wakefield  in  1795,  by 
Newcome  himself  in  1796,  by  Scarlett  in  1798, 
Campbell's  version  of  the  Gospels  appeared  in 
1788,  that  of  the  Epistles  by  Macknight  in  1795. 
But  in  1796  the  note  of  alarm  was  sounded.  A 
feeble  pamphlet  by  George  Burges  (Letter  to  tf'te 
Lord  Bishop  of  Ely),  took  the  ground  that  "  the 
present  period  was  unfit,"  and  from  that  time, 
Conservatism,  pure  and  simple,  was  in  the  as 
cendant.  To  suggest  that  the  A.  V.  might  be 
inaccurate,  was  almost  as  bad  as  holding  "  French 
principles."  There  is  a  long  interval  before  the 
question  again  comes  into  anything  like  prominence, 
and  then  there  is  a  new  school  of  critics  in  the 
Quarterly  Review  and  elsewhere,  ready  to  do  battle 
vigorously  for  things  as  they  are.  The  opening  of 
the  next  campaign  was  an  article  in  the  Classical 
Journal  (No.  36),  by  Dr.  John  Bellamy,  proposing 
a  new  translation,  followed  soon  afterwards  by  its 
publication  under  the  patronage  of  the  Prince  Regent 
(1818).  The  work  was  poor  and  unsatisfactory 
enough,  and  a  tremendous  battery  was  opened  upon 
it  in  the  Quarterly  Review  (Nos.  37  and  38),  as 
afterwards  (No.  46)  upon  an  unhappy  critic,  Sir 
J.  B.  Burges,  who  came  forward  with  a  Pamphlet  in 
its  defence  (Reasons  in  favour  of  a  New  Transla 
tion,  1819).  The  rash  assertion  of  both  Bellamy  and 
Burges  that  the  A.  V.  had  been  made  almost  entirely 
from  the  LXX.  and  Vulgate,  and  a  general  deficiency 
in  all  accurate  scholarship,  made  them  easy  victims. 
The  personal  element  of  this  controversy  may  well 
be  passed  over,  but  three  less  ephemeral  works 
issued  from  it,  which  any  future  labourer  in  the 
same  field  will  find  worth  consulting.  Whi  taker's 
Historical  and  Critical  Inquiry,  was  chiefly  an 
able  exposure  of  the  exaggerated  statement  just 
mentioned.  H.  J.  Todd,  in  his  Vindication  o/  the 
Authorised  Translation  (1819),  entered  more  fully 
than  any  previous  writer  had  done  into  the  history 
of  the  A.  V.,  and  gives  many  facts  as  to  the  lives 
and  qualifications  of  the  translators  not  easily  to  be 
met  with  elsewhere."  The  most  masterly,  however, 
of  the  manifestoes  against  al!  change,  was  a  pamphlet 
(Remarks  on  the  Critical  Principles,  &c.,  Oxford, 
1820),  published  anonymously,  but  known  to  have 
been  written  by  Archbishop  Laurence.  The  strength 
of  the  argument  lies  chiefly  in  a  skilful  display  of 
all  the  difficulties  of  the  work,  the  impossibility  of 
any  satisfactory  restoration  of  the  Hebrew  of  the 
0.  T.,  or  any  settlement  of  the  Greek  of  the  N.  T., 
the  expediency  therefore  of  adhering  to  a  Textus  re- 
ceptus  in  both.  The  argument  may  not  be  decisive, 
but  the  scholarship  and  acuteness  brought  to  bear  on 
it  make  the  book  instructive,  and  any  one  entering 
on  the  work  of  a  translator  ought  at  least  to  read  it, 
that  he  may  know  what  difficulties  he  has  to  face.b 
(4.)  A  correspondence  between  Herbert  Marsh, 
bishop  of  Peterborough,  and  the  Rev.  H.  Walter,  in 
1828,  is  the  next  link  in  the  chain.  Marsh  had 
spoken  (Lectures  on  Biblical  Criticism,  p.  295) 
with  some  contempt  of  the  A.  V.  as  based  on 
Tyndal's,  Tyndal's  on  Luther's,  and  Luther's  on 


same  rules  of  criticism  as  the  father  of  Greek  history." 

a  A  short  epitome  of  this  portion  of  Todd's  book  haa 
been  published  by  the  S.  P.  C.  K.  as  a  tract,  and-will  be 
found  useful. 

b  About  this  period  also  (1819)  a  new  edition  of  New 
come's  version  \wis  published  by  Belsham  and  otbei 
Unitarian  ministers,  and,  like  Bellamy's  attempt  or  th« 
0.  T..  had  the  effect  of  stiffening  the  resistance  of  tb 
IKreat  oody  of  the  clergy  to  all  proposals  for  a  revision. 


1680 


VEKSION,  AUTHORISED 


Munster'a  Lexicon,  which  was  itself  based  on  the 
Vulgate.  There  was,  therefore,  on  this  view,  no 
real  translation  from  the  Hebrew  in  any  one  of 
these.  Substantially  this  was  what  Bellamy  had 
said  before,  but  Marsh  was  a  man  of  a  different 
calibre,  and  made  out  a  stronger  case.  Walter,  in 
nis  answer,  proves  what  is  plain  enough,  that  Tyndal 
knew  some  Hebrew,  and  that  Luther  in  some  instances 
followed  Rabbinical  authoiity  and  not  the  Vulgate  ; 
but  the  evidence  hardly  goes  to  the  extent  of  show- 
lag  that  Tyndal's  version  of  the  0.  T.  was  entirely 
independent  of  Luther's,  or  Luther's  of  the  Latin. 

(5.)  The  last  five-and-twenty  years  have  seen 
the  question  of  a  revision  from  time  to  time  gaining 
fresh  prominence.  If  men  of  second-rate  power 
have  sometimes  thrown  it  back  by  meddling  with 
it  in  wrong  ways,  others,  able  scholars  and  sound 
theologians,  have  admitted  its  necessity  and  helped  it 
forward  by  their  work.  Dr.  Conquest's  Bible,  with 
'«  20,000  emendations"  (1841),  has  not  commanded 
the  respect  of  critics,  and  is  almost  self-condemned  by 
the  silly  ostentation  of  its  title.  The  motions  which 
have  from  time  to  time  been  made  in  the  House  of 
Commons  by  Mr.  Heywood,  have  borne  little  fruit 
beyond  the  display  of  feeble  Liberalism  and  yet 
feebler  Conservatism  by  which  such  debates  are,  for 
the  most  part,  characterised ;  nor  have  the  discus 
sions  in  Convocation,  though  opened  by  a  scholar 
of  high  repute  (Professor  Selwyn),  been  much  more 
productive.  Dr.  Beard's,  A  revised  English  Bible 
the  Want  of  the  Church  (1857),  though  tending  to 
overstate  the  defects  of  the  A.  V.,  is  yet  valuable  as 
containing  much  information,  and  representing  the 
opinions  of  the  more  learned  Nonconformists.  Far 
more  important,  every  way,  both  as  virtually  an 
authority  in  favour  of  revision,  and  as  contri 
buting  largely  to  it,  are  Professor  Scholefield's 
Hints  for  an  Improved  Translation  of  the  N.  T. 
(1832).  In  his  second  edition,  indeed,  he  disclaims 
any  wish  for  a  new  translation,  but  the  principle 
which  he  lays  down  clearly  and  truly  in  his  preface, 
that  if  there  is  "  any  adventitious  difficulty  result 
ing  from  a  defective  translation,  then  it  is  at  the 
same  time  an  act  of  charity  and  of  duty  to  clear 
away  the  difficulty  as  much  as  possible,"  leads 
legitimately  to  at  least  a  revision ;  and  this  conclu 
sion  Mr.  Selwyn  in  the  last  edition  of  the  Hints 
(1857),  has  deliberately  adopted.  To  Bishop  Elli- 
cott  also  belongs  the  credit  of  having  spoken  at 
once  boldly  and  wisely  on  this  matter.  Putting  the 
question  whether  it  would  be  right  to  join  those 
who  oppose  all  revision,  his  answer  is,  "  God 
forbid.  ...  It  is  in  vain  to  cheat  our  own  iouls 
with  the  thought  that  these  errors  (in  A.  V.)  are 
either  insignificant  or  imaginary.  There  are  errors, 
there  are  inaccuracies,  there  are  misconceptions, 
there  are  obscurities  ....  and  that  man  who, 
after  being  in  any  degree  satisfied  of  this,  permits 
himself  to  lean  to  the  counsels  of  a  timid  or  popular 
obstructiveness,  or  who,  intellectually  unable  to 
test  the  truth  of  these  allegations,  nevertheless  per 
mits  himself  to  denounce  or  deny  them,  will  .  .  . 
have  to  sustain  the  tremendous  charge  of  having 
dealt  deceitfully  with  the  inviolable  word  of  God" 
'Pref.  to  Pastoral  Epistles}.  The  translations  ap 
pended  by  Dr.  Ellicott  to  his  editions  of  St.  Paul's 


c  Mr.  Malau's  careful  translation  of  the  chief  Oriental 
and  other  versions  of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John, 
and  Mr.  Scrivener's  notes  on  St.  Matthew,  deserve  to  be 
mentioned  as  valuable  contributions  towards  the  work 
vhioh  tLey  depress \j.  A  high  American  authority,  Mr. 


Epistles,  proceed  on  the  true  principle  of  altering 
the  A.  V.  "  only  where  it  appears  to  be  incorrect, 
inexact,  insufficient,  or  obscure,"  uniting  a  profound 
reverence  for  the  older  translators  with  a  bold 
truthfulness  in  judging  of  their  work.  The  copious 
collation  of  all  the  earlier  English  versions  make* 
this  part  of  his  book  especially  interesting  and 
valuable.  Dr.  Trench  ( On  the  A.  V.  of  the  N.  T., 
1858),  in  like  manner,  states  his  conviction  that 
"  a  revision  ought  to  come,"  though  as  yet,  he 
thinks,  "  the  Greek  and  the  English  necessary  to  bring 
it  to  a  successful  issue  are  alike  wanting"  (p.  3). 
The  work  itself,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  is  the  fullest 
contradiction  possible  of  this  somewhat  despondent 
statement,  and  supplies  a  good  store  of  materials 
for  use  when  the  revision  actually  comes.  Th« 
Revision  of  the  A.  V.  by  Five  Clergymen  (Dr. 
Barrow,  Dr.  Moberly,  Dean  Alford,  Mr.  Humphry, 
and  Dr.  Ellicott),  represents  the  same  school  of 
conservative  progress,  has  the  merit  of  adhering  to 
the  clear,  pure  English  of  the  A.  V.,  and  does  not 
deserve  the  censure  which  Dr.  Beard  passes  on  it 
as  "  promising  little  and  performing  less."  As  yet, 
this  series  includes  only  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  and 
the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and  Corinthians.  The 
publications  of  the  American  Bible  Union  are  signs 
that  there  also  the  same  want  has  been  felt.  The 
translations  given  respectively  by  Alford,  Stanley, 
Jowett,  and  Conybeare  and  Howson,  in  their  re 
spective  Commentaries,  are  in  like  manner,  at  once 
admissions  of  the  necessity  of  the  work,  and  con 
tributions  towards  it.  Mr.  Sharpe  (1840)  and  Mr. 
Highton  (1862)  have  ventured  on  the  wider  w:rk 
of  translations  of  the  entire  N.  T.  Mr.  Cookesiey 
has  published  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  as  Part  I. 
of  a  like  undertaking.  It  might  almost  seem  as  if 
at  last  there  was  something  like  a  consensus  of 
scholars  and  divines  on  this  question.  That  as 
sumption  would,  however,  be  too  hasty.  Partly 
the  vis  inertiae,  which  in  a  large  body  like  the 
clergy  of  the  English  Church,  is  always  great, 
partly  the  fear  of  ulterior  consequences,  partly  also 
the  indifference  of  the  majority  of  the  laity,  would 
probably,  at  the  present  moment  give  at  least  a 
numerical  majority  to  the  opponents  of  a  revision. 
Writers  on  this  side  are  naturally  less  numerous, 
but  the  feeling  of  Conservatism,  pure  and  simple, 
has  found  utterance  in  four  men  representing  differ 
ent  sections,  and  of  different  calibre, — Mr.  Scrivener 
(Svpp.  to  A.  Eng.  V.  of  N.  T.},  fcr.  M'Caul  (Reasons 
for  holding  fast  the  Authorized  English  Version), 
Mr.  C.  S.  Malan  (A  Vindication,  &c.),  and  Dr. 
Gumming  (Revision  and  Translation).* 

XIII.  PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  QUESTION. — 
(1.)  To  take  an  accurate  estimate  of  the  extent  to 
which  the  A.  V.  requires  revision  would  call  for  no 
thing  less  than  an  examination  of  ench  single  Book, 
and  would  therefore  involve  an  amount  of  detail 
incompatible  with  our  present  limits.  To  give  a 
few  instances  only,  would  practically  fix  attention 
on  a  part  only  of  the  evidence,  and  so  would  lead  tc 
a  false  rather  than  a  true  estimate.  No  attempt, 
therefore,  will  be  made  to  bring  together  individual 
passages  as  needing  correction.  A  few  remarks  on 
the  chief  questions  which  must  necessarily  come 
before  those  who  undertake  a  revision  will  not, 


George  P.  Marsh,  mav  also  be  referred  to  as  throwing 
the  weight  of  his  Judgment  into  the  scale  against  any 
revision  at  the  present  moment  ( Lectures  on  the  Englisl,. 
Language,  Lect.  xxviii ). 


VERSION.  AUTHORISED 

perhaps,  be  out  of  place.  Examples,  classified  under 
corresponding  heads,  will  be  found  in  the  book  by 
Di.  Trench  already  mentioned,  and,  scattered  in  the 
form  of  annotations,  in  that  of  Professor  Scholefield. 
(2.)  The  translation  of  the  N.  T.  is  from  a  Text 


confessedly  imperfect.  What  editions  were  used  is 
a  matter  of  conjecture  ;  most  probably,  one  of  those 
published  with  a  Latin  version  by  Beza  between 
1565  and  1598,  and  agreeing  substantially  with  the 
Textus  receptus  of  1633.  It  is  clear,  on  principle, 
that  no  revision  ought  to  ignore  the  results  of  the 
textual' criticism  of  the  last  hundred  years.  To  shrink 
from  noticing  any  variation,  to  go  on  printing  as  the 
inspired  Word  that  which  there  is  a  preponderant 
reason  for  believing  to  be  an  interpolation  or  a 
mistake,  is  neither  honest  nor  reverential.  To  do 
so  for  the  sake  of  greater  edification  is  simply  to 
offer  to  God  the  unclean  sacrifice  of  a  lie.  The 
authority  of  the  A.  V.  is  at  any  rate  in  favour  of 
the  practice  of  not  suppressing  facts.  In  Matt.  i. 
11,  xxvi.  26;  Luke  xvii.  36;  John  viii.  6;  Acts 
xiii.  18;  Eph.  vi.  9;  Heb.  ii.  4;  James  ii.  18; 

1  John  ii.  23;   1  Pet.  ii.  21;  2  Pet.  ii.  11,  18; 

2  John  8,  different  readings  are  given  in  the  margin, 
or,  as  in  1  John  ii.  23,  indicated  by  a  different 
type.     In  earlier  versions,  as  has  been  mentioned, 
1  John  v.  7  was  printed  in  smaller  letters.     The 
degree  to  which  this  should  be  done  will,  of  course, 
require  discernment.      An  apparatus  like  that  in 
Tischendorf  or  Alford  would  obviously  be  out  of 
place.     Probably  the  useful  Greek  Testament  edited 
by  Mr.  Scrivener  might  serve  as  an  example  of  a 
middle  course. 

(3.)  Still  less  had  been  done  at  the  commence 
ment  of  the  17th  century  for  the  text  of  the  0.  T. 
The  Jewish  teachers,  from  whom  Protestant  divines 
derived  their  knowledge,  had  given  currency  to  the 
belief  that  in  the  Masoretic  text  were  contained  the 
ipsissima  verba  of  Revelation,  free  from  all  risks  of 
error,  from  all  casualties  of  transcription.  The 


conventional    phrases,    "  the    authentic    Hebrew,1 
"  the  Hebrew  verity,''  were  the  expression  of  this 


1681 

made  in  the  language  of  the  A.  V.  Happily  there 
is  little  risk  of  an  emasculated  elegance  such  as 
might  have  infected  a  new  version  in  the  last  cen 
tury.  The  very  fact  of  the  admiration  felt  for  the 
A.  V.,  and  the  general  revival  of  a  taste  for  the 


literature  of  the  Elizabethan  period,  are  safeguards 
against  any  like  tampering  now.  Some  words, 
however,  absolutely  need  change,  as  being  altogether 
obsolete  ;  others,  more  numerous,  have  been  slowly 
passing  into  a  different,  often  into  a  lower  or  a 
narrower  meaning,  and  are  therefore  no  longer  what 
they  once  were,  adequate  renderings  of  the  original 

(5.)  The  self-imposed  law  of  fairness  which  led 
the  A.  V.  translators  to  admit  as  many  English 
words  as  possible  to  the  honour  of  representing  one 
in  the  Hebrew  or  Greek  text  has,  as  might  be  ex 
pected,  marred  the  perfection  of  their  work.  Some 
times  the  effect  is  simply  the  loss  of  the  solemn 
emphasis  of  the  repetition  of  the  same  word. 
Sometimes  it  is  more  serious,  and  affects  the  mean 
ing.  While  it  would  be  simple  pedantry  to  lay 
down  unconditionally  that  but  one  and  the  same 
word  should  be  used  throughout  for  one  in  the 
original,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  such  a  limita 
tion  is  the  true  principle  to  start  with,  and  that 
instances  to  the  contrary  should  be  dealt  with  as 
exceptional  necessities.  Side  by  side  with  this 
fault,  there  is  another  just  the  opposite  of  it.  One 
English  word  appears  for  several  Greek  or  Hebrew 
words,  and  thus  shades  of  meaning,  often  of  im 
portance  to  the  right  understanding  of  a  passage, 
are  lost  sight  of.  Taken  together,  the  two  forms 
of  error,  which  meet  us  in  well-nigh  every  chapter, 
make  the  use  of  an  English  Concordance  absolutely 
misleading.* 

(6.)  Grammatical  inaccuracy  must  be  uoted  as  a 
defect  pervading,  more  or  less,"  the  whole  extent  of 
the  present  version  of  the  N.  T.  Instances  will  be 
found  in  abundance  in  Trench  and  Scholefiold 
(passim],  and  in  any  of  the  better  Commentaries. 


The  true  force  of  tenses,  cases,  prepositions,  articles, 
is  continually  lost,  sometimes  at  the  cost  of  the  finer 

undiscerning  reverence.*1  They  refused  to  apply  the  i  shades  which  give  vividness  and  emphasis,  but  some- 
same  rules  of  judgment  here  which  they  applied  to  i  times  also  entailing  more  serious  errors.  In  justice 
the  text  of  the  N.  T.  They  assumed  that  the  j  to  the  translators  of  the  N.T.,  it  must  be  said  that, 
Masoretes  were  infallible,  and  were  reluctant  to 
acknowledge  that  there  had  been  any  variations 
since.  Even  Walton  did  not  escape  being  attacked 


as  unsound  by  the  great  Puritan  divine,  Dr.  John 


0^ 


for  having  called  attention  to  the  fact  of 


discrepancies  (Proleg.  cap.  vi.).  The  materials  for 
a  revised  text  are,  of  course,  scantier  than  with  the 
N.  T. ;  but  the  labours  of  Kennicott,  De  Rossi,  J. 
H.  Michaelis,  and  Davidson  have  not  been  fruit 
less,  and  here  as  there,  the  older  versions  must  be 
admitted  as  at  least  evidence  of  variations  which 
once  existed,  but  which  were  suppressed  by  the 
rigorous  uniformity  of  the  later  Rabbis.  Conjec 
tural  emendations,  such  as  Newcome,  Lowth  and 
Ewald  have  so  freely  suggested,  ought  to  be  ven 
tured  on  in  such  places  only  as  are  quite  unin 
telligible  without  them. 

(4.)  All  scholars  worthy  of  the  name  are  now 
agreed  that  as  little  change  as  possible  should  be 


;uated  as  they  were,  such  errors  were  almost  in 
evitable.  They  learnt  Greek  through  the  medium 
of  Latin.  Lexicons  *  and  grammars  were  alike  in 
the  universal  language  of  scholars ;  and  that  lan 
guage  was  poorer  and  less  inflected  than  the  Greek, 
and  failed  utterly  to  represent,  e.  g.  the  force  of  its 
article,  or  the  difference  of  its  aorist  and  perfect 
tenses.  Such  books  of  this  nature  as  were  used  by 
the  translators  were  necessarily  based  upon  a  far 
scantier  induction,  and  were  therefore  more  meagre 
and  inaccurate  than  those  which  have  been  the 
fruits  of  the  labours  of  later  scholars.  Recent 
scholarship  may  in  many  things  fall  short  of  that  o! 
an  earlier  time,  but  the  introduction  of  Greek  lexi 
cons  and  grammars  in  English  has  been  beycnd  all 
doubt  a  change  for  the  better. 

(7.)  The  field  of  the  O.  T.  has  been  far  less 
adequately  worked  than  that  of  the  N.  T.,  and  He 
brew  scholarship  has  made  far  less  progress  than 


d  The  Judaising  spirit  on  this  matter  culminated  in  the 
Formula  Helvetici  Consensus,  which  pronounces  the  exist 
ing  0.  T.  Text  to  be  "  turn  quoad  consonas,  turn  quoad 
vocalia,  sive  puncta  ipsa,  sive  punctorum  potestatem,  turn 
quoad  res,  turn  quoad  verba,  fleoTri/evo-ros. 

«  The  Enylishman's  Hebrew  Concordance  and  the  Eng 
lishman's  Greek  Concordance,  published  by  Walton  and 
Malwrly,  deserve  mention  as  useful  helps  for  the  student 
VOL.  III. 


of  the  A.  V.  in  overcoming  this  difficulty. 

t  Constantino's  and  Scapula's  were  the  two  principally 
used.  During  the  half  century  that  preceded  the  A.  V. 
the  study  of  Greek  had  made  great  progress,  was  taught 
at  all  the  great  schools  in  1586,  and  made  part  of  the 
system  of  new  ones  then  founded.  Nowell,  Dean  of  St. 
Paul's,  published  a  Greek  version  of  the  Catechism.  The 
Grammar  chiefly  in  u»e  was  probably  Colet's(?). 

5  P 


1682 


VERSION    AUTHORISED 


Greek.  Relatively,  indeed,  there  seems  good  ground 
for  believing  that  Hebrew  was  more  studied  in  the 
fcirly  part  of  the  17th  century  than  it  is  now.  It 
was  newer  and  more  popular.  The  reverence 
which  men  felt  for  the  perfection  of  the  "  Hebrew 
verity "  made  them  willing  to  labour  to  learn  a 
language  which  they  looked  upon  as  half-divine. 
But  here  also  there  was  the  same  source  of  error. 
The  early  Hebrew  lexicons  represented  partly,  it  is 
true,  a  Jewish  tradition  ;  but  partly  also  were 
based  upon  the  Vulgate  (Bishop  Marsh,  Lectures, 
ii.  App.  61).  The  forms  of  cognate  Shemitic  lan 
guages  had  not  been  applied  as  a  means  for  ascer 
taining  the  precise  value  of  Hebrew  words.  The 
grammars,  also  in  Latin,  were  defective.  Little  as 
Hebrew  professors  have,  for  the  most  part,  done  in 
the  way  of  exegesis,  any  good  commentary  on  the 
O.  T.  will  show  that  here  also  there  are  errors  as 
serious  as  in  the  N.  T.  In  one  memorable  case, 
the  inattention,  real  or  apparent,  of  the  translators 
to  the  force  of  the  Hiphil  form  of  the  verb  (Lev.  iv. 
12)  has  led  to  a  serious  attack  on  the  truthfulness 
of  the  whole  narrative  of  the  Pentateuch  (Colenso, 
Perdatcuch  Critically  Examined,  Part  I.  ch.  vii.). 

(8.)  The  division  into  chapters  and  verses  is  a 
matter  that  ought  not  to  be  passed  over  in  any 
future  revision.  The  former,  it  must  be  remem 
bered,  does  not  go  further  back  than  the  13th  cen 
tury.  The  latter,  though  answering,  as  far  as  the 
0.  T.  is  concerned,  to  a  long-standing  Jewish  ar 
rangement,  depends,  in  the  N.  T.,  upon  the  work  of 
Robert  Stephens.  [BIBLE.]  Neither  in  the  0.  T. 
nor  in  the  N.  T.  did  the  verse-division  appear  in  any 
earlier  English  edition  than  that  of  Geneva.  The 
inconveniences  of  changing  both  are  probably  too 
great  to  be  risked.  The  habit  of  referring  to 
chapter  and  verse  is  too  deeply  rooted  to  be  got 
rid  of.  Yet  the  division,  as  it  is,  is  not  seldom  arti 
ficial,  and  sometimes  is  absolutely  misleading.  No 
one  would  think  of  printing  any  other  book,  in  prose 
or  poetry,  in  short  clauses  like  the  verses  of  our 
Bibles,  and  the  tendency  of  such  a  division  is  to 
give  a  broken  and  discontinuous  knowledge,  to 
make  men  good  textuaries  but  bad  divines.  An 
arrangement  like  that  of  the  Paragraph  Bibles  of 
our  own  time,  with  the  verse  and  chapter  divisions 
relegated  to  the  margin,  ought  to  form  part  of  any 
authoritative  revision.! 

(9.)  Other  points  of  detail  remain  to  be  noticed 
briefly  :  (1)  The  chapter  headings  of  the  A.  V.  often 
go  beyond  their  proper  province.  If  it  is  intended 
to  give  an  authoritative  commentary  to  the  lay 
reader,  let  it  be  done  thoroughly.  But  if  that 
attempt  is  abandoned,  as  it  was  deliberately  in 
1611,  then  for  the  chapter-headings  to  enter,  as 
they  do,  upon  the  work  of  interpretation,  giving, 
as  in  Canticles,  Psalms,  and  Prophets,  passim, 
mystical  meanings,  is  simply  an  inconsistency. 


What  should  l>e  a  mere  table  of  contents  becomes  a 
gloss  upon  the  text.  (2)  The  use  of  italics  in 
printing  the  A.  V.  is  at  least  open  to  some  risks. 
At  first  they  seem  an  honest  confession  on  the  part 
of  the  translators  of  what  is  or  is  not  in  the  origi 
nal.  On  the  other  hand,  they  tempt  to  a  loore 
translation.  Few  writers  would  think  it  necessary 
to  use  them  in  translating  other  books.  If  the 
words  do  not  do  more  than  represent  the  sense  of  the 
original,  then  there  is  no  reason  for  treating  them 
as  if  they  were  added  at  the  discretion  of  the 
translators.  If  they  go  beyond  that,  they  are  of 
the  nature  of  a  gloss,  altering  the  force  of  the  ori 
ginal,  and  have  no  right  to  be  there  at  all,  while  the 
tact  that  they  appear  as  additions  frees  the  trans 
lator  from  the  sense  of  responsibility.  (3)  Good 
as  the  principle  of  marginal  references  is,  the  mar 
gins  of  the  A.  V.,  as  now  printed,  are  somewhat 
inconveniently  crowded,  and  the  references,  being 
often  merely  verbal,  tend  to  defeat  their  own  pur 
pose,  and  to  make  the  reader  weary  of  referring. 
They  need,  accordingly,  a  careful  sifting ;  and 
though  it  would  not  be  desirable  to  go  back  to 
the  scanty  number  of  the  original  edition  of  1611, 
something  intermediate  between  that  and  the  pre 
sent  over-abundance  would  be  an  improvement. 
(4)  Marginal  readings,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
dicating  variations  in  the  text,  or  differences  in 
the  judgment  of  translators,  might  be  profitably 
increased  in  number.  The  results  of  the  labours  of 
scholars  would  thus  be  placed  within  the  reach  of 
all  intelligent  readers,  and  so  many  difficulties  and 
stumbling-blocks  might  be  removed.11 

(10.)  What  has  been  said  will  serve  to  show  at  once 
to  what  extent  a  new  revision  is  required,  and  what 
are  the  chief  difficulties  to  be  encountered.  And  the 
work,  it  is  believed,  ought  not  to  be  delayed  much 
longer.  Names  will  occur  to  every  one  of  men 
competent  to  undertake  the  work  as  far  as  the 
N.  T.  is  concerned  ;  and  if  such  alterations  only 
were  to  be  introduced  as  commanded  the  assent  of 
at  least  two-thirds  of  a  chosen  body  of  twenty  or 
thirty  scholars,  while  a  place  in  the  margin  was 
given  to  such  renderings  only  as  were  adopted  by 
at  least  one-third,  there  would  be,  it  is  believed,  at 
once  a  great  change  for  the  better,  and  without 
any  shock  to  the  feelings  or  even  the  prejudices 
of  the  great  mass  of  readers.  Men  fit  to  under 
take  the  work  of  revising  the  translation  of  the 
0.  T.  ai-e  confessedly  fewer,  and,  for  the  most  part, 
occupied  in  other  things.  The  knowledge  and  the 
power,  however,  are  there,  though  in  less  measure, 
and  even  though  the  will  be  for  the  time  absent,  a 
summons  to  enter  on  the  task  from  those  whose 
authority  they  are  bound  to  respect,  would,  we 
cannot  doubt,  be  listened  to.  It  might  have  the 
result  of  directing  to  their  proper  task  and  to  a 
fruitful  issue  energies  which  are  too  often  with- 


&  As  examples  of  what  may  be  said  on  both  sides  on 
this  point,  the  reader  may  be  referred  to  an  article  on 
Paragraph  Bibles  in  No.  208  of  the  Edinburgh  Review 
(subsequently  reprinted  by  the  Rev.  W.  Harness,  1855) 
and  the  Pamphlet  by  Dr.  M'Caul  (Reasons  for  holding 
fast}  already  mentioned.  Reeves's  Bibles  and  Testaments 
(1802)  and  Boothroyd's  translation  ( 1 824)  should  be  men 
tioned  as  having  set  the  example  followed  by  the  Reli 
gious  Tract  Society  ill  their  1'aragraph  Bible. 

•»  In  all  these  points  there  has  been,  to  a  much  larger 
extent  than  is  commonly  known,  &  vork  of  unauthorized 


chief  alterations  appear  to  have  been  made  first  in  1683, 
and  afterwards  in  1769,  by  Dr.  Blayney,  under  the  sanction 
of  the  Oxford  Delegates  of  the  Press  (Gentleman's  Maga 
zine,  Nov.  1789).  A  like  work  was  done  about  the  same 
time  by  Dr.  Paris  at  Cambridge.  There  had,  however, 
been  some  changes  previously.  The  edition  of  1638,  in 
particular,  shews  considerable  augmentations  in  the  italics 
(Turton,  Text  of  the  English  Bible,  1833,  pp  »1,  126).  To 
Blayney  also  we  owe  most  of  the  notes  on  weigh ts  and 
measures,  and  coins,  and  the  explanation,  where  the  text 
seems  to  require  it,  of  Hebrew  proper  names.  The  wholtf 


revision.   Neither  italics,  nor  references,  nor  readings,  nor  j  question  of  the  use  of  Italics  is  discussed  elaooratcly  1*3 
chapter-headings,  nor,  it  may  be  added,  punctuation,  are  I  Tnrton  in  the  work  just  mentioned, 
the  sa.ne  now  ac  they  were  in  the  A.  V.  of  1611.    The  > 


VILLAGES 

drawn  to  ephemeral  and  unprofitable  controversies. 
As  the  revised  Bible  would  be  for  the  use  of  the 
English  people,  the  men  appointed  for  the  purpose 
ought  not  to  be  taken  exclusively  from  the  English 
Church,  and  the  learning  of  Nonconformists  should, 
at  least,  be  fairly  represented.  The  changes  re 
commended  by  such  a  body  of  men,  under  con 
ditions  such  as  those  suggested,  might  safely  be 
allowed  to  circulate  experimentally  for  two  or 
three  years.  When  they  had  stood  that  trial,  they 
might  without  risk  be  printed  in  the  new  Autho 
rized  Version.  Such  a  work  would  unite  reverence 
for  the  past  with  duty  towards  the  future.  In 
undertaking  it  we  should  be,  not  slighting  the 
translators  on  whose  labours  we  have  entered,  but 
following  in  their  footsteps.  It  is  the  wisdom  of 
the  Church  to  bring  out  of  its  treasures  things  new 
and  old.  [E.  H.  P.] 

VILLAGES.8  It  is  evident  that  chatser,  "  a 
village,"  lit.,  an  enclosure,  a  collection  of  huts,  is 
often  used,  especially  in  the  enumeration  of  towns 
in  Josh,  xiii.,  xv.,  xix.,  to  imply  unwalled  suburbs 
outside  the  walled  towns.  And  so  it  appeals  to 
mean  when  we  compare  Lev.  xxv.  31  with  v.  34. 
Migrash*  A.  V.  "  suburbs,"  t.  e.  a  place  thrust  out 
from  the  city  (see  also  Gen.  xli.  48).  Arab  villages, 
as  found  in  Arabia,  are  often  mere  collections  of 
stone  huts,  "  long,  low,  rude  hovels,  roofed  only 
with  the  stalks  of  palm- leaves,"  or  covered  for  a 
time  with  tent-cloths,  which  are  removed  when  the 
tribe  change  their  quarters.  Others  are  more  solidly 
built,  as  are  most  of  the  modern  villages  of  Pales 
tine,  though  in  some  the  dwellings  are  mere  mud- 
huts  (Robinson,  i.  167,  ii.  13,  14,'  44,  387  ;  Hassel- 
quist,  Trav.  p.  155;  Stanley,  8.  $  P.  p.  233,  App. 
§83,  p.  525).  Arab  vilkges  of  the  Hedjdz  and 
Yemen  often  consist  of  huts  with  circular  roofs  of 
leaves  or  grass,  resembling  the  description  given  by 
Sallust  of  the  Numidian  mapalia,  viz.  ships  with 
the  keel  uppermost  (Sallust,  Jug.  18  ;  Shaw,  Trav. 
p.  220  ;  Niebuhr,  Descr.  de  I'Ar.  p.  54). 

There  is  little  in  the  0.  T.  to  enable  us  more  pre 
cisely  to  define  a  village  of  Palestine,  beyond  the 
fact  that  it  was  destitute  of  walls  or  external  de 
fences.  Persian  villages  are  spoken  of  in  similar 
terms  (Ez.  xxxviii.  11;  Esth.  ix.  19). 

By  the  Talmudists  a  village  was  defined  as  a 
place  destitute  of  a  synagogue  (Lightfoot,  Chorogr. 
Century,  ch.  xcviii.).  Galilee,  in  our  Lord's 
time,  contained  many  villages  and  village-towns,6 
and  Josephus  says  that  in  his  time  there  were  in 
Galilee  204  towns  and  villages,11  some  of  which  last 
had  walls  (Joseph.  Vit.  §  45).  At  present  the 
country  is  almost  depopulated  (Raumer,  Pal.  p. 
105;  Stanley,  S.  $  P.  p.  384).  Most  modern 
Turkish  and  Persian  villages  have  a  Menzil  or 


VINE 


1683 


Medhdfeh,  a  house  for  travellers  ^Burekhardt,  tfyna, 
p.  295;  Robinson,  ii.  19  ;  Martyn,  Life,  p.  437). 

The  places  to  which  in  the  O.  T.  the  term 
chatser  is  applied  were  mostly  in  the  outskirts 
of  the  country  (Stanley,  p.  526).  In  the  N.  T. 
the  term  KW/JLTJ  is  applied  to  Bethphage  (Matt.  xxi. 
2),  Bethany  (Luke  x.  38;  John  xi.  1),  Emmaus 
(Luke  xxiv."  13),  Bethlehem  (John  vii.  42).  A  dis 
tinction  between  city  or  town  (ir^Ats)  and  village 
(KW/J.T))  is  pointed  out  (Luke  viii.  1).  On  the  other 
hand,  Bethsaida  is  called  ir6\is  (John  i.  45 ;  Luke 
ix.  10),  and  also  K&W  (Mark  viii.  23,  26),  unless 
by  the  latter  word  we  are  to  understand  the  suburbs 
of  the  town,  which  meaning  seems  to  belong  to 
"country"*  (Mark  vi.  56).  The  relation  of  de 
pendence  on  a  chief  town  of  a  district  appears  to  be 
denoted  by  the  phrase  "  villages  of  Caesarea  Phi- 
lippi "  (Mark  viii.  27). 

In  the  Hebrew  language  the  prefix  Caphar  im 
plied  a  regular  village,  as  Capernaum,  which  place, 
however,  had  in  later  times  outgrown  the  limits 
implied  by  its  original  designation  (Lightfbot,  I  c. ; 
Stanley,  pp.  521-527 ;  1  Mace.  vii.  31).  [H.  W.  P.] 

VINE.  The  well-known  valuable  plant  (  Vitis 
vinifcra},  very  frequently  referred  to  in  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  and  cultivated  from  the 
earliest  times.  The  first  mention  of  this  plant 
occurs  in  Gen.  ix.  20,  21,  where  Noah  is  repre 
sented  as  having  been  its  first  cultivator.  The 
Egyptians  say  that  Osiris  first  taught  men  the  use 
of  the  vine.  That  it  was  abundantly  cultivated! 
in  Egypt  is  evident  from  the  frequent  represen 
tations  on  the  monuments,  as  well  as  from  the 
Scriptural  allusions.  See  Gen.  xl.  9-11,  Pharaoh's 
dream ;  and  Num.  xx.  5,  where  the  Israelites  com 
plain  that  the  wilderness  was  "  no  place  of  figs  or 
of  vines,"  evidently  regretting  that  they  had  left 
the  vines  of  Egypt.  Cpmp.  also  Ps.  Ixxviii.  47  : 
"  He  destroyed  their  vines  with  hail"  (see  on  this 
subject  Celsius,  Hierob.  ii.  p.  412). 

The  vines  of  Palestine  were  celebrated  both  for 
luxuriant  growth  and  for  the  immense  clusters  of 
grapes  which  they  produced.  When  the  spies  were 
sent  forth  to  view  the  promised  land,  we  are  told 
that  on  their  arrival  at  the  valley  of  Eshcol  they 
cut  down  a  branch  with  one  cluster  of  grapes,  and 
bare  it  between  two  on  a  staff  (Num.  xiii.  23). 
This  they  did  no  doubt  for  convenience  of  carriage, 
and  in  order  that  the  grapes  on  that  splendid 
cluster  might  not  be  bruised.  Travellers  have  fre 
quently  testified  to  the  large  size  of  the  grape- 
clusters  of  Palestine.  Schulz  (Leitungen  des 
Hochsten,  v.  p.  285,  quoted  by  Rosenmuller, 
Bib.  Bot.  p.  223)  speaks  of  supping  at  Beitshin,  a 
village  near  Ptolemais,  under  a  vine  whose  stem 
was  about  a  foot  and  a  half  in  diameter,  and  whose 


•  1.  Bath.    See  DAUGHTER. 

2.  "1 V H  ;  €7rav\is,  icw/aTj ;  villa,  castdlum,  oppidum, 
especially  described  as  unwalled,  Lev,  zxv.  31.  (Stanley, 
."?.  <fe  P.  App.  $87.) 

3.  (a)  "IS3,  from  "IS3,  "cover"  (Ges.  706);  KOJ/U.TJ  ; 
villa.     (6)  "VQ3,  only  once,  Neb.  vi.  2  ;  KCU/XYJ  ;  viculus. 
(c)  "123,  only  once,  1  Sam.  vi.  18  ;  Kta^  ;  villa. 

4.  (a)  PQ,  from   PS   (Ges.  1125,  "  to  separate,"  also 
"  to  Judge,"  like  Kpivoi ;  once  "  village,"  ^.  e.  a  place  of 
separated  dwellings,  Hab.  iii.  14);   Svricmp, ,   MMvr. 
8ce  PERIZZITE.     (6)  j'lPS,  Judg.  v.  7,  11.;  A.  V.  follow- 
ingTarg.  "village*;"  lit.,  rulers  or  warriors,    (c)  WP3- 


nwalled),  Ez.  xxxviii.  11.     (d)  "'PS,  properly  a 
dweller  in  the  country,  paganus ;  0epe<JaIo? ;  oppidum. 

5.  njn;  eTravAi?;  vicus',  Num.  xxxii.  41,  Deut.  iii. 
H,  Judg.  x.  4:  a  word  applied  by  modern  Bedouins  to 
their  own  villages  (Stanley,  p.  527).    See  HAVOTH-JAIR. 

6.  D^IJD;  n-epunropia ;  suburbana;  lit.,  pasture* 
for  flocks  (Ges.  pp.  306-7). 

In  N.  T.  the  word  <C<OJU.T?  is  also  rendered  "  town." 

b  £^"Up,  from  K^IJ,  "drive  out." 

c  Kw/xoTToAet?,  vicos  et  civitates,  M.irk  i.  38. 

d  TroAei?  KOI  KcofAai. 

8  a-ypoi. 

5  P  3 


1684 


VFNK 


height  was  about  thirty  fe>.'t,  which  by  its  branches 
"brined  a  hut  upwards  of  thirty  feet  broad  and 
long.  "  The  clusters  of  these  extraordinary  vines," 
he  adds,  "  are  so  large  that  they  weigh  ten  or 
tv/elve  pounds,  and  the  berries  may  be  compared 
with  our  small  plums."  See  also  Belon,  Observed. 
ii.  p.  340  :  "  Les  seps  des  vignes  sont  fort  gros  et 
les  rameaux  fort  spacieux.  Les  habitants  entendent 
bien  comine  il  la  faut  gouverner.  Car  ils  la  plantent 
si  loing  1'une  de  1'autre,  qu'on  pourroit  meuer  une 
cnarrette  entre  deux.  Ce  n'est  pas  grande  merveille 
si  les  raisins  sont  si  beaux  et  le  vin  si  puissant." 
Strabo  states  that  it  is  recorded  that  there  are  vines 
in  Margiana  whose  stems  are  such  as  would  re 
quire  two  men  to  span  round,  and  whose  clusters 
are  two  cubits  long  (Gcograph.  i.  p.  112,  ed. 
Kramer).  Now  Margiana  is  the  modern  district  of 
Ghilan  in  Persia,  south-west  of  the  Caspian  Sea, 
and  the  verj  country  on  whose  hills  the  vine  is 
believed  to  be  indigenous.  Nothing  would  be 
easier  than  to  multiply  testimonies  relative  to 
the  large  size  of  the  grapes  of  Palestine,  from  the 
published  accounts  of  travellers  such  as  Elliot, 
Laborde,  Mariti,  Dandini  (who  expresses  his  sur 
prise  at  the  extraordinary  size  of  the  grapes  of 
Lebanon),  Russell,  &c.  We  must  be  content  with 
quoting  the  following  extract  from  Kitto's  Physical 
History  of  Palestine,  p.  330,  which  is  strikingly 
illustrative  of  the  spies'  mode  of  carrying  the  grapes 
from  Eshcol : — "  Even  in  our  own  country  a  bunch 
of  grapes  was  produced  at  VVelbeck,  and  sent  as  a 
present  from  the  Duke  of  Rutland  to  the  Marquis 
of  Rockingham,  which  weighed  nineteen  pounds. 
It  was  conveyed  to  its  destination — more  than 
twenty  miles  distant — on  a  staff  by  four  labourers, 
two  of  whom  bore  it  in  rotation."  The  greatest 
diameter  of  this  cluster  was  nineteen  inches  and  a 
half,  its  circumference  four  feet  and  a  half,  and  its 
length  nearly  twenty-three  inches. 

Especial  mention  is  made  in  the  Bible  of  the 
vines  of  Eshcol  (Num.  xiii.  24,  xxxii.  9),  of  Sibmah, 
Heshbon,  and  Eleaieh  (Is.  xvi.  8,  9,  10  ;  Jer.  xlviii. 
32),  and  Kngedi  (Cant.  i.  14).  Prof.  Stanley 
thus  speaks  of  the  vineyards  of  Judah,  which  he 
saw  along  the  slopes  of  Bethlehem  : — "  Here,  more 
than  elsewhere  in  Palestine,  are  to  be  seen  on  the 
sides  of  the  hills,  the  vineyards  marked  by  their 
watchtowers  and  walls,  seated  on  their  ancient  ter 
races — the  earliest  and  latest  symbol  of  Judah. 
The  elevation  of  the  hills  and  table-lands  of  Judah 
is  the  true  climate  of  the  vine.  He  '  bouna  his 
foal  to  the  vine,  and  his  ass's  colt  to  the  choice 
vine ;  he  washed  his  garments  in  wine,  and  his 
clothes  in  the  blood  of  grapes.'  It  was  from  the 
Judaean  valley  of  Eshcol,  «  the  torrent  of  the 
cluster,'  that  the  spies  cut  down  the  gigantic 
cluster  of  grapes.  '  A  vineyard  on  a  hill  of  olives,' 
with  the  '  fence,'  and  '  the  stones  gathered  out,' 
and  *  the  tower  in  the  midst  of  it,'  is  the  natural 
figure  which,  both  in  the  prophetical  and  evan 
gelical  records,  represents  the  kingdom  of  Judah  " 
(S.  and  P.  p,  164).  From  the  abundance  and  ex 
cellence  of  the  vines,  it  may  readily  be  understood 
how  frequently  this  plant  is  the  subject  of  meta 
phor  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Thus  Israel  is  a 
vine  brought  from  Egypt,  and  planted  by  the 
Lord's  hand  in  the  land  of  promise  ;  room  had  been 
prepared  for  it  (compare  with  this  the  passage  from 
Belon  quoted  above) ;  and  where  it  took  root  it 
iilled  the  land,  it  covered  the  hills  with  its  shadow, 
its  boughs  were  like  the  goodly  cedar-trees  (Ps. 
Uzx.  8  10).  Comp.  Gmelin  (Travels  through 


VINE 

Russia  and  N.  Persia,  iii.  p.  431),  who  thus. 
speaks  of  the  vines  of  Ghilan:  —  "It  is  road  ot 
forests,  .  .  .  and  is  frequently  found  about  pro 
montories,  and  their  lower  part  is  almost  entirely 
covered  with  it.  There,  higher  than  the  eye  can 
reach,  it  winds  itself  about  the  loftiest  trees  ;  and 
its  tendrils,  which  here  have  an  arm's  thickness. 
so  spread  and  mutually  entangle  themselves  far 
and  wide,  that  in  places  where  it  grows  in  the 
most  luxuriant  wildness  it  is  very  difficult  to  find 
a  passage."  To  dwell  under  the  vine  and  rig-tm» 
is  an  emblem  of  domestic  happiness  and  peace  (1  K. 
iv.  25;  Mic.  iv.  4;  Ps.  cxxviii.  3)  ;  the  rebellious 
people  of  Israel  are  compared  to  "  wild  grapes," 
"  an  empty  vine,"  "  the  degenerate  plant  of  a 
strange  vine,"  &c.  (Is.  v.  2,  4,  but  see  COCKLE  ; 
Hos.  x.  1  ;  Jer.  ii.  21).  It  is  a  vine  which  our 
Lord  selects  to  show  the  spiritual  union  which. 
subsists  between  Himself  and  his  members  (John 
xv.  1-6). 

The  following  Hebrew  words  denote  the  vine  :  — 

1.  Gephen  (|S3),  or,  more  definitely,  gcphen 
hayyayin  (p*H  JS3),  of  frequent  occurrence  in  the 
Bible,  and  used  in  a  general  sense.     Indeed  gephen 
sometimes  is  applied  to  a  plant  that  resembles  a  vine 
in  some  particulars,  as  7TW?  }D3  (gephen  sddch), 
2  K.  iv.  39,  *.  e.  probably   the  Colocynth    plant 
[GOURD,  App.  A],  or  DID  }Q3  (gephen  seJom), 
the  vine  of  Sodom,  certainly  not  a  vine.    (See  below.) 

2.  Sorek  (|T)K>),  or  sorekdh  (fljTll?),  is  a  terra 
expressive  of  some  choice  kind  of  vine  (Jer.  ii.  21  ; 
Is.  v.  2  ;  Gen.  xlix.  1  1  j,  supposed  to  be  identical 
with    that    now  called   in   Morocco  serki,   and   in 
Persia  kishmish,  with  small  round  dark  berries,  and 
soft  stones.     (See  Niebuhr,  Descript.  de  r  Arabic, 
p.  147  ;   and  Oedmann,  Sammlung,  ii.  97.)     Fi-om 
the  passage  in  Jeremiah,  it  is  clear  that  the  sorek 
denotes  not  another  species  of  vine,  but  the  coirmon 
vine  which  by  some  process  of  cultivation  attained 
a  high  state  of  excellence. 

3.  Nazir  (*VT3),  originally  applied  to  a  Nazaritc 

who  did  not  shave  his  hair,  expresses  an  "  undressed 
vine"  (A.  V.),  i.  e.  one  which  every  seventh  and 
every  fiftieth  year  was  not  pruned.  (See  Gesenuus, 
Th.es.  s.  v.) 

Grapes  are  designated  by  various  names:  (1) 
Eshcol  pb^N)  is  either  "  a  cluster,"  ripe  or  un 
ripe,  like  racemus,  or  a  "  single  grape"  (as  in 
Is.  Ixv.  8,  Mic.  vii.  1).  (2)  'Enab  (1)$  •  Arab. 


,  "  a  cluster  ").    (3)  Baser  (1D3),  sour,  i.e. 


unripe  grapes  (Is.  xviii.  5).  (4)  Zemorah 
"  a  grape  cut  off."  "  The  blossom  "  of  the  vine 
is  called  semadar  (Tl»p),  Cant.  ii.  13,  15. 
"  Grape-stones"  are  probably  meant  by  chartsan- 
niin  (D*3>nn)  ;  A.  V.  "  kernel,"  Num.  vi.  4. 
"The  cuticle"  of  the  grape  is  denominated  zdtj 
(3T),  Num.  I.  c. ;  "the  tendrils"  by  sari^im 

(D»anK>), Joel  i-  7- 

The  ancient  Hebrevvf  probably  al!  wed  tie  vine 
to  grow  trailing  on  the  ground,  or  upon  supports. 
This  latter  mode  of  cultivation  appears  to  be 
alluded  to  by  Ezekiel  (iix.  11,  12):  "her  strong 
rods  were  broken  and  withered."  Di.  Robinson 


VINE 

who  has  given  us  much  information  on  the  vines  of 
Palestine,  thus  speaks  of  the  manner  in  which  he 
saw  them  trained  near  Hebron : — "  They  are 
planted  singly  in  rows,  eight  or  ten  feet  apart  in 
each  direction.  The  stock  is  suffered  to  grow  up 
large  to  the  height  of  six  or  eight  feet,  and  is  then 
fastened  in  a  sloping  position  to  a  strong  stake, 
and  the  shoots  suffered  to  grow  and  extend  from 
one  plant  to  another,  forming  a  line  of  festoons. 
Sometimes  two  rows  are  made  to  slant  towards 
each  other,  and  thus  form  by  their  shoots  a  sort  of 
arch.  These  shoots  are  pruned  away  in  autumn  " 
^Bib.  Res.  ii.  80,  81). 

The  vintage,  bdtsir  (TV2),  which  formerly 
was  a  season  of  general  festivity,  as  is  the  case  more 
or  less  in  all  vine-growing  countries,  commenced  in 
September.  The  towns  are  deserted,  and  the  people 
live  among  the  vineyards  (D}3)  in  the  lodges  and 
tents  (Bib.  Res.  I.e.;  comp'.  Judg.  ix.  27;  Jer. 
xxv.  30  ;  Is.  xvi.  10).  The  grapes  were  gathered 
with  shouts  of  joy  by  the  "  grape-gatherers " 
O  a*3)  (Jer.  xxv.  30),  and  put  into  baskets  (see  Jer. 
vi.  9).  They  were  then  carried  on  the  head  and 
shoulders,  or  slung  upon  a  yoke,  to  the  "wine-press" 
(nil).  [WiNE.]  Those  intended  for  eating  were 
perhaps  put  into  flat  open  baskets  of  wickerwork,  as 
was  the  custom  in  Egypt  (Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egypt,  i. 
43).  In  Palestine  at  present  the  finest  grapes,  says 
Dr.  Robinson,  are  dried  as  raisins,  tsimm&k  (p-l£¥), 
and  the  juice  of  the  remainder,  after  having  been 
trodden  and  pressed,  "  is  boiled  down  to  a  syrup 
which,  under  the  name  of  dibs  (SJO'I),  is  much  used 
by  all  classes,  wherever  vineyards  are  found,  as  a 
condiment  with  their  food."  For  further  remarks  on 
the  modes  of  making  fermented  drinks,  &c.,  of  the 
juice  of  the  grape,  see  under  WINE.  The  vineyard 
(D^3),  which  was  generally  on  a  hill  (Is.  v.  1  ; 
Jer.  xxxi.  5:  Amos  ix.  13),  was  surrounded  by  a 
wall  or  hedge  in  order  to  keep  out  the  wild  boars 
(Ps.  Ixxx.  13),  jackals,  and  foxes  (Num.  xxii.  24  ; 
Cant.  ii.  15 ;  Neh.  iv.  3 ;  Ez.  xiii.  4,  5 ;  Matt. 
xxi.  33),  which  commit  sad  havoc  amongst  the 
vines,  both  by  treading  them  down  and  by  eating 
the  grapes.  Within  the  vineyard  was  one  or  more 
towers  of  stone  in  which  the  vine-dressers,  corSmirn 
(D^pY3),  lived  (Is.  i.  8,  v.  2 ;  Matt.  xxi.  33  ;  see 
also  Robinson,  Bib.  Res.  i.  213  ;  ii.  81).  The  press, 
gath  (J1|),  and  vat,  yckeb  (3j5*.)»  which  was  dug 
(Matt.  xxi.  33)  or  hewn  out  of  the  rocky  soil,  were 
•part  of  the  vineyard  furniture  (Is.  v.  2).  See  WINE, 
p.  1774,  for  a  figure  of  a  large  footpress  with  vat, 
represented  in  operation.  The  winepress  of  the 
Hebrews  was  probably  of  the  form  there  depicted. 
[FAT,  p.  614rt.] 

The  vine  in  the  Mosaic  ritual  was  subject  to 
the  usual  restrictions  of  the  "seventh  year"  (Ex. 
xxiii.  11),  and  the  jubilee  of  the  fiftieth  year  (Lev. 
xxv.  1 1).  The  gleanings,  olelotli  (JTO^),  were  to 
be  left  for  the  poor  and  stranger  (Jer.  xlix.  9 ; 
Deut.  xxiv.  21).  The  vineyard  was  not  to  be 
sown  "  with  divers  seeds  "  (Deut.  xxii.  9),  but  fig- 
trees  were  sometimes  planted  in  vineyards  (Luke 
xiii.  6).  Comp.  1  K.  iv.  25 :  "  Every  man  under 
his  vine  and  under  his  fig-tree."  Persons  passing 
through  a  vineyard  were  allowed  to  eat  the  grapes 
merein,  but  not  tc  carry  any  away  (Deut,  xxiii. 
24). 

Besides  wild-boars,  jackals,  and  foxes,  other  ene- 


VINE  OF  SODOM 


1385 


mies,  such  a«j  birds,  locusts,  and  caterpillars,  occa 
sionally  damaged  the  vines. 

Beth-haccerem,  "the  house  of  the  vine"  (Jer. 
vi.  1 ;  Neh.  iii.  14),  and  Abel-ceramim,  "  the  plain 
of  the  vineyards,"  took  their  respective  names  from 
their  vicinity  to  vineyards.  Gophna  (now  Jifna), 
a  few  miles  N.  of  Jerusalem,  is  staled  by  Eusebius 
(Onom.  fydpayZ  fidrpvos]  to  have  derived  its  name 
from  its  vines.  But  see  OPHNI.  [W.  H.] 

VINE  OF  SODOM  (Dip  \^  gephen  Sedom  • 

&[j.ir€Xos  2o8(£ju,«i/ :  vinea  Sodomorum]  occurs  only 
in  Deut.  xxxii.  32,  where  of  the  wicked  it  is  said — 
"their  vine  is  of  the  vine  of  Sodom,  and  of  the 
fields  of  Gomorrah."  It  is  generally  supposed  that 
this  passage  alludes  to  the  celebrated  apples  ot 
Sodom,  of  which  Josephus  (Bell.  Jud.  iv.  8,  §4) 
speaks,  and  to  which  apparently  Tacitus  ( Hist.  v.  6) 
alludes.  Much  has  been  written  on  this  curious 
subject,  and  various  trees  have  been  conjectured  to 
be  that  which  produced  those 

«•  Dead  Sea  fruits  that  tempt  the  eye, 
But  turn  to  ashes  on  the  lips," 

of  which  Moore  and  Byron  sing. 

The  following  is  the  account  of  these  fruits,  as 
given  by  Josephus  :  speaking  of  Sodom,  he  says — 
"  It  was  of  old  a  happy  land,  both  in  respect  of  its 
fruits,  and  the  abundance  of  its  cities.  But  now  it 
is  all  burnt  up.  Men  say  that,  on  account  of  the 
wickedness  of  its  inhabitants,  it  was  destroyed  by 
lightning.  At  any  rate,  there  are  still  to  be  seen 
remains  of  the  divine  fire  and  traces  of  fine  cities, 
and  moreover  ashes  produced  in  the  fruits,  which 
indeed  resemble  edible  fruit  in  colour,  but,  on  being 
plucked  by  the  hand,  are  dissolved  into  smoke  and 
ashes."  Tacitus  is  more  general,  and  speaks  of  all 
the  herbs  and  flowers,  whether  growing  wild  or 
planted,  turning  black,  and  crumbling  into  ashes. 

Some  travellers,  as  Maundrell  (Early  Trav.  in 
Palestine,  p.  454,  Bohn,  1848),  regard  the  whole 
story  as  a  fietion,  being  unable  either  to  see  or  hear 
of  any  fruit  that  would  answer  the  required  de 
scription.  Pococke  supposed  the  apples  of  Sodom  to 
be  pomegranates,  "  which,  having  a  tough,  hard  rind, 
and  being  left  on  the  trees  two  or  three  years,  may 
be  dried  to  dust  inside,  and  the  outside  may  remain 
fair."  Hasselquist  (Ti-ao.  p.  287)  seeks  to  iden 
tify  the  apples  in  question  with  the  egg-shaped 
fruit  of  the  Solanum  melon/jena  when  attacked  by 
some  species  of  tenthredo,  which  converts  the  whole 
of  the  inside  into  dust,  while  the  rind  remains 
entire  and  keeps  its  colour.  Seetzen  in  his  letters 
to  Baron  Zach  (Monat.  Correspond,  xviii.  p.  442) 
thought  he  had  discovered  the  apples  of  Sodom  in 
the  fruit  of  a  kind  of  cotton-tree,  which  grew  in 
the  plain  of  El  Ghor,  and  was  known  by  the  name 
of  Aoschar.  The  cotton  is  contained  in  the  fruit, 
which  is  like  a  pomegranate,  but  has  n:>  pulp. 
Chateaubriand  concludes  the  long-sought  fruit  tc 
be  that  of  a  thorny  shrub  with  small  taper  leaves, 
which  in  size  and  colour  is  exactly  like  the  little 
Egyptian  lemon ;  when  dried,  this  fruit  yields  a 
blackish  seed,  which  may  be  compared  to  ashes,  and 
which  in  taste  resembles  bitter  pepper.  Burckhardt 
(Trav.  in  Syria,  p.  392)  and  Irby  and  Mangles 
believe  that  the  tree  which  produces  these  cele 
brated  apples  is  one  which  they  saw  abundantly 
in  the  Ghor  to  the  east  of  the  Dead  Sea,  known  by 
the  vernacular  name  of  asheyr  or  oshar.  This 
tree  bears  a  fruit  of  a  reddish-yellow  colour,  about 
three  inches  in  diameter,  which  contains  a  wliitc 
substance  resembling  the  finest  silk,  and  enveloping 


1680 


VINE  OF  SODOM 


some  seeds.  This  silk  is  collected  by  the  Arabs, 
and  twisted  into  matches  for  their  firelocks.  Dr. 
Robinson  (Bib.  Res.  i.  523),  when  at  'Ain  Jidy, 
without  knowing  at  the  moment  whether  it  had 
been  observed  by  former  travellers  or  not,  instantly 
pronounced  in  favour  of  the  'osher  fruit  being  the 
apples  of  Sodom.  His  account  of  this  tree  is 
minute,  and  may  well  be  quoted  : — "  The  osher  of 
the  Arabs,"  which  he  identifies  with  the  Asclepias 
(Calotropis)  procera  of  botanists,  "  is  found  in 
abundance  in  Upper  Egypt  and  Nubia,  and  also 
in  Arabia  Felix ;  but  seems  to  be  confined  in 
Palestine  to  the  borders  of  the  Dead  Sea.  We 
saw  it  only  at  'Ain  Jidy ;  Hasselquist  found  it  in 
the  desert  between  Jericho  and  the  northern  shore  ; 
and  Irby  and  Mangles  met  with  it  of  large  size  at 
the  south  end  of  the  sea,  and  on  the  isthmus  of  the 
peninsula.  We  saw  here  several  trees  of  the  kind, 
the  trunks  of  which  were  six  or  eight  inches  in 
diameter,  and  the  whole  height  from  ten  to  fifteen 
feet.  It  has  a  greyish  cork-like  bark,  with  long 
oval  leaves  ....  it  discharges  copiously  from 
its  broken  leaves  and  flowers  a  milky  fluid.  The 
fruit  greatly  resembles  externally  a  large  smooth 
apple  or  orange,  hanging  in  clusters  of  three 
or  four  together,  and  when  ripe  is  of  a  yellow 
colour.  It  was  now  fair  and  delicious  to  the  eye, 
and  soft  to  the  touch;  but,  on  being  pressed  or 
struck,  it  explodes  with  a  puff,  like  a  bladder  or 
pnff-ball,  leaving  in  the  hand  only  the  shreds  of  the 
thin  rind  and  a  few  fibres.  It  is  indeed  filled 
chiefly  with  air,  which  gives  it  the  round  form 
....  after  a  due  allowance  for  the  marvellous  in 
all  popular  reports,  I  find  nothing  which  does  not 
apply  almost  literally  to  the  fruit  of  the  'osher,  as 
we  saw  it.  It  must  be  plucked  and  handled  with 
great  care,  in  order  to  preserve  it  from  bursting." 

Mr.  Walter  Elliot,  in  an  article  "  on  the  Poma 
Sodomitica,  or  Dead-Sea  apples"  (Trans,  of  the 
Entomol.  Soc.  ii.  p.  14,  1837-1840),  endeavours 
to  show  that  the  apples  in  question  are  oak  galls, 
which  he  found  growing  plentifully  on  dwarf  oaks 
(Quercus  infectoria)  in  the  country  beyond  the  Jor 
dan.  He  tells  us  that  the  Arabs  asked  him  to  bite  one 
of  these  galls,  and  that  they  laughed  when  they  saw 
his  mouth  full  of  dust.  "That  these  galls  are  the 
true  Dead-Sea  apples,"  it  is  added,  "  there  can  no 
longer  be  a  question :  nothing  can  be  more  beauti 
ful  than  their  rich,  glossy,  purplish-red  exterior  : 
nothing  more  bitter  than  their  porous  and  easily 
pulverized  interior"  (p.  16).  The  opinion  of  Po- 
cocke  may,  we  think,  be  dismissed  at  once  as  being 
a  most  improbable  conjecture.  The  objection  to  the 
Solanum  melongena  is  that  the  plant  is  not  peculiar 
to  the  shores  or  neighbourhood  of  the  Sea  of  Sodom, 
but  is  generally  distributed  throughout  Palestine, 
besides  which  it  is  not  likely  that  the  fruit  of  which 
Joseph  us  speaks  should  be  represented  by  occasional 
diseased  specimens  of  the  fruit  of  the  egg-apple ; 


»  "  You  do  not  mention  the  Solanum  Sodomaeum,  which 
1  thought  had  been  quoted  as  one  apple  of  the  Dead  Sea, 
and  which  is  the  plant  1  always  thought  to  be  as  probably 
the  fruit  in  question  as  any  other.  The  objection  to 
S.  melongena  is,  that  it  is  a  cultivated  plant;  to  the  oak 
gall,  that  it  is  wholly  absent  from  the  Dead  Sea  dis 
trict,  though  it  answers  the  description  best,  so  far  as 
its  beautiful  exterior  and  powdery  bitter  interior  are 
concerned. 

"The  Vine  of  Sodom,  again,  I  always  thought  might 
lefer  to  Cucumis  colocyutlds  [see  GOURD,  App.  A],  which 
Is  bitter  and  powdery  inside  ;  the  term  vine  would 
scarcely  be  given  to  any  but  a  trailing  or  other  plant  of 
the  habit  of  n  vine.  The  objection  to  the  Vatotropu 


VINEGAK 

we  must  look  for  some  plant,  the  normal  character 
of  whose  fruit  comes  somewhere  nearer  to  the 
required  conditions.  Seetzen's  plant  is  the  same  a* 
that  mentioned  by  Burckhardt,  Irby  and  Mangles 
and  Robinson,  i.  e.  the  'osher.  Chateaubriand'i 
thorny  shrub,  with  fruit  like  small  lemons,  may 
be  the  Zukkum  (Balanites  Aegyptiacd),  but  it  cer 
tainly  cannot  be  the  tree  intended.  It  is  not  at  all 
probable  that  the  oak-galls  of  which  Mr.  Elliot 
speaks  should  be  the  fruit  in  question  ;  because 
these  being  formed  on  a  tree  so  generally  known 
as  an  oak,  and  being  common  in  all  countries, 
would  not  have  been  a  subject  worthy  of  especial 
remark,  or  have  been  noticed  as  something  peculiar 
to  the  district  around  the  Sea  of  Sodom.  The  fruit 
of  the  'osher  appears  to  have  the  best  claim  to 
represent  the  apples  of  Sodom  ;  the  Calotropis 
procera  is  an  Indian  plant,  and  thrives  in  the 
warm  valley  of  'Ain  Jidy,  but  is  scarcely  to  be 
found  elsewhere  in  Palestine.  The  readiness  with 
which  its  fruit,  "fair  to  the  eye,"  bursts  when: 
pressed,  agrees  well  with  Josephus's  account  ;  and 
although  there  is  a  want  of  suitableness  between 
"  the  few  fibres  "  of  Robinson,  and  the  "  smoke  and 
ashes  "  of  the  Jewish  historian,  yet,  according  to 
a  note  by  the  editor  of  Seetzen's  Letters,  the  fruit 
of  the  Calotropis  in  winter  contains  a  yellowish  dust, 
in  appearance  resembling  certain  fungi,  but  of 
pungent  quality.*  "  [W.  H.] 


VINEGAR  (pD:  «£os:  ocetem).    The  He 

brew  term  chomets  was  applied  to  a  beverage,  con 
sisting  generally  of  wine  or  strong  drink  turned 
sour  (whence  its  use  was  proscribed  to  the  Naz- 
arite,  Num.  vi.  3),  but  sometimes  artificially 
made  by  an  admixture  of  barley  and  wine,  and 
thus  liable  to  fermentation  (Mishn.  Pes.  3,  §1). 
It  was  acid  even  to  a  proverb  (Prov.  x.  26),  and 
by  itself  formed  a  nauseous  draught  (Ps.  Ixix.  21), 
but  was  serviceable  for  the  purpose  of  sopping 
bread,  as  used  by  labourers  (Ruth  ii.  14).  The 
degree  of  its  acidity  may  be  inferred  from  Prov. 
xxv.  20,  wheue  its  effect  on  nitre  is  noticed.  Simi 
lar  to  the  chomets  of  the  Hebrews  was  the  acetum 
of  the  Romans,  —  a  thin,  sour  wine,  consumed  by 
soldiers  (Veget.  Re  Mil.  iv.  7)  either  in  a  pure 
state,  or,  more  usually,  mixed  with  water,  when 
it  was  termed  posca  (Plin.  xix.  29  ;  Spart.  Hadr. 
10).  This  was  the  beverage  of  which  the  Saviour 
partook  in  His  dying  moments  (Matt,  xxvii.  48  ; 
Mark  xv.  36  ;  John  xix.  29,  30),  and  doubtless  it 
was  refreshing  to  His  exhausted  frame,  though 
offered  in  derision  either  on  that  occasion  or  pre 
viously  (Luke  xxiii.  36).  The  same  liquid,  min 
gled  with  gall  (as  St.  Matthew  states,  probably 
with  the  view  of  marking  the  fulfilment  of  the 
prediction  in  Ps.  Ixix.  21),  or  with  myrrh  (as 
St.  Mark  states  with  an  eye  to  the  exact  historical 
factb),  was  offtred  to  the  Saviour  at  an  earlier  stage 


procera  (Asclep.  gigantea,  Lin.)  is,  that  it  is  very  scarw 
and  not  characteristic  of  the  district,  being  found  in  on* 
spot  only.  The  beautiful  silky  cotton  would  nevei 
suggest  the  idea  of  anything  but  what  is  exquisitely 
lovely— it  is  impossible  to  imagine  anything  more  beau 
tiful  :  to  assume  that  a  diseased  state  of  it  was  intended, 
is  arguing  ad  ignotum  ab  ignoto,  and  a  very  far-fetched 
idea."  [  J.  D.  HOOKF.R.] 

Dr.  Hooker's  remark,  that  the  term  vine  must  refer  to 
some  plant  of  the  habit  of  a  vine,  is  conclusive  against  tbe 
claims  of  all  the  plants  hitherto  identified  with  the  Vim 
of  Sodom.  The  ('.  colocynlhis  alone  possesses  the  rrjuircd 
condition  implied  in  the  name.  fJW.  H.~J 

St.  Mark  ts-riu   i  OIFOS  «o>xvp»'i<rue*'os.     TLcre  is  li'i 


VINEYARDS  PLAIN  OF  THE 

•>f  His  sufferings,  in  order  to  deaden  the  perception  of 
pain  (Matt,  xxvii.  34  ;  Mark  xv.  23).     [W.  L.  B.] 

VINEYARDS,    PLAIN   OF   THE    ^3« 


:  'Ef}e\xapfi.eit-  ;  Alex.  AjSeA  a^ 
Abel  quae  est  vincis  consita].  This  place,  men 
tioned  only  in  Judg.  xi.  33,  has  been  already  noticed 
under  ABEL  (5:  see  vol.  i.  p.  4  a).  To  what  he 
has  there  said,  the  writer  has  only  to  call  atten 
tion  to  the  fact  that  a  ruin  bearing  the  name  of 
Beit  el  Kerm,  —  "  house  of  the  vine,"  was  encoun 
tered  by  De  Saulcy  to  the  north  of  Kerak  (Narr. 
i.  353).  This  may  be  the  Abel  ceramim  of  Jeph- 
thah,  if  the  Aroer  named  in  the  same  passage  is  the 
place  of  that  name  on  the  Arnon  (  W.  Mojeb}.  It 
is  however  by  no  means  certain  ;  and  indeed  the 
probability  is  that  the  Ammonites,  with  the  in- 
ftinct  of  a  nomadic  or  semi-nomadic  people,  betook 
jhemselves,  when  attacked,  not  to  the  civilized  and 
tultivated  country  of  Moab  (where  Beit-el-Kerm 
is  situated),  but  to  the  spreading  deserts  towards 
the  east,  where  they  could  disperse  themselves  after 
the  usual  tactics  of  such  tribes.  [G.] 

VIOL.  For  an  explanation  of  the  Hewow  word 
translated  "  viol  "  see  PSALTERV.  The  old  English 
viol,  like  the  Spanish  viguela,  was  a  six-stringed 
guitar.  Mr.  Chappell  (Pop.  Mus.  i.  246)  says 
"  the  position  of  the  fingers  was  marked  on  the 
fingerboard  by  frets,  as  in  guitars  of  the  present 
day.  The  '  Chest  of  Viols  '  consisted  of  three,  four, 
five,  or  six  of  different  sizes  ;  one  for  the  treble, 
others  for  the  mean,  the  counter-tenor,  the  tenor, 
and  perhaps  two  for  the  bass."  Etymologically 
viol  is  connected  with  the  Dan.  Fiol  and  the  A.  S. 
fitiele,  through  the  Fr.  viole,  Old  Fr.  vitlle,  Med. 
Lat.  vitella.  In  the  Promptorium  Parvulorum  we 
find  "  Fyyele,  viella,  fidicina,  vitella."  Again,  in 
North's  Plutarch  (Antonius,  p.  980,  ed.  1595)  there 
is  a  description  of  Cleopatra's  barge,  "the  poope 
whereof  was  of  gold,  the  sailes  of  purple,  and  the 
owers  of  silver,  which  kept  stroke  in  rowing  after 
the  sound  of  the  musicke  of  flutes,  howboyes, 
cytherns,  vyolls,  and  such  other  instruments  as 
they  played  vpon  in  the  barge."  [W.  A.  W.] 

VIPER.    [SERPENT.] 

VOPH'SI  (»p£1  :  2aj9f;  Alex.  'Ia#:  Vapsi). 
Father  of  Nahbi,  the  spy  selected  from  the  tribe  of 
Naphtali  (Num.  xiii.  14). 

VOWS.*  The  practice  of  making  vows,  i.  e. 
incurring  voluntary  obligations  to  the  Deity,  on 
fulfilment  of  certain  conditions,  such  as  deliverance 
from  death  or  danger,  success  in  enterprises,  and 
the  like,  is  of  extremely  ancient  date,  and  common 
in  all  systems  of  religion.  The  earliest  mention  of 
a  vow  is  that  of  Jacob,  who,  after  his  vision  at 
Beth-el,  promised  that  in  case  of  his  sate  return  he 
would  dedicate  to  Jehovah  the  tenth  of  his  goods, 
and  make  the  place  in  which  he  had  set  up  the 
memorial  stone  a  place  of  worship  (Gen.  xxviii. 
18-22,  xxxi.  13).  Vows  in  general  are  also  men 
tioned  in  the  Book  of  Job  (xxii.  27). 

Among  instances  of  heathen  usage  in  this  respect 
the  following  passages  may  be  cited  :  Jer.  xliv.  25, 
and  Jonah  i.  16  ;  Horn.  II.  i.  64,  93,  vi.  93,  308  ; 
Odyss.  iii.  382  ;  Xen.  Anab.  iii.  2,  §12  ;  Virg. 


VOWS  168^ 

ft.  i.  436  ;  Aen.  v.  234  ;  Hor.  Carm.  i.  5; 
13,  iii.  29,  59 ;  Liv.  xxii.  9,  10 ;  Cic.  Att.  v'lii. 
16;  Justin  xxi.  3;  a  passage  which  speaks  of  im 
moral  vows ;  Veil.  Pat.  ii.  48. 

The  Law  therefore  did  not  introduce,  but  regu 
lated  the  practice  of  vows.  Three  soils  are  men 
tioned — I.  Vows  of  devotion,  Seder ;  II.  Vows  of 
abstinence,  Esar  or  Isar ;  III.  Vows  of  destruc 
tion,  Ckcrem. 

I.  As  to  vows  of  devotion,  the  following  rules 
are  laid  down :  A  man  might  devote  to  sacred  uses 
possessions  or  persons,  but  not  the  first-born  either 
of  man  or  beast,  which  was  devoted  already  (Lev. 
xxvii.  26.)  [FIRST-BORN.] 

a.  If  he  vowed  land,  he  might  either  redeem  it 
or  not.  If  he  intended  to  redeem,  two  points  were 
to  be  considered,  1.  the  rate  of  redemption  ;  2.  the 
distance,  prospectively  and  retrospectively,  from 
the  year  of  jubilee.  The  price  of  redemption  was 
fixed  at  50  shekels  of  silver  for  the  quantity  of 
land  which  a  homer  of  barley  (eight  bushels) 
would  suffice  to  sow  (Lev.  xxvii.  16  ;  see  Knobel). 
This  payment  might  be  abated  under  the  direction 
of  the  priest  according  to  the  distance  of  time  from 
Ihe  jubilee-year.  But  at  whatever  time  it  was  re 
deemed,  he  was  required  to  add  to  the  redemption- 
price  one-fifth  (20  per  cent.)  of  the  estimated  value. 
If  he  sold  the  laud  in  the  mean  time,  it  might  not 
then  be  redeemed  at  all,  but  was  to  go  to  the  priests 
in  the  jubilee-year  (ver.  20). 

The  purchaser  of  land,  in  case  he  devoted  and 
also  wished  to  redeem  it,  was  required  to  pay  a 
redemption-price  according  to  the  priestly  valua 
tion  first  mentioned,  but  without  the  additional 
fifth.  In  this  case,  however,  the  land  was  to  revert 
in  the  jubilee  to  its  original  owner  (Lev.  xxvii.  16; 
24,  xxv.  27  ;  Keil,  Hebr.  Arch.  §66,  80). 

The  valuation  here  laid  down  is  evidently  based 
on  the  notion  of  annual  value.  Supposing  land  to 
require  for  seed  about  3  bushels  of  bailey  per 
acre,  the  homer,  at  the  rate  of  32  pecks,  or  8 
bushels,  would  be  sufficient  for  about  2J  or  3 
acres.  Fifty -shekels,  25  ounces  of  silver,  at  five 
shillings  the  ounce,  would  give  Ql.  5s.,  and  the 
yearly  valuation  would  thus  amount  to  about  21. 
per  acre. 

The  owner  who  wished  to  redeem,  would  thus 
be  required  to  pay  either  an  annual  rent  or  a 
redemption-price  answering  to  the  number  of  years 
short  of  the  jubilee,  but  deducting  Sabbatical  years 
(Lev.  xxv.  *b,  15,  16),  and  adding  a  fifth,  or  20 
per  cent,  in  either  case.  Thus,  if  a  man  devoted 
an  acre  of  land  in  the  jubilee  year,  and  redeemed  it 
in  the  same  year,  he  would  pay  a  redemption  price 
of  49-6  =  43  years'  value,  +  20  per  cent.  = 
103/.  4s.,  or  an  annual  rent  of  21.  8s.  ;  a  rate  by 
no  means  excessive  when  we  consider,  1.  the 
prospect  of  restoration  in  the  jubilee;  2.  the  un 
doubted  fertility  of  the  soil,  which  even  now,  under 
all  disadvantages,  sometimes  yields  an  hundredfold 
(Bmckhardt,  Syria,  p.  297). 

If  he  refused  or  was  unable  to  redeem,  either  the 
next  of  kin  (Goel)  came  forward,  as  he  had  liberty 
to  do,  or,  if  no  redemption  was  effected,  the  land 
became  the  property  of  the  priests  (Lev.  xxv.  25, 
xxvii.  21  ;  Rutt  iii/12,  iv.  1,  &c.). 

In  the  case  of  a  house  devoted,  its  value  was  to 


difficulty  In  the  application  of  cTi/os  and  o£os  to  the  same 
substance;  bat  whether  the  ju-era  \°^  Me/wy/u,eVoi>  °f 
st.  Matthew  can  in  any  way  he  identitied  with  the 
of  Mark  is  doubtful.  The  term  \o\ij 


may  well  have  been  applied  to  some  soporific  substance. 
}"!},  from  T13,  "  to  make  vow"  (Ges.  865)    See 


also  ANATHEMA. 


1688 


VOWS 


he  assessed  by  the  priest,  and  a  fifth  added  to  the 
redemption  price  in  case  it  was  redeemed  (Lev. 
ixvii.  15).  Whether  the  rule  held  good  regarding 
houses  in  walled  t  ties,  viz.,  that  the  liberty  of 
redemption  lasted  ouiy  for  one  year,  is  not  certain  ; 
but  as  it  does  not  appear,  that  houses  devoted  but 
not  redeemed  became  the  property  of  the  priests, 
and  as  the  Levites  and  priests  had  special  towns 
assigned  to  them,  if  seems  likely  that  the  price 
only  of  the  house,  and  not  the  house  itself,  was 
made  over  to  sacred  uses,  and  thus  that  the  act  of 
consecration  of  a  house  means,  in  fact,  the  consecra 
tion  of  its  value.  The  Mishna,  however,  says,  that 
if  a  devoted. house  fell  down,  the  owner  was  not 
liable  to  payment,  but  that  he  was  liable  if  he  had 
devoted  the  value  of  the  house  (Eracin,  v.  5). 

b.  Animals  fit  for  sacrifice,  if  devoted,  were  not 
to  be  redeemed  or  changed,  and  if  a  man  attempted 
to  do  so,  he  was  required  to  bring  both  the  devotee 
and  the  changeling  (Lev.  xxvii.  9,  10,  33).     They 
were  to  be  free  from  blemish  (Mai.  i.  14).     An 
animal  unfit  for  sacrifice  might  be  redeemed,  with 
the  addition  to  the  priest's  valuation  of  a  fifth, 
or  it  became  the  property  of  the  priests,  Lev.  xxvii. 
12, 13.    [OFFERING.] 

c.  The  case  of  persons  devoted  stood  thus:  A 
man  might  devote  either  himself,  his  child  (not  the 
first-born),  or  his  slave.     If  no  redemption  took 
place,  the  devoted  person  became  a  slave  of  the 
sanctuary — see  the  case  of  Absalom  (2  Sam.  xv.  8  : 
Michaelis,  §124,  ii.  166,  ed.  Smith).  [NAZARITE.] 
Otherwise  he  might  be  redeemed  at  a  valuation 
according  to  age  and  sex,  on  the  following  scale 
(Lev.  xxvii.  1-7) : 

A.  1.  A  male  from  one  month  to  5  years  old,      £.  s.    d. 

5  shekels =  0  12    6 

2.  From  5  years  to  20  years,  20  shekels    .  =  2  10    0 

3.  From  20  years  to  60  years,  50  shekels  .=650 

4.  Above  60  years,  15  shekels  .     .     .     .=117    6 

B.  1.  Females  from  one  month  to  5  years, 

3  shekels =076 

2.  From  5  years  to  20  years,  10  shekels    .  =  1    50 

3.  From  20  years  to  60  years,  30  shekels  .  =  3  15    0 

4.  Above  60  years,  10  shekels   .     .     .     .=150 

If  the  person  were  too  poor  to  pay  the  redemption 
price,  his  value  was  to  be  estimated  by  the  priest, 
not,  as  Michaelis  says,  the  civil  magistrate  (Lev. 
xxvii.  8  ;  Deut.  xxi.  5  ;  Mich.  §145,  ii.  283). 

Among  general  regulations  affecting  vows,  the 
following  may  be  mentioned : — 

1.  Vows  were  entirely  voluntary,  but  once  made 
were  regarded  as  compulsory,  and  evasion  of  per 
formance  of  them  was  held  to  be  contrary  to  true 
religion  (Num.  xxx.  2  ;  Deut.  xxiii.  21  ;  Eccl.  v.  4). 

2.  If  persons   in  a  dependent   condition  made 
vows,  as  (a)  an  unmarried  daughter  living  in  her 
father's  house,  or  (6)  a  wife,  even  if  she  afterwards 
became  a  widow,  the  vow,  if  (a)  in  the  first  case 
her  father,  or  (6)  in  the  second,  her  husband  heard 
and  disallowed   it,  was  void;    but  if  they  heard 
without  disallowance,  it  was  to  remain  good  (Num. 
xxx.  3-16).      Whether  this  principle  extended  to 
all  children  and  to  slaves  is  wholly  uncertain,  as 
no  mention  is  made  of  them  in  Scripture,  nor  by 
Ptiilo  when  he  discusses  the  question  \<te  Spec.  Leg. 
6,   ii.    274,  ed.  Mangey).      Michaelis   thinks  the 
omission  of  sons  implies  absence  of  power  to  control 
thorn  (§83,  i.  447). 

3.  Votivd  offerings  arising  from  the  produce  of 
any  impure  traffic  were  wholly  forbidden  (Deut. 
zxiii.  18).     A  question  has  risen  on  this  part  of 
the  subject  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  cclcb, 


VULGATE,  THE 

dog,  which  is  understood  to  refer  either  to  irmncraf 
intercourse  of  the  grossest  kind,  or  literally  and 
simply  to  the  usual  meaning  of  the  word.  The 
prohibition  against  dedication  to  sacred  uses  of  sain 
obtained  by  female  prostitution  was  doubtless 
directed  against  the  practice  which  prevailed  in 
Phoenicia,  Babylonia,  and  Syria,  of  which  mention 
is  made  in  Lev.  xix.  29  ;  Baruch  vi.  43 ;  Herod, 
i.  199;  Strabo,  p.  561;  August,  de  civ.  Dei,lv. 

10,  and  other  authorities  quoted  by  Spencer,  (de 
leg.  Hebr.  ii.  35,  p.  566).     Following   out  this 
view,  and  bearing  in  mind  the  mention  made  in 
2  K.  xxiii.  7,  of  a  practice  evidently  connected  with 
idolatrous  worship,  the  word  celeb  has  been  some 
times  rendered  cinaedus ;  some  have  understood  it 
to    refer   to  the   first-born,  but   Spencer   himself, 

11.  35,  p.  572  ;  Josephus,  Ant.  iv.  8,  §9  ;  Gesen.  ii. 
685,  and  the  Mishna,   Temurah,  vi.  3,  all  under 
stand  dog  in  the  literal  sense.     [DOG.J 

II.,  III.  For  vows  of  abstinence,  see  CORBAN  ; 
and  for  vows  of  extermination,  ANATHEMA,  and 
Ezr.  x.  8  ;  Mic.  iv.  1 3. 

Vows  in  general  and  their  binding  force  as  a  test 
of  religion  are  mentioned — Job  xxii.  27  ;  Prov.  vii. 
14 ;  Ps.  xxii.  25,  1.  14,  Ivi.  12,  Ixvi.  13,  cxvi.  14 ; 
Is.  xix.  21  ;  Nah.  i.  15. 

Certain  refinements  on  votive  consecrations  are 
noticed  in  the  Mishna,  e.g. : 

1.  No  evasion  of  a  vow  was  to  be  allowed  which 
substituted  a  part  for  the  whole,  as,  "  I  vowed  a 
sheep  but  not  the  bones  "  {Nedar.  ii.  5). 

2.  A  man  devoting  an  ox  or  a  house,  was  not 
liable  if  the  ox  was  lost,  or  the  house  fell  downj 
but  otherwise,  if  he  had  devoted  the  value  of  the 
one  or  the  other  of  these. 

3.  No  devotions   might   be  made    within   two 
years  before  the  jubilee,  nor   redemptions  within 
the  yea?   following   it.      If  a    son   redeemed    his 
father's  land,  he  was  to  restore  it  to  him  in  the 
jubilee  (Erac.  vii.  3). 

4.  A  man  might  devote  some  of  his  flock,  herd, 
and  heathen  slaves,  but  not  all  these  (ibid.  viii.  4). 

5.  Devotions  by  priests  were  not  redeemable,  but 
were  transferred  to  other  priests  (ib.  6). 

6.  A  nan  who  vowed  not  to  sleep  on  a  bed,  might 
sleep  on  a  skin  if  he  pleased  (Otho,  Lex.  Rabb.  p.  673). 

7.  The  sums  of  money  arising  from  votive  con 
secrations  were  divided  into  two  parts,  sacred  (1)  to 
the  altar  ;  (2)  to  the  repairs  of  the  Temple  (Reland, 
Ant.  c.  x.  §4). 

It  seems  that  the  practice  of  shaving  the  head  at 
the  expiration  of  a  votive  period,  was  not  limited  to 
the  Nazaritic  vow  (Acts  xviii.  18,  xxi.  24). 

The. practice  of  vows  in  the  Christian  Church, 
though  evidently  not  forbidden,  as  the  instance  just 
quoted  serves  to  show,  does  not  come  within  the 
scope  of  the  present  article  (see  Bingham,  Antiq. 
xvi.  7,  9,  and  Suicer,  e^).  [H.  W.  P.' 

VULGATE,  THE.  (LATIN  VERSIONS  or 
THE  BIBLE.)  The  influence  which  the  Latin  Ver 
sions  of  the  Bible  have  exercised  upon  Western 
Christianity  is  scarcely  less  than  that  of  the  LXX. 
upon  the  Greek  Churches.  But  both  the  Greek 
and  the  Latin  Vulgates  have  been  long  neglected. 
The  revival  of  letters,  bringing  with  it  the  study  ot 
the  original  texts  of  Holy  Scripture,  checked  for  a 
time  the  study  of  these  two  great  bulwarks  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  Churches,  for  the  LXX.  in  fact 
belongs  rather  to  the  history  of  Christianity  than  to 
the  history  of  Judaism,  and,  in  spite  of  recent 
labours,  their  importance  is  even  DOW  btrdly  reeotr- 


VULGATE,  THE 

ttised.  In  the  case  of  the  Vulgate,  ecclesiastical 
controversies  have  still  further  impeded  all  efforts 
of  liberal  criticism.  The  Romanist  (till  lately) 
regarded  the  Clementine  text  as  fixed  beyond  appeal ; 
the  Protestant  shrank  from  examining  a  subject 
which  seemed  to  belong  peculiarly  to  the  Romanist. 
Yet,  apart  from  ail  polemical  questions,  the  Vulgate 
should  have  a  very  deep  interest  for  all  the  Western 
Churches.  For  many  centuries  it  was  the  only 
Bible  generally  used  ;  and,  directly  or  indirectly,  it 
is  the  real  parent  of  all  the  vernacular  versions  of 
Western  Europe.  The  Gothic  Version  of  Ulphilas 
alone  is  independent  of  it,  for  the  Slavonic  and  mo- 
iern  Russian  versions  are  necessarily  not  taken  into 
account.  With  England  it  has  a  peculiarly  close 
connexion.  The  earliest  translations  made  from  it 
were  the  (lost)  books  of  Bede,  and  the  Glosses  on 
the  Psalms  and  Gospels  of  the  8th  and  9th  cen 
turies  (ed.  Thorpe,  Loud.  1835,  1842).  In  the 
10th  century  Aelfric  translated  considerable  por 
tions  of  the  6.  T.  (Heptateuchus,  &c.,  ed.  Thwaites, 
Oxon.  1698).  But  the  mowt  important  monument 
of  its  influence  is  the  great  English  Version  of 
Wiclif  (1324-1384,  ed.  Forshall  and  Madder,  Oxfd. 
1850),  which  is  a  literal  rendering  of  the  current 
Vulgate  text.  In  the  age  of  the  Reformation  the 
Vulgate  was  rather  the  guide  than  the  source  of 
the  popular  versions.  The  Romanist  translations 
into  German  (Michaelis,  ed.  Marsh,  ii.  107), 
French,  Italian,  and  Spanish,  were  naturally  de 
rived  from  the  Vulgate  (R.  Simon,  Hist.  Grit.  N. 
T.  Cap.  28,  29,  40, 41).  Of  others,  that  of  Luther 
(N.  T.  in  1523)  was  the  most  important,  and  in  this 
the  Vulgate  had  great  weight,  though  it  was  made 
with  such  use  of  the  originals  as  was  possible. 
From  Luther  the  influence  of  the  Latin  passed  to 
our  own  Authorised  Version.  Tyndale  had  spent 
some  time  abroad,  and  was  acquainted  with  Luther 
before  he  published  his  version  of  the  N.  T.  in 
1526.  Tyndale's  version  of  the  0.  T.,  which  was 
unfinished  at  the  time  of  his  martyrdom  (1536), 
was  completed  by  Coverdale,  and  in  this  the  in 
fluence  of  the  Latin  and  German  translations  was 
predominant.  A  proof  of  this  remains  in  the  Psalter 
of  the  Prayer  Book,  which  was  taken  from  the 
"Great  English  Bible''  (1539,  1540),  which  was 
merely  a  new  edition  of  that  called  Matthew's, 
which  was  itself  taken  from  Tyndale  and  Coverdale. 
This  version  of  the  Psalms  follows  the  Gallican 
Psalter,  a  revision  of  the  Old  Latin,  made  by 
Jerome,  and  afterwards  introduced  into  his  new 
translation  (comp.  §22),  and  differs  in  many  re 
spects  from  the  Hebrew  text  (e.  g.  Ps.  xiv.).  It 
would  be  out  of  place  to  follow  this  question  into 
detail  here.  It  is  enough  to  remember  that  the 
first  translators  of  our  Bible  had  been  familiarised 
with  the  Vulgate  from  their  youth,  and  could  not 
have  cast  off  the  influence  of  early  association.  But 
the  claims  of  the  Vulgate  to  the  attention  of 
scholars  rest  on  wider  grounds.  It  is  not  only  the 
source  of  our  current  theological  terminology,  but 
it  is,  in  one  shape  or  other,  the  most  important  early 
witness  to  the  text  and  interpretation  of  the  whole 
Bible.  The  materials  available  for  the  accurate 
study  of  it  are  unfortunately  at  present  as  scanty 
as  those  yet  unexamined  are  rich  and  varied  (comp. 
§  30).  The  chief  original  works  bearing  on  the 
Vulgate  generally  are — 

R.  Simon,  Histoire  Critique  du  V.  T.  1678-85: 
N.  T.  1689-93. 

Hody,  De  Bibliontm  textibus  originalibvi, 
Oxon  1705. 


VULGATE,  THE 


1680 


Martianay,  Hicron.  Opp.  (Paris,  1603,  with  the 
prefaces  and  additions  of  Vallarsi,  Verona,  1734., 
and  Ma  f'i,  Venice,  1767). 

Bian  :him  (Blanchinus  not  Blanching,  Vindicw& 
Canon.  SS.  Vulg.  Lat.  Edit.  Romae,  1740. 

Bukentop,  Liu;  de  Luce  .  .  .  Bruxellis,  1710. 

Sabatier,  Bibl.  S&.  Lat.  Vers.  Ant.,  Remis, 
1743. 

Van  Ess,  Pragmatisch-hritische  Qesch.  d.  Vuhj. 
Tubingen,  1824. 

Vercellone,  Variae  LectioncsVulg.  Lat.  Bibli- 
orum,  torn,  i.,  Romae,  1860;  torn,  ii.,  pars  prior, 
1862. 

In  addition  to  these  there  are  the  controversial 
works  of  Mariana,  Bellarmin,  Whitaker,  Fulke,  &c., 
and  numerous  essays  by  Calmet,  D.  Schulz,  Fleck, 
Riegler,  &c.,  and  in  the  N.  T.  the  labours  of  Bent- 
ley,  Sanftl,  Griesbach,  Schulz,  Lachmann,  Tre- 
gelles,  and  Tischeudorf,  have  collected  a  great 
amount  of  critical  materials.  But  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  noble  work  of  Vercellone  has 
made  an  epoch  in  the  study  of  the  Vulgate,  and 
the  chief  results  which  follow  from  the  first  in 
stalment  of  his  collations  are  here  for  the  first  time 
incorporated  in  its  history.  The  subject  will  be 
treated  under  the  following  heads : — • 

I.  THE  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY  OF  THE  NAME 
VULGATE.    §§  1-3. 

II.  THE  OLD  LATIN  VERSIONS.    §§4-13.   Ori 
gin,  4-5.     Character,  6.     Canon,  7.     Revisions: 
Itala,  8-11.     Remains,  12-13. 

III.  THE  LABOURS  OF  JEROME.     §§  14-20. 
Occasion,  14.     Revision  of  Old  Latin  of  JSr.  T.,  15- 
17.     Gospels,    15-16.     Acts,   Epistles,   &c.,    17. 
Revision  of  0.  T.  from  the  LXX.,  18,  19.     Trans 
lation  of  0.  T.  from  the  Hebrew,  20. 

IV.  THE  HISTORY  OF  JEROME'S  TRANSLATION 
TO  THE  INTRODUCTION  OF  PRINTING.   §§  21-24. 
Corruption  of  Jerome's  text,  21-22.     Revision  of 
Alcuin,  23.    Later  revisions :  divisions  of  the  text, 
24. 

V.  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  PRINTED  TEXT. 
§§  25-29.     Early  editions,  25.     The  Sixtine  and 
Clementine  Vulgates,  26.     Their  relative  merits, 
27.     Later  editions,  28,  29. 

VI.  THE  MATERIALS  FOR  THE  REVISION  OF 
JEROME'S  TEXT.    §§  30-32.    MSS.  of  0.  T.,  30, 
31.     OfN.T.,32. 

VII.  THE  CRITICAL  VALUE  OF  THE   LATIN 
VERSIONS.    §§  33-39.    In  0.  T.,  33.    In  N.  T., 
34-38.    Jerome's  Revision,  34-36.     The  Old  Latin, 
37.     Interpretation,  39. 

VIII.  THE  LANGUAGE  OF  THE  LATIN  VER 
SIONS.    §§40-45.    Provincialisms,  4 1,42.    Grae- 
cisms,  43.     Influence  on  Modern  Language,  45. 

I.  THE  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY  OF  THE  NAME 
VULGATE. — 1.  The  name  Vulgate,  which  is  equi 
valent  to  Vulgata  editio  (the  current  text  of  Holy 
Scripture),  has  necessarily  been  used  differently  ii: 
various  ages  of  the  Church.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  phrase  originally  answered  to  the 
KOIV^I  e/cSo<ns  of  the  Greek  Scriptures.  In  this 
sense  it  is  used  constantly  by  Jerome  in  his  Com 
mentaries,  and  his  language  explains  sufficiently 
the  origin  of  the  term  :  "  Hoc  juxta  LXX.  interpreter 
diximus,  quorum  editio  toto  orbe  vulgata  est " 
(Hieren.  Comm.  in  Is.  Ixv.  20).  "  Multum  in  hoc 
loco  LXX.  editio  Hebraicumque  discordant.  Pri- 
mum  ergo  de  Vulgata  editione  tractabimus  et 
postea  sequcmur  ordinem  veritatis"  (id.  xxx.  22). 
In  some  places  Jerome  distinctly  quotes  the 


1690 


VULGATE,  THE 


text :  "  Porre  in editione  Vulgata  dupliciter  leg-mus ; 
quidam  enim  codices  habent  SfjAoi  etVw,  hoc  «st 
fnanifesti  sunt :  alii  SetAcuW  tlffiv,  hoc  est  meticu- 
losi  sive  miseri  sunt "  (  Comm.  in  Osee,  vii.  1 3 ;  comp. 
8-11,  &c.).  But  generally  he  regards  the  Old 
Latin,  which  was  rendered  fix>m  the  LXX.,  as  sub 
stantially  identical  with  it,  and  thus  introduces 
Latin  quotations  under  the  name  of  the  LXX.  or 
Vulgata  editio:  "...  miror  quomodo  vulgata  edi- 
tio  .  .  .  testimonium  alia  interpretatione  subver- 
terit :  Congregabor  et  glorificabor  coram  Domino. 
.  .  .  Illud  autem  quod  in  LXX.  legitur:  Congre 
gabor  et  glorif.  %abor  coram  Domino  ..."  (Comm. 
in  Is.  xlix.  5).  So  again :  "  Philisthaeos  .  .  .  alieni- 
genas  Vulgata  scribit  editio"  (ib.  xiv.  29).  "  .  .  . 
Palaestinis,  quos  indifferenter  LXX.  alienigenas  vo- 
cunt "  (in  Ezek.  xvi.  27).  In  this  way  the  trans 
ference  of  the  name  from  the  current  Greek  text 
to  the  current  Latin  text  became  easy  and  natural ; 
but  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  instance  in  the 
age  of  Jerome  of  the  application  of  the  term  to  the 
Latin  Version  of  the  0.  T.  without  regard  to  its 
derivation  from  the  LXX.,  or  to  that  of  the  N.  T. 

2.  Yet  more :  as  the  phrase  KOLV))  e/cSotm  came 
to  signify  an  uncorrected  (and  so  corrupt)  text,  the 
same  secondary  meaning  was  attached  to  vulgata 
editio.     Thus  in  some  places   the  vulgata  editio 
stands  in  contrast  with  the  true  Hexaplaric  text  of 
the  LXX.    One  passage  will  place  this  in  the  clearest 
light :  "  .  .  .  breviter  admo»eo  aliam  esse  editionem 
quam  Origenes  et  Caesariensis  Eusebius,  omnesque 
Graeciae  translators  KOLV^JV,  id  est,  communern  ap 
pellant,  atque  vulgatam,  et  a  plerisque  nunc  Aou- 
Kiavbs  dicitur;  aliam  LXX.  interpretum  quae  in 
e£air\(HS  codicibus  reperitur,  et  a  nobis  in  Latinum 
sermonem    fideliter   versa  est  ...  Kon/??   autem 
ista,  hoc  est,   Communis  editio,  ipsa  est  quae  et 
LXX.,    sed   hoc    interest    inter    utramque,   quod 
KOIV^J    pro   locis   et   temporibus  et  pro  voluntate 
scriptorum   vetus  corrupta  editio   est;   ea  autem 
quae  habetur  in  ej-a.Tr\ots  et  quam  nos  vertimus, 
ipsa  est  quae  in  eruditorum  libris  incorrupta  et 
immaculata  LXX.  interpretum  translatio  reservatur  " 
(Ep.  cvi.  ad  Sun.  et  Fret.  §  2). 

3.  This  use  of  the  phrase  Vulgata  editio  to  de 
scribe  the  LXX.    (and  the  Latin  Version  of  the 
LXX.)  was  continued  to  later  times.     It  is  sup 
ported   by   the   authority  of  Augustine,    Ado   of 
Vienne  (A.D.  860),  R.  Bacon,  &c. ;  and  Bellarmin 
distinctly  recognizes  the  application  of  the  term,  so 
that  Van  Ess  is  justified  in  saying  that  the  Council 
of  Trent  erred  in  a  point  of  history  when  they  de 
scribed   Jerome's    Version   as   "  vetus   et   vulgata 
editio,    quae   longo   tot  saeculorum    usu    in   ipsa 
ecclesia  probata  est"  (Van   Ess,  Gesch.  34).     As 
a   general    rule,  the  Latin   Fathers   speak   of  Je 
rome's  Version  as  "  our "  Version  (nostra  editio, 
nostri  codices) ;  but  it  was  not  unnatural  that  the 
Tridentine  Fathers  (as  many  later  scholars)  should 
be  misled  by  the  associations  of  their  own  time, 
and  adapt  to  new  circumstances  terms  which  had 
grown  obsolete  in  their  original  sense.     And  when 


VULGATE,  THE 

the  difference  or'  the  (Greek)  "  Vulgita"  of  the  early 
Church,  and  the  C Latin)  "  Vulgate"  of  the  modem 
Roman  Church  has  once  been  apprehended,  ji<» 
further  difficulty  need  arise  from  the  identitj  oi 
name.  (Compare  Augustine,  Ed.  Benedict.  Paris, 
1836,  torn.  V.  p.  xxxiii. ;  Sabatier,  i.  792  ;  Van  Ess, 
Gesch.  24-42,  who  gives  very  full  and  conclusive 
references,  though  he  fails  to  perceive  that  the  Old 
Latin  was  practically  identified  with  the  LXX.) 

II.  THE  OLD  LATIN  VERSIONS. — 4.  The  history 
of  the  earliest  Latin  Version  of  the  Bible  is  lost  in 
complete  obscurity.  All  that  can  be  affirmed  with 
certainty  is  that  it  was  made  in  Africa."  During 
the.  first  two  centuries  the  Church  of  Rome,  to 
which  we  naturally  look  for  the  sou  ice  of  the 
version  now  identified  with  it,  was  essentially  Greek. 
The  Roman  bishops  bear  Greek  names  ;  the  tarliest 
Roman  liturgy  was  Greek  ;  the  few  remains  of  the 
Christian  literature  of  Rome  are  Greek.b  The  same 
remark  holds  true  of  Gaul  (comp.  Westcott,  Hist, 
of  Canon  of  N.  T.  pp.  269,  270,  and  reff.)  ;  but 
the  Church  of  N.  Africa  seems  to  have  been  Latin- 
speaking  from  the  first.  At  what  date  this  Church 
was  founded  is  uncertain.  A  passage  of  Augustine 
(c.  Donat.  Ep.  37)  seems  to  imply  that  Africa  was 
converted  late ;  but  if  so,  the  Gospel  spread  there 
with  remarkable  rapidity.  At  the  end  of  the  second 
century  Christians  were  found  in  every  rank,  and 
in  every  place;  and  the  master-spirit  of  Tertul- 
lian,  the  first  of  the  Latin  Fathers,  was  then  raised 
up  to  give  utterance  to  the  passionate  thoughts  of  his 
native  Church.  It  is  therefore  from  Tertullian  that 
we  must  seek  the  earliest  testimony  to  the  existence 
and  character  of  the  Old  Latin  (Vetus  Latino). 

5.  On  the  first  point  the  evidence  of  TERTULLIAN, 
if  candidly  examined,  is  decisive.  He  distinctly  re 
cognizes  the  general  currency  of  a  Latin  Version  of 
the  N.  T.,  though  not  necessarily  of  every  book  at 
present  included  in  the  Canon,  which  even  in  his 
time  had  been  able  to  mould  the  popular  language 
(adv.  Prax.  5 :  In  usu  est  nostrorum  per  simplici- 
tatem  interpretationis  .  .  .  De  Monog.  11 :  Scinmus 
plane  non  sic  esse  in  Graeco  authentico  quomodo  in 
usum  exiitper  duarum  syllabarum  aut  callidam  aut 
simplicem  eversionem  .  .  .).  This  was  characterized 
by  a  "rudeness"  and  "simplicity,"  which  seems 
to  point  to  the  nature  of  its  origin.  In  the  words 
of  Augustine  (Dedoctr.  Christ,  ii.  16  (11)),  "any 
one  in  the  first  ages  of  Christianity  who  gained 
possession  of  a  Greek  MS.,  and  fancied  that  he  had 
a  fair  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin,  ventured  to 
translate  it."  (Qui  scripturas  ex  Hebraea  lingua  in 
Graecam  verterunt  numerari  possunt ;  Latini  autem 
interpretes  nullo  modo.  Ut  enim  cuivis  primis 
fidei  temporibus  in  manus  venit  Codex  Graecus,  et 
aliquantulum  facultatis  sibi  utriusque  linguae  habere 
videbatur,  ausus  est  interpretari.)e  Thus  the  ver 
sion  of  the  N.  T.  appears  to  have  arisen  from  indi 
vidual  and  successive  efforts  ;  but  it  does  not  follow 
by  any  means  that  numerous  versions  were  simul 
taneously  circulated,  or  that  the  several  parts  of 
the  version  were  made  independently.*  Even  if  it 


a  This  has  been  established  with  the  greatest  fulness 
by  Card.  Wiseman,  Two  tetters  on  1  John  v.  1,  addressed 
'jo  the  editor  of  the  Catholic  Magazine,  1832-3 ;  republished 
with  additions,  Rome,  1835;  and  again  in  his  collected 
Essays,  vol.  i.  1853.  Eichhorn  and  Hug  had  maintained 
the  same  opinion ;  and  Lachmann  has  further  confirmed  it 
(N.  T.  1.  Praef.). 

*  In  the  absence  of  all  evidence  it  is  impossible  to  say 
how  far  the  Christians  of  the  Italian  provinces  Uk>cd  the 
Greek  or  Latin  language  habitually. 


c  Card.  Wiseman  has  shown  (Essays,  i.  24,  25)  that 
"  interpreter  "  and  "  verto  "  may  be  used  of  a  revision  ; 
but  in  connexion  with  primis  fidei  temporibus  they  seem 
certainly  to  describe  the  origin  of  the  Version. 

d  It  would  be  out  of  place  here  to  point  out  minute 
differences  in  rendering  which  show  that  the  translation 
was  the  work  of  different  hands.  Mill  (Prolegg.  521  ff.) 
has  made  some  interesting  collections  to  establish  this 
result,  but  he  places  too  much  reliance  on  the  version 
of  D,  (Cod.  Bezac). 


VULGATE,  THE 

had  been  so,  the  exigencies  of  the  public  service 
must  soon  have  given  definiteness  and  substantial 
unity  to  the  fragmentary  labours  of  individuals. 
The  work  of  private  hands  would  necessarily  be  sub 
ject  to  revisioL  for  ecclesiastical  use.  The  separate 
boots  would  be  united  in  a  volume;  and  thus  a 
standard  text  of  the  whole  collection  would  be  esta 
blished.  With  regard  to  the  0.  T.  the  case  is  less 
clear.  It  is  probable  that  the  Jews  who  were  settled 
in  N.  Africa  were  confined  to  the  Greek  towns  ; 
otherwise  it  might  be  supposed  that  the  Latin 
Version  of  the  0.  T.  is  in  part  anterior  to  the 
Christian  era,  and  that  (as  in  the  case  of  Greek)  a 
preparation  for  a  Christian  Latin  dialect  was  already 
made  when  the  Gospel  was  introduced  into  Africa. 
However  this  may  have  been,  the  substantial  simi 
larity  of  the  different  parts  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  establishes  a  real  connexion  between 
them,  and  justifies  the  belief  that  there  was  one 
popular  Latin  version  of  the  Bible  current  in  Africa 
in  the  last  quarter  of  the  second  century.  Many 
words  which  are  either  Greek  (machaera,  sophia, 
perizoma,  poderis,  agonizo,  &c.)  or  literal  transla 
tions  of  Greek  forms  (vivifico,  justifico,  &c.)  abound 
in  both,  and  explain  what  Tertullian  meant  when 
he  spoke  of  the  "  simplicity"  of  the  translation 
(compare  below  §  43). 

6.  The  exact  literality  of  the  Old  Version  was 
not  confined  to  the  most  minute  observance  of  order 
and  the  accurate  reflection  of  the  words  of  the  ori 
ginal:  in  many  cases  the  very  forms  of  Greek 
construction  were  retained  in  violation  of  Latin 
usage.  A  few  examples  of  these  singular  anomalies 
will  conv»,y  a  better  idea  of  the  absolute  certainty 
with  which  the  Latin  commonly  indicates  the  text 
which  the  translator  had  before  him,  than  any  general 
statements :  Matt.  iv.  13,  habitavit  in  Capharnaum 
maritimam]  id.  15,  terra  Neptalim  viam  maris ;  id. 
25,  ab  Jerosolymis  .  .  .  et  trans  Jordanem  ;  v.  22, 
reus  erit  in  gehennam  ignis;  vi.  19,  ubi  tinea  et 
comestura  exterminat.  Mark  xii.  31,  majus  horum 
praeceptorum  aliud  non  est.  Luke  x.  19,  nihil  vos 
uocebit.  Acts  xix.  26,  non  solum  Ephesi  sed  paene 
totim  Asiae.  Rom.  ii.  15,  inter  se  cogitationum 


VULGATE,  THE 


1091 


accu&arMum  vel  etiam  defendentium.  1  Cor.  vii, 
32,  sollicitus  est  quae  sunt  Domini.  It  is  obvious 
that  there  was  a  continual  tendency  to  alter  expres 
sions  like  these,  ana  ia  the  first  age  of  the  Version 
it  is  not  improbable  that  the  continual  Graecisin 
which  marks  the  Latin  texts  of  Dl  (Cod.  Bezae), 
and  E8  (  Cod.  Laud.},  had  a  wider  currency  than  it 
could  maintain  afterwards. 

7.  With   regard   to  the  African  Canon  of  the 
N.  T.  the  old  Version  offers  important  evidence. 
From  considerations  of  style  and  language  it  seems 
certain  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  James,  and 
2  Peter,  did  not  form  part  of  the  original  African 
Version,  a  conclusion  which  falls  in  with  that  which 
is  derived  from  historical   testimony  (comp.   The 
Hist,  of  the  Canon  of  the  N.  T.  p.  282  ff.).     In 
the  0.  T.,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Old  Latin  erred 
by  excess  and  not  by  defect ;  for  as  the  Version  was 
made  from  the  current  copies  of  the  LXX.,  it  included 
the  Apocryphal  books  which  are  commonly  contained 
in  them,  and  to  these  2  Esdras  was  early  added.    . 

8.  After  the  translation  once  received  a  definite 
shape  in  Africa,  which  could  not  have  been  long 
after  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  it  was  not 
publicly  revised.    The  old  text  was  jealously  guarded 
by  ecclesiastical  use,  and  was  retained  there  at  a 
time  when  Jerome's  version  was  elsewhere  almost 
universally  received.     The  well-known  story  of  the 
disturbance  caused  by  the  attempt  of  an  African 
bishop  to  introduce  Jerome's  "  cucurbita  "  for  the 
old  *'  hedera  "  in  the  history  of  Jonah  (August.  Ep. 
civ.  ap.  Hieron.  Epp.,  quoted  by  Tregelles,  Intro 
duction,  p.  242)   shows  how  carefully  intentional 
changes  were  avoided.     But  at  the  same  time  the 
text  suffered  by  the  natural  corruptions  of  copying, 
especially  by  interpolations,   a   form   of  error  to 
which  the  Gospels  were  particularly  exposed  (comp. 
§  15).     In  the  0.  T.  the  version  was  made  from 
the  unrevised  edition  of  the  LXX.,  and  thus  from 
the  first  included  many  false  readings,  of  which 
Jerome  often  notices  instances  (e.  g.  Ep.  cvi.  ad 
Sun.  et  Fret.}.     In  Table  A  two  texts  of  the  Old 
Latin  are  placed  for  comparison  with  the  Vulgate 
of  Jerome. 


Cod.  Wirceb. 

IVecatus  sum  Dominum  Deum 
meum  et  dixi : 
Domine  Deus,  magne  et  mirabilis, 

qui  servas  testamentum  tuum, 
et  misertcordiam  diligentibus  te, 
et  servantibus  praecepta  tua : 
Peccavimus,  fecimus  injurias, 
nocuimus  et  declinavimus 

a  prnoceptis  tuis  et  a  judiciis  tuis, 
et  non  exaudivimus  servos  tuos  pro- 

fetas, 
qui  loquebautur  ad  rcges  nostr«is, 


et  ad  omnes  populos  terrae. 

I'ibi,  Domine,  justitia: 

r.obis  an  tern,  etfratribus  nostris, 

confusio  faciei ; 

Sicut  dies  hie  viro  Judae 

ct  inhabitantibus  Hierusalem, 

et  onini  Jsrael, 

qui  proximi  sunt  et  qui  longe  sunt, 

in  qua  eos  disseminasti  ibi, 

con  turn  acia  eorum, 

qua  ezprobaverunt  tibi,  Domine. 


TABLE  A.     DAN.  ix.  4-8.« 

August.  Ep.  cxi.  ad  Victor. 
Precatus  sum  Dominum  Deum  meum, 
et  confessus  sum  et  dixi : 
Domine  Deus,  magne  et  mirabilis, 

et  qui  servas  testamentum  tuum, 
et  misericordiam  diligentibus  te, 
et  servantibus  praecepta  tua : 
Peccavimus,  adversus  legem  fecimus, 
impie  egiinus  et  recessimus  ei  de 
clinavimus 

a  praeceptis  tuis  et  a  judiciis  tuis, 
et  non  exaudivimus  servos  tuos  pro- 

phetas, 

qui  loquebantur  in  nomine  tuo  ad 
reges  nostros, 

et  ad  omnem  populum  terrae. 

Tibi,  Domine,  justitia : 

nobis  autem 

confusio  faciei ; 

Sicut  dies  hie  viro  Juda, 

et  habitantibus  Jerusalem, 

et  omni  Israel, 

qui  proximi  sunt  et  qui  longe  sunt, 

in  omni  terra  in  qua  eos  dissemi- 

nasti  ibi, 

prapter  contiunaciam  eorum, 
quia  improbaverunt  te,  Domine. 


c  The  differences  in  the  two  first  columns  are  marked  1  y  italics.  The 
italics  in  col.  3  mark  where  the  text  of  Jerome  differs  from  both  the  other 
texts. 


Yulgata.  nova. 
Oravi  Dominum  Deum  meum,1 

et  confessus  sum2  et  dixi : 

Obsecro  Domine  Deus,  magne  et  ter- 
ribilis, 

citftodiens  pactum, 

et  misericordiam  diligentibus  te, 

et  custodientibus  mandata  tua : 

Peccavirnus,  iniquitatem3  fecimns, 

impie  egimus,  et  recessimus  et  de 
clinavimus 

a  mandatis  tuis  ac  judiciis. 

Non   obedivimus    servis    tuis   pro- 
phetis, 

qui  locuti  sunt  iu  nomine  tuo  regibut 
nostris, 

principibus  nostris,  patribus  nostris, 

omnique  populo  terrae. 

Tibi,  Domine,  justitia: 

nobis  autem  * 

confusio  faciei ; 

Sicut  e*t  hodie  viro  Juda  5 

et  liabitatorlbus  Jerusalem, 

et  omni  Jsrael, 

his  qui  prope  sunt,  et  his  qui  procul, 

in  universis  terris  ad  quas  ejecistl 
eos 

propter  iniquitatet  eorum, 

in  quibus  peccaverunt  in  te. 

•  m.  om.  Tol.       *  et  c.  s.  om  Tul. 
3  inique,  Tol.       *  a.  oin.  T/l. 
»  Judae.  Tol. 


1G92 


VULGATE,  THE 


9.  The  Latin   translator  of  Irenaeus  was   pro-  ' 
bably    contemporary    with    Tertullian,'    and    his 
renderings  of  the  quotations  from  Scripture  con 
firm  the  conclusions  which  have  been  already  drawn 
as  to  the   currency   of   (substantially)    one  Latin 
version.     It  does  not  appea1'  that  he  had  a  Latin 
MS.  before  him  during  the  execution  of  his  work, 
but  he  was  so  familiar  with  the  common  transla 
tion   that  he  reproduces  continually  characteristic 
phrases   which    he    cannot    be    supposed    to .  have 
derived  from  any  other  source  (Lachmann,  N.  T. 
i.  pp.  x.  xi.).     CYPRIAN  (f  A.D.  257)  carries  on 
the  chain  of  testimony  far  through  the  next  cen 
tury  ;  and  he  is  followed  by  Lactantius,  Juvencus, 
J.   Firmicus  Maternus,  HILARY  the  deacon  (Am- 
bi piaster),  HILARY  of  Poitiers  (f  A.D.  449),  and 
LUCIFER   of   Cagliari    (f  A.D.    370).      Ambrose 
ana  Augustine  exhibit  a  peculiar  recension  of  the 
same  text,  and  Jerome  offers  some   traces  of  it. 
From  this  date  MSS.  of  parts  of  the  African  text 
have  been  preserved  (§12),  and  it  is  unnecessary 
to  trace  the  history  of  its  transmission  to  a  later 
time. 

10.  But  while   the  earliest  Latin  Version  was 
preserved  generally  unchanged  in  N.  Africa,  it  fared 
differently  in  Italy.     There  the  provincial  rudeness 
of  the  version  was  necessarily  more  offensive,  and 
the  comparative  familiarity  of  the  leading  bishops 
with  the  Greek  texts  made  a  revision  at  once  more 
feasible  and  less  startling   to  their   congregations. 
Thus  in  the  fourth  century  a  definite  ecclesiastical 
recension  (of  the  Gospels  at  least)  appears  to  have 
been  made  in  N.  Italy  by  reference  to  the  Greek, 
which  was  distinguished   by  the   name  of  Itala. 
This  Augustine  recommends  on  the  ground  of  its 
close  accuracy  and  its  perspicuity  (Aug.  De  Doctr. 
Christ.  15,  in  ipsis  interpretationibus  Itala*  caeteris 
praeferatur,  nam  est  verborum  tenacior  cum  per- 
spicuitate  sententiae),  and  the  text  of  the  Gospels 
which  he  follows  is  marked  by  the  latter  charac 
teristic  when  compared  with  the  African.     In  the 
other  books  the  difference  cannot  be  traced  with 
accuracy ;  and  it  has  not  yet  been  accurately  deter 
mined  whether  other  national  recensions  may  not 
have  existed  (as  seems  certain  from  the  evidence 
which  the  writer  has  collected)  in  Ireland  (Britain), 
Gaul,  and  Spain. 

11.  The  Itala  appears   to  have  been  made  in 
some  degree  with  authority:  other  revisions  were 
made  for  private  use,  in  which  such  changes  were 
Introduced  as  suited  the  taste  of  scribe  or  critic. 
The  next  stage  in  the  deterioration  of  the  text  was 
the  intermixture  of  these  various  revisions ;  so  that 
at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  the  Gospels  were 
in  such  a  state  as  to  call  for  that  final  recension 
which  was  made  by  Jerome.    What  was  the  nature 
of  this  confusion  will  be  seen  from  the  accompanying 
tables  (B  and  C,  on  opposite  page)  more  clearly 
than  from  a  lengthened  description. 

12.  The  MSS.  of  the  Old  Latin  which  have  been 


'  It  should  be  added  that  Dodwell  places  him  much 
later,  at  the  cloee  of  the  4th  cent.  Comp.  Grabe,  Prolegg. 
ifl  rren.  ii.  $  3. 

*  It  is  unnecessary  now  to  examine  the  conjectures 
which  have  been  proposed,  usitata-quae.,  illa-quae.  They 
were  made  at  a  time  when  the  history  of  the  Old  Latin 
was  univi-own. 

«  To  these  must  probably  be  added  the  MSS.  of  Genesis 
t«id  the  Psalter  in  the  possession  of  Lord  Ashburnham, 
said  to  be  "of  the  fourth  century." 

The  text  of  the  Oxford  MS.  (No.  12)  is  extremely 
lut. 'resting,  and  offers  many  coincidences  with  the  earlicct 


VULGATE,  THE 

preserved  exhibit  the  various  forms  of  that  veraioii 
which  have  been  already  noticed.  Those  of  thf 
Gospels,  for  the  reason  which  has  been  given,  pre 
sent  the  different  types  of  text  with  unmistakeable 
clearness.  In  the  0.  T.  the  MS.  remains  are  too 
scanty  to  allow  of  a  satisfactoiy  classification. 
i.  MSS.  of  the  Old  Latin  Version  of  the  0.  T. 

1.  Fragments  of  Gen.  (xxxvii.,  xxxviii  ,  xii., 
xlvi.,  xlviii.-l.,  parts)  and  Ex.  (x.,  xj.,  xvi. 
xvii.,  xxiii.-xxvii.,  parts)  from  Cod.  E  (§.">0N. 
of  the  Vulgate:  Vercellone,    i.  pp.  183-4, 
307-10. 

2.  Fragments  (scattered  verses)  of  the  Penta 
teuch:  Miinter,  Miscell  Hafn.  1821,  pp. 
89-95. 

3.  Fragments  (scattered  verses  of  1,  2  Sam. 
and  1,  2  Kings,  and  the  Canticles),  given  by 
Sabatier. 

4.  Corbei.  7,  Saec.  xiii.  (Sabatier),  Esther. 

5.  Pechianus  (Sabatier),  Fragm.  Esther. 

6.  Orat.  (Sabatier),  Esther  i.-iii. 

7.  Majoris  Monast.  Saec.  xii.  (Martianay,  Sa 
batier),  Job. 

8.  Sangerm.  Psalt.  Saec.  vii.  (Sabatier). 

9.  Fragments  of  Jeremiah  (xiv.-xli.,  detached 
verses),  Ezekiel  (xl.— xlviii.,  detached  frag 
ments),  Daniel  (iii.  15-23,  33-50,  viii.,  xi., 
fragments),  Hosea  (ii.-vi.,  fragments),  from 
a  palimpsest  MS.  at  Wurzburg  (Saec.  vi., 
vii.):  Miinter,  Miscell.  Hafn.  1821. 

11.  Fragmenta    Hos.    Am.    Mich ed. 

E.  Kanke,  1858,  &c.    (This  book  the  writer 
has  not  seen.) 

12.  Bodl.    Auct.    F.   4,    32.      Fragments    01 
Deuteronomy  and  the  Prophets,  "  Graece  et 
Latine  litteris  Saxonicis,"  Sscc.  viii.  ix.h 

ii.  MSS.  of  the  Apocryphal  books. 

1.  Reg.  3564,  Saec.  ix.  (Sabatier),  Tob.  and  Jud. 

2,  3.  Sangerm.  4,  15,  Saec.  ix.    (Sabatier), 
Tob.  and  Jud. 

4.  Vatic.  (Reg.  Suec.),  Saec.  vii.,  Tob. 

5.  Corbei.  7  (Sabatier),  Jud. 

6.  Pechian.  (Sabatier),  Saec.  x.,  Jud. 

The  text  of  the  remaining  books  of  the  Vetu* 
Latina  not  having  been  revised  by  Jerome 
is  retained  in  MSS.  of  the  Vulgate. 
iii.  MSS.  of  the  N.  T. 
(1.)  Of  the  Gospels. 

African  (i.  e.  unrevised)  text. 

a.  Cod.  Vercellensis,  at  Vevcelli,  written 
by  Eusebius,  bishop  of  Vercelli  in  the 
4th  cent.     Published  by  Irici,  1748, 
and  Bianchini,  Ev.  Quadr.  1749. 

b.  Cod.  Veronensis,  at  Verona,  of  the  4th 
or  5th  cent.     Published  by  Bianchioi 
(as  above). 

c.  Ccd.  Colbertinus,   in   Bibl.    Imp.   at 
Paiis,  of  the  1 1th  cent.     Published  by 
Sabatier,  Versiones  antiguae. 

African  readings.  The  passages  contained  in  it  are 
(a)  Deut  xxxi.  7  ;  24-30;  xxxii.  1-4.  (/3)  Hos.  ii.  IS  a: 
iv.  l-3a;  9a;  vi.  \b,  2;  16;  x.  12a;  xii.  6;  viii.  3.  4. 
Amos  iii.  8;  v.  3;  14.  Mich.  iii.  2;  iv.  1,  2 ;  5  (part); 
v.  2;  vi.  8;  vii.  6,  7.  Joel  iii.  18.  Obad.  15.  Jon.  L 
8  b,  9.  Nah.  iii.  13.  Hab.  ii.  4  b  ;  iii.  3.  Zepban.  i.  14-16; 
18(part).  Agg.ii.7,8.  Zech.i.4  (part);  viii.  16, 17, 19b 
ix.  9 ;  xiii.  5  ;  1.  Mai.  i.  6  (part),  105,  11 ;  ii.  7;  iii.  1 
Zech.ii.86;  Mai.  iv.2,13;  5,  6 a.  (y)  Gca  i.  1-ii.  3;  Kx 
xiv.  24-xv.  3;  Is.  iv.  1-v.  7 ;  Iv.  1-5;  Ps.  xii.  1-4;  CJcD 
xxii.  1-19. 


VULGATE,  THE 


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1694 


VULGATE,  THE 

d.  Cod.  Claromontarws,  in  the  Vatican 
Libr.,  of  the  4th  or  5th  cent.     It  con 
tains  a  great  part  of  St.  Matthew,  and 
is  mainly  African  in  character.     Pub 
lished  by  Mai,  Script,  vet.  nov.  Coll. 
Hi.  1828. 

e.  Cod.  Vindobonensis,  at  Vienna,  of  5th 
or  6th  cent.     It  contains  fragments  of 
St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke.      Edited  by 
Alter  in  two  German  periodicals. 

/.  Cod.  Bobbiensis,  at  Turin,  of  the  5th 
cent.  It  contains  parts  of  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Mark.  The  chief  parts  pub 
lished  by  Tischendorf  in  the  Jahr- 
biicher  d.  Ltteratur,  Vienna,  1847  flf. 
The  text  is  a  remarkable  revision  of 
the  African. 

g.  The  readings  of  a  Speculum,  published 
by  Mai,  Patrum  nova  collectio,  i.  2, 
1852.  Comp.  Tregelles,  Introduction, 
240. 

h.  Cod.  Sangallensis,  of  the  5th  or  4th 
cent.  It  contains  fragments  of  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Mark.  Transcribed 
by  Tischendorf. 


•  The  critical  value  of  these  revised  ante-Hleronymian 
texts  is  unduly  underrated.    Each  recension,  as  the  re 
presentative  of  a  revision  of  the  oldest  text  by  the  help 
of  old  Greek  MSS.,  is  perhaps  not  inferior  to  the  recen 
sion  of  Jerome ;  and  the  MSS.  in  which  they  are  seve 
rally  contained,  though  numerically  inferior  to  Vulgate 
MSS.,  are  scarcely  inferior  in  real  authority. 

*  It  would  be  impossible  to  enter  in  detail  in  the  pre 
sent  place  into  the  peculiarities  of  the  test  presented  by 
this  group  of  MSS.    It  will  be  observed  that  copies  are 
included  in  it  which  represent  historically  the  Irish  (rj.e), 
Scotch  (/3),  Mercian  (£),  Northumbrian  (8),  and— If  we 


VULGATE,  THE 

i.  Cod.  Palat.,  at  Vienna,  vi  the  5tb 
cent.  Published  by  Tischdf.  1 847.  A 
very  important  MS.,  containing  St. 
John,  and  St.  Luke  nearly  entire,  and 
considerable  parts  of  the  other  Gospels. 

To  these  must  be  added  a  very  remark 
able  fragment  of  St.  Luke  published  by 
A.  M.  Ceriani,  from  a  MS.  of  the  6th 
cent,  in  the  Ambrosian  Libr.  at  Milan : 
Monum.  Sacra,  .  .  .  .  1861 ;  and  a 
purple  fragment  at  Dublin  (Saec.  v.) 
containing  Matt.  xiii.  13-23,  published 
by  Dr.  Todd  in  Proceedings  of 
R.  I.  A.m.  374. 

k.   Cod.    Corbeiensis,  St.  Matt.     Edited 

by  Martianay  and  Sabatier. 
Italic  revision.1 

/.  Cod.  Brixianus,  of  the  6th  cent.  Tim 
best  type  of  the  Italic  text.  Published 
by  Bianchini,  1.  c.  Comp.  Lachm. 
N.  T.\.  Praef.  xiv. 

m.  Cod.  Monacensis,  of  the   6th  cent. 

Transcribed  by  Tischendorf. 
Irish  (British)  revision.1* 


Other  readings  more  or  less  characteristic  are  Matt.  ii. 
14,  matrem  om  ejus;  ii.  15,  est  um  a  Domino;  iv.  9,  vade 
+  retro ;  iv.  6,  de  te  -f  ut  custodiant  te  in  omnibus  vtis 
tuis;  v.  5,  lugent  -f-  nunc ;  v.  48,  sicut  pater;  vi.  13, 
patiaris  nos  induci,  &c. 

As  a  more  continuous  specimen  the  following  readings 
occur  in  one  chapter  in  the  Hereford  Gospels  in  which 
this  Latin  text,  with  a  few  others  only,  agrees  closely 
with  the  Greek:  Luke  xxiv.  6,  esset  in  Gal.  7,  tertia 
die;  16,  agnoscerent  eum;  20,  tradiderunt  eum;  24, 
viderunt:  2S,finxit  lortgius  ire ;  38,quare  cogitationes  ; 
39,  pedes  meos ;  44,  haec  sunt  verba  mea  quae  locutus  sum 


may  trust  the  very  uncertain  tradition  which  represents  I  ad  vos.    Other  remarkable  readings  in  the  same  passage 


the  Gospels  of  St.  Chad  as  written  by  Gildas  (comp. 
Lib.  Landav.  p.  615,  ed.  1840)— Welsh  Churches.  Bentley, 
who  had  collated  more  or  less  completely  four  of  them, 
observed  their  coincidence  in  remarkable  readings,  but 
the  individual  differences  of  the  copies  no  less  than  their 
wide  range  both  in  place  and  age  exclude  the  idea  that 
all  were  derived  from  one  source.  They  stand  out  as  a 
remarkable  monument  of  the  independence,  the  antiquity, 
and  the  influence  of  British  (Irish)  Christianity. 


are  8,  Jiorum  verborum ;  18,  Retpondens  unus  om.  et  ; 
21,  quo  haec  omnia;  27,  et  erat  incipiens;  29,  inclinata 
est  dies  jam. 

A  comparison  of  the  few  readings  from  the  Gospels 
given  in  the  Epistle  of  GILDAS  according  to  the  Cambridge 
MS.  (Univ.  Libr.  Dd.  1,  17),  for  the  text  in  Stevenson's 
edition  is  by  no  means  accurate,  shows  some  interesting 
coincidences  with  these  Irish  (British)  MSS.  (For  the 
explanation  of  the  additional  references  see  $  31.) 


For  the  present  it  must  suffice  to  give  a  few  special  |      Matt.  v.  15.— Supra  y  8  e  f  K  W  F  (6) ;  v.  16,  mag- 
readings  which  show  the  extent  and  character  of  the  I  nificent  8  (a,  b) ;  v.   19,  qui  enim  y  e  P  (a  b) ;   vii.  2, 


variations  of  this  family  from  other  families  of  MSS.  The 
notation  of  the  text  is  preserved  for  the  sake  of  brevity. 

Matt.  viii.  24.— Fluctibus  +  erat  autem  (enim  y)  illis 
ventus  contrarius  (contr.  vent,  f )  (y  S  e  £). 

Matt.  x.  29.— Sine  voluntate  Dei  patris  vestri  qui  in 
coelis  est  (sine  p.  vol.  q.  e.  in  c.  e).  Sine  p.  v.  vol.  qui  in  c. 
e.  £  **.  Sine  patre  vestro  voluntate,  &c.,  f  *  (y  e  Q. 

Matt.  xiv.  35. — Loci  illius  venerunt  et  [om.  ven.  et. 
S  f  ]  adoraverunt  eum  et  (S  e  f). 

Matt,  xxvii.  49.— Alius  autem  accepta  lancea  pupujit 
(pupungit)  latus  ejus  et  exit  (-lit  -ivit)  aqua  et  sanguis 
(y  S  e). 

Mark  xiii.  18.— Ut  hieme  non  fiat  (-et)  fuga  vestra 
(Y  8  e)  vel  sabbato  (8  t),  ut  non  fra  (sic)  fuga  vestra 
hieme  vel  sabbato  (£). 

Luke  xxiii.  2.— Nostram  +  et  solventem  legem  (+  jios- 
tram  £)  et  prophetas  (S  e  £). 

Luke  xxiv.  1.— Ad  mon.  +  Maria  Magdalena  et  altera 
Maria  et  qvaedam  cum  eis  (S  e). 

John  xix.  30.— Cum  autem  expiravit  (asp.  e  trdiset 
Bpru  (sic)  £)  velamentum  (velum  a  c  f)  templi  scissum 
est  medium  a  summo  usque  (ad  a)  deorsum  (a  y  e  f). 

John  xxi.  6. — Invenietis  -f-  Dixerunt  autem  Per  totam 
noctcm  laborantes  nihil  cepimus :  in  verbo  autem  tuo 
mittimus  (laxttemus  [sic  i.e.  luxabimus]  rete  e,  mltemus 
6*0  £)  (Y  e  Q. 


judicabitur  de  vobis  e  (a,  b) ;  vii.  3,  non  consideras  (a) ; 
vii.  4,  in  oculo  tuo  est  y;  vii.  6,  miseritis  (a,  b) ;  vii.  15, 
attendite  +  vobis  y  S  </>  (b);  vii.  17,  bonus  fructus  SO 
(a,  b);  id  et  mala  malos ;  vii.  23,  operarii  iniquitatis 
(a)  ;  vii.  27,  impigerunt  O;  x.  28,  et  corpus  et  animam, 
e,  c.  et  an.-  y  8 ;  xv.  14,  caeci  duces  sunt ;  xvi.  18,  infirm 
y  8  e  £  B  H  O  Z  K  <J>  (a)  ;  xvi  19,  quaecunque ;  id.  erunt 
ligata  8  (b) ;  xxiii.  3,  vero  opera  S  £  $  ;  id.,  et  ipsi  non  f 
8  e  £  (b) ;  xxiii.  13,  qui  claud.  D.  id.  vos  autem  8  £  H  O  <£. 

Thus  of  twenty-one  readings  which  differ  from  Cod. 
Am.  thirteen  are  given  in  one  or  other  of  those  MSS.  which 
have  been  supposed  to  present  a  typical  British  (Irish) 
text,  and  of  these  eleven  are  found  in  the  JKushworth 
MS.  alone.  While  on  the  other  hand  nine  readings  agree 
with  Cod.  Veron.  and  seven  with  Cod.  Vercett.,  and  every 
reading  is  supported  by  some  old  authority.  Thus,  though 
the  range  of  comparison  is  very  limited,  the  evidence  of 
these  quotations,  as  far  «s  it  goes,  supports  the  belief  in  a 
distinct  British  text. 

In  the  Evangelic  quotations  in  the  printed  text  of  ST. 
PATRICK,  out  of  seventeen  variations,  eight  (as  far  as  I  can 
find)  are  supported  by  no  known  Latin  authority  the 
remainder  are  found  in  y,  8,  e  or  <£.  BACHIARIUS  1  have 
not  been  able  to  examine,  though  his  writings  are  nol 
unlikely  to  offer  some  illustrations  of  the  early  text. 

SKIHILIUS  (Opus  Fascl'ak),  as  might  have  boen  ex- 


VULGATE,  THE 

(a.)  Cambridge  Univ.  Libr.  Kk.  1,  24. 
Saec.  viii.?  St.  Luke,  i.  15-end,  and 
St.  John,  i.  18-xx.  17.  Bentley's  X. 
Capitula  wanting  in  St.  Luke  ;  xiv.  in 
St.  John.  No  Ammonian  Sections. 
(Plate  ii.  fig.  1.) 

(j8.)  Cambridge  Univ.  Libr.  Ti.  G,  32. 
Saec.  viii.-x.  The  Book  of  Deer. 
St.  Matt,  i.-vii.  23.  St.  Mark,  i.  1, 
v.  36.  St.  Luke,  i.  l,iv.2.  St.  John, 
entire.  Very  many  old  and  peculiar 
readings.  Nearer  Vulg.  than  (a),  but 
very  carelessly  written.  No  Am 
monian  Sections  or  Capitula.  Be 
longed  to  monks  of  Deer  in  Aberdeen- 
s-.hire.  Comp.  Mr.  H.  Bradshaw  in  the 
Printed  Catalogued 

(0 .)  LichHeld,  Book  of  St.  Chad.  Saec. 
viii.  St.  Matt.,  St.  Mark,  and  St. 
Luke,  i.-iii.  9.  Bentley's  £2. 

'5.)  Oxford,  Bodl.  D.  24  (3946).  Saec. 
viii.  The  Gospels  of  Mac  Rcgol.  or 
the  Rushworth  MS.  Bentley's  x-  No 
Capit.,  Sect.,  or  Prefaces.  A  collation 
of  the  Latin  text  in  the  Lindisfarne 
text  of  St.  Matt,  and  St.  Mark  (cornp. 
p.  1711,  note  ff),  together  with  the 
Northumbrian  gloss,  has  been  pub 
lished  by  Rev.  J.  Stevenson.  De 
ficient  Luke  iv.  29-viii.  38.m 

(€.)  Oxford,  C.  C.  Coll.  122.  Saec. 
x.,  xi  ?  Bentley's  C.  Has  Canons  and 
Prefaces,  but  no  Sect,  or  Capit. 

(£.)  Hereford  (Saxon)  Gospels.  Saec.  viii. 
(ix.).  The  four  Gospels,  with  two 
small  lacunae.  Without  Prefaces, 
Canons,  Capitula,  or  Sections.  A 
very  important  copy,  and  probably 
British  in  origin.11  (Plate  ii.  fig.  5.) 

(77.)  The  Book  of  Armagh  (all  N.  T.), 
Trin.  Coll.  Dublin:  written  A.D.  807. 
Comp.  Proceedings  of  R.  I.  A.  iii. 
pp.  316,  356.  Sir  W.  Betham,  Irish 
Antiq.  Researches,  ii.° 

(0.)  A   copy   found    in    the    Domhnach 


VULGATE,  THE 


1095 


pected  from  his  foreign  training,  gives  in  the  main  a 
pure  Vulgate  text  in  his  quofc»Mons  from  the  Vulgate. 
When  he  differs  from  it  (e.  g.  Luke  x.  19,  20 ;  John  xi. 
43  prodi),  he  often  appears  to  quote  from  memory,  and 
differs  from  all  MSS. 

The  quotations  given  at  length  in  the  British  copy  of 
Juvencus  (Camb.  Univ.  Libr.  Ff.  4,  42)  would  probably 
repay  a  careful  examination. 

1  This  MS.,  in  common  with  many  Irish  MSS.  (e.g. 
Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  1802,  2795,  the  Book  of  Mac  Human, 
and  some  others,  as  Harl.  1775,  Cotton.  Tib.  A  ii.),  sepa 
rates  the  genealogy  in  St.  Matt,  frcai  the  rest  of  the 
Gospel,  closing  v.  17  with  the  worda  Finit  Prologus,  and 
then  adding  Incipit  E^angelium. 

"»  The  reading  of  this  MS.  in  Matt.  xxl.  28  ff.  is  very 
remarkable :  Homo  quidam  habebat  duos  filios  et  acce- 
dens  ad  pricuim  dixit  fili  vade  operare  in  viam  *  meam. 
ille  autem  respondens  dixit  eo  dne  et  non  iit  accedens 
tutem  ad  alterum  dixit  similiter  at  ille  respondens  ait 
flolo.  postea  autem  poeniteritia  motus  abiit  in  viniam.* 
quis  ex  duob:  fecit  voiunlatetn  patris.  dicuut  *  novissi- 
mus. 

•>  For  the  opportunity  ot  examining  tnis  My.  the  writer 
fa  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  the  Rev.  J.  Jebb,  D.D., 
Canon  of  Hereford. 

°  This  MS.  contains  the  Ep.  to  th?  Laodicenes,  with 
&e  note  Sed  Ilirunumm  earn  negat  esze  I'auli:  Botham 


Airgid  (Royal  I.  Acad.},  Sasc.  v.  vi. 
Comp.  Petrie,  Transactions  of  R.  T.A., 
xviii.,  1838.  O'Curry's  Lectures, 
Dublin,  1861,  pp.  321  ff.,  where  a  fic- 
simile  is  given. 

(i.)  (AC.)  Two  copies  in  Trin.  Coll. 
Dublin,  said  to  be  "  ante-Hierony- 
mian,  Saec.  vii."P 

To  these  must  be  added  a  large  number  of  Irish, 
including  under  this  term  North  British  MSS,, 
which  exhibit  a  text  more  nearly  approaching  the 
Vulgate,  but  yet  with  characteristic  old  readings. 
Such  are : — 

Brit.  Mus.,  Harl.   1802.     Saec.  x.-xii.   A.n. 

1 138  ?     Prefaces  all  at  the  beginning.     No 

Capitula  or  Sections.     Bentley's  W.  (Plate 

ii.  fig.  4.) 

Brit.  Mus.,  Harl.  1023.     Saec.  x.-xii?     No 

Capitula  or  Sections.     (Plate  ii.  fig.  3.) 
Lambeth.    The  Book  of  Mac  Durnan.i   S;iec. 
x.      Has    Sections,   but    no    Prefaces    or 
Canons. 
Dublin,  T.  C.  C.     The  Book  of  Kells.    Saec. 

viii. 
Dublin,  T.  C.  C.    The  Book  of  Durrow.   Saec. 

viii. 
Dublin,   T.    C.   C.       The   Book   of  Dimma. 

Saec.  viii. 
Dublin,  T.  C.  C.    The  Book  of  Moling.   Saec. 

viii.* 
Gallican  (?)  revision.* 

Brit.  Mus.,  Egerton,  609,  formerly  Majoris 
Monasterii ;  iv.  Gospp.  deficient  from 
Mark  vi.  56  to  Luke  xi.  1.  This  MS.  is 
called  mm,  and  classified  under  Vulgate 
MSS.  in  the  editions  of  the  N.  T.,  but  it 
has  been  used  only  after  Calmet's  very 
imperfect  collation,  and  offers  a  distinct 
type  of  text.  Praef.  Can.  No  Capitula. 
(2.)  Of  the  Acts  and  Epistles. 

n.  Cod.  Bobbiensis,  at  Vienna.  A  few 
fragments  of  the  Acts  and  Cath.  Epp. 
Edited  by  Tischendorf,  Jahrbiicher  d. 
Lit.  1.  c. 


ii.  p.  263.  The  stichometry  is  as  follows:  Matheus  versut 
habet  MMDCC,  Marcus  MDCC,  Lucas  MMDCCC,  Jo- 
hannis  MMCCC.  Id.  p.  318* 

P  Dr.  Reeves  undertook  to  publish  the  text  of  the 
Book  of  Armagh,  with  collations  oft,  K,  and  other  MSS. 
in  T.  C.  D.,  but  the  writer  has  been  unable  to  learn  whe 
ther  he  will  carry  out  his  design.  The  MSS.  TJ-K  the 
writer  knows  only  by  description,  and  very  imperfectly. 

n  Facsimiles  of  many  of  these  "  Irish  "  MSS.  are  given 
in  Westwood's  Paleographia  Sacra  and  in  O'Curiy's 
Lectures.  The  text  of  most  of  them  (even  of  those  col 
lated  by  Bentley)  is  very  imperfectly  known,  and  it 
passes  by  a  very  gradual  transition  into  the  ordinaiy 
type  of  Vulgate.  The  whole  question  of  the  general 
character  and  the  specific  varieties  of  these  MSS.  require? 
careful  investigation.  The  Table  (F)  will  give  some  idea 
of  their  variations  from  the  common  text.  The  Stow  St. 
John,  at  present  in  Lord  Ashburnham's  collection,  pro 
bably  belongs  to  this  family. 

r  These  four  MSS.  1  know  only  by  Mr.  Westwood's 
descriptions  in  his  Palaeographia  Sacra;  and  to  Mr. 
Westwood  belongs  the  credit  of  first  directing  attention 
to  Irish  MSS.  after  the' time  of  Bentley. 

•  The  text  of  this  recension,  which  I  believe  to  be  con 
tained  also  in  g\  and  Bentley's  p  (comp.  p.  1713,  note «)  it 
closely  allied  to  the  British  type.  As  to  the  Spanish  text 
1  have  no  sufficient  materials  to  form  au  estimate  of  it* 
character. 


1696 


VULGATE,  THE 


o.  Cod.  Corbei.,  a  MS.  of  Ep.  ol  St. 
jaines.  Published  by  Martianay,  1695. 

p.  (Of  St.  Paul's  'Epp.)  Cod.  Clarom., 
the  Latin  text  of  D2.  Published  by 
Tischendorf. 

q.  (Of  St.  Paul's  Epp.)  Cod.  Sangerm., 
the  Latin  text  of  E3,  said  to  have  an 
independent  value,  but  imperfectly 
known. 

r.  (Of  St.  Paul's  Epp.)  Cod.  Boern.,  the 
Latin  text  of  G2,  is  in  the  main  an 
old  copy,  adapted  in  some  points  to 
the  Greek. 

s.  (See  Gospels). 

t  '!  -agments  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles  tran 
scribed  at  Munich  by  Tischendorf. 

u,  v.  (Acts)  the  Latin  text  of  Dx  and  E2 
(Cod.  Bezae  and  Cod.  Laud). 

To  these  must  be  added,  from  the  result  of  a 

pai  i:al  collection : — 

X-  Oxford,  Bodl  3418  (Selden,  30). 
Acts.  Saec.  viii.,  vii.  An  uncial  MS. 
of  the  highest  interest.  Deficient  xiv. 
26,  fidei — xv.  32,  cum  essent.  Bentl. 
X8.  Among  its  characteristic  readings 
may  be  noticed :  v.  34,  foras  modicum 
apostolos  secedere ;  ix.  40,  surge  in 
nomine  Domini  Ihu  Xti. ;  xi.  17,  ne 
daret  illis  Spiritum  Sanctum  credenti- 
bus  in  nomine  Ihu  Xti. ;  xiii.  14, 
Paul  us  et  Barnabas;  xvi.  1,  et  cum 
circuisset  has  nationes  pervenit  in 
Derben.  (Plate  i.  fig.  4). 
ff2.  Oxford,  Bodl.  Laud.  Lat.  108  (E, 
67).  Saec.  ix.  St.  Paul's  Epp.  in 
Saxon  letters.  Ends  Hebr.  xi.  34, 
aciem  gladii.  Corrected  apparently 
by  three  hands.  The  original  text  was 
a  revision  of  the  Old  Latin,  but  it  has 
been  much  erased.  In  many  cases  it 
agrees  with  d  almost  or  quite  alone  : 
e.  g.  Rom.  ii.  14,  16,  iii.  22,  26, 
x.  20,  xv.  13,  23,  27,  30.  The 
Epistles  to  Thess.  are  placed  before  the 
Ep.  to  Coloss.  This  arrangement, 
which  is  given  by  Augustine  (De 
Doctr.  Christ,  ii.  13),  appears  to  have 
prevailed  in  early  English  MSS.,  and 
occurs  in  the  Saxon  Cambridge  MS., 
and  several  other  MSS.  of  the  Bible 
quoted  by  Hody,  p.  664.  Comp. 
§31  (2)  8.« 

The  well -known  Harleian  MS.  1772 
(§32,  (2)  3)  ought  to  be  reckoned 
rather  among  the  Old  than  the  Vul 
gate  texts.  A  good  collection  of  its 
more  striking  variations  is  given  in  the 
Harleian'  Catalogue.  In  the  Acts  and 
Epistles  (no  less  than  in  the  Gospels) 
there  are  indications  of  an  unre vised 
(African)  aud  revised  texts,  but  the 
•materials  are  as  vet  too  imperfect  to 
allow  of  an  exact  determination  of  the 
different  types. 
'3.)  In  bhe  Apocalypse  the  text  depends  on  m 

«u»d  early  quotations,  especially  in  Primasius. 


VULGATE,  THE 

13.  It  will  be  seen  that  for  the  chiof  part  of  tht 
0.  T.,  and  for  considerable  parts  of  the  N.  T 
(e.  g.  Apoc.  Acts),  the  old  text  rests  upon  early 
quotations  (principally  Tertullian,  Cyprian,  Lucife? 
of  Cagliari,  for  the  African  text,  Ambrose  and  Au 
gustine  for  the  Italic).  These  were  collected  by 
Sabatier  with  great  diligence  up  to  the  date  of  his 
work ;  but  more  recent  discoveries  (e.  g.  of  the 
Roman  Speculum}  have  furnished  a  large  store  oi 
new  materials  which  have  not  vet  been  fi'lly  em 
ployed.  (The  great  work  of  Sabatier,  already  often 
referred  to,  is  still  the  standard  work  on  the  Latin 
Versions.  His  great  fault  is  his  neglect  to  distin 
guish  the  different  types  of  text,  African,  Italic 
British,  Gallic ;  a  task  which  yet  remains  to  be 
done.  The  earliest  work  on  the  subject  was  by 
Flaimnius  Nobilius,  Veins  Test.  sec.  LXX.  Latine 
redditum  ....  Romae,  1588.  The  new  collations 
made  by  Tischendorf,  Mai,  Milliter,  Ceriani,  have 
been  noticed  separately.) 

III.  THE  LABOURS  OF  JEROME. — 14.  It  has  been 
seen  that  at  the  close  of  the  4th  century  the  Latin 
texts  of  the  Bible  current  in  the  Western  Church 
had  fallen  into  the  greatest  corruption.  The  evil 
was  yet  greater  in  prospect  than  at  the  time ;  for 
the  separation  of  the  East  and  West,  politically  and 
ecclesiastically,  was  growing  imminent,  and  the  fear 
of  the  perpetuation  of  false  and  conflicting  Latin 
copies  proportionately  greater.  But  in  the  crisis 
of  danger  the  great  scholar  was  raised  up  who  pro 
bably  alone  for  1 500  years  possessed  the  qualifica 
tions  necessary  for  producing  an  original  version  of 
the  Scriptures  for  the  use  of  the  Latin  Churches. 
Jerome — Eusebius  Hieronymus — was  born  in  329 
A.D.  at  Stridon  in  Dalmatia,  and  died  at  Bethlehem 
in  420  A.D.  From  his  early  youth  he  was  a 
vigorous  student,  and  age  removed  nothing  from 
his  zeal.  He  has  been  well  called  the  Western 
Origen  (Hody,  p.  350),  and  if  he  wanted  the  large 
ness  of  heart  and  generous  sympathies  of  the  great 
Alexandrine,  he  had  more  chastened  critical  skill 
and  closer  concentration  of  power.  After  long  and 
self-denying  studies  in  the  East  and  West,  Jerome 
went  to  Rome  A.D.  382,  probably  at  the  request 
of  Damasus  the  Pope,  to  assist  in  an  important 
synod  (Ep.  cviii.  6),  where  he  seems  to  have  been 
at  once  attached  to  the  service  of  the  Pope  (Ep. 
cxxiii.  10).  His  active  biblical  labor rs  date  from 
this  epoch,  and  in  examining  them  it  will  be  con 
venient  to  follow  the  order  of  time,  noticing  (1) 
the  Revision  of  the  Old  Latin  Version  of  the  N.  T. ; 
(2)  the  Revision  of  the  Old  Latin  Version  (from 
the  Greek)  of  the  0.  T. ;  (3)  the  New  Version  of 
the  O.  T.  from  the  Hebrew. 

(1.)  The  Revision  of  the  Old  Latin  Version 
of  the  N.  T. — 15.  Jerome  had  not  been  long  at 
Rome  (A  D.  383)  when  Damasus  consulted  him  on 
points  of  Scriptural  criticism  (Ep.  xix.  "  Dilectionis 
tuae  est  ut  ardenti  illo  strenuitatis  ingenio  .... 
vivo  sensu  scribas").  The  answers  which  he  re 
ceived  (Epp.  xx.,  xxi.)  may  well  have  encouraged 
him  to  seek  for  greater  services :  and  apparently  m 
the  same  year  he  applied  to  Jerome  for  a  revision 
of  the  current  Latin  version  of  the  N.  T.  by  the 
help  of  the  Greek  original.  Jerome  was  fully 
|  sensible  of  the  prejudices  which  such  a  work  would 
excite  among  those  "  who  thought  that  ignorance 


*  A  very  interesting  historical  notice  of  the  use  of  the 
Cla  I-^tir.  in  the  North  of  England  is  given  by  Bcde,  who 
says  of  Ceolfrid,  a  contemporary  abbot,  "  Bibliothecam 
Monasterii  [Wearmomh  and  Jarrow]  magna 


geminasse  industria.     Ita  ut  tres  Pandectas  novae  trans- 
lationis,  ad  unum  vetustae  translations,  quern  de  Romt 

attulerat,  ipse  superadjungeret "  (Hist.  Abbot.  Wire 

<nuth.  et  Girwiem.    Quoted  by  Hody,  De  Text.  p.  J09), 


VULGATE.  THE 

was?  holiness"  (Ep.  ad  Marc,  xxvii.),  but  the  need 
of  it  was  urgent.  "  There  were,"  he  says,  "  almost 
as  many  forms  of  text  as  copies"  ("tot  sunt  ex- 
emplaria  pene  quot  codices,"  Praef.  in  Evv.).  Mis 
takes  had  been  introduced  "  by  false  transcription, 
by  clumsy  corrections,  and  by  careless  interpola 
tions  "  (id.},  and  in  the  confusion  which  had  ensued 
the  one  remedy  was  to  go  back  to  the  original 
source  (Graeca  veritas,  Graeca  origo).  The  Gospels 
had  naturally  suffered  most.  Thoughtless  scribes 
inserted  additional  details  in  the  narrative  from  the 
parallels,  and  changed  the  forms  of  expression  to  those 
with  which  they  had  been  originally  familiarized 
(id.).  Jerome  therefore  applied  himself  to  these  first 
("  haec  praesens  praefatiuncula  pollicetur  quatuor 
tautum  Evangelia").  But  his  aim  was  to  revise 
the  Old  Latin,  and  not  to  make  a  new  version. 
When  Augustine  expressed  to  him  his  gratitude  for 
"  his  translation  of  the  Gospel"  (Ep.  civ.  6,  "non 
parvas  Deo  gratias  agimus  de  opere  tuo  quo  Evan- 
gelium  ex  Graeco  interpretatus  es"),  he  tacitly 
corrected  him  by  substituting  for  this  phrase  "  the 
correction  of  the  N.  T."  (Ep.  cxii.  20,  "  Si  me,  ut 
dicis,  in  N.  T.  emendatione  suscipis  ....  ").  For 
this  purpose  he  collated  early  Greek  MSS.,  and 
preserved  the  current  rendering  wherever  the  sense 
was  not  injured  by  it  (" . .  .  Evangelia  . .  .  codicum 
Graecorum  emendata  collatione  sed  veterum.  Quae 
ne  multum  a  lectionis  Latinae  consuetudine  discre- 
parent,  ita  calamo  temperavimus  (all.  imperavimus) 
ut  his  tantum  quae  sensum  videbantur  mutare, 
correctis,  reliqua  manere  pateremur  ut  fuerant:" 
Praef.  ad  Dam.).  Yet  although  he  proposed  to 
himself  this  limited  object,  the  various  forms  of 
corruption  which  had  been  introduced  were,  as  he 
describes,  so  numerous  that  the  difference  of  the 
Old  and  Revised  (Hieronymian)  text  is  throughout 
clear  and  striking.  Thus  in  Matt.  v.  we  have  the 
following  variations : — • 


Vetus 


VULGATE,  THE  1(^7 

Vulgata  nova  (Il.leron.). 


Vetus  Latina.n           \    Vulgata  nova,  (Hieron.). 

7  ipsis  miserebitur  Deus. 

7  ipsi  misericordiam,  con- 

sequentur. 

11  dixerint.  .  . 

11  dixerint..  .  mentientes. 

—  propter  justitiam. 

—  propter  me. 

12  ante  vos  patres   eorwn 

12  ante  vos. 

(Luke  vi.  26). 

17  non  veni  solvere  legem 

17  non  veni  solvere. 

aut  prophetas. 

18  fiant:    coelum  et   terra 

18.  fiant. 

transibunt,  verba  au 

tem  mea  non  praeter- 

ibunt. 

22  fratri  suo  sine,  causa. 

22  fratri  suo. 

25  es  cum  illo  in  ira. 

25  es  in  via  cum  eo  (and 

often). 

29  eat  in  gehennam. 

29  mittatur  in  gehennam. 

37  quod  autem  amplius. 

37  quod  autem  his  oMun- 

dantius. 

41  adhuc  alia  duo. 

41  et  alia  duo. 

43  odies. 

43  odio  habebis. 

44  ves-tros,  et  benedicite  qui 

4.4  vestros  benefacite. 

maledicent     vobis     et 

beneiacite. 

Of  these  variations  those  in  vers.  17,  44,  are  only 
partially  supported  by  the  old  copies,  but  they 
illustrate  the  character  of  the  interpolations  from 
which  the  text  suffered.  In  St.  John,  as  might  be 
expected,  the  variations  are  less  frequent.  The 
6th  chapter  contains  only  the  following : — 


2  sequebatur  autem. 
21  (volebant). 
23  (quern  benedixerat  Do- 
minus  (alii  aliter)  ). 
39  haec  est  enim. 


2  et  sequebatur. 
21  (voluerunt). 
23  (gratias  agente  Domino). 

39      haec  est  autem. 


•J  In  giving  the  readings  of  Vetus  Latino,  the  writer  has 
throughout  confined  himself  to  those  which  are  supported 
VOL.111. 


JV  (i'atris  mei). 

53  (tnanducare). 

6t>  (a  patre). 

7  ex  hoc  ergo. 


39  (Patrls    mei   qui    ?>UA/i 

me). 
53  (ad  manlucandtfr). 

66  (a  patrc  meo). 

67  ex  hoc. 


16.  Some  of  the  changes  which  Jerome  intro 
duced  were,  as  will  be  seen,  made  purely  on  lin- 

uistic  grounds,  but  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  on 
what  principle  he  proceeded  in  this  respect  (comp. 
§35).  Others  involved  questions  of  interpretation 

Matt.  vi.  11,  supersubstantialis  for  firiovaios). 
But  the  greater  number  consisted  in  the  removal  of 
the  interpolations  by  which  the  synoptic  Gospels 
especially  were  disfigured.  These  interpolations, 
unless  his  description  is  very  much  exaggerated, 
must  have  been  far  more  numerous  than  are  found 
in  existing  copies ;  but  examples  still  occur  which 
show  the  important  service  which  he  rendered  to 
the  Church  by  checking  the  perpetuation  of  apocry 
phal  glosses:  Matt.  Hi.  3,  15  (v.  12);  (ix.  21), 
xx.  28 ;  (xxiv.  36)  ;  Mark  i.  3,  7,  8  ;  iv.  19 ; 
xvi.  4;  Luke  (v.  10);  viii.  48;  ix.  43,  50;  xi. 
36  ;  xii.  38;  xxiii.  48  ;  John  vi.  56.  As  a  check 
upon  further  interpolation  he  inserted  in  his  text 
the  notation  of  the  Eusebian  Canons  [NEW  TESTA 
MENT,  §21]  ;  but  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  he  in 
cluded  in  his  revision  the  famous  pcricope,  John  vii. 
53,  viii.  11,  which  is  not  included  in  that  analysis. 

17.  The  preface  to  Damasus  speaks  only  of  a 
revision  of  the  Gospels,  and  a  question  has  been 
raised  whether  Jerome  really  revised  the  remaining 
books  of  the  N.  T.     Augustine  (A.D.  403)  speaks 
only  of  "  the  Gospel"  (Ep.  civ.  6,  quoted  above), 
and  there  is  no  preface  to  any  other  books,  such  ad 
is  elsewhere  found  before  all  Jerome's  versions  or 
editions.     But  the  omission  is  probably  due  to  the 
comparatively  pure  state  in  which  the  text  of  the 
rest  of  the  N.  T.  was  preserved.      Damasus  had 
requested  (Praef.  ad  Dam?)  a  revision  of  the  whole, 
and  when  Jerome  had  faced  the  more  invidious  and 
difficult  part  of  his  work  there  is  no  reason  to  think 
that  he  would"  shrink  from  the  completion  of  it. 
In  accordance  with  this  view  he  enumerates  (A.D. 
398)   among   his  works   "  the  restoration  of  the 
(Latin  version  of  the)  N.  T.  to  harmony  with  the 
original  Greek."    (Ep.  ad  Lucin.  Ixxi.  5 :  "  N.  T. 
Graecae   reddidi    auctoritati,    ut    enim    Veterum 
Librorum  fides  de  Hebraeis  voluminibus  examinanda 
est,  ita  novorum  Graecae  (?)  sermonis  normam  desi- 
derat."    De  Vir.  Ill  cxxxv. :  "  N.  T.  Graecae  fidei 
reddidi.    Vetus  juxta  Hebraicam  transtuli.")     It  is 
yet  more  directly  conclusive  as  to  the  fact  of  this 
revision,  that  in  wiiting  to  Marcella  (cir.  A.D.  385) 
on  the  charges  which  had  been  brought  against  him 
for  "  introducing  changes  in  the  Gospels,"  he  quotes 
three  passages  from  the  Epistles  in  which  he  asserts 
the  superiority  of  the  present  Vulgate  reading  to 
lhat  of  the  Old  Latin  (Rom.  xii.  11,  Domino  servi- 
entes,  for  tempori  servientes;   1  Tim.  v.  19,  add. 
nisi  sub  duobus  aut  tribus  testibus ;   1  Tim.  i.  15. 
fidclis  sermo,  for  humanus  sermo).     An  examina 
tion  of  the  Vulgate  text,   with  the  quotations  of 
ante-Hieronymian   fathers   and  the  imperfect  evi 
dence  of  MSS.,  is  itself  sufficient  to  establish  the 
reality  and  character  of  the  revision.     This  will  be 
apparent  from  a  collation  of  a  few  chapters  taken 
from  several  of  the  later  books  of  the  N.  T. ;  but 
it  will  also  be  obvious  that  the  revision  was  hasty 
and  imperfect ;  and  in  later  times  the  line  between 

by  a  combination  of  authorities,  avoiding  the  pecnliaritiee 
of  single  MSS.,  and  (if  possible)  of  a  single  family. 

*  Q 


1698 


VULGATE,  THE 


the  Hicronymian  and  Old  texts  became  very  indis 
tinct.  Old  veadings  appear  in  MSS.  of  the  Vulgate, 
and  on  the  other  hand  no  MS.  represents  a  pure 
African  text  of  the  Acts  and  Epistles. 


ACTS 
Versio  Vet  us.* 

4  cunt,  conversaretur  cum 

•tills  . .  .  quod   audistis 

5  tinyemini.  [a  me. 

6  at  illi  convenientes. 

7  at  ille  respondent  dixit. 

8  supervernente  S.  S. 

10  intenderent.  Couip.  iii. 
(I),  12;  vi.  15:  x.  4; 
Cxiii.  9). 

13  ascenderunt    in     supe- 

riwa. 
—  erant  habitantes. 

14  perseverantes  unanimes 

orationi. 

18  I/ic  igitur  adquisivit. 
21  qui   convenerunt  nobls- 

c-um  viris. 
25  ire.    Coinp.  xvii.  30. 


4-25. 

Yulg. 

4  convescens  .  .  .  quam  au 

distis  per  os  meum. 

5  baptizabimini. 

6  Igitur  qui  convenerant. 
1  Dixit  autem. 

S  supervenientis  S.  S. 
10  intuerentur. 


13  in   coenaculum  ascend  - 

erunt. 
—  manebant. 

14  persev.    unanimiter  in 

otcittone. 

18  Et  hie  quidem  possedit. 
21  viris  qui  nobiscum  sunt 

congrnr/ati. 
25  utabiret. 


ACTS  xvii.  16-34. 


16  circa  simulacrum. 

17  Judaeis. 

]  8  seminator. 

22  superstitiosos 

23  perambulans. 
—  culturas  vestras. 
26  ex  uno  sanguine. 


16  idoJolatriae  deditam. 

17  cum  Judaeis. 

18  seminiverbitis. 

22  superstitiosiores. 

23  praete.riens. 

—  simulacra  vestra. 
26  ex  uno. 


ROM.  i.  13-15. 


13  Non  autem  arbitror. 
15  quod  in  rue  est  prompt  us 
sum. 

1  COR. 

4  sequent!    se    (scquenti, 
<l),(<?od.  Aug.  f).y 

6  in  figuram. 

7  idolorum      cultores     (g 

cu  IT.)  efflciamur. 
12  putat  (g  corr.). 

15  sicut    prudentes,    vobis 

dico. 

16  quern  (f,  g). 

—  comnnmicatio  (alt.)(f,  g). 
21  participare  (f,  g). 
29  infideli  (g). 


13  nolo  autem. 
15  quod  in  me  promptum 
eat. 

x.  4-29. 
4  consequent*  eos. 

6  in  figura  (f ),  (g). 

7  idololatrae  (idolatres,  f ) 

efflciamini  (f ). 
12  existimat(f). 

15  ut  (sicut,  f,  g)  prudenti- 

bus  loquor  (dico,  f,  g). 

16  cui. 

—  participatio. 

21  participes  esse. 

29  (aliena);  alia  (f ).      , 


2  COR.  iii.  11-18. 


14  dum  (quod  g  corr.)  non 
reoelatur  (g  corr.). 

18  tie  (a  g)  gloria  in  glori- 
am  (g). 


14  non  revelatum  (f  ). 

18  a    clarUate    in 
totem. 


clari- 


GAL.  iii.  14-25. 


14  benedictionem  (g). 

15  irrituinfacit  (irritat,  g). 
25  veiiiente  autem  fide  (g). 


14  pollicitationcm  (f  ). 

15  spernit  (f  ). 

25  At  ubi  venit  fides  (f  ). 


2  unum  (g). 


6  cum  .  .  .  constiiutus  (g). 
12  dilectissimi  (g). 


PHIL.  ii.  2-30. 

2  idipsum  (f ). 


26  sollicitus  (taedebatur,  g). 
23  sollicitus  itaque. 


cum  .  .  .esset  (f). 
12  carissimi  (f  ). 
26  maestus  (f ). 
28  fest inantius  ergo  (fest. 
ego,  f :  fest.  autem,  g). 
30  parabolatus    de    anima  !  30  tradens  aniniam   su-itn 
sua  (g).  (f). 

1  TIM.  iii.  1-12. 

1  Ifumanus  (g  corr.).  1  fi delis  (f ). 

2  docibilem  (g).  2  doctorem  (f ). 

1  hiibentem  iu  obsequio.          4  habentem  subditos  (f,  g). 
8  iurpilucros.  \    3  turpe  lucrum   sec  tat  t  its 

(f)  (turpil.  s.  g). 

12  filios   bene   regentes    (g  i  12  qui  fdiis  suis  bmeprae- 
corr.).  sint  (f ). 


*  See  note  •>,  p.  1695. 

y  The  Latin  readings  of  Cod.  Aug.  have  been  added,  as 
offering  an  interesting  example  of  the  admixture  of  a  few 
old  readings  with  the  revised  text.  Those  of  rou.  liaem. 
(g)  differ,  as  will  be  seen,  very  widely  from  them. 


VULGATE,  THE 

(2.)  The  Revision  of  the  0.  T.  from  the  LXX. 
— 18.  About  the  same  time  (cir.  A.D.  383)  at  which 
lie  was  engaged  on  the  revision  of  the  N.  T..  Jerome 
undertook  also  a  rirst  revision  of  the  Psalter.  This 
he  made  by  the  help  of  the  Greek,  but  the  work 
was  not  very  complete  or  careful,  and  the  wc^-ds  m 
which  he  describes  it  may,  perhaps,  be  extended 
without  injustice  to  the  revision  of  the  later  books 
of  the  N.  T. :  "  Psalterium  Komae  .  .  .  emendaram 
et  juxta  LXX.  interpretes,  licet  cursim  magna 
illud  ex  parte  correxeram "  (Praef.  in  Lib.  PS.\ 
This  revision  obtained  the  name  of  the  Roman 
Psalter,  probably  because  it  was  made  for  the  use 
of  the  Roman  Church  at  the  request  of  Damasus, 
where  it  was  retained  till  the  pontificate  of  Pius  V. 
(A.D.  1566),  who  introduced  the  Gallican  Psalter 
generally,  though  the  Roman  Psalter  was  still  re 
tained  in  three  Italian  churches  (Hody,  p.  383,  "  in 
una  Romae  Vaticana  ecclesia,  et  extra  urbem  in 
Mediolanensi  et  in  ecclesia  S.  Hard,  Venetiis"). 
In  a  short  time  "  the  old  error  prevailed  over  the 
new  correction,"  and  at  the  urgent,  request  of  Paula 
and  Eustochium  Jerome  commenced  a  new  and 
more  thorough  revision  (Gallican  Psalter).1  The 
exact  date  at  which  this  was  made  is  not  known, 
but  it  may  be  fixed  with  great  probability  very 
shortly  after  A.D.  387,  when  he  retired  to  Beth 
lehem,  and  certainly  before  391,  when  he  had 
begun  his  new  translations  from  the  Hebrew.  In 
the  new  revision  Jerome  attempted  to  represent  as 
far  as  possible,  by  the  help  of  the  Greek  versions, 
the  real  reading  of  the  Hebrew.  With  this  view 
he  adopted  the  notation  of  Origen  [SEPTUAGlNT; 
compare  Praef.  in  Gen.,  &c.],  and  thus  indicated 
all  the  additions  and  omissions  of  the  LXX.  text 
reproduced  in  the  Latin.  The  additions  were  marked 
by  an  obelus  (-1- )  ;  the  omissions,  which  he  sup 
plied,  by  an  asterisk  (  *  ).  The  omitted  passages 
he  supplied  bv  a  version  of  the  Greek  of  Theodotion, 
and  not  directly  from  the  Hebrew  ("  unusquisque 
.  .  .  ubicunque  viderit  virgulam  praecedentem  (-t-) 
ab  ea  usque  ad  duo  puncta  (  "  )  quae  impressimus, 
sciat  in  LXX.  interpretibus  plus  haberi.  Ubi  autem 
stellae  (  *  )  similitudinem  perspexerit,  de  Hebraeis 
voluminibus  additum  noverit,  aeque  usque  ad  duo 
ct&fjuxta  Theodotionis  dumtaxat  editlonem,  qui 
simplicitate  sermonis  a  LXX.  interpretibus  non 
discordat,"  Praef.  ad  Ps. ;  compare  Praeff.  in  Job, 
Paralip.  Libr.  Solom.  juxta  LXX.  Tntt.  Ep.  cvi. 
ad  Sun.  et  Fret.'].  This  new  edition  soon  obtained 
a  wide  popularity.  Gregory  of  Tours  is  said  to 
have  introduced  it  from  Rome  into  the  public 
services  in  France,  and  from  this  it  obtained  the 
name  of  the  Gallican  Psalter.  The  comparison, 
of  one  or  two  passages  will  show  the  extent  and 
nature  of  the  corrections  which  Jerome  introduced 
into  this  second  work,  as  compared  with  the  Roman 
Psalter.  (See  Table  D,  opposite.) 

How  far  he  thought  change  really  necessary  will 
appear  from  a  comparison  of  a  few  verses  of  hii 
translation  from  the  Hebrew  with  the  earlier  re 
vised  septuagintal  translations.  (See  Tabla  E.) 

Numerous  MSS.  remain  which  contain  the  Latin 
Psalter  in  two  or  more  forms.  Thus  Bibl.  Bcdl. 
Laud.  35  (Saec.  x.  ?)  contains  a  triple  Psalter, 
Gallican,  Roman,  and  Hebrew:  Coll.  G.  C.  Oxon. 
(Saec.  xv.)  Gallican,  Roman,  Hebrew  :  Id.  z. 


»  In  one  place  Jerome  seems  to  include  these  two  revi 
sions  in  one  work :  "  Psalterium . . .  certe  emendatissimurc 
iuxta  LXX.  interpretes  nostro  labore  dudum  Roma  sns- 
;ipit"  . . .  (JpoZ.  adv.  Ruf.  ii.  30;. 


VULGATE,  THE 

'Saec.  xiv.)  Gallican,  Hebrew.  Hebr.  text  with 
interlinear  Latin :  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  634,  a  double 
Psalter,  Gallican  and  Hebrew:  Brit.  Mus.  Arund. 
155  (Saec.  xi.)  a  Roman  Psalter  with  Gallican 
corrections  :  Coll.  SS.  Trin.  Cambr.,  R.  17,  1, 
a  triple  Psalter,  Hebrew,  Gallican,  Roman  (Saec. 
xii.):  Id.  R.  8,  6,  a  triple  Psalter,  the  Hebrew 
text  with  a  peculiar  interlinear  Latin  version, 
Jerome's  Hebrew,  Gallican.  An  example  of  the 
unrevised  Latin,  which,  indeed,  is  not  very  satis 
factorily  distinguished  from  the  Roman,  is  found 


VULGATE,  THE 


1699 


with  an  Anglo-Saxon  interlinear  version,  Univ. 
Libr.  Cambr.,  Ff.,  i.  23  (Saec.  xi.).  H.  Stephens 
published  a  "  Quincuplex  Psaltcrium,  Gallic  nnt, 
Jthomaicum,  Hebraicum,  Veins,  Conciliatum.  .  .  . 
Paris,  1513,"  but  he  does  not  mention  the  MSS. 
from  which  he  derived  his  texts. 

19.  From  the  second  (Gallican)  revision  of  the 
Psalms  Jerome  appears  to  have  proceeded  to  a 
revision  of  the  other  books  of  the  0.  T.,  restoring 
all,  by  the  help  of  the  Greek,  to  a  general  con 
formity  with  the  Hebrew.  In  the  Preface  to  the 


TABLE  D. 


In  Tables  D,  E,  and  ?,  the  passages  are  taken  from  Martianay's  and  Sabatier's  texts,  without  any  reference  to  MSS,; 
so  that  the  variations  cannot  be  regarded  as  more  thar.  approximately  correct. 


Vetus  Latina. 


(Nisi  quod) 
Nisi  quid  (quod) 
Minorasti. 


respexit  me. 
deprecationem. 


kymnum. 

(Domino.') 
jocundatum. 

a/pud  irtftros. 


Ps.  viii.  4-6. 
P&alt.  Romanum. 
Quoniam    videbo    coelos,    opera    digitorum 

tuorum : 

lunara  et  stellas  quas  tu  fundasti. 
Quid  est  homo,  quod  memor  es  ejus  ? 
aut  tilius  homiuis,  quoniam  visitas  eum? 
Minuisti  eum  paulo  minus  ab  angelis ; 
gloria  et  honore  coronasti  eum : 
et   constituisti   eum    super  opera   manuum 

tuarum. 


Psalt.  Gallicanum. 
Quoniam  videbo    coelos  *  tuos  "  opera  tii; 

gitorum  tuorum ; 

lunam  et  stellas  quae  t  tu  "  fnndasti. 
Quid  est  homo,  quod  memor  es  ejus  ? 
aut  filius  hominis,  quoniam  visitas  euin? 
Minuisti  cum  paulo  minus  ab  angelis ; 
gloria  et  honore  coronasti  eum, 
f  et  "  constituisti  eum  super  opera  mauuum 

tuarum. 


Ps.  xxxix.  1-4. 

Exspectans  exspectavi  Dominum : 

et  respexit  me ; 

et  exaudivit  deprecationem  meam; 
et  eduxit  me  de  lacu  miseriae, 
et  de  Into  faecis. 

Et  statuit  super  petram  pedes  meos ; 
et  direxit  gressus  meos. 
Et  inimisit  in  os  meum  canticum  novum : 

hymnum  Deo  nostro. 


Exspectans  exspectavi  Dominum : 

etinttnditmihi; 
et  fex"audivit  preces  meas ; 
et  eduxit  me  de  lacu  miseriae, 
fet  "de  luto  faecis. 
Et  statuit  super  petram  pedes  meos ; 
fet"  direxit  gressus  meos. 
Et  inimisit  in  os  meum  canticum  novum : 

carmen  Deo  nostro. 


Ps.  xvi.  (xv.)  8-11  (ACTS  ii 
Providebam    Dominum    in    conspectu    meo 

semper, 

quoniam  a  dextris  est  mihi,  ne  commovear. 
Propter  hoc  delectatum  est  cor  meum, 
et  exsultavit  lingua  mea : 
insuper  et  caro  mea  requiescet  in  spe. 
Quoniam  non  derelinques  animam  meam  in 

inferno  (-urn) ; 

nee  dabis  Sanctum  tuum  videre  corruptionem. 
Notas  mihi  fecisti  vias  vitae : 
adimplebis  me  laetitia  cum  vultu  tuo : 
delectationes  in  dextra  tua,  usque  in  finem. 


25-28). 

Providebam    Dominum    in    conspectu    meo 

semper, 

quoniam  a  dextris  est  mihi,  ne  commovear. 
Propter  hoc  laetatum  est  cor  meum, 
et  exsultavit  lingua  mea : 
f  insuper  "et  caro  mea  requiescet  in  spe. 
Quoniam  non  derelinques  animam  mean:  in 

inferno ; 

nee  dabis  Sanctum  tuum  videre  corruptionem. 
Notas  mihi  fecisli  vias  vitae : 
adimplebis  me  laetitia  cum  vultu  tuo : 
delectationes  in  dextera  tua  f  usque  "  in  fmem. 


TABLE  E. 
Ps.  xxxiii.  (xxxiv.)  12-16  (1  PET.  iii.  10-12). 


Vetus  Latina. 

Quis  est  homo  qui  vult  vitam, 
at  cupit  videre  dies  bonos? 
Cohibe  linguam  tuam  a  malo : 
et  labia  tua  ne  loquantur  dolum. 
Deverte  a  malo  et  fac  bonum : 
inquire  pacem  et  sequere  earn. 
Oculi  Domini  super  justos 
et  aures  ejus  ad  preces  eorum. 
Vultus  Domini  super  facientes  mala. 


Sacrificium  et  oblationem  noluisti : 
aures  autem  perfecisti  mihi. 
Holocausta  etiam   pr^  delicto  non 

postulasti. 

fnnc  dixi :  Ecce  venlo. 
In  capite  libri  scriptum  est  d^  me 
ut/ociam  voluntatem  tuam. 


In    omnem    terram     exiit     sonus 

eorum : 
et    Jn  Jinibus    orbis   terrae    v«rba 

c&ruza 


Vulgata. 
Quis  est  homo  qui  vult  vftam, 
diligit  dies  videre  bonos  ? 
Prohibe  linguam  tuam  a  malo : 
et  labia  tua  ne  loquantur  dolum. 
Inverte  a  malo  et  fac  bonum : 
inquire  pacem,  et  persequere  earn. 
Oculi  Domini  super  justos 
et  aures  ejus  in  preces  eorum. 
Vultus  autem  Domini  super  faoienteG 
mala. 

Ps.  xxxix.  (xl.)  6-8  (HEBR.  x.  5-10; 
I    Sacrificium  et  oblationem  nolulsti : 
I    aures  autem  perfecisti  mrhi. 

Holocaustum    et    pro  peccato    non 

postulasti : 

Tune  dixi :  Ecce  venio. 
In  capite  libri  scriptum  est  de  me, 
utfacerem  voluntatem  tuam. 

Ps.  xviii.  (xix.)  5  (ROM.  x.  18). 
In    omnem    terram    exivit    sonus 

eorum : 
et  mf,nef  orbis  terrae  vorba  eorum. 


Jerome's  transl.from  the  Hebr. 
Quis  est  vir  qui  velit  vitam 
diligens  dies  videre  bonos  ? 
Custodi  linguam  tuam  a  malo, 
et  labia  tua  ne  ioquantur  dolum. 
Recede  a  malo  et  fac  bonum  : 
quaere  pacein  et  persequere  cam. 
Oculi  Domini  ad  justos 
et  aures  ejus  ad  clamores  eorum. 
Vultus  Domini  super  facientes  ma- 
lum. 


victima  et  oblalione  non  indices . 

wesfodisti  mihi. 

Holocaustum    et   pro  peccato  non 

petisti. 

Tune  dixi:  Ecce  venio. 
In  volumine  libri  scriptum  est  de  me. 


In  universam  terram  exivit  sonrs 

eorum : 
et  In  fincm  orbis  verba  eorum. 

5  Q  2 


1700 


VULGATE,  THE 


mus"). 


VULGATE,  THE 

prioris  laboris  fraude  cujusdam  amisi- 
However   this   may   have   been,    Jerome 


Revision  U*  Job,  he  notices  the  opposition  which  he 
had  met  with,  and  contrasts  indignantly  his  own 
labours  with  the  more  mechanical  occupations  of 
monks  which  excited  no  reproaches  ("  Si  aut  fiscel- 
lam  junco  texerem  aut  palmarum  folia  complicarem 
,  .  .  null  us  morderet,  nemo  reprehenderet.  Nunc 
autem  .  .  .  corrector  viliorum  falsarius  vocor"). 
Similar  complaints,  but  less  strongly  expressed, 
occur  in  the  Preface  to  the  Books  of  Chronicles,  in 
which  he  had  recourse  to  the  Hebrew  as  well  as  to 
the  Greek,  in  order  to  correct  the  innumerable 
errors  in  the  names  by  which  both  texts  were  de- 
Ibrmed.  In  the  preface  to  the  three  Books  of  So-  subdue  the  temptations  of  passion  to  which  he  was 


could  not  have  spent  moi-e  than  four  (or  five)  years 
on  the  work,  and  that  too  in  the  midst  of  other 
labours,  for  in  491  he  was  a' ready  engaged  on  the 
versions  from  the  Hebrew  which  constitute  his 
great  claim  on  the  lasting  gratitude  of  the  Church. 
(3.)  The  Translation  of  the  0.  T.  from  the  He 
brew. — 20.  Jerome  commenced  the  study  of  Hebrew 
when  he  was  already  advanced  in  middle  life  fcir. 
A.D.  374),  thinking  that  the  difficulties  of  the  lan 
guage,  as  he  quaintly  paints  them,  would  serve  to 


lomon  (Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Canticles)  he  notices 
no  attacks,  but  excuses  himself  for  neglecting  to 
revise  Ecclesiasticus  and  Wisdom,  on  the  ground 
that  "  he  wished  only  to  amend  the  Canonical  Scrip 
tures  "  ("  tantummodo  Canonicas  Scripturas  vobis 
emendara  desiderans").  No  other  prefaces  remain, 
and  the  revised  texts  of  the  Psalter  and  Job  have 
alone  been  preserved;  but  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  Jerome  carried  out  his  design  of  revising 
all  the  "  Canonical  Scriptures "  (comp.  Ep.  cxii. 
til  August,  (civ.  A.D.  404),  "  Quod  autem  in  aliis 
quaeris  epistolis :  cur  prior  mea  in  libris  Canonicis 
interpretatio  asteriscos  habeat  et  virgulas  praeno- 
tatas  .  .  .").  He  speaks  of  this  work  as  a  whole  in 
several  places  (e.  g.  adv.  Ruf.  ii.  24,  "  Egone  contra 
LXX.  interpretes  aliquid  sum  lootus,  quos  ante 
annos  pianinos  diligentissime  emendates  meae  lin 
guae  studiosis  dedi  .  .  .?"  Comp.  Id.  iii.  25;  Ep. 
ixxi.  ad  Lucin.,  "  Septuaginta  interpretum  editio- 
nem  et  te  habere  nou  dubito,  et  ante 'annos  plu- 
rimos  (he  is  writing  A.D.  398)  diligentissime 
emendatam  studiosis  tradidi "),  and  distinctly  re 
presents  it  as  a  Latin  version  of  Origeu's  Hexaplar 
text  (Ep.  cvi.  ad  Sun.  et  Fret.,  "  Ea  autem  quae 
habetur  in  'E£o7rAo?s  et  quam  non  vertimus"), 
if,  indeed,  the  reference  is  not  to  be  confined  to  the 
Psalter,  which  was  the  immediate  subject  of  dis 
cussion.  But  though  it  seems  certain  that  the 
revision  was  made,  there  is  very  great  difficulty  in 
tracing  its  history,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  no 
allusion  to  the  revision  occurs  in  the  Preface  to  the 
new  translation  of  the  Pentateuch,  Joshua  (Judges, 
Ruth),  Kings,  the  Prophets,  in  which  Jerome 
touches  more  or  less  plainly  on  the  difficulties  of 
his  task,  while  he  does  refer  to  his  former  labours 
on  Job,  the  Psalter,  and  the  Books  of  Solomon  in 
the  parallel  prefaces  to  those  books,  and  also  in  his 
Apology  against  Rufinus  (ii.  27,  29,  30,  31).  It 
has,  indeed,  been  supposed  (Vallarsi,  Praef.  in  Hier. 
X.)  that  these  six  books  only  were  published  by 
Jerome  himself.  The  remainder  may  have  been 
put  into  circulation  surreptitiously.  But  this  sup 
position  is  not  without  difficulties.  Augustine, 
writing  to  Jerome  (cir.  A.D.  405),  earnestly  begs 
for  a  copy  of  the  revision  from  the  LXX.,  of  the 
publication  of  which  he  was  then  only  lately  aware 
(Ep.  xcvi.  34,  "  Deinde  nobis  mittas,  obsecro,  inter- 
pretationem  tuam  de  Septuaginta,  quam  te  edidisse 
nesciebam ;"  comp.  §34).  It  does  not  appear  whether 
the  request  was  granted  or  not,  but  at  a  much  later 
period  (cir.  A.D.  416)  Jerome  says  that  he  cannot 
furnish  him  with  "  a  copy  of  the  LXX.  (i.  e.  the 
Latin  Version  of  it)  furnished  with  asterisks  and 
obeli,  as  he  had  lost  the  chief  part  of  his  former 
labour  by  some  person's  treachery  "  (Ep.  cxxxiv., 


a  A  question  has  been  raised  whether  Daniel  was  not 
translated  at  a  later  time  (comp.  Vit.  Hieron.  xxi.),  as 
Jerome  does  not  include  him  among  the  prophets  In  the 
Prol.  Gal;  but  in  a  letter  written  A.D.  394  (Ep.  liii. 


exposed  (Ep.  cxxv.  §  12;  comp.  Praef.  in  Dan.}. 
From  this  time  he  continued  the  study  with  un 
abated  zeal,  and  availed  himself  of  every  help  to 
perfect  his  knowledge  of  the  language.  His  first 
teacher  had  been  a  Jewish  convert ;  but  afterwards 
he  did  not  scruple  to  seek  the  instruction  of  Jews, 
whose  services  he  secured  with  great  difficulty  and 
expense.  This  excessive  zeal  (as  it  seemed)  exposed 
him  to  the  misrepresentations  of  his  enemies,  and 
Rufinus  indulges  in  a  silly  pun  on  the  name  of  one 
of  his  teachers,  with  the  intention  of  showing  that 
his  work  was  not  "  supported  by  the  authority  of 
the  Church,  but  only  of  a  second  Barabbas  "  (Ruf. 
Apol.  ii.  12  ;  Hieron.  Apol.  i.  13 ;  comp.  Ep. 
Ixxxiv.  §3,  and  Praef.  in  ParaL}.  Jerome,  how 
ever,  was  not  deterred  by  opposition  from  pursuing 
his  object,  and  it  were  only  to  be  wished  that  he 
had  surpassed  his  critics  as  much  in  generous  cour 
tesy  as  he  did  in  honest  labour.  He  soon  turned 
his  knowledge  of  Hebrew  to  use.  In  some  of  his 
earliest  critical  letters  he  examines  the  force  of  He 
brew  words  (Epp.  xviii.,  xx.,  A.D.  381,  383) ;  and 
in  A.D.  384,  he  had  been  engaged  for  some  time  in 
comparing  the  version  of  Aquila  with  Hebrew  MSS. 
(Ep.  xxxii.  §  1),  which  a  Jew  had  succeeded  in  ob 
taining  for  him  from  the  synagogue  (Ep.  xxxvi.  §  1 ). 
After  retiring  to  Bethlehem,  he  appears  to  have 
devoted  himself  with  renewed  ardour  to  the  study 
of  Hebrew,  and  he  published  several  works  on  the 
subject  (cir.  A.D.  389  ;  Quaest.  Hebr.  in  Gen.  &c.). 
These  essays  served  as  a  prelude  to  his  New  Version, 
which  he  now  commenced.  This  version  was  not 
undertaken  with  any  ecclesiastical  sanction,  as  the 
revision  of  the  Gospels  was,  but  at  the  urgent  re 
quest  of  private  friends,  or  from  his  own  sense  of 
the  imperious  necessity  of  the  work.  Its  history 
is  told  in  the  main  in  the  Prefaces  to  the  several  in 
stalments  which  were  successively  published.  The 
Books  of  Samuel  and  Kings  were  issued  first,  and 
to  these  he  prefixed  the  famous  Prologns  galeatus, 
addressed  to  Paula  and  Eustochium,  in  which  he 
gives  an  account  of  the  Hebrew  Canon.  It  is  im 
possible  to  determine  why  he  selected  these  books 
for  his  experiment,  for  it  does  not  .appear  that  ho. 
was  requested  by  any  one  to  do  so.  The  work 
itself  was  executed  with  the  greatest  care.  Jerome 
speaks  of  the  translation  as  the  result  of  constant 
revision  (Prol.  Gal.,  "  Lege  ergo  primum  Samuel 
et  Malachim  meum :  meuin,  inquam,  meum.  Quid- 
quid  enim  crebrius  vertendo  et  emendando  sollicitius 
et  didicimus  et  tenemus  nostrum  est").  At  the 
time  when  this  was  published  (cir.  A.D.  391,  392) 
other  books  seem  to  have  been  already  translated 
(Prol.  GaL  *'  omnibus  libris  Huos  de  Hebraeo  ver- 
timus"j  ;  and  in  393  the  sixteen  prophets*  were  in 

ad  Paul.')  he  places  him  distinctly  among  the  four  greater 
prophets.  The  Preface  to  Daniel  contains  no  mark  of  tin.e 
it  appears  only-  that  the  translation  was  made  after  thai 
of  TubiL,  when  Jerome  was  not  yet  familiar  with  CLafdeo. 


VULGATE,  THE 

circulation,  and  Job  had  lately  been  put  into  the 
hands  of  his  most  intimate  friends  (Ep.  xlix.  ad 
Pammach.}.  Indeed,  it  would  appear  that  already 
in  392  he  had  in  some  sense  completed  a  version  of 
the  0.  T.  (De  Vir.  Ill  cxxxv.,  "  Vetus  juxta  He- 
braicum  transtuli."  This  treatise  was  written  in 
that  year) ; '  but  many  books  were  not  completed 
and  published  till  some  years  afterwards.  The  next 
books  which  hs  put  into  circulation,  yet  with  the 
provision  that  they  should  be  confined  to  friends 
(Praef.  in  Ezr.},  were  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  which 
he  translated  at  the  request  of  Dominica  and  Roga- 
tianus,  who  had  urged  him  to  the  task  for  three 
years.  This  was  probably  in  the  year  394  ( Vit. 
Hicron.  xxi.  4),  for  in  the  Preface  he  alludes  to  his 
intention  of  discussing  a  question  which  he  treats 
in  Ep.  Ivii.,  written  in  395  (De  optima  Gen.  inter 
pret.).  In  the  Preface  to  the  Chronicles  (addressed 
to  Chromatius),  he  alludes  to  the  same  Epistle  as 
"  lately  written,"  and  these  books  may  therefore  be 
set  down  to  that  year.  The  three  Books  of  'So 
lomon  followed  in  398,c  .having  been  "  the  work 
of  three  days"  when  he  had  just  recovered  from 
a  severe  illness,  which  he  suffered  in  that  year 
(Praef.  "  Itaque  longa  aegrotatione  fractus  .... 
tridui  opus  nomini  vestro  [Chromatic  et  Heliodoro] 
consecravi."  Comp.  Ep.  Ixxiii.  10).  The  Octa- 
teuch  now  alone  remained  (Ep.  Ixxi.  5,  t.  c.  Pen 
tateuch,  Joshua,  Judges,  Ruth,  and  Esther,  Praef. 
in  Jos.}.  Of  this  the  Pentateuch  (inscribed  to  De- 
siderius)  was  published  first,  but  it  is  uncertain  in 


VULGATE,  THE  1701 

what  year.  The  Preface,  however,  is  not  quoted  in 
the  Apology  against  RuHnus  (A.D.  400),  as  those  of 
all  the  other  books  which  were  then  published,  ami 
't  may  therefore  be  set  down  to  a  later  date  (Hody, 
p.  357).  The  remaining  books  were  completed  at 
the  request  of  Eustochium,  shortly  after  the  d«ath 
of  Paula,  A.D.  404  (Praef.  in  Jos.}.  Thus  the 
whole  translation  was  spread  over  a  period  of  about 
fourteen  years,  from  the  sixtieth  to  the  seventy-sixth 
year  of  Jerome's  life.  But  still  parts  of  it  were 
finished  in  great  haste  (e.g.  the  Books  of  Solomon). 
A  single  day  was  sufficient  for  the  translation  ot 
Tobit  (Praef.  in  Tob.) ;  and  "one  short  effort" 
(una  lucubratiuncula)  for  the  translation  of  Judith. 
Thus  there  are  errors  in  the  work  which  a  more 
careful  revision  might  have  removed,  and  Jerome 
himself  in  many  places  gives  renderings  which  he 
prefers  to  those  which  he  had  adopted,  and  admits 
from  time  to  time  that  he  had  fallen  into  error 
(Hody,  p.  362).  Yet  such  defects  are  trifling 
when  compared  with  what  he  accomplished  suc 
cessfully.  The  work  remained  for  eight  centuries 
the  bulwark  of  Western  Christianity ;  and  as  a 
monument  of  ancient  linguistic  power  the  trans 
lation  of  the  0.  T.  stands  unrivalled  and  unique. 
It  was  at  loast  a  direct  rendering  of  the  original, 
and  not  the  Version  of  a  version.  The  Septuagintal 
tradition  was  at  length  set  aside,  and  a  few  passages 
will  show  the  extent  and  character  of  the  differences 
by  which  the  new  translation  was  distinguished 
from  the  Old  Latin  which  it  superseded 


TABLE_F. 
Mic.  v.  2  (MATT.  ii.  6). 


Vetus  Latino,. 

Et  tu  Bethlehem  domus  Ephnita 
ncquaquam  minima  es  ut  sis  in  millibus  Judae  ; 
ex  te  mihi  egredietur 
ut  sit  inprincipem  Israel, 
c-t  egressus  ejiis  ab  initio, 
t»  diebus  saeculi. 


VuJgaf.a  nova. 
Et  tu  Bethlehem  Kphrata. 
parvulus  es  in  millibus  Judae : 
ex  te  mihi  egredielur 
qui  sit  dominator  in  Israel, 
et  egressus  ejus  ab  initio, 
a  diebus  aeternitatis. 


Vox  in  Rhama  audita  est, 
lamentatio  et  fletus  et  luctus, 
Rachel  plorantis  filios  suos, 
et  noluit  conquiescere, 
quia  lion  sunt. 


JER.  xxxviii.  (xxxi.)  15  (MATT.  ii.  18). 

Vox  in  exfelso  audita  est 
lamentationis  luctus  et  fletus, 
Rachel  plorantis  fiUos  suos  ; 
et  nolentis  [noluit]  consolari 
super  eis  [s.  filiis  suis],  quia  non  sunt. 


Is.  h.  i.  2  (MATT.  iv.  15,  16). 

Primo  tempore  aUeviata  est 
terra  Zabulon  et  terra  Nephthali : 
et  novissimo  aggravate  est  via  mans 
trans  Jordanem  Galilaeae  gentium. 
Populus  qul  ambulabat  in  tenebris 

vidit  lucem  magnam  ; 
habitantibus  in  regione  umbrae  mortis 

lux  orta  est  eis. 


Hocprimum  bibe  velociterfac 
regio  Zabulon,  terra  Neptalim ; 
et  reliqui  qui  juxta  mare  estis 
trans  Jordanem  Galilaeae  gentium 
Populus  qui  ambulabat  in  tenebris 

vidit  lucem  magnam  : 
qui  habitatis  in  regione  et  umbra  mortis 

lux  orietur  vobis. 

Is.  liii.  4  (MATT.  viii.  17.\ 

Iste  peccata  nostra  portat  I         Vere  languores  nostros  ipss  tulit 

et  pro  nobis  dolet.  et  dolorts  nostros  ipse  porterit. 

ZECH.  ix.  9  (MATT.  xxi.  5;. 

Exsulta  satis,  filia  Sion, 

jubila  filia  Jerusalem. 

Ecce  Rex  tuus  veuiet  tibi  Justus  et  salvator ; 

ipsc  pauper  et  ascendens  super 

asiitam  et  super  pullum  fdium  asinae. 


Gaiide  vchementer,  filia  Sion, 

pi-acdica  filia  Jerusalem : 

Ecce  R«x  tuus  veniet  tibi  Justus  et  sttlvans : 

ipse  mansuetus  et  ascendens  super 

subjugalem  etpullum  novum. 


Spiritus  Domini  super  me, 
propter  quod  unxit  me  : 
evangelizare  pauperibus  misit  me, 
sanare  contritos  corde, 


Is.  ki.  1,  2  (LUKE  iv.  18,  19). 

Spiritus  Domini  (al.  add.  Dei)  super  me, 
eo  quod  unxerit  Dominus  me : 
ad  annunciandum  mansuetis  misit  me, 
ut  mederer  contritis  corde, 


b  Sophronius  (De  Vir.  III.  cxxxiv.)  had  also  then  trans 
lated  into  Greek  Jerome's  version  of  the  Psalms  and 
Pnphets. 


c  The  date  given  by  Hody  (A.D.  38b)  rebtt  on  a  ialae 
reference  (p.  35ti^. 


1702 


VULGATE,  THE 


VULGATE,  THE 


Is.  Ixi.  1,  2  (LUKE  iv.  18,  19). — continued. 
Vetus  Latina.  Vulgata  nova. 

praedicare  captivis  reniisKionem,  et  praedicarem  captivis  indutgentiam, 

et  caecis  ut  videant : 
vocare  annum  acceptabii<?m  Domino 


ctdiem  retribntionis : 
consolari  omnes  lugentes. 


Et  dicam  non  populo  meo : 

Populus  mens  es  tu. 

Et  ipsedicet: 

hi/minus  Deus  meus  es  ta. 


Et  erit  in  loco  ubi  dictum  est  eis : 
Non  populus  meus  vos : 
Yocabuntur  Filii  Dei  viventis. 


et  clausis  apertionem : 

ut  praedicarem  (al.  et  annunciarem)  annum  plaot- 

bilem  Domino 
et  diem  ultionis  Deo  nostro : 
ut  consolarer  omnes  lugentes. 


Hos.  ii.  24  (Ron.  ix.  25). 

Kt  dicam  non  populo  meo : 
Populus  meus  es  tu. 
Et  ipse  dicet : 
Deus  meus  es  tu. 


Hos.  i.  10  (ROM.  ix.  26). 

Et  erit  in  loco  ubi  dicetur  cis  : 
Non  populus  meu«  vos : 
Dicetur  eis:  Filii  Dei  viventis. 


Is.  xxviii.  16  (ROM.  x.  11). 

Fcce  ego  immittam  in  fundarcenta  Sion  lapidem  ...    I         Ecce  ego  mitta.n  in  fundamentis  Sion  lapidem 
et  qui  crediderit  non  confundetur.  qui  crcdiderit  nonfestinet. 


De  murte  redimam  illos : 

ubi  est  causa  tua  mors  ? 

ubi  est  aculeus  tuus,  Inferae  ? 


Hos.  xiii.  14  (1  COR.  xv.  55). 

De  morte  redimam  cos  : 
ero  mors  tua,  o  mors, 
morsus  tuus  ero,  Inferne. 


JOB  iv. 

fct  spiritus  in  faciem  mihi  occurrit, 
Horruerunt  capilli  mei  et  carnes. 
l']xsurrexi  et  lion  cognovi. 
Inspexi,  et  non  erat  flgura  ante  faciem 
ted  auram  tantum  et  vooem  audiebam. 
Quid  enim  ?    Nunquid  homo  coram  Domino  mundus 

erit, 

aut  ab  operibus  suis  sine  macula  vir  ? 
Si  contra  servos  suos  non  credit, 
et  adversus  angelos  suos  pravum  quid  reperit. 
Habitantes  autem  domos  luteas, 
de  quibus  et  nos  ex  eodem  luto  sumus, 
percussit  illos  tanquam  tinea, 
et  a  mane  usque  ad  vesperam  ultra  non  sunt ; 
et  quod  non  possent  sibi  ipsis  subvenire  pericrunt. 
Afflavit  enim  eos  et  aruerunt, 
interierunt,  quia  non  habebant  sapientiam. 


15-21. 

Et  cum  spiritus  me  praesente  transiret, 

inhorruerunt  pili  carnis  meae. 

Stetit  quidam,  cujus  non  agnoscebam  vultura 

imago  coram  oculis  meis, 

et  vocem  quasi  aurae  lenis  audlvi. 

Nunquid  homo  Dei  comparatione  justificabitur 

aut  factore  suo  purior  erit  vir  ? 

Ecce  qui  serviunt  ei  non  sunt  stabiles : 

et  in  angelis  suis  repent  pravitatem. 

Quanto  magis  hi  qui  habitant  domos  luteas, 

qui  terrenum  habeut  fundamentum, 

consuinentur  velut  a  tinea? 

De  mane  usque  ad  vesperam  succidentur : 

et  quia  nullus  intelligit  in  aeternum  peribunt. 

Qui  autem  retiqui  fuerint  auferentur  ex  ete : 

Morientur,  et  non  in  sapientia. 


IV.  THE  HISTORY  OF  JEROME'S  TRANSLATION 
ro  THE  INVENTION  o?  PRINTING.— 21.  The  cri 
tical  labours  of  Jerome  were  received,  as  such 
labours  always  are  received  by  the  multitude,  with 
a  loud  outcry  of  reproach.  He  was  accused  of 
disturbing  the  repose  of  the  Church  and  shaking 
the  foundations  of  faith.  Acknowledged  errors,  as 
he  complains,  were  looked  upon  as  hallowed  by 
ancient  usage  (Praef.  in  Job.  ii.) ;  and  few  had  the 
wisdom  or  candour  to  acknowledge  the  importance 
of  seeking  for  the  purest  possible  text  of  Holy 
Scripture.  Even  Augustine  was  carried  away  by 
the  popular  prejudice,  and  endeavoured  to  dis 
courage  Jerome  from  the  task  of  a  new  translation 
(Ep.  civ.),  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  dangerous 
and  almost  profane.  Jerome,  indeed,  did  little  to 
smooth  the  waj  for  the  reception  of  his  work.  The 
violence  and  bitterness  of  his  language  is  more  like 
that  of  the  rival  scholars  of  the  16th  century  than  of 
a  Christian  Father ;  and  there  are  few  more  touching 
instances  of  humility  than  that  of  the  young  Au 
gustine  bending  himself  in  entire  submission  before 
he  contemptuous  and  impatient  reproof  of  the  ve- 
icran  scholar  (Ep.  cxii.  s./.).  But  even  Augustine 
could  not  overcome  the  force  of  early  habit.  To  the 

d  When  he  quotes  it,  he  seems  to  consider  an  expla 
nation  necessary  (De  doctr.  Christ,  iv.  7,  15)  :  "  Ex  lllius 

prophetae  libropotissimum  hoc  faciam non  autem  se- 

cundum  LXX.  interpretcs,  qui  etiam  ipsi  divino  spiritu 
intf.rpretati,  ob  hoc  aliter  videntur  nonnulki  dixisse,  ut 
ad  spiritualem  sevtsum  magis  admoncretur  lectnris  in- 
tentic  ..,.  eed  sicut  ex  Hebraeo  in  Latinuiu  eioquium 


last  he  remained  faithful  to  the  Italic  text  which  ha 
had  first  used ;  and  while  he  notices  in  his  Retracta- 
tiones  several  faulty  readings  which  he  had  formerly 
embraced,  he  shows  no  tendency  to  substitute  ge 
nerally  the  New  Version  for  the  Old.d  In  such 
cases  Time  is  the  great  reformer.  Clamour  based 
upon  ignorance  soon  dies  away ;  and  the  New  trans 
lation  gradually  came  into  use  equally  with  the  Old, 
and  at  length  supplanted  it.  In  the  5th  century  it 
was  adopted  in  Gaul  by  Eucherius  of  Lyons,  Vin 
cent  of  Lerins,  Sedulius  and  Claudianus  Mamertus 
(Hody,  p.  398)  ;  but  the  Old  Latin  was  still  retained 
in  Africa  and  Britain  (id.).  In  the  6th  century 
the  use  -of  Jerome's  Version  was  universal  among 
scholars  except  in  Africa,  where  the  other  still  lin 
gered  (Junilius) ;  and  at  the  close  of  it  Gregory 
the  Great,  while  commenting  on  Jerome's  Version, 
acknowledged  that  it  was  admitted  equally  with 
the  Old  by  the  Apostolic  See  (Praef.  in  Job.  ad 
Leandrum,  "  Novam  translationem  dissero,  sed  ut 
comprobationis  causa  exigit,  nunc  Novam,  nuuc 
Veterem,  per  testimonia  assumo :  ut  quia  sedes 
Apostolica  (cui  auctore  Deo  praesideo)  utraque 
utitur  mei  quoque  labor  studii  ex  utraqne 
fulciatur ").  But  the  Old  Version  was  not 


presbytero  Hieronymo  utriusque  linguae  perito  inter- 
pretante,  translata  sunt."  In  his  Retractation's  there  is 
no  definite  reference,  as  far  as  I  have  observed,  to  Jerome's 
critical  labours.  He  notices,  however,  some  false  readings- 
Lib.  i.  vii. ;  Ps.  xliii.  22  (Rom.  viii.  36)  ;  Wisd.  viii.  7 , 
Eccles.  i.  2  ;  id.  xix.  4,  Matt.  v.  22.  om.  sine  caiu.-a;  Lilt 
ii.  xii. ;  Matt.  xx.  17  (duodecim  for  duo). 


VULGATE,  THE 

authoritatively  displaced,  though  the  custom  of 
the  Roman  Church  prevailed  also  in  the  other 
churches  of  the  West.  Thus  Isidore  of  Seville, 
(De  Offic,  Ecdes.  i.  12),  after  affirming  the  inspira 
tion  of  the  LXX.,  goes  on  to  recommend  the  Version 
of  Jerome,  "  which,"  he  says,  "  is  used  univers 
ally,  as  being  more  truthful  in  substance  and  more 
perspicuous  in  language."  "  [Hieronymi]  editione 
i^eneraliter  omnes  ecclesiae  usquequaque  utuntur, 
pro  eo  quod  veracior  sit  in  sententiis  et  clarior  in 
vcrbis  : "  (Hody,  p.  402).  In  the  7th  century  the 
traces  of  the  Old  Version  grow  rare.  Julianus  of 
Toledo  (A.D.  676)  affirms  with  a  special  polemical 
pin-pose  the  authority  of  the  LXX.,  and  so  of  the 
Old  Latin  ;  but  still  he  himself  follows  Jerome  when 
not  influenced  by  the  requirements  of  controversy 
(Hody,  pp.  405,  406).  In  the  8th  century  Bede 
speaks  of  Jerome's  Version  as  "  our  edition  "  (Hody, 
p.  408) ;  and  from  this  time  it  is  needless  to  trace 
its  history,  though  the  Old  Latin  was  not  wholly 
forgotten."  Yet  throughout,  the  New  Version  made 
its  way  without  any  direct  ecclesiastical  authority. 
It  was  adopted  in  the  different  Churches  gradually, 
or  at  least  without  any  formal  command.  (Compare 
Hody,  pp.  411  ft',  for  detailed  quotations.) 

22.  But  the  Latin  Bible  which  thus  passed  gra 
dually  into  use  under  the  name  of  Jerome  was  a 
strangely  composite  work.  The  books  of  the  0.  T., 
with  one  exception,  were  certainly  taken  from  his 
Version  from  the  Hebrew ;  but  this  had  not  only 
been  variously  corrupted,  but  was  itself  in  many 
particulars  (especially  in  the  Pentateuch)  at  va 
riance  with  his  later  judgment.  Long  use,  how 
ever,  made  it  impossible  to  substitute  his  Psalter 
from  the  Hebrew  for  the.  Callican  Psalter;  and 
thus  this  book  was  retained  from  the  Old  Version, 
as  Jerome  had  corrected  it  from  the  LXX.  Of  the 
Apocryphal  books  Jerome  hastily  revised  or  trans 
lated  two  only,  Judith  and  Tobit.  The  remainder 
were  retained  from  the  Old  Ver&ion  against  his 
judgment;  and  the  Apocryphal  additions  to  Daniel 
and  Esther,  which  he  had  carefully  marked  as  apo 
cryphal  in  his  own  Version,  were  treated  as  integral 
parts  of  the  books.  A  few  MSS.  of  the  Bible  faith 
fully  preserved  the  "  Hebrew  Canon,"  but  the 
great  mass,  according  to  the  general  custom  of 
copyists  to  omit  nothing,  included  everything  which 
had  held  a  place  in  the  Old  Latin.  In  the  N.  T. 
the  only  important  addition  which  was  frequently 
interpolated  was  the  apocryphal  Epistle  to  the  Lao- 
diceans.  The  text  of  the  Gospels  was  in  the  main 
Jerome's  revised  edition;  that  of  the  remaining 
books  his  very  incomplete  revision  of  the  Old  Latin. 
Thus  the  present  Vulgate  contains  elements  which 
belong  to  every  period  and  form  of  the  Latin  Ver 
sion — (I/  Unrevised  Old  Latin:  Wisdom,  Ecclus,, 
1,  2  Mace.,  Baruch.  (2.)  Old  Latin  revised  from 
the  LXX. :  Psalter.  (3.)  Jerome's  free  transla 
tion  from  the  original  text'.  Judith,  Tobit.  (4.) 

e  Thus  Bede,  speaking  of  a  contemporary  abbot,  says 
that  he  increased  the  library  of  two  monasteries  with 
great  zeal,  "  ita  ut  tres  Pandectas "  (the  name  for  the 
collection  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  adopted  by  Alcuin,  in 
place  of  Bibliotheca)  "  novae  translationis  ad  unum  ve- 
tustae  translationis,  quam  de  Roma  attulerat,  ipse  super- 
ailjungeret ...  (Hody,  p.  409). 

f  Jerome  notices  this  fruitful  source  of  error:  "Si  quid 
pro  studio  ex  latere  additum  est  non  debet  poni  in  corpore, 
ne  priorem  tracslationem  pro  scribentium  voluntate  con- 
I  urbat "  (Ep.  cvJ.  ad  Sun.  et  Fret.).  Bede,  Walairid  Strabo, 
and  others,  complain  o "  the  same  custom. 

e  Hicron.  Quaftt.  in  <'en.  xxv  £  •  Cvmm  in  Eccla  Ix. 
100 ;  id.  si'.  4SO 


VULGATE,  THE 


1703 


Jerome's  translation  from  the  Original :  0.  'i'. 
except  Psalter.  (5.)  Old  Latin  revised  from  Greek, 
MSS.:  Gospels.  (6.)  Old  Latin  cursorily  revised: 
the  remainder  of  N.  T. 

The  Revision  of  Alcuin.— 23.  Mean  while  the  text 
of  the  different  parts  of  the  Latin  Bible  was  rapidly 
deteriorating.  The  simultaneous  use  of  the  Old  and 
New  Versions  necessarily  led  to  great  corruption* 
of  both  texts.  Mixed  texts  were  formed  according 
to  the  taste  or  judgment  of  sciibes,  and  the  cn« 
fusion  was  further  increased  by  the  changes  whir/., 
were  sometimes  introduced  by  those  who  had  s'ome 
knowledge  of  Greek.'  From  this  cause  scaicely 
any  Anglo-Saxon  Vulgate  MS.  of  the  8th  or  9th 
centuries  which  the  writer  has  examined  is  wholly 
free  from  an  admixture  of  old  readings.  Several 
remarkable  examples  are  noticed  below  (§  32) ; 
and  in  rare  instances  it  is  difficult  to  decide  whether 
the  text  is  not  rather  a  revised  Vetus  than  a  cor 
rupted  Vulgata  nova  (e.g.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  i.  E. 
vi. ;  Addit.  5463).  As  early  as  the  6th  century, 
Cassiodorus  attempted  a  partial  revision  of  the  tex ; 
(Psalter,  Prophets,  Epistles)  by  a  collation  of  ok 
MSS.  But  private  labour  was  unable  to  check  the 
growing  corruption ;  and  in  the  8th  century  this 
had  arrived  at  such  a  height,  that  it  attracted  the 
attention  of  Charlemagne.  Charlemagne  at,  once 
sought  a  remedy,  and  entrusted  to  Alcuin  (cir.  A.D. 
802)  the  task  of  revising  the  Latin  text  for  public 
use.  This  Alcuin  appears  to  have  done  simply  by 
the  use  of  MSS.  of  the  Vulgate,  and  not  by  refer 
ence  to  the  original  texts  (Person,  Letter  vi.  to 
Tram's,  p.  145).  The  passages  which  are  adduced 
by  Hody  to  prove  his  familiarity  with  Hebrew,  are  in 
fact  only  quotations  from  Jerome,  and  he  certainly 
left  the  text  unaltered,  at  least  in  one  place  where 
Jerome  points  out  its  inaccuracy  (Gen.  xxv.  8).£ 
The  patronage  of  Charlemagne  gave  a  wide  currency 
to  the  revision  of  Alcuin,  and  several  MSS.  remain 
which  claim  to  date  immediately  from  his  time.1* 
According  to  a  very  remarkable  statement,  Char 
lemagne  was  more  than  a  patron  of  sacred  criticism, 
and  himself  devoted  the  last  year  of  his  life  to  tht 
correction  of  the  Gospels  "  with  the  help  of  Greeks 
and  Syrians"  (Van  Ess,  p.  159,  quoting  Theganus, 
Script.  Hist.  Franc,  ii.  p.  277).1 

24.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  probable  that 
Alcuin's  revision  contributed  much  towards  presei-v- 
ing  a  good  Vulgate  text.  The  best  MSS.  of  his  re 
cension  do  not  differ  widely  from  the  pure  Hiercny- 
mian  text,  and  his  authority  must  have  done  much 
to  check  the  spread  of  the  interpolations  which  re 
appear  afterwards,  and  which  were  derived  from 
the  intermixture  of  the  Old  and  New  Versions. 
Examples  of  readings  which  seem  to  be  due  to  him 
occur:  Deut.  i.  9,  add.  solitudinem  ;  venissemus,  for 
-etis ;  id.  4,  ascendimus,  for  ascendem'^s ;  ii.  24,  in 
manu  tua,  for  in  manus  tuas  ;  iv.  33,  vidisti,  for 
vijcisti\  'vi.  13,  ipsi,  add.  so//;  xv.  9,  ocujos,  om 

h  Among  these  is  that  known  as  Cbarlrmngne's  Hible, 
Brit.  Mus.  Add.  10,546,  which  has  been  described  by 
Hug,  Einl.  $123.  Another  is  in  the  library  of  the  Oratory 
at  Home  (comp.  $30,  Cod.  I>).  A  third  is  in  the  Imperial 
Library  at  Paris.  All  of  these,  however,  are  later  than 
the  age  of  Charlemagne,  and  date  probably  from  the  time 
of  Charles  the  Bald.  A.D.  875. 

»  Mr.  H.  Bradsbaw  suggests  that  this  statement  de 
rives  some  confirmation  from  the  Preface  which  Charle 
magne  added  to  the  collection  of  Homilies  arranged  by 
Paulus  Diaconus,  in  which  he  speaks  "  of  the  pains  which 
he  had  taken  to  set  the  church  books  to  rights."  A  cvp.v 
of  this  collection,  with  the  Preface  (xi.th  cent.),  Is  i>*& 
served  in  the  Library  of  St.  IVter's;  'Joll.  Cauibr. 


1704: 


VULGATE,  THE 


fcws;  xvii.  20,  filius,  for  filii]  xxi.  6,  add.  venient ; 
xxvi.  16,  at,  for  et.  But  the  new  revision  was  gradu 
ally  deformed,  though  later  attempts  at  correction 
were  made  by  Lanfranc  of  Canterbury  (A.D.  1089, 
Hody,  p.  416),  Card.  Nicolaus  (A.D.  1150),  and 
the  Cistercian  Abbot  Stephanus  (cir.  A.D.  1150). 
In  the  13th  century  Correctoria  were  drawn  up, 
especially  in  France,  in  which  varieties  of  reading 
were  discussed ; k  and  Roger  Bacon  complains  loudly 
ot  the  confusion  which  was  introduced  into  the 

k  Vercellone  has  given  the  readings  of  three  Vatican 
Correctoria,  and  refers  to  his  own  essay  upon  them  in 
Atti  dttta  Pontif.  Acad.  Rom.  di  Archeologia,  xiv. 
There  is  a  Correctorium  in  Brit.  Jffus.  Reg.  1  A,  viii. 

m  The  divisions  of  the  Latin  Versions  into  capitula  were 
very  various.  Cassiodorus  (f  560  A.D.)  mentions  an  ancient 
division  of  some  books  existing  in  his  time  ("  Octateuchi 
ft',  e.  Pentateuch,  Joshua,  Judges,  Ruth]  titulos 
credidimus  imprimendos  a  majoribus  nostris  ordine  cur- 
rente  descriptos."  De  Inst.  Div.  Lilt,  i.),  and  in  other 
books  (1,  2  Chron.,  the  Books  of  Solomon),  he  himself  made 
a  corresponding  division.  Jerome  mentions  capitula,  but 
the  sections  which  he  indicates  do  not  seem  to  establish 
the  existence  of  any  generally  received  arrangement ;  and 
the  variety  of  the  capitulation  in  the  best  existing  MSS. 
of  his  Version  proves  that  no  one  method  of  subdivision 
could  claim  his  authority.  The  divisions  which  are  given 
in  MSS.  correspond  with  the  summary  of  contents  by  which 
the  several  books  are  prefaced,  and  vary  considerably  in 
length.  They  are  called  indiscriminately  capitula,  breves, 
tituli.  Martianay,  in  his  edition  of  the  Bibliotheca,  gives 
a  threefold  arrangement,  and  assigns  the  different  terms 
to  the  three  several  divisions ;  thus  Genesis  has  xxxvh'i 
tituli,  xlvi  breves,  Ixxxii  (or  cliv)  capitula.  But  while 
Jerome  does  not  appear  to  have  fixed  any  division  of  the 
Bible  into  chapters,  he  arranged  the  text  in  lines  (versus, 
OTI'XOI)  for  convenience  in  reading  and  interpretation; 
and  the  lines  were  combined  in  marked  groups  (membra, 
xwAa).  In  the  poetical  books  a  further  arrangement 
marked  the  parallelism  of  the  answering  clauses  (Mar 
tianay,  Prolegg.  iv.  Ad  Div.  Bibl.).  The  number  of  lines 
(versus)  is  variously  given  in  different  MSS.  (Comp.  Ver 
cellone,  Var.  Lect.  App.  ad  Jos.)  For  the  origin  of  the 
present  division  of  the  Vulgate,  see  BIBLE,  i.  213. 

An  abstract  of  the  capitula  and  versus  given  in  the 
Alcuin  MS., known  as  "  Charlemagne's  Bible"  (Brit.  Mus. 
Addit.  10,546),  will  give  a  satisfactory  idea  of  the  con 
tents,  nomenclature,  and  arrangement  of  tiie  best  copies 
of  the  Latin  Bible. 

Epistola  ad  Paulinum.  Praefatio. 

Bresit,  i.  e.  Genesis,      capp.  Ixxxii.  habet  versos  fii.  DCC- 
Ellesmoth.i.e.  Exodus,  capp.  cxxxviiii.  v.  Hi. 
Leiriticus,  Hebraice 

Yaiecra.  .     .     .  capp.  Ixxxviiii.  y.  H.  coc. 
Jfumeri      .     .     .    capp.  Ixxviili.  hab.  vers.  numr.  III. 
Addabarim,  Grece 

DeMt&ronomium  .     .      capp.  civ.  habet  vers.  II.  DC. 
Praefatio  Jesu  Naue  et  Judicum. 
Josue  Ben  Nun  .     .      capp.  xxxiii.  habet  vers.  I.  DCCL. 
Soflim,  i.  e.  Judicum, 

(liber)  ....       capp.  xviii.  habet  vers.  numr. 
1.  DCCL. 

Ruth none,  habet  ver.  num.  CCL. 

Praefatio  (Prologus  galcatus). 
Samultd  (Reyum),  lib. 

prim capp.  xxvi.  habet  versus,  II.  ccc. 

SamuJicl  (Regum),  lib. 

sec capp.  xviii.  habet  versus,  II.  cc. 

Aialaddm,  i.  e.  Regam, 

lib.  tert.    .  capp.  xviiii.  (for  xviii.)  habet  vers.  II.  D. 
Malachim,  i.  e.  Reyum, 

lib.  quart capp.  xvii.  habet  versus  II.  CCL. 

Prologus. 

Isu'ias iiMiie.  habet  vers. 

HI. 
Prolog  :.o. 


VULGATE,  THE 

"  Common,  that  is  the  Parisian  copy,"  and  quote* 
a  false  reading  from  Mark  viii.  38,  where  the  cor 
rectors  had  substituted  confessus  tor  atnfusus 
(Hody,  pp.  419  ff.).  Little  more  was  done  foj 
the  tr.xt  of  the  Vulgate  till  the  invention  of  print 
ing  ;  and  the  name  of  Laurentius  Valla  (cir.  1450) 
aloue  deserves  mention,  as  cf  one  who  devoted 
the  highest  powers  to  the  criticism  of  Holy  Scrip 
ture,  at  a  time  when  such  studies  were  little 
esteemed.10 


Hieremias  (with  Lam.  and 
Prayer) none,  habet  versus  iifi.  CCCCL. 

Prologus. 

Hiezecheel  (-iel) ....      none.  none. 

Da/nikel none,  habet  versus  1.  DCCCL. 

Osee,  Johel,  Amos,  Abdias, 
Jonas,  Miclias,  Naum,  Aba- 
cue,  Sophonias,  Aggius, 
Zacharias,  Malachias  .  none.  none. 

Prologus. 

Job     ...     »     ...     none.  v.  i.  DCC. 

Origo  Proph.  David       .     .     Praefatio. 

Liber  Psalmorum  (Gallican)    none,  habet  vr.  v. 

Epist.  ad  Chroni.  et  Heliod. 

Liber  Proverbiorum     .      capp.  Ix.  habet  versus 
I.  DCCXL. 

Ecclesiastes  .     •     .       capp.  xxxi.  none. 

Cantica  Canticorum    .     .      none,  habet  versus  CCLXXZ. 

Liber  Sapientiae      .      capp.  xlviii.  habet  versus  i.  DOC. 

Ecclesiasticus     .     .    capp.  cxxvii.  habet  versus  fi.  DCCO. 

Praefatio. 

Dabreiamin,  lib.  prim.      .      none.  hab.  (sic) 

Paralypominon  (lib.  sec.)  .      none.  none. 

Praefatio. 

Liber  Ezrae  .....       

Prologus. 

Hester  (with  add.)  ...     none,  habet  versus  v.  DOC. 

Praefatio. 

Tobias     ......     none.  none. 

Prologus. 

Judith, habet  versus  i.  c. 

Liber  Machabr.  prim.    ...   IxL  none. 

Machabr.  liber  sec Iv.  

Praef.  ad  Damasum. 

Argumentum. 

Canones. 

Prologus. 

Mattheus      .     . 

Marcus    .     .     . 

Lucas      .     .     . 

Johannes       .     . 

Lib.  Actuum  Apost. 

Prologus  septem  Epistolarum  Can. 

Epistl.  Set.  Jacobi    .     .     capp.  xx 

Epistl.  Sci.  Petriprim. 

Epistl.  Sci.  Petri  sec.    . 

Epistl.  Set.  Joh.  prim.  , 

Epistl.  3d.  Joh.  sec.      . 

EpistL  Sci.  Joh.  tert.     . 

Epistl.  Sci.  Jud.  .     .     , 

Epla.  ad  Romanos  .     , 

Epla.  ad  Cor.  prim. 

Epla.  ad  Cor.  sec. 

Epla.  ad  Galathas 

Epla.  ad  Ephesios 

Epla.  ad  Philippenses 


capp.  Ixxxi.  habet  vers.  u.  DOW 
capp.  xlvi.  hab.  v.  i.  DCC. 
capp.  Ixxiii.  vers.  ill.  DCCC. 
capp.  xxxv.  vers.  I.  DCCC. 
capp.  Ixxiiii.  habet  vers.  EL  i»c. 


none. 

capp.  xx.  

capp.  xi.  

.     capp.  xx.  

capp.  v.  

capp.  v.  

.     capp.  vii.  

capp.  H.  habet  versus  DCOCCXI 
.  capp.  Ixxii.  none, 
capp.  xxviii.  hab.  vers.  ccxcn. 
capp.  xxxvii.  habet  versus  ccxui. 
.  capp.  xxxi.  habet  versus  cccxvn 
capp.  xviiii.  none. 


Epla.  ad  Tfiess.  prim.   .   capp.  xxv.  habet  versus  ccxnu 


Kpla.  ad  Jhess.  sec. 
Epla.  ad  Colosenses 
Epla.  ad  Tim.  prim. 
Epla.  ad  Tim.  sec.    . 
Epla.  ad  Tit.       .     . 
Epla.  ad  Pfiilem.      . 
Epla.  ad  Hebr.  . 
Epla.  ad  J,aodicenses 
Apocalyfjsis  .      ... 
An  argument um  i: 


.  capp.  viiii.  none. 
.  capp.  xxxi.  none. 
.  capp.  xxx.  vers.  ccxxx, 
.  capp.  xxv.  none. 
.    .  capp.  x.  none. 
.     capp.  iiii.  none 
capp.  xxxviiii.  none. 
.     .      none.  none. 
.  capp.  xxv.  Label  versus  i.  UCCG 
given  before  each  of  the  toolss  ol 


VULGATE,  THE 

V.  THE  HISTORV  OF  THE  PIUNTKD  TEXT. — 
25.  It  was  a  noble  omen  for  the  future  progress  of 
printing  that  the  first  book  which  issued  from  the 
press  was  the  Bible ;  and  the  splendid  pages  of  the 
Mazarin  Vulgate  (Mainz,  Gutenburg  and  Fust) 
stand  yet  unsurpassed  by  the  latest  efforts  of  typo 
graphy.  This  work  is  referred  to  about  the  year 
1455,  and  presents  the  common  text  of  the  15th 
century.  Other  editions  followed  in  rapid  succession 
(the  first  with  adate,  Mainz,  1462,  Fust  and  Schoiffer), 
but  they  offer  nothing  of  critical  interest.  The 
first  collection  of  various  readings  appears  in  a 
Paris  edition  of  1 504,  and  others  followed  at  Venice 
and  Lyons  in  1511,  1513;  but  Cardinal  Ximenes 
(1502-1517)  was  the  first  who  seriously  revised 
the  Latin  text  ("....  contulimus  cum  quamplu- 
rimis  exemplaribus  venerandae  vetustatis ;  sed  his 
maxime,  quae  in  publica  Complutensis  nostrae 
Universitatis  bibliotheca  reconduntur,  quae  supra 
octingentesimum  abhinc  annum  litteris  Gothicis 
conscripta,  ea  sunt  sinceritate  ut  nee  apicis 
lapsus  possit  in  eis  deprehendi,"  Praef.}0,  to 
which  he  assigned  the  middle  place  of  honour  in 
his  Polyglott  between  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  texts 
[comp.  NEW  TESTAMENT,  p.  521].  The  Complu- 
tensian  text  is  said  to  be  more  correct  than  those 
which  preceded  it,  but  still  it  is  very  far  from 
being  pure.  This  was  followed  in  1528  (2nd  edi 
tion  1532)  by  an  edition  of  R.  Stephens,  who  had 
bestowed  great  pains  upon  the  work,  consulting 
three  MSS.  of  high  character  and  the  earlier  edi 
tions,  but  as  yet  the  best  materials  were  not  open 
for  use.  About  the  same  time  various  attempts 
were  made  to  correct  the  Latin  from  the  original 
texts  (Erasmus,  1516  ;  °  Pagninus,  1518-28  ;  Card. 
Cajetanus;  Steuchius,  1529  ;  Clarius,  1542),  or  even 
to  make  a  new  Latin  version  (Jo.  Campensis,  1533). 
A  more  important  edition  of  R.  Stephens  followed 
in  1540,  in  which  he  made  use  of  twenty  MSS. 
and  introduced  considerable  alterations  into  his 


VULGATE,  THE 


1705 


"ormer  text.  In  1541  another  edition  -was  pub 
lished  by  Jo.  Benedictus  at  Paris,  which  was  based 
on  the  collation  of  MSS.  and  editions,  and  was  often 
•eprinted  afterwards.  Vercellone  speaks  much  more 
highly  of  the  Biblia  Ordinaria,  with  glosses,  &c., 
published  at  Lyons,  1545,  as  giving  readings  in 
accordance  with  the  oldest  MSS.,  though  the  sources 
from  which  the)  are  derived  are  not  given  (  Variae 
Led.  xcix.).  The  course  of  controversy  in  the  1 6th 
century  exaggerated  the  importance  of  the  differ 
ences  in  the  text  and  interpretation  of  the  Vulgate, 
and  the  confusion  called  for  some  remedy.  An 
authorized  edition  became  a  necessity  for  the  Romish 
Church,  and,  however  gravely  later  theologians  may 
have  erred  in  explaining  the  policy  or  intentions 
of  the  Tridentine  Fathers  on  this  point,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  (setting  aside  all  reference  to  the 
original  texts)  the  principle  of  their  decision — the 
preference,  that  is,  of  the  oldest  Latin  text  to  any 
later  Latin  version — was  substantially  right.? 

The  Sixtine  and  Clementine  Vulgates.— 26.  The 
first  session  of  the  Council  of  Trent  was  held  on 
Dec.  13th,  1545.  After  some  preliminary  arrange 
ments  the  Nicene  Creed  was  formally  promulgated 
as  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  faith  on  Feb.  4th, 
1546,  and  then  the  Council  proceeded  to  the  ques 
tion  of  the  authority,  text,  and  interpretation  of 
Holy  Scripture.  A  committee  was  appointed  to 
report  upon  the  subject,  which  held  private  meet 
ings  from  Feb.  20th  to  March  17th.  Considerable 
varieties  of  opinion  existed  as  to  the  relative  value 
of  the  original  and  Latin  texts,  and  the  final  decree 
was  intended  to  serve  as  a  compromise  1  This  was 
made  on  April  8th,  1546,  and  consisted  of  two 
parts,  the  first  of  which  contains  the  list  of  the 
canonical  books,  with  the  usual  anathema  on  those 
who  refuse  to  receive  it ;  while  the  second,  "  On  the 
Edition  and  Use  of  the  Sacred  Books,"  contains  no 
anathema,  so  that  its  contents  are  not  articles  of 
faith.'  The  wording  of  the  decree  itself  contains 


the  N.  T.  except  the  Catholic  Epistles  and  the  Ep.  to  the 
Laodiceans,  and  the  whole  MS.  closes  with  sixty-eight 
hexameter  Latin  verses. 

The  divisions  agree  generally  with  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  2805, 
and  Lambeth  3,  4.  In  the  Vallicellian  Alcuin  MS.  (comp. 
p.  1710D)  the  apocryphal  Ep.  to  the  Laodiceans  is  not 
found ;  but  it  occurs  in  the  same  position  in  the  great 
Bible  in  the  King's  Library  (1  E.  vii.  viii.),  with  four 
capitula. 

Many  examples  of  the  various  divisions  into  capitula 
are  given  at  length  by  Thomasius,  Opera,  i.  ed.  Vezzosi 
Romae,  1747.  The  divisions  of  the  principal  MSS.  which 
the  writer  has  examined  are  given  below,  $30. 

Bentley  gives  the  following   stichometry  from   Cod. 
Sangerm.    (g")  :— 
Ep.  ad  Rom.,  Scribta,  de  CJurrvntlno.     Versos  DCCCC.  (so 

two  other  of  B.'s  MSS.). 

ad  Cor.  i.,  Scribta  de  Philipis.     Versus  DCCCLXX. 
ad  Cor.  ii.,  Scribta  de  Macedonia.      Versus  DLXX, 

(sic), 
ad  Galat.,  Scribta  de  urbe  Roma.     Versi  OCLXIIIXC, 

(sic). 

ad  Ephes.,  Scribta  de  urbe  Roma.    Versus  cccxn. 
ad  Philip.,  Scribta  de  urbe  Roma.    Versi  COOL. 
ad  Coloss.,  Scribta  de  urbe  Roma.    Versi  ccvm. 
ad  Thess.  i.,  Scripta  de  Athenis.     Versi  CLXIIII. 
ad  Thess.  ii.,  Scripta  de  urbe  Roma.    Versus  cvni. 
ad  Tim.  i.,  Scribta  de  Lauditia.     Versus  ccxxx. 
ad  Tim.  ii.,  Scripta  a  Roma.     Versus  CLXXII. 
ad  Tit.,  Scripta  de  Nicopolin.     Versus  LXVII. 
ad  I'hilcm.,  Scribta  de  urbe  Roma.    Versus  xxxini 
ad  Uebr.,  Scribta  de  Roma.    Versus  DOC. 
Mo  verees  arc  given  from  this  MS.  for  the  other  books. 


"  The  copy  which  is  here  alluded  to  Is  still  In  th« 
library  at  Alcala,  but  the  writer  is  not  aware  that  it  has 
been  re-examined  by  any  scholar.  There  is  also  a  second 
copy  of  the  Vulgate  of  the  12th  cent.  A  list  of  Biblical 
MSS.  at  Alcala  is  given  in  Dr.  Tregelles'  Printed  Text  of 
N.  T.,  pp.  15-18. 

°  Erasmus  himself  wished  to  publish  the  Latin  text  at 
he  found  it  in  MSS. ;  but  he  was  dissuaded  by  the  advico 
of  a  friend,  "  urgent  rather  than  wise  "  ("  amici  consiliis 
iroprobis  verius  quam  felicibus  "). 

p  Bellarmin  justly  insists  on  this  fact,  which  has  been 
strangely  overlooked  in  later  controversies  (De  Verbo 
Dei,  x.  ap.  Van  Ess,  $27) :  "  Nee  enim  Patres  [Tridentinij 
fontium  ullam  mentionem  fecerunt.  Sed  solum  ex  tot 
latinis  versionibus,  quae  nunc  circumferuntur,  imam  dele- 

gerunt,  quam  ceteris  anteponerent antiquam  novis, 

probatam  longo  usu  reeentibus  adhuc,  ac  ut  sic  loquar, 
crudis  .  .  . . " 

«i  The'  original  authorities  are  collected  and  given  at 
length  by  Van  Ess.  (Si 7. 

r  Insuper  eadem  Sacrosancta  Synodus  considcrans  nou 
parum  utilitatis  accedere  posse  ecclesias  Dei,  si  ex  omni 
bus  latinis  editionibus,  qua?  circumferuntur  sacrorum 
librorum,  quaenam  pro  authentica  habenda  sit,  innotescal; 
statuit  et  declarat,  ut  hsec  ipsa  vetus  et  vulgata  editio, 
quae  longo  tot  seculorum  usu  in  ipsa  ecclcsia  probate  est, 
iu  publicis  lectionibus,  dLsputationibus,  praxlicationibna 
et  expositiouibus  pro  autbentica  habeatur ;  et  ut  neiuo 

ilium  rejiccre  quovis  praetextu  audeat  vel  praesuinat 

Sed  et  irnprussoribus  modum.  . . .  imponere  volous 

dccrevit  ct  statuit  ut  posthac  sacra  scriptura  potissimum 
vero  haec  ipsa  vetus  et  vulgata  editio  quarn  emciidatissims 
imprimatur. 


1706 


VULGATE,  THE 


several  marks  of  the  controversy  from  which  it 
arose,  and  admits  of  a  far  more  liberal  construction 
than  later  glosses  have  affixed  to  it.  In  affirming 
the  authority  of  the  'Old  Vulgate'  it  contains  no 
estimate  of  the  value  of  the  original  texts.  The 
question  decided  is  simply  the  relative  merits  of  the 
current  Latin  versions  ("  si  ex  omnibus  Latinis 
versionibus  quae  circumferuntur  .  .  .  .  * ),  and  this 
only  in  reference  to  public  exercises.  The  object 
contemplated  is  the  advantage  (utfli  as)  of  the 
Church,  and  not  anything  essential  to  its  constitu 
tion.  It  was  further  enacted,  as  a  check  to  the 
licence  of  printers,  that  "  Holy  Scripture,  but  espe 
cially  the  old  and  common  (  v'ulgate)  edition  (evi 
dently  without  excluding  the  original  texts),  should 
be  printed  a.3  correctly  as  possible."  In  spite,  how 
ever,  of  the  comparative  caution  of  the  decree,  and 
the  interpretation  which  was  affixed  to  it  by  the 
highest  authorities,  it  was  received  with  little 
favour,  and  the  want  of  a  standard  text  of  the 
Vulgate  practically  left  the  question  as  unsettled 
as  before.  The  decree  itself  was  made  by  men 
little  fitted  to  anticipate  the  difficulties  of  textual 
criticism,  but  afterwards  these  were  found  to  be  so 
great  that  for  some  time  it  seemed  that  no  autho 
rized  edition  would  appear.  The  theologians  of 
Belgium  did  something  to  meet  the  want.  In 
1547  the  first  edition  of  Hentenius  appeared  at 
Lou  vain,  which  had  very  considerable  influence  upon 
later  copies.  It  was  based  upon  the  collation  of  Latin 
MSS.  and  the  Stephanie  edition  of  1540".  In  the 
Antwerp  Polyglott  of  1568-72  the  Vulgate  was  bor 
rowed  from  the  Complutensian  (Vercellone,  Var. 
Lect.  ci.) ;  but  in  the  Antwerp  edition  of  the  Vulgate 
of  1573-4  the  text  of  Hentenius  was  adopted  with 
copious  additions  of  readings  by  Lucas  Brugensis. 
This  last  was  designed  as  the  preparation  and  tem 
porary  substitute  for  the  Papal  edition:  indeed  it 
•may  be  questioned  whether  it  was  not  put  forth  as 
the  "  correct  edition  required  by  the  Tridentine  de 
cree"  (comp.  Lucas  Brug.  ap.  Vercellone,  cii.).  But 
\  Papal  board  was  already  engaged,  however  de 
sultorily,  upon  the  work  of  revision.  The  earliest 
trace  of  an  attempt  to  realise  the  recommendations 
of  the  Council  is  found  fifteen  years  after  it  was 
made.  In  1561  Paulus  Manutius  (son  of  Aldus 
Manutius)  was  invited  to  Rome  to  superintend  the 
printing  of  Latin  and  Greek  Bibles  (Vercellone, 
Var.  Lect.  &c.,  i.  Prol.  xix.  n.}.  During  that  year 
and  the  next  several  scholars  (with  Sirletus  at 
their  head)  were  engaged  in  the  revision  of  the 
text.  In  the  pontificate  of  Pius  V.  the  work  was 
continued,  and  Sirletus  still  took  a  chief  part  in  it 
(1569,  1570,  Vercellone,  I.  c.  xx.  n.),  but  it  was 
currently  reported  that  the  difficulties  of  publishing 


VULGATE,  THE 

an  authoritative  edition  were  insuperable.  Nothing 
further  was  done  towards  the  revision  of  the  Vul 
gate  under  Gregory  XIII.,  but  preparations  were 
made  for  an  edition  of  the  LXX.  This  appeared  in 
1587,  in  the  second  year  of  the  pontificate  of  Sixtn* 
V.,  who  had  been  one  of  the  chief  promoters  of  the 
work.  After  the  publication  of  the  LXX.,  Sixtus 
immediately  devoted  himself  to  the  production  of 
an  edition  of  the  Vulgate.  He  was  himself  a 
scholar,  and  his  imperious  genius  led  him  to  face 
a  task  from  which  others  had  shrunk.  "  He  had 
felt,"  he  says,  "  from  his  first  accession  to  the  papal 
throne  (1585),  great  grief,  or  even  indignation 
(indigne  fei-entes),  that  the  Tridentine  decree  was 
still  unsatisfied;"  and  a  board  was  appointed,  undei 
the  presidency  of  Card.  Carafa,  to  arrange  the  ma 
terials  and  offer  suggestions  for  an  edition.  Sixtus 
himself  revised  the  text,  rejecting  or  confirming  the 
suggestions  of  the  board  by  his  absolute  judgment ; 
and  when  the  work  was  printed  he  examined  the 
sheets  with  the  utmost  care,  and  corrected  the  errors 
with  his  own  hand/  The  edition  appeared  in  1 590, 
with  the  famous  constitution  Aetermis  ille  (dated 
March  1st,  1589)  prefixed,  in  which  Sixtus  affirmed 
with  characteristic  decision  the  plenary  authority 
of  the  edition  for  all  future  time.  "  By  the  fulness 
of  Apostolical  power"  (such  are  his  words)  "we 
decree  and  declare  that  this  edition  ....  approved 
by  the  authority  delivered  to  us  by  the  Lord,  is  to 
be  received  and  held  as  true,  lawful,  authentic,  and 
unquestioned,  in  all  public  and  private  discussion,, 
reading,  preaching,  and  explanation."  *  He  further 
forbade  expressly  the  publication  of  various  read 
ings  in  copies  of  the  Vulgate,  and  pronounced  that 
all  readings  in  other  editions  and  MSS.  which  vary 
from  those  of  the  revised  text  "  are  to  have  no 
credit  or  authority  for  the  future"  (ea  in  iis  quae 
huic  nostrae  editioni  non  consenserint,  nullam  in 
posterum  fidem,  nullamque  auctoritatem  habitura 
esse  decei'nimus).  It  was  also  enacted  that  the 
new  revision  should  be  introduced  into  all  missals 
and  service-books;  and  the  greater  excommunica 
tion  was  threatened  against  all  who  in  any  way 
contravened  the  constitution.  Had  the  life  of  Sixtus 
been  prolonged,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  his  iron 
will  would  have  enforced  the  changes  which  he 
thus  peremptorily  proclaimed  ;  but  he  died  in  Aug. 
1590,  and  those  whom  he  had  alarmed  or  offended 
took  immediate  measures  to  hinder  the  execution 
of  his  designs.  Nor  was  this  without  good  reason. 
He  had  changed  the  readings  of  those  whom  he  hac, 
employed  to  Deport  upon  the  text  with  the  most 
arbitrary  and  unskilful  hand ;  and  it  was  scarcely 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  his  precipitate  "  self- 
reliance  had  brought  the  Church  into  the  most 


8  The  original  words   are   both    interesting  and  im 
portant:  "  Nos  ....  ipsius  Apostolorum  Principis  aucto- 

ritate  confisi haudquaquam  gravati  sumus hunc 

quoque  non  mediocrem  accuratne  lucubrationis  laborem 
suscipere,  atque  ea  oumia  perlegere  quae  alii  collegerant 
nut  senaerant,  diversarum  lectionum  rationes  perpendere, 
sanctorum  doctorum  sententias  recognoscere  :  quae  quibus 
anteferenda  essent  dijudicare,  adeo  ut  in  hoc  laboriosissi- 
mae  emendationis  curriculo,  in  quo  operam  quotidiana-m, 
eamque  pluribus  horis  collocandam  duximus,  aliorum 
quidcm  labor  fuerit  in  consulendo,  noster  autem  in  eo 
quod  ex  pluribus  esset  optimum  deligendo :  ita  tamen 
ut  veterem  multis  in  Kcclesia  abhinc  saeculis  recepiam 
loctionem  omuino  retinuerimus.  Novam  interea  Typo- 

gruphiam  in  Apoc-tolico  Vaticano   Palatio  nostro 

exstruximus  .  .  .  .  ut  in  ea  emendatum  jam  Bibliorum 
excuderetur  •  eaaue  ran  quo  magis  incorruptc 


perficeretur,  nostra  nos  ipsi  manu  correxirruis,  si   qua 
praelo  vitia  obrepserant,  et  quae  cont'usa  aut  facile  COL. 

fundi  posse  videbantur distinximus"  (Hody,  p.  496 ; 

Van  Kss,  p.  273). 

t  " ex  certa  nostra  scientia,  deque  Apostollcae 

potestatis  plenitudine  statuinms  ac  declaramus,  earn 
Vulgatam  sacrae,  tarn  veteris,  quam  novi  Testamenti 
paginae  Latinam  editionem,  quae  pro  authentica  a 
Concilio  Tridentino  recepta  est,  sine  ulla  dubitatione,  aut 
controversia  censendam  esse  hanc  ipsam,  quam  mine, 
prout  optime  fieri  poterit,  emendatam  et  in  Vaticana 
Typographia  impressam  in  universa  Christiana  Kcpublica, 
atque  in  omnibus  Christian!  orbis  Ecclesiis  legendain 
evulgamus,  decernentes  earn  ....  pro  vera,  Legitima 
authentica  et  indubitata,  in  omnibus  public-is  privatisqw 
disputationibus,  lect.ionibus,  praedicationi 
!  tionilnia  recipiendaiii  et  tencndam  eabo 


VULGATE,  THE 

serious  peril."  n  During  the  brief  pontificate  of 
Urban  VII.  nothing  could  be  done  ;  but  the  reaction 
was  not  long  delayed.  On  the  accession  of  Gregory 
XIV.  some  went  so  far  as  to  propose  that  the  edi 
tion  of  Sixtus  should  be  absolutely  prohibited  ;  but 
Bellarmin  suggested  a  middle  course.  He  proposed 
that  the  erroneous  alterations  of  the  text  which  had 
been  made  in  it  ("  quae  male  mutata  erant ") 
"  should  be  corrected  with  all  possible  speed  and 
the  Bible  reprinted  under  the  name  of  Sixtus,  with 
a  prefatory  note  to  the  effect  that  errors  (aliqua 
e)~rata)  had  crept  into  the  former  edition  by  the 
carelessness  of  the  printers."*  This  pious  fraud, 
or  rather  daring  falsehood/  for  it  can  be  called  by 
no  other  name,  found  favour  with  those  in  power. 
A  commission  was  appointed  to  revise  the  Sixtine 
text,  under  the  presidency  of  the  Cardinal  Colonna 
(Columna).  At  first  the  commissioners  made  but 
elow  progress,  and  it  seemed  likely  that  a  year 
would  elapse  before  the  revision  was  completed 
(  Ungarelli,  in  Vercellone,  Proleg.  Iviii.).  The  mode 
of  proceedings  was  therefore  changed,  and  the  com 
mission  moved  to  Zagarolo,  the  country  seat  of  Co 
lonna;  and,  if  we  may  believe  the  inscription  which 
still  commemorates  the  event,  and  the  current  re 
port  of  the  time,  the  work  was  completed  in  nineteen 
days.  But  even  if  it  can  be  shown  that  the  work 
extended  over  six  months,  it  is  obvious  that  there 
was  no  time  for  the  examination  of  new  authorities, 
but  only  for  making  a  rapid  revision  with  the  help 
of  the  materials  already  collected.  The  task  was 
hardly  finished  when  Gregory  died  (Oct.  1591),  and 
the  publication  of  the  revised  text  was  again  delayed. 
His  successor,  Innocent  IX.,  died  within  the  same 
year,  and  at  the  beginning  of  1592  Clement  VIII. 
\vas  raised  to  the  popedom.  Clement  entrusted  the 
final  revision  of  the  text  to  Toletus,  and  the  whole 
was  printed  by  Aldus  Manutius  (the  grandson) 


VULGATE,  THE 


1701 


before  the  end  of  1592.  The  Preface,  which  is 
moulded  upon  that  of  Sixtus,  was  written  by 
Bellarmin,  and  is  favourably  distinguished  fron» 
that  of  Sixtus  by  its  temperance  and  even  modesty. 
The  text,  it  is  said,  had  been  prepared  with  the 
greatest  care,  and  though  not  absolutely  perfect 
was  at  least  (what  is  no  idle  boast)  more  correct 
than  that  of  any  former  edition.  Some  readings 
indeed,  it  is  allowed,  had,  though,  wrong,  been 
left  unchanged,  to  avoid  popular  offence.'  But  yet 
even  here  Bellarmin  did  not  scruple  to  repeat  the 
fiction  of  the  intention  of  Sixtus  to  recal  his  edition, 
which  still  disgraces  the  front  of  the  Roman  Vul 
gate  by  an  apology  no  less  needless  than  untrue." 
Another  edition  followed  in  1593,  and  a  third  in 
1598,  with  a  triple  list  of  errata,  one  for  each  of 
the  three  editions.  Other  editions  were  afterwards 
published  at  Rome  (comp.  Vercellone,  civ.),  but 
with  these  corrections  the  history  of  the  authorized 
text  properly  concludes. 

27.  The  respective  merits  of  the  Sixtine  and 
Clementine  editions  have  been  often  debated.  In 
point  of  mechanical  accuracy,  the  Sixtine  seems  to 
be  clearly  superior  (Van  Ess,  365  ff.),  but  Van 
Ess  has  allowed  himself  to  be  misled  m  the  esti 
mate  which  he  gives  of  the  critical  value  of  the 
Sixtine  readings.  The  collections  lately  published 
by  Vercellone  ^  place  in  the  clearest  light  the  strange 
and  uncritical  mode  in  which  Sixtus  dealt  with  the 
evidence  and  results  submitted  to  him.  The  recom 
mendations  of  the  Sixtine  correctors  are  marked  by 
singular  wisdom  and  critical  tact,  and  in  almost 
every  case  where  Sixtus  departs  from  them  he  is  in 
error.  This  will  be  evident  from  a  collation  of 
the  readings  in  a  few  chapters  as  given  by  Vercel 
lone.  Thus  in  the  first  four  chapters  of  Genesis 
the  Sixtine  correctors  are  right  against  Sixtus :  i.  2. 
27,  31 ;  ii.  18,  20  ;  iii.  1,  11,  12,  17,  21,  22 ;  iv. 


«  Bellarmin  to  Clement  VIII. :  "  Novit  beatitude  vestra 
cut  se  totamque  ecclesiam  discrimtni  commiserit  Sixtus  V. 
dum  juxta  propriae  doctrinae  sensus  sacrorum  bibliorum 
t'jnendationem  aggressus  est;  nee  satis  scio  an  gravius 
unquam  periculum  occurrerit"  (Van  Ess,  p.  290). 

*  The  following  is  the  original  passage  quoted  by  Van 
Kss  from  the  first  edition  of  Bellarmin's  Autobiography 
(p.  291),  anno  1591 :  "  CumGregoriusXIV.  cogitaret  quid 
agendum  esset  de  bibliis  a  Sixto  V.  editis,  in  quibus  erant 
permulta  perperam  mutata,  non  deerant  viri  graves,  qui 
censerent  ea  biblia  esse  publice  prohibenda,  sed  N.  (Bellar- 
ininus)  coram  pontifice  demonstravit,  biblia  ilia  non  esse 
prohibenda,  sed  esse  ita  corrigenda,  ut  salvo  honore  Sixti  V. 
pontificis  biblia  ilia  emendata  proderentur,  quod  fieret  si 
quam  celerrime  tollerentur  quae  male  mutata  erant,  et 
biblia  recuderentur  sub  nomine  ejusdem  Sixti,  et  addita 
praefatione  qua  signiflcaretur  in  prima  editione  Sixti 
prae  festinatione  irrepsisse  aliqua  errata,  vel  typogra- 
phorum  vel  aliorum  incuria,  et  sic  N.  reddidit  Sixto  pon- 
tiflci  bona  pro  mails."  The  last  words  refer  to  Sixtus' 
condemnation  of  a  thesis  of  Bellarmin,  in  which  he  denied 
"  Papam  esse  dominum  directum  totius  orbis ;"  and  it  was 
th;s  whole  passage,  and  not  the  Preface  to  the  Clementine 
Vulgate,  which  cost  Bellarmin  his  canonization  (Van  Ess, 
from  the  original  documents,  pp.  291-318).  It  will  be 
observed  that  Bellarmin  first  describes  the  errors  of  the 
Sixtine  edition  really  as  deliberate  alterations,  and  then 
proposes  to  represent  them  as  errors. 

y  The  evidence  collected  by  Van  Ess  (pp.  285  ff.),  and 
even  the  cautious  admissions  of  Ungarelli  and  Vercellone 
(pp.  xxxix.-xliv.),  will  prove  that  this  language  is  not 
tou  strong. 

«  This  fact  Bellarmin  puts  in  stronger  light  when 
writing  to  Lucas  Brugensis  (1603)  to  acknowledge  his 
critical  collations  on  the  text  of  the  Vulgate  :  "  DC  libello 
-ul  ino  misso  gratlas  ago,  sed  solas  velim  biblia  vulgata 


non  esse  a  nobis  accuratissime  castigata,  multa  enim  de 
industria  justis  de  causis  pertransivimus,  quae  correctione 
indigere  videbantur." 

a  The  original  text  of  the  passages  here  referred  to  is 
full  of  interest :  "  Sixtus  V.  ...  opus  tttndem  confecfum 
typis  manclari  jussit.  Quod  cum  jam  esset  excusum  ct 
ut  in  lucem  emitteretur,  idem  Pontifex  operam  daret 
[Implying  that  the  edition  was  not  published],  animad- 
vertens  non  pauca  in  Sacra  Biblia  preli  vitia  irrepsisse, 
quae  iterata  diligentia  indigere  viderentur,  totum  opus 
sub  incudem  revocandum  censuit  atque  decrevit  [of  this 

there  is  not  the  faintest  shadow  of  proof] Accipe 

igitur,  Christiane  lector ex  Vaticana  typographia 

veterem  ac  vulgatam  sacrae  scripturae  editionem,  quanta 
fieri  potuit  diligentia  castigatam :  quam  quidem  sicut 
omnibus  nnmeris  absolutam,  pro  humanS,  imbecillitate 
affirmare  difficile  est,  ita  ceteris  omnibus  quae  ad  haiic 
usque  diem  prodierunt  emendatiorem,  purioremque  esse, 

minime  dubitandum In  hac  tomen  pervulgata  lec- 

tione  sicut  nonnulla  consul  to  mutata,  ita  etiani  alia,  quae 
mutanda  videbantur,  consulto  immutata  relicta  sunt,  turn 
quod  ita  faciendum  esse  ad  offensionem  populorum  vitan- 
dam  S.  Hieronymus  non  semel  admonuit  turn  quod  .  .  .  ." 
The  candour  of  these  words  contrasts  strangely  with  tho 
folly  of  later  champions  of  the  edition. 

In  consequence  of  a  very  amusing  mistranslation  of  a 
phrase  of  Hug,  it  has  been  commonly  stated  in  England 
that  this  Preface  gained,  instead  of  cost,  Bellarmin  hia 
canonization:  (Hug,  Einl.  i.490,  "Welche  ihn  um  seine 
Heiligsprechung  gebracht  haben  soil ").  The  real  offenct 
lay  in  the  words  quoted  above  (note  »). 

b  The  most  important  of  these  is  the  Codex  Carufianus, 
a  copy  of  the  Antwerp  edition  of  1583,  with  the  MS. 
corrections  of  the  Sixtine  board.  This  was  found  by 
Ungnrelli  in  the  Library  of  the  Roman  College  of  SS. 
ULiise  and  Charles.  Comp.  Verceilons,  Praef,  ii. 


1708             VULGATE,  THE                                              VULGATE,  THE 

1,  b,  7,  8,  9,  15,  16,  19;  and  on  the  other  hand                         Sixtine.                          Clenuntint, 

Sixtus  is  right  against  the  correctors  in  i.  15.     The 

Matt.  vii.  25,  supra  (pp.   11.  tol. 

—  super. 

Gregorian  correctors,  therefore  (whose  results  are 

23.  scribae  (it.). 

—  scribae  denim. 

given  in  the  Clementine  edition),  in  the  main  simply 

viii.  9,  alio  (it.  am.  &c.). 

—  alii. 

restored  readings  adopted  by  the  Sixtine  board  and 
rejected  by  Sixtus.     In  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy 

12,  ubi  (pp.  11.). 
18,  jussit  discipulos 
fit  ") 

—  ibi. 
—  jussit. 

the  Clementine  edition  follows  the  Sixtine  correctors 

\lL*y. 

20,  caput  suum  (it. 

—  caput. 

where  it  differs  from  the  Sixtine  edition:  i.  4,  19, 

tol.). 

31  ;  ii.  21  ;  iv.  6,  22,  28,  30,  33,  39;  v.  24;  vi. 
4;  viii.  1  ;  ix.  9;  x.  3;  xi.  3;  xii.  11,  12,  15,  &c.  ; 

28,  venisset  Jesus  (it.). 
32,  magno  impetu  (it.). 
33,  haec  omnia  (?). 

—  venisset. 
—  impetu. 
—  omnia. 

and  every  change  (except  probably  vi.  4;  xii.  11, 

34,  rogabant    eum    ut 

—  rogabant  ut. 

12^  is  right  ;  while  on  the  other  hand  in  the  same 

Jesus  (?). 

chapters  there  are,  as  far  as  I  have  observed,  only 

Ephes.  i.  15,  in  Christo  J.  (pp.  11. 
Bodl.). 

—  in  Domino  J. 

two  instances  of  variation  without  the  authority  of 

21,  dominationem  (?). 

—  et  dominationem 

the  Sixtine  correctors  (xi.  10,  32).     But  in  point  of 

ii.  1,  vos  convivificavit 

—  vos. 

fact  the  Clementine  edition  errs  by  excess  of  caution. 
Within  the  same  limits  it  follows  Sixtus  against  the 

(PP.  HO. 
11,  vos  eratis  (pp.  11. 
Bodl.  <fcc.). 

—  vos. 

correctors  wrongly  in  ii.  33;   iii.  10,  12,  13,  16, 

—  ,  dicebamini  (pp.  11.). 

—  dicimini. 

19,  20;  iv.  10,  11,  28,  42;  vi.  3  ;  xi.  28;  and  in 

12,  qui  (pp.    11.   Bodl. 

—  quod. 

the  whole  book  admits  in  the  following  passages  ar 
bitrary  changes  of  Sixtus:  iv.  10  ;  v.  24  ;  vi.  13  ; 

&c,). 
22,  Spiritu  Sancto  (pp. 
11.  Sang.  &c.). 

—  Spiritu, 

xii.  15,  32  ;  xviii.  10,  11  ;  xxix.  23  .«    In  the  N.  T., 

iii.  8,  mihi  enim  (pp.  11.). 

—  mihi. 

as  the  report  of  the  Sixtine  correctors  has  not  yet 
been  published,  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  far  the 

16,  virtu  tern  (it.). 
—  ,  in  interiore  homine 
(pp.  11.  Bodl.). 

—  virtute. 
—  in     interiorein    ho- 
minem. 

same  law  holds  good  ;  but  the  following  comparison 

iv.  22,  deponite  (it.) 

—  deponere. 

of  the  variations  of  the  two  editions  in  continuous 

30,  in  die  (pp.  11.  Bodl. 

—  in  diem. 

passages  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  will  show  that 
the  Clementine,  though  not  a  pure  text,  is  yet  very 

&c.). 
v.  26,  mundans  earn  (pp. 

—  mundans. 

tar  purer  than  the  Sixtine,  which  often  gives  Old 

27,  in  gloriosam  (?). 

—  gloriosam. 

Latin  readings,  and  sometimes  appears  to  depend 

vi.  15,  in  praeparationem 

—  in  praeparatione. 

simply  on  patristic  authority*1  ({.  e.  pp.  11.)  :  — 

(it.). 
20,  in  catena  ista  (it.?). 

—  in  catena  ita. 

flUMAM 

C'lfn  &n  tinj> 

Matt   i.  23,  vocabitur  (pp.  11.) 
ii.    5,  Juda  (gat.  mm.  &c.) 

—  vocabunt. 
—  Judae. 

(Some  of  the  readings  of  Bodl.  ($13,  (3)  e2)  are  added 
It.  is  used,  as  is  commonly  done,  for  the  old  texts  gene 

13,  surge,  accipe  (?) 

—  surge  et  accipe. 

rally  ;  and  the  notation  of  the  MSS.  is  that  usually  followed.) 

iii.  2,  appropinquabit  (iv. 
17),  (MSS.  Gallic. 

—  appropinquavit. 

28.  While  the  Clementine  edition  was  still  recent 

pp.  11.). 

some  thoughts  seem  to  have  been  entertained  of  re 

3,  de  quo  dictum  est 

—  qui  dictus  est. 

vising  it.     Lucas  Brugensis  made  important  collec 

(tol.  It.). 
10,  arboris  (Tert.). 

—  aroorum. 

tions  for  this  purpose,  but  the  practical  difficulties 

Iv.  6,  ut  .  .  .  tollant  (it). 

—  et  .  .  .  tollent. 

wei-e  found  to  be  too  great,  and  the  study  of  various 

7,  Jesus  rursum. 

—  Jesus  :  Rursum. 

readings  was  reserved  for  scholars  (Bellarmin.  ad 

15,  Galilacae    (it.    am. 

—  Galilaea, 

Lucam  Brug.  1606).     In  the  next  generation  use 

16,  ambulabat  (?) 

—  sedebat. 

and  controversy  gave  a  sanctity  to  the  authorized 

v.  11,  vobis  homines  (gat. 

—  vobis. 

text.     Many,  especially  in  Spain,  pronounced  it  to 

mm.  &c.). 
30,  abscinde(?). 
40,  injudicio(it.). 
vi.  7,  eth.  faclunt  (it.) 

—  abscide. 
—  judicio. 
—  ethnici. 

have  a  value  superior  to  the  originals,  and  to  be 
inspired    in    every    detail    (comp.  Van    Er-s,   401, 
402;  Hody,  in.  ii.  15);  but  it  is  useless  to  dwell 

30,  enim  (it.). 
vii.  1,  et  uon  judicabimini, 

—  autem. 
—  ut  non  judicemini. 

on  the  history  of  such  extravagancies,  from  which 
the  Jesuits  at  least,  following  their  great  champion 

et  non  condemna- 

Bellarmin,  wisely  kept  aloof.     It  was  a  more  serious 

biuiini  (?) 

matter  that  the  universal  acceptance  of  the  papal 

4,  sine,  frater  (it.  pp. 

—  sine. 

text  checked  the  critical  study  of  the  materials  on 

11.). 
23,  a   me    omnes    (it. 

—  a  me. 

which  -it  was  professedly  based.     At  length,  how 

pp.11.). 

ever,  in  1706.  Martianay  published  a  new,  and  in 

c  Tne  common  statement  that  the  Clementine  edition 
follows  the  revision  of  Alcuin,  while  the  Six) 'tie  gives  the 
true  text  of  Jerome,  is  apparently  a  mere  conjectural 
assertion.  In  Deuteronomy,  Sixtus  gives  the  Alcuinian 
reading  in  the  following  passages :  i.  19 ;  iv.  30,  33 ;  xxi.  6 ; 
and  I  have  not  observed  one  passage  where  the  Clemen 
tine  text  agrees  with  that  of  Alcuiu  unless  that  of  Sixtus 
does  also. 

Passages  have  been  taken  from  the  Pentateuch,  because 
in  that  Vercellone  has  given  complete  and  trustworthy 
materials.  The  first  Book  of  Samuel,  in  which  the  later 
corruptions  are  very  extensive,  gives  results  generally  of 
the  same  character.  Great  and  obvious  interpolations  are 
preserved  both  in  the  Sixtiue  and  Clementine  editions : 
;v.  1 ;  v.  6 ;  x.  1  ;  xiii.  15  ;  xiv.  22, 41 ;  xv.  3,  12 ;  xvii.  36; 
xx.  15  (chiefly  from  the  LXX.).  The  Sixtine  text  gives 
the  old  reading  displaced  from  the  Clementine :  iii.  2,  3 ; 
iv.  1,4;  vii.  10  (?)  ;  ix.  1  (?),  '25.  The  Clementine  restores 


the  old  reading  against  Sixtus  :  i.  9,  19;  11.  11,  17,  26,  30 
iv.  9  (?),  (21);  vi.  9;  ix.  7;  x.  12;  xii.  6,  11,  15,  23;  xii! 
18;  xiv.  2  (?),  14,  15.  Thus  in  fifteen  chapters  Clement 
alone  gives  the  old  readings  sixteen  times,  Sixtus  alone 
five  times.  Vercellone,  in  the  second  part  of  his  Variae 
Lectiones,  which  was  published  after  this  article  waa 
printed,  promises  a  special  discussion  of  the  interpola 
tions  of  1  Sam.,  which  were,  as  might  have  been  ex 
pected,  expunged  by  the  Sixtine  correctors.  Vercelloue 
ad  1  Reg.  iv.  1. 

1  The  variations  between  the  Sixtine  and  Clemen  tint 
editions  were  collated  by  T.  James,  Bettum  papale,  s.  con- 
cordia  discors  ...  .  Lond.  1600  ;  and  more  complete  If 
with  a  collation  of  the  Clementine  editions,  by  H.  de  Buker. 
top,  Lux  de  luce,  lib.  iii.  pp.  315  ff.  Vercellone.  correcting 
earlier  critics,  reckons  that  the  whole  number  of  varia 
tions  between  the  two  revisions  is  about  3000  (trokgy 
xlviii.  iiota\ 


VULGATE,  THE 

the  main  better  text,  chiefly  from  original  MSS.,  in 
his  edition  of  Jerome.  Vallarsi  added  fresh  colla 
tions  in  his  revised  issue  of  Martianay's  work,  but 
in  both  cases  the  collations  are  imperfect,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  determine  with  accuracy  on  what  MS. 
authority  the  text  which  is  given  depends.  Sa- 
batier,  though  professing  only  to  deal  with  the 
Old  Latin,  published  important  materials  for  the 
criticism  of  Jerome's  Version,  and  gave  at  length 
the  readings  of  Lucas  Brugensis  (1743).  More 
than  a  century  elapsed  before  anything  more  of  im 
portance  was  done  for  the  text  of  the  Latin  version 
of  the  0.  T.,  when  at  length  the  fortunate  discovery 
of  the  original  revision  of  the  Sixtine  correctors 
again  directed  the  attention  of  Roman  scholars  to 
their  authorised  text.  The  first-fruits  of  their 
labours  are  given  in  the  volume  of  Vercellone 
already  often  quoted,  which  has  thrown  more  light 
upon  the  history  and  criticism  of  the  Vulgate  than 
any  previous  work.  There  are  some  defects  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  materials,  and  it  is  unfortunate 
that  the  editor  has  not  added  either  the  authorised 
or  corrected  text ;  but  still  the  work  is  such  that 

e  The  materials  which  Bentley  collected  (see  p.  1711, 
note  f)  are  an  invaluable  help  for  investigation,  but  they 
will  not  supersede  it.  It  is,  indeed,  impossible  to  determine 
on  what  principle  he  inserted  or  omitted  variations.  Some 
times  he  notes  with  the  greatest  care  discrepancies  of 
orthography,  and  at  other  times  he  neglects  important 
differences  of  text.  Thus  in  John  i.  18-51  he  gives  cor 
rectly  23  variations  of  the  Cambridge  MS.  (Kk.  1, 
24)  and  omits  51 ;  and  in  Luke  i.  1-39  he  gives  13  vari 
ations  of  St.  Chad's  Gospels  and  omits  30;  and  there 
is  nothing  in  the  character  of  the  readings  recorded 
which  can  have  determined  the  selection,  as  the  varia 
tions  which  are  neglected  are  sometimes  noted  from  other 
MSS.,  and  are  in  themselves  of  every  degree  of  impor 
tance.  A  specimen  from  each  of  the  volumes  which 
contain  his  collations  will  show  the  great  amount  of 
labour  which  he  bestowed  upon  the  work  ;  and,  hitherto, 
no  specimen  has  been  published.  The  student  may  find 
it  interesting  to  compare  the  variations  noted  with  those 
in  Table  B. 


VULGATE,  THE 


1709 


Coll.  SS.  Trin.  Cambr., 
B.  17,  5. 


eum  fi 
1  2  o  p  y  ,//  C  clo  fi 


Mark  ix.  45-49. 


Et  si  pes  tuns  te  scandal- 
izat,  amputa  ilium:  bonum 

2  •J.TTJUI          ^ 

est  tibi  claudnm  introire  in 
vitam  aeternam,  quam  duos 
pedes  habentem  mitti  in 
gebennam  ignis  inextlngui- 
bilis  :  [ubi  vermis  eorum 


n'e  p  x  Y  C     Aeorum  i//          non  montur,  et  ignis  A  non 

gue  o  p  y  C  extingrwitur.    Quod  si  ooulus 

del.  a  e  o  IT  /x  <^        cie  p        tuus    scaudalizat  te  eiQi]ce 


1  2  p  C  cae  x  eum :  bonum  est  tibi  Zmcum 
introire  in  regnum  Dei,  qujvm 
duos  oculos  habentem  mitti 
in  gehennam  ignis  :]  ubi 


rie  p  p,  x  v 
Stin  u.  gue  o  p  v 
df.l.     *  ni  o'i 


vermis  eorum  non  mojitur, 

*       to* 
et      ignis     non     extingui- 

P4> 
tur.      Omnis    [enim]    igrce 


||  salittur,   et  omnis  victima 

o/u.  2 

[]  dd.  e7rpo-nH>MH£xCy   [sale]  salietur.    Bonum    est 

1 

1  2  C  sal  :    quod  si  sal  insnlsum 

fueril.  hi  quo  illud  corulietis? 


every  student  of  the  Latin  text  must  wait  anxiously 
for  its  completion. 

29.  The  neglect  of  the  Latin  text  of  the  0.  T. 
is  but  a  consequence  of  the  general  neglect  of  the 
criticism  of  the  Hebrew  text.  In  the  N.  T.  far 
more  has  been  done  for  the  correction  of  the  Vulgate, 
though  even  here  no  critical  edition  has  yet  been  pub 
lished.  Numerous  collations  of  MSS.,  more  or  less 
perfect,  have  been  made.  In  this,  as  in  many  other 
points,  Bentley  pointed  out  the  true  path  which 
others  have  followed.  His  own  collation  of  Litiu 
MSS.  was  extensive  and  important  (comp.  EJlis. 
Bentkii  Critica  Sacra,  xxxv.  ff.)."  Griesbach  added 
new  collations,  and  arranged  those  which  others 
had  made.  Lachmann  printed  the  Latin  text  in  his 
larger  edition,  having  collated  the  Codex  Ful- 
densis  for  the  purpose.  Tischendorf  has  laboured 
among  Latin  MSS.  only  with  less  zeal  than  among 
Greek.  And  Tregelles  has  given  in  his  edition  of 
the  N.  T.  the  text  of  Cod.  Amiatinus  from  his  own 
collation  with  the  variations  of  the  Clementine 
edition.  But  in  all  these  cases  the  study  of  the 
Latin  was  merely  ancillary  to  that  of  the  Greek  text. 


<f>  f  1  2  P  K 


Coll.  SS.  Trin.  Cambr.  Mark  ix.  45-49. 

(B.  17.  5.)  M/u. 

Ater  x  sal  :  :  :  :  <f>  sic  Habete    in  A   vobis    sal,    et 

salem  aeona-rHgx        pacem  habete  inter  vos. 

||  omnes  enini   igne   examin- 
antur  (i. 

In  this  excerpt  a  —  <£>  (except  y)  represent  French 
MSS.  collated  chiefly  by  T.  Walker;  M,  H,  the  MSS.  in 
the  Brit.  Mus.  marked  flarl.  2788,  Harl.  2826  respec 
tively;  f,  the  Gospels  of  St.  Chad;  x>  tbe  Gospels  of 
Mac  Regol  ;  7,  the  Gospels  of  St.  John  C.  Oxon.  (comp. 
the  lists  p.  1692,  seq.). 

Coll.  SS.  Trin.  Cambr.  Mark  ix.  45-49. 

(B.  17,  14.) 

2EHOTD 

Et  si  pes  tuus  te  scandal- 
izat,  amputa  ilium  :  bonum 
2  1  F 

1  2  D  do  E  est  tibi  cZawdum  introire  In 

vitam  aeternam,  quam  duos 
pedes  habentem  mitti  In  ge- 

S  K  T  P  B  (semper)  hennam    ignis    inexstingui- 

bilis  :  ubi  vermis  eorum  non 

rie  Z.  moritur,  et  ignis  non  exstiu- 

F 

gue  Z.    C  ]  del.  Z.  guitar.  [Quod  si  oculus  tuus 

scandalizat  te,  ejice  eum  : 
bonum  est  tibi  luscum  in 
troire  in  regnum  Dei,  quam 

AK  inextinguibilis  (erased)    duos  oculos  habentem  mitti 

rie  Z  (erased)  em  Y     in  gehenrjam  ignisA,  ubi  ver- 

yue  Z  (erased)  mis  eorum  non  moritur,  et 

Aeorum  K  (erased)  ignis  A     non    exstin^m'tur.] 

YED  EPBF 
m  0  alii  H  B  (sic)  Omnis  enim  igrae  saZietur,  et 

E 

D<J>Y£ZFcM.  OBPHK    omnis   victima  [sale]  sah>- 

tur.     Bonum  est  sal:  quod  ti 

lum  P  'sal  P  K  sal  insulsum  fuerit,  in  quo 

DZEHOY 
dietur  (corr.  -is)  E.  \\lud  conAietis  {    Habete  in 


Z  R  salem  B  D  E       vobis  sal,  et  pacem  habete 
inter  vos. 

The  collations  in  this  volume  are,  as  will  be  seen,  some 
what  confused.  Many  are  in  Bentley's  hand,  who  hat 
added  numerous  emendations  of  the  Latin  text  in  B.  17 
14.  Thus,  on  the  same  page  from  which  this  example  is 
taken,  we  find  :  Mark  ix.  20,  a&  infantia.  fo.  leg.  ab 
infunti.  naiSMev.  x.  14,  Quos  quum  videret.  forte  leg. 
Quod  cu  videret  (sic  a  p.  m.  0  :  a  later  note),  x.  38,  El 
baptismum  quo  ego.  leg.  Aut  baptisma,  quod  ego.  KOT 
the  MSS.  quoted,  see  the  lists  already  referred  to. 


1710 


VULGATE,  THE 


Probably  from  the  great  antiquity  and  purity  of 
the  Codd.  Amiatinus  and  FtUdensis,  there  is  com 
paratively  little  scope  for  criticism  in  the  revision 
of  Jerome's  Version  ;  but  it  could  not  be  an  unpro 
fitable  work  to  examine  more  in  detail  than  has  yet 
been  done  the  several  phases  through  which  it  has 
passed,  and  the  causes  which  led  to  its  gradual  cor 


ruption. 
Vulgate 


(A  full  account  of  the  editions  of  the 
given  by  Masch  [Le  Long],  Bibliotheca 


Sacra,  1778-90.  Copies  of  the  Sixtine  and  Clem 
entine  editions  are  in  the  Library  of  the  British 
Museum.) 

VI.  THE  MATERIALS  FOR  THE  REVISION  OF 
JEROME'S  TEXT.—  30.  Very  few  Latin  MSS.  oi 
the  0.  T.  have  been  collated  with  critical  accu 
racy.  The  Pentateuch  of  Vercellone  (Romae,  1  860) 
is  the  first  attempt  to  collect  and  arrange  the  ma 
terials  for  determining  the  Hieronymian"  text  in  a 
manner  at  all  corresponding  with  the  importance  of 
the  subject.  Even  in  the  N.  T,  the  criticism  of  the 
Vulgate  text  has  always  been  made  subsidiary  to 
that  of  the  Greek,  and  most  of  the  MSS.  quoted 
have  only  been  examined  cursorily.  In  the  follow 
ing  list  of  MSS.,  which  is  necessarily  very  imper 
fect,  the  notation  of  Vercellone  (from  whom  most 
of  the  details,  as  to  the  MSS.  which  he  has  ex- 
ami  ned,  are  derived)  has  been  followed  as  far  as 
possible;  but  it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  he 
marks  the  readings  of  MSS.  Correctoria  and  editions 
in  the  same  manner. 

i.  MSS.  of  Old  Test,  and  Apocrypha. 

A  (Codex  Amiatinus,  Bibl.  Laurent.  Flor.)  at 
Florence,  written  about  the  middle  of  the  6th  cent. 
(cir.  541,  Tischdf.)  with  great  accuracy,  so  that 
both  in  age  and  worth  it  stands  first  among  the 
authorities  for  the  Hieronymian  text.  It  contains 
Jerome's  Psalter  from  the  Hebrew,  and  the  whole 
Latin  Bible,  with  the  exception  of  Baruch.  The 
variations  from  the  Clementine  text  in  the  N.  T.  have 
been  edited  by  F.  F.  Fleck  (1840)  ;  and  Tischendorf 


and  Tregelles  se 
and  1846,  the 


eparately  coll 
former  of  w 


ated  the  N.  T.  in  1843 
whom  published  a  com 


plete  edition  (1850  ;  2nd  ed.  1854)  of  this  part  of 
the  MS.,  availing  himself  also  of  the  collation  of 
Tregelles.  The  0.  T.  has  been  now  collated  by 
Vercellone  and  Palmieri  for  Vercellone's  Variae 
Lectiones  (Vercellone,  i.  p.  Ixxxiv.).  The  MS.  was 
rightly  valued  by  the  Sixtine  correctors,  who  in 
many  places  follow  its  authority  alone,  or  when 
only  feebly  supported  by  other  evidence :  e.  g.  Gen. 
ii.  18,  v.  26,  vi.  21,  vii.  3,  5,  ix.  18,  19,  x.  1. 

B  (Codex  Toktanus,  Bibl.  Eccles.  Tolet.),  at 
Toledo,  written  in  Gothic  letters  about  the  8th  cent. 
The  text  is  generally  pure,  and  closely  approaches 
to  that  of  A,  at  least  in  0.  T.  A  collation  of  this 
MS.  with  a  Louvain  edition  of  the  Vulgate  (1569, 
fol.)  was  made  by  Christopher  Palomares  by  the 


VULGATE,  THE 

the  N.  T.  at  least  the  work  is  one  which  might 
easily  be  accomplished. 

C  (Codex  Paullinus,  v.  Carolinus,  Romae,  Mon. 
S.  Benedict,  ap.  Basil.  S.  Paulli  extr.  moenia),  a 
MS.  of  the  whole  Latin  Bible,  with  the  exception  of 
Baruch.  Vercellone  assigns  it  to  the  9th  century. 
It  follows  the  recension  of  Alcuin,  and  was  one  of 
the  MSS.  used  by  the  original  board  appointed  by 
Pius  IV.  for  the  revision  of  the  Vulgate.  It  has 
been  collated  by  Vercellone. 

D  ( Codex  Vallicellianus  olim  Statianus,  Romae, 
Bibl.  Vallicell.  Orat.  B.  vi.),  an  Alcuinian  MS.  of  the 
Bible  also  used  by  the  Roman  correctors,  of  the  same 
date  (or  a  little  older)  and  character  as  C.  Com  p. 
Vallarsi,  Praef.  ad  ffieron.  ix.  15  (ed.  Migne),  and 
note  h,  p.  1703.  Collated  by  Vercellone. 

E  (Codex  Ottobonianus  olim  Cervinianus,  Vatic. 
60),  a  MS.  of  a  portion  of  the  0.  T.,  imperfect  at 
the  beginning,  and  ending  with  Judg.  xiii.  20.  It 
is  of  the  8th  century,  and  gives  a  text  older  than 
Alcuin's  recension.  It  contains  also  important 
fragments  of  the  Old  Version  of  Genesis  and  Exodus 
published  by  Vercellone  in  his  Variae  Lectiones,  i. 
Coll.  by  Vercellone. 

F  (Romae,  Coll.  SS.  Blasii  et  Caroli),  a  MS.  of 
the  entire  Latin  Bible  of  the  10th  century.  It  fol 
lows,  in  the  main,  the  recension  of  Alcuin,  with 
some  variations,  and  contains  the  Roman  Psalter, 
Coll.  by  Vercellone. 

G  (Romae,  Coll.  SS.  Blasii  et  Caroli),  a  MS.  oi 
the  13th  century,  of  the  common  late  type.  Coll. 
by  Vercellone. 

H,  L,  P,  Q,  are  used  by  Vercellone  to  mark  the 
readings  given  by  Martianay,  Hentenius,  Castel- 
lanus,  and  R.  Stephanus,  in  editions  of  the  Vulgate. 

I,  Saec.  xiii.  Collated  in  part  by  C.  J.  Bauer, 
Eichhorn,  Eepertorium,  xvii. 

K  (Monast.  SS.  Trin.  Cavae),  a  most  important 
MS.  of  the  whole  Bible,  belonging  to  the  monastery 
of  La  Cava,  near  Salerno.  An  exact  copy  of  it 
was  made  for  the  Vatican  Library  (num.  8484) 
by  the  command  of  Leo  XII.,  and  this  has  been 
used  by  Vercellone  for  the  books  after  Leviticus. 
For  the  three  first  books  of  the  Pentateuch  he  had 
only  an  imperfect  collation.  The  MS.  belongs  to 
the  6th  or  7th  century  (Mai,  Nova  Patrum  Bibl. 
i.  2,  7;  SpiciL  Rom.  ix.  Praef.  xxiii.),  and  pre 
sents  a  peculiar  text.  Tischendorf  has  quoted  it  on 
1  John  v.  7,  8. 

M,  N,  0,  are  Correctoria  in  the  Vatican  Libraiy. 

R,  S  (Romae,  Coll.  SS.  Blasii  et  Caroli),  Saec 
xiv.,  of  the  common  late  type  given  in  the  editions 
of  the  15th  century.  T.  Saec.  x.,  xi. ;  U.  Saec.  xii., 
two  MSS.  of  the  type  of  the  recension  of  Alcuin. 

V  (Romae,  Coll.  SS.  Blasii  et  Caroli),  Saec.  xiii., 
akin  to  F. 

These  MSS.,  of  which  Vercellone  promises  com 
plete  collations  thus  represent  the  three  great  types, 


command  of  Sixtufi  V.,  and  the  Sixtine  correctors  j  of  the  Hieronymian  text:  the  original  text  in  various 


set  a  high  value  upon  its  readings:  e.g.  Gen. 
4 ,  The  collation  of  Palomares  was  published  by 
Bianchini  (Vindiciae,  pp.  IT.  ff.),  from  whom  it 
has  been  reprinted  by  Migne  (ffieron.  Opp.  x.  875 
ff.).  Vercellone  has  made  use  of  the  original  coi- 


stages  of  decadence  (A,  B,  K)  ;  the  recension  of  Al 
cuin  (C,  D,  F,  T,  U,  V)  ;  and  the  current  later  text 
(E,  G,  R,  S).  But  though  perhaps  no  MS.  wiil 
evor  surpass  A  in  geneiul  purity,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  many  more  MSS.,  representing  the  ante- 


lation  preserved  in  the  Vatican  Library,  which  is  j  Alcuinian  text,  may  yet  be  examined, 
not  always  correctly  transcribed  by  Bianchini ;  and  31.  Martianay,  in  his  edition  of  the  Divina  Bib- 
at  the  same  time  he  had  noted  the  various  readings  j  liotheca,  quotes,  among  others,  the  following  MSS., 
which  have  been  neglected  owing  to  the  difference  i  but  he  uses  them  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  impossible 


between  the  Louvain  and  Clementine  texts.  The 
MS.  contains  all  the  Latin  Bible  (the  Psalter  from 
the  Hebrew),  with  the  exception  of  Baruch.  A 
6ew  collation  of  the  MS.  is  still  desirable ;  and  for 


to  determine  throughout  the  reading  of  any  par 
ticular  MS.:— 

Codex  Memmianus,  Saec.  x. 

Codex  Carcassonensis,  Saec.  x. 


17TS. 

PLI 


CTNTOOTBIT 

if  u  rsex&uoB  tr«f  ecrroo 

•  LUW  TATCCrrp  ATRFS 

0  1CU  1*  T  M  O  U  •  pWJ  0>W8 


lApu  JiLi  c 


(.Brit.  Mui-Addlt. 


3.  8U»7li«n*—  (Si.  CuthbertX  at  John.  > 


ili 


um 


er  VAioU*  s  siv  enacts 


AIT 

acse  ibo>  <*por> 


SPECIMENS    OF    UNCIAL    MSB.    OF  THE    LATIN    BIBLE 


VULGATE,  THE 

Codex  Sangermanensis  (1),  Saec.  x. 
Codex  Regius,  3503-4. 
Codex  Sangermanensis  (2),  a  fragment. 
Codex  Narbonensis.      (Index  MSS.  Codd. 

Hieron.  ix.  pp.  135  ff.  ed.  Migne.) 
Tc  these,  Vallarsi,  in  his  revised  edition,  adds  a 
collation,  more  or  less   complete,  of  other  MSS. 
for  the  Pentateuch  (Joshua,  Judges) — of 
Cod.  Palatinus,  3. 
Cod.  Urbinas. 
For  the  Books  of  Samuel  and  Kings. 

Cod.  Veronensis,  a  MS.  of  the  very  highest 
value.     (Comp.  Vallarsi,  Praef.  19  ft',  ed. 
Migne.) 
For  the  Psalms. 

Codd.  Reg.  Suec.  ii.  1286. 

Cod.  Vatic.  154. 

Cod.  S.  Crucis  (or  104,  Cistcrciensis),  (the 

most  valuable). 
For  Daniel. 

Cod.  Palat.  3. 
Cod.  Vatic.  333. 
For  Esther,  Tobit,  and  Judith. 
Cod.  Reg.  Suec.  7. 
Cod.  Vatic.  Palat.  24. 

But  of  all  these  only  special  readings  are  known. 
Other  MSS.  which  deserve  examination  are : — 

1.  Brit.    Mus.    Addit.     10,    546.       Saec.    ix. 
(Charlemagne's  Bible)  an  Alcuinian  copy.     Comp. 
p.  1704,  note  m. 

2.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  1  E,  vii.  viii.     Saec.  ix.  x. 
(Bentley's  MS.  R).« 

3.  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  24,142.    Saec.  ix.  x.     (Im 
portant  :  apparently  taken  from  a  much  older  copy. 
The  Psalter  is  Jerome's  Version  of  the  Hebrew.    The 
Apocryphal  books  are  placed  after  the  Hagiographa, 
with    the  heading  :    Incipit  quartus   ordo   eorum 
librorum  qui  in  Veteri  Testamento  extra  Canonem 
Hebraeoi-um  sunt.     The  MS.  begins  Gen.  xlix.  6.) 


VULGATE,  THE 


1711 


f  Bcntley  procured  collations  of  upwards  of  sixty 
Fnglish  and  French  Latin  MSS.  of  the  N.  T.,  which  are 
still  preserved  among  his  papers  in  Trin.  Coll.  Cambridge, 
B.  17,  5,  and  B.  17, 14.  A  list  of  these,  as  given  by  Bentley, 
is  printed  in  Ellis's  Pentleii  Critica  Sacra,  pp.  xxxv.  ff. 
I  have  identified  and  noticed  the  English  MSS.  below 
(comp.  p.  1712).  Of  Bibles  Bentley  gives  more  or  less 
complete  collations  of  the  N.  T.  from  Paris.  Bibl.  Reg. 
3562  (A.D.  876)  ;  3561,  Saec.  ix. ;  3563-4,  Saec.  ix. ;  35642, 
Saec.  ix.,  x.  All  appear  to  be  Alcuinian. 

Sir  F.  Madden  has  given  a  list  of  the  chief  MSS.  of  the 
Latin  Bible  (19  copies)  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine, 
1836,  pp.  58-0  ff.  This  list,  however,  might  be  increased. 

3  For  all  critical  purposes  the  Latin  texts  of  this 
edition  are  worthless.  In  one  chapter  taken  at  random 
(Mark  viii.)  there  are  seventeen  errors  in  the  text  of  the 
Lindisfarne  MS.,  including  the  omission  of  one  line  with 
the  corresponding  gloss. 

h  The  accompanying  Plates  will  give  a  good  idea  of 
the  external  character  of  some  of  the  most  ancient  and 
precious  Latin  MSS.  which  the  writer  has  examined.  For 
permission  to  take  the  tracings,  from  which  the  facsimiles 
were  made,  his  sincere  thanks  are  due  to  the  various 
Institutions  in  whose  charge  the  MSS.  are  placed. 

PI.  i.fig.  i.  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  1775,  Matt.  xxi.  30,  31,  Eo 
do  mine— et  me[retr  ices'].  This  MS.  (like  figs.  2, 3)  exhibits 
the  arrangement  of  the  text  in  lines  (versus,  on^oi)-  The 
original  reading  novissimus  has  been  changed  by  a  late 
hand  into  primus.  A  characteristic  error  of  sound  will  be 
noticed,  ibit  for  ivit  (6  for  v),  which  occurs  also  in  fig.  2. 

Fig.  2.  Brit.  Mus.  Add.  5463.  Matt.  xxi.  30,  31,  ait— 
ncvissimus.  This  magnificent  MS.  shews  the  beginning 
ol  contraction  (duob")  and  punctuation 


4.  Vrit.  Mus.  Harl.  2805  to  Psalms  with  some 
lacunae.     Saec.  ix. 

5.  Brit.  Mus.  Egerton  1046.    Saec.  viii.    Prov. 
Eccles.  Cant.    Sap.  Ecclus.    (with  some  lacunae). 
Good  Vulgate. 

6.  Lambeth,  3,  4.     Saec.  xii. 
32.  ii.  MSS.  of  the  N.  T%. 

A,  3,  0,  D,  F,  &c.,  as  enumerated  before.  To 
these  must  be  added  the  Codex  Fuldensis  of  the 
whole  N.  T.,  which,  however,  contains  the  Gospels 
in  the  form  of  a  Harmony.  The  text  of  the  MS.  is 
of  nearly  equal  value  with  that  of  A,  and  both  seem 
to  have  been  derived  from  the  same  source  (Tischdf. 
Prolegg.  Cod.  Am.  p.  xxiii.).  The  MS.  has  been 
collated  by  Lachmann  and  Buttmann,  and  a  com 
plete  edition  is  in  preparation  by  E.  Ranke. 

Other  Vulgate  MSS.  of  parts  of  the  N.  T.  have 
been  examined  more  or  less  carefully..  Of  the 
Gospels,  Tischendorf  (Proleg.  ccxlix.  ff.)  gives 
a  list  of  a  considerable  number,  which  have  been 
examined  very  imperfectly.  Of  the  more  important 
of  these  the  best  known  are : — 

For.  Prag.  (at  Prague  and  Venice).  Published 
by  Bianchini,  in  part  after  Dobrowsky. 

Harl.  (Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  1775).  Saec.  vii.  Coll 
in  part  by  Griesbach  (Sytnb.  Grit.  i.  305  ff.). 

Per.  Fragments  of  St.  Luke,  edited  by  Bianchini. 

Brit.  Mus.  Cotton.  Nero  D,  iv.  Saec.  viii. 
(Bentl.  Y).  The  Lindisfarne  (St.  Cuthbert)  Gospels 
with  interlinear  Northumbrian  gloss.  Ed.  by  Ste 
venson,  for  Surtees  Society  (St.  Matt. ;  St.  Mark). 
The  Northumbrian  gloss  by  Bouterwek,  1857. 
Stevenson  has  added  a  collation  of  the  Latin  of  the 
Rushworth  Gospels  «  (p.  1695,  No.  S). 

The  following,  among  many  others  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  deserve  examination  :h — 
(].)  Of  the  Gospels. 

1.  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  1775.  Saec.  vii.     (Gries 
bach 's  Harl.   Bentley's  Z).      A  new   anu 


Fig.  3.  Stonyhurst.  John  xix.  15-17,  non  habemus  — 
crucem.  This  MS.,  unlike  the  former,  seems  to  have 
been  prepared  for  private  use.  It  is  written  throughout 
with  the  greatest  regularity  and  care.  The  large  capitals 
probably  indicate  the  beginnings  of  membra  (KU^O).  The 
words  are  here  separated. 

Fig.  4.  Oxf.  Bodl.  3418.  Acts  viii.  36,  37,  tt  ait— 
stare. 

PI.  ii.  Fig.  1.  Cambr.  Univ  Libr.  Kk.  i.  24.  John  v. 
4,  sanus  fiebat— homo  ibi.  This  MS.  offers  a  fine  ex 
ample  of  the  semi-uncial  "Irish"  character,  with  the 
characteristic  dotted  capitals,  which  seems  to  have  been 
used  widely  in  the  8th  century  throughout  Ireland  and 
central  and  northern  England.  The  text  contains  a  most 
remarkable  instance  of  the  incorporation  of  a  marginal 
gloss  into  the  body  of  the  book  (hoc  in  Greets  exemplari- 
bus  non  habetur),  without  any  mark  of  separation  by 
the  original  hand.  This  clause  also  offers  a  distinct  proof 
of  the  revision  of  the  copy  from  which  the  MS.  was  de 
rived  by  Greek  MSS.  The  contraction  for  autem  is 
worthy  of  notice. 

Fig.  2.  Brit.  Mus.  Eeg.  1  B.  vii.  Another  type  ol 
"Saxon"  writing. 

Figs.  3,  4.  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  1023.  Matt,  xxvii.  49,  with 
the  addition  Alius  autem— et  sanguis.  Ibid.  1802.  Matt. 
xxi.  30,  31,  et  non  iit—pupli[cani].  Two  characteristic 
specimens  of  later  Irish  writing.  The  contractions  for 
eum,  autem,  ejus,  et,  aqua,  in  fig  3,  and  for  et,  non,  enim* 
quia  in  fig.  4,  are  noticeable. 

Fig.  5.  Hereford  Gospels.  John  i.  3,  4,  faetum  est— 
compraechendeiunt.  Probably  a  British  type  of  the 
"Irish  "  character.  The  symbol  tor  est  (-J-),  and  the  ch 
for  /(,  are  to  be  observed. 


1712 


VULGATE,  THE 


complete   collation    of    this    most   pieciou 
MS.  is  greatly  to  be  desired.     It  contains 
the  Prefaces,   Canons,  and  Sections,  with 
blank  places  for  the  Capitula.1     (Plate  I., 
fig.  1.) 

2.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  1  E.  vi.  Saec.  vii.  (Bent 
ley's  P).     A  very  important  English  MS., 
with  many  old  readings,  Praef.  Can.  (no 
Sections),  Cap.  Mt.  xxviii.  Me.  xii.  (?)  Lc. 
xx.  Joh.  xiv.     Supposed    to   have   formed 
part  of  the  Biblia  Gregoriana  :  Westwood, 
Archaeological  Journal,  xl.  p.  292. 

3.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  1  B.  vii.  Saec.  viii.  (Bent- 
ley's  H).      Another  very   important  MS., 
preserving  an  old  text.k   Praef.  Can.  (Sect.) 
Cap.  Mt.  Ixxxvii.  (sic).  Me.  xlvi.  Lc.  xciv. 
Joh.xlv.    (Plate  II.,  fig.  2.) 

4.  Brit.  Mus.  Cotton.  Otho  C  V.     Saec.  viii. 
(Fragments  of  Matt,  and  Mark.     Bentley's 
<f>).     Injured  by  fire:  restored  and  mounted, 
1848.     The  complement  of  24. 

5.  Brit.  Mus.  Addii.  5463.  Saec.  viii.  (Bent- 
ley's  F).      A  magnificent  (Italian)  uncial 
MS.  with  many  old  readings.    Praef.  Can. 
(Sect.)  Cap.  Mt.  xxviii.  Me.  xiii.  Lc.  xx. 
Joh.  xiv.     (Plate  I.,  fig.  2.) 

6.  Brit.  Mus.    Harl.    2788.    Saec.  viii.,  ix. 
(Codex  aureus  i.  Bentley's  M2).    Good  Vul 
gate. 

7.  Brit.   Mus.   Harl.   2797.    Saec.   viii.   ix. 
(Codex  aureus  ii.)    Vulgate  of  late  type. 

8.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  2  A.  xx.  Saec.  viii.  (Lec- 
tiones  quaedam  ex  Evangeliis.)    Good  Vul 
gate. 

9.  'Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  2790,  cir.  850.     A  fine 
copy,  with  some  old  readings. 

10.  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  2795.  Saec.  ix.    (In  red 
letters.)     Vulgate  of  late  type. 

11.  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  2823.    Saec.  ix.     Good 
Vulgate,  with  versus. 

12.  Brit.   Mus.  Harl   2826.    Saec.  ix.  viii. 
(Bentley's  H,).    Good  Vulgate. 

13.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  1  A,  xviii.    Saec.  ix.  x. 
(Cod.  Athelstani.    Bentley's  0).     Many  old 
and  peculiar  readings. 

14.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  1  D,  iii.    Saec.  x.     Like 
13,  but  most  carelessly  written. 


VULGATE,  THE 

15.  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  11,848.  Saec.  ix.  Care- 
fully   written   and   corrected.     Closely   re- 
sembling  ifO. 

16.  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  11,849.  Saec.  ix.  Vul 
gate  of  late  type. 

17.  Brit.  Mus.  Egerton,  768.  Saec.  ix.     (St. 
Luke  and  St.  John.)    Some  important  read 
ings. 

18.  Brit.  Mus.  Egerton,  873.    Saec.  ix.   Good 
Vulgate.     Praef.  Can.  (Sect.)  Cap.  Matt, 
xxviii.  Me.  xiii.  Lc.  xxi.  Joh.  xiv. 

19.  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  9381.  Saec.  ix.    From 
St.  Petroc's,  Bodmin.     Some  peculiar  read 
ings.  Praef.  Can.  (Sect.)  Tituli.  Mt.  cclii. 
(Cap.  Ixxxiv.  versus  IiDCC.).  Me.  clxxxvi. 
Lc.  cccxl.  Joh.  ccxxvi. 

20.  Brit.  Mus.  Cotton.  Tib.  A,  ii.  Saec.  x. 
(The  Coronation  Book.  Bentley's  E).    Many 
old  readings  in  common  with  1,  3,  5,  but 
without  great  interpolations.™ 

21.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  1  D.  ix.  Saec.  xi.    (Ca 
nute's  Book.   Bentley's  A).    Good  Vulgate. 

22.  Cambridge  Univ.  Libr.  LI.  i.  10.  (Passio 
et  Resurrectio   ex  iv.   Evv.).      Saec.  viii. 
Written  (apparently)  for  Ethelwald,  Bp.  of 
Lindisfarne. 

23.  Cambridge,  C.  C.  C.  Libr.  cclxxxvi.   (iv. 
Gospels,  with  Eusebian  Canons.)    Saec.  vi., 
vii.     Supposed  by  many  to  have  been  sent 
by  Gregory  the  Great  to  Augustine.     Cap. 
Matt,   xxviii.    Mark  xiii.    Luke   xx.    John 
xiv.     Vulgate  with  many  old  readings.    It 
has  been  corrected  by  a  very  pure  Vulgate 
text.     Described  and  some  readings  given 
by  J.  Goodwin,  Publ.  of  Cambr.  Antiqua 
rian  Society,  1847.11 

24.  Cambridge,  C.  C.  C.  Libr.  cxcvii.     (Frag-, 
ments  of  St.  John  and  St.  Luke,  extending 
over  John  i.  1-x.  29,  and  Luke  iv.  5-xxiii. 
26,    with    Eusebian    Canons.)     Saec.   viii. 
The  fragments  of  St.  John  were  published 
by  J.  Goodwin,  I.  c.      A  curiously  mixed 
text,  forming  a  connecting  link  between  the 
"  Irish "  text  and  the  Vulgate,  but  with 
out  any  great  interpolations.      See  No.  4. 
Com  p.  p.  1694. 

25.  Cambridge,    Ti-in.    Coll.    B.    10,  4,    iv. 


>  The  varying  divisions  into  capitula  probably  indicate 
different  families  of  MSS.,  and  deserve  attention,  at  least 
In  important  MSS.  The  terms  breviarium,  capitula, 
breves,  appear  to  be  used  quite  indiscriminately.  One 
term  is  often  given  at  the  beginning  and  another  at  the 
end  of  the  list.  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  9381  gives  tituli  (a  di 
vision  into  smaller  sections)  as  well  as  capitula. 

k  This  MS.  contains  the  addition,  after  Matt.  xx.  28, 
ia  ttie  following  form: — 

Vos  autem  quaoritis  de  modico 
cresccre  et  de  maxima  minui 
Cum  autem  introieretis 

ad  coenam  vocati 
Nollte  recumbere  in  supe 

rioribus  locis        Q  veil  i  at 
Ne  forte  dignior  te  super 

et  acccdens  is  qui  te  invitavit 
Dicat  tibi  adhuc  inferius 
accede  et  confundans 
Si  av.tem  recubueris  in  in 
feriori  loco  et  venerit  hu 
milior  te 

Dicet  tibi  qui  te  invitabit 

Accede  adhuc  superius  tt 

arit  tibi  hoc  utilius. 


The  same  addition  is  given  in  the  first  hand  of  Oxfonl 
Uodl.  857,  and  in  the  second  hand  of  B.M.  Add.  24,142, 
with  the  following  variations:  introieritis,  advenerit, 
invitavit.  In  B.M.  Keg.  A.  xviii.  the  variations  are 
much  more  considerable:  pusillo,  majori  minores  esse, 
introeuntes  autem  et  rogati  ad  coenam,  locis  eminen- 
tioribus,  clarior,  om.  is,  ad  coenam  vocavit,  deorsum,  in 
1.  inf.  rec.,  supertenerit,  ad  coenam  vocavit,  adhuc  sursum 
accede,  om.  hoc. 

1  Bentley  has  also  given  a  collation  of  .inother  Cot- 
tonian  MS.  (Otho,  B.  ix.)  very  similar  to  this,  which 
almost  perished  in  the  fire  in  1731.  Mr.  E.  A.  Bond, 
Deputy  Keeper  of  the  MSS.,  to  whose  kindness  the  writer 
is  greatly  indebted  lor  important  help  in  examining  the 
magnificent  collection  of  Latin  MSS.  in  the  British 
Museum,  has  shown  him  fragments  of  a  few  leaves  of 
this  MS.  which  were  recovered  from  the  wreck  of  the 
fire.  By  a  singular  error  Bentley  calls  this  MS.,  and  not 
Tib.  A.  ii.,  the  Coronation  Book.  Comp.  Smith,  Cotton. 
Cat. 

«  A  complete  edition  of  thk  text,  with  collations  of 
London  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  1775.  Reg.  1  E.  vi.,  1  B.  vii.; 
Addit.  5463 ;  Oxford,  Bodl.  857,  is,  i  believe,  in  prepara 
tion  by  the  Rev.  G.  Williams,  Fellow  of  King1*  Collt^o 
Cambridge. 


i  n 


n 

ilili 
'.Mi 

ii 


VULGATE,  THE 

Gosjels,  Saec.  ix.  (Cap.)  Matt,  xxvii.  Me 
xiii.  Lc.  xxi.  Job.  xiv.  Hood  Vulgate,  with 
some  old  readings.  (Bentley's  T.) 

26.  Cambridge,  Coll.  D.  Joh.  C.  23.      The 
Bendish  Gospels,  Saec.  ix.     Good  Vulgate, 
very  carefully  written. 

27.  Oxford,  Bodl.  857  (D.  2,  14).     Saec.  v-ii. 
Begins,  Matt.  iv.  14,  ut  adim. — ends  John 
xxi.  15,  with  a  lacuna  from  Matt.  viii.  29, 
dicentes  —  ix.     18,   defuncta    est.      Sect. 
Praef.  (Cap.}    Me.  xiii.  Lc.  xx.  Joh.  xiv. 
Closely  akin  to  23« 

28.  Durham,  "  Codex  Evangeliorum  plus  mille 
annorum,  litteris  capitalibus  ex  Bibliotheca 
Dunelmensi."     (Bentley's  K.)     Ends  John 
i.  27. 

29.  Durham,  "  Codex  Evangeliorum  plus  mille 
annorum,  sed  imperfectus."     (Bentley's  £.) 
Begins  Mark  i.  12.     Two  very  important 
MSS.     Both   have  many  old  readings    in 
common  with  1,  3,  4,  5. 

30.  Stonyhurst,    St.     Cuthbert's    St.    John, 
found  in  1105  at  the  head  of  St.  Cuthbert 
when  his  tomb  was  opened.    Saec.  vii.    Very 
pure  Vulgate,  agreeing  with  Cod.  Am.  in 
many  very  remarkable  readings:  e.g.  i.  15, 
dixi  vobis'j  ii.  4,  tibi  et  mihi;  iv.  10,  re- 
spondit  Jesus  dixit ;  iv.  16,  et  veni,  om. 
hue,  &C.P     (Plate  I.  fig.  3.) 

(2.)  Of  the  Acts  and  Epistles  and  Apoc.  :— 

1.  Oxford,  Bodl.    Seld.  30  (Acts).     See  §12, 
(2).     (Plate  I.  fig.  4.) 

2.  Oxford,  Bodl.    Laud.  E,  67  (Epp.  Paul). 
See  §12,  (2). 

3.  Brit.  Mus.,  Harl.  1772.     (Epp.  Paul,  et 
Cath.  (except  3  Jo.  Jud.)  Apoc.).    Saec.  viii. 
Griesbach,  Synib.  Grit.  i.  326  ff.,  a  most  im 
portant  MS.  (Bentley's  M.)     See  §12,  (2). 

4.  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  7551.    (Fragm.  of  Cath. 
Epp.  and  St.  Luke.)    Saec.  viii.   (Bentley's 


VULGATE,  THE  1713 

5.  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  11,852.   Saec.  ix.     Epp 
Paul.  Act.  Cath.  Epp.  Apoc.      Good  Vul 
gate* 

6.  Brit.  Mus.  Reg.  1  A.  xvi.   Saec.  ii.    Good 
Vulgate. 

7.  Cambridge,    Coll.    88.    Trin.   B.    10,   5 
Saec.   ix.       (Collated  by   F.  J.   A.  Hort. 
Bentley's  S.)   In  Saxon  letters:  akin  to  2.' 

8.  Cambridge,  Coll.  88.  Trin.  Cod.  Aug.  (FJ 
Published  by  F.  H.  Scrivener,  1859.8 

9.  "  Codex    ecclesiae   Lincolniensis   800    an 
norum."     (Bentley's  |,  Act.  Apoc.) 

10.  Brit.Mus..R«gr.2F.i.  Saec.xii.  (Bentley's 
B.)      Paul.    Epp.   xiv.  cum   commentario. 
Many  old  readings. 

A  Lectionary  quoted  by  Sabatier  (Saec.  viii.),  and 
the  Mozarabic  Liturgy,  are  also  of  great  critical 
value. 

In  addition  to  MSS.  of  the  Vulgate,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Version  which  was  made  from  it  is  an  im 
portant  help  towards  the  criticism  of  the  text.  Of 
this  the  Heptateuch  and  Job  were  published  by  E. 
Thwaites,  Oxfd.  1699;  the  (Latin-Saxon)  Psalter, 
by  J.  Spelman,  1640,  and  B.  Thorpe,  1835;  the 
Gospels,  by  Archbp.  Parker,  1571,  T.  Marshall, 
1665,  and  more  satisfactorily  by  B.  Thorpe,  1842, 
and  St.  Matt,  by  J.  M.  Kemble  (and  C.  Hardwick) 
with  two  Anglo-Saxon  texts,  formed  on  a  collation 
of  five  MSS.,  and  the  Lindisfarne  text  and  gloss. 
Comp.  also  the  Frankish  Version  of  the  Harmony 
of  Ammonius,  ed.  Schmeller,  1841. 

VII.  THE  CRITICAL  VALUE  OF  THE  LATIN 
VERSIONS. — 33.  The  Latin  Version,  in  its  variom 
forms,  contributes,  as  has  been  already  seen,  more 
or  less  important  materials  for  the  criticism  of  the 
original  texts  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and 
of  the  Common  and  Hexaplaric  texts  of  the  LXX. 
The  bearing  of  the  Vulgate  on  the  LXX.  will  not  be 
noticed  here,  as  the  points  involved  in  the  inquiry 
more  properly  belong  to  the  history  of  the  LXX. 
Little,  again,  need  be  said  on  the  value  of  the 


By  a  very  strange  mistake  Tischendorf  describes  this    of  St.  Paul's  epistles  written  in  a  hand  closely  resembling 

this  is  found  B.M.  Cotton.  Vitell.  C,viii. 

8  From  an  examination  of  Bentley's  unpublished  col 
lations,  it  may  be  well  to  add  that  of  the  eighteen  French 
MSS.,  which  he  caused  to  be  compared  with  the  Clementine 
text  (Lutet.  Paris,  apud  Claudium  Sonnium,  MDCXXVUI. 


MS.  as  "  multorum  Ni.  7*i.  fragmentorum." 

P  It  may  be  interesting  to  give  a  rough  classification  of 
these  MSS.,  all  of  which  the  writer  has  examined  with 
more  or  less  care.  Many  others  of  later  date  may  be 
of  equal  value ;  and  there  are  several  early  copies  in 

private  collections  (as  at  Middlehill)  and  at  Dublin  (e.g.  I  See  Trin.  Coll.  Camb.  B.  17,5),  the  following  are  the  most 
the  (Vulgate)  Book  of  St.   Columba,  Saec.  vii.  West-  j  important,  and  would  repay  a  complete  collation.    The 

writer  has  retained  Bentley's  notation :  some  of  the  MSS. 


wood,  Pal.  Sacra)  which  he  has  been  obliged  to  leave 
unexamined. 

Group  i.  Vulgate  text  approaching  closely  on  the  whole 

to  the  Cod.  Amiat.:  6,  8,  11, 12,  18,  21,  22,  25,  26,  30. 
Gronp  ii.   Vulgate  text  of  a  later  type :  1,  10, 16. 
Group  iii.  A  Vulgate  text  mainly  with  old  readings: 

1,  9,  17,  19,  23,  27. 
Group  iv.  A  mixed  text,  in  which  the  old  readings  are 

nuTnerous  and  important:  2,  3,  4  (24),  5, 13,  14,  15, 

20,  23,  29. 

A  more  complete  collation  might  modify  this  arrange 
ment,  but  it  is  (I  believe)  approximately  true. 

q  This  MS.  contains  the  Epistle  to  the  Laodicenes  after 
that  to  the  Hebrews,  and  also. the  addition  1  Joh.  v.  7, 
in  the  following  form :  Quia  tres  sunt  qui  testimonium 
dant  sps,  et  aqua,  et  sanguis,  et  tres  unum  sunt.  Sicut  in 
coelo  tres  sunt,  pater  verbum  et  sps,  tt  tres  unum  sunt. 
It  is  remarkable  that  the  two  other  oldest  authorities  in 
support  of  this  addition,  also  support  the  Epistle  to  the 
Laodicenes— the  M3.  of  La  Cava,  and  the  Speculum  pub 
lished  by  Mai. 

'  A  fragment  containing  prefatory  excerpts  to  a  copy 

VOL.  HI. 


may  probably  have  passed  into  other  collections. 

a.  S.  Germani  a  Pratis  Saec.  viii.  Gold  uncials  on 
purple  vellum.  Matt.  vi.  2,  ut — to  end.  Mark  ix, 
47,  eice— xi.  13,  vidisset.  xii.  23,  resurrexerint—to 
end.  Good  Vulgate. 

H.  S.  Germani  a  Pratis.  (gr  of  Tischdf.  &c.)  A  very 
important  MS.,  containing  part  of  O.T.,  the  whole 
of  N.T.«(ofGallican  text?),  and  "  tria  folia  Pas- 
toris."  Existing  collations  are  very  incomplete. 
At  the  end  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which 
precedes  the  Shepherd,  the  MS.  has  (according  to 
Bentley)  the  following  note :  Explicit  ad  HeUraeos 
Lege  cum  pace.  Bibliotheca  Hieronimi  Prtsbi- 
teri  Bethleem  secundum  Graecum  ex  emendatis.  mie 
exemplaribus  conlatus  (sic). 

v.  S.  Germani  a  Pratis,  1,  2,  A.D.  809. 

o.  Bibl.  Begiae,  Paris.  3706.  4  Gosp.  Saec.  ix.  Many 
old  readings. 

TT.  Bibl.  Begiae,  Paris.  3706  (2.3).  4  Gosp.,  with  some 
lacunae.  Saec.  viii.  Many  old  readings. 

p.  S,  Martini  Turonensis.    Lit.  aureis.    Saec.  viii.   An 
important  MS.  (Gallican  ?;.    Comp.  p.  1695,  note  * 
5   Ii 


1714 


VULGATE,  THE 


translation  of  Jerome  for  the  textual  criticism  ol 
the  0.  T.  As  a  whole  Ijs  work  is  a  remarkable 
monument  of  the  substantial  identity  of  the  Hebrew 
..ext  of  the  4th  century  with  the  present  Masoretic 
text;  and  the  want  of  trustworthy  materials  for 
the  exact  determination  of  the  Latin  text  itself,  has 
made  all  detailed  investigation  of  his  readings  im 
possible  or  unsatisfactory.  The  passages  which 
were  quoted  in  the  premature  controversies  of  the 
l<vth  and  17th  centuries,  to  prove  the  corruption  of 
the  Hebrew  or  Latin  text,  are  commonly  of  little 
importance  as  far  as  the  text  is  concerned.  It  will 
be  enough  to  notice  those  only  which  are  quoted  by 
Whitaker,  the  worthy  antagonist  of  Bellarmin 
(Disputation  on  Scripture,  pp.  163,  ff.,  ed.  Park. 
Soc.). 

Gen.  i.  30,  om.  all  green  herbs  (in  Vet.  L.)  ; 
iii.  15,  fpsa  conteret  caput  tuum.  There  seems 
good  reason  to  believe  that  the  original  reading  was 
ipsc.  Comp.  Vercellone,  ad  loc.  See  also  Gen.  iv. 
16. 

iii.  17,  in  opere  tuo.     TTOJO  for  *pU)D. 

iv.  16,  om.  Nod,  which  is  specially  noticed  in 
Jerome's  Quaest.  ffebr. 

vi.  6,  add.  et  praecavens  in  futurum.  The  words 
are  a  gloss,  and  not  a  part  of  the  Vrulgate  text. 

viii.  4,  vicesimo  septimo,  for  septimo  decimo. 
So  LXX. 

Id.  7,  egrediebatur  et  non  revertebatur.  The 
non  is  wanting  in  the  best  MSS.  of  the  Vulgate, 
and  has  been  introduced  from  the  LXX. 

xi.  13,  trecentis  tribus,  for  quadringentis  tribus. 
So  LXX. 

ix.  1,  fundetur  sanguis  illius.     Om.  "  by  man." 

xxxvii.  2.  Sedecim  for  septemdecim.  Probably 
a  transcript ural  error. 

xxxix.  6,  om.     "  Wherefore  he  left — Joseph." 

xl.  5,  om.     "  The  butler — prison." 

xlix.  10.     Comp.  Vercellone  ad  loc. 

33,  om. 

In  xxiv.  6,  xxvii.  5,  xxxiv.  29,  the  variation 
is  probably  in  the  rendering  only.  The  remaining 
passages,  ii.  8  ;  iii.  6 ;  iv.  6,  13,  26  ;  vi.  3  ;  xiv.  3  ; 
xvii.  16;  xix.  18;  xxi.  9;  xxiv.  22;  xxv.  34; 
xxvii.  33  ;  xxxi.  32  ;  xxxviii.  5,  23:  xlix.  22,  con 
tain  differences  of  interpretation ;  and  in  xxxvi.  24, 
xli.  45,  the  Vulgate  appears  to  have  preserved  im 
portant  traditional  renderings. 

34.  The  examples  which  have  been  given  show 
the  comparatively  narrow  limits  within  which  the 
Vulgate  can  be  used  for  the  criticism  of  the  Hebrew 
text.     The  Version  was  made  at  a  time  when  the 
present  revision  was  already  established ;  and  the 
freedom  which  Jerome  allowed  himself  in  rendering 
the  sense  of  the  original,  often  leaves  it  doubtful 
whether  in  reality  a  various  reading  is  represented 
by  the  peculiar  form  which  he  gives  to  a  particular 
passage.     In  the  N.  T.  the  case  is  far  different. 
In  this  the  critical  evidence  of  the  Latin  is  separable 
into  two  distinct  elements,  the  evidence  of  the  Old 
Latin  and  that  of  the  Hieronymian  revision.     The 
latter,  where  it  differs  from  the  former,  represents 
the  received  Greek  text  of  the  4th  century,  and  so 
far   claims  a  respect  (speaking   roughly)  equal  to 
thit  due  to  a  first-class  Greek  MS. ;  and  it  may  be 
faMy  concluded,  that  any  reading  opposed  to  the 
combined  testimony  of  the  oldest  Greek  MSS.  and 
the  true  Vulgate  text,  either  arose  later  than  the 
4th  century,  or  was  previously  confined  within  a 
very  narrow  range.     The  corrections  of  Jerome  do 
•lot  carry  us  back  beyond  the  age  of  existing  Greek 
MSS.,  but,  at  the  same  time,  they  supplement  the 


VULGATE,  THE 

original  testimony  of  MSS.  by  an  independent  w>(r 
ness.  The  substance  of  the  Vulgate,  and  the  copies 
of  the  Old  Latin,  have  a  more  venerable  authority. 
The  origin  of  the  Latin  Version  dates,  as  has  been 
seen,  from  the  earliest  age  of  the  Christian  Churcn. 
The  translation,  as  a  whole,  was  practically  fixed 
and  cun-ent  more  than  a  century  before  the  tran 
scription  of  the  oldest  Greek  MS.  Thus  it  is  a 
witness  to  a  text  more  ancient,  and,  therefore, 
caeteris  paribus,  more  valuable,  than  is  represented 
by  any  other  authority,  unless  the  Peshito  in  it? 
present  form  be  excepted.  This  primitive  text  was 
not,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  free  from  serious 
corruptions  (at  least  in  the  synoptic  Gospels)  from 
the  first,  and  was  variously  corrupted  afterward*. 
But  the  corruptions  proceeded  in  a  different  direc 
tion  and  by  a  different  law  from  those  of  Greek 
MSS.,  and,  consequently,  the  two  authorities 
mutually  correct  each  other.  What  is  the  nature 
of  these  corruptions,  and  what  the  character  and 
value  of  Jerome's  revision,  and  of  the  Old  Latin, 
will  be  seen  from  some  examples  to  be  given  in 
detail. 

35.  Before  giving  these,  however,  one  prelimi 
nary  remark  must  be  made.  In  estimating  the 
critical  value  of  Jerome's  labours,  it  is  necessary 
to  draw  a  distinction  between  his  different  works. 
His  mode  of  proceeding  was  by  no  means  uniform  ; 
and  the  importance  of  his  judgment  varies  with 
the  object  at  which  he  aimed.  The  three  versions 
of  the  Psalter  represent  completely  the  three  dif 
ferent  methods  which  he  followed.  At  first  he 
was  contented  with  a  popular  revision  of  the 
current  text  (the  Roman  Psalter)  ;  then  he  insti 
tuted  an  accurate  comparison  between  the  current 
text  and  the  original  (the  Gallican  Psalter)  ;  and 
in  the  next  place  he  translated  independently, 
giving  a  direct  version  of  the  original  (the  Hebrew 
Psalter).  These  three  methods  follow  one  an 
other  in  chronological  order,  and  answer  to  the 
wider  views  which  Jerome  gradually  gained  of  the 
functions  of  a  biblical  scholar.  The  revision  of  the 
N.  T.  belongs  unfortunately  to  the  first  period.  When 
it  was  made,  Jerome  was  as  yet  unused  to  the  task, 
and  he  was  anxious  not  to  arouse  popular  prejudice. 
His  aim  was  little  more  than  to  remove  obvious 
interpolations  and  blunders  ;  and  in  doing  this  he 
likewise  introduced  some  changes  of  expression 
which  softened  thje  roughness  of  the  old  version,' 
and  some  which  seemed  to  be  required  for  the  true: 
expression  of  the  sense  (e.g.  Matt.  vi.  11,  super- 
substantialem  for  quotidianum] .  But  while  he 
accomplished  much,  he  failed  to  cany  out  even  this 
limited  purpose  with  thorough  completeness.  A 
rendering  which  he  commonly  altered  was  still  suf 
fered  to  remain  in  some  places  without  any  obvious 
reason  (e.  g.  fj.varr'fjpiov,  8o|a£«,  afyavifa} ;  and  . 
the  textual  emendations  which  he  introduced  (apart 
from  the  removal  of  glosses)  seem  to  have  been 
made  after  only  a  partial  examination  of  Greek 
copies,  and  those  probably  few  in  number.  The 
result  was  such  as  might  have  been  expected. 
The  greater  corruptions  of  the  Old  Latin,  whether 
by  addition  or  omission,  are  generally  corrected 
in  the  Vulgate.  Sometimes,  also,  Jerome  gives 
the  true  reading  in  details  which  had  been  lost 
in  the  Old  Latin:  Matt.  i.  25,  cognoscebat ;  ii 
23,  prophctas;  v.  22,  om.  et/crj ;  ix.  15,  lugere , 
John  iii.  8;  Luke  ii.  33,  6  irar-fip  ;  iv.  12:  but 
not  rarely  >he  leaves  a  false  reading  unconnected 
(Matt.  ix.  28,  vobis;  x.  42),  or  adopts  a  false 
eading  where  the  true  one  was  also  current ;  Matt. 


VULGATE,  THE 

rvi.  6;  rviii.  29;  xix.  4;  John  i.  3,  16;  vi.  64. 
Even  In  graver  variations  he  is  not  exempt  from 
error.  The  famous  pericope,  John  vii.  53-viii. 
11,  which  had  gained  only  a  partial  entrance  into 
the  Old  Latin,  is  certainly  established  in  the  Vulgate. 
The  additions  in  Matt,  xxvii.  35,  Luke  iv.  19, 
John  v.  4,  1  Pet.  iii.  22,  were  already  generally 
or  widely  received  in  the  Latin  copies,  and  Jerome 
left  them  undisturbed.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
Mark  xvi.  9-20 ;  but  the  "  heavenly  testimony  " 
(1  John  v.  7),  which  is  found  in  the  editions  of  the 
Vulgate,  is,  beyond  all  doubt,  a  later  interpolation, 
due  to  an  African  gloss;  and  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  the  interpolations  in  Acts  viii.  37, 
ix.  5,  were  really  erased  by  Jerome,  though  they 
maintained  their  place  in  the  mass  of  Latin  copies. 

36.  Jerome's  revision  of  the   Gospels   was   far 
more  complete  than  that  of  the  remaining  parts  of 
the  N.  T.     It  is,  indeed,  impossible,  except  in  the 
Gospels,  to  determine  any  substantial  difference  in 
the  Greek  texts  which  are  represented  by  the  Old 
and  Hieronymian  Versions.     Elsewhere  the  differ 
ences,  as  far  as  they  can  be  satisfactorily  estab 
lished,   are   differences  of  expression  and   not   of 
text ;  and  there  is  no  sufficient  reason  to  believe  that 
the  readings  which  exist  in  the  best  Vulgate  MSS., 
when  they  are  at  variance  with  other  Latin  autho 
rities,  rest  upon  the  deliberate  judgment  of  Jerome. 
On  the  contrary,  his  Commentaries  show  that,  he 
used   copies   differing  widely   from   the   recension 
which  passes  under  his  name,  and  even  expressly 
condemned  as  faulty  in  text  or   rendering  many 
passages  which  are  undoubtedly  part  of  the  Vulg,-ate. 
Thus  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Galatians  he  con 
demns  the  additions,  iii.  1,  veritati  non  obedire; 
v.  21,  homicidia  ;  and  the  translations,  i.  16,  non 
acquievi  carni  et  sotnguini(for  non  contuli  cum  carne 
et  sanguine] ;  v.   9,   modicum,  fermentum   tofam 
massam  corrumpit  (for  modicum  fermentum  totam 
conspersionem  fermentat]  ;  v.   11,  evacuatum  est 
(for  cessavit) ;  vi.  3,  seipsum  (seipse)  seducit  (for 
mentem  suam  decipit).     And  in  the  text  of  the 
Epistle  which  he  gives  there  are  upwards  of  fifty 
readings  which  differ  from  the  best  Vulgate  text,  of 
which  about  ten  are  improvements  (iv.  21  ;  v.  13, 
23;  vi.  13,  15,  16,  &c.).  as  many  more  inferior 
readings  (iv.  17,  26,  30,  &e.),  and  the  remainder 
differences  of  expression:  malo  for  nequam,  recto 
pede  incedunt  for   recte    ambulant,    rursum  for 
iterum.     The  same   differences  are  found  in  his 
Commentaries  on  the  other   Epistles:  ad  Ephes. 
i.  6;  iii.  14;  iv.  19;  v.  22,  31:  ad  Tit.  iii.  15. 
From  this  it  will  be  evident  that  the  Vulgate  text 
of  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles  does  not  represent  the 
critical  opinion  of  Jerome,  even  in  the  restricted 
sense  in  which  this  is  true  of  the  text  of  the  Gospels. 
But  still  there  are  some  readings  which  may  with 
probability  be  referred  to  his  revision:  Acts  xiii.  18, 
mores    eorum    sustinwit    for   nutriit    (aluit)  eos. 
Rom.  xii.  11,  Domino  for  tempori.     Eph.  iv.  19, 
illwminabit    te   Christus   for  continges   Christum. 
Gal.  ii.  5,  neqtte  ad  horam  cessimus  for  ad  horam 
cessimus.     1  Tim.  v.  1 9,  add.  nisi  sub  duobus  out 
tribus  testibus. 

37.  The  chief  corruptions  of  the  Old  Latin  con 
sist  in  the  introduction  of  glosses.     These,  like  the 
corresponding  additions  in  the  Codex  Bezae  (D,), 
are  sometimes  indications  of  the  venerable  antiquity 
of  the  source  from  which  it  was  derived,  and  seem 
to  carry  us  back  to  the  time  when  the  evangelic 
tradition  had  not  yet  been  wholly  superseded  by 
the  written  Gospels.     Such  are  the  interpolations 


VULGATE,  THE 


1715 


at  Matt.  iii.  15;  xx.  28;  Luke  iii.  '^2  (compare 
also  LuKe  i.  46;  xu.  38);  but  more  frequently 
they  are  derived  from  parallel  passages,  either  by 
direct  transference  of  the  words  of  another  evangelist, 
or  by  the  reproduction  of  the  substance  of  them. 
These  interpolations  are  frequent  in  the  synoptic 
Gospels ;  Matt.  iii.  3 ;  Mark  xvi.  4 ;  Luke  i.  29, 
vi.  10;  ix.  43,  50,  54  ;  xi.  2  ;  and  occur  also  in 
St.  John  vi.  56,  &c.  But  in  St.  John  the  Old  Latin 
more  commonly  errs  by  defect  than  by  excess.  Thus 
it  omits  clauses  certainly  or  probably  genuine:  iii. 
31 ;  iv.  9 ;  v.  36  ;  vi.  23  ;  viii.  58,  &c.  Some 
times,  again,  the  renderings  of  the  Greek  text  are 
free:  Luke  5.  29  ;  ii.  15;  vi.  21.  Such  variations, 
however,  are  rarely  likely  to  mislead.  Otherwise 
the  Old  Latin  text  of  the  Gospels  is  of  the  highest 
value.  There  are  cases  where  some  Latin  MSS. 
combine  with  one  or  two  other  of  the  most  ancient 
witnesses  to  support  a  reading  which  has  been 
obliterated  in  the  mass  of  authorities  :  Luke  vi.  1 ; 
Mark  xvi.  9  ff. ;  v.  3  ;  and  not  unfrequently  (comp. 
§  35)  it  preserves  the  true  text  which  is  lost  in  the 
Vulgate:  Luke  xiii.  19;  xiv.  5;  xv.  28. 

38.  But  the  places  where  the  Old  Latin  and  the 
Vulgate  have  separately  preserved  the  true  reading 
are  rare,  when  compared  with  those  in  which  they 
combine  with  other  ancient  witnesses  against  the 
great  mass  of  authorities.     Every  chapter  of  the 
Gospels  will  furnish  instances  of  this  agreement, 
which  is  often  the  more  striking  because  it  exists 
only  in  the  original  text  of  the  Vulgate,  while  the 
later  copies  have  been  corrupted  in  the  same  way  as 
the  later  Greek  MSS.:  Mark  ii.   16;   iii.  25  (?) ; 
viii.  13,  &c. ;  Rom.  vi.  8  ;  xvi.  24,  &c.     In  the  first 
few  chapters  of  St.  Matthew,  the  following  may  be 
noticed:  i.  18  (bis)]  ii.  18;  iii.  10;  v.  4,  5,  11, 

30,  44,47;  vi.  5,  13;  vii.  10,  14,  29;  viii.  32 
(x.   8),  &c.     It  is   useless   to   multiply  examples 
which  occur  equally  in  every  part  of  the  N.  T. : 
Luke  ii.  14,  40  ;  iv.  2,  &c. ;  John  i.  52  ;  iv.  42, 
51;  v.  16;  viii.  59;  xiv.  17,  &c. ;  Acts  ii.  30, 

31,  37,  &c. ;  l^Cor.  i.  1,  15,  22,  27,  &c.     On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  passages  (comp.  §  35)  in  which 
the  Latin  authorities  combine  in  giving  a  false  read 
ing:  Matt.  vi.  15  ;  vii.  10  ;  viii.  28  (?),  &c. ;  Luke 
iv.  17;  xiii.  23,  27,  31,  &c. ;  Acts  iii.  20,  &c. ; 
1  Tim.  iii.  16,  &c.     But  these  are  comparatively 
few,  and  commonly  marked  by  the  absence  of  all 
Eastern  corroborative  evidence.     It  may  be  impos 
sible  to  lay  down  definite  laws  for  the  separation  of 
readings  which  are  due  to  free  rendering,  or  care 
lessness,  or  glosses,  but  in  practice  there  is  little  diffi 
culty  in   distinguishing   the  variations   which   are 
due  to  the  idiosyncrasy  (so  to  speak)  of  the  Version 
from  those  which  contain  real  traces  of  the  original 
text.     And  when  every  allowance  has  been  made 
for  the  rudeness  of  the  original  Latin,  and  the  haste 
of  Jerome's  revision,  it  can  scarcely  be  denied  that 
the  Vulgate  is  not  only  the  most  venerable  but  also 
the  most  precious  monument  of  Latin  Christianity. 
For  ten  centuries  it  preserved  in  Western  Europe  a 
text  of  Holy  Scripture  far  purer  than  that  which  was 
current  in  the  Byzantine  Church ;  and  at  the  revival 
of  Greek  learning,  guided  the  way  towards  a  revision 
of  the  late  Greek  text,  in  which  the  best  biblical 
critics  have  followed  the  steps  of  Bentley,  with  ever- 
deepening  conviction  of  the  supreme  importance  of 
the   coincidence   of  the   earliest  Greek   and  Latin 
authorities. 

39.  Of  the  interpretative  value  of  the  Vulgate 
little  need  be  said.     There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
in  dealing  with  the  N.  T.,  at  least,  we  are  now 

5  R  2 


1716 


VULGATE,  THE 


in  possession  of  means  infinitely  move  varied  and 
better  suited  to  the  right  elucidation  of  the  text 
than  could  have  been  enjoyed  by  the  original 
African  translators.  It  is  a  false  humility  to  rate 
as  nothing  the  inheritance  of  ages.  If  the  inves 
tigation  of  the  laws  of  language,  the  clear  per 
ception  of  principles  of  grammar,  the  accurate 
investigation  of  words,  the  minute  comparison  of 
ancient  texts,  the  wide  study  of  antiquity,  the 
long  lessons  of  experience,  have  contributed  nothing 
towards  a  fuller  understanding  of  Holy  Scripture, 
all  trust  in  Divine  Providence  is  gone.  If  we  are 
not  in  this  respect  far  in  advance  of  the  simple 
peasant  or  half-trained  scholar  of  North  Africa,  or 
even  of  the  laborious  student  of  Bethlehem,  we 
have  proved  false  to  their  example,  and  dishonour 
them  by  our  indolence.  It  would  be  a  thankless 
task  to  quote  instances  where  the  Latin  Version 
renders  the  Greek  incorrectly.  Such  faults  arise 
most  commonly  from  a  servile  adherence  to  the 
exact  words  of  the  original,  and  thus  that  which 
is  an  error  in  rendering  proves  a  fresh  evidence  of 
the  scrupulous  care  with  which  the  translator 
generally  followed  the  text  before  him.  But  while 
the  interpreter  of  the  N.  T.  will  be  fully  justified 
in  setting  aside  without  scruple  the  authority  of 
early  vemons,  there  are  sometimes  ambiguous 
passages  in  which  a  version  may  preserve  the 
traditional  sense  (John  i.  3,  9,  viii.  25,  &c.)  or 
indicate  an  early  difference  of  translation  ;  and  then 
its  evidence  may  be  of  the  highest  value.  But 
even  here  the  judgment  must  be  free.  Versions 
supply  authority  for  the  text,  and  opinion  only  for 
the  rendering. 

VIII.  THE  LANGUAGE  OP  THE  LATIN  VER 
SIONS.  —  40.  The  characteristics  of  Christian 
Latinity  have  been  most  unaccountably  neglected 
by  lexicographers  and  grammarians.  It  is,  indeed, 
only  lately  that  the  full  importance  of  provincial 
dialects  in  the  history  of  languages  has  been  fully 
recognised,  and  it  may  be  hoped  that  the  writings 
of  Tertullian,  Arnobius,  and  the  African  Fathers 
generally,  will  now  at  length  receive  the  attention 
which  they  justly  claim.  But  it  is  necessary  to 
go  back  one  step  further,  and  to  seek  in  the 
remains  of  the  Old  Latin  Bible  the  earliest  and  the 
purest  traces  of  the  popular  idioms  of  African 
Latin.  It  is  easy  to  trace  in  the  patristic  writings 
the  powerful  influence  of  this  venerable  Version  ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Version  itself  exhibits 
numerous  peculiarities  which  were  evidently  bor 
rowed  from  the  current  dialect.  Generally  it  is 
necessary  to  distinguish  two  distinct  elements  both 
in  the  Latin  Version  and  in  subsequent  writings : 
(1)  Provincialisms  and  (2)  Graecisms.  The  former 
are  chiefly  of  interest  as  illustrating  the  history 
of  the  Latin  language;  the  latter  as  marking,  in 
some  degree,  its  power  of  expansion.  Only  a  few 
ismarks  on  each  of  these  heads,  which  may  help 
to  guide  inquiry,  can  be  offered  here;  but  the 
careful  reading  of  some  chapters  of  the  Old  Version 
(e.  g.  Psalms,  Ecclus.,  Wisdom,  in  the  modern  Vul 
gate)  will  supply  numerous  illustrations.* 

(I.)  Provincialisms. — 41.  One  of  the  most  in 
teresting  facts  in  regard  to  the  language  of  the 
Latin  Version  is  the  reappearance  in  it  of  early 
furms  which  are  found  in  Plautus  or  noted  as 


VULGATE,  THE 

archaisms  by  grammarians.  These  establish  in  a 
signal  manner  the  vitality  of  the  popular  as  dis 
tinguished  from  the  literary  idiom,  and,  from  the 
great  scarcity  of  memorials  of  the  Italian  dialects, 
possess  a  peculiar  value.  Examples  odcords,  forms, 
and  constructions  will  show  the  extent  to  which 
this?  phenomenon  prevails. 

(a)   Words: 

Stultiloquium,  multiloquium,  vaniloquus 
(Plautus)  ;  stabilimentum  (id.)  ;  datus 
(subst.  id.);  condignus  (id.);  aratiun- 
cula  (id.)  ;  versipellis  (id.)  ;  saturitas 
(id.);  stacte  (id.);  cordatus  (Ennius) ; 
custoditio  (Festus) ;  decipula,  dejero 
(Plautus) ;  exentero  (id.)  ;  scius  (Pac.) 
mino  (to  drive,  Festus). 

(0)  Forms: 

Deponents   as   Passive:    consolor,   hortort 

promereor  (Heb.  xiii.  16);  ministror. 
Irregular  inflections:  partibor  absconsus 

conversely,  exies,  &c. 

tapetia  (Plautus),  haec  (fern,  pi.) 
Unusual  forms:  pascua  (fern.) ;  murmur 

(masc.) ;    sal  (neut.) ;    retia    (sing.) , 

certor,  odio,  cornum,  placor  (subst.  \ 

dulcor. 
(7)  Constructions: 

Emigro  with  ace.  (Ps.  Ixi.  7,  emigrabit  te 

de   tabernaculo) ;   dominor   with  gen. ; 

noceo  with  ace. ;  sui,  suus  for  ejus,  &c. ; 

non  for  ne  prohibitive  ;  capit  impers. 

42.  In  addition  to  these  there  are  many  other 
peculiarities  which  evidently  belong  to  the  African 
(or  common)  dialect,  and  not  merely  to  the  Christian 
form  of  it.  Such  are  the  words  minorare,  mino- 
ratio,  improperiitm,  framea  (a  sword),  ablactatio., 
annualis,  alleviare,  pectusculum,  antemurale,  pant- 
fica,  paratura,  tortura.  tribulare  (met.),  tribulatio, 
valefacere,  veredarius,  viare,  victualia,  virectitm 
(viretum),  vitulamen,  volatilia  (subst.),  quaternio^ 
reclinatorium,  scrutinium,  sponsare,  stratoria 
(subst.),  su/erentia,  sufficientia,  superabtmdantia., 
sustinentia,  cartallus,  cassidile,  cottactaneus,  condul- 
care,  genimen,  grossitudo,  refectio  (/car({A.i»/xa),  ex- 
termimum,  defunctio  (decease),  substantia  (abs.), 
incolatus. 

New  verbs  are  formed  from  adjectives :  pessimare, 
proximare,  approximare,  assiduare,  pigritari, 
salvare-  (salvator,  sahatio],  obviare,  jucundare, 
and  especially  a  large  class  in  -fico :  mortifico,  vivi- 
fico,  sancttfico,  glorifico,  clarifico,  beatifico,  casti- 
fico,  nratifico,  fructifico. 

Other  verbs  worthy  of  notice  are  :  appropriare, 
appretiare,  tenebrescere,  indulcare,  implanare 
(planus),  manicare. 

In  this  class  may  be  reckoned  also  many 

(1)  New  substantives  derived  from  adjectives: 
possibilitas,  praedaritas,  paternitas,  praescientia, 
reiigiositas,  natimtas,  supervacuitas,  magnalia. 

or  verbs :  requietio,  respectio,  creatura,  subitatio, 
extollentia. 

(2)  New  verbals :  accensibilis,  acceptabilis,  doGt- 
bilis,productilis,  passibilis,  receptibilis,  reprehenst- 
bilis,  suadibilis,  subjectibilis,  arreptitius  ;  and  parti 
cipial   forms:    pudoratus,  angustiatus,  timoratus, 
sensatus,  disciplinatus,  magnatus,  linguatuf,. 


*  Card.  Wiseman  (Tiuo  Letters,  &c.,  republished  In 
Essays,  i.  pp.  46-64)  has  examined  this  subject  in  some 
detail,  and  the  writer  has  fully  availed  himself  of  his 
examples,  In  addition  to  those  which  he  had  himself  col 


lected.  The  Thesaurus  of  Faber  (ed.  1749)  is  the  most 
complete  for  Ecclesiastical  Latin;  and  Dutripon's  Con 
cordance  is,  as  far  as  the  writer  has  observed,  complete 
for  the  authorised  Clementine  text 


VULGATE,  THE 

(3)  New  adjectives:  animaequus,  temporaneus, 
\mtgenitus,querulosus]  and  adverbs,  terribi'Kter,  una- 
nimiter,  spiritualtter,  cognoscibiliter,  fiducialiter. 

The  series  of  negative  compounds  is  peculiarly 
worthy  of  notice  ;  immemoratio,  increditio,  incon- 
yaininatio ;  inhonorare ;  inauxiliatus,  indeficiens, 
inconfusibilis,  importabilis. 

Among  the  characteristics  of  the  late  stage  of  a 
language  must  be  reckoned  the  excessive  frequency 
of  compounds,  especially  formed  with  the  preposi 
tions.  These  are  peculiarly  abundant  in  the  Latin 
Version,  but  in  many  cases  it  is  difficult  to  deter 
mine  whether  they  are  not  direct  translations  of  the 
late  LXX.  forms,  and  not  independent  forms :  e.  g. 
addecimare,  adinvenire  -ntio,  adincrescere,  per- 
efflaere,  permundare,  propurgare,  super  exaltare, 
super  invalescere,  supererogare,  reinvitare,  rememo- 
ratio,  repropitiari,  subinferre.  Of  these  many  are 
the  direct  representatives  of  Greek  words :  super- 
adulta  (1  Cor.  vii.  36),  superseminare  (Matt.  xiii. 
25),  comparticipes,  concaptivus,  complantatus,  &c. 
(aupersubstantialis,  Matt.  vi.  11);  and  others  are 
formed  to  express  distinct  ideas :  subcinericius,  sub- 
nervare,  &C." 

(2.)  Graecisms. — 43.  The  "simplicity"  of  the 
Old  Version  necessarily  led  to  the  introduction  of 
very  numerous  Septuagintal  or  N.  T.  forms,  many 
cf  which  have  now  passed  into  common  use.  In 
this  respect  it  would  be  easy  to  point  out  the  differ 
ence  which  exists  between  Jerome's  own  work  and 
the  original  translation,  or  his  revision  of  it.  Ex 
amples  of  Greek  words  are :  zelare,  perizoma,  py- 
thon,pythonissa,proselytus,prophetes  -tissa  -tizare 
-tare,  poderis,  pompatice,  thesaurizare,  anathema- 
tizare,  agonizare,  agonia,  aromatizare,  angelus 
-icus,  peribolus,  pisticus,  probatica,  papyrio,  pasto- 
phoria,  teloniwn,  eucharis,  acharis,  romphaea, 
bravium,  dithalassus,  doma  (thronus),  thymiato- 
rium,  tristega,  scandalum,  sitarcia,  blasphemare, 
&c.,  besides  the  purely  technical  terms  :  patriarcha, 
Parasceve,  Pascha,  Paradetus.  Other  words  based 
oa  the  Greek  are  :  aporior,  angario,  apostatare, 
apostolatus,  acedior  (a/crjSta). 

Some  close  renderings  are  interesting:  amodo 
(curb  TOUTOU),  propitiatorium  (tAcwrHjpioi/),  inid- 
ipsum  (tirl  rb  avrb),  rationale  (\oye1ov,  Ex. 
xxviii.  15,  &c.),  scenofactorius  (Acts  xviii.  3),  se- 
miniverbius  (Acts  xvii.  18),  subintroductus  (Gal. 
ii.  4),  supercertari  (Jude  3),  cimlitas  (Acts  xxii. 
28),  intentator  malorum  (Jam.  i.  13).  To  this 
head  also  must  be  referred  such  constructions  as 
zelare  with  accus.  (£t)\ovv  nva) ;  facere  with  inf. 
(irote?i/  .  .  .  7ej/eV0eu)  ;  potestas  with  inf.  (e£ov(ria 
,d4>ieVai)  ;  the  use  of  the  inf.  to  express  an  end  (Acts 
vii.  43,  eVotrjff-are  irpoaicvvetv)  or  a  result  (Luke 
i,  25,  eVelSej/  a^fKeiv,  respexit  auferre}  ;  the  in 
troduction  of  quia  for  ort  in  tke  sense  of  that  (Luke 
i.  58,  audierunt  .  .  .  quid),  or  for  oVt  recitativum 
(Matt.  vii.  23,  Confitebor  illis  quia  .  .  .)  ;  the  dat. 
with  assequi  (Luke  i.  3,  TrapaicoXovQe'iv  V.  L.) ; 
the  use  of  the  gen.  with  the  comparative  (John  i. 
50,  majora  horum) ;  and  such  Hebraisms  as  vir 
mortis  (1  K.  ii.  26).  Comp.  §  0, 

Generally  it  may  be  observed  that  the  Vulgate 
Latin  bears  traces  of  a  threefold  influence  derived 


u  It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  many  striking 
parallelisms  between  the  Vulgate  and  the  African  Ap- 
puielus  (e.g.  incredibilis  (act.)  ineffugibilis,  motestare, 
&c.),  or  the  Spanish  Seneca  (e.  g.  inquietude,  inpunitus, 
&c,). 

*  Probably  the  most  remarkable  example  of  the  in- 


VULGATE,  THE  1717 

from  the  original  text;  and  the  modifications  of 
form  which  are  capable  of  being  carried  back  to 
this  source,  occur  yet  more  largely  in  modern 
languages,  whether  in  this  case  they  are  to  be 
referred  to  the  plastic  power  of  the  Vulgate 
on  the  popular  dialect,  or,  as  is  more  likely,  w« 
must  suppose  that  the  Vulgate  has  preserved  a 
distinct  record  of  powers  which  were  widely  work 
ing  in  the  times  of  the  Empire  on  the  common 
Latin.  These  are  (1)  an  extension  of  the  use  ol 
prepositions  for  simple  cases,  e.g.  in  the  renderings 
of  eV,  Col.  iii.  17,  facere  in  verbo,  &c. ;  (2)  an 
assimilation  of  pronouns  to  the  meaning  cf  the 
Greek  article,  e.g.  1  John  i.  2,  ipsa  vita;  Luke 
xxiv.  9,  illis  undecim,  &c. ;  and  (3)  a  constant 
employment  of  the  definitive  and  epithetic  genitive, 
where  classical  usage  would  have  required  an 
adjective,  e.  g.  Col.  i.  13,  films  caritatis  suae]  iii. 
12,  viscera  misericordiae. 

44.  The  peculiarities  which  have  been  enume 
rated  are  found  in  greater  or  less  frequency  through 
out  the  Vulgate.     It  is  natural  that  they  should  be 
most  abundant  and  striking  in  the  parts  which  have 
been  preserved  least  changed  from  the  Old  Latin, 
the  Apocrypha,  the  Acts,  Epistles,  and  Apocalypse. 
Jerome,  who,  as  he  often  says,  had  spent  many 
years  in  the  schools  of  grammarians  and  rhetoricians, 
could  not  fail  to  soften  down  many  of  the  asperities 
of  the  earlier  version,  either  by  adopting  variations 
already  in  partial  use,  or  by  correcting  faulty  ex 
pressions  himself  as  he  revised  the  text.     An  ex 
amination  of  a  few  chapters  in  the  Old  and  New 
Versions  of  the  Gospels  will  show  the  character  and 
extent  of  the  changes  which  he  ventured  to  intro 
duce: — Luke  i.  60,  ov^i,  won,  Vet.  L.  nequaquam, 
Vulg. ;  id.  65,  eV  8\rj  TTJ  opfivfj,  in  omni  montana, 
Vet.  L.  super  omnia  montana,  Vulg. ;  ii.  1,  pro- 
fiteretur,    professio,    Vet.    L.    describeretur,  de- 
scriptio,  Vulg. ;  id.  13,  exercitus  caelestis,  Vet.  L. 
militiae  caelestis,  Vulg. ;  id.  34,  quod  contradice- 
tur,  Vet.  L.  cui  contr.  Vulg. ;  id.  49,  in  propria 
Patris  mei,  Vet.  L.  in  his  quae  patris  mei  sunt, 
Vulg.     Some"words  he  seems  to  have  changed  con 
stantly,   though   not   universally :    e.  g.  obauditiot 
obaudio  (obedientia,  obedio)  ;  mensurare  (metiri)  ; 
dilectio  (caritas) ;  sacramentum  (mysterium),   &c. 
And  many  of  the  most  remarkable  forms  are  con 
fined  to  books  which  he  did  not  revise :  elucidare, 
inaltare  (jucundari) ;  fumigabundus,  iUamentatus^ 
indisciplinatus,  insuspicabilis  ;  exsccramentum  (ex- 
terminiwri),  gaudimonium ;    extollentia,    honorifi- 
centia ;  horripilatio,  inhonoratio. 

45.  Generally  it  may  be  said  that  the  Scriptural 
idioms  of  our  common  language  have  come  to  us 
mainly  through  the  Latin ;  and  in  a  wider  view 
the  Vulgate  is  the  connecting  link  between  classical 
and  modern  languages.     It  contains  elements  which 
belong  to  the  earliest  stage  of  Latin,  and  exhibits 
(if  often  in  a  rude  form)  the  flexibility  of  the  popular 
dialect.     On  the  other  hand,  it  has  furnished  the 
source  and  the  model  for  a  large  portion  of  current 
Latin  derivatives.     Eren  a  cursory  examination  of 
the  characteristic  words  which  have  been  given  will 
show  how  many  of  them,  and  how  many  corre 
sponding  forms,  have  passed  into  living  languages." 


fluence  of  theology  upon  popular  language,  is  the  entire 
suppression  of  the  correlatives  of  verbum  in  all  the 
Romance  languages.  The  forms  occur  in  the  religious 
technical  sense  (the  Word),  but  otherwise  they  are  re 
placed  by  the  representatives  of  parabola  (parol*,  parole 
&c.).  Compare  Dim,  Etym.  Worth.  253. 


1718 


VULTURE 


To  follow  out  this  question  in  detail  would  be  out 
of  place  here ;  but  it  would  furnish  a  chapter  in  the 
history  of  language  fruitful  in  results  and  hitherto 
unwritten.  Within  a  more  limited  range,  the  au 
thority  of  the  Latin  Versions  is  undeniable,  though 
its  extent  is  rarely  realised.  The  vast  power  which 
they  have  had  in  determining  the  theological  terms 
of  Western  Christendom  can  hardly  be  overrated. 
By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  current  doctrinal 
terminology  is  based  on  the  Vulgate,  and,  as  far 
as  can  be  ascertained,  was  originated  in  the  Latin 
Version.  Predestination,  justification,  supereroga 
tion  (supererogo),  sanctification,  salvation,  medi 
ator,  regeneration,  revelation,  visitation  (met.), 
propitiation,  first  appear  in  the  Old  Vulgate. 
Grace,  redemption,  election,  reconciliation,  satis 
faction,  inspiration,  scripture,  were  devoted  there 
\io  a  new  and  holy  use.  Sacrament  (nv(rrl]piov) 
and  communion  are  from  the  same  source;  and 
though  baptism  is  Greek,  it  comes  to  us  from  the 
Latin.  It  would  be  easy  to  extend  the  list  by  the 
addition  of  orders,  penance,  congregation,  priest. 
But  it  can  be  seen  from  the  forms  already  brought 
forward  that  the  Latin  Versions  have  left  their  mark 
both  upon  our  language  and  upon  our  thoughts; 
and  if  the  right  method  of  controversy  is  based 
upon  a  clear  historical  perception  of  the  force  of 
words,  it  is  evident  that  the  study  of  the  Vulgate, 
however  much  neglected,  can  never  be  neglected 
with  impunity.  It  was  the  Version  which  alone 
they  knew  who  handed  down  to  the  Reformers  the 
rich  stores  of  mediaeval  wisdom  ;  the  Version  with 
which  the  greatest  of  the  Reformers  were  most 
familiar,  and  from  which  they  had  drawn  their 
earliest  knowledge  of  Divine  truth.  [B.  F.  W.] 

VULTURE.  The  rendering  in  A.  V.  of  the 
Heb.  n*^\  (dayyah)  and  HfcO  ;  and  also  in  Job 

xxviii.  7,  of  n*K,  aj/ydA ;  elsewhere,  in  Lev.  xi.  14, 
and  Deut.  xiv.  13,  more  correctly  rendered  "kite:" 
LXX.  yfy  and  VKTIVOS,  Vulg.  vultur ;  except  in 
Is.  xxxiv.  15,  where  LXX.  read  IfAcwpos,  and  Vulg. 
correctly  milvus. 

There  seems  no  doubt  but  that  the  A.  V.  transla 
tion  is  incorrect,  and  that  the  original  words  refer 
to  some  of  the  smaller  species  of  raptorial  birds,  as 
kites  or  buzzards.  H*1^  is  evidently  synonymous 

with  Arab.  3U*X£>  h'dayah,  the  vernacular  for  the 
"  kite  "  in  North  Africa,  and  without  the  epithet 
"  red"  for  the  black  kite  especially.  Bochart 
(Hieroz.  ii.  2,  195)  explains  it  Vultur  niger.  The 
Samaritan  and  all  other  Eastern  Versions  agree  in 
rendering  it  «'  kite."  J"I*N  (ay yah}  is  yet  more  cer 
tainly  referable  to  this  bird,  which  in  other  passages 
it  is  taken  to  represent.  Bochart  (Hieroz.  ii.  b:  2, 
c.  8,  p.  193)  says  it  is  the  same  bird  which  the 

Arabs  call  L>L)  (yayd)  from  its  cry  ;  but  does  not 
state  what  species  this  is,  supposing  it  apparently 
to  be  the  magpie,  the  Arab  name  for  which,  how 
ever,  is  olxXxM,  el  agaag. 

There  are  two  very  different  species  of  bird  com 
prised  under  the  English  term  vulture :  the  griffon 

(Gyps  fulvus,  Sav.),  Arab.  **»$,  nesser ;  Heb. 
"16^3,  nesher',  invariably  rendered  "eagle"  by  A.  V. ; 
and  the  percnopter,  or  Egyptian  Culture  (Neophron 
pcrcnoptervs,  Sav.),  Arab.  %+z**j,  rakhma  ;  Heb. 
rdchdm;  rendered  "  gier-eaglc"  by  A.  V. 


VULTURE 

The  identity  of  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic  terms  in 
these  cases  can  scarcely  be  questioned.  Howeve7 
degrading  the  substitution  of  the  ignoble  vulture 
for  the  royal  eagle  may  at  first  sight  appear  in 
many  passages,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
griffon  is  in  all  its  movements  and  characteristics  a 
majestic  and  royal  bird,  the  largest  and  most  power 
ful  which  is  seen  on  the  wing  in  Palestine,  and  far 
urpassing  the  eagle  in  size  and  power.  Its  only 
rival  in  these  respects  is  the  Bearded  Vulture  or 
Lammergeyer,  a  more  uncommon  bird  everywhere, 
and  which,  since  it  is  not,  like  the  griffon,  bald  on  the 
head  and  neck,  cannot  be  referred  to  as  nesher  (see 
Mic.  i.  16).  Very  different  is  the  slovenly  and 
cowardly  Egyptian  vulture,  the  familiar  scavenger 
of  all  Oriental  towns  and  villages,  protected  for  its 
useful  habits,  but  loathed  and  despised,  till  its  name 
has  become  a  term  of  reproach  like  that  of  the  dog 
or  the  swine. 

If  we  take  the  Heb.  ayydh  to  refer  to  the  red  kite 
(milvus  regalis,  Temm.),  and  dayyah  to  the  black  kite 
(milvus  ater,  Ternm.),  we  shall  find  the  piercing  sight 
of  the  former  referred  to  by  Job  (xxviii.  7),  and 
the  gregarious  habits  of  the  latter  by  Isaiah  (xxxiv. 
15).  Both  species  are  inhabitants  of  Palestine,  the 
red  kite  being  found  all  over  the  country,  as  for 
merly  in  England,  but  nowhere  in  great  numbers, 
generally  soaring  at  a  great  height  over  the  plains, 
according  to  Dr.  Roth,  and  apparently  leaving  the 
country  in  winter.  The  black  kite,  which  is  so 
numerous  everywhere  as  to  be  gregarious,  may  be 
seen  at  all  times  of  the  year,  hovering  over  the 
villages  and  the  outskirts  of  towns,  on  the  look-out 
for  offal  and  garbage,  which  are  its  favourite  food. 
Vulture-like,  it  seldom,  unless  pressed  by  hunger, 
attacks  living  animals.  It  is  therefore  never  mo 
lested  by  the  natives,  and  builds  its  nest  on  trees 
in  their  neighbourhood,  fantastically  decorating  it 
with  as  many  rags  of  coloured  cloth  as  it  can 
collect. 

There  are  three  species  of  vulture  known  to 
inhabit  Palestine: — 

1.  The  Lammergeyer  (Gypaetos  barbatus,  Cuv.), 
which  is  rare  everywhere,  and  only  found  in  deso 
late  mountain  regions,  where  it  rears  its  young  in 
the  depth  of  winter  among  inaccessible  precipices. 
It  is  looked  upon  by  the  Arabs  as  an  eagle  rathei 
than  a  vulture. 

2.  The  Griffon  (Gyps  fulvus,  Sav.),  mentioned 
above,  remarkable  for  its  power  of  vision  and  the 
great  height  at  which  it  soars.     Aristotle  (Anim. 
Hist.  vi.  5)  notices  the  manner  in  which  the  griffon 
scents  its  prey  from  afar,  and  congregates  in  the 
wake  of  an  army.     The  same  singular  instinct  was 
remarked  in  the  Russian  war,  when  vast  numbers 
of  this  vulture  were  collected  in  the  Crimea,  and 
remained  till  the  end  of  the  campaign  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  the  camp,  although  previously  they 
had  been  scarcely  known  in  the  country.    "  Where 
soever  the  carcase  is,  there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered 
together"   (Matt.   xxiv.  28);   "Where   the   slain 
are,  there  is  she"  (Job  xxxix.  30).     The  writer 
observed  this  bird  universally  distributed  in  all  the 
mountainous  and  rocky  districts  of  Palestine,  and 
especially  abundant  in  the  south-east.    Its  favourite 
breeding-places  are  between  Jerusalem  and  Jericho, 
and  all  round  the  Dead  Sea. 

The  third  species  is  the  Egyptian  vulture  (Neo 
phron  percnopterus,  Sav.),  often  called  Pharaoh's 
hen,  observed  in  Palestine  by  Hasselquist  and  all 
subsequent  travellers,  and  vevy  numerous  every 
where.  Two  other  species  of  very  large  size,  the 


AGES 

eared  and  cinereous  vultures  (Vuttur  nuhicus,  Smith, 
and  Vultur  cinereus,  L.),  although  inhabitants  of  the 
neighbouring  countries,  and  probably  also  of  the 
.wmth-east  of  Palestine,  have  not  yet  been  noted  in 
collections  from  that  country.  [H.  B.  T.] 


W 

WAGES."  The  earliest  mention  of  wages  is  of  a 
recoin pence  not  in  money  but  in  kind,  to  Jacob  from 
Laban  (Gen.  xxix.  15,  20,  xxx.  28,  xxxi.  7,  8,  41). 
This  usage  was  only  natural  among  a  pastoral  and 
changing  population  like  that  of  the  tent-dwellers 
of  Syria.  In  Egypt,  money  payments  by  way  of 
wages  were  in  use,  but  the  terms  cannot  now  be 
ascertained  (Ex.  ii.  9).  The  only  mention  of  the 
rate  of  wages  in  Scripture  is  found  in  the  parable 
of  the  householder  and  vineyard  (Matt.  xx.  2), 
Vhere  the  labourer's  wages  are  set  at  one  denarius 
per  day,  probably  =  7|rf.,  a  rate  which  agrees  with 
Tobit  v.  14,  where  a  drachma  is  mentioned  as  the 
rate  per  day,  a  sum  which  may  be  fairly  taken  as 
equivalent  to  the  denarius,  and  to  the  usual  pay  of 
a  soldier  (ten  asses  per  diem)  in  the  later  days  of 
the  Roman  republic  (Tac.  Ann.  i.  17;  Polyb.  vi. 
39).  It  was  perhaps  the  traditional  remembrance 
of  this  sum  as  a  day's  wages  that  suggested  the 
mention  of  "  drachmas  wrung  from  the  hard  hands 
of  peasants  "  (Shakspeare,  Jul.  Caes.  iv.  3).  In 
earlier  times  it  is  probable  that  the  rate  was  lower, 
as  until  lately  it  was  throughout  India.  In  Scot- 
Land  we  know  that  in  the  last  century  a  labourer's 
daily  wages  did  not  exceed  sixpence  (Smiles,  Lives  of 
Engineers,  ii.  96).  But  it  is  likely  that  labourers, 
and  also  soldiers,  were  supplied  with  provisions 
(Michaelis,  Laws  of  Moses,  §130,  vol.  ii.  p.  190, 
ed.  Smith),  as  is  intimated  by  the  word  bty&via, 
\ised  in  Luke  iii.  14,  and  1  Cor.  ix.  7,  and  also 
by  Polybius,  vi.  39.  The  Mishnah  (Baba  metzia, 
vii.  1,  §5),  speaks  of  victuals  being  allowed  or 
not  according  to  the  custom  of  the  place,  up  to  the 
value  of  a  denarius,  i.  e.  inclusive  of  the  pay. 

The  Law  was  very  strict  in  requiring  daily  pay 
ment  of  wages  (Lev.  xix.  13  ;  Deut.  xxiv.  14,  15); 
and  the  Mishnah  applies  the  same  rule  to  the  use  of 
animals  (Baba  metzia,  ix.  12).  The  employer 
who  refused  to  give  his  labourers  sufficient  victuals 
is  censured  (Job  xxiv.  11),  and  the  iniquity  of 
withholding  wages  is  denounced  (Jer.  xxii.  13  ; 
Mai.  iii.  5  ;  James  v.  4). 

Wages  in  general,  whether  of  soldiers  or  labourers, 
are  mentioned  (Hag.  i.  6  ;  Ez.  xxix.  18, 19  ;  John  iv. 
36).  Burckhardt  mentions  a  case  in  Syria  resembling 
closely  that  of  Jacob  with  Laban — a  man  who  served 
eight  years  for  his  food,  on  condition  of  obtaining  his 
master's  daughter  in  marriage,  and  was  afterwards 
compelled  bv  his  father-in-law  te  xxrform  acts  of 
service  for  him  (Syria,  p.  297).  [H.  W.  P.] 


WALLS 


1719 


WAGGON.  [CART  and  CHARIOT.]  I'lw 
Oriental  waggon  or  arabah  is  a  vehicle  composed  of 
two  or  three  planks  fixed  on  two  solid  circular 
blecks  of  wood,  from  two  to  tive  feet  in  diameter, 
which  serve  as  wheels.  To  the  floor  are  sometimes 
attached  wings,  which  splay  outwards  like  the  side- 
of  a  wheelbarrow.  For  the  conveyance  of  pas 
sengers,  mattresses  or  clothes  are  laid  in  the  bottom, 
and  the  vehicle  is  drawn  by  buffaloes  or  oxen 
(Arundell,  Asia  Minor,  ii.  191,  235,  238  ;  Olearius, 
Tram.  p.  309  ;  Ker  Porter,  Trav.  ii.  533.)  Egyp 
tian  carts  or  waggons,  such  as  were  sent  to  convoy 
Jacob  (Gen.  xlv.  19,  21,  27),  are  described  unde'r 
CART.  The  covered  waggons  for  conveying  the 
materials  of  the  tabernacle  were  probably  con- 
tructed  on  Egyptian  models.  They  were  each 
drawn  by  two  oxen  (Num.  vii.  3,  8).  Herodotus 
mentions  a  four-wheeled  Egyptian  vehicle  (&/xa£a) 
used  for  sacred  purposes  (Her.  ii.  63).  [H.  W.  P.] 

WALLS.b  Only  a  few  points  need  be  noticed 
n  addition  to  what  has  been  said  elsewhere  on  wall- 
construction,  whether  in  brick,  stone,  or  wood. 
"BRICKS;  HANDICRAFT;  MORTAR.]  1.  The  prac- 
;ice  common  in  Palestine  of  carrying  foundations 
down  to  the  solkl  rock,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Temple, 
and  in  the  present  day  with  structures  intended  to 
be  permanent  (Joseph.  Ant.  xv.  11,  §3  ;  Luke  vi. 
48;  Robinson,  ii.  338;  Col.  Ch.  Chron.  (1857), 
p.  459).  The  pains  taken  by  the  ancient  builders 
to  make  good  the  foundations  of  their  work  may 
still  be  seen,  both  in  the  existing  substructions 
and  in  the  number  of  old  stones  used  in  more 
modern  constructions.  Some  of  these  stones — 
ancient,  but  of  uncertain  date — are  from  20  feet  to 
30  feet  10  inches  long,  3  feet  to  6  feet  6  inches 
broad,  and  5  feet  to  7  feet  6  inches  thick  (Rob.  i. 
233,  282,  286,  iii.  228).  As  is  the  case  in  number 
less  instances  of  Syrian  buildings,  either  old  or 
built  of  old  materials,  the  edges  and  sometimes  the 
faces  of  these  stones  are  "  bevelled"  in  flat  grooves. 
This  is  commonly  supposed  to  indicate  work  at 
least  as  old  as  the  Roman  period  (Rob.  i.  261,  286, 
ii.  75,  76,  278,  353,  iii.  52,  58,  84,  229,  461,  493, 
511 ;  Fergusson,  Hdbk.  of  Arch.  p.  288).  On  the 
contrary  side,  see  Col.  Ch.  Chron.  (1858),  p.  350. 

But  the  great  size  of  these  stones  is  far  exceeded 
by  some  of  those  at  Baalbek,  three  of  which  are 
each  about  63  feet  long ;  arid  one,  still  lying  in  the 
quarry,  measures  68  feet  4  inches  in  length,  17 
feet  2  inches  broad,  and  14  feet  7  inches  thick. 
Its  weight  can  scarcely  be  less  than  600  tons  (Rob. 
iii.  505,  512 ;  Volney,  Trav.  ii.  241). 

2.  A  feature  of  some  parts  of  Solomon's  build 
ings,  as  described  by  Josephus,  corresponds  remark 
ably  to  the  method  adopted  at  Nineveh  of  encrusting 
or  veneering  a  wall  of  brick  or  stone  with  slabs  of  a 
more  costly  material,  as  marble  or  alabaster  (Joseph. 
Ant.  viii.  5,  §2  ;  Fergusson,  Hdbk.  202,  203). 

3.  Another  use  of  walls  in  Palestine  is  to  sup 
port  mountain  roads  or  terraces  formed  on  the  side* 


;  merces. 

2.  n?pS3  ;  juio-06?;  opus:  wages  for  work  done,  from 

T  -.  : 

7JJ3,  "  work"  (Ges.  p.  1117). 

t'a  ;  muri  :  only  in  Ezr.  v.  3. 

5  maceria.    (6)  VJ3  ; 
niaosria.    (c)  HT13  ;  Siao-ny^a,  (f>payjuov  ;  sepes. 

3.  ndn  »  reives  ;  murus. 


b  l. 


4.  7*n  ;  Svvants  ',  virtus  :  also  nporeixurna  i  ager. 

5.  p-in  and  pjn  ;  ToZXos  ;  paries, 

6.  t*nn  ;  7repiT«xw  ;  muri  :  only  in  Dan.  ix.  2f  . 

7.  (a)  ?ri3-       (ft)  ^3,  Chald.  ;  rotxos  ;  paras. 

8.  "Vj5  ;  TOIXOS  ;  paries. 


0, 


;  rtlxos;  murus. 


1720 


WANDERING 


of  hills  for  purposes  of  cultivation  (Rob.  ii.  493,  iii. 
14,  45). 

4.  The  "  path  of  the  vineyards  "  (Num.  xxii.  24) 
is  illustrated  by  Robinson  as  a  pathway  through  vine 
yards,  with  walls  on  each  side  (B.  R.  ii.  80  ;  Stanley, 
8.  and  P.  102,  420  ;  Lindsay,  Tram.  p.  239  ;  Maun- 
dcell,  Early  Trav.  p.  437).  [WINDOW.]  [H.  W.  P.] 

WANDERING  IN  THE  WILDERNESS. 

[WILDERNESS  OP  WANDERING.] 

WAR.  The  most  important  topic  in  connexion 
with  war  is  the  formation  of  the  army,  which  is 
destined  to  carry  it  on.  This  has  been  already 
described  under  the  head  of  ARMY,  and  we  shall 
therefore  take  up  the  subject  from  the  point  where 
that  article  leaves  it.  Before  entering  on  a  war 
of  aggression  the  Hebrews  sought  for  the  Divine 
sanction  by  consulting  either  the  Urim  and  Thum- 
mim  (Judg.  i.  1,  xx.  27,  28  ;  1  Sam.  xiv.  37,  xxiii. 
2,  xxviii.  6,  xxx.  8),  or  some  acknowledged  prophet 
(1  K.  xxii.  6  ;  2  Chr.  xviii.  5).  The  heathens 
betook  themselves  to  various  kinds  of  divination 
for  the  same  purpose  (Ez.  xxi.  21).  Divine  aid 
was  further  sought  in  actual  warfare  by  bringing 
into  the  field  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  which  was 
the  symbol  of  Jehovah  Himself  (1  Sam.  iv.  4-18, 
xiv.  18),  a  custom  which  prevailed  certainly  down 
to  David's  time  (2  Sam.  xi.  11  ;  comp.  Ps.  Ixviii. 
1,  24).  During  the  wanderings  in  the  wilderness 
the  signal  for  warlike  preparations  was  sounded  by 
priests  with  the  silver  trumpets  of  the  sanctuary 
(Num.  x.  9,  xxxi.  6).  Formal  proclamations  of 
war  were  not  interchanged  between  the  belligerents  ; 
but  occasionally  messages  either  deprecatory  or 
defiant  were  sent,  as  in  the  cases  of  Jephthah  and 
the  Ammonites  (Judg.  xi.  12-27),  Ben-hadad  and 
Ahab  (1  K.  xx.  2),  and  again  Amaziah  and  Jehoash 
(2  K.  xiv.  8).  Before  entering  the  enemy's  district 
spies  were  sent  to  ascertain  the  character  of  the 
country  and  the  preparations  of  its  inhabitants 
for  resistance  (Num.  xiii.  17  ;  Josh.  ii.  1  ;  Judg. 
vii.  10;  1  Sam.  xxvi.  4).  When  an  engagement 
was  imminent  a  sacrifice  was  offered  (1  Sam.  vii.  9, 
xiii.  9),  and  an  inspiriting  address  delivered  either 
by  the  commander  (2  Chr.  xx.  20)  or  by  a  priest 
(Deut.  xx.  2).  Then  followed  the  battle-signal, 
sounded  forth  from  the  silver  trumpets  as  already 
described,  to  which  the  host  responded  by  shouting 
the  war-cry  (1  Sam.  xvii.  52  ;  Is.  xiii.  13  ;  Jer. 

1.  42;   Ez.  xxi.  22;    Am.  i.    14).      The  combat 
assumed   the   form    of  a  number  of  hand-to-hand 
contests,  depending  on  the  qualities  of  the  individual 
soldier  rather  than  on  the  disposition  of  masses. 
Hence  the  high  value  attached  to  fleetness  of  foot 
and  strength  of  arm  (2  Sam.  i.  23,  ii.  18;  1  Chr. 
xii.  8).     At  the  same  time  various  strategic  devices 
were  practised,  such  as  the  ambuscade  (Josh.  viii. 

2,  12  ;  Judg.  xx.  36),  sill-prise  (Judg.  vii.  16),  or 


,  lit.  an  "enclosing"  or  "  besieging,"  and  hence 
applied  to  the  wall  by  which  the  siege  was  effected. 


WAR 

circumvention  (2  Sam.  v.  23).  Another  mode  01 
settling  the  dispute  was  by  the  selection  of  champions 
(1  Sam.  xvii.;  2  Sam.  ii.  14),  who  were  spurred 
on  to  exertion  by  the  offer  of  high  reward  (1  Sam, 
xvii.  25,  xviii.  25 ;  2  Sam.  xviii.  11 ;  1  Chr.  xi.  6). 
The  contest  having  been  decided,  tlie  conquerora 
were  recalled  from  the  pursuit  by  the  sound  of  a 
trumpet  (2  Sam.  ii.  28,  xviii.  16,  xx.  22). 

The  siege  of  a  town  or  fortress  was  conducted  in 
the  following  manner : — A  line  of  circumvallation  * 
was  drawn  round  the  place  (Ez.  iv.  2 ;  Mic.  v.  1), 
constructed  out  of  the  trees  found  in  the  neighbour 
hood  (Deut.  xx.  20),  together  with  earth  and  any 
other  materials  at  hand.  This  line  not  only  cut 
off  the  besieged  from  the  surrounding  country,  but 
also  served  as  a  base  of  operations  for  the  besiegers. 
The  next  step  was  to  throw  out  from  this  line  one 
or  more  "  mounts"  or  "  banks  "b  in  the  direction 
of  the  city  (2  Sam.  xx.  15  ;  2  K.  xix.  32  ;  Is.  xxxvii. 
33),  which  was  gradually  increased  in  height  until 
it  was  about  half  as  high  as  the  city  wall.  On 
this  mound  or  bank  towers0  were  erected  (2  K. 
xxv.  1;  Jer.  Hi.  4;  Ez.  iv.  2,  xvii.  17,  xxi.  22, 
xxvi.  8),  whence  the  slingers  and  archers  might 
attack  with  effect.  Battering-rams  d  (Ez.  iv.  2,  xxi. 
22)  were  brought  up  to  the  walls  by  means  of  the 
bank,  and  scaling-ladders  might  also  be  placed  on 
it.  Undermining  the  walls,  though  practised  by  the 
Assyrians  (Layard,  Nin.  ii.  371),  is  not  noticed  in 
the  Bible:  the  reference  to  it  in  the  LXX.  and 
Vulg.,  in  Jer.  Ii.  58,  is  not  warranted  by  the  ori 
ginal  text.  Sometimes,  however,  the  walls  were 
attacked  near  the  foundation,  either  by  individual 
warriors  who  protected  themselves  from  above  by 
their  shields  (Ez.  xxvi.  8),  or  by  the  further  use  of 
such  a  machine  as  the  Helepolis*  referred  to  in 
1  Mace.  xiii.  43.  Burning  the  gates  was  another 
mode  of  obtaining  ingress  (Judg.  ix.  52).  The 
water-supply  would  naturally  be  cut  off,  if  it  were 
possible  (Jud.  vii.  7).  The  besieged,  meanwhile, 
strengthened  and  repaired  their  fortifications  (Is. 
xxii.  10),  and  repelled  the  enemy  from  the  wall  by 
missiles  (2  Sam.  xi.  24),  by  throwing  over  beams 
and  heavy  stones  (Judg.  ix.  53 ;  2  Sam.  xi.  21  j 
Joseph.  B.  J.  v.  3,  §3,  6,  §3),  by  pouring  down 
boiling  oil  (B.  J.  iii.  7,  §28),  or  lastly  by  erecting 
fixed  engines  for  the  propulsion  of  stones  and  arrows 
(2  Chr.  xxvi.  15).  [ENGINE.]  Sallies  were  also 
made  for  the  purpose  of  burning  the  besiegei-s' 
works  (1  Mace.  vi.  31;  B.  J.  v.  11,  §4),  and 
driving  them  away  from  the  neighbourhood.  The 
foregoing  operations  receive  a  large  amount  of  illus 
tration  from  the  representations  of  such  scenes  on 
the  Assyrian  slabs.  We  there  see  the  "  bank " 
thrown  up  in  the  form  of  an  inclined  plane,  with 
the  battering-ram  hauled  up  on  it  assaulting  the 
walls:  moveable  towers  of  considerable  elevation 
brought  up,  whence  the  warriors  discharge  their 


been  assigned  to  it  by  Michaelis,  Keil  (Archaol.  ii.  303) 
and  others.  It  is  difficult,  however,  in  this  case,  to  see 
any  distinction  between  the  terms  day£k  and  matz&r. 


tt  any   uisuncuon   ueiweeii    me    ujiius  uuyen.  JUM*  v/i»i*w/. 

b  ITPpD.  Saalschtttz(JrcAaoZ.ii.  504)  understands  this  I  The  expression  "round  about"  may  refer  to  the  cus- 


term  of  the  scaling-ladder,  comparing  the  cognate  svlldm 
Gen.  xxviii.  12),  and  giving  the  verb  shaphac,  which  ac 
companies  sollah,,  the  sense  of  a  "hurried  advancing"  of 
the  ladder. 

c  p^T.  Some  doubt  exists  as  to  the  meaning  of  this 
term.  The  sense  of  "  turrets "  assigned  to  it  by  Ge- 
eenius  (Thes.  p.  330)  has  been  objected  to  on  the  ground 
that  the  word  always  appears  in  the  singular  number, 
and  In  connexion  with  the  expression  "round  about" 
the  city.  Hence  the  sense  of  "  circumvallation "  has 


torn  of  casting  up  banks  at  different  points:  the  use 
of  the  singular  in  a  collective  sense  forms  a  greater 
difficulty. 


«  This  is  described  by  Ammianus  Marcellinus  (xxilL  4 
$10)  as  a  combination  of  the  testudo  and  the  battering 
ram,  by  means  of  which  the  besiegers  broke  through  tbd 
lower  part  of  the  wall,  and  thus  "  leaped  into  the  city," 
not  from  above,  as  the  words  prnnd  facie  imply,  buT 
from  below. 


WAR 

arrows  into  the  city :   the  walls  undermined,  or 

attempts  made  to  destroy  them  by  picking  to  pieces 
the  lower  courses:  the  defenders  actively  engaged 

in  archery,  and  averting  the  force  of  the  battering- 
ram  by  chains  and  ropes:  the  scaling-ladders  at 
length  brought,  and  the  conflict  become  hand-to- 
hand  (Layard's  Nin.  ii.  366-374). 

The  treatment  of  the  conquered  was  extremely 
severe  in  ancient  times.  The  leaders  of  the  host 
were  put  to  death  (Josh.  x.  26 ;  Judg.  vii.  25), 
with  the  occasional  indignity  of  decapitation  after 
death  (1  Sam.  xvii.  51 ;  2  Mace.  xv.  30  ;  Joseph. 
B.  J.  i.  17,  §2).  The  bodies  of  the  soldiers  killed 
in  action  were  plundered  (I  Sam.  xxxi.  8 ;  2  Mace, 
viii.  27):  the  survivors  were  either  killed  in  some 
savage  manner  (Judg.  ix.  45  ;  2  Sam.  xii.  31 ; 
2  Chr.  xxv.  12),  mutilated  (Judg.  i.  6 ;  1  Sam. 
xi.  2),  or  carried  into  captivity  (Num.  xxxi.  26  ; 
Deut.  xx.  14).  Women  and  children  were  occa 
sionally  put  to  death  with  the  greatest  barbarity 
(2  K.  viii.  12,  xv.  16;  Is.  xiii.  16,  18;  Hos.  x. 
14,  xiii.  16  ;  Am.  i.  13 ;  Nah.  iii.  10  ;  2  Mace.  v. 
13)  :  but  it  was  more  usual  to  retain  the  maidens 
as  concubines  or  servants  (Judg.  v.  30 ;  2  K.  v.  2). 
Sometimes  the  bulk  of  the  population  of  the  con 
quered  country  was  removed  to  a  distant  locality, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Israelites  when  subdued  by  the 

.  Assyrians  (2  K.  xvii.  6),  and  of  the  Jews  by  the 
Babylonians  (2  K.  xxiv.  14,  xxv.  11).  In  addition 
to  these  measures,  the  towns  were  destroyed  (Judg. 
ix.  45;  2  K.  iii.  25  ;  1  Mace.  v.  28,  51,  x.  84), 
the  idols  and  shrines  were  carried  off  (Is,  xlvi.  1,  2), 
or  destroyed  (1  Mace.  v.  68,  x.  84)  ;  the  fruit-trees 
were  cut  down,  and  the  fields  spoiled  by  over 
spreading  them  with  stones  (2  K.  iii.  19,  25) ;  and 
the  horses  were  lamed  (2  Sam.  viii.  4;  Josh.  xi.  6, 
9).  If  the  war  was  carried  on  simply  for  the  pur 
pose  of  plunder  or  supremacy,  these  extreme  mea 
sures  would  hardly  be  carried  into  execution;  the 
conqueror  would  restrict  himself  to  rifling  the  trea 
suries  (1  K.  xiv.  26;  2  K.  xiv.  14,  xxiv.  13),  or 
levying  contributions  (2  K.  xviii.  14). 

The  Mosaic  law  mitigated  to  a  certain  extent  the 
severity  of  the  ancient  usages  towards  the  con 
quered.  With  the  exception  of  the  Canaanites,  who 
were  delivered  over  to  the  ban  of  extermination  by 
the  express  command  of  God,  it  was  forbidden  to 
the  Israelites  to  put  to  death  any  others  than  males 
bearing  arms :  the  women  and  children  were  to  be 
kept  alive  (Deut.  xx.  13,  14).  In  a  similar  spirit 
of  humanity  the  Jews  were  prohibited  from  felling 
fruit-trees  for  the  purpose  of  making  siege-works 
(Deut.  xx.  19).  The  law  further  restricted  the 
power  of  the  conqueror  over  females,  and  secured 
to  them  humane  treatment  (Deut.  xxi.  10-14) 
The  majority  of  the  savage  acts  recorded  as  having 
been  practised  by  the  Jews  were  either  in  reta 
liation  for  some  gross  provocation,  as  instanced  in 
the  cases  of  Adoni-bezek  (Judg.  i.  6,  7),  and  oi 
David's  treatment  of  the  Ammonites  (2  Sam.  x 
2-4,  xii.  31  ;  1  Chr.  xx.  3) ;  or  else  they  were 
done  by  lawless  usurpers,  as  in  Menahem's  treat 
ment  of  the  women  of  Tiphsah  (2  K.  xv.  16).  The 
Jewish  kings  generally  appear  to  have  obtainec 
credit  for  clemency  (1  K.  xx.  31). 

The  conquerors  celebrated  their  success  by  the 
erection  of  monumental  stones  (1  Sam.  vii.  12 
2  Sam.  viii.  13,  where,  instead  of  "  gat  him 
name,"  we  should  read  "  set  up  a  memorial"},  by 
hanging  up  trophies  in  their  public  buildings  (] 
Sam.  xxi.  9,  xxxi.  10;  2  K.  xi.  10),  and  by  tri 
umphal  songs  and  dances,  in  which  the  whole  popu 


WASHING  HANDS  AND  FEET     1721 

ation  took  part  (Ex.  xv.  1-21  ;  Judg.  v.  ;    1  Sana. 

viii.  6-8;  2  Sam.  xxii.;  Jud.  xvi.  2-17;   1  Mace. 

v.  24).     The  death  of  a  hero  was  comment  crated 

>y  a  dirge  (2  Sam.  i.  17-27  ;  2  Chr.  xxxv.  25),  or 

>y  a  national  mourning  (2  Sam.  iii.  31).   The  fallen 

warriors  were  duly  buried  (1  K.  xi.  15),  their  arms 

)eing  deposited  in  the  grave  beside  them  (Ez.  xxxii. 

27),  while  the  enemies'  corpses  were'exposed  to  the 

Beasts  of  prey  (1  Sam.  xvii.  44  ;  Jer.  xxv.  33).   The 

sraelites  were  directed  to  undergo  the  purification 

mposed  on  those  who  had  touched  a  corpse,  before 

;hey  entered  the  precincts  of  the  camp  or  the  sane- 

uary  (Num.  xxxi.  19).  The  disposal  of  the  spoil  has 

already  been  described  under  BOOTY.    [W.  L.  B.j 

WASHING  THE  HANDS  AND  FEET. 
?he  particular  attention  paid  by  the  Jews  to  the 
leansing  of  the  hands  and  feet,  as  compared  witJi 
other  parts  of  the  body,  originated  in  the  social 
isages  of  the  East.  As  knives  and  forks  were  dis 
pensed  with  in  eating,  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
;hat  the  hand,  which  was  thrust  into  the  common 
dish,  should  be  scrupulously  clean;  and  again,  as 
sandals  were  ineffectual  against  the  dust  and  heat 
of  an  Eastern  climate,  washing  the  feet  on  enter- 
ng  a  house  was  an  act  both  of  respect  to  the  com 
pany  and  of  refreshment  to  the  traveller.  The 
former  of  these  usages  was  transformed  by  the  Pha 
risees  of  the  New  Testament  age  into  a  matter  of 
ritual  obsei'vance  (Mark  vii.  3),  and  special  rules 
were  laid  down  as  to  the  times  and  manner  of  its 
performance.  The  neglect  of  these  rules  by  our 
Lord  and  His  disciples  drew  down  upon  Him  the 
hostility  of  that  sect  (Matt.  xv.  2 ;  Luke  xi.  38). 
Whether  the  expression  -jriryfji.fi  used  by  St.  Mark 
has  reference  to  any  special  regulation  may  pet- 
haps  be  doubtful ;  the  senses  "  oft "  (A.  V.),  and 
"diligently"  (Alford),  have  been  assigned  to  it, 
but  it  may  possibly  signify  "  with  the  fist,"  as 
though  it  were  necessary  to  close  the  one  hand, 
which  had  already  been  cleansed,  before  it  was 
applied  to  the  unclean  one.  This  sense  appears 
preferable  to  the  other  interpretations  of  a  similar 
character,  such  as  "  up  to  the  wrist"  (Lightfoot)  ; 

up  to  the  elbow  "  (Theophylact)  ;  "  having 
closed  the  hand"  which  is  undergoing  the  washing 
(Grot.  ;  Scalig.).  The  Pharisaical  regulations  on 
this  subject  are  embodied  in  a  treatise  of  the  Mishnah, 
entitled  Yadaim,  from  which  it  appears  that  the 
ablution  was  confined  to  the  hand  (2,  §3),  and  that 
great  care  was  needed  to  secure  perfect  purity  in  the 
water  used.  The  ordinary,  as  distinct  from  the 
ceremonial,  washing  of  hands  before  meals  is  still 
universally  prevalent  in  Eastern  countries  (Lane,  i. 
190  ;  Burckhardt's  Notes,  i.  63}. 

Washing  the  feet  did  not  rise  to  the  dignity  of  a 
ritual  observance,  except  in  connexion  with  the  ser 
vices  of  the  sanctuary  (Ex.  xxx.  19,  21).  It  held 
a  high  place,  however,  among  the  rites  of  hospi 
tality.  Immediately  that  a  guest  presented  hmiselt 
at  the  tent-door,  it  was  usual  to  offer  the  necessary 
materials  for  washing  the  feet  (Gen.  xviii.  4,  xix. 
2,  xxiv.  32,  xliii.  24 ;  Judg.  xix.  21  ;  comp.  Horn. 
Od.  iy.  49).  It  was  a  yet  -  more  compliment 
ary  act,  betokening  equally  humility  and  affec 
tion,  if  the  host  actually  performed  the  office  for 
his  guest  (1  Sam.  xxv.  41  ;  Luke  vii.  38,  44  ;  John 
xiii.  5-14  ;  1  Tim.  v.  10).  Such  a  token  of  hospi 
tality  is  still  occasionally  exhibited  in  the  East, 
either  by  the  host,  or  by  his  deputy  (Robinson's 
Res.  ii.  229  ;  Jowett's  Res.  pp.  78,  79).  The  feet 
were  again  washed  before  retiring  to  bed  (Cant, 
v.  3).  A  symbolical  significance  is  attached  in  John 


1722        WATCHES  OF  NIGHT 

xiii.  10  to  washing  the  feet  as  compared  with  bath 
ing  the  whole  body,  the  former  being  partial  (vtirrai], 
the  latter  complete  (Aoi5w),  the  former  oft-repeated 
in  the  course  of  the  day,  the  latter  done  once  for 
all  ;  whence  they  are  adduced  to  illustrate  the  dis 
tinction  between  occasional  sin  and  a  general  state  of 
sinfulness.  After  being  washed,  the  feet  were  on 
festive  occasions  anointed  (Luke  vii.  38  ;  John  xii. 
3).  The  indignity  attached  to  the  act  of  washing 
another's  feet,  appears  to  have  been  extended  to  the 
vessel  used  (Ps.  Ix.  8).  [W.  L.  B.] 

WATCHES  OF  NIGHT 


A.a/c7?).  The  Jews,  like  the  Greeks  and  Komans, 
divided  the  night  into  military  watches  instead  of 
hours,  each  watch  representing  the  period  for  which 
sentinels  or  pickets  remained  on  duty.  The  proper 
Jewish  reckoning  recognised  only  three  such  watches, 
entitled  the  first  or  "  beginning  of  the  watches  "• 
(Lam.  ij.  19),  the  middle  watch  &  (Judg.  vii.  19), 
and  the  morning  watch  c  (Ex.  xiv.  24;  1  Sam.  xi. 
11).  These  would  last  respectively  from  sunset 
to  10  P.M.  ;  from  10  P.M.  to  2  A.M.  ;  and  from 
2  A.M.  to  sunrise.  It  has  been  contended  by  Light- 
foot  (Hor.  Heb.  in  Matt.  xiv.  25)  that  the  Jews 
really  reckoned  four  watches,  three  only  of  which 
were  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  the  fourth  being  in 
the  morning.  This,  however,  is  rendered  impro 
bable  by  the  use  of  the  term  "  middle,"  and  is 
opposed  to  Rabbinical  authority  (Mishnah,  Berach. 
1,  §1  ;  Kimchi,  on  Ps.  Ixiii.  7;  Rashi,  on  Judg. 
vii.  19).  Subsequently  to  the  establishment  of  the 
Roman  supremacy,  the  number  of  watches  was  in 
creased  to  four,  which  were  described  either  accord 
ing  to  their  numerical  order,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
"  fourth  watch  "  (Matt.  xiv.  25  ;  comp.  Joseph. 
Ant.  v.  6,  §5),  or  by  the  terms  "  even,  midnight, 
cock-crowing,  and  morning  "  (Mark  xiii.  35).  These 
terminated  respectively  at  9  P.M.,  midnight,  3  A.M., 
and  6  A.M.  Conformably  to  this,  the  guard  of 
soldiers  was  divided  into  four  relays  (Acts  xii.  4), 
showing  that  the  Roman  regime  was  followed  in 
Herod's  army.  Watchmen  appear  to  have  patrolled 
the  streets  of  the  Jewish  towns  (Cant.  iii.  3,  v.  7  ; 
Ps.  cxxvii.  l,d  where  for  "  waketh  "  we  should  sub 
stitute  "  watcheth  ;"  Ps.  cxxx.  6).  [W.  L.  B.] 

WATER  OF  JEALOUSY  (Num.  v.  11-31), 
Sn  *D,  "  waters  of  bitterness,"  sometimes  with 


added,   as   "causing  a  curse" 
vStap  TOV  e\eyfj.ov  ;  Philo,  ii.  310,  TT^TOS  eA.€7X<>u  )• 


em 


e  Yet  being  an  offering  to  "  bring  iniquity  to  re 
membrance  "  (v.  15),  it  is  ceremonially  rated  as  a  "  sin 
offering  ;"  hence  no  oil  is  to  be  mixed  with  the  meal 
before  burning  it,  nor  any  frankincense  to  be  placed  upon 
it  when  burnt,  which  same  rule  was  applied  to  "sin 
offerings"  generally  (Lev.  v.  11).  With  meat  offerings, 
on  the  contrary,  the  mixture  of  oil  and  the  imposition  of 
frankincense  were  prescribed  (ii.  1,  2,  1,  14,  15). 

f  Probably  not  the  "  water  of  separation  "  for  purifica 
tion,  mixed  with  the  ashes  of  the  red  heifer,  for  as  its 
ceremonial  property  was  to  defile  the  pure  and  to  purify 
the  unclean  (Num.  xix.  21)  who  touched  it,  it  could  hardly 
be  used  in  a  rite  the  object  of  which  was  to  establish  the 
innocence  of  the  upright  or  discover  the  guilt  of  the 
sinner,  without  the  symbolism  jarring.  PerLaps  water 
from  the  laver  of  the  sanctuary  is  intend*^. 


e  The  words      .)'       SO?'  H/Q,  tendered  in  the 
.A   V~.  by  tlie  word  "  rot,"  rather  Indicate,  according  to 


WATER  OF  JEALOUSY 

The  ritual  prescribed  consisted  in  the  huslamV'a 
bringing  the  woman  before  the  priest,  and  the 
essential  part  of  it  is  unquestionably  the  oath, 
to  which  the  "water"  was  subsidiary,  symbolical, 
and  ministerial.  With  her  ne  was  to  bring  the 
tenth  part  of  an  ephah  of  barley-meal  as  an 
offering.  Perhaps  the  whole  is  to  be  regarded 
from  a  judicial  point  of  view,  and  this  "  offering  " 
in  the  light  of  a  court-fee."  God  Himself  was 
suddenly  invoked  to  judge,  and  His  presence  re 
cognised  by  throwing  a  handful  of  the  barley- 
meal  on  the  blazing  altar  in  the  course  of  the  rite. 
In  the  first  instance,  however,  the  priest  "set  her 
before  the  Lord "  with  the  offering  in  her  hand. 
The  Mishnah  (Sotah]  prescribes  that  she  be  clothed 
in  black  with  a  rope  girdle  around  her  waist ; 
and  from  the  direction  that  the  priest  "  shall 
uncover  her  head"  (ver.  18),  it  would  seem  she 
came  in  veiled,  probably  also  in  black.  As  she 
stood  holding  the  offering,  so  the  priest  stood  hold 
ing  an  earthen  vessel  of  holy  water f  mixed  with 
the  dust  from  the  floor  of  the  sanctuary,  and  de 
claring  her  free  from  all  evil  consequences  if  inno 
cent,  solemnly  devoted  her  in  the  name  of  Jehovah 
to  be  "  a  curse  and  an  oath  among  her  people,"  if 
guilty,  further  describing  the  exact  consequences 
ascribed  to  the  operation  of  the  water  in  the  "  mem 
bers"  which  she  had  "yielded  as  servants  to  un- , 
cleanness"*  (vers.  21,  22,  27;  comp.  Rom.  vi. 
19  ;  and  Theodoret,  Qwest,  x.  in  Num.}.  He  then 
"  wrote  these  curses  in  a  book,  and  blotted  them 
out  v>-ith  the  bitter  water,"  and,  having  thrown, 
probably  at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings,  the  handful 
of  meal  on  the  altar,  "  caused  the  woman  to  drink  " 
the  potion  thus  drugged,  she  moreover  answering  to 
the  words  of  his  imprecation,  "Amen,  Amen/' 
Josephus  adds,  if  the  suspicion  was  unfounded,  she 
obtained  conception,  if  true,  she  died  infamously. 
This  accords  with  the  sacred  text,  if  she  "  be  clean, 
then  shall  she  be  free  and  shall  conceive  seed"  (ver. 
28),  words  which  seem  to  mean  that  when  restored 
to  her  husband's  affection  she  should  be  blessed  with 
fruitfulness ;  or,  that  if  conception  had  taken  place 
before  her  appearance,  it  would  have  its  proper 
issue  in  child-bearing,  which,  if  she  had  been  un 
faithful,  would  be  intercepted  by  the  operation  of 
the  curse.  It  may  be  supposed  that  a  husband 
would  not  be  forward  to  publish  his  suspicions  of 
his  own  injury,  unless  there  were  symptoms  of  ap 
parent  conception,11  and  a  risk  of  a  child  by  another 
being  presented  to  him  as  his  own.  In  this  case 


Gesen.  *.  v.  7£3.  to  "  become  or  make  lean."    Michaelis 

-   T 

thought  ovarian  dropsy  was  intended  by  the  symptoms, 
Josephus  says,  TOU  re  oxe'Aovs  eKTreowros  o-vrrj,  Kal  rijf 
Koi\Cav  vSepov  KaToAoft.|3avoi/TOs  (Ant.  iii.  11,  $6). 
h  This  is  somewhat  supported  by  the  rendering  in  the 

A.  V.  of  the  words  ilb'Srp  &6  fcO  HI-  v.  13,  by  "neither 
she  be  taken  with  the  manner,"  the  italicised  words  being 
added  as  explanatory,  without  any  to  correspond  in  the 
original,  and  pointing  to  the  sudden  cessation  of  "the 
manner  "  or  "  custom  of  women  "  (Gen.  xviii.  11,  xxxi.  35) 
i.  e.  the  menstrual  flux,  suggesting,  in  the  case  of  a  woman 
not  past  the  age  of  child-bearing,  that  conception  had 
taken  place.  If  this  be  the  sense  of  the  original,  the  sus 
picions  of  the  husband  would  be  so  far  based  upon  a  fact 
J  t  seems,  however,  also  possible  that  the  words  may  be  an 
extension  of  the  sense  of  those  immediately  preceding, 
H3  P&S  iyi,  when  the  connected  tenour  would  be.  "aud 
there  be  no  witness  against  her,  and  she  be  not  taken," 
i.e.  taken  in  the  fact;  comp.  John  viii.  4,  «mj  n  yw«l 


WATER  OF  SEPARATION 

the  woman's  natural  apprehensions  regarding  her 
own  gestation  would  operate  very  strongly  to  make 
her  shrink  from  the  potion,  if  guilty.  For  plainly, 
the  effect  of  such  a  ceremonial  on  the  nervous 
system  of  one  so  circumstanced,  might  easily  go  far 
to  imperil  her  life,  even  without  the  precise  symp 
toms  ascribed  to  the  water.  Meanwhile  the  rule 
would  operate  beneficially  for  the  woman,  if  inno 
cent,  who  would  be  during  this  interval  under  the 
pi  otection  of  the  court  to  which  the  husband  had 
himself  appealed,  and  so  far  secure  against  any 
violent  consequence  of  his  jealousy,  which  had  thus 
found  a  vent  recognized  by  law.  Further,  by  thus 
interposing  a  period  of  probation  the  fierceness  of 
conjugal  jealousy  might  cool.  On  comparing  this 
argument  with  the  further  restrictions  laid  down  in 
the  treatise  Sotah  tending  to  limit  the  application 
of  this  rite,  there  seems  grave  reason  to  doubt  whether 
recourse  was  ever  had  to  it  in  fact.  [ADULTERY.] 
The  custom  of  writing  on  a  parchment  words 
cabalistic  or  medical  relating  to  a  particular  case, 
and  then  washing  them  off,  and  giving  the  patient 
the  water  of  this  ablution  to  drink,  has  descended 
among  Oriental  superstitions  to  the  present  day, 
and  a  sick  Arab  would  probably  think  this  the 
most  natural  way  of  "  taking"  a  prescription.  See, 
on  the  general  subject,  Gvoddeck  de  vett.  Hebr. 
purgat.  castitatis  in  Ugol.  Thesaur.  (Winer). 
The  custom  of  such  an  ordeal  was  probably  tradi 
tional  in  Moses'  time,  and  by  fencing  it  round  with 
the  wholesome  awe  inspired  by  the  solemiiity  of 
the  prescribed  ritual,  the  lawgiver  would  deprive  it 
to  a  great  extent  of  its  barbarous  tendency,  and 
would  probably  restrain  the  husband  from  some  of 
the  ferocious  extremities  to  which  he  might  other 
wise  be  driven  by  a  sudden  fit  of  jealousy,  so 
powerful  in  the  Oriental  mind.  On  the  whole  it 
is  to  be  taken,  like  the  permission  to  divorce  by  a 
written  instrument,  rather  as  the  mitigation  of  a 
custom  ordinarily  harsh,  and  as  a  barrier  placed  in 
the  way  of  uncalculating  vindictiveness.  Viewing 
the  regulations  concerning  matrimony  as  a  whole, 
we  shall  find  the  same  principle  animating  them  in 
all  their  parts — that  of  providing  a  legal  channel 
for  the  course  of  natural  feelings  where  irrepres 
sible,  but  at  the  same  time  of  surrounding  their 
outlet  with  institutions  apt  to  mitigate  their  in 
tensity,  and  so  assisting  the  gradual  formation  of  a 
gentler  temper  in  the  bosom  of  the  nation.  The 
precept  was  given  "  because  of  the  hardness  of 
their  hearts,"  but  with  the  design  and  the  tendency 


WAVE-OFFERING 


1723 


of  softening  them. 
de  Leg.  Hebr.} 


(See  some  remarks  in  Spencer, 


[H.  H.] 
WATER  OF  SEPARATION.   [PURIFICA 

TION.] 

WAVE -OFFERING  (flBUa  "a  waving,' 
from  P|13,  "  to  wave,"  PHi"!^  ^Q?  nB13J"l,  "  ; 
waving  before  Jehovah  ").  This  rite,  together  with 
that  of  "  heaving"  or  "  raising"  the  offering,  was 
an  inseparable  accompaniment  of  peace-offerings. 
In  such  the  right  shoulder,  considered  the  choicest 
part  of  the  victim,  was  to  be  "  heaved,"  and  viewed 
as  holy  to  the  Lord,  only  eaten  therefore  by  the 
priest ;  the  breast  was  to  be  "  waved,"  and  eaten 
by  the  worshipper.  On  the  second  day  of  the 
Passover  a  sheaf  of  corn,  in  the  green  ear,  was  to 
be  waved,  accompanied  by  the  sacrifice  of  an  un 
blemished  lamb  of  the  first  year,  from  the  per 
formance  of  which  ceremony  the  days  till  Pentecost 
were  to  be  counted.  When  that  feast  arrived,  two 


offered  with  a  burnt-offenng,  a  sin-oftenng,  nnd  two 
lambs  of  the  first  year  for  a  peace-offering.  These 
'ikewise  were  to  be  waved. 

The  Scriptural  notices  of  these  rites  ar>;  to  te 
found  in  Ex.  xxix.  24,  28 ;  Lev.  vii.  30,  34,  viv 
97,  ix.  21,  x.  14,  15,  xxiii.  10,  15,  20 ;  Num.  vi 
20,  xviii.  11,  18,  26-29,  &c. 

We  find  also  the  word  HSUD  applied  in  Ex. 
SKxviii.  24,  to  the  gold  offered'by  the  people  for  the 
f'irniture  of  the  sanctuary.  It  is  there  called 
It  may  have  been  waved  when 

,e  that  naun 


loaves,  the  fivst-fruits  of  the  ripe  com,  were  to  be    and  significant  in  their 


presented,  but  it  seems  not 

had  acquired   a   secondary  sense  so  as  to  denote 

"  free-will  offering."   In  either  case  we  must  suppose 

the  ceremony  of  waving  to  have  been  known  to  and 

practised  by  the  Israelites  before  the  giving  of  the 

Law. 

It  seems  not  quite  certain  from  Ex.  xxix.  26,  27, 
whether  the  waving  was  performed  by  the  priest  or 
by  the  worshipper  with  the  former's  assistance. 
The  Rabbinical  tradition  represents  it  as  done  by 
the  worshipper,  the  priest  supporting  his  hands 
from  below. 

In  conjecturing  the  meaning  of  this  rite,  regard 
must  be  had,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  kind  of 
sacrifice  to  which  it  belonged.  It  was  the  accom 
paniment  of  peace-offerings.  These  not  only,  like 
the  other  sacrifices,  acknowledged  God's  greatness 
and  His  right  over  the  creature,  but  they  witnessed 
to  a  ratified  covenant,  an  established  communion 
between  God  and  man.  While  the  sin-offering 
merely  removed  defilement,  Avhile  the  burnt-offer 
ing  gave  entirely  over  to  God  of  His  own,  the 
victim  being  wholly  consumed,  the  peace-offering, 
as  establishing  relations  between  God  and  the  wor 
shipper,  was  participated  in  by  the  latter,  who  ate, 
as  we  have  seen,  of  the  breast  that  was  waved. 
The  Rabbis  explain  the  heaving  of  the  shoulder 
as  an  acknowledgment  that  God  has  His  throne  in 
the  heaven,  the  waving  of  the  breast  that  He  is 
present  in  every  quarter  of  the  earth.  The  cne 
rite  testified  to  His  eternal  majesty  on  high,  the 
other  to  His  being  among  and  with  His  people. 

It  is  not  said  in  Lev.  xxiii.  10-14,  that  a  peace- 
offering  accompanied  the  wave-sheaf  of  the  Pass 
over.  On  the  contrary,  the  only  bloody  sacrifice 
mentioned  in  connexion  with  it  is  styled  a  burnt- 
offering.  When,  however,  we  consider  that  every 
where  else  the  rite  of  waving  belongs  to  a  peace- 
offering,  and  that  besides  a  sin  and  a  burnt-offering, 
there  was  one  in  connexion  with  the  wave-loaves  of 
Pentecost  (Lev.  xxiii.  19),  we  shall  be  wary  of  con 
cluding  that  there  was  none  in  the  present  case. 
The  significance  of  these  rites  seems  considerable. 
The  name  of  the  month  A  bib,  in  which  the  Pass 
over  was  kept,  means  the  month  of  the  green  ear 
of  corn,  the  month  in  which  the  great  produce  of 
the  earth  has  come  to  the  birth.  In  that  month 
the  natiqn  of  Israel  came  to  the  birth  ;  each  suc 
ceeding  Passover  was  the  keeping  of  the  nation's 
birthday.  Beautifully  and  naturally,  therefore, 
were  the  two  births — that  of  the  people  into  national 
life  ;  that  of  their  needful  sustenance  into  yearly  life 
— combined  in  the  Passover.  All  first-fruits  were 
holy  to  God :  the  first-born  of  men,  the  first-produce 
of  the  earth.  Both  principles  were  recognized  in  the 
Passover.  When,  six  weeks  after,  the  harvest  had 
ripened,  the  first-fruits  of  its  matured  produce  were 
similarly  to  be  dedicated  to  God.  Both  were  waved, 
the  rite  which  attested  the  Divine  presence  and 
working  all  around  us  being  surely  most  appropriate 

[F.  G.j 


1724 


WAY 


WAY.  This  word  has  now  in  ordinary  parlance 
EO  entirely  forsaken  its  original  sense  (except  in 
combination,  as  iu  "  highway,"  "  causeway  "),  and 
is  so  uniformly  employed  in  the  secondary  or  meta 
phorical  sense  of  a  "custom"  or  "  manner,"  that 
it  is  difficult  to  remember  that  in  the  Bible  it  most 
frequently  signifies  an  actual  road  or  track.  Oui 
translators  have  employed  it  as  the  equivalent  o; 
no  less  than  eighteen  distinct  Hebrew  terms.  Of 
these,  several  had  the  same  secondary  sense  which 
the  word  "  way  "  has  with  us.  Two  others  (HIK 
and  l^HJ)  are  employed  only  by  the  poets,  auc 
are  commonly  rendered  "  path  "  in  the  A.  V.  But 
the  term  which  most  frequently  occurs,  and  in  the 
majority  of  cases  signifies  (though  it  also  is  now 
and  then  used  metaphorically)  an  actual  road,  is 
"H"!!"!!'  derec,  connected  with  the  German  treten  and 
the  'English  "tread."  It  may  be  truly  said  that 
there  is  hardly  a  single  passage  in  which  this  word 
occurs  which  would  not  be  made  clearer  and  more 
real  if  "  road  to"  were  substituted  for  "  way  of. 
Thus  Gen.  xvi.  7,  "  the  spring  on  the  road  to 
Shur;"  Num.  xiv.  24,  "  the  road  to  the  Red  Sea  ;" 
1  Sam.  vi.  12,  "  the  road  to  Bethshemesh  ;  "  Judg. 
ix.  37,  "  the  road  to  the  oak  a  of  Meonenirn  ;  "  2  K. 
xi.  1  9,  «  the  road  to  the  gate."  It  turns  that  which 
is  a  mere  general  expression  into  a  substantial  reality. 
And  so  in  like  manner  with  the  word  656s  in  the 
New  Testament,  which  is  almost  invariably  trans 
lated  "  way."  Mark  x.  32,  "  They  were  on  the 
road  going  up  to  Jerusalem  ;  "  Matt.  xx.  17,  "  and 
Jesus  took  the  twelve  disciples  apart  in  the  road"  — 
out  of  the  crowd  of  pilgrims  who,  like  themselves, 
were  bound  for  the  Passover. 

There  is  one  use  of  both  derec  and  656s  which 
must  not  be  passed  over,  viz.  in  the  sense  of  a  reli 
gious  course.  In  the  Old  Test,  this  occurs  but 
rarely,  perhaps  twice:  namely  in  Amos  viii.  14, 
"  the  manner  of  Beersheba,"  where  the  prophet  is 
probably  alluding  to  some  idolatrous  rites  then 
practised  there  ;  and  again  in  Ps.  cxxxix.  24,  "  look 
if  there  be  any  evil  way,"  any  idolatrous  practices, 
"  in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the  everlasting  way."  But 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  656s,  "  the  way,"  "  the 
road,"  is  the  received,  almost  technical,  term  for 
the  new  religion  which  Paul  first  resisted  and 
afterwards  supported.  See  Acts  ix.  2,  xix.  9,  23, 
xxii.  4,^xxiv.  14,  22.  In  each  of  these  the  word 
"  that"  is  an  interpolation  of  our  translators,  and 
should  have  been  put  into  italics,  as  it  is  in 
xxiv.  22. 

The  religion  of  Islam  is  spoken  of  in  the  Koran 
as  "the  path,"  (et  tarik,  iv.  66),  and  "the  right 
path"  (i.  5;  iv.  174).  Gesenius  (Thes.  353) 
has  collected  examples  of  the  same  expression  in 
other  languages  and  religions.  [G.] 

WEAPONS.    [ARMS.] 

WEASEL  (~br\,ch6led:  70X7):  mustela)  occurs 
only  in  Lev.  xi.  29,  in  the  list  of  unclean  animals. 
According  to  the  old  versions  and  the  Talmud,  the 
Heb.  choled  denotes  "a  weasel"  (see  Lewysohn, 
Zool.  des  Talm.  p.  91,  and  Buxtorf,  Lex.  v.  Rab. 
et  Talm.  p.  756)  ;  but  if  the  word  is  identical  with 


the  Arabic  chuld  (jlsi)   and  the  Syriac  chuldo 


as  Bochart  (Hieroz.  ii.  435)  and  others 


•  This  is  more  obscure  in  the  A.  V.  even  than  the 
others:— "Cone  along  by  the  plain  of  Meoncnim." 


WEAVING 

have  endeavoured  to  show,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
"  a  mole  "  is  the  animal  indicated.  Gesenius  (  Thes. 
p.  474),  however,  has  the  following  very  true  ob 
servation:  "Satis  constat  animalium  nomina  per- 
saepe  in  hac  lingua  hoc,  in  alia  cognata  aliud,  id 
vero  simile,  animal  significare."  He  prefers  tj 
render  the  term  by  "  Weasel." 

Moles  are  common  enough  in  Palestine ;  Ilassel- 
quist  (Trav.  p.  120),  speaking  of  the  country 
between  Jaffa  and  Kama,  says  he  had  never  seen  in 
any  place  the  ground  so  cast  up  by  moles  as  in 
these  plains.  There  was  scarce  a  'yard's  length 
between  each  mole-hill.  It  is  not  improbable  that 
both  the  Talpa  europaea  and  the  T.  caer.n,  the 
blind  mole  of  which  Aristotle  speaks  (Nisi  Anim. 
i.  8,  §3),  occur  in  Palestine,  though  we  have  no 
definite  information  on  this  point.  The  family  of  Mus- 
telidae  also  is  doubtless  well  represented.  Perhaps- 
it  is  better  to  give  to  the  Heb.  term  the  same  signi 
fication  which  the  cognate  Arabic  and  Syriac  have, 
and  understand  a  "mole"  to  be  denoted  by  it. 
[MOLE.]  [w.  H.] 

WEAVING  (n«).  The  art  of  weaving  appears 
to  be  coeval  with  the  first  dawning  of  civilization. 
In  what  country,  or  by  whom  it  was  invented,  w«> 
know  not ;  but  we  find  it  practised  with  great  skill 
by  the  Egyptians  at  a  very  early  period,  and  hence 
the  invention  was  not  unnaturally  attributed  to 
them  (Plin.  vii.  57).  The  "  vestures  of  fine  linen' 
such  as  Joseph  wore  (Gen.  xli.  42)  were  the  product 
of  Egyptian  looms,  and  their  quality,  as  attested  by 
existing  specimens,  is  pronounced  to  be  not  inferior 
to  the  finest  cambric  of  modern  times  (Wilkinson, 
ii.  75).  The  Israelites  were  probably  acquainted 
with  the  process  before  their  sojourn  in  Egypt ;  but 
it  was  undoubtedly  there  that  they  attained  the 
proficiency  which  enabled  them  to  execute  the 
hangings  of  the  Tabernacle  (Ex.  zxxv.  35 ;  1  Chr. 
iv.  21),  and  other  artistic  textures.  At  a  later 
period  the  Egyptians  were  still  famed  for  their  ma 
nufactures  of  "fine"  (i.e.  hackled)  flax  and  of 
chori*  rendered  in  the  A.  V.  "  networks,"  but 
more  probably  a  white  material  either  of  linen  or 
cotton  (Is.  xix.  9).  From  them  the  Tyrians  pro 
cured  the  "  fine  linen  with  broidered  work  "  for  the 
sails  of  their  vessels  (Ez.  xxvii.  7),  the  handsome 
character  of  which  may  be  inferred  from  the  repre 
sentations  of  similar  sails  in  the  Egyptian  paintings 
(Wilkinson,  ii.  131,  167).  Weaving  was  carried  on 
in  Egypt,  generally,  but  not  universally,  by  men 
(Herod,  ii.  35  ;  comp.  Wilkinson,  ii.  84).  This  was 
the  ease  also  among  the  Jews  about  the  time  of  the 
ExoduS  (1  Chr.  iv.  21),  but  in  later  times  it  usually 
fell  to  the  lot  of  the  females  to  supply  the  household 
with  clothing  (1  Sam.  ii.  19  ;  2  K.  xxiii.  7),  and  an 
industrious  housewife  would  produce  a  surplus  for 
sale  to  others  (Prov.  xxxi.  13,  19,  24). 

The  character  of  the  loom  and  the  process  of 
weaving  can  only  be  inferred  from  incidental  notices. 
The  Egyptian  loom  was  usually  upright,  and  the 
weaver  stood  at  his  work.  The  cloth  was  fixed 
sometimes  at  the  top,  sometimes  at  the  bottom,  so 
that  the  remark  of  Herodotus  (ii.  85)  that  the 
Egyptians,  contrary  to  the  usual  practice,  pressed 
;he  woof  downwards,  must  be  received  with  reser 
vation  (Wilkinson,  ii.  85).  That  a  similar  variety 
>f  usage  prevailed  among  the  Jews,  may  be  inferred 
rom  the  remark  of  St.  John  (xix.  23).  that  the 
seamless  coat  was  woven  "  from  tie  top  "  (£«  rcav 


nn. 


WEAVING 

&'<oOet>).  Tunics  of  this  kind  were  designated  by  | 
the  Romans  rectae,  implying  that  they  were  made 
at  an  upright  loom  at  which  the  weaver  stood  to 
his  work,  thrusting  the  woof  upwards  (Plin.  viii. 
74).  The  modern  Arabs  use  a  procumbent  loom, 
raised  above  the  ground' by  short  legs  (Burckhardt's 
Notes,  i.  67).  The  Bible  does  not  notice  the  loom 
itself,  but  speaks  of  the  beam  c  to  which  the  warp 
was  attached  (1  Sam.  xvii.  7 ;  2  Sam.  xxi.  19) ; 
and  of  the  pin  d  to  which  the  cloth  was  fixed,  and 
on  which  it  was  rolled  (Judg.  xvi.  14).  We  have 
also  notice  of  the  shuttle,6  which  is  described  by  a 
term  significant  of  the  act  of  weaving  (Job  vii.  6) ; 
the  thrum  '  or  threads  which  attached  the  web  to 
the  beam  (Is.  xxxviii.  12,  margin);  and  the  webe 
itself  (Judg.  xvi.  14;  A.  V.  "beam").  Whether 
the  two  terms  in  Lev.  xiii.  48,  rendered  "  warp  "  ? 
and  "woof,"h  really  mean  these,  admits  of  doubt, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  the  one 
could  be  affected  with  leprosy  without  the  other : 
perhaps  the  terms  refer  to  certain  kinds  of  texture 
(Knobel,  in  /oc.).  The  shuttle  is  occasionally  dis 
pensed  with,  the  woof  being  passed  through  with 
the  hand  (Robinson's  Bib.  Res.  i.  169).  The 
speed  with  which  the  weaver  used  his  shuttle,  and 
the  decisive  manner  in  which  he  separated  the 
web  from  the  thrum  when  his  work  was  done, 
supplied  vivid  images,  the  former  of  the  speedy 
passage  of  life  (Job  vii.  6),  the  latter  of  sudden 
death  (Is.  xxxviii.  12). 

The  textures  produced  by  the  Jewish  wearers 
were  very  various.  The  coarser  kinds,  such  as 
tent-cloth,  sackcloth,  and  the  "  hairy  garments  " 
of  the  poor  were  made  of  goat's  or  camel's  hair 
(Ex.  xxvi.  7  ;  Matt.  iii.  4).  Wool  was  extensively 
used  for  ordinary  clothing  (Lev.  xiii.  47  ;  Prov. 
xxvii.  26,  xxxi.  13 ;  Ez.  xxvii.  18),  while  for  finer 
work  flax  was  used,  varying  in  quality,  and  pro 
ducing  the  different  textures  described  in  the  Bible  as 
"  linen  "  and  '« fine  linen."  The  mixture  of  wool  and 
flax  in  cloth  intended  for  a  garment  was  interdicted 
(Lev.  xix.  19;  Deut.  xxii.  11).  With  regard  to 
the  ornamental  kinds  of  work,  the  terms  rikmah, 
"  needlework,"  and  ma'aseh  chdsheb,  "  the  work  of 
the  cunning  workman,"  have  been  already  discussed 
under  the  head  of  EMBROIDERER,  to  the  effect  that 
both  kinds  were  produced  in  the  loom,  and  that  the 
distinction  between  them  lay  in  the  addition  of  a 
device  or  pattern  in  the  latter,  the  rikmah  con 
sisting  simply  of  a  variegated  stuff  without  a  pattern. 
We  may  further  notice  the  terms:  (1)  shdbats* 
and  tashbets  *•  applied  to  the  robes  of  the  priest  (Ex. 
xxviii.  4,  39),  and  signifying  tesselated  (A.  V. 
"  broidered"),  ».  e.  with  depressions  probably  of  a 
square  shape  worked  in  it,  similar  to  the  texture 
described  by  the  Romans  under  the  term  scutulatus 
(Plin.  via.  73;  Juv.  ii.  97);  this  was  produced  in 
the  loom,  as  it  is  expressly  said  to  be  the  work  of 
the  weaver  (Ex.  xxxix.  27).  (2)  Mdshzdr1  (A.V. 
"twined"),  applied  to  the  fine  linen  out  of  which 
the  curtains  of  the  tabernacle  and  the  sacerdotal 
vestments  were  made  (Ex.  xxvi.  1,  xxviii.  6,  &c.) : 
in  this  texture  each  thread  consisted  of  several  finer 
threads  twisted  together,  as  is  described  to  have 

0  "IwfcD  ;  so  called  from  its  resemblance  to  a  plough 
man's  yoke. 

d  rOD£.  This  tem  is  otnerwlse  understood  of  the 
wjvrp,  as  in  the  LXX.  and  the  Vulgate  (Gesen.  Thes. 


WEEK  1725 

been  the  case  with  the  famed  corslet  of  Amasis 
(Herod,  iii.  47).  (3)  Mishbetsoth  zakub™  (A.  V. 
"  of  wrought  gold"),  textures  in  which  gold  thread 
was  interwoven  (Ps.  xlv.  13).  The  Babylonians 
were  particularly  skilful  in  this  branch  of  weaving, 
and  embroidered  groups  of  men  or  animals  on  the 
robes  (Plin.  vim  74;  Layard,  Nin.  ii.  413): 
the  "  goodly  Babylonish  garment  "  secreted  by 
Achan  was  probably  of  this  character  (Josh.  vii.  21). 
The  sacerdotal  vestments  are  said  to  have  been 
woven  in  one  piece  without  the  intervention  of 
any  needlework  to  join  the  seams  (Joseph.  Ant.  iii. 
7,  §4).  The  "  coat  without  seam  "  (XIT&V  fy}£o- 
<f>os)  worn  by  Jesus  at  the  time  of  his  crucifixion 
(John  xix.  23),  was  probably  of  a  sacerdotal  cha 
racter  in  this  respect,  but  made  of  a  less  costly 
material  (Carpzov,  Appar.  p.  72).  [W.  L.  B.] 

WEDDING.    [MARRIAGE.] 

WEEK  (JttlKJ,  or  yW,  from  jng>,  "  seven," 
a  heptad  of  any  thing,  but  particularly  used  for  a 
period  of  seven  days  :  fpSopds  :  septimana).  We 
have  also,  and  much  oftener,  njDfc?,  or 


Whatever  controversies  exist  respecting  the  origin 
of  the  week,  there  can  be  none  about  the  great  an 
tiquity,  on  particular  occasions  at  least,  among  the 
Shemitic  races,  of  measuring  time  by  a  period  of 
seven  days.  This  has  been  thought  to  be  implied 
in  the  phrase  respecting  the  sacrifices  of  Cain  and 
Abel  (Gen.  iv.  3J,  "  in  process  of  time,"  literally 
"  at  the  end  of  days."  It  is  to  be  traced  in  the 
narrative  of  the  subsidence  of  the  Flood  (Geu.  viii. 
10),  "and  he  stayed  yet  other  seven  days;"  an3 
we  find  it  recognized  by  the  Syrian  Laban  (Gen. 
xxix.  27),  "  fulfil  her  week."  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  this  division  of  time  is  a  marked  feature 
of  the  Mosaic  law,  and  one  into  which  the  whole 
year  was  parted,  the  Sabbath  sufficiently  showing 
that.  The  week  of  seven  days  was  also  made 
the  key  to  a  scale  of  seven,  running  through 
the  Sabbatical  years  up  to  that  of  jubilee.  [See 
SABBATH  ;  SABBATICAL  YEAR  ;  and  JUBILEE, 
YEAR  OF.] 

The  origin  of  this  division  of  time  is  a  matter 
which  has  given  birth  to  much  speculation.  Its 
antiquity  is  so  great,  its  observance  so  wide-spread, 
and  it  occupies  so  important  a  place  in  sacred  things, 
that  it  has  been  very  generally  thrown  back  as  fai 
as  the  creation  of  man,  who  on  this  supposition  was 
told  from  the  very  first  to  divide  his  time  on  the 
model  of  the  Creator's  order  of  working  and  resting. 
The  week  and  fhe  Sabbath.  are,  if  this  be  so,  as  old 
as  man  himself;  and  we  need  not  seek  for  reasons 
either  in  the  human  mind  or  the  facts  with  which 
that  mind  comes  in  contact,  for  the  adoption  of 
such  a  division  of  time,  since  it  is  to  be  referred 
neither  to  man's  thoughts  nor  to  man's  will.  A 
purely  theological  ground  is  thus  established  for 
the  week  and  for  the  sacredness  of  the  number 
seven.  They  who  embrace  this  view  support  it 
by  a  reference  to  the  six  days'  creation  and  the 
Divine  rest  on  the  seventh,  which  they  consider  tc 
have  been  made  known  to  man  from  the  very  first, 


the  shuttle. 


The  same  word  describes  both  the  web  and 


f  38?. 

ant 


1726 


WEEK 


and  by  an  appeal  to  the  exceeding  prevalence  of 
the  hebdomadal  division  of  time  from  the  earliest 
age — an  argument  the  force  of  which  is  considered 
to  be  enhanced  by  the  alleged  absence  of  an7  natural 
ground  for  it. 

To  all  this,  however,  it  may  be  objected  that  we 
are  quite  in  the  dark  as  to  when  the  record  of  the 
six  days'  creation  was  made  known,  that  as  human 
language  is  used  and  human  apprehensions  are  ad 
dressed  in  that  record,  so  the  week  being  already 
known,  the  perfection  of  the  Divine  work  and 
Sabbath  may  well  have  been  set  forth  under  the 
figure  of  one,  the  existing  division  of  time  mould 
ing  the  document,  instead  of  the  document  giving 
birth  to  the  division ;  that  old  and  wide-spread  as 
is  the  recognition  of  that  division,  it  is  not  uni 
versal  ;  that  the  nations  which  knew  not  of  it  were 
too  important  to  allow  the  argument  from  its  pre- 
valeucy  to  stand  ;  and  that  so  far  from  its  being 
without  ground  in  nature,  it  is  the  most  obvious 
and  convenient  way  of  dividing  the  month.  Each 
of  these  points  must  now  by  briefly  considered : — 

1st.  That  the  week  rests  on  a  theological  ground 
may  be  cheerfully  acknowledged  by  both  sides ;  but 
nothing  is  determined  by  such  acknowledgment  as 
to  the  original  cause  of  adopting  this  division  of 
time.  The  records  of  creation  and  the  fourth  com 
mandment  give  no  doubt  the  ultimate  and  there 
fore  the  deepest  ground  of  the  weekly  division, 
but  it  does  not  therefore  follow  that  it  was  not 
adopted  for  lower  reasons  before  either  was  known. 
Whether  the  week  gave  its  sacredness  to  the  number 
seven,  or  whether  the  ascendency  of  that  number 
helped  to  determine  the  dimensions  of  the  week,  it 
is  impossible  to  say.  The  latter  fact,  the  ancient 
ascendency  of  the  number  seven,  might  rest  on 
divers  grounds.  The  planets,  according  to  the 
astronomy  of  those  times,  were  seven  in  number  ; 
so  are  the  notes  of  the  diatonic  scale ;  so  also  many 
other  things  naturally  attracting  observation. 

2ndly.  The  prevalence  of  the  weekly  division 
was  indeed  very  great,  but  a  nearer  approach  to 
universality  is  required  to  render  it  an  argument 
for  the  view  in  aid  of  which  it  is  appealed  to.  It 
was  adopted  by  all  the  Shemitic  races,  and,  in  the 
later  period  of  their  history  at  least,  by  the  Egyp 
tians.  Across  the  Atlantic  we  find  it,  or  a  division 
all  but  identical  with  it,  among  the  Peruvians.  It 
also  obtains  now  with  the  Hindoos,  but  its  antiquity 
among  them  is  matter  of  question.  It  is  possible 
that  it  was  introduced  into  India  by  the  Arabs  and 
Mohammedans.  So  in  China  we  find  it,  but  whether 
universally  or  only  among  the  Buddhists  admits  of 
doubt.  (See,  for  both,  Priaulx's  Questiones  Mo- 
saicae,  a  work  with  many  of  the  results  of  which 
we  may  be  well  expected  to  quarrel,  but  which 
deserves,  in  respect  not  only  of  curious  learning,  but 
of  the  vigorous  and  valuable  thought  with  which 
it  is  impregnated,  to  be  far  more  known  than  it  is.) 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  reason  for  thinking 
the  week  known  till  a  late  period  either  to  Greeks 
or  Romans. 

3rdly.  So  far  from  the  week  being  a  division  of 
time  without  ground  in  nature,  there  was  much  to  re 
commend  its  adoption.  Where  the  days  were  named 
from  planetary  deiffl^B,  as  among  first  the  Assyrians 
and  Chaldees,  and  then  the  Egyptians,  there  of 
course  each  period  of  seven  days  would  constitute  a 
whole,  and  that  whole  might  come  to  be  recognized 
by  nations  that  disregarded  or  rejected  the  practice 
which  had  shaped  and  determined  it.  But  further, 
the  week  is  a  most  natui  al  and  nearly  an  exact  qua- 


WEEK 

dripartition  of  the  month,  so  that  the  quartern  of 
the  moon  may  easily  have  suggested  it. 

It  is  beside  the  purpose  of  this  article  tt  trace 
the  hebdomadal  division  among  other  nations  than 
the  Hebrews.  The  week  of  the  Bible  is  that  with 
which  we  have  to  do.  Even  if  it  were  proved  that 
the  planetary  week  of  the  Egyptians,  as  sketched 
by  Dion  Cassius  (Hist.  Bom.  xxxvii.  18),  existed 
at  or  before  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  the  children 
of  Israel  did  not  copy  that.  Their  week  was 
simply  determined  by  the  Sabbath ;  and  there  is 
no  evidence  of  any  other  day,  with  them,  having 
either  had  a  name  assigned  to  it,  or  any  particular 
associations  bound  up  with  it.  The  days  seemed 
to  have  been  distinguished  merely  by  the  ordinal 
numerals,  counted  from  the  Sabbath.  We  shall 
have  indeed  to  return  to  the  Egyptian  planetary 
week  at  a  later  stage  of  our  inquiry,  but  our  first 
and  main  business,  as  we  have  already  said,  is  with 
the  week  of  the  Bible. 

We  have  seen  in  Gen.  xxix.  27,  that  it  was  known 
to  the  ancient  Syrians,  and  the  injunction  to  Jacob, 
"  fulfil  her  weeK,"  indicates  that  it  was  in  use  as  a 
fixed  term  for  great  festive  celebrations.  The  most 
probable  exposition  of  the  passage  is,  that  Laban 
tells  Jacob  to  fulfil  Leah's  week,  the  proper  periocl 
of  the  nuptial  festivities  in  connexion  with  his  mar 
riage  to  her,  and  then  he  may  have  Rachel  also 
(comp.  Judg.  xiv.).  And  so  too  for  funeral  observ 
ance,  as  in  the  case  of  the  obsequies  of  Jacob, 
Joseph  "  made  a  mourning  for  his  father  seven 
days"  (Gen.  1.  10).  But  neither  of  these  instances, 
any  more  than  Noah's  procedure  in  the  ark,  go 
further  than  showing  the  custom  of  observing  a 
term  of  seven  days  for  any  observance  of  import 
ance.  They  do  not  prove  that  the  whole  year,  or 
the  whole  month,  was  thus  divided  at  all  times, 
and  without  regard  to  remarkable  events. 

In  Exodus  of  course  the  week  comes  into  very 
distinct  manifestation.  Two  of  the  great  feasts — 
the  Passover  and  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles — are  pro 
longed  for  seven  days  after  that  of  their  initiation 
(Exod.  xii.  15-20,  &c.),  a  custom  which  remains  in 
the  Christian  Church,  in  the  rituals  of  which  the 
remembrances  and  topics  of  the  great  festivals  are 
prolonged  till  what  is  technically  called  the  octave. 
Although  the  Feast  of  Pentecost  lasted  but  one  day, 
yet  the  time  for  its  observance  was  to  be  counted 
by  weeks  from  the  Passover,  whence  one  of  its 
titles,  "  the  Feast  of  Weeks." 

The  division  by  seven  was,  as  we  have  seen,  ex 
panded  so  as  to  make  the  seventh  month  and  the 
seventh,  year  Sabbatical.  To  whatever  extent  the 
laws  enforcing  this  may  have  been  neglected  before 
the  Captivity,  their  effect,  when  studied,  must  havs 
been  to  render  the  words  JflUSP,  ej85o/«£s,  week, 
capable  of  meaning  a  seven  of  years  almost,  as 
naturally  as  a  seven  of  days.  Indeed  the  generality 
of  the  word  would  have  this  effect  at  any  rate. 
Hence  their  use  to  denote  the  latter  in  prophecy, 
more  especially  in  that  of  Daniel,  is  not  mere  arbi 
trary  symbolism,  but  the  employment  of  a  not  un 
familiar  and  easily  understood  language.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  discuss  schemes  of  prophetic  interpre 
tation,  nor  do  we  propose  giving  our  opinion  of  any 
such,  but  it  is  connected  with  our  subject  to  re 
mark  that,  whatever  be  the  merits  of  that  whi^h  in 
Daniel  and  the  Apocalypse  understands  a  year  by  a 
Jay,  it  cannot  be  set  aside  as  forced  and  unnatural. 
Whether  days  were  or  were  not  intended  to  be  thus 
understood  ''n  the  places  in  question,  their  being  s» 
would  have  been  a  congruous,  and  we  may  say 


WEEKS,  FEAST  OF 

logical  attendant  on  the  scheme  which  counts  weeics 
of  years,  and  both  would  have  been  a  natural  com 
putation  tc  minds  familiar  and  occupied  with  the 
law  of  the  Sabbatical  year. 

In  the  N.  T.  we  of  course  find  sueh  clear  recog 
nition  of  and  familiarity  with  the  week  as  needs 
scarcely  be  dwelt  on.  Sacred  as  the  division  was, 
and  stamped  deep  on  the  minds  and  customs  of 
God's  people,  it  now  received  additional  solemnity 
from  our  Lord's  last  earthly  Passover  gathering  up 
His  work  of  life  into  a  week. 

Hence  the  Christian  Chu/ch,  from  the  very  first, 
was  familiar  with  the  week.  St.  Paul's  language 
(1  Cor.  xvi.  2,  Kara  /j.tav  ffafifidTcav}  shows  this. 
We  cannot  conclude  from  it  that  such  a  division  of 
time  was  observed  by  the  inhabitants  of  Corinth 
generally ;  for  they  to  whom  he  was  writing, 
though  doubtless  the  majority  of  them  were  Gen 
tiles,  yet  knew  the  Lord's  Day,  and  most  probably 
the  Jewish  Sabbath.  But  though  we  can  infer  no 
more  than  this  from  the  place  in  question,  it  is  clear 
that  if  not  by  this  time,  yet  very  soon  after,  the 
whole  Roman  world  had  adopted  the  hebdomadal 
division.  Dion  Cassius,  who  wrote  in  the  2nd 
century,  speaks  of  it  as  both  universal  and  recent 
in  his  time.  He  represents  it  as  coming  from 
Egypt,  and  gives  two  schemes,  by  one  or  other  of 
which  he  considers  that  the  planetary  names  of  the 
different  days  were  fixed  (Dion  Cassius^  xxvii.  18). 
Those  names,  or  corresponding  ones,  have  perpetu 
ated  themselves  over  Christendom,  though  no  asso 
ciations  of  any  kind  are  now  connected  with  them, 
except  in  so  far  as  the  whimsical  conscience  of  some 
has  quarrelled  with  their  Pagan  origin,  and  led  to 
an  attempt  at  their  disuse.  It  would  be  interest 
ing,  though  foreign  to  our  present  purpose,  to  in- 
r're  into  the  origin  of  this  planetary  week.  A 
ply-learned  paper  in  the  Philological  Museum, 
by  the  late  Archdeacon  Hare,*  gives  the  credit  of 
its  invention  to  the  Chaldees.  Dion  Cassius  was 
however  pretty  sure  to  have  been  right  in  tracing 
its  adoption  by  the  Roman  world  to  an  Egyptian 
origin.  It  is  very  striking  to  reflect  that  while 
Christendom  was  in  its  cradle,  the  law  by  which 
she  was  to  divide  her  time  came  without  collusion 
with  her  into  universal  observance,  thus  making 
things  ready  for  her  to  impose  on  mankind  that 
week  on  which  all  Christian  life  has  been  shaped — 
that  week  grounded  on  no  worship  of  planetary 
deities,  nor  dictated  by  the  mere  wish  to  quadri 
partite  the  month,  but  based  on  the  earliest  lesson 
of  revelation,  and  proposing  to  man  his  Maker's 
model  as  that  whereby  to  regulate  his  working 
and  his  rest — that  week  which  once  indeed  in 
modern  times  it  has  been  attempted  to  abolish, 
because  it  was  attempted  to  abolish  the  whole 
Christian  faith,  but  which  has  kept,  as  we  are  sure 
it  ever  will  keep,  its  ground,  being  bound  up  with 
that  other,  and  sharing  therefore  in  that  other's 
invincibility  and  perpetuity.  [F.  G.] 

WEEKS,  FEAST  OF.     [PENTECOST.] 
WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES. 

I.  WEIGHTS. 

Introduction. — It  will  be  well  to  explain  briefly 
the  method  of  inquiry  which  led  to  the  conclusions 
stated  in  this  article,  the  subject  being  intricate, 
and  the  conclusions  in  many  main  particulars 
different  from  any  at  which  other  investigators 
have  arrived.  The  disagreement  of  the  opinions 


Philolog.  Mus.  vol.  i. 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES     172? 

respecting  apcient  weights  that  have  been  formed 
on  the  evidei^e  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  writers 
shows  the  importance  of  giving  the  first  place  to 
the  evidence  of  monuments.  The  evidence  ot  the 
Bible  is  clear,  except  in  the  case  of  one  passage,  but  it 
requires  a  monumental  commentary.  The  general 
principle  of  the  present  inquiry  was  to  give  the 
evidence  of  the  monuments  the  preference  on  all 
doubtful  points,  and  to  compare  it  with  that  of  lite 
rature,  so  as  to  ascertain  the  purport  of  statements 
which  otherwise  appeared  to  be  explicable  in  two, 
or  even  three,  different  ways.  Thus,  if  a  certain 
talent  is  said  to  be  equal  to  so  many  Attic  drachms, 
these  are  usually  explained  to  be  drachms  on  the 
old,  or  Commercial,  standard,  or  on  Solon's  reduced 
standard,  or  again  on  the  further  reduced  standard 
equal  to  that  of  Roman  denarii  of  the  early  em 
perors  ;  but  if  we  ascertain  from  weights  or  coins 
the  weight  of  the  talent  in  question,  we  can  decide 
with  what  standard  it  is  compared,  unless  the  texv 
is  hopelessly  corrupt. 

Besides  this  general  principle,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  bear  in  mind  the  following  postulates. 

1.  All  ancient  Greek  systems  of  weight  were 
derived,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  from  an  Eastern 
source. 

2.  All  the  older  systems  of  ancient  Greece  and 
Persia,  the  Aeginetan,  the  Attic,  the  Babylonian, 
and  the  Eubolc,  are  divisible  either  by  6000,  or  by 
3600. 

3.  The  6000th  or  3600th  part  of  the  talent  is  a 
divisor  of  all  higher  weights  and  coins,  and  a  mul 
tiple  of  all  lower  weights  and  coins,  except  its  two- 
thirds. 

4.  Coins  are  always  somewhat  below  the  standard 
weight. 

5.  The  statements  of  ancient  writers  as  to  the 
relation  of  different  systems  are  to  be  taken  either 
as  indicating  original  or  current  relation.     When  a 
set  of  statements  shows  a  special  study  of  metro 
logy  we  must  infer  original  relation  ;  isolated  state 
ments  may  rather  be  thought  to  indicate  current 
relation.     Ail  the  statements  of  a  writer,  which  are 
not  borrowed,  probably  indicate  either  the  one  or 
the  ether  kind  of  relation. 

6.  The  statements  of  ancient  writers  are  to  be 
taken  in  their  seemingly-obvious  sense,  or  discarded 
altogether  as  incorrect  or  unintelligible. 

7.  When  a  certain  number  of  drachms  or  other 
denominations  of  one  metal  are  said  to  correspond 
to  a  certain  number  of  drachms  or  other  denomina 
tions  of  another  metal,  it  must  not  be  assumed  that 
the  system  is  the  same  in  both  cases. 

Some  of  these  postulates  may  seem  somewhat 
strict,  but  it  must  be  recollected  that  some,  if  not 
all,  of  the  systems  to  be  considered  have  a  mutual 
relation  that  is  very  apt  to  lead  the  inquirer  to 
visionary  results  if  he  does  not  use  great  caution  in 
his  investigations. 

The  information  respecting  the  Hebrew  weights 
that  is  contained  in  direct  statements  necessitates 
an  examination  of  the  systems  used  by,  or  known  to, 
the  Greeks  as  late  as  Alexander's  time.  We  begin 
with  such  an  examination,  then  state  the  direct  data 
for  the  determination  of  the  Hebrew  system  or 
systems,  and  finally  endeavour  to  effect  thai  deter 
mination,  adding  a  comparative  view  of  all  our 
main  results. 

I.  Early  Greek  talents. — Three  principal  system* 
were  used  by  the  Greeks  before  the  time  of  Alex 
ander,  those  of  the  Aeginetan,  the  Attic,  and  the 
Eubolc  talents. 


1728    WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

1.  The  Aeginetan  talent  is  stated  to  have  con 
tained  60  rainae,  and  6000  drachms.  The  following 
points  are  insontestably  established  on  the  evidence 
of  ancient  writers.  Its  drachm  was  heavier  than 
the  Attic,  by  which,  when  unqualified,  we  mean 
the  drachm  of  the  full  monetary  standard,  weighing 
about  67"5  grains  Troy.  Pollux  states  that  it  con 
tained  10,000  Attic  drachms  and  100  Attic  minae. 
Aulus  Gellius,  referring  to  the  time  of  Demo 
sthenes,  speaks  of  a  talent  being  equal  to  10,000 
drachms,  and,  to  leave  no  doubt,  says  they  would 
be  the  same  number  of  denarii,  which  in  his  own 
time  were  equal  to  current  reduced  Attic  drachrns, 
the  terms  drachms  and  denarii  being  then  used  in 
terchangeably.  In  accordance  with  these  statement'  , 
we  find  a  monetary  system  to  have  been  in  use  in 
Macedonia  and  Thrace,  of  which  the  drachm  weighs 
about  110  grs.,in  very  nearly  the  proportion  required 
to  the  Att.ic  (6  :  10  :  :  67-5  :  112-5). 

The  silver  coins  of  Aegina,  however,  and  of  man  y 
ancient  Greek  cities,  follow  a  lower  standard,  of 
which  the  drachm  has  an  average  maximum  weight 
of  about  96  grs.  The  famous  Cyzicene  staters  of 
electrum  appear  to  follow  the  same  standard  as  the 
coins  of  Aegina,  for  they  weigh  about  240  grs.,  and 
are  said  to  have  been  equal  in  value  to  28  Attic 
drachms  of  silver,  a  Daric,  of  129  grs.,  being  equal 
to  20  such  drachms,  which  would  give  the  Cyzicenes 
(20  :  129  :  :  28  :  180)  three-fourths  of  gold,  the 
very  proportion  assigned  to  the  composition  of  elec 
trum  by  Pliny.  If  we  may  infer  that  the  silver 
was  not  counted  in  the  value,  the  Cyzicenes  would 
be  equal  to  low  didrachms  of  Aegina.  The  drachm 
obtained  from  the  pilver  coins  of  Aegina  has  very 
nearly  the  weight,  92  3  grs.,  that  Boeckh  assigns 
to  that  of  Athens  before  Solon's  reduction,  of  which 
the  system  continued  in  use  afterwards  as  the 
Commercial  talent.  The  coins  of  Athens  give  a 
standard,  67*5  grs.,  for  the  Solonian  drachm  that 
does  not  allow,  taking  that  standai'd  for  the  basis  of 
computation,  a  higher  weight  for  the  ante-Solonian 
drachm  than  about  that  computed  by  Boeckh. 
•  An  examination  of  Mr.  Burgon's  weights  from 
Athens,  in  the  British  Museum,  has,  however,  in 
duced  us  to  infer  a  higher  standard  in  both  cases. 
These  weights  bear  inscriptions  which  prove  their 
denominations,  and  that  they  follow  two  systems. 
One  weighing  9980  grs.  troy  has  the  inscription 
MNA  AFOP  (jLtva  ayopcuos?},  another  weighing 
717  1,  simply  MNA.  We  have  therefore  two  systems 
evidently  in  the  relation  of  the  Commercial  Attic, 
and  Solonian  Attic  (9980  :  7171  :  :  138-88  :  99-7 
instead  of  100),  a  conclusion  borne  out  by  the  fuller 
data  given  a  little  later  (§1.2).  The  lower  weight 
is  distinguished  by  AEMO  on  a  weight  of  3482 

(  X  2  =  6964)  grs.,  and  by  on  one  of  884 


(X  8  =  7072):  its  mina  was  therefore  called  877- 
fjioa-ia.  The  identity  of  these  two  systems,  the 
Market  and  the  Popular,  with  the  Commercial  and 
Solonian  of  Athens,  is  therefore  evident,  and  we 
thus  obtain  a  higher  standard  for  both  Attic  talents. 
From  the  correct  relation  of  the  weights  of  the  two 
minae  given  above,  we  may  compute  the  drachms 
of  the  two  talents  at  about  99'8  and  71'7  grs. 
The  heavier  standard  of  the  two  Attic  systems 
afforded  by  these  weights  reduces  the  difficulty  that 
is  occasioned  by  the  difference  of  the  two  Aeginetan 
standards. 

We  thus  obtain  the  following  principal  standards 
of  the  Aeginetan  weight. 

a.  The  Macedonian  talent,  or  Aeginetan  of  the 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

writers,  weighing  about  660,000  grs.,  containing 
60  minae  and  6000  drachms. 

6.  The  Commercial  talent  of  Athens,  used  for  the 
coins  of  Aegina,  weighing,  as  a  monetary  talent. 
never  more  than  about  576,000  grs.,  reduced  from 
a  weight-talent  of  about  598,800,  and  divided  into 
the  same  principal  parts  as  the  preceding. 

Jt  may  be  objected  to  this  opinion,  that  the  coins 
of  Aegina  should  rather  give  us  the  true  Aeginetan 
standard  than  those  of  Macedonia,  but  it  may  be 
replied,  that  we  know  from  literature  and  monu 
ments  of  but  two  Greek  systems  heavier  than  the 
ordinary  or  later  Attic,  and  that  the  heavier  of  these 
systems  is  sometimes  called  Aeginetan,  the  lighter, 
which  bears  two  other  names,  never. 

2.  The  Attic  talent,  when  simply  thus  desig 
nated,  is  the  standard  weight  introduced  by  Solon, 
which  stood  to  the  older  or  Commercial  talent  in 
the  relation  of  100  to  138|.  Its  average  maxi 
mum  weight,  as  derived  from  the  coins  of  Athens 
and  the  evidence  of  ancient  writers,  gives  a  drachm 
of  about  67'5  grs.  ;  but  Mr.  Burgon's  weights,  ?s 
already  shown,  enable  us  to  raise  this  sum  to  71*7. 
Those  weights  have  also  enabled  us  to  make  a  v.ry 
curious  discovery.  We  have  already  seen  tha*  two 
minae,  the  Market  and  the  Popular,  are  recognized 
in  them,  one  weight,  having  the  inscription  MNA 
AFOP  (jiva.  ayopaios  ?)  ,  weighing  9980  grs.,  and 
another,  inscribed  MNA  (/nva[5-rjiuiOffia]'),  weighing 
7171  grs.,  these  being  in  almost  exactly  the  rela 
tion  of  the  Commercial  and  ordinary  Attic  minae 
8rifji.6(nat.  There  is  no  indication  of  any  third 
system,  but  certain  of  the  marks  of  value  prove 
that  the  lower  system  had  two  talents,  the  heavier 
of  which  was  double  the  weight  of  the  ordinary 
talent.  No.  9  has  the  inscription  TETAPT,  "  tha 
quarter,"  and  weighs  3218  grs.,  giving  a  unit  of 


12872  grs.;  no.  14,  inscribed  the  "half- 

sit  1  A." 

quarter,"  weighs  1770  grs.,  giving  a  unit  of  14160 
grs.  We  thus  obtain  a  mina  twice  that  of  Solon's 
reduction.  The  probable  reason  for  the  use  of  this 
larger  Solonian  talent  will  be  shown  in  a  later 
place  (§  IV.).  These  weights  are  of  about  the  date 
of  the  Peloponnesian  War.  (See  Table  A.) 

From  these  data  it  appears  that  the  Attic  talent 
weighed  about  430,260  grs.  by  the  weights,  and 
that  the  coins  give  a  talent  of  about  405,000  grs., 
the  latter  being  apparently  the  weight  to  which 
the  talent  was  reduced  after  a  time,  and  the  maxi 
mum  weight  at  which  it  is  reckoned  by  ancient 
writers.  It  gradually  lost  weight  in  the  coinage, 
until  the.  drachm  fell  to  about  57  grs.  or  less,  thus 
coming  to  be  equivalent  to,  or  a  little  lighter  than, 
the  denarius  of  the  early  Caesars.  It  is  important, 
when  examining  the  statements  of  ancient  writers, 
to  consider  whether  the  full  monetary  weight  of  th<? 
drachm,  mina,  or  talent,  or  the  weight  after  this 
last  reduction,  is  intended.  There  are  cases,  as  in 
the  comparison  of  a  talent  fallen  into  disuse,  where 
the  value  in  Attic  drachms  or  denarii  so  described 
is  evidently  used  with  reference  to  the  full  Attk 
monetary  weight. 

3.  The  Euboic  talent,  though  used  in  Greece,  is 
also  said  to  have  been  used  in  Persia,  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  of  its  Eastern  origin.  We  there 
fore  reserve  tiie  discussion  of  it  for  the  next  section 
(§  H.,  2). 

II.  Foreign  talents  of  the  same  period.  —  Two 
foreign  systems  of  tbs  same  period,  besides  the  He- 
brew,  are  mentioned  by  ancient  writers,  the  Baby 
lonian  tale-it  and  the  Euboic,  which  Herodotus 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 


1723 


A.— TABLE  OF  MK.  BURGON'S  WEIGHTS  FROM  ATHENS. 
All  these  weights  are  of  lead,  except  nos.  15  and  38,  which  are  of  brom«. 


No. 

Weight 
Urs. 
troy. 

Inscription. 

Type. 

Con- 

dition.s 

Value  Attic 
Com- 
mercial.6 

Excess 
or 
deficiency 

Value  Attic 
Solonian.7 

Exocsu 
or 
deficiency. 

"l 

9980 

MNA  ATOP 

Dolphin 

A 

Mina 

2 

9790 

Id. 

D 

(Mina) 

-190 

.     . 

3 

7171 

MNA 

Id. 

A 

.     . 

. 

Mina 

4 

7048 

Id. 

d 

.     , 

, 

iMina) 

-123 

I 

4424 

Diota 

B 

^ 

MINA? 

-3C6-6 

6 

3874 

Tortoise 

B 

.     . 

. 

MINA? 

+288-5 

1 

3482 

AEMO 

Id.i 

B 

Mina 

-103-5 

8 

3461 

Turtle 

B 

> 

i  Mina 

-124-5 

9 

3218 

TETAPT 

Tortoise 

A.'orD? 

\     [ 

]     * 

;    MINA 

-367-5 

10 

2959 

Half  diota 

d 

> 

f 

MINA? 

+  90-6 

11 

?«65 

MO 

Turtle 

B 

.     . 

.     . 

•   MINA? 

-     3-4 

12 

2210 

AEMO 

Half  diota 

C 

t 
* 

f 

MINA 

-180-3 

13 

1872 

Half  turtle 

B 

MINA 

+  79-2 

14 

1770 

EMITETAP 

Half  tortoise 

B 

*     \ 

[     " 

•   MINA 

—  22-7 

15 

1698 

Cre&cent 

B? 

tMina? 

-298 

. 

f 

16 

1648 

B 

Mina? 

-348 

% 

17 

1603 

F     M 

. 

B?orD? 

Mina? 

-393 

. 

18 

1348 

B 

> 

A 

m 

% 

2     deca- 

-    86-2 

drachms. 

19 

1211 

MO 

Quarter  diota2 

B 

m 

. 

T^  MINA  ? 

+  35-8 

20 

11/2 

AH 

Crescent 

B 

. 

> 

^  MINA  ? 

-    23-1 

21 

1171 

Crescent 

B 

t 

A  MINA  ? 

-    24-1 

22 

1082 

Half  turtle  s 

B 

VoMln*? 

+  84 

&  Mina  ? 

-113-1 

•£3 

1045 

AEMO 

Crescent 

E 

^ 

iMina? 

-150-1 

24 

988 

AEMO 

Diota  in  wreath  « 

B 

\     * 

. 

AMina? 

t91-6 

25 

928-5 

AEMO 

Owl,  A.  in  field  « 

C 

% 

e 

|Mina 

32-1 

26 

924 

Half  crescent  and 

B 

.     . 

.      . 

|Mina 

+  27-6 

star 

27 

915-5 

D? 

m 

m 

Mina 

+  19-1 

28 

910-5 

t 

B 

m 

> 

Mina 

+  14-1 

29 

901 

Quarter  diota 

B 

.     . 

.     . 

Mina 

+     4-6 

30 

889 

A  .  .  0 

^       f 

d 

m 

9      4 

Mina 

-     7-3 

31 

884 

AE  OFAO 

f 

C? 

t 

f 

Mina 

-    12-3 

32 

869 

Rose 

C? 

.     . 

. 

Mina 

-    27-3 

33 

859 

AEMO 

Uncertain  obj.  in 

d 

. 

. 

wreath  * 

|Mina 

-  37-3 

34 

845 

Half  crescent 

B 

. 

m 

iMina? 

-  51-3 

35 

756-5 

A 

* 

D? 

4  didrachms 

-41-9 

36 

541-5 

B 

_ 

f 

8  drachms  ? 

-   32-1 

37 
38 

527-5 
450 

n 

• 

B 
B? 

£  of  £  mina? 
5  drachms  ? 

+28-5 
-49 

6  drachms  ? 

+  19-7 

39 

411 

r 

B 

4  drachms  ? 

+11-8 

6  drachms  ? 

-   19-2 

40 

388 

• 

B? 

4  drachms  ? 

-il  -a 

5  drachms  ? 

+  29-4 

1  Countermark,  tripod.  *  Countermark,  prow.  3  Turtle,  headless  ?  4  Countermark. 

*  Explanation  of  signs:  A,  Scarcely  injured.  B,  A  little  weight  lost.  C,  More  than  a  little  lost.  D,  Much 
weight  lost,  d,  Much  corroded.  E.  Very  much  weight  lost.  When  two  signs  are  given,  the  former  is  the  more 
probable.  6  The  weight  of  the  Commercial  Attic  mina  is  here  assumed  to  be  about  9980  grs.  7  The  weight 
of  the  Solonian  Attic  mina  is  here  assumed  to  be  about  7171  grs.  The  heavier  talent  is  indicated  by  capital  letters. 


B.— TABLE  OF  WEIGHTS  FROM  NINEVEH. 

Two  weights  in  the  series  are  omitted  in  this  table :  one  is  a  large  duck  representing  the  santui  weight  as  no.  1, 
but  much  injured;  the  other  is  a  small  lion,  of  which  the  weight  is. doubtful,  as  it  cannot  be  decided  whether  it  was 
adjusted  with  one  or  two  rings. 


No. 

Form  and 
Material. 

Phoenician 
Inscric&ceL 

Cuneiform 
Inscription. 

Marks 
of  Value 

Con- 
dition.' 

Weight. 
Grs.  troy. 

Computed 
Weight. 

Division  of 
Gt.T.   1  Lesser  I 

1 

Duck  stone 

XXX  Manehs 

A 

233,300 

239,760 

.  , 

* 

2 

»        it 

.     . 

X   Manehs 

B 

77,500 

79,920 

J 

3 
4 

Lion  bronze 

Xv'Manehs 

•     • 

B 
B 

15,000 
230,460 

15,984 
239,760 

'i 

5 

i  >        >  » 

V  Manehs 

V  Manehs 

B 

77,820 

79,920  '       T3 

.. 

6 

»»        »> 

III  Manehs 

III  Manehs 

, 

C 

44,196 

47,952          25 

.. 

7 

9  »                f  9 

II  Manehs 

II  Manehs 

t 

A 

30,744 

31,968          35 

.. 

8 

11  Manehs 

II  Manehs 

. 

B 

29,796 

Id. 

* 

9 

,,                ,, 

II  Manehs 

. 

B 

14,604 

15,984 

•• 

i 

10 

( 

A 

15,984 

Id. 

11 

»»                »» 

Maneh 

Maneh 

]     ] 

B 

14,724 

Id. 

£ 

.. 

12 

ft                It 

.     . 

.     . 

B 

10,272 

• 

.. 

13 

>  »                1  » 

Maneh 

Maneh 

B 

7,224 

7,992 

.  , 

& 

14 

>« 

Maneh 

Maneh 

e 

B 

7,404 

Id. 

i 

15 

B 

3,708 

3,996 

, 

16 

Fifth 

" 

B 

3,060 

3,196 

iM 

17 

>                   1  » 

Quarter 

B 

3,848 

3,996 

IM 

•  • 

18 

Deck  stone  |        ."    . 

mm  ' 

C 

2,904 

3,196 

19 

»        >••     1        •     • 

mm 

B 

2,T48 

Id. 

.  . 

20 

i 

iiiuiii 

B 

1,968 

2,131 

•4 

VOL.  III. 


1  A,  Well  preserved.        B,  Somewhat  injured.       C,  Much  injured. 


1730    WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

relates  to  have  been  used  by  the  Persians  of  his  ' 
time  respectively  for  the  weighing  of  their  silver 
and  gold  paid  in  tribute. 

1.  The  Babylonian  talent  may  be  determined 
from  existing  weights  found  by  Mr.  Layard  at 
Nineveh.  These  are  in  the  forms  of  lions  and  ducks, 
and  are  all  upon  the  same  system,  although  the  same 
denominations  sometimes  weigh  in  the  proportion 
of  2  to  1.  On  account  of  their  great  importance 
we  insert  a  table,  specifying  their  weights,  inscrip 
tions,  and  degree  of  preservation.  (See  Table  B, 
previous  page.) 

From  these  data  we  may  safely  draw  the  follow 
ing  inferences. 

The  weights  represent  a  double  system,  of  which 
the  heavier  talent  contained  two  of  the  lighter  talents. 

The  heavier  talent  contained  60  manehs.  The 
maneh  was  divided  into  thirtieths  and  sixtieths. 
We  conclude  the  units  having  these  respective  rela 
tions  to  the  maneh  of  the  heavy  talent  to  be  divi 
sions  of  it,  because  in  the  case  of  the  first  a  thirtieth 
is  a  more  likely  division  than  a  fifteenth,  which  it 
would  be  if  assigned  to  the  lighter  talent,  and  be 
cause,  in  the  case  of  the  second,  eight  sixtieths  is  a 
more  likely  division  than  eight  thirtieths. 

The  lighter  talent  contained  60  manehs.  Accord 
ing  to  Dr.  Hincks,  the  maneh  of  the  lighter  talent 
was  divided  into  sixtieths,  and  these  again  into 
thirtieths.  The  sixtieth  is  so  important  a  division  in 
any  Babylonian  system,  that  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  Dr.  Hiucks  is  right  in  assigning  it  to  this  talent, 
and  moreover  its  weight  is  a  value  of  great  conse 
quence  in  the  Babylonian  system  as  well  as  in  one 
derived  from  it.  Besides,  the  sixtieth  bears  a  dif 
ferent  name  from  the  sixtieth  of  the  heavier  talent, 
so  that  there  must  have  been  a  sixtieth  in  each, 
unless,  but  this  we  have  shown  to  be  unlikely,  the 
latter  belongs  to  the  lighter  talent,  which  would 
then  have  had  a  sixtieth~and  thirtieth.  The  follow 
ing  table  exhibits  our  results. 

Heavier  Talent.  Grs.  troy. 

h  Maneh  266-4 

2  ^  Maneh  532-8 

60  30      Maneh  15,984 

3600  1800         60       Talent  959,040 

Lighter  Talent. 

^  of  jjj,  Maneh  4-44 

30  yj,  Maneh  133-2 

1800  60      Maneh  7,992 

108000  3600         60       Talent  479,520 

Certain  low  subdivisions  of  the  lighter  talent 
may  be  determined  from  smaller  weights,  in  the 
British  Museum,  from  Babylonia  or  Assyria,  not 
found  with  those  last  described.  These  are,  with 
one  exception,  ducks,  and  have  the  following  weights, 
which  we  compare  with  the  multiples  of  the  smallest 
subdivision  of  the  lighter  talent. 


Smaller  Babylonian  or  Assyrian 
Weigh*. 

Grs.  troy. 

1.  Duck,  marked  II,  w*.  329 

2.  „  120) 

3.  „  119  f 


Thirtieths  of  Sixtieth  of 
Maneh. 

U»it.  4-44 

80.  355-2 


4.  „ 

5.  „ 

6.  Weight  like   short 

stepper. 

7.  Duck. 

8.  „ 

9.  „ 

10. 


100 
87+ 

1 83 

80+ 
40- 
34- 
19 


30.  133-2 

25.  Ill 
22.  97-6 


21.  93-2 

20.  88-8 

10.  44-4 

8.  35-5 

5.  22-2 


320 
120 

100 
88 

84 

80 
40 
32 
20 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

Before  comparing  the  evidence  of  the  coins  which 
we  may  suppose  to  have  been  struck  according  to 
the  Babylonian  talent,  it  will  be  well  to  ascertain 
whether  the  higher  or  lower  talent  was  in  use,  or 
whether  both  were,  in  the  period  of  the  Persian 
coins. 

Herodotus  speaks  of  the  Babylonian  talent  as  not 
greatly  exceeding  the  Euboi'c,  which  has  been  com 
puted  to  be  equivalent  to  the  Commercial  Ai  tic,  but 
more  reasonably  as  nearly  the  same  as  the  ordinary 
Attic.  Pollux  makes  the  Babylonian  talent  equal  to 
7000  Attic  drachms.  Taking  the  Attic  drachm  at 
67-5  grs.,  the  standard  probably  used  by  Pollux, 
the  Babylonian  talent  would  weigh  472,500,  which 
is  very  near  the  weight  of  the  lighter  talent.  Aelian 
says  that  the  Babylonian  talent  was  equal  to  72 
Attic  minae,  which,  on  the  standard  of  67 -5  to  the 
drachm,  gives  a  sum  of  486,000.  We  may  there 
fore  suppose  that  the  lighter  talent  was  generally, 
if  not  universally,  in  use  in  the  time  of  the  Persian 
coins. 

Herodotus  relates  that  the  king  of  Persia  received 
the  silver  tribute  of  the  satrapies  according  to  the 
Babylonian  talent,  but  the  gold,  according  to  the 
Eubo'ic.  We  may  therefore  infer  that  the  silver 
coinage  of  the  Persian  monarchy  was  then  adjusted 
to  the  former,  the  gold  coinage  to  the  latter,  if  there 
was  a  coinage  in  both  metals  so  early.  The  oldest 
coins,  both  gold  and  silver,  of  the  Persian  monarchy, 
are  of  the  time  of  Herodotus,  if  not  a  little  earlier ; 
and  there  are  still  more  ancient  pieces,  in  both 
metals,  of  the  same  weights  as  Persian  gold  and 
silver  coins,  which  are  found  at  or  near  Sardes,  and 
can  scarcely  be  doubted  to  be  the  coinage  of  Croesus, 
or  of  another  Lydian  king  of  the  6th  century.  The 
larger  silver  coins  of  the  Persian  monarchy,  and 
those  of  the  satraps,  are  of  the  following  denomina 
tions  and  weights : — 


Piece  of  three  sigli  . 
Piece  of  two  sigli  . 
Siglos  .... 


Grs.  troy. 

253-5 
169 
84-5 


The  only  denomination  of  which  we  know  the 
name  is  the  siglos,  which  as  having  the  same  type 
as  the  Daric,  appears  to  be  the  oldest  Persian  silver 
coin.  It  is  the  ninetieth  part  of  the  maneh  of  the 
lighter  talent,  and  the  5400th  of  that  talent.  The 
piece  of  three  sigli  is  the  thirtieth  pail  of  that 
maneh,  and  the  1800th  of  the  talent.  If  there 
were  any  doubt  as  to  these  coins  being  struck  upon 
the  Babylonian  standard,  it  would  be  removed  in 
the  next  part  of  our  inquiry,  in  which  we  shall 
show  that  the  relation  of  gold  and  silver  occasioned 
these  divisions. 

2.  The  Eubo'ic  talent,  though  bearing  a  Greek 
name,  is  rightly  held  to  have  been  originally  an 
Eastern  system.  As  it  was  used  to  weigh  the  gold 
sent  as  tribute  to  the  king  of  Persia,  we  may  infer 
that  it  was  the  standard  of  the  Persian  gold  money  ; 
and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  coinage  of 
Euboea  was  upon  its  standard.  If  our  result  as  to 
the  talent,  when  tested  by  the  coins  of  Persia  and 
Euboea,  confirms  this  inference  and  supposition,  it 
may  be  considered  sound. 

We  must  now  discuss  the  celebrated  passage  of 
Herodotus  ©n  the  tribute  of  the  Persian  satrapies. 
He  there  states  that  the  Babylonian  talent  contained 
70  Euboic  minae  (iii.  89).  He  specifies  the  amount 
of  silver  paid  in  Babylonian  talents  hy  each  pro 
vince,  and  then  gives  the  sum  of  the  silver  accord 
ing  to  the  Euboic  standard,  reduces  the  gold  paid 
to  ite  equivalent  ia  silver,  reckoning  the  former  at 


Sum  of  items, 
silver. 


Equivalent  in  E  T. 
at  70  minae=B.  T. 


7740  B.  T.     =     9030  E.  T. 
Gold  tribute.       Equivalent  at  13  to  1. 
360.  E.  T.  4680  E.  T. 

Total  .   .   .  13,710  E.  T. 
Total  stated  14,560 

Difference  .    -f  850 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

thirteen  times  the  value  of  the  latter,  and  lastly 
gives  the  sum  total.  His  statements  may  be  thus 
tabulated : — 

Equivalent        Difference. 

stated. 

9540  E.  T.        +  510 

Id. 

14,220 
14,560 

+  340. 

It  is  impossible  to  explain  this  double  error  in 
any  satisfactory  manner.  It  is,  however,  evident 
that  in  the  time  of  Herodotus  there  was  some  such 
relation  between  the  Babylonian  and  Eubo'ic  talents 
as  that  of  11-66  to  10.  This  is  so  near  12  to  10 
that  it  may  be  inquired  whether  ancient  writers 
speak  of  any  relative  value  of  gold  to  silver  about 
this  time  that  would  make  talents  in  this  propor 
tion  easy  for  exchange,  and  whether,  if  such  a  pro 
portion  is  stated,  it  is  confirmed  by  the  Persian 
coins.  The  relative  value  of  13  to  1,  stated  by  Hero 
dotus,  is  very  nearly  12  to  1,  and  seems  as  though 
it  had  been  the  result  of  some  change,  such  as  might 
have  been  occasioned  by  the  exhaustion  of  the  sur 
face-gold  in  Asia  Minor,  or  a  more  careful  working 
of  the  Greek  silver-mines.  The  relative  value  12 
to  1  is  mentioned  by  Plato  (Hipparch.}.  About 
Plato's  time  the  relation  was,  however,  10  to  1. 
He  is  therefore  speaking  of  an  earlier  period.  Sup 
posing  that  the  proportion  of  the  Babylonian  and 
Euboic  talents  was  12  to  10,  and  that  it  was  based 
upon  a  relative  value  of  12  to  1,  what  light  do  the 
Persian  coins  throw  upon  the  theory?  If  we  take 
the  chief  or  only  Persian  gold  coin,  the  Daric,  as 
suming  its  weight  to  be  129  grs.,  and  multiply  it 
by  12,  we  obtain  the  product  1548.  If  we  divide 
this  product  as  follows,  we  obtain  as  aliquot  parts 
the  weights  of  all  the  principal  and  heavier  Persian 
silver  coins: — 

1548  -j-    6   =   258  three  sigli. 
-%-    9   =   172  two  sigli. 
-T-  18   =     86  sigli. 

On  these  grounds  we  may  suppose  that  the 
Euboic  talent  was  to  the  Babylonian  as  60  to 
72,  or  5  to  6.  Taking  the  Babylonian  maneh 
at  7992  grs.,  we  obtain  399,600  for  the  Euboic 
talent. 

This  result  is  most  remarkably  confirmed  by 
an  ancient  bronze  weight  in  the  form  of  a  lion 
discovered  at  Abydos  in  the  Troad,  and  bearing 
in  Phoenician  characters  the  following  inscription! 
NQDD  n  NnnD  b3p5>  p2DK,  "Approved,"  or 
"  found  correct,  on  the  part  of  the  satrap  who  is 
appointed  over  the  silver,"  or  "  money."  It  weighs 
396,000  grs.,  and  is  supposed  to  have  lost  one  or 
two  pounds  weight.  It  has  been  thought  to  be  a 
weight  of  50  Babylonian  minae,  but  it  is  most  un 
likely  that  there  should  have  been  such  a  division 
of  the  talent,  and  still  more  that  a  weight  should 
have  been  made  of  that  division  without  any  dis 
tinctive  inscription.  If,  however,  the  Euboic  talent 
was  to  the  Babylonian  in  the  proportion  of  5  to  6, 
50  Babylonian  minae  would  correspond  to  a  Eu 
boic  talent,  and  this  weight  would  be  a  talent  of 
that  standard.  We  have  calculated  the  Euboic 
talent  at  399,600  grs.,  this  weight  is  396,000,  or 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES     1731 

3600  deficient,  but  this  is  explained  by  the  sup 
posed  loss  of  one  (5760)  or  two  (11,520)  pounds 
weight.* 

We  have  now  to  test  our  result  by  the  Persian 
gold  money,  and  the  coins  of  Euboea. 

The  principal,  if  not  the  only,  Persian  gold  coin 
is  the  Daric,  weighing  about  129  grs.  This,  we 
have  seen,  was  the  standard  coin,  according  to 
which  the  silver  money  was  adjusted.  Its  double 
in  actual  weight  is  found  in  the  silver  coinage,  but 
its  equivalent  is  wanting,  as  though  for  the  sake  of 
distinction.  The  double  is  the  thirtieth  of  the 
maneh  of  the  lighter  or  monetary  Babylonian 
talent,  of  which  the  Daric  is  the  sixtieth,  the  latter 
being,  in  our  opinion,  a  known  division.  The 
weight  of  the  sixtieth  is,  it  should  be  observed, 
about  133'2  grs.,  somewhat  in  excess  of  the  weight 
of  the  Daric,  but  ancient  coins  are  always  struck 
below  their  nominal  weight.  The  Daric  was  thus 
the  3600th  part  of  the  Babylonian  talent.  It  is 
nowhere  stated  how  the  Euboic  talent  was  divided, 
but  if  we  suppose  it  to  have  contained  50  minae,  then 
the  Daric  would  have  been  the  sixtieth  of  the  mina, 
but  if  100  minae,  the  thirtieth.  In  any  case  it 
would  have  been  the  3000th  part  of  the  talent.  As 
the  6000th  was  the  chief  division  of  the  Aeginetan 
and  Attic  monetary  talents,  and  the  3000th,  of  the 
Hebrew  talent  according  to  which  the  sacred  tri 
bute  was  paid,  and  as  an  Egyptian  talent  contained 
6000  such  units,  no  other  principal  division  of  the 
chief  talents,  save  that  of  the  Babylonian  into 
3600)  being  known,  this  is  exactly  what  we  should 
expect. 

The  coinage  of  Euboea  has  hitherto  been  the  great 
obstacle  to  the  discovery  of  the  Euboic  talent.  For 
the  present  we  speak  only  of  the  silver  coins,  for 
the  only  gold  coin  we  know  is  later  than  the  earliest 
notices  of  the  talent,  and  it  must  therefore  have 
been  in  Greece  originally,  as  far  as  money  was  con 
cerned,  a  silver  talent.  The  coins  give  the  follow 
ing  denominations,  of  which  we  state  the  average 
highest  weights  and  the  assumed  true  weights,  com 
pared  with  the  assumed  true  weights  of  the  coins 
of  Athens : — 

COINS  OF  EUBOEA.  COINS  OF  ATHENS. 

Highest      Assumed  truo  Assumed  true 

weight.          weight.  weight. 

258  Tetradrachm  270 

123  129  Didrachm       135 

85  86 

63  64-5          Drachm  67-5 

43  43  Tetrobolon       45 

It  must  be  remarked  that  the  first  Euboic  deno* 
initiation  is  known  to  us  only  from  two  very  early 
coins  of  Eretiia,  in  the  British  Museum,  which 
may  possibly  be  Attic,  struck  during  a  time  of 
Athenian  supremacy,  for  they  are  of  about  the 
weight  of  very  heavy  Attic  tetradrachms. 

It  will  be'  perceived  that  though  the  weights  of 
all  denominations,  except  the  third  in  the  Euboic 
list,  are  very  near  the  Attic,  the  system  of  division 
is  evidently  different.  The  third  Euboic  denomi 
nation  is  identical  with  the  Persian  siglos,  and  indi 
cates  the  Persian  origin  of  the,  system.  The  second 
piece  is,  however,  identical  with  the  Daric.  It 
would  seem  that  the  Persian  gold  and  silver  system* 
of  division  were  here  combined  ;  and  this  might 
perfectly  have  been  done,  as  the  Daric,  though  a 
division  of  the  gold  talent,  is  also  a  division  of  the 


*  Since  this  was  written  we  have  ascertained  that 
ftL  de  Vogue  has  »uppos«d  this  Mon  to  be  a  Euboic  talent 


(Revue  Archeologique,  n.  s.  Jan.  1862).    See  also  Archaeo 


logical  Journal,  1WO,  Sept.  pp.  189,  200. 


5  S  * 


1732    WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

silver  talent.  As  we  have  noticed,  the  Daric  as 
omitted  in  the  Persian  silver  coinage  for  some  spe 
cial  reason.  The  relation  of  the  Persian  and  Greek 
systems  may  be  thus  stated  : 

Persian  silver,      Persian  gold,  Greek  Eubolc. 

Babylonian.           Eubo'ic.      Actual  weight  Assumed. 

253-5  258 
169 

129              121  129 

84-5                                    85  86 

63  64-5 

43  43 

The  standard  weights  of  Persian  silver  coins  are 
here  assumed  from  the  highest  average  weight  of 
the  siglos.  We  hold  that  the  coins  of  Corinth 
probably  follow  the  Euboic  system. 

The  only  gold  coin  of  Euboea  known  to  us  has 
the  extraordinary  weight  of  49'4  grs.  It  is  of 
Carystus,  and  probably  in  date  a  little  before  Alex 
ander's  time.  It  may  be  upon  a  system  for  gold 
money  derived  from  the  Eubolc,  exactly  as  the 
Eubolc  was  derived  from  the  Babylonian,  but  it  is 
not  safe  to  reason  upon  a  single  coin. 

3.  The  talents  of  Egypt  have  hitherto  formed  a 
most  unsatisfactory  subject.  We  commence  our 
inquiry  by  stating  all  certain  data. 

The  gold  and  silver  coins  of  the  Ptolemies  follow 
the  same  standard  as  the  silver  coins  of  the  kings  of 
Macedon  to  Philip  II.  inclusive,  which  are  on  the 
full  Aeginetan  weight.  The  copper  coins  have  been 
thought  to  follow  the  same  standard,  but  this  is  an 
error. 

The  ancient  Egyptians  are  known  to  have  had 
two  weights,  the  MeN  or  UTeN,  containing  ten 
smaller  weights  bearing  the  name  KeT,  as  M. 
Chabas  has  proved.  The  former  name,  if  rightly 
read  MeN,  is  a  maneh  or  mina,  the  latter,  accord 
ing  to  the  Copts,  was  a  drachm  or  didrachm 

(Krf  :  KITTG,  CKITG  S.  drachma,  di- 
drachma,  the  last  form  not  being  known  to  have 
the  second  signification).  A  weight,  inscribed  "  Five 
KeT,"  and  weighing  698  grs.,  has  been  discovered. 
It  probably  originally  weighed  about  700  (Revue 
Archeologique,  n.  s.).  We  can  thus  determine  the 
KeT  to  have  weighed  about  140  grs.,  and  the  MeN 
or  UTeN  about  1400.  ,  An  examination  of  the  cop 
per  coins  of  the  Ptolemies  has  led  us  to  the  in 
teresting  discovery  that  they  follow  this  standard 
and  system.  The  following  are  all  the  heavier 
denominations  of  the  copper  coins  of  the  earlier  Pto 
lemies,  and  the  corresponding  weights:  the  coins 
vary  much  in  weight,  but  they  clearly  indicate 
their  standard  and  their  denominations : — 

EGYPTIAN  COPPER  COINS,  AND  WEIGHTS. 


Coins. 

Grs. 

A  cir.  1400. 
Bcir.  700. 
Ccir.  280. 
Dcir.  140. 
E  cir.  70. 


Weights. 

MeN,  or  UTeN  (Maneh?) 

5  KeT. 

(2  KeT). 

KeT. 

(*  KeT). 


We  must  therefore  conclude  that  the  gold  and 
silver  standard  of  the  Ptolemies  was  different  from 
the  copper  standard,  the  latter  being  that  of  the 
ancient  Egyptians.  The  two  talents,  if  calculated 
from  the  coins,  which  in  the  gold  and  silver  are 
below  the  full  weight,  are  in  the  proportion  of 
about  10  (gold  and  silver)  to  13  (copper) ;  or,  if 
calculated  from  the  higher  correct  standard  of  the 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

gold  and  silver  system,  in  the  propoition  of  about 
10  to  12'7  :  we  shall  speak  as  to  the  exchange  in 
a  later  place  (§  III.). 

It  may  be  observed  that  the  difficulty  of  explain 
ing  the  statements  of  ancient  writers  as  to  the 
Egyptian,  Alexandrian,  or  Ptolemaic  talent  or 
talents,  probably  arises  from  the  use  of  two  systems 
which  could  be  easily  confounded,  at  least  in  their 
lower  divisions. 

4.  The  Caithaginian  talent  may  not  be  as  old  as 
the  period  before  Alexander,  to  which  we  limit  our 
inquiry,  yet  it  reaches  so  nearly  to  that  period  that 
it  cannot  be  here  omitted.  Those  silver  coins  of 
the  Carthaginians  which  do  not  follow  the  Attic 
standard  seem  to  be  struck  upon  the  standard  of 
the  Persian  coins,  the  Babylonian  talent.  The  only 
clue  we  have,  however,  to  the  system  is  afforded 
by  a  bronze  weight  inscribed  i"UD  7pS^D,  and 
weighing  321  grammes  =  4956'5  grs.  (Dr.  Levy  in 
Zeitschrift  Deutsch.  morgenl.  Gesellsch.  xiv.p.  710). 
This  sum  is  divisible  by  the  weights  of  all  the 
chief  Carthaginian  silver  coins,  except  the  "  deca- 
drachm,"  but  only  as  sevenths,  a  system  of  division 
we  do  not  know  to  have  obtained  in  any  ancient 
talent.  The  Carthaginian  gold  coins  seem  also  to 
be  divisions  of  this  mina  on  a  different  principle. 

III.  The  Hebrew  talent  or  talents  and  divisions. 
—  The  data  we  have  obtained  enable  us  to  examine 
the  statements  respecting  the  Hebrew  weights  with 
some  expectation  of  determining  this  difficult  ques 
tion.  The  evidence  may  be  thus  stated. 

1.  A  talent  of  silver  is  mentioned  in  Exodus, 
which  contained  3000  shekels,  distinguished  as  "  the 
holy  shekel,"  or  "  shekel  of  the  sanctuary."     The 
number  of  Israelite  men  who  paid  the  ransom  of 
half  a  shekel  a-piece  was  603,550,  and  the  sum 
paid  was  100  talents  and  1775  shekels  of  silver 
(Ex.  xxx.  13,  15,  xxxvih.  25-28),  whence  we  easily 
discover  that  the  talent  of  silver  contained  3000 
shekels   (603,550-4-2  =  301,775    shekels-  1775  = 
300,000-4-  100  talents  =  3000  shekels  to  the  talent). 

2.  A  gold  maneh  is  spoken  of,  and,  in  a  parallel 
passage,  shekels  are  mentioned,  three  manehs  being 
represented  by  300  shekels,  a  maneh  therefore  con 
taining  100  shekels  of  gold. 

3.  Josephus  states   that  the  Hebrew  talent  of 
gold  contained  100  minae  (\wxyia.  e«  ^ptxrou.  .  .  • 

txovcra  A1""*  ffarbv^   As  'Efipcuoi  /xei/ 


Ant.  iii.  6,  §7). 

4.'  Josephus  states   that   the  Hebrew  mina   of 
gold  was  equal  to  two  librae  and  a  half  ( 


5e  fwa  Trap'  f}/uut>  tVxvet  \irpas 
Svo  Kal  ^fiiffv.  Ant.  xiv.  7,  §1).  Taking  the 
Roman  pound  at  5050  grs.,  the  maneh  of  gold 
would  weigh  about  12,625  grs. 

5.  Epiphanius  estimates  the  Hebrew  talent  at 
125   Roman   pounds,  which,  at  the   value  given 
above,  are  equal  to  about  631,250  grs. 

6.  A  difficult  passage  in  Ezekiel  seems  to  speak 
of  a  maneh  of  50'  or  60  shekels  :  "  And  the  shekel 
[shall  be]  twenty  gerahs  :  twenty  shekels,  five  and 
twenty  shekels,  fifteen  shekels,  shall  be  your  maneh  " 
(xlv.  12),     The  ordinary  text  of  the  LXX.  gives  a 
series  of  small  sums  as  the  Hebrew,  though  differing 
in  the  numbers,  but  tiie  Alex,  and  Vat.  MSS.  have 
50  for  15   (tfitoffi  ojSoXol,   irevTc  ariichoi,  ircVrf 
Kal  ff'iK\oi  SeKcc,   Kal  ircvr-nKOvra  \riit\oi  ^  p-va. 

The  meaning  would  be,  either  thai 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

there  were  to  be  three  manehs,  respectively  con 
taining  20,  25,  and  15  shekels,  or  the  like,  or 
else  that  a  sum  is  intended  by  these  numbers 
(20+25 -|- 15)  =  60,  or  possibly  50.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that  this  is  a  prophetical  passage. 

7.  Josephus  makes  the  gold  shekel  a  Daric  (Ant. 
iii.  8,  §10). 

From  these  data  it  may  be  reasonably  inferred, 
(1.)  that  the  Hebrew  gold  talent  contained  100 
manehs,  each  of  which  again  contained  100  shekels 
of  gold,  and,  basing  the  calculation  on  the  stated 
value  of  the  maneh,  weighed  about  1,262,500  grs., 
or,  basing  the  calculation  on  the  correspondence 
of  the  gold  shekel  to  the  Daric,  weighed  about 
1,290,000  grs.  (129X100X100),  the  latter  being 
probably  nearer  the  true  value,  as  the  2J  librae 
may  be  supposed  to  be  a  round  sum,  and  (2.)  that 
the  silver  talent  contaimxi  3000  shekels,  and  is  pro 
bably  the  talent  spoken  of  by  Epiphanius  as  equal 
to  125  Roman  pounds,  or  631,250  grs.,  which 
would  give  a  shekel  of  210*4  grs.  lt»is  to  be 
observed  that,  taking  the  estimate  of  Josephus  as 
the  basis  for  calculating  the  maneh  of  the  former 
talent,  and  that  of  Epiphanius  for  calculating  the 
Litter,  their  relation  is  exactly  2  to  1,  50  manehs  at 
2|  pounds,  making  125  pounds.  It  is  therefore 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  two  talents  of  the  same 
system  are  referred  to,  and  that  the  gold  talent  was 
exactly  double  the  silver  talent. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  Jewish  coins. 

1.  The  shekels  and  half-shekels  of  silver,  if  we 
take  an  average  of  the  heavier  specimens  of  the 
Maccabaean  issue,  give  the  weight  of  the  former  as 
about  220  grs.     A  talent  of  3000  such  shekels 
would   weigh    about   660,000   grs.     This   result 
agrees  very  nearly  with  the  weight  of  the  talent 
given  by  Epiphanius. 

2.  The  copper  coins  are  generally  without  any 
indications  of  value.     The  two  heaviest  denomina 
tions  of  the  Maccabaean  issue,  however,  bear  the 
names    "half"    (*XH),   and    "quarter"    (J^ll). 
M.  de  Saulcy  gives  the  weights  of  three  "  halves  " 
as,  respectively,  251-6  grs.  (16*3  grammes),  236-2 
(15-3),  and  219-2  (14-2).   In  Mr.  Wigan's  collection 
are  two  "  quarters,"  weighing,  respectively,  145'2 
grs.  and  118*9  grs. ;  the  former  being,  apparently, 
the  one  "  quarter  "  of  which  M.  de  Saulcy  gives  the 
weight  as  142-  (9'2  grammes).     We  are  unable  to 
add  the  weights  of  any  more  specimens.     There  is 
a  smaller  coin  of  the  same  period,  which  has  an 
average  weight,  according  to  M.  de  Saulcy,  of  81 '8 
grs.  (5-3  grammes).     If  this  be  the  third  of  the 
"  half,"  it  would  give  the  weight  of  the  latter  at 
245-4  grs.     As  this  may  be  thought  to  be  slender 
evidence,  especially  so  far  as  the  larger  coins  are 
concerned,  it  is  important  to  observe  that  it  is  con 
tinued  by  the  later  coins.     From  the  copper  coins 
mentioned  above,  we  can  draw  up  the  following 
scheme,  comparing  them  with  the  silver  coins. 

COPPER  COINS.  SILVER  COINS. 

Average  Supposed           Average        Supposed 

weight.  weight               weight.         weight. 

Half    .   235-4  250-      Shekel.    .220      Id. 

Quarter  132-0  125      "Half  shekel  110      Id. 

(Sixth).    81-8  83-3  [Third]   .     73 -3. 

It  is  evident  from  this  list  that  the  copper  "  half" 
and  "  quarter "  are  half  and  quarter  shekels,  and 
are  nearly  in  the  relation  to  the  silver  like  denomi 
nations  of  2  to  1 .  But  this  relation  is  not  exact, 
and  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  ascertain  further, 
whether  the  standard  of  the  silver  talent  can  be 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES    1733 

laised,  if  not,  whether  the  gold  talent  can  be  mor« 
than  twiw  the  weight  of  the  silver,  and,  should 
this  explanation  be  impossible,  whether  there  is  any 
ground  for  supposing  a  third  talent  with  a  shekel 
heavier  th.m  two  shekels  of  the  silver. 

The  silver  shekel  of  220  grs.,  gives  a  talent  of 
660,000  grs.:  this  is  the  same  as  the  Aeginetan, 
which  appears  to  be  of  Phoenician  origin.  There  is 
no  evidence  of  its  ever  having  had  a  higher  shekel  or 
didrachm. 

The  double  talent  of  1,320,000  grs.,  gives  a 
Daric  of  132  grs.,  which  is  only  1  gr.  and  a  small 
fraction  below  the  standard  obtained  from  the 
Babylonian  talent. 

The  possibility  of  a  separate  talent  for  copper 
depends  upon  the  relations  of  the  three  metals. 

The  relation  of  gold  to  silver  in  the  time  of  He 
rodotus  was  1 :  13.  The  early  relation  upon  which 
the  systems  of  weights  and  coins  used  by  the  Persian 
state  were  founded  was  1:12.  Under  the  Ptolemies 
it  was  1  : 12-5.  The  two  Hebrew  talents,  if  that 
of  gold  were  exactly  double  that  of  silver,  would 
have  been  easy  for  exchange  in  the  relation  of  1 :  12, 
1  talent  of  gold  corresponding  to  24  talents  of  silver. 
The  relation  of  silver  to  copper  can  be  best  conjec 
tured  from  the  Ptolemaic  system.  If  the  Hebrews 
derived  this  relation  from  any  neighbouring  state, 
Egypt  is  as  likely  to  have  influenced  them  as  Syria ; 
for  the  silver  coinage  of  Egypt  was  essentially  the 
same  as  that  of  the  Hebrews,  and  that  of  Syria  was 
different.  Besides,  the  relation  of  silver  and  copper 
must  have  been  very  nearly  the  same  in  Syria  and 
Palestine  as  in  Egypt  during  the  period  in  which 
the  Jewish  coinage  had  its  origin,  on  account  of  the 
large  commerce  between  those  countries.  It  has, 
we  venture  to  think,  been  satisfactorily  shown 
by  Letronne  that  the  relation  of  silver  to  copper 
under  the  Ptolemies  was  1  :  60,  a  mina  of  silver 
corresponding  to  a  talent  of  copper.  It  has,  how 
ever,  been  supposed  that  the  drachm  of  copper  was 
of  the  same  weight  as  that  of  gold  and  silver,  an 
opinion  which  we  have  proved  to  be  incorrect  in 
an  earlier  part  of  this  article  (§11.  3).  An  im 
portant  question  now  arises.  Is  the  talent  of  cop 
per,  when  spoken  of  in  relation  to  that  of  silver,  a 
talent  of  weight  or  a  talent  of  account  ? — in  other 
words,  Is  it  of  6000  actual  drachms  of  140  grs. 
each,  or  of  6000  drachms  of  account  of  about  110  grs. 
or  a  little  less  ?  This  question  seems  to  be  answered 
in  favour  of  the  former  of  the  two  replies  by  the 
facts,  (1)  that  the  copper  coins  being  struck  upon 
the  old  Egyptian  weight,  it  is  incredible  that  so 
politic  a  prince  as  the  first  Ptolemy  should  have 
introduced  a  double  system  of  reckoning,  which 
would  have  given  offence  and  occasioned  confu 
sion  ;  (2)  that  the  ancient  Egyptian  name  of  the 
monetary  unit  became  that  of  the  drachm,  as  is 
shown  by  its  being  retained  with  the  sense  drachm 
and  didrachm  by  the  Copts  (§11.  3) ;  and  had  there 
been  two  didrachms  of  copper,  that  on  the  Egyptian 
system  would  probably  have  retained  the  native 
name.  We  are  of  opinion,  therefore,  that  the 
Egyptian  copper  talent  was  of  6000  copper 
drachms  of  the  weight  of  140  grs.  each.  But 
this  solution  still  leaves  a  difficulty.  We  know 
that  the  relation  of  silver  to  copper  was  1 :  60 
in  drachms,  though  1:78  or  80  in  weight.  In 
a  modern  state  the  actual  relation  would  force 
itself  into  the  position  of  the  official  relation,  and 
1 :  60  would  become  1  :  78  or  80 ;  but  this  was  not 
necessarily  the  case  in  an  ancient  country  in  so 
peculiar  a  condition  as  Egypt.  Alexandria  and  a 


1734     WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

few  other  towns  were  Greek,  the  rest  01  the  country 
purely  Egyptian;  and  it  is  quite  possible  that, 
while  the  gold  and  silver  coinage  was  current  in  the 
Greek  towns,  the  Egyptians  may  have  refused  to 
take  anything  but  copper  on  their  own  standard. 
The  issue  of  copper  coins  above  their  value  would 
have  been  a  sacrifice  to  the  exchequer,  if  given  in 
exchange  for  gold  or  silver,  rough  or  coined  ;  but 
they  might  have  been  exclusively  paid  out  for 
salaries  and  small  expenditure,  and  would  have 
given  an  enormous  profit  to  the  government,  if 
repaid  in  small  taxes.  Supposing  that  a  village 
paid  a  silver  mina  in  taxes  collected  from  small 
proprietors,  if  they  had  only  copper  the  government 
would  receive  in  excess  180,000  grs.,  or  not  much 
Jess  than  a  fifth  of  the  whole  amount.  No  one 
who  is  conversant  with  the  East  in  the  present  day 
will  deny  the  possibility  of  such  a  state  of  things  in 
Egypt  under  the  Ptolemies.  Our  decision  may  be 
aided  by  the  results  of  the  two  theories  upon  the 
relations  of  the  metals. 

Nominal  relation  .ATI  =  ^R12'5  =  JE  60 
(Stater)  (Mina)  (Talent) 
All  =  M  750 

( 78 
Relation  in  weight  A/1  =  .41  12 '5  =  ^E<g^ 

975 


It  must  be  remembered  that,  in  endeavouring  to 
determine  which  of  these  two  relations  is  the  correct 
one,  we  must  be  guided  by  the  evidence  of  anti 
quity,  not  by  the  mathematical  pi'oportions  of  the 
results,  for  we  are  now  not  dealing  with  coins,  but 
with  relations  only  originally  in  direct  connection 
with  systems  of  coinage. 

Letronne  gives  the  relation  of  silver  to  copper 
among  the  Romans,  at  the  end  of  the  Third  Punic 
War,  as  1 : 112,  reduced  from  1 :  83'3,  both  much 
higher  values  of  the  former  metal  than  1 :  60.  It 
is  therefore  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  relation 
of  1 : 80  is  that  which  prevailed  in  Egypt  under 
the  Ptolemies,  and  so  at  the  time  at  which  the 
first  Jewish  coins  were  struck,  that  of  Simon  the 
Maccabee. 

We  may  therefore  suppose  that  the  Hebrew 
talents  of  silver  and  copper  were  exchangeable  in 
the  proportion  of  about  1 :  80,  and,  as  we  have 
seen  that  the  coins  show  that  their  shekels  were  of 
the  relative  weight  1  :2+,  we  may  take  as  the 
basis  of  our  computation  the  supposition  that  50 
shekels  of  silver  were  equal  to  a  talent  of  copper, 
or  100  =  1  talent  double  the  former.  We  pre 
fer  the  former  relation  as  that  of  the  Egyptian 
system. 

220X60=11,000  grs.  X60=660,000 -1 1600=440-2=220 

X70    770,000  "  513-3      256'6 

X72    732,000  528          264 

X75     825,000  550  275 

X80     880,000  586-6      293 '3 

Of  these  results,  the  first  is  too  low,  and  the 
fourth  and  fifth  too  high,  the  second  and  third 
agreeing  with  our  approximative  estimate  of  the 
shekel  and  half-shekel  of  copper.  It  is,  however, 
possible  that  the  fourth  result  may  be  the  true  one, 
as  some  coins  give  very  nearly  this  standard. 
Which  is  the  right  system  can  only  be  inferred  from 
the  effect  on  the  exchange,  although  it  must  be 
remembered  that  very  awkward  exchanges  of  silver 
ana  copper  may  have  obtained  wherever  copper  was 
not  an  importam,  metal.  Thus  at  Athens  8  pieces 
of  brass  went  to  the  obolus,  and  7  lepta  to  the 
piece  of  brass.  The  former  relation  would  be  easy 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

of  coiLp  station,  the  latter  veiy  inconvenient.  Among 
the  Jews,  the  copper  coinage  was  of  more  import 
ance  :  at  first  of  accurate  fabric  and  not  very 
varying  weight,  afterwards  the  only  coinage.  Its 
relation  to  the  silver  money,  and  afterwards  to  the 
Egyptian  and  Phoenician  currency  of  the  same 
weight,  must  therefore  have  been  correct.  On  this 
ground,  we  should  prefer  the  relation  of  silver  to 
cojper  1  :  72,  giving  a  talent  of  792,000  grs.  or 
nearly  twice  the  Eubolc.  The  agreement  is  re 
markable,  but  may  be  fortuitous. 

Our  theory  of  the  Hebrew  coinage  would  be  as 
follows  :  — 

Gold  .  ..Shekel  or  Daric  (foreign)  129  grs. 

Silver  .  .Shekel  220,  Half-shekel  110. 

Copper.  Half  (-shekel)  264,  Quarter  (-shekel) 
132,  (Sixth-shekel)  88. 

We  can  now  consider  the  weights. 

The  gold  talent  contained  100  manehs,  and  10,000 
shekels. 

The  silver  talent  contained  3000  shekels,  6000 
bekas,  and  60,000  gerahs. 

The  copper  talent  probably  contained  1500 
shekels. 

The  "  holy  shekel,"  or  "  shekel  of  the  sanctuary  " 
(KHpn  ^j56?),  is  spoken  of  both  of  the  gold  (Ex. 
xxxviii.  24)  and  silver  (25)  talents  of  the  time 
of  the  Exodus.  We  also  read  of  "  the  king's 
weight"  Oq^n  J1K,  2  Sam.  xiv.  26).  But  there 

is  no  reason  for  supposing  different  systems  to  be 
meant. 

The  significations  of  the  names  of  the  Hebrew 
weights  must  be  here  stated. 

The  talent  ("133)  means  "  a  circle,"  or  "  globe," 
probably  "  an  aggregate  sum." 

The  shekel  (bgS?)  signifies  simply  «  a  weight." 

The  beka  (JJpS)  or  half-shekel,  signifies  "a  divi 
sion,"  or  "  half." 

The  "  quarter-shekel  "  (7j58?  ]/2l)  is  once  men- 
tioned  (1  Sam.  ix.  8). 

The  gerah  (rnil)  signifies  "  a  grain,"  or  •'  bean." 

IV.  The  history  and  relations  of  the  principal 
ancient  talents.  —  It  is  necessary  to  add  a  view  of 
the  history  and  relations  of  the  talents  we  have  dis 
cussed  in  order  to  show  what  light  our  theories 
throw  upon  these  matters.  The  inquiry  must  be 
prefaced  by  a  list  of  the  talents  :  — 

A.  EASTERN  TALENTS. 


Hebrew  silver  .   .  660,000 
Babylonian  lesser  J  m^Q 


Hebrew  gold.   .  1,320,060 
Babylonian  (sil-  J  Mf  ^ 

Egyptian   !.'.'.  840,000 

Persian  gold.   .   .  399  600 
Hebrew  copper?  .  792,000? 

B.  GREEK  TALENTS. 

Aeginetan    .     .     v    .......  680,000 

Attic  Commercial  ....          ...  598,800 

Attic  Commercial,  lowered    .     k     .     .     .  558,900 

Attic  Sole  nian,  double       ......  860,520 

Attic  Solonian,  ordinary  ......  430,260 

Attic  Solonian,  lowered    ......  405,000 

Euboic    ..........  387,000+ 

We  omit  the  talent  of  the  coins  of  Aegina,  as  a 
mere  monetary  variety  of  the  Aeginetan,  through  the 
Attic  Commercial. 

We  take  the  Hebrew  to  be  the  oldest  system  o* 
weight.  Apart  from  the  evidence  from  its  relation  to 
the  other  systems,  this  may  be  almost  proved  by 
our  finding  it  to  obtain  in  Greece,  in  Phoenicia,  and 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASUKES 

in  Judaea,  as  the  eldest  Greek  and  Phoenician 
system,  and  as  the  J?~vish  system.  As  the  Jewish 
system,  it  must  have  been  of  far  greater  antiquity 
than  the  date  of  the  earliest  coin  struck  upon  it. 
The  weight  according  to  which  the  ransom  was 
first  paid  must  have  been  retained  as  the  fixed 
legal  standard.  It  may  seem  surprising,  when  we 
remember  the  general  tendency  of  money  to  de 
preciate,  of  which  such  instances  as  those  of  the 
Athenian  silver  and  the  English  gold  will  occur  to 
the  reader,  that  this  system  should  have  been  pre 
served,  by  any  but  the  Hebrews,  at  its  full  weight, 
from  the  time  of  the  Exodus  to  that  of  the  earliest 
Greek  coins  upon  the  Aeginetan  standard,  a  period 
probably  of  not  much  less  than  a  thousand  years ;  but 
we  may  cite  the  case  of  the  solidus  of  the  Roman  and 
Byzantine  emperors,  which  retained  its  weight  from 
its  origination  under  Constantine  the  Great  until 
the  fall  of  Constantinople,  and  its  purity  from  the 
time  of  Constantine  until  that  of  Alexius  Comnenus ; 
and  again  the  long  celebrity  of  the  sequin  of  Venice 
and  the  florin  of  Florence  for  their  exact  weight.  It 
must  be  remembered,  moreover,  that  in  Phoenicia, 
and  originally  in  Greece,  this  system  was  that  of 
the  great  trading  nation  of  antiquity,  who  would 
have  had  the  same  interest  as  the  Venetians  and  Flo 
rentines  in  maintaining  the  full  monetary  standard. 
There  is  a  remarkable  evidence  in  favour  of  the  an 
tiquity  of  this  weight  in  the  circumstance  that, 
after  it  had  been  depreciated  in  the  coins  of  the 
kings  and  cities  of  Macedon,  it  was  restored  in  the 
silver  money  of  Philip  II.  to  its  full  monetary 
standard. 

The  Hebrew  system  had  two  talents  for  the 
precious  metals  in  the  relation  of  2  :  1.  The  gold 
talent,  apparently  not  used  elsewhere,  contained 
100  manehs,  each  of  which  contained  again  100 
shekels,  there  being  thus  10,000  of  these  units, 
weighing  about  132  grs.  each,  in  the  talent. 

The  silver  talent,  also  known  as  the  Aeginetan, 
contained  3000  shekels,  weighing  about  220  grs. 
each.  One  gold  talent  appears  to  have  been  equal 
to  24  of  these.  The  reason  for  making  the  talent 
of  gold  twice  that  of  silver  was  probably  merely  for 
the  sake  of  distinction. 

The  Babylonian  talent,  like  the  Hebrew,  con 
sisted  of  two  systems,  in  the  relation  of  2  to  1, 
upon  one  standard.  It  appears  to  have  been  formed 
from  the  Hebrew  by  reducing  the  number  of  units 
from  1 0,000  to  7200.  The  system  was  altered  by 
the  maneh  being  raised  so  as  to  contain  120  instead 
of  100  units,  and  the  talent  lowered  so  as  to  con 
tain  60  instead  of  100  manehs.  It  is  possible  that 
this  talent  was  originally  of  silver,  as  the  exchange, 
in  their  common  unit,  with  the  Hebrew  gold,  in 
the  relation  of  1  :  12,  would  be  easy,  6  units  of 
the  gold  talent  passing  for  72  of  the  silver,  so  that 
10  gold  units  would  be  equal  to  a  silver  inaneh, 
which  may  explain  the  reason  of  the  change  in 
the  division  of  the  talent. 

The  derivation,  from  the  lighter  Babylonian  talent, 
of  the  Euboic  talent,  is  easily  ascertained.  Then- 
relation  is  that  of  6  :  5,  so  that  the  whole  talents 
could  be  readily  exchanged  in  the  relation  of  1 2  :  1 ; 
and  the  units  being  common,  their  exchange  would 
be  even  more  easy. 

The  Egyptian  talent  cannot  be  traced  to  any 
other.  Either  it  is  an  independent  system,  or, 
perhaps,  it  is  the  oldest  talent  and  parent  of 
the  rest.  The  Hebrew  copper  talen*  is  equally 
obscure.  Perhaps  it  is  the  double  of  the  Persian 
gold  talent. 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES    1735 

The  Aeginetan  talent,  as  we  have  seen,  «as  th« 
same  as  the  lesser  or  silver  Hebrew  talent.  Its  in- 
troduction  into  Greece  was  doubtless  due  to  the 
Phoenicians.  The  Attic  Commercial  was  a  degrada 
tion  of  this  talent,  and  was  itself  further  degraded 
to  form  the  Attic  Solonian.  The  Aeginetan  talent 
thus  had  five  successive  standards  (1,  Original 
Aeginetan  ;  2,  Attic  Commercial ;  3,  Id.  lowered  ; 
4,  Attic  Solonian ;  5,  Id.  lowered)  in  the  following 
relations : — 


I.       II. 

6  :  5-44 


III.       IV. 

5-  :  3-9 

:  4*3 


v. 

3-6 


4-3 


The  first  change  was  probably  simply  a  degrada 
tion.  The  second  may  have  been  due  to  the  influ 
ence  of  a  Graeco- Asiatic  talent  of  Cyzicus  or  Phocaea, 
of  which  the  stater  contained  about  180  grs.  of 
gold,  although  weighing,  through  the  addition  of 
60  grs.  of  silver,  about  240  grs.,  thus  implying  a 
talent  in  the  relation  to  the  Aeginetan  of  about 
5  :  6.  Solon's  change  has  been  hitherto  an  unre 
solved  enigma.  The  relation  of  the  two  Attic  talents 
is  so  awkward  that  scarcely  any  division  is  common 
to  them  in  weight,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  data 
in  the  table  of  Athenian  weights  that  we  have  given. 
Had  the  heavier  talent  been  divided  into  quarters, 
and  the  lighter  into  thirds,  this  would  not  have 
been  the  case.  The  reason  of  Solon's  change  is 
therefore  to  be  looked  for  in  the  influence  of  some 
other  talent.  It  has  been  supposed  that  this  talent 
was  the  Euboic,  but  this  theory  is  destroyed  by  our 
discovery  that  the  Attic  standard  of  the  oldest  coins 
is  below  the  weight-standard  of  about  the  time  of 
the  Peloponnesian  War,  and  thus  that  the  reduc 
tion  of  Solon  did  not  bring  the  weights  down  to 
the  Euboic  standard.  If  we  look  elsewhere  we 
see  that  the  heavier  Solonian  weight  is  almost  the 
same  in  standard  as  the  Egyptian,  the  didrachm 
of  the  former  exceeding  the  unit  of  the  latter  by  no 
more  than  about  3  grs.  This  explanation  is  almost 
proved  to  be  4he  true  one  by  the  remarkable  fact 
that  the  Attic  Solonian  talent,  apparently  unlike 
all  other  Greek  talents,  had  a  double  talent,  which 
would  give  a  drachm  instead  of  a  didrachm,  equi 
valent  to  the  Egyptian  unit.  At  the  time  of 
Solon  nothing  would  be  more  likely  than  such  an 
Egyptian  influence  as  this  explanation  implies.  The 
commercial  relations  of  Egypt  and  Greece,  through 
Naucratis,  were  then  active;  and  the  tradition  or 
myth  of  the  Egyptian  origin  of  the  Athenians  was 
probably  never  stronger.  The  degradation  of  the 
Attic  Solonian  talent  was  no  doubt  effected  by  the 
influence  of  the  Euboic,  with  the  standard  of  which 
its  lower  standard  is  probably  identical. 

The  principal  authorities  upon  this  subject  are : 
— Boeckh's  Metrologische  Untersuchungen;  Momm- 
sen's  Geschichte  des  Romischen  Miinzwesens\  and 
Hussey's  '  Ancient  Weights.  Don  V.  Vazquez 
Queipo's  Essai  sur  les  Systemes  Metriqucs  ei 
Monetaires  des  Anciens  Pevples  also  contains  much 
information.  The  writer  must  express  his  obliga 
tions  to  Mr.  de  Salis,  Mr.  Vaux,  and  Mr.  E.  Wigan, 
and  more  especially  to  his  colleagues  Mr.  Madden 
and  Mr.  Coxe,  for  valuable  assistance.  [R.  S.  P.] 

IIf  MEASURES. 

The  most  important  topic  to  be  discussed  in  con 
nexion  with  the  subject  of  the  Hebrew  measures  ia 
their  relative  and  absolute  value.  Another  topic, 
of  secondary  importance  perhaps,  but  possessing  aL 


1736     WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

independent  interest  of  its  own,  demands  a  fevr  pre 
fatory  remarks,  viz.,  the  origin  of  these  measures, 
and  their  relation  to  those  of  surrounding  countries. 
The  measures  of  length  are  chiefly  derived  from  the 
members  of  the  human  body,  which  are  happily 
adapted  to  the  purpose  from  the  circumstance  that 
they  exhibit  certain  definite  proportions  relatively 
to  each  other.  It  is  unnecessary  to  assume  that  a 
system  founded  on  such  a  basis  was  the  invention 
of  any  single  nation :  it  would  naturally  be  adopted 
by  all  in  a  rude  state  of  society.  Nevertheless, 
the  particular  parts  of  the  body  selected  for  the 
purpose  may  form  more  or  less  a  connecting  link 
between  the  systems  of  various  nations.  It  will  be 
observed  in  the  sequel  that  the  Hebrews  restricted 
themselves  to  the  fore-arm,  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
foot  and  also  of  the  pace,  as  a  proper  measure  of 
length.  The  adoption  of  foreign  names  is  also 
worthy  of  remark,  as  showing  a  probability  that 
the  measures  themselves  were  borrowed.  Hence 
the  occurrence  of  words  of  Egyptian  extraction, 
such  as  hin  and  ephah,  and  probably  ammah  (for 
"  cubit "),  inclines  us  to  seek  for  the  origin  of  the 
Hebrew  scales  both  of  length  and  capacity  in  that 
quarter.  The  measures  of  capacity,  which  have  no 
such  natural  standard  as  those  of  length,  would 
more  probably  be  settled  by  conventional  usage, 
and  the  existence  of  similar  measures,  or  of  a  similar 
scale  of  measures  in  different  nations,  would  furnish 
a  strong  probability  of  their  having  been  derived 
from  some  common  source.  Thus  the  coincidence 
of  the  Hebrew  bath  being  subdivided  into  72  logs,* 
and  the  Athenian  metretes  into  72  xestae,  can 
nardly  be  the  result  of  chance ;  and,  if  there  further 
exists  a  correspondence  between  the  ratios  that  the 
weights  bear  to  the  measures,  there  would  be  still 
further  evidence  of  a  common  origin.  Boeckh,  who 
has  gone  fully  into  this  subject  in  his  Metrologische 
Untersuchungen,  traces  back  the  whole  system  of 
weights  and  measures  prevalent  among  the  civilized 
nations  of  antiquity  to  Babylon  (p.  39).  The 
scanty  information  we  possess  relative  to  the  He 
brew  weights  and  measures  as  a  connected  system, 
precludes  the  possibility  of  our  assigning  a  definite 
place  to  it  in  ancient  metrology.  The  names 
already  referred  to  lead  to  the  inference  that  Egypt 
rather  than  Babylonia  was  the  quarter  whence  it 
was  derived,  and  the  identity  of  the  Hebrew  with 
the  Athenian  scales  for  liquids  furnishes  strong 
evidence  that  these  had  a  community  of  origin.  It 
is  important,  however,  to  observe  in  connexion  with 
this  subject,  that  an  identity  of  ratios  does  not  in 
volve  an  identity  of  absolute  quantities,  a  distinc 
tion  which  very  possibly  escaped  the  notice  of  early 
writers,  who  were  not  unnaturally  led  to  identify 
the  measures  in  their  absolute  values,  because  they 
held  the  same  relative  positions  in  the  several  scales. 
We  divide  the  Hebrew  measures  into  two  classes, 
according  as  they  refer  to  length  or  capacity,  and 
subdivide  each  of  these  classes  into  two,  the  former 
into  measures  of  length  and  distance,  the  latter  into 
liquid  and  diy  measures. 

1.  Measures  of  length. 

(1.)  The  denominations  referring  to  length  were 


*  rnr. 

This  term  is  generally  referred  to  a  Coptic 
origin,  being  derived  from  a  word.  maJie  or  mahi,  signifying 
the  "  fore-arm,"  which  with  the  article  prefixed  becomes 
ammahi  (Boeckli,  p.  265).  Gesenius,  however,  refers  it  to 
the  Hebrew  word  signifying  "  mother,"  as  though  the  fore- 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

derived  for  the  most  part  from  the  arm  and  hand. 
We  may  notice  the  following  four  as  derived  from 
this  source : — (a)  The  etsba*  or  finger's  breadth, 
mentioned  only  in  Jer.  Hi.  21.  (6)  The  tephach*  01 
hand  breadth  (Ex.  xxv.  25;  1  K.  vii.  26;  2  Chr. 
iv.  5),  applied  metaphorically  to  a  short  period  of 
time  in  Ps.  xxxix.  5.  (c)  The  zereth,c  or  span,  the 
distance  between  the  extremities  of  the  thumb  and 
the  little  finger  in  the  extended  hand  (Ex.  xxviii.  16 ; 
1  Sam.  xvii.  4;  Ez.  xliii.  13),  applied  generally  to 
describe  any  small  measure  in  Is.  xl.  12.  'd)  The 
ammdh*  or  cubit,  the  distance  from  the  dbow  to 
the  extremity  of  the  middle  ringer.  This  occurs 
very  frequently  jn  the  Bible  in  relation  to  buildings, 
such  as  the  Ark  (Gen.  vi.  15),  the  Tabernacle  (Ex. 
xxvi.,  xxvii.),  and  the  Temple  (1  K.  vi.  2  ;  Ez.  xl., 
xli.),  as  well  as  in  relation  to  man's  stature  (1 
Sam.  xvii.  4;  Matt.  vi.  27),  and  other  objects 
(Esth.  v.  14;  Zech.  v.  2).  In  addition  to  the 
above  we  may  notice: — (e}  The  gomed,*  lit.  a 
rod,  applied  to  Eglon's  dirk  (Judg.  iii.  16).  Its 
length  is  uncertain,  but  it  probably  fell  below  the 
cubit,  with  which  it  is  identified  in  the  A.  V. 
(/)  The  kdneh*  or  reed  (compare  our  word  "  cane"), 
for  measuring  buildings  on  a  large  scale  (Ez.  xl. 
5-8,  xli.  8.  xlii.  16-19). 

Little  information  is  furnished  by  the  Bible  itself 
as  to  the  relative  or  absolute  lengths  described  under 
the  above  terms.  With  the  exception  of  the  notice 
that  the  reed  equals  six  cubits  (Ez.  xl.  5),  we 
have  no  intimation  that  the  measures  were  com 
bined  in  anything  like  a  scale.  We  should,  indeed, 
infer  the  reverse  from  the  circumstance  that  Jere 
miah  speaks  of  "  four  ringers,"  where  according  to 
the  scale,  he  would  have  said  "  a  hand  breadth ;" 
that  in  the  description  of  Goliath's  height  (1  Sam. 
xvii.  4),  the  expression  "  six  cubits  and  a  span,"  is 
used  instead  of  "  six  cubits  and  a  half ;"  and  that 
Ezekiel  mentions  "span"  and  "half  a  cubit"  in 
close  juxtaposition  (xliii.  13,  17),  as  though  they 
bore  no  relation  to  each  other  either  in  the  ordinary 
or  the  long  cubit.  That  the  denominations  held  a 
certain  ratio  to  each  other,  arising  out  of  the  pro 
portions  of  the  members  in  the  body,  could  hardly 
escape  notice ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  they  were 
ever  worked  up  into  an  artificial  scale.  The  most 
important  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  Biblical 
notices,  is  to  the  effect  that  the  cubit,  which  may 
be  regarded  as  the  standard  measure,  was  of  vary 
ing  length,  and  that,  in  order  to  secure  accuracy, 
it  was  necessary  to  define  the  kind  of  cubit  intended, 
the  result  being  that  the  other  denominations,  if 
combined  in  a  scale,  would  vary  in  like  ratio.  Thus 
in  Deut.  iii.  11,  the  cubit  is  specified  to  be  "  after 
the  cubit  of  a  man ;"  in  2  Chr.  iii.  3  "  after  the 
first,"  or  rather  "  after  the  older  8  measure  ;"  and 
in  Ez.  xli.  8,  "a  great  cubit,"  or  literally  "a  cubit 
to  the  joint,"  which  is  further  defined  in  xl.  5,  to 
be  "a  cubit  and  an  hand  breadth."  These  expres 
sions  involve  one  of  the  most  knotty  points  of 
Hebrew  archaeology,  viz.,  the  number  and  the  re 
spective  lengths  of  the  Scriptural  cubits.  That 
there  was  more  than  one  cubit,  is  clear ;  but  whe 
ther  there  were  three,  or  only  two,  is  not  so  clear. 
We  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  this  topic  again 

arm  were  in  some  sense  the  "mother  of  the  a/m"  (Tkei 
p.  110). 

•  iBi.  '  n:p. 

.      •  V'T 

g  That  the  expression  n31fc?K")  applies  to  priority  of 
time,  as  well  as  of  order,  is  clear  from  many  passages,  as 
e.  g.,  2  K.  xvii.  34 ;  Ezr.  iii.  12 ;  Hagg.  ii.  3. 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

for  the  present  we  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the 
consideration  of  the  expressions  themselves.  A 
cubit  "•  after  the  cubit  of  a  man,"  implies  the  exist 
ence  of  another  cubit,  which  was  either  longer  or 
shorter  than  it,  and  from  analogy  it  may  be  taken 
for  granted  that  this  second  cubit  would  be  the 
longer  of  the  two.  But  v^hat  is  meant  by  the 
"  ammdh  of  a  man"  ?  Is  it  the  cubitus  in  the  ana 
tomical  sense  of  the  term,  in  other  words,  the  bone 
of  the  fore-arm  between  the  elbow  and  the  wrist  ? 
or  is  it  the  full  cubit  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
term,  from  the  elbow  to  the  extremity  of  the  middle 
linger  ?  What,  again,  are  we  to  understand  by  Eze- 
kiel's  expression,  "  cubit  to  the  joint"?  The  term 
atstsil*  is  explained  by  Gesenius  (Thes.  p.  144) 
of  the  knuckles,  and  not  of  the  "  armholes,"  as  in 
the  A.  V.  of  Jer.  xxxviii.  12,  where  our  trans 
lators  have  omitted  all  reference  to  the  word  yd- 
decd,  which  follows  it.  A  "  cubit  to  the  knuckles  " 
would  imply  the  space  from  the  elbow  to  the 
knuckles,  and  as  this  cubit  exceeded  by  a  hand- 
breadth  the  ordinary  cubit,  we  should  infer  that  it 
was  contradistinguished  from  the  cubit  that  reached 
only  to  the  wrist.  The  meaning  of  the  word 
is,  however,  contested:  Hitzig  gives  it  the  sense 
of  a  connecting  wall  (Comm.  on  Jer.}.  Stur- 
mius  (Sciagr.  p.  94)  understands  it  of  the  edge  of 
the  walls,  and  others  in  the  sense  of  a  wing  of  a 
building  (Rosenmiiller,  Schol.  in  Jer.}.  Michaelis 
on  the  other  hand  understands  it  of  the  knuckles 
(Supplem.  p.  119),  and  so  does  Saalschiitz  (Archdol. 
ii.  165).  The  expressions  now  discussed,  taken 
together,  certainly  favour  the  idea  that  the  cubit 
of  the  Bible  did  not  come  up  to  the  full  length  of 
the  cubit  of  other  countries.  A  further  question 
remains  to  be  discussed,  viz.,  whether  more  than 
two  cubits  were  in  vogue  among  the  Hebrews.  It 
is  generally  conceded  that  the  "  former  "  or  "  older  " 
measure  of  2  Chr.  iii.  3,  was  the  Mosaic  or  legal 
cubit,  and  that  the  modern  measure,  the  existence 
of  which  is  implied  in  that  designation,  was  some 
what  larger.  Further,  the  cubit  "  after  the  cubit 
of  a  man"  of  Deat.  iii.  11,  is  held  to  be  a  com 
mon  measure  in  contradistinction  to  the  Mosaic  one, 
and  to  have  fallen  below  this  latter  in  point  of 
length.  In  this  case,  we  should  have  three  cubits 
— the  common,  the  Mosaic  or  old  measure,  and  the 
new  measure.  We  turn  to  Ezekiel  and  find  a 
distinction  of  another  character,  viz.,  a  long  and  a 
short  cubit.  Now,  it  has  been  urged  by  many 
writers,  and  we  think  with  good  reason,  that  Ezekiel 
would  not  be  likely  to  adopt  any  other  than  the 
old  orthodox  Mosaic  standard  for  the  measurements 
of  his  ideal  temple.  If  so,  his  long  cubit  would  be 
identified  with  the  old  measure,  and  his  short  cubit 
with  the  one  "  after  the  cubit  of  a  man,"  and  the 
new  measure  of  2  Chr.  iii.  3  would  represent  a 
still  longer  cubit  than  Ezekiel's  long  one.  Other 
explanations  of  the  prophet's  language  have,  how 
ever,  been  offered :  it  has  been  sometimes  assumed 
that,  while  living  in  Chaldea,  he  and  his  coun 
trymen  had  adopted  the  long  Babylonian  cubit 
(Jahn,  Archaeol.  §113)  ;  but  in  this  case  his  short 
cubit  could  not  have  belonged  to  the  same  country, 
inasmuch  as  the  difference  between  these  two 
amounted  to  only  three  fingers  (Herod,  i.  178) 
Again,  it  has  been  explained  that  his  short  cubit 
was  the  ordinary  Chaldean  measure,  and  the  long 


»  Knobel  assumes  that  there  were  steps,  and  that  the 
prohibition  in  Ex.  xx.  26  emanates  from  an  author  who 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES     1737 

one  the  Mosaic  measure  ^Rosenmiiller,  in  Ez. 
xl.  5) ;  but  this  is  unlikely  on  account  of  the  re- 
pective  lengths  of  the  Babylonian  and  the  Mosaic 
:ubits,  to  which  we  shall  hereafter  refer.  Inde- 
wndently  of  these  objections,  we  think  that  the 
jassages  previously  discussed  (Deut.  iii.  11  ;  2  Chr. 
ii.  3)  imply  the  existence  of  three  cubits.  It  re 
mains  to  be  inquired  whether  from  the  Bible 
tself  we  can  extract  any  information  as  to  the 
ength  of  the  Mosaic  or  legal  cubit.  The  notices 
of  the  height  of  the  altar  and  of  the  height  of  the 
.avers  in  the  Temple  are  of  importance  in  this 
respect.  In  the  former  case  three  cubits  is  spe 
cified  (Ex.  xxvii.  1),  with  a  direct  prohibition  against 
;he  use  of  steps  (Ex.  xx.  26)  ;  in  the  latter,  the 
height  of  the  base  on  which  the  laver  was  placed 
was  three  cubits  (1  K.  vii.  27).  If  we  adopt  the 
ordinary  length  of  the  cubit  (say  20  inches),  the 
icights  of  the  altar  and  of  the  base  would  be  5  feet. 
But  it  would  be  extremely  inconvenient,  if  not  im 
possible,  to  minister  at  an  altar,  or  to  use  a  laver 
placed  at  such  a  height.  In  order  to  meet  this 
difficulty  without  any  alteration  of  the  length  of 
the  cubit,  it  must  be  assumed1  that  an  inclined 
plane  led  up  to  it,  as  was  the  case  with  the  loftier 
altar  of  the  Temple  (Mishn.  Midd.  3,  §1,  3). 
But  such  a  contrivance  is  contrary  to  the  spirit  of 
the  text ;  and,  even  if  suited  to  the  altar,  would  be 
wholly  needless  for  the  lavers.  Hence  Saalschiitz 
nfers  that  the  cubit  did  not  exceed  a  Prussian  foot, 
which  is  less  than  an  English  foot  (Archaol.  ii. 
167).  The  other  instances  adduced  by  him  are  not 
so  much  to  the  point.  The  molten  sea  was  not 
designed  for  the  purpose  of  bathing  (though  this 
impression  is  conveyed  by  2  Chr.  iv.  6  as  given  in 
the  A.  V.),  and  therefore  no  conclusion  can  be 
drawn  from  the  depth  of  the  water  in  it.  The 
height  of  Og,  as  inferred  from  the  length  of  his  bed 
stead  (9  cubits,  Deut.  iii.  11),  and  the  height  of 
Goliath  (6  cubits  and  a  span,  1  Sam.  xvii.  4),  are 
not  inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  a  cubit  about  18 
inches  long,  if  credit  can  be  given  to  other  recorded 
instances  of  extraordinary  stature  (Plin.  vii.  2,  16; 
Herod,  i.  68 ;  Josephus,  Ant.  xviii.  4,  §5).  At 
the  same  time  the  rendering  of  the  LXX.  in  1  Sam. 
xvii.  4,  which  is  followed  by  Josephus  (Ant.  vi. 
9,  §1),  and  which  reduces  the  number  of  cubits  to 
four,  suggests  either  an  error  in  the  Hebrew  text, 
or  a  considerable  increase  in  the  length  of  the  cubit 
in  later  times. 

The  foregoing  examination  of  Biblical  notices  has 
tended  to  the  conclusion  that  the  cubit  of  early 
times  fell  far  below  the  length  usually  assigned  to 
it ;  but  these  notices  are  so  scanty  and  ambiguous 
that  thi?  conclusion  is  by  no  means  decisive.  We 
now  turn  to  collateral  sources  of  information,  which 
we  will  follow  out  as  far  as  possible  in  chrono 
logical  order.  The  earliest  and  most  reliable  testi 
mony  as-  to  the  length  of  the  cubit  is  supplied  by 
the  existing  specimens  of  old  Egyptian  measures. 
Several  of  these  have  been  discovered  in  tombs,  car 
rying  us  back  at  all  events  to  1700  B.C.,  while  the 
Nilometer  at  Elephantine  exhibits  the  length  of  the 
cubit  in  the  time  of  the  Roman  emperors.  No  great 
difference  is  exhibited  in  these  measures,  the  longest 
being  estimated  at  about  21  inches,  and  the  shortest 
at  about  20$,  or  exactly  20-4729  inches  (Wilkinson, 
Anc.  Eg.  ii.  258).  They  are  divided  into  28  digits, 


wrote  in  ignorance  of  the  previous  directions  (Comm,  on 
Ex.  xxvii.  1). 


1738    WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

and  in  this  respect  contrast  with  the  Mosaic  cubit, 
which,  according  to  Rabbinical  authorities,  was  di 
vided  into  24  digits.  There  is  some  difficulty  in 
reconciling  this  discr3pancy  with  the  almost  certain 
fact  of  the  derivation  of  the  cubit  from  Egypt.  It 
has  been  generally  surmised  that  the  Egyptian  cubit 
was  of  more  than  one  length,  and  that  the  sepul 
chral  measures  exhibit  the  shorter  as  well  as  the 
longer  by  special  marks.  Wilkinson  denies  the  exist 
ence  of  more  than  one  cubit  (Anc.  Eg.  ii.  257-259), 
apparently  on  the  ground  that  the  total  lengths  of 
the  measures  do  not  materially  vary.  It  may  be 
conceded  that  the  measures  are  intended  to  repre 
sent  the  same  length,  the  variation  being  simply  the 
result  of  mechanical  inaccuracy  ;  but  this  does  not 
decide  the  question  of  the  double  cubit,  which  rather 
turns  on  the  peculiarities  of  notation  observable  on 
these  measures.  For  a  full  discussion  of  this  point 
we  must  refer  the  reader  to  Thenius's'  essay  in  the 
Theologische  Studien  und  Kritiken  for  1846,  pp. 
297-342.  Our  limits  will  permit  only  a  brief 
statement  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  of  the  views 
expressed  in  reference  to  them.  The  most  perfect 
of  the  Egyptian  cubit  measures  are  those  preserved 
in  the  Turin  and  Louvre  Museums.  These  are 
unequally  divided  into  two  parts,  the  one  on  the 
right  hand  containing  15,  and  the  other  13  digits. 
Jn  the  former  part  the  digits  are  subdivided  into 
aliquot  parts  from  |  to  ^,  reckoning  from  right  to 
left.  In  the  latter  part  the  digits  are  marked  on 
the  lower  edge  in  the  Turin,  and  on  the  upper  edge 
iii  the  Louvre  measure.  In  the  Turin  measure  the 
three  left-hand  digits  exceed  the  others  in  size,  and 
have  marks  over  them  indicating  either  ringers  or 
the  numerals  1,  2,  3.  The  four  left-hand  digits  are 
also  marked  off  from  the  rest  by  a  double  stroke, 
and  are  further  distinguished  by  hieroglyphic  marks 
supposed  to  indicate  that  they  are  digits  of  the  old 
measure.  There  are  also  special  marks  between  the 
6th  and  7th,  and  between  the  10th  and  llth  digits 
of  the  left-hand  portion.  In  the  Louvre  cubit 
two  digits  are  marked  off  on  the  lower  edge  by  lines 
running  in  a  slightly  transverse  direction,  thus  pro 
ducing  a  greater  length  than  is  given  on  the  upper 
side.  It  has  been  found  that  each  of  the  three 
above  specified  digits  in  the  Turin  measure  =  ^  of 
the  whole  length,  less  these  three  digits  ;  or,  to  put 
it  in  another  form,  the  four  left-hand  digits  =  ^  of 
the  25  right-hand  digits  :  also  that  each  of  the  two 
digits  in  the  Louvre  measure  =  5?  °f  tne  whole 
length,  less  these  two  digits  ;  and  further,  that 
twice  the  left  half  of  either  measure  =  the  whole 
length  of  the  Louvre  measure,  less  the  two  digits. 
Most  writers  on  the  subject  agree  in  the  conclusion 
that  the  measures  contain  a  combination  of  two,  if 
not  three,  kinds  of  cubit.  Great  difference  of 
opinion,  however,  is  manifested  as  to  particulars. 
Thenius  makes  the  difference  between  the  royal 
and  old  cubits  to  be  no  more  than  two  digits,  the 
average  length  of  the  latter  being  484-289  k  milli- 
mfetres,  or  19-066  inches,  as  compared  with 
523-524  millimetres,  or  20-611  inches  and  523 
millimetres,  or  20-591  inches,  the  lengths  of  the 
Turin  and  Louvre  measures  respectively.  He  ac 
counts  for  the  additional  two  digits  as  originating 
in  the  practice  of  placing  the  two  ringers  crossways 
at  the  end  of  the  arm  and  hand  used  in  measuring, 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

|  EO  as  to  mark  the  spot  up  to  which  the  cloth  or 
other  article  has  been  measured.  He  further  finds, 
in  the  notation  of  the  Turin  measure,  indications 
of  a  third  or  ordinary  cubit  23  digits  in  length. 
Another  explanation  is  that  the  old  cubit  consisted 
of  24  old  or  25  new  digits,  and  that  its  length  was 
462  millimetres,  or  18' 189  inches;  and  again, 
others  put  the  old  cubit  at  24  new  digits,  as 
marked  on  the  measures.  The  relative  proportions 
of  the  two  would  be,  on  these  several  hypotheses, 
as  28  :  26,  as  28  :  25,  and  as  28  :  24. 

The  use  of  more  than  one  cubit  appears  to  have 
also  prevailed  in  Babylon,  for  Herodotus  states 
that  the  "  royal"  exceeded  the  "moderate"  cubit 
(TTTJXV*  pfrpios)  by  three  digits  (i.  178).  The 
appellation  "  royal,"  if  borrowed  from  the  Baby 
lonians,  would  itself  imply  the  existence  of  another  ; 
but  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  this  other  was 
the  "  moderate"  cubit  mentioned  in  the  text.  The 
majority  of  critics  think  that  Herodotus  is  there 
speaking  of  the  ordinary  Greek  cubit  (Boeckh,  p. 
214),  though  the  opposite  view  is  affirmed  by 
Grote  in  his  notice  of  Boeckh's  work  (Class.  Mus. 
i.  28).  Even  if  the  Greek  cubit  be  understood,  a 
further  difficulty  arises  out  of  the  uncertainty 
whether  Herodotus  is  speaking  of  digits  as  they 
stood  on  the  Greek  or  on  the  Babylonian  measure. 
In  the  one  case  the  proportions  of  the  two  would 
be  as  8  :  7,  in  the  other  case  as  9  :  8.  Boeckh 
adopts  the  Babylonian  digits  (without  good  reason, 
we  think),  and  estimates  the  Babylonian  royal  cubit 
at  234-2743  Paris  lines,  or  20-806  inches  (p.  219). 
A  greater  length  would  by  assigned  to  it  according 
to  the  data  furnished  by  M.  Oppert,  as  stated  in 
Rawlinson's  Herod,  i.  315 ;  for  if  the  cubit  and 
foot  stood  in  the  ratio  of  5  :  3,  and  if  the  latter 
contained  15  digits,  and  had  a  length  of  315  milli 
metres,  then  the  length  of  the  ordinary  cubit 
would  be  525  millimetres,  and  of  the  royal  cubit, 
assuming,  with  Mr.  Grote,  that  the  cubits  in  each 
case  were  Babylonian,  588  millimetres,  or  23*149 
inches. 

Reverting  to  the  Hebrew  measures,  we  should  be 
disposed  to  identify  the  new  measure  implied  in 
2  Chr.  iii.  3  with  the  full  Egyptian  cubit;  the 
"  old  "  measure  and  Ezekiel's  cubit  with  the  lesser 
one,  either  of  26  or  24  digits ;  and  the  "  cubit  of  a 
man"  with  the  third  one  of  which  Thenius  speaks. 
Boeckh,  however,  identifies  the  Mosaic  measure  with 
the  full  Egyptian  cubit,  and  accounts  for  the  dif 
ference  in  the  number  of  digits  on  the  hypothesis 
that  the  Hebrews  substituted  a  division  into  24 
for  that  into  28  digits,  the  size  of  the  digits  being 
of  course  increased  (pp.  266,  267).  With  regard 
to  the  Babylonian  measure,  it  seems  highly  im 
probable  that  either  the  ordinary  or  the  royal  cubit 
could  be  identified  with  Ezekiel's  short  cubit  (as 
Rosenmuller  thinks),  seeing  that  its  length  on  either 
of  the  computations  above  offered  exceeded  that  of 
the  Egyptian  cubit. 

In  the  Mishnah  the  Mosaic  cubit  is  defined  to  be 
one  of  six  palms  (Celim,  17,  §10).  It  is  termed 
the  moderate1  cubit,  and  is  distinguished  from  a 
lesser  cubit  of  five  palms  on  the  one  side  (Celim, 
ib.\  and  on  the  other  side  from  a  larger  one,  con 
sisting,  according  to  Bartenora  (in  Cel.  17,  §9),  of 
six  palms  and  a  digit.  The  palm  consisted,  accord- 


k  The  precise  amount  of  484-289  is  obtained  by  taking 
the  mean  of  the  four  following  amounts : — 26  Of  523-5t4, 
the  total  length  of  the  Turin  measure,  =  486-130;  twice 
the  left-hand  division  of  Uie  same  measure,  =  480-<92 ; 


the  length  of  the  26  digits  on  the  Louvre  measure,  -=a 
486-375 ;  and  twice  the  left-hand  division  of  the  same 
483-860. 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

tog  to  Maimonides  (ibid.),  of  four  digits ;  and  the 
digit,  according  to  Arias  Montanus  (Ant.  p.  113), 
of  four  barleycorns.  This  gives  144  barleycorns  as 
the  length  of  the  cubit,  which  accords  with  the 
number  assigned  to  the  cubitus  Justus  et  mediocris 
of  the  Arabians  (Boeckh,  p.  246).  The  length  of 
the  Mosaic  cubit,  as  computed  by  Thenius  (after 
several  trials  with  the  specified  number  of  barley 
corns  of  middling  size,  placed  side  by  side),  is 
214-512  Paris  lines,  or  19-0515  inches  (St.  u.  Kr. 
p.  110).  It  seems  hardly  possible  to  arrive  at  any 
very  exact  conclusion  by  this  mode  of  calculation. 
Eisenschmid  estimated  144  barleycorns  as  equal  to 
238-35  Paris  lines  (Boeckh,  p.  269),  perhaps  from 
having  used  larger  grains  than  the  average.  The 
writer  of  the  article  on  "Weights  and  Measures" 
in  the  Penny  Cyclopaedia  (xviii.  198)  gives,  as  the 
result  of  his  own  experience,  that  38  average  grains 
make  up  5  inches,  in  which  case  144=18'947 
inches  ;  while  the  length  of  the  Arabian  cubit 
referred  to  is  computed  at  213-058  Paris  lines 
(Boeckh,  p.  247).  The  Talmudists  state  that  the 
Mosaic  cubit  was  used  for  the  edifice  of  the  Taber 
nacle  and  Temple,  and  the  lesser  cubit  for  the 
vessels  thereof.111  This  was  probably  a  fiction ;  for 
the  authorities  were  not  agreed  among  themselves 
as  to  the  extent  to  which  the  lesser  cubit  was  used, 
some  of  them  restricting  it  to  the  golden  altar,  and 
parts  of  the  brazen  altar  (Mishnah,  Gel.  17,  §10). 
But  this  distinction,  fictitious  as  it  may  have  been, 
shows  that  the  cubits  were  not  regarded  in  the 
light  of  sacred  and  profane,  as  stated  in  works  on 
Hebrew  archaeology.  Another  distinction,  adopted 
by  the  Rabbinists  in  reference  to  the  palm,  would 
tend  to  show  that  they  did  not  rigidly  adhere  to 
any  definite  length  of  cubit :  for  they  recognised 
two  kinds  of  palms,  one  wherein  the  fingers  lay 
loosely  open,  which  they  denominated  a  smiling 
palm ;  the  other  wherein  the  fingers  were  closely 
compressed,  and  styled  the  grieving  palm  (Carpzov, 
Appar.  pp.  674,  676). 

The  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  the  foregoing 
considerations  are  not  of  the  decisive  character  that 
we  could  wish.  For  while  the  collateral  evidence 
derived  from  the  practice  of  the  adjacent  countries 
and  from  later  Jewish  authorities  favours  the  idea 
that  the  Biblical  cubit  varied  but  little  from  the 
length  usually  assigned  to  that  measure,  the  evi 
dence  of  the  Bible  itself  is  in  favour  of  one  con 
siderably  shorter.  This  evidence  is,  however,  of  so 
uncertain  a  character,  turning  on  points  of  criticism 
and  on  brief  notices,  that  we  can  hardly  venture  to 
adopt  it  as  our  standard.  We  accept  therefore,  with 
reservation,  the  estimate  of  Thenius,  and  from  the 
cubit  we  estimate  the  absolute  length  of  the  other 
denominations  according  to  the  proportions  existing 
between  the  members  of  the  body,  the  cubit  equal 
ling  two  spans  (compare  Ex.  xxv.  3, 10,  with  Joseph. 
Ant.  iii.  6,  §§5,  6),  the  span  three  palms,  and  the 
palm  four  digits. 

Inches. 
Digit '7938 


4 

12 

24 

144 


Palm 
3 


36 


Span 


2    I  Cubit . 


12 


Reed 


3-1752 
9-5257 
19-0515 
114-3090 


•»  Hence  they  were  denominated  J1J3H  i"l£N.  "cubit 
of  the  building,"  and  Q>^3  fi  "#,  "  cubit  of  the  vessels. 

"  The  term  "  acre  "  occurs  in  the  A.  V.  as  the  equiva 
lent  for  madnah  (H^O)-  in  1  Sam.  xiv.  14,  and  for 
'z&med  1-f  in  Is  v  10.  The  latter  term  also  occurs 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES     1739 

Land  and  area  were  measured  either  by  the  cubit 
(Num.  xxxv.  4.  5 ;  Ez.  xl.  27)  or  by  the  reed  (Ez. 
xlii.  20,  xliii.  17,  xlv.  2,  xlviii.  20;  Rev.  xxi.  16). 
There  is  no  indication  in  the  Bible  of  the  use  of  a 
square  measure  by  the  Jews."  Whenever  they  wished 
to  define  the  size  of  a  plot,  they  specified  its  length 
and  breadth,  even  if  it  were  a  perfect  square,  as  in 
Ez.  xlviii.  16.  The  difficulty  of  defining  an  area 
by  these  means  is  experienced  in  the  interpretation 
of  Num.  xxxv.  4,  5,  where  the  suburbs  of  the 
Levitical  cities  are  described  as  reaching  outward 
from  the  wall  of  the  city  1000  cubits,  round  about, 
and  at  the  same  time  20'00  cubits  on  each  side  from 
without  the  city.  We  can  hardly  understand  these 
two  measurements  otherwise  than  as  applying,  the 
one  to  the  width,  the  other  to  the  external  boundary 
of  the  suburb,  the  measurements  being  taken  respec 
tively  perpendicular  and  parallel  to  the  city  walls. 
But  in  this  case  it  is  necessary  to  understand  the 
words  rendered  "  from  without  the  city,"  in  ver.  5, 
as  meaning  to  the  exclusion  of  the  city,  so  that  the 
length  of  the  city  wall  should  be  added  in  each 
case  to  the  2000  cubits.  The  result  would  be  that 
the  size  of  the  areas  would  vary,  and  that  where 
the  city  walls  were  unequal  in  length,  the  sides  of 
the  suburb  would  be  also  unequal.  For  instance, 
if  the  city  wall  was  500  cubits  long,  then  the  side 
of  the  suburb  would  be  2500  cubits ;  if  the  city 
wall  were  1000  cubits,  then  the  side  of  the  suburb 
would  be  3000  cubits.  Assuming  the  existence  of 
two  towns,  500  and  1000  cubits  square,  the  area 
of  the  suburb  would  in  the  former  case  =  6, 000,000 
square  cubits,  and  would  be  24  times  the  size  of 
the  town ;  while  in  the  latter  case  the  suburb 
would  be  8,000,000  square  cubits,  and  only  8  times 
the  size  of  the  town.  This  explanation  is  not  wholly 
satisfactory,  on  account  of  the  disproportion  of  the 
suburbs  as  compared  with  the  towns :  nevertheless 
any  other  explanation  only  exaggerates  this  dispro 
portion.  Keil,  in  his  comment  on  Josh.  xiv.  4, 
assumes  that  the  city  wall  was  in  all  cases  to  be 
regarded  as  1000  cubits  long,  which  with  the  1000 
cubits  outside"  the  wall,  and  measured  m  the  same 
direction  as  the  wall,  would  make  up  the  2000 
cubits,  and  would  give  to  the  side  of  the  suburb  in 
every  case  a  length  of  3000  cubits.  The  objection 
to  this  view  is  that  there  is  no  evidence  as  to  an 
uniform  length  of  the  city  walls,  and  that  the  suburb 
might  have  been  more  conveniently  described  as 
3000  cubits  on  each  side.  All  ambiguity  would 
have  been  avoided  if  the  size  of  the  suburb  had 
been  decided  either  by  absolute  or  relative  acreage ; 
in  other  words,  if  it  were  to  consist  in  all  cases  of  a 
certain  fixed  acreage  outside  the  walls,  or  if  it  were 
made  to  vary  in  a  certain  ratio  to  the  size  of  the 
town.  As  the  text  stands,  neither  of  these  methods 
can  be  deduced  from  it. 

(2.)  The  measures  of  distance  noticed  in  the  Old 
Testament  are  the  three  following :— (a)  The  tsaad,9 
or  pace  (2  Sam.  vi.  13),  answering  generally  to  our 
yard.  (6)  The  Cibrath  hddrets,*  rendered  in  the 
A.  V.  "  a  little  way  "  or  "  a  little  piece  of  ground  " 
(Gen.  xxxv.  16,  xlviii.  7;  2  K.  v.  19).  The  ex 
pression  appears  to  indicate  some  definite  distance, 
but  we  are  unable  to  state  with  precision  what  that 
distance  was.  The  LXX.  retains  the  Hebrew  word 


in  the  passage  first  quoted,  and  would  with  more  con 
sistency  be  rendered  acre  instead  of  "yoke."  It  means 
such  an  amount  of  land  as  a  yoke  of  oxen  would  plough 
in  a  day.  Madnah  means  &  furrow. 

0  "•  p 


1740    WEIGHTS  AND  MEASUKES 

jn  the  form  XaftpaQd,  as  though  it  were  the  name 
of  a  place,  Bidding  in  Gen.  «lviii.  7  the  words  Kara 
rbv  Iirir68po/j.ov,  which  is  thus  a  second  translation 
of  the  expression.  If  a  certain  distance  was  intended 
by  this  translation,  it  would  be  either  the  ordinary 
length  of  a  race-course,  or  such  a  distance  as  a 
horse  could  travel  without  being  over-fatigued,  in 
other  words,  a  stage.  But  it  probably  means  a 
locality,  either  a  race-course  itself,  as  in  3  Mace, 
iv.  11,  or  the  space  outside  the  town  walls  where 
the  race-course  was  usually  to  be  found.  The 
LXX.  gives  it  again  in  Gen.  xlviii.  7  as  the  equi 
valent  for  Ephrath.  The  Syriac  and  Persian  ver 
sions  render  cibrath  by  parasang,  a  well-known 
Persian  measure,  generally  estimated  at  30  stades 
('Herod,  ii.  6,  v.  53),  or  from  3J  to  4  English  miles, 
but  sometimes  at  a  larger  amount,  even  up  to  60 
stades  (Strab.  xi.  518).  The  only  conclusion  to  be 
drawn  from  the  Bible  is  that  the  cibrath  did  not 
exceed  and  probably  equalled  the  distance  between 
Bethlehem  and  Rachel's  burial-place,  which  is  tra 
ditionally  identified  with  a  spot  1J  mile  north  of 
the  town,  (c)  The  derec  yomfl  or  mah&lac  yom,* 
a  day's  journey,  which  was  the  most  usual  method 
of  calculating  distances  in  travelling  (Gen.  xxx.  36, 
xxxi.  23;  Ex.  iii.  18,  v.  3;  Num.  x.  33,  xi.  31, 
xxxiii.  8 ;  Deut.  i.  2 ;  1  K.  xix.  4 ;  2  K.  iii.  9 ; 
Jon.  iii.  3  ;  1  Mace.  v.  24,  28,  vii.  45  ;  Tob.  vi.  1), 
though  but  one  instance  of  it  occurs  in  the  New 
Testament  (Luke  ii.  44).  The  distance  indicated 
by  it  was  naturally  fluctuating  according  to  the 
circumstances  of  the  traveller  or  of  the  country 
through  which  he  passed.  Herodotus  variously 
estimates  it  at  200  and  150  stades  (iv.  101,  v.  53) : 
Marinus  (ap.  PtoL  i.  11)  at  150  and  172  stades; 
Pausauias  (x.  33,  §2)  at  150  stades ;  Strabo  (i.  35) 
at  from  250  to  300  stades ;  and  Vegetius  (De  Re 
Mil.  i.  1 1)  at  from  20  to  24  miles  for  the  Roman 
army.  The  ordinary  day's  journey  among  the  Jews 
was  30  miles ;  but  when  they  travelled  in  com 
panies  only  10  miles:  Neapolis  formed  the  first 
stage  out  of  Jerusalem,  according  to  the  former, 
and  Beeroth  according  to  the  latter  computation 
(Lightfoot,  Exerc.  in  Luc.  ii.  44).  It  is  impossible 
to  assign  any  distinct  length  to  the  day's  journey : 
Jahn's  estimate  of  33  miles,  172  yards,  and  4  feet, 
is  based  upon  the  false  assumption  that  it  bore 
some  fixed  ratio  to  the  other  measures  of  length. 

In  the  Apocrypha  and  New  Testament  we  meet 
with  the  following  additional  measures :— (d)  The 
Sabbath-day's  journey,"  already  discussed  in  a  sepa 
rate  article,  (e)  The  stadion,*  or  "  furlong,"  a 
Greek  measure  introduced  into  Asia  subsequently 
to  Alexander's  conquest,  and  hence  first  mentioned 
in  the  Apocrypha  (2  Mace.  xi.  5,  xii.  9,  17,  29), 
and  subsequently  in  the  New  Testament  (Luke  xxiv. 
13;  John  vi.  19,  xi.  18;  Rev.  xiv.  20,  xxi.  16). 
Both  the  name  and  the  length  of  the  stade  were 
borrowed  from  the  footrace  course  at  Olympia.  It 
equalled  600  Greek  feet  (Herod,  ii.  149),  or  125 
Roman  paces  (Plin.  ii.  23),  or  606|  feet  of  our 
measure.  It  thus  falls  below  the  furlong  by  53| 
feet.  The  distances  between  Jerusalem  and  the 
places  Bethany,  Jamnia,  and  Scythopolis,  are  given 
with  tolerable  exactness  at  15  stades  (John  xi.  18), 


«  D'V  TT 


6Sds. 


on. 


pn. 


ra. 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEA8UKES 

240  stades  (2  Mace.  xij.  9),  and  600  stades  (2  Mace, 
xii.  29).  In  2  Mace.  xi.  5  there  is  an  evident  error 
either  of  the  author  or  of  the  text,  in  respect  to  th« 
position  of  Bethsura,  which  is  given  as  only  5  stades 
from  Jerusalem.  The  Talmudists  describe  the  stade 
under  the  term  res,*  and  regarded  it  as  equal  to 
625  feet  and  125  paces  (Carpzov,  Appar.  p.  679). 
(/)  The  Mile,*  a  Roman  measure,  equalling  1000 
Roman  paces,  8  stades,  and  1618  English  yards 
[MILE]. 

2.  Measures  of  capacity. 

The  measures  of  capacity  for  liquids  were : — (a) 
The  logy  (Lev.  xiv.  10,  &c.),  the  name  originally 
signifying  a  "  basin."  (6)  The  hin,1  a  name  of 
Egyptian  origin,  frequently  noticed  in  the  Bible 
(Ex.  xxix.  40,  xxx.  24 ;  Num.  xv.  4,  7,  9 ;  Ez. 
iv.  11,  &c.).  (c)  The  bath,"  the  name  meaning 
"  measured,"  the  largest  of  the  liquid  measures 
(1  K.  vii.  26,  38  ;  2  Chr.  ii.  10;  Ezr.  vii.  22  ;  Is. 
v.  10).  With  regard  to  the  relative  values  of  these 
measures  we  learn  nothing  from  the  Bible,  but  we 
gather  from  Josephus  (Ant.  iii.  8,  §3)  that  the 
bath  contained  6  hins  (for  the  bath  equalled  72 
xestae  or  12  choes,  and  the  hin  2  choes),  and  from 
the  Rabbinists  that  the  hin  contained  12  logs 
(Carpzov,  Appar.  p.  685).  The  relative  values 
therefore  stand  thus : — 
Log 

12    I   Hin 
72    I    6    1  Bath 

The  dry  measure  contained  the  following  deno 
minations  : — (a)  The  cab,b  mentioned  only  in  2  K. 
vi.  25,  the  name  meaning  literally  hollow  or  con 
cave.  (6)  The  omer,c  mentioned  only  in  Ex,  xvi. 
16-36.  The  same  measure  is  elsewhere  termed 
issdron,*  as  being  the  tenth  part  of  an  ephah  (comp. 
Ex.  xvi.  36),  whence  in  the  A.  V.  "  tenth  deal " 
(Lev.  xiv.  10,  xxiii.  13;  Num.  xv.  4,  &c.).  The 
word  omer  implies  aheap,  and  secondarily  a  sheaf. 
(c)  The  sedh,*  or  "  measure,"  this  being  the  ety 
mological  meaning  of  the  term,  and  appropriately 
applied  to  it,  inasmuch  as  it  was  the  ordinary  mea 
sure  for  household  purposes  (Gen.  xviii.  6  ;  1  Sam. 
xxv.  18;  2  K.  vii.  1,  16).  The  Greek  equivalent 
occurs  in  Matt.  xiii.  33  ;  Luke  xiii.  21.  The  seah 
was  otherwise  termed  shdlish,f  as  being  the  third 
part  of  an  ephah  (Is.  xl.  12  ;  Ps.  Ixxx.  5).  (d)  The 
ephah,*  a  word  of  Egyptian  origin,  and  of  frequent 
recurrence  in  the  Bible  (Ex.  xvi.  36 ;  Lev.  v.  11, 
vi.  20;  Num.  v.  15,  xxviii.  5  ;  Judg.  vi.  19  ;  Ruth 
ii.  17  ;  1  Sam.  i.  24,  xvii.  17  ;  Ez.  xiv.  11,  13, 14, 
xlvi.  5,  7,  11,  14).  (e)  The  lethec*  or  "half- 
homer,"  literally  meaning  what  is  poured  out :  it 
occurs  only  in  Hos.  iii.  2.  (/)  The  homer, 
meaning  heap  (Lev.  xxvii.  16  ;  Num.  xi.  32 ;  Is.  v. 
10;  Ez.  xiv.  13).  It  is  elsewhere  termed  cor,k 
from  the  circular  vessel  in  which  it  was  measured 
(1  K.  iv.  22,  v.  11 ;  2  Chr.  ii.  10,  xxvii.  5;  Ezr. 
vii.  22  ;  Ez.  xiv.  14).  The  Greek  equivalent  occurs 
in  Luke  xvi.  7. 

The  relative  proportions  of  the  dry  measures  are 
to  a  certain  extent  expressed  in  the  names  issdron, 
meaning  a  tenth,  and  shalish,  a  third.  In  addi- 
tioii  we  have  the  Biblical  statement  that  the  omer 


WEIGHTS  AND  MEASUKES 

is  the  tenth  part  of  the  ephah  (Ex.  xvi.  36),  and 
that  the  ephah  was  the  tenth  part  of  a  homer,  and 
corresponded  to  the  bath  in  liquid  measure  (Ez. 
slv.  11).  The  Rabbinists  supplement  this  by 
stating  that  the  ephah  contained  three  seahs,  and 
the  seah  six  cabs  (Carpzov,  p.  683).  We  are  thus 
enabled  to  draw  out  the  following  scale  of  relative 
values : — 


Cab 

if 

6 

18 

180 


Omer 

3* 

10 
100 


Seah 

3    I  Ephah 
30    I    10    |  Homer 


The  above  scale  is  constructed,  it  will  be  ob 
served,  on  a  combination  of  decimal  and  duodecimal 
ratios,  the  former  prevailing  in  respect  to  the  omer, 
ephah,  and  homer,  the  latter  in  respect  to  the  cab, 
seah,  and  ephah.  In  the  liquid  measure  the  duo 
decimal  ratio  alone  appears,  and  hence  there  is  a 
fair  presumption  that  this  was  the  original,  as  it 
was  undoubtedly  the  most  general,  principle  on 
which  the  scales  of  antiquity  were  framed  (Boeckh, 
p.  38).  Whether  the  decimal  division  was  intro 
duced  from  some  other  system,  or  whether  it  was 
the  result  of  local  usage,  there  is  no  evidence  to 
show. 

The  absolute  values  of  the  liquid  and  dry  mea 
sures  form  the  subject  of  a  single  inquiiy,  inasmuch 
as  the  two  scales  have  a  measure  of  equal  value, 
viz.  the  bath  and  the  ephah  (Ez.  xlv.  11)  :  if  either 
of  these  can  be  fixed,  the  conversion  of  the  other 
denominations  into  their  respective  values  readily 
follows.  Unfortunately  the  data  for  detennining 
the  value  of  the  bath  or  ephah  are  both  scanty  and 
conflicting.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  deduce 
the  value  of  the  bath  from  a  comparison  of  the 
dimensions  and  the  contents  of  the  molten  sea  as 
given  in  1  K.  vii.  23-26.  If  these  particulars  had 
been  given  with  greater  accuracy  and  fulness,  they 
would  have  furnished  a  sound  basis  for  a  calcula 
tion  ;  but,  as  the  matter  now  stands,  uncertainty 
attends  every  statement.  The  diameter  is  given  as 
10  cubits,  and  the  circumference  as  30  cubits,  the 
diameter  being  stated  to  be  "from  one  brim  to 
the  other."  Assuming  that  the  vessel  was  circular, 
the  proportions  of  the  diameter  and  circumference 
are  not  sufficiently  exact  for  mathematical  purposes, 
nor  are  we  able  to  decide  whether  the  diameter  was 
measured  from  the  internal  or  the  external  edge  of  the 
vessel.  The  shape  of  the  vessel  has  been  variously 
conceived  to  be  circular  and  polygonal,  cylindrical 
and  hemispherical,  with  perpendicular  and  with 
bulging  sides.  The  contents  are  given  as  2000 
baths  in  1  K.  vii.  26,  and  3000  baths  in  2  Chr. 
iv.  5,  the  latter  being  probably  a  corrupt  text. 
Lastly,  the  length  of  the  cubit  is  undefined,  and 
hence  every  estimate  is  attended  with  suspicion. 
The  conclusions  drawn  have  been  widely  different, 
as  might  be  expected.  If  it  be  assumed  that  the 
form  of  the  vessel  was  cylindrical  (as  the  descrip 
tion  prvnd  facie  seems  to  imply),  that  its  clear 
diameter  was  10  cubits  of  the  value  of  19*0515 
English  inches  each,  and  that  its  full  contents  were 
2000  baths,  then  the  value  of  the  bath  would  be 
•  4*8965  gallons ;  for  the  contents  of  the  vessel 
would  equal  2,715,638  cubic  inches,  or  9,793  gal 
lons.  If,  however,  the  statement  of  Josephus  (Ant. 
viii.  3,  §5),  as  to  the  hemispherical  form  of  the 
vessel,  be  adopted,  then  the  estimate  would  be  re 
duced.  Saigey,  as  quoted  by  Boeckh  (p.  261),  on 
ihiy  hypothesis  calculates  the  value  of  the  bath  at 


.WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES    1741 

18-086  French  litres,  or  3'9807  English  gallons. 
If,  further,  we  adopt  Saalschiitz's  view  as  to  the 
length  of  the  cubit,  which  he  puts  at  15  Dresden 
inches  at  the  highest,  the  value  of  the  bath  will  be 
further  reduced,  according  to  his  calculation,  to 
10£  Prussian  quarts,  or  2'6057  English  gallons ; 
while  at  his  lower  estimate  of  the  cubit  at  12 
inches,  its  value  would  be  little  more  than  one-half 
of  this  amount  (Archaol  ii.  171).  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  vessel  bulged,  and  if  the  diameter  and 
circumference  were  measured  at  the  neck  or  nar 
rowest  part  of  it,  space  might  be  found  for  2000  or 
even  3000  baths  of  greater  value  than  any  of  the 
above  estimates.  It  is  therefore  hopeless  to  arrive 
at  any  satisfactory  conclusion  from  tnis  source. 
Nevertheless  we  think  the  calculations  are  not 
without  their  use,  as  furnishing  a  certain  amount 
of  presumptive  evidence.  For,  setting  aside  the 
theory  that  the  vessel  bulged  considerably,  for 
which  the  text  furnishes  no  evidence  whatever,  all 
the  other  computations  agree  in  one  point,  viz.  that 
the  bath  fell  far  below  the  value  placed  on  it  by 
Josephus,  and  by  modern  writers  on  Hebrew  archae 
ology  generally,  according  to  whom  the  bath  mea 
sures  between  8  and  9  English  gallons. 

We  turn  to  the  statements  of  Josephus  and  other 
early  writers.  The  former  states  that  the  bath 
equals  72  xestae  (Ant.  viii.  2,  §9),  that  the  hin 
equals  2  Attic  choes  (Ib.  iii.  8,  §3,  9,  §4),  that 
the  seah  equals  1J  Italian  modii  (Ib.  ix.  4,  §5), 
that  the  cor  equals  10  Attic  medimni  (Ib.  xv.  9, 
§2),  and  that  the  issaron  or  omer  equals  7  Attic 
cotylae  (Ib.  iii.  6,  §6).  It  may  further  be  im 
plied  from  Ant.  ix.  4,  §4,  as  compared  with  2  K. 
vi.  25,  that  he  regarded  the  cab  as  equal  to  4  xestes. 
Now,  in  order  to  reduce  these  statements  to  con 
sistency,  it  must  be  assumed  that  in  Ant.  xv.  9,  §2, 
he  has  confused  the  medimnus  with  the  metretes, 
and  in  Ant.  iii.  6,  §6,  the  cotyle  with  the  xestes. 
Such  errors  throw  doubt  on  his  other  statements, 
and  tend  to  the  conclusion  that  Josephus  was  not 
really  familiar  with  the  Greek  measures.  This 
impression  is  supported  by  his  apparent  ignorance 
of  the  term  metretes,  which  he  should  have  used 
not  only  in  the  .passage  above  noticed,  but  also  in 
viii.  2,  §9,  where  he  would  naturally  have  substi 
tuted  it  for  72  xestae,  assuming  that  these  were 
Attic  xestae.  Nevertheless  his  testimony  must  be 
taken  as  decisively  in  favour  of  the  identity  of  the 
Hebrew  bath  with  the  Attic  metretes.  Jerome  (in 
Matt.  xiii.  33)  affirms  that  the  seah  equals  1 J  modii, 
and  (in  Ez.  xlv.  11)  that  the  cor  equals  30  modii, — 
statements  that  are  glaringly  inconsistent,  inasmuch 
as  there  were  30  seahs  in  the  cor.  The  statements 
of  Epiphanius  in  his  treatise  De  Mensuris  are 
equally  remarkable  for  inconsistency.  He  states 
(ii.  177)  that  the  cor  equals  30  modii:  on  this 
assumption  the  bath  would  equal  51  sextarii,  but 
he  gives 'only  50  (p.  178):  the  seah  would  equal 
1  modius,  but  he  gives  l£  modii  (p.  178),  or,  ac 
cording  to  his  estimate  of  17  sextarii  to  the  modius, 
21 J  sextarii,  though  elsewhere  he  assigns  56  sex 
tarii  as  its  value  (p.  182) :  the  omer  would  be 
5^  sextarii,  but  he  gives  7£  (p.  182),  implying 
45  modii  to  the  cor :  and,  lastly,  the  ephah  is  iden 
tified  with  the  Egyptian  artabe  (p.  182),  which 
was  either  4J  or  3|  modii,  according  as  it  was  in 
the  old  or  the  new  measure,  though  according  to 
his  estimate  of  the  cor  it  would  only  equal  3  modii. 
Little  reliance  can  be  placed  on  statements  so  loosely 
made,  and  the  question  arises  whether  the  identifi 
cation  of  the  bath  with  the  metretes  did  not  wise 


1742    WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES 

out  of  the  circumstance  that  the  two  measures  held 
the  same  relative  position  in  the  scales,  each  being 
subdivided  into  72  parts,  and,  again,  whether  the 
assignment  of  30  modii  to  the  cor  did  not  arise  out 
of  there  being  30  seahs  in  it.  The  discrepancies 
can  only  be  explained  on  the  assumption  that  a  wide 
margin  was  allowed  for  a  long  measure,  amounting  to 
an  increase  of  50  per  cent.  This  appears  to  have  been 
the  car.e  from  the  definitions  of  the  seah  or  GO.TQV 
given  by  Hesychius,  fj.6Sios  y£p.<av,  tfyovv,  ev  ^/uncrv 
1  'lTa\tit6v,  and_again  by  Suidas,  fji.68iuv  inrep- 
'4va  /ecu  r)/j.HTvi>. 
Assuming,  however,  that  Josephus  was  right  in 
identifying  the  bath  with  the  metretes,  its  value 
would  be,  according  to  Boeckh's  estimate  of  the 
latter  (pp.  261,  278),  1993-95  Paris  cubic  inches, 
or  8-7053  English  gallons,  but  according  to  the 
estimate  of  Bertheau  (Gesch.  p.  73)  1985'77  Paris 
cubic  inches,  or  8'6696  English  gallons. 

The  Rabbinists  furnish  data  of  a  different  kind 
for  calculating  the  value  of  the  Hebrew  measures. 
They  estimated  the  log  to  be  equal  to  six  hen  eggs, 
the  cubic  contents  of  which  were  ascertained  by 
measuring  the  amount  of  water  they  displaced 
(Maimonides,  in  Gel.  17,  §10).  On  this  basis 
Thenius  estimated  the  log  at  14-088  Paris  cubic 
inches,  or  -06147  English  gallon,  and  the  bath  at 
1014-39  Paris  cubic  inches,  or  4-4286  gallons  (St. 
u.  Kr.  pp.  101,  121).  Again,  the  log  of  water  is 
said  to  have  weighed  108  Egyptian  drachmae,1  each 
equalling  61  barleycorns  (Maimonides,  in  Peah,  3, 
§6,  ed.  Guisius.).  Thenius  finds  that  6588  barley 
corns  fill  about  the  same  space  as  6  hen  eggs  (St. 
u.  Kr.  p.  112).  And  again,  a  log  is  said  to  fill 
a  vessel  4  digits  long,  4  broad,  and  2-^j  high  (Mai 
monides,  in  Praef.  Menachoth}.  This  vessel  would 
contain  21-6  cubic  inches,  or  -07754  gallon.  The 
conclusion  arrived  at  from  these  data  would  agree 
tolerably  well  with  the  first  estimate  formed  on 
the  notices  of  the  molten  sea. 

As  we  are  unable  to  decide  between  Josephus 
and  the  Rabbinists,  we  give  a  double  estimate  of 
the  various  denominations,  adopting  Bertheau's 
estimate  of  the  metretes : — 

(Jotephus.)        (Rabbinists.') 


Gallons. 

Gallons. 

Homer  or  Cor          86-696 

or 

44-286 

Ephah  or  Bath 

8-6696 

or 

4-4286 

Seah 

2-8898 

or 

1-4762 

Hin 

1-4449 

or 

•7381 

Omer 

•8669 

or 

•4428 

Cab 

•4816 

or 

•246 

Log 

•1204 

or 

•0615 

In  the  New  Testament  we  have  notices  of  the 
following  foreign  measures: — (a)  The  metretes m 
(John  ii.  6 ;  A.  V.  «  firkin  ")  for  liquids.  (6)  The 
choenix*  (Rev.  vi.  6  ;  A.  V.  ««  measure"),  for  dry 
goods,  (c)  The  xestesf  applied,  however,  not  to 
the  particular  measure  so  named  by  the  Greeks, 
but  to  any  small  vessel,  such  as  a  cup  (Mark  vii. 
4,  8;  A.  V.  "pot").  (<f)  The  modius,  similarly 
applied  to  describe  any  vessel  of  moderate  dimen 
sions  (Matt.  v.  15;  Mark  iv.  21;  Luke  xi.  33; 
A.  V.  "  bushel ")  ;  though  properly  meaning  a  Ro 
man  measure,  amounting  to  about  a  peck. 

The  value  of  the  Attic  metretes  has  been  already 


WELL 

stated  to  be  8'6696  gallons,  and  consequently  the 
amount  of  liquid  in  six  stone  jars,  containing  on 
the  average  2J  metretae  each,  would  exceed  110 
gallons  (John  ii.  6).  Very  possibly,  however,  the 
Greek  term  represents  the  Hebrew  bath,  and  if  the 
bath  be  taken  at  the  lower  estimate  assigned  to  it, 
the  amount  would  be  reduced  to  about  60  gallons. 
Even  this  amount  far  exceeds  the  requirements  for 
the  purposes  of  legal  purification,  the  tendency  of 
Pharisaical  refinement  being  to  reduce  the  amount 
of  water  to  a  minimum,  so  that  a  quarter  of  a  log 
would  suffice  for  a  person  (Mishnah,  Yad.  1,  §1). 
The  question  is  one  simply  of  archaeological  kiterest 
as  illustrating  the  customs  of  the  Jews,  and  does 
not  affect  the  character  of  the  miracle  with  which 
it  is  connected.  The  choenix  was  ^  of  an  Attic 
medimnus,  and  contained  nearly  a  quart.  It  repre 
sented  the  usual  amount  of  corn  for  a  day's  food, 
and  hence  a  choenix  for  a  penny,  or  denarius, 
which  usually  purchased  a  bushel  (Cic.  Verr.  iii 
81),  indicated  a  great  scarcity  (Rev.  vi.  6). 

With  regard  to  the  use  of  fair  measures,  various 
precepts  are  expressed  in  the  Mosaic  law  and  other 
parts  of  the  Bible  (Lev.  xix.  35,  36 ;  Deut.  xxv. 
14,  15;  Prov.  xx.  10;  Ez.  xlv.  10),  and  in  all 
probability  standard  measures  were  kept  in  the 
Temple,  as  was  usual  in  the  other  civilized  coun 
tries  of  antiquity  (Boeckh,  p.  12). 

The  works  chiefly  referred  to  in  the  present  articl, 
are  the  following: — Boeckh,  Metrologische  Unter- 
suchungen,  1838 ;  Classical  Museum,  vol.  i. ; 
Theologische  Studien  und  Kritiken  for  1846; 
Mishnah,  ed.  Surenhusius  ;  Wilkinson,  Ancient 
Egyptians,  2  vols.  1854;  Epiphanius,  Opera,  2  vols. 
ed.  Petavius.  [W.  L.  B.] 

WELL."  The  difference  between  a  well  (Beer) 
and  a  cistern  (Bor)  [CiSTERN],  consists  chiefly  in 
the  use  of  the  former  word  to  denote  a  receptacle 
for  water  springing  up  freshly  from  the  ground, 
while  the  latter  usually  denotes  a  reservoir  for  rain 
water  (Gen.  xxvi.  19,  32;  Prov.  v.  15;  John 
iv.  14). 

The  special  necessity  of  a  supply  of  water  ( Judg. 
i.  15)  in  a  hot  climate  has  always  involved  among 
Eastern  nations  questions  of  property  of  the  highest 
importance,  and  sometimes  given  rise  to  serious 
contention.  To  give  a  name  to  a  well  denoted  a 
right  of  property,  and  to  stop  or  destroy  one  once 
dug  was  a  military  expedient,  a  mark  of  conquest 
or  an  encroachment  on  territorial  right  claimed  or 
existing  in  its  neighbourhood.  Thus  the  well  Beer- 
sheba  was  opened,  and  its  possession  attested  with 
special  formality  by  Abraham  (Gen.  xxi.  30,  31). 
In  the  hope  of  expelling  Isaac  from  their  neighbour 
hood,  the  Philistines  stopped  up  the  wells  which 
had  been  dug  in  Abraham's  time  and  called  by  his 
name,  an  encroachment  which  was  stoutly  resisted 
by  the  followers  of  Isaac  (Gen.  xxvi.  15-33;  see 
also  2  K.  iii.  19  ;  2  Chr.  xxvi.  10  ;  Burckhardt, 
Notes,  ii.  185,  194,  204,  276).  The  Kuran  notices 
abandoned  wells  as  signs  of  desertion  (Sur.  xxii.). 
To  acquire  wells  which  they  had  not  themselves 
dug,  was  one  of  the  marks  of  favour  foretold  to 
the  Hebrews  on  their  entrance  into  Canaan  (Deut, 
vi.  11).  To  possess  one  is  noticed  as  a  mark  of  in- 


i  In  the  table  the  weight  of  the  log  is  given  as  104 
drachms;  but  in  this  case  the  contents  of  the  log  are 
supposed  to  be  wine.  The  relative  weights  of  water  and 
»1ne  were  as  2t :  26. 


a  1.  iX3  ;  <J>peap  :  puteus ;  in  four  places  "  pit." 

2.  "1121 ;  AaK/cos ;  cisterna ;  usually  "  pit."    [PiT.j 

3.  pyD ;  usually  "  fountain."    [FOUNTAIN.] 

4.  "lipD.    [FOUNTAIN;  SPRING.] 


WELL 

dependence  (Prov.  v.  15),  and  to  abstain  from  the 
use  of  wells  belonging  to  others,  a  disclaimer  of  in 
terference  with  their  property  (Num.  xx.  17,  19, 
xxi.  22).  Similar  rights  of  possession,  actual  and 
hereditary,  exist  among  the  Arabs  of  the  present 
day.  Wells,  Burckhardt  says,  in  the  interior  of  the 
Desert,  are  exclusive  property,  either  of  a  whole 
tribe,  or  of  individuals  whose  ancestors  dug  the 
wells.  If  a  well  be  the  property  of  a  tribe,  the 
tents  are  pitched  near  it,  whenever  rain-water  be 
comes  scarce  in  the  desert ;  and  no  other  Arabs  are 
then  permitted  to  water  their  camels.  But  if  the 
well  belongs  to  an  individual,  he  receives  presents 
from  all  strange  tribes  who  pass  or  encamp  at  the 
well,  and  refresh  their  camels  with  the  water  of  it. 
The  property  of  such  a  well  is  never  alienated  ;  and 
the  Arabs  say,  that  the  possessor  is  sure  to  be  for 
tunate,  as  all  who  drink  of  the  water  bestow  on 
him  their  benedictions  (Notes  on  Bed.  i.  228,  229  ; 
comp.  Num.  xxi.  17,  18,  and  Judg.  i.  15). 

It  is  thus  easy  to  understand  how  wells  have 
become  in  many  cases  links  in  the  history  and 
landmarks  in  the  topography  both  of  Palestine  and 
of  the  Arabian  Peninsula.  The  well  once  dug  in 
the  rocky  soil  of  Palestine  might  be  filled  with 
earth  or  stones,  but  with  difficulty  destroyed,  and 
thus  the  wells  of  Beersheba,  and  the  well  near  Na- 
bulus,  called  Jacob's  well,  are  among  the  most  un 
doubted  witnesses  of  those  transactions  of  sacred 
history  in  which  they  have  borne,  so  to  speak,  a 
prominent  part.  On  the  other  hand,  the  wells  dug 
in  the  sandy  soil  of  the  Arabian  valleys,  easily  de 
stroyed,  but  easily  renewed,  often  mark,  by  their 
ready  supply,  the  stations  at  which  the  Hebrew 
pilgrims  slaked  their  thirst,  or,  as  at  Marah,  were 
disappointed  by  the  bitterness  of  the  water.  In  like 
manner  the  stations  of  the  Mohammedan  pilgrims 
from  Cairo  and  Damascus  to  Mecca  (the  Hadj 
route)  are  marked  by  the  wells  (Robinson,  i.  66, 
09,  204,  205,  ii.  283  ;  Burckhardt,  Syria,  318, 
472,  474  ;  App.  III.  656,  660  ;  Shaw,  Trav.  314 ; 
Niebuhr,  Descrip.  de  VAr.,  347,  348;  Wellsted, 
Trav.  ii.  40,  43,  64,  457,  App.). 

Wells  in  Palestine  are  usually  excavated  from 
the  solid  limestone  rock,  sometimes  with  steps  to 
descend  into  them  (Gen.  xxiv.  16;  Burckhardt, 
Syria,  p.  232;  Col  Ch.  Chron.  1858,  p.  470). 
The  brims  are  furnished  with  a  curb  or  low  wall 
of  stone,  bearing  marks  of  high  antiquity  in  the 
furrows  worn  by  the  ropes  used  in  drawing  water 
(Rob.  i.  204).  This  curb,  as  well  as  the  stone 
cover,  which  is  also  very  usual,  agrees  with  the 
directions  of  the  Law,  as  explained  by  Philo  and 
Josephus,  viz.  as  a  protection  against  accident  (Ex. 
xxi.  33  ;  Joseph.  Ant.  iv.  8,  §37 ;  Philo,  De  Spec. 
Leg.  iii.  27,  ii.  324,  ed.  Mangey;  Maundrell,  in 
E.  Trav.  435).  It  was  on  a  curb  of  this  sort  that 
our  Lord  sat  when  He  conversed  with  the  woman 
of  Samaria  (John  iv.  6),  and  it  was  this,  the  usual 
stone  cover,  which  the  woman  placed  on  the  mouth 
of  the  well  at  Bahurim  (2  Sam.  xvii.  19),  where 
A.  V.  weakens  the  sense  by  omitting  the  article.1* 
Sometimes  the  wells  are  covered  with  cupolas  raised 
on  pillars  (Burckhardt,  App.  V.  p.  665). 

The  usual  methods  for  raising  water  are  the  fol 
lowing: — 1.  The  rope  and  bucket,  or  water-skin 
(Gen.  xxiv.  14-20  ;  John  iv.  11).  When  the  well 
is  deep  the  rope  is  either  drawn  over  the  curb  by 
the  man  or  woman,  who  pulls  it  out  to  the  dis 
tance  of  its  full  length,  or  by  an  ass  or  ox  employed 


WELL 


1743 


TO  (Trued*  v/uwa;  velamen. 


in  the  same  way  for  the  same  purpose.  Sometimes 
a  pulley  or  wheel  is  fixed  over  the  well  to  assist 
the  work  (Robinson,  i.  204,  ii.  248;  Niebuhr, 
Descr.  de  fAr.  137,  pi.  15;  Col.  Ch.  Chron.  1859, 
p.  350;  Chardin,  Voy.  iv.  98;  Wellsted,  Trav.  i. 
280).  2.  The  sakiyeh,  or  Persian  wheel.  This 
consists  of  a  vertical  wheel  furnished  with  a  set  of 
buckets  or  earthen  jars,  attached  to  a  cord  passing 
over  the  wheel,  which  descend  empty  and  return 
full  as  the  wheel  revolves.  On  the  axis  of  the 
wheel  revolves  a  second  wheel  parallel  to  it,  with 
cogs  which  turn  a  third  wheel  set  horizontally  at  a 
sufficient  height  from  the  ground  to  allow  the 
animal  used  in  turning  it  to  pass  under.  One  or 
two  cows  or  bulls  are  yoked  to  a  pole  which  passes 
through  the  axis  of  this  wheel,  and  as  they  travel 
round  it  turn  the  whole  machine  (Num.  xxiv.  7  ; 
Lane,  Mod.  Eg.  ii.  T63 ;  Niebuhr,  Voy.  i.  120  ; 
Col.  Ch.  Chron.  1859,  p.  352  ;  Shaw,  p.  291,  408). 
3.  A  modification  of  the  last  method,  by  which  a 
man,  sitti-ng  opposite  to  a  wheel  furnished  with 
buckets,  turns  it  by  drawing  with  his  hands  one 
set  of  spokes  prolonged  beyond  its  circumference, 
and  pushing  another  set  from  him  with  his  feet 
(Niebuhr,  Voy.  i.  p.  120,  pi.  15  ;  Robinson,  ii.  22, 
iii.  89).  4.  A  method  very  common,  both  in  ancient 
and  modern  Egypt,  is  the  shadoof,  a  simple  con 
trivance  consisting  of  a  lever  moving  on  a  pivot, 
which  is  loaded  at  one  end  with  a  lump  of  clay  or 
some  other  weight,  and  has  at  the  other  a1  bowl  or 
bucket.  This  is  let  down  into  the  water,  and, 
when  raised,  emptied  into  a  receptacle  above  (Nie 
buhr,  Voy.  i.  120  ;  Lane,  M.  E.  ii.  163;  Wilkin 
son,  A.  E.  i.  35,  72,  ii.  4). 

Wells  are  usually  furnished  with  troughs  of 
wood  or  stone,'  into  which  the  water  is  emptied  for 
the  use  of  persons  or  animals  coming  to  the  wells. 
In  modem  times  an  old  stone  sarcophagus  is  often 
used  for  this  purpose.  The  bucket  is  very  com 
monly  of  skin  (Burckhardt,  Syria,  63 ;  Robinson, 
i.  204,  ii.  21,  315,  iii.  35,  89,  109,  134;  Lord 
Lindsay,  Trav.  235,  237  ;  Wilkinson,  A.  E.  1.  c. ; 
Gen.  xxiv.  20* ;  Ex.  ii.  16). 


Ancient  Egyptian  machine  for  raising  water,  identical  with 
the  shadoof  of  the  present  day.      (Wilkinson.) 

Unless  machinery  is  used,  which  is  commonly 
worked  by  men,  women  are  usually  the  water- 
carriers.  They  carry  home  their  water-jars  on 
their  heads  (Lindsay,  p.  236).  Great  contentions 
often  occur  at  the  wells,  and  they  are  often,  among 


;  irori.VTripi.ov  J 


1744 


WHALE 


Bedouins,  favourite  places  for  attack  by  enemies 
(Ex.  ii.  16,  17  ;  Judg.  v.  11 ;  2  Sam.  xxiii.  15, 16  ; 
Burckhardt,  Syria,  p.  63  ;  Notes  on  Be-l.  i.  228  ; 
Col.  Ch.  Chron.  1859,  p.  473  ;  Lane,  M.  3.  i.  252  ; 
Robinson,  iii.  153).  [H  W.  P.] 

WHALE.  As  to  the  signification  of  tb c  Hebrew 
terms  tan  (jfi  or  jfl)  and  tannin  ()*|P)),  variously 

rendered  in  the  A.  V.  by  "  dragon,"  "  whale," 
"serpent,"  "sea-monster,"  see  DRAGON.  It  re 
mains  for  us  in  this  article  to  consider  the  transac 
tion  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Jonah,  of  that  prophet 
having  been  swallowed  by  some  "  great  fish  "  (F\ 
TTTJ),  which  in  Matt.  xii.  40  is  called  KTJTOS, 
rendered  in  our  version  by  "  whale." 

Much  criticism  has  been  expended  on  the  Scrip 
tural  account  of  Jonah  being  swallowed  by  a  lai-ge- 
fish ;  it  has  been  variously  understood  as  a  literal 
transaction,  as  an  entire  fiction  or  an  allegory,  as  a 
poetical  mythus  or  a  parable.  With  regard  to  the 
remarks  of  those  writers  who  ground  their  objec 
tions  upon  the  denial  of  miracle,  it  is  obvious  that 
this  is  not  the  place  for  discussion;  the  question 
of  Jonah  in  the  fish's  belly  will  share  the  same 
fate  as  any  other  miracle  recorded  in  the  Old 
Testament. 

The  reader  will  find  in  Rosenmiiller's  Prolego 
mena  several  attempts  by  various  writers  to  explain 
the  Scriptural  narrative,  none  of  which,  however, 
have  anything  to  recommend  them,  unless  it  be  in 
some  cases  the  ingenuity  of  the  authors,  such  as 
for  instance  that  of  Godfrey  Less,  who  supposed 
that  the  "  fish  "  was  no  animal  at  all,  but  a  ship 
with  the  figure  of  a  fish  painted  on  the  stem,  into 
which  Jonah  was  received  after  he  had  been  cast 
out  of  his  own  vessel !  Equally  curious  is  the  ex 
planation  of  G.  C.  Anton,  who  endeavoured  to  solve 
the  difficulty,  by  supposing  that  just  as  the  prophet 
was  thrown  into  the  water,  the  dead  carcase  of 
some  large  fish  floated  by,  into  the  belly  of  which 
he  contrived  to  get,  and  that  thus  he  was  drifted 
to  the  shore !  The  opinion  of  Rosenmiiller,  that 
the  whole  account  is  founded  on  the  Phoenician 
fable  of  Hercules  devoured  by  a  sea-monster  sent 
by  Neptune  (Lycophron,  Cassand.  33),  although 
sanctioned  by  Gesenius,  Winer,  Ewald,  and  other 
German  writers,  is  opposed  to  all  sound  principles 
of  Biblical  exegesis.  It  will  be  our  purpose  to  con 
sider  what  portion  of  the  occurrence  partakes  of  a 
natural,  and  what  of  a  miraculous  nature. 

In  the  first  place  then,  it  is  necessary  to  observe, 
that  the  Greek  word  KTJTOS,  used  by  St.  Matthew, 
is  not  restricted  in  its  meaning  to  "  a  whale,"  or 
any  Cetacean ;  like  the  Latin  cete  or  cetus,  it  may 
denote  any  sea-monster,  either  "a  whale,"  or  "  a 
shark,"  or  "  a  seal,"  or  "  a  tunny  of  enormous 
size"  (see  Athen.  p.  303  B,  e'd.  Dindorf;  Odys. 
xii.  97,  iv.  446,  452  ;  II.  xx.  147).  Although  two 
or  three  species  of  whale  are  found  in  the  Mediter 
ranean  Sea,  yet  the  "  great  fish  "  that  swallowed 
the  prophet,  cannot  properly  be  identified  with  any 
Cetacean,  for,  although  the  Sperm  whale  (Catodon 
macrocephalns)  has  a  gullet  sufficiently  large  to 
admit  the  body  of  a  man,  yet  it  can  hardly  be  the 
fish  intended ;  as  the  natural  food  of  Cetaceans 
consists  of  small  animals,  such  as  medusae  and 
Crustacea. 

Nor  again,  can  we  agree  with  Bishop  Jebb  (Sa- 
cted  Literature,  pp.  178,  179),  that  the  K0i\ia  of 
the  Greek  Testament  denotes  the  back  portion  of  a 
whales  mouth,  in  the  cavity  of  which  the  prophet 


WHEAT 

was  concealed  ;  for  the  whole  passage  ,n  Jonah  16 
clearly  opposed  to  such  an  interpretation. 

The  only  fisn,  then,  capable  of  swallowing  « 
man  would  be  a  large  specimen  of  the  White  Ska)  k 
(Carcharias  vulgaris},  that  dreaded  enemy  of 
sailors,  and  the  most  voracious  of  the  family  of 
Squalidae.  This  shark,  which  sometimes  attain? 
the  length  of  thirty  feet,  is  quite  able  to  swal 
low  a  man  whole.  Some  commentators  are  seep- 
tical  on  this  point.  It  would,  however,  be  easy  to 
quote  passages  from  the  writings  of  authors  and 
travellers  in  proof  of  this  assertion ;  we  confine  our 
selves  to  two  or  three  extracts.  The  shark  "  has  a 
large  gullet,  and  in  the  belly  of  it  are  sometimes  founo 
the  bodies  of  men  half  eaten,  sometimes  whole  ana 
entire  "  (Nature  Displayed,  iii.  p.  140).  But  lest 
the  Abb^  Pluche  should  not  be  considered  sufficient 
authority,  we  give  a  quotation  from  Mr.  Couch's 
recent  publication,  A  History  of  the  Fishes  of  the 
British  Islands.  Speaking  of  white  sharks,  this 
author,  who  has  paid  much  attention  to  the  habits 
of  fish,  states  that  "  they  usually  cut  asunder  any 
object  of  considerable  size  and  thus  swallow  it ; 
but  if  ^hey  find  a  difficulty  in  doing  this,  there  is  no 
hesitation  in  passing  into  the  stomach  even  what  is 
of  enormous  bulk ;  and  the  formation  of  the  jaws 
and  throat  render  this  a  matter  of  but  little  diffi 
culty."  Ruysch  says  that  the  whole  body  of  a  man 
in  armour  (loricatus),  has  been  found  in  the  stomach 
of  a  white  shark ;  and  Captain  King,  in  his  Survey  of 
Australia,  says  he  had  caught  one  which  could  have 
swallowed  a  man  with  the  greatest  ease.  Blumen- 
bach  mentions  that  a  whole  horse  has  been  found  in 
a  shark,  and  Captain  Basil  Hall  reports  the  taking  of 
one  in  which,  besides  other  things,  he  found  the 
whole  skin  of  a  buffalo  which  a  short  time  before 
had  been  thrown  overboard  from  his  ship  (i.  p.  27V 
Dr.  Baird  of  the  British  Museum  (Cyclop,  of  Nai. 
Sciences,  p.  514),  says  that  in  the  river  Hooghly 
below  Calcutta,  he  had  seen  a  white  shark  swallow 
a  bullock's  head  and  horns  entire,  and  he  speaks 
also  of  a  shark's  mouth  being  "  sufficiently  wide  to 
receive  the  body  of  a  man."  Wherever  therefore 
the  Tarshish,  to  which  Jonah's  ship  was  bound, 
was  situated,  whether  in  Spain,  or  in  Cilicia  or 
in  Ceylon,  it  is  certain  that  the  common  white 
shark  might  have  been  seen  on  the  voyage.  The 
C.  vulgaris  is  not  uncommon  in  the  Mediterranean ; 
it  occurs,  as  Forsk&l  (Descript.  Animal,  p.  20) 
assures  us,  in  the  Arabian  Gulf,  and  is  common 
also  in  the  Indian  Ocean.  So  far  for  the  natural 
portion  of  the  subject.  But  how  Jonah  could 
have  been  swallowed  whole  unhurt,  or  how  he 
could  have  existed  for  any  time  in  the  shark's 
belly,  it  is  impossible  to  explain  by  simply  natural 
causes.  Certainly  the  preservation  of  Jonah  in  a 
fish's  belly  is  not  more  remarkable  than  that  of  the 
three  children  in  the  midst  of  Nebuchadnezzar's 
"  burning  fiery  furnace." 

Naturalists  have  recorded  that  sharks  have  the 
habit  of  throwing  up  again  whole  and  alive  the 
prey  they  have  seized  (see  Couch's  Hist,  of  fishes,  i. 
p.  33).  "  I  have  heard,"  says  Mr.  Darwin,  "  froir 
Dr.  Allen  of  Forres,  that  he  has  frequently  found  a 
Diodon  floating  alive  and  distended  in  the  stomach 
of  a  shark;  and  that  on  several  occasions  he  has 
known  it  eat  its  way  out,  not  only  through  the 
coats  of  the  stomach,  but  through  the  sides  of  the 
monster  which  has  been  thus  killed."  [W.  H.] 

WHEAT.  The  well-known  valuable  cereal, 
cultivated  from  the  earliest  times,  and  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  Bible.  In  the  A.  V.  the  Heb. 


WHEAT 

words  bar  ("13  or  13).  ddijdn  (pi),  rtphdth 
(niQn),  are  occasionally  translated  "  wheat ;"  but 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  proper  name  of  this  cereal, 
as  distinguished  from  "  barley,"  "  spelt,"  &c.,  is 
thittah  (nan  ;  Chald.  |»D3n,  chintm}.  As  to  the 
former  Hebrew  terms  see  under  CORN.  The  first 
mention  of  wheat  occurs  in  Gen.  xxx.  14,  in  the 
account  of  Jacob's  sojourn  with  Laban  in  Meso 
potamia.  Much  has  been  written  on  the  subject 
of  the  origin  of  wheat,  and  the  question  appears 
to  be  still  undecided.  It  is  said  that  the  Triticum 
rulgare  has  been  found  wild  in  some  parts  of 
Persia  and  Siberia,  apparently  removed  from  the 
influence  of  cultivation  {English  Cyclop,  art.  "  Triti- 
C'im  ").  Again,  from  the  experiments  ofM.  Esprit 
Kabre  of  Agde  it  would  seem  that  the  numerous 
varieties  of  cultivated  wheat  are  merely  improved 
transformations  of  Aegilops  ovata  (Journal  of  the 
Royal  Agricult.  Soc ,  No.  xxxiii.  p.  167-180). 
M.  Fabre's  experiments,  however,  have  not  been 
deemed  conclusive  by  seme  botanists  (see  an  inte 
resting  paper  by  the  late  Prof.  Henfrey  in  No.  xli. 
of  the  Journal  quoted  above).  Egypt  in  ancient 
limes  was  celebrated  for  the  growth  of  its  wheat ; 
toe  best  quality,  according  to  Pliny  (Nat.  Hist. 
xviii.  7),  was  grown  in  the  Thebaid ;  it  was  all 
bearded,  and  the  same  varieties,  Sir  G.  Wilkinson 
writes  (Ana.  Egypt,  ii.  39,  ed.  1854),  "  existed 
in  ancient  as  in  modern  times,  among  which  may 
be  mentioned  the  seven-eared  quality  described  in 
Pharaoh's  dream  "  (Gen.  xli.  22).  This  is  the  so- 
called  mummy-wheat,  which,  it  has  been  said,  has 
germinated  after  the  lapse  of  thousands  of  years; 
but  it  is  now  known  that  the  whole  thing  was 
a  fraud.  Babylonia  was  also  noted  for  the  excel 
lence  of  its  wheat  and  other  cereals.  "  In  grain," 
says  Herodotus  (i.  193),  "  it  will  yield  com 
monly  two  hundred  fold,  and  at  its  greatest  pro 
duction  as  much  as  three  hundred  fold.  The  blades 
of  the  wheat  and  bai  ley-plants  are  often  four  fingers 
broad."  But  this  is  a  great  exaggeration.  (See  also 
Theophrastus,  Hist.  Plant,  viii.  7.)  Modern  writers, 
as  Chesney  and  Rich,  bear  testimony  to  the  great 
fertility  of  Mesopotamia.  Syria  and  Palestine  pro 
duced  wheat  of  fine  quality  and  in  large  quantities 
(Ps.  cxlvii.  14,  Ixxxi.  16,  &c.).  There  appear  to 
be  two  or  three  kinds  of  wheat  at  present  grown  in 
Palestine,  the  Triticum  vulgare  (var.  hybernurn),  the 
T.  spelta  [see  RYE],  and  another  variety  of  bearded 
wheat  which  appears  to  be  the  same  as  the  Egyptian 
kind,  the  T.  compositum.  In  the  parable  of  the 
sower  our  Lord  alludes  to  grains  of  wheat  which 
in  good  ground  produce  a  hundred  fold  (Matt.  xiii. 
8).  "  The  return  of  a  hundred  for  one,"  says 
Trench,  "  is  not  unheard  of  in  the  East,  though 
always  mentioned  as  something  extraordinary." 
Laborde  says  "  there  is  to  be  found  at  Kerek  a 
species  of  hundred  wheat  which  justifies  the  text 
of  the  Bible  against  the  charges  of  exaggeration  of 
which  it  has  been  the  object."  The  common  Tri 
ticum  vulgare  will  sometimes  produce  one  hundred 
grains  in  tke  ear.  Wheat  is  reaped  towards  the 
end  of  April,  in  May,  and  in  June,  according  to 
the  differences  of  soil  and  position;  it  was  sown 
either  broadcast,  and  then  ploughed  in  or  trampled 
in  by  cattle  (Is.  xxxii.  20),  or  in  rows,  if  we  rightly 
understand  Is.  xxviii.  25,  which  seems  to  imply 
that  the  seeds  were  planted  apart  in  order  to  insure 
larger  and  fuller  ears.  The  wheat  was  put  into 
the  ground  in  the  winter,  and  some  time  after  the 
barley ;  in  the  Egyptian  plague  of  hail,  cons*- 
VOL.  HI. 


WIDOW 


1745 


quently,  the  barley  suffered,  but  the  whetit  had  iiot 
appeared,  and  so  escaped  injury.  Wheat  was  ground 
into  flour ;  the  finest  qualities  were  expressed  by  the 

term  '«  fat  of  kidneys  of  wheat,"  HEP!  TVI^S  Jin 

(Deut.  xxxii.  14).  Unripe  ears  are  sometimes  cut 
off  from  the  stalks,  roasted  in  an  oven,  masned  and 
boiled,  and  eaten  by  the  modern  Egyptians  (Sonnini, 
Trav.).  Rosenmiiller  (Botan;/  of  the  Bible,  p.  80), 
with  good  reason,  conjectures  that  this  dish,  which 
the  Arabs  cull  Ferik,  is  the  same  as  thegeres  carmel 
6??"\3  bnj)  of  Lev.  ii.  U  and  2  K.  iv.  42.  The 
Heb.  word  Kali  (vp,  Lev.  ii.  14)  denotes,  it  is 
probable,  roasted  ears  of  corn,  still  tsed  as  food  in 
the  East.  An  "  ear  of  corn  "  was  called  Shibboleth 


,  the  word  which  betrayed  the  Ephraimites 

(Judg.  xii.  1 ,  6),  who  were  unable  to  give  the 
sound  of  sh.  The  curious  expression  in  Prov.  xxvii. 
22, "  though  thou  shouldest  bray  a  fool  in  a  mortal 
among  wheat  with  a  pestle,  yet  will  not  his  foolish 
ness  depart  from  him,"  appears  to  point  to  the  cus 
tom  of  mixing  the  grains  of  inferior  cereals  with 
wheat ;  the  meaning  will  then  be,  "  Let  a  fool  bo 
ever  so  much  in  the  company  of  wise  men,  yet  he 
will  continue  a  fool."  Maurer  (Comment.  1.  c.) 
simply  explains  the  passage  thus :  "  Quomodo- 
cunque  tractaveris  stultum  non  patietur  se  emen- 
dari."  [Compare  articles  CORN  ;  AGRICULTURE  ; 
BARLEY.]  [W.  H.] 

WHIRLWIND  (na-1D ;  n}J?p).  The  Hebrew 
terms  suphdh  and  se'drdh  convey  the  notion  of  a 
violent  wind  or  hurricane,  the  former  because  such 
a  wind  sweeps  away  every  object  it  encounters,  the 
latter  because  the  objects  so  swept  away  are  tossed 
about  and  agitated.  In  addition  to  this,  Gesenius 
gives  a  similar  sense  to  galgal,*  in  Ps.  Ixxvii.  18 
(A.  V.  "heaven"),  and  Ez.  x.  13  (A.  V.  "  wheel"). 
Generally,  however,  this  last  term  expresses  one  of 
the  effects  of  such  a  storm  in  rolling  along  chaff", 
stubble,  or  such*  light  articles  (Thcs.  p.  288).  It 
does  not  appear  that  any  of  the  above  terms  ex 
press  the  specific  notion  of  a  wAiW-wind,  ».  e.  a 
gale  moving  violently  round  on  its  own  axis — and 
there  is  no  warrant  for  the  use  of  the  word  in  the 
A.  V.  of  2  K.  ii.  11.  The  most  violent  winds  in 
Palestine  come  from  the  east ;  and  the  passage  in 
Job  xxxvii.  9,  which  in  the  A.  V.  reads,  "  Out 
of  the  south  cometh  the  whirlwind,"  should  rather 
be  rendered,  "  Out  of  his  chamber,"  &c.  The 
whirlwind  is  frequently  used  as  a  metaphor  of 
violent  and  sweeping  destruction.  Cyrus'  invasion 
of  Babylonia  is  compared  to  a  southerly  gale  coming 
out  of  the  wilderness  of  Arabia  (Is.  xxi.  1  ;  comp. 
Knobel,  in  loc.\  the  effects  of  which  are  most 
prejudicial  in  that  country.  Similar  allusions 
occur  in  Ps,  Iviii.  9;  Prov.  i.  27,  x.  25;  Is.  xl.  24 
Dan.  xi.  40.  [W.  L.  B.] 

WIDOW  (n:ri>N:  x-flPa-  ™dua}'  Under  the 
Mosaic  dispensation  no  legal  provision  was  made  for 
the  maintenance  of  widows.  They  were  left  de 
pendent  partly  on  the  affection  of  relations,  more 
especially  of  the  eldest  son,  whose  birthright,  or 
extra  share  of  the  property,  imposed  such  a  duty 
upon  him,  and  partly  on  the  privileges  accorded  to 
other  distressed  classes,  such  as  a  participation  in 
the  triennial  third  tithe  (Deut.  xiv.  29,  xxvi.  12),, 
in  leasing  (Deut.  xxiv.  19-21),  and  in  religious 

~~^T~ 

5  T 


1746 


WIDOW 


feasts  (Dent.  xvi.  11,  14%  In  the  spirit  of  these 
regulations  a  portion  of  the  spoil  taken  in  war  was 
assigned  to  them  (2  Mace.  viii.  28,  30).  A  special 
prohibition  was  laid  against  taking  a  widow's  gar 
ments  in  pledge  (Deut.  xxiv.  17),  and  this  was 
practically  extended  to  other  necessaries  (Job  xxiv. 
3).  In  addition  to  these  specific  regulations,  the 
widow  was  commended  to  the  care  of  the  commu- 
i.ity  (Ex.  xxii.  22 ;  Deut.  xxvii.  19  ;  Is.  i.  17  ;  Jer. 
vii.  u,  xxii.  3  ;  Zech.  vii.  10),  and  any  neglect  or 
oppression  was  strongly  reprobated  (Job  xxii.  9, 
xxiv.  21 ;  Ps.  xciv.  6  ;  Is.  x.  2  ;  Ez.  xxii.  7;  Mai. 
iii.  5 ;  Ecclus.  xxxv.  14,  15 ;  Bar.  vi,  38 ;  Matt, 
xxiii.  14).  In  times  of  danger  widows  were  per 
mitted  to  deposit  their  property  in  the  treasury  of 
the  Temple  (2  Mace.  iii.  10).  With  regard  to  the 
remarriage  of  widows,  the  only  restriction  imposed 
by  the  Mosaic  law  had  reference  to  the  contingency 
of  one  being  left  childless,  in  which  case  the  brother 
of  the  deceased  husband  had  a  right  to  marry  the 
widow  (Deut.  xxv.  5,  6  ;  Matt.  xxii.  23-30). 
[MARRIAGE.]  The  high-priest  was  prohibited 
from  marrying  a  widow,  and  in  the  ideal  polity 
of  the  prophet  Ezekiel  the  prohibition  is  extended 
to  the  ordinary  priests  (Ez.  xliv.  22). 

In  the  Apostolic  Church  the  widows  were  sus 
tained  at  the  public  expense,  the  relief  being  daily 
administered  in  kind,  under  the  superintendence  of 
officers  appointed  for  this  special  purpose  (Acts  vi. 
1-6).  Particular  directions  Are  given  bv  St.  Paul  as 
to  the  class  of  persons  entitled  to  such  public  main 
tenance  (I  Tim.  v.  3-16).  He  would  confine  it  to 
the  "  widow  indeed "  (^  forws  x^Pa)>  whom  he 
defines  to  be  one  who  is  left  alone  in  the  world 
f/uejUoi/fttytej/Tj),  without  any  relations  or  Christian 
friends  responsible  for  her  support  (vers.  3-5,  16). 
Poverty  combined  with  fri endlessness  thus  formed 
the  main  criterion  of  eligibility  for  public  support ; 
but  at  the  same  time  the  character  of  the  widow — 
her  piety  and  trustfulness — was  to  be  taken  into 
account  (ver.  5).  Out  of  the  body  of  such  widows 
a  certain  number  were  to  be  enrolled  (/cara- 
Acyecrflw  ;  A.  V.  "taken  into  the  number"),  the 
qualifications  for  such  enrolment  being  (1.)  that 
they  were  not  under  sixty  years  of  age ;  (2.)  that 
they  had  been  "  the  wife  of  one  man,"  probably 
meaning  but  once  married-,  and  (3.)  that  they  had 
led  useful  and  charitable  lives  (vers.  9,  10).  The 
object  of  the  enrolment  is  by  no  means  obvious.  If 
we  were  to  form  our  opinion  solely  on  the  qualifi 
cations  above  expressed,  we  should  conclude  that 
the  enrolled  widows  formed  an  ecclesiastical  order, 
having  duties  identical  with  or  analogous  to  those  of 
the  deaconesses  of  the  early  Church.  For  why,  if 
the  object  were  of  an  eleemosynary  character,  should 
the  younger  or  twice-married  widows  be  excluded? 
The  weight  of  modern  criticism  is  undoubtedly  in 
favour  of  the  view  that  the  enrolled  widows  held 
feuch  an  official  position  in  the  Church  (Alford, 
De  Wette,  Lange,  &c.,  in  1  Tim.  v.  9,  10).  But 
we  can  perceive  no  ground  for  isolating  the  passage 
relating  to  the  enrolled  widows  from  the  context, 
or  for  distinguishing  these  from  the  "  widows  in 
deed  "  referred  to  in  the  preceding  and  succeeding 
Terses.  If  the  passage  be  read  as  a  whole,  then  the 
impression  derived  from  it  will  be  that  the  enrol 
ment  was  for  an  eleemosynary  purpose,  and  that 
the  main  condition  of  enrolment  was,  as  before, 
poverty.  The  very  argument  which  has  been  ad 
duced  in  favour  of  the  opposite  view,  in  reality 
equally  favours  this  one ;  for  why  should  unmar 
ried  or  young  women  be  excluded  from  an  ecclesi- 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 

astical  order?  The  practice  of  the  early  ChuivQ 
proves  that  they  were  not  excluded.  The  authoi 
of  the  Apostolical  Constitutions  lays  down  thfc 
rule  that  virgins  should  be  generally,  and  widows 
only  exceptionally,  appointed  to  the  office  of  dea 
coness  (vi.  17,  §4);  and  though  the  directions 
given  to  Timothy  were  frequently  taken  as  a  model 
for  the  appointment  of  deaconesses,  yet  there  wns 
great  diversity  of  praetLe  in  this  respect  (Bingham's 
Ant.  ii.  22,  §§  2-5).  On  the  other  hand,  ibe  re 
strictions  contained  in  the  Apostolic  directions  are 
not  inconsistent  with  the  eleemosynary  view,  if  we 
assume,  as  is  very  possible,  that  the  enrolled 
widows  formed  a  permanent  charge  on  the  public 
funds,  and  enjoyed  certain  privileges  by  reason  of 
their  long  previous  services,  while  the  remainder, 
who  were  younger,  and  might  very  possibly  re- 
many,  would  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  temporary 
and  casual  recipients.  But  while  we  thus  believe 
that  the  primary  object  of  the  enrolment  was  simply 
to  enforce  a  more  methodical  administration  of  the 
Church  funds,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  the 
order  of  widows  would  obtain  a  quasi-official  posi 
tion  in  the  Church.  Having  already  served  a 
voluntary  diaconate,  and  having  exhibited  their 
self-cohtrol  by  refraining  from  a  second  marriage, 
they  would  naturally  be  looked  up  to  as  models  of 
piety  to  their  sex,  and  would  belong  to  the  class 
whence  deaconesses  would  be  chiefly  drawn.  Hence 
we  find  the  term  "  widow  "  (%^P«)  used  by  early 
writers  in  an  extended  sense,  to  signify  the  adoption 
of  the  conditions  by  which  widows,  enrolled  as 
such,  were  bound  for  the  future.  Thus  Ignatius 
speaks  of  ''  virgins  who  were  called  widows  " 
(irapQcvovs  rets  \€yo/j.tvas  x^Pas  5  EP'  a^  Smyrn. 
13);  and  Tertullian  records  the  case  of  a  virgin 
who  was  placed  on  the  roll  of  widows  (in  vidaatu) 
while  yet  under  twenty  years  of  age  (De  Vel.  Virg. 
9).  It  is  a  further  question  in  what  respect  these 
virgins  were  called  "  widows."  The  annotations 
on  Ignatius  regard  the  term  as  strictly  equivalent 
to  "  deaconess  "  (Patres  Apost.  ii.  441,  ed.  Jacob- 
son),  but  there  is  evidently  another  sense  in  which 
it  may  be  used,  viz.  as  betokening  celibacy,  and 
such  we  believe  to  have  been  its  meaning,  inasmuch 
as  the  abstract  term  XVP*'10-  '8  use(^  'n  ^ne  sense  °f 
continence,  or  unmarried  state,  in  the  Apostolical 
Constitutions  (Trapdevos  fj.)]  (pepovffa  T)]V  cv  ve6- 


2).  We  are  not  therefore  disposed  to  identify  the 
widows  of  the  Kible  either  with  the  deaconesses  or 
with  the  irpeo-fivTiSes  of  the  early  Church,  from 
each  of  which  classes  they  are  distinguished  in  thf» 
work  last  quoted  (ii.  57,  §8,  viii.  "l  3,  §4).  The 
order  of  widows  (rb  XTjpi/coi/)  existed  as  a  separate 
institution,  contemporaneously  with  these  offices, 
apparently  for  the  same  eleemosynary  purpose  for 
which  it  was  originally  instituted  (Const.  Apost. 
iii.  l,§l,iv.  5,  §1).  [W.  L.  B.] 

WIFE.    [MARRIAGE.] 

WILD  BEASTS.     [BEASTS,  Appendix  A.J 

WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING. 

The  historical  magnitude  of  the  Exodus  as  an 
event,  including  in  that  name  not  only  the  exit  from 
Egypt,  but  the  passage  of  the  sea  and  desert,  and 
the  entry  into  Canaan,  and  the  strange  scenery  in 
which  it  was  enacted,  no  less  than  the  miraculous 
agency  sustained  through*  ut  forty  years,  has  given 
to  this  locality  an  interest  which  is  heightened,  if 
possible,  by  the  constant  retrospect  taken  by  th« 
great  Teacher  of  the  New  Testament  and  His  apos- 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


1747 


ties,  of  this  poition  of  the  history  of  the  race  of 
Israel,  as  full  of  spiritual  lessons  necessary  for  the 
Christian  Church  throughout  all  ages.  Hence  this 
region,  which  physically  is,  and  has  probably  been 
for  three  thousand  years  or  more,  little  else  than 
a  barren  waste,  has  derived  a  moral  grandeur  and 
obtained  a  reverential  homage  which  has  spread 
with  the  diffusion  of  Christianity.  Indeed,  to 
Christian,  Jew,  and  Moslem  it  is  alike  holy  ground. 
The  mystery  which  hangs  over  by  far  the  greater 
number  of  localities,  assigned  to  events  even  of  first- 
rate  magnitude,  rather  inflames  than  allays  the 
eagerness  for  identification  ;  and  the  result  has  been 
a  largar  array  of  tourists  than  has  probably  ever 
penetrated  any  other  country  of  equal  difficulty. 
Burckhardt,  Niebuhr,  Seetzen,  Laborde  and  Linant, 
Kiippell,  Kaumer,  Russegger,  Lepsius,  Henniker, 
Wellsted,  Fazakerley,  and  Miss  Martineau,  are  con 
spicuous  amongst  those  who  have  contributed  since 
the  close  of  the  last  century  to  deepen,  to  vivify, 
and  to  correct  our  impressions,  besides  the  earlier 
works  of  Monconys  in  the  17th  century,  and  Hassel- 
quist  and  Pococke  in  the  18th ;  whilst  Wilson, 
Stewart,  Bartlett,  Bonar,  Olin,  Bertou,  Robinson, 
and  Stanley,  have  added  a  rich  detail  of  illustration 
reaching  to  the  present  day.  And  thus  it  is  at 
length  "  possible  by  the  internal  evidence  of  the 
country  itself  to  lay  down,  not  indeed  the  actual 
route  of  the  Israelites  in  every  stage,  but  in  almost 
all  cases,  the  main  alternatives  between  which  we 
must  choose,  and  in  some  cases,  the  very  spots 
themselves."  Yet  with  all  the  material  which  now 
lies  at  the  disposal  of  the  topographical  critic,  there 
is  often  a  real  poverty  of  evidence  where  there 
seems  to  be  an  abundance;  and  the  single  lines  of 
information  do  not  weave  up  into  a  fabric  of  clear 
knowledge.  "  Hitherto  no  one  traveller  has  traversed 
more  than  one,  or  at  most  two  routes  of  the  Desert, 
and  thus  the  determination  of  these  questions  has 
been  obscured  ;  first,  by  the  tendency  of  every  one 
to  make  the  Israelites  follow  his  own  track  ;  and 
secondly,  by  his  inability  to  institute  a  just  compari 
son  between  the  facilities  or  difficulties  which  attend 
the  routes  which  he  has  not  seen.  This  obscurity 
will  always  exist  till  some  competent  traveller  has 
explored  the  whole  Peninsula.  When  this  has  been 
fairly  done,  there  is  little  doubt  that  some  of  the 
most  important  topographical  questions  now  at  issue 
will  be  set  at  rest"  (Stanley,  S.  Sf  P.  33). 

I.  The  uncertainties  commence  from  the  very 
starting-point  of  the  route  of  the  Wandering.  It  is 
impossible  to  fix  the  point  at  which  in  "  the  wilder 
ness  of  Etham"  (Num.  xxxiii.  6,  7)  Israel,  now  a 
nation  of  freemen,  emerged  from  that  sea  into  which 
they  had  passed  as  a  nation  of  slaves.  But,  slippery 
as  is  the  physical  ground  for  any  fixture  of  the 
miracle  to  a  particular  spot,  we  may  yet  admire 
the  grandeur  and  vigour  of  the  image  of  baptism 
which  Christianity  has  appropriated  from  those 
waters.  There  their  freedom  was  won  :  "  not  of 


a  See  a  pamphlet  by  Charles  T.  Beke,  Ph.  D.,  ••  A  Few 
Words  with  Bishop  Colenso,"  4,  5. 

t>  Compare  the  use  of  the  same  word,  of  a  multitude  of 
men  or  cattle,  in  Joel,  i.  18,  to  express  ev  a.nopia  elvaL, 
without  reference  to  egress  or  direction  of  course,  merely 
for  want  of  food. 

c  Josephus  (Ant.  ii.  15,  $3)  speaks  of  the  obstruction  of 
precipitous  and  impassable  mountains,  but  when  we  con- 
eider  his  extravagant  language  of  the  height  of  the  build- 
ings  of  the  temple,  it  is  likely  that  much  more,  when 
speaking  in  general  terms  of  a  spot  so  distant,  such  ex 
pressions  may  bo  set  down  as  simply  rhetorical. 


themselves,  it  was  the  gift  of  God,"  whose  Pre 
sence  visibly  preceded,  and  therefore  St.  Paul  says, 
"  they  were  baptized  in  the  cloud,"  and  not  only 
"  in  the  sea."  The  fact  that  from  "  Etham  in  the 
edge  of  the  wilderness,"  their  path  struck  across  the 
sea  (Ex.  xiii.  20),  and  from  the  sea  into  the  same 
wilderness  of  Etham,  seems  to  indicate  the  upper 
end  of  the  furthest  tongue  of  the  Gulf  of  Sue/,  as 
the  point  of  crossing,  for  here,  as  is  probable,  lather 
than  lower  down  the  same,  the  district  on  eithei 
side  would  for  a  short  distance  on  both  shores  have 
the  same  name.  There  seems  reason  also  to  think 
that  this  gulf  had  then,  as  also  at  Ezion-Geb«i 
[EziONGEBER],  a  further  extension  northward  than 
at  present,  owing  to  the  land  having  upheaved  its 
level.  This  action  seems  to  have  been  from  early 
times  the  predominant  one,  and  traces  of  it  have 
recently  been  observed.*  Thus  it  is  probable  as  a 
result  of  the  same  agency  that  the  sea  was  even 
then  shallow,  and  the  sudden  action  of  a  tidal  sea 
in  the  cul-de-sac  of  a  narrow  and  shallow  gulf  is 
well-known.  Our  own  Sol  way  Firth  is  a  familiar 
example  of  the  rise  and  rush  of  water,  surprising  at 
times,  especially  when  combined  with  the  action  ol 
a  strong  wind,  even  those  habitually  cognizant  of 
its  power.  Similarly  by  merely  venturing,  it  seems, 
below  high- water  mark,  our  own  King  John  lost 
his  baggage,  regalia,  and  treasures  in  the  estuary  of 
The  Wash.  Pharaoh's  exclamation,  "  they  are  en 
tangled  (DOZ13)b  in  the  land,"  merely  expresses 
the  perplexity  in  which  such  a  multitude  having, 
from  whatever  cause,  no  way  of  escape,  would  find 
themselves.  "  The  wilderness  hath  shut  them  in," 
refers  merely,  it  is  probable,  to  his  security  in  the 
belief  that,  having  reached  the  flat  of  the  waste,  they 
were  completely  at  the  mercy  of  a  chariot  force, 
like  his,  and  rather  excludes  than  implies  the  notion 
of  mountains.0  The  direction  of  the  wind  is  '  *  east " 
in  the  Hebrew  (D^ljJ  H-l")^),  but  in  the  LXX. 
"south"  (i/oVy),  in  Ex.  xiv.  21.  On  a  local 
question  the  probable  authority  of  the  latter,  exe 
cuted  in  Egypt  near  the  spot,  is  somewhat  enhanced 
above  its  ordinary  value.  The  furthest  tongue  of 
the  gulf,  now  supposed  dry,  narrows  to  a  strait 
some  way  below,  i.  e.  south  of  its  northern  extremity, 
as  given  in  Laborde's  map  (Commentary  on  Exod.), 
and  then  widens  again.*  In  such  a  narrow  pass 
the  action  of  the  water  would  be  strongest  when 
"  the  sea  returned,"  and  here  a  wind  anywhere 
between  E.  and  S.S.E.,  to  judge  from  that  map, 
would  produce  nearly  the  same  effect;  only  the 
more  nearly  due  E.  the  more  it  would  meet  the  sea 
at  right  angles.e  The  probability  is  certainly  that 
Pharaoh,  seeing  his  bondmen,  now  all  but  within 
his  clutch,  yet  escaping  from  it,  would  in  the  dark 
ness  of  night,  especially  as  he  had  spurned  calmer 
counsels  and  remonstrances  before,  pursue  with 
headlong  rashness,  even  although,  to  a  sober  judg 
ment  guided  by  experience,  the  risk  was  plain. 


d  Dr.  Stanley  (S.  &  P.  36)  thinks  that  this  supposed 
extension  "depends  on  arguments  which  have  not  yet 
been  thoroughly  explored." 

e  If  the  wind  were  direct  S.  it  would  at  some  points 
favour  the  notion  that  "  the  passage  was  not  a  transit  but 
a  short  circuit,  returning  again  to  the  Egyptian  shore,  and 
then  pursuing  their  way  round  the  head  of  the  gulf,"  an 
explanation  favoured  "  by  earlier  Christian  commentators, 
and  by  almost  all  the  Rabbinical  writers"  (S.  &  P.  36). 
The  landing-place  would  on  this  view  be  considerably 
north  of  the  point  of  entering  the  sea. 

r,  T  2 


1748 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDKIUNG 


ThtrP  is  a  :e&embiance  in  the  names  Migdol  and 
the  "  ancient  '  Magdolum,'  twelve  miles  S.  of  Pelu- 
sium,  and  undoubtedly  described  as  *  Migdol '  by 
Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel"  (Jer.  xliv.  1,  xlvi.  14 ;  Ezek. 
xxix.  10,  xxx.  6;  8.  $  P.  37),  also  between  the 
same  and  the  modern  Muldala,  "  a  gentle  slope 
through  the  hills"  towards  Suez;  and  Pi-Hahiroth 
perhaps  is  'Ajrud.  The  "  wilderness  of  Etham  " 
probably  lay  on  either  side  adjacent  to  the  now  dry 
trough  of  the  northern  end  of  the  gulf.  Dr.  Stewart 
(  Tent  and  Khan,  64)  thinks  the  name  Etham  trace 
able  in  the  Wady  Akthi,  on  the  Arabian  shore, 
but  this  and  the  preceding  y Ajrud  are  of  doubtful 
identity.  The  probability  seems  on  the  whole  to 
favour  the  notion  that  the  crossing  lay  to  the  N. 
of  the  Jebel  'Atd/Mh,  which  lies  on  the  Egyptian 
side  S.  of  Suez,  and  therefore  neither  the  Ayttn 
Musa,f  nor,  much  less,  the  ffurnmdm  Phariun, 
further  down  on  the  eastern  shore — each  of  which 
places,  as  well  as  several  others,  claims  in  local 
legend  to  be  the  spot  of  landing — will  suit.  Still, 
these  places,  or  either  of  them,  maybe  the  region 
when1.  "  Israel  saw  the  Egyptians  dead  upon  the 
soa-shore"  (Ex.  xiv.  30).  The  crossing  place  from 
the  Egyptian  Wadi/  Tawdrik  to  the  'Ayun  Musa 
has  been  supported,  however,  by  Wilson,  Olin, 
Dr.  Stewart  (Tent  and  Khan,  58),  and  others. 
The  notion  of  Muhtala  being  Migdol  will  best  suit 
tlie  previous  view  of  the  more  northerly  passage. 
The  "  wilderness  of  Shur,"  into  which  the  Is 
raelites  "went  out"  from  the  Red  Sea,  appears 
to  be  the  eastern  and  south-eastern  continuation  of 
that  of  Etham,  for  both  in  Ex.  xv.  22,  and  in  Num. 
xxxiii.  8,  they  are  recorded  to  have  "  gone  three 
days  in  the  wilderness,"  indicated  respectively  in 
the  two  passages  as  that  of  Shur  and  that  of  Etham. 
From  the  expression  in  Ex.  xiii.  20,  "  Etham,  the 
edge  of  the  wilderness,"  the  habitable  region  would 
seem  to  have  ended  at  that  place.  Josephus  (Ant. 
vi.  7,  §3)  seems  to  identity  Pelusium  with  Shur, 
comp.  1  Sam.  xv.  7  ;  but  probably,  he  meiely  uses 
the  former  term  in  an  approximate  sense,  as  a  land 
mark  well-known  to  his  readers;  since  Shur  is 
described  as  "  over  against,  or  before,  Egypt  " 
(Gen.  xxv.  18),  being  perhaps  the  same  as  Sihor, 
similarly  spoken  of  in  Josh.  xiii.  3;  Jer.  ii.  18. 
When  so  described,  we  may  understand  "Egypt" 
to  be  taken  m  a  strict  sense  as  excluding  Goshen 
and  the  Arabian  nome.  [GOSHEN.]  Shur  "  before 
Egypt,"  whatever  the  name  may  have  meant,  must 
probably  be  viewed  as  lying  eastward  of  a  line 
drawn  from  Suez  to  Pelusium ;  and  the  wilderness 
named  from  it  or  from  Etham,  extended  three  days' 
journey  (for  the  Israelites)  from  the  head  of  the 
gulf,  if  not  more.  It  is  evident  that,  viewed  from 
Egypt,  the  wilderness  might  easily  take  its  name 
from  the  last  outpost  of  the  habitable  region,  whe 


ther  town  or  village,  whereas  in  othei  aspects  it 
might  have  a  name  of  its  own,  from  some  land 
mark  lying  in  it.  Thus  the  Egyptians  may  hav* 
known  it  as  connected  with  Eiham,  and  the  desert 
inhabitants  as  belonging  to  Shur;  wnile  from  his 
residence  in  Egypt  and  sojourn  with  J^thro,  both 
names  may  have  been  familiar  to  Moses.  However 
this  may  be,  from  Suez  eastward,  the  large  desert 
tract,  stretching  as  far  east  as  the  Ghor  and  Mount 
Seir,  i.  e.  from  32°  40'  to  35°  10'  E.  long.,  begins. 
The  3 1st  parallel  of  latitude,  nearly  traversing 
El  'Arish,  the  "  River  of  Egypt,"  on  the  Mediterra 
nean,  and  the  southernmost  extremity  of  the  Dead 
Sea.  may  be  taken  roughly  to  represent  its  northern 
limit,  where  it  1'eally  merges  imperceptibly  into 
the  "  south  country "  of  Judah.  It  is  scarcely 
called  in  Scripture  by  any  one  general  name,  but 
the  "  wilderness  of  Paran  "  most  nearly  approxi 
mates  to  such  a  designation,  though  lost,  short  of 
the  Egyptian  or  western  limit,  in  the  wilderness  of 
Shur,  and  perhaps,  although  not  certainly,  curtailed 
eastward  by  that  of  Zin.  On  the  south  side  of 
the  et-Tih  range,  a  broad  angular  band  runs  across 
the  Peninsula  with  its  apex  turned  southward,  and 
pointing  towards  the  central  block  of  gcanite  moun 
tains.  This  is  a  tract  of  sand  known  as  the  Debbet 
er-Ramleh  or  Ramlah,  but  which  name  is  omitted 
in  Kiepert's  map.  The  long  horizontal  range  and 
the  sandy  plain  together  form  a  natural  feature  in 
marked  contrast  with  the  pyramidal  configuration 
of  the  southern  or  Sinaitic  region.  The  "  wilder 
ness  of  Sinai  "  lies  of  course  in  that  southern  region, 
in  that  part  which,  although  generally  elevated, 
is  overhung  by  higher  peaks.  How  far  this  wilder 
ness  extended  is  uncertain.  The  Israelites  only 
traversed  the  north- western  region  of  it.  The 
"  wilderness  of  Sin  "  was  their  passage  rato  it  from 
the  more  pleasant  district  of  coast  Wadys  with 
water-springs  which  succeeded  to  the  first-traversed 
wilderness  of  Shur  or  Etham,  where  no  water  was 
found.  Sin  may  probably  be  identified  with  the 
coast  strip,  now  known  as  el-Kda,  reaching  from  a 
little  above  the  Jebcl  Feirdn,  or  as  nearly  as  ]>os- 
sible  on  the  29th  parallel  of  latitude,?  down  to  and 
beyond  Tur  on  the  Red  Sea.  They  seem  to  have 
only  dipped  into  the  "  Sin  "  region  at  its  northern 
extremity,  and  to  have  at  once  moved  frcm  the 
coast  towards  the  N.W.  upon  Sinai  (Ex.  xv.  22-27, 
xvi.  1 ;  Num.  xxxiii.  8-11).  It  is  often  impossible 
to  assign  a  distinct  track  to  this  vast  body — a  nation 
swarming  on  the  march.  The  fact,  of  many,  perh&ps 
most,  of  the  ordinary  avenues  being  incapable  of 
containing  more  than  a  fraction  of  them,  would 
often  have  compelled  them  to  appropriate  all  or 
several  of  the  modes  of  access  to  particular  point?, 
between  the  probabilities  of  which  the  judgment  of 
travellers  is  balanced.11  Down  the  coast,  however, 


A  warm  spring,  the  temperature  of  which  is  given  by 
Mr.  Hamilton  (Sinai,  the  ffedjaz  and  Smidan,  14)  as 
being  83°  Fahrenheit.  "Robinson  found  the  water  here 
ealt,  and  yielding  a  hard  deposit,  yet  the  Arabs  calli  d 
these  springs  '  sweet :'  there  are  several  of  them  "  (Seetzen, 
Reistn,  iii.  pt.  iii.  431).  The  Hummdm  ("  warm  baths  ") 
Pharaun  are  similar  springs,  lying  a  little  W.  of  S.  from 
Wad y  Useit,  on  the  coast  close  to  whose  edge  rises  the 
precipitous  Jebel  Hummdm,  so  called  from  them,  and  here 
intercepting  the  path  along  the  shore.  The  Rev.  R.  S. 
Tyrwhitt,  who  made  the  desert  journey  in  February,  1863, 
says  that  there  may  be  a  warm  spring  out  of  the  twelve 
DJ  thirteen  which  form  the  AyuT,  Jfi'isa,  but  that  the 
water  of  the  larger  well  is  cold,  and  that  he  drank  of  it. 
if  North  of  this  limit  lies  the  most  southern  wady  which 


has  been  fixed  upon  by  any  considerable  number  of  autho 
rities  for  Elim,  from  which  the  departure  was  taken 
into  the  wilderness  of  Sin.  Seetzen,  but  he  alone,  sug 
gests  that  Elim  is  to  be  found  in  a  warm  spring  in  a 
northerly  direction  from  Ttir,  at  a  very  slight  distance, 
which  waters  the  extensive  date-palm  plantations  there. 
If  this  were  so  Tur  itself  would  have  certainly  been  in 
cluded  in  the  radius  of  the  camp ;  but  it  is  unlikely  thit 
they  went  so  far  south. 

h  It  may  be  worth  while  to  notice  that  the  same  ob 
servations  apply  to  the  battle  in  Rephidim  with  Amaiek, 
To  look  about  for  a  battle-field  large  enough  to  give 
sufficient  space  for  two  hosts  worthy  of  representing 
Israel  and  Anialek,  and  to  reject  all  sites  where  this  pos 
sibility  is  not  obvious,  is  an  unsafe  method  of  critidao 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


1749 


from  £1  ham  or  the  Suez  region  southwards,  the  course  I  greater  steepness  of  this  eat  i  eru  slope.  In  crossing 
is  broad  and  open,  and  there  the  track  would  be  more  ' 
definite  and  united.  Before  going  into  the  further 
details  of  this  question,  a  glance  may  be  taken  at 
the  general  configuration  of  the  et-  Till  region,  com 
puted  at  40  parasangs,  or  about  140  miles,  in 
length,  and  the  same  in  breadth  by  Jakut,  the 
famous  geographer  of  Hamah  ( Seetzen,  Jteisen,  iii. 
47).  For  a  description  of  the  rock  desert  of  Sinai, 
in  which  nature  has  cast,  as  it  were,  a  pyramid  of 
granite,  culminating  at  U/n  Shaumer,  9300  feet 
above  sea-level,  but  cloven  and  sulcated  in  every 
direction  by  wadys  into  minor  blocks,  see  SINAI. 

II.  The  twin  Gulfs  of  Suez  and'Akabah,  into  which 
the  Red  Sea  separates,  embrace  the  Peninsula  on  its 
W.  and  E.  sides  respectively.  One  or  other  of  them 
is  in  sight  from  almost  all  the  summits  of  the 
Sinaitic  cluster,  and  from  the  highest  points  both 
branches.  The  eastern  coast  of  the  Quit'  of  Suez  is 
strewn  with  shells,  and  with  the  forests  of  sub 
marine  vegetation  which  possibly  gave  the  whole  sea 
its  Hebrew  appellation  of  the  "  Sea  of  Weeds."  The 
"  huge  trunks  "  of  its  "  trees  of  coral  may  be  seen 
even  on  the  dry  shore ;"  while  at  Tur,  cabins  are 
formed  of  madrepores  gattered  from  it,  and  the 
d&bris  of  conchylia  lie  thickly  heaped  on  the  beach.' 
Similar  "  coralline  forests  "  are  described  ($.  and 
P.  83)  as  marking  the  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah-. 
The  northern  portion  of  the  whole  Peninsula  is  a 
plateau  bounded  southwards  by  the  range  of  et-Tih, 
which  droops  across  it  on  the  map  with  a  curve 
somewhat  like  that  of  a  slack  chain,  whose  points 
of  suspension  are,  westwards,  Suez,  and  eastward, 
but  i'urther  south,  some  "  sandstone  cliffs,  which 
shut  off"  k  this  region  from  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah. 
The  north- western  member  of  this  chain  converges 
with  the  shove  of  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  till  the  two  run 
nearly  parallel.  Its  eastern  member  throws  off 
several  fragments  of  long  and  short  ridges  towards 
the  Gulf  of  'Akabah  and  the  northern  plateau  called 
from  it  et-Tih.  The  Jebel  Dillal  (Burckhardt, 
Dhelel}  is  the  most  southerly  of  the  continuations 
of  this  eastern  member  (Seetzen,  jReisen,  iii.  pt.  iii. 
413).  The  greatest  elevation  in  the  et-Tih  range 
is  attained  a  little  W.  of  the  meridian  34°,  near  its 
most  southerly  point ;  it  is  here  4654  feet  above 
the  Mediterranean.  From  this  point  the  watershed 
of  the  plateau  runs  obliquely  between  N.  and  E. 
towards  Hebron ;  westward  of  which  line,  and 
northward  from  the  westerly  member  of  Jebel  et- 
Tih,  the  whole  vvady-system  is  drained  by  the  great 
Wady  el-  Arish,  along  a  gradual  slope  to  the  Medi 
terranean.  The  shorter  and  much  steeper  slope 
eastward  partly  converges  into  the  large  ducts  of 
Wadys  Fikreh  and  el-Jcib,  entering  the  Dead  Sea's 
south-western  angle  through  the  southern  wall  of 
the  Ghor,  and  partly  finds  an  outlet  nearly  parallel, 
but  further  to  the  S.,  by  the  Wady  Jerafeh  into 
the  'Arabah.  The  great  depression  of  the  Dead  Sea 
(1300  feet  below  the  Mediterranean)  explains  the 


plateau,  Seetzen  found  that  rain  and  wind  h;uj 
worked  depressions  in  parts  of  its  flat,  which  con 
tained  a  few  shrubs  or  isolated  bushes.  This  flat 
rose  here  and  there  in  heights  steep  on  one  side, 
composed  of  white  chalk  with  frequent  lumps  of 
flint  embedded  (iii.  48).  The  plateau  has  a  central 
point  in  the  station  m Khan  Nukhl,  so  named  fiom 
the  date-trees  which  once  adorned  its  wadv,  but 
which  have  all  disappeared.  This  point  is'neaily 
equidistant  from  Suez  westward,  'Akabah  eastward, 
el- Arish  northward,  and  the  foot  of  Jebel  Muga 
southward.  It  lies  half  a  mile  N.  of  the  "  Hadj- 
route,"  between  Suez  and  'Akabah,  which  traverses 
"  a  boundless  flat,  dreary  and  desolate  "  (ibid.  56), 
and  is  1494°  feet  above  the  Mediterranean — nearly 
on  the  same  meridian  as  the  highest  point  before 
assigned  to  et-Tih.  On  this  meridian  also  lies  Um 
Shaumer  farther  south,  the  highest  point  of  the 
entire  Peninsula,  having  an  elevation  of  9oO'J 
feet,  or  nearly  double  that  of  et-Tih.  A  little  to 
the  W.  of  the  same  meridian  lies  el- Arish,  and  the 
southern  cape,  RAs  Mohammed,  is  situated  about 
34°  17'.  Thus  the  parallel  31°,  and  the  meridian 
34°,  foim  important  axes  of  the  whole  region  of 
the  Peninsula.  A  full  description  of  the  wilder 
ness  of  et-Tih  is  given  by  Dr.  Robinson  (i.  177,  8, 
199),  together  with  a  memorandum  of  the  tra 
vellers  who  explored  it  previously  to  himself. 

On  the  eastern  edge  of  the  plateau  to  the  N.  of 
the  et-Tih  range,  which  is  raised  terrace-wise  l>y  a 
step  from  the  level  of  the  Ghor,  rises  a  singular 
second,  or,  reckoning  that  level  itself,  a  third  pla 
teau,  superimposed  on  the  general  surface  of  the 
et-Tih  region.  These  Russegger  (Map]  distinguishes 
as  three  terraces  in  the  chalk  ridges.  Dr.  Kruse,  in 
his  Anmerkungen  on  Seetzen's  travels  (iii.  pt.  iii. 
410),  remarks  that  the  Jebel  et-Tih  is  the  montes 
nigri,  or  (jLeAaves  of  Ptolemy,  in  whose  view  that 
range  descends  to  the  extreme  southern  point  of  the 
Peninsula,  thus  including  of  course  the  Sinaitic 
region.  This  confusion  arose  from  a  want  of  dis 
tinct  conception  of  geographical  details.  The  name 
seems  to  have  been  obtained  fiom  the  dark,  or  ev»u 
black  colour,  which  is  observable  in  parts  £ee 
p.  1750,  note  *). 

The  Hadj-route  from  Suez  to  'Akabah,  crossing 
the  Peninsula  in  a  direction  a  little  S.  of  E.,  may 
stand  for  the  chord  of  the  arc  of  the  et-  Tih  range 
the  length  of  which  latter  is  about  120  miles.  This 
slope,  descending  northwards  upon  the  Mediterra 
nean^  is  of  limestone  (S.  and  P.  7),  covered  with 
coarse  gravel  interspersed  with  black  flints  and 
drift  (Russegger's  Map].  But  its  desolation  has 
not  always  been  so  extreme,  oxen,  asses,  and  sheep 
having  once  grazed  in  parts  of  it  where  now  only 
the  camel  is  found.  Three  passes  through  the 
et-Tih.  range  are  mentioned  by  Robinson  (i.  p.  123  ; 
comp.  56-1-3,  App.  xxii.) — er-Mkineh,  the  western  ; 
el-Mureikhy,  the  eastern;  and  el-Wursah,  between 


The  aioet  reticulated  mass  of  wadys  in  the  whole  penin- 
auia.  if  deemed  worth  fighting  for,  would  form  a  battle 
ground  for  all  practical  purposes,  though  not  properly  a 
"field"  of  battle,  and  the  battle  might  decisively  settle 
supremacy  within  certain  limits,  although  no  regular 
method  of  warfare  might  be  applicable,  aud  the  numbers 
actually  engaged  might  be  inconsiderable.  It  would 
perhaps  resemble  somewhat  more  closely  a  street  fight  for 
the  mastery  of  a  tv>wc. 

>  Stanley,  S.  <&  P.  5  ;  Hamilton,  Sinai,  the  Hedjaz,  and 
Soudan,  14. 

*  Stanley,  S.  A  P.  8. 


m  Seetzen,  who  crossed  this  route  6  hours  to  the  E.  ol 
this  station,  says  that  this  road,  and  not  the  range  of 
et-Tih,  is  the  political  division  of  the  country,  all  tbe 
country  to  the  S.  of  the  road  being  reckoned  as  the  Tur. 
and  that  northwards  as  appertaining  to  Syria  (Reisen, 
iii.  410-11,  comp.  p.  53).  His  course  lay  between  the 
route  'rom  Hebron  to  'Akabah,  and  that  from  Hebron 
to  Suez.  He  went  straight  southwards  to  Feiran ;  & 
route  which  no  traveller  has  followed  since. 

»>  This  measurement  is  a  mean  between  that  given  in 
Stanley  (map,  S.  «fe  /'.  5),  and  llussecger  s  estimate,  us  given 
by  Seetzen  (Rtissn,  i':i.  pt.  iii.  411), 


1750 


WILDEKNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


the  two.  These  all  meet,  S.  of  Ruhaibeh  (Reho- 
both,  Gen.  xxvi.  22  ?),  in  about  N.  lat.  31°  5', 
E.  long.  34°  42',  and  thence  diverge  towards  He 
bron  and  Gaza.  The  eastern0  is  noted  by  Rus- 
segger  as  4853  feetP  above  sea-level.  Seetzeu  took 
the  el-Tih  range  for  the  "  Mount  Seir,"  passed  on 
the  way  from  Sinai  (Horeb,  Deut.  i.  2)  to  Kadesh 
Bainea  by  the  Israelites  (Reisen,  iii.  28 ;  comp. 
ibid.  Kruse's  Anmerkungen,  pt.  iii.  417).  It 
would  form  a  conspicuous  object  on  the  left  to  the 
Israelites,  going  south-eastwards  near  the  coast  of 
Ihe  Gulf  of  Suez.  Seetzen,  proceeding  towards 
Suez,  i.  e.  in  the  opposite  direction,  mentions  a  high 
sandy  plain  (Reisen,  iii.  p.  11*1),  apparently  near 
Wady  Ghurundel,  whence  its  steep  southern  face  was 
visible  in  a  white  streak  stretching  westwards  and 
eastwards.  Dr.  Stanley  (S.  and  P.  1)  says,  "how 
ever  much  the  other  mountains  of  the  Peninsula  vary 
in  form  or  height,  the  mountains  of  the  Tlh  are  al 
ways  alike — always  faithful  to  their  tabular  outline 
and  blanched  desolation."  1  They  appear  like  "  a  long 
limestone  wall."  This  traveller  saw  them,  how 
ever,  only  "  from  a  distance "  (ibid,  and  note  2). 
Seetzen,  who  crossed  them,  going  from  Hebron  to 
Sinai,  says  of  the  view  from  the  highest  ridge  of 
the  lower  mountain-line  :  "  What  a  landscape  was 
that  I  looked  down  upon !  On  all  sides  the  most 
frightful  wilderness  extended  out  of  sight  in  every 
direction,  without  tree,  shrub,  or  speck  of  green. 
It  was  an  alternation  of  flats  and  hills,  for  the  most 
part  black  as  night,  only  the  naked  rock-walls  on 
the  hummocks  and  heights  showed  patches  of 
dazzling  whiteness'  ....  a  striking  image  of  our 
globe,  when,  through  Phaeton's  carelessness,  the 
sun  came  too  near  to  it"  (Reisen,  iii.  p.  50). 
Similarly,  describing  the  scenery  of  the  Wady  el- 
Bidra,  by  which  he  passed  the  et-Tih  range  (see 
note0  below),  he  says :  " On  the  S.  side  rose  a  con 
siderable  range,  desolate,  craggy,  and  naked.  All 
was  limestone,  chalk,  and  flint.  The  chalk  cliffs 
gave  the  steep  off-set  of  the  Tih  range  on  its  S. 
side  the  aspect  of  a  snow  mountain  "  (p.  62). 

The  other  routes  which  traverse  the  Peninsula 
are,  that  from  Hebron  to  Suez  along  the  maritime 
plain,  at  a  distance  of  from  10  to  30  miles  from 
the  sea,  passing  el-Arish  ;  that  from  Suez  to  Tur 
along  the  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Suez  through  the 
A'oa;  and  that  from  'Akabah,  near  Eziongeber, 
ascending  the  western  wall  of  the  'Arabah  through 
the  Wady  el-Jeib,  by  several  passes,  not  far 
from  the  southern  extremity  of  the  Dead  Sea,  to 
wards  Hebron,  in  a  co-irse  here  nearly  N.W.,  then 
again  N.e  A  modern  mountain  road  has  been  par 
tially  constructed  by  Abbas  Pasha  in  the  pass  of 
the  Wady  Hebrdn,  leading  from  the  coast  of  the 
Gulf  of  Suez  towards  the  convent  commonly  called 

«  Seetzen  probably  took  this  eastern  pass,  which  leads 
out  into  the  Wady  Berah  (Seetzen,  El  Bidra,  called  also 
El  Schdide,  Reisen,  iii.  pt.  iii.  411,  Kruse's  Anmerkungen, 
comp.  iii.  62).  He,  however,  shortly  before  crossing  the 
range,  came  upon  "  a  flat  hill  yielding  wholesome  pasture 
for  camels,  considerable  numbers  (Haufen)  of  which  are 
met  with  here,  also  two  herds  of  goats  and  some  sheep  " 
(iii.  60) ;  not  strictly  confirming  the  previous  statement, 
which  is  Dr.  Robinson's. 

9  It  is  not  easy  to  reconcile  this  statement  with  the 
figure  (4645  ft.)  given  by  Dr.  Stanley  (S.  &  P.,  map, 
p.  5)  apparently  as  the  extreme  height  of  the  mountain 
El-Odjme  (Stanley,./.  Kdime,),  since  we  might  expect  that 
the  pass  would  be  somewhat  lower  than  the  highest  point, 
Instead  of  higher.  On  this  mountain,  see  p.  1767,  note  ». 

i  Soetzen  (iii.  56)  remarks  that  "  the  slope  of  the  ec-Tik 


St.  Catharine's.  The  ascent  from  the  trough  cf  iht 
'Arabah  (which  is  steeper-sided  at  its  N.W.  ex 
tremity  than  elsewhere),  towards  the  general  plateau 
is  by  the  pass  el-Kkurdr,  by  which  the  level  of 
that  broad  surface  is  attained.  The  smaller  plateau 
rests  obliquely  upon  the  latter,  abutting  on  the  Dead 
Sea  at  Ma8adar  where  its  side  and  that  of  the  lowei 
floor  converge,  and  is  reached  by  ascending  through 
the  higher  Nukb  es-Sufa.  Its  face,  corresponding 
to  the  southern  face  of  the  Tih  plateau,  looks  con 
siderably  to  the  W.  of  S.,  owing  to  this  obliquity, 
and  is  delineated  like  a  well-delined  mountain-wall 
in  Kiepert's  map,  having  at  the  S.E.  angle  a  bold 
buttress  in  the  Jebel  Mukhrah<  and  at  the  S.W. 
another  in  the  Jebel  'Ardif  en-Nakah.  which  stands 
out  apparently  in  the  wilderness  like  a  promontory 
at  sea.  From  the  former  mountain,  its  mos 
southerly  point,  at  about  30°  20'  N.  L.,  thi>» 
plateau  extends  northward  a  little  east,  till  K 
merges  in  the  southern  slope  of  Judea,  but  at  about 
30°  50'  N.  L.,  is  cut  nearly  through  by  the  Wady 
Fikreh,  trenching  its  area  eastward,  and  not  quit* 
meeting  the  Wady  Murrdh,  which  has  its  declivity 
apparently  toward  the  Wady  el-Arish  westward. 
The  face  of  mountain-wall  mentioned  above  may 
probably  be  "  the  mountain  of  the  Amorites,"  or  this 
whole  higher  plateau  may  be  so  (Deut.  i.  7, 19,  20). 
A  line  drawn  northwards  from  Eds  Mohammed 
passes  a  little  to  the  W.  of  'Ardif  en-Nakah.  A 
more  precise  description  of  some  parts  of  this  plateau 
has  been  given  under  KADESH. 

On  the  whole,  except  in  the  Debbet  er-Ramleh, 
sand  is  rare  in  the  Peninsula.  There  is  little  or 
none  on  the  sea-shore,  and  the  plain  el-Kda  on  the 
S.W.  coast  is  gravelly  rather  than  sandy  (S.  and  P. 
8).  Of  sandstone  on  the  edges  of  the  granitic  central 
mass  there  is  no  lack.*  It  is  chiefly  found  between 
the  chalk  and  limestone  of  et-  Tih  and  the  southern 
rocky  triangle  of  Sinai.  Thus  the  Jebel  Dilldl 
is  of  sandstone,  in  tall  vertical  cliffs,  forming  tht 
boundary  of  er-Ramleh  on  the  east  side,  and  similar 
steep  sandstone  cliffs  are  visible  in  the  same  plain, 
lying  on  its  N.  and  N.W.  sides  (Seetzen,  iii.  66 ; 
comp.  pt.  iii.  413).  In  the  Wady  Mokattcb  "the 
soft  surface  of  these  sandstone  cliffs  offered  ready 
tablets  "  to  the  unknown  wayfarers  who  wrote  the 
"  Sinai  tic  inscriptions."  This  stone  gives  in  some 
parts  a  strong  red  hue  to  the  nearer  landscape,  and 
softens  into  shades  of  the  subtlest  delicacy  in  the 
distance.  Where  the  surface  has  been  broken  away, 
or  fretted  and  eaten  by  the  action  of  water,  these 
hues  are  most  vivid  (S.  and  P.  10-12).  It  has  been 
supposed  that  the  Egyptians  worked  the  limestone 
of  et-Ti/i,  and  that  that  material,  as  found  in 
the  pyramids,  was  there  quarried.  The  hardness 
of  the  granite  in  the  Jebel  et-Tur  has  been  em- 


range  shows  an  equal  wildness  "  to  that  of  the  desert  on 
its  northern  side. 

r  Comp.  Dr.  Stanley's  description  of  the  march  down 
the  Wady  Tayibeh  "  between  vast  cliffs  white  or  the  one 
side,  and  on  the  other  of  a  black  calcined  colour11  (ti.ik  P 
69). 

»  Nearly  following  this  track  in  the  opposite  directloc, 
i.  e.  to  the  S.E.,  Seetzen  went  from  Hebron  to  Jtiadara  (al. 
Madurah,  or  Modera),  passing  by  Moon,  et-Kirmel  (the 
"Cannel"  of  Nabal's  pasture-ground  in  1  Sam.  xxv.  2), 
and  Arur  (Reisen,  iii.  10-18). 

<•  A  remarkable  sandstone  mountain  on  the  S.W.  plain 
near  the  sea  is  the  Jebtl  Ifakus  ("  bell "),  said  to  be  so 
called  from  the  ringing  sound  made  by  the  sand  pouriiis 
over  its  cliffs  (Stewart,  T.  &  K.  386,  comp. 
Reisen,  iii.  277X 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


1761 


noticed  by  travellers.  Thus,  in  construct 
ing  recently  the  mountain  road  for  Abbas  Pasha, 
"  the  rocks"  were  found  "obstinately  to  resist 
'.•von  the  gunpowder's  blast,"  and  the  sharp  glass- 
like  edges  of  the  granite  soon  wear  away  the  work 
men's  shoes  and  cripple  their  feet  (Hamilton,  Sinai, 
Ike  Hedjaz,  and  S<ntdan,  17).  Similarly,  Laborde 
says  (Comm.  on  Num.  xxxiii.  36) :  "In  my  journey 
across  that  country  (from  Egypt,  through  Sinai  to 
the  Ghor),  I  had  carried  from  Cairo  two  pair  of  shoes ; 
they  were  cut,  and  my  feet  came  through  ;  when  I 
arrived  at 'Akabah,  luckily  I  found  in  the  magazines 
of  that  fortress  two  other  pair  to  replace  them.  On 
my  return  to  Sinai,  I  was  barefoot  again.  Hussein 
then  procured  me  sandals  half  an  inch  thick,  which, 
011  my  arrival  in  Cairo,  themselves  were  reduced  to 
nothing,  though  they  had  well-preserved  my  feet." 
Seetzen  noticed  on  Mount  St.  Catherine  that  the 
gianite  was  "  fine-grained  and  very  linn  "  (iii.  90). 
For  the  area  of  greate?t  relief  in  the  surface  of  the 
whole  Peninsula,  see  SINAI,  §1,  2,  3.  The  name 
Jebel  et-Tur  includes  the  whole  cluster  of  moun 
tains  from  el-Fureia  on  the  N.  to  Urn  Shaumer  on 
the  S.,  and  from  Musa  and  ed-Deir  on  the  E.  to 
Hum'r  and  Serbal  on  the  W.,  including  St.  Cathe- 
/ine,  nearly  S.W.  of  Musa.  By  "Sinai"  is  gene 
rally  understood  the  Musa  plateau,  between  the 
Wad i/  Ledjd  (Stanley,  Map}  and  the  Wady 
Shacib  on  its  western  and  north-eastern  flanks, 
and  bounded  north-westward  by  the  -Wady  er- 
liaheh,  and  south-eastward  by  the  Wady  Sebdyeh 
( Scbaiyeh,  Stanley,  ib. ).  The  Arabs  give  the  name 
of  Tut — properly  meaning  a  high  mountain  (Stan 
ley,  S.  and  P.  8) — 4o  the  whole  region  south  of 
the  Hadj-route  from  Suez  to  'A/tabah  as  far  as  JRds- 
Mohammed  (see  above,  p.  1749,  notem).  The  name 
of  Tur  is  also  emphatically  given  to  the  cultivable 
region  lying  S.W.  of  the  Jebel  et-Tur.  Its  fine 
and  rich  date-palm  plantation  lies  a  good  way 
southwards  down  the  Gulf  of  Suez.  Here  opens 
on  the  sea  the  most  fertile  wady  now  to  be  found 
in  the  Peninsula  (Burckhardt,  Arab.  ii.  362 ;  Well- 
sted,  ii.  9),  receiving  all  the  waters  which  flow 
down  the  range  of  Sinai  westward  u  (Stanley,  S.  and 
P.  19). 

III.  A  most  important  general  question,  after 
settling  the  outline  of  this  "  wilderness,"  is  the  ax- 
tent  to  which  it  is  capable  of  supporting  animal  and 
human  life,  especially  when  taxed  by  the  consumption 
of  such  flocks  and  herds  as  the  Israelites  took  with 
them  from  Egypt,  and  probably — though  we  know 
not  to  what  extent  this  last  was  supplied  by  the 
manna — by  the  demand  made  on  its  resources  by  a 
host  of  from  2,000,000  to  3,000,000  souls.v  In 


answer  to  this  question,  "much,"  it  has  been 
observed  (S.  and  P.  24),  "  may  be  allowed  for  the 
spread  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  far  and  wide  through 
the  whole  Peninsula,  and  also  for  the  constant 
means  of  support  from  their  own  flocks  and  herds. 
Something,  too,  might  be  elicited  from  the  undoubted 
fact  that  a  population  nearly,  if  not  quite,  equal  to  the 
whole  permanent  population  of  the  Peninsula  does 
actually  pass  through  the  desert,  in  the  caravan  of 
the  5000  African  Pilgrims,  on  their  way  to  Mecca. 
But,  amongst  these  considerations,  it  is  important 
to  observe  what  indications  there  may  be  of  tne 
mountains  of  Sinai  having  ever  been  able  to  furnish 
greater  resources  than  at  present.  These  indications 
are  well  summed  up  by  Ritter  (Sinai,  pp.  926,  927). 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  vegetation  of  the  wadys 
has  considerably  decreased.  In  part,  this  would  be  an 
inevitable  effect  of  the  violence  of  the  winter  torrents. 
The  trunks  of  palm-trees  washed  up  on  the  shore  of 
the  Dead  Sea,  from  which  the  living  tree  has  now 
for  many  centuries  disappeared,  show  what  may 
have  been  the  devastation  produced  among  those 
mountains  where  the  floods,  especially  in  earlier 
times,  must  have  been  violent  to  a  degree  unknown 
in  Palestine;  whilst  the  peculiar  cause— the  im 
pregnation  of  salt — which  has  preserved  the  vestiges 
of  the  older  vegetation  there,  has  here,  of  course,  no 
existence.  The  traces  of  such  a  destruction  were 
pointed  out  to  Burckhardt  (Arab.  538)  on  the 
eastern  side  of  Mount  Sinai,  as  having  occurred 
within  half  a  century  before  his  visit ;  also  to 
Wellsted  (ii.  15),  as  having  occurred  near  Tur  in 
1832.  In  part,  the  same  result  has  followed  from 
the  reckless  waste  of  the  Bedouin  tribes — reckless 
in  destroying  and  careless  in  replenishing.  A  fire.  o 
pipe,  lit  under  a  grove  of  desert  trees,  may  clear 
away  the  vegetation  of  a  whole  valley. 

"  The  acacia  *  trees  have  been  of  late  years  ruth 
lessly  destroyed  by  the  Bedouins  for  the  sake  ol 
charcoal,"  which  forms  "  the  chief,  perhaps  it 
might  be  said  the  only  traffic  of  the  Peninsula'' 
(S.  and  P.  24).  Thus,  the  clearance  of  this  tree 
in  the  mountains  where  it  abounded  once,  and 
its  decrease  in  the  neighbour  groups  in  which  it 
exists  still,  is  accounted  for,  since  the  monks  appeal 
to  have  aided  the  devastation.  Vegetation,  where 
maintained,  nourishes  water  and  keeps  alive  its 
own  life ;  and  no  attempts  to  produce  vegetation 
anywhere  in  this  desert  seem  to  have  failed.  "  The 
gardens  at  the  wells  of  Moses,  under  the  French 
and  English  agents  from  Suez,  and  the  gardens  in 
the  valleys  of  Jebel  Musa,  under  the  care  of  the 
Greek  monks  of  the  Convent  of  St.  ^Catherine,"  are 
conspicuous  examples  (76. 26).  Besides,  a  traveller 


"  The  following  positions  by  East  longitude  from  Paris 
A-e  given  in  Seetzen,  iii.  pt.  ill.,  Ammerk.  414  :— 

Suez,  29°  57'  30",  Berghaus. 

'Akabah,  28°  45',  Niebuhr ;  but  28°  55'  by  others. 

Convent  St.  Catherine,  28°  36'  40"  5"'.  Seetzen  and  Zach ; 
but  31°  37'  54"  by  RUppell. 

Sinai,  28°  46'. 

Ras  Mohammed,  27°  43'  24". 

Hut  there  must  be  grave  errors  in  the  figures,  since  Suez 
is  placed  furthest  to  the  east  of  all  the  places  named, 
whereas  it  lies  furthest  to  the  west ;  also  'Akabah  lies  an 
entire  degree,  by  Kiepert's  map,  to  the  east  of  ihe  Con 
vent,  whereas  it  is  here  put  at  less  than  9' ;  and  Ras 
Mohammed,  which  lies  further  to  the  east  than  all  these 
excopt  'Akabah,  is  placed  to  the  west  of  them  all. 

"  Dr.  Stanley  (S.  &  P.  24,  note  !),  following  Ewald 
(Geschicnte,  ii.  61,  253,  259,  2nd  edit.),  says,  "the  most 
rect'ut  and  the  most  critical  investigation  of  this  (the 


Israelitish)  history  inclines  to  adopt  the  numbers  of  600.000 
(males  of  the  warlike  age)  as  authentic." 

*  Dr.  Stanley  (25)  thinks  the  ark  and  wooden  utensils 
of  the  Tabernacle  were  of  this  timber.  Seetzen  (iii.  109) 
saw  no  trees  nearly  big  enough  for  such  service,  and  thinks 
it  more  probable  that  the  material  was  obtained  by  pur 
chase  from  travelling  caravans ;  but  it  is  not  clear  whether 
he  thinks  that  the  tree  (Minwsa  Nilotica)  is  in  this 
wilderness  below  its  usual  size,  or  that  not  this  but  some 
thing  else  is  the  "  Shittim-wood  "  of  the  A.  V. 

y  So  called,  but  the  proper  name  appears  to  be  TT). 
aytas  /aeTaju.op(/>a>(rea>s,  i.  e.  the  Transfiguration  of  out 
Lord,  represented  in  the  great  mosaic  of  Justinian,  in 
the  apse  of  its  church,  probably  of  his  age,  as  is  also 
the  name  (Tyrwbitt).  The  transfer  of  the  body  of  St. 
Catherine  thither  from  Egypt  by  angels  is  only  one  of  Uifi 
local  legends;  but  ks  association  appears  to  have  j>n» 
dominated  with  travellers  (Seetzen,  in.  p!.  iii.  114.  tv 


1752 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


ii\  the  1  Gth  century  calls  the  Wady  er-Raheh  in  front 
ot'  the  Convent,  now  entirely  bare,  "  a  vast  green 
plain."1  In  this  wilderness,  too,  abode  Amalek, 
"  the  first  of  the  nations,"  powerful  enough  seri 
ously  to  imperil  the  passage  of  the  Israelites 
through  it,  and  importantly  contributing  to  subse 
quent  history  under  the  monarchy.  Besides  whom 
we  have  "  king  Arad  the  Canaanite,  who  dwelt  in 
the  south,"  ».  e.  apparently  on  the  terrace  of  moun 
tain  overhanging  the  Gh6r  near  Masada  on  the 
Dead  Sea,  in  a  region  now  wholly  desolate.  If  his 
people  were  identical  with  the  Amorites  or  Canaan- 
ites  of  Num.  xiv.  43 ;  Deut.  i.  44,  then,  besides 
the  Amalekites  of  Ex.  xvii.  8,  we  have  one  other 
host  within  the  limits  of  what  is  now  desert,  vho 
fought  with  Israel  on  equal  or  superior  terms ;  and, 
if  they  are  not  identical,  we  have  two  such  (Num. 
xiv.  40-45,  xxi.  1,  xxxiii.  40;  Deut.  i.  43,  44). 
These  must  have  been  "  something  more  than  a 
mere  handful  of  Bedouins.  The  Egyptian  copper- 
mines,  monuments,  and  hieroglyphics  in  Surdbit  el- 
Khadim  and  the  Wady  Mughdra,  imply  a  degree 
of  intercourse  between  Egypt  and  the  Peninsula  "  in 
a  period  probably  older  than  the  Exodus,  "  of  which 
all  other  traces  have  long  ceased.  The  ruined 
cities  of  Edom  in  the  mountains  east  of  the  'Arabah, 
and  the  remains  and  history  of  Petra  itself,  indi 
cate  a  traffic  and  a  population  in  these  remote 
regions  which  now  is  almost  inconceivable  "  (S.  $  P. 
26).  Even  the  Gth  and  7th  centuries  A.D.  showed 
traces  of  habitation,  some  of  which  still  remain  in 
ruined  cells  and  gardens,  &c.,  far  exceeding  the  tale 
told  by  present  facts.  Seetzen,  in  what  is  perhaps  as 
arid  and  desolate  a  region  as  any  in  the  whole 
desert,  asked  his  guide  to  mention  all  the  neigh 
bouring  places  whose  names  he  knew.  He  received 
a  list  of  sixty-three  places  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Madurah,  Petra,  and  'Akabah,  and  of  twelve  more 
in  the  Ghor  es-Saphia,  of  which  total  of  seventy- 
five  all  save  twelve  are  now  abandoned  to  the 
desert,  and  have  retained  nothing  save  their  names 
— "  a  proof,"  he  remarks,  "  that  in  very  early  ages 
this  region  was  extremely  populous,  and  that  the 
furious  rage  with  which  the  Arabs,  both  before  and 
after  the  age  of  Mahomet,  assailed  the  Greek  em 
perors,  was  able  to  convert  into  a  waste  this 
blooming  region,  extending  from  the  limit  of  the 
Hedjaz  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Damascus  "  (Reisen, 
iii.  17,  18). 

Thus  the  same  traveller  in  the  same  journey 
from  Hebron  to  MadHrah]  entered  a  Wady  called 
cl-Jemen,  where  was  no  trace  of  water  save  moist 
spots  in  the  sand,  but  on  making  a  hole  with  the 
hand  it  was  quickly  full  of  water,  good  and  drink 
able  (ib.  13).  The  same,  if  saved  in  a  cistern,  and 
served  out  by  sluices,  might  probably  have  clothed 
the  bare  wady  with  verdure.  This  is  confirmed 
by  his  remark  (ibid.  83),  that  a  blooming  vegeta 
tion  shows  itself  in  this  climate  wherever  there  is 
water;  as  well  as  by  the  example  of  the  tank 
system  as  practised  in  Hindostan.  He  also  notices 
that  there  are  quicksands  in  many  spots  of  the 
Debbet  er-Ramleh,  which  it  is  difficult  to  under 
stand,  unless  as  caused  by  accumulntions  of  water 
(ibid.  67).  Similarly  in  the  desert  Wady  el- 
Kudeis  between  Hebron  and  Sinai,  he  found  a  spot 


8  Monconys  quoted  by  Stanley,  S.  and  P. 

a  Seetzen  speaks  in  one  place  of  a  few  shell-fish  being 
M'en  along  its  southi  rn  shore.  Compare  Stanley.  -S.  &  P. 
293.  [SEA,  THK  SALT.] 

•>  The  word  Midbar  has  been  examined  unaer  the  luad 


of  quicksand  with   sparse  shrubs   growing   in   it 
(ft.  48). 

Now  the  question  is  surely  a  pertinent  one,  W 
compared  with  that  of  the  subsistence  of  the  flocks 
and  herds  of  the  Israelites  during  their  wanderings, 
how  the  sixty-three  perished  communities  named 
by  Seetzen's  guide  can  have  supported  themselves  ? 
It  is  pretty  certain  that  fish  cannot  live  in  the 
Dead  Sea,a  nor  is  there  any  reason  for  thinking  that 
these  extinct  towns  or  villages  were  in  any  large 
proportion  near  enough  to  its  waters  to  avail  them 
selves  of  its  resources,  even  if  such  existed.  To 
suppose  that  the  country  could  ever  have  supported 
extensive  coverts  for  game  is  to  assume  the  most 
difficult  of  all  solutions  of  the  question.  The 
creatures  that  find  shelter  about  the  rocks,  as  hares, 
antelopes,  gazelles,  jerboas,  and  the  lizards  that 
burrow  in  the  sand  (el-Dsobb},  alluded  to  by  this 
livelier  in  several  places  (iii.  67,  comp.  pt.  iii. 
415-44-2,  and  Laborde,  Comm.  on  Num.  xxxiii.  42), 
are  far  too  few,  to  judge  from  appearances,  to  dc 
more  than  eke  out  a  subsistence,  the  staple  of  which 
must  have  been  otherwise  supplied  ;  and  the  same 
remark  will  apply  to  such  casual  windfalls  as 
swarms  of  edible  locusts,  or  flights  of  quails. 
Nor  can  the  memory  of  these  places  be  probably 
connected  with  the  distant  period  when  Petra,  the 
commercial  metropolis  of  the  Nabatheans,  enjoyed 
the  carrying  trade  between  the  Levant  and  Egypt 
westwards,  and  the  rich  communities  further  east. 
There  is  least  of  all  reason  for  supposing  that  by 
the  produce  of  mines,  or  by  asphalt  gathered  from 
the  Dead  Sea,  or  by  any  other  native  commodities, 
they  can  ever  hfc^e  enjoyed  a  commerce  of  their 
own.  We  are  thrown  back,  then,  upon  the  suppo 
sition  that  they  must  in  some  way  have  supported 
themselves  from  the  produce  of  the  soil.  And  the 
produce  for  which  it  is  most  adapted  is  either  that 
of  the  date-palm,  or  that  to  which  earlier  parallels 
point,  as  those  of  Jethro  and  the  Kenites,  and  of 
the  various  communities  in  the  southern  border  of 
Judah  (Num.  xxxiv.  4,  5  ;  Josh.  xv.  3,  4;  1  Sam. 
xxx.  27-31),  viz.  that  of  pasturage  for  flocks  and 
herds,  a  possibility  which  seems  solely  to  depend  on 
adequately  husbanding  the  water  supplied  by  the 
rains.  This  tallies  with  the  use  of  the  word 


]0,  for  "  wilderness,"  i.  e.  "  a  wide  open  space, 

with  or  without  actual  pasture,  the  country  of  the 
nomads,  as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  agricul 
tural  and  settled  people  "  (S.  and  P.  486,  App. 
§9).*  There  seems  however  to  be  implied  in  the 
name  a  capacity  for  pasturage,  whether  actually 
realized  or  not:  This  corresponds,  too,  with  the 
"  thin,"  or  rather  "  transparent  coating  of  vegeta 
tion,"  seen  to  clothe  the  greater  part  cf  the  Sinaitic 
wilderness  in  the  present  day  (ibid.  16,  22),  and 
which  furnishes  an  initial  minimum  from  which 
human  fostering  hands  might  extend  the  prospect 
of  possible  resources  up  to  a  point  as  far  in  excess 
of  present  facts  as  were  the  numbers  of  the  Israel- 
itish  host  above  the  6000  Bedouins  computed  now 
to  form  the  population  of  the  desert.  As  regards 
the  date-palm,  Hasselquist  speaks  as  though  it  alone 
afforded  the  means  of  life  to  some  existing  Arab 
communities.  Hamilton  (Sinai,  $c.,  17)  says  that 


of  DHSEBT  [vol.  i.  429].  The  writer  of  that  article  has 
nothing  to  add  to  it,  except  to  call  attention  to  the  use  ol 
the  term  in  Jer.  ii.  1,  where  the  prophet  'n  two  words 
gives  an  exact  definition  of  a  Midbar:  «•»  land  vet 
sown  "  -  that  is,  left  to  natvrc.  {\?  ] 


WILDEKNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


1753 


jii  his  path  by  the  Wady  Hebran,  towards  the 
modern  Sinai,  "  small  clumps  of  uncultivated 
date-trees  rise  between  the  granite  walls  of  the 
pass,  wherever  the  winter  torrents  have  left  suffi 
cient  detritus  for  their  nourishment."  And  again, 
ifter  describing  the  pass  of  the  Convent,  he  con 
tinues,  "  beneath  lies  a  veritable  chaos,  through 
which  now  trickles  a  slender  thread  of  water,  where 
in  winter  rushes  down  a  boiling  torrent  "c  (»'&. 
19).  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  affirm  that  the 
resources  of  the  desert,  under  a  careful  economy  of 
nature's  bounty,  might  be,  to  its  present  means  of 
subsistence,  as  that  winter  torrent's  volume  to  that 
Bummer  streamlet's  slender  thread.  In  the  Wady 
Hebran  this  traveller  found  "  a  natural  bath," 
i'urmed  in  the  granite  by  the  'Ain  Hebran,  called 
"the  Christians'  pool"  (ib.  17).  Two-thirds  of 
the  way  up  the  Jebel  Musa  he  came  upon  "a 
frozen  streamlet "  (ib.  30) ;  and  Seetzen,  on  the 
14th  of  April,  found  snow  lying  about  in  sheltered 
clefts  of  the  Jebel  Catfiarin,  where  the  rays  of 
the  sun  could  not  penetrate  (iii.  92).  Hamilton 
encountered  on  the  Jebel  Musa  a  thunderstorm, 
with  "  heavy  rain  "  (Sinai,  SfC.,  16).  There 
^etns  on  the  whole  no  deficiency  of  precipitation. 
Indeed  the  geographical  situation  would  rather 
bespeak  a  copious  supply.  Any  southerly  wind 
must  bring  a  fair  amount  of  watery  vapour  from 
the  Red  Sea,  or  from  one  of  its  expanding  arms, 
which  embrace  the  Peninsula  on  either  side,  like 
the  blades  of  a  forfex ;  while  at  no  greater  distance 
than  140  miles  northward  roll  the  waters  of  the 
Mediterranean,  supplying,  we  may  suppose,  their 
quota,  which  the  much  lower  ranges  of  the  Tih 
and  Odjme  cannot  effectually  intercept.  Nor  is 
there  any  such  shelter  from  rain-clouds  on  either 
»f  the  Gulfs  of  Suez  and  'Akabah,  as  the  long  line 
>f  mountains  on  the  eastern  flank  of  Egypt,  which 
screens  the  rain  supply  of  the  former  from  reaching 
die  valley  of  the  Nile.  On  the  contrary,  the  con 
formation  of  the  Peninsula,  with  the  high  wedge  of 
granitic  mountains  at  its  core,  would  rather  receive 
and  condense  the  vapours  from  either  gulf,  and 
precipitate  their  bounty  over  the  lower  faces  of 
mountain  and  troughs  of  wady,  interposed  between 
it  and  the  sea.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that 
the  low  intellectual  condition  of  the  monks  d  forbids 
any  reasonable  hope  of  adequate  meteorological 
observations  to  check  these  merely  probable  argu 
ments  with  reliable  statements  of  fact;  but  in 
the  absence  of  any  such  register,  it  seems  only  fair 
to  take  reasonable  probabilities  fully  into  view. 
Yet  some  significant  facts  are  not  wanting  to 
redeem  in  some  degree  these  probabilities  from  the 
ground  of  mere  hypothesis.  "  In  two  of  the  great 
vvadys"  which  break  the  wilderness  on  the  coast 
of  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  "  Ghurundel,  and  Useit,  with 
its  continuation  of  the  Wady  Tayibeh,  tracts  'of 
vegetation  are  to  be  found  in  considerable  luxuri 


ance."  The  wadys  leading  down  fr-Mn  the  Sinai  range 
to  the  Gulf  of 'Akabah  "furnish  the  same  testi 
mony,  in  a  still  greater  degree,"  as  stated  by  Riip- 
pell,  Miss  Martiueau,  Dr.  Robinson,  and  Burckhardt. 
In  three  spots,  however,  in  the  desert  .  .  .  this 
vegetation  is  brought  by  the  concurrence  of  the 
general  configuration  of  the  country  to  a  still  higher 
pitch.  By  far  the  most  remarkable  collection  of 
springs  is  that  which  renders  the  clusters  of  the 
Jebel  Musa  the  chief  resort  of  the  Bedouin  tribes 
during  the  summer  heats.  Four  abundant  sources 
in  the  mountains  immediately  above  the  Convent 
of  St.  Catherine  must  always  have  made  that 
region  one  of  the  most  frequented  of  the  desert  .  .  . 
Oases  (analogous  to  that  of  Ammon  in  the  western 
desert  of  the  Nile)  are  to  be  found  wherever  the 
waters  from  the  different  wadys  or  hills,  whether 
from  winter  streams  or  from  such  living  springs  as 
have  just  been  described,  converge  to  a  common 
reservoir.  One  such  oasis  in  the  Sinaitic  desert 
seems  to  be  the  palm-grove  of  El- Wady  at  Tur, 
described  by  Burckhardt  as  so  thick  that  he  could 
hardly  find  his  way  through  it  (S.  and  P.  19,  note 
1 ;  see  Burckh.  Arab.  ii.  382).  The  other  and  the 
more  important  is  the  Wady  Feirdn,  high  up  in 
the  table-land  of  Sinai  itself  (S.  and  P.  18,  19)." 
Now,  what  nature  has  done  in  these  favoured  spots 
might  surely  be  seconded  e  in  others  by  an  ample 
population,  familiarized,  to  some  extent,  by  their 
sojourn  in  Egypt  with  the  most  advanced  agricul 
tural  experience  of  the  then  world,  and  guided  by 
an  able  leader  who  knew  the  country,  and  found 
in  his  wife's  family  others  who  knew  it  even  better 
than  he  (Num.  x.  31).  It  is  thus  supposable  that 
the  language  of  Ps.  cvii.  35-38,  is  based  on  no 
mere  pious  imagery,  but  on  actual  fact :  "  He 
turneth  the  wilderness  into  a  standing  water,  and 
dry  ground  into  water-springs.  And  there  He 
maketh  th«  hungry  to  dwell,  that  they  may  prepare 
a  city  for  habitation  ;  and  sow  the  fields  and  plant 
vineyards,  which  may  yield  fruits  of  increase.  He 
blesseth  them  so  that  they  are  multiplied  greatly ; 
and  su/ereth  "not  their  cattle  to  decrease."  And 
thus  we  may  find  an  approximate  basis  of  reality 
for  the  enhanced  poetic  images  of  Isaiah  (xli.  19 
Iv.  13).  Palestine  itself  affords  abundant  tokens  of 
the  resources  of  nature  so  husbanded,  as  in  the  artifi 
cial  "  terraces  of  which  there  are  still  traces  to  the 
very  summits"  of  the  mountains,  and  some  of 
which  still,  in  the  Jordan  valley,  "  are  occupied  by 
masses  of  vegetation  "  (S.  and  P.  138,297).  In 
favoured  spots  wild  luxuriance  testifies  to  the 
extent  of  the  natural  resources,  as  in  the  wadys  ot 
the  coast,  and  in  the  plain  of  Jericho,  where  "  far 
and  wide  extends  the  green  circle  of  tangled 
thickets,  in  the  midst  of  which  are  the  hovels  of 
the  modern  village,  beside  which  stood,  in  ancient 
times,  the  great  city  of  Jericho  "  (»'&.  306).  From 
this  plain,  alone,  a  correspondent  of  the  British 


«  There  is  110  mistaking  the  enormous  amount  of  rain 
which  must  fall  on  the  Desert  and  run  off  uselessly  into 
the  sea.  In  February  all  the  wadys  had  evidently  had 
btrcng  torrents  down,  and  all  across  them  from  hill-side 
to  hill-side.  The  whole  surface  of  wide  valleys  was 
marked  and  ribbed  like  the  bed  of  a  stony  and  saudy 
stream  in  England.  The  great  plain  of  Murkhah  was  in 
tersected  in  all  directions  by  these  torrents,  draining 
the  mountains  about  Nukb  Badera.  So  all  the  wadys, 
wherever  there  was  a  decided  fall.  Major  Macdonald 
(engaged  at  present  in  superintending  the  working  of  a 
turquoise  bed  at  Suralrit  d-Khadmi)  said  that  after  a 
sudden  storm  in  the  lull;?  to  the  N.,  he  had  from  two  to 


three  feet  of  water  running  furiously  through  his  tents 
for  three  hours,  in  Wady  Mughara.  Common  industry  in 
digging  tanks  would  make  all  the  wadys  "  blossom  &&  the 
rose  "  (Tyrwhitt). 

d  See  Dr.  Stanley's  estimate  of  the  inmates  of  the  con 
vent  (S.  &  P.  55,  56). 

e  Nay,  it  is  possible  that  such  works  had  already  to 
some  extent  been  undertaken  on  account  of  the  mining 
colonies  which  certainly  then  existed  at  Wady  Mughara 
and  S&rabit  el-Khadim,  and  were  probably  supported  cm 
the  produce  of  the  country,  not  sent  oil  camels  from 
Egypt  (Tyrvvhitt). 


1754 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


Consiu  at  Jaffa  asserts  that  he  could  feed  the  whole 
population  of  modern  Syria  (Cotton  Supply  Re 
porter,  June  14, 1862).  But  a  plantation  redeemed 
from  the  wilderness  is  ever  in  the  position  of  a 
besieged  city  ;  when  once  the  defence  of  the  human 
garrison  is  withdrawn,  the  fertility  stimulated  by 
its  agency  must  obviously  pei'ish  by  the  invasion 
of  the  wild.  And  thus  we  may  probably  suppose 
that,  from  numberless  tracts,  thus  temporarily 
rescued  from  barrenness,  in  situations  only  mode 
rately  favourable,  the  traces  of  verdure  have  van 
ished,  and  the  desert  has  reclaimed  its  own  \  or 
that  there  the  soil  only  betrays  its  latent  capacity 
by  an  unprofitable  dampness  of  the  sand. 

Seetzen,  on  the  route  from  Hebron  to  Sinai,  after 
describing  an  "  immense  flinty  plain,"  the  "  dreariest 
and  most  desolate  solitude,"  observes  that, "  as  soon 
as  the  rainy  season  is  over  and  the  warm  weather  sets 
in,  the  pits  (of  rain-water)  dry  up,  and  it  becomes 
uninhabitable,"  as  "  there  are  no  brooks  or  springs 
here  "  (iii.  55,  56).  Dr.  Stewart  ( The  Tent  and 
the  Klian,  14,  15)  says  of  the  Wady  Ahthi,  which 
he  would  identify  with  Etham  (Ex.  xiii.  20  ;  Num. 
xxxiii.  6),  "  sand-hills  of  considerable  height  sepa 
rate  it  from  the  sea,  and  prevent  the  winter  rains 
from  running  off  rapidly.  A  considerable  deposit 
of  rich  alluvial  loam  is  the  result,  averaging  from 
2  to  4  inches  in  thickness,  by  sowing  upon  which 
immediately  after  the  rains  the  Bedouins  could  cer 
tainly  reap  a  profitable  harvest ;  but  they  affect  to 
despise  all  agricultural  labour.  .  .  .  Yet,"  he  adds, 
*'  the  region  never  could  have  supplied  food  by  its 
own  natural  vegetation  for  so  great  a  multitude  of 
flocks  and  herds  as  followed  in  the  train  of  the 
Israelites."  This  seems  rather  a  precipitate  sen 
tence  ;  for  one  can  hardly  tell  what  its  improved 
condition  under  ancient  civilization  may  have 
yielded,  from  merely  seeing  what  it  now  is,  after 
being  overrun  for  centuries  by  hordes  of  contemptu 
ous  Bedouins.  Still,  as  regards  the  general  ques 
tion,  we  are  not  informed  what  numbers  of  cattle 
followed  the  Israelites  out  of  Egypt.  We  only 
know  that  "flocks  and  herds"  went  with  them, 
were  forbidden  to  graze  "  before  the  mount " 
(Sinai),  and  shared  the  fortunes  of  the  desert  with 
their  owners.  It  further  appears  that,  at  the  end 
of  the  forty  years'  wandering,  two  tribes  and  a  half 
were  the  chief,  perhaps  the  only,  cattle-masters. 
And,  when  we  consider  how  greatly  the  long  and 
sore  bondage  of  Egypt  must  have  interfered  with 
their  favourite  pursuit  during  the  eighty  years  of 
Moses'  life  before  the  Exodus,  it  seems  reasonable 
to  think  that  in  the  other  tribes  only  a  few  would 
have  possessed  cattle  on  leaving  Egypt.  The  notion 
of  a  people  "  scattered  abroad  throughout  all  the 
land  of  Egypt"  (Ex.  v.  12),  ic  pursuit  of  wholly 
different  and  absorbing  labour,  being  able  generally 
to  maintain  their  wealth  as  sheep-rnasters  is 
obviously  absurd.  It  is  therefore  supposable  that 
Reuben,  Gad,  and  a  portion  of  Manasseh  had,  by 
remoteness  of  local  position,  or  other  favourable 
circumstances  to  us  unknown,  escaped  the  oppres 
sive  consequences  to  their  flocks  and  herds  which 
must  have  generally  prevailed.  We  are  not  told 
that  the  lambs  at  the  first  passover  were  obtained 
from  the  flock  of  each  family,  but  only  that  they  were 
bidden  to  "  draw  out  and  take  a  lamb  for  an  house  " 
— a  direction  quite  consistent  in  many,  perhaps  in 
most  cases,  with  purchase.  Hence  it  is  probable 
that  these  two  tribes  and  a  half  may  have  been  the 
ehr  sf  cattle-masters  first  as  well  as  last.  If  they 
haii  enough  cattle  to  find  their  pursuit  ia  tending 


them,  and  the  others  had  not,  economy  would  dictate 
a  transfer ;  and  the  whole  multitude  of  cattle  would 
probably  fare  better  by  such  an  arrangement  than 
by  one  which  left  a  few  head  scattered  up  and 
down  in  the  families  of  different  tribes.  Nor  k 
there  any  reason  to  think  that  the  whole  of  the 
forty  years'  sojourn  was  spent  in  such  locomotion 
as  marks  the  more  continuous  portion  of  the  narra 
tive.  The  great  gap  in  the  record  of  events  left 
by  the  statement  of  Deut.  i.  46,  "Ye  abode  in 
Kadesh  many  days,"  may  be  filled  up  by  the  sup 
position  of  quarters  established  in  a  favourable 
site,  and  the  great  bulk  of  the  whole  time  may 
have  been  really  passed  in  such  stationary  encamp 
ments.  And  here,  if  two  tribes  and  a  half  only  were 
occupied  in  tending  cattle,  some  resource  of  labour, 
to  avoid  the  embarrassing  temptations  of  idleness 
in  a  host  so  large  and  so  disposed  to  murmur, 
would  be,  in  a  human  sense,  necessary.  Nor  can 
any  so  probable  an  occupation  be  assigned  to  the 
remaining  nine  and  a  half  tribes,  as  that  of  drawing 
from  the  wilderness  whatever  contributions  it 
might  be  made  to  afford.  From  what  they  had 
seen  in  Egypt,  the  work  of  irrigation  would  be 
familiar  to  them,  and  from  the  prospect  before 
them  in  Palestine  the  practice  would  at  some  time 
become  necessary :  thus  there  were  on  the  whole 
the  soundest  reasons  for  not  allowing  their  expe 
rience,  if  possible,  to  lapse.  And,  irrigation  being 
supposed,  there  is  little,  if  any,  difficulty  in  sup 
posing  its  results ;  to  the  spontaneousness  of  which 
ample  testimony,  from  various  travellers,  has 
been  cited  above.  At  any  rate  it  is  unwise  to 
decide  the  question  of  the  possible  resources  of  the 
desert  from  the  condition  to  which  the  apathy  and 
fastidiousness  of  the  Bedouins  have  reduced  it  iij 
modern  times.  On  this  view,  while  the  purely 
pastoral  tribes  would  retain  their  habits  unim 
paired,  the  remainder  would  acquire  some  slight 
probation  in  those  works  of  the  field  which  were  to 
form  the  staple  industry  of  their  future  country. 
But,  if  any  one  still  insists  that  the  produce  of  the 
desert,  however  supposably  improved,  could  never 
have  yielded  support  for  all  '"  the  flocks  and 
herds" — utterly  indefinite  as  their  number  is — 
which  were  carried  thither ;  this  need  not  invali 
date  the  present  argument,  much  less  be  deemed 
inconsistent  with  the  Scriptural  narrative.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  latter  to  forbid  our  supposing 
that  the  cattle  perished  in  the  wilderness  by  hun 
dreds  or  by  thousands.  Even  if  the  words  of 
Ps.  cvii.  38  be  taken  in  a  sense  literally  historical, 
they  need  mean  no  more  than  that,  by  the  time 
they  reached  the  borders  of  Palestine,  the  number 
so  lost  had,  by  a  change  of  favourable  circum 
stances,  been  replaced,  perhaps  even  by  captuie 
from  the  enemy,  over  whom  God,  and  not  their  own 
sword,  had  given  them  the  victory.  All  that  is 
contended  for  is,  that  the  resources  of  the  wilder 
ness  were  doubtless  utilized  to  the  utmcst,  and 
that  the  flocks  and  herds,  so  far  as  they  survived, 
were  so  kept  alive.  What  those  resources  might 
amount  to,  is  perhaps  nearly  as  indefinite  an  in 
quiry  as  what  was  the  number  of  the  cattle.  The 
difficulty  would  "  find  its  level  "  by  the  diminution 
of  the  latter  till  it  fell  within  the  limits  of  the 
former;  and  in  this  balanced  state  we  must  be 
content  to  leave  the  question. 

Nor  ought  it  to  be  left  out  of  view,  m  consider 
ing  any  arguments  regarding  the  possible  change  in 
the  character  of  the  wilderness,  that  Egyptian 
policy  certainly  lay,  on  the  whole,  in  favour  «J 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


1755 


extending  the  desolation  to  their  own  frontier  on 
the  Suez  side  ;  for  thus  they  would  gain  the  surest 
protection  against  invasion  on  their  most  exposed 
border ;  and  as  Egypt  rather  aimed  at  the  develop 
ment  of  a  high  internal  civilization  than  an  exten 
sion  of  influence  by  foreign  conquest,  such  a  desert 
frontier  would  be  to  Egypt  a  cheap  defence.  Thus 
we  may  assume  that  the  Pharaohs,  at  any  rate 
after  the  rise  of  the  Assyrian  empire,  would  discern 
their  interest  and  would  act  upon  it,  and  that  the 
felling  of  wood  and  stopping  of  wells,  and  the  obli 
teration,  wherever  possible,  of  oases,  would  sys 
tematically  make  the  Peninsula  untenable  to  a 
hostile  army  descending  from  the  N.E.  or  the  N. 

IV.  It  remains  to  trace,  so  far  as  possible,  the  track 
pursued  by  the  host,  bearing  in  mind  the  limita 
tion  before  stated,  that  a  variety  of  converging  or 
parallel  routes  must  often  have  been  required  to 
allow  of  the  passage  of  so  great  a  number.  Assum 
ing  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea  to  have  been  effected 
at  some  spot  N.  of  the  now  extreme  end  of  the 
Gulf  of  Suez,  they  would  march  from  their  point 
of  landing  a  little  to  the  E.  of  S.  Here  they  were 
in  the  wilderness  of  Shur,  and  in  it  "  they  went 
three  days  and  found  no  water."  The  next  point 
mentioned  is  Marah.  The  'Ain  el-ffawdra  has  been 
thought  by  most  travellers  since  Burckhardt's  time 
to  be  Marah.  Between  it  and  the  'Ayun  Musa  the 
plain  is  alternately  gravelly,  stony,  and  sandy, 
while  under  the  range  of  Jebel  Warddn  (a  branch 
of  et-TVi)  chalk  and  flints  are  found.  There  is  no 
water  on  the  direct  line  of  route  (Robinson,  i. 
87-98).  Havcdra  stands  in  the  lime  and  gypsum 
region  which  lines  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Gulf  of 
Suez  at  its  northern  extremity.  Seetzen  (Reisen, 
iii.  117)  describes  the  water  as  salt,  with  purgative 
qualities;  but  adds  that  his  Bedouins  and  their 
camels  drank  of  it.  He  argues,  from  its  incon 
siderable  size,  that  it  could  not  be  the  Marah  of 
Moses.  This,  however,  seems  an  inconclusive  rea 
son.  [MARAH.]  It  would  not  be  too  nea>-  the  point 
of  landing  assumed,  as  above,  to  be  to  the  N.  of 
the  'Ayun  Musa,  nor  even,  as  Dr.  Stewart  argues 
(p.  55),  too  near  for  a  landing  at  the  'Ayun  Musa 
itself,*  when  we  consider  the  incumbrances  which 
would  delay  the  host,  and,  especially  whilst  they  were 
new  to  the  desert,  prevent  rapid  marches.  But  the 
whole  region  appears  to  abound  in  brackish  or 
bitter  springs  (Seetzen,  ibid.  iii.  117,  &c. ;  Anmerk. 
430).  For  instance,  about  1^  hour  nearer  Suez 
than  the  Wady  Ghurundel  (which  Lepsius  took  for 
Marah,  but  which  Niebuhr  and  Robinson  regard  as 
more  probably  Elim),  Seetzen  (ibid.  iii.  113,  114) 
found  a  Wady  eTdl,  with  a  salt  spring  and  a  salt 
crust  on  the  surface  of  its  bed,  the  same,  he  thinks, 
as  the  spot  where  Niebuhr  speaks  of  finding  rock- 


salt.  This  corresponds  m  general  proximity  with 
Marah.  The  neighbouring  region  is  described 
as  a  low  plain  girt  with  limestone  hills,  or  more 
rarely  chalk.  For  the  consideration  of  the  miracle 
of  sweetening  the  waters,  see  MARAH.  On  this 
first  section  of  their  desert-march,  Dr.  Stanley 
(S.  and  P.  37)  remarks,  "  There  can  be  no  dispute 
as  to  the  general  track  of  the  Israelites  after  the 
passage  (of  the  Red  Sea).  If  they  were  to  enter 
the  mountains  at  all,  they  must  continue  in  the 
route  of  all  travellers,  between  the  sea  and  the 
table-land  of  the  Tih,  til'  they  entered  the  low  hills 
of  Ghurundel.  According  to  the  view  taken  of  the 
scene  of  the  passage,  Marah  may  either  be  at 
*  the  springs  of  Moses,'  or  else  at  Hawara  01 
GUbrfadeLr  He  adds  in  a  note,  "  Dr.  Giaul, 
however,  was  -told  ...  of  a  spring  near  Tih  el- 
Amdra,  right  (i.  e.  south)  of  Hawara,  so  bitter 
that  neither  men  nor  camels  could  drink  of  it. 
From  hence  the  road  goes  straight  to  Wady 
Ghurundel."  Seetzen  also  inclines  to  view  favour 
ably  the  identification  of  el-Amdra  with  Marah. 
He  gives  it  the  title  of  a  "  wady,"  and  precisely  on 
this  ground  rejects  the  pretensions  of  el-ffawdra 
as  being  no  "  wady,"  but  only  a  brook  ;  h  whereas, 
from  the  statement  "  they  encamped"  at  Marah, 
Marah  must,  he  argues,  have  been  a  wady.1  It 
seems  certain,  however,  that  Wady  Ghurundel— 
whether  it  be  Marah,  as  Lepsius  and  (although 
doubtfully)  Seetzen  thought,  or  Elim  as  Niebuhr, 
Robinson,  and  Kruse — must  have  Jain  on  the  line  of 
march,  and  almost  equally  certain  that  it  furnished 
a  camping  station.  In  this  wady  Seetzen  found  more 
trees,  shrubs,  and  bushes  than  he  anywhere  else 
saw  in  his  journey  from  Sinai  to  Suez.  He  parti 
cularizes  several  date-palms  and  many  tamarisks, 
and  notes  that  the  largest  quantity  of  the  vegetable 
manna,  now  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  Peninsula, 
is  gathered  here  (iii.  116)  from  the  leaves  of  the 
last-named  tree,  which  here  grows  "  with  gnarled 
boughs  and  hoary  head;  the  wild  acacia,  tangled 
by  its  desert  growth  into  a  thicket,  also  shoots  out 
its  grey  foliage  and  white  blossoms  over  the  desert" 
(Stanley,  S.  and  P.  68).  The  •'  scenery"  in  this 
region  becomes  "a  succession  of  watercourses "  k 
(ibid.} ;  and  the  Wady  Tayibeh,  connected  with 
Ghurundel  by  Usett,1  is  so  named  from  the  goodly 
water  and  vegetation  which  it  contains.  These 
three  wadys  encompass  on  three  sides  the  Jebel 
ffummdin ;  the  sea,  which  it  precipitously  over 
hangs,  being  on  the  fourth.  To  judge  from  the  con 
figuration  as  given  in  the  maps,  there  seems  no 
reason  why  all  three  should  not  have  combined  to 
form  Elim,  or  at  any  rate,  as  Dr.  Stanley  (ibid.) 
suggests,  two  of  them.  Only,  from  Num.  xxxiii. 
9,  10,  as  Elim  appears  not  to  have  been  on  the  sen, 


'•  Dr.  Aitoun,  quoted  by  Dr.  Stewart  (1.  c.),  it 
denies  this. 

g  In  the  Wady  Tal  were  found  date-palms,  wild  trunk- 
less  tamarisks,  and  the  white-flowering  broom ;  also  a  small, 
sappy  growth,  scarce  a  hand  high,  called  el  Szemmhh  by 
the  Bedouins,  which,  when  dried,  is  pounded  by  them  and 
mixed  with  wheat  for  bread.  It  has  a  saltish-sour  taste, 
and  is  a  useful  salad  herb,  belonging  to  the  order  Mesem- 
bryantkemum,  Linn.  (Seetzen,  ibid."). 

h  Yet  he  apparently  allows  as  possible  that  Marah  may 
be  found  in  a  brook  observed  by  Fiirer  a  little  to  the  N. 
of  Ghurundel  (iii.  117). 

«  There  is,  however,  a  remarkable  difference  between 
the  indication  of  locality  given  by  Seetzen  to  this  wady, 
and  the  position  ascribed  to  the  Tih  tLAmdra,  as  above. 
For  Seetzen  (or  rather  Dr.  Kruse,  commenting  on  his 


journal)  says,  Kobinson  passed  the  wady  two  hours  nearer 
Suez  than  Hawara,  and  therefore  so  far  to  the  north,  not 
soutti,  of  it  (Reisen,  iii.  pt.  iii.  430-1).  Hence  it  is  possible 
that  the  Tih  and  the  Wady  el-Amdra  may  be  distinct  locali 
ties,  and  the  common  name  result  from  the  common  pro 
perty  of  a  briny  or  bitter  spring.  Kiepert's  map  (in  Robin 
son,  vol.  i.)  gives  the  two  names  Amara  and  Hawara  close 
together,  the  former  a  little,  but  less  than  a  mile,  to  the  N. 

k  So  Dr.  Kruse  notices  that  Dr.  Robinson's  Arabs  who 
camped  in  Gh&rundel  found,  at  half  an  hour's  distance 
from  their  camping  ground,  a  flowing  brook  and  copious 
fountains,  such  as  they  hitherto  nowhere  found  in  tbs 
peninsula  (Seetzen,  iii.  pt.  iii.  430). 

1  Robinson  (i.  69)  says  that  near  this  wady  hot  .sul 
phureous  springs  were  visited  by  Niebuhr,  and  are  oo- 
scribed  by  Russegger. 


'756 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


•ve  must  suppose  that  the  encampment,  if  it  ex 
tended  into  three  wadys,  stopped  short  of  their 
seaward  extremities,  the  Israelitish  host  would 
scarcely  find  in  all  three  more  than  adequate 
ground  for  their  encampment.  Beyond  (»'.  e.  to 
Uie  S.E.  of  Ghurundel},  the  ridges  and  spurs  of 
limestone  mountain  push  down  to  the  sea,  across 
the  path  along  the  plain  (Robinson,  i.  70,  and 
Map). 

This  portion  of  the  question  may  be  summed  up 
by  presenting,  in  a  tabular  form,  the  views  of  some 
leading  travellers  or  annotators,  on  the  site  of 
Elim:— 


Wady  Some  warm  springs 
Useit.  north  of  Tur,  which 
^  feed  the  rich  date- 
One  or      Laborde  ,  plantations  of  the 
both,      "possibly,"  convent  there, 
Stanley.     Robinson  Seetzen. 
(i.  72). 


Wady 
Gkurandel. 

^*— 

Niebuhr, 

Robinson, 

Kruse. 

[By  Lepsius 

identified 

with  Marah.] 

Or.  Kruse  (Anmerk.  418)  singularly  takes  the 
words  of  Ex.  xv.  27,  "  they  encamped  there  (in 
Elim)  by  the  waters,"  as  meaning  "  by  the  sea;" 
whereas,  from  Num.  xxxiii.  9,  10,  it  appears  they 
did  not  reach  the  sea  till  a  stage  further,  although 
their  distance  from  it  previously  had  been  but 
small. 

From  Elim,  the  next  stage  brought  the  people 
again  to  the  sea.  This  fact,  and  the  enviable  posi 
tion  in  respect  of  water  supply,  and  consequent 
great  fertility,  enjoyed  by  Tur  on  the  coast,  would 
make  it  seem  probable  that  Tur  was  the  locality 
intended ;  but  as  it  lies  more  than  seventy  miles, 
in  a  straight  line,  from  the  nearest  probably  assign 
able  spot  for  Elim,  such  a  distance  makes  it  a 
highly  improbable  site  for  the  next  encampment. 
The  probable  view  is  that  their  seaside  camp  was 
fixed  much  nearer  to  the  group  of  wadys  viewed  as 
embracing  Elim,  perhaps  in  the  lower  part  of  the 
Wady  Tayibeh,  which  appears  to  have  a  point  of 
juncture  with  the  coast  (Stanley,  S.  and  P.  38). 
The  account  in  Ex.  xvi.  knows  nothing  of  this  en 
campment  by  the  sea,  but  brings  the  host  at  once 
into  "  the  wilderness  of  Sin  ;"  but  we  must  bear 
in  mind  the  general  purpose  of  recording,  not  the 
people's  history  so  much  as  God's  dealings  with 
them,  and  the  former  rather  as  illustrative  of  the 
latter,  and  subordinate  thereto.  The  evident  de 
sign  however,  in  Num.  xxxiii.  being,  to  place  on 
record  their  itinerary,  this  latter  is  to  be  esteemed 
as  the  locus  classicus  on  any  topographical  ques 
tions,  as  compared  with  others  having  a  less  special 
relation  to  the  track.  The  "  wildemess  of  Sin"  is 


an  appellation  no  doubt  representing  some  natural 
feature,  and  none  more  probably  than  the  alluvial 
plain,  which,  lying  at  the  edge  of  the  sea,  about 
the  spot  we  now  regard  them  as  having  reached 
begins  to  assume  a  significant  appearance.  The 
modern  name  for  this  is  el-Kda,  identified  r»j 
Seetzen  m  with  this  wildemess  (iii.  pt.  iii.  412). 
Dr.  Stanley  •  calls  el-Kaa,  at  its  initial  point,  "  the 
plain  of  Murkhd/i"  and  thinks  it  is  probably  this 
wilderness.  Lower  down  the  coast  this  plain  ex 
pands  into  the  broadest  in  the  Peninsula,  and  some 
where  in  the  titill  northern  portion  of  it  we  must 
doubtless  place  the  "  Dophkah"0  and  "  Alush"  of 
Num.  xxxiii.  12-14. 

In  the  wilderness  of  Sin  occurred  the  first  mur 
muring  for  food,  and  the  first  fall  of  manna.  The 
modern  confection  sold  under  that  name  is  the  ex 
udation  collected  from  the  leaves  of  the  tamarisk 
tree  (tamarix  Orientalis,  Linn.,  Arab,  tarfa,  Heb. 

7fc?N)  only  in  the  Sinaitic  valleys,  and  in  no  great 

abundance.?  If  it  results  from  the  punctures  madi 
in  the  leaf  by  an  insect  (the  coccus  manniparus, 
Ehrenberg)  in  the  course  of  June,  July,  and 
August,  this  will  not  suit  the  time  of  the 
people's  entering  the  region  "  on  the  fifteenth  day 
of  the  second  month  after "  their  departure  from 
Egypt  (Ex.  xvi.  1-8).  It  is  said  to  keep  as  a 
hardened  syrup  for  years  (Laborde,  Comment. 
Geogr.  on  Ex.  xvi.  13,  14),  and  thus  does  not  an 
swer  to  the  more  striking  characteristics  described 
in  Ex.  xvi.  14-26.  [MANNA.]  Seetzen  thought 
that  the  gum  Arabic,  an  exudation  of  the  acacia, 
was  the  real  manna  of  the  Israelites  ;  i.  e.  Seetzen 
regards  the  statement  of  "  bread  from  heaven  "  as 
a  fiction  {Reisen,  iii.  75-79).  A  caravan  of  a 
thousand  persons  is  said  by  Has»elquist  (  Voyages, 
&c.,  Materia  Medica,  298,  transl.  ed.  1766)  to. 
have  subsisted  solely  on  this  substance  for  two 
months.  In  the  same  passage  of  Ex.  (v.  13)  quails 
are  first  mentioned. 

In  most  portions  of  the  earlier  route  it  is  more 
important  to  show  the  track  than  to  fix  the  sta 
tions  ;  and  such  an  indication  only  can  be  looked 
for  where  nothing  beyond  the  name  of  the  latter  is 
recorded.  Supposing  now  that  the  alluvial  plain, 
where  it  first  begins  to  broaden  to  a  significant  size, 
is  "  the  wilderness  of  Sin,"  all  further  questions, 
till  we  come  to  Sinai,  turn  on  the  situation  assigned 
to  Rephidim.  If,  as  seems  most  likely,  Rephidim 
be  found  at  Feirdn  [REPHIDIM],  it  becomes  almost 
certain  that  the  track  of  the  host  lay  to  the  north 
of  Serb(il,i  a  magnificent  five-peaked  mountain, 
which  some  have  thought  to  be  Sinai,  and  which  be 
comes  first  visible  at  the  plain  o£Murkhd/i.  [SiNAi.] 


n  He  calls  it  the  Wilderness  of  Sir,  but  this  is  plainly 
a  misprint  for  Sin. 

*  His  map,  however,  omits  the  name  el-Kaa.  Robinson 
thinks  the  wildewiess  of  Sin  is  the  maritime  plain  south 
east  of  Murkhak,  but  not  certainly  including  the  latter. 

0  Seetzen  thought  that  Dophkah  might  possibly  be  re 
traced  in  the  name  of  a  place  in  this  region,  d  Tobbacha 
(Kruse).  For  Alush  there  is  no  conjecture. 

P  Seetzen  compares  it  to  the  round  beads  obtained  from 
the  mastich  ;  and  says  it  is  used  as  a  purgative  in  Upper 
Egypt,  and  that  it  is  supposed  to  be  brought  out  by  the 
great  effect  of  heat  on  a  sandy  soil,  since  in  Syria  and 
elsewhere  this  tree  has  not  the  product. 

9  Dr.  Stanley  notices  that  possibly,  viewing  Gh&rundel 
tor  Useit,  which  lies  beyond  it,  from  Suez)  as  Elim,  the 
host  may  h;ivo  gone  to  the  latter  (the  further  point),  and 
fhon  bavc  turned  back  to  the  lower  part  of  Ghurundd, 


and  there  pitched  by  the  "  Red  Sea."  Then,  he  further 
remarks,  it  was  open  to  them  to  take  a  northern  course 
for  Sinai  (Jebel  Musa),  avoiding  Serial  and  Feiran  alto 
gether  (S.  &  P  38).  But  all  this,  he  adds,  seems  "  not 
likely/  That  route  passes  by  Surdbit  d-Khadim  to  the 
Jebel  Musa.  Robinson,  who  went  by  this  way,  conjec 
tured  that  d-EMdim  was  a  place  of  pilgrimage  to  the 
ancient  Egyptians,  and  might  have  been  the  object  of 
Moses'  proposed  jouioey  of  "  three  days  into  the  wilder 
ness"  (i.  7a).  The  best  account  of  this  locality  by  far, 
which  the  present  contributor  has  met  with,  is  that  in 
the  MS  referred  to  at  the  end  of  this  article.  Tha 
writer  dwells  especially  on  the  immense  remains  of  min 
ing  operations,  refuse  of  fuel,  metal,  &c.,  to  be  seen 
there;  also  on  the  entrenched  camp  at  Mwjhara,  dis 
covered  recently  by  Major  Macdonald,  evidently  a  \vovfc 
of  great  labour  and  of  capacity  for  a  large  garrison. 


WILDEP.NESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


175' 


The  tabernacle  was  not  yet  set  up,  nor  the  order  of 
march  organized,  as  subsequently  (Num.  x.  13, 
£o.),  hence  the  words  "track"  or  "route,''  as 
indicating  a  line,  can  only  be  taken  in  the  most 
wide  and  general  sense.  The  road*  slowly  rises  be 
tween  the  coast  and  Feiran,  which  has  an  elevation 
of  just  half  the  highest  peak  of  the  whole  cluster. 
Feiran  must  have  been  gained  by  some  road  striking 
off  from  the  sea-coast,  like  the  Witdy  Mo'tntteb, 
which  is  now  the  usual  route  from  Cairo  thither, 
perhaps  by  several  parallel  or  converging  lines. 
Those  who  reject  Feiran  for  Kephidim  will  have 
the  onus  of  accounting  for  such  a  fruitful  and 
blooming  spot  as,  from  its  position,  it  must  always 
have  been,  being  left  out  of  the  route,  and  of  find 
ing  some  other  site  for  Kephidim.  Possibly  Tur 
itself  might  be  Rephidira,  but  then  not  one  of  the 
sites  generally  discussed  for  Sinai  will  suit.  It 
seems  better  then  to  take  Feiran,  or  the  adjacent 
valley  of  es-Sheykk  in  connexion  with  it,  for  Kephi 
dim.  The  water  may  have  been  produced  in  one, 
and  the  battle  have  taken  place  in  the  other,  of 
these  contiguous  localities;  and  the  most  direct  way 
of  reaching  them  from  el-Murltkah  (the  "  wilder 
ness  of  Sin")  will  be  through  the  wadys  Shelldh 
and  Mokatteb.  Dr.  Stanley,  who  suggests  the 
road  by  the  S.  of  Serial,  through  Wad^Hebran  * 
(Robinson,  i.  95),  as  also  a  possible  route  to  Sinai 
(S.  and  P.  38,  4),  and  designates  it  "  the  southern" 
one,  omits  to  propose  any  alternative  station  for 
Kephidim ;  as  he  also  does  in  the  case  of  "  the 
northern"  route  being  accepted.  That  route  has 
been  already  mentioned  [page  1576,  note  *],  but  is 
of  too  remote  a  probability  to  require  being  here 
taken  into  view.  The  Wadij  Mokatteb,  the  "  writ 
ten,"  as  its  name  imports,  contains  the  largest 
number  of  inscriptions  known  as  the  Sinaitic.  They 
are  scratched  on  the  friable  surface  of  the  sand 
stone  masses  which  dot  the  valley  on  either  side, 
some  so  high  as  to  have  plainly  not  been  executed 
without  mechanical  aid  and  great  deliberation. 
They  ace  described  or  noticed  by  Dr.  Robinson, 
Burckhardt,  Laborde,  Seetzen,  and  others,  but 
especially  by  Dr.  Stanley  (S.  and  P.  57-62).  [See 
on  this  subject  SINAI,  notes  n  and  °.] 

V.  Besides  the  various  suggestions  regarding 
Horeb  and  Sinai  given  under  SINAI,  one  occurs  in 
Dr.  Kruse' s  Anmerkungen  on  Seetzen,  which  is 
worth  recording  here.  Seetzen  approached  the  Jebel 
Musa  from  the  N.,  a  little  W.,  by  a  route  which 
aeems  to  have  brought  him  into  the  region  through 
which  Dr.  Robinson  approached  it  from  the  N.W. 
On  this  Dr.  Kruse  remarks,  "  Horeb  lay  in  the 
plain  of  Rephidim  ...  a  day's  march  short  of  (vor] 
•Sinai,  on  a  dry  plain,  which  was  extensive  enough 
lor  a  camping-ground,  with  a  rock-fountain  struck 
by  Moses  from  the  rock.  This  distance  just  hits 
f.he  plain  es-Sheb  (Seheb,  Kiepert's  Map),  which 
Robinson  entered  before  reaching  the  foremost 
ridge  of  Sinai,  and  suits  the  peaked  mountain  el- 
Orf,  in  the  highest  point  of  1his  plain.  That 
this  plain,  too,  is  large  enough  for  fighting  in  (as 


'  Through  the  wilderness  of  K&a  (from  its  northern 
rorder)  to  the  opening  of  Wady  Hebrdn  into  it  is  5±  hours' 
"ourney.  The  manna  tamarisk  is  found  there  ;  and  some 
fcirds,  called  by  Dr.  Kruse  "  Wustenbuhnern,"  which  he  ap 
pears  to  think  might  be  the  quails  of  Scripture.  Seetzen  in 
his  journal  plainly  sets  down  the  "  quails  "  as  being  wholly 
a  mistake  for  locusts  (Reisen,  iii.  pt.  iii.  413.  comp.  80). 

«  "Two  hardly  distinguishable  mountains  OH  either 
iside  of  the  way  (from  the  Wady  Beitzcvrdn)  were  named 
flrribe  and  Freuech  "  (Rtisen,  iii.  60  X 


mentioned  Ex.  xvii.  9),  is  plain  from  Robinson'; 
statement  (i.  141)  of  a  combat  between  two  tribes 
which  took  place  there  some  years  before  his  visit. 
Robinson,  from  this  rocky  peak,  which  I  took  foi 
Horeb,  in  1^  hour  reached  the  spring  Gurbeh,  pro 
bably  the  one  the  opening  of  which  was  ascribed  to 
Moses,  and  thence  in  another  hour  came  to  the 
steep  pass  Nukb  Hd'vy,  to  mount  which  he  took 
2j  hours,  and  in  2£  hours  more,  crossing  the  plain 
cr-Rdhek,  arrived  at  the  convent  at  the  toot  of  Sinai. 
Seetzen's  Arabs  gave  the  name  of  Orribe  *  to  a  moun 
tain  reached  before  ascending  the  pass,  no  doubt  the 
same  as  Robinson's  el-Orf  and  the  Hoieb  of  Holy 
Writ"  (Reisen,  iii.  pt.  iii.  422;  comp.  414).  He 
seeks  to  reconcile  this  with  Ex.  xxxiii.  6,  which  de 
scribes  the  people,  penitent  after  their  disobedience 
in  the  matter  of  the  golden  calf,  as  "  stripping  them 
selves  of  their  ornaments  by  the  Mount  Horeb,"  by 
supposing  that  they  were  by  Moses  led  back  again  * 
from  Sinai,  where  God  had  appeared  to  him,  and 
immediately  below  which  they  had  encamped,  to 
Horeb  in  the  plain  of  Rephidim.  But  this  must 
have  been  a  day's  journey  backward,  and  of  such  a 
retrograde  movement  the  itinerary  in  Num.  xxxiii. 
14,  15,  16,  has  no  trace.  On  the  contrary,  it  says, 
"  they  removed  from  the  desert  of  Sinai  and  pitched 
in  Kibroth  Hattaavah."  Now,  although  they  stayed 
a  year  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai  (Ex.  xix.  1 ;  Num. 
x.  11,  12),  and  need  not  be  supposed  to  have  had 
but  one  camping  station  all  the  time,  yet  Rephidim 
clearly  appears  to  lie  without  the  limits  of  that 
wilderness  (Ex.  xvii.  1,  xix.  1,  2 ;  Num.  xxxiii.  15), 
and  a  return  thither,  being  a  departure  from  thosn 
limits,  might  therefore,  we  should  expect,  be  no 
ticed,  if  it  took  place  ;  even  though  all  the  shifting!; 
of  the  camp  within  the  wilderness  of  Sinai  might 
not  be  set  down  in  the  itinerary.  Under  SINAI  an 
attempt  is  made  to  reconcile  the  "  rock  in  Horeb  " 
at  Rephidim  with  a  "  Mount  Horeb"  (the  same,  in 
fact,  as  Sinai,  though  with  a  relative  difference  of 
view),  by  regarding  "  Horeb  "  as  a  designation  de~ 
scriptive  of  the  ground,  applicable,  through  simi 
larity  of  local"  features,  to  either.  If  this  be  not 
admitted,  we  may  perhaps  regard  the  Wady  es- 
Sheykh,  a  crescent  concave  southwards,  whose 
western  horn  joins  Wady  Feirdn,  and  whose 
eastern  finds  a  south-eastern  continuation  in  the 
plain  er-Raheh  (leading  up  to  Jebel  Musa,  tlw 
probable  Sinai),  as  the  Horeb  proper.  This  con 
tains  a  rock  called  traditionally  the  "  seat  of  Moses  " 
(Schubert,  Reisen,  ii.  356).  And  this  is  to  some 
extent  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the  wady  which 
continues  the  plain  er-Raheh  to  the  N.W.,  forming 
with  the  latter  a  slightly  obtuse  angle,  resumes  the 
name  of  es-Sheykh.  If  we  may  suppose  the  name 
"  Horeb,"  though  properly  applied  to  the  crescent 
Wady  es-Sheykh,  which  joins  Feiran,  to  have  had 
such  an  extension  as  would  embrace  er-Raheh,  then 
the  "  rock  in  Horeb  "  might  be  a  day's  journey 
from  the  "  Mount  (of)  Horeb."  «  This  view,  it  may 
be  observed,  does  not  exclude  that  just  referred  to 
under  SINAI,  but  merely  removes  it  from  resting 

t  He  thinks  the  reason  why  they  were  thus  counter 
manded  was  because  "  Horeb  "  was  better  supplied  with 
water,  but  he  does  not  show  that  the  "  spring  Gurbeh  " 
adequately  meets  this  condition  (ib.  422). 

«  The  expression  IHin  "lilD  in  Ex.  xxxiii.  6  may 
probably  be,  like  the  expression  D^rvNH  1H,  iii.  *, 
and  that  of  rTTliV  "IH3,  Josh.  xxi.  11.  &c.,  two  uouos 
in  regimen,  the  "mount  of  Horeb." 


1758 

on  the  sense  there  proposed  for  "  Horeb " 
fcs  a  local  appellative,  to  more  general  grounds. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  case  with  other  sacred 
localities,  the  identification  of  Sinai  itself  will  pro 
bably  never  be  free  from  obscurity.  We  seem  to 
have  adequate  information  regarding  all  the  eminent 
mountains  within  the  narrow  compass  to  which  our 
choice  is  reduced,  and  of  all  the  important  passes. 
Nor  is  it  likely  that  any  fresh  clue  of  trustworthy 
local  tradition  will  be  unravelled,  or  any  new  light 
thrown  on  the  text  of  the  Scriptural  statements. 
Somewhere  in  the  granitic  nucleus  of  lofty  mountain- 
crests  the  answer,  doubtless,  lies.*  For  the  grounds 
on  which  a  slight  preponderance  of  probability  rests 
in  favour  of  the  Jebel  Musa*  see  SINAI."  But 
even  that  preponderance  mainly  rests  on  the  view 
that  the  numbers  ascribed  in  our  present  text  to  the 
host  of  Israel  are  trustworthy.  If  fui'ther  criticism 
should  make  this  more  doubtful  than  it  now  is, 
(hat  will  have  the  probable  effect  of  making  the 
question  more  vagu3  rather  than  more  clear  than 
it  is  at  present.  "This  degree  of  uncertainty  is  a 
great  safeguard  for  the  real  reverence  due  to  the 
place.  As  it  is,  you  may  rest  on  your  general 
conviction  and  be  thankful "  (8.  $  P.  76).  The 
tradition  which  has  consecrated  the  Jebel  MAsa 
can,  we  know,  be  traced  to  its  source  in  a  late  year. 
It  has  the  taint  of  modernism  and  the  detective 
witness  of  the  older  tradition  of  Serbdl.  Dr.  Stanley 
thinks  it  "  doubtful  whether  the  scene  of  the  giving 
of  the  Law,  as  we  now  conceive  it,  ever  entered 
into  the  minds  of  those  who  fixed  the  traditional 
site.  The  consecrated  peak  of  the  Jebel  Musa  was 
probably  revered  simply  as  the  spot  where  Moses 
saw  the  vision  of  God,  without  reference  to  any 
nr.ore  general  event"  (S.  8f  P.  76),  and  this  is 
likely  to  have  been  equally  true  of  Serbdl  before 
it.  The  Eastern  mind  seized  on  the  spot  as  one 
of  devout  contemplation  by  the  one  retired  saint; 
the  Western  searches  for  a  scene  which  will  bring 
tie  people  perceptibly  into  the  region  of  that 
Presence  which  the  saint  beheld. 

Certain  vivid  impressions  left  on  the  minds  of 
travellers  seem  to  bespeak  such  remarkable  features 
for  the  rocks  of  this  cluster,  and  they  are  generally 
so  replete  with  interest,  that  a  few  leading  details 
of  the  aspect  of  principal  mountains  may  find  place 
here.  Approaching  the  granitic  nucleus  from  the 
N.  side,  Seetzen  found  himself  "  ever  between  two 
high  wild  and  naked  cliffs  of  granite."  All  possible 
forms  of  mountains  blended  in  the  view  of  the 
group,  conical  and  pointed,  truncated,  serrated,  and 
rounded  {Reisen,  iii.  69,  67).  Immediately  previous 
to  this  he  had  been  upon  the  perpendicular  sand 
stone  cliffs,  which  in  el-Dilldl  bounded  the  sandy 
plain  er-Ramleh  on  the  eastern  side,  whilst  similar 
steep  sandstone  cliffs  lay  on  the  N.  and  N.W.  On 
a  nearer  view  small  bright  quartz-grit  {Quarz- 
kiesel),  of  whitish-yellow  and  reddish  hue,  was  ob 
served  in  the  coarse-grained  sandstone.  Dr.  Stanley, 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


approaching  from  the  N.W.,  from  Wadi/  ShellAl. 
through  Wadys  Sidri  and  Feirdn,  found  the  rocfa 
of  various  orders  more  or  less  interchanged  and 
intermixed.  In  the  first,  "  "ed  tops  resting  on  dark- 
green  bases  closed  the  prospect  in  front,"  doubtless 
both  of  granite.  Contrast  with  this  the  description 
of  Jebel  Musa,  as  seen  from  Mount  St.  Catherine 
(ibid.  77),  "  the  reddish  granite  of  its  lower  mass, 
ending  in  the  grey  green  granite  of  the  peak  itself." 
Wady  Sidri  lies  "  between  red  granite  mountains 
descending  precipitously  on  the  sands,"  but  just  in 
the  midst  of  it  the  granite  is  exchanged  for  sand 
stone,  which  last  forms  the  rock-tablets  of  the 
Wady  Mokatteb,  lying  in  the  way  to  Wady  Feirdn. 
This  last  is  full  of  "  endless  windings,"  and  here 
"  began  the  curious  sight  of  the  mountains,  streaked 
from  head  to  foot,  as  if  with  boiling  streams  ot 
dark  red  matter  poured  over  them,  the  igneous 
fluid  squirted  upwards  as  they  were  heaved  from 
the  ground."  .  .  .  "  The  colours  tell  their  own 
story,  of  chalk  and  limestone  and  sandstone  and 
granite."  Besides  these,  "  huge  cones  of  white  clay 
and  sand  are  at  intervals  planted  along  these 
mighty  watercourses  (the  now  dry  wadys),  appa 
rently  the  original  alluvial  deposit  of  some  tre 
mendous  antediluvian  torrent,  left  there  to  stiffen 
into  sandstone"  (71).  The  Wady  Feirdn  is 
bounded  southwards  by  the  Jebel  Nediyeh  and  the 
Jebel  Serbdl,  which  extend  westwards  to  the  mari 
time  plain,  and  eastward  to  the  Sinaitic  group,  and 
on  whose  further  or  southern  side  lies  the  widest 
part  of  el-Kda,  previously  noticed  as  the  "  Wilder 
ness  of  Sin."  Seetzen  remarks  that  Jebel  Feirdn 
is  not  an  individual  mountain,  but,  like  Sinai,  a 
conspicuous  group  {Reisen,  iii.  107 ;  comp.  pt.  iii. 
413). 

Serbdl  rises  from  a  lower  level  than  the  Sinaific 
group,  and  so  stands  out  more  fully.  Dr.  Stewart's 
account  of  its  summit  confirms  that  of  Burckhardt. 
The  former  mounted  from  the  northern  side  a 
narrow  plateau  at  the  top  of  the  easternmost  peak. 
A  block  of  grey  granite  crowns  it  and  several  con 
tiguous  blocks  form  one  or  two  grottoes,  and  a 
circle  of  loose  stones  rests  in  the  narrow  plateau  at 
the  top  (The  Tent  and  the  Khan,  117,  1 18).  The 
"  five  peaks,"  to  which  "  in  most  points  of  view  it 
is  reducible,  at  first  sight  appear  inaccessible,  but 
are  divided  by  steep  ravines  filled  with  fragments 
of  fallen  granite."  Dr.  Stanley  mounted  "  over 
smooth  blocks  of  granite  to  the  top  of  the  third  or 
central  peak,"  amid  which  "  innumerable  shrubs 
like  sage  or  thyme,  grew  to  the  very  summit." 
Here,  too,  his  ascent  was  assisted  by  loose  stones 
arranged  by  human  hands.  The  peak  divides  into 
"  two  eminences,"  on  "  the  highest  of  which,  as  on 
the  back  of  some  petrified  tortoise,  you  stand,  and 
overlook  the  whole  peninsula"  (8.  &P.71,  72). 
Russegger  says  "  the  stone  of  the  peak  of  Serial  is 
porphyry"  (Reisen,  iii.  276).  Dr.  Stewart  men 
tions  the  extensive  view  from  its  summit  of  the 
mountains  "  which  arise  from  the  western  shore  ot 


T  The  Tabula,  Peutingeraria  gives  in  the  interior  of  the 
Sinaitic  peninsula  a  wilderness  indicated  as  "  desertum 
ubi  xl.  annos  erraverunt  filii  Israelis  ducente  Moyse,"  and 
marks  therein  a  three-peaked  mountain,  with  the  words, 
"  hie  legem  acceperunt  in  monte  Syna."  Dr.  Kruse  thinks 
the  •  three  peaks "  mean  Sinai  (t.  e.  the  Jebel  Musa), 
Ag.  Episteme  and  the  Jebel  Hum'r  (Seetzen,  Reisen,  iii. 
pt.  iii.  421). 

*  Dr.  Kruse  says,  "  This  highest  S.E.  point  of  Sinai  is 
ndisputaoly  the  '  mountain  of  the  Lord '  of  Holy  Writ, 
Vo  modern  Mount  St.  Catherine.  The  N.W.  part  of  Sina! 


is,  however,  now  named  Chorif  by  the  monks,  not  by  the 
Arabs,  probably  in  order  to  combine  Horeb  with  Sinai,  by 
which  name  they  denote  the  most  south-easterly  poini. 
The  '  plain '  or  '  wilderness '  of  Sinai  can  be  nothing  else 
than  the  high  plain  situated  on  the  northern  steep  de 
clivity  surrounded  by  the  three  before-named  peaks  c-f 
Sinai,  the  opposite  plateau  of  Jebel  Furna,  and  E.  and  VV. 
some  low  ridges.  It  is  now  called  the  plain  Raheh,  and  ia. 
according  to  Robinson's  measurement,  quite  large  enough 
to  hold  two  mHlions  of  Israelites,  who  here  encamped 
together  "  (ibid.  422). 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


1759 


the  Gulf  of  'Akabah,"  seen  in  the  N.E.,  and  of  the 
Binaitic  range,  "  closely  packed "  with  the  inter 
mediate  Jebel  Wateidh,  "  forming  the  most  con 
fused  mass  of  mountain  tops  that  can  be  imagined  " 
(1 14, 1 1 5).  His  description  of  the  ascent  of  the  east 
ern  peak  is  formidable.  He  felt  n  rarity  of  the  air, 
and  often  had  to  climb  or  crawl  flat  on  the  breast. 
It  was  like  "  the  ascent  of  a  glacier,  only  of  smooth 
granite,  instead  of  ice."  At  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
from  the  summit  he  also  "  found  a  stair  of  blocks  of 
granite,  laid  one  above  another  on  the  surface  of  the 
Mnooth  slippery  rock"  (113).  On  the  northern 
summit  are  visible  the  remains  of  a  building, 
"  granite  fragments  cemented  with  lime  and  mor 
tar,"  and  "  close  beside  it  three  of  those  mysterious 
inscriptions,"  implying  "that  this  summit  was 
frequented  by  unknown  pilgrims  who  used  those 
characters  "  (8.  and  P.  72). 

The  approach  to  Jebel  Musa  from  the  W.  is 
only  practicable  on  foot.  It  lies  through  Wady 
Solam  and  the  Nukb  Hdwy,  "  Pass  of  the  Wind,"  7 
whose  stair  of  rock  leads  to  the  second  or  higher 
stage  of  the  great  mountain  labyrinth.  Elsewhere 
this  pass  wotrld  be  a  roaring  torrent.  It  is  amidst 
masses  of  rock  a  thread  of  a  stream  just  visible,  and 
here  and  there  forming  clear  pools,  shrouded  in 
palms,  or  leaving  its  clue  to  be  traced  only  by 
rushes.  From  the  head  of  this  pass  the  cliff-front 
of  Sinai  comes  in  sight  through  "  a  long  continued 
plain  between  two  precipitous  mountain  ranges  of 
black  and  yellow  granite."  This  is  the  often-men 
tioned  plain  er-Rdheh.  Deep  gorges  enter  it  on 
each  side,  and  the  convent  and  its  gardens  close 
the  view.  The  ascent  of  Jebel  Musa,  which  con 
tains  "  high  valleys  with  abundant  springs,"  is  by 
a  long  flight  of  rude  steps  winding  through  crags 
of  granite.  The  cave  and  chapel  "of  Elias"  are 
passed  on  the  slope  of  the  ascent,  and  the  summit  is 
marked  by  the  ruins  of  a  mosque  and  of  a  Christian 
church.  But,  Strauss  adds,  "  the  '  Mount  of  Moses  ' 
rose  in  the  south  higher  and  higher  still,"  and  the 
point  of  this,  Jebel  Musa,  eighty  feet  in  diameter, 
xs  distant  two  hours  and  more  from  the  plain  below 
(Sinai  and  Golgotha,  116).  The  Has  Sufsdfeh 
seems  a  small,  steep,  and  high  mountain,  which  is 
interposed  between  the  slope  of  Jebel  Musa  and 
the  plain ;  and,  from  its  position,  surveys  both  the 
openings  of  es-Sheykh  N.E.  and  of  er-Rdheh'  N.W., 
which  converge  at  its  foot.  Opposite  to  it,  across 
the  plain,  is  the  Jebel  Fureid,  whose  peak  is  cloven 
asunder,  and  the  taller  summit  is  again  shattered 
and  rent,  and  strewn,  as  by  an  earthquake,  with  its 
own  fragments.  The  aspect  of  the  plain  between 
Jebel  Fureid,  which  here  forms  a  salient  angle, 
wedging  southwards,  and  the  Rds  Sufsdfeh,  is  de 
scribed  as  being,  in  conjunction  with  these  moun 
tains,  wonderfully  suggestive,  both  by  its  grandeur 
and  its  suitableness,  for  the  giving  and  the  receiving 
of  the  Law.  "  That  such  a  plain  should  exist  at  all 
in  front  of  such  a  cliff  is  so  remarkable  a  coincidence 
with  the  sacred  narrative,  as  to  furnish  a  strong 


y  By  this  pass  Dr.  Stanley  was  himself  conducted  thither, 
sending  his  camels  round  by  the  Wady  es-Sheykh,  from 
Feirdn,  "the  more  accessible  though  more  circuitous 
route  into  the  central  upland."  By  this  latter  he  sup 
poses  the  great  bulk  of  the  host  of  Israel  may  have 
reached  er-Rdheh  and  Sinai,  while  "  the  chiefs  of  the 
people  would  mount"  by  the  same  pass  which  he  took 
(S.  &  P.  42). 

«  Dr.  Stewart  (ub.  sup.  122)  says,  "  Ghebel  Musa,  the 
Slnal  of  monkish  traditions,  is  neither  visible  from  the 
Ghelrel  (i.  e.  Rfis)  Sussafeh,  nor  from  any  other  point  in 


internal  argument,  not  merelj  of  its  identity  with 
the  scene,  but  of  the  scene  itself  having  been  de 
scribed,  by  an  eye-witness "  (S.  and  P.  42,  43) 
The  character  of  the  Sinaitic  granite  is  descrioed  by 
Seetzen  (Reisen,  iii.  86)  as  being  (1)  flesh-red  with 
glass-coloured  quartz  and  black  mica,  and  (2) 
greyish-white  with  abundance  of  the  same  mica. 
He  adds  that  the  first  kind  is  larger-grained  and 
handsomer  than  the  second.  Hamilton  speaks  of 
"  long  ridges  of  arid  rock  surrounding  him  in  chaotic 
confusion  on  every  side,"  and  "  the  sharp  broken 
peaks  of  granite  far  and  near  as  all  equally  deso 
late"  (Sinai,  the  Hedjaz,  and  Soudan,  31).  This 
view  of  "  granite  peaks,"  so  thickly  and  wildlj 
set  as  to  form  "a  labyrinth"  to  the  eye,  was  what 
chiefly  impressed  Dr.  Stanley  in  the  view  from  the 
top  of  Jebel  Musa  (S.  and  P.  77).  There  the 
weather-beaten  rocks  are  full  of  curious  fissures  and 
holes  (46),  the  surface  being  "a  granite  mass 
cloven  into  deep  gullies  and  basins"  (76).  Over 
the  whole  mountain  the  imagination  of  votaries  has 
stamped  the  rock  with  tokens  of  miracle.  The 
dendrites  a  were  viewed  as  memorials  of  the  Burning 
Bush.  In  one  part  of  the  mountain  is  shown  the 
impress  of  Moses'  back,  as  he  hid  himself  from  the 
presence  of  God  (*6.  30),  in  another  the  hoof-print 
of  Mahomet's  mule,  in  the  plain  below  a  rude  hollow 
between  contiguous  blocks  of  stone  passes  for  the 
mould  of  the  head  of  the  Golden  Calf;  while  in  the 
valley  of  the  Leja,  which  runs,  parallel  to  and 
overhung  by  the  Jebel  Musa's  greatest  length, 
into  er-Rdheh,  close  to  Rds  Sufsdfeh,  the  famous 
"  Stone  of  Moses  "  is  shown — "  a  detached  mass 
from  ten  to  fifteen  feet  high,  intersected  with  wide 
slits  or  cracks  ....  with  the  stone  between  them 
worn  away,  as  if  by  the  dropping  of  water  from 
the  crack  immediately  above."  This  distinctness  of 
the  mass  of  the  stone"  lends  itself  to  the  belief  of  the 
Rabbis,  that  this  "rock  followed"  the  Israelites 
through  the  wilderness,  which  would  not  be  the  case 
with  the  non-detached  off-set  of  some  larger  cliff. 
The  Koran  also  contains  reference  to  "  the  rock 
with  the  twelve  mouths  for  the  twelve  tribes  ot 
Israel,"  i.  e.  the  aforesaid  cracks  in  the  stone,  into 
which  the  Bedouins  thrust  grass  as  they  mutter 
their  prayers  before  it.  Bishop  Clayton  accepted  it 
as  genuine,  so  did  Whiston  the  translator  of  Jose- 
phus ; b  but  it  is  a  mere  lusus  naturae ;  and  there  is 
another  fragment,  "  less  conspicuous,"  in  the  same 
valley,  "  with  precisely  similar  marks."  In  the  pass 
of  the  Wady  es-Sheykh  is  another  stone,  called  the 
"  Seat  of  Moses,'*  described  by  Laborde  (S.  and  P. 
45-48,  and  notes).  Seetzen  adds,  some  paces  be 
yond  the  "  Stone  of  Moses  "  several  springs,  copious 
for  a  region  so  poor  in  water,  have  their  source 
from  under  blocks  of  granite,  one  of  which  is  as  big 
as  this  "  Stone  of  Moses."  These  springs  gush  into  a 
very  small  d^ke,  and  thence  are  conducted  by  a 
canal  to  supply  water  to  a  little  fruit-garden  .... 
Their  water  is  pure  and  very  good.  On  this  canal, 
several  paces  below  the  basin,  lies  a  considerably 


the  plain  of  er-Raheh."  This  seems  confirmed  by  the  argu 
ment  of  S.  &  P.  43,  44,  that  Moses,  descending  from  the 
Jebel  Musa,  would  not  be  able  to  see  what  was  going  or 
in  the  plain  till  he  emerged  upon  it,  the  height  of  .Vw/sd/eA 
effectually  intercepting  the  view. 

a  These  have  become  scarce  on  this  mountain :  Seetzeo 
(Reisen,  iii.  86)  expressly  mentions  that  he  observed  none 
They  are  now  found  abundantly  in  the  course  of  con 
structing  Abbas  Pasha's  mountain  road  (Stewart,  T.  tfc  K. 
132,  134). 

b  See  his  note  on  Ant.  iii.  1,  $7. 


1760 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


bigger  block  of  granite  than  the  "  Stone  of  Moses," 
'*  and  the  canal  runs  round  so  close  to  its  side  as  to 
be  half-concealed  by  it "  (Eeisen,  iii.  95).  He  seems 
to  argue  that  this  appearance  and  half-concealment 
may  have  been  made  use  of  by  Moses  to  procure 
belief  in  his  having  produced  the  water  miracu 
lously,  which  existed  befoie.  But  this  is  wholly 
inconsistent,  as  indeed  is  any  view  of  this  being  the 
actual  "  rock  in  Horeb,"  with  his  view  of  Rephidim 
as  situated  at  el-Hessueh,  the  western  extremity  of 
the  Wady  Feirdn.  Equally  at  variance  with  the 
Scriptural  narrative  is  the  claim  of  a  hole  in  er- 
Edheh,  below  Eds  Sufsafeh,  to  be  "  the  Pit  of 
Korah,"  whose  story  belongs  to  another  and  far 
Li^er  stage  of  the  march. 

On  Mount  St.  Catherine  the  principal  interest  lies 
in  the  panorama  of  the  whole  Peninsula  which  it 
commands,  embraced  by  the  converging  horns  of 
the  Red  Sea,  and  the  complete  way  in  which  it 
overlooks  the  Jebcl  Musa,  which,  as  seen  from  it, 
is  by  no  means  conspicuous,  being  about  1000 
feet  lower.  Seetzen  mounted  by  a  path  strewn  with 
stones  and  blocks,  having  nowhere  any  steps,  like 
those  mentioned  as  existing  at  Serbdl,  and  remarks 
that  jasper  and  porphyry  chiefly  constitute  the 
mountain.  He  reached  the  highest  point  in  three 
hours,  including  intervals  of  rest,  by  a  hard,  steep 
path,  with  toilsome  clambering;  but  the  actual 
time  of  ascending  was  only  1  f  hours.  The  date- 
palm  plantation  of  Tur  is  said  to  be  visible  from 
the  top ;  but  the  haze  prevailing  at  the  time  pre 
vented  this  traveller  from  verifying  it  {Eeisen,  iii. 
89-93).  "  The  rock  of  the  highest  point  of  this 
mountain  swells  into  the  form  of  a  human  body, 
its  arms  swathed  like  that  of  a  mummy,  but  head 
less — the  countei-part,  as  it  is  alleged,  of  the  corpse 
of  the  beheaded  Egyptian  saint. .  .  .  Not  improbably 
this  grotesque  figure  furnishes  not  merely  the  illustra 
tion,  but  the  origin,  of  the  story  "  of  St.  Catherine's 
body  being  transported  to  the  spot,  after  martyr 
dom,  from  Egypt  by  angelic  hands  (S.  and  P.  45). 

The  remaining  principal  mountain  is  named  vari 
ously  ed-Deir,  "  the  Convent ; "  "  Bestiu,"  from  St. 
Episteme,  the  first  abbess  of  the  nunnery  ;  "  Solab," 
from  "  the  Cross,"  which  stands  on  its  summit ; 
and  the  "  Mount  of  the  Burning  Bush,"  from  a 
legend  that  a  sun-beam  shoots  down,  supposed 
miraculously,  on  one  day  in  the  year,  through  the 
mountain  into  the  chapel  "  of  the  Burning  Bush  "  c 
(so  called)  in  the  convent  (ib.  78).  In  the  pass  of 
the  Convent  rocks  arise  on  every  side,  in  long  succes 
sion,  fantastically  coloured,  grey,  red,  blue,  bright 
yellow,  and  bronze,  sometimes  strangely  marked 
with  white  lines  of  quartz  or  black  bands  of  basalt ; 
huge  blocks  worn  into  fantastic  shapes  ....  inter 
rupt  the  narrow  track,  which  successive  ages  have 
worn  along  the  face  of  the  precipice,  or,  hanging 
overhead,  threaten  to  overwhelm  the  traveller  in 
their  fall.  The  wady  which  contains  this  pass  is 
called  by  the  name  of  Shu'eib — a  corruption  of 
Hobab,  the  name  of  the  father-in-law  of  Moses 
db.  32,  33).  At  the  foot  of  a  mountain  near  the 
convent  Seetzen  noticed  "  a  range  of  rocks  of  black 
horn-porphyry,  of  hornblende,  and  black  jasper, 
and  between  their  scrolls  or  volutes  white  quartz." 
The  gardens,  as  has  been  noticed,  are  in  sight 


«  Dr..Stanley  verified  the  possibility  of  the  fact,  and  dis 
proved  its  miraculous  character  by  examining  the  raviue 
jAove  the  convent,  through  which,  when  the  suu  gains  the 
necessary  altitude,  a  ray  would  reach  the  chapel  (S.  &  P.  46). 

<»  Here  Dr.iJtanley  quitted  the  track  pursued  by  Dr.  Ko- 


from  the  approach  through  er-Eahch..  ,  Seetzen  en 
larges  on  their  beauty,  enhanced,  of  course,  by  the 
savage  wild  about  them;  "indeed  a  blooiring 
vegetation  appears  in  this  climate  wherever  there  is 
water "  (Eeisen,  iii.  70,  73,  87).  These  proved 
capabilities  of  the  soil  are  of  interest  in  reference 
to  the  Mosaic  and  to  every  period.  As  regards  the 
Convent,  the  reader  may  be  referred  to  Dr.  Stanley's 
animated  description  of  its  character,  the  policy  of 
its  founder,  and  the  quality  of  its  inmates  (S.  and 
P.  51-56).  This  traveller  took  three  hours  in  the 
ascent.  "  In  the  recesses  between  the  peaks  was 
a  ruined  Bedouin  village.  On  the  highest  level  was 
a  small  natural  basin,  thick l;r  covered  with  shrubs 
of  myrrh — of  all  the  spots  of  the  kind  that  I  saw, 
the  best  suited  for  the  feeding  of  Jethro's  flocks  in 
the  seclusion  of  the  mountain "  (ib.  78).  He 
thought  the  prospect,  however,  from  its  summit 
inferior  in  various  ways  to  any  of  the  other  views 
from  the  neighbouring  mountains,  Serbdl,  St.  Ca- 
t/ierin,  Jebel  Musa,  or  Eds  Sufsafeh. 

The  rocks,  on  leaving  Sinai  on  the  east  for  'Aka 
bah,  are  curiously  intermingled,  somewhat  as  in  the 
opposite  margin  of  the  Wadys  Sidri  and  Mokatteh. 
Wady  Seydl  contains  "  hills  of  a  conical  shape, 
curiously  slanting  across  each  other,  and  with  an 
appearance  of  serpentine  and  basalt.  The  wady 
.  .  .  .  then  mounted  a  short  rocky  pass — of  hiils 
capped  with  sandstone — and  entered  on  a  plain  o( 
deep  sand — the  first  we  had  encountered — over 
which  were  scattered  isolated  clumps  of  sandstone, 
with  occasional  chalk.  ...  At  the  close  of  this 
plain,  an  isolated  rock,  its  high  tiers  rising  out  of 
lower  tiers,  like  a  castle."  Here  "  the  level  ranges 
of  et-Tih  rose  in  front."  And  soon  after,  on  strik 
ing  down,  apparently,  north-eastwards,  "a  sandy 
desert,  amidst  fantastic  sandstone  rocks,  mixed 
with  lilac  and  dull  green,  as  if  of  tufa,"  succeeded. 
After  this  came  a  desert  strewn  with  "  fragments  01 
the  Tih,"  i.  e.  limestone,  but  "  presently,"  iu  the 
"Wady  Ghuzaieh,"  d  which  turns  at  first  nearly 
due  northward,  and  then  deflects  westward,  the 
"  high  granite  rocks  "  reappeared ;  and  in  the  Wady 
el-'Ain,  "the  rocks  rise,  red  granite  or  black 
basalt,  occasionally  tipped  as  if  with  castles  of  sand 
stone  to  the  height  of  about  1000  feet ....  and 
finally  open  on  the  sea.  At  the  mouth  of  the  pass 
are  many  traces  of  flood — trees  torn  down,  and 
strewed  along  the  sand  "  (ib.  80,  81). 

VI.  WE  now  pass  on  to  resume  the  attempt  to 
trace  the  progress  of  the  Israelites.  Their  sojourn  of 
a  year  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Mount  Sinai  was  an 
eventful,  one.  The  statements  of  the  Scriptural 
narrative  which  relate  to  the  receiving  of  the  two 
Tables,  the  Golden  Calf,  Moses'  vision  of  God,  and 
the  visit  of  Jethro,  are  too  well  known  to  need 
special  mention  here ;  but  beside  these,  it  is  certain 
from  Num.  iii.  4,  that  before  they  quitted  the 
wilderness  of  Sinai,  the  Israelites  were  thrown  into 
mourning  by  the  untimely  death  of  Aaron's  two 
sons,  Nadab  and  Abihu.  This  event  is  probably 
connected  with  the  setting  up  of  the  tabernacle  and 
the  enkindling  of  that  holy  fire,  the  sanctity  of 
which  their  death  avenged.  That  it  has  a  deter 
minate  chronological  relation  with  the  promulga 
tions  which  from  time  to  time  were  made  in  that 


binson,  which  from  the  Convent  he  had  hitherto  followed; 
the  latter  continuing  in  a  N.E.  direction  through  Wady 
Sumghy  to  the  western  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah,  th«- 
former  turning  northwards  by  the  Wady  GhuzCiMi,  at 
above,  immediately  after  passing  the  ' 


WILDEliNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


urn 


wilderness,  is  prove.!  by  an  edict  in  Lev.  xvi., 
being  fixed  as  subsequent  to  it  (Lev.  x.,  comp. 
xri.  1).  The  only  other  fact  of  history  contained 
•B  Levitic  as  is  the  punishment  of  the  son  of  mixed 
parentage  for  blasphemy  (xxiv.  10-14).  Of  course 
the  consecration  of  Aaron  and  his  sons  is  mentioned 
early  in  the  Book  in  eonnexion  with  the  laws  relat 
ing  to  their  office  (viii.,  ix.).  In  the  same  wilder 
ness  region  the  people  were  numbered,  and  the  ex- 
cnange  of  the  Levites  against  the  firstborn  was 
effected ;  these  last,  since  their  delivery  when  God 
smote  those  of  Egypt,  having  incurred  the  obliga 
tion  of  sanctity  to  him.  The  offerings  of  the  princes 
of  Israel  were"  here  also  received.  The  last  incident 
mentioned  before  the  wilderness  of  Sinai  was  quitted 
for  that  of  Paran  is  the  intended  departure  of 
Hobab  the  Kenite,  which  it  seems  he  abandoned  at 
Moses*  urgency.  They  now  quitted  the  Sinai  tic 
region  for  that  of  Paran,  in  which  they  went  three 
days  without  finding  a  permanent  encampment, 
although  temporary  halts  must  of  course  have  been 
daily  made  (Num.  i.,  ix.  15-23;  x.  13,  33;  xi. 
35;  xii.  16).  A  glance  at  Kiepert's,  or  any  map 
showing  the  region  in  detail,  will  prove  that  here  a 
choice  of  two  main  routes  begins,  in  order  to  cross 
the  intervening  space  between  Sinai  and  Canaan, 
which  they  certainly  approached  in  the  first  in 
stance  on  the  southern,  and  not  on  the  eastern 
side.  Here  the  higher  plateau  surmounting  the  Tih 
region  would  almost  certainly,  assuming  the  main 
features  of  the  wilderness  to  have  been  then  as 
they  are  now,  have  compelled  them  to  turn  its 
western  side  nearly  by  the  route  by  which  Seetzen 
came  in  the  opposite  direction  from  Hebron  to  Sinai, 
or  to  turn  it  on  the  east  by  going  up  the  'Arabah, 
or  between  the  'Arabah  and  the  higher  plateau. 
Over  its  southern  face  there  is  no  pass,  and  hence 
the  roads  from  Sinai,  and  those  from  Petra  towards 
Gaza  and  Hebron,  all  converge  into  one  of  two  trunk- 
lines  of  route  (Robinson,  i.  147,  151,  2,  ii.  186). 
Taberah  and  Kibroth-Hattaavah,  both  seem  to  belong 
to  the  same  encampment  where  Israel  abode  for  at 
least  a  month  (xi.  20),  being  names  given  to  it 
from  the  two  events  which  happened  there.  [TA- 
UERAH,  KIBROTH-HATTAAVAH,  QUAILS.]  These 
stations  seem  from  Num.  x.  11-13,  33-36,  to  have 
lain  in  the  wilderness  of  Paran ;  but  possibly  the 
passage  x.  11-13  should  come  after  that  33-36,  and 
the  *'  three  days'  journey  "  of  ver.  33  lie  still  in  the 
wilderness  of  Sinai ;  and  even  Taberah  and  Haze- 
roth,  reached  in  xi.,  xii.,  also  there.  Thus  they 
would  reach  Paran  only  in  xii.  16,  and  x.  12 
would  be  either  misplaced  or  mentioned  by  antici 
pation  only.  One  reason  for  thinking  that  they  did 
not  strike  northwards  across  the  Tih  range  from 
Sinai,  is  Moses'  question  when  they  murmur, 
"  shall  all  the  fish  of  the  sea  be  gathered  together 
for  them,  to  suffice  them  ?"  which  is  natural  enough 
if  they  were  rapidly  nearing  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah, 
but  strange  if  they  were  posting  towards  the  inland 
heart  of  the  desert.  Again  the  quails  e  are  brought 
by  "  a  wind  from  the  sea  "  (Num.  xi.  22,  31)  ;  and 
various  travellers  (Burckhardt,  Schubert,  Stanley) 
testify  to  the  occurrence  of  vast  flights  of  birds  in 
this  precise  region  between  Sinai  and  'Akabah. 
Again,  Hazeroth,  the  next  station  after  these,  is 


coupled  with  Dizahab,  which  last  seems  undoubt 
edly  the  Dahab  on  the  shore  of  that  gulf  (Dent.  i. 
1,  and  Robinson,  ii.  187,  note).  This  makes  a  sea- 
ward  position  likely  for  Hazeroth.  And  as  Taberah, 
previously  reached,  was  three  days'  journey  or  more 
rom  the  wilderness  of  Sinai,  they  had  probably 
advanced  that  distance  towards  the  N.E.  and  'Aka- 
)ah;  and  the  distance  required  for  this  will  bring  us 
so  near  el-Hudherd  (the  spot  which  Dr.  Robinson 
thought  represented  Hazeroth  in  i'act,  as  it  seems 
;o  do  in  name),  that  it  may  be  accepted  as  a  highly 
probable  site.  Thus  they  were  now  not  far  from 
the  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah.  A  spot  which 
seems  almost  certain  to  attract  their  course  was  the 
Wady  el-  Am,  being  the  water,  the  spring  of  that 
region  of  the  desert,  which  would  have  drawn  around 
t  such  "  nomadic  settlements  as  are  implied  in  the 
name  of  Hazeroth,  and  such  as  that  of  Israel  must 
lave  been  "  ($.  fy  P.  82).  Dr.  Robinson  remarks, 
that  if  this  be  so,  this  settles  the  course  to  Kadesh 
as  being  up  the  'Arabah,  and  not  across  the  plateau 
of  et-Tih.  Dr.  Stanley  thinks  this  identification  a 
faint  pi'obability,"  and  the  more  uncertain  a? 
regards  identity,  "  as  the  name  Hazeroth  is  one  of 
the  least  likely  to  be  attached  to  any  permanent  or 
natural  feature  of  the  desert,"  meaning  "  simply 
the  enclosures,  such  as  may  still  be  seen  in  the  Be 
douin  villages,  hardly  less  transitory  than  tents" 
(8.  8f  P.  81,  82).  We  rely,  however,  rather  on 
the  combination  of  the  various  circumstances  men 
tioned  above  than  on  the  name.  The  Wady  Hu- 
derdh  and  Wadij-el  'Ain,  appear  to  run  nearly  pa 
rallel  to  each  other,  from  S.W.  to  N.E.,  nearly  from 
the  eastern  extremity  of  the  Wady  es-Sheykh,  and 
their  N.E.  extremity  comes  nearly  to  the  coast, 
marking  about  a  midway  distance  between  the  Jebcl 
Musa  and  'Akabah.  In  Hazeroth  the  people  tarried 
seven  days,  if  not  more  (Num.  xi.  35,  xii.),  during 
the  exclusion  of  Miriam  from  the  camp  while 
leprous.  The  next  permanent  encampment  brought 
them  into  the  wilderness  of  Paran,  and  here  the 
local  commentator's  greatest  difficulty  begins. 

For  we  have  not  merely  to  contend  with  the  fact 
that  time  has  changed  the  desert's  face  in  many 
parts,  and  obliterated  old  names  for  new ;  but  wo 
have  beyond  this,  great  obscurity  and  perplexity  in 
the  narrative.  The  task  is,  first,  to  adjust  the  un 
certainties  of  the  record  inter  se,  and  then  to  try 
and  make  the  resultant  probability  square  with  the 
main  historical  and  physical  facts,  so  far  as  the 
latter  can  be  supposed  to  remain  unaltered.  Besides 
the  more  or  less  discontinuous  form  in  which  the 
sacred  narrative  meets  us  in  Exodus,  a  small  portion 
of  Leviticus,  and  the  greater  part  of  Numbers,  we 
have  in  Num.  xxxiii.  what  purports  at  first  sight 
to  be  a  complete  skeleton  route  so  far  as  regards 
nomenclature ;  and  we  further  find  in  Deuteronomy 
a  review  of  the  leading  events  of  the  wandering  or 
some  of  them,  without  following  the  order  of  occur 
rence,  and  chiefly  in  the  way  of  allusion  expanded 
and  dwelt  upon.  Thus  the  authority  is  of  a  threefold 
character.  And  as,  in  the  main  narrative,  whole- 
years  are  often  sunk  as  uneventful,  sc  in  the  itine 
rary  of  Num.  xxxiii.,  on  a  near  view  great  chasms 
occur,  which  require,  where  all  else  bespeaks  a 
severe  uniformity  of  method,  to  be  somehow  nc- 


e  Seetzen  supposes  that  what  are  called  quails  in  Scrip 
ture  were  really  locusts  (Reis&n,  iii.  80) ;  an  opinion  which 
Coquerel  (Laborde,  Comm.  Geogr.  Ex.  xvi.  13)  appears  to 
have  shared.  But  surely  locusts,  as  edible,  are  too  well 
known  in  Scripture  to  make  the  confusion  possible.  Mr, 

VOL.  III. 


Tyrwhitt  says  that  quails,  or  small  partridges,  which  he 
supposes  rather  meant,  are,  as  far  as  he  saw  more  com 
mon  in  the  desert  than  locusts. 

f  Robinson,    ub.   sup.;    comp    Stewart.    T.  and  K, 
116. 

5  U 


1762 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDEEING 


counted  for.  But,  beyond  the  questions  opened  by 
either  authority  in  itself,  we  have  difficulties  of 
apparent  incongruity  between  them ;  such  as  the 
omission  in  Exodus  of  Dophka  and  Alush,  and  of  the 
encampment  by  the  Red  Sea ;  and,  incomparably 
greater,  that  of  the  fact  of  a  visit  to  Kadesh  being 
recorded  in  Num.  xiii.  26,  and  again  in  xx.  1, 
while  the  itinerary  mentions  the  name  of  Kadesh 
only  once.  These  difficulties  resolve  themselves  into 
two  main  questions.  Did  Israel  visit  Kadesh  once, 
or  twice  ?  And  where  is  it  now  to  be  looked  for? 

Before  attempting  these  difficulties  individually, 
it  may  be  as  well  to  suggest  a  caution  against 
certain  erroneous  general  views,  which  often  appear 
to  govern  the  considerations  of  desert  topography. 
One  is,  that  the  Israelites  journeyed,  wherever  they 
could,  in  nearly  a  straight  line,  or  took  at  any  rate 
the  shortest  cute  between  point  and  point.  This 
has  led  some  delineators  of  maps  to  simply  register 
the  file  of  names  in  Num.  xxxiii.  16-36  from 
Sinai  in  rectilinear  sequence  to  Kadesh,  wherever 
they  may  happen  to  fix  its  site,  then  turn  the  line 
backward  from  Kadesh  to  Eziion-Geber,  and  then 
either  to  Kadesh  again,  or  to  Mount  Hor,  and  thence 
again,  and  here  correctly,  down  the  'Arabah  south 
wards  and  round  the  south-eastern  angle  of  Edom, 
with  a  sweep  northwards  towards  Moab.  In 
drawing  a  map  of  the  Wanderings,  we  should  mark 
as  approximately  or  probably  ascertained  the  sta 
tions  from  Etham  to  Hazeroth,  after  which  no 
track  should  be  attempted,  but  the  end  of  the  line 
should  lose  itself  in  the  blank  space  ;  and  out  of  the 
same  blank  space  it  might  on  the  western  side  of 
the  'Arabah  be  similarly  resumed  and  traced  down 
the  'Arabah,  &c.,  as  before  describe'l.  All  the  sites 
of  intervening  stations,  as  being  either  plainly  con 
jectural  merely,  or  lacking  .any  due  authority,  should 
simply  be  marked  in  the  margin,  save  that  Moserah 
m;iy  be  put  close  to  Mount  llor,  and  Ezion-Geber 
further  S.  in  the  'Arabah  [EziON-GEBER],  from 
which  to  the  brook  Zered  and  onwards  to  the  plains 
of  Moab,  the  ambiguities  lie  in  narrow  ground,  and 
a  probable  light  breaks  on  the  route  and  its  stations. 

Another  common  error  is,  that  of  supposing  that 
from  station  to  station,  in  Num.  xxxiii.,  always  re 
presents  a  day's  march  merely,  whereas  it  is  plain 
from  a  comparison  of  two  passages  in  Ex.  (xv. 
22),  and  Num.  (x.  33),  that  on  two  occasions 
three  days  formed  the  period  of  transition  between 
station  and  station,  and  therefore,  that  not  day's 
marches,  but  intervals  of  an  indefinite  number  of 
days  between  permanent  encampments,  are  intended 
by  that  itinerary ;  and  as  it  is  equally  clear  from 
Num.  ix.  22,  that  the  ground  may  have  been  occu 
pied  for  "  two  days,  or  a  month,  or  a  year,"  we 
may  suppose  that  the  occupations  of  a  longer  period 
only  may  be  marked  in  the  itinerary.  And  thus 
the  difficulty  of  apparent  chasms  in  its  enumeration, 
for  instance  the  greatest,  between  Ezion-Geber  and 
Kadesh  (xxxiii.  35-37)  altogether  vanishes. 

An  example  of  the  error,  consequent  on  neglect- 


e  He  speaks  of  certain  stations  as  "  placees  entre  le 
mont  Sinai  et  Cades,  espace  qui  ne  comporte  pas  plus  de 
onze  journSes  selon  1'affirmation  bien  positive  de  Deute- 
ronome  "  (i.  1).  He  then  proceeds  to  argue,  "  Ces.dix-scpt 
stations  reunies  aux  trois  que  nous  venons  d'examiner, 
en  forment  vingt ;  il  y  a  done  neuf  stations . .  .  dont  on  ne 
salt  que  faire."  The  statement  quoted  Irom  Deuteronomy, 
whetner  genuine,  or  an  annotation  that  has  crept  into  the 
text,  merely  states  the  distance  as  ordinari.ly  known  and 
travelled,  and  need  not  indicate  that  the  Israelites  crossed 
it  at  that  rate  of  progress. 


ing  to  notice  this,  may  be  seen  in  Laborde's  map 
of  the  Wanderings,  in  his  Commentary  on  Exodus 
and  Numbers,  in  which  the  stations  named  in 
Num.  xxxiii.  18-34,  are  closely  crowded,  but  be 
tween  those  of  ver.  35  and  those  of  ver.  37  a  large 
void  follows,  and  between  those  of  ver.  37  and  those 
of  ver.  39  a  still  larger  one,  both  of  which,  since  on 
referring  to  the  text  of  his  Commentary  e  we  find 
that  the  intervals  all  represent  day's  marches,  arc 
plainly  impossible. 

Omitting,  then,  for  the  present  all  consideration 
of  the  previous  intervals  after  Hazeroth,  some  sug 
gestions  concerning  the  nomenclature  and  possible 
sites  of  which  will  l»e  found  in  articles  under  their 
respective  names,  the  primary  question,  did  the 
people  visit  Kadesh  twice,  or  once  only,  demands  to 
be  considered. 

We  read  in  Num.  x.  11,  12,  that  "on  the 
twentieth  day  of  the  second  month  of  the  second 
year  .  .  .  the  children  of  Israel  took  their  journeys 
out  of  the  wilderness  of  Sinai,  and  the  doud  rested 
in  the  wilderness  of  Paran."  The  latter  statement 
is  probably  to  be  viewed  as  made  by  anticipation  ; 
as  we  find  that,  after  quitting  Kibroth-Hattaavah 
and  Hazeroth,  "  the  people  pitched  in  the  wilder 
ness  of  Paran"  (Num.  xii.  16).  Here  the  grand 
pause  was  made  while  the  spies,  "sent,"  it  is  again 
impressed  upon  us  (xiii.  3),  ''  from  the  wilderness 
of  Paran,"  searched  the  land  for  "forty  days,"  and 
returned  "  to  Moses  and  to  Aaron,  and  to  all  the 
congregation  .  .  .  unto  the  wilderness  of  Paran  to 
Kadesh."  This  is  the  first  mention  of  Kadesh  in 
the  narrative  of  the  Wanderings  (vers.  25,  26).  It 
may  here  be  observed  that  an  inaccuracy  occurs  in 
the  rendering  of  Moses'  directions  to  the  spies  in 
the  A.  V.  of  xiii.  17,  "get  you  up  by  this  way 
southward"  (1333),  where  "  by  the  South,"  i.  e. 
by  the  border  lying  in  that  direction  from  Palestine, 
is  intended,  as  is  further  plain  from  rer.  22,  "  And 
they  ascended  by  the  south  and  came  to  Hebron," 
».  e.  they  went  northward*  From  considerations 
adduced  under  KADESIF,  it  seems  that  Kadesh  pro 
bably  means  firstly,  a  region  of  the  desert  spoken 
of  as  having  a  relation,  sometimes  with  the  wilder 
ness  of  Paraii,  and  sometimes  with  that  of  Zin 
(comp.  vers.  21,  26)  ;  and  secondly,  a  distinct  city 
within  that  desert  limit.  Now  all  the  conditions 
of  the  narrative  of  the  departure  and  return  of  the 
spies,  and  of  the  consequent  despondency,  murmur 
ing,  and  penal  sentence  of  wandering,  will  be  satis 
fied  by  supposing  that  the  name  ;' Kadesh,"  here 
means  the  region  merely.  It  is  observable,  also, 
that  Kadesh  is  not  named  as  the  place  of  departure, 
but  only  as  that  of  return.  From  Paran  is  the 
start ;  but  from  Zin  (both  regions  in  the  desert) 
the  search  commences.  And  this  agrees  with  the 
political  geography  of  the  southern  border.,  to  which 
the  wilderness  of  Zin  is  always  reckoned  as  pertain 
ing,1  whereas  that  of  Paran  always  lies  outside 
the  promised  land.  Natural  features  of  elevation, 
depression,  and  slope,kaie  the  only  tokens  to  which 

h  The  word  for  "  southward"  would  be  H333,  as  found 
in  En.  xl.  24,  Josh.  xvii.  9,  10.  The  word  333  appear 
to  mean  the  "dry"  country,  and  hence  to  become  .ca 
appellative  for  thf  region  on  the  south  of  Judah  and 
Simeon  where  springs  were  scarce ;  see  The  Negeb  by 
Rev.  E.  Wilton,  pref.  viii. 

i  Num.  xxxiv.  4 ;  Josh.  xv.  3. 

k  For  some  good  remarks  on  the  level  of  the  desert  and 
the  slope  between  the  south  country,  Dead  Sea,  and  the 
'Arabah,  see  Robinson,  i.  587./ 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


176; 


ive  can  reasonably  trust  in  deciding  where  the  Paran 
wilderness  ends,  and  that  of  Zin  begins.  It  has 
been  proposed  under  KADESH  to  regard  part  of  the 
"Arabah,  including  all  the  low  ground  at  the  southern 
and  south-western  extremity  of  the  Dead  Sea,  as 
the  wilderness  of  Zin.  [ZiN.]  Then  the  broad  lower 
north-eastern  plateau,  including  both  its  slopes  as 
described  above,  will  be  defined  as  the  Paran  wilder 
ness  proper.  If  we  assume  the  higher  superimposed 
plateau,  described  above,  to  bear  the  name  of  "  Ka- 
desh"  as  a  desert  district,  and  its  south-western 
mountain-wall  to  be  "  the  mountain  of  the  Amor 
ites,"  then  the  Paran  wilderness,  so  far  as  svno- 
nymous  with  Kadesh,  will  mean  most  naturally 
the  region  where  that  mountain-wall  from  Jebel 
'Aratf  en-Ndkah  to  Jebel  Mukhrah,  and  perhaps 
thence  northward  along  the  other  side  of  the  angle 
of  the  highest  plateau,  overhangs  the  lower  terrace 
of  the  Tt/i.  Moses  identifies  the  coming  "  to  Kadesh 
Barnea '' l  with  the  coming  to  "  the  mountain  of  the 
Amorites"  (Deut.  i.  19,  20)  whence  the  spies  were 
also  despatched  (vers.  22,  23),  which  is  said  to  have 
been  from  "  Paran"  in  Num.  xiii.  3.  Suppose  the 
spies'  actual  start  to  have  been  made  from  some 
where  on  the  watershed  of  the  two  slopes  of  et-Ti/i, 
the  spies'  best  way  then  would  have  been  by  the 
Wady  el-Jerafeh  into  and  so  up  the  'Arabah  :  this 
would  be  beginning  "  from  the  wilderness  of  Zin," 
as  is  said  in  Num.  xiii.  21.  Then,  most  naturally, 
by  his  direction  to  them,  "  go  up  into  the  moun 
tain"  (Num.  xiii.  17),  which  he  represents  as  acted, 
on  in  Deut.  i.  24,  "  and  they  turned  and  went  up 
into  the  mountain,"  he  meant  them  to  mount  the 
higher  plateau,  supposed  the  region  Kadesh.  By 
their  "  turning "  in  order  to  do  so,  it  may  be  in 
ferred  that  their  course  was  not  direct  to  their 
object,  as  indeed  has  been  supposed  in  taking  them 
along  the  'Arabah  and  again  up  its  western  side  by 
the  passes  el-Khurar  and  cs-Sufd  (Zephath)  .m  By 
these  passes  they  muse  have  left  Zin  or  the  'Arabah, 
there  being  no  choice.  During  the  forty  days  of 
their  absence,  we  may  suppose  the  host  to  have 
moved  from  the  watershed  into  the  Kadesh- Paran 
region,  and  not  at  this  period  of  their  wanderings 
to  have  touched  the  city  Kadesh  at  all.  This  is 
quite  consistent  with,  if  it  be  not  even  confirmed 
by,  the  words  of  the  murmurers  in  xiv.  2,  3, 
"  Would  God  we  h;id  died  in  this  wilderness!  And 
wherefore  hath  the  Lord  brought  us  unto  this  land ;" 
and  throughout  the  denunciation  which  follows, 
evidently  on  the  same  spot,  the  words  "  the  wilder 
ness,"  and  "  this  wilderness,"  often  recur,  but  from 
first  to  last  there  is  no  mention  of  a  "  city." 

Now,  in  Deut.  i.  19,  where  these  proceedings 
pass  in  review  before  Moses,  in  his  words  to  the 
people,  there  is,  strictly  speaking,  no  need  to  men 
tion  Kadesh  at  all,  for  the  people  were  all  the  time 
iu  the  wilderness  of  Paran.  Yet  this  last  is  so  wide 
a  term,  reaching  almost  from  the  'Arabah  to  near 
the  Egyptian  frontier,  that  Moses  might  naturally 
use  some  more  precise  designation  of  the  quarter 
he  meant.  He  accordingly  marks  it  by  the  proxi- 

1  For  "  Barnea,"  as  perhaps  a  Horite  proper  name,  see 
KADESH,  note  ». 

<«>  Mr.  Wilton  (Negeb,  12, 198-202),  following  Rowlands 
(in  Williams),  makes  Zephath  es-Sebata  on  the  northern 
side  of  the  high  broad  plateau,  supposed  here  to  be  the 
'•  mountain  of  the  Amorites."  On  this  view  the  Israelites 
must  already  have  won  that  eminence  from  which  it  was 
eleaily  the  intention  of  the  Amorites  to  repel  them  ;  and 
must,  when  defeated,  have  been  driven  up  hill  from  a 
position  occupied  in  the  piain  below.  The  position  es- 


mity  of  Kadesh.  Thus,  the  spies'  return  to  "  the 
wilderness  of  Paran  to  Kadesh  "  means  to  that  part 
of  the  lower  plateau  where  it  is  adjacent  to  the 
higher,  and  probably  the  eastern  side  of  it.  The 
expression  "  from  Kadesh-barnea  even  unto  Gaia," 
is  decisive  of  an  eastern  site  for  the  former 'Josh 
x.  41). 

Here,  as  is  plain  both  from  Num.  xiv.  40-45  and 
from  Deut.  i.  4 1-44,  followed  the  way  ward  attempt  of 
the  host  to  win  their  way,  in  spite  of  their  sentence 
of  prohibition,  to  the  "hill"  (Num.  xiv.  40-45, 
Deut.  i.  41-44)  or  "mountain  "  of  the  Amalekites 
and  Canaanites,  or  Amorites,  and  their  humiliating 
defeat.  They  were  repulsed  in  trying  to  force  the 
pass  at  Hormah  (or  Zephath,  Judg.  i.  14),  and  the 
region  of  that  defeat  is  called  "  Seir,"  showing  that 
the  place  was  also  known  by  its  Horite  name  ;  and 
here  perhaps  the  remnant  of  the  Horites  were 
allowed  to  dwell  by  the  Edomites,  to  whose  border 
this  territory  in  the  message  of  Num.  xx.  16,  is 
ascribed.  [KADKSH.]  Here,  from  the  notice  in 
Num.  xiv.  25,  that  these  "  Amalekites  and  Ca 
naanites  dwelt  in  the  valley  "  we  may  suppose 
that  their  dwelling  was  where  they  would  rind 
pasture  for  their  flocks,  in  the  wady  el-Fikreh  and 
others  tributary  to  el-Jeib,  and  that  they  took  post 
in  the  "  mountain  "  or  "  hill,"  as  barring  the  way 
of  the  Israelites'  advance.  So  the  spies  had  gone 
by  Moses'  direction  "  this  way,  by  the  South  (not 
'  southward,'  as  shown  above),  up  into  the  moun 
tain  ;"  and  this  same  way,  "  the  way  of  the  spies,"  " 
through  the  passes  ofel-Khtirdr  and  es-Sufa,  was  the 
approach  to  the  city  Kadesh  also. 

Here,  then,  the  penal  portion  of  the  wanderings 
commences,  and  the  great  bulk  of  it,  comprising  a 
period  of  nearly  thirty-eight  years,  passes  over 
between  this  defeat  in  Num.  xiv.,  and  the  resump 
tion  of  local  notices  in  Num.  xx.,  where  again  the 
names  of  "  Zin  "  and  "  Kadesh  "  are  the  first  that 
meet  us. 

The  only  events  recorded  during  this  period  (and 
these  are  interspersed  with  sundry  promulgations 
of  the  Ceremonial  Law),  are  the  execution  of  the 
offender  who  gathered  sticks  on  the  Sabbath  (Num. 
xv.  32-36),  the  rebellion  of  Korah  (xvi.),  and, 
closely  connected  with  it,  the  adjudgment  of  the 
pre-eminence  to  Aaron's  house  with  their  kindred 
tribe,  solemnly  confirmed  by  the  judicial  miracle  of 
the  rod  that  blossomed.  This  seems  to  have  been 
followed  by  a  more  rigid  separation  between  Levj 
and  the  other  tribes,  as  regards  the  approach  to  the 
tabernacle,  than  had  been  practically  recognized 
before  (xxvii.  xviii.  22  ;  comp.  xvi.  40). 

We  gather,  then,  from  Deut.  i.  46,  that  the 
greater  part,  perhaps  the  whole,  of  this  period  of 
nearly  thirty-eight  years,  if  so  we  may  interpret 
the  "  many  days  "  there  spoken  of,  was  passed  in 
Kadesh, — the  region,  that  is,  not  the  city ;  in 
which,  bf  course,  the  camp  may  have  been  shifted 
at  convenience,  under  direction,  any  number  of 
times.  But  Num.  xx.  1  brings  us  to  a  new  point 
of  departure.  The  people  have  grown  old,  or 


Sufa,  is  on  the  S.  side  of  the  high  ground,  and  has  pro 
bably  always  been  the  pass  by  which  to  mount  it.  For 
all  this,  see  Mr.  Wilton's  own  map,  or  any  one  which 
shows  both  es-Sebata  and  es-Sufa. 

a  Our  A.  V.  here  seems  to  have  viewed  D'HllNn.  as 
if  derived  from  -^fl  "to  spy."  Gesen.  renders  it  "re 
gions,"  and  the  LXX.  makes  it  a  proper  name  '\0apeiv 
It  is  not  elsewhere  found.  Now  the  verb  "vl  p\  occurs  in 
the  passage  where  the  spies  are  sent  forth,  Num.  xiii,, 
xiv.,  wbMi  gives  a  presumption  in  favour  of  the  A  V. 

5  U  2 


1764 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


rather  again  young,  in  their  wanderings.  Here, 
then,  we  are  at  "the  desert  of  Zin,  in  the  first 
munth,"  with  the  "  people  abiding  in  Kadesh."  By 
the  sequel,  "Miriam  died  there,  and  was  buried 
there"  a  more  precise  definition  of  locality  now 
seems  intended  ;  which  is  further  confirmed  by  the 
subsequent  message  from  the  same  place  to  the  king 
of  Edom,  "  Behold,  we  are  in  Kadesh,  a  city  in  the 
uttermost  of  thy  border"  (v.  16).  This,  then, 
must  be  supposed  tc  coincide  with  the  encampment, 
recorded  as  taking  place  "  in  the  wilderness  of  Zin, 
which  is  Kadesh,"  registered  in  the  itinerary 
(xxxiii.  36).  We  see  then  why,  in  that  register  of 
specific  camping-spots,  there  was  no  necessity  for 
any  previous  mention  of  "  Kadesh ;"  because  the 
earlier  notice  in  the  narrative,  where  that  name 
occurs,  introduces  it  not  as  an  individual  encamp 
ment,  but  only  as  a  region,  within  which  perpetual 
changes  of  encampment  went  on  for  the  greater 
part  of  thirty-eight  years.  We  also  see  that  they 
came  twice  to  Kadesh  the  region,  if  the  city  Kadesh 
lay  in  it,  and  once  to  Kadesh  the  city ;  but  once 
only  to  Kadesh  the  region,  if  the  city  lay  without 
it.  We  are  not  told  how  the  Israelites  came  into 
possession  of  the  city  Kadesh,  nor  who  were  its 
previous  occupants.  The  probability  is  that  these 
last  were  a  remnant  of  the  Horites,  who  after  their 
expulsion  by  Edom  from  Mount  Seir  [EDOM] 
may  have  hei<e  retained  their  last  hold  on  the 
territory  between  Edom  and  the  Canaanitish  Amor- 
ites  of  "  the  South."  Probably  Israel  took  it  by 
force  of  arms,  which  may  have  induced  the  attack 
of  "  Arad  the  Canaanite,"0  who  would  then  feel  his 
border  immediately  threatened  (Num.  xxxiii.  40  ; 
comp.  xxi.  1).  This  warlike  exploit  of  Israel  may, 
perhaps,  be  alluded  to  in  Judges  v.  4  as  the  oc 
casion  when  Jehovah  "  went  out  of  Seir "  and 
"  marched  out  of  the  field  of  Edom  "  to  give  His 
people  victory.  The  attack  of  Arad,  however. 


though  with  some  slight  success  at  first,  only 
brought  defeat  upon  himself  and  destruction  ujv>n 
his  cities  (xxi.  3).P  We  learn  from  xxxiii.  36  only 
that  Israel  marched  without  permanent  halt  from 
Ezion-geber  upon  Kadesh.  This  sudden  activity 
after  their  long  period  of  desultory  and  purposeless 
wandering  may  have  alarmed  King  Arad.  Tha 
itinerary  takes  here  another  stride  from  Kadtrsh  "0 
Mount  Hor.  There  their  being  engaged  with  tvie 
burial  of  Aaron  may  have  given  Arad  his  fancied 
opportunity  of  assaulting  the  rear  of  their  march, 
he  descending  from  the  north  whilst  they  also  *vere 
facing  southwards.  In  direct  connexion  with  these 
events  we  come  upon  a  singular  passage  in  Deuter 
onomy  (x.  6,  7),  a  scrap  of  narrative  imbedded  in 
Moses'  recital  of  events  at  Horeb  long  previous.! 
This  contains  a  short  list  of  names  of  localities,  on 
comparing  which  with  the  itinerary,  we  get  some 
clue  to  the  line  of  march  from  the  region  Kadesh 
to  Ezion-geber  southwards. 

We  find  at  the  part  of  their  route  in  which 
Aaron's  death  took  place,  that  stations  namea 
"  Beeroth  of  the  children  of  Jaakan,  Mosera  (where 
Aaron  died),  Gudgodah,  and  Jotbath,"  were  suc 
cessively  passed  through  ;  and  from  Num.  xxxiii.  38 
we  find  that  "  Aaron  went  up  into  Mount  Hor.  .  . 
and  died  there  in  the  fortieth  year  ...  in  the 
first  day  of  the  fifth  month."  Assuming  for 
Mount  Hor  the  traditional  site  overhanging  the 
'Arabah.  which  they  very  soon  after  this  quitted, 
Mosera  must  have  been  close  to  it,  probably  in  the 
'Arabah  itself.  Now  the  stations  which  in  the 
itinerary  come  next  before  Ezion-geber,  and  which 
were  passed  in  the  strictly  penal  wandering  which 
commenced  from  the  region  Kadesh,  have  names  so 
closely  similar  tlvat  we  cannot  doubt  we  are  here 
on  the  same  ground.  Their  order  is,  however, 
slightly  changed,  standing  in  the  two  passages  as 
follows : — 


CONJECTURAL  SITE. 

NUM.  xxxiii.  30-35. 

DEUT.  x.  6,  7. 

(a)  'Ain  Hasb,  N.W.  in  the  'Arabah. 

(a)  (Hashmonah). 

(1)  Kusheibeh,  mouth  of  the  Wady  Abu, 

(1)  Moseroth. 

(1)  Beeroth  of  the  chfcdren 

near  tbe  foot  of  Mount  Hor. 

of  Jaakan. 

(2)  'Ain  GMritndd. 

(2)  Bene-Jaakan.' 

(2)  Mosera. 

(3)  Wady  d-Ghudkagiah. 

(3)  Hor-hagfdgad. 

(3)  Gudgodah. 

(4)  Confluence  of  Wady  el-Adhbek  with 

(4)  Jotbathah. 

(4)  Jotbatb.» 

el-Jerofth. 

(Ebronah). 

(Ezion-geber). 

0  More  properly  "  the  Canaanitish  king  of  Arad." 
P  He  "took  some  of"  the  Israelites  "prisoners."  It  is 
possible  the  name  Mosera.  or  plur.  Moseroth,  may  recall 
this  fact-;  the  word  "IDID,  (found  only  in  the  plur.), 
meaning  "  bonds  "  or  "  fetters."  This  would  accord  with 
the  suggestion  of  the  text  that  Aaron's  burial  gave  Arad 
the  opportunity  for  his  raid ;  for  Mosera  must  have  been 
near  Mount  Hot,  where  that  burial  took  place.  It  is 
possible  that  the  destruction  of  these  cities  may  not 
have  really  taken  place  till  the  entry  Into  Canaan  under 
Joshua  (Josh.  xii.  14,  Judg.  i.  17),  and  may  be  mentioned 
In  Num.  xxi.  2,  3,  by  anticipation  only  as  a  subsequent 
fulfilment  of  the  vow  recorded  as  then  made.  It  is  obvious 
to  suggest  that  Modera  is  the  Mosera  of  Dent.  x.  6,  and 
so  Mr.  Wilton  (The  A'egeb,  28  £c.)  has  suggested,  wish 
ing  to  identify  it  with  Mouflt  Hor.  But  the  received  site 
for  Mount  Hor  is  the  least  doubtful  of  all  in  the  Exodus. 
j'osephus  clearly  identifies  it  as  we  do  ;  and  there  is 
a  strong  improbability  in  a  Jewish  tradition  fixing  it  in 
Kdoniitish  or  in  Nabathean  territory,  unless  the  testimony 
In  its  favour  had  been  overpowering.  Modera  might  per 
haps  be  the  hill  called  "Siu"  (Zin  ?),  mentioned  by  Josephus 
as  that  in  which  Miriam  was  buried  (Ant  iv.  4,  £  6.  7). 


i  A  somewhat  similar  fragment  of  narrative,  but  re 
lating  to  what  perhaps  took  place  during  the  time  of  the 
allocution'  to  the  people  between  the  paragraphs  of  which 
it  occurs,  is  found  in  J)eut.  iv.  41-43;  and  indeed  the 
mention  of  Aaron's  death,  with  the  date  and  his  aae,  o:.d 
of  the  attack  of  Arad,  both  of  which  had  been  detailed 
before,  is  hardly  less  of  a  deviation  from  the  dry  enume 
ration  of  stations  in  the  Itinerary  itself  (Num.  xxxiii. 
38,  39).  But  it  would  be  foreign  to  our  present  purpose 
to  enter  on  the  critical  questions  .which  these  passages 
suggest.  We  assume  their  genuineness,  and  suppose  them 
displaced. 

r  See  JAAKAN  and  BENE  JAAKAN  for  the  name.  Jaakan 
was  the  grandson  of  Seir  (1  Chr.  i.  42,  comp.  Gen.  xiy.  6, 
xxxvi.  27). 

8  Dr.  Robinson,  judging  from  his  visit,  thinks  that  these 
stations  could  not  have  lain  to  the  S.  of  Mount  Hor,  as 
that  region  is  too  poor  in  water  to  contain  any  such 
place  as  Jotbath  in  Deut.  x.  7,  and  corresponds  rather 
to  the  description  given  in  Num.  xxi.  4-6  (ii.  175). 
He  thinks  that  'Ain  et-Tayibek  is  either  Beeroth  Bere 
Jaakan  or  Moseroth,  and  Wady  cl-GhMhagidh  Jotbath 
(ibid.-}. 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDBBIN6 


1766 


Now  in  Nuni  *x.  14,  16,  22-29,  the  narrative 
co.iducts  us  from  Kadesh  the  city,  readied  in  or 
shortly  before  "  the  fortieth  year,"  to  Mount  Hor, 
where  Aaron  died,  a  portion  of  which  route  is  ac 
cordingly  that  given  in  Dent.  x.  6,  7 ;  whereas  the 
parallel  column  from  Num.  xxxiii.  gives  substantially 
the  same  route  as  pursued  in  the  early  part  of  the 
penal  wandering,  when  fulfilling  the  command  given 
in  the  region  Kadesh,  "  turn  you,  get  you  into  the 
wilderness  by  the  way  of  the  Red  Sea  "  (Num.  xiv. 
25  ;  Deut.  i.  40),  which  command  we  further  learn 
from  Deut.  ii.  1  was  strictly  acted  on,  and  which  a 
march  towards  Ezion-geber  would  exactly  fulfil. 

These  half-obliterated  footsteps  in  the  desert  may 
seem  to  indicate  a  direction  only  in  which  Kadesh 
+.he  city,*  lay.  Widely  different  localities,  from 
Petra  eastward  to  el-Khalesah  on  the  north-west, 
and  westward  to  near  the  Jebel  Jfellak,  have  been 
assigned  by  different  writers.  The  best  way  is  to 
acknowledge  that  our  research  has  not  yet  grasped 
the  materials  for  a  decision,  and  to  be  content  with 
some  such  attempt  as  that  under  KADESH,  to  fix 
it  approximately  only,  until  more  undoubted  tokens 
are  obtained.  The  portion  of  the  arc  of  a  circle 
with  cs-Sufa  for  its  centre,  and  a  day's  journey — 
about  fifteen  miles — for  its  radius,  will  not  take  in 
el-Khdhsah,  nor  Petra,0  and  the  former  name  seems 
to  be  traceable,  with  a  slight  metathesis,  much 
more  probably  in  Chesil*  than  in  Kadesh  J  The 
highest  plateau  is  marked  with  the  ruins  of  Aboda, 
and  on  the  inferior  one,  some  miles  S.W.  of  the 
defile  of  the  Wady  el-Fikreh  stands  a  round  conical 
hill  of  limestone,  mixed  with  sand,  named  Mada- 
rah  (Modura,  or  Modem),  at  a  short  day's  journey 
from  the  southern  end  of  the  Dead  Sea.  Seetzen, 
who  visited  it,  had  had  his  curiosity  raised  by  a 
Bedouin  legend  of  a  village  having  been  destroyed 
by  Allah  and  buried  under  that  hill  for  the  wick 
edness  of  its  people  ;  and  that,  as  a  further  attes 
tation,  human  skulls  were  found  on  the  ground 
around  it.  This  statement  he  resolved  by  visiting 
the  spot  into  a  simple  natural  phenomenon  of  some 
curious  rounded  stones,  or  pebbles,  which  abound 
in  the  neighbourhood.  He  thought  it  a  legend  of 
Sodom  ;  and  it  might,  with  equal  likelihood,  have 
been  referred  to  the  catastrophe  of  Korah  (Seetzen, 
Rciscn,  iii.  13),  which,  if  our  sites  for  Kadesh  the 
region  and  Paran  are  correct,  should  have  occurred 
in  the  neighbourhood,  were  it  not  far  more  probable 
that  the  physical  appearance  of  the  round  pebbles 
having  once  given  rise  to  the  story  of  the  skulls,  the 
legend  was  easily  generated  to  account  for  them. 


The  mountains  on  the  west  of  the  'Arabah  must 
have  been  always  poor  in  water,  and  form  a  dreary 
contrast  to  the  rich  springs  of  the  eastern  side  in 
Mount  Seir.  From  the  cliff  front  of  this  last, 
Mount  Hor  stands  out  prominently  ''Robinson.  Ii. 
174-180).  It  has  been  suggested  [HoR  HAGID- 
GAD]  that  the  name  Ha-gidgad,  or  Gudirodnh, 
may  possibly  be  retraced  in  the  Wady  el-Ghudlui- 
ghidh,  which  has  a  confluence  with  the  Wad;/  el- 
Jem  f  eh.  This  latter  runs  into  the  'Arabah  on  the 
west  side.  That  point  of  confluence,  as  laid  down  in 
Kiepert's  map  (Hobinson,  B.  R.  i.),  is  about  fifteen 
miles  from  the  'Arabah's  nearest  point,  and  about 
forty  or  forty-five  from  the  top  of  Mount  Hor.  On 
the  whole  it  seems  likely  enough  that  the  name  ot 
this  Wady  may  really  represent  that  of  this  station, 
although  the  latter  may  have  lain  nearer  the 
'Arabah  than  the  Wady  now  reaches,  and  this  con 
jectural  identification  has  been  adopted  above. 
Jot  bath,  or  Jotbatha,*  is  described  as  "a  land  ot 
rivers  of  waters "  (Deut.  x.  7) ;  and  may  stand 
for  any  confluence  of  wadys  in  sufficient  force  to 
justify  that  character.  It  should  certainly  be  in 
the  southern  portion  of  the  'Arabah,  or  a  little  to 
the  west  of  the  same. 

The  probabilities  of  the  whole  march  from  Sinai, 
then,  seem  to  stand  as  follows :  They  proceeded 
towards  the  N.E.  to  the  'Am  el-Huderak  (Haze- 
roth),  and  thence  quitted  the  maritime  region, 
striking  directly  northwards  to  el-Ain,  and  thence 
by  a  route  wholly  unknown,  perhaps  a  little  to 
the  E.  of  N.  across  the  lower  eastern  spurs  of  the 
ct-Tih  range,  descending  the  upper  course  of  the 
Wady  el-Jerafeh,  until  the  south-eastern  angle  ot 
the  higher  plateau  confronted  them  at  the  Jebel 
el-Miikhrah.  Hence,  after  despatching  the  spies, 
they  moved  perhaps  into  the  'Arabah,  or  along  its 
western  ovfvhanging  hills,  to  meet  their  return. 
Then  followed  the  disastrous  attempt  at  or  near 
es-Sufa  (Zephath),  and  the  penal  wandering  in  the 
wilderness  of  Kadesh,  with  a  track  wholly  undeter 
mined,  save  in  the  last  half-dozen  stations  to 
Ezion-geber  inclusively,  as  shown  just  above. 
They  then  marched  on  Kadesh  the  city,  probably 
up  the  'Arabah  by  these  same  stations,  took  it,  and 
sent  from  there  the  message  to  Edom.  The  refusal 
with  which  it  was  met  forced  them  to  retrace  the 
'Arabah  once  more,  and  meanwhile  Aaron  died. 
Thus  the  same  stations  (Deut.  x.  6,  7)  were  passed 
again,  with  the  slight  variation  just  noticed,  pro 
bably  caused  by  the  command  to  resort  .0  Mount 
Hor  which  that  death  occasioned.*  Thence,  after 


*  Laborde  (Comment,  on  Num.  xxxiii.  36)  places  Kadesh 
the  city  "  pres  des  sources  d'Einbasch  au  fond  de  Ouadi 
Djerafi  "  (  Wady  el-Jerafdi).  Dr.  Robinson  thought  'Aind~ 
Weibeh  was  Kadesh,  the  city,  or,  as  he  calls  it,  Kadesh 
Barnea  (see  Map,  vol.  i.,  end).    Dr.  Stanley  remarks  that 

there  is  no  cliff  (V?D)  there.  See  his  remarks  quoted 
under  KADESH. 

u  Robinson  puts  es-Stifa  at  about  two  days'  Journey 
from  the  foot  of  Mount  Hor,  ii.  180-1. 

»  As  suggested  in  Wlliiams's  Holy  City,  i.  464. 

y  The  northern  Kadesh,  or  Kedesh,  in  Napl  tali  has  the 
very  same  consonants  in  its  modern  Arabic  name  as  in  the 
Hebrew. 

*  A  writer  in  the  Journal  of  Sac.  Lit.  April,  I860, 
connects  this  name  with  2t3»  "  good,"  from  the  goodness 
of  the  water  *upply.    This  is  not  unlikely;  but  his  view 
of  the  name  HUP"1,  as  from  the  same  root  as  the  Arabic 
s  ^o  - 

2L)<Jt£>  'Adhbeh,  is  very  doubtful,  the  £  (Heb.  JJ)  being 
pa  bably  radical.  However,  if  elr'Adhbeh  be:  as  he  avers, 


a  region  of  abundant  water,  the  place  may  correspond 
with  Jotbatb,  though  the  name  do  not.  His  map  places 
it  about  If  miles  N.W.  of  the  modern  extremity  of  the 
Gulf  of  'Akabah— i.  e.  on  the  western  side  of  the  'Arabah. 
His  general  view  of  the  route  to  and  from  Kadesb,  and 
especially  of  the  site  of  Sinai  and  Mount  Hor,  is  in 
admissible.  See  further  towards  the  end  of  this  article. 
Burckhardt's  map  gives  another  watery  spot  with  palm- 
trees  in  the  'Arabah  itself,  not,  far  from  its  southern  end, 
which  might  also  suit  for  Jotbath. 

»  Hengstenberg  (Authenticity  of  the  Pent.  ii.  356)  has 
another  explanation  of  the  deranged  order  of  the  stations 
enumerated  just  above,  based  on  the  supposition  that  in 
the  two  passages  (Num.  xxxiii.  30-35,  Dei  t.  x.  6,  7)  the 
march  proceeded  in  two  opposite  directions;  but  this 
would  obviously  require  a  reverse  order  of  all  the  stations, 
and  not  the  derangement  of  two  merely.  Von  Raurner 
thought  that  the  line  of  march  threaded  the  'Arabah 
thrice  through,  and,  making  allowance  for  the  mistake  of 
giving  it  each  time  a  nearly  rectilinear  direction,  he  ii 
not  far  wrong. 


176t) 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


reaching  'Akabah,  aud  turning  north-eastward,  they 
passed  by  a  nearly  straight  line  towards  the  eastern 
border  of'  MoaL. 

Of  the  stations  in  the  list  from  Rithmah  to 
Mithcah,  both  inclusive,  nothing  is  known.  The 
fatter,  with  the  few  preceding  it,  probably  belong 
to  the  wilderness  of  Kadesh ;  but  no  line  can  be 
assigned  to  the  route  beyond  the  indications  of 
the  situation  of  that  wilderness  given  above.  In 
the  sequel  to  the  burial  of  Aaron,  and  the  refusal 
of  Edom  to  permit  Israel  to  "  pass  through  his 
border " b  (which  refusal  may  perhaps  have  been 
received  at  Mount  Hor  (Moserah),  though  the 
message  which  it  answered  was  sent  from  the  city 
Kadesh),  occurred  the  necessity,  consequent  upon 
this  refusal,  of  the  people's  "  compassing  the  land 
of  Edom"  (Num.  xxi.  4'),  when  they  were  much 
"  discouraged  because  of  the  way,"  c  and  where  the 
consequent  murmuring  was  rebuked  by  the  visita 
tion  of  the  "  fiery  serpents"  (v.  5, 6).  There  is  near 
Elath  a  promontory  known  as  the  Eds  Um  Haye, 
"  the  mother  of  serpents,"  which  seem  to  abound 
in  the  region  adjacent ;  and,  if  we  may  suppose  this 
the  scene  of  that  judgment,  the  event  would  be 
thus  connected  with  the  line  of  march,  rounding 
the  southern  border  of  Mount  Seir,  laid  down  in 
Deut.  ii.  8,  as  being  "  through  the  way  of  the  plain 
(i.e.  the  'Arabah)  from  Elath  and  from  Ezion- 
geber,"  whence  "  turning  northward,"  having 
"  compassed  that  mountain  (Mount  Seir)  long 
enough,"  they  "  passed  by  the  way  of  the  wilder 
ness  of  Moab"  (v.  3,8). 

Some  permanent  encampment,  perhaps  repre 
sented  by  Zalmonah  in  Num.  xxxiii.  41,  42,  seems 
here  to  have  taken  place,  to  judge  from  the  urgent 
expression  of  Moses  to  the  people  in  Deut.  ii.  13 : 
"  Now  rise  up,  said  I,  and  get  you  over  the  brook 
Zered,"  which  lay  further  N.  a  little  E.,  being 
probably  the  Wady  el-Ahsy  (Robinson,  ii.  157). 
[ZERED,]  The  delay  caused  by  the  plague  of  ser 
pents  may  be  the  probable  account  of  this  apparent 
urgency,  which  would  on  this  view  have  taken 
place  at  Zalmonah  ;  and  as  we  have  connected  the 
scene  of  that  plague  with  the  neighbourhood  of 
Elath,  so,  if  we  suppose  Zalmonah d  to  have  lain 
in  the  Wady  ftkm,  which  has  its  junction  with  the 
'Arabah  close  to  'Akabah,  the  modern  site  of  Elath, 
this  will  harmonize  the  various  indications,  and 
form  a  suitable  point  of  departure  for  the  last  stage 
of  the  wandering,  which  ends  at  the  brook  Zered 
(v.  14).  Dr.  Stanley,  who  passed  through  'Akabah, 


thus  describes  the  spot  in  question  'S.  and  P.  84, 
85)  :  "  'Akabah  is  a  wretched  village  shrouded  in  ti 
palm-grove  at  the  north  end  of  the  gulf,  gathered 
round  a  fortress  built  for  the  protection  of  the 
Mecca  pilgrimage.  .  .  .  This  is  the  whole  object  ol 
the  present  existence  of  'Akabah,  which  stands  on 
the  site  of  the  ancient  Elath, — '  the  Palm-Trees,' 
so  called  from  the  grove.  Its  situation,  however, 
is  very  striking,  looking  down  the  beautiful  gulf, 
with  its  jagged  ranges  on  each  side.  On  the  west 
is  the  great  black  pass,  down  which  the  pilgrimage 
descends,  and  from  which  'Akabah  (« the  Pass')  de 
rives  its  name  ;  on  the  north  opens  the  wide  plain, 
or  Desert  Valley,  wholly  different  in  character  from 
anything  we  have  seen,  still  called,  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  Moses,  « the  'Arabah.'  Down  this  came 
the  Israelites  on  their  return  from  Kadesh,  and 
through  a  gap  up  the  eastern  hills  they  finally 
turned  off  to  Moab.  .  .  .  This  is  the  Wady  Ithm, 
W'hich  turns  the  eastern  range  of  the  'Arabah.  .  .  . 
It  is  still  one  of  the  regular  roads  to  Petra,  and  in 
ancient  times  seems  to  have  been  the  main  approach 
from  Elath  or  'Akabah.  .  .  .  The  only  published 
account  of  it  is  that  of  Laborde.  These  mountains 
appear  to  be  granite,  till,  as  we  advance  north 
ward,  we  reach  the  entrance  of  the  Wady  Tubal, 
where,  for  the  first  time,  red  sandstone  appears  in 
the  mountains,  rising,  as  in  the  Wady  el-'Ain, 
architecture-wise  above  grey  granite." 

Three  stations,  Punon,*  Oboth,  and  Ije-Abarim, 
were  passed  between  this  locality  and  the  brook  or 
valley  of  Zered  (Num.  xxi.  10-12,  comp.  xxxiii. 
43,  44),  which  last  name  does  not  occur  in  the 
itinerary,  as  neither  do  those  of  "  the  brooks  of 
Arnon,"  Beer,  Mattanah,  Nahaliel,  and  Bamoth, 
all  named  in  Num.  xxi.  14-20  ;  but  the  interval 
between  Ije-Abarim  and  Nebo,  which  last  corre 
sponds  probably  (see  Deut.  xxxiv.  1)  with  the 
Pisgahf  of  xxi.  20,  is  filled  by  two  stations  merely, 
named  Dibon-gad  and  Almon-diblathaim,  from 
whence  we  may  infer  that  in  these  two  only  were 
permanent  halts  made.  [DIBON-GAD,  ALMON- 
DIBLATHAIM.]  In  this  stage  of  their  progress 
occurred  the  "digging"  of  the  "well"  by  "the 
princes,"  the  successive  victories  over  Sihon  and 
Og,  and,  lastly,  the  famous  episodes  of  Balaam  and 
Phinehas,  and  the  final  numbering  of  the  people, 
followed  by  the  chastisement  of  the  Midianites 
(Num.  xxi.  17,  xxii.-xxvi.,  xxxi.  1-12;  comp. 
Deut.  ii.  24-37,  iii.  1-17). 

One   passage   remains   in  which,  although  the 


»>  Dr.  Robinson  thinks  that  by  the  "  King's  Highway" 
the  Wady  Ghuweir,  opening  a  thoroughfare  into  the  heart 
of  the  Edomitish  territory  was  meant  (it.  157).  Though 
the  passage  through  Edom  was  refused,  the  burial  of  the 
most  sacred  person  of  a  kindred  people  may  have  been  al 
lowed,  especially  if  Mount  Hor  was  already,  as  Dr.  Stanley 
suggests,  a  local  sanctuary  of  the  region  (S.  &  P.  97-98). 

«  The  way  up  the  'Arabah  was  toilsome,  and  is  so  at 
this  day.  Dr.  Robinson  calls  it  "a  still  more  frightful 
desert"  than  the  Sinaitic  (".  184).  The  pass  at  the  head 
of  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah  towards  et-Tih  "  is  famous  for  its 
difficulty,  and  for  the  destruction  which  it  causes  to 
animals  of  burden  "  (i.  176).  Only  two  travellers,  Laborde 
and  Bertou,  have  accomplished  (or  recorded  their  accom 
plishment  of)  the  entire  length  of  the  'Arabah. 

d  Voa  Raumer  identifies  it  with  Moan,  a  few  minutea 
to  the  E.  of  Petra. 

e  Pnnon  is  spoken  of  by  Jerome  (Reland,  592)  as 
"  Quondam  civitas  princlpum  Edom  nunc  viailus  in  dc- 
serto,  ubi  aevura  metalla  danmatoriim  suppliciis  effodi- 
nntur  inter  civitatem  Petram  et  Zoaraui."  Athanas. 
J£t<ist.  ad  $olit.  Vitwn  Agentes,  speaks  of  the  condemnation 


of  a  person,  to  the  mines  of  Phaeno,  where  he  would  only 
live  a  few  days.  Winer  says,  Seetzen  took  Kalaat  Phevan 
for  Punon,  referring  to  Monatl.  Corresp.  xvii.  137.  La 
borde  (Comment,  on  Num.  xxxiii.  42)  thinks  that  the 
place  named  by  Jerome  and  Athanasius  cannot  be  Punon, 
which  he  says  lay  S.E.  of  Petra.  He  adds  that  Burckhardt 
and  Von  Raumer  took  Tufileh  for  Punon.  He  places 
Oboth  "dans les decombres de  Butaieh (B&tdhy, Robinson), 
laissant  ainsi  Maan  a  droite." 

f  Dr.  Stewart  (T.  <fe  K.  386)  says,  "The  river  Arnon 
empties  itself  into  the  Dead  Sea,  and  between  them  rises 
the  lofty  Gebel  Atarous,  which  is  believed  to  be  the  Nebo 
or  J'isgah  of  Scripture."  He  justifies  this  from  its  being 
the  highest  mountain  on  the  Moabitish  border,  and  from 
the  hot  spring  Callirhoe  being  situated  at  its  base,  which 
seems  to  correspond  with  the  Ashdoth  ("  springs "  or 
"streams")  of  Pisgah  of  Deut.  iv.  49.  He  adds  that 
"  Moses  could  have  seen  the  land  of  Israel  from  that 
mountain."  The  Arnon  is,  without  doubt,  the  Wcvlij 
el-Mojeb.  Ar  of  Moab  is  Areopolis.  Rabbath  Moab,  now 
Rabba  [An-MoA 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDEHING 


1707 


event  recorded  belongs  to  the  close  of  Moses'  life, 


18GO,  on  Sinai,  Kadesh,    and  Mount   ffot;  pro. 


pounds  an  entirely  original  view  of  these  sites,  hi 
conflict  with  every  known  tradition  and  hitherto 


relating  to  his  last   words  in  the  plain  of'  Moab, 

and  as  such  lies  beyond  the  scope  of  tiiis  article, 

several  names  of  places  yet  occur  which  are  iden-  I  accepted  theory  ,h     For  instance,  Josephus   identi 

tical  with  some  herein  considered,  and  it  remains  j  fies  Mount  Hor  with  Petra  and  Kerek ;   Jerome 

to  be  seen  in  what  sense  those  places  are  connected  '  and  Kosmas  point  to  Serbdl  in  the  granitic  mouu- 


with  the  scene  of  that  event.  The  passage  in 
question  is  Deut.  i.  1,  where  Moses  is  said  to  have 
spoken  "  on  this  side  Jordan  in  the  wilderness,  in 
the  plain  over  against  the  Red  Sea,  between  Paran 
and  Tophel,  and  Laban  and  Hazeroth  and  Dizahab."8 
The  words  "  on  this  side "  might  here  mislead, 
meaning,  as  shown  by  the  LXX.  rendering,  irfpav, 
"  across"  or  "  beyond,"  i.  e.  on  the  E.  side.  This 
is  a  passage  in  which  it  is  of  little  use  to  examine 
the  question  by  the  aid  of  maps,  since  the  more 
accurate  they  are,  the  more  probably  will  they 
tend  to  confuse  our  view  of  it.  The  words  seem  to 
forget  that  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah  presents  its  end  to 
the  end  of  the  'Arabah  ("plain,"),  and  to  assume 
that  it  presents  the  length  of  its  coast,  on  which 
l>i/ahab  (Dahab}  lies.  This  length  of  coast  is  re 
garded,  then,  as  opposite  to  the  'Arabah  ;  and  thus 
the  'Arabah,  in  which  Moses  spoke,  is  defined  by 
"  Paran  and  Tophel,"  lying  on  opposite  edges  of 
the  Dead  Sea,  or  rather  of  the  whole  depression  in 
which  it  lies,  which  is  in  fact  the  'Arabah  continued 
northward.  Paran  here  is  perhaps  the  El  Paran  to 
which  Chedorlaomer  came  in  Gen.  xiv.  6  [PARAN], 
and  probably  Tophel  is  the  well-known  Tufilen  to 
the  N.N.E.  of  Petra;  and  similarly  the  Red  Sea, 
"  over  against"  which  it  is  spoken  of  as  lying,  is 
defined  by  Dizahab  on  its  coast,  and  Hazeroth  near 
the  same.  The  introduction  of  "  Laban"  is  less 
means,  from  its  etymology, 
the  chalk  and  limestone  region, 
which  in  the  mountain-range  of  Till,  comes  into 
view  from  the  Edomitish  mountains  (Stanley,  S. 
and  P.  87),  and  was  probably  named,  from  that 
point  of  view,  by  the  paler  contrast  which  it  there 
offered  to  the  rich  and  varied  hues  of  the  sandstones 
and  granites  of  Mount  Seir,  which  formed  their 
own  immediate  foreground. 

A  writer  in  the  Journal  of  Sac.  Lit.,  April, 


clear,   but  probably 
"the  white,"  i.e.  th 


tain  region  as  Sinai ;  but  this  writer  sets  aside 
Josephus'  testimony  as  a  wholly  corrupt  tradition, 
invented  by  the  Rabbis  in  their  prejudice  against 
the  Idumeans,  in  whose  territory  between  Eleu- 
theropolis,  Petra,  and  Elath  (see  Jerome  on  Obal.], 
he  asserts  they  all  lay.  [EoOMiTES.J  Kadesh  the 
city,  and  perhaps  Kadesh  Bainea,  did  so  lie.  and 
possibly  Elusa,  now  el-Khdlesah,  may  retain  a 
trace  of  "  Kadesh,"  several  types  of  which  nomen 
clature  are  to  be  found  in  the  region  lying  thence 
southward  [KADESH]  ;  but  el-Xhalesak  lies  too 
for  N.  and  W.  to  be  the  Kadesh  Barnea  to  which 
Israel  came  "  by  the  way  of  the  spies,"  and  which 
is  clearly  in  far  closer  connexion  with  Zephath 
(es-Sufa)  than  el-Khdlesah  could  be.  On  the  con 
trary,  there  seems  great  reason  for  thinking  that, 
had  so  well-known  and  historical  a  place  as  Elusa 
been  the  spot  of  any  great  event  in  the  history  of 
the  Exodus,  the  tradition  would  probably  have  been 
traceable  in  some  form  or  other,  whereas  there  is 


not  a  trace  of  any.     Kadesh,  a 


lay 


the 


uttermost  of  the  border"  of  Edom.  Now,  although 
that  border  may  not  have  lain  solely  E.  of  the 
'Arabah,  it  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  known  facts 
to  extend  it  to  Elusa ;  for  then  the  enemies  en 
countered  in  Hormah  would  have  been  Edomites, 
whereas  they  were  Amalekites,  Canaanites,  and 
Amorites;  and  Israel,  in  forcing  the  pass,  would 
have  been  doing  what  we  know  they  entirely  ab 
stained  from — attempting  violence  to  the  territory 
of  Edom.  The  "  designs"  which  this  writer  attri 
butes  to  the  "  Rabbis,"  as  regards  the  period  up  to 
Josephus'  time,  are  gratuitous  imputations ;  nor 
does  he  cite  any  authorities  for  this  or  any  other 
statement.  Nor  was  there  any  such  feeling  against 
the  Idumeans  as  he  supposes,'  They  annexed  pait 
of  the  territory  of  Judah  and  Simeon  during  the 
Captivity,  and  were  subsequently,  by  the  warlike 


3HT  H]  rmm_  |31  a'P?/1  JlNa  are  the 
words  of  the  Heb.  text,  from  which  the  LXX.  offers  some 
divergencies,  being  as  follows : — irepav  TOV  'lopSavov  iv 
rf)  ep»j,aoj  Trpb?  Sucr/w.ats  irkricriov  TTJS  epvOpas  0aA.a<r<njs 
'  $apav  To<|>6A.,  Kal  A.ofibv  Kal  AvAwy  KCU  Kara- 
The  phrase  5|-1D"Q\  if  "Red  Sea"  be,  as  the 
LXX.  confirms,  the  true  meaning,  is  here  abridged 
into  pj.lD-  The  word  !"Q""lJJ3  was  possibly  differently 
read  by  the  LXX.  (query,  3^3,  as  if  "the  evening" 
\vere=  «  the  west,"  fivo-jixat),  whilst  fcapav  To<£6A  looks 
as  though  it  were  meant  for  one  compound  name ;  and 
the  two  last  names  are  translated,  Hazeroth  being="  en 
closures,"  and  Di-zahab="  the  golden."  N.B.  Hazeroth 
elsewhere  is  represented  by  'Aa-rjptoO  (Num.  xi.  35,  xii.  1, 
16). 

h  Some  incidental  errors  of  this  writer,  though  unim 
portant,  may  assist  in  forming  an  estimate  of  his  work. 
Thus  he  identifies  Petra  with  Bozrah,  the  former  being 
the  capita!  of  the  later  Nabatheans,  the  latter  that  of 
the  Edom  of  the  prophetic  period  arid  locally  distinct. 
Again  he  says,  "  Of  all  the  people  in  the  universe  the  race 
most  detested  by  the  Jews  were  the  Jdumeans."  That 
race  has  generally  been  thought,  on  good  authority,  to 
be  the  Samaritans. 

s  Sorae   ft-eling  of  rivalry   there   no   doubt  was ;   but 


this  writer  vastly  exaggerates  it,  in  supposing  that  in* 
Jewish  Rabbis  purposely  obliterated  genuine  traditions, 
which  referred  these  sites  to  Idumean  territory — that  o; 
a  circumcised  and  vanquished  race  who  had  accepted  the 
place  of  "  proselytes  of  the  covenant " — in  order  to  transfer 
them  to  what  was  then  the  territory  of  the  purely  Gentile 
and  often  hostile  Nabatheans.  Surely  a  transfer  the  other 
way  would  have  been  far  more  likely.  Above  all,  what 
reason  is  there  for  thinking  that  the  Rabbis  of  the  period 
busied  themselves  witn  sucn  points  at  all  ?  Zeal  for  sites 
is  the  growth  of  a  later  age.  There  is  no  proof  tha,  thej 
ever  cared  enough  for  Mount  Hor  to  falsify  lor  the  sake 
of  it.  As  regards  Jebel  Odjme  being  Sinai,  the  writer 
seems  to  have  formed  a  false  conception  of  Odjme, 
which  he  draws  as  a  prominent  mountain  boss  in  the 
range  of  "Tih,  taking  that  range  for  Horeb,  and  the  pro 
minent  mountain  for  Sinai.  The  best  maps  show  that 
it  had  no  such  predominance.  They  give  it  (e.  g. 
Kiepert's)  as  a  distinct  but  less  clearly  defined  and  appa 
rently  lower  range,  falling  back  into  the  northern  plateau 
in  a  N.W.  direction  from  about  the  most  southerly  point 
of  the  TSh;  which,  from  all  the  statements  regarding  it, 
is  a  low  horizontal  range  of  limestone,  with  no  such 
prominent  central  point  whatever.  Russegger  describes 
particularly  the  mounting  by  the  wall-like  partition  of 
"  Edjme  "  to  the  plateau  of  Edjme  itself.  "  The  height," 
he  says,  "  which  we  had  here  to  mount  is  in  no  wine 
considerable,"  and  adds,  "  we  had  now  arrived  at  the 
plateau  "  (Iteisen,  iii.  60.  til}. 


1768 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 


Maccabees,  annexed  themselves,  received  circum 
cision  and  the  law,  by  which  an  Edomite  might, 
"  in  the  third  generation,"  enter  the  congregation 
of  Israel  (Deut.  xxiii.  8),  so  that  by  the  New  Testa 
ment  period  they  must  have  been  fully  recognized. 
The  Jews  proper,  indeed,  still  speak  of  them  as 
'*  foreigners,"  but  to  them  «is  having  the  place  of 
kinsmen,  a  common  share  in  Jerusalem,  and  care  of 
its  sanctity  as  their  "  metropolis ;"  and  Josephus 
expressly  testifies  that  they  kept  the  Jewish  feasts 
there  (Ant.  xvii.  10,  §2  ;  comp.  B.  J.  iv.  4, 
§4,  5).  The  zealots  and  the  party  of  order  both 
appealed  to  their  patriotism,  somewhat  as  in  our 
Rebellion  both  parties  appealed  to  the  Scots. 

It  remains  to  notice  the  natural  histoiy  of  the 
•wilderness  which  we  have  been  considering.  A 
number  of  the  animals  of  the  Sinaitic  region  have 
been  mentioned.  [SiNAi.]  The  domestic  cattle  of  the 
Bedouins  will  of  course  be  found,  but  camels  more 
numerously  iu  the  drier  tracts  of  et-Tih.  Schubert 
(Eeisen,  ii.  354)  speaks  of  Sinai  as  not  being  fre 
quented  by  any  of  the  larger  beasts  of  prey,  nor 
even  by  jackals.  The  lion  has  become  very  rare, 
but  is  not  absolutely  unknown  in  the  region  (Negeb, 
46,  47).  Foxes  and  hyenas,  Ritter  (xiv.  333)  says, 
are  rare,  but  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  mentions  hyenas  as 
common  in  the  Wady  Mughdra ;  and  Ritter  (ibid.}, 
on  the  authority  of  Burckhardt,  ascribes  to  the 
region  a  creature  which  appears  to  be  a  cross  be 
tween  a  leopard  and  a  wolf,  both  of  which  are 
rare  in  the  Peninsula,  but  by  which  probably  a 
hyena  is  to  be  understood.  A  leopard-skin  was  ob 
tained  by  Burckhardt  on  Sinai,  and  a  fine  leopard 
is  stated  by  Mr.  Tyrwhitt,  to  have  been  seen  by 
some  of  his  party  in  their  ascent  of  Urn  Shaumer 
in  1862.  Schubert  continues  his  list  in  the 
hyrax  Syriacus,  the  ibex,k  seen  at  Tufileh  in 
Hocks  of  forty  or  fifty  together,  and  a  pair  of 
whose  horns,  seen  by  Burckhardt  (Arab.  405-6)  at 
Kcrek,  measured  3^  feet  in  length,  the  webr,1  the 
shrew-mouse,  and  a  creature  which  he  calls  the 
«•  sprmg-maus " «  (mus  jaculus  or  jerboa?),  also  a 
ami's  famelicus,  or  desert-fox,  and  a  lizard  known 
as  the  Agama  Sinaitica,  which  may  possibly  be 
identical  with  one  of  those  described  below.  Hares 
and  jerboas  are  found  in  Wady  Feirdn.  Schubert 
quotes  (ibid,  note)  Riippell  as  having  found  speci 
mens  of  helix  and  of  coccinella  in  this  wilderness ; 
for  the  former,  comp.  Forskal,  Icones  Eerum  Natur. 
Tab.  xvi.  Schubert  saw  a  fine  eagle  in  the  same 
region,  besides  catching  specimens  of  thrush,  with 


stonechat  and  other  song-birds,  and  speaks  of  the 
warbling  of  the  birds  as  being  audible  from  the 
mimosa  bush.  Clouds  of  birds  of  passnge  were 
visible  in  the  Wady  Murrah.  Near  the  same  tract 
of  wilderness  Dr.  Stanley  saw  "  the  sky  darkened  by 
the  flights  of  innumerable  birds,  which  proved  to 
be  large  red-legged  cranes,  3  feet  in  height,  with 
alack  and  white  wings,  measuring  7  feet  from  tip 
to  tip"  (8.  $  P.  82).  At  Tufileh  crows  abound. 
On  Serbal  Dr.  Stewart  saw  the  red-legged  partridge 
[Tent  and  Khan,  117  ;  comp.  Burckhardt,  Syria, 
534);  and  the  bird  "  katta,"  in  some  parts  of  the 
Peninsula,  comes  in  such  numbers  that  boys  some 
times  knock  over  three  or  four  at  a  single  throw  of 
a  stick.0  Hasselquist,  who  saw  it  here  and  in  Egypt, 
calls  it  a  partridge,  smaller  than  ours,  and  of  a  greyish 
colour  (204).  Hitter  (xiv.  333)  adds  linnets  (?), 
ducks,  prairie-birds,  heath-cocks,  larks,  a  specimen 
of  finch,  besides  another  small  bird,  probably  red 
breast  or  chaffinch,  the  varieties  of  falcon  known  as 
the  brachydactylus  and  the  niger,  and,  of  course,  on 
the  coast,  sea-swallows,  and  mews.  Flocks  of  blue 
rock  pigeons  were  repeatedly  seen  by  Mr.  Tyrwhitt. 
Seetzen,  going  from  Hebron  to  Madara,  makes 
mention  of  the  following  animals,  whose  names 
were  mentioned  by  his  guides,  though  he  does  not 
say  that  any  of  them  were  seen  by  himself', — 
wolf,  porcupine,  wild-cat,  ounce,  mole,  wild-ass, 
and  three  not  easily  to  be  identified,  the  Sellek, 
dog-shaped,0  the  Anasch,  which  devours  the  gazelle, 
and  the  Ikkajib.  said  to  be  small  and  in  shape  like 
a  hedgehog.  Seetzen's  list  in  this  locality  also 
includes  certain  reptiles,  of  which  such  as  can  be 
identified  are  explained  in  the  notes : — el-Melledsha, 
Umm  el-Szleiman,  el-Lidscha  or  Lejaf  el-IIawaba 
or  Hirba,*  Dscherrdr  or  Jarrdreh,7  el-Dab,  other 
wise  Dude,*  el-Hanne  or  Hunan*  el- Lifted •  and 
among  birds  the  partridge,  duck,  stork,  eagle,* 
vulture  (er-Eakham),  crow  (el-GraV),  kite  (Hi' 
ddyeh},*  and  an  unknown  bird  called  by  him  Um- 
Salet.  His  guides  told  him  of  ostriches  as  seen  near 
Bteidha  on  the  way  from  Hebron  to  Sinai,  and  he 
saw  a  nightingale,  but  it  seems  at  no  great  distance 
to  the  south  of  Heoron.  The  same  writer  also 
mentions  the  edible  lizard,  el-Dsob,  as  frequently 
found  in  most  parts  of  the  wilderness,  and  his  third 
volume  has  an  appendix  on  zoology,  particularly 
describing,  and  often  with  illustrations,  many  rep 
tiles  and  serpents  of  Egypt  and  Arabia,  without, 
however,  pointing  out  such  as  are  peculiar  to  the 
wilderness.  Among  these  are  thirteen  varieties  of 


k  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  commends  the  flesh  of  the  ibex  as 
superior  to  any  of  the  deer  tribe  that  he  had  ever 
eaten. 


1  Or  Uabr, 


j., 


feli  similis  sine  cauda  herbiphagus 


inonticola  caro  incolis  edulis  "  (Forskal,  Descript. 
Anim.  v.). 

m  Seetzen  (iii.  41)  saw  holes  in  the  earth  made,  he 
thought,  by  mice,  in  going  from  Hebron  to  Madara. 

n  Probably  these  birds  have  furnished  a  story  to  Pliny, 
of  their  settling  by  night  on  the  yards  of  ships  in  such 
vast  numbers  as  to  sink  them  (N.  H.  x.). 

o  With  this  compare  the  mention  by  Burckhardt  (ap, 
Kitter,  xiv.  333)  of  a  great  wild-dog  spoken  of  by  the 
Bedouins,  and  thought  by  Ritter  to  be  perhaps  the  same 
ys  the  Derban  of  the  Hedjaz  desert. 


one  of  these  as  seen  by  him  at  the  entrance  of  Wady 
es-Sheykh  on  the  route  from  Suez  to  Sinai  by  Stirabit 
el-Khadim,  which  appeared  green  in  shade  and  yellow  iu 
sunshine. 


r  £  ^Y^>»  scorpionum  parvorum  species,  scorpiof* 
mina  (Fr.). 

£   -  *    * 

S  4_-o3 '  Lacerta  Aegypti  (Fr.) ;  and  ^  * ,  "  a  worm ;" 
but  this  difference  of  signification  seems  to  show  that 
they  cannot  represent  one  and  the  same  animal,  as 
Seetzen's  text  would  seem  to  intend. 


5  — 


!  rana  (Freyfag). 


scardbaeus. 


Mr.  Tyrwhitt  speaks  u 


WILDERNESS  OP  THE  WANDERING 


1769 


lizard,  twenty-one  of  serpent,  and  seven  of  frog, 
besides  fifteen  of  Nile-fish.  Laborde  speaks  of  se^ 
pents,  scorpions,  and  black-scaled  lizards,  which  per 
forate  the  sand,  as  found  on  the  eastern  border  of 
Edom  near  Tufileh  (Comm.  on  Num.  xxxiii.  42). 
The  MS.  of  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  speaks  of  starting  "  a 
large  sand-coloured  lizard,  about  3  feet  long,  exactly 
like  a  crocodile,  with  the  same  bandy-look  about  his 
lore-legs,  the  elbows  turning  out  enormously."  He 
is  described  as  covered  not  only  "in  scales,  but  in  a 
regular  armour,  which  rattled  quite  loudly  as  he 
ran."  He  '*  got  up  before  the  dromedary,  and 
vanished  into  a  hole  among  some  retern."  This 
occurred  at  the  head  of  the  Wady  Mokatteb. 
Hasselquist  (220)  gives  a  Lacerta  Scincus,  "  the 
Seine,"  as  found  in  Arabia  Petraea,  near  the  Red 
Sea,  as  well  as  in  Upper  Egypt,  which  he  says  is 
much  used  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  East  as  an 
aphrodisiac,  the  flesh  of  the  animal  being  given 
in  powder,  and  broth  made  of  the  recent  flesh.  He 
also  mentions  the  edible  locust,  Gryllus  Arabicus, 
which  appears  to  be  common  in  the  wilderness,  as 
in  other  parts  of  Arabia,  giving  an  account  of  the 
preparation  of  it  for  food  "(230-233).  Burckhardt 
names  a  cape  not  far  from  'Akabah,  Eas  Um  ffaye, 
from  the  number  of  serpents  which  abound  there, 
and  accordingly  applied  to  this  region  the  descrip 
tion  of  the  "  fiery  serpents "  7  in  Num.  xxi.  4-9. 
Schubert  (ii.  362)  remarked  the  first  serpents  in 
going  from  Suez  and  Sinai  to  Petra,  near  el-Hud- 
herah  ;  he  describes  them  as  speckled.  Burckhardt 
(Syria,  499,  502)  saw  tracks  of  serpents,  two  inches 
thick,  in  the  sand.  According  to  Kiippell,  serpents 
elsewhere  in  the  Peninsula  are  rare.  He  names  two 
poisonous  kinds,  Cerastes  and  Scytalis  (Ritter,  xiv. 
329).  The  scorpion  has  given  his  name  to  the 
"  Ascent  of  Scorpions,"  which  was  part  of  the 
boundary  of  Judah  on  the  side  of  the  southern 
desert.  Wady  es-Zuweirah  in  that  region  swarmed 
with  them  ;  and  De  Saulcy  says,  "  you  cannot  turn 
over  a  single  pebble  in  the  Nedjd  (a  branch  wady) 
without  finding  one  under  it"  (De  Saulcy,  i.  529, 
quoted  in  Negeb,  51). 

The  reader  who  is  curious  about  the  fish,  mol- 
lusca,1  &c.,  of  the  Gulf  of  Suez  should  consult 
Schubert  (ii.  263,  note,  298,  note,  and  for  the  plants 
of  the  same  coast,  294,  note).  For  a  description  of 
the  coral-banks  of  the  Red  Sea,  see  Ritter  (xiv.  476 
foil.),  who  remarks  that  these  formations  rise  from 
the  coast-edge  always  in  longitudinal  extension 
paralle'  to  its  line,  bespeaking  a  fundamental  con 
nexion  with  the  upheaval  of  the  whole  stretch  of 
shore  from  S.E.  to  N.W.  A  fish  which  Seetzen 
calls  the  Alum  may  be  mentioned  as  furnishing  to 
the  Bedouins  the  fish-skin  sandals  of  which  they  are 
fond.  Ritter  (xiv.  327)  thinks  that  fish  may  have 
contributed  materially  to  the  sustenance  of  the 
Israelites  in  the  desert  (Num.  xi.  22),  as  they  are 

»  Mr.  Wilton  (Negeb,  51)  interprets  "flying,"  applied 
;ls.  xxx.  6)  to  the  serpent  of  the  South,  as  "making 
grea'  springs ;"  and  "  fiery  "  as  either  denoting  a  sensa- 
uon  caused  by  the  bite,  or  else  "red-coloured;"  since 
such  are  said  to  have  been  found  by  several  travellers 
whom  he  cites  in  the  region  between  the  Dead  and  Red 
Seas. 

«  A  number  of  these  are  delineated  in  ForskaTs  Icones 
Rerum  Nat.  among  the  later  plates :  see  also  his  Vermes, 
lv.,  CoraLlia  Maris  Eubri  (ibid.').  Also  in  llussegger's 
atlas  some  specimens  of  the  same  classes  are  engraved, 
Schul>ert  (i:.  3TO)  remarks  that  most  of  the  fish  found 
in  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah  belong  to  the  tribes  known  as 
AMnthurus  and  Chaetodon  (Hasselquist,  223).  He  saw  a 


now  dried  and  salted  for  sale  in  Cairo  or  at  the 
Convent  of  St.  Catherine.  In  a  brook  near  the  foot 
of  Serbdl,  Schubert  saw  some  varieties  of  elaphrus, 
dyticus,  colymbetes,  gyrinus,  and  other  water  insects 
(lieise,  ii.  302,  note). 

As  regards  the  vegetation  of  the  desert,  the  most 
frequently  found  trees  are  the  date-palm  (Phoenix 
dactylifera'),  the  desert  acacia,  and  the  tamari.sk. 
The  palms  are  almost  always  dwarf,  as  described 
S.  fy  P.  20,  but  sometimes  the  "  dom  "  palm  is  seen, 
as  on  the  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  'Akabah  (Schubert, 
ii.  370 ;  comp.  Robinson,  i.  161 ).  Hasselquist.  speak 
ing  of  the  date-palm's  powers  of  sustenance,  says 
that  some  of  the  poorer  families  in  Upper  Egypt  live 
on  nothing  else,  the  very  stones  being  ground  into 
a  provender  for  the  dromedary.  This  tree  is  often 
found  in  tufts  of  a  dozen  or  more  together,  the 
dead  and  living  boughs  interlacing  overhead,  the 
dead  and  living  roots  intertwining  below,  and  thus 
forming  a  canopy  in  the  desert.  The  date-palms  in 
Wady  Tur  are  said  to  be  all  numbered  and  regis 
tered.  The  acacia  is  the  Mimosa  Nilotica,  and  this 
forms  the  most  common  vegetation  of  the  wilder 
ness.  Its  Arabic  name  is  es-Seyal  (^Ly««),  and 

it  is  generally  supposed  to  have  furnished  the 
"  Shittim  wood  "  for  the  Tabernacle  (Forsk&l,  Descr. 
Plant.  Cent.  vi.  No.  90 ;  Celsii,  Hierob.  i.  498  foil. ; 
Ritter,  xiv.  335  foil.).  [SHITTAH-TREE.]  It  is 
armed  with  fearful  thorns,  which  sometimes  tear  the 
packages  on  the  camels'  backs,  and  of  course  wouid 
severely  lacerate  man  or  beast.  The  gum  arabic  is 
gathered  from  this  tree,  on  which  account  it  is  also 
called  the  Acacia  gummifera.  Other  tamarisks,  be 
side  the  mannifera,  mentioned  above,  are  found  in 
the  desert.  Grass  is  comparatively  rare,  but  its 
quantity  varies  with  the  season.  Robinson,  on  find 
ing  some  in  Wady  Sumghy,  N.E.  from  Sinai,  near 
the  Gulf  of  'Akabah,  remarks  that  it  was  the  first 
his  party  had  seen  since  leaving  the  Nile.  The 
terebinth  (Pistachia  terebinthus,  Arab.  Butiri)  *  is 
well  known  in- the  wadys  about  Beersheba,  but  in 
the  actual  wilderness  it  hardly  occurs.  For  a  full 
description  of  it  see  Robinson,  ii.  222-3,  and  notes, 
also  i.  208,  and  comp.  Gels.  Hierobot.  i.  34.  The 
"  broom,"  of  the  variety  known  as  retem  (Heb.  and 
Arab.),  rendered  in  the  A.  V.  by  "  juniper,"  is  a 
genuine  desert  plant ;  it  is  described  (Robinson,  i. 
203,  and  note)  as  the  largest  and  most  conspicuous 
shrub  therein,  having  very  bitter  roots,  and  yielding 
a  quantity  of  excellent  charcoal,  which  is  the  staple, 
if  one.  may  so  say,  of  the  desert.  Tue  tallowing  are 
mentioned  by  Schubert  (ii.  352-4)b  as  found  within 
the  limits  of  the  wilderness : — Mespilus  Aaronia, 
Colutea  haleppica,  Atraphaxis  spinosa,  Ephedra 
alaba,  Cytisus  uniflorus,  and  a  Cynomorium,  a 
highly  interesting  variety,  compared  by  Schubert 


large  turtle  asleep  and  basking  on  the  shore  near  the  castle 
of  'Akabah,  which  he  ineffectually  tried  to  capture. 

a  Seetzen  met  with  it  (iii.  47)  at  about  1  hour  to  the 
W.  of  Wady  el-'Ain,  between  Hebron  and  Sinai;  but  the 
mention  of  small  cornfields  in  the  same  neighbourhood 
shows  that  the  spot  has  the  character  of  an  oasis. 

b  Schubert's  floral  catalogue  is  unusually  rich.  He 
travelled  with  an  especial  view  to  the  natural  history  ol 
the  regions  visited.  His  tracks  extend  from  Cairo  through 
Suez,  Ayun  Mflsa,  and  T6r,  by  way  of  Serbal,  to  Sinai, 
thence  to  Mount  Hor  and  Petra ;  thence  by  Madara  and 
Hebron  to  Jerusalem  ;  as  well  as  in  the  northerly  regiou 
of  1'alestine  and  Syria.  His  book  should  be  consulted  bj 
all  students  of  thit  branch  of  the  subject. 


1770 


WILDERNESS  Oif  THE  WANDEiiING 


to  a  well  known  Maltese  one.  To  inwse  he  adds  in 
a  note  (ibid.} : — Dactylis  memphitica,  Gagea  reti- 
culata,  Rumex  vesicarius,  Artemisia  Judaica.  Leys- 
sera  discoidea,  Santolina  fragrantissima,  Seriola, 
Lindenbergia  Sinaica,  Lamium  amplexicaule,c 
Stachys  aflinis,  Sisymbrium  iris,  Anchusa  Milleri, 
Asperugo  procumbens,  Omphalodes  intermedia, 
Daemia  cordata,  Reseda  canescens,  and  pruinosa, 
Reaumuria  venniculata,  Fumaria  parviflora,  Hype- 
coum  pendulum,  Cleome  trinervis,  Aenia  tomen- 
tosa,  Malva  Honbezey,  Fagonia,c  Zygophyllum  coc- 
cineum,*  Astragalus  Fresenii,  Genista  monosperma." 
Schubert  (ii.  357)  also  mentions,  as  found  near  Abu 
Suweir,  N.E.  of  Sinai,  a  kind  of  sage,  and  of  what 
is  probably  goat's-rue,  also  (note,  ibid.}  a  fine 
variety  of  Astragalus,  together  with  Linaria,  Lotus, 
Cynosurus  echinatus,  Bromus  tectorum,  and  (365) 
two  varieties  of  Pergularia,  the  procera  and  the 
tomentosa. 

In  the  S.W.  region  of  the  Dead  Sea  grows  the 
singular  tree  of  the  apples  of  Sodom,  the  Asclepitts 
gigantea1  of  botanists.  Dr.  Robinson,  who  gives  a 
full  description  of  it  (i.  522-3),  says  it  might  be 
taken  for  a  gigantic  species  of  the  milk-weed  or 
silkweed  found  in  the  northern  regions  of  the  U.  S. 
He  condemns  the  notion  of  Hasselquist  (285,  287- 
8)  as  an  error,  that  the  fruit  of  the  Solanum  me- 
longela  when  punctured  by  a  tenthredo,  resulted  in 
the  Sodom  apple,  retaining  the  skin  uninjured,  but 
wholly  changed  to  dust  within  (ib.  524).  It  is 
the  ' Osher  of  the  Arabs.  Robinson  also  mentions 
willows,  hollyhocks,  and  hawthorns  in  the  Sinaitic 
region,  from  the  first  of  which  the  Eds  Sufsdfeh, 
"  willow-head,"  takes  its  name  (i.  100,  109 ; 
Stanley,  S.  $  P.  17).  He  saw  hyssop  (Jddeh} 
in  abundance,  and  thyme  (Za'ter),  and  in  the 
Wady  Feirdn  the  colocynth,  the  Kirdhy  or  Kirdee,9 
a  green  thorny  plant  with  a  yellow  flower ;  and  in 
or  near  the  'Arabah,  the  juniper  ('Arar},  the  ole 
ander  (Difleh},  and  another  shrub  like  it,  the  Zak- 
ndm,  as  also  the  plant  el-Ghudah,  resembling  the 
lletem,  but  larger  (i.  110,  83  ;  ii.  124,  126,  119, 
and  note).  He  also  describes  the  Ghurkud,  which 
has  been  suggested  as  possibly  the  "tree"  cast 
by  Moses  into  the  waters  of  Marah  (Ex.  xv.  25). 
It  grows  in  saline  regions  of  intense  heat,  bearing 
a  small  red  berry,  very  juicy,  and  slightly  acidulous. 
Being  constantly  found  amongst  brackish  pools,  the 
"  bane  and  antidote"  would  thus,  on  the  above  sup 
position,  be  side  by  side,  but  as  the  fruit  ripens  in 
June,  it  could  not  have  been  ready  for  its  supposed 
use  in  the  early  days  of  the  Exodus  (Robinson,  i.  66- 
69).  He  adds  in  a  note  that  Forskll  gives  it  (Flor. 
Aeg.  Arab.  p.  Ixvi.),  as  the  Peganum  retusurn,  but 
that  it  is  more  correctly  the  Nitraria  tridentata  of 


Lvstontaines  (Flora  Atlant.  i.  372).  The  rnountais 
Urn  Shaumer  takes  its  name  from  the  fennel  found 
upon  it.  as  perhaps  may  Serbc.1  from  the  8er, 
myrrh,  which  «'  creeps  over  its  ledges  up  to  the 
very  summit," — a  plant  noticed  by  Dr.  Stanley  as 
"  thickly  covering  "  with  its  "  shrubs "  the  "  na 
tural  basin  "  which  surmounts  ed-Deir,  and  a?  «etn 
in  the  Wady  Seydl,  N.E.  from  Sinai  (S.&P.17, 
78-80).  Dr.  Stanley  also  notices  the  wild  thorn, 
from  which  the  Wady  Sidri  takes  its  name,  the 
fig-tree  which  entitles  another  Wady  the  "  Father 
of  Fig-trees"  (Abu  Hamad),  and  in  the  Wady 
Seydl,  "a  yellow  flowering  shrub  called  Abei- 
thiran,  and  a  blue  thorny  plant  called  Silleh." 
Again,  north-eastwards  in  Wady  el- Ain  were  seen 
"  rushes,  the  large-leaved  plant  called  Esher"  and 
further  down  the  "  Lasaf,  or  caper  plant,  springing 
from  the  clefts."  Seetzen's  mesembryanthemum, 
described  above,  page  1755,  note  f,  is  noticed  by 
Forsksl,  who  adds  that  no  herb  is  more  common 
in  sandy  desert  localities  than  the  second,  the  nodi- 

florum,  called  in  Arabic  the  ghasul  (^^M\£}.  Has 
selquist  speaks  of  a  mesemb,  which  he  calls  the 
"  fig-marigold,"  as  found  in  the  ruins  of  Alexandria ; 
its  agreeable  saltish-aromatic  flavour,  and  its  use 
by  the  Egyptians  in  salads,  accord  closely  with 
Seetzen's  description.  Seetzen  gives  also  Arabic 
names  of  two  plants,  one  called  Ickedum  by  the 

fuides,  described  as  of  the  size  of  heath  with  blue 
owers  ;  the  other  named  Subbh-el-dich,  found  to 
the  north  of  Wady  el- Ain,  which  had  a  club- 
shaped  sappy  root,  ranged  a  foot  high  above  the 
earth,  having  scales  instead  of  leaves,  and  covered, 
when  he  saw  it,  with  large,  golden  flowers  cling 
ing  close  together,  till  it  seemed  like  a  little 
ninepin  (Kegel).  Somewhat  to  the  south  of  this 
he  observed  the  "  rose  of  Jericho  "  growing  in  the 
dreariest  and  most  desolate  solitude,  and  which 
appears  always  to  be  dead  (Reisen,  iii.  46,  54).  In 
the  region  about  Madara  he  also  found  what  he 
calls  "  Christ's-thorn,"  Arab.  el-Aussitch,  and  an 
anonymous  plant  with  leaves  broader  than  a  tulip, 
perhaps  the  Usher  mentioned  above.  The  follow 
ing  list  of  plants  between  Hebron  and  Madara  is 
also  given  by  Seetzen,  having  probably  been  written 
down  by  him  from  hearing  them  pronounced  by 
his  Bedouin  guides,  and  some  accordingly  it  has  not 
been  possible  to  identify  with  any  known  names, — el- 
Khilrrdg,  mentioned  in  the  previous  column,  note"; 
el-Bureid,  a  hyacinth,  whose  small  pear-shaped  bulb 
is  eaten  raw  by  the  Bedouins,  el-Artap  el-Dscherra, 
el-Sphdra  (or  Zafrd  ?),'  el-Erbidn,  el-Gdime,  Sche- 
kera  (or  Shakooreeyeh},*-  el-Metndn,  described  as  a 
small  shrub,  el-ffmim,  el-Schillueh,  possibly  the 


c  Both  these  are  found  in  cultivated  grounds  only. 

d  Shown  in  Forskal's  Icones  Rer.  Natur.  tab.  xi.,  where 
several  kinds  of  zygophyllum  are  delineated. 

e  Probably  the  same  as  the  retem  mentioned  above. 

f  Many  varieties  of  Asclepias,  especially  the  Cordata, 
are  given  by  Forskal  (Descr.  Plant,  cent.  ii.  49-51).  A 
writer  in  the  English  Cyclopaed.  of  Nat.  Hist,  supports  the 
view  of  Hasselquist,  which  Dr.  Robinson  condemns,  calling 
this  tree  a  Solanum,  and  ascribing  to  a  tenthredo  the 
phenomenon  which  occurs  in  its  fruit. 


and  animals,  the  present  writer  is  indebted  to  Mr.  E. 
S.  Poole. 


k 


,  nomea  arboris  crescentis  Ln  arenis,  flore 


saligneo,  fructu  ziziphino  amaro,  radicibus  ranmlisque 
rubris,  cujus  recentiore  fructu  vescuntur  cameli,  cortict 
autem  coria  concinnantur  "  (Freyt.).  It  grows  to  a  man  '9 
height,  with  a  flower  like  the  salix  aegyptiaca,  but  smaller, 
with  a  fruit  like  the  jujube,  and  the  root  red. 


J}  J£ 


,  arboris  rarae  nomen  in  deserto  crescentis 


cujus  flores  flaviores  sunt  quam  plantae  (uurs, 

inentJylon  tinctorium)  appellatae"  (Freytag).     For  this 
and  most  of  the  notes  on   the  Arabic  nauiob   of  plants 


X) 


ruta  sylvestris  (¥reyt.). 


;    intybus   (Forskal,    Flar 


Aegypt.  ap.  Freyt.).    Succory  or  endive.    Condrilta  (MS 
otes). 


WILDERNESS  OF  THE  WANDERING 

same  as  tnat  called  Silleh,  as  above,  by  Dr.  Stanley, 
cl-Khdla  (or  KhalJd-Handeguk  (or  Jfandakook},m 
cl-Liddemma,  el-Hadddd,  Kali,  Addan  el-Hammdr 
(or  'Addn  el-Himdr}.a  Some  more  rare  plants,  pre 
cious  on  account  of  their  products,  are  the  following : 
Balsamum  Aaronis,  or  nux  behen,  called  by  the 
Arabs  Festuck  el-Ban,  from  which  an  oil  is  extracted 
having  no  perfume  of  its  own,  but  scented  at  plea- 
eure  with  jessamine  or  other  odoriferous  leaf,  &c. 
to  make  a  choice  unguent.  It  is  found  in  Mount 
Sinai  and  Upper  Egypt: — Cucurbita  Ldgenaria, 
Arab.  Charrah,  found  in  Egypt  and  the  deserts  of 
Arabia,  wherever  the  mountains  are  covered  with 
rich  soil.  The  tree  producing  the  famous  balsam 
called  "  of  Mecca,"  is  found  many  days'  journey 
from  that  place  in  Arabia  Pet,raea.  Linnaeus,  after 
some  hesitation,  decided  that  it  was  a  species  of 
Amt/ris.  The  olibanum  frankincense  is  mentioned 
by  Hasselquist  as  a  product  of  the  desert ;  but  the 
producing  tree  appears  to  be  the  same  as  that  which 
yields  the  gum  arabic,  viz.,  the  Mimosa  nilotica, 
mentioned  above.  The  same  writer  mentions  the 
i^choenanthus  officinalis,  "  camel's  hay,"  as  growing 
plentifully  in  the  deserts  of  both  the  Arabias,  and 
regards  it  as  undoubtedly  one  of  the  precious,  aro 
matic,  and  sweet  plants,  which  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
gave  to  Solomon  (Hasselquist,  288,  255,  296-7 ; 
comp.  250-1,  300).  Fuller  details  on  the  facts  of 
natural  history  of  the  region  will  be  found  in  the 
writers  referred  to,  and  some  additional  authorities 
may  be  found  in  Sprengel,  Historia  rei  Herb. 
vol.  ii. 

Besides  these,  the  cultivation  of  the  ground  by 
the  Sinaitic  monks  has  enriched  their  domain  with 
the  choicest  fruit  trees,  and  with  a  variety  of  other 
trees.  The  produce  of  the  former  is  famed  in  the 
markets  of  Cairo.  The  cypresses  of  the  Convent 
are  visible  far  away  among  the  mountains,  and 
there  is  a  single  conspicuous  one  near  the  "  cave  of 
Elias"  on  Jebel  Musa.  Besides,  they  have  the 
silver  and  the  common  poplar,  with  other  trees,  for 
timber  or  ornament.  The  apricot,  apple,  pear, 
quince,  almond,  walnut,  pomegranate,  olive,  vine, 
citron,  orange,  cornelian  cherry,  and  two  fruits 
named  in  the  Arabic  ScheMk  and  Barguk,  have 
been  successfully  naturalized  there  (Robinson,  i. 
94  ;  Seetzen,  iii.  70  &c.  ;  Hasselquist,  425  ; 
&  £  P.  82).  Dr.  Stanley  views  these  as  mostly 
introduced  from  Europe ;  Hasselquist  on  the  con 
trary  views  them  as  being  the  originals  whence 
the  finest  varieties  we  have  in  Europe  were  first 
brought.  Certainly  nearly  all  the  above  trees 
are  common  enough  in  the  gardens  of  Palestine  and 
Damascus. 

[The  present  writer  wishes  to  acknowledge  the 
kindness  of  the  Rev.  R.  S.  Tyrwhitt  of  Oxford,  in 
allowing  him  a  sight  of  a  valuable  MS.  read  by 
that  traveller  before  the  Alpine  Club.  It  is  ex 
pected  to  be  published  in  the  Journal  of  that  body, 
but  was  not  in  print  when  this  paper  went  to 
press.  The  references  to  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  in  the 
preceding  article,  either  relate  to  that  MS.,  or  to 
his  own  remarks  upon  the  article  itself,  which  he 
inspected  whilst  in  the  proof  sheet.]  [H.  H.] 


nomen  plantae  regionis  Nedjid  peculiaris 
ost  fios ;  caulis  exiguus ;  Laser ;  Ruta  (Freyt). 
'•>  —  o  — 

Lotus-plant    (Freyt.").      Distinct,    it 


WILLOWS  1771 

WILLOWS  (O'STg,  'ardbim,  only  in  pi.  • 
irea  ;  (with  SfI3)  &yvov  K\d8ovs  e«  xe~(J-fyf>0*', 
K\uves  &yvov  :  salicet),  undoubtedly  the  cor 
rect  rendering  of  the  above  Hebrew  term,  a* 
is  proved  by  the  old  versions  and  the  kindred 

5  ~.~ 

Arabic  gharab  («_jj*c).  Willows  six  mentioned 
in  Lev.  xxiii.  40,  among  the  trees  whose  branches 
were  to  be  used  in  the  construction  of  booths 
at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  ;  in  Job  xl.  22, 
as  a  tree  which  gave  shade  to  Behemoth  ("  the 
hippopotamus")  ;  in  Is.  xliv.  4,  where  it  is  said 
that  Israel's  offspring  should  spring  up  "  as  willows 
by  the  watercourses;"  in  the  Psalm  (cxxxvii.  2) 
which  so  beautifully  represents  Israel's  sorrow 
during  the  time  of  the  Captivity  in  Babylon  —  "we 
hanged  our  harps  upon  the  willows  in  the  midst 
thereof."  With  respect  to  the  tree  upon  which  the 
captive  Israelites  hung  their  harps,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  weeping  willow  (Salix  Baby- 
lonica}  is  intended.  This  tree  grows  abundantly  on 
the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  in  other  parts  of  Asia 
as  in  Palestine  (Strand's  Flora  Palaest.  No.  556), 
and  also  in  North  Africa.  Bochart  has  endeavoured 
to  show  (Phaleg,  i.  cap.  viii.)  that  country  is 
spoken  of,  in  Is.  xv.  7,  as  "  the  Valley  of  Willows." 
This  however  is  very  doubtful.  Sprengel  (Hist. 
Rei  Herb.  i.  18,  270)  seems  to  restrict  the  'drab 
to  the  Salix  Babylonica  ;  but  there  can  scarcely 
be  a  doubt  that  the  term  is  generic,  and  includes 
other  species  of  the  large  family  of  Salices,  which 
is  probably  well  represented  in  Palestine  and  the 
Bible  lands,  such  as  the  Salix  alba,  S.  viminalis 
(osier),  S.  Aegyptiaca,  which  latter  plant  Sprengel 


identifies  with  the  safsdf  (cJuaAAs)  of  Abul'- 
fadli,  cited  by  Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  108),  which 
word  is  probably  the  same  as  the  Tsaphtsdphdh 
(i"IS¥Q¥)  of  Ezekiel  (xvii.  5),  a  name  in  Arabic 
for  "a  willow."  Burckhardt  (Syria,  p.  644), 
mentions  a  fountain  called  'Ain  Safsdf 


the  Willow  Fountain"  (Catafago, 

Arabic  Dictionary,  p.  1051).  Rauwolf  (quoted 
in  Bib.  Bot.  p.  274)  thus  speaks  of  the 
safsdf:  —  "These  trees  are  of  various  sizes;  the 
stems,  branches,  and  twigs  are  long,  thin,  soft,  and 
of  a  pale  yellow,  and  have  some  resemblance  to 
those  of  the  birch  ;  the  leaves  are  like  those  of  the 
common  willow  ;  on  the  boughs  grow  here  and 
there  shoots  of  a  span  long,  as  on  the  w;id  fig- 
trees  of  Cyprus,  and  these  put  forth  in  spring 
tender  downy  blossoms  like  those  of  the  poplar  ; 
the  blossoms  are  pale  coloured,  and  of  a  delicious 
fragrance;  the  natives  pull  them  in  great  quan 
tities,  and  distil  from  them  a  cordial  which  is  much 
esteemed."  Hasselquist  (Trav.  p.  449),  under 
the  name  of  calaf,  apparently  speaks  of  the  tame 
tree;  and  Forskal  (Descript.  Plant,  p.  Ixxvi^ 
identifies  it  with  the  Salix  Aegyptiaca,  whik  he 
considers  the  safsdf  to  be  the  S.  Babylcrica. 


should  seem,  from  the  lote-tree,  or  wabk  (a  species  of  the 
bird's-foot  trefoil?).    Meliki   MS.  notes), 

«  Comfrcy  (MS.  iiotes). 


1772    WILLOWS,  BROOK  OF  THE 

From  these  discrepancies  it  seems  that  the  Arabic 
words  are  used  indefinitely  for  willows  of  different 
kinds. 

"  The  children  of  Israel,"  says  Lady  Callcott 
^Scripture  Herbal,  p.  533),  "  still  present  willows 
annually  in  their  synagogues,  bound  up  with  palm 
and  myrtle,  and  accompanied  with  a  citron."  In 
this  country,  as  is  well  known,  sprigs  of  willow- 
blossoms,  under  the  name  of  "  palms,"  are  often 
carried  in  the  hand,  or  borne  0.1  some  part  of  the 
dress,  by  men  and  boys  on  Palm  Sunday. 

Before  the  Babylonish  Captivity  the  willow  was 
always  associated  with  feelings  of  joyful  prosperity. 
"  It  is  remarkable,"  as  Mr.  Johns  (The  Forest 
Trees  of  Britain,  ii.  p.  240)  truly  says,  "  for 
having  been  in  different  ages  emblematical  of  two 
directly  opposite  feelings,  at  one  time  being  associ 
ated  with  the  palm,  at  another  with  the  cypress." 
After  the  Captivity,  however,  this  tree  became  the 
emblem  of  sorrow,  and  is  frequently  thus  alluded 
to  in  the  poetry  of  our  own  country ;  and  "  there 
can  be  no  doubt,"  as  Mr.  Johns  continues,  "  that 
the  dedication  of  the  tree  to  sorrow  is  to  be  traced 
to  the  pathetic  passage  in  the  Psalms." 

Various  uses  were  no  doubt  made  of  willows  by 
the  ancient  Hebrews,  although  there  does  not  ap 
pear  to  be  any  definite  allusion  to  them.  The 
Egyptians  used  "  flat  baskets  of  wickerwork, 
similar  to  those  made  in  Cairo  at  the  present  day" 
(Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egypt,  i.  p.  43).  Herodotus  (i. 
194)  speaks  of  boats  at  Babylon  whose  framework 
was  of  willow  ;  such  coracle-shaped  boats  are  re 
presented  in  the  Nineveh  sculptures  (see  Rawlinson's 
Herodotus,  vol.  i.  p.  268).  [W.  H.] 

WILLOWS,  THE  BROOK  OF  THE  (^>m 
D^IHJJn  :  $  tydpayj-  "ApajSas :  torrens  saticum). 

A  wady  mentioned  by  Isaiah  (xv.  7)  in  his  dirge 
over  Aloab.  His  language  implies  that  it  was  one 
of  the  boundaries  of  the  country — probably,  as 
Gesenius  (Jesaia,  i.  532)  observes,  the  southern 
one.  It  is  possibly  identical  with  a  wady  men 
tioned  by  Amos  (vi.  14)  as  the  then  recognized 
southern  limit  of  the  northern8  kingdom  (Fiirst, 
Handwb. ;  Ewald,  Propheteri)  This  latter  appears 
in  the  A.  V.  as  "the  river  of  the  wilderness" 
(i"Q"iyn  '3:  6  ^etjita^os  T£JV  SvffiJ.uv:  ton  ens 
deserii).  Widely  as  they  differ  in  the  A.  V.,  it 
will  be  Observed  that  the  names  are  all  but  identical 
in  the  original,  the  only  difference  being  that  it  is 
plural  hi  Isaiah  and  singular  in  Amos.  In  the 
latter  it  is  ha-Arabah,  the  same  name  which  is 
elsewhere  almost  exclusively  used  for  the  Valley  of 
the  Jordan,  the  Ghor  of  modern  Arabs.  If  the  two 
are  regarded  as  identical,  and  the  latter  as  the  accu 
rate  form  of  the  name,  then  it  is  probable  that  the 
Wady  el-Ahsy  is  intended,  which  breaks  down 
through  the  southern  part  of  the  mountains  of 
Moab  into  the  so-called  Ghor  es-Safieh,  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  lake,  and  appears  (though  our  in- 


W1LI.8 

formation  as  to  that  locality  is  very  scanty)  to  form  a 
natural  barrier  between  the  districts  of  Kerak  and 
Jebal  (Burckhardt,  Syria,  Aug.  7).     This  is  not 
improbably  also  the  brook  ZERED  (nachal-Zered^- 
of  the  earlier  history. 

Should,  however,  the  Nachal  ha-Arabim  be  ren 
dered  "  the  Willow-torrent " — which  has  the  sup 
port  of  Gesenius  (Jesaia}  and  Pusey  (Comm.  on 
Amos,  vi.  14) — then  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that 
the  name  Wady  Sufsaf,  "  Willow  Wady,"  is  still 
attached  to  a  part  of  the  main  branch  of  the  ravine 
which  descends  from  Kerak  to  the  north  end  of  the 
peninsula  of  the  Dead  Sea  (Irby,  May  9).  Either 
of  these  positions  would  agree  with  the  require 
ments  of  either  passage. 

The  Targum  Pseudojonathan  translates  the  name 
Zered  by  "  osiers,"  or  "  baskets." 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Wilton  in  his  work  on  The 
Negeb,  or  South  Country  of  Scripture,  endeavours 
to  identify  the  Nachal  ha-Arabah  of  Amos  with 
the  Wady  el-Jeib,  which  forms  the  main  drain  by 
which  the  waters  of  the  present  Wady  Arabah  (the 
great  tract  between  Jebel  Sherah  and  the  moun 
tains  of  et-Tih)  are  discharged  into  the  Ghor  es- 
Safieh  at  the  southern  end  of  the  Dead  Sea.  (This 
important  wady  was  first  described  by  Dr.  Robin 
son,  and  an  account  of  it  will  be  found  in  thw 
work  under  the  head  of  ARABAH,  vol.  i.  p.  89  6.) 
This  is  certainly  ingenious,  but  cannot  be  accepted 
as  more  than  a  mere  conjecture,  without  a  single 
consideration  in  its  favour  beyond  the  magnitude  of 
the  Wady  el-Jeib,  and  the  consequent  probability 
that  it  would  be  mentioned  by  the  Prophet.1* 

Over  this  name  Jerome  takes  a  singular  flight 
in  his  Commentary  on  Is.  xv.  7,  connecting  it  with 
the  Orebim  (A.  V.  "  ravens")  who  fed  Elijah  during 
his  seclusion : — "  Pro  salicibus  in  Hebraeo  legimus 
Arabim  quod  potest  et  Arabes  intelligi  et  leg) 
Orbim ;  id  est  villa  in  finibus  eorum  sita  cujus  a 
plerisque  accolae  in  Monte  Oreb  Eliae  praebuissc 
alimenta  dicuntur.  .  .  ."  The  whole  passage  is  a 
curious  mixture  of  topographical  confusion  and 
what  would  now  be  denounced  as  rationalism.  [G.]: 

WILLS.  The  subject  of  testamentary  disposi 
tion  is  of  course  intimately  connected  with  that  of 
inheritance,  and  little  need  be  added  here  to  what 
will  be  found  above.  [HEIR,  vol.  i.  p.  779.]  Under 
a  system  of  close  inheritance  like  that  of  the  Jews, 
the  scope  for  bequest  in  respect  of  land  was  limited 
by  the  right  of  redemption  and  general  re-entry  in 
the  Jubilee  year.  [ JUBILEE,  \ows.]  But  the 
Law  does  not  forbid  bequests  by  will  of  such  limited 
interest  in  land  as  was  consistent  with  those  rights. 
The  case  of  houses  in  walled  towns  was  different, 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  must,  in  fact, 
have  frequently  been  bequeathed  by  will  (Lev. 
xxv.  30).  Two  instances  are  recorded  in  the  0.  T. 
under  the  Law,  of  testamentary  disposition,  (1) 
effected  in  the  cae^  of  Ahithophel  (2  Sam.  xvii.  23), 
(2)  recommended  .n  the  case  of  Hezekiah  (2  K.  xx. 


a  Amos  is  speaking  of  the  northern  kingdom  only,  not 
of  the  whole  nation,  which  excludes  the  interpretation  of 
the  LXX.,  i.  e.,  probably  the  Wady  d-Arish,  and  also  (if  it 
were  not  precluded  by  other  reasons)  that  of  Gesenius, 
the  Kidron. 

b  It  is  surely  incautious  (to  say  the  least)  to  speak  of 
a  mere  conjecture,  such  as  this,  in  terms  as  positive 
»nd  unhesitating  as  if.  it  were  a  certain  and  indisputable 
identification — "Am.'S  is  the  only  sacred  writer  who 
mentions  the  Wad;  el-Jeib;  which  he  defines  as  the 
southern  limit  of  Palestine  . . .  The  minute  accuracy  of 


the  Prophet  in  speaking  of  it  as  the  '  nachal  of  the 
Arabah'"  (Negeb,  &c.f  34,  35).  It  has  not  even  the 
support  that  it  vas  in  the  Prophet's  native  district 
Amos  was  no  "  prophet  of  the  Negeb."  He  belonged  to 
the  pasture-grounds  of  Tekoa,  not  ten  miles  from  Jeru 
salem,  and  all  his  work  seems  to  have  lain  in  Bethel  and 
the  northern  kingdom.  There  is  not  one  tittle  of 
evidence  that  be  ever  set  foot  in  the  Negeb,  or  knew 
anything  of  it.  Such  statements  as  these  arc  calculated 
only  to  damage  and  retard  the  too-fulteriug  progress 
of  Scripture  topography. 


1 


WIMPLE 

1  ,  Is.  xxxvni.  1)  ;  and  it  may  be  remarked  in 
both,  that  the  word  "  set*  in  order,"  marg.  "  give 
charge  concerning,"  agrees  with  the  Arabic  word 
"command,"  which  also  means  "make  a  will" 
(Michaelis,  Law  of  Moses,  art.  80,  vol.  i.  p.  430, 
ed.  Smith.  Various  directions  concerning  wills  will 
be  found  in  the  Mishna,  which  imply  disposition  of 
land,  Baba  Bathr.  viii.  6,  7).  [H.  W.  P.] 

WIMPLE  (  nnspp).  An  old  English  word  for 
hood  or  veil,  representing  the  Hebrew  mitpachaih 
in  Is.  iii.  22.  The  same  Hebrew  word  is  translated 
"veil"  in  Ruth  iii.  15,  but  it  signifies  rather  a 
kind  of  shawl  or  mantle  (Schroeder,  De  Vestitu 
Mulier.  Hebr.  c.  16).  [DuESS,  p.  456.]  [W.  L.  B.] 

WINDOW  ($n  ;  Chal.  13  :  Ovpis).  The  win 
dow  of  an  Oriental  house  consists  generally  of 
an  aperture  (as  the  word  challon  implies)  closed 
in  with  lattice-work,  named  in  Hebrew  by  the 
terms  drubbdk  b  (Eccl.  xii.  3,  A.  V.  "window;" 
Hos.  xiii.  3,  A.  V.  "  chimney  "),  ch&rakkim  c  (Cant. 
ii.  9),  and  eshndb*  (Judg.  v.  28;  Prov.  vii.  6, 
A.  V.  "  casement  "),  the  two  former  signifying  the 
interlaced  work  of  the  lattice,  and  the  third  the 
coolness  produced  by  the  free  current  of  air  through 
it.  Glass  has  been  introduced  into  Egypt  in 
modern  times  as  a  protection  against  the  cold  of 
winter,  but  lattice-work  is  still  the  usual,  and  with 
the  poor  the  only,  contrivance  for  closing  the  win 
dow  (Lane's  Mod.  Eg.  i.  29).  When  the  lattice 
work  was  open,  there  appears  to  have  been  nothing 
in  early  times  to  prevent  a  person  from  falling 
through  the  aperture  (Acts  xx.  9).  The  windows 
generally  look  into  the  inner  court  of  the  house, 
but  in  every  house  one  or  more  look  into  the  street, 
and  hence  it  is  possible  for  a  person  to  observe 
the  approach  of  another  without  being  himself  ob 
served  ^Judg.  v.  28  ;  2  Sam.  vi.  16  ;  Prov.  vii.  6; 
Cant.  ii.  9).  In  Egypt  these  outer  windows  gene 
rally  project  over  the  doorway  (Lane,  i.  27  ;  Game's 
Letters,  i.  94).  When  houses  abut  on  the  town- 
wall  it  is  «ot  unusual  for  them  to  have  projecting 
windows  surmounting  the  wall  and  looking  into  the 
country,  as  represented  in  Conybeare  ana  Howson's 
St.  Paul,  i.  124.  Through  such  a  window  the  spies 
escaped  from  Jericho  (Josh.  ii.  15),  and  St.  Paul 
from  Damascus  (2  Cor.  xi.  33).  [W.  L.  B.] 

WINDS  (n-11).  That  the  Hebrews  recognised 
the  existence  of  four  prevailing  winds  as  issuing, 
broadly  speaking,  from  the  four  cardinal  points, 
north,  south,  east,  and  west,  may  be  inferred  from 
their  custom  of  using  the  expression  "  four  winds" 
as  equivalent  to  the  "  four  quarters  "  of  the 
hemisphere  (Ez.  xxxvii.  9;  Dan.  viii.  8;  Zech. 
ii.  6;  Matt.  xxiv.  31).  The  correspondence  of 
the  two  ideas  is  expressly  stated  in  Jer.  xlix.  36. 
The  North  wind,  or,  as  it  was  usually  called  "  the 
north,""  was  naturally  the  coldest  of  the  four 
(Kcclus.  xliii.  20),  and  its  presence  is  hence  in 
voked  as  favourable  to  vegetation  in  Cant.  iv.  16. 
It  is  further  described  in  Prov.  xxv.  23,  as  bringing 
(A.  V.  "  driveth  away  "  in  text  ;  "  bringeth  forth  " 
in  marg.)  rain  ;  in  this  case  we  must  understand  the 
north-west  wind,  which  may  bring  rain,  but  was 


R  rtfV  ;  ei>Te'AA.o/*cu  ;  dispono.  HJO¥  in  Rabb.  A  win. 
Gee.  p.  1155. 

d 

*  D1VJ  ; 


WIXDS 


1773 


certainly  not  regarded  as  decidedty  rainy.  The 
difficulty  connected  with  this  passage  has  led  to  the 
proposal  of  a  wholly  different  sense  for  the  term 
tzdphon,  viz.  hidden  place.  The  north-west  wind 
prevails  from  the  autumnal  equinox  to  the  begin 
ning  of  November,  and  the  north  wind  from  June 
to  the  equinox  (v.  Raumer's  Palast.  p.  79).  The 
East  wind  {  crosses  the  sandy  wastes  of  Arabia  De- 
serta  before  reaching  Palestine,  and  was  hence 
termed  ''the  wind  of  the  wilderness"  (Job  i.  19; 
Jer.  xiii.  24).  It  is  remarkably  dry  and  penetrat 
ing,  and  has  all  the  effects  of  the  sirocco  on  vegeta 
tion  (Ez.  xvii.  10,  xix.  12;  Hos.  xiii.  15;  Jon. 
iv.  8).  It  also  blows  with  violence,  and  is  hence 
supposed  to  be  -used  generally  for  any  violent  wind 
(Job^xxvii.  21,  xxxviii.  24;  Ps.  xlviii.  7  ;  Is.  xxvii. 
8;  Ez.  xxvii.  26).  It  is  probably  in  this  sense 
that  it  is  used  in  Ex.  xiv.  21,  though  the  east,  or 
at  all  events  the  north-east  wind  would  be  the  one 
adapted  to  effect  the  phenomenon  described,  viz.  the 
partition  of  the  waters  towards  the  north  and  south, 
so  that  they  stood  as  a  wall  on  the  right  hand  and 
on  the  left  (Robinson,  Res.  i.  57).  In  this  as  in 
many  other  passages,  the  LXX.  gives  the  "  south  " 
wind  (VOTOS\  as  the  equivalent  for  the  Greek 
liddiin.  Nor  is  this  wholly  incorrect,  for  in  Egypt, 
where  the  LXX.  was  composed,  the  south  wind  has 
the  same  characteristics  that  the  east  has  in  Pales 
tine.  The  Greek  translators  appear  to  have  felt  the 
difficulty  of  rendering  kddtm  in  Gen.  xli.  6,  23,  27, 
because  the  parching  effects  of  the  east  wind,  with 
which  the  inhabitants  of  Palestine  are  familiar,  are 
not  attributable  to  that  wind  in  Egypt,  but  either 
to  the  south  wind,  called  in  that  country  the  kha- 
mdseen,  or  to  that  known  as  the  samoorn,  which 
comes  from  the  south-east  or  south-south-east 
(Lane's  Mod.  Eg.  i.  22,  23).  It  is  certainly  pos 
sible  that  in  Lower  Egypt  the  east  wind  may  be 
more  parching  than  elsewhere  in  that  country,  but 
there  is  no  more  difficulty  in  assigning  to  the  term 
kddlm  the  secondary  sense  of  parching,  in  this  pas 
sage,  than  that  of  violent  in  the  others  before  quoted. 
As  such  at  all  .events  the  LXX.  treated  the  term 
both  here  and  in  several  other  passages,  where  it  is 
rendered  kauson  (Kavacov,  lit.  the  burner).  In 
James  i.  11,  the  A.  Y.  erroneously  understands  thw> 
expression  of  the  burning  heat  of  the  sun.  In  Pa 
lestine  the  east  wind  prevails  from  February  to 
June  (v.  Raumer,  79).  The  South  wiud,K  which 
traverses  the  Arabian  peninsula  before  reaching 
Palestine,  must  necessarily  be  extremely  hot  (Job 
xxxvii.  17;  Luke  xii.  55);  but  the  rarity  of  the 
notices  leads  to  the  inference  that  it  seldom  blew 
from  that  quarter  (Ps.  Ixxviii.  20  ;  Cant.  iv.  16; 
Eccius.  xliii.  16)  :  and  even  when  it  does  blow,  it 
does  not  carry  the  samoom  into  Palestine  itself',* 
although  Robinson  experienced  the  effects  of  this 
scourge  not  far  south  of  Beersheba  (Res.  i. 
196).  In  Egypt  the  south  wind  (khamdseen) 
prevails  in*  the  spring,  a  portion  of  which  in  the 
months  of  April  and  May  is  termed  el-lihamdseen 
from  that  circumstance  (Lane  i.  22).  The  West 
and  south-west  winds  reach  Palestine  loaded  with 
moisture  gathered  from  the  Mediterranean  (Robin 
son,  i.  429),  and  are  hence  expressively  termed  by 


h  The  iermzildphdh  (nQJT)  in  Ts.  xi.  6  (A.  V.  "hor 
rible  ")  has  been  occasionally  understood  as  referring  to 
the  samoom (Olshausen,  in  luc.;  Gesen.  Thes.p.  418);  but  il 
may  equally  well  be  rendered  "  wratl  f^.1"  or  "avenging' 
(Hengstenbcrg,  in  Zoc.V 


1774 


WINE 


the  Arabs  "  the  fathers  of  the  rain"  (v.  Raumer, 
79).  The  little  cloud  "  like  a  man's  hand "  that 
rose  out  of  the  west,  was  recognised  by  Eli  jah  as  a 
presage  of  the  coming  downfall  (1  K.  xviii.  44), 
and  the  same  token  is  adduced  by  our  Lord  as  one 
of  the  ordinary  signs  of  the  weather  (Luke  xii.  54). 
Westerly  winds  prevail  in  Palestine  from  November 
to  February. 

In  addition  to  the  four  regular  winds,  we  have 
notice  in  the  Bible  of  the  local  squalls  (AcwAcuJ/; 
Mark  iv.  37  ;  Luke  viii.  23),  to  which  the  Sea  of 
Gennesareth  was  liable  in  consequence  of  its  prox 
imity  to  high  ground,  and  which  were  sufficiently 
violent  to  endanger  boats  (Matt.  viii.  24;  John 
vi.  18).  The  gales  which  occasionally  visit  Pales 
tine  are  noticed  under  the  head  of  WHIRLWIND. 
In  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's  voyage  we  meet  with" 
the  Greek  term  lips  (Aty)  to  describe  the  south 
west  wind;  the  Latin  Cams  or  Caurus  (x&pos], 
the  north-west  wind  (Acts  xxvii.  12) ;  and  ei»po- 
K\vScav  (a  term  of  uncertain  origin,  perhaps  a  cor 
ruption  of  fvpaKvXoov,  which  appears  in  some 
MS3.),  a  wind  of  a  very  violent  character  (TV^OJ- 
viit6s)  coming  from  E.N.E.  (Acts  xxvii.  14  ;  Conyb. 
and  Hows.  St.  Paul,  ii.  402).  [EUROCLYDON.] 

The  metaphorical  allusions  to  the  winds  are  very 
numerous ;  the  east  wind,  in  particular,  was  re 
garded  as  the  symbol  of  nothingness  (Job  xv.  2  ; 
Hos.  xii.  1),  and  of  the  wasting  destruction  of  war 
(Jer.  xviii.  17),  and,  still  more,  of  the  effects  of 
Divine  vengeance  (Is.  xxvii.  8),  in  which  sense, 
however,  general  references  to  violent  wind  are  also 
employed  (Ps.  ciii.  16;  Is.  Ixiv.  6;  Jer.  iv.  11). 
Wind  is  further  used  as  an  image  of  speed  (Ps.  civ. 
4,  "  He  maketh  His  angels  winds;"  Heb.  i.  7),  and 
of  transitoriness  (Job  vii.  7  ;  Ps.  Ixxviii.  39).  Lastly, 
the  wind  is  frequently  adduced  as  a  witness  of  the 
Creator's  power  (Job  xxvii  i.  25  ;  Ps.  cxxxv.  7  ;  Eccl. 
xi.  5  ;  Jer.  x.  13 ;  Prov.  xxx.  4  ;  Am.  iv.  13),  and  as 
representing  the  operations  of  the  Holy  Spirit  (John 
iii.  8  ;  Acts  ii.  2),  whose  name  (Tn/eO/xa)  represents 
a  gentle  wind.  [W.  L.  B.] 

WINE.  The  manufacture  of  wine  is  carried 
back  in  the  Bible  to  the  age  of  Noah  (Gen.  ix. 
20,  21),  to  whom  the  discovery  of  the  process 
is  apparently,  though  not  explicitly,  attributed. 
The  natural  history  and  culture  of  the  vine  is 
described  under  a  separate  head.  [ViNE.]  The 
only  other  plant  whose  fruit  is  noticed  as  having 
been  converted  into  wine  was  the  pomegranate 
(Cant.  viii.  2).  In  Palestine  the  vintage  takes 
place  in  September,  and  is  celebrated  with  great 
rejcjcings  (Robinson,  Res,  i.  431,  ii.  81).  The 
ripe  fruit  was  gathered  in  baskets  (Jer.  vi.  9),  as 
represented  in  Egyptian  paintings  (Wilkinson,  i. 
41-45),  and  was  carried  to  the  wine-press.  It  was 
then  placed  in  the  upper  one  of  the  two  vats  or 
receptacles  of  which  the  wine-press  was  formed 
[WINE-PRESS],  and  was  subjected  to  the  process 
of  "  treading,"  which  has  prevailed  in  all  ages 
m  Oriental  and  South-European  countries  (Neh. 
xiii.  15;  Job  xxiv.  11 ;  Is.  xvi.  10;  Jer.  xxv.  30, 
xlviii.  33;  Am.  ix.  13;  Rev.  xix.  15).  A  certain 
amount  of  juice  exuded  from  the  ripe  fruit  from  its 
own  pressure  before  the  treading  commenced.  This 
appears  to  have  been  kept  separate  from  the  rest 
of  the  juice,  and  to  have  formed  the  gleukos  or 
"sweet  wine"  noticed  in  Acts  ii.  13.  The  first 
drops  of  juice  that  reached  the  lower  vat  were 
termed  the  dema,  or  "  tear,"  and  formed  the  first- 
fruits  of  the  vintage  (a-rrapx^s  A.TJVOU,  LXX.) 
which  \veve  to  be  presented  to  Jehovah  (Kx.  xxii. 


WINE 

29).  The  "  treading  "  was  effected  by  one  or  more 
men  according  to  the  size  of  the  vat,  and,  if  the 
Jews  adopted  the  same  arrangements  as  the  Egyp 
tians,  the  treaders  were  assisted  in  the  operation  by 
ropes  fixed  to  the  roof  of  the  wine-press,  as  repre 
sented  in  Wilkinson's  Anc.  Eg.  i.  46.  They  en 
couraged  one  another  by  shouts  and  cries  (Is.  xvi. 
9,  10 ;  Jer.  xxv.  30,  xlviii.  33),  Their  legs  and 
garments  were  dyed  red  with  the  juice  (Gen.  xlix. 
11,  Is.  Ixiii.  2,  3).  The  expressed  juice  escaped 
by  an  aperture  into  the  lower  vat,  or  was  at  once 
collected  in  vessels.  A  hand-press  was  occasionally 
used  in  Egypt  (Wilkinson,  i.  45),  but  we  have  no 
notice  of  such  an  instrument  in  the  Bible.  As  to 
the  subsequent  treatment  of  the  wine,  we  have  but 
little  information.  Sometimes  it  was  preserved  in 
its  unfermented  state,  and  drunk  as  must,  but 
more  generally  it  was  bottled  off  after  fermentaticn, 
and,  if  it  were  designed  to  be  kept  for  some  time, 
a  certain  amount  of  lees  was  added  to  give  it  body 
(Is.  xxv.  6).  The  wine  consequently  required  to  be 
"  refined  "  or  strained  previously  to  being  brought 
to  table  (Is.  xxv.  6). 


Egyptian  Wine-press,  from  Wilkinson. 

The  produce  of  the  wine-press  was  described  ir. 
the  Hebrew  language  by  a  variety  of  terms,  indi 
cative  either  of  the  quality  or  of  the  use  of  the 
liquid.  The^e  terms  have  of  late  years  been  sub 
jected  to  a  rigorous  examination  with  a  view  to 
show  that  Scripture  disapproves,  or,  at  all  events, 
does  not  speak  with  approval,  of  the  use  of  fer 
mented  liquor.  In  order  to  establish  this  position 
it  has  'been  found  necessary,  in  all  cases  where  the 
substance  is  coupled  with  terms  of  commendation, 
to  explain  them  as  meaning  either  unfermented 
wine  or  fruit,  and  to  restrict  the  notices  of  fer 
mented  wine  to  passages  of  a  condemnatory  char 
acter.  We  question  whether  the  critics  who  have 
adopted  these  views  have  not  driven  their  argu 
ments  beyond  their  fair  conclusions.  It  may  at 
once  be  conceded  that  the  Hebrew  terms  translated 
"  wine "  refer  occasionally  to  an  unfermented 
liquor ;  but  inasmuch  as  there  are  frequent  allu 
sions  to  i-ntoxication  in  the  Bible,  it  is  clear  that 
fermented  liquors  were  also  in  common  use.  It 
may  also  be  conceded  that  the  Bible  occasional!} 
speaks  in  terms  of  strong  condemnation  of  the 
effects  of  wine ;  but  it  is  an  open  question  whether 
iu  these  cases  the  condemnation  is  not  rather 
directed  against  intoxication  and  excess,  than  against 
the  substance  which  is  the  occasion  of  the  excess. 
The  term  of  chief  importance  in  connexion  with 


WINE 

tin's  subject  is  tirosh,  which  is  undoubtedly  spokon 
of  with  approval,  inasmuch  as  it  is  frequently 
classed  with  dagdn  and  shemen,  in  the  triplet 
lf  corn,  wine,  and  oil,"  as  the  special  gifts  of  Pro 
vidence.  This  has  been  made  the  subject  of  a 
special  discussion  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  Tiros/i 
lo  Yayin  by  Dr.  Lees,  the  object  being  to  prove 
that  it  means  not  wine  but  fruit.  An  examination 
of  the  Hebrew  terms  is  therefore  unavoidable,  but 
we  desire  to  carry  it  out  simply  as  a  matter  of 
Biblical  criticism,  and  without  reference  to  the 
lopic  which  has  called  forth  the  discussion. 

The  most  general  term  for  wine  is  yayin,*  which 
is  undoubtedly  connected  with  the  Greek  dlvos,  the 
Latin  vinurn,  and  our  "  wine."  It  has  hitherto 
been  the  current  opinion  that  the  Indo-European 
languages  borrowed  the  term  from  the  Hebrews. 
The  reverse,  however,  appears  to  be  the  case  (Renan, 
Lang.  Sem.  i.  207) :  the  word  belongs  to  the  Indo- 
European  languages,  and  may  be  referred  either  to 
the  root  we,  "  to  weave,"  whence  come  mere, 
vimen,  vitis,  vitta  (Pott,  Etym.  Forsch.  i.  120, 
230),  or  to  the  root  wan,  "  to  love  "  (Kuhn,  Zeits.  f. 
VergL  Sprachf.  i.  191,  192).  The  word  being  a 
borrowed  one,  no  conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  ety 
mological  considerations  as  to  its  use  in  the  Hebrew 
language.  Tirosh  b  is  referred  to  the  root  ydrash, 
"  to  get  possession  of,"  and  is  applied,  aeon-ding  to 
Gesenius  (T/ics.  p.  633),  to  wine  on  account  of  its 
inebriating  qualities,  whereby  it  gets  possession  of 
the  brain ;  but,  according  to  Bythner,  as  quoted  by 
Lees  (Tirosh,  p.  52),  to  the  vine  as  being  a  pos 
session  (KO.T'  e£ox7j;/)  in  the  eyes  of  the  Hebrews. 
Neither  of  these  explanations  is  wholly  satisfactory, 
but  the  second  is  less  so  than  the  first,  inasmuch 
as  it  would  be  difficult  to  prove  that  the  Hebrews 
attached  such  pre-eminent  value  to  the  vine  as  to 
place  it  on  a  par  with  landed  property,  which  is 
designated  by  the  cognate  terms  yerushshdh  and 
mordshah.  Nor  do  we  see  that  any  valuable  con 
clusion  could  be  drawn  from  this  latter  derivation  ; 
for,  assuming  its  correctness,  the  question  would 
still  arise  whether  it  was  on  account  of  the  natural 
or  the  manufactured  product  that  such  store  was 
set  on  the  vine.  'Asisc  is  derived  from  a  word 
signifying  "  to  tread,"  and  therefore  refers  to  the 
method  by  which  the  juice  was  expressed  from  the 
fruit.  It  would  very  properly  refer  to  new  wine 
as  being  recently  trodden  out,  but  not  necessarily  to 
unfermented  wine.  It  occurs  but  five  times  in  the 
Bible  (Cant.  viii.  2  ;  Is.  xlix.  26  ;  Joel  i.  5,  iii.  18  ; 
Am.  ix.  13).  Sobe^  is  derived  from  a  root  signi 
fying  to  "  soak  "  or  "  drink  to  excess."  The  cog 
nate  verb  and  participle  are  constantly  used  in  the 
latter  sense  (Deut.  xxi.  20;  Prov.  xxiii.  20,  21; 
Is.  Ivi.  12;  Nah.  i.  10).  The  connexion  between 
sobe  and  the  Latin  sapa,  applied  to  a  decoction  of 
must  (Kitto's  Cycl.  s.  v.  Wine),  appeals  doubtful: 
the  latter  was  regarded  as  a  true  Latin  word  by 
Pliny  (xiv.  11).  Sobe  occurs  but  thrice  (Is.  i.  22; 
Hos.  iv.  18 ;  Nah.  i.  10).  Chemer*  (Deut.  xxxii. 
14),  in  the  Chaldee  chamar  (Ezr.  vi.  9,  vii.  22)  and 
chamrd  (Dan.  v.  1  ft'.),  conveys  the  notion  of  foam 
ing  or  ebullition,  and  may  equally  well  apply  to 
the  process  of  fermentation  or  to  the  frothing  of 
liquid  freshly  poured  out,  in  which  latter  case  it 
might  be  used  of  an  unfermented  liquid.  Mesec* 


ion 


WINE  1775 

(Ps.  Lxxv.  8),  mezegf  (Cant.  vii.  2),  anA  mimsdc'1 
(Prov.  xxiii.  30;  Is.  Ixv.  11),  are  connected  etymo- 
logically  with  misceo  and  "  mix,"  and  imply  a  mix 
ture  of  wine  with  some  other  substance :  no  con 
clusion  can  be  drawn  from  the  word  itself  as  to  the 
quality  of  the  wine,  whether  fermented  or  unfer 
mented,  or  as  to  the  nature  of  the  substance  intro 
duced,  whether  spices  or  water.  We  may  further 
notice  shecdr,1  a  generic  term  applied  to  all  fer 
mented  liquors  except  wine  [DRINK,  STRONG]  ; 
chometzj  a  weak  sour  wine,  ordinarily  termed 
vinegar  [VINEGAR];  dshishdh*  rendered  "flagon 
of  wine"  in  the  A.  V.  (2  Sam.  xvi.  1;  1  Chr. 
xvi.  3 ;  Cant.  ii.  5  ;  Hos.  iii.  1),  but  really  mean 
ing  a  cake  of  pressed  raisins ;  and  shtmdrt'm,1  pro 
perly  meaning  the  "  lees  "  or  dregs  of  wine,  but  in 
Is.  xxv.  6  transferred  to  wine  that  had  been  kept 
on  the  lees  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  its  body. 
In  the  New  Testament  we  meet  with  the  following 
terms :  oinos,n  answering  to  yayin  as  the  general 
designation  of  wine  ;  gleukos,*  properly  sweet  wine 
(Acts  ii.  13);  sikera*  a  Grecised  form  of  the 
Hebrew  shecdr ;  and  oxosjf  vinegar.  In  Rev.  xiv. 
10  we  meet  with  a  singular  expression,*  literally 
meaning  mixed  unmixed,  evidently  referring  to  the 
custom  of  mingling  wine :  the  two  terms  cannot  be 
used  together  in  their  literal  sense,  and  hence  the 
former  has  been  explained  as  meaning  "  poured 
out "  (De  Wette  in  L  :;.). 

From  the  terms  themselves  we  pass  on  to  an 
examination  of  such  passages  as  seem  to  elucidate 
their  meaning.  Both  yayin  and  tirosh  are  occa 
sionally  connected  with  expressions  that  would 
apply  properly  to  a  fruit ;  the  former,  for  instance, 
with  verbs  significant  of  gathering  (Jer.  xl.  10,  12), 
andgrowing  (Ps.  civ.  14, 15);  the  latter  with  gather 
ing  (Is.  Ixii.  9,  A.  V.  "brought  it  together"), 
treading  (Mic.  vi.  15),  and  withering  (Is.  xxiv.  7 ; 
Joel  i.  10).  So  again  the  former  is  used  in  Num. 
vi.  4  to  define  the  particular  kind  of  tree  whose 
products  were  forbidden  to  the  Nazarite,  viz.  the 
"pendulous  shoot  of  the  vine;"  and  the  latter  in 
Judg.  ix.  13?  to  denote  the  product  of  the  vine. 
It  should  be  observed,  however,  that  in  most,  if  not 
all,  the  passages  where  these  and  similar  expressions 
occur,  there  is  something  to  denote  that  the  fruit  is 
regarded  not  simply  as  fruit,  but  as  the  raw  ma 
terial  out  of  which  wine  is  manufactured.  Thus, 
for  instance,  in  Ps.  civ.  15  and  Judg.  ix.  13  the 
cheering  effects  of  the  product  are  noticed,  and  that 
these  are  more  suitable  to  the  idea  of  wine  than  of 
fruit  seems  self-evident :  in  one  passage  indeed  the 
A.  V.  connects  the  expression  "  make  cheerful " 
with  bread  (Zech.  ix.  17),  but  this  is  a  mere  mis 
translation,  the  true  sense  of  the  expression  there 
used  being  to  nourish  or  make  to  grow.  So,  again, 
the  treading  of  the  grape  in  Mic.  vi.  15  is  in  itselr 
conclusive  as  to  the  pregnant  sense  in  which  the 
term  tirosh  is  used,  even  if  it  were  not  subsequently 
implied  that  the  effect  of  the  treading  was  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  things  to  produce  the  yayin 
which  was  to  be  drunk.  In  Is.  Ixii.  9  the  object 
of  the  gathering  is  clearly  conveyed  by  the  notice 
of  drinking.  In  Is.  xxiv.  7  the  ttrosh,  which 
withe/s,  is  paralleled  with  yayin  in  the  two  follow 
ing  verses.  And  lastly,  in  Is.  Ixv.  8  the  nature  oi 
the  tirosh,  which  is  said  to  be  found  in  the  cluster 


•»  olvos. 


1776 


WINE 


of  the  grapes,  is  not  obscurely  indicated  by  the  sub-' 
sequent  eulogium,  "  a  blessing  is  in  it."  That  the 
terms  "  vine "  and  "wine"  should  be  thus  inter 
changed  in  poetical  language  calls  for  no  explana 
tion.  We  can  no  more  infer  from  such  instances 
that  the  Hebrew  terms  mean  grapes  as  fruit, 
than  we  could  infer  the  same  of  the  Latin  vinum 
because  in  some  two  or  three  passages  (Plaut.  Trin. 
ii.  4,  125  ;  Van-,  de  L.  L.  iv.  17  ;  Cato,  R.  R. 
c.  147)  the  term  is  transferred  to  the  grape  out  of 
which  wine  is  made. 

The  question  whether  either  of  the  above  terms 
ordinarily  signified  a  solid  substance,  would  be  at 
once  settled  by  a  reference  to  the  manner  in  which 
they  were  consumed.  With  regard  to  yayin  we 
are  not  aware  of  a  single  passage  which  couples  it 
with  the  act  of  eating.'  With  regard  to  tirosh 
the  case  is  somewhat  different,  inasmuch  as  that 
term  generally  follows  "  corn,"  in  the  triplet  "  corn, 
wine,  and  oil,"  and  hence  the  term  applied  to  the 
consumption  of  corn  is  carried  on,  in  accordance 
with  the  grammatical  figure  zeugma,  to  the  other 
members  of  the  clause,  as  in  Deut.  xii.  17.  In  the 
only  passage  where  the  act  of  consuming  tirosh 
alone  is  noticed  (Is.  Ixii.  8,  9),  the  verb  is  shdthah,' 
which  constantly  indicates  the  act  of  drinking  (e.  g. 
Gen.  ix.  21,  xxiv.  22  ;  Ex.  vii.  21  ;  Ruth  ii.  9),  and 
is  the  general  term  combined  with  deal  in  the  joint 
act  of  "  eating  and  drinking "  (e.  g.  1  Sam.  xxx. 
16;  Job  i.  4;  Eccl.  ii.  24).  We  can  find  no  con 
firmation  for  the  sense  of  sucking  assigned  to  the 
term  by  Dr.  Lees  (Tirosh,  p.  61):  the  passage 
quoted  in  support  of  that  sense  (Ps.  Ixxv.  8)  implies 
at  all  events  a  kind  of  sucking  allied  to  drinking 
rather  than  to  eating,  if  indeed  the  sense  of  drinking 
be  not  the  more  correct  rendering  of  the  term.  An 
argument  has  been  drawn  against  the  usual  sense 
assigned  to  tirosh,  from  the  circumstance  that  it  is 
generally  connected  with  "  corn,"  and  therefore 
implies  an  edible  rather  than  a  drinkable  substance. 
The  very  opposite  conclusion  may,  however,  be 
drawn  from  this  circumstance ;  for  it  may  be  rea 
sonably  urged  that  in  any  enumeration  of  the  ma 
terials  needed  for  man's  support,  "  meat  and  drink  " 
would  be  specified,  rather  than  several  kinds  of  the 
former  and  none  of  the  latter. 

There  are,  moreover,  passages  which  seem  to 
Jtnply  the  actual  manufacture  of  tirosh  by  the  same 
j'rocess  by  which  wine  was  ordinarily  made.  For, 
rot  to  insist  on  the  probability  that  the  "  bringing 
together,"  noticed  in  Is.  Ixii.  9,  would  not  appro 
priately  apply  to  the  collecting  of  the  fruit  in  the 
wine-vat,  we  have  notice  of  the  "  treading  "  in  con 
nexion  with  tirosh  in  Mic.  vi.  15,  and  again  of  the 
"overflowing"  and  the  "bursting  out"  of  the 
tirosh  in  the  vessels  or  lower  vat  (yekeb ;  viro\^- 
viov),  which  received  the  must  from  the  proper 
press  (Prov.  iii.  10;  Joel  ii.  24). 

Lastly,  we  have  intimations  of  the  effect  pro 
duced  by  an  excessive  use  of  yayin  and  tirosh.  To 
the  former  are  attributed  the  "  darkly  flashing  eye  " 
(Gen.  xlix.  12 ;  A.  V.  «  red,"  but  see  Gesen.  Thes. 
Append,  p.  89),  the  unbridled  tongue  (Prov.  xx.  1 ; 
Is.  xxviii.  7),  the  excitement  of  the  spirit  (Prov. 
xxxi.  6  ;  Is.  v.  11  ;  Zech.  ix.  15,  x.  7),  the  enchained 
affections  of  its  votaries  (Hos.  iv.  11),  the  perverted 
judgment  (Prov.  xxxi.  5;  Is.  xxviii.  7),  the  indecent 
exposure  (Hab.  ii.  15,  16),  and  the  sickness  resulting 


'An  apparent  instance  occurs  in  Is.  Iv.  ].  where  the 
"  buy  and  eat "  has  been  supposed  to  refer  to  the  "  buy 
wine  and  milk  "  which  follows  (Tirosh,  p.  9V  But  the 


WINE 

from  the  heat  (chetndh,  A.  V.  ''  bottles"1  of  wine 
(Hos.  vii.  5).  The  allusions  to  the  effects  oitirdsfi 
are  confined  to  t  single  passage,  but  this  a  most  de 
cisive  one,  viz.,  Hos.  iv.  11,  "Whoredom  and  wine 
(yayin},  and  new  wine  (tirosh}  take  awav  the 
heart,"  where  tirosh  appears  as  the  climax  of  en 
grossing  influences,  in  immediate  connexion  with 
yayin. 

The  impression  produced  on  the  mind  by  a  ge 
neral  review  of  the  above  notices  is,  that  both  i/ai/in 
and  tirosh  in  their  ordinary  and  popular  acceptation 
referred  to  fermented,  intoxicating  wine.  In  the 
condemnatory  passages  no  exception  is  made  in 
favour  of  any  other  kind  of  liquid  passing  under 
the  same  name,  but  not  invested  with  the  same 
dangerous  qualities.  Nor  again  in  these  passages 
is  there  any  decisive  condemnation  of  the  substance 
itself,  which  would  enforce  the  conclusion  that  else 
where  an  unfermented  liquid  must  be  understood. 
The  condemnation  must  be  understood  of  excessive 
Use  in  any  case :  for  even  where  this  is  not  expressed, 
it  is  implied;  and  therefore  the  instances  of  wine 
being  drunk  without  any  reproof  of  the  act,  may 
with  as  great  a  probability  imply  the  moderate  use 
of  an  intoxicating  beverage,  as  the  use  of  an  un- 
intoxicating  one. 

The  notices  of  fermentation  are  not  very  decisive. 
A  certain  amount  of  fermentation  is  implied  in  the 
distension  of  the  leather  bottles  when  new  wine  was 
placed  in  them,  and  which  was  liable  to  burst  old 
bottles.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  object  of 
placing  the  wine  in  bottles  was  to  prevent  fer 
mentation,  but  that  in  "the  case  of  old  bottles 
fermentation  might  ensue  from  their  being  impreg 
nated  with  the  fermenting  substance"  (Tirosh,  p. 
65).  This  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  statement  in 
Matt.  ix.  17,  but  it  detracts  from  the  spirit  of  the 
comparison  which  implies  the  presence  of  a  strong, 
expansive,  penetrating  principle.  It  is,  however, 
inconsistent  with  Job  xxxii.  19,  where  the  distension 
is  described  as  occurring  even  in  new  bottles.  It 
is  very  likely  that  new  wine  was  preserved  in  the 
state  of  must  by  placing  it  in  jars  or  bottles,  and 
then  burying  it  in  the  earth.  But  we  should  be 
inclined  to  understand  the  passages  above  quoted  as 
referring  to  wine  drawn  oft'  before  the  fermentation 
was  complete,  either  for  immediate  use,  or  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  it  into  sweet  wine  after  the 
manner  described  by  the  Geoponic  writers  (vii.  19) 
[Diet,  of 'Ant.  "Vinum  "].  The  presence  of  the  gas- 
bubble,  or  as  the  Hebrews  termed  it,  "  the  eye  " 
that  sparkled  in  the  cup  (Prov.  xxiii.  31),  was  one 
of  the  tokens  of  fermentation  having  taken  place, 
and  the  same  effect  was  very  possibly  implied  in  the 
name  khemer. 

The  remaining  terms  call  for  but  few  remarks 
There  can  be  no  question  that  asis  means  wine,  and 
in  this  case  it  is  observable  that  it  forms  part  of  a 
Divine  promise  (Joel  iii.  18;  Am.ix.  13)  very  much 
as  tirosh  occurs  elsewhere,  though  other  notices 
imply  that  it  was  the  occasion  of  excess  (Is.  xlix. 
26  ;  Joel  i.  5).  Two  out  of  the  three  passages  in 
which  scbe  occurs  (.Is.  i.  22  ;  Nah.  i.  10)  imply  a 
liquor  that  would  be  spoiled  or  wounded  (the  ex 
pression  in  Is.  i.  22,  mdhul,  A.  V.  "  mixed,"  is 
supposed  to  ccnvey  the  same  idea  as  the  Lat:.n 
castrare  applied  to  wine  in  Plin.  xix.  19)  by  the 
application  of  water  ;  we  think  the  passages  quoted 


terra  rendered  "  buy"  properly  means  "  to  buy  grain,' 
and  hence  expresses  iii  itself  the  substance  to  be  eateu 


WINE 

favour  the  idea  of  strength  rather  than  sweetness 
being  the  characteristic  of  sobe.  The  term  occur.; 
in  Hos.  iv.  18,  in  the  sense  of  a  debauch,  and  the 
verb  accompanying  it  has  no  connexion  with  the 
notion  of  acidity,  but  would  more  properly  be  ren 
dered  "  is  past."  The  mingling  implied  in  the  term 
mesek  may  have  been  designed  either  to  increase,  or 
to  diminish  the  strength  of  the  wine,  according  as 
spices  or  water  formed  the  ingredient  that  was 
added.  The  notices  chiefly  favour  the  former  view  ; 
for  mingled  liquor  was  prepared  for  high  festivals 
(Prov.  ix.  2,  5),  and  occasions  of  excess  (Prov. 
xxiii.  30 ;  Is.  v.  22).  A  cup  "  full  mixed,"  was 
emblematic  of  severe  punishment  (Ps.  Ixxv.  8). 
At  the  same  time  strength  was  not  the  sole  object 
sought:  the  wine  "  mingled  with  myrrh"  given  to 
Jesus,  was  designed  to  deaden  pain  (Mark  xv.  23), 
and  the  spiced  pomegranate  wine  prepared  by  the 
bride  (Cant.  viii.  2)  may  well  have  been  of  a  mild 
character.  Both  the  Greeks  and  Romans  were  in 
the  habit  of  flavouring  their  wines  with  spices,  and 
such  preparations  were  described  by  the  former  as 
wine  ^|  apca^aTtav  KaTcurKevafy/j.fvos  (A then.  i. 
p.  31  e),  and  by  the  latter  as  aromntites  (Plin.  xiv. 
19,  §5).  The  authority  of  the  Mishna  may  be  cited 
in  favour  both  of  water  and  of  spices,  the  former 
being  noticed  in  Bcrach.  7,  §5  ;  Pesach.  7,  §13,  and 
the  latter  in  Schen.  2,  §1.  '  In  the  New  Testament 
the  character  of  the  "  sweet  wine,"  noticed  in  Acts 
ii.  13,  calls  for  some  little  remark.  It  could  not 
be  neio  wine  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  inns- 
much  as  about  eight  months  must  have  elapsed 
between  the  vintage  and  the  feast  of  Pentecost.  It 
might  have  been  applied,  just  as  mustum  was  by 
the  Romans,  to  wine  that  had  been  preserved  for 
about  a  year  in  an  unfermented  state  (Cato,  R.  R. 
c.  120).  But  the  explanations  of  the  ancient  lexi 
cographers  rather  lead  us  to  infer  that  its  luscious 
qualities  were  due,  not  to  its  being  recently  made,  but 
to  its  being  produced  from  the  very  purest  juice  of  the 
grape ;  for  both  in  Hesychius  and  the  Etymologicum 
Magnum  the  term  y\evitos  is  explained  to  be  the  juice 
that  flowed  spontaneously  from  the  grape  before  the 
treading  commenced.  The  name  itself,  therefore,  is 
not  conclusive  as  to  its  being  an  unfermented  liquor, 
while  the  context  implies  the  reverse:  for  St.  Peter 
would  hardly  have  offered  a  serious  defence  to  an 
accusation  that  was  not  seriously  made  ;  and  yet  if 
the  sweet  wine  in  question  were  not  intoxicating, 
the  accusation  could  only  have  been  ironical. 

As  considerable  stress  is  laid  upon  the  quality 
of  sweetness,  as  distinguished  from  strength,  sup 
posed  to  be  implied  in  the  Hebrew  terms  mesek 
and  sobe,  we  may  observe  that  the  usual  term 
for  the  inspissated  juice  of  the  grape,  which  was 
characterized  more  especially  by  sweetness,  was 
dtbash,*  rendered  in  the  A.  V.  "honey"  (Gen. 
xliii.  11  ;  Ez.  xxvii.  17).  This  was  prepared  by 
boiling  it  down  either  to  a  third  of  its  original 
bulk,  in  which  case  it  was  termed  sapa  by  the 
Latins,  and  fyrjfjia  or  (ripaiov  by  the  Greeks,  or  else 
to  half  its  bulk,  in  which  case  it  was  termed  de- 
frutum  (Plin.  xiv.  11).  Both  the  substance  and 
the  name,  under  the  form  of  dibs,  are  in  common 
use  in  Syria  at  the  present  day.  We  may  further 
notice  a  less  artificial  modo  of  producing  a  sweet 
liquor  from  the  grape,  namely,  by  pressing  the 
juice  directly  into  the  cup,  as  described  in  Gen. 
xi.  11.  And,  lastly,  there  appears  to  have  been  a 


WINE 


1777 


VOL.  III. 


beverage,  also  of  a  sweet  character,  produced  by 
macerating  grapes,  and  hence  termed  th«  "  liquor"11 
of  grapes  (Num.  vi.  3).  These  later  preparations 
are  allowed  in  the  Koran  (xvi.  69)  as  substitutes 
for  wine. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  wines  of  Pa 
lestine  varied  in  quality,  and  were  named  alt<  r  the 
localities  in  which  they  were  made.  We  have  no 
notices,  however,  to  this  effect.  The  only  wines  of 
which  we  have  special  notice,  belonged  to  Syria: 
these  were  the  wine  of  Helbon.  a  valley  near  Da 
mascus,  which  in  ancient  times  was  prized  at  Tyiv? 
(Ez.  xxvii.  18)  and  by  the  Persian  monarchs  (Strab. 
xv.  p.  735),  as  it  still  is  by  the  residents  of  Da 
mascus  (Porter,  Damascus,  i.  333)  ;  and  the  wine 
of  Lebanon,  famed  for  its  aroma  (Hos.  xiv.  7). 

With  regard  to  the  uses  of  wine  in  private  life 
there  is  little  to  remark.  It  was  produced  on  occa 
sions  of  ordinary  hospitality  (Gen.  xiv.  18),  and  at 
festivals,  such  as  marriages  (John  ii.  3).  The  mo 
numents  of  ancient  Egypt  furnish  abundant  evidence 
that  the  people  of  that  country,  both  msle  and 
female,  indulged  liberally  in  the  use  of  wine  (Wilkin 
son,  i.  52,  53).  It  has  been  inferred  from  a  passage 
in  Plutarch  (de  fsid.  6)  that  no  wine  was  drunk  in 
Egypt  before  the  reign  of  Psammetichus,  and  this 
passage  has  been  quoted  in  illustration  of  Gen. 
xl.  11.  The  meaning  of  the  author  seems  rather 
to  be  that  the  kings  subsequently  to  Psammetichus 
did  not  restrict  themselves  to  the  quantity  of  wine 
prescribed  to  them  by  reason  of  their  sacerdotal 
office  (Diod.  i.  70).  The  cultivation  of  the  vine 
was  incompatible  with  the  conditions  of  a  nomad 
life,  and  it  was  probably  on  this  account  that  Jo- 
nadab,  wishing  to  perpetuate  that  kind  of  life  among 
his  posterity,  prohibited  the  use  of  wine  to  them 
(Jer.  xxxv.  6).  The  case  is  exactly  parallel  to  that 
of  the  Nabathaeans,  who  abstained  from  wine  on 
purely  political  grounds  (Diod.  xix.  94). 

Under  the  Mosaic  law  wine  formed  the  usual 
drink-offering  that  accompanied  the  daily  sacrifice 
(Ex.  xxix.  40),. the  presentation  of  the  first-fruits 
(Lev.  xxiii.  13),  and  other  offerings  (Num.  xv.  5). 
It  appears  from  Num.  xxviii.  7  that  strong  drink 
might  be  substituted  for  it  on  these  occasions. 
Tithe  was  to  be  paid  of  wine  (tirosh)  as  of  other 
products,  and  this  was  to  be  consumed  "  before  the 
Lord,"  meaning  within  the  precincts  of  the  Temple, 
or  perhaps,  as  may  be  inferred  from  Lev.  vii.  Ifi,  at 
the  place  where  the  Temple  was  situated  (Deut.  xii. 
17,  18).  The  priest  was  also  to  receive  first-fruits 
of  wine  (tirosh\  as  of  other  articles  (Deut.  xviii. 
4 ;  comp.  Ex.  xxii.  29) :  and  a  promise  of  plenty 
was  attached  to  the  faithful  payment  of  these  dues 
(Prov.  iii.  9,  10).  The  priests  were  prohibited  from 
the  use  of  wine  and  strong  drink  before  performing 
the  services  of  the  Temple  (Lev.  x.  9),  and  the  place 
which  this  prohibition  holds  in  the  narrative  favours 
the  presumption  that  the  offence  of  Nadab  and 
Abihu  was  committed  under  the  influence  of  liquor. 
Ezekiel  repeats  the  prohibition  as  far  as  wine  is 
concerned  (Ez.  xliv.  21).  The  Nazarite  was  pro 
hibited  from  the  use  of  wine,  or  strong  drink,  or 
even  the  juice  of  grapes  during  the  continuance  of 
his  vow  (Num.  vi.  3);  but  the  adoption  of  that 
vow  was  a  voluntary  act.  The  use  of  wine  at  the 
paschal  feast  was  not  enjoined  by  the  Law  ;  but  had 
become  an  established  custom,  at  all  events  in  the 
post-Baby  Ionian  period.  The  cup  was  handed  round 
four  times  according  to  the  ritual  prescribed  in  the 
Mishna  (Pesach.  10,  §1),  the  third  cup  being  desig 
nated  the  "cup  of  blessing"  (1  Cor.  x.  16),  betausc 

5  X 


1778 


WINE  PRESS 


grace  was  then  said  (Pesach.  10,  §7).  [PASSOVER]. 
The  contents  of  the  cup  are  specifically  described  by 
our  Lord  as  "  the  fruit"  (•yeVvTjjua)  of  the  vine  (Matt. 
xxvi.  29  ;  Mark  xiv.  25  ;  Luke  xxii.  18),  and  in  the 
Mishna  simply  as  wine.  The  wine  was  mixed  with 
warm  water  on  these  occasions,  as  implied  in  the 
notice  of  the  warming  kettle  (Pesach.  7,  §13). 
Hence  in  the  early  Christian  Church  it  was  usual 
to  mix  the  sacramental  wine  with  water,  a  custom 
as  old,  at  all  events,  as  Justin  Martyr's  time  (Apol. 
i.  65).  The  Pastoral  Epistles  contain  directions  as 
to  the  moderate  use  of  wine  on  the  part  of  all  hold 
ing  office  in  the  Church  ;  as  that  they  should  not 
be  iripoivoi  (I  Tim.  iii.  3  ;  A.  V.  "  given  to  wine"), 
manning  insolent  and  violent  under  the  influence 
of  wine;  "not  given  to  much  wine"  (1  Tim.  iii. 
8);  "not  enslaved  to  much  wine"  (Tit.  ii.  3). 
rJhe  term  vntyaXfos  in  1  Tim.  iii.  2  (A.  V. 
"sober"),  expresses  general  vigilance  and  circum 
spection  (Schleusner,  Lex.  s.  v. ;  Alford,  in  loo.}. 
St.  Paul  advises  Timothy  himself  to  be  no  longer  a 
h;ibitual  water-drinker,  but  to  tike  a  little  wine  for 
his  health's  sake  (1  Tim.  v.  23).  No  very  satis 
factory  reason  can  be  assigned  for  the  place  which 
this  injunction  holds  in  the  Epistle,  unless  it  were 
intended  to  correct  any  possible  misapprehension  as 
to  the  preceding  words,  "  Keep  thyself  pure."  The 
precepts  above  quoted,  as  well  as  others  to  the  same 
elfect  addressed  to  the  disciples  generally  (Rom.  xiii. 
13 ;  Gal.  v.  21  ;  1  Pet.  iv.  3),  show  the  extent  to 
which  intemperance  prevailed  in  ancient  times,  and 
the  extreme  danger  to  which  the  Church  was  sub- 
iected  from  this  quarter.  [W.  L.  B.] 

WINE-PRESS  (n|  ;  lj^;  ITJ1B).  From  the 
(scanty  notices  contained  in  the  Bible  we  gather  that 
the  wine-presses  of  the  Jews  consisted  of  two  re 
ceptacles  or  vats  placed  at  different  elevations,  in 
the  upper  one  of  which  the  grapes  were  trodden, 
while  the  lower  one  received  the  expressed  juice. 
The  two  vats  are  mentioned  together  only  in  Joel 
iii.  13 : — "  The  press  (gath)  is  full :  the  fats  (yeke- 
birn)  overflow  " — the  upper  vat  being  full  of  fruit, 
the  lower  one  overflowing  with  the  must.  Yekcb 
is  similarly  applied  in  Joel  ii.  24,  and  probably  in 
Frov.  iii.  10,  where  the  verb  rendered  "  burst  out" 
in  the  A.  V.  may  bear  the  more  general  sense  of 
"  abound"  (Gesen.  Thes.  p.  1130).  Gath  is  also 
strictly  applied  to  the  upper  vat  in  Neh.  xiii.  15, 
Lam.  i.  15,  and  Is.  Ixiii.  2,  with  pvrdh  in  a  parallel 
sense  in  the  following  verse.  Elsewhere  yekeb  is 
not  strictly  applied  ;  for  in  Job  xxiv.  11,  and  Jer. 
xlviii.  33,  it  refers  to  the  upper  vat,  just  as  in 
Matt.  xxi.  33,  inroXfyiov  (properly  the  vat  under 
the  press)  is  substituted  for  \yv6s,  as  given  in 
Mark  xii.  1.  It  would,  moreover,  appear  natural 
to  describe  the  whole  arrangement  by  the  term 
gath.  as  denoting  the  most  important  portion  of  it; 
but,  with  the  exception  of  proper  names  in  which 
the  word  appeal's,  such  as  Gath,  Gath-i'immon, 
Gath-hepher,  and  Gittaim,  the  term  yekeb  is  ap 
plied  to  it  (Judg.  vii.  25;  Zech.  xiv.'  10).  The 
same  term  is  also  applied  to  the  produce  of  the 
wine-press  (Num.  xviii.  27,  30  ;  Deut.  xv.  14  ; 
2  K.  vi.  27  ;  Hos.  ix.  2).  The  term  purah,  as 
used  in  Hagg.  ii.  16,  probably  refers  to  the  con 
tents  of  a  wine-vat,"  rather  than  to  the  press  or 
vat  itself.  The  two  vats  were  usually  dug  or 
he  urn  out  of  the  solid  rock  (Is.  v.  2,  margin ; 


*  The  LXX.  renders  the  term  by /aerpirrijs,  the  Greek 
measure  equivalent  to  the  Hebrew  bath. 


WISDOM,  THE,  OF  SOLOMON 

Matt.  xxi.  33).  Ancient  wine-presses,  »u  con 
structed,  are  still  to  be  seen  in  Palestine,  one  of 
which  is  thus  described  by  Robinson: — *•  Advantage 
had  been  taken  of  a  ledge  of  rock  ;  on  the  upper  side 
a  shallow  vat  had  been  dug  out,  eight  feet  square, 
and  fifteen  inches  deep.  Two  feet  lower  down 
another  smaller  vat  was  excavated,  four  feet  square 
by  three  feet  deep.  The  grapes  were  trodden  in  the 
shallow  upper  vat,  and  the  juice  drawn  oif  by  a  hole 
at  the  bottom  (still  remaining)  into  the  lower  vat" 
(B.  R.  iii.  137,  603).  The  wine-presses  were  thus 
permanent,  and  were  sufficiently  well  known  to 
serve  as  indications  of  certain  localities  (Judg.  vii. 
25  ;  Zech.  xiv.  10).  The  upper  receptacle  (gotth) 
was  large  enough  to  admit  of  threshing  being 
carried  on  in  (not  "by,"  as  in  A.  V.)  it,  as  w?.' 
done  by  Gideon  for  the  sake  of  concealment  (Jud". 
vi.  11).  [FAT.]  [VV.  L.  B/, 

WINNOWING.    [AGRICULTURE] 
WISDOM  OF  JESUS,  SON  OF  SIKACH 

[ECCLKSIASTICUS.] 

WISDOM,  THE,  OF  SOLOMON.  2o<j>i'a 
~2,a\<ajj.<i}V  ;  2o0ia  SoA.o/xwi'TOS  ;  later,  r/  Soviet : 
Liber  Sapient iae ;  Sapientiu  Salomonis ;  Sophia  8a- 
lomonis.  The  title  ~2,o<pia  was  also  applied  to  the 
Book  of  Proverbs,  as  by  Melito  ap.  Euseb.  //.  E. 
iv.  26  (Tla.poin.iai  3}  Kal  TJ  Soviet ;  see  Vales,  or 
Routh  ad  loc.~),  and  also  to  Ecclesiasticus,  as  Kpi- 
phanius  (adv.  haer.  Ixxvi.  p.  941,  eV  rats  2o<£fcus, 
2oA.oyueDi/Tds  re  Qiqfju  Koi  vtov  "Sipdx),  from  which 
considerable  confusion  has  arisen. 

1.  Text. — The  Book  of  Wisdom  is  preserved  in 
Greek  and  Latin  texts,  and  in  subsidiary  translations 
into  Syriac,  Arabic,  and  Armenian.  Of  these  latter, 
the  Armenian  is  said  to  be  the  most  important ;  the 
Syriac  and  Arabic  Versions  being  paraphrastic  and 
inaccurate  (Grimm,  EM.  §10).  The  Greek  text, 
which,  as  will  appear  afterwards,  is  undoubtedly 
the  original,  offers  no  remarkable  features.  The 
variations  in  the  MSS.  are  confined  within  narrow 
limits,  and  are  not  such  as  to  suggest  the  idea  ol 
distinct  early  recensions ;  nor  is  there  any  appear 
ance  of  serious  corruptions  anterior  to  existing 
Greek  authorities.  The  Old  Latin  Version,  which 
was  left  untouched  by  Jerome  (Praef.  in  Libr. 
SaL,  In  eo  libro  qui  a  plerisque  Sapicntia  Saloinonis 
inscribitur  ....  calamo  temperavi ;  tantummodo 
canonieas  Scripturas  emendare  desiderans,  et  studium 
meum  certis  magis  quam  dubiis  commendare),  is  in 
the  main  a  close  and  faithful  rendering  of  the 
Greek,  though  it  contains  some  additions  to  the 
original  text,  such  as  are  characteristic  of  the  old 
version  generally.  Examples  of  these  additions  are 
found — i.  15,  Injustitia  autem  mortis  est  acqni- 
sitio  ;  ii.  8,  Nullum  pratu/n  sit  quod  non  pertran- 
seat  luxuria  nostra  ;  ii.  17,  et  sciemus  quae  erunt 
novisnima  iV/ius;  vi.  1,  Melior  est  sapientia  quam 
vires,  et  vir  prudens  quam  fortis.  And  the  con 
struction  of  the  parallelism  in  the  two  first  cases 
suggests  the  belief  that  there,  at  least,  the  Latin 
reading  may  be  correct.  But  other  additions  point 
to  a  different  conclusion:  vi.  23,  diiigite  lumen 
sapientiae  omnes  qui  praeestis  populis ;  viii.  11,  et 
fades  principum  mirabuntur  me ;  ix.19,  quicunqjic 
placuerunt  tibi  domine  a  principio ;  xi.  5,  a  defcc- 
tione  potus  sui,  et  in  eis  cum  abundarent  filii  Israel 
laetati  snnt. 

The  chief  Greek  MSS.  in  which  the  book  is  con 
tained  are  the  Codex  Sinaiticus  (tf),  the  Cod. 
Alexandrinus  (A),  the  Cod.  Vaticanus  (B),  and  th« 
Cod.  Ephraemi  rcscr.  (C).  Th*  entire  text  is  prc- 


WISDOM,  THE,  OF  SOLOMON 


1779 


served  ia  the  thie«  rorrner  ;  in  the  latte,,  only  con 
siderable  fragments :  viii.  5-xi.  10 ;  xiv.  19-ivii. 
18  ;  xviii.  24-xix.  22. 

Sabatier  used  four  Latin  MSS.  of  the  higher  class 
for  his  edition:  "  Corbeienses  duos,  unmn  San- 
germanensem,  et  alium  S.  Theodorici  ad  Remos," 
of  which  he  professes  to  give  almost  a  complete  (but 
certainly  not  a  literal)  collation.  The  variations 
are  not  generally  important ;  but  patristic  quota 
tions  show  that  in  early  times  very  considerable 
differences  of  text  existed.  An  important  MS.  of 
the  book  in  the  Brit.  Mus.  Egerton,  1046,  Saec. 
viii.  has  not  yet  been  examined. 

2.  Contents. — The  book  has  been  variously  di- 
vicWL*  but  it  seems  to  fall  most  naturally  into  two 
great  divisions:  fl)  i.-ix.;  (2)  x.-xix.  The  first 
contains  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom  in  its  moral  and 
intellectual  aspects;  the  second,  the  doctrine  of 
Wisdom  as  shown  in  history.  Each  of  these  parts 
is  again  capable  of  subdivision.  The  first  part  con 
tains  the  praise  of  Wisdom  as  the  source  of  immor 
tality  iii  contrast  with  the  teaching  of  sensualists 
( i.-v.) ;  and  next  the  praise  of  Wisdom  as  the  guide 
of  practical  and  intellectual  life,  the  stay  of  princes, 
and  the  interpreter  of  the  universe  (vi.-ix).  The 
second  part,  again,  follows  the  action  of  Wisdom 
summarily,  as  preserving  God's  servants  from  Adam 
to  Moses  (x.  l.-xi.  4),  and  more  particularly  in  the 
punishment  of  the  Egyptians  and  Canaauites  (xi. 
5-16;  xi.  17-xii.).  This  punishment  is  traced  to 
its  origin  in  idolatry,  which,  in  its  rise  and  progress, 
presents  the  false  substitute  for  Revelation  (xiii., 
xiv.).  And  in  the  last  section  (xv.-xix.)  the  history 
of  the  Exodus  is  used  to  illustrate  in  detail  the 
contrasted  fortunes  of  the  people  of  God  and  idola 
ters.  The  whole  argument  may  be  presented  in  a 
tabular  form  in  the  following  shape. 

I. — Ch.  i.-ix.   The  doctrine  of  Wisdom  in  its  spiri 
tual,  intellectual,  and  moral  aspects. 

(a),  i.-v.  Wisdom    the   giver  of  happiness  and 

immortality. 

The  conditions  of  wisdom  (i.  1-11). 
Uprightness  of  thought  (1-5). 
Uprightness  of  word  (6-11). 
The  origin  of  death  (i.  12-ii.  24). 

Sin  (in  fact)  by  man's  free  will  (i.  12-16). 
The  reasoning  of  the  sensualist  (ii.  1-20). 
Sin  (in  source)  by  the  envy  of  the  devil 

(21-24). 
The  gocuy  and  wicked  in  life  (as  mortal),  (iii. 

1-iv.). 

In  chastisements  (iii.  1-10). 
In  the  results  of  life  (iii.  11-iv.  6). 
In  length  of  life  (7 -20). 
The  godly  and  wicked  after  death  (v.). 
The  judgment  of  conscience  (J.-14). 
The  judgment  of  God- 
On  the  godly  (15-16). 
On  the  wicked  (17-23). 
(8).  vi.-ix,  Wisdom  the  guide  of  life. 
Wisdom  the  guide  of  princes  (vi.  1-21). 
Thi  responsibility  of  power  (1-11). 
WLsdom  soon  found  (12-16). 
Wisdom  the  source  of  true  sovereignty 

(17-21). 

The  character  and  realm  of  wisdom 
Open  to  all  (vi.  22-vii.  7). 
Pervading  all  creation  (vii.  8-viii.  1). 
Swaying  all  life  (viii.  2-17). 


Wisdom  the  gift  of  Goa  (viii.  17-ix.) 
Prayer  for  wisdom  (ix.). 


I. — Ch.  x.-xix.    The  doctrine  of  Wisdom  \n  its, 

historical  aspects. 

(a).  Wisdom  a  power  to  save  and  chastise. 
Wisdom  seen  in  the  guidance  of  God's  people 

from  Adam  to  Moses  (x.-xi.  4). 
Wisdom  seen  in  the  punishment  of  Goa's  ene 
mies  (xi.  5-xii.). 

The  Egyptians  (xi.  5-xii.  1). 

The  Canaanites  (xii.  2-18). 

The  lesson  of  mercy  and  judgment  (19- 

27). 
(£).  The   growth   of  idolatry  the   opposite  to 

wisdom. 

The  worship  of  nature  (xiii.  1-9). 
The  worship  of  images  (xiii.  10-xiv.  13). 
The  worship  of  deified  men  (xiv.  14-21). 
The  moral  effects  of  idolatry  (xiv.  22-31). 

(•y).  The  contrast  between  true  worshippers  and 

idolaters  (xv.-xix.). 
The  general  contrast  (xv.  1-17). 
The  special  contrast  at  the  Exodus — 

The  action  of  beasts  (xv.  18-xvi.  13). 
The  action  of  the  forces  of  nature — water 

fire  (xvi.  14-29). 

The  symbolic  darkness  (xvii.-xviii.  4). 
The  action  of  death  (xviii.  5-25). 
The  powers  of  nature  changed  in  their 
working   to    save   and    destroy    (xix. 
1-21). 
Conclusion  (xix.  21). 

The  subdivisions  are  by  no  means  sharply  defined . 
though  it  is  not  difficult  to  trace  the  main  current 
of  thought.  Each  section  contains  the  preparation 
for  that  which  follows,  just  as  in  the  classic  trilogj 
the  close  of  one  play  shadowed  forth  the  subject 
of  the  next.  Thus  in  ii.  246,  iv.  20,  ix.  18,  &c., 
the  fresh  idea  is  enunciated,  which  is  subsequently 
developed  at  length.  In  this  way  the  whole  book 
is  intimately  bound  together,  and  the  clauses  which 
appear  at  first  sight  to  be  idle  repetitions  of 
thought  really  spring  from  the  elaborateness  of  its 
structure. 

3.  Unity  and  integrity. — It  follows  from  what 
has  been  said  that  the  book  forms  a  complete  and 
harmonious  whole.  But  the  distinct  treatment  of 
the  subject,  theoretically  and  historically,  in  two 
parts,  has  given  occasion  from  time  to  time  for 
maintaining  that  it  is  the  work  of  two  or  more 
authors.  C.  F.  Houbigant  (Prolegg.  ad  Sap.  et 
Eccles.  1777)  supposed  that  the  first  nine  chapters 
were  the  work  of  Solomon,  and  that  the  translator 
of  the  Hebrew  original  (probably)  added  the  later 
chapters.  t  Eichhom  (Einl.  in  d.  Apoc.  1795), 
rightly  feeling  that  some  historical  illustrations  of 
the  action  of  wisdom  were  required  by  the  close  of 
ch.  ix.,  fixed  the  end  of  the  original  book  at  ch.  xi.  1 . 
Nachtigal  (Das  Buck  Weish.  1799)  devised  a  far 
more  artificial  theory,  and  imagined  that  he  could 
trace  in  the  book  the  records  of  (so  to  speak)  an 
antiphonic  "  Praise  of  Wisdom,"  delivered  in  three 
sittings  of  the  sacred  schools  by  two  companies  of 
doctors.  Bretschneider  (1804-5),  following  out  the 
simpler  hypothesis,  found  three  different  writing?  in 
the  book,  of  which  he  attributed  the  first  part  (i. 
1-vi.  8)  to  a  Palestinian  Jew  of  the  time  of  Antiochu* 
Epiph.,  the  second  (vi.  9-x.)  to  a  philosophic 
Alexandrine  Jew  of  the  time  of  our  Lord,  and  ths 

5X2 


178C  WISDOM,  THE, 

third  fxii.-xix.)  to  a  contemporary,  but  unedu- 
«*t?d  Jew,  whc  wi-ote  under  the  influence  of  the 
rudest  national  piejudices.  The  eleventh  chapter 
Was,  as  he  supposed,  added  by  the  compiler  who 
brought  the  three  chief  parts  together.  Bertholdt 
(Einleitung,  1815)  fell  back  upon  a  modification 
of  the  earliest  division.  He  included  chap,  i.-xii. 
in  the  original  book,  which  he  regarded  as  essentially 
philosophical,  while  the  later  addition  fxiii.-xix.)  is, 
in  his  judgment,  predominantly  theological.  It  is 
needless  to  enter  in  detail  into  the  arguments  by 
which  those  various  opinions  were  maintained,  but 
when  taken  together,  they  furnish  an  instructive 
example  of  the  course  of  subjective  criticism.  The 
true  refutation  of  the  one  hypothesis  which  they 
have  in  common — the  divided  authorship  of  the 
book — is  found  in  the  substantial  harmony  and 
connexion  of  its  parts,  in  the  presence  of  the  same 
general  tone  and  manner  of  thought  throughout  it, 
and  yet  more  in  the  essential  uniformity  of  style 
and  language  which  it  presents,  though  both  are 
necessarily  modified  in  some  degree  by  the  subject 
matter  of  the  different  sections.  (For  a  detailed 
examination  of  the  arguments  of  the  "  Separatists," 
see  Grimm,  Exeg.  Handb.  §4 ;  and  Bauermeister, 
Comm.  in  lib.  Sap.  3  ff.) 

Some,  however,  admitting  the  unity  of  the  book, 
have  questioned  its  integrity.  Eichhorn  imagined 
that  it  was  left  imperfect  by  its  author  (Einl.  p. 
148);  Grotius,  apparently,  that  it  was  mutilated 
by  some  accident  of  time  (Videtur  hie  liber  esse 
KO  Voi/pos) ;  and  others  have  been  found,  in  later 
times,  to  support  each  opinion.  Yet  it  is  obvious 
that  the  scope  of  the  argument  is  fully  satisfied  by 
the  investigation  of  the  providential  history  of  the 
Jews  up  to  the  time  of  the  occupation  of  Canaan, 
and  the  last  verse  furnishes  a  complete  epilogue  to 
the  treatise,  which  Grimm  compares,  not  inaptly, 
with  the  last  words  of  3  Mace. 

The  idea  that  the  book  has  been  interpolated  by 
a  Christian  hand  (Grotius,  Gratz)  is  as  little  worthy 
of  consideration  as  the  idea  that  it  is  incomplete. 
The  passages  which  have  been  brought  forward  in 
support  of  this  opinion  (ii.  12-20,  24,  iii.  13,  14, 
xiv.  7  ;  comp.  Homilies,  p.  174,  ed.  1850)  lose  all 
their  force,  if  fairly  interpreted. 

4.  Style  and  Language. — The  literary  character 
of  the  book  is  most  remarkable  and  interesting.  In 
the  richness  and  freedom  of  its  vocabulary  it  most 
closely  resembles  the  fourth  Book  of  M*accabees, 
but  it  is  superior  to  that  fine  declamation,  both  in 
power  and  variety  of  diction.  No  existing  work 
represents  perhaps  more  completely  the  style  of 
composition  which  would  be  produced  by  the 
sophistic  schools  of  rhetoric  j  and  in  the  artificial 
balancing  of  words,  and  the  frequent  niceties  of 
arrangement  and  rhythm,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be 
reminded  of  the  exquisite  story  of  Prodicus  (Xen. 
Memorab.  ii.  1,  21),  and  of  the  subtle  refinements 
of  Protagoras  in  the  dialogue  which  bears  his  name. 
It  follows  as  a  necessary  consequence  that  the  effect 
of  different  parts  of  the  book  is  very  unequal.  The 
florid  redundancy  and  restless  straining  after  effect, 
which  may  be  not  unsuited  to  vivid  intellectual 
pictures,  is  wholly  alien  from  the  philosophic  con 
templation  of  history.  Thus  the  forced  contrasts 
and  fantastic  exaggei  a-fions  in  the  description  of  the 
Egyptian  plagues  cannot  but  displease,  while  it  is 
equally  impossible  not  to  admire  the  lyrical  force 
of  the  language  of  the  sensualist  (ii.  1,  fl'.),and  of  tho 
picture  of  future  judgment  (v.  15,  ff.).  The  mag- 
lufioont  description  of  Wirdom  (vii.  22-viii.  1)  must 


OF  SOLOMON 

rank  among  the  noblest  passages  of  human  i-lo- 
|uence,  and  it  would  be  pei  haps  impossible  to 
point  out  any  piece  of  equal  length  in  the  remain* 
of  classical  antiquity  more  pregnant  with  noble 
thought,  or  more  rich  in  expressive  phraseology. 
It  may  be  placed  beside  the  Hymn  of  Cleanthes  ot 
the  visions  of  Plato,  and  it  will  not  lose  its  powei 
to  cfiarm  and  move.  Examples  of  strange  or  new 
words  may  be  found  almost  on  every  page.  Such 
are  avaTro8i(T/j.6s,  TrpwroirAcurTos,  etSe'xflem,  076- 


reta  ;  others  belong  characteristically  to  later  Greek, 
as  5ja/3ouAiOJ',  avravaKXaffdai,  aSidirTwros,  e8pd~ 
£eij/,  e|aAAos,  cnrepia-jraaros,  &c.  ;  others,  again. 
to  the  language  of  philosophy.  b^oio-naB-ris,  fan- 
KOS.  Trpoixpfcn-dvai,  &c.  ;  and  others  to  the  LXX., 
w,  6\oKavTce/jLa,  &c.  No  class  of  writings 


and  no  mode  of  combination  appear  to  be  un 
familiar  to  the  writer.  Some  of  the  phrases  which 
he  adopts  are  singularly  happy,  as 
kfUtfrttaS  (i.  4),  a.\a.£ovGV€(r6a.i  irarepa 
(ii.  16),  e  \irls  aQavacrias  TrATjprjs  (iii.  4),  &c.  ; 
and  not  less  so  some  of  the  short  and  weighty  sen 
tences  in  which  he  gathers  up  the  truth  on  which 
he  is  dwelling:  vi.  19,  a<p6ap<ria  eyyvs  elVai 
Troif?  Qeov  ;  xi.  26,  (peiSy  Sf  TTavrw  '6ri  era  ecm, 
8  e  <r  TT  o  T  a  (p  i\6\l/  v  xe-  The  numei  ous  arti 
ficial  resources  with  which  the  book  abounds  aie  a 
less  pleasing  mark  of  labour  bestowed  upon  its 
composition.  Thus,  in  i.  1,  we  have  ay  airy  a  are 
.  .  .  <ppovf)ffaTe  .  .  .  .  ev  a.ya66rr]ri  Kal  eV 
OTrAoVr/Tt,  .  .  .  ^V/rVjo'CTe  ;  v.  23,  Troro/uoi  .  .  . 
;  xiii.  1  1,  7repte|uo"ei'  ev/jiaOws  .  .  .  Kal 
euTrpeTrws  ;  xix.  20,  rrjKTbv  tvrij- 
KTQV.  The  arrangement  of  the  words  is  equally 
artificial,  but  generally  more  effective,  and  often 
very  subtle  and  forcible  ;  vii.  29,  Hern  yap  UU'TTJ 
(?j  ffocpia}  fvirpfirearfpa  T]\iov  Kal  inrep  iraaar 
affTpuv  Q^tnv.  (purl  <rvyKpivoiJ.evi}  fvpiaKtrai 
TTportpa.  TOVTO  /j.ev  yap  SmSe'xeTcu  i/u|,  ffotyias 
5e  OVK  avTHT'xysi  KaKia. 

The  language  of  the  Old  Latin  translation  is  also 
itself  full  of  interest.  It  presents,  in  great  pro 
fusion,  the  characteristic  provincialisms  whicli  else 
where  mark  the  earliest  African  version  of  the 
Scriptures.  [Comp.  VULGATE,  §43.]  Such  are  the 
substantives  exterminium,  refrigcrium  ;  praecla- 
ritns,  medietas,  nimietas,  nativitas,  supcrvacuitns  ; 
subitatio  ;  assistrix,  doctrix,  electrix  ;  immemuratio 
(ctyii/Tjo'i'a)  ;  incolatus  ;  the  adjectives  contempt  ibilis, 
ine/ugibilis,  odibilis  ;  incoinquinatus,  inauxiliutus, 
indisciplinatus,  insensatus,  insimulatus  (avvrr6- 
/cpiTos)  ;  fumigabundus  ;  the  verbs  august  i<tre, 
mansuetare,  im/properare  ;  and  the  phrases  i/itpos- 
sibilis  iimnittere,partibus  (  =partimj,  innumerabilu 
honestas,  providentiae  (pi.). 

5.    Original  Language.  —  The  characteristics  of 

the  language,  which  have  been  just  noticed,  are  so 

marked  that  no  doubt  could  ever  have  been  raised 

as  to  the  originality  of  the  Greek  text,  if  it  had  not 

been  that   the  book  was  once  supposed  to  be  the 

work  of  Solomon.     It  was  assumed  (so  far  rightly) 

that  if  the  titulitional  title  were  correct,  the  book 

must  have  been  written  in  Hebrew  ;  and  the  belief 

I  which  was  thus  based  upon  a  false  opinion  as  to 

'  the  authorship,    survived,    at   least   partially,   fcr 

some  time  after  that  opinion  was  abandoned.     ^  et 

as  it  must  be  obvious,  even  on  a  superficial   ex 

amination,  that  the  style  and  language  of  the  book 

show  conclusively  that  it  could  not  have  been   tut 

i  work  of  Solomon,  so   it   appears   with  equal   c-  r- 

!  tainty  that  the  freedom  of  the  Greek  diction  w  '" 


by  no  Aramaic  text.  This  was  well  stated 
by  Jerome,  who  says,  "  Fertur  et  Travdperos  Jesu 
hlii  Sirach  liber,  et  alius  \J/ey5eTrt7pa(£os  qui 
Sap'entia  Salomonis  inscribitui-  .  .  .  Secuiidus  apud 
Hebraeos  nusquam  est,  quia  et  ipse  stylus  Graecam 
eloquentiam  redolet"  (Praef.  in  Libr.  Salom.);  and 
it  seems  superfluous  to  add  any  further  argument 
to  those  which  must  spring  from  the  reading  of  any 
one  chapter.  It  is,  however,  interesting  on  other 
grounds  to  observe  that  the  book  contains  une 
quivocal  traces  of  the  use  of  the  LXX.  where  it 
differs  from  the  Hebrew:  ii.  11,  eVefy)eu<ra>,uej> 
T^tv  Sticaiov  '6ri  8  v  &%  pi}ff-ro  s  ^fj.'iv 
fffri  (Is.  iii.  10);  xv.  10,  <nro8bs  rj  KapSia 
avTwv  (Is.  xliv.  20)  ;  and  this  not  in  direct  quota 
tions,  where  it  is  conceivable  that  a  Greek  trans 
lator  might  have  ttlt  justified  in  adopting  the  ren- 
lering  of  the  version  with  which  he  was  familiar, 
but  where  the  words  of  the  LXX.  are  inwrought 
into  the  text  itself.  But  while  the  original  lan 
guage  of  the  book  may  be  regarded  as  certainly  de 
termined  by  internal  evidence,  great  doubt  hangs 
over  the  date  and  place  of  its  composition ;  and  it 
will  be  necessary  to  examine  some  of  the  doctrinal 
peculiarities  which  it  presents  before  any  attempt  is 
made  to  determine  these  points  with  approximate 
accuracy. 

6.  Doctrinal  character. — The  theological  teach 
ing  of  the  book  offers,  in  many  respects,  the  nearest 
approach  to  the  language  and  doctrines  of  Greek 
philosophy  which  is  found  in  any  Jewish  writing 
up  to  the  time  of  Philo.  There  is  much  in  the 
views  which  it  gives  of  the  world,  of  man,  and 
of  the  Divine  Natuie,  which  springs  rather  from 
the  combination  or  conflict  of  Hebrew  and  Greek 
thought  than  from  the  independent  development  of 
Hebrew  thought  alone.  Thus,  in  speaking  of  the 
almighty  power  of  God,  the  writer  desciibesHim  as 
"  having  created  the  universe  out  of  matter  with 
out  form  "  (Kria-affa  rbj/  K^ff^ov  e£  a.fj.6pfyov 
I/'ATJS,  xi.  17),  adopting  the  very  phrase  of  the 
Platonists,  which  is  found  also  in  Philo  (De  Viet. 
Offer.  §13),  to  describe  the  pre-existing  matter  out 
of  which  the  world  was  made,  and  (like  Philo,  De 
Mund.  Op.  §5)  evidently  implying  that  this  in 
determinate  matter  was  itself  uncreated.  What 
ever  attempts  may  be  made  to  bring  this  statement 
into  harmony  with  the  doctrine  of  an  absolute 
primal  creation,  it  is  evident  that  it  derives  its  form 
from  Greece.  Scarcely  less  distinctly  heathen  is  the 
conception  which  is  presented  of  the  body  as  a  mere 
weight  and  clog  to  the  soul  (ix.  15  ;  contrast  2  Cor. 
v.  1-4)  ;  and  we  must  refer  to  some  extra- Judaic 
source  for  the  remarkable  doctrine  of  the  pre- 
existence  of  souls,  which  finds  unmistakeable  ex 
pression  in  viii.  20.  The  form,  indeed,  in  which 
this  doctrine  is  enunciated  differs  alike  from  that 
given  by  Plato  and  by  Philo,  but  it  is  no  less 
foreign  to  the  pure  Hebrew  mode  of  thought.  It 
is  more  in  accordance  with  the  language  of  the 
O.  T.  that  the  writer  represents  the  Spirit  of  God 
as  filling  (i.  7)  and  inspiring  all  things  (xii.  1), 


WISDOM,  THE,  OF  SOLOMON  1781 

but  even  here  the  idea  of  «<  a  soul  of  the  world  " 
seems  to  influence  his  thoughts  ;  and  the  same  re- 


a  The  famous  passage,  ii.  12-20,  has  been  very  fre 
quently  regarded,  both  in  early  and  modern  times,  as  a 
prophecy  of  the  Passion  of  Christ,  "  the  child  of  God."  It 
is  quoted  in  this  sense  by  Tertullian  (adv.  Marc.  iii.  22), 
Cyprian  (Testim.  ii.  14),  Hippolytus  (Dem.  adv.  Jud.  9), 
Origen  (Horn.  vi.  in  Ex.  1.),  and  many  later  Fathers, 
iinJ  Ronrisb.  interpreters  have  generally  followed  their 
opinion.  It  seems  obvious,  however,  ihat  the  passage 
rxiiitains  no  individual  reference  ;  and  the  coincidences 
exist  between  the  language  and  details  in  the 


mark  applies  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Provi 
dence  (-jrp6voia,  xiv.  3,  xvii.  2  ;  comp.  Grimm,  ad 
loc.},  and  of  the  four  cardinal  virtues  (viii.  7, 
crcatypoo-vvr),  <f)p6vi](ns,  SiKaioffvitr),  di/Spem), 
which,  in  form  at  least,  show  the  effect  of  Stoic 
teaching.  There  is,  on  the  other  hand,  no  trace  of 
the  characteristic  Christian  doctrine  of  a  resurrec 
tion  of  the  body ;  and  the  future  triumph  of  the 
good  is  entirely  unconnected  with  any  revelation  of' 
a  personal  Messiah3  (iii.  7,  8,  v.  16;  comp.  Grimm 
on  i.  12,  iii.  7,  for  a  good  view  of  the  eschatology 
of  the  book).  The  identification  of  the  tempter 
(Gen.  iii.),  directly  or  indirectly,  with  the  devil,  as 
the  bringer  "  of-death  into  the  world"  (ii.  23,  24), 
is  the  most  remarkable  development  of  Biblical 
doctrine  which  the  book  contains ;  and  this  preg 
nant  passage,  when  combined  with  tiie  earlier  de 
claration  as  to  the  action  of  man's  free  will  in  tne 
taking  of  evil  to  himself  (i.  12-16),  is  a  noble  ex 
ample  of  the  living  power  of  the  Divine  teaching  of 
the  0.  T.  in  the  face  of  other  influences.  It  is  also 
in  this  point  that  the  Pseudo-Solomon  differs  most 
widely  from  Philo,  who  recognizes  no  such  evil 
power  in  the  world,  though  the  doctrine  must  have 
been  well  known  at  Alexandria  (comp.  Gfiorer, 
Philo,  &c.  ii.  238).b  The  subsequent  deliverance 
of  Adam  from  his  transgression  (eleiAaro  avr^tv 
€K  TrapaTTT(afj.a.TOS  t'Siov)  is  attributed  to  Wisdom  ; 
and  it  appears  that  we  must  understand  by  this, 
not  the  scheme  of  Divine  Providence,  but  that; 
wisdom,  given  by  God  to  man,  which  is  iirmor« 
tality  (viii.  17).  Generally,  too,  it  may  te  ob 
served  that,  as  in  the  cognate  books,  Proverbs  and 
Ecclesiastes,  there  are  few  traces  of  the  recognition 
of  the  sinfulness  even  of  the  wise  man  in  his 
wisdom,  which  forms,  in  the  Psalms  and  the  Pro 
phets,  the  basis  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
atonement  (yet  comp.  xv.  2).  With  regard  to  the 
interpretation  of  the  0.  T.,  it  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  a  typical  significance  is  assumed  to  underlie 
the  historic  details  (xvi.  1,  xviii.  4,  5,  &c.) ;  and 
in  one  most  remarkable  passage  (xviii.  24)  the  high- 
priestly  dress  is  expressly  described  as  presenting  an 
image  of  the  Divine  glory  in  creation  and  in  the 
patriarchal  covenant — an  explanation  which  is 
found,  in  the  main,  both  in  Philo  (I)e  Vita  Mos. 
§12)  and  Josephus  (Ant.  iii.  7,  §7),  as  well  as  in 
later  writers  (comp.  also  xvi.  6,  §7).  In  connexion 
with  the  0.  T.  Scriptures,  the  book,  as  a  whole, 
may  be  regarded  as  carrying  on  one  step  further 
the  great  problem  of  life  contained  in  Ecclesiastes 
and  Job ;  while  it  differs  from  both  formally  by  the 
admixture  of  Greek  elements,  and  doctrinally  by 
the  supreme  prominence  given  to  the  itiea  of  im 
mortality  as  the  vindication  of  Divine  justice 
(comp.  below,  §9). 

7.  The  doctrine  of  Wisdom. — It  would  be  im 
possible  ,  to  trace  here  in  detail  the  progressive  de 
velopment  of  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom,  as  a  Divine 
Power  standing  in  some  sense  between  the  Creator 


Gospels  are  due  partly  to  the  0.  T.  passages  on  wuich 
it  is  based,  and  partly  to  the  concurrence  of  each 
typical  form  of  reproach  and  suffering  in  the  Lord's 
Passion. 

b  There  is  also  considerable  difference  between  the 
sketch  of  the  rise  of  idolatry  in  Philo,  De  Monarch.  $1-3, 
and  that  given  in  Wisd.  xiii.  xiv.  Other  differences  arc 
pointed  out  by  Eichhorn,  Einl.  172  ff.  A  trace  of  the 
cabbalistic  use  of  numbers  is  pointed  twt  by  Ewald  in  the 
twenty  unt  attributes  of  Wisdom  (vii.  21,  23X 


1782 


WISDOM,  THE.  OF  SOLOMON 


and  creation,  yet  without  some  idea  of  this  history 
no  correct  opinion  can  be  formed  on  the  position 
which  the  Book  of  the  Pseudo-Solomon  occupies  in 
Jewish  literature.  The  foundation  of  the  doctrine 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  where 
(viii.)  Wisdom  (Khokmah^  is  represented  as  present 
with  God  before  (viii.  22)  and  during  the  creation 
of  the  world.  So  far  it  appears  only  as  a  principle 
regulating  the  action  of  the  Creator,  though  even  in 
this  way  it  establishes  a  close  connexion  between 
the  world,  as  the  outward  expression  of  Wisdom, 
and  God.  Moreover,  by  the  personification  of 
Wisdom,  and  the  relation  of  Wisdom  to  men  (viii. 
31),  a  preparation  is  made  for  the  extension  of  the 
doctrine.  This  appears,  after  a  long  interval,  in 
Ecclesiasticus.  In  the  great  description  of  Wisdom 
given  in  that  book  (xxiv.),  Wisdom  is  represented 
as  a  creation  of  God  (xxiv.  9) ,  penetrating  the  whole 
universe  (4-6),  and  taking  up  her  special  abode 
with  the  chosen  people  (8-12).  Her  personal  ex 
istence  and  providential  function  are  thus  distinctly 
brought  out.  In  the  Book  of  Wisdom  the  con 
ception  gains  yet  further  completeness.  In  this, 
Wisdom  is  identified  with  the  Spirit  of  God  (ix. 
17) — an  identification  half  implied  in  Ecclus.  xxiv. 
3 — which  brooded  over  the  elements  of  the  un 
formed  world  (ix.  9),  and  inspired  the  prophets  (vii. 
7,  27).  She  is  the  power  which  unites  (i.  7)  and 
directs  all  things  (viii.  1).  By  her,  in  especial, 
men  have  fellowship  with  God  (xii.  1)  ;  and  her 
action  is  not  confined  to  any  period,  for  "  in  all 
ages  entering  into  holy  souls,  she  maketh  them 
friends  of  God  and  prophets"  (vii.  27).  So  also 
her  working,  in  the  providential  history  of  God's 
people,  is  traced  at  length  (x.)  ;  and  her  power  is 
declared  to  reach  beyond  the  world  of  man  into 
that  of  spirits  (vii.  23). 

The  conception  of  Wisdom,  however  boldly  per 
sonified,  yet  leaves  a  wide  chasm  between  the  world 
and  the  Creator.  Wisdom  answers  to  the  idea  of 
a  spirit  vivifying  and  uniting  all  things  in  all  time, 
as  distinguished  from  any  special  outward  revela 
tion  of  the  Divine  Person.  Thus  at  the  same  time 
that  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom  was  gradually  con 
structed,  the  correlative  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Word 
was  also  reduced  to  a  definite  shape.  The  Word 
{Memrd),  the  Divine  expression,  as  it  was  under 
stood  in  Palestine,  furnished  the  exact  complement 
to  Wisdom,  the  Divine  thought;  but  the  ambi 
guity  of  the  Greek  Logos  (scrmo,  ratio)  introduced 
considerable  confusion  into  the  later  treatment  of 
the  two  ideas.  Broadly,  however,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  Word  properly  represented  the  mediative 
element  in  the  action  of  God,  Wisdom  the  mediative 
element  of  His  omnipresence.  Thus,  according  to 
v.he  later  distinction  of  Philo,  Wisdom  corresponds 
to  the  immanent  Word  (Attyos  eV5ieU?6Tos),  while 
the  Word,  strictly  speaking,  was  defined  as  cxiun- 
dative  (Aoyos  irpo^>opiK6s}.  Both  ideas  are  in 
cluded  in  the  language  of  the  prophets,  and  both 
found  a  natural  development  in  Palestine  and 
Egypt.  The  one  prepared  men  for  the  revelation 
of  the  Son  of  God,  the  other  for  the  revelation  of 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  Book  of  the  Pseudo-Solomon,  which  gives 
the  most  complete  view  of  Divine  wisdom,  contains 
only  two  passages  in  which  the  Word  is  invested 
with  the  attributes  of  personal  action  (xvi.  12, 
xviii.  15  ;  ix.  1  is  of  different  character).  These,  how 
ever,  are  sufficient  to  indicate  that  the  two  powers 
were  distinguished  by  the  writer  ;  and  it  has  been 
commonly  argued  that  the  superior  prominence 


given  in  the  book  to  the  conception  of  Wisdom  is 
an  indication  of  a  date  anterior  to  Philo.  Nor  it 
this  conclusion  unreasonable,  if  it  is  probably  esta 
blished  on  independent  grounds  that  the  book  is  o» 
Alexandrine  origin.  But  it  is  no  less  important  to 
observe  that  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom  in  itself  is  lu 
proof  of  this.  There  is  nothing  in  the  direct  teach 
ing  on  this  subject,  which  might  not  have  arisen  in 
Palestine,  and  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  recur 
to  the  more  special  traits  of  Alexandrine  thought  in 
the  book  which  have  been  noticed  before  (§6)  for 
the  primary  evidence  of  its  Alexandrine  origin  ;  and 
starting  from  this  there  appears  to  be,  as  far  as  can 
be  judged  from  the  imperfect  materials  at  our  com 
mand,  a  greater  affinity  in  the  form  of  the  doctrine 
on  wisdom  to  the  teaching  of  Alexandria  than  to 
that  of  Palestine  (comp.  Ewald,  Gesch.  iv.  548  ff. ; 
Welte,  Einl.  161  ff.,  has  some  good  criticisms  on 
many  supposed  traces  of  Alexandrine  doctrine  in 
the  book,  but  errs  in  denying  all). 

The  doctrine  of  the  Divine  wisdom  passes  by  a 
transition,  often  imperceptible,  to  that  of  human 
wisdom,  which  is  derived  from  it.  This  embraces 
not  only  the  whole  range  of  moral  and  spiritual 
virtues,  but  also  the  various  branches  of  physical 
knowledge.  [Comp.  PHILOSOPHY.]  In  this  aspect 
the  enumeration  of  the  great  forms  of  natural 
science  in  vii.  17-20  (viii.  8),  offers  a  most  in 
structive  subject  of  comparison  with  the  correspond 
ing  passages  in  1  K.  iv.  32-34.  In  addition  to  the 
subjects  on  which  Solomon  wrote  (Songs,  Proverbs : 
Plants,  Beasts,  Fowls,  Creeping  Things,  Fishes), 
Cosmology,  Meteorology,  Astronomy,  Psychology, 
and  even  the  elements  of  the  philosophy  of  history 
(viii.  8),  are  included  among  the  gifts  of  Wisdom. 
So  far  then  the  thoughtful  Jew  had  already  at  the 
Christian  era  penetrated  into  the  domain  of  specu 
lation  and  inquiry,  into  each  province,  it  would 
seem,  which  was  then  recognized,  without  abandon 
ing  the  simple  faith  of  his  nation.  The  fact  itself 
is  most  significant ;  and  the  whole  book  may  be 
quoted  as  furnishing  an  important  corrective  to  the 
later  Roman  descriptions  of  the  Jews,  which  were 
drawn  from  the  people  when  they  had  been  almost 
uncivilized  by  the  excitement  of  the  last  desperate 
struggle  for  national  existence.  (For  detailed  refer 
ences  to  the  chief  authorities  on  the  history  of  the 
Jewish  doctrine  of  Wisdom,  see  PHILOSOPHY; 
adding  Bruch,  Die  Weisheitslehre  der  Hebrew, 
1851.)  . 

8.  Place  and,  date  of  writing. — Without  claim- 
ing  for  the  internal  indications  of  the  origin  of  the 
book  a  decisive  force,  i  1  seems  most  reasonablt  tc 
believe  on  these  grounds  that  it  was  composed  at 
Alexandria  some  time  before  the  time  of  Philo  (cir. 
120-80  B.C.).  This  opinion  in  the  main,  though  the 
conjectural  date  varies  from  150-50  B.c,  or  even 
beyond  these  limits,  is  held  by  Heydenreich,  Gfrorer, 
Bauermeister,  Ewald,  Bruch,  and  Grimm;  and 
other  features  in  the  book  go  far  to  confirm  it. 
Without  entering  into  the  question  of  the  extent  of  the 
Hellenistic  element  at  Jerusalem  in  the  last  century 
B.C.,  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that  there  is  not  the 
slightest  evidence  for  the  existence  there  of  so  wide 
an  acquaintance  with  Greek  modes  of  thought,  and 
so  complete  a  command  of  the  resources  of  the 
Greek  language,  as  is  shown  in  the  Book  of  Wisdom. 
Alexandria  was  the  only  place  where  Judaism  and 
philosophy,  both  of  the  east  and  west,  came  into 
natural  and  close  connexion.  It  appears  further 
that  the  mode  in  which  Egyptian  idolatry  is  spokeu 
of,  must  be  due  in  some  degree  to  the  influence  o1, 


WISDOM,  THE,  OF  SOLOMON 


17«iJ 


present  and  living  antagonism,  and  not  to  the  con 
templation  of  past  history.  This  is  particularly 
evident  in  the  great  force  laid  upon  the  details  of 
the  Egyptian  animal  worship  (xv.  18,  &c.) ;  and 
the  description  of  the  condition  of  the  Jewish  settlers 
Ji  Egypt  (xix.  14-16)  applies  better  to  colonists 
fixed  at  Alexandria  on  the  conditions  of  equality  by 
the  first  Ptolemies,  than  to  the  immediate  descend 
ants  of  Jacob.  It  may,  indeed,  be  said  justly,  that 
bhe  local  colouring  of  the  latter  part  of  the  book  is 
conclusive  as  to  the  place  of  its  composition.  But 
all  the  guesses  which  have  been  made  as  to  its 
authorship  are  absolutely  valueless.  The  earliest 
was  that  mentioned  by  Jerome,  which  assigned  it 
to  Philo  (Praef.  in  Lib.  Sal.  Nonnulli  scriptorum 
veterum  hunc  esse  Judaei  Philouis  affirmant).  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  later  and  famous  Philo 
was  intended  by  this  designation,  though  Jerome  in 
his  account  of  him  makes  no  reference  to  the  belief 
(De  vir.  illustr.  xi.).  Many  later  writers,  includ 
ing  Luther  and  Gerhard,  adopted  this  view ;  but 
the  variations  in  teaching,  which  have  been  already 
noticed,  effectually  prove  that  it  is  unfounded. 
Others,  therefore,  have  imagined  that  the  name 
was  correct,  but  that  the  elder  Philo  was  intended 
by  it  (G.  Wernsdorff,  and  in  a  modified  form  Huet 
and  Bellarmin).  But  of  this  elder  Jewish  Philo  it 
is  simply  known  that  he  wrote  a  poem  on  Jeru 
salem.6  Lutterbeck  suggested  Aristobulus.  [Aiii- 
STOBULUS.]  Eichhorn,  Zeller,  Jost,  and  several 
others  supposed  that  the  author  was  one  of  the 
Therapeutae,  but  here  the  positive  evidence  against 
the  conjecture  is  stronger,  for  the  book  contains  no 
trace  of  the  ascetic  discipline  which  was  of  the 
essence  of  the  Therapeutic  teaching.  The  opinion 
of  some  later  critics  that  the  book  is  of  Christian 
origin  (Kirschbaum,  C.  H.  Weisse),  or  even  de 
finitely  the  work  of  Apolios  (Noack),  is  still  more 
perverse ;  for  not  only  does  it  not  contain  the 
slightest  trace  of  the  three  cardinal  truths  of  Chris 
tianity,  the  Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  the  Resur 
rection  of  the  body,  but  it  even  leaves  no  room  for 
them  by  the  general  tenor  of  its  teaching.* 

9.  History. — The  history  of  the  book  is  extremely 
obscure.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  use  of  it  before 
the  Christian  era,  but  this  could  not  be  otherwise 
if  the  view  which  has  been  given  of  its  date  be 
correct.  It  is  perhaps  more  surprising  thai  Philo 
does  not  (as  it  seems)  show  any  knowledge  of  it, 
and  it  is  not  unlikely  thf^,  if  his  writings  aro  care 
fully  examined  with  this  object,  some  allusions  to  it 
may  be  found  which  have  hitherto  escaped  observa 
tion.  On  the  other  hand,  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted 
that  St.  Paul,  if  not  other  of  the  Apostolic  writers, 
wa*>  familiar  with  its  language,  though  he  makes 
no  definite  quotation  from  it  (the  supposed  reference 
in  Luke  xi.  49  to  Wisd.  ii.  12-14,  is  wholly  un- 
fouudel).  Thus  we  have  striking  parallels  in  Rom. 
ix.  21  to  Wisd.  xv.  7 ;  in  Rom.  ix.  22  to  Wisd.  xii. 
20  ;  in  Eph.  vi.  13-17  to  Wisd.  v.  17-19  (the  hea 
venly  armour),  &c.  The  coincidences  in  thought 
or  language  which  occur  in  other  books  of  the 
N.  T.,  if  they  stood  alone,  would  be  insufficient  to 
establish  a  direct  connexion  between  them  and  the 


Book  of  Wisdom  ;  and  even  In  the  case  of  St.  Paul, 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  his  acquaintance  w'lh 
the  book  may  not  have  been  gained  rather  orally 
than  by  direct  study.     The  same  remark  applies  tc 
a  coincidence  of  language  in  the  epistle  of  Clement 
to  the  Corinthians  pointed  out  by  Grimm  (Ad  Cor. 
i.  27 ;  Wisd.  xi.  22,  xii.  12) ;  so' that  the  first  cleai 
references  to  the  book  occur  not  earlier  than  tht 
close  of  the  second  century.    According  to  Eusebius 
{H.  E.  v.  26),  Irenaeus  made  use  of  it  (and  of  the 
Ep.    to  the   Hebrews)  in  a  lost  work,  and  in  a 
passage  of  his  great  work  (adv.  Haer.  iv.  38,  3) 
Irenaeus  silently  adopts  a  characteristic  clause  from 
it  (Wisd.  vi.  19,  a<f>6ap(Tia  8e  t-yyvs  e/Vot  irotej 
fleoO).     From  the  time  of  Clement  of  Alexandria 
the  book  is  constantly  quoted  as  an  inspired  work 
of  Solomon,    or   as    "Scripture,"    even    by   those 
Fathers  who  denied  its  assumed  authorship,"  and  it 
gained  a  place   in   the  Canon   (together  with  the 
other  Apocryphal  books)  at  the  Council  of  Carthage, 
cir.  397  A. p.  (for  detailed  references  see  CANON,  vol. 
.  pp.  256,  25S ;.     From  this  time  its  history  is  the 
same  as  that  of  the  other  Apocrypha'  books  UT  *c, 
the  period  of  the  Reformation.    In  tne  controversies 
which  arose  then  its  intrinsic  excellence  commanded 
the   admiration   of  those   who  refused  it  a  place 
among  the  canonical  books  (so  Luther  ap.  Grimm, 
\1}.     Pellican    directly    affirmed    its    inspiration 
Grimm,  I.  c.) ;  and  it  is  quoted  as  Scripture  in 
both  the  Books  of  Homilies  (pp.   98-9 ;  174,  ed. 
1 850).    In  later  times  the  various  estimates  which 
have  been  formed  of  the  book  have  been  influenced 
by  controversial   prejudices.     In  England,  like  the 
rest  of  the  Apocrypha,  it  has  been  most  strangely 
neglected,  though   it  furnishes  several  lessons  for 
Church  Festivals.     It  seems,  indeed,  impossible  to 
study  the  book  dispassionately,  and  not  feel  that  it 
forms  one  of  the  last  links  in  the  chain  of  provi 
dential  connexion  between  the  Old  and  New  Cove 
nants.     How  far  it  falls  short  of  Christian  truth, 
or  rather  how  completely  silent  it  is  on  the  essential 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  has  been   already  seen ; 
and  yet  Christianity  offers  the  only  complete  solu 
tion  to  the  problems  which  it  raises  in  its  teaching 
on  the  immortality  of  man,  on  future  judgment,  on  the 
catholicity  of  the  divine  Church,  and  the  speciality  of 
Revelation.    It  would  not  be  easy  to  find  elsewhere 
any  pre-Christian  view  of  religion  equally  wide,  sus 
tained,  and  definite.    The  writer  seems  to  have  looked 
to  the  east  and  west,  to  the  philosophy  of  Persia  and 
Greece,  and  to  have  gathered  from  both  what  they 
contained  of  Divine  truth,  and  yet  to  have  clung 
with  no  less  zeal  than  his  fathers  to  that  central 
revelation  which  God  made  first  to  Moses,  and  then 
carried  on  by  the  0.  T.  prophets.     Thus  in   some 
sense  the  book  becomes  a  landmark  by  which  we 
may  partially  fix  the  natural  limits  of  the  develop 
ment  of  Jewish  doctrine  when  brought  into  contact 
with  heathen  doctrine,  and  measure  the  aspirations 
which  were  thus  raised  before  their  great  fulfilment. 
The  teaching  of  the  book  upon  immortality  has  left 
ineffaceable  traces  upon  the  language  of  Christendom. 
The  noble  phrase  which  speaks  of  a  "  hope  full  of 
immortality"  (Wisd.  iii.  4),  can  never  be  lost; 


c  The  conjecture  of  J.  Faber,  that  the  book  was  written 
by  Zerubbabel,  who  rightly  assumed  the  character  of  a 
Bocond  Solomon,  is  only  worth  mentioning  as  a  specimen 
of  misplaced  ingenuity  (comp.  Welte,  Einl.  191  ff.). 
Augustine  himself  corrected  the  mistake  by  which  he 
attributed  it  to  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach. 

d  I)r.  Tregelles  has  pivcn  a  new  turn  to  this  opinion 
by  supping  that  the  book  may  have  been  written  by  a 


Christian  (otherwise  unknown)  named  Philo.  In  support 
of  this  he  suggests  an  ingenious  conjectural  emendation 
of  a  corrupt  passage  of  the  Muratorian  Canon.  Where 
the  l^atin  text  reads  et  Sapientia  ab  amicis  Salomonis  in 
hanm-em  ipsius  scripta,  he  imagines  the  original  Greek 
may  have  read,  KCU  TJ  2o<£ia  2oA.oju.a>i'To«  vnb  *i'Au)i/os  (foi 

vnb  (J>iAa>i>) Or  again,  that  Jerome  so  misread  the  par 

Eage  i/iwrnal  of  rhiiog.  1855,  37  ff.). 


1784 


WITCH 


and  in  mediaeval  art  few  symbols  are  more  striking 
than  that  which  represents  in  outward  form  that 
"  the  souls  of  the  righteous  are  in  the  hand  of  God  " 
(Wisd.  iii.  1).  Other  passages  less  familiar  are 
scarcely  less  beautiful  when  seen  in  the  light  of 
Christianity,  as  xv.  3,  "To  know  Thee  (0  God)  is 
perfect  righteousness;  yea,  to  know  Thy  power  is 
the  root  of  immortality"  (comp.  viii.  13,  -17  ;  St. 
John  xvii.  3),  or  xi.  26,  "  Thou  sparest  all :  for  they 
are  thine,  0  Lord,  thou  lover  of  souls"  (comp.  xii. 
16);  and  many  detached  expressions  anticipate  the 
language  of  the  Apostles  (iii.  9,  x^Pls  Kc"  eteos; 
iii.  14,  TTJS  TrtffTfws  X^PIS  eKAc/cr^  ;  xi.  24,  Trapopus 
ojiapTTjjuaTO  avOpwircov  els  /xeroj/oiaj/ ;  xvi.  7,  Stet 
<re  rbv  iravruv  ffwrripa). 

10.  Commentaries.  —  The  earliest  commentary 
which  remains  is  that  of  Kabanus  Maurus  (•f856), 
who  undertook  the  work,  as  he  says  in  his  preface, 
because  he  was  not  acquainted  with  any  complete 
exposition  of  the  book.  It  is  uncertain  from  his 
language  whether  the  homilies  of  Augustine  and 
Ambrose  existed  in  his  time:  at  least  they  have 
now  been  long  lost.  Of  the  Roman  Catholic  com 
mentaries  the  most  important  are  those  of  Lorinus 
(f!634),  Corn,  a  Lapide  (fl637),  Maldonatus 
(J1583),  Calmet  (fl757),  J.  A.  Schmid  (1858). 
Of  other  commentaries,  the  chief  are  those  by  Gro- 
tius  (fl645),  Heydenreich,  Bauermeister  (1828), 
and  Grimm  (1837).  The  last  mentioned  scholar 
has  also  published  a  new  and  admirable  commentary 
in  the  Kurzgef.  Exeg.  Handb.  zu  d.  Apok.  1860, 
which  contains  ample  references  to  earlier  writers, 
and  only  errs  by  excess  of  fulness.  The  English  com 
mentary  of  R.  Arnald  (f 1756)  is  extremely  diffuse, 
but  includes  much  illustrative  matter,  and  shows  a 
regard  for  the  variations  of  MSS.  and  Versions  which 
was  most  unusual  at  the  time.  A  good  English  edi 
tion,  however,  is  still  to  be  desired.  [B.  F.  W.] 

WITCH,  WITCHCRAFTS.    [MAGIC.] 

WITNESS.*  Among  people  with  whom  writ 
ing  is  not  common,  the  evidence  of  a  transaction  is 
given  by  some  tangible  memorial  or  significant  cere 
mony.  Abraham  gave  seven  ewe-lambs  to  Abime- 
lech  as  an  evidence  of  his  property  in  the  well  of 
Beer-sheba.  Jacob  raised  a  heap  of  stones,  "  the 
heap  of  witness,"  as  a  boundary-mark  between  him 
self  and  Laban  (Gen.  xxi.  30,  xxxi.  47,  52).  The 
tribes  of  Reuben  and  Gad  raised  an  "  altar,"  designed 
expressly  not  for  saciifice,  but  as  a  witness  to  the 
covenant  between  themselves  and  the  rest  of  the 
nation  ;  Joshua  set  up  a  stone  as  an  evidence  of  the 
allegiance  promised  by  Israel  to  God  ;  "for,"  he  said, 
"  it  hath  heard  all  the  words  of  the  Lord  "  (Josh, 
xxii.  10,  26,  34,  xxiv.  26,  27).  So  also  a  pillar  is 
mentioned  by  Isaiah  as  "  a  witness  to  the  Lord  of 
Hosts  in  the  land  of  Egypt"  (Is.  xix.  19,  20). 
Thus  also  the  sacred  ark  and  its  contents  aie  called 
"  the  Testimony  "  (Ex.  xvi.  33,  34,  xxv.  16, 
xxxviii.  21;  Num.  i.  50,  53,  ix.  15,  x.  11,  xvii. 
7,  8,  xviii.  2  ;  Heb.  ix.  4). 

Thus  also  symbolical  usages,  in  ratification  of 
contracts  or  completed  arrangements,  as  the  cere 
mony  of  shoe-loosing  (Deut.  xxv.  9,  10  ;  Ruth  iv. 
7,  8),  the  ordeal  prescribed  in  the  case  of  a  sus 
pected  wife,  with  which  may  be  compared  the 
ordeal  of  the  Styx  (Num.  v.  17-31 ;  Class.  Mus. 
vi.  386).  The  Bedouin  Arabs  practise  a  fiery  ordeal 
iu"  certain  cases  b/  w;iy  of  computation  (Burck- 


»  IP,    n*1}J  f. ;  uaoTus  ;  tesLis :  used  both  ol  persons 
and  things. 


WITNESS 

tardt,  Notes,  i.  121;  Layard,  Nil*,  and  B.ib.  j>. 
305).  The  ceremony  also  appointed  at  the  oblation 
of  first-fruits  may  be  mentioned  as  partaking  of  the 
same  character  (Deut.  xxvi.  4).  [ FIRST-FRUITS.] 

But  written  evidence  was  by  no  means  unknown 
to  the  Jews.  Divorce  was  to  be  proved  by  a  writ 
ten  document  (Deut.  xxiv.  1,  3),  whereas  among 
Bedouins  and  Mussulmans  in  general  a  spoken  sen 
tence  is  sufficient  (Burckhardt,  Notes,  i.  110;  Sale, 
Koran,  c.  33,  p.  348  ;  Lane,  Mod.  Eg.  i.  136,  236). 
In  civil  contracts,  at  least  in  later  times,  docu 
mentary  evidence  was  required  and  carefully  pre 
served  (Is.  viii.  16;  Jer.  xxxii.  10-16). 

On  the  whole  the  Law  was  very  careful  to  p;\>- 
vide  and  enforce  evidence  for  all  its  infractions  and 
all  transactions  bearing  on  them :  e.  g.  the  me 
morial  stones  of  Jordan  and  of  Ebal  (Deut.  xxvii. 
2-4 ;  Josh.  iv.  9,  viii.  30)  ;  the  fringes  on  garments 
(Num.  xv.  39,  40);  the  boundary-stones  of  pro 
perty  (Deut.  xix.  14,  xxvii.  17;  Prov.  xxii.  28); 
the  "  broad  plates "  made  from  the  censers  of  the 
Korahites  (Num.  xvi.  38) ;  above  all,  the  Ark  of 
Testimony  itself: — all  these  are  instances  of  the  care 
taken  by  the  Legislator  to  perpetuate  evidence  ot 
the  facts  on  which  the  legislation  was  founded,  and 
by  which  it  was  supported  (Deut.  vi.  20-25). 
Appeal  to  the  same  principle  is  also  repeatedly 
made  in  the  case  of  prophecies  as  a  test  of  their 
authenticity  (Deut.  xviii.  22  ;  Jer.  xxviii.  9, 16, 17  ; 
John  iii.  11,  v.  36,  x.  38,  xiv.  11 ;  Luke  xxiv.  48; 
Actsi.  3,  ii.  32,  iii.  15,  &c.). 

Among  special  provisions  of  the  Law  with  respect 
to  evidence  are  the  following : — 

1.  Two  witnesses  at  least  are  required  to  esta 
blish  any  charge  (Num.  xxxv.  30  ;  Deut.  xvii.  6, 
xix.  15;   IK.  xxi.  13;  John  viii.  17;  2  Cor.  xiii. 
1 ;  Heb.  x.  28)  ;  and  a  like  principle  is  laid  down 
by  St.  Paul  as  a  rule  of  procedure  in  certain  cases 
in  the  Christian  Church  (1  Tim.  v.  19). 

2.  In  the  case  of  the  suspected  wife,  evidence 
besides  the  husband's  was  desired,  though  not  de 
manded  (Num.  v.  13). 

3.  The  witness  who  withheld  the  truth  was  cen 
sured  (Lev.  v.  1). 

4.  False  witness  was  punished  with  the  punish 
ment  due  to  the  offence  which  it  sought  to  establish. 
[OATHS.] 

5.  Slanderous  reports  and  officious  witness  are 
discouraged  (Ex.  xx.  16,  xxiii.  1 ;  Lev.  xix.  16,  18; 
Deut.  xix.  16-21 ;  Prov.  xxiv.  28). 

6.  The    witnesses    were    the    first   executioners 
(Deut.  xiii.  9,  xvi.  7 ;  Acts  vii.  58). 

7.  In  qase  of  an  animal  left  in  charge  and  torn 
by  wild  beasts,  the  keeper  was  to  bring  the  carcase 
in  proof  of  the  fact  and  disproof  of  his  own  crimi 
nality  (Ex.  xxii.  13). 

8.  According  to  Josephus,  women  and  slaves  were 
not  admitted  to  bear  testimony  (Ant.  iv.  8,  §15). 
To  these  exceptions  the  Mishna  adds  idiots,  deaf, 
blind,  and  dumb  persons,  persons  of  infamous  cha 
racter,  and  some   others,   ten   in   all   (Selden,  de 
Synedr.  ii.  13,11;  Otho,  Lex.  Rabb.  p.  653).    The 
high-priest  was  not  bound  to  give  evidence  in  any 
case  except  one  affecting  the  king  (ib.}.     Various 
refinements   on  the  quality   of  evidence   and  thp 
manner   of   taking    it   are    given    in    the    Mishna 
(Sanhedr.  iv.  5,  v.  2,  3;  Maccoth,  i.  1,  9;  Sheb. 
iii.  10,  iv.  1,  v.  1).      In  criminal  cases  evidence 
was  required  to  be  oral ;  in  pecuniary,  written  evi 
dence  was  allowed  (Otho,  Lex.  Rabb.  653). 

In  the  N.  T.  the  original  notion  of- a  witness  i? 
exhibited  iu  the  special  form  of  one  who  attests  hi? 


WIZARD 

belief  in  the  Gospel  by  personal  suffeiing.  So  St. 
Stephen  is  styled  by  St.  Paul  (Acts  xxii.  20),  and 
the  "  faithful  Antipas  "  (Rev.  ii.  13).  St.  John 
also  speaks  of  himself  and  of  others  as  witnesses  in 
this  sense  (Rev.  i.  9,  vi.  9,  xi.  3,  xx.  4).  See  also 
Heb.  xi.  and  xii.  1,  in  which  passage  a  number  of 
persons  are  mentioned,  belonging  both  to  0.  T.  and 
N.  T.,  who  bore  witness  to  the  truth  by  personal 
endurance ;  and  to  this  passage  may  be  added,  as 
bearing  on  the  same  view  of  the  term  '*  witness," 
Dan.  iii.  21,  vi.  16;  1  Mace.  i.  60,  63;  2  Mace, 
vi.  18,  19.  Hence  it  is  that  the  use  of  the  eccle 
siastical  term  "  Martyr "  has  arisen,  of  which 
copious  illustration  may  be  seen  in  Suicer,  Tkes. 
vol.  ii.  p.  310,  &c.  [H.  W.  P.] 

WIZARD.     [MAGIC.] 

WOLF  (3K|,  ztib :  Afoos :  tynai).  There  can 
be  little  doubt  'that  the  wolf  of  Palestine  is  the 
common  Canis  lupus,  and  that  this  is  the  animal 
so  frequently  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  though  it  is 
true  that  we  lack  precise  information  with  regard  to 
the  Canidae  of  Palestine.  Hemprich  and  Ehrenberg 
have  described  a  few  species,  as,  for  instance,  the 
Canis  Syriacus  and  the  C.  (  Vulpes)  Niloticus  (see 
figures  in  art.  Fox,  App.  A) ;  and  Col.  Hamilton 
Smith  mentions,  under  the  name  of  derboun,  a 
species  of  black  wolf,  as  occurring  in  Arabia  and 
Southern  Syria ;  but  nothing  definite  seems  to  be 
known  of  this  animal.  Wolves  were  doubtless 
far  more  common  in  Biblical  times  than  they  are 
now,  though  they  are  occasionally  seen  by  modern 
travellers  (see  Kitto's  Physical  History  of  Palestine, 
p.  364,  and  Russell's  Nat.  Hist,  of  Aleppo,  ii. 
184):  "  the  wolf  seldom  ventures  so  near  the  city  as 
the  fox,  but  is  sometimes  seen  at  a  distance  by  the 
spoilsmen  among  the  hilly  grounds  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  ;  and  the  villages,  as  well  as  the  herds, 
often  suffer  from  them.  It  is  called  Deeb  in  Arabk, 
and  is  common  all  over  Syria." 

The  following  are  the  Scriptural  allusions  to  the 
wolf: — Its  ferocity  is  mentioned  in  Gen.  xlix.  27 ; 
Ez.  xxii.  27;  Hab.  i.  8;  Matt.  vii.  15:  its  noc 
turnal  habits,  in  Jer.  v.  6  ;  Zeph.  iii.  3;  Hab.  i.  8  : 
its  attacking  sheep  and  lambs,  John  x.  12 ;  Matt, 
x.  16  ;  Luke  x.  3.  Isaiah  (xi.  6,  Ixv.  25)  foretells 
the  peaceful  reign  of  the  Messiah  under  the  metaphor 
of  a  wolf  dwelling  with  a  lamb;  cruel  persecutors 
arc  compared  with  wolves  (Matt.  x.  16 ;  Acts 
xx.  29). 

Wolves,  like  many  other  animals,  are  subject  to 
variation  in  colour ;  the  common  colour  is  grey 
with  a  tinting  of  fawn  and  long  black  hairs  ;  the 
variety  most  frequent  in  Southern  Europe  and  the 
Pyrenees  is  black ;  the  wolf  of  Asia  Minor  is  more 
tawny  than  those  of  the  common  colour. 

The  people  of  Nubia  and  Egypt  apply  the  term 
Dieb  to  the  Canis  anthus,  Fr.  Cuv.  (see  Ruppell's 
Atlas  zu  der  Reise  im  Nb'rdlichen  Africa,  p.  46) ; 
this,  however,  is  a  jackal,  and  seems  to  be  the 
Lupus  Syriacus,  which  Hemp  and  Ehrenb.  noticed 
in  Syria,  and  identical  Avith  the  "  Egyptian  wolf" 
figured  by  Ham.  Smith  in  Kitto's  Cycl.  [W.  H.] 

WOMEN.  The  position  of  women  in  the  Hebrew 
commonwealth  contrasts  favourably  with  that  which 
iu  the  present  day  is  assigned  to  them  generally  in 
Eastern  countries.  The  social  equality  of  the  two 
sexes  is  most  fully  implied  in  the  history  of  the 
original  creation  of  the  woman,  as  well  as  in  the 
name  assigned  to  her  by  the  man,  which  differed 
from  his  own  only  m  its  feminine  termination 


WOMEN 


1785 


(Gen.  ii.  18-23).  This  narrative  is  hence  efJectivelji 
appealed  to  as  supplying  an  argument  for  enforcing 
the  duties  of  the  husband  towards  the  wife  (Eph. 
v.  28-31).  Many  usages  of  early  times  interfered 
with  the  preservation  of  this  theoretical  equality : 
we  may  instance  the  existence  of  polygamy,  the 
autocratic  powers  vested  in  the  head  of  the  family 
under  the  patriarchal  system,  and  the  treatment  of 
captives.  Nevertheless  a  high  tone  was  maintained 
generally  on  this  subject  by  the  Mosaic  law,  and, 
as  far  as  we  have  the  means  of  judging,  by  the  force 
of  public  opinion. 

The  most  salient  point  of  contrast  in  the  usages 
of  ancient  as  compared  with  modern  Oriental  society 
was  the  lai'ge  amount  of  liberty  enjoyed  by  women. 
Instead  of  being  immured  in  a  harem,  or  appearing 
in  public  with  the   face   covered,  the  wives   and 
maidens  of  ancient  times  mingled  freely  and  openly 
with  the  other  sex  in  the  duties  and  amenities  of 
ordinary  life.     Rebekah  travelled  on  a  camel  with 
ler  face  unveiled,  until  she  came  into  the  presence 
f  her  affianced  (Gen.  xxiv.  64,  5).     Jacob  saluted 
Rachel  with  a  kiss  in  the  presence  of  the  shepherds 
Gen.  xxix.  11).     Each  of  these  maidens  was  en 
gaged  in  active  employment,  the  former  in  fetching 
ater  from  the  well,  the  latter  in  tending  her  flock. 
Sarah  wore  no  veil  in  Egypt,  and  yet  this  formed 
no  ground  for  supposing  her  to  be  married  (Gen. 
xii.  14-19).     An  outrage  on  a  maiden  in  the  open 
field   was   visited   with   the    severest   punishment 
Deut.  xxii.  25-27),  proving  that  it  was  not  deemed 
mproper  for  her  to  go  about  unprotected.    Further 
than  this,  women  played  no  inconsiderable  part  in 
public  celebrations :  Miriam  headed  a  band  of  women 
who  commemorated  with  song  and  dance  the  over 
throw  of  the  Egyptians  (Ex.  xv.  20,  21)  ;  Jeph- 
thah's  daughter  gave  her  father  a  triumphal  re 
ception  (Judg.  xi.  34) ;  the  maidens  of  Shiloh  danced 
ublicly  in  the  vineyards  at  the  yearly  feast  (Judg. 
xxi.  21)  ;  and  the  women  feted  Saul  and  David,  on 
their  return  from  the  defeat  of  the  Philistines,  with 
singing  and  dancing  (1  Sam.  xviii.  6,  7).    The  odes 
of  Deborah   (Judg.  v.)   and  of  Hannah    (1  Sam. 
ii.  1,  &c.)  exhibit  a  degree  of  intellectual  cultivation 
which  is  in  itself  a  proof  of  the  position  of  the  sex 
in  that  period.    Women  also  occasionally  held  public 
offices,  particularly  that  of  prophetess  or  inspired 
teacher,   as    instanced    in   Miriam   (Ex.    xv.   20), 
Huldah  (2  K.  xxii.  14),  Noadiah  (Neh.  vi.   14), 
Anna  (Luke  ii.  36),  and  above  all  Deborah,  who 
applied  her  prophetical  gift  to  the  administration  of 
public  affairs,  and  was  so  entitled  to  be  styled  a 
"judge"  (Judg.  iv.  4).     The  active  part  taken  by 
Jezebel  in  the  government  of  Israel  (1  K.  xviii.  13, 
xxi.  25),  and  the  usurpation  of  the  throne  of  Judah 
by  Athaliah  (2  K.  xi.  3),  further  attest  the  latitude 
allowed  to  women  in  public  life. 

The  management  of  household  affairs  devolved 
mainly  on  the  women.  They  brought  the  water 
from  the  well  (Gen.  xxiv.  15;  1  Sam.  ix.  11) 
attended  to  the  flocks  (Gen.  xxix.  6,  &c. ;  Ex.  ii.  16), 
prepared  the  meals  (Gen.  xviii.  6;  2  Sam.  xiii.  8), 
and  occupied  their  leisure  hours  in  spinning  (Ex. 
xxxv.  26 ;  Prov.  xxxi.  19)  and  making  clothes, 
either  for  the  use  of  the  family  (1  Sam.  ii.  19  ; 
Prov.  xxxi.  21),  for  sale  (Prov.  xxxi.  14,  24), 
or  for  charity  (Acts  ix.  39).  The  value  of  a  vir 
tuous  and  active  housewife  forms  a  frequent  topic 
in  the  Book  of  Proverbs  (xi.  16,  xii.  4,  xiv.  1,  xxxi. 
10,  &c.).  Her  influence  was  of  course  proportion- 
ably  great ;  and,  where  there  was  no  second  wife 
she  controlled  the  arrangements  of  the  IIOUBO,  to  tin 


1786 


WOOD 


extent  of  inviting  or  receiving  guests  on  her  own 
jnotion  (Judg.  iv.  18  ;  1  Sam.  xxv.  18,  &c.  ;  2  K. 
•y.  8,  &c.).  The  effect  of  polygamy  was  to  transfer 
•female  influence  from  the  wives  to  the  mother,  as 
i&  incidentally  shown  in  the  application  of  the  term 
gebirah  (literally  meaning  powerful}  to  the  queen 
inother  (1  K.  ii.  IS.  xv.  13  ;  2  K.  x.  13,  xxiv.  12  ; 
Jer.  xiii.  18,  xxix.  2).  Polygamy  also  necessitated 
s,  separate  establishment  for  the  wives  collectively, 
or  for  each  individually.  Thus  in  the  palace  of 
ths  Persian  monarch  there  was  a  "  house  of  the 
women"  (Esth.  ii.  9),  which  was  guarded  by 
eunuchs  (ii.  3)  ;  in  Solomon's  palace  the  harem 
was  connected  with,  but  separate  from,  the  rest  of 
the  building  (1  K.  vii.  8)  ;  and  on  journeys  each 
wife  had  her  separate  tent  (Gen.  xxxi.  33).  In 
such  cases  it  is  probable  that  the  females  took  their 
meals  apart  from  the  males  (Esth.  i.  9)  ;  but  we 
have  no  reason  to  conclude  that  the  separate  system 
prevailed  generally  among  the  Jews.  The  women 
were  present  at  festivals,  either  as  attendants  on 
the  guests  (John  xii.  2),  or  as  themselves  guests 
(Job  i.  4  ;  John  ii.  3)  ;  and  hence  there  is  good 
ground  for  concluding  that  on  ordinary  occasions 
also  they  joined  the  males  at  meals,  though  there  is 
no  positive  testimony  to  that  effect. 

Further  information  on  the  subject  of  this  article 
is  given  under  the  heads  DEACONESS,  DRESS,  HAIR, 
MARRIAGE,  SLAVE,  VEIL,  and  WIDOW.  [W.  L.  B.] 

WOOD.    [FOREST.] 

Wool  was  an  article  of  the 


DV;  T5). 

highest  value  among  the  Jews,  as  the  staple  mate 
rial  for  the  manufacture  of  clothing  (Lev.  xiii. 
47  ;  Deut.  xxii.  11  ;  Job  xxxi.  20  ;  Prov.  xxxi.  13  ; 
Ez.  xxxiv.  3  ;  Hos.  ii.  5).  Both  the  Hebrew  terms, 
tsemer  and  gez,  imply  the  act  of  shearing,  the  dis 
tinction  between  them  being  that  the  latter  refers 
to  the  "  fleece  "  (Deut.  xviii.  4  ;  Job  xxxi.  20),  as 
proved  by  the  use  of  the  cognate  gizzah,  in  Judg. 
vi.  37-40,  in  conjunction  with  tsemer,  in  the 
sense  of  "  a  fleece  of  wool."  The  importance  of 
wool  is  incidentally  shown  by  the  notice  that 
Mesha's  tribute  was  paid  in  a  certain  number  of 
rams  "  with  the  wool  "  (2  K.  iii.  4),  as  well  as  by  its 
being  specified  among  the  firstfruits  to  be  offered  to 
the  priests  (Deut.  xviii.  4).  The  wool  of  Damascus 
was  highly  prized  in  the  mart  of  Tyre  (Ez.  xxvii. 
18)  ;  and  is  compared  in  the  LXX.  to  the  wool  of 
Miletus  (fpia  e«  MIA.-/JTOU),  the  fame  of  which  was 
widely  spread  in  the  ancient  world  (Plin.  viii.  73  ; 
Virg.  Georg.  iii.  306,  iv.  334).  Wool  is  occa 
sionally  cited  as  an  image  of  purity  and  brilliancy 
(Is.  i.  18;  Dan.  vii.  9;  Rev.  i.  14),  and  the  flakes 
of  snow  are  appropriately  likened  to  it  (Ps.  cxlvii. 
16).  The  art  of  dyeing  it  was  understood  by  the 
Jews  (Mishna,  Sh*b.  1,  §  6).  [W.  L.  B.] 

WOOLLEN  (LINEN  and).  Among  the  laws 
against  unnatural  mixtures  is  found  one  to  this 
effect  :  "  A  garment  of  mixtures  [TJpytJ':  shaatnez'] 

shall  not  come  upon  thee"  (Lev.  xix.  19)  ;  or,  as 
it  is  expressed  in  Deut.  xxii.  11,  "thou  shalt  not 
wear  shaatnez,  wool  and  flax  together."  Our  ver 
sion,  by  the  help  of  the  latter  passage,  has  rendered 
the  strange  word  shaatnez  in  the  former,  "  of  linen 
and  woollen  ;"  while  in  Deut.  it  is  translated  "  a 
garment  of  divers  sorts."  In  the  Vulgate  the  diffi 
culty  is  avoided  ;  and  /ctjSSrjAos,  "  spurious  "  or 
"  counterfeit,"  the  rendering  of  the  LXX.,  is  want 
ing  in  precision.  In  the  Targum  of  Onkelos  the 
same  word  remains  with  a  slight  modification  to 


WORM 

adapt  it  to  the  Chaldee  ;  but  in  the  Peshito-Synac 
of  Lev.  it  is  rendered  by  an  adjective.  "  motley,'' 
and  m  Deut.  a  "  motley  garment,"  corresponding 
in  some  degree  to  the  Samaritan  version,  which  has 
"  spotted  like  a  leopard."  1  wo  things  only  appeal- 
to  be  certain  about  shaatnez — that  it  is  a  foreign 
word,  and  that  its  origin  has  not  at  present  been 
traced.  Its  signification  is  sufficiently  defined  in 
Deut.  xxii.  11.  The  derivation  given  in  the 
Mishna  (Cilaim,  ix.  8),  which  makes  it  a  compound 
of  three  words,  signifying  "  carded,  spun,  MIC 
twisted,"  is  in  keeping  with  Rabbinical  etymologiei 
generally.  Other  etymologies  are  proposed  by 
Bochart  (Hieroz.  pt.  i.  b.  2,  c.45),  Simonis  {Lex. 
Heb.},  and  Pfeiffer  (Dub.  Vex.  cent.  2,  loc.  xi.). 
The  last  mentioned  writer  defended  the  Egyptian 
origin  of  the  word,  but  his  knowledge  of  Coptic, 
according  to  Jablonski,  extended  not  much  beyond 
the  letters,  and  little  value,  therefore,  is  to  be 
attached  to  tK°  solution  which  he  proposed  for  the 
difficulty.  Jablonski  himself  favours  the  suggestion 
of  Forster,  that  a  garment  of  linen  and  woollen  was 
called  by  the  Egyptians  shontnes,  and  that  this 
word  was  borrowed  by  the  Hebrews,  and  written 
by  them  in  the  form  shaatnez  (Opusc.  i.  294). 

The  reason  given  by  Joseph  us  (Ant.  iv.  8,  §11) 
for  the  law  which  prohibited  the  wearing  a  garment 
woven  of  linen  and  woollen  is,  that  such  were  worn 
by  the  priests  alone  (see  Mishna,  Cilaim,  ix.  1). 
Of  this  kind  were  the  girdle  (of  which  Josephus 
says  the  warp  was  entirely  linen,  Ant.  iii.  7,  §2), 
ephod,  and  breastplate  (Braunius,  de  Vest.  Sac. 
Hebr.  pp.  110,  111)  of  the  High  Priest,  and  the 
girdle  of  the  common  priests  (Maimonides,  Celc 
Hammikdash,  cviii.).  Spencer  conjectured  that 
the  use  of  woollen  and  linen  inwoven  in  the  same 
garment  prevailed  amongst  the  ancient  Zak  and 
was  associated  with  their  idolatrous  ceremonies 
(De  leg.  Heb.  ii.  33,  §3)  ;  but  that  it  was  per 
mitted  to  the  Hebrew  priests,  because  with  them  it 
could  give  rise  to  no  suspicion  of  idolatry.  Mai 
monides  found  in  the  books  of  the  Zabii  that  "  the 
priests  of  the  idolaters  ciothed  themselves  with  robes 
of  linen  and  woollen  mixed  together "  (Townley, 
Seasons  of  the  Laws  of  Moses,  p.  207).  By 
"  wool"  the  Talmudists  understood  the  wool  o: 
sheep  (Mishna,  Cilaim,  ix.  1).  It  is  evident  from 
Zeph.  i.  8,  that  the  adoption  of  a  particular  dress 
was  an  indication  of  idolatrous  tendencies,  and  there 
may  be  therefore  some  truth  in  the  explanation  <  t 
Maimonides.  [W.  A.  W.] 

WOKM,  the  representatire  in  the  A.  V.  of  the 
Hebrew  words  Sds,  Rimmdh,  and  Toledh,  Tola, 
or  Tolaath,  occurs  in  numerous  passages  in  the 
Bible.  The  first-named  term,  Sds  (DD,  <rris,  tinea 
occurs  only  in  I&a.  Ii.  8,  "  For  the  'ash  (Vtyj  ahnli 

eat  them  up  like  a  garment,  and  the  Sds  shall  eat 
them  like  wool."  The  word  probably  denotes  sonic 
particular  species  of  moth,  whose  larva  is  injurious 
to  wool,  while  perhaps  the  former  name  is  the 
more  general  one  for  any  of  the  destructive  Tincne 
or  "  Clothes  Moths."  For  further  information  on 
the  subject  the  reader  is  referred  to  MOTH. 
2.  Rimmdh  (i"tt3'l ;  cncciJAij!,  arj^/is, 

vermis,  putredo.  tinea).  The  manna  that  the  dis» 
obedient  Israelites  kept  till  the  morning  of  a  week 
day  "  bred  worms  "  (D^iDifl),  and  stank  (Ex.  svi. 
20);  while  of  that  kept  over  the  Sabbath  ami 
gathered  the  night  befca-e,  it  is  said  that  "  it  did 


WORMWOOD 

not  stink,  neither  was  there  an/  worm 
therein."  The  Hebrew  word  is  connected  with  the 
root  DEH  "  to  be  putrid  "  (see  Gesenius,  T/ies. 
s.  v.),  and  points  evidently  to  various  kinds  of 
maggots,  and"  the  larvae  of  insects  which  feed  on 
putrefying  animal  matter  rather  than  to  earth 
worms  ;  the  words  in  the  original  are  clearly  used 
indiscriminately  to  denote  either  true  annelida,  or 
the  larval  condition  of  various  insects.  Thus,  as 
may  be  seen  above,  Rimmdk  and  Toleah  are  both 
used  to  express  the  maggot  or  caterpillar,  whatever 
it  might  have  been  that  consumed  the  bad  manna  in 
the  wilderness  of  Sin.  Job,  under  his  heavy  affliction, 
exclaims,  "  My  flesh  is  clothed  with  rimmdh  "  (vii.  5  ; 
see  also  xvii.  14)  ;  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
the  expression  is  to  be  understood  literally  ;  a  person 
in  Job's  condition  would  very  probably  suffer  from 
entozoa  of  some  kind.  In  Job  xxi.  26,  xxiv.  20, 
there  is  an  allusion  to  worms  (insect  larvae)  feeding 
on  the  dead  bodies  of  the  buried  ;  our  translators  in 
the  well-known  passage  (xix.  26)  —  "  And  though 
after  my  skin  worms  destroy  this  body"  —  have 
rather  over-interpreted  the  words  of  the  original, 
*'  My  skin  shall  have  been  consumed."* 

The  patriarch  uses  both  Rimtnak  and  Tole'ah 
(ilivin),  in  ch.  xxv.  6,  where  he  compares  the  estate 
of  man  to  a  rimmdh,  and  the  son  of  man  to  a  tole'dh. 
This  latter  word,  in  one  or  other  of  its  forms  (see 
above),  is  applied  in  Deut.  xxviii.  39  to  some  kinds  of 
larvae  destructive  to  the  vines  :  "  Thou  shalt  plant 
vineyards  ....  but  shalt  not  gather  the  grapes,  for 
the  tolaath  shall  eat  them."  Various  kinds  of  insects 
attack  the  vine,  amongst  which  one  of  the  most 
destructive  is  the  Tortrix  vttisana,  the  little 
caterpillar  of  which  eats  off  the  inner  parts  of  the 
blossoms,  the  clusters  of  which  it  binds  together 
by  spinning  a  web  around  them.  The  "  worm  " 
which  is  said  to  have  destroyed  Jonah's  gourd  was 
a  tolaath  (Jonah  iv.  7).  Michaelis  (Suppl.  p.  2189) 
quotes  Rumphius  as  asserting  that  there  is  a  kind 
of  black  caterpillar,  which,  during  sultry  rainy 
weather,  does  actually  strip  the  plant  of  its  leaves 
in  a  single  night.  In  Is.  Ixvi.  24  allusion  is 
made  to  maggots  feeding  on  the  dead  bodies  of  the 
slain  in  battle.  The  words  of  the  prophet  are 
applied  by  our  Lord  (Mark  ix.  44,  46,  48)  meta 
phorically  to  the  stings  of  a  guilty  conscience  in  the 
world  of  departed  spirits. 

The  death  of  Herod  Agrippa  I.  was  caused  by 
worms  (<r/ia>A.7jK<5/3/>a>Tos,  Acts  xii.  23)  ;  according 
to  Joseph  us  (Ant.  xix.  8),  his  death  took  place  five 
days  after  his  departure  from  the  theatre.'  It  is 
curious  that  the  Jewish  historian  makes  no  mention 
of  worms  in  the  case  of  Agrippa,  though  he  ex 
pressly  notes  it  in  that  of  Herod  the  Great  (Ant. 
xvii.  6,  §5).  A  similar  death  was  that  of  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  (2  Mace.  ix.  9  ;  see  also  Eusebius,  Eccl. 
Hist.  viii.  16  ;  and  Lucian,  Pseudomant.  i.  p.  904  ; 
compare  Wetstein  on  Acts  xii.  23).  Whether  the 
worms  were  the  cause  or  the  result  of  the  disease 
is  an  immaterial  question.  The  "  Angel  of  the 
Lord  struck  Herod  "  with  some  disease,  the  issue  of 
which  was  fatal,  and  the  loathsome  spectacle  of 
which  could  not  fail  to  have  had  a  marked  humiliat 
ing  effect  on  his  proud  heart.  [W.  H.] 

WORMWOOD  (njj£,  laandh:  iriKpia,  X°* 
],  and  aj/cfy/crj  :  amaritudo,  absynthium).   The 


WORSHIPPER 


1787 


"  •  The  Hebrew  is,  TlKnBjM  n      "IPIN*,  i.  «.,  "And 
after  thai  they  shall  have  consumed  this  my'skin,"  or,  a* 


correct  translation  of  the  Heb.  word,  occurs  fre 
quently  in  the  Bible,  and  Generally  m  a  metaphori* 
cal  sense,  as  in  Deut.  xxix.  ^;.  vnere  of  the  idola 
trous  Israelites  it  is  said,  "  Lest  there  be  among  you 
a  root  that  beareth  wormwood  "  (see  also  Pu>v.  v. 
4).  In  Jer.  ix.  15,  xxiii.  13;  Lam.  iii.  15,  19, 
wormwood  is  symbolical  of  bitter  calamity  and 
sorrow  ;  unrighteous  judges  are  said  to  "  turn  judg 
ment  to  wormwood"  (Am.  v.  7).  The  oriental:! 
typified  sorrows,  cruelties,  and  calamities  of  any 
kind  by  plants  of  a  poisonous  or  bitter  nature. 
[GALL,  App.  A.]  The  name  of  the  star  which,  at 
the  sound  of  the  third  angel's  trumpet  fell  upon 
the  rivers,  was  called  Wormwood  ("AxJ/tpflos ;  Kev. 
viii.  11).  Kitto  (Phys.  Hist,  of  Palestine,  p.  215). 
enumerates  four  kinds  of  wormwood  as  ibund  in 
Palestine — Artemisia  nilotica,  A.  Judaica,  A.fru* 
ticosa,  and  A.  cinerea.  Rauwolf  speaks  of  some  kind 
of  wormwood  under  the  name  of  Absinthium  san~ 
tonicwm  Judaicum,  and  says  it  is  very  common  in 
Palestine  ;  this  is  perhaps  the  Artemisia  Judaica. 
The  Hebrew  Laanah  is  doubtless  generic,  and  de 
notes  several  species  of  Artemisia  (Celsius,  Hierob.  i. 
p.  480;  Rosenmiiller,  Bib.  Sot. -p.  116).  [W.H.] 

WORSHIPPER.  A  translation  of  the  Greek 
word  veundpos,  used  once  only,  Acts  xix.  35 ; 
in  the  margin  "Temple-keeper."  The  neocoros 
was  originally  an  attendant  in  a  temple,  probably 
entrusted  with  its  charge  (Eurip.  Ion,  115,  121, 
ed.  Dind. ;  Plato,  Leg.  vi.  7,  Bekk.;  Theodoret, 
Hist.  Eccl.  iii.  14,  16;  Pollux,  i.  14;  Philo,  De 
Prov.  Sac.  6,  ii.  237 ;  Hesychius  explains  it  by  o 
Tbv  vabv  Kooyitti/,  Koptiv  ykp  TO  araipfiv,  Suidas, 
KOff/JLuv  Kal  evrpeirifav,  ctAA*  ov%  o  ffapwv,  ed. 
Gaisf.  p.  2579).  The  divine  honours  paid  in  later 
Greek  times  to  eminent  persons  even  in  their  life 
time,  were  imitated  and  exaggerated  by  the  Romans 
under  the  empire,  especially  in  Asia  (Plut.  Lys. 
23  ;  Appran,  Mithr.  76 ;  Dion  Cass.  xxxi.  6).  The 
term  neocoros  became  thus  applied  to  cities  01 
communities  which  undertook  the  worship  of  par 
ticular  emperors  even  in  their  lifetime ;  but  there 
is  no  trace  of  the  special  title  being  applied  to  any 
city  before  the  time  of  Augustus.  The  first  occur 
rence  of  the  term  in  connexion  with  Ephesus  is 
on  coins  of  the  age  of  Nero  (A.D.  54-68),  a  time 
which  would  sufficiently  agree  with  its  use  in 
the  account  of  the  riot  there,  probably  in  55  or 
56.  In  later  times  the  title  appears  with  the  nu 
merical  adjuncts  Sis,  rpls,  and  even  rerpaKis.  A 
coin  of  Nero's  time  bears  on  one  side  'E&fffiwv 
veuKopow,  and  on  the  reverse  a  figure  of  the  temple 
of  Artemis  (Mionnet,  fnscr.  iii.  93  ;  Eckhel,  Doctr. 
Vet.  Num.  ii.  520).  The  ancient  veneration  of 
Artemis  and  her  temple  on  the  part  of  the  city  of 
Ephesus,  which  procured  for  it  the  title  of  vewtcopos 
TTJS  'Apre/j.iSos,  is  too  well  known  to  need  illustra 
tion  ;  but  in  later  times  it  seems  probate  t.'iat 
with  the -term  veuKopos  the  practice  of  Neocorism 
became  reserved  almost  exclusively  for  the  venera 
tion  paid  to  Roman  emperors,  towards  whom  many 
other  cities  also  of  Asia  Minor  are  mentioned  as 
Neocorists,  e.  g.  Nicomedia,  Perinthus,  Sardis, 
Smyrna,  Magnesia  (Herod,  i.  26  ;  Strata,  xiv.  640 ; 
Aristid.  Or.  xlii.  775,  ed.  Dind.;  Mionnet,  Inscr 
iii.  97,  Nos.  281,  285;  Eckhel,  De  Num.  ii.  520 
521;  Boeckh,  Inscr.  2617,  2618,  2622,  2954, 
2957,  2990,  2992,  2993 ;  Krause,  De  Civ.  Neo~ 
coris ;  Hoffmann,  Lex.  '  Neocoros ').  [H.  W.  P.] 

Davidson  renders  it,  "  Yea,  after  my  skin,  when  taia 
(body)  is  destroyed"  (Introd.  O.  T.  ii.  p.  227). 


1788 


WRESTLING 


WRESTLING.     [GAMES.] 

WRITING.  It  is  proposed  in  the-p-esent 
article  to  treat,  not  of  writing  in  general,  its  origin, 
the  people  by  whom  and  the  manner  in  which  it 
was  discovered,  but  simply  with  reference  to  the 
Hebrew  race  to  give  such  indications  of  their  ac 
quaintance  with  the  art  as  are  to  be  derived  from 
their  books,  to  discuss  the  origin  and  formation  of 
their  alphabet  and  the  subsequent  development  of 
the  present  square  character,  and  to  combine  with 
this  discussion  an  account,  so  far  as  can  be  ascer 
tained,  of  the  material  appliances  which  they  made 
use  of  in  writing,  and  the  extent  to  which  the 
practice  prevailed  among  the  people. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  although,  with  respect 
to  other  arts,  as  for  instance  those  of  music  and 
metal  working,  the  Hebrews  have  assigned  the 
honour  of  their  discovery  to  the  heroes  of  a  remote 
antiquity,  there  is  no  trace  or  tradition  whatever  of 
the  origin  of  letters,  a  discovery  many  times  more 
remarkable  and  important  than  either  of  these. 
Throughout  the  Book  of  Genesis  there  is  not  a 
single  allusion,  direct  or  indirect,  either  to  the 
practice  or  to  the  existence  of  writing.  The  word 
Sn3,  cathab,  "to  write,"  does  not  once  occur; 
none  of  its  derivatives  are  used ;  and  "1BD,  sepher, 

"  a  book,"  is  found  only  in  a  single  passage  (Gen. 
v.  1),  and  there  not  in  a  connexion  which  involves 
the  supposition  that  the  art  of  writing  was  known 
at  the  time  to  which  it  refers.  The  signet  of  Judah 
(Gen.  xxxviii.  18,  25)  which  had  probably  some 
device  engraven  upon  it,  and  Pharaoh's  ring  (Gen. 
xli.  42)  with  which  Joseph  was  invested,  have  been 
appealed  to  as  indicating  a  knowledge  quite  con 
sistent  with  the  existence  of  writing.  But  as  there 
is  nothing  to  show  that  the  devices  upon  these  rings, 
supposing  them  to  exist,  were  written  characters, 
or  in  fact  any  thing  more  than  emblematical  figures, 
they  cannot  be  considered  as  throwing  much  light 
upon  the  question.  That  the  Egyptians  in  the  time 
of  Joseph  were  acquainted  with  writing  of  a  certain 
kind  there  is  other  evidence  to  prove,  but  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  up  to  this  period  the  know 
ledge  extended  to  the  Hebrew  family.  At  the  same 
time  there  is  no  evidence  against  it.  The  instance 
brought  forward  by  Hengstenberg  to  prove  that 
"  signets  commonly  bore  alphabetic  writings,"  is  by 
no  means  so  decisive  as  he  would  have  it  appear. 
It  is  Ex.  xxxix.  30  :  "  And  they  made  the  plate  of 
the  holy  crown  of  pure  gold,  and  wrote  upon  it  a 
writing  of  the  engravings  of  a  signet,  *  Holiness  to 
the  Lord.'"  That  is,  this  inscription  was  engraved 
upon  the  plate  as  the  device  is  engraved  upon  a 
signet,  in  intaglio ;  and  the  expression  has  reference 
to  the  manner  of  engraving,  and  not  to  the  figures 
engraved,  and  therefore  cannot  be  appealed  to  as 
proving  the  existence  of  alphabetic  characters  upon 
Judah's  signet  or  Pharaoh's  ring.  Writing  is  first 
distinctly  mentioned  in  Ex.  xvii.  14,  and  the  con 
nexion  clearly  implies  that  it  was  not  then  employed 
for  the  first  time,  but  was  so  familiar  as  to  be  used 
for  historic  records.  Moses  is  commanded  to  pre 
serve  the  memory  of  Amalek's  onslaught  in  the 
desert  by  committing  it  to  writing.  "  And  Jehovah 
said  unto  Moses,  Write  this  for  a  memorial  in  the 
book  (not  '  a  book,'  as  in  the  A.  V.),  and  rehearse 
it  in  the  ears  of  Joshua."  It  is  clear  that  some 
special  book  is  here  referred  to,  perhaps,  as  A  ben 
Ezra  suggests,  the  book  of  the  wars  of  Jehovah,  or 
the  hook  of  Jashar,  or  one  of  the  many  documents 


WRITING 

j  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  which  have  long  since  pe 
rished.  Or  it  may  have  been  the  book  in  which 
Moses  wrote  the  words  of  Jehovah  (Ex.  xxiv.  4;, 
that  is  the  laws  contained  in  chapters  xx.-xxiii.  The 
tables  of  the  testimony  are  said  to  be  "  written  by 
the  finger  of  God"  (Ex.  xxxi.  18)  on  both  sides, 
and  "  the  writing  was  the  writing  of  God,  graven 
upon  the  tables"  (Ex.  xxxii.  15).  It  is  not  cleai 
whether  the  passage  in  Ex.  xxxiv.  28  implies  that 
the  second  tables  were  written  by  Moses  or  by  God 
himself.  The  engraving  of  the  gems  of  the  high- 
priest's  breastplate  with  the  names  of  the  children 
of  Israel  (Ex.  xxviii.  11),  and  the  inscription  upon 
the  mitre  (Ex.  xxxix.  30)  have  to  do  more  with  the 
art  of  the  engraver  than  of  the  writer,  but  both 
imply  the  existence  of  alphabetic  characters.  The 
next  allusion  is  not  so  clear.  The  Israelites  were 
forbidden,  in  imitation  of  the  idolatrous  nations,  to 
put  any  "brand"  (lit.  "writing  of  burning")  upon 
themselves.  The  figures  thus  branded  upon  the 
skin  might  have  been  alphabetical  characters,  but 
they  were  more  probably  emblematical  devices, 
symbolizing  some  object  of  worship,  for  the  roof, 
HH3,  cathab  (to  write),  is  applied  to  picture-draw 
ing  (Judg.  viii.  14),  to  mapping  out  a  country 
(Josh,  xviii.  8),  and  to  plan-drawing  (1  Chr.  xxviii. 
19).  The  curses  against  the  adulteress  were  written 
by  the  priest  "  in  the  book,"  as  before ;  and  blotted 
out  with  water  (Num.  v.  23).  This  proceeding, 
though  principally  distinguished  by  its  symbolical 
character,  involves  the  use  of  some  kind  of  ink,  and 
of  a  material  on  which  the  curses  were  written 
which  would  not  be  destroyed  by  water.  The 
writing  on  door-posts  and  gates,  alluded  to  in  Deut. 
vi.  9,  xi.  20,  though  perhaps  to  be  taken  figur 
atively  rather  than  literally,  implies  certainly  an 
acquaintance  with  the  art  and  the  use  of  alpha 
betic  characters.  Hitherto,  however,  nothing  has 
been  said  of  the  application  of  writing  to  the  pur 
poses  of  ordinary  life,  or  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
art  among  the  common  people.  Up  to  this  point 
such  knowledge  is  only  attributed  to  Moses  and 
the  priests.  From  Deut.  xxiv.  1,  3,  however,  it 
would  appear  that  it  was  extended  to  others.  A 
man  who  wished  to  be  separated  from  his  wife  for 
her  infidelity,  could  relieve  himself  by  a  summary 
process.  "  Let  him  write  her  a  bill  ("1QD,  sepher, 
"  a  book  ")  of  divorcement,  and  give  it  in  her  hand, 
and  send  her  out  of  his  house."  It  is  not  abso 
lutely  necessary  to  infer  from  this  that  the  art  of 
writing  was  an  accomplishment  possessed  by  every 
Hebrew  citizen,  though  there  is  no  mention  of  a 
third  party  ;  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  these 
"  bills  of  divorcement,"  though  apparently  so  in 
formal,  were  the  work  of  professional  scribes.  It 
was  enjoined  as  one  of  the  duties  of  the  king  (Deut. 
xvii.  18),  that  he  should  transcribe  the  book  of  the 
law  for  his  own  private  study,  and  we  shall  find 
hereafter  in  the  history  that  distinct  allusions  to 
writing  occur  in  the  case  of  several  kings.  The  re 
maining  instances  in  the  Pentateuch  are  the  writing 
of  laws  upon  stone  covered  with  plaster,  upon 
which  while  soft  the  inscription  was  cut  (Deut. 
xxvri.  3,  8),  the  writing  of  the  song  of  Moses 
(Deut.  xxxi,  22),  and  of  the  law  in  a  book  which 
was  placed  in  the  side  of  the  ark  ( Deut.  xxxi.  24). 
One  of  the  first  acts  of  Joshua  on  entering  the  Pro 
mised  Land  was  to  inscribe  a  copy  of  the  Law  on 
the  stones  of  the  Altar  on  Mount  Ebal  (Josh.  viii. 
32).  The  survey  of  the  country  was  drawn  out  ir. 
a  book  (Josh,  xviii.  8).  In  the  time  of  the  Ju<  g« 


WHITING 

we  first  meet  with  the  professional  ccribe  (^IQ'Di 
fdpher],  in  his  important  capacity  as  marshal  of  the 
host  of  warriors  (Judg.  v.  14),  with  his  staff  (A.  V. 
"  pen  ")  of  office.  Ewald  (Poet.  Such.  i.  1  29)  re 
gards  sopher  in  this  passage  as  equivalent  to  tODK^> 
shophet,  "judge,"  and  certainly  the  context  implies 
the  high  rank  which  the  art  of  writing  conferred 
upon  its  possessor.  Later  on  in  the  history  we  read 
of  Samuel  writing  in  "  the  book"  the  manner  of  the 
kingdom  (1  Sam.  x.  25)  ;  but  it  is  not  till  the 
;-eign  of  David  that  we  hear  for  the  first  time  of 
writing  being  used  for  the  purposes  of  ordinary 
communication.  The  letter  (lit.  "book")  which 
contained  Uriah's  death-wan-ant  was  written  by 
David,  and  must  have  been  intended  for  the  eye  of 
.loab  alone  ;  who  was  therefore  ajble  to  read  writing, 
nud  probably  to  write  himself,  though  his  message 
oO  the  king,  conveying  the  intelligence  of  Uriah's 
death,  was  a  verbal  one  (2  Sam.  xi.  14,  15).  If  we 
examine  the  instances  in  which  writing  is  mentioned 
hi  connexion  with  individuals,  we  shall  find  that  in 
all  cases  the  writers  were  men  of  superior  position. 
In  the  Pentateuch  the  knowledge  of  the  art  is  attri 
buted  to  Moses,  Joshua,  and  the  priest  alone.  Sa 
muel,  who  was  educated  by  the  high-priest,  is  men 
tioned  as  one  of  the  earliest  historians  (1  Chr.  xxix. 
29),  as  well  as  Nathan  the  prophet  (2  Chr.  ix.  29), 
Shemaiah  the  prophet,  Iddo  the  seer  (2  Chr.  xii. 
15,  xifi.  22),  and  Jehu  the  son  of  Hanani  (2  Chr. 
xx.  34).  Letters  were  written  by  Jezebel  in  the 
name  of  Ahab  and  sealed  with  his  seal  (IK.  xxi. 
8,  9,  11);  by  Jehu  (2  K.  xi.  6);  by  Hezekiah 
(2  Chr.  xxix.  1)  ;  by  Rabshakeh  the  Assyrian  ge 
neral  (2  Chr.  xxxii.  17);  by  the  Persian  satraps 
(Ezr.  iv.  6,  7,  8)  ;  by  Sanballat  (Neh.  vi.  5),  To- 
blah  (Neh.  vi.  19),  Haman  (Esth.  viii.  5),  Mor- 
decai  and  Esther  (Esth.  ix.  29).  The  prophet  Elijah 
wrote  to  Ahab  (2  Chr.  xxi.  2)  ;  Isaiah  wrote  some 
of  the  history  of  his  time  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  22)  ;  Jere 
miah  committed  his  prophecies  to  writing  (Jer.  li. 
60),  sometimes  by  the  help  of  Baruch  the  scribe 
(Jer.  xxxvi.  4,  32)  ;  and  the  false  prophet,  Shemaiah 
the  Nehelamite,  endeavoured  to  undermine  Jere 
miah's  influence  by  the  letters  which  he  wrote  to 
the  high-priest  (Jer.  xxix.  25).  In  Is.  xxix.  11, 
12,  there  is  clearly  a  distinction  drawn  between 
the  man  who  was  able  to  read,  and  the  man  who 
was  not,  and  it  seems  a  natural  inference  from  what 
has  been  said  that  the  accomplishments  of  reading 
and  writing  were  not  widely  spread  among  the 

!>eople,  when  we  find  that  they  are  universally  attri 
buted  to  those  of  high  rank  or  education,  kings, 
priests,  prophets,  and  professional  scribes. 

In  addition  to  these  instances  in  which  writing 
is  directly  mentioned,  an  indirect  allusion  to  its 
early  existence  is  supposed  to  be  found  in  the  name 
of  certain  officers  of  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt,  D*"1pt?» 
ghotgrim,  LXX.  ypappareis  (Ex.  v.  6,  A.'  V. 
"  officers  ").  The  root  of  this  word  has  been  sought 

in  the  Arabic  «^L*M,  satara,  "  to  write,"  and  its 


original  meaning  is  believed  to  be  "writers,"  or 
"scribes;"  an  explanation  adopted  by  Gesenius  in 
bis  Lexicon  Hcbraicum  and  Thesaurus,  though  he 
rejected  it  in  his  Geschichte  der  Hebrdischen 
Sprache  und  Schrift.  In  the  name  Kirjath-Sepher 
(Booktown,  Josh.  xv.  15)  the  indication  of  a  know 
ledge  of  writing  among  the  Phoenicians  is  more  dis 
tinct.  Hitzig  conjectures  that  the  town  may  have 
derived  its  name  from  the  discovery  of  the  art,  for 
the  Hittites,  a  Canaanitish  race,  inhabited  that 


WRITING  17SJ 

region,  and  the  term  Hittite  may  possibly  have  its 

root  in  the  Arabic  U<.,  chatta,  "  to  write." 

The  Hebrews,  then,  a  branch  of  the  great  Shemitic 
family,  being  in  possession  of  the  art  of  writing, 
according  to  their  own  historical  records,  at  a  very 
early  period,  the  further  questions  arise,  what  cha 
racter  they  made  use  of,  and  whence  they  obtained 
it.  It  is  scarcely  possible  in  the  present  day  to 
believe  that,  two  centuries  since,  learned  men  of 
sober  judgment  seriously  maintained,  almost  as  au 
article  of  faith,  that  the  square  character,  as  it  is 
known  to  us,  with  the  vowel  points  and  accents, 
was  a  direct  revelation  from  heaven,  and  that  the 
commandments  were  written  by  the  finger  of  God 
upon  the  tables  of  stone  in  that  character.  Such, 
however,  was  really  the  case.  But  recent  investi 
gations  have  shown  that,  so  far  from  the  square 
character  having  any  claim  to  such  a  remote  an 
tiquity  and  such  an  august  parentage,  it  is  of  com 
paratively  modern  date,  and  has  been  formed  from  a 
more  ancient  type  by  a  gradual  process  of  develop 
ment,  the  steps  of  which  will  be  indicated  hereafter, 
so  far  as  they  can  be  safely  ascertained.  What  then 
was  this  ancient  type  ?  Most  probably  the  Phoe 
nician.  To  the  Phoenicians,  the  daring  seamen, 
and  adventurous  colonizers  of  the  ancient  world, 
tradition  assigned  the  honour  of  the  invention  of 
letters  (Plin.  v.  12).  This  tradition  may  be  of  no 
value  as  direct  evidence,  but  as  it  probably  origin 
ated  with  the  Greeks,  it  shows  that,  to  them  at 
least,  the  Phoenicians  were  the  inventors  of  letters, 
and  that  these  were  introduced  into  Europe  by 
means  of  that  intercourse  with  Phoenicia  which  is 
implied  in  the  legend  of  Cadmus,  the  man  of  the 
East.  The  Phoenician  companions  of  this  hero, 
according  to  Herodotus  (v.  58),  taught  the  Greeks 
many  accomplishments,  and  among  others  the  us ; 
of  letters  which  hitherto  they  had  not  possessed. 
So  Lucan,  Phars.  iii.  220: 

"  Phoenices  primi,  famae  si  credimus,  ausi 
Mansufam  rudibus  vocem  signare  flguris." 

Pliny  (vii.  56)  was  of  opinion  that  letters  were 
of  Assyrian  origin,  but  he  mentions  as  a  belief  held 
by  others  that  they  were  discovered  among  tin; 
Egyptians  by  Mercury,  or  that  the  Syrians  had  the 
honour  of  the  invention.  The  last-mentioned  theory 
is  that  given  by  Diodorus  Siculus  (v.  74),  who  says 
that  the  Syrians  invented  letters,  and  from  them  the 
Phoenicians  having  learnt  them,  transferred  them 
to  the  Greeks.  On  the  other  hand,  according  to 
Tacitus  (Ann.  xi.  14),  Egypt  was  believed  tc  be  the' 
source  whence  the  Phoenicians  derived  their  Know 
ledge.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  voice  of  tradition  re 
presents  the  Phoenicians. as  the  disseminators,  if  not 
the  inventors,  of  the  alphabet.  Whether  it  came  to 
them  from  an  Aramaean  or  Egyptian  source  can  at 
best  be  but  the  subject  of  conjecture.  It  may, 
however,  be  reasonably  infermi  that  the  ancient 
Hebrews  derived  from,  or  shared  with,  the  Phoeni 
cians  the  knowledge  of  writing  and  the  use  of  letters. 
The  two  nations  spoke  languages  of  the  same  Shem 
itic  family  ;  they  were  brought  into  close  contact  by 
geographical  position ;  all  circumstances  combine  to 
render  it  probable  that  the  ancient  Hebrew  alphabet 
was  the  common  possession  both  cf  Hebrews  and 
Phoenician?:,  and  this  probability  is  strengthened  by 
the  results  of  modern  investigation  into  the  Phoe 
nician  inscription;  which  have  of  late  years  been 
brought  to  light.  The  names  of  the  Hebrew  lette  iv 
indicate  that  they  must  have  been  the  invention  a 


1790 


WRITING 


n  Shemitic  people,  and  that  they  were  moreover 
a  pastoral  people  may  be  interred  from  the  same 
evidence.  Such  names  as  Aleph  (an  :>x),  Gimel 
(a  camel),  Lamed  (an  ox-goad\  are  most  naturally 
explained  by  this  hypothesis,  which  necessarily  ex 
cludes  the  seafaring  Phoenicians  from  any  claim  to 
their  invention.  If,  as  has  been  conjectured,  they 
took  the  first  idea  of  writing  from  the  Egyptians, 
they  would  at  least  have  given  to  the  signs  which 
they  invented  the  names  of  objects  with  which  they 
themselves  were  familiar.  So  far  from  this  being 
the  case  the  letters  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet  contain 
no  trace  whatever  of  ships  or  seafaring  matters :  on 
the  contrary,  they  point  distinctly  to  an  inland  and 
pastoral  people.  The  Shemitic  and  Egyptian  alpha 
bets  have  this  principle  in  common,  that  the  object 
whose  name  is  given  to  a  letter  was  taken  originally 
to  indicate  the  letter  which  begins  the  name  ;  but 
this  fact  alone  is  insufficient  to  show  that  the 
Shemitic  races  borrowed  their  alphabet  from  Egypt, 
r»r  that  the  principle  thus  held  in  common  may  not 
have  been  the  possession  of  other  nations  of  a  still 
earlier  date  than  the  Egyptians.  "  The  phonetic 
use  of  hieroglyphics,"  says  Mr.  Kenrick,  "  would 
naturally  suggest  to  a  practical  people,  such  as  the 
Phoenicians  were,  a  simplification  of  the  cumbrous 
system  of  the  Egyptians,  by  dispensing  altogether 
with  the  pictorial  and  symbolical  use,  and  assigning 
one  character  to  each  sound,  instead  of  the  mul 
titude  of  homophones  which  made  the  reading  of 
the  hieroglyphics  so  difficult ;  the  residence  of  the 
Phoenician  shepherds,'  the  Hyksos,  in  Egypt  might 
afford  an  opportunity  for  this  adaptation,  or  it  might 
be  brought  about  by  commercial  intercourse.  We 
cannot,  however,  trace  such  a  resemblance  between 
the  earliest  Phoenician  alphabet  known  to  us,  and 
the  phonetic  characters  of  Egypt,  as  to  give  any 
certainty  to  this  conclusion  "  (Phoenicia,  pp.  164, 
165). 

Perhaps  all  that  can  be  inferred  from  the  tradi 
tion  that  letters  came  to  the  Greeks  from  the  Phoe 
nicians,  but  that  they  were  the  invention  of  the 
Egyptians,  is  that  the  Egyptians  possessed  an  alpha 
bet  before  the  Phoenicians.  Wahl,  De  Wette,  and 
Kopp  are  inclined  to  a  Babylonian  origin,  under 
standing  the  5upot  of  Diodorus  and  the  Syri  of 
Pliny  of  the  Babylonians.  But  Gesenius  has  shown 
this  to  be  untenable,  because  (1)  Pliny  distinctly 
mentions  both  Syri  and  Assyrii,  and  by  no  means 
confounds  them  ;  and  (2)  because  the  inscription  on 
the  seal-stone,  on  which  Kopp  based  his  theory,  is 
nothing  more  than  Phoenician,  and  that  not  of  the 
oldest  form,  but  inclining  to  the  somewhat  later 


WRITING 

Aramaic  character.  This  seal-stone  or  bnsk  con 
tained,  oesides  a  cuneiform  inscription,  som* 
Shemitic  characters  which  were  deciphered  by 
Kopp,  and  were  placed  by  him  at  the  head  of  his 
most  ancient  alphabets  (Bilder  und  Sohriften,  ii. 
p.  154).  Gesenius,  however,  read  them  with  a 
very  different  result.  He  himself  argues  for  a 
Phoenician  origin  of  the  alphabet,  in  opposition 
to  a  Babylonian  or  Aramaean,  on  the  following 
grounds  : — 1 .  That  the  names  of  the  letters  are 
Phoenician,  and  not  Syrian.  Several  of  the  names 
are  found  alike  in  the  Hebrew  and  Aramaic  dia 
lects:  as  for  instance,  beth,  gimel,  zain,  nun,  ain, 
resh,  shin,  but  others  are  not  found  in  Syriac  at  all, 
at  least  not  in  the  same  sense.  Aleph  in  Syriac 
signifies  "a  thousand,"  not  "an  ox;"  daleth  is 
not  "  a  door,"  and  for  this,  aa  well  as  for  vau,  yod, 
mem,  pe,  koph,  and  tau,  different  words  are  used. 
The  Greek  forms  of  the  names  of  the  letters  are 
somewhat  in  favour  of  an  Aramaic  origin,  but 
there  is  no  proof  that  they  came  in  this  shape  from 
the  East,  and  that  they  were  not  so  modified  by  the 
Greeks  themselves.  2.  It  is  not  probable  that  the 
Aramaic  dialect  was  the  language  of  the  inventors  ; 
for  the  letters  ^  ]  y  fc$,  which  to  them  were  cer 
tainly  consonants,  had  become  so  weak  in  the  Ara 
maic  that  they  could  scarcely  any  longer  appear  as 
such,  and  could  not  have  been  expressed  by  signs 
by  an  inventor  who  spoke  a  dialect  of  this  kind. 
3.  If  the  Phoenician  letters  are  pictorial,  as  there 
seems  reason  to  believe,  there  is  no  model,  among 
the  old  Babylonian  discoverers  of  writing,  after 
which  they  could  have  been  formed ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  extremely  probable  that  the  Phoeni 
cians,  from  their  extended  commerce,  especially  with 
Egypt,  adopted  an  imitation  of  the  Egyptian  pho 
netic  hieroglyphics,  though  they  took  neither  the 
figures  nor  the  names  from  this  source.  The  names 
of  some  of  the  letters  lead  us  to  a  nomade  pastoral 
people,  rich  in  herds :  aleph  (an  ox),  gimel  (a  camel), 
lamed  (an  ox-goad),  beth  (a  tent),  daleth  (a  tent- 
door),  vau  (a  tent-peg),  cheth  (a  hurdle  or  pen).  It 
is  a  little  remarkable  that  Gesenius  did  not  see  that 
this  very  fact  militates  strongly  against  the  Phoe 
nician  origin  of  the  letters,  and  points,  as  has  been 
observed  above,  rather  to  a  pastoral  than  a  sea 
faring  people  as  their  inventors.  But  whether  or 
not  the  Phoenicians  were  the  inventors  of  the 
Shemitic  alphabet,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  their 
just  claim  to  being  its  chief  disseminators ;  and  with 
this  understanding  we  may  accept  the  genealogy  or 
alphabets,  as  given  by  Gesenius,  and  exhibited  in 
the  accompanying  table. 


Phoenician. 


Anc.  Greek. 


Anc,  Persian.        Nuraidian.         Anc.  liebrew. 


Anc.  Aramaean. 


Ktruscan. 
Umbrian. 
Oscan. 
Samnite. 

Celti-  O 
beriaii. 

Roman.    Liter 

Runic  ? 

Oictk. 

Sama 

Itan. 

Palm 

rrene. 

I 
Heb.  square 
character 

I                 I 
Lptlc.     Gothic. 

Slave 

oian. 

Z 

Pe 

Sussanid  —  wi 

1 

•iting. 

Estra 
and  Ne 

igelo 
storian. 

! 
Sabiai: 

£ 

hlvi. 

Cu 

a. 

Peshito. 

Uiguric,  01 
Old  Turkisl- 

Armenian  ? 

Whatever  minor  differences  may  exist  between 
the  ancient  and  more  modern  Shemitic  alphabet.*, 
th«v  have  two  chief  characteristics  in  common. — 


Nischi. 


1.  That  they  contain  only  consonants  and  the  thug 
principal  long  vowels,  K»  %  *  J  the  other  vow  t  Is 
being  represented  by  signs  above,  below,  or  in  tta 


WHITING 

middle  of  letters,  or  being  omitted  altogether.  2. 
That  they  are  written  from  right  to  left.  The  Ethio- 
pic,  being  perhaps  a  non-Shemitic  alphabet,  is  an 
exception  to  this  rule,  as  is  the  cuneiform  character 
in  which  some  Shemitic  inscriptions  are  found.  The 
same  peculiarity  of  Egyptian  writing  was  remarked 
by  Herodotus.  No  instance  of  what  is  called 
bonstropliedon,  writing — that,  is  in  a  direction  from 
right  to  left,  and  from  left  to  right,  in  alternate 
lines — is  found  in  Shemitic  monuments. 

The  old  Shemitic  alphabets  may  be  divided  into 
two  principal  classes:  1.  The  Phoenician,  as  it  ex 
ists  (a)  in  the  inscriptions  in  Cyprus,  Malta,  Car- 
pentras,  and  the  coins  of  Phoenicia  and  her  colonies. 
It  is  distinguished  by  an  absence  of  vowels,  and  by 
sometimes  having  the  words  divided  and  sometimes 
not.  (6).  I-ii  the  inscriptions  on  Jewish  coins, 
(c).  In  the  Phoenicio-Egyptian  writing,  with  three 
vowel  signs,  deciphered  by  Caylus  on  the  mummy 
bandages.  From  (a)  are  derived  (of),  the  Sama 
ritan  character,  and  (<?),  the  Greek.  2.  The  Hebrew- 
Chaldee  character ;  to  which  belong  (a),  the  Hebrew 
square  character ;  (6),  the  Palmyrene,  which  has 
some  traces  of  a  cursive  hand  ;  (c),  the  Estrangelo, 
or  ancient  Syriac ;  and  (d),  the  ancient  Arabic 
or  Curie.  The  oldest  Arabic  writing  (the  Him- 
yaritic)  was  perhaps  the  same  as  the  ancient  He 
brew  or  Phoenician. 

It  remains  now  to  consider  which  of  all  these  was 
the  alphabet  originally  used  by  the  ancient  Hebrews. 
In  considering  this  question  it  will  on  many  ac 
counts  be  more  convenient  to  begin  with  the  com 
mon  square  character,  which  is  more  familiar,  and 
which  from  this  familiarity  is  more  constantly  asso 
ciated  with  the  Hebrew  language  and  writing.  In 
the  Talmud  (Sank.  fol.  21,  2)  this  character  is  called 
VIP*?  nn^,  "  square  writing,"  or  TVWN  SHS, 
"  Assyrian  writing ;"  the  latter  appellation  being 
given  because,  according  to  the  tradition,  it  came 
up  with  the  Israelites  from  Assyria.  Under  the 
term  Assyria  are  included  Chaldea  and  Babylonia 
in  the  wider  sense ;  for  it  is  clear  that  in  ancient 
writers  the  names  Assyrian  and  Chaldean  are  ap 
plied  indifferently  to  the  same  characters.  The  letters 
of  the  inscription  on  the  tomb  of  Sardanapalus  are 
called  Chaldean  (Athen.  xii.  p.  529)  and  Assyrian' 
(A then.  xii.  p.  469  ;  Arrian,  Exp.  Alex.  ii.  5,  §4). 
Again,  the  Assyrian  writing  on  the  pillars  erected 
by  Darius  at  the  Bosporos  (Her.  iv.  87),  is  called 
by  Strabo  Persian  (xv.  p.  502).  Another  deriva 
tion  for  the  epithet  JVNSPK,  as/ishurith,  as  applied 
to  this  writing,  has  been  suggested  by  Rabbi  Judah 
the  Holy,  who. derives  it  from  nH&KB,  meush- 
shereth,  "  blessed ;"  the  term  being  applied  to  it 
because  it  was  employed  in  writing  the  sacred 
books.  Another  etymology  (from  "lE^N,  dshar, 
to  be  straight),  given  by  the  Hebrew  grammarian 
Abraham  de  Balm  is,  describes  it  as  the  straight, 
perpendicular  writing,  so  making  the  epithet  equi 
valent  to  that  which  we  apply  to  it  in  calling 
it  the  square  character.  Hupteld,  starting  from 
the  same  root,  explains  the  Talmudic  designation 
as  merely  a  technical  term  used  to  denote  the  more 
modern  writing,  and  as  opposed  to  f*JH,  raats, 
"  broken,"  by  which  the  ancient  character  is  de 
scribed.  According  to  him  it  signifies  that  which 
is  firm,  strong,  protected  and  supported  as  with 
forts  and  walls,  referring  perhaps  to  the  horizontal 
strokes  on  which  the  letters  rest  as  on  a  foundation. 
In  this  view  he  compares  it  with  the  Ethiopic  cha- 


WKITING  1791 

racter,  which  is  called  in  Arabic  t\LuMwo  "  sup. 
ported."  It  must  be  confessed  that  none  of  thes« 
explanations  are  so  satisfactory  as  to  be  unhesi 
tatingly  accepted.  The  onJy*  fact  to  be  derived 
from  the  word  JVVl^K  is  that  it  is  the  source  ot 
the  whole  Talmudic  tradition  of  the  Babylonian 
origin  of  the  square  character.  This  tradition  is 
embodied  in  the  following  passages  from  the  Jeru 
salem  and  Babylonian  Talmuds : — "  It  is  a  tradi 
tion  :  R.  Jose  says  Ezra  was  fit  to  have  the  law 
given  by  his  hand,  but  that  the  age  of  Moses  pre 
vented  it ;  yet  though  it  was  not  given  by  his 
hand,  the  writing  and  the  language  were;  the 
writing  was  written  in  the  Syriac  tongue,  and  in 
terpreted  in  the  Syriac  tongue  (Ezr.  iv.  7),  and 
they  could  not  read  the  writing  (Dan.  v.  8) ;  from 
hence  it  is  learnt  that  it  was  given  on  the  same 
day.  R.  Nathan  says  the  law  was  given  in  broken 
characters  (YJH,  raats^,  and  agrees  with  R.  Jose; 
but  Rab  (».  e.  R.  Judah  the  Holy)  says  that  the 
law  was  given  in  the  Assyrian  (».  e.  the  square) 
character,  and  when  they  sinned  it  was  turned  into 
the  broken  character,  and  when  they  were  worthy, 
in  the  days  of  Ezra,  it  was  turned  to  them  again  in 
the  Assyrian  character,  according  to  Zech.  ix.  12. 
It  is  a  tradition :  R.  Simeon  ben  Eleazar  says,  on 
the  account  of  R.  Eleazar  ben  Paiia,  who  also  says, 
on  the  account  of  Eliezer  Hammodai,  the  law  was 
written  in  the  Assyrian  character "  (Talm.  Jerus. 
Megtllah,  fol.  71,  2,  3).  But  the  story,  as  best 
known,  is  told  in  the  Babylonian  Talmud  : — "  Mar 
Zutra,  or  as  others  Mar  Ukba,  says,  at  first  the  law 
was  given  to  Israel  in  the  Hebrew  (*"QJJ,  t.  e.  the 
Samaritan)  writing  and  the  holy  tongue ;  and  a^ain 
it  was  given  to  them,  in  the  days  of  Ezra,  in  the 
Assyrian  writing  and  the  Syrian  tongue.  They 
chose  for  the  Israelites  the  Assyrian  writing  and 
the  holy  tongue,  and  left  to  the  Idiotae  the  Hebrew 
writing  and  the  Syrian  tongue.  Who  are  the 
Idiotae  ?  R.  Chasda  says,  the  Cutheans  (or  Sama 
ritans).  What  is  the  Hebrew  writing  ?  R.  Chasda 
says,  the  Libo-naah  writing"  (Sanhed.  fol.  21,  2; 
22*,  1).  The  Libonaah  writing  is  explained  by 
R.  Solomon  to  mean  the  large  characters  in  which 
the  Jews  wrote  their  amulets  and  mezuzoth.  The 
broken  character  mentioned  above  can  only  apply  to 
the  Samaritan  alphabet,  or  one  very  similar  to  it. 
In  this  character  are  written,  not  only  manuscripts 
of  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  varying  in  age  from 
the  13th  to  the  16th  century,  but  also  other  works 
in  Samaritan  and  Arabic.  The  Samaritans  them 
selves  call  it  Hebrew  writing,  in  contradistinction 
to  the  square  character,  which  they  call  the  writing 
of  Ezra.  It  has  no  vowel  points,  but  a  diacritical 
mark  called  Marhetono  is  employed,  and  words  and 
sentences  are  divided.  A  form  of  character  more 
ancient  than  the  Samaritan,  though  closely  resem 
bling  it,  ,is  found  on  the  coins  struck  under  Simon 
Maccabaeus,  circ.  B.C.  142.  Of  this  writing  Ge- 
senius  remarks  (art.  Palaeographie  in  Ersch  and 
Gruber's  Encyclopddie)  that  it  was  most  probably 
employed,  even  in  manuscripts,  during  the  whole 
lifetime  of  the  Hebrew  language,  and  was  graiually 
displaced  by  the  square  character  about  the  birth  of 
Christ.  An  examination  of  the  characters  on  the 
Maccabaean  coins  shows  that  they  bear  an  extremely 
close  resemblance  to  those  of  the  Phoenician  inscrip 
tions,  and  in  many  cases  are  all  but  identical  with 
them.  The  figures  of  three  characters  (f,  B,  D)  do 
not  occur,  and  that  of  D  is  doubtful. 

In  order  to  explain  the  Talmudic  story  above 


1792 


WRITING 


given,  and  the  relation  between  the  square  cha 
carter  and  that  of  the  coin^,  different  theories  have 
been  constructed.  Some  held  that  the  square  cha 
racter  was  sacred,  and  iued  by  the  priests,  while 
the  character  on  the  coins  was  for  the  purposes  of 
ordinary  life.  The  younger  Buxtorf  (])e  Lit.  Hebr. 
Gen.  Ant.}  maintained  that  the  square  alphabet  was 
the  oldest  and  the  original  alphabet  of  the  Hebrews, 
and  that  before  the  Captivity  the  Samaritan  cha 
racter  had  existed  side  by  side  with  it ;  that  during 
the  Captivity  the  priests  and  more  learned  part  of 
the  people  cultivated  the  square  or  sacred  character, 
while  those  who  were  left  in  Palestine  adhered  to 
the  common  writing.  Ezra  brought  the  former 
back  with  him,  and  it  was  hence  called  Assyrian  or 
Ohaldean.  The  other  was  used  principally  by  the 
Samaritans,  though  occasionally  by  the  Jews  them 
selves,  as  is  shown  by  the  characters  on  the  Macca- 
baean  coins.  This  opinion  found  many  supporters, 
and  a  singular  turn  was  givon  to  it  bv  Alorinus 
(De  Lingua  Pnmaeva,  p.  271)  and  Loescher  (De 
Causis  Ling.  Hebr.  pp.  207,  208),  who  maintained 
that  the  characters  on  the  coins  were  a  kind  of 
tachygraphic  writing  formed  from  the  square  cha 
racter.  Hartmann  (Ling.  Einl.  p.  28,  &c.)  also 
upheld  the  existence  of  a  twofold  character,  the 
sacred  and  profane.  The  favourei-s  of  this  hypo 
thesis  of  a  double  alphabet  had  some  analogies  to 
which  they  could  appeal  for  support.  The  Egyp 
tians  had  a  twofold,  or  even  a  threefold  character. 
The  cuneiform  writing  of  the  ancient  Persians  and 
Medes  was  perhaps  a  sacred  character  for  monu 
ments,  the  Zend  being  used  for  ordinary  life.  The 
Arabs,  Persians,  and  Turks  employ  different  cha 
racters  according  as  they  require  them  for  letters, 
poems,  or  historical  writings.  But  analogy  is  not 
proof,  and  therefore  the  passage  in  Is.  viii.  1  has 
been  appealed  to  as  containing  a  direct  allusion  to 
the  ordinary  writing  as  opposed  to  the  sacred  cha 
racter.  But  it  is  evident,  upon  examination,  that 
the  writing  there  referred  to  is  that  of  a  perfectly 
legible  character,  such  as  an  ordinary  unskilled  man 
might  read.  Irenaeus  (Adv.  Haeres.  ii.  24),  indeed, 
speaks  of  sacerdotal  letters,  but  his  information  is 
not  to  be  relied  on.  In  fact  the  sole  ground  for  the 
hypothesis  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  only  specimens 
of  the  Hebrew  writing  of  common  life  are  not  in 
the  usual  character  of  the  manuscripts.  If  this 
supposition  of  the  coexistence  of  a  twofold  alphabet 
be  abandoned  as  untenable,  we  must  either  substi 
tute  for  it  a  second  hypothesis,  that  the  square  cha 
racter  was  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  kingdom 
of  Judah,  and  that  the  Samaritan  was  used  in  the 
northern  kingdom,  or  that  the  two  alphabet  were 
successive  and  not  contemporary.  Against  the 
former  hypothesis  stands  the  fact  that  the  coins  on 
which  the  so-called  Samaritan  character  occurs  were 
struck  at  Jerusalem,  and  the  names  Hebrew  and 
Assyrian,  as  applied  to  the  two  alphabets,  would 
still  be  unaccounted  for.  There  remains  then  the 
hypothesis  that  the  square  character  and  the  writing 
of  the  coins  succeeded  each  other  in  point  of  time, 
and  that  the  one  gradually  took  the  place  of  the 
other,  just  as  in  Arabic  the  Nischi  writing  has  dis 
placed  the  older  Curie  character,  and  in  Syriac  the 
Kstrangelo  has  given  place  to  that  at  present  in  use. 
But  did  the  square  character  precede  the  character 
on  the  coins,  or  was  the  reverse  the  case  ?  Accord 
ing  to  some  of  the  doctors  of  the  Talmud  (Sank. 
fol.  21,  2  ;  22,  1),  in  the  passage  above  quoted,  the 
Law  was  given  to  the  Israelites  in  the  Hebrew  cha 
racter  and  th»  holy  tongue.  It  was  given  again 


WRITING 

in  the  days  of  Ezra  in  the  As«/rian  character  anil 
the  Aramaean  tongue.  By  the  "  Hebrew "  cha 
racter  is  to  be  understood  what  is  elsewhere  called 
the  "  broken"  writing,  which  is  what  is  commonly 
called  Samaritan ;  and  by  the  Assyrian  writing  is 
to  be  understood  the  square  character.  But  Rabbi 
Judah  the  Holy,  who  adopted  a  different  etymology 
for  the  word  n^Trt^K  (Assyrian),  says  that  the 
Law  was  first  given  in  this  square  character,  but 
that  afterwards,  when  the  people  sinned,  it  was 
changed  into  the  broken  writing,  which  again,  upon 
their  repentance  in  the  d;iys  of  Ezra,  was  converted 
into  the  square  character.  In  both  these  cas«s  it  is 
evident  that  the  tradition  is  entirely  built  upon  the 
etymology  of  the  word  ashshurith,  and  varies  ac 
cording  to  the  different  conceptions  formed  of  its 
meaning:  consequently  it  is  of  but  slight  value  as 
direct  testimony.  The  varying  character  of  the 
tradition  shows  moreover  that  it  was  framed  after 
the  true  meaning  of  the  name  had  become  lost 
Origen  (on  Ez.  ix.  4)  says  that  in  the  ancient  alpha 
bet  the  Tau  had  the  form  of  a  cross,  and  (Hexapli, 
i.  86,  Montfaucon)  that  in  some  MSS.  of  the  LXX. 
the  word  m!"P  was  written  in  ancient  Hebrew  cha 
racters,  not  with  those  in  use  in  his  day,  "  for  they 
say  that  Ezra  used  other  [letters]  after  the  Cap 
tivity."  Jerome,  following  Origen,  gives  out  as 
certain  what  his  predecessor  only  mentioned  as  a 
report,  and  the  tradition  in  his  hands  assumes  a 
different  aspect.  "  It  is  certain,"  he  says,  "  that 
Ezra  the  scribe  and  doctor  of  the  law,  after  the 
taking  of  Jerusalem  and  the  restoration  of  the 
Temple  under  Zerubbabel,  discovered  other  letters 
which  we  now  use :  whereas  up  to  that  time  the 
characters  of  the  Samaritans  and  Hebrews  were  the 
same.  .  .  .  And  the  tetragrammaton  name  of  the 
Lord  we  find  in  the  present  day  written  in  ancient 
letters  in  certain  Greek  rolls  "  (Prol.  Gal.  in  Libr. 
Reg.').  The  testimony  of  Origen  with  regard  to 
the  form  of  Tau,  undergoes  a  similar  modification. 
"  In  the  ancient  Hebrew  letters,  which  the  Samari 
tans  use  to  this  day,  the  last  letter,  tau,  has  the 
form  of  a  cross."  Again,  in  another  passage  (Ep. 
136  ad  MarcelL  ii.  704,  Ep.  14,  ed.  Martianay) 
Jerome  remarks  that  the  ineffable  name  HI  IT,  being 
misunderstood  by  the  Greeks  when  they  met  with 
it  in  their  books,  was  read  by  them  pipi,  i.  e. 
mm.  It  has  been  interred  from  this  that  the 
ancient  characters,  to  which  both  Jerome  and  Origen 
refer  in  the  first-quoted  passages,  were  the  square 
characters,  because  in  them  alone,  and  not  in  the 
Samaritan,  does  any  resemblance  between  HliT  and 
mm  exist.  There  is  nothing,  however,  to  show 
that  Jerome  contemplated  the  same  case  in  the  two 
passages.  In  the  one  he  expressly  mentions  the 
"  ancient  characters,"  and  evidently  as  an  exceptional 
instance,  for  they  were  only  found  in  "  certain  rolls  ;" 
in  the  other  he  appears  to  speak  of  an  occurrence 
by  no  means  uncommon.  Again,  it  is  Jerome,  and 
not  Origen,  who  is  responsible  for  the  assertion  that 
in  the  Samaritan  alphabet  the  Tau  has  the  form  of 
a  cross.  Origen  merely  says  this  is  the  case  in  the 
ancient  or  original  (apxaiots)  Hebrew  characters, 
and  his  assertion  is  true  of  the  writing  on  the 
Maccabaean  coins,  and  of  the  ancient  and  even  the 
more  modern  Phoenician,  but  not  of  the  alphabet 
known  to  us  as  the  Samaritan.  It  seems  clear, 
therefore,  that  Jerome's  language  on  this  point 
cannot  be  regarded  as  strictly  accurate. 

There  are  many  arguments  which  go  to  shove 
that  the  Samaritan  character  is  older  than  tht 
square  Hebrew.  One  of  these  is  derived  from  tL< 


WRITING 

existence  of  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  which,  ac 
cording  to  some  writers,  must  date  at  least  from 
the  time  of  the  separation  of  the  two  kingdoms, 
th«  northern  kingdom  retaining  the  ancient  writing 
which  was  once  common  to  both.  But  there  is  no 
evidence  for  the  existence  of  the  Samaritan  Penta 
teuch  before  the  Captivity,  and  the  opinion  which 
now  most  commonly  prevails  is  that  the  Samaritans 
received  it  first  in  the  Maccabaean  period,  and  with 
it  the  Jewish  writing  (Havernick,  Einl.  i.  290). 
The  question  is  still  far  from  being  decided,  and 
while  it  remains  in  this  condition  the  arguments 
derived  from  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  cannot  be 
allowed  to  have  much  weight.  Hupfeld  (Stud,  und 
Krit.  1830,  ii.  279,  &c.)  contends  that  the  common 
theory,  that  the  Samaritans  received  their  writing 
from  the  ancient  Israelitish  times,  but  maintained 
it  more  faithfully  than  the  Jews,  is  improbable, 
because  the  Samaritans  were  a  mixed  race,  entirely 
different  from  the  ancient  Israelites,  and  had,  like 
their  language,  a  preponderating  Aramaic  element : 
consequently,  if  they  had  had  a  character  peculiar 
bo  themselves,  independently  of  their  sacred  book, 
it  would  rather  have  been  Aramaic.  He  argues 
that  the  Samaritans  received  their  present  writing 
with  their  Pentateuch  from  the  Jews,  because  the 
Samaritan  character  differs  in  several  important 
particulars  from  that  on  the  Phoenician  monu 
ments,  but  coincides  in  all  characteristic  deviations 
with  the  ancient  Hebrew  on  the  Maccabaean  coins. 
These  deviations  are — (1)  the  horizontal  strokes  in 
Beth,  Mem,  and  Nun,  which  have  no  parallel  on 
the  Phoenician  monuments :  (2)  the  angular  heads 
of  Beth,  Daleth,  and  especially  '-Am,  which  last 
never  occurs  in  an  anguiur  form  in  Phoenician : 
(3)  the  entirely  different  forms  of  Tsade  and  Vau, 
as  well  as  of  Zain  and  Samech,  which  are  not 
found  on  the  Maccabaean  coins.  In  the  Samaritan 
letters  Aleph,  Cheth,  Lamed,  Shin,  there  is  a  closer 
relationship  with  the  forms  of  the  old  Hebrew :  the 
only  marked  deviation  is  in  the  form  of  Tau.  To 
these  considerations  Hupfeld  adds  the  traditions  of 
Origen  and  Jerome  and  the  Talmud  already  given, 
and  the  fact  that  the  Samaritans  have  preserved 
their  letters  unchanged,  a  circumstance  which  is 
intelligible  on  the  supposition  that  these  letters 
were  regarded  by  them  with  superstitious  reverence 
as  a  sacred  character  which  had  come  to  them  from 
without,  and  which,  in  the  absence  of  any  earlier 
indigenous  tradition  of  writing,  necessarily  became 
a  lifeless  permanent  type. 

The  names  of  the  letters,  and  the  correspondence 
of  their  forms  to  their  names  in  the  Phoenician  and 
Phoenicio-Samaritan  alphabets,  supply  another 
gument  for  the  superior  antiquity  of  this  to  the 
Hebrew  square  character  '.e.g.  'Ain  (an  eye),  which 
on  the  coins  and  Phoenician  monuments  has  the 
form  o  ;  Resh  (a  head),  q.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  names  Vau  (a  nail  or  peg),  Zain  (a  weapon), 
Caph  (the  hollow  hand),  correspond  to  their  forms 
better  in  the  square  character:  this,  however,  al 
most,  would  only  prove  that  both  are  derived  from 
the  same  original  alphabet  in  which  the  correspond 
ence  between  the  shape  and  name  of  each  lettei 
was  more  complete.  Again,  we  trace  the  Phoe 
nician  alphabet  much  farther  back  than  the  square 
character.  The  famous  inscription  on  the  sarco 
phagus  of  Eshmunazar,  found  at  Sidon  in  1855,  is 
referred  by  the  Due  de  Luynes  to  the  sixth  century 
B.C.  The  date  of  the  inscription  at  Marseilles  is 
more  uncertain.  Some  would  place  it  before  *h 
foundation  of  the  Greek  colony  there,  B.C.  000 
VCL.  III. 


WRITING 


1793 


"here  is  reason  to  believe,  however,  that  it  is  much 
more  recent.  Besides  these  we  have  tl»e  inscrip- 
ions  at  Sigaeum  and  Amyclae  in  the  ancient  Gr«»k 
iharacter,  which  is  akin  to  the  Phoenician.  On  the 
>ther  hand,  the  Hebraeo-Chaldee  character  is  not 
bund  on  historic  monuments  before  the  lirth  of 
Christ.  A  consideration  of  the  various  readings 
which  have  arisen  from  the  interchange  of  similar 
characters  in  the  present  text  leads,  as  might  natu- 
•ally  be  expected,  to  results  which  are  rather  favour- 
ible  to  the  square  character,  for  in  this  alone  are 
he  manuscripts  written  which  have  come  down  to 
us.  The  following  examples  are  given,  with  one 
exception,  by  Gesenius  :  — 

(a)  In  the  square  alphabet  are  confounded  — 

^  and  3.    p|*31tP.  Neh-  xii-  14=rM3B>»  Neb-  xii-  3  J 

HDT»  !  Cbr-  ix-  15  =  Hit'  Neh-  xl-  17> 
•j   and  1.    Jpyi,  Gen.  xlvi.  27=}py>,  1  Chr.  i.  42. 

3  and  D-  ni"V3»  *  K-  vii-  4°=jTi"VD>  2  Chr-  iv-  n- 

3  and  -|.    rDE^n.    Ps-  xviii.  12  =  mB?n.  2  Sam. 

xxii.  12. 
\   and  J.    fiy)0,  Ps.  xxxi.  3=jiy)0,  Ps.  Ixxi.  3. 

(6)  In  both  alphabets  are  confounded  — 

Chr-    {-   6=nQ<l"».  Gen.  x-  3; 
>  J  Chr-  »•  '  =  D'OTT  Gen-  x  4  ; 

,  Lev-  xi-  1*=  PINT.  Deut-  xiv-  13  ; 

-  xxii-  u- 


i-  30- 


(c)  In  the  Phoenician  alone — 

>  and  ty,  whence  probably  j>JJ,  Josh.  xxi. 

1  Chr.  vi.  44. 
3  and  Q.    i^},  1  Chr.  xi.  37=^2, 2  San*,  xxiii.  35; 

(d)  In  neither — 

^  and  "|.    Din3.  Neh-  vii-  ?=Dim.  Ezr.  il.  2. 

j  and  n-  jnn. Num- xxvl-  35=nnn. l  cfar- vii. 20. 

JIDn.  *  Chr.  vi.  76  [61]=  JTlDn.  J°8h- 
xxi.  32. 

The  third  class  of  these  readings  seems  to  point 
to  a  period  when  the  Hebrews  used  the  Phoenician 
character,  and  a  comparison  of  the  Phoenician  alpha 
bet  and  the  Hebrew  coin-writing  shows  that  the 
examples  of  which  Gesenius  makes  a  fourth  class, 
might  really  be  included  under  the  third:  for  in 
these  some  forms  of  3  and  1,  as  well  as  of  3  and  J\ 
are  by  no  means  unlike.  This  circumstance  takes 
away  some  of  the  importance  which  the  above 
results  otherwise  give  to  the  square  character. 
Indeed,  after  writing  his  Hebrdische  Sprache  und 
Schrift,  Gcsenius  himself  appears  to  have  modified 
some  of  the  conclusions  at  which  he  arrived  in  that 
work,  and  instead  of  maintaining  that  the  square 
character,  or  one  essentially  similar  to  it,  was  in 
use  in  the  time  of  the  LXX.,  and  that  the  Mac 
cabees  retained  the  old  character  for  their  coins,  as 
the  Arabs  retained  the  Cufic  some  centuries  after 
the  introduction  of  the  Nischi,  he  concludes  as  most 
probable,  in  his  article  Paldographie  (in  Ersch  and 
Gruber's  Encycl.},  that  the  ancient  Hebrew  was 
first  changed  for  the  square  character  about  the 
birth  of  Christ.  A  comparison  of  the  Phoenician 
with  the  square  alphabet  shows  that  the  latter 
could  not  be  the  immediate  development  of  the 
former,  and  that  it  could  not  have  been  formed 
gradually  from  it  at  some  period  subsequent  to  the 
time  of  the  Maccabees.  The  essential  difference  of 
some  characters,  and  the  similarity  of  others,  render 
it  probable  that  the  two  alphabets  are  both  de 
scended  from  one  more  ancient  than  either,  of  which 
each  has  retained  some  peculiarities.  This  zncra 


1794 


WHITING 


ancient   form,  Hupfeld   (Hebrdische    Grammatik, 
§7.)  maintains,  is  the  original  alphabet  invented  b 
the  Babylonians,  and  extended  by  the  Phoenicians 
From  this  the  square  chaiacter  was  developed  b 
three  stages. 

1.  In  its  oldest  form  it  appears  on  Phoeniciai 
monuments,  stones,  and   coins.      The   number  o 
the  inscriptions  containing  Phoenician  writing  wa 
77,  greater  and  smaller,  in  the  time  of  Gesenius 
but  it  has  since  been  increased  by  the  discover) 
of  the  famous   sarcophagus  of  Eshmunazar  kiiij 
of  Sidori,    and   the   excavations  which   have   stil 
more  recently  been  made  in  the  neighbourhood  o 
Carthage  have  brought  to  light  many  others  whicl 
are  now  in  the  British  Museum.     Those  describee 
by  Gesenius  were  found  at  Athens  (three  bilingual) 
at   Malta   (four,   one   of  which  is   bilingual),   in 
Cyprus  among  the  ruins  of  Kitium  (thirty-three) 
in  Sicily,  in  the  ruins  of  Carthage  (twelve),  and  in 
the  regions  of  Carthage  and  Numidia.    They  belong 
for  the  most  part  to  the  period  between  Alexande: 
and  the  age  of  Augustus.     A  Punic  inscription  on 
the  arch  of  Septimius  Severus   brings  down   th 
Phoenician  character  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  th 
third  century  after  Christ.     Besides  these  inscrip 
tions  on  stone,  there  are  a  number  of  coins  bearing 
Phoenician  characters,  of  which  those  found  in  Cilicia 
are  the  most  ancient,  and  belong  to  the  times  of  the 
Persian  domination.     The  character  on  all  these  i 
essentially  the  same.     In  its  best  form  it  is  found 
on  the  Sicilian,  Maltese,  Cyprian,  and  Carthaginiar 
inscriptions.  On  the  Cilician  coins  it  is  parhaps  most 
original,  degenerating  on  the  later  coins  of  Phoe 
nicia,  Spain,  and  the  neighbouring  islands,  and  be 
coming  almost  a  cursive  character  in  the  monuments 
of  Numidia  and  the  African  provinces.     There  are 
no  final  letters  and  no  divisions  of  words.     The 
characteristics  of  the  Phoenician  alphabet  as  it  is 
thus  discovered  are,  that  it  is  purely  consonantal ; 
that  it  consists  of  twenty-two  letters  written  from 
right  to  left,  and  is  distinguished  by  strong  perpen 
dicular  strokes  and  the  closed  heads  of  the  letters  ; 
that  the  names  and  order  of  the  letters  were  the 
same  as  in  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  as  may  be  inferred 
from  the  names  of  the  Greek  letters  which  came 
immediately  from  Phoenicia;   and  that  originally 
the  alphabet  was  pictorial,  the  letters  representing 
figures.    This  last  position  has  been  strongly  opposed 
by  Wuttke  (Zeitsch.  d.  D.  M.   G.  xi.  75,  &c.)» 
who   maintains   that  the    ancient   Phoenician    al 
phabet  contains  no  traces  of  a  pictorial  character, 
and  that  the  letters   are  simply  combinations  of 
strokes.     It  is  impossible  here  to  give  his  argu 
ments,  and  the  reader  is  referred  for  further  infor 
mation   to   his   article.     This   ancient  Phoenician 
character  in  its  earliest  form  was  probably,  says 
Hupfeld,  adopted  by  the  Hebrews  from  the   Ca- 
naanites,  and  used  by  them  during  the  wnole  period 
of  the  living  language  till  shortly  before  the  birth  of 
Christ.    Closely  allied  with  it  are  the  characters  on 
the  Maccabaean  coins,  and  the  Samaritan  alphabet. 
2.   While  the  old  writing  remained  so  almost 
in-changed  among  the  Phoenicians  and  Samaritans, 
it  was  undergoing  a  gradual  transformation  among 
its   original   inventors,  the  Aramaeans,   especially 
those  of  the  West.    This  transformation  was  effected 
by  opening  the  heads  of  the  letters,  and  by  bending 
the  perpendicular  stroke  into  a  horizontal  one,  which 
in  the  cursive   character  served   for  a  connecting 
stroke,  and  in  the  inscriptions  on  stone  for  a  basis 
or  foundation  for  the  letters.     The  character  in  this 
form  if,  found  in  the  earliest  stage  on  the  stone  of 


WRITING 

|  C.irpentras.  where  the  letters  y,  3>  "1>  "I,  lm\e  .'.peij 
heads ;  a\id  later  in  the  inscriptions  on  the  ruins  oi 
Palmyra,  where  the  characters  are  distinguished  by 
the  open  heads  degenerating  sometimes  to  a  pomi, 
and  by  horizontal  connecting  strokes.     Besides  the 
stone  of  Carpentras,  the  older  form  of  the  modified 
Aramaean  character  is  found  on  some  fragments  of 
papyrus  found  in  Egypt,  and  preserved  in  the  Library 
at  Turin,  and  in  the"  Museum  of  the  Duke  of  Blacas. 
Plates  of  these  are  given  in  Gesenius'  Monumenta 
Phoenicia  (tab.  28-33).     They  belong  to  the  time 
of  the  later  Ptolemies,  and  are  written  in  an  Ara 
maic  dialect.     The  inscription  on  the  Carpentras 
stone  was  the  work  of  heathen  scribes,  probably, 
as  Dr.  Levy  suggests  (Zeitsch.  d.  D.  M.  G.  xi.  67), 
the  Babylonian  colonists  of  Egypt ;  the  writing  oi 
the  papyri  he  attributes  to  Jews.     The  inscription 
on  the  vase  of  the  Serapeum  at  Memphis  is  placed 
by  the  Due  de  Luynes  and  M.  Mariette  in  the  4th 
century  B.C.    In  the  Blacas  fragments  the  heads  of 
the  letters  3>  *T  "1,  have  fallen   away  altogether. 
In  the  forms  of  i"l.  J"l>  3  we  see  the  origin  of  the 
figures  of  the  square  character.     The  final  forms  of 
Caph  and  Nun  -occur  for  the  first  time.     The  Pal- 
myrene  writing  represents  a  Liter  stage,  and  belongs 
principally  to  the  second  and  third  centuries  after 
Christ,  the  time  of  the  greatest  prosperity  of  Pal 
myra.     The  oldest  inscription  belongs  to  the  year 
396  of  the  Greeks  (A.D.  84),  and  the  latest  to  the 
year  569  (A.D.  257).     The  writing  was  not  con- 
fined  to  Palmyra,  for  an  inscription  in  the  same 
character  was  found  at  Abilene.     The  Palmyrene 
inscriptions  are  fifteen  in  number :  ten  bilingual,  in 
Syriac  and  Greek,  and  Syriac  and  Latin.     Two  are 
preserved  at  Rome,  four  at  Oxford.     Those  at  Rome 
differ  from  the  rest,  in  having  lost  the  heads  of  the 
letters  H,  %  1,  JJ,  while  the  forms  of  the  *,  D.  fi 
are  like  the  Phoenician.     Of  the  cursive  Assyrian 
writing,  which  appears  to  be  allied  to  the  Aramaean, 
Mr.  Layard  remarks,  "  On  monuments  and  remains 
purely  Syrian,  or  such  as  cannot  be  traced  to  a  foreign 
people,  only  one  form  of  character  has  been  discovered, 
and  it  so  closely  resembles  the  cursive  of  Assyria, 
that  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of 
he  origin  of  the  two.    If,  therefore,  the  inhabitants 
of  Syria,  whether  Phoenicians  or  others,  were  the  in 
ventors  of  letters,  and  those  letters  were  such  as 
exist  upon  the  earliest  ?nonuments  of  that  country, 
the  cursive  character  of  the  Assyrians  may  have  been 
as  ancient  as  the  cuneiform.   However  that  may  be, 
;h>s  hieratic  character  has  not  yet  been  found  in 
Assyria  on  remains  of  a  very  early  epoch,  and  it 
would  seem  probable  that  simple  perpendicular  and 
lorizontal  lines  preceded  rounded  forms,  being  better 
suited  to  letters  carved  on  stone  tablets  or  rocks. 
At  Nimroud  the  cursive  writing  was  found  on  part 
)f  an  alabaster  vase,  and  on  fragments  of  pottery, 
;aken  out  of  the  rubbish  covering  the  ruins.     On 
;he  alabaster  vase  it  accompanied  an  inscription  in 
.he  cuneiform  character,  containing  the  name  of  the 
{hoisabad  king,  to  whose  reign  it  is  evident,  from 
everal  circumstances,  the  vase  must  be  attributed, 
t  has  also  been  found  on  Babylonian  bricks  of  the 
ime  of  Nebuchadnezzar "  (Nin.  ii.  pp.  165,  166\ 
VI.  Fresnel  discovered  at  Kasr  some  fifty  fragments 
f  pottery  covered  with  this  cursive  character  in 
nk.      These,   too,   are   said  to  be  of  the  age  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  (Journ.  Asiat.  July  1853,  p.  77). 
)r.  Levy  (Zeitsch.  d.  D.  M.  G.  ix.  465)  maintains, 
n  accordance  with  the  Talmudic   tradition,  that 
he  Jews  acquired  this  cursive  writing  in  Babylon, 
nd  brought  it  back  with  them  after  tho  Capth  ity 


WRITING 

together  with  the  Chaldee  language,  and  that  it 
gradually  displaced  the  older  alphabet,  of  which 
iVagments  remain  in  the  forms  of  the  final  letters. 

3.  While  this  modification  was  taking  place 
in  the  Aramaic  letters,  a  similar  process  of  change 
was  going  on  in  the  old  character  among  the  Jews. 
We  already  find  indications  of  fchis  in  the  Macca- 
baean  coins,  where  the  straight  strokes  of  some 
letters  are  broken.  The  Aramaic  character,  too, 
had  apparently  an  influence  upon  the  Hebrew,  pro 
portioned  to  the  influence  exercised  by  the  Aramaic 
dialect  upon  the  Hebrew  language.  The  heads  of 
the  letters  still  left  in  the  Palmyrene  character  are 
removed,  the  position  and  length  of  several  oblique 
strokes  are  altered  (as  in  fl»  iT  3.  fl).  It  lost  the 
character  of  a  cursive  hand  by  the  separation  of 
the  several  letters,  and  the  stiff  ornaments  which 
they  received  at  the  hands  of  calligraphers,  and  thus 
became  an  angular,  uniform,  broken  character,  from 
which  it  receives  its  name  square  (VZTID  2113). 

In  the  letters  K,  2,^,  3.  B-  3.  D«  V-  £>•  Jl/the 
Aegypto-Aramaic  appears  the  older,  and  the  Pal 
myrene  most  resembles  the  square  character.  In 
others,  on  the  contrary,  as  fl  £3.  p.  "I,  the  square 
character  is  closely  allied  to  the  forms  in  the  Blacas 
fragments;  and  in  some,  as  1,  H.  1>  !•  ^«  K>,  both 
the  older  alphabets  agree  with  the  square  character. 
So  far  as  regards  the  development  of  the  square 
character  from  the  Aramaean,  as  it  appeai-s  on  the 
stone  of  Carpentras  and  the  ruins  of  Palmyra,  Hup- 
feld  and  Gesenius  are  substantially  agreed,  but  they 
differ  widely  on  another  and  very  important  point. 
Geseuius  is  disposed  to  allow  some  weight  to  the 
tradition  as  preserved  in  the  Talmud,  Origen,  and 
Jerome,  that  the  Hebrews  at  some  period  adopted  a 
character  different  from  their  own.  The  Chaldee 
square  alphabet  he  considers  as  originally  of  Ara 
maic  origin,  but  transfeiTed  to  the  Hebrew  language. 
To  this  conclusion  he  appears  to  be  drawn  by  the 
name  Assyrian  applied  in  the  Talmud  to  the  square 
character,  which  he  infers  was  probably  the  ancient 
character  of  Assyria.  If  this  were  the  case,  it  is 
remarkable  that  no  trace  of  it  should  be  found  on 
the  Assyrian  monuments ;  and,  in  the  absence  of 
other  evidence,  it  is  unsafe  to  build  a  theory  upon  a 
name,  the  interpretation  of  which  is  uncertain. 
The  change  of  alphabet  from  the  Phoenician  to  the 
Aramaean,  and  the  development  of  the  Syriac  from 
the  Aramaean,  Gesenius  regards  as  two  distinct 
circumstances,  which  took  place  at  different  times, 
and  were  separated  by  a  considerable  interval.  The 
formation  of  the  square  character  he  maintains  can 
not  be  put  earlier  than  the  second  century  after 
Christ.  Hupfeld,  on  the  other  hand,  with  more 
show  of  reason,  rejects  altogether  the  theory  of  an 
abrupt  change  of  character,  because  he  doubts 
whether  tany  instance  can  be  shown  of  a  simple 
exchange  of  alphabets  in  the  case  of  a  people  who 
have  already  a  tradition  of  writing.  The  ancient 
letters  were  in  use  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees, 
and  from  that  period  writing  did  not  cease,  but  was 
rather  more  practised  in  the  transcription  of  the 
sacred  books.  Besides,  on  comparing  the  Palmyrene 
xvith  the  square  character,  it  is  clear  that  the 
former  has  been  altered  and  developed,  a  result 
which  would  have  been  impossible  in  the  cose  of  a 
communication  from  without  which  overwhelmed 
all  tradition  and  spontaneity.  The  case  of  the  Sa 
maritans,  on  the  other  hand,  is  that  of  a  people 
who  received  an  alphabet  entire,  which  they  re 
garded  as  sacred  in  consequence  of  its  association 


WRITING 


1795 


with  their  sacred  be  ok,  and  which  they  therefore 
retained  unaltered  with  superstitious  fidelity.  More 
over,  in  the  old  Hebrew  writing  on  the  coins  we 
see  already  a  tendency  to  several  important  altera 
tions,  as,  for  example,  in  the  open  heads  of  U  and  1, 
and  the  base  lines  of  D,  3.  ID,  3 ;  and  many  letters, 
as  H,  are  derived  rather  from  the  coin-character 
than  from  the  Palmyrene,  while  D  and  p  are  en 
tirely  Phoenician.  Finally,  Hupfeld  adds,  "  It  is 
in  the  highest  degree  improbable — nay,  almost  in 
conceivable—that  the  Jews,  in  the  fervour  of  their 
then  enthusiasm  for  their  sacred  books,  should,  con 
sciously  and  without  apparent  reason,  have  adopted 
a  foreign  character  and  abandoned  the  ancient  writ 
ing  of  their  fathers." 

Assuming,  then,  as  approximately  true,  that  the 
square  character  of  the  Hebrews  was  the  natural 
result  of  a  gradual  process  of  development,  and 
that  it  was  not  adopted  in  its  present  shape  from 
without,  but  became  what  it  is  by  an  internal 
organic  change,  we  have  further  to  consider  at  what 
time  it  acquired  its  present  form.  Kopp  (Bilder 
und  Schriften,  ii.  p.  177)  places  it  as  late  as  the 
4th  century  after  Christ;  but  he  appears  to  be 
guided  to  his  conclusion  chiefly  by  the  fact  that 
the  Palmyrene  character,  to  which  it  is  most  nearly 
allied,  extended  into  the  3rd  century.  It  is  evi 
dent,  however,  from  several  considerations,  that 
in  the  4th  century  the  square  character  was  sub 
stantially  the  same  as  it  is  to  this  day,  and  had 
for  some  time  been  so.  The  descriptions  of  the 
forms  of  the  letters  in  the  Talmud  and  Jerome 
coincide  most  exactly  with  the  present ;  for  both 
are  acquainted  with  final  letters,  and  describe  as 
similar  those  letters  which  resemble  each  other  in 
the  modern  alphabet,  as,  for  instance,  3,  and  3,  T 
and  "1,  n  and  PI,  1  and  »,  T  and  },  D  and  D.  The 
calligraphic  ornaments  which  were  employed  in  the 
wilting  of  the  synagogue  rolls,  as  the  Taggin  on 
the  letters  ^  3  T  3  O  J?  W,  the  point  in  the  broken 
headline  of  n  CfT)*  and  many  other  prescriptions  for 
the  orthography  of  the  Torah  are  found  in  the 
Talmud,  and  show  that  Hebrew  calligraphy,  under 
the  powerful  protection  of  minute  laws  observed 
with  superstitious  reverence,  had  long  received  its 
full  development,  and  was  become  a  fixed  unalter 
able  type,  as  it  has  remained  ever  since.  The 
change  of  character,  moreover,  not  only  in  the  time 
of  Jerome  and  the  Talmud,  but  even  as  early  as 
Origen,  was  an  event  already  long  past,  and  so  old 
and  involved  in  the  darkness  of  fable  as  to  be  attri 
buted  in  the  common  legend  to  Ezra,  or  by  most  of 
the  Talmudists  to  God  Himself.  The  very  obscurity 
which  surrounds  the  meaning  of  the  terms  f^Jp 
and  JVIU^X  as  applied  to  the  old  and  new  writing 
respectively,  is  another  proof  that  in  the  time  of 
the  Talmudists  the  square  character  had  become 
permanent,  and  that  the  history  of  the  changes 
through  which  it  had  passed  had  been  lost,  In 
the  Mishna  (Shabb,  xii.  5)  the  case  is  mentioned  of 
two  Zains  (ft)  being  written  for  Cheth  (!"l),  which 
could  only  be  true  of  the  square  character.  The 
often-quoted  passage,  Matt.  v.  18,  which  is  gene 
rally  brought  forward  as  a  proof  that  the  square 
character  must  have  been  in  existence  in  the  time 
of  Christ,  who  mentions  lS>ra,  or  yod,  as  the  small 
est  letter  of  the  alphabet,  proves  at  least  that  the 
old  Hebrew  or  Phoenician  character  was  no  longer 
in  use,  but  that  the  Palmyrene  character,  or  one 
very  much  like  it,  had  been  introduced.  From  thesf 
circumstances  we  may  infer,  with  Hupfeld  (Stud,  und 
Krit.  1830,  ii.  288),  that  Whiston's  conjecture  is 

5  y  2 


1796 


WRITING 


approximately  tme ;  namely,  that  about  the  first  01 
second  century  after  Christ  the  square  character 
assumed  its  present  form ;  though  in  a  question  in 
volved  in  so  much  uncertainty,  it  is  impossible  to 
pronounce  with  great  positiveness.* 

Next  to  the  scattered  hints  as  to  the  shape  of  the 
Hebrew  letters  which  we  find  in  the  writings  of 
Jerome,  the  most  direct  evidence  on  this  point  is 
supplied  by  the  so-called  Alphabetum  Jesuitarum, 
which  is  found  in  a  MS.  (Codex  Marchalianus,  now 
lost)  of  the  LXX.  of  Lam.  ii.  It  is  the  work  of  a 
Greek  scribe,  imperfectly  acquainted  with,  or  more 
probably  entirely  ignorant  of  Hebrew,  who  copied 
slavishly  the  letters  which  were  before  him.  In  this 
alphabet  H  is  written  n  ;  *  and  1  are  of  nearly  equal 
length,  the  latter  being  distinguished  by  two  dots  ; 
p  is  made  like  p,  and  H  like  H.  The  letters  on  the 
two  Abraxas  gems  in  his  possession  were  thought 
by  Montfaucon  (Praelirn.  ad  Hex.  Orig.  i.  22,  23) 
to  have  been  Hebrew ;  but  as  they  have  not  been 
fairly  deciphered,  nothing  can  be  inferred  from 
them.  Other  instances  of  the  occurrence  of  the 
Hebrew  alphabet  written  by  ignorant  scribes  are 
found  in  a  Codex  of  the  New  Testament,  of  which 
an  account  is  given  by  Treschow  {Tent,  descr.  Cod. 
Vet.  aliquot  Gr.  N.  T.),  and  three  have  been 
edited  from  Greek  and  Latin  MSS.  in  the  Nouveau 
Traite  Diplomatique  published  by  the  Benedictines. 
To  these,  as  to  the  Alphabetum  Jesuitarum,  Ken- 
nicott  justly  attributes  no  value  (Dissert.  Gen.  p. 
69  note).  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  Hebrew 
writing  of  a  monk,  taken  from  the  work. of  Rabanus 
Maurus,  De  inventione  linguarum.  The  Jews  them 
selves  recognize  a  double  character  in  the  writing 
of  their  synagogue  rolls.  The  earlier  of  these  is 
called  the  Tarn  writing  (31*0  QH),  as  some  sup 
pose,  from  Tarn,  the  grandson  of  Rashi,  who  flou 
rished  in  the  12th  century,  and  is  thought  to  be 
the  inventor;  or,  according  to  others,  from  the 
perfect  form  of  the  letters,  the  epithet  Tarn  being 
then  taken  as  a  significant  epithet  of  the  square 
character,  in  which  sense  the  expression  HlTlS 
n»n,  cethibdh  thammdh  occurs  in  the  Talmud" 
(Shabbath,  fol.  103  6).  Phylacteries  written  in 
this  character  were  hence  called  Tarn  tephillin.  The 
letters  have  fine  pointed  corners  and  perpendicular 
taggin  (|*3fl),  or  little  strokes  attached  to  the  seven 
letteis  f  JTJCW.  The  Tarn  writing  is  chiefly 
found  in  German  synagogue  rolls,  and  probably 
also  in  those  of  the  Polish  Jews.  The  Welsh  writ 
ing  (3fl3  E>7I1),  to  which  the  Jews  assign  a  later 
date  than  to  the  other,  usually  occurs  in  the  syna 
gogue  rolls  and  other  manuscripts  of  the  Spanish 
and  Eastern  Jews.  The  figures  of  the  letters  are 
rounder  than  in  the  Tarn  writing,  and  the  taggin, 
or  crown-like  ornaments,  terminate  in  a  thick  point. 
But  besides  these  two  forms  of  writing,  which  are 
not  essentially  distinct,  there  are  minor  differences 
observable  in  the  manuscripts  of  different  countries. 
The  Spanish  character  is  the  most  regular  and 
simple,  and  is  for  the  most  part  large  and  bold, 
forming  a  true  square  character.  The  German  is 
more  sloping  and  compressed,  with  pointed  corners ; 
but  finer  than  the  Spanish.  Between  these  the 
French  and  Italian  character  is  intermediate,  and  is 
hence  called  by  Kenuicott  (Di$s.  Gen.  p.  71)  cha- 

a  Another  link  between  the  Palmyrene  and  tfco  square 
character  is  supplied  by  the  writing  on  some  of  the 
Babylonian  bowls,  described  by  Mr.  J^xyard  (Nin.  and 


WRITING 

racter  intermedius.  It  is  for  the  most  part  rathei 
smaller  than  the  others,  and  the  forms  of  the  letters 
are  rounder  (Eichhorn,  EinL  ii.  37-41  ;  Tychsen, 
Tentamen  de  var.  cod.  ffebr.  V.  T.  MSS.  generi- 
bus,  j>.  264 ;  Bellermann,  De  usu  paleog.  ffebr* 
p.  43). 

The  Alphabet. — The  oldest  evidence  on  the  subject 
of  the  Hebrew  alphabet  is  derived  from  the  alpha 
betical  Psalms  and  poems;  Pss.  xxv.,  xxxiv.,  xxxvii., 
cxi.,  cxii.,  cxix.,  cxlv. ;  Piov.  xxxi.  10-31 ;  Lam. 
i.-iv.  From  these  we  ascei-tain  that  the  number  of 
the  letters  was  twenty-two,  as  at  present.  The 
Arabia  alphabet  originally  consisted  of  the  same 
number.  Irenaeus  (Adv.  Haer.  ii.  24)  says  that 
the  ancient  sacred  letters  were  ten  in  number.  It 
has  been  argued  by  many  that  the  alphabet  of  Ihe 
Phoenicians  at  first  consisted  only  of  sixteen  letters, 
or  according  to  Hug  of  fifteen,  T»  D,  D.  D>  £)•  ¥ 
being  omitted.  The  legend  as  told  by  Pliny  (vii. 
56)  is  as  follows.  Cadmus  brought  with  him  into 
Greece  sixteen  letters  ;  at  the  time  of  the  Trojan 
war  Palamedes  added  four  others,  0,  H,  $,  X,  and 
Simonides  of  Melos  four  more,'Z,  H,  ¥,  H.  Ari 
stotle  recognized  eighteen  letters  of  the  original 
alphabet,  AB  T  AE  ZI  KA  M  N  O  IIP  2TT*,  to 
which  ©  and  X  were  added  by  Epicharmus  (comp. 
Tac.  Ann.  xi.  14).  By  Isidore  of  Seville  (Orig. 
i.  3)  it  is  said  there  were  seventeen.  But  in  the 
oldest  story  of  Cadmus,  as  told  by  Herodotus  (v. 
58)  and  Diodorus  (v.  24),  nothing  is  said  of  the 
number  of  the  letters.  Recent  investigations,  how 
ever,  have  rendered  it  probable  that  at  first  the 
Shemitic  alphabet  consisted  of  but  sixteen  letters. 
It  is  true  that  no  extant  monuments  illustrate  the 
period  when  the  alphabet  was  thus  curtailed,  but 
•as  the  theory  is  based  upon  an  organic  arrangement 
first  proposed  by  Lepsius,  it  may  be  briefly  noticed. 
Dr.  Donaldson  (New  Cratylus,  p.  171,  3rd  ed.) 
says,  "Besides  the  mutes  and  breathings,  the  He 
brew  alphabet,  as  it  now  stands,  has  four  sibilants, 
T.  D'  ¥>  W.  Now  it  is  quite  clear  that  all  these 
four  sibilants  could  not  have  existed  in  the  oldest 
state  of  the  alphabet.  Indeed  we  have  positive  evi 
dence  that  the  Ephraimites  could  not  pronounce  K\ 
but  substituted  for  it  the  simpler  articulation  D 
(Judges  xii.  6).  We  consider  it  quite  certain,  that 
at  the  first  there  was  only  one  sibilant,  namely  this 
D,  or  samech.  Finally,  to  reduce  the  Semitic  alpha 
bet  to  its  oldest  form,  we  must  omit  caph,  which  is 
only  a  softened  form  ofkoph,  the  liquid  resh,  and  the 
semivowel  jod,  which  are  of  more  recent  introduc 
tion.  .  .  Tho  remaining  16  letters  appear  in  the  fol 
lowing  order :  tf,  1,  3,  1,  H>  V  H.  D.  S.  D.  3.  D. 
V>  Q'  p>  n.  If  we  examine  this  order  more  mi 
nutely,  we  shall  see  that  it  is  not  arbitrary  or  acci 
dental,  but  strictly  organic  according  to  the  Semitic 
articulation.  We  have  four  classes,  each  consisting 
of  4  letters :  the  first  and  second  classes  consist  each 
of  3  mutes  preceded  by  a  breathing,  the  third  of  the 
3  liquids  and  the  sibilant,  which  perhaps  closed  the 
oldest  alphabet  of  all,  and  the  fourth  contains  the 
three  supernumerary  mutes  preceded  by  a  breath 
ing."  The  original  16  letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet, 
corresponding  to  those  of  the  Shemitic,  are  thus 
given  by  Dr.  Donaldson  (ibid.  p.  175). 

N  3  *  1 1  n  ii  n  &  |  VD  a  i  D  i  p- 1  firp-M 

'A    B  r  A  I  *E  I  F  H  ©    A  M  N  I   2  |  o  |  n  Q  T 


Bab.  509),  which  Dr.  Levy  (Zeitsch.  d,  D.  M.  O.) 
to  the  7th  century  A.D. 


WRITING 

"  111  the  Creek  alphabet,  as  it  is  now  given  in  the 
grammars,  F  and  Q  are  omitted,  and  10  other  cha 
racters  added  to  these."  The  Shemitic  tsade  (¥) 
became  zeta  (£),  caph  (D)  became  kappa  («•),  and 
yod  ( * )  became  iota  (i).  Resh  (~1)  was  adopted  and 
called  rho  (p),  and  "2,av,  which  was  used  by  the 
Dorians  for  2*7/10  (Her.  i.  139),  is  only  another 
form  cf  zain  (  T  ).  Shin  (£>)  or  Sin  (b>)»  is  the  ori 
ginal  of  £?,  which  from  some  cause  or  other  has 
changed  places  with  oi-y/ua,  the  Shemitic  samech, 
just  as  griTa  has  been  transferred  from  its  position. 
In  like  manner  mem  became  /tD,  and  nun  became 
vv.  With  the  remaining  Greek  letters  we  have 
nothing  to  do,  as  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
Shemitic  in  origin,  and  will  therefore  proceed  to 
consider  the  Hebrew  alphabet  as  known  to  us. 

With  regard  to  the  arrangement  of  the  letters, 
our  chief  sources  of  information  are  as  before  the 
alphabetical  acrostics  in  the  Psalms  and  Lamenta 
tions.  In  these  poems  some  irregularities  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  alphabet  are  observable.  For 
instance,  in  Lam.  ii.,  iii.,  iv.,  Q  stands  before  J? :  in 
Ps.  xxxvii.  V  stands  before  3,  and  ]}  is  wanting :  in 
Pss.  xxv.,  xxxiv.  1  is  omitted,  and  in  both  there  is  a 
final  verse  after  71  beginning  with  Q.  Hence  S  has 
been  compared  with  the  Greek  <£,  and  the  transpo 
sition  of  y  and  V  has  been  explained  from  the  inter 
change  of  these  letters  in  Aramaic.  But  as  there 
are  other  irregularities  in  the  alphabetical  Psalms, 
no  stress  can  be  laid  upon  these  points.  We  find 
for  example,  in  Ps.  xxv.  two  verses  beginning  with 
N,  while  1  is  omitted  ;  in  Ps.  xxxiv.  two  begin 
with  "],  and  so  on. 

The  names  of  the  letters  are  given  in  the  LXX. 
of  the  Lamentations  as  found  in  the  Vatican  MS. 
as  printed  by  Mai,  and  in  the  Codex  Friderico-Au- 
gustanus,  published  by  Tischendorf.  Both  these 
ancient  witnesses  prove,  if  proof  were  wanting,  that 
in  the  4th  century  after  Christ  the  Hebrew  letters 
were  known  by  the  same  names  as  at  the  present 
day.  These  names  all  denote  sensible  objects  which 
had  a  resemblance  to  the  original  form  of  the  letters, 
preserved  partly  in  the  square  alphabet,  partly  in 
the  Phoenician,  and  partly  perhaps  in  the  Alphabet 
from  which  both  were  derived. 

The   following   are   the   letters  of  the  Hebrew 
alphabet  in  their  present  shape,  with  their  names 
and  the  meanings  of  these  names,  so  far  as  they  can 
be  ascertained  with  any  degree  of  probability. 
K,  Aleph.    S)?K  =  f^N,  an  ox  (comp.  Plut.  Symp. 

Quaest.  ix.  2,  *§3).  In  the  old  Phoenician 
forms  of  this  letter  can  still  be  traced  some  re 
semblance  to  an  ox-head,  J^.-^.  Gr.  #A.<£o. 

3.  Beth.  rV3  =  JT2,  a  house.  The  figure  in  the 
square  character  corresponds  more  to  its 
name,  while  the  Ethiopic  0  has  greater  re 
semblance  to  a  tent.  Gr.  PTJTO.  (B). 

J,  Gimel.  ^D1*!  =  tej,  a  camel.  The  ancient 
form  is  supposed  to  represent  the  head  and 
neck  of  this  animal.  In  Phoenician  it  is  ~"1, 
and  in  Ethiopic  ^  ,  which  when  turned  round 
became  the  Greek  yappa  ( =  y<i(jL\a),  T. 
Gesenius  holds  that  the  earliest  form  rf 
represented  the  camel's  hump. 

1,  Daleth.  rf^  =  rb$,  a  door.  The  significance 
of  the  name  is  seen  in  the  older  form  ^  , 
whence  the  Greek  Se'A/ra,  A,  a  tent-door. 

fT,  He.    NH,  without  any  probable  derivation  ; 


WRITING  1797 

perhaps  corrupted,  or  merely  a  technical 
term.  Ewald  says  it  is  the  same  as  tta 

Arabic  JL^,  a  hole,  fissure.  Hupfeld  con 
nects  it  with  the  interjection  NH,  "  lo  !'' 
The  corresponding  Greek  letter  is  E,  which  is 
the  Phoenician  =|  turned  from  left  to  right, 

I,  Van.     M,  a  hook  or  tent-peg  ;  the  same  as  the 

old  Greek  £au  (  F\  the  form  of -which  re 
sembles  the  Phoenician  ^. 

9       J 

T,  Zain.  ^T,  probably  =  jLlx I,  zaino,  a  weapon, 
sword  (Ps.  xliv.  7) :  omitting  the  final  letter, 
it  was  called  also  »Ti  zai (Mish.  ££066.  xii.  5). 
It  appears  to  be  the  same  as  the  ancient 
Greek  2av. 

H,  Cheth.     JVn,    a    fence,    enclosure    (  =  Arab. 

lojUso  from  JoU»,  Syr.  ^Qu^,  to  sur 
round).  Compare  the  Phoen.  E|.  Cheth 
is  the  Greek  fira  (H). 

tt,  Tet.  B'B,  a  snake,  or  JVtD,  a  basket.  The 
Greek  e^ra. 

II ,  Tod.    IV  =  *p,   a   hand.      The  form  of  the 

letter  was  perhaps  originally  longer,  as  in 
the  Greek  I  (iwra).  The  Phoenician  (m) 
and  Samaritan  (/flf)  figures  hare  a  kind  of 
distant  resemblance  to  three  fingers.  In 
Ethiopic  the  name  of  the  letter  is  yaman, 
the  right  hand. 

3,  Caph.  P|3,  the  hollow  of  the  hand.  The 
Greek  icd-mra  (K)  is  the  old  Phoenician  form 
(H)  reversed. 

7,  Lamed.  ID?,  a  cudgel  or  ox-goad  (comp. 
Judg.  iii.'  T31).  The  Greek  Ac£/t£5a  (A)  ; 
Phoenician,  ^  ,  ^  . 

ID,  Mem.  0^  =  0^,  water,  as  it  is  commonly 
explained,  with  reference  to  the  Samaritan 
J^J  .  In  the  old  alphabets  it  is  ^  ,  in  which 
Gesenius  sees  the  figure  of  a  trident,  and  so 
possibly  the  symbol  of  the  sea.  The  Greek 
IJLV  corresponds  to  the  old  word  "l£,  "  water," 
Job  ix.  30. 

3,  Nun.  |-13,  a  fish,  in  Chaldee,  Arabic,  and  Syriac. 
In  almost  all  Phoenician  alphabets  the  figure 
is  ^.  On  the  Maltese  inscriptions  it  is 
nearly  straight,  and  corresponds  to  its  name. 
The  Greek  vv  is  derived  from  it. 

D,  Samech.  "jJtDD,  a  prop,  from  "JjDD,  to  support ; 
perhaps,  says  Gesenius,  the  same  as  the 
Syriac  jl  nyim,  s'moco,  a  triclinium.  But 

this  interpretation  is  solely  founded  on  the 
•  rounded  form  of  the  letter  in  the  square 
alphabet ;  and  he  has  in  another  place  ( Mon. 
Phoen.  p.  83)  shewn  how  this  has  come  from 
the  old  Phoenician,  which  has  no  likeness  to 
a  triclinium,  or  to  anything  else  save  a  flash 
of  lightning  striking  a  church  spire.  The 
Greek  ovyjwa  is  undoubtedly  derived  from 
Samech,  as  its  form  is  from  the  Phoenician 
character,  although  its  place  in  the  GreeJt 
alphabet  is  occupied  by  £?. 
y,  'Ain.  j*y,  an  eye  ;  in  the  Phoenician  and  Greek 


1798 


WRITING 


alphabets  0.     Originall)  it  h.-u\  two  f  ;wers, 
as  in  Arabic,  and  was  represented  in  the  LXX. 
by  T,  or  a  simple  breathing. 
B,  1'e.    KS  =  n3,  a  mouth.     The  Greek  irl  is 

from  ••£),  the  construct  form  of  H3. 
V,  Tsade.  ^]¥  or  H¥,  a  fish-hook  or  prong,  for 
spearing  the  larger  fish.  Others  explain  it 
as  a  noss,  or  an  owl.  One  of  the  Phoenician 
forms  is  ]f  .  From  tsade  is  derived  the 
Greek  £T}TO. 

p,  Koph.  C]ip,  perhaps  the  same  as  the  Arabic 
I_jt5,  the  back  of  the  head.  Gesenius  ori 
ginally  explained  it  as  equivalent  to  the 
Chaldee  P]-1p,  the  eye  of  a  needle,  or  the 
hole  for  the  handle  of  an  axe.  Hitzig  ren 
dered  it  "  ear,"  and  others  "  a  pole."  The 
old  Hebrew  form  (P),  inverted  S  ,  became 
the  Greek  K^TTO  (  ^  ) ;  and  the  form  (  9  ), 
which  occurs  on  the  ancient  Syracusan  coins, 
suggests  the  origin  of  the  Roman  Q. 
"),  Resh.  t?n,  a  head  (comp.  Aram.  $fcO=t&h) . 
The  Phoenician  q  when  turned  round  be 
came  the  Greek  P,  the  name  of  which,  f>u, 
is  corrupted  from  £e$h. 

fcj>   Shin    p^j  Compare  JK>,  a  tooth,   sometimes 
&     &  >    used  for  a  jagged  promontory. 

\y    Sin.      JT  j  The  letters^  and  b  were  probably 
at  first  one  letter,  and  afterwards  became 
distinguished  by  the  diacritic  point,  which 
was  known  to  Jerome,  and  called  by  him 
accentus  (Qwest.  Hebr.  in  Gen.  ii.  23;  Am. 
viii.  12).     In  Ps.  cxix.  161-168,  and  Lam. 
iii.  61-63,  they^are  used  promiscuously,  and 
in  Lam.  iv.  21  \P  is  put  for  £>.    The  narra 
tive  in  Judg.  xii.  6  points  to  a  difference  of 
dialect,  marked  by  the  difference  in  sound 
of  these  two  letters.      The  Greek  |?  is  de 
rived  from  Shin,  as  vv  from  Nun. 
n,  Tau.    1J-J,  a  mark  or  sign  (Ez.  ix.  4) ;  probably 
a  sign  in  the  shape  of  a  cross,  such  as  cattle 
were  marked  with.     This  signification  cor- 
.     responds  to  the  shapes  of  the  old  Hebrew 
letter  on  coins  -J-,   x,  from  the  former  of 
which  comes  the  Greek  rav  (T). 
In  the  mystical  interpretation  of  the  alphabet 
given  by  Eusebius  (Praep.  Evang.  x.  5)  it  is  evident 
that  Tsade  was  called  Tsedek,  and  Koph  was  called 
Kol.    The  Polish  Jews  still  call  the  former  Tsadek. 
Divisions    of   words.  —  Hebrew    was    originally 
written,  like  most  ancient  languages,  without  any 
divisions  between  the  words.     In  most  Greek  in 
scriptions  there  are  no  such  divisions,  though  in 
several  of  the  oldest,  as  the  Eugubine  Tables  and 
the  Sigaean  inscription,  there  are  one  or  two,  while 
ethers  have  as  many  as  three  points  which  serve 
fais  purpose.     The  same  is  the  case  with  the  Phoe 
nician  inscriptions.    Most  have  no  divisions  of  words 
at  all,  but  others  have  a  point,  except  where  the 
words  are  closely  connected.     The  cuneiform  cha 
racter  has  the  same  point,  as  well  as  the  Samaritan, 
and  in  Cufic  the  words  are  separated  by  spaces,  as 
in  the  Aramaeo-Egyptian  writing.      The  various 
leadings  in  the  LXX.  show  that,  at  the  time  this 
veision  was  made,  iu  the  Habrew  MSS.  which  the 
translators  used  the  words  were  written  in  a  con 
tinuous  series.     The  modern  synagogue  rolls  and 


WRITING 

the  MSS.  of  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  have  no 
»owel-points,  but  the  words  are  divided,  and  the 
Samaritan  in  this  respect  differs  but  little  from  the 
Hebrew. 

Final  letters,  $c. — In  addition  to  the  letters 
above  described,  we  find  in  all  Hebrew  MSS.  and 
printed  books  the  forms  *],  D>  }»  Pj>  j*,  which  are  the 
shapes  assumed  by  the  letters  D,  D.  J.  Q.  ¥,  when 
they  occur  at  the  end  of  words.  Their  inventioi 
was  clearly  due  to  an  endeavour  to  render  reading 
more  easy  by  distinguishing  one  word  from  another, 
but  they  are  of  comparatively  modern  date.  The 
various  readings  of  the  LXX.  show,  as  has  been 
already  said,  that  that  version  was  made  at  a  time 
when  the  divisions  of  words  were  not  marked,  and 
consequently  at  this  time  there  could  be  no  final 
letters.  Gesenius  at  first  maintained  that  on  the 
Palmyrene  inscriptions  there  were  neither  final  let 
ters  nor  divisions  of  words,  but  he  afterwards  ad 
mitted,  though  with  a  little  exhibition  of  temper, 
that  the  final  nun  was  found  there,  after  his  error 
had  been  pointed  out  by  Kopp  (Bild.  u.  Schr.  ii. 
132  ;  Ges.  Hon.  Phoen.  p.  82).  In  the  Aramaeo- 
Egyptian  writing  both  final  caph  and  final  nun 
occur,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  Blacas  fragments  given 
by  Gesenius.  The  five  final  letters  "  are  mentioned 
in  Bereshith  Rabba  (parash.  i.  fol.  1,  4),  and  in 
both  Talmuds;  in  the  one  (T.  Bab.  Sabbat,  fol. 
104,  1)  they  are  said  to  be  used  by  the  seeis  or 
prophets,  and  in  the  other  (T.  Hieros.  Megillah, 
fol.  71,  4)  to  be  an  Halacah  or  tradition  of  Moses 
from  Sinai ;  yea,  by  an  ancient  writer  (Pirke  Eli- 
ezer,  c.  48)  they  are  said  to  be  known  by  Abra 
ham  "  (Gill,  Dissertation  concerning  the  Antiquity 
of  the  Heb.  Language,  &c.,  p.  69).  The  final  mem 
in  the  middle  of  the  word  niPD^  (Is.  ix.  6)  is 
mentioned  in  both  Talmuds  (Talm.  Bab.  Sanhedrin, 
fol.  94,  1 ;  Talm.  Jer.  Sank.  fol.  27,  4),  and  by 
Jerome  (in  loc.}.  In  another  passage  Jerome  (Pro'l. 
ad  Libr.  Reg.}  speaks  of  the  final  letters  as  if  of 
equal  antiquity  with  the  rest  of  the  alphabet.  The 
similarity  of  shape  between  final  mem  (D)  and 
samech  (D)  is  indicated  by  the  dictum  of  Rab 
Chasda,  as  given  in  the  Babylonian  Talmud  (Me 
gillah,  c.  1;  Shabbath,  fol.  104,  1),  that  "mem 
and  samech,  which  were  on  the  Tables  (of  the  Law) 
stood  by  a  miracle."  It  was  a  tradition  among  the 
Jews  that  the  letters  on  the  tables  of  stone  gfven 
to  Moses  were  cut  through  the  stone,  so  as  to  be 
legible  on  both  sides ;  hence  the  miracle  by  whict 
mem  and  samech  kept  their  place.  The  final  lettei-s 
were  also  known  to  Epiphanius  (De  Mens.  et  Pon- 
deribus,  §4).  In  our  present  copies  of  the  Hebrew 
Bible  there  are  instances  in  which  final  letters  occur 
in  the  middle  of  words  (see  Is.  ix.  6,  as  above), 
and,  on  the  contrary,  at  the  end  of  words  the  ordi 
nary  forms  of  the  letters  are  employed  (Neh.  ii.  1.6 ; 
Job  xxxviii.  I )  ;  but  these  are  only  to  be  regarded 
as  clerical  errors,  which  in  some  MSS.  are  corrected. 
On  the  ancient  Phoenician  inscriptions,  just  as  in 
the  Greek  uncial  MSS.,  the  letters  of  a  word  were 
divided  at  the  end  of  a  line  without  any  indication 
being  given  of  such  division,  but  in  Hebrew  MSS. 
a  twofold  course  has  been  adopted  in  this  case.  If 
at  the  end  of  a  line  the  scribe  found  that  he  had 
not  space  for  the  complete  word,  he  either  wrote 
as  many  letters  as  he  could  of  this  word,  but  left 
them  unpointed,  and  put  the  complete  word  in  the 
next  line,  or  he  made  use  of  what  are  called  ex 
tended  letters,  litcrae  dilatabilcs  (as  fr<,  t""|,  and 
the  like),  in  order  to  till  up  the  superabundant 


WRITING 

c.  In  the  former  case,  in  order  to  indicate  that 
the  word  at  the  end  of  the  line  was  incomplete,  the 
last  ot  the  unpointed  letters  was  left  unfinished,  or 
a  sign  was  placed  after  them,  resembling  sometimes 
an  inverted  3,  and  oometimes  like  D,  V,  or  D.  If 
the  space  left  at  the  end  of  the  line  is  inconsiderable 
it  is  either  filled  up  by  the  first  letter  of  the  next 
word,  or  by  any  letter  whatever,  or  by  an  arbitrary 
mark.  In  some  cases,  where  the  space  is  too  small 
for  one  or  two  consonants,  the  scribe  wrote  the 
excluded  letters  in  a  smaller  form  on  the  margin 
above  the  line  (Eichhorn,  EinL  ii.  57-59).  That 
abbreviations  were  employed  in  the  ancient  Hebrew 
writing  is  shown  by  the  inscriptions  on  the  Macca- 
baean  coins.  In  MSS.  the  frequently  recurring 
words  are  represented  by  writing  some  of  their 
letters  only,  as  "IB*  or  'K"«5»  for  btfTE*.  and  a 
frequently  recurring  phrase  by  the  first  letters  of 
its  words  with  the  mark  of  abbreviation  ;  as  T\  v  '2 
for  HDn  D^B5?  'O,  J»  or  »"*  for  HIPP,  which  is 
also  written  ^  ^  or  ^  .  The  greater  and  sn.alle* 
letters  which  occur  in  the  middle  of  words  (comp. 
Ps.  Ixxx.  16;  Gen.  ii.  4),  the  suspended  letters 
(Judg.  xviii.  30 ;  Ps.  Ixxx.  14),  and  the  inverted 
letters  (Num.  x.  35),  are  transferred  from  the  MSS. 
of  the  Masoretes,  and  have  all  received  at  the  hands 
of  the  Jews  an  allegorical  explanation.  In  Judg. 
xviii.  30  the  suspended  nun  in  the  word  "  Ma- 
nasseh,"  without  which  the  name  is  "  Moses,"  is 
said  to  be  inseiied  in  order  to  conceal  the  disgrace 
which  the  idolatry  of  his  grandson  conferred  upon 
the  great  Lawgiver.  Similarly  the  small  D  in  the 
word  nn'3^,  "to  weep  for  her"  (Gen.  xxiii.  2), 
is  explained  by  Baal  Hatturim  as  indicating  that 
Abraham  wept  little,  because  Sarah  was  an  old 
woman. 

Numbers  were  indicated  either  by  letters  or 
figures.  The  latter  are  found  on  Phoenician  coins, 
on  the  sarcophagus  of  Eshmunazar,  on  the  Pal- 
myrene  inscriptions,  and  probably  also  in  the  Ara- 
maeo-Egyptian  writing.  On  the  other  hand,  letters 
are  found  used  as  numerals  on  the  Maccabaean 
coins,  and  among  the  Arabs,  and  their  early  adop 
tion  for  the  same  purpose  among  the  Greeks  may 
have  been  due  to  the  Phoenicians.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  conjecture  from  these  analogies  that  figures 
and  letters  representing  numbers  may  have  been 
employed  by  the  ancient  Hebrews.  It  is  even  pos 
sible  that  many  discrepancies  in  numbers  may  be 
explained  in  this  way.  For  instance,  in  1  Sam.  vi. 
19,  for  50,070  the  Syriac  has  5070 ;  in  1  K.  iv.  26 
[v,  6]  Solomon  had  40,000  horses,  while  in  the 
parallel  passage  of  2  Chr.  ix.  25  he  has  only  4000  ; 
according  to  2  Sam.  x.  18  David  destroyed  700 
chariots  of  the  Syrians,  while  in  1  Chr.  xix.  18 
the  number  is  increased  to  7000.  If  figures  were 
in  use  such  discrepancies  are  easily  intelligible.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  seven  years  of  famine  in  2  Sam. 
xxiv.  13  may  be  reconciled  with  the  three  of  1  Chr. 
xxi,  12  and  the  LXX.  by  supposing  that  a  scribe, 
writing  the  square  character,  mistook  2  (=  3)  for 
T  (=  7).  Again,  in  2  Chr.  xxi.  20,  Jehoram  dies 
at  the  age  of  40,  leaving  a  son,  Ahaziah,  who  was 
42  (2  Chr.  xxii.  2).  In  the  parallel  passage  of 
2  K.  viii.  26  Ahaziah  is  only  22,  so  that  the  scribe 
probably  read  3D  instead  of  3D.  On  the  whole, 
Geienius  concludes,  the  preponderance  would  be  in 
favour  of  the  letters,  but  he  deprecates  any  attempt 
to  explain  by  this  means  the  enormous  numbers  we 


WRITING 


1799 


meet  with  in  the  descriptions  of  armies  and  wealth 
and  the  variations  of  the  Samaritan  and  LXX.  I'roui 
the  Hebrew  text  in  Gen.  v. 

Vowel-points  and  diacritical  marks.— It  is  irn 
possible  here  to  discuss  fully  tne  origin  and  antiquity 
of  the  vowel-points  and  other  marks  which  are 
found  in  the  writing  of  Hebrew  MSS.  The  most 
that  can  be  done  will  be  to  give  a  summary  ol 
results,  and  to  refer  the  reader  to  the  pources  ol 
fuller  information.  Almost  all  the  learned  Jews 
of  the  middle  ages  maintained  the  equal  antiquity 
of  the  vowels  and  consonants,  or  at  least  the  intro 
duction  of  the  former  by  Ezra  and  the  men  of  the 
Great  Synagogue.  The  only  exceptions  to  this  uni 
formity  of  opinion  are  some  few  hints  of  Aben  Ezra, 
and  a  doubtful  passage  of  the  book  Cozri.  The 
same  view  was  adopted  by  the  Christian  writers 
Kaymund  Martini  (cir.  1278),  Perez  de  Valentin 
(cir.  14'50),  and  Nicholas  de  Lyra,  and  these  are 
followed  by  Luther,  Calvin,  and  Pellicanus.  The 
modern  date  of  the  vowel-points  was  first  argued 
by  Julias  Levita,  followed  on  the  same  side  by 
Cappellus,  who  was  opposed  by  the  younger  Bux- 
torf.  Later  defenders  of  their  antiquity  have  been 
Gill,  James  Robertson,  and  Tychsen.  Others,  like 
Hottinger,  Prideaux,  Schultens,  J.  D.  Michaelis,  and 
Eichhorn,  have  adopted  an  intermediate  view,  that 
the  Hebrews  had  some  few  ancient  vowel-points 
which  they  attached  to  ambiguous  words.  «*  The 
dispute  about  the  antiquity  and  origin  of  the  He 
brew  vowels  commenced  at  a  very  early  date ;  for 
while  Mar-Natronai  II.,  Gaon  in  Sura  (859-869), 
prohibited  to  provide  the  copies  of  the  Law  with 
vowels,  because  these  signs  had  not  been  communi 
cated  on  Mount  Sinai,  but  had  only  been  introduced 
by  the  sages  to  assist  the  reader;  the  Karaites 
allowed  no  scroll  of  the  Pentateuch  to  be  used  in 
the  synagogue,  unless  it  was  furnished  with  vowels 
and  accents,  because  they  considered  them  as  a 
divine  revelation,  which,  like  the  language  and  the 
letter,  was  already  given  to  Adam,  or  certainly  t:> 
Moses"  (Dr.  Kalisch,  Heb.  Gr.  ii.  65).  No  vowel- 
points  are  to  be  found  on  any  of  the  Jewish  coins, 
or  in  the  Palmyrene  inscriptions,  and  they  are  want 
ing  in  all  the  relics  of  Phoenician  writing.  Some 
of  the  Maltese  inscriptions  were  once  thought  by 
Gesenius  to  have  marks  of  this  kind  (Gesch.  der 
Hebr.  Spr.  p.  184),  but  subsequent  examination 
led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Phoenician  mo 
numents  have  not  a  vestige  of  vowel-points.  The 
same  was  the  case  originally  in  the  Estrangelo 
and  Cufic  alphabets.  A  single  example  of  a  dia 
critical  mark  occurs  for  the  first  time  on  one  of  the 
Carthaginian  inscriptions  (Gesen.  Mon.  Phoen.  pp. 
56,  179).  It  appeal's  to  correspond  to  the  diacri 
tical  mark  which  we  meet  with  in  Syriac  writing, 
and  which  is  no  doubt  first  alluded  to  by  Ephraem 
Syrus  (on  Gen.  xxxvi.  24,  Opp.  i.  184).  The  age 
of  this  mark  in  Syriac  is  unceiiain,  but  it  is  most 
nearly  connected  with  the  marhetono  of  the  Sama 
ritans,  which  is  used  to  distinguish  words  which 
have  the  same  consonants,  but  a  different  pronun 
ciation  and  meaning.  The  first  certain  indication 
of  vowel-points  in  a  Shemitic  language  is  in  the 
Arabic,  three  were  introduced  by  Ali,  son  of  Abu- 
Thalleb,  wno  died  A.H.  40.  The  Sabian  writing 
also  has  three  vowel-points,  but  its  age  is  uncertain. 
Five  vowel-points  and  several  reading  marks  were 
introduced  into  the  Syriac  writing  by  Theophilus 
and  Jacob  of  Edessa.  The  present  Arabic  system 
of  punctuation  originated  with  the  introduction  of 
the  Ninhi  character  by  Ebu  Moirki,  who  died  A.D. 


1800 


WRITING 


939.  On  the  whole,  taking  into  consideration  the 
nature  and  analogies  of  the  kindred  Shemitic  lan 
guages,  and  the  Jewish  tradition  that  thp  vowels 
were  only  transmitted  orally  by  Moses,  and  were 
afterwards  reduced  to  signs  and  fixed  by  Ezra  and 
the  Great  Synagogue,  the  preponderance  of  evidence 
goes  to  show  that  Hebrew  was  written  withoui 
vowels  or  diacritical  marks  all  the  time  that  it  was 
a  living  language.  The  fact  that  the  synagogue 
rolls  are  written  without  points,  and  that  a  strong 
traditional  prescription  against  their  being  pointed 
exists,  is  in  favour  of  the  later  origin  of  the  vowel 
marks.  The  following  passages  from  the  Old  Tes 
tament,  quoted  by  Gesenius,  tend  to  the  same  con 
clusion.  In  Gen.  xix.  37,  the  name  Moab  (3KM3), 
is  explained  as  if  it  were  2XD,  "  from  a  father," 

in  which  case  all  trace  not  only  of  vocalization,  but 
of  the  quiescent  letter  has  disappeared.  In  Gen. 

xxxi.  47,  ny?]l,  Gilead  is  made  to  take  its  name 

L 
from  "iy?;I,  "  heaP  °f  witness,"  ami  Gen.  1.  11, 


xxii.  9,  "ISbn  }Qfc?  fcQ*1,  appears  in  the  parallel 
narrative  of  2  Chr.  xxxiv.  16  as  Htf  }£)£>  fcQ*1! 

V  T   T  "T  — 

"ISDn,  which  could  not  have  happened  if  the  chro 

nicler  had  had  a  pointed  text  before  him.  Upon 
examining  the  version  of  the  LXX.  it  is  equally 
clear  that  the  translators  must  have  written  from 
an  unpointed  text.  It  is  objected  to  this  that 
the  &ira£  \fy&p.fva  are  correctly  explained,  and 
that  they  also  distinguish  between  words  which 
have  the  same  consonants  but  different  vowel-points, 
and  even  between  those  which  are  written  and  pro 
nounced  alike.  On  the  other  hand  they  frequently 
confuse  words  which  have  the  same  consonants 
but  different  vowels.  The  passages  which  Gesenius 
quotes  (Gesch.d.  ffeb.  Spr.  §50)  would  necessarily 
be  explained  from  the  context,  and  we  must  besides 
this  take  into  consideration  that  in  the  ambiguous 
cases  there  were  in  all  probability  traditional  in 
terpretations.  The  proper  names  afford  a  more 
accurate  test.  On  examining  these,  we  find  that 
they  sometimes  have  entirely  different  vowels,  and 
sometimes  are  pointed  according  to  an  entirely 
different  system,  analogous  to  the  Arabic  and  Syriac, 
but  varying  from  the  Masoretic.  Examples  of  an 
entirely  different  vocalization  are, 


Mo<rox, 

v")  PojueAtas,  H^DS 
2o</>oi/ms,  "O2D  2oj8oxcu,  &c.  That  the  punc 
tuation  followed  by  the  LXX.  was  essentially  dis 
tinct  from  that  of  the  Masoretes  is  evident  from  the 
following  examples.  Moving  sheva  at  the  begin 
ning  of  words  is  generally  represented  by  a  ;  as  in 
So/iovTjX,  2a0oo>0,  Zafiov\wv  :  seldom  by  e,  as 
HI  BeAiccA,  XepovjStytt  ;  before  1  or  *  by  o  or  v,  as 
2o§o,ua,  SoA<tyi&>j',  To/Jioppa,  ZopojSajSeA,  e^uAt- 
(rrififj.,  &c.  Patkach  is  represented  by  €  ;  as  MeA- 
X"re5eX'  Ne4>0aAet,u,  EXiffafad.  Pathach  fur- 
tivu)n  =  c;  e.  g.  flo^e,  TeAjSouc,  ®e/ca>e,  Zavcae. 
Other  examples  might  be  multiplied.  We  find 
instances  to  the  same  effect  in  the  fragments  of 
the  other  Greek  versions,  and  in  Josephus.  The 
agreement  of  the  Targums  with  the  present  punc 
tuation  might  be  supposed  to  supply  an  argument 
in  favour  of  the  antiquity  of  the  latter,  but  it 
might  equally  be  appealed  to  to  show  that  the 
translation  of  the  Targums  embodied  the  tradi- 


WRITING 

tional  pronunciation  which  was  fixed  in  writing  by 
the  punctuators.  The  Talmud  has  likewise  been 
appealed  to  in  support  of  the  antiquitj  of  the  mo 
dern  points  ;  but  its  utterances  on  this  subject  are 
extremely  dark  and  difficult  to  understand.  They 
have  respect  on  the  one  hand  to  those  passages  in 
which  the  sense  of  a  text  is  disputed,  in  so  far  as  it 
depends  upon  a  different  pronunciation;  for  in 
stance,  whether  in  Cant.  i.  2,  we  should  read  ^Hfa 
or  -Sj^'n  ;  in  Ex.  xxi.  8,  H32  or  V133  ;  in  Lev. 
x.  25,  STJD^  or  D?jn>  ;  in  Is.  liv.  is, 


HD3.  A  Kabbinic  legend  makes  Joab  kill  his 
teacher,  because  in  Ex.  xvii.  14  he  had  taught  him 
to  read  "OT  for  "IDT.  The  last  passage  shows  at 

T  T 

least,  that  the  Talmudists  thought  the  text  in  David's 
time  was  unpointed,  and  the  others  prove  that  the 
punctuation  could  not  have  been  fixed  as  it  must  have 
been  if  the  vowel-points  had  been  written.  But  in 
addition  to  these  instances,  which  are  supposed  to  in 
volve  the  existence  of  vowel  -points,  there  are  certain 
terms  mentioned  in  the  Talmud,  which  are  interpreted 
as  referring  directly  to  the  vowel  signs  and  accents 
themselves.  Thus  in  the  treatise  Berachoth  (fol. 
62,  3)  we  find  the  phrase  mif!  WlD,  ta'&mS 
thordh,  which  is  thought  to  denote  not  only  the 
distinctive  accents  and  those  which  mark  the  tone, 
but  also  the  vowel-points.  Hupfeld,  however,  has 
shown  that  in  all  probability  the  term  DJ?D,  ta'am, 
denotes  nothing  more  than  a  logical  sentence,  and 
that  consequently  D^DJJO  pID^S,  plsuk  teamim 
(Nedarirn,  fol.  37,  1),  is  simply  a  division  of  a 
sentence,  and  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  either 
with  the  tone  or  the  vowels  (Stud.  u.  Krit.  1830, 
ii.  p.  567).  The  word  JD^D,  simdn  (Gr.  <T7j,ueToj/) 
which  occurs  in  the  Talmud  (Nedarim,  fol.  53), 
and  which  is  explained  by  Rashi  to  signify  the  same 
as  "11P3,  nikkud,  "a  point,"  has  been  also  appealed 
to  as  an  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the  vowel-points 
at  the  time  the  Talmud  was  composed,  but  its  true 
meaning  is  rather  that  of  a  mnemonic  sign  made 
use  of  to  retain  the  memory  of  what  was  handed 
down  by  oral  tradition.  The  oldest  Biblical  critics, 
the  collectors  of  the  Keri  and  Cethib,  have  left  no 
trace  of  vowel^points  :  all  their  notes  have  reference 
to  the  consonants.  It  is  now  admitted  that  Jerome 
knew  nothing  of  the  present  vowel-points  and  their 
names.  '  He  expressly  says  that  the  Hebrews  very 
rarely  had  vowels,  by  which  he  means  the  letters 
y>  V  1«  H.  K,  in  the  middle  of  words;  and  that  the 
consonants  were  pronounced  differently  according 
to  the  pleasure  of  the  reader  and  the  province  in 
which  he  lived  (Epist.  ad  Evagr.  125).  The  term 
accentus,  which  he  there  uses,  appears  to  denote  as 
well  the  pronunciation  of  the  vowels  as  the  nice 
distinctions  of  certain  consonantal  sounds,  and  h;is 
no  connexion  whatever  with  accents  in  the  modern 
sense  of  the  word.  The  remarks  which  Jerome 
makes  as  to  the  possibility  of  reading  the  same 
Hebrew  consonants  differently,  according  to  the 
different  vowels  which  were  affixed  to  them,  is  an 
additional  proof  that  in  his  day  the  vowel-pointt- 
were  not  written  (see  his  Comrn.  in  Hos.  xiii.  3  ; 
Hob.  iii.  5).  Hupfeld  concludes  that  the  present 
system  of  pronunciation  had  not  commenced  in  the 
6th  century,  that  it  belonged  to  a  new  epoch  in 
Jewish  literature,  the  Masoretic  in  opposition  to  the 
Talmudic,  and  that,  taking  into  consideration  that 
the  Syrians  and  Arabs,  among  whom  the  Jews- 
lived,  had  already  made  a  beginning  in  pmctuation, 
there  is  the  highest  probability  that  the  Hebrew 


WRITING 

system  of  points  is  not  indigenous,  but  trans 
mitted  or  suggested  from  without  (Stud.  u.  Krit. 
1830,  ii.  p.  589).  On  such  a  question  it  is  im- 
|»ssible  to  pronounce  with  absolute  certainty,  but 
the  above  conclusion  has  been  arrived  at  by  one  of 
the  first  Hebrew  scholars  of  Europe,  who  has  de 
voted  especial  attention  to  the  subject,  and  to  whose 
opinion  all  deference  is  due. 

"  According  to  a  statement  on  a  scroll  of  the 
Law,  which  may  have  been  in  Susa  from  the  eighth 
century,  Moses  the  Punctator  (Hannakdan)  was  the 
first  who,  in  order  to  facilitate  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  for  his  pupils,  added  vowels  to  the  con 
sonants,  a  practice  in  which  he  was  followed  by  his 
son  Judah,  the  Corrector  or  Reviser  (Hammagiah). 
These  were  the  beginnings  of  a  full  system  of  He 
brew  points,  the  completion  of  which  has,  by  tra 
dition,  been  associated  with  the  name  of  the  Karaite 
Acha  of  Irak,  living  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixth 
century,  and  which  comprised  the  vowels  and 
accents,  dagesh  and  rapheh,  keri  and  kethiv.  It 
was,  from  its  local  origin,  called  the  Babylonian  or 
Assyrian  system.  Almost  simultaneously  with  these 
endeavours,  the  scholars  of  Palestine,  especially  of 
Tiberias,  worked  in  the  same  direction,  and  here 
Ivabbi  Mocha,  a  disciple  of  Anan  the  Karaite,  and 
his  son  Moses,  fixed  another  system  of  vocalisation 
(about  570),  distinguished  as  that  of  Tiberias,  which 
marks  still  more  minutely  and  accurately  the 
various  shades  and  niceties  of  tone  and  pronuncia 
tion,  and  which  was  ultimately  adopted  by  all  the 
Jews.  For  though  the  Karaites,  with  their  charac 
teristic  tenacity,  and  their  antagonism  to  the  Rab- 
banites,  clung  for  some  time  to  the  older  signs, 
because  they  had  used  them  before  their  secession 
from  the  Talmudical  sects,  they  were,  at  last,  in 
957,  induced  to  abandon  them  in  favour  of  those 
adopted  in  Palestine.  Now  the  Babylonian  signs, 
besides  differing  from  those  of  Tiberias  in  shape, 
are  chiefly  remarkable  by  being  almost  uniformly 
placed  above  the  letters.  There  still  exist  some 
manuscripts  which  exhibit  them,  and  many  more 
would  probably  have  been  preserved  had  not,  in 
later  times,  the  habit  prevailed  of  substituting  in 
old  codices  the  signs  of  Tiberias  for  those  of  Baby 
lonia"  (Dr.  Kalisch,  Hebr.  Gram.  ii.  63,  64)> 
From  the  sixth  century  downwards  the  traces  of 
punctuation  become  more  and  more  distinct.  The 
Masorah  mentions  by  name  two  vowels,  kamets 
and  pathack  (Kalisch,  p.  66).  The  collation  of  the 
Palestinian  and  Babylonian  readings  (8th  cent.) 
refers  at  least  in  two  passages  to  the  mappik  in  He 
(Eichhorn,  Einl.  i.  274);  but  the  collation  set  on 
foot  by  Ben  Asher  and  Ben  Naphtali  (cir.  A.D. 
1034}  has  to  do  exclusively  with  vowels  and  reading- 
mar  Vs,  and  their  existence  is  presupposed  in  the 
Arabic  of  Saadias  and  the  Veneto-Greek  version, 
;md  by  all  the  Jewish  grammarians  from  the  llth 
century  onwards. 

It  now  remains  to  say  a  few  words  on  the 
accents.  Their  especial  properties  and  the  laws  by 
which  they  are  regulated  properly  belong  to  the 
department  of  Hebrew  grammar,  and  full  informa 
tion  on  these  points  will  be  found  in  the  works  of 
Gesenius,  Hupfeld,  Ewald,  and  Kalisch.  The  object 
of  the  accents  is  twofold.  1.  They  serve  to  mark 
the  tone  syllable,  and  at  the  same  time  to  show  the 


,  fc  For  further  information  on  the  Babylonian  system  of 
punctuation,  see  Pinsker's  Einldtung  in  die  Babylonisch- 
Hebraisctz  I'unktationssystem,  just  published  at  Vienna 
(11*37. 


WRITING  180\ 

relation  of  each  word  to  the  sentence :  hence  they 
are  called  D^VD,  as  marking  the  sense.  2.  They 
indicate  the  modulation  of  the  tone  according  to 
which  the  Old  Testament  was  recited  in  the  syna 
gogues,  and  were  hence  called  Jlfa'OJ.  «  The  man 
ner  of  recitation  was  different  for  the  Pentateuch, 
the  prophets,  and  the  metrical  books  (Job,  the  Pro 
verbs,  and  the  Psalms) :  old  modes  of  cantillation 
of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  prophets  (in  the  Haph- 
taroth)  have  been  preserved  in  the  German  and 
Portuguese  synagogues ;  both  differ,  indeed,  consider 
ably,  yet  manifestly  show  a  common  character,  and 
are  almost  like  the  same  composition  sung  in  two 
different  keys ;  while  the  chanting  of  the  metrical 
books,  not  being  employed  in  the  public  worship,  has 
long  been  lost"  (Kalisch,  p.  84).  Several  modern 
investigators  have  decided  that  the  use  of  the  accents 
for  guiding  the  public  recitations  is  anterior  to 
their  use  as  marking  the  tone  of  words  and  syn 
tactical  construction  of  sentences.  The  great  num 
ber  of  the  accents  is  in  favour  of  this  hypothesis, 
since  one  sign  alone  would  have  been  sufficient  to 
mark  the  tone,  and  the  logical  relation  of  the 
different  parts  of  a  sentence  could  have  been  indi 
cated  by  a  much  smaller  number.  Gesenius,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  inclined  to  think  that  the  accents  at 
first  served  to  mark  the  tone  and  the  sense  (Gesch. 
p.  221).  The  whole  question  is  one  of  mere  con 
jecture.  The  advocates  for  the  antiquity  of  the 
accents  would  carry  them  back  as  far  as  the  time 
of  the  ancient  Temple  service.  The  Gemara  (Ne- 
darim,  fol.  37,  2  ;  Megillah,  c.  i.  fol.  3)  makes  the 
Levites  recite  according  to  the  accents  even  in  the 
days  of  Nehemiah. 

Writing  materials,  fyc. — The  oldest  documents 
which  contain  the  writing  of  a  Shemitic  race  are 
probably  the  bricks  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon  on 
which  are  impressed  the  cuneiform  Assyrian  in 
scriptions.  Inscribed  bricks  are  mentioned  by  Pliny 
(vii.  56)  as  used  for  astronomical  observations  by 
the  Babylonians.  There  is,  however,  no  evidence 
that  they  were  ever  employed  by  the  Hebrews,c  who 
certainly  at  a  very  early  period  practised  the  more 
difficult  but  not  more  durable  method  of  writing 
on  stone  (Ex.  xxiv.  12,  xxxi.  18,  xxxii.  15,  xxxiv.  1, 
28  ;  Deut.  x.  1,  xxvii.  1 ;  Josh.  viii.  32),  on  which 
inscriptions  were  cut  with  an  iron  graver  (Job  xix. 
24 ;  Jer.  xvii.  1).  They  were  moreover  acquainted 
with  the  art  of  engraving  upon  metal  (Ex.  xxviii. 
.36)  and  gems  (Ex.  xx.viii.  9).  Wood  was  used  upon 
some  occasions  (Num.  xvii.  3;  comp.  Horn.  //.  vii. 
175),  and  writing  tablets  of  box-wood  are  men 
tioned  in  2  Esd.  xiv.  24.  The  «« lead,"  to  which 
allusion  is  made  in  Job  xix.  24,  is  supposed  to  have 
been  poured  when  melted  into  the  cavities  of  the 
stone  made  by  the  letters  of  an  inscription,  in  order 
to  render  it  durable,4  and  does  not  appear  ever  to 
have  been  used  by  the  Hebrews  as  a  writing  mate 
rial,  like  the  x^ai  poXvpSivoi  at  Thebes,  on 
which  were  written  Hesiod's  Works  and  Days 
(Paus.  ix.  31,  §4  ;  comp.  Plin.  xiii.  21).  Inscrip 
tions  and  documents  which  were  intended  to  be 
permanent  were  written  on  tablets  of  brass  ( 1  Mace, 
viii.  22,  xiv.  27),  but  from  the  manner  in  which 
they  are  mentioned  it  is  clear  that  their  use  was 
exceptional.  It  is  most  probable  that  the  most 


c  The  case  of  Ezekiel  (iv.  1)  is  evidently  an  exception. 

d  Copper  was  used  for  the  same  purpose.  M.  Hot  la 
found  traces  of  it  in  letters  on  the  pavement  elals  ol 
Khorsabad  (Luyard,  Win.  iii.  188). 


1802 


WRITING 


ancient  as  well  as  the  most  common  material  which 
he  Hebrews  used  for  writing  was  dressed  skin  in 
eome  form  or  other.  We  know  that  the  dressing 
t>f  skins  was  practised  by  the  Heln-ews  (Ex.  xxv.  5  ; 
Lev.  xni.  48),  and  they  may  have  acquired  the 
knowledge  of  the  art  from  the  Egyptians,  among 
whom  it  had  attained  great  perfection,  the  leather- 
cutters  constituting  one  of  the  principal  subdivisions 
of  the  third  caste.  The  fineness  of  the  leather, 
says  Sir  G.  Wilkinson,  "  employed  for  making  the 
straps  placed  across  the  bodies  of  mummies,  dis 
covered  at  Thebes,  and  the  beauty  of  the  figures 
stamped  upon  them,  satisfactorily  prove  the  skill 
of  '  the  leather-cutters/  and  the  antiquity  of  em 
bossing  :  some  of  these  bearing  the  names  of  kings 
who  ruled  Egypt  about  the  period  of.  the  Exodus, 
or  3300  years  ago"  (Anc.  Eg.  iii.  155).  Perhaps 
the  Hebrews  may  have  borrowed,  among  their 
other  acquirements,  the  use  of  papyrus  from  the 
Egyptians,  but  of  this  we  have  no  positive  evi 
dence.  Papyri  are  found  of  the  most  remote  Pha- 
raonic  age  (Wilkinson,  Anc.  Eg.  iii.  148),  so  that 
Pliny  is  undoubtedly  in  error  when  he  says  that 
the  papyrus  was  not  used  as  a  writing  material 
before  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great  (xiii.  21). 
He  probably  intended  to  indicate  that  this  was  the 
date  of  its  introduction  to  Europe.  In  the  Bible  the 
only  allusions  to  the  use  of  papyrus  are  in  2  John 
12,  where  xa.pTt\s  occurs,  which  refers  especially 
to  papyrus  paper,  and  3  Mace.  iv.  20,  where  xaP~ 
r^pia  is  found  in  the  same  sense.  In  Josephus 
(Ant.  iii.  11,  §6)  the  trial  of  adultery  is  made  by 
writing  the  name  of  God  on  a  skin,  and  tire  70 
men  who  were  sent  to  Ptolemy  from  Jerusalem  by 
the  high-priest  Eleazar,  to  translate  the  Law  into 
Greek,  took  with  them  the  skins  on  which  the  Law 
was  written  in  golden  characters  (Ant.  xii.  2,  §10). 
The  oldest  Persian  annals  were  written  on  skins 
(Diod.  Sic.  ii.  32),  and  these  appear  to  have  been 
most  frequently  used  by  the  Shemitic  races  if  not 
peculiar  to  them.'  Of  the  byssus  which  was  used 
in  India  before  the  time  of  Alexander  (Strabo  xv. 
p.  717),  and  the  palm-leaves  mentioned  by  Pliny 
(vii.  23)  there  is  no  trace  among  the  Hebrews, 
although  we  know  that  the  Arabs  wrote  their 
earliest  copies  of  the  Koran  upon  the  roughest  ma 
terials,  as  stones,  the  shoulder-bones  of  sheep,  and 
palm-leaves  (De  Sacy,  Mem.  de  I'Acad.  des  In~ 
scnpt.  1.  p.  307).  Herodotus,  after  telling  us  that 
the  lonians  learnt  the  art  of  writing  from  the 
Phoenicians,  adds  that  they  called  their  books  skins 
(ras  ]8//3\ous  5t<£0e'pas),  because  they  made  use  of 
sheep-skins  and  goat-skins  when  short  of  paper 
($i/3\os).  Among  the  Cyprians,  a  writing-master 
was  called  5t<^>6epctA.ot<^os.  Parchment  was  used 
for  the  MSS.  of  the  Pentateuch  in  the  time  of  Jo- 
sephus,  and  the  jue/i/fyafcu  of  2  Tim.  iv.  13,  were 
skins  of  parchment.  It  was  one  of  the  provisions 
in  the  Talmud  that  the  Law  should  be  written  on 
the  skins  of  clean  animals,  tame  or  wild,  or  even  of 
cban  birds.  There  are  three  kinds  of  skins  distin 
guished,  on  which  the  roll  of  the  Pentateuch  may 
be  written:  1.  5]?jp,  keleph  (Meg.  ii.  2;  Shabb. 
viii.  8);  2.  010050311  =  Sixaffros  or 


and  3.    wfJ,  geril.     The  last  is  made  of  the  undi 
vided  skin,  after  the  hair  is  removed  and  it  has 


•  The  word  for  "book,  "1SD-  styher,  is  from  a  root, 
ISO'  saphar,  "  to  scrape,  shave,"  and  indirectly  points 
to  tlio  \\r.c  of  skin  as  a  writing-material. 


WRITING 

been  properly  dressed.  For  the  other  two  the  skin 
was  split.  The  part  with  the  hairy  side  was  called 
keleph,  and  was  used  for  the  tephillin  or  phyla"- 
teries ;  and  upon  the  other  ("DDIl)  the  mezuzoth 
were  written  (Maimonides,  Hilc.  Tephil.}.  The 
skins  when  written  upon  were  formed  into  rolls 
(n'AjO,  megilloth ;  Ps.  xl.  8  ;  comp.  Is.  xxxiv.  4  j 
Jer.  xxxvi.  14 ;  Ez.  ii.  9 ;  Zech.  v.  1).  They  were 
rolled  upon  one  or  two  sticks  and  fastened  with  a 
thread,  the  ends  of  which  were  scaled  (Is.  xxix.  11  ; 
Dan.  xii.  4;  Kev.  v.  1,  &c.).  Hence  the  words 
??3,  gAlal  (eiAfo-ffeti/),  to  rol.  up  (Is.  xxxiv.  4 ; 
Rev.  vi.  14),  and  EHS,  paras  (avairrtffffeiv},  to 

unroll  (2  K.  xix.  14 ;  Luke  iv.  17),  are  used  of  the 
closing  and  opening  of  a  book.  The  rolls  were  ge 
nerally  written  on  one  side  only,  except  in  Ez.  ii. 
9;  Rev.  v.  1.  They  were  divided  into  columns 
(n'm^,  deldthoth,lit.  "doors,"  A. V.  "leaves," 

Jer.  xxxvi.  23) ;  the  upper  margin  was  to  be  not 
less  than  three  fingers  broad,  the  lower  not  less 
than  four ;  and  a  space  of  two  fingers'  breadth  was 
to  be  left  between  every  two  columns  (Waehner, 
Ant.  Ebraeor.  vol.  i.  sect.  1,  cap.  xlv.  §337).  In 
the  Herculaneum  rolls  the  columns  are  two  fingers 
broad,  and  in  the  MSS.  in  the  library  at  Stuttgart 
there  are  three  columns  on  each  side,  each  three 
inches  broad,  with  an  inch  space  between  the  co 
lumns,  and  margins  of  three  inches  wide  (Leyrer  in 
Herzog's  Encyd.  «'  Schriftzeichen  ").  The  case  in 
which  the  rolls  were  kept  was  called  revxos  or 
6-fiK-r),  Talinudic  l-)^3,  cerec,  or  fcO"]3,  cared.  But 

besides  skins,  which  were  used  for  the  more  per 
manent  kinds  of  writing,  tablets  of  wood  covered  with 
wax  (Luke  i.  03,  Tru/cuclSta)  served  for  the  ordinary 
pui'poses  of  life.  Several  of  these  were  fastened 
together  and  formed  volumes  (niD1t3  =  tomos). 
They  were  written  upon  with  a  pointed  style 
(t3V,  'et,  Job  xix.  24),  sometimes  of  iron  (Ps.  jdv. 
2 ;  Jer.  viii.  8,  xvii.  1).  For  harder  materials  a 
gravei-  (OlHj  cheret,  Ex.  xxxii.  4 ;  Is.  viii.  1 )  was 
employed :  the  hard  point  was  called  ft'Stf,  tsip- 
poren  (Jer.  xvii.  1).  For  parchment  or  skins  a 
reed  was  used  (3  John  1 3 ;  3  Mace.  iv.  20),  and 
according  to  some  the  Law  was  to  be  written  with 
nothing  else  (Waehner,  §334).  The  ink,  V"5!, 
deyo  (Jer.  xxxvi.  18),  literally  "black,"  like  the 
Greek  fie'Acw  (2  Cor.  iii.  3 ;  2  John  12  ;  3  John  ' 
13),  was  to  be  of  lamp-black  dissolved  in  gall  juice, 
though  sometimes  a  mixture  of  gall  juice  and  vitriol 
was  allowable  (Waehner,  §335).  It  was  carried 
in  an  inkstand  (ISibn  DD^,  keseth  hassop/wr ., 

which  was  suspended  at  the  girdle  (Ez.  ix.  2,  3), 
as  is  done  at  the  present  day  in  the  East.  Tht 
modern  scribes  "  have  an  apparatus  consisting  of  a 
metal  or  ebony  tube  for  their  reed  pens,  with  a  cup 
or  bulb  of  the  same  materi;J,  attached  to  the  upper 
end,  for  the  ink.  This  they  thrust  through  the 
girdle,  and  cany  with  them  at  all  times  "  (Thom 
son,  The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  131).  Such  n 
case  for  holding  pens,  ink,  and  other  materials  for 
writing  is  called  in  the  Mishna  \i"]fy^\),kalnidrin,ot 
|V")D^p,  kalmaryon  (calamarium ;  Mishn.  Celim, 
ii.  i{  Miko.  x.  1),  while  pn3nn,  terontek  (Mish. 
Celim,  xvi.  8),  is  a  case  for  carrying  pens,  pen- 
kiiife,  style,  aud  other  implements  of  the  writer  * 


YARN 

art.  To  professional  scribes  there  are  allusions  in 
Ps.  x\v.  1  [2]  ;  Ezr.  vii.  6  ;  2  Esdr.  xiv.  24.  In  the 
language  of  the  Talmud  these  are  called  1^717, 
labldrin,  which  is  a  modification  of  the  Lat.  libel- 
larii  (Talm.  Shabb.  fol.  16,  1). 

For  the  literature  of  this  subject,  see  especially 
Gesenius,  Geschichte  der  hebrdischen  Sprache  und 
Schrift,  1815;  Lehrgebdude  der  Hebr.  Sprache, 
1817;  Monumenta  Phoenicia,  1837;  Art.  Pa- 
idographie  in  Ersch  and  Gruber's  Allg.  Encycl. : 
Hupfeld,  Ausfiihrliche  Hebrdische  Grammatik, 
1841,  and  his  articles  in  the  Studien  und  Kritiken, 
1830,  Band  2:  A.  T.  Hoffmann,  Grammatica 
Syriaca,  1827:  A.  G.  Hoffmann,  Art.  Hebrdische 
Schrift  in  Ersch  and  Gruber :  Fiirst,  Lehrgebdude 
der  Aramaischen  Idiome,  1835:  Ewald,  Ausfuhr- 
Uches  Lehrbuch  der  Hebr.  Sprache  :  Saalschiitz, 
Forschungen  im  Gebiete  der  Hebrdisch-Aegypt- 
ischen  Archdologie,  1838 ;  besides  other  works, 
which  have  been  referred  to  in  the  course  of  this 
article.  [W.  A.  W.] 


X 

XAN'THICUS.     [MONTH,  p.  417.] 


YARN  (itlpIO  ;  K1j?i?).  The  notice  of  yarn  is 
contained  in  an  extremely  obscure  passage  in  1  K. 
x.  28  (2  Chr.  i.  16)  :  "  Solomon  had  horses  brought 
out  of  Egypt,  and  linen  yarn  ;  the  king's  merchants 
received  the  linen  yam  at  a  price."  The  LXX. 
gives  e«  @€/cove,  implying  an  original  reading  ot 
Jj'lpflO  ;  the  Vulg.  has  de  Coo,,  which  is  merely  a 

Latinized  form  of  the  original.  The  Hebrew  Received 
Text  is  questionable,  from  the  circumstance  that 
the  second  mikveh  has  its  final  vowel  lengthened  as 
though  it  were  in  the  status  constructus.  The  pro 
bability  is  that  the  term  does  refer  to  some  entrepot 
of  Egyptian  commerce,  but  whether  Tekoah,  as  in 
the  LXX.,  or  Coa,  as  in  the  Vulg.,  is  doubtful. 
Gesenius  (Thes.  p.  1202)  gives  the  sense  of"  num 
ber"  as  applying  equally  to  the  merchants  and  the 
horses : — "  A  band  of  the  king's  merchants  bought 
a  drove  (of  horses)  at  a  price  "  ;  but  the  verbal 
arrangement  in  2  Chr.  is  opposed  to  this  rendering. 
Thenius  (Exeg.  Hdb.  on  1  K.  x.  28)  combines  this 
sense  with  the  former,  giving  to  the  first  mikveh 
the  sense  "  from  Tekoah,"  to  the  second  the  sense 
of  "  drove."  Bertheau  (Exeg.  Hdb.  on  2  Chr.  i. 
10)  and  Fiirst  (Lex.  s.  v.)  side  with  the  Vulgate, 
and  suppose  the  place  called  Coa  to  have  been  on 
the  Egyptian  frontier : — "  The  king's  merchants 
from  Coa  (i.  e.  stationed  at  Coa)  took  the  horses  from 
Coa  at  a  price."  The  sense  adopted  in  the  A.  V.  is 
derived  from  Jewish  interpreters.  [W.  L.  B.] 

YEAR  (fO$:  eras:  annus),  the  highest  or 
dinary  division  of  time.  The  Hebrew  name  is 
identical  with  the  root  H^,  "he  or  it  repeated, 
did  the  second  time  ;"  with  which  are  cognate  the 
ordinal  numeral  IOK>,  "  second,"  and  the  cardinal, 
D'OKN  "  two."  The  meaning  is  therefore  thought 
to  be  "  an  iteration,"  by  Gesenius,  who  compares 
the  Latin  annus,  properly  a  circle.  Gesenius  also 


YEAR 

o  - 


1803 


compares  the  Arabic  $jz»,  which  he  says  signifies 
"  a  circle,  year."  It  signifies  "  a  year,"  but  not 
"  a  circle,"  though  sometimes  meaning  "  around  :" 


its  root  is  ^U>*,  "  it  became  altered  or  changed, 
it  shifted,  passed,  revolved  and  passed,  or  became 
complete  "  (on  Mr.  Lane's  authority).  The  ancient 
Egyptian  RENP,  ««  a  year,"  seems  to  resemble 
annus  ;  for  in  Coptic  one  of  the  forms  of  its  equi 
valent,  pOJULIIIj  the  Bashmuric  p^JULlTI, 
X«LJUirU>  is  identical  with  the  Sahidic 
p4Jtft.Il!>  "  a  handle,  ring,"  p^JULUGI, 
"  rings."  The  sense  of  the  Hebrew  might  either  be 
a  recurring  period,  or  a  circle  of  seasons,  or  else  a 
period  circling  through  the  seasons.  The  first  sense 
is  agreeable  with  any  period  of  time  ;  the  second, 
with  the  Egyptian  "primitive  year,"  which,  by  the 
use  of  tropical  seasons  as  divisions  of  the  "  Vague 
year,"  is  shown  to  have  been  tropical  in  reality  or 
intention;  the  third  agrees  with  all''  wandering 
years." 

I.  Years,  properly  so  called. 

Two  years  were  known  to,  and  apparently  used 
by,  the  Hebrews. 

1.  A  year  of  360  days,  containing  twelve  months 
of  thirty  days  each,  is  indicated  by  certain  passages 
in  the  prophetical  Scriptures.  The  time,  times,  and 
a  half,  of  Daniel  (vii.  25,  xii.  7),  where  "  time"  (Ch. 
f^y,  Heb.  HjftD)  means  "year,"  evidently  repre 
sent  the  same  period  as  the  42  months  (Rev.  xi.  2) 
and  1260  days  of  the  Revelation  (xi.  3,  xii.  6),  for 
360  X  3-5  =  1260,  and  30  X  42  =  1  260.  This  year 
perfectly  corresponds  to  the  Egyptian  Vague  year, 
without  the  five  intercalary  days.  It  appears  to 
have  been  in  use  in  Noah's  time,  or  at  least  in  the 
time  of  the  writer  of  the  narrative  of  the  Flood, 
for  in  that  narrative  the  interval  from  the  17th  day 
of  the  2nd  month  to  the  17th  day  of  the  7th  of  the 
same  year  appears  to  be  stated  to  be  a  period  of 
150  days  (Gen.  vii.  11,  24,  viii.  3,  4,  comp.  13), 
and,  as  the  1st,  2nd,  7th,  and  10th  months  of  one 
year  are  mentioned  (viii.  13,  14,  vii.  11,  viii.  4,  5), 
the  1st  day  of  the  10th  month  of  this  year  being 
separated  from  the  1st  day  of  the  1st  month  of  the 
next  year  by  an  interval  of  at  least  54  days  (viii. 
5,  6,  10,  12,  13),  we  can  only  infer  a  year  of  12 
months.  Ideler  disputes  the  former  inference, 
arguing  that  as  the  water  first  began  to  sink  after 
150  days  (and  then  had  been  15  cubits  above  all 
high  mountains),  it  must  have  sunk  for  some  days 
ere  the  Ark  could  have  rested  on  Ararat,  so  that 
the  second  date  must  have  been  more  than  150 
days  later  than  the  first  (Handbuch,  i.  69,  70,  478, 
479).  ,This  argument  depends  upon  the  meaning 
of  the  expression  "  high  mountains,"  and  upon  the 
height  of  "  the  mountains  of  Ararat,"  upon  which  the 
Ark  rested  (Gen.  viii.  4),  and  we  are  certainly  justi 
fied  by  Shemitic  usage,  if  we  do  not  consider  the  usual 
inference  of  the  great  height  attained  by  the  ^lood 
to  be  a  necessary  one  (  Genesis  of  the  Earth  ind  of 
Man,  2nd  ed.  pp.  97,  98).  The  exact  correspondence 
of  the  interval  mentioned  to  5  months  of  30  days 
each,  and  the  use  of  a  year  of  360  days,  or  12  such 
months,  by  the  prophets,  the  latter  fact  overlooked 
by  Ideler,  favour  the  idea  that  such  a  year  is  here 
meant,  unless  indeed  one  identical  with  the  Egyptian 
Vague  Year,  of  12  months  of  30  days  and  5  inter 
calary  days.  The  settlement  of  this  question  de- 


1804 


YEAR 


pends  upon  the  nature  and  history  of  these  yeai-s, 
and  our  information  on  the  latter  subject  is  not 
sufficiently  certain  to  enable  us  to  do  more  than 
hazard  a  conjecture. 

A  year  of  360  days  is  the  rudest  known.  It  is 
formed  of  12  spurious  lunar  months,  and  was  pro 
bably  the  parent  of  the  lunar  year  of  354  days, 
and  the  Vague  Year  of  365.  That  it  should  have 
continued  any  time  in  use  would  be  surprising 
were  it  not  for  the  convenient  length  of  the  months. 
The  Hebrew  year,  from  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  as 
we  shall  see,  was  evidently  lunar,  though  in  some 
manner  rendered  virtually  solar,  and  we  may  there 
fore  infer  that  the  lunar  year  is  as  old  as  the  date 
of  the  Exodus.  As  the  Hebrew  year  was  not  an 
Egyptian  year,  and  as  nothing  is  said  of  its  being 
new,  save  in  its  time  of  commencement,  it  was 
perhaps  earlier  in  use  among  the  Israelites,  and 
either  brought  into  Egypt  by  them  or  borrowed 
from  Shemite  settlers. 

The  Vague  Year  was  certainly  in  use  in  Egypt 
hi  as  remote  an  age  as  the  earlier  part  of  the  xiith 
dynasty  (B.C.  cir.  2000),  and  there  can  be  no  rea 
sonable  doubt  that  it  was  there  used  at  the  time 
of  the  building  of  the  Great  Pyramid  (B.C.  cir. 
2350).  The  intercalary  days  seem  to  be  of  Egyp 
tian  institution,  for  each  of  them  was  dedicated  to 
one  of  the  great  gods,  as  though  the  innovation  had 
been  thus  made  permanent  by  the  priests,  and  per 
haps  rendered  popular  as  a  series  of  days  of  feasting 
and  rejoicing.  The  addition  would,  however,  date 
from  a  very  early  period,  that  of  the  final  settle 
ment  of  the  Egyptian  religion. 

As  the  lunar  year  and  the  Vague  Year  run  up 
parallel  to  so  early  a  period  as  that  of  the  Exodus, 
and  the  foiiner  seems  to  have  been  then  Shemite, 
the  latter  then,  and  for  several  centuries  earlier, 
Egyptian,  and  probably  of  Egyptian  origin,  we  may 
reasonably  conjecture  that  the  former  originated 
from  a  year  of  360  days  in  Asia,  the  latter  from 
the  same  year  in  Africa,  this  primitive  year  having 
been  used  by  the  Noachians  before  their  dispersion. 

2.  The  year  used  by  the  Hebrews  from  the  time 
of  the  Exodus  may  be  said  to  have  been  then  insti 
tuted,  since  a  current  month,  Abib,  on  the  14th 
day  of  which  the  first  Passover  was  kept,  was  then 
made  the  first  month  of  the  year.  The  essential 
characteristics  of  this  year  can  be  clearly  deter 
mined,  though  we  cannot  fix  those  of  any  single 
year.  It  was  essentially  solar,  for  the  offerings  of 
productions  of  the  earth,  first-fruits,  harvest-pro 
duce,  and  ingathered  fruits,  were  fixed  to  certain 
days  of  the  year,  two  of  which  were  in  the  periods 
of  great  feasts,  the  third  itself  a  feast  reckoned  from 
one  of  the  former  days.  It  seems  evident  that  the 
year  was  made  to  depend  upon  there  times,  and  it 
may  be  observed  that  such  a  calendar  would  tend 
to  cause  thankfulness  for  God's  good  gifts,  and 
world  put  in  the  background  the  great  luminaries 
whisht  the  heathen  worshipped  in  Egypt  and  in 
Canaan.  Though  the  year  was  thus  essentially 
solar,  it  is  certain  that  the  months  were  lunar,  each 
commencing  with  a  new  moon.  There  must  there 
fore  have  been  some  method  of  adjustment.  The 
first  pnint  to  be  decided  is  how  the  commencement 
of  each  year  was  fixed.  On  the  16th  day  of  Abib 
ripe  ears  of  corn  were  to  be  offered  as  first-fruits 
of  the  harvest  (Lev.  ii.  14,  xxiii.  10,  11):  this 
was  the  day  on  which  the  sickle  was  begun  to  be 
put  to  the  corn  (Deut.  xvi.  9),  and  no  doubt  Jose- 
phus  is  right  in  stating  that  until  the  offering  of 
Grst-iruits  had  been  made  no  harvest-work  waj 


YEAR 

jto  be  begun  (Ant.  iii.  10,  §5).  HJ  also  states 
'  that  earb  of  barley  were  offered  (ibid.).  That  this 
was  tlw  case,  and  that  the  ears  were  the  earliest 
ripe,  is  evident  from  the  following  circumstances. 
The  reaping  of  barley  commenced  the  harvest  (2 
Sam.  xxi.  9),  that  of  wheat  following,  apparently 
without  any  considerable  interval  (Ruth  ii.  23). 
On  the  day  of  Pentecost  thanksgiving  was  offered 
for  the  harvest,  and  it  was  therefore  called  thf 
"  Feast  of  Harvest."  It  was  reckoned  from  the 
commencement  of  the  harvest,  on  the  16th  day  of 
the  1st  month.  The  50  days  must  include  the 
whole  time  of  the  harvest  of  both  wheat  and  barley 
throughout  Palestine.  According  to  the  observa 
tions  of  modem  travellers,  barley  is  ripe,  in  tni 
warmest  parts  of  Palestine,  in  the  first  dayi  of 
April.  The  barley-harvest  therefore  begins  about 
half  a  month  or  less  after  the  vernal  equinox. 
Each  year,  if  solar,  would  thus  begin  at  about  that 
equinox,  when  the  earliest  ears  of  barley  must  be 
ripe.  As,  however,  tha  months  were  lunar,  the 
commencement  of  the  year  must  have  been  fixed  by 
a  new  moon  near  this  point  of  time.  The  new 
moon  must  have  been  that  which  fell  about  or  next 
after  the  equinox,  not  more  than  a  few  days  before, 
on  account  of  the  offering  of  first-fruits.  Ideler, 
whose  observations  on  this  matter  we  have  thus  far 
followed,  supposes  that  the  new  moon  was  chosen 
by  observation  of  the  forwardness  of  the  barley- 
crops  in  the  warmer  parts  of  the  country  (Hand- 
buck,  i.  490).  but  such  a  method  would  have 
caused  confusion  on  account  of  the  different  times 
of  the  harvest  in  different  parts  of  Palestine ;  and 
in  the  period  of  the  Judges  there  would  often 
have  been  two  separate  commencements  of  the 
year  in  regions  divided  by  hostile  tribes,  and  in 
each  of  which  the  Israelite  population  led  an 
existence  almost  independent  of  any  other  branch. 
It  is  more  likely  that  the  Hebrews  would  have 
determined  their  new  year's  day  by  the  observation 
of  heliacal  or  other  star-risings  or  settings  known 
to  mark  the  right  time  of  the  solar  year.  By  such 
a  method  the  beginning  of  any  year  could  have 
been  fixed  a  year  before,  either  to  one  day,  or, 
supposing  the  month-commencements  were  fixed  by 
actual  observation,  within  a  day  or  two.  And  we 
need  not  doubt  that  the  Israelites  were  well  ac 
quainted  with  such  means  of  marking  the  periods 
of  a  solar  year.  In  the  ancient  Song  of  Deborah 
we  read  how  "  They  fought  from  heaven  ;  the  stars 
in  their  courses  fought  against  Sisera.  The  rivei 
of  Kishon  swept  them  away,  that  ancient  river,  the 
river  Kishon"  (Judg.  v.  20,  21).  The  stars  that 
marked  the  times  of  rain  are  thus  connected  with 
the  swelling  of  the  river  in  which  the  fugitive 
Canaanites  perished.  So  too  we  read  how  the  LORD 
demanded  of  Job,  "  Canst  thou  bind  the  sweet  in 
fluences  of  Cimah,  or  loose  the  bands  of  Cesil  ? " 
(Job  xxxviii.  31).  "  The  best  and  most  fertilizing 
of  the  rains,"  in  Palestine  and  the  neighbouring 
lands,  save  Egypt,  u  fall  when  the  Pleiades  set  at 
dawn  (not  exactly  heliacally),  at  the  end  of  autumn ; 
rain  scarcely  ever  falling  at  the  opposite  season, 
when  Scorpio  sets  at  dawn."  That  Cimah  signifies 
the  Pleiades  does  not  admit  of  reasonable  doubt, 
and  Cesil,  as  opposite  to  it,  would  be  Scorpio, 
being  identified  with  Cor  Scorpionis  by  Aben  Ezra, 
These  explanations  we  take  from  the  article 
FAMINE  [vol.  i.  p.  610  b,  and  note].  Therefore 
it  cannot  be  questioned  that  the  Israelites,  even 
during  the  troubled  time  of  the  Judges,  were  well 
acquainted  with  the  method  of  determining  th# 


YEAE 

seasons  of  the  solar  year  by  observing  the  stars. 
Not  alone  was  this  the  practice  of  the  civilized 
Egyptians,  but,  at  all  times  of  which  we  know  their 
history,  of  the  Arabs,  and  also  of  the  Greeks  in  the 
time  of  Hesiod,  while  yet  their  material  civilization 
and  science  were  rudimentary.  It  has  always  been 
the  custom  of  pastoral  and  scattered  peoples,  rather 
than  of  the  dwellers  in  cities ;  and  if  the  Egyptians 
be  thought  to  form  an  exception,  it  must  be  recol 
lected  that  they  used  it  at  a  period  not  remote  from 
that  at  which  their  civilization  came  from  the  plain 
of  Shinar. 

It  follows,  from  the  determination  of  the  proper 
new  moon  of  the  first  month,  whether  by  observa 
tion  of  a  stellar  phenomenon,  or  of  the  forwardness 
of  the  crops,  that  the  method  of  intercalation  can 
only  have  been  that  in  use  after  the  Captivity,  the 
addition  of  a  thirteenth  month  whenever  the  twelfth 
ended  too  long  before  the  equinox  for  the  offering 
of  the  first-fruits  to  be  made  at  the  time  fixed. 
This  method  is  in  accordance  with  the  permission 
granted  to  postpone  the  celebration  of  the  Passover 
for  one  month  in  the  case  of  any  one  who  was 
legally  unclean,  or  journeying  at  a  distance  (Num. 
ix.  9-13);  and  there  is  a  historical  instance  in  the 
case  of  Hezekiah  of  such  a  postponement  for  both 
reasons,  of  the  national  celebration  (2  Chr.  xxx. 
1-3,  15).  Such  a  practice  as  that  of  an  inter 
calation  varying  in  occurrence  is  contrary  to  western 
usage ;  but  the  like  prevails  in  all  Muslim  countries 
in  a  far  more  inconvenient  form  in  the  case  of  the 
commencement  of  every  month.  The  day  is  deter 
mined  by  actual  observation  of  the  new  moon,  and 
thus  a  day  is  frequently  unexpectedly  added  to  or 
deducted  from  a  month  at  one  place,  and  months 
commence  on  different  days  at  different  towns  in 
the  same  country.  The  Hebrew  intercalation,  if  de 
termined  by  stellar  phenomena,  would  aot  be  liable 
to  a  like  uncertainty,  though  such  may  have  been 
the  case  with  the  actual  day  of  the  new  mcon. 

The  later  Jews  had  two  commencements  of  the 
year,  whence  it  is  commonly  but  inaccurately  said 
that  they  had  two  years,  the  sacred  year  and  the  civil. 
We  prefer  to  speak  of  the  sacred  and  civil  reckon 
ings.  Ideler  admits  that  these  reckonings  obtained 
at  the  time  of  the  Second  Temple.  The  sacred 
reckoning  was  that  instituted  at  the  Exodus,  accord 
ing  to  which  the  first  month  was  Abib:  by  the 
civil  reckoning  the  first  month  was  the  seventh. 
The  interval  between  the  two  commencements  was 
thus  exactly  half  a  year.  It  has  been  supposed 
that  the  institution  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus  was  a 
change  of  commencement,  not  the  introduction  of  a 
new  year,  and  that  thenceforward  the  year  had  two 
beginnings,  respectively  at  about  the  vernal  and  the 
autumnal  equinoxes.  The  former  supposition  is  a 
Hypothesis,  the  latter  may  almost  be  proved.  The 
strongest  point  of  evidence  as  to  two  beginnings  of 
the  year  from  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  strangely 
unnoticed  in  this  relation  by  Ideler,  is  the  cir 
cumstance  that  the  sabbatical  and  jubilee  years 
commenced  in  the  7th  month,  and  no  doubt  on 
the  10th  day  of  the  7th  month,  the  Day  of  Atone 
ment  (Lev.  xxv.  9,  10),  and  as  this  year  imme 
diately  followed  a  sabbatical  year,  the  latter  must 
have  begun  in  the  same  manner.  Both  were  full 
years,  and  therefore  must  have  commenced  on  the 
first  day.  The  jubilee- year  was  proclaimed  on 
the  first  day  of  the  month,  the  Day  of  Atonement 


a  The  names  of  the  Egyptian  months,  derived  frori 
their  divinities,  are  alone  known  to  us  iu  Greek  and 


YEAR 

standing  in  the  same  relation  to  its  beginning, 
and  perhaps  to  the  civil  beginning  of  tht  year,  at 
did  the  Passover  to  the  sacred  beginning.  Thiq 
would  be  the  most  convenient,  if  not  the  necessary 
commencement  of  a  year  of  total  cessation  from  the 
labours  of  agriculture,  as  a  year  so  commencing 
would  comprise  the  whole  round  of  such  occupa 
tions  in  regular  sequence  from  seed-time  to  hai~vest, 
and  from  harvest  to  vintage  and  gathering  of  fruit. 
The  command  as  to  both  years,  apart  from  tne 
mention  of  the  Day  of  Atonement,  clearly  shows 
this,  unless  we  suppose,  but  this  is  surely  unwar 
rantable,  that  the  injunction  in  the  two  places  in 
which  it  occurs  follows  the  regular  order  of  the  sea 
sons  of  agriculture  (Ex.  xxiii.  10,  11 ;  Lev.  xxv.  3, 
4,11),  but  that  this  was  not  intended  to  apply  in  the 
case  of  the  observance.  Two  expressions,  used  with 
reference  to  the  time  of  the  Feast  of  Ingathering  on 
the  15th  day  of  the  7th  month,  must  be  here 
noticed.  This  feast  is  spoken  of  as  rWB^H  HNV2 

TT    -  ••  :» 

in  the  going  out "  or  "  end  of  the  year  "  (Ex. 
xxiii.  16),  and  as  !"l3t^n  J"l!D-1pH,  "  [at]  the  change 

of  the  year"  (xxxiv.  22),  the  latter  a  vague  expres 
sion,  as  far  as  we  can  understand  it,  but  quite 
consistent  with  the  other,  whether  indicating  the 
turning-point  of  a  natural  year,  or  the  half  of  the 
year  by  the  sacred  reckoning.  The  Rabbins  use 
the  term  HQ-lpn  to  designate  the  commencement 
of  each  of  the  four  seasons  into  which  they  divide 
the  year  (Handbuch,  i.  pp.  550,  551).  Our  view 
is  confirmed  by  the  similarity  of  the  1st  and  7th 
months  as  to  their  observances,  the  one  containing 
the  Feast  of  Unleavened  Bread  from  the  15th  to  the 
21st  inclusive;  the  other,  that  of  Tabernacles,  from 
the  15th  to  the  22nd.  Evidence  in  the  same  direc 
tion  is  found  in  the  special  sanctification  of  the  1st 
day  of  the  7th  month,  which  in  the  blowing  of 
trumpets  resembles  the  proclamation  of  the  Jubilee 
year  on  the  Day  of  Atonement.  We  therefore  hold 
that  from  the  time  of  the  Exodus  there  were  two 
beginnings  of  the  year,  with  the  1st  of  the  1st  and 
the  1st  of  the  7th  month,  the  former  being  the 
sacred  reckoning,  the  latter,  used  for  the  operations 
of  agriculture,  the  civil  reckoning.  In  Egypt,  in 
the  present  day,  the  Muslims  use  the  lunar  year  for 
their  religious  observances,  and  for  ordinary  affairs, 
except  those  of  agriculture,  which  they  regulate  by 
the  Coptic  Julian  year. 

We  must  here  notice  the  theories  of  the  deriva 
tion  of  the  Hebrew  year  from  the  Egyptian  Vague 
year,  as  they  are  connected  with  the  tropical  point 
or  points,  and  agricultural  phenomena,  by  which 
the  former  was  regulated1.  The  Vague  year  was 
commonly  used  by  the  Egyptians ;  and  from  it  only, 
if  from  an  Egyptian  year,  is  the  Hebrew  likely  to 
have  been  derived.  Two  theories  have  been  formed 
connecting  the  two  years  at  the  Exodus.  (1.)  Some 
hold  that  Abib,  the  first  month  of  the  Hebrew  year 
by  the  sacred  reckoning,  was  the  Egyptian  Epiphi, 
called  in  Coptic  GTIHTII,  and  in  Arabic,  by  the 

modern  Egyptians,  4-xAjJ>  Abeeb,  or  Ebeeb,  the  llth 

month  of  the  Vague  year.  The  similarity  of  sound 
is  remarkable,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
Egyptian  name  is  derived  from  that  of  the  goddess 
of  the  month,  PEP-T  or  APAP-T  (?j»  wherSas  the 


Coptic  fomrs.    These  forms  are  shown  by  the  names  cf 
the  divinities  given  in  the  sculptures  of  the  ceiling  of  the 


18*)6  YEAR 

Hebrew  name  has  the  sense  of  "an  ear  of  corn,  a  green 
car,"  and  is  derived  from  the  unused  root  32K 
traceauxe  m  3N,  "verdure,"  2N,  Chaldee,  "  fruit," 

cj^,  "  green  fodder."     Moreover,  the  Egyptian  P  is 

rarely,  if  ever,  represented  by  the  Hebrew  2,  and 
the  converse  is  not  common.  Still  stronger  evidence 
is  afforded  by  the  fact  that  we  find  in  Egyptian  the 
root  AB,  "  a  nosegay,"  which  is  evidently  related  to 
Abib  and  its  cognates.  Supposing,  however,  that  the 
Hebrew  calendar  was  formed  by  fixing  the  Egyptian 
Epiphi  as  the  first  month,  what  would  be  the  chro 
nological  result.?  The  latest  date  to  which  the 
Exodus  is  assigned  is  about  B.C.  1320.  In  the 
Julian  year  B.C.  1320,  the  month  Epiphi  of  the 
Egyptian  Vague  year  commenced  May  16>,  44  days 
after  the  day  of  the  vernal  equinox,  April  2,  very 
near  which  the  Hebrew  year  must  have  begun. 
Thus  at  the  latest  date  of  the  Exodus,  there  is  an 
interval  of  a  month  and  a  half  between  the  begin 
ning  of  the  Hebrew  year  and  Epiphi  1.  This  in 
terval  represents  about  180  years,  through  which 
the  Vague  year  would  retrograde  in  the  Julian  until 
the  commencement  of  Epiphi  corresponded  to  the 
vernal  equinox,  and  no  method  can  reduce  it  below 
100.  It  is  possible  to  effect  thus  much  by  conjec 
turing  that  the  month  Abib  began  somewhat  after 
this  tropical  point,  though  the  precise  details  of  the 
state  of  the  crops  at  the  time  of  the  plagues,  as 
compared  with  the  phenomena  of  agriculture  in 
Lower  Egypt  at  the  present  day,  make  half  a 
month  an  extreme  extension.  At  the  time  of  the 
plague  of  hail,  the  barley  was  in  the  ear  and  was 
smitten  with  the  flax,  but  the  wheat  was  not  suffi 
ciently  forward  to  be  destroyed  (Ex.  ix.  31,  32). 
In  Lower  Egypt,  at  the  present  day,  this  would  be 
the  case  about  the  end  of  February  and  beginning 
of  March.  The  Exodus  cannot  have  taken  place 
many  days  after  the  plague  of  hail,  so  that  it  must 
have  occurred  about  or  a  little  after  the  time  of  the 
vernal  equinox,  and  thus  Abib  cannot  possibly  have 
begun  much  after  that  tropical  point :  half  a  month 
is  therefore  excessive.  We  have  thus  carefully 
examined  the  evidence  as  to  the  supposed  derivation 
of  Abib  from  Epiphi,  because  it  has  been  carelessly 
taken  for  granted,  and  more  carelessly  alleged  in 
support  of  the  latest  date  of  the  Exodus. 

(2.)  We  have  founded  an  argument  for  the  date 
of  the  Exodus  upon  another  comparison  of  the 
Hebrew  year  and  the  Vague  year.  We  have 
seen  that  the  sacred  commencement  of  the  Hebrew 
year  was  at  the  new  moon  about  or  next  after, 
but  not  much  before,  the  vernal  equinox:  the 
civil  commencement  must  usually  have  been  at  the 
new  moon  nearest  the  autumnal  equinox.  At  the 
earliest  date  of  the  Exodus  computed  by  modern 
chr  >nologers,  about  the  middle  of  the  17th  century 
B.C.,  the  Egyptian  Vague  year  commenced  at  or 
about  the  latter  time.  The  Hebrew  year,  reckoned 
from  the  civil  commencement,  and  the  Vague  vear, 


Rameseum  of  El-Kurneh  to  be  corrupt ;  but  in  several 
cases  they  are  traceable.  The  following  are  certain  :— 

1.  ©«0,  OCUOY T,  divinity  TEET  (Thoth),  as  well 
as  a  goddess  ^  Tlaaxfri,  TIA.CUn.1,  Fl'EH,  i.  e.  PA- 
Fi'KH,  belenging  to  Ptah.  3.  'AWp,  £.<XIJp,  HAT- 
HAR.  9.  Hax&v,  nA-^XCUIt,  KHUNS,  i.e.  PA- 
KHUJS3.  11.  Ewi^i,  eHHIU,  PEP-T,  or  APAl'-T. 
The  names  of  months  are  therefore,  in  their  corrupt 


YEAR 

therefoie,  then  nearly  or  exactly  coincided.  We  hav« 
already  seen  that  the  Hebrews  in  P^gypt,  if  they 
used  a  foreign  year,  must  be  supposed  to  have  used 
the  Vague  year.  It  is  worth  while  to  inquire 
whether  a  Vague  year  of  this  time  would  furthe.* 
suit  the  characteristics  of  the  first  Hebrew  year. 
It  would  be  necessary  that  the  14th  day  of  Abib,  on 
which  fell  the  full  moon  of  the  Passover  of  the 
Exodus,  should  correspond  to  the  14th  of  Pha- 
menoth,  in  a  Vague  year  commencing  about  the 
autumnal  equinox.  A  full  moon  fell  on  the  14th  cf 
Phamenoth,  or  Thursday,  April  21,  B.C.  1652,  of  a 
Vague  year  commencing  on  the  day  of  the  autumnal 
equinox,  Oct.  10,  B.C.  1653.  A  full  moon  would 
not  fall  on  the  same  day  of  the  Vague  year  within 
a  shorter  interval  than  twenty-five  years,  and  the 
triple  near  coincidence  of  new  moon,  Vague  year,  ani 
autumnal  equinox,  would  nut  recur  in  less  than  1 500 
Vague  years  (Enc.  Brit.  8th  ed.  Egypt,  p.  458). 
This  date  of  the  Exodus,  B.C.  1652,  is  only  four 
years  earlier  than  Hales's,  B.C.  1648.  In  confirma 
tion  of  this  early  date,  it  must  be  added  that  in  a 
list  of  confederates  defeated  by  Thothmes  III.  at 
Megiddo  in  the  23rd  >ear  of  his  reign,  are  certain 
names  that  we  believe  can  only  refer  to  Israelite 
tribes.  The  date  of  this  king's  accession  cannot  be 
later  than  about  B.C.  1460,  and  his  23rd  yeat 
cannot  therefore  be  later  than  about  B.C.  1440.fc 
Were  the  Israelites  then  settled  in  Palestine,  no 
date  of  the  Exodus  but  the  longest  would  be  tenable. 
[CHRONOLOGY.] 

II.  Divisions  of  the  Year. — I.  Seasons.  Two  sea 
sons  are  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  f^p,  "  summer," 
and  t)1)h,  "  winter."  The  former  properly  means 
the  time  of  cutting  fruits,  the  latter,  that  of  gather 
ing  fruits;  they  are  therefore  originally  rather 
summer  and  autumn  than  summer  and  winter. 
But  that  they  signify  ordinarily  the  two  grand  divi 
sions  of  the  year,  the  warm  and  cold  seasons,  is 
evident  from  their  use  for  the  whole  year  in  the  ex 
pression  ?)^ni  )^p,  "summer  and  winter"  (Ps. 
Ixxiv.  17 ;  Zech.  xiv.  8,  perhaps  Gen.  viii.  22), 
and  from  the  mention  of  "  the  winter  house " 
(Jer.  xxxvi.  22)  and  "  the  summer  house "  (Am. 
iii.  15,  where  both  are  mentioned  together). 
Probably  Sj'in,  when  used  without  reference  to  the 
year  (as  in  Job  xxix.  4),  retains  its  original  signifi 
cation.  In  the  promise  to  Noah,  after  the  Flood, 
the  following  remarkable  passage  occurs :  "  While 
the  earth  remaineth,  seed-time  and  harvest,  and 
cold  and  heat,  and  summer  and  winter,  and  day  and 
night  shall  not  cease  "  (Gen.  viii.  22).  Here  "  seed 
time,"  y^T,  and  "  harvest,"  "V^p,  are  evidently  the 
agricultural  seasons.  It  seems  unreasonable  to 
suppose  that  they  mean  winter  and  summer,  as  the 
beginnings  of  the  periods  of  sowing  and  of  harvest 
are  not  separated  by  six  months,  and  they  do  not 
last  for  six  months  each,  or  nearly  so  long  a  time. 
The  phrase  "  cold  and  heat,"  DHI  "Ip,  probably 

forms,  either  derived  from  the  names  of  divinities,  or  thf 
same  as  those  names.  The  name  of  the  goddess  of  Epiphi 
is  written  PT  TEE,  or  PT,  "  twice."  As  T  is  the  feminine 
termination,  the  root  appears  to  be  P,  "  twice/'  thus  PEP-T 
or  APAP-T,  the  latter  being  Lepsius's  reading.  (See  Lep- 
s  ius,  Denkmaler,  abth.  iii.  bl.  170,  171,  Chr&n.  d.  Aeg.  L 
p.  14],  and  Poole,  Horae  Aegyptiaeae,  p.  7-9,  14, 15, 18.) 

b  The  writer's  paper  on  this  subject  not  having  yet  been 
published,  he  must  refer  to  the  abstract  in  the  Athenwuw 
No.  1847,  Mar.  21,  1863. 


YEAE 

Indicates  the  great  alternations  of  temperature.    Th 
whole  passage  indeed  speaks  of  the  alternations  of 
nature,  whether  of  productions,  temperature,  the 
seasons,  or  light  and  darkness.     As  we  have  seen 
the  year  was  probably  then  a  wandering  one,  and 
therefore   the    passage   is    not   likely    to   refer   to 
it,  but  to  natural  phenomena  alone.     [SEASONS; 
CHRONOLOGY.] 

2.  Months. — The  Hebrew  months,  from  the  time 
of  the  Exodus,  were  lunar.    The  year  appears  ordi 
narily  to  have  contained  twelve,  but,  when  inter 
calation  was   necessary,  a  thirteenth.      The   older 
year  contained  twelve  months  of  thirty  days  each. 
[MONTH;  CHRONOLOGY.] 

3.  Weeks.— The  Hebrews,  from  the  time  of  the 
institution  of  the  Sabbath,  whether  at  or  before  the 
Exodus,  reckoned  by  weeks,  but,  as  no  lunar  year 
could  have  contained  a  number  of  weeks  without 
a  fractional   excess,  this   reckoning  was  virtually 
independent  of   the   year   as  with   the   Muslims. 
[WEEK  ;  SABBATH  ;  CHRONOLOGY.] 

4.  Festivals,  holy  days,  and  fasts.— The  Feast 
of  the  Passover  was  held  on  the  14th  day  of  the 
1st  month.     The  Feast  of  Unleavened  Bread  lasted 
7  days;   from   the  15th   to   the  21st,  inclusive, 
of  the  same  month.     Its  first  and  last  days  were 
kept  as  sabbaths.     The  Feast  of  Weeks,  or  Pen 
tecost,  was  celebrated  on  the  day  which  ended  seven 
weeks  counted  from  the  16th  of  the   1st  month, 
that  day  being  excluded.     It  was  called  the  "  Feast 
of  Harvest,"  and  "  Day  of  First-fruits."    The  Feast 
of  Trumpets  (lit.  "of  the  sound  of  the  trumpet") 
was  kept  as  a  sabbath  on  the  1st  day  of  the  7th 
month.     The  Day  of  Atonement  (lit.  "  of  Atone 
ments")  was  a  fast,  held  the  10th  day  of  the  7th 
month.     The  "  Feast  of  Tabernacles,"  or  "  Feast  of 
Gathering,"  was  celebrated  from  the  15th  to  the 
22nd  day,  inclusive,  of  the  7th  month.     Additions 
made  long  after  the  giving  of  the  Law,  and  not 
known  to  be  of  higher  than  priestly  authority,  are 
the  Feast  of  Purim,  commemorating  the  defeat  of 
Haman's  plot ;  the  Feast  of  the  Dedication,  recording 
the  cleansing  and  re-dedication  of  the  Temple  by 
Judas  Maccabaeus ;   and  four  fasts. 

III.  Sacred  Years.  — 1.  The  Sabbatical  year, 
ntSD^n  JW,  "  the  fallow  year,"  or,  possibly, 
"  year  of  remission,"  or  f"lt3£>K>  alone,  kept  every 
seventh  year,  was  commanded  to  be  observed  as  a 
year  of  rest  from  the  labours  of  agriculture  and  of 
remission  of  debts.  Two  Sabbatical  years  are 
recorded,  commencing  and  current,  B.C.  164-3  and 
136-5.  [SABBATICAL  YEAR  ;  CHRONOLOGY.] 

2.  The  Jubilee  year,  ^!N»n  JUG?,  "  the  year  of 
the  trumpet,"  or  72V  alone,  a  like  year,  which  im 
mediately  followed  every  seventh  Sabbatical  year. 
It  has  been  disputed  whether  the  Jubilee  year  was 
every  49th  or  50th  :  the  former  is  more  probable. 
[JUBILEE;  CHRONOLOGY.]  [R.  S.  P.] 

YOKE.  1.  A  well-known  implement  of  hus 
bandry,  described  in  the  Hebrew  language  by  the 
terms  mot,''  motah*  and  '6l,f  the  two  former  speci 
fically  applying  to  the  bows  of  wood  out  of  which 
it  was  constructed,  and  the  last  to  the  application 
(binding)  of  the  article  to  the  neck  of  the  ox.  The 
expressions  are  combined  in  Lev.  xxvi.  13  and  Ez. 
xxxiv.  27,  with  the  meaning,  "  bands  of  the  yoke." 
The  term  "  yoke  "  is  frequently  used  metaphorically 


ZAANA1M 


1807 


for  subjection  (e.  g.  1  K.  xii.  4,  9-1 1  ,  Is.  ix.  4 ; 
Jer.  v.  5):  hence  an  "iron  yoke"  repiesents  au 
unusually  galling  bondage  (Deut.  xxviii.  48 :  Jer. 
xxviii.  13).  2.  A  pair  of  oxen,  so  termed  as  beiag 
yoked  together  (1  Sam.  xi.  7  ;  1  K.  xix.  19,  21), 
The  Hebrew  term,  tzemedp  is  also  applied  to  assee 
(Judg.  xix.  10)  ofcd  mules  (2  K.  v.  17),  and  even 
to  a  couple  of  riders  (Is.  xxi.  7).  3.  The  term 
tzemed  is  also  applied  to  a  certain  amount  of  land, 
equivalent  to  that  which  a  couple  of  oxen  could 
plough  in  a  day  (Is.  v.  10  ;  A.  V.  "  acre "),  cor 
responding  to  the  Latin  jugum  (Varro,  R.  R.  i, 
10).  The  term  stands  in  this  sense  in  1  Sam. 
xiv.  14  (A.  V.  "  yoke  ")  ;  but  the  text  is  doubtful, 
and  the  rendering  of  the  LXX.  suggests  that  tha 
true  reading  would  refer  to  the  instruments  (e* 
wherewith  the  slaughter  w.'is  effected. 

[W.  L.  B.] 

Z 

ZAAN'AIM,  THE  PLAIN  OF  (;tf>« 
8pDs  ir\£ov€KTQvvT(av ;  Alex.  S.  ava~ 
:  Vallis  quae  vocabatur  Senniiri)  ;  or, 
more  accurately  "  the  oak  by  Zaannaim,"  such 
being  probably  the  meaning  of  the  word  eldn. 
[PLAIN,  890  6.]  A  tree — probably  a  sacred  tree — 
mentioned  as  marking  the  spot  near  which  Heber 
the  Kenite  was  encamped  when  Sisera  took  refuge 
in  his  tent  (Judg.  iv.  11).  Its  situation  is  defined 
as  "  near  Kedesh,"  i.  e.  Kedesh- Naphtali,  the  name 
ef  which  still  lingers  on  the  high  ground,  north  of 
Safed,  and  west  of  the  Lake  of  el  Huleh,  usually 
identified  with  the  Waters  of  Merom.  The  Targum 
gives  as  the  equivalent  of  the  name,  mishor  agga- 
niya,  "  the  plain  of  the  swamp,"  and  in  the  well- 
mown  passage  of  the  Talmud  (Megillah  Jerush.  i.) 
which  contains  a  list  of  several  of  the  towns  of 
Galilee  with  their  then  identifications,  the  equivalent 
for  "Elon  (or  Aijalon)  be-Zaannaim"  is  Agniya 
hak-kodesh.  'Ague  appears  to  signify  a  swamp,  and 
can  hardly  refer  to  anything  but  the  marsh  which 
borders  the  lake  of  Huleh  on  the  north  side,  and 
which  was  probably  more  extensive  in  the  time 
of  Deborah  than  it  now  is  [MEROM].  On  the 
other  hand,  Professor  Stanley  has  pointed  out 
(Jewish  Church,  324;  Localities,  197)  how  appro 
priate  a  situation  for  this  memorable  tree  is  afforded 
ay  "  a  green  plain  .  .  .  studded  with  massive  tere 
binths,"  which  adjoins  on  the  south  the  plain  con 
taining  the  remains  of  Kedesh.  The  whole  of  this 
upland  country  is  more  or  less  rich  in  terebinths. 
[)ne  such,  larger  than  usual,  and  bearing  the  name 
of  Sejar  em-Messiah,  is  marked  on  the  map  of  Van 
de  Velde  as  6  miles  N.W.  of  Kedes.  These  two 
suggestions — of  the  ancient  Jewish  and  the  modern 
Christia^  student— may  be  left  side  by  side  to 
await  the  result  of  future  investigation.  In  favour 
9f  the  former  is  the  slight  argument  to  be  drawn 
i-om  the  early  date  of  the  interpretation,  and  the 
'act  that  the  basin  of  the  Huleh  is  still  the  favourite 
lamping  ground  of  Bedouins.  In  favour  of  the  latter 
s  the  instinct  of  the  observer  and  the  abundance  of 
;rees  in  the  neighbourhood. 

No  name  answering  to  either  Zaannaim  or  Ague 
has  yet  been  encountered. 

The  Keri,  or  correction,  of  Judg.  iv.  11,  substi- 
utes  Zaanannim  for  Zaanaim,  and  the  same  form  is 
found  in  Josh.  xix.  33.  This  correction  the  lexico 
graphers  adopt  as  the  more  accurate  forai  of  the 
lame.  It  appears  to  be  derived  (if  a  ITf>bre  .v  word) 


1808 


ZAANAN 


from  a  root  signifying  to  load  beasts  as  nomads  io 
when  they  change  their  places  of  residence  (Gesen. 
Thes.  1177).  Such  a  meaning  agrees  well  with 
the  habits  of  the  Kenites.  But  nothing  can  be 
more  uncertain  than  such  explanations  of  topo 
graphical  names  —  most  to  be  distrusted  when  most 
plausible.  [G.] 

ZAAN'AN  (f3K¥  :  2e»Wp:  inexitu).  A  place 
named  by  Micah  (i.  11)  in  his  address  to  the  towns 
of  the  Shetelah.  This  sentence,  like  others  of  the 
same  passage,  contains  a  play  of  words  founded  on 
the  meaning  (or  on  a  possible  meaning)  of  the 
name  Zaanan,  as  derived  from  yatsah,  to  go  forth  :  — 
"  The  inhabitress  of  Tsaanan  came  not  forth." 

The  division  of  the  passage  shown  in  the  LXX. 
and  A.  V.,  by  which  Zaanan  is  connected  with  Beth- 
ezel  —  is  now  generally  recognized  as  inaccurate.  It 
is  thus  given  by  Dr.  Pusey,  in  his  Commentary  — 
"  The  inhabitant  of  Zaanan  came  not  forth.  The 
mourning  of  Beth-ezel  shall  take  from  you  its  stand 
ing."  So  also  Ewald,  De  Wette,  and  Zunz. 

Zaanan  is  doubtless  identical  with  ZEN  AN.  [G.] 

ZA'AVAN  (JJSJT  :  ZOUKC^I  ;  Alex.  'Iowa/erf/*, 
'IcaaKav:  Zavan).  A  Horite  chief,  son  of  Ezer  the 
son  of  Seir  (Gen.  xxxvi.  27  ;  1  Chr.  i.  42).  The 
LXX.  appear  to  have  read  |plf.  In  1  Chr.  the 
A.  V.  has  ZAVAN. 

ZA'BAD  O1T:  Za/Se'S,  Safler  ;  Alex.  Zafidr 
in  1  Chr.  :  Zabad:  short  for  nH3J  :  see  Zebadiah, 


Zabdi,  Zabdiel,  Zebedee,  "  ftxf  hath  given  him"). 

1.  Son  of  Nathan,  son  of  Attai,  son  of  Ahlai, 
Sheshan's  daughter  (1  Chr.  ii.  31-37),  and  hence 
called  son  of  Ahlai  (1  Chr.  xi.  41).  He  was  one  of 
David's  mighty  men,  but  none  of  his  deeds  have 
been  recorded.  The  chief  interest  connected  with 
him  is  his  genealogy,  which  is  of  considerable  im 
portance  in  a  chronological  point  of  view,  and  as 
throwing  incidental  light  upon  the  structure  of  the 
Book  of  Chronicles,  and  the  historical  value  of  the 
genealogies  in  it.  Thus  in  1  Chr.  ii.  26-41,  we 
have  the  following  pedigree,  the  generations  pre 
ceding  Jerahmccl  being  prefixed  :  — 

(1)  Judah.  (13)  Nathan. 

(2)  Pharez.  (14)  ZA.BAD. 

(3)  Hezron.  (15)  Ephlal 

(4)  Jerahmeel.  (16)  Obed. 
'    (5)  Onarn.                                      (17)  Jehu. 

(6)  Shammai.  (18)  AZARIAH. 

(7)  Nadab.  (19)  Helez. 
(?)  Appalm.                                  (20)  Eleasah. 
(9)  Ishi.  (21)  Sisamai. 

(10)  Sheshan.  (22)  Shallum. 

(11)  Ahlai,  his  1  =Jarha  the         (23)  Jekamiah. 

daughter  5     Egyptian. 

(12)  Attai.  (24)  Ellshama. 

Here,  then,  is  a  genealogy  of  twenty-four  gene 
rations,  commencing  with  the  patriarch,  and  termi 
nating  we  know  not.  at  first  sight,  where  ;  but  as 
we  happen  to  know,  from  the  history,  where  Zabad 
the  son  of  Ahlai  lived,  we  are  at  least  sure  of  this 
fact,  that  the  fourteenth  generation  brings  us  to 
the  tima  jf  David;  and  that  this  is  about  the  cor 
rect  number  we  are  also  sure,  because  out  of  seven 
other  perfect  genealogies,  covering  the  same  interval 
of  time,  four  have  the  same  number  (fourteen), 
two  have  fifteen,  and  David's  own  has  eleven. 
[GENEAL.  OF  JESUS  CHRIST,  p.  667.] 

But  it  also  happens  that  another  person  in  the 
line  is  an  historical  personage,  whom  we  know 
to  hav?  lived  during  the  usurpation  of  Athaliah, 


ZABAD 

viz.  Azariah  the  son  (i.  e.  grandson)  of  Obed  (2 
Chr.  xxiii.  1).  [AZARIAH,  13.]  He  was  fourth. 
after  Zabad.  while  Jehoram,  Athaliah's  husband, 
was  sixth  after  David — a  perfectly  satisfactory  cor 
respondence  when  we  take  into  account  thai  Zabad ' 
may  probably  have  been  considerably  young  >r  than 
David,  and  that  the  early  marriages  of  the  kings 
have  a  constant  tendency  to  increase  the  number  of 
generations  in  the  royal  line.  Again,  the  hit  name 
in  the  line  is  the  sixth  after  Azariah  ;  but  Heiekiah 
was  the  sixth  king  after  Athaliah,  and  we  know 
that  many  of  the  genealogies  were  written  cat  by 
"  the  men  of  Hezekiah,"  and  therefore  of  course 
came  down  to  his  time  [BECHER,  p.  176]  (see 
1  Chr.  iv.  41  ;  Prov.  xxv.  1).  So  that  we  may 
conclude,  with  great  probability,  both  that  this 
genealogy  ends  in  the  time  of  Hezekiah,  and  that 
all  its  links  are  perfect. 

One  other  point  of  importance  remains  to  be 
noticed,  viz.  that  Zabad  is  called,  after  his  great- 
grandmother,  the  founder  of  his  house,  son  of  Ahlai. 
For  that  Ahlai  was  the  name  of  Sheshan's  daughter 
is  certain  from  1  Chr.  ii.  31  ;  and  it  is  also  certain, 
from  vcrs.  35,  36,  that  from  her  marriage  with 
Jarha  descended,  in  the  third  generation,  Zabad.  It 
is  therefore  as  certain  as  such  matters  can  be,  that 
Zabad  the  son  of  Ahlai,  David's  mighty  man,  was 
so  called  from  Ahlai  his  female  ancestor.  The  case 
is  analogous  to  that  of  Joab,  and  Abishai,  and 
Asahel,  who  are  always  called  sons  of  Zeruiah, 
Zeruiah,  like  Ahlai,  having  married  a  foreigner. 
Or  if  any  one  thinks  there  is  a  difference  between  a 
man  being  called  the  son  of  his  mother,  and  the  son 
of  his  great-grandmother,  a  more  exact  parallel  may 
be  found  in  Gen.  xxv.  4,  xxxvi.  12,  13,  16,  17, 
where  the  descendants  of  Keturah,  and  of  the  wives 
of  Esau,  in  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  are 
called  "  the  sons  of  Keturah,"  "  the  sons  of  Adah  " 
and  "  of  Bashemath  "  respectively. 

2.  (ZojScfo;  Alex.  ZajSe'J).     An  Ephraimite,  if 
the    text   of  1    Chr.    vii.    21    is    correct.       [Se2 
SHUTHELAH.] 

3.  (ZajSe'5 ;  Alex.  Za£e'0).    Son  of  Shimeath,  an 
Ammonitess,  an  assassin  who,  with  Jehozabad,  slew 
king  Joash,  according  to  2  Chr.  xxiv.  26 ;  but  in  2  K. 
xii.  21,  his  name  is  written,  probably  more  correctly, 
Jozachar  [JozACHAR].    He  was  one  of  the  domestic 
servants  of  the  palace,  and  apparently  the  agent  of 
a  powerful  conspiracy  (2  Chr.  xxv.  3 ;  2  K.  xiv.  5). 
Joash  had  become   unpopular  from  his   idolatries 
(2  Chr.  xxiv.   18),  his   oppression  (ib.  22),  and, 
above  all,  his  calamities  (ib.  23-25).    The  explana 
tion  given  in  the  article  JOZACHAR  is  doubtless  the 
true  one,  that  the  chronicler  represents  this  violent 
death  of  the  king,  as  well  as  the  previous  invasion 
of  the  Syrians,  as  a  Divine  judgment  against  him 
for  the  innocent  blood  of  Zechariah  shed  by  him : 
not  that  the  assassins  themselves  were  actuated  by 
the  desire  to  avenge  the  death  of  Zechariah.     They 
were  both  put  to  death  by  Amaziah,  but  their  chil 
dren  were  spared  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  Moses 
(Deut.  xxiv.  16).  The  coincidence  between  the  names 
Zechariah  and  Jozachar  is  remarkable.    [A.  C.  H.] 

4.  (Zo)8a5.)  A  layman  of  Israel,  of  the  sons  ot 
Zattu,  who  put  away  his  foreign  wife  at  Ezra's 
command  (Ezr.  x.  27).     He  is  called  SABATUS  in 
1  Esd.  ix.  28. 

5.  (Zo5a£';  Zoj8o5.)  One  of  the  descendants  of 


»  He  does  not  appear  in  the  list  in  2  Sam.  xxiv.,  and 
may  therefore  be  presumed  to  have  been  added  in  ttf 
latter  part  of  David's  reign. 


ZABADA1AS 

FTashum,  who  had  married  a  foreign  wifr  afltl  the 
Captivity  (Ezr.  x.  33):  called  BANNAIA  in  1  Esd. 
ix.  33. 

6.  (ZaflaS  ;  Alex,  om.)  One  of  the  sons  of  Nebo, 
whose  name  is  mentioned  under  the  same  circum 
stances  as  the  two  preceding  (Ezr.  x.  43).  It  is  repre 
sented  by  ZABADAIAS  in  1  Esd.  ix.  35.  [W.  A.  W.] 

ZABADAI'AS  (ZaQaSaias:  Sabatus).  ZA- 
BAD  6  (1  Esd.  ix.  35 ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  43). 

ZABADE  ANS  (Za/3e5a?ot ;  Alex.  ZajSaSeoi : 
Zabadaei).  An  Arab  tribe  who  were  attacked  and 
spoiled  by  Jonathan,  on  his  way  back  to  Damascus 
from  his  fruitless  pursuit  of  the  army  cf  Demetrius 
(1  Mace.  xii.  31).  Josephus  calls  them  Nabataeans 
(Ant.  xiii.  5,  §10),  but  he  is  evidently  in  error. 
Nothing  certain  is  known  of  them.  Ewald  (Gesch. 
Iv.  882)  finds  a  trace  of  their  name  in  that  of  the 
place  Zabda  given  by  Robinson  in  his  lists  ;  but  this 
is  too  far'south,  between  the  Yarmuk  and  the  Zurka. 
Michaelis  suggests  the  Arab  tribe  Zobeideh;  but 
they  do  not  appear  in  the  necessary  locality. 
Jonathan  had  pursued  the  enemy's  army  as  far  as 
the  river  Eleutherus  (Nahr  el  Rebir),  and  was  on 
liis  march  back  to  Damascus  when  he  attacked  and 
plundered  the  Zabadeans.  We  must  look  for  them, 
therefore,  somewhere  to  the  north-west  of  Damascus. 
Accordingly,  on  the  road  from  Damascus  to  Baalbek, 
at  a  distance  of  about  8|  hours  (26  miles)  from  the 
former  place,  is  the  village  Zcbddny,  standing  at 
the  upper  end  ot  a  plain  of  the  same  name,  which 
is  the  very  centre  of  Antilibanus.  The  name  Zeb- 
(fdnt/  i.s  possibly  a  relic  of  the  ancient  tribe  of  the 
Zabadeans.  According  to  Burckhardt  (Syria,  p.  3), 
the  plain  "  is  about  three  quarters  of  an  hour  in 
breadth,  and  three  hours  in  length  ;  it  is  called 
Ard  Zebdeni,  or  the  district  of  Zebdeiii ;  it  is 
watered  by  the  Barrada,  one  of  whose  sources  is  in 
the  midst  of  it;  and  by  the  rivulet  called  Moiet 
Zebdeni,  whose  source  is  in  the  mountain  behind 
the  village  of  the  same  name."  The  plain  is 
"  limited  on  one  side  by  the  eastern  part  of  the 
Antilibanus,  called  here  Djebel  Zebdeni."  The  vil 
lage  is  of  considerable  size,  containing  nearly  3000 
inhabitants,  who  breed  cattle,  and  the  silkworm, 
and  have  some  dyeing-houses  (ibid.).  Not  far  from 
Zebdany,  on  the  western  slopes  of  Antilibanu;;,  is 
another  village  called  Kefr  Zebad,  which  again 
seems  to  point  to  this  as  the  district  formerly 
occupied  by  the  Zabadeans.  [W.  A.  W.] 

ZABBA'I  (»3T  :  Zaftov  :  Zabbdi).  1.  One  of 
the  descendants  of  Bebai,  who  had  married  a  foreign 
wife  in  the  days  of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  28).  He  is  called 
JOSABAD  in  1  Esd.  ix.  29. 

2.  (ZajSou;  FA.  Zafipov :  ZacAai.)  Father  of 
Baruch,  who  assisted  Nehemiah  in  rebuilding  the 
city  wall  (Neh.  iii.  20). 

ZAB'BUD  CM2T,  Ken  "1-13T ;  ZajSo^S :  Zachur). 
One  of  the  sons  of  Bigvai,  who  returned  in  the 
second  caravan  with  Ezra  (Esr.  viii.  14).  In  1  Esd. 
viii.  40  his  name  is  corrupted  into  ISTALCURUS. 

ZABDE'US  (Zo/38aTos:  Vulg.  om.).  ZE 
BAD  IAH  of  the  sons  of  Im.ner  (1  Esd.  ix.  21 ;  comp. 
Ezr.  x.  20). 

ZAB'DI  (^3T  :  Za/*/y ;  Alex.  Zajfyu  in  Josh. 
vii.  1 :  Zabdi).  1.  Son  of  Zerah,  the  sou  of  Judah, 
and  ancestor  of  Achan  (Josh.  vii.  1,  17,  18). 

2.  (Za/38i.)  A  Benjamite,  of  the  sons  of  ShiirJii 
(1  Chr.  viii.  19). 


ZACOHAEU8  1809 

27).  He  is  called  "  the  Shiphmite,"  that  is,  in  all 
probability,  native  of  Shepham  ;  but  his  native  place 
has  not  been  traced. 

4.  (Vat.  and  Alex.  om. ;  FA.  third  hand  Ze;^ : 
Zebedeiis.)  Son  of  Asaph  the  minstrel  (Neh.  xi. 
17) ;  called  elsewhere  ZACCUR  (Neh.  xii.  35)  and 
ZICHRI  (1  Chr.  ix.  15). 

ZAB'DIEL  (Wl3T:  Za/BSifa. :  Zabdiel}. 
1.  Father  of  Jashobeam,  the  chief  of  David's  guard 
(1  Chr.  xx vii.  2). 

2.  (BaSnfa-;  Alex.  Zoxpt^A..)   A  priest,  son  ot 
the  great  men,  or,  as  the  rr»argin  gives  it,  "  Hagge- 
dolim"  (Neh.  xi.  14).      He  had  the  oversight  of 
128  of  his  brethren  after  the  return  from  Babylon. 

3.  (Za/SSt^A. ;  Joseph.  Za/SrjAos  :  Zabdiel.}    An 
Arabian  chieftain  who  put  Alexander  Balas  to  death 
(1  Mace.  xi.  17  ;  Joseph.  Ant.  xiii.  4,  §8).  According 
to  Diodorus,  Alex.  Balas  was  murdered  by  two  of 
the  officers  who  accompanied  him  (Miiller,  Fragm. 
Hist.  ii.  16). 

ZA'BUD  (TIIT  :  ZaftovO  ;  Alex.  Zoj8j8ov0  : 
Zabud).  The  son  "of  Nathan  (1  K.  iv.  5).  He  is 
described  as  a  priest  (A.  V.  "  principal  officer;" 
PRIEST,  p.  915),  and  as  holding  at  the  court  of  Solo 
mon  the  confidential  post  of  "  king's  friend,"  which 
had  been  occupied  by  Hushai  the  Archite  during  the 
reign  of  David  (2  Sam.  xv.  37,  xvi.  16  ;  1  Ghr.  xjcvii. 
33).  This  position,  if  it  were  an  official  one,  was 
evidently  distinct  from  that  of  counsellor,  occupied 
by  Ahithophel  under  David,  and  had  more  of  the 
character  of  private  friendship  about  it,  for  Absalom 
conversely  calls  David  the  "  friend "  of  Hushai 
(2  Sam.  xvi.  17).  In  the  Vat.  MS.  of  the  LXX. 
the  word  "priest"  is  omitted,  and  in  the  Arabic 
of  the  London  Polyglot  it  is  referred  to  Nathan. 
The  Peshito-Syriac  and  several  Hebrew  MSS.  for 
"  Zabud  "  read  "  Zaccur."  The  same  occurs  in  the 
case  of  ZABBUD. 

ZABUL'ONfZajSouA.wj':  Zabulon}.  The  Greek 
form  of  the  rutme  ZEBULUN  (Matt.  iv.  13,  15 ; 
Rev.  vii.  8). 

ZACCA'I  X'3t :  ZaKXov  ;  Alex.  Ztaexaf  '" 
Ezra:  Zachai).  The  sons  of  Zaccai,  to  the  number 
of  760,  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  9  ;  Neh. 
vii.  14).  The  name  is  the  same  which  appears  in 
the  N.  T.  in  the  familiar  form  of  ZACCHAEUS. 

ZACCHAEUS  (Za/cxaTos  :  Zacchaeus}.  The 
name  of  a  tax-collector  near  Jericho,  who  being 
short  in  stature  climbed  up  into  a  sycamore- 
tree,  in  order  to  obtain  a  sight  of  Jesus  as  He 
passed  through  that  place.  Luke  only  has  re 
lated  the  incident  (xix.  1-10).  Zacchaeus  was  a 
Jew,  as  may  be  inferred  from  his  name  and  from 
the  fact  that  the  Saviour  speaks  of  him  expressly 
as  "  a  son  -of  Abraham"  (vibs  'AjSpoaju).  So  the 
latter  expression  should  be  understood,  and  not  in  a 
spiritual  sense  ;  for  it  was  evidently  meant  to  assert 
that  he  was  one  of  the  chosen  race,  notwithstanding 
the  prejudice  of  some  of  his  countrymen  that  his 
office  under  the  Roman  government  made  him  an 
alien  and  outcast  from  the  privileges  of  the  Israelite. 
The  term  which  designates  this  office  (apxtTe*cc5j/7js) 
is  unusual,  but  describes  him  no  doubt  as  the  super 
intendent  of  customs  or  tribute  in  the  district  ot' 
Jericho,  where  he  lived,  as  one  having  a  commission 
from  his  Roman  principal  (manceps,  publicanus]  to 
.CtJ«ct  the  imposts  levied  on  the  Jews  by  the  Ro- 


3.  (Zabdias.]  David's  officer  over  the  produce  j  maus.  and  tfho  in  the  execution  of  that  trust  cm- 
)f  the  vineyards  for  the  wine-cellars  (1  Chr.  xxvu.  |  pioyed  sub- Items  (the  ordinary  reAwj/ot),  who  were 
VOL.  III.  5  Z 


1810 


ZACCIIEUS 


accountable  to  him,  as  he  in  turn  wjis  accountable 
to  his  superior,  whether  he  resided  at  Rome,  as  was 
more  commonly  the  case,  or  in  the  province  itself 
(see  Winer,  Realw.  ii.  711,  and  Diet,  of  Ant.  p. 
806.).  The  office  must  have  been  a  lucrative  one 
in  such  a  region,  and  it  is  not  strange  that  Zac 
chaeus  is  mentioned  by  the  Evangelist  as  a  rich 
man  (ovros  -f)v  Tr\ovffios).  Josephus  states  (Ant. 
xv.  4,  §2)  that  the  palm-groves  of  Jericho  and  its 
gardens  of  balsam  were  given  as  a  source  of  revenue 
by  Antony  to  Cleopatra,  and,  on  account  of  their 
value,  were  afterwards  redeemed  by  Herod  the  Great 
for  his  own  benefit.  The  sycamore-tree  is  no  longer 
found  in  that  neighbourhood  (Robinson,  Bib.  Res. 
i.  559)  ;  but  no  one  should  be  surprised  at  this, 
since  "  even  the  solitary  relic  of  the  palm-forest, 
seen  as  late  as  1838" — which  existed  near  Jericho, 
nas  now  disappeared  (Stanley,  S.  fy  P.  p.  307). 
The  eagerness  of  Zacchaeus  to  behold  Jesus  indi 
cates  a  deeper  interest  than  that  of  mere  curiosity. 
He  must  fnvc  had  some  knowledge,  by  report  at 
least,  of  the  teachings  of  Christ,  as  well  as  of  His 
wonder-working  power,  and  could  thus  have  been 
awakened  to  some  just  religious  feeling,  which 
would  make  him  the  more  anxious  to  see  the 
announcer  of  the  good  tidings,  so  important  to  men 
as  sinnei-s.  The  readiness  of  Christ  to  take  up  His 
abode  with  him,  and  His  declaration  that  "  salva 
tion  "  had  that  day  come  to  the  house  of  his  enter 
tainer,  prove  sufficiently  that  "  He  who  knows 
what  is  in  man  "  perceived  in  him  a  religious  sus 
ceptibility  which  fitted  him  to  be  the  recipient  of 
spiritual  blessings.  Reflection  upon  his  conduct  on 
the  part  of  Zacchaeus  himself  appears  to  have  re 
vealed  to  him  deficiencies  which  disturbed  his  con 
science,  and  he  was  ready,  on  being  instructed  more 
fully  in  regard  to  the  way  of  life,  to  engage  to 
"  restore  fourfold  "  for  the  illegal  exactions  oif  which 
he  would  not  venture  to  deny  (e?  nv6s  n  CCTVKO- 
(^ai/TTjcro)  that  he  might  have  been  guilty.  At 
all  events  he  had  not  lived  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
overcome  the  prejudice  which  the  Jews  entertained 
against  individuals  of  his  class,  and  their  censure 
fell  on  him  as  well  as  on  Christ  when  they  declared 
that  the  latter  had  not  scorned  to  avail  Himself  of 
the  hospitality  of  "  a  man  that  was  a  sinner."  The 
Saviour  spent  the  night  probably  (/teTi/ot,  ver.  5, 
and  Kara\vffai,  ver.  7,  are  the  terms  used)  in  the 
house  of  Zacchaeus,  and  the  next  day  pursued  his 
journey  to  Jerusalem.  He  was  in  the  caravan  from 
Galilee,  which  was  going  up  thither  fo  keep  the 
Passover.  The  entire  scene  is  well  illustrated  by 
Oosterzee  (Lange's  Bibelwerk,  iii.  285). 

We  read  in  the  Rabbinic  writings  also  of  a  Zac 
chaeus  who  lived  at  Jericho  at  this  same  period, 
well  known  on  his  own  account,  and  especially  as 
the  father  of  the  celebrated  Rabbi  Jochanan  beu 
Zachai  (see  Sepp's  Leben  Jcsu,  iii.  166).  This  per 
son  may  have  been  related  to  the  Zacchaeus  named 
in  the  sacred  narrative.  The  family  of  the  Zaochaei 
was  an  ancient  one,  as  well  as  very  numerous. 
They  are  mentioned  in  the  Books  of  Ezra  (ii.  9) 
and  Nehemiah  (vii.  14)  as  among  those  who  re 
turned  from  the  Babylonian  Captivity  under  Zerub- 
babel,  when  their  number  amounted  to  seven  hun 
dred  and  sixty.  It  should  be  noticed  that  the  name 
is  given  as  ZACCAI  in  the  Authorised  Version  of  the 
Old  Testament.  [H.  B.  H.] 

ZACCHE'US  (ZaKxaw:  Zacchaeus).  An 
officer  of  Judas  Maccabaeus  "1  Mace.  x.  1 9).  Grotius, 
.rom  a  mistaken  reference  to  1  Mace.  v.  56,  wishes  to 
read  Kal  rbvrov  Zaxaoiov.  [B  F.  W.J 


ZACHARIAH 

ZAC'CHUB  O-13T :  Zaxxovp :  Zachur).  A 
Simeonite,  of  the  family  of  Mishma  (1  Chr.  iv.  26). 
His  descendants,  through  his  son  Shimei,  becaiu«» 
one  of  the  most  numerous  branches  of  the  tribe. 

ZAC'CUR  ("VIST  :  Zaxovp  ;  Alex.  ZaXf>o6  '. 
Zechur).  1.  A  Reubenite,  father  of  Shammua,  tlv» 
spy  selected  from  his  tribe  (Num.  xiii  4). 

2.  CZaKXovp',    Alex.   Zaicxovp :    Zachur.)     A 
Merante  Levite,  son  of  Jaaziah  (1  Chr.  xxiv.  27). 

3.  (2a/c%oup,  ZaK%oup;   Alex.  ZaKX°J''p-  Zac» 
chur,  Zachur.}  Son  of  Asaph,  the  singer,  and  chief 
of  the  third  division  of  the  Temple  choir  as  arranged 
by  David  (1  Chr.  xxv.  2,  10 ;  Neh.  xii.  35). 

4.  (Zaitxovp ';     FA.   Zaxx°vp:    Zachur.)    The 
son  of  Imri,  who  assisted  Nehemiah  in  rebuilding 
the  city  wall  (Neh.  iii.  2). 

5.  (Zatt%c6p.)  A  Levite,  or  family  of  Levites,  who 
signed  the  covenant  with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  12). 

6.  (ZaKxovp.)  A  Levite,  whose  son  or  descendant 
Hanan  was  one  of  the  treasurers  over  the  treasuries 
appointed  by  Nehemiah  (Neh.  xiii.  13). 

ZACHAFvI'AH,  or  properly  ZECHARTAH 
(?"P"pT,  "remembered  by  Jehovah:"  Zaxapias: 
Zacharias],  was  son  of  Jeroboam  II.,  14th  king  of 
Israel,  and  the  last  of  the  house  of  Jehu.  There  is 
a  difficulty  about  the  date  of  his  reign.  We  are 
told  that  Amaziah  ascended  the  throne  of  Judah  in 
the  second  year  of  Joash  king  of  Israel,  and  reigned 
29  years  (2  K.  xiv.  1 ,  2).  He  was  succeeded  by 
Uzziah  or  Azariah,  in  the  27th  year  of  Jero 
boam  II.,  the  successor  of  Joash  (2  K.  xv.  1),  and 
Uzziah  reigned  52  years.  On  the  other  hand, 
Joash  king  of  Israel  reigned  16  years  (2  K.  xiii. 
10),  was  succeeded  by  Jeroboam,  who  reigned  41 
(2  K.  xiv.  23),  and  he  by  Zachariah,  who  came  to 
the  throne  in  the  38th  year  of  Uzziah  king  of  Judah 
(2  K.  xv.  8).  Thus  we  have  (1)  from  the  acces 
sion  of  Amaziah  to  the  38th  of  Uzziah,  294-38  = 
67  years  :  but  (2)  from  the  second  year  of  Joash  to 
the  accession  of  Zachariah  (or  at  least  to  the  death 
of  Jeroboam)  we  have  15+41  =  56  years.  Further, 
the  accession  of  Uzziah,  placed  in  the  27th  year  of 
Jeroboam,  according  to  the  above  reckoning  oc 
curred  in  the  15th.  And  this  latter  synchronism 
is  confirmed,  and  that  with  the  27th  year  of  Jero 
boam  contradicted,  by  2  K.  xiv.  17  which  tells  us 
that  Amaziah  king  of  Judah  survived  Joash  king 
of  Israel  by  15  years.  Most  chronologers  assume 
an  interregnum  of  11  years  between  Jeroboam's 
death  and  Zachanah's  accession,  during  which  the 
kingdom  was  suffering  from  the  anarchy  of  a  dis 
puted  succession,  but  this  seems  unlikely  after  the 
reign  of  a  resolute  ruler  like  Jeroboam,  and  does  not 
solve  the  difference  between  2  K.  xiv.  17  and  xv.  1. 
We  are  reduced  to  suppose  that  our  present  MSS 
have  here  incorrect  numbers,  to  substitute  15  for 
27  in  2  K.  xv.  1,  and  to  believe  that  Jeroboam  II. 
reigned  52  or  53.  years.  Josephus  (ix.  10,  §3) 
places  Uzziah's  accession  in  the  14th  year  of  Jero 
boam,  a  variation  of  a  year  in  these  synchronisms 
being  unavoidable,  since  the  Hebrew  annalists  in 
giving  their  dates  do  not  reckon  fractions  of  years. 
[ISRAEL,  KINGDOM  OF,  vol.  i.  p.  900.]  But  whe 
ther  we  assume  an  interregnum,  or  an  error  in  the 
MSS.,  we  must  place  Zachariah's  accession  B.C. 
771-2.  His  reign  lasted  only  six  months.  He  was 
killed  in  a  conspiracy,  of  which  Shallum  was  the 
head,  and  by  which  the  prophecy  in  2  K.  \.  30 
was  accomplished.  We  are  told  that  during  his 
brief  term  of  power  he  did  evil,  and  kept  up  the 
calf-worship  inherited  from  the  first  Jeroboam 


ZACHABIAS 

whioh  his  father  had  maintained  in  regal  splendour 
atBet.icl(Am.vii.!3).  [SHALLUK.]  [G.  E.L.C."] 
2.  (Alex.  Zcryxcuor.)  The  father  'f  Abi,  or 
Abijah,  Hezekiah's  mother  (2  K.  xviii.  2).  lu 
2  Chr.  xxix.  1  he  is  called  ZECHARIAH. 

ZACHARI'AS  (Zaxapias:    Vulg.  ran.).      1. 
Zschariah  the  priest  in  the  reign  of  Josiah  (1  Esd.  i.  8). 

2.  In  1  Esd.  i.  15  Zacharias  occupies  the  place 
of  Heman  in  2  Chr.  xxxv.  15. 

3.  (Zapo/as;    Alex.  Zapeas:    Areores.}   =  SE- 
RAIAH  6,  and  AZARIAH  (1  Esd.  v.  8 ;  comp.  Ezr. 
ii.  2  ;  Neh.  vii.  7).    It  is  not  clear  from  whence  this 
rendering  of  the  name  is  derived.     Our  translators 
follow  the  Geneva  Version. 

4.  (Zaxapias:   Zacharias.}    The  prophet  ZE 
CHARIAH  (1  Esd.  vi.  1,  vii.  3). 

5.  ZECHARIAH  of  the  sons  of  Pharosh  (1  Esd. 
viii.  30;  comp.  Ezr.  viii.  3). 

6.  ZECHARIAH  of  the  sons  of  Bebai  (1  Esd.  viii. 
37;  Ezr.  viii.  11). 

7.  ZECHARIAH,  one  of  "  the  principal  raeri  and 
learned,"  with  whom  Ezra  consulted  (1  Esd.  viii. 
44  ;  comp.  Ezr.  viii.  16). 

8.  ZECHARIAH  of  the  sons  of  Elam  (1  Esd.  ix. 
27 ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  26). 

9.  Father  of  Joseph,  a  leader  in  the  first  campaign 
of  the  Maccabaean  war  (1  Mace.  v.  18,  56-62). 

10.  Father  of  John  the  Baptist  (Luke,  i.  5, 
&c.)    [JOHN  THE  BAPTIST.] 

11.  Son   of  Barachias,    who,    our   Lord    says, 
was  slain  by  the  Jews  between  the  altar  and  the 
temple  (Matt,  xxiii.  35;    Luke,  xi.  51).     There 
has  been  much  dispute  who  this  Zacharias  was. 
From   the  time  of  Origen,  who  relates  that  the 
father   of  John   the   Baptist   was   killed    in    the 
temple,  many  of  the   Greek   Fathers  have  main 
tained  that  this  is  the  person  to  whom  our  Lord 
alludes ;  but  there  can  be  little  or  no  doubt  that 
the  allusion  is  to  Zacharias,  the  son  of  Jehoiada 
(2  Chr.  xxiv.  20,  21).    As  the  Book  of  Chronicles— 
in    which   the   murder   of  Zacharias,  the   son  of 
Jehoiada,    occurs — closes  the  Hebrew  canon,  this 
assassination    was    the    last    of    the   murders   of 
righteous  men  recorded  in  the  Bible,  just  as  that 
of  Abel   was   the   first.     (Comp.    Renan,    Vie  de 
Jesus,  p.  353.)     The  name  of  the  father  of  Za 
charias  is  not  mentioned  by   St.  Luke  ;    and  we 
may  suppose  that  the  name  of  Barachias  crept  into 
the  text  of  St.  Matthew  from  a  marginal  gloss,  a 
confusion  having  been  made  between  Zacharias,  the 
son  of  Jehoiada,  and  Zacharias,  the  son  of  Bara 
chias  (Berechiah),  the  prophet.     [Comp.  ZECHA 
RIAH,  6,  p.  1832.] 

ZACH'AKY  (Zacharias}.  The  prophet  Ze- 
chariah  (2  Esd.  i.  40). 

ZA'CHER  (IDT,  in  pause  12T  :    ZaKyovp  : 

VV  YT 

Zctcher).  One  of  the  sons  of  Jehiel,  the  father  or 
founder  of  Gibeon,  by  his  wife  Maachah  (1  Chr. 
viii.  31).  In  1  Chr.  ix.  37  he  is  called  ZECHARIAH. 

ZA'DOK(pm:  2a5c6/c:  Sadok:  "righteous"). 
1.  Son  of  Ahitub,  and  one  of  the  two  chief  priests 
in  the  time  of  David,  Abiathar  being  the  other. 
[ABIATHAR.]  Zadok  was  of  the  house  of  Eleazar, 
the  son  of  Aaron  (1  Chr.  xxiv.  3),  and  eleventh  in 
descent  from  Aaron.  The  first  mention  of  him  is 
in  1  Chr.  xii.  28,  where  we  are  told  that  he 
joined  David  at  Hebron  after  Saul's  death  with  22 
captains  of  his  father's  house,  and,  apparently,  with 
900  men  (4600-3700,  vers.  26,  27).  Up  to  this 
time,  it  may  be  concluded,  he  had  adhered  to  the 


ZADOK 


1811 


house  of  Saul.  But  henceforth  his  fidelity  to  David 
was  inviolable.  When  Absalom  revolted,  and 
David  fled  from  Jerusalem,  Zadok  and  all  tht 
Levites  bearing  the  Ark  accompanied  him,  and  it 
was  only  at  the  king's  express  command  that  they 
returned  to  Jerusalem,  and  became  the  medium  of 
communication  between  the  king  and  Hushai  the 
Archite  (2  Sam.  xv.,  xvii.).  When  Absalom  was 
dead,  Zadok  and  Abiathar  were  the  persons  who 
persuaded  the  elders  of  Judah  to  invite  David  tc 
return  (2  -Sam.  xix.  11).  When  Adonijah,  in 
David's  old  age,  set  up  for  king,  and  had  persuaded 
Joab,  and  Abiathar  the  priest,  to  join  his  party, 
Zadok  was  unmoved,  and  was  employed  by  David 
to  anoint  Solomon  to  be  king  in  his  room  (1  K.  i.). 
And  for  this  fidelity  he  was  rewarded  by  Solomon, 
who  "  thrust  out  Abiathar  from  being  priest  unto 
the  Lord,"  and  "put  in  Zadok  the  priest"  in  his 
room  (1  K.  ii.  27,  35).  From  this  time,  however, 
we  hear  little  of  him.  It  is  said  in  general  terms 
in  the  enumeration  of  Solomon's  officers  of  state 
that  Zadok  was  the  priest  (1  K.  iv.  4 ;  1  Chr. 
xxix.  22),  but  no  single  act  of  his  is  mentioned. 
Even  in  the  detailed  account  of  the  building  and 
dedication  of  Solomon's  Temple,  his  name  does  not 
occur,  so  that  though  Josephus  says  that  *'  Sadoc 
the  high-priest  was  the  first  high-priest  of  the 
Temple  which  Solomon  built"  (Ant.  x.  8,  §6), 
it  is  very  doubtful  whether  he  lived  till  the  dedi 
cation  of  Solomon's  Temple,  and  it  seems  far  more 
likely  that  Azariah,  his  son  or  grandson,  was  high- 
priest  at  the  dedication  (comp.  1  K.  iv.  2,  and 
1  Chr.  vi.  10,  and  see  AZARIAH  2).  Had  Zadok 
been  present,  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  he  should 
not  have  been  named  in  so  detailed  an  account  as 
that  in  1  K.  viii.  [HiGH-PRiEST,  p.  810.] 

Several  interesting  questions  arise  in  connexion 
with  Zadok  in  regard  to  the  high-priesthood.  And 
first,  as  to  the  causes  which  led  to  the  descendants 
of  Ithamar  occupying  the  high-priesthood  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  house  of  Eleazar.  There  is,  how 
ever,  nothing  to  guide  us  to  any  certain  conclusion. 
We  only  know  that  Phinehas  the  son  of  Eleazar 
was  high-priest  after  his  father,  and  that  at  a  sub 
sequent  period  Eli  of  the  house  of  Ithamar  was 
high-priest,  and  that  the  office  continued  in  his 
house  till  the  time  of  Zadok,  who  was  first  Abia- 
thar's  colleague,  and  afterwards  superseded  him. 
Zadok's  descendants  continued  to  be  hereditary 
high-priests  till  the  time  of  Antiochus  Eupator, 
and  perhaps  till  the  extinction  of  the  office.  [HiGH- 
PRIEST,  p.  812.]  But  possibly  some  light  may 
be  thrown  on  this  question  by  the  next  which 
arises,  viz.,  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  double 
priesthood  of  Zadok  and  Abiathar  (2  Sam.  xv.  29 ; 
1  Chr.  xxiv.  6,  31).  In  later  times  we  usually 
find  two  priests,  ti:e  high-priest,  and  the  second 
priest  (2  K.  xxv.  18),  and  there  does  not  seem  tc 
have  been  any  great  difference  in  their  dignity.  So 
too  Luke  iii.  2.  The  expression  "  the  chief  priest  ol 
the  house  of  Zadok  "  (2  Chr.  xxxi.  10),  seems  also  to 
indicate  that  there  were  two  priest**  of  nearly  equal 
dignity.  Zadok  and  Abiathar  were  of  nearly  equal 
dignity  (2  Sam.  xv.  3"^  36,  xix.  11).  Hophni 
and  Phinehas  again,  and  Eleazar  and  Ithamar  are 
coupled  together,  and  seem  to  have  been  holders  of 
the  office  as  it  were  in  commission.  The  duties 
of  the  office  too  were  in  the  case  of  Zadok  and 
Abiathar  divided.  Zadok  ministered  tefore  the 
Tabernacle  at  Gibeon  (1  Chr.  xvi.  39),  Abiathai 
had  the  care  of  the  Ark  at  Jerusalem.  Not,  how 
ever,  exclusively,  as  appears  from  1  Chr.  xv.  11 

5  Z  2 


1812 


ZADOK 


2  Sam.  xv.  24,  25,  29.  Hence,  perhaps,  it  may  be 
concluded  that  from  the  first  there  was  a  tendency 
to  consider  the  office  of  the  priesthood  as  somewhat 
of  the  nature  of  a  corporate  office,  although  some  of 
its  functions  were  necessarily  confined  to  the  chief 
member  of  that  corporation ;  and  if  so,  it  is  very 
*asy  to  perceive  how  superior  abilities  on  the  one 
hand,  and  infancy  or  incapacity  on  the  other,  might 
operate  to  raise  or  depress  the  members  of  this  cor 
poration  respectively.  Just  as  in  the  Saxon  royal 
families,  considerable  latitude  was  allowed  as  to  the 
particular  member  who  succeeded  to  the  throne. 
When  hereditary  monarchy  was  established  in 
Judaea,  then  the  succession  to  the  high-priesthood 
may  have  become  more  regular.  Another  circum 
stance  wiiich  strengthens  the  conclusion  that  the 
origin  of  the  double  priesthood  was  anterior  to 
Zadok,  is  that  in  1  Chr.  ix.  11;  Neh.  xi.  11, 
Ahitub  the  father  of  Zadok,  seems  to  be  described 
as  "  ruler  of  the  House  of  God,"  an  office  usually 
held  by  the  chief  priest,  though  sometimes  by  the 
second  priest.  [HiGH-PniEST,  p.  808.]  And  if 
this  is  so,  it  implies  that  the  house  of  Eleazar  had 
maintained  its  footing  side  by  side  with  the  house 
of  Ithamar,  although  for  a  time  the  chief  dignity 
had  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Eli.  What  was  Zadok's 
exact  position  when  he  first  joined  David,  is  im 
possible  to  determine.  He  there  appears  inferior  to 
Jehoiada  "  the  leader  of  the  Aaron ites." 

2.  According  to  the  genealogy  of  the  high-priests 
in  1  Chr.  vi.  12,  there  was  a  second  Zadok,  son  of 
a  second  Ahitub,  son  of  Amariah  ;  about  the  time 
of  King  Ahaziah.    But  it  is  highly  improbable  that 
the  same  sequence,  Amariah,  Ahitub,  Zadok,  should 
occur  twice  over ;  and  no  trace  whatever  remains 
in  history  of  this  second  Ahitub,  and  second  Zadok. 
It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  no  such  person  as  this 
second  Zadok  ever  existed  ;  but  that  the  insertion  of 
the  two  names  is  a  copyist's  error.    Moreover,  these 
two  names  are  quite  insufficient  to  fill  up  the  gap  be 
tween  Amariah  in  Jehoshaphat's  reign,  and  Shallum 
in  Amon's,  an  interval  of  much  above  200  years. 

3.  Father  of  Jerushah,  the  wife  of  King  Uzziah, 
and  mother  of  King  Jotham.     He  was  probably  of 
a  priestly  family. 

4.  Son  of  Baana,  who  repaired  a  portion  of  the 
wall  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah  (Neh.  iii.  4).     He  is 
probably  the  same  as  is  in  the  list  of  those  that 
sealed  the  covenant  in  Neh.  x.  21,  as  in  both  cases 
his  name  follows  that  of  Meshezabeel.     But  if  so, 
we  know  that  he  was  not  a  priest,  as  his  name 
would  at  first  sight  lead  one  to  suppose,  but  one  of 
"  the  chief  of  the  people,"   or  laity.     With  this 
agrees  his  patronymic  Baana,  which  indicates  that 
he  was  of  the  tribe  of  Judah;   for  Baanah,  one  of 
David's  mighty  men,  was  a  Netophathite  (2  Sam. 
xxiii.  29),  *.  e.  of  Netophah,    a  city  of  Judah. 
The    men    of   Tekoah,    another    city    of    Judah, 
worked  next  to  Zadok.     Meshullam  of  the  house  of 
Meshezabeel,  who  preceded  him  in  both  lists  (Neh. 
iii.  4,  and  x.  20,  21),  was  also  of  the  tribe  of  Judah 
(Neh.   xi.    24).      Intermarriages   of   the   priestly 
house  with  the  tribe  of  Judah  were  more  frequent 

»  Compare  the  following  pedigrees : — 
I  Clir.  vi.  «-14.     Ib.  52,  53.     Czr.  vii.  1-3.     Neh.  xi.  11,  &  1  Chr.  ix.  11. 


Meraioth.         Meraicth. 


Amaritxh. 

Ahitub. 

&dok. 

Kmllum. 

Hilkiah. 

Azarioi,. 

Seraiah. 


Amariah. 

Ahitub. 

Zadok. 


Meraioth. 

Azariali. 

Amariah. 

Ahitub. 

Zadok. 

Slmlliim. 

Uilkiah. 

Azariah. 

Seraiah. 


Ahitub. 
Meraioth. 

Zadok. 
Meslmllam. 

HiUiah. 

Seraiah.        Azanab 


ZAIK 

than  with  any  other  tribe.     Henoe   probably  the 
name  of  Sadoc  (Matt.  i.  14). 

5.  Son  of  Immer,  a  priest  who  repaired  a  portion 
of  the  wall  over  against  his  own  house  (Neh.  iii. 
29).     He  belonged   to   the  16th   course   (1   C<,r. 
xxiv.  14),  which  was  one  of  those  which  returned 
from  Babylon  (Ezr.  ii.  37). 

6.  In  Neh.  xi.  11,  and  1  Chr.  ix.  11,  mention 
is  made  in  a  genealogy  of  Zadok,  the  son  of  Me- 
raioth,  the  son  of  Ahitub.     But  as  such  a  sequence 
occurs  nowhere  else,   Meraioth   being  always  the 
grandfather  of  Ahitub  (or  great-grandfather,  as  in 
Ezr.  vii.  2,  3),a  it  can  hardly  be  doubtful  that  Me 
raioth  is  inserted  by  the  error  of  a  copyist,  and  that 
Zadok  the  son  of  Ahitub  is  meant. 

it  is  worth  noticing  that  the  N.  T.  name  Justus 
(Acts  i.  23,  xviii.  7;  Col.  iv.  11)  is  the  literal 
translation  of  Zadok.  Zedekiah,  Jehozadak,  may  be 
compared. 

The  name  appears  occasionally  in  the  post-biblica! 
history.  The  associate  of  Judah  the  Gaulonite,  the 
well-known  leader  of  the  agitation  against  tli3  census 
of  Quirinus,  was  a  certain  Pharisee  named  Zadok 
(Joseph.  Ant.  xviii.  1,  §1),  and  the  sect  of  the 
Sadducees  is  reputed  to  have  derived  both  its  name 
and  origin  from  a  person  of  the  same  name,  a  dis 
ciple  of  Antigoiias  of  Socho.  (See  the  citations  of 
Lightfoot,  Hebr.  and  Talm.  Exerc.  on  Matt.  iii.  8.) 
The  personality  of  the  last  mentioned  Sadok  has 
been  strongly  impugned  in  the  article  SADDUCEES 
(p.  1084)  ;  'but  see,  on  the  other  hand,  the  remark 
of  M.  Kenan  (  Vie  de  Jesus,  216).  [A.  C.  H.J 

ZA'HAM(Dnj:  Zadp',  Alex.  ZaAc^ :  Zoom). 
Son  of  Rehoboam  by  Abihail,  the  daughter  of  Eliab 
(2  Chr.  xi.  19).  As  Eliab  was  the  eldest  of  David's 
brothers,  it  is  more  probable  that  Abihail  was  his 
granddaughter. 

ZA'IR  (TJJ V  :  Setcfy ;  Alex,  omits :  Seira). 
A  place  named,  in  2  K.  viii.  21  only,  in  the  account 
of  Joram's  expedition  against  the  Edomites.  He 
went  over  to  Zair  with  all  his  chariots ;  there  he 
and  his  force  appear  to  have  been  surroundcd,b  and 
only  to  have  escaped  by  cutting  their  way  through 
in  the  night.  The  parallel  account  in  Chronicles 
(2  Chr.  xxi.  9)  agrees  with  this,  except  that  the 
words  "  to  Zair  "  are  omitted,  and  the  words  "  with 
his  princes  "  inseited.  This  is  followed  by  Josephus 
(Ant.  ix.  5,  §1).  The  omitted  find  inserted  words 
have  a  certain  similarity  both  in  sound  and  in  their 
component  letters,  iTTVV  and  VI^DV  ;  and  on 
this  it  has  been  conjectured  that  the  latter  were 
substituted  for  the  former,  either  by  the  error  of  a 
copyist,  or  intentionally,  because  the  name  Zair  was 
not  elsewhere  known  (see  Keil,  Cornm.  on  2  K. 
viii.  21).  Others  again,  as  Movers  (Chronik,  218) 
and  Ewald  (Gesch.  iii.  524),  suggest  that  Zair  is 
identical  with  Zoar  (l^tf  or  "IJ/1 V).  Certainly  in 
the  middle  ages  the  road  by  which  an  army  passed 
from  Judaea  to  the  country  formerly  occupied  by 
Edom  lay  through  the  place  which  was  then  be 
lieved  to  be  Zoar,  below  Kerak,  at  the  S.E.  quarter 
of  th<>  Dead  Sea  (Fulcher,  Gesta  Dei,  405),  and  so 
far  this  is  in  favour  of  the  identification  ;  but  there 
is  no  other  support  to  it  in  the  MS.  readings  eithei 
of  the  original  or  the  Versions. 


b  This  is  not,  however,  the  interpretation  of  the  Jewish 
commentators,  who  take  the  word  2*0011  to  n-fer  tc 
tlie  neighbouring  parts  of  the  country  of  Edom  *^e  Rash 
on  2  Chr.  xxi.  9. 


ZALAPB 

The  Zoav  of  Genesis  (as  will  oe  seen  under  that 
head)  was  probably  near  the  N.E.  end  of  the  lake, 
raid  the  chief  interest  that  exists  in  the  identifica 
tion  of  Zair  and  Zoar,  resides  in  the  fact  that  if 
it  could  be  established  it  would  show  that  by  the 
time  2  K.  viii.  21  was  written,  Zoar  had  been  shifted 
from  its  original  place,  and  had  come  to  be  located 
where  it  was  in  the  days  of  Joseph,  Jerome,  and 
the  Crusades.  Possibly  the  previous  existence  there 
of  a  place  called  Zair,  assisted  the  transfer. 

A  third  conjecture  grounded  on  the  readings  of 
the  Vulgate  (SeircC)  and  the  Arabic  version  (Sdir, 

is,   that   Zair   is   an   alteration  for   Seir 


i")  W),  the  country  itself  of  the  Edomites  (The- 
nius,  Kurzg.  Ex.  Handb.}.  The  objection  to  this 
is,  that  the  name  of  Seir  appears  not  to  have  been 
known  to  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Kings.a  [G.] 

ZA'LAPH  (*£v  :  26Ae>  ;  Alex.  'EAe>  :  Se- 
lepfi).  Father  of  Hanun,  who  assisted  in  rebuild 
ing  the  city  wall  (Neh.  iii.  30). 

ZAL'MON 


Selmori).  An  Ahohite,  one  of  David's  guard  (2 
Sam.  xxiii.  28).  In  1  Chr.  xi.  29  he  id  caLed  ILAI, 
which  Kennicott  (Diss.  p.  187)  decides  to  be  the 
true  reading. 


ZAL'MON,  MOUNT  (fl>¥"in  :  tpos  'Ep- 

ficitir:  mons  Selmori}.  A  wooded  eminence  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  Shechem,  from  which 
Abimelech  and  his  people  cut  down  the  boughs  with 
which  he  suffocated  and  burnt  the  Shechemites 
who  had  taken  refuge  in  the  citadel  (Judg.  ix.  48). 
It  is  evident  from  the  narrative  that  it  was  close  to 
the  city.  But  beyond  this  there  does  not  appear  to 
be  the  smallest  indication  either  in  or  out  of  the  Bible 
of  its  position.  The  Rabbis  mention  a  place  of  the 
same  name,  but  evidently  far  from  the  necessary 
position  (Schwarz,  137).  The  name  Suleimijjeh  is 
attached  to  the  S.E.  portion  of  Mount  Ebal  (see 
the  map  of  Dr.  Rosen,  Zettsch.  der  D.  M.  G.  xiv. 
634)  ;  but  without  further  evidence,  it  i*  hazardous 
even  to  conjecture  that  there  is  any  connexion  between 
this  name  and  Tsalmon. 

The  reading  of  the  LXX.  is  remarkable  both  in 
itself,  and  in  the  fact  that  the  two  great  MSS.  agree 
in  a  reading  so  much  removed  from  the  Hebrew  ; 
but  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  Hermoii  (at 
any  rate  the  well-known  mountain  of  that  name), 
is  referred  to  in  the  narrative  of  Abimelech. 

The  possibility  of  a  connexion  between  this  mount 
and  the  place  of  the  same  name  in  Ps.  Ixviii.  14 
(A.  V.  Salmon),  is  discussed  under  the  head  of 
SALMON,  pp.  1094,  5. 

The  name  of  Dalmanutha  has  been  supposed  to 
be  a  corruption  of  that  of  Tsalmon  (Otho,  Lex. 
Rabb.  "Dalmanutha").  [G.] 


ZALMO'NAH  (fljbtf:  2eA/i«i/a:  Salmona). 
The  nar.;e  of  a  desert-station  of  the  Israelites,  which 
they  reached  between  leaving  Mount  Ho  and  camp 
ing  at  Punon,  although  they  must  ha\v  turned  the 
southern  point  of  Edomitish  territory  by  the  way 
(Num.  xxxiii.  41).  It  lies  on  the  east  side  of 

»  The  variations  of  the  MSS.  of  the  LXX.  (Holmes  and 
Parsons)  are  very  singular—  ex  2iwv,  e/c  Srjwv,  e«  Op. 
But  they  do  not  point  to  any  difference  in  the  Hebrew 
Loxt  from  that  now  existing. 

t>  The  unintclligibility  of  the  names  is  in  favour  of  their 
Mng  correctly  retained  rather  than  the  reverse.  And  it 


ZAMZUMMIMS  1813 

Edom  ;  but  whether  or  not  identic*!  with  3/aan, 
a  few  miles  E.  of  Petra,  as  Kaumer  thinks,  ie 
doubtful.  More  probably  Zalmonah  may  be  in  tht 
Wady  Ithm,  which  runs  into  the  Arabah  close  to 
where  Elath  anciently  stood.  [H.  H.] 

ZAL'MUNNA(V3D^:  S^A/xeua;  Alex.2a\- 
fj.ava,  and  so  also  Josephus:  Salmana).  One  of 
the  two  "  kings "  of  Midian  whose  capture  and 
death  by  the  hands  of  Gideon  himself  formed  the 
last  act  of  his  great  conflict  with  Midian  (Judg. 
viii.  5-21 ;  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  11).  No  satisfactory  expla 
nation  of  the  name  of  Zalmunna  has  been  given. 
That  of  Gesenius  and  Fiirst  ("  shelter  is  denied 
him")  b  can  hardly  be  entertained. 

The  distinction  between  the  "  kings " 
and  the  "princes"  ("nK>)  of  the  Midianites  on  this 
occasion  is  carefully  maintained  throughout  the 
narrative6  (viii.  5, 12,  26).  "  Kings"  of  Midian  are 
also  mentioned  in  Num.  xxxi.  8.  But  when  the 
same  transaction  is  referred  to  in  Josh.  xiii.  21 
they  are  designated  by  the  title  NSsie  (WKO),  A.  V. 
"princes."  P^lsewhere  (Num.  xxii.  4,  7)  the  term 
zekenim  is  used,  answering  in  signification,  if  not 
in  etymology,  to  the  Arabic  sheikh.  It  is  difficult, 
perhaps  impossible,  to  tell  how  far  these  distinctions 
are  accurate,  and  how  far  they  represent  the  imper 
fect  acquaintance  which  the  Hebrews  must  have  had 
with  the  organization  of  a  people  with  whom, 
except  during  the  orgies  of  Shittim,  they  appear 
to  have  been  always  more  or  less  at  strife  and  war 
fare  (1  Chr.  v.  10,  19-22). 

The  vast  horde  which  Gideon  repelled  must  have 
included  many  tribes  under  the  general  designation 
of  "  Midianites,  Amalekites,  childmi  of  the  East;" 
and  nothing  would  be  easier  or  nrore  natural  than 
for  the  Hebrew  scribes  who  chronicled  the  events 
to  confuse  one  tribe  with  another  in  so  minute  a 
point  as  the  title  of  a  chief. 

In  the  great  Bedouin  tribes  of  the  present  day, 
who  occupy  th'e  place  of  Midian  and  Amalek,  there 
is  no  distinctive  appellation  answering  to  the  melee 
and  sar  of  the  Hebrew  narrative.  Differences  it 
rank  and  power  there  are,  as  between  the  great 
chief,  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  parent  tribe, 
and  the  lesser  chiefs  who  lead  the  sub-tribes  into 
which  it  is  divided,  and  who  are  to  a  great  extent 
independent  of  him.  But  the  one  word  sheikh  is 
employed  for  all.  The  great  chief  is  the  Sheikh 
el-kebir,  the  others  are  min  el-masheikh,  "  of  the 
sheikhs,"  i.  e.  of  sheikh  rank.  The  writer  begs  to 
express  his  acknowledgments  to  Mr.  Layard  and  Mr, 
Cyril  Graham  for  information  on  this  point.  [G.] 

ZAM'BIS  (Za/ij8i  ;  Alex.  Za/zj8pts:  Zamhris). 
The  same  as  AMARIAH  (1  Esd.  ix.  34 ;  comp.  Ezr. 
x.42).  f 

ZAM'BEI  (Zarfpi:  Zamri).  ZIMRI  the  Si- 
meonite  slain  by  Phinehas  (1  Mace.  ii.  26). 

ZA'MOTH  (ZapM ;  Alex.  Za^O :  Zathoini)  = 
ZATTU  (1  Esd.  ix.  28 ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  27). 

ZAM'ZUMMIMS  (D^TBT :  Zox<w*efj/;  Alex. 
ofj.fj.ieiv:  Zomzommim).  The  Ammonite  name  for 


should  not  be  overlooked  that  they  are  not,  like  Oreb  and 
Zeeb,  attached  also  to  localities,  which  always  throws  n 
doubt  on  the  name  when  attributed  to  a  person  as  \v«U. 

c  Josephus  inverts  the  distinction.  He  styles  Oreb  ami 
Zeeb  /ScuriAeis,  and  Zebah  and  Zalmuniia  ^yejuwm  (Ant 
v.  7,  $G). 


1814 


ZANOAH 


Z  APHN  ATH-PA  ANE  AH 


the  people,  who  by  others  (though  who  they  were 
does  not  appear)  were  called  KEPHAIM  (Deut.  ii. 
20  only).  "They  are  described  as  having  originally 
been  a  powerful  and  numerous  nation  of  giants  :  —  • 
"  great,  many,  and  tall,"  —  inhabiting  the  district 
which  at  the  time  of  the  Hebrew  conquest  was  in 
the  possession  of  the  Ammonites,  by  whom  the 
Zamzummim  had  a  long  time  previously  been  de 
stroyed.  Where  this  district  was,  it  is  not  perhaps 
possible  exactly  to  define;  but  it  probably  lay  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Rabbath-Ammon  (Amman}, 
the  only  city  of  the  Ammonites  of  which  the 
name  or  situation  is  preserved  to  us,  and  therefore 
eastward  of  that  rich  undulating  country  from 
which  Moab  had  been  forced  by  the  Amorites  (the 
modern  Belka\  and  of  the  numerous  towns  of 
that  country,  whose  ruins  and  names  are  still 
encountered. 

From  a  slight  similarity  between  the  two  names, 
and  from  the  mention  of  the  Emim  in  connexion  with 
each,  it  is  usually  assumed  that  the  Zamzummim 
are  identical  with  the  ZUZIM  (Gesenius,  Thes. 
410  a;  Ewald,  Gesch.  i.  308  note;  Knobel  on  Gen. 
xiv.  5).  Ewald  further  supports  this  by  identify 
ing  HAM,  the  capital  city  of  the  Zuzim  (Gen.  xiv. 
5)  with  Ammon.  But  at  best  the  identification  is 
very  conjectural. 

Various  Attempts  have  been  made  to  explain  the 
name  :  —  as  by  comparison  with  the  Arabic  *  VA£>  j 
"long-necked;"  or  ^^a^,  "strong  and  big" 
(Simonis,  Onom.  13o)  ;  or  as  "  obstinate,"  from 
DDT  (Luther),  or  as  "  noisy."  from  DTBT  (Gese 
nius,  Thes.  419),  or  as  Onomatopoetic,*  intended 
t:>  imitate  the  unintelligible  jabber  of  foreigners. 
Michaelis  (Sappl.  No.  629)  playfully  recalls  the 
likeness  of  the  name  to  that  of  the  well  Zem-zem 
at  Mecca,  and  suggests  thereupon  that  the  tribe 
may  have  originally  come  from  Southern  Arabia. 
Notwithstanding  this  banter,  however,  he  ends  his 
article  with  the  following  discreet  words,  "  Nihil 
historiae,  nihil  originis  populi  novimus  :  fas  sit  ety- 
mologiam  aeque  ignorare."  [G.] 


ZANO'AH 


The  name  of  two  fawns  in 


ZANO'AH  (HUT  :  TMP&V  in  both  MSS.  :  Zano). 
In  the  genealogical  lists  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  in 
1  Chron.,  Jekuthiel  is  said  to  have  been  the  father  of 
Zanoah  (iv.  18)  ;  and,  as  far  as  the  passage  can  be 
made  out,  some  connexion  appears  to  be  intended 
with  "  Bithiah,  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh."  Zanoah 
is  the  name  of  a  town  of  Judah  [ZANOAH  2],  and 
this  mention  of  Bithiah  probably  points  to  some 
colonization  of  the  place  by  Egyptians  or  by  Israelites 
directly  from  Egypt.  In  Seetzeu's  account  of  Saniite 
(or  more  accurately  Za'nutah},  which  is  possibly 
identical  with  Zanoah,  there  is  a  curious  token  of 
the  influence  which  events  in  Egypt  still  exercised 
on  the  place  (Reisen,  iii.  29). 

The  Jewish  interpreters  considered  the  whole  of 
this  passage  of  1  Chr.  iv.  to  refer  to  Moses,  and  in 
terpret  each  of  the  names  which  it  contains  as  titles 
of  him.  "He  was  chief  of  Zanoach,"  says  the 
Targum,  "  because  for  his  sake  Gc-1  put  away 
(mi)  the  sins  of  Israel."  [G.] 


a  In  this  sfnse  the  name  was  applied  by  controver 
sial)  &te  of  the  17th  century  as  a  nickname  for  fanatics. 
who  pretended  to  speak  with  tongues. 


Thi*  name,  however  ( 


^  -      *  ,  e 


),  exhibit*  the  'am,  which 


the  territory  of  Judah. 

1.  (TdvG>,  Zovoj  ;   Alex.  Zavw  :  Zanot    in  the 
Shefelah  (Josh.  xv.  34),  named  in  the  sar  e  group 
with  Zoreah  and  Jarmuth.     It  is  possibly  dentical 
with  Zdnu'ap  a  site  which  was  pointed  out  to  Dr. 
Robinson  from  Beit  Nettif(B.  R.  ii.  16),  and  which 
in  the  maps  of  Van  de  Velde  and  of  Tobler  (Site 
Wanderung}  is  located  on  the  N.  side  of  the  Wady 
Ismail,  2  miles  E.  of  Zareah,  and  4  miles  N.  of 
Yarmuk.    This  position  is  sufficiently  in  accordance 
with  the  statement  of  Jerome  (Onomast.  "  Zan- 
nohua"),  that  it  was  in  the  district  of  Eleutheropolis, 
on  the  road  to  Jerusalem,  and  called  Zanua. 

The  name  recurs  in  its  old  connexion  in  the  lists 
of  Nehemiah,  both  of  the  towns  which  were  re- 
inhabited  by  the  people  of  Judah  after  the  Captivity 
(xi.  30  c),  and  of  those  which  assisted  in  repairing 
the  wall  of  Jerusalem  (iii.  13).  It  is  an  entirely 
distinct  place  from 

2.  (Zo/caj'aet^  ;  Alex.  ^ZavcaaKeifj.  :  Zanoe.}    A 
town  in  the  highland  district,  the  mountain  proper 
(Josh.  xv.  56).     It  is  named  in  the  same  group 
with  Maon,  Carmel,  Ziph,  and  other  places  known 
to  lie  south  of  Hebron.     It  is  (as  Van  de  Velde 
suggests,  Memoir,  354)  not  improbably  identical 
with  Sanute,  which  is  mentioned  by  Seetzen  (Reisen, 
iii.  29)  as  below  Senuia,  and  appears  to  be  a^'it 
10  miles  S.  of  Hebron.     At  the  time  of  his  visiv  it 
was  the  last  inhabited  place  to  the  south.   Robinson 
(B.  R.  ii.  204  note}  gives  the  name  differently, 

Lc,   Za'nutah;    and    it   will    be    observed 


that  like  Zanu'ah  just  mentioned,  it  contains  the 
'Ain,  which  the  Hebrew  name  does  not,  and  which 
rather  shakes  the  identification. 

According  to  the  statement  of  the  genealogical 
lists  of  1  Chr.  Zanoah  was  founded  or  colonized  by 
a  person  named  Jekuthiel  (iv.  18).  Here  it  is 
also  mentioned  with  Socho  and  Eshtemoa,  both  of 
which  places  are  recognizable  in  the  neighbourhood 
ofZa'nutah.  [G.] 

ZAPH'NATH-PAA'NEAH 


:  Salvator  mundi},  a  name  given 
by  Pharaoh  to  Joseph  (Gen.  xli.  45).  Various 
forms  of  this  name,  all  traceable  to  the  Heb.  or 
LXX.  original,  occur  in  the  works  of  the  early 
Jewish  and  Christian  writers,  chiefly  Josephus, 
from  different  MSS.  and  editions  of  whose  Ani. 
(ii.  6,  §1)  no  less  than  eleven  forms  have  beeu 
collected,  following  both  originals,  some  variations 
being  very  corrupt  ;  but  from  the  translation  given 
by  Josephus  it  is  probable  that  he  transcribed 
the  Hebrew.  Philo  (De  Nominum  Mut.  p.  819  c 
ed.  Col.  1613)  and  Theodoret  (i.  p.  106,  ed. 
Schulz)  follow  the  LXX.,  and  Jerome,  the  Hebrew. 
The  Coptic  version  nearly  transcribes  the  LXX., 


In  the  Hebrew  text  the  name  is  divided  into  two 
parts.  Every  such  division  of  Egyptian  words  being 
in  accordance  with  the  Egyptian  orthography  ;  as 
No-Arnmon,  Pi-beseth,  Poti-pherah  ;  we  cannot,  if 
the  name  be  Egyptian,  reasonably  propose  any 
change  in  this  case  ;  if  the  name  be  Hebrew,  the 

is  not  present  in  the  Hebrew  name. 

c  Here  the  name  is  contracted  to  H3T. 

d  These  curious  words  are  produced  by  joining  Zanoah 
to  the  name  following  it,  Cain,  or  hue-Cain. 


ZAPHNATH-PAANEAH 

same  is  certain.  Th^re  is  no  pninia  facie  reason 
&>r  any  change  in  the  consonants. 

The  LXX.  form  seems  to  indicate  the  same  divi 
sion,  as  the  latter  part,  <pavf)x>  IS  identical  with 
the  second  part  of  the  Hebrew,  while  what  precedes 
is  different.  There  is  again  no  prima  facie  reason 
for  any  change  from  the  ordinary  reading  of  the 
name.  The  cause  of  the  difference  from  the  Hebrew 
in  the  earlier  part  of  the  name  must  be  discussed 
when  we  come  to  examine  its  meaning. 

This  name  has  been  explained  as  Hebrew  or 
Egyptian,  and  always  as  a  proper  name.  It  has 
not  been  supposed  to  be  an  official  title,  but  this 
possibility  has  to  be  considered. 

1.  The  Rabbins  interpreted  Zaphnath-paaneah  as 
Hebrew,  in  the  sense  "  revealer  of  a  secret."     This 
explanation  is  as  old  as  Josephus  (tcpvirruv  eupe- 
TTjy,  Ant.  ii.  6,  §1)  ;  and  Theodoret  also  follows 
it  (TWV  airop'pTiTiov  tp/j.T)veirr)]v,  i.  p.  106,  Schulz). 
Philo  offers  an  explanation,  which,  though  seemingly 
different,  may  be  the  same  (eV  airoKp'urei  trr^ua 
ttpivov ;  but  Mangey  conjectures  the  true  reading 
to  be  tv  airoKpfyei  (Pro/xa  airoKpiv6/ji.fvov,  I.  C.). 
It  must  be  remembered  that  Josephus  perhaps,  and 
Theodoret  and  Philo  certainly,   follow  the  LXX. 
form  of  the  name. 

2.  Isidore,  though  mentioning  the  Hebrew  inter 
pretation,  remarks  that  the  name  should  be  Egyp 
tian,  and  offers  an  Egyptian  etymology : — "  Joseph 
.  .  .  hunc  Pharao  Zapnanath  Phaaneca  appellavit, 
quod  Hebraice  absconditorum  repertorem  sonat  .  .  . 
tamen  quia  hoc  nomen  ab  Aegyptio  ponitur,  ipsius 
linguae  debet  habere  rationem.     Interpretatur  ergo 
Zaphanath    Phaaneca   Aegyptio   sermone    salvator 
mundi "  {Orig.  vii.  c.  7,  t.  iii.  p.  327,*  Arev.). 
Jerome  adopts  the  same  rendering. 

3.  Modern  scholars  have  looked  to  Coptic  for 
an  explanation  of  this  name,  Jablonski  and  others 
proposing  as  the  Coptic  of  the  Egyptian  original 

ncurr  JUL  c£>erte£,,  or  ncurf ,  &c., 

"  the  preservation "  or  "  preserver  of  the  age." 
This  is  evidently  the  etymology  intended  by  Isidore 
and  Jerome. 

We  dismiss  the  Hebrew  interpretation,  as  unsound 
in  itself,  and  demanding  the  improbable  concession 
that  Pharaoh  gave  Joseph  a  Hebrew  name. 

It  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  a  satisfactory  result 
without  first  inquiring  when  this  name  was  given, 
and  what  are  the  characteristics  of  Egyptian  titles 
and  names.  These  points  having  been  discussed, 
we  can  show  what  ancient  Egyptian  sounds  corre 
spond  to  the  Hebrew  and  LXX.  forms  of  this  name, 
and  a  comparison  with  ancibat  Egyptian  will  then 
be  possible. 

After  the  account  of  Joseph's  appointment  to  be 
governor,  of  his  receiving  the  insignia  of  authority, 
and  Pharaoh's  telling  him  that  he  held  the  second 
place  in  the  kingdom,  follow  these  words: — "  And 
Pharaoh  called  Joseph's  name  Zaphnath-paaneah; 
and  he  gave  him  to  wife  Asenath  the  daughter  of 
Poti-pherah  priest  of  On."  It  is  next  stated,  "  And 
Joseph  went  out  over  [all]  the  land  of  Egypt" 
(Gen.  xli.  45).  As  Joseph's  two  sons  were  born 
"  before  the  years  of  famine  came  "  (ver.  50),  it 
seems  evident  that  the  order  is  here  strictly  chrono 
logical,  at  at  least  that  the  events  spoken  of  are  oi 
the  time  before  the  famine.  It  is  scarcely  to  be 
supposed  that  Pharaoh  would  have  named  Joseph 
*'  the  preserver  of  the  age,"  or  the  like,  when  the 
calamity,  from  the  worst  effects  of  which  his  admi 
nistration  preserved  'igypt,  had  not  come.  The 


ZA  PI1N  ATH-PAAN  EAH      1815 

lame,  at  first  sight,  seems  to  be  a  proper  name, 
but,  as  occurring  after  the  account  of  Joseph's  ap 
pointment  and  honours,  may  be  a  title. 

Ancient  Egyptian  titles  of  dignity  are  generally 
connected  with  the  king  or  the  gods,  as  SUTEN- 
SA,  king's  son,  applied  not  only  to  royal  princes, 
but  to  the  governors  of  KEESH,  or  Gush.  Titles 
f  place  are  generally  simply  desciiptive,  as  MEK- 
£ETU,  "  superintendent  of  buildings "  ("  public 
tvorks "  ?).  Some  few  are  tropical.  Ancient 
Egyptian  names  are  either  simple  or  compound. 
Simple  names  are  descriptive  of  occupation,  as  MA, 
'  the  shepherd,"  an  early  king's  name,  or  are  the 
names  of  natural  objects,  as  PE-MAY  (?),  "  the 
cat,"  &c. ;  more  rarely  they  indicate  qualities  of 
haracter,  as  S-NUFRE,  *«  doer  of  good."  Com 
pound  names  usually  express  devotion  to  the  gods, 
s  PET-AMEN-APT,  "Belonging  to  Amen  of 
Thebes;"  some  are  composed  with  the  name  of  the 
-eigning  king,  as  SHAFRA-SHA,  "  Shafra  rules ;" 
SESERTESEN-ANKH,  "Sesertesen  lives."  Others 
occur  which  are  more  difficult  of  explanation,  as 
AMEN-EM-HA,  "  Amen  in  the  front,"  a  war- 
cry  ?  Double  names,  not  merely  of  kings,  but 
of  private  persons,  are  found,  but  are  very  rare,  as 
SNUFRE  ANKHEE,  "Doer  of  good,  living  one." 
These  double  names  are  usually  of  the  period  before 
the  xviiith  dynasty. 

Before  comparing  Zaphnath-paaneah  and  Pson- 
homphanech  with  Egyptian  names,  we  must 
ascertain  the  probable  Egyptian  equivalents  of  the 
letters  of  these  forms.  The  Egyptian  words  occur 
ring  in  Hebrew  are  few,  and  the  forms  of  some  of 
them  evidently  Shemiticized,  or  at  least  changed  by 
their  use  by  foreigners :  a  complete  and  systematic 
alphabet  of  Hebrew  equivalents  of  Egyptian  letters 
therefore  cannot  be  drawn  up.  There  are,  on  the 
other  hand,  numerous  Shemitic  words,  either  Hebrew 
or  of  a  dialect  very  near  it,  the  geographical  names 
of  places  and  tribes  of  Palestine,  given,  according  to 
a  system,  in  the  Egyptian  inscriptions  and  papyri, 
from  which  we  can  draw  up,  as  M.  de  Rouge  has 
done  (Rewe  Archeologique,  N.  S.  iii.  351-354),  a 
complete  alphabet,  certain  in  nearly  all  its  details, 
and  approximatively  true  in  the  few  that  are  not 
determined,  of  the  Egyptian  equivalents  of  tht 
Hebrew  alphabet.  The  two  comparative  alphabets 
do  not  greatly  differ,  but  we  cannot  be  sure  that  in 
the  endeavour  to  ascertain  what  Egyptian  sounds 
are  intended  by  Hebrew  letters,  or  their  Greek  equi 
valents,  we  are  quite  accurate  in  employing  the 
latter.  For  instance,  different  Egyptian  signs  are 
used  to  represent  the  Hebrew  "1  and  7,  but  it  ia 
by  no  means  certain  that  these  signs  in  Egyptian 
represented  any  sound  but  R,  except  in  the  vulgar 
dialect. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  the  Egyptians  had  a 
hard  "  t,"  the  parent  of  the  Coptic  X  and  tfTwhich 
we  represent  by  an  italic  T;  that  they  had  an 
'«  a  "  corresponding  to  the  Hebrew  y,  which  we  re 
present  by  an  italic  A]  and  that  the  Hebrew  2  may 
be  represented  by  the  Egyptian  P,  also  pronounced 
P'h,  and  by  the  F.  The  probable  originals  of  the 
Egyptian  name  of  Joseph  may  be  thus  stated : — 

v   a   a    n      a   y    :    n 


T    P    N    T 

F' 

Vov   6   o  M 
PS  N  T      M 


P    A     N     KH 


</>     a 

P 

F 


X 
KH 


1816        ZAPHNATH-PAANEAH 

The  second  part  of  the  name  in  the  Hebrew  if 
the  same  as  in  the  LXX.,  although  in  the  latter  it 
is  not  separate  :  we  therefore  examine  it  first.  Jt 
is  identical  with  the  ancient  Egyptian  proper  name 
P-ANKHEE,  "the  living,"  borne  by  a  king  who 
was  an  Ethiopian  ruling  after  Tirhakah,  and  pro 
bably  contemporary  with  the  earlier  part  of  the 
reign  of  Psammetichus  I.  The  only  doubtful  point 
in  the  identification  is  that  it  is  not  certain  that 
the  "a"  in  P-ANKHEE  is  that  which  represents 
the  Hebrew  JJ.  It  is  a  symbolic  sign  of  the  kind 
which  serves  as  an  initial,  and  at  the  same  time 
determines  the  signification  of  the  word  it  partly 
expresses  and  sometimes  singly  represents,  and  it  is 
only  used  in  the  single  sense  "  life,"  "  to  live."  It 
may,  however,  be  conjectured  from  its  Coptic  equiva 
lents  to  have  begun  with  either  a  long  or  a  guttural 


ort£,  s, 


B,  s,  <s,rt&  B, 
>,  am  <£)  M, 


B 


The  second  part  of  the  name,  thus  explained, 
affords  no  clue  to  the  meaning  of  the  first  part,  being 
A  separate  name,  as  in  the  case  of  a  double  name 
already  cited  SNUFRE  ANKHEE.  The  LXX.  form 
of  the  first  part  is  at  once  recognized  in  the  ancient 
Egyptian  words  P-SENT-N,  "the  defender"  or 
"  preserver  of,"  the  Coptic  H  CUrf"  JUL,  "  the 
preserver  of."  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  ancient 
Egyptian  form  of  the  principal  word  is  that  found  in 
the  LXX.,  but  that  the  preposition  N  in  hieroglyphics, 
however  pronounced,  is  always  written  N,  whereas  in 

Coptic  It  becomes  ZJL  before  IT-  The  word  SENT 
does  not  appear  to  be  used  except  as  a  divine,  and, 
under  the  Ptolemies,  regal  title,  in  the  latter  case 
tor  Soter.  The  Hebrew  form  seems  to  represent  a 
compound  name  commencing  with  TETEF,  or 
jPEF,  "  he  says,"  a  not  infrequent  element  in  com 
pound  names  (the  root  being  found  in  the  Coptic 

XO,  XOT  :  S  XOO,  XCTT),  or  TEF,  «  in 
cense,  delight"  (?)  the  name  of  the  sacred  incense, 
also  known  to  us  in  the  Greek  form  Kvtyi  (Plutarch, 
de  hid.  et  Osir.  c.  80,  p.  383;  Diosc.  M.  m.  I.  24, 
Spr.)  But,  if  the  name  commence  with  either  of 
these  words,  the  rest  seems  inexplicable.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  last  two  consonants  are  the 
same  as  in  Asenath,  the  name  of  Joseph's  wife.  It 
has  been  supposed  that  in  both  cases  this  element  is 
the  name  of  the  goddess  Neith,  Asenath  having  been 
conjectured  to  be  AS-NEET  ;  and  Zaphnath,  by 
Mr.  Osburn,  we  believe,  TEF-NEET,  "the  delight  (?) 
of  Neith."  Neith,  the  goddess  of  Sals,  is  not  likely 
to  have  been  reverenced  at  Heliopolis,  the  city  of 
Asenath.  It  is  also  improbable  that  Pharaoh  would 
have  given  Joseph  a  name  connected  with  idolatry; 
for  Joseph's  position,  unlike  Daniel's,  when  he  was 
first  called  Belteshazzar,  would  have  enabled  him 
effectually  to  protest  against  receiving  such  a  name. 
Tha  latter  part  of  the  name  might  suggest  the  pos  • 
sibility  of  the  letters  "  aneah  "  corresponding  to 
ANKH,  and  the  whole  preceding  portion,  Zaphuath 
and  the  initial  of  this  part,  forming  the  name  of 
Joseph's  Pharaoh  ;  the  form  being  that  of  SESER- 
TKSEN-ANKH,  "  Sesertesen  lives,"  already  men 
tioned  ;  but  the  occurrence  of  the  letter  P  shows 
that  the  form  is  P-ANKHEE,  and  were  this  not 
sufficient  proof,  no  name  of  a  Pharaoh,  or  other 
proper  name  is  known  that  can  be  compared  with 
the  supposed  first  portion.  We  have  little  doubt 


ZAKEPHATH 

that  the  monuments  will  unexpectedly  s-upply  us 
with  the  information  we  need,  giving  us  the  orignal 
Egyptian  name,  though  probably  not  applied  to 
Joseph,  of  whose  period  there  are,  we  believe,  but 
few  Egyptian  records.  [R.  S.  P.] 

ZA'PHON  (pSV  :  2a(/>&>  ;  Alex.  Sa^wj/ : 
Saphon).  The  name  of  a  place  mentioned  in  the 
enumeration  oi"  the  allotment  of  the  tribe  of  Gad 
(Josh.  xiii.  27).  It  is  one  of  the  places  in  "the 
valley  "  which  appear  to  have  constituted  thi  "  re 
mainder  ("irV)  of  the  kingdom  of  Sihon  " — appa 
rently  referring  to  the  portion  of  the  Bnme  kingdom 
previously  allotted  to  Reuben  (vers.  17-21).  The 
enumeration  appears  to  proceed  from  south  to  north, 
and  from  the  mention  of  the  Sea  of  Chinneroth  it  is 
natural  to  infer  that  Zaphon  was  near  that  lake. 
No  name  resembling  it  has  yet  been  encountered. 

In  Judg.  xii.  1,  the  word  rendered  "  northward  " 
(tsdphondh]  may  with  equal  accuracy  be  rendered 
"  to  Zaphon."  This  rendering  is  supported  by  the 
Alex.  LXX.  (.iec£>etj/a)  and  a  host  of  other  MSS., 
and  it  has  consistency  on  its  side.  [G.] 

ZA'RA  (Zapd:  Zara}.  ZARAH  the  son  of 
Judah  (Matt.  i.  3). 

ZAR'ACES  (Zapo/cTjs  :  Zaraceks).  Brother 
of  Joacim,  or  Jehoiakim,  king  of  Judah  (1  Esd.  i. 
38).  His  name  is  apparently  a  corruption  ot 
Zedekiah. 

ZA'RAH(!"nj:  Zapd:  Zard).  Properly ZERAII, 

the  son  of  Judah  by  Tamar  (Gen.  xxxviii.  30, 
xlvi.  12). 

ZARAI'AS  (Vat.  omits ;  Alex.  Zapaids :  Vulg. 
omits).  1.  ZERAHIAH,  one  of  the  ancestors  of  Ezra 
(1  Esd.  viii.  2) ;  called  ARNA  in  2  Esd.  i.  2. 

2.  (Zapaias:  Zarae'is.)   ZERAHIAH,  the  father 
of  Elihoenai  (1  Esd.  viii.  31). 

3.  (Zapaias :  Zarias.}    ZEBADIAH,  the  son  of 
Michael  (1  Esd.  viii.  34). 

ZA'REAH  (PljHV  :  Vat.  omits ;  Alex.  Zapaa  '• 
Saraa).  The  form  in  which  our  translators  have 
once  (Neh.  xi.  29)  represented  the  name,  which 
they  elsewhere  present  (less  accurately)  as  ZORAH 
and  ZOREAH.  [G.] 

ZA'REATHITES,  THE  Ofjjn*  il  :  ot'  2a- 
paOcuoi:  Saraitae).  The  inhabitants  of  ZAREAII 
or  ZORAH.  The  word  occurs  in  this  form  only  in 
1  Chr.  ii.  53.  Elsewhere  the  same  Hebrew  word 
appears  in  the  A.  V.  as  THE  ZORATHITES.  [G.] 

ZA'RED,  THE  VALLEY  OF  (TIT  bru : 
(f)dpay£  ZapeV ;  Alex.  <f>.  Zape :  torrens  ZarecP. 
The  name  is  accurately  ZERED  ;  .the  change  in 
the  first  syllable  being  due  to  its  occurring  at  a 
pause.  It  is  found  in  the  A.  V.  in  this  form  only 
in  Num.  xxi.  1 2  ;  though  in  the  Hebr.  it  occurs 
also  Deut.  ii.  13.  [G.] 

ZAR'EPHATH  Cna^V,  i.e.  TsarfU:  «So- 
;  in  Obad.  plural :  Sarephtha).  A  town  which 
derives  its  claim  to  notice  from  having  been  the 
•esidence  of  the  prophet  Elijah  during  the  latter 
put  of  the  drought  (1  K.  xvii.  9,  10).  Beyond 
stating  that  it  was  near  to,  or  dependent  on,  Zidou 
),  the  Bible  gives  no  clue  to  its  position. 


a  In  1  K.  xvii.  9,  the  Alex.  MS.  has  ^.t^Qa,  but  in  the 
other  two  passages  agrees  with  the  Vat 


ZARETAN 

It  is  mentioned  by  Obadiah  (ver.  20),  but  merely 
as  a  Cauaanite  (that  is  Phoenician)  city.  Josephus 
(Ant.  viii.  13,  §2),  however,  states  that  it  was 
"  not  far  from  Sidon  and  Tyre,  for  it  lies  be- 
i-vveen  them."  And  to  this  Jerome  adds  (Onotn. 
"  Sarefta  ")  that  it  "  lay  on  the  public  road,"  that 
is  the  coast-road.  Both  these  conditions  are  implied 
In  the  mention  of  it  in  the  Itinerary  of  Paula  by 
Jerome  (Epit.  Paulae,  §8),  and  both  are  fulfilled 
in  the  situation  of  the  modern  village  of  Sura- 
fend^  (4\o«,A»),  a  name  which,  except  in  its  termi 
nation,  is  almost  identical  with  the  ancient  Phoenician. 
Stirafend  has  been  visited  and  described  by  Dr. 
Robinson  (B.  K.  ii.  475)  and  Dr.  Thomson  (Land 
and  Book,  ch.  xii.).  It  appears  to  have  changed  its 
place,  at  least  since  the  llth  century,  for  it  is 
now  mo-re  than  a  mile  from  the  coast,  high  up  on 
the  slope  of  a  hill  (Rob.  474),  whereas,  at  the  time 
of  the  Crusades,  it  was  on  the  shore.  Of  the  old 
town,  considerable  indications  remain.  One  group 
of  foundations  is  on  a  headland  called  Ain  el- 
Kentardh  ;  but  the  chief  remains  are  south  of  this, 
and  extend  for  a  mile  or  more,  with  many  frag 
ments  of  columns,  slabs,  and  other  architectural 
features.  The  Roman  road  is  said  to  be  unusually 
perfect  there  (Beamont,  Diary,  &c.,  ii.  186).  The 
site  of  the  chapel  erected  by  the  Crusaders  on  the 
spot  then  reputed  to  be  the  site  of  the  widow's 
house,  is  probably  still  preserved.6  (See  the  cita 
tions  of  Robinson.)  It  is  near  the  water's  edge, 
and  is  now  marked  by  a  wely  and  small  khan  dedi 
cated  to  el  Khudr,  the  well-known  personage  who 
unites,  in  the  popular  Moslem  faith,  Elijah  and  S. 
George. 

In  the  N.  T.  Zarephath  appears  under  the  Greek 
form  of  SAREPTA.  [G.] 

ZAR'ETAN  Qn-lV,  i.  e.  Tsarthan :  LXX.  omits 
in  both  MSS.  :  Sarthan).  An  inaccurate  repre 
sentation  of  the  name  elsewhere  more  correctly 
given  as  ZARTHAN.  In  occurs  only  in  Josh,  in. 
1 6,  in  defining  the  position  of  Adam,  the  city  by 
which  the  upper  waters  of  the  Jordan  remained 
during  the  passage  of  the  Israelites : — "  The  waters 
rushing  down  from  above  stood  and  rose  up  upon 
one  heap  very  far  off — by  Adam,  the  city  that  is 
by  the  side  of  Zarthan."  No  trace  of  these  names 
has  been  found,  nor  is  anything  known  of  the  situ 
ation  of  Zarthan. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  LXX.  should  exhibit 
nod  trace  of  the  name.  [G.] 

ZA'RETH-SHA'HAR  CWn  rm,  i.  e.  Ze- 

reth  has-shachar:  2epa5a  teal  ~2,eiu>v ;  Alex.  2apO 
Kai  'Ziusv:  Sereth  Assahar).  A  place  mentioned 
only  in  Josh.  xiii.  19,  in  the  catalogue  of  the  towns 
allotted  to  Reuben.  It  is  named  between  SIBMAH 
and  BKTHPEOR,  and  is  particularly  specified  as  "  in 
Mount  ha-Emek'"  (A.  V.  "  in  the  Mount  of  the 
Valley").  From  this,  however,  no  clue  can  be 
gained  to  its  position.  Seetzen  (Reisen,  ii.  369) 
proposes,  though  with  hesitation  (see  his  note),  to 
identify  it  with  a  spot  called  Sard  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Wady  Zerka  Main,  about  a  mile  from  the 
edge  of  the  Dead  Sea.  A  place  Shakur  is  marked 
on  Van  de  Velde's  map,  about  six  miles  south  of 
cs  Salt,  at  the  head  of  the  valley  of  the  Wad<j 

b  The  name  is  given  as  Sarphand  by  Ibn  Edris; 
Sarphcn  by  Maundcville ;  and  Sarphan  by  Maundrell. 

e  A  grotto  (as  usual)  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  which 
the  modern  village  stands  Is  now  shewn  as  the  rcMdem-e 


ZATTHU  1817 

Seir  But  nothing  can  be  said  of  either  of  these  iu 
the  present  state  of  our  knowledge.  [G.j 

ZAR'HITES,  THE  OrTVTn :  &  Zapai ;  Alex. 
"O  Zapa.fi,  Zapiei  in  Josh. :  Zareitae,  Zare,  stirps 
Zarahi  and  Zarai).  A  branch  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah :  descended  from  Zerah  the  son  of  Judah 
(Num.  xxvi.  13,  20 ;  Josh.  vii.  17  ;  1  Chr.  xxvii 
11,  13).  Achan  was  of  this  family,  and  it  wa? 
represented  in  David's  time  by  two  distinguished 
warriors,  Sibbechai  the  Hushathite  and  Maharai 
the  Netophathite. 

ZART'ANAH  (njlTO :  Seo-afob  ;  Alex. 
E(r\ta.f6av :  Saj"thana).  A  place  named  in  1  K. 
iv.  12,  to  define  the  position  of  BETHSHEAN.  .  It 
is  possibly  identical  with  ZARTHAN,  but  nothing 
positive  can  be  said  on  the  point,  and  the  name  has 
not  been  discovered  in  postbiblical  times.  [G.] 

ZAR'THAN  (frm  :  Ztipd ;  Alex.  2tapaM : 
Sarthari) . 

1.  A  place  in  the  ciccar  or  circle  of  Jordan,  men 
tioned  in  connexion  with  Succoth  (IK.  vii.  46). 

2.  It  is  also  named,  in  the  account  of  the  passage 
of  the  Jordan  by  the  Israelites  (Josh.  iii.   16),  as 
defining   the   position   of  the  city  Adam,    which 
was  beside  (I-VD)  it.     The   differed?   which  the 
translators  of  the  A.  V.  have  introduced  into  the 
name  in  this  passage  (ZARETAN)  has  no  existence 
in  the  original. 

3.  A  place  with  the  similar  name  of  ZARTANAH 
(which  in  the  Hebrew  differs  from  the  two  forms 
already  named  only  in  its  termination)  is  mentioned 
in  the  list  of  Solomon's  commissariat  districts.     It 
is  there  specified  as  "close  to"   (?VN)  Bethshean, 
that  is,  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Jordan  valley. 

4.  Further,   in  Chronicles,  Zeredathah    is   sub 
stituted  for  Zarthan,  and  this  again  is  not  impos 
sibly  identical  with  the  Zererah,  Zererath,  or  Zere- 
rathah,  of  the  story  of  Gideon.     All  these  spots 
agree   in    proximity   to    the    Jordan,    but   beyond 
this  we  are  absolutely  at  fault  as  to  their  posi 
tion.     ADAM  is  unknown;  SUCCOTH  is,  to  say  the 
least,  uncertain ;   and  no  name   approaching   Zar 
than  has  yet  been  encountered,  except  it  be  Sur- 

tabeh  (XfcJsjw^),  the  name  of  a  lofty  and  isolated 

hill  which  projects  from  the  main  highlands  into 
the  Jordan  valley,  about  17  miles  north  of  Jericho 
(Van  de  Velde,  Memoir,  354).  But  Sw-tabeh,  if 
connected  with  any  ancient  name,  would  seem 
rather  to  represent  some  compound  of  the  ancient 
Hebrew  or  Phoenician  Tsor,  which  in  Arabic  is  re 
presented  by  Sur  (.y^),  as  in  the  name  of  the 
modern  Tyre.  [G.] 

ZATH'OE  (Za0GT? :  Zachues).  This  name  occurs 
in  1  Esd.  viii.  32,  for  ZATTU,  which  appears  to 
have  been  omitted  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  Ezr.  viii. 
5,  which  should  read,  "  Of  the  sons  of  Zattu,  She- 
chaniah  the  son  of  Jahaziel." 

ZATHU'I  (ZaOovt:  Demu).  ZATTU  (1  Esdr. 
v.  12;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  8). 

ZAT'THU  (N-inr  :  ZaSouia  ;  Alex.  Za00ovm 
Zet/tu}.  Elsewhere  ZATTU  (Neh.  x.  14). 

of  Elijah  (Van  de  Velde,  S.  A  P.  i.  102). 

d  This  is  not  only  the  case  in  the  two  principal  MSS. 
the  edition  of  Holmes  and  Parsons  shews  it  in  one  ouly, 
acd  that  a  cursive  MS.  of  the  13th  cent 


T818 


ZATTU 


ZAT'TU  (NWT  :  Zarfloua,  Za8ova,  Za8ovia  ; 
Alex.  ZarQovd,  ZaQQova.',  FA.  ZaQovia,  Zafloueta: 
Zethuci).  The  sons  of  Zattu  were  a  family  of  lay 
men  of  Israel  who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr. 
ii.  8 ;  Neh.  vii.  13).  A  second  division  accom 
panied  Ezra,  though  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  Ezr. 
viii.  5  the  name  has  been  omitted.  [ZATHOE.] 
Several  members  of  this  family  had  married  foreign 
wives  (Ezr.  x.  27). 

ZA'VAN  =  ZAAVAN  (1  Chr.  i.  42). 

ZA'ZA  (NJT:  'OCo'/u ;  Alex.  'Ofr^:  Zfea). 
One  of  the  sons  of  Jonathan,  a  descendant  of  Jerah- 
meel  (1  Chr.  ii.  33). 

ZEBADI'AH  (nHl| :  ZajSaSt'o  :  Zdbadia). 
1.  A  Benjamite  of  the  sons  of  Beriah  (1  Chr.  viii. 
15). 

2.  A  Benjamite  of  the  sons  of  Elpaal  (1  Chr. 
viii.  17). 

3.  One  of  the  sons  of  Jeroham  of  Gedor,  a  Ben 
jamite  who  joined  the   fortunes   of  David  in  his 
retreat  at  Ziklag  (1  Chr.  xii.  7). 

4.  (ZajBoSuw ;  Alex.  Za)35ias :  Zdbadias.}    Son 
of  Asahel  the  brother  of  Joab  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  7). 

5.  (Zebedia.)    Sou   of  Michael  of  the  sons  of 
Shephatiah  (Ezr.  viii.  8).     He  returned  with  80 
of  his  clan  in  the  second  caravan  with  Ezra.     In 
1  Esdr.  viii.  34  he  is  called  ZABAIAS. 

6.  (Zo/35fo ;  FA.  ZojSSefa.)  A  priest  of  the  sons 
of  Immer  who  had  married  a  foreign  wife  after  the 
return  from  Babylon  (Ezr.  x.  2u).     Called  ZAB- 
DEUS  in  1  Esdr.  ix.  21. 

7.  OinHnp    ZajSaSi'a;   Alex.  ZajSaSfas:    Za- 

badias.)  Third  son  of  Meshelemiah  the  Korhite 
vl  Chr.  xxvi.  2). 

8.  (Zoj85/aj.)'    A  Levite  in  the  reign  of  Jehosh- 
nphat  who  was  sent  to  teach  the  Law  in  the  cities 
of  Judah  (2  Chr.  xvii.  8). 

9.  The  son  of  Ishmael  and  prince  of  the  house 
of  Judah  in  the  reign  of  Jehoshaphat  (2  Chi*,  xix. 
11).     In  conjunction  with  Amariah  the  chief  priest, 
he  was  appointed  to   the  superintendence  of  the 
Levites.  priests  and  chief  men  who  had  to  decide  all 
causes,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  which  were  brought 
before  them.     They  possibly  may  have  formed  a 
kind  of  court  of  appeal,  Zebadiah  acting  for  the  in 
terests  of  the  king,  and  Amariah  being  the  supreme 
authority  in  ecclesiastical  matters. 

ZE'BAH(nnj:   Zefce:  Zebee).    One  of  the 

two  "  kings  "  of  Midian  who  appear  to  have  com 
manded  the  great  invasion  of  Palestine,  and  who 
finally  fell  by  the  hand  of  Gideon  himself.  He  is 
always  coupled  with  Zalmunna,  and  is  mentioned 
in  Judg.  viii.  5-21  ;  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  11. 

It  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  unconscious 
artlessness  of  the  narrative  contained  in  Judg.  vi. 
3:>-viii.  28,  that  no  mention  is  made  of  any  of  the 
chiefs  of  the  Midianites  during  the  early  part  of  the 
story,  or  indeed  until  Gideon  actually  comes  into 
con  tact,  with  them.  We  then  discover  (viii.  18) 
tint  while  the  Bedouins  were  ravaging  the  crops  in 
the  valley  of  Jezreel,  before  Gideon's  attack,  three8 
or  more  of  his  brothers  had  been  captured  by  the 
Arabs  and  put  to  death,  by  the  hands  of  Zebah  and 
Zalmunna  themselves.  But  this  material  fact  is 
only  incidentally  mentioned,  and  is  of  a  piece  with 
the  later  references  by  prophets  and  psalmists  to 


It  is  perhaps  allowable  to  infer  this  from  the  use  of 
toe  plural  (not  the  dual)  to  the  word  brethren  (ver.  19). 


ZEBAIM 

other  events  in  the  same  struggle,  the  interest  anj 
value  of  which  have  been  alluded  to  under  OREB. 

Ps.  Ixxxiii.  12,  purports  to  have  preserved  tlx 
very  words  of  the  cry  with  which  Zebah  and  Zai 
munna  rushed  up  at  the  head  of  their  hordes  from 
the  Jordan  into  the  luxuriant  growth  of  the  great 
plain,  "  Seize  these  goodly  b  pastures  "  ! 

While  Oreb  and  Zeeb,  two  of  the  inferior  leader* 
of  the  incursion,  had  been  slain,  with  a  vast  nunr-ber 
of  their  people,  by  the  Ephraimites,  at  the  central 
fords  of  the  Jordan  (not  improbably  those  near  Jisr 
Damieh\  the  two  kings  had  succeeded  in  making 
their  escape  by  a  passage  further  to  the  north  (pro 
bably  the  ford  near  Bethshean),  and  thence  by 
the  Wady  Yabis,  through  Gilead,  to  Karkor,  "a 
place  which  is  not  fixed,  but  which  lay  doubtless 
high  up  on  the  Hauran.  Here  they  were  reposing 
with  15,000  men,  a  mere  remnant  of  their  huge 
horde,  when  Gideon  oveilook  them.  Had  they  re 
sisted  there  is  little  doubt  that  they  might  "have 
easily  overcome  the  little  band  of  "  fainting  " 
heroes  who  had  toiled  after  them  up  the  tre 
mendous  passes  of  the  mountains  ;  but  the  name 
of  Gideon  was  still  full  of  terror,  and  the  Bedouins 
were  entirely  unprepared  for  his  attack  —  they  fled 
in  dismay,  and  the  two  kings  were  taken. 

Such  was  tte  Third  Act  of  the  great  Tragedy. 
Two  more  remain.  First  the  return  down  the 
long  defiles  leading  to  the  Jordan.  We  see  the 
cavalcade  of  camels,  jingling  the  golden  chains  and 
the  crescent-shaped  collars  or  trappings  hung  round 
their  necks.  High  aloft  rode  the  captive  chiefs  clad 
in  their  brilliant  kefiyehs  and  embroidered  abbayehs, 
and  with  their  "  collars  "  or  "  jewels"  in  nose  and 
ear,  on  neck  and  arm.  Gideon  probably  strode  on 
foot  by  the  side  of  his  captives.  They  passed  Penuel, 
where  Jacob  had  seen  the  vision  of  the  face  of  God  ; 
they  passed  Succoth  ;  they  crossed  the  rapid  stream 
of  the  Jordan  ;  they  ascended  the  highlands  west 
of  the  river,  and  at  length  reached  Ophrah,  the 
native  village  of  their  captor  (Joseph.  Ant.  iv.  7,  §5). 
Then  at  last  the  question  which  must  have  been  on 
Gideon's  tongue  during  the  whole  of  the  return 
found  a  vent.  There  is  no  appearance  of  its  having 
been  alluded  to  before,  but  it  gives,  as  nothing  else 
could,  the  key  to  the  whole  pursuit.  It  was  the 
death  of  his  brothers,  "  the  children  of  his  mother," 
that  had  supplied  the  personal  motive  for  that 
steady  perseverance,  and  had  led  Gideon  on  to  his 
goal  against  hunger,  faintness,  and  obstacles  of  all 
kinds.  "What  manner  of  men  were  they  whirh 
ye  slew  at  Tabor  ?  "  Up  to  this  time  the  sheiKlr 
may  have  believed  that  they  were  reserved  for 
ransom  ;  but  these  words  once  spoken  there  can 
have  been  no  doubt  what  their  fate  was  to  be. 
They  met  it  like  noble  children  of  the  Desert,  with 
out  fear  or  weakness.  One  request  alone  they  make 
—  that  they  may  die  by  the  sure  blow  of  the  hero 
himself  —  "  and  Gideon  arose  and  slew  them  ;"  and 
not  till  he  had  revenged  his  brothers  did  any 
thought  of  plunder  enter  his  heart  —  then,  and  not 
till  then,  did  he  lay  hands  on  the,  treasures  which 
ornamented  their  camels.  [G.I 

ZE'BAIM  (D*3il,   in  Neh.   Dl^n  :    viol 


;  Alex.  Acre/Scoet/i  ;  in  Neh.  vl.  2a/8aei,u  : 
Asebaim,  Sabaiin),  The  sons  of  Pochereth  of  hat- 
Tsebaim  are  mentioned  in  the  catalogue  of  the 
families  of  "-Solomon's  slaves,"  who  returned  from 

b  Such  is  the  meaning  of  "  pastures  of  God  "  in  the  earlj 
Idiom. 


ZEBEDEE 

the  Captivity  with  Zerulbabel  (Ezra  ii.  57;  Neh. 
vii.  59).  The  name  is  in  the  original  all  but 
identical  with  that  of  ZEBOIM,C  the  fellow-city  of 
Sodom  ;  and  as  many  of  "  Solomon's  slaves  "  appear 
to  have  been  of  Canaanited  stock,  it  is  possible  that 
the  family  of  Pochereth  were  descended  from  one  of 
the  people  who  escaped  from  Zeboim  in  the  day  of 
the  great  catastrophe  in  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan. 
This,  however,  can  only  be  accepted  as  conjecture, 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  two  names  Pochereth 
hat-Tsebaim  are  considered  by  some  to  have  no 
reference  to  place,  but  to  signify  the  "  snarer  or 
hunter  of  roes"  (Gesenius,  Thus.  11026;  Bertheau, 
Exeg.  Handb.  Ezr.  ii.  57).  ,  [G.] 

ZEB'EDEE 


ZEBUL 


1819 


fisherman  of  Galilee,  the  father  of  the  Apostles 
James  the  Great  and  John  (Matt.  iv.  21),  and  the 
husband  of  Salome  (Matt,  xxvii.  56  ;  Mark  xv.  40). 
He  probably  lived  either  at  Bethsaida  or  in  its 
immediate  neighbourhood.  It  has  been  inferred 
from  the  mention  of  his  "  hired  servants  "  (Mark 
i.  20),  and  from  the  acquaintance  between  the 
Apostle  John  and  Annas  the  high-priest  (John  xviii. 
15)  that  the  family  of  Zebedee  were  in  easy  circum 
stances  (comp.  John  xix.  27),  although  not  above 
manual  labour  (Matt.  iv.  21).  Although  the  name 
of  Zebedee  frequently  occurs  as  a  patronymic,  for 
the  sake  of  distinguishing  his  two  sons  from  others 
who  bore  the  same  names,  he  appears  only  once  in 
the  Gospel  narrative,  namsly  in  Matt.  iv.  21,  22, 
Mark  i.  19,  20,  where  he  is  seen  in  his  boat  with 
his  two  sons  mending  their  nets.  On  this  occasion 
he  allows  his  sons  to  leave  him  at  the  bidding  of 
the  Saviour,  without  raising  any  objection  ;  although 
it  does  not  appear  that  he  was  himself  ever  of  the 
number  of  Christ's  disciples.  His  wife,  indeed, 
appears  in  the  catalogue  of  the  pious  women  who 
were  in  constant  attendance  on  the  Saviour  towards 
the  close  of  His  ministry,  who  watched  Him  on  the 
cross,  and  ministered  to  Him  even  in  the  grave 
(Matt,  xxvii.  55,  56  ;  Mark  xv.  40,  xvi.  1  ;  comp. 
Matt.  xx.  20,  and  Luke  viii.  3).  It  is  reasonable 
to  infer  that  Zebedee  was  dead  before  this  time.  It 
is  worthy  of  notice,  and  may  perhaps  be  regarded 
as  a  minute  confiiination  of  the  evangelical  narra 
tive.  that  the  name  of  Zebedee  is  almost  identical 
in  signification  with  that  of  John,  since  it  is  likely 
that  a  father  would  desire  that  his  own  name 
should  be,  as  it  were,  continued,  although  in  an 
altered  form.  [JOHN  THE  APOSTLE.]  [W.  B.  J.] 

ZEB'INA  (NJ'IT:  ZejSejWs;  Alex,  omits: 
Zabina).  One  of  the  sons  of  Nebo,  who  had  taken 
foreign  wives  after  the  return  from  Babylon  (Ezr. 
x.  43). 

ZE'BOIM.  This  word  represents  in  the  A.  V. 
two  names  which  in  the  original  are  quite  distinct. 

¥»  and>  in 


Alex.  Sej8»i/£, 
Seboim).  One  of  the  five  cities  of  the  "  plain  "  or 
circle  of  Jordan.  It  is  mentioned  in  Gen.  x.  19, 
xiv.  2,  8  ;  Deut.  xxix.  23  ;  and  Hos.  xi.  8,  in  each 
of  which  passages  it  is  either  coupled  with  Admah, 
or  placed  next  it  in  the  lists.  The  name  of  its  king, 
Shemeber,  is  preserved  (Gen.  xiv.  2)  ;  and  it  perhaps 


«  Even  to  the  double  yod.  This  name,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  distinct  from  the  ZEBOIM  of  Benjamin. 

<J  See  this  noticed  more  at  length  under  MEIIUNIM, 
BISKRA,  &c. 

»  InGen.x  1 9  only,  this  appears  in  Vat.  (Mai)  Zc/Swi/utfx. 


appears  again,  as  ZEBAIM,  in  the  lists  of  the  memais 
of  the  Temple. 

No  attempt  appears  to  have  been  made  to  dis 
cover  the  site  of  Zeboim,  till  M.  de  Saulcy  sug 
gested  the  Talda  Sebdan,  a  name  which  he,  and  he 
alone,  reports  as  attached  to  extensive  ruins  on 
the  high  ground  between  the  Dead  Sea  and  Kerak 
(  Voyage,  Jan.  22  ;  Map,  sht.  7).  Before  however 
this  can  be  accepted,  M.  de  Saulcy  must  explain 
how  a  place  which  stood  in  the  plain  or  circle  of 
the  Jordan,  can  have  been  situated  on  the  highlands 
at  least  50  miles  from  that  river.  [See  SODOM  and 
ZOAR.] 

In  Gen.  xiv.  2,  8,  the  name  is  given  in  the  A.  V. 
ZEBOIIM,  a  more  accurate  representative  of  the 
form  in  which  it  appears  in  the  original  both  there 
and  in  Deut.  xxix.  23. 

2.  THE  VALLEY  OP  ZEBOIM  (D'JD-Vn  '3  :  Ftu 
r^v  2,afjLeiv  ;  the  passage  is  lost  in  Alex.  :  Vallis 
Seboim).  The  name  differs  from  the  preceding,  not 
only  in  having  the  definite  article  attached  to  it, 
but  also  in  containing  the  characteristic  and  stub 
born  letter  Ain,  which  imparts  a  definite  character 
to  the  word  in  pronunciation.  It  was  a  ravine  or 
gorge,  apparently  east  of  Michmash,  mentioned  only 
in  1  Sam.  xiii.  18.  It  is  there  described  with  a 
curious  minuteness,  which  is  unfortunately  no  longer 
intelligible.  The  road  running  from  Michmash  to 
the  east,  is  specified  as  "  the  road  of  the  border 
that  looketh  to  the  ravine  of  Zeboim  towards  the 
wilderness."  The  wilderness  (midbar^)  is  no  doubt 
the  district  of  uncultivated  mountain  tops  and  sides 
which  lies  between  the  central  district  of  Benjamin 
and  the  Jordan  Valley  ;  and  here  apparently  the 
ravine  of  Zeboim  should  be  sought.  In  that  very 
district  there  is  a  wild  gorge,  bearing  the  name  of 


),b  "ravine  of  the 


Shuk  ed-Dubba' 


hyena,"  the  exact  equivalent  of  Ge  hat-tsebo'im. 
Up  this  gorge  runs  the  path  by  which  the  writer 
was  conducted  from  Jericho  to  Mukhmas,  in  1858. 
It  does  not  appear  that  the  name  has  been  noticed  by 
other  travellers,  but  it  is  worth  investigation.  [G.~ 


ZEB'UDAH  (fn»3J,  Keri  mtaf  :  'IeA8<£<J>  ; 
Alex.  EteAScty)  :  Zebida}.  Daughter  of  Pedaiah  of 
Rumah,  wife  of  Josiah  and  mother  of  king  Jehoi- 
akim  (2  K.  xxiii.  36).  The  Peshito-Syriac  and 
Arabic  of  the  London  Polyglot  read  HT3T  :  the 
Targum  has  miHT- 

ZE'BUL  (Vat  :  Zej8o«5\  :  Zebul).  Chief  man 
Clb>,  A.  V.  "  ruler")  of  the  city  of  Shechem  at  the 

time  of  the  contest  between  Abimelech  and  the 
native  Canaanites.  His  name  occurs  Judg.  ix.  28, 
30,  36,  38,  41.  He  governed  the  town  as  the 
officer  "  O*pQ  :  eVtV/coTros)  of  Abimelech  while 
the  latter  was  absent,  and  he  took  part  against  the 
Canaanites  by  shutting  them  out  of  the  city  when 
Abimelech  was  encamped  outside  it.  His  conversa 
tion  with  Gaal  the  Canaanite  leader,  as  they  stood 
in  the  gate  of  Shechem  watching  the  approach'  01 
the  armed  bands,  gives  Zebul  a  certain  indm- 
duality  amongst  the  many  characters  of  that  time 
of  confusion.  [.G.] 

b  The  writer  was  accompanied  by  Mr.  Consul  E.  T, 
Rogers,  well  known  as  one  of  the  best  living  scholars  in 
the  common  Arabic,  who  wrote  down  the  name  for  Mm 
at  the  moment. 


1820 


ZEBULONITE 


ZE'BULONITE    ('friajn,    with    the    def. 


article  '  6  Za^ovXwvfir^s  ,  Alex,  in  both  verses, 
6  Zaj8oiwr»7s  :  Zabulonites},  i.  e.  member  of  the 
tribe  of  Zebulun.  Applied  only  to  ELON,  the  one 
judge  produced  by  the  tribe  (Judg.  xii.  11,  12). 
The  article  being  found  in  the  original,  the  sentence 
should  read,  "  Elon  the  Zebulonite."  [G.] 

ZE'BULUN  (l-taj,  j^QJ,  and  '|Awj  :  Zo- 
&ov\<av  :  Zabulon),  The  tenth  of  the  sons  of 
Jacob,  according  to  the  order  in  which  their  births 
are  enumerated  ;  the  sixth  and  last  of  Leah  (Gen. 
xxx.  20,  xxxv.  23,  xlvi.  14;  1  Chr.  ii.  1).  His 
birth  is  recorded  in  Gen.  xxx.  19,  20,  where  the 
origin  of  the  name  is  as  usual  ascribed  to  an  ex 
clamation  of  his  mother's  —  "  '  Now  will  my  hus 
band  d  dweil-with-me  (izbeleni},  for  I  have  borne 
him  six  sons  !'  and  she  called  his  name  Zebulun." 

Of  the  individual  Zebulun  nothing  is  recorded. 
The  list  of  Gen.  xlvi.  ascribes  to  him  three  sons, 
founders  of  the  chief  families  of  the  tribe  (comp. 
Num.  xx  vi.  26)  at  the  time  of  the  migration  to 
Egypt.  In  the  Jewish  traditions  he  is  named  as 
the  first  of  the  five  who  were  presented  by  Joseph 
to  Pharaoh  —  Dan,  Naphtali,  Gad,  and  Asher  being 
the  others  (Targ.  Pseudojon.  on  Gen.  xlvii.  2). 

During  the  journey  from  Egypt  to  Palestine  the 
tribe  of  Zebulun  formed  one  of  the  first  camp,  with 
Judah  and  Issachar  (also  sons  of  Leah),  marching 
under  the  standard  of  Judah.  Its  numbers,  at  the 
census  of  Sinai,  were  57,000,  surpassed  only  by 
Simeon,  Dan,  and  Judah.  At  that  of  Shittim  they 
were  60,500,  not  having  diminished,  but  not  having 
increased  nearly  so  much  as  might  naturally  be  ex 
pected.  The  head  of  the  tribe  at  Sinai  was  Eliab 
son  of  Helon  (Num.  vii.  24)  ;  at  Shiloh,  Elizaphan 
son  of  Parnach  (Ib.  xxxiV.  25).  Its  representa 
tive  amongst  the  spies  was  Gaddiel  son  of  Sodi 
(xiii.  10).  Besides  what  may  be  implied  in  its  ap 
pearances  in  these  lists,  the  tribe  is  not  recorded  to 
have  taken  part,  for  evil  or  good,  in  any  of  the 
events  of  the  wandering  or  the  conquest.  Its 
allotment  was  the  third  of  the  second  distribution 
(Josh.  xix.  10).  Judah,  Joseph,  Benjamin,  had 
acquired  the  south  and  the  centre  of  the  country. 
To  Zebulun  fell  one  of  the  fairest  of  the  remaining 
portions.  It  is  perhaps  impossible,  in  the  present 
state  of  our  knowledge,  exactly  to  define  its  limits  ;  e 
but  the  statement  of  Josephus  (Ant.  v.  1,  §22)  is 
probably  in  the  main  correct,  that  it  reached  on  the 
one  side  to  the  lake  of  Genesareth,  and  on  the 
other  to  Carmel  and  the  Mediterranean.  On  the 
south  it  was  bounded  by  Issachar,  who  lay  in  the 
great  plain  or  valley  of  the  Kishon  ;  on  the  north 
it  had  Naphtali  and  Asher.  In  this  district  the 
tribe  possessed  the  outlet  (the  "  going-out,"  Deut. 
xxxiii.  18)  of  the  plain  of  Akka  ;  the  fisheries  of 
the  lake  of  Galilee  ;  the  splendid  agricultural  capa 
bilities  of  the  great  plain  of  the  Buttauf  (equal  in 


ZEBULUN 

fertility,  and  almost  equal  in  extent,  to  th'it  of 
Jezreel,  and  with  the  immense  advantage  of  not 
being,  as  that  was,  the  high  road  of  the  Bedouins)  , 
and,  last  not  least,  it  included  sites  so  strongly  for 
tified  by  nature,  that  in  the  later  strugglas  of  the 
nation  they  proved  more  impregnable  than  any  in 
the  whole  country.*  The  sacred  mountain  ot 
TABOR,  Zebulun  appears  to  have  shared  with  Issa 
char  (Deut.  xxxiii.  19),  and  it  and  Rimmon  were 
allotted  to  the  Merarite  Levites  (1  Chr.  vi.  77). 
But  these  ancient  sanctuaries  of  the  tribe  were 
eclipsed  by  those  which  arose  within  it  afterwards, 
when  the  name  of  Zebulun  was»  superseded  by  that 
of  Galilee.  Nazareth,  Cana,  Tiberias,  and  probably 
the  land  of  Genesareth  itself,  were  all  situated 
within  its  limits. 

The  fact  recognized  by  Josephus  that  Zebulun 
extended  to  the  Mediterranean,  though  not  men 
tioned  or  implied,  as  far  as  we  can  discern,  in  the 
lists  of  Joshua  and  Judges,  is  alluded  to  in  the 
Blessing  of  Jacob  (Gen.  xlix.  13)  : — 

"  Zfibv  lun  dwells  at  the  shore  of  the  seas, 

Even  he  at  the  shore  of  ships : 
And  bis  thighs  are  upon  Zidon  " 

— a  passage  which  seems  to  show  that  at  the  date 
at  which  it  was  written,  the  tribe  was  taking  a  part 
in  Phoenician  9  commerce.  The  "  way  of  the  sea  " 
(Is.  ix.  1),  the  great  road  from  Damascus  to  the 
Mediterranean,  traversed  a  good  portion  of  the  ter 
ritory  of  Zebulun,  and  must  have  brought  its  people 
into  contact  with  the  merchants  and  the  commodities 
of  Syria,  Phoenicia,  and  Egypt. 

Situated  so  far  from  the  centre  of  government, 
Zebulun  remains  throughout  the  history,  with  one 
exception,  in  the  obscurity  which  envelopes  the 
whole  of  the  northern  tribes.  That  exception,  how 
ever,  is  a  remarkable  one.  The  conduct  of  the 
tribe  during  the  struggle  with  Sisera,  when  they 
fought  with  desperate  valour  side  by  side  with 
their  brethren  of  Naphtali,  was  such  as  to  draw 
down  the  especial  praise  of  Deborah,  who  singles 
them  out  from  all  the  other  tribes  (Judg.  v.  18) : — 
"  Zebulun  is  a  people  that  threw  away  its  life  even  unto 
death  : 

And  Naphtali,  on  the  high  places  of  the  field." 

The  same  poem  contains  an  expression  which  seems 
to  imply   that,  apart  from  the  distinction  gained 
by  their- conduct  in   this  contest,  Zebulun  was  al 
ready  in  a  prominent  f  osition  among  the  tribes  : — 
"  Out  of  Machir  came  down  governors ; 
And  out  of  Zebulun  those  that  handle  the  pen  (or  the 
wand)  of  the  scribe ;" 

referring  probably  to  the  officers,  who  registered 
and  marshalled  the  warriors  of  the  host  (comp. 
Josh.  i.  10).  One  of  these  "scribes"  may  have 
been  ELON,  the  single  judge  produced  by  the  tribe, 
who  is  recorded  as  having  held  office  for  ten  years 
(Judg.  xii.  11,  12). 


c  Of  these  three  forms  the  first  is  employed  in  Genesis, 
Isaiah,  Psalms,  and  Chronicles,  except  Gen.  xlix.  13,  and 
1  Chr.  xx  vii.  19 ;  also  occasionally  in  Judges  :  the  second  is 
found  in  the  rest  of  the  Pentateuch,  in  Joshua,  Judges, 
Ezekiel,  and  the  above  place  in  Chronicles.  The  third  and 
mor1!  extended  form  is  found  in  Judg.  i.  30  only.  The 
first  and  second  are  used  indiscriminately :  e.  gr.  Judg. 
iv.  6  and  v.  18  exhibit  the  first;  Judg.  iv.  10  and  v.  14  the 
second  form. 

d  This  play  is  not  preserved  in  the  original  of  the 
"  Blessing  of  Jacob,"  though  the  language  of  the  A.  V. 
implies  it.  The  word  rendered  "  dwell "  in  Gen.  xlix.  13  is 
with  no  relation  to  the  name  Zebulun.  The  LXX. 


put  a  different  point  on  the  exclamation  of  Leah :  "  My 
liusband  will  choose  me  "  (aipenet  ju.e).  This,  however, 
hardly  implies  any  difference  in  the  original  text.  Jo 
sephus  (Ant.  i.  19,  $8)  gives  only  a  general  explanation  : 
"  a  pledge  of  goodwill  towards  her." 

«  Few  of  the  towns  in  the  catalogue  of  Josh.  xix.  10-16 
have  been  identified.  The  tribe  is  omitted  in  the  lists  of 
1  Chronicles. 

f  Sepphoris,  Jotapata,  kc. 

E  In  the  "Testament  of  Zabulon"  (Fabricius,  Pseud- 
epigr.  V.  T.  i.  630-45)  great  stress  is  laid  on  his  skill  iu 
fishing,  and  he  is  commemorated  as  the  first  to  navigat* 
a  skifl  on  the  sea. 


ZEBULUNITES 

A  similar  reputation  is  alluded  (o  in  the  mention 
of  the  tribe  among  those  who  attended  the  inaugu 
ration  of  David's  reign  at  Hebron.  The  expressions 
are  again  peculiar : — "  Of  Zebulun  such  as  went 
forth  to  war,  rangers  of  battle,  with  all  tools  of 
war,  50,000  ;  who  could  set  the  battle  iu  array  ; 
they  were  not  of  double  heart"  (1  Chr.  xii.  33). 
The  same  passage,  however,  shows  that  while  pro 
ficient  in  the  arts  of  war  they  did  not  neglect  those 
of  peace,  tut  that  on  the  wooded  hills  and  fertile 
plains  of  their  district  they  produced  bread,  meal, 
tigs,  grapes,  wine,  oil,  oxen,  and  sheep  in  abundance 
(ver.  40).  The  head  of  the  tribe  at  this  time  was 
Ishmaiah  ben-Obadiah  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  19). 

We  are  nowhere  directly  told  that  the  people  of 
Zebulun  were  carried  off  to  Assyria.  Tiglath- 
pileser  swept  away  the  whole  of  Naphtali  (2  K.  xv. 
29 ;  Tob.  i.  2),  and  Shalmaneser  in  the  same  way 
took  "Samaria"  (xvii.  6);  but  though  the  de 
portation  of  Zebulun  and  Issachar  is  not  in  so  many 
words  asserted,  there  is  the  statement  (xvii.  18) 
that  the  whole  of  the  northern  tribes  were  removed  ; 
and  there  is  also  the  well-known  allusion  of  Isaiah 
to  the  affliction  of  Zebulun  and  Naphtali  (ix.  1), 
which  can  hardly  point  to  anything  but  the  in 
vasion  of  Tiglath-pileser.  It  is  satisfactory  to  re 
flect  that  the  very  latest  mention  of  the  Zebulunites 
is  the  account  of  the  visit  of  a  large  number  of 
them  to  Jerusalem  to  the  passover  of  Hezekiah, 
when,  by  the  enlightened  liberality  of  the  king, 
they  were  enabled  to  eat  the  feast,  even  though, 
through  long  neglect  of  the  provisions  of  the  Law, 
they  were  not  cleansed  in  the  manner  prescribed 
by  the  ceremonial  law. — In  the  visions  of  Ezekiel 
(xlviii.  26-33)  and  of  St.  John  (Rev.  vii.  8)  this 
tribe  finds  its  due  mention.  [G.] 

ZE'BULUNITES,  THE  (»A-13^n,  «.*.  "  the 
Zebulonite  :"  ZafiovXuv  :  Zabulori).  The  members 
of  the  tribe  of  Zebulun  (Num.  xxvi.  27  only).  It 
would  be  more  literally  accurate  if  spelt  ZEBU- 
LONITES.  [G.] 

ZECHARI'AH  (nj*l3J :  Zaxapizs:  Zacha- 
rias).  1.  The  eleventh  in  order  of  the  twelve  minor 

Srophets.  Of  his  personal  history  we  know  but  little, 
e  is  called  in  his  prophecy  the  son  of  Berechiah, 
and  the  grandson  of  Iddo,  whereas  in  the  Book  of 
Ezra  (v.  1,  vi.  14)  he  is  said  to  have  been  the  son 
of  Iddo.  Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  re 
concile  this  discrepancy.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  (Pref. 
Comment,  ad  Zech.}  supposes  that  Berechiah  was  the 
father  of  Zechariah,  according  to  the  flesh,  and  that 
Iddo  was  his  instructor,  and  might  be  regarded  as 
his  spiritual  father.  Jerome  too,  according  to  some 
MSS.,  has  in  Zech.  i.  1,  "  filium  Barachiae,  fiiium 
Addo,"  as  if  he  supposed  that  Berechiah  and  Iddo 
were  different  names  of  the  same  person  ;  and  the 
same  mistake  occurs  in  the  LXX. :  -rbv  TOV  ~Bapa- 
XIGU,  vlbv  'ASSw.  Gesenius  (Lex.  s.  r.  |3)  and 
Rosenmuller  (On  Zech.  i.  1)  take  "12  in  the  pas- 
5.iges  in  Ezra  to  mean  "grandson,"  as  in  Gen.  xxix. 
5,  Laban  is  termed  "  the  son,"  i.  e.  "  grandson,"  of 
Nahor.  Others,  again,  have  suggested  that  in  the 
text  of  Ezra  no  mention  is  made  of  Berechiah,  be 
muse  he  was  already  dead,  or  because  Iddo  was  the 
more  distinguished  person,  and  the  generally  re- 
L-oomzed  head  of  the  family.  Knobel  thinks  that 
the  name  of  Berechiah  has  crept  into  the  present 

»  As  Hezekiah  (Is.  i.  1,  Hos.  i.  1)  and  Jehezekiah  (2  K. 
STiii.  1.  9,  10),  Couiah  (Jer.  xxii.  24,  xxxviL  1  aud  Je- 


ZECHARIAH 


1821 


text  of  Zechariah  from  Isaiah  viii.  'J,  wn»re  men- 
tion  is  made  of  a  Zechariah  "the  son  of  Jebere* 
chiah"  which  is  virtually  the  same  name  (LXX. 
Bapax'tov)  as  Berechiah.8  His  theory  is  that 
chapters  ix.-xi.  of  our  present  Book  of  Zechariah  are 
really  the  work  of  the  older  Zechariah  (Is.  viii.  2) ; 
that  a  later  scribe  finding  the  two  books,  one  bearing 
the  name  of  Zechariah  the  son  of  Iddo,  and  the  other 
that  of  Zechariah  the  son  of  Berechiah,  united  them 
into  one,  and  at  the  same  time  combined  the  titles 
of  the  two,  and  that  hence  arose  the  confusion 
which  at  present  exists.  This,  however,  is  hardly 
a  piobable  hypothesis.  It  is  surely  more  natural  to 
suppose,  as  the  Prophet  himself  mentions  his 
father's  name,  whereas  the  historical  Books  of  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah  mention  only  Iddo,  that  Berechiah 
had  died  early,  and  that  there  was  now  no  inter 
vening  link  between  the  grandfather  and  the  grand 
son.  The  son,  in  giving  his  pedigree,  does  not  omit 
his  father's  name :  the  historian  passes  it  over,  as 
of  one  who  was  but  little  known,  or  already  for 
gotten.  This  view  is  confirmed  if  we  suppose  the 
Iddo  here  mentioned  to  have  been  the  Iddo  the 
priest  who,  in  Neh.  xii.  4,  is  said  to  have  re 
turned  from  Babylon  in  company  with  Zerubbabel 
and  Joshua.  He  is  there  said  to  have  had  a  son 
Zechariah  (ver.  16),  who  was  contemporary  with 
Joiakim  the  son  of  Joshua  ;  and  this  falls  in  with 
the  hypothesis  that,  owing  to  some  unexplained 
cause — perhaps  the  death  of  his  father — Zechariah 
became  the  next  representative  of  the  family  after 
his  grandfather  Iddo.  Zechariah,  according  to  this 
view,  like  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  before  him,  was 
priest  as  well  as  prophet.  He  seems  to  have  entered 
upon  his  office  while  yet  young  ("iJJJ,  Zech.  ii.  4 ; 
comp.  Jer.  i.  6),  and  must  have  been  born  in  Ba 
bylon,  whence  he  returned  with  the  first  caravan 
of  exiles  under  Zerubbabel  and  Joshua. 

It  was  in  the  eighth  month,  in  the  second  year 
of  Darius,  that  he  first  publicly  discharged  his 
office.  In  this  he  acted  in  concert  with  Haggai, 
who  must  have  been  considerably  his  senior,  if,  as 
seems  not  improbable,  Haggai  had  been  carried 
into  captivity,  and  hence  had  himself  been  one  of 
those  who  had  seen  "the  house"  of  Jehovah  "in 
her  first  glory"  (Hagg.  ii.  3).  Both  prophets  had 
the  same  great  object  before  them ;  both  directed 
all  their  energies  to  the  building  of  the  Second 
Temple.  Haggai  seems  to  have  led  the  way  in  this 
work,  and  then  to  have  left  it  chiefly  in  the  hands 
of  his  younger  contemporary.  The  foundations  of 
the  new  building  had  already  been  laid  in  the  time 
of  Cyrus  ;  but  during  the  reigns  of  Cambyses  and 
the  pseudo-Smerdis  the  work  had  been  broken  off 
through  the  jealousies  of  the  Samaritans.  When, 
however,  Darius  Hystaspis  ascended  the  throne 
(521),  things  took  a  more  favourable  turn.  He 
seems  to  have  been  a  large-hearted  and  gracious 
prince,  and  to  have  been  well-disposed  towaids  the 
Jews.  Encouraged  by  the  hopes  which  his  acces 
sion  held  out,  the  Prophets  exerted  themselves  to 
the  utmost  to  secure  the  completion  of  the  Temple. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  see  of  how  great  moment, 
under  such  circumstances,  and  for  the  discharge  ol 
the  special  duty  with  which  he  was  entrusted, 
would  be  the  priestly  origin  of  Zechariah. 

Too  often  the  Prophet  had  had  to  stand  forth  in 
direct  antagonism  to  the  Priest.  In  an  age  when 
the  service  of  God  had  stiffened  into  formalism, 


conlah  (Jer.  xxiv.  1,  xxvii.  20),  Azia!  ('.  3hr.  xv.  20)  and 
Taaziel(lChr  xv  18). 


1822 


ZECIIARIAH 


aud  the  Priests'  lips  no  longer  kept  knowledge,  the 
Prophet  was  the  witness  for  the  truth  which  lay 
beneath  the  outward  ceremonial,  and  without  which 
the  outward  ceremonial  was  worthless.  But  the 
thing  to  he  dreaded  now  was  not  superstitious 
formalism,  but  cold  neglect.  There  was  no  fear 
now  lest  in  a  gorgeous  temple,  amidst  the  splen 
dours  of  an  imposing  ritual  and  the  smoke  of 
sacrifices  ever  ascending  to  heaven,  the  heart  and 
life  of  religion  should  be  lost.  The  fear  was  all  the 
other  way,  lest  even  the  body,  the  outward  form 
and  service,  should  be  suffered  to  decay. 

The  foundations  of  the  Temple  had  indeed  been 
laid,  but  that  was  all  (Ezr.  v.  16).  Discouraged 
by  the  opposition  which  they  had  encountered  at 
first,  the  Jewish  colony  had  begun  to  build,  and 
were  not  able  to  finish  ;  and  even  when  the  letter 
came  from  Darius  sanctioning  the  work,  and  pro 
mising  his  protection,  they  showed  no  hearty  dis 
position  to  engage  in  it.  At  such  a  time,  no  more 
fitting  instrument  could  be  found  to  rouse  the 
people,  whose  heart  had  grown  cold,  than  one  who 
united  to  the  authority  of  the  Prophet  the  zeal  and 
the  traditions  of  a  sacerdotal  family. 

Accordingly,  to  Zechariah's  influence  we  find 
the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  in  a  great  measure 
ascribed.  "  And  the  elders  of  the  Jews  builded," 
it  is  said,  "  and  they  prospered  through  the  pro 
phesying  of  Haggai  the  prophet,  and  Zechariah  the 
son  of  Iddo"  (Ezr.  vi.  14).  It  is  remarkable  that 
in  this  juxtaposition  of  the  two  names  both  are  not 
styled  prophets :  not  "  Haggai  and  Zechariah  the 
prophets,"  but  "  Haggai  the  prophet,  and  Zechariah 
the  son  of  Iddo"  Is  it  an  improbable  conjecture 
that  Zechariah  is  designated  by  his  father's  (or 
grandfather's)  name,  rather  than  by  his  office,  in 
order  to  remind  us  of  his  priestly  character  ?  Be 
this  as  it  may,  we  find  other  indications  of  the  close 
union  which  now  subsisted  between  the  priests  and 
the  prophets.  Various  events  connected  with  the 
taking  of  Jerusalem  and  the  Captivity  in  Babylon 
had  led  to  the  institution  of  solemn  fast<lays ;  and 
we  find  that  when  a  question  arose  as  to  the  pro 
priety  of  observing  these  fast-days,  now  that  the 
city  and  the  Temple  were  rebuilt,  the  question  was 
referred  to  "  the  priests  which  were  in  the  house  of 
Jehovah,  and  to  the  prophets," — a  recognition,  not 
only  of  the  joint  authority,  but  of  the  harmony 
subsisting  between  the  two  bodies,  without  parallel 
in  Jewish  history.  The  manner,  too,  in  which 
Joshua  the  High-Priest  is  spoken  of  in  this  pro 
phecy  shows  how  lively  a  sympathy  Zechariah  felt 
towards  him. 

Later  traditions  assume,  what  is  indeed  vei*y  pro 
bable,  that  Zechariah  took  personally  an  active  part 
in  providing  for  the  Liturgical  service  of  the  Temple. 
He  and  Haggai  are  both  said  to  have  composed 
Psalms  with  this  view.  According  to  the  LXX., 
Pss.  cxxxvii.  cxlv.-cxlviii. ;  according  to  the  Peshito, 
Pss.  cxxv.  cxxvi. ;  according  to  the  Vulg.,  Ps.  cxi. ; 


ZECHARIAH 

are  Psalms  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah  .b  The  tri 
umphant  "  Hallelujah,"  with  which  many  of  them 
open,  was  supposed  to  be  characteristic  of  those 
Psalms  which  were  first  chanted  in  the  Second 
Temple,  and  came  with  an  emphasis  of  meaning 
from  the  lips  of  those  who  had  been  restored  to 
their  native  land.  The  allusions,  moreover,  with 
which  these  Psalms  abound,  as  well  as  their  place 
in  the  Psalter,  leave  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  time 
when  they  were  composed,  and  lend  confirmation  to 
the  tradition  respecting  their  authorship. 

If  the  later  Jewish  accounts6  may  be  trusted, 
Zechariah,  as  well  as  Haggai,  was  a  member  of 
the  Great  Synagogue.  The  patristic  notices  of  the 
Prophet  are  worth  nothing.  According  to  these, 
he  exercised  his  prophetic  office  in  Chaldaea,  and 
wrought  many  miracles  there ;  returned  to  Jeru 
salem  at  an  advanced  age,  where  he  discharged  the 
duties  of  the  priesthood,  and  where  he  died  and  was 
buried  by  the  side  of  Haggai.d 

The  genuine  writings  of  Zechariah  help  us  but 
little  in  our  estimation  of  his  character.  Some  faint 
traces,  however,  we  may  observe  in  them  of  his 
education  in  Babylon.  Less  free  and  independent 
than  he  would  have  been,  had  his  feet  trod  from 
childhood  the  soil, 

'  Where  each  old  poetic  mountain 
Inspiration  breathed  around," 

he  leans  avowedly  on  the  authority  of  the  older 
prophets,  and  copies  their  expressions.  Jeremiah 
especially  seems  to  have  been  his  favourite ;  and 
hence  the  Jewish  saying,  that  "  the  spirit  of  Jere 
miah  dwelt  in  Zechariah."  But  in  what  may  be 
called  the  peculiarities  of  his  prophecy,  he  ap 
proaches  more  nearly  to  Ezekiel  and  Daniel.  Like 
them  he  delights  in  visions;  like  them  he  uses 
symbols  and  allegories,  rather  than  the  bold  figures 
and  metaphors  which  lend  so  much  force  and 
beauty  to  the  writings  of  the  earlier  prophets  ;  like 
them  he  beholds  angels  ministering  before  Jehovah, 
and  fulfilling  his  behests  on  the  earth.  He  is  the 
only  one  of  the  prophets  who  speaks  of  Satan. 
That  some  of  these  peculiarities  are  owing  to  his 
Chaldaean  education  can  hardly  be  doubted.  It  is 
at  least  remarkable  that  both  Ezekiel  and  Daniel, 
who  must  have  been  influenced  by  tne  same  asso 
ciations,  should  in  some  of  these  respects  so  closely 
resemble- Zechariah,  widely  as  they  differ  from  him 
in  others. 

Even  in  the  form  of  the  visions  a  careful  criticism 
might  perhaps  discover  some  traces  of  the  Prophet's 
early  training.  Possibly  the  "  valley  of  myrtles  "  in 
the  first  vision  may  have  been  suggested  by  Chaldaea 
rather  than  by  Palestine.  At  any  rate  it  is  a 
curious  fact  that  myrtles  are  never  mentioned  in 
the  history  of  the  Jews  before  the  exile.  They  are 
found,  besides  this  passage  of  Zechariah,  in  the 
Deutero-Isaiah  xli.  19,  Iv.  13,  and  in  Neh.  viii.  15.° 
The  forms  of  trial  in  the  third  vision,  where  Joshua 


*>  Hence  Pseudepiphanius,  speaking  of  Haggai,  says 
Koi  avrb?  e\fta\\ev  e*ei  Trpwros  aAATjAovi'a  (in  allusion 
to  the  Hallelujah  with  which  some  of  these  Psalms  begin) 
8ib  Aeyo/xev  aAA-»jAovi'a  o  earir  v^vos  'Ayyaiou  ical 
Za\apt'ov. 

c  Tr.  Megilla,  fol.  17,  2. 18,  1 ;  Eashi  ad  Bdba  Bathra, 
fol.  15,  1. 

d  Pseudepiph.  de  Proph.  cap.  21,  OUTOS  y^Vev  anb  -yijs 
XoASatW  rjSrj  irpojSe/SrjKtbs  Kal  e<el  wv  TroAAa  T<?  Aaa>  irpo- 
e4>r)Tevo-ev,  KT\.  Dorotheus,  p.  144:  Hie  Zacharias  e 
Chaliaea  venit  cum  aetate  jam  esset  provecta  atque  ibi 
populo  multa  vaticinatus  est  prodigiaque  probandi  gratia 


edidit,  et  sacerdotio  Hierosolymls  functus  est,  etc.  Isi- 
dorus,  cap.  51.  Zacharias  de  regione  Chaldaeorum  valdo 
senex  in  terram  suam  reversus  est,  in  qua  et  mortuus  est 
ac  sepultus  juxta  Aggaenm  quiescit  in  pace. 

e  In  the  last  passage  the  people  are  told  to  "  fetch  olive- 
branches  and  cypress-branches,  and  myrtle-branches  and 
palm-branches  ...  to  make  booths  "  for  the  celebration 
of  the  feast  of  tabernacles.  It  is  interesting  to  compare 
this  with  the  original  direction,  as  given  in  the  wilderness, 
when  the  only  trees  mentioned  are  "  palms  and  willows 
of  the  brook."  Palestine  was  rich  in  the  olive  and 
cypress.  Is  it  very  improbable  that  the  myrtle  may  have 


ZECHARIAH 

the  High-Priest  is  arraigned,  seem  borrowed  fro.-n 
the  practice  of  Persian  rather  than  Jewish  courts  of 
law.'  The  filthy  garments  in  which  Joshua  appears 
are  those  which  the  accused  must  assume  when 
brought  to  trial ;  the  white  robe  put  upon  him 
is  the  caftan  or  robe  of  honour  which  to  this  day 
in  the  East  is  put  upon  the  minister  of  state  who 
nas  been  acquitted  of  the  charges  laid  against  him. 

The  vision  of  the  woman  in  the  Ephah  is  also 
Driental  in  its  character.  Ewald  refers  to  a  very 
-imilar  vision  in  Tod's  Rajasthan,  t.  ii.  p.  688. 

Finally,  the  chariots  issuing  from  between  two 
mountains  of  brass  must  have  been  suggested,  there 
can  scarcely  be  any  doubt,  by  some  Persian  sym 
bolism. 

Other  peculiarities  of  style  must  be  noticed, 
when  we  come  to  discuss  the  question  of  the 
Integrity  of  the  Book.  Generally  speaking,  Zecha- 
riah's  style  is  pure,  and  remarkably  free  from 
Chaldaisms.  As  is  common  with  writers  in  the 
decline  of  a  language,  he  seems  to  have  striven  to 
imitate  the  purity  of  the  earlier  models;  but  in 
orthography,  and  in  the  use  of  some  words  and 
phrases,  he  betrays  the  influence  of  a  later  age. 
lie  writes  fitf,  and  Til ;  and  employs  HPIX 
fv.  7)  in  its  later  use  as  the  indefinite  article,  and 
TYnrOV  with  the  fern,  termination  (iv.  12).  A 
full  collection  of  these  peculiarities  will  be  found  in 
Koster,  Meletemata  in  Zech.,  &c. 

Contents  of  the  Prophecy. — The  Book  of  Zecha- 
riah,  in  its  existing  form,  consists  of  three  principal 
parts,  chaps,  i.-viii.,  chaps,  ix.—xi.,  chaps,  xii.— xiv. 

I.  The  first  of  these  divisions  is  allowed  by  all 
critics  to  be  the  genuine  work  of  Zechariah  the  son 
of  Iddo.  It  consists,  first,  of  a  short  introduction 
or  preface,  in  which  the  prophet  announces  his  com 
mission  ;  then  of  a  series  of  visions,  descriptive  of 
all  those  hopes  and  anticipations  of  which  the  build 
ing  of  the  Temple  was  the  pledge  and  sure  founda 
tion  ;  and  finally  of  a  discourse,  delivered  two  years 
later,  m  reply  to  questions  respecting  the  observance 
of  certain  established  fasts. 

1.  The  short  introductory  oracle  (chap.  i.  1-6) 
is  a  warning  voice  from  the  past.     The  prophet 
solemnly  reminds  the  people,  by  an  appeal  to  the 
experience  of  their  fathers,  that  no  word  of  God  had 
ever  fallen  to  the  ground,  and  that  therefore,  if  with 
sluggish  indifference  they  refused  to  co-operate  in 
the°  building  of  the  Temple,  they  must  expect  the 
judgments  of  God.     This  warning  manifestly  rests 
upon  the  former  warnings  of  Haggai. 

2.  In  a  dream  of  the  night  there  passed  before 
the  eyes  of  the  prophet  a  series  of  visions  (chap, 
i.  7-vi.  15)  descriptive  in  their  different  aspects  of 
events,  some  of  them  shortly  to  come  to  pass,  and 
others  losing  themselves  in  the  mist  of  the  future. 
These  visions  are  obscure,  and  accordingly  the  pro 
phet  asks   their   meaning.      The   interpretation  is 
given,  not  as  to  Amos  by  Jehovah  Himself,  but  by 
an  angel  who  knows  the  mind  and  will  of  Jehovah, 
who  intercedes  with  Him  for  others,  and  by  whom 
Jehovah  speaks  and  issues  his  commands:  at  one 
time  he  is  called  "  the  angel  who  spake  with  me  " 


ZEUHARIAI1 


1823 


been  an  importation  from  Babylon?  Esther  was  also 
called  Hadassah  (the  myrtle),  perhaps  her  Persian  desig 
nation  (tisth.  ii.  7)  ;  and  the  myrtle  is  said  to  be  a  native 
of  Persia. 

f  Ewald  understands  by  ""^V^  not  "a  vailey"  or 
'  bottom,"  as  the  A.  V.  renders,  but  the  heavenly  tent  or 
tabernacle  (the  expression  being  chosen  with  reference  to 


or  "by  me"]  (.'.  ft);  at  another,  "the  angel  01 
Jehovah"  (i.  11,  12,  iii.  1-6). 

(1.)  In  the  first  vision  (chap.  i.  7-15)  the  prophet 
sees,  in  a  valley  of  myrtles,'  a  rider  upon  a  roan 
iorse,  accompanied  by  others  who,  having  been  seat 
brth  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth,  had  returned 
with  the  tidings  that  the  whole  earth  was  at  rest 
\vith  reference  to  Hagg.  ii.  20).  Hereupon  the  angel 
isks  how  long  this  state  of  things  shall  last,  and 
s  assured  that  the  indifference  of  the  heathen  shall 
cease,  and  that  the  Temple  shall  be  built  in  Jeru 
salem.  This  vision  seems  to  have  been  partly  bor 
rowed  from  Job  i.  7,  &c. 

(2.)  The  second  vision  (chap.  ii.  1-17,  A.  V.  i. 
18-ii.  13;  explains  how  the  promise  of  the  first  is 
to  be  fulfilled.  The  four  horns  are  the  symbols  of 
the  different  heathen  kingdoms  in  the  four  quarters 
of  the  world,  which  have  hitherto  combined  against 
Jerusalem.  The  four  carpenters  or  smiths  symbolize 
their  destruction.  What  follows,  ii.  5-9  (A.  V.  ii. 
1-5),  betokens  the  vastly  extended  area  of  Jeru 
salem,  owing  to  the  rapid  increase  of  the  new  popu 
lation.  The  old  prophets,  in  foretelling  the  happi 
ness  and  glory  of  the  times  which  should  succeed 
the  Captivity  in  Babylon,  had  made  a  great  part  of 
that  happiness  and  glory  to  consist  in  the  gathering 
together  again  of  the  whole  dispersed  nation  in  the 
land  given  to  their  fathers.  This  vision  was  de 
signed  to  teach  that  the  expectation  thus  raised — 
the  return  of  the  dispersed  of  Israel — should  be  ful 
filled;  that  Jerusalem  should  be  too  large  to  be 
compassed  about  by  a  wall,  but  that  Jehovah  Him 
self  would  be  to  her  a  wall  of  fire — a  light  and 
defence  to  the  holy  city,  and  destruction  to  her  ad 
versaries.  A  song  of  joy,  in  prospect  of  so  bright 
a  future,  closes  the  scene. 

(3.)  The  next  two  visions  (iii.  iv.)  are  occupied 
with  the  Temple,  and  with  the  two  principal  persons 
on  whom  the  hopes  of  the  returned  exiles  rested.  The 
permission  granted  for  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple 
had  no  doubt  stirred  afresh  the  malice  and  the 
animosity  of  the  enemies  of  the  Jews.  Joshua  the 
High-Priest  had  been  singled  out,  it  would  seem,  as 
the  especial  object  of  attack,  and  perhaps  formal 
accusations  had  already  been  laid  against  him  before 
the  Persian  court.?  The  prophet,  in  vision,  sees  him 
summoned  before  a  higher  tribunal,  and  solemnly 
acquitted,  despite  the  charges  of  the  Satan  or  Ad 
versary.  This  is  done  with  the  forms  still  usual  in 
an  Eastern  court.  The  filthy  garments  in  which 
the  accused  is  expected  to  stand  are  taken  away,  and 
the  caftan  or  robe  of  honour  is  put  upon  him  in 
token  that  his  innocence  has  been  established.  Ac 
quitted  at  that  bar,  he  need  not  fear,  it  is  implied, 
any  earthly  accuser.  He  shall  be  protected,  he  shall 
carry  on  the  building  of  the  Temple,  he  shall  so 
prepare  the  way  for  the  coming  of  the  Messiah, 
and  upon  the  foundation-stone  laid  before  him  shall 
the  seven  eyes  of  God,  the  token  of  His  ever-watch 
ful  Providence,  Test. 

(4.)  The  last  vision  (iv.")  supposes  that  all  opposi 
tion  to  the  building  of  the  Temple  shall  be  removed. 
This  sees  the  completion  of  the  work.  It  has  evi 
dently  a  peculiarly  impressive  character;  for  the 


the  Mosaic  tabernacle),  which  Is  the  dwelling-plate  of 
Jehovah.  Instead  of  "  myrtles "  he  understands  by 
D^Diri  (with  the  LXX.  ava.  ueVov  T<av  ope'cuv  riav 
Karaa-Kuav)  "  mountains,"  and  supposes  these  to  be  the 
"two  mountains"  mentioned  vi.  1,  and  whkh  are  there 
called  "  mountains  of  brass." 

S  So  Ewald,  Die  Propheten.  ii.  528. 


1324 


ZECHARIAH 


prophet,  though  his  dream  still  continues,  seems  to 
himself  to  be  awakened  out  of  it  by  the  augel  who 
speaks  to  him.  The  candlestick  (or  more  properly 
chandelier)  with  seven  lights  (borrowed  from  the 
« andlestick  of  the  Mosaic  Tabernacle,  Ex.  xxv.  31  ff.) 
supposes  that  the  Temple  is  already  finished.  The 
seven  pipes  which  supply  each  lamp  answer  to  the 
seven  eyes  of  Jehovah  in  the  preceding  vision  (m. 
9),  and  this  sevenfold  supply  of  oil  denotes  the 
presence  and  operation  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  through 
whose  aid  Zeruhbabel  will  overcome  all  obstacles, 
BO  that  as  his  hands  had  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
house,  his  hands  should  also  finish  it  (iv.  9).  The 
two  olive-branches  of  the  vision,  belonging  to  the 
olive-tree  standing  by  the  candlestick,  are  Zerub- 
babel  himself  and  Joshua. 

The  two  next  visions  (v.  1-11)  signify  that  the 
land,  in  which  the  sanctuary  has  just  been  erected, 
shall  be  purged  of  all  its  pollutions. 

(5.)  First,  the  curse  is  recorded  against  wicked 
ness  in  the  whole  land  (not  in  the  whole  earth,  as 
A.  V.),  v.  3 ;  that  due  solemnity  may  be  given  to 
it,  it  is  inscribed  upon  a  roll,  and  the  roll  is  repre 
sented  as  flying,  in  order  to  denote  the  speed  with 
which  the  curse  will  execute  itself. 

(6.)  Next,  the  unclean  thing,  whether  in  the  form 
of  idolatry  or  any  other  abomination,  shall  be  utterly 
removed.  Caught  and  shut  up  as  it  were  in  a  cage, 
like  some  savage  beast,  and  pressed  down  with  a 
weight  as  of  lead  upon  it  so  that  it  cannot  escape, 
it  shall  be  carried  into  that  land  where  all  evil 
things  have  long  made  their  dwelling  (Is.  xxxiv. 
13),  the  land  of  Babylon  (Shinar,  v.  11),  from 
which  Israel  had  been  redeemed. 

(7.)  And  now  the  night  is  waning  fast,  and  the 
morning  is  about  to  dawn.  Chariots  and  horses 
appear,  issuing  from  between  two  brazen  mountains, 
the  horses  like  those  in  the  first  vision;  and  these 
receive  their  several  commands  and  are  sent  forth 
to  execute  the  will  of  Jehovah  in  the  four  quarters 
af  the  earth.  The  four  chariots  are  images  of  the 
four  winds,  which,  according  to  Ps.  civ.  4,  as 
servants  of  God,  fulfil  His  behests ;  and  of  the  one 
that  goes  to  the  north  it  is  particularly  said  that  it 
shall  let  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  rest  there — is  it  a 
spirit  of  anger  against  the  nations,  Assyria,  Baby 
lon,  Persia,  or  is  it  a  spirit  of  hope  and  desire  of 
return  in  the  hearts  of  those  of  the  exiles  who  still 
lingered  in  the  land  of  their  captivity?  Stahelin, 
Maui'er,  and  others  adopt  the  former  view,  which 
seems  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  preceding  vision  : 
Ewald  gives  the  latter  interpretation,  and  thinks  it 
is  supported  by  what  follows. 

Thus,  then,  the  cycle  of  visions  is  completed. 
Scene  after  scene  is  unrolled  till  the  whole  glowing 
picture  is  presented  to  the  eye.  All  enemies 
crushed ;  the  land  re-peopled  and  Jerusalem  girt  as 
with  a  wall  of  fire ;  the  Temple  rebuilt,  more  truly 
splendid  than  of  old,  because  more  abundantly  rilled 
with  a  Divine  Presence ;  the  leaders  of  the  people 
assured  in  the  most  signal  manner  of  the  Divine 
protection ;  all  wickedness  solemnly  sentenced,  and 
the  land  for  evor  purged  of  it; — such  is  the  magni- 
licent  panorama  of  hope  which  the  prophet  displays 
to  his  countrymen. 

And  very  consolatory  must  such  a  prospect  have 
seemed  to  the  weak  and  disheartened  colony  in  Je 
rusalem.  For  the  times  were  dark  and  troublous. 
According  to  recent  interpretations  of  newly-dis 
covered  inscriptions,  it  would  appear  that  Darius  I. 
found  it  no  easy  ta-^k  to  hold  his  vast  dominions. 
Province  after  province  had  revolted  both  ia  the 


ZECHARIAH 

east  and  in  the  north,  whither,  acceding  to  tfci 
prophet  (vi.  8),  the  winds  had  carried  the  wrath 
of  God  ;  and  if  the  reading  Mudraja,  i.  e.  Egypt,  id 
correct  (Lassen  gives  Kurdistan),  Egypt  must  have 
revolted  before  the  outbreak  mentioned  in  Herod. 
vii.  1,  and  have  again  been  reduced  to  subjection. 
To  such  revolt  there  may  possibly  be  an  allusion  in 
the  reference  to  "  the  laud  of  the  south  "  (vi.  6). 

It  would  seem  that  Zechariah  anticipated  as  a 
consequence  of  these  perpetual  insurrections,  the 
weakening  and  overthrow  of  the  Persian  monarchy 
and  the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  for 
which  Judah  in  faith  and  obedience  was  to  wait.1 

Immediately  on  these  visions  there  follows 
symbolical  act.  Three  Israelites  had  just  return) 
from  Babylon,  bringing  with  them  rich  gifts 
Jerusalem,  apparently  as  contributions  to  the 
Temple,  and  had  been  received  in  the  house  of 
Josiah  the  son  of  Zephaniah.  Thither  the  Prophet 
is  commanded  to  go, — whether  still  in  a  dream  or 
not,  is  not  very  clear, — and  to  employ  the  silver 
and  the  gold  of  their  offerings  for  the  service  of 
Jehovah.  He  is  to  make  of  them  two  crowns,  and 
to  place  these  on  the  head  of  Joshua  the  High- 
Priest, — a  sign  that  in  the  Messiah  who  should 
build  the  Temple,  the  kingly  and  priestly  offices 
should  be  united.  This,  however,  is  expressed 
somewhat  enigmatically,  as  if  king  and  priest  should 
be  perfectly  at  one,  rather  than  that  the  same 
person  should  be  both  king  and  priest.  These 
crowns  moreover,  were  to  be  a  memorial  in  honour 
of  those  by  whose  liberality  they  had  been  made, 
and  should  serve  at  the  same  time  to  excite  other 
rich  Jews  still  living  in  Babylon  to  the  like  libe 
rality.  Hence  their  symbolical  purpose  having 
been  accomplished,  they  were  to  be  laid  up  in  the 
Temple. 

3.  From  this  time,  for  a  space  of  nearly  two 
years,  the  Prophet's  voice  was  silent,  or  his  words 
have  not  been  recorded.  But  in  the  fourth  year 
of  King  Darius,  in  the  fourth  day  of  the  ninth 
month,  there  came  a  deputation  of  Jews  to  the 
Temple,  anxious  to  know  whether  the  fast-days 
which  had  been  instituted  during  the  seventy  years' 
Captivity  were  still  to  be  observed.  On  the  one 
hand,  now  that  the  Captivity  was  at  an  end,  and 
Jerusalem  was  rising  from  her  ashes,  such  set  times 
of  mourning  seemed  quite  out  of  place.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  was  still  much  ground  for  serious 
uneasiness;  for  some  time  after  their  return  they 
had  suffered  severely  from  drought  and  famine 
(Hagg.,i.  6-11),  and  who  could  tell  that  they  would 
not  so  suffer  again  ?  the  hostility  of  their  neigh 
bours  had  not  ceased  ;  they  were  still  regarded  with 
no  common  jealousy;  and  large  numbers  of  their 
brethren  had  not  yet  returned  from  Babylon.  It 
was  a  question  therefore,  that  seemed  to  admit  of 
much  debate. 

It  is  remai-kable,  as  has  been  already  noticed, 
that  this  question  should  have  been  addressed  to 
priests  and  prophets  conjointly  in  the  Temple. 
This  close  alliance  between  two  classes  hitherto  so 
separate,  and  often  so  antagonistic,  was  one  of  the 
most  hopeful  circumstances  of  the  times.  Still 
Zechariah,  as  chief  of  the  prophets,  has  the  decisiou 
of  this  question.  Some  of  the  priests,  it  is  evident 
(vii.  7),  were  inclined  to  the  more  gloomy  view ; 
but  not  so  the  Prophet.  In  language  worthy  oi 
his  position  and  his  office,  language  which  reminds 
us  of  one  of  the  most  striking  passages  of  his  gnat 


Stahelin,  Finldt.  in  die  Kan.  Buck.  p.  318 


ZECHAB1A11 

precU'cessor  (Js.  Iviii.  5-7),  he  lays  do-.vu  the  ^ine 
principle  that  God  loves  mercy  rather  than  fasting, 
and  truth  and  righteousness  rather  than  sackcloth 
and  a  sad  countenance.  If  they  had  perished,  he 
reminds  them  it  was  because  their  hearts  were  hard 
while-  they  fasted  ;  if  they  would  dwell  safely,  they 
must  abstain  from  fraud  and  violence  and  not  from 
food  (vii.  4-14). 

Again  he  foretells,  but  not  now  m  vision,  the 
glorious  times  that  are  near  at  hand  when  Je 
hovah  shall  dwell  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  Jeru 
salem  be  called  a  city  of  truth.  He  sees  her 
streets  thronged  by  old  and  young,  her  exiles  re 
turning,  her  Temple  standing  in  all  its  beauty,  her 
land  rich  in  fruitfulness,  her  people  a  praise  and  a 
blessing  in  the  earth  (viii.  1-15).  Again,  he  de 
clares  that  "truth  and  peace"  (vers.  16,  19)  are 
the  bulwarks  of  national  prosperity.  And  once 
more  reverting  to  the  question  which  had  been 
raised  concerning  the  observance  of  the  fasts,  he 
announces,  in  obedience  to  the  command  of  Jehovah, 
not  only  that  the  fasts  are  abolished,  but  that 
the  days  of  mourning  shall  henceforth  be  days  of 
joy,  the  fasts  be  counted  for  festivals.  His  pro 
phecy  concludes  with  a  prediction  that  Jerusalem 
shall  be  the  centre  of  religious  worship  to  all  nations 
of  the  earth  (viii.  16-23). 

IF.  The  remainder  of  the  Book  consists  of  two 
sections  of  about  equal  length,  ix.-xi.  and  xii.-xiv., 
each  of  which  has  an  inscription.  They  have  the 
general  prophetic  tone  and  character,  and  in  subject 
they  so  far  harmonize  with  i.-viii.,  that  the  Pro 
phet  seeks  to  comfort  Judah  in  a  season  of  depres 
sion  with  the  hope  of  a  brighter  future. 

1.  In  the  first  section  he  threatens  Damascus  and 
the  sea-coast  of  Palestine  with  misfortune ;  but  de 
clares  that  Jerusalem  shall  be  protected,  for  Jehovah 
himself  shall  encamp  about  her  (where  ix.  8  re 
minds  us  of  ii.  5) ;  her  king  shall  come  to  her,  he  j 
shall  speak  peace  to  the  heathen,  so  that  all  weapons 
of  war  shall  perish,  and  his  dominion  shall  be  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  The  Jews  who  are  still  in  cap 
tivity  shall  return  to  their  land;  they  shall  be 
mightier  than  Javan  (or  Greece) ;  and  Ephraim  and 
Judah  once  more  united  shall  vanquish  all  enemies. 
The  land  too  shall  be  fruitful  as  of  old  (comp.  viii. 
12).  The  Teraphim  and  the  false  prophets  may 
indeed  have  spoken  lies,  but  upon  these  will  the 
Lord  execute  judgment,  and  then  He  will  look 
with  favour  upon  His  people  and  bring  back  both 
Judah  and  Ephraim  from  their  captivity.  The 
possession  of  Gilead  and  Lebanon  is  again  promised, 
as  the  special  portion  of  Ephraim  ;  and  both  Egypt 
and  Assyria  shall  be  broken  and  humbled. 

The .  prophecy  now  takes  a  sudden  turn.  An 
enemy  is  seen  approaching  from  the  north,  who  hav 
ing  forced  the  narrow  passes  of  Lebanon,  the  great 
bulwark  of  the  northern  frontier,  carries  desolation 
into  the  country  beyond.  Hereupon  the  prophet 
receives  a  commission  from  God  to  feed  his  flock, 
which  God  Himself  will  no  more  feed  because  of 
their  divisions.  The  prophet  undertakes  the  office, 
nnd  makes  to  himself  two  staves  (naming  the  one 
Beauty,  and  the  other  Union),  in  order  to  tend  the 
flock,  and  cuts  off  several  evil  shepherds  whom  his 
wul  abhors;  but  observes  at  the  same  time  that 
the  flock  will  not  be  obedient.  Hence  he  throws 
<ip  his  office ;  he  breaks  asunder  the  one  crook  in 
token  that  the  covenant  of  God  with  Israel  was 
dissolved.  A  few,  the  poor  of  the  flock,  acknow 
ledge  God's  hand  herein  ;  and  the  prophet  demand 
ing  the  WAb*s  of  his  service,  receives  thirty  pieces 

VOfc'  III. 


ZECHARIAH 


1825 


of  silver,  and  casts  it  into  the  house  of  Jehovah. 
At  the  ?ume  time  he  sees  that  there  ie  no  hope  ot 
uuion  between  Judah  and  Israel  whom  he  hau 
trusted  to  feed  as  one  flock,  and  therefore  cuts  in 
pieces  the  other  crook,  in  token  that  the  brotherhood 
between  them  is  dissolved. 

2.  The  Second  Section,  xii.-xiv.,  is  entitled, 
"  The  burden  of  the  word  of  Jehovah  for  Israel." 
But  Israel  is  here  used  of  the  nation  at  large,  not 
of  Israel  as  distinct  from  Judah.  Indeed,  the  pro 
phecy  which  follows,  concerns  Judah  and  Jerusalem. 
In  this  the  prophet  beholds  the  near  approach  of 
troublous  times,  when  Jerusalem  should  be  hard 
pressed  by  enemies.  But  in  that  day  Jehovah  shall 
come  to  save  them:  "the  house  of  David  be  as 
God,  as  the  angel  of  Jehovah  "  (xii.  8),  and  all  the 
nations  which  gather  themselves  against  Jerusalem 
shall  be  destroyed.  At  the  same  time  the  deliver 
ance  shall  not  be  from  outward  enemies  alone. 
God  will  pour  out  upon  them  a  spirit  of  grace  and 
supplications,  so  that  they  shail  bewail  their  sin- 
fulness  with  a  mourning  greater  than  that  with 
which  they  bewailed  the  beloved  Josiah  in  the 
valley  of  Megiddon.  So  deep  and  so  true  shall  be 
this  repentance,  so  lively  the  aversion  to  all  evil, 
that  neither  idol  nor  false  prophet  shall  again  be 
seen  in  the  land.  If  a  man  shall  pretend  to  pro 
phesy,  "  his  father  and  his  mother  that  begat  him 
shall  thrust  him  through  when  he  prophesieth," 
fired  by  the  same  righteous  indignation  as  Phinehas 
was  when  he  slew  those  who  wrought  folly  in 
Israel  (xii.  1-xiii.  6). 

Then  follows  a  short  apostrophe  to  the  sword 
of  the  enemy  to  turn  against  the  shepherds  of  the 
people ;  and  a  further  announcement  of  search 
ing  and  purifying  judgments;  which,  however,  it 
must  be  acknowledged,  is  somewhat  abrupt.  Ewald's 
suggestion  that  the  passage  xiii.  7-9,  is  here  out  of 
place,  and  should  be  transposed  to  the  end  of  chap, 
xi.  is  certainly  ingenious,  and  does  not  seem  im 
probable. 

The  prophecy  closes  with  a  grand  and  stirring 
picture.  All  nations  are  gathered  together  against 
Jerusalem  ;  and  seem  already  sure  of  their  prey. 
Half  of  their  cruel  work  has  been  accomplished, 
when  Jehovah  Himself  appears  on  behalf  of  His 
people.  At  his  coming  all  nature  is  moved:  the 
Mount  of  Olives  on  which  His  feet  rest  cleaves 
asunder ;  a  mighty  earthquake  heaves  the  ground, 
and  even  the  natural  succession  of  day  and  night  is 
broken.  He  goes  forth  to  war  against  the  adver 
saries  of  His  people.  He  establishes  His  kingdom 
over  all  the  earth.  Jerusalem  is  safely  inhabited, 
and  rich  with  the  spoils  of  the  nations.  All  nations 
that  are  still  left,  shall  come  up  to  Jerusalem,  as 
the  great  centre  of  religious  worship,  there  to 
worship  "  the  King,  Jehovah  of  hosts,"  and  the 
city  from  that  day  forward  shall  be  a  holy  city. 

Such  is,  briefly,  an  outline  of  the  second  portion 
of  that  book  which  is  commonly  known  as  the  Pro 
phecy  of  Zechariah.  It  is  impossible,  even  on  a 
cursory  view  of  the  two  portions  of  the  prophecy, 
not  to  feel  how  different  the  section  xi.-xiv.  is  from 
the  section  i.-viii.  The  next  point,  then,  for  oui 
consideration  is  this, — Is  the  book  in  its  present 
form  the  work  of  one  and  the  same  prophet,  Zecha 
riah  the  son  of  Iddo,  who  lived  after  the  BabylonisL 
exile? 

Integrity. — Mede  was  the  first  to  call  this  hi 
question.  The  probability  that  the  later  chapters 
from  the  9th  to  the  14th  were  by  some  other  pro 
phet,  seems  first  to  have  been  suggested  to  him  by 

6  A 


1826 


ZKUHARIAU 


the  citation  in  St.  Matthew.  He  says  (Epist.  X.TXU), 
"  It  may  seem  the  Evangelist  would  inform  us  that 
those  latter  chapters  ascribed  to  Zachary  (namely, 
9th,  10th,  llth,  &cv,  are  indeed  the  prophecies  of 
Jeremy ;  and  that  the  Jews  had  not  rightly  attri 
buted  them."  Starting  from  this  point,  he  goes  on 
to  give  reasons  for  supposing  a  different  author. 
"  Certainly,  if  a  man  weighs  the  contents  of  some 
of  them,  thei  should  in  likelihood  be  of  an  elder 
date  than  the  time  of  Zachary ;  namely,  before  the 
Captivity:  fcr  the  subjects  of  some  of  them  were 
scarce  in  being  after  that  time.  And  the  chapter 
out  of  which  St.  Matthew  quotes  may  seem  to 
have  somewhat  much  unsuitable  with  Zachary's 
time ;  as,  a  prophecy  of  the  destruction  of  the 
Temple,  then  when  he  was  to  encourage  them  to 
build  it.  And  how  doth  the  sixth  verse  of  that 
chapter  suit  with  his  time  ?  There  is  no  scripture 
saith  they  are  Zachary's ;  but  there  is  scripture 
saith  they  are  Jeremy's,  as  this  of  the  Evangelist.' 
He  then  observes  that  the  mere  fact  of  these  being 
found  in  the  same  book  as  the  prophecies  of  Zecha- 
riah  does  not  prove  that  they  were  his  ;  difference 
of  authorship  being  allowable  in  the  same  way  as 
in  the  collection  of  Agur's  Proverbs  under  one  title 
with  those  of  Solomon,  and  of  Psalms  by  other 
authors  with  those  of  David.  Even  the  absence  of 
a  fresh  title  is,  he  argues,  no  evidence  against  a 
change  of  author.  "The  Jews  wrote  in  rolls  or 
volumes,  and  the  title  was  but  once.  If  aught 
were  added  to  the  roll,  ob  similitudinem  argumenti, 
or  for  some  other  reason,  it  had  a  new  title,  as 
that  of  Agur;  or  perhaps  none,  but  was  avcavv- 
fj.ov."  The  utter  disregard  of  anything  like  chro 
nological  order  in  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah,  where 
"  sometimes  all  is  ended  with  Zedekiah ;  then  we 
are  brought  back  to  Jehoiakim,  then  to  Zedekiah 
again  " — makes  it  probable,  he  thiiiks,  that  they 
were  only  hastily  and  loosely  put  together  in  those 
distracted  times.  Consequently  &ome  of  them  might 
not  have  been  discovered  till  after  the  return  from 
the  Captivity,  when  they  were  approved  by  Zecha- 
riah,  and  so  came  to  be  incorporated  with  his  pro 
phecies.  Mede  evidently  rests  his  opinion,  partly 
on  the  authority  of  St.  Matthew,  and  partly  on  the 
contents  of  the  later  chapters,  which  he  considers 
require  a  date  earlier  than  the  exile.  He  says 
again  (Itlpist.  Ixi.):  "That  which  rnoveth  me  more 
than  the  rest  is  in  chap,  xii.,  which  contains  a  pro 
phecy  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  a  de 
scription  of  the  wickedness  of  the  inhabitants,  for 
which  God  would  give  them  to  the  sword,  and 
have  no  more  pity  on  them.  It  is  expounded  of 
the  destruction  by  Titus ;  but  methinks  such  a  pro 
phecy  was  nothing  seasonable  for  Zachary's  time 
''when  the  city  yet,  for  a  great  part,  lay  in  her 
ruins,  and  the  Temple  had  not  yet  recovered  her's), 
nor  agreeable  to  the  scope  of  Zachary's  commission, 
who,  together  with  his  colleague  Haggai,  was  sent 
to  encourage  the  people  lately  returned  from  cap 
tivity  to  build  their  temple,  and  to  iristaurate  their 
commonwealth.  Was  this  a  fit  time  to  fbretel  the 
destruction  of  both,  while  they  were  but  yet  a 
building?  and  by  Zachary,  too,  who  was  to  enco  i- 
rage  them?  would  not  this  better  bent  the  desou- 
tion  by  Nebuchadnezzar?" 

Archbishop  Newcome  went  further.  He  insisted 
on  the  great  dissimilarity  of  style  as  well  as  subject 
between  the  earlier  and  later  chapters.  And  he 
was  the  first  who  advocated  the  theory  which 
Bunsea  calls  one  of  the  triumphs  of  modern  cri 
ticism,  that  the  last  six  chapters  of  Zechariah  are 


ZKCHAKIAH 

the  work  of  two  distinct  prophets.  His  words  are: 
"  The  eight  first  chapters  appear  by  the  intro 
ductory  parts  to  be  the  prophecies  of  Zechariah, 
stand  in  connexion  with  each  other,  are  pertinent  to 
the  time  when  they  were  delivered,  are  uniform  in 
style  and  manner,  and  constitute  a  regular  whole. 
But  the  six  last  chapters  are  not  expressly  assigned 
to  Zechariah  ;  are  unconnected  with  those  which 
precede ;  the  three  first  of  them  are  unsuitable  in 
many  parts  to  the  time  when  Zechariah  lived  ;  all 
of  them  have  a  more  adorned  and  poetical  turn 
of  composition  than  the  eight  first  chapters ;  and 
they  manifestly  break  the  unity  of  the  prophetical 
book." 

"  I  conclude,"  he  continues,  "  from  internal  mark? 
in  chaps,  ix.,  x.,  xi.,  that  these  three  chapters  were 
written  much  earlier  than  the  time  of  Jeremiah 
and  before  the  captivity  of  the  tribes.  Israel  is 
mentioned  chaps,  ix.  1,  xi.  14.  (But  that  this  argu 
ment  is  inconclusive,  see  Mai.  ii.  11.)  Ephraim 
chaps,  ix.  10,  13,  x.  7  ;  and  Assyria,  chap.  x.  10, 
11.  ..  .  They  seem  to  suit  Hosea's  age  and  manner. 
.  .  .  The  xiith,  xiiith,  and  xivth  chapters  form  a 
distinct  prophecy,  and  were  written  after  the  death 
of  Josiah  ;  but  whether  before  or  after  the  Captivity, 
and  by  what  prophets,  is  uncertain.  Though  t 
incline  to  think  that  the  author  lived  before  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Babylonians."  In 
proof  of  this  he  refers  to  xiii.  2,  on  which  he  ob 
serves  that  the  "  prediction  that  idols  and  false 
prophets  should  cease  at  the  final  restoration  of  the 
Jews  seems  to  have  been  uttered  when  idolatry 
and  groundless  pretensions  to  the  spirit  of  prophecy 
were  common  among  the  Jews,  and  therefore  before 
the  Babylonish  Captivity." 

A  large  number  of  critics  have  followed  Mede  and 
Archbishop  Newcome  in  denying  the  later  date  of 
the  last  six  chapters  of  the  Book.  In  England, 
Bishop  Kidder,  Whiston,  Hammond,  and  more 
recently  Pye  Smith,  and  Davidson  ;  in  Germany, 
Fliigge,  Eichhorn,  Bauer,  Bertholdt,  Augusti, 
Forberg,  Rosenmiiller,  Gramberg,  Credner,  Ewald, 
Maurer,  Knobel,  Hitzig,  and  Bleek,  are  agreed  in 
maintaining  that  these  later  chapters  are  not  the 
work  of  Zechariah  the  son  of  Iddo. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  later  date  of  these 
chapters  has  been  maintained  among  ourselves  by 
Blayney  and  Henderson,  and  on  the  continent  by 
Carpzov,  Beckhaus,  Jahn,  Koster,  Hengstenberg, 
Havernick,  Keil,  De  Wette  (in  later  editions  of  his 
Einleitung ;  in  the  first  three  he  adopted  a  different 
view),  and  Stahelin. 

Those  who  impugn  the  later  date  of  these  chap 
ters  of  Zechariah  rest  their  arguments  on  the  change 
in  style  and  subject  after  the  8th  chapter,  but 
differ  much  in  the  application  of  their  criticism. 
Rosenmiiller,  for  instance  (SchoL  in  Proph.  Min. 
vol.  iv.  257),  argues  that  chaps,  ix.— xiv.  are  so 
alike  in  style,  that  they  must  have  been  written  by 
one  author.  He  alleges  in  proof  his  fondness,  fcr 
images  taken  from  pastoral  Hie  (ix.  10,  x.  2,  3,  xi. 
3,  4,  5,  7,  8,  9,  11,  15,  17,  xiii.  7,  8).  From  tlu 
allusion  to  the  earthquake  (xiv.  5,  comp.  Am.  i 
1),  he  thinks  the  author  must  have  lived  in  the 
reign  of  Uzziah. 

Davidson  (in  Home's  Introd.  ii.  982)  in  like 
manner  declares  for  one  author,  but  supposes  him 
to  have  been  the  Zechariah  mentioned  Is.  viii.  2 
who  lived  in  the  reigii  of  Ahaz. 

Eichhorn,  on  the  other  hand,  whilst  also  assign 
ing  (in  his  Einleitung,  iv.  444)  the  whole  of  chaps. 
k.-ziv.  to  one  writer,  is  of  opinion  that  they  art 


ZECHARIAH 

the  work  of  a  \alir  prophet  who  flourished  in  the 
Lime  of  Alexander. 

Others  again,  as  Bertholdt,  Gesenius,  Knobel, 
Maurer,  Bunsen,  and  Ewald,  think  that  chaps, 
ix.-xi.  (to  which  Ewald  adds  xiii.  7-9)  are  a  distinct 
prophecy  from  chaps,  xii.-xiv.,  and  separated  from 
them  by  a  considerable  interval  of  time.  These 
critics  conclude  from  internal  evidence,  that  the 
former  portion  was  written  by  a  prophet  who  lived 
in  the  reign  of  Ahaz  (Kuobel  gives  ix.,  x.  to  the 
reign  of  Jotham,  and  xi.  to  that  of  Ahaz),  and  most 
of  them  conjecture  that  lie  was  the  Zechariah 
the  son  of  Jeberechiah  (or  Berechiah),  mentioned 
Is.  viii.  2. 

Ewald,  without  attempting  to  identify  the  prophet 
with  any  particular  person,  contents  himself  with 
remarking  that  he  was  a  subject  of  the  Southern 
kingdom  (as  may  be  inferred  from  expressions  such 
as  that  in  ix.  7,  and  from  the  Messianic  hopes 
which  he  utters,  and  in  which  he  resembles  his 
countryman  and  contemporary  Isaiah) ;  and  that 
like  Amos  and  Hosea  before  him.  though  a  native 
of  Judah,  he  directs  his  prophecies  against  Ephraim. 

There  is  the  same  general  agreement  among  the 
last-named  critics  as  to  the  date  of  the  section 
xii.-xiv. 

They  all  assign  it  to  a  period  immediately  pre 
vious  to  the  Babylonish  Captivity,  and  hence  the 
author  must  have  been  contemporary  with  the 
prophet  Jeremiah.  Bunsen  identifies  him  with 
Urijah  the  son  of  Shemaiah  of  Kirjath-jearim  (Jer. 
xxvi.  20-83),  who  prophesied  "  in  the  name  of 
Jehovah"  against  Judah  and  Jerusalem. 

According  to  this  hypothesis  we  have  the  works 
of  three  different  prophets  collected  into  one  book, 
and  passing  under  one  name: — 

1.  Chapters  ix.-xi.,  the  book  of  Zechariah  I.,  a 
contemporary  of  Isaiah,  under  Ahaz,  about  736. 

2.  Chapters  xii.-xiv.,  author  unknown  (or  per 
haps  Urijah,   a  contemporary  of  Jeremiah),  about 
607  or  606. 

3.  Chapters  i.-viii.,  the   work  of  the  son   (or 
grandson)  of  Iddo,  Haggai's  contemporary,  about 
520-518. 

We  have  then  two  distinct  theories  before  us. 
The  one  merely  affirms  that  the  six  last  chapters  of 
our  present  book  are  not  from  the  same  author  as 
the  first  eight.  The  other  canies  the  dismember 
ment  of  the  book  still  further,  and  maintains  that 
the  six  last  chapters  are  the  work  of  two  distinct 
authors  who  lived  at  two  distinct  periods  of  Jewish 
history.  The  arguments  advanced  by  the  sup 
porters  of  each  theory  rest  on  the  same  grounds. 
They  are  drawn  partly  from  the  difference  in  style, 
jind  partly  from  the  difference  in  the  nature  of  "the 
contents,  the  historical  references,  £c.,  in  the  dif 
ferent  sections  of  the  book ;  but  the  one  sees  this 
difference  only  in  ix.-xiv.,  as  compared  with  i.-viii. ; 
the  other  sees  it  also  in  xii.-xiv.,  as  compared  with 
ix.-xi.  We  must  accordingly  consider, — 

1.  The  difference  generally  in  the  style  and  con 
tents  of  chapters  ix.-xiv..  as  compared  with  chapters 
L—viii. 

2.  The  differences  between  xii.-xiv.,  as  compared 
with  ix.-xi. 

1.  The  difference  in  point  of  style  between  the 
latter  and  former  portions  of  the  prophecy  is  admitted 
by  all  critics.  Rosenmuller  characterizes  that  of  the 
first  eight  chapters  as  "  prosaic,  feeble,  poor,'J  ^nd 
that  of  the  remaining  six  «s  "  poetic,  weignty, 
concise,  glowing."  But  without  admitting  so 
sweeping  a  criticism,  and  one  which  the  verdict  of 


ZECHARIAH 


1827 


abler  critics  on  the  former  portion  has  contiadicted, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  general  tone  and  cha 
racter  of  the  one  section  is  in  decided  contrast  with 
that  of  the  other.  "As  he  passes  from  the  first 
half  of  the  Prophet  to  the  second,"  says  Eichhorn, 
"  no  reader  can  fail  to  perceive  how  strikingly  dif 
ferent  are  the  impressions  which  are  matTe  upon 
him  by  the  two.  The  manner  of  writing  in  the 
second  portion  is  far  loftier  and  more  mysterious ; 
the  images  employed  grander  and  more  magnifi 
cent  ;  the  point  of  view  and  the  horizon  are 
changed.  Once  the  Temple  and  the  ordinances  of 
religion  formed  the  central  point  from  which  the 
Prophet's  words  radiated,  and  to  which  they  ever 
returned  ;  now  these  have  vanished.  The  favourite 
modes  of  expression,  hitherto  so  often  repeated,  are 
now  as  it  were  forgotten.  The  chronological  notices 
which  before  marked  the  day  on  which  each  several 
prophecy  was  uttered,  now  fail  us  altogether. 
Could  a  writer  all  at  once  have  forgotten  so  entirely 
his  habits  of  thought?  Could  he  so  completely 
disguise  his  innermost  feelings  ?  Could  the  world 
about  him,  the  mode  of  expression,  the  images  em 
ployed,  be  so  totally  different  in  the  case  of  one  and 
the  same  writer?"  (Einl.  iv.  443,  §605). 

I.  Chapters  i.-viii.  are  marked  by  certain  pecu 
liarities   of  idiom  and   phraseology  which  do  not 
occur    afterwards.      Favourite    expressions   are — 
"The  word  of  Jehovah  came  unto,"  &c.  (i.  7,  iv. 
8,  vi.  9,  vii.  1,  4,  8,  viii.  1,  18);  "Thus  saith 
Jehovah  (God)  of  hosts"  (i.  4,  16,  17,  ii.  11,  viii. 
2,  4,  6,  7,  9,  14,  18,  20,  23)  ;  "And  I  lifted  up 
mine  eyes  and  saw"  (i.  18,  ii.  1,  v.  1,  vi.  1) :  none 
of  these  modes  of  expression  are  to  be  met  with  in 
chapters  ix.-xiv.     On  the  other  hand,  the  phrase 
"  In   that  day"   is  entirely  confined  to  the   later 
chapters,  in  which  it  occurs  frequently.    The  form 
of  the  inscriptions  is  different.      Introductions  to 
the  separate  oracles,  such  as  those  in  ix.  1,  xii.  1, 
do  not  present  themselves  in  the  earlier  portion. 
Zechariah,  in  several  instances,  states  the  time  at 
which  a  particular  prophecy  was  uttered  by  him 
(i.  1,  7,  vii.  1).     He  mentions  his  own  name  in 
these  passages,  and  also  in  vii.  8,  and  the  names  of 
contemporaries  in  iii.  1,  iv.  6,  vi.  10,  vii.  2:  the 
writer  (or  writers)  of  the  second  portion  of  the  book 
never  does  this.     It  has  also  been  observed  that 
after  the  first  eight  chapters  we  hear  nothing  of 
"  Satan,"  or  of  "  the  seven  eyes  of  Jehovah ;"  that 
there  are  no  more  visions ;  that  chap.  xi.  contains 
an  allegory,  not  a  symbolic  action ;  that  here  are 
no  riddles  which  need  to  be  solved,  no  angelus  in- 
terpres  to  solve  them. 

II.  Chapters  ix.-xi.    These  chapters,  it  is  alleged, 
have  also  their  characteristic  peculiarities : — 

(1.)  In  point  of  style,  the  author  resembles  Hosea 
more  than  any  other  prophet :  such  is  the  verdict 
both  of,  Knobel  and  Ewald.  He  delights  to  pic 
ture  Jehovah  as  the  Great  Captain  of  His  people. 
Jehovah  comes  to  Zion,  and  pitches  His  camp  there 
to  protect  her  (ix.  8,  9).  He  blows  the  trumpet, 
marches  against  His  enemies,  makes  His  people  His 
bow,  and  shoots  His  arrows  (ix.  13,  14);  or  He 
rides  on  Judah  as  His  war-horse,  and  goes  forth 
thereon  to  victory  (x.  3,  5).  Again,  he  speaks  of 
the  people  as  a  flock,  and  the  leaders  of  the  people 
as  their  shepherds  (ix.  16,  x.  2,  3,  xi:  4,  ff.).  Ho 
describes  himself  also,  in  his  character  of  prophet, 
as  a  shepherd  in  the  last  passages,  and  assumes  to 
himself,  in  a  symbolic  action,  which  however  may 
have  been  one  only  of  the  imagination,  all  the  guise 
and  the  gear  of  a  shepherd.  In  general  he  delights 

6  A  2 


1828 


ZECHARIAH 


m  images  (ix.  3.  4,  13-17,  x.  3,  5,  7,  &c.),  some  of 
which  are  striking  and  forcible. 

(2  )  The  notes  of  time  are  also  peculiar : — 

1.  It  was  a  time  wheii  the  pride  of  Assyria  was 
yet  at  its  height  (x.  xi.),  and  when  the  Jews  had 
already  suffered  from  it.     This  first  took  place  in 
the  time  of  Menahem  (B.C.  772-761). 

2.  i>>-  Trans-jordanic  territory  had  already  been 
svvspt  by  the  armies  of  the  invader  (x.  10),  but  a 
still  further  desolation  threatened  it  (xi.  1-3).     The 
lirst  may  have  been  the  invasion  of  Ful  (1  Chr.  V; 
26).  the  second  that  of  Tiglath-Pileser.1 

3.  The  kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Ephraim  are  both 
standing  (ix.  10,  13,  x.  6),  but  many  Israelites  are 
nevertheless  exiles  in  Egypt  and  Assyria  (ix.  11, 
x.  6,  8,  10,  &c.). 

4.  The  struggle  between  Judah  and  Israel  is  sup 
posed  to  be  already  begun  (xi.  14).     At  the  same 
time  Damascus  is  threatened  (ix.  1).     If  so,  the  re 
ference  must  be  to  the  alliance  formed   between 
Pekah  king  of  Israel  and  Rezin  of  Damascus,  the 
consequence  of  which  was  the  loss  of  Elath  (739). 

5.  Egypt  and  Assyria  are  both  formidable  powei's 
(x.  9,  10,  11).     The  only  other  prophets  to  whom 
these  two  nations  appear  as  formidal-'e,  at  the  same 
time,  are  Hosea  (vii.  11,  xii.  1,  xiv.  3)  and  his  con 
temporary  Isaiah  (vii.  17,  &c.)  ;  and  that  in  pro 
phecies  which  must  have  been  uttered  between  743 
and  740.     The  expectation  seems  to  have  been  that 
the   Assyrians,  in  order  to  attack   Egypt,  would 
march  by  way  of  Syria,  Phoenicia,  and  Philistia, 
along  the  coast  (Zech.  ix.  1-9),  as  they  did  after- 
v/iu\ls  (Is.  xx.  .1),  and  that  the  kingdom   of  Israel 
Vvonld  suffer  chiefly  in  consequence  (Zech.  ix.  9-12), 
and  Judah  in  «.  smaller  degree  (ix.  8,  9). 

6.  The  kingdom  of  Israel  is  described  as  "  a  flock 
for  the  slaughter"  in  chap,  xi.,  over  which  three 
shepherds  have  been  set  in  one  month.      This  cor 
responds  with  the  season  of  anarchy  and  confusion 
which    followed    immediately    on    the    murder    o£ 
Zechariah  the  son  of  Jeroboam  II.  (760).     This  son 
reigned  only  six  months,  his  murderer  Shallum  but 
one  (2  K.  xv.  8-15),  being  put  to  death  in  his 
turn  by  Menahem.     Meanwhile  another  rival  king 
may  have  arisen,  Bunsen  thinks,  in  some  other  part 
of  the  country,  who  may  have  fallen  as  the  mur 
derer  did,  before  Menahem. 

The  symbolical  action  of  the  breaking  of  the  two 
shepherds'  staves — Favour  and  Union — points  the 
same  way.  The  breaking  of  the  first  showed  that 
God's  favour  had  departed  from  Israel,  that  of  the 
second  that  all  hope  of  union  between  Judah  and 
Ephraim  was  at  an  end. 

All  these  notes  of  time  point  in  the  same  direc 
tion,  and  make  it  probable  that  the  author  of  chaps. 
ix.-xi.  was  a  contemporary  of  Isaiah,  and  pro 
phesied  during  the  reign  of  Ahaz.k 

Chaps,  xii. -xiv. — By  the  majority  of  those  critics 
who  assign  these  chapters  to  a  third  author,  that 
author  is  supposed  to  have  lived  shortly  before  the 
Babylonish  Captivity.  The  grounds  for  separating 
these  three  chapters  from  chapters  ix.-xi.  are  as 
ollows : — 


i  So  Knobel  supposes.  Ewald  also  refers,  xi.  1-3,  to  the 
deportation  of  Tiglath-Pileser,  and  thinks  that  x.  10  refers 
to  some  earlier  deportation,  the  Assyrians  having  invaded 
this  portion  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  in  the  former  half  of 
Pekah's  reign  of  twenty  years.  To  this  Bunsen  (Gott  in 
der  Gesch.  i.  45C)  objects  that  we  have  no  record  of  any 
earlier  removal  of  tie  inhabitants  from  the  land  than  that 
of  Tiglath-Pileser,  which  occurred  at  the  close  of  Pekah's 
rdgn,  and  which  in  x.  10  is  supposed  to  have  taken  plac/j 


ZECHARIAH 

1.  This  section  opens  with  its  own  intioductory 
fbrmula,  as  the  preceding  one  (ix.  1)  does.     This, 
however,  only  shows  that  the  sections  are  distinct, 
not  that  they  were  written  at  different  times. 

2.  The  object  of  the  two  sections  is  altogether 
different.     The  author  of  the  former  (ix.-xi.)  has 
both  Israel  and  Judah  before  him ;  he  often  speaks 
of  them  together  (ix.  13,  x.  6,  xi.  14,  com  p.  x.  7)  ; 
he  directs  his  prophecy  to  the  Trans-jordauic  terri 
tory,  and  announces  the  discharge  of  his  office  m 
Israel  (xi.  4,  ff.).     The  author  of  the  second  sec 
tion,  on  the  other  hand,  has  only  to  do  with  Judah 
and  Jerusalem  :  he  nowhere  mentions  Israel . 

3.  The  political  horizon  of  the  two  prophets  is 
different.     By  the  former,  mention  is  made  of  the 
Syrians,    Phoenicians,     Philistines    (ix.    1-7),   and 
Greeks,  (ix.  13),  as  well  as  of  the  Assyrians  and 
Egyptians,  the  two  last  being  described  as  at  that 
time  the  most  powerful.     It  therefore   belongs  to 
the  earlier  time  when  these  two  nations  were  be 
ginning  to  struggle  for  supremacy  in  Western  Asia. 
By  the  latter,  the  Egyptians  only  are  mentioned  as 
a  hostile  nation :  not  a  word  is  said  of  the  Assy 
rians.     The  author  consequently  must  have  lived 
at  a  time  when  Egypt   was  the  chief  enemy  of 
Judah. 

4.  The  anticipations  of  the  two  Prophets  are  dif 
ferent.     The  first  tremble?  only  for  Ephraim.     He 
predicts  the  desolation  of  the  Trans-jordanic  terri 
tory,  the  carrying  away  captive  of  the  Israelites, 
but  also  fche  return  from  Assyria  and  Egypt  (x.  7, 
10).     But   for   Judah  he  has  no  cause   of  fear. 
Jehovah  will  protect  her  (ix.  8),  and  bring  back 
those  of  her  sons  who  in  earlier  times  had  gone  into 
captivity  (ix.   11).     The  second   Prophet,    on  the 
other  hand,  making  no  mention  whatever  of  the 
northern  kingdom,  is  full  of  alarm  for  Judah.     He 
sees  hostile  nations  gathering  together  against  her, 
and  two-thirds  of  her  inhabitants  destroyed  (xiii. 
6) ;  he  sees  the  enemy  laying  siege  to  Jerusalem, 
taking  and  plundering  it,  and  carrying  half  of  her 
people  captive  (xii.  3,  xiv.  2,  5).     Of  any  return  of 
the  captives  nothing  is  here  said. 

5.  The    style    of  the    two    Prophets    is    dif 
ferent.     The  author  of  this  last  section  is  fond  of 
the  prophetic  formulae:  JVni,  "  And  it  shall  come 
to  pass"  (xii.  9,  xiii.  2,  3^4,  8,  xiv.  6,  8,  13, 
16);  K-inn  Di>2,   "  in  that  day"  (xii.  3,  4,  6, 
8,  9,  11,  "xiii.  1,  2,  4,  xiv.  8,  9,  13,  20,  21); 
rfirT1  OtO,  "saith  Jehovah"  (xii.  1,  4,  xiii.  2,  7, 
8).     In  the  section  ix.-xi  the  first  does  not  occur  at 
all,  the  second  but  once  (ix.  16),  the  third  only 
twice  (x.  12,  xi.  6).     We  have  moreover  in  this 
section  certain  favourite  expressions :  "  all  peoples." 
"  all   people   of  the   earth,"    "  all  nations   round 
about,"  *'  all  nations  that  come  up  against  Jeru 
salem,"    "  the    inhabitants   of  Jerusalem,"    "  the 
house  of  David,"    "  family "    for    nation,    "  the 
families  of  the  earth,"  "  the  family  of  Egypt,"  &c. 

6.  There  are  apparently  few  notes  of  time  in  this 
section.     One  is  the  allusion  to  the  death  of  Jociab 


already. 

k  According  to  Knobel,  ix.  and  x.  were  probably  de 
livered  in  Jotham's  reign,  and  xi.  in  that  of  Ahaz,  who 
summoned  Tiglath-Pileser  to  his  aid.  Maurer  thinks 
that  ix.  and  x.  were  written  between  the  first  (2  K.  xv 
29)  and  second  (2  K.  xvii.  4-61  Assyrian  invasions,  chap 
x.  during  the  seven  years  interregnum  which  folio  ffed 
the  death  of  Pekah,  and  xi.  in  tie  reign  of  Hoshea. 


KECHARIAH 

'R  *'  the  mournij.g  of  Hadadrimmon  in  the  valley  of 
Mogiddon ;"  another  to  the  earthquake  in  the  days 
of  Uzziah  king  of  Judah.  This  addition  to  the 
name  cf  the  king  shows,  Knobel  suggests,  that  he 
had  been  long  dead ;  but  the  arjruinent,  if  it  is 
worth  anything,  would  make  even  more  for  those 
who  hold  a  post-exile  date.  It  is  certainly  remark 
able  occurring  thus  in  the  body  of  the  prophecy, 
and  not  in  the  inscription  as  in  Isaiah  i.  1. 

In  reply  to  all  these  arguments,  it  has  been  urged 
by  Keil,  Stahelin,  and  others,  that  the  difference  of 
style  between  the  two  principal  divisions  of  the 
prophecy  is  not  greater  than  may  reasonably  be 
acc<  unted  for  by  the  change  of  subject.  The  lan 
guage  in  which  visions  are  narrated  would,  from 
the  nature  ot  tne  case,  be  quieter  and  less  ani 
mated  than  that  in  which  prophetic  anticipations 
of  future  glory  are  described.  They  differ  as  the 
style  of  the  narrator  differs  from  that  of  the  orator. 
Thus,  for  instance,  how  different  ts  the  style  of 
Hosea,  chaps,  i.-iii.,  from  the  style  of  the  same 
Prophet  in  chaps,  iv.-xiv. ;  or  again,  that  of  Ezekiel 
vi.  vii.  from  Ezekiel  iv. 

But  besides  this,  even  in  what  may  be  termed 
the  more  oratorical  portions  of  the  first  eight 
chapters,  the  Prophet  is  to  a  great  extent  occupied 
with  warnings  and  exhortations  of  a  practical  kind 
(see  i.  4-6,  vii.  4-14,  viii.  9-23) ;  whereas  in  the 
subsequent  chapters  he  is  rapt  into  a  far  distant 
and  glorious  future.  In  the  one  case,  therefore,  the 
language  would  naturally  sink  down  to  the  level  of 
prose ;  in  the  other,  it  would  rise  to  an  elevation 
worthy  of  its  exalted  subject. 

In  like  manner  the  notes  of  time  in  the  former 
part  (i.  1,  7,  vii.  1),  and  the  constant  reference  to 
the  Temple,  may  be  explained  on  the  ground  that 
the  Prophet  here  busies  himself  w-ith  the  events  of 
his  own  time,  whereas  afterwards  his  eye  is  fixed 
on  a  far  distant  future. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  predictions  do  occur 
in  the  first  section,  there  is  a  general  similarity 
between  them  and  the  predictions  of  the  second. 
The  scene,  so  to  speak,  is  the  same ;  the  same  Arisions 
float  before  the  eyes  of  the  seer.  The  times  of  the 
Messiah  are  the  theme  of  the  predictions  in  chaps. 
i.-iv.,  in  ix.,  x.,  and  in  xii.-xiii.  6,  whilst  the  events 
which  are  to  prepare  the  way  for  that  time,  and 
especially  the  sifting  of  the  nation,  are  dwelt  upon 
in  chap,  v.,  in  xi.,  and  in  xiii.  7-xiv.  2. 

(3.)  The  same  peculiar  forms  of  expression  occur 
in  the  two  divisions  of  the  prophecy.  Thus,  for 
instance,  we  find  IG^D-I  "Qljjb  not  only  in  vii.  14, 
but  also  in  ix.m  8  ;  TQyn,  in  the  sense  of  "  to 

remove,"  in  iii.  4,  and  in  xiii.  2 — elsewhere  it  occurs 
m  this  unusual  sense  only  in  later  writings  (2  K. 
nri.  3 ;  2  Chr.  xv.  8) — "  the  eye  of  God,"  as  be 
tokening  the  Divine  Providence^  in  iii.  9,  iv.  10, 
and  in  ix.  1,  8. 

In  both  sections  the  return  of  the  whole  nation 
after  the  exile  is  the  prevailing  image  of  happiness, 
and  in  both  it  is  similarly  portrayed.  As  in  ii.  10, 
the  exiles  are  summoned  to  return  to  their  native 
land,  because  now,  according  to  the  principles  of 
righteous  recompense,  they  shall  rule  over  their 
enemies,  so  also  a  similar  strain  occurs  in  ix.  12,  &c. 
Both  in  ii.  10  and  in  ix.  9  the  renewed  protection 


01  Maurer's  reply  to  this,  viz.,  that  the  like  phrase, 


occurs  in  Exod.  xxxii.  27,  and  SB' 


ZECHARIAH  I82i 

wherewith  God  will  favour  Zion  is  represented  as 
an  entrance  into  His  holy  dwelling;  in  loth  Hit- 
people  are  called  on  to  rejoice,  mid  in  both  there  ii 
a  remarkable  agreement  in  the  words.  In  ii.  14, 
K3  »JJn  »3  ,VV  ra  *nOKn  ^"1,  and  in  ix.  9, 

run  D^IT  ra  *ynn  p'x  ra 


Again,  similar  forms  of  expression  occur  in  ii.  9, 
11,  and  xi.  11;  the  description  of  the  increase  iu 
Jerusalem,  xiv.  10,  may  be  compared  with  ii.  4; 
and  the  prediction  m  viii.  20-23  with  that  in  xiv. 
16.  The  resemblance  which  has  been  found  in 
some  other  passages  is  too  slight  to  strengthen  the 
argument ;  and  the  occurrence  of  Chaldaisms,  such 

as  XIV  (ix.  8),  n»fcn  (xiv.  10),  ^3  (which 
occurs  besides  only  in  Prov.  xx.  21),  and  the  phrase 
n£'£  N^D  (ix.  13),  instead  of  T\W}>  Ip},  really 
prove  nothing  as  to  the  age  of  the  later  chapters 
of  Zechariah.  Indeed,  generally,  as  regards  these 
minute  comparisons  of  different  passages  to  prove 
an  identity  of  authorship,  Maurer's  remark  holds 
true:  "  Sed  quae  potest  vis  esse  disjectorum  quo- 
rundam  locorum,  ubi  res  judicanda  est  ex  toto  ?  " 

Of  far  more  weight,  however,  than  the  ar 
guments  already  advanced  is  the  fact  that  the 
writer  of  these  last  chapters  (ix.-xiv.)  shows  an 
acquaintance  with  the  later  prophets  of  the  time 
of  the  exile.  That  there  are  numerous  allusions  in 
it  to  earlier  prophets,  such  as  Joel,  Amos,  Micah, 
has  been  shown  by  Hitzig  (Comment,  p.  354,  2nd 
ed.),  but  there  are  also,  it  is  alleged,  allusions  to 
Zephaniah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  the  later  Isaiah 
(chaps,  xl.— Ixvi.).  If  this  can  be  established,  it  is 
evidence  that  this  portion  of  the  book,  if  not  writ 
ten  by  Zechariah  himself,  was  at  least  written  after 
the  exile.  We  find,  then,  in  Zech.  ix.  2  an  allusion 
to  Ez.  xxviii.  3 ;  in  ix.  3  to  1  K.  x.  27 ;  in  ix.  f>  to 
Zeph.  ii.  4 ;  in  ix.  11  to  Is.  Ii.  14;  in  ix.  12  to  Is. 
xlix.  9  and  Is.  Ixi.  7  ;  in  x.  3  to  Ez.  xxxiv.  17. 
Zech.  xi.  is  derived  from  Ez.  xxxiv.  (comp.  esp. 
xi.  4  with  xxxiv.  4),  and  Zech.  xi.  3  from  Jer.  xn. 
5.  Zech.  xii.  1  alludes  to  Is.  Ii.  13;  xiii.  8,  9,  to 
Ez.  v.  12;  xiv.  8  to  Ez.  xlvii.  1-12;  xiv.  10,  11, 
to  Jer.  xxxi.  38-40;  xiv.  16-19  to  Is.  Ixvi.  23  and 
Ix.  12  ;  xiv.  20,  21,  to  Ez.  xliii.  12  and  xliv.  9. 

This  manifest  acquaintance  on  the  part  of  the 
writer  of  Zech.  ix.-xiv.  with  so  many  of  the  later 
prophets  seemed  so  convincing  to  De  Wette  that, 
after  having  in  the  first  three  editions  of  his  Intro 
duction  declared  for  two  authors,  he  found  himself 
compelled  to  change  his  mind,  and  to  admit  that 
the  later  chapters  must  belong  to  the  age  of  Zecha 
riah,  and  might  have  been  written  by  Zechariah 
himself. 

Bleek,  on  the  other  hand,  has  done  his  best  to 
weaken  the  force  of  this  argument,  first  bj  main 
taining  that  in  most  instances  the  alleged  agreement 
is  only  apparent,  and  next,  that  where  there  is  a 
real  agreement  (as  in  Zech.  ix.  12,  xi.  3,  xii.  1,  xiv. 
16),  with  the  passages  above  cited,  Zechariah  may 
be  the  original  from  whom  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah 
borrowed.  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  it 
is  more  probable  that  one  writer  should  have  allu 
sions  to  many  others,  than  that  many  others  should 


the  fact  that  the  same  forms  of  expression  are  to  be  fcm«J 


in  both  sections  of  the  Prophecy,  but  that  the  second  sec 
tion,   like    the  first,  evinces    a  familiarity  vrtth    otheJ 

(a  Ezek.  xxxv.  7,  it  must  be  confessed  is  of  little  force.  |  writings,  and  especially  with  later  prophets  like  Ezehiril 

becanae  those  who  argue  for  one  author  b-iild  not  otly  on    Sec  oelow. 


1830 


ZECHARIAH 


borrow  from  one ;  and  this  probability  approaches 
certainty  in  proportion  as  we  multiply  the  number 
of  quotations  or  allusions.  If  there  are  passages  in 
Zechariah  which  are  manifestly  similar  to  other 
passages  in  Zephaniah,  in  Jeremiah,  Kzekiel,  and 
the  Deutero-Isaiah,  which  is  the  more  probable,  that 
they  all  borrowed  from  him,  or  he  from  them  ?  In 
is.  12  especially,  as  Stahelin  argues,  the  expression 
is  decidedly  one  to  be  looked  for  after  the  exile 
rather  than  before  it,  and  the  passage  rests  upon 
Jer.  xvi.  18,  and  has  an  almost  verbal  accordance 
with  Is.  Ixi.  7. 

Again,  the  same  critics  argue  that  the  historical 
references  in  the  later  chapters  are  perfectly  con 
sistent  with  a  post-exile  date.  This  had  been  already 
maintained  by  Eichhorn,  although  he  supposes  these 
chapters  to  'have  been  written  by  a  later  prophet 
than  Zechariah.  Stahelin  puts  the  case  as  follows : 
Even  under  the  Persian  rule  the  political  relations 
of  the  Jews  continued  very  nearly  the  same  as  they 
were  in  earlier  times.  They  still  were  placed  be 
tween  a  huge  Eastern  power  on  the  one  side  and 
Egypt  ou  the  other,  the  only  difference  now  being 
that  Egypt  as  well  as  Judaea  was  subject  to  the 
Persians.  But  Egypt  was  an  unwilling  vassal,  and 
as  in  earlier  times  when  threatened  by  Assyria  she 
had  sought  for  alliances  among  her  neighbours  or 
had  endeavoured  to  turn  them  to  account  as  a  kind 
of  outwork  in  her  own  defences,  so  now  she  would 
adopt  the  same  policy  in  her  attempts  to  cast  off 
the  Persian  yoke.  It  would  follow  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  Persia  would  be  on  the  watch  to  check 
such  efforts,  and  would  wreak  her  vengeance  on 
those  among  her  own  tributary  or  dependent  pro 
vinces  which  should  venture  to  form  an  alliance 
with  Egypt.  Such  of  these  provinces  as  lay  on  the 
sea-coast  must  indeed  suffer  in  any  case,  even  if 
they  remained  true  in  their  allegiance  to  the  Per 
sians.  The  armies  which  were  destined  for  the 
invasion  of  Egypt  would  collect  in  Syria  and  Phoe 
nicia,  and  would  march  by  way  of  the  coast ;  and, 
whether  they  came  as  friends  or  as  foes,  they  would 
probably  cause  sufficient  devastation  to  justify  the 
prophecy  in  Zech.  ix.  1,  &c.,  delivered  against  Da 
mascus,  Phoenicia,  and  Philistia.  Meanwhile  the 
prophet  seeks  to  calm  the  minds  of  his  own  people 
by  assuring  them  of  God's  protection,  and  of  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah,  who  at  the  appointed  time 
shall  again  unite  the  two  kingdoms  of  Judah  and 
Ephraim.  It  is  observable  moreover  that  the  pro 
phet,  throughout  his  discourses,  is  anxious  not  only 
to  tranquillise  the  minds  of  his  countrymen,  but 
to  prevent  their  engaging  in  any  insurrection  against 
their  Persian  masters,  or  forming  any  alliance  with 
their  enemies.  In  this  respect  he  follows  the  ex 
ample  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  and,  like  these  two 
prophets,  he  foretells  the  return  of  Ephraim,  the 
ilnion  of  Ephraim  and  Judah,  and  the  final  over 
throw  both  of  Assyria  (x.  11),  that  is,  Persia,"  and 
of  Egypt,  the  two  countries  which  had,  more  than 
all  others,  vexed  and  devastated  Israel.  That  a 
large  portion  of  the  nation  was  still  supposed  to  be 
in  exile  is  clear  from  ix.  11,  12,  and  hence  verse  10 
can  only  be  regarded  as  a  reminiscence  of  Mic.  v. 
10;  and  even  if  x.  9  must  be  explained  of  the  past 
(with  De  Wette,  Einl.  §250,  6,  note  a),  still  it 
appears  from  Josephus  {Ant.  xii.  2,  §5)  that  the 
Persians  carried  away  Jews  into  Egypt,  and  from 


»  Although  the  Persians  had  succeeded  to  the  As 
syrians,  the  land  might  still  be  called  by  its  ancient  name 
of  Assyria.  See  Ear  vi.  22  and  Evald,  Gesdt,  iv.  120, 


ZECHARIAH 

Syncellus  (p.  486,  Niebuhr's  ed.)  that  Ochus  trans 
planted  large  numbers  of  Jews  from  Palestine  to 
the  east  and  north;  the  earlier  custom  of  thus 
forcibly  removing  to  a  distance  those  conquered 
nations  who  from  disaffection  or  a  turbulent  spirit 
were  likely  to  give  occasion  for  alarm,  having  not 
only  continued  among  the  Persians,  lut  having 
become  even  more  common  than  ever  (Heeren, 
Ideen,  i.  254,  2nd  ed.).  This  well-known  policy 
on  the  part  of  their  conquerors  would  be  a  sufficient 
ground  for  the  assurance  which  the  prophet  gives 
in  x.  9.  Even  the  threats  uttered  against  the  false 
prophets  and  the  shepherds  of  the  people  are  not 
inconsistent  with  the  times  after  the  exile.  In  Neh. 
v.  and  vi.  we  find  the  nobles  and  rulers  of  the 
people  oppressing  their  brethren,  and  false  prophets 
active  in  their  opposition  to  Nehemiah.  In  like 
mariner  "  the  idols  "  (D^VV)  in  xiii.  1-5  may  be 
the  same  as  the  "  Teraphim  "  of  x.  2,  where  they 
are  mentioned  in  connexion  with  "  the  diviners  " 
).  Malachi  (iii.  5)  speaks  of  "  sorcerers  " 


and  that  such  superstition  long  held 
its  ground  among  the  Jews  is  evident  from  Joseph. 
Ant.  viii.  2,  §5.  Nor  does  xiv.  21  of  necessity 
imply  either  idol-worship  or  heathen  pollution  in 
the  Temple.  Chapter  xi.  was  spoken  by  the  pro 
phet  later  than  ix.  and  x.  In  verse  14  he  declares 
the  impossibility  of  any  reunion  between  Judah  and 
Ephraim,  either  because  the  northern  territory  had 
already  been  laid  waste,  or  because  the  inhabitants 
of  it  had  shown  a  disposition  to  league  with  Phoe 
nicia  in  a  vain  effort  to  throw  off  the  Persian  yoke, 
which  would  only  involve  them  in  certain  destruc 
tion.  This  difficult  passage  Stahelin  admits  he 
cannot  solve  to  his  satisfaction,  but  contends  that 
it  may  have  been  designed  to  teach  the  new  colony 
that  it  was  not  a  part  of  God's  purpose  to  reunite 
the  severed  tribes  ;  and  in  this  he  sees  an  argument 
for  the  post-exile  date  of  the  prophecy,  inasmuch  ar 
the.  union  of  the  ten  tribes  with  the  two  was  ever 
one  of  the  brightest  hopes  of  the  prophets  who  li  ved 
before  the  Captivity. 

Having  thus  shown  that  there  is  no  reason  why 
the  section  ix.—  xi.  should  not  belong  to  a  time  sub 
sequent  to  the  return  from  Babylon,  Stahelin  pro 
ceeds  to  argue  that  t<he  prophecy  directed  against 
the  nations  (ix.  1-7)  is  really  more  applicable  to 
the  Persian  era  than  to  any  other.  It  is  only  the 
coast-line  which  is  here  threatened;  whereas  the 
earlier  prophets,  whenever  they  threaten  the  mari 
time  tribes,  unite  with  them  Moab  and  Ammon,  or 
Edom.  Moreover  the  nations  here  mentioned  are 
not  spoken  of  as  enemies  of  Judah  ;  for  being  Per 
sian  subjects  they  would  not  venture  to  attack  the 
Jewish  colony  when  under  the  special  protection  o't 
that  power.  Of  Ashdod  it  is  said  that  a  foreigner 
A.  V.  "  bastard  ")  shall  dwell  in  it.  This, 


too,  might  naturally  have  happened  in  the  time  of 
Zechariah.  During  the  exile,  Arabs  had  established 
themselves  in  Southern  Palestine,  and  the  prophet 
foresees  that  they  would  occupy  Ashdod;  and  ac 
cordingly  we  learn  from  Neh.  xiii.  24,  that  the 
dialect  of  Ashdod  was  unintelligible  to  the  Jews, 
and  in  Neh.  iv.  7,  the  people  of  Ashdod  appear  as  a 
distinct  tribe  united  with  other  Arabians  against 
Judah.  The  king  of  Gaza  (mentioned  Zech.  ix.  5) 
may  have  been  a  Persian  vassal,  as  the  kings  ol 
Tyre  and  Sidon  were,  according  to  Herodot.  viii.  67 
A  king  in  Gaza  would  only  be  iii  conformity  with  the 


ZECHARIAH 

Persian  custom  (see  Herod,  iii.  15),  although  this 
was  no  longer  the  case  in  the  time  of  Alexander. 
The  mention  of  the  "  sons  of  Javan  "  (ix.  13  ;  A.  V. 
"  Greece")  is  suitable  to  the  Persian  period  (which 
is  also  the  view  of  Eichhorn),  as  it  was  then  that  the 
Jews  were  first  brought  into  any  close  contact  with 
the  Greeks.  It  was  in  fact  the  fierce  struggle  between 
Greece  and  Persia  which  gave  a  peculiar  meaning 
to  his  words  when  the  prophet  promised  his  own 
people  victory  over  the  Greeks,  and  so  reversed  the 
earlier  prediction  of  Joel  iv.  6,  7  (A.  V.  iii.  6,  7). 
If,  however,  we  are  to  understand  by  Javan  Arabia, 
us  some  maintain,  this  again  equally  suits  the 
period  supposed,  and  the  prophecy  will  refer  to  the 
Arabians,  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken. 

We  come  now  to  the  section  xii.-xiv.  The  main 
proposition  here  is,  that  however  hard  Judah  and 
Jerusalem  may  be  pressed  by  enemies  (of  Israel 
there  is  no  further  mention),  still  with  God's  help 
they  shall  be  victorious ;  and  the  result  shall  be 
that  Jehovah  shall  be  more  truly  worshipped  both 
by  Jews  and  Gentiles.  That  this  anticipation  of 
the  gathering  of  hostile  armies  against  Jerusalem 
was  not  unnatural  in  the  Persian  times  may  be  in 
ferred  from  what  has  been  said  above.  Persian 
hosts  were  often  seen  in  Judaea.  We  find  an  in 
stance  of  this  in  Josephus  (Ant.  xi.  7,  §1),  and 
Si  don  was  laid  in  ashes  in  consequence  of  an  insur 
rection  against  Persia  (Diod.  xvi.  45).  On  the 
other  hand,  how  could  a  prophet  in  the  time  imme 
diately  preceding  the  exile — the  time  to  which,  on 
account  of  xii.  1 2,  most  critics  refer  this  section — 
hare  uttered  predictions  such  as  these  ?  Since  the 
time  of  Zephaniah  all  the  prophets  looked  upon  the 
fate  of  Jerusalem  as  sealed,  whereas  here,  in  direct 
contradiction  to  such  views,  the  preservation  of  the 
city  is  announced  even  in  the  extremest  calamities. 
Any  analogy  to  the  general  strain  of  thought  in 
this  section  is  only  to  be  found  in  Is.  xxix.-xxxiii. 
Besides,  no  king  is  here  mentioned,  but  only  "  the 
house  of  David,"  which,  according  to  Jewish  tra 
dition  (Herzfeld,  Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel,  p.  37?. 
ff.),  held  a  high  position  after  the  exile,  and  accord 
ingly  is  mentioned  (xii.  12,  13)  in  its  different 
branches  (comp.  Movers,  Das  Phdniz.  Alterth.  i. 
531),  together  with  the  tribe  of  Levi ;  the  prophet, 
like  the  writer  of  Ps.  Ixxxix.,  looking  to  it  with  a  kind 
of  yearning,  which  before  the  exile,  whilst  there  was 
still  a  king,  would  have  been  inconceivable.  Again, 
the  manner  in  which  Egypt  is  alluded  to  (xiv.  19) 
almost  of  necessity  leads  us  to  the  Persian  times ; 
for  then  Egypt,  in  consequence  of  her  perpetual 
efforts  to  throw  off  the  Persian  yoke,  was  naturally 
brought  into  hostility  with  the  Jews,  who  were 
under  the  protection  of  Persia.  Before  the  exile 
this  was  only  the  case  during  the  interval  between 
the  death  of  Josiah  and  the  battle  of  Carchemish. 

It  would  seem  then  that  there  is  nothing  to 
compel  us  to  place  this  section  xii.-xiv.  in  the 
times  before  the  exile ;  much,  on  the  contrary, 


"  Comment,  in  Evang.  Matth.  cap.  xxvii.  9,  10. 

P  This  extraordinary  method  of  solving  the  difficulty 
has  been  adopted  by  Dr.  Wordsworth  in  his  note  on  the 
passage  in  S.  Matthew.  He  says :  "  On  the  whole  there 
is  reason  to  believe  .  .  .  that  the  prophecy  which  we  read 
in  Zech.  (xi.  12,  13)  had,  in  the  first  instance,  been  deli 
vered  by  Jeremiah ;  and  tha«t  by  referring  here  not  to 
Zech.  where  we  read  it,  but  to  Jer.  where  we  do  not  read 
it,  the  Holy  Spirit  teaches  us  not  to  regard  the  Prophets 
us  the  Authors  of  their  Prophecies,"  &c.  And  again: 
"  He  intends  to  teach,  that  all  prophecies  proceed  from 
One  Spirit,  and  that  inose  by  whom  they  *ere  uttered 


ZECHARIAH  1831 

which  can  only  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  on 
the  supposition  that  it  was  written  during  the 
period  of  *fce  Persian  dominion.  Nor  must  it  be 
forgotten  that  we  have  here  that  fuller  development 
of  the  Messianic  idea  which  at  such  a  time  might  Iw 
expected,  and  one  which  in  fact  rests  upon  all  the 
prophets  who  flourished  before  the  exile. 

Such  are  the  grounds,  critical  and  historical,  on 
which  Stahelin  rests  his  defence  of  the  later  date  of 
the  second  portion  of  the  prophet  Zechariah.  We 
have  given  his  arguments  at  length  as  the  ablest 
and  most  complete,  as  well  as  the  most  recent,  on 
his  side  of  the  controversy.  Some  of  them,  it  must 
be  admitted,  are  full  of  weight.  And  when  critics 
like  Eichhorn  maintain  that  of  the  whole  section 
ix.  1-x.  17,  no  explanation  is  possible,  unless  we 
derive  it  from  the  history  of  Alexander  the  Great; 
and  when  De  Wette,  after  having  adopted  the  theoiy 
of  different  authors,  felt  himself  obliged  to  abandon 
it  for  reasons  already  mentioned,  and  to  vindicate 
the  integrity  of  the  book,  the  grounds  for  a  post- 
exile  date  must  be  very  strong.  Indeed,  it  is  not 
easy  to  say  which  way  the  weight  of  evidence 
preponderates. 

With  regard  to  the  quotation  in  St.  Matthew 
there  seems  no  good  reason  for  setting  aside  the  re 
ceived  reading.  Jerome  observes,  "  This  passage  is 
not  found  in  Jeremiah.  But  in  Zechariah,  who 
is  nearly  the  last  of  the  twelve  prophets,  something 
like  it  occurs :  and  though  there  is  no  great  difference 
in  the  meaning,  yet  both  the  order  and  the  words 
are  different.  I  read  a  short  time  since,  in  a  He 
brew  volume,  which  a  Hebrew  of  the  sect  of  the 
Nazarenes  presented  to  me,  an  apocryphal  book  of 
Jeremiah,  in  which  I  found  the  passage  word  for 
word.  But  still  I  am  rather  inclined  to  think 
that  the  quotation  is  made  from  Zechariah,  in  the 
usual  manner  of  the  Evangelists  and  Apostles,  wh  > 
neglecting  the  order  of  the  words,  only  give  thi 
general  sense  of  what  they  cite  from  the  Old  Testa 
ment."  ° 

Eusebius  (^Evangel.  Demonstr.  lib.  x.)  is  of  opi 
nion  that  the  passage  thus  quoted  stood  original  Iv 
in  ths  prophecy  of  Jeremiah,  but  was  either  erased 
subsequently  by  the  malice  of  the  Jews  [a  very 
improbable  supposition  it  need  hardly  be  said]  ;  or 
that  the  name  of  Zechariah  was  substituted  for  that 
of  Jeremiah  through  the  carelessness  of  copyists. 
Augustine  (de  Cons.  Evangel,  iii.  30")  testifies  that 
the  most  ancient  Greek  copies  had  Jeremiah,  and 
thinks  that  the  mistake  was  originally  St.  Matthew's, 
but  that  this  was  divinely  ordered,  and  that  the 
Evangelist  would  not  correct  the  error  even  when 
pointed  out,  in  order  that  we  might  thus  infer  that 
all  the  Prophets  spake  by  one  Spirit,  and  that  what 
was  the  work  of  one  was  the  work  of  all  (et  singula 
esse  omnium,  et  omnia  singulorum.)P  Some  later 
writers  accounted  for  the  non-appearance  of  the 
passage  in  Jeremiah,  by  the  confusion  in  the  Greek 
MSS.  of  his  prophecies — a  confusion,  however,  it 

are  not  sources,  but  only  channels  of  the  same  Divine 
truth."  But  if  so,  why,  it  may  be  asked,  do  the  writers 
of  the  Sacred  Books  ever  give  their  names  at  all?  Why 
trouble  ourselves  with  the  question  whether  S.  Luke 
wrote  the  Acts,  or  whether  S.  i'aiil  wrote  the  Ep.  to  the 
Hebrews  or  the  Pastoral  Epistles  ?  What  becomes  of  the 
argument,  usually  deemed  so  strong,  derived  from  the 
testimony  of  the  Four  Evangelists,  if,  after  all,  the  1  jur 
are  but  one  ? 

It  would  not  be  too  much  to  say  that  such  a  theory  is 
as  pernicious  as  that  against  which  it  ia  directed. 


1832 


ZKCHARIAli 


may  be  remarked,  which  is  not  confined  to  the 
Greek,  but  which  is  found  no  less  in  our  present 
Hebrew  text.  Others  again  suggest  that  in  the 
Greek  autograph  of  Matthew,  ZPIOT  may  have 
been  written,  and  that  copyists  may  have  taken 
this  for  IPIOT.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that 
abbreviations  of  this  kind  were  in  use  so  early. 
Epiphanius  and  some  of  the  Greek  Fathers  seem 
to  have  read  cV  rois  irpo^rais.  And  the  most 
ancient  copy  of  the  Latin  Version  of  the  Gospels 
omits  the  name  of  Jeremiah,  and  has  merely 
dictum  est  per  Prophetam.  It  has  been  con 
jectured  that  this  represents  the  original  Greek 
reading  rb  pi)8fv  5tet  rov  Upo^rov,  and  that  some 
early  annotator  wrote  'lepe/JLiov  on  the  margin, 
whence  it  crept  into  the  text.  The  choice  lies 
between  this,  and  a  slip  of  memory  on  the  part  of 
the  Evangelist  if  we  admit  the  integrity  of  our 
present  Book  of  Zechariah,  unless,  indeed,  we  sup 
pose,  with  Eichhorn,  who  follows  Jerome,  that  an 
Apocryphal  Book  of  Jeremiah  is  quoted.  Theo- 
phylact  proposes  to  insert  a  Kal,  and  would  read  8m 
Ifpeniov  Kal  rov  Upo^rov — fjyovv  Zaxapiov. 
He  argues  that  the  quotation  is  really  a  fusion  of 
two  passages ;  that  concerning  the  price  paid  oc 
curring  in  Zechariah,  chap.  xi. ;  and  that  concerning 
the  field  in  Jeremiah,  chap.  xix.  But  what  N.  T. 
writer  would  have  used  such  a  form  of  expression 
"  by  Jeremy  and  the  Prophet"  ?  Such  a  mode  of 
quotation  is  without  parallel.  At  the  same  time 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  passage  as  given 
in  S.  Matthew  does  not  represent  exactly  either  the 
Hebrew  text  of  Zechariah,  or  the  version  of  the 
LXX.  The  other  passages  of  the  Prophet  quoted 
.n  the  N.  T.  are  ix.  9  (in  Matt.  xxi.  5;  Joh.  xii. 
15);  xii.  10  (in  Joh.  xix.  37  ;  Kev.  i.  7);  xiii.  7 
(in  Matt.  xxvi.  31  ;  Mark  xiv.  27) ;  but  in  no 
instance  is  the  Prophet  quoted  by  name. 

Literature. 

1.  Patristic  Commentaries.  . 
Jerome,  Comment,  in  xii  Mitwres  Prophetas. 

Opp.  Ed.  Villars  (Veron.  1734),  Terr.  vi. 
Theodoret,  Interpretatio  in  xii  Prop/I.  Min. 
Opp.  Ed.  Schulze  (Hal.  1769-74),  Vol.  ii. 
Pars  2. 

2.  Later  Exegetical  Works. 

Der  Prophet  Zacharias  ausgelegt  durch  D. 

Mart.  Luthern.  Vitemberg,  1528.  (Also  in 

the  collected  works  of  Luther  in  German 

and  Latin.) 
Phil.  Melancthonis  Comm.  in  Proph.  Zach., 

1553.  (Opp.  P.  ii.  p.  531.) 
J.  J.  Grynaei  Comm.  in  Zach.,  Genev.  1581. 
Caspar  Sanctii  Comm.  in  Zach.,  Lugd.  1616. 
C.  Vitriuga,  Comment,  ad  lib.  Proph.  Zach., 

1734. 
F.  Venema,  Sermones  Acad.  in  lib.  Proph. 

Zach.,  1789. 

?>..  Writers  who  have  discussed  the  question  of 
the  Integrity  of  Zechariah. 

Mede,  Works,  Lond.  1664,  p.  786,  884. 
Bishop  Kidder,  Demonstration  of  the  Messias, 

Lond.  1700,  Vol.  ii.  p.  199. 
Archbp.   Newcome,   Minor  Prophets,    Lond. 

1785. 
Blayney,   New    Translation  of  Zech.,    Oxf. 

1797. 

Carpzov,  Vindic.  Off.,  Lips.  1724. 
Fliigge,  Die    Weissagunyen,  welche   bey  den 

SchriftfK  des  Proph.  Zach.  bcygebogen  sindt 

n.s.u\,  Hamb.  1784. 


KECHARIAH 

Bertholdt.  ffistor.  Krit.  Einl.  in  die  Buchcr  da 

A.  u.  N.  Test.,  P.  iv.,  p.  1762  ff.,  1712  ff. 
Eichhorn,  Hebr.  Propheten,  iii.  pp.  327-360 

380-92,    415-28,   515-18;    Einl.   iv.   p 

427  ff.  (4th.  edit.  1824.) 
Bauer,  Einl.,  p.  510  ff. 
Beckhaus,   die  Integritdt  der  Proph.  Schrift. 

des  A.  B.,  p.  337  ff. 
Jahn,  Einl.,  ii.  p.  675  ff. 
Koster,  Meletemeta  Crit.  et  Exeget.  in  Zach. 

Proph.  part.  post.  Getting.  1818. 
Forberg,  Comm.  Crit.  et  Exeget.  in  Zach. 

Vaticc.  part.  post.  Cob.  1824. 
Gram  berg,  Krit.  Gesch.  der  Religionsideen,  ii. 

520  ff. 

Rosenmiiller,  Scholia,  vii.  4,  p.  254  ff. 
Credner,  der  Prophet  Joel,  p.  67  ff. 
Hengstenberg,  Beitrdge,  i.  361  ff,  and  Chris- 

tologie,  iii. 

De  Wette,  Einl.  (Edit.   1-3,  against  the  In 
tegrity,  later  editions  in  favour  of  it.) 
Keil,  Einl. 
Havernick,  Einl. 
Maurer,    Comment,   in    Vet.    Test.,   vol.   ii 

621  ff. 

Ewald,  die  Propheten,  and  Gesch.  iv. 
Bleek,  Einl. 
Stahelin,  Einl.  in  die  kanon.  Biicher  des  A.  'S, 

1862,  p.  315  ff. 
Hitzig,  in  Stud,  und  Krit.,  1830,  p.  25  ff. 

and  in  Prophet. 

Henderson  on  the  Minor  Prophets,  1830. 
Davidson,  in  Second  Vol.  of  Home's  Introd., 

10th  edit.  1856,  and  more  recently  in  his 

Introduction  to  the  0.  T. 
Bunsen,  Bibelwerk,  2ter  Band,   Ite  Abtheil. 

2ter   Theil;    Gott   in  der    Geschichte,  i. 

449.  [J.J.  S.  P.] 

2.  (Za.\apia.3 '.  Zacharias.}  Son  of  Meshelemiah, 
or  Shelemiah,  a  Korhite,  and  keeper  of  the  north  gate 
of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation  (1  Chr.  ix.  21) 
in  the  arrangement  of  the  porters  in  the  reign  of 
David.     In  1  Chr.  xxvi.  2,  14,  his  name  appears  in 
the  lengthened  form  •in^DTj  and  in  the  last  quoted 

verse   he   is   described  as  "  one   counselling  with 
understanding." 

3.  (ZaKxovp  ;  Alex.  Zaxx°vp-}  ^ne  °f tne  sons 
of  Jehiel,  the  father  or  founder  of  Gibeon  (1  Chr. 
ix.  37).     In  1  Chr.  viii.  31  he  is  called  ZACHER. 

4.  (Zaxapias.}  A  Levite  in  the  Temple  band  as 
arranged  by  David,  appointed  to  play  "  with  psal 
teries  on  Alamoth  "  (1  Chr.  xv.  20).     He  was  ot 
the  second  order  of  Levites  (ver.  18),  a  porter  or 
gatekeeper,  and  may  possibly  be  the  same  as  Zech  a 
riah  the  son  of  Meshelemiah.     In  1  Chr.  xv.  1 6 
his  name  is  written  in  the  longer  form,  •inl|"pT. 

5.  One  of  the  princes  of  Judah  in  the  reign  of  Je- 
hoshaphat  who  were  aent  with  priests  and  Levites  to 
teach  the  people  the  law  of  Jehovah  (2  Chr.  xvii.  7). 

6.  ('A^optos.)   Son  of  the  high-priest  Jehoiada, 
in  the  reign  of  Joash  king  of  Judah  (2  Chr.  xxiv. 
20),  and  therefore  the  king's  cousin.     After  the 
death  of  Jehoiada  Zechariah  probably  succeeded  tc 
his  office,  and  in  attempting  to  check  the  reactbc 
in  favour  of  idolatry  which  immediately  followed, 
he  fell  a  victim  to  a  conspiracy  formed  against  hinj 
by  the  king,  and   was  stoned  with  stones  in  the 
court  of  the  Temple.      The  memory  of  this  un 
righteous  deed  lasted  long  in  Jewish  tradition.     In 
the  Jerusalem  Talmud  (Taanith,  fol.  69,  quoted  by 
Lighttoot,    Temple  Service,  c.  xxxvi.)  there  is  -i 


ZECHAKIAH 

legwid  told  of  eighty  thousand  young  priests  who' 
were  slain  by  Nebuzaradan  for  the  blood  of  Zecha- 
riah,  and  the  evident  hold  which  the  story  had 
taken  upon  the  minds  of  the  people  renders  it  pro 
bable  that  "  Zachariao  son  of  Barachias,"  who  was 
slain  between  the  Temple  and  the  altar  (Matt,  xxiii. 
35),  is  the  same  with  Zechariah  the  son  of  Jehoiada, 
and  that  the  name  of  Barachias  as  his  father  crept 
into  the  text  from  a  marginal  gloss,  the  writer  con 
fusing  this  Zechariah  either  with  Zechariah  the  pro 
phet,  who  was  the  son  of  Berechiah,  or  with  another 
Zechariah  the  son  of  Jeberechiah  (Is.  viii.  2). 

7.  (Zaxapias.}  A  Kohathite  Levite  in  the  reign 
of  Josiah,  who  was  one  of  the  overseers  of  the  work 
men  engaged  in  the  restoration  of  the  Temple  (2 
Chr.  xxxiv.  12). 

8.  The  leader  of  the  sons  of  Pharosh  who  re 
turned  with  Ezra  (Ezr.  viii.  3). 

9.  Son  of  Bebai,  who  came  up  from  Babylon 
with  Ezra  (Ezr.  viii.  11). 

10.  (Zacharia  in  Neh.)    One  of  the  chiefs  of  the 
people  whom   Ezra  summoned   in  council  at  the 
river  Ahava,  before  the   second  caravan  returned 
from  Babylon  (Ezr.  viii.  16).     He  stood  at  Ezra's 
left  hand  when  he  expounded  the  Law  to  the  people 
(Neh.  viii.  4). 

11.  (Zaxapia:  Zacharias.}  One  of  the  family 
of  Elam,  who  had  married  a  foreign  wife  after  the 
Captivity  (Ezr.  x.  26). 

12.  Ancestor  of  Athaiah,  or  Uthai  (Neh.  xi.  4). 

13.  (Zaxapias.}      A   Sliilonite,    descendant   of 
IVrez  (Neh.  xi.  5). 

14.  (Zaxapia.)    A  priest,  son  of  Pashur  (Neh. 
xi.  12). 

15.  (Zacharia.}  The  representative  of  the  priestly 
family  of  Iddo  in  the  days  of  Joiakim  the  son  of 
Jeshua  (Neh.  xii.  16).    Possibly  the  same  as  Zecha 
riah  the  prophet  the  son  of  Iddo. 

16.  (Zacharias,  Zacharia.}   One  of  the  priests, 
son  of  Jonathan,  who  blew  with  the  trumpets  at 
the  dedication  of  the  city  wall  by  Ezra  and  Nehe- 
miah  (Neh.  xii.  35,  41). 

17.  (•in'HDT  :   Zaxapia).    A  chief  of  the  Reu- 
benites  at  the  time  of  the  captivity  by  Tiglath- 
Pileser  (1  Chr.  v.  7). 

18.  One  of  the  priests  who  blew  with  the  trum 
pets  hi  the  procession  which  accompanied  the  ark 
from  the  house  of  Obed-edom  (1  Chr.  xv.  24). 

19.  Son  of  Isshiah,  or  Jesiah,  a  Kohathite  Levite 
descended  from  Uzziel  (1  Chr.  xxiv.  25). 

20.  (Zaxapias.)    Fourth  son  of  Hosah  of  th< 
children  of  Merari  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  11). 

21.  (ZaSat'os ;    Alex.   ZajSSias.)     A  Manassite 
whose  son  Iddo  was  chief  of  his  tribe  in  Gilead  in 
the  reign  of  David  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  21). 

22.  (Zaxapias.}  The  father  of  Jahaziel,  a  Ger- 
shonite  Levite  in  the  reign  of  Jehoshaphat'  (2  Chr. 
xx    14). 

23.  One  of  the  sons  of  Jehoshaphat   (2  Chr. 
xxi.  2). 

24.  A   prophet   in  the   reign   of  Uzziah,  who 
appears  to  have  acted  as  the  king's  counsellor,  but 
of  whom  nothing  is  known  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  5).     The 
chronicler  in  describing  him  makes  use  of  a  most 
remarkable  and  unique  expression,  "  Zechariah,  who 
understood  the  seeing  of  God,"  or,  as  our  A.  V.  has 
jt,  "  who  had  understanding  in  the  visions  of  God  " 

*  Jer.  xxvii.  12,  xxviii.  1,  xxix.  3.  In  this  lorm  it  is 
Identical  with  the  name  which  appears  in  the  A.  V.  (in 
connexion  with  a  different  person)  as  ZIDKIJAH.  A  si 
milar  inconsistency  ol  our  translators  is  shewn  in  the 


ZEDEKIAH 

comp.  Dan.  i.  17).  As  no  such  term  is  ever  eui« 
)loyed  elsewhere  in  the  description  of  any  prophet, 

t  has  been  questioned  whether  the  reading  of  tht 
received  text  is  the  true  one.  The  LXX.,  Targum, 
Syriac,  Arabic,  Rashi,  and  Kimchi,  with  many  of 
Kennicott's  MSS.,  read  ntf"V3,  "  in  the  fear  of," 

or  ni&$~Q,  and  their  reading  is  most  probably  the 
correct  one. 

25.  The  father  of  Abijah,  or  Abi,  Hezekiah:6 
mother  (2  Chr.  xxix.  1) ;  called  also  ZACHARIAH 

11  the  A.  V. 

26.  One  of  the  family  of  Asaph  the  minstrel, 
who  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  took  part  with  other 
Levites  in  the  purification  of  the  Temple  (2  Chr. 
xxix.  13). 

27.  One  of  the  rulers  of  the  Temple  in  the 
:%eign  of  Josiah  (2  Chr.  xxxv.  8).    He  was  probably, 
as  Bertheau  conjectures,  "  the  second  priest"  (comp 
2  K.  xxv.  18). 

28.  The  son  of  Jebeiechiah,  who  was  taken  by 
the  prophet  Isaiah  as  one  of  the  "  faithful  witnesses 
to  record,"  when  he  wrote  concerning  Maher-shalal- 
hash-baz  (Is.  viii.  2).     He  was  not  the  same  as 
Zechariah  the  prophet,  who  lived  in  the  time  of 
Uzziah  and  died  before  that  king,  but  he  may  have 
been  the  Levite  of  that  name,  who  in  the  reign  of 
Hezekiah  assisted  in  the  purification  of  the  Temple 
(2  Chr.  xxix.  13).     As  Zechariah  the  prophet  K 
called  the  son  of  Berechiah,  with  which  Jeberechiah 
is  all   but   identical,   Bertholdt  (EM.  iv.  1722. 
1727)  conjectured  that  some  of  the  prophecies  at 
tributed  to  him,  at  any  rate  chaps,  ix.-xi.,  were 
really  the  production  of  Zechariah,  the  contempo 
rary  of  Isaiah,  and  were  appended  to  the  volume  of 
the  later  prophet  of  the  same  name  (Gesen.  Der 
Proph.  Jesaia,  i.  327).     Another  conjecture  is  that 
Zechariah  the  son  of  Jeberechiah  is  the  same  as 
Zechariah  the  father  of  Abijah,  the  queen  of  Ahaz 
(Poli  Synopsis,  in  loc.) :   the  witnesses  summoned 
by  Isaiah  being  thus  men  of  the  highest  ecclesiastical 
and  civil  rank.  [W.  A.  W  ' 

ZEDAD'  (*H¥  :  2apa8ctK,  Hjuao-eASa/i ;  Alex. 


,  E\Sa/i :  Sedada,  Sadada}.  One  of  the 
landmarks  on  the  north  border  of  the  land  of  Israel, 
as  promised  by  Moses  (Num.  xxxiv.  8)  and  as 
restored  by  Ezekiel  (xlvii.  15),  who  probably  passed 
through  it  on  his  road  to  Assyria  as  a  captive.  In 
the  former  case  it  occurs  between  "  the  entrance  of 
Hamath  "  and  Ziphron,  and  in  the  latter  between  the 
"  road  to  Hethlon"  and  Hamath.  A  place  named 
Sudud  exists  to  the  east  of  the  northern  extremity 
of  the  chain  of  Antilibanus,  about  50  miles  E.N.E. 
of  Baalbec,  and  35  S.S.E.  of  Hums.  It  is  possible 
that  this  may  ultimately  turn  out  to  be  identical 
with  Zedad ;  but  at  present  the  passages  in  which 
the  latter  is  mentioned  are  so  imperfectly  under 
stood,  and  this  part  of  the  country  has  been  so  little 
explored  with  the  view  of  arriving  at  topographical 
conclusions,  that  nothing  can  be  done  beyond  direct 
ing  attention  to  the  coincidence  in  the  names  (see 
Porte.-,  Five  Years,  &c.,  ii.  354-6).  [G.] 

ZEDECHI'AS   (2e6Was:    Sedecias}.      ZE- 
DKKIAH  king  of  Judah  (1  Esd.  i.  46). 

ZEDEKI'AH.     1.  tfnjpl.V'  Tsidkiyyaha,  and 
thrice3  iVp'TC'  Tsidkiyyah  :  b2e5efc/a,  2eSe/aas  : 


cases  of  Hezekiah,  Hizkijah,  and  Hizkiah ;  Ezekiel  an;l 
Jehezekel. 

b  The  peculiarities  of  the  name,  as  it  appears  In  tJ)« 
Vatican  LXX.  (Mai),  may  be  noted.—  (a)  It 


1834 


ZEDEKIAH 


Sedeciaa).  The  last  king  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem. 
He  was  the  son  of  Josiah  by  his  wife  Hamutal,  and 
therefore  own  brother  to  Jehoahaz  (2  K.  xxiv.  18  ; 
comp.  xxiii.  31).  His  original  name  had  been 
MATTANIAH,  which  was  changed  to  Zedekiah  by 
Nebuchadnezzar,  when  he  earned  off  his  nephew 
Jehoiachhn  to  Babylon,  and  left  him  on  the  throne 
of  Jerusalem.  Zedekiah  was  but  twenty -one  years 
old  when  he  was  thus  placed  in  charge  of  an  im 
poverished  kingdom,  and  a  city  which,  though  still 
strong  in  its  natural  and  artificial  impregnability, 
was  bereft  of  well-nigh  all  its  defenders.  But  Jeru 
salem  might  have  remained  the  head  of  the  Baby 
lonian  province  of  Judah,  and  the  Temple  of 
Jehovah  continued  standing,  had  Zedekiah  possessed 
wisdom  and  firmness  enough  to  remain  true  to  his 
allegiance  to  Babylon.  This,  however,  he  could 
not  do  (Jer.  xxxviii.  5).  His  history  is  contained 
in  the  short  sketch  of  the  events  of  his  reign  given 
in  2  K.  xxiv.  17-xxv.  7,  and,  with  some  trifling 
variations,  in  Jer.  xxxix.  1-7,  lii.  1-11,  together' 
with  the  still  shorter  summary  in  2  Chr.  xxxvi.  I 
10,  &c. ;  and  also  in  Jer.  xxi.  xxiv.  xxvii.  xxviii. 
xxix.  xxxii.  xxxiii.  xxxiv.  xxxvii.  xxxviii.  (being  the 
chapters  containing  the  prophecies  delivered  by 
this  prophet  during  this  reign,  and  his  relation 
of  various  events  more  or  less  affecting  Zedekiah), 
and  Ez.  xvi.  1 1-21.  To  these  it  is  indispensable  to 
add  the  narrative  of  Josephus  (Ant.  x.  7,  1-8,  §2), 
which  is  partly  constructed  by  comparison  of  the 
documents  enumerated  above,  but  also  contains  in 
formation  derived  from  other  and  independent 
sources.  From  these  it  is  evident  that  Zedekiah 
was  a  man  not  so  much  bad  at  heart  as  weak  in 
will.  He  was  one  of  those  unfortunate  characters, 
frequent  in  history,  like  our  own  Charles  I.  and 
Louis  XVI.  of  France,  who  find  themselves  at  the 
head  of  affairs  during  a  great  crisis,  without  having 
the  strength  of  character  to  enable  them  to  do  what 
they  know  to  be  right,  and  whose  infirmity  be 
comes  moral  guilt.  The  princes  of  his  court,  Jts 
he  himself  pathetically  admits  in  his  interview  with 
Jeremiah,  described  in  chap,  xxxviii.,  had  him  com 
pletely  under  their  influence.  "  Against  them,"  he 
complains,  "  it  is  not  the  king  that  can  do  any 
thing."  He  was  thus  driven  to  disregard  the  counsels 
of  the  prophet,  which,  as  the  event  proved,  were 
perfectly  sound ;  and  he  who  might  have  kept  tiit 
fragments  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  together,  and 
maintained  for  some  generations  longer  the  worship 
of  Jehovah,  brought  its  final  ruin  on  his  country, 
destruction  on  the  Temple,  death  to  his  family,  and 
a  cruel  torment  and  miserable  captivity  on  himself. 
It  is  evident  from  Jer.  xxvii. c  and  xxviii.  (ap 
parently  the  earliest  prophecies  delivered  during 
this  reign),  that  the  earlier  portion  of  Zedekiah 's 
reign  was  marked  by  an  agitation  throughout 
the  whole  of  Syria  against  the  Babylonian  yoke. 
Jerusalem  seems  to  have  taken  the  lead,  since  in 
the  fourth  year  of  Zedekiah's  reign  we  find  am 
bassadors  from  all  the  neighbouring  kingdoms — 
Tyre,  Sidon,  Edom,  and  Moab — at  his  court,  to 
consult  as  to  the  steps  to  be  taken.  This  happened 

(a)  It  is  2eSe/cia  In  2  K.  xxiv.  17;  1  Chr.  iii.  15;  Jer. 
xxxiv.  4  only. 

(6)  The  genitive  is  SeSenaov  in  2  K.  xxv.  2,  Jer.  li.  59, 
lii.  1,  10,  11 ;  but  2eSe*cia  in  Jer.  i.  3,  xxviii.  1,  xxxix.  1 ; 
and  2e6e/ceta  in  xxxix.  2  only. 

(c)  The  name  is  occasionally  omitted  where  it  is  present  ! 
In  the  Hebrew  text,  e.g.  Jer.  xxxviii.,  lii.  5,  8 ;  but  on  the 
^ther  hand  ifi  inserted  in  xlvi.  1,  where  also  Elam  is  put 
for  "gentiles." 


ZEDEKIAH 

either  during  the  king's  absence  or  immediatei5 
after  his  return  from  Babylon,  whither  he  went  on 
some  errand,  the  nature  of  which  is  not  named,  but 
which  may  have  been  an  attempt  to  blind  the  eyeb 
of  Nebuchadnezzar  to  his  contemplated  revolt  (Jer. 
li.  59).  The  project  was  attacked  by  Jeremiah 
with  the  strongest  statement  of  the  folly  of  such 
course — a  statement  corroborated  by  the  very  ma 
terial  fact  that  a  man  of  Jerusalem  named  Hana- 
niali,  who  had  opposed  him  with  a  declaration  in 
the  name  of  Jehovah,  that  the  spoils  of  the  Temple 
should  be  restored  within  two  years,  had  died,  in 
accordance  with  Jeremiah's  prediction,  within  two 
months  of  its  delivery.  This,  and  perhaps  also 
the  impossibility  of  any  real  alliance  between  Judah 
and  the  surrounding  nations,  seems  to  have  put  a 
stop,  for  the  time,  to  the  anti-Babylonian  move 
ment.  On  a  man  of  Zedekiah's  temperament  the 
sudden  death  of  Hananiah  must  have  produced  a 
strong  impression  ;  and  we  may  without  improba 
bility  accept  this  as  the  time  at  which  he  procured 
to  be  made  in  silver  a  set  of  the  vessels  of  the 
Temple,  to  replace  the  golden  plate  carried  oft"  with 
his  predecessor  by  Nebuchadnezzar  (Bar.  i.  8). 

The  first  act  of  overt  rebellion  of  which  any  re 
cord  survives  was  the  foimation  of  an  alliance  with 
Egypt,  of  itself  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  enmity 
with  Babylon.  In  fact,  according  to  the  statement 
of  Chronicles  and  Ezekiel  (xvii.  13),  with  the  ex 
pansion  of  Josephus,  it  was  in  direct  contravention 
of  the  oath  of  allegiance  in  the  name  of  Elohim,  by 
which  Zedekiah  was  bound  by  Nebuchadnezzar, 
namely,  that  he  would  keep  the  kingdom  for  Ne 
buchadnezzar,  make  no  innovation,  and  enter  into 
no  league  with  Egypt  (Ez.  xvii.  13;  2  Chr.  xxxvi. 
1 3  ;  Jos.  Ant.  x.  7,  §  1).  Asa  natural  consequence  it 
brought  on  Jerusalem  an  immediate  invasion  of  the 
Chaldeans.  The  mention  of  this  event  in  the  Bible, 
though  sure,  is  extremely  slight,  and  occurs  only  in 
Jer.  xxxvii.  5-11,  xxxiv.  21,  and  Ez.  xvii.  15-20; 
but  Josephus  (x.  7,  §3)  relates  it  more  fully, 
and  gives  the  date  of  its  occurrence,  namely  the 
eighth  year  of  Zedekiah.  Probably  also  the  de 
nunciations  of  an  Egyptian  alliance,  contained  in 
Jer.  ii.  18,  36,  have  reference  to  the  same  time. 
It  appears  that  Nebuchadnezzar,  being  made  aware 
of  Zedekiah's  defection,  either  by  the  non-payment 
of  the  tribute  or  by  other  means,  at  once  .*ent  an 
army  to  ravage  Judaea.  This  was  done,  and  the 
whole  country  reduced,  except  Jerusalem  and  tvvc 
strong  places  in  the  western  plain,  Lachish  and 
Azekah,  which  still  held  out  (Jer.  xxxiv.  7).  In 
the  panic  which  followed  the  appearance  of  the 
Chaldeans,  Zedekiah  succeeded  in  inducing  the 
princes  and  other  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  tc 
abolish  the  odious  custom  which  prevailed  of  en 
slaving  their  countrymen.  A  solemn  rite  (ver.  18), 
recalling  in  its  form  that  in  which  the  original 
covenant  of  the  nation  had  been  made  with  Abram 
(Gen.  xv.  9,  &c.),  was  performed  in  the  Temple 
(ver.  15),  and  a  crowd  of  Israelites  of  both  sexes 
found  themselves  released  from  slavery. 

In  the  mean  time  Pharaoh  had  moved   to   the 


N.B.  The  references  above  given  to  Jeremiah  are  accord* 
ing  to  the  Hebrew  capitulation. 

c  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  ver.  1  of  xxvii.,  as  it  at 
present  stands,  contains  an  error,  and  that  for  Jehoiakim 
i  we  should  read  Zedekiah.  The  mention  of  Zedekiah  in 
'  vers.  3  and  12,  and  in  xxviii.  1,  as  well  as  of  the  captivity 
•  of  Jeconiah  in  ver.  20,  no  less  than  the  whole  argument  ol 
|  the  latter  part  of  the  chapter,  renders  this  evident 


ZEDEKIAH 

assistance  of  his  ally.  On* hearing  of  his  approach 
the  Chaldees  at  once  raised  the  siege  and  advanced  to 
meet  him.  The  nobles  seized  the  moment  of  respite 
to  reassert  their  power  over  the  king,  and  their 
defiance  of  Jehovah,  by  re-enslaving  those  whom 
they  had  so  recently  manumitted  ;  and  the  prophet 
thereupon  utters  a  doom  on  these  miscreants  which, 
in  the  fierceness  of  its  tone  and  in  some  of  its  ex 
pressions,  recalls  those  of  Elijah  on  Ahab  (ver.  20). 
This  encounter  was  quickly  followed  by  Jeremiah's 
capture  and  imprisonment,  which  but  tor  the  inter 
ference  of  the  king  (xxxvii.  17,  21)  would  have 
rapidly  put  an  end  to  his  life  (ver.  20).  How  long 
the  Babylonians  were  absent  from  Jerusalem  we 
are  not  told.  It  must  have  required  at  least  several 
months  to  move  a  large  army  and  baggage  through 
the  difficult  and  tortuous  country  which  separates 
Jerusalem  from  the  Philistine  Plain,  and  to  effect 
the  complete  repulse  of  the  Egyptian  army  from 
Syria,  which  Josephus  affirms  was  effected.  All 
we  certainly  know  is  that  on  the  tenth  day  of 
the  tenth  month  of  Zedekiah's  ninth  year  the 
Chaldeans  were  again  before  the  walls  (Jer.  lii.  4). 
From  this  time  forward  the  siege  progressed  slowly 
but  surely  to  its  consummation,  with  the  accompani 
ment  of  both  famine  and  pestilence  (Joseph.).  Zede- 
kiah  again  interfered  to  preserve  the  life  of  Jeremiah 
from  the  vengeance  of  the  princes  (xxxviii.  7-13), 
and  then  occurred  the  interview  between  the  king 
and  the  prophet  of  which  mention  has  alr.eady 
been  made,  and  which  affords  so  good  a  clue  to 
the  condition  of  abject  dependence  into  which  a 
long  course  of  opposition  had  brought  the  weak- 
minded  monarch.  It  would  seem  from  this  con 
versation  that  a  considerable  desertion  had  already 
taken  place  to  the  besiegers,  proving  that  the  pro 
phet's  view  of  the  condition  of  things  was  shared 
by  many  of  his  countrymen.  But  the  unhappy 
Zedekiah  throws  away  the  chance  of  preservation 
for  himself  and  the  city  which  the  prophet  set  before 
him,  in  his  fear  that  he  would  be  mocked  by  those 
very  Jews  who  had  already  taken  the  step  Jeremiah 
was  urging  him  to  take  (xxxviii.  19).  At  the  same 
time  his  fear  of  the  princes  who  remained  in  the 
city  is  not  diminished,  and  he  even  condescends  to 
impose  on  the  prophet  a  subterfuge,  with  the  view 
of  concealing  the  real  purport  of  his  conversation 
from  these  tyrants  of  his  spirit  (vejs.  24-27). 

But  while  the  king  was  hesitating  the  end  was 
rapidly  coming  nearer.  The  city  was  indeed  reduced 
to  the  last  extremity.  The  fire  of  the  besiegers  had 
throughout  been  very  destructive  (Joseph.),  but  it 
was  now  aided  by  a  severe  famine.  The  bread  had 
for  long  been  consumed  (Jer.  xxxviii.  9),  and  all 
the  terrible  expedients  had  been  tried  to  which  the 
wretched  inhabitants  of  a  besieged  town  are  forced 
to  resort  in  such  cases.  Mothers  had  boiled  and 
eaten  the  fljsh  of  their  own  infants  (Bar.  ii.  3 ; 
Lam.  iv.  10).  Persons  of  the  greatest  wealth  and 
station  were  to  be  seen  searching  the  dungheaps  for 
a  morsel  of  food.  The  effeminate  nobles,  whose  fair 
complexions  had  been  their  pride,  wandered  in  the 
open  streets  like  blackened  but  living  skeletons 
(Lam.  iv.  5,  8).  Still  the  king  was  seen  in  public, 
sitting  in  the  gate  where  justice  was  administered, 
that  his  people  might  approach  him,  though  indeed 
he  had  no  help  to  give  them  (xxxviii.  7). 

At  last,  after  sixteen  dreadful  months  had  dragged 
on,  the  catastrophe  arrived.  It  was  on  the  ninth  day 
of  the  fourth  ir.onth,  about  the  middle  of  July,  at 
midnight,  as  Josephus  with  careful  minuteness  in 
forms  us,  tltiit  the  breach  in  those  stout  and  veiiei 


ZEDEKIAH 


183$ 


able  walls  was  effected.  The  moon,  nine  days  old, 
had  gone  down  below  the  hill?  which  form  the 
western  edge  of  the  basin  of  Jerusalem,  or  was,  al 
any  rate,  too  low  to  illuminate  the  utter  darkness 
which  reigns  in  the  narrow  lanes  of  an  eastern 
town,  where  the  inhabitants  retire  early  to  rest,  and 
where  there  are  but  few  windows  to  emit  light 
from  within  the  houses.  The  wretched  remnants  of 
the  army,  starved  and  exhausted,  had  left  the  wa'.ls. 
and  there  was  nothing  to  oppose  the  entrance  el' 
the  Chaldeans.  Passing  in  through  the  breach, 
they  made  their  way,  as  their  custom  was,  to  the 
centre  of  the  city,  and  for  the  first  time  the  Temple 
was  entered  by  a  hostile  force,  and  all  the  princes 
of  the  court  of  the  great  king  took  their  seats  in 
;tate  in  the  middle  gate  of  the  hitherto  virgin 
louse  of  Jehovah.  The  alarm  quickly  spread 
through  the  sleeping  city,  and  Zedekiah,  collecting 
lis  wives  and  children  (Joseph.)  and  surrounding 
limself  with  the  few  soldiers  who  had  survived  the 
accidents  of  the  siege,  made  his  way  out  of  the 
city  at  the  opposite  end  to  that  at  which  the  Assy 
rians  had  entered,  by  a  street  which,  like  the  Bein 
es-Surein  at  Damascus,  ran  between  two  walls 
^probably  those  on  the  east  and  west  sides  of  the 
so-called  Tyropoeon  valley),  and  issued  at  a  gate 
above  the  royal  gardens  and  the  Fountain  of 
Siloam.  Thence  he  took  the  road  towards  the 
Jordan,  perhaps  hoping  to  find  refuge,  as  David 
had,  at  some  fortified  place  in  the  mountains  on  it? 
eastern  side.  On  the  road  they  were  met  and 
recognized  by  some  of  the  Jews  who  had  formerly 
deserted  to  the  Chaldeans.  By  them  the  intelligence 
was  communicated,  with  the  eager  treachery  of  de 
serters,  to  the  generals  in  the  city  (Joseph.),  and, 
as  soon  as  the  dawn  of  day  permitted  it,  swift 
pursuit  was  made.  The  king's  party  must  have 
had  some  hours'  start,  and  ought  to  have  had  no 
difficulty  in  reaching  the  Jordan ;  but,  either  from 
their  being  on  foot,  weak  and  infirm,  while  the 
pursuers  were  mounted,  or  perhaps  owing  to  the 
incumbrance  of  the  women  and  baggage,  they  were 
overtaken  near  Jericho,  when  just  within  sight 
of  the  river.  A  few  of  the  people  only  remained 
round  the  person  of  the  king.  The  rest  fled  in  all 
directions,  so  that  he  was  easily  taken. 

Nebuchadnezzar  was  then  at  Riblah,  at  the  upper 
end  of  the  valley  of  Lebanon,  some  35  miles  beyond 
Baalbec,  and  therefore  about  ten  days'  journey  from 
Jerusalem.  Thither  Zedekiah  and  his  sons  were 
despatched  ;  his  daughters  were  kept  at  Jerusalem, 
and  shortly  after  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  notorious 
Ishmael  at  Mizpah.  When  he  was  brought  before 
Nebuchadnezzar,  the  great  king  reproached  him  in 
the  severest  terms,  first  for  breaking  his  oath  of  alle 
giance,  and  next  for  ingratitude  (Joseph.).  He  then, 
with  a  refinement  of  cruelty  characteristic  of  those 
cruel  times,  ordered  his  sons  to  be  killed  before  him, 
and  lastly  his  own  eyes  to  be  thrust  out.  He  was 
then  loaded  with  brazen  fetters,  and  at  a  later  period 
taken  to  Babylon,  where  he  died.  We  are  not  told 
whether  he  was  allowed  to  communicate  with  his 
brother  Jehoiachin,  who  at  that  time  was  also  in 
captivity  there ;  nor  do  we  know  the  time  of  his 
death ;  but  from  the  omission  of  his  name  in  the 
statement  of  Jehoiakim's  release  by  Evil-Merodach, 
26  years  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  it  is  natural 
to  infer  that  by  that  time  Zedekiah's  sufferings  had 
ended. 

The  tact  of  his  interview  with  Nebuchadnezzar  al 
Riblah,  and  his  being  carried  blind  to  Babylon,  recon 
ciles  two  predictions  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiol,  which 


1836 


ZEDEKIAH 


at  the  time  of  their  delivery  must  have  appeared 
conflicting,  and  which  Josephus  indeed  particularly 
states  Zedekiah  alleged  as  his  reason  for  not  giving 
more  heed  to  Jeremiah.  The  former  of  these  (Jer. 
xxxii.  4)  states  that  Zedekiah  shall  "speak  with 
the  king  of  Babylon  mouth  to  mouth,  and  his  eyes 
shall  behold  his  eyes;"  the  latter  (Ez.  xii.  13), 
that  "  he  shall  be  brought  to  Babylon,  yet  shall 
he  not  see  it,  though  he  die  there."  The  whole  of 
this  prediction  of  Ezekiel,  whose  prophecies  appear 
to  have  been  delivered  at  Babylon  (Ez.  i.  1-3  ; 
xl.  1),  is  truly  remarkable  as  describing  almost 
'  xactly  the  circumstances  of  Zedekiah's  flight. 

2.  (Wjrjtf  and  an*l?1¥:  2e6Wos:  Sedecias.) 
Son  of  Chena'anah,  a  prophet  at  the  court  of  Ahab, 
head,  or,  if  not  head,  virtual  leader  of  the  college. 
He  appears  but  once,  viz.,  as  spokesman  when  the 
prophets  are  consulted  by  Ahab  on  the  result  of 
his  proposed  expedition  to  Ramoth-Gilead  (1  K. 
xxii. ;  2  Chr.  xviii.). 

Zedekiah  had  prepared  himself  for  the  interview 
with  a  pair  of  iron  horns  after  the  symbolic 
custom  of  the  prophets  'comp.  Jer.  xiii.  xix.), 
the  horns  of  the  reem,  or  buffalo,  which  was  the 
recognised  emblem  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  (Deut. 
xxxiii.  17).  With  these,  in  the  interval  of  Micaiah's 
arrival,  he  illustrated  the  manner  in  which  Ahab 
should  drive  the  Syrians  before  him.  When  Micaiah 
appeared  and  had  delivered  his  prophecy,  Zedekiah 
sprang  forward  and  struck  him  a  blow  on  the  face, 
accompanying  it  by  a  taunting  sneer.  For  this  he 
is  threatened  by  Micaiah  in  terms  which  are  hardly 
intelligible  to  us,  but  which  evidently  allude  to 
some  personal  danger  to  Zedekiah. 

The  narrative  of  the  Bible  does  not  imply  that  the 
blow  struck  by  Zedekiah  was  prompted  by  more 
than  sudden  anger,  or  a  wish  to  insult  and  humi 
liate  the  prophet  of  Jehovah.  But  Josephus  takes 
a  very  different  view,  which  he  developes  at  some 
length  (Ant.  viii.  15,  §3).  He  relates  that  after 
Micaiah  had  spoken,  Zedekiah  again  came  forward, 
and  denounced  him  as  false  on  the  ground  that  his 
prophecy  contradicted  the  prediction  of  Elijah,  that 
Ahab's  blood  should  be  licked  up  by  dogs  in  the 
field  of  Naboth  of  Jezreel ;  and  as  a  further  proof  that 
ne  was  an  impostor,  he  struck  him,  daring  him  to  do 
what  Iddo,  in  somewhat  similar  circumstances,  had 
done  to  Jeroboam — viz.,  wither  his  hand. 

This  addition  is  remarkable,  but  it  is  related 
by  Josephus  with  great  circumstantiality,  and  was 
doubtless  drawn  by  him  from  that  source,  unhappily 
now  lost,  from  which  he  has  added  so  many  admirable 
touches  to  the  outlines  of  the  sacred  narrative. 

As  to  the  question  of  what  Zedekiah  and  his 
followers  were,  whether  prophets  of  Jehovah  or  of 
.some  false  deity,  it  seems  hardly  possible  to  enter 
tain  any  doubt.  True,  they  use  the  name  of 
Jehovah,  but  that  was  a  habit  of  false  prophets 
(Jer.  xxviii.  2,  comp.  xxix.  21,  31),  and  there  is  a 
vast  difference  between  the  casual  manner  in  which 
they  mention  the  awful  Name,  and  the  full,  and  as 
it  were,  formal  style  in  which  Micaiah  proclaims  and 
reiterates  it.  Seeing  also  that  Ahab  and  his  queen 
were  professedly  worshippers  of  Baal  and  Ashtaroth, 
and  that  a  few  years  only  before  this  event  they 
had  an  establishment  consisting  of  two  bodies — one 
of  450,  the  other  of  400 — prophets  of  this  false 
worship,  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  there  could 

«  Once  only,  viz.  1  K.  xxii.  11. 

t  The  meaning  is  slightly  altered  by  rhe  change  in  thfi 
rowel-points,  in  the  formei  case  it  signifies  an  "  addition  " 


ZELAH 

have  I  een  also  400  prophets  of  Jehovah  at  nis  court 
But  the  inquiry  of  the  king  of  Judah  seems  to  decide 
the  point.  After  hearing  the  prediction  of  Zede 
kiah  and  his  fellows,  he  asks  at  once  for  a  prophet 
of  Jehovah  :  "  Is  there  not  here  besides  (Tlj))  a 
prophet  of  Jehovah  that  we  may  enquire  of  him  ?  " 
The  natural  inference  seems  to  be  that  the  others 
were  not  prophets  of  Jehovah,  but  were  the  400 
prophets  of  Ashtaroth  (A.  V.  "the  groves")  who 
escaped  the  sword  of  Elijah  (comp.  1  K.  xviii.  19 
with  22,  40).  They  had  spoken  in  His  name,  but 
there  was  something  about  them  —  some  trait  of 
manner,  costume,  or  gesture  —  which  aroused  the 
suspicions  of  Jehoshaphat,  and,  to  the  practised  eye 
of  one  who  lived  at  the  centre  of  Jehovah-worship 
and  was  well  versed  in  the  marks  of  the  genuine 
prophet,  proclaimed  them  counterfeits.  With  these 
few  words  Zedekiah  may  be  left  to  the  oblivion  in 
which,  except  on  this  one  occasion,  he  remains.  [G.] 

3.  (-in*)?"!^.)    The  son  of  Maaseiah,  a  false  pro 
phet   in  Babylon  among   the   captives  who  wei-e 
taken  with  Jeconiah  (Jer.  xxix.  21,  22).     He  was 
denounced  in  the   letter  of  Jeremiah  for  having, 
with  Ahab  the  son  of  Kolaiah,  buoyed  up  the  people 
with  false  hopes,  and  for  profane  and  flagitious  con 
duct.     Their  names  were  to  become  a  byword,  and 
their  terrible  fate  a  warning.     Of  this  fate  we  have 
no  direct  intimation,  or  of  the  manner  in  which 
they  incurred  it:   the  prophet  simply  pronounces 
that  they  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  Nebuchad 
nezzar  and  be  burnt  to  death.     In  the  Targum  of 
R.  Joseph  on  2  Chr.  xxviii.  3  the  story  is  told  that 
Joshua  the  son  of  Jozadak  the  high-priest  was  cast 
into  the  furnace  of  fire  with  Ahab  and  Zedekiah, 
but  that,  while  they  were  consumed,  he  was  saved 
for  his  righteousness'  sake. 

4.  The  son  of  Hananiah,  one  of  the  princes  of 
Judah  who  were  assembled  in  the  scribes'  chamber 
of  the  king's  palace,  when  Micaiah  announced  that 
Baruch  had  read  the  words  of  Jeremiah  in  the  ears 
of  the  people  from  the  chamber  of  Gemariah  the 
scribe  (Jer.  xxxvi.  12).  [W.  A.  W.] 

ZEEB  (UN?  :  ^  Z-/?0  :  Zeb~).  One  of  the  twc 
"princes"  (^It?)  of  Midian  in  the  great  invasion 
of  Israel  —  inferior  to  the  "  kings"  Zebah  and  Zal- 
munna.  He  is  always  named  with  OREB  (Judg. 
vii.  25,  -viii.  3  ;  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  1  1).  The  name  signifies 
in  Hebrew  "  wolf,"  just  as  Oreb  does  "  crow,"  and 
the  two  are  appropriate  enough  to  the  customs  of 
predatory  warriors,  who  delight  in  conferring  such 
names'  on  their,  chiefs. 

Zeeb  and  Oreb  were  not  slain  at  the  first  rout 
of  the  Arabs  below  the  spring  of  Harod,  but  at  a 
later  stage  of  the  struggle,  probably  in  crossing 
the  Jordan  at  a  ford  further  down  the  river,  r.ear 
the  passes  which  descend  from  Mount  Ephraim. 
An  enormous  mass  of  their  followers  perished  with 
them.  [OREB.]  Zeeb,  the  wolf,  was  brought  to 
bay  in  a  winepress  which  in  later  times  bore  his 
name  —  the  "  winepress  of  Zeeb  "  (IKf  *|JJJ.  : 
:  Torcular  Zeb}.  [G.] 


ZE'LAH  (J&V  and  b  J?^>»,  i.  e.  Tsela  :  in  Josh. 
Vat.  omits  ;  Alex.  2T?Aa[AecJ>  ;  in  Sam.  eV  TTJ 
TrMvpS.  in  both:  Sela;  in  latere),  One  of  the 
cities  in  the  allotment  of  Benjamin  (Josh,  xviii.  28). 


(abhang),  in   the  latter  a  "rib"  (Fiirst,  Swb.  iS.  275 o) 
Compare  the  equivalents  of  the  LXX.aud  Vuljr.  in  Samuel 


as  given  above. 


ZELEK 

its  phine  in  the  list  is  between  Taralah  and  ha- 
Eleph.  None  of  these  places  have,  however,  been 
vet  discovered.  The  interest  of  Zelah  resides  in  the 
fact  that  it  contained  the  family  tomb  of  Kish  the 
father  of  Saul  (2  Sam.  xxi.  14),  in  which  the  bones 
of  Saul  and  Jonathan,  and  also  apparently  of  the 
two  sons  and  five  grandsons  of  Saul,  sacrificed  to 
Jehovah  on  the  hill  of  Gibeah,  at  last  found  their 
resting-place  (comp.  ver.  13).  As  containing  their 
sepulchre,  Zelah  was  in  all  probability  the  native 
]:!a^ec  of  the  family  of  Kish,  and  therefore  his 
home,  and  the  home  of  Saul  before  his  selection  as 
king  had  brought  him  into  prominence.  This  ap 
pears  to  have  been  generally  overlooked,  but  it  is 
important,  because  it  gives  a  different  starting-point 
to  that  usually  assumed  for  the  journey  of  Saul  in 
quest  of  his  father's  asses,  as  well  as  a  different 
goal  for  his  return  after  the  anointing ;  and  although 
the  position  of  Zelah  is  not  and  may  never  be  kno\vn, 
still  it  is  one  step  nearer  the  solution  of  the  com 
plicated  difficulties  of  that  route  to  know  that 
Gibeah — Saul's  royal  residence  after  he  became  king 
— was  not  necessarily  the  point  either  of  his  de 
parture  or  his  return. 

The  absence  of  any  connexion  between  the  names 
of  Zelah  and  Zelzah  (too  frequently  assumed)  is 
noticed  under  the  latter  head.  [G.] 

ZEL'BKXpW:  'EAte',  2eA^  ;  Alex.  2/3Ae7f, 
SeAA-rjK :  Zclcc).  An  Ammonite,  one  of  David's 
guard  ('2  Sam.  xxiii.  37 ;  1  Chr.  xi.  59). 

ZELOPH'EHAD  OnS&V  :  2aA7rac£5:  Sal- 
phaad).  Son  of  Hepher,  son  of  Gilead,  son  of  Machir, 
son  of  Manasseh  (Josh.  xvii.  3).  He  was  appa 
rently  the  second  son  of  his  father  Hepher  (1  Chr. 
vii.  15),  though  Simonis  and  others,  following  the 
interpretation  of  the  Rabbis,  and  under  the  impres 
sion  that  the  etymology  of  his  name  indicates  a 
first-born,  explains  the  term  ^BTl  as  meaning  that 

his  lot  came  up  second.  Zelophehad  came  out  of 
Egypt  with  Moses  ;  and  all  that  we  know  of  him 
is  that  he  took  no  part  in  Korah's  rebellion,  but 
tiiat  he  died  in  the  wilderness,  as  did  the  whole  of 
that  generation  (Num.  xiv.  35,  xxvii.  3).  On  his 
death  without  male  heirs,  his  five  daughters,  just 
after  the  second  numbering  in  the  wilderness,  came 
before  Moses  and  Eleazar  to  claim  the  inheritance  of 
their  father  in  the  tribe  of  Manasseh.  The  claim 
was  admitted  by  Divine  direction,  and  a  law  was 
qromulgated,  to  be  of  general  application,  that  if  a 
man  died  without  sons  his  inheritance  should  pass 
to  his  daughters  (Num.  xxvi.  33,  xxvii.  1-11), 
which  led  to  a  further  enactment  (Num.  xxxvi.), 
lhat  such  heiresses  should  not  marry  out  of  their 
own  tribe — a  regulation  which  the  five  daughters 
of  Zelophehad  complied  with,  being  all  married  to 
sons  of  Mauasseh,  so  that  Zelophehad's  inheritance 
continued  in  the  tribe  of  Manasseh.  The  law  of 
succession,  as  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Zelophehad, 
is  treated  at  length  by  Selden  {De  Success,  capp. 
xxii.  xxiii.). 

The  interest  of  the  case,  in  a  legal  point  of  view, 
has  led  to  the  careful  preservation  of  Zelophehad's 

c  In  like  manner  the  sepulchre  of  the  family  of  Jesse 
was  at  Bethlehem  (2  Sam.  ii.  32). 

«i  Apparently  reading  ^V^V-  Tne  Talmud  has  nu 
merous  explanations,  the  favourite  one  being  that  Zelzah 
was  Jerusalem—"  the  shadow  (p^)  of  God."  Something 
if  this  kind  is  at  the  root  of  the  meridie  of  the  Vulg. 

*  Tiic  uame  Sumrah  occurs  more  than  once  elsewhere 


ZEMARAIM  ISM 

genealogy.  Beginning  with  Joseph,  it  will  be  se^i 
that  the  daughters  of  Zelophehad  are  the  seventh 
generation.  So  are  Salmon,  Bezaloel,  and  Zophal 
(apparently  the  first  settler  of  his  family),  from 
their  patriarchal  ancestors;  while  Caleb,  Achan,  and 
Phinehas  are  the  sixth  ;  Joshua  seems  to  have  been 
the  eighth.  [SHUTHELAH.]  The  average,  therefore, 
seems  to  be  between  6  and  7  generations,  which,  at 
40  years  to  a  generation  (as  suited  to  the  length  of  life 
at  that  time)  gives  between  240  and  280  years,  which 
agrees  very  well  with  the  reckoning  of  215  years  fitt1 
the  sojourning  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt  +  40  years 
in  the  wilderness  =  255  (Joseph.  Ant.  iv.  7,  §5 ; 
Selden,  De  Success,  xxii.  xxiii.).  [A.  C.  H.] 

ZELOTE8  (ZrjAavHjs :  Zelotes}.  The  epithet 
given  to  the  Apostle  Simon  to  distinguish  him  fron: 
Simon  Peter  (Luke  vi.  15).  In  Matt.  x.  4,  he  is 
called  "  Simon  the  Canaanite,"  the  last  word  being; 
a  corruption  of  the  Aramaic  term,  of  which  "  Ze 
lotes  "  is  the  Greek  equivalent.  [CANAANITE  • 
SIMON  5.] 

ZEL'ZAH  (Ha?V,  i.e.  Tseltsach:  aAAojuevov>c 
/ueyaAa,  in  both  MSS.:  in  meridie).  A  place  named 
once  only  (1  Sam.  x.  2),  as  on  the  boundary  of 
Benjamin,  close  to  (DJJ)  Rachel's  sepulchre.  It  was 
the  first  point  in  the  homeward  journey  of  Saul 
after  his  anointing  by  Samuel.  Rachel's  sepulchre 
is  still  shown  a  short  distance  to  the  north  of  Beth 
lehem,  but  no  acceptable  identification  of  Zelzach 
has  been  proposed.  It  is  usually  considered  as  iden 
tical  with  Zelah,  the  home  of  Kish  and  Saul,  ana 
that  again  with  Beit-jala.  But  this  is  not  tenable ; 
at  any  rate  there  is  nothing  to  support  it.  The 
names  Zelah  and  Zelzach  are  not  only  not  identical, 
but  they  have  hardly  anything  in  common,  still 

less  have  nV?¥  and  5JL^ ;  nor  is  Beit-jala  close 

enough  to  the  Kvbbet  Rahil  to  answer  to  the  ex 
pression  of  Samuel.  [G.] 

ZEMARA'IM 


apa;  Alex. 

Semaraiiri).  One  of  the  towns  of  the  allotment  of 
Benjamin  (Josh,  xviii.  22).  It  is  named  between 
Beth  ha-Arabah  and  Bethel,  and  therefore  on  the 
assumption  that  Arabah  in  the  former  name  denotes 
as  usual  the  Jordan  Valley,  we  should  expect  to 
find  Zemaraim  either  in  the  valley  or  in  some  posi 
tion  on  its  western  edge,  between  it  and  Bethel.  In 
the  former  case  a  trace  of  the  name  may  remain  in 
Churbet  el-Szomra,  which  is  marked  in  Seetzen's 
map  {Reisen,  vol.  iv.  map  2)  as  about  4  miles 
north  of  Jericho,  and  appears  as  es-Sumrahe  in 
those  of  Robinson  and  Van  de  Velde.'  (See  also 
Rob.  B.  R.  i.  569.)  In  the  latter  case  Zemaraira 
may  be  connected,  or  identical,  with  MOUNT  ZE 
MARAIM,  which  must  have  been  in  the  highland 
district.  • 

In  either  event  Zemaraim  may  have  derived  its 
name  from  the  ancient  tribe  of  the  Zemarim  or 
Zemarites,  who  were  related  to  the  Hittites  and 
Amorites ;  who,  like  them,  are  represented  in  the 
Biblical  account  as  descendants  of  Canaan,  but, 
from  some  cause  or  other  unexplained,  have  left 

in  the  Jordan  valley.  It  is  found  close  to  the  "  Round 
fountain"  in  the  Plain  of  Gennesareth ;  also  at  the  S.E. 
end  of  the  Lake  of  Tiberias. 

In  the  2nd  ed.  of  Robinson  (i.  569)  the  name  is  given 
as  es  Sumra  ;  but  this  is  probably  a  misprint.  See  the 
Arabic  Index  to  ed.  i.,  the  text,  ii.  305,  and  the  maps  to 
both  editions. 


1838         ZEMARAIM,  MOUNT 

but  very  scanty  traces  of  their  existence.  The 
lists  of  the  tovvns  of  Benjamin  are  remarkable  for 
the  number  of  tribes  which  they  commemorate. 
The  Avites,  the  Ammonites,  the  Ophnites,  the  Je- 
busites,  are  all  mentioned  in  the  catalogue  of  Josh. 
rviii.  22-28,  and  it  is  at  least  possible  that  the 
Zemarites  may  add  another  to  the  list.  [G.] 

ZEMARA'IM,  MOUNT  (Dnȴ  "^  :  ^ 
opos  "2,o/j.6pa>v:  mons  Someron).  An  eminence  men 
tioned  in  2  Chr.  xiii.  4  only.  It  was  "in  Mount 
Ephraim,"  that  is  to  say  within  the  general  district 
of  the  highlands  of  that  great  tribe.  It  appears  to 
have  been  close  to  the  scene  of  the  engagement  men 
tioned  in  the  narrative,  which  again  may  be  in 
ferred  to  have  been  south  of  Bethel  and  Ephraim 
(ver.  19).  It  may  be  said  in  passing,  that  a  position 
so  far  south  is  no  contradiction  to  its  being  in 
Mount  Ephraim.  It  has  been  already  shown  under 
RAMAH  [998  6]  that  the  name  of  Mount  Ephraim 
probably  extended  as  far  as  er-Ram,  4  miles  south 
of  Beitin,  and  8  of  Tait/ibeh,  the  possible  represen 
tative  of  Ephraim.  Whether  Mount  Zemaraim  is 
identical  with,  or  related  to,  the  place  of  the  same 
name  mentioned  in  the  preceding  article,  cannot  be 
ascertained.  If  they  prove  to  be  distinct  places 
they  will  furnish  a  double  testimony  to  the  presence 
of  the  ancient  tribe  of  Zemarites  in  this  part  of  the 
country.  No  name  answering  to  Zemaraim  has 
been  yet  discovered  in  the  maps  or  information  of 
travellers  on  the  highland. 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  LXX.  and  Vul 
gate,  this  name  is  rendered  by  the  same  word  which 
in  the  former  represents  Samaria.  But  this,  though 
repeated  (with  a  difference)  in  the  case  of  Zemarite, 
can  hardly  be  more  than  an  accidental  error,  since 
the  names  have  little  or  no  resemblance  in  Hebrew. 
In  the  present  case  Samaria  is  besides  inadmissible 
on  topographical  grounds.  [G.] 


ZEM'ARITE,  THE 

Samaraeus).  One  of  the  Hamite  tribes  who  in  the 
genealogical  table  of  Gen.  x.  (ver.  18),  and  1  Chr. 
i.  (ver.  16),  are  represented  as  "  sons  of  Canaan." 
It  is  named  between  the  Arvadite,  or  people  of 
Ruad,  and  the  Hamathite,  or  people  of  Hamah. 
Nothing  is  certainly  known  of  this  ancient  tribe. 
The  old  interpreters  (Jerusalem  Targum,  Arabic 
Version,  &c.)  place  them  at  Emessa,  the  modern 
Hums.  Michaelis  (Spicilegium,  ii.  51),  revolting 
at  the  want  of  similarity  between  the  two  names 
(which  is  perhaps  the  strongest  argument  in  favour 
of  the  old  identification),  proposes  to  locate  them  at 
Sumra  (the  Simyra  of  the  classical  geographers), 
which  name  is  mentioned  by  Shaw  as  attached  to 
a  site  of  ruins  near  Arka,  on  the  west  coast  of 
Syria,  10  or  11  miles  above  Tripoli. 

On  the  new  French  map  of  the  Lebanon  (Carte 
da  Liban,  &c.,  1862)  it  appears  as  Kobbet  oum 
Shoumra,  and  lies  between  Arka  and  the  Mediter 
ranean,  2  kilometres  from  the  latter,  and  5|  from 
the  former.  Beyond,  however,  the  resemblance  in 
the  names,  and  the  proximity  of  Rucid  and  Arka, 
the  probable  seats  of  the  Arvadites  and  Arkites,  and 
Hie  consequent  inference  that  the  original  seat  of 
the  Zemarites  must  have  been  somewhere  in  this 
direction,  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  Sumra  or 
Shoumra  have  any  connexion  with  the  Tsemarites 
of  the  ancient  records. 

Traces  of  their  having  wandered  to  the  south  are 
possibly  afforded  by  the  name  Zemaraim,  formerly 
attached  to  two  places  in  the  topographical  lists  of 


ZEPHANIAH 

Central  Palestine  —  a  district  which  appears  to  haw 
been  very  attractive  to  the  aboriginal  wandering 
tribes  from  every  quarter.  [ZEMARAIM  ;  see  also 
AVIM,  OPHNI,  &c.] 

The  LXX.  and  Vulgate  would  connect  the  Ze» 
mantes  with  Samaria.  In  this  they  have  been 
followed  by  some  commentators.  But  the  idea  is 
a  delusion,  grounded  on  the  inability  of  the  Greek 
alphabet  to  express  the  Hebrew  letters  of  both 
names.  [G.] 

ZEM'IEA  (JTVIDV  :  Z*/"P«*  ;  Alex.  Za^pias  : 
Zamira).  One  of  the  sons  of  Becher  the  son  of 
Benjamin  (1  Chr.  vii.  8). 

ZENAN'  (|J¥  :  2ejW  ;  Alex.  2ev  van  '•  Sanan). 
One  of  the  towns  in  the  allotment  of  Judah,  situ 
ated  in  the  district  of  the  Shefelah  (Josh.  xv.  37). 
It  occurs  in  the  second  group  of  the  enumeration, 
which  contains  amongst  others  Migdal-gad  and 
Lachish.  It  is  probably  identical  with  ZAANAN, 
a  place  mentioned  by  the  prophet  Micah  in  the 
same  connexion. 

Schwarz  (103)  proposes  to  identify  it  with  "  the 
village  Zan-abra,  situated  2J  English  miles  south 
east  of  Mareshah."  By  this  he  doubtless  intends 
the  place  which  in  the  lists  of  Robinson  (B.  R. 
1st  ed.  vol.  iii.  App.  117)  is  called  es-Senabirah, 

XtjlJUwJt)    and    in    Tobler's   Dritte    Wanderung 

(149),  es-Sennabereh.  The  latter  traveller  in  his 
map  places  it  about  2|  miles  due  east  of  Marash 
(Maresha}.  But  this  identification  is  more  than 
doubtful.  [G.] 

ZE'NAS  (Zyvas,  a  contraction  from  ZTj^JScupos, 
as  'ApT€fj.as  from  'Apre^iSwpos,  Nt/^as  from 
Nu^o'Scopos,  and,  probably,  'Eppas  from  'Ep/j.6- 
5o>pos),  a  believer,  and,  as  may  be  inferred  from 
the  context,  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel,  who  is  men 
tioned  in  Tit.  iii.  13  in  connexion  with  Apollos,  and, 
together  with  him,  is  there  commended  by  St.  Paul 
to  the  care  and  hospitality  of  Titus  and  the  Cretan 
brethren.  He  is  further  described  as  "the  lawyer" 
(rbv  yO|iuKoV).  It  is  impossible  to  determine  with 
certainty  whether  we  are  to  infer  from  this  designa 
tion  that  Zenas  was  a  Roman  jurisconsult  or  a 
Jewish  doctor.  Grot-ius  accepts  the  former  alter 
native,  and  thinks  that  he  was  a  Greek  who  hal 
studied  Roman  law.  The  N.  T.  usage  of  t>o/juK<$s 
leads  rather  to  the  other  inference.  Tradition  has 
been  somewhat  busy  with  the  name  of  Zenas.  The 
Synopsis  de  Vita  et  Morte  Prophetamm  Apostolo- 
um  et  Discipulontm  Domini,  ascribed  to  Dorotheas 
of  Tyre,  makes  him  to  have  been  one  of  the 
seventy-two  "  disciples,  and  subsequently  bishop 
of  Diospolis  in  Palestine  (Bibl.  Pair.  iii.  150). 
The  "  seventy-two  "  disciples  of  Dorotheus  are,  how 
ever,  a  mere  string  of  names  picked  out  of  saluta 
tions  and  other  incidental  notices  in  the  N.  T.  The 
Greek  Menologies  on  the  festival  of  SS.  Bartholo 
mew  and  Titus  (Aug.  25)  refer  to  a  certain  Life  of 
Titus,  ascribed  to  Zenas,  which  is  also  quoted  for 
the  supposed  conversion  of  the  younger  Pliny  (com 
pare  Fabricius,  Codex  Apocr.  N.  T.  ii.  831,  '_>). 
The  association  of  Zenas  with  Titus,  in  St.  Paul's 
Epistle  to  the  latter,  sufficiently  accounts  for  the 
forgery.  [W.  B.  J.] 


ZEPHANI'AH(rVOSV:  2o<jxw'ay:  Sophonia 
These  forms  refer  to  another  punctuation,  IVibV, 
a  participial  form).  Jerome  derives  the  name  front 


ZEPHANIAH 

,  and  supposes  it  to  mean  speculator  Domini, 
"  watcher  of  the  Lord,"  an  appropriate  appellation 
for  a  prophet.  The  pedigree  of  Zephaniah,  ch.  i.  1, 
is  traced  to  his  fourth  ancestor,  Hezekiah :  supposed 
by  A  ben  Ezra  to  be  the  celebrated  king  of  that  name. 
This  is  not  in  itself  improbable,  aud  the  fact  that 
the  pedigree  terminates  with  that  name,  points  to  a 
pen  onage  of  rank  and  importance.  Late  critics  and 
commentators  generally  acquiesce  in  this  hypothesis, 
viz.  Eichhorn,  Hitzig,  F.  Ad.  Strauss  (Vatidnia 
Zephaniae,  Berlin,  1843),  Havernick,  Keil,  and 
Bleek  (Einleitunfj  in  das  Alte  Testament}. 

Analysis.  Chap.  i.  The  utter  desolation  of  Judaea 
is  predicted  as  a  judgment  for  idolatry,  and  neglect 
of  the  Lord,  the  luxury  of  the  princes,  and  the 
violence  and  deceit  of  their  dependents  (3-9).  The 
m-osperity,  security,  and  insolence  of  the  people  is 
^cnti-fusted  with  the  horrors  of  the  day  of  wrath ; 
the  assaults  upon  the  fenced  cities  and  high  towers, 
and  the  slaughter  of  the  people  (10-18).  Ch.  ii.,  a 
call  to  repentance  (1-3),  with  prediction  of  the  ruin 
of  the  cities  of  the  Philistines,  and  the  restoration 
of  the  house  of  Judah  after  the  visitation  (4-7). 
Other  enemies  of  Judah,  Moab,  Ammon,  are  threat 
ened  with  perpetual  destruction,  Ethiopia  with 
a  great  slaughter,  and  Nineveh,  the  capital  of 
Assyria,  with  desolation  (8-15).  Ch.  iii.  The  pro 
phet  addresses  Jerusalem,  which  he  reproves  sharply 
for  vice  and  disobedience,  the  cruelty  of  the  princes 
and  the  treachery  of  the  priests,  and  for  their  ge 
neral  disregard  of  warnings  and  visitations  (1-7). 
He  then  concludes  with  a  series  of  promises,  the 
destruction  of  the  enemies  of  God's  people,  the 
restoration  of  exiles,  the  extirpation  of  the  proud 
and  violent,  and  the  permanent  peace  and  blessed 
ness  of  the  poor  and  afflicted  remnant  who  shall 
trust  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  These  exhortations 
to  rejoicing  and  exertion  are  mingled  with  inti 
mations  of  a  complete  manifestation  of  God's 
righteousness  and  love  in  the  restoration  of  His 
people  (8-20). 

The  chief  characteristics  of  this  book  are  the 
unity  and  harmony  of  the  composition,  the  grace, 
energy,  and  dignity  of  its  style,  and  the  rapid  and 
effective  alternations  of  threats  and  promises.  Its 
prophetical  import  is  chiefly  shown  in  the  accurate 
predictions  of  the  desolation  which  has  fallen  upon 
each  of  the  nations  denounced  for  their  crimes; 
Ethiopia,  which  is  menaced  with  a  terrible  invasion, 
being  alone  exempted  from  the  doom  of  perpetual 
ruin.  The  general  tone  of  the  last  portion  is  Mes 
sianic,  but  without  any  specific  reference  to  the 
Person  of  our  Lord. 

The  date  of  the  book  is  given  in  the  inscription  ; 
viz.  the  reign  of  Josiah,  from  642  to  611  B.C. 
This  date  accords  fully  with  internal  indications. 
Nineveh  is  represented  as  in  a  state  of  peace 
aud  prosperity,  while  the  notices  of  Jerusalem 
touch  upon  the  same  tendencies  to  idolatry  and 
crime  which  are  condemned  by  the  contemporary 
J  eremiah. 

It  is  most  probable,  moreover,  that  the  prophecy 
was  delivered  before  the  18th  year  of  Josiah,  when 
the  reformation,  for  which  it  prepares  the  way,  was 
carried  into  effect,  and  about  the  time  when  the 
Scythians  overran  the  empires  of  Western  Asia, 
extending  their  devastations  to  Palestine.  The  no 
tices  which  are  supposed  by  some  critics  to  indicate 
a  somewhat  later  date  are  satisfactorily  explained. 
The  king's  children,  who  are  spokci  of,  in  ch.  i.  8, 
as  addicted  to  foreign  habits,  could  not  have  oeen 
sons  of  Josiah,  who  was  but  eight  j>ears  old  at  hie 


ZEPHA1H  1832 

accession,  but  were  probably  his  brothers  or  near 
relatives.  The  remnant  of  Baal  (ch.  i.  4)  implies 
that  some  partial  reformation  had  previously  taken 
place,  while  the  notices  of  open  idolatry  arc  incom 
patible  with  the  state  of  Judah  after  ths  discovery 
of  the  Book  of  the  Law.  [F.  C.  C.] 

2.  (Sacpavla  ;  Alex.  2,a<j>avias  :  Sophonias}.    A 
Kohathite  Levite,  ancestor  of  Samuel  and  Heman 
(1  Chr.  vi.  36  [21]). 

3.  (2o(povias.}    The  son  of  Maaseiah  (Jer.  xxi. 
1),  and  sagan  or  second  priest  in  the  reign  of  Zede- 
kiah.     He  succeeded  Jehoiada  (Jer.  xxix.  25,  26), 
and  was  probably  a  ruler  of  the  Temple,  whose 
office  it  was  among  others  to  punish  pretenders  to 
the  gift  of  prophecy.     In  this  capacity  he  was  ap 
pealed  to  by  Shemaiah  the  Nehelamite,  in  a  letter 
from  Babylon,  to  punish  Jeremiah  (Jer.  xxix.  29). 
Twice  was  he  sent  from  Zedekiah  to  inquire  of 
Jeremiah  the  issue  of  the  siege  of  the  city  by  the 
Chaldeans   (Jer.  xxi.   1),  and  to  implore   him   to 
intercede  for  the  people  (Jer.  xxxvii.  3).     On  the 
capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuzaradan  he  was  taken 
with  Seraiah  the  high-priest  and  others,  and  slain 
at  Riblah  (Jer.  Hi.  24,  27  ;  2  K.  xxv.  18,  21).     In 
2  K.  xxv.  18,  Jer.  xxxvii.  3,  his  name  is  written  in 
the  longer  form  •irPJSV. 

4.  Father  of  Josiah  2  (Zech.  vi.  10),  and  of  Hen, 
according  to  the  reading  of  the  received  text  of  Zech. 
vi.  14,  as  given  in  the  A.  V.  [W.  A.  \V.] 

ZEPHATH' 


2e<?>e'/£  ;  Alex. 
SephatK).  The  earlier  name  (according  to  the  single 
notice  of  Judg.  i.  17)  of  a  Canaanite  town,  which 
after  its  capture  and  destruction  was  called  by  the 
Israelites  HORMAH.  Two  identifications  have  been 
proposed  for  Zephath  :  —  that  of  Dr.  Robinson  with 

the  well-known  Pass  es-Sufd  (^Uu^l),  by  which 

the  ascent  is  made  from  the  borders  of  the  Arabah 
to  the  higher  level  of  the  "  South  country  "  (B.  R. 
ii.  181),  and  that  of  Mr.  Rowlands  (Williams's  Holy 
City,  i.  464)  with  Sebdta,  2£  hours  beyond  Khalasa, 
on  the  road  to  Suez,  and  |  of  an  hour  north  of 
Rohebeh  or  Ruheibeh. 

The  former  of  these,  Mr.  Wilton  (The  Negeb 
&c.,  199,  200)  has  challenged,  on  account  of  the 
impracticability  of  the  pass  for  the  approach  of 
the  Israelites,  and  the  inappropriateness  of  so  rugged 
and  desolate  a  spot  for  the  position  of  a  city  of 
any  importance.  The  question  really  forms  part 
of  a  much  larger  one,  which  this  is  not  the  place  to 
discuss  —  viz.  the  route  by  which  the  Israelites 
approached  the  Holy  Land.  But  in  the  mean  time 
it  should  not  be  overlooked  that  the  attempt  in 
question  was  an  unsuccessful  one,  which  is  so  far 
in  favour  of  the  steepness  of  the  pass.  The  argu 
ment  from  the  nature  of  the  site  is  one  which  might 
be  brought  with  equal  force  against  the  existence  of 
many  others  of  the  towns  in  this  region.  On  the 
identification  of  Mr.  Rowlands  some  doubt  is  thrown 
by  the  want  of  certainty  as  to  the  name,  as  well  as 
by  the  fact  that  no  later  traveller  has  succeeded  in 
finding  the  name  Sebdta,  or  the  spot.  Dr.  Stewart 
(Tent  and  Kkan,  205)  heard  of  the  name,  but 
e-ist  of  Khalasa  instead  of  south,  and  this  was  in 
answer  to  a  leading  question  —  always  a  d;uigerous 
experiment  with  Arabs. 

It  is  earnestly  to  be  hoped  that  some  means  maj 
shortly  be  found,  to  attempt  at  least  the  examina 
tion  and  reconcilement  of  these  and  the  like  contra 
dictory  statements  and  inferences.  [G.J 


1840  ZEPHATIIAH 

ZE'PHATHAH,  THE  VALLEY  OF  (K»jl 

nn£¥:  ^  Qdpayt  Kara  *&oppav,  in  both  MSS. ; 
Joseph.  </>.  2a<£0i£ :  Vallis  Sephata\.  The  spot  in 
winch  Asa  joined  battle  with  Zerah  the  Ethiopian 
(2  Chr.  xiv.  10  only).  It  was  "at"  or  rather 
**  belonging  to  "  Mareshah  (HKHDp  :  Joseph.  OVK 
inrwflci').  This  would  seem  to  exclude  the  possi 
bility  of  its  being,  as  suggested  by  Dr.  Robinson 
(ii.  31),  at  Tell  ea~Safieht  which  is  not  less  than  8 
miles  from  Marash,  the  modern  representative  of 
Mareshah.  It  is  not  improbable  that  an  examination 
of  the  neighbourhood  might  reveal  both  spot  and 
name.  Considering  the  enormous  number  of  the 
combatants,  the  valley  must  be  ta  extensive 
one.  [G.] 

ZETHI  (»B¥:  SuQdp:  Sephi),  1  Chr.  i.  36. 
[ZEPHO.] 

ZE'PHO  (iSV:  2o>4>op:  Sephu).  A  son  of 
Eliphaz  son  of  Esau  (Gen.  xxxvi.  11),  and  one  of 
the  "  dukes,"  or  phylarchs,  of  the  Edomites  (ver. 
1 5).  In  1  Chr.  i.  36  he  is  called  ZEPHI.  [E.  S.  P.] 

ZEPH'ON  (j'lDy :  2a$<fo  ;  Alex,  omits  :  Se- 
phori).  ZIPHION  the  son  of  Gad  (Num.  xxvi.  15), 
and  ancestor  of  the  family  of  the  ZEPHONITES. 

ZEPHON'ITES,  THE  (ifovn  :  6  Sa^vl ; 
Alex,  omits:  Sephonitae).  A  branch  of  the  tribe 
of  Gad,  descended  from  Zephon  or  Ziphion  (Num. 
xxvi.  15). 

ZER  (")¥ :  Tfyoj ;  Alex,  omits  :  Ser).  One  of 
the  fortified  towns  of  the  allotment  of  Naphtali 
(Josh.  xix.  35  only).  From  the  names  which  suc 
ceed  it  in  the  list  it  may  be  inferred  that  it  was 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  S.W.  side  of  the  Lake 
of  Gennesareth.  The  versions  of  the  LXX.  and  of 
the  Peshito,  both  of  this  name  and  that  which  pre 
cedes  it,  are  grounded  on  an  obvious  mistake. 
Neither  of  them  has  anything  to  do  with  Tyre  or 
Zidon. 

Ziddim  may  possibly  be  identified  with  Hattin ; 
but  no  name  resembling  Tser  appears  to  have  been  yet 
discovered  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Tiberias.  [G.] 

ZE'RAH(rnj:  Zape:  Zara}.  AsonofReuel 
son  of  Esau<(Geii.  xxxvi.  13;  1  Chr.  i.  37),  and 
one  of  the  "  dukes,"  or  phylarchs,  of  the  Edomites 
(Gen.  xxxvi.  17).  Jobab  of  Bozrah,  one  of  the 
early  kings  of  Edom,  perhaps  belonged  to  his  family 
(xxxvi.  33 ;  1  Chr.  i.  44).  [E.  S.  P.] 

ZE'EAH,  less  properly,  ZARAH  (PHI,  with  the 
pause  accent,  PHT :  Zaod:  Zara}.  Twin  son  with 
his  elder  brother  Pharez  of  Judah  and  Tamar  (Gen. 
xxxviii.  30 ;  1  Chr.  ii.  6  ;  Matt.  i.  3).  His  de 
scendants  were  called  Zarhites,  Ezrahites,  and 
Izrahites  (Num.  xxvi.  20;  1  K.  iv.  31  ;  1  Chr. 
xxvii.  8,  11),  and  continued  at  least  down  to  the 
time  of  Zerubbabel  (1  Chr.  ix.  6 ;  Neh.  xi.  24). 
Nothing  is  related  of  Zerah  individually,  beyond  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  his  birth  (Gen.  xxxviii. 
27-30),  concerning  which  see  Heidegg.  Hist.  Pa 
triarch,  xviii.  28.  [A.  C.  H.] 

2.  (Zapes;  Alex.  Zapae:  Zara.}  Son  of  Simeon 
(1  Chr.  iv.  24),  called  ZOHAR  in  Gen.  xlvi.  10. 

3.  (Zapd,  Zaapal ;  Alex.  Zapd,  'A^etptas.)     A 


a  Probably  reading  HJ1QV.    It  will  be  observed  that 
forsakes  the  LXX  fcr  the  Hebrew  text. 


/ERA!! 

Gershonite  Levite,  son  of  Iddo  c?  Adaiah  Cl  Chr, 
vi.  21,  41  [Heb.  vi.  26]). 

4.  (rnj  :  Zope  :  Zerah.}  The  Ethiopian  or 
Cushite,  ^-iSil,  an  invader  of  Judah,  defeated  by 
Asa. 

1.  In  its  form  the  name  is  identical  with  the  He 
brew  proper  name  above.     It  has  been  supposed  to 
represent  the  Egyptian  USARKEN,  possibly  pro 
nounced'  USARCHEN,  a  name  almost  certainly  of 
Semitic  origin  [StnSHAK,  ii.  1289].   The  difference  is 
great,  but  may  be  partly  accounted  for,  if  we  suppose 
that  the  Egyptian  deviates  from  the  original  Semitic 
form,  and  that  the  Hebrew  represents  that  form, 
or  that  a  further  deviation  than  would  have  been 
made  was  the  result  of  the  similarity  of  the  Hebrew 
proper  name  Zarah.     So,  &OD,  even  if  pronounced 
SEWA,  or  SEVA,  is  more  remote  from  SHEBEK 
or  SHEBETEK  than  Zerah  from  USARKEN.     I- 
may  be  conjectured  that  these  forms  resemble  those 
of  Memphis,  Moph,  Noph,  which  evidently  repre 
sent  current  pronunciation,  probably  of  Shemites. 

2.  The  war  between  Asa  and  Zerah  appears  to 
have  taken  place  soon  after  the  10th,  and  shortly 
before  the  15th,  year  of  Asa,  probably  late  in  the 
14th,  as  we  shall  see  in  examining  the  narrative.   It 
therefore  occuired  in  about  the  same  year  of  Usar- 
keri  II.,  fourth  king  of  the  xxiind  dynasty,  who 
began  to  reign  about  the  same  time  as  the  king  of 
Judah.     Asa's  reign,  as  far  as  the  14th  year  inclu 
sive,  was  B.C.  cir.  953-940,  or,  if  Manasseh's  reign 
be  reckoned  of  35  years,  933-920.     [SHISHAK,  ii. 
pp.  1287-1289.] 

3.  The  first  ten  years  of  Asa's  reign  were  undis 
turbed  by  war.  Then  Asa  took  counsel  with  his  sub 
jects,  and  walled  and  fortified  the  cities  of  Judah.    He 
also  maintained  an  army  of  580,000  men,  300,000 
spearmen  of  Judah,  and  280,000  archers  of  Benja 
min.     This   great  force   was  probably  the  whole 
number  of  men  able  to  bear  arms  (2  Chr.  xiv.  1-8). 
At  length,  probably  in  the  14th  year  of  Asa,  the 
anticipated  danger  came.      Zerah,  the   Ethiopian, 
with   a   mighty  army  of  a   million,  Cushim  and 
Lubim,  with  three  hundred  chariots,  invaded  the 
kingdom,  and  advanced  unopposed  in  the  field  as  fai 
as  Mareshah.     As  the  invaders  afterwards  retreated 
by  way  of  Gerar,  and  Mareshah  lay  on  the  west  ot 
the  hill -country  of  Judah,  where  it  rises  out  of  the 
Philistine  plain,  in  the  line  of  march  from  Egypt 
to   Jerusalem,   it   cannot  be  doubted    that    they 
came  out  of  Egypt.     Between  the  border  on  the 
side  of  Gerar  and  Mareshah,  lay  no  important  city 
but  Gath.     Gath  and  Mareshah  were  both  fortifie " 
by  Rehoboam  before  the  invasion  of  Shishak  (xi. 
8),  and  were  no  doubt  captured  and  probably  dis 
mantled  by  that  king  (comp.  xii.  4),  whose  list 
conquered  towns,  &c.,  shows  that  he  not  only 
some  strong  towns,  but  that  he  subdued  the  counti 
in  detail.     A  delay  in  the  capture  of  Gath,  where 
the  warlike  Philistines  may  have  opposed  a  stubborn 
resistance,  would  have  removed  the  only  obstacle 
on  the  way  to  Mareshah,  thus  securing  the  retreat 
that  was  afterwards  made  by  this  route.     From 
Mareshah,  or  its  immediate  neighbourhood,  was  a 
route  to  Jerusalem,  presenting  no  difficulties  but 
those  of  a  hilly  country ;    for  not  one  important 
town  is  known  to  have  lain  between  the  capita!  and 
this  outpost  of  the  tribe  of  Judah.     The  invading 
army  had  swarmed  across  the  border  and  devoured 
the  Philistine  fields  before  Asa  could  march  to  meet 
it.     The  distance  from  Gerar,  or  the  south-western 
bcrder  of  Palestine,  to  Mareshah,  was  not 


ZERAK 

greater  tnan  from  Mareshah  to  Jerusalem,  aud, 
considering  the  nature  of  the  tracts,  would  have 
taken  about  the  same  time  to  traverse ;  and  only 
such  delay  as  would  have  been  caused  by  the  sieges 
of  Gath  and  Mareshah  could  have  enabled  Asa 
hastily  to  collect  a  levy  and  march  to  relieve  the 
beleaguered  town,  or  hold  the  passes.  "  In  the 
Valley  of  Zephathah  at  Mareshah,"  the  two  armies 
met.  We  cannot  perfectly  determine  the  site  of  the 
battle.  Mareshah,  according  to  the  Onomasticon, 
lay  within  two  miles  of  Eleutheropolis,  and  Dr.  Ro 
binson  has  reasonably  conjectured  its  position  to  be 
marked  by  a  remarkable  "  tell,"  or  artificial  mound, 
a  mile  and  a  half  south  of  the  site  of  the  latter 
town.  Its  signification,  "  that  which  is  at  the 
head,"  would  scarcely  suit  a  position  at  the  open 
ing  of  a  valley.  But  it  seems  that  a  narrow 
valley  terminates,  and  a  broad  one  commences,  at 
the  supposed  site.  The  Valley  of  Zephathah,  "  the 
watch-tower,"  is  supposed  by  Dr.  Robinson  to  be 
the  latter,  a  broad  wadee,  descending  from  Eleu 
theropolis  in  a  north-westerly  direction  towards 
Tell-es-Sdfieh,  in  which  last  name  he  is  disposed 
to  trace  the  old  appellation  (Bib.  Kes.  ii.  31).  The 
two  have  no  connexion  whatever,  and  Robinson's 
conjecture  is  extremely  hazardous.  If  this  identi 
fication  be  correct,  wo.  must  suppose  that  Zerah 
retired  from  before  Mareshah  towards  the  plain, 
that  he  might  use  his  "chariots  and  hoi-semen" 
with  effect,  instead  of  entangling  them  in  the 
narrow  valleys  leading  towards  Jerusalem.  From 
the  prayer  of  Asa  we  may  judge  that,  when 
he  came  upon  the  invading  army,  he  saw  its 
hugeness,  and  so  that,  as  he  descended  through 
a  valley,  it  lay  spread  out  beneath  him.  The 
Egyptian  monuments  enable  us  to  picture  the 
general  disposition  of  Zeiah's  army.  The  chariots 
formed  the  first  corps  in  a  single  or  double  line ; 
behind  them,  massed  in  phalanxes,  were  heavy- 
armed  troops ;  probably  on  the  flanks  stood  archers 
and  horsemen  in  lighter  formations.  Asa,  march 
ing  down  a  valley,  must  have  attacked  in  a  heavy 
column  ;  for  none  but  the  most  highly-disciplined 
troops  can  form  line  from  column  in  the  face  of  an 
enemy.  His  spearmen  of  Judah  would  have  com 
posed  this  column :  each  bank  of  the  valley  would 
have  been  occupied  by  the  Benjamite  archers,  like 
those  who  came  to  David,  "  helpers  of  the  war, 
armed  with  bows,  and  [who]  could  use  both 
the  right  hand  and  the  left  in  [hurling]  stones 
and  [shooting]  arrows  out  of  a  bow"  (1  Chr. 
xii.  1,  2).  No  doubt  the  Ethiopian,  confident  in 
his  numbers,  disdained  to  attack  the  Hebrews  or 
clear  the  heights,  but  waited  in  the  broad  valley, 
or  the  plain.  Asa's  prayer  before  the  battle  is 
full  of  the  noble  faith  of  the  age  of  the  Judges : 
"  LORD  [it  is]  alike  to  Thee  to  help,  whether  the 
strong  or  the  weak :  help  us,  0  LORD  our  God ; 
for  we  rest  on  Thee,  and  in  Thy  name  we  go 
against  this  multitude.  0  LORD,  Thou  [art]  our 
God  ;  let  not  man  prevail  against  Thee."  From  the 
account  of  Abijah's  defeat  of  Jeroboam,  we  may 
suppose  that  the  priests  sounded  their  trumpets, 
and  the  men  of  Judah  descended  with  a  shout 
(2  Chr.  xiii.  14,  15).  The  hills  and  mountains 
were  the  favourite  camping-places  of  the  Hebrews, 
who  usually  rushed  down  upon  their  more  numerous 
or  better-disciplined  enemies  in  the  plains  and  val 
leys.  If  the  battle  were  deliberately  set  in  array, 
it  would  have  begun  early  in  the  morning,  accord 
ing  to  the  usual  practice  of  these  times,  when 
there  was  not  a  night-surprise,  as  when  Goliath 
VOL.  IIT. 


ZEKAH 


1841 


challenged  the  Israelites  (1  Sam.  xvii.  20-23),  and 
when  Thothmes  III.  fought  the  Canaauites  at  Me- 
giddo,  and  as  we  may  judge  from  the  long  pur 
suits  at  this  period,  the  sun  would  have  been  in  the 
eyes  of  the  .\rmy  of  Zerah,  and  its  archers  would 
have  been  tl  as  useless.  The  chariots,  broken  by  the 
charge  and  v  ith  horses  made  unmanageable  by  flights 
of  arrows,  must  have  been  forced  back  upon  the 
cumbrous  L  >st  behind.  "  So  the  LORD  smote  the 
Ethiopiaus  Before  Asa,  and  before  Judah;  and  the 
Ethiopians  fled.  And  Asa  and  the  people  tnat 
[were!  with  him  pursued  them  unto  Gerar  :  and 
[or  "for"]  the  Ethiopians  were  overthrown,  that 
they  could  not  recover  themselves."  This  last 
clause  segrtis  to  relate  to  an  irremediable  over 
throw  at  tlie  first ;  and.  indeed,  had  it  not  been  so, 
the  pursuic  would  not  have  been  carried,  and,  as  it 
seems  at  once,  beyond  the  frontier.  So  complete 
was  the  overthrow,  that  th«  Hebrews  could  capture 
and  spoil  the  cities  around  Gerar,  which  must  have 
been  in  alliance  with  Zerah.  From  these  cities 
they  took  very  much  spoil,  and  they  also  smote 
"  the  tents  of  cattle,  and  carried  away  sheep  and 
camels  in  abundance"  (2  Chr.  xiv.  9-15).  More 
seems  to  have  been  captured  from  the  Arabs  than 
from  the  army  of  Zerah :  probably  the  army  con 
sisted  of  a  nucleus  of  regular  troops,  and  a  great 
body  of  tributaries,  who  would  have  scattered  in  all 
directions,  leaving  their  country  open  to  reprisals. 
On  his  return  to  Jerusalem,  Asa  was  met  by  Aza- 
riah,  who  exhorted  him  and  the  people  to  be  faithful 
to  God.  Accordingly  Asa  made  a  second  reforma 
tion,  and  collected  his  subjects  at  Jerusalem  in  the 
3rd  month  of  the  15th  year,  and  made  a  covenant, 
and  offered  of  the  spoil  "  seven  hundred  oxen  and 
seven  thousand  sheep"  (xv.  1-15).  From  this  it 
would  appear  that  the  battle  was  fought  in  the 
preceding  winter.  The  success  of  Asa,  and  the 
manifest  blessing  that  attended  him,  drew  to  him 
Ephraimites,  Manassites,  and  Simeouites.  His 
father  had  already  captured  cities  in  the  Israelite 
territory  (xiii.«19),  and  he  held  cities  in  Mount 
Ephraim  (xv.  8),  and  then  was  at  peace  with 
Israel.  Simeon,  always  at  the  mercy  of  a  powerful 
king  of  Judah,  would  have  naturally  turned  to 
him.  Never  was  the  house  of  David  stronger  after 
the  defection  of  the  ten  tribes ;  but  soon  the  king 
fell  into  the  wicked  error,  so  constantly  to  be  re 
peated,  of  calling  the  heathen  to  aid  him  against 
the  kindred  Israelites,  and  hired  Benhadad,  king  of 
Syria-Damascus,  to  lay  their  cities  waste,  when  Ha- 
nani  the  prophet  recalled  to  him  the  great  victory 
he  had  achieved  when  he  trusted  in  God  (xvi.  1-9). 
The  after  years  of  Asa  were  troubled  with  wars 
(ver.  9) ;  but  they  were  with  Baasha  (1  K.  xv.  Ib, 
32).  Zerah  and  his  people  had  been  too  signally 
crushed  to  attack  him  again. 

4.  The  identification  of  Zerah  has  occasioned  some 
difference  of  opinion.  He  has  been  thought  to  have 
been  a  Cushite  of  Arabia,  or  a  Cushite  of  Ethiopia 
above  Egypt.  But  lately  it  has  been  supposed  that 
Zerah  is  the  Hebrew  name  of  Usarken  I.,  second  king 
of  the  Egyptian  xxiind  dynasty;  or  perhaps  more  pro 
bably  Usarken  II.,  his  second  successor.  This  ques 
tion  is  a  wider  one  than  seems  at  first  sight.  We 
have  to  inquire  whether  the  army  of  Zerah  was  that 
of  an  Egyptian  king,  and,  if  the  reply  be  alhrmative, 
whether  it  was  led  by  either  Usarken  I.  or  II. 

The  war  of  Shishak  had  reduced  the  angle  of 
Arabia  that  divided  Egypt  from  Palestine.  Pro 
bably  Shishak  was  unable  to  attack  the  Assyrians, 
and  endeavoured,  by  securing  this  tract,  to  guard 

b  B 


1842 


ZEBA1I 


the  approach  to  Egypt.  If  the  army  of  Zerah  wert 
Egyptian,  this  would  account  for  its  connexion  with 
the  people  of  Gerar  and  the  pastoral  tribes  of  the 
neighbourhood.  The  sudden  decline  of  the  power 
of  Egypt  after  the  reign  of  Shist-i.1-  would  be  ex 
plained  by  the  overthrow  of  the  Egyptian  army 
about  thirty  -years  later. 

The  composition  of  the  army  of  Zerah,  of  Cushim 
and  Lubim  (2  Chr.  xvi.  8),  closely  resembles  that 
of  Shishak,  of  Lubim,  Sukkiim,  and  Cushim  (xii. 
3)  :  both  armies  also  had  chariots  and  horsemen 
(xvi.  8,  xii.  3).  The  Cushim  might  have  been  of 
an  Asiatic  Curh,  but  the  Lubim  can  only  have  been 
Africans.  The  army,  therefore,  must  have  been  of 
a  king  of  Egypt,  or  Ethiopia  above  Egypt.  The 
uncertainty  is  removed  by  our  finding  that  the 
kino-s  of  the  xxiihd  dynasty  employed  mercenaries 
of  the  MASHUWAS.HA,  a  Libyan  tribe,  which 
apparently  supplied  the  most  important  part  of 
their  hired  force.  The  army,  moreover,  as  consist 
ing  partly,  if  not  wholly,  of  a  mercenary  force,  and 
with  chariots  and  horsemen,  is,  save  in  the  horse 
men,  exactly  what  the  Egyptian  army  of  the  empire 
would  have  been,  with  the  one  change  of  the  in 
n-eased  importance  given  to  the  mercenaries,  that  we 
know  to  have  marked  it  under  the  xxiind  dynasty. 
[SHISHAK,  ii.  p.  1289  a.]  That  the  army  was  of 
an  Egyptian  king  therefore  cannot  be  doubted. 

As  to  the  identification  of  Zerah  with  an 
Usarken,  we  speak  diffidently.  That  he  is  called 
a  Cushite  must  be  compared  with  the  occurrence  of 
the  name  NAMURET,  Nimrod,  in  the  line  of  the 
Usarkens,  but  that  line  seems  rather  to  have  been 
of  eastern  than  of  western  Ethiopians  (see,  how 
ever,  SHISHAK,  ii.  p.  1289).  The  name  Usarken 
has  been  thought  to  be  Sargon  [SHISHAK,  I.  c.], 
in  which  case  it  is  unlikely,  but  not  impossible, 
that  another  Hebrew  or  Shemitic  name  should  have 
been  adopted  to  represent  the  Egyptian  form.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  kings  of  the  xxiind  dynasty 
were  of  a  warlike  family,  and  their  sons  constantly 
held  military  commands.  It  is  unlikely  that  an 
important  army  would  have  been  intrusted  to  any 
b»  t  a  king  or  prince.  Usarken  is  less  remote  from 
Z  ^rah  than  seems  at  first  sight,  and,  according  to  our 
computation,  Zerah  might  have  been  Usarken  II 
but  according  to  Dr.  Hincks's,  Usarken  I. 

5.  The  defeat  of  the  Egyptian  army  by  Asa 
is  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  Jews. 
On  no  other  occasion  did  an  Israelite  army  meet 
an  army  of  one  of  the  great  powers  on  either 
side  and  defeat  it.  Shishak  was  unopposed,  Sen 
nacherib  was  not  met  in  the  field,  Necho  was  so 
met  and  overthrew  Josiah's  army,  Nebuchadnezzar 
like  Shishak  was  only  delayed  by  fortifications. 
The  defeat  of  Zerah  thus  is  a  solitary  instance,  more 
of  the  power  of  faith  than  of  the  bravery  of  the 
Hebrews,  a  single  witness  that  the  God  of  Israel 
was  still  the  same  who  had  led  His  people  through 
the  Red  Sea,  and  would  give  them  the  same  aid  if 
they  trusted  in  Him.  We  have,  indeed,  no  distinct 
statement  that  the  defeat  of  Zerah  was  a  miracle, 
but  we  have  proof  enough  that  God  providentially 
enabled  the  Hebrews  to  vanquish  a  force  greater  in 
number,  stronger  in  the  appliances  of  war,  with 
horsemen  and  chariots,  more  accurate  in  discipline, 
no  raw  levies  hastily  equipped  from  the  king's 
armoury,  but  a  seasoned  standing  militia,  strength 
ened  and  more  terrible  by  the  addition  of  swarms  of 
hungry  Arabs,  bred  to  war,  and  whose  whole  life 
was  a  time  of  pillage.  This  great  deliverance  is  one 
of  the  many  proofs  that  God  is  to  His  people  ever  the 


ZEREDA 

same,  whether  He  bids  them  stand  still  and  behold 
His  salvation,  or  nerves  them  with  that  courage 
that  has  wrought  great  things  in  His  r.ame  in  our 
later  age  ;  thus  it  bridges  over  a  chasm  between  two 
periods  outwardly  unlike,  and  bids  us  see  in  listory 
the  immutability  of  the  Divine  actions.  [R.  S.  P.] 

ZERAHI'AH  (lYTril :  Zapam,  Sapafas,  Za- 
pa'/'o;  Alex.  Zapaias,  Zaptais,  Zapaias:  ZaraOas, 
Zarahia}.  A  priest,  son  of  Uzzi,  and  ancestor  of 
Ezra  the  Scribe  (1  Chr.  vi.  6,  51  [Heb.  v.  32,  vi. 
36]  ;  Ezr.  vii.  4). 

2.  (Sopafo;  Alex.  Zapaia:  Zarehe.}  Father  ol 
Elihoenai  of  the  sons  of  Pahath  Moab  (Ezr.  viii.  4) : 
called  ZARAIAS  in  1  Esdr.  viii.  31. 

ZER'ED(-nj:  Zope'5,  Z'aper :  Zareff).  The 
name  of  a  brook  or  valley  running  into  the  Dead  Sea 
near  its  S.E.  corner,  which  Dr.  Robinson  (Bib.  Res 
ii.  157)  with  some  probability  suggests  as  identical 
with  the  Wady  el  Ahsy.  It  lay  between  Moab  and 
Edom,  and  is  the  limit  of  the  proper  term  of  the 
Israelites'  wandering  (Deut.  ii.  14).  Laborde, 
arguing  from  the  distance,  thinks  that  the  source 
of  the  Wady  Ghurundel  in  the  Arabah  is  the  site ; 
as  from  Mount  Hor  to  el  Ahsy  is  by  way  of  Ezion- 
geber  65  leagues,  in  which  only  four  stages  occur : 
a  rate  'of  progress  quite  beyond  their  power.  This 
argument,  however,  is  feeble,  since  it  is  clear  that 
the  march-stations  mentioned  indicate  not  daily 
stages,  but  more  permanent  encampments.  He  also 
thinks  the  palm-trees  of  Wady  G.  would  have  at 
tracted  notice,  and  that  Wady  Jethum  (el  Ithm} 
could  not  have  been  the  way  consistently  with  the 
precept  of  Dent.  ii.  3.  The  camping  station  in  the 
catalogue  of  Num.  xxiii.,  which  corresponds  to  the 
"  pitching  in  the  valley  of  Zared  "  of.xxi.  12,  is 
probably  Dibon-Gad,  as  it  stands  next  to  Ije-Abarim  ; 
compare  Num.  xxxiii.  44-45  with  xxi.  12.  The 
Wady  el-Ahsy  forms  the  boundary  between  the 
districts  of  Jebal  and  Kerek.  The  stream  runs  in  a 
very  deep  ravine  and  contains  a  hot  spring  which 
the  Arabs  call  the  "  Bath  of  Solomon  son  of  David  " 
(Irby,  May  29). 

The  Jewish  interpreters  translate  the  name  in  the 
first  case  "  osiers,"  and  in  the  second  "  baskets " 
(Targum  Pseudojonathan),  which  recals  the  "  brook 
of  the  willows ''  of  Isaiah  (xv.  7).  The  name 
Sufsaf  (willow)  is  attached  to  the  valley  which 
runs  down  from  Kerak  to  the  Dead  Sea;  but  this 
appears  to  be  too  far  north  for  the  Zered.  [WiL- 

LOWS,  BROOK  OF  THE.]  [H.  H.] 

ZER'EDA  (nTTOn,  i.  e.  the  Tseredah,  with 
the  def.  article  :  77  Sapetpo ;  Alex.  77  2api5a  : 
Sareda).  The  native  place,  according  to  the  present 
Hebrew  text,  of  Jeroboam,  the  leader  of  the  revolt 
of  the  northern  tribes,  and  the  first  king  of  the 
"  Kingdom  of  Israel."  It  occurs  in  1  K.  xi.  26 
only.  The  LXX.  (in  the  Vatican  Codex)  for  Zereda 
substitute  Sareira,  as  will  be  seen  above.  This  is 
not  in  itself  remarkable,  since  it  is  but  an  instance 
of  the  exchange  of  r  and  d,  which  is  so  often 
observed  both  in  the  LXX.  and  Syriac  Versions, 
and  which  has  not  impossibly  taken  place  in  the 
Hebrew  text  itself  of  Judg.  vii.  22,  where  the  name 
Zererah  appears  attached  to  a  place  which  is  per 
haps  elsewhere  called  Zeredathah.  But  it  is  more 
remarkable  that  in  the  long  addition  to  the  history 
of  Jeroboam  which  these  translators  insert  between 
1  K.  xii.  .24  and  25  of  the  Hebrew  text,  Sareira  is 
frequently  mentioned.  In  strong  contrar*.  to  the 
merely  casual  mention  of  it  in  the  Hebrew  narrative 


ZEREDATHAH 

us  Jeroboam's  native  place,  it  is  elevated  in  the 
narrative  of  the  LXX.  into  great  prominence,  and 
becomes  in  fact  the  most  important  and,  it  may 
naturally  be  presumed,  the  most  impregnable  for 
tress  of  Ephraim.  It  there  appears  as  the  town 
which  Jeroboam  fortified  for  Solomon  in  Mount 
Ephraim  ;  thither  he  repairs  on  his  return  from 
Egypt ;  there  he  assembles  the  tribe  of  Ephraim, 
and  there  he  builds  a  fortress.  Of  its  position 
nothing  is  said  except  that  it  was  "  in  Mount 
Ephraim,"  but  from  the  nature  of  the  case  it  must 
have  been  central.  The  LXX.  further  make  it 
the  residence  of  Jeroboam  at  the  time  of  the  death 
of  his  child,  and  they  substitute  it  for  Tirzah  (not 
only  on  the  single  occasion  on  which  the  latter 
name  occurs  in  the  Hebrew  of  this  narrative,  but) 
three  times  over.  No  explanation  has  been  given 
of  this  change  of  HVin  into  iTl}?.  Jt  is  hardlv 
one  which  would  naturally  occur  from  the  cor 
ruptions  either  of  copyists  or  of  pronunciation. 
The  question  of  the  source  and  value  of  these  sm- 
guLv  additions  of  the  LXX.  has  never  yet  been 
fully  examined  ;  b~t  in  the  words  of  Dean  MUman 
(Hist,  of  the  Jews,  3rd  ed.  i.  332),  "  tner:  is  a 
circumstantialness  about  the  incidents  which  gives 
them  an  air  of  authenticity,  or  rather  antiquity," 
and  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  will  prompt  some 
scholar  to  a  thorough  investigation. 

Zeredah  has  been  supposed  to  be  identical  with 
ZEREDATHAH  (2  Chr.  iv.  17)  and  ZARTHAN  or 
ZARTANAH.  But  even  if  the  two  last  of  these 
names  were  more  similar  to  it  than  they  are,  there 
would  remain  the  serious  topographical  difficulty 
to  such  an  identification,  that  they  were  in  the 
valley  of  the  Jordan,  while  Zeredah  was,  according 
to  the  repeated  statement  of  the  LXX.,  on  Mount 
Ephraim.  If,  however,  the  restricted  statement 
of  the  Hebrew  Bible  be  accepted,  which  names 
Zeredah  merely  as  the  native  place  of  Jeroboam, 
and  as  not  concerned  in  the  events  of  his  mature 
life,  then  there  is  no  obstacle  to  its  situation  in 
that  part  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  which  lay  in  the 
Jordan  Valley.  [G.] 

ZERE'DATHAH(nrVVl¥:  2ip8o0af;  Alex. 
2aSa0a :  Saredatha).  Named  (in  2  Chr.  iv.  17  only) 
in  specifying  the  situation  of  the  foundries  for  the 
brass -work  of  Solomon's  Temple.  In  the  parallel 
passage  in  1  K.  vii.  46  ZARTHAN  occupies  the  place 
of  Zeredathah,  the  rest  of  the  sentence  being  lite 
rally  the  same ;  but  whether  the  one  name  is  merely 
an  accidental  variation  of  the  other,  or  whether,  as 
there  is  some  ground  for  believing,  there  is  a  con 
nexion  between  Zeredah,  Zereclathah,  Zererah,  and 
Zarthan,  we  have  now  no  means  of  determining. 
It  should  be  observed  that  Zeredah  has  in  the 
original  the  definite  article  prefixed  to  it,  which  is 
not  the  case  with  either  Zeredathah  or  Zerera.  [G.] 

ZER'ERATH1-  (HTIV,  i.  e.  Tsererah:  »>To- 
yapayadd  ;  Alex,  /ecu  ffvvt]yp.€vr) :  Vulg.  omits). 
A  place  named  only  in  Judg.  vii.  22,  in  describing 
the  flight  of  the  Midianite  host  before  Gideon.  The 
A.  V.  has  somewhat  unnecessarily  added  to  the 


ZERUBBABEL 


1843 


original  obscurity  of  the  passage,  which  runs  as 
follows:  —  l!  And  the  host  fled  unto  Beth  has-shittah 
to  c  Zererah,  unto  the  brink  of  Abel  Meholah  upon 
Tabbath  "  —  apparently  describing  the  two  lines  cf 
flight  taken  by  the  two  portions  of  the  horde. 

It  is  natural  to  presume  that  Zererah  is  the  same 
name  as  Zeredathah.*  They  both  appear  to  have  been 
in  the  Jordan  valley,  and  as  to  the  difference  in  the 
names,  the  termination  is  insignificant,  and  the  ex 
change  of  T  and  "1  is  of  constant  occurrence.  Zere 
dathah,  again,  appears  to  be  equivalent  to  Zailhan. 

It  is  also  difficult  not  to  suppose  that  Zererah  is 
the  same  place  with  the  Sarira  which  the  LXX. 
present  as  the  equivalent  of  Zereda  and  of  Tirzan. 
But  in  the  way  of  this  there  is  the  difficulty  which 
has  been  pointed  out  under  Zereda,  that  the  two 
last-named  places  appear  to  have  been  in  the  high 
lands  of  Ephraim,  while  Zererah  and  Zeredathah 
were  in  the  Jordan  Valley.  [G.] 

ZER'ESH  (BHt:  Zaxrdpa;  2axrc£pa;  Joseph. 
Zapa£o:  Zares).  The  wife  of  Haman  the  Agagite 
(Esth.  v.  10,  14,  vi.  13),  who  counselled  him  to 
prepare  the  gallows  for  Mordecai,  but  predicted  her 
husband's  ruin  as  soon  as  she  knew  that  Mordecai 
was  a  Jew.  [A.  C.  H.] 

ZER'ETH(rm:  2epe'0;  Alex.  2ape'0:  Se- 
reth}.  Son  of  Asnur  the  founder  of  Tekoa,  by  his 
wife  Helah  (1  Chr.  iv.  7). 

ZE'RI  (ny  :  Zovpi  :  Son).     One  of  the  sons 

of  Jeduthun  in  the  reign  of  David  (  1  Chr.  xxv.  3). 
In  ver.  11  he  is  called  IZRI. 

ZER'OR 


Alex.  'Ape'8  :  Seror). 
A  Benjamite,  ancestor  of  Kish  the  father  of  Saul 
(1  Sam.  ix.  1). 

ZER'UAH  (ny-m  :  Vat.  omits;  Alex.  Zapova  : 
Sana],  The  mother  of  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat 
(1  K.  xi.  26).  In  the  additional  narrative  of 
the  LXX.  inserted  after  1  K.  xii.  24,  she  is  called 
Sarira  (a  corruption  of  Zereda),  and  is  said  to  have 
been  a  harlot. 

ZERUB'BABEL  p33ty  "  dispersed  "  or 
"begotten,  in  Babylon:"  Zopo/SajSeA  :  Serubabel). 
The  head  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  at  the  time  of  the 
return  from  the  Babylonish  Captivity  In  the  first 
year  of  Cyrus.  His  exact  parentage  is  a  little 
obscure,  from  his  being  always  called  the  son  of 
Shealtiel  (Ezr.  iii.  2,  8,  v.  2,  &c.  ;  Hagg.  i.  ],  12, 
14,  &c.),  and  appearing  as  such  in  the  genealogies 
(Matt.  i.  12  ;  Luke  iii.  27),  whereas  in  1  Chr.  iii. 
19,  he  is  represented  as  the  son  of  Pedaiah,  Shealtiel 
or  Salathiel's  brother,  and  consequently  as  Salathiei's 
nephew.  Probably  the  genealogy  in  1  Chr.  exhibits 
his  true  parentage,  and  he  succeeded  his  uncle  as 
head  of  the  house  of  Judah  —  a  supposition  which 
tallies  with  the  facts  that  Salathiel  appears  as  the 
first-born,  and  that  no  children  are  assigned  to  him. 

There  are  two  histories  of  Zerubbabel  :  the  one, 
that  contained  in  the  canonical  Scriptures  ;  the 
other,  that  in  the  Apocryphal  Books  and  Josephus. 

The  history  of  Zerubbabel  in  the  Scriptures  is  as 


»  The  th  terminating  the  name  in  the  A.  V.  is  the  He- 
brew  mode  of  connecting  it  with  the  particle  of  motion . — 
Zererathah,  i.  e,  to  Zererah. 

t  The  Ta  at  the  commencement  of  this  barbarous  word 
no  doubt  belongs  to  the  preceding  name,  Beth-shittah ;  and 
they  should  be  divided  as  follows,  BrjflcreeSra  Tapayada. 
The  Vatican  Codex  appears  to  be  the  only  MS.  which  re 
tains  any  trace  of  the  name.  The  others  quoted  by  Holmes 


and  Parsons  either  substitute  ews  xeiAovs  for  it,  or  exhibit 
some  variation  of  the  words  quoted  above  from  the  Alex. 
MS.  The  Vulgate  entirely  omits  the  name. 

c  Or  possibly  the  two  first  of  these  four  names  should 
be  joined,  Beth-has-shittfch-Zererathah. 

d  Zererah  appears  in  Judg.  vii.  22,  nnY}¥,  wit^  tk« 
particle  of  motion  attached,  which  is  all  but  identical  with 
,  Zeredathah. 

6  B  2 


1844 


ZERUBBABEL 


follows; : — In  the  first  year  of  Cyrus  he  was  living 
at  Babylon,  and  was  the  recognized  prince  (fc^K^) 
of  Judah  in  the  Captivity,  what  in  later  times  was 
called  nij6|n  B>n,  or  ilt?nn  (Rhesa),  «  the 
Prince  of"  the  Captivity,"  or  " the  Prince."  On 
the  issuing  of  Cyrus's  decree  he  immediately  availed 
himself  of  it,  and  placed  himself  at  the  head  of 
those  of  his  countrymen  "  whose  spirit  God  had 
raised  to  go  up  to  build  the  House  of  the  Lord 
which  is  in  Jerusalem."  It  is  probable  that  he 
was  in  the  king  of  Babylon's  service,  both  from  his 
having,  like  Daniel  and  the  three  children,  received 
a  Chaldee  name  [SHESHBAZZAR],  and  from  his  re- 
aeiving  from  Cyrus  the  office  of  governor  (HPIQ)  of 

Judaea.  The  restoration  of  the  sacred  vessels,  which 
Nebuchadnezzar  had  brought  from  the  Temple, 
having  been  effected,  and  copious  presents  of  silver 
and  gold,  and  goods,  and  beasts,  having  been 
bestowed  upon  the  captives,  Zerub babel  went  forth 
at.  the  head  of  the  returning  colony,  accompanied 
b^  Jeshua  the  high-priest,  and  perhaps  by  the 
prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  anu  a  considerable 
number  of  priests,  Levites,  and  heads  of  houses 
of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  with  their  followers.  On 
arriving  at  Jerusalem,  Zerubbabel's  first  care  was 
to  build  the  altar  on  its  old  site,  and  to  restore 
the  daily  sacrifice.  [JKSHUA.]  Perhaps  also  they 
kept  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  as  it  is  said  they  did 
in  Ezr.  iii.  4  ;  but  there  is  some  reason  to  suspect 
that  vers.  4,  5,  and  the  first  half  of  ver.  6,  are  in 
terpolated,  and  are  merely  an  epitome  of  Neh.  viii., 
which  belongs  to  very  different  times.  [EZRA,  BOOK 
OF;  NEHEMIAH,  BOOK  OF.]  But  his  great  work, 
which  he  set  about  immediately,  was  the  rebuilding 
of  the  Temple.  Being  armed  with  a  grant  from 
Cyrus  of  timber  and  stone  for  the  building,  and  of 
money  for  the  expenses  of  the  builders  (Ezr.  vi.  4), 
he  had  collected  the  materials,  including  cedar-trees 
brought  from  Lebanon  to  Joppa,  according  to  the 
precedent  in  the  time  of  Solomon  (2  Chr.  ii.  16), 
and  got  together  masons  and  carpenters  to  do  the 
work,  by  the  opening  of  the  second  year  of  their 
return  to  Jerusalem.  And  accordingly,  in  the  second 
month  of  the  second  year  of  their  return,  the 
foundation  of  the  Temple  was  laid  with  all  the 
pomp  which  they  could  command :  the  priests  in 
their  vestments  with  trumpets,  and  the  sons  of 
Asaph  with  cymbals,  singing  the  very  same  Psalm 
of  praise  for  God's  unfailing  mercy  to  Israel,  which 
was  sung  when  Solomon  dedicated  his  Temple  (2 
Chr.  v.  1 1-14)  ;  while  the  people  responded  with 
a  great  shout  of  joy,  "  because  the  foundation  of 
the  house  of  the  Lord  was  laid."  How  strange 
must  have  been  the  emotions  of  Zerubbabel  at 
this  moment!  As  he  stood  upon  Mount  Zion, 
and  beheld  from  its  summit  the  desolations  of 
Jerusalem,  the  site  of  the  Temple  blank,  David's 
palace  a  heap  of  ashes,  his  fathers'  sepulchres  de 
filed  and  overlaid  with  rubbish,  and  the  silence  of 
desertion  and  emptiness  hanging  oppressively  over 
the  streets  and  waste  places  of  what  was  once  the 
joyous  city;  and  then  remembered  how  his  great 
ancestor  David  had  brought  up  the  ark  in  triumph 
to  the  very  spot  where  he  was  then  standing,  how 
Solomon  had  reigned  there  in  all  his  magnificence 
and  power,  and  how  the  petty  kings  and  potentates 
of  the  neighbouring  nations  had  been  his  vassals 
and  tributaries,  how  must  his  heart  alternately 
have  swelled  with  pride,  and  throbbed  with  an 
guish,  and  sunk  in  humiliation !  In  the  midst  of 


ZERUBBABEL 

these  mighty  memories  he  was  tut  the  officer  ot  ;. 
foreign  heathen  despot,  the  head  of  a  feeble  remnan  t 
of  half-emancipated  slaves,  the  captain  of  a  ban.1 
hardly  able  to  hold  up  their  heads  in  the  presence 
of  their  hostile  and  jealous  neighbours;  and  yet 
there  he  was,  the  son  of  David,  the  heir  of  great 
and  mysterious  promises,  returned  by  a  wonderful 
Providence  to  the  home  of  his  ancestors.  At  his 
bidding  the  daily  sacrifice  had  been  restored  after  a 
cessation  of  half  a  century,  and  now  the  foundation* 
of  the  Temple  were  actually  laid,  amidst  the  songs 
of  the  Levites  singing  according  to  David's  ordi 
nance,  and  the  shouts  of  the  tribe  of  Judah.  It 
was  a  heartstirring  situation ;  and,  despite  all  the 
discouragements  attending  it,  we  cannot  doubt  that 
Zerubbabel's  faith  and  hope  were  kindled  by  it  into 
fresh  life. 

But  there  were  many  hindrances  and  delays  to  be 
encountered  before  the  work  was  finished.  The 
Samaritans  or  Cutheans  put  in  a  claim  to  join  with 
the  Jews  in  rebuilding  the  Temple ;  and  when 
Zerubbabel  and  his  companions  refused  to  admit 
them  into  partnership  they  tried  to  hinder  them 
from  building,  and  hired  counsellors  to  frustrate 
their  purpose.  They  probably  contrived,  in  the 
first  instance,  to  intercept  the  supplies  of  timber 
and  stone,  and  the  wages  of  the  workmen,  which 
were  paid  out  of  the  king's  revenue,  and  then  bv 
misrepresentation  to  calumniate  them  at  the  court 
of  Persia.  Thus  they  were  successful  in  putting  a 
stop  to  the  work  during  the  seven  remaining  years 
of  the  reign  of  Cyrus,  and  through  the  eight  years 
of  Cambyses  and  Smerdis.  Nor  does  Zerubbabel 
appear  quite  blameless  for  this  long  delay.  The 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  building  the  Temple  were 
not  such  as  need  have  stopped  the  work ;  and 
during  this  long  suspension  of  sixteen  years  Zerub 
babel  and  the  rest  of  the  people  had  been  busy  in 
building  costly  houses  for  themselves,  and  one 
might  even  suspect  that  the  cedar-wood  which  had 
been  brought  tor  the  Temple  had  been  used  to 
decorate  private  dwellings  (comp.  the  use  of  }QD_ 
in  Hagg.  i.  4,  and  1-  K.  vii.  3,  7).  They  had,  in 
fact,  ceased  to  care  for  the  desolation  of  the  Temple 
(Hagg.  i.  2-4),  and  had  not  noticed  that  God  was 
rebuking  their  lukewarmness  by  withholding  His 
blessing  from  their  labours  (Hagg.  i.  5-11).  But  in 
the  second  year  of  Darius  light  dawned  upon  the 
darkness  of  the  colony  from  Babylon.  In  that 
year — it  was  the  most  memorable  tvent  in  Zerub 
babel's.  life — the  spirit  of  prophecy  suddenly  blazed 
up  with  a  most  brilliant  light  amongst  the  returned 
captives ;  and  the  long  silence  which  was  to  ensue 
till  the  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist  was  preceded 
by  the  stirring  utterances  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah. 
Their  words  fell  like  sparks  upon  tinder.  In  a  mo 
ment  Zerubbabel,  roused  from  his  apathy,  threw 
his  whole  strength  into  the  work,  zealously  seconded 
by  Jeshua  and  all  the  people.  [JESHDA.]  Unde 
terred  by  a  fresh  attempt  of  their  enemies  to  hinder 
the  progress  of  the  building,  they  went  on  witu 
the  work  even  while  a  reference  was  being  made  to 
Darius;  and  when,  after  the  original  decree  of 
Cyrus  had  been  found  at  Ecbatana,  a  most  gracious 
and  favourable  decree  was  issued  by  Darius,  en 
joining  Tatnai  and  Shetharboznai  to  assist  the  Jews 
with  whatsoever  ihey  had  need  of  at  the  king's  ex 
pense,  the  work  advanced  so  rapidly  that  on  the 
third  day  of  the  month  Adar,  in  the  sixth  year  of 
Darius,  the  Temple  vrvs  finished,  and  w;is  forth 
with  dedicated  with  much  pomp  and  rejoicing,  ll  , 


ZERUBBABEL 

'ss  difficult  to  calculate  how  great  was  the  effect 
of  th"1  prophecies  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah  in  sus 
taining  the  courage  and  energy  of  Zerubbabel  in 
carrying  his  work  to  completion.  Addressed,  as 
many  of  them  were,  directly  to  Zerubbabel  by 
name,  speaking,  as  they  did,  most  glorious  things 
of  the  Temple  which  nt  was  building,  conveying 
to  Zerubbabel  himself  extraordinary  assurances  of 
Divine  favour,  and  coupling  with  them  magnificent 
and  consolatory  predictions  of  the  future  glory  of 
Jerusalem,  and  Judah,  and  of  the  conversion  of  the 
Gentiles,  they  necessarily  exercised  an  immense  in 
fluence  upon  his  mind  (Hagg.  i.  13,  14,  ii.  4-9, 
21-23  ;  Zech.  iv.  6-10,  viii.  3-8,  9,  18-23).  It-  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  these  prophecies  upon 
Zerubbabel  were  the  immediate  instrument  by 
which  the  church  and  commonwealth  of  Judah 
were  preserved  from  destruction,  and  received  a 
life  which  endured  till  the  coming  of  Christ. 

The  only  other  works  of  Zerubbabel  which  we 
learn  from  the  Scripture  history  are  the  restoration 
of  the  courses  of  priests  and  Levites,  and  of  the 
provision  for  their  maintenance,  according  to  the 
institution  of  David  (Ezr.  vi.  18;  Neh.  xii.  47); 
the  registering  the  returned  captives  according  to 
their  genealogies  (Neh.  vii.  5);  and  the  keeping  of 
^  Passover  in  the  seventh  year  of  Darius,  with 
which  last  event  ends  all  that  we  know  of  the  life 
of  Zerubbabel  the  son  of  Shealtiel :  a  man  inferior 
to  few  of  the  great  characters  of  Scripture,  whether 
we  consider  the  perilous  undertaking  to  which  he 
devoted  himself,  the  importance,  in  the  economy  of 
the  Divine  government,  of  his  work,  his  courageous 
faith,  or  the  singular  distinction  of  being  the  object  of 
so  many  and  such  remarkable  prophetic  utterances. 
The  Apocryphal  history  of  Zerubbabel,  which, 
as  usual,  Josephus  follows,  may  be  summed  up  in  a 
few  words.  The  story  told  in  1  Esdr.  iii.— vii.  is, 
that  on  the  occasion  of  a  great  feast  made  by  Darius 
on  his  accession,  three  young  men  of  his  body-guard 
had  a  contest  who  should  write  the  wisest  sentence. 
That  one  of  the  three  (Zerubbabel}  writing  "  Women 
rire  strongest,  but  above  all  things  Truth  beareth 
away  the  victory ;"  and  afterwards  defending  his 
sentence  with  much  eloquence,  was  declared  by 
acclamation*  to  be  the  wisest,  and  claimed  for  his 
reward,  at  the  king's  hand,  that  the  king  should 
perform  his  vow  which  he  had  vowed  to  rebuild 
Jerusalem  and  the  Temple.  Upon  which  the  king 
gave  him  letters  to  all  his  treasurers  and  governors 
on  the  other  side  the  river,  with  grants  of  money 
and  exemption  from  taxes,  and  sent  him  to  rebuild 
Jerusalem  and  the  Temple,  accompanied  by  the 
families  of  which  the  list  is  given  in  Ezr.  ii.,  Neh. 
vii. ;  and  then  follows,  in  utter  confusion,  the  his 
tory  of  Zerubbabel  as  given  in  Scripture.  Appa> 
rently,  too,  the  compiler  did  not  perceive  thai 
Sanabasarb  (Sheshbazzar)  was  the  same  person  as 
Zerubbabel.  Josephus,  indeed,  seems  to  identify 
Sheshbazzar  with  Zerubbabel,  and  tries  to  reconcil* 
the  storv  in  1  Esdr.  by  saying,  "  Now  it  so  fel 
out  that  about  this  time  Zorobabel,  who  had  been 
nude  governor  of  the  Jews  that  had  been  in  cap 
tivity,  came  to  Darius  from  Jerusalem,  for  there 
had  been  an  old  friendship  between  him  and  the 
king,"  &c.  {Ant.  xi.  3.).  But  it  is  obvious  on 
the  face  of  it  that  this  is  simply  Josephus's  inven 
tion  to  reconcile  1  Esdr.  with  the  canonical  Ezra 
[EsDRAS,  FIRST  BOOK  OF.]  Josephus  has  alsc 


»  With  the  shout,  "  Magna  est  veritas,  et  praevalebit 
*  Savapao-dp  is  merely  a  corruption  of  Saera/Wao. 


ZERUIAH  1845 

nother  story  (Ant.  xi.  4,  §9)  which  is  not  founj 
n  1  Esdr.,  of  Zorobabel  going  on  an  embassy  t« 
Darius  to  accuse  the  Samaritan  governors  and 
'pparchs  of  withholding  from  the  Jews  the  grants 
made  by  Darius  out  of  the  royal  treasury,  for  th« 
ffeiing  of  sacrifices  and  other  Temple  expenses 
nd  of  his  obtaining  a  decree  from  the  king  com 
landing  his  officers  in  Samaria  to  supply  the 
iigh-priest  with  all  that  he  required.  But  that 
his  is  not  authentic  history  seems  pretty  certain 
rom  the  names  of  the  governors,  Sambabas  being 
i  imitation  or  corruption  of  Sanballat,  Tanganes 
'  Tatnai  (or  Thauthanai,  as  in  LXX.),  Sadraces  of 
sathrabouzanes,  confused  with  Shadrach,  Bobelo  of 
ioro-babel  ;  and  the  names  of  the  ambassadors, 
rhich  are  manifestly  copied  from  the  list  in  1  Esdr. 
.  8,  where  Zorobabel,  Enenius,  and  Mardochaeus, 
orrespond  to  Zorobabel,  Ananias,  and  Mardochaeus 
f  Josephus.  Moreover  the  letter  or  decree  of 
)arius,  as  given  by  Josephus,  is  as  manifestly 
opied  from  the  decree  of  Darius  in  Ezr.  vi.  6-10. 
n  all  probability,  therefore,  the  document  used  by 
fosephus  was  one  of  those  numerous  Apocryphal 
•eligious  romances  which  the  Hellenistic  Jews  were 
o  fond  of  about  the  4th  and  3rd  century  before 
Christ,  and  was  written  partly  to  explain  Zoro- 
jabel's  presence  at  the  court  of  Darius,  as  spoken 
>f  in  1  Esdr.,  partly  to  explain  that  of  Mordecai  at 
he  court  of  Ahasuerus,  though  he  was  in  the  list 
)f  those  who  were  Zorobabel's  companions  (as  it 
seemed),  and  partly  to  give  an  opportunity  for  re 
viling  and  humiliating  the  Samaritans.  It  also 
gratified  the  favourite  taste  for  embellishing,  and 
corroborating,  and  giving,  as  was  thought,  addi 
tional  probability  to  the  Scripture  narrative,  and 
dwelling  upon  bygone  times  of  Jewish  triumphs. 
"ESTHER,  BOOK  OF.] 

It  only  remains  to  notice  Zerubbabel's  place  in 
the  genealogy  of  Christ.  It  has  already  been  ob 
served  that  in  the  genealogies  Matt.  i.  12,  and  Luke 
ii.  27,  he  is  represented  as  son  of  Salathiel,  though 
,he  Book  of  Qironicles  tells  us  he  was  the  son  of 
Pedaiah,  and  nephew  of  Salathiel.  It  is  of  more 
moment  to  remark  that,  while  St.  Matthew  deduces 
lis  line  from  Jechonias  and  Solomon,  St.  Luke 
deduces  it  through  Neri  and  Nathan.  Here  then 
we  have  the  head  of  the  nation,  the  Prince  of 
Judah,  the  foremost  man  of  his  country,  with  a 
double  genealogy,  one  representing  him  as  descend- 
ng  from  all  the  kings  of  Judah,  the  other  as  the 
descendant  indeed  of  David,  but  through  a  long 
ine  of  private  and  unknown  persons.  We  find  him, 
too,  filling  the  position  of  Prince  of  Judah  at  a 
time  when,  as  far  as  the  history  informs  us,  the 
royal  family  was  utterly  extinct.  And  though,  if 
descended  from  the  last  king,  he  would  have  been 
his  grandson,  neither  the  history,  nor  the  contem 
porary  prophets,  nor  Josephus,  nor  the  apocryphal 
books,  giVe  the  least  hint  of  his  being  a  near  rela 
tive  of  Jeconiah,  while  at  the  same  time  the  natural 
interpretation  of  Jer.  xxii.  30  shows  Jeconiah  to 
have  been  childless.  The  inference  from  all  this  is 
obvious.  Zerubbabel  was  the  legal  successor  anJ 
heir  of  Jeconiah's  royal  estate,  the  grandson  of  Neri, 
and  the  lineal  descendant  of  Nathan  the  son  of 
David.  [SALATHIEL;  GENEALOGY  OF  CHRIST. 
For  Zerubbabel's  descendants  see  HANANIAH  8  1 

In  the  N.  T.  the  name  appears  ia  the  Greek  form 
of  ZOROBABEL.  [A.  C.  H.] 

ZE'RUIAH  (!T-m,  and  once c 


«  1  Sam.  xiv.   . 


1846 


ZETHAM 


Sarvia).  A  woman  who,  as  long  as  the  Jewish 
records  are  read,  will  be  known  as  the  mother  of 
the  three  leading  heroes  of  David's  army — Abishai, 
Joab,  and  Asahel — the  "  sons  of  Zeruiah."  She 
and  Abigail  are  specified  in  the  genealogy  of 
David's  family  in  1  Chr.  ii.  13-17  as  "  sisters 
of  the  sons  of  Jesse  "  (ver.  16  ;  comp.  Joseph.  Ant. 
vii.  10,  §1).  The  expression  is  in  itself  enough  to 
raise  a  suspicion  that  she  was  not  a  daughter  of 
Jesse,  a  suspicion  which  is  corroborated  by  the 
statement  of  2  Sam.  xvii.  25,  that  Abigail  was  the 
daughter  of  Nahash.  Abigail  being  apparently  the 
younger  of  the  two  women,  it  is  a  probable  inference 
that  they  were  both  the  daughters  of  Nahash,  but 
whether  this  Nahash  be — as  Professor  Stanley  has 
ingeniously  conjectured — the  king  of  the  Ammon 
ites,  and  the  former  husband  of  Jesse's  wife,  or 
some  other  person  unknown,  must  for  ever  remain 
a  mere  conjecture.  [DAVID,  vol.  i.  p.  401.]  Other 
explanations  are  given  under  NAHASH,  vol.  ii.  p.  457. 
Her  relation  to  Jesse  (in  the  original  Ishai)  is  ex 
pressed  in  the  name  of  her  son  Ab-ishai. 

Of  Zeruiah's  husband  there  is  no  mention  in  the 
Bible.  Josephus  (Ant.  vii.  1,  §3)  explicitly  states 
his  name  to  have  been  Souri  (5ovpt),  but  no  corro- 
boi-ation  of  the  statement  appears  to  have  been  dis- 
oovored  in  the  Jewish  traditions,  nor  does  Josephus 
himself  refer  to  it  again.  The  mother  of  such 
remarkable  sons  must  herself  have  been  a  remark 
able  woman,  and  this  may  account  for  the  fact, 
unusual  if  not  unique,  that  the  family  is  always 
called  after  her,  and  that  her  husband's  name  has 
not  been  considered  worthy  of  preservation  in  the 
sacred  records.  .  [G.] 

ZE'THAM  (DHT  :  Zrj0c£»>,  Ze0<^  ;  Alex.  Za<- 
86p,  Zo66fM  :  Zethan,  Zathan.}  The  son  of  Laadan, 
a  Gershonite  Levite  (1  Chr.  xxiii.  8).  In  1  Chr. 
xxvi.  22  he  appears  as  the  son  of  Jehiel,  or  Jehieli, 
and  so  the  grandson  of  Laadan. 

ZE'THAN  (|n\T :  ZcuOdv ;  Alex.  'H0dv :  Ze 
than}.  A  Benjamite  of  the  sons  of  Bilhan  (1  Chr. 
vii.  10). 

ZE'THAB  pnj :  'AjSaroCo's :  Zethar}.  One 
of  the  seven  eunuchs  of  Ahasuerus  who  attended 
upon  the  king,  and  were  commanded  to  bring  Vashti 
into  his  presence  (Esth.  i.  10). 

ZI'A  (JPT:  Zovi:  Zie\  One  of  the  Gadites 
who  dwelt  in  Bashan  (1  Chr.  v.  13). 

Zl'BA(Kl%  once  aN?V:  2€<0a;  Alex.2i£a, 
and  in  ch.  xv'u  2,  2i|8j8a ;  Joseph.  2ij8as :  Siba).  A 
person  who  plays  a  prominent  part,  though  with 
no  credit  to  himself,  in  one  of  the  episodes  of 
David's  history  (2  Sam.  ix.  2-12,  xvi.  1-4,  xix. 
17,  29).  He  had  been  a  slave  ("13^)  of  the  house 

of  Saul  before  the  overthrow  of  his  kingdom,  and 
(probably  at  the  time  of  the  great  Philistine  in 
cursion  which  proved  so  fatal  to  his  master's 
family)  had  been  set  free  (Joseph.  Ant.  vii.  5,  §5). 
The  opportunities  thus  afforded  him  he  had  so 
far  improved,  that  when  first  encountered  in  the 
history  he  is  head  of  an  establishment  of  fifteen 
sons  and  twenty  slaves.  David's  reception  of  Me- 
phibosheth  had  the  effect  of  throwing  Ziba  with 
his  whole  establishment  back  into  the  state  of  bond 
age  from  which  he  had  for  so  long  been  free.  It 
reduced  him  from  being  an  independent  landholder 


2  Sam.  xvi  4. 


ZICHK1 

to  the  position  of  a  mere  dependant.  The  know 
ledge  of  this  fact  gives  the  key  to  the  whole  of  hi? 
conduct  towards  David  and  towards  Mephibosheth. 
Beyond  this  the  writer  has  nothing  to  add  to  his 
remarks  on  Ziba  under  the  head  of  MEPHIBO' 

SHETH.  [G.] 

ZIB'IA  (N£V  :  2ej8ici  :  Sebia).  A  Benjamite, 
apparently,  as  the  text  now  stands,  the  son  of  Sha- 
haraim  by  his  wife  Hodesh  (1  Chr.  viii.  9). 

ZIB'IAH  (iT3¥:    2oj8«£,    'Ia>a5«V;    Ales 

'A/3ia,  'Ia>«5c£  :  Sebia).  A  native  of  Beersheba,  ani 
mother  of  king  Joash  (2  K.  xii.  1  ;  2  Chr.  xiv.  1). 

ZIB'EON  (jijDV:  ^ejSeyeci/:  Sebeori).  Father 
of  Anah,  whose  daughter  Aholibamah  was  Esau's 
wife  (Gen.  xxxvi.  2).  Although  called  a  Hivite,  he 
is  probably  the  same  as  Zibeon  the  son  of  Seir  tha 
Horite  (vers.  20,  24,  29;  1  Chr.  i.  38,  40),  the 
latter  signifying  'cave-dweller,"  arid  the  former 
being  the  name  of  his  tribe,  for  we  know  nothing 
of  the  race  of  the  Troglodytes;  or  more  probably 
^•inn  (the  Hivite),  is  a  mistranscription  for  ^inn 
(the  Horite). 

Another  difficulty  connected  with  this  Zibeon 
is,  that  Anah  in  ver.  2  is  called  his  daughter,  and 
in  ver.  24  his  son  ;  but  this  difficulty  appears  to  be 
easily  explained  by  supposing  that  J"Q  refers  to 
Aholibamah,  and  not  to  the  name  next  preceding 
it  :  the  Samaritan,  it  should  be  observed,  has  p. 
An  allusion  is  made  to  some  unrecorded  fact  in  the 
history  of  the  Horites  in  the  passage,  "  this  [was 
that]  Anah  that  found  the  mules  in  the  wilderness, 
as  he  fed  the  asses  of  Zibeon  his  father"  (Gen.  xxxvi. 
24).  The  word  rendered  "mules"  in  the  A.  V. 
is  the  Heb.  D^,  perhaps  the  Emims  or  'giants,  as 
in  the  reading  of  the  Sam.  D^D^Nil,  and  so  also 
Onkelos  and  Pseudojonathan,  Gesenius  prefers  "  hot- 
springs,"  following  the  Vulg.  rendering.  Zibeon 
was  also  one  of  the  dukes,  or  phylarchs,  of  the 
Horites  (ver.  29).  For  the  identification  v/ith 
Been,  father  of  Judith  the  Hittite  (Gen.  xxvi.  34), 
see  BEEEI,  and  see  also  ANAH.  [E.  S.  P.] 


ZICH'RI  0"OT  :  Zcxpe*  :  Zechri).  1.  Son  of 
Izhar  the  son  of  Kohath  (Ex.  vi.  21).  His  name 
is  incorrectly  given  in  modern  editions  of  the  A.  V. 
"  Zithri,"  thoagh  it  is  printed  ZICHRI  in  the  ed. 
of  1611. 

2.  (Zaxpt  ;  Alex.  Zexpt.)    A  Benjamite  of  the 
sons  of  Shimhi  (1  Chr.  viii.  19). 

3.  (Zexpi',  Alex.  Zoxpi.)    A  Benjamite  of  tin 
sons  of  Shashak  (1  Chr.  viii.  23). 

4.  (Z*xpL-  }  A  Benjamite  of  the  sons  of  Jerohain 
(1  Chr.  viii.  27). 

5.  Son  of  Asaph,  elsewhere  carted  ZABDI  and 
ZACCUR  (1  Chr.  ix.  15). 

6.  A  descendant  of  Eliezer  the  son  of  Mose* 
(1  Chr.  xxvi.  25). 

7.  The  father  of  Eliezer,  the  chief  of  the  Reu- 
benites  in  the  reign  of  David  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  16). 

8.  (Zapi;  Alex.  Zaxpt.)    Of  the  tribe  of  Judah. 
His  son  Amasiah  commanded  200,000  men  in  Je- 
hoshaphat's  army  (2  Chr.  xvii.  16). 

9.  (Zaxapias.}    Father  of  Elishaphat,  one  of  th" 
conspirators  with  Jehoiada  (2  Chr.  xxiii.  1), 

10.  (Zexpi  5    Alex.  'E^XP1'-)     An  Ephraimite 
hero  in  the  invading  army  of  Pekah  the  son  of  Ke- 
maliah   (2  Chr.  xxviii.  7).     In  the  battle    which 
was  so  disastrous  to  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  Maa- 
seiah  vhe  king's  son,  Azrikam,  the  prefect  of  the 


ZIDDIM 

palace,  and  Elkanah,  who  was  next  to  the  king,  fell 
by  the  hand  of  Ziohri. 

11.  fZexpi-)    Father  or  ancestor  of  JOEL  14 
(Neh.  xi.  9).     He  was  probaWy  a  Benjamite. 

12.  A  priest  of  the  family  of  Abijah,  in  the  days  of 
Joiakim  the  son  of  Jeshua  (Neh.  xii.  17).  [W.  A.W.] 

ZID'DIM  (D^Jtfn,  with  the  def.  article  :  rStv 
Typical* ;  Alex,  omits  :  Aseddim}.  One  of  tha  for 
tified  towns  of  the  allotment  of  Naphtali,  according 
to  the  present  condition  of  the  Hebrew  text  (Josh. 
xix.  35).  The  translators  of  the  Vat.  LXX.  appear 
to  have  read  the  word  in  the  original,  DH-VH,  "  the 
Tynans,"  while  those  of  the  Peshito-Syriac,  on  the 
other  hand,  read  it  as  flTV,  Zidon.  These  readings 
were  probably  both  influenced  by  the  belief  that  the 
name  next  following  that  in  question,  viz.  ZER, 
was  that  of  Tyre.  But  this  is  more  than  doubtful, 
and  indeed  Tyre  and  Zidon  were  included  in  the 
allotment,  not  of  Naphtali,  but  of  Asher  (xix.  28, 
29).  The  Jerusalem  Talmud  (Megillah,  i.)  is  pro 
bably  nearer  the  mark  in  identifying  hat-Tsiddim 
with  Kefr  Chittai,  which  Schwarz  (182)  with  much 
probability  takes  to  be  the  present  Hattin,  at  the 
northern  foot  of  the  well  known  Kurn  Hattin,  or 
"  Horns  of  Hattin,"  a  few  miles  west  of  Tiberias. 
This  identification  falls  in  with  the  fact  that  the 
three  next  names  in  the  list  are  all  known  to  have 
been  connected  with  the  lake.  [G.] 

ZIDKI'JAH  (fljjm :  2fSe«fas :  Sedecias). 
A  priest,  or  family  of  priests,  who  signed  the  cove 
nant  with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  1).  The  name  is 
identical  with  that  elsewhere  in  the  A.  V.  rendered 
ZEDEKIAH. 

ZI'DON  or  SI'DON  (fH'V  and  fV?:  2i5<fo: 
Sidon).  Gen.  x.  19,15;  Josh.  xi.  8,  xix.  28 ;  Judg. 
i.  31,  xviii.  28  ;  Joel  iii.  4  (iv.  4) ;  Is.  xxiii.  2,  4, 
12;  Jer.  xxv.  22,  xxvii.  3;  Ez.  xxviii.  21,  22; 
Zech.  ix.  2;  Matt.  xi.  21,  22,  xv.  21;  Luke  vi. 
17,  x.  13,  14;  Mark  iii.  8,  vii.  24,  31.— An 
ancient  and  wealthy  city  of  Phoenicia,  on  the 
eastern  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  in  latitude 
33°  34'  05"  N.,  less  than  twenty  English  miles  to 
the  north  of  Tyre.  Its  Hebrew  name,  Tsidon, 
signifies  "  Fishing,"  or  "  Fishery  "  (see  Gesenius, 
s.u.).  Its  modern  name  is  Saida.  It  is  situated  in 
the  narrow  plain  between  the  Lebanon  and  the  sea, 
to  which  it  once  gave  its  own  name  (Joseph.  Ant. 
v.  3,  §1,  rb  p.4ya  ireSiov  StSwi/oy  v6\ews]  at  a 
point  where  the  mountains  recede  to  a  distance  of 
two  miles  (Kenrick's  Phoenicia,  p.  19).  Adjoin 
ing  the  city  there  are  luxuriant  gardens  and 
orchards,  in  which  there  is  a  profusion  of  the  finest 
fruit  trees  suited  to  the  climate.  "  The  plain  is 
riat  and  low,"  says  Mr.  Porter,  author  of  the 
Handbook  for  Syria  and  Palestine,  "  but  near  the 
coast  line  rises  a  little  hill,  a  spur  from  which 
shoots  out  a  few  hundred  yards  into  the  sea  in  a 
south-western  direction.  On  the  northern  slope  of 
the  promontory  thus  formed  stands  the  old  city  of 
Zidon.  The  hill  behind  on  the  south  is  covered  by 
the  citadel"  (Enc.  Britannica,  8th  edition,  s.u.). 

From  a  Biblical  point  of  view,  this  city  is  infe 
rior  in  interest  to  its  neighbour  Tyre,  with  which 
its  name  is  so  often  associated.  Indeed,  in  all  the 
passages  above  referred  to  in  which  the  two  cities 
are  mentioned  together,  Tyre  is  named  first — a  cir 
cumstance  which  might  at  once  be  deemed  acci 
dental,  or  the  mere  result  of  Tyre's  being  the 
nearest  of  the  two  cities  to  Palestine,  were  it  not 


ZIDON 


1847 


that  some  doubt  on  this  point  is  raised  by  the 
order  being  reversed  in  two  works  which  were 
written  at  a  period,  after  Zidon  had  enjoyed  a  Ion; 
temporary  superiority  (Ezr.  iii.  7 ;  1  Chr.  xxii.  4). 
However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that,  of  the  twy; 
Tyre  is  of  the  greater  importance  in  reference  to 
the  writings  of  the  most  celebrated  Hebrew  pro 
phets  ;  and  the  splendid  prophecies  directed  against 
Tyre,  as  a  single  colossal  power  (Ez.  xxvi.,  xxvii. , 
xxviii.  1-19;  Is.  xxiii.),  have  no  parallel  in  the 
shorter  and  vaguer  utterances  against  Zidon  (Ez. 
xxviii.  21-23).  And  the  predominant  Biblical 
interest  of  Tyre  arises  from  the  prophecies  relating 
to  its  destiny. 

If  we  could  believe  Justin  (xviii.  3),  there  would 
be  no  doubt  that  Zidon  was  of  greater  antiquity 
than  Tyre,  as  he  says  that  the  inhabitants  of  Sidon, 
when  their  city  had  been  reduced  by  the  king  ol 
Ascalon,  founded  Tyre  the  year  before  the  capture 
of  Troy.  Justin,  however,  is  such  a  weak  autho 
rity  for  any  disputed  historical  fact,  and  his 
account  of  the  early  history  of  the  Jews,  wherein 
we  have  some  means  of  testing  his  accuracy,  seems 
to  be  so  much  in  the  nature  of  a  romance  (xxxvi.  2) 
that,  without  laying  stress  on  the  unreasonable 
ness  of  any  one's  assuming  to  know  the  precise 
time  when  Troy  was  taken,  he  cannot  be  accepted 
as  an  authority  for  the  early  history  of  the  Phoeni 
cians.  In  contradiction  of  this  statement,  it  has 
been  further  insisted  on,  that  the  relation  between 
a  colony  and  the  mother-city  among  the  Phoeni 
cians  was  sacred,  and  that  as  the  Tyrians  never 
acknowledged  this  relation  towards  Zidon,  the  sup 
posed  connexion  between  Tyre  and  Zidon  is  morally 
impossible.  This  is  a  very  strong  point ;  but, 
perhaps,  not  absolutely  conclusive,  as  no  one  can 
prove  that  this  was  the  custom  of  the  Phoenicians 
at  the  very  distant  period  when  alone  the  Zidon  ians 
would  have  built  Tyre,  if  they  founded  it  at  all ; 
or  that  it  would  have  ar  plied  not  only  to  the  con 
scious  and  deliberate  founding  of  a  colony,  but 
I  likewise  to  such  an  almost  accidental  founding  of  a 
j  city,  as  is  implied  in  the  account  of  Justin.  Cer 
tainly,  there  is  otherwise  nothing  improbable  in 
Zidonians  having  founded  Tyre,  as  the  Tyrians  arc 
called  Zidonians,  but  the  Zidonians  are  never  called 
Tyrians.  And  at  any  rate  this  circumstance  tends 
to  show  that  in  early  times  Zidon  was  the  most 
influential  of  th.8  two  cities.  This  is  shadowed 
forth  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  by  the  statement  that 
Zidon  was  the  first-born  of  Canaan  (Gen.  x.  15),  anu 
is  implied  in  the  name  of  "  Great  Zidon,"  or  "  the 
Metropolis  Zidon,"  which  is  twice  given  to  it  in 
Joshua  (xi.  8,  xix.  28).  It  is  confirmed,  likewise, 
by  Sidonians  being  used  as  the  generic  name  of  the 
Phoenicians,  or  Canaanites  (Josh.  xiii.  6  ;  Judg. 
xviii.  7) ;  and  by  the  reason  assigned  for  there  being 
no  deliverer  to  Laish  when  its  peaceable  inhabitants 
were  massacred,  that  "  it  was  far  from  Zidon  ; " 
whereas,  if  Tyre  had  been  then  of  equal  importance, 
it  would  have  been  more  natural  to  mention  Tyre, 
which  professed  substantially  the  same  religion, 
and  was  almost  twenty  miles  nearer  (Judg.  xviii. 
28).  It  is  in  accordance  with  the  inference  to  be 
drawn  from  these  circumstances  that  in  the  Homeric 
poems  Tyre  is  not  named,  while  there  is  mention 
both  of  Sidon  and  the  Sidonians  (Od.  xv.  425, 
II.  xxiii.  743) ;  and  the  land  of  the  Sidonians  is 
called  "Sidonia"  (Gd.  xiii.  285).  One  point, 
however,  in  the  Homeric  poems  deserves  to  be 
specially  noted  concerning  the  Sidonians,  that  th^y 
are  never  here  mentioned  as  traders,  OP  praised  for 


1848 


ZIDON 


thnir  nautical  skill,  for  which  they  were  afterwards 
BO  celebrated  (Herod,  vii.  44,  96).  The  traders 
are  invariably  known  by  the  general  name  of  Phoe 
nicians,  which  would,  indeed,  include  the  Sidonians : 
but  still  the  special  praise  of  Sidomans  was  as 
skilled  workmen.  When  Achilles  distributed 
prizes  at  the  games  in  honour  of  Patrocius,  he  gave 
as  the  prize  of  the  swiftest  runner,  a  large  silver 
bowl  for  mixing  wine  with  water,  which  had  been 
cunningly  made  by  the  skilful  Sidonians,  but 
which  Phoenicians  had  brought  over  the  sea  (//. 
xxiii.  743,  744).  And  when  Menelaus  wished  to  give 
to  Telemachus  what  was  most  beautiful  and  most 
valuable,  he  presented  him  with  a  similar  mixing- 
bowl  of  silver,  with  golden  rim,  a  divine  work,  the 
work  of  Hephaestus,  which  had  been  a  gift  to 
Menelaus  himself  from  Phaedimus,  king  of  the 
Sidonians  (Od.  iv.  614-618,  and  Od.  xv.  I.e.). 
And  again,  all  the  beautifully  embroidered  robes 
of  Andromache,  from  which  she  selected  one  as  an 
offering  to  Athene,  were  the  productions  of  Sidonian 
women,  which  Paris,  when  coming  to  Troy  with 
Helen,  had  brought  from  Sidonia  (II.  vi.  289-295). 
But  in  no  case  is  anything  mentioned  as  having 
been  brought  from  Sidon  in  Sidonian  vessels  or  by 
Sidonian  sailors.  Perhaps  at  this  time  the  Phoenician 
vessels  were  principally  fitted  out  at  seaports  of 
Phoenicia  to  the  north  of  Sidon. 

From  the  time  of  Solomon  to  the  invasion  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  Zidon  is  not  often  directly  men 
tioned  in  the  Bible,  and  it  appears  to  have  been 
subordinate  to  Tyre.  When  the  people  called 
"  Zidonians  "  is  mentioned,  it  sometimes  seems  that 
the  Phoenicians  of  the  plain  of  Zidon  are  meant,  as, 
for  example,  when  Solomon  said  to  Hiram  that 
there  was  none  among  the  Jews  that  could  skill  to 
hew  timber  like  the  Zidonians  (1  K.  v.  6) ;  and 
possibly,  when  Ethbaal,  the  father  of  Jezebel,  is 
called  their  king  (1  K.  xvi.  31),  who,  according  to 
Menander  in  Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  13,  §2),  was  king^ 
of  the  Tyrians.  This  may  likewise  be  the  meaning" 
when  Ashtoreth  is  called  the  Goddess,  or  Abomina 
tion,  of  the  Zidonians  (IK.  xi.  5,  33  ;  2  K.  xxiii. 
13),  or  when  women  of  the  Zidonians  are  mentioned 
in  reference  to  Solomon  (1  K.  xi.  1).  And  this 
seems  to  be  equally  true  of  the  phrases,  "  daughter 
of  Zidon,"  and  "  merchants  of  Zidon,"  and  even  once 
of  "  Zidon  "  itself  (Is.  xxiii.  12,  2,  4)  in  the  prophecy 
of  Isaiah  against  Tyre.  There  is  no  doubt,  however, 
that  Zidon  itself,  the  city  properly  so  called,  was 
threatened  by  Joel  (iii.  4)  and  Jeremiah  (xxvii.  3). 
Still,  all  that  is  known  respecting  it  during  this 
epoch  is  very  scanty,  amounting  to  scarcely  more 
than  that  one  of  its  sources  of  gain  was  trade  in 
slaves,  in  which  the  inhabitants  did  not  shrink  from 
selling  inhabitants  of  Palestine  [PHOENICIANS, 
p.  1001];  that  the  city  was  governed  by  kings 
(Jer.  xxvii.  3  and  xxv.  22);  that,  previous  to  the 
invasion  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  it  had  furnished  ma 
riners  to  Tyre  (Ez.  xxvii.  8) ;  that,  at  one  period, 
it  was  subject,  in  some  sense  or  other,  to  Tyre; 
and  that,  when  Shalmaneser  king  of  Assyria  invaded 
Phoenicia,  Zidon  seized  the  opportunity  to  revolt. 
It  seems  strange  to  hear  of  the  subjection  of  one 
great  city  to  another  great  city  only  twenty  miles 
off,  inhabited  by  men  of  the  same  race,  language, 
and  religion;  but  the  fact  is  rendered  conceivable 

*  In  an  excellent  account  of  this  revolt,  Bp.  Thirlwall 
seems  to  have  regarded  Diodorus  as  meaning  Sidon  itself 
\*y  the  words  iv  rfj  StSwiaW,  xvi.  41  (History  of  Greece, 
vi.  179) ;  and  Miot,  in  his  French  translation  of  Diodorus 
^Bibliotkeque  IKstorique  de  Diadont  -it  Slclli,  Paris,  1837, 


ZIDON 

by  the  relation  of  Athens  to  its  a  lies  after  the  Per* 
sian  war,  and  by  the  history  of  the  Italian  republics 
in  the  middle  a?es.  It  is  not  improbable  that  its 
rivalry  with  Tyre  may  have  been  influential  in 
inducing  Zidon,  more  than  a  century  later,  lo  submit 
to  Nebuchadnezzar,  apparently  without  offering  any 
serious  resistance. 

During  the  Persian  domination,  Zidon  seems  tc 
have  attained  its  highest  point  of  prosperity ;  and 
it  is  recorded  that,  towards  the  close  of  that  period, 
it  far  excelled  all  other  Phoenician  cities  in  wealth 
and  importance  (Diod.  xvi.  44 ;  Mela,  i.  12). 
It  is  very  probable  that  the  long  siege  of  Tyre  by 
Nebuchadnezzar  had  tended  not  only  to  weaken  anil 
impoverish  Tyre,  but  likewise  to  enrich  Zidon  at 
the  expense  of  Tyre  ;  as  it  was  an  obvious  expedient 
for  any  Tyrian  merchants,  artisans,  and  sailors,  who 
deemed  resistance  useless  or  unwise,  to  transfer  their 
residence  to  Zidon.  However  this  may  be,  in  the  ex- 
pedition  of  Xerxes  against  Greece,  the  Sidonians  were 
highly  favoured,  and  were  a  pre-eminently  important 
element  of  his  naval  power.  When,  from  a  hill  near 
Abydos,  Xerxes  witnessed  a  boat-race  in  his  fleet,  the 
prize  was  gained  by  the  Sidonians  (Herod,  vii.  44). 
When  he  reviewed  his  fleet,  he  sat  beneath  a  golden 
canopy  in  a  Sidonian  galley  (vii.  100);  when  he 
wished  to  examine  the  mouths  of  the  river  Peneus, 
he  entrusted  himself  to  a  Sidonian  galley,  as  was 
his  wont  on  similar  occasions  (vii.  128) ;  and 
when  the  Tyrants  and  general  officers  of  his  great 
expedition  sat  in  order  of  honour,  the  king  of  the 
Sidonians  sat  first  (viii.  67).  Again,  Herodotus 
states  that  the  Phoenicians  supplied  the  best  vessels 
of  the  whole  fleet;  and  of  the  Phoenicians,  the 
Sidonians  (vii.  96).  And  lastly,  as  Homer  gives  a 
vivid  idea  of  the  beauty  of  Achilles  by  saying  that 
Nireus  (thrice-named)  was  the  most  beautiful  of  all 
the  Greeks  who  went  to  Troy,  after  the  son  of  Peleus, 
so  Herodotus  completes  the  triumph  of  the  Sidoni 
ans,  when  he  praises  the  vessels  of  Artemisia 
(probably  for  the  daring  of  their  crews),  by  saying 
that  they  were  the  most  renowned  of  the  whole 
fleet,  *'  after  the  Sidonians  "  (vii.  9). 

The  prosperity  of  Sidon  was  suddenly  cut  short 
by  an  unsuccessful  revolt  against  Persia,  which  led 
to  one  of  the  most  disastrous  catastrophes  recorded 
in  history.  Unlike  the  siege  and  capture  of  Tyre 
by  Alexander  the  Great,  which  is  narrated  by  se 
veral  writers,  and  which  is  of  commanding  interest 
through  its  relation  to  such  a  renowned  conqueror, 
the  fate  of  Sidon  is  only  known  through  the  history 
of  Diodorus  (xvi.  42-45),  and  is  mainly  connected 
with  Arfaxerxes  Ochus  (B.C.  359-338),  a  monarch 
who  is  justly  regarded  with  mingled  aversion  and 
contempt.  Hence  the  calamitous  overthrow  of  Sidon 
has  not,  perhaps,  attracted  so  much  attention  as  it 
deserves.  The  principal  circumstances  were  these 
While  the  Persians  were  making  preparations  in 
Phoenicia  to  put  down  the  revolt  in  Egypt,  some 
Persian  satraps  and  generals  behaved  oppressively 
and  insolently  to  Sidonians  in  the  Sidonian*  divi 
sion  of  the  city  of  Tripolis.  On  this,  the  Sidouian 
people  projected  a  revolt ;  and  having  first  concerted 
arrangements  with  other  Phoenician  cities,  and  made 
a  treaty  with  Nectanebus,  they  put  their  designr 
into  execution.  They  commenced  by  committing 
outrages  in  a  residence  and  park  (7rapo5ei(Tos)  of 


torn.  v.  73),  actually  translates  the  words  by  "Sidon." 
The  real  meaning,  however,  seems  to  be  as  stated  in  the 
text.  Indeed,  otherwise  there  was  no'sufficttnt  reason  for 
mentioning  Tripolis  as  specially  f<wiected  w'th  the  ca>is« 
of  the  war 


ZTDON  ZIDON  1849 

ihe  Persian  king  ;  they  burnt  a  large  store  of  fodder  I  conduct.     Not  long  after,  Strabo  in  his  account  of 
which  had  been  collected  for  the  Persian  cavalry  :  1  Phoenicia,  says  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,   "  Both  were 
uid  they  seized  and  put  to  death  the  Persians  who 
had  been  guilty  of  insults  towards  the  Sidonians. 


Afterwards,  under  their  King  Tennes,  with  the 
•Assistance  from  Egypt  of  4000  Greek  mercenaries 
under  Mentor,  they  expelled  the  Persian  satraps 
from  Phoenicia ;  they  strengthened  the  defences  of 
their  city,  they  equipped  a  fleet  of  100  triremes,  and 
prepared  for  a  desperate  resistance.  But  their  King 
Tennes  proved  a  traitor  to  their  cause — and  in  per 
formance  of  a  compact  with  Ochus,  he  betrayed 
into  the  king's  power  one  hundred  of  the  most  dis 
tinguished  citizens  of  Sidon,  who  were  all  shot  to 
death  with  javelins.  Five  hundred  other  citizens, 
who  went  out  to  the  king  with  ensigns  of  supplica 
tion,  shared  the  same  fate ;  and  by  concert  between 
Tennes  and  Mentor,  the  Persian  troops  were  ad 
mitted  within  the  gates,  and  occupied  the  city 
walls.  The  Sidonians,  before  the  arrival  of  Ochus, 
had  burnt  their  vessels  to  prevent  any  one's  leaving 


illustrious  and  splendid  formerly,  and  now]  but 
which  should  be  called  the  capital  of  Phoenicia,  is  a 
matter  of  dispute  between  the  inhabitants"  (xvi.  p. 
756).  He  adds  that  it  is  situated  on  the  mainland, 
on  a  fine  natural ly-formed  harbour.  He  speaks  ol 
the  inhabitants  as  cultivating  the  sciences  of  arith 
metic  and  astronomy  ;  and  says  that  the  best  oppor 
tunities  were  afforded  in  Sidon  for  acquiring  a  know 
ledge  of  these  and  of  all  other  branches  of  philosophy. 
He  adds,  that  in  his  time,  there  were  distinguished 
philosophers,  natives  of  Sidon,  asBoethus,  with  whom 
he  studied  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  and  his  bro 
ther  Diodotus.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  both  these 
names  were  Greek ;  and  it  is  to  be  presumed  that 
in  Strabo's  time,  Greek  was  the  language  of  the 
educated  classes  at  least,  both  in  Tyre  and  Sidon. 
This  is  nearly  all  that,  is  known  of  the  state  of 
Sidon  when  it  was  visited  by  Christ.  It  is  about 
fifty  miles  distant  from  Nazareth,  and  is  the  most 


the  town ;    and  when  they   saw   themselves   sur-    northern  city  which  is  mentioned  in  connexion  with 


rounded  by  the  Persian  troops,  they  adopted  the 
desperate  resolution  of  shutting  themselves  up  with 
their  families,  and  setting  fire  each  man  to  his  own 
house  (B.C.  351).  Forty  thousand  persons  are  said 
to  have  perished  in  the  flames.  Tennes  himself  did 
not  save  his  own  life,  as  Ochus,  notwithstanding  his 
promise  to  the  contrary,  put  him  to  death.  The 
privilege  of  searching  the  ruins  was  sold  for  money. 
After  this  dismal  tragedy,  Sidon  gradually  reco 
vered  from  the  blow ;  fresh  immigrants  from  other 
cities  must  have  settled  in  it ;  and  probably  many 
Sidonian  sailors  survived,  who  had  been  plying  their 
trade  elsewhere  in  merchant  vessels  at  the  time  of 
the  capture  of  the  city.  The  battle  of  Issus  was 
fought  about  eighteen  years  afterwards  (B.C.  333), 
and  then  the  inhabitants  of  the  restored  dty 
opened  their  gates  to  Alexander  of  their  own  accord, 
from  hatred,  as  is  expressly  stated  of  Darius  and 
the  Persians  (Arrian,  Anab.  Al.  ii.  15).  The 
impolicy,  as  well  as  the  cruelty  of  Ochus  in  his 
mode  of  dealing  with  the  revolt  of  Sidon  now  be 
came  apparent;  for  the  Sidonian  fleet  in  joining 
Alexander  was  an  essential  element  of  his  success 
against  Tyre.  After  aiding  to  bring  upon  Tyre  as 
great  a  calamity  as  had  afflicted  their  own  city, 
they  were  so  tar  merciful  that  they  saved  the  lives  of 
many  Tynans  by  concealing  them  in  their  ships, 
and  then  transporting  them  to  Sidon  (Q.  Curtius, 
iv.  4, 15).  From  this  time  Sidon,  being  dependent 
on  the  fortunes  of  war  in  the  contests  between  the 
successors  of  Alexander,  ceases  to  play  any  important 
political  part  in  history.  It  became,  however,  again 
a  flourishing  town — and  Polybius  (v.  70)  inci 
dentally  mentions  that  Antiochus  in  his  war  with 
Ptolemy  Philopator  encamped  over  against  Sidon 
(B.C.  218),  but  did  not  venture  to  attack  it  from 
the  abundance  of  its  resources,  and  the  great  number 
cf.  its  inhabitants,  either  natives  or  refugees.  Sub 
sequently,  according  to  Josephus  (Ant.  xiv.  10,  §2), 
Julius  Caesar  wrote  a  letter  respecting  Hyrcanus, 
which  he  addressed  to  the  "  Magistrates,  Council  and 
Demos  of  Sidon."  This  shows  that  up  l,o  that  time 
+he  Sidonians  enjoyed  the  forms  of  liberty,  though 
Dion  Cassius  says  (Ixiv.  7)  that  Augustus,  on  his 
arrival  in  the  East,  deprived  them  of  it  for  seditious 


b  Pliny  elsewhere  (Nat.  Hist,  xxxvi.  65  [26])  gives  an 
account  of  the  supposed  accidental  invention  of  glass  in 
Phoenicia.  The  story  is  that  some  merchants  on  the  sea 
shore  made  use  of  some  lumps  of  natron  to  support  their 
cauldrons ;  and  that,  when  the  natron  was  subjected  to  the 


his  journeys.  Pliny  notes  the  manufacture  of  glass 
at  Sidon  (Nat.  Hist.  v.  17  (19)  ;b  and  during  the 
Roman  period  we  ir-ay  conceive  Tyre  and  Sidon  as 
two  thriving  cities,  each  having  an  extensive  trade, 
and  each  having  its  staple  manufacture ;  the  latter 
of  glass,  and  Tyre  of  purple  dyes  from  shell-fish. 

There  is  no  Biblical  reason  tor  following  minutely 
the  rest  of  the  history  of  Sidon.  It  shared  gene 
rally  the  fortunes  of  Tyre,  with  the  exception  that 
it  was  several  times  taken  and  retaken  during  the 
wars  of  the  Crusades,  and  suffered  accordingly 
more  than  Tyre  previous  to  the  fatal  year  1291  B.C. 
Since  that  time  it  never  seems  to  have  fallen  quite 
so  low  as  Tyre.  Through  Fakhr  ed-Dln,  emir  of  the 
Druses  between  1594  and  1634,  and  the  settlement 
at  Sayda  of  French  commercial  houses,  it  had  a  re 
vival  of  trade  in  the  17th  and  part  of  the  18th 
century,  and  became  the  principal  city  on  the 
Syrian  coast  for  commerce  between  the  east  and 
the  west  (see  Memoir es  du  Chevalier  d'Arvieux, 
Paris,  1735,  torn.  i.  p.  294-379).  This  was  put 
an  end  to  at  the  close  of  last  century  by  violence 
and  oppression  (Hitter's  Erdkunde,  Siebzehnter 
theil,  ersto  abtheilung,  drittes  buch,  pp.  405-6), 
closing  a  period  of  prosperity  in  which  the  popula 
tion  of  the  city  was  at  one  time  estimated  at  2-0,000 
inhabitants.  The  population,  if  it  ever  approache.I 
such  a  high  point,  has  since  materially  fiecreasec, 
and  apparently  does  not  now  exceed  5000  ;  bnt  the 
town  still  shows  signs  of  former  wealti  and  the 
houses  are  better  constructed  and  more  *»uiu  '.ban 


at  Tyre,  being  many  of  them  built  01  stone. 
Its  chief  exports  are  silk,  cotton,  and  nutgalls 
(Robinson's  Biblical  Researches,  iii.  p.  418-419). 
As  a  protection  against  the  Turks,  its  ancient  har 
bour  was  filled  up  with  stones  and  earth  by  the 
orders  of-  Fakhr  ed-Din,  so  that  only  small  boats 
can  now  enter  it ;  and  larger  vessels  anchor  to  the 
northward,  where  they  are  only  protected  from  the 
south  and  east  winds  (Porter's  Handbook  for  Syria 
and  Palestine,  1858,  p.  398).  The  trade  between 
Syria  and  Europe  now  mainly  passes  through 
Beyrout,  as  its  most  important  commercial  centre ; 
and  the  natural  advantages  of  Beyrout  in  this  re 
spect,  for  the  purposes  of  modern  navigation,  are  so 

action  of  fire  in  conjunction  with  the  sea  sand,  a  trans« 
lucent  vitreous  stream  was  seen  to  flow  along  the  ground 
This  story,  however,  is  now  discredited;  as  it  require! 
intense  furnace  heat  to  produce  the  fusion.  See  article 
"  Glass  "  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  8th  edition. 


1850 


ZIDONIANS 


decided  that  it  is  certain  to  maintain  its  presen 
superiority  over  Sidon  and  Tyre. 

In  conclusion  it  may  be  observed,  that  while  i 
oui'  own  times  no  important  remains  of  antiquit 
have  been  discovered  at  or  near  Tyre,  the  case  i 
different  with  Sidon.  At  the  base  of  the  mountain 
to  the  east  of  the  town  there  are  numerous  sepul 
chres  in  the  rock,  and  there  are  likewise  sepulchra 
caves  in  the  adjoining  plain  (see  Porter,  Encyclop 
Britann.  I.e.).  "In  January,  1855,"  says  Mr 
Porter,  "  one  of  the  sepulchral  caves  was  acci 
dentally  opened  at  a  spot  about  a  mile  S.E.  of  th 
city,  and  in  it  was  discovered  one  of  the  mos 
beautiful  and  interesting  Phoenician  monuments  i 

existence.     It  is  a  sarcophagus the  li< 

of  which  is  hewn  in  the  form  of  a  mummy  wit! 
the  face  bare.  Upon  the  upper  part  of  the  lid  is 
perfect  Phoenician  inscription  in  twenty-two  lines 
and  on  the  head  of  the  sarcophagus  itself  is  anothe; 
almost  as  long."  This  sarcophagus  is  now  in  the 
Nineveh  division  of  the  Sculptures  in  the  Louvre 
At  first  sight,  the  material  of  which  it  is  composec 
may  be  easily  mistaken ;  and  it  has  been  supposec 
to  be  black  marble.  On  the  authority,  however, 
of  M.  Suchard  of  Paris,  who  has  examined  it  very 
closely,  it  may  be  stated,  that  the  sarcophagus  is  of 
black  syenite,  which,  as  far  as  is  known,  is  more 
abundant  in  Egypt  than  elsewhere.  It  may  be 
added  that  the  features  of  the  countenance  on  the  lid 
are  decidedly  of  the  Egyptian  type,and  the  head-dress 
is  Egyptian,  with  the  head  of  a  bird  sculptured  on 
what  might  seem  the  place  of  the  right  and  left 
shoulder.  There  can  therefore  be  little  reason  to 
doubt  that  this  sarcophagus  was  either  made  in 
Egypt  and  sent  thence  to  Sidon,  or  that  it  was  made 
in  Phoenicia  in  imitation  of  similar  works  of  art  in 
Egypt.  The  inscriptions  themselves  are  the  longest 
Phoenician  inscriptions  which  have  come  down  to 
our  times.  A  translation  of  them  was  published 
by  Professor  Dietrich  at  Marburg  in  1855,  and, 
by  Professor  Ewald  at  Gottingen  in  1856.  The" 
predominant  idea  of  them  seems  to  be  to  warn  all 
men,  under  penalty  of  the  monarch's  curse,  against 
opening  his  sarcophagus  or  disturbing  his  repose  for 
any  purpose  whatever,  especially  in  order  to  search 
for  treasures,  of  which  he  solemnly  declares  there  are 
none  in  his  tomb.  The  king's  title  is  «  King  of  the 
Sidonians;"  and,  as  is  the  case  with  Ethbaal,  men 
tioned  in  the  Book  of  Kings  (1  K.  xvi.  31),  there  must 
remain  a  certain  doubt  whether  this  was  a  title  ordi 
narily  assumed  by  kings  of  Sidon,  or  whether  it  had 
a  wider  signification.  We  learn  from  the  inscription 
that  the  king's  mother  was  a  priestess  of  Ashtoreth. 
With  regard  to  the  precise  date  of  the  king's  reign, 
there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  conclusive  indication. 
Ewald  conjectures  that  he  reigned  not  long  before 
the  llth  century  B.C.  [E.  T.] 


Coin  of  Zidun. 


•  The  only  instance  in  the  Auln  Vers.  of  the  use  of  F 
in  a  proper  name. 

*  1  Chr.  xii.  1  and  20. 


ZIKLAG 

ZIDON'IANS  orry,  EZ.  XXXii.  so, 


tf,  and  once  (I  K.  xi.  33)  ply 

2idu>viai,  exc.  Ez.  xxxii.  30,  arpa.T'qyol  'Aaaovp 
Sidonii,  exc.  Ez.  xxxii.  30,  venatores}.  The  inha 
bitants  of  Zidon.  They  were  among  the  nations 
of  Canaan  left  to  practise  the  Israelites  in  the  art 
of  war  (Judg.  iii.  3),  and  colonies  of  them  appear 
to  have  spread  up  into  the  hill  country  from  Le 
banon  to  Misrephoth-maim  (Josh.  xiii.  4,  6),  whence 
in  later  times  they  hewed  cedar-trees  for  David  and 
Solomon  (1  Chr.  xxii.  4).  They  oppressed  the  Is 
raelites  on  their  first  entrance  into  the  country  (Judg. 
x.  12),  and  appear  to  have  lived  a  luxurious,  reckless 
life  (Judg.  xviii.  7)  ;  they  were  skilful  in  hewing 
timber  (1  K.  v.  6),  and  were  employed  for  this  purpose 
by  Solomon.,  They  were  idolaters,  and  worshipped 
Ashtoreth  as  their  tutelary  goddess  (1  K.  xi.  5,  33  ; 
2  K.  xxiii.  13),  as  well  as  the  sun-god  Baal,  from 
whom  their  king  was  named  (IK.  xvi.  31).  The 
term  Zidonians  among  the  Hebrews  appears  to  have 
been  extended  in  meaning  as  that  of  Phoenicians 
among  the  Greeks.  In  Ez.  xxxii.  30,  the  Vulgate 
read  DH%  the  LXX.  probably  -]&#  nb,  for 
Zidonian  women 


Sidoniae]  were  in  Solomon's  harem  (1  K.  xi.  1). 

ZIF*.  'IT:  veury  ;  Alex,  £zou:  Zio),  1  K.  vi. 
37.  [MONTH.] 

ZI'HA  (Kiry:  loveia,  2^;  Alex.  2ouoa, 
2tcua  :  Siha,  Soha).  1.  The  children  of  Ziha  were 
a  family  of  Nethinim  who  returned  with  Zerub- 
babel  (Ezr.  ii.  43  ;  Neh.  vii.  46).  2.  (Vat.  omits  ; 
Alex.  2m<£:  Soaha.}  Chief  of  the  Nethinim  in 
Ophel  (Neh.  xi.  21).  The  name  is  probably  that 
of  a  family,  and  so  identical  with  the  preceding. 

ZIK'LAG  (Apy,  and  twice  b  ^y  :  2e/ceAa«, 

nee  2t/ceAa/c  ;  in  Chron/H/fAa,  2a>/cAa,  SaryAayii  ; 

Alex.  Si/ceAay,  but  also  SiKeAey,  2e/ceAo;  Joseph. 

5e/ceAa:  Siceleg).      A   place   which    possesses  a 

pecial  interest  from  its  having  been  the  residence 

ind  the  private  property  of  David.     It  is  first  men- 

ioned  in  the  catalogue  of  the  towns  of  Judah  in 

Josh,  xv.,  where  it  is  enumerated  (ver.  31)  amongst 

,hose  of  the  extreme  south,  between  Hormah  (or 

Zephath,  and  Madmannah  (possibly  Beth  marca. 

joth).      It  next   occurs,  in   the   same   connexion, 

imongst  the  places  which  were  allotted  out  of  the 

erritory  of  Judah  to  Simeon  (xix.  5).     We  ne.xt 

^counter   it  in  the  possession   of  the   Philistines 

1  Sam.-  xxvii.  6),  when  it  was,  at  David's  request, 

Bestowed  upon  him  by  Achish  king  of  Gath.     He 

•esided  there  for  a  year  c  and  four  months  'ibid.  ?  , 

.  Sam.  xxxi.  14,  26  ;  1  Chr.  xii.  1,  20).      It  was 

there  he  received  the  news  of  Saul's  death  (2  Sam. 

.  1,  iv.  10).     He  then  relinquished  it  for  Hebron 

ii.  1).     Ziklag  is  finally  mentioned,  in  company 

with  Beersheba,  Hazarshual,  and  other  towns  of  the 

outh,  as  being  reinhabited  by  the  people  of  Judah 

fter  their  return  from  the  Captivity  (Neh.  xi.  28). 

The  situation  of  the  town  is  difficult  to  determine, 

lotwithstanding  so  many  notices.    On  the  one  hand. 

;hat  it  was  in  "  the  south  "  (negeb)  seems  certain. 

oth  from  the  towns  named  with  it,  and  also  from 

ts  mention  with  "  the  south  of  the  Cherethites  "  and 

the  south  of  Caleb,"  some  of  whose  descendants 

e  know  were  at  Ziph  and  Maon,  perhaps  even  at 


c  Josephus  (Ant.  vi.  13,  $10)  gives  this  as  one 
id  twenty  dajo. 


ZILLAH 

Paian  (1  Sam.  xxv.  1).  On  the  other  hand,  this 
is  difficult  to  reconcile  with  its  connexion  with  the 
Philistines,  and  with  the  fact — which  follows  from 
the  narrative  of  1  Sam.  xxx.  (see  9,  10,  21) — that 
it  was  north  of  the  Brook  Besor.  The  word  em 
ployed  in  1  Sam.  xxvii.  5,  7,  11,  to  denote  the 
region  in  which  it  stood,  is  peculiar.  It  is  not 
has-Shefelah,  as  it  must  have  been  had  Ziklag  stood 
in  the  ordinary  lowland  of  Philistia,  but  has-Sadeh, 
which  Prof.  Stanley  (8.  and  P.  App.  §15)  renders 
"  the  field."  On  the  whole,  though  the  temptation 
is  strong  to  suppose  (as  some  have  suggested)  that 
there  were  two  places  of  the  same  name,  the  only 
conclusion  seems  to  be  that  Ziklag  was  in  the  south 
or  Negeb  country,  with  a  portion  of  which  the 
Philistines  had  a  connexion  which  may  have  lasted 
from  the  time  of  their  residence  there  in  the  days 
of  Abraham  and  Isaac.  It  is  remarkable  that  the 
word  sadeh  is  used  in  Gen.  xiv.  7,  for  the  country 
occupied  by  the  Amalekites,  which  seems  to  have 
been  situated  far  south  of  the  Dead  Sea,  at  or  near 
Kadesh.  The  name  of  Paran  also  occurs  in  the 
same  passage.  But  further  investigation  is  neces 
sary  before  we  can  remove  the  residence  of  Nabal 
so  far  south.  His  Maon  would  in  that  case  be 
come,  not  the  Main  which  lies  near  Zif  and 
Kw~mul,  but  that  which  was  the  head- quarters  of 
the  Maonites,  or  Mehunim. 

Ziklag  does  not  appear  to  have  been  known  to 
Eusebius  and  Jerome,  or  to  any  of  the  older  tra 
vellers.  Mr.  Rowlands,  however,  in  his  journey 
from  Gaza  to  Suez  in  1842  (in  Williams's  Holy 
City,  i.  463-8),  was  told  of  "  an  ancient  site  called 
Asloodg,  or  Kasloodg,  with  some  ancient  walls," 
three  hours  east  of  Sebjita,  which  again  was  two 
hours  and  a  half  south  of  Khalasa.  This  he  con 
siders  as  identical  with  Ziklag.  Dr.  Robinson  had 
previously  (in  1838)  heard  of  'Asluj  as  lying  south 
west  of  Milh,  on  the  way  to  Abdeh  (B.  E.  ii. 
201),  a  position  not  discordant  with  that  of  Mr. 
Rowlands.  The  identification  is  supported  by  Mr. 
Wilton  (Negeb,  209)  ;  but  it  is  impossible  at  pre 
sent,  and  until  further  investigation  into  the  dis 
trict  in  question  has  been  made,  to  do  more  than 
name  it.  If  Dr.  Robinson's  form  of  the  name  is 
correct— and  since  it  is  repeated  in  the  Lists  of  Dr. 

Eli  Smith  (—  •LufJ ,  App.  to  vol.  iii.  of  1st  ed. 
p.  115a)  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  this — the 
similarity  which  prompted  Mr.  Rowlands's  con 
jecture  almost  entirely  disappears.  This  will  be 
evident  if  the  two  names  are  written  in  Hebrew, 
ApV,  Aw  [G.] 

ZIL'LAH  (HPV  :  2e\A<£:  Bella}.  One  of  the 
two  wives  of  Lamech  the  Cainite,  to  whom  he 
addressed  his  song  (Gen.  iv.  19,  22,  23).  She  was 
the  mother  of  Tubal-Cain  and  Naamah.  Dr.  Kalisch 
(Gomm.  on  Gen.)  regards  the  names  of  Lamech's 
wives  and  of  his  daughter  as  significant  of  the 
transition  into  the  period  of  art  which  took  place 
in  his  time,  and  the  corresponding  change  in  the 
position  of  the  woman.  "  Naamah  signifies  the 
lovely,  beautiful  woman ;  whilst  the  wife  of  the 
first  man  was  simply  Eve,  the  lifegiving.  .  .  .  The 
women  were,  in  the  age  of  Lamech,  no  more  re 
garded  merely  as  the  propagators  of  the  human 
family  ;  beauty  and  gracefulness  began  to  command 
homage.  .  .  .  Even  the  wives  of  Lamech  manifest 
the  transition  into  this  epoch  of  beauty ;  for  whilst 
one  w:fo,  Zillah  reminds  still  of  assistance  and  pro 
tection  (n?¥,  "  shadow"),  the  other,  Adah,  bears 


zmiti 


1851 


a  name  almost  synonymous  with  Naamah,  and  like 
wise  signifying  ornament  and  loveliness." 

In  the  apocryphal  book  of  Jashar,  Adah  and 
Zillah  are  both  daughters  of  Cainan.  Adah  bare 
children,  but  Zillah  was  barren  till  her-  old  age,  in 
consequence  of  some  noxious  draught  which  her 
husband  gave  her  to  preserve  her  beauty  and  to 
prevent  her  from  bearing.  [W.  A.  W.] 

ZIL'PAH(nS^T:  Zf\<pd:  Zelpha}.  A  Syrian 
given  by  Laban  to  his  daughter  Leah  as  an  attend 
ant  (Gen.  xxix.  24),  and  by  Leah  to  Jacob  as  a 
concubine.  She  was  the  mother  of  Gad  and  Ash*  r 
(Gen.  xxx.  9-13,  xxxv.  26,  xxxvii.  2,  xlvi.  18). 

ZILTHA'I  OH;*?:  2a\a6i ;  Alex.  2aA*: : 
Selethai).  1.  A  Benjamite,  of  the  sous  of  Shimhi 
(1  Chr.  viii.  20). 

2.  (2a/xo0f;  FA.  2e/ta0ef:  Salathi.}  One  of 
the  captains  of  thousands  of  Manasseh  who  deserted 
to  David  at  Ziklag  (1  Chr.  xii.  20). 

ZIM'MAH  (HBT  :  Za/jLfide  ;  Alex.  Za/^a, 
Z€/j./j.dd :  Zamma,  Zemma.}  1.  A  Gershonite  Le- 
vite,  son  of  Jahath  (1  Chr.  vi.  20). 

2.  (Za[jLfj.d/j..)     Another  Gershonite,  son  of  Shi- 
mei  (1  Chr.  vi.  42)  ;   possibly  the  same  as  the  pre 
ceding. 

3.  (Zfja.iJ.d6:  Zemma.}     Father  or  ancestor  of 
Joah,  a  Gershonite  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  (2  Chr. 
xxix.  12).     At  a  much  earlier  period  we  find  the 
same  collocation  of  names,  Zimmah  and  Joah  as 
father  and  son  (1  Chr.  vi.  20).     Compare  "  Ma- 
hath  the  son  of  Amasai "  in  2  Chr.  xxix.  12  with 
the  same  in  1  Chr.  vi.  35 ;  "  Joel  the  son  of  Aza- 
riah  "  in  2  Chr.  xxix.  12  and  1  Chr.  vi.  36  ;  and 
"Kish  the  son  of  Abdi"   2  Chr.  xxix.  12  with 
"  Kishi  the  son  of  Abdi "  in  1  Chr.  vi.  44.    Unless 
these  names  are  the  names  of  families  and  not  of 
individuals,  their  recurrence  is  a  little  remarkable. 

ZIM'RAN  (I7»T:  ZopPpav,  Ze^pdfi;  Alex. 
ZejSpSi',  Ze/ji^pav,  Zefipav :  Zamran).  The  eldest 
son  'of  Keturah  (Gen.  xxv.  2 ;  1  Chr.  i.  32).  His 
descendants  are  not  mentioned,  nor  is  any  hint  given 
that  he  was  the  founder  of  a  tribe :  the  contrary 
would  rather  appear  to  be  the  case.  Some  would 
identify  Zimran  with  the  Zimri  of  Jer.  xxv.  25, 
but  these  lay  too  far  to  the  north.  The  Greek  form 
of  the  name,  as  found  in  the  LXX.,  has  suggested 
a  comparison  with  Z«/8pcfyi,  the  chief  city  of  th-» 
Cinaedocolpitae,  who  dwelt  on  the  Red  Sea,  west  oi 
Mecca.  But  this  is  extremely  doubtful,  for  this 
tribe,  probably  the  same  with  the  ancient  Kcnda, 
was  a  branch  of  the  Joktanite  Arabs,  who  in  the 
most  ancient  times  occupied  Yemen,  and  mav  only 
have  come  into  possession  of  Zabram  at  a  later  period 
(Knobel,  Genesis}.  Hitzig  and  Lengerke  propose 
to  conneqt  the  name  Zimran  with  Zimiris,  a  district 
of  Ethiopia  mentioned  by  Pliny  (xxxvi.  25)  ;  but 
Grotius,  with  more  plausibility,  finds  a  trace  of  it 
in  the  Zamereni,  a  tribe  of  the  interior  of  Arabia. 
The  identification  of  Zimran  with  the  modern  Beni 
Omran,  and  the  Bani  Zomaneis  of  Diodorus,  proposed 
by  Mr.  Forster  (Geogr.  of  Arabia,  i.  431),  cannot 
be  seriously  maintained.  [W.  A.  W.] 

ZIM'KI  ('"IDT :  Zarfpi :  Zambri).  1.  The  son 
of  Salu,  a  Simeonite  chieftain,  slain  by  Phinehas 
with  the  Midianitish  princess  Cozbi  (Num.  xxv. 
14).  When  the  Israelites  at  Shittim  were  smitten 
with  plagues  for  their  impure  worship  of  Baal  Peor, 
and  were  weeping  before  the  tabernacle,  Zimri  with 


L852 


ZIMBI 


a  shameless  disregard  to  his  own  high  position  and 
the  sufferings  of  his  tribe,  brought  into  their  pre 
sence  the  Midianitess  in  the  sight  of  Moses  and  in 
the  sight  of  the  whole  congregation.  The  fierce 
anger  of  Phinehas  was  aroused,  and  in  the  swift 
vengeance  with  which  he  puisued  the  offenders,  he 
gave  the  first  indication  of  that  uncompromising 
spirit  which  characterized  him  in  later  life.  The 
whole  circumstance  is  much  softened  in  the  nar 
rative  of  Josephus  (Ant.  iv.  6,  §10-12),  and  in 
the  hands  of  the  apologist  is  divested  of  all  its 
vigour  and  point.  In  the  Targum  of  Jonathan  ben 
Uzziel  several  traditional  details  are  added.  Zimri 
retorts  upon  Moses  that  he  himself  had  taken  to 
wife  a  Midianitess,  and  twelve  miraculous  signs 
atteni  the  vengeance  of  Phinehas. 

lu  describing  the  scene  of  this  tragedy  an  unusual 
word  is  employed,  the  force  of  which  is  tost  in  the  ren 
dering  "  tent "  of  the  A.  V.  of  Num.  xxv.  8.  It  was 
not  the  ohel,  or  ordinary  tent  of  the  encampment,  but 
the  n3p,  kubbdh  (whence  Span,  alcova,  and  our 
alcove],  or  dome-shaped  tent,  to  which  Phinehas 
pursued  his  victims.  Whether  this  was  the  tent 
which  Zimri  occupied  as  chief  of  his  tribe,  and 
which  was  in  consequence  more  elaborate  and  highly 
ornamented  than  the  rest,  or  whether  it  was,  as 
Gesenius  suggests,  one  of  the  tents  which  the  Midi- 
anites  used  for  the  worship  of  Peor  is  not  to  be 
determined,  though  the  latter  is  favoured  by  the 
rendering  of  the  Vulg.  lupanar.  The  word  does 
not  occur  elsewhere  in  Hebrew.  In  the  Syriac 
it  is  rendered  a  cell,  or  inner  apartment  of  the 
tent.  [W.  A.  W.] 

2.  (nDT:  Zarfpl',  Joseph.  Ant.  viii.  12,  §5, 
Za/j.dpris :  Zambri.}    Fifth  sovereign  of  the  separate 
kingdom  of  Israel,  of  which  he  occupied  the  throne 
for  the  brief  period  of  seven  days  in  the  year  B.C.  930 
or  929.    Originally  in  command  of  half  the  chariots 
in  the  royal  army,  he  gained  the  crown  by  the 
murder  of  king  Elah  son  of  Baasha,  who,  after* 
reigning  for  something  more  than  a  year  (compare 
1  K.  xvi.  8  and  10),  was  indulging  in  a  drunken 
revel  in  the  house  of  his  steward  Arza  at  Tirzah, 
then  the  capital.     In   the   midst  of  this  festivity 
Zimri  killed  him,  and  immediately  afterwards  all 
the  rest  of  Baasha's  family.     But  the  army  which 
at  that  time  was  besieging  the  Philistine  town  of 
Gibbethon,  when  they  heard  of  Elah's   murder, 
proclaimed  their  general  Omri  king.     He  imme 
diately  marched  against  Tirzah,  and  took  the  city. 
Zimri  retreated  into  the  innermost  part  of  the  late 
king  s  palace,"  set  it  on  fire  and  perished  in  the  ruins 

( 1  K.  xvi.  9-20).  Ewald's  inference  from  Jezebel's 
speech  to  Jehu  (2  K.  ix.  31),  that  on  Elah's  death 
the  queen-mother  welcomed  his  murderer  with 
smiles  and  blandishments,  seems  rather  arbitrary 
and  far-fetched.  [JEZEBEL.]  [G.  E.  L.  C.] 

3.  (Zamri.}     One  of  the  five  sons  of  Zerah  the 
son  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  ii.  6). 

4.  Son  of  Jehoadah  and  descendant  of  Saul  (1 
Chr.  viii.  36,  ix.  42). 

5.  (Cm  <n  LXX. :  Zambri.}    An  obscure  name, 
mentioned   ;Jer.  xxv.   25)   in  probable  connexion 
with  Dedan,  Tema,  Buz,  Arabia  (3^J?%  the  mingled 
people  "  'ereb  "  (2iyn),  all  of  which  immediately 


»  The  word  is  }T»T|t  which  Ewald  (after  J.  D.  Mi- 
chaelis),  both  here  and  In  2  K.  zv.  25,  insists  on  translating 
"  harem,"  with  which  word  he  thinks  that  it  is  etymo- 
logically  connected,  and  hence  seeks  confirmation  of  his 
view  that  Zimri  was  a  voluptuous  slave  of  women.  But 


ZIOR 

pre<;edj  if,  besides  other  peoples  ;  and  followed  by 
Elam,  the  Medes,  and  others.  The  passage  is  ol 
wide  comprehension,  but  the  reference,  as  indicated 
above,  seems  to  be  to  a  tribe  of  the  sons  of  the  East, 
the  Beni-Kedem.  Nothing  further  is  known  respect 
ing  Zimri,  but  it  may  possibly  be  the  same  as,  or 
derived  from,  ZIMRAN,  which  see.  [E.  S.  P.] 

ZIN  (j^¥  :  2iy).  The  name  given  to  a  portion 
of  the  desert  tract  between  the  Dead  Sea,  Ghor,  and 
Arabah  (possibly  including  the  two  latter,  or  por 
tions  of  them)  on  the  E.,  and  the  general  plateau 
of  the  Tih  which  stretches  westward.  The  country 
in  question  consists  of  two  or  three  successive  ter 
races  of  mountain  converging  to  an  acute  angle 
(like  stairs  where  there  is  a  turn  in  the  flight)  at 
the  Dead  Sea's  southern  verge,  towards  which  also 
they  slope.  Here  the  drainage  finds  its  chief  vent 
by  the  Wady  el-Fikreh  into  the  Ghoi,  the  remain 
ing  waters  running  by  smaller  channels  into  the 
Arabah,  and  ultimately  by  the  Wady  tl-Jeib  also 
to  the  Ghor.  Judging  from  natural  features,  in 
the  vagueness  of  authority,  it  is  likely  that  the 
portion  between,  and  drained  by  these  wadys,  is  the 
region  in  question  ;  but  where  it  ended  westward, 
whether  at  any  of  the  abovenamed  terraces,  or 
blending  imperceptibly  with  that  of  Paran,  is  quite 
uncertain.  Kadesh  lay  in  it,  or  on  this  .unknown 
boundary,  and  here  also  Idumea  was  conterminous 
with  Judah  ;  since  Kadesh  was  a  city  in  the  border 
of  Edom  (see  KADESH;  Num.  xiii.  21,  xx.  1,  xxvii. 
14,  xxxiii.  36,  xxxiv.  3  ;  Josh.  xv.  1).  The  researches 
of  Williams  and  Rowlands  on  this  subject,  although 
not  conclusive  in  favour  of  the  site  el-Kudeis  for 
the  city,  yet  may  indicate  that  the  "  wilderness  of 
Kades,"  which  is  indistinguishable  from  that  of  Zin, 
follows  the  course  of  the  Wady  Murreh  westward. 
The  whole  region  requires  further  research  ;  but  its 
difficulties  are  of  a  very  formidable  character. 
Josephus  (Ant.  iv.  4,  §6)  speaks  of  a  "  hill  called 
Sin  "  C2,iv),  where  Miriam,  who  died  in  Kadesh, 
when  the  people  had  "  come  to  the  desert  of  Zin," 
was  buried.  This  "  Sin  "  of  Josephus  may  recall 
the  name  Zin,  and,  being  applied  to  a  hill,  may 
perhaps  indicate  the  most  singular  and  wholly 
isolated  conical  acclivity  named  Moderah  (Madura, 
or  Madara),  standing  a  little  S.  of  the  Wady  Fikreh, 
near  its  outlet  into  the  Ghdr.  This  would  precisely 
agree  with  the  tract  of  country  above  indicated 
(Num.  xx.  1  ;  Seetzen,  Reisen,  iii.  Hebron  to  Ma 
dam-,  Wilton,  Negeb,  127,  134).  [H.  H.] 


:  Zi£d:  Ziza}.    ZIZAH  the  second 

son  of  Shimei  (1  Chr.  xxiii.  10,  comp.  11)  the 
Gershonite.  One  of  Kennicott's  MSS.  reads  NH, 
Ziza,  like  the  LXX.  and  Vulg. 

ZI'ON.    [JERUSALEM.] 

ZI'OR  ptyV  :  Zupaie  ;  Alex.  2io>p  :  Sior). 
A  town  in  the  mountain  district  of  Judah  (Josh. 
xv.  54,  only).  It  belongs  to  the  same  group  with 
Hebron,  next  to  which  it  occurs  in  the  list.  By 
Eusebius  and  Jerome  (Onom.  2t&>p)  it  is  spoken  of 
as  a  village  between  Aelia  (Jerusalem)  and  Eleu- 
theropolis  (Beit  jibrin),  in  the  tribe  of  Judah.  A 

small  village  named  Sa'ir  (jjJUw)  lies  on  the  road 


its  root  seems  to  be  D^N,  "  to  be  high"  (Gesenius);  and 
in  other  passages,  especially  Prov.  xviii.  19,  the  meaning 
is  "  a  lofty  fortress,"  rather  than  "  a  harem."  Ewald,  in 
his  sketch  of  Zimri,  is  perhaps  somewhat  led  astray  by  the 
desire  of  iinding  a  historical  parallel  wi  Ji  Sardanapalus 


ZIPH 

between  Tekua  and  Hebron,  about  six  miles  north 
east  of  the  latter  (Rob.  B.  R.  i.  488\,  which  may 
probably  be  that  alluded  to  in  the  Onomasticon ; 
and  but  for  its  distance  from  Hebron,  might  be 
adopted  as  identical  with  Zior.  So  little,  however, 
is  known  of  the  principle  on  which  the  groups  of 
towns  are  collected  in  the.se  lists,  that  it  is  impos 
sible  to  speak  positively  on  the  point,  either  one 
way  or  the  other.  [G.] 

ZIPH  (PfT).     The  name  borne  by  two  towns  in 
the  territory  of  Judah. 

1.  (Maiva/u  ;  Alex.  I0i/a]£icJ> :   Ziph}.     In  the 
s/  uth  (negeb} ;  named  between  Ithnan  and  Telem 
(Josh.  xv.  24).     It  does  not  appear  again  in  the 
history — for  the  Ziph  of  David's  adventures  is  an 
entirely  distinct  spot — nor  has  any  trace  of  it  been 
met  with.     From  this,  from  the  apparent  omission 
of  the  name  in  the  Vatican  LXX.,  and  from  the 
absence  of  the  "and"   before  it,   Mr.  Wilton  has 
been    ]^J,    ,o   suggest   that   it   is   an    interpolation 
(Ncgeb,  85) ;  but  his  grounds  for  this  are  hardly 
conclusive.     Many  names  in  this  list  have  not  yet 
been   encountered   on  the  ground ;   before  several 
others  the  "  and"  is  omitted;  and  though  not  now 
recognizable  in  the  Vat.  LXX.,  the  name  is  found 
in  the  Alex,  and  in  the  Peshito  (Zib).     In  our  pre 
sent  ignorance  of  the  region  of  the  Negeb  it  is  safer 
to  postpone  any  positive  judgment  on  the  point. 

2.  ('OCei'jS,  Zei>,  $  ZefjS;    Alex.   Zi<J>,   Z«$>: 
Ziph.}     In  the  highland  district;  named  between 
Carmel  and  Juttah  (Josh.  xv.  55).     The  place  is 
immortalized  by  its  connexion  with  David,  some 
of  whose  greatest  perils  and  happiest  escapes  took 
place  iu  its  neighbourhood  (1  Sam.  xxiii.  14,  15, 
24,  xxvi.  2).     These  passages  show,  that  at  that 
time  it  had  near  it  a  wilderness  (midbar,  i.  e.  a 


ZIPHION 


185S 


waste  pasture  ground)  and  a  wood.  The  latter  has 
disappeared,  but  the  former  remains.  The  nam« 
of  Zif  is  found  about  three  miles  S.  of  Hebron, 
attached  to  a  rounded  hill  of  some  100  feet  in 
height,  which  is  called  Tell  Zlf.  About  the  same 
distance  still  further  S.  is  Kurmul  (Carmel),  and 
between  them  a  short  distance  to  the  W.  of  the 
road  is  Ytitta  (Juttah).  About  half  a  mile  E.  of 
the  Tell  are  some  considerable  ruins,  standing  at  the 
head  of  two  small  Wadys,  which  commencing  here, 
run  off  towards  the  Dead  Sea.  These  ruins  are 
pronounced  by  Dr.  Robinson  (B.  E.  i.  492)  to  be 
those  of  the  ancient  Ziph,  but  hardly  on  sufficient 
grounds.  They  are  too  far  from  the  tell  for  it  to 
have  been  the  citadel  to  them.  It  seems  more 
probable  that  the  tell  itself  is  the  remnant  of  the 
ancient  place  which  was  fortified  by  Rehoboam 
(2  Chr.  xi.  8). 

'•"  Zib  "  is  mentioned  in  the  Onomasticon  as  8  miles 
east  of  Hebron  ;  "  the  village,"  adds  Jerome,  "  in 
which  David  hid  is  still  shown."  This  can  hardly 
be  the  spot  above  referred  to,  unless  the  distance 
and  direction  have  been  stated  at  random,  or  the 
passage  is  corrupt  both  in  Eusebius  and  Jerome. 
At  7  Roman  miles  east  of  Hebron  a  ruin  is  marked 
on  Van  de  Velde's  map,  but  it  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  investigated.  Elsewhere  (under  "  Zeib  " 
and  "Ziph")  they  place  it  near  Carmel,  and  con 
nect  it  with  Ziph  the  descendant  of  Caleb. 

From  Eusebius  to  Dr.  Robinson  no  one  appears 
to  have  mentioned  Zif.  Yet  many  travellers  must 
have  passed  the  Tell,  and  the  name  is  often  in  the 
mouths  of  the  Arab  guides  (Stanley,  S.  &  P. 
101  •). 

There  are  some  curious  differences  between  the 
text  of  the  LXX.  and  the  Hebrew  of  these  passages, 
which  may  be  recorded  here. 


HEBREW. 

1  SAM.  xxlii.  14.  ...  remained  in 
the  mountain  in  the  wilderness  of 
Ziph. 

15.  .  .  .  in  the  wilderness  of  Ziph 
in  the  wood. 


19.  And  Ziphites  came  to  Saul. 

24.  And  they  arose   and  went  to 
Ziph  before  Saul. 

xxvi.  i.  And    the   Ziphites  came 
unto  Saul. 

The  recurrence  of  the  word  avxnw, 
Ziph  of  the  negeb  to  be  intended. 


VATICAN  LXX.  (MAI). 


ei>  -rfj  epij/xcu   tv   rw  opei 
Ze!</>,  ev  Tfl  yjy  rfj  avx/J.u&eC 


ev   rta   opet    T<O 
aij/fj    Ze!<j>,     yjj 

read  for 


iv  rjj 

jJ    [icaiv»i  = 


Trpbs  'S,. 
Kal    aveo-nfirav    oi    Zei^taTo*    /cat 


TI}S 


K.  ep\ovrai.    oi 


TOV  2. 


ALEX.  LXX. 


ev  TCO  opei  ev  TTJ  cpc/bu>i 
opos  TO   avx/xa>6e?    ev  yu 


Ziitj)    tV    TJ)    KCUJTJ. 


1  dried  up," 


parched,"  would  almost  suggest  that  the  LXX.  understood  tie 

[G.J 


ZIPH  (S]*T  :  Zl/£  5  Alex-  Z«0Af :  %A)-    So"  of 
Jchaleleel  (1  Chr.  iv.  16). 

ZIPH' AH  (n^T  :  Ze</>a ;  Alex.  Zeu^d  :  Zipha). 

One  of  the  sons  of  Jehaleleel,  whose  family  is  enu 
merated  in  an  obscure  genealogy  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah  (1  Chr.  iv.  16). 

ZI'PHIMS,  THE  (D  Wil :  robs  Zeupalovs : 
Ziphaei). 


a  See  a  remark  curiously  parallel  to  this  by  Mar- 
mont  in  his  Voyage  between  Naplouse  and  Jeru- 
ealom. 

b  Examples  of  the  same  inconsistency  in  the  A.  V.  are 


The  inhabitants  of  ZIPH  (see  the  foregoing  article, 
No.  2).  In  this  form  the  name  is  found  in  the 
A.  V.  only  in  the  title  of  Ps.  liv.  In  the  narrative 
it  oceurs  in  the  more  usual  b  form  of 

ZI'PHITES,  THE  (WH :  oi  Zei0o2bi: 
Ziphaei},  1  Sam.  xxiii.c  19  ;  xxvi.  1.  [C.] 

ZXPH'ION(|V^V:  SewjMfo:  Sephion}.  Son  oi 
Gad  (Gen.  xlvi.  16)  ;  elsewhere  called  ZEPHON. 

found  in  AVIM,  AVITES;  Honnr,  HORITES;  PHILISTIU 
PHILISTINES. 

c  In  this  passage  there  is  no  article  to  the  name  in  Iht- 
Heorew. 


1854  ZIPHRON  ZOAN 

ZIPH'KON  (pQT :  Aeftwwtaj  Alex. Zttypwva. :  j  Ewald  (Geschichte,  ii.  229,  note],  namely  that  the 
Zephrona].     A  point  in  the  north  boundary  of  the  |  J?0*1?*6  wfs  .a  second  wife'  or  a  concul>ilie>  taken 


Promised  Land  as  specified  by  Moses  (Num.  xxxiv. 
9).  It  occurs  between  Zedad  and  Hatsar-Enan.  If 
Zedad  is  Sudud,  and  Hatsar-Enan  Kurietein,  as  is 
not  impossible,  then  Ziphron  must  be  looked  for 
somewhere  between  the  two.  At  present  no  name 
at  all  suitable  has  been  discovered  in  this  direction. 
But  the  whole  of  this  topography  is  in  a  most  un 
satisfactory  state  as  regards  both  comprehension  of 
the  original  record  and  knowledge  of  the  ground  ; 
and  in  the  absence  of  more  information  we  must  be 
content  to  abstain  from  conjectures. 

In  the  parallel  passage  of  Ezekiel  (xlvii.  16,  17) 
the  words  "  Hazar-hatticon,  which  is  by  the  border 
of  Eat;:  an,"  appear  to  be  substituted  for  Ziphron. 
The  Hanran  here  named  may  be  the  modern  village 
Hauwarin,  which  lies  between  Sudud  and  Kurie 
tein,  and  not  the  district  of  the  same  name  many 
miles  further  south.  [G.] 

ZIPPOR      iSV,  and  twice 


Sepphor}.  Father  of  Balak  king  of  Moab.  His 
name  occurs  only  in  the  expression  "  son  c  of 
Zippor"  (Num.  xxii.  2,  4,  10,  16,  xxiii.  18  ;  Josh. 
xxiv.  9  ;  Judg.  xi.  25).  Whether  he  was  the 
"  former  king  of  Moab  "  alluded  to  in  Num.  xxi. 
26,  we  are  not  told,  nor  do  we  know  that  he  himself 
ever  reigned.  The  Jewish  tradition  already  noticed 
[MOAB,  p.  393  a]  is,  that  Moab  and  Midian  were 
united  into  one  kingdom,  and  ruled  by  a  king  chosen 
alternately  from  each.  In  this  connexion  the  simi 
larity  between  the  names  Zippor  and  Zipporah,  the 
latter  of  which  we  know  to  have  been  the  name  of 
a  Midianitess,  pur  sang,  is  worthy  of  notice,  as  it 
suggests  that  Balak  may  have  been  of  Midianite 
parentage.  [G.] 

ZIFPORAH  (rnbS:  26ir<J>cfya;  Joseph. 
2<X7n|>a>pa  :  Sephora).  Daughter  of  Reuel  or  Jethrq, 
the  priest  of  Midian,  wife  of  Moses,  and  mother  of 
his  two  sons  Gershom  and  Eliezer  (Ex.  ii.  21,  iv. 
25,  xviii.  2,  comp.  6).  The  only  incident  recorded 
in  her  life  is  that  of  the  circumcision  of  Gershom 
(iv.  24-26),  the  account  of  which  has  been  examined 
under  the  head  of  MOSES  (p.  427  6.  See  also 
Stanley's  Jewish  Church,  114). 

It  has  been  suggested  that  Zipporah  was  the 
Cushite  (A.V.  "Ethiopian")  wife  who  furnished 
Miriam  and  Aaron  with  the  pretext  for  their  attack 
on  Moses  (Num.  xii.  1,  &c.).  The  chief  ground 
for  this  appears  to  be  that  in  a  passage  of  Habakkuk 
(iii.  7)  the  names  of  Cushan  and  Midian  are  men 
tioned  together.  But  in  the  immense  interval 
which  had  elapsed  between  the  Exodus  and  the 
period  of  Habakkuk  (at  least  seven  centuries),  the 
relations  of  Cush  and  Midian  may  well  have  altered 
too  materially  to  admit  of  any  argument  being 
founded  on  the  later  passage,  even  if  it  were  certain 
that  their  being  mentioned  in  juxtaposition  implied 
any  connexion  between  them,  further  than  that 
both  were  dwellers  in  tents  and  enemies  of  Israel  ; 
and  unless  the  events  of  Num.  xii.  should  be  proved 
to  be  quite  out  of  their  proper  place  in  the  narra 
tive,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  a  charge  could 
have  been  made  against  Moses  on  the  ground  of  his 
marriage,  after  so  long  a  period,  and  when  the  chil 
dren  of  his  wife  must  have  been  several  years  old. 
The  most  feasible  suggestion  appears  to  be  that  of 


»  Th*  final  a  in  LXX.  and  Vulgate  is  due  to  the  Hebrew 
particle  of  motion— "  to  Ziphroa." 


by  Moses  during  the  march  through  the  wilderness 
—  whether  after  the  death  of  Zipporah  (which  is 
not  mentioned)  or  from  other  circumstances  must 
be  uncertain.  This  —  with  the  utmost  respect  to 
the  eminent  scholar  who  has  supported  the  other 
alternative  —  the  writer  ventures  to  offer  as  that 
which  commends  itself  to  him. 

The  similarity  between  the  names  of  Zippor  and 
Zipporah,  and  the  possible  inference  from  that  simi 
larity,  have  been  mentioned  under  the  former  head. 
[ZIPPOR.]  [G.] 

ZITH'RI  Onnp:  2e7F6f;  Alex.  Setfpcf  : 
Sethri}.  Properly  "  Sithri  ;"  one  of  the  sons  of 
Uzziel,  the  son  of  Kohath  (Ex.  vi.  22).  In  Ex. 
vi.  21,  «'  Zithri"  should  be  "Zichri,"  as  in  A.  V. 
of  1611. 

ZIZ,  THE  CLIFF  OF  (f^n  ^JttD  : 
T}  avafiaffis  'Acrae,  in  both  MSS.  :  clivus  nomine 
Sis}.  The  pass  (such  is  more  accurately  the  mean 
ing  of  the  word  maaleh  ;  comp.  ADUMMIM  ;  GUR, 
&c.)  by  which  the  horde  of  Moabites,  Ammonites, 
and  Mehunim,  made  their  way  up  from  the  shores 
of  the  Dead  Sea  to  the  wilderness  of  Judah  near 
Tekoa  (2  Chr.  xx.  16  only  ;  comp.  20).  There  can 
be  very  little  doubt  that  it  was  the  pass  of  Ain 
Jidy  —  "  the  very  same  route,"  as  Dr.  Robinson  re 
marks,  "  which  is  taken  by  the  Arabs  in  their  ma 
rauding  expeditions  at  the  present  day  ;  along  the 
shore  as  far  as  to  'Ain  Jidy,  and  then  up  the  pass, 
and  so  northwards  below  Tekua"  (Bib.  Res.  i. 
508,  530).  The  very  name  (which  since  it  has  the 
article  prefixed  is  more  accurately  haz-Ziz  than 
Ziz)  may  perhaps  be  still  traceable  in  el-Husasah, 
which  is  attached  to  a  large  tract  of  table-land  lying 
immediately  above  the  pass  of  Ain  Jidy,  between  it 
and  Tekua,  and  bounded  on  the  north  by  a  Wady  of 
the  same  name  (B.  R.  i.  527).  May  not  both  haz- 
Ziz  and  Husasah  be  descended  from  Hazezon-tamar, 
the  early  name  of  Engedi  ?  [G.] 

ZI'ZA  (KPT  :  Zov(d  :  Ziza}.  1.  Son  of  Shiphi 
a  chief  of  the  Simeonites,  who  in  the  reign  of  Heze- 
kiah  made  a  raid  upon  the  peaceable  Hamite  shep 
herds  of  Gedor,  and  smote  them,  "  because  them 
was  pasture  there  for  their  flocks  "  (1  3hr.  iv.  37). 

2.  (ZijfeL)  Son  of  Rehoboam  by  Maat,i\Jih  Jhe 
granddaughter  of  Absalom  (2  Chr.  xi.  20). 

ZI'ZAH  (HPT  :  ZiCtf  :  Ziza).  A  Gershonite 
Levite,  second  son  of  Shimei  (1  Chr.  xxiii.  11); 
called  ZINA  in  ver.  10. 

ZO'AN  (|VV  :  Tavis  :  Tarns),  an  ancient  city 
of  Lower  Egypt.  It  is  mentioned  by  a  Shemitic  and 
by  an  Egvptian  name,  both  of  the  same  signification. 
Zoan,  preserved  in  the  Coptic  XA.HH? 


S.  X<L£.Ite,  X^^Itl,  the  Arabic  ^* 
(a  village  on  the  site),  and  the  classical  Tctj/ts,  Tanis, 
whence  the  Coptic  transcription  TA.IteCOC» 

he  moved  tents  "  (Is. 

,  "he  loaded  a  beast 
of  burden  ;"  and  thus  signifies  •'  a  place  of  de- 


comes  from  the  root  )JJ¥, 
xxxiii.  20).  cognate  with  f 


b  Num.  xxii.  10,  xxiii.  18. 

c  In  LXX.  vios  2.,  except  in  Josh.  xxlv.  9,  6  TOV  2. 


ZOAN 

p&rture,"  like  D*|3gX,  Znamuun.a  (Josh.  xix.  33), 
or  D*3yV,  Zaanaim*  (Judg.  iv.  11),  "  removings  " 

(Gesen.),  a  place  in  northernmost  Palestine,  on  the 
border  of  Naphtali  near  Kedesh.  The  place  just 
mentioned  is  close  to  the  natural  and  constant 
northern  border  of  Palestine,  whether  under  the 
spurs  of  Lebanon  or  of  Hermon.  Zoan  lay  near 
the  eastern  border  of  Lower  Egypt.  The  sense  of 
departure  or  removing,  therefore,  would  seem  not 
to  indicate  a  mere  resting-place  of  caravans,  but  a 
place  of  departure  from  a  country.  The  Egyptian 
name  HA-AWAR,  or  PA-AWAR,  Avaris,  Aouopty, 
means  "  the  abode  '  or  "  house "  of  "  going  out " 
or  "  departure."  Its  more  precise  sense  fixes  that 
of  the  Shenhtic  equivalent.1* 

Tanis  is  situate  in  N.  lat.  31°,  E.  long.  31°  55', 
c-u  the  east  bank  of  the  canal  which  was  formerly 
the  Tanitic  branch.  Anciently  a  rich  plain  extended 
due  east  as  far  as  Pelusium,  about  thirty  miles 
distant,  gradually  narrowiag  towards  the  east,  so 
that  in  a  south-easterly  direction  from  Tanis  it  was 
not  more  than  half  this  breadth.  The  whole  of 
this  plain,  about  as  far  south  and  west  as  Tanis, 
was  anciently  known  as  "  the  Fields  "  or  "  Plains," 

the  Marshes,"  rk  'EAr;, 
,  or  "  the  pasture-lands,"  Bou/coAt'o. 
Through  the  subsidence  of  the  Mediterranean-coast, 
it  is  now  almost  covered  by  the  great  Lake  Menzeleh. 
Of  old  it  was  a  rich  marsh-land,  watered  by  four 
of  the  seven  branches  of  the  Nile,  the  Pathmitic, 
Mendesian,  Tanitic,  and  Pelusiac,  and  swept  by  the 
cool  breezes  of  the  Mediterranean.  Tanis,  while 
Egypt  was  ruled  by  native  kings,  was  the  chief 
town  of  this  territory,  and  an  important  post 
towards  the  eastern  frontier. 

At  a  remote  period,  between  the  age  when  the 
pyramids  were  built  and  that  of  the  empire,  seem 
ingly  about  B.C.  2080,  Egypt  was  invaded,  over 
run,  and  subdued,  by  the  strangers  known  as  the 
Shepherds,  who,  or  at  least  their  first  race,  appear 
to  have  been  Arabs  cognate  with  the  Phoenicians. 
How  they  entered  Egypt  does  not  appear.  After  a 
time  they  made  one  of  themselves  king,  a  certain 
Salatis,  who  reigned  at  Memphis,  exacting  tribute 
of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt,  and  garrisoning  the 
fittest  places,  with  especial  regard  to  the  safety  of 
the  eastern  provinces,  which  he  foresaw  the  Assy 
rians  would  desire  to  invade.  With  this  view 
finding  in  the  Saite  (better  elsewhere  Sethroite) 
nome,  on  the  east  of  the  Bubastite  branch,  a  very 
fit  city  called  Avaris,  he  rebuilt,  and  very  strongly 
walled  it,  garrisoning  it  with  240,000  men.  He 
came  hither  in  harvest-time  (about  the  vernal 
equinox),  to  give  corn  and  pay  to  the  troops,  and 
exercise  them  so  as  to  terrify  foreigners.  This  is 
Mauetho's  account  of  the  foundation  of  Avaris,  the 
great  stronghold  of  the  Shepherds.  Several  points 
are  raised  by  it.  We  see  at  a  glance  that  Manetho 
did  not  know  that  Avaris  was  Tanis.  By  his  time 
the  city  had  fallen  into  obscurity,  and  he  could  not 
connect  the  HA-AWAR  of  his  native  records  with 
the  Tanis  of  the  Greeks.  His  account  of  its  early 
history  must  therefore  be  received  with  caution. 
Throughout,  we  trace  the  influence  of  the  pride 
that  made  the  Egyptians  hate,  and  affect  to  despise, 
the  Shepherds  above  all  their  conquerors,  except  the 
Persians.  The  motive  of  Salatis  is  not  to  overawe 


ZOAN 


1855 


a  Keri,  as  in  Joshua. 

b  The  identification  of  Z-jan  with  Avaris  is  due  to 
M.  de  Rouge. 


Egypt  but  to  keep  out  the  Assyrians ;  not  to  terrify 
the  natives  but  these  foreigners,  who,  if  other  his 
tory  be  correct,  did  not  then  form  an  important  state. 
The  position  of  Tanis  explains  the  case.  Like  the 
other  principal  cities  of  this  tract,  Pelusium,  Bu- 
bastis,  and  Heliopolis,  it  lay  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
river,  towards  Syria.  It  was  thus  outside  a  great 
line  of  defence,  and  afforded  a  protection  to  the  cul 
tivated  lands  to  the  east,  and  an  obstacle  to  an  in 
vader,  while  to  retreat  from  it  was  always  possible, 
so  long  as  the  Egyptians  held  the  river.  But  Tani? 
though  doubtless  fortified  partly  with  the  object  oi 
repelling  an  invader,  was  too  far  inland  to  be  the 
frontier-fortress.  It  was  near  enough  to  be  the 
place  of  departure  for  caravans,  perhaps  was  the 
last  town  in  the  Shepherd-period,  but  not  near 
enough  to  command  the  entrance  of  Egypt.  Pelu 
sium  lay  upon  the  great  road  to  Palestine — it  has 
been  until  lately  placed  too  far  north  [SiN] — and 
the  plain  was  here  narrow,  from  north  to  south, 
so  that  no  invader  could  safely  pass  the  fortress ; 
but  it  soon  became  broader,  and,  by  turning  in  a 
south-westerly  direction,  an  advancing  enemy  would 
leave  Tanis  far  to  the  northward,  and  a  bold  general 
would  detach  a  force  to  keep  its  garrison  in  check 
and  march  upon  Heliopolis  and  Memphis.  AD 
enormous  standing  militia,  settled  in  the  Bucolia, 
as  the  Egyptian  militia  afterwards  was  in  neigh 
bouring  tracts  of  the  Delta,  and  with  its  head 
quarters  at  Tanis,  would  have  overawed  Egypt,  and 
secured  a  retreat  in  case  of  disaster,  besides  main 
taining  hold  of  some  of  the  most  productive  land  in 
the  country,  and  mainly  for  the  former  two  objects 
we  believe  Avaris  to  have  been  fortified. 

Manetho  explicitly  states  Avaris  to  have  been 
older  than  the  time  of  the  Shepherds  ;  but  there  are 
reasons  for  questioning  his  accuracy  in  this  matter. 
The  name  is  more  likely  to  be  of  foreign  than  of 
Egyptian  origin,  for  Zoan  distinctly  indicates  the 
place  of  departure  of  a  migratory  people,  whereas 
Avaris  has  the  simple  signification  "  abode  of  de 
parture." 

A  remarkable  passage  in  the  Book  of  Numbers, 
not  hitherto  explained,  "  Now  Hebron  was  built 
seven  years  before  Zoan  in  Egypt "  (siii.  22),  seems 
to  determine  the  question.  Hebron  was  anciently 
the  City  of  Arba,  Kirjath-Arba,  and  was  under  the 
rule  of  the  Anakim.  These  Anakim  were  of  the  old 
warlike  Palestinian  race  that  long  dominated  over 
the  southern  Canaanites.  Here,  therefore,  the 
Anakim  and  Zoan  are  connected.  The  Shepherds 
who  built  Avaris  were  apparently  of  the  Phoenician 
stock  which  would  be  referred  to  this  race  as,  like 
them,  without  a  pedigree  in  the  Noachian  geo 
graphical  list.  Hebron  was  already  built  in  Abra 
ham's  time,  and  the  Shepherd-invasion  may  be 
dated  about  the  same  period.  Whether  some  older 
village  or  city  were  succeeded  by  Avaris  matters 
little :  its  history  begins  in  the  reign  of  Salatis. 

What  the  Egyptian  records  tell  us  of  this  city 
may  be  briefly  stated.  Apepee,  probably  Apophis 
of  the  xvth  dynasty,  a  Shepherd-king  who  reigned 
shortly  before  the  xviiith  dynasty,  built  a  temple 
here  to  Set,  the  Egyptian  Baal,  and  worshipped  no 
other  god.  According  to  Manetho,  the  Shepherds, 
after  511  years  of  rule,  were  expelled  from  all  Egypt 
and  shut  up  in  Avaris,  whence  they  were  allowed 
to  depart  by  capitulation,  by  either  Amosis  or 
Thummosis  ( Aahmes  or  Thothmes  IV.),  the  first  and 
seventh  kings  of  the  xviiith  dynasty.  The  monu 
ments  show  that  the  honour  of  ridding  Egypt  of 
the  Shepherds  belongs  to  Aahmes,  and  that  this 


1856 


ZOAN 


event  occurred  about  B.C.  1500.  Rameses  II.  em 
bellished  the  great  temple  of  Tanis,  and  was  followed 
oy  his  son  Menptah. 

It  is  within  the  period  from  the  Shepherd-inva 
sion  to  the  reign  of  Menptah,  that  the  sojourn  and 
Exodus  of  the  Israelites  are  placed.  We  believe  that 
the  Pharaoh  of  Joseph  as  well  as  the  oppressors 
were  Shepherds,  the  former  ruling  at  Memphis  and 
Zoan,  the  latter  probably  at  Zoan  only ;  though  in 
the  case  of  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus,  the  time 
would  suit  the  annual  visit  Manetho  states  to  have 
been  paid  by  Salatis.  Zoan  is  mentioned  in  con 
nexion  with  the  Plagues  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
leave  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  city  spoken  of  in  the 
narrative  in  Exodus  as  that  where  Pharaoh  dwelt. 
The  wonders  were  wrought  "  in  the  field  of  Zoan  " 
(Ps.  Ixxviii.  12,  43),  jyVHlb,  which  may  either 
denote  the  territory  immediately  around  the  city, 
or  its  nome,  or  even  a  kingdom  (Gesen.  Lex.  s.  v. 
rn&J').  This  v  ouid  accord  best  with  the  Shepherd- 
period  ;  but  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  Rameses  II. 
paid  great  attention  to  Zoan,  and  may  have  made  it 
a  royal  residence. 

After  the  fall  of  the  empire,  the  first  dynasty  is 
the  xxist,  called  by  Manetho  that  of  Tanites.  Its  his 
tory  is  obscure,  and  it  fell  before  the  stronger  line  of 
Bubastites,  the  xxiind  dynasty,  founded  by  Shishak. 
The  expulsion  of  Set  from  the  pantheon,  under  the 
xxiind  dynasty,  must  have  been  a  blow  to  Tanis ; 
and  perhaps  a  religious  war  occasioned  the  rise  of 
the  xxiiird.  The  xxiiird  dynasty  is  called  Tanite, 
and  its  last  king  is  probably  Sethos,  the  contem 
porary  of  Tirhakah,  mentioned  by  Herodotus.  At 
this  time  Tanis  once  more  appears  in  sacred  history, 
as  a  place  to  which  came  ambassadors,  either  of 
Hoshea,  or  Ahaz,  or  else,  possibly,  Hezekiah : — "  For 
his  princes  were  at  Zoan,  and  his  messengers  came 
to  Hanes  "  (Is.  xxx.  4).  As  mentioned  with  the 
frontier-town  Tahpanhes,  Tanis  is  not  necessarily 
the  capital.  But  the  same  prophet  perhaps  more 
distinctly  points  to  a  Tanite  line  where  saying,  in 
"  the  burden  of  Egypt,"  "  the  princes  of  Zoan  are 
become  fools ;  the  princes  of  Noph  are  deceived " 
(xix.  13).  The  doom  of  Zoan  is  foretold  by  Ezekiel : 
"  I  will  set  fire  in  Zoan"  (xxx.  14),  where  it  occurs 
among  the  cities  to  be  taken  by  Nebuchadnezzar. 

"  The  plain  of  San  is  very  extensive,  but  thinly 
mhabited  :  no  village  exists  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  the  ancient  Tanis  ;  and,  when  looking  from  the 
mounds  of  this  once  splendid  city  towards  the 
distant  palms  of  indistinct  villages,  we  perceive  the 
desolation  spread  around  it.  The  '  field '  of  Zoan, 
is  now  a  barren  waste :  a  canal  passes  through  it 
without  being  able  to  fertilize  the  soil ;  '  fire  '  has 
been  set  in  '  Zoan  ;'  and  one  of  the  principal  capitals 
or  royal  abodes  of  the  Pharaohs  is  now  the  habita 
tion  of  fishermen,  the  resort  of  wild  beasts,  and  in 
fested  with  reptiles  and  malignant  fevers."  It  is 
"  remarkable  for  the  height  and  extent  of  its 
mounds,  which  are  upwards  of  a  mile  from  N.  to 
S.,  and  nearly  f  of  a  mile  from  E.  to  W.  The 
area  in  which  the  sacred  enclosure  of  the  temple 
stood  is  about  1500  ft,  by  1250,  surrounded  by 
mounds  of  fallen  houses.  The  temple  was  adorned 
oy  Rameses  II.  with  numerous  obelisks  and  most 
of  its  sculptures.  It  is  very  ruinous,  but  its 
remains  prove  its  former  grandeur.  The  number 
of  its  obelisks,  ten  or  twelve,  all  now  fallen,  is  un- 


Gen.  xix.  22,  30. 
»  In  the  Taifjum  Pseudojonathan,  to  vers.  22,  23,  the 


ZOAR 

equalled,  and  the  labour  of  transporting  them  frtm 
Syene  shows  the  lavish  magnificence  of  the  Egyptian 
kings.  The  oldest  name  found  here  is  that  of  Se- 
sertesen  III.  of  the  xiith  dynasty,  the  latest  that 
of  Tirhakah  (Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson's  Hand'jook, 
pp.  221,  222).  Recently,  M.  Manette  has  made 
excavations  on  this  site  and  discovei'ed  remains  of  the 
Shepherd-period,  showing  a  markedly-characteristic 
style,  especially  in  the  representation  of  face  and 
figure,  but  of  Egyptian  art,  and  therefore  afterwards 
appropriated  by  the  Egyptian  kings.  [R.  S.  P.] 

ZO'AR  ("8ft,  and  twice*  iyi¥ ;  Samar. 
throughout  "IJJ V :  Z6yopa,  27?ycfy>,  Zoy6p ;  Joseph. 
Zoc6p,  ra  Zoapa,  or  Z&apa :  Segor}.  One  of  the 
most  ancient  cities  of  the  land  of  Canaan.  Its 
original  name  was  BELA,  and  it  was  still  so  called 
at  the  time  of  Abram's  first  residence  in  Canaan 
(Gen.  xiv.  2,  8).  It  was  then  in  intimate  connexion 
with  the  cities  of  the  "  plain  of  Jordan  " — Sodom, 
Gomorrah,  Admah,  and  Zeboiim  (see  also  xiii.  10; 
but  not  x.  19) — and  its  king  took  part  with  the  kings 
of  those  towns  in  the  battle  with  the  Assyrian  host 
which  ended  in  their  defeat  and  the  capture  of  Lot. 
In  the  general  destruction  of  the  cities  of  the  plain, 
Zoar  was  spared  to  afford  shelter  to  Lot,  and  it  was 
on  that  occasion,  according  to  the  quaint  statement 
of  the  ancient  narrative,  that  the  change  in  its 
name  took  place  (xix.  22,  23,  30).b  It  is  mentioned 
in  the  account  of  the  death  of  Moses  as  one  of  the 
landmarks  which  bounded  his  view  from  Pisgah 
(Deut.  xxxiv.  3),  and  it  appears  to  have  been 
known,  in  the  time  both  of  Isaiah  (xv.  5)  and 
Jeremiah  (xlviii.  34).  These  are  all  the  notices  of 
Zoar  contained  in  the  Bible. 

1.  It  was  situated  in  the  same  district  with  the 
four  cities  already  mentioned,  viz.  in  the  ciccar, 
the  "  plain  "  or  "circle  "  "  of  the  Jordan,"  and  the 
narrative  of  Gen.  xix.  evidently  implies  that  it  was 
very  near  to  Sodom — sufficiently  near  for  Lot  and 
his  family  to  traverse  the  distance  in  the  time 
between  the  first  appearance  of  the  morning  and 
the  actual  rising  of  the  sun  (ver.  15,  23,  27).  The 
definite  position  of  Sodom  is,  and  probably  will 
always  be,  a  mystery,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  plain  of  the  Jordan  was  at  the  north  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  and  that  the  cities  of  the  plain  must 
therefore  have  been  situated  there  instead  of  at  the 
southern  end  of  the  lake,  as  it  is  generally  taken 
for  granted  they  were.  The  grounds  for  this  con 
clusion  have  been  already  indicated  under  SODOM 
(p.  1339  a),  but  it  will  be  well  to  state  them  here 
more  at  length.  Th<?y  are  as  follows : — 

(a.)  The  northern  and  larger  portion  of  the  "ake 
has  undoubtedly  existed  in,  or  very  nearly  in,  its 
present  form  since  a  date  long  anterior  to  the  age 
of  Abraham.  (The  conviction  of  the  writer  is  that 
this  is  true  of  the  whole  lake,  but  everyone  will 
agree  as  to  the  northern  portion,  and  that  is  all 
that  is  necessary  to  the  present  argument.)  The 
Jordan  therefore  at  that  date  discharged  itself  into 
the  lake  pretty  nearly  where  it  does  now,  and  thus 
the  "  plain  of  the  Jordan,"  unless  unconnected  with 
the  river,  must  have  lain  on  the  north  of  the  Dead 
Sea. 

(6.)  The  plain  was  within  view  of  the  spot  from 
which  Abram  and  Lot  took  their  survey  of  the 
country  (Gen.  xiii.  1-13),  and  which,  if  there  is  any 
connexion  in  the  narrative,  was  "  the  mountain 


ttame  of  Zoar  is  given  ")Jflf,  and  the  play  oo  tfcc 
ness"  of  the  town  is  suppressed. 


ZGAJE1 

«ttfi  of  bc-^.^1/  -'ber.weeu  Bethei  *rcd  Ai."  with  j 
«  Bethel  on  the  vst  and  Ai  on  the  east"  (xiii.  3, 
xii.  8).  Now  the  lower  part  of  the  course  of  the 
Jordan  ik  plainly  visible  from  the  hills  east  of 
Beitin  —  the  whole  of  that  rich  and  singular  valley 
spread  out  before  the  spectator.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  southern  half  of  the  Dead  Sea  is  not  only 
too  far  off  to  be  discerned,  but  is  actually  shut  out 
from  view  by  intervening  heights. 

(c.)  In  the  account  of  the  view  of  Moses  from 
Pisgah  the  ciccar  is  more  strictly  denned  as  "  the 
ciccar  of  the  plain  of  Jericho"  (A.  V.  "plain  of 
the  valley  of  Jericho  "),  and  Zoar  is  mentioned  in 
immediate  connexion  with  it.  Now  no  person  who 
knows  the  spot  from  actual  acquaintance  or  from 
study  of  the  topography  can  believe  that  the  "  plain 
of  Jericho  "  can  have  been  extended  to  the  southern 
end  of  the  Dead  Sea.  The  Jerusalem  Targum  (not 
a  very  ancient  authority  in  itself,  but  still  valuable 
as  a  storehouse  of  many  ancient  traditions  and  ex 
planations),  in  paraphrasing  this  passage,  actually 
identifies  Zoar  with  Jericho  —  "  the  plain  of  the 
valley  of  Jericho,  the  city  which  produces  the 
palms,  that  is  ZeSr 


ZOAR 


1857 


These  considerations  appear  to  the  writer  to 
render  it  highly  probable  that  the  Zoar  of  the  Pen 
tateuch  was  to  the  north  of  the  Dead  Sea,  not  far 
from  its  northern  end,  in  the  general  parallel  of 
Jericho.  That  it  was  on  the  east  side  of  the  valley 
seems  to  be  implied  in  the  fact  that  the  descendants 
of  Lot,  the  Moabites  and  Ammonites,  are  in  pos 
session  of  that  country  as  their  original  seat  when 
they  first  appear  in  the  sacred  history.  It  seems 
to  follow  that  the  "  mountain  "  in  which  Lot  and 
his  daughters  dwelt  when  Moab  and  Ben-Ammi 
were  born  was  the  "  mountain  "  to  which  he  was 
advised  to  flee  by  the  angel,  and  between  which 
and  Sodom  stood  Zoar  (six.  30,  compare  17,  19). 
It  is  also  in  favour  of  its  position  north  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  that  the  earliest  information  as  to  the  Moabites 
makes  their  original  seat  in  the  plains  of  Heshbon, 
N.E.  of  the  Lake,  not,  as  afterwards,  in  the  moun 
tains  on  the  S.E.,  to  which  they  were  driven  by  the 
Amorites  (Num.  xxi.  26). 

2.  The  passages  in  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  in  which 
Zoar  is  mentioned  give  no  clue  to  its  situation.    True 
they  abound  with  the  names  of  places,  apparently  in 
connexion  with  it,  but  they  are  places  (with  only  an 
exception  or  two)  not  identified.    Still  it  is  remark 
able  that  one  of  these  is  Elealeh,  which,  if  the  modern 
el-Aal,  is  in  the  parallel  of  the  north  end  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  and  that  another  is  the  Waters  of  Nimrim,  which 
may  turn  out  to  be  identical  with  Wady  Nimrin, 
opposite  Jericho.    Wady  Seir,  a  short  distance  south 
of  Nimrin,  is  suggestive  of  Zoar,  but  we  are  too  ill- 
informed  of  the  situations  and  the  orthography  of  the 
places  east  of  Jordan  to  be  able  to  judge  of  this. 

3.  So  much  for  the  Zoar  of  the  Bible.     When 
however  we  examine  the  notices  of  the  place  in  the 
rost-biblical  sources  we  find  a  considerable  difference. 
in  those  its  position  is  indicated  with  more  or  less 
precision,  as  at  the  S.E.  end  of  the  Dead  Sea.   Thus 
Josephus  says  that  it  retained  its  name  (Zowp)  to 
his  day  (Ant.  i.  11,  §4),  that  it  was  at  the  further 
end  of  the  Asphaltic  Lake,  in  Arabia  —  by  which  he 

c  The  Samaritan  Text  and  Version  afford  no  light  on 
this  pausaga,  as  they,  for  reasons  not  difficult  to  divine, 
have  thrown  the  whole  into  confusion. 

d  None  of  these  places,  however,  can  be  seen  from 
Iteni  Xaim,  (Rob.  i.  491). 
VOL.  HI. 


means  the  country  lying  S.K.  >f  the  lake,  whose 
capital  was  Petra  (B.  J.  iv.  8,  §4;  Ant.  xiv. 
1,  §4).  The  notices  of  Eusebius  are  to  the  same 
tenor :  —the  Dead  Sea  extended  from  Jericho  to 
Zoar  (Zoopuv;  Onom.  ®a\a<rffa  i\  aAudti]).  Phaeno 
lay  between  Petra  and  Zoar  (Ib.  Qiv&v).  It  still 
retained  its  name  (Zwop<£),  lay  close  to  (napa- 
Ke^iei/Tf)  the  Dead  Sea,  was  crowded  with  inha 
bitants,  and  contained  a  garrison  of  Roman  soldiers ; 
the  palm  and  the  balsam  still  flourished,  and  tes 
tified  to  its  ancient  fertility  (Ib.  BaX(£). 

To  these  notices  of  Eusebius  St.  Jerome  adds 
little  or  nothing.  Paula  in  her  journey  beholds 
Segor  (which  Jerome  gives  on  several  occasions  as 
the  Hebrew  form  of  the  name  in  opposition  to  Zoora 
or  Zoara,  the  Syrian  form)  from  Caphar  Barucha 
(possibly  Beni  Nairn,  near  Hebron),  at  the  same 
time  with  Engaddi,  and  the  land  where  once  stood 
the  four  cities ;  *  but  the  terms  of  the  statement  are 
too  vague  to  allow  of  any  inference  as  to  its  posi 
tion  (Epist.  cviii.  §11).  In  his  commentary  on 
Is.  XT.  5,  he  says  that  it  was  "  in  the  boundary  of 
the  Moabites,  dividing  them  from  the  land  of  the 
Philistines,"  and  thus  justifies  his  use  of  the  word 
vectis  to  translate  Jimi  (A.  V.  "  his  fugitives," 
marg.  "  borders ;"  Gesen.  fliichtlinge).  The  terra 
Philisthtim,  unless  the  words  are  corrupt,  can  only 
mean  the  land  of  «  Palestine— i.  e.  (according  to  the 
inaccurate  usage  of  later  times)  of  Israel — as  opposed 
to  Moab.  In  his  Quaestiones  Hebraicae  on  Gen.  xix. 
30  (comp.  xiv.  3)  Jerome  goes  so  far  as  to  affirm 
the  accuracy  of  the  Jewish  conjecture,  that  the  later 
name  of  Zoar  was  Shalisha: — "  Bale  primum  et 
postea  Salisa  appellata"  (comp.  also  his  comment 
on  Is.  xv.  5).  But  this  is  probably  grounded  merely 
on  an  interpretation  of  shalishiyeh  in  Is.  xv.  5,  as 
connected  with  bela,  and  as  denoting  the  "  third " 
destruction  of  the  town  by  "  earthquakes."  f 

In  more  modern  times  Zoar  is  mentioned  by  the 
Crusading  historians.  Fulcher  (Gesta  Dei,  405, 
quoted  by  von  Raumer,  239)  states  that  "  having  en 
circled  (<7»rafe>)"the  southern  part  of  the  lake  on  th« 
road  from  Hebron  to  Petra,  we  found  there  a  large 
village  which  was  said  to  be  Segor,  in  a  charming 
situation,  and  abounding  with  dates.  Here  we  began 
to  enter  the  mountains  of  Arabia."  The  palms  are 
mentioned  also  by  William  of  Tyre  (xxii.  30)  as 
being  so  abundant  as  to  cause  the  place  to  be  called 
Villa  Palrnarum,  and  Palmer  (i.  e.  probably  Pan- 
mier}.  Abulfeda  (cir.  A.D.  1320)  does  not  specify 
its  position  more  nearly  than  that  it  was  adjacent  to 
the  lake  and  the  ghor,  but  he  testifies  to  its  then 
importance  by  calling  the  lake  after  it — Bahret- 
zeghor  (see  too  Ibn  Idris,  in  Reland,  272).  The 
natural  inference  from  the  description  of  Fulcher  is, 
that  Segor  lay  in  the  Wady  Kerak,  the  ordinary  road, 
then  and  no'w,  from  the  south  of  the  Dead  Sea  to 
the  eastern  highlands.  The  conjecture  of  Irby  and 
Mangles  (June  1,  and  see  May  9),  that  the  extensive 
ruins  which  they  found  in  the  lower  part  of  this  Wady 
were  those  of  Zoar,  is  therefore  probably  accurate. 

The  name  Dra'a  or  Dera'ah  (&S.J&),  which  they, 
Poole  (Geogr.  Journ.  xxvi.  63),  and  Burckhardt 
(July  15),  give  to  the  valley,  may  even  without 
violence  be  accepted  as  a  corruption  of  Zoar. 


«  Similarly,  Stephanus  of  Byzantium  places  Zoar  a 
naA.a«mVrj  (quoted  by  Reland.  1065). 

t  See  Rahmer,  Die  Hebr.  Tradit.  in  Hieronyrnus  (Braa» 
la«,  1861),  p.  29. 


1858 


ZOAR 


Zoai  UAS  included  in  the  province  of  Palestina 
Tertia,  which  contained  also  Kerak  and  Areopolis. 
It  was  an  episcopal  see,  in  the  patriarchate  of  Jeru 
salem  and  archbishopric  of  Petra ;  at  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon  (A.D.  451)  it  was  represented  by  its 
bishop  Musonius,  and  at  the  Synod  of  Constantinople 
(A.D.  536)  by  John  (Le  Qu.on,  Oriens  Christ,  iii. 
743-6). 

4.  To  the  statements  of  the  mediaeval  travellers 
just  quoted  there  are  at  least  two  remarkable  excep 
tions.  (1.)  Brocardus  (cir.  A.I).  1290),  the  author 
of  the  Descriptio  Terrae  Sanctae,  the  standard 
"  Handbook  to  Palestine "  of  the  middle  ages,  the 
work  of  an  able  and  intelligent  resident  in  the 
country,  states  (cap.  vii.)  that  "  five  leagues  e 
(leucae)  to  the  south  of  Jericho  is  the  city  Segor, 
situated  beneath'  the  mountain  of  Engaddi,  between 
which  mountain  and  the  Dead  Sea  is  the  statue  of 
salt."  k  True  he  confesses  that  all  his  efforts  to  visit 
the  spot  had  been  frustrated  by  the  Saracens ;  but 
the  passage  bears  marks  of  the  greatest  desire  to 
obtain  correct  information,  and  he  must  have  nearly 
approached  the  place,  because  he  saw  with  his  own 
eyes  the  "  pyramids  "  which  covered  the  "  wells  of 
bitumen,"  which  he  supposes  to  have  been  those  of 
the  vale  of  Siddim.  This  is  in  curious  agreement 
with  the  connexion  between  Engedi  and  Zoar 
implied  in  Jerome's  Itinerary  of  Paula.  (2.)  The 
statement  of  Thietmar  (A.U.  1217)  -is  even  more 
singular.  It  is  contained  in  the  llth  and  12th 
chapters  of  his  Peregrinatio  (ed.  Laurent,  Ham- 
burgi,  1857).  After  visiting  Jericho  and  Giigal  he 
arrives  at  the  "  fords  of  Jordan  "  (xi.  20),  where 
Israel  crossed  and  where  Christ  was  baptised,  and 
where  then,  as  now,  the  pilgrims  bathed  (22). 
Crossing  this  ford  (33)  he  arrives  at  "the  field 
and  the  spot  where  the  Lord  overthrew  Sodom  and 
Gomorra."  After  a  description  of  the  lake  come 
the  following  words  : — "  On  the  shore  of  this  lak^, 
about  a  mile  (ad  miliare)  from  the  spot  at  which 
the  Lord  w«-  baptised  is  the  statue  of  salt  into 
which  Lot's  wife  was  turned  "  (47).  "  Hence  1  came 
from  the  lake  of  Sodom  and  Gomorra,  and  arrived 
at  Segor,  where  Lot  took  refuge  after  the  over 
throw  of  Sodom  ;  which  is  now  called  in  the  Syrian 
tongue  Zora,  but  in  Latin  the  city  of  palms.  In 
the  mountain  hard  by  this  Lot  sinned  with  his 
daughters  (xii.  l-3\  After  this  I  passed  the  vine 
yard  of  Benjamin  (?)  and  of  Engaddi.  .  .  .  Next  I 
came  into  the  land  of  Moab  and  to  the  mountain  in 
which  was  the  cave  where  David  hid  . .  .  leaving 
on  my  left  hand  Sethim  (Shittim),  where  the  chil 
dren  of  Israel  tarried.  ...  At  last  I  came  to  the 
plains  of  Moab,  which  abound  in  cattle  and  grain. 
...  A  plain  country,  delightfully  covered  with 
herbage,  but  without  either  woods  or  single  trees ; 
hardly  even  a  twig  or  shrub  (4-15).  .  .  .  After  this 
I  came  to  the  torrent  Jabbok  "  (xiv.  1). 

Making  allowance  for  the  confusion  into  which 
this  traveller  seems  to  have  fallen  as  to  Ensaddi 


ZOBA 

and  the  cavern  of  David,  it  seems  almost  cert  air 
from  liis  description  that,  having  once  crossed  the 
Jordan,  he  did  not  recross  it,1  and  that-  the  site  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  the  pillar  of  salt,  and  Zoar 
were  all  seen  by  him  on  the  east  of  the  Dead  Sea— • 
the  two  first  at  its  north-east  end.  Taken  by  itself 
this  would  not  perhaps  be  of  much  weight,  but  when 
combined  with  the  evidence  which  the  writer  has 
attempted  to  bring  forward  that  the  "  cities  of  the 
plain  "  lay  to  the  north  of  the  lake,  it  seems  to  him 
to  assume  a  certain  significance. 

5.  But  putting  aside  the  accounts  of  Brocardus 
and  Thietmar,  as  exceptions  to  the  ordinary  mediaeval 
belief  which  placed  Zoar  at  the  Wady  ed  Draa 
how  can  that  belief  be  reconciled  with  the  inference 
drawn  above  from  the  statements  of  the  Pentateuch  ? 
It  agrees  with  those  statements  in  one  particular 
only,  the  position  of  the  place  on  the  eastern  side  of 
the  lake.  In  everything  else  it  disagrees  not  only 
with  the  Pentateuch,  but  with  the  locality  ordi 
narily  k  assigned  to  Sodom.  For  if  Usdam  be  Sodom, 
at  the  S.W.  corner  of  the  lake,  its  distance  from  the 
Wady  ed  Dra'a  (at  least  15  miles)  is  too  great  to 
agree  with  the  requirements  of  Gen.  xix. 

This  has  led  M.  de  Saulcy  to  place  Zoar  in  the 
Wady  Zuweirah,  the  pass  leading  from  Hebron  to 
the  Dead  Sea.  But  the  names  Zuweirah  and  Zoar 
are  not  nearly  so  similar  in  the  originals  as  they  are 
in  their  western  forms,  and  there  is  the  fatal  ob 
stacle  to  the  proposal  that  it  places  Zoar  on  the 
west  of  the  lake,  away  from  what  appears  to  have 
been  the  original  cradle  of  Moab  and  Ammon.m  If 
we  are  to  look  for  Zoar  in  this  neighbourhood,  it 
would  surely  be  better  to  place  it  at  the  Tell  um- 

Zoghal}a  the  latter  part  of  which  name  •( \E»*t)  is 

almost  literally  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  Zoar.  The 
proximity  of  this  name  and  that  of  Usdum,  so  like 
Sodom,  and  the  presence  of  the  salt  mountain — to 
this  day  splitting  off  in  pillars  which  show  a  rude 
resemblance  to  the  human  form — are  certainly  re 
markable  facts ;  but  they  only  add  to  the  general 
mystery  in  which  the  whole  of  the  question  of  the 
position  and  destruction  of  the  cities  is  involved, 
and  to  which  the  writer  sees  at  present  no  hope  of 
a  solution. 

In  the  A.  V.  of  1611  the  name  Zoar  is  found  in 
1  Chr.  5v.  7,  following  (though  inaccurately)  the 
Keri  pTO).  The  present  Received  Text  of  the 
A.  V.  follows  (with  the  insertion  of  "  and  ")  the 
Cethib  pn^11).  In  either  case  the  name  has  no 
connexion  with  Zoar  proper,  and  is  more  accurately 
represented  in  English  as  Zohar  (Tsochar)  or 
Jezohar.  [G.] 

ZO'BA,  or  ZO'BAH  (Kl'lS,  HI5!*:  2oy0c$: 
Soba,  Suba)  is  the  name  of  a  portion  of  Syria, 
which  formed  a  separate  kingdom  in  the  time  of 
the  Jewish  monarchs,  Saul,  David,  and  Solomon. 
It  is  difficult  to  fix  its  exact  position  and  limits; 


g  The  distance  from  Jericho  to  Engedi  is  understated 
here.  It  is  really  about  24  English  miles. 

h  In  the  map  to  the  Tlieatrum  Terrae.  Sanctae  of  Adri- 
thomius,  Sodom  is  placed  within  the  Lake,  at  its  N.W. 
end ;  Segor  near  it  on  the  shore  ;  and  the  Statua  Salis 
close  to  the  mouth  of  the  Torrent  (apparently  Kidron). 

>  Thietmar  did  not  return  to  the  west  of  the  Jordan. 
From  the  torrent  Jabbok  be  ascended  the  mountains  of 
Abarim.  He  then  recrossed  the  plain  of  Heshbon  to  the 
river  Arnon  ;  and  passing  the  ruins  of  Robda  (Rabba\ 
?ud  Orach  (Kerak),  and  again  crossing  the  Arnou  (pro 
bably  the  Uudv  el  Ahsy),  reached  the  top  of  a  very 


high  mountain,  where  he  was  half  killed  by  the  cold. 
Thence  he  journeyed  to  Petra  and  Mount  Hor,  and  at 
length  reached  the  Red  Sea.  His  itinerary  is  full  of 
Interest  and  intelligence. 

k  Though  incorrectly,  if  the  writer's  argument  for  the 
position  of  the  plain  of  Jordan  is  tenable. 

m  Dr.  Robinson's  arguments  against  this  proposal  of 
De  Saulcy  (B.  R.  ii.  107  ;  517),  though  they  might  be  more 
pleasant  in  tone,  are  unanswerable  in  substance. 

n  The  JKedjom  el-Mezorrlwl  of  De  Saulcy.  The  gh  and 
rrh  each  strive  to  represent  the  Arabic  ghain,  which  is 
pronounced  like  a  guttural  rolling  r. 


ZOBA 

Jmt  there  seem  to  be  grounds  for  regarding  it  as 
lying  chiefly  eastward  of  Coele-Syria,  and  extending 
thence  north-east  and  east,  towards,  if  not  even 
to,  the  Euphrates.  [STRIA.]  It  would  thus  have 
included  the  eastern  flank  of  the  mountain-chain 
which  shuts  in  Coele-Syria  on  that  side,  the  high 
land  about  Aleppo,  and  the  more  northern  portion 
of  the  Syrian  desert. 

Among  the  cities  of  Zobah  were  a  Hamath  (2  Chr. 
via.  3),  which  must  not  be  confounded  with  "  Ha 
math  the  Great "  (HAMATH-ZOBAH)  ;  a  place  called 
Tibhath  or  Betah  (2  Sam.  viii.  8 ;  1  Chr.  xviii.  8), 
which  is  perhaps  Taibeh,  between  Palmyra  and 
Aleppo;  and  another  called  Berothai,  which  has 
been  supposed  to  be  Beyrflt.  (See  Winer,  Real- 
worterbuch,  vol.  i.  p.  155.)  This  last  supposition 
is  highly  improbable,  for  the  kingdom  of  Hamath 
must  have  intervened  between  Zobah  and  the  coast. 
[BEROTHAH.] 

We  first  hear  of  Zobah  in  the  time  of  Saul,  when 
we  find  it  mentioned  as  a  separate  country,  governed 
apparently  by  a  number  of  kings  who  own  no  com 
mon  head  or  chief  (1  Sam.  xiv.  47).  Saul  engaged 
in  war  with  these  kings,  and  "  vexed  them,"  as  he 
did  his  other  neighbours.  Some  forty  years  later 
than  this,  we  find  Zobah  under  a  single  ruler,  Ha- 
dadezer,  son  of  Rehob,  who  seems  to  have  been  a 
powerful  sovereign.  He  had  wars  with  Toi,  king 
of  Hamath  (2  Sam.  viii.  10),  while  he  lived  in 
close  relations  of  amity  with  the  kings  of  Damascus, 
Beth-Rehob,  Ish-tob,  &c.,  and  held  various  petty 
Syrian  princes  as  vassals  under  his  yoke  (2  Sam. 
x.  19).  He  had  even  a  considerable  influence  in 
Mesopotamia,  beyond  the  Euphrates,  and  was  able  on 
one  occasion  to  obtain  an  important  auxiliary  force 
from  that  quarter  (ibid.  16;  compare  title  to  Ps. 
lx.).  David,  having  resolved  to  take  full  possession 
of  the  tract  of  territory  originally  promised  to  the 
posterity  of  Abraham  (2  Sam.  viii.  3  ;  compare 
Gen.  xv.  18),  attacked  Hadadezer  in  the  early  part 
of  his  reign,  defeated  his  army,  and  took  from 
him  a  thousand  chariots,  seven  hundred  (seven 
thousand,  1  Chr.  xviii.  4)  horsemen,  and  20,000 
footmen.  Hadadezer's  allies,  the  Syrians  of  Da 
mascus,  having  marched  to  his  assistance,  David 
defeated  them  in  a  great  battle,  in  which  they  lost 
22,000  men.  The  wealth  of  Zobah  is  very  ap 
parent  in  the  narrative  of  this  campaign.  Several 
of  the  officers  of  Hadadezer's  army  carried  "  shields 
of  gold "  (2  Sam.  viii.  7),  by  which  we  are  pro 
bably  to  understand  iron  or  wooden  frames  overlaid 
with  plates  of  the  precious  metal.  The  cities, 
moreover,  which  David  took,  Betah  (or  Tibhath) 
and  Berothai,  yielded  him  "  exceeding  much  brass  " 
(ver.  8).  It  is  not  clear  whether  the  Syrians  of 
Zobah  submitted  and  became  tributary  on  this  occa 
sion,  or  whether,  although  defeated,  they  were  able 
to  maintain  their  independence.  At  any  rate  a  few 
years  later,  they  were  again  in  arms  against  David. 
This  time  the  Jewish  king  acted  on  the  defensive. 
The  war  was  provoked  by  the  Ammonites,  who 
hired  the  services  of  the  Syrians  of  Zobah,  among 
others,  to  help  them  against  the  people  of  Israel, 
aiio  obtained  in  this  way  auxiliaries  to  the  amount 
of  33,000  men.  The  allies  were  defeated  in  a  great 
battle  by  Joab,  who  engaged  the  Syrians  in  person 
with  the  flower  of  his  troops  (2  Sam.  x.  9).  Ha 
dadezer,  upon  this,  made  a  last  effort.  He  sent 
across  the  Euphrates  into  Mesopotamia,  and  "  drew 
forth  the  Syrians  that  were  beyond  the  river'" 
(1  Chr.  xix.  16),  who  had  hitherto  taken  no  part  m 
the  war.  With  these  allies  and  his  own  troops  he 


ZOHELETH,  THE  STONE 

once  more  renewed  the  struggle  with  the  Isiaelites 
who  were  now  commanded  by  David  himself,  the 
crisis  being  such  as  seemed  to  demand  the  presence 
of  the  king.  A  battle  was  fought  near  Helam—  8 
place,  the  situation  of  which  is  uncertain  (HELAM)— 
here  the  Syrians  of  Zobah  and  their  new  allies 
were  defeated  with  great  slaughter,  losing  between 
40,000  and  50,000  men.  After  this  we  h?ar  of  no 
more  hostilities.  The  petty  princes  hitherto  tri- 
autnry  to  Hadadezer  transferred  their  allegiance  to 
the  king  of  Israel,  and  it  is  probable  that  he  himself 
became  a  vassal  to  David. 

Zobah,  however,  though  subdued,  continued  to 
cause  trouble  to  the  Jewish  kings.  A  man  of  Zobah, 
one  of  the  subjects  of  Hadadezer  —  Rezon,  son  of 
Eliadah  —  having  escaped  from  the  battle  of  Helam, 
and  «'  gathered  a  band  "  (i.e.  a  body  of  irregular 
marauders),  marched  southward,  and  contrived 
to  make  himself  master  of  Damascus,  where  he 
reigned  (apparently)  for  some  fifty  years,  proving 
a  tierce  adversary  to  Israel  all  through  the  reign 
of  Solomon  (1  K.  xi.  23-25).  Solomon  also  was 
(it  would  seem)  engaged  in  a  war  with  Zobah  itself. 
The  Hamath-Zobah,  against  which  he  "  went  up  " 
(2  Chr.  viii.  3),  was  probably  a  town  in  that 
country  which  resisted  his  authority,  and  which  he 
accordingly  attacked  and  subdued.  This  is  the  last 
that  we  hear  of  Zobah  in  Scripture.  The  name, 
however,  is  found  at  a  later  date  in  the  Inscriptions 
of  Assyria,  where  the  kingdom  of  Zobah  seems  to 
intervene  between  Hamath  and  Damascus,  falling 
thus  into  the  regular  line  of  march  of  the  Assyrian 
armies.  Several  Assyrian  monarchs  relate  that 
they  took  tribute  from  Zobah,  while  others  speak 
of  having  traversed  it  on  their  way  to  or  from 
Palestine.  [G.  R.] 


ZO'BEBAH(rmV:  2a£a0<£;  Alex. 
Soboba).   Son  of  Coz,  in  an  obscure  genealogy  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  iv.  8). 

ZO'HAK  (Sn'tf  :  2ao/>:  Seor).  1.  Father  ol 
Ephron  the  Hittite  (Gen.  xxiii.  8,  xxv.  9). 

2.  (Sohar,  Soar.)  One  of  the  sons  of  Simeon 
(Gen.  xlvi.  10  ;  Ex.  vi.  15)  ;  called  ZERAH  in  1  Chr. 
iv.  24. 


ZOHEL'ETH,  THE  STONE 

Ai'07j  rov  ZweAe06i  ;  Alex.  TOV  \i6ov  rov  Zo>eAe0  : 
lapis  Zoheleth).  This  was  "  by  En  Rogel"  (1  K. 
i.  9);  and  therefore,  if  En  Rogel  be  the  modern 
Um-ed-Deraj,  this  stone,  "  where  Adonijah  slew 
sheep  and  oxen,"  was  in  all  likelihood  not  far 
from  the  well  of  the  Virgin.  [EN  ROGEL.]  The 
Targumists  translate  it  "  the  rolling  stone  ;"  and 
Jarchi  affirms  that  it  was  a  large  stone  on  which 
the  young  men  tried  their  strength  in  attempting 
to  roll  it.  ,  Others  make  it  "  the  serpent  stone  " 
(Gesen.),  as  if  from  the  root  ?nt,  "  to  creep." 
Jerome  simply  says,  "  Zoelet  tractum  sive  pro- 
tractum."  Others  connect  it  with  running  water: 
but  there  is  nothing  strained  in  making  it  "  the 
stone  of  the  conduit  "  (n^HTIO,  Mazchelafi),  from 
its  proximity  to  the  great  rock-conduit  or  con 
duits  that  poured  into  Siloam.  Bochart's  idea  is 
that  the  Hebrew  word  zohel  denotes  "  a  slow  mo 
tion"  (Hieroz.  parti,  b.  1,  c.  9):  "the  fullers 
here  pressing  out  the  water  which  dropped  from 
the  clothes  that  they  had  washed  in  the  well  callevl 
Rogel."  If  this  be  the  cast,  then  we  have  some 
relics  of  this  ancient  custom  st  the  massive  breast- 
ti  0  2 


18GO    ZOHELETH,  THE  STOKE 

work  below  the  present  Birket  el-PIamra,  where 
the  donkeys  wait  for  their  load  of  skins  from  the 
well,  and  where  the  Arab  washerwomen  may  be 
seen  to  this  day  beating  their  clothes.* 

The  practice  of  placing  stones,  and  naming  them 
from  a  person  or  an  event,  is  very  common.  Jacob 
did  so  at  Bethel  (Gen.  xxviii.  22,  xxxv.  14;  see 
Bochart's  Canaan,  pp.  785,  786) ;  and  he  did  it 
again  when  parting  from  Laban  (Gen.  xxxi.  45). 
Joshua  set  up  stones  in  Jordan  and  Gilgal,  at  the 
command  of  God  (Josh.  iv.  9-20) ;  and  again  in 
Shechem  (Josh.  xxiv.  26).  Near  Bethshemesh 
there  was  the  Eben-gedolah  ("  great  stone,"  1  Sam. 
vi.  14),  called  also  Abel-gedolah  ("  the  great  weep 
ing,"  1  Sam.  vi.  J8).  There  was  the  Eben-Bohan, 
south  of  Jericho,  in  the  plains  of  Jordan  (Josh. 
xv.  6,  xviii.  17),  "the  stone  of  Bohan  the  son 
>f  Reuben,"  the  Ehrenbreitstein  of  the  Ciccar,  or 
4t  plain  "  of  Jordan,  a  memorial  of  the  son  or  grand 
son  of  Jacob's  eldest  born,  for  which  the  writer 
once  looked  in  vain,  but  which  Felix  Fabri  in  the 
15th  century  (Evagat.  ii.  82),  professes  to  have 
seen.  The  Rabbis  preserve  the  memory  of  this  stone 
in  a  book  called  Eben-Bohan,  or  the  touchstone 
'Chron.  of  Rabbi  Joseph,  transl.  by  Bialloblotzky,  i. 
192).  There  was  the  stone  set  up  by  Samuel  be 
tween  Mizpeh  and  Shen,  Eben-Ezer,  "  the  stone  of 
help"  (1  Sam.  vii.  11,  12).  There  was  the  Great 
Stone  on  which  Samuel  slew  the  sacrifices,  after 
the  great  tattle  of  Saul  with  the  Philistines  (1  Sam. 
xiv.  33).  There  was  the  Eben-Ezel  ("  lapis  dis- 
cessus  vel  abitus,  a  discessu  Jonathanis  et  Davidis," 
Simonis,  Onom.  p.  156),  where  David  hid  himself, 
and  which  some  Talmudists  identify  with  Zoheleth. 
Large  stones  have  always  obtained  for  themselves 
peculiar  names,  from  their  shape,  their  position, 
their  connexion  with  a  person  or  an  event.  In  the 
Sinai  tic  Desert  the  writer  found  the  Hajar-el-Rekab 
("stone  of  the  rider"),  Hajar-el-Ful  ("stone  of 
the  beau"),  ffajar  Musa  ("stone  of  Moses'.'). 
The  subject  of  stones  is  by  no  means  uninteresting, 
and  has  not  in  any  respect  been  exhausted.  (See  the 
Notes  of  De  Sola  and  Lindenthal  in  their  edition  of 
Genesis,  pp.  175,  226  ;  Bochart's  Canaan,  p.  785; 
Vossius  de  Idolatr.  vi.  38 ;  Scaliger  on  Eusebius, 
p.  198;  Heraldus  on  Arnobius,  b.  vii.,  and  Elmen- 
horstius  on  Arnobius ;  also  a  long  note  of  Ouzelius  in 
his  edition  ofMimicius  Felix,  p.  15  ;  Calmet's  Frag- 
roente,Nos.  166,735,736;  Kitto's  Palestine.  See, 
besides,  the  works  of  antiquaries  on  stones  and  stone 
circles ;  and  an  interesting  account  of  the  curious 
Phoenician  ffajar  Chem  in  Malta,  in  Tallack's  recent 
volume  on  that  island,  pp.  1 15-127.)  [H.  B.] 


a  We  give  the  following  Rabbinical  note  <m  Zoheleth, 
from  the  Arabic  Commentary  of  Tauchum  of  Jerusalem, 
translated  by  Haarbrucker  :— 

"Ver.  9.  r6ntn  V^rbum  ^flT  significationem  trepi- 
<iat!onis  habet  et  reptationis  et  cunctationis  in  incessu. 
Inde  Saturnum  V^,'  appellaverunt  propter  multos  ejus 
regressus  incessusque  retrogrades.  Eaque  sententia  est 
in  verbis  gOW  Tl^nT  (Hi.  32,  6)  i.  e.  cunctabar  vobis 
respondere  consiliumque  meum  vobiscum  communicare, 
propterea  quia  vos  verebar  et  gravitatem  aetatis  vestrae 
admirabar.  Serpentes  ~\%]}  v!"!lT  appcllantur,  quia  in 
terra  serpunt,  et  ob  incessum  suum  quasi  trepidantem 
cunctantemque.  Inde  porro  dicunt :  (Sabb.  fol  65,  b.) 

pbrwn  hy  patsun  m*  ybw  (via.  Mischn.  MUC- 

vaoth,  cap.  5),  ptf^l  P^HM  D'EHI  i.  e.  aqua  leniter 
fluens  in  terra.     Fortasse  igitur  n/Tlltn       K  simillter 


ZOEAH 

ZO'HETH   (firm:     Zato:     Alex. 
Zohetfi}.     Son  of  Ish'i  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  (1  Chr 
iv.  20). 

ZO'PHAH  (nai¥  :  2«4>c£ ;  Alex.  2«(j>op  : 
Supha).  Son  of  Helem,  or  Hotham,  the  son  of 
Heber,  an  Asherite  (1  Chr.  vii.  35,  36). 

ZO'PHAI  OaiV  :  2oy<f>t :  Sophal).  A  Ko- 
hathite  Levite,  son  of  Elkanah  and  ancestor  of  Sa 
muel  (1  Chr.  vi.  26  [11]).  In  ver.  35  he  is  allied 

ZUPH. 

ZO'PHAK  (IBto:  Sax/>cip:  Sophar\  One  of 
the  three  friends  of  Job  (Job  ii.  11,  xi.  1,  xx.  1,  xlii 
9).  He  is  called  in  the  Hebrew,  "  the  Naamathite,' 
and  in  the  LXX.  "  the  Minaean,"  and  "  the  king  of 
the  Minaeans." 

ZO'PHIM,  THE  FIELD  OF  (D'BS  STO : 
&ypos  ffKoTndv  :  locus  sublimis).  A  spot  on:or 
near  the  top  of  Pisgah,  from  which  Balaam  had 
his  second  view  of  the  encampment  of  Israel  (Num. 
xxiii.  14).  If  the  word  sadeh  (rendered  "  field") 
may  be  taken  in  its  usual  sense,  then  the  "field 
of  Zophim"  was  a  cultivated1*  spot  high  up  on 
the  top  of  the  range  of  Pisgah.  But  that  word 
is  the  almost  invariable  term  for  a  portion  of  the 
upper  district  of  Moab,  and  therefore  may  have 
had  some  local  sense  which  has  hitherto  escaped 
notice,  and  in  which  it  is  employed  in  reference 
to  the  spot  in  question.  The  position  of  the  field 
of  Zophim  is  not  defined,  it  is  only  said  that 
it  commanded  merely  a  portion  of  the  encamp 
ment  of  Israel.  Neither  do  the  ancient  versions 
afford  any  clue.  The  Targum  of  Onkelos,  the 
LXX.,  and  the  Peshito-Syriac  take  Zophim  in  the 
sense  of  "  watchers  "  or  "  lookers-out,"  and  trans 
late  it  accordingly.  But  it  is  probably  a  Hebrew 
version  of  an  aboriginal  name,  related  to  that 
which  in  other  places  of  the  present  records  appears 
as  Mizpeh  or  Mizpah.c  May  it  not  be  the  same 
place  which  later  in  the  history  is  mentioned  (once 
only)  as  MizPAH-MOAB  ? 

Mr.  Porter,  who  identifies  Attarus  with  Pisgah, 
mentions  (Handbook,  300  a)  that  the  ruins  of  Main, 
at  the  foot  of  that  mountain,  are  surrounded  by  a 
fertile  and  cultivated  plain,  which  he  regards  as 
the  field  of  Zophim.  [G.] 

ZO'RAH  (rtjnX  :  ZapdO,  Zapda,  Zapaa  ;  Alex. 
2apaa,  2apa,  Apaa ;  Joseph.  2ap/ao"a:  Saraa], 
One  of  the  towns  in  the  allotment  of  the  tribe  of 
Dan  (Josh.  xix.  41).  It  is  previously  mentioned 
(xv.  33)  in  the  catalogue  of  Judah,  among  the  places 


explicandum  est,  nimirum  lapis  volutatus  et  hie  illic 
tractus,  quern  saepe  quasi  ludentes  volvebant ;  aut  seusua 
est  eum  per  se  fuisse  teretem  (volubilem)  acclivitatis 
instar,  ciyus  latus  alterum  elatius,  alterum  depressius 
esset  in  rnodum  pontis  exstructl,  in  quo  ad  locum  al- 
tiorem  sine  gradibus  ascendatur ;  quern  JJQD  vocaverunt 
qualemque  ad  altare  struxerunt,  ut  eo  ascenderent,  quum 
ad  altare  per  gradus  ascendere  non  liceret  (Ex.  xx.  23). 
Nee  absurduin  mihi  videtur  eundem  fuisse  hunc  iapidcm 
atque  eum,  qui  in  Davidis  Jonathanique  histor'.a  ?3X 
7TXn  vocatus  est,  quern  intprpretantur  lapidem  via- 
torum,  ad  quern  videlicet  viatores  devertebant.  Targum 
h-  1-  Kni3D  ptf  transtulit  i.  e.  altus;  fortassc  enim 
lapis  aHus  fuit  et  elatus,  quern  viatores  e  longinquc 
conspicerent." 

0  See  Stanley,  S.  &  Pn  Appendix,  $15. 

c  The  Targum  treats  the  names  Mizpeh  and  Zopl  ,nu  as 
identical  translating  them  both  by 


ZOKA.THITES,  THE 

n  the  district  of  the  Shefelah  (A.  V.  ZOREAH).  In 
both  lists  it  is  in  immediate  proximity  to  ESHTAOL, 
and  the  two  are  elsewhere  named  together  almost 
without  an  exception  (Judg.  xiii.  25,  xvi.  31,  xviii. 
2,  8,  11  ;  and  see  1  Chr.  ii.  53).  Zorah  was  the 
residence  of  Manoah  and  the  native  place  of  Samson. 
The  place  both  of  his  birth  and  his  burial  is  spe 
cified  with  a  curious  minuteness  as  "  between  Zorah 
and  Eshtaol;"  "in  Mahaneh-Dan"  (Judg.  xiii.  25, 
xvi.  31).  In  the  ganealogical  records  of  1  Chr.  (ii. 
53,  iv.  2),  the  "Zareathites  and  Eshtaulites"  a»e 
giver,  as  descended  from  (i.  e.  colonized  by)  Kirjath- 
jearim. 

Zorah  is  mentioned  amongst  the  places  fortified 
by  Rehoboam  (2  Chr.  xi.  10),  and  it  was  re-inha 
bited  by  the  men  of  Judah  after  the  return  from 
the  Captivity  (Neh.  xi.  29,  A.  V.  ZAREAH). 

In  the  Onomasticon  (2ap5a  and  "  Saara  ")  it  is 
mentioned  as  lying  some  10  miles  north  of  Eleu- 
theropolis  on  the  road  to  Nicopolis.  By  the  Jewish 
traveller  hap-Parchi  (Zunz's  Benjamin  of  Tud.  ii. 
441),  it  is  specified  as  three  hours  S.E.  of  Lydd. 
These  notices  agree  in  direction  —  though  in  neither 
is  the  distance  nearly  sufficient  —  with  the  modern 

village  of  S&r'ah  (£e*?),  which  has  been  visited 


by  Dr.  Robinson  (B.  R.  iii.  153)  and  Tobler  (3tte 
Wand.  181-3).  It  lies  just  below  the  brow  of  a 
bharp  pointed  conical  hill,  at  the  shoulder  of  the 
ranges  which  there  meet  and  form  the  north  side 
of  the  Wady  Ghurab,  the  northernmost  of  the 
two  branches  which  unite  just  below  Sur'ah,  and 
form  the  great  Wady  Surar.  Near  it  are  to  be 
seen  the  remains  of  Zanoah,  Bethshemesh,  Timnath, 
and  other  places  more  or  less  frequently  mentioned 
with  it  in  the  narrative.  Eshtaol,  however,  has  not 
yet  been  identified.  The  position  of  Sur'ah  at  the 
entrance  of  the  valley,  which  forms  one  of  the  inlets 
from  the  great  lowland,  explains  its  fortification  by 
Rehoboam.  The  spring  is  a  short  distance  below  the 
village,  "a  noble  fountain"  —  this  was  at  the  end  of 
April  —  "  walled  up  square  with  large  hewn  stones, 
and  gushing  over  with  fine  water.  As  we  passed 
on,"  continues  Dr.  Robinson,  with  a  more  poetical 
tone  than  is  his  wont,  "  we  overtook  no  less  than 
twelve  women  toiling  upwards  to  the  village,  each 
with  her  jar  of  water  on  her  head.  The  village, 
the  fountain,  the  fields,  the  mountain,  the  females 
bearing  water,  all  transported  us  back  to  ancient 
times,  when  in  all  probability  the  mother  of  Samson 
often  in  like  manner  visited  the  fountain  and  toiled 
ho2i2ward  with  her  jar  of  water." 

In  the  A.  V.  the  name  appears  also  as  ZA 
REAH  and  ZOREAH.  The  first  of  these  is  perhaps 
most  nearly  accurate.  The  Hebrew  is  the  same 
in  all.  [G.] 

ZO'KATHITES,  THE  (  W^il  :  rov  'Apa- 
6ei  ;  Alex.  T.  2op<t0t:  Sarathi),  i.e.  the  people  of 
ZORAH,  are  mentioned  in  1  Chr.  iv.  2  as  descended 
from  Shobal,  one  of  the  sons  of  Judah,  who  in 
1  Chr.  ii.  52,  is  stated  to  have  founded  Kirjath- 
jearim,  from  which  again  "  the  Zareathites  and  the 
Eshtaulites"  were  colonized.  [G.] 

ZO'REAH  (iiyitf  :  'Poo;  Alex.  Sopao:  Saraa). 
Another  (and  slightly  more  accurate)  form  of  the 
name  usually  given  in  the  A.  V.  as  ZORAH,  but 

»  As  if  reading  &p¥  (Tsiph),  which  the  original  text 
(cet/iib)  of  1  Chr.  vi!  35  still  exhibits  for  Zuph  (see 
rourgin  of  A.  V.).  This  is  a  totally  distinct  name  from 


ZUPH,  THE  LAND  OF       1861 

once  as  ZAREAH.  The  Hebrew  is  the  same  in  all 
cases.  Zoreah  occurs  only  in  Josh.  xv.  53,  among 
the  towns  of  Judah.  The  place  appears,  however 
to  have  come  later  into  the  possession  of  Dan. 

[ZORAH.]  [G.] 

ZO'KITES,  THE  (T^n  :  'Hoapd  ;  Alex. 
VLffapaei  :  Sarai\  are  named  in  the  genealogies  of 
Judah  (1  Chr.  ii.  54),  apparently  (though  the  passage 
is  probably  in  great  confusion)  amongst  the  descend- 
ants  of  Salma  and  near  connexions  of  Joab.  Tht 
Targum  regards  the  word  as  being  a  contraction  for 
"the  Zorathites;"  but  this  does  not  seem  likely, 
since  the  Zareathites  are  mentionea  in  ver.  52  of 
the  same  genealogy  in  another  connection. 

ZOROB'ABEL.  (Zopo0<il3c\:  Zo-obabel],  1 
Esd.  iv.  13  ;  v.  5-70  ;  vi.  2-29  ;  Ecclus.  xlix.  11  \ 
Matt.  i.  12,  13  ;  Luke  iii.  27.  [ZERUBBABEL.] 

ZU'AR  OOT  :  Zwydp  :  Suar}.  Father  of 
Nethaneel  the  chief  of  the  tribe  of  Issachar  at  the 
time  of  the  Exodus  (Num.  i.  8,  ii.  5,  vii.  18,  23, 
x.  15). 

ZUPH,  THE  LAND  OF  (Sj-IV  fTN  :  €*'$ 
TV  "2ety>  ;  Alex,  eis  yi)v  2et<f>  :  Syr.  Peshito, 
JO-  ,  Tsur  :  Vulg.  terra  Suph).  A  district  at  which 

Saul  and  his  servant  arrived  after  passing  through 
those  of  Shalisha,  of  Shalim,  and  of  the  Benjamitesb 
(1  Sam.  ix.  5  only).  It  evidently  contained  the  city 
in  which  they  encountered  Samuel  (ver.  6),  and 
that  again,  if  the  conditions  of  the  narrative  are  to 
be  accepted,  was  certainly  not  far  from  the  "  tomb 
of  Rachel,"  probably  the  spot  to  which  that  name 
is  still  attached,  a  short  distance  north  of  Beth 
lehem.  The  name  Zuph  is  connected  in  a  singular 
manner  with  Samuel.  One  of  his  ancestors  was 
named  Zuph  (1  Sam.  i.  1  ;  1  Chr.  vi.  35)  or 
Zophai  (ib.  27);  and  his  native  place  was  called 
Ramathaim-zopjiim  (1  Sam.  i.  1). 

But  it  woulcl  be  unsafe  to  conclude  that  the 
"  land  of  Zuph  "  had  any  connexion  with  either 
of  these.  If  Ramathaim-zophim  was  the  present 
Neby  Samwil  —  and  there  is,  to  say  the  least,  a 
strong  probability  that  it  was  —  then  it  is  difficult 
to  imagine  that  Ramathaim-zophim  can  have  been 
in  the  land  of  Zuph,  when  the  latter  was  near 
Rachel's  sepulchre,  at  least  seven  miles  distant  from 
the  former.  Neby  Samwil  too,  if  anywhere,  is  in 
the  very  heart  of  the  territory  of  Benjamin,  whereas 
we  have  seen  that  the  land  of  Zuph  was  outside 
of  it. 

The  name,  too,  in  its  various  forms  of  Zophim, 
Mizpeh,  Mizpah,  Zephathah,  was  too  common  in 
the  Holy  Land,  on  both  sides  of  the  Jordan,  to 
permit  of  much  stress  being  laid  on  its  occurrence 
here. 

The  only  possible  trace  of  the  name  of  Zuph  m 
modern  Palestine,  in  any  suitable  locality,  is  to  be 
found  in  Soba,  a  well-known  place  about  seven  miles 
due  west  of  Jerusalem,  and  five  miles  south-west  oi 
Neby  Samwil.  This  Dr.  Robinson  (B.  R.  ii.  8,  9) 
once  proposed  as  the  representative  of  Ramathum 
Zophim  ;  and  although  on  topographical  grounds  he 
virtually  renounces  the  idea  (see  the  footnote  to  the 
same  pages),  yet  those  grounds  need  not  similarly 
affect  its  identity  with  Zuph,  provided  other  coii- 


b  ifiudeed  the  "land  of  Yemini"  be  the  territory  oi 
Benjamin. 

6  C  3 


1862 


ZUPH 


eiderations  do  not  interfere.  If  Shalim  and  Shalisha 
wsre  to  the  N.E.  of  Jerusalem,  near  Taiyibeh,  then 
Saul's  route  to  the  land  of  Benjamin  would  be  S.  01 
S.W.,  and  pursuing  the  same  direction  he  would 
arrive  at  the  neighbourhood  of  Soba.  But  this  is 
at  the  best  no  more  than  conjecture,  and  unless 
the  land  of  Zuph  extended  a  good  distance  east  of 
Soba,  the  city  in  which  the  meeting  with  Samuel 
took  place  could  hardly  be  sufficiently  near  to 
Rachel's  sepulchre. 

The  signification  of  the  name  Zuph  is  quite 
doubtful.  Gesenius  explains  it  to  mean  "  honey  "  ; 
while  Fiirst  understands  it  as  "abounding  with 
water."  It  will  not  be  overlooked  that  when  the 
LXX.  version  was  made,  the  name  probably  stood 
in  the  Hebrew  Bible  as  Ziph  (Tsiph).  Zophim  is 
usually  considered  to  signify  watchmen  or  lookers- 
out  ;  hencs,  prophets  ;  in  which  sense  the  author 
of  the  Targum  has  actually  rendered  1  Sam.  ix.  5  — 
"  they  came  into  the  land  in  which  was  a  prophet 
of  Jehovah."  [G.] 

ZUPH  (*|-1V:  Sotty  in  1  Chr.:  SupK).  A  Ko- 
hathite  Levite,  ancestor  of  Elkanah  and  Samuel 
(1  Sam.  i.  1  ;  1  Chr.  vi.  35  [20]).  In  1  Chr.  vi. 
26  he  is  called  ZOPHAI. 

ZUB  ("WV:  2ot5p:  Sur).  1.  One  of  the  five 
princes  of  Midian  who  wei'e  slain  by  the  Israelites 
when  Balaam  fell  (Num.  xxxi.  8).  His  daughter 
Cozbi  was  killed  by  Phinehas,  together  with  her 
paramour  Zimri  the  Simeonite  chieftain  (Num. 
xxv.  15).  He  appears  to  have  been  in  some  way 
subject  to  Sihon  king  of  the  Amorites  (Josh. 
xiii.  21). 

2.  Son  of  Jehiel  the  founder  of  Gibeon  by  his 
wife  Maachah  (1  Chr.  viii.  30,  ix.  36). 


ZU'RIEL  («n*¥  :  Zovptfa  :  Suriel).  Son 
of  Abihail,  and  chief  of  the  Merarite  Levites  at  the 
time  of  the  Exodus  (Num.  iii.  35). 

ZUKISHADDA'I  (>'TO*n-W  :  2ovp«ra5af  : 
Surisaddai).  Father  of  Shelumiel,  the  chief  of  the 


ZUZIMS,  THE 

tribe  of  Simeon  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus  (Num.  i. 
6,  ii.  12,  vii.  36,  41,  x.  19).  It  is  remarkalle 
that  this  and  Ammishaddai,  the  only  names  in  the 
Bible  ot  which  Shaddai  forms  a  part,  should  occur 
in  the  same  list.  In  Judith  (viii.  1)  Zurishaddai 
appears  as  SALASADAI. 


ZU'ZIMS,  THE  (DWH:    *0i/ij   l^vpd  in 

both  MSS.  :  Zuzim  ;  but  Jerome  in  Quaest.  Hebr. 
gentes  fortes}.  The  name  of  an  ancient  people 
who  lying  in  the  path  of  Chedorlaomer  and  his 
allies  were  attacked  and  overthrown  by  them  (Gen. 
xiv.  5  only).  Of  the  etymology  or  signification  of 
the  name  nothing  is  known.  The  LXX.,  Targum 
of  Onkelos,  and  Sam.  Version  (with  an  eye  to  some 
root  not  now  a  recognizable),  render  it  "  strong 
people."  The  Arab.  Version  of  Saadiah  (in  Walton's 
Polyglott}  gives  ed-Dahakin,  by  which  it  is  uncer 
tain  whether  a  proper  name  or  an  appellative  is 
intended.  Others  understand  by  it  "  the  wan 
derers"  (Le  Clerc,  from  NT),  or  "dwarfs"  (Mi- 
chaelis,  Suppl.  No.  606).b  Hardly  more  ascertainable 
is  the  situation  which  the  Zuzim  occupied.  The 
progress  of  the  invaders  was  from  north  to  south. 
They  first  encountered  the  Rephaim  in  Ashteroth 
Karnaim  (near  the  Leja  in  the  north  of  the  ffaurari)  ; 
next  the  Zuzim  in  Ham  ;  and  next  the  Emim  in 
Shaveh  Kiriathaim.  The  last  named  place  has  not 
been  identified,  but  was  probably  not  far  north  of 
the  Arnon.  There  is  therefore  some  plausibility 
in  the  suggestion  of  Ewald  (Gesch.  i.  308  note), 
provided  it  is  etymologically  correct,  that  Ham, 
DPI,  is  Qy,  Am,  i.  e.  Ammon;  and  thus  that  the 
Zuzim  inhabited  the  country  of  the  Ammonites, 
and  were  identical  with  the  Zamzummim,  who  are 
known  to  have  been  exterminated  and  succeeded  in 
their  land  by  the  Ammonites.  This  suggestion  has 
been  already  mentioned  under  ZAMZUMMIM,  but  at 
the  best  it  can  only  be  regarded  as  a  conjecture,  in 
respect  to  which  the  writer  desires  to  say  with 
Reland  —  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  fitter 
sentence  with  which  to  conclude  a  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible  —  "  conjecturae,  quibus  non  delectamur."  [G.] 


»  "  Sensum  magis  quam  verbum  ex  verbo  transferentes  " 
(Jerome,  Quouest.  Hebr.  in  Gen.).  Schumann  (Genesis, 
237)  suggests  that  for  D^T/VTH  they  read  D\MTJJ.  The 
change  in  the  initial  letter  is  the  same  which  Ewald 
proposes  in  identifying  Ham  (Gen.  xiv.  5)  with  Ammon. 

*  Comparing  the  Arabic  £  j  •  .  •-.    By  adopting  this 


(which  however  Gesenius,  Thes.  510  a,  resists),  and  alter 
ing  the  points  of  DPI3  to  DH3,  as  it  is  plain  the  LXX. 
and  Vulg.  read  them,  Micbaeiis  ingeniously  obtains  tba 
following  reading:  "They  smote  the  giants  in  AstterotJ) 
Karnaim,  and  the  people  of  smaller  (i.e.  ordinary)  stature, 
who  were  with  them." 


KND  OF  THE  THIRD  VOLUME. 


LONDON:  PRINTED  BY  WILLIAM  CLOWES  AND  SONS,  LIMITED, 

STAMFORD  STREET  AND  CHARING   CROSS. 


DICTIONARY    OF   THE    BIBLE 


COMPRISING    ITS 


ANTIQUITIES,   BIOGRAPHY,   GEOGRAPHY, 
AND    NATURAL   HISTORY. 


EDITED 


BY  WILLIAM  SMITH,  D.C.L.,  LL.D., 

EIMT01C  OF   THE   DICTIONARIES  OF  "GREEK   AND   ROMAN  ANTIQUITIES,"  "  BIOGRAPHY   AND  MYTHOLOGY, 

AND    "GEOGRAPHY." 


APPENDIX 


LONDON: 
JOHN    MURRAY,    ALBEMARLE    STREET. 

1863. 

Tlte  right  of  Translation  is  reserved. 


LONDON:   PRINTED  BY  WILLIAM  CLOWES  AND  SONS,  LIMITED,  STAMFORD  STREET 
AND  CHARING  CROSS. 


DICTIONARY   OF   THE   BIBLE. 


APPENDIX  A  TO  VOL.  I. 


AETICLES  UPON  NATUEAL  HISTOEY. 


'Most  of  the  articles  relating  to  Natural  History  in  the  First  Volume  have  been  re-written  by  ILe  Rev. 
William  Houghton,  M.A.,  F.L.S.,  as  it  has  been  thought  advisable  to  treat  this  subject  mere  fully  than 
was  originally  contemplated.] 


ADAMANT 


ADAMANT 


ADAMANT  (YDB,  shamir : 
adamas  a).  The  word  Shamir  occurs  as  a  common 
noun  eleven  times  in  the  0.  T. ,  In  eight  of  these 
passages  it  evidently  stands  for  some  prickly  plant, 
and  accordingly  it  is  rendered  "  briers "  b  by  the 
A.  V.  In  the  three  remaining  passages  (Jer.  xvii. 
1  ;  Ez.  iii.  9  ;  Zech.  vii.  12)  it  is  the  representa 
tive  of  some  stone  of  excessive  hardness,  and  is 
used  in  each  of  these  last  instances  metaphorically. 
In  Jer.  xvii.  1,  Shamir  =  "  diamond  "  in  the  text  of 
the  A.  V.  "The  sin  of  Judah  is  written  with  a 
pen  of  iron  and  with  the  point  of  a  diamond," 
t.  e.  the  people's  idolatry  is  indelibly  fixed  in  their 
affections,  engraved  as  it  were  on  the  tablets  of 
their  hearts.  In  Ez.  iii.  9,  Shamir  =  "  adamant." 
"As  an  adamant  harder  than  flint  have  I  made 
thy  forehead,  fear  them  not."  Here  the  word  is 
intended  to  signify  that  firmness  of  purpose  with 
which  the  prophet  should  resist  the  sin  of  the 
rebellious  house  of  Israel.  In  Zech.  vii.  12,  the 
Hebrew  word  =  "  adamant-stone  " — "  Yea,  they 
made  their  hearts  as  an  adamant-stone,  lest  they 
should  hear  the  law,"  and  is  used  to  express  the 
hardness  of  the  hearts  of  the  Jews  in  resisting 
truth. 

The  LXX.,  afford  us  but  little  clue  whereby  to 
identify  the  mineral  here  spoken  of,  for  in  Ez.  iii.  9 
and  in  Zech.  vii.  12  they  have  not  rendered  the 
Hebrew  word  at  all,  while  the  whole  passage  in 
Jer.  xvii.  1-5  is  altogether  omitted  in  the  Vatican 
MS.  ;  the  Alexandrine  MS.,  however,  has  the 
passage,  and  reads,  with  the  versions  of  Aquila, 


Theodotion,  and  Symmachus,  "  with  a  nail  of 
adamant."6  "Adamant"  occurs  in  the  Apocrypha, 
in  Ecclus.  xvi.  16. 

Our  English  "  Adamant "  is  derived  from  the 
Greek,d  and  signifies  "  the  unconquerable,"  in 
allusion  perhaps  to  the  hard  nature  of  the  sub 
stance,  or,  according  to  Pliny  (xxxvii.  15),  be 
cause  it  was  supposed  to  be  indestructible  by  fire.e 
The  Greek  writers  f  generally  apply  the  word  to 
some  very  hard  metal,  perhaps  steel,  though  they 
do  also  use  it  for  a  mineral.  Pliny,  in  the  chapter 
referred  to  above,  enumerates  six  varieties  of 
Adamas.  Dana  (Syst.  Mineral,  art.  Diamond) 
says  that  the  word  "  Adamas  was  applied  by  the 
ancients  to  several  minerals  differing  much  in  their 
physical  properties.  A  few  of  these  are  quartz, 
specular  iron  ore,  emery,  and  other  substances  of 
rather  high  degrees  of  hardness,  which  cannot  now 
be  identified."  Nor  does  the  English  language 
attach  any  one  definite  meaning  to  Adamant; 
sometimes  indeed  we  understand  the  diamonds  by 
it,  but  it  is  often  used  vaguely  to  express  any  sub 
stance  of  impenetrable  hardness.  Chaucer,  Bacon, 
Shakspeare,  use  it  in  some  instances  for  the  lode- 
stoned  In  modern  mineralogy  the  simple  term  Ada 
mant  has  no  technical  signification,  but  Adamantine 
Spar  is  a  mineral  well  known,  and  is  closely  allied 
to  that  which  we  have  good  reason  for  identifying 
with  the  Shamir  or  Adamant  of  the  Bible. 

That  some  hard  cutting  stone  is  intended  can 
be  shown  from  the  passage  in  Jeremiah  quoted 
above.  Moreover  the  Hebrew  root '  (Skamar,  "  to 


5  A   - 


t,  adamas. 


The  Chaldee 

b  The  word   is   then   frequently  associated   with 
JVK^  "thorns." 


a  ev  6wx'  aSafjLavrCvta,  LXX.  Alex.  ;  "  in  ungue 
adamantine,"  Vulg. 

d  a,8afxaot). 

*  It  is  incorrect  to  suppose  that  even  the  diamond, 
which  is  only  pure  carbon  crystallized,  is  "  invincible  " 
by  fire.  It  will  burn  ;  ami  at  a  temperature  of  14° 
Wedgewood  will  be  wholly  consumed,  producing  car 
bonic  acid  gas. 

[APPENDIX.} 


'  Comp.  also  Senec.  Hercul.  Fur.  807  :  "  Adamante 
texto  vincire." 

s  Our  English  diamond  is  merely  a  corruption  of 
adamant.  Comp.  the  French  diamante. 

h  Chaucer,  Romaunt  of  the  Hose,  1182  ;  Shakspeare, 
Mid.  Night  Dr.  Act  ii.  sc.  2,  and  Troil.  and  Oress. 
Act  iii.  se.  2  ;  Bacon's  Essay  on  Travel. 

1  Furst's  Concordantia,  "^05?,  incidere,  impingere. 
But  Gesenius,  Thes.  sub  voc.  *1DK>,  t.  q.  ")DD» 


horruit,  riguit.     Whence  Arab, 


Samur,  "  an 


Egyptian  thorn"  (see  Forsk&l,  Fl.  JEg.  Ar.  cxxiii.  176). 


,  ndnmas.    See  Vrcytag,  Lex.  Arab.  s.  v, 
B 


fi 


ADDER 


out,"  "to  pierce  "),  from  which  the  word  is  derived, 
reveals  the  nature  of  the  stone,  the  sharpness  of 
which,  moreover,  is  proved  by  the  identity  of  the 
original  word  with  a  brier  or  thorn.  ?>ow  since, 
in  the  opinion  of  those  who  have  given  much  at 
tention  to  the  subject,  the  Hebrews  appear  to  have 
been  unacquainted  with  the  true  diamond,11  it  is 
very  probable,  from  the  expression  in  Ez.  iii.  9,  of 
"  adamant  harder  than  flint"  m  that  by  Shamir  is 
intended  some  variety  of  Corundum,  a  mineral 
inferior  only  to  the  diamond  in  hardness.  Of  this 
mineral  there  are  two  principal  groups,  one  is 
crystalline,  the  other  granular;  to  the  crystalline 
varieties  belong  the  indigo-blue  sapphire,  the  red 
oriental  ruby,  the  yellow  oriental  topaz,  the  green 
oriental  emerald,  the  violet  oriental  amethyst,  the 
brown  adamantine  spar.  But  it  is  to  the  granular 
or  massive  variety  that  the  Shamir  may  with  most 
probability  be  assigned.  This  is  the  modern  Emery, 
extensively  used  in  the  arts  for  polishing  and  cutting 
gems  and  other  hard  substances  ;  it  is  found  in 
Saxony,  Italy,  Asia  Minor,  the  East  Indies,  &c.,  and 
"  occurs  in  boulders  or  nodules  in  mica  slate,  in 
talcose  rock,  or  in  granular  limestone,  associated 
with  oxide  of  iron ;  the  colour  is  smoke-grey  or 
bluish  grey ;  fracture  imperfect.  The  best  kind.- 
are  those  which  have  a  blue  tint ;  but  many  sub 
stances  now  sold  under  the  name  of  emery  contain 
no  corundum."  n  The  Greek  name  for  the  emery  is 
Smyris  or  Smiris,0  and  the  Hebrew  lexicographers 
derive  this  word  from  the  Hebrew  Shamir.  There 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  two  words 
are  identical,  and  that  by  Adamant  we  are  to  un 
derstand  the  emery -stone ,P  or  the  un-crystalline 
variety  of  the  Corundum. 

The  word  SHAMIR  occurs  in  the  0.  T.  three 
times  as  a  proper  name — once  as  the  name  of  a 
man  q  (1  Chr.  xxiv.  24),  and  twice  as  the  name  of 
a  town.  The  name  of  the  town  may  have  reference 
to  the  rocky  nature  of  the  situation,  or  to  briers 
and  thorns  abundant  in  the  neighbourhood.1" 

ADDER.  This  word  in  the  text  of  the  A.  V. 
is  the  representative  of  four  distinct  Hebrew  names, 
mentioned  below.  It  occurs  in  Gen.  xlix.  17 
(margin,  arrow-snake) ;  Ps.  Iviii.  4  (margin,  asp\ 
xci.  13  (margin,  asp);  Prov.  xxiii.  32  (margin, 
cockatrice} ;  and  in  Is.  xi.  8,  xiv.  29,  lix.  5,  the 
margin  has  adder,  whei-e  the  text  has  cockatrice. 
Our  English  word  adder  is  used  for  any  poisonous 
snake,  and  is  applied  in  this  general  sense  by  the 

k  Dana  says  that  the  method  of  polishing  diamonds 
was  first  discovered  in  1456  by  Louis  Bergnen,  a  citi 
zen  of  Bruges,  previous  to  which  time  the  diamond 
was  only  known  in  its  native  uncut  state.  It  is  quite 
clear  that  Shamir  cannot  mean  diamond,  for  if  it  did 
the  word  would  he  mentioned  with  precious  stones  ; 
but  this  is  not  the  case. 

m  >"Jtp  pTfl.  That  "IV,  though  it  may  sometimes 
be  applied  to  T"Trock  "  generally,  yet  sometimes  = flint, 
or  some  otner  variety  of  quartz,  seems  clear  from  Ex. 
iv.  25  :  "  Then  Zipporah  took  a  sharp  stone"  (")*¥)> 
Tsur.  That  flint  knives  were  in  common  use  amongst 
Eastern  nations  is  well  known.  Compare  that  very 
interesting  verse  of  the  LXX.,  Josh.  xxiv.  31. 

n  Ansted's  Mineralogy,  §394. 

o  o-juivpts,  or  <r/u.ipts,  o>upi?  est  a/u/iou  e*8o? 
(Hesychius) ;  a>upis  A.i'0os  ear!  (Dioscor.  v.  165). 
Both  statements  are  correct ;  the  one  refers  to  the 
pwoder,  the  other  to  the  stone.  The  German  Smirgel, 
or  Schmirgel,  is  evidently  allied  to  the  Hebrew  and 
Greek  words.  Bohlen  considers  the  Hebrew  word  to 
be  of  Indian  origin,  comparing  asmira,  a  stone  which 


ADDER 

translators  of  the  A.  V.a  They  use  in  a  similar  way 
the  synonymous  term  asp. 

1.  Acshub  (3-1EO3J:  iuriris'  aspis)  is  found  only 
in  Ps.  cxl.  3,  "They  have  sharpened  their  tongues  like 
a  serpent,  adder's  poison  is  under  their  lips."  The 
latter  half  of  this  verse  is  quoted  by  St.  Paul  from 
the  LXX.  in  Rom.  iii.  13.  The  poison  of  venomous 
serpents  is  often  employed  by  the  sacred  writers  in 
a  figurative  sense  to  express  the  evil  tempers  of  un 
godly  men ;  that  malignity  which,  as  Bishop  Home 
says,  is  "  the  venom  and  poison  of  the  intellectual 
world"  (comp.  Deut.  xxxii.  33;  Job  xx.  14,  16). 

It  is  not  possible  to  say  with  any  degree  of  cer 
tainty  what  particular  species  of  serpent  is  intended 
by  the  Hebrew  word ;  the  ancient  versions  do  not 
help  us  at  all,  although  nearly  all  agree  in  some 
kind  of  serpent,  with  the  exception  of  the  Chaldee 
paraphrase,  which  understands  a  spider  by  Acshub, 
interpreting  this  Hebrew  word  by  one  of  somewhat 
similar  form.h  The  etymology  of  the  term  is  not 
ascertained  with  sufficient  precision  to  enable  us  to 
refer  the  animal  to  any  determinate  species.  Gese« 
nius  derives  it  from  two  Hebrew  roots,0  the  com 
bined  meaning  of  which  is  "  rolled  in  a  spire  and 
lying  in  ambush ;"  a  description  which  would  apply 
to  almost  any  kind  of  serpent. 


TOXICOK  of  Egypt. 

The  number  of  poisonous  serpents  with  which 
the  Jews  were  acquainted  was  in  all  probability 


eats  away  iron.     Doubtless  all  these  words  have  a 
common  origin. 

*  This  is  probably  the  same  stone  which  Herodotus 
(vii.  69)  says  the  Aethiopians  in  the  army  of  Xerxes 
used  instead  of  iron  to  point  their  arrows  with,  and 
by  means  of  which  they  engraved  seals. 

i  In  the  Keri.     The  Chetkib  has  "1-1  Dt?,  Shamur. 

r  It  will  be  enough  merely  to  allude  to  the  Rabbi 
nical  fable  about  Solomon,  the  Hoopoe,  and  the  worm 
Shamir.  See  Bochai't's  Ilierozoicon,  vol.  iii.  p.  842, 
ed.  Rosenmuller,  and  Buxtorf,  Lex.  Talmud,  col. 
2455. 

•  Adder,  in  systematic  zoology,  is  generally  applied 
to   those   genera  which  form   the  family  Viperidac 
— Asp,  to  the  Vipera  Aspis  of  the  Alps. 

b  6J"13V,  Accabish. 

c  Thes.  sub  voc. :— fc?3V,  retrorsu'n  se  flexit,  and 
3jpy,  insidiatus  est.  Alii/  Arab.  Kathaba  (impetum 
facere),  vel  etiam  gashab  (venenum)  couferunt. 
(FUrat). 


ADDER 

fiunited  to  some  five  or  six  species  [SERPENT] 
Mid  as  there  are  reasonable  grounds  for  identifyiu, 
Pethen  and  Shephiphon  with  two  well  knowr 
species,  viz.  the  Egyptian  Cobra  and  the  Hornec 
Viper,  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  AcsMb  maj 
be  represented  by  the  Toxicoa  of  Egypt  and  Nort 
Africa.  At  any  rate  it  is  unlikely  that  the  Jew 
were  unacquainted  with  this  kind,  which  is  com 
mon  in  Egypt  and  probably  in  Syria:  the  Echi 
arenicola,  therefore,  for  such  is  this  adder's  scientifi 
name,  may  be  identical  in  name  and  reality  wit! 
the  animal  signified  by  the  Hebrew  Acshtib. 

Colonel  Hamilton  Smith  suggests  that  the  Acsh&l 
may  be  the  puff  or  spooch-adder  of  the  Dutch 
colonists  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  or  that  o 
Western  Africa ;  but  it  has  never  been  shown 
that  the  Cape  species  (Clotho  arietans)  or  the 
W.  African  species  (Clotho  lateristriga),  the  only 
two  hitherto  known,  are  either  of  them  inhabitants 
of  a  district  so  far  north  and  east  as  Egypt. 

2.  Pethen  (JJ1S).     [Asp.] 

3.  Tsepha,  or'  ''Tsiphoni  (JJBX,  W^V  : 
cunriScav,  KfpAffrrjs ;  regulus)  occurs  five  times  in 
the  Hebrew  Bible.     In  Prov.  xxiii.  32  it  is  trans 
lated  adder,  and  in  the  three  passages  of  Isaiah 
quoted  above,  as  well  as  in  Jer.  viii.  17,  it  is  ren 
dered  cockatrice.    The  derivation  of  the  word  from 
a  root  which  means  "  to  hiss"  does  not  help  us  at 
all  to  identify  the  animal.     From  Jeremiah  we 
learn  that  it  was  of  a  hostile  nature,  and  from  the 
parallelism  of  Is.  xi.  8  it  appears  that  the  tsiphom 
was  considered  even  more  dreadful  than  the  pethen. 
Bochart,  in  his  Hierozoicon  (iii.  182,  ed.  Rosen- 
miiller),  has  endeavoured  to  prove  that  the  tsiphom 
is  the  Basilisk  of  the  Greeks  (whence  Jerome  in 
Vulg.  reads  Regulus),  which  was  then  supposed  to 
destroy  life,  burn  up  grass,  and  break  stones  by  the 
pernicious  influence  of  its  breath  (comp.  Plin.  H.  N. 
viii.  c.  33),  but  this  is  explaining  an  "  ignotum 
per  ignotius." 

The  whole  story  of  the  Basilisk  is  involved  in 
fable,  and  it  is  in  vain  to  attempt  to  discover  the 
animal  to  which  the  ancients  attributed  such 
terrible  power.  It  is  curious  to  observe,  however, 
that  Forsk&l  (Descr.  Animal,  p.  15.)  speaks  of  a 
kind  of  serpent  (Coluber  Holleik  is  the  name  he 
gives  it)  which  he  says  produces  irritation  on  the 
spot  touched  by  its  breath :  he  is  quoting  no  doubt 
the  opinion  of  the  Arabs.  Is  this  a  relic  of  the 
Basiliskan  fable  ?  This  creature  was  so  called  from 
a  mark  on  its  head,  supposed  to  resemble  a  kingly 
c:-own.  Several  serpents,  however,  have  peculiar 
markings  on  the  head — the  varieties  of  the  Spec 
tacle-Cobras  of  India,  for  example— so  that  identifi 
cation  is  impossible.  As  the  LXX.  make  use  of 
the  word  Basilisk  (Ps.  xc.  13;  xci.  13,  A.  V.) 
it  was  thought  desirable  to  say  this  much  on  the 
subject  .d 

•  It  is  possible  that  the  Tsiphoni  may  be  repre 
sented  by  the  Algerine  adder  (Clotho  mauritanica}, 


d  The  Basilisk  of  naturalists  is  a  most  forbidding- 
looking  yet  harmless  lizard  of  the  family  Iguanidae, 
order  Sauria.  In  using  the  term,  therefore,  care  must 
be  taken  not  to  confound  the  mythical  serpent  with 
the  veritable  Saurian. 

8  tDTin  (Hurman],  perniciosus,  from  QIPl,  "to 
destroy."  "  Ita  R.  Salom.  Chaldaeum  explicat, 
Onkelos  autem  reddit,  Sicut  serpens  Hurman,  quod 
eat  nomen  serpentis  cujusdam,  cujus  mot-sits  est  insa- 
nabilis;  is  autem  est  basiliscus  'OiySy  "  (Orit.  Sacri, 
\.  1114). 


ADDEK  ft 

but  it  must  be  confessed  that  this  is  mere  con- 
jecture.  Dr.  Harris,  in  his  Natural  History  of  the 
Bible  erroneously  supposes  it  to  be  identical  with 
the  Rajah  zephen  of  ForskSl,  which,  however,  is  a 
fish  (Trigon  zephen,  Cuv.),  and  not  a  serpent. 


Algerine  Adder.    (Bnttoh  Museum.) 

4.  Shephiphon  (|fe*SE? :  4yKe.0-f]fievos:  cerastes) 
occurs  only  in  Gen.  xlix.  17,  where  it  is  used  to 
characterise  the  tribe  of  Dan :  "  Dan  shall  be  a 
serpent  by  the  way,  an  adder  in  the  path,  that 
biteth  the  horse's  heels,  so  that  his  rider  shall  fall 
backward." .  Various  are  the  readings  of  the  old 
versions  in  this  passage:  the  Samaritan  interprets 
Shephiphon  by  "  lying  in  wait;"  the  Targums  of 
Jonathan,  of  Onkelos,  and  of  Jerusalem,  with  the 
Syriac,  "  a  basilisk."  e  The  Arabic  interpreters 
Erpeuius  and  Saadias  have  "  the  horned  snake;"  f 
and  so  the  Vulg.  Cerastes.  The  LXX.,  like  the 
Samaritan,  must  have  connected  the  Hebrew  term 
with  a  word  which  expresses  the  idea  of  "  sitting 
n  ambush."  The  original  word  comes  from  a  root 
which  signifies  "to  prick,"  "pierce,"  or  "  bite."8 

The  habit  of  the  Shephiphon,  alluded  to  in 
Jacob's  prophecy,  namely,  that  of  lurking  in  the 
sand  and  biting  at  the  horse's  heels,h  suits  the 
iharacter  of  a  well  known  species  of  venomous 
snake,  the  celebrated  homed  viper,  the  asp  pf  Cleo- 
mtra  (Cerastes  Hasselquistii},  which  is  found 
abundantly  in  the  sandy  deserts  of  Egypt,  Syria, 
md  Arabia.  The  Hebrew  word  Shephiphon  is  no 
doubt  identical  with  the  Arabic  Si/on.  If  the 
ranslation  of  this  Arabic  word  by  Golius  be  com- 
mred  with  the  description  of  the  Cerastes  in  the 
British  Museum,  there  will  appear  good  reason  for 
dentifying  the  Shephiphon  of  Genesis  with  the 
Cerastes  of  naturalists.  "  Si/on,  serpentis  genus 
eve,  punctjs  maculisque  distiuctum  "- — "  a  smal  I 
kind  of  serpent  marked  with  dots  and  spots"  (Golius, 
Arab.  Lex.  s.v.}.  "  The  Cerastes  (Cerastes  Has- 
elquistif),  brownish  white  with  pale  brown  irre* 


t  From  PjEK>,  pungere,  mordere,  according  to  FiirSi 
nd  A.  Schultens  ;  but  Gesenius  denies  this  meaning.. 

V 

nd  compares  the    Syr.    c£-«,    "  to   glide,"    •'  U 
reep." 


fv  6'  a. 

"II  Kal  a/xarpoxijjo-i  Kara  (rriftov,  ei/SvKe?  aweu 
Nicaudor,  Theriac.  262 
B  2 


iv 


ADDER 


gular  unequal  spots"  (Cat.  of  Snakes  in  Brit.  M. 
pt.  i.  29).  It  is  not  pretended  that  the  mere  fact 
of  these  two  animals  being  spotted  affords  sufficient 
ground,  when  taken  alone,  for  asserting  that  they 
are  identical,  for  many  serpents  have  this  character 
in  common ;  but,  when  taken  in  connexion  with 
what  has  been  adduced  above,  coupled  with  the 
tact  that  this  spotted  character  belongs  only  to  a 
rery  few  kinds  common  iu  the  localities  in  question, 
it  does  at  least  form  strong  presumptive  evidence  in 
favour  of  the  identity  of  the  Shophiphon  with  the 
Cerastes.  The  name  of  Cerastes  is  derived  from 
a  curious  hornlike  process  above  each  eye  in  the 
male,1  which  gives  it  a  formidable  appearance. 
Bruce,  in  his  Travels  in  Abyssinia,  has  given  a 
very  accurate  and  detailed  account  of  these  animals. 


The  Horned  Cctasteo.    ( Krom  gpecin-.t-n  in  Britisl 


He  observes  that  he  found  them  in  greatest  numbers 
in  those  parts  which  were  frequented  by  the  jerboa, 
and  that  in  the  stomach  of  a  Cerastes  he  discovered 
the  remains  of  a  jerboa.  He  kept  two  of  these  snakes 
in  a  glass  vessel  for  two  years  without  any  food. 
Another  circumstance  mentioned  by  Bruce  throws 
come  light  on  the  assertions  of  ancient  authors  as 
to  the  movement  of  this  snake.  Aelian,k  Isiderus, 
Aetius,  have  all  recorded  of  the  Cerastes  that, 
whereas  other  serpents  creep  along  in  a  straight 
direction,  this  one  and  the  Haemorrhous m  (no 
doubt  the  same  animal  under  another  name)  move 
sideways,  stumbling  as  it  were  on  either  side  (and 
comp.  'Bochart).  Let  this  be  compared  with  what 
Bruce  says :  "  The  Cerastes  moves  with  great  ra 
pidity  and  in  all  directions,  forwards,  backwards, 
sideways ;  when  he  inclines  to  surprise  any  one  who 
is  too  far  from  him,  he  creeps  with  his  side  towards 
the  person,"  &c.  &c.  The  words  of  Ibn  Sina,  or 
Avicenna,  are  to  the  same  effect.  It  is  right,  how 
ever,  to  state  that  nothing  unusual  has  been  observed 
in  the  mode  of  progression  of  the  Cerastes  now  in 


AGATK 

'he  gardens  of  the  Zoological  Society  ;  but  of  course 
negative  evidence  in  the  instance  of  a  specimen  not 
in  a  state  of  nature  does  not  invalidate  the  state 
ment  of  so  accurate  an  observer  as  Bruce. 

The  Cerastes  is  extremely  venomous;  Bruce 
compelled  one  to  scratch  eighteen  pigeons  upon  the 
thigh  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  they  all  died  nearly 
in  the  same  interval  of  time.  It  averages  12  to  15 
inches  in  length,  but  is  occasionally  found  larger. 
It  belongs  to  the  family  Viperidae,  order  Ophidia.0 
[SERPENT.] 

From  the  root  Shaphaph  are  possibly  derived 
the  proper  names  of  SHUPHAM,  whence  the 
family  of  the  SHUPHAMITES,  SHEPHUPHAN.  and 
SHUPPIM. 

AGATE  (ihK>,  shebo  ;  1313,  cadcod  : 
:  achates]  is  mentioned  four  times  in  the 
text  of  the  A.  V. ;  viz.  in  Ex.  xxviii.  19,  xxxix. 
12  ;  Is.  liv.  12 ;  Ez.  xxvii.  16.  In  the  two  former 
passages  where  it  is  represented  by  the  Hebrew 
word  shebo,  it  is  spoken  of  as  forming  the  second 
stone  in  the  third  row  of  the  high-priest's  breast 
plate  ;  in  each  of  the  two  latter  places  the  original 
word  is  cadcod,  by  which  no  doubt  is  intended  a 
different  stone.  [RUBY.]  In  Ez.  xxvii.  1C,  where 
the  text  has  agate,  the  margin  has  chrysoprase> 
whereas  in  the  very  next  chapter,  Ez.  xxviii.  13, 
chrysoprase  occurs  in  the  margin  instead  of  emerald, 
which  is  in  the  text,  as  the  translation  of  an  entirely 
different  Hebrew  word,  nophec  ;*  this  will  show  how 
much  our  translators  were  perplexed  as  to  the  mean 
ings  of  the  minerals  and  precious  stones  mentioned 
in  the  sacred  volume  ;b  and  this  uncertainty  which 
belongs  to  the  mineralogy  of  the  Bible,  and  indeed 
in  numerous  instances  to  its  botany  and  zoology,  is 
by  no  means  a  matter  of  surprise  when  we  consider 
how  often  there  is  no  collateral  evidence  of  any 
kind  that  might  possibly  help  us,  and  that  the  de 
rivations  of  the  Hebrew  words  have  generally  and 
necessarily  a  very  extensive  signification ;  identifica 
tion  therefore  in  many  cases  becomes  a  difficult  and 
uncertain  matter. 

Various  definitions  of  the  Hebrew  word  shebo 
have  been  given  by  the  learned,  but  nothing  defi 
nite  can  be  deduced  from  any  one  of  them.  Gese- 
nius  places  the  word  under  the  root  shdbdhf  "to 
take  prisoner,"  but  allows  that  nothing  at  all  can 
be  learned  from  such  an  etymology.  Fiirst d  with 
more  probability  assigns  to  the  name  an  Arabic 
origin,  shdba,  "  to  glitter." 

Again,  we  find  curiously  enough  an  interpretation 
which  derives  it  from  another  Arabic  root,  which  has 
precisely  the  opposite  meaning,  viz.  "  to  be  dull  and 


1  The  female,  however,  is  supposed  sometimes  to 
possess  these  horns.  Hasselquist  (Jtiner.  pp.  241, 
365)  has  thu?  described  them  : — *«  Tentacula  duo, 
utrinque  unum  ad  latera  verticis,  in  margine  superiori 
orbitae  ocnli,  erecta,  parte  aversa  parum  arcuata, 
eademque  parte  parum  canaliculata,  sub-dura,  mem- 
brana  tenaci  vestita,  basi  squamis  minimis,  una  serie 
erectis,  cincta,  brevia,  orbitae  oculorum  dimidia  longi- 
tudine." 

With  this  description  that  of  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire  may 
be  compared  :— "  Au  dessus  des  yeux  nait  de  chaque 
cote"  une  petite  eminence,  ou  comme  on  a  coutume  de 
la  dire  une  petite  come,  league  de  deux  ou  trois  lignes, 
presentant  dans  le  sens  de  sa  longueur  des  sillons  et 
dirigee  en  haut  et  un  pea  en  arriere,  d'oil  le  nom  de 
Ceraste.  La  nature  des  comes  du  Ce"raste  est  tres 
pen  connue,  te  leurs  usages,  si  tovtefois  elles  peuvent 
etre  dequelque  utilite"  pour  1'animal,  sont  entierement 
ignores." 


k  Ao£6t/  Se  ol/aov  irpoeia-iv  (Aelian,  De  Anim.  xv.  13.) 

m  Aoxjua  8*  eTTioxa^ui'  b\iyov  Se'yxa?,  ola  Kepaonj? 
(Nicander,  Theriac.  294). 

"  Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  209,  Rosenm.)  eays  that 
the  Rabbins  derive  jb^St^  from  5]Qt^,  claudicare, 
wherefore  PpSCJ'  is  claudus. 

0  The  celebrated  John  Ellis  seems  to  have  been  the 
first  Englishman  who  gave  an  accurate  description  of 
the  Cerastes  (see  Philosoph.  Transact.  1760). 

a  "nsj. 

b  See  "  Translators'  Preface  to  the  Reader,"  which 
it  is  to  be  regretted  is  never  now  printed  in  editions 
of  the  Bible. 

c  i"Q£^,  captivum  fecit,  Gesen.  Thesaur.  s.  v. 

d   Comp,  Golius,  Arab.  Lex.  <_ ^£,  exarsit. 


ALABASTER 

obscure,  '*  Another  derivation  traces  the  word  to 
the  proper  name  Sheba,  whence  precious  stones  were 
exported  for  the  Tvrian  merchants.  Of  these  deri 
vations  it  is  difficult  to  see  any  meaning  at  all  in 
the  first/  while  a  contrary  one  to  what  we  should 
expect  is  given  to  the  third,  for  a  dull-looking  stone 
is  surely  out  of  place  amongst  the  glittering  gems 
which  adorned  the  sacerdotal  breastplate.  The 
derivation  adopted  by  Furst  is  perhaps  the  most 
probable,  yet  there  is  nothing  even  in  it  which  will 
indicate  the  stone  intended.  That  shebo,  however, 
does  stand  for  some  variety  of  agate  seems  generally 
agreed  upon  by  commentators,  for,  as  Rosenmuller  s 
has  observed  (Schol.  in  Exod.  xxviii.  19),  there  is 
a  wonderful  agreement  amongst  interpreters,  who 
all  understand  an  agate  by  the  term. 

Our  English  agate,  or  ac/iat,  derives  its  name 
from  the  Achates,  the  modern  Dirillo,  in  the  Val  di 
Noto,  in  Sicily,  on  the  banks  of  which,  according  to 
Theophrastus  and  Pliny,  it  was  first  found  ;h  but  as 
agates  are  met  with  in  almost  every  country,  this 
stone  was  doubtless  from  the  earliest  times  known 
to  the  Orientals.  It  is  a  silicious  stone  of  the 
quartz  family,  and  is  met  with  generally  in  rounded 
nodules,  or  in  veins  in  trap-rocks ;  specimens  are 
often  found  on  the  sea-shore,  and  in  the  beds  of 
streams,  the  rocks  in  which  they  had  been  im 
bedded  having  been  decomposed  by  the  elements, 
when  the  agates  have  dropped  out.  Some  of  the 
principal  varieties  are  called  chalcedony,  from  Chal- 
cedon  in  Asia  Minor,  where  it  is  found,  cornelian, 
chrysoprase,  an  apple-green  variety  coloured  by 
oxide  of  nickel ;  Mocha-stones,  or  moss  agate,  which 
owe  their  dendritic  or  tree-like  markings  to  the  im 
perfect  crystallization  of  the  colouring  salts  of  man 
ganese  or  iron,  onyx-stones,  blood-stones,  &c.  &c. 
Beautiful  specimens  of  the  art  of  engraving  on 
chalcedony  are  still  found  among  the  tombs  of 
Egypt,  Assyria,  Etruria,  &c.1 

ALABASTER  (aKdpaffrpos  :  alabastrum} 
occurs  in  the  N.  T.  only,  in  the  notice  of  the 
alabaster-box  of  ointment  which  a  woman  brought 
to  our  Lord  when  He  sat  at  meat  in  the  house 
of  Simon  the  leper  at  Bethany,  the  contents  of 
which  she  poured  on  the  head  of  the  Saviour.  (See 
Matt.  xxvi.  7  ;  Mark  xiv.  3  ;  Luke  vii.  37.)  By  the 
English  word  alabaster  is  to  be  understood  both 
that  kind  which  is  also  known  by  the  name  of 
gypsum,  and  the  oriental  alabaster  which  is  so 
much  valued  on  account  of  its  translucency,  and 
for  its  variety  of  coloured  streakings,  red,  yellow, 
gray,  &c.,  which  it  owes  for  the  most  part  to  the 
admixture  of  oxides  of  iron.  The  latter  is  a  fibrous 
carbonate  of  lime,  of  which  there  are  many  varieties, 


5    cf.   Freytag,   Arab.  Lex. 


nonj.  of  £x£)>  obscura,  ambigua  fuit  res  alicui. 

f  "  Sed  hsec  nihil  faciunt  ad  detegendam  ejus 
naturam."  —  Braun.  V.  S.  II.  xv.  i. 

s  "Q^J,  "  esse  achatem,  satis  probabile  est,  quum 
minis  in  hoc  lapide  interpretum  sit  consensus."  Vid. 
Braun.  de  Vest.  Sacerd.  Hebraeor.  II.  c.  xv.  iii. 

k  KoAbs  Se  At'flos  KM.  o  'A^arr/?  6  arrb  TOV  'A^arou 
Kora/J-ov  TOV  ey  2i*eAi'<j  Kal  TrwAeiTat  rt/aios-  —  Theoph. 
Fr.  ii.  31,  ed.  Schneider,  and  Plin.  xxxvii.  54; 
Lithographic  Sicilicnne,  Naples,  1777,  p.  16. 

1  Compare  with  this  Ex.  xxxviii.  23  :  "  And  -with 
him  was  Aholiab,  son  of  Ahisainach,  of  the  tribe  of 
Dan,  an  engraver  and  a  cunning  workman  ,"  and 


ALABASTER  v 

satin  spar  being  one  of  the  most  common.  The 
former  is  a  hydrous  sulphate  of  lime,  and  forms 
when  calcined  and  ground  the  well-known  sub 
stance  called  plaster  of  Paris.  Both  these  kinds 
of  alabaster,  but  especially  the  latter,  are  and  have 
been  long  used  for  various  ornamental  purposes, 
such  as  the  fabrication  of  vases,  boxes,  &c.  &c.  The 
ancients  considered  alabaster  (carbonate  of  lime)  to 
be  the  best  material  in  which  to  preserve  their  oint 
ments  (Pliny,  H.  N.  xiii.  3).  Herodotus  (iii.  20) 
mentions  an  alabaster  vessel  of  ointment  which 
Cambyses  sent,  amongst  other  things,  as  a  present 
to  the  Aethiopians.  Hammond  (Annotat.  ad  Matt. 
xxvi.  7)  quotes  Plutarch,  Julius  Pollux,  and 
Athenaeus,  to  shew  that  alabaster  was  the  material 
in  which  ointments  were  wont  to  be  kept. 

In  2  K.  xxi.  13,  "  I  will  wipe  Jerusalem  as  a 
man  wipeth  a  dish"  (Heb.  tsallachath),  the  Vat. 
and  Alex,  versions  of  the  LXX.  use  alabastron  in  the 
rendering  of  the  Hebrew  words.*  The  reading  of 
the  LXX.  in  this  passage  is  thus  literally  translated 
by  Hanner  (Observations,  iv.  473):  "I  will  un- 
anoint  Jerusalem  as  an  alabaster  unanointed  box  is 
unanointed,  and  is  turned  down  on  its  face."  Pliny  6 
tells  us  that  the  usual  form  of  these  alabaster  vessels 
was  long  and  slender  at  the  top,  and  round  and  full 
at  the  bottom.  He  likens  them  to  the  long  pearls, 
called  elenchi,  which  the  Roman  ladies  suspended 
from  their  fingers  or  dangled  from  their  ears.  He 
compares  also  the  green  pointed  cone  of  a  rose-bud 
to  the  form  of  an  alabaster  ointment-vessel  (N.  If. 
xxi.  4).  The  cnyx— (cf.  Hor.  Od.  iv.  12,  17, 
"  Nardi  parvus  onyx" — which  Pliny  says  is  another 
name  for  alabastrites,  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  precious  stone  of  that  name,  which  is  a  sub 
species  of  the  quartz  family  of  minerals,  being  a 
variety  of  agate.  Perhaps  the  name  of  onyx  was 
given  to  the  pink-coloured  variety  of  the  calcareous 
alabaster,  in  allusion  to  its  resembling  the  finger, 
nail  (onyx}  in  colour,  or  else  because  the  calcareous 
alabaster  bears  some  resemblance  to  the  agate-onyx 
in  the  characteristic  lunar-shaped  mark  of  the  last- 
named  stone,  which  mark  reminded  the  ancients  of 
the  whitish  semicircular  spot  at  the  base  of  the 
finger-nail. 

The  term  alabastra,  however,  was  by  no  means  ex 
clusively  applied  to  vessels  made  from  this  material. 
Theocritus  c  speaks  of  golden  alabasters.  That  the 
passage  in  Theociitus  implies  that  the  alabasters  were 
made  of  gold,  and  not  simply  gilt,  as  some  have 
understood  it,  seems  clear  from  the  words  of  Plutarch 
(in  Alexandra,  p.  676),  cited  by  Kypke  on  Mark  xiv 
3,  where  he  speaks  of  alabasters  "all  skilfully  wrought 
of  gold."  d  Alabasters,  then,  may  have  been  made 


ch.  xxxix.  8,  "  And  he  made  the  breastplate  of  cnn- 
ning  work." 

•  aTroAefyo)  TJJV  'Itpova-aArj/u.,  Kafto?  aTraAei^erai  o 
aA.a/3acrrpoi  aTraAei^o/Aevos,  Kal  Ka.Ta<rrpe'(£eTai  eirl  npo- 
trunov  avrov,  LXX.  The  Complutensian  version  and 
the  Vulgate  understand  the  passage  in  a  very  different 
way. 

b  "  Et  procerioribus  sua  gratia  est :  elenchos  appel 
lant  fastigata  longitudine,  alabastrorurn  figura  in 
pleniorem  orbein  desinentes"  (H.  N.  ix.  56). 

c  Svptto  Se  /xvpw  xpv<rei'  aAa/Saorpa  (Id.  xv.  114,. 
"  jivpov  xP"0"61*  aAa/Scurrpa  non  sunt  vasa  unguentaria 
ex  alabastrite  lapide  eaque  aurc  ornata,  sed  simpu- 
citcr  vasa  unguentaria  ex  auro  facta.  Cf.  Scli-euen. 
Lex.  N.  T.  s.  v.  aAa/Saorpoi' "  (Kiessling,  ad  Theocrt 
I.e.) 

d  \pvffov  jjcncrjjueva  TreptTTais. 


vl  ALGUM 

of  any  material  suitable  for  keeping  ointment  in, 
glass,  silver,  gold,  &c.  Precisely  similar  is  the  use 
of  the  English  word  box;  and  perhaps  the  Greek 
TTV£OS  and  the  Latin  buxus  are  additional  illustrations. 
Box  is  doubtless  derived  from  the  name  of  the  shrub, 
the  wood  of  which  is  so  well  adapted  for  turning 
boxes  and  such  like  objects.  The  term,  which  ori 
ginally  was  limited  to  boxes  made  of  the  box-wood, 
eventually  extended  to  boxes  generally  ;  as  we  say, 
an  iron-box,  a  gold-box,  &c.  &c. 

In  Mark  xiv.  3,  the  woman  who  brought  "  the 
alabaster-box  of  ointment  of  spikenard  "  is  said  to 
break  the  box  before  pouring  out  the  ointment. 
This  passage  has  been  variously  understood  ;  but 
Banner's  interpretation  is  probably  correct,  that 
breaking  the  box  implies  merely  breaking  the  seal 
which  kept  the  essence  of  the  perfume  from  eva 
porating. 

The  town  of  Alabastron  in  Middle  Egypt  received 
its  name  from  the  alabaster  quarries  of  the  adjacent 
hill,  the  modern  Mount  St.  Anthony.  In  this  town 
was  a  manufactory  of  vases  and  vessels  for  holding 
perfumes,  &c. 

ALGUM  or  ALMUG  TREES 


algummim  ;  D^P?K,  almuggim  :  £uA.o 
KrjTd,  Alex.,  £.  TreAeKTjra,  Vat.,  in  1  K.  x.  11, 
12  ;  £.  irtvKiva  :  ligna  thyina,  ligna  pined}.  There 
can  be  no  question  that  these  words  are  identical, 
although,  according  to  Celsius  (Hierob.  i.  173),  some 
doubted  it.  The  same  author  enumerates  no  fewer 
than  fifteen  different  trees,  each  one  of  which  has 
been  supposed  to  have  a  claim  to  represent  the 
algum  or  almug-tree  of  Scripture.  Mention  of  the 
almug  is  made  in  1  K.  x.  11,  12,  2  Chr.  ix.  10,  11, 
as  having  been  broxight  in  great  plenty  from  Ophir, 
together  with  gold  and  precious  stones,  by  the  fleet 
of  Hiram,  for  Solomon's  Temple  and  house,  and  for 
the  construction  of  musical  instruments.  "  The 
kins;  made  of  the  almug-trees  pillars  for  the  house 
of  the  Lord,  and  for  the  king's  house,  harps  also 
and  psalteries  for  singers  ;  there  came  no  such 
almug-trees,  nor  were  seen  unto  this  day."  In 
2  Chr.  ii.  8,  Solomon  is  represented  as  desiring 
Hiram  to  send  him  "  cedar-trees,  fir-trees,  and 
algum-trees  (marg.  almuggim)  out  of  Lebanon." 
From  the  passage  in  Kings,  it  seems  clear  almug- 
trees  carne  from  Ophir  ;  and  as  it  is  improbable  that 
Lebanon  should  also  have  been  a  locality  for  them, 
the  passage  which  appears  to  ascribe  the  growth  of 
the  almug-tree  to  the  mountains  of  Lebanon  must 
be  considered  to  be  either  an  interpolation  of  some 
transcriber,  or  else  it  must  bear  a  different  inter 
pretation.  The  former  view  is  the  one  taken  by 
Rosenmiiller  (Bibl.  Bot.  245,  Norren's  translation), 
who  suggests  that  the  wood  had  been  brought  from 
Ophir  to  Tyre,  and  that  Solomon's  instructions  to 
Hiram  were  to  send  on  to  Jerusalem  (via  Joppa, 
perhaps)  the  timber  imported  from  Ophir  that  was 
lying  at  the  port  of  Tyre,  with  the  cedars  which 
had  been  cut  in  Mount  Lebanon  (see  Lee's  Heb. 
Lex.  s.  v.  "  Almuggim").  No  information  can 
be  deduced  from  the  readings  of  the  LXX.,  who 


ALGUM 

explain  the  Hebrew  word  by  "  hewn  wood  "  (IK. 
x.  11,  Vat.),  "unhewn  wood"  (ibid.  Alex.),  and 
"  pine-wood"  (2  Chr.  ii.  8,  and  ix.  10,  11).  The 
Vulg.  in  the  passages  of  Kings  and  2  Chr.  ix.  read 
ligna  thyina ;  but  in  2  Chr.  ii.  8  follows  the  LXX., 
and  has  ligna  pinca.  Interpreters  are  greatly  per 
plexed  as  to  what  kind  of  tree  is  denoted  by  the 
words  algummim  and  almuggim.  The  Arabic  and 
the  Chaldee  interpretations,  with  Munster,  A.  Mon- 
tanus,  Deodatus,  Noldius,  Tigurinus,  retain  the 
original  word,  as  does  the  A.  V.  in  all  the  three 
passages.  The  attempts  at  identification  made  by 
modern  writers  have  not  been  happy.  (1.)  Some 
maintain  that  the  thyina  a  wood  (Thuya  articulata) 
is  signified  by  algum.  This  wood,  as  is  well  known, 
was  highly  prized  by  the  Romans,  who  used  it  for 
doors  of  temples,  tables,  and  a  variety  of  pur 
poses  ;  for  the  citron-wood  of  the  ancients  appeal's 
to  be  identical  with  the  thuya.  (The  word  occurs 
in  Rev.  xviii.  12.)  Its  value  to  the  Romans  ac 
counts  for  the  reading  of  the  Vulgate  in  the  passages 
quoted  above.  But  the  Thuya  articulata  is  indi 
genous  to  the  north  of  Africa,  and  is  not  found  in 
Asia  ;  and  few  geographers  will  be  found  to  identify 
the  ancient  Ophir  with  any  port  on  the  N.  African 
coast.  [OPHIR.]  (2.)  Not  more  happy  is  the 
opinion  of  Dr.  Kitto,  that  the  deodar  is  the  tree 
probably  designated  by  the  term  almug  (Pict.  Bibl., 
note  on  2  Chr.).  On  this  subject  Dr.  Hooker,  in  a 
letter  to  the  writer,  says,  "  The  deodar  is  out  of  the 
question.  It  is  no  better  than  cedar,  and  never 
could  have  been  exported  from  Himalaya."  (3.) 
The  late  Dr.  Royle,  with  more  reason,  is  inclined  to 
decide  on  the  white  sandal-wood  (Santalum  album  ; 
see  Cyd.  Bib.  Lit.  ail.  "  Algum.")  This  tree  is  a 
native  of  India  and  the  mountainous. parts  of  the 
coast  of  Malabar,  and  deliciously  fragrant  in  the  parts 
near  to  the  root.  It  is  much  used  in  the  manu 
facture  of  work-boxes,  cabinets,  and  other  orna 
ments.  (4.)  The  rabbins b  understand  a  wood 
commonly  called  brasil,  in  Arabic  albaccam,  of  a 
deep  red  colour,  used  in  dyeing.0  This  appears  to 
be  the  bukkum  (Caesalpinia  sappan),  a  tree  allied 
to  the  Brazil-wood  of  modern  commerce,  and  found 
in  India ;  and  many  of  the  Jewish  doctors  understand 
coral  (i.  e.  coral- wood)  by  the  word  almug,  the 
name  no  doubt  having  reference  to  the  colour  of  the 
wood.  (5.)  If  any  reliance  is  to  be  placed  on  these 
rabbinical  interpretations,  the  most  probable  of  all 
the  attempts  to  identify  the  almug  is  that  first  pro 
posed  by  Celsius  (Hierob.  i.  172),  viz.  that  the  red 
sandal-wood  (Pterocarpus  santalinus)  may  be  the 
kind  denoted  by  the  Hebrew  word.  But  this,  after 
all,  is  mere  conjecture.  "  I  have  often,"  says  Dr. 
Hooker,  "  heard  the  subject  of  the  almug-tree  dis 
cussed,  but  never  to  any  purpose.  The  Pterocarpus 
santalinus  has  occurred  to  me  ;  but  it  is  not  found 
in  large  pieces,  nor  is  it,  I  believe,  now  used  for 
musical  purposes." 

This  tree,  which  belongs  to  the  natural  order 
Leguminosae,  and  sub-order  Papilionaceae,  is  a  na 
tive  of  India  and  Ceylon.  The  wood  is  very  heavy ; 
hard,  and  fine-grained,  and  of  a  beautiful  garnet 


»  Thuja  appears  to  be  a  corruption  of  Thya,  from 
9v<a,  "  I  sacrifice,"  the  wood  having  been  used  in 
sacrifices.  Thuja  occidentalis  is  the  well-known  ever 
green,  "  arbor  vitae." 

6  R.  Salomon  Ben  Melek,  1  K.  x.  11,  and  R.  Dav. 
Kimchi,  2  Chr.  ii.  8.  "  Algummim  est  quod  almyggim, 
arbor  rubris  colorif  dicta  Arabum  lingua  albaccam, 
vulgo  brasilia."  See  Celsius,  who  -wonders  that  the 
term  '*  Brazil-wood  "  (Lignum  brasilieme)  should  be 


named  by  one  who  lived  300  years  before  the  discovery 
of  America  ;  but  tile  word  brasil  also  =  red  colour. 
Cf.  Rosenm.  Bot.  of  Bibl.  p.  243,  Morren's  note. 


»  lignum  arboris.magnae,  foliis  amygdalinis, 


cujus  decocto  tingitur  color  rubicundus  seu  pseudo- 
purpureus—  iiguum  bresillum  —  etiam,  color  ejus  tine- 
turam  ret'erens  (Golius,  Arab.  Lex.  s.  v. 


ALMOND 

coloui  as  any  one  may  see  who  has  observed  the 
medicnal  prej«ratiou,  the  compound  tincture  of 
lavender,  which  is  coloured  by  the  wood  of  the 
red  sandal-tree.  Dr.  Lee  (Lex.  Heb.  s.  v.  "  Al- 
gummim"),  identifying  Ophir  with  some  seaport  of 
Ceylon,  following  Bochart  (Chanaan,  i.  46)  herein, 
thinks  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  wood  in 
question  must  be  either  the  Kalanji  ud  of  Ceylon 
or  the  sandal-wood  (Pterocarpus  sant.  ?)  of  India. 
The  Kalanji  ud,  which  apparently  is  some  species  of 
Pterocarpus,  was  particularly  esteemed  and  sought 
after  for  the  manufacture  of  lyres  and  musical  in 
struments,  as  Dr.  Lee  has  proved  by  quotations  from 
Arabic  and  Persian  works.  In  fact  he  says  that 
the  Eastern  lyre  is  termed  the  ud,  perhaps  because 
made  of  this  sort  of  wood.  As  to  the  derivation 
of  the  word  nothing  certain  can  ba  learnt.  Killer 
(ITierophyt.  p.  i.  106)  derives  it  from  two  words 
meaning  "  drops  of  gum,"  d  as  if  some  resinous  wood 
was  intended.  There  is  no  objection  to  this  deriva 
tion.  The  various  kinds  of  pines  are  for  the  most 
part  trees  of  a  resinous  nature ;  but  the  value  of  the 
timber  for  building  is  great.  Nor  would  this  deri 
vation  be  unsuitable  to  the  Pterocarpidae  generally, 
several  species  of  which  emit  resins,  when  the  stem 
is  wounded.  Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  7,  §1)  makes 
special  mention  of  a  tree  not  unlike  pine,  but  which 
he  is  careful  to  warn  us  not  to  confuse  with  the 
pine-trees  known  to  the  merchants  of  his  time. 
"  Those  we  are  speaking  of,"  he  says,  "  were  in 
appearance  like  the  wood  of  the  fig-tree,  but  were 
whiter  and  more  shining."  This  description  is  too 
vague  to  allow  us  even  to  conjecture  what  he 
means.  And  it  is  quite  impossible  to  arrive  at  any 
certain  conclusion  in  the  attempt  to  identify  the 
algum  or  almug-tree.  The  arguments,  however, 
are  more  in  favour  of  the  red  sandal-wood  than  of 
any  other  tree. 

ALMOND  O££>,  shdked  (M?) :  ap.i>y$a\ov, 
itdpvov,  teapvivos,  Kapv&rd :  amygdalus,  amygdala, 
in  nucis  modum,  instar  nucis,  virga  vigilans). 
This  word  is  found  in  Gen.  xliii.  11  ;  Ex.  xxv.  33, 
34,  xxx vii.  19,  20;  Numb.  xvii.  8;  Eccles.  xii. 
5 ;  Jer.  i.  11,  in  the  text  of  the  A.  V.  It  is  in 
variably  represented  by  the  same  Hebrew  word 
(shdked'],  which  sometimes  stands  for  the  whole 
tree,  sometimes  for  the  fruit  or  nut ;  for  instance, 
in  Gen.  xliii.  11,  Jacob  commands  his  sons  to  take 
as  a  present  to  Joseph  "  a  little  honey,  spices  and 
myrrh,  nuts  and  almonds;"  here  the  fruit  is  clearly 
meant.  In  the  passages  out  of  the  book  of  Exodus 
the  "  bowls  made  like  unto  almonds,"  a  which  were 
to  adorn  the  golden  candlestick,  seem  to  allude  to 
the  nut  also.b  Aaron's  rod,  that  so  miraculously 


ALMOND 


vii 


budded,  yielded  almond  nuts.  In  the  two  passages 
from  Ecclesiastes  and  Jeremiah,  shdked  is  translated 
almond  tree,  which  from  the  context  it  certainlj 
represents.  It  is  clearly  then  a  mistake  to  suppose, 
with  some  writers,  that  shdked  stands  exclusively 
for  "almond-nuts,"  and  that  luz  signifies  the 
"  tree."c  Rosenmiiller  conjectures  that  the  latter 
word  designates  the  wild,  the  former  the  cultivated, 
tree.  This  may  be  so,  but  it  appears  more  probable 
that  this  tree,  conspicuous  as  it  was  for  its  early 
flowering  and  useful  fruit,  was  known  by  these  ttoo 
different  names.  The  etymology  of  the  Hebrew  Iftz 
is  uncertain ;  and  although  the  word  occurs  only 
in  Gen.  xxx.  37,  where  it  is  translated  hazel  in  the 
text  of  the  A.  V.,  yet  there  can  be  little  or  no 
doubt  that  it  is  another  word  for  the  almond,  for 
in  the  Arabic  this  identical  word,  luz,  denotes  th« 
almond.  [HAZEL.]  The  early  appearance  of  the 
blossoms  on  the  almond-tree  (Amygdalus  commu- 
nis)  was  no  doubt  regarded  by  the  Jews  of  old  as  a 
welcome  harbinger  of  spring,  reminding  them  that 
the  winter  was  passing  away — that  the  flowers 
would  soon  appear  on  the  earth — and  that  the  time 
of  the  singing  of  birds  and  the  voice  of  the  turtle 
would  soon  be  heard  in  the  land  (Song  of  Sol.  ii. 
11,  12).  The  word  shdked,  therefore,  or  the  tree 
which  hastened  to  put  forth  its  blossoms,  was  a 
very  beautiful  and  fitting  synonym  for  the  luz,  or 
almond-tree,  in  the  language  of  a  people  so  fond 
of  imagery  and  poetry  as  were  the  Jews.  We 
have  in  our  own  language  instances  of  plants  being 
named  from  the  season  of  the  year  when  they  are 
flowering — May  for  Hawthorn;  Pasque  Flower 
for  Anemone ;  Lent  Lily  for  Daffodil ;  Winter 
Cress  for  Hedge  Mustard.  But  perhaps  the  best 
and  most  exact  illustration  of  the  Hebrew  shdked  is 
to  be  found  in  the  English  word  Apricot,  or  Apri- 
cock,  as  it  was  formerly  and  more  correctly  called, 
which  is  derived  from  the  Latin  praecoqua,  prae- 
cocia  ;  this  tree  was  so  called  by  the  Romans,  who 
considered  it  a  kind  of  peach  which  ripened  earlier 
than  the  common  one;  hence  its  name,  the  pre 
cocious  tree  (comp.  Plin.  xv.  11  ;  Martial,  xiii.  46). 
Shdked,  therefore,  was  in  all  probability  only  another 
name  with  the  Jews  for  luz. 

Shdked  is  derived  from  a  root  which  signifies 
"  to  be  wakeful,"  "  to  hasten,"  a  for  the  almond- 
tree  blossoms  very  early  in  the  season,  the  flowers 
appearing  before  the  leaves.  Two  species  of  Amyg 
dalus — A.  persica,  the  peach-tree,  and  A.  com- 
munis,  the  shdked — appear  to  be  common  in  Pales 
tine.  They  are  both,  according  to  Dr.  Kitto  (Phys. 
Hist.  Palest,  p.  211),  in  blossom  in  every  part  of 
Palestine  in  January.  The  almond-tree  has  been  no- 


d  For  the  various  etymologies  that  have  been  given 
to  the  Hebrew  word  see  Celsius,  Ifierob.  i.  172,  sq. ; 
Salmasius,  Hyl.  latr.  p.  120,  B.  ;  Castell.  Lex.  Hcpt. 

s.  v.  D-lJPN-  Lee  says  "  the  word  is  apparently  fo 
reign."  Gesonius  gives  no  derivation.  Fiirst  refers 
the  words  to  >")Q,/were,  manare.  It  is,  he  says,  the 
red  sandal-wood.  He  compares  the  Sanscrit  mocha, 
mocheta. 

a  D^npK^O,  Pual  part,  pi.,  from  denom.  verb 
•7DJJJ,  always' used  in  Heb.  text  in  reference  to  the 
go.den  candlestick  :  LXX.  eKTervjrujfxeVoi  KapviWovs, 
al.  KapvuTKoi?  ;  Aquila,  e^ijju.vySaAto/u.eViji'. 

b  *lp&?»  "  est  amygdalus  et  amygdahim,  arbor  et 
fructus  fhic  autem  fructus  potius  quam  arboris  forma 
dcsignari  videtur"  (Rosenmfill.  Schol.  in  Exod.  xxv. 
S3).  That  sl.dked  =  tree  and  fruit,  see  also  Fiirst 


Concord.  7$P,  "  amygdala  et  amygdalum,  de  arbore 
et  fructu ;"  and  Buxtorf,  Lex.  Chald.,  "T3B>»  "  signi- 
ficat  arbotera  et  fructum."  Michaelis  (Suppl.  s.  v. 
y*3|)  understands  the  almond-shaped  bowls  to  refer 
to  the  blossom,  i.  e.  the  calyx  and  the  corolla. 

o  Harris,  Diet.  Nat.  H.  BiH.,  art.  « Almond,'  and 
Dr.  Royle  in  Kitto,  art.  '  Shaked.' 

G        - 

A  IpK^  (1)  decubuit,  (2)  vijilavit  —  Arab.  <>sAjLi, 

3    - 

JTi  :   insomnia.     The  Chaldee  is 


JtJ';   3  anft  p  being  interchanged.      Tb« 
|  Syriac  word  is  similar. 


viii  ALMOND 

ticed  in  flower  as  early  as  the  9th  of  that  month  ;  the 
19th,  23rd,  and  25th  are  also  recorded  dales.  The 
knowledge  of  this  interesting  fact  will  explain  that 
otherwise  unintelligible  passage  in  Jeremiah  (i.  11, 
12),  "The  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  me,  say 
ing,  Jeremiah,  what  seest  thou?  And  I  said,  I 
see  the  rod  of  an  almond-tree  (skaked).  Then  said 
tLe  Lord  unto  me,  Thou  hast  well  seen,  for  I  will 
hasten  (shoked}  my  word  to  perform  it." 

In  tha*.  'vjl'.-rfuown  poetical  representation  of  old 
age  i.i  Eccles.  xii.  it  is  said,  "  the  almond-tree 
shall  flourish.'*  This  expression  is  generally  under 
stood  as  emblematic  of  the  hoary  locks  of  old  age 
thinly  scattei'ed  on  the  bald  head,  just  as  the  white 
blossoms  appear  on  the  yet  leafless  boughs  of  this 
tree.  Gesenius,  however,  does  not  allow  such  an 
interpretation,  for  he  says  with  some  truth*  that  the 
almond  flowers  are  pink  or  rose-coloured,  not  wkite. 
This  passage,  therefore,  is  rendered  by  him  —  "  the 
almond  is  rejected."  f  Though  a  delicious  fruit, 
yet  the  old  man,  having  no  teeth,  would  be  obliged 
to  refuse  it.£  If,  however,  the  reading  of  the  A.  V. 
is  retained,  then  the  allusion  to  the  almond-tree  is 
intended  to  refer  to  the  hastening  of  old  age  in  the 
case  of  him  who  remembereth  not  "  his  Creator  in 
the  days  of  his  youth."  As  the  almond-tree  ushers 
in  spring,  so  do  the  signs  mentioned  in  the  context 
foretell  the  approach  of  old  age  and  death.  It  has 
always  been  regarded  by  the  Jews  with  reverence, 
and  even  to  this  day  the  English  Jews  on  their  great 
feast-days  cany  a  bough  of  flowering  almond  to  the 
synagogue,  just  as  in  old  time  they  used  to  present 
palm-branches  in  the  Temple,  to  remind  them 
perhaps,  as  Lady  Callcott  has  observed  (Script. 
Herb.  p.  10),  that  in  the  great  famine  in  the  time 
of  Joseph  the  almond  did  not  fail  them,  and  that, 
as  it  "  failed  not  to  their  patriarchs  in  the  days  of 
dearth,  it  cometh  to  their  hand  in  this  day  of  worse 
and  more  bitter  privation,  as  a  toke*.  that  God  for- 
getteth  not  his  people  in  their  distress,  nor  thje 
children  of  Israel,  though  scattered  in  a  foreign 
land,  though  their  home  is  the  prey  of  the  spoiler, 
and  their  temple  is  become  an  high  place  for  the 
heathen." 

A  modern  traveller  in  Palestine  records  that,  at 
the  passover,  the  Jews  prepare  a  compound  of 
almonds  and  apples  in  the  form  of  a  brick,  and 
having  the  appearance  of  lime  or  mortar  to  remind 
the  people  of  their  hard  service  in  the  land  of 
Kgypt  and  house  of  bondage  (Anderson  s  Wander 
ings  in  the  Land  of  Israel,  p.  250). 

The  almond-tree,  whose  scientific  name  is  Amyg- 
dalus  communis,  belongs  to  the  natural  order  Rosa- 
ceae,  and  sub-order  Amygdaleae.  This  order  is  a 
large  and  important  one,  for  it  contains  more  than 
1000  species,  many  of  which  produce  excellent 
fruit.  Apricots,  peaches,  nectarines,  plums,  cher 
ries,  apples,  pears,  strawberries,  &c.  &c.,  are  all  in 
cluded  under  this  order.  It  should  be  remembered, 
however,  that  the  seeds,  flowers,  bark,  and  leaves, 
of  many  plants  in  the  order  Rosaceae  contain  a 
deadly  poison,  namely,  prussic  or  hydrocyanic  acid. 
The  almond-tree  is  a  native  of  Asia  and  North 

«  The  general  colour  of  the  almond  blossom  is 
pink,  but  the  flowers  do  vary  from  deep  pink  to 
nearly  white. 

f   *>        3».     Gesenius  makes   the  verb      KJ* 


to  be  Hiphil  future,  from  f*X3,  to  deride,  to  despise  ; 
Y  N3*  would  then  be  after  the  Syriac  form,  instead  of 
But  all  the  old  versions  agree  with  the 


ALOES 

Africa,  but  it  is  cultivated  in  the  milier  parts  of 
Europe.  In  England  it  is  grown  etmply  or.  ac 
count  of  its  beautiful  vernal  flowers,  for  the  fruit 
scarcely  ever  comes  to  maturity.  The  height  of 
the  tree  is  about  12  or  14  feet;  the  flowers  are 
pink,  and  arranged  for  the  most  part  in  pairs  ;  the 
leaves  are  long,  ovate,  with  a  serrated  margin,  and 
an  acute  point.  The  covering  of  the  fruit  is  dov/ny 


Almond-tree  and  blossom 

and  succulent,  enclosing  the  hard  shell  which  con 
tains  the  kernel.  The  bitter  almond  is  only  a 
variety  of  this  species.  The  English  Almond, 
Spanish  Almendra,  the  Proven  gal  Amandola,  the 
French  Amande,  are  all  apparently  derived  from 
the  Greek  a.fjLvySa\^ ;  Latin  Amygdala.  It  is 
curious  to  observe,  in  connexion  with  the  almond- 
bowls  of  the  golden  candlestick,  that  pieces  of  rock- 
crystal  used  in  adorning  branch-candlesticks  are  still 
denominated  by  the  lapidaries  "  Almonds." 

ALOES,  LIGN  ALOES  (D^nN,  Ahdlim, 
Ahdloth :    ffK-qvdi    (in  Num.   xxiv.  6), 

(in  Ps.  xlv.  8)  ;  a\68,  Aquila  and  Aid. 
f) ;  C.  &\6d',  Sym.  Qvfj.ia.fj.0.  (in  Cant.  iv.  14): 
tabernacula,  gutta,  aloe:"  in  N.  T.  a\6-rj,  aloe], 
the  name  of  some  costly  and  sweet-smelling  wood 
mentioned  in  Num.  xxiv.  6,  where  Balaam  com 
pares  the  condition  of  the  Israelites  to  "  trees  of 
lign-aloes  which  the  Lord  hath  planted,"  in  Ps. 
xlv.  8,  "All  thy  garments  smell  of  myrrh,  and  aloes, 
and  cassia  ;"  in  Prov.  vii.  17,  "I  have  perfumed  my 
bed  with  myrrh,  aloes,  and  cinnamon."  In  Cant, 
iv.  14,  Solomon  speaks  of  "  myrrh  and  aloes,  wit 
all  the  chief  spices."  The  word  occurs  once  in 
N.  T.  (John  xix.  39),  where  mention  is  made  of 
Nicodemus  bringing  "  a  mixture  of  myrrh  and  aloes, 
about  an  hundred  pound  weight,"  for  the  purpos-: 
of  anointing  the  body  of  our  Lord.  Writers  gene 
rally,  following  Celsius  (Hierob.  i.  135),  who  devotes 
thirty-five  pages  to  this  subject,  suppose  that 
Aquilaria  Agallochum  is  the  tree  in  question.  The 
trees  which  belong  to  the  natural  order  Aqui 
ceae,  apetalous  dicotyledonous  flowering  plants,  are 


translation  of  the  A.  V.,  the  verb  being  formed  regu 
larly  from  the  root,  |*-13,  florere. 

e  "  When  the  grinders  cease  because  they  are  few" 
(Eccles.  xii.  3).  For  some  other  curious  interpreta 
tions  of  this  passage,  see  that  of  R.  Salomon,  quoted 
by  Santes  Pagninus  in  his  Thesaurus,  sub  voce  ^- 
and  Vatablus,  Annutatn  ad  Ecclesiasten,  xii.  5  ( 
Sac.  ui.  236). 


ALOES 

(or  the  most  part  natives  of  tropical  Asia.  The 
species  Aq.  agallochum,  which  supplies  the  aloes- 
wood  of  commerce,  is  much  valued  in  India  on 
account  ot  its  aromatic  qualities  for  fumigations 
and  incense.  It  was  well  known  to  the  Arabic 
physicians.  Ibn  Sinaa  (Avicenna),  in  the  Latin 
translation,  speaks  of  this  wood  under  the  names  of 
Agallochum,  Xylaloe,  or  Lignum- Aloes.  In  the 
Arabic  original  a  description  is  given  of  it  under 
the  names  of  Aghlagoon,  Aghalook/ii,  Ood*  (Dr. 
Royle,  in  Cyc.  Bib.  s.  v.  "Ahalim").  Dr.  Royle 
(Illust.  of  Himmalayan  Botany,  p.  171)  mentions 
three  varieties  of  this  wood  as  being  obtained  in  the 
bazaars  of  Northern  India. 

The  Aquilaria  secundaria  of  China  has  the  cha 
racter  of  being  the  most  highly  scented.  But  it  is  a 
singular  fact  that  this  fragrancy  does  not  exist  in 
any  of  this  family  of  trees  when  in  a  healthy  and 
growing  condition  ;  it  is  only  when  the  tree  is  dis 
eased  that  it  has  this  aromatic  property.  On  this 
account  the  timber  is  often  buried  for  a  short  time 
in  the  ground,  which  accelerates  the  decay,  when  the 
utter,  or  fragrant  oil,  is  secreted.  The  best  aloe- 
wood  is  called  calambac,  and  is  the  produce  of 
Aquilaria  agallochum,  a  native  of  Silhet,  in  Northern 
India.  This  is  a  magnificent  tree,  and  grows  to  the 
height  of  120  feet,  being  12  feet  in  girth:  "The 
bark  of  the  trunk  is  smooth  and  ash-coloured  ;  that 
of  the  branches  grey  and  lightly  striped  with  brown. 


AquUajia  Agallochum. 

The  wood  is  white,  and  very  light  and  soft.  It  is 
totally  without  smell ;  and  the  leaves,  bark,  and 
flowers  are  equally  inodorous  "  (Script.  Herb.  238). 


ALOE8        .  is 

The  Excaecaria  agallochum,  with  which  some 
writers  have  confused  the  Aq.  agall.,  is  an  entirely 
different  plant,  being  a  small  crooked  tree,  containing 
an  acrid  milky  poison,  in  common  with  the  rest  of 
the  Euphorbiaceae.  Persons  have  lost  their  sight 
from  this  juice  getting  into  their  eyes,  whence  tho 
plant's  generic  name,  Excaecaria.  It  is  difficult 
to  account  for  the  specific  name  of  this  plant,  for  the 
agallochum  is  certainly  not  the  produce  of  it. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that,  notwith 
standing  all  that  has  been  written  to  prove  the 
identity  of  the  .AAa/tm-trees  with  the  aloes-wood  of 
commerce,  and  notwithstanding  the  apparent  con 
nexion  of  the  Hebrew  word  with  the  Arabic  Aghla 
goon  and  the  Greek  Agallochon,  the  opinion  is  not 
clear  of  difficulties.  In  the  first  place,  the  passage 
in  Num.  xxiv.  6,  "  as  the  Ahalim  which  Jehovah 
hath  planted,"  is  an  argument  against  the  identifi 
cation  with  the  Aquilaria  agallochum.  The  LXX. 
read  OK.T\VO.(  (tents)  ;  and  they  are  followed  by  the 
Vulg.,  the  Syriac,  the  Arabic,  and  some  other  ver 
sions.  If  Ohdlim  (tents)  is  not  the  true  reading — 
and  the  context  is  against  it — then  if  Ahalim  —  Aq. 
agallochum,  we  must  suppose  that  Balaam  is  speak 
ing  of  trees  concerning  which  in  their  growing  state 
he  could  have  known  nothing  at  all.  Rosenmuller 
(Schol.  in  V.  T.  ad  Num.  xxiv.  6)  allows  that  this 
tree  is  not  found  in  Arabia,  but  thinks  that  Balaam 
might  have  become  acquainted  with  it  from  the 
merchants.  Perhaps  the  prophet  might  have  seen 
the  wood.  But  the  passage  in  Numbers  manifestly 
implies  that  he  had  seen  the  Ahalim  growing,  and 
that  in  all  piobability  they  were  some  kind  of  trees 
sufficiently  known  to  the  Israelites  to  enable  them 
to  understand  the  allusion  in  its  full  force.  But  if 
the  Ahalim  =  the  Agallochum,  then  much  of  the 
illustration  would  have  been  lost  to  the  people  who 
were  the  subject  of  the  prophecy  ;  for  the  Aq. 
agallochum  is  found  neither  on  the  banks  of  the 
Euphrates,  where  Balaam  lived,  nor  in  Moab,  where 
the  blessing  was  enunciated. 

Michaelis  (Supp.  pp.  34,  35)  believes  the  LXX. 
reading  to  be  the  correct  one,  though  he  sees  no 
difficulty,  but  rather  a  beauty,  in  supposing  that 
Balaam  was  drawing  a  similitude  from  a  tree  ot 
foreign  growth.  He  confesses  that  the  parallelism  of 
the  verse  is  more  in  favour  cf  the  tree  than  the  tent ; 
but  he  objects  that  the  lign-aloes  should  be  men 
tioned  before  the  cedars,  the  parallelism  requiring, 
he  thinks,  the  inverse  order.  But  this  is  hardly  a 
valid  objection  ;  for  what  tree  was  held  in  greater 
estimation  than  the  cedar  ?  And  even  if  AJidlim 
=  Aqu.  agall.,  yet  the  latter  clause  of  the  verse  does 
no  violence  to  the  law  of  parallelism,  for  of  the  two 
trees  the  cedar  "  major  est  et  augustior."  Again, 
the  passage  in  Ps.  xiv.  8  would  perhaps  be  more 
correctly  translated  thus  :  "  The  myrrh,  aloes,  and 
cassia,  pejfuming  all  thy  garments,  brought  froui 
the  ivory  palaces  of  the  Minni,  shall  make  the<? 
glad."c  The  Minni,  or  Minaei,  were  inhabitants  of 
spicy  Arabia,  and  carried  on  a  great  trade  in  the 
exportation  of  spices  and  perfumes  (Plin.  xii.  14, 16  ; 
Bochart,  Phaleg.  ii.  22,  135.  As  the  myrrh  and 
cassia  are  mentioned  as  coming  from  the  Minni,  and 


•  Abdallah  ibn  Sina,   a  celebrated   Arabian  phy 
sician  and  natural  philosopher,  born  A.D.  980.     The         .^JL£J,  id.  (Freytag,  Lex. 


Jews  abbreviated  the  name  into  Abensina,  whence 
the  Christian?  called  k  Avicenna. 


v.). 


,  Lignum 


^M- 


Aquilaria  ovate,  Spren- 


l,  Hist.  ReiHe.rb.  i.  p,  2f>i,  sq.  ; 


.  p.  13 


Aloes,  Kara.  Dj.  Avic.  Can.,  Hi.  p.  231  ;  conf.  Sprengel, 
Hist.  Rei  Herb.  t.  i.  p.  271  (Freytag,  Lex.  s.  v.). 

c  See  lloscnmuller's  note  on  this  passage  (Schol.  in 
V.  T.  ad  Ps.  xlv.  9),  and  Lee's  Hcb.  Lex.  (a.  v.  »3O) 


x  AMBER 

were  doubtless  natural  productions  of  their  country 
the  inference  is  that  aloes,  being  named  with  them 
was  aiso  a  production  of  the  same  country. 

The  Scriptural  use  of  the  Hebrew  word  applies 
both  to  the  tree  and  to  its  produce  ;  and  although 
some  weight  must  be  allowed  to  the  opinion  which 
identifies  the  Ahalim  with  the  Agallochum,  sup 
ported  as  it  is  by  the  authority  of  so  eminent  a 
botanist  as  the  late  Dr.  Royle,  yet  it  must  be  con 
ceded  that  the  matter  is  by  no  means  proved.  Hiller 
(ffierophyt.  i.  394)  derives  the  word  from  a  root 
which  signifies  "  to  shine,"  "  to  be  splendid,"  and 
believes  the  tree  to  be  some  species  of  cedar  ;  pro 
bably,  he  says,  the  Cedrus  magna,  or  Cedrelate. 
What  the  C.  magna  may  be,  modern  botanical  science 
would  be  at  a  loss  to  conjecture,  but  it  is  quite 
possible  that  some  kind  of  odoriferous  cedar  ^may  be 
Che  tree  denoted  by  the  term  Ahalim  or  Ahdloth. 


AMBER  (D£n,  chashmal;  HDn,  chash- 
maldh  :  tf\eKTpov:  electrum)  occurs  only  in  Ez.  i. 
1,  27,  viii.  2.  In  the  first  passage  the  prophet  com 
pares  it  with  the  brightness  in  which  he  beheld 
the  heavenly  apparition  who  gave  him  the  divine 
commands.  In  the  second,  "  the  glory  of  the  God 
of  Israel  "  is  represented  as  having,  "  from  the  ap 
pearance  of  his  loins  even  downward,  fire  ;  and  from 
his  loins  even  upward  as  the  appearance  of  bright 
ness,  as  the  colour  of  amber."  It  is  by  no  means 
a  matter  of  certainty,  notwithstanding  Bochart's 
'  dissertation  and  the  conclusion  he  comes  to  (Hieroz, 
iii.  876,  ed.  Rosenmiill.),  that  the  Hebrew  word 
chashmal  denotes  a  metal,  and  not  the  fossil  resin 
called  amber,  although  perhaps  the  probabilities  are 
more  in  favour  of  the  metal.  Dr.  Harris  (Nat.  Hist. 
Bib.  art.  "  Amber  ")  asserts  that  the  translators  of 
the  A.  V.  could  not  mean  amber,  "  for  that,  being 
a  bituminous  substance,  becomes  dim  as  soon  as  it 
feels  the  fire,  and  soon  dissolves  and  consumes." 
But  this  is  founded  on  a  misconstruction  of  the 
words  of  the  prophet,  who  does  not  say  that  what 
he  saw  was  amber,  but  of  the  colour  of  amber 
(Pict.  Bib.  note  on  Ez.  viii.  2).  The  context  of 
the  passages  referred  to  above  is  clearly  as  much  in 
favour  of  amber  as  of  metal.  Neither  do  the  LXX. 
and  Vulg.  afford  any  certain  clue  to  identification, 
for  the  word  electron  was  used  by  the  Greeks  to 
express  both  amber  and  a  certain  metal,  composed 
of  gold  and  silver,  and  held  in  very  high  estimation 
by  the  ancients  (Plin.  ff.  N.  xxxiii.  4).  It  is  a 
curious  fact,  that  in  the  context  of  all  the  passages 
where  mention  of  electron  is  made  in  the  works 
cf  Greek  authors  (Horn,  see  below  ;  Hes.  Sc.  Here. 
142  ;  Soph.  Antig.  1038  ;  Aristoph.  Eq.  532  ; 
&c.),  no  evidence  is  afforded  to  help  us  to  de 
termine  what  the  electron  was.  In  the  Odyssey 
(iv.  73)  it  is  mentioned  as  enriching  Menelaus's 
palace,  together  with  copper,  gold,  silver,  and  ivory. 
In  Od.  xv.  460,  xviii.  296,  a  necklace  of  gold  is 
said  to  be  fitted  with  electron.  Pliny,  in  the  chapter 
quoted  above,  understands  the  electron  in  Menelaus's 
palace  to  be  the  metal.  But  with  respect  to  the 
golden  necklace,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  amber 
necklaces  have  been  long  used,  as  they  were  deemed 
an  amulet  against  throat  diseases.  Beads  of  amber 
ore  frequently  found  in  British  barrows  with  entire 
necklaces  (Fosbr.  Antiq.  i.  289).  Theophrastus 
fix.  18,  §2  ;  and  Fr.ii.  29,  ed.  Schneider),  it  is  cer 
tain,  uses  the  term  electron  to  denote  amber,  for  he 
speaks  of  its  attracting  properties.  On  the  other 
hand,  that  electron  was  understood  by  the  Greeks 
to  denote  a  metal  composed  of  one  part  of  silver  to 


AMETHYST 

every  four  of  gold,  we  have  the  testimony  of  Pliny 
to  shew ;  but  whether  the  early  Greeks  intended 
the  metal  or  the  amber,  or  sometimes  one  and  some 
times  the  other,  it  is  impossible  to  determine  with 
certainty.  Passow  l-elieves  that  the  metal  was 
always  denoted  by  electron  in  the  writings  of  Homer 
and  Hesiod,  and  that  amber  was  not  known  till  its 
introduction  by  the  Phoenicians  :  to  which  circum 
stance,  as  he  thinks,  Herodotus  (iii.  115,  who  seems 
to  speak  of  the  resin,  and  not  the  metal)  refers. 
Others  again,  with  Buttrnan  (Mythol.  ii.  p.  337), 
maintain  that  the  electron  denoted  amber,  and  they 
very  reasonably  refer  to  the  ancient  myth  of  the 
origin  of  amber.  Pliny  (H.  N.  xxxvii.  cap.  2) 
ridicules  the  Greek  writers  for  their  credulity  in  the 
fabulous  origin  of  this  substance ;  and  especially 
finds  fault  with  Sophocles,  who,  in  some  lost  play, 
appears  to  have  believed  in  it. 

From  these  considerations  it  will  be  seen  that  it 
is  not  possible  to  identify  the  chashmal  by  the 
help  of  the  LXX.,  or  to  say  whether  we  are  to 
understand  the  metal  or  the  fossil  resin  by  the 
word.  There  is,  however,  one  reason  to  be  ad 
duced  in  favour  of  the  chashmal  denoting  the 
metal  rather  than  the  resin,  and  this  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  etymology  of  the  Hebrew  name, 
which,  according  to  Gesenius,  seems  to  be  com 
pounded  of  two  words  which  together  =  polished 
copper.  Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  885)  conjectures  that 
chashmalis  compounded  of  two  Chaldee  words  mean 
ing  copper — gold-ore,  to  which  he  refers  the  auri- 
chalcum.  But  aurichalcum  is  in  all  probability 
only  the  Latin  form  of  the  Greek  orichalcon 
(mountain  copper}.  (See  Smith's  Lat.-Engl.  Diet. 
s.  v.  "  Orichalcum.")  Isidorus,  however  (  Orig.  xvi. 
19),  sanctions  the  etymology  which  Bochart  adopts. 
But  the  electron,  according  to  Pliny,  Pausanias  (v. 
12,  §6),  and  the  numerous  authorities  quoted  by 
Bochart,  was  composed  of  gold  and  silver,  not  of 
gold  and  copper.  The  Hebrew  word  may  denote 
either  the  metal  electron  or  amber;  but  it  must 
still  be  left  as  a  question  which  of  the  two  sub 
stances  is  really  intended. 

AMETHYST  (HO^K,  achldmdh :  £/«'- 
ffTos :  amethystus).  Mention  is  made  of  this 
precious  stone,  which  formed  the  third  in  the  third 
row  of  the  high-priest's  breastplate,  in  Ex.  xxviii. 
19,  xxxix.  12,  "  And  the  third  row  a  ligure,  an  agate, 
and  an  amethyst."  It  occurs  also  in  the  N.  T. 
(Rev.  xxi.  20)  as  the  twelfth  stone  which  garnished 
the  foundations  of  the  wall  of  the  heavenly  Jeru 
salem.  Commentators  generally  are  agreed  that  the 
amethyst  is  the  stone  indicated  by  the  Hebrew  word, 
an  opinion  which  is  abundantly  supported  by  ths 
ancient  versions.  The  Targum  of  Jerusalem  indeed 
reads  smaragdin  (smaragdus) ;  those  of  Jonathan 
and  Onkelos  have  two  words  which  signify 
"  calf 's-eye "  (oculus  vituli\  which  Braunius  (ffc 
Vestit.  Sacerd.  Heb.  ii.  711)  conjectures  may  be 
identical  with  the  Beli  ocnlus  of  the  Assyrians 
(Plin.  H.  N.  xxxvii.  10),  the  Cafs-ei/e  Gfaicedony, 
according  to  Ajasson  and  Desfontaines ;  but,  as 
Braunius  has  observed,  the  word  achldmdh  accord- 
ng  to  the  best  and  most  ancient  authorities  signifies 
amethyst. 

Modem  mineralogists  by  the  term  amethyst 
usually  understand  the  amethystine  variety  of 
quartz,  which  is  crystalline  and  highly  transparent- 
t  is  sometimes  called  Rose  quartz,  and  contains 
ilumina  and  oxide  of  manganese.  There  is,  however, 
mother  mineral  to  which  the  name  of  Oriental 


ANISE 

avncthyst  is  usually  applied,  and  which  is  for  more 
valuable  than  the  quartz  kind.  This  is  a  crystal 
line  variety  of  Corundum,  being  found  more  espe 
cially  in  the  E.  and  W.  Indies.  It  is  extremely 
hard  and  bright,  and  generally  of  a  purple  colour, 
which,  however,  it  may  readily  be  made  to  lose  by 
subjecting  it  to  fire.  In  all  probability  the  common 
Amethystine  quartz  is  the  mineral  denoted  by 
achldmdh ;  for  Pliny  speaks  of  the  amethyst  being 
easily  cut  (scalpturis  facilis,  H.  N.  xxxvii.  9), 
whereas  the  Oriental  amethyst  is  inferior  only  to 
the  diamond  in  hardness,  and  is  moreover  a  com 
paratively  rare  gem. 

The  Greek  word  amethustos,  the  origin  of  the 
English  amethyst,  is  usually  derived  from  d,  "  not," 
and  jiiefljta,  "to  be  intoxicated,"  this  stone  having 
been  believed  to  have  the  power  of  dispelling 
drunkenness  in  those  who  wore  it.  (Dionys. 
Perieg.  1122;  Anthol.  Palat.  9,  752;  Martini, 
Excurs.  158.)  Pliny,  however  (H.  N.  xxxvii.  9), 
says,  "  The  name  which  these  stones  have  is  to 
be  traced  to  their  peculiar  tint,  which,  after  ap 
proximating  to  the  colour  of  wine,  shades  off  into 
a  violet."  Theophrastus  also  alludes  to  its  wine- 
like  colour.* 

ANISE  (&/7J00J/;  anethum}.  This  word  occurs 
only  in  Matt,  xxiii.  23,  "  Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and 
Pharisees,  hypocrites !  for  ye  pay  tithe  of  mint  and 
anise  and  cummin."  It  is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  cer 
tainty  whether  the  anise  (Pimpinella  anisum,  Lin.), 
cr  the  dill  (Anethum  graveolens)  is  here  intended, 


ANISE 


xi 


though  the  probability  is  certa.ic.ly  more  in  favour 
of  the  latter  plant.  Both  the  dill  and  the  anise  be 
long  to  the  natural  order  Umbelliferae,  and  are  much 
alike  in  external  character;  the  seeds  of  both,  more 
over,  are,  and  have  been  long  employed  in  medicine 
and  cookery,  as  condiments  and  carminatives.  Cel 
sius  (ffierob.  i.  494,  sg.)  quotes  several  passages 
from  ancient  writers  to  show  that  the  dill  was  com 
monly  so  used.  Pliny  uses  the  term  anisum,  to 
express  the  Pimpinella  anisum,  and  anethum  to  re 
present  the  common  dill;  he  enumerates  as  many 
as  sixty-one  remedies  that  the  anisum  is  able  to 
cure,  and  says  that  on  this  account  it  is  sometimes 
called  anicetumJ*  The  best  anise,  he  adds,  comes 
from  Crete ;  and  next  to  it  that  of  Egypt  is  pre 
ferred  (Plin.  H.  N.t  xx.  17).  Forsk&f  (Descript. 
Plant.  154)  includes  the  anise  (Janisun,  Arabic0) 
in  the  Materia  Medica  of  Egypt.  Dr.  Koyle  is  de 
cidedly  in  favour  of  the  dilld  being  the  proper 
translation,  and  says  that  the  anethum*  is  more 
especially  a  genus  of  Eastern  cultivation  than  the 
other  plant.  The  strongest  argument  in  favour  of 
the  dill,  is  the  fact  that  the  Talmuds  (Tract,  Mass- 
roth,  c.  iv.  §5)  use  the  word  shdbdth  to  express 
the  dill,  "  The  seeds,  the  leaves,  and  the  stem  of 
dill  are,  according  to  Rabbi  Eliezer,  subject  to  tithe ;" 
and  in  connexion  with  this  it  should  be  stated,  that 
ForskSl  several  times  alludes  to  the  Anethum  grave- 
olens  as  growing  both  in  a  cultivated  and  a  wild 
state  in  Egypt,  and  he  uses  the  Arabic  name  for 
this  plant,  which  is  identical  with  the  Hebrew  word, 
viz.  Sjoebet,  or  Schibt  (Descr.  Plant.  65,  109). 


Pimpinella  Anisum. 


Common  Dill.     (Anetlmm  ftaveclensj 


*  To  8'  apeOvffov  OIVCOTTOV  rfj  xpo'a.  (Fr.  ii.  31,  ed. 
Sohneid.) 

b  From  a,  not,  and  vi/caw,  to  conquer.  It  should  be 
noted  that  Dioscorides  u?es  aviKijrov  for  dill,  and  not  anise. 

5     * 

,  anisum,  v.  Gol.  ^7-al>.  Lea;,  s.  *. 


a  Dill,  so  called  from  the  old  Norse  word,  the  nurse's 
lullaby,  to  dill=to  soothe.  Hence  the  name  of  tbe  car 
minative  plant,  the  dilling  or  soothing  herb  (see  \Vedgw. 
Diet.  Engl.  Etymal.) 

trapa.  TO  avta  6elv,  StA  T»}V  tv  ra\ti 


(Elyni.  May.  cd.  Gaisford). 


sli 


ANT 


Celsius  remarks  upon  the  difference  of  opinion 
amongst  the  old  authors  who  have  noticed  this 
plant,  some  maintaining  that  it  has  an  agreeable 
taste  and  odour,  others  quite  the  opposite  ;  the  so 
lution  of  the  difficulty  is  clearly  that  the  matter  is 
simply  one  of  opinion. 

There  is  another  plant  very  dissimilar  in  external 
character  to  the  two  named  above,  the  leaves  and 
capsules  of  which  are  powerfully  carminative.  This 
is  the  aniseed-tree  (Illinium  anisatum),  which  be 
longs  to  the  natural  order  Magnoliaceae.  In  China 
this  is  frequently  used  for  seasoning  dishes,  &c.  ; 
but  the  species  of  this  genus  are  not  natives  of  the 
Bible  lands,  and  must  not  be  confused  with  the 
Umbelliferous  plants  noticed  in  this  article. 


ANT  (H/D3,  nemalah;  /i.vp/*7j|  ;  formica). 
This  insect  is  mentioned  twice  in  the  0.  T.  ;  in  Prov. 
vi.  6,  "Go  to  the  ant  thou  sluggard,  consider  her 
ways  and  be  wise  ;"  in  Prov.  xxx.  25,  "  The  ants 
are  a  people  not  strong,  yet  they  prepare  their  meat 
in  the  summer."  In  the  former  of  these  passages 
the  diligence  of  this  insect  is  instanced  by  the  wise 
man  as  an  example  worthy  of  imitation;  in  the 
second  passage  the  ant's  wisdom  is  especially  alluded 
to,  for  these  insects,  "  though  they  be  little  on  the 
earth,  are  exceeding  wise."  It  is  well  known 
that  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  believed  that 
the  ant  stored  up  food,  which  it  collected  in  the 
summer,  ready  for  the  winter's  consumption. 
Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  478)  has  cited  numerous 
passages  from  Greek  and  Latin  writers  as  well  as 
from  Arabian  naturalists  and  Jewish  rabbis  in  sup 
port  of  this  opinion.  Such  wisdom  was  this  little 
insect  believed  to  possess,  that,  in  order  to  prevent 
the  corn  which  it  had  stored  from  germinating,  it 
took  care  to  bite  off  the  head  of  each  grain  ;  accord 
ingly  some  have  sought  for  the  derivation  of  the 
Hebrew  word  for  ant,  nemdldh,"'  in  this  supposed 
fact.  Nor  is  the  belief  in  the  ant's  biting  off  the 
head  of  the  grains  unsupported  by  some  modern 
writers.  Addison,  in  the  Guardian  (No;  156,  157), 
inserts  the  following  letter  "  of  undoubted  credit 
and  authority,"  which  was  first  published  by  the 
French  Academy:—  "The  corn  which  is  laid  up  by 
ants  would  shoot  under  ground  if  these  insects  did 
not  take  care  to  prevent  it.  They  therefore  bite  off 
all  the  germs  before  they  lay  it  up,  and  therefore 
the  corn  that  has  lain  in  their  cells  will  produce 
nothing.  Any  one  may  make  the  experiment,  and 
even  see  that  there  is  no  germ  in  their  corn." 
N.  Pluche,  too  (Nature  DispL  i.  128),  says  of 
these  insects,  "  Their  next  passion  is  to  amass  a 
store  of  corn  or  other  grain  that  will  keep,  and,  lest 
the  humidity  of  the  cells  should  make  the  com 
thoot  up,  we  are  told  for  a  certainty  that  they  gnaw 
off  the  buds  which  grow  at  the  point  of  the  grain." 


ANT 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  this  opinion  originated, 
for  it  is  entirely  without  foundation.  Equally  er 
roneous  appears  to  be  the  notion  that  ascribes  to 
the  ant  provident  foresight  in  laying  up  a  store 
of  corn  for  the  winter's  use ; b  though  it  is  an  easy 
matter  to  trace  it  to  its  source.  No  recorded  species 
of  ant  is  known  to  store  up  food  of  any  kind  for 
provision  in  the  cold  seasons,  and  certainly  not 
grains  of  corn,  which  ants  do  not  use  for  food.  The 
European  species  of  ants  are  all  dormant  in  the 
winter,  and  consequently  require  no  food ;  and 
although  it  is  well  still  to  bear  in  mind  the  careful 
language  of  the  authors  of  Introduction  to  Entomo 
logy  (ii.  46),  who  say,  "  till  the  manner  of  exotic 
ants  are  more  accurately  explored,  it  would  be  rash 
to  affirm  that  no  ants  have  magazines  for  provi 
sions  ;  for  although,  during  the  cold  of  our  winters 
in  this  country,  they  remain  in  a  state  of  torpidity, 
and  have  no  need  of  food,  yet  in  warmer  regions 
during  the  rainy  seasons,  when  they  are  probably 
confined  to  their  nests,  a  store  of  provisions  may  be 
necessary  for  them," — yet  the  observations  of  mo 
dern  naturalists  who  have  paid  considerable  atten 
tion  to  this  disputed  point,  seem  almost  conclusive 
that  ants  do  not  lay  up  food  for  future  consump 
tion.  It  is  true  that  Col.  Sykes  has  a  paper,  vol. 
ii.  of  Transactions  of  EntomoL  Soc.  p.  103,  on  a 
species  of  Indian  ant  which  he  calls  Atta  providens, 
so  called  from  the  fact  of  his  having  found  a  large 
store  of  grass-seeds  in  its  nest ;  but  the  amount  of 
that  gentleman's  observations  merely  go  to  show 
that  this  ant  carries  seeds  underground,  and  brings 
them  again  to  the  surface  after  they  have  got  wet 
during  the  monsoons,  apparently  to  dry.c  "  There 
is  not,"  writes  Mr.  F.  Smith,  the  author  of  the 
Catalogue  of  the  Formicidae  in  the  British  Museum, 
in  a  letter  to  tlue  author  of  this  article,  "any  evi 
dence  of  the  seeds  having  been  stored  for  food  ;"  he 
observes,  Catalogue  of  Formicidae  (1858),  p.  180, 
that  the  processionary  ant  of  Brazil  (Oecodoma 
cephalotes)  carries  immense  quantities  of  portions 
of  leaves  into  its  underground  nests,  and  that  it  was 
supposed  that  these  leaves  were  for  food  ;  but  that 
Mr.  Bates  quite  satisfied  himself  that  the  leaves  were 
for  the  purpose  of  lining  the  channels  of  the  nest,  and 
not  for  food.  Ants  are  carnivorous  in  their  habits 
of  living,  and  although  they  are  fond  of  saccharine 
matter,  there  is  no  evidence  at  all  to  prove  that  any 
portion  of  plants  ever  forms  an  article  of  their  diet. 
The  fact  is,  that  ants  seem  to  delight  in  running 
away  with  almost  any  thing  they  find  :  small  por 
tions  of- sticks,  leaves,  little  stones, — as  any  one 
can  testify  who  has  cared  to  watch  the  habits  ol 
this  insect.  This  will  explain  the  erroneous  opinion 
which  the  ancients  held  with  respect  to  that  part  of 
the  economy  of  the  ant  now  under  consideration ; 
nor  is  it,  we  think,  necessary  to  conclude  that  the 


»  From  7£3,  abscitsus  (Simon.  Lex.  Heb.  ed.  Winer), 
fbe  derivation  of  the  word  Is  uncertain.    Gesenius  is 

inclined  to  derive  it  from  the  Arabic  V^J ."  conscendit,  pec. 
proreptando  arborem."  Vid.  Gol.  Arab.  Lex.  s.  v.  V.  conj. 
"  raoti  inter  sese  perraistique  sicntformicarum  reptantium 
more."  Fiirst  says,  "  Forsitan  potius  diminutivum  est  n. 
D3,  unde  ^pj,  f.  rbft),  sicut  ns£3,  ad  bestiolam 

puslllam  signifi'candam  factum  essc  potest."  Cf.  Michaelis, 
Sup.  Lex.  Heb.  ii.  1644,  and  Rosenmull.  not.  ad  Bochart,  iii. 
480.  Is  it  not  probable  that  the  name  nemdlaJi  (from 

?Q3>  "  to  cut")  was  given  to  the  ant  from  its  extreme 
tenuity  at  the  junction  of  the  thorax  and  abdomen?  If 


the  term  insect  is  applicable  to  any  one  living  creature 
more  than  to  another,  it  certainly  is  to  the  ant.  Nemalah 
is  the  exact  equivalent  to  insect.  [Since  the  above  was 
written  it  has  been  found  that  Parkhurst— s.  v.  ^£  (iv.; 
—gives  a  similar  derivation.] 

b  "  Parvula  (nam  exemplo  est)  magni  formica  laboris 
Ore  trahit  quodcunque  potest,  atque  addit  acervo 
Quern  struit,  haud  ignara  ac  non  incauia  futuri." 

Hor.  Sat.\.  1,33. 

Cf.  also  Ovid,  Met.  vil.  624 ;  Virg.  Gear.  i.  186,  Aen.  iv 
402  ;  Plin.  xi.  30 ;  Aelian,  H.  A.  ii.  25,  vi.  43,  &c. 

c  This  fact  corroborates  what  the  ancients  have  written 
on  this  particular  point,  who  have  recorded  that  the  ant 
brings  up  to  dry  in  the  suu  the  corn,&c.,  which  had  beccmi* 
wet.  See  instances  in  Bochart,  iii.  490 


ANT 

error  originated  in  observers  mistaking  the  cocooni 
for  grains  of  com,  to  which  they  bear  much  resem- 


bis 


It   is    scarcely   credible    that    Aristotle, 


Virgil.  Horace,  &c.,  who  all  speak  of  this  insect 
storing  up  grains  of  corn,  should  have  been  so  far 
misled,  or  have  been  such  bad  observers,  as  to  have 
taken  the  cocoons  for  grains.  Ants  do  carry  off  j 
grains  of  corn,  just  as  they  carry  off  other  things — 
not,  however,  as  was  stated,  for  food  ;  but  for  their 
nests.  "  They  are  great  robbers,"  says  Dr.  Thom 
son  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  337),  "and  plunder 
hy  night  as  well  as  by  day,  and  the  farmer  must 
keep  a  sharp  eye  to  his  floor,  or  they  will  abstract 
a  large  quantity  of  grain  in  a  single  night." 

It  is  right  to  state  that  a  well-known  entomo 
logist,  the  Rev.  F.  W.  Hope,  in  a  paper  "  On  some 
doubts  respecting  the  oeconomy  of  Ants"  (Trans. 
Entom.  Soc.  ii.  p.  211),  is  of  opinion  that  Col. 
Dykes'  observations  do  tend  to  show  that  there  are 
species  of  exotic  ants  which  store  up  food  for  winter 
consumption  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  Mr. 
Bates'  investigations  are  subsequent  to  the  publica 
tion  of  that  paper. 

A  further  point  in  the  examination  of  this  subject 
remains  to  be  considered,  which  is  this:  Does 
Scripture  assert  that  any  species  of  ant  stores  up 
food  for  future  use  ?  It  cannot,  we  think,  be  main 
tained  that  the  words  of  Solomon,  in  the  only  two 
passages  where  mention  of  this  insect  is  made,  ne 
cessarily  teach  this  doctrine  ;  but  at  the  same  time, 
it  must  be  allowed,  that  the  language  used,  and 
more  especially  the  context  of  the  passage  in  Prov. 
xxx.  25,  do  seem  to  imply  that  such  an  opinion  was 
held  with  respect  to  the  oeconomy  of  this  insect. 
"  There  are  four  things  which  are  little  upon  the 
earth,  but  they  are  exceeding  wise ;  the  ants  are  a 
people  not  strong,  yet  they  prepare  their  meat  in 
the  summer."  In  what  particular,  it  may  be 
asked,  are  these  insects  so  especially  noted  for  their 
wisdom,  unless  some  allusion  is  made  to  their  sup 
posed  provident  foresight  in  "  preparing  their  meat 
in  the  summer."  If  the  expression  here  used  merely 
has  reference  to  the  fact  that  ants  are  able  to  pro 
vide  themselves  with  food,  how  is  their  wisdom 
herein  more  excellent  than  the  countless  host  of 
other  minute  insects  whose  natural  instinct  prompts 
them  to  do  the  same  ?  If  this  question  is  fairly 
weighed  in  connexion  with  the  acknowledged  fact, 
that  from  very  early  times  the  ancients  attributed 
storing  habits  to  the  ant,  it  will  appear  at  least 
probable  that  the  language  of  Solomon  implies  a 
similar  belief;  and  if  such  was  the  general  opinion, 
is  it  a  matter  of  surprise  that  the  wise  man  should 
select  the  ant  as  an  instance  whereon  he  might 
ground  a  lesson  of  prudence  and  forethought  ? 

The  teaching  of  the  Bible  is  accommodated  to  the 
knowledge  and  opinions  of  those  to  whom  its  lan 
guage  is  addressed,  and  the  observations  of  natu 
ralists,  which,  as  far  as  they  go,  do  certainly  tend  to 
disprove  the  assertion  that  ants  store  up  food  for 
future  use,  are  no  more  an  argument  against  the 
truth  of  the  Word  of  God  than  are  the  ascertained 
laws  of  astronomical  science,  or  the  facts  in  the 
mysteries  of  life  which  the  anatomist  or  physiologist 
has  revealed. 

The  Arabians  held  the  wisdom  of  the  ant  in  such 
estimation,  -that  they  used  to  place  one  of  these 
insects  in  the  hands  of  a  newly-born  infant,  repeat 
ing  these  words,  "  May  the  boy  turn  out  clever  and 
skilful."  Hence  in  Arabic,  with  the  noun  nemlch, 
"  an  ant,"  is  connected  the  adjective  nemil,  "  quick," 
"clever"  fBochart,  Hisroz.  lii.  494).  The  Til- 


APES  xijj 

mudists  too  attributed  great  wisdom  to  this  insect. 
It  was,  say  they,  from  beholding  the  wonderful 
ways  of  the  ant  that  the  following  expression  ori 
ginated:  "Thy  justice,  0  God,  reaches  to  the 
heavens"  (Chulin,  63).d  Ants  live  together  in 
societies,  having  "  no  guide,  overseer,  or  ruler." 
See  Latreille's  Histoire  Naturelle  des  Fourmis, 
Paris,  1802;  Huber's  Traite  des  Moeurs  des  F. 
Indig. ;  Encyd.  Brit.,  8th  ed.  art.  "  Ant ;"  Kirby 
and  Spence,  Introd.  to  Entom.  Ants  belong  to  the 
family  Formicidae,  and  order  Hymenoptera.  There 
is  not  in  the  British  Museum  a  single  specimen  of 
an  ant  from  Palestine. 

APES  (D^QIp,  Kdphim;  irt6r]Kor,  simiae}  occur 
in  1  K.  x.  22,  "once  in  three  years  came  the  navy 
of  Tharshish,  bringing  gold,  and  silver,  ivory,  and 
apes,  and  peacocks,"  and  in  the  parallel  passage  of 
2  Chr.  ix.  21.  The  Vat.  version  of  the  LXX.  in 
the  first  mentioned  passage,  omits  the  words  "  ivory, 
and  apes,  and  peacocks,"  while  the  Alexand.  version 
has  them  ;  but  both  these  versions  have  the  words 
in  the  passage  of  the  book  of  Chronicles. 

For  some  attempts  to  identify  the  various  kinds 
of  Quadrumana  which  were  known  to  the  ancients, 
see  A.  A.  H.  Lichtenstein's  work,  entitled  Commen- 
tatio  philologica  de  Simiarum  quotquot  veteribus 
innot uerunt  formis  (Hamb.  1791)  ;  and  Ed.  Tyson's 
Homo  sylvestris,  or  the  Anatomy  of  a  Pigmie 
(Lond.  1699),  to  which  he  has  added  a  Philoso 
phical  Essay  concerning  the  Cynocephali,  the  Satyrs, 
and  Sphinges  of  the  ancients.  Aristotle  (De  Anim. 
Hist.  ii.  5,  ed.  Schneider)  appears  to  divide  the 
Quadrumana  order  of  Mammalia  into  three  tribes, 
which  he  characterises  by  the  names,  iri6r)KQi< 
Krj&oi,  and  K.vvoKt<pa\oi.  The  last  named  family 
are  no  doubt  identical  with  the  animals  that  form 
the  African  genus  Cynocephalus  of  modern  zoolo 
gists.  The  ttrjfioi  Aristotle  distinguishes  from  the 
TriQijicoi,  by  the  fact  of  the  former  possessing  a  tail. 
This  name,  perhaps,  may  stand  for  the  whole  tribe 
of  tailed  monkeys,  excluding  the  Cynocephali,  and 
the  Lemuridae,  which  latter,  since  they  belong  to 
the  island  of  Madagascar,  were  probably  wholly 
unknown  to  the  ancients. 

The  irlQtiKOi,  therefore,  would  stand  as  the  repre 
sentative  of  the  tailless  apes,  such  as  the  Chim 
panzee,  &c.  Although,  however,  Aristotle  perhaps 
used  these  terms  respectively  in  a  definite  sense,  it 
by  no  means  follows  that  they  are  so  employed  by 
other  writers.  The  name  iridi/iKOi,  for  instance, 


seems  to  have  been  sometimes  used  to  denote  some 
species  of  Cynocephalus  (see  a  Fragment  of  Simo- 
nides  in  Schneider's  Annot.  ad  Arist.  Hist.  Anim. 
lii.  76).  The  LXX.  use  of  the  word  was  in  all 
probability  used  in  an  extended  sense  as  the  repre 
sentative  of  the  Hebrew  word  Koph,  to  denote  any 
species  of  Quadrumanous  Mammalia  ;  Lichtenstein 
conjectures  that  the  Hebrew  word  represents  some 
kind  of  Diana  monkeys,  perhaps,  Cercopithecm 
Diana ;  but  as  this  species  is  an  inhabitant  of 
Guinea,  and  unknown  in  Eastern  Africa,  it  is  not 
at  all  probable  that  this  is  the  animal  denoted. 

In  the  engraving  which  represents  the  Litho- 
strotum  Praenestinum  (that  curious  mosaic  pave 
ment  found  at  Praeneste),  in  Shaw's  travels  (ii. 
294,  8vo.  ed.),  is  to  be  seen  the  figure  of  some 
animal  in  a  tree,  with  the  word  KHIFIEN  over  it. 
Of  this  animal  Dr.  Shaw  says  (312),  "  It  is  a 


d  Our  English  word  ant  appears  to  be  nn  abbreviation 
of  i>e  form  emmet  (Sax.  aemmet) 


*iv  APES 

beautiful  little  creature,  with  a  shaggy  neck  like  the 
Callithrix,  and  shaped  exactly  like  those  monkeys 
that  are  commonly  called  Marmosets.  The  KHinEN 
therefore  may  be  the  Ethiopian  monkey,  called  by 
the  Hebrews  Konph,  and  by  the  Greeks  KHnO2, 
KH*O2,  or  KEII1O2,  from  whence  the  Latin 


Monkey  from  tho  Praenestiue  Mosaic. 

name  Cephus."  This  description  will  be  found  to 
apply  better  to  the  figure  in  the  4to  ed.  of  Dr. 
Shaw's  Travels  than  to  that  in  the  8vo.  ed.  Per 
haps,  as  Col.  Hamilton  Smith  has  suggested,  the 
Keipen  of  the  Praenestine  mosaic  may  be  the  Cerco- 
pithecus  griseo-viridis,  Desmar.,  which  is  a  native 
of  Nubia,  the  country  represented  in  that  part  of 
the  mosaic  where  the  figure  of  the  keipen  occurs.  It 
cannot  represent  any  species  of  marmoset,  since  the 
members  of  that  group  of  Quadrumana  are  peculiar 
to  America.  In  all  probability,  as  has  been  stated 
above,  the  koph  of  the  Bible  is  not  intended  to  refer 
to  any  one  particular  species  of  ape.0 

Solomon  was  a  naturalist,  and  collected  every 
thing  that  was  curious  and  beautiful ;  and  if,  as 
Sir  E.  Tennent  has  very  plausibly  argued,  the 
ancient  Tarshish  is  identical  with  Pt.  de  Galle,  or 
some  seaport"  of  Ceylon,  it  is  not  improbable  that 
the  kophim  which  the  fleet  brought  to  Solomon 
were  some  of  the  monkeys  from  that  country,  which, 
according  to  Sir  E.  Tennent,  are  comprised,  with 
the  exception  of  the  graceful  rilawa  ( Macacus  pi- 
leatus),  under  the  Wanderer  group  of  Quadrumana. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  but  that  the  kophim  were 
brought  from  the  same  country  which  supplied 
ivory  and  peacocks  ;  both  of  which  are  common  in 
Ceylon ;  and  Sir  E.  Tennent  has  drawn  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  Tamil  names  for  apes,  ivory,  and 
peacocks,  are  identical  with  the  Heorew.* 

Dr.  Krapf  (Trav.  in  E.  Africa,  p.  518),  believing 
Ophir  to  be  on  the  E.  African  coast,  thinks  Solomon 
wished  to  obtain  specimens  of  the  Guresa  {Colobus}. 

It  is  very  probable  that  some  species  of  baboons 
are  signified  by  the  term  Satyrs,  which  occurs  in 
the  A.  V.  in  the  prophet  Isaiah.  [SATYR.]  The 
English  versions  of  1550  and  1574  read  (Is.  xiii. 
21),  where  the  A.  V.  has,  "satyrs  shall  dance 
there" — "  apes  shall  daunce  there."  The  ancients 
were  no  doubt  acquainted  with  many  kinds  of 
Quadrumana,  both  of  the  tailed  and  tailless  kinds 
(see  Plin.  viii.  c.  19,  xi.  44  ;  Aelian.  Nat.  An.  xvii. 
25,  39  ;  Strab.  xvii.  827  ;  Bochart,  ffierez.  ii. 
398  ;  cf.  Mart.  Epig.  iv.  12. 

"  Si  mihi  cauda  foret  cercopithecus  ero." 


e  The  use  of  the  word  ape  is  generally  now  understood 
in  a  restricted  sense  to  apply  to  the  tailless  Quadrumana. 

f  p^p  appears  to  be  a  word  of  foreign  origin,  allied  to 
the  Sanscrit  and  Malabar  kapi,  which  perhaps  =  swift, 
nimble,  whence  the  German  affe  and  the  English  ape,  the 
initial  aspirate  being  dropped.  Gesenius  illustrates  this 
•lerivation  by  comparing  the  Latin  amare  from  Sansc.  karn 


APPLE-TEEE 

APPLE-TREE,  APPLE  (mBR*  tappfack 
jUTjAov;  /i7jA.ea,  Sym.  in  Cant.  viii.  5:  ma'.um 
mains}.  Mention  of  the  apple-tree  occurs  in  the 
A.  V.,  in  the  following  passages.  Cant.  ii.  3 :  "  As 
the  apple-tree  among  the  trees  of  the  wood,  so  is 
my  beloved  among  the  sons.  I  sat  down  under  his 
shadow  with  great  delight,  and  his  fruit  was  sweet 
to  my  taste."  Cant.  viii.  5 :  "I  raised  thee  up 
under  the  apple-tree :  there  thy  mother  brought  thee 
forth."  Joel  i.  12,  where  the  apple-tree  is  named 
with  the  vine,  the  fig,  the  pomegranate,  and  the 
palm-trees,  as  withering  under  the  desolating  effects 
of  the  locust,  palmer-worm,  &c.  The  fruit  of  this 
tree  is  alluded  to  in  Prov.  xxv.  11 :  "A  word  fitly 
spoken  is  like  apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver." 
In  Cant.  ii.  5  :  "  Comfort  me  with  apples,  for  I  am 
sick  of  love  ;"  vii.  8,  "  The  smell  of  thy  nose  [shall 
be]  like  apples." 

It  is  a  difficult  matter  to  say  with  any  degree 
of  certainty  what  is  the  specific  tree  denoted  by  the 
Hebrew  word  tappuach.  The  LXX.  and  Vulg.  afford 
no  clue,  as  the  terms  (j^Xov,  malum,  have  a  wide 
signification,  being  used  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
to  represent  almost  any  kind  of  tree-fruit ;  at  any 
rate,  the  use  of  the  word  is  certainly  generic ; — but 
Celsius  (Hierob.  i.  255)  asserts  that  the  quince-tree 
(Pyrus  cydonid)  was  very  often  called  by  the  Greek 
and  Roman  writers  mains,  as  being,  from  the  esteem 
n  which  it  was  held  ("  primaria  malorum  species") 
the  mains,  or  /UTJAOJ/  KO.T  e£oxV-  Some  therefore, 
with  Celsius,  have  endeavoured  to  shew  that  the 
tappuach  denotes  the  quince  ;  and  certainly  this 
opinion  has  some  plausible  arguments  in  its  favour. 
The  fragrance  of  the  quince  was  held  in  high  esteem 
by  the  ancients ;  and  the  fruit  "  was  placed  on  the 
heads  of  those  images  in  the  sleeping  apartments 
which  were  reckoned  among  the  household  gods" 
(Rosenmiiller,  Botany  of  Bible,  Bib.  Gab.  p.  314  ; 
Voss,  On  Virgil.  Eclog.  ii.  51).  The  Arabians 
make  especial  allusion  to  the  restorative  properties 
of  this  fruit ;  and  Celsius  (p.  261)  quotes  Abu'l 
Fadli  in  illustration  of  Cant.  ii.  5,  "  Comfort  me 
with  apples,  for  I  am  sick  of  love."  "  Its  scent," 
says  the  Arabic  author,  "  cheers  my  soul,  renews 
my  strength,  and  restores  my  breath."  Phylarchus 
(Histor.  lib.  vi.),  Rabbi  Salomon  (in  Cant.  ii.  3), 
Pliny  (H.  N.xv.  11),  who  uses  the  words  odons 
praestantissimi,  bear  similar  testimony  to  the  deli 
cious  fragrance  of  the  quince.  It  is  well  known 
that  among  the  ancients  the  quince  was  sacred  to 
the  goddess  of  love ;  whence  statues  of  Venus  some 
times  represent  her  with  the  fruit  of  this  tree  in 
her  hand,  the  quince  being  the  ill-fated  "  apple  ot 
discord"  which  Paris  appropriately  enough  pre 
sented  to  that  deity  .b 

Other  writers,  amongst  whom  may  be  mentioned 
Dr.  Royle,  demur  to  the  opinion  that  the  quince  is 
the  fruit  here  intended,  and  believe  that  the  citron 
(Citrus  medico)  has  a  far  better  claim  to  be  the 
tappuach  of  Scripture.  The  citron  belongs  to  the 
orange  family  of  plants  (Aurantiaceae),  the  fruit  of 
which  tree,  together  with  the  lemon  (C.  limoniuiri) 
and  the  lime  (C.  limetta},  is  distinguished  from  the 
orange  by  its  oblong  form  and  a  protuberance  at  the 


,  in  allusion  to  the  per- 


•  v-  I"J  S3. 

fume  of  the  fruit. 

i>  Hence  the  act  expressed  by  the  term 
(Schol.  ad  Aristoph.  Nub.  p.  180  ;  Theocr.  Id.  iii.  10,  v.  88, 
&c.  ;  Virg.  Eel.  iii.  64)  was  a  token  of  love.  For  numerous 
testimonies  see  Celsius,  Hierob.  i.  265. 


APPLE-TREE 

apex.  The  citron,  as  its  name  imports,  is  a  native 
of  Media  (Theophras.  Plant.  Hist.  iv.  4,  §2)  ;  and 
according  to  Josephus  (Ant.  xiii.  13,  §5),  branches 
of  the  citron-tree  were  ordered  by  law  to  be  carried 
by  those  persons  who  attended  the  Feast  of  Taber 
nacles,  and  to  this  day  the  Jews  offer  citrons  at  this 
feast ;  they  must  be  "  without  blemish,  and  the  stalk 
must  still  adhere  to  them"  (Script.  Herb.  p.  109). 
"  The  boughs  of  goodly  trees"  (Lev.  xxiii.  40)  are 
by  several  of  the  Jewish  rabbis  understood  to  be 
those  of  this  tree  (Celsius,  Hierob.  i.  251)  ;  and  the 
citron-tree  is  occasionally  represented  on  old  Sama 
ritan  coins.  "  The  rich  colour,  fragrant  odour,  and 
handsome  appearance  of  the  tree,  whether  in  flower 
or  in  fruit,  are,"  Dr.  Royle  asserts,  "  particularly 
suited  to  the  passages  of  Scripture  mentioned  above." 
Dr.  Thomson  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  545), 
on  the  other  hand,  is  in  favour  of  the  translation 
of  the  A.  V.,  and  has  little  doubt  that  apples  is 
the  correct  rendering  of  the  Hebrew  word.  He 
says,  "  The  whole  area  (about  Askelon)  is  especially 
celebrated  for  its  apples,  which  are  the  largest  and 
best  I  have  ever  seen  in  this  country.  When  I  was 
here  in  June,  quite  a  caravan  started  for  Jerusalem 
loaded  with  them,  and  they  would  not  have  dis 
graced  even  an  American  orchard.  .  .  .  The  Arabic 
word  for  apple  is  almost  the  same  as  the  Hebrew, 
and  it  is  as  perfectly  definite,  to  say  the  least,  as  our 
English  word — as  much  as  the  word  for  grape,  and 
just  as  well  understood  ;  and  so  is  that  for  citron : 
but  this  is  a  comparatively  rare  fruit.  Citrons  are 
also  very  large,  weighing  several  pounds  each,  and 
are  so  hard  and  indigestible  that  they  cannot  be  used 
except  when  made  into  preserves.  The  tree  is  small, 
slender,  and  must  be  propped  up,  or  the  fruit  will 
bend  it  down  to  the  ground.  Nobody  ever  thinks 
of  sitting  under  its  shadow,  for  it  is  too  small  and 
straggling  to  make  a  shade.  I  cannot  believe,  there 
fore,  that  it  is  spoken  of  in  the  Canticles.  It  can 
scarcely  be  called  a  tree  at  all,  much  less  would  it 
be  singled  out  as  among  the  choice  trees  of  the  wood. 
As  to  the  smell  and  colour,  all  the  demands  of  the 
Biblical  allusions  are  fully  met  by  these  apples  of 
Askelon ;  and  no  doubt,  in  ancient  times  and  in 
royal  gardens,  their  cultivation  was  far  superior  to 
what  it  is  now,  and  the  fruit  larger  and  more 
fragrant.  Let  tappuach  therefore  stand  for  apple, 
as  our  translation  has  it." 

Neither  the  quince  nor  the  citron  nor  the  apple, 
however,  appears  fully  to  answer  to  all  the  Scrip 
tural  allusions.  The  tappuach  must  denote  some 
tree  which  is  sweet  to  the  taste,  and  which  pos 
sesses  some  fragrant  and  restorative  properties,  in 
order  to  meet  all  the  demands  of  the  Biblical  allu 
sions.  Both  the  quince  and  the  citron  may  satisfy 
the  last-named  requirement ;  but  it  can  hardly  be 
said  that  either  of  these  fruits  are  sweet  to  the  taste. 
Dr.  Thomson,  in  the  passage  quoted  above,  says  t^at 
the  citron  is  "  too  straggling  to  make  a  shade;"  but 
in  Cant.  ii.  3  the  tappuach  appears  to  be  associated 
with  other  trees  of  the  wood,  and  it  would  do  no 
violence  to  the  passage  to  suppose  that  this  tree 
was  selected  from  amongst  the  rest  under  which  to 


c  Since  the  above  was  written  Dr.  Hooker  has  returned 
from  a  tour  in  Palestine,  and  remarks  in  a  letter  to  the 
author  of  this  article — "  I  procured  a  great  many  plants, 
but  very  little'  information  of  service  to  you,  though  I 
made  every  inquiry  about  the  subject  of  your  cotes.  You 
would  hardly  believe  the  difficulty  in  getting  reliable  in 
formation  about  the  simplest  subjects;  e.g.  three,  to  all 
appearance  unexceptionable  English  resident  authorities, 
including  a  consul  and  a  medical  gentleman,  assured  me 


ASH  xv 

recline,  not  on  account  of  any  extensive  shade  it 
afforded,  but  for  the  fragrance  of  its  fruit.  The 
expression  "  under  the  shade "  by  no  means  neces 
sarily  implies  anything  more  than  "  under  its 
branches."  But  Dr.  Thomson's  trees  were  no  doubt 
small  specimens.  The  citron-tree  is  very  variable  as 
regards  its  size.  Dr.  Kitto  (Pict.  Bib.  on  Cant.  ii. 
3)  says  that  it  "  grows  to  a  fine  large  size,  and 
affords  a  pleasant  shade ;"  and  Risso,  in  his  Histoire 
Naturelle  des  Oranges,  speaks  of  the  citron-tree  as 
having  a  magnificent  aspect. 

The  passage  in  Cant.  ii.  3  seems  to  demand  that 
the  fruit  of  the  tappuach  in  its  unprepared  state 
was  sweet  to  the  taste,  whereas  the  rind  only  of 
the  citron  is  used  as  a  sweetmeat,  and  the  pulp, 
though  it  is  less  acid  than  the  lemon,  is  certainly 
far  from  sweet.  The  same  objection  would  apply 
to  the  fruit  of  the  quince,  which  is  also  far  from 
being  sweet  to  the  taste  in  its  uncooked  state.  The 
orange  would  answer  all  the  demands  of  the  Scrip 
tural  passages,  and  orange-trees  are  found  in  Pales 
tine  ;  but  there  does  not  appear  sufficient  evidence 
to  show  that  this  tree  was  known  in  the  earlier 
times  to  the  inhabitants  of  Palestine,  the  tree  having 
been  in  all  probability  introduced  at  a  later  period. 
As  to  the  apple-tree  being  the  tappuach,  most  tra 
vellers  assert  that  this  fruit  is  generally  of  a  very 
inferior  quality,  and  Dr.  Thomson  does  not  say  that 
he  tasted  the  apples  of  Askelon.c  Moreover  the 
apple  would  hardly  merit  the  character  for  excellent 
fragrance  which  the  tappuach  is  said  to  have  pos 
sessed.  The  question  of  identification,  therefore, 
must  still  be  left  an  open  one.  The  citron  appears 
to  have  the  best  claim  to  represent  the  tappuach, 
but  there  is  no  conclusive  evidence  to  establish  the 
opinion.  As  to  the  APPLES  OP  SODOM,  see  VINE 
OF  SODOM. 

The  expression  "apple  of  the  eye"  occurs  in 
Deut.  xxxii.  10  ;  Ps.  xvii.  8  ;  Prov.  vii.  2 ;  Lam.  ii. 
18;  Zech.  ii.  8.  The  word  is  the  representative 
of  an  entirely  different  name  from  that  considered 
above :  the  Hebrew  word  being  ishi}n,A  "  little 
man  " — the  exact  equivalent  to  the  English  pupil, 
the  Latin  pupilla,  the  Greek  /e^pTj.  It  is  curious 
to  observe  how  common  the  image  ("  pupil  of  the 
eye")  is  in  the  languages  of  different  nations. 
Gesenius  (Thes.  p.  86)  quotes  from  the  Arabic,  the 
Syriac,  the  Ethiopic,  the  Coptic,  the  Persian,  in 
all  of  which  tongues  an  expression  similar  to  the 
English  "  pupil  of  the  eye  "  is  found.  It  is  a  pity 
that  the  same  figure  is  not  preserved  in  the  A.  V., 
which  invariably  uses  the  expression  "apple  of  the 
eye  "  (in  allusion  to  its  shape),  instead  of  giving 
the  literal  translation  from  the  Hebrew. 

ASH  (fl'tf,  oren;  TT'TVS;  pinus]  occurs  only  in 
Is.  xliv.  14,  as  one  of  the  trees  out  of  the  wood  of 
which  idols  were  carved :  "  He  heweth  him  down 
cedars,  and  taketh  the  cypress  and  the  oak,  which 
he  strengtheneth  for  himself  among  the  trees  or  tna 
forest ;  he  planteth  an  ash,  and  the  rain  doth  nourish 
it."  It  is  impossible  to  determine  what  is  the  tree 
denoted  by  the  Hebrew  word  oren ;  the  LXX.  and 


that  the  finest  apples  in  Syria  grew  at  Joppa  and  Askalon. 
The  fact  appeared  so  improbable  that,  though  one  autho- 
rity  had  eaten  them,  I  could  not  resist  prosecuting  the 
Inquiry,  and  at  last  found  a  gentleman  who  had  property 
there,  and  knew  a  little  of  horticulture,  who  assured  me 
they  were  all  QUINCES,  the  apples  being  abominable." 

d  PK^X,  homunculus,  f»yn  jit^N,  homunculus 
oculi,  i.  e.  ptpilla,  in  qua  tanquam  in  sprcnlo  hcminit 
Imagunculam  conspicimus  (Ges.  Thes.  s.  v.l. 


*vi  ASP 

the  Vulg.  understand  some  species  of  pine-tree,  and 
this  rendering  is  supported  by  many  learned  com 
mentators,  amongst  whom  may  be  named  Minister, 
Calvin,  and  Bochart ;  and  some  of  the  Jewish  Rabbis, 
according  to  Celsius  (Hierob.  i.  191),  believe  that 
the  oren  is  identical  with  the  Arabic  sanouber,  a 
kind  of  pine,"  and  assert  that  the  aran  is  often 
coupled  with  the  arez  and  berosch,*  as  though  all 
the  three  trees  belonged  to  the  same  nature.  Luther 
understands  the  cedar  by  oren.c  Rosenmiiller  thinks 
that  the  stone-pine  (Pinus  pinia,  Linn.)  is  the  tree 
denoted.  Celsius  is  inclined  to  think  that  the  oren 
is  identical  with  a  tree  of  Arabia  Petraea,  of  which 
Abul  Fadli  makes  mention,  called  aran.  Of  the 
came  opinion  are  Michaelis  (Supp.  ad  Lex.  Heb. 
129),  Dr.  Royle  (Encyc.  Bib.  Lit.  art.  Oren),  and 
Dr.  Lee  (Lex.  Heb.  s.  v.).  This  tree  is  described 
as  growing  chiefly  in  valleys  and  low  districts ;  it 
is  a  thorny  tree,  bearing  grape-like  clusters  of 
berries,  which  are  noxious  and  bitter  when  green, 
but  become  rather  sweet  when  they  ripen,  and  turn 
black.  Gesenius  (Thes.  s.  v.)  is  in  favour  of  some 
species  of  pine  being  the  tree  intended. 

Nothing  is  known  of  the  tree  of  which  Abul  Fadli 
speaks.  Sprengel  (Hist.  Rei.  Herb.  i.  14)  thinks 
the  aran  is  the  caper-tree  (Capparis  spinosa,  Linn.). 
Dr.  Royle  says  the  tree  appears  to  agree  in  some 
respects  with  Salvadora  persica.  Other  attempts 
at  identification  have  been  made  by  Faber  in  his 
posthumous  MS.  notes  on  Biblical  Botany,  and  Link 
(Schroeder's  Botan.  Journ.  iv.  152),  but  they  are 
mere  conjectures.  The  A.  V.  adopted  the  transla 
tion  of  ash  in  all  probability  from  the  similarity 
of  the  Hebrew  oren  with  the  Latin  ornus ;  and 
Dr.  Royle  states  that  the  Ornus  Europaeus  is  found 
in  Syria,  but  thinks  it  is  not  a  true  native. 

Until  future  investigation  acquaints  us  with  the 
nature  of  the  tree  denoted  by  the  aran  of  Abul 
Fadli,  it  will  be  far  better  to  adopt  the  interpreta 
tion  of  the  LXX.,  and  understand  some  kind  6f 
pine  to  be  the  oren  of  Scripture.  Pinus  halipen- 
sis  or  P  Maritima  may  be  intended.  Celsius 
(Hierob.  i.  193^  objects  to  any  pine  representing 
the  oren,  because  Le  says  pines  are  difficult  to 
transplant,  and  therefore  that  the  pine  would  ill  suit 
the  words  of  the  prophet,  "  he  planteth  an  oren." 
This,  however,  is  not  a  valid  objection:  the  larch, 
for  instance,  is  readily  transplanted,  and  grows  with 
great  rapidity,  but  it  is  not  a  native  of  Syria.  The 
Hebrew  oren  is  probably  derived  from  the  Arabic 
verb  aran,  "to  be  agile,"  "to  be  slender"  or 
"  graceful." 

ASP   (JHS,  pethen;    aa-iris,    SpaKoov,    |8acrt- 

XiV/coj ;  aspis,  basiliscus).  The  Hebrew  word  occurs 
in  the  six  following  passages : — Deut.  xxxii.  33  ; 
Ps.  Iviii.  5,  xci.  13;  Job  xx.  14,  16;  Is.  xi.  8.  It 
is  expressed  in  the  passages  from  the  Psalms  by 
adder  in  the  text  of  the  A.  V.,  and  by  asp  in  the 
margin :  elsewhere  the  text  of  the  A.  V.  has  asp*  as 
the  representative  of  the  original  word  pethen. 
That  some  kind  of  poisonous  serpent  is  denoted 


y,  pinus,  aliis  ejus  nuces  (Gol.  L.  Arab.). 

Dr.  Wilson  (Lands  of  the  JBible,  ii.  392)  identifies  the 
common  "fir"  (Pinus  sylvestris)  with  the  berosh  of 
Scripture,  and  states  that  it  is  "  frequently  seen  in  Le 
banon,  where  it  is  known  by  the  name  of  snobar,"  but 
I>.  Hooker  says  he  never  heard  of  P.  sylvestris  in  Syria, 
and  thinks  P.  halipensis  is  meant. 

b  p5$  and  £jh"O,  cedar  and  cypress. 

c  Heading  pH  instead  of  p^,  "  <luia  ptf  nun  finali 


ASP 

by  the  Hebrew  word  is  clear  from  the  passagei 
quoted  above.  We  further  leara  from  Ps  Iviii.  5, 
that  the  pethen  was  a  snake  upon  which  the  ser 
pent-charmers  practised  their  art.  In  this  passage 
the  wicked  are  compared  to  "  the  deaf  adder  that 
stoppeth  her  ear,  which  will  not  hearken  to  the 
voice  of  charmers,  charming  never  so  wisely ;"  and 
from  Is.  xi.  8,  "  the  sucking  child  shall  play  on 
the  hole  of  the  asp,"  it  would  appear  that  the 
pethen  was  a  dweller  in  holes  of  walls,  &c.  The 
question  of  identity  is  one  which  is  by  no  means 
easy  to  determine.  Bochart  contributes  nothing  in 
aid  to  a  solution  when  he  attempts  to  prove  th- 1 
the  pethen  is  the  asp  (Hieroz.  iii.  156),  for  this 
species  of  serpent,  if  a  species  be  signified  by  the 
term,  has  been  so  vaguely  described  by  authors,, 
that  it  is  not  possible  to  say  what  known  kind  is 
represented  by  it.  The  term  asp  in  modem  zoology 
is  generally  restricted  to  the  Vipcra  aspis  of  La- 
treille,  but  it  is  most  probable  that  the  name, 
amongst  the  ancients,  stood  for  different  kinds  of 
venomous  serpents.  Soliuus  (c.  xxvii.)  says,  "  plures 
diversaeque  sunt  aspidum  species  ;"  and  Aelian  (N. 
Anim.  x.  31)  asserts  that  the  Egyptians  enumerate 
sixteen  kinds  of  asp.  Bruce  thought  that  the  asp 
of  the  ancients  should  be  referred  to  the  cerastes, 
while  Cuvier  considered  it  to  be  the  Egyptian  cobra 
(Naia  haje).  Be  this,  however,  as  it  may,  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  Hebrew  name  pethen 
is  specific,  as  it  is  mentioned  as  distinct  from  acshub, 
shephiphon,  tsiphoni,  &c.,  names  of  other  members 
of  the  Ophidia. 

Oedman  (  Vermisch.Samml.  c.  x.81)  identifies  the 
pethen  with  the  Coluber  lebetinus,  Linn.,  a  species 
described  by  Forskal  (Desc.  Anim.  p.  15).  Roseu- 
muller  (Not.  ad  Hieroz.  iii.  156),  Dr.  .Lee  (Heb. 
Lex.  s.  v.  JDS),  Dr.  Harris  (Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible, 
art.  Asp"),  Col.  H.  Smith  (Encyc.  Bib.  Lit.  art. 
Serpent},  believe  that  the  pethen  of  Scripture  is  to 
be  identified  with  the  Coluber  baetan  of  ForskSl. 
Oedman  has  no  hesitation  in  establishing  an  identity 
between  the  C.  lebetinus  and  the  C.  baetan ;  but 
from  ForskaTs  descriptions  it  is  most  probable  that 
the  two  species  are  distinct.  The  whole  argument 
that  seeks  to  establish  the  identity  of  the  Coluber 
baetan  with  the  pethen  of  Scripture  is  baswJ  en 
tirely  upon  a  similarity  of  sound.  Roseumuller 
thinks  that  the  Arabic  word  baetan  ought  to  be 
written  paetan,  and  thinks  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  this  species  represents  the  pethen  of  Scripture. 
Oedman 's  argument  also  is  based  on  a  similarity  of 
sound 'in  the  words,  though  he  adduces  an  additional 
proof  in  the  fact  that,  according  to  the  Swedish 
naturalist  quoted  above,  the  common  people  of 
Cyprus  bestow  the  epithet  of  kouphe  (/coO^rj), 
"  deaf,"  upon  the  C.  lebetinus.  He  does  not,  how 
ever,  believe  that  this  species  is  absolutely  deaf,  for 
he  says  it  can  hear  well.  This  epithet  of  deafness 
attributed  to  the  C.  lebetinus  Oedman  thinks  may 
throw  light  on  the  passage  in  Ps.  Iviii.  5,  about 
"  the  deaf  adder." 

As  regards  the  opinion  of  Rosenmiiller  and  others 


minusculo,  in  multis  codicis  Ebraei  editionibus  scribatw. 
quod  TO>  Sain  simillimum  est"  (Hierob.  i.  191). 

d  Asp  (the  Greek  dcnrl?,  the  Latin  aspis)  has  by  some 
been  derived  from  the  Heb.  5tf»  "  to  gather  up,"  ic 


allusion  to  the  coiling  habits  of  the  snake  when  at  rest 
but  this  etymology  is  very  improbable.  We  think  tliai 
the  words  are  onomatopoetic,  alluding  to  the  hissing 
sounds  sepents  make:  cf.  Lat.  asp-irwe.  The  shield 
(acrjris)  is  no  doubt  derived  from  the  form  of  the  animal 
at  rest. 


ASP 

who  recognise  the  pethen  under  the  baetan  of 
Korskal,  it  may  be  seated  that,  even  if  the  identity 
it;  allowed,  we  are  as  much  in  the  dark  as  ever  on 
the  subject,  for  the  Coluber  baetan  of  Forsk&l  has 
never  been  determined.  If  C.  baetan  =  C.  lebetinus 
the  species  denoted  may  be  the  Echis  arenicola 
(toxicod)  of  Egypt  (Catalogue  of  Snakes  in  Brit.  M. 
i.  29).  Probably  all  that  naturalists  have  ever 
heard  of  the  C.  baetan  is  derived  from  two  or  three 
lines  of  description  given  by  Forsk&l.  "  The  whole 
body  is  spotted  with  black  and  white ;  it  is  a  foot 
in  length,  and  of  the  thickness  of  two  thumbs ; 
ovjgirous  ;  its  bite  kills  in  an  instant,  and  the 
wounded  body  swells.5'  The  evidence  afforded  by 
the  deaf  snake  of  Cyprus,  and  adduced  in  support 
of  his  argument  by  Oedman,  is  of  no  value  what 
ever  ;  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  audition 
in  all  the  ophidia  is  very  imperfect,  as  all  the 
members  of  this  order  are  destitute  of  a  tympanic 
cavity.  The  epithet  "  deaf,"  therefore,  as  far  as 
relates  to  the  power  all  serpents  possess  of  hearing 
ordinary  sounds,  may  reasonably  be  applied  to  any 
snake.  Vulgar  opinion  in  this  country  attributes 
"deafness"  to  the  adder;  but  it  would  be  very 
unreasonable  to  infer  from  thence  that  the  adder 
of  this  country  (Pelias  Bcrus)  is  identical  with  the 
"  deaf  adder  "  of  the  58th  Psalm  !  Vulgar  opinion 
in  Cyprus  is  of  no  more  value  in  the  matter  of 
identification  of  species  than  vulgar  opinion  in  Eng 
land.  A  preliminary  proof  moreover  is  necessary 
for  the  argument.  The  snake  of  Cyprus  must  be 
demonstrated  to  occur  in  Egypt  or  the  Holy  Land : 
a  fact  which  has  never  yet  been  proved,  though,  as 
was  stated  above,  the  snake  of  Cyprus  (C.  lebetinus} 
may  be  the  same  as  the  Echis  arenicola  of  North 
Africa. 

Very  absurd  are  some  of  the  explanations  which 
commentators  have  given  of  the  passage  concerning 
the  "  deaf  adder   that  stoppeth   her   ears ; "    the 
Piabbi   Solomon  (according  to   Bochart,   iii.  162) 
asserts  that  "  this  snake  becomes  deaf  when  old  in 
one  ear;  that  she  stops  the  other  with  dust,  lest 
she  should  hear  the  charmer's  voice."    Others  main 
tain  that  "  she  applies  one  ear  to  the  ground  and 
stops  the  other  with  her  tail."     That  such  errors 
should  have  prevailed  in  former  days,  when  little 
else  but  foolish  marvels  filled  the  pages  of  natural 
history,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  and  no  allusion 
to  them  would  have  been  made  here,  if  this  absurd 
error  of  "  the  adder  stopping  her  ears  with  her  tail 
had  not  been  perpetuated  in  our  own  day.      In 
Bythner's  Lyre  of  David,  p.  165  (Dee's  translation, 
1847  !),   the    following    explanation   of  the   word 
pethen,  without  note  or  comment,  occurs  : — "  Asp 
whose  deafness  marks  the  venom  of  his  malice,  as 
though  impenetrable  even  to  charms:  it  is  deaf  o 
one  ear,  and  stops  the  other  with  dust  or  its  tail 
that  it  may  not  hear  incantations."     Dr.  Thomson 
also  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  1 55,  London,  1859  !) 
seems  to  give  credence  to  the  fable  when  he  writes- 
««  There  is  also  current  an  opinion  that  the  adder 
will  actually  stop  up  his  ear  with  his  tail  to  fortify 
himself  against  the  influence  of  music  and  other 
charms."     It  is  not  then  needless  to  observe,  in 
confutation  of  the  above  error,  that  no  serpent  pos 
sesses  external  openings  to  the  ear. 

The  true  explanation  of  Ps.  Iviii.  5  is  simply  as 
follows: — There  are  some  serpents,  individuals  of 
the  same  species,  perhaps,  which  defy  all  the  at 
tempts  of  the  charmer— in  the  language  of  Scripture 
such  individuals  may  be  termed  deaf.  The  point 
of  the  rebuke  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  pethen 
APPENDIX. 


ASPALATHUS 


xvii 


was  capable  ot  hearing  the  changer's  long,  but 
refused  to  do  so.  The  individual  case  in  question 
was  an  exception  to  the  rule.  If,  as  some  have  sup- 
>osed,  the  expression  "  deaf  adder "  denoted  some 
ipecies  that  was  incapable  of  hearing,  whence  it  had 
ts  specific  name,  how  could  there  be  any  force  in 
;he  comparison  which  the  psalmist  makes  with 
wicked  men? 

Serpents,  though  comparatively  speaking  deaf  to 
jrdinary  sounds,  are  no  doubt  capable  of  hearing 
he  sharp,  shrill  sounds  which  the  charmer  producia 
either  by  his  voice  or  by  an  instrument ;  and  this 
comparative  deafness  is,  it  appears  to  us,  the  very 
reason  why  such  sounds  as  the  charmer  makes  pro 
duce  the  desired  effect  in  the  subject  under  treat 
ment  [SERPENT-CHARMING.]  As  the  Egyptian 
cobra  is  more  frequently  than  any  other  species  the 


Egyptian  Cobra.    (AVria  haje.) 

subject  upon  which  the  serpent-charmers  of  the 
Bible  lands  practise  their  science,  as  it  is  fond  of 
concealing  itself  in  walls  and  in  holes  (Is.  xi.  8), 
and  as  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  derivation  of 
the  Hebrew  worjl  pethen*  has  reference  to  the  ex 
panding  powers  of  this  serpent's  neck  when  irri 
tated,  "it  appears  to  us  to  have  a  decidedly  better 
claim  to  represent  the  pethen  than  the  very  doubt 
ful  species  of  Coluber  baetan,  which  on  such  slender 
grounds  has  been  so  positively  identified  with  it. 

ASPAL'ATHUS  (ao-TroAoflos  apew^Twj/ ; 
Compl.  iraAaflos  ;  balsamum),  the  name  of  some 
sweet  perfume  mentioned  in  Ecclus.  xxiv.  15,  to 
which  Wisdom  compares  herself: — "  I  gave  a  sweet 
smell  like  cinnamon  and  aspalathus."  The  question 
as  to  what  kind  of  plant  represents  the  aspalathus 
of  the  ancients  has  long  been  a  puzzling  one.  From 
Theocritus  (Id.  iv.  57)  we  learn  that  the  aspalathus 
was  of  a  thorny  nature,  and  (from  Id.  xxiv.  87) 
that  the  dry  wood  was  used  for  burning.  Pliny 
(H.  N.  xii.  24)  says  that  aspalathus  grows  in 
Cyprus ;  that  it  is  a  white  thorny  shrub,  the  size 
of  a  moderate  tree ;  that  another  name  for  this 
plant  was  erysceptrum  or  sceptrum,  "  sceptre,  or 
"  red  sceptre,'"  a  name  perhaps  which  it  owed  to 
the  fact  of  the  flowers  clustering  along  the  length 
of  the  branches:  but  in  another  place  (xxiv.  13) 


1Q  a  ma,  v.  coinp.  inus.  distendere,  whence 
',  limen,  utpote  ad  conculcandum  expansum.  The 
Greek  jru0<oj>  seems  to  be  connected  with  this  word.  Sec 
Ftirst,  Concord,  s.  v.  The  Arab,  baetan  ( ^Xj),  pZantiw 
may  have  reference  to  expansion. 


xviii 


ASS 


he  speaks  of  aspalathus  as  distinct  from  the  ery- 
sceptrum,  as  growing  in  Spain,  and  commonly 
employed  there  as  an  ingredient  in  perfumes  and 
ointments.  He  states  that  it  was  employed  also  in 
the  washing  of  wool.  Theophrastus  (Hist.  Plant. 
ix.  7,  §3,  ed.  Schneider)  enumerates  aspalathus  with 
cinnamon,  cassia,  and  many  other  articles  which 
were  used  for  ointments,  and  appears  to  speak  of  \\ 
as  an  Eastern  production.  In  Fr.  iv.  33  he  says 
it  is  sweet-scented  and  an  astringent.  Dioscorides 
(i.  19)  says  that  the  aspalathus  was  used  for  the 
purpose  of  thickening  ointment. 

It  appears  that  there  were  at  least  two  kinds  or 
varieties  of  plants  known  by  the  name  of  aspalathus ; 
for  all  the  authorities  cited  above  clearly  make 
mention  of  two :  one  was  white,  inodorous,  and 
inferior ;  the  other  had  red  wood  under  the  bark 
and  was  highly  aromatic.  The  plant  was  of  so 
thorny  a  nature  that  Plato  (Repub.  616  A.  ed. 
Bekker)  says  cruel  tyrants  were  punished  with  it 
in  the  lower  world. 

Gerarde  (Herbal,  p.  1625)  mentions  two  kinds 
of  aspalathus:  aspal.  albicans  torulo  citreo,  and 
aspal.  rubens :  "  the  latter,"  he  says,  "  is  the  better 
of  the  two ;  its  smell  is  like  that  of  the  rose,  whence 
the  name  Lignum  Rhodium,  rather  than  from 
Rhodes,  the  place  where  it  is  said  to  grow."  The 
Lignum  Rhodianum  is  by  some  supposed  to  be  the 
substance  indicated  by  the  aspalathus;  the  plant 
which  yields  it  is  the  Convolvulus  scoparius  of 
Linnaeus.*  Dr.  Royle  (Encycl.  Bib.  Lit.  s.  v.)  is 
inclined  to  believe  that  the  bark  of  a  tree  of  the 
Himalayan  mountains,  the  Myrica  sapida  of  Dr. 
Wallich,  is  the  article  indicated,  because  in  India 
the  term  Darshishan,  which  by  Avicenna  and 
Serapion  are  used  as  the  Arabic  synonyms  of 
aspalathus,  is  applied  to  the  bark  of  this  tree.  If 
the  aspalathus  of  the  Apocrypha  be  identieal  with 
the  aspalathus  of  the  Greeks,  it  is  clear  that  the 
locality  for  the  plant  must  be  sought  nearer  home, 
for  Theocritus  evidently  mentions  the  aspalathus 
as  if  it  were  familiar  to  the  Greek  colonists  of  Sicily 
or  the  south  of  Italy  in  its  growing  state.  For 
other  attempts  to  identify  the  aspalathus  see  Sal- 
masius,  Hyl.  lat.  cap.  Ixxxiv ;  Dr.  Royle,  in  passage 
referred  to  above ;  Sprengel,  Hist.  Herb.  i.  p.  45, 
1 83  ;  but  in  all  probability  the  tenn  has  been  applied 
to  various  plants. 

ASS.  The  five  following  Hebiew  names  of  the 
genus  Asinus  occur  in  the  0.  T. : — Chamor,  'Athon, 
fAir,  Pere,  and  'Arod. 

1.  Chamor  piOH a :  lt>ts>  viroty'yiov,  yoftdp 
in  1  Sam.  xvi.  20 :  asinus,  "  ass,"  "  he-ass")  denotes 
the  male  domestic  ass,  though  the  word  was  no 
doubt  used  in  a  general  sense  to  express  any  ass 
whether  male  or  female.  The  ass  is  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  Bible;  it  was  used  (i.)  for  cany- 
ing  burdens  (1  Sam.  xxv.  18  ;  Gen.  xlii.  26,  xlv. 


«  On  this  subject  Sir  W.  Hooker  in  a  letter  writes, 
"  We  must  not  go  to  Convol  scoparius,  albeit  that  may 
possess  the  two  needful  qualifications :  it  is  peculiar  to  the 
Canary  Islands.  Many  plants  with  fragrant  roots  are 
called  Rose-roots.  Such  is  the  Lignum  atoes,  the  lign 
aloes  of  Scripture;  and  there  is  the  poSiapi'fa  of  Dios 
corides,  which  came  from  Macedonia.  A  late  learned 
friend  of  mine  writes,  'This  was  certainly  Linnaeus's 
Rhodiola  rosea,  figured  as  such  by  Parkinson  in  his 
Theatrum  Botanicum,  after  Lobel.  Soon  after  the  dis 
covery  of  the  Canary  Islands  this  name  was  transferred 
to  Cvnvol.  scopariut,  and  afterwards  to  several  American 
plants.  It  1*  called  in  the  Canary  Islands  Lena  Noel,  aj 


ASS 

23  ;  2  Sam.  svi.  1 ;  1  Chr.  -M\\.  40  ;  Neh.  xiii.  15 
1  Sam.  xvi.  20)— (ii.)  for  riding  (Gen.  xxii.  3; 
Ex.  iv.  20;  Num.  xxii.  21;  1  K.  xiii.  23; 
Josh.  xv.  18;  Jud.  i.  14,  v.  10,  x.  4,  xii.  14; 
1  Sam.  xxv.  20 ;  2  St.m.  xvii.  23,  xix.  26  ; 
Zech.  ix.  9  ;  Matt.  xxi.  7) — (iii.)  for  ploughing 
(Is.  xxx.  24,  xxxii.  20;  Deut.  xxii.  10),  and 
perhaps  for  treading  out  com,  though  there  is  no 
clear  scriptural  allusion  to  the  fact.  In  Egypt 
asses  were  so  employed  (Wilkinson's  Anc.  Egypt. 
iii.  34),  and  by  the  Jews,  according  to  Josephus 
(Contr.  Apion.  ii.  §7) — (iv.)  for  grinding  at  the 
mill  (Matt,  xviii.  6 ;  Luke  xvii.  2) :  this  does  not 
appear  in  the  A.  V.,  but  the  Greek  has  /j.v\os 
ovii(6s  for  "  millstone " — (v.)  for  (carrying  bag 
gage  in)  wars  (2  K.  vii.  7,  10),  and  perhaps  frcm 
the  time  of  David — (vi.)  for  the  procreation  of 
mules  <"Gen.  xxxvi.  24 ;  1  K.  iv.  28 ;  Esth.  viii. 
10,  &c.). 

It  is  almost  needless  to  observe  that  the  ass 
in  eastern  countries  is  a  very  different  animal 
from  what  he  is  in  western  Europe ;  there  the 
greatest  care  is  taken  of  the  animal,  and  much 
attention  is  paid  to  cultivate  the  breed  by  crossing 
the  finest  specimens ;  the  riding  on  the  ass  therefore  , 
conveys  a  very  different  notion  from  the  one  which 
attaches  to  such  a  mode  of  conveyance  in  our  own 
country ;  the  most  noble  and  honourable  amongst 
the  Jews  were  wont  to  be  mounted  on  asses  ;  and 
in  this  manner  our  Lord  himself  made  his  trium 
phant  entry  into  Jerusalem.  He  came  indeed 
"  meek  and  lowly,"  but  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose, 
as  many  do,  that  the  fact  of  his  riding  on  the  ass 
had,  according  to  our  English  ideas,  ought  to  do 
with  his  meekness;  although  thereby,  doubtless, 
he  meant  to  show  the  peaceable  nature  of  his  king 
dom,  as  horses  were  used  only  for  war  purposes. 

In  illustration  of  the  passage  in  Judg.  v.  10, 
"  Speak  ye  that  ride  on  white  asses,"  it  may  be 
mentioned  that  Buckingham  (Trav.  389)  tells  us 
that  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  Bagdad  is  its  race 
of  white  asses,  which  are  saddled  and  bridled  for 
the  conveyance  of  passengers  ....  that  they  are 
large  and  spirited,  and  have  an  easy  and  steady 
pace.  Bokhara  is  also  celebrated  for  its  breed 
of  white  asses,  which  are  sometimes  more  than  thir 
teen  hands  high  ;  they  are  imported  into  Peshawar, 
and  fetch  from  80  to  100  rupees  each. 

In  Deut.  xxii.  10  "  plowing  with  an  ox  and  an 
ass  together  "  was  forbidden  by  the  law  of  Moses. 
Michaeiis  (Comment,  on  the  Laws  of  Moses,  transl. 
voL.ii.  392)  believes  that  this  prohibition  is  to  be 
traced  to  the  economic  importance  of  the  ox  in  the 
estimation  of  the  Jews  ;  that  the  coupling  together 
therefore  so  valued  an  animal  as  the  ox  with  the 
inferior  ass  was  a  dishonour  to  the  former  animal ; 
others,  Le  Clerc  for  instance,  think  that  this  law 
had  merely  a  symbolical  meaning,  and  that  by 
it  we  are  to  understand  improper  alliances  in  civil 


corruption  of  Lignum  aloes,  and,  though  now  in  little 
request,  large  quantities  of  it  were  formerly  exported,  and 
the  plant  nearly  extirpated.  The  apothecaries  soM  it 
both  as  Lignum  Rhodium  and  as  the  aspalathus  of  Dios 
corides  ;  it  soon,  however,  took  the  latter  name,  which  was 
handed  over  to  a  wood  brought  from  India,  though  the 
original  plant  was  a  thorny  shrub  growing  on  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean,  probably  Spartium  villosum,  ac 
cording  to  Sibthorpe  (Flor.  Graec.  vol.  vil.  p.  69).'  " 

a  "liDH,  from  root  "IDPI-  "  to  be  red,"  from  the  red 
dish  colour  of  the  animal  in  southern  countries.  Gesealu* 
compares  the  Spanish  burro,  burrico.  In  2  8am.  xix  27 
the  \void  is  used  as  a  feminine. 


ASS 

and  religious  life  to  be  forbidden ;  he  compares 
2  Cor.  vi.  14,  "  Be  ye  not  unequally  yoked  with 
unbelievers."  It  is  not  at  all  improbable  that 
such  a  Ittsson  was  intended  to  be  conveyed  ;  but  we 
think  that  the  main  reason  in  the  prohibition  is  a 
physical  one,  viz.  that  the  ox  and  the  ass  could  not 
pull  pleasantly  together  on  account  of  the  difference 
in  size  and  strength ;  perhaps  also  this  prohibition 
may  have  some  reference  to  the  law  given  in  Lev. 
xix.  19. 

The  expression  used  in  Is.  xxx.  24,  "  The  young 
asses  that  ear  the  ground,"  would  be  more  intel 
ligible  to  modern  understandings  were  it  translated 
the  asses  that  till  the  ground  ;  the  word  ear  from 
arc  "  I  till,"  "  I  plough,"  being  now  obsolete 
(comp.  also  1  Sam.  viii.  12). 

Although  the  flesh  of  the  wild  ass  was  deemed  a 
luxury  amongst  the  Persians  and  Tartars,  yet 
it  does  not  appear  that  any  of  the  nations  of 
Canaan  used  the  ass  for  food.  The  Mosaic  law 
considered  it  unclean,  as  "  not  dividing  the  hoof  and 
chewing  the  cud."  In  extreme  cases,  however,  as 
in  the  great  famine  of  Samaria,  when  "  an  ass's 
head  was  sold  for  eighty  pieces  of  silver "  (2  K. 
vi.  25),  the  flesh  of  the  ass  was  eaten.  Many  com 
mentators  on  this  passage,  following  the  LXX.,  have 
understood  a  measure  (a  chomer  of  bread)  by  the 
Hebrew  word.  Dr.  Hams  says, — "  no  kind  of  ex 
tremity  could  compel  the  Jews  to  eat  any  part  of 
this  animal  for  food," — but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  in  cases  of  extreme  need  parents  ate  their 
own  offspring  (2  K.  vi.  29  ;  Ezek.  v.  10).  This 
argument  therefore  falls  to  the  ground  ;  nor  is  there 
sufficient  reason  for  abandoning  the  common  accepta 
tion  of  these  passages  (1  Sam.  xvi.  20,  xxv.  18), 
and  for  understanding  a  measure  and  not  the 
animal.  For  an  example  to  illustrate  2  K.  I.  c. 
comp.  Plutarch,  Artax.  i.  1023,  "  An  ass's  head 
could  hardly  be  bought  for  sixty  drachms."  b 

The  Jews  were  accused  of  worshipping  the  head 
of  an  ass.  Josephus  (Contr.  Apion.  ii.  §7)  very 
indignantly  blames  Apion  for  having  the  impudence 
to  pretend  that  the  Jews  placed  an  ass's  head  of 
gold  in  their  holy  place,  which  the  grammarian 
isserted  Antiochus  Epiphanes  discovered  when 
ie  spoiled  the  temple.  Plutarch  (Sympos.  iv. 
ch.  5)  and  Tacitus  (Hist.  v.  §3  and  4)  seem  to  have 
believed  in  this  slander.  It  would  be  out  of  place 
here  to  enter  further  into  this  question,  as  it  has  no 
Scriptural  bearing,  but  the  reader  may  find  much 
curious  matter  relating  to  this  subject  in  Bochart 
(Hieroz.  iii.  199,  seq.}. 

2.  'Athon  (finNc:  ^  ovos,  ovos,  ovos  0rjA.e/a, 
r]/j.iovos,  ovos  0rjA.€/a  i/o/ias :  asina,  asinus,  "  ass," 
"  she-ass  ").  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  name 
represents  the  common  domestic  she-ass,  nor  do  we 
think  there  are  any  grounds  for  believing  that  the 
'Athon  indicates  some  particular  valuable  breed 
which  judges  and  great  men  only  possessed,  as 
Dr.  Kitto  (Phys.  Hist.  Pal.  p.  383),  and  Dr. 
Harris  (Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible,  art.  Ass)  have  sup 
posed.  'Athon  in  Gen.  xii.  16,  xlv.  23  is  clearly 
contrasted  with  Chamor.  Balaam  rode  on  a  she- 
ass  (Ath6n).  The  asses  of  Kish  which  Saul 
sought  were  she-asses.  The  Shunammite  (2  K.  iv. 
22,  24)  rode  on  one  when  she  went  to  seek  Elisha. 


b  The  Talmudists  say  the  flesh  of  the  ass  causes  avarice 
in  those  who  eat  it;  but  it  cures  the  avaricious  of  the 
complaint  (Zool.  des  Talm.  5165). 

c  A  word  of  uncertain  derivation,  usually  derived  from 
an  unused  root,  "  to  be  slow,  "  to  walk  with  short  steps ;" 


ASS  xia 

They  were  she-asses  which  fcnued  the  especial  care 
of  one  of  David's  officers  (  1  Chr.  xxvii.  30).  While 
on  the  other  hand  Abraham  (Gen.  xxii.  3,  &c.), 
Achsah  (Josh.  xv.  18),  Abigail  (1  Sam.  xxv.  20), 
the  disobedient  prophet  (1  K.  xiii.  23)  rode  on  a 
Chamor. 

3.  'Air  ("VJJ  :  iruXos,  iru\os  veos    ovos,  jSoOs 
(in  Is.  xxx.  24)  :  pullus  asinae,  pullus  onagri,  ju~ 
mentum,  pullus  asini,  "  foal,"  "  ass  colt,"    •  young 
ass,"  "colt"),  the  name  of  a  young  ass,,  which 
occurs  Gen.  xlix.  11,  xxxii.  16  •  Jud.x.  4,  xii.  14  ; 
Job  xi.  12;  Is.  xxx.  6,  24;  Zech.  ix.  9.     In  the 
passages  of  the  books  of  Judges  and  Zechariah  the 
'Air  is  spoken  of  as  being  old  enough  for  riding 
upon  ;    in  Is.   xxx.   6,  for  carrying  burdens,  and 
in  ver.  24  for  tilling  the  ground  :  perhaps  the  word 
'Air  is  intended  to  denote  an  ass  rather  older  than 
the  age  we  now  understand  by  the  term  foal  ot 
colt;  the  derivation  "to  be  spirited"  or  "impe 
tuous"  would  then  be  peculiarly  appropriate.*1 

4.  Pere  (JOB:    ovos  bypws,    foot    eV  ayp$, 


ovaypos,  ovos  ^prj(j.iri)st  HypotKos  &v6p<airos  ; 
f  eras  homo,  Vulg.  ;  "  wild  man,"  A.  V.,  in  Gen.  xvi. 
12  ;  onager,  "  wild  ass").  The  name  of  a  species 
of  wild  ass  mentioned  Gen.  xvi.  12;  Ps.  civ. 
11  ;  Job  vi.  5,  xi.  12,  xxxix.  5,  xxiv.  5;  Hos. 
viii.  9  ;  Jer.  ii.  24  ;  Is.  xxxii.  14.  In  Gen.  xvi. 
12,  Pere  Adam,  a  "wild-ass  man,"  is  applied  to 
Ishmael  and  his  descendants,  a  character  that 
is  well  suited  to  the  Arabs  at  this  day.  Hosea 
(viii.  9)  compares  Israel  to  a  wild  ass  of  the  desert, 
and  Job  (xxxix.  5)  gives  an  animated  description  of 
this  animal,  and  one  which  is  amply  confirmed  by 
both  ancient  and  modern  writers. 

5.  'Arod  nhy,e  omitted  by  the  LXX.  and  Vulg., 
which  versions  probably  supposed  'Ar6d  and  Pere 
to  be  synonymous;  "wild  ass").  The  Hebrew 
word  occurs  only  in  Job  xxxix.  5,  "  Who  hath  sent 
out  the  Pere  free,  or  who  hath  loosed  the  bands 
of  the  'Arodf  The  Chaldee  plural  'Aradayah 
(N»*njp  occurs-  in  Dan.  v.  21  :  Nebuchadnezzar's 
"  dwelling  was  with  the  wild  asses."  Bochart 
(Hieroz.  ii.  218)  and  Rosenmviller  (Sch.  in  V.  T. 
1.  c.),  Lee  (Comment,  on  Job,  1.  c.),  Gesenius 
(Thes.  s.  v.)  suppose  'arod  and  pere  to  be  identical 
in  meaning;  the  last-named  writer  says  that 
pere  is  the  Hebrew,  and  'arod  the  Aramaean  ;  but 
it  is  not  improbable  that  the  two  na-mes  stand  for 
different  animals. 

The  subject  which  relates  to  the  different 
animals  known  as  wild  asses  has  recently  received 
very  valuable  elucidation  from  Mr.  Blythe  in 
a  paper  contributed  to  the  Journal  of  the  Asiatic 
Society  of  Bengal  (1859),  a  reprint  of  which  appears 
in  the  October  No.  of  The  Annals  and  Magazine 
of  Natural  History  (1860).  This  writer  enu 
merates  seven  species  of  the  division  Asinus  ;  —  • 
in  all  probability  the  species  known  to  the  ancient 
Jews  are  Asinus  hemippus,  which  inhabits  the 
deserts  of  Syria,  Mesopotamia,  and  the  northern 
parts  of  Arabia  ;  and  Asinus  vulgaris  of  N.  E. 
Africa,  the  true  onager  or  aboriginal  wild  ass, 
whence  the  domesticated  breed  is  sprung;  probably 
also  the  Asinus  onager,  the  Kouian  or  Ghorkhur, 
which  is  found  in  Western  Asia  from  48°  N.  lati- 


but  Flirst  (Heb.  Concord,  s.  v.)  demurs  strongly  to  this 
etymology. 

a  From  "Vy,  ferwrt. 

e  *iny,  from  root  *py,  "  to  flee,"  "  to  be  untanwvl. 
Bochart  thinks  the  word  is  onomaiopoetic. 

0  2 


xx  ASS 

tude  southward  to  Persia,  Beluchistan,  and  Western 
India,  was  not  unknown  to  the  ancient  Hebrews, 
though  in  ail  probability  they  confounded  these 
species.  The  Asinus  hemionus,  or  Dshiggetai, 
which  was  separated  from  Asinus  hemippus  (with 


St-rUn  Wild  AM     C^wiw  Htmipput.) 
'  Specimen  It  Zoological  Garden*. 

which  it  had  long  been  confounded)  by  Is.  St.  Hilaire, 
could  hardly  have  been  known  to  the  Jews,  as  this 


BADGER-SKINS 

names  of  Asinus  hemippus,  the  Assyrian  wild  aas, 
Asinus  vulgaris,  the  true  onager — and  perh&ps 
Asinus  onager,  the  Koulan  or  Ghorkhur  of  Persia 
and  Western  India. 

The  following  quotation  from  Mr.  Blythe's 
valuable  paper  is  given  as  illustrative  of  vhe  Scrip- 
I  tural  allusions  to  wild  asses:—"  To  the  west  of  the 
I  range  of  the  Ghor-khur  lies  that  of  Asinus  hemippus, 
or  true  Hemionus  of  ancient  winters— the  par 
ticular  species  apostrophised  in  the  book  of  Job, 
and  again  that  noticed  by  Xenophon.  There  is  a 
recent  account  of  it  by  Mr.  Layard  in  Nineveh  and 
its  Remains  (p.  324).  Returning  from  the  Sinner, 
he  was  riding  through  the  desert  to  Tel  Afer,  and 
there  he  mistook  a  troop  of  them  for  a  body  of 
horse  with  the  Bedouin  riders  concealed  !"  ""The 
reader  will  remember,"  he  adds,  "  that  Xenophon 
mentions  these  beautiful  animals,  which  he  must 
have  seen  during  his  march  over  these  very  plains 
.  .  .  .  '  The  country.'  says  he, 'was  a  plain  through 
out,  as  even  as  the  sea,  and  full  of  wormwood  ;  if 
any  other  kind  of  shrubs  or  reeds  grew  there  they 
had  all  an  aromatic  smell,  but  no  trees  appeared.  .  . 
The  asses,  when  they  were  pursued,  having  gained 
ground  on  the  horses,  stood  still  (for  they  exceeded 
them  much  in  speed);  and  when  these  came  up 
with  them  they  did  the  same  thing  again  .... 
The  ftesh  of  those  that  were  taken  was  like  that  of 
a  red  deer,  but  more  tender'  (Anab.  i.  §5).  'In 
fleetness,'  continues  Mr.  Layard,  'they  equal  the 
gazelle,  and  to  overtake  them  is  a  feat  which  only 
one  or  two  of  the  most  celebrated  mares  have  been 
known  to  accomplish  ' "  (Annals  and  Mag.  of  Nat. 
ffist.  vol.  vi.  No.  34,  p.  243). 

The  subjoined  woodcut  represents  some  kind  of 
wild  ass  depicted  on  monuments  at  Persepolis. 


r  or  Koulan.     (Anna  onager.) 
men  in  British  Museum. 

animal,  which  is  perhaps  only  a  variety  of  Asinus 
onager,    inhabits  Tibet,   Mongolia,   and    Southern 


Drigjretiu  or  Kvang.     (Atinus  Hemioma.) 
Specimen  In  Zoological  (Hrden*.       . 

Siberia,  countries  with  whicb  the  Jews  were  not 
familiar.  We  may  therefore  safely  conclude  that 
the  'Athon  and  Perc  of  the  sacred  writings  stand 
for  the  different  species  now  discriminated  under  the 


Wild  AM.    On  monuments  of  Persepolis. 
(Rawlinson's  Herodotus.) 


BADGER-SKINS  (D^ITO  rhjj,  oroth  tech- 
dshim;  £>nfl,  tachash  (Ez.  Vvi.  10):  Stp/j.ara 
vaKlvQiva.  ;  Aid.  ed.  lavQiva.;  Compl.  vavQiva,  al. 
ire-irvp(afj.fva  in  Ex.  xxv.  5  ;  Alex.  Scp/mara  ayia  in 
Ex.  xxxv.  7;  vaKivQos  ;  Aq.  and  Sym.  lavBiva  in 
Ez.  xvi.  10:  pellcs  ianthinae,  ianthinus).  The 
Hebrew  tachash,  which  the  A.  V.  renders  badger, 
occurs  in  connexion  with  'or,  droth  ("  skin," 
"skins"),  in  Ex.  xxv.  5,  xxvi.  14,  xxxv.  7,  23, 
xxrri.  19;  Num.  iv.  6,  8,  11,  12,  14,  25.  In 
Ezek.  xvi.  10  tachash  occurs  without  oroth,  and  is 
mentioned  as  the  substance  out  of  which  women's 
shoes  were  made;  in  the  former  passages  the 
tachash  skins  are  named  in  relation  to  the  tabernacle, 
ark,  &c.,  and  appear  to  have  formed  the  exterior 
covering  of  these  sacred  articles.  There  is  much 
obscurity  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  tachash  ; 
the  ancient  vei^sions  seem  nearly  all  agreed  that  it 


BADGKU-SKINS 

denotes  not  an  animal,  but  a  colour,  either  black  or 
»ky-l>lue;  unionist  the  names  of  those  who  adopt 
this  interpretation  arc  IWhart  (Ificroz.  ii.  387), 
UoM>nmiiller  (Schol.  ad  V.  T.t  Ex.  xxv.  5;  K/ck. 
xvi.  10),  Bynaeus  (dc  Calccis  Jii-l»-<u-ont»i,  lib.  i. 
ch.  3),  Scheuchzer  (I'hi/s.  &tcr.  in  Ex.  xxv.  5). 
Parkhurst  (Hcb.  Lex.  s.  v.),  who  observes  that  "an 
outermost  covering  for  the  tabernacle  of  azure  or 
sky-blue  was  very  proper  to  represent  the  sky  or 
Mure  boundary  of  the  system."  Some  versions,  as 
ihe<  lerman  of  Luther  and  tlie  A.  V.,  led  apparently 
by  the  Chaldee,*  and  perhaps  by  a  certain  simi- 
.arity  of  sound  between  the  words  tachash,  taxus, 
dachs,  have  supposod  that  the  badger  (melcs  taxus) 
_s  denoted,  but  this  is  clearly  an  error,  for  the 
oadger  is  not  found  in  the  Bible  lands — others,  as 
Gesner  and  Harenberg  (in  Musaeo  Brem.  ii.  312), 
aave  thought  that  some  kind  of  wolf,  known 
oy  the  Greek  name  Bus,  and  the  Arabic  Shaghul 
Is  intended.*  Hasaeus  (in  Dissert.  Philolog.  Sylloge. 
iiss.  ix.  §17)  and  Biisching,  in  his  preface  to  the 
Epitome  of  Scheuchzer's  Physica  Sacra,  are  of 
opinion  that  tachash  denotes  a  cetacean  animal, 
.he  Trichechns  manatus  of  Linnaeus,  which,  how- 
•ver,  is  only  found  in  America  and  the  West  Indies. 
Others  with  Sebald  Kau  (Comment,  de  iis  quae 
«?  Arab,  in  usum  Tabcrmic.  fuerunt  repetita, 
Traj.  ad  Hhen.  1753,  ch.  ii.)  are  in  favour  of 
tachttsh  representing  some  kind  of  seal  (Phoca 
vitulina  Lin.).  Dr.  Geddes  (Grit.  Rein.  Ex. 
xxv.  5)  is  of  the  same  opinion.  Gesenius  under 
stands  some  "  kind  of  seal  or  badger,  or  other 
similar  (!)  creature."  Of  modern  writers  Dr.  Kitto 
(Pict.  1>'M.  on  Ex.  xxv.  5)  thinks  that  tachash 
denotes  some  clean  animal,  as  in  all  probability  the 
skin  of  an  unclean  animal  would  not  have  been  used 
for  the  sacred  coverings.  Col.  H.  Smith  (Encyc* 
Bib.  Lit.  art.  Badger},  with  much  plausibility, 
conjectures,  that  tackash  refers  to  some  ruminant  of 
the  Aigocerine  or  Damaline  groups,  as  tlieso  animals 
are  known  to  the  natives  under  the  names  of 
pacassc,  thacasse  (varieties,  he  says,  of  the  word 
tachash},  and  have  a  deep  grey,  or  slaty  (hysginus} 
coloured  skin.  Dr.  Robinson  on  this  subject  (Bib. 
Res.  i.  171)  writes,  "  The  superior  of  the  convent 
at  Sinai  procured  for  me  a  pair  of  the  sandals 
usually  worn  by  the  Bedouin  of  the  penmsula, 
made  of  the  thick  skin  of  a  fish  which  is  caught  in 
the  Red  Sea.  The  Arabs  round  the  convent  called 
it  Tars,  but  could  give  no  further  account  of  it 
than  that  it  is  a  large  fish,  and  is  eaten.  It  is  a 
sjK-cies  of  Halicore,  named  by  Ehrenberg*  (Symb. 
Phys.  ii.)  Halicora  hcmprechei.  The  skin  is 
clumsy  and  coarse,  and  might  answer  very  well  foi 
the  external  covering  of  a  tabernacle  which  was 
constructed  at  Sinai,  but  would  seem  hardly  a 
fitting  material  for  the  ornamental  sandals  belonging 
to  the  costly  attire  of  high-bom  dames  in  Palestine, 
described  by  the  prophet  Ezekicl." 

It  is  dillicult  to    understand   why  the   ancient 
versions    have    interpreted    the    word   tachash   to 


HALM 


XXI 


faxus,  sic  dictus  qula  gaudet  ct  superbil 

In  colorlbus  nmltis"  (Buxtorf.  L<'x.  liali.  s.  v.). 

b  "The  Bus  of  the  Greeks  is  certainly  tho  Jackal' 
(Cant*  Aureus). 

«  According  to  Khrenbcrg,  the  Arabs  on  the  coast  cal 
this  animal  A'uA'Uand  I.ottittn.  Arabian  naturalists, ipplirt 
the  term  eiisan  nlmn,  "  man  of  tin-  SIM,"  to  this  crrntun-. 

J  Knscnmullcr  (Sch»l.  in  \'.  T.  on  Kx.  xxv.  5)  question 
^  3 

!br  uat>  of  the  Arabic  w  mis 


mean  a  colour,  an  explanation  which  has,  as  Oea*- 
lius  remarks,  no  ground  either  in  the  etymology 
>r  in  the  co-nate  languages.  Whati-ver  is'tlie  m.li- 
jtance  indicated  by  tachash  it  is  evident  from  Kx. 
xxxv.  23  that  it  w;us  some  material  in  tivcjuent  use 
amongst  the  Ismolites  during  the  Exodus,  and  tli« 
construction  of  the  sentences  where  the  name  occurs 
Tor  the  word  oroth,  "  skins,"  is  always,  with  one 
exception,  repeated  with  tachash},  seems  to  imply 
hat  the  skin  of  some  animal  and  not  a  colour  is  de 
noted  by  it.  The  Arabic  duchash  or  tiichash  denotes 
i  dolphin,  but  in  all  probability  is  not  restricted  in 
ts  application,  but  may  refer  to  either  a  seal  or  a 
cetacean.*1  Th«  skin  of  the  Halicore  from  its  hard- 
icss  would  be  well  suited  for  making  soles  for  shoes, 
•uid  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  Arabs  near 
Cape  Mussendum  apply  the  skin  of  these  animals 
or  a  similar  purpose  (Col.  H.  Smith,  /.  c.).  The 
Halicore  Tabcrnaculi  is  found  in  the  Red  Sea,  and 


The  Eye. 


Halicort  Tab<r*ac*li,  with  enlorgwl  drawing  of  the  howl. 


was  observed  by  Ruppell  (Mus.  Scnc/t.  i.  113, 
t.  6),  who  gave  the  animal  the  above  name,  on  the 
coral  banks  of  the  Abyssinian  coast.  Or  perhaps 
tachash  may  denote  a  seal,  the  skin  of  which  animal 
would  suit  all  the  demands  of  the  Scriptural  allu 
sions.  Pliny  (//.  N.  ii.  55)  says  seal  -skins  were 
used  as  coverings  for  tents  ;  but  it  is  quite  impos 
sible  to  come  to  any  satisfactory  conclusion  in  an 
attempt  to  identify  the  animal  denoted  by  the 
Hebrew  word. 


BALM 


,  tztrt:  farlin,:  re- 


sina}  occurs  ii/Ocn.  xxxvii.  25  as  one  of  the  sub- 
stances  which  the  Ishmaelites  were  bringing  from 
Gilead  to  take  into  Egypt  ;  in  (ien.  xliii.  11,  as  one 
of  the  presents  which  Jacob  sent  to  Joseph  ;  in  J«r. 
viii.  '22,  xlvi.  11,  Ii.  8,  where  it  appears  that  the 
l.alin  of  (iilcnd  had  a  me.licinal  value;  in  Ez. 
xxvii.  17  (margin,  "  rosin  ")  as  an  article  of  com 
merce  iiii|-ortei|  by  .ludah  into  Tyre. 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  identify  the 


j  (tuchash),  as  applying  to  tho  dolphin  or  th* 
promiscuously.  The  comnwn  Arabic  name  for  the 
dolphin  is  yoULi  (dll'J '"')•  lv'baps,  tlu-refore,  tiuc/uw* 
ami  tiir/Hitk  bad  a  wldi-  signification.  The  Hcbivw 
i.,  Dl'i.b-,'  urr  oriirin- 


xxii 


BALM 


tzori  by  different  writers,  not  one  of  which,  however, 
can  be  considered  conclusive.  The  Syriac  version 
hi  Jer.  viii.  22,  and  the  Samaritan  in  Gen.  xxxvii.  25, 
suppose  cera,  "  wax,"  to  be  meant ;  others,  as  the 
Arabic  version  in  the  passages  cited  in  Genesis, 
conjecture  theriaca,  a  medical  compound  of  great 
Bupposed  virtue  in  serpent  bites.  Of  the  same  opinion 
is  Castell  (Lex.  Hept.  s.  v.  nV).  Luther  and  the 
Swedish  version  have  "  salve,"  "  ointment,"  in  the 
passages  in  Jeremiah ;  but  in  Ez.  xxvii.  17  they  read 
"  mastick."  The  Jewish  Rabbis,  Junms  and  Tremel- 
iius,  Deodatius,  &c.,  have  "  balm"  or  "  balsam,"  as 
the  A.  V.  (Celsius,  Hierob.  ii.  180)  identifies  the  tzori 
with  the  mastick-tree  (Pistacia  lentiscus). 

Rosenmiiller  (Bibl.  JBot.  169)  believes  that  the 
pressed  juice  of  the  fruit  of  the  zuokum-tree  (Elae- 
agnus  angustifolius,  Lin.  [?] ),  or  narrow-leaved 
oleaster)  is  the  substance  denoted ;  *  but  the  same 
author,  in  another  place  (Schol.  in  Gen.  xxxvii.  25), 
mentions  the  balsam  of  Mecca  (Amyris  opobalsamum, 
Lin.),  referred  to  by  Strabo  (xvi.  p.  778)  and  Dio- 
dorus  Siculus  (ii.  132),  as  being  probably  the  tzori 
(see  Kitto,  Phys.  Hist.  Pal.  273;  Hasselquist, 
Travels,  p.  293).  Dr.  Royle  (Kitto's  Cycl.  Bib. 
Lit.}  is  unable  to  identify  the  tzori  with  any  of  the 
numerous  substances  that  have  been  referred  to  it. 

Josephus  (Ant.  viii.  6,  §7)  mentions  a  current 
opinion  amongst  the  Jews,  that  the  queen  of  Sheba 
first  introduced  the  balsam  into  Judaea,  having  made 
Solomon  a  present  of  a  root.  If  this  be  so — but 
perhaps  it  was  merely  a  tradition — the  tzori  cannot 
be  restricted  to  represent  the  produce  of  this  tree, 
as  the  word  occurs  in  Genesis,  and  the  plant  was 
known  to  the  patriarchs  as  growing  in  the  hilly 
district  of  Gilead. 

Hasselquist  has  given  a  description  of  the  true 
balsam-tree  of  Mecca.  He  says  that  the  exudation 
from  the  plant  "  is  of  a  yellow  colour,  and  pellucid. 
It  has  a  most  fragrant  smell,  which  is  resinous, 
balsamic,  and  very  agreeable.  It  is  very  tenacioys 
or  glutinous,  sticking  to  the  ringers,  and  may  be 
drawn  into  long  threads.  I  have  seen  it  at  a  Turkish 
surgeon's,  who  had  it  immediately  from  Mecca, 
described  it,  and  was  informed  of  its  virtues ;  which 
are,  first,  that  it  is  the  best  stomachic  they  know,  if 
taken  to  three  grains,  to  strengthen  a  weak  stomach  ; 
secondly,  that  it  is  a  most  excellent  and  capital 
remedy  for  curing  wounds,  for  if  a  few  drops  are 
applied  to  the  fresh  wound,  it  cures  it  in  a  very 
short  time  "  (  Travels,  293). 

The  trees  which  certainly  appear  to  have  the  best 
claim  for  representing  the  Scriptural  tzori — sup 
posing,  that  is,  that  any  one  particular  tree  is 
denoted  by  the  term< — are  the  Pistacia  lentiscus 
(mastick),  and  the  Amyris  opobalsamum,  Lin.,  the 
Balsamodendron  opobalsamum,  or  gileadense  of 
modern  botanists  (Balm  of  Gilead).  One  argument 
in  favour  of  the  first-named  tree  rests  upon  the  fact 
that  its  name  in  Arabic  (dseri,  dseru)  is  identical 
with  the  Hebrew  ;  and  the  Arabian  naturalists  have 
attributed  great  medicinal  virtues  to  the  resin 
aJbrded  by  this  tree  (Dioscor.  i.  90,  91  ;  Plin. 
ixiv.  7  ;  Avicenna,  edit.  Arab.  pp.  204  and  277,  in 
Celsius).  The  Pistacia  lentiscus  has  been  recorded 
to  occur  at  Joppa  both  by  Ranwolf  and  Pococke 
^Strand.  Flor.  Palaest.  No.  561).  The  derivation 
of  the  word  from  a  root,  "  to  flow  forth,"  b  is  opposed 
to  the  theory  which  identifies  the  pressed  oil  of  the 

*  From  Alaundrell's  description  of  the  zuckum  Dr. 
Hooker  unhesitatingly  identifies  it  with  Balaniits  Aegyp- 
hoca,  which  he  saw  abundantly  at  Jericho. 


BARLEY 

zuckum  (Balanites  Aegyptiaca  [?])  with  the  tzori 
although  this  oil  is  in  very  high  esteem  amongst 
the  Arabs,  who  even  prefer  it  to  the  balm  of  Mecca 
as  being  more  efficacious  in  wounds  and  bruises  (see 
Mariti,  ii.  353,  ed.  Lond.).  Maundrell  (Journey 
from  Alep.  to  Jerus.,  p.  86),  when  near  the  Dead 
Sea,  saw  the  zuckum-tvee.  He  says  it  is  a  thorny 
bush  with  small  leaves,  and  that  "  the  fruit  both  in 
shape  and  colour  resembles  a  small  unripe  walnut. 
The  kernels  of  this  fruit  the  Arabs  bray  in  a  mortar, 
and  then,  putting  the  pulp  into  scalding  water,  they 
skim  off  the  oyl  which  rises  to  the  top :  this  oyl 
they  take  inwardly  for  bruises,  and  apply  it  out 
wardly  to  green  wounds I  procured  a  bottle 

of  it,  and  have  found  it  upon  some  small  tryals  a 
very  healing  medicine."  "  This,"  says  Dr.  Robinson 
(Bib.  fies.  ii.  291),  "is  the  modern  balsam  or  oil 
of  Jericho."  Perhaps,  after  all,  the  tzori  does  not 
refer  to  an  exudation  from  any  particular  tree,  but 
was  intended  to  denote  any  kind  of  resinous  sub 
stance  which  had  a  medicinal  value.  The  tzori, 
then,  may  represent  the  gum  of  the  Pistacia  len 
tiscus,  or  that  of  the  Balsamodendron  opobalsamum. 
[SPICES  ;  MASTICK.]  Compare  Winer,  Biblisch. 
Realw&rt.  s.  v.  for  numerous  references  from  ancient 
and  modern  writers  on  the  subject  of  the  balm  or 
balsam-tree,  and  Hooker'a  Kew  Garden  Misc.  i. 
p.  257. 

BARLEY  (rnyb,  seSrah:  KpiOr,:  hordeum), 
the  well-known  useful  cereal,  mention  of  which  is 
made  in  numerous  passages  of  the  Bible.  Pliny 
(H.  N.  xviii.  7)  states  that  Hrley  is  one  of  the 
most  ancient  articles  of  diet.  It  was  grown  by  the 
Egyptians  (Ex.  ix.  31 ;  Herod,  ii.  77  ;  Diodor.  i.  34 ; 
Plin.  xxii.  25)  j  and  by  the  Jews  (Lev.  xxvii.  16; 
Deut.  viii.  8 ;  Ruth  ii.  17,  &c.),  who  used  it  for 
baking  into  bread,  chiefly  amongst  the  poor  (Judg. 
vii.  13  ;  2  K.  iv.  42  ;  John  vi.  9,  13);  for  making 
into  bread  by  mixing  it  with  wheat,  beans,  lentiles, 
millet,  &c.  (Ez.  iv.  9)  ;  for  making  into  cakes  (Ez. 
iv.  12)  ;  as  fodder  for  horses  (1  K.  iv.  28).  Com 
pare  also  Juvenal  (viii.  154)  ;  and  Pliny  (If.  N, 
xviii.  14  ;  xxviii.  21),  who  states  that  though  barley 
was  extensively  used  by  the  ancients,  it  had  in  his 
time  fallen  into  disrepute,  and  was  generally  used 
as  fodder  for  cattle  only.  Sonnini  says  that  barley 
is  the  common  food  for  horses  in  the  East.  Oats 
and  rye  were  not  cultivated  by  the  Jews,  and  per 
haps  not  known  to  them.  [RYE.]  (See  also  Kitto 
Phys.  H.  of  Pal.  214.)  Barley  is  mentioned  in  the 
Mishnah  as  the  food  of  horses  and  asses. 

The'  barley  harvest  is  mentioned  Ruth  i.  2'2, 
ii.  13;  2  Sam.  xxi.  9,  10.  It  takes  place  in  Pa 
lestine  in  March  and  April,  and  in  the  hilly  dis 
tricts  as  late  as  May;  but  the  period  of  course 
varies  according  to  the  localities  where  the  corn 
grows.  Mariti  (Trav.  416)  says  that  the  barley 
in  the  plain  of  Jericho  begins  to  ripen  in  April. 
Niebuhr  (Besch.  von  Arab.  p.  160)  found  barley 
ripe  at  the  end  of  March  in  the  fields  about  Jeru 
salem.  The  barley  harvest  always  precedes  the 
wheat  harvest,  in  some  places  by  a  week,  in  others 
by  fully  three  weeks  (Robinson,  Bib.  Res.  ii.  99,  278). 
In  Egypt  the  barley  is  about  a  month  earlier  than 
the  wheat ;  whence  its  total  destruction  by  the 
hail-storm  (Ex.  ix.  31).  Barley  was  sown  at  any 
time  between  November  and  March,  according  tc 
the  seascn.  Niebuhr  states  that  he  saw  a  crop  near 


"  **>  flow  as  *  wo«nd  from  a  cleft."    The  cog- 
nate  Syriac  and  Arabic  have  a  similar  meaning. 


BARLEY 


BAT 


XXlll 


Jerusalem  ripe  at  the  end  of  March»  and  a  field  I  people  for  handfuls  of  barley?"    And  how  does  the 
which  had  been  just  newly  sown.    Dr.  Kitto  adduces  |  knowledge  of  the  fact  aid  to  point  out  the  connexion 


the  authority  of  the  Jewish  writers  as  an  additional 
proof  of  the  above  statement  (Phys.  H.  Pal.  229). 
This  answers  to  the  winter  and  spring-sown  wheat 
of  cur  own  country ;  and  though  the  former  is  ge 
nerally  ripe  somewhat  earlier  than  the  latter,  yet 
the  harvest-time  of  both  is  the  same.  Thus  it  was 
with  the  Jews  :  the  winter  and  spring-sown  barley 
were  usually  gathered  into  the  garners  about  the 
same  time  ;  though  of  course  the  very  late  spring- 
sown  crops  must  have  been  gathered  in  some  time 
after  the  others. 

Major  Skinner  (Adventures  in  an  Overland  Jour 
ney  to  India,  i.  330)  observed  near  Damascus  a  field 
newly  sown  with  bailey,  which  had  been  submitted 
to  submersion  similar  to  what  is  done  to  rice-rields. 
Dr.  Royle  (Kitto's  Cycl.  Bib.  Lit.  art.  "Barley") 
with  good  reason  supposes  that  this  explains  Is.  xxxii. 
20:  "Blessed  are  ye  that  sow  beside  all  waters;" 
and  demurs  to  the  explanation  which  many  writers 
have  given,  viz.  that  allusion  is  made  to  the  mode 
in  which  rice  is  cultivated.  We  cannot,  however, 
at  all  agree  with  this  writer,  that  the  passage  in 
Eccles.  xi.  1  has  any  reference  to  irrigation  of  newly- 
sown  barley  fields.  Solomon  in  the  context  is  en 
forcing  obligations  to  liberality,  of  that  especial 
nature  which  looks  not  for  a  recompense :  as  Bishop 
Hall  says,  "  Bestow  thy  beneficence  on  those  from 
whom  there  is  no  probability  of  a  return  of  kind 
ness."  It  is  clear,  that,  if  allusion  is  made  to  the 
mode  of  culture  referred  to  above,  either  in  the  case 
of  rice  or  barley,  the  force  and  moral  worth  of  the 
lesson  is  lost ;  for  the  motive  of  such  a  sowing  is 
expectation  of  an  abundant  return.  The  meaning 
of  the  passage  is  surely  this :  "  Be  liberal  to  those 
who  are  as  little  likely  to  repay  thee  again,  as  bread 
or  corn  cast  into  the  pool  or  the  river  is  likely  to 
return  again  unto  thee."  Barley,  as  an  article 
of  human  food,  was  less  esteemed  than  wheat. 
[BREAD.]  Compare  also  Calpurnius  (Ed.  iii. 
84),  Pliny  (H.  N.  xviii.  7),  and  Livy  (xxvii.  13), 
who  tells  us  that  the  Roman  cohorts  who  lost  their 
standards  were  punished  by  having  barley  bread 
given  them  instead  of  wheaten.  The  Jews,  accord 
ing  to  Tract.  Sanhedr.  c.  9,  §5,  had  the  following 
law:  "  Si  quis  loris  caesus  reciderit  jussu  judicum 
arcae  inditus  hordeo  cibatur,  donee  venter  ejus  rum- 
patur."  That  barley  bread  is  even  to  this  day  little 
esteemed  in  Palestine,  we  have  the  authority  of 
modern  travellers  to  shew.  Dr.  Thomson  (  The  Land 
and  the  Book,  p.  449)  says  "  nothing  is  more  com 
mon  than  for  these  people  to  complain  that  their 
oppressors  have  left  them  nothing  but  barley  bread 
to  eat."  This  fact  is  important,  as  serving  to  elu 
cidate  some  passages  in  Scripture.  Why,  for  instance, 
was  barley  meal,  and  not  the  ordinary  meal-otfering 
of  wheat  flour,  to  be  the  jealousy-offering  (Num. 
v.  15)?  Because  thereby  is  denoted  the  low  reputa 
tion  in  which  the  implicated  parties  were  held.  The 
homer  and  a  half  of  barley,  as  part  of  the  purchase- 
money  of  the  adulteress  (Hos.  iii.  2),  has  doubtless 
a  similar  typical  meaning.  With  this  circumstance 
in  remembrance,  how  forcible  is  the  expression  in 
Ezekiel  (xiii.  19),  "  Will  ye  pollute  me  among  my 


a  The  Hebrew  word 


derived  from 


Jiorrere;  so  called  from  the  long  rough  awns  which  arc 

attached  to  the  husk.    Similarly,  hordeum  is  from  horrere. 

V  From  ^tffi  =  A-k-e  ('gJiataT),  "the  night  was  dark," 

and  BJJ,  "flying"  :  vvxrupiy,  from  wit,  "night":  vetfcr- 


between  Gideon  and  the  barley-cake,  in  the  dream 
which  the  "  man  told  to  his  fellow"  (Judg.  vii.  13). 
Gideon's  "  family  was  poor  in  Manasseh  —  and  he  was 
the  least  in  his  father's  house  ;"  and  doubtless  th< 
Midianites  knew  it.  Again,  the  Israelites  had  beei. 
oppressed  by  Midian  for  the  space  of  seven  years. 
Very  appropriate,  therefore,  is  the  dream  and  th« 
interpretation  thereof.  The  despised  and  humble 
Israelitish  deliverer  was  as  a  mere  vile  barley-cake 
in  the  eyes  of  his  enemies.  On  this  passage  Dr. 
Thomson  remarks,  "  If  the  Midianites  were  accus 
tomed  in  their  extemporaneous  songs  to  call  Gideon 
and  his  band  "  cakes  of  barley  bread,"  as  their  suc 
cessors  the  haughty  Bedawin  often  do  to  ridicule 
their  enemies,  the  application  would  be  all  the  more 
natural."  That  barley  was  cultivated  abundantly 
in  Palestine  is  clear  from  Deut.  viii.  8,  2  Chr.  ii. 
10,  15. 

The  cultivated  barleys  are  usually  divided  into 
'*  two-rowed  "  and  "  six-rowed"  kinds.  Of  the  first 
the  Hordeum  distichum,  the  common  summer  barley 
of  England,  is  an  example  ;  while  the  H.  hexa- 
stichutn,  or  winter  barley  of  farmers,  will  serve  to 
represent  the  latter  kind.  The  kind  usually  grown 
in  Palestine  is  the  H.  distichum.  It  is  too  well 
known  to  need  further  description.* 


y,  'hatalleph:  vvKrepis:  vespei'tilio}. 
There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  A.  V.  is  cor 
rect  in  its  rendering  of  this  word  :  the  derivation 
of  the  Hebrew  name,b  the  authority  of  the  old  ver 
sions,  which  are  all  agreed  upon  the  point,c  and  the 
context  of  the  passages  where  the  Hebrew  word 
occurs,  are  conclusive  as  to  the  meaning.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  A.  V.  of  Lev.  xi.  19,  and  Deut. 
xiv.  18,  the  'hatalleph  closes  the  lists  of  "fowls 


Bat.     (Taphozous  perforate.) 

that  shall  not  be  eaten ;"  but  it  must  be  remem 
bered  that  the  ancients  considered  the  bat  to  par 
take  of  the  nature  of  a  bird,  and  the  Hebrew  6ph, 
"  fowls,"  which  literally  means  "  a  wing,"  might 
be  applied  to  any  winged  creature:  indeed  this 
seems  clear  from  Lev.  xi.  20,  where,  immediately 
after  the  'hatalkph  is  mentioned,  the  following 
words,  which  were  doubtless  suggested  by  this 
name,  occur:  "  All  fowls  that  creep,  going  upon 


tilio,  from  "vesper,"  the  evening.     Bat,  perhaps,  from 
blatta,  Uacta  (see  Wedgwood,  Diet.  Evgl.  Etymol.). 

c  With  the  exception  of  UK  «yriac,  which  has 
(f'uaso),  "a peacock." 


xxiv 


BAY-TREE 


all  four,  shall  be  an  abomination  u.'.to  you."  Be 
sides  the  passages  cited  above,  mention  of  the  bat 
occurs  in  Is.  ii.  20 :  "  In  that  day  a  man  shall  cast 
his  idols  of  silver  and  his  idols  of  gold  ....  to  the 
moles  and  to  the  bats:"  and  in  Baruch  vi.  22,  in 
the  passage  that  so  graphically  sets  forth  the  vanity 
of  the  Babylonish  idols :  "  Their  faces  are  blacked 
through  the  smoke  that  cometh  out  of  the  temple ; 
upon  their  bodies  and  heads  sit  bats,  swallows,  and 
birds,  and  the  cats  also." 

Bats  delight  to  take  up  their  abode  in  caverns 
and  dark  places.  Several  species  of  these  animals 
are  found  in  Egypt,  some  of  which  occur  doubtless 
in  Palestine.  Molossus  JRuppelii,  Vespertilio  pipis- 
trellus  var.  Aegyptius,  V.  auritus  var.  Aegypt., 
Taphozous  perforates,  Nycteris  Thebaica,  Rhino- 
poma  microphyllum,  Rhinolophus  tridens,  occur  in 
the  tombs  and  pyramids  of  Egypt. 


Many  travellers  have  noticed  the  immense  num 
bers  of  bats  that  are  found  in  caverns  in  the  East, 
and  Layard  says  that  on  the  occasion  of  a  visit  to  a 
cavern  these  noisome  beasts  compelled  him  to  retreat 
(Nineveh  and  Babylon,  p.  307).  To  this  day  these 
animals  find  a  congenial  lurking  abode  "amidst 
the  remains  of  idols  and  the  sculptured  representa 
tions  of  idolatrous  practices  "  (Script.  Nat.  H.  p.  8) 
thus  forcibly  attesting  the  meaning  of  the  prophe 
Isaiah's  words.  Bats  belong  to  the  order  Cheirop 
tera,  class  Mammalia. 

BAY-TREE  (rnjN,a  czrdch :  KeSpos  rov  Ai- 
Bdvov  :  cedrus  Libani).  It  is  difficult  to  see  upon 
what  grounds  the  translators  of  the  A.  V.  have 
understood  the  Hebrew  word  of  Ps.  xxxvii.  35  if. 
signify  a  "  bay-tree":  such  a  rendering  is  entirely 
unsupported  by  any  kind  of  evidence.  Most  of  th 
Jewish  doctors  understand  by  the  term  ezrach  «' ; 
tree  which  grows  in  its  own  soil " — one  that  has 
never  been  transplanted  ;  which  is  the  interpretation 
given  in  the  margin  of  the  A.  V.  Some  versions 
as  the  Vulg.  and  the  Arabic,  follow  the  LXX.,  whicl 
reads  "  cedar  of  Lebanon,"  mistaking  the  Hebrew 
word  for  one  of  somewhat  similar  form.b  Celsiu 
(ffierob.  i.  194)  agrees  with  the  author  of  th 
sixth  Greek  edition,  which  gives  avr6x^wv  (i 
genii,  "one  born  in  the  land")  as  the  meaning  o 
the  Hebrew  word :  with  this  view  Rabbi  Solomor 


From  mi-  ortus  >,st  (Sol). 


BDELLIUM 

nd  Hammond  (Commerd.  on  Ps.  xxviii.)  coincide 
>r.  Royle  (Kitto's  Cycl.  Bib.  Lit.  art.  "  Esrarh  ") 
Jggests  the  Arabic  Ashruk,  which  he  says  is  de« 
cribed  in  Arabic  works  on  Materia  Medica  as  a  tres 
aving  leaves  like  the  ghar  or  "  bay-tree."  This 
pinion  must  be  rejected  as  unsupported  by  any 
uthority. 

Perhaps  no  tree  whatever  is  intended  by  the 
ord  ezrach,  which  occurs  in  several  passages  of 
ne  Hebrew  Bible,  and  signifies  "  a  native,"  in  con- 
radistinction  to  "  a  stranger,"  or  "  a  foreigner." 
}omp.  Lev.  xvi.  29:  "  Ye  shall  afflict  your  souls 
.  .  .  whether  it  be  one  of  your  own  country 
nTKn,  hdezrach)  or  a  stranger  that  sojourn  eth 
mong  you."  The  epithet  "  green,"  as  Celsius  has 
bserved,  is  by  no  means  the  only  meaning  of  the 
lebrew  word  ;  for  the  same  word  occurs  in  Dan. 
v.  4,  where  Nebuchadnezzar  uses  it  of  himself: 
I  was  flourishing  in  my  palace."  In  all  other 
>assages  where  the  word  ezrach  occurs  it  evidently 
s  spoken  of  a  man  (Gels,  ffierob.  i.  196).  In  sup- 
X)rt  of  this  view  we  may  observe  that  the  word 
ranslated  "  in  great  power  "  c  more  literally  si^ 
ifies  "  to  be  formidable,"  or  "to  cause  terror," 
md  that  the  word  which  the  A.  V.  translate* 
'  spreading  himself,"  d  more  properly  means  to 
'  make  bare."  The  passage  then  might  be  thus 
paraphrased  :  "  I  have  seen  the  wicked  a  terror  to 
thers,  and  behaving  with  barefaced  audacity,  just 
\s  some  proud  native  of  the  land."  In  the  Levitical 
.aw  the  oppression  of  the  stranger  was  strongly 
brbidden,  perhaps  therefore  some  reference  to  such 
acts  of  oppression  is  made  in  these  words  of  th« 
>salmist. 


BDELLIUM 


,  bedolach  : 


ffra\\ov  :  bdellium),  a  precious  substance,  the  name 
of  which  occurs  in  Gen.  ii.  12,  with  "gold"  and 
'  onyx  stone,"  as  one  of  the  productions  of  the  land 
of  Havilah,  and  in  Num.  xi.  7,  where  manna  is  in 
colour  compared  to  bdellium.  There  are  few  sub 
jects  that  have  been  more  copiously  discussed  than 
this  one,  which  relates  to  the  nature  of  the  article 
denoted  by  the  Hebrew  word  bedolach  ;  and  it  must 
be  confessed  that  notwithstanding  the  labour  be 
stowed  upon  it,  we  are  still  as  much  in  the  dark  as 
ever,  for  it  is  quite  impossible  to  say  whether  bedolach 
denotes  a  mineral,  or  an  animal  production,  or  a 
vegetable  exudation.  Some  writers  have  supposed 
that  the  word  should  be  written  berolach  (beryl),  in 
stead  of  bedolach,  as  Wahl  (in  Descr.  Asice,  p.  856) 
and  Hartmann  (de  Mulier.  Hebraic,  iii.  96),  but 
beryl,  or  aqua  marine,  which  is  only  a  pale  variety 
of  emerald,  is  out  of  the  question,  for  the  bdellium 
was  white  (Ex.  rvi.  31,  with  Num.  xi.  7),  while  the 
beryl  is  yellow  or  red,  or  faint  blue  ;  .for  the  same 
reason  the  &j/6pal-  ("  carbuncle  ")  of  the  LXX.  (in 
Gen.  1.  c.)  must  be  rejected  ;  while  Kpvffra\\o9 
("  crystal  ")  of  the  same  version,  which  interpreta 
tion  is  adopted  by  Reland  (de  Situ  Paradisi,  §12), 
is  mere  conjecture.  The  Greek,  Venetian,  and  the 
Arabic  versions,  with  some  of  the  Jewish  doctors, 
understand  "  pearls"  to  be  intended  by  the  Hebrew 
word  ;  and  this  interpretation  Bochart  (ffieroz.  iti 
592)  and  Geseuius  accept  ;  on  the  other  hand  the 
Gr.  versions  of  Aquila,  Theodotion,  and  Symmachus, 
Josephus  (Ant.  iii.  1,  §6),  Salmasius  (Hyl.  Tatri.  p. 
181),  Celsius  (Hierob.  i.  324),  Sprengel  (ffist.  Rei, 


See  the  Hebrew  Lexicons,  *  w. 


BEANS 

ffcrb.  i.  18,  and  Comment,  in  Dioscor.  i.  80),  and 
*  few  modern  writers  believe,  with  the  A.  V.,  that 
oedolach  =  bdellium,  t.  e.  an  odoriferous  exudation 
from  a  tree  which  is,  according  to  Kaempfer  (Amoen. 
Exot.  p.  668)  the  Borassus  flabelliformis,  Lin.  of 
Arabia  Felix;  compare  Pliny  (H.  N.  xii.  9,  §19), 
where  a  full  description  of  the  tree  and  the  gum  is 
given.  The  aromatic  gum,  according  to  Dioscorides 
(i.  80)  was  called  /j.dSs\Kov  or  &6\xov;  and  ac 
cording  to  Pliny  brochon,  malacham,  maldacon, 
names  which  seem  to  be  allied  to  the  Hebrew  bedolach. 
Plautus  {Cure.  i.  2,  7)  uses  the  word  bdellium. 

As  regards  the  theory  which  explains  bedolach 
by  "  pearls,"  it  must  be  allowed  that  the  evidence 
in  its  favour  is  very  inconclusive  ;  in  the  first  place 
it  assumes  that  Havilah  is  some  spot  on  the  Persian 
Gulf  where  pearls  are  found,  a  point  however  which 
is  fairly  open  to  question  ;  and  secondly,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  there  are  other  Hebrew  words 
for  "pearls,"  viz.  Dor?  and  according  to  Bochart, 
Pentmm*  though  there  is  much  doubt  as  to  the 
meaning  of  this  latter  word. 

The  fact  that  cben,  "  a  stone,"  is  prefixed  to 
sho/iam,  "  onyx,"  and  not  to  bedolach,  seems  to 
exclude  the  latter  from  being  a  mineral ;  nor  do  we 
think  it  a  sufficient  objection  to  say  "  that  such  a 
production  as  bdellium  is  not  valuable  enough  to  be 
classed  with  gold  and  precious  stones,"  for  it  would 
be  easy  to  prove  that  resinous  exudations  were  held 
in  very  high  esteem  by  the  ancients,  both  Jews 
and  Gentiles;  and  it  is  more  probable  that  the 
sacred  historian  should  mention,  as  far  as  may 
be  in  a  few  words,  the  varied  productions, 
vegetable  as  well  as  mineral,  of  the  country  of 
which  he  was  speaking,  rather  than  confine  his  re 
marks  to  its  mineral  treasures ;  and  since  there  is 
a  similarity  of  form  between  the  Greek  /SSeAAtov, 
or  /j.dSe\Kov,  and  the  Hebrew  bedolach ;  and  as 
this  opinion  is  well  supported  by  authority,  the 
balance  of  probabilities  appears  to  us  to  be  in  favour 
of  the  translation  of  the  A.  V.,  though  the  point 
will  probably  always  be  left  an  open  one.c 

BEANS  (VlB,*  poll  Kfapos:  fabd).  There 
appears  never  to  have  been  any  doubt  about  the 
correctness  of  the  translation  of  the  Hebrew  word. 
Beans  are  mentioned  with  various  other  things  in 
2  Sam.  xvii.  28,  as  having  been  brought  to  David 
at  the  time  of  his  flight  from  Absalom,  and  again 
in  Ezek.  iv.  9,  beans  are  mentioned  with  "  barley, 
lentiles,  millet,  and  fitches,"  which  the  prophet 
was  ordered  to  put  into  one  vessel  to  be  made  into 
bread.  Pliny  (ff.  N.  xviii.  12)  also  states  that 
beans  were  used  for  a  similar  purpose.  Beans  are 
cultivated  in  Palestine,  which  country  grows  many 
of  the  leguminous  order  of  plants,  such  as  lentils, 
kidney-beans,  vetches,  &c.  Beans  are  in  blossom 
in  Palestine  in  January  ;  they  have  been  noticed  in 
flower  at  Lydda  on  the  23rd,  and  at  Sidon  and 
Acre  even  earlier  (Kitto,  Phys.  H.  Palest.  215)  ; 
they  continue  in  flower  till  Maivh.  In  Egypt 
beans  are  sown  in  November  and  reaped  in  the 
middle  of  February,  but  in  Syria  the  harvest  is  later 


BEAK  xxv 

Dr.  Kitto  (jbid.  319)  says  that  the  "stalks  ara 
ut  down  with  the  scythe,  and  these  are  after 
wards  cut  and  crushed  to  fit  them  for  the  food  of 
cattle ;  the  beans  when  sent  to  market  are  often  de 
prived  of  their  skins  by  the  action  of  two  small 
mill-stones  (if  the  phrase  may  be  allowed)  of  clay 
dried  in  the  sun."  Dr.  Shaw  (Travels,  i.  257,  8vo. 
ed.  1808)  says  that  in  Northern  Africa  beans  are 
isually  full  podded  at  the  beginning  of  March,  and 
xmtinue  during  the  whole  spring;  that  they  are 
'  boiled  and  stewed  with  oil  and  garlic,  and  are  th» 
)rincipal  food  of  persons  of  all  distinctions." 

Herodotus  (ii.  37;  states  that  the  Egyptian  priests 
ibhor  the  sight  of  beans,  and  consider  them  impure, 
and  that  the  people  do  not  sow  this  pulse  at  all, 
nor  indeed  eat  what  grows  in  their  country ;  but 
i  passage  in  Diodorus  implies  that  the  abstinence 
Vom  this  article  of  food  was  not  general.  The 
remark  of  Herodotus,  therefore,  requires  limitation. 
The  dislike  which  Pythagoras  is  said  to  have  main 
tained  for  beans  has  been  by  some  traced  to  the 
nfluence  of  the  Egyptian  priests  with  that  philo 
sopher  (see  Smith's  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Bom.  Biog. 
art.  "  Pythagoras  "). 

Hiller  (Hierophyt.  ii.  130),  quoting  from  the 
Mishna,  says  that  the  high-priest  of  the  Jews  was 
not  allowed  to  eat  either  eggs,  cheese,  flesh,  bruised 
jeans  (fabas  /mas),  or  lentils  on  the  day  before 
;he  sabbath. 

The  bean  (  Vicia  faba)  is  too  well  known  to  need 
description  ;  it  is  cultivated  over  a  large  portion  ot 
the  old  world  from  the  north  of  Europe  to  the 
south  of  India ;  it  belongs  to  the  natural  order  of 
plants  called  leguminosae. 

BEAK   (IV   Heb.   and  Ch.,   or  3ft    d6b . 

KTos,  &pKos,  \VKOS  in  Prov.  xxviii.  15  ;  p.4pi^va 

Prov.  xvii.  12,  as  if  the  word  were  DN'H :  ursus, 

(wsa).  This  is  without  doubt  the  Syrian  bear 
( Ursvs  Syriacus~),  which  to  this  day  is  met  with  occa 
sionally  in  Palestine.  Ehrenberg  says  that  this  bear 
s  seen  only  on  one  part  of  the  summit  of  Lebanon, 
called  Mackmel,  the  other  peak,  Gebel  Sanin,  being 
strangely  enough  free  from  these  animals.  The 
Syrian  bear  is  more  of  a  frugiverous  habit  than  the 
brown  bear  (  Ursus  arctos),  but  when  pressed  with 
hunger  it  is  known  to  attack  men  and  animals  ;  it 
is  very  fond  of  a  kind  of  chick-pea  (Cicer  arie- 
tinus\  fields  of  which  are  often  laid  waste  by  its 
devastations.  The  excrement  of  the  Syrian  bear, 
which  is  termed  in  Arabic,  Bar-ed-dub,  is  sold  in 
Egypt  and  Syria  as  a  remedy  in  opthalmia ;  and  the 
skin  is  of  considerable  value.  Most  recent  writers 
are  silent  respecting  any  species  of  Lear  in  Syria, 
such  as  Shaw,  Volney,  Hasselquist,  BurckhardL 
and  Schulz.  Seetzen,  however,  notices  a  report  ol 
the  existence  of  a  bear  in  the  province  of  Has- 
beiya  on  Mount  Hermon.  Klaeder  supposed  this 
bear  must  be  the  Ursus  arctos,  for  which  opinion, 
however,  he  seems  to  have  had  no  authority,  and  a 
recent  writer,  Dr.  Thomson  ( The  Land  and  the 
Book,  p.  573),  says  that  the  Syrian  bear  is  still 


Heb.;  Arab.    ^,  Arab. 


c  The  derivation  of  ppll  is  doubtful;  but  Fiirst's 
etymology  from  "H2,  manare,  fluere,  "  to  distil,"  from 
root  7^1  or  pj^  (Greek,  /SSaAA-eii/),  is  in  favour  of  the 
bdellium. 

<i  isia,  from  SSn,  "  to  roll,"  in  allusion  to  its  form. 


Lat.  bulla ;  Dutch,  bol,  "  a  bean."     The  Arabic  word 
A*J»  /*&  is  identical.    Gesen.  Thes.  s.  v. 

e  ^-jj  from  33^1,  lente  incedcre;  but  Bochart  con 
jectures  an  Arabic  root="  to  be  hairy,"  Forskal  (ixsc. 
An.  p.  iv.)  mentions  the  ,_,£,  dull,  amongst  the  Arabian 
fauna,  Is  this  the  Ursus  Arctos? 


xxvt 


BEAST 


found  on  the  higher  mountains  of  this  country,  and 
that  the  inhabitants  of  Hermon  stand  in  great  fear 
of  him.  Hemprich  and  Ehrenberg  (Symbolae  Phys. 
Pt.  i.)  inform  us  that  during  the  summer  months 
these  bears  keep  to  the  snowy  parts  of  Lebanon, 
but  descend  in  winter  to  the  villages  and  gardens  ; 
it  is  probable  also  that  at  this  period  in  former  days 
they  extended  their  visits  to  other  parts  of  Palestine, 
for  though  this  species  was  in  ancient  times  far 
more  numerous  than  it  is  now,  yet  the  snowy  sum 
mits  of  Lebanon  were  probably  always  the  summer 
home  of  these  animals.  Now  we  read  in  Scripture 
of  bears  being  found  in  a  wood  between  Jericho  and 
Bethel  (2  K.  ii.  24) ;  it  is  not  improbable  there 
fore  that  the  destruction  of  the  -forty-two  children 
who  mocked  Elisha  took  place  some  time  in  the 
winter,  when  these  animals  inhabited  the  low  lands 
of  Palestine. 


Syrian  Bear.    (Urmt  Synaeut.') 

The  ferocity  of  the  bear  when  deprived  of  its 
young  is  alluded  to  in  2  Sam.  xvii.  8;  Prov.  xvii. 
12  ;  Hos.  xiii.  8  ;  its  attacking  flocks  in  1  Sam. 
xvii.  34,  &c.  ;  its  craftiness  in  ambush  in  Lam.  iii. 
10,  and  that  it  was  a  dangerous  enemy  to  man  we 
learn  from  Am.  v.  19.  The  passage  in  Is.  lix.  11 
would  be  better  translated,  "  we  groan  like  bears," 
in  allusion  to  the  animal's  plaintive  groaning  noise 
(see  Bochart,  Hieroz.  ii.  135;  and  Hor.  Ep.  xvi. 
51,  "  circumgemit  ursus  ovile").  The  bear  is 
mentioned  also  in  Rev.  xiii.  2  ;  in  Dan.  vii.  5  ; 
Wisd.  xi.  17  ;  Ecclus.  xlvii.  3. 

BEAST.  The  representative  in  the  A.  V.  of 
the  following  Hebrew  words:  i"lDn2>  "Vy2>  ("1*11 
(NJ»n.  Chald). 

1.  Beheinah  (nOn2a:  ret  rerpdiroSa,  ra  KT^J/TJ 
ra    Oypia  :  jumentum,  bestia,  animantia,  pccus  : 
"  beast,"  "  cattle,"  A.  V.),  which  is  the  general 
name  for  "  domestic  cattle  "  of  any  kind,  is  used 
also  to  denote  "  any  large  quadruped,"  as  opposed 
to  fowls  and  creeping  things  (Gen.  vii.  2,  vi.  7,  20  ; 
Ex.  ix.  25  ;  Lev.  xi.  2  :  1  K.  iv.  33  ;  Prov.  xxx.  30, 
&c.)  ;  or  for  "  beasts  of  burden,"  horses,  mules,  &c., 
a?  in  1  K.  xviii.  5,  Neh.  ii.  12,  14,  &c.  ;  or  the  word 
may  denote  "  wild  beasts,"  as  in  Deut.  xxxii.  24, 
Hab.  ii.  17,  1  Sam.  xvii.  44.     [BEHEMOTH,  note, 
Ox.] 

2.  B&ir  ("VV2  :  T«  ^opeTa,  TO  \vri\vt}  :  jumen 
tum:  "beast,"  "  cattle")  is  used  either  collectively 
of  "  all  kinds  of  cattle,"  like  the  Latin  pecus  (Ex. 
xxii.  4  ;  Num.  xx.  4,  8,  11  ;  Ps.  Ixxviii.  48),  or  spe 
cially  of  "  beasts  of  burden  "  (Gen.  xlv.  17).     This 


•  From  the  unused  root 


to  be  dumb 


BEE 

word  has  a  more  limited  sense  than  the  prattling, 
and  is  derived  from  a  root,  "IJ?2,  "  to  pasture." 

3.  Chayyah  (l"l*n  :  6t]plov,  fcoov,  Gyp,  rerpd- 
TTOVJ,  KTyvos,  IpireToV,  Qr)pid\(i}Ti  s,  ftpwrAs : 
fera,  animantia,  animal:  "beast,"  "wild  beast." 
This  word,  which  is  the  feminine  of  the  adjective 
Tl,  "  living,"  is  used  to  denote  any  animal.  It  is, 
however,  very  frequently  used  specially  of  "  wild 
beast,"  when  the  meaning  is  often  more  fully 
expressed  by  the  addition  of  the  word  PTlK'n 
(hassddeh*),  (wild  beast)  "of  the  field"  (Ex.  xxni. 
11 ;  Lev.  xxvi.  22 ;  Deut.  vii.  22 ;  Hos.  ii.  14,  xiii. 
8  ;  Jer.  xii.  9,  &c.)  Similar  is  the  use  of  the 
Chaldee  KVH  (cheyvd/i).b 

BEE  (min'Hj*  deborah  :  ^ueAtoxra,  fjisXitrffdv  : 
apis}.  Mention  of  this  insect  occurs  in  Deut.  i. 
44,  "The  Amorites  which  dwelt  in  that  moun 
tain  came  out  against  you,  and  chased  you  as 
bees  do  ;"  in  Judg.  xiv.  8,  "  There  was  a  swarm  ol 
bees  and  honey  in  the  carcase  of  the  lion ;"  in  Ps. 
civiii.  12,  "  They  compassed  me  about  like  bees'," 
and  in  Is.  vii.  18,  "It  shall  come  to  pass  in  that 
day  that  the  Lord  shall  hiss  for  the  fly  that  is  in  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  rivers  of  Egypt,  and  for  the 
bee  that  is  in  the  land  of  Assyria."  That  Palestine 
abounded  in  bees  is  evident  from  the  description  ot 
that  land  by  Moses,  for  it  was  a  land  "  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey  ;"  nor  is  there  any  reason  for  sup 
posing  that  this  expression  is  to  be  understood  other 
wise  than  in  its  literal  sense.  Modern  travellers 
occasionally  allude  to  the  bees  of  Palestine.  Dr. 
Thomson  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  299)  speaks 
of  immense  swarms  of  bees  which  made  their  home 
in  a  gigantic  cliff  of  Wady  Kurn.  "  The  people  of 
M'alia,  several  years  ago,"  he  says,  "let  a  man 
down  the  face  of  the  rock  by  ropes.  He  was  entirely 
protected  from  the  assaults  of  the  bees,  and  ex 
tracted  a  large  amount  of  honey ;  but  he  was  so 
terrified  by  the  prodigious  swarms  of  bees  that  he 
could  not  be  induced  to  repeat  the  exploit."  This 
forcibly  illustrates  Deu*.  xxxii.  13,  and  Ps.  Ixxxi.  16, 
as  to  "  honey  out  of  the  stony  rock,"  and  the  two 
passages  out  of  the  Psalms  and  Judges  quoted  above, 
as  to  the  fearful  nature  of  the  attacks  of  these  insects 
when  irritated. 

Maundrell  (Trav.  p.  66)  says  that  in  passing 
through  Samaria  he  perceived  a  strong  smell  of 
honey  and  of  wax ;  and  that  when  he  was  a  mile 
from  the  Dead  Sea  he  saw  the  bees  busy  among  the 
flowers  of  some  kind  of  saline  plant.  Mariti  (Trav. 
iii.  139)  assures  us  that  bees  are  found  in  great 
multitudes  amongst  the  hills  of  Palestine,  and  that 
they  collect  their  honey  in  the  hollows  of  trees  and 
in  clefts  of  rocks ;  (comp.  The  Land  and  the  Book, 
p.  566).  That  bees  are  reared  with  great  success 
in  Palestine,  we  have  the  authority  of  Hasselquist 
(Trav.  236)  and  Dr.  Thomson  (ib.  253)  to  shew. 

English  naturalists,  however,  appear  to  know  but 
little  of  the  species  of  bees  that  are  found  in  Pa 
lestine.  Dr.  Kitto  says  (Phys.  H.  Pal.  421)  there 
are  two  species  of  bees  found  in  that  country, 

wild 


b  The  word  D^V  is  translated  by  the  A.  V. 
beasts  of  the  desert"  in  Is.  xiii.  21,  xxxiv.  14 ;  Jer.  1  39. 
The  root  is  PPX,  "  to  be  dry;"  whence  *%  "  a  desert ;" 
Dt|»V="any  dwellers  in  a  dryer  desert  region,"  jackals, 
hyenas,  &c.  Bochart  is  wrong  in  limiting  the  word  to 
mean  "  wild  cats  "  (Hieroz.  ii.  206). 

*  From  "111''!,  ordiwe  duxit;    ooegit  (ocamin).    GeA 
Tlies.  s,.  v. 


fcfiE 

Apis  longicornis,  and  Apis  mellifica.  A.  longi- 
comis,  however,  which  ^Eucera  longicor.,  is  a 
European  species  ;  and  though  King  and  Ehrenberg, 
in  the  Symbolae  Physicae,  enumerate  many  Syrian 
species,  and  amongst  them  some  sp~.es  of  the 
genus  Eucera,  yet  E.  longicor.  is  not  found  in  their 
list.  Mr.  F.  Smith,  our  best  authority  on  the 
Hymenoptera,  is  inclined  to  believe  that  the  honey 
bee  of  Palestine  is  distinct  from  the  honey-bee 
(A.  mellifica}  of  this  country.  And  when  it  is 
remembered  that  the  last-named  writer  has  de 
scribed  as  many  as  seventeen  species  of  true  honey 
bees  (the  genus  Apis),  it  is  very  probable  that  the 
species  of  our  own  country  and  of  Palestine  are 
distinct.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  attacks 
of  bees  in  Eastern  countries  are  more  to  be  dreaded 
than  they  are  in  more  temperate  climates.  Swarms 
:n  the  East  are  far  larger  than  they  are  with  us,  and, 
on  account  of  the  heat  of  the  climate,  one  can  readily 
imagine  that  their  stings  must  give  rise  to  very 
dangerous  symptoms.  It  would  be  easy  to  quote 
from  Aristotle,  Aelian,  and  Pliny,  in  proof  of  what 
has  been  stated  ;  but  let  the  reader  consult  Mungo 
Park's  Travels  (ii.  37,  38)  as  to  the  incident  which 
occurred  at  a  spot  he  named  "  Bees'  Creek  "  from 
the  circumstance.  Compare  also  Oedman  (  Vermisch. 
Samml.  pt.  vi.  c.  20).  We  can  well,  therefore, 
understand  the  full  force  of  the  Psalmist's  com 
plaint,  "They  came  about  me  like  bees."b 

The  passage  about  the  swarm  of  bees  and  honey 
in  the  lion's  carcase  ( Judg.  xiv.  8)  admits  of  easy 
explanation.  The  lion  which  Samson  slew  had  been 
dead  some  little  time  before  the  bees  had  taken  up 
their  abode  in  the  carcase,  for  it  is  expressly  stated 
that  "  after  a  time,"  Samson  returned  and  saw  the 
bees  and  honey  in  the  lion's  carcase,  so  that  "  if," 
as  Oedmau  has  well  observed,  "any  one  here  repre 
sents  to  himself  a  corrupt  and  putrid  carcase,  the 
occurrence  ceases  to  have  any  true  similitude,  for 
it  is  well  known  that  in  these  countries  at  certain 
seasons  of  the  year,  the  heat  will  in  the  course  of 
twenty-four  hours  so  completely  dry  up  the  mois 
ture  of  dead  camels,  and  that  without  their  under 
going  decomposition,  that  their  bodies  long  remain, 
like  mummies,  unaltered  and  entirely  free  from 
offensive  odour."  To  the  foregoing  quotation  we 
may  add  that  very  probably  the  ants  would  help 
to  consume  the  carcase,  and  leave  perhaps  in  a 
short  time  little  else  than  a  skeleton.  Herodotus 
(v.  114)  speaks  of  a  certain  Onesilus  who  had  been 
taken  prisoner  by  the  Amathusians  and  beheaded, 
and  whose  head  having  been  suspended  over  the 
gates,  had  become  occupied  by  a  swarm  of  bees ; 
compare  also  Aldrovandus  (De  Insect,  i.  110).  Dr. 
Thomson  (L.  and  B.  p.  566)  mentions  this  occur 
rence  of  a  swarm  of  bees  in  a  lion's  carcase  as  an 
extraordinary  thing,  and  makes  an  unhappy  con 
jecture,  that  perhaps  "  hornets,"  debabir  in  Arabic, 
are  intended,  "if  it  were  known,"  says  he,  "  that  they 
manufactured  honey  enough  to  meet  the  demands 
of  the  story," — it  is  known,  however,  that  hornets 
do  not  make  honey,  nor  do  any  of  the  family  Ves- 


b  It  is  very  curious  to  observe  that  in  the  passage  of 
Dcut.  i.  44,  the  Syriac  version,  the  Targum  of  Onkelos, 
and  an  Arabic  MS.,  read,  "  Chased  you  as  bees  that  are 
smoked;"  showing  how  ancient  the  custom  is  of  taking 
bees'  nests  by  means  of  smoke.  Constant  allusion  is  made 
to  this  practice  in  classical  authors.  Wasps'  nests  were 
taken  in  the  same  waj.  See  Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  360). 

a  Bochart,  Gesenius,  Furst,  Jablonski,  and  others,  are 
disposed  to  assign  to  this  word  an  Egyptian  origin, 
Fekemau,  or  1'eliemout,  i.  e.  bos  marinus.  Others,  and 


BEHEMOTH  xxvii 

pidae,  with  the  exception,  as  far  as  has  been  hitherto 
observed,  of  the  Brazilian  Nectarina  mellifica. 
The  passage  in  Is.  vii.  18,  "  the  Lord  shall  hiss  for 
the  bee  that  is  in  the  land  of  Assyria,"  has  been 
understood  by  some  to  refer  to  the  practice  of 
"  calling  out  the  bees  from  their  hives  by  a  hissing 
or  whistling  sound  to  their  labour  in  the  fields,  and 
summoning  them  again  to  return  "  in  the  evening 
(Harris,  Nat.  H.  of  Bible,  art.  "  Bee  ").  Bochart 
(Hieroz.  iii.  358)  quotes  from  Cyril,  who  thus  ex. 
plains  this  passage  and  the  one  in  Is.  v.  26.  Colu- 
mella,  Pliny,  Aelian,  Virgil,  are  all  cited  by  Bochart 
in  illustration  of  this  practice  ;  see  numerous  quota 
tions  in  the  Hierozoicon.  Mr.  Denham  (in  Kitto's 
Encyc.  Bib.  Lit.  art.  "  Bee")  makes  the  following 
remarks  on  this  subject  —  "  No  one  has  offered  any 
proof  of  the  existence  of  such  a  custom,  and  the 
idea  will  itself  seem  sufficiently  strange  to  all  who 
are  acquainted  with  the  habits  of  bees/'  That  the 
custom  existed  amongst  the  ancients  of  calling 
swarms  to  their  hives,  must  be  familiar  to  every 
reader  of  Virgil, 

"  Tinnitusque  cie,  et  Martis  quate  cymbala  circum," 
and  it  is  curious  to  observe  that  this  practice  has 
continued  down  to  the  present  day  ;  many  a  cottager 
believes  the  bees  will  more  readily  swarm  if  he 
beats  together  pieces  of  tin  or  iron.  As  to  the  real 
use  in  the  custom,  this  is  quite  another  matter, 
but  no  careful  entomologist  would  hastily  adopt 
any  opinion  concerning  it. 

In  all  probability,  however,  the  expression  in 
Isaiah  has  reference,  as  Mr.  Denham  says,  "  to  the 
custom  of  the  people  in  the  East  of  calling  the  atten 
tion  of  any  one  by  a  significant  hiss,  or  rather  hist." 

The  LXX.  has  the  following  eulogium  on  the 
bee  in  Prov.  vi.  8  :  "Go  to  the  bee,  and  learn  how 
diligent  she  is,  and  what  a  noble  work  she  produces., 
whose  labours  kings  and  private  men  use  for  their 
health  ;  she  is  desired  and  honoured  by  all,  and 
though  weak  in  strength,  yet  since  she  values  wis 
dom,  she  prevails."  This  passage  is  not  found  in 
any  Hebrew  copy  of  the  Scriptures  ;  it  exists  how 
ever  in  the  Arabic,  and  it  is  quoted  by  Origen, 
Clemens  Alexandrinus,  Jerome,  and  other  ancient 
writers.  As  to  the  proper  name,  see  DEBORAH. 

The  bee  belongs  to  the  family  Apidae,  of  the 
Hymenopterous  order  of  insects. 

BEETLE.  See  CHARGOL  (^jHII),  s.  v.  LOCUST 


BEH'EMOTH  (JYlDna  :*  8vpia:  behemoth}. 
This  word  has  long  been  "considered  one  of  the 
dubia  vexata  of  critics  and  commentators,  some 
of  whom,  as  Vatablus,  Drusius,  Grotius  (Grit.  Sac. 
Annot.  ad  Job.  xl.),  Pfeiffer  (Dubia  vexata  S.  S., 
p.  594,  Dresd.  1679),  Castell  (Lex.  Hept.  p.  292), 
A.  Schultens  (Comment,  in  Job.  xl.),  Michaelis  b 
(Suppl.  ad,  Lex.  Heb.  No.  208),  have  understood 
thereby  the  elephant  ;  while  others,  as  Bochart 
(Hieroz.  iii.  705),  Ludolf  (Hist.  Acthiop.  i.  11), 
Shaw  (Trav.  ii.  299,  8vo.  Loud.),  Scheuzei 
(Phys.  Sac.  on  Job  xl.),  Kosenmiiller  (Not.  ad 

Rosenmiiller  amongst  the  number,  believe  the  word  ia 
the  plural  majettatis  of  nOH3-  Rosenniiiller's  objec 
tion  to  the  Coptic  origin  of  the  word  Is  worthy  of  obser 
vation,—  that,  If  this  was  the  case,  the  LXX.  interpreters 
would  not  have  given  ftjpi'a  as  its  representative. 

Michaelis  translates  J")iDn3  byjwmenta,  and  thinks 
the  name  of  the  Elephant  has  dropped  out  '  Mihi  vuletuJ 
nomen  elephactis  forte  "J^Q  excidisse.  ' 


xxvili 


BEHEMOTH 


Bochart.  ffieroz.  iii.  705,  and  Schol.  ad  Vet.  Test. 
in  Job  xl.),  Taylor  (Appendix  to  Calinet's  Diet. 
BibL  No.  Ixv.),  Harmer  (Observations,  ii.  p.  319), 
Gesenius  (Thes.  s.  v.  niDH3),  Fiirst  (Concord. 
Heb.  s.  v.),  and  English  commentators  generally, 
believe  the  Hippopotamus  to  be  denoted  by  the 
original  word.  Other  critics,  amongst  whom  is 
Lee  (Comment,  on  Job  xl.,  and  Lex.  Heb.  s.  v. 
n'MDilS),  consider  the  Hebrew  term  as  a  plural 
noun  for  "  cattle  "  in  general ;  it  being  left  to  the 
reader  to  apply  to  the  Scriptural  allusions  the  par 
ticular  animal,  which  may  be,  according  to  Lee, 
"  either  the  horse  or  wild  ass  or  wild  bull "  (!)  c 
compare  also  Reiske,  Conjecturae  in  Job.  p.  167. 
Dr.  Mason  Good  (Book  of  Job  literally  translated, 
p.  473,  Lond.  1712)  has  hazarded  a  conjecture  that 
the  behemoth  denotes  some  extinct  pachyderm  like 
the  mammoth,  with  a  view  to  combine  the  charac 
teristics  of  the  Hippopotamus  and  Elephant,  and  so 
to  fulfil  all  the  Scriptural  demands :  compare  with 
this  Michaelis  (Sup.  ad  Lex.  Heb.  No.  208),  and 
Hasaeus  (in  Dissertat.  Syllog.  No.  vii.  §37,  and  §38, 
p.  506),  who  rejects  with  some  scorn  the  notion  of 
the  identity  of  behemoth  and  mammoth.  Dr.  Kitto 
(Pict.  Bib.  Job  xl.)  and  Col.  Hamilton  Smith  (Kitto's 
Cycl.  Bib.  Lit.  art.  Behemoth),  from  being  unable 
to  make  all  the  Scriptural  details  correspond  with  any 
one  particular  animal,  are  of  opinion  that  Behemoth 
is  a  plural  term,  and  is  to  be  taken  "  as  a  poetical 
personification  of  the  great  pachydermata  generally, 
wherein  the  idea  of  Hippopotamus  is  predominant." 
The  term  behemoth  would  thus  be  the  counterpart 
of  leviathan,  the  animal  mentioned  next  in  the 
book  of  Job ;  which  word,  although  its  signification 
in  that  passage  is  restricted  to  the  crocodile,  does  yet 
stand  in  Scripture  for  a  python,  or  a  whale,  or  some 
other  huge  monster  of  the  deep.  [LEVIATHAN.] 
We  were  at  one  time  inclined  to  coincide  with  this 
view,  but  a  careful  study  of  the  whole  passage  (Job 
xl.  15-24)  has  led  us  to  the  full  conviction  that  the 
hippopotamus  alone  is  the  animal  denoted,  and  that 
all  the  details  descriptive  of  the  behemoth  accord 
entirely  with  the  ascertained  habits  of  that  animal. 


Hippopotamus  amphibius. 

Gesenius  and  Rosenmiiller  have  remarked  that, 
since  in  the  first  part  of  Jehovah's  discourse  (Job 
xxx vii i.,  xxxix.)  land  animals  and  birds  are  men 
tioned,  it  suits  the  general  purpose  of  that  discourse 
better  to  suppose  that  aquatic  or  amphibious  crea 
tures  are  spoken  of  in  the  last  half  of  it ;  and  that 
since  the  feviathan,  by  almost  universal  consent, 

c  Most  disappointing  are  the  arguments  of  the  late 
Profeasor.Lee  as  to  "  Behemoth"  and  "  Leviathan,"  both 
critically  and  zoologically. 

d  A  recent  traveller  in  Egypt,  the  Rev.  J.  L.  Errington, 
writes  to  us—"  The  valley  of  the  Nile  in  Upper  Egypt 


BEHEMOTH 

denotes  the  crocodile,  the  behemoth  seems  clearly 
to  point  to  the  hippopotamus,  his  associate  in  the 
Nile.  Ha-rmer  (Observ.  ii.  319)  says  "there  is  a 
great  deal  of  beauty  in  the  ranging  the  descriptions 
of  the  behemoth  and  the  leviathan,  for  in  the 
Mosaic  pavement  the  people  of  an  Egyptian  barque 
are  represented  as  darting  spears  or  some  such 
weapons  at  one  of  the  river-horses,  as  another  of 
them  is  pictured  with  two  sticking  near  his  shoulders. 
....  It  was  then  a  customary  thing  with  the  old 
Egyptians  thus  to  attack  these  animals  (see  also 
Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egypt,  iii.  71);  if  so,  how  beau 
tiful  is  the  arrangement:  there  is  a  most  happy 
gradation  ;  after  a  grand  but  just  representation  of 
the  terribleness  of  the  river-horse,  the  Almighty  is 
represented  as  going  on  with  his  expostulations 
something  after  this  manner : — *  But  dreadful  as 
this  animal  is,  barbed  irons  and  spears  have  some 
times  prevailed  against  him ;  but  what  wilt  thou 
do  with  the  crocodile?  Canst  thou  fill  his  skin 
with  barbed  irons  ? '  "  &c.  &c.  In  the  Lithostrotum 
Praenestinum,  to  which  Mr.  Harmer  refers,  there 
are  two  crocodiles,  associates  of  three  river-horses, 
which  are  represented  without  spears  sticking  in 
them,  though  they  seem  to  be  within  shot. 

It  has  been  said  that  some  parts  of  the  descrip 
tion  in  Job  cannot  apply  to  the  hippopotamus :  the 
20th  verse  for  instance,  where  it  is  said,  "the 
mountains  bring  him  forth  food."  This  passage, 
many  writers  say,  suits  the  elephant  well,  but 
cannot  be  applied  to  the  hippopotamus,  which  is 
never  seen  on  mountains.  Again,  the  34th  verse — • 
"  his  nose  pierceth  through  snares " — seems  to  be 
spoken  of  the  trunk  of  the  elephant,  "  with  ita 
extraordinary  delicacy  of  scent  and  touch,  rather 
than  to  the  obtuse  perceptions  of  the  river-horse." 
In  answer  to  the  first  objection  it  has  been  stated, 
with  great  reason,  that  the  word  hdrim  (D^lfl)  ia 
not  necessarily  to  be  restricted  to  what  we  under 
stand  commonly  by  the  expression  "  mountains." 
In  the  Praenestine  pavement  alluded  to  above,  there 
are  to  be  seen  here  and  there,  as  Mr.  Harmer  has 
observed,  "  hillocks  rising  above  the  water."  In 
Ez.  xliii.  15  (margin),  the  altar  of  God,  only  ten 
cubits  high  and  fourteen  square,  is  called  "  the  moun 
tain  of  God."  "  The  eminences  of  Egypt,  which 
appear  as  the  inundation  of  the  Nile  decreases,  may 
undoubtedly  be  called  mountains  in  the  poetical  lan 
guage  of  Job."  But  we  think  there  is  no  occasion 
for  so  restricted  an  explanation.  The  hippopotamus, 
as  is  well  known,  frequently  leaves  the  water  and 
j  the  river's  bank  as  night  approaches,  and  makes 
inland  excursions  for  the  sake  of  the  pasturage, 
when  he  commits  sad  work  among  the  growing 
crops  (Hasselquist,  Trav.  p.  188).  No  doubt  he 
might  be  often  observed  on  the  hill-sides  near  the 
spots  frequented  by  him.  Again,  it  must  be  re 
membered  that  the  "  mountains"  are  mentioned 
by  way  of  contrast  to  the  natural  habits  of  aquatic 
animals  generally,  which  never  go  far  from  the 
water  and  the  banks  of  the  river:  but  the  behe 
moth,  though  passing  much  of  his  time  in  th« 
water  and  in  "  the  covert  of  the  reed  and  fens," 
eateth  grass  like  cattle,  and  feedeth  on  the  hill 
sides  in  company  with  the  beasts  of  the  field.'1 
There  is  much  beauty  in  the  passages  which  con- 

and  Nubia  is  in  parts  so  very  narrow,  that  the  mountains 
approach  within  a  few  hundred  yards,  and  even  less,  to 
the  river's  bank;  the  hippopotamus  therefore  might  well 
lie  said  to  get  its  food  from  the  mountains,  on  the  sides  of 

which  it  would  grow."    • 


BEHEMOTH 

trast  the  Limits  of  the  hippopotamus,  an  amphibious 
animal,  with  those  of  herbivorous  land-quadrupeds  : 
but  if  the  elephant  is  to  be  understood,  the  whole 
description  is  comparatively  speaking  tame. 

With  respect  to  the  second  objection,  there  is 
little  doubt  that  the  marginal  reading  is  nearer  the 
Hebrew  than  that  of  the  text.  "Will  any  take 
him  in  his  sight,  or  bore  his  nose  with  a  gin?" 
Perhaps  this  refers  to  leading  him  about  alive  with 
a  ring  in  his  nose,  as,  says  Kosenmiiller,  "  the  Arabs 
are  accustomed  to  lead  camels,"  and  we  may  add 
the  English  to  lead  bulls,  "  with  a  ring  passed 
through  the  nostrils."  The  expression  in  verse  17, 
"  he  bendeth  his  tail  like  a  cedar,"  has  given  occa 
sion  to  much  discussion ;  some  of  the  advocates  for 
the  elephant  maintaining  that  the  word  zdndb  (23T) 
may  denote  either  extremity,  and  that  here  the 
elephant's  trunk  is  intended.  The  parallelism,  how 
ever,  clearly  requires  the  posterior  appendage  to  be 
signified  by  the  term.  The  expression  seems  to 
allude  to  the  stiff  unbending  nature  of  the  animal's 
tail,  which  in  this  respect  is  compared  to  the  trunk 
of  a  strong  cedar  which  the  wind  scarcely  moves. 

The  description  of  the  animal's  lying  under  "  the 
shady  trees,"  amongst  the  "reeds"  and  willows,  is 
peculiarly  applicable  to  the  hippopotamus.8  It  has 
been  argued  that  such  a  description  is  equally  ap 
plicable  to  the  elephant ;  but  this  is  hardly  the 
case,  for  though  the  elephant  is  fond  of  frequent 
ablutions,  and  is  frequently  seen  near  water,  yet 
the  constant  habit  of  the  hippopotamus,  as  implied 


BEHEMOTH 


xxix 


n  verses  21,  22,  seems  to  be  especially  made  the 
subject  to  which  the  attention  is  directed.     The 
hole  passage  (Job  xl.  15-24)  may  be  thus  literally 
translated : — 

"  Behold  now  Behemoth,  whom  I  made  with 
thee ; f  he  eateth  grass  8  Kke  cattle. 

"  Behold  now,  his  strength  is  in  his  loins,  and  his 
power  in  the  muscles  of  his  belly. 

'  He  bendeth  his  tail  like  a  cedar :  the  sinews  of 
his  thighs  interweave  one  with  another. 

"  His  bones  h  are  as  tubes  of  copper ;  his  (solid) 
bones  each  one  l  as  &,  bar  of  forged  iroa. 

;<  He  is  (one  of)  the  chief  of  the  works  of  God : 
his  Maker  hath  furnished  him  with  his  scythe 
(tooth),  J 

;'  For  the  hills  bring  him  forth  abundant  food, 
and  all  the  beasts  of  the  field  have  their  pastime 
there. 

"  Beneath  the  shady  trees  k  he  lieth  down,  in  the 
covert  of  the  reed,  and  fens.1 

"  The  shady  trees  cover  him  with  their  shadow  ; 
the  willows  of  the  stream  surround  him. 

"Lo!  the  river  swelleth  proudly  against  him, 
yet  he  is  not  alarmed :  he  is  securely  confident 
though  a  Jordan"1  burst  forth  against  his  mouth. 

"  Will  any  one  capture  him  when  in  his  sight?  c 
will  any  one  bore  his  nostril  in  the  snare  ?" 

This  description  agrees  in  every  particular  with 
the  hippopotamus,  which  we  fully  believe  to  be  the 
representative  of  the  behemoth  of  Scripture. 


e  "  At  every  turn  there  occurred  deep,  still  pools,  and 
occasional  sandy  islands  densely  clad  with  lofty  reeds. 
Above  and  beyond  these  reeds  stood  trees  of  immense  age, 
beneath  which  grew  a  rank  kind  of  grass  on  which  the 
sea-cow  delights  to  pasture  "  (G.  Cumming,  p.  297). 

f  "Sjfty  Bochart  says,  "  near  thee,"  i.  e.  not  far  from 
thy  own  country.  Gesenius  and  Rosenmuller  translate 
the  word  "  pariter  atque  te."  Cary  (note  on  I.  c.)  under 
stands  it  "  at  the  same  time  as  I  made  thee." 

s  "VVn,  "  grass,"  not  "hay,"  as  the  Vulg.  has  it,  and 
some  commentators :  it  is  from  the  Arabic  VAA^1.  "  to 


name  for  the 


(*uZr)f  the  lotus   of  the    ancient 


"  lotophagi,"  Zizyphus  lotus.  It  would  appear,  however, 
from  Abu'lfadli,  cited  by  Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  191),  that 
the  Dhdl  is  a  species  distinct  from  the  Sidr,  which  latter 
plant  was  also  known  by  the  names  Salam  and  Noble. 
Sprengel  identifies  the  Dhdl  with  the  Jujube-tree  (Zi- 
zyphus  mdgaru).  But  even  if  it  were  proved  that  the 
and  tne  U0  were  identical,  the  explanation  of 


be  green."  The  Hebrew  word  occurs  in  Num.  xi.  5,  in  a 
limited  sense  to  denote  "  leeks." 

h  DVy  seems  to  refer  here  to  the  bones  of  the  legs 
more  particularly  ;  the  marrow  bones. 

'  D"13  perhaps  here  denotes  the  rib-bones,  as  is  pro 
bable  from  the  singular  number  <T12  '^^3  which 
appears  to  be  distributive  and  thereby  emphatic.  See 
Rosenmiill.  Schol.  in  I.  c. 

j  "  With  these  apparently  combined  teeth  the  hippo 
potamus  can  cut  the  grass  as  neatly  as  if  it  were  mown 
with  the  scythe,  and  is  able  to  sever,  as  if  with  shears,  a 
tolerably  stout  and  thick  stem"  (Wood's  Nat.  Hist.  i.  762). 
TIP!  perhaps  the  Greek  apTnj.  See  Bochart  (iii.  722), 
who  cites  Nicander  (  Theriac.  566)  as  comparing  the  tooth 
of  this  animal  to  a  scythe.  The  next  verse  explains  the 
purpose  and  use  of  the  "  scythe  "  with  which  God  has 
provided  his  creature  ;  viz.  in  order  that  he  may  eat  the 
grass  of  the  hills. 

k 


:  MiravroSairSiSevSpa:  sub  umbra. 
A.  Schultens,  following  the  Arabic  writers  Saadias  and 
fcbulwalid,  was  the  first  European  commentator  to  pro 
pose  "  the  lotus-tree  "  as  the  signification  of  the  Hebrew 

/K¥»  which  occurs  only  in  this  and  the  following  verse  of 
Job.'    He  identifies  the  Hebrew  word  with  the  Arabic 
£>    - 
\U«    which  according  to  some  authorities  is  another 


the  \\j£  by  Freytag,  "Arbor  quae  remota  a  fluminibus 
nonnisi  pluvia  rigatur,  aliis,  lotus  Kam.  I>j."  does  not 
warrant  us  in  associating  the  tree  with  the  reeds  and 
willows  of  the  Nile.  Gesenius,  strange  to  say,  supposes 
the  reeds,  out  of  which  numerous  birds  are  flying  in 
the  subjoined  woodcut  from  Sir  G.  Wilkinson's  work 
and  which  are  apparently  intended  to  represent  the 
papyrus  reeds,  to  be  the  lote  lilies.  His  words  are  : 
"  At  any  rate,  on  a  certain  Egyptian  monument  which 
represents  the  chase  ot  the  hippopotamus,  I  observe  this 
animal  concealing  himself  in  a  wood  of  water-lotuses— 
in  loti  aquaticae  sylvd"  (Wilkinson,  Customs  and 
Manners,  iii.  71).  We  pr*<er  the  rendering  of  the  A.V. 
"  shady  trees  ;"  and  so  read  the  Vulg.,  Kimchi,  and  Aben 
Esra,  the  Syriac  and  the  Arabic,  with  Bochart.  llosen- 

miiller  takes    D  vK¥»    "  more  Aramaeo  pro    D  v?¥> 
•  v:  v  •   • 

ut  DXE^  pro  DDE?  supra  vii.  5,  et  Ps.  Iviii.  8"  (Schol. 

ad  Jobxl.  v.  21). 

i  See  woodcut.  Compare  also  Bellonius,  quoted  by 
Bochart  :  "  Vivit  arundinibus  et  cannis  saccharl  et  foliis 
papyri  herbae." 

m  ]yV,  from  TV,  "  to  descend."  The  name  of  Jor- 
dan  is  used  poetically  for  any  river,  as  the  Greek  poets 
use  Ida  for  any  mountain  and  Achelous  for  any  water 
(Rosenmiil.  Schol.),  or  perhaps  in  its  original  meaning. 
as  simply  a  "rapid  river."  (See  Stanley  S.  &  P.  $  37.) 
This  verse  seems  to  refer  to  the  inundation  of  the  Nile. 

n  This  seems  to  be  the  meaning  implied.  Compare  in 
the  case  of  Leviathan,  ch.  xli.  2,  5  ;  but  see  also  Cary"? 
rendering,  "  He  receiveth  it  (the  river)  up  to  his  eyes." 


KXX  BEHEMOTH 

According  to  the  Talmud,  Behemoth  is  some  Huge 
land-animal  which  daily  consumes  the  grass  off  a 
thousand  hills  ;  he  is  to  have  at  some  future  period 
a- battle  with  Leviathan.  On  account  of  his  grazing 
on  the  mountains,  he  is  called  "  the  bull  of  the  high 
mountains."  (See  Lewysohn,  Zool.  des  Talmuds, 
p.  355.)  "  The  «  fathers,'  for  the  most  part,"  says 
Gary  (Job.  p.  402")  "  surrounded  the  subject  with 


BERYL 

an  awe  equally  dreadful,  and  in  the  Behemoih 
here,  and  in  the  Leviathan  of  the  next  chapter,  saw 
nothing  but  mystical  representations  of  the  devil ; 
!  others  again  have  here  pictured  to  themselves  some 
hieroglyphic  monster  that  has  no  real  existence  ; 
but  these  wild  imaginations  are  surpassed  by  that 
of  Bolducius,  who  in  the  Behemoth  actuallv  beholds 
Christ !" 


of  the  Hippopotamus.    (Wilkinson.) 


The  skin  of  the  hippopotamus  is  cut  into  whips 
by  the  Dutch  colonists  of  S.  Africa,  and  the  monu 
ments  of  Egypt  testify  that  a  similar  use  was  made 
of  the  skin  by  the  ancient  Egyptians  (Anc.  Egypt. 
iii.  73).      The  inhabitants  of  S.  Africa   hold  the  | 
flesh  of  the  hippopotamus  in  high  esteem ;  it  is  said  \ 
to  be  not  unlike  pork. 

The  hippopotamus  belongs  to  the  order  Pachy- 
dermata,  class  Mammalia. 


BERYL  (tJ^fcjnjn,  tarshish :  xpv<r6\i6os,  Qop- 
* ""  ! 

fffis,  &v6pa^  \iQos  &vOpa.KO$ :    chrysolithus,  hy-  , 

acinthus,  mare}  occurs  in  Ex.  xxviii.  20,  xxxix.  13 ; 
Cant.  v.  14 ;  Ez.  i.  16,  x.  9,  xxviii.  13 ;  Dan.  x.  6. 
The  tarshish  was  the  first  precious  stone  in  the  fourth 
row  of  the  high-priest's  breastplate  ;  in  Ezekiel's 
vision  "  the  appearance  of  the  wheels  and  their 
work  was  like  unto  the  colour  of  a  tarshish ;"  it 
was  one  of  the  precious  stones  of  the  king  of  Tyre ; 
the  body  of  the  man  whom  Daniel  saw  in  his  vision 
was  like  the  tarshish. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  with  any  degree  of  cer 
tainty  what  precious  stone  is  denoted  by  the  Hebrew 
word ;  Luther  reads  the  "  turquoise ;"  the  LXX. 
supposes  either  the  "  chrysolite "  or  fhe  "  car 
buncle"  (&v9pa£)  ;  Onkolos  and  the  Jerusalem 
Targum  have  kerum  jama,  by  which  the  Jews  i 
Appear  to  have  understood  "  a  white  stone  like  the  i 


froth  of  the  sea,"  which  Braun  (de  Vest.  Sacer. 
ii.  c.  17)  conjectures  may  be  the  "  opal."  For 
other  opinions,  which  are,  however,  mere  conjec 
tures,  see  the  chapter  of  Braun  just  quoted. 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  the  tarshish  derives 
its  name  from  the  place  so  called,  respecting  the 
position  of  which  see  TARSHISH.  Josephus  (Ant. 
iii.  7,  §5)  and  Braun  (L  c.)  understand  the  chryso 
lite  to  be  meant,  not,  however,  the  chrysolite  of 
modern  mineralogists,  but  the  topaz ;  for  it  cer 
tainly  does  appear  that  by  a  curious  interchange  of 
terms  the  ancient  chrysolite  is  the  modern  topaz, 
and  the  ancient  topaz  the  modern  chrysolite  (see 
Plin.  H.  N.  xxxvii.  8;  Hill  on  Theophrastus,  De 
Lapid. ;  King's  Antique  Gems,  p.  57),  though  Beller- 
mann  (Die  Urimm  und  Thummim,  p.  62,  Berlin, 
1824)  has  advanced  many  objections  to  this  opinion, 
and  has  maintained  that  the  topaz  and  the  chrysolite 
of  the  ancients  are  identical  with  the  gems  now  so 
called.  Braun,  at  all  events,  uses  the  term  chry- 
solithus  to  denote  the  topaz,  and  he  speaks  of  its 
brilliant  golden  colour.  There  is  little  or  nothing 
in  the  passages  where  the  tarshish  is  mentioned  to 
lead  us  to  anything  like  a  satisfactory  conclusion 
as  to  its  identity,  excepting  in  Cant.  v.  14,  where 
we  do  seem  to  catch  a  glimmer  of  the  stone  de 
noted  :  "  His  hands  are  orbs  of  gold  adorned  with 
the  tarshtsh  stone."  This  seems  to  be  the  correct 


BIRDS 


BITTERN 


xxxl 


rendering  of  the  Hebrew.     The  orbs  or  rings  of  I  chicory  group.     The  Picris  of  botanists  is  a  eenui 

CTHfl-     RS    f^rw^r^illQ    Tin«    nKconr/wl       vn-fiii*    nnf     tr\    vinnrc       n1*Aoa1\r   -ill!,!,]    4>s*   4-V.^     TT~ 7™  •  - j 7.  •  _ 


gold,  as  Cocceius  has  observed,  refer  not  to  rings 
on  the  fingers,  but  to  the  fingers  themselves,  as  they 
gently  press  upon  the  thumb  and  thus  form  the 
figure  of  an  orb  or  a  ring.  The  latter  part  of  the 
verse  is  the  causal  expletive  of  the  former.  It  is 
not  only  said  in  this  passage  that  the  hands  are 
called  orbs  of  gold,  but  the  reason  why  they  are 
thus  called  is  immediately  added — specially  on  ac 
count  of  the  beautiful  chrysolites  with  which  the 
hands  were  adorned  (Braun,  de  V.  S.  ii.  13). 
Pliny  says  of  the  chrysolithos,  "  it  is  a  transparent 
stone  with  a  refulgence  like  that  of  gold."  Since 
then  the  golden  stone,  as  the  name  imports,  is 
admirably  suited  to  the  above  passage  in  Canticles, 
and  would  also  apply,  though  in  a  less  degree,  to 
the  other  Scriptural  places  cited — as  it  is  supported 
by  Josephus,  and  conjectuied  by  the  LXX.  and 
Vulg. — the  ancient  chrysolite  or  the  modern  yellow 
topaz  appears  to  have  a  better  claim  than  any 
other  gem  to  represent  the  tarshish  of  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  certainly  a  better  claim  than  the  beryl  of  the 
A.  V.,  a  rendering  which  appears  to  be  unsupported 
by  any  kind  of  evidence. 

BIRDS.    [FOWLS.] 

BITTER   HERBS    (D»THD,   merorim :    iri- 

KpiSes :  lactucae  agrestes).  The  Hebrew  word 
occurs  in  Ex.  xii.  8;  Num.  ix.  11 ;  and  Lam.  iii. 
15 :  in  the  latter  passage  it  is  said,  "  He  hath  filled 
me  with  bitterness,  he  hath  made  me  drunken 
with  wormwood."  The  two  other  passages  refer 
to  the  observance  of  the  Passover :  the  Israelites 
were  commanded  to  eat  the  Paschal  lamb  "  with 
unleavened  bread  and  with  bitter  herbs." 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  term  merorim 
is  general  and  includes  the  various  edible  kinds  of 
bitter  plants,  whether  cultivated  or  wild,  which 
the  Israelites  could  with  facility  obtain  in  sufficient 
abundance  to  supply  their  numbers  either  in  Egypt, 
where  the  first  passover  was  eaten,  or  in  the  deserts 
of  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai,  or  in  Palestine.  The 
Mishna  (Pesachim.  c.  2,  §6)  enumerates  five  kinds 
of  bitter  herbs — chazereth,  'ulshin,  thamcah,  char- 
chabina,  and  maror,  which  it  was  lawful  to  eat 
either  green  or  dried.  There  is  great  difficulty  in 
identifying  the  plants  which  these  words  respec 
tively  denote,  but  the  reader  may  see  the  subject 
discussed  by  Bochart  (Hieroz.  i.  691,  ed.  Kosen- 
mtiller)  and  by  Carpzovius  (Apparat.  Hist.  Grit. 
p.  402).  According  to  the  testimony  of  Forsk&l, 
in  Niebuhr's  Preface  to  the  Description  de  I" Arabic 
(p.  xliv.),  the  modern  Jews  of  Arabia  and  Egypt 
eat  lettuce,  or,  if  this  is  not  at  hand,  bugloss* 
with  the  Paschal  lamb.  The  Greek  word  iriKpls 
is  identified  by  Sprengel  (Hist.  Eei  Herb.  i.  100) 
with  the  Helminthia  Echioides,  Lin.,  Bristly  Hel- 
minthia  (Ox-tongue),  a  plant  belonging  to  the 


»*" 


***i  i  wJ  (lissan  etthtr),  which  Forskal  (Flor. 

JEgi/pt.  p.  Ixil.)  identifies  with  Borago  offlcinalis. 

b  Our  custom  of  eating  salad  mixtures  is  in  all  pro 
bability  derived  from  the  Jews.  "  Why  do  we  pour  over 
our  lettuces  a  mixture  of  oil,  vinegar,  and  mustard  ?  The 
practice  began  in  Judaea,  where,  in  order  to  render 
palatable  the  bitter  herbs  eaten  with  the  paschal  lamb,  it 
was  usual,  says  Moses  Kotsinses,  to  sprinkle  over  them  a 
thick  sauce  called  Karoseth,  which  was  composed  of  the 
oil  drawn  from  dates  or  from  pressed  raisin-kernels,  of 
vinegar  and  mustard."  See  "  Extract  from  the  Portfolio 
of  a  Mac  of  Letters,"  Monthly  Magaxine,  1810,  p.  148. 


closely  allied  to  the  Helmintkia. 

Aben  Esra  in  Celsius  (Hierob.  u.  227)  remarks 
that,  according  to  the  observations  of  a  certain 
learned  Spaniard,  the  ancient  Egyptians  always 
used  to  place  different  kinds  of  herbs  upon  ti 
table,  with  mustard,  and  that  they  dipped  morsels 
of  bread  into  this  salad.  That  the  Jews  derived 
this  custom  of  eating  herbs  with  their  meat  from 
the  Egyptians  is  extremely  probable,  tor  it  is  easy 
to  see  how,  on  the  one  hand,  the  bitter-herb  salad 
should  remind  the  Jews  of  the  bitterness  of  their 
bondage  (Ex.  i.  14),  and,  on  the  other  hand,  how 
it  should  also  bring  to  their  remembrance  their 
merciful  deliverance  from  it.  It  is  curious  to  ob 
serve  in  connexion  with  the  remarks  of  Aben  Esra, 
the  custom,  for  such  it  appears  to  have  been,  of 
dipping  a  morsel  of  bread  into  the  dish  (rb 
Tpvfi\iot>)  which  prevailed  in  our  Lord's  time. 
May  not  T&  rpvfaiov  be  the  salad  dish  of  bitter 
herbs,  and  rb  \|/c6/ttoi/,  the  morsel  of  bread  of  which 
Aben  Esra  speaks  ?  b 

The  merorim  may  well  be  understood  to  denote 
various  sorts  of  bitter  plants,  such  particularly  as 
belong  to  the  cruciferae,  as  some  of  the  bitter 
cresses,  or  to  the  chicory  group  of  the  compositae, 
the  hawkweeds,  and  sow-thistles,  and  wild  lettuces 
which  grow  abundantly  in  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai, 
in  Palestine,  and  in  Egjpt  (Decaisne,  Florula 
Sinaica  in  Annal.  des  Scienc.  Nat.  1834;  Strand, 
Flor.  Palaest.  No.  445,  Ac.). 

BITTERN  (IS?,  kippod  :  l-tfvos,  ireAe/cai/, 
Aq.  ;  KVKVOS  Theod.  in  Zeph.  ii.  14;  ericius). 
The  Hebrew  word  has  been  the  subject  of  various 
interpretations,  the  old  versions  generally  sanction 
ing  the  "  hedgehog  "  or  "  porcupine  ;"  in  which 
rendering  they  have  been  followed  by  Bochart 
(Hieroz.  ii.  454);  Shaw  (Trav.  i.  321,  8vo.  ed.)  ; 
Lowth  (On  Isaiah,  xiv.  23;,  and  some  others  ;  the 
"  tortoise,"  the  "  beaver,"  the  "otter,"  the  "  owl," 
have  also  all  teen  conjectured,  but  without  the 
slightest  show  of  reason.  Philological  arguments 
appear  to  be  rather  in  favour  of  the  "  hedgehog  "  or 
"  porcupine,"  for  the  Hebrew  word  kippod  appears  to 
be  identical  with  kunfud,  the  Arabic  word  c  for  the 
hedgehog  ;  but  zoologically,  the  hedgehog  or  porcu 
pine  is  quite  out  of  the  question.  The  word  occurs 
in  Is.  xiv.  23,  where  of  Babylon  the  Lord  says,  "  I 
will  make  it  a  possession  for  the  kippod  and  pools  of 
water  ;"  —  in  Is.  xxxiv.  11,  of  the  land  of  Idumea  it  is 
said  "  the  kdath  and  the  kippdd  shall  possess  it  ;" 
and  again  in  Zeph.  ii.  14,  "  I  will  make  Nineveh  a 
desolation  and  dry  like  a  wilderness  ;  flocks  shall  lie 
down  in  the  midst  of  her,  both  the  kdath  and  the 
kippod  shall  lodge  in  the  chapiters  thereof,  their 
voice  shall  sing  in  the  windows."*  The  former  pas 
sage  would  seem  to  point  to  some  solitude-loving 


<.xo>   winaceus,  echinus,  Kara.   Dj 
See  Freytag. 

d  Dr.  Harris  (art.  Bittern)  objects  to  the  words  "  theii 
voices  shall  sing  in  the  windows  "  being  applied  to  the 
hedgehog  or  porcupine.  The  expression  is  of  course  in 
applicable  to  these  animals,  but  it  is  not  certain  that  it 
refers  to  them  at  all.  The  word  their  is  not  in  the  ori 
ginal  ;  the  phrase  is  elliptical,  and  implies  "  the  voice  ol 
birds."  "  Sed  quum  canendi  verbum  adhibuent  vates 
baud  dubie  ppy  post  ^'ip  est  subaudiendum  "  (Kosenrntill 
Szhcl.  ad  Zeph.  ii.  14).  See  on  this  subject  the  excellent 
remarks  of  Harmer  (T-frstr?  'ii.  p.  100). 


KXXJl 


BITTERN 


«quatic  bird,  which  miVht  well  be  represented  by 
the  bittern,  as  the  A.  V.  has  it ;  but  the  passage  in 
Zephaniah  which  speaks  of  Nineveh  being  made 
"  dry  like  a  wilderness,"  does  not  at  first  sight 
appeal-  to  be  so  strictly  suited  to  'this  rendering. 
Gesenius,  Lee,  Parkhurst,  Winer,  Fiirst,  all  give 
"  hedgehog  "  or  "  porcupine  "  as  the  representative 
of  the  Hebrew  word;  but  neither  of  these  two 
animals  ever  lodges  on  the  chapiters*  of  columns, 
nor  is  it  their  nature  to  frequent  pools  of  water. 
Not  less  unhappy  is  the  reading  of  the  Arabic  ver 
sion  el-houbara,  a  species  of  bustard — the  Houbara 
undulata,  see  Ibis.  i.  284 — which  is  a  dweller  in 
dry  regions  and  quite  incapable  of  roosting.  We 
are  inclined  to  believe  that  the  A.  V.  is  correct,  and 
that  the  bittern  is  the  bird  denoted  by  the  original 
word  ;  as  to  the  objection  alluded  to  above  that 


this  bird  is  a  lover  of  marshes  and  pools,  and  would 
not  therefore  be  found  in  a  locality  which  is  "  dry 
like  a  wilderness,"  a  little  reflection  will  convince 
the  reader  that  the  difficulty  is  more  apparent  than 
real.  Nineveh  might  be  made  "  dry  like  a  wilder 
ness,"  but  the  bittern  would  find  an  abode  in  the 
Tigris  which  flows  through  the  plain  of  Mesopo 
tamia  ;  as  to  the  bittern  perching  on  the  chapiters 
of  ruined  columns,  it  is  quite  probable  that  this  bird 
may  occasionally  do  so ;  indeed  Col.  H.  Smith 
(Kitto's  Cyclop,  art.  Kippod)  says,  "  though  not 
building  like  the  stork  on  the  tops  of  houses,  it 
resorts  like  the  heron  to  ruined  structures,  and  we 
have  been  informed  that  it  has  been  seen  on  the 
summit  of  Tank  Kisra  at  Ctesiphon."  Again,  as 
was  noticed  above,  there  seems  to  be  a  connexion 
between  the  Hebrew  hippod  and  the  Arabic  kun- 
fud,  "hedgehog."  Some  lexicographers  refer  the 
Hebrew  word  to  a  Syriac  root  which  means  "  to 


BOX-TR£E 

bristle,"'  and  though  this  derivation  is  exactly 
suited  to  the  porcupine,  it  is  not  on  the  other  hana 
opposed  to  the  bittern,  which  from  its  habit  of 
erecting  and  bristling  out  the  feathers  of  the  neck, 
may  have  received  the  name  of  the  porcupine  bird 
from  the  ancient  Orientals.  The  bittern  (Botaurus 
stellaris)  belongs  to  the  Ardeidae,  the  heron  family 
of  birds  ;  it  has  a  wide  range,  being  found  in  Russia 
and  Siberia  as  far  north  as  the  river  Lena,  in  Eu 
rope  generally,  in  Barbary,  S.  Africa,  Trebizond, 
and  in  the  countries  between  the  Black  and  Caspian 
Seas,  &c. 

BOAR.     [SwiNE.] 


BOX-TREE    CW«r),a   teasshur 

KfSpos:  buxus,  pinus)  occurs  in  Is.  Ix.  13,  together 
with  "  the  fir-tree  and  the  pine-tree,"  as  furnishing 
wood  from  Lebanon  for  the  temple  that  was  to  be 
built  at  Jerusalem.  In  Is.  xli.  19  the  teasshur  is 
mentioned  in  connexion  with  the  cedar,  "  the  fir- 
tree  and  the  pine,"  &c.,  which  should  one  day  be 
planted  in  the  wilderness.  There  is  great  uncer 
tainty  as  to  the  tree  denoted  by  the  teasskur.  The 
Talmudical  and  Jewish  writers  generally  are  of 
opinion  that  the  box-tree  is  intended,  and  with 
them  agree  Montanus,  Deodatius,  the  A.  V.  and 
other  modern  versions;  Rosenmiiller  (Bibl.  Bot. 
300),  Celsius  (ffierob.  ii.  153),  and  Parkhurst 
(Ileb.  Lex.  s.  v.  T)£>fc«n)  are  also  in  favour  of  the 
box-tree.  The  Syriac  and  the  Arabic  version  of 
Saadias  understand  the  teasshur  to  denote  a  species 
of  cedar  called  sherbin,b  which  is  distinguished  by 
the  small  size  of  the  cones  and  the  upright  growth 
of  the  branches.  This  interpretation  is  also  sanc 
tioned  by  Gesenius  and  Fiirst  (ffeb.  Concord. 
p.  134).  Hiller  (Hierophyt.  i.  401)  believes  the 
Hebrew  word  may  denote  either  the  box  or  the 
maple.  With  regard  to  that  theory  which  identifies 
the  teasshur  with  the  sherbin,  there  is  not,  beyond 
the  authority  of  the  Syriac  and  Arabic  versions, 
any  satisfactory  evidence  to  support  it.  It  is  un 
certain  moreover  what  tree  is  meant  by  the  sher 
bin  '.  it  is  supposed  to  be  some  kind  of  cedar  :  but 
although  the  Arabic  version  of  Dioscorides  gives 
sherbin  as  the  rendering  of  the  Greek  KfSpos, 
the  two  trees  which  Dioscorides  speaks  of  seem 
rather  to  be  referred  to  the  genus  juniperus  than 
to  that  of  pinus.  However  Celsius  (Hierob.  i.  80) 
and  Sprengel  (Hist.  Eei  Herb.  i.  267)  identify  the 
sherbin  with  the  Pinus  cedrus  (Linn.),  the  cedar 
of  Lebanon.  According  to  Niebuhr  also  the  cedar 
was  called  sherbin.  The  same  word,  however,  both 
in  the  Chaldee,  the  Syriac,  and  the  Arabic,  is  occa 
sionally  used  to  express  the  berosh.c  Although  the 
claim  which  the  box-tree  has  to  represent  the  teas 
shur  of  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel  is  far  from  being  satis 
factorily  established,  yet  the  evidence  rests  on  a 
better  foundation  than  that  which  supports  the 
claims  of  the  sherbin.  The  passage  in  Ez.  xxvii.  6,* 
although  it  is  one  of  acknowledged  difficulty,  has 
been  taken  by  Bochart,  Rosenmuller,  and  others,  to 
uphold  the  claim  of  the  box-tree  to  represent  the 


e  Such  is  no  doubt  the  meaning  of  ^"inSD  i  but 
Parkhnrst  (Lex.  ffeb.  s.  v.  ^Qp)  translates  the  word 
"  door-porches,"  which,  he  says,  we  are  a*  liberty  tc  sup. 
pose  were  thrown  down, 

See  Simon.  Lex.  Heb.  s.  v.  *. 


est  felicissima  et  praestantissima  inter  omnes  speciei 
cedrorum  "  (Buxt.  I.  c.). 


*  Apparently  from  the  root  "lfctf»  "  to  be  straight," 
then  to  be  "  fortunate,"  "beautiful."  So  in  the  book 
Jelammed.enu  it  is  said,  "  Quare  vocatur  theasshur  f  quia 


Bochart  reads  D'H^HD  in  one  word.  Rosenmultet 
regards  the  expression  "  daughter  of  boxwood  "  as  meta 
phorical,  comparing  Ps.  xvii.  8,  T,am.  ii.  18.  iii.  13. 


BRAMBLE 

toasshur.  For  a  full  account  of  the  various  readings 
of  that  passage  see  Rosenmuller's  Schol.  in  Ez. 
xxvii.  fy.  The  most  satisfactory  translation  appears 
to  us  to  be  that  of  Bochart  (Geog.  Sac.  i.  iii.  c.  5, 
180)  and  Rosenmiiller :  "Thy  benches  have  they 
made  of  ivory,  inlaid  with  boxwood  from  the  isles 
of  Chittim."  Now  it  is  probable  that  the  isles  of 
Chittim  may  refer  to  any  of  the  islands  or  maritime 
districts  of  the  Mediterranean.  Bochart  believes 
Corsica  is  intended  in  this  passage :  the  Vulg.  has 
"  de  insulis  Italiae."  Corsica  was  celebrated  for  its 
box-trees  (Plin.  xvi.  16  ;  Theophrast.  H.  P.  iii.  15 
§5),  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  ancients  under 
stood  the  art  of  veneering  wood,  especially  box-wood, 
with  ivory,  tortoise-shell,  &c.  (Virg.  Aen.  x.  137). 
This  passage  therefore  does  certainly  seem  to  favour 
tne  opinion  that  teasshtir  denotes  the  wood  of  the 
t<c,x-tree  (Buxus  sempervirens),  or  perhaps  that  of 
the  only  other  known  species,  Buxus  balearica  ;  but 
the  point  must  be  left  undetermined. 

BRAMBLE.    [THORNS.] 

BRIEK.    [THORNS.] 

BRIMSTONE  (TP~\tt*gaphrith\  Qelov:  sul 
phur}.  There  can  be  no  question  that  the  Hebrew 
word  which  occurs  several  times  in  the  Bible  is 
correctly  rendered  "  brimstone  ;"  b  this  meaning  is 
fully  corroborated  by  the  old  versions.  The  word 
is  very  frequently  associated  with  "  fire :"  "  The 
Lord  rained  upon  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  brimstone 
and  fire  out  of  heaven "  (Gen.  xix.  24)  ;  see  also 
Ps.  xi.  6  ;  Ezek.  xxxviii.  22.  In  Job  xviii.  15  and 
Is.  xxx.  33,  "  brimstone "  occurs  alone,  but  no 
doubt  in  a  sense  similar  to  that  in  the  foregoing 
passages,  viz.,  as  a  synonymous  expression  with 
lightning,  as  has  been  observed  by  Le  Clerc  (Dis 
sert,  de  Sodomae  subversione,  Commentario  Pen 
tateuch,  adjecta,  §  iv.),  Michaelis,  Rosenmiiller,  and 
others."  There  is  a  peculiar  sulphurous  odour 
which  is  occasionally  perceived  to  accompany  a 
thunder-storm  ;  the  ancients  draw  particular  atten 
tion  to  it:  see  Pliny  (N.  H.  xxxv.  15),  "  Fulmina 
ac  fulgura  quoque  sulphuris  odorem  habent ;"  Se 
neca  (Q.  not.  ii.  53),  and  Persius  (Sat.  ii.  24,  25). 
Hence  the  expression  in  the  Sacred  writings  "  fire 
and  brimstone "  to  denote  a  storm  of  thunder  and 
lightning.  The  stream  of  brimstone  in  Is.  xxx.  33 
is,  no  doubt,  as  Lee  (ffeb.  Lex.  p.  123)  has  well 
expressed  it,  "a  rushing  stream  of  lightning." 

From  Deut.  xxix.  23,  «« the  whole  land  thereof  is 

brimstone like  the  overthrow  of  Sodom," 

jt  would  appear  that  native  sulphur  itself  is  alluded 
to  (see  also  Is.  xxxiv.  9).  Sulphur  is  found  at  the 
pit-bent  time  in  different  parts  of  Palestine,  but  in  the 
greatest  abundance  on  the  borders  of  the  Dead  Sea. 
*  We  picked  up  pieces,"  says  Dr.  Robinson  (Bib. 
Res.  ii.  221),  "  as  large  as  a  walnut  near  the 
northern  shore,  and  the  Arabs  said  it  was  found  in 
the  sea  near  'Ain  El-Feshkhah  in  lumps  as  large  as 


*  Probably  allied  to  "1Q3'  a  general  name  for  such  trees 
as  abound  with  resinous  'inflammable  exudations;  hence 
JV}S3'  "  sulphur,"  as  being  very  combust'ble.  See  the 
Lexicons  of  Parkhurst  and  Gesenius,  s.  v.  Cf.  the  Arabic 
5  (J 


b  From  A.  S.,  brennan,  "  to  burn,"  and  stme. 

c  See  the  different  explanation  of  Hcngstenberg  (Ps. 
xi.  6),  who  maintains,  contrary  to  all  reason,  tJbM  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah  were  destroyed  by  "  a  literal  raining  of 
brimstone." 

APPENDIX. 


BUSH 

a  man's  fist:  they  find  it  in  sufficient  quantities 
to  make  from  it  their  own  gunpowder/'  Sec  Irby 
and  Mangles  (Travels,  p.  453),  Burckhardt  (Tra 
vels,  p.  394),  who  observes  that  the  Arabs  use 
sulphur  in  diseases  of  their  camels,  and  Shaw 
(Travels,  ii.  159).  There  are  hot  sulphurous 
springs  on  the  eastern  coast  at  the  ancient  Cal- 
lirrhoe  (Irby  and  Mangles,  Trav.  p.  4G7,  and 
Robinson,  Bib.  Res.  ii.  222).  . 

The  pieces  of  sulphur,  varying  in  size  from  a 
nutmeg  to  a  small  hen's  egg,  which  travellers  pick 
up  on  the  shore  of  the  Dead  Sea,  have,  in  all  pro 
bability,  been  disintegrated'  from  the  adjacent 
limestone  or  volcanic  rocks  and  washed  up  on  the 
shores.  Sulphur  was  much  used  by  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  in  their  religious  purifications  (Juv. 
ii.  157;  Plin.  xxxv.  15),  hence  the  Greek  word 
Oetov,  lit.  "the  divine  thing,"  was  employed  to 
express  this  substance.  Sulphur  is  found  "nearly 
pure  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  and  generally 
in  volcanic  districts ;  it  exists  in  combination  with 
metals  and  in  various  sulphates;  it  is  very  com 
bustible,  and  is  used  in  the  manufacture  of  gun 
powder,  matches,  &c.  Pliny  (I.  c.)  says  one  kind  of 
sulphur  was  employed  "  ad  ellychnia  conficienda." 

BUSH  (PUD,*  seneh:  faros:  rubus).  The 
Hebrew  word  occurs  only  in  those  passages  which 
refer  to  Jehovah's  appearance  to  Moses  "  in  the 
flame  of  fire  in  the  bush  "  (Ex.  iii.  2,  3,  4 ;  Deut. 
xxxiii.  16).  The  Greek  word  is  faros  both  in  the 
LXX.  and  in  the  N.  T.  (Luke  xx.  37 ;  Acts  vii. 
35  ;  see  also  Luke  vi.  44,  where  it  is  correctly  ren 
dered  "  bramble  bush  "  by  the  A.  V.).  Bdros  is 
used  also  to  denote  the  seneh  by  Josephus,  Philo, 
Clemens,  Eusebius,  and  others  (see  Celsius,  Hierob. 
ii.  58).  Some  versions  adopt  a  more  general  inter 
pretation,  and  understand  any  kind  of  bush,  as  the 
A.  V.  The  Arabic  in  Acts  vii.  35  has  rhamnus. 
Others  retain  the  Hebrew  word. 

Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  58)  has  argued  in  favour  of 
the  Rubus  vulgaris,  i.  e.  R.  fruticosus,  the  bramble 
or  blackberry  bush,  representing  the  seneh,  and  traces 
the  etymology  of  (Mt.)  ««  Sinai "  to  this  name.b  It 
is  almost  certain  that  seneh  is  definitely  used  for  some 
particular  bush,  for  the  Hebrew  siachc  expresses 
bushes  generally  ;  the  faros  and  rubus  of  the  LXX. 
and  Vulg.  are  used  by  Greek  and  Roman  writers 
to  denote  for  the  most  part  the  different  kinds  of 
brambles  (Rubus),  such  as  the  raspberry  and  the 
blackberry  bush  ;  Celsius'  opinion,  therefore,  is  cor 
roborated  by  the  evidence  of  the  oldest  vcisions. 
Pococke  (Descr.  of  the  East,  \.  p.  215),  however, 
objects  to  the  bramble  as  not  growing  at  all  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Mount  Sinai,  and  proposes  the 
hawthorn  bush,  Oxyacantha  Arabics  (Shaw). u 
Etymologically e  one  would  be  inclined  to  refer  the 
seneh  of  the  Hebrew  scriptures  to  some  species  of 
senna  plant  (cassia),  though  we  have  no  direct 
evidence  of  any  cassia  growing  in  the  localities 


a  Probably  from 


(unused  root)=      -,,   "to 
d; 


sharpen." 

b  Prof.  Stanley  (S.  dk  P.  p.  17)  thinks  Sinai  is  derived 
from  Seneh,  "  an  acacia,"  as  being  a  thorny  tree. 

c  n>b. 

a  It'is  uncertain  what  Dr.  Shaw  speaks  of;  Dr.  Hooker 
thinks  he  must  mean  the  Crataegus  Aronia  which  grows 
on  Mount  Sinai. 

e:  -- 

«  Compare  the  Arabic  |j^,  "senna,  senfolte  6enn;i<»." 
Kam.  (Frcytag,  Arab.  7,«r.  s.  v.). 


xxidv 


CALAMUS 


about  Mount  Sinai,  neither  Decaisne  nor  Bove 
mentioning  a  senna  bush  amongst  the  plants  of 
this  mountain.  Sprengel  identifies  the  seneh  with 
what  lie  terms  the  Rubus  sanctusf  and  says  it  grows 
abundantly  near  Sinai.  The  monks  of  St.  Catherine, 
it  is  well  known,  have  planted  a  bramble  bush  near 
their  chapel,  to  mark  the  spot  and  perpetuate  the 
name  of  the  supposed  bush  in  which  God  appeared 
to  Moses.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  say  what  kind 
of  thornbush  is  intended  by  seneh,  but  Sinai  is 
almost  beyond  the  range  of  the  genus  Rubus. 


C 


CALAMUS.     [REED.] 

CAMEL.  Under  this  head  we  shall  consider 
the  Hebrew  wcrds  gdmdl,  becher  o*  bichrdh,  and 
chircharoth.  As  to  th=  achashteranim*  in  Esth. 
f'ui.  10,  erroneously  translated  "camels"  by  tho 
A.  V.,  see  MULE  (note). 

1.   Gdmdl  pEj! :    KU[JLI]\OS:    camelus)   is   the 

common  Hebrew  term  to  express  the  genus  "  camel," 
irrespective  of  any  difference  of  species,  age,  or 
breed :  it  occurs  in  numerous  passages  of  the  0.  T., 
and  is  in  all  probability  derived  from  a  root b  which 
signifies  "  to  carry."  The  first  mention  of  camels 
occurs  in  Gen.  xii.  16,  as  among  the  presents  which 
Pharaoh  bestowed  upon  Abram  when  he  was  in 
Egypt.  It  is  clear  from  this  passage  that  camels 
were  early  known  to  the  Egyptians  (see  also  Ex. 
ix.  3),  though  no  representation  of  this  animal  has 
yet  been  discovered  in  the  paintings  or  hiero 
glyphics  (Wilkinson,  Anc.  Egypt,  i.  234,  Lond. 
1854).  The  camel  has  been  from  the  earliest  times 
the  most  important  beast  of  burden  amongst  Ori 
ental  nations.  The  Ethiopians  had  "  camels  in 
abundance"  (2  Chr.  xiv.  15) ;  the  queen  of  Shebft 
came  to  Jerusalem  "  with  camels  that  bare  spices 
and  gold  and  precious  stones "  (1  K.  x.  2)  ;  the 
men  of  Kedar  and  of  Hazor  possessed  camels  (Jer. 
xlix.  29,  32) ;  David  took  away  the  camels  from 
the  Geshurites  and  the  Amalekites  (1  Sam.  xxvii.  9, 
xxx.  17) ;  forty  camels'  burden  of  good  things  were 
sent  to  Elisha  by  Benhadad  king  of  Syria  from 
Damascus  (2  K.  viii.  9)  ;  the  Ishmaelites  trafficked 
with  Egypt  in  the  precious  gums  of  Gilead,  carried 
on  the  backs  of  camels  (Gen.  xxxvii.  25)  ;  the 
Midianites  and  the  Amalekites  possessed  camels  "as 
the  sand  by  the  sea-side  for  multitude"  (Jud.  vii. 
12);  Job  had  three  thousand  camels  before  his 
affliction  (Job  i.  3),  and  six  thousand  afterwards 
(xlii.  12). 

The  camel  was  used  for  riding  (Gen.  xxiv.  64; 
1  Sam.  xxx.  17);  as  a  beast  of  burden  generally 


f  "  This,"  says    Dr.  Hooker,    "  is  a  variety  of  our 
bramble,  Pubus  f*-uticosu&  " 


*"  ?!0;l=Arab.  \A.^.  portare,  according  to  Geseni  us, 
J*+-  » 

Piirst,  and  others.    Bochart  derives  the  word  from  />JDH, 
*  to  revenge,"  the  camel  being  a  vindictive  animal.    The 
w^rd  has  survived  to  this  day  in  the  languages  of  Western 
Europe.    See  Gesenius,  Thes.  a.  v. 
c  "  Commisit  etiam  camelorum  quadrigas." 
d  Amongst  the  live  stock  which  Jacob  presented  to 
Ksau  were    "  thirty   milch    camels  with    their    colts." 

is   literally    "camels  giving  suck." 


CAMEL 

(Gen.  xxxvii.  25;  2  K.  viii.  9;  1  K.  x.  2,  &c.) 
for  draught  purposes  (Is.  xxi.  7  :  aee  also  Suetonius, 
Neron.  c.  ll).c  From  1  Sam.  xxx.  17  we  learn  that 
camels  were  used  in  war :  compare  also  Pliny 
(N.  H.  viii.  18),  Xenophon  (Cyrop.  vii.  1,  27),  and 
Herodotus  (i.  80,  vii.  86),  and  Livy,  (xxxvii.  40). 
It  is  to  the  mixed  nature  of  the  forces  of  the 
"Persian  army  that  Isaiah  is  probably  alluding  in 
his  description  of  the  fall  of  Babylon  (Is.  xxi.  7). 

John  the  Baptist  wore  a  garment  made  of  camel's 
hair  (Matt.  iii.  4;  Mark  i.  6),  and  some  have  sup 
posed  that  Elijah  "  was  clad  in  a  dress  of  the  same 
stuff"  (Calmet's  Diet.  Frog.  No.  cccxx. ;  Rosen- 
miiller,  Schol.  ad  fs.  xx.  2),  the  Hebrew  expression 
"lord  of  hair"  (2  K.  i.  8)  having  reference  not  to 
his  beard  or  head,  but  to  his  gannent  (compare 
Zech.  xiii  4  ;  1  K.  xix.  13,  19)  [SACKCLOTH], 
out  see  LLJJAH.  Chardin  (in  Harmer's  Observ. 
ii.  487)  says  the  people  in  the  East  make  vestments 
of  camel's  hair,  which  they  pull  off  the  animal  at, 
the  time  it  is  changing  its  coat.  Aelian  (Nat.  If. 
xvii.  34)  speaks  of  the  excellent  smooth  quality  of 
the  hair  of  camels,  which  the  wealthy  near  the 
Caspian  Sea  used  to  wear ;  but  the  garment  of 
camel's  hair  which  the  Baptist  wore  was  in  all  pro 
bability  merely  the  prepared  skin  of  the  animal. 

Camel's  milk  was  much  esteemed  by  Orientals 
(Aristot.  Hist.  Anim.  vi.  25,  §1,  ed.  Schneid. : 
Pliny,  N.  H.  xi.  41,  xxviii.  9);  it  was  in  all  pro 
bability  used  by  the  Hebrews,  but  no  distinct  re 
ference  to  it  is  made  in  the  Bible.d  Camel's  flesh, 
although  much  esteemed  by  the  Arabs  (Prosp. 
Alpinus,  H.  N.  Aeg.  i.  226),  was  forbidden  as  food 
to  the  Israelites  (Lev.  xi.  4  ;  Deut.  xiv.  7),  because, 
though  the  camel  "  cheweth  the  cud,  it  divideth 
not  the  hoof."  Many  attempts  have  been  made  to 
explain  the  reason  why  camel-flesh  was  forbidden 
to  the  Jews,  as  by  Bochart  (Hieroz.  i.  11),  Rosen- 
miiller  (Not.  ad  Hieroz.  I.  c.),  Michaelis  (Laws  of 
Moses,  iii.  234,  Smith's  translat.),  none  of  which, 
however,  are  satisfactory.  It  is  sufficient  to  know 
that  the  law  of  Moses  allowed  no  quadruped  to  be 
used  as  food  except  such  as  chewed  the  cud  and 
divided  the  hoof  into  two  equal  parts :  as  the  camel 
does  not  fully  divide  the  hoof,  the  anterior  parts 
only  being  cleft,  it  was  excluded  by  the  very  terms 
of  the  definition. 

Dr.  Kitto  (Phys.  H.  of  Palest,  p.  391)  says  "  the 
Arabs  adorn  the  necks  of  their  camels  with  a  band 
of  cloth  or  leather,  upon  which  are  strung  small 
shells  called  cowries  in  the  form  of  half-moons," 
this  very  aptly  illustrates  Judg.  viii.  21,  26,  with 
reference  to  the  moon-shaped  ornaments  e  that  were 
on  the  necks  of  the  camels  which  Gideon  took  from 
Zebah  and  Zalmunna.  (Comp.  Stat.  Thebaid.  ix. 
687.)f  [ORNAMENTS.] 

Ezekiel  (xxv.  5)  declares  that  Rabbah  shall  be  a 


This  passage  has  been  quoted  to  prove  that  the  Israelites 
used  tne  milk  of  the  camel,  which  however  it  cannot 
fairly  be  said  to  do.  The  milk  which  Jael  offered  Sisera 
(Judg.  iv.  19),  according  to  Josephus  (Ant.  v.  5,  §4),  was 
sour.  Some  of  the  Rabbis,  Michaelis  and  Rosenmullei 
(Not.  ad  Bieroz.  i.  10),  say  it  was  for  the  purpose  of 
intoxicating  Sisera,  sour  camel's  milk,  as  they  affirm, 
having  this  effect.  The  Arabs  use  sour  camel's  milk  ex 
tensively  as  a  drink. 


Compare  also  Is.  iii.  18  :  "  Round  tires 
like  the  moon,"  A.V.    The  LXX.  has  wviaxoi,  Vug 
lunalat. 
t  "  Jfiveo  lunata  miuilia  dente  "  on  horses'  nockf. 


CAMEL 

u  stable  for  camels,  and  the  Ammonites  a  couching 
place  for  flocks."  Buckingham  (Trav.  p.  329) 
speaks  of  ruins  in  this  country  as  "  places  of  resort 
to  the  Bedouins  where  they  pasture  their  camels 
and  their  sheep."  See  "  Illustrations  of  Scripture," 
in  vol.  ii.  pt.  ix.  of  '  Good  Words/ 

From  the  temperate  habits  of  the  camel  with 
regard  to  its  requirements  of  food  and  water,  and 
from  its  wonderful  adaptation,  both  structurally 


CJA3IEL 


XXXV 


and  physiologically,  to  traverse  the  arid  regions 
which  for  miles  afford  but  a  scanty  herbage,  we 
can  readily  give  credence  to  the  immense  numbers 
which  Scripture  speaks  of  as  the  property  either  of 
tribes  or  individuals.  The  three  thousand  camels 
of  Job  may  be  illustrated  to  the  very  letter  by  a 
passage  in  Aristotle  (H.  A.  ix.  37,  §5)  "  Now 
some  men  in  upper  Asia  possess  as  many  as  three 
thousand,  camels." 


Bactriau  or  Two-humped  Camels  on  Assyrian  monuments.     (Layard.) 


2.   Becer,  bicrdh   (133,  iTM :  LXX. 
•n  Is.  Ix.  6  ;    o^e  in  Jer.  ii.   23,   as  from  Arab. 
,,  inane  : «  8po/j.evs  in  verss.  of  Aq.,  Theod. 


uid  Sym. :  dromedarius,  cursor).  The  Hebrew 
svords  occur  only  in  the  two  passages  above  named, 
where  the  A.  V.  reads  "  dromedary." 

Isaiah,  foretelling  the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles, 
says,  "  The  caravans  of  camels  shall  cover  thee, 
the  dromedaries  of  Midian  and  Ephah."  The  Mi- 
dianites  had  camels  "  as  the  sand  of  the  sea " 
(Judg.  vii.  12),  In  Jeremiah  God  expostulates  with 
Israel  for  her  wickedness,  and  compares  her  to  a 
swift  bichrdh  "  traversing  her  ways."  Bochart 
(Hieroz.  i.  15,  sq.)  contends  that  the  Hebrew  word 
is  indicative  only  of  a  difference  in  age,  and  adduces 
the  authority  of  the  Arabic  beer  a  in  support  of  his 
opinion  that  a  young  camel  is  signified  by  the  term. 
Gesemus  follows  Bochart,  and  (Comment,  ad  Jes. 
Ix.  6)  answers  the  objections  of  Rosenmuller,  who 
(Not.  ad  Bochart,  Hieroz.  1.  c.)  argues  in  favour 
of  the  "  dromedary."  Gesenius's  remarks  are  com 
mented  on  again  by  Rosenmuller  in  his  Bibl.  Na- 
turgesch.  ii.  21.  Etymologically  the  Hebrew  word 
is  more  in  favour  of  the  "  dromedary."  h  So  too 
are  the  old  versions,  as  is  also  the  epithet  "  swift," 
applied  to  the  bicrdh  in  Jeremiah;  while  on  the 
other  hand  the  term  is  used  in  the  Arabic  *  to  de 
note  "  a  young  camel."  Oedmann,  commenting  on 
the  Hebrew  word,  makes  the  following  just  ob 
servation  : — "  «  The  multitude  of  camels  shall  cover 
thee,  the  dromedaries  of  Midian,'  &c. — a  weak  dis 
tinction  if  bicrim  means  only  young  camels  in 


g  See  Schleusner  (Thes.  in  LXX.  a.  v.  tye.) 
»  From  "O  3»  i.  q.  "I{p3«  "  to  be  first." 

a  young  camel."  of  the  same   age  as  "a 

young   man"  amongst   men.     But   the   idea  of  swift 
ness   is   involved    even    in    the    Arabic   use   of    this 

won!  for     <=^  t  =properare,  festinare   (v.  Sesenius, 

~ 
13-  i.  A  "the  camel's  saddle.'  with  a  kind  of  ca- 


opposition  to  old  ones  "  (  Verm.  Sam.}.  The  "  tra 
versing  her  ways"  is  well  explained  by  Rosen 
muller,  "  mox  hue  mox  illuc  cursitans  quasi  furore 
venereo  correptus,  suique  non  compos,  quemadmo- 
dum  facere  solent  cameli  tempore  aestus  libidinosi." 
We  are  of  opinion  that  the  becer  or  bicrdh  cannot 
be  better  represented  than  by  the  "  dromedary  "  of 
the  A.  V. 

3.  As  to  the  circhdroth  (nh3"}3)of  Is.lxvi.20, 
which  the  LXX.  interpret  ovcmSia,  the  Vulg.  car- 
rucae,  and  the  A.  V.  "  swift  beasts,"  there  is  some 
difference  of  opinion.  The  explanation  is  not  satis 
factory  which  is  given  by  Bochart  (Hieroz.  i.  25), 
following  some  of  the  Rabbis,  and  adopted  by  Rosen 
muller,  Gesenius,  Lee,  and  others,  that  "  drome 
daries  "  are  meant.  According  to  those  who  sanc 
tion  this  rendering,  the  word  (which  occurs  only  in 
Isaiah,  I.  c.)  is  derived  from  the  root  "H3,  "  to  leap," 

"  to  gallop ;"  but  the  idea  involved  is  surely  inap 
plicable  to  the  jolting  trot  of  a  camel.  The  old 
versions  moreover  are  opposed  to  such  an  explana 
tion.  We  prefer,  with  Michaelis  (Suppl.  ad  Lex. 
Heb.  No.  1210)  and  Parkhurst  (s.  v.},  to  under 
stand  by  chirchdrdth  "  panniers "  or  "  baskets  " 
carried  on  the  backs  of  camels  or  mules,  and  to 
refer  the  word  to  its  unreduplicated  form  in  Gen. 
xxxi.  34.k  The  shaded  vehicles  of  the  LXX.  may 
be  illustrated  by  a  quotation  from  Maillet  (Descript. 
de  L'Egypte,  p.  230*),  who  says,  "  other  ladies  are 
carried  sitting  in  chairs  made  like  covered  cages 
hanging  on  both  sides  of  a  camel ;"  or  by  a  remark 
of  Dr.  Russell  (Nat.  H.  of  Aleppo,  i.  p.  256),  who 

nopy  over  it.  See  Jahn  (Arch.  Bibl.  p.  54,  Upliam's 
translation) :  "  Sometimes  they  travel  in  a  covered  vehicle 
which  is  secured  on  the  back  of  a  camel,  and  answers  the 
purpose  of  a  small  house."  Parkhurst  says  ni"O"l!D  "  is 
in  the  reduplicate  form,  because  these  baskets  were  in 
pairs,  and  slung  one  on  each  side  of  the  beast."  In  this 

S  j 
sense  the  word  may  be  referred  to  the  Arabic  .yf. 

sella  camelina,  aliis,  cum  apparatu  suo"  (Frertag,  s.  G.). 
See  figures  in  Pocccke,  Descript.  Orient,  i.  tab.  58. 

D  2 


K2UCV1 


CAMEL 


states  that  some  of  the  women  about  Aleppo  are 
commonly  stowed,  when  on  a  journey,  on  each  side 
i  mule  in  a  sort  of  covered  cradles. 

The  species  of  camel  which  was  in  common  use 
amongst  the  Jews  and  the  heathen  nations  of  Pales 
tine  is  the  Arabian  or  one-humped  camel  (Camelus 
Arnbicus).  The  dromedary  is  a  swifter  animal 


Arabian  Camel 

than  the  baggage-camel,  and  is  used  chiefly  for 
riding  purposes,  it  is  merely  a  finer  breed  than  the 
other :  the  Arabs  call  it  the  Heirie.  The  speed  of 
the  dromedary  has  been  greatly  exaggerated,  the 
Arabs  asserting  that  it  is  swifter  than  the  horse ; 
eight  or  nine  miles  an  hour  is  the  utmost  it  is  able 
to  perform,  this  pace,  however,  it  is  able  to  keep  up 
for  hours  together.  The  Bactrian  camel  (Camchis 
Bactrianus),  the  only  other  known  species,  has  two 


Bactrian  Camel 

humps ;  it  is  not  capable  of  such  endurance  as  its 
Arabian  cousin:  this  species  is  found  in  China,  Russia, 
and  throughout  Central  Asia,  and  is  employed  by 
the  Persians  in  war  to  cany  one  or  two  guns  which 
are  fixed  to  the  saddle.  Col.  H.  Smith  says  this  species 
appears  figured  in  the  processions  of  the  ancient 
Persian  satrapies  among  the  bas-reliefs  of  Chehel 
Minor.  Though  the  Bactrian  camel  was  probably 
not  used  by  the  Jews,  it  was  doubtless  known  to 
them  in  a  late  period  of  their  history,  from  their 
relations  with  Persia  and  Chaldaea.  Russell  (N. 
Hist,  of  Alep.  ii.  170,  2nd  ed.)  says  the  two- 
hvunped  camel  is  now  seldom  seen  at  Aleppo. 


»  An  expiebbion  derived  from  the  Arabs.  See  the 
qnotation  from  the  Arabian  naturalist  Datnir,  quoted  by 
Boohart.  Hieroz.  I.  13. 


CAMPHIRE 

The  camel,  as  may  be  readily  conceived,  is  the 
subject  amongst  Orientals  of  many  proverbial  ex 
pressions;  see  many  cited  by  Bochart  (Hieioz.  i. 
30),  and  comp.  Matt,  xxiii.  24,  and  xix.  24,  whert 
there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  correctness  of  the 
A.  V.,  notwithstanding  the  attempts  which  are 
made  from  time  to  time  to  explain  away  the  ex 
pression  ;  the  very  magnitude  of  the  hyperbole  is 
evidence  in  its  favour  :  with  the  Talmuds  "  an 
elephant  passing  through  a  needle's  eye  "  was  a 
common  figure  to  denote  anything  impossible. 

We  may  notice  in  conclusion  the  wonderful 
adaptation  of  the  camel  to  the  purposes  for  which 
it  is  designed.  With  feet  admirably  formed  for 
journeying  over  dry  and  loose  sandy  soil  ;  with  an 
internal  reservoir  for  a  supply  of  water  when  the 
ordinary  sources  of  nature  fail  ;  with  a  hump  of  fat 
ready  on  emergencies  to  supply  it  with  carbon 
when  even  the  prickly  thorns  and  mimosas  of  the 
burning  desert  cease  to  afford  food  ;  with  nostrils 
which  can  close  valve-like  when  the  sandy  storm 
fills  the  air,  this  valuable  animal  does  indeed  well 
deserve  the  significant  title  of  the  "  ship  of  the 
desert."  m  The  camel  belongs  to  the  family  Came- 
lidae,  order  Ruminantia. 

CAMPHIRE  (~\£p,*  copher:  Kvirpos:  Cyprus, 

Cyprus}.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  "  camphire" 
is  an  incorrect  rendering  of  the  Hebrew  term,  which 
occurs  in  the  sense  of  some  aromatic  substance  only 
in  Cant.  i.  14,  iv.  13  :  the  margin  in  both  passages 
has  "  cypress,"  giving  the  form  but  not  the  signi 
fication  of  the  Greek  word.  Camphire,  or,  as  it  is 
now  generally  written,  camphor,  is  a  product  of  a 
tree  largely  cultivated  in  the  island  of  Formosa,  the 
Camphora  officinarum,  of  the  Nat.  order  Lauraceae. 
There  is  another  tree,  the  Dryobalanops  aromatica 
of  Sumatra,  which  also  yields  camphor  ;  but  it  is 
improbable  that  the  substance  secreted  by  either  of 
these  trees  was  known  to  the  ancients. 

From  the  expression  "  cluster  of  copher  in  the 
vineyards  of  Engedi,"  in  Cant.  i.  14,  the  Chaldee 
version  reads  "  bunches  of  grapes."  b  Several  ver 
sions  retain  the  Hebrew  word.  The  substance  really 
denoted  by  copher  is  the  Kvirpos  of  Dioscorides, 
Theophrastus,  &c.,  and  the  cypros  of  Pliny,  i.  e. 
the  Lawsonia  alba  of  botanists,  the  henna  of  Ara 
bian  naturalists.  So  R.  Ben  Melek  (Cant.  i.  14): 
"  The  cluster  of  copher  is  that  which  the  Arabs  call 
al-henna"  (see  Celsius,  Hierob.  i.  223).  Although 
there  is  some  discrepancy  in  the  descriptions  given 
by  the  Greek  and  Latin  writers  of  the  cypros-plant, 
yet  their  accounts  are  on  the  whole  sufficiently 
exact  to  enable  us  to  refer  it  to  the  henna-plant. 
The  Arabic  authoi*s  Avicenna  and  Serapion  also 
identify  their  henna  with  the  cypros  of  Dioscorides 
and  Galen  (Roylein  Kitto's  Bibl.  CycL  art.  Kopher). 

"  The  <faroos"  Fays  Sprengel  (Comment.  OK 
Dioscor.  i.  124),  "  is  the  Lawsonia  alba,  L.im., 

"  From  ")Q3>  dblevit  :  "  Quia  mulleres  in  oriente  ungueg 


oblinunt  "  (Simon.  Lex.  s.  v.).    Cf.  Arabic   jjj",  pi*,  and 


the  Syriac  j;_2}Q_2.     The  Greek  /cuVpo?  is  the  samo 
word  as  the  Hebrew. 

b  The  Hcb.  "133  also  denotes  "  redemption,"  "  expia 
tion  ;''  whence  some  of  the  Hebrew  doctors,  by  dividing 
^3K>K>  have  found  out  the  mystery  of  the  MessS.ih, 

"l£)3  ^3  fcW>  "the  man  that  propitiates  all 
(Patrick's  C(*Mnenhiry). 


CAMPHIBE 

which  includes  the  L.  inennis  and  spwosa,  Linn. ; 
it  is  the  Copher  of  the  Hebrews  and  the  Henna  of 
the  Arabs,  a  plant  of  great  note  throughout  the 
East  to  this  day,  both  on  account  of  its  fragrance 
and  of  the  dye  which  its  leaves  yield  for  the  hair." 


Laictoma  alba. 

In  a  note  Sprengel  adds  that  the  inhabitants  of 
Nubia  call  the  henna-plant  Khofreh ;  he  refers  to 
Delisle  (Flor.  Aegyp.  p.  12).  Hasselquist  (Trav. 
246,  Lond.  1766),  speaking  of  this  plant,  says  "  the 
leaves  are  pulverised  and  made  into  a  paste  with 
water ;  the  Egyptians  bind  this  paste  on  the  nails  of 
their  hands  and  feet,  and  keep  it  on  all  night :  this 
gives  them  a  deep  yellow  [red?],  which  is  greatly 
admired  by  Eastern  nations.  The  colour  lasts  for 
three  or  four  weeks  before  there  is  occasion  to 
renew  it.  The  custom  is  so  ancient  in  Egypt  that 
1  have  seen  the  nails  of  the  mummies  dyed  in  this 
manner."  Sonnini  ( Voyage,  i.  p.  297)  says  the 
women  are  fond  of  decorating  themselves  with  the 
flowers  of  the  henna-plant ;  that  they  take  them 
in  their  hand  and  perfume  their  bosoms  with 
them.  Compare  with  this  Cant.  i.  13 ;  see  also 
Mariti  (Trav.  i.  p.  29),  Prosper  Alpinus  (De  Plant. 
Aegypt.  c.  13),  Pliny  (N.  H.  xii.  24),  who  says 
that  a  good  kind  grows  near  Ascalon,  Oedman 
(  Venn.  Sam.  i.  c.  7,  and  vi.  p.  102),  who  satis 
factorily  answers  Michaelis's  conjecture  (Supp.  ad 
Lex.  Heb.  ii.  1205)  that "  palm-flowers"  or  "  dates" 
are  intended ;  see  also  Rosenmiiller  (Bib.  Bot. 
p.  133),  and  Wilkinson  (Ana.  Egypt,  ii.  345). 

Some  have  supposed  that  the  expression  rendered 
by  the  A.  V.  "  pare  her  nails"  c  (Deut.  xxi.  12)  has 
reference  to  the  custom  of  staining  them  with 
henna-dye  ;  but  it  is  very  improbable  that  there  is 
any  such  allusion,  for  the  captive  woman  was 
ordered  to  shave  her  head,  a  mark  of  mourning : 
such  a  meaning  therefore  as  the  one  proposed  is 
quite  out  of  place  (see  Rosenmuller,  Schol.  ad 
Deut.  xxi.  12).  Not  only  the  nails  of  the  hands 
and  the  feet,  but  the  hair  and  beard  were  also  dyed 
with  henna,  and  even  sometimes  the  manes  and 
tails  of  horses  and  asses  were  similarly  treated. 


CARBUNCLE 

The  LanDSOnfa  alba  when  young  ij  without 
thorns,  and  when  older  is  spinous,  whence  LLmucus'E 
names,  L.  inertnis  and  L.  spinosa  ;  he  regarding  his 
specimens  as  two  distinct  species.  The  henna-plant 
grows  in  Egyot.  Syria,  Arabia,  and  N.  India.  The 
flovers  are  wnite  ana  grow  m  clusters  and  are  ver^ 
fragrant.  The  whole  shrub  is  from  four  to  six  feet 
high.  The  fullest  description  is  that  given  by 
Soiinini.  The  Lawsonia  alba,  the  only  knowu 
species,  belongs  to  the  natural  order  Lythraceae. 

CANE.     [REED.] 

CANKEKWOKM.    [LOCUST.] 

CAKBUNCLE.  The  representative  in  the 
A.  V.  of  the  Hebrew  words  'ekddch  and  b&r'katk 
or  bare'keth. 

1.  'Ekddch  (rnpK  :  \iOos  Kpvffra\\ov  ;  \i8os 
7A.i/4>7js,   Sym.  Theod. ;    A.  rp^irravKr/jLov,  Aq. : 
lapides  sculptf)  occurs  only  in  Is.  liv.  12  in  the 
description  of  the  beauties  of  the  new  Jerusalem : 
"  I  will  make  thy  windows  of  agates  and  thy  gates 
of  carbuncles"  (comp.  Tob.  xiii.  16,  17,  and  Rev. 
xxi.  18-21) — "  general  images,"  as  Lowth  (Notes 
on  Is.  1.  c.)    has   remarked,  "  to  express  beauty, 
magnificence,  purity,  strength,  and  solidity,  agree 
ably  to  the  ideas  of  the  Eastern  nations."     The 
translators  of  the  A.  V.,  having  in  mind  the  ety 
mology  of  the  Hebrew  word,"  render  it "  carbuncle ;" 
but  as  many  precious  stones  have  the  quality  ol 
"  shining  like  fire,"  it  is  obvious  that  such  an  in 
terpretation  is   very  doubtful.      Symmachus,  re 
ferring  the  word  to  a  Chaldee  signification  of  the 
root,    viz.    "  to    bore,"   understands    "  sculptured 
stones,"    whence   the   Vulg.    lapides  sculpti    (see 
Rosenmiiller,  Schol.  ad  Jes.  liv.  13).     Perhaps  the 
term  may  be  a  general  one  to  denote  any  bright 
sparkling  gem,  but  as  it  occurs  only  once,  without 
any  collateral  evidence  to  aid  us,  it  is  impossible  to 
determine  the  real  meaning  of  the  word. 

2.  Bdrekath,  bdreketh  (njT12.  1117121  :b   fffia- 
paytos,  Kfpavvios  Sym.:    smaragdus},  the  third 
stone  in  the  first  row  of  the  sacerdotal  breastplate 
(Ex.  xxviii.  17,  xxxix.  10),  also  one  of  the  mineral 
treasures  of  the  king   of  Tyre    (Ez.  xxviii.  13). 
Braun  (De  Vestit.  Sacerd.  Heb.  p.  652,  Amst.  1680) 
supposes  with  much  probability  that  the  smaragdus 
or  emerald  is  the  precious  stone  signified.     This 
view  is  supported  by  the  LXX.  (which  always  gives 
ffftdpaySos  as  the  representative  of  the  bdr'kath), 
the  Vulgate,  and  Josephus  (Ant-  iv.  7,  §5).    Pliny 
(xxxvii.  5)  speaks   in  terms  of   the  warmest  ad 
miration  of  the  smaragdus,  and  enumerates  no  fewer 
than  twelve  kinds,  but  it  is  probable  some  of  then: 
are  malachites   or   glass.      It  is  certain  that  the 
smaragdus  which,  according  to  Theophrastus  (Fr. 
ii.  24,  ed.  Schneider),  was  sent  as  a  present  irom 
the   king  of  Babylon  into  Egypt,  and  whicn,  as 
Egyptian'chronicles  relate,  was  four  cubits  long  by 
three  wide,  must  have  been  made  of  some  othti 
material  than  emerald ;  but  ffpaparySos  is  used  by 
Theophrastus  to  denote  the  emerald.     "  This  gem, ' 
he  says,  "is  very  rare  and  of  a  small  size  ...     It 
has  some  peculiar  properties,  for  it  renders  water 
of  the  same  colour  with  itself.  ...  It  soothes  the 
eyes,  and  people  wear  seals  of  this  stone  in  order 


c  iTr]SV-n«  nn^NI  ;  lit.  "and  she  shall  do  her 
n.iils."  Onkelos  and  Saadias  understand  the  expres 
sion  to  denote  "  letting  her  nails  grow,"  as  a  sign  of 
pisf.  The  Hebrew  "  do  nor  nails,"  however,  must  surely 
erf  rose  more  than  "  letting  them  aiufie/* 


a  From   !Tlpf   "  to  burn."     Cf.  the  Arabic 

"  extundere  instituit  ignem  ex  ignlario "  (Fre3"tag,  Lea 
Arab,  s,  v.). 
fc  JTOIJJ  p"13>  "  to  send  forth  lightning,"  '  to  flash." 


xscviii  CASSIA 

that  they  may  look  at  them."c  Mr.  King  (Antique 
Gems,  p.  30)  is  of  opinion  that  the  smaragdi  of 
Pliny  may  be  confined  to  the  green  ruby  and  the 
true  emerald.  Braun  believes  that  the  Greek  a-fj.d- 
oaySos,  napaySos  is  etymologically  allied  to  the 
Hebrew  term,  and  Kalisch  (Ex.  xxviii.  17)  is  in 
clined  to  this  opinion :  see  also  Gesenius,  Heb.  et 
Ch.  Lex.  s.  v.  np~l2.  Some,  however,  believe 
the  Greek  word  is  a  corruption  of  the  Sanscrit 
smarakata,  and  that  both  the  gem  and  its  name 
were  imported  from  Bactria  into  Europe,  while 
others  hold  that  the  Sanscrit  term  came  from  the 
West.  See  Mr.  King's  valuable  remarks  on  the 
Smaragdus,  '  Antique  Gems,'  p.  30-37. 

CAS'SIA.  The  representative  in  the  A.  V.  of 
the  Hebrew  words  kidddh  and  ketzwth. 

1.  .Kidddh  (nip  :*  Ipis:  casia,  stacte}  occurs  in 
Ex.  xxx.  24,  as  one  of  the  ingredients  in  the  com 
position  of  the  "oil  of  holy  ointment :"  and  in  Ez. 
xxvii.  19,  where  "  bright  iron,  cassia,  and  calamus" 
are  mentioned  as  articles  of  merchandise  brought  by 
Dan  and  Javan  to  the  market  of  Tyre.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  A.  V.  is  correct  in  the  trans 
lation  of  the  Hebrew  word,  though  there  is  con 
siderable  variety  of  reading  in  the  old  versions. 
The  LXX.  and  Josephus  (Ant.  iii.  8,  §3)  have 
iris,  i.  e.  some  species  of  flag,  perhaps  the  Iris 
florentina,  which  has  an  aromatic  root-stock.  Sym- 
machus  and  the  Vulg.  (in  Ez.  1.  c.}  read  stacte, 
"  liquid  myrrh."  The  Arabic  versions  of  Saadias 
and  Erpenius  conjecture  costus,  which  Dr.  Royle 
(Kitto's  Cyc.  art.  'Ketzioth')  identifies  with  Auck- 
landia  Costus,  to  which  he  refers  not  the  kidddh, 
but  the  ketzwth  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  (see 
below).  The  Chaldee  and  Syriac,  with  most  of  the 
European  versions,  understand  cassia  by  kidddh : 
they  are  followed  by  Gesenius,  Simon,  Furst,  Lee, 
and  all  the  lexicographers.  The  accounts  of  cassia 
as  given  by  ancient  authors  are  confused ;  and  the 
investigation  of  the  subject  is  a  difficult  one.  l£ 
is  clear  that  the  Latin  writers  by  the  term  casia 
understood  both  the  Oriental  product  now  under 
consideration,  as  well  as  some  low  sweet  herbaceous 
plant,  perhaps  the  Daphne  gnidium,  Linn,  (see  Fee, 
Flore  de  Virgile,  p.  32,  and  Du  Molin,  Flor.  Poet. 
Ancienne,  277)  :  but  the  Greek  word,  which  is 
first  used  by  Herodotus  (ii.  86),  who  says  (iii.  110) 
the  Arabians  procured  it  from  a  shallow  lake  in 
their  country,  is  limited  to  the  Eastern  product. 
Dioscorides  mentions  several  kinds  of  cassia,  and 
says  they  are  produced  in  Spicy  Arabia  £i.  xii.). 
One  kind  is  known  by  the  name  of  mosyletis,  or, 
according  to  Galen  (De  Theriac.  ad  Pis.  p.  108), 
of  mosyllos,  from  the  ancient  city  and  promontory 
Mosyllon,  on  the  coast  of  Africa  and  the  sea  of 
Babel  Mandeb,  not  far  from  the  modern  Cape 
Guardafui  (Sprengel,  Annot.  ad  Dioscor.  i.  xii.). 


c  The  smaragdus  of  Cyprus,  however,  of  which  Theo- 
Dnrastus  speaks,  is  the  copper  emerald,  ChrysocoUa ;  which 
ne  seems  himself  to  have  suspected. 

»  From  Tip  ;  Arab,  j^j  or  <X5>  "  to  cleave«"  "  to 
tear  lengthwise;"  so  called  from  the  splitting  of  the 
bark. 

0  The  country  of  the  Mosylli  was  in  the  Cinnamo- 
mophora  regio,  and  not  far  from  Aromata  Emporium, 
suid  the  author  of  the  Periplus  particularises  cassia 
aiaougst  the  exports  of  the  same  coast  (Tennent,  Ceylon 
I  GOO  note).  As  to  ^f|fl£,  see  Bochart,  Geog.  Sac.  p.  i.  ii! 
~1,  and  Uosenmttller  Kchol.  ad  Et.  1.  c.,  who,  however, 
idontlrj  it  with  Sanaa,  in  Arabia. 


OATS 

Will  not  this  throw  some  light  on  Ez.  xxvii.  19 
where  it  will  be  observed  that,  instead  of  the  i  enter 
ing  "  going  to  and  fro  "  in  the  text  of  the  A.  V.,  tha 
margin  has  Meuzai?  "  Dan  and  Javan  and  Meuzai 
traded  in  thy  markets  with  cassia,  calamus,"  &o. 
The  cassia  would  be  brought  from  India  to  Meuzai, 
and  from  thence  exported  to  Tyre  and  other  countries 
under  the  name  of  Meazalitis,  or  Meuzai  cassia.b 

Dioscorides  speaks  of  another  kind  of  cassia  called 
Kitto,  which  has  been  supposed  by  some  to  be  sub 
stantially  the  same  as  tne  Hebrew  word  Kidddh, 
to  which  it  certainly  bears  a  strong  resemblance. 
If  the  words  are  identical  they  must  denote  cassia 
of  different  qualities,  for  the  kitto  of  Dioscorides 
was  very  inferior,  while  we  cannot  doubt  that  the 
cassia  used  in  the  composition  of  the  holy  ointment 
would  be  of  the  best  kind. 

Cassia  is  not  produced  by  any  trees  which  are 
now  found  growing  in  Arabia.  It  is  probable  there 
fore  that  the  Greek  authors  were  mistaken  on  this 
subject,  and  that  they  occasionally  have  regarded 
products  imported  iiito  Arabia,  and  thence  exported 
northwards  to  other  countries,  as  the  natural  pro 
ductions  of  that  country.  The  cassia-bark  of  com 
merce  is  yielded  by  various  kinds  of  Cinnamomum, 
which  grow  in  different  parts  of  India,  and  is  not 
the  product  of  only  one  species  of  tree.  Cinna- 
momum  malabathricum  of  S.  India  supplies  much 
of  the  cassia-bark  of  commerce.  Dr.  Hooker  says 
that  cassia  is  an  inferior  cinnamon  in  one  sense, 
though,  as  it  never  comes  from  the  same  species  as 
the  true  cinnamon,  the  statement  is  ambiguous. 

2.  Ketzioth  (flty*¥p:c  /courier,  casia),  only  in 
Ps.  xlv.  8,  "  All  thy  garments  smell  of  myrrh, 
aloes,  and  cassia."  This  word  is  generally  supposed 
to  be  another  term  for  cassia :  the  old  versions  are 
in  favour  of  this  interpretation,  as  well  as  the  ety 
mology  of  the  Hebrew  word.  The  Arabic  reads 
Salicha,d  which,  from  its  description  by  Abul  Fadli 
and  Avicenna  (Celsius,  Hierob.  ii.  364-5),  evidently 
denotes  some  cassia-yielding  tree.  Dr.  Royle  sug 
gests  (see  above)  that  ketzwth  is  identical  in  mean 
ing  and  in  form  with  the  Arabic  kooth,  koost,  or 
kooshta,6  whence  is  probably  derived  the  csstus  of 
the  Greeks  and  Romans.  Dioscorides  (i.  15)  enu 
merates  three  kinds  of  costus,  an  Arabian,  Indian, 
and  Syrian  sort :  the  first  two  are  by  Sprengel 
referred  to  Costus  arabicus  Tinn.  (Zingiberaceae). 
The  koost  of  India,  called  by  Europeans  Indian 
orris,  is  the  root  of  what  Royle  has  named  Auck- 
landia  costus.  There  is  no  reason,  however,  why 
we  should  abandon  the  explanation  of  the  old  ver 
sions,  and  depart  f~rm  the  satisfactory  etymological 
evidence  afforded  by  the  riei/i ew  *erm  to  tne  doubtful 
qu«  stion  of  identity  between  it  and  the  Arabic  ko^st. 

CATS   (ot  OuXovpoi:   cattae*)  occurs  only  iu 


«  From  the  root  JJVjJ,  Arab.   «-UV.  "  to  lop  off, 

"  to  scrape,"  "  to  peel." 
S 


>  fr°m  the  root 


cortex  detractus. 

5  O  -> 
* 


'  detraxit,  quasi 


.  costus,  i.  e.  radicis  aromaticae  Indicae  et 

Arabicae  species,  Kara.  Dj.    See  Freytag. 

»  The  word  Catta  occurs  once  only  in  classical  Latin, 
viz.  in  Martial,  Epig.  xiii.  69;  but  that  some  bird  is 
intended  is  beyond  a  doubt.  The  ancient  Greeks  aod 
Komans  do  not  appear  to  have  kept  domestic  cats.  We 
have  sought  in  vain  for  the  slightest  allusion  to  7'WiJ 
lasbicul  authors. 


CATERPILLER 

Barueh  vi.  22,  in  the  passage  which  sets  forth  the 
vanity  of  the  Babylonish  idols  :  "  Upon  their  bodies 
<uid  heads  sit  bate,  swallows,  and  birds,  and  the  cats 
also."  The  Greek  ctfXovpos,  as  used  by  Aristotle, 
has  more  particular  reference  to  the  wild  cat  (Felis 
catas,  &c.).  Herodotus,  in  the  well-known  passage 
(ii.  66)  which  treats  of  the  cats  of  Egypt,  uses 
ctf\ovpos  to  denote  the  domestic  animal ;  similarly 
Cicero  (Tiisc.  v.  27,  78)  employs  felis ;  but  both 
Greek  and  Latin  words  are  used  to  denote  other 
animals,  apparently  some  kinds  of  marten  (Maries). 
The  context  of  the  passage  in  Barueh  appears  to 
point  to  the  domesticated  animal.  Perhaps  the 
people  of  Babylon  originally  procured  the  cat  from 
Egypt. 

The  domestic  cat  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  is 
supposed  by  some  to  be  identical  with  the  Felis 
maniculata,  Riippell,  of  Nubia,  and  with  our  own 
domestic  animal,  but  there  is  considerable  doubt 
on  tins  matter.  The  Egyptians,  it  is  well  known, 


Vein  mamculat*. 

paid  an  absurd  reverence  to  the  cat ;  it  accompanied 
them  in  their  fowling  expeditions ;  it  was  deemed 
a  capital  oflence  to  kill  one ;  when  a  cat  died  it  was 
embalmed  and  buried  at  Bubastis,  the  city  sacred 
to  the  moon  of  which  divinity  the  cat  was  reckoned 
a  symbol  (Herod,  ii.  66  ;  Wilkinson,  Ana.  Egypt. 
\.  246,  Lond.  1854;  Jablonski,  Pant.  Aegypt.  ii. 
66,  &c. ;  Diod.  Sic.  i.  83).  It  is  generally  believed 
that  the  cat  was  employed  by  the  ancient  Egyptians 
as  a  retriever  to  bring  them  the  game  they  killed 
in  their  fowling  expeditions  ;  we  cannot  credit  any 
thing  of  the  kind :  that  the  cat,  as  a  great  favourite, 
was  allowed  to  accompany  the  fowler  is  beyond  dis 
pute,  but  it  was  doubtless  for  the  sake  of  a  share  in 
the  booty,  and  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  fowler. 
Without  laying  much  stress  on  the  want  of  sufficient 
sagacity  for  retrieving  purposes,  we  cannot  believe 
that  the  cat  could  ever  have  been  trained  to  go  into 
the  water,  to  which  it  has  a  very  strong  aversion .- 
See  the  woodcuts  in  Wilkinson,  where  the  fowler  is 
in  a  boat  accompanied  by  his  cat.  As  to  D**¥,  which 
Bochart  takes  to  mean  wild  cats,  see  BEAST.  The 
exit  belongs  to  the  family  Felidae,  order  Carnicora. 

CATERPILLER.  The  representative  in  the 
A<  V.  of  the  Hebrew  words  chdsil  and  yclck. 

1.  Chdstt  (y^pH :  aKpis,  fipovxos,  fpvai&Ti  '• 
rubigo,  bruchus,  aerugo).  The  Hebrew  word  occurs 
in  1  K.  viii.  37  ;  2  Chr.  vi.  28  ;  Ps.  Ixxviii.  46  ; 


b  Even  to  a  proverb: — 

"  Catus  amat  pisces,  sed  non  vult  tingere  plantnui." 
"Letting,  I  dare  not  wait  upon  I  would, 
Uke  the  poor  cat  i'  the  adage."— SHAKSP.  Macbeth,  i.  7. 
Soe  Trench's  '  Lessons  in  Proverbs,'  p  149 


CEDAR 

.  xxxin.  4  ;  Joel  i.  4 ;  it  is  evident  from  the  in 
consistency  of  the  two  most  important  old  versioa^ 
n  their  renderings  of  this  word,  that  nothing  is  to  be 
learnt  from  them.  Bochai  t  has  endeavoured  to  show 
that  there  are  nine  or  ten  Hebrew  names  to  denote 
different  species  of  locusts;  it  has  been  slK**tJ 
[LOCUST]  that  this  cannot  really  be  the  ca*e, 
that  the  destructive  kinds  of  locust  which  at 
times  visit  the  Bible  lands  must  be  limited  to 
two  or  three  species,  the  most  destructive  being 
the  Acridium  peregrinum  and  the  Oedipoda  migra- 
toria  ;  consequently  some  of  these  names  must  Stan*? 
either  for  different  conditions  in  the  life  of  t;.e 
locust,  or  they  may  be  synonyms,  or  else  they  may 
denote  other  insect  devourers.  The  term  now  under 
notice  seems  to  be  applied  to  a  locust,  perhaps  in 
its  larva  state.  The  indefinite  rendering  of  the 
A.  V.  may  well,  we  think,  be  retained  to  express 
the  Chdsil,  or  the  consumer.  [See  LOCUST.] 
2.  Yelek. 

CATTLE.     [BULL.] 

CEDAR  [addition  to 'the  article  on,  i.  285], 
There  can,  we  think,  be  little  doubt  that  the 
Heb.  word  erez  (T"}&$),  invariably  rendered  "  cedar" 
by  the  A.  V.,  does  stand  for  that  tree  in  most  ot 
the  passages  where  the  word  occurs.  The  erez,  or 
"  firmly  rooted  and  strong  tree,"  from  an  Arabic 
root  which  has  this  signification,"  is  particularly  the 
name  of  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  (Cedrus  Libani) ; 
but  that  the  word  is  used  in  a  wider  sense  to  denote 
other  trees  of  the  Coniferae,  is  clear  from  some 
Scriptural  passages  where  it  occurs.  For  instance, 
the  "cedar  wood"  mentioned  in  Lev.  xiv.  6  can 
hardly  be  the  wood  of  the  Lebanon  cedars,  seeing 
that  the  Cedrus  Libani  could  never  have  grown  in 
the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  where  the  Israelites  were  at 
the  time  the  law  for  the  cleansing  of  the  leper  was 
given ;  nor  in  Egypt,  whence  they  had  departed. 
"  Cedars,"  says  Dr.  Hooker,  "  are  found  on  the 
mountains  of  Algeria,  on  the  whole  range  of  Taurus, 
and  in  the  Kedisha  valley  of  Lebanon :  they  have 
also  been  obse'rved  by  Ehrenberg  in  forests  of  oak 
between  Bsherre  and  Bshinnate."  There  is  another 
passage  (Ez.  xxvii.  5)  where  the  Tyrians  are  said  to 
have  made  use  of  "cedars  of  Lebanon"  for  masts 
of  ships,  in  which  perhaps  erez  denotes  some  fir ; 
in  all  probability,  as  Dr.  Hooker  conjectures,  the 
Pinus  ffalepensis,  which  grows  in  Lebanon,  and  is 
better  fitted  for  furnishing  ship-masts  than  the  wood 
of  the  Cedrus  Libani.  With  regard  to  the  ob 
jection  that  has  been  made  to  the  wood  of  the  Cedrus 
Libani — (see  Dr.  Lindley's  remark  in  the  Gardenei  's 
Chron.  i.  p.  699.  "the  worthless  though  magnifi 
cent  cedar  op  Mount  Lebanon  ") — that  its  inferior 
quality  could  never  have  allowed  it  to  form  the 
"  cedar  pillars,"  &c.  of  Solomon's  temple,  it  may  be 
observed  that  this  inferiority  applies  only  to  Eng 
lish  grown  trees,  and  not  to  Lebanon  specimens. 
At  the  same  time  it  must  be  admitted  that,  though 
the  wood  is  of  close  grain,  it  has  no  particufar 
quality  to  recommend  it  for  building  purposes ;  it 
was  probably,  therefore,  not  very  extensively  used 
in  the  construction  of  the  Temple. 

The  Cedrus  Libani,  Pinus  Halepensis,  and  Juni- 
penis  excelsa,  were  probably  all  included  under  the 
term  erez ;  though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  by 


\      -  From  the  unused  root   PX,    i.  q.  Arab.    •    \t  con 
'  traxit,  colleyit  jlrmavibjue  sc.    Geaen.  ZVws.  a.  v. 


XI  CEDAK 

this  name  is  more  especially  denoted  tho  cselar  of 
Lebanon,  as  being  K.O.T'  f^ox^v  the  firmest  and 
grandest,  of  the  conifers. 

The  Pinus  sylvestris  is  by  old  writers  often  men 
tioned  as  one  of  the  pines  of  Lebanon  ;  but  Dr.  Hooker 
savs  he  has  little  doubt  that  the  P.  Halepensis  must 
be  the  tree  meant,  for  the  P.  sylvestris  ("  Scotch 
fir")  is  not  found  in  Lebanon  or  Syria. 

The  claim  of  the  Deodar  to  represent  a  Bible 
Conifer  may  be  dismissed  at  once  :  deodars  are  not 
found  nearer  to  the  Lebanon  than  within  a  distance 
of  several  hundred  miles.  As  to  the  •'  cedar  wood" 
usad  in  purifications,  it  is  probable  that  one  of  the 
smaller  Junipers  is  intended  (/.  sabina  ?),  for  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  Juniperus  excelsa  exists  at  all 
in  Arabia.  [JUNIPER,  App.  A.] 

Dr.  Hooker  has  favoured  us  with  the  following 
valuable  communication  relative  to  the  true  cedars 
of  Lebanon  : — "  As  far  as  is  at  present  known,  the 
cedar  of  Lebanon  is  confined  in  Syria  to  one  valley 
of  the  Lebanon  rang?,  viz.,  that  of  the  Kedisha  river, 
which  flows  from  nexr  the  highest  point  of  the  range 
westward  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  enters  the  sea 
at  the  port  of  Tripoli.  The  grove  is  at  the  very 
upper  part  of  the  valley,  about  15  miles  from  the  sea, 
6000  ft.  above  that  level,  and  their  position  is  more 
over  above  that  of  all  other  arboreous  vegetation. 
The  valley  here  is  very  broad,  open,  and  shallow,  and 
the  grove  forms  a  mere  speck  on  its  flat  floor.  The 
mountains  rise  above  them  on  the  N.E.  and  S. 
in  steep  stony  slopes,  without  precipices,  gorges, 
ravines,  or  any  other  picturesque  features  whatever. 
Nothing  can  be  more  dreary  than  the  whole  sur 
rounding  landscape.  To  the  W.  the  scenery  abruptly 
changes,  the  valley  suddenly  contracts  to  a  gorge, 
and  becomes  a  rocky  ravine  of  the  most  picturesque 
description,  with  villages,  groves,  and  convents 
perched  on  its  flanks,  base,  and  summits,  recalling 
Switzerland  vividly  and  accurately.  At  the  time 
of  my  visit  (October,  1860)  the  flanks  of  the  valley 
about  the  cedars  were  perfectly  arid,  and  of  a  paae 
yellow  red ;  and  the  view  of  this  great  red  area,  per 
haps  two  or  three  miles  across,  with  the  minute  patch 
of  cedar  grove,  seen  from  above  and  at  a  distance  of 
ten  miles  or  so,  was  most  singular.  I  can  give  you 
no  idea  of  what  a  speck  the  grove  is  in  the  yawning 
hollow.  I  have  said  the  floor  of  the  valley  is  flat 
and  broad ;  but,  on  nearer  inspection,  the  cedars  are 
found  to  be  confined  to  a  small  portion  of  a  range 
of  low  stony  hills  of  rounded  outlines,  and  perhaps 
60  to  100  ft.  above  the  plain,  which  sweep  across 
the  valley.  These  hills  are,  I  believe,  old  moraines, 
deposited  by  glaciers  that  once  debouched  on  to  the 
plain  from  the  surrounding  tops  of  Lebanon.  I  have 
many  reasons  for  believing  this,  as  also  for  supposing 
that  their  formation  dates  from  the  glacial  epoch. 
The  restriction  of  the  cedars  to  these  moraines  is 
absolute,  and  not  without  analogy  in  regard  to  other 
coniferous  trees  in  Swiss  and  Himalayan  valleys." 

Dr.  Hooker  draws  attention  to  the  unfortunate 
disregard  shewn  with  respect  to  the  seedlings 
annually  produced  from  the  old  cedar-trees  in  Le 
banon.  It  is  a  remarkable  but  lamentable  fact 
that  no  trees  are  seen  muc.i  less  than  50  years  old ! 
The  browsing  goats  and  the  drought  destroy  all  the 
young  seedlings  ;  and  it  is  a  sad  pity  that  no  means 


»  See  Dr.  Hooker's  paper  "On  tiie  Cedars  of  Lebanon, 
Taurus,  &c."  in  The  Nat.  Hist.  Rtriew,  No.  v.  p.  11. 

b  "  Our  calcedony  being  often  opalescent — i.  e.,  having 
something  of  Pliny's  "  Carbunculorum  ignes"  in  it — got 
oonfoundt-d  with  the  Carchedonius  or  Punic  carbuncle  of  a 
pale  colour,  and  this  again  with  his  green  ChaloedoninG. 


CHAMOIS 

are  adopted  to  encourage  their  growth,  which  might 
easily  be  done  by  fencing  and  watering.6 

CHALCEDONY  (xa\mi9Av:  calcedwius\ 
only  in  Rev.  xxi.  19,  where  it  is  mentioned  as  being 
the  stone  which  garnished  the  third  foundation  ol 
the  heavenly  Jerusalem.  The  name  is  applied  in 
modern  mineralogy  to  one  of  the  varieties  of  agate  ; 
specimens  of  this  sub-species  of  quartz  when  of  a 
pearly  or  wax-like  lustre,  and  of  great  trec'lucency  — 
are  known  by  the  name  of  chalcedony,  sometimes 
popularly  called  "  white  carnelian."*  There  is  also 
a  stalactitic  form  found  occasionally  in  cavities, 
There  can,  however,  be  little  doubt  that  the  stone 
to  which  Theophrastus  (De  Lapid.  §  25)  refers,  ?.s 
being  found  in  the  island  opposite  Chalcedon  and 
used  as  a  solder,  must  have  been  the  green  trans 
parent  carbonate  of  copper,  or  our  copper  emerald. 
It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  determine  the  mineral  in 
dicated  by  Pliny  (N.  If.  xxxvii.  5)  ;  the  white  agate 
is  mentioned  by  him  (N.  E.  xxxvii.  10)  as  one  of 
the  numerous  varieties  of  Achates  (Agate),  under 
the  names  Cerachates  and  Leucachates.  The  Chal- 
cedonius  was  so  called  from  Chalcedon,  and  was  ob 
tained  from  the  copper-mines  there,  it  was  a  small 
stone  and  of  no  great  value;  it  is  described  by  Pliny 
as  resembling  the  green  and  blue  tints  which  are 
seen  on  a  peacock's  tail,  or  on  a  pigeon's  neck.  Mr. 
King  (Antique  Gems,  p.  8)  says  it  was  a  kind  of 
inferior  emerald,  as  Pliny  understood  it. 

CHALK  STONES.     [LIME.] 

CHAMELEON  (lib,  coach:  Xa/MuAfW: 
chamaeleon).  The  Hebrew  word  which  signifies 
"  strength  "  occurs  in  the  sense  of  some  kind  of 
unclean  animal  in  Lev.  xi.  30;  the  A.  V.  follows 
the  LXX.  and  Vulg.  Various  other  interpretations 
of  the  word  have  been  given,  for  which  see  Bochart 
(ffieroz.  ii.  493).  It  is  not  possible  to  come  to 
any  satisfactory  conclusion  on  the  subject  of  the 
identity  of  this  word  :  Bochart  accepts  the  Arabic 
reading  of  elwarlo,  i.  e.  the  lizard,  known  by  the 
name  of  the  "  Monitor  of  the  Nile"  (Monitor  Nilo- 
ticus,  Grey),  a  large  strong  reptile  common  in 
Egypt  and  other  parts  of  Africa.  Arabian  writers 
have  recorded  many  wonderful  things  of  this  crea 
ture,  and  speak  especially  of  its  power  in  fighting 
with  snakes,  and  with  the  dabb,  a  closely  allied  species 
[TORTOISE].  No  doubt  much  they  relate  is  fabulous, 
and  it  seems  that  there  is  some  confusion  between 
the  dabb  c  (  Uromastix  spinipes}  and  the  crocodile, 
whose  eggs  the  "  Nilotic  Monitor  "  devours.  For- 
skal  (Descr.  Anim.  p.  13)  speaks  of  this  last  named 
lizard  Tinder  the  Arabic  name  of  Wdran.  See  also 
HasselquUt  (Trav.  p.  221).  The  Hebrew  root  of 
Koach  has  reference  to  strength,  and  as  the  Arabic 
verb,  of  almost  similar  form,  means  "  to  conquer 
any  one  in  fighting,"  Bochart  has  been  led  to  iden 
tify  the  lizard  named  above  with  the  Heb.  Koach. 
It  is  needless  to  add  how  far  from  conclusive  is  the 
evidence  which  supports  this  interpretation. 

CHAMOIS  (IDT,  zemcr  :    /ca/trjAoTrcipSaAis  : 

camelopardalus}.  In  the  list  of  animals  allowed 
for  food  (Deut.  xiv.  5)  mention  is  made  of  the 
zemcr  ;  the  LXX.,  Vulg.,  and  some  other  versions, 
give  "  camelopard  "  or  "  giraffe  "  as  the  render- 


and  KaAxTjSo»/ios  are  continually  inter 
changed  in  MS.  Marbodus  already  understood  it  of  oar 
Calcedony,  as  shewn  by  his  "  Pallensque  Cialcedonins 
ignis  habet  effigiem."—  C.  W.  KING. 

c  See  some  interesting  observations  on  the  7>oM»,  !>y 
Mr.  Tristram,  in  Zml.  Proc.  for  1859. 


OHESTNUT-TREE 

ing  of  this  term  ;  it  is  improbable  that  this  Animal 
IB  intended,  for  although  it  might  have  been  known 
to  the  ancient  Jews  from  specimens  brought  into 
Egypt  as  tributes  to  the  Pharaohs  from  Ethiopia, 
where  the  giraffe  is  found,  it  is  in  the  highest 
degree  improbable  that  it  should  ever  have  been 
named  as  an  article  of  food  in  the  Levitical  law, 
the  animals  mentioned  therein  being  doubtless  all 
of  them  such  as  were  well-known  and  readily  pro 
cured.  The  "chamois"  of  the  A.  V.  can  hardly 
be  allowed  to  represent  the  zemer ;  for,  although, 
as  Col.  H.  Smith  asserts,  this  antelope  is  still  found 
in  Central  Asia,  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  has  ever 
been  seen  in  Palestine  or  the  Lebanon.  The  etymo 
logy  points  to  some  "springing"  or  "leaping" 
animal,  a  definition  which  would  suit  any  of  the 
Antdopeae  or  Capreae,  &c.  Col.  H.  Smith  (in 
Kitto's  Cyc.  art.  Zemer)  suggests  that  some  moun 
tain  sheep  is  intended,  and  figures  the  Kebsch  (Am- 
motragus  Tragelaphus),  a  wild  sheep  not  uncom 
mon,  he  says,  in  the  Mokattam  rocks  near  Cairo,  and 
found  also  in  Sinai ;  it  is  not  improbable  that  this 


Aoudad  Sheep. 


is  the  animal  denoted,  for  the  names  of  the  other 
ruminants  mentioned  in  £he  catalogue  of  beasts 
allowed  for  food,  are,  for  the  most  part,  identifiable 
with  other  wild  animals  of  the  Bible  lands,  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Kebsch  or  Aoudad 
was  known  to  the  Israelites  ;  again,  Col.  Smith's  sug 
gestion  has  partly  the  sanction  of  the  Syriac  version, 
which  reads  as  the  equivalent  of  the  Heb.  word, 
"a  mountain  goat,"  the  Aoudad,  although  really  a 
sheep,  being  in  general  form  more  like  a  goat.  This 
animal  occui-s  not  unfrequently  figured  on  the  mo 
numents  of  Egypt,  it  is  a  native  of  N.  Africa,  and 
an  inhabitant  of  high  and  inaccessible  places. 

CHESTNUT-TREE  (flDny,  'armon:  ir\<i- 
ravos,  e\dr-r) :  platanus).  Mention  is  made  of  the 
'armon  in  Gen.  xxx.  37,  as  one  of  the  trees  from 
which  Jacob  took  rods  in  which  "  he  pilled  white 
strokes,"  to  set  them  before  Laban's  flocks  when 
they  came  to  drink  (see  on  this  subject  SHEEP)  ; 
in  Ezek.  xxxi.  8,  the  'armon  is  spoken  of  as  one  of 


B  Epiphanius,  in  his  '  Twelve  Stones  of  the  Rationae,' 
tea  got  "Chrysolite,  by  some  called  chrysophyllus,  of  a 
golden  colour,  and  found  close  to  the  walls  of  Babylon." 
Plliiy  makes  several  varieties  of  this  name ;  his  first  Is 
louhtloas  the  Onental  topaz.— [C.  W.  KING.] 


CINNAMON  xli 

the  glories  of  Assyria.  The  balance  of  authority 
is  certainly  in  favour  of  the  "  plane-tree"  being  the 
tree  denoted  by  'armon,  for  so  ren/i  the  LXX.  (in 
Gen.  I.  c.),  the  Vulg.,  the  Chaldec,  with  the  Syriac 
and  Arabic  versions  (Celsius,  Hierob.  i.  513).  The 
A.  V.  which  follows  the  Rabbins  is  certainly  to  be 
rejected,  for  the  context  of  the  passages  where  the 
word  occurs,  indicates  some  tree  which  thrives  best 
n  low  and  moist  situations,  whereas  the  chestnut- 
tree  is  rather  a  tree  which  prefers  dry  and  hilly 
ground.  Dr.  Kitto  (Cyc.  art.  Annoii),  in  illustra 
tion  of  Ezek.  (I.  c.),  says  that  "the  planes  of  As 
syria  are  of  extraordinary  size  and  beauty,  in  both 
respects  exceeding  even  those  of  Palestine ;  it  con 
sists  with  our  own  experience,  that  one  may  travel 
far  in  Western  Asia  without  meeting  such  trees, 
and  so  many  together,  as  occur  in  the  Chenar 
(plane)  groves  of  Assyria  and  Media."  The  plane- 
trees  of  Persia  are  now,  and  have  been  long  held 
in  the  greatest  veneration ;  with  the  Greeks  also 
these  trees  were  great  favourites ;  Herodotus 
(vii.  31)  tells  a  story  of  how  Xerxes  on  his  way 
to  Sardis  met  with  a  plane-tree  of  exceeding 
beauty,  to  which  he  made  an  offering  of  golden 
ornaments.  A  fine  specimen  of  the  plane-tree  was 
growing  a  few  years  ago  (1844)  at  Vostitza,  on  the 
Gulf  of  Lepanto;  it  measured  46  ft.  in  circum 
ference,  according  to  the  Rev.  S.  Clark  of  Battersea, 
who  has  given  an  interesting  account  of  it  in  John's 
Forest  Trees  of  Britain  (ii.  206).  The  plane-trees 
of  Palestine  in  ancient  days  were  probably  more 
numerous  than  they  are  now ;  though  modern  tra 
vellers  occasionally  refer  to  them.  Belon  (Obs.  ii. 
105)  speaks  of  very  high  plane-trees  near  Anticch  ; 
De  la  Roque  (  Voyag.  de  Syrie  et  du  M.  Liban,  p. 
197)  mentions  entire  forests  of  planes  which  line 
the  margin  of  the  Orontes  ;  and  in  another  place  (p. 
76)  he  speaks  of  having  passed  the  night  under  planes 
of  great  beauty  in  a  valley  near  Lebanon. 

In  Ecclus.  xxiv.  14,  Wisdom  is  compared  to  "a 
plane-tree  by  the  water." 

CHRYSOLITE  (Xpvff6\ieos  :  chrysolit/ms), 
one  of  the  precious  stones  in  the  foundation  of  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem  (Rev.  xxi.  20).  It  has  been 
already  stated  [BERYL,  Appen.  A.]  that  the  chry 
solite  of  the  ancients  is  identical  with  the  modern 
Oriental  topaz,  the  tarshish  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  • — 
there  is  much  reason  for  believing  that  the  topaz  is 
the  stone  indicated  by  the  xpvff6\i6os  of  St.  John's 
vision.  [See  BERYL.] 

CHRYSOPRASE  (xpvo-Sirpcuros :  chrysoprase] 
occurs  only  in  Rev.  xxi.  20  as  one  of  the  precious 
stones  mentioned  in  St.  John's  vision.  The  chryso- 
prase  of  the  ancients  b  is  by  some  supposed  to  be 
identical  with  the  stone  now  so  called,  viz.,  the 
apple  or  leek-green  variety  of  agate,  which  owes  its 
colour  to  oxide  of  nickel ;  this  stone  at  present  is 
found  only  in  Silesia  ;  but  Mr.  King  (Antique  Gems, 
p.  59,  note),  says  that  the  true  chrysoprase  is  some 
times  found  in  antique  Egyptian  jewellery  set  alter 
nately  with  bits  oflapis-lazuli ;  it  is  not  improbable 
therefore  that  this  is  the  stone  which  was  the  tenth 
in  the  walls  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem. 

CINNAMON  [addition  to  the  article  on, 
p.  330].'  The  reader  is  referred  to  Sir  E.  Tennent's 


That  of  Solinus  (Iv.)  exactly  agrees  with  our  Indian 
chrysolite:  "  Chrysoprasos  quoque  ex  auro  et  porraoeo 
mixtam  lucem  trahentes  seque  beryllornm  generi  adju- 
dicaven  at," 


xi"  COAL 

Oeylon  (i.  599)  for  much  interesting  infbrmatio 
out  the  subject  of  the  early  history  of  the  cinnamo 
plant ;  this  writer  believes  that  "  the  earliest  know 
ledge  of  this  substance  possessed  by  the  Wester 
nations  was  derived  from  China,  and  that  it  firs 
reached  Ind.a  and  Phoenicia  overland  by  way  o 
Persia;  at  a  later  period  when  the  Arabs,  '  th 
merchants  of  Sheba,'  competed  for  the  trade  o 
fyre,  and  carried  to  her  '  the  chief  of  all  spices 
(Ez.  xxvii.  22),  their  supplies  were  drawn  iron 
their  African  possessions,  and  the  cassia  of  th 
Troglodytic  coast  supplanted  the  cinnamon  of  the 
far  East,  and  to  a  great  extent  excluded  it  iron 
the  market." 

With  regard  to  the  origin  of  the  word,  it  is  pro 
bable  that  it  is  derived  from  the  Persian  "  Cinn 
amon,"  i.  e.  "  Chinese  amomum  "  (see  Tennent  in 
I.  c.).  Dr.  Royle,  however,  conjectures  that  it  is 
illied  to  the  Cingalese  Cacynnama,  "  sweet  wood,'" 
or  the  Malagau  Kaimanis.  The  brothers  C.  G.  auc 
Th.  F.  L.  Nees  Von  Esenbeck,  have  published  a  va 
luable  essay,  "  De  Cinnamomo  disputatio"  (Amoe- 
nitates  botan.  Bonnenses,  Fasc.  i.  Bonnae,  1823 
4to.),  to  which  the  reader  is  referred  for  additional 
information. 

COAL  [addition  to  the  article  on,  pp.  338,  339]. 
There  can,  we  think,  be  no  doubt  that  the  fuel 
denoted  by  the  Heb.  words  gacheleth  (H?!!:!)  and 
pecham  (DH3)  is  charcoal,  and  not  mineral  coal. 

There  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  the  ancient  He 
brews  were  acquainted  with  the  substance  we  now 
denominate  "  coal ;"  indeed  it  seems  pretty  clear 
that  the  ancients  generally  used  charcoal  for  their 
fuel;  and  although  there  is  a  passage  in  Theo- 
phrastus  (Fr.  ii.  61,  ed.  Schneider)  from  which  we 
learn  that  fossil  coal  was  found  in  Liguria  and 
Elis,  and  used  by  <;  the  smiths,"  yet  its  use  must 
have  been  very  limited.  The  houses  of  the  an 
cient  Greeks  and  Romans  were  without  chimneys 
in  our  sense  of  the  word  (see  this  subject  admirably 
discussed  by  Beckmann,  Hist.  Invent,  i.  295).  As 
the  houses  had  merely  an  opening  in  the  centre  of 
the  roof,  the  burning  of  "  coal "  would  have  made 
even  their  kitchens  intolerable.  Little  as  has  been 
done  for  the  zoology  and  botany  of  Palestine,  still 
less  has  been  done  for  its  geology.  "  Indications  of 
coal  are  exhibited,"  says  Kitto  (Phys.  Hist.  Pal. 
p.  67),  **  in  various  pails  of  the  Lebanon  moun 
tains  ;  here  and  there  a  narrow  seam  of  this  mineral 
protrudes  through  the  superincumbent  strata  to  the 
surface;  and  we  learn  from  Mr.  Elliot  (ii.  257) 
that  the  enterprise  of  Mohammed  Ali  has  not 
suffered  even  this  source  of  national  wealth  to 
escape  his  notice."  At  Cornale,  8  miles  from  Beirut, 
and  2500  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  where  the 
coal-seams  are  3  feet  in  thickness,  good  coal  is  ob 
tained,  whence  it  was  transported  on  mules  to  the 
coast.  The  following  works  contain  all  that  is  at 
present  known  respecting  the  geology  of  Syria : — 
Lynch' s  United  States  Exploring  Expedition  to 
ike  Dead  Sea  and  the  River  Jordan ;  Rusegger's 
Geognostische  Karte  dcs  Libanon  und  Antilibanon  ; 
Kitto's  Physical  History  of  Palestine ;  Dr  Bow- 
ring's  Report  on  the  Commercial  Statistics  of 
MM. 

COCK  (oAeVrwp :  gallus).  There  appears  to  be 
110  mention  of  domestic  poultry  in  the  0.  T.,  the 
passages  where  the  LXX.  and  Vulg.  (as  in  Prov. 
£«.  31 ;  Is.  xxii.  17)  read  d\fKT(ap  and  gallus 
having  no  reference  to  tluit  bird.  In  the  N.  T.  the 


COCKLE 

"  cock  "  is  mentioned  in  reference  to  St.  Peter's 
denial  of  our  Lord,  and  indirectly  in  the  word 
d\tKTopo(pcovia  (Matt.  xxvi.  34;  Mark  xiv.  30. 
xiii.  35,  &c.).  The  origin  of  the  numerous  varieties 
of  our  domestic  poultry  is  undoubtedly  Asiatic,  but 
there  is  considerable  doubt  as  to  the  precise  breed 
whence  they  were  sprung,  as  well  as  to  the  locality 
where  they  were  found.  Temmink  is  of  opinion 
that  we  are  chiefly  indebted  to  the  Malay  Gallm 
Giganteus  and  the  Indian  G.  Bankiva  for  our 
domestic  birds.  We  know  that  the  domestic  cock 
and  hen  were  early  known  to  the  ancient  Greeks 
and  Romans.  Pisthetaerus  (Aristoph.  Ates,  483) 
calls  the  cock  the  Persian  bird  (HtptriKls  bpvis). 
It  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  the  Greeks  obtained 
domestic  birds  from  Persia.  As  no  mention  is  made 
in  the  0.  T.  of  these  birds,  and  as  no  figures  of 
them  occur  on  the  Egyptian  monuments  (Wilkin 
son,  Anc.  Egypt,  i.  234,  ed.  1854),  we  are  inclined 
to  think  that  they  came  into  Judaea  with  the  Ro 
mans,  who,  as  is  well  known,  prized  these  birds 
both  as  articles  of  food  and  for  cock-fighting.  The 
Mischna  (Baba  Kama,  vii.  7)  says  "  they  do  not 
rear  cocks  at  Jerusalem  on  account  of  the  holy 
things  ;"  and  this  assertion  has  by  some  been  quoted 
as  an  objection  to  the  evangelical  history.  On  this 
subject  a  writer  in  Harris  (Diet,  of  Nat.  Hist,  of 
Bib.  p.  72,  ed.  1833),  very  properly  remarks,  "  If 
there  was  any  restraint  in  the  use  or  domestication 
of  this  bird  it  must  have  been  an  arbitrary  practice 
of  the  Jews,  but  could  not  have  been  binding  on 
foreigners,  of  whom  many  resided  at  Jerusalem  as 
officers  or  traders."  Thomson  (The  Land  and  the 
Book,  p.  672)  says  the  fowls  are  now  common  in 
Jerusalem,  "  that  they  swarm  round  every  door, 
share  in  the  food  of  their  possessors,  are  at  home 
among  the  children  in  every  room,  roost  over  head 
at  night,  and  with  their  cackle  and  crowing  are  the 
town  clock  and  the  morning  bell  to  call  up  sleepers 
at  early  dawn."  As  to  the  cock-crowing  see 
TIME. 

COCKATRICE.  A  not  very  happy  rendering 
by  the  A.  V.  of  the  Hebrew  words  tziph'oni  OJJ^V) 
and  tzepha'  (J?S^).  See  Prov.  xxiii.  32,  margin  ; 

[s.  xi.  8,  lix.  5 ;  Jer.  viii.  17.  The  cockatrice  is  a 
?abulous  animal  concerning  which  absurd  stories 
are  told.  [ADDER.] 

COCKLE  (nP&a,  ooshdh  :  pdros  :  spina} 
occurs  only  in  Job  xxxi.  40 :  "  Let  thistles  grow 
nstead  of  wheat,  and  cockle  instead  of  barley."  The 
)lural  form  of  a  Heb.  noun,  viz.  D^XS  (beushim\ 

s  found  in  Is.  v.  2,  4,  A.  V.  "  wild  grapes."  It  is 
mcertain  whether  these  two  words  denote  "  noxious 
,veeds  "  generally,  or  some  particular  plant.  Celsius 
las  argued  in  favour  of  the  aconite,  the  Aconitiun 

Napellus,  which  however  is  quite  a  mountain — never 

a  field — plant.     He  traces  the  Hebrew  name  to  a 

'ersian  word   (Bisch)  of  somewhat  similar  form. 

The  beushim  of  Isaiah  (I.  c.),  which  the  LXX.  render 

thorns  "  (&K.O.V 6ai),  the  Vulg.  Idbruscae,  are  by 

some  thought  to  be  the  fruit  of  the  Vitis  labrusca. 
if  Linnaeus,  a  N.  American  plant !  Hasselquist 
bought  he  had  discovered  the  bushim  in  the  berries 
if  the  hoary  nightshade,  which  the  Arabs  call  anib-ed- 

dib,  i.  e.  "  wolf's  grape."     He  says  (Trav.  p.  290), 

'  the  prophet  could  not  have  found  a  plant  more  op- 

>osite  to  the  vine  than  this,  for  it  grows  much  ill 

e   vineyards,  and  is   very  pernicious  to  them." 

Some,  as  Parkhurst  (Lex.  lleb.  s.  v.),  believe  sottM 


COKEY 

'•*  stinking  weed "  is  inteideu  by  boshah,  in  Job 
1.  c.,  from  the  root  C^&O,  "  to  srnell  as  carrion." 
If  the  word  denotes  a  plant  in  so  limited  a  sense 
we  would  suggest  the  ho  md's  tongue  (Cynoglos- 
sum),  which  has  literally  a  carrion  smell.  But  we 
are  inclined  to  believe  that  the  boshah  and  bushim 
denote  any  bad  weeds  or  fruit :  the  bushim  of  the 
prophet's  vineyard  may  thus  be  understood  to  re 
present  "sour  or  bad  grapes;"  with  which  view 
accord  the  ffcnrpial  of  Aquila  and  the  dreX?)  of 
Symmachus  (see  also  Killer,  ffierophyt.  i.  293), 
and  the  boshah  of  Job  (L  c.}  may  denote  bad  or 
smutted  barley.  The  bunt  or  stinking  rust  (  Uredo 
foetida)  which  sometimes  attacks  the  ears  of  wheat 
and  barley  is  characterised  by  its  disgusting  odour, 
which  property  would  suit  the  etymology  of  the 
Hebrew  name;  or  the  word  may  probably  denote 
some  of  the  useless  grasses  which  have  somewhat 
the  appearance  of  barley,  such  as  Hordeum  mu- 
rinuni,  &c. 

CONEY  [addition  to  the  article  on,  p.  349]. 
The  Hyrax  Syriacus  is  now  universally  allowed 
to  be  the  Shaphan  of  the  Bible,  and  the  point  may 
fairly  be  considered  satisfactorily  settled.  The 
"  coney  "  or  rabbit  of  the  A.  V.,  although  it  suits 
the  Scriptural  allusions  in  every  particular,  except 
in  the  matter  of  its 'ruminating,  is  to  be  rejected,  as 
the  rabbit  is  nowhere  found  in  the  Bible  lands; 
there  are  several  species  or  varieties  of  hare,  but 
the  rabbit  is  not  known  to  exist  there  in  a  wild 
state.*  The  Jerboa  (Dipus  Aegyptius)  which  Bo- 
chart  (Hieroz.  ii.  409),  Rosenmiiller  (SchoL  in  Lev. 
xi.  5),  and  others  have  sought  to  identify  with  the 
Shaphan,  must  also  be  rejected,  for  it  is  the  nature 
of  the  Jerboas  to  inhabit  sandy  places  and  not  stony 
I'ocks.  It  is  curious  to  find  Bochart  quoting  Ara 
bian  writers,  in  order  to  prove  that  the  Wabr  de 
notes  the  Jerboa,  whereas  the  description  of  this 
animal  as  given  by  Damir,  Giauhari,  and  others, 
exactly  suits  the  Hyrax. 

"  The  Wabr,"  says  Giauhari,  "  is  an  animal  less 
than  a  cat,  of  a  brown  colour,  without  a  tail,"  upon 
which  Damir  correctly  remarks,  "  when  he  says  it 
has  no  tail,  he  means  that  it  has  a  very  short  one." 
Now  this  description  entirely  puts  the  Jerboa  out 
of  the  question,  for  all  the  species  of  Jerboa  are 
remarkable  for  their  long  tails. 

With  regard  to  the  localities  of  the  Hyrax,  it 
does  not  appear  that  it  is  now  very  common  in  Pa 
lestine,  though  it  is  occasionally  seen  in  the  hilly 
parts  of  that  country.  Schubert  says  "  of  the  Wober 
(Hyrax  Syriacus),  we  could  discover  no  trace  in 
either  Palestine  or  Syria;"  upon  this  Dr.  Wilson 
(Lands  of  the  Bible,  ii.  p.  28)  remarks,  "  We  were 
we  believe  the  first  European  travellers  who  actually 
noticed  this  animal  within  the  proper  bounds  of  the 
Holy  Land,"  this  was  amongst  the  rocks  at  Mar 
Saba.  Bruce,  however,  noticed  these  animals  plen 
tifully  in  Lebanon,  and  among  the  rocks  at  the 
Pharan  Promontorium  or  Cape  Mahommed,  near 
the  Gulf  of  Suez;  and  Shaw  (Trav.  ii.  160,  8vo. 
ed.)  also  saw  the  Hyrax  on  Lebanon,  and  says  "  it 
is  common  in  other  places  of  this  country."  Dr. 
Hooker  in  his  recent  journey  to  the  Lebanon  and 
Palestine  saw  no  Hyrax  anywhere,  and  says  he  was 
told  it  is  confined  to  the  sterile  hills  of  the  Jordan 

b  Eussell  (Aleppo,  ii.  159,  2nd  ed.)  mentions  rabbits  as 
being  occasionally  bred  in  houses,  "  for  the  use  of  the 
Flanks  "  at  Aleppo  ;  and  adds  that  the  fur  of  the  white 


CORAL 


xllii 


and  Dead  Sea  valleys  only;  Thomson  (The  Land 
and  the  Book,  p.  298)  speaks  only  of  one  individual 
among  the  ruins  of  the  Castle  of  Kurein. 

Hemprich  (Symbolae  Phys.  p.  i.)  enumerates 
three  species  of  Hyrax,  and  gives  the  localities  ac 
follows :  H.  Syriacus,  Mount  Sinai ;  H.  habessinicut, 
mountains  on  the  coast  of  Abyssinia ; — this  is  the 
Ashkoko  of  Bruce— and  H.  ruficeps,  Dongala.  The 
Amharic  name  of  Ashkoko  is,  according  to  Bruce, 
derived  from  "  the  long  herinaceous  hairs  which 
like  small  thorns  grow  about  his  back,  and  which 
in  Amhara  are  called  Ashok."  A  tame  Hyrax  was 
kept  by  Bruce,  who  from  the  action  of  the  animal's 
jaws  was  led  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  "  it 
chewed  the  cud ;"  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the 
poet  Cowper  made  the  same  mistake  with  respect 
to  his  tame  hares.  The  flesh  of  the  Hyrax  is  said 
to  resemble  the  rabbit  in  flavour ;  the  Arabs  of 
Mount  Sinai  esteem  it  a  delicacy  ;  the  Christians  of 
Abyssinia  do  not  eat  its  flesh,  nor  do  the  Maho 
metans  ;  see  Oedman  (  Vermisch.  Samm.  pt.  v.  ch. 
ii.).  Hemprich  states  that  the  urine  of  the  Cape 
Hyrax  (H.  capensis),  as  well  as  that  of  the  Asiatic 
species,  is  regarded  as  medicinal.  See  also  Spar- 
man  (Trav.  p.  324)  and  Thunberg  (Trav.  i.  190). 
This  is  confirmatory  of  the  remarks  of  an  Arabic 
writer  cited  by  Bochart  (Hieroz.  ii.  413). 

The  Hyrax  is  zoologically  a  very  interesting 
animal,  for  although  in  some  respects  it  resembles 
the  Rodentia,  in  which  order  this  genus  was  ori 
ginally  placed,  its  true  affinities  are  with  the  Rhi 
noceros  ;  its  molar  teeth  differ  only  in  size  from 
those  of  that  great  Pachyderm,  accordingly  Dr. 
Gray  places  the  Hyrax  in  his  sub-family  Mhinocerina, 
family,  Elephantidae ;  it  is  about  the  size  of  a 
rabbit,  which  in  some  of  its  habits  it  much  resem 
bles  ;  the  animals  are  generally  seen  to  congregate 
in  groups  amongst  the  rocks,  in  the  cavities  ot 
which  they  hide  themselves  when  alarmed;  they 
are  herbivorous  as  to  diet,  feeding  on  grass  and  the 
young  shoots  of  shrubs.  Some  observers  have  re 
marked  that  an-  oid  male  is  set  as  a  sentry  in  the 
vicinity  of  their  holes,  and  that  he  utters  a  sound 
like  a  whistle  to  apprize  his  companions  when 
danger  threatens  if  this  is  a  fact,  it  forcibly  illus 
trates  Prov.  xxx.  24,  26,  where  the  Shaphan  is 
named  as  one  of  the  four  things  upon  earth  which 
tbrjugh  little,  "  are  exceeding  wise." 

COEAL  (Dtoan,  rdm*th  .  /ieTewpo  ;  Symm 
mj/7?\a :  'Pa/j.6d :  scricum,  excelsa)  «/-.x;urs  only,  as 
the  somewhat  doubtful  rendering  of  the  Hebrew 
ramoth,  in  Job  xxviii.  18,  "  No  mention  shall  lie 
made  of  coral  (ramoth,  margin)  or  of  pearls,  for  the 
price  of  wisdom  is  above  rubies  ;"  ana  in  Ez.  xxvi-' 
16,  where  coral  is  enumerated  amongst  the  wares 
which  Syria  brought  to  the  markets  of  Tyre.  The 
old  versions  fail  to  afford  us  any  clue;  the  LXX, 
gives  merely  the  etymological  meaning  of  the  Hob. 
term  "  lofty  things  ;"  the  Vulg.  in  Ez.  (/.  c.)  reads 
"  silk."  Some  have  conjectured  "  rhinoceros  skins," 
deriving  the  original  word  from  rccm  (the  unicorn 
of  the  A.  V.),  which  word,  however,  has  nothing 
to  do  with  this  animal.  [UNICORN.]  Schultens 
(Comment,  in  Jobum,  I.  c.)  gives  up  the  matter  in 
despair,  and  leaves  the  word  untranslated.  Many 
of  the  Jewish  rabbis  understand  "  red  coral "  by 

bresvs  had  ever  seen  imported  specimens  of  the  rabbit, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  would  have  been  Included 
under  the  Heb.  term  arneb,  which  is  i,he  Arabic  nanve  al 


tiud  Li  imported  from  Europe,    Even  it  the  undent  He-  ; 


xliv 


CORMORANT 


rdmSth.  Gesenius  (Thes.  s.  v.)  conjectures  "  black 
coral  "  (?),  assigning  the  red  kind  to  peninim 
'««  rubies',"  A.  V.)  :  see  RUBY.  Michaelis  (SuppL 
Lex.  Hebr.  p.  2218)  translates  rdmoth  by  Lapides 
gazellorum,  i.  e.  L.  bezoardici,  as  if  from  rim,  an 
Arabic  name  for  some  species  of  gazelle.  The  Lapis 
bczoardicus  of  Linnaeus  denotes  the  calcareous  con 
cretions  sometimes  found  in  the  stomach  of  the  In 
dian  gazelle,  the  Sasin  (Antilope  cervicapra,  Pallas). 
This  stone,  which  possessed  a  strong  aromatic  odour, 
was  formerly  held  in  high  repute  as  a  talisman. 
The  Arabian  physicians  attributed  valuable  medi 
cinal  properties  to  these  concretions.  The  opinion 
of  Michaelis,  that  rdmoth  denotes  these  stones,  is 
little  else  than  conjecture.  On  the  whole,  we  see 
no  reason  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  rendering  of 
the  A.  V.  "  Coral  "  has  decidedly  the  best  claim 
of  any  other  substances  to  represent  the  rdmoth. 
The  natural  upward  form  of  growth  of  the  Corattium 
rubrum  is  well  suited  to  the  etymology  of  the  word. 
The  word  rendered  "  price"  in  Job  xxviii.  18,  more 
properly  denotes  "  a  drawing  out;"  and  appears  to 
have  reference  to  the  manner  in  which  coral  and 
pearls  were  obtained  from  the  sea  either  by  diving 
or  dredging.  At  present,  Mediterranean  corals, 
which  constitute  an  important  article  of  commerce, 
are  broken  off  from  the  rocks  to  which  they  adhere 
by  long  hooked  poles,  and  thus  "  drawn  out." 
With  regard  to  the  estimation  in  which  coral  was 
held  by  the  Jews  and  other  Orientals,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  coral  varies  in  price  with  us. 
Fine  compact  specimens  of  the  best  tints  may  be 
worth  as  much  as  101.  per  oz.,  while  inferior  ones 
are  perhaps  not  worth  much  more  than  a  shilling 
per  Ib.  Pliny  says  (N.  H.  xxxii.  2)  that  the  Indians 
valued  coral  as  the  Romans  valued  pearls.  It  is 
possible  that  the  Syrian  traders,  who,  as  Jerome 
remarks  (Rosenmuller,  Schol.  in  Ez.  xxvii.  16), 
would  in  his  day  run  all  over  the  world  "  lucri 
cupiditate,"  may  have  visited  the  Indian  seas,  and 
brought  home  thence  rich  coral  treasures  ;  though 
they  would  also  readily  procure  coral  either  from 
the  Red  Sea  or  the  Mediterranean,  where  it  is 
abundantly  found.  Coral,  Mr.  King  informs  us, 
often  occurs  in  ancient  Egyptian  jewelry  as  beads 
and  cut  into  charms. 

CORMORANT.  The  representative  in  the 
A.  V.  of  the  Hebrew  words  kdath  (J1NJ5)  and 
shdldc  O$).  As  to  the  former,  see  PELICAN. 


Shdldc  (Karap&KTT}s  :  mergulus  ;  nycticorax  ?) 
occurs  only  as  the  name  of  an  unclean  bird  in  Lev. 
xi.  17  ;  Deut.  xiv.  17.  The  word  has  been  variously 
rendered  (see  Bochart,  Hieroz.  iii.  24),  but  some 
sea  bird  is  generally  understood  to  be  denoted  by  it. 
There  is  some  difficulty  in  identifying  the  Kara- 
pd.KTi]s  of  the  LXX.  ;  nor  can  we  be  quite  satisfied, 
with  Oedmann  (  Verm.  Samml.  iii.  c.  vii.  p.  68), 
Michaelis,  Rosenmuller,  and  others,  that  the  Solan 
goose,  or  gannet  (Sula  alba),  is  the  bird  mentioned 
by  Aristotle  (Hist.  An.  ii.  12,  §15;  ix.  13,  §1)  and 
the  author  of  the  Txeutics  (Oppian,  ii.  2).  Col.  H. 
Smith  (Kitto's  Cyc.  art.  «  Salach')  has  noticed  that 
this  bird  (Karap'pdKTT]s)  is  described  as  being  of  the 
size  01  a  nawk  or  one  of  the  smaller  gulls  (us  of  r&v 
\dpoov  e\d<rffoves\  whereas  the  gannet  is  as  large 
as  a  goose.  The  account  given  in  the  Ixeutics  (I.  c..) 
o?  this  bird  is  the  fullest  we  possess  ;  and  certainly 


*  PJVDVK. 

»  Unless  perhaps 


the  sus  may  have  reference  more 


CRANE 

the  description,  with  the  exception  above  noted,  is 
well  suited  to  the  gannet,  whose  habit  of  rising  high 
into  the  air,  and  partially  closing  its  wings,  and  theij 
falling  straight  as  an  arrow  on  its  prey,  emerging 
again  in  a  few  seconds,  is  graphically  described  in 
the  passage  alluded  to.  It  is  probable  that  the 
ancients  sometimes  confused  this  bird  with  some 
species  of  tern  ;  hence  the  difficulty  as  to  size. 
Col.  H.  Smith  suggests  the  Caspian  tern  (Sterna 
Caspid)  as  the  representative  of  the  Kara^pdKTrjs  ; 
which  opinion  is  however  inadmissible,  for  the  tern? 
are  known  never  to  dive,  whereas  the  diving  habits 
of  the  KarafipdrcTTis  are  expressly  mentioned  (/cara- 
Suercu  /ue'xfH  opyvTas  ^  Kal  7r\4ov).  Modern 
ornithologists  apply  the  term  cataractes  to  tho 
different  species  of  skuas  (lestris},  birds  of  northern 
regions,  to  which  the  description  of  the  /cara/J- 
pdKT-ris  is  wholly  inapplicable.  But  though  the 
gannet  may  be  the  Ko.Tap'pdKTijs  of  Aristotle  and 
the  Ixeutics,  it  is  doubtful  whether  this  bird  is 
found  in  the  Bible-lands,  although  it  has  a  wide 
range,  being  seen  northward  in  Newfoundland  and 
in  the  Hebrides,  and  southward  at  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope.  The  etymology  of  the  Hebrew  word  points 
to  some  plunging  bird:  the  common  cormorant 
(Phalacrocorax  carbo),  which  some  writers  have 
identified  with  the  Shdldk,  is  unknown  in  the 
eastern  Mediterranean  ;  another  species  is  found  S. 
of  the  Red  Sea,  but  none  on  the  W.  coast  of  Pales 
tine. 


CRANE  (D-1D  or  D^D,  sus  or  sts: 
pullus  hirundinis,  hirundo).  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  A.  V.  is  incorrect  in  rendering  sits 
by  "  crane,"  which  bird  is  probably  intended  by 
the  Hebrew  word  'dgur,  translated  "swallow"  by 
the  A.  V.  [SWALLOW.]  Mention  is  made  of  the 
sus  in  Hezekiah's  prayer  (Is.  xxxviii.  14),  "  Like 
a  sus  or  an  'dgur  so  did  I  twitter  ;"  and  again  in 
Jer.  viii.  7  these  two  words  occur  in  the  same 
order,  "  the  sts  and  the  'dgur  observe  the  time  oi 
their  coming  :"  from  which  passage  we  learn  that 
both  birds  were  migratory.  According  to  the  testi 
mony  of  most  of  the  ancient  versions,  sus  denotes  a 
"  swallow."  The  passage  in  Jeremiah  (/.  c.),  com 
pared  with  the  twittering  notes  of  the  sus  in  Heze 
kiah's  prayer,  goes  far  to  establish  this  translation, 
for  the  Hebrew  verb  *  which  is  rendered  "  chatter  " 
by  the  A.  V.  more  properly  siguif.es  to  "  chirp"  ot 
to  "  twitter,"  the  term  being  evidently,  as  Boehart 
{Hieroz.  ii.  605)  has  shown,  onomatopoetic,  indi« 
cative  of  the  notes  of  the  bird.  The  Italians  about 
Venice  call  a  swallow  zizilla,  and  its  chirping  thej 
express  by  tizillare  (see  Bochart,  I.  c.}.  The  ex 
pression  "like  a  swallow  did  I  twitter"  may  per 
haps  appear  to  us  not  a  very  apt  illustration  Ct 
mournful  complaint,  the  notes  of  the  various  specie* 
of  the  Hirundinidae  being  expressive  of  happiness 
rather  than  of  grief  ;  b  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  ancients  regarded  the  swallow  as  a  mourn 
ful  bird  ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that,  according 
to  Dr.  Kennicott,  in  thirteen  Codices  of  Jeremiah 
(I.  c.)  the  word  Isis  occurs  instead  of  sis  :  it  is 
probable  therefore  that  the  story  of  Procne,  Tereus, 
&c.,  of  Grecian  mythology  had  its  source  in  ancient 
Egyptian  fable,  Isis,  as  the  Egyptians  say,  having 
been  changed  into  a  swallow.  The  Hebrsw  wonl 
Deror  (*lVT^)  is  noticed  under  the  article  SWALLOW. 


particularly  to  some  species  of  swift  (Cypsdut),  whose 
loud  squealing  may  appear  to  some  to  be  indicative  of 
restless  grief. 


CRYSTAL 

CRYSTAL,  the  representative  A  the  A.  V.  of 
the  Hebrew  words  zecucith  (JVD-'DT)  and  kerach 


CUCUMBER? 


xlv 


1.  ZekuhUh  (va\os:  vitrum)  occurs  only  in  Job 
ix  viii.  17,  where  wisdom  is  declared  to  be  more 
valuable  than  "  gold  and  the  crystal."     Notwith 
standing    the    different    interpretations   of  "  rock 
crystal,"  "  glass,"  "  adamant,'1  &c.,  that  have  been 
assigned  to  this  word,  there  can,  we  think,  be  very 
little  doubt  that  "  glass"  is  intended.     The  old  ver 
sions  and  paraphrases  are  in  favour  of  this  inter 
pretation.     The  Targum  has  zegougitha,  by  which 
the  Talmudists  understand  "  glass."     The  Syriac 
has  zagugitto  ;    the  Arabic  zujaj,   i.  e.   "  glass." 
Schultens  (Comment,  in  Job.  I.  c.)  conjectures  that 
the  words  zdhdb  uzecucith  (rP>1Dp  1HT)   are  a 
hendiadys  to  denote  "  a  valuable  glass  or  crystal 
goblet,"  or  "  a  glass  vessel  gilt  with  gold,"  such  a 
one  perhaps  as  that  which  Nero  is  reported  to  have 
broken  to  pieces  in  a  fit  of  anger  (Pliny,  H.  N. 
xxxvii.  2).     Cary  (Job,  I.  c.)  translates  the  words 
"  golden  glass  ;"  and  very  aptly  compares  a  passage 
in  Wilkinson  (Anc.  Egypt,  ii.  61,  ed.  1854),  who, 
speaking  of  the  skill  of  the  Egyptians  in  making 
glass,  says  "  they  had  even  the  secret  of  introducing 
gold  between  two  surfaces  of  glass,  and  in  their 
bottles  a  gold  band  alternates  within  a  set  of  blue, 
green,  and  other  colours."    It  is  very  probable  that 
the  zecucith  of  Job  (I.  c.)  may  denote  such  a  work 
of  art  as  is  referred  to  in  this  quotation.     [GLASS.] 

2.  Kerach  (/cputrraAAos  :  crystallurn)  occurs  in 
numerous  passages  in  the  0.  T.  to  denote  "  ice," 
"  frost,"  &c.  ;  but  once  only  (Ez.  i.  22),  as  is  ge 
nerally  understood,  to  signify  "crystal:"   "And 
the  likeness  of  the  firmament  .....  was  as  the 
colour  of  the  magnificent  crystal."     The  ancients 
supposed  rock-crystal  to  be  merely  ice  congealed  by 
intense  cold  ;  whence  the  Greek  word  /cpurrraAAos, 
from  Kpvos,  "  cold  "  (see  Pliny,  N.  H.  xxxvii.  2). 
The  similarity  of  appearance  between  ice  and  crystal 
caused  no  doubt  the  identity  of  the  terms  to  express 
these  substances.     The  A.  V.,  following  the  Vulg., 
translates  the  epithet  (NTlSn)  "terrible"  in  Ez. 
(I.   c.)  :    the    word    would    be    better    rendered 
"  splendid."      It   has   the   same  meaning   as   the 
Latin  spectabilis.     The  Greek  Kpvffra\\os  occurs 
in  Rev.  iv.  6,  xxii.  1.     It  may  mean  either  "ice" 
or  "  crystal."     Indeed  there  is  no  absolute  necessity 
to  depart  from  the  usual  signification  of  the  Hebrew 
kerach  in  Ez.  (I.  c.).     The  upper  vault  of  heaven 
may  well  be  compared  to  "  the  astonishing  bright 
ness  of  ice  "   (see  Harris,  Diet  .  Nat.  H.  of  Bible, 
art.  "  Crystal  "). 


CUCKOO  (y\r\W,  shachaph:  \Apos:  larus). 
There  does  not  appear  to  be  any  authority  for  this 
translation  of  the  A,  V.  ;  the  Heb.  word  occurs  only 
in  Lev.  xi.  16  ;  Deut.  xiv.  15,  as  the  name  of  some 
andean  bird.  Bochart  (Hieroz.  iii.  1)  has  at 
tempted  to  show  that  Shachaph  denotes  the  Cep- 
phus.  The  (fce7r</>os)  of  Aristotle  (Anim.  Hist.  viii.  5, 
§  7  ;  ix.  23,  §  4),  Nicander  (Alexipharm.  165),  and 
other  Greek  writers,  has  been  with  sufficient  reason 
v/o  think  identified  by  Schneider  with  the  storm- 
petrel  (1'halassidroma  pelagicd),  the  Procellaria 
pelagica  of  Linnaeus.  The  Scholiast  on  Aristo 
phanes  (Plutus)  describes  the  Cepphus  as  a  light 
kind  of  gull.  Suidas,  under  the  word  KCTT^OS  says, 
4'it  is  a  bird  like  a  gull,  light  of  body,  and  sails  over 
the  vraves."  The  notion  held  by  the  ancients  tnat 


the  Cepphus  lived  on  the  foam  of  the  sen,  may  per 
haps  be  traced  to  the  habit  the  petrels  havo  of  seek 
ing  their  food,  &c.,  in  the  midst  of  an  agitated  and 
frothy  sea;  the  folly  ascribed  to  the  bird,  whenc? 
the  Greek  verb  /ceTnixfo^cu,  "  to  be  easily  deceived  '" 
(see  LXX.  in  Prov.  vii.  22)  may  have  some  founda- 
tion  in  the  fact  that  these  birds  when  on  the  nest 
will  allow  themselves  to  be  taken  by  the  hand. 
The  etymology  of  the  Hebrew  word  points  to  some 
"  slender  "  bird.  It  is  very  improbable,  however, 
that  this  diminutive  bird,  which  would  be  literally 
but  a  mouthful,  is  signified  by  the  Shachaph  ;  and 
perhaps  therefore,  as  Mr.  Tristram  suggests  to  us, 
some  of  the  larger  petrels,  such  as  the  Puffinus 
cinereus  and  P.  anglorum  (shearwater),  which 
abound  in  the  east  of  the  Mediterranean  and  which 
are  similar  in  their  habits  to  the  storm-petrel,  may 
be  denoted  by  the  Hebrew  term.*  Of  the  Laridaj 
the  Larus  fuscus  and  the  L.  argentatus  are  two 
common  species  of  Palestine. 


CUCUMBERS 

cucumeres).  This  word  occurs  once  only,  in  Num. 
xi.  5,  as  one  of  the  good  things  of  Egypt  for  which 
the  Israelites  longed.  There  is  no  doubt  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  Hebrew  word,  which  is  found  with 
a  slight  variation  in  the  Arabic,  Syriac,  Aethiopic, 
&c.,  to  denote  the  plant  now  under  consideration 
(see  Celsius,  ffierob.  ii.  247).  Egypt  produces  ex 
cellent  cucumbers,  melons,  &c.  [MELON],  the  Cu- 
cumis  shate  being,  according  to  Hasselquist  (  Trav. 
p.  258),  the  best  of  its  tribe  yet  known.  This  plant 
grows  in  the  fertile  earth  around  Cairo  after  the 
inundation  of  the  Nile,  and  not  elsewhere  in  Egypt. 
The  fruit,  which  is  somewhat  sweet  and  cool,  is 
eaten,  says  Hasselquist,  by  the  grandees  and  Eu 
ropeans  in  Egypt  as  that  from  which  they  have 
least  to  apprehend.  Prosper  Alpinus  (Plant.  Aegypt. 
xxxviii.  p.  54)  speaks  of  this  cucumber  as  follows:  — 
"  The  Egyptians  use  a  certain  kind  of  cucumber 
which  they  call  chate.  This  plant  does  not  differ 
from  the  common  kind,  except  in  size,  colour,  and 
tenderness  ;  it  has  smaller,  whiter,  softer,  and 
rounder  leaves,  and  the  fruit  is  longer  and  greener 
than  ours,  with  a  smooth  soft  rind,  and  more  easy 
of  digestion."  The  account  which  Forski.1  (Flor. 
Aegypt.  p.  168)  gives  of  the  Cucumis  chate,  which 
he  says  is  called  by  the  Arabs  Abdellavi  or  Adjtir, 
does  not  agree  with  what  Hasselquist  states  with 
regard  to  the  locality  where  it  is  grown,  this  plant 
being,  according  to  the  testimony  of  the  first-named 
writer,  "  the  commonest  fruit  in  Egypt,  planted 
over  whole  fields."  The  C.  chate  is  a  variety  only 
of  the  common  melon  (C.  melo)  ;  it  was  once  cul 
tivated  in  England  and  called  "  the  round-leaved 
Egyptian  melon  ;"  but  it  is  rather  an  insipid  sort. 
Besides  the  Cucumis  chate,  the  common  cucum 
ber  (C.  satwus),  of  which  the  Arabs  distinguish  a 
number  of  varieties,  is  common  in  Egypt.  This 
grows  with  the  water-melons  ;  the  poor  people  boil 
and  eat  it  with  vinegar  ;  the  richer  people  fil  it 
with  flesh  and  aromatics,  and  make  a  kind  of 
puddings,  which,  says  Hasselquist  (p.  257),  eat 
very  well.  "Both  Cucumis  chate  and  C.satimts," 
says  Mr.  Tristi-am,  "are  now  grown  in  great  quan 
tities  in  Palestine  :  on  visiting  the  Arab  school 
in  Jerusalem  (1858)  1  observed  that  the  dinner 
which  the  children  brought  with  them  to  school 
consisted,  without  exception,  of  a  piece  of  barley 

a  P.  cinereus  and  P.  anglorum  arc  both  exposed  for  sale 
as  rrttcles  of  food  In  the  Arab  markets  on  the  const 


xlvi 


CYPRESS 


cake  and  a  raw  cucumber,  which  they  eat  rind 
and  all." 

The  pivphet  Isaiah  (i.  8)  foretells  the  desolation 
that  was  to  come  upon  Judah  and  Jerusalem  in 
these  words:  —  "The  daughter  of  Zion  is  left  as  a 
cottage  in  a  vineyard,  as  a  lodge  in  a  garden  of 
cucumbers,  as  a  besieged  city."  The  cottage  or 
lodge  here  spoken  of  is  a  rude  temporary  shelter, 
erected  in  the  open  grounds  where  vines,  cucumbers, 
gourds,  &c.,  are  grown,  in  which  some  lonely  man 
or  boy  is  set  to  watch,  either  to  guard  the  plants 
from  robbers,  or  to  scare  away  the  foxes  and  jackals 
from  the  vines.  Dr.  Thomson  (  The  Land  and  the 
Book,  p.  361)  well  illustrates  this  passage  of  Scrip 
ture,  and  brings  out  its  full  force.  The  little  wood 
cut  which  he  gives  of  the  lodge  at  Butaiha  repre 
sents  such  a  shelter  as  is  alluded  to  above:  by  and 
bye,  when  the  crop  is  gathered  and  the  lodge  for' 
saken  the  "  poles  will  fall  down  or  lean  every  way, 
and  th  3  green  boughs  with  which  it  is  shaded  wvli 
be  scattered  by  the  winds,  leaving  only  a  ragged 
sprawling  wreck  —  a  most  affecting  type  of  utter 
desolation." 

It  is  curious  to  observe  that  the  custom  of  keep 
ing  off  birds,  &c.,  from  fruit  and  corn  by  means  of 
a  scarecrow  is  as  old  as  the  time  of  Baruch  (vi. 
70)  :  —  "  As  a  scarecrow  (irpoftaffKdviov)  in  a  gar 
den  of  cucumbers  keepeth  nothing,  so  are  their  god 
of  wood,"  &c. 


CYPRESS  (Hnn,  tirzdh:  aypio0d\avos, 
Alex.,  Aq.,  and  Theod.  :  ilex).  The  Heb.  word  is 
found  only  in  Is.  xliv.  14,  "  He  heweth  him  down 
cedars  and  taketh  the  tirzah  and  the  oak."  We 
are  quite  unable  to  assign  any  definite  rendering  to 
this  word.  Besides  the  cypress,  the  "  beech,"  the 
•'  holm-oak,"  and  the  "fir"  have  been  proposed; 
but  there  is  nothing  in  the  etymology  of  the  Hebrew 
name,  or  in  the  passage  where  it  occurs,  to  guide 
us  to  the  tree  intended.  The  word  is  derived  from 
a  root  which  means  "  to  be  hard,"  a  quality  which 
obviously  suits  many  kinds  of  trees.  Celsius 
(Hierob.  ii.  269)  believes  the  "  ilex  "  or  "  holm- 
oak"  is  meant;  but  there  is  no  reliable  evidence 
to  show  that  this  tree  is  now  found  in  Palestine. 
With  respect  to  the  claims  of  the  cypress  (Cu- 
pressus  sempcrvircns),  which,  at  present  at  all 
events,  is  found  cultivated  only  in  the  lower  levels 
of  Syria,  it  must  be  granted  that  they  are  unsup 
ported  by  any  authority.  Van  de  Velde's  cypress 
is  the  Juniperus  excelsa,  which  is  also  the  cypress 
of  Pococke;  but  neither  juniper  nor  cypress,  as  is 
asserted  by  Pococke,  grow  anywhere  near  the  top 
of  Lebanon.  "  The  juniper,"  says  Dr.  Hooker, 
"  is  found  at  the  height  of  7000  feet,  on  Lebanon, 
the  top  of  which  is  10,500  feet  or  so."  The  true 
cypress  is  a  native  of  the  Taurus.  The  Hebrew 
word  points  to  some  tree  with  a  hard  grain,  and 
this  is  all  that  can  be  positively  said  of  it. 


DOVE'S  DUNG  (D»Vl""in,  cUryonim  ;  Ken, 
3^V2"1,  dibydmrri :  /c&rpos  Trfpi<rrepuv :  stercus 
columbarum).  Various  explanations  have  been  given 
of  the  passage  in  2  K.  vi.  25,  which  describes  the 
famine  of  Samaria  to  have  been  so  excessive,  that 
"  an  ass's  head  was  sold  for  fourscore  pieces  of  silver, 
and  the  fourth  part  of  a  cab  of  dove's  dung  for  five 


DOVE'S  DUN(* 

pieces  of  silver."  The  old  versions  and  very  maiij 
ancient  commentators  are  in  favour  of  a  literal  inter. 
pretation  of  the  Heb.  word.  Bochart  (Hieroz.  IL 
572)  has  laboured  to  shew  that  it  denotes  a  species 
of  deer,  "  chick-pea."  which  he  sas  the  Arabs  call 


s  .- 


and  sometimes  improperly  '•'  dove's 

or  sparrow's  dung."  Linnaeus  suggested  that  the 
chiryonim  may  signify  the  Ornithogalum  umbel' 
latum,  "  Star  of  Bethlehem."  On  this  subject  the 
late  Dr.  Edward  Smith  remarks  (English  Botany,  iv. 
p.  130,  ed.  1814)  :  "  If  Linnaeus  is  right,  we  obtain 
a  sort  of  clue  to  the  derivation  of  Ornithogalum 
(birds'  milk),  which  has  puzzled  all  the  etymologists. 
May  not  this  observation  apply  to  the  white  fluid 
which  always  accompanies  the  dung  of  birds,  and 
is  their  urine  ?  One  may  almost  perceive  a  similar 
combination  of  colours  in  the  green  and  white  of 
this  flower,  which  accords  precisely  in  this  respect 
with  the  description  which  Dioscorides  gives  of  his 
Ornithogalum."  (See  also  Linnaeus,  Praelectiones, 
Ed.  P.  D.  Giseke,  p.  287.)  Sprengel  (Comment. 
on  Dioscorides,  ii.  173)  is  inclined  to  adopt  the 
explanation  of  Linnaeus.  Fuller  (Miscell.  Sacr. 
vi.  2,  p.  724)  understood  by  the  term  the  crops  of 
pigeons  with  their  indigested  contents.  Josephus 
(Antiq.  ix.  4)  thought  that  dove's  dung  might 
have  been  used  instead  of  salt.  Hanner  (Observat. 
iii.  185)  was  of  opinion,  that  as  pigeon's  dung  \vas 
a  valuable  manure  for  the  cultivation  of  melons, 
it  might  have  been  needed  during  the  siege  of 
Samaria  for  that  purpose.  Most  of  these  interpre 
tations  have  little  to  recommend  them,  and  have 
been  refuted  by  Bochart  and  others.  With  regard 
to  Bochart's  own  opinion,  Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  30) 
and  Rosenmiiller  (Not.  ad  Bochart,  Hieroz.  ii.  582) 
have  shewn  that  it  is  founded  on  an  error,  and  that 

he  confuses  the  Arabic  i*a+2*-i  the  name  of  some 


species  of  saltwort  (Salsola)  with  (ja+s*.,  cicer, 

a  "  vetch,"  or  chick-pea.  The  explanation  of  Lin 
naeus  appears  to  us  to  be  far  fetched  ;  and  there  is 
no  evidence  whatever  to  shew  that  the  Arabs  ever 
called  this  plant  by  a  name  equivalent  to  dove's 
dung.  On  th/»  other  hand,  it  is  true  that  the  Arabs 
apply  this  or  a  kindred  expression  to  some  plants. 
Thus  it  was  sometimes  used  to  denote  a  kind  of  moss 
or  lichen  (Kuz-kendem,  Arabic^)  ;  also  some  alkali- 
yielding  plant,  perhaps  of  the  genus  Salsola  (ashnan, 
or  usnan,  Arab.).  In  favour  of  this  explanation, 
it  is  u'sual  to  compare  the  German  Teufelsdreck 
("devil's  dung")  as  expressive  of  the  odour  of 
asafoetida  (see  Gesenius,  Thes.  p.  516).  The  ad 
vocates  for  the  literal  meaning  of  the  expression, 
viz.  that  dove's  dung  was  absolutely  used  as  food 
during  the  siege,  appeal  to  the  following  reference 
in  Josephus  (Bell.  Jud.  v.  13.  7):  "  Some  persons 
were  driven  to  that  terrible  distress  as  to  search  the 
common  sewers  and  old  dunghills  of  cattle,  and  to 
eat  the  dung  which  they  got  there,  and  what  they 
of  old  could  not  endure  so  much  as  to  look  upon  they 
now  used  for  food  ;"  see  also  Eusebius  (Ecdes.  Hist. 
iii.  6)  :  "  Indeed  necessity  forced  them  to  apply  their 
teeth  to  every  thing;  and  gathering  what  was  no 
food  even  for  the  filthiest  of  irrational  animals,  they 
devoured  it."  Celsius,  who  is  strongly  in  favoui 
of  the  literal  meaning,  quotes  the  following  passage 
from  Bruson  (Memorabil.  ii.  c.  41)  :  "  Cretenses, 
obsidente  Metello,  ob  peuuriam  vini  aquarumque 
umentorum  urina  sitim  sedasse  "  and  ons  much 


DROMEDARY 

to  the  point  from  a  Spanish  writer,  who  states  that 
in  the  year  1316  so  great  a  famine  distressed  the 
English,  that  "  men  ate  their  own  children,  dogs, 
mice,  and  pigeon's  dung."  Lady  Calcott  (Scrip. 
Herb.  p.  130)  thinks  that  by  the  pigeon's  dung  is 
meant  the  Ornithogalum  wnbellatum.  We  cannot 
allow  this  explanation  ;  because  if  the  edible  and 
agreeable  bulb  of  this  plant  was  denoted,  it  is  im 
possible  it  should  have  been  mentioned  by  the 
Spanish  chronicler  along  with  dogs,  mice,  &c.  As 
an  additional  argument  in  favour  of  the  literal 
interpretation  of  the  passage  in  question  may  be 
adduced  the  language  of  Rabshakeh  to  the  Jews  in 
the  tirr>  of  Hezekiah  (2  K.  xviii.  27  ;  Is.  xxxvi.  12). 
Still  it  must  be  confessed  there  is  difficulty  in  be 
lieving  that  so  vile  a  substance  should  ever,  even  in 
the  extremities  of  a  horrible  famine,  have  been  sold 
at  the  rate  of  about  one  pint  for  six  shillings  and 
fourpence.  We  adopt  therefore  the  cautious  language 
of  Keil  (Comment.  1.  c.)  :  "  The  above-stated  facts 
prove  no  doubt  the  possibility,  even  the  probability, 
of  the  literal  meaning,  but  not  its  necessity  ;  for 
which  reason  we  refrain,  with  Gesenius,  from 
deciding." 

DROMEDARY.  The  representative  in  the 
A.  V.  of  the  Heb.  words  becer  or  bicrah,  recesh  and 
rammac.  As  to  the  two  former  terms,  see  under 
CAMEL. 

1.   Recesh 


EAGLE 


xlvii 


linrfveiv,  ap/j.a:  jumenta, 

vercddrii)  is  variously  interpreted  in  our  version  by 
'  dromedaries"  (1  K.  iv.  28),  "  mules"  (Esth.  viii. 
10,  14),  "  swift  beasts"  (Mic.  i.  13).  There  seems 
to  be  no  doubt  that  recesh  denotes  "  a  superior 
kind  of  horse,"  such  as  would  be  required  when 
dispatch  was  necessary.  See  Gesenius  (Thes.  s.  v.). 
2.  Eammdc  CsJlSD  :  LXX.  and  Vulg.  omit)  occurs 
only  in  plur.  form  in  Esth.  viii.  10,  in  connexion 
with  bene,  "sons;"  the  expression  bene  ram- 
mdchim  being  an  epexegesis  of  the  Heb.  word 
achashterdnim,  "  mules,  the  sons  of  mares."  The 
Heb.  'rjS'l,  "  a  mare,"  which  the  A.  V.  renders 
incorrectly  "  dromedary,"  is  evidently  allied  to  the 


Arab.  XX^o  j>  "  a  brood-mare." 


E 


EAGLE  pBO,  ncsher:  ae-nk:  aqiiila).     The 

Hebrew  word,  which  occurs  frequently  in  the  0.  T., 
may  denote  a  particular  species  of  the  Falconidae, 
as  in  Lev.  xi.  13,  Deut.  xiv.  12,  where  the  nesher 
is  distinguished  from  the  ossifrage,  osprey,  and 
other  raptatorial  birds ;  but  the  term  is  used  also 
to  express  the  griffon  vulture  (  Vultur  fulvus*)  in 
two  or  three  passages. 

At  least  four  distinct  kinds  cf  eagles  have  been 
observed  in  Palestine,  viz.  the  golden  eagle  (Aquila 
Chrysaetos),  the  spotted  eagle  (A.  naevia),  the  com 
monest  species  in  the  rocky  districts  (see  Ibis,  i. 
23),  the  imperial  eagle  (Aquila  Heliaca],  and  the 


very  common  Cirtietos  gallicus,  which  preys  on 
the  numerous  reptitia  of  Palestine  (for  a  figure  ot 
this  bird  see  OSPREY).  The  Heb.  nestier  may  stand 
for  any  of  these  different  specie^  though  perhaps 
more  particular  reference  to  the  golden  and  im 
perial  eagles  and  the  griffon  vulture  may  be  in 
tended.* 


Aquila  Ueliaca. 

The  eagle's  swiftness  of  flight  is  the  subject  of 
frequent  allusion  in  Scripture  (Deut.  xxviii.  49  ; 
2  Sam.  i.  23 ;  Jer.  iv.  13,  xlix.  22  ;  Lam.  iv.  19, 
&c.)  ;  its  mounting  high  into  the  air  is  referred  to 
(in  Job  xxxix.  27;  Prov.  xxiii.  5,  xxx.  19;  Is.  xl. 
31 ;  Jer.  xlix.  16)  ;  its  strength  and  vigour  (in  Ps. 
ciii.  5) ;  its  predaceous  habits  (Job  ix.  26 ;  Prov. 
xxx.  17)  ;  its  setting  its  nest  in  high  places  (in  Jer. 
xlix.  16) ;  the  care  in  training  its  young  to  fly  (in 
Ex..xix.  4;  Deut.  xxxii.  11);  its  powers  of  vision 
(in  Job  xxxix.  29). 

The  passage  in  Mic.  i.  16,  "  Enlarge  thy  baldness 
as  the  eagle,"  has  been  understood  by  Bochart 
(Hieroz.  ii.  744)  and  others  to  refer  to  the  eagle 
at  the  time  of  its  moulting  in  the  spring.  Oedman 
(Vermisch.  Samm.  i.  64)  erroneously  refers  the 
baldness  spoken  of  by  the  prophet  to  point  to  the 
Vultur  barbatus  (Gypaetus),  the  bearded  vulture 
or  lammergyer,  which  he  supposed  was  bald.  It 
appears  to  us  to  be  extremely  improbable  that  there 
is  any  reference  in  the  passage  under  consideration 
to  eagles  moulting.  Allusion  is  here  made  to  the 
custom  of  shaving  the  head  as  a  token  of  mourning ; 
but  there  would  be  little  or  no  appropri&toiess  in 
the  comparison  of  a  shaved  head  with  an  ejigle  at 
the  time  of  moulting.  But  if  the  nesher  is  supposed 
to  denote  the  griffon  vulture  (  Vultw  fulvus),  the 
simile  is  peculiarly  appropriate ;  it  may  be  remarked 
i,hat  the  Hebrew  verb  kdrach  (PHp)  signifies  "  to 

make  bald  on   the  back  part  of  the  head  ;"    the 
notion   here   conveyed   is  very   applicable   to   the 


a  The  modern  Arabic  term  for  the  Griffon  Vulture,  in 
cluding  the  F.  cmricularis  and  V.  cinereus,  is  Nisr.  This 
word  is  never  applied  to  the  Neophron  percnopterus  or 

Rachmah."  The  Eagles  are  designated  collectively  by 
6gab  with  a  specific  adjective  for  various  species.  I  am 
inclined,  therefore,  to  restrict  the  Heb.  Nesher  to  the  ma 
jestic  Vultur  every  Scriptural  characteristic  of  the  Nesher 


>eing  more  true  of  the  Griffon  Vulture  than  of  any  Eagla 
[H.  B.  T.] 

The  reader  will  find  the  vernacular  Arabic  names  of 
different  species  ofVulturidae  and  Falconidre  in  Loche'a 
Catalogue  des  Oiseaux  observ.  en  Algeria ;  and  in  J6i$ 
vols.  i.  ii.,  Tristram's  papers  on  the  Ornithol  >gy  of  Nerth 
Africa. 


xlviii 


EBONY 


whole  head  and  neck  of  this  bird,  which  is  destitute  j 
of  true  feathers. 

With  reference  to  the  texts  referred  to  above,  I 
which  compare  the  watchful  and  sustaining  care  of  | 
his  people  by  the  Almighty  with  that  exhibited  by  j 
the  eagle  in  training  its  young  ones  to  fly,  we  may  I 
quote  a  passage  from  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  who  says, 
"  I  once  saw  a  very  interesting  sight  above  one  of  the 
crags  of  Ben  Nevis,  as  I  was  going  in  the  pursuit 
of  black  game.  Two  parent  eagles  were  teaching 
their  offspring,  two  young  birds,  the  manoeuvres  of 
flight.  They  began  by  rising  from  the  top  of  the 
mountain,  in  the  eye  of  the  sun.  It  was  about  mid 
day,  and  bright  for  this  climate.  They  at  first 
made  small  circles,  and  the  young  birds  imitated 
them.  They  paused  on  their  wings,  waiting  till 
they  had  made  their  first  flight,  and  then  took  a 
Mcond  and  larger  gyration ;  always  rising  towards 
the  sun,  and  enlarging  their  circle  of  flight  so  as  to 
make  a  gradually  ascending  spiral.  The  young  ones 
still  and  slowly  followed,  apparently  flying  better 
as  they  mounted ;  and  they  continued  this  sublime 
exercise,  always  rising,  till  they  became  mere  points 
in  the  air,  and  the  young  ones  were  lost,  and  after 
wards  their  parents,  to  our  aching  sight."  The 
expression  in  Ex.  and  Deut.  (II.  cc.),  "  beareth  them 
on  her  wings,"  has  been  understood  by  Rabbinical 
writers  and  others  to  mean  that  the  eagle  does 
actually  carry  her  young  ones  on  her  wings  and 
shoulders.  This  is  putting  on  the  words  a  construc 
tion  which  they  by  no  means  are  intended  to  convey; 
at  the  same  time,  it  is  not  improbable  that  the 
parent  bird  assists  the  first  efforts  of  her  young  by 
flying  under  them,  thus  sustaining  them  for  a  mo 
ment,  and  encouraging  them  in  their  early  lessons. 

In  Ps.  ciii.  5  it  is  said,  "  Thy  youth  is  renewed 
like  the  eagle's"  (see  also  Is.  xl.  31).  Some  Jewish 
interpreters  have  illustrated  this  passage  by  a  re 
ference  to  the  old  fables  about  the  eagle  being  able 
to  renew  his  strength  when  very  old  (see  Bochai% 
Hieroz.  ii.  747).  Modem  commentators  for  the 
most  part  are  inclined  to  think  that  these  words 
refer  to  the  eagle  after  the  moulting  season,  when 
the  bird  is  more  full  of  activity  than  before.  We 
much  prefer  Hengstenberg's  explanation  on  Ps.  ciii.  5, 
"  Thy  youth  is  renewed,  so  that  in  point  of  strength 
thou  art  like  the  eagle." 

The  aeroi  of  Matt.  xxiv.  28,  Luke  xvii.  37, 
may  include  the  Vultur  fulvus  and  Neophron  per- 
cnopterus  ;  though,  as  eagles  frequently  prey  upon 
dead  bodies,  there  is  no  necessity  to  restrict  the 
Greek  word  to  the  Vulturidae.*  The  figure  of 
an  eagle  is  now  and  has  been  long  a  favourite 
military  ensign.  The  Persians  so  employed  it ; 
which  fact  illustrates  the  passage  m  Is.  xlvi.  11, 
where  Cyrus  is  alluded  to  under  the  symbol  of  an 
"eagle"  (ID'ty)  or  "ravenous  bird"  (comp.  Xenop. 
Cyrop.  vii.  4).  The  same  bird  was  similarly  em 
ployed  by  the  Assyrians  and  the  Romans.  Eagles 
are  frequently  represented  in  Assyiian  sculptures 
attending  the  soldiers  in  their  battles ;  and  some 
have  hence  supposed  that  they  were  trained  birds 
Considering,  however,  the  wild  and  intractable 
nature  of  eagles,  it  is  very  improbable  that  this 
was  the  case.  The  representation  of  these  birds  was 
doubtless  intended  to  portray  the  common  feature 
in  Eastern  battle-field  scenery,  of  birds  of  prey 
awaiting  to  satisfy  their  hunger  on  the  bodies  of 
the  slain. 


EBONY 
EBONY   (D*vlH,  hohnim:    *al   ro?$   flan-)  > 

ftevtns  ;b  ejSeVoyy,  Symm. :  (denies]  hcbeninoS) 
occurs  only  in  Ez.  xxvii.  15,  as  one  of  the  valuable 
commodities  imported  into  Tyre  by  the  men  of 
Dedan.  [DEDAN.]  It  is  mentioned  together  with 
"  horns  of  ivory,"  and  it  may  hence  be  reasonably 
conjectured  that  ivory  and  ebony  came  from  the 
same  country.  The  best  kind  of  ebony  is  yielded 
by  the  Diospyros  ebenum,  a  tree  which  grows  in 
Ceylon  and  Southern  India;  but  there  are  many 
trees  of  the  natural  order  Ebenaceae  which  produce 
this  material.  Ebony  is  also  yielded  by  trees  be- 


*  It  Is  necessary  to  remember  that  no  true  eagle  will 
kill  for  Wmsftlt  if  he  can  find  dead  flesh.  [H.  B.  T.I 


Diospyros  Kbenum. 

longing  to  different  natural  families  in  other  parts 
of  the  world,  as  in  Africa.  The  ancients  held  the 
black  heart-wood  in  high  esteem.  Herodotus  (iii. 
97)  mentions  ebony  (tydXayyas  ej8e»/oi/)  as  one  of 
the  precious  substances  presented  by  the  people  ot 
Ethiopia  to  the  king  of  Persia.  Dioscorides  (i.  130) 
speaks  of  two  kinds  of  ebony,  an  Indian  and  an 
Ethiopian  ;  he  gives  the  preference  to  the  latter  kind. 
It  is  not  known  what  tree  yielded  the  Ethiopian 
ebony.  Royle  says  "  no  Abyssinian  ebony  is  at 
present  imported.  This,  however,  is  more  likely  to 
be  owing  to  the  different  routes  which  commerce 
has  taken,  but  which  is  again  returning  to  its 
ancient  channels,  than  to  the  want  of  ebony  in 
ancient  Ethiopia."  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  tree  which  yielded  Ethiopian  ebony  is  distinct 
from  the  Diospyros  ebenum,  and  pi'obably  belongs 
to  another  genus  altogether.  Virgil  (Georg.  ii.  116) 
says  that  <:  India  alone  produces  the  black  ebony ;" 
and  Theophrastus  (Hist.  Plant,  iv.  4,  §6)  asserts 
that  "  ebony  is  peculiar  to  India."  The  Greek 
word  e/Jej/os,  the  Latin  ebenus,  our  "  ebony  "  have 
all  doubtless  their  origin  in  the  Hebrew  hobnim, 
a  term  which  denotes  "  wood  as  liard  as  stone " 
(comp.  the  German  Steinholz,  "  fossil-wood ;"  see 
Gesenius,  Thes.  s.  v.,  and  Fiirst,  Heb.  Concord.}. 
It  is  probable  that  the  plural  form  of  this  noun  is 
used  "to  express  the  billets  into  which  the  ebony 
was  cut  previous  to  exportation,  like  our  "  log 
wood."  There  is  every  reason  for  believing  that 
the  ebony  afforded  by  the  Diospyros  ebenum  was 
imported  from  India  or  Ceylon  by  Phoenician 
traders ;  though  it  is  equally  probable  that  the 
Tyrian  merchants  were  supplied  with  ebony  from 
trees  which  grew  in  Ethiopia.  See  full  discussioas 


For  the  Heb.  word  used  by  the  LXX.  soo 
Schnl.  ad  Ez.  xxvii.  Ifi. 


FALLOW-DEER 

on  the  ebony  of  'he  Ancients  in  Bo  chart,  fficrt  z. 
ii.  714,  and  Salmssius,  Plin.  Exercitat.  p.  725  c.  ; 
comp.  also  Royle,  in  Kitto's  CycL,  art.  "  Hobnim." 
According  to  Sir  E.  Tennent  (Ceylon,  i.  116)  the 
following  trees  yield  ebony  :  —  Diospyros  ebenum, 
D.  reticulata,  D.  ebenaster,  and  D.  hirsuta.  The 
wood  of  the  first-named  tree,  which  is  abundant 
throughout  all  the  flat  country  to  the  west  of 
Trincomalee,  "  excels  all  others  in  the  evenness  and 
intensity  of  its  colour.  The  centre  of  the  trunk  is 
the  only  portion  which  furnishes  the  extremely 
black  part  which  is  the  ebony  of  commerce;  but 
the  trees  are  of  such  magnitude  that  reduced  logs 
of  2  feet  in  diameter,  and  varying  from  10  to  15 
feet  in  length,  can  readily  be  procured  from  the 
forests  at  Trincomalee  "  (Ceylon,  1.  c.). 

FALLOW-DEEK  (TlDny  yachmur  :  Alex. 
|8ou)8a\os  :  bubalus).  The  Heb.  word,  which  is  men 
tioned  only  in  Deut.  xiv.  5,  as  the  name  of  one  of 
the  animals  allowed  by  the  Levitical  law  for  food, 
and  in  1  K.  iv.  23,  as  forming  part  of  the  provisions 
foY  Solomon's  table,  appears  to  point  to  the  Antilope 
^ubalis,  Pallas;  the  PovfiaAos  of  the  Greeks  (see 
Herod,  iv.  192;  Aristotle,  Hist.  Anim.  iii.  6,  ed. 
Schneider,  and  De  Part.  Anim.  iii.  2,  1  1,  ed.  Bekker  ; 
Oppian,  Cyn.  ii.  300),  is  properly,  we  believe,  iden 
tified  with  the  afore-  named  antelope.  From  the 
different  descriptions  of  the  yachmur,  as  given  by 
Arabian  writers,  and  cited  by  Bochart  (Hieroz.  ii. 
284,  sqq.),  it  would  seem  that  this  is  the  animal 
denoted  ;  though  Damir's  remarks  in  some  respects 
are  fabulous,  and  he  represents  the  yachmur  as 
having  deciduous  horns,  which  will  not  apply  to 
any  antelope.  Still  Cazuinus,  according  to  Rosen- 
muller,  identifies  the  yachmur*  with  the  bekker-el- 
wash  ("wild  cow"),  which  is  the  modern  name  in 
N.  Africa  for  the  Antilope  bubalis.  Kitto  (Pict.  Bibl. 
Deut.  I.  c.)  says,  "  The  yachmur  of  the  Hebrews 
is  without  doubt  erroneously  identified  with  the 
fallow-deer,  which  does  not  exist  in  Asia,"  and 
refers  the  name  to  the  Oryx  leucoryx,  citing  Niebuhr 
as  authority  for  stating  that  this  animal  is  known 
among  the  Eastern  Arabs  by  tha  name  of  yazmur. 
The  fallow-deer  (Cewus  damd)  is  undoubtedly  a 
native  of  Asia  ;  indeed  Persia  seems  to  be  its  proper 
country.  Hasselquist  (Trav.  p.  211)  noticed  this 
deer  in  Mount  Tabor.  Oedmann  (  Verm.  Samml.  i. 
178)  believes  that  the  yachmur  is  best  denoted  by 
the  Cervus  dama.  The  authority  of  the  LXX., 
however,  in  a  question  of  this  kind,  should  decide 
the  matter  :  accordingly  we  have  little  doubt  but 
that  the  yachmur  of  the  Heb.  Scriptures  denotes 
the  bekker-el-wash,  or  "  wild  ox,"  of  Barbary  and 
N.  Africa.  (See  Shaw's  Travels,  p.  242,  and  Suppl. 
p.  75,  folio  ;  Buffbn,  Hist.  Natur.  xii.  p.  294.)  The 
Greek  j8ouj8o\os  evidently  points  to  some  animal 
having  the  general  appearance  of  an  ox.  Pliny 
(N.  H.  viii.  15)  tells  us  that  the  common  people  in 
their  ignorance  sometimes  gave  the  name  of  bubalus 
to  the  Bison  (Auroch)  and  the  Urus.  He  adds,  the 
animal  properly  so  called  is  produced  in  Africa,  anc 
bears  a  resemblance  to  the  calf  and  the  stag.  That 
this  antelope  partakes  in  external  form  of  the  cha- 
•acters  belonging  both  to  the  Cervine  and  Bovin 

*  F^om  the  root  ")DPI,  "  to  be  red." 


0          ^^  „  Ruber  ;  animal  a£'  genus  pertinens  cui  es 

u,pud  Arabes  nomen  -i^JJ    J£j  (Freytag  Lex.Ar.) 
•  APPENDIX.! 


FIG-TREE  Kil> 

uminants  wil.  be  evident  to  any  one  who  glances 
it  the  woodcut. 


The  bekker-el-wash  appears  to  be  depicted  in  the 
Egyptian  monuments,  where  it  is  represented  as 
being  hunted  for  the  sake  of  its  flesh,  which  Shaw 
tells  us  (Suppl.  p.  75)  is  very  sweet  and  nourishing, 
much  preferable  to  that  of  the  red  deer.  (See  Wil 
kinson's  Anc.  Egypt,  i.  p.  223,  figs.  3,  4,  and  p.  225, 
fig.  19.)  This  animal,  which  is  about  the  size  of  a 
stag,  is  common  in  N.  Africa,  and  lives  in  herds. 
We  were  at  one  time  inclined  to  refer  the  Heb. 
yachmur  to  the  Oryx  leucoryx  (see  art.  Ox)  ;  on 
further  investigation  however  we  have  decided  for 
the  Alcelaphus.  The  T'eo  or  To  may  perhaps 
therefore  denote  the  former  antelope. 

FIG-TEEE  [addition  to  the  article  on,  p.  619]. 
Few  passages  in  the  Gospels  have  given  occasion  to 
so  much  perplexity  as  that  of  St.  Mark  xi.  13. 
where  the  Evangelist  relates  the  circumstance  of 
our  Lord's  cursing  the  fig-tree  near  Bethany : 

And  seeing  a  fig-tree  afar  off  having  leaves,  he 
came,  if  haply  he  might  find  any  thing  thereon : 
and  when  he  came  to  it,  he  found  nothing  but 
leaves ;  for  the  time  of  figs  was  not  yet."  The  ap 
parent  unreasonableness  of  seeking  fruit  at  a  time 
when  none  could  naturally  be  expected,  and  the  con 
sequent  injustice  of  the  sentence  pronounced  upon 
the  tree,  is  obvious  to  every  reader. 

The  fig-tree  (Ficus  carica)  in  Palestine  produces 
fruit  at  two,  or  even  three  different  periods  of  the 
year :  first,  there  is  the  biccurdh,  or  "  early  ripe  fig," 
frequently  mentioned  in  the  0.  T.  (see  Mic.  vii.  1  ; 
Is.  xxviii.  4  ;  Hos.  ix.  10),  which  ripens  on  an  average 
towards  the  end  of  June,  though  in  favourable  places 
of  soil  or  temperature  the  figs  may  ripen  a  little 
earlier,  while  under  less  favourable  circumstances 
they  may  not  be  matured  till  the  middle  of  July. 
The  biccurdh  drops  off  the  tree  as  soon  as  ripe ;  hence 
the  allusion  in  Nah.  iii.  12,  when  shaken  they  "  even 
fall  into  the  mouth  of  the  eater."  Shaw  (Trav.  i. 
264,  8vo  ed.)  aptly  compares  the  Spanish  name 
breba  for  this  early  fruit,  «'  quasi  breve,"  as  conti 
nuing  only  for  a  short  time.  About  the  time  of 
the  ripening  of  the  biccurim,  the  karmouse  or 
summer  fig  begins  to  be  formed ;  these  rarely  ripen 
before  August,  when  another  crop,  called  "  the 

E 


FIG-TREE 


winter  fig,"  appears.  Shaw  describes  this  kind  as 
being  of  a  much  longer  shape  and  darker  complexion 
than  the  karmouse,  hanging  and  ripening  on  the 
tree  even  after  the  leaves  are  shed,  and.  provided 
the  winter  proves  mild  and  temperate,  as  gathered  as 
a  delicious  morsel  in  the  spring.  (Comp.  also  Pliny, 
N.  H.  xvi.  26,  27.) 

The  attempts  to  explain  the  above-quoted  passage 
in  St.  Mark  are  numerous,,  and  fcr  the  most  part 
very  unsatisfactory  ;  passing  over,  therefore,  the  in 
genious  though  objectionable  reading  proposed  by 
Dan.  Hein&ius  (Exercit.  Sac.  Ed.  1639,  p.  1 16)  of  ov 
•y&p  l]v,  Kaipbs  ffvitcav — "  where  he  was,  it  was  the 
season  for  tigs  " —  and  merely  mentioning  another 
proposal  to  read  that  clause  of  the  Evangelist's  re 
mark  as  a  question,  "  for  was  it  not  the  season  of 
figs  ? "  and  the  no  less  unsatisfactory  rendering  of 
Hammond  (Annot.  ad  St.  Mark),  "  it  was  not  a 
good  season  for  figs,"  we  come  to  the  interpretations 
which,  though  not  perhaps  of  recent  origin,  we  find 
in  modern  works. 

The  explanation  which  has  found  favour  with 
most  writers  is  that  which  understands  the  words 
Kcupbs  crvKwv  to  mean  "  the  fig-harvest ;"  the  ydp 
m  this  case  is  referred  not  to  the  clause  immediately 
preceding,  "  he  found  nothing  but  leaves,"  but  to  the 
more  remote  one,  "  he  came  if  haply  he  might  find 
any  thing  thereon ;"  for  a  similar  trajection  it  is 
usual  to  refer  to  Mark  xvi.  3, 4 ;  the  sense  of  the  whole 
passage  would  then  be  as  follows :  "  And  seeing  a 
rig-tree  afar  off  having  leaves,  he  came  if  perchance 
he  might  find  any  fruit  on  it  (and  he  ought  to  have 
found  some),  for  the  time  of  gathering  it  had  not 
yet  arrived,  but  when  he  came  he  found  nothing 
but  leaves."  (See  the  notes  in  the  Greek  Testa 
ments  of  Burton,  Trollope,  Bloomfield,  Webster  and 
Wilkinson ;  Macknight,  Harm,  of  the  Gospels,  ii.  p. 
591,  note,  1809 ;  Elsley's  Annot.  ad  1.  c.,  &c.)  A 
forcible  objection  to  this  explanation  will  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  at  the  time  implied,  viz.,  the  end«of 
March  or  the  beginning  of  April,  no  figs  at  all  eat 
able  would  be  found  on  the  trees;  the  biccurim 
seldom  ripen  in  Palestine  before  the  end  of  June, 
and  at  the  time  of  the  Passover  the  fruit,  to  use 
Shaw's  expression,  would  be  "  hard  and  no  bigger 
than  common  plums,"  corresponding  in  this  state 
to  thepaggim  (D*|S)  of  Cant.  ii.  13,  wholly  unfit 
for  food  in  an  unprepared  state,  and  it  is  but  rea 
sonable  to  infer  that  our  Lord  expected  to  find 
something  more  palatable  than  these  small  sour 
things  upon  a  tree  which  by  its  show  of  foliage 
bespoke,  though  falsely,  a  corresponding  show  of 
good  fruit,  for  it  is  important  to  remember  that 
the  fruit  comes  before  the  leaves.  Again,  if  Kaipbs 
denotes  the  "fig-harvest,"  we  must  suppose,  that 
although  the  fruit  might  not  have  been  ripe,  the 
season  was  not  very  far  distant,  and  that  the  figs  in 
consequence  must  have  been  considerably  more  ma 
tured  than  these  hard  paggim ;  but  is.  it  probable 
that  St.  Mark  should  have  thought  it  necessary  to 
state  that  it  was  net  yet  the  season  for  gathering 
figs  in  March,  when  they  could  not  have  been  fit  to 
gather  before  June  at  the  earliest  ? 

There  is  another  way  of  seeking  to  get  over  the 
difficulty  by  supposing  that  the  tree  in  question  was 
not  of  the  ordinary  kind.  Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  385) 
says  there  is  a  peculiar  fig-tree  known  to  the  Jews 
by  the  name  of  Benoth-shuach  (flit?  0131),  which 
produces  grossuli,  "  small  unripe  figs "  (paggim) 
every  year,  but  cnly  good  fruit  every  third  year  ; 
and  that  our  Lord  came  to  this  tree  at  a  time 


FIG-TKEE 

when  the  ordinary  annual  grossuli  onl?  were  pro 
duced !  We  are  ignorant  as  to  what  tree  the  bsnoth- 
shuach  may  denote,  but  it  is  obvious  that  the 
apparent  unreasonableness  remains  as  it  was. 

As  to  the  tree  which  Whitby  {Comment,  in  Mark, 
1.  c.)  identifies  with  the  one  in  question,  that  it  was 
that  kind  which  Theophrastus  {Hist.  Plant,  iv.  2 
§4)  calls  as'ityvXXov,  "  evergreen,"  it  is  enough  to 
observe  that  this  is  no  fig  at  all,  but  the  Carob  or 
Locust  tree  (Ceratonia  siliqua). 

It  appears  to  us,  after  a  long  and  diligent  study  of 
the  whole  question,  that  the  difficulty  is  best  met  by 
looking  it  full  in  the  face,  and  by  admitting  that  the 
words  of  the  Evangelist  are  to  be  taken  in  the  natural 
order  in  which  they  stand,  neither  having  recourse 
to  trajection,  nor  to  unavailable  attempts  to  prove 
that  eatable  figs  could  have  been  found  on  the  trees 
in  March.  It  is  true  that  occasionally  the  winter 
figs  remain  on  the  tree  in  mild  seasons,  and  may 
be  gathered  the  following  spring,  but  this  is  not  to 
be  considered  a  usual  circumstance ;  and  even  these 
figs,  which  ripen  late  in  the  year,  do  not,  in  the 
natural  order  of  things,  continue  on  the  tree  at  a 
time  when  it  is  shooting  forth  its  leaves. 

But,  after  all,  where  is  the  unreasonableness  of 
the  whole  transaction  ?  It  was  stated  above  that 
the  fruit  of  the  fig-tree  appears  before  the  leaves  ; 
consequently  if  the  tree  produced  leaves  it  should 
also  have  had  some  figs  as  well.  As  to  what  natural 
causes  had  operated  to  effect  so  unusual  a  thing  foi 
a  fig-tree  to  have  leaves  in  March,  it  is  unim 
portant  to  inquire ;  but  the  stepping  out  of  the  way 
with  the  possible  chance  (et  &pa,  si  forte,  "  under 
the  circumstances;"  see  Winer,  Gram,  of  N.  T. 
Diction,  p.  465,  Masson's  Transl.)  of  finding  eatable 
fruit  on  a  fig-tree  in  leaf  at  the  end  of  March,  would 
probably  be  repeated  by  any  observant  modern  tra 
veller  in  Palestine.  The  whole  question  turns  on . 
the  pretensions  of  the  tree ;  had  it  not  proclaimed 
by  its  foliage  its  superiority  over  other  fig-trees,  and 
thus  proudly  exhibited  its  precociousness ;  had  our 
Lord  at  that  season  of  the  year  visited  any  of  the 
other  fig-trees  upon  which  no  leaves  had  as  yet  ap 
peared  with  the  prospect  of  finding  fruit, — then  the 
case  would  be  altered,  and  the  unreasonableness  and 
injustice  real.  The  words  of  St.  Mark,  therefore,  are 
to  be  understood  in  the  sense  which  the  order  of  the 
words  naturally  suggests.  The  Evangelist  gives  the 
reason  whv  no  fruit  was  found  on  the  tree,  viz.,  "  be 
cause  it  was  not  the  time  for  fruit ;"  we  are  left  to 
infer  the  reason  why  it  ought  to  have  had  fruit  if  it 
were  true  to  its  pretensions  ;  and  it  must  be  remem 
bered'  that  this  miracle  had  a  typical  design,  to  show 
how  God  would  deal  with  the  Jews,  who,  professing 
like  this  precocious  fig-tree  "  to  be  first,"  should  be 
"  last "  in  His  favour,  seeing  that  no  fruit  was  pro 
duced  in  their  lives,  but  only,  as  Wordsworth  well 
expresses  it,  "  the  rustling  leaves  of  a  religious  pro 
fession,  the  barren  traditions  of  the  Pharisees,  the 
ostentatious  display  of  the  law,  and  vain  exuberance 
of  words  without  the  good  fruit  of  works." 

Since  the  above  was  written  we  have  referred  to 
Trench's  Notes  on  the  Miracles  (p.  438),  and  find 
that  this  writer's  remarks  are  strongly  corroboratwo 
of  the  views  expressed  in  this  article.  The  following 
observation  is  so  pertinent  that  we  cannot  do  better 
than  quote  it : — "  All  the  explanations  which  go  tc 
prove  that,  according  to  the  natural  order  of  things 
in  a  climate  like  that  of  Palestine,  there  might  have 
been  even  at  this  early  time  of  the  year  figs  OH 
that  tree,  either  winter  figs  which  had  survived  til! 
spring  or  the  early  figs  of  spring  themselves:  &l 


FIR 

these,  ingenious  as  they  often  are,  yet  seem  to  me 
beside  the  matter.  For,  without  entering  further 
into  the  question  whether  they  prove  their  point  or 
not,  they  shatter  upon  that  ov  ykp  l\v  Kaipbs  ffvKwv 
of  St.  Mark  ;  from  which  it  is  plain  that  no  such 
calculation  of  probabilities  brought  the  Lord  thither, 
but  those  abnormal  leaves  which  he  had  a  right  to 
count  would  have  been  accompanied  with  abnormal 
fruit."  See  also  Trench's  admirable  reference  to 
Kz.  xvii.  24. 


FIB  (B*h3,  berdsh;  DTfra,  bertthim:  &p- 
KsvOos,  we'Spos,  irirvs,  Kvirdpiffffos,  Treu/CTj  :  abies, 
cuprcssus).  The  Hebrew  term  in  all  probability 
denotes  either  the  Pinus  halepensis  or  the  Juni- 
perus  excelsa,  both  of  which  trees  grow  in  Lebanon, 
and  would  supply  excellent  timber  for  the  purposes 
to  which  we  learn  in  Scripture  the  berdsh  was 
applied  ;  as,  for  instance,  for  boards  or  planks  for 
the  Temple  (1  K.  vi.  15)  ;  for  its  two  doors  (ver. 
34)  ;  for  the  ceiling  of  the  greater  house  (2  Chr. 
iii.  5)  ;  for  ship-boards  (Ez.  xxvii.  5)  ;  for  musical 
iastruments  (2  Sam.  vi.  5).  The  red  heart-  wood 
of  the  tall  fragrant  juniper  of  Lebanon  was  no  doubt 
extensively  used  in  the  building  of  the  Temple  ;  and 
the  identification  of  berosh  or  beroth  with  this  tree 
receives  additional  confirmation  from  the  LXX. 
words  UpKevOos  and  KfSpos,  "  a  juniper."  The 
deodar,  the  larch,  and  Scotch  fir,  which  have  been 
by  some  writers  identified  with  the  berosh,  do  not 
exist  in  Syria  or  Palestine.  [CEDAR.] 

FITCHES  (f.  e.  VETCHES)  ;  the  representative 
in  the  A.  V.  of  the  two  Heb.  words  cussemeth  and 
ketzach.  As  to  the  former  see  RYE. 


Ketzach  (!"lVjp  :  peXavtiiov  :  gith}  denotes  with 
out  doubt  the  Nigeria  sativa,  an  herbaceous  annual 
plant  belonging  to  the  natural  order  Ranunculaceae, 
and  sub-order  Helleboreae,  which  grows  in  the  S. 
of  Europe  and  in  the  N.  of  Africa.  It  was  formerly 


Kigetta 


cultivated  in  Palestine  for  the  sake  of  its  seeds, 
which  are  to  this  day  used  in  Eastern  countries  as 
a  medicine  and  a  condiment.  This  plant  is  men 
tioned  only  in  Is.  xxviii.  25,  27,  where  especial  re- 
tV«jnce  is  made  to  the  mode  of  threshing  it ;  not 
With  "a  threshing  instrument"  (3"rtD,  ^-ITl),  but 
"with  a  staff"  (i"!t3£),  because  the  heavy-armed 
cylinders  of  the  former  implement  would  have 
crushed  the  aromatic  seeds  of  the  Nigella.  The 
ue\dvflioi>  of  Dioscorides  (iii.  83,  ed.  Sprengel)  is 


FLAG  li 

unquestionably  the  Nigella ;  both  these  terms  having 
reference  to  its  black  seeds,  which,  according  to  the 
above-named  author  and  Pliny  (N.  H.  xix.  8),  were 
sometimes  mixed  with  bread'  The  word  gith  is  of 
uncertain  origin.  It  is  used  by  Pliny  (N.  If.  xx.  1 7 ), 
who  says,  "  Gith  ex  Graecis  alii  melanthion,  al.i 
fnelaspermon  vocant."  Plautus  also  (Rud.  v.  2,  39) 
nas  the  same  word  git:  "Os  calet  tibi !  num  git 
frigidefactas."  Comp.  Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  71). 

Besides  the  N.  sativa,  there  is  another  species, 
the  N.  arvensis,  which  may  be  included  under  the 
term  ketzach  ;  but  the  seeds  of  this  last-named 
plant  are  less  aromatic  than  the  other. 

FLAG ;  the  representative  in  the  A.  V.  of  the 
two  Heb.  words  dchu  and  suph. 

1.  Achu  (-iritt:  &XL>  &Xet»  jSouro/xov:  locus 
palustris,  carectum  :  A.  V.  "  meadow,"  "  flag  "), 
a  word  according  to  Jerome  (Comment,  in  Is.  xix. 
7)  of  Egyptian  origin,  and  denoting  "  any  green 
and  coarse  herbage,  such  as  rushes  and  reeds,  which 
grows  in  marshy  places."  "  Quum  ab  eruditis 
quaererem,"  says  Jerome,  "  quod  hie  sermo  signi- 
ficaret,  audivi  ab  Aegyptiis  hoc  nomine  lingua  eorum 
omne  quod  in  palu.de  virens  nascitur,  appellari." 
In  Job  viii.  11  it  is  asked,  "Can  the  dchu  grow 
without  water  ?  "  It  seems  probable  that  some 
specific  plant  is  here  denoted,  as  Celsius  has  en 
deavoured  to  prove  (Hierob.  i.  342),  for  the  dcht 
is  mentioned  with  the  gome,  "  the  papyrus."  The 
word  occurs  once  again  in  Gen.  xli.  2,  18,  where  it 
is  said  that  the  seven  well-favoured  kine  came  up 
out  of  the  river  and  fed  in  an  dchu.  Royle  (Kitto's 
Cyc.  art.  "  Achu  ")  and  Kitto  (Pict.  Bib.  on  Gen. 
I.  c.)  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  dchu  denotes  the 
Cyperus  esculentus.  The  last-named  writer  iden 
tih'es  this  sedge  with  the  paXivaQaXXii  of  Theo- 
phrastus  (Hist.  Plant,  iv.  8,  §1 2),  which  plant  was 
much  eaten  by  sheep  and  cattle.  There  is,  how 
ever,  much  doubt  as  to  what  the  malinathalla 
denotes,  as  Schneider  has  shown.  The  LXX.  render 
'droth  by  &xi  in  Is.  xix.  7.  [See  REED.]  KaliscL 
(Comment,  on  Gen.  I.  c.)  says  that  the  dchu  "  is 
unquestionably  either  the  Cyperus  esculentus  or  the 
Butomus  umbellatus."  We  are  quite  unable  to 
satisfy  ourselves  so  easily  on  this  point.  There  are 
many  marsh-plants  besides  the  Cyperus  esculentus 
and  the  B.  umbellatus ,  at  the  same  time,  if  the 
Gi-eek  $ovrop.os  denotes  the  latter  plant,  about 
which,  however,  there  is  some  doubt,  it  is  possible 
that  the  dchu  of  Job  viii.  11,  may  be  represented  by 
the  Butomus  umbellqtus,  or  "flowering  rush,"  which 
grows  in  Palestine  and  the  East.  The  dchu  of  Gen. 
(1.  c.)  may  be  used  in  a  general  sense  to  denote  such 
marshy  vegetation  as  is  seen  on  some  parts  of  ths  Nile. 
As  to  discussions  on  the  origin  of  -IRK,  see  Celsius, 
Hierob.  1.  c. ;  Jablonski,  Opusc.  i.  45,  ii.  1 59,  ed. 
Te- Water ;  Schultens,  Comment,  ad  Job,  1.  c.,  and 
Gesenius,  Tlies.  s.  v.,  &c. 

2.  Suph  (P]-1D  :  f\os:  carectum,  pclagus]  occuw 
frequently  in  the  0.  T.  in  connexion  with  yam, 
"  sea,"  to  denote  the  "  Red  Sea"  (fJ-ID'D^).  [SEA.] 
The  term  here  appears  to  be  used  in  a  very  wide 
sense  to  denote  "  weeds  of  any  kind."  The  yam- 
suph  therefore  is  the  "  sea  of  weeds,"  and  perhaps, 
as  Stanley  (S.  fy  P.  p.  6,  note)  observes,  suph  "  mav 
be  applied  to  any  aqueous  vegetation,"  which  would 
include  the  arborescent  coral  growths  for  which  tint; 
sea  is  celebrated,  as  well  as  the  different  alga'; 
which  grow  at  the  bottom:  see  Pliny  (N.  H.  xiit. 
25)  and  Shaw  (Trcw.  p.  387,  fol.  1738),  whe 
speaks  of  a  "variety  of  algae  and  fuci  that  grow 


FLY 


FLY 


xvithin   its  channel,  and  at  low  water  are  left  mjii.  p.  183),  of  an  injurious  fly  under  tie  name  of 

great  quantities  upon  the  sea-shore"  (see  also  p. 

384\     The  word  suph   in   Jon.   ii.  5,  translated 

"  weeds  "  by  the  A.  V.,  has,  there  can  be  no  doubt, 

reference  to  "  sea-weed,"  and  more  especially  to  the 

/ong  rit  bon-like  fronds  of  the  Laminariae,  or  the 

entangW  masses  of  Fuci.    In  Ex.  ii.  3,  5,  however, 

where  we  read  that  Moses  was  laid  "  in  the  suph 

(«  flags,'  A.  V.)  by  the  river's  brink,"  it  is  probable 


that  "  reeds "  or  "  rushes,"  &c. 


denoted,  as 


Rab.  Salomon  explains  it,  "  a  place  thick  with  reeds." 
(See  Celsius,  Hierob.  ii.  66.)  The  yam-suph  in  the 
Coptic  version  (as  in  Ex.  x.  19,  xiii.  18,  Ps.  cvi.  7, 
9,  22)  is  rendered  "  the  Sari-sea."  The  word  Sari 
is  the  old  Egyptian  for  a  "  reed "  or  a  "  rush  "  of 
some  kind.  Jablonski  (Opusc.  i.  266)  gives  Juncus 
as  its  rendering,  aiiu  compares  a  passage  in  Theo- 
phrastus  (ffist.  P'tvnt.  iv.  8,  §2,  5)  which  thus 
describes  the  sati. — "  The  sari  grows  in  water  about 
marshes  and  those  watery  places  which  the  river 
after  its  return  to  its  bed  leaves  behind  it ;  it  has  a 
hard  and  closely- twisted  root,  from  which  spring  the 
saria  (stalks)  so  called."  Pliny  (N.H.  xiii.  23)  thus 
speaks  of  this  plant: — "The  son',  which  grows 
about  the  Nile,  is  a  shrubby  kind  of  plant  (?),  com 
monly  being  about  two  cubits  high,  and  as  thick  as 
a  man's  thumb ;  it  has  the  panicle  (coma)  of  the 
papyrus,  and  is  similarly  eaten ;  the  root,  on  ac 
count  of  its  hardness,  is  used  in  blacksmiths'  shops 
instead  of  charcoal."  Sprengel  (Rei.  Herb.  i.  78) 
identifies  the  sari  of  Theophrastus  with  the  Cyperus 
fastigiatus,  Linn. ;  but  the  description  is  too  vague 
to  serve  as  a  sufficient  basis  for  identification.  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  suph  is  sometimes  iised  in  a 
general  sense  like  our  English  "  weeds."  It  cannot 
be  restricted  to  denote  alga,  as  Celsius  has  en 
deavoured  to  show,  because  alga  is  not  found  in 
the  Nile.  Lady  Calcott  (Script.  Herb.  p.  158) 
thinks  the  Zostera  marina  ("  grass- wrack ")  may 
be  intended  ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  favour  of  such 
an  opinion.  The  suph  of  Is.  xix.  6,  where  ft  is 
mentioned  with  the  kaneh,  appeal's  to  be  used  in  a 
more  restricted  sense  to  denote  some  species  of 
"reed"  or  "tall  grass."  There  are  various  kinds 
of  Cyperaceae  and  tall  Graminaceae,  such  as 
Arundo  and  Saccharum,  in  Egypt.  [REED.] 
FLOWEES.  [PALESTINE,  BOTANY  OF.] 
FLY,  FLIES.  The  two  following  Hebrew 
terms  denote  flies  of  some  kind. 

1.  Zebub  (1-1  It:  /zu?o:  musca)  occurs  only  in 
Ecc.  x.  1,  "  Dead  z&b&bim  cause  the  ointment  of  the 
apothecary  to  send  forth  a  stinking  savour,"  and 
in  Is.  vii.  18,  where  it  is  said,  "  the  Lord  shall  hiss 
for  the  zgbub  that  is  in  the  uttermost  part  of  the 
rivers  of  Egypt."  The  Heb.  name  it  is  probable  is 
a  generic  one  for  any  insect,  but  the  etymology  is  a 
matter  of  doubt  (see  Gesenius,  Thes.  p.  401 ;  Heb. 
and  Chald.  Lex.  s.  v. ;  and  Fiirst,  Heb.  Concord. 
In  the  first  quoted  passage  allusion  is  made 


Dthebab,  a  term  almost  identical  with  z&bub.  It 
would  not  do  to  press  too  much  upon  this  point 
when  it  is  considered  that  Egypt  abounds  with 
noxious  insects  ;  but  it  must  be  allowed  that  there 
is  some  reason  for  this  identification  ;  and  though, 
as  was  stated  above,  zebub  is  probably  a  generic 
name  for  any  flies,  in  tbJc  passage  of  Isaiah  it  may  be 
used  to  denote  some  very  troublesome  and  injurious 


fly,  KO.T' 


The  Dthebab  is  a  long  grey 


fly,  which  comes  out  about  the  rise  of  the  Nile,  and 
is  like  the  Cleg  of  the  north  of  England  ;  it  abounds 
in  calm  hot  weather,  and  is  often  met  with  in  June 
and  July,  both  in  the  desert  and  on  the  Nile." 
This  insect  is  very  injurious  to  camels,  and  causes 
their  death,  if  the  disease  which  it  generates  is  ne 
glected  ;  it  attacks  both  man  and  beast. 

2.  'Arab  (TIJJ:    Kvv6fj.via:    omne  genus  mus- 

carum,  muscae  dmersi  generis,  musca  gravissima  : 
11  swarms  of  flies"  "  divers  sorts  of  flies,"  A.  V.), 
the  name  of  the  insect,  or  insects,  which  God  sent  to 
punish  Pharaoh;  see  Ex.  viii.  21-31;  Ps.  Ixxviii. 
45,  cv.  31.  The  question  as  to  what  particular 
insect  is  denoted  by  'drob,  or  whether  any  one  species 
is  to  be  understood  by  it,  has  long  been  a  matter  of 
dispute.  The  Scriptural  details  are  as  follows  :  — 
the  'drob  filled  the  houses  of  the  Egyptians,  they 
covered  the  ground,  they  lighted  on  the  people,  the 
land  was  laid  waste  on  their  account.  From  the 
expression  in  ver.  31,  "there  remained  not  one," 
some  writers  have  concluded  that  the  Heb.  word 
points  to  some  definite  species  ;  we  do  not  think, 
however,  that  much  stress  ought  to  be  laid  upon 
this  argument;  if  the  'drob  be  taken  to  denote 
"  swarms,"  as  the  A.  V.  renders  it,  the  "  not  one 
remaining,"  may  surely  have  for  its  antecedent  an 
individual  fly  understood  in  the  collective  "  swarms." 
The  LXX.  explain  'drob  by  Kvj/6/j.vLa,  i.  e.  *'  dog- 
fly  ;"  it  is  not  very  clear  what  insect  is  meant  by 
this  Greek  term*,  which  is  frequent  in  Homer,  who 
often  uses  it  as  an  abusive  epithet.  It  is  not  im 
probable  that  one  of  the  Hippoboscidae  ,  perhaps  H. 
Equina,  Linn.,  is  the  KWO/LLVIO.  of  Aelian  (N.  A.  iv. 
51),  though  Homer  may  have  used  the  compound 
term  to  denote  extreme  impudence,  implied  by  the 
shamelessness  of  the  dog  and  the  teazing  imperti 
nence  of  the  common  fly  (Musca).  As  the  'drob 
are  said  to  have  filled  the  houses  of  the  Egyp 
tians  it  seems  not  improbable  that  common  ti  PS 
are  more  especially  intended,  and  that 


the  compound  tcvvSpvia  denotes  the  grievous  nature 
of  the  plague,  though  we  see  no  reason  to  restrict 
the  'drob  to  any  one  family.  "  Of  insects."  says 
Sonnini  (Trao.  iii.  p.  199),  "the  most  trouble 
some  in  Egypt  are  flies ;  both  man  and  beast  are 
cruelly  tormented  with  them.  -No  idea  can  be 
formed  of  their  obstinate  rapacity.  It  is  in  vain 
to  drive  them  away,  they  return  again  in  the  self 
same  moment,  and  their  perseverance  wearies  out 


to  flies,  chiefly  of  the  family  Muscidae,  getting  into  I  the  most  patient  spirit."     The  'drob  may  include 

vessels  of  ointment  or  other  substances ;  even  in 

this  country  we  know  what  an  intolerable  nuisance 

the  house-flies  are  in  a  hot  summer  when  they 

abound,  crawling  everywhere  and  into  everything ; 

but  in  the  East  the  nuisance  is  tenfold  greater.    The 

zebub  from  the  rivers  of  Egypt  has  by  some  writers, 

as  by  Oedmann  (  Vermisch.  Samm.  vi.  79),  been 

identified  with  the  zimb  of  which    Bruce  (Trav. 

v.  190)  gives  a  description,  and  which  is  evidently 

some  species  of  Tabanus.     Sir  G.  Wilkinson  has 

given  some  account  ( Transac.  of  the  Entomol.  Soc. 


various  species  of  Culicidae  (gnats),  such  as  the 
musquitoe,  if  it  is  necessary  to  interpret  the  "  de 
vouring"  nature  of  the  'arob  (in  Ps.  Ixxviii.  45) 
in  a  strictly  literal  sense;  though  the  expression 
used  by  the  Psalmist  is  not  inapplicable  to  the  flics, 
which  even  to  this  day  in  Egypt  may  be  regarded 
as  a  "  plague,"  and  which  are  the  great  instrument 
of  spreading  the  well-known  ophthalmia  vhich  is 
conveyed  from  one  individual  to  another  t.j  tijese 
dreadful  pests  ;  or  the  literal  meaning  of  the  'drSb 
"  devouring  "  the  Egyptians,  may  be  understood  in 


FOWL 

its  fullest  sense  o  the  Muscidae,  if  we  suppose  that 
the  people  may  1  J.ve  been  punished  by  the  larvae 
gaining  admittance  into  the  bodies,  as  into  the 
stomach,  frontal  sinus,  and  intestines,  and  so  occa 
sioning  in  a  hot  climate  many  instances  of  death ;» 
see  for  cases  ofMyasis  produced  by  Dipterous  larvae, 
Transactions  of  Entomol.  Soc.  ii.  pp.  266-269. 

The  identification  of  the  'drob  with  the  cockroach 
(Blatta  Orientals),  which  Oedmann  (  Verm.  Sam. 
pt.  ii.  c.  7)  suggests,  and  which  Kirby  (Bridgw. 
Treat,  ii.  p.  357)  adopts,  has  nothing  at  all  to 
recommend  it,  and  is  purely  gratuitous,  as  Mr. 
Hope  proved  in  1837  in  a  paper  on  this  subject  in 
the  Trans.  Ent.  Soc.  ii.  p.  179-183.  The  error 
of  calling  the  cockroach  a  beetle,  and  the  confusion 
which  has  besn  made  between  it  and  the  Sacred 
Beetle  of  Egypt  (Ateuchus  sacer),  has  recently  been 
repeated  by  M.  Kalisch  (Hist,  and  Grit.  Comment. 
Ex.  I.  c.).  The  cockroach,  as  Mr.  Hope  remarks, 
is  a  nocturnal  insect,  and  prowls  about  for  food  at 
night,  "  but  what  reason  have  we  to  believe  that 
the  fly  attacked  the  Egyptians  by  night  and  not  by 
day  ?  "  We  see  no  reason  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the 
reading  in  our  own  version. 

FOWL,  FOWLER.    [SPARROW.] 

FOX  {addition  to  the  article  on,  p.  633]. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Heb.  word 
shu'dl  (bW)  denotes  the  "jackal"  (Canis  aureus}, 

as  well  as  "  the  fox."  The  passage  in  ?s.  Ixiii.  10, 
"  they  shall  be  a  portion  for  shuattm"  evidently 
refers  to  "jackals,"  which  are  ever  ready  to  prey 
on  the  dead  bodies  of  the  slain :  indeed  we  are  in 
clined  to  think  that  the  "jackal"  is  the  animal 
more  particularly  signified  in  almost  all  the  passages 
in  the  0.  T.  where  the  Hebrew  term  occurs.  The 
partiality  for  grapes  is  nearly  as  strong  in  the  jackal 
as  in  the  fox  ;b  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
Hebrew  shu'dl,  the  Persian  shagal,  the  German 
schakal,  and  the  English  jackal,  are  all  connected 
with  each  other. 

The  shudlim  of  Judg.  xv.  4  are  evidently 
"  jackals,"  and  not  "  foxes,"  for  the  former  animal 
is  gregarious,  whereas  the  latter  is  solitary  in  its 
habits ;  and  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable 
that  Samson  should  ever  have  succeeded  in  catching 
so  many  as  300  foxes,  whereas  he  could  readily  have 
"  taken  in  snares,"  as  the  Hebrew  verb  (12?)  pro 
perly  means,  so  many  jackals,  which  go  together  for 
the  most  part  in  large  groups.  The  whole  passage, 
which  describes  the  manner  in  which  Samson  avenged 
himself  on  the  Philistines  by  tying  the  tails  of  two 
jackals  together,  with  a  firebrand  between  them, 
and  then  sending  them  into  the  standing  corn 
and  orchards  of  his  enemies,  has,  it  is  well  known, 
been  the  subject  of  much  dispute.  Dr.  Kennicott 
(Remarks  on  Select  Passages  in  the  0.  T.,  Oxford, 
1787,  p.  100)  proposed,  on  the  authority  of  seven 
Heb.  MSS.,  to  read  sheatim  (D^>yfc>), "  sheaves "  (?), 
instead  of  shudlim  (D*6jM£0,  leaving  out  the  letter 

1 :  the  meaning  then  being,  simply,  that  Samson 
'ook  300  sheaves  of  corn,  and  put  end  to  end  ("  tail 
to  tail"),  and  then  set  a  burning  torch  between 


FOX 


lit 


them.  (See  also  what  an  anonymous  Kraich  autiwn 
has  written  under  the  title  of  Eenards  de  Samson. 
and  his  arguments  refuted  in  a  treatise,  '  De  Vul- 
pibus  Simsonaeis,'  by  B.  H.  Gebhard,  in  Thes.  Nov. 
Theol.  Phil.  \.  553,  sqq.)  The  proposed  reading 
of  Kennicott  has  deservedly  found  little  favour  with 
commentators.  Not  to  mention  the  authority  of  the 
important  old  versions  which  are  opposed  "to  this 
view,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  shudlim  cannot  mean 
"  sheaves."  The  word,  which  occurs  only  three 
times,  denotes  in  Is.  xl.  12  "  the  hollow  of  the  hand," 
and  in  1  K.  xx.  10,  Ez.  xiii.  19,  "handfuls." 

The  difficulty  of  the  whole  passage  consists  in 
understanding  how  two  animals  tied  together  by  their 
tails  would  run  far  in  the  same  direction.  Col.  H. 
Smith  (in  Kitto's  Cyc.  art. '  Shual '}  observes,  "  they 
would  assuredly  pull  counter  to  each  other,  and  ulti 
mately  fight  most  fiercely."  Probably  they  would  ; 
but  it  is  only  fair  to  remember,  in  reply  to  the 
objections  which  critics  have  advanced  to  this  tran 
saction  of  the  Hebrew  judge,  that  it  has  yet  to  be 
demonstrated  that  two  jackals  united  by  their  tails 
would  run  counter,  and  thus  defeat  the  intended 
purpose  ;.  in  so  important  a  matter  as  the  verifica 
tion  of  a  Scripture  narrative  the  proper  course  is 
experimental  where  it  can  be  resorted  to.  Again,  we 
know  nothing  as  to  the  length  of  the  cord  which 
attached  the  animals,  a  consideration  which  is  ob 
viously  of  much  importance  in  the  question  at  issue, 
for,  as  jackals  are  gregarious,  the  couples  would 
naturally  run  together  if  we  allow  a  length  of  cord 
of  two  or  three  yards,  especially  when  we  reflect 
that  the  terrified  animals  would  endeavour  to  escape 
as  far  as  possible  out  of  the  reach  of  their  captor, 
and  make  the  best  of  their  way  out  of  his  sight.  Col. 
H.  Smith's  explanation,  which  has  been  adopted 
by  Kitto  (in  the  Pict.  Bibl.  in  Judg.  I.  c.),  viz., 
that  by  "  tail  to  tail "  is  to  be  understood  the 
end  Of  the  firebrand  attached  to  the  extremity  of 
the  tail,  is  contradicted  by  the  immediate  context, 
where  it  is  said  that  Samson  "  put  a  firebrand  in 
the  midst  between  two  tails."  The  translation  of 
the  A.  V.  is  unquestionably  the  correct  rendering 
of  the  Hebrew,  and  has  the  authority  of  the  LXX. 
and  Vulg.  in  its  favour.  But  if  the  above  re 
marks  are  deemed  inadequate  to  a  satisfactor}  solu 
tion  of  Samson's  exploit,  we  are  at  liberty  to  suppose 
that  he  had  men  to  help  him,  both  in  the  capture 
of  the  jackals  and  in  the  use  to  which  he  put 
them,  and  it  is  not  necessary  to  conclude  that  the 
animals  were  all  caught  at,  and  let  loose  from  the 
same  place :  some  might  have  been  taken  in  one 
portion  of  the  Philistines'  territory,  and  some  in 
another,  and  let  loose  in  different  parts  of  the  country. 
This  view  would  obviate  the  alleged  difficulty  alluded 
to  above  ;  for  there  would  be  no  necessity  for  the 
jackals  to  run  any  great  distance  in  order  to  insure 
the  greatest  amount  of  damage  to  the  crops :  1 50 
different  centres,  so  to  speak,  of  conflagration 
throughout  the  country  of  the  Philistines  must  have 
burnt  up  nearly  all  their  corn  ;  and,  from  the  whole 
context,  it  is  evident  that  the  injury  done  was  one 
of  almost  unlimited  extent. 

With  respect  to  the  jackals  and  foxes  of  Palestine, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  common  jackal  of  the 


•  There  is,  however,  no  occasion  to  appeal  to  the  above 
explanation,  for  the  common  flies  in  Egypt  well  merit  the 
epithet  of  "  devouring."  Mr.  Tristram  assures  us  that  he 
has  had  his  ankles  and  instep  covered  with  blood  from  the 
I  lite  of  the  common  fly,  as  he  lay  on  the  sand  in  the  desert 
A  ith  his  boots  off. 


t>  We  remember  some  years  ago  testing  this  fondness 
for  grapes  in  the  jackals,  foxes,  and  wolves,  in  th« 
Regent's  Park  Zoological  Gardens.  The  two  first-named 
animals  ate  the  fruit  with  avidity,  but  the  wolves  would 
not  touch  it 


iiv 


FBOG 


country  is  the  Cam's  aureus,  which  may  be  heard 
every  night  in  the  villages.  Hemprich  and  Ehren- 
berg  (Symb.  Phys.  pt.  i.)'  speak  of  a  vulpine  animal, 
under  the  name  of  Cam's  Syriacust  as  occurring  in 


Lebanon.  Col.  H.  Smith  has  figured  an  animal  to 
which  he  gives  the  name  of  "  Syrian  fox,"  or  Vulpes 
T/taleb,  or  Taaleb  ;  but  we  have  been  quite  unable 
to  identify  the  animal  with  any  known  species.0 
The  Egyptian  Vulpes  NUoticus,  and  doubtless  the 


common  fox  of  our  own  country  (  V.  vulgaris),  are 
Palestine  species.  Hasselqiiist  (Trav.  p.  184)  says 
foxes  are  common  in  the  stony  country  about  Beth 
lehem,  and  near  the  Convent  of  St.  John  ;  where 
ibout  vintage  time  they  destroy  all  the  vines  nuless 
they  are  strictly  watched.  That  jackals  and  foxes 
were  formerly  very  common  in  some  parts  of  Pales 
tine  is  evident  from  the  names  of  places  derived  from 
these  animals,  as  Hazar-Shual  (Josh.  xv.  28),  Shaal- 
biin  (Judg.  i.  35). 

FROG  (y*r\Q¥,tzepharde'a:  fidrpaxos :  rana), 
the  animal  selected  by  God  as  an  instrument  for 
humbling  the  pride  of  Pharaoh  (Ex.  viii.  2-14;  Ps. 
lxxviii.'45  ;  cv.  30  ;  Wisd.  xix.  10)  ;  frogs  came  in 
prodigious  numbers  from  the  canals,  the  rivers,  and 
the  marshes,  they  filled  the  houses,  and  even  entered 


GALL 

the  oven;  and  kneading  troughs  ;  when  at  ('.he  coin. 
mand  of  Moses  the  frogs  died,  the  people  gathered 
them  in  heaps,  and  "the  land  stank"  from  the 
corruption  of  the  bodies.  There  can  le  no  doubt 
that  the  whole  transaction  was  miraculous;  frogs, 
it  is  true,  if  allowed  to  increase,  can  easily  be  ima 
gined  to  occur  in  such  multitudes  as  marked  the 
second  plague  of  Egypt, — indeed  similar  plagues  ar« 
on  record  as  having  occurred  in  various  places,  as 
at  Poeonia  and  Dardania,  where  frogs  suddenly  ap 
peared  in  such  numbers  as  to  cause  the  inhabitants 
to  leave  that  region — (see  Eustathius  on  Horn.  //. 
i.,  and  other  quotations  cited  by  Bochart,  Hieroz. 
iiL  575) — but  that  the  transaction  was  miraculous 
appears  from  the  following  considerations. 

1.  The  time  of  the  occurrence  was  in  spring, 
when  frogs  would  be  in  their  tadpole  state,  or  at 
any  rate  not  sufficiently  developed  to  enable  them 
to  go  far  from  the  water.  2.  The  frogs  would  not 
naturally  have  died,  in  such  prodigious  numbers  as 
is  recorded,  in  a  single  day. 

It  is  stated  (Ex.  viii.  7)  that  the  Egyptian  "  magi 
cians  brought  up  frogs."  Some  writers  have  denied 
that  they  could  have  had  any  such  power,  and  think 
that  they  must  have  practised  some  deceit.  It  is 
worthy  of  remark,  that  though  they  may  have  been 
permitted  by  God  to  increase  the  plagues,  they  were 
quite  unable  to  remove  them. 

Amongst  the  Egyptians  the  frog  was  considered 
a  symbol  of  an  imperfect  man,  and  was  supposed  to 
be  generated  from  the  slime  of  the  river — e/c  TTJS 
TOV  TTora/j-ov  tAuos  (see  Horapollo,  i.  26).  A  frog 
sitting  upon  a  lotus  (Nelumbium)  was  also  regarded 
by  the  ancient  Egyptians  as  symbolical  of  the  return 
of  the  Nile  to  its  bed  after  the  inundations.  Hence 
the  Egyptian  word  Hhrur,  which  was  used  to  denote 
the  Nile  descending,  was  also,  with  the  slight  change 
of  the  first  letter  into  an  aspirate,  Chrur,  the  name 
of  a  frog  (Jablonski,  Panth.  Aegypt.  iv.  1,  §9). 

The  only  known  species  of  frog  which  occurs  at 
present  in  Egypt  is  the  Rana  esculenta,  of  which 
two  varieties  are  described  which  differ  from  Spal- 
lanzani's  species  in  some  slight*  peculiarities  (De- 
script,  de  I'figypte,  Hist.  Natur.  torn.  i.  p.  181, 
fol.  ed.).  The  Rana  esculenta,  the  well-known 
edible  frog  of  the  Continent,  which  occurs  also  in 
some  localities  in  England,  has  a  wide  geographical 
range,  being  found  in  many  parts  of  Asia,  Africa, 
and  Europe.  How  the  R.punctata  (Pelodytes)  came 
to  be  described  as  an  Egyptian  species  we  cannot  say 
but  it  is  certain  that  this  species  is  not  found  in 
Egypt,  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  none  but  the 
R.  esculenta  does  occur  in  that  countiy.  We  are 
able  to  state  that  Dr.  A.  Gunther  of  the  British 
Museum  confirms  this  statement.  A  species  of  tree- 
frog  (Hyld)  occurs  in  Egypt;  but  with  this  genir 
we  have  nothing  to  do. 


G 

GALL,  the  representative  in  the  A.  V.  of  the 
Hebrew  words  mererdh,  or  merordh,  ami  rosh. 
1 .  Mererdh  or  merordh  (H  Y1D  or  H  TWO :  xoAr) : 

fel,  amaritudo,  viscera  mea]  denotes  etymologically 
"that  which  is  bitter;"  see  Job  xiii.  26,  "  thou 
writest  bitter  things  against  me."  Hence  the  term 


"  The  late  Col.  Hamilton  Smith  used  to  make  drawings  difficult  in  several  instances  to  understand  what  animal  he 
of  animals  from  all  sources,  such  as  monuments,  booJrp,  I  intended.  Dr.  Grav  tells  us  that  he  was  unable  to  identifj 
bi>eciiue.ns,  &c. ;  feut,  as  he  often  forgot  the  sources,  it  ia  many  of  the  horses  in  Jardi  tie's  Xaturalitt's  Library. 


GALL 

is  applied  to  the  "  bile"  or  "  gaii"  from  its  intense 
bitterness  (Job  xvi.  13,  xx.  25)  ;  it  is  also  used  of 
the  "poison"  of  serpents  (Job  xx.  14),  which  the 
Ancients  eironeously  believed  was  their  gall ;  see 
Pliny,  N.  H.  x\.  37,  "  No  one  should  be  astonished 
that  it  is  the  gall  which  constitutes  the  poison  of 
serpents." 

2.  Bosh  (£>JO  or  WT\:  x0^*  iriKp'i.,  frypuffTis: 
fel,  amaritudo,  caput),  generally  translated  "  gall  " 
by  the  A.  V.  is  in  Hos.  x.  4,  rendered  "  hemlock  :" 
in  Deut.  xxxii.  33,  and  Job  xx.  16,  rosh  denotes  the 
"  poison  "  or  "  venom  "  of  serpents.  From  Deut. 
xxix.  18,  "a  root  that  beareth  rosh"  (margin  "a 
poisonful  herb"),  and  Lam.  iii.  19,  "  the  worm 
wood  and  the  rosh,"  compared  with  Hos.  x.  4, 
"judgment  springeth  up  as  rosh,"  it  is  evident  that 
the  Heb.  term  denotes  some  bitter,  and  perhaps 
poisonous  plant,  though  it  may  also  be  used,  as  in 
Ps.  Ixix.  21,  in  the  general  sense  of  "  something 
very  bitter."  Celsius  (Hierob.  ii.  p.  46-52)  thinks 
"  hemlock"  (Conium  maculatuni)  is  intended,  and 
quotes  Jerome  on  Hosea  in  support  of  his  opinion, 
though  it  seems  that  this  commentator  had  in  view 
the  couch-grass  (Triticum  repens)  rather  than 
"hemlock."  Rospnmuller  (Bib.  Bot.  p.  118)  is 
inclined  to  think  that  the  Lolium  temulentwn  best 
agrees  with  the  passage  in  Hosea,  where  the  rosh  is 
said  to  grow  "  in  the  furrows  of  the  field." 

Other  writers  have  supposed,  and  with  some 
reason  (from  Deut.  xxxii.  32,  "  their  grapes  are 
grapes  of  rosh"),  that  some  berry-bearing  plant 
must  be  intended.  Gesenius  (Thes.  p.  1251)  under 
stands  "poppies  ;"  Michaelis  (Suppl.  Lex.  Heb.  p. 
2220)  is  of  opinion  that  rosh  may  be  either  the 
Lolium  temulentwn,  or  the  Solanum  ("  night 
shade  ").  Oedmann  ( Verm.  Sam.  Pt.  iv.  c.  10) 
argues  in  favour  of  the  Colocynth.  The  most  pro 
bable  conjecture,  for  proof  there  is  none,  is  that  of 
Gesenius :  the  capsules  of  the  Papaveraceae  may 
well  give  the  name  of  rosh  ("head"),  to  the  plant 
in  question,  just  as  we  speak  of  poppy  heads.  The 
various  species  of  this  family  spring  up  quickly  in 
corn-fields,  and  the  juice  is  extremely  bitter.  A 
steeped  solution  of  poppy  heads  may  be  "  the  water 
of  gall"  of  Jer.  viii.  14,  unless,  as  Gesenius  thinks, 
the  fc^KT  ^D  may  be  the  poisonous  extract,  opium ; 
but  nothing  definite  can  be  learnt. 

The  passages  in  the  Gospels  which  relate  the 
circumstance  of  the  Roman  soldiers  offering  our 
Lord,  just  before  his  crucifixion,  "  vinegar  mingled 
with  gall,"  according  to  St.  Matthew  (xxvii.  34), 
and  "  wine  mingled  with  myrrh,"  according  to 
St.  Mark's  account  (xv.  23),  require  some  consi 
deration.  The  first-named  Evangelist  uses  x°^J> 
which  is  the  LXX.  rendering  of  the  Heb.  rosh  in  the 
Psalm  (Ixix.  21)  which  foretels  the  Lord's  sufferings. 
St.  Mark  explains  the  bitter  ingredient  in  the  sour 
vinous  drink  to  be  "  myrrh  "  (oTi/o?  eff/j.vpvtff/j.evos}, 
for  we  cannot  regard  the  transactions  as  different. 
"  Matthew,  in  his  usual  way,"  as  Hengstenberg 
(Comment,  in  Ps.  Ixix.  21)  remarks,  "designates 
the  drink  theologically :  always  keeping  his  eye  on 
the  prophecies  of  the  0.  T.,  he  speaks  of  gall  and 
vinegar  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  the  fulfilment 
i)f  the  Psalms  more  manifest.  Mark  again  (xv.  23), 
according  to  his  way,  looks  rather  at  the  outward 
quality  of  the  drink."  Bengel  takes  quite  a  different 
view  ;  he  thinks  both  myrrh  and  gall  were  added  to 
the  sour  wine :  "  myrrha  conditus  ex  more  ;  felle 
vlulteratus  ex  petukuitia"  (Gnom.  Nov.  Test.  Matt. 
i.  c.).  Hengstenberg's  view  is  far  preferable  ;  nor 


GIER-EAGLE  iv 

is  "  gall  "  (xo\-fi)  to  be  understood  m  any  oihei 
as  expressing  the  bitter  nature  of  the 


sense  than 


draught.     As  to  the  intent  of  the  p:  offered  drink. 
it  is  generally  supposed  that  it  was  fcr  the  purpose 
of  deadening  pain.     It  was  customary  to  give  cn- 
minals  just  before  their  execution  a  cup  of  wine 
with  frankincense  in  it,  to  which  reference  is  made, 
it  is  believed,  by  the  olvos  Karavv^tas  of  Ps.  Ix.  3  • 
see  also  Prov.  xxxi.  6.    This  the  Talmud  states  was 
given  in  order  to  alleviate  the  pain.     See  Buxtori 
(Lex.  Talm.  p.  2131),  who  thus  quotes  from  tht 
Talmud  (Sanhed.  fol.  43,  1):  "  Qui  exit  ut  occi- 
datur    (ex   sententia   judicis)   potant    eum    grano 
thuris  in  poculo  vini  ut  distrahatur  mens  ejus." 
Kosenmuller  (Bib.  Bot.  p.  163)  is  of  opinion'  that 
the  myrrh  was  given  to  our  LonL,  not  for  the  pur 
pose  of  alleviating  his  sufferings,  but  in  order  that 
he  might  be  sustained  until  the  punishment  was 
completed.     He  quotes  from  Apuleius  (Metamorp. 
viii.),  who  relates  that  a  certain  priest  "disfigured 
himself  with  a  multitude  of  blows,  having  pre 
viously  strengthened   himself  by  taking  myrrh." 
How  far  the  frankincense  in  the  cup,  as  mentioned 
in  the  Talmud,  was  supposed  to  possess  soporific 
properties,  or  in  any  way  to  induce  an  alleviation 
of  pain,  it  is  difficult  to  determine.    The  same  must 
be  said  of  the  olvos  ffffj.vpvi.ffiJ.fvos  of  St.  Mark  ;  for 
it  is  quite  certain  that  neither  of  these  two  drugs 
in  question,  both  of  which  are  the  produce  of  the 
same   natural   order  of  plants  (Amyridaceae),  io 
ranked  among  the  hypnopoietics  by  modern  phy 
sicians.     It  is  true  that  Dioscorides  (i.  77)  ascribe* 
a  soporific  property  to  myrrh,  but  it  does  not  seem 
to  have  been   so   regarded  by  any  other  author. 
Notwithstanding,  therefore,  the  almost  concurrent 
opinion  of  ancient  and  modern  commentators  that 
the  "wine  mingled  with  myrrh"  was  offered  to 
our  Lord  as  an  anodyne,  we  cannot  readily  come  tc 
the  same  conclusion.     Had  the  soldiers  intended  a 
mitigation  of  suffering,  they  would  doubtless  have 
offered   a   draught  drugged  with   some   substance 
having  narcotic  properties.     The  drink  in  question 
was   probably  &,  mere   ordinary  beverage   of  the 
Romans,  who  were  in  the  habit  of  seasoning  their 
various  wines,  which,  as  they  contained  little  alcohol, 
soon  turned  sour,  with  various  spices,  drugs,  and 
perfumes,  such  as  myrrh,  cassia,  myrtle,  pepper, 
&c.  &c.  (Diet.  ofGr.  and  Horn.  Antiq.  art.  '  Vinum'). 

GIEK-EAGLE  (DPH,  rdchdm  ;  PIOIT1,  rdch- 
dmdh:  KVKVOS,  iropQvpiwv  :  porphyrio},  an  un 
clean  bird  mentioned  in  Lev.  xi.  18  and  Deut.  xiv.  17. 
There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  rdchdm  of  the 
Heb.  Scriptures  is  identical  in  reality  as  in  name 


with  the  racham 


(A^,.) 


of  uie  Arabs,  viz.  the 


Egyptian  vulture  (Neophron  percnoptents)  ;  see 
esner,  De  Avib.  p.  176;  Bochart,  Hieroz.  iii.  p. 
56  ;  Hasselquist,  Trav.  p.  195,  and  Russell's  Natural 
Hist,  of  Aleppo,  ii.  p.  195,  2nd  ed.  The  LXX. 
n  Lev.  I.  c.  renders  the  Heb.  term  by  "  swan  " 
[KVKVOS~),  while  in  Deut.  I.  c.  the  "  purple  water- 
len  "  (Porphyrio  hyacinthinus}  is  given  as  its  re- 
aresentative.  There  is  too  much  discrepancy  in  the 
XX.  translations  of  the  various  birds  mentioned 
n  the  Levitical  law  to  allow  us  to  attach  much 
weight  to  its  authority.  The  Hebrew  term  etymo- 
.ogically  signifies  "  a  bird  which  is  very  affectionate 
;o  its  young,"  which  is  perfectly  true  of  the  Egyp 
tian  vulture,  but  not  more  so  than  of  other  birds. 
The  Arabian  writers  relate  many  fables  of  the 


Ivi  GOAT 

Rachani,  some  of  which  the  reader  may  see  m  the 
Hicrozokon  of  Bochart  (iii.  p.  56).  The  Egyptian 
vulture,  according  to  Bruce,  is  called  by  the  Eu 
ropeans  in  Egypt  "  Pharaoh's  Hen."  It  is  generally 


distributed  throughout  Egypt,  and  Mr.  Tristram 
says  it  is  common  in  Palestine,  and  breeds  in  great 
numbers  in  the  valley  of  the  Cedron  (Ibis,  i.  23). 
Though  a  bii'd  of  decidedly  unprepossessing  appear 
ance  and  of  disgusting  habits,  the  Egyptians,  like  all 
other  Orientals,  wisely  protect  so  efficient  a  scavenger, 
which  rids  them  of  putrefying  carcases  that  would 
otherwise  breed  a  pestilence  in  their  towns.  Near 
Cairo,  says  Shaw  (Trav.  p.  388,  folio),  there  are 
several  flocks  of  the  Ach  Bobba,  "  white  father," — 
a  name  given  it  by  the  Turks,  partly  out  of  the 
reverence  they  have  for  it,  partly  from  the  colour  of 
its  plumage — "  which  like  the  ravens  about  our 
metropolis  feed  upon  the  carrion  and  nastiness  that 
is  thrown  without  the  city."  Young  birds  are  of  a 
brown  colour  with  a  few  white  feathers ;  adult  speci 
mens  are  white,  except  the  primary  and  a  portion 
of  the  secondary  wing-feathers,  which  are  black. 
Naturalists  have  referred  this  vulture  to  the 
irepKvdTTTfpos  or  6penre\apyos  of  Aristotle  (Hist. 
An.  ix.  22,  §2,  ed  Schneid.). 

GOAT  [addition  to  the  article  on,  p.  705]. 
There  appear  to  be  two  or  three  varieties  of  the 
common  goat  (Hircus  aegagrus}  at  present  bred  in 
Palestine  and  Syria,  but  whether  they  are  identical 
with  those  which  were  reared  by  the  ancient  Hebrews 
it  is  not  possible  to  say.  The  most  marked  varieties 
are  the  Syrian  goat  (Capra  Mambrica,  Linn.),  with 
long  thick  pendent  ears,  which  are  often,  says 
Russell  (Nat.  Hist,  of  Aleppo,  ii.  150,  2nd  ed.), 
a  foot  long,  and  the  Angora  goat  ( Capra  Angorensis, 
Linn.),  with  fine  long  hair.  The  Syrian  goat  is 
mentioned  by  Aristotle  (Hist.  An.  ix.  27,  §3).  There 
is  also  a  variety  that  differs  but  little  from  British 
specimens.  Goats  have  from  the  earliest  ages  been 
considered  important  animals  in  rural  economy,  both 
on  account  of  the  milk  they  afford  and  the  excellency 
of  the  flesh  of  the  young  animals.  The  goat  is  figured 
on  the  Egyptian  monuments  (see  Wilkinson's  Anc. 
F^ypt.  i.  223).  Col.  Ham.  Smith  (Griffiths'  An. 
2^  ing.  iv.  308)  describes  three  Egyptian  breeds: 
one  with  long  hair,  depressed  horns,  ears  small  and 
pendent ;  another  with  horns  very  spiral,  and  ears 


e  Coiap.  Theocritus,  Id.  viii.  49,  *li  Tpaye,  rav  tevnav 
aiy**-  avep :  and  Virg.  Ed.  vii.  7,  "  Vir  gregis  ipse 
caper." 


GOAT 

longer  than  the  head  ;  and  a  third,  which  w  curs  it 
Upper  Egypt,  without  horns. 

Goats  were  offered  as  sacrifices  (Le  r.  iii.  1 2,  ix.  15 ; 
Ex.  xii.  5,  &c.)  ;  their  milk  was  used  as  food  (Prov. 
xxvii.  27) ;  their  flesh  was  eaten  (Deut.  xiv.  4 ;  Gen. 
xxvii.  9)  ;  their  hair  was  used  for  the  curtains  of  the 
tabernacle  (Ex.  xxvi.  7,  xxxvi.  14),  and  fcr  stuffing 
bolsters  (1  Sam.  xix.  13)  ;  their  skins  were  some 
times  used  as  clothing  (Heb.  xi.  37). 

The  passage  in  Cant.  iv.  1,  which  rompares  the 
hair  of  the  beloved  to  "  a  flock  of  goats  that  eat 
of  Mount  Gilead,"  probably  alludes  to  the  fine 
hair  of  the  Angora  breed.  Some  have  very  plau 
sibly  supposed  that  the  prophet  Amos  (iii.  12), 
when  he  speaks  of  a  shepherd  "  taking  out  of  the 
mouth  of  the  lion  two  legs  or  a  piece  of  an  ear," 
alludes  to  the  long  pendulous  ears  of  the  Syrian 
breed  (see  Harmer's  Obser.  iv.  162).  In  Prov.  xxx. 
31,  a  he-goat  is  mentioned  as  one  of  the  "  four  things 
which  are  comely  in  going;"  in  allusion,  probably, 
to  the  stately  march  of  the  leader  of  the  flock, 
which  was  always  associated  in  the  minds  of  the 
Hebrews  with  the  notion  of  dignity.  Hence  tha 
metaphor  in  Is.  xiv.  9,  "all  the  chief  ones  (margin, 
'  great  goats ')  of  the  earth."  So  the  Alexandrine 
version  of  the  LXX.  understands  the  allusion,  nal 
rpdyos  fiyov/j.fvos  aliro\iov.A 


Long-eared  Syrian  goat 

As  to  the  yeeiiin  (D  vV? :  Tpaye\a<bou  eAad>oi  • 
ibices:  "wild  goats,"  A.  V.),  it  is  not  at  all  im 
probable,  as  the  Vulg.  interprets  the  word,  that 
some  species  of  ibex  is  denoted,  perhaps  the  Capra 
Sinaitica  (Ehrenb.),  the  Beden  or  Jaela  of  Egypt 
and  Arabia.  This  ibex  was  noticed  at  Sinai  by 
Ehrenberg  and  Hemprich  (8ym-  ^%s-  k  18)>  an<* 
by  Burckhardt  (Trav.  p.  526),  who  (p.  405)  thus 
speaks  of  thesi  animals :  "  In  all  the  valleys  south 
of  the  Modjeb,  and  particularly  in  those  of  Modjeb 
and  El  Ahsa,  large  herds  of  mountain  goats,  called 

by  the  Arabs  Beden  (^«Xj)>  are  met  with.     This 
is  the  steinbcck1*  or  bouquetin  of  the  Swiss  and  Tyrol 


— *m — 

b  The  Capra  Sinaitica  is  not  identical  with  the  Swiss 
ibex  or  stcinbock  (C.  Ibex),  though  it  ie  a  cleanly  allied 
Fpecies. 


GOURD 

Alps.  They  pasture  in  flocks  of  forty  and  fifty 
together.  Great  numbers  of  them  are  killed  by  the 
people  of  Korek  and  Tafyle,  who  hold  their  flesh  in 
high  estimation.  They  sell  the  large  knotty  horns 
to  the  Hebrew  merchants,  who  carry  them  to  Jeru 
salem,  where  they  are  worked  into  handles  for  knives 

and  daggers The  Arabs  told  me  that  it  is 

difficult  to  get  a  shot  at  them,  and  that  the  hunters 
hide  themselves  among  the  reeds  on  the  banks  of 
streams  where  the  animals  resort  in  the  evening  to. 
drink.  They  also  asserted  that,  when  pursued,  they 
will  throw  themselves  from  a  height  of  fifty  feet  and 
more  upon  their  heads  without  receiving  any  injury." 
Hasselquist  (Trav.  p.  190)  speaks  of  rock  goats 
(Capra  ceroicapra,  Linn.)  which  he  saw  hunted 
with  falcons  near  Nazareth.  But  the  C.  cervicapra 
of  Linneus  is  an  antelope  (Antilope  cervicapra, 
Pall.). 

There  is  considerable  difficulty  attending  the  iden 
tification  of  the  akko  OJ9N),  which  the  LXX.  ren 
der  by  Tpaye\a(f>os,  and  the  Vulg.  tragelaphus. 
The  word,  which  occurs  only  in  Deut.  xiv.  5  as  one 
of  the  animals  that  might  be  eaten,  is  rendered 
"  wild  goat "  by  the  A.  V.  Some  have  referred  the 
akko  to  the  ahu  of  the  Persians,  i.  c.  the  Capreolus 
pygargus,  or  the  "tailless  roe"  (Shaw,  Zool.  ii.  287), 
of  Central  Asia.  If  we  could  satisfactorily  establish 
the  identity  of  the  Persian  word  with  the  Hebrew, 
the  animal  in  question  might  represent  the  akko  of 
the  Pentateuch,  which  might  formerly  have  inha 
bited  the  Lebanon,  though  it  is  not  found  in  Pa 
lestine  now.  Perhaps  the  paseng  (Cap.  aegagrus, 
Cuv.),  which  some  have  taken  to  be  the  parent  stock 
of  the  common  goat,  and  which  at  present  inhabits 
the  mountains  of  Persia  and  Caucasus,  may  have  in 
Biblical  times  been  found  in  Palestine,  and  may  be 
the  akko  of  Scripture.  But  we  allow  this  is  mere 
conjecture. 


GOURD 


Ivii 


fruit  was  anciently  supposed  to  bear  to  the  acanit 
"  tick  ")  of  that  name.  See  Dioscoridcs  (iv.  161,  ed. 
Sprengel)  and  Pliny  (N.  H.  xv.  7).  The  leaves  arc 
arge  and  palmate,  with  serrated  lobes,  and  would 
brm  an  excellent  shelter  for  the  sun-stricken  prophet. 
The  seeds  contain  the  oil  so  well  known  under  the 
name  of  "  castor-oil,"  which  has  for  ages  been  in 
nigh  repute  as  a  medicine. 


Ooat  of  Mount  Sinai. 


GOURD  [addition  to  the  article  on,  p.  724]. 
There  can,  we  think,  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the 
ktkdyon  which  afforded  shade  to  the  prophet  Jonah 
before  Nineveh  is  the  Ricinus  communis,  or  castor- 
oil  plant,  which,  formerly  a  native  of  Asia,  is  now 
naturalised  in  America,  Africa,  and  the  South  of 
Europe.  This  plant,  which  varies  considerably  in 
size,  being  in  India  a  tree,  but  in  England  seldom 
attaining  a  greater  height  than  three  or  four  feet, 
receives  its  generic  name  from  the  resemblance  us 


Castor-oil  plant 

With  regard  to  the  "  wild  gourds " 
pakkuotK)  of  2  K.  iv.  39,  which  one  of  "  the  sons 
of  the  prophets"  gathered  ignorantly,  supposing 
them  to  be  good  for  food,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
it  is  a  species  of  the  gourd  tribe  (Cucurbitaceae), 
which  contain  some  plants  of  a  very  bitter  and  dan 
gerous  character*.  The  leaves  and  tendrils  of  this 
family  of  plants  bear  some  resemblance  to  those  of 
the  vine.  Hence  the  expression,  "  wild  vine  ;"a  and 
as  several  kinds  of  Cucurbitaceae,  such  as  melons, 
pumpkins,  &c.,  are  favourite  articles  of  refreshing 
food  amongst  the  Orientals,  we  can  easily  understand 
the  cause  of  the  mistake. 

The  plants  which  have  been  by  different  writer* 
identified  with  the  pakkuoth  are  the  followlrg : 
the  colocynth,  or  coloquintida  (Citrullus  colocynthis] '. 
the  Cucumis  prophetarum,  or  globe  cucumber ;  and 
the  Ecbalium  (Momordica}  elaterium;  all  of  whi.vi 
have  claims  to  denote  the  plant  .n  question.  Vne 
etymology  of  the  word  from  JTjpB,  "  to  split  or 
burst  open,"  has  been  thought  to  favour  the  identi 
fication  of  the  plant  with  the  Ecbalium  elaterium* 
or  "  squirting  cucumber,"  so  called  from  the  elas 
ticity  with  wliich  the  fruit,  when  ripe,  opens  ami 
scatters  the  seeds  when  touched.  This  is  the 
&ypios  2i«uos  of  Dioscorides  (iv.  152)  and  Theo- 
phrastus  (vii.  6,  §4,  &c.),  and  the  Ciaumis  syl- 
vestris  of  Pliny  (N.  H.  xx.  2).  Celsius  (Hierob. 
i.  393),  Rosenmiiller  (Bib.  Bot.  p.  128),  Winer 
(Bib.  Reaho.  i.  525),  and  Gesenius(JAes.  p.  1122), 
are  in  favour  of  this  explanation,  and,  it  must  bf 


One  went  out  Into   the  field  to  gather 

). and  found  a  *»w  m'«e" 

'•>  From  c 


Iviii  GREYHOUND 

confessed,  not  without  some  reason. 

sions,  however,  understand  the  colocynth,  the  fruit 

of  wnich  is  about   the  size  of  an  orange.      The 


HARE 

The  old  ver-  ;  well  with  the  notion  conveyed  by  the  exjrestion, 
;*  comely  in  going ;"  and  the  suitableness  of  the 
Hebrew  words,  zarzir  mothnayim,  is  obv  ous  to 
every  reader. 


HARE(rn:nK,  arnebeth:  faffvirovs:  lepus) 
occurs  only  in  Lev.  xi.  6  and  Deut.  xiv.  7,  amongst 
the  animals  disallowed  as  food  by  the  Mosaic  law. 
There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  arnebeth  denotes  a 
"hare;"  and  in  all  probability  the  species  Lepus 
Sinaiticus,  which  Ehrenberg  and  Hemprich  (Symb. 
Phys.}  mention  as  occurring  in  the  valleys  of  Arabia 
Petraea  and  Mount  Sinai,  and  L.  Syriacus,  which  the 
same  authors  state  is  found  in  the  Lebanon,  are  those 
which  were  best  known  to  the  ancient  Hebrews; 
though  there  are  other  kinds  of  Leporidae,  as  the 
L.  Aegyptius  and  the  L.  Aethiopicus,  if  a  distinct 
species  from  L.  Sinaiticus,  which  are  found  in 
the  Bible  lands.  The  hare  is  at  this  day  called 

arneb  (c^j.!)  by  the  Arabs  in  Palestine  and  Syria 
(see  Russell's  Nat.  Hist,  of  Aleppo,  ii.  154,  2nd  ed.\ 


Colocynth. 

drastic  medicine  in  such  general  use  is  a  prepara 
tion  from  this  plant.  Michaelis  (Suppl.  Lex.  Heb. 
p.  344)  and  Oedmann  (  Verm.  Samml.  iv.  88)  adopt 
this  explanation ;  and  since,  according  to  Kitto 
' '  Pict.  Bib.  1.  c.),  the  dry  gourds  of  the  colocynth, 
when  crushed,  burst  with  a  crashing  noise,  there  is 
much  reason  for  being  satisfied  with  an  explanation 
which  has  authority,  etymology,  and  general  suit 
ableness  in  its  favour.  All  the  above-named  plants 
are  found  in  the  East. 

GREYHOUND.  The  translation  in  the  text 
of  the  A.  V.  (Prov.  xxx.  31)  of  the  Hebrew  words 
D)3]")D  "VPt  (zarzir  mothnayim),  i.  e.  "  one  girt 

about  the  loins."  See  margin,  where  it  i.s  conjec 
tured  that  the  "  horse "  is  the  animal  denoted  by 
this  expression.  The  Alexandrine  version  of  the 
LXX.  has  the  following  curious  interpretation, 
a.\tKT(ap  (p.Trepnra.Twi'  ei/  (hjAeicuy  eftf/u^os,  i.  e. 
"  a  cock  as  it  proudly  struts  amongst  the  hens." 
Somewhat  similar  is  the  Vulgate,  "  gallus  succintus 
lumbos."  Various  are  the  opinions  as  to  what 
animal  "  comely  in  going  "  is  here  intended.  Some 
think  "  a  leopard,"  others  "  an  eagle,"  or  "  a  man 
girt  with  armour,"  or  "  a  zebra,"  &c.  Gesenius 
(Thes.  p.  435),  Schultens  (Comment,  ad  Prov.  1.  c.), 
Bochart  (Hieroz.  ii.  684),  Rosenmiiller  (Schol.  ad 
Prov.  1.  c.,  and  Not.  ad  Boch.  1.  c.),  Fuller  (Mis- 
cell.  Sac.  5,  12),  are  in  favour  of  a  "  war-horse 
girt  with  trappings,"  being  the  thing  signified. 
But,  later,  Maurer  {Comment.  Gram,  in  Vet.  Test. 
\.  c.)  decides  unhesitatingly  in  favour  of  a  "  wrestler," 
»vhen  girt  about  the  loins  for  a  contest.  He  refers 
to  Buxtorf  (Lex.  Chald.  Talm.  p.  692)  to  show  that 
zarzir  is  used  in  the  Talmud  to  express  "  a  wrestler," 
and  thus  concludes :  "  Sed  ne  opus  quidem  est  hoc 
loco  quanquam  minime  contemnendo,  quum  accinc- 
tum  esse  in  neminem  magis  cadat  quam  in  luctatorem 
ita  ut  haec  significatio  certa  sit  per  se."  There  is 
certainly  great  probability  that  Maurer  is  correct. 
The  grace  and  activity  of  the  practised  athlete  agrees 


Hare  of  Mount  Sinai. 

The  SUO-UTTOUS,  i.  e.  "  rough  foot,"  is  identical  with 
\ayws,  and  is  the  term  which  Aristotle  generally 
applies  to  the  hare :  indeed  he  only  uses  the  latter 
word  once  in  his  History  of  Animals  (viii.  27, 
§4).  We  are  of  opinion,  as  we  have  elsewhere 
stated  [CONEY],  that  the  rabbit  (L.  cuniculus)  was 
unknown  to  the  ancient  Hebrews,  at  any  rate  in  its 
wild  state;  nor  does  it  appear  to  be  at  present 
known  in  Svria  or  Palestine  as  a  native.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  Aristotle  was  acquainted  with 
the  rabbit,  as  he  never  alludes  to  any  burrowing 
\ayujs  or  Sacrvirovs ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  see 
the  passage  in  vi.  28,  §3,  where  the  young  of  the 
SacrvTTovs  are  said  to  be  "  born  blind,"  which  will 
apply  to  the  rabbit  alone.  Pliny  (N.  H.  viii.  55), 
expressly  notices  rabbits  (cumculi),  which  occur  in 
such  numbers  in  the  Balearic  Islands  as  to  destroy 
the  harvests.  He  also  notices  the  practice  of  ferrefr- 
ing  these  animals,  and  thus  driving  them  out  of 
their  burrows.  In  confirmation  of  Pliny's  remarks, 
we  may  observe  that  there  is  a  small  island  of  the 
Balearic  group  called  Conejera,  i.  e.  in  Spanish  a 
"  rabbit-warren,"  which  at  this  day  is  abundantly 
stocked  with  these  animals.  The  hare  was  erro 
neously  thought  by  the  ancient  Jews  to  have  cheved 
the  cud,  who  were  no  doubt  misled,  as  in  the  case  of 


HART 

the  shaphan  (ffyrax\  by  the  habit  these  animals 
have  of  moving  the  jaw  about. 


HAWK 


lix 


Hare  of  Mount  Lebnnon. 


"  Hares  are  so  plentiful  in  the  environs  of  Aleppo," 
says  Dr.  Russell  (p.  158),  "  that  it  was  no  uncommon 
thing  to  see  the  gentlemen  who  went  out  a  sporting 
twice  a-week  return  with  four  or  five  brace  hung 
in  triumph  at  the  girths  of  the  servants'  horses." 
The  Turks  and  the  natives,  he  adds,  do  not  eat  the 
hare  ;  but  the  Arabs,  who  have  a  peculiar  mode  of 
dressing  it,  are  fond  of  its  flesh.  Hares  are  hunted 
.n  Syria  with  greyhound  and  falcon. 

HAET  [addition  to  the  article  on,  p..  759]. 
The  Heb.  masc.  noun  ayyal  (/*{<),  which  is  always 

rendered  eAcwpos  by  the  LXX.,  denotes,  there  can 
be  no  doubt,  some  species  of  Cervidae  (deer  tribe), 
either  the  Dama  vulgaris,  fallow-deer,  or  the  Germs 
Barbanis,  the  Barbary  deer,  the  southern  repre 
sentative  of  the  European  stag  (C.  elaphus},  which 
occui's  in  Tunis  and  the  coast  of  Barbary.  We  have, 
however,  no  evidence  to  show  that  the  Barbary  deer 
ever  inhabited  Palestine,  though  there  is  no  reason 


Berbary  door. 


why  it  may  not  have  done  so  in  primitive  times. 
Hasselquist  (Trav.  p.  211)  observed  the  fallow-deer 
on  Mount  Tabor.  Sir  G.  Wilkitson  says  (Anc, 
Egypt,  p.  227,  8vo.  ed.),  "  The  steg  with  branching 
horns  figured  at  Beni  Hassan  is  also  unknown  in 
the  valley  of  the  Nile ;  but  it  is  still  seen  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Natron  lakes,  as  about  Tunis,  thougu 
not  in  the  desert  between  the  river  and  the  Red 
Sea."  This  is  doubtless  the  Cervus  Barbanis. 

Most  of  the  deer  tribe  are  careful  to  conceal  their 
calves  after  birth  for  a  time.  May  there  not  be 
some  allusion  to  this  circumstance  in  Job  xxxix.  1, 
"  Canst  thou  mark  when  the  hinds  do  calve?"  &c. 
Perhaps,  as  the  LXX.  uniformly  renders  ai/ydl  by 
eAa(£os,  we  may  incline  to  the  belief  that  the 
Cervus  Barbarus  is  the  deer  denoted.  The  feminine 
noun  n^tf,  ayydtdh,  occurs  frequently  in  the  0.  T. 
For  the  Scriptural  allusions  see  under  HIND. 

HAWK  (^3,  nets:  /e'pa£ :  accipiter),  the 
translation  of  the  above-named  Heb.  term,  which 


occurs  in  Lev.  xi.  16  and  Deut.  xiv.  15  as  one  of 
the  unclean  birds,  and  in  Job  xxxix.  26,  where  it  is 
asked,  "  Doth  the  nets  fly  by  thy  wisdom  and 
stretch  her  wings  towards  the  south  ?  "  The  word 
is  doubtless  generic,  as  appears  from  the  expression 
in  Deut.  and  Lev.  "  after  his  kind,"  and  includes 
various  species  of  the  Falconidae,  with  more  especial 
allusion  perhaps  to  the  small  diurnal  birds,  such  as 
the  kestrel  (Falco  tinnunculus\  the  hobby  (Hy- 
potriorchis,  subbutco},  the  gregarious  lesser  kestrel 
(Tinnunculus  cenchris],  common  about  the  ruins 
in  the  plain  districts  of  Palestine,  all  of  which  were 
probably  known  to  the  ancient  Hebrews.  With 
respect  to  the  passage  in  Job  (I.  c.),  which  appears 
to  allude  to  the  migratory  habits  of  hawks,  it  is 
curious  to  observe  that  of  the  ten  or  twelve  lesser 
raptors  of  Palestine,  nearly  all  are  summer  mi 
grants.  The  kestrel  remains  all  the  year,  but  T 
cenchris,  Micronisus  gabar,  ff'/p.  eleonorac,  and 
F.  melanopterus,  are  all  migrants  from  the  south. 
Besides  the  abovenamed  smaller  hawks,  the  two 
magnificent  species,  F.  Saker  and  F.  lanarius,  are 
summer  visitors  to  Palestine.  "  On  one  occasion," 


lx 


HAY 


says  Mr.  Tristram,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for 
much  information  on  the  subject  of  the  birds  of 
Palestine,  "while  riding  with  an  Arab  guide  I  ob 
served  a  falcon  of  large  size  rise  close  to  us.  The 
guide,  when  I  pointed  it  out  to  him,  exclaimed, 
«  Tatr  Scufr.'  Tair,  the  Arabic  for  « bird,'  is 
universally  throughout  N.  Africa  and  the  East 
applied  to  those  falcons  which  are  capable  of  being 
trained  for  hunting,  i.  e.  '  the  bird,'  par  excellence" 
These  two  species  of  falcons,  and  perhaps  the 
hobby  and  goshawk  (Astur  palumbarius)  are  em 
ployed  by  the  Arabs  in  Syria  and  Palestine  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  partridges,  sand-grouse,  quails, 
herons,  gazelles,  hares,  &c.  Dr.  Russell  (Nat.  Hist, 
of  Aleppo,  ii.  p.  196,  2nd  ed.)  has  given  the  Arabic 
names  of  several  falcons,  but  it  is  probable  that  some 
at  least  of  these  names  apply  rather  to  the  different 
sexes  than  to  distinct  species.  See  a  very  graphic  de 
scription  of  the  sport  of  falconry,  as  pursued  by  the 
Arabs  of  N.  Africa,  in  the  Ibis,  i.  p.  284 ;  and 
comp.  Thomson,  The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  208. 

Whether  falconry  was  pursued  by  the  ancient 
Orientals  or  not,  is  a  question  we  have  been  unable 
to  determine  decisively.  No  representation  of  such 
a  sport  occurs  on  the  monuments  of  ancient  Egypt 
(see  Wilkinson,  An.  Eg.  i.  p.  221),  neither  is  there 
any  definite  allusion  to  falconry  in  the  Bible.  With 
regard,  however,  to  the  negative  evidence  supplied 
by  the  monuments  of  Egypt,  we  must  be  careful 
are  we  draw  a  conclusion  ;  for  the  camel  is  not  repre 
sented,  though  we  have  Biblical  evidence  to  show 
that  this  animal  was  used  by  the  Egyptians  as  early 
as  the  time  of  Abraham ;  still,  as  instances  of  various 
modes  of  capturing  fish,  game,  and  wild  animals,  are 
not  unfrequent  on  the  monuments,  it  seems  probable 
the  ail  was  not  known  to  the  Egyptians.  Nothing 
definite  can  be  learnt  from  the  passage  in  1  Sam. 
xxvi.  20,  which  speaks  of  "a  partridge  hunted  on 
the  mountains,"  as  this  may  allude  to  the  method 
of  taking  these  birds  by  "  throw-sticks,"  &c. 
[PARTRIDGE.]  The  hind  or  hart  "  panting  afteY 
the  water-brooks  "  (Ps.  xlii.  1)  may  appear  at  first 
sight  to  refer  to  the  mode  at  present  adopted  in 
the  East  of  taking  gazelles,  deer,  and  bustards, 
with  the  united  aid  of  falcon  and  greyhound ; 
but,  as  Hengstenberg  (Comment,  on  Ps.  1.  c.) 
has  argued,  it  seems  pretty  clear  that  the  exhaus 
tion  spoken  of  is  to  be  understood  as  arising  not 
from  pursuit,  but  from  some  prevailing  drought, 
as  in  Ps.  Ixiii.  1,  "My  soul  thirsteth  for  thee  in  a 
dry  land."  (See  also  Joel  i.  20.)  The  poetical 
version  of  Brady  and  Tate — 

"  As  pants  the  hart  for  cooling  streams 

When  heated  in  the  chase," 

has  therefore  somewhat  prejudged  the  matter.  For 
the  question  as  to  whether  falconry  was  known 
to  the  ancient  Greeks,  see  Beckmann,  History  of 
Inventions  (i.  198-205,  Bohn's  ed.). 

HAY  ("PVri»  chdtzir:  eV  r$  ireSty  x\<»/>os, 
Xfyros :  prata,  herba],  the  rendering  of  the  A.  V. 
in  Prov.  xxvii.  25,  and  Is.  xv.  6,  of  the  above-named 
Heb.  term,  which  occurs  frequently  in  the  0.  T.,  and 


a  "  The  hay  appeareth,  and  the  tender  grass  sheweth 
Itself,  and  herbs  of  the  mountains  are  gathered." 


allied  to  the  Arabic 


(cheshish), 


which  Freytag  thus  explains,  "  Herba,  pecul.  siccior  :  tcU. 
Papulum  siccum,  foenum  (ut  ^^3  .  viride  et  recens). 


«  «•  The  Arabs  of  the  desert  always  call  the  dry  juice- 


HEATH 

denotes  "  grass*  of  any  kind,  frcm  an  unused  root 
"  to  be  green."  [GRASS.]  In  Num.  xi.  5,  thi* 
word  is  properly  translated  "  leeks."  [LEEK.] 
Harmer  (Obsewat.  i.  425,  ed.  1797),  quoting  from 
a  MS.  paper  of  Sir  J.  Chardin,  states  that  hay  is 
not  made  anywhere  in  the  East,  and  that  the 
fenum  of  the  Vulg.  (aliis  locis)  and  the  "  hay"  of 
the  A.  V.  are  therefore  errors  of  translation.  It  is 
quite  probable  that  the  modern  Orientals  do  not 
make  hay  in  our  sense  of  the  term  ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  ancients  did  mow  their  grass,  and  probably 
made  use  of  the  dry  material.  See  Ps.  xxxvii.  2, 
"  They  shall  soon  be  cut  down  (-l??^),  and  wither 
as  the  green  herb  ;"  Ps.  Ixxii.  6  ,  "  Like  rain  upon  the 
mown  grass"  (T3).  See  also  Am.  vii.  1  ,  "  The  king's 
mowings"  ("sJ/Sn  ^)  5  an(*  ^R-  cxxix-  ?>  where  of 
the  "  grass  upon  the  housetops  "  (Poa  annua  ?)  it 
is  said  that  "  the  mower  pVlp)  filleth  not  his  hand" 
with  it,  "  nor  he  that  bindeth  sheaves  his  bosom." 
We  do  not  see,  therefore,  with  the  author  of  Frag 
ments  in  Continuation  of  Calmet  (No.  clxxviii.), 
any  gross  impropriety  in  our  version  of  Prov. 
xxvii.  25,  or  in  that  of  Is.  xv.  6.  "Certainly," 
says  this  writer,  "  if  the  tender  grass*  is  but  just 
beginning  to  show  itself,  the  hay,  which  is  grass  cut 
and  dried  after  it  has  arrived  at  maturity,  ought  by 
no  means  to  be  associated  with  it,  still  less  ought  it 
to  be  placed  before  it."  But  where  is  the  impro 
priety?  The  tender  grass  (NKH)  may  refer  to  the 

springing  after-grass,  and  the  "  hay  "  to  the  hay- 
grass.  However,  in  the  two  passages  in  question, 
where  'alone  the  A.  V.  renders  chdtzir  by  "  hay," 
the  word  would  certainly  be  better  translated  by 
"  grass."  We  may  remark  that  there  is  an  express 
Hebrew  term  for  "dry  grass"  or  "hay,"  viz. 
chashashj*  which,  apparently  from  an  unused  root 
signifying  "  to  be  dry,"c  is  rendered  in  the  only  two 
places  where  the  word  occurs  (Is.  v.  24,  xxxiii. 
11)  "  chaff"  in  the  Authorised  Version.  We  do 
not,  however,  mean  to  assert  that  the  chashash  of 
the  Orientals  represents  our  modern  English  hay. 
Doubtless  the  "dry  grass"  was  not  stacked,  but 
only  cut  in  small  quantities,  and  then  consumed. 
The  grass  of  "  the  latter  growth  "  (Am.  vii.  1) 
(£?£?),  perhaps  like  our  after  grass,  denotes  the 

mown  grass  as  it  grows  afresh  after  the  harvest  ; 
like  the  Chordum  foenum  of  Pliny  (N.  H.  viii.  28). 


HEATH  OJflTJJ,  'dro'er,  and  "ljny,  'ar'dr  :* 
TJ  aypiopvpiK-n,  ovos  &ypios  :  myricd}'.  The  pro 
phet  Jeremiah  compares  the  man  "  who  maketh 
rlesh  his  arm,  and  whose  heart  departeth  from  the 
Lord,"  to  the  'ar'dr  in  the  desert  (xvii.  6).  Again, 
in  the  judgment  of  Moab  (xlviii.  6),  to  her  inha 
bitants  it  is  said,  "  Flee,  save  your  lives,  and  be  like 
the  'droer  in  the  wilderness,"  where  the  margin  has 
"  a  naked  tree."  There  seems  no  reason  to  doubt 
Celsius'  conclusion  (Hierob.  ii.  195),  that  the 


'ar'dr  is  identical  with  the  'arar 


rabic 


less  herbage  of  the  Sahara,  which  is  ready  made  hay  while 
it  is  growing,  cheshish,  in  contradistinction  from  the  frest 
grass  of  better  soils."— [H.  B.  TRISTRAM.] 

d  From  the  root  "HlV,  "to be  naked,"  in  allusion  to  the 
bare  nature  of  the  rocks  on  which  the  Juniperus  Sabina 
often  grows.  Comp.  Ps.  cii.  17,  "ftp^n  J"l??^.  "  tb< 
prayer  of  the  destitute  "  (or  ill  clad). 


HOLM-TREE 

writers,  which  is  some  species  of  juniper.  Robinson 
Vj5i'6.  Res.  ii.  125,  6)  states  that  when  he  was  in  the 
pass  of  Nemela  he  observed  juniper  trees  (Arab 
ar'ar)  on  the  porphyry  rocks  above.  The  berries, 
he  adds,  have  the  appearance  and  taste  of  the  com 
mon  jumper,  except  that  there  is  more  of  the 
aroma  of  the  pine.  "  These  trees  were  ten  or  fifteen 
feet  in  height,  and  hung  upon  the  rocks  even  to  the 
summits  of  the  clitfs  and  needles."  This  appears  to 
be  the  Juniperus  Sabina,  or  savin,  with  small  scale- 
like  leaves,  which  are  pressed  close  to  the  stem,  and 
which  is  described  as  being  a  gloomy-looking  bush 
inhabiting  the  most  sterile  soil  (see  English  Cycl.  N. 
Hist.  iii.  311)  ;  a  character  which  is  obviously  well 
suited  to  the  naked  or  destitute  tree  spoken  of  by 
the  prophet.  Rosenmiiller's  explanation  of  the 
Hebrew  word,  which  is  also  adopted  by  Maurer, 
"  qui  destitutus  versatur  "  (Schol.  ad  Jer.  xvii.  6), 
is  very  unsatisfactory.  Not  to  mention  the  lameness 
of  the  comparison,  it  is  evidently  contradicted  by 
thi  antithesis  in  ver.  8  :  Cursed  is  he  that  trusteth 
in  man  ...  he  shall  be  like  the  juniper  that  grows 
on  the  bare  rocks  of  the  desert :  Blessed  is  the  man 
th'it  trusteth  in  the  Lord  ...  he  shall  be  as  a  tree 
planted  by  the  waters.  The  contrast  between  the 
shrub  of  the  arid  desert  and  the  tree  growing  by 
the  waters  is  very  striking ;  but  Rosenmiiller's  inter 
pretation  appears  to  us  to  spoil  the  whole.  Even 
more  unsatisfactory  is  Michaelis  (Supp.  Lex.  Heb. 
p.  1971),  who  thinks  "guinea  hens"  (Numida 
meleagris)  are  intended !  Gesenius  (  Thes.  p.  1 073, 4) 
understands  these  two  Heb.  terms  to  denote  "  parie- 
tinae,  aedificia  eversa"  (ruins);  but  it  is  more  in 
accordance  with  the  Scriptural  passages  to  suppose 
that  some  tree  is  intended,  which  explanation,  more 
over,  has  the  sanction  of  the  LXX.  and  Vulgate,  and 
of  the  modern  use  of  a  kindred  Arabic  word. 

HEMLOCK.    [GALL.] 

HOLM-TREE  (irptvos :  ilex}  occurs  only  in 
the  apocryphal  story  of  Susanna  (ver.  58).  The 
passage  contains  a  characteristic  play  on  the  names 
of  the  two  trees  mentioned  by  the  elders  in  their 
evidence.  That  on  the  mastich  (CXLVOV  . . .  &-yyf\os 
(TKLffet  <re)  has  been  noticed  under  that  head  [vol.  ii. 
p.  271  6].  That  on  the  holm-tree  (irpivov)  is  "  the 
angel  of  God  waiteth  with  the  sword  to  cut 
thee  in  two"  (ft/a  Trpiffai  <re).  For  the  histo 
rical  significance  of  these  puns  see  SUSANNA.  The 
irptvos  of  Theophrastus  (Hist.  Plant,  iii.  7,  §3,  and 
16,  §1,  and  elsewhere)  and  Dioscorides  (i.  144) 
denotes,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  the  Quercus  cocci/era, 
the  Q.pseudo-coccifera,  which  is  perhaps  not  speci 
fically  distinct  from  the  first-mentioned  oak.  The 
ilex  of  the  Roman  writers  was  applied  both  to  the 
holm-oak  (Quercus  ilex)  and  to  the  Q.  ooccifera  or 
kermes  oak.  See  Pliny  (N.  H.  xvi.  6). 

For  the  oaks  of  Palestine,  see  a  paper  by  Dr. 
Hooker  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Linnaean  Society, 
vol.  xxiii.  pt.  ii.  pp.  381-387.  [OAK.] 

HOESELEACH  (nj>Aj(,  dk'tkdh:  jWeAAa: 
sanguisitgaj  occurs  once  only,  viz.  Prov.  xxx.  15, 
"  The  horseleach  hath  two  daughters,  crying, 
Give,  give."  There  is  little  if  any  doubt  that 
dlukdh  denotes  some  species  of  leech,  or  rather  is 
the  generic  term  for  any  bloodsucking  annelid, 
such  as  Hirudo  (the  medicinal  leech),  Haemopis 
(the  horseleech),  Limnatis,  Trochetia,  and  Aula- 
sioma,  if  all  these  genera  are  found  in  the  marshes 
and  pools  of  the  Bible-lands.  Schultens  ( Comment. 


IVY  Lxi 

in  Pro?.  !.  c.)  and  Bochart  (Hierca.  iii.  795)  hav« 
endeavoured  to.  show  that  '&Mkdh  is  to  be  under 
stood  to  signify  "  fate,"  or  "impending  misfortune 
of  any  kind"  (fatum  unicuique  impendens),  they 
refer  the  Hebrew  term  to  the  Aralic  'aWi,  ret 
appensa,  affixa  homini.  The  "  two  daughters"  ait 
explained  by  Bochart  to  signify  Hades  6lN£J>) 
and  the  grave,  which  are  never  satisfied.  This  ex 
planation  is  certainly  very  ingenious,  but  where  is 
the  necessity  to  appeal  to  it,  when  the  important 
old  versions  are  opposed  to  any  such  interpreta 
tion  ?  The  bloodsucking  leeches,  such  as  Hirudo 
and  Haemopis,  were  without  a  doubt  known  to 
the  ancient  Hebrews,  and  as  the  leech  has  been 
for  ages  the  emblem  of  rapacity  and  cruelty, 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  this  annelid  is 
denoted  by  'Alukdh.  The  Arabs  to  this  day  cUao- 
minate  the  Limnatis  Nilotica,  'alak.  As 'to  the 
expression  "  two  daughters,"  which  has  been  by 
some  writers  absurdly  explained  to  allude  to  "  the 
double  tongue"  of  a  leech — this  animal  having  no 
tongue  at  all — there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  figu 
rative,  and  is  intended,  in  the  language  of  Oriental 
hyperbole,  to  denote  its  bloodthirsty  propensity, 
evidenced  by  the  tenacity  with  which  a  leech  keeps 
its  hold  on  the  skin  (if  Hirudo),  or  mucous  membrane 
(if  Haemopis).  Comp.  Horace,  Ep.  ad  Pis.  476 
Cicero,  Ep.  ad  Atticum,  i.  1 6 ;  Plautus,  Epid.  act 
iv.  sc.  4.  The  etymology  of  the  Hebrew  word,  from 
an  unused  root  which  signifies  "  to  adhere,"  is 
eminently  suited  to  "a  leech."  Gesenius  (Thes. 
p.  1038)  reminds  us  that  the  Arabic  'aluk  is  ex 
plained  in  Camus  by  ghul,  "  a  female  monster  like  a 
vampire  which  sucked  human  blood."  The  passage 
in  question,  however,  has  simply  reference  to  a 
"leech/'  The  valuable  use  of  the  leech  (Hirudo) 
in  medicine,  though  undoubtedly  known  to  Pliny 
and  the  later  Roman  writers,  was  in  all  pro 
bability  unknown  to  the  ancient  Orientals  ;  still 
they  were  doubtless  acquainted  with  the  fact  that 
leeches  of  the  above  named  genus  would  attach 
themselves  to  the  skin  of  persons  going  barefoot  in 
ponds;  and  they  also  probably  were  cognisant  of 
the  propensity  horseleeches  (Haemopis}  have  of 
entering  the  mouth  and  nostrils  of  cattle,  as  they 
drink  from  the  waters  frequented  by  these  pests, 
which  are  common  enough  in  Palestine  and  Syria. 


IVY  (ict(r<r6s'.  hedera),  the  common  Seder  a 
helix,  of  which  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans 
describe  two  or  three  kinds,  which  appear  to  be 
only  varieties.  Mention  of  this  plant  is  made  only 
in  2  Mace.  vi.  7,  where  it  is  said  that  the  Jews 
were  compelled,  when  the  feast  of  Bacchus  was 
kept,  to  go  in  procession  carrying  ivy  to  this  deity, 
to  whom  it  is  well  known  this  plant  was  sacred. 
Ivy,  however,  though  not  mentioned  by  name,  has 
a  peculiar  interest  to  the  Christian,  as  forming 
the  "  corruptible  crown "  (1  Cor.  ix.  25)  for 
which  the  competitors  at  the  great  Isthmian  games 
contended,  and  which  St.  Paul  so  beautifully  con 
trasts  with  the  "  incorruptible  crown  "  which  shall 
hereafter  encircle  the  brows  of  those  who  ruu 
worthily  the  race  of  this  mortal  life.  In  the 
Isthmian  contests  the  victor's  garland  was  eithei 
ivy  or  pine. 


APPENDIX  B,  TO  VOL  L 


AKTICLES  OMITTED. 


[lie  articles  in  this  Appendix  are  all  written  by  William  Aldis  Wright,  M.A.,  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  vrtUi 
the  exception  of  those  which  bear  the  initials  of  the  names  of  their  respective  authors.  Most  of  the  additions 
are  in  the  letters  A  and  B,  since  the  scope  and  extent  of  the  original  work  were  enlarged  after  that  portion  had 
been  printed.} 


AARONITES 

AA'RONITES,  THE  (pHK:  &  *Aap6v: 
itirps  Aaron,  Aaronitae).  Descendants  of  Aaron, 
and  therefore  priests,  who,  to  the  number  of  3700 
fighting  men,  with  Jehoiada  the  father  of  Benaiah 
at  their  head,  joined  David  at  Hebron  (1  Chr.  xii. 
27*).  Later  on  in  the  history  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  17)  we 
find  their  chief  was  Zadok,  who  in  the  earlier  nar 
rative  is  distinguished  as  "a  young  man  mighty  of 
valour."  They  must  have  been,  an  important 
family  in  the  reign  of  David  to  be  reckoned  among 
the  tribes  of  Israel. 

ABADI'AS  ('Aj8a5fas:  Abdias}.  OBADIAH, 
the  son  of  Jehiel  (1  Esdr.  viii.  35). 

AB'BA.    [As.] 

AB'DI  (^y:   'AjSaf;   Alex.   'Aj85i':    Abdi). 

1.  A  Merarite,  and  ancestor  of  Ethan  the  singer 
(1  Chr.  vi.  44). 

2.  ('AjSftf.)     The  father  of  Kish,  a  Merarite  Le- 
vite  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  (2  Chr.  xxix.   12). 
From  a  comparison  of  this  passage  with   1   Chr. 
vi.  44  it  would  appear  either  that  ancestral  names 
were  repeated  in  Levitical  families,  or  that  they 
became  themselves  the  names  of  families,  and  not  of 
individuals. 

3.  ('Aj85:'a;  FA.  *Aj85e/cO    One  of  the  Bene- 
Elam  in  the  time  of  Ezra,  who  had  married  a  foreign 
wife  (Ezr.  x.  26). 

ABDI'AS  (Abdias).  The  prophet  Obadiah 
(2  Esdr.  i.  39). 

A'BEL-MA'IM.     [ABEL  1.] 

ABI'A.  5.  (n»nK:'A|8«£:-A&ia.)  ABIJAHOI- 
ABIJAM,  the  son  of  Rehoboam  (1  Chr.  iii.  10;  Matt. 
i.7). 

6.  Descendant  of  Eleazar,  and  chief  of  the  eighth 
of  the  twenty-four  courses  of  priests  (Luke  i.  5). 
Ih  's  the  same  as  ABIJAH  4. 


ABIUD 


in  Judg.  vi.;  5A£l  'Etrfyu  in'  Judg.  viii.  ;  Alex. 
T«TT?P  'Afiif£pi,  TT.  rov  'le^joi,  TT.  'A&efpet  :  pater 
familiae  Ezri,  familia  Ezri).  A  descendant  of 
Abiezer,  or  Jeezer,  the  son  of  Gilead  (Judg.  vi.  11, 
24,  viii.  32),  and  thence  also  called  JEEZERITE 
(Num.  xxvi.  30).  The  Peshito-Syriac  and  Targum 


both  regard  the  first  part  of  the  word  "  Abi "  as 
an  appellative,  "  father  of,"  as  also  the  LXX.  and 
Vulgate. 

AB'INER  OWa»  :  'AjSev^p ;  Alex.  'AjBoii^ : 
Abner).  This  form  of  the  name  Abner  is  given  in 
the  margin  of  1  Sam.  xiv.  50.  It  corresponds  with 
the  Hebrew. 

AB'IRON  ('A&eipc&v:  Abirori}.  ABIRAM 
(Ecclus.  xlv.  18). 

ABISE't  (Abisei).  ABISHUA,  the  son  of 
Phinehas  (2  Esdr.  i.  2). 

AB'ISUM('Aj8i<raf;  Alex.  'A&iffoval :  Abisne). 
ABISHUA,  the  son  of  Phinehas  (1  Esdr.  viii.  2). 
Called  also  ABISEI. 

ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM.  During  the  Roman 
occupation  of  Judaea  at  least  the  practice  of  reclin 
ing  on  couches  at  meals  was  customary  among  the 
Jews.  As  each  guest  leaned  upon  his  left  arm,  his 
neighbour  next  below  him  would  naturally  be  de 
scribed  as  lying  in  his  bosom ;  and  such  a  position 
with  respect  to  the  master  of  the  house  was  one  of 
especial  honour,  and  only  occupied  by  his  nearest 
friends  (John  i.  18,  xiii.  23).  To  lie  in  Abraham's 
bosom,  then,  was  a  metaphor  in  use  among  the  Jews 
to  denote  a  condition  after  death  of  perfect  happiness 
and  rest,  and  a  position  of  friendship  and  nearness 
to  the  great  founder  of  their  race,  when  they  shall 
lie  down  on  his  right  hand  at  the  banquet  of  Para 
dise,  "  with  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven"  (Matt.  viii.  11).  That  the 
expression  was  in  use  among  the  Jews  is  shown  by 
Lightfoot  (Hor.  Hebr.  in  Luc.  xvi.  22),  who  quotes 
a  passage  from  the  Talmud  (Kiddushin,  fol.  72), 
which,  according  to  his  interpretation,  representf 
Levi  as  saying  in  reference  to  the  death  of  Rabbi 
|  Judah,  "  to-day  he  dwelleth  in  Abraham's  bosom." 
'  The  future  blessedness  of  the  just  was  represented 
under  the  figure  of  a  banquet,  "  the  banquet  of  the 
garden  of  Eden  or  Paradise."  See  Schoettgen,  Hor. 
Heb.  in  Matt.  viii.  11. 

ABI'UD  ('AfrovS:  Abiid).  Descendant  of 
Zorobabel,  in  the  genealogy  of  Jesus  Christ  (Matt, 
i.  13).  Lord  A.  Hervey  identifies  him  with  Ho- 
DAIAH  (1  Chr.  iii.  24)  and  JUDA  (Luke  iii.  26), 
and  supposes  him  to  have  been  the  grandson  o' 
Zerubbabel  through  his  daughter  Shelomith. 


ABNER 

AB'NER.  2.  Father  of  Jaasiel,  chief  of  the 
Benjamites  in  David's  reign  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  21): 
probably  the  same  as  ABNER  1. 

AB'SALON"  ('Apea-ffaXda/j.:  Abessalom).  An 
ambassador  with  John  from  the  Jews  to  Lysias, 
chief  governor  of  Code-Syria  and  Phoenice  (2  Mace. 
xi.  17). 

ABU'BUS  ('A£ou£os:  Abobus).  Father  of 
Ptolemeus,  who  was  captain  of  the  plain  of  Jericho, 
and  son-in-law  to  Simon  Maccabaeus  (1  Mace.  xvi. 
11,  15). 

AO'ATAN  ('AKOT^:  Eocetan}.  HAKKATAI? 
'1  Esdr.  viii.  38). 

A'CHAR  ("Oy  :  'Ax<*p:  Achar).  A  variation 
of  the  name  of  Achan,  which  seems  to  have  arisen 
from  the  play  upon  it  given  in  1  Chr.  ii.  7,  "  Achar, 
the  troubler  ("DIP  'ocer)  of  Israel." 

A'CHAZ  OxaC'-  Achaz).  AHAZ,  king  of 
Judah  (Matt.  i.  9). 

ACHIACH'AKUS  ('AXidXapos^  Chief  mi 
nister,  "  cupbearer,  and  keeper  of  the  signet,  and 
steward,  and  overseer  of  the  accounts "  at  the 
court  of  Sarchedonus  or  Esarhaddon,  king  of  Nine 
veh,  in  the  Apocryphal  story  of  Tobit  (Tob.  i.  21, 
22,  ii.  10,  xiv.  10).  He  was  nephew  to  Tobit, 
being  the  son  of  his  brother  Anael.  and  supported 
him  in  his  blindness  till  he  left  Nineveh.  From 
the  occurrence  of  the  name  of  Aman  in  xiv.  10,  it 
has  been  conjectured  that  Achiacharus  is  but  the 
Jewish  name  for  Mordecai,  whose  history  suggested 
some  points  which  the  author  of  the  book  of  Tobit 
worked  up  into  his  narrative  ;  but  there  is  no  rea 
son  to  have  recourse  to  such  a  supposition,  as  the 
discrepancies  are  much  more  strongly  marked  than 
..he  resemblances. 

ACHI'AS  (Achias).  Son  of  Phinees;  high 
priest  and  progenitor  of  Esdras  (2  Esdr.  i.  2),  but 
omitted  both  in  the  genealogies  of  Ezra  and  1  Esdras. 
He  is  probably  confounded  with  Ahijah,  the  son  of 
Ahitub  and  grandson  of  Eli. 

ACH'ITOB  ('AXITC$£:  Achitob).  AHITUB, 
the  high  priest  (1  Esdr.  viii.  2  ;  2  Esdr.  i.  1),  in 
•.he  genealogy  of  Esdras. 

ACH'SA  (nDDJJ:  'ArrXa;  Alex.  'AX<TC£  :  Achsa). 
Daughter  of  Caleb,  or  Chelubai,  the  son  of  Hezron 
•  1  Chr.  ii.  49).  [CALEB.] 

A'CIPHA  ('AXij8e£;  Alex.  'AX*<M:  Agista}. 
HAEUPHA  (1  Esdr.  v.  31). 

AC'TJA  ('A/coi58 ;  Accub).  AKKUB  (1  Esdr.  v. 
30)  ;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  45. 

AC' OB  OAieofy;  Alex.  'AKotf/t:  Accusu}. 
BAKBUK  (1  Esdr.  v.  31 ;  comp.  Ezr.  ii.  51). 

ADAI'AH  (nHJJ:  'E5ei'c£;  Alex.  'leSiScS: 
Hadala).  1.  The  maternal  grandfather  of  King 
Josiah,  and  native  of  Boscath  in  the  lowlands  of 
Judah  (2  K.  xxii.  1). 

2.  ('ASaf ;  Alex.  'ASata :  Adam.}     A  Levite,  of 
the  Gvrshonite  branch,  and  ancestor  of  Asaph  (1  Chr. 
v\  41).     In  ver.  21  he  is  called  IDDO. 

3.  ('ASafo;  Alex. 'AAcrfa.)     A  Benjamite,  son 
of  Shimhi  (1  Chr.  viii.  21),  who  is  apparently  the 
aime  as  Shema  in  ver.  13. 

4.  (Alex.  2a5/as,  'ASafa  ;  Addtas,  Adaia.}     A 
priest,  son  of  Jeroham  (1  Chr.  ijc.  12 ;  Neh.  xi.  12), 


ADINA  bciii 

who  returned  with  242  of  his  brethren  froit 
Babylon. 

5.  ('AScuos ;   Adam}     One   of  the  desct-ndants 
of  Bani,  who  had  married  a  foreign  wife  after  the 
return  from  Babylon  (Ezr.  x.  29).     He  is  called 
JEDEUS  in  1  Esdr.  ix.  30. 

6.  ('A&ofa;  Alex.'A5aias;FA.'A8e4ii:  Adatas.} 
The  descendant  of  another  Bani,  who  had  also  taken 
a  foreign  wife  (Ezr.  x.  39). 

7.  (Alex.  'Axafa ;  FA.  AoAea :  Adala.)    A  man 
of  Judah  of  the  line  of  Pharez  (Neh.  xi.  5). 

8.  -inn*?:  'A&fo;  Alex.  'AScua:  AdaXas.)     An- 
cestor  of  Maaseiah,  one  of  the  captains  who  sup 
ported  Jehoiada  (  2  Chr.  xxiii.  8). 

AD'DI.  2.  ('A85f:  Addin.)  This  name  occurs 
in  a  very  corrupt  verse  (1  Esdr.  ix.  31),  apparently 
for  ADNA  (Ezr.  x.  30). 

AD'DO  ('ASScS:  Addin}.  IDDO,  the  grand 
father  of  the  prophet  Zechariah  (1  Esdr.  vi.  1). 

AD'DUS  ('AWofo:  Addus}.  1.  The  sons  of 
Addus  are  enumerated  among  the  children  of 
Solomon's  servants  who  returned  with  Zorobabel 
(1  Esdr.  v.  34);  but  the  name  does  not  occur  in  the 
parallel  lists  of  Ezra  or  Nehemiah. 

2.  ('laSSou;  Alex.  'loSSous  :  Adding  A  priest, 
whose  descendants,  according  to  1  Esdr.,  were  un 
able  to  establish  their  genealogy  in  the  time  of 
Ezra,  and  were  removed  from  their  priesthood 
(1  Esdr.  v.  38).  He  is  said  to  have  married  Augia, 
the  daughter  of  Berzelus  or  Barzillai.  In  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah  he  is  called  by  his  adopted  name 
Barzillai,  and  it  is  not  clear  whether  Addus  re 
presents  his  original  name  or  is  a  mere  corruption. 

A'DEB  (TO :  "ESep ;   Alex.  "nScp :   Heder}. 

A  Benjamite,  son  of  Beriah,  chief  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Aijalon  (1  Chr.  viii.  15).  The  name  is,  more 
correctly,  EUER. 

AD'IEL  (^NHSj :  'leSiTjA  ;  Alex.  'ESi^A : 
AdieT).  1.  A  prince  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon,  de 
scended  from  the  prosperous  family  of  Shimei 
(1  Chr.  iv.  36).  He  took  part  in  the  murderous 
raid  made  by  his  tribe  upon  the  peaceable  Hamite 
shepherds  in  the  valley  of  Gedor,  in  the  reign  of 
Hezekiah. 

2.  ('ASt^A.)      A   priest,   ancestor    of  Maasiai 
(1  Chr.  ix.  12). 

3.  ('DM* ;  Alex.  M5iTj\.)     Ancestor  of  Az- 
inaveth,  David's  treasurer  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  25). 

A'DIN  (pJJ:  'ASSiV,  'A5fi>  in  Ezr.,  'HSiV  in 

Neh. :  Adin,  Adan  in  Ezr.  viii.  6).  Ancestor  of  a 
family  who  returned  with  Zerubbabel  to  the  num 
ber  of  454  (Ezr.  ii.  15),  or  655,  according  to  the 
parallel  list  in  Neh.  vii.  20.  Fifty-one  more  ac 
companied'  Ezra  in  the  second  caravan  from  Baby 
lon  (Ezr.  viii.  6).  They  joined  with  Nehemiah  in 
a  covenant  to  separate  themselves  from  the  heathen 
(Neh.  x.  16). 

AD'INA  (Kyi??:  'A5W:  Adina).  The  son 
of  Shiza,  one  of  David's  captains  beyond  the  Jordan, 
and  chief  .of  the  Reubeuites  (1  Chr.  xi.  42).  Ac 
cording  to  the  A.  V.  and  the  Syriac,  he  had  the 
command  of  thirty  men;  but  the  passage  should 
be  rendered  "  and  over  him  were  thirty,"  that 
is,  the  thirty  before  enumerated  were  his  supe 
riors,  just  as  Benaiah  was  "  above  the  thirty  * 
(1  Chr.  xxvii  C> 


ADIEUS 


Ixiv 

AD'INUS  (  'laSu^s :  Jaddimus],  JAMIN  the 
Levite  (I  Esdr.  ix.  48  ;  comp.  Neh.  viii.  7). 

ADLA'I  Olny:  'A5Ai;  Alex.  'A5at:  Adli). 
Ancestor  of  Shaphat,  the  overseer  of  David's  herds 
that  fed  in  the  broad  valleys  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  29). 

AD'NA(Kriy:  'E5j/e':  Edna}.  1.  One  of  the 
family  of  Pahath-Moab  who  returned  with  Ezra, 
and  married  a  foreign  wife  (Ezr  x.  30). 

2.  (Mavvds.)  A  priest,  descendant  of  Harim, 
in  the  days  of  Joiakim,  the  son  of  Jeshua  f  Neh. 
xii.  15). 


AD'NAH  (nriy:  'ESvd:  Ednas}.  1.  A 
Manassite,  who  deserted  from  Saul  and  joined  the 
fortunes  of  David  on  his  road  to  Ziklag  from  the 
cr.mp  of  the  Philistines  (1  Chr.  x-ii.  20). 

2.  ('ESyas;  Alex.  'ESvocts.)  The  commander- 
m-chief  of  300,000  men  of  Judah,  who  were  in  Je- 
hoshaphat's  army  (2  Chr.  xvii.  14). 


ADO'NIKAM  (DjjtflN:  'ASwi/^:  Adoni- 
sam}.  The  sons  of  Adonikam,  666  in  number, 
were  among  those  who  returned  from  Babylon  with 
Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  13  ;  Neh.  vii.  18  ;  1  Esdr.  v. 
14).  In  the  last  two  passages  the  number  is  667. 
The  remainder  of  the  family  returned  with  Ezra 
(Ezr.  viii.  13  ;  1  Esdr.  viii.  39).  The  name  is 
given  as  ADONIJAH  in  Neh.  x.  16. 

ADUEL  ('ASou^A).  A  Naphtalite,  ancestor 
of  Tobit(Tob.  i.  1). 

ADUL'LAMITB 

Alex.  'OSoAAo/ieirrjy  :   Odollamites).     A  native  of 
Adullam  :  applied  to  Hirah,  the  friend  (or  '^shep 
herd  "  as  the  Vulgate  has  it,  reading  -injn  for 
of  Judah  (Gen.  xxxviii.  1,  12,  20). 


UK:  "A<ra;  Alex.  'A7<>e£:  Age}.  A 
Hararite,  father  of  Shammah,  one  of  David's  three 
mightiest  heroes  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  11).  In  the  Pe- 
shito-Syriac  he  is  called  "  Ago  of  the  king's  moun 
tain." 


A'GUB  pMK:  Congregans).  The  son  of 
Jakeh,  an  unknown  Hebrew  sage,  who  uttered  or 
collected  the  sayings  of  wisdom  recorded  in  Prov. 
xxx.  Ewald  attributes  to  him  the  authorship  of 
Prov.  xxx.  1-xxxi.  9,  in  consequence  of  the  simi 
larity  of  style  exhibited  in  the  three  sections  therein 
contained  ;  and  assigns  as  his  date  a  period  not 
earlier  than  the  end  of  the  7th  or  beginning  of  the 
6th  cent.  B.C.  The  Rabbins,  according  to  Rashi 
and  Jerome  after  them,  interpreted  the  name  sym 
bolically  of  Solomon,  who  "  collected  understand 
ing"  (from  "Otf  dgar,  he  gathered),  and  is  else 
where  called  "  Koheleth."  Bunsen  (Bibelwerk,  i. 
clxxviii.)  contends  that  Agur  was  an  inhabitant  of 
Massa,  and  probably  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  500 
Simeonites,  who,  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  drove 
out  the  Amalekites  from  Mount  Seir.  Hitzig  goes 
further,  and  makes  him  the  son  of  the  queen  of 
Massa  and  brother  of  Lemuel  (Die  Spruohe  Sal. 
p.  311,  ed.  1858).  In  CastelPs  Lex.  Heptag.  we 
find  the  Synac  word  J*Cl^j,  dguro,  denned  as 

signifying  "  one  who  applies  himself  to  the  studies  of 
T.visdom."  There  is  no  authority  given  for  this  but 
the  Lexicon  of  Bar  Bahlul,  and  it  may  have  been 
derived  from  some  traditional  interpretation  of  the 
proper  name  Agur. 


AHILUD 

AH'  A  RAH  (rnntf:  'Aapd:  Ahara).  Yh< 
third  son  of  Benjamin  (1  Chr.  viii.  1).  See  AHER, 
AHIRAM. 


AHAR'HEL 

Aharehel}.  A  name  occurring  in  an  obscure  frag- 
ment  of  the  genealogies  of  Judah.  "  The  families 
of  Aharhel  "  apparently  traced  their  descent  through 
Coz  to  Ashur,  the  posthumous  son  of  Hezron.  Th* 
Targum  of  R.  Joseph  on  Chronicles  identifies  him 
with  "  Hur  the  firstborn  of  Miriam"  (1  Chr.  iv. 
8).  The  LXX.  appear  to  have  read  im  »PIK, 
"  brother  of  Rechab,"  or  according  to  the  Complu- 

tensian  edition  ^m  *PIK,  "  brother  of  Rachel." 


AHASA'I  Ctntf:  om.  in  LXX.  :  Ahazi).  A 
priest,  ancestor  of  Maasiai  or  Amashai  (Neh.  xi. 
13).  He  is  called  JAHZERAH  in  1  Chr.  ix.  12. 


AHASBA'I  03DPIK:  &  'AO-^TTJS  ;  Alex.  & 
Atrove:  Aasbai).  The  father  of  Eliphelet,  one  of 
David's  thirty-seven  captains  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  34). 
In  the  corrupt  list  in  1  Chr.  xi.  35,  Eliphelet  ap 
pears  as  «  Eliphal  the  son  of  Ur."  The  LXX. 
regarded  the  name  Ahasbai  as  denoting  not  the 
father  but  the  family  of  Eliphelet. 

A'HAZ.  2.  (Ahaz.)  A  son  of  Micah,  the 
grandson  of  Jonathan  through  Meribbaal  or  Mephi- 
bosheth  (1  Chr.  viii.  35,  36,  ix.  42). 

AH'BAN  (Alex.  '0$).  Son  of  Abishur,  by 
his  wife  Abihail  (1  Chr.  ii.  29).  He  was  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah. 

A'HER.  Ancestor  of  Hushim,  or  rather  "  the 
Hushim,"  as  the  plural  form  seems  to  indicate  a 
family  rather  than  an  individual.  The  name  occurs 
in  an  obscure  passage  in  the  genealogy  of  Benjamin 
(1  Chr.  vii.  12).  Some  translators  consider  it  as 
not  a  proper  name  at  all,  and  render  it  literally 
"  another,"  because,  as  Rashi  says,  Ezra,  who 
compiled  the  genealogy,  was  uncertain  whether  the 
families  belonged  to  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  or  not. 
It  is  not  improbable  that  Aher  and  Ahiram  (Num. 
xxvi.  38)  are  the  same  ;  unless  the  former  belonged 
to  the  tribe  of  Dan,  whose  genealogy  is  omitted  in 
1  Chr.  vii.  ;  Hushim  ber:ig  a  Danite  as  ;vell  as  •» 
Benjamite  name. 

A'HI.  1.  A  Gadite,  chief  of  a  family  who  lived 
in  Gilead  in  Bashan  (1  Chr.  v.  12),  in  the  days  of 
Jotham,  king  of  Judah.  By  the  LXX.  and  Vul 
gate  the  word  was  not  considered  a  proper  name. 

2.  ('Ax£:  Ahi.}  A  descendant  of  Shamer,  of 
the  tribe  of  Asher  (1  Chr.  vii.  34).  The  name, 
according  to  Gesenius,  is  a  contraction  of  Ahijah. 

AHT'JAH  9.  ('Afa:  Echam.}  One  of  the 
heads  of  the  people  who  sealed  the  covenant  with 
Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  26). 

AHTAN  (Alex.  'Aef»>).  A  Manassite  of  the 
family  of  Shemidah  (1  Chr.  vii.  19). 


AHI'LUD 

2  Sam.  xx.  24;  Alex.  ' 


2  Sam.  viii.  16, 
1.  Father  of  Jehosha- 
phat,  the  recorder  or  chronicler  of  the  kingdom  in 
the  reigns  of  David  and  Solomon  (2  Sam.  viii.  16, 
xx.  24  ;  1  K.  iv.  3  ;  1  Chr.  xviii.  13). 

2.  ('AxiXorffl;  Alex.  'EAouS.)  The  father  of 
Baana,  one  of  Solomon's  twelve  commissariat  offi 
cers  (1  K.  iv.  12).  It  is  uncertain  whether  he  is 
the  same  as  the  foregoing. 


AII1MAN 


ATII'IYI  AN.  2.  (Aipdv  ;  Alex.  Ai/ud>  :  Ahunam) 
One  of  the  porters  or  gatekeepers,  who  had  charge 
of  the  king's  gate  for  the  "  camps  "  of  the  sons  of 
Levi  (1  Chr.  ix.  17). 

AHINO'AM  (D5/-..I8*:  'AXi>>o6n  ?  Alex- 
'A.xeivo6f^  :  Achinoam).  1.'  Daughter  of  Ahimaaz 
and  wife  of  Saul  (1  Sam.  xiv.  50). 

AHTO.  2.  (VPN  :  a5eA0&y  OUTOU  ;  Alex,  ol 
aSeA^ol  avrov  :  Ahio.}  A  Benjamite,  one  of  the 
sons  of  Beriah,  who  drove  out  the  inhabitants  of 
Gath  (1  Chr.  viii.  14}.  According  to  the  Vat.  MS. 
the  LXX.  must  have  read  VHK,  according  to  the 
Alex.  MS.  VHK. 

3.  A  Benjamite,  son  of  Jehiel,  father  or  founder 
of  Gibeon  (1  Chr.  viii.  31,  ix.  37).  In  the  last 
quoted  passage  the  Vatican  MS.  has 
the  Alex.  a8e\(f>oL 

AHI'KAMITES,  THE 

pavi',  Alex.  6  'Axipa'i  :  Ahirarmae}.  Qne  of  the 
branches  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  descendants  of 
Ahiram  (Num.  xxvi.  38). 

AHIS'AMACH.  A  Danite,  father  of  Aholiab, 
one  of  the  architects  of  the  tabernacle  (Ex.  xxxi.  6, 
xxxv.  34,  xxxviii.  23). 

AHISH'AHAR.  One  of  the  sons  of  Bilhan, 
the  grandson  of  Benjamin  (1  Chr.  vii.  10). 

;  Alex.'AaSat 


'O\i  :  Oholai,  Oholi).  Daughter  of  Sheshan,  whom 
he  gave  in  marriage  to  his  Egyptian  slave  Jarha 
(1  Chr.  ii.  31,  35).  In  consequence  of  the  failure 
pf  male  issue,  Ahlai  became  the  foundress  of  an 
important  branch  of  the  family  of  the  Jerahmeelites, 
and  from  her  were  descended  Zabad,  one  of  David's 
mighty  men  (1  Chr.  xi.  41),  and  Azariah,  one  of 
the  captains  of  hundreds  in  the  reign  of  Joash 
(2  Chr.  xxiii.  1  ;  comp.  1  Chr.  ii.  38). 

AHTJMA'I.  Son  of  Jahath,  a  descendant  of 
Judah,  and  head  of  one  of  the  families  of  the  Zora- 
thites  (1  Chr.  iv.  2). 

AHU'ZAM(D-|n«:  'nXafo;  Alex.  'iix«C«M  : 
Oozam).  Properly  AHUZZAM,  son  of  Ashur,  the 
father  or  founder  of  Tekoa,  by  his  wife  Naarah 
(1  Chr.  iv.  6). 

AI'AH  (n»K  :  'Ate  ;  Alex.  A.ld  :  Aia}.  1.  Son 
of  Zibeon,  a  descendant  of  Seir,  and  ancestor  of  one 
of  the  wives  of  Esau  (1  Chr.  i.  40),  called  in  Gen. 
xxxvi.  24  AJAH.  He  probably  died  before  his 
father,  as  the  succession  fell  to  his  brother  Anah. 

2.  ('IwA,  *Ata.)  Father  of  Rizpah,  the  con 
cubine  of  Saul  (2  Sam.  iii.  7,  xxi.  8,  10,  11). 

AI'BUS  ('lafyos  :  An}.  One  of  the  «  servants  of 
the  Temple,"  or  Nethinim,  whose  descendants  re 
turned  with  Zorobabel  (1  Esdr.  v.  31).  Perhaps 
the  same  as  REAIAH. 


AK'KUB  (3-1JPJJ:  'A«oi$£;  Alex.  'A/o<ou0; 
Accub).  1.  A  descendant  of  Zerubbabel,  and  one 
of  the  seven  sons  of  Elioenai  (1  Chr.  iii.  24). 

2.  ('A«oiJ/i  in  1  Chr.,'A*eouj8  ;  Alex.  'A«ouj8  in 
1  Chr.,  'Afeotf/i  in  Ezr.  and  Neh.)  One  of  the 
porters  or  doorkeepers  at  the  east  gate  of  the  Temple. 
His  descendants  succeeded  to  his  office,  and  appear 
among  those  who  returned  from  Babylon  (1  Chr.  ix. 
17  ;  Ezr.  ii.  42  ;  Neh.  vii.  45,  xi.  19,  xii.  25).  Also 
called  DACOBI  (1  Esdr.  v.  28), 
{"APPENDIX.] 


ALLEGORY  Ix* 

3.  (*A/foiJj8.)    One  of  the  Nethinim,  whose  family 
returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  45).     The  name 
is  omitted  in  Neh.  vii.,  but  occurs  in  the  form  ACUH 
in  1  Esdr.  v.  31. 

4.  (om.  in  LXX.)     A  Levite  who  assisted  Ezra 
in  expounding  the  Law  to  the  people  (Neh.  viii.  7). 
Called  JACUBUS  in  1  Esdr.  ix.  48. 

ALAM'ETH  (fiE^y:  'EATje/te'fl  ;  Alex.  'EA- 
IJ.f6efj. :  Almath").  Properly  ALEMETH  ;  one  of  the 
sons  of  Becher,  the  son  of  Benjamin  (1  Chr.  vii.  8). 

ALEM'ETH  (fl»^:  SaAe^cifl ;  Alex.  ToA«- 
p.dO:  AlamatK).  A  Benjamite,  son  of  Jehoadan, 
or  Jarah,  and  descended  from  Jonathan  the  son  of 
Saul  (1  Chr.  viii.  36,  ix.  42).  The  form  of  the 
name  in  Hebrew  is  different  from  that  of  the  town 
Alemeth  with  which  it  has  been  compared. 

ALEXAN'DKIANS,  THE  (ol  'AAe|a»>5pefy). 
1.  The  Greek  inhabitants  of  Alexandria  (3  Macc.ii. 
30,  iii.  21). 

2.  (Alexandrini.}  The  Jewish  colonists  of  that 
city,  who  were  admitted  to  the  privileges  of  citizen 
ship,  and  had  a  synagogue  at  Jerusalem  (Acts  vi.  9). 
[ALEXANDRIA,  p.  466.] 

ALLEGOKY,  a  figure  of  speech,  which  has 
been  defined  by  Bishop  Marsh,  in  accordance  with 
its  etymology,  as  "  a  representation  of  one  thing 
which  is  intended  to  excite  the  representation  of 
another  thing;"  the  first  representation  being  con 
sistent  with  itself,  but  requiring,  or  being  capable 
of  admitting,  a  moral  and  spiritual  interpretation 
over  and  above  its  literal  sense.  An  allegory  has 
been  incorrectly  considered  by  some  as  a  lengthened 
or  sustained  metaphor,  or  a  continuation  of  meta 
phors,  as  by  Cicero,  thus  standing  in  the  same  rela 
tion  to  metaphor  as  parable  to  simile.  But  the  two 
figures  are  quite  distinct;  no  sustained  metaphor, 
or  succession  of  metaphors,  can  constitute  an  alle 
gory,  and  the  interpretation  of  allegory  differs  from 
that  of  metaphor,  in  having  to  do  not  with  words 
but  things.  In -every  allegory  there  is  a  twofold 
sense;  the  immediate  or  historic,  which  is  under 
stood  from  the  words,  and  the  ultimate,  which  is 
concerned  with  the  things  signified  by  the  wools. 
The  allegorical  interpretation  is  not  of  the  words 
but  of  the  things  signified  by  them  ;  and  not  onlj 
may,  but  actually  does,  coexist  with  the  literal  in 
terpretation  in  every  allegory,  whether  the  narrative 
in  which  it  is  conveyed  be  of  things  possible  or  real. 
An  illustration  of  this  may  be  seen  in  Gal.  iv.  24, 
where  the  apostle  gives  an  allegorical  interpretation 
to  the  historical  narrative  of  Hagar  and  Sarah ;  not 
treating  that  narrative  as  an  allegory  in  itself,  as 
our  A.  V.  would  lead  us  to  suppose,  but  drawing 
from  it  a  deeper  sense  than  is  conveyed  by  the  im 
mediate  representation. 

In  pure  allegory  no  direct  reference  is  made  to 
the  principal  object.  Of  this  kind  the  parable  of 
the  prodigal  son  is  an  example  (Luke  xv.  11-32). 
In  mixed  allegory  the  allegorical  narrative  either 
contains  some  hint  of  its  application,  as  Ps.  Ixxx., 
or  the  allegory  and  its  interpretation  are  combined, 
as  in  John  xv.  1-8  ;  but  this  last  passage  is  strictly 
speaking  an  example  of  a  metaphor. 

The  distinction  between  the  parable  and  the 
allegory  is  laid  down  by  Dean  Trench  (On  the 
Parables,  chap,  i.)  as  one  of  form  rather  than  of 
essence.  "  In  the  allegory,"  he  says,  "  there  is  in 
interpretation  of  the  thing  signifying  and  the  thing 
signified  the  qualities  and  properties  of  the  first 


Ixvi 


ALLELUIA 


being  attributed  to  the  last,  and  the  two  thus 
blended  together,  instead  of  being  kept  quite  dis 
tinct  and  placed  side  by  side,  as  is  the  case  in  the 
parable."  According  to  this,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  pure  allegory  as  above  defined. 

ALLELUIA     ('A\\-n\otia :     Alleluia),     so 
written   in   Rev.   xix.    7,  foil.,  or  more  properly 

HALLELUJAH  (a*  -Wll),  "  praise  ye  Jehovah,"  as 
it  is  found  in  the  margin  of  Ps.  civ.  35,  cv.  45,  cvi 
cxi.  1,  cxii.  1,  cxiii.  1  (comp.  Ps.  cxiii.  9,  cxv.  18 
civi.  19,  cxvii.  2).  The  Psalms  from  cxiii.  to 
cxviii.  were  called  by  the  Jews  the  Hallel,  and  were 
sung  on  the  first  of  the  month,  at  the  feast  of  De 
dication,  and  the  feast  of  Tabernacles,  the  feast  oi 
Weeks,  and  the  feast  of  the  Passover.  [HoSANNA.] 
On  the  last  occasion  Pss.  cxiii.  and  cxiv.,  according 
to  the  school  of  Hillel  (the  former  only  according  to 
the  school  of  Shammai),  were  sung  before  the  feast, 
and  the  remainder  at  its  termination,  after  drinking 
the  last  cup.  The  hymn  (Matt.  xxvi.  30),  sung 
by  Christ  and  his  disciples  after  the  last  supper, 
is  supposed  to  have  been  the  great  Hallel,  which 
seems  to  have  varied  according  to  the  feast.  The 
literal  meaning  of  "Hallelujah"  sufficiently  indi 
cates  the  character  of  the  Psalms  in  which  it 
occurs,  as  hymns  of  praise  and  thanksgiving.  They 
are  all  found  in  the  last  book  of  the  collection,  and 
bear  marks  of  being  intended  for  use  in  the  temple- 
service  ;  the  words  "  praise  ye  Jehovah "  being 
taken  up  by  the  full  chorus  of  Levites.  In  the 
great  hymn  of  triumph  in  heaven  over  the  destruc 
tion  of  Babylon,  the  apostle  in  vision  heard  the 
multitude  in  chorus  like  the  voice  of  mighty  thun- 
derings  burst  forth,  "  Alleluia,  for  the  Lord  God 
omnipotent  reigneth,"  responding  to  the  voice  which 
came  out  of  the  throne  saying  "  Praise  our  God, 
all  ye  his  servants,  and  ye  that  fear  him,  both  small 
and  great"  (Rev.  xix.  1-6).  In  this,  as  in  the 
offering  of  incense  (Rev.  viii.),  there  is  evident  ajlu- 
sion  to  the  service  of  the  temple,  as  the  apostle  had 
often  witnessed  it  in  its  fading  grandeur. 

:  Malmon). 
34  ;   comp. 


:  Allon). 
of  his  tribe 

'E\va6di>: 
viii.   44; 

descendant 
4).     Pro- 


AL'LOM  CAAA«$/A  ;  Alex.  ' 
The  same  as  AMI  or  AMON  (1  Esdr.  v. 
Ezr.  ii.  59  ;  Neh.  vii.  59). 

AL'LON  (j'lta  :  'A\<!>v  ;  Alex. 

A  Simeonite,  ancestor  of  Zirza,  a  prince 
in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  (1  Chr.  iv.  37). 

AL'NATHAN  (yA\va6dv  ;  Alex. 
Enaathari).  ELNATHAN  2  (1  Esdr. 
comp.  Ezr.  viii.  16). 

AMARI'AH.  7.  (Sajtopfa.)  A 
of  Pharez,  the  son  of  Judah  (Neh.  xi. 
inbly  the  same  as  IMRI  in  1  Chr.  ix.  4. 

AMABI'AS     ('A./j,apias  :     Ameri,    Amerias). 
AMARIAH  1  (1  Esdr.  viii.  2  ;  2  Esdr.  i.  2). 

AMASA'I  (»fe>OJJ,  in  pause  WQ%:  'A/xecrcrf, 

'AfjLaOi  ;  Alex.  'A/xos  in  1  Chr.  vi.  25  :  Amasal). 
1.  A  Kohathite,  father  of  Mahath  and  ancestor  of 
Samuel  and  Ethan  the  singer  (1  Chr.  vi.  25,  35). 

2.  ('Ajuao-oi  ;  FA.  'A/za<re.)    Chief  of  the  captains 
(LXX.  "thirty")  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  who  de 
serted  to  David  while  an  outlaw  at  Ziklag  (1  Chr. 
xii.   18).     Whether   he  was  the   same  as  Amasa, 
David's  nephew,  is  uncertain. 

3.  ('Ajua<rcu  ;  FA.  'A,ua<re.)  One  of  the  priests 
•*'lio  bhw  trumpets  before  the  Ark,  when  David 


AME1N 

brought  it  from  the  house  of  Obed-ecbm  (1  Chr.  s? 
24). 

4.  ('A^uoo-t.)  Another  Kohathite,  father  of  an 
other  Mahath,  in  the  reign  of  Hezukiah  (2  Chr. 
xxix.  12),  unless  the  name  is  that  of  a  family. 


AMASHA'I  OD^Ey.:  'Ayuao-i'a;  Alex.  'A/i*. 
ffai:  Amassai}.  Son  of  Azareel,  a  priest  in  the 
time  of  Nehemiah  (Neh.  xi.  13)  ;  apparently  the 
same  as  MAASIAI  (1  Chr.  k.  12),  The  name  is 
properly  "  Amashsai." 

AMASI'AH  (njptty.:  'A^oo-ios;  ALex.  Ma- 
ffaiias:  Amasias).  Son  of  Zichri,  and  captain  of 
200,000  warriors  of  Judah,  in  the  reign  of  Jehosha- 
phat  (2  Chr.  xvii.  16). 

ALPHA,  the  first  letter  of  the  Greek  alphabet, 
as  Omega  is  the  last.  Its  significance  is  plainly  indi 
cated  in  the  context,  "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the 
beginning  and  the  end,  the  first  and  the  last"  '(Rev. 
xxii.  13;  comp.  i.  8,  11,  xxi.  6),  which  may  be 
compared  with  Is.  xli.  4,  xliv.  6,  "  I  am  the  first 
and  1  am  the  last,  and  beside  me  there  is  no  God." 
So  Prudentius  (Cathemer.  hymn.  ix.  11)  explains  it; 
"  Alpha  et  0  cognominatur  :  ipse  fona  et  clausula 
Omnium  quae  sunt,  fuerunt,  quaeque  post  futura  snnt." 

The  expression  "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega  "  is  illus 
trated  by  the  usage  in  Rabbinical  writers  of  Aleph 
and  Tau,  the  first  and  last  letters  of  the  Hebrew 
alphabet.  Schoettgen  (Hor.  Hebr.  i.  1086)  quotes 
from  Jalkut  Bubeni,  fol.  17,  4,  "  Adam  transgressed 
the  whole  law  from  X  to  Jl,"  that  is  from  the  be 
ginning  to  the  end.  It  is  not  necessary  to  enquire 
whether  in  the  latter  usage  the  meaning  is  so  full 
as  in  the  Revelation  :  that  must  be  determined  by 
separate  considerations.  As  an  illustration  merely* 
the  reference  is  valuable.  Both  Greeks'  and  Hebrews 
employed  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  as  numerals. 
In  the  early  times  of  the  Christian  Church  the  letters 
A  and  fi  were  combined  with  the  cross  or  with  the 
monogram  of  Christ  (Maitland,  Church  in  the  Cata 
combs,  pp.  166-8).  One  of  the  oldest  monuments 
on  which  this  occurs  is  a  marble  tablet  found  in  the 
catacombs  at  Melos,  which  belongs,  if  not  to  the  first 
century,  to  the  first  half  of  the  second.  [CROSS.] 

ALPHABET.     [WRITING.] 

ALTANE'US  ('AXravcuos  :  Alex.  *AAroi^ 
vouos  :  Carianeus).  The  same  as  MATTENAI  (Ezr. 
x.  33;,  one  of  the  sons  of  Hashum  (1  Esdr.  ix.  33). 

'MAN('A/«£y:  Aman}.  HAMAN(Tob.xiv.lO; 
Esth.  x.  7,  xii.  6,  xiii.  3,  12,  xiv.  17,  xvi.  10,  17). 


A'MEN  (|DK)i  literally  "firm,  true;"  and, 
used  as  a  substantive,  "that  which  is  true,"  "  truth" 
Is.  Ixy.  16)  ;  a  word  used  in  strong  asseverations, 
ixing  as  it  were  the  stamp  of  truth  upon  the  as 
sertion  which  it  accompanied,  and  making  it  binding 
as  an  oath  (comp.  Num.  v.  22).  In  the  LXX.  of 
1  Chr.  xvi.  36,  Neh.  v.  13,  viii.  6,  the  word  appears 
n  the  form  'Afj.-fjv,  which  is  used  throughout  the 
fl.  T.  In  other  passage?  the  Heb.  is  rendered  by 

eVoiro,  except  in  Is.  Ixv.  16.  The  Vulgate  adopts 
he  Hebrew  word  in  all  cases  except  in  the  Psalms, 
where  it  is  translated  fiat.  In  Deut.  xxvii.  15-26, 
he  people  were  to  say  "  Amen,"  as  the  Levites  pro- 
lounced  each  of  the  curses  upon  Mount  Ebal,  signify- 
ng  by  this  their  assent  to  the  conditions  under 
which  the  curses  would  be  inflicted.  In  accordance 
with  this  usage  we  find  that,  among  the  Rabbins>; 

Amen"  involves  the  ideas  of  swearing,  accept- 


AMINADAB 

Ante,  and  truthfulness.     The  first,  two  are  illus 
trated  by  the  passages  already  quoted  ;  the  last  by 

1  K.  i.  36  ;  John  iii.  3,  5,  1  1  (A.  V.,  «  verily"),  in 
which  the  asseitions  are  made  with  the  solemnity 
of  an  oath,  and  then  strengthened  by  the  repetition 
of  "  Amen."     "  Amen"  was  the  proper  response  of 
the  person  to  whom  an  oath  was  administered  (Neh. 
v.  13,  viii.  6;  1  Chivxvi.  36  ;  Jer.  xi.  5,  marg.)  ; 
and  the  Deity,  to  whom  appeal  is  made  on  such 
occasions,  is  called  "  the  God  of  Amen  "  (Is.  Ixv.  16), 
as  being  a  witness  to  the  sincerity  of  the  implied 
compact.      With   a    similar    significance   Christ   is 
called  "  the  Amen,  the  faithful  and  true  witness" 
.(Rev.  iii.  14  ;  comp.  John  i.  14,  xiv.  6  ;  2  Cor.  i.  20). 
It  is  matter  of  tradition  that  in  the  Temple   the 
"  Amen  "  was  not  uttered  by  the  people,  but  that, 
instead,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  priest's  prayers, 
they  responded,  "  Blessed  be  the  name  of  the  glory 
of  his  kingdom  for  ever  and  ever."     Of  this  a  trace 
is  supposed  to  remain  in  the  concluding  sentence  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer  (comp.  Rom.  xi.  36).     But  in 
the  synagogues  and  private  houses  it  was  customary 
for  the  people  or  mtmbers  of  the  family  who  were 
present  to  say  "  Amen  "  to  the  prayers  which  were 
offered  by  the  minister  or  the  master  of  the  house, 
and  the  custom  remained   in  the  early  Christian 
church  (Matt.vi.  13;  1  Cor.  xiv.  16).     And  not 
only  public  prayers,  but  those  offered  in  private, 
and  doxologies,  were  appropriately  concluded  with 
"  Amen  "  (Rom.  ix.  5,  xi.  36,  xv.  33,  xvi.  27  ; 

2  Cor.  xiii.  13,  &c.). 

AMIN'ADAB('A^j/a8d£:  Aminadab}.  AM- 
MINADAB  1  (Matt.  i.  4;  Luke  iii.  33). 

AM'MI  (''fSy  :  \aos  IJ.QV  :  populus  meus),  i.e.,  as 
explained  in  the  margin  of  the  A.  V.,  "  my  people  ;" 
a  figurative  name  applied  to  the  kingdom  of  Israel 
in  token  of  God's  reconciliation  with  them,  and 
their  position  as  "  sons  of  the  living  God,"  in  con 
trast  with  the  equally  significant  name  Lo-ammi, 
given  by  the  prophet  Hosea  to  his  second  son  by 
Gomer,  the  daughter  of  Diblaim  (Hos.  ii.  1).  In 
the  same  manner  Ruhamah  contrasts  with  Lo- 
Ruhamah. 


AM'MIEL  (pfiJJ:  'AAUTJA.:  Ammiel).  1.  The 
spy  selected  by  Moses  from  the  tribe  of  Dan  (Num. 
xiii.  12). 

2.  (Alex.  'A/jn-fjp,  Vulg.    Ammihel  in   2   Sam. 
xvii.  27).    The  father  of  Machir  of  Lodebar  (2  Sam. 
be.  4,  5,  xvii.  27). 

3.  The  father  of  Bathshua,  or  Bathsheba,   the 
wife  of  David  (I  Chr.  iii.  5),  called  ELIAM  in 
2  Sam.  xi.  3;  the  Hebrew  letters,  which  are  the 
same  in  the  two  names,  being  transposed.     He  was 
the  son  of  Ahithophel,  David's  prime  minister. 

4.  The  sixth  son  of  Obed-edom  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  5), 
and  one  of  the  doorkeepers  of  the  Temple. 


AM'MIHUD  (TirVBy:  'E^iojJS  in  Num., 
'A/tttouS  in  1  Chr.  :  Ammiud).  1.  An  Ephraimite, 
father  of  Elishama,  the  chief  of  the  tribe  at  the 
time  of  the  Exodus  (Num.  i.  10,  ii.  18,  vii.  48,  53, 
x.  22),  and  through  him  ancestor  of  Joshua  (1  Chr. 
vii.  26). 

2.  (SejtiouS;    Alex.    'E/uov8.)      A    Simeonite, 
father  of  Shemuel,  chief  of  the  tribe  at  the  time  of 
the  division  of  Canaan  (Num.  xxiv.  20). 

3.  ('lojuiouS;    Alex.  'A/«ou8.)     The  father   of 
Petehel,  chief  of  the  tribe  of  Naphtali  at  the  same 
f.u£e  (Num.  xxxiv.  28). 


AMZI  izvii 

4.  O-lfPWy,  Keii  Tl.TBy  :  'Ett.oi/8.)     Ammi- 
hud,  or  "  Ammichur,"  as  the  written  text  has  it, 
was  the  father  of  Talinai,  kino-  of  Geshur  (2  Sam. 
xiii.  37). 

5.  ('2a/aouS ;  Alex.  'A/nto«58.)     A  descendant  of 
Pharez,  son  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  ix.  4). 

AMMIN'ADIB    (Cant.   vi.   12).     [AMMINA- 

DAB  3.] 

AMMISHADDA'I  O^By  :  'A^aSai ; 
Alex.  'AjUKTaSat,  exc.  Num.  ii.  25,  Sa^itraSaf,  and 
Num.  x.  25,  Mi(ra8a£:  Amisaddal,  Ammisaddal). 
The  father  of  Ahiezer,  chief  of  the  tribe  of  Dan  at 
the  time  of  the  Exodus  (Num.  f.  12,  ii.  25,  vii.  66, 
71,  x.  25).  His  name  is  one  of  the  few  which  we 
find  at  this  period  compounded  with  the  ancient 
name  of  God,  Shaddai ;  Zurishaddai,  and  possibly 
Shedeur,  are  the  only  other  instances,  and  both 
belong  to  this  early  time. 

AMMIZABAD.  The  son  of  Benaiah,  who 
apparently  acted  as  his  father's  lieutenant,  and  com 
manded  the  third  division  of  David's  army,  which 
was  on  duty  for  the  third  month  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  6). 

AMMONI'TESS  (IVJteyn  : 

1  K.,  r]  'A/u/icwtriS,  2  Chr.  xii.  13,  &  ' 

2  Chr.  xxiv.  26;    Alex.  'A^uaj/ms  in  IK. :  Am- 
manitis).    A  woman  of  Ammonite  race.    Such  were 
Naamah,  the  mother  of  Rehoboam,  one  of  Solomon's 
foreign  wives  (1  K.  xiv.  21,  31 ;    2  Chr.  xii.  13), 
and  Shimeath,  whose  son  Zabad  or  Jozachar  was 
one  of  the  murderers  of  king  Joash  (2  Chr.  xxiv. 
26).     For  allusions  to  these  mixed  marriages   see 
1  E.  xi.  1,  and  Neh.  xiii.  25.     In  the  Hebrew  the 
word  has  always  the  definite  article,  and  therefore 
in  all  cases  should  be  rendered  "  the  Ammonitess." 

A'MOK  (  pitty :  'A^K  :  Amoc).  A  priest, 
whose  family  returned  with  Zerubbabel,  and  were 
represented  by  Eber  in  the  days  of  Joiakim  (Neh. 
xii.  7,  20). 

A'MON.  2.  (jbtf,  j'lDN  :  2€/x7jp,  'EjtV;  Alex. 
'AfjLfKav,  2e,u/A^p :  Aman.~)  Prince  or  governor  of 
Samaria  in  the  reign  of  Ahab  (1  K.  xxii.  26  ;  2  Chr. 
xviii.  25).  What  was  the  precise  nature  of  his 
office  is  not  known.  Perhaps  the  prophet  Micaiah 
was  intrusted  to  his  care  as  captain  of  the  citadel. 
The  Vat.  MS.  of  the  LXX.  has  rbv  /3a<nA.«-'a  TTJS 
ir6\ecas  in  1  K.,  but  &pxovra  in  2  Chr.  Josephus 
(Ant.  viii.  15  §4)  calls  him  'Axd/J-wv. 

A'MOS.  2.  ('Ajucfo :  Amos.*)  SonofNaum,  in 
the  genealogy  of  Jesus  Christ  (Luke  iii.  25). 

AM'KAM.  2.  (|nDn  :  'E^p^;  Alex.  'A^aSci : 
Hamram.}  Properly  Hamran  or  Ohamran ;  son 
of  Dishon  and  descendant  of  Levi  (1  Chr.  i.  41). 
In  Gen.  xxxvi.  26  he  is  called  HEMDAN,  and  this  is 
the  reading  in  1  Chr.  in  many  of  Kennicott's  MSS. 
3.  (D"»py°:  'A/jipafj. ;  Alex.  "'A/tj8pa/t :  Amratn.) 
one  of  Tthe  sons  of  Bani,  in  the  time  of  Ezra,  who 
had  married  a  foreign  wife  (Ezr.  x.  34) :  called 
OMAERUS  in  1  Esdr.  ix.  34. 

AM'KAMITES,  THE  (^Dy:  *  'A/xpa/o, 
<J  'A/48p4u ;  Alex.  &  'AuPpadp,  t>  'Appall :  Amra- 
mitae).  A  branch  of  the  great  Kohathite  family  of 
the  tribe  of  Levi  (Num.  iii.  27  ;  1  Chr.  xxvi.  23); 
descended  from  Am  ram,  the  father  of  Moses. 

AM'ZI   OVP*?:    'A^ecro-fa;    Alex. 
F2 


brrlii 


ANAEL 


Amastf).  1.  A  Levite  of  the  Family  of  Meran, 
and  ancestor  of  Ethan  the  minstrel  (1  Chr.  vi.  4Q\ 
2.  ('A/j.a<ri  :  Amsi.)  A  priest,  whose  de 
scendant  Adaiah  with  his  brethren  did  the  service 
for  the  Temple  in  the  time  of  Neheiniah  (Neh.  xi. 
12). 

AN'AEL  ('AJ/O^).  The  brother  of  Tobit  ('fob. 
i.  21). 

ANAI'AH  (rTO  :  'Avavias:  Ania).     1.  Pro- 

hably  a  priest  :  one  of  those  who  stood  on  Ezra's 
right  hand  as  he  read  the  Law  to  the  people  (Neh. 
viii.  4).  He  is  called  ANANIAS  in  1  Esdr.  ix.  43. 

2.  (*AM&:  Ariaia.)  One  of  the  "heads"  ot 
the  people,  who  signed  the  covenant  with  Nehe 
miah  (Neh.  x.  22). 

A'NAN  (\ty:    'HvdfjL]    Alex.  'Hvdv:    Anon). 

1.  One  of  the  "heads"  of  the  people  who  signed 
the  covenant  with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  26.) 

2.  ('A»/<£i/;  Alex.  'Avvdv:  Anani.)  HANAN  4 
(1  Esdr.  v.  30  ;  comp.  Ear.  ii.  46). 

ANA'NI  (>JJ5J.:  'Avdv  ;  Alex.  'Avavt  :  Anani) 

The  seventh  son  of  Elioenai,  descended  through 
Zerubbabel  from  the  line  royal  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  iii. 

24). 

ANANFAH  H  JJ?::  '  Avavia  :  Ananias}'. 
Probably  a  priest  ;  ancestor  of  Azariah,  who  assisted 
in  rebuilding  the  city  wall  after  the  return  from 
Babylon  (Neh.  iii.  23). 

ANANI'AS  ('Avvis  ;  Alex.  'Awtos  :  Ananias). 
1.  The  sons  of  Ananias  to  the  number  of  101 
(Vulg.  130)  enumerated  in  1  Esdr.  v.  16  as  having 
returned  with  Zorobabel.  No  such  name  exists  in 
the  parallel  lists  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. 

2.  ('Avavtas  :    om.   in   Vulg.)    HANA2JI   3   (1 
Esdr.  ix.  21  ;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  20). 

3.  (Ananias.)  HANANIAH  9  (1  Esdr.  ix.  2,9  ; 
comp.  Ezr.  z.  28). 

4.  (Ananias.)    ANAIAH    1    (1   Esdr.   ix.  43  ; 
comp.  Neh.  viii.  4). 

5.  HANAN  5  (1  Esdr.  ix.  48  ;    comp.  Neh.  viii. 

6.  Father  of  Azarias,  whose  name  was   assumed 
y/  the  angel  Raphael  (Tob.  v.  12,  13).     In  the 
LXX.  he  appears  to  be  the  eldest  brother  of  Tobit. 

7.  (Jamnor.)    Ancestor  of  Judith  (Jud.  viii.  1). 
The  Cod.  Sin.  gives  'Avavias  though  the  Vat.  MS. 
omits  the  name. 

8.  'Avavias  :  Ananias.)  Shadrach  (Song  of  3  Ch. 
66  ;   1  Mace.  ii.  59)  [HANANIAH  7.] 

AN'ATHOTH  (ninjjh  'A»/a0c$0:  Anathoth). 
1.  Son  of  Becher,  a  son  of  Benjamin  (1  Chr.  vii.  8), 
probably  the  founder  of  the  place  of  the  same  name. 

2.  One  of  the  heads  of  the  people,  who  signed  the 
Covenant  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  19)  ; 
unless,  as  is  not  unlikely,  the  name  stands  for  "  the 
men  of  Anathoth"  enumerated  in  Neh.  vii.  27. 

ANETH'OTHITE,  THE  (>nr,35m  :  6  'Ai/«- 
QITTJS  ;  Alex,  d  'AvaQaddTijs  :  de  Anathoth).  An 
inhabitant  of  Anathoth  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin 
(2  Sam.  xxiii.  27).  Called  also  ANETOTHITE  and 
ANTOTHITE. 


AKET'OTHITE,    THE 

Ai'u6<&8:  AnathothiteS;.  An  inhabitant  of  Ana 
thoth  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  12).  Called  also  ANETIIO- 
TIIITE  and  ANTOTHITE. 


ANTICHKIST 

ANTAM    (DJWN:     'Aviav;    Alex. 
Aniam).     A  Manassite,  son  of  Shemidah  (1  Chr. 
vh.  19). 

AN'NAS  OAJ/&/;  Alex.  5A»Ws:  Nuas).  A 
corruption  of  HARIM  (1  Esdr.  ix.  32  ;  comp.  Ezr. 
xx.  31). 

ANNTJ'US  ("AWOWOS;  Alex.  "Avvoviis: 
Amin).  Probably  a  corruption  of  the  Hebrew  Iflfct 
(A.  V.  "  with  him")  of  Ezr.  viii.  19.  The  trans 
lator  may  have  read  13K. 


ANTICHKIST  (6  avrixp^ros).  The  word 
Antichrist  is  used  by  St.  John  in  his  first  and 
second  Epistles,  and  by  him  alone.  Elsewhere  it 
does  not  occur  in  Scripture.  Nevertheless,  by  au 
almost  universal  consent,  the  term  has  been  applied 
to  the  Man  of  Sin  of  whom  St.  Paul  speaks  in  the 
Second  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians,  to  the  Little 
Horn  and  to  the  fierce-countenanced  King  of  whom 
Daniel  prophesies,  and  to  the  two  Beasts  of  the 
Apocalypse,  as  well  as  to  the  false  Christs  whose 
appearance  our  Lord  predicts  in  his  prophetic  dis 
course  on  the  Mount  of  Olives*  Before  we  can 
arrive  at  any  clear  and  intelligent  view  of  what 
Scripture  teaches  us  on  the  subject  of  Antichrist, 
we  must  decide  whether  this  extension  of  the  term 
is  properly  made  ;  whether  the  characteristics  of 
the  Antichrist  are  those  alone  with  which  St.  John 
makes  us  acquainted  in  his  Epistles,  or  whether  it 
is  his  portrait  which  is  drawn,  darker,  fuller,  and 
larger,  in  some  or  all  of  the  other  passages  to 
which  we  have  referred. 

(A.)  The  following  are  the  passages  in  Scripture 
which  ought  to  be  carefully  compared  for  the  elu 
cidation  of  our  subject:  —  I.  Matt.  xxiv.  3-31.  II. 
1  John  ii.  18-23  ;  iv.  1-3  ;  2  John  5,  7.  III.  2  Thess. 
ii.  1-12  ;  1  Tim.  iv.  1-3  ;  2  Tim.  iii.  1-5.  IV.  Dan. 
viii.  8-25;  xi.  36-39.  V.  Dan.  vii.  7-27.  VI.  Rev. 
xiii.  1-8;  xvii.  1-18.  VII.  Rev.  xiii.  11-18  ;  xix. 
11-21.  The  first  contains  the  account  of  the  false 
Christs  and  false  prophets  predicted  by  our  Lord  ; 
the  second,  of  the  Antichrist  as  depicted  by  St.  John  ; 
the  third,  of  the  Adversary  of  God  as  portrayed  by 
St.  Paul  ;  the  fourth  and  fifth,  of  the  fierce-coun 
tenanced  King  and  of  the  Little  Horn  foretold  by 
Daniel  ;  the  sixth  and  the  seventh,  of  the  Beast  and 
the  False  Prophet  of  the  Revelation. 

I.  The  False  Christs  and  False  Prophets  of  Matt. 
xxiv.  —  The  purpose  of  our  Lord  in  his  prophetic 
discourse  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  was  at  once  to 
predict  to  his  disciples  the  events  which  would  take 
place  before  the  capture  of  Jerusalem,  and  those 
which  would  precede  the  final  destruction  of  the 
world,  of  which  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  was  the  type 
and  symbol.  Accordingly,  his  teaching  on  the 
point  before  us  amounts  to  this,  that  (1)  in  the 
latter  days  of  Jerusalem  there  should  be  sore  dis 
tress,  and  that  in  the  midst  of  it  there  should  arise 
impostors  who  would  claim  to  be  the  promised 
Messiah,  and  would  lead  away  many  of  their  coun 
trymen  after  them  ;  and  that  (2)  in  the  last  days 
of  the  world  there  should  be  a  great  tribulation 
and  persecution  of  the  saints,  and  that  there  should 
arise  at  the  same  time  false  Christs  and  false  pro 
phets,  with  an  unparalleled  power  of  leading 
astray.  In  type,  therefore,  our  Lord  predicted 
the  rise  of  the  several  impostors  who  excited  the 
ianaticism  of  the  Jews  before  their  fall.  In  anti 
type  He  predicted  the  future  rise  of  impostors 
n  the  last  days,  who  should  beguile  all  but  the 
elect  into  the  belief  of  their  being  God's  prophets 


ANTICHRIST 

or  even  his  Christs.  We  find  no  direct  reference 
here  to  the  Antichrist.  Our  Lord  is  not  speaking 
of  any  one  individual  (or  polity),  but  rather  of 
those  forerunners  of  the  Antichrist  who  are  his 
servants  and  actuated  by  his  spirit.  They  are 
^/fvS6xpt(froi,  and  can  deceive  almost  the  elect, 
but  they  are  not  6  avrixpurTOS ;  they  are  \f/eu8o- 
irpotyiiTai,  and  can  show  great  signs  and  wonders, 
but  they  are  not  6  ^€vSoirpo^>-f)riis  (Rev.  xvi.  14). 
However  valuable,  therefore,  the  prophecy  on 
Mount  Olivet  is,  as  helping  us  to  picture  to  our 
selves  the  events  of  the  last  days,  it  does  not  elu 
cidate  for  us  the  characteristics  of  the  Antichrist, 
and  must  not  be  allowed  to  mislead  us  as  though 
it  gave  information  which  it  does  not  profess  to 
give. 

II.  The  Antichrist  of  St.  John's  Epistles. — 
The  first  teaching  with  regard  to  the  Antichrist 
and  to  the  antagonist  of  God  (whether  these  are 
the  same  or  different  we  leave  as  yet  uncertain) 
was  oral.  "  Ye  have  heard  that  the  Antichrist 
cometh,"  says  St.  John  (1  Ep.  ii.  18);  and  again, 
"  This  is  that  spirit  of  Antichrist  whereof  ye 
have  heard  that  it  should  come"  (1  Ep.  iv.  3). 
Similarly  St.  Paul,  "  Remember  ye  not,  that  when 
I  was  yet  with  you  /  told  you  these  things" 
(2  Thess.  ii.  5)?  We  must  not  therefore  look  for 
a  full  statement  of  the  "  doctrine  of  the  Anti 
christ  "  in  the  Apostolic  Epistles,  but  rather  for 
allusions  to  something  already  known.  The  whole 
of  the  teaching  of  St.  John's  Epistle  with  regard 
to  the  Antichrist  himself  seems  to  be  confined 
to  the  words  twice  repeated,  "  Ye  have  heard 
that  the  Antichrist  shall  come."  The  verb 
epx«Tat  here  employed  has  a  special  reference,  as 
used  in  Scripture,  to  the  first  and  second  advents 
of  our  Lord.  Those  whom  St.  John  was  address 
ing  had  been  taught  that,  as  Christ  was  to  come 
(escrow),  so  the  Antichrist  was  to  come  likewise. 
The  rest  of  the  passage  in  St.  John  appears  to  be 
rathei  a  practical  application  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Antichrist  than  a  formal  statement  of  it.  He 
warns  his  readers  that  the  spirit  of  the  Antichrist 
could  exist  even  then,  though  the  coming  of  the 
Antichrist  himself  was  future,  and  that  all  who 
denied  the  Messiahship  and  Sonship  of  Jesus  were 
Antichrists,  as  being  types  of  the  final  Antichrist 
who  was  to  come.  The  teaching  of  St.  John's 
Epistles  therefore  amounts  to  this,  that  in  type, 
Cerinthus,  Basilides,  Simon  Magus,  and  those 
Gnostics  who  denied  Christ's  Sonship,  and  all  sub 
sequent  heretics  who  should  deny  it,  were  Anti 
christs,  as  being  wanting  in  that  divine  principle  of 
love  which  with  him  is  the  essence  of  Christianity  ; 
and  he  points  on  to  the  final  appearance  of  the 
Antichrist  that  was  "  to  come  "  in  the  last  times, 
according  as  they  had  been  orally  taught,  who 
would  be  the  antitype  of  these  his  forerunners  and 
servants. 

III.  Tlie  Adversary  of  God  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles. 
• — St.  Paul  does  not  employ  the  term  Antichrist, 
but  there  can  be  no  hesitation  in  identifying  his 
Adversary  (6  avriKfi^vos)  of  God  with  the  Anti 
christ  who  was  "  to  come."  Like  St.  John,  he 
refers  to  his  oral  teaching  on  the  subject,  but  as 
the  Thessaloniaris  appeared  to  have  forgotten  it, 
and  to  have  been  misled  by  some  passages  in  his 
previous  Epistle  to  them,  he  recapitulates  what  he 
had  taught  them.  Like  St.  John,  he  tells  them 
that  the  spirit  of  Antichrist  or  Antichristianism, 
called  by  him  "  the  mystery  of  iniquity,"  was 
ilready  working ;  but  Antichrist,  himself  he  cha- 


ANTICHRIST 


Uix 


rncterizes  as  "  the  Man  of  Sin,"  "  the  Son  of  Per 
dition,"  "  the  Adversary  to  all  that  is  called  God," 
"  the  one  who  lifts  himself  above  all  objects  of 
worship  ;"  and  assures  them  that  he  should  not  be 
revealed  in  person  until  some  present  obstacle  to  his 
appearance  should  have  been  taken  away,  and  until 
the  predicted  aTroaraffia  should  have  occurred. 

From  St.  John  and  ST.  Paul  together  we  learn 
(1)  that  the  Antichrist  should  come :  (2)  that  lie 
should  not  come  until  a  certain  obstacle  to  his 
coming  was  removed :  (3)  nor  till  the  time  of,  or 
rather  till  after  the  time  of  the  airoar curia :  (4) 
that  his  characteristics  would  be  (a)  open  oppo 
sition  to  God  and  religion  ;  (ft)  a  claim  to  the 
incommunicable  attributes  of  God ;  (7)  iniquity, 
sin,  and  lawlessness  ;  (8)  a  power  of  working  lying 
miracles ;  (e)  marvellous  capacity  of  beguiling 
souls :  (5)  that  he  would  be  actuated  by  Satan : 
^6)  that  his  spirit  was  already  at  work  manifest- 
ng  itself  partially,  incompletely,  and  typically,  in 
lie  teachers  of  infidelity  and  immorality  already 
abounding  in  the  Church. 

IV.  The  fierce-countenanced  King  of  Daniel. — 
This  passage  is  universally  acknowledged  to  be 
mmarily  applicable  to  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 
Antiochus  Epiphanes  is  recognised  as  the  chief 
prototype  of  the  Antichrist.  The  prophecy  may 
therefore  be  regarded  as  descriptive  of  the  Anti 
christ.  The  point  is  fairly  argued  by  St.  Jerome  :— 
'  Down  to  this  point  (Dan.  xi.  21)  the  historical 
order  is  preserved,  and  there  is  no  difference  be 
tween  Porphyry  and  our  own  interpreters.  But 
all  that  follows  down  to  the  end  of  the  book  he 
applies  personally  to  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  brother 
of  Seleucus,  and  son  of  Antiochus  the  Great ;  for, 
after  Seleucus,  he  reigned  eleven  years  in  Syria, 
and  possessed  Judaea ;  and  in  his  reign  there  oc 
curred  the  persecution  about  the  Law  of  God,  and 
the  wars  of  the  Maccabees.  But  our  people  con 
sider  all  these  things  to  be  spoken  of  Antichrist,  who 

is  to  come  in  the  last  time It  is  the  custom 

of  Holy  Scripture  to  anticipate  in  types  the  reality 
of  things  to  come.  For  in  the  same  way  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  is  spoken  of  in  the  72nd  Psalm,  which 
s  entitled  a  Psalm  of  Solomon,  and  yet  all  that  is 
there  said  cannot  be  applied  to  Solomon.  But  in 
part,  and  as  in  a  shadow  and  image  of  the  truth, 
these  things  are  foretold  of  Solomon,  to  be  more 
perfectly  fulfilled  in  our  Lord  and  Saviour.  As, 
then,  in  Solomon  and  other  saints  the  Saviour  has 
types  of  His  coming,  so  Antichrist  is  rightly  be 
lieved  to  have  for  his  type  that  wicked  king 
Antiochus,  who  persecuted  the  saints  and  defiled 
the  Temple."  (S.  Hieron.  Op.  torn.  i.  p.  523, 
Col.  Agr.  1616;  torn.  iii.  p.  1127,  Paris,  1704.) 

V.  The  Little  Horn  of  Daniel— Hitherto  we 
have  been  dealing  with  a  person,  net  a  kingdom  or 
a  polity.  This  is  evident  from  St.  John's  words, 
and  still  more  evident  from  the  Epistle  to  the 
Thessalonians.  The  words  used  by  St.  Paul 
could  not  well  have  been  more  emphatic,  had 
he  studiously  made  use  of  them  in  order  to 
exclude  the  idea  of  a  polity.  "The  Man  of  Sin," 
"  the  Son  of  Perdition,"  "  the  one  who  opposeth 
himself  to  God,"  "  the  one  who  exalteth  himself 
above  God,''  "  the  one  who  represents  himself 
as  God,"  "  the  wicked  one  who  was  to  come 
with  Satanic  power  and  lying  wonders :"  if  words 
have  a  meaning,  these  words  designate  an  indi 
vidual.  But  when  ws  come  to  Daniel's  pro 
phecy  of  the  Little  Horn  this  is  all  changed,  We 
there  resA  of  four  beasts,  which  are  oxpla.ned 


!xx  ANTICHRIST 

as  four  kings,  by  which  expression  is  meant  four 
kingdoms  or  empires.  These  kingdoms  represented 
by  the  four  beasts  are  undoubtedly  the  Assyrian 
empire,  the  Persian  empire,  the  Grecian  empire, 
and  the  Roman  empire.  The  Roman  Empire  is 
described  as  breaking  up  into  ten  kingdoms, 
amongst  which  there  grows  up  another  kingdom 
which  gets  the  mastery  over  nearly  a  third  of 
them  (three  out  of  ten).  This  kingdom,  or  polity, 
is  the  little  horn  of  the  fourth  beast,  before  which 
three  of  the  first  ten  horns  are  plucked  up.  If 
the  four  "  kings  "  (vii,  1 7)  represented  by  the  four 
beasts  are  really  empires,  if  the  ten  "kings"  (vii. 
24)  are  monarchies  or  nationalities,  then  the  other 
"  king "  who  rises  after  them  is,  in  like  manner, 
not  an  individual  but  a  polity.  It  follows  that  the 
'•'  Little  Horn  "  of  Daniel  cannot  be  identified  with 
the  Antichrist  of  St.  John  and  St.  Paul.  The 
former  is  a  polity,  the  latter  is  an  individual. 

VI.  The  Apocalyptic  Beast  of  St.  John. — A 
further  consequence  follows.  For  the  Beast  of  the 
Apocalypse  is  clearly  identical  with  the  Little 
Horn  of  Daniel.  The  Beast  whose  power  is  ab 
sorbed  into  the  Little  Horn  has  ten  horas  (Dan. 
vii.  7)  and  rises  from  the  sea  (Dan.  vii.  3)  :  the 
Apocalyptic  Beast  has  ten  horns  (Rev.  xiii.  1)  and 
rises  from  the  sea  (ibid.).  The  Little  Horn  has  a 
mouth  speaking  great  things  (Dan.  vii.  8,  11,  20)  : 
the  Apocalyptic  Beast  has  a  mouth  speaking  great 
things  (Rev.  xiii.  5).  The  Little  Horn  makes  war 
with  the  saints,  and  prevails  (Dan.  vii.  21)  ;  the 
Apocalyptic  Beast  makes  war  with  the  saints,  and 
overcomes  them  (Rev.  xiii.  7).  The  Little  Horn 
speaks  great  words  against  the  Most  High  (Dan. 
vii.  25) :  the  Apocalyptic  Beast  opens  his  mouth 
in  blasphemy  against  God  (Rev.  xiii.  6).  The 
Little  Horn  wears  out  the  saints  of  the  Most  High 
(Dan.  vii.  25) :  the  woman  who  rides  on,  *.  e. 
directs,  the  Apocalyptic  Beast,  is  drunken  with  the 
blood  of  saints  (Rev.  xvii.  6).  The  persecution  of 
the  Little  Horn  is  to  last  a  time  and  times  and  a 
dividing  of  times,  i.  e.  three  and  a  half  times 
(Dan.  vii.  25)  :  power  is  given  to  the  Apocalyptic 
Beast  for  forty-two  months,  i.  e.  three  and  a  half 
times  (Rev.  xiii.  5).  These  and  other  parallelisms 
cannot  be  accidental.  Whatever  was  meant  by 
Daniel's  Little  Horn  must  be  also  meant  by  St. 
John's  Beast.  Therefore  St.  John's  Beast  is  not 
the  Antichrist.  It  is  not  an  individual  like  the 
Antichrist  of  St.  John's  and  St.  Paul's  Epistles, 
but  a  polity  like  the  Little  Horn  of  Daniel. 

But,  though  not  identical,  it  is  quite  evident, 
and  it  has  been  always  recognised,  that  the  Anti 
christ  of  the  Epistles  and  the  Beast  of  the  Apoca 
lypse  have  some  relation  to  each  other.  What  is 
this  relation  ?  and  in  what  relation  to  both  does 
the  second  Apocalyptic  Beast  or  False  Prophet 
stand?  To  answer  this  question  we  must  examine 
the  imagery  of  the  Apocalypse.  Shortly  stated, 
it  is,  so  far  as  concerns  our  present  purpose,  as 
follows.  The  Church  is  represented  (Rev.  xii.)  as 
a  woman  bringing  forth  children  to  Christ,  perse 
cuted  by  Satan,  and  compelled  to  fly  from  him  into 
the  wilderness,  where  she  remains  for  1260  days, 
or  three  and  a  half  times.  Satan,  being  unable  to 
destroy  the  woman,  sets  himself  to  make  war  with 
her  seed  (xii.  1 7).  At  this  time  the  Beast  arises 
from  the  sea,  and  Satan  gives  to  him  his  power, 
and  his  seat,  and  great  authority.  The  length  of 
time  during  which  the  Beast  prevails  is  three  and 
a  half  times,  the  same  period  as  that  during  which 
the  sufferings  of  the  woman  last.  During  a  cer- 


A]STTCHR18T 

tain  part  of  this  three  and  a  half  times  the  Beast 
takes  upon  its  back,  as  its  guide  and  rider,  a 
harlot,  by  whom,  as  it  is  explained,  is  figured 
"  that  great  city  which  reigneth  over  the  kings  oi 
the  earth"  (Rev.  xvii.  18)  from  her  seven  hills 
(xvii.  9).  After  a  time  Babylon  the  harlot-rider 
falls  (ch.  xviii.),  but  the  Beast  on  whom  she  had 
ridden  still  survives,  and  is  finally  destroyed  at 
the  glorious  coming  of  Christ  (xix.  20). 

Can  we  harmonize  this  picture  with  the  predic* 
tion  of  St.  Paul,  always  recollecting  that  his  Man 
of  Sin  is  an  individual,  and  that  the  Apocalyptic 
Beast  is  a  polity  ? 

As  we  have  here  reached  that  which  constitutes 
the  great  difficulty  in  mastering  the  conception  of 
the  Antichrist  as  revealed  by  the  inspired  writers, 
we  shall  now  turn  from  the  text  of  Scripture  to 
the  comments  of  annotators  and  essayists  to  see 
what  assistance  we  can  derive  from  them.  We 
shall  then  resume  the  consideration  of  the  Scrip 
tural  passages  at  the  point  at  which  we  now  leave 
them.  We  shall  classify  the  opinions  which  have 
been  held  on  the  Antichrist  according  as  he  is 
regarded  as  an  individual,  or  as  a  polity,  or  as  a 
principle.  The  individualists,  again,  must  be  sub 
divided,  according  as  they  represent  him  as  one  to 
come  or  as  one  already  come.  We  have,  therefore, 
four  classes  of  writers  on  the  Antichrist: — (!)• 
those  who  regard  him  as  an  individual  yet  future ; 

(2)  those  who  regard  him  as  a  polity  now  present; 

(3)  those  who  regard  him  as  an  individual  already 
past  away ;  (4)  those  who  consider  that  nothing 
is  meant  beyond  antichristian  and  lawless  principle, 
not  embodied  either  in  an  individual  or  in  a  special 
polity. 

1.  The  first  opinion  held  in  the  Church  was 
that  the  Antichrist  was  a  real  person  who  would 
appear  in  the  world  when  the  time  of  his  ap 
pearance  was  come.  The  only  point  on  which 
any  question  arose  was,  whether  he  should  be  a 
man  armed  with  Satanic  powers  or  Satan  himself. 
That  he  would  be  a  man  armed  with  Satan.c 
powers  is  the  opinion  of  Justin  Martyr,  A.D.  103 
(Dial  371,  20,  21,  Thirlbii,  1722);  of  Irenaeus, 
A.D.  140  (Op.  v.  25,  437,  Grabii,  1702);  of  Ter- 
tullian,  A.D.  150  (De  Res.  Cam.  c.  24;  ApoL  c 
32);  of  Origen,  A.D.  184  (Op.  i.  667,  Delarue. 
1733) ;  of  his  contemporary,  Hippolytus  (De  Anti- 
ckristo,  57,  Fabricii,  Hamburgi,  1716);  of  Cyprian, 
A.D.  250  (Ep.  58;  Op.  120,  Oxon.  1682);  ot 
Victorinus,  A.D.  270  (Bibl.  Pair.  Magna,  iii.  p. 
136,  Col.  Agrip.  1618);  of  Lactantius,  A.D.  300 
(Div.  Inst.  vii.  17)  ;  of  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,-  A.D. 
315  (Catech.  xv.  4) ;  of  Jerome,  A.D.  330  (Op.  iv. 
pars  i.  209,  Parish's,  1693);  of  Chrysostom,  A.D 
347  (Camm.  in  II.  Thess.} ;  of  Hilary  of  Poictiers 
A.D.  350  (Comm.  in  Matt.};  of  Augustine,  A.D. 
354  (De  Civit.  Dei,  xx.  18)  ;  of  Ambrose.  A.D. 
380  (Camm.  in  Luc.}.  The  authors  cf  the  Sibylline 
Oracles,  A.D.  150,  and  of  the  Apostolical  Constitu 
tions,  Celsus  (see  Orig.  c.  Cels.  lib.  vi.)  Ephrem 
Syrus,  A.D.  370,  Theodoret,  A.D.  430,  and  a  few 
othei  writers  seem  to  have  regarded  the  Antichrist 
as  the  devil  himself  rather  than  as  his  minister  or 
an  emanation  from  him.  But  they  may,  perhaps, 
have  meant  no  more  than  to  express  the  identity  of 
his  character  and  his  power  with  that  of  Satan. 
Each  of  the  writers  to  whom  we  have  referred 
gives  his  own  judgment  with  respect  to  some  par 
ticulars  which  may  be  expected  in  the  Antichrist, 
whilst  they  all  agree  in  representing  him  as  a 
person  about  to  come  sb'r^Jy  lefore  the  glorious 


ANTICHRIST 

mid  final  appearance  of  Christ,  ana  to  be  destroyed 
by  His  presence.  Justin  Martyr  speaks  of  him  as 
the  man  of  the  apostasy,  and  dwells  chiefly  on  the 
persecutions  which  he  would  cause.  Ireuaeus  de 
scribes  him  as  summing  up  the  apostasy  in  him 
self;  as  having  his  seat  at  Jerusalem;  as  identical 
with  the  Apocalyptic  Beast  (c.  28):  as  foreshadowed 
by  the  unjust  judge ;  as  being  the  man  who 
•'  should  come  in  his  own  name;"  and  as  belonging 
to  the  tribe  of  Dan  (c.  30).  Tertullian  identifies 
him  with  the  Beast,  and  supposes  him  to  be  about 
to  arise  on  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  (D'e  Res. 
Cam.  c.  25).  Origen  describes  him  in  Eastern  phrase 
as  the  child  of  the  Devil  and  the  counterpart  of 
Christ.  Hippolytus  understands  the  Roman  em 
pire  to  be  represented  by  the  Apocalyptic  Beast 
and  the  Antichrist  by  the  False  Prophet  who 
would  restore  the  wounded  Beast  by  his  craft  and 
by  the  wisdom  of  his  laws.  Cyprian  sees  him 
typified  in  Antiochus  Epiphanes  {Exhort,  ad  Mart. 
c.  11).  Victorinus,  with  several  others — mis 
understanding  St.  Paul's  expression  that  the  mys- 
*ery  of  iniquity  was  in  his  day  working — supposes 
that  the  Antichrist  will  be  a  revivified  hero ;  Lac- 
t.intius  that  he  will  be  a  king  of  Syria,  born  of  an 
evil  spirit ;  Cyril  that  he  will  be  a  magician,  who 
by  his  arts  will  get  the  mastery  of  the  Roman 
empire.  Jerome  describes  him  as  the  son  of  the 
Devil  sitting  in  the  Church  as  though  he  were  the 
Son  of  God  ;  Chrysostom  as  avriOeos  rts  sitting 
in  the  Temple  of  God,  that  is,  in  all  the  churches, 
not  merely  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  ;  St.  Au 
gustine  as  the  adversary  holding  power  for  three 
and  a  half  years — the  Beast,  perhaps,  representing 
Satan's  empire.  The  primitive  belief  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  words  of  St.  Jerome.  In  his 
Commentaiy  on  Daniel  he  writes — "  Let  us  say 
that  which  all  ecclesiastical  writers  have  handed 
down,  viz.,  that  at  the  end  of  the  world,  when  the 
Roman  empire  is  to  be  destroyed,  there  will  be  ten 
kings  who  will  divide  the  Roman  world  amongst 
them  ;  and  there  will  arise  an  eleventh  little  king, 
who  will  subdue  three  of  the  ten  kings,  that  is, 
the  king  of  Egypt,  of  Africa,  and  of  Ethiopia,  as 
we  shall  hereafter  show.  And  on  these  having 
been  slain,  the  seven  other  kings  will  also  submit. 
'  And  behold,'  he  says, '  in  the  ram  were  the  eyes 
of  a  man.'  This  is  that  we  may  not  suppose  him 
to  be  a  devil  or  a  demon,  as  some  have  thought, 
but  a  man  in  whom  Satan  will  dwell  utterly  and 
bodily.  '  And  a  mouth  speaking  great  things,'  for 
he  is  ;  the  man  of  sin,  the  son  of  perdition,  who 
sitteth  in  the  temple  of  God,  making  himself  as 
God'"  (Op.  vol.  iv.  p.  511,  Col.  Agrip.  1616). 
In  his  Comment,  on  Dan.  xi.,  and  in  his  reply  to 
Algasia's  eleventh  question,  he  works  out  the  same 
view  in  greater  detail.  The  same  line  of  interpre 
tation  continued.  Andreas  of  Caesarea,  A.D.  550, 
explains  him  to  be  a  king  actuated  by  Satan, 
who  will  reunite  the  old  Roman  empire  and  reign 
at  Jerusalem  (In  Apoc.  c.  xiii.)  ;  Aretas,  A.D.  650, 
as  a  king  of  the  Romans  who  will  reign  over  the 
Saracens  in  Bagdad  (In  Apoc.  c.  xiii.) ;  John 
Damascene,  A.D.  800,  repeats  the  primitive  belief 
(Orth.  Fid.  \.  iv.  c.  26);  Adso,  A.D.  950,  says 
that,  a  Frank  king  will  reun:te  the  Roman  empire, 
and  that  he  will  abdicate  on  Mount  Olivet,  and  that, 
on  the  dissolution  of  his  kingdom,  the  Antichrist 
will  be  revealed.  The  same  writer  supposes  that 
he  vrill  be  born  in  Babylon,  that  he  will  be  educated 
at  Bethsaida  and  Chorazin,  and  that  he  will  pro 
claim  himself  the  Soa  of  God  ?.t  Jerusalem  ( Tract. 


ANTICHRIST  ixz) 

in  Antichr.  apud  August.  Opera,  torn.  it.  p.  454, 
Paris,  1637).  Theophylact,  A.D.  1070,  speaks  of 
him  as  a  man  who  will  cany  Satan  about  with 
him.  Albert  the  Great,  Cardinal  Hugo,  and  Alex- 
ander  de  Hales,  repeat  the  received  tradition  in  the 
thirteenth  century.  So  also  Thomas  Aquinas,  A.D. 
1260,  who  recurs  to  the  tradition  with  regard  to 
the  birth  of  Antichrist  at  Babylon,  saying  that  he 
will  be  instructed  in  the  Magian  philosophy,  anJ 
that  his  doctrine  and  miracles  will  be  a  parody  01 
those  of  the  Lamb.  The  received  opinion  of  the 
twelfth  century  is  brought  before  us  in  a  striking 
and  dramatic  manner  at  the  interview  between 
King  Richard  I.  and  the  Abbot  Joachim  at  Mes 
sina,  as  the  king  was  on  his  way  to  the  Holy  Land. 
"  I  thought,"  said  the  king,  "  that  Antichrist 
would  be  born  in  Antioch  or  in  Babylon,  and  of 
the  tribe  of  Dan  ;  and  would  reign  in  the  temple 
of  the  Lord  in  Jerusalem  ;  and  would  walk  in  that 
land  in  which  Christ  walked ;  and  would  reign  in 
it  for  three  years  and  a  half;  and  would  dispute 
against  Elijah  and  Enoch,  and  would  kill  them  ; 
and  would  afterwards  die ;  and  that  after  his  death 
God  would  give  sixty  days  of  repentance,  in  which 
those  might  repent  which  should  have  erred  from 
the  way  of  truth,  and  have  been  seduced  by  the 
preaching  of  Antichrist  and  his  false  prophets."  This 
seems  to  have  been  the  view  defended  by  the  arch 
bishops  of  Rouen  and  Auxerre  and  by  the  bishop  of 
Bayonne,  who  were  present  at  the  interview :  but 
it  was  not  Joachim's  opinion.  He  maintained  the 
seven  heads  of  the  Beast  to  be  Herod,  Nero,  Con- 
star.tius,  Mahomet,  Melsemut,  who  were  past ; 
Saladin,  who  was  then  living ;  and  Antichrist,  who 
was  shortly  to  come,  being  already  born  in  the  city 
of  Rome,  and  about  to  be  elevated  to  the  Apostolic 
See  (Roger  de  Hoveden  in  Richard  /.,  anno 
1190).*  In  his  own  work  on  the  Apocalypse 
Joachim  speaks  of  the  second  Apocalyptic  beast  aa 
being  governed  by  "  some  great  prelate  who  will 
be  like  Simon  Magus,  and  as  it  were  universal 
pontiff  throughout  the  world,  and  be  that  very 
Antichrist  of  whom  St.  Paul  speaks."  These  are 
very  noticeable  words.  Gregory  I.  had  long  since 
(A.D.  590)  declared  that  any  man  who  held  even 
the  shadow  of  the  power  which  the  popes  of  Rome 
soon  after  his  time  arrogated  to  themselves,  would 
be  the  precursor  of  Antichrist.  Arnulphus  bishop 
of  Orleans  (or  perhaps  Gerbert),  in  an  invective 
against  John  XV.  at  the  Council  of  Rheims,  A.D. 
991,  had  declared  that  if  the  Roman  pontiff  was 
destitute  of  charity  and  puffed  up  with  knowledge, 
he  was  Antichrist — if  destitute  both  of  charity  and 
of  knowledge,  that  he  was  a  lifeless  stone  (Mansi, 
torn.  ix.  p.  132,  Ven.  1774);  but  Joachim  is  the 
first  to  suggest,  not  that  such  and  such  a  pontiff 
was  Antichrist,  but  that  the  Antichrist  would  be  a 
Universalis  Pontifex,  and  that  he  would  occupy 
the  Apostolic  See.  Still,  however,  we  have  no  hint 
of  an  order  or  succession  of  men  being  the  Anti 
christ.  It  is  an  actual  living  inidvidual  man  that 
Joachim  contemplates. 

The  master  had  said  that  a  Pope  would  be  thfc 
Antichrist ;  his  followers  began  to  whisper  that  it 
was  the  Pope.  Amalric,  professor  of  logic  and 
theology  at  Paris  at  the  end  of  the  12th  century, 
appears  to  have  been  the  first  to  have  put  forth  the 
idea.  It  was  taken  up  by  three  different  classes ; 


»  The  Bollandists  reject  the  story  of  this  inter/ tew  3S 
an  invention.  It  has  also  been  suggested  (see  M.  Stnart.) 
that  Joachim's  works  have  been  interpolated. 


Ixxii 


ANTICHRIST 


by  the  moralists,  who  were  scandalized  at  the  laxity 
of  the  Papal  Court ;  by  the  Imperialists,  in  their 
temporal  struggle  with  the  Papacy ;  and,  pei'haps 
independently,  by  the  Waldenses  and  their  followers 
in  their  spiritual  struggle.  Of  the  first  class  we 
may  find  examples  in  the  Franciscan  enthusiasts 
Peter  John  of  Olivi,  Telesphorus,  Ubertinus,  and 
John  of  Paris,  who  saw  a  mystic  Antichrist  at 
Rome,  and  looked  forward  to  a  real  Antichrist  in 
the  future;  and  again  in  such  men  as  Grostete, 
whom  we  find  asking,  as  in  despair,  whether  the 
uame  of  Antichrist  has  not  been  earned  by  the 
Pope  (Matt.  Par.  in  An.  1253,  p.  875,  1640). 
Of  the  second  class  we  may  take  Eberhard  arch 
bishop  of  Salzburg  as  a  specimen,  who  denounces 
Hildebrand  as  "  having,  in  the  name  of  religion, 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  kingdom  of  Antichrist 
170  years  before  his  time."  He  can  even  name 
the  ten  horns.  They  are  the  "Turks,  Greeks, 
Egyptians,  Africans,  Spaniards,  French,  English, 
Germans,  Sicilians,  and  Italians,  who  now  occupy 
the  provinces  of  Rome;  and  a  little  horn  has 
grown  up  with  eyes  and  mouth,  speaking  great 
things,  which  is  reducing  three  of  these  kingdoms — 
i.  e.  Sicily,  Italy,  and  Germany — to  subserviency, 
is  persecuting  the  people  of  Christ  and  the  saints 
of  God  with  intolerable  opposition,  is  confound 
ing  things  human  and  divine,  and  attempting 
things  unutterable,  execrable  "  (Aventinus,  Annal. 
Boiorum,  p.  651,  Lips.  1710).  The  Waldenses 
eagerly  grasped  at  the  same  notion,  and  from  that 
time  it  has  never  been  lost  sight  of.  Thus  we 
slide  from  the  individualist  view,  which  was  held 
unanimously  in  the  Church  for  upwards  of  a  thou 
sand  years,  to  the  notion  of  a  polity,  or  a  succession 
of  rulers  of  a  polity,  that  polity  being  the  Church 
of  Rome.  The  hitherto  received  opinion  now 
vanishes,  and  does  not  appear  again  until  the  ex 
cesses  and  extravagances  of  the  new  opinion,  pro 
duced  a  reaction  against  itself. 

2.  The  Waldeuses  also  at  first  regarded  the 
Antichrist  as  an  individual.  The  *  Noble  Lesson,' 
written  in  the  12th  century,  teaches  the  expecta 
tion  of  a  future  and  personal  Antichrist  ;b  but  the 
Waldensian  treatise  of  Antichrist  in  the  14th  cen 
tury  identifies  Antichrist,  Babylon,  the  Fourth 
Beast,  the  Harlot,  and  the  Man  of  Sin,  with  the 
system  of  Popery.  Wickliffites  and  Hussites  held 
the  same  language.  Lord  Cobham  declared  at  his 
trial  that  the  Pope  was  Antichrist's  head  (Bede's 
Works,  p.  38,  Camb.  1849).  Walter  Brute, 
brought  before  the  Bishop's  Court  at  Hereford  at 
the  end  of  the  14th  century,  pronounced  the  Anti 
christ  to  be  "  the  high  Bishop  of  Rome  calling  him 
self  God's  servant  and  Christ's  chief  vicar  in  this 
world"  (Foxe,  iii.  p.  131,  Lend.  1844).  Thus  we 
reach  the  Reformation.  Walter  Brute  (A.D.  1393), 
Bullinger  (1504),  Chytraeus  (1571),  Aretius 
(1573),  Foxe  (1586),  Napier  (1593),  Mede  (1632), 
Jurieu  (1685),  Bp.  Newton  (1750),  Cunninghame 
(1813),  Faber  (1814),  Woodhouse  (1828),  Ha- 
bershon  (1843),  identify  the  False  Prophet,  or 
Second  Apocalyptic  Beast,  with  Antichrist  and  with 
the  Papacy;  Marlorat  (A.D.  1574),  King  James  I. 
(1603),  Daubuz  (1720),  Galloway  (1802),  the 
First  Apocalyptic  Beast:  Brightman  (A.D.  1600), 
Pareus  (1615),  Vitringa  (1705),  Gill  (1776), 
Bachmair  (1778),  Fraser  (1795),  Croly  (1828), 


"  E  esser  mot  avisa,  cant  venre  1'  Antexriat, 
Que  nos  non  crean,  ni  a  son  fait,  ni  a  son  dit 
Car,  s^gont  1'  escriptura,  son  ara  fait  moti  Antexrist ; 


ANTICHRIST 

Fysh  (1837),  Elliott  (1844),  both  the  Beasts 
That  the  Pope  and  his  system  are  Antichrist,  was 
taught  by  Luther,  Calvin,  Zwingli,  Melancthon, 
Bucer,  Bexa,  Calixtus,  Bengel,  Michaelis,  and  by 
almost  all  Protestant  writers  on  the  Continent. 
Nor  was  there  any  hesitation  on  the  part  of  English 
theologians  to  seize  the  same  weapon  of  offence. 
Bp.  Bale  (A.D.  1491),  like  Luther,  Bucer,  and 
Melancthon,  pronounces  the  Pope  in  Europe  and 
Mahomet  in  Africa  to  be  Antichrist.  The  Pope  is 
Antichrist,  say  Cranmer  (Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  46, 
Camb.  1844),  Latimer  (Works,  vol.  i.  p.  149, 
Camb.  1844),  Ridley  (Works,  p.  53,  Camb.  1841), 
Hooper  (Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  44,  Camb.  1852), 
Hutchinson  (Works,  p.  304,  Camb.  1842),  Tyn- 
dale  (  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  147,  Camb.  1848),  Sandys 
(Works,  p.  11,'Camb.  1841),  Philpot  (Works,  p. 
152,  Camb.  1842),  Jewell  (Works,  vol.  i.  p.  109, 
Camb.  1845),  Rogers  (Works,  p.  182,  Camb.  1854), 
Fulke  (  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  269,  Camb.  1848),  Brad 
ford  (Works,  p.  435,  Camb.  1848).  Nor  is  the 
opinion  confined  to  these  16th  century  divines, 
who  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  specially 
incensed  against  Popery.  King  James  held  it 
(Apol.  pro  Juram.  Fidel.  Lond.  1609)  as  strongly 
as  Queen  Elizabeth  (see  Jewell,  Letter  to  Bulling. 
May  22,  1559,  Zurich  Letters,  First  Series,  p.  33, 
Camb.  1842)  ;  and  the  theologians  of  the  17th 
century  did  not  repudiate  it,  though  they  less  and 
less  dwelt  upon  it  as  their  struggle  came  to  be  with 
Puritanism  in  place  of  Popery.  Bp.  Andrewes  main 
tains  it  as  a  probable  conclusion  from  the  Epistle  to 
the  Thessalonians  (Resp.  ad  Bellarm.  p.  304,  Oxon. 
1851) ;  but  he  carefully  explains  that  King  James, 
whom  he  was  defending,  had  expressed  his  private 
opinion,  not  the  belief  of  the  Church,  on  the  subject 
(ibid.  p.  23).  Bramhall  introduces  limitations  and 
distinctions  (  Works,  iii.  p.  520,  Oxf.  1845)  ;  sig 
nificantly  suggests  that  there  are  marks  of  Anti 
christ  which  apply  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
.Kirk  of  Scotland  as  much  as  to  the  Pope  or  to  the 
Turk  (ib.  iii.  287);  and  declines  to  make  the 
Church  of  England  responsible  for  what  individual 
preachers  or  writers  had  said  on  the  subject  in 
moments  of  exasperation  (ib.  ii.  582).  From  this 
time  forward  the  Papal-Antichrist  theory  is  not 
to  be  found  in  any  theologians  of  name  in  the 
English  Church,  nor  indeed  in  the  sixteenth  cen 
tury  docs  it  seem  to  have  taken  root  in  England. 
Hard  names  were  bandied  about,  and  the  hardest 
of  all  being  Antichrist,  it  was  not  neglected.  But 
the  idea  of  the  Pope  being  the  Antichrist  was  not 
the  idea  of  the  English  Reformation,  nor  was  it 
ever  applied  to  the  Pope  in  his  Patriarchal  or 
Archiepiscopal,  but  solely  in  his  distinctively  Papal 
character.  But  the  more  that  the  sober  and 
learned  divines  of  the  seventeenth  century  gave  up 
this  application  of  the  term,  the  more  violently  it 
was  insisted  upon  by  men  of  little  charity  and  con 
tracted  views.  A  string  of  writers  followed  each 
other  in  succession,  who  added  nothing  to  the  inter 
pretation  of  prophecy,  but  found  each  the  creatior 
of  his  own  brain  in  the  sacred  book  of  the  Reve 
lation,  grouping  history  in  any  arbitrary  manner 
that  they  chose  around  the  central  figure  of  the 
Papal  Antichrist. 

3.  A   reaction  followed.     Some  returned  to  the 
ancient  idea  of  a  future  individual  Antichrist,  as 

—La  Nobla  Leyczvn,  I.  456.  See  Raynouard's  Chcix  lei 
Po&ies  Originalet  des  Troubadours,  ii.  p.  100;  App.  iiL 
to  vol.  iii.  of  Elliott's  Horae  Apocalypticae,  Lond.  1815  ? 


Car  Antexristson  tait  aquilhque  contrastan  aXrist."     Hallam's  Lit.  Europe,  i.  p.  28  (note).  Ixnul. 


ANTICHRIST 

Lr.cuiiza  or  Bene-ra  (A.  D.  1810),  Burgh,  Samuel 
Maitland,  Newman  (Tracts  for  the  Times,  No. 
83),  Charles  Maitland  (Prophetic  Interpretation). 
Others  preferred  looking  upon  him  as  long  past, 
and  fixed  upon  one  or  another  persecutor  or  here- 
siarch  as  the  man  in  whom  the  predictions  as  to 
Antichrist  found  their  fulfilment.  There  seems  to 
be  no  trace  of  this  idea  for  more  than  1600  years 
in  the  Church.  But  it  has  been  taken  up  by  two 
opposite  classes  of  expounders,  by  Romanists  who 
were  anxious  to  avert  the  application  of  the  Apoca 
lyptic  prophecies  from  the  Papacy,  and  by  others, 
who  were  disposed,  not  indeed  to  deny  the  pro 
phetic  import  of  the  Apocalypse,  but  to  confine 
the  seer's  ken  within  the  closest  and  narrowest 
limits  that  were  possible.  Alcasar,  a  Spanish  Jesuit, 
taking  a  hint  from  Victorinus,  seems  to  have  been 
the  first  (A.  D.  1604)  to  have  suggested  that  the 
Apocalyptic  prophecies  did  not  extend  further  than 
to  the  overthrow  of  Paganism  by  Constantine. 
This  view,  with  variations  by  Grotius,  is  taken  up 
and  expounded  by  Bossuet,  Calmet,  De  Sacy,  Eich- 
horn,  Hug,  Herder,  Ewald,  Moses  Stuart,  David 
son.  The  general  view  of  the  school  is  that  the 
Apocalypse  describes  the  triumph  of  Christianity 
over  Judaism  in  the  first,  and  over  Heathenism 
in  the  third  century.  Mariana  sees  Antichrist  in 
Nero ;  Bossuet  in  Diocletian  and  in  Julian  ;  Gro 
tius  in  Caligula  ;  Wetstein  in  Titus :  Hammond  in 
Simon  Magus  ( Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  620,  Lond. 
1631);  Whitby  in  the  Jews  (C<mm.  vol.  ii.  p. 
431,  Lond.  1760);  Le  Clerc  in  Simon,  son  of 
Giora,  a  leader  of  the  rebel  Jews ;  Schottgen  in  the 
Pharisees  ;  Nossett  and  Krause  in  the  Jewish  zealots ; 
Harduin  in  the  High  Priest  Ananias;  F.  D.  Maurice 
inVitellius  (On  the  Apocalypse,  Camb.  1860). 

4.  The  same  spirit  that  refuses  to  regard  Satan 
as  an  individual,  naturally  looks  upon  the  Anti 
christ  as  an  evil  principle  not  embodied  either  in  a 
person  or  in  a  polity.  Thus  Koppe,  Storr,  Nitzsch, 
Pelt.  (See  Alford,  Gk.  Test.  iii.  69.) 

We  do  not  gain  much  by  a  review  of  the  opinions 
of  the  commentators.  In  the  case  of  prophecy,  par 
tially  at  least  unfulfilled,  little  is  to  be  expected. 
Of  the  four  opinions  which  we  have  exhibited,  the 
last  is  in  accordance  neither  with  St.  Paul  nor  St. 
John,  for  St.  Paul  describes  the  Adversary  as  being 
distinctly  a  man  ;  St.  John  speaks  of  the  coming 
of  Antichrist  in  terms  similar  to  those  used  for  the 
coming  ot  Christ,  and  describes  Antichristianism 
as  rJ)  TOU  avTixpivrov,  thereby  showing  that  Anti 
christianism  is  Antichristianism  because  it  is  the 
spirit  of  the  concrete  Antichrist.  The  third  opi 
nion  is  plainly  refuted  by  the  fact  that  the  persons 
fixed  upon  as  the  Antichrist  have  severally  passed 
away,  but  Christ's  glorious  presence,  which  is  im 
mediately  to  succeed  the  Antichrist,  has  not  yet 
been  vouchsafed.  The  majority  of  those  who 
maintain  the  second  opinion  are  shown  to  be  in 
the  wrong  because  they  represent  as  a  polity  what 
St.  Paul  distinctly  describes  as  a  man.  The  ma 
jority  of  those  who  hold  the  first  opinion  are  in  like 
manner  shown  to  be  in  the  wrong,  because  they 
represent  as  an  individual  what  the  Apocalypse  de- 
monstrably  pictures  as  a  polity.  We  are  unable 
to  follow  any  one  interpreter  or  any  one  school  of 
interpreters.  The  opinions  of  the  two  last  schools 
we  are  able  to  see  are  wholly  false  :  the  two  first 
appear  to  contain  the  truth  between  them,  but  so 
divided  as  to  be  untrue  in  the  mouth  of  almost  any 
individual  expositor  who  has  entered  into  details 
We  return  to  Scripture. 


ANTICHRIST  Ixxiil 

St.  Paul  says  that  there  are  two  things  which  art 
to  precede  the  Day  of  Christ,  the  airoffTaffla  and 
the  revelation  of  the  Adversary;  but  he  does  not 
say  that  these  two  things  are  contemporary :  on 
the  contrary,  though  he  does  not  directly  express 
it,  he  implies  that  there  was  to  be  a  succession  of 
events.  First,  it  would  seem,  an  unnamed  and  to 
us  unknown  obstacle  has  to  be  removed :  then  was 
to  follow  the  "  Apostasy ;"  after  this,  the  Adversary 
was  to  arise,  and  then  was  to  come  his  destructior . 
We  need  hardly  say  that  the  word  "  apostasy,"  as 
ordinarily  used,  does  not  give  the  exact  meaning  ol 
ri  airoffrao-ia.  The  A.  V.  has  most  correctly  ren 
dered  the  original  by  "  falling  away,"  having  only 
failed  of  entire  exactness  by  omitting  to  give  the 
value  of  the  article.*  An  open  and  unblushing 
denial  and  rejection  of  all  belief,  which  is  implied  in 
our  "  apostasy,"  is  not  implied  in  airo<rr atria.  It 
means  one  of  two  things:  (1)  Political  defection 
(Gen.  xiv.  4;  2  Chron.  xiii  6;  Acts  v.  37); 
(2)  Religious  defection  (Acts  xxi.  21  ;  1  Tim.  iv. 
1 ;  Heb.  iii.  12).  The  first  is  the  common  classical 
use  of  the  word.  The  second  is  more  usual  in  the 
N.  T.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  seems  to  understand  the 
word  rightly  when  he  says  in  reference  to  this 
passage :  Uvv  5e  fffrlv  f]  diroirTatria'  iTfeVrTjo'ai' 
yap  ol  avOpwiroi  TT}S  opflfjs  Triffretas  .  .  .  &7re<TT7j- 
crav  yap  ol  avQpcoTroi  airb  rfjy  aXijtieias  . 
roivvv  fffrlv  •}]  airoffraa-ia'  Kal  /j.€\\et 
KtiffOai  6  ?xfy°s  (S.  tyril.  Catech.  xv.  9,  Op.  p. 
228:  Paris,  1720).  And  St.  Ambrose,  "A  vei* 
religione  plerique  lapsi  errore  desciscent "  (  Comm. 
in  Luc.  xx.  20).  This  "  falling  away "  implies 
persons  who  fall  away,  the  airoffraffia  consists  of 
airdffTarai.  Supposing  the  existence  of  an  organized 
religious  body,  some  of  whom  should  fall  away 
from  the  true  faith,  the  persons  so  falling  away 
would  be  OTr^o-Tarot,  though  still  formally  un- 
severed  from  the  religious  body  to  which  they  be 
longed,  and  the  religious  body  itself,  while  from 
one  side  and  in  respect  to  its  faithful  members  it 
would  retain  its  character  and  name  as  a  religious 
body,  might  yet  from  another  side  and  in  respect  to 
its  other  members  be  designated  an  airoffraffia. 
It  is  such  a  corrupted  religious  body  as  this  that 
St.  Paul  seems  to  mean  by  the  airoa -raffia  which 
he  foretells  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians.  In 
the  Epistles  to  Timothy  he  describes  this  religious 
defection  by  some  of  its  peculiar  characteristics, 
These  are,  seducing  spirits,  doctrines  of  demons, 
hypocritical  lying,  a  seared  conscience,  a  forbidding 
of  marriage  and  of  meats,  a  form  of  godliness  with 
out  the  power  thereof  ( 1  Tim.  iv.  1 ;  2  Tim.  iii.  5). 
It  has  been  usual,  as  we  have  seen,  to  identify  the 
Beast  of  the  Apocalypse  with  St.  Paul's  Man  ol 
Sin.  It  is  impossible,  as  we  have  said,  to  do  so. 
But  it  is  possible,  and  more  than  possible,  to  identify 
the  Beast  and  the  airoffraffia.  Can  we  find  any 
thing  which  will  serve  as  the  antitype  of  both? 
In  order  to  be  the  antitype  of  St.  John's  Beast  H 
must  be  a  polity,  arising,  not  immediately,  but 
shortly,  after  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
gaining  great  influence  in  the  world,  and  getting 
the  mastery  over  a  certain  number  of  those  nation 
alities  which  like  itself  grew  out  of  that  empire 
(Dan.  vii.  24).  It  must  last  three  and  a  half  times, 
i.  e.  nearly  twice  as  long  as  the  empire  of  Assyria, 
or  Persia,  or  Grecia,  to  which  only  two  time? 
seem  to  be  allotted  (Dan.  vii.  12).  It  must  bias- 


«  For  the  force  of  the  article,  see  bp.  Middletoii  in 
(Gk.  Art.  p.  382,  Camb.  1833). 


ANTICHRIST 

pheme  against  God,  i.  e.  it  must  arrogatt  to  itself 
or  claim  for  creatures  the  honour  due  to  God  alone.* 
It  must  be  an  object  of  wonder  and  worship  to  the 
world  (Rev.  xiii.  6).  It  must  put  forward  un 
blushing  claims  in  behalf  of  itself,  and  be  full  of  its 
own  perfections  (Rev.  xiii.  5).  At  a  certain  period 
in  its  history  it  must  put  itself  under  the  guidance 
of  Rome  (Rev.  xviii.  3),  and  remain  ridden  by  her 
until  the  destruction  of  the  latter  (Rev.  xviii.  2) ; 
its  own  existence  being  still  prolonged  until  the 
coming  of  Christ  in  glory  (Rev.  xix.  20).  To  satisfy 
the  requirements  of  St.  Paul's  description,  its  es 
sential  features  must  be  a  falling  away  from  the 
true  faith  (2  Thess.  ii.  3 ;  1  Tim.  iv.  1),  and  it 
must  be  further  characterized  by  the  specific  quali 
ties  alerady  transcribed  from  the  Epistles  to 
Timothy. 

The  antitype  may  be  found  in  the  corrupted 
Church  of  Christ,  in  so  far  as  it  was  corrupted. 
The  same  body,  in  so  far  as  it  maintained  the  faith 
and  love,  was  the  bride  and  the  spouse,  and,  in  so 
far  as  it  "  fell  away"  from  God,  was  the  airoffraaia, 
just  as  Jerusalem  of  old  was  at  once  Sion  the 
beloved  city,  and  Sodom  the  bloody  city — the 
Church  of  God  and  the  Synagogue  of  Satan.  Ac 
cording  to  this  view,  the  three  and  a  half  times  of 
the  Beast's  continuance  (Rev.  xiii.  5),  and  of  the 
Bride's  suffering  in  the  wilderness  (Rev.  xii.  6), 
wuuld  necessarily  be  conterminous,  for  the  persecuted 
and  the  persecutors  would  be  the  faithful  and  the 
unfaithful  members  of  the  same  body.  These  times 
would  have  commenced  when  the  Church  lapsed 
from  her  purity  and  from  her  firet  love  into  unfaith 
fulness  to  God,  exhibited  especially  in  idolatry  and 
creature-worship.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  a  religious 
defection  to  grow  up  by  degrees.  We  should  not 
therefore  be  able  to  lay  the  finger  on  any  special 
moment  at  which  it  commenced.  St.  Cyril  of  Je 
rusalem  considered  that  it  was  already  existing  in 
his  time.  '* Now"  he  says,  "  is  the  o.Troo'Tao'ia, 
for  men  have  fallen  away  (aireffrfiffav}  from  the 
right  faith.  This  then  is  the  &.iroffTa<ria»,  and  we 
must  begin  to  look  out  for  the  enemy ;  already  he 
has  begun  to  send  his  forerunners,  that  the  prey 
may  be  ready  for  him  at  his  coming"  (Catech.  xv. 
9).  It  was  at  the  Second  Council  of  Nice  that  the 
Church  formally  committed  itself  for  the  first  time 
(A.D.  787)  by  the  voice  of  a  General  Council  to 
false  doctrine  and  idolatrous  practice.  The  after 
acquiescence  in  the  Hildebrandine  theory  of  the 
Papal  Supremacy  would  be  typified  by  the  Beast 
taking  the  woman  who  represents  the  seven-hilled 
city  on  its  back  as  its  guide  and  director.  From 
the  twelfth  to  the  sixteenth  century,  and  partially 
to  the  present  day.  this  Hildebrandine  idea  has 
reigned  over  and  has  been  the  governing  spirit  of 
the  corrupted  Church.  The  fall  of  Babylon,  t.  e.  of 
Rome,  would  be  as  yet  future,  as  well  as  the  still 
subsequent  destruction  of  the  corrupted  Church,  on 
the  day  of  the  coming  of  Christ.  The  period  of 
the  three  and  a  half  times  would  continue  down  to  the 
final  moment  that  this  destruction  takes  place. 

VII.  The  Apocalyptic  False  Prophet.— There 
is  a  second  Apocalyptic  Beast:  the  Beast  from 
the  Earth  (Rev.  ziii.  11),  or  the  False  Prophet 
(Rev.  xix.  20).  Can  we  identify  this  Beast  either 

a  The  word  "  blasphemy  "  has  come  to  bear  a  second  - 
ary  meaning,  which  it  does  not  bear  in  Scripture. 
Schleusner  (in  roc.)  rightly  explains  it,  Dicere  et  facerc 
(fiibus  majestas  Dei  violatur.  The  Jews  :-<ccnsed  our 
Ix.rd  of  blasphemy  because  He  claimed  divine  power 
aad  the  divine  attributes  (Matt.  ix.  2 ;  x.xvi,  64 ;  John  x 


ANTICHRIST 

with  the  individual  Antichrist  of  the  Epistles  at 
with  the  corrupt  polity  of  the  Apocalypse?  We 
were  compelled  to  regard  the  First  Beast  as  a  polity 
by  its  being  identical  with  that  which  clearly  is  a 
polity,  the  Little  Horn  of  Daniel.  There  is  no  such 
necessity  here,  and  there  is  no  reason  for  regarding 
the  Second  Beast  as  a  polity,  beyond  the  fact  of  its 
being  described  under  a  similar  figure  to  that  bj 
which  a  polity  had  been  just  previously  described. 
This  presumption  is  more  than  counterbalanced  by 
the  individualizing  title  of  the  False  Prophet  which 
he  bears  (Rev.  xvi.  13,  xix.  20).  His  character 
istics  are — (1)  "doing  great  wonders,  so  that  he 
maketh  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven  on  the 
earth  in  the  sight  of  men  "  (Rev.  xiii.  13).  This 
power  of  miracle-working,  we  should  note,  is  not 
attributed  by  St.  John  to'the  First  Beast ;  but  it  is 
one  of  the  chief  signs  of  St.  Paul's  Adversary, 
"whose  coming  is  with  all  power  and  signs  and 
lying  wonders"  (2  Thess.  ii.  9).  (2)  "He  de- 
ceiveth  them  that  dwell  on  the  earth  by  the  means 
of  those  miracles  which  he  had  power  to  do  in  the 
sight  of  the  Beast"  (Rev.  xiii.  14).  "  He  wrought 
miracles  with  which  he  deceived  them  that  received 
the  mark  of  the  Beast  and  worshipped  the  imags 
of  the  Beast"  (Rev.  xix.  20).  In  like  manner,  no 
special  power  of  beguiling  is  attributed  to  the  First 
Beast ;  but  the  Adversary  is  possessed  of  "  all  de- 
ceivableness  of  unrighteousness  in  them  that  perish 
because  they  received  not  the  love  of  the  truth  that 
they  might  be  saved"  (2  Thess.  ii.  10).  (3)  He 
has  horns  like  a  lamb,  t.  e.  he  bears  an  outward 
resemblance  to  the  Messiah  (Rev.  xiii.  11);  and  the 
Adversary  sits  in  the  temple  of  God  showing  him 
self  that  he  is  God  (2  Thess.  ii.  4).  (4)  His  title 
is  The  False  Prophet,  6  "Vzv$oirpo<l>4]T-ris  (Rev.  xvi. 
13,  xix.  20);  and  our  Lord,  whom  Antichrist 
counterfeits,  is  emphatically  6  Tlpo^rrfs.  The 
of  Matt.  xxiv.  24  are  the  forerun 
,  as  John  the  Baptist  of  the 
True  Prophet.  On  the  whole,  it  would  seem  that 
if  the  Antichrist  appears  at  all  in  the  Book  of  the 
Revelation  it  is  by  this  Second  Beast  or  the  False 
Prophet  that  he  is  represented.  If  this  be  so,  it  fol 
lows  that  he  is  an  individual  person  who  will  at  some 
future  time  arise,  who  will  ally  himself  with  the 
Corrupted  Church,  represent  himself  as  her  minis 
ter  and  vindicator  (Rev. xiii.  12),  compel  men  by 
violence  to  pay  reverence  to  her  (xiii.  14),  breathe 
a  new  life  into  her  decaying  frame  by  his  use  of  the 
secular  arm  in  her  behalf  (xiii.  15),  forbidding  civil 
rights  to  those  who  renounce  her  authority  and  re 
ject  her  symbols  (xiii.  17),  and  putting  them  to  death 
by  the  sword  (xiii.  15),  while  personally  he  is  an 
atheistical  blasphemer  (1  John  ii.  22),  and  sums  up 
in  himself  the  evil  spirit  of  unbelief  which  has  been 
working  in  the  world  from  St.  Paul's  days  to  his 
(2  Thess.  ii.  7).  That  it  is  possible  for  a  professed 
unbeliever  and  atheist  to  make  himself  the  cham 
pion  of  a  corrupt  system  of  religion,  and  to  become 
on  political  grounds  as  violent  a  persecutor  in  its 
behalf  as  the  most  fanatical  bigot  could  be,  has 
been  proved  by  events  which  have  already  oc 
curred,  and  which  might  again  occur  on  a  more 
gigantic  and  terrible  scale.  The  Antichrist  would 
thus  combine  the  forces,  generally  and  happily 

33).  There  was  nothing  in  our  Lord's  words  which  the 
most  bitter  malignity  could  have  called  blasphemons  in 
the  later  sense  which  the  word  has  come  to  bear.  It  tg 
of  course  in  the  Scriptural,  not  in  the  modern,  sense  that 
St.  John  attributes  blasphemy  to  the  Heast.  (So«  Words 
worth,  On  the  Apocalypse,  p.  52S.) 


ANTICHRIST 

antagonistic,  of  Infidelity  and  Superstition.  In 
this  would  consist  the  special  horror  of  the  reign 
of  the  Antichrist.  Hence  also  the  special  suffer 
ings  of  the  faithful  believers  until  Christ  hira- 
self  once  again  appeared  to  vindicate  the  cause  of 
Truth  and  Liberty  and  Religion. 

The  sum  of  Scripture-teaching  with  regard  to 
he  Antichrist,  then,  appears  to  be  as  follows.  Al 
ready  in  the  times  of  the  Apostles  there  was  the 
mystery  of  iniquity,  the  spirit  of  Antichrist,  at 
work.  It  embodied  itself  in  various  shapes — in  the 
Gnostic  heretics  of  St.  John's  days,  in  the  Jewish 
impostors  who  preceded  the  fall' of  Jerusalem,  in 
all  heresiarchs  and  unbelievers,  especially  those 
whose  heresies  had  a  tendency  to  deny  the  Incar 
nation  of  Christ,  and  in  the  great  persecutors  who 
from  time  to  time  afflicted  the  Church.  But  this 
Antichristian  Spirit  was  then,  and  is  still,  diffused. 
It  had  not,  and  it  has  not  yet,  gathered  itself  into 
the  one  person  in  whom  it  will  be  one  day  com 
pletely  and  fully  manifested.  There  was  something 
which  prevented  the  open  manifestation  of  the 
Antichrist  in  the  Apostles'  days  which  they  spoke 
of  by  word  of  mouth,  but  were  unwilling  to  name 
in  letters.  What  this  obstacle  was,  or  is,  we  can 
not  now  know.  The  general  opinion  of  the  early 
writers  and  fathers  is  that  it  was  the  power  of 
secular  law  existing  in  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
Roman  Empire  fell,  and  upon  its  fall,  and  in  con 
sequence  of  its  fall,  there  arose  a  secularization  and 
corruption  of  the  Church,  which  would  not  have 
been  so  secularized  and  corrupted  had  it  been  kept 
in  check  by  the  jealousy  of  the  imperial  power. 
The  secularization  and  corruption  increasing,  the 
Church,  which  from  one  point  of  view  and  in  re 
spect  to  some  of  its  members  was  considered  as  the 
Church  of  Christ,  from  another  point  of  view  and 
in  respect  to  others  of  its  members  came  to  be 
regarded  as  no  better  than  an  airoffracria.  Time 
passing  on,  the  corrupt  element,  getting  still  more 
the  mastery,  took  the  Papacy  on  its  back  and  gave 
itself  up  to  be  directed  from  Rome.  So  far  we 
speak  of  the  past.  It  would  appear  further  that 
there  is  to  be  evolved  from  the  womb  of  the  Cor 
rupt  Church,  whether  after  or  before  the  fall  of 
Rome  does  not  appear,  an  individual  Antichrist, 
who,  being  himself  a  scoffer  and  contemner  of  all 
religion,  will  yet  act  as  the  Patron  and  Defender  of 
the  Corrupt  Church,  and  compel  men  to  submit  to 
her  sway  by  the  force  of  the  secular  arm  and  by 
means  of  bloody  persecutions.  He  will  unite  the 
old  foes  Superstition  and  Unbelief  in  a  combined 
Tttack  on  Liberty  and  Religion.  He  will  have, 
finally,  a  power  of  performing  lying  miracles  and 
beguiling  souls,  being  the  embodiment  of  Satanic 
as  distinct  from  brutal  wickedness.  How  long  his 
power  will  last  we  are  wholly  ignorant,  as  the  three 
and  a  half  times  do  not  refer  to  his  reign  (as  is 
usually  imagined),  but  to  the  continuance  of  the 
a.iroffra.<ria.  We  only  know  that  his  continuance 
will  be  short.  At  last  he  will  be  destroyed  to- 
getter  with  the  Corrupt  Church,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
corrupt,  at  the  glorious  appearance  of  Christ,  which 
will  usher  in  the  millennial  triumph  of  the  faithful 
and  hitherto  persecuted  members  of  the  Church. 

(B.)  There  are  points  which  require  further  elu 
cidation  : — 

1.  The  meaning  of  the  name  Antichrist.  Mr. 
Greswell  argues  at  some  length  that  the  only  cor 
rect  reading  of  the  word  is  Counterfeit-Christ  or 
Pro-Christo,  and  denies  that  the  idea  of  Adversary 
to  Chriwt  is  involved  in  the  word.  Mr.  Greswell's 


ANTJCHKIST 


Ixxv 


authority  is  great ;  but  he  has  been  in  this  case  too 
hasty  in  drawing  his  conclusion  from  the  instances 
which  he  has  cited.  It  is  true  that  «'  avri  is  not 
synonymous  with  Kara"  but  it  is  impossible  to  re* 
sist  the  evidence  which  any  Greek  Lexicon  suppliet 
that  the  word  avri,  both  in  composition  and  by 
itself,  will  bear  the  sense  of  "  opponent  to."  It  it 
probable  that  both  senses  are  combined  in  the  word 
Antichrist,  as  in  the  word  Antipope,  which  is  very 
exact  in  its  resemblance,  but  the  primary  notion 
which  it  conveys  would  seem  rather  to  be  that  of 
antagonism  than  rivalry.  See  Greswell,  Exposition 
of  the  Parables,  vol.  i.  p.  372,  sq. ;  Wordsworth, 
On  the  Apocalypse,  p.  512. 

2.  The  meaning  of  rb  Kar^ov.  What  is  that 
thing  which  withholdeth  (2  Thess.  ii.  6)?  and 
why  is  it  apparently  described  in  the  following 
verse  as  a  person  (6  KarexMV}  ?  There  is  a  re« 
markable  unanimity  among  the  early  Christian 
writers  on  this  point.  They  explain  the  obstacle, 
known  to  the  Thessalonians  but  unknown  to  us,  to 
be  the  Roman  Empire.  Thus  Tertullian  De  Resur. 
Cam.,  c.  24,  and  Apol,  c.  32  ;  St.  Chrysostom  and 
Theophylact  on  2  Thess.  ii.;  Hippolytus,  De Anti- 
christo,  c.  49  ;  St.  Jerome  on  Dan.  vii. ;  St.  Augus 
tine,  De  Civ.  Dei,  xx.  19  ;  St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem, 
Catech.  xv.  6  (see  Dr.  H.  More's  Works,  bk.  ii.  c. 
19,  p.  690  ;  Mede,  bk.  iii.  ch.  xiii.  p.  656  ;  Alford, 
Gk.  Test.  iii.  57 ;  Wordsworth,  On  the  Apocalypse, 
p.  520).  Theodoret  and  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia 
hold  it  to  be  the  determination  of  God.  Theo- 
doret's  view  is  embraced  by  Pelt ;  the  Patristic  in 
terpretation  is  accepted  by  Wordsworth.  Ellicott 
and  Alford  so  far  modify  the  Patristic  interpre 
tation  as  to  explain  the  obstacle  to  be  the  restrain 
ing  power  of  human  law  (rb  KaT*xov}  wielded  by 
the  Empire  of  Rome  (6  Karex(av)  w^en  Tertullian 
wrote,  but  now  by  the  several  governments  of  the 
civilized  world.  The  explanation  of  Theodoret  is 
untenable  on  account  of  St.  Paul's  further  words, 
"  until  he  be  taken  out  of  the  way,"  which  arc 
applied  by  him  to  the  obstacle.  The  modification  oi 
Ellicott  and  Alford  is  necessary  if  we  suppose  the 
air offr atria  tb  be  an  infidel  apostasy  still  future , 
for  the  Roman  Empire  is  gone,  and  this  apostasy  is 
not  come,  nor  is  the  Wicked  One  revealed.  There 
is  much  to  be  said  for  the  Patristic  interpretation 
in  its  plainest  acceptation.  How  should  the  idea 
of  the  Roman  Empire  being  the  obstacle  to  the 
revelation  of  Antichrist  have  originated?  There 
was  nothing  to  lead  the  early  Christian  writers  to 
such  a  belief.  They  regarded  the  Roman  Empire  as 
idolatrous  and  abominable,  and  would  have  been 
more  disposed  to  consider  it  as  the  precursor  than  as 
the  obstacle  to  the  Wicked  One.  Whatever  the  ob 
stacle  was,  St.  Paul  says  that  he  told  the  Thessalo 
nians  what  it  was.  Those  to  whom  he  had  preached 
knew,  and  every  time  that  his  Epistle  was  publicly 
read  (1  Thess.  v.  27),  questions  would  have  been 
asked  by  those  who  did  not  know,  and  thus  the 
recollection  must  have  been  kept  up.  It  is  very 
difficult  to  see  whence  the  tradition  could  have 
arisen  except  from  St.  Paul's  own  teaching.  It. 
may  be  asked,  Why  then  did  he  not  express  it  in 
writing  as  well  as  by  word  of  mouth?  St 
Jerome's  answer  is  sufficient :  "  If  he  had  openly 
and  unreservedly  said,  '  Antichrist  will  not  come 
unless  the  Roman  Empire  be  first  destroyed,'  the 
infant  Church  would  have  been  exposed  in  conse 
quence  to  persecution"  (ad Algas.  Qu.  xi.  vol.  iv. 
p.  209,  Paris,  1706).  Remigius  gives  the  sam< 
reason,  "  He  spoke  obscurely  for  fear  a  Roruau 


Ixxvi 


ANTICHRIST 


should  perhaps  read  the  Epistle,  and  raise  a  perse 
cution  against  him  and  the  other  Christians,  for 
they  held  that  they  were  to  rule  for  ever  in  the 
world  "  (Bib.  Pair.  Max.  viii.  1018  ;  see  Words 
worth,  On  the  Apocalypse,  p.  343).  It  would 
appear  then  that  the  obstacle  teas  probably  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  on  its  being  taken  out  of  the 
way  there  did  occur  the  "  falling  away."  Zion 
the  beloved  city  became  Sodom  the  bloody  city 
— still  Zion  though  Sodom,  still  Sodom  though 
Zion.  According  to  the  view  given  above,  this 
would  be  the  description  of  the  Church  in  her 
present  eotate,  and  this  will  continue  to  be  our 
estate,  until  the  time,  times  and  half  time,  during 
which  the  evil  element  is  allowed  to  remain  within 
her,  shall  have  come  to  their  end. 

3.  What  is  the  Apocalyptic  Babylon  ?  There 
is  not  a  doubt  that  by  Babylon  is  figured  Rome. 
The  "seven  mountains  on  which  the  woman  sit- 
teth"  (Rev.  xvii.  9),  and  the  plain  declaration, 
"  the  woman  which  thou  sawest  is  that  great  city 
which  reigneth"  (i.e.  in  St.  John's  days)  "  over 
the  kings  of  the  earth  "(Rev.  xvii.  18),  are  too 
strong  evidence  to  be  gainsaid.  There  is  no  com 
mentator  of  note,  ancient  or  modern,  Romanist  or 
Protestant,  who  does  not  acknowledge  so  much. 
But  what  Rome  is  it  that  is  thus  figured  ?  There 
ara  four  chief  opinions:  (1)  Rome  Pagan  ;  (2) 
Rome  Papal ;  (3)  Rome  having  hereafter  become 
infidel ;  (4)  Rome  as  a  type  of  the  world.  That 
it  is  old  Pagan  Rome  is  the  view  ably  contended 
for  by  Bossuet  and  held  in  general  by  the  praeterist 
school  of  interpreters.  That  it  is  Rome  Papal  was 
held  by  the  Protestants  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  by  those  who  preceded  and  have  followed 
them  in  their  line  of  interpretation.  That  it  is 
Rome  having  lapsed  into  infidelity  is  the  view  of 
many  of  the  futurists.  That  it  is  Rome  as  the 
type  of  the  woi'ld  is  suggested  or  maintained  by 
fichonius,  Primasius,  Areas,  Albert  the  Great,  and 
in  our  own  days  by  Dr.  Arnold  (On  the  Interpreta-t 
tion  of  Prophecy]  and  Dr.  Newman  (Tracts  for  the 
Times,  No.  83).  That  the  hariot-woman  must  be 
an  unfaithful  Church  is  argued  convincingly  by 
Wordsworth  (On  the  Apocalypse,  p.  376),  and  no 
less  decisively  by  Isaac  Williams  ( The  Apocalypse, 
p.  335).  A  close  consideration  of  the  language 
and  import  of  St.  John's  prophecy  appears,  as 
Mr.  Williams  says,  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt 
on  this  point.  If  this  be  so,  the  conclusion  seems 
almost  necessarily  to  follow  that  the  unfaithful 
Church  spoken  of  is,  as  Dr.  Wordsworth  argues, 
the  Church  of  Rome.  And  this  appears  to  be  the 
case.  The  Babylon  of  the  Apocalypse  is  probably 
the  Church  of  Rome  which  gradually  raised  and 
seated  herself  on  the  back  of  the  Corrupted  Church 
— the  Harlot-rider  on  the  Beast.  A  very  notice 
able  conclusion  follows  from  hence,  which  has  been 
little  marked  by  many  who  have  been  most  anxious 
to  identify  Babylon  and  Rome.  It  is,  that  it  is  im 
possible  that  the  Pope  or  the  Papal  system  can  be 
Antichrist,  for  the  Harlot  who  rides  on  the  Beast 
and  the  Antichrist  are  wholly  distinct.  After 
Babylon  is  fallen  and  destroyed  (Rev.  xviii.)  the 
Antichrist  is  still  found  (Rev.  xix.).  Indeed  there 
is  hardly  a  feature  in  the  Papal  system  which  is 
similar  in  its  lineaments  to  the  portrait  of  Anti 
christ  as  drawn  by  St.  John,  however  closely  it 
may  resemble  Babylon. 

4.  What  are  we  to  understand  by  the  two  Wit 
nesses  1  The  usual  interpretation  given  in  the 
early  Church  is  that  they  are  Enoch  and  Elijah 


ANTICHRIST 

who  are  to  appear  in  the  days  of  Antichrist,  and 
by  him  to  be  killed.  Victorious  substitutes  Jere 
miah  for  Enoch.  Joachim  would  suggest  Moses  and 
Elijah  taken  figuratively  for  some  persons,  or,  per 
haps,  orders,  actuated  by  their  spirit.  Bullinger, 
Bale,  Chytraeus,  Pareus,  Mede,  Vitringa  understand 
by  them  the  line  of  Antipapal  remonstrants.  Foxe 
takes  them  to  be  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague ; 
Bossuet,  the  early  Christian  martyrs;  Herder  and 
Eichhorn,  the  chief  priest  Ananus  and  Jesus  slain 
by  the  Zealots  ;  Moses  Stuart,  the  sick  and  old  whc 
did  not  fly  from  Jerusalem  on  its  capture  by  th« 
Romans ;  Maurice,  the  priest  Jeshua  and  the  judge 
Zerubbabel  as  representing  Law  and  Sacrifice ;  Lee 
understands  by  them  the  Law  and  the  Gospel ;  Ti- 
chonms  and  Bede,  the  two  Testaments  ;  others  the 
two  Sacraments.  All  that  we  are  able  to  say  is 
this.  The  time  of  their  witnessing  is  1260  days, 
or  a  time  times  and  half  a  time.  This  is  the 
same  period  as  that  during  which  the  airoffTao-ia 
and  the  power  of  the  Beast  continue.  They  would 
seem  therefore  to  represent  all  those  who  in  the 
midst  of  the  faithless  ^are  found  faithful  throughout 
this  time.  Their  being  described  as  "  candlesticks" 
would  lead  us  to  regard  them  perhaps  as  Churches. 
The  place  of  their  temporary  death,  "  the  great 
city,  which  spiritually  is  called  Sodom  and  Egypt, 
where  also  our  Lord  was  crucified,"  would  appear 
to  be  Jerusalem,  as  typifying  the  corrupted  Chuich. 
The  Beast  that  kills  them  is  not  Antichrist,  but  the 
faithless  Church. 

5.  The  Number  of  the  Beast.  Nothing  what 
ever  is  known  about  it.  No  conjecture  that  has 
been  made  is  worth  mentioning  on  the  ground  of 
its  being  likely  in  any  the  least  degree  to  approxi 
mate  to  the  truth.  The  usual  method  of  seeking 
the  solution  of  the  difficulty  is  to  select  the  name 
of  an  individual  and  to  count  the  numerical  values 
of  its  constituent  letters.  The  extravagant  con 
clusions  which  have  been  made  to  result  from  this 
system  have  naturally  brought  it  into  aisrepute, 
but  it  is  certain  that  it  was  much  more  usual, 
at  the  time  that  St.  John  wrote,  to  make  calcu 
lations  in  this  manner  than  most  persons  are  now 
aware.  On  this  principle  Mercury  or  Ilnuth  was 
invoked  under  the  name  of  1218,  Jupiter  under 
that  of  717,  the  Sun  of  608  or  XH.  Mr.  Elliott 
quotes  an  enigma  from  the  Sibylline  verses  in 
some  way  expressing  the  name  of  God,  strikingly 
illustrative  of  the  challenge  put  forth  by  St.  John, 
and  perhaps  formed  in  part  on  its  model : 

'Ei/i/e'o.  ypa.fj.fjia.T'  cxw  *  TerpaavAXa/Sos  et/uu-  voei  fie. 
Ai  rpees  at  Trpwrai  Sv'o  •ypo.ju./u.ar'  exovvw  e/cao-nj, 
*H  AOITTT)  §6  TO.  AoiTra  •  xal  eioiv  a^xoi/a  TO.  nevre. 
Tou  Travrbs  fi'  apifyxov  eKa/rovrdSes  eicrl  Sis  OKTU> 
Kai  rpeis  TpterSeKaSes,  aw  y'  eiTTa, '  yvovs  Se  Tie  ei/xi, 
OVK  djavjjTOs  £077  flei'yj?  Trap'  ejuoi  ye  <ro(/>iT;9. 

—Sibyll  Orac.  p.  17 1,  Paris,  1599. 

supposed  by  Mr.  Clarke  to  be  ©ebs  ercor^p.  The 
only  conjecture  with  respect  to  the  number  of  the 
Beast,  made  on  this  principle,  which  is  worthy  of 
mention  is  one  which  dates  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Irenaeus,  and  has  held  its  ground  down  to  the  time 
of  Dean  Alford  and  Canon  Wordsworth.  Irenaeus 
suggests,  though  he  does  not  adopt,  the  word 
AoTeij/os.  Dr.  Wordsworth  (1860)  thinks  it 
possible,  and  Dean  Alford  (1861)  has  "the  strong 
est  persuasion  that  no  other  can  be  found  approach 
ing  so  near  to  a  complete  solution."  Of  other 
names  the  chief  favourites  have  been  Teira* 
(Irenaeus),  Apvovpe  (Hippolytus).  A  oft  ire- 


ANTICHRIST 

Tir,  Arre/ios  (Tiohonius),  r  ev  <rrj  p  IKO  s 
fRupertus),  Ka/cos  '0877705,  'AA.7J07JS 
B  A.  a  ,6  e  p  o  s,  TlaAai  'Bacricavos,  A  /j.v  o  s 
atiiKOs  (Arethas)^  Ou  A.  TT  t  o  s  (Grotius),  M  a- 
o  fj.fr  is  'Airoo-Torrjs,  DlOCLES  AUGUSTUS 
(Bossuet)  :  Ewald  constructs  "  the  Roman  Caesar  " 
in  Hebrew,  and  Benary  "  the  Caesar  Nero  "  in  the 
same  language.  Any  one  who  wishes  to  know  the 
many  attempts  that  have  been  made  to  solve  the 
difficulty — attempts  seldom  even  relieved  by  in 
genuity — may  consult  Wolfius,  Calmet,  Clarke, 
Wrangham,  Thorn.  Probably  the  principle  on 
which  the  explanation  goes  is  false.  Men  have 
looked  for  Antichrist  among  their  foes,  and  have 
tortured  the  name  of  the  person  fixed  upon  into 
being  of  the  value  of  666.  Hence  Latinus  under 
the  Roman  Emperors,  Mahomet  at  the  time  of 
the  Saracenic  successes,  Luther  at  the  Reformation, 
Buonaparte  at  the  French  Revolution.  The  name 
to  be  found  is  not  that  of  Antichrist,  but  the  name 
of  the  Beast,  which,  as  we  have  argued,  is  not 
the  same  as  Antichrist.  It  is  probable  that  a 
sounder  method  of  interpretation  is  adopted  by  Mr. 
i.saac  Williams,  Dr.  Wordsworth,  and  Mr.  Maurice. 
There  is  clearly  a  symbolical  meaning  in  the  num 
bers  used  in  the  Apocalypse;  and  they  would  ex 
plain  the  three  sixes  as  a  threefold  declension  from 
the  holiness  and  perfection  symbolised  by  the 
number  seven.  We  will  add  an  ingenious  sugges 
tion  by  an  anonymous  writer,  and  will  leave  the 
subject  in  the  same  darkness  in  which  it  is  pro 
bably  destined  to  remain  :  "  At  his  first  appear 
ance,"  he  writes,  "he  will  be  hailed  with  accla 
mations  and  hosannahs  as  the  Redeemer  of  Israel, 
another  Judas  Maccabaeus:  and  either  from  the 
initials  of  his  name,  or  from  the  initial  letter  of 
some  Scriptural  motto  adopted  by  him,  an  artificial 
name  will  be  formed,  a  cipher  of  his  real  name. 
And  that  abbreviated  name  or  cipher  will  be  osten 
tatiously  displayed  as  their  badge,  their  watchword, 
their  shibboleth,  their  '  Maccabi,'  by  all  his  adhe 
rents.  This  artificial  name,  this  mark  or  symbol 
of  the  real  name,  will  be  equal  by  Gematria  to 
666  "  (Jewish  Missionary,  p.  52,  1848). 

(C.)  Jewish  and  Mohammedan  traditions  respect 
ing  Antichrist.     The  name  given  by  the  Jews  to 

Antichrist  is  (D^DTK)  Armillus.  There  are  se 
veral  Rabbinical  books  in  which  a  circumstantial 
account  is  given  of  him,  such  as  the  "  Book  of 
Zerubbabel,"  and  others  printed  at  Constantinople. 
Buxtorf  gives  an  abridgement  of  their  contents  in 
his  Lexicon,  under  the  head  "  Armillus,"  and  in 
the  fiftieth  chapter  of  his  Synagoga  Judaica 
(p.  717).  The  name  is  derived  from  Isaiah  xi.  4, 
where  the  Targum  gives  "  By  the  word  of  his 
mouth  the  wicked  Armillus  shall  die,"  for  "  with 
the  breath  of  his  lips  shall  he  slay  the  wicked." 
There  will,  say  the  Jews,  be  twelve  signs  of  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah: — 1.  The  appearance  of 
three  apostate  kings  who  have  fallen  away  from 
the  faith,  but  in  the  sight  of  men  appear  to  be  wor 
shippers  of  the  true  God.  2.  A  terrible  heat  of 
foe  sun.  3.  A  dew  of  blood  (Joel  ii.  30).  4.  A 
healing  dew  for  the  pious.  5.  A  darkness  will 
be  cast  upon  the  sun  (Joel  ii.  31)  for  thirty  days 
(Is.  xxiv.  22).  6.  God  will  give  universal  power 
to  the  Romans  for  nine  months,  during  which  time 
the  Roman  chieftain  will  afflict  the  Israelites ;  at 
the  end  of  the  nine  months  God  will  raise  up  the 
Messiah  Ben- Joseph,  that  is,  the  Messiah  of  the 
If ile  of  Joseph,  named  Neheraiah,  who  will  defeat 


ANTICHRIST 


Ixxvil 


the  Roman  chieftain  and  slay  him.  7.  Then  there 
will  arise  Armillus,  whom  the  Gentiles  or  Chris 
tians  call  Antichrist.  He  will  be  born  of  a  marble 
*tatua  iu  one  of  the  churches  in  Rome.  He  will 
?o  to  the  Romans  and  will  profess  himself  to  be 
their  Messiah  and  their  God.  At  once  the  Romans 
will  believe  in  him  and  accept  him  for  their  king, 
and  will  love  him  and  cling  to  him.  Having  made 
the  whole  world  subject  to  him,  he  will  say  to  the 
Idumaeans  (»'.  e.  Christians),  "  Bring  me  the  law 
which  I  have  given  you."  They  will  bring  it  with 
their  book  of  prayers  ;  and  he  will  accept  it  as  his 
own,  and  will  exhort  them  to  persevere  in  their 
belief  of  him.  Then  he  will  send  to  Nehemiah,  and 
command  the  Jewish  Law  to  be  brought  him,  and 
proof  to  be  given  from  it  that  he  is  God.  Nehe< 
miah  will  go  before  him,  guarded  by  30,000  war 
riors  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  and  will  read,  "  I  am 
the  Lord  thy  God  :  thou  shalt  have  none  other  gods 
but  me."  Armillus  will  say  that  there  are  no  such 
words  in  the  Law,  and  will  command  the  Jews  to 
confess  him  to  be  God  as  the  other  nations  had  con- 
fessed  him.  But  Nehemiah  will  give  orders  to  his 
followers  to  seize  and  bind  him.  Then  Armillus 
in  rage  and  fury  will  gather  all  his  people  in  a  deep 
valley  to  fight  with  Israel,  and  in  that  battle  the 
Messiah  Ben-Joseph  will  fall,  and  the  angels  will 
bear  away  his  body  and  carry  him  to  the  resting- 
place  of  the  Patriarchs.  Then  the  Jews  will  be 
cast  out  by  all  nations,  and  suffer  afflictions  such  as 
have  not  been  from  the  beginning  of  the  world, 
and  the  residue  of  them  will  fly  into  the  desert,  and 
will  remain  there  forty  and  five  days,  during  which 
time  all  the  Israelites  who  are  not  worthy  to  see 
the  Redemption  shall  die.  8.  Then  the  great  angel 
Michael  will  rise  and  blow  three  mighty  blasts  of  a 
trumpet.  At  the  first  blast  there  shall  appear  the 
true  Messiah  Ben-David  and  the  prophet  Elijah, 
and  they  will  manifest  themselves  to  the  Jews  in 
the  desert,  and  all  the  Jews  throughout  the  world 
shall  hear  the  sound  of  the  trump,  and  those  that 
have  been  carried  captive  into  Assyria  shall  be 
gathered  together;  and  with  great  gladness  they 
shall  come  to  Jerusalem.  Then  Armillus  will  raise 
a  great  army  of  Christians  and  lead  them  to  Jeru 
salem  to  conquer  the  new  king.  But  God  shall  say 
to  Messiah,  "  Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand,"  and  to 
the  Israelites,  «  Stand  still  and  see  what  God  will 
work  for  you  to-day."  Then  God  will  pour  down 
sulphur  and  fire  from  heaven  (Ezech.  xxxviii.  22), 
and  the  impious  Armillus  shall  die,  and  the  impious 
Idumaeans  (?'.  e.  Christians),  who  have  destroyed  the 
house  of  our  God  and  have  led  us  away  into  cap 
tivity,  shall  perish  in  misery,  and  the  Jews  shall 
avenge  themselves  upon  them,  as  it  is  written : 
"  The  house  of  Jacob  shall  be  a  fire,  and  the  house 
of  Joseph  a  flame,  and  the  house  of  Esau  (i.  e.  the 
Christians)  for  stubble,  and  they  shall  kindle  in 
them  and  devour  them  :  there  shall  not  be  any  re 
maining  of  the  house  of  Esau,  for  the  Lord  hath 
spoken  it"  (Obad.  18).  9.  On  the  second  blast  oi 
the  trumpet  the  tombs  shall  be  opened,  and  Messiah 
Ben-David  shall  raise  Messiah  Ben- Joseph  from  the 
dead.  10.  The  ten  tribes  shall  be  led  to  Paradise, 
and  shall  celebrate  the  wedding-feast  of  the  Messiah. 
And  the  Messiah  shall  choose  a  bride  amongst  the 
fairest  of  the  daughters  of  Israel,  and  children  and 
children's  children  shall  be  born  to  him,  and  then 
he  shall  die  like  other  men,  and  his  sons  shrill  reign 
over  Israel  after  him,  as  it  is  written,  "  He  shall 
prolong  his  days"  (Isai.  liii.  10),  which  Rambun 
explains  to  mean  "  He  shall  live  long,  but  he  toe 


Uxviii 


ANTICHRIST 


shall  die  in  great  glory,  and  his  son  shall  reign  in 
his  stead,  and  his  sons'  sons  in  succession  "  (Bux- 
torfii  Synagoga  Judaica,  p.  717,  Basil.  1661). 

The  Mohammedan  traditions  are  an  adaptation  of 
Christian  prophecy  and  Jewish  legend  without  any 
originality  or  any  beauty  of  their  own.  They  too 
have  their  signs  which  are  to  precede  the  final  con 
summation.  They  are  divided  into  the  greater  and 
leaser  signs.  Of  the  greater  signs  the  first  is  the 
rising  of  the  sun  from  the  West  (cf.  Matt.xxiv.  29). 
The  next  is  the  appearance  of  a  Beast  from  the 
earth,  sixty  cubits  high,  bearing  the  staff  of  Moses 
and  the  seal  of  Solomon,  with  which  he  will  inscribe 
the  word  "  Believer  "  on  the  face  of  the  faithful, 
and  "  Unbeliever "  on  all  who  have  not  accepted 
Islamism  (comp.  Rev.  xiii.).  The  third  sign  is  the 
capture  of  Constantinople,  while  the  spoil  of  which  is 
being  divided,  news  will  coine  of  the  appearance  of 
Antichrist  (Al  DajjaT),  and  every  man  will  return 
to  his  own  home.  Antichrist  will  be  blind  of  one 
eye  and  deaf  of  one  ear,  and  will  have  the  name  of 
Unbeliever  written  on  his  forehead  (Rev.  xiii.).  It 
/s  he  that  the  Jews  call  Messiah  Ben-David,  and  say 
that  he  will  come  in  the  last  times  and  reign  over 
sea  and  land,  and  restore  to  them  the  kingdom. 
He  will  continue  forty  days,  one  of  these  days  being 
equal  to  a  year,  another  to  a  month,  another  to  a 
tveek,  the  rest  being  days  of  ordinary  length.  He 
will  devastate  all  other  places,  but  will  not  be 
allowed  to  enter  Mecca  and  Medina,  which  will  be 
guarded  by  angels.  Lastly,  he  will  be  killed  by 
Jesus  at  the  gate  of  Lud.  For  when  news  is  re 
ceived  of  the  appearance  of  Antichrist,  Jesus  will 
come  down  to  earth,  alighting  on  the  white  tower 
at  the  east  of  Damascus,  and  will  slay  him  :  Jesus 
will  then  embrace  the  Mahometan  religion,  marry  a 
wife,  and  leave  children  after  him,  having  reigned 
in  perfect  peace  and  security,  after  the  death  of 
Antichrist,  for  forty  years.  (See  Pococke,  Porta 
Mosis,  p.  258,  Oxon.  1655;  and  Sale,  Koran, 
Preliminary  Discourse.} 

Literature. — On  the  subject  of  the  Antichrist  and 
of  the  Apocalyptic  visions  the  following  is  a  con 
densed  list  of  the  writers  most  deserving  of  atten 
tion  : — S.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Catech.  xv.  p.  220, 
Paris,  1720.  S.  Jerome,  Explan.  in  Daniel,  v.  617, 
Ver^n.  1734.  These  two  writers  are  expounders 
of  the  Patristic  view.  Andreas,  Comm.  in  Apoc. 
Bibl.  Patr.  Max.  v.  590.  Aretas,  Comm.  in  Apoc. 
Bibl.  Patr.  Max.  ix.  741.  Abbas  Joachim  (founder 
of  the  Antipapal  school),  Exp.  Apoc.  Venet.  1519. 
Ribeira  (founder  of  the  later  school  of  Futurists), 
Comm.  in  Apoc.  Salam.  1591.  Alcasar  (founder 
of  the  Praeterist  school),  Vestigatio  Arcani  Sensus 
in  Apoc.  Antv.  1614.  Pareus,  Comm.  in  Apoc. 
Heidelb.  1618.  Cornelius  a  Lapide,  Comm.  in 
Apoc.  Antv.  1627.  Mede,  Clavis  Apocalypt. 
Cantab.  1632.  Bossuet,  L Apocalypse,  avec  une 
Explication,  (Euvres,  vol.  xxiii.  Vitringa,  Ana- 
crisis  Apocalyps.  Amst.  1719.  Daubuz,  Comm. 
on  Rev.  Load.  1720.  Hug,  Einleitung  in  die 
Schriften  des  Neuen  Test.  Stuttg.  1821.  Bengel, 
Erkl&rte  Offenbarung  Johannis,  Stuttg.  1834. 
Herder,  Johannis  Offenbarung,  Werke,  xii.  Stuttg. 
1827.  Eichhom,  Comm.  in  Apoc.  Getting.  1791. 
Ewald,  Comm.  in  Apoc.  Lips.  1828.  Liicke, 
Vollst'dndige  Einleitung  in  die  Offenbarung  und 
die  Apocalypt.  Literatur,  Comm.  iv.,  Bonn,  1834. 
Tracts  for  the  Times,  v.  No.  83,  Lond.  1839. 
Greswell.  Exposition  of  the  Parables,  vol.  i.  Oxf. 
1834.  Moses  Stuart,  Comm.  on  the  Apoc.  Edinb. 
1847.  Wordsworth.  Ox  the  Apocalypse,  Lond. 


APPAIM 

1849;  and  Gk.  Test.  Lond.  1860.  Elliott,  fforac 
Apocalypticae,  Lond.  1851.  Clissold,  Apoca 
lyptical  Interpretation  (Swedenborgian),  Lond 
1845.  C.  Maitland,  Prophetic  Interpretation, 
Lond.  1849.  Williams,  The  Apocalypse,  Lond. 
1852.  Alford,  Gk.  Test.  (Proleg.  in  These.  et  in 
Apoc.},  Lond.  1856  and  1861.  Ellicott,  Comm. 
in  Thess.  Lond.  1858.  [F.  M.] 

ANTIOCHI'A  ('AKTidx««;  Alex.  'A*/Tiox<a 
exc.  in  2  Mace.  iv.  33  :  Antiochia).  ANTIOCH  1 
(1  Mace.  iv.  35,  vi.  63  ;  2  Mace.  iv.  33,  v.  21). 

ANTIO'CHIANS  ('AVTIOX&  :  Antiocheni}. 
Partisans  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  including  Jason 
and  the  Hellenizing  faction  (2  Mace.  iv.  9,  19).  In 
the  latter  passages  the  Vulgate  has  viros  peccatores. 

ANTI'OCHIS  ('AJ/TI'OXIS  :  Antiochto).  The 
concubine  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  (2  Mace.  iv.  30.) 


ANTI'OCHUS  ('Avrioxos;  Alex.  ' 
in  1  Mace.  xii.  16:  Antiochus}.  Father  of  Nu- 
menius,  one  of  the  ambassadors  from  Jonathan  to 
the  Romans  (1  Mace.  xii.  16,  xiv.  22). 

AN'TIPAS  ('AvT'nras:  Antipas).  A  martyr 
at  Pergamos,  and,  according  to  tradition,  bishop  of 
that  place  (Rev.  ii.  13).  He  is  said  to  have  suf 
fered  martyrdom  in  the  reign  of  Domitian  by  being 
cast  into  a  burning  brazen  bull  (Menol.  Gr.  iii.  51). 
His  day  in  the  Greek  calendar  is  April  11. 

ANTOTHI'JAH  (iVrrtWy  :  'Ava0cb0  jcal 
'laeiv,  Alex.  'Ava6<a6ia:  Anathothia}.  A  Ben- 
jamite,  one  of  the  sons  of  Shashak  (1  Chr.  viii.  24). 

AN'TOTHITE,  THE  ('nh3JJn  :  o  'Ara0o><^ 
Anathothites,  Anathotites).  A  native  of  Anathoth 
(1  Chr.  xi.  28,  xii.  3). 

A'NUB  (3-13JJ  :  'EvojjS  ;  Alex.  '£71/^)8  :  Anab). 
Son  of  Coz,  and  descendant  of  Judah,  through 
Ashur  the  father  of  Tekoa  (1  Chr.  iv.  8). 

APOLL'YON  ('A7roA\iW  :  Apollyon),  or,  as 
it  is  literally  in  the  margin  of  the  A.  V.  of  Rev. 
ix.  11,  "a  destroyer,"  is  the  rendering  of  the 
Hebrew  word  ABADDON,  "  the  angel  of  the  bottom 
less  pit."  The  Vulgate  adds,  "  Latine  habens 
nomen  Exterminans."  The  Hebrew  term  is  really 
abstract,  and  signifies  "  destruction,"  in  which 
sense  it  occurs  in  Job  xxvi.  6,  xxviii.  22  ;  Prov. 
xv.  11  ;  and  other  passages.  The  angel  Apollyon 
is  further  described  as  the  king  of  the  locusts  which 
rose  from  the  smoke  of  the  bottomless  pit  at  the 
sounding  of  the  fifth  trumpet.  From  the  occurrence 
of  the  word  in  Ps.  Ixxxviii.  11,  the  Rabbins  have 
made  Abaddon  the  nethermost  of  the  two  regions 
into  which  they  divided  the  under  world.  But 
that  in  Rev.  ix.  11  Abaddon  is  the  angel,  and  not 
the  abyss,  is  perfectly  evident  in  the  Greek.  There 
is  no  authority  for  connecting  it  with  the  destroyer 
alluded  to  in  1  Chr.  x.  10  ;  and  the  explanation, 
quoted  by  Bengel,  that  the  name  is  given  in  Hebrew 
and  Greek,  to  show  that  the  locusts  would  be  de 
structive  alike  to  Jew  and  Gentile,  is  farfetched  and 
unnecessary.  The  etymology  of  Asmodeus,  the  king 
of  the  demons  in  Jewish  mythology,  seems  to  point 
to  a  connexion  with  Apollyon,  in  his  character  as 
"  the  destroyer,"  or  the  destroying  angel.  See  also 
Wisd.  xviii.  22,  25.  [ASMODEUS.] 

Alex.  ' 


APPA'IM  (D'.BK  :  ' 
Apphatni).     Son   of  Nadab,    and   descended    frois 


AttA 

Jemhmeel,  the  founder  of  an  important  family  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah  (1  Chr.  ii.  30,  31).  The  succession 
tell  to  him,  as  his  elder  brother  died  without  issue. 

A'BA  (JTIK  :  'Apd  :  Ara~).    One  of  the  sons  of 

Jether,  the  head  of  a  family  ot  Asherites  (1  Chr. 
Tii.  38). 

ARA'BIAN,  THE  Ornyn,  Neh.  ii.  19,  vi.  1  : 
6  'Apafii :  Arabs :  »3")JJ,  Is.  "xii..  20  ;  Jer.  iii.  2  : 
'ApajSes  :  Arabes} ;  ARABIANS,  THE  (D'Wiriyn, 
2  Chr.  xvii.  11 ;  Cs3")Vn,  2  Chr.  xxi.  16,'  xxn'.'l, 
xxvi.  7  (Keri}-  Neh.'iv"  7)  :  oi'Apafcs:  Arabes}. 
The  nomadic  tribes  inhabiting  the  country  to  the 
east  and  south  of  Palestine,  who  in  the  early  times 
of  Hebrew  history  were  known  as  Ishmaelites  and 
descendants  of  Keturah.  Their  roving  pastoral  life 
4n  the  desert  is  alluded  to  in  Is.  xiii.  20  ;  Jer.  iii.  2  ; 
2  Mace.  xii.  11 ;  their  country  is  associated  with 
the  country  of  the  Dedanim,  the  travelling  mer 
chants  (Is.  xxi.  13),  with  Dedan,  Tema,  and  Buz 
(Jer.  xxv.  24),  and  with  Dedan  and  Kedar  (Ez. 
xxvii.  21),  all  of  which  are  supposed  to  have  oc 
cupied  the  northern  part  of  the  peninsula  later 
known  as  Arabia.  During  the  prosperous  reign  of 
Jehoshaphat,  the  Arabians,  in  conjunction  with  the 
Philistines,  were  tributary  to  Judah  (2  Chr.  xvii. 
11),  but  in  the  reign  of  his  successor  they  revolted, 
ravaged  the  country,  plundered  the  royal  palace, 
slew  all  the  king's  sons  with  the  exception  of  the 
youngest,  and  carried  off  the  royal  harem  (2  Chr. 
xxi.  16,  xxii.  1).  The  Arabians  of  Gur-baal  were 
again  subdued  by  Uzziah  (2  Chr.  xxvi.  7).  During 
the  Captivity  they  appear  to  have  spread  over  the 
country  of  Palestine,  for  on  the  return  from  Babylon 
they  were  among  the  foremost  in  hindering  Nehe- 
miah  in  his  work  of  restoration,  and  plotted  with 
the  Ammonites  and  others  for  that  end  (Neh.  iv.  7). 
Geshem,  or  Gashmu,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
opposition,  was  of  this  race  (Neh.  ii.  19,  vii.  1).  In 
later  times  the  Arabians  served  under  Timotheus  in 
his  struggle  with  Judas  Maccabaeus,  but  were  de 
feated  (1  Mace.  v.  39;  2  Mace.  xii.  10).  The 
Zabadaeans,  an  Arab  tribe,  were  routed  by  Jonathan, 
the  brother  and  successor  of  Judas  (1  Mace.  xii.  31). 
The  chieftain  or  king  of  the  Arabians  bore  the  name 
of  Aretas  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Antiochus  Epi- 
phanes  and  Jason  the  high-priest  (2  Mace.  v.  8  ; 
comp.  2  Cor.  xi.  32).  Zabdiel,  the  assassin  of 
Alexander  Balas  (1  Mace.  xi.  17),  and  Simalcue, 
who  brought  up  Antiochus,  the  young  son  of  Alex 
ander  (1  Mace.  xi.  39),  afterwards  Antiochus  VI., 
were  both  Arabians.  In  the  time  of  the  N.  T.  the 
term  appears  to  have  been  used  in  the  same  manner 
(Actsii.  11).  [ARABIA.] 

A'RAD  (TO :  'Jlp^S  :  Alex.  'Apc65  :  Arod}. 
A  Benjamite,  son  of  Beriah,  who  drove  out  the 
inhabitants  of  Gath  (1  Chr.  viii.  15). 

A'RAH  (PHX  :  'Apd :  Ara).  1.  An  Asherite, 
of  the  sons  of  Ulla  (1  Chr.  vii.  38). 

2.  ("Apes,  'Hpae,  'Hp<£:  Area.}  The  sons  of 
Arah  returned  with  Zerubbabel,  in  number  775, 
according  to  Ezr.  ii.  5,  but  652  according  to  Neh. 
vii.  10.  One  of  his  descendants,  Shechaniah,  was 
the  father-in-law  of  Tobiah  the  Ammonite  (Neh. 
vi.  18).  The  name  is  written  ARES  in  1  Esdr.  v.  10. 

A'RAM-NAHARA  IM  (D^PO  DnN  :  f, 
VLftroirora/j.ia'Svpias:  Mesopotamia  Syriae).  (Ps. 
Ii.  titK)  fARAM  1.] 


ARIEII 


A'RAM-ZO'BAH     (PO'lV    D"!N ;;    f, 
2oj8o\:  Sobal).    (Ps.  Ix.  title.)     "AKAJI  l.j 

A'RAM.  3.  ('Apdn:  Aram.]  An  Asherite, 
one  of  the  son^  of  Shamer  (1  Chr.  v.i.  34). 

4.  The  son  of  Esrom,  or  Hezron ;  elsewhere 
called  RAM  (Matt.  i.  3,  4  ;  Luke  iii.  33), 

AR'ARATH  ('Apapcfo ;  Alex.'Apapck).  ARA 
RAT  (Tob.  i.  21 ;  comp.  2  K.  xix.  37). 

AR'BAH   (JJ2HN  :  rb  TreSioi/:  Arbee).    "The 
city  of  Arbah"  is  always  rendered  elsewhere  Hebron, 
or  Kirjath-Arba  (Gen.  xxxv.  27).     The  LXX.  ap 
pear  to  have  read  ni"iy  'ardbdh. 
TT-: 

ARCTU'RUS.  The  Hebrew  words  t?y,  'Ash, 
and  t^y,  'Aish,  rendered  "  Arcturus"  in  the  A.V. 
of  Job  ix.  9,  xxxviii.  32,  in  conformity  with  the 
Vulg.  of  the  former  passage,  are  now  generally  be 
lieved  to  be  identical,  and  to  represent  the  con 
stellation  Ursa  Major,  known  commonly  as  the 
Great  Bear,  or  Charles's  Wain.  Niebuhr  (peso,  de 
I' Arab.  p.  101)  relates  that  he  met  with  a  Jew  at 
Sank,  who  identified  the  Hebrew  'Ash  with  the 
constellation  known  to  the  Arabs  by  the  name  Oin 
en-nash,  or  Nash  simply,  as  a  Jew  of  Bagdad  in 
formed  him.  The  four  stars  in  the  body  of  the 
Bear  are  named  Ennash  in  the  tables  of  Ulugh 
Beigh,  those  in  the  tail  being  called  el  £endt,  "  the 
daughters"  (comp.  Job  xxxviii.  32).  The  ancient 
versions  differ  greatly  in  their  renderings.  The 
LXX.  rendei  'Ash  by  the  "Pleiades"  in  Job  ix.  9 
(unless  the  text  which  they  had  before  them  had 
the  words  in  a  different  order),  and  'Aish  by 
"  Hesperus,"  the  evening  star,  in  Job  xxxviii.  32. 
In  the  former  they  are  followed  or  supported  by  the 
Chaldee,  in  the  latter  by  the  Vulgate.  R.^  David 
Kimchi  and  the  Talmudists  understood  by  'Ash  the 
tail  of  the  Ram  or  the  head  of  the  Bull,  by  which 
they  are  supposed  to  indicate  the  bright  star  Alde- 
baran  in  the  Bull's  eye.  But  the  greatest  difficulty 
is  found  in  the  rendering  of  the  Syriac  translators, 
who  give  as  the  equivalent  of  both  ' Ash  and  'Aish 
the  word  'lyulho,  which  is  interpreted  to  signify 
the  bright  star  Capella  in  the  constellation  Auriga, 
and  is  so  rendered  in  the  Arabic  translation  of  Job. 
On  this  point,  however,  great  difference  of  opinion 
is  found.  Bar  Ali  conjectured  that  'lyutho  was  either 
Capella  or  the  constellation  Orion  ;  while  Bar  Bahlul 
hesitated  between  Capella,  Aldebaraii,  and  a  cluster 
of  three  stars  in  the  face  of  Orion.  Following  the 
rendering  of  the  Arabic,  Hyde  was  induced  to  con 
sider  'Ash  and  'Aish  distinct ;  the  former  being  the 
Great  Bear,  and  the  latter  the  bright  star  Capella, 
or  a  of  the  constellation  Auriga. 

ARD'ITES,  THE.    [ARD.] 

AREOP'AGITE  ('Apeoirayir-ns:  Areopagito\. 
A  member  of  the  Court  of  Areopagus  (Acts  xvii.  34). 

A'RES  ('Apes :  Ares}.    ARAH  2  (1  Esdr.  v.  10). 

AR'GOB,  perhaps  a  Gileadite  officer,  who  was 
governor  of  Argob.  According  to  some  interpreters, 
an  accomplice  of  Pekah  in  the  murder  of  Pekahiah. 
But  Sebastian  Schmid  explained  that  both  Argob 
and  Arieh  were  two  princes  of  Pekahiah,  whos* 
influence  Pekah  feared,  and  whom  he  therefore  slew 
with  the  king.  Rashi  understands  by  Argob  the 
royal  palace,  near  which  was  the  castle  in  which 
the  murder  took  place  (2  K.  xv.  25). 

AR'IEH  (n*")Nn  :  'Apt'a;  Alex.  'A/>fc  :  Aiic). 


bcxx 


ARIOCH 


"  The  Lion,"  so  called  probably  from  hij  daring  as 
a  warrior:  either  one  of  the  accomplices  of  Pekah  in 
his  conspiracy  against  Pekahiah,  king  of  Israel,  or, 
as  Sebastian  Schmid  understands  the  passage,  one  of 
the  princes  of  Pekahiah,  who  was  put  to  death  with 
him  (2  K.  xv.  25).  Rashi  explains  it  literally  of 
a  golden  lion  which  stood  in  the  cvtle. 

ARIOCH.  3.  (Ei>«$x;  Alex.'ApuSx:  Erioch.) 
Properly  "Eirioch"  or  "  Erioch,"  mentioned  in 
Jud.  i.  6  as  king  of  the  Elymacans.  Junius  and 
Tremellius  identify  him  with  Deioces,  king  of  part 
of  Media 

AE'NAN.  In  the  received  Hebrew  text  "  the 
sons  of  Arnan"  are  mentioned  in  the  genealogy  of 
Zerubbabel  (1  Chr.  iii.  21).  But  according  to  the 
reading  of  the  LXX.,  Vulgate,  and  Syriac  versions, 
which  Houbigant  adopts,  Arnan  was  the  son  of 
Rephaiah. 

AR  ODI  (»T1K  :  'ApoTjSek  ;  Alex.  ' 
Arodi).     AROD  the  son  of  Gad  (Gen.  xlvi.  16) 

A'KODITES,'  THE  O'tf'IKn  : 
Aroditae}.     Descendants  of  Arod"  the  sou  of  Gad 
(Num.  xxvi.  17). 

A'ROM  ('A/xf/i:  Asonus).  The  "sons  of 
Arom,"  to  the  number  of  32,  are  enumerated  in 
1  Esdr.  v.  16  among  those  who  returned  with 
Zorobabel.  Unless  it  is  a  mistake  for  Asom,  and 
represents  Hashum  in  Ezr.  xi.  19,  it  has  no  parallel 
in  the  lists  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. 


AR'VADITE,  THE  (HVTN_n  :  6  ' 
Aradius}.  One  of  the  families  of  Canaan  (Gen.  x. 
18  ;  1  Chr.  i.  16).  [ARVAD.]  Probably  the  in 
habitants  of  the  little  island  Aradus,  or  Ruad,  oppo 
site  Antaradus  on  the  N.  coast  of  Phoenicia. 

AR'ZA  (KyiK  :  '&*&:  Alex.  'Ap<rd  :  Arsa). 
Prefect  of  the  palace  at  Tirzah  to  Elah  king  of 
Israel,  who  was  assassinated  at  a  banquet  in  hfs 
house  by  Zimri  (IK.  xvi.  9).  In  the  Targum  of 
Jonathan  the  word  is  taken  as  the  name  of  an  idol, 
and  in  the  Arabic  version  in  the  London  Polyglot 
the  last  clause  is  rendered  "  which  belongs  to  the 
idol  of  Beth-Arza." 

A'SA.  2.  ('Oa-ffd  :  Alex.  *A<m.)  Ancestor  of 
Berechiah,  a  Levite  who  resided  in  one  of  the 
villages  of  the  Netophathites  after  the  return  from 
Babylon  (1  Chr.  ix.  16). 

ASA'DIAS  ('A<raS/os  :  Alex.  2a8afos  :  Sedeus}. 
Son  of  Chelcias,  or  Hilkiah,  and  one  of  the  ancestors 
of  Baruch  (Bar.  i.  2).  The  name  is  probably  the 
same  as  that  elsewhere  represented  by  Hasadiah 
(I  Chr.  iii.  21). 

AS'AHEL.  2.  ('Acr^A  :  Alex.  'lao-^A..)  One 
of  the  Levites  in  the  reign  of  Jehoshaphat,  who 
went  throughout  the  cities  of  Judah  to  instruct  the 
people  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Law,  at  the  time  of 
the  revival  of  the  true  worship  (2  Chr.  xvii.  8). 

3.  A  Levite  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  who  had 
charge  of  the  tithes  and  dedicated  things  in  the 
Temple  under  Cononiah  and  Shimei  (2  Chr.  xxxi. 
13). 

4.  (AzaheL)     A  priest,  father  of  Jonathan  in 
the  tim«  of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  1  5).     He  is  called  AZAEL 
in  1  Esdr.  ix.  14. 

ASAIAH  (!Wg:  'A<rafa  :  Asaid}.  1.  A 
jmnce  of  one  of  the  families  of  the  Simeonites  in 


ASHDOTHITES 

the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  who  drove  out  the  HamiU 
shepherds  from  (Jedor  (1  Chr.  iv.  36). 

2.  ('A<ratas  ;  Alex.  'Aerata  in  1  Chr.  vi.,  'Atrala  ; 
Alex.  'Affcuas   in  1   Chr.  xv.)     A  Levite  in   th* 
reign  of  David,  chief  of  the  family  of  Merari  (1  Chr. 
vi.  30).     With  120  of  his  brethren  he  took  part  in 
the  solemn  service  of  bringing  the  ark  from  the 
house  of  Obed-edom  to  the  city  of  David  (1  Chr. 
xv.  6,  11). 

3.  (Atrofa;    Alex."  'A<rd.)      The   firstborn  of 
"  the  Shilonite,"  according  to  1  Chr.  ix.  5,  who 
with  his  family  dwelt  in  Jerusalem  after  the  return 
from  Babylon.    In  Neh.  xi.  5  he  is  called  MAASEIAH, 
and  his  descent  is  there  traced  from  Shiloni,  which 
is  explained  by  the  Targum  of  R.  Joseph  on  1  Chr. 
as  a  patronymic  from  Shelah  the  son  of  Jcdah,  by 
others  as  "  the  native  or  inhabitant  of  Shiloh." 

4.  (Aaaas.)     2  Chr.  xxxiv.  20.     [A&.HIAH.] 

A'SAPH.  2.  (2a<|>aT  in  2  K.,  'A<r<£<f>  ir  Is.  ; 
Alex.  'fur6.<p  in  2  K.  xviii.  37.)  The  father  or 
ancestor  of  Joah;  who  was  recorder  or  chronicler 
to  the  kingdom  of  Judah  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah 
(2  K.  xviii.  18,  37  ;  Is.  xxxvi.  3,  22).  It  is  not 
improbable  that  this  Asaph  is  the  same  as  the 
preceding,  and  that  Joah  was  one  of  his  numerous 
descendants  known  as  the  Bene-Asaph. 

3.  ('A<rc£^).)     The  keeper  of  the  royal  forest  or 
"paradise"  of  Artaxerxes  (Neh.  ii.  8).     His  name 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  he  was  a  Jew,  who, 
like  Nehemiah,  was  in  high  office  at  the  court  of 
Persia. 

4.  ('A(rcty>.)  Ancestor  of  Mattaniah,   the   con 
ductor  of  the  temple-choir  after  the  return  from 
Babylon  (1  Chr.  ix.  15  ;   Neh.  xi.  17).     Most  pro 
bably  the  same  as  1  and  2. 


ASA  'REEL  ("]«  :  'Eo-epTjA:  Alex.  'Eo-e- 
pcnjA  :  AsraeT).  A  son  of  Jehaleleel,  whose  name  is 
abruptly  introduced  into  the  genealogies  of  Judah 
(1  Chr.  iv.  16). 

ASARE'LAH  (Alex.  'lecnfa).  One  of  the 
sons  of  Asaph,  set  apart  by  David  to  "  prophesy 
with  harps  and  with  psalteries  and  with  cymbals" 
(1  Chr.  xxv.  2)  ;  called  JESHARELAH  in  ver.  14. 

ASHBE'A  (J36PK  :  'EaojSa  :  Juramentum). 
A  proper  name,  but  whether  of  a  person  or  place  is 
uncertain  (1  Chr.  iv.  2  1).  Houbigaut  wculd  under 
stand  it  of  the  latter,  and  would  render  "  the  house 
of  Ashbea"  by  Beth-ashbea.  The  whole  clause  is 
obscure.  The  Targum  of  R.  Joseph  (ed.  Wilkins, 
paraphrases  it,  "  and  the  family  of  the  house  of 
manufacture  of  the  fine  linen  for  the  garments  of 
the  kings  and  priests,  which  was  handed  down  to 
the  house  of  Eshba." 

ASH'BELITES,  THE  O^KH  :  6  'A<ri/- 
pypi:  Asbelitae).  The  descendants  of  Ashbel  the 
son  of  Benjamin  (Num.  xxvi.  38), 

ASH'CHENAZ  n3£;K  :  'Ao-x^C,  ol  'AXtt- 
va£e'ot;  Alex.  'Afrxeye^,  oV  Acrxcu'oClf0t:  Ascenez). 
ASHKENAZ  (1  Chr.  i.  6  ;  Jer.  li.  27). 

ASH'DODITES,  THE  (DnH^n  :  om.  in 
Ixx.  :  Azotii).  The  inhabitants  of  Ashdod,  or 
Azotus  (Neh.  iv.  7);  called  ASHDOTHITES  in 
Josh.  xiii.  3. 


ASH'DOTHITES, 

Ttcy  :    Azotii).     The   inhabitants  of  Ashdod,  Q? 
Azotus  (Josh.  xiii.  3). 


ASH'ER 


ASHER  AITGIA 

Alex.  'Afffy  :  Aser).    A  place  [  parte  domus  erat  setuurum  concilium,  vJii  erat  con 


which  formed  one  boundary  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh 
on  the  south  (Josh.  xvii.  7).  It  is  placed  by  Euser 
bins  on  the  road  from  Shechem  to  Bethshan  or 
Scythopolis,  abput  15  miles  from  the  former.  Three 
quarters  of  an  hour  from  Tubas,  the  ancient  Thebez, 
is  the  hamjet  of  Teydsir,  which  Mr.  Porter  sug 
gests  may  be  the  Asher  of  Manasseh  (ffandb.  p.  348  ). 
In  the  Vat.  MS.  the  LXX.  of  this  passage  is  en 
tirely  corrupt. 

ASH'ERITES,  THE  CnK>Nn  :  6  'A<r^  ; 
Alex.  *A<rfy>  :  Vulg.  om.).  The  descendants  pf 
Asher  and  members  of  his  tribe  (Judg.  i.  32). 


ASH'RIEL 


Esriel).   Pro 


perly  ASRIEL,  the  son  pf  Manasseh  (1  Chr.  vii.  14). 
ASHTE'RATHITE  On'Wyn  :  <*  'Atrra- 


puiBi:  Astarothites).  A  native  or  inhabitant  of 
Ashtaroth  (1  Chr.  xi.  44)  beyond  Jordan.  Uzzia 
the  Ashterathite  was  one  of  David's  guard. 

ASH'VATH  (IW^:  'Aerf0:  Alex.  'Ao-cte  : 
Asotli).  One  of  the  sons  of  Japhlet,  of  the  tribe  of 
Asher  (1  Chr.  vii.  33). 

ASIBI'AS  ('A<rej8£as  :  Alex.  'AenjSfoj  :  Jam- 
mebias").  One  of  the  sons  of  Phoros,  or  Parosh,  in 
1  Esdr.  ix.  26,  whose  name  occupies  the  place  pf 
MALCHIJAH  in  Ezr.  x.  25. 

AS'IEL  (Wwp  'AfT^X:  Asiel).  \.  A 
Simeonite  whose  descendant  Jehu  lived  in  the  reign 
of  Hezekiah  (1  Chr.  iv.  35). 

2.  One  of  the  five  swift  writers  whom,  Esdras 
was  commanded  to  take  to  write  thp  law  and  the 
history  of  the  world  (2  Esdr.  xiv.  24). 

AS'NAH  (nJDK:  'A<r«><£:  Asena).  The 
children  of  Asnah  were  among  the  Nethinim  who 
returned  with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  50).  In  the 
parallel  list  of  Neh.  vii.  52  the  name  is  omitted,  and 
in  1  Esdr.  v.  31  it  is  written  ASANA. 


AS'RJEL 

in  Josh. 


:  'Eo-ptTjA.,  'I6$4x  ;  Alex. 
Asriel,  Esriet}.  The  son  of 
Gilead,  and  great-grandspn  of  Manasseh  (Num. 
xxvi.  31  ;  Josh.  xvii.  2).  He  was  the  founder  of 
the  family  of  the  ASRIELITES.  The  name  is  er 
roneously  written  ASHRIEL  in  the  A.  V.  of  1  Chr. 
vii.  14.  According  to  the  rendering  of  the  latter 
passage  by  the  LXX.,  Asriel  was  the  son  of  Manasseh 
by  his  Syrian  concubine. 

AS'RTELITES,  THE  (^fcWNn  :  6  'Ear 
pnjAf:  Asrielitac).  Num.  xxvi.  31.  [  ASRIEL.] 

ASSH'URIM  (D"WN:  'Ao-crouptefc  ;  Alex. 
'Affovpifji  :  Assurim).  A  tribe  descended  from 
Dedan,  the  grandson  of  Abraham  (Gen.  xxv.  3). 
They  have  not  been  identified  with  any  degree  pf 
certainty.  Knobel  considers  them  the  same  with 
the  Asshur  of  Ez.  xxvii.  23.  and  connected  with 
southern  Arabia. 

ASSYR'IANS  OWN  :  'Aovrf/woi,  'Aovofy, 
viol  'Ao-ffovp  :  Assur,  Assyrii,  filii  Assyriorum). 
The  inhabitants  of  Assyria.  The  name  in  Hebrew 
is  simply  Asshur,  the  same  as  that  of  the  country, 
and  there  appears  to  be  uo  reason  in  most  caots  for 
translating  it  as  a  gentilic  (Is.  x.  5,  24,  xiv.  25, 
xixi.  8  ;  Lam.  v.  6  ;  Ez.  xvi.  28  ;  Jud.  xii.  1.5,  &c.) 

ASUP'PIM,  and  HOUSE  OF  (D'BDNH,  and 
D'BDKn  rp3:  otitos  'Effe^i/j., 

•  AFPKNDIX.J 


cilium).  1  Chr.  xxvi.  15.  17,  literally  "house  of 
the  gatherings."  Some  understand  it"  as  a  proper 
name  of  chambers  on  the  south  side  of  the  Temple. 
Gesenius  and  Bertheau  explain  it  of  certain  store 
rooms,  and  Fttrst,  following  the  Vulgate,  of  the 
council-chambers  in  the  outer  court  of  the  Temple 
in  which  the  elders  h,eld  their  deliberations  The 
same  word  in  A.  V.  of  Neh.  xii.  25,  is  rendered 
"  thresholds,"  and  is  translated  «« lintel*,"  in  the 
Targum  of  K.  Joseph. 

A'TER  (TON:  'A/Hjp;  Alex.  'Arrfy  in  Ezr.: 
Ater).  1.  The  children  of  Ater  were  among  the 
porters  pr  gate-keepers  of  the  Temple  who  returned 
with  Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  42  ;  Neh.  vii.  45).  They 
are  called  in  1  Esdr.  v.  28,  "  the  sons  of  JATAL." 

2.  The  children  of  Ater   of  Hezekiah,   to  the 
number  of  ninety-eight,  returned  with  Zerubbabel 
(Ezr.  ii.  16;   Neh.  vii.  21),  and  were  among  the 
heads  of  the  people  who  signed  the  covenant  with 
Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.    17).      The  name  appears  in 
1  Esdr.  v.  15  as  ATEREZIAS. 

ATEREZI'AS  ('Ar^  'E&Kiov.  Aderectis). 
A  corruption  of  "  Ater  of  Hezekiah  "  (1  E^r,  v.  15 ; 
comp.  Ezr.  ii.  16). 

A'THACH  CJjnjJ:  NojujSe;  Alex.  'A9uy : 
Athach).  One  of  the  places  in  the  tribe  of  Judah, 
which  David  and  his  men  frequented  during  the 
time  of  his  residence  at  Ziklag  (1  Sam.  xxx.  30;. 
As  the  name  does  not  occur  elsewhere,  it  has  been 
suggested  that  it  is  an  errpr  of  the  transcriber  for 
Ether,  a  town  in  the  low  country  of  Judah  (Josh. 
xv.  42). 

ATHAI'AH  (.fr^:  'AOaia;  Alex. 
Athatas).  A  descendant  of  Pharez,  the  son  of 
Judah,  who  d^elt  at  Jerusalem  after  the  return 
from  Babylon  (Neh.  xi.  4),  called  UTHAI  in  1  Chr. 
ix.  4. 

ATHAXTAH.  2,  (ro0o\fa ;  Alex.  ropoAfoy: 
Otholia.)  A  Benjamite,  one  of  the  sons  of  Jeroham 
who  dwelt  at  Jerusalem  (1  Chr.  viii.  26). 

3.  ('A0eA£a;  Alex. 'A0A(o:  Athalia.)     Orve  of 
the  Bene-Elam,  whose  son  Jeshaiah  with  seventy 
males  returned  with  Ezra  in  the  second  caravan  from 
Babylon  (Ezr.  viii.  7). 

ATHENIANS  ('A6rii>aiot :  Athenienses).  Nar 
tives  of  Athens  (Acts  xvii.  21). 

ATH'LAI  O^ny :  0a\i' ; 

One  of  the  sons  of  Bebai,  who  put  away  his  foreign 
wife  at  the  exhortation  of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  28). 
called  AMATHEJS  in  1  Esdr.  ix.  29. 

AT'TAI  C>F\y:  'E0£;  Alex.  'l€00£, 
Ethel).  1.  Grandson  of  Sheshan  the  Jerahmeelite 
through  his  daughter  Ahlai,  whom  he  gave  in  mar 
riage  tp  Jarha,  his  Egyptian  slave  (1  Chr.  ii.  35,  36). 
His  grandson  Zabad  was  one  of  David's  mighty  men 
(1  Chr.  xi.  41). 

2.  ('l€0r ;  Alex.  'E00€/ :  EtM.)    One  of  the  lion- 
faced  warriors  of  Gad,  captains  of  the  host,  who 
forded  the  Jordan  at  the  time  of  its  overflow,  and 
joined  David  in  the  wilderness  (1  Chr.  xii.  11). 

3.  ('l6T0i ;  Alex.  'l€00f :  Etka'i.)     Second  son  of 
King  K'ehoboam  by  Maachah  the  daughter  of  Ab 
salom  (2  Chr.  xi.  20). 

AU'GIA  (Avyia :  om.  in  Vulg.).  The  daughter 
of  Berzeius,  or  Barzillai,  acpording  to  I  Esdr.  v.  38. 
Her  descendants  by  Addus  were  among  th«  priests 
whose  genealrey  could  not  be  substantiated  after 

G 


He  is 


ixxxii 


AXE 


the  return  fi  3m  Babylon.      The   name  does   not  j 
occur  either  iu  Ezra  or  Neheunah. 

AXE.  Seven  Hebrew  words  are  rendered  "  ax  " 
01  the  A.  V. 

1.  jT^Jlj  Garztn,  from  a  root  signifying  "  to  cut 
or  sever,"  as  "  hatchet,"  from  ;'  hack,"  corresponds 
to  the  Lat.  securis.     It  consisted  of  a  head  of  iron 
(comp.  Is.  x.  34),  fastened,  with  thongs  or  otherwise, 
upon  a  handle  of  wood,   and  so  liable  to  slip  otf 
(Deut.  xix.  5  ;  2  K.  vi.  5).     It  was  used  for  felling 
trees  (Deut.  xx.  19),  and  also  for  shaping  the  wood 
when  felled,  perhaps  like  the  modern  adze  (1  K. 
vi.  7). 

2.  l^Hj    Chereb,    which   is  usually  translated 

"  sword,"  is  used  of  other  cutting  instruments,  as  a 
"knife"  (Josh.  v.  2)  or  razor  (Ez.  v.  1),  or  a 
tool  for  hewing  or  dressing  stones  (Ex.  xx.  25),  and 
is  once  rendered  "axe"  (Ez.  xxvi.  9),  evidently 
denoting  a  weapon  for  destroying  buildings,  a  pick 
axe. 

3.  7^3,  CassMl,  occurs  but  once  (Ps.  Ixxiv.  6), 
and  is  evidently  a  later  word,  denoting  a  large  axe. 
It  is  also  found  in  the  Targum  of  Jer.  xlvi.  22. 

4.  rnn.D,  Magzerdh  (2  Sam.  xii.  31),  and  5 
rnjlO :  Mggerah  (1  Chr.  xx.  3)  are  found  in  the 
description  of  the  punishments  inflicted  by  David 
upon  the  Ammonites  of  Kabbah.     The  latter  word 
is  properly  "  a  saw,"  and  is  apparently  an  error  of 
the  tianscriber  for  the  former. 

6.  "TOD,   Ma'atsdd,    rendered   "ax"   in   the 

margin  of  Is.  xliv.  12,  and  Jer.  x.  3,  was  an  instru 
ment  employed  both  by  the  iron-smith  and  the  car 
penter,  and  is  supposed  to  be  a  curved  knife  or  bill, 
smaller  than 

7.  D'T^*  Kardom,  a  large  axe  used  for  felling 
trees  (Judg.  ix.  48 ;  1  Sam-,  xiii.  20,  21 ;  Ps.  Ixxiv.  5 ; 
Jer.  xlvi.  22).     The  words   1,  5,  and  7  have  an 
etymological  affinity  with  each  other,  the  idea  of 
cutting  being  that  which  is  expressed  by  their  roots. 
The  "battle-ax."  fSO,  mappets  (Jer.  Ii.  20)  was 
probably,  as  its  root  indicates,  a  heavy  mace  or  maul, 
like  that  which  gave  his  surname  to  Charles  Martel. 

AZALTAH  (-liT^K:  'Efaias,  'Eff€\ia- 
Alex.  SeAia  in  2  Chr.:  Aslia,  Eselias).  The 
father  of  Shaphan  the  scribe  in  the  reign  of  Josiah 
(2  K.  xxii.  3 ;  2  Chr.  xxxiv.  8). 

AZANI'AH  (,TJTK :  'Afala :  Azanias}.  The 
father  or  immediate  ancestor  of  Jeshua  the  Levite 
in  the  time  of  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  9). 

AZA'EEEL  (^0$:  'OCMA;  Alex.  'EAd?A: 

Azareel).  1.  A  Korhite  who  joined  David  in  his 
retreat  at  Ziklag  (1  Chr.  xii.  6). 

2.  ('A<rpi^A ;  Alex.  'E^pi^A.)   A  Levite  musician 
of  the  family  of  Heman  in  the  time  of  David,  1  Chr. 
xxv.  18:  called  UZZIEL  in  xxv.  4. 

3.  ('A^apt^A;    Alex.  'Eft^A:  Ezrihel}     Son 
of  Jeroham,  and  prince  of  the  tribe  of  Dan  when 
David  numbered  the  people  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  22). 

4.  ('ECpi^A:  Ezrel]     One  of  the  sons  of  Bani, 
who  put  away  his  foreign  wife  on  the  remonstrance 
of  Ezra  (Ezr.  x.  41)  :  apparently  the  same  as  ESRIL 
1  Esdr.  ix.  34. 

5.  ('ErSpi^A:  AzreeL*)    Father,  or  ancestor,  of 
Maasiai,  or  Amashai,  a  priest  who  dwelt  in  Jeru 
salem  after  the  return  from  Babylon  ^Neh.  xi    13  • 
comp.  I  Chr.  is.  12). 


AZGAD 

AZARIAH.    14.  (rn$,  innry.  m  2  K. 

xv.  6  :  'Afapias:  Azarias.*}  Tenth  king  of  Judui, 
more  frequently  called  UZZIAH  (2  K.  xiv.  2i,  xv, 
1,  6,7,  8,  17,  23,  27;  1  Chr.  iii.  12). 

15.  (linty.)     Son  of  Jehoshaphat,  and  brothei 
to  AZARIAH  9  (2  Chr.  xxi.  2). 

16.  (rTnTJJ.)     Son  of  Jeroham,  and  one  of  the 
captains  of  Judah  in  the  time  of  Athaliah  (2  Chr. 
xxiii.  1). 

17.  ('A^apia;    Alfx.    'A^apea.)      One    of  the 
leaders  of  the  children  of  the  province  who  went 
up  from  Babylon  with  Zerubbabel  (Neh.  vii.  7). 
Elsewhere  called  SEBAIAH  (Ezr.  ii.  2)  and  ZACHA- 
RIAS  (1  Esdr.  v.  8). 

18.  ('A^apt'os.)     JEZANIAH  (Jer.  xliii.  2.) 

AZARI'AS  ('ACopfos:  Azarias).  1.  (1  Esdr. 
ix.  21)  =  UZZIAH,  Ezr.  x.  21. 

2.  (1  Esdr.  ix.  43)  =  URIJAH,  Neh.  viii.  4. 

3.  (Alex.  'A^apems  :  1  Esdr.  ix.  48)  =  AZAIUAH, 
Neh.  viii.  7. 

4.  (Azareus?)      Priest    in   the   line   of  EsJras 
(2  Esdr.  i.  1),  elsewhere  AZARIAH  and  EZERIAS. 

5.  (Azarias.)      Name    assumed    by   the  juigd 
Raphael  (Tob.  v.  12,  vi.  6,  13,  vii.  8,  ix.  2). 

6.  A  captain  in  tne  army  of  Judas  Maceabeus 
(1  Mace.  v.  18,  56,  60). 

A'ZAZ  (TTJJ:  'AC<™C;  Alex-  'O^C'-  Azaz). 
A  Reubenite,  father  of  Bela  (1  Chr.  v.  8). 

AZAZI'AH  (-irntJJ:  'Ofms;  Ozaziu).  1.  A 
Levite-musician  in  the  reign  of  David,  appointed  to 
play  the  harp  in  the  service  which  attended  the 
procession  by  which  the  ark  was  brought  up  from 
the  house  of  Obed-edom  (1  Chr.  xv.  21). 

2.  The  father  of  Hosea,  prince  of  the  tribe  of 
Ephraim  when  David  numbered  the  people  (1  Chr. 
xxvii.  20). 

3.  (Alex.  'O£a£as:  Azarias.}    One  of  the  Levites 
in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  who  had  charge  of  the 
tithes  and  dedicated  things  in  the  Temple  under 
Cononiah  and  Shimei  (2  Chr.  xxxi.  13). 

AZ'BUK  (p-13$:  'Afr£™X  5  Alex.  yA^o6X: 
Azboc}.  Father  or  ancestor  of  Nehemiah  the  prince 
of  part  of  Bethzur  (Neh.  iii.  16). 

AZEPHU'KITH,  or  more  properly  ARSI- 
PHURITH,  a  name  which"  in  the  LXX.  of  1  Esdr. 
v.  16  occupies  the  place  of  Jorah  in  Ezr.  ii.  18,  and 
of  Hariph  in  Neh.  vii.  24.  It  is  altogether  omitted 
in  the  Vulgate.  Burrington  conjectures  that  it  may 
have  originated  in  a  combination  of  these  two  names 
corrupted  by  the  mistakes  of  transcribers.  The 
second  syllable  in  this  case  probably  arose  from  a 
confusion  of  the  uncial  2  with  E. 


AZE'TAS  ('A&ivdv  ;  Alex.  'A£?TOS  :  Zelas). 
The  name  of  a  family  which  returned  with  Zoro- 
babel  according  to  1  Esdr.  v.  15,  but  not  mentioned 
in  the  catalogues  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. 

AZ'GAD  ("my  :  'Ao^aS  ;  Alex.  'Afyttt, 
'A£yaS,  'AyeraS  :  Azgad),  The  children  of  Azgad, 
to  the  number  of  1222  (2322  according  to  Neh. 
vii.  17)  were  among  the  laymen  who  returned  with 
Zerubbabel  (Ezr.  ii.  12).  A  second  detachment  of 
1  10,  with  Johanan  at  their  head,  accompanied  Ezra 
in  the  second  caravan  (Ezr.  viii.  12).  With  the 
other  heads  of  the  peopie  uaey  joined  in  the  covenant 
with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  15).  The  name  appear? 
as  SADAI  in  1  Esdr.  v.  13,  and  the  numler  of  the 


AZ1ZA 

Simily  is  then    given  3222.     In  1  Esdr.  vni.  38.  it 
is  written  ASTATH. 

A  Z'IZA  (KHJ!  :  '0£Ca  :  Aziza}.  A  layman 
of  the  family  of  Zattu,  who  had  married  a  foreign 
tvife  after  the  return  from  Babylon  (Ezr.  x.  27)  : 
called  SAKDEUS  in  1  Esdr.  ix.  28. 


AZMA'VETH 

Alex.  'A^fjLuO  in  1  Chr.  :  Azmaveth,  AzmotK). 
1.  One  of  David's  mighty  men,  a  native  of  Bahurim 
(•2  Sam.  xxiii.  31  ;  1  Chr.  xi.  33),  and  therefore 
probably  a  Benjamite. 

2.  ('Ao>ia>0,  Tafrcad  ;  Alex.  'Afacad  :   Aztnoth.} 
A  descendant  of  Mephibosheth,  or  Merib-baal  (1  Chr. 
viii.  36,  ix.  42). 

3.  ('A.o-fj.60  ;    Alex.   'A$u60.)     The   father   of 
Jeziel   and   Pelet,    two   of  the   skilled   Benjamite 
t-lingers  and  archers  who  joined  David   at   Ziklag 
(1  Chr.  xii.  3),  perhaps  identical  with  1.     It  has 
been  suggested  that  in  this  passage  "  sons  of  Azma 
veth"  may  denote   natives   of  the  place  of  that 
name. 

4.  Overseer  of  the  royal  treasures  in  the  reign  of 
David  (1  Chr.  xxvii.  25). 

AZO'TUS,  MOUNT  ('A^rou  8pos,  or  'A&5- 
ros  opos  :  mons  Azoti}.  In  the  fatal  battle  in 
which  Judas  Maccabeus  fell,  he  broke  the  right 
wing  of  Bacchides'  army,  and  pursued  them  to 
Mount  Azotus  (1  Mace.  ix.  15).  Josephus  calls  it 
Aza,  or  Azara,  according  to  many  MSS.,  which 
Ewald  finds  in  a  mountain  west  of  Birzeit,  under 
the  form  Atara,  the  Philistine  Ashdod  being  out  of 
the  question. 

AZ'KIEL  (^"1$:  om-  in  v'at-  MS-  5  Alex- 
'le^ptTjA.:  Ezriefy,  1.  The  head  of  a  house  of  the 
half-  tribe  of  Manasseh  beyond  Jordan,  a  man  of 
renown  (1  Chr.  v.  24). 

2.  ('OC^A:  Ozriel.)     A  Naphtalite,  ancestor  of 
Jerimoth  the  head  of  the  tribe  at  the  time  of  David's 
census  (I  Chr.  xxvii.  19)  ;  called  UZZIEL  in  two 
Heb.  MSS.,  and  apparently  in  the  LXX. 

3.  ('EcrptTjA;    Alex.    'EtrCpnjA:   Ezriel.}     The 
father   of  Seraiah,   an  officer   of  Jehoiakim  (Jer. 
xxxvi.  26). 

AZ'KIKAM  (Dgnjy  :  'EfriKdp  ;  Alex.  'Ecrpi- 
Kdfj.  ;  Ezricarn).  1.  A  descendant  of  Zerubbabel, 
and  son  of  Neariah  of  the  royal  line  of  Judah  (1  Chr. 
iii.  23). 

2.  (Alex.  'Efrncdfj..}     Eldest  son  of  Azel,  and 
descendant  of  Saul  (1  Chr.  viii.  38,  ix.  44). 

3.  (In  Neh.  'Eo-pma/t  ;  Alex.  'E^pi:  Azaricam.} 
A  Levite,  ancestor  of  Shemaiah  who  lived  in  the 
time  of  Nehemiah  (1  Chr.  ix.  14;  Neh.  xi.  15). 

4.  ('E^pt/cdi'.)     Governor  of  the  house,  or  pre 
fect  of  the  palace  to  king  Ahaz,  who  was  slain  by 
Zichri,  an   Ephraimite  hero,  in  the  successful  in 
vasion  of  the  southern  kingdom  by  Pekah,  king  of 
Israel  (2  Chr.  xxviii.  7). 

AZ'UBAH  (rn-tttf:  Tafrvpd  ;  Alex.  'Afoi/0ct  : 
Azuba}.  1,  Wife  of  Caleb,  son  of  Hezron  (1  Chr. 
ii.  18,  19). 

2.  ('A&v&d.}  Mother  of  king  Jehoshaphat 
(1  K.  xxii.  42;  2  Chr.  xx.  31). 

A'ZUR,  properly  AZ'ZUR  fW:  Xcfy: 
Azur\  1.  A  Benjamite  of  Gibeon,  and  father  of 
Uananlih  the  false  prophet  (Jer.  xxviii.  1).  Hitzig 
suggests  that  he  may  have  been  a  priest,  as  Gibeon 
was  one  of  the  priestiy  cities. 


BABYLON  Ixxxiii 

2.  ("tty :  "E£ep;  Alex.'laCep.)  Father  of  Jaaza- 
niah,  one  of  the  princes  of  the  people  against  who:u 
Ezekiel  was  commanded  to  prophesy  (Ez.  xi.  1). 

AZU'RAN  ('ACapou  ;  Alex.  'A(ovpo6 :  Azoroc}. 
The  sons  of  Azuran  are  enumerated  in  1  Esdr.  v.  15 
among  those  who  returned  from  Babylon  with 
Zorobabel,  but  there  is  no  corresponding  name  in 
the  catalogues  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  Azuran  may 
perhaps  be  identical  with  Azzur  in  Neh.  x.  17. 

AZ'ZAH  (il-TV:  ra&,  TetCo:  Gaza}.  The 
more  accurate  rendering  of  the  name  of  the  well- 
known  Philistine  city,  Gaza  (Deut.  ii.  23;  IK. 
iv.  24 ;  Jer.  xxv.  20).  [GAZA.] 

AZ'ZAN  (}-TV:  '0&:  Ozan}.  The  father  of 
Paltiel,  prince  of  the  tribe  ef  Issachar,  who  repre 
sented  his  tribe  in  the  division  of  the  promised  land 
(Num.  xxxiv.  26). 

AZ'ZUR  ("l-Vty :  'ACoup  :  Azur}.  One  of  the 
heads  of  the  people  who  signed  the  covenant  with 
Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  17).  The  name  is  probably 
that  of  a  family,  and  in  Hebrew  is  the  same  as  is 
elsewhere  represented  by  AZUR. 


B 

BA'AL  (^V3:  'IwtfA;  Alex.  Baa\:  Baal}. 
1.  A  Reubenite,  whose  son  or  descendant  Beerah 
was  carried  off  by  the  invading  army  of  Assyria 
under  Tiglath-Pileser  (1  Chr.  v.  5). 

2.  (BctaA.)  The  son  of  Jehiel,  father  or  founder 
of  Gibeon,  by  his  wife  Maachah  ;  brother  of  Kish, 
and  grandfather  of  Saul  (1  Chr.  viii.  30,  ix.  36). 

BAANI'AS  (Bavaias ;  Alex.  Bwvaleu :  Ban' 
nas}.  BENAIAH,  of  the  sous  of  Pharosh  (1  Esdr. 
ix.  26;  comp.  Ezr.  x.  25). 

BAB'YLON(Ba)8vAdH/:  Babylon}.  The  occur 
rence  of  this  name  in  1  Pet.  v.  13  has  given  rise 
to  a  variety  of  conjectures,  which  may  be  briefly 
enumerated. 

1.  That  Babylon  tropically  denotes  Rome.     In 
support  of  this  opinion  is  brought  forward  a  tra 
dition  recorded  by  Eusebius  (ff.  E.  ii.  15),  on  the 
authority  of  Papias  and  Clement  of  Alexandria,  to 
the  effect   that  1  Peter   was   composed  at  Rome. 
Oecumenius   and   Jerome  both  assert   that  Rome 
was  figuratively  denoted  by  Babylon.     Although 
this   opinion   is  held  by  Grotius,  Lardner,   Cave, 
Whitby,  Macknight,  Hales,  and  others,  it  may  be 
rejected  as  improbable.     There  is  nothing  to  indi 
cate  that  the  name  is  used  figuratively,  and  the 
subscription  to  an  epistle  is  the  last  place  we  should 
expect  to  find  a  mystical  appellation. 

2.  Cappellus  and  others  take  Babylon,  with  ad 
little  reason,  to  mean  Jerusalem. 

3.  Bar-Hebraeus  understands  by  it  the  house  in 
Jerusalem  where  the  Apostles  were  assembled  on 
the  Day  of  Pentecost. 

4.  Others  place  it  on  the  Tigris,  and  identify  it 
with  Seleucia  or  Ctesiphon,  but  for  this  there  is 
no  evidence.     The  two  theories  which  remain  are 
worthy  of  more  consideration. 

5.  That  by  Babylon  is  intended  the  small  fort  of 
that  name   which   formed   the  boundary  between 
Upper  arid  Lower  Egypt.     Its  site  is  marked  by 
the  modern  Baboul  in  the  Delta;  a  little  north  of 
Fostat,  or  old  Cairo.     According  to  Strabo  it  de 
rived  its  name  fnm  some  Babylonian  deserters  who 


BABYLON 

had  settled  t  ^ere.  In  his  time  it  was  the  head 
quarters  of  one  of  the  three  legions  which  garri 
soned  Egypt.  Josephus  (Ant.  ii.  15  §1)  says  it 
was  built  on  the  site  of  Letopolis,  when  Cambyses 
subdued  Egypt.  That  this  is  the  Babylon  of  1  Pet. 
is  the  tradition  of  the  Coptic  Church,  and  is  main 
tained  by  Le  Clerc,  Mill,  Pearson,  and  others. 
There  is,  however,  no  proof  that  the  Apostle  Peter 
was  ever  in  Egypt,  and  a  very  slight  degree  of  pro 
bability  is  created  by  the  tradition  that  his  com 
panion  Mark  was  bishop  of  Alexandria. 

6.  The  most  natural  supposition  of  all  is  that  by 
Babylon  is  intended  the  old  Babylon  of  Assyria, 
which  was  largely  inhabited  by  Jews  at  the  time 
in  question  (Jos.  "Ant.  xv.  3,  §1  ;  Philo,  De  Virt. 
p.  1023,  ed.  Franc.  1691).  The  only  argument 
against  this  view  is  the  negative  evidence  from  the 
silence  of  historians  as  to  St.  Peter's  having  visited 
the  Assyrian  Babylon,  but  this  cannot  be  allowed  to 
have  much  weight.  Lightfoot's  remarks  are  very 
suggestive.  In  a  sermon  preached  at  St.  Mary's 
Cambridge  (Works,  ii.  1144,  Eng.  folio  ed.),  he 
maintained  that  Babylon  of  Assyria  is  intended, 
because  "  it  was  one  of  the  greatest  knots  of  Jews 
in  the  world,"  and  St.  Peter  was  the  minister  of 
the  circumcision.  Again,  he  adds,  "  Bosor  (2  Pet. 
»i.  15)  speaks  Peter  in  Babylon,"  it  being  the  Chaldee 
or  Syriac  pronunciation  of  Pethor  in  Num.  xxii.  5. 
This  last  argument  has  not,  perhaps,  much  weight, 
as  the  same  pronunciation  may  have  characterized 
the  dialect  of  Judea.  Bentley  gave  his  suffrage  in 
*avour  of  the  ancient  Babylon,  quoting  Jos.  c.  Ap. 
».  7  (Grit.  Sacr.  p.  81,  ed.  Ellis). 

BAB'YLON,  in  the  Apocalypse,  is  the  sym 
bolical  name  by  which  Rome  is  denoted  (Rev.  xiv. 
8,  xvii.,  xviii.).  The  power  of  Rome  was  regarded 
by  the  later  Jews  as  that  of  Babylon  by  their  fore 
fathers  (comp.  Jer.  Ii.  7  with  Kev.  xiv.  8),  and 
hence,  whatever  the  people  of  Israel  be  understood 
to  symbolize,  Babylon  represents  the  antagonistic 

principle.      [REVELATION.] 

BABYLO'NIANS  (K^33,  ^31-^3:  Baflu- 
\<avioi :  Babylonii,  filii  Babylonis).  The  inhabitants 
of  Babylon,  a  race  of  Shemitic  origin,  who  were 
among  the  colonists  planted  in  the  cities  of  Samaria 
by  the  conquering  Assyrians  (Ezr.  iv.  9).  At  a 
later  period,  when  the  warlike  Chaldaeans  acquired 
the  predominance  in  the  7th  cent.  B.C.,  the  names 
Chaldaean  and  Babylonian  became  almost  synony 
mous  (Ez.  xxiii.  14,  15 ;  comp.  Is.  xlviii.  14,  20). 

BABYLO'NISH  GAKMENT,  literally 
("lyjK*  rn^K,  ^/i\^]  troiKiXi]  \  pallium  coccineuiri) 

"robe  of  Shinar"  (Josh.  vii.  21).  An  ample 
robe,  probably  made  of  the  skin  or  fur  of  an  animal 
(comp.  Gen.  xxy.  25),  and  ornamented  with  em 
broidery,  or  perhaps  a  variegated  garment  with 
figures  inwoven  in  the  fashion  for  which  the  Baby 
lonians  were  celebrated.  Josephus  (Ant.  v.  1,  §10) 
describes  it  as  "  a  royal  mantle  (x^a/j.v5a  j8a(Ti- 
Aeioj/),  all  woven  with  gold."  Tertullian  (De 
habitu  mulicbri,  c.  i.)  tells  us  that  while  the  Syrians 
w,ere  celebrated  for  dyeing,  and  the  Phrygians  for 
patchwork,  the  Babylonians  inwove  their  colours. 
For  this  kind  of  tapestry  work  thev  had  a  great  re 
putation  (Pliny,  viii.  74:  Colorcs  diversos  picturae 
mtexere  Babylon  maxiinc  cclcbramt,  et  nomcn  im- 
posuit).  Compare  also  Martial  (Ep.  viii.  28): 

Non  ego  praetulerim  Babylonica  picta  superbe 
Toxta,  Semiramia  quae  variantur  acu ; 


BALANCE 

and  the  Babylonia  peristromata  cf  Plautus  (Sttch, 
ii.  2,  54;  see  also  Jos.  B.  J.  vii.  5,  §5;  Plut. 
M.  Cato,  iv.  5).  Perhaps  some  of  the  trade  ia 
these  rich  stuffs  between  Babylon  and  the  Phoe 
nicians  (Ez.  xxvii.  24)  passed  through  Jericho,  as 
well  as  the  gold  brought  by  the  caravans  of 
Sheba,  which  they  may  have  left  in  exchange  for 
the  products  of  its  fertile  soil  (Josh.  vii.  21). 
[JERICHO.]  Rashi  has  a  story  that  the  king  of 
Babylon  had  a  palace  at  Jericho,  probably  founded 
on  the  fact  that  the  robe  of  the  king  of  Nineveh 
(Jon.  iii.  6)  is  called  rTHK,  addereth.  In  the 

Bereshith  Rabba  (§85,  fol/75,  2,  quoted  by  Gill) 
it  is  said  that  the  robe  was  of  Babylonian  purple. 
Another  story  in  the  same  passage  is  that  the  king 
of  Babylon  had  a  deputy  at  Jericho  who  sent  him 
dates,  and  the  king  in  return  sent  him  gifts,  among 
which  was  a  garment  of  Shinar.  Kimchi  (on  Josh. 
vii.  21)  quotes  the  opinions  of  R.  Chanina  bar 
R.  Isaac  that  the  Babylonish  garment  was  of  Baby 
lonian  purple,  of  Rab  that  it  was  a  robe  of  fine 
wool,  and  of  Shemuel  that  it  was  a  cloak  washed 
with  alum,  which  we  learn  from  Pliny  (xxxv.  52) 
was  used  in  dyeing  wool. 

BAG  is  the  rendering  of  several  words  in  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments.     1. 


screws.)  Charitim,  the  "  bags  "  in  which  Naaman 
bound  up  the  two  talents  of  silver  for  Gehazi  (2  K. 
v.  23),  probably  so  called,  according  to  Gesenius, 
from  their  long,  cone-like  shape.  The  word  only 
occurs  besides  in  Is.  iii.  22  (A.  V.  "  crisping-pins  "  ), 
and  there  denotes  the  reticules  carried  by  the  He 
brew  ladies.  2.  (&3  :  fj-dpcrnriros,  fiapa-inriov  : 
sacculus,  saccdlus.)  Cis,  a  bag  for  carrying  weights 
(Deut.  xxv.  13;  Prov.  xvi.  11;  Mic.  vi.  11),  also 
used  as  a  purse  (Prov.  i.  14;  Is.  xlvi.  6).  3. 
0^3:  KaSiov,  pera)  Cell,  translated  "bag"  in 
1  Sam.  xvii.  40,  49,  is  a  word  of  most  general 
meaning,  and  is  generally  rendered  "vessel"  or 
"  instrument."  In  Gen.  xlii.  25  it  is  the  "  sack  " 
in  which  Jacob's  sons  carried  the  corn  which  they 
brought  from  Egypt,  and  in  1  Sam.  ix.  7,  xxi.  5,  it 
denotes  a  bag  or  wallet,  for  carrying  food  (A.  V. 
"  vessel  "  ;  comp.  Jud.  x.  5,  xiii.  10,  15).  The 
shepherd's  "bag"  which  David  had  seems  to  have 
been  worn  by  him  as  necessary  to  his  calling,  and 
was  probably,  from  a  comparison  of  Zech.  xi.  15, 
1  6  (where  A.  V.  "  instruments  "  is  the  same  word), 
for  the  purpose  of  carrying  the  lambs  which  were 
unable  to  walk  or  were  lost,  and  contained  mate 
rials  for  healing  such  as  were  sick  and  binding  up 
those  that  were  broken  (comp.  Ez.  xxxiv.  4,  16). 
4.  ("1P¥  :  €i/5€<r/ios,  Jeoy^s  :  sacculus.')  Tseror, 
properly  a  "  bundle  "  (Gen.  xlii.  35  ;  1  Sam.  xxv. 
29),  appears  to  have  been  used  by  travellers  for 
carrying  money  during  a  long  journey  (  Prov.  vii. 
20  ;  Hag.  i.  6  ;  comp.  Luke  xii.  33  ;  Tob.  ix.  5). 
In  such  "  bundles  "  the  priests  bound  up  the  money 
which  was  contributed  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Temple  under  Jehoiada  (2  K.  xii.  10,  A.  V.  "  put 
up  in  bags  "  ).  The  "  bag  "  (•y\cooW/coJuoi>  :  lo- 
culi)  which  Judas  carried  was  probably  a  small  box 
or  chest  (John  xii.  6,  xiii.  29).  The  Greek  word 
is  the  same  as  that  used  in  the  LXX.  for  "  chest  " 
in  2  Chr.  xxiv.  8,  10,  11,  and  originally  signilied  a 
box  used  by  musicians  for  carrying  the  mouth 
pieces  of  their  instruments. 

BALANCE.      Two  Hebrew  words  are   thus 
translated  in  the  A.V. 


BALANCE 

1.  D^tfO  mozSnaim  ^LXX.  fa6v,  Vulg.  sta- 
tera,,  the  dual  form  of  which  points  to  the  double 
:cales,  like  Lat.  Manx.  The  balance  in  this  form 
was  known  at  a  very  early  period.  It  is  found  on 
die  Egyptian  monuments  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Joseph,  and  we  find  allusions  to  its  use  in  the  story 
of  the  purchase  of  the  cave  of  Machpelah  (Gen.  xxiii. 
1C)  by  Abraham.  Before  coinage  was  introduced 
it  was  of  necessity  employed  in  all  transactions  in 
which  the  valuable  metals  were  the  mediums  ot 
exchange  (Gen.  xliii.  21  ;  Ex.  xxii.  17;  1  K.  xx. 
39 ;  Esth.  iii.  9  ;  Is.  xlvi.  6  ;  Jer.  xxxii.  10,  &c.). 
The  weights  which  were  used  were  at  first  probably 
stones,  and  from  this  the  word  "  stone  "  continued 
to  denote  any  weight  whatever,  though  its  material 
was  in  later  times  lead  (Lev.  xix.  36 ;  Deut.  xxv. 
13,  15;  Prov.  xi.  1,  xx.  10,  23  ;  Zech.  v.  8). 
These  weights  were  carried  in  a  bag  (Deut.  xxv. 
13;  Prov,  xvi.  11)  suspended  from  the  girdle 
(Chardin,  Voy.  iii.  422),  and  were  very  early  made 
the  vehicles  of  fraud.  The  habit  of  carrying  two 
sets  of  weights  is  denounced  in  Deut.  xxv.  1 3  and 
Prov.  xx.  10,  and  the  necessity  of  observing  strict 
honesty  in  the  matter  is  insisted  upon  in  several 
precepts  of  the  Law  (Lev.  xix.  36  ;  Deut.  xxv.  13). 
But  the  custom  lived  on,  and  remained  in  full  force 
to  the  days  of  Micah  (vi.  11),  and  even  to  those  of 
Zechariah,  who  appears  (ch.  v.)  to  pronounce  a 
judgment  against  fraud  of  a  similar  kind.  The 
earliest  weight  to  which  reference  is  made  is  the 
HD^ip,  kesUah  (Gen.  xxxiii.  19  ;  Josh.  xxiv.  32  ; 

Job  xlii.  11),  which  in  the  margin  of  our  version  is 
in  two  passages  rendered  "  lambs,"  while  in  the 
text  it  is  "  piece  of  money."  It  may  have  derived 
its  name  from  being  in  the  shape  of  a  lamb.  We 
know  that  weights  in  the  form  of  bulls,  lions,  and 
antelopes  were  in  use  among  the  ancient  Egyptians 
and  Assyrians.  [MONEY,  vol.'  ii.  p.  406."]  By 
means  of  the  balance  the  Hebrews  appear  to  have 
been  able  to  weigh  with  considerable  delicacy,  and  for 
this  purpose  they  had  weights  of  extreme  minuteness, 
which  are  called  metaphorically  "  the  small  dust 
of  the  balance"  (Is.  xl.  15).  The  "  little  grain " 
(fioirfi')  of  the  balance  in  Wisd.  xi.  22  is  the  small 
weight  which  causes  the  scale  to  turn.  In  this 
passage,  as  in  2  Mace.  ix.  8,  the  Greek  word 
7rAa<rTt-y|,  rendered  "  balance,"  was  originally  ap 
plied  to  the  scale-pan  alone. 

2.  Hip,  kaneh  ((jjytiv;  statera)  rendered  "ba 
lance  "  in  Is.  xlvi.  6,  is  the  word  generally  used 
for  a  measuring-rod,  like  the  Greek  KavSiv,  and 
like  it  too  denotes  the  tongue  or  beam  of  a  balance. 

D?Q,  peles,  rendered  "weight"   (Prov.  xvi.   11, 

LXX.  froirfi}  and  "scales"  (Is.  xl.  12,  LXX. 
«rrafyu^s)  is  said  by  Kimchi  (on  Is.  xxvi.  7)  to  be 
properly  the  beam  of  the  balance.  In  his  Lexicon 
he  says  it  is  the  part  in  which  the  tongue  moves, 
and  which  the  weigher  holds  in  his  hand.  Gesenius 
(Tkes.  s.  v.)  supposed  it  was  a  steelyard,  but  there 
is  no  evidence  that  this  instrument  was  known  to 
the  Hebrews.  Of  the  material  of  which  the  balance 
was  made  we  have  no  information. 

Sir  G.  Wilkinson  describes  the  Egyptian  balance 
as  follows  :  —  "  The  beam  passed  through  a  ring 
suspended  from  a  horizontal  rod,  immediately  above 
and  parallel  to  it ;  and  when  equally  balanced,  the 
ring,  which  was  large  enough  to  allow  the  beam  to 
play  freely,  showed  when  the  scales  were  equally 
poised,  and  had  the  additional  effect  of  preventing 
the  beam  tilting  when  the  goods  were  taken  cut  of 


BAPTISM 

one,  and  the  weights  suffered  to  remain  in  the 
other.  To  the  lower  part  of  this  ring  a  small 
plummet  was  fixed,  and  this  being  touched  by  the 
hand,  and  found  to  hang  freely,  indicated,  without 
the  necessity  of  looking  at  the  beam,  that  the 
weight  was  just"  (Anc.  Eg.  ii.  p.  240). 

The  expression  in  Dan.  v.  27,  "  thou  art  weighed 
in  the  balances,  and  ait  found  wanting,"  has  been 
supposed  to  be  illustrated  by  the  custom  of  weigh 
ing  the  Great  Mogul  on  his  birthday  in  the  presence 
of  his  chief  grandees.  The  ceremony  is  described 
in  a  passage  from  Sir  Thomas  Roe's  Voyage  in 
India,  quoted  in  Taylor's  Calmet,  Frag.  186: 
"  The  scales  in  which  he  was  thus  weighed,  were 
plated  with  gold,  and  so  the  beam  on  which  they 
hung  by  great  chains,  made  likewise  of  that  most 
precious  metal.  The  king,  sitting  in  one  of  them, 
was  weighed  first  against  silver  coin,  which  imme 
diately  after  was  distributed  among  the  poor  ;  then 
was  he  weighed  against  gold;  after  that  against 
jewels  (as  they  say);  but  I  observed  (being  there 
present  with  my  lord  ambassador)  that  he  was 
weighed  against  three  several  things,  laid  in  silken 
bags,  on  the  contrary  scale  .....  By  his  weight 
(of  which  his  physicians  yearly  keep  an  exact  ac« 
count)  they  presume  to  guess  of  the  present  state 
of  his  body  ;  of  which  they  speak  flatteringly,  how 
ever  they  think  it  to  be."  It  appears,  however, 
from  a  consideration  of  the  other  metaphorical  ex 
pressions  in  the  same  passage  of  Daniel  that  the 
weighing  in  balances  is  simply  a  figure,  and  may  or 
may  not  have  reference  to  such  a  custom  as  that 
above  described.  Many  examples  of  the  use  of  the 
same  figure  of  speech  among  Orientals  are  given  in 
Roberts'  Oriental  Illustrations,  p.  502. 


BA'MOTH  (flto:  Ba^0:  Banwth}.  A 
halting-  place  of  the  Israelites  in  the  Amorite  country 
on  their  march  to  Canaan  (Num.  xxi.  18,  19).  It 
was  between  Nahaliel  and  Pisgah,  north  of  the 
Arnon.  Eusebius  (Onomast.}  calls  it  "  Baboth, 
a  city  of  the  Amorite  beyond  Jordan  on  the  Arnon, 
which  the  children  of  Israel  took."  Jerome  adds 
that  it  was  yi  the  territory  of  the  Reubenites. 
Knobel  identifies  it  with  "  the  high  places  of  Baal  " 
(Num.  xxii.  41),  or  Bamoth  Baal,  and  places  it  on 
the  modern  Jebel  Att&rus,  the  site  being  marked 
by  stone  heaps  which  were  observed  both  by  Seetzen 
(ii.  342)  and  Burckhardt  (Syria,  370). 

BAPTISM  (/SaTTTioyza).  I.  It  is  well  known 
that  ablution  or  bathing  was  common  in  most 
ancient  nations  as  a  preparation  for  prayers  and 
sacrifice  or  as  expiatory  of  sin.  The  Egyptian 
priests,  in  order  to  be  fit  for  their  sacred  offices, 
bathed  twice  in  the  day  and  twice  in  the  night 
(Herod,  ii.  37).  The  Greeks  and  Romans  used 
to  bathe  before  sacrifice  '  Eo  lavatum,  ut  sacri- 
ficem,  Plaut.  Aulular.  iii.  6.  43)  and  before 
prayer  — 

Haec  sancte  ut  poscas,  Tiberino  in  gurgite  mergis 
Mane  caput  bis  terque,  et  noctem  flumlne  purgas." 

PEKS.  Sat.  11.  15. 

At  the  celebration  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries, 
on  the  second  day  of  the  greater  mysteries,  the 
mystae  went  in  solemn  procession  to  the  sea-coaj»t 
where  they  were  purified  by  bathing  (see  Diet. 
of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antiq.  p.  453).  But,  above  all, 
when  pollution  of  any  kind  had  been  contract^]. 
as  by  the  being  stained  with  bloo-.  in  battle,  pjn- 
fication  by  water  was  thought  needful  before  actu 
of  devotion  could  be  performed  or  any  sacral  thiuy 


ixxxvi  BAPTISM 

be  taken  in  hand  (see  Soph.  Ajax,  665;  Vlrg. ' 
Aen.  ii.  719,  &c.).  Even  the  crime  of  homicide  is 
said  to  have  b?en  expiated  by  such  means. 

"  Omne  nefas  omnemque  mail  purgamina  causam 
Oredebant  nostri  tollere  posse  series. 

Kli !  nimium  faciles,  qui  tristia  crimina  caedis 
Fluminea  tolli  posse  putetis  aqua." 

Ovis>,  Fasti,  ii.  35,  36,  45,  46. 

There  is  a  natural  connexion  in  the  mind  be 
tween  the  thought  of  physical  and  that  of  spiritual 
pollution.  In  warm  countries  this  connexion  is 
probably  even  closer  than  in  colder  climates ;  and 
hence  the  frequency  of  ablution  in  the  religious 
rites  throughout  the  East. 

II.  The  history  of  Israel  and  the  Law  of  Moses 
abound  with  such  lustrations.  When  Jacob  was 
returning  with  his  wives  and  children  to  Bethel,  he 
enjoined  his  household  to  "  put  away  all  their 
strange  gods,  and  to  be  clean,  and  change  their 
garments"  (Gen.  xxxv.  2).  When  the  Almighty 
was  about  to  deliver  the  Ten  Commandments  to 
Moses  in  the  sight  of  the  people  of  Israel,  he 
commanded  Moses  to  "  sanctify  them  to-day  and 
to-morrow,  and  let  them  wash  their  clothes"  (Ex. 
xix.  10).  After  the  giving  of  that  Law  all  kinds 
of  ceremonial  pollutions  required  purification  by 
water.  He  that  ate  that  which  died  of  itself  was 
to  wash  his  clothes  and  to  bathe  his  flesh  (Lev. 
xvii.  15) ;  he  that  touched  man  or  woman  who 
was  separated  for  any  legal  uncleanness,  or  who 
touched  even  their  garments  or  their  bed,  was  to 
wash  his  clothes  and  bathe  himself  in  water  (see 
Lev.  xv. ;  comp.  Deut.  xxiii.  10) ;  he  that  touched 
a  dead  body  was  to  be  unclean  till  even,  and  wash 
his  flesh  with  water  (Lev.  xxii.  4,  6) ;  he  that 
let  go  the  scapegoat  pr  that  burned  the  skin  of  the 
bullock  sacrificed  for  a  sin-offering,  was  to  wash 
his  clothes  and  bathe  his  flesh  in  water  (Lev.  xvi. 
26,  28);  he  that  gathered  the  ashes  of  the  red 
heifer  was  to  wash  his  clothes  and  be  unclean  till 
the  evening  (Num.  xix.  10).  Before  great  reli 
gious  observances  such  purifications  were  especially 
solemn  (see  John  xi.  55).  And  in  the  later  times 
of  the  Jewish  history  there  appear  to  have  been 
public  baths  and  buildings  set  apart  for  this  pur 
pose,  one  of  which  was  probably  the  pool  of  Be- 
thesda  with  its  five  porches  mentioned  in  John  v.  2 
(see  Spencer,  De  Legg.  ffeb.  p.  692). 

It  was  natural  that,  of  all  people,  the  priests 
most  especially  should  be  required  to  purify  them 
selves  in  this  manner.  At  their  consecration  Aaron 
and  his  sons  were  brought  to  the  door  of  the 
tabernacle  and  washed  with  water  (Ex.  xxix.  4) ; 
and  whenever  they  went  into  the  sanctuary  they 
were  enjoined  to  wash  their  hands  and  their  feet 
in  the  laver,  which  was  between  the  altar  and  the 
tabernacle,  "that  they  died  not  "(Ex.  xxx.  20). 
In  Solomon's  temple  there  were  ten  lavers  to  wash 
the  things  offered  for  the  burnt-offering,  and  a  molten 
sea  for  the  ablution  of  priests  (2  Chr.  iv.  2,  6). 
The  consecration  of  the  high-priest  deserves  espe 
cial  notice.  It  was  first  by  baptism,  then  by 
unction,  and  lastly  by  sacrifice  (Ex.  xxix.  4,  xl. 
12-15;  Lev.  viii.). 

The  spiritual  significance  of  all  these  ceremonial 


*  Full  information  on  this  subject  will  be  found  in 
Llghtfoot,  on  Matt.  iii.  6  Works,  xi.  53;  Hammond  on 
St.  Matt.  iii.  6;  Schoettgsn  //.  H.;  Wetstein  on  Matt. 
iii.  6;  Buxlerf  Lex  ChaU,  tt  Rabbin,  s.  v.  13 ;  Godwyn. 


BAPTISM 

wakings  was  well  known  to  the  devout  Israelite. 
"  I  will  wash  my  hands  in  innocency,"  says  the 
Psalmist,  "  and  so  will  I  compass  thine  altar " 
(Ps.  xxvi.  6).  "  Wash  me  throughly  from  mine 
iniquity,  and  cleanse  me  from  my  sin."  "  Wash 
me  and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow  "  (Ps.  Ii.  2, 
7 ;  comp.  Ixxiii.  13).  The  prophets  constantly 
speak  of  pardon  and  conversion  from  sin  under  the 
same  figure.  "Wash  you,  make  you  clean"  (Is. 
i.  16).  "  When  the  Lord  shall  have  washed  away 
the  filth  of  the  daughter  of  Zion  "  (iv.  4).  "6 
Jerusalem,  wash  thine  heart  from  wickedness" 
(Jer.  iv.  14).  "In  that  day  there  shall  be  a 
fountain  opened  to  the  house  of  David  and  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  for  sin  and  for  unclean- 
ness  "  (Zech.  xiii.  1).  The  significant  manner  in 
which  Pilate  washed  his  hands,  declaring  himself 
innocent  of  the  blood  of  Jesus,  was  an  expressive 
picturing  to  the  people  in  forms  rendered  familial 
to  their  minds  from  the  customs  of  their  law. 

From  the  Gospel  history  we  learn  that  at  that 
time  ceremonial  washings  had  been  greatly  multi 
plied  by  traditions  of  the  doctors  and  elders  (see 
Mark  ~vii.  3,  4),  and  the  testimony  of  the  Evan 
gelist  is  fully  borne  out  by  that  of  the  later 
writings  of  the  Jews.  The  most  important  and 
probably  one  of  the  earliest  of  these  traditional 
customs  was  the  baptizing  of  proselytes.  There  is 
an  universal  agreement  among  later  Jewish  writers 
that  all  the  Israelites  were  brought  into  covenant 
with  God  by  circumcision,  baptism,  and  sacrifice," 
and  that  the  same  ceremonies  were  necessary  in 
admitting  proselytes.  Thus  Maimonides  (fssure 
Biah,  cap.  13),  "  Israel  was  admitted  into  cove 
nant  by  three  things,  viz.,  by  circumcision,  bap 
tism,  and  sacrifice.  Circumcision  was  in  Egypt, 
as  it  is  said,  '  None  uncircumcised  shall  eat  of  the 
passover.'  Baptism  was  in  the  wilderness  before 
the  giving  of  the  Law,  as  it  is  said,  '  Thou  shalt 
sanctify  them  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  let  them 
wash  their  garments.'  "  And  he  adds,  "  So,  when 
ever  a  Gentile  desires  to  enter  into  the  covenant  of 
Israel,  and  place  himself  under  the  wings  of  the 
Divine  Majesty,  and  take  the  yoke  of  the  Law 
upon  him,  he  must  be  circumcised,  and  baptized, 
and  bring  a  sacrifice;  or  if  it  be  a  woman,  she 
must  be  baptized  and  bring  a  sacrifice."  The 
same  is  abundantly  testified  by  earlier  writers,  as 
by  the  Jerusalem  and  Babylonian  Talmud,  although 
no  reference  to  this  custom  can  be  found  in  Philo, 
Josephus,  or  the  Targum  of  Onkelos.  Its  earliest ' 
mention  appears  to  be  in  the  Targum  of  Jonathan 
on  Ex.  xii.  44:  "Thou  shalt  circumcise  him  and 
baptize  him." b  It  should  be  added,  that  men, 
women,  and  children,  were  all  baptized,  and  either 
two  or  three  witnesses  were  required  to  be  present.6 
Some  modern  writers — Lardner,  Ernesti,  De  Wette, 
Meyer,  Paulus,  and  others — have  doubted  or  denied 
that  this  baptism  of  proselytes  had  been  in  use 
among  the  Jews  from  times  so  early  as  those  of 
the  Gospel  ;  but  it  is  highly  improbable  that, 
after  the  rise  of  Christianity,  the  Jews  should  have 
adopted  a  rite  so  distinctively  Christian  as  baptism 
had  then  become.  The  frequent  use  of  religious 
ablution,  as  enjoined  by  the  Law,  had  certainly 
become  much  more  frequent  by  the  tradition  of 

Moses  and  Aaron,  bk.  i.  c.  3 ;  Selden,  DeJure  Nat.  et  Gent 
ii.  25 ;  Wall,  Hist,  of  Inf.  Baptism,  Introdurt. ;  Kuinoel 
on  Matt.  ill.  6. 
c  Se«>  Lightfoot.  as  above. 


BAPTISM 

tno  elders.  The  motive  which  may  have  leu  to 
the  addition  of  baptism  to  the  first  commanded 
eircnmcision  is  obvious, — circumcision  applied  only 
to  males,  baptism  could  be  used  for  the  admission 
of  female  proselytes  also.  Moreover,  many  nations 
bordering  upon  Canaan,  and  amongst  whom  the 
Jews  were  afterwards  dispersed,  such  as  the  Ish- 
maelites  and  the  Egyptians,  were  already  circum 
cised ;  and  therefore  converts  from  among  them 
could  not  be  admitted  to  Judaism  by  circumcision. 
There  seems,  indeed,  no  good  reason  to  doubt  that 
the  custom  which  may  so  naturally  have  grown 
out  of  others  like  it,  and  which  we  find  prevailing 
not  long  after  the  Christian  era,  had  really  pre 
vailed  from  the  period  of  the  Captivity,  if  not,  as 
ninny  think,  from  times  of  still  more  remote 
antiquity  (?ee  Bei.gel,  Ueber  das  Alter  derJiid.  Pros- 
elytentaufe,  Tubing.,  1814,  quoted  by  Kuinoel  on 
Matt.  iii.  6). 

III.  The  Baptism  of  John.— These  usages  of  the 
Jews  will  account  for  the  readiness  with  which  all 
men  flocked  to  the  baptism  of  John  the  Baptist. 
The  teaching  of  the  prophets  by  outward  signs  was 
familiar  to  the  minds  of  the  Israelites.  There  can 
be  no  question  but  that  there  was  at  this  period  a 
general  expectation  of  the  Messiah's  kingdom,  an 
expectation  which  extended  beyond  Judaea  and 
prevailed  throughout  all  the  east  ("  Oriente  toto," 
Sueton.  Vespas.  c.  iv.).  Conquest  had  made 
Judaea  a  province  of  Rome,  and  the  hope  of  de 
liverance  rested  on  the  promises  of  the  Redeemer. 
The  last  words  of  Malachi  had  foretold  the  coming 
of  the  Angel  of  the  Covenant,  the  rising  of  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness,  to  be  preceded  by  the  pro 
phet  Elijah,  to  turn  the  hearts  of  the  fathers  to 
the  children  and  of  the  children  to  the  fathers 
(  Mai.  iii.  1,  iv.  2,  5).  The  Scribes  therefore  taught 
that  "  Elias  must  first  come  "  (Matt.  xvii.  10  : 
lor  this  expectation  of  Elias  among  the  Rabbins, 
s«je  Lightfoot,  Harmony  on  John  i.  21,  vol.  iv. 
p.  402  ;  Wetstein  on  Matt.  xi.  13).  And  so,  when 
John  preached  and  baptized,  the  people,  feeling  the 
call  to  repentance,  came  to  him  as  to  one  who 
was  at  the  same  time  reproving  them  for  their 
sins  and  giving  hope  of  freedom  from  the  afflictions 
which  their  sins  had  brought  upon  them.  He 
proclaimed  the  near  approach  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven — a  phrase  taken  from  Dan.  ii.  44,  vii.  14, 
in  use  also  among  the  Jews  in  later  times  (see 
\Vetstein  and  Lightfoot,  H.  H.  on  Matt.  iii.  2)— 
and  preached  a  baptism  of  repentance  "  for  the 
remission  of  sins "  (Mark  i.  4).  They  readily 
coupled  in  their  own  minds  the  necessity  of  re 
pentance  and  the  expectation  of  the  Messiah,  ac 
cording  to  a  very  prevalent  belief  that  the  sins  of 
Israel  delayed  the  comisg  of  Christ  and  that  their 
repentance  would  hasten  it.  John's  baptism,  cor 
responding  with  the  custom  of  cleansing  by  water 
from  legal  impurity  and  with  the  baptism  of  pros 
elytes  from  heathenism  to  Judaism,  seemed  to 
call  upon  them  to  come  out  from  the  unbelieving 
and  sinful  habits  of  their  age,  and  to  enlist  them 
selves  into  the  company  of  those  who  were  pre 
paring  for  the  manifestation  of  the  deliverance  of 
Israel. 

Naturally  coi  nected  with  all  this  was  an  ex 
pectation  and  "  musing "  whether  John  himself 
"were  the  Christ  or  not,"  (Luke  iii.  15);  and 
when  he  denied  that  he  was  so,  the  next  question 
which  arose  was  whether  he  were  Elias  (John  i. 
21).  But  when  he  refused  to  be  called  either 
Christ  or  Elias,  they  asked,  "  Why,  then,  baptizest 


BAPTISM 

thou?"  (John  i.  25).  It  was  to  them  as  a  [se 
paration  for  a  new  state  of  things  that  John's 
baptism  seemed  intelligible  and  reasonable.  If  he 
were  not  bringing  them  into  such  a  state  or  making 
them  ready  for  it,  his  action  was  out  of  place  and 


There  has  been  some  uncertainty  and  debate  a.« 
to  the  nature  of  John's  baptism  and  its  spiritual 
significance.  It  appears  to  have  been  a  kind  of 
transition  from  the  Jewish  baptism  to  the  Chris 
tian.  All  ceremonial  ablutions  under  the  Law 
pictured  to  the  eye  that  inward  cleansing  of  the 
heart  which  can  come  only  from  the  grace  of  God 
and  which  accompanies  forgiveness  of  sins.  So 
John's  baptism  was  a  "  baptism  of  repentance  foi 
l-emission  of  sins  "  (pdirTHr/j.a  juerai/oia?  ei's  &<pe- 
<riv  apapriutv,  Mark  i.  4)  ;  it  was  accompanied 
with  confession  (Matt.  iii.  6)  ;  it  was  a  call  to 
repentance  ;  it  conveyed  a  promise  of  pardon  ;  and 
the  whole  was  knit  up  with  faith  in  Him  that 
should  come  after,  even  Christ  Jesus  (Acts  xix. 
4).  It  was  such  that  Jesus  himself  deigned  to  be 
baptized  with  it,  and  perhaps  some  of  his  disciples 
received  no  other  baptism  but  John's  until  they 
received  the  special  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on 
the  great  day  of  Pentecost.  Yet  John  himself 
speaks  of  it  as  a  mere  baptism  with  water  unto 
repentance,  pointing  forward  to  Him  who  should 
baptize  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire  (Matt. 
iii.  11).  And  the  distinction  between  John's  bap 
tism  and  Christian  baptism  appears  in  the  case  of 
Apollos  who,  though  '*  instructed  in  the  way  of 
the  Lord,"  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  fervent 
in  spirit,  speaking  and  teaching  diligently  the 
things  of  the  Lord,  yet  knew  only  the  baptism  of 
John  ;  "  whom  when  Aquila  and  Priscilla  had 
heard,  they  took  him  unto  them,  and  expounded 
unto  him  the  way  of  God  more  perfectly  "  (Acts 
xviii.  26,  27).  Even  more  observable  is  the  case 
of  the  disciples  at  Ephesus,  mentioned  Acts  xix. 
1-6.  They  were  evidently  numbered  among  Chris 
tians,  or  they  would  not  have  been  called  disciples, 
jita07jTaf.  But  when  they  were  asked  if  they  had 
received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  they  had  believed, 
they  said  that  they  had  not  even  heard  if  there 
was  a  Holy  Ghost,  an  answer  which  may  have 
signified  either  that  they  knew  not  as  yet  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  personality  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  not  having  been  baptized  in  the  name  of 
the  Trinity,  or  that  they  had  heard  nothing  of  the 
visible  coming  of  the  Spirit  in  the  miraculous  gifts 
of  tongues  and  prophecy.  At  all  events  their 
answer  at  once  suggested  to  St.  Paul  that  there 
must  have  been  some  defect  in  their  baptism  ;  and 
when  he  discovers  that  they  had  been  baptized 
only  unto  John's  baptism,  he  tells  them  that  John 
baptized  only  with  a  baptism  of  repentance, 
"  saying  unto  the  people  that  they  should  believe 
on  Him  which  should  come  after  him,  that  is  on 
Jesus  Christ.  When  they  heard  this  they  were 
baptized'  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  when 
Paul  had  '  laid  his  hands  upon  them  the  Holy 
Ghost  came  on  them,  and  they  spake  with  tongues 
and  prophesied."  A  full  discussion  of  this  history 
would  lead,  perhaps,  too  far  from  the  ground  of 
biblical  exegesis  and  land  us  in  the  region  of  dog 
matic  theology.  Yet  we  cannot  but  draw  from  it 
the  inference  that  there  was  a  deeper  spiritual  sig 
nificance  in  Christian  baptism  than  in  John's  bap 
tism,  that  in  all  probability  for  the  latter  there 
was  only  required  a  confession  of  sins,  a  profession 
of  faith  in  the  Messiah,  and  of  a  desire  for  re« 


ixxxviu 


BA1  TISM 


Dentance  and  conversion  of  heart  (fjis-rdvoia),  but 
that  tor  the  forrmr  there  was  also  a  confession  of 
faith  in  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
(comp.  Matt,  xxviii.  19) ;  that  after  Christian  bap 
tism  there  was  the  laying  on  of  the  apostles'  hands 
and  the  consequent  effusion  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
manifested  by  miraculous  gifts  (comp.  Acts  Viii. 
1 7)  ;  that  though  Christian  baptism  was  never 
repeated,  yet  baptism  in  the  name  of  Christ  was 
administered  to  those  who  had  received  John's 
baptism,  with  probably  the  exception  of  such  as 
after  John's  baptism  had  been  baptized  at  Pente 
cost  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire. 

On  the  whole  it  may  appear  obvious  to  conclude 
that,  as  John  was  a  greater  prophet  than  any 
that  before  him  nad  been  born  of  woman,  and  yet 
the  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  greater 
than  he,  so  his  baptism  surpassed  in  spiritual 
import  all  Jewish  ceremony,  but  fell  equally  short 
of  the  sacrament  ordained  by  Christ. 

IV.  The  Baptism  of  Jestis.— Plainly  the  most 
important  action  of  John  as  a  Baptist  was  his  bap 
tizing  of  Jesus.  John  may  probably  not  have 
known  at  first  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  (see  John 
i.  31).  He  knew  Him  doubtless  as  his  kinsman  in 
the  flesh,  and  as  one  of  eminently  holy  life ;  but 
the  privacy  of  the  youth  of  Jesus,  and  the  humility 
of  His  carriage,  may  have  concealed,  even  from 
those  nearest  to  Him,  the  dignity  of  His  persbn. 
Yet,  when  He  came  to  be  baptized,  John  would 
have  prevented  Him,  saying,  "  I  have  need  to  be 
baptized  of  Thee,  and  comest  Thou  to  me?"  He 
knew  that  his  own  mission  was  from  GOQ,  and  that 
it  was  to  call  sinners  to  repentance,  warning  them 
to  fl'ee  from  the  wrath  to  come,  and  to  prepare  for 
the  kingdom  of  God ;  but  he  was  so  cbnscious  of 
the  superior  holiness  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  he 
thought  it  unfit  that  Jesus  should  submit  to  bap 
tism  from  hirii.  The  answer  of  Jesus,  "  Suffer  it 
to  be  so  now,  for  so  it  becbmeth  us  to  fulfil  all 
righteousness,"  may  probably  have  meant  that  bur 
Lord,  who  had  taken  on  Him  the  form  of  a  ser* 
vant,  and  was  born  under  the  Law,  was  desirous  of 
Submitting  to  every  'ordinance  of  G6d  (iraffav 
$iKcuocrvt'riv  =  TrdvTa  TO,  Stkat^/iara  rov  '0eoD). 
He  had  been  circumcised  in  His  infancy ;  He  had 
been  subject  to  His  mother  and  Joseph,  He  would 
how  go  through  the  transitional  dispensation,  being 
baptized  by  John  in  preparation  for  the  kingdom. 

No  doubt  it  was  His  will  in  the  first  place,  by 
so  submitting  to  baptism,  to  set  to  His  seal  to  the 
tea'ching  and  the  ministry  of  John.  Again,  as  Be 
Was  to  be  the  Head  of  His  Church  and  the  Captain 
of  our  salvation,  He  was  pleased  to  undergo  that 
rite  which  He  afterwards  enjoined  on  all  His  fol 
lowers.  And,  once  more,  His  baptism  consecrated 
the  baptism  of  Christians  for  ever ;  even  as  after- 
Wards  His  oWn  partaking  of  the  Eucharist  gave 
still  farther  sanction  to  His  injunction  that  His 
disciples  ever  alter  should  continually  partake  of  it. 
But,  beyond  all  this,  His  baptism  was  His  formal 
setting  apait  for  His  ministry,  and  was  a  rrios't 
important  portion  of  His  consecration  to  be  the 
High  Priest  of  God.  He  was  just  entering  6n  the 
age  of  thirty  (Luke  iii.  23),  the  age  at  which  the 
Levities  began  their  ministry  and  the  rabbis  their 
teaching.  It  has  already  been  mentioned  that  the 
consecration  of  Aaron  t6  the  high-priesthood  was 
by  baptism,  uhction,  and  sacrifice  (see  Lev.  viii.  1). 
All  these  weije  undergone  by  Jesus.  First  He  was 
baptized  by  John.  Then,  just  as  the  high-priest 
*as  aruinted  immediately  after  his  baptism,  so 


BAPTISM 

whe:  Jesus  had  gone  up  out  of  the  water,  the 
heavens  Were  opened  unto  Him,  and  the  Spirit  of 
God  descended  upon  Him  (Matt.  iii.  16)  ;  and  thus, 
as  St.  Peter  tells  lis,  "  God  anointed  Jesus  of  Na/a- 
reth  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  power  "  (Acts 
x.  38).  The  sacrifice  indeed  Was  not  till  the  end 
of  His  earthly  ministry,  when  He  offered  up  the 
sacrifice  of  Himself;  and  then  at  His  resurrectiow 
and  ascension  He  fully  took  upon  Him  the  office  01 
priesthood,  entering  into  the  presence  of  God  for  us, 
pleading  the  efficacy  of  His  sacrifice,  and  blessing 
those  fbr  whom  that  sacrifice  Was  offered.  Bap 
tism,  therefore,  was  the  beginning  of  consecration  ; 
unction  was  the  immediate  consequent  upon  the 
baptism  ;  and  sacrifice  was  the  completion  of  the 
initiation,  so  that  He  Was  thenceforth  perfected,  or 
fully  consecrated  as  a  Priest  for  evermore  (els  rbt 
aiwv  a  TfTf\ei(a/j.€vos,  Heb.  vii.  28  ;  sec  Jackson 
on  the  Creed,  book  ix.  sect.  i.  ch.  i.). 

In  this  sense,  therefore,  Christ  "  came  by  water" 
(1  John  v.  6);  for  at  baptism  He  came  to  His 
offices  of  a  Priest  and  an  Evangelist  ;  He  came 
forth,  too,  from  the  privacy  of  His  youth  to  mani 
fest  Himself  to  the  world.  But  He  came  "  not  by 
water  only,"  as  the  Cerinthians,  and  before  them 
the  Nicolaitans,  had  said  (Iren.  iii.  11),  but  by 
blood  also.  He  had  come  into  the  world  by  birth 
of  the  Virgin  Mary  ;  He  came  forth  to  the  world 
by  the  baptism  of  John.  Both  at  His  birth  and  at 
His  baptism  the  Spirit  announced  Him  to  be  the  Son 
of  God.  Thus  came  He  not  by  baptism  only,  but 
by  baptism  and  birth.  His  birth,  His  baptism,  and 
the  Holy  Spirit  at  both  of  them,  were  the  three 
Witnesses  testifying  to  the  one  truth  (ets  rb  '4v, 
v.  8).  viz.  that  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God  (v.  5). 

V.  Baptism  of  the  Disciples  'of  Christ.  —  Whether 
our  Lord  ever  baptized  has  been  doubted.  The  only 
passage  vVhich  may  distinctly  bear  on  the  question 
is  John  iv.  1,  2,  Where  it  is  said  "  that  Jesus  made 
and  baptized  more  disciples  than  John,  though 
Jesus  Himself  baptized  not,  but  His  disciples." 
We  necessarily  infer  from  it,  that,  as  soon  as  our 
Lord  began  His  ministry,  and  gathered  to  Him  a 
company  of  disciples,  He,  like  John  the  Baptist, 
admitted  into  that  company  by  the  administration 
of  baptism.  Normally,  however,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  the  administration  of  baptism  was  by  the 
hatida  of  His  disciples.  Some  suppose  that  the  first- 
called  disciples  had  all  received  baptism  al  the  hands 
of  John  the  Baptist,  as  must  have  pretty  certainly 
been  the  case  with  Andrew  (see  John  i.  35,  37,  40)  , 
and  that  they  were  not  again  baptized  with  water 
after  they  joined  the  company  of  Christ.  Others 
believe  .that  Christ  Himself  baptized  some  few  of 
His  earlier  disciples,  who  were  afterwards  authorised 
to  baptize  the  rest.  But  in  acj-  case  the  words 
above  cited  seem  to  show  that  the  making  disciples 
and  the  baptizing  them  went  together  ;  and  that 
baptism  Was,  even  during  our  Lord's  earthly 
ministry,  the  formal  m6de  'of  accepting  His  service 
and  becoming  attached  to  His  company. 

After  the  resurrection,  when  the  Church  was  to 
be  spread  and  the  Gospel  preached,  our  Lord's  'Own 
commission  conjoins  the  making  of  disciples  With 
their  baptism.  The  command,  "  Make  disciples  o! 
all  nations  by  baptizing  them"  (Matt,  xxviii.  19), 
is  merely  the  extension  of  His  own  practic'e 
"  Jesus  made  disciples  and  baptized  them  "  (John 
iv.  l).d  The  conduct  of  the  Apostles  is  the  plainest 


d  Maflr/TeiWre    Trdvra    To.    eflw?    pairTi^ovTes   aiiTOOf 
(Matt,  xxviii.  19),   compared   with  w.o.0»jTas   not«v  fcci 
(John  iv.  1). 


BAPTISM 

comment  on  both ;  for  so  soon  as  ever  men,  con- ' 
rinced  by  their  preacnmg,  asked  for  guidance  and 
direction,  their  first  exhortation  was  to  repentance 
and  baptism,  that  thus  the  convert  should  be  at 
once  publicly  received  into  the  fold  of  Christ  (see 
Acts  ii.  38,  viii.  12,  36,  ix.  18,  x.  47,  xvi.  15, 
33,  &c.). 

Baptism  then  was  the  initiatory  rite  of  the 
Christian  Church,  as  circumcision  was  the  ini 
tiatory  rite  of  Judaism.  The  contrast  between 
them  is  plain:  the  one  was  a  painful  and  dan 
gerous,  the  other  is  a  simple  and  salutary  rite. 
Circumcision  seemed  a  suitable  entrance  upon  a  re 
ligion  which  was  a  yoke  of  bondage ;  baptism  is  a 
natural  introduction  to  a  law  of  liberty  ;  and  as  it 
was  light  and  easy,  like  the  yoke  of  Christ,  so  was 
it  comprehensive  and  expansive.  The  command 
was  unlimited,  "  Make  disciples  of  all  nations  by 
baptizing  them."  The  arms  of  mercy  were  ex 
tended  to  receive  the  world.  The  "  Desire  of  all 
nations"  called  all  nations  to  accept  His  service. 
Baptism  therefore  was  a  witness  to  Christ's  re 
ception  of  all  men — to  God's  love  for  all  His 
creatures.  But  again,  as  circumcision  admitted  to 
the  Jewish  covenant — to  the  privileges  and  the  re 
sponsibility  attaching  to  that  covenant,  so  bap 
tism,  which  succeeded  it,  was  the  mode  of  admis 
sion  to  the  Christian  covenant,  to  its  graces  and 
privileges,  to  its  duties  and  service.  It  was  to  be 
the  formal  taking  up  of  the  yoke  of  Christ,  the 
accepting  of  the  promises  of  Christ.  The  baptized 
convert  becam'e  a  Christian  as  the  circumcised  con 
vert  had  become  a  Jew ;  and  as  the  circumcised 
convert  had  contracted  an  obligation  to  obey  all  the 
ordinances  of  Moses,  but  therewith  a  share  in  all 
the  promises  to  the  seed  of  Abraham,  so  the  bap 
tized  convert,  while  contracting  all  the  responsi 
bility  of  Christ's  service,  had  a  share  too  in  all  the 
promises  of  God  in  Christ. 

It  is  obviously  difficult  to  draw  out  the  teaching 
of  the  New  Testament  on  the  rite  of  baptism  and 
•its  significance,  without  approaching  too  near  to 
the  regions  of  controversy.  We  shall  endeavour 
therefore  merely  to  classify  the  passages  which  refer 
to  it,  and  to  exhibit  them  in  their  simplest  form, 
and  to  let  them  speak  their  own  language. 

VI.  The  Types  of  Baptism. — 1.  St.  Peter  (1  Pet. 
lii.  21)  compares  the  deliverance  of  Noah  in  the 
Deluge  to  the  deliverance  of  Christians  in  baptism. 
The  passage  is  not  without  considerable  difficulty, 
though  its  general  sense  is  pretty  readily  apparent. 
The  Apostle  had  been  speaking  of  those  who  had 
perished  "  in  the  days  of  Noah  when  the  ark  was 
a-prepariug,  in  which  few,  that  is  eight  souls,  were 
saved  bv  water."  According  to  the  A.  V.,  he  goes 
on,  "  The  like  figure  whereunto  baptism  doth  now 
save  us."  The  Greek,  in  the  best  MSS.,  is  *O 
T)pas  avTiTVirov  vvv  (Tc6£ 
Grotius  well  expounds  uurirvtrov  by 
"  accurately  corresponding."  The  difficulty  is  in 
the  relative  '6.  There  is  no  antecedent  to  which 
can  refer  except  vSaros;  "  water ;"  and  it  seems 
as  if  0dirTi<r/j.a  must  be  put  in  apposition  with  fc, 
and  as  in  explanation  of  it.  Noah  and  his  company 
were  saved  by  water,  "  which  water  also,  that  is 
the  water  of  baptism,  correspondingly  saves  us." 


BAPTISM  Ixxxix 

Kven  if  the  reading  were  <£,  it  would  most  naturally 
refer  to  the  preceding  iftaros.  Certainly  it  coulc! 
not  refer  to  Kifiarov,  which  is  feminine.  We  must 
then  probably  interpret,  that,  though  water  was 
the  instrument  for  destroying  the  clsobedient,  il 
was  yet  the  instrument  ordained  of  G«*i  for  floating 
the  ark,  and  so  for  saving  Noah  anc  his  family . 
and  it  is  in  correspondence  with  this  that  water 
also,  viz.  the  water  of  baptism,  saVes  Christians 
Augustine,  commenting  on  these  words,  writes  that 
"  the  events  in  the  days  of  Noah  were  a  figure  of 
things  to  come,  so  that  they  who  believe  not  the 
Gospel,  when  the  Church  is  building,  may  be  con 
sidered  as  like  those  who  believed  not  when  the  ark 
was  preparing ;  whilst  those  who  have  believed  and 
are  baptized  (i.  e.  are  saved  by  baptism)  may  be 
compared  to  those  who  were  formerly  saved  in  the 
ark  by  water"  (Epist.  164,  torn.  ii.  p.  579). 
"  The  building  of  the  ark,"  he  says  again,  "  was  a 
kind  of  preaching."  "  The  waters  of  the  Deluge 
presignified  baptism  to  those  who  believed — punish 
ment  to  the  unbelieving"  (/6.). 

It  would  be  impossible  to  give  any  definite  ex 
planation  of  the  words,  "  baptism  doth  save  us," 
without  either  expressing  a  theological  opinion  or 
exhibiting  in  detail  different  sentiments.  The 
Apostle,  however,  gives  a  caution  which  no  doubt 
itself  may  have  need  of  an  interpreter,  when  he 
adds,  "  not  the  putting  away  the  filth  of  the  flesh, 
but  the  answer  (eire/^TTjjUa)  of  a  good  conscience 
towai-ds  God."  And  probably  all  will  agree  that 
he  intended  here  to  warn  us  against  resting  on  the 
outward  administration  of  a  sacrament,  with  no 
corresponding  preparation  of  the  conscience  and  the 
soul.  The  connexion  in  this  passage  between  bap 
tism  and  "  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ "  may 
be  compared  with  Col.  ii.  12. 

2.  In  1  Cor.  x.  1,  2,  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea 
and  the  shadowing  of  the  miraculous  cloud  are 
treated  as  types  of  baptism.  In  all  the  early  part 
of  this  chapter  the  wanderings  of  Israel  in  the 
wilderness  are  put  in  comparison  with  the  life  of 
the  Christian.  The  being  under  the  cloud  and  the 
passing  through  the  sea  resemble  baptism ;  eating 
manna  and  drinking  of  the  rock  are  as  the  spiritual 
food  which  feeds  the  Church ;  and  the  different 
temptations,  sins,  and  punishments  of  the  Israelites 
on  their  journey  to  Canaan  are  held  up  as  a  warning 
to  the  Corinthian  Chui'ch.  It  app'ears  that  the 
Rabbins  themselves  speak  of  a  baptism  in  the  cloud 
(see  Wetstein  in  A.  /.,  who  quotes  Pirke  R.  Eliezer, 
44 ;  see  also  Schoettgen  in  A.  /.).  The  passage  from 
the  condition  of  boridhien  in  Egypt  was  through  the 
Red  Sea,  and  with  the  protection  of  the  luminous 
cloud.  When  the  sea  was  passed,  the  people  were 
no  longer  subjects  of  Pharaoh :  but  were,  under  the 
guidance  of  Moses,  forming  into  a  new  common 
wealth,  and  on  their  way  to  the  promised  land.  It 
is  sufficiently  apparent  how  this  may  resemble  the 
enlisting  t  of  a  new  convert  into  the  body  of  the 
Christian  Church,  his  being  placed  in  a  new  rela 
tion,  under  a  new  condition,  in  a  spiritual  common' 
wealth,  with  a  vay  before  him  to  a  better  country, 
though  surrounded  with  dangers,  subject  to  tempta 
tions,  and  with  enemies  on  all  sides  to  encounter  in 
his  progress.6 


•  The  Fathers  consider  the  baptism  of  the  sea  arid  the 
cloud  to  be  so  a,  type  of  baptism,  that  the  sea  represented  the 
water,  and  the  cloud  represented  the  Spirit.  (Greg.  Naz. 
Orat.  xxxix.  p.  634  :  e£a7rn.<re  Ma>i)<r>js,  aAA.'  ei/  vSan, 
eai  >rpb  rovrov  iv  i>e<j>t\r)  *&!  iv  Oa\d<r<rr),  TVTTIKJOS  Se 


l-  rj  0aAao-<ra  TOW  {Joarot 
See  Suicer,  s.  v.  £airrio>aO 


rj  i/e</>e'Arj  TOV  HvevpaTos. 
Eis  rbv  Mft><r>)p  is,  according  to  some,  by  the  ministry  of 
MC&CS  ;  or,  according  to  others,  under  the  guidance  of  Mosca 
(as  Chrysost.,  Theophylact,  and  others,  in  h.  I.).  Mou 


KG  BAPTISM 

3.  Another  tvpe  of,  or  rather  a  rite  analogous  to, 
baptism  was  ci'rcumcision.     St.  Paul  (Col.  ii.  11) 
ppeaks  of  the  Colossian  Christians  as  having  been 
circumcised    with   a   circumcision    made   without 
hands,  when  they  were  buried  with  Christ  in  bap 
tism,  in  which  they  were  also  raised  again  with 

ai/T(p  fv  ro3  ftaiTTLO'iJi.aTi.  "  The  aorist  parti 
ciple,  as  so  often,  is  contemporary  with  the  pre 
ceding  past  verb." — Alford  in  h.  I.}.  The  obvious 
reason  tor  the  comparison  of  the  two  rites  is,  that 
circumcision  was  the  entrance  to  the  Jewish  Church 
and  the  ancient  covenant,  baptism  to  the  Christian 
Church  and  to  the  new  covenant;  and  perhaps  also, 
that  the  spiritual  significance  of  circumcision  had  a 
resemblance  to  the  spiritual  import  of  baptism,  viz. 
"  the  putting  off  the  body  of  the  sins  of  the  flesh," 
t\nd  the  purification  of  the  heart  by  the  grace  of 
God.  St.  Paul  therefore  calls  baptism  the  circum 
cision  made  without  hands,  and  speaks  of  the 
putting  off  of  thft  sins  of  the  flesh  by  Christian 
circumcision  (ei/  ry  Trepfro/jLij  TOV  XpiffTOv),  i.  e. 
by  baptism. 

4.  Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject  we 
ought  perhaps  to  observe  that  in  more  than  one 
instance  death  is  called  a  baptism.     In  Matt.  xx. 
22,  Mark  x.  29,  our  Lord  speaks  of  the  cup  which 
He  had  to  drink,  and  the  baptism  that  He  was  to 
De  baptized  with  ;  and  again  in  Luke  xii.  50,  "  I 
have  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  with."     It  is  gene 
rally  thought  that  baptism  here  mean.s  an  inunda 
tion  of  sorrows ;  that,  as  the  baptized  went  down 
into  the  waters,  and  water  was  to  be  poured  over 
him,  so  our  Lord  meant  to  indicate  that  He  Him 
self  had   to  pass    through   "  the  deep   waters    of 
affliction"  (see  Kuinoel  on  Matt.  xx.  22  ;  Schleusner, 
s.v.  $airTi£(a).    "  To  baptize"  was  used  as  synony 
mous  with  "  to  overwhelm  ;"  and  accordingly  in 
after  times   martyrdom  was   called   a  baptism  of 
blood.      But  the   metaphor  in  this  latter   case  is 
evidently  different ;   and  in  the  above  words  of  our 
Lord  baptism    is   used  without  any  qualification, 
whereas  in  passages  adduced  from  profane  authors 
we   always  find  some   words   explanatory  of  the 
mode  of  the  immersion.'     Is  it  not  then  probable 
that  some  deeper  significance  attaches  to  the  com 
parison  of  death,  especially  of  our  Lord's  death,  to 
baptism,  when  we  consider  too  that  the  connexion 
of  baptism   with   the   death   and   resurrection   of 
Christ  is  so  much  insisted  on  by  St.  Paul  ?     (See 
below.) 

VII.  Names  of  Baptism. — From  the  types  of 
baptism  referred  to  in  the  New  Testament,  we  may 
perhaps  pass  to  the  various  names  by  which  bap 
tism  seems  to  be  there  designated. 

1.  "Baptism"  (£a7rTto>ia :  the  word  fiainiff- 
uos  occurs  only  three  times,  viz.,  Mark  vii.  8  ;  Heb. 
vi.  2,  ix.  10).  The  verb  fiaiTTi^iv  (from  fiair- 
Ttiv,  to  dip)  is  the  rendering  of  ^2tD  by  the  LXX. 
in  2  K.  v.  14  ;  and  accordingly  the  Rabbins  usod 
H^IID  for  jSaTTTitr/ia.  The  Latin  Fathers  render 
fiaTCTi&iv  by  tingere  (e.  g.  Tertull.  adv.  Prax.  c. 
26,  "  Novissime  mandavit  ut  tingerent  in  Patrem 
Filium  et  Spiritum  Sanctum  ") ;  by  mergcre  (as 
Ambros.  De  Sacramentis,  lib.  ii.  c.  7,  "  Interro- 


f\  ainly,  however,  and  in  the  opinion  of  the  most  weighty 
commentators,  both  ancient  and  modern,  it  means  "  into 
the  religion  and  law  of  Moses,"  who  was  the  mediator  of 
tho  old  Covenant.  "  Baptized  into  Moses,"  therefore,  is 


iMitithetical   to   the  expression, 
Rom,  vi.  3,  Gal.  iii.  27. 


Baptized  into  Christ 


BAPTISM 

gatus  es,  Credis  in  Dcum  Patrem  Omnipotenteta  • 
Dixisti  Credo;  et  mcrsisti,  hoc  est  sepultus  es")$ 
by  mergitare  fas  Tertullian,  De  Corona  Militis,  c 
3,  "  Dehinc  ter  mergitamur ") ;  see  Suicer,  s.v 
avaSvoo.  By  the  Greek  Fathers,  the  word  )3a7rrf. 
£tiv  is  often  used  frequently  figuratively,  for  to 
immerse  or  overwhelm  with  sleep,  sorrow,  sin,  &c. 
Thus  virb  yueflrjs  jSoirrt^yueros  eis  vrcvov,  buried 
in  sleep  through  drunkenness.  So  ju.vpicus  fiaini- 
£6/j.evos  <pp6isTtcriv,  absorbed  in  thought  (Chry- 
sost.).  TCUS  fiapvTa.TO.is  a/J-apriais  /3ej8a7mc- 
fjLevoi,  overwhelmed  with  sin  (Justin  M.).  See 
Suicer,  s.  v.  /SOTTTI^CO.  Hence  fianTiffna  properly 
and  literally  means  immersion*. 

2.  "  The  Water"   (rb  tfSwp)  is  a  name  of  bap 
tism  which  occurs  in  Acts  x.  47.     After  St.  Peter's 
discourse,  the  Holy  Spirit  came  visibly  on  Cornelius 
and  his  company ;  and  the  Apostle  asked,  "  Can 
any  man  forbid  the  water,  that  these  should  not  be 
baptized,  who  have  received  the  Holy  Ghost?"     In 
ordinary  cases  the  water  had  been  first  adminis 
tered,  after  that  the  Apostles  laid  on  their  hands, 
and  then  the  Spirit  was  given.    But  here  the  Spirit 
had  corne  down  manifestly,  before  the  administra 
tion  of  baptism ;  and  St.  Peter  argued,  that  no  one 
could  then  reasonably  withhold  baptism  (calling  it 
"the   water")    from    those  who  had   visibly   re 
ceived   that  of  which  baptism  was   the  sign  and 
seal.     With  this  phrase,  rb   vSwp,  "  the  water," 
used  of  baptism,  compare  "  the  breaking  of  bread  " 
as  a  title  of  the  Eucharist,  Acts  ii.  42. 

3.  "  The  Washing  of  Water"  (rb  Aourpbi/  rov 
vSctTos,    "the   bath   of  the  water"),   is   another 
Scriptural   term,   by  which   baptism   is   signified. 
It  occurs  Eph.  v.  26.     The  whole  pissage  runs, 
"  Husbands  love  your  own  wives,  as  Christ  also 
loved  the  Church  and  gave  Himself  for  it,  that  He 
might  sanctify  and  cleanse  it  by  the  -washing  of 
water  with  the  word"  (^Iva  OLVT^V  ay  taffy  KaOa- 
piffas  T<?  \ovTp$  TOV  vSaTos  cv  pTi/j-ari,  "  that  He 
might  sanctify  it,  having  purified  it  by  the  [well, 
known]  laver  of  the  water  in  the  word,"  Ellicott). 
There  appears  clearly  in  these  words  a  reference  to 
the  bridal  bath;   but  the  allusion  to  baptism  is 
clearer  still,  baptism  of  which  the  bridal  bath  was 
an  emblem,  a  type  or  mystery,  signifying;  to  us  the 
spiritual    union    betwixt  Christ  and  His  Church. 
And  as  the  bride  was  wont  to  bathe  before  being 
presented  to  the   bridegroom,  so  washing  in   the 
water  is  that  initiatory  rite  by  which  the  Christian 
Church  is  betrothed  to  the  Bridegroom,  Christ. 

There  is  some  difficulty  in  the  construction  and 
interpretation  of  the  qualifying  words,  cV  p-finart, 
w  by  'the  word."  According  to  the  more  ancient 
interpretation  they  would  indicate,  that  the  out 
ward  rite  of  washing  and  bathing  is  insufficient  and 
unavailing,  without  the  added  potency  of  the.  Word 
of  God  (comp.  1  Pet.  iii.  21,  "Not  the  putting 
away  the  filth  of  the  flesh,"  &c.)  ;  and  as  the  \ovrpbv 
rov  vSaTOS  had  reference  to  the  bridal  bath,  so 
there  might  be  an  allusion  to  the  words  of  be 
trothal.  The  bridal  bath  and  the  words  of  be 
trothal  typified  the  water  and  the  words  of  baptism. 
On  the  doctrine  so  expressed  the  language  of  Au 
gustine  is  famous:  "  Detrahe  verbum,  et  quid  est 


f  As, "  His  mersere  malis."— VIKG.  Aen.  vi.  512. 

Tfl  <7VM<J>op<f  Pepcarrurnevov.— HELIODOR.  Aethiop.  ii.  a 
g  It  is  unquestionable,  however,  that  in  Mark  vii.  4 
/3a7rTt£e<r0ai  is  used,  where  immersion  of  the  whole  bod? 
Is  not  intended.    See  Lightfoot,  in  IK. 


BAPTISM 

tqua  nisi  aqua?  Accedit  verbum  ad  elementum,  et 
fit  sacramentum  "  (Tract.  80  in  fohar,).  Vet  the 
general  use  of  prj/j.a  in  the  New  Testament  and 
the  grammatical  construction  of  the  passage  seem 
to  favour  the  opinion,  that  the  Word  of  God  preached 
to  the  Church,  rather  than  the  words  made  use  of 
in  baptism,  is  that  accompaniment  of  the  laver, 
without  which  it  would  be  imperfect  (see  Ellicott, 
ad  h.  /.).  ' 

4.  "The  washing  of  regeneration"  (\ovrpbv 
iraXiyyeveffias,  "  the  bath  of  regeneration  ")  is  a 
phrase  naturally  connected  with  the  foregoing.  It 
occurs  Tit.  iii.  5.  All  ancient  and  most  modern 
commentators  have  interpreted  it  of  baptism.  Con 
troversy  has  made  some  persons  unwilling  to  admit 
this  interpretation  ;  but  the  question  probably  should 
be,  not  as  to  the  significance  of  the  phrase,  but  as 
to  the  degree  of  importance  attached  in  the  words 
of  the  Apostle  to  that  which  the  phrase  indicates. 
Thus  Calvin  held  that  the  "  bath  "  meant  bap 
tism  ;  but  he  explained  its  occurrence  in  this  context 
by  saying,  that  "  Baptism  is  to  v.s  the  s.iai  of  sal 
vation  which  Christ  hath  cbtair.ed  for  us."  The 
current  of  the  Apostle's  reasoning  is  this.  He  tells 
Titus  to  exhort  the  Christians  of  Crete  to  be  sub 
missive  to  authority,  showing  all  meekness  to  all 
men  :  "  for  we  ourselves  were  once  foolish,  erring, 
serving  our  own  lusts ;  but  when  the  kindness  of 
God  our  Saviour  and  His  love  toward  man  appeared, 
not  by  works  of  righteousness  which  we  performed, 
but  according  to  His  own  mercy  He  saved  us,  by 
(through  the  instrumentality  of)  the  bath  of  rege 
neration,  and  the  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost  (5t& 
\ovrpov  iraXiyyevearids  Kal  aj'cwcajj/cJja'ews  Tlvev- 
UO.TOS  07101;),  which  He  shed  on  us  abundantly 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour,  that,  being  justi 
fied  by  His  grace,  we  might  be  made  heirs  of  eter 
nal  life  through  hope  (or  according  to  hope,  /car' 
eA/7ri8a)."  The  argument  is,  that  Christians  should 
be  kind  to  all  men,  remembering  that  they  them 
selves  had  been  formerly  disobedient,  but  that  by 
God's  free  mercy  in  Christ  they  had  been  trans 
planted  into  a  better  state,  even  a  state  of  salvation 
(effcixTfv  rj/nas^)  ;  and  that  by  means  of  the  bath  of 
regeneration  and  the  renewal  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
If,  according  to  the  more  ancient  and  common  in 
terpretation,  the  laver  means  baptism,  the  whole 
will  seem  pertinent.  Christians  are  placed  in  a  new 
condition,  made  members  of  the  Church  of  Christ, 
by  baptism,  and  they  are  renewed  in  the  spirit  of 
their  minds  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  One  question  na 
turally  arises  in  this  passage.  Does  avaKaivdixr 
depend  on  \ovrpov,  or  on  Sici?  If  we  adopt  the 
opinion  of  those  who  make  it,  with  irafayyevecri 
dependent  on  \ovrpov,  which  is  the  rendering  oi 
the  Vulgate,  we  must  understand  that  the  renewal 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  a  grace  corresponding  with, 
and  closely  allied  to,  that  of  regeneration,  and  so 
immediately  coupled  with  it.  But  it  seems  the 
more  natural  construction  to  refer  avaKaivcaff 
II.  'A.  to  Sid,  if  it  were  only  that  the  relative, 
which  connects  with  the  verse  following,  belongs  o 
necessity  to  TLvev/j,aTos.  Dean  Alford,  adopting 
the  latter  construction,  refers  the  "washing"  to 
the  layer  of  baptism,  and  the  "renewing"  to  the 
actual  effect,  that  inward  and  spiritual  grace  01 
which  the  laver  is  but  the  outward  and  visible 
sign.  Yet  it  is  to  be  considered,  whether  it  be  not 
novel  and  unknown  in  Scripture  or  theology,  to 
speak  of  renewal  as  the  spiritual  grace,  or  thing 
signified,  in  baptism.  There  is  confessedly  a  con- 
uexion  between  baptism  and  regeneration,  whatevei 


BAPTISM  xal 

,hat  connexion  may  be.  But  "  the  renewal  of  the 
Holy  Ghost"  has  been  mostly  in  the  language  o< 
theologians  (is  it  not  also  in  the  language  of  Scrip 
iure?)  treated  as  a  farther,  perhaps  a  more  gradual 
process  in  the  work  of  grace,  than  the  first  breath 
ing  into  the  soul  of  spiritual  life,  called  regenera 
tion  or  new  birth. 

There  is  so  much  resemblance,  both  in  the 
phraseology  and  in  the  argument,  between  this 
passage  in  Titus  and  1  Cor.  vi.  11,  that  the  latter 
ought  by  all  means  to  be  compared  with  the  former. 
St.  Paul  tells  the  Corinthians,  that  in  their  heathen 
state  they  had  been  stained  with  heathen  vices ; 
"  but,"  he  adds,  "  ye  were  washed  "  (lit.  ye  washed 
or  bathed  yourselves,  direAoufrcwflc),  "  but  ye  were 
sanctified,  but  ye  were  justified  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  by  the  Spirit  of  our  God." 
It  is  generally  believed  that  here  is  an  allusion  to 
the  being  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ;  though  some  connect  "sanctified"  and 
"  justified,"  as  well  as  "  washed,"  with  the  words 
in  the  name,"  &c.  (see  Stanley,  in  foe.).  But, 
however  this  may  be,  the  reference  to  baptism 
seems  unquestionable. 

Another  passage  containing  very  similar  thoughts, 
clothed  in 'almost  the  same  words,  is  Acts  xxii.  16, 
where  Ananias  says  to  Saul  of  Tarsus,  "  Arise,  and 
be  baptized,  and  wash  away  thy  sins,  calling  upon 
the  name  of  the  Lord"  (dvaffras  /3c£im<rai  «al 
a.Tr6\ovffai  ras  aftaprtas  ffov,  eVi/caAftrajuej'os  -rb 
ovofj-a  avrov).  See  by  all  means  Calvin's  Com 
mentary  on  this  passage. 

5.  "Illumination"  (^co-no'/uJs).  It  has  been 
much  questioned  whether  (ptari^fffQai  "  enlight 
ened,"  in  Heb.  vi.  4,  x.  32,  be  used  of  baptism  or 
not.  Justin  M.,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  almos 
all  the  Greek  Fathers,  use  (pcarur^s  as  a  synonym 
for  baptism.  The  Syriac  version,  the  most  ancient 
in  existence,  gives  this  sense  to  the  word  in  both  the 
passages  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Chry- 
sostom,  Theodoret,  Theophylact,  and  other  Greek 
commentators  so  interpret  it ;  and  they  are  followed 
by  Ernesti,  Michaelis,  and  many  modern  inter 
preters  of  the  highest  authority  (Wetstein  cites 
from  Orac.  Sibyll.  i.  CSart  fwrlfc04aO<  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  now  very  commonly  alleged,  that 
the  use  is  entirely  ecclesiastical,  not  Scriptural,  and 
that  it  arose  from  the  undue  esteem  for  baptism  in 
the  primitive  Church.  '  It  is  impossible  to  enter 
into  all  the  meiits  of  the  question  here.  If  the 
usage  be  Scriptural,  it  is  to  be  found  only  in  the 
two  passages  in  Hebrews  above  mentioned;  but  it 
may  perhaps  correspond  with  other  figures  and  ex 
pressions  in  the  New  Testament.  The  patristic  use 
of  the  word  may  be  seen  by  referring  to  Suicer 
s.  v.  <t>(0Tio-(ji.6s,  and  to  Bingham,  E.  A.  Bk.  xi.  ch. 
i.  §  4.  The  rationale  of  the  name  according  to 
Justin  Martyr  is,  that,  the  catechumens  before  ad 
mission  to  baptism  were  instructed  in  all  the  prin. 
cipal  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  hence 
"this  laver  is  called  illumination,  because  those 
who  learn  these  things  are  illuminated  in  their 
understanding"  (Apol.  ii.  p.  94).  But,  if  this 
word  be  used  in  the  sense  of  baptism  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  as  we  have  no  mention  of  any 
training  of  catechumens  in  the  New  Testament,  we 
must  probably  seek  for  a  different  explanation  ol 
its  origin.  It  will  be  remembered  that  <J>«Ta- 
y<ayia" was  a  term  for  admission  into  the  ancient 
mysteries.  Baptism  was  without  question  the  ini 
tiatory  rite  iu  reference  to  the  Christian  faith  (<:f. 
rpi'cc  jSoTTTirrjiiaTa  ^uar  /ii^few?,  Can.  Apost.  i.^ 


y_cii 


BAPTISM 


Now,  that  Ciir  istian  faith  is  more  tnan  once  called  by 
St.  Paul  the  Christian  "  mystery."  The  "  mystery 
of  God's  will"  (Eph.  i.  9),  "the  mystery  o 
Christ"  (Col.  iv.  3;  Eph.  iii.  4),  "  the  mystery  o 
the  Gospel"  (Eph.  vi.  19),  and  other  like  phrases 
are  common  in  his  epistles.  A  Greek  could  hardly 
fail  to  be  reminded  by  such  language  of  the  reli 
gious  mysteries  of  his  own  former  heathenism. 
But,  moreover,  seeing  that  "  in  Him  are  hid  all 
the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge,"  it  seems 
highly  probable,  that  in  three  memorable  passages 
St.  Paul  speaks,  not  merely  of  the  Gospel  or  the 
faith,  but  of  Christ  Himself,  as  the  great  Mystery 
of  God  or  of  godliness.  (1)  In  Col.  i.  27  we  re 
"  the  glory  of  this  mystery,  which  is  Christ  in 
you,"  rov  uvar-npiov  TOUTOU,  '6s  fffnv  Xpio~rbs 
eV  vptv.  (2)  In  Col.  ii.  2,  Lachmann,  Tregelles, 
and  Ellicott,  as  we  think  on  good  grounds,  adopt 
the  reading  rov  /iucTTTjpiou  rov  9eoS,  Xpurrov, 
rightly  compared  by  Bp.  Ellicott  with  the  pre 
ceding  passage  occurring  only  four  verses  before  it, 
and  interpreted  by  him,  "  the  mystery  of  God, 
even  Christ."  (3)  And  it  deserves  to  be  carefully 
considered,  whether  the  above  usage  in  Colossians 
does  not  suggest  a  clear  exposition  of  i  Tim.  iii.  16, 
rb  TTJS  eu<re)8et'as  /j.vffr'fjpiov  t>s  €(pavfp(&0ri  K.T.\. 
For,  if  Christ  be  the  "  Mystery  of  God,"  He  may 
well  be  called  also  the  "  Mystery  of  godliness ;" 
and  the  masculine  relative  is  then  easily  intelli 
gible,  as  being  referred  to  Xpiffr6s  understood  and 
implied  in  fivffr^piov :  for,  in  the  words  of  Hilary 
"  Deus  Christus  est  Sacramentum." 

But,  if  all  this  be  true ;  as  baptism  is  the 
initiatory  Christian  rite,  admitting  us  to  the  service 
of  God  and  to  the  knowledge  of  Christ,  it  may  not 
improbably  have  been  called  <p(i)Tiff/j.6s,  and  after 
wards  (pwrayuyia,  as  having  reference,  and  as  ad 
mitting  to  the  mystery  of  the  Gospel,  and  to  Christ 
Himself,  who  is  the  Mystery  of  God. 

VIII. — From  the  names  of  baptism  we  must  now 
pass  to  a  few  of  the  more  prominent  passages,  not 
already  considered,  in  which  baptism  is  referred  to". 

1.  The  passage  in  John  iii.  5 — "  Except  a  man 
be  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter 
into   the    kingdom   of  God " — has   been   a   well- 
established  battle-field  from  the   time  of  Calvin. 
Hooker's  statement,  that  for  the  first  fifteen  cen 
turies  no  one  had  ever  doubted  its  application  to 
baptism,  is  well  known  (see  Eccl.  Pol.  v.  lix.). 
Zuinglius  was  probably  the  first  who  interpreted  it 
otherwise.    Calvin  understood  the  words  "  of  water 
and  bf  the  Spirit"  as  a  eV  5tct  Sue?;',  "  the  washing 
ol-  cleansing  of  the  Spirit"  (or  rather  perhaps  "  by 
the  Spirit"),"  who  cleanses  as  water,"  referring  to 
Matt.  iii.  11   ("  He   shall  baptize  you  with  the 
Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire")  as  a  parallel  usage. 
Sti'er  (  Words  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  in  h.  I.)  observes 
that  Liicke  has  rightly  said  that  we  may  regard 
this  interpretation  by  means  of  a  eV  8ta  Svoiv, 
which  erroneously  appealed  to  Matt.  iii.  11,  as  now 
generally  abandoned.     Stier,  moreover,  quotes  with 
entire  approbation  the  words  of  Meyer  (on  John 
iii.  5) :— "  Jesus  speaks  here  concerning  a  spiritual 
baptism,  as  in  chap.  vi.  concerning  a  spiritual  feed 
ing;    in  both  places,   however,  with  reference  to 
their  visible   auxiliary   means."     That   our   Lord 
probably  adopted  expressions  familiar  to  the  Jews 
to  this  discourse  with  Nicodemus  may  be  seen  by 
reference  to  Lightfoot,  H.  H.  in  loc. 

2.  The  prophecy  of  John  the  Baptist  just  referred 
to,  viz.  that  our  blessed  Lord  should  baptize  with 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire  (Matt.  iii.  11),  may 


BAPTISM 

more  properly  le  interpreted  by  a  e»>  5ta  5,«uV 
Bengel  well  paraphrases  it:—"Spiritus  Sanctus 
quo  Christus  baptizat,  igneam  vim  habet ;  atque 
ea  vis  ignea  etiam  conspicua  fuit  oculis  hominum  " 
(Acts  ii.  3).  The  Fathers,  indeed,  spoke  of  a  three 
fold  baptism  with  fire :  first,  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in 
the  shape  of  fiery  tongues  at  Pentecost ;  secondly 
of  the  fiery  trial  of  affliction  and  temptation  (1  Pet 
i.  7)  ;  thirdly,  of  the  fire  which  at  the  last  day  is 
to  try  every  man's  works  (1  Cor.  iii.  13).  It  is, 
however,  very  improbable  that  there  is  any  allusion 
to  either  of  the  last  two  in  Matt.  iii.  11.  There  is 
an  antithesis  in  John  the  Baptist's  language  between 
his  own  lower  mission  and  the  Divine  authority  of 
the  Saviour.  John  baptized  with  a  mere  earthly 
element,  teaching  men  to  repent,  and  pointing  them 
to  Christ ;  but  He  that  should  come  after,  6  tpxo- 
fjievos,  was  empowered  to  baptize  with  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  with  fire.  The  water  of  John's  baptism 
could  but  wash  the  body ;  the  Holy  Ghost,  with 
which  Christ  was  to  baptize,  should  purify  the  soul 
as  with  fire. 

3.  Gal.  iii.  27:  "For  as  many  as  have  been 
baptized  into  Christ  have  put  on  Christ."  In  the 
whole  of  this  very  important  and  difficult  chapter 
St.  Paul  is  reasoning  on  the  inheritance  by  the 
Church  of  Christ  of  the  promises  made  to  Abraham. 
Christ — i.  e.  Christ  comprehending  His  whole  body 
mystical — is  the  true  seed  of  Abraham,  to  whom 
the  promises  belong  (ver.  16).  The  Law,  which 
came  after,  could  not  disannul  the  promises  thus 
made.  The  Law  was  fit  to  restrain  (or  perhaps 
rather  to  manifest)  transgression  (ver.  23).  The 
Law  acted  as  a  pedagogue,  keeping  us  for,  and 
leading  us  on  to,  Christ,  that  He  might  bestow  on 
us  freedom  and  justification  by  faith  in  Him  (ver. 
24).  But  after  the  coming  of  faith  we  are  no 
longer,  like  young  children,  under  a  pedagogue,  but 
we  are  free,  as  heirs  in  our  Father's  house  (ver.  25 ; 
comp.  ch.  iv.  1-5).  "  For  ye  all  are  God's  sons 
(filii  emancipati,  not  -jratSes,  but  viol,  Bengel  and 
Ellicott)  through  the  faith  in  Christ  Jesus.  For 
as  many  as  have  been  baptized  into  Christ,  have 
put  on  (clothed  yourselves  in)  Christ  (see  Schoett- 
£en  on  Rom.  xiii.  14).  In  Him  is  neither  Jew  nor 
Greek,  neither  bond  nor  free,  neither  male  nor 
female ;  for  all  ye  are  one  in  Christ  Jesus "  (ver. 
26-28).  The  argument  is  plain.  All  Christians 
are  God's  sons  through  union  with  the  Only- 
Degotteu.  Before  the  faith  in  Him  came  into  the 
world,  men  were  held  under  the  tutelage  of  the 
aw,  like  children,  kept  as  in  a  state  of  bondage 
under  a  pedagogue.  But  after  the  preaching  of 
the  faith,  all  who  are  baptized  into  Christ  clothe 
themselves  in  Him ;  so  they  are  esteemed  as  adult 
sons  of  His  Father,  and  by  faith  in  Him  they  may 

justified  from  their  sins,  from  which  the  Law 
could  not  justify  them  (Acts  xiii.  37).  The  con 
trast  is  between  the  Christian  and  the  Jewish 
church :  one  bond,  the  other  free ;  one  infant,  the 
?ther  adult.  And  the  transition-point  is  naturally 
.hat  when  by  baptism  the  service  of  Christ  is 
undertaken  and  the  promises  of  the  Gospel  are 
claimed.  This  is  represented  as  putting  on  Christ 
and  in  Him  assuming  the  position  of  full-grown 
men.  In  this  more  privileged  condition  there  is 
ihe  power  of  obtaining  justification  by  faith,  a 
ustification  which  the  Law  had  net  to  offer. 

4.  1  Cor.  xii.  13:  "  For  by  one  Spirit  (or  in  one 
pirit,  fv  kvl  Tri/ey/AOTt)  we  were  all  baptized  into 
>ne  body,  whether  Jews  or  Greeks,  whether  bond 
>r  free,  and  were  all  made  to  drink  of  one  Spirit.*' 


BAPTISM 

The  resemblance  of  this  passage  to  the  last  is  very 
clear.  In  the  old  dispensation  there  was  a  marked 
division  between  Jew  and  Gentile :  under  the  Gospel 
there  is  one  body  in  Christ.  As  in  Gal.  iii.  16, 
Christ  is  the  seed  (rJ>  <nre'pjua),  so  here  He  is  the 
body  (rb  fr£>/j.a),  into  which  all  Christians  become 
incorporated.  All  distinctions  of  Jew  and  Gentile, 
bond  and  free,  are  abolished.  By  the  grace  of  the 
eame  Spirit  (or  perhaps  "  in  one  spirit "  of  Christian 
love  and  fellowship  (comp.  Eph.  ii.  18),  without 
division  or  separate  interests)  all  are  joined  in 
baptism  to  the  one  body  of  Christ,  His  universal 
church.  Possibly  there  is  an  allusion  to  both 
sacraments.  "  We  were  baptized  into  one  body, 
we  were  made  to  drink  of  one  Spirit"  (%v  Hvevfua 
eiror iarO-n/j-e v:  Lachm.  and  Tisch.  omit  etY).  Both 
our  baptism  and  our  partaking  of  the  cup  in  the 
communion  are  tokens  and  pledges  of  Christian 
unity.  They  mark  our  union  with  the  one  body 
of  Christ,  and  they  are  means  of  grace,  in  which 
we  may  look  for  one  Spirit  to  be  present  with  bless 
ing  (comp.  I  Cor.  x.  3,  17 ;  see  Waterland  on  the 
Eucharist,  ch.  x.,  and  Stanley  on  1  Cor.  xii.  13). 

5.  Rom.  vi.  4  and  Col.  ii.  12  are  so  closely 
parallel  that  we  may  notice  them  together.  As 
the  Apostle  in  the  two  last-considered  passages 
views  baptism  as  a  joining  to  the  mystical  body 
->f  Christ,  so  in  these  two  passages  he  goes  on  to 
speak  of  Christians  in  their  baptism  as  buried  with 
Christ  in  His  death,  and  raised  again  with  Him  in 
flis  resurrection.11  As  the  natural  body  of  Christ 
v/as  laid  in  the  ground  and  then  raised  up  again, 
so  His  mystical  body,  the  Church,  descends  in 
baptism  into  the  waters,  in  which  also  (eV  $, 
sc.  f}airTi(r/j.aTi,  Col.  ii.  12)  it  is  raised  up  again 
with  Christ,  through  "  faith  in  the  mighty  working 
of  God,  who  raised  Him  from  the  dead."  Probably, 
as  in  the  former  passages  St.  Paul  had  brought  for 
ward  baptism  as  the  symbol  of  Christian  unity,  so 
in  those  now  before  us  he  refers  to  it  as  the  token 
and  pledge  of  the  spiritual  death  to  sin  and  resur 
rection  to  righteousness ;  and  moreover  of  the  final 
victory  over  death  in  the  last  day,  through  the 
power  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  It  is  said  that 
it  was  partly  in  reference  to  this  passage  in  Coles- 
sians  that  the  early  Christians  so  generally  used 
trine  immersion,  as  signifying  thereby  the  three 
days  in  which  Christ  lay  in  the  grave  (see  Suicer, 
s.  v.  avaSvca  II.  a). 

IX.  Recipients  of  Baptism. — The  command  to 
baptize  was  coextensive  with  the  command  to  preach 
the  Gospel.  All  nations  were  to  be  evangelized; 
and  they  were  to  be  made  disciples,  admitted  into 
the  fellowship  of  Christ's  religion,  by  baptism 
(Matt,  xxviii.  19).  Whosoever  believed  the  preach 
ing  of  the  Evangelists  was  to  be  baptized,  his  faith 
and  baptism  placing  him  in  a  state  of  salvation 
(Mark  xvi.  16).  On  this  command  the  Apostles 
acted ;  for  the  first  converts  after  the  ascension 
were  enjoined  to  repent  and  be  baptized  (Acts  ii. 
47).  The  Samaritans  who  believed  the  preaching 
of  Philip  were  baptized,  men  and  women  (Acts 
viii.  12).  The  Ethiopian  eunuch,  as  soon  as  he 
professed  his  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  was  baptized 
(Acts  viii.  37,  38).  Lydia  listened  to  the  things 
spoken  by  Paul,  and  was  baptized,  she  and  her 
nouse  (Acts  xvi.  15).  The  jailor  at  Philippi,  the 
very  night  on  which  he  was  convinced  by  the 
earthquake  in  the  prison,  was  baptized,  he  and  all 
his,  straightway  (Acts  xvi.  33), 

fc  "  Mersio  in  baptismale,  vel  certe  aqua  superfvtsa, 
sepolturam  refert"  (Bengel). 


BAPTISM 


xciii 


All  this  appears  to  correspond  with  the  general 
character  of  the  Gospel,  that  it  should  embrace  th« 
world,  and  should  be  freely  offered  to  all  men. 
"  Him  that  cometh  unto  Me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast 
out"  (John  vi.  37).  Like  the  Saviour  Himself, 
Baptism  was  sent  into  the  world  "  not  to  condemn 
the  world,  but  that  the  world  might  be  saved" 
(John  iii.  17).  Every  one  who  was  convinced  by 
the  teaching  of  the  first  preachers  of  the  Gospel, 
and  was  willing  to  enrol  himself  in  the  company 
of  the  disciples,  appears  to  have  been  admitted  to 
baptism  oil  a  confession  of  his  faith.  There  is  no 
distinct  evidence  in  the  New  Testament  that  there 
was  in  those  early  days  a  body  of  catechumens 
gradually  preparing  for  baptism,  such  as  existed  in 
the  ages  immediately  succeeding  the  Apostles,  and 
such  as  every  missionary  church  has  found  it 
necessary  to  institute.  The  Apostles,  indeed,  fre 
quently  insist  on  the  privileges  of  being  admitted 
to  the  fellowship  of  Christ's  Church  in  the  initiatory 
sacrament,  and  on  the  consequent  responsibilities 
of  Christians ;  and  these  are  the  grounds  on  which 
subsequent  ages  have  been  so  careful  in  preparing 
adults  for  baptism.  But  perhaps  the  circumstances 
of  the  Apostles'  age  were  so  peculiar  as  to  account 
for  this  apparent  difference  of  principle.  Conviction 
at  that  time  was  likely  to  be  sudden  and  strong ; 
the  church  was  rapidly  forming ;  the  Apostles  had 
the  gift  of  discerning  spirits.  All  this  led  to  the 
admission  to  baptism  with  but  little  formal  pre 
paration  for  it.  At  all  events  it  is  evident  that 
the  spirit  of  our  Lord's  ordinance  was  compre 
hensive,  not  exclusive ;  that  all  were  invited  to 
come,  and  that  all  who  were  willing  to  come  were 
graciously  received. 

The  great  question  has  been,  whether  the  invita 
tion  extended,  not  to  adults  only,  but  to  infants 
also.  The  universality  of  the  invitation,  Christ's 
declaration  concerning  the  blessedness  of  infants 
and  their  fitness  for  His  kingdom  (Mark  x.  14), 
the  admission  of  infants  to  circumcision  and  to  the 
baptism  of  Jewish  proselytes,  the  mention  of  whole 
households,  and  the  subsequent  practice  of  the 
Church,  have  teen  principally  relied  on  by  the 
advocates  of  infant  baptism.  The  silence  of  the 
New  Testament  concerning  the  baptism  of  infants, 
the  constant  mention  of  faith  as  a  pre-requisite  or 
condition  of  baptism,  the  great  spiritual  blessings 
which  seem  attached  to  a  right  reception  of  it,  and 
the  responsibility  entailed  on  those  who  have  taken 
its  obligations  on  themselves,  seem  the  chief  objec 
tions  urged  against  paedo-baptism.  But  here,  once 
more,  we  must  leave  ground  which  has  been  so 
extensively  occupied  by  controversialists. 

X.  The  Mode  of  Baptism. — The  language  of  the 
New  Testament  and  of  the  primitive  fathers  suffi 
ciently  points  to  immersion  as  the  common  mode 
of  baptism.  John  the  Baptist  baptized  in  the 
river  Jordan  (Matt.  iii.).  Jesus  is  represented  as 
"  coming  up  out  of  the  water "  (dyo/ScuWi/  oirfc 
TOV  vSaros)  after  His  baptism  (Mark  i.  10). 
Again,  John  is  said  to  have  baptized  in  Ae.on 
because  there  was  much  water  there  (John  iii.  2b ; 
see  also  Acts  viii.  36).  The  comparison  of  baptism 
to  burying  and  rising  up  again  (Horn.  vi.  ;  Col.  ii.) 
has  been  already  referred  to  as  probably  derived 
from  the  custom  of  immersion  (see  Suicer,  s.  v. 
avadixa  ;  Schoettgen,  in  Rom.  vi. ;  Vossius,  Dz 
Baptismo,  Diss.  i.  thes.  vi.).  On  the  other  hand, 
it  has  been  noticed  that  the  family  of  the  jailor  at 
Philippi  were  all  baptized  in  the  prison  on  the 
night  or  their  conversion  (Acts  xvi.  33)  an.l  that 


xciv  BAPTISM 

the  three  thousand  converted  at  Pentecost  (Acts  ii.) 
appear  to  have  been  baptized  at  once :  it  being 
hardly  likely  that  in  either  of  these  cases  immersion 
should  have  been  possible.  Moreover  the  ancient 
church,  which  mostly  adopted  immersion,  was 
satisfied  with  affusion  in  case  of  clinical  baptism — 
the  baptism  of  the  sick  and  dying. 

Questions  and  Answers. — In  the  earliest  times  of 
the  Christian  Church  we  find  the  catechumens 
required  to  renounce  the  Devil  (see  Suicer,  s.  v. 
a.TTOTtia'aroiJ.aC)  and  to  profess  their  faith  in  the 
Holy  Trinity  and  in  the  principal  articles  of  the 
Creed  (see  Suicer,  i.  p.  653).  It  is  generally 
supposed  that  St.  Peter  (1  Pet.  iii.  21),  where  he 
speaks  of  the  "  answer  (or  questioning,  eVepcS- 
TTjfio)  of  a  good  conscience  toward  God "  as  an 
important  constituent  of  baptism,  refers  to  a  cus 
tom  of  this  kind  as  existing  from  the  first  (see, 
however,  a  very  different  interpretation  in  Bengelii 
Gnomon).  The  "form  of  sound  words  "  (2  Tim. 
i.  13)  and  the  "good  profession  professed  before 
many  witnesses"  (1  Tim.  vi.  12)  may  very  pro 
bably  have  similar  significance. 

XI.  The  Formula  of  Baptism. — It  should  seem 
from  our  Lord's  own  direction  (Matt,  xxviii.  19) 
that  the  words  made  use  of  in  the  administration 
of  baptism  should  be  those  which  the  Church  has 
generally  retained,  "  I  baptize  thee  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost:"  yet,  wherever  baptism  is  mentioned  in  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  it  is  only  mentioned  as  in 
"  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,"  or  "  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord"  (Acts  ii.  38,  viii.  16,  x.  48,  xix.  5). 
The  custom  of  the  primitive  church,  as  far  as  we 
can  learn  from  the  primitive  Fathers,  was  always 
to  baptize  in  the  names  of  the  three  Persons  of  the 
Trinity  (see  Suicer,  s.  v.  fiairri^ui)  ;  and  there  is 
little  doubt  that  the  expressions  in  the  Book  of 
Acts  mean  only  that  those  who  were  baptized  with 
Christian  baptism  were  baptized  into  the  faith  of 
Christ,  into  the  death  of  Christ,  not  that  the  form1 
of  words  was  different  from  that  enjoined  by  our 
Lord  in  St.  Matthew. 

Sponsors. — There  is  no  mention  of  sponsors  in 
the  N.  T.,  though  there  is  mention  of  the  "  ques 
tioning"  (67repc6TTj/ta).  In  very  early  ages  of 
the  Church  .sponsors  (called  avaSoxoi,  spomores, 
snsceptores)  were  in  use  both  for  children  and 
adults.  The  mention  of  them  first  occurs  in  Ter- 
tullian — for  infants  in  the  De  Baptismo  (c.  18), 
for  adults,  as  is  supposed,  in  the  De  Corona  Militis 
(c.  3 :  "  Inde  suscepti  lactis  et  mellis  concordiam 
praegustamus."  See  Suicer,  s.  v.  dvaSe'xo/icu)- 
In  the  Jewish  baptism  of  proselytes  two  or  three 
sponsors  or  witnesses  were  required  to  be  present 
(see  above,  Lightfoot  on  Matt.  iii.  6).  It  is  so 
improbable  that  the  Jews  should  have  borrowed 
such  a  custom  from  the  Christians,  that  the  coin 
cidence  can  hardly  have  arisen  but  from  the  Chris- 
iians  continuing  the  usages  of  the  Jews. 

XII.  Baptism  for  the  Dead.— I  Cor.  xv.  29. 
u  Else  what  shall  they  do  who  are  baptized  for  the 
itead  (v-jrep  TO>I/  veKpcav},  if  the  dead  rise  not  at 
all  ?  Why  are  they  then  baptized  for  the  dead  "  (or, 
"for  them?"  Lachmann  and  Tisch.  read  avr&v). 
1.  Tertulliaii  tells  us  of  a  custom  of  vicarious 
baptism  (viearium  baptismal)  as  existing  among  the 
Marcionites  (De  Resur.  Carnis,  c.  48  ;  Adv.  Mar- 
don,  lib.  v.  *  10);  and  St.  Chrysostom  relates  of 
the  same  heretics,  that,  when  one  of  their  catechu 
mens  died  without  baptism,  they  used  to  put  a 
living  person  under  the  dead  man's  bed,  and  asked 


BAPTISM 

whether  he  desired  to  be  baptized  ;  tl  e  living  man 
answering  that  he  did,  they  then  baptized  him  IL 
place  of  the  departed  (Chrys.  Horn.  xl.  in  1  Cor. 
xv.).  Epiphanius  relates  a  similar  custom  among 
the  Cerinthians  (Haeres.  xxviii.),  which,  ne  said, 
prevailed  from  fear  that  in  the  resurrection  those 
should  suffer  punishment  who  had  not  been  bap 
tized.  The  Cerinthians  were  a  very  early  sect ;  ac 
cording  to  Irenaeus  (iii.  11),  some  of  their  errors  had 
been  anticipated  by  the  Nicolaitans,  and  St.  John 
is  said  to  have  written  the  early  part  of  his  Gospel 
against  those  errors ;  but  the  Marcionites  did  not 
come  into  existence  till  the  middle  of  the  2nd  cen 
tury.  The  question  naturally  occurs,  Did  St.  Paul 
in  1  Cor.  xv.  29  allude  to  a  custom  of  this  kind, 
which  even  in  his  days  had  begun  to  prevail  among 
heretics  and  ignorant  persons  ?  If  so,  he  no  doubt 
adduced  it,  as  an  argumentum  ad  hominem.  "  If 
the  dead  rise  not  at  all,  what  benefit  do  they  ex 
pect  who  baptize  vicariously  for  the  dead  ?"  The 
very  heretics,  who,  from  their  belief  that  matter 
was  incorrigibly  evil,  denied  the  possibility  of  a 
glorious  resurrection,  yet  showed  by  their  supersti 
tious  practices  that  the  resurrection  was  to  be  ex 
pected;  for,  if  there  be  no  resurrection,  their 
baptism  for  the  dead  would  lose  all  its  significance. 
It  is  truly  said,  that  such  accommodations  to  the 
opinions  of  others  are  not  uncommon  in  the  writings 
of  St.  Paul  (comp.  Gal.  iv.  21-31  ;and  see  Stanley, 
ad  h.  L).  St.  Ambrose  (in  1  ad  Cor.  xv.)  seems  to 
have  acquiesced  in  this  interpretation.  His  words 
are,  "  The  Apostle  adduces  the  example  of  those 
who  were  so  secure  of  the  future  resurrection  that 
they  even  baptized  for  the  dead,  when  by  accident 
death  had  come  unexpectedly,  fearing  that  the 
unbaptized  might  either  not  rise  or  rise  to  evil." 
Perhaps  it  may  be  said,  that  the  greater  number 
of  modern  commentators  have  adopted  this,  as  the 
simplest  and  most  rational  sense  of  the  Apostle's 
words.  And — which  undoubtedly  adds  much  to  the 
probability  that  vicarious  baptism  should  have 
been  very  ancient — we  learn  from  Lightfoot  (on 
1  Cor.  xv.)  that  a  custom  prevailed  among  the 
Jews  of  vicarious  ablution  for  such  as  died  undei 
any  legal  uncleanness. 

It  is,  however,  equally  conceivable,  that  the 
passage  in  St.  Paul  gave  rise  to  the  subsequent 
practice  among  the  Marcionites  and  Cerinthians. 
Misinterpretation  of  Scriptural  passages  has  un 
doubtedly  been  a  fertile  source  of  superstitious  ce 
remony,  which  has  afterwards  been  looked  on  as 
having  resulted  from  early  tradition.  It  is  certain, 
that  the  Greek  Fathers,  who  record  the  custom  in 
question,  wholly  reject  the  notion  that  St.  Paul 
alluded  to  it. 

2.  Chrysostom  believes  the  Apostle  to  refer  to 
the  profession  of  faith  in  baptism,  part  of  which 
was  "  I  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
Tri<rT6t5ft>  eis  veKpwv  avaffTaffiv.  "  In  this  faith," 
he  says,  "  we  are  baptized.  After  confessing  this 
among  other  articles  of  faith,  we  go  down  into  the 
water.  And  reminding  the  Corinthians  of  this, 
St.  Paul  says,  If  there  be  no  resurrection,  why  art 
thou  then  baptized  for  the  dead,  i.  e.  for  the  dead 
bodies  (ri  ical  fra-irvi^g  virep  rwv  veKpwt  ;  TOUT 
ftrrt,  ruv  (Tw^OTwi/)  ?  For  in  this  faith  thou  art 
baptized,  believing  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  * 
(Norn.  xl.  in  1  Cor.  xv. ;  cf,  Horn.  xiii.  in  Epist, 
ad  Corinth.}.  St.  Chrysostom  is  followed,  as  usual, 
by  Theodoret,  Theophylaci,  and  other  Greek  com 
mentators.  Indeed,  he  had  been  anticipated  by 
Tertullian  among  tie  Latins  (Adv.  Marcion.  lib.  v 


BAPTISM 

0.   10),  and    probably  by  Epiphanius  among  the 
Greeks  (Haer.  xxviii.). 

The  former  of  the  two  interpretations  above 
mentioned  commends  itself  to  us  by  its  simplicity ; 
the  latter  by  its  antiquity,  having  almost  the  ge 
neral  consent  of  the  primitive  Christians  in  its 
favour  (see  Suicer,  i.  p.  642) ;  though  it  is  some 
what  difficult,  even  with  St.  Chrysostom's  com 
ment,  to  reconcile  it  wholly  with  the  natural  and 
grammatical  construction  of  the  words.  In  addi 
tion  to  the  above,  which  seem  the  most  probable, 
the  variety  of  explanations  is  almost  endless. 
Among  them  the  following  appear  to  deserve  consi 
deration. 

3.  "  What  shall  they  do,  who  are  baptized  when 
death  is  close  at  hand  ?"    Epiphan.  Haeres.  xxviii. 
6,  where,  according  to  Bengel,  vtrtp  will  have  the 
sense  of  neart  close  upon. 

4.  "  Over  the  graves  of  the  martyrs."  That  such 
a  mode  of  baptism  existed  in  after  ages,  see  Euseb. 
//.  E.  iv.  15  ;  August.  De  Civ.  Dei,  xx.  9.  Vossius 
adopted  this  interpretation ;   but  it  is  veiy  unlikely 
that  the  custom  should  have  prevailed  in  the  days 
of  St.  Paul. 

5.  "  On  account  of  a  dead  Saviour  ;"  where  an 
eaallage  of  number  in  the  word  veicpuv  must  be 
understood.     See  Rosenmiiller,  in  loc. 

6.  "  What  shall  they  gain,  who  are  baptized  for 
the  sake  of  the  dead  in  Christ?"  f.  e.  that  so  the 
r.-\-f]pca/j.a  of  believers  may  be  filled  up  (comp.  Rom. 
xi.  12,  25  ;  Heb.  xi.  40),  "that  "  God  may  complete 
the  number  of  His  elect,  and  hasten  His  kingdom." 
See  Olshausen,  in  loc. 

7.  "What  shall  they  do,  who  are  baptized  in 
the  place  of  the  dead  ?"  i.  e.  who,  as  the  ranks  of 
the  faithful  are  thinned  by  death,  come  forward  to 
be  baptized,  that  they  may  fill  up  the  company  of 
believers.     See  also  Olshausen  as  above,  who  ap 
pears  to  hesitate  between  these  last  two  interpre 
tations. 

On  the  subject  of  Baptism,  of  the  practice  of  the 
Jews,  and  of  th*e  customs  and  opinions  of  the  early 
Christians  with  reference  to  it,  much  information 
is  to  be  found  in  Vossius,  De  Baptismo ;  Suicer, 
s.  vv.  avaSvo),  Pairrifa,  avaSexo/uai,  K\iviit6s, 
&c. ;  Wetstein,  as  referred  to  above ;  Bingham, 
Eccl.  Ant.  bk.  xi. ;  Vicecomes,  Dissertationes,  lib. 
i. ;  Lightfoot,  Hor.  Hebr. ;  and  Schoettgen,  Hor. 
ffebr.,  as  referred  to  above.  [E.  H.  B.J 

SUPPLEMENT  TO  BAPTISM. 

The  "  Laying  on  of  Hands  "  was  considered  in 
the  ancient  church  as  the  "  Supplement  of  Bap 
tism." 

I.  Imposition  of  hands  is  a  natural  form  by 
which  benediction  has  been  expressed  in  all  ages 
and  among  all  people.  It  is  the  act  of  one  su 
perior  either  by  age  or  spiritual  position  towards 
an  inferior,  and  by  its  very  form  it  appears  to 
bestow  some  gift,  or  to  manifest  a  desire  that  some 
gift  should  be  bestowed.  It  may  be  an  evil  thing 
that  is  symbolically  bestowed,  as  when  guiltiness 
was  thus  transferred  by  the  high-priest  to  the 
scapegoat  from  the  congregation  (Lev.  xvi.  21); 
but,  in  general,  the  gift  is  of  something  good  which 
God  is  supposed  to  bestow  by  the  channel  of  the 
laying  on  of  hands.  Thus,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
Jacob  accompanies  his  blessing  to  Ephraim  and 
Manasseh  with  imposition  of  hands  (Gen.  xlviii. 
14) ;  Joshua  is  ordained  in  the  room  of  Moses  by 
imposition  of  hands  (Num.  xxvii.  18  ;  Deut.  xxxiv. 
9) ;  cures  seem  to  have  been  wrought  by  the  pro- 


BAPTISM  ^ 

phets  by  imposition  of  hands  (2  K.  v.  11),  .ml 
the  high-priest,  in  giving  his  solemn  benediction, 
stretched  out  his  hands  over  the  people  (Lev.  ix. 

The  same  form  was  used  by  our  Lord  iu 
blessing,  and  occasionally  in  healing,  and  it  was 
plainly  regarded  by  the  Jews  as  customary  or 
befitting  (Matt.  xix.  13;  Mark  viii.  23,  x.  16). 
One  of  the  promises  at  the  end  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel 
to  Christ's  followers  is  that  they  should  cure  the 
sick  by  laying  on  of  hands  (Mark  xvi.  18) ;  and 
accordingly  we  find  that  Saul  received  his  sight 
(Acts  ix.  17)  and  Publius's  father  was  healed  oHiis 
fever  (Acts  xxviii.  8)  by  imposition  of  hands. 

In  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  the  nature  of  the 
gift  or  blessing  bestowed  by  the  Apostolic  impo 
sition  of  hands  is  made  clearer.  It  is  cahed  tre 
gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  (viii.  17,  xix.  6).  This  gift 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  described  as  the  fulfilment  ot 
Joel's  prediction — "  I  will  pour  out  my  Spirit  upon 
all  flesh,  and  your  sons  and  your  daughters  shall 
prophesy,  and  your  young  men  shall  see  visions, 
and  your  old  men  shall  dream  dreams ;  and  on  my 
servants  and  on  my  handmaidens  I  will  pour  out  in 
those  days  of  my  Spirit,  and  they  shall  prophesy  " 
(ii.  17,  18,  and  38).  Accordingly  visible  super 
natural  powers  were  the  result  of  this  gift — powers 
which  a  Simon  Magus  could  see,  the  capacity  of 
bestowing  which  he  could  covet  and  propose  to 
purchase  (viii.  18).  In  the  case  of  the  Ephesian 
disciples  these  powers  are  stated  to  be,  Speaking 
with  tongues  and  Prophesying  (xix.  6).  Sometimes 
they  were  granted  without  the  ceremony  of  impo 
sition  of  hands,  in  answer  to  Apostolic  p/ayer  (iv. 
31),  or  iu  confirmation  of  Apostolic  preaching  (x. 
44).  But  the  last  of  these  cases  is  desciibed  as 
extraordinary  (xi.  17),  and  as  having  occurred  in 
an  extraordinary  manner  for  the  special  purpose  of 
impressing  a  hardly-learned  lesson  on  the  Jewish 
Christians  by  its  very  strangeness. 

By  the  time  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrew,? 
was  written  we  find  that  there  existed  a  practice 
and  doctrine  of  imposition  of  hands,  which  is  pro 
nounced  by  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  be  one  or 
the  first  principles  and  fundamentals  of  Christianity, 
which  he  enumerates  in  the  following  order:— 
1.  The  doctrine  of  Repentance;  2.  of  Faith  ;  3.  ot 
Baptisms;  4.  of  Laying  on  of  Hands;  5.  of  the 
Resurrection :  6.  of  Eternal  Judgment  (Heb.  vi. 
1,  2).  Laying  on  of  Hands  in  this  passage  can 
mean  only  one  of  three  things — Ordination,  Ab 
solution,  or  that  which  we  have  already  seen  in 
the  Acts  to  have  been  practised  by  the  Apostles, 
imposition  of  hands  for  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
on  the  baptized.  The  meaning  of  Ordination  is 
excluded  by  the  context.  We  have  no  proof  of 
the  existence  of  the  habitual  practice  of  Abso 
lution  at  this  period,  nor  of  its  being  accompa 
nied  by  the  laying  on  of  hands.  Everything 
points  to  that  laying  on  of  hands  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  immediately  succeeded  Baptism  in  the  Apostolic 
age,  and  continued  to  do  so  in  the  ages  immediately 
succeeding  the  Apostles. 

The  Christian  dispensation  is  specially  the  dis 
pensation  of  the  Spirit.  He,  if  any,  is  the  Vicar 
whom  Christ  deputed  to  fill  His  place  when  He 
departed^  (John  xvi.  7).  The  Spirit  exhibits  him 
self  not  only  by  His  gifts,  but  also,  and  still  more, 
by  His  graces.  His  gifts  are  such  as  those  enumer 
ated  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians :  "  the  girt 
of  healing,  of  miracles,  of  prophecy,  of  discerning 
of  spirits,  of  divers  kinds  of  tongues,  of  interpreta- 


xcvi 


BAPTISM 


tion  of  tongues"  (1  Cor.  xii.  10).  His  graces  are, 
*'  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness,  good 
ness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance  "  (Gal.  v.  22,  23) : 
the  foitner  are  classed  as  the  extraordinary,  the  lat 
ter  as  the  ordinary  gifts  of  the  Spirit. 

It  was  the  will  of  the  Spirit  to  bestow  His 
gifts  in  different  ways  at  different  times,  as  well  as 
in  different  ways  and  on  different  persons  at  the 
same  time  (1  Cor.  xii  6).  His  extraordinary  gifts 
were  poured  out  in  great  abundance  at  the  time 
when  the  Christian  Church  was  being  instituted. 
At  no  definite  moment,  but  gradually  and  slowly, 
these  extraordinary  gifts  were  withheld  and  with 
drawn.  When  the  Church  was  now  contemplated 
as  no  longer  in  course  of  formation,  but  as  having 
been  now  brought  into  being,  His  miracles  of  power 
ceased  to  be  wrought  (see  Trench,  On  the  Miracles, 
Introduction,  and  Jeremy  Taylor,  On  Confirmation). 
But  He  continued  His  miracles  of  grace.  His  ordin 
ary  gifts  never  ceased  being  dispensed  through  the 
Church,  although  after  a  time  the  extraordinary 
gifts  were  found  no  longer. 

With  the  Apostolic  age,  and  with  the  age  suc 
ceeding  the  Apostles,  we  may  suppose  that  the  con 
sequences  of  the  imposition  of  hands  v/hich  mani 
fested  themselves  in  visible  works  of  power  (Acts 
viii.,  xix.)  ceased.  Nevertheless  the  practice  of  the 
imposition  of  hands  continued.  Why?  Because, 
in  addition  to  the  visible  manifestation  of  the  Spirit, 
His  invisible  working  was  believed  to  be  thereby 
increased,  and  His  divine  strength  therein  imparted. 
That  this  was  the  belief  in  the  Apostolic  days  them 
selves  may  be  thus  seen.  The  ceremony  of  impo 
sition  of  hands  was  even  then  habitual  and  ordinary. 
This  may  be  concluded  from  the  passage  already 
quoted  from  Hcb.  vi.  2,  where  Imposition  is  classed 
with  Baptisms  as  a  fundamental :  it  may  pos 
sibly  also  be  deduced  (as  we  shall  show  to  have 
been  believed)  from  2  Cor.  i.  21,  22,  compared 
with  Eph.  i.  13,  iv.  30 ;  1  John  ii.  20 ;  and  it 
may  be  certainly  inferred  from  subsequent  univer 
sal  practice.  But  although  all  the  baptized  im 
mediately  after  their  baptism  received  the  imposi 
tion  of  hands,  yet  the  extraordinary  gifts  were  not 
gjven  to  all.  "  Are  all  workers  of  miracles  ?  have 
all  the  gifts  of  healing?  do  all  speak  with  tongues  ? 
do  all  interpret  ?  "  (1  Cor.  xii.  29).  The  men  thus 
endowed  were,  and  must  always  have  been,  few 
among  many.  Why  then  and  with  what  results 
was  imposition  of  hands  made  a  general  custom? 
Because,  though  the  visible  gifts  of  the  Spirit  were 
bestowed  only  on  those  on  whom  He  willed  to 
bestow  them,  yet  there  were  diversities  of  gifts 
and  operations  (ib.  11).  Those  who  did  not  receive 
the  visible  gifts  might  still  receive,  in  some  cases, 
a  strengthening  and  enlightenment  of  their  natural 
faculties.  "  To  one  is  given  by  the  Spirit  the  word 
of  wisdom,  to  another  the  word  of  knowledge  by 
the  same  Spirit"  (ib.  8;:  while  all  in  respect  to 
whom  no  obstacle  existed  might  receive  that  grace 
which  St.  Paul  contrasts  with  and  p\*efers  to  the 
."  best  gifts,"  as  "  more  excellent "  than  miracles, 
healing,  tongues,  knowledge  and  prophesying  (ib. 
31),  greater  too  than  "  faith  and  hope"  (xiii.  13). 
This  is  thje  grace  of  "  charity,"  which  is  another 
name  for  the  ordinary  working  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
the  heart  of  man.  This  was  doubtless  the  belief 
on  which  the  rite  of  Imposition  of  Hands  became 
universal  in  the  Apostolic  age,  and  continued  to  be 
universally  observed  in  the  succeeding  ages  ot  the 
Church.  There  are  numberless  references  or  allu 
sions  to  it  in  the  early  Fathers.  There  is  a  possible 


BAPTISM 

allusion  to  it  in  Theophilus  Antiochenus,  A.T.  17C 
(Ad  Autol.  1.  i.  c.  12,  al.  17).  It  is  spoken  of  ty 
Tertullian,  A.D.  200  (De  Bapt.  c.  viii. ;  De  Resi*rr. 
Cam.  c.  viii.)  ;  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  A.D.  200 
(apud  Euseb.  l.'iii.  c.  17)  ;  by  Origen,  A.D.  210 
(Horn.  vii.  in  Ezek.} ;  by  Cyprian,  A.D.  250  (Ep 
70,  73} ;  by  Firmilian,  A'.D.  250  (apud  Cypr.  Ep 
75,  §8);  by  Cornelius,  A.D.  260  (apud  Eu-4b.  1.  vi. 

43)  ;  and  by  almost  all  of  the  chief  writers  of  the 
4th  and  5th  centuries.  Cyprian  (loc.  cit.}  derives 
the  practice  fiom  the  example  of  the  Apostles  re 
corded  in  Acts  viii.  Firmilian,  Jerome,  and  Au 
gustine  refer  in  like  manner  to  Acts  xix.  "  The 
Fathers,"  says  Hroker,  "  everywhere  impute  unto 
it  that  gift  or  grace  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  not  which 
maketh  us  first  Christian  men,  but,  when  we  are 
made  such,  assisteth  us  in  all  virtue,  armeth  us 
against  temptation  and  sin.  .  .  .  The  Fathers  there 
fore,  being  thus  persuaded,  held  confirmation  as  an 
ordinance  Apostolic,  always  profitable  in  God's 
Church,  although  not  always  accompanied  with 
equal  largeness  of  those  external  effects  which  gave 
it  countenance  at  the  first"  (Eccl.  Pol.  v.  66,  4). 

II.  Time  of  Confirmation. — Originally  Impo 
sition  of  Hands  followed  immediately  upon  Bap 
tism,  so  closely  as  to  appear  as  part  of  the  Bap 
tismal  ceremony  or  ii  supplement  to  it.  This 
is  clearly  stated  by  Tertullian  (De  Bapt.  vii. 
viii.),  Cyril  (Catech.  Myst.  iii.  1),  the  author 
of  the  Apostolical  Constitutions  (vii.  43),  and  all 
early  Christian  writers  ;  and  hence  it  is  that  the 
names  trtypayis,  xp^/*a>  sigillum,  signaculum,  are 
applied  to  Baptism  as  well  as  to  Imposition  of 
Hands.  (See  Euseb.  H.  E.  iii.  23  ;  Greg.  Naz.,  Or. 
40;  Herm.  Past.  iii.  9,  16;  Tertull.  De  Spectac. 
xxiv.)  Whether  it  were  an  infant  or  an  adult  that 
was  baptized  Confirmation  and  admission  to  the 
Eucharist  immediately  ensued.  This  continued  to 
be  the  general  rule  of' the  Church  down  to  the  ninth 
century,  and  is  the  rule  of  the  Eastern  Churches  to 
the  present  time.  The  way  in  which  the  differem 
in  practice  between  East  and  West  grew  up  was  tl 
following.  It  was  at  first  usual  for  many  persons 
to  be  baptized  together  at  the  great  Festivals 
Easter,  Pentecost,  and  Epiphany  in  the  presence  of 
the  bishop.  The  bishop  then  confirmed  the  newly- 
baptized  by  prayer  and  imposition  of  hands.  But 
by  degrees  it  became  customary  for  presbyters  and 
deacons  to  baptize  in  other  places  than  the  cathe 
drals  and  at  other  times  than  at  the  great  festi 
vals.  Consequently,  it  was  necessary  either  to 
give  to  presbyters  the  right  of  confirming,  or  to  defer 
confirmation  to  a  later  time  when  it  might  be  in  the 
power 'of  the  bishop  to  perform  it.  The  Eastern 
Churches  gave  the  right  to  the  presbyter,  reserving 
only  to  the  bishop  the  composition  of  the  chrism 
with  which  the  ceremony  is  performed.  The  West- 
em  Churches  retained  it  in  the  hands  of  the  bi 
shop.  (See  Cone.  Carthag.  iii.  can.  36  and  iv. 
can.  36;  Cone.  Tolet.  i.  can.  20;  Cone.  Anti- 
siodor.  can.  6  ;  Cone.  Bracar.  i.  can.  36  and  ii. 
can.  4 ;  Cone.  Eliber.  can.  38  and  77.)  Tertullian 
says  that  it  was  usual  for  the  bishop  to  make  ex 
peditions  (excurrat)  from  the  city  in  which  he 
resided  to  the  villages  and  remote  spots  in  order  to 
lay  his  hands  on  those  who  had  been  baptized*  by 
presbyters  and  deacons,  and  to  pray  for  the  gift  at 
the  Holy  Spirit  upon  them  (Cant.  Lucif.  iv.). '  Tho 
result  was  that,  in  the  West,  men's  minds  became 
accustomed  to  the  severance  of  the  two  ceremonies 
which  were  once  so  closely  joined— the  more,  as  ii 
was  their  practice  to  receive  those  who  had  been 


BAPTISM 

neretically  01  gchismatically  baptized,  not  by  re- 
liaptism,  but.  only  by  imposition  of  hands  and 
prayer.  By  degrees  the  severance-  became  so  com 
plete  as  to  be  sanctioned  and  required  by  authority. 
After  a  time  this  appendix  or  supplement  to  the 
sacrament  of  baptism  became  itself  erected  into  a 
separate  sacrament  by  the  Latin  Church. 

III.  Names  of  Confirmation. — The  title  of  "  Con- 
firmatio  "  is  modern.     It  is  not  found  in  the  early 
Latin  Christian,  writers,   nor   is   there  any  Greek 
equivalent  for  it :  for  reXeioxris  answers  rather  to 
"  consecratio  "  or  "  perfectio,"  and  refers  rather  to 
baptism  than   confirmation.     The   ordinary   Greek 
word  is  xp?(r/j.a,  which,  like  the  Latin  "  unctio," 
expresses  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  grace.     In 
this  general  sense  it  is  used  in  1  John  ii.  20,  "  Ye 
have  an  unction  from  the  Holy  One,"  and  in  2  Cor. 
i.  21,  "He  which  hath  anointed  us  is  God,  who 
hath  also  sealed  us  and  given  the  earnest  of  the 
Spirit  in  our  hearts."     So  early  a  writer  as  Ter- 
tullian  not  only  mentions  the  act  of  anointing  as 
being  in  use  at  the  same  time  with  the  imposition 
of  hands  (De  Bapt.  vii.  and  viii.),  but  he  speaks 
of  it  as  being"  de  pristina  disciplina,"  even  in  his 
day.     It  is  certain  therefore  that  it  must  have  been 
introduced  very  early,  and  it  has  been  thought  by 
some  that  the  two  Scriptural  passages  above  quoted 
imply  its  existence  from  the  very  beginning.    (See 
Chrysostom,  Hilary,  Theodoret,  Comm.  in  loc.  and 
Cyril  in  Catech.  3.) 

Another  Greek  name  is  ff<f>payis.  It  was  so 
called  as  being  the  consummation  and  seal  of  the 
grace  given  in  Baptism.  In  the  passage  quoted 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  "  sealing  "  by 
the  Spirit  is  joined  with  being  "  anointed  by  God." 
A  similar  expression  is  made  use  of  in  Eph.  i.  13, 
"  In  whom  also  after  that  ye  believed  ye  were 
sealed  with  that  Holy  Spirit  of  promise  ;"  and  again, 
"  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  whereby  ye  are  sealed 
unto  the  day  of  redemption  "  (Eph.  iv.  30).  The 
Latin  equivalents  are  sigillum,  signaculum,  and  (the 
most  commonly  used  Latin  term)  consignatio.  Au 
gustine  (De  Trin.  xv.  26)  sees  a  reference  in  these 
passages  to  the  rite  of  confirmation. 

IV.  Definitions   of  Confirmation. — The  Greek 
Church  does  not  refer  to  Acts  viii.  xix.  and  Heb. 
vi.  for  the  origin  of  confirmation  so  much  as  to 
I  John  ii.  and  2  Cor.  i.     Regarding  it  as  the  con 
summation  of  Baptism  she  condemns  the  separation 
which  has  been  effected  in  the  West.     The  Russian 
Church  defines   it  as  "  a  mystery   in  which  the 
baptized  believer,  being  anointed  with  holy  chrism 
in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  receives  the  gifts 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  for  growth  and  strength  in  the 
spiritual  life "  (Longer    Catechism}.      The  Latin 
Church  defines  it  as  "  unction  by  chrism  (accompa 
nied  by  a  set  form  of  words),  applied  by  the  Bishop 
to  the  forehead  of  one  baptized,  by  means  of  which 
he  receives  increase  of  grace  and  strength  by  the 
institution  of  Christ "    (Liguori  after  Bellarmine). 
The  English  Church  (by  implication)  as  "  a  rite  by 
means  of  which  the  regenerate  are  strengthened  by 
the  manifold  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  the  Comforter, 
on  the  occasion  of  their  ratifying  the  Baptismal  vow  " 
(Confirmation  Service).    Were  we  to  criticize  these 
definitions,  or  to  describe  the  ceremonies  belonging 
to  the  rite  in  different  ages  of  the  Church,  we  should 
lie  passing  from  our  legitimate  sphere  into  that  of 
a  Theological  Dictionary. 

literature.  —  Hooker,  Ecclesiastical  Polity, 
bk.  v.  §66,  Oxf.  1863 ;  Bellarmine,  De  Sacra 
mento  Confirmationis,  in  libro  De  Controversiis, 

fAPPKNDIX.1 


BEDAN 


xcvii 


torn.  iii.  Col.  Agr.  1629  ;  DaiHtf,  De  Confirmation 
et  ExtremA  Unctione,  Genev.  1659;  Hammond, 
De  Confirmatione,  Oxon.  1661  ;  Hall,  On  Impo 
sition  of  Hands,  Works,  ii.  p.  876,  Lond.  1661; 
Pearson,  Lectio  V.  in  Acta  Apostolorum,  Minor 
Works,  i.  p.  362,  Oxf.  1844 ;  Taylor,  A  Discours6 
of  Confirmation,  Works,  v.  p.  619,  Lond.  1&54; 
Wheatly,  Illustration  of  Book  of  Common  Prayer, 
c.  ix.  Oxf.  1846  ;  Bingham,  Ecclesiastical  Antiqui 
ties,  bk.  xii.  Lond.  1856  ;  Liguori,  Tkeologia 
Moralis,  iii.  p.  468,  Paris,  1845  ;  Hey,  Lectures  on 
Divinity,  Camb.  1841  ;  Mill,  Praelection  on  Heb. 
VI.  2,  Camb.  1843  ;  Palmer,  Origincs  Liturgicae: 
On  Confirmation,  Lond.  1845;  Bates,  College 
Lectures  on  Christian  Antiquities,  Lond.  1845; 
Bp.  Wordsworth,  Catechesis,  Lond.  1857;  Dr. 
Wordsworth,  Notes  in  Greek  Test,  on  Acts  VIII. 
XIX.  and  Heb.  VI.  Lond.  1860,  and  On  Con 
firmation,  Lond.  1861 ;  Wall,  On  Confirmation, 
Lond.  1862.  [P.M.] 

BA'RUCH  2.  The  son  ofZabbai,  who  assisted 
Nehemiah  in  rebuilding  the  walls  of  Jerusalem 
(Neh.  iii.  20). 

3.  A  priest,  or  family  of  priests,  who  signed  the 
covenant  with  Nehemiah  (Neh.  x.  6). 

4.  The  son  of  Col-hozeh,  a  descendant  of  Perez, 
or  Pharez,  the  son  of  Judah  (Neh.  xi.  5). 

BAEZELA'L     1  Esdr.  v.  38,  marg. 

BASTAKD.  Among  those  who  were  excluded 
from  entering  the  congregation,  that  is,  from  inter 
marrying  with  pure  Hebrews  (Selden,  Table  Talk, 
s.  v.  "  Bastard  "),  even  to  the  tenth  generation,  was 
the  mamzer  OT»»,  A.  V.  "bastard"),  who  was 
classed  in  this  Bespect  with  the  Ammonite  and 
Moabite  (Deut.  xxiii.  2).  The  term  is  not,  how 
ever,  applied  to  any  illegitimate  offspring,  born  out 
of  wedlock,  but  is  restricted  by  the  Rabbins  to  the 
issue  of  any  connexion  within  the  degrees  prohibited 
by  the  Law.  A  mamzSr,  according  to  the  Mishna 
(Yebamoth,  iv.  13),  is  one,  says  R.  Akiba,  who 
is  born  of  relations  between  whom  marriage  is 
forbidden.  Simeon  the  Temanite  says,  it  is  every 
one  whose  parents  are  liable  to  the  punishment  of 
"  cutting  off"  by  the  hands  of  Heaven  ;  R.  Joshua, 
every  one  whose  parents  are  liable  to  death  by  the 
house  of  judgment,  as,  for  instance,  the  offspring  of 
adultery.  The  ancient  versions  (LXX.,  Vulg., 
Syr.),  add  another  class,  the  children  of  a  harlot, 
and  in  this  sense  the  term  manzer  or  manser  sur 
vived  in  Pontifical  law  (Selden,  De  Succ.  in  Bon. 
Defunct.,  c.  iii.)  : 
"  Manzeribus  scortum,  sed  moecba  nothis  dedit  ortum." 

The  child  of  a  goi,  or  non-Israelite,  and  a  mamze" 
was  also  reckoned  by  the  Talmudists  a  mamzer,  as 
was  the  issue  of  a  slave  and  a  mamzsr,  and  of  a 
mamzer  and  female  proselyte.  The  term  also  occurs 
in  Zech.  ix.  6,  "  a  bastard  shall  dwell  in  Ashdod," 
where  it  seems  to  denote  a  foreign  race  of  mixed 
and  spurious  birth.  Dr.  Geiger  infers  from  this 
passage  that  mamzer  specially  signifies  the  issue 
of  such  marriages  between  the  Jews  and  the  wo 
men  of  Ashdod  as  are  alluded  to  in  Neh.  xiii. 
23,  24,  and  applies  it  exclusively  to  the  Philistine 
bastard. 

BATTLE-AX.     [MAUL.] 

BAZ'LUTH  (TVte  Bo<roAc60:  BESLUTH  : 
BAZLITH  ('Ezr.  ii.  52)." 

BE'DAN.  2.  (Baodu. ;  Alex.  Ba&dv.)  Son  of 
Ulam,  tne  son  of  Gil«ad  (1  Chr.  vii.  17'Ju 

H 


xcvlii  BEEROTHITE 

BEEB'OTHITE.    [BEEROTH.] 

BETH'ELITE,  THE  (1  K.  xvi.  34). 
[  BETHEL.] 

BETH'LEHEMITE,    THE  OpPlkn  1V2: 

BTjflA.eejUi'-njs,  6Bat0A.66|u£n7s;  Alex.  Bi?0Aee^T 
Bethlehemites}.  A  native  or  inhabitant  of  Beth 
lehem.  Jesse  (1  Sam.  xvi.  1,  18,  xvii.  58)  and 
Elhanan  (2  Sam.  xxi.  19)  were  Bethlehemites. 
Another  Elhanan,  son  of  Dodo  of  Bethlehem,  was 
one  of  David's  guard  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  24).  [EL 
HANAN.] 

BETHO'RON  (KaiQupAv :  Alex.  Beflcopco  :  om. 
in  Vulg.).  BETH-HORON  (Jud.  iv.  4). 

BETH'-SHEMITE,    THE   ('KWrrTVa  : 

&  Batdffa/j.vffiT'ris  ;  Alex.  6  BatddafJLVffiTifjs :  Beth- 
samtia,  Bethsamitis).  Properly  "  the  Beth-shim- 
shite,"  an  inhabitant  of  Beth-shemesh  (1  Sam.  vii. 
14,  18).  The  LXX.  in  the  former  passage  refer 
the  words  to  the  field  and  not  to  Joshua  (rbv  iv 
"Baidffauvs). 

BIK'ATH-A'VEN.  Am.  i.  5,  marg.  [AVEN  1.] 

BITUMEN.     [SLIME.] 

BLACK.    [COLOURS.] 

BOIL.     [MEDICINE,  ii.  pp.  3016-304a.] 

BOLSTEB.  The  Hebrew  word  (nfc>fcnp, 
ndraashoth}  so  rendered,  denotes,  like  the  English, 
simply  a  place  for  the  head.  Hardy  travellers,  like 
Jacob  (Gen.  xxviii.  11,  18)  and  Elijah  (1  K.  xix. 
6),  sleeping  on  the  bare  ground,  would  make  use  of 
a  stone  for  this  purpose ;  and  soldiers  on  the  march 
had  probably  no  softer  resting  place  (1  Sam.  xxvi. 
7,  11,  12,  16).  Possibly  both  Saul  and  Elijah 
may  have  used  the  water-bottle  which  they  carried 
as  a  bolster,  and  if  this  were  the  case,  David's  mid 
night  adventure  becomes  more  conspicuously  daring. 
The  "  pillow  "  of  goat's  hair  which  Michal's  cunning 
put  in  the  place  of  the  bolster  in  her  husband's 
bed  (1  Sam.  xix.  13,  16)  was  probably,  as  Ewald 
suggests,  a  net  or  curtain  of  goat's  hair,  to  protect 
the  sleeper  from  the  mosquitoes  (Gesch.  iii.  p.  101, 
note),  like  the  "  canopy  "  of  Holofernes. 

BONNET.  [See  HEAD-DRESS.]  In  old  Eng 
lish,  as  in  Scotch  to  this  day,  the  word  "  bonnet " 
was  applied  to  the  head-dress  of  men.  Thus  in 
Hall's  Rich.  ///.,  fol.  9  a  :  «  And  after  a  lytle  season 
puttyng  of  hys  boneth  he  sayde :  0  Lorde  God  cre 
ator  of  all  thynges,  howe  muche  is  this  realme  of 
Englande  and  the  people  of  the  same  bounden  to 
thy  goodnes."  And  in  Shakspere  (Haml.  v.  2) : 
"  Your  bonnet  to  his  right  use :  'tis  for  the  head." 

BOTCH.  [MEDICINE.] 

BRIGANDINE.  The  Hebrew  word  thus  ren 
dered  in  Jer.  xlvi.  4,  li.  3  (P'lD,  siryon : 
0«pa|:  lorica)  is  closely  connected  with  that 
(fl**}6?»  shirydn)  which  is  elsewhere  translated 
"  coat  of  mail "  (1  Sam.  xvii.  5,  38),  and  "  haber- 

E."   (2   Chr.  xxvi.    14;    Neh.   iv.    16  [10]). 
MS,  p.  1116.]     Mr.  Wedgwood  (Diet,  of  Eng. 
v  m.  s.  v.)  says  it  "  was  a  kind  of  scale  armour, 
also  called  Briganders,  from   being  worn  by  the 
jight  troops  called  Brigands."     The  following  ex 
amples  will  illustrate  the  usage  of  the  word  in  Old 
English :  "  The  rest  of  the  armor  for  his  body,  he 
had  put  it  on  before  in  his  tent,  which  was  a  Si 
cilian  eassocke,  and  vpon  that  a  brigandine  made  of 


CARMANIANS 

many  foldes  of  canuas  with  oylet-hoes,  which  was 
gotten  among  the  spoiles  at  the  bat  tell  orlssus" 
(North's  Plutarch,  Alex.  p.  735,  ed.  1595). 

"  Hymselfe  with  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  stode 
harnessed  in  olde  euil-fauoured  Briganders  "  (Hall, 
Edw.  F.,  fol.  156,  ed.  1550).  The  forms  &™/an- 
taille  and  brigantine  also  occur. 

BROOK.  Four  Hebrew  words  are  thus  ren 
dered  in  the  0.  T. 

1.  p'DK  dphik  (Ps.  xlii.   1    [.<P),  which  pro- 
perly  denotes  a  violent  torrent,  sweeping  through  a 
mountain   gorge.     It  occurs  only  in   the  poetical 
books,  and  is  derived  from  a  root  dphak,  signifying 
"  to  be  strong."  Elsewhere  it  is  rendered  "  stream," 
"  channel,"  "  river." 

2.  "HfcO,  ySor  (Is.  xix.  6,  7,  8,  xxiii.  3,  10),  an 
Egyptian  word,  generally  applied  to  the  Nile,  or  to 
the  canals  by  which  Egypt  was  watered.     The  only 
exceptions  to  this  usage  are  found  in  Dan.  xii.  5, 
6,7. 

3.  ?D>D,    micdl    (2    Sam.    xvii.    20),    which 
occurs  but  once,  and  then,  according  to  the  most 
probable  conjecture,  signifies  a  "  rivulet,"  or  small 
stream    of  water.      The   etymology  of  the  word 
is  obscure.     The   Targum   erroneously  renders  it 
"  Jordan." 

4.  /TI3,  nachal,  a  term  applied  both   to   the 
dry  torrent-bed  (Num.  xxi.  12;  Judg.  xvi.  4)  and 
to  the  torrent  itself  (1  K.  xvii.  3).     It  corresponds 
with  the  Arabic  wddy,  the  Greek  xeiju<£/5/$ous,  the 
Italian  fiumara,  and  the  Indian  nullah.     For  fur 
ther  information,  see  RIVER. 

BU'ZITE  (n-12  :  £ou0T7?s  :  Buzites).  A  de 
scendant  of  Buz.  The  term  is  applied  to  Elihu, 
who  was  of  the  kindred  of  Ram  or  Aram  (Job 
xxxii.  2,  6). 


CALEB.  "  The  south,  of  Caleb  "  is  that  por 
tion  of  the  Negeb  (3U)  or  "  south  country  "  of 
Palestine,  occupied  by  Caleb  and  his  descendants 
(1  Sam.  xxx.  14).  In  the  division  of  Canaan 
Joshua  assigned  the  city  and  suburbs  of  Hebron 
to  the  priests,  but  the  "  field  "  of  the  city,  that  is 
the  pasture  and  corn  lands,  together  with  the  vil 
lages,  were  given  to  Caleb.  The  south,  or  Negeb, 
of  Caleb,  is  probably  to  be  identified  with  the  ex 
tensive  basin  or  plain  which  lies  between  Hebron 
and  Kurmul,  the  ancient  Carmel  of  Judah,  where 
Caleb's  descendant  Nabal  had  his  possessions.  . 

CA'NAAN,  LANGUAGE  OF.     See  p.  743. 

CAPH'THORIM  (DnhM  :  Vat.  omits  ;  Alex. 

Qopiein:  Caphtorim).  1  Chr.  i.  12.  [CAPHTOR.] 

CAPH'TORIMS    DnhM:  ol 


Cappadoces).    Deut.  ii.  23.    "[CAPHTOR.] 

CARMA'NIANS  (Carmonii).  The  inhabit 
ants  of  Carmania,  a  province  of  Asia  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Persian  Gulf  (2  Esd.  xv.  30).  They  are 
described  by  Strata  (xv.  p.  727)  as  a  warlike  race, 
worshipping  Ares  alone  of  all  the  gods,  to  whon, 
they  sacrifice  an  ass.  None  of  them  married  till 
he  had  cut  off  the  head  of  an  enemy  and  presented 
it  to  the  king,  who  .placed  it  on  his  palace,  having 
first  cut  out  the  tongue,  which  was  chopped  up  into 
small  pieces  and  mixed  with  meal,  and  in  this  con 
dition,  ufter  being  tasted  by  the  king,  was  given  to 


OAKMELITE 

die  warrior  who  brought  it  and  to  his  family  to 
tat.  Nearchus  says  that  most  of  the  customs  of 
the  Carmanians,  and  their  language,  were  Persian 
nnd  Median.  Arrian  gives  the  same  testimony  (Ind. 
38),  adding  that  they  used  the  same  order  of  battle 
as  the  Persians. 

CAR'MELITE  pb»n3  : 
'  ' 


in  1  Chr.  xi.  37 ;  Alex'.  Kap/ATjAeirrjy  in  2  Sam. 
ii.  2,  Kap/j.ri\i  in  1  Chr.  xi.  37 :  Carmeli,  de  Car- 
melot  Carmelites').  A  native  of  Carmel  in  the 
mountains  of  Judah.  The  term  is  applied  to  Nabal 
(1  Sam.  xxx.  5;  2  Sam.  ii.  2,  iii.  3)  and  to  Hezrai, 
or  Hezro,  one  of  David's  guard  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  35 ; 
1  Chr.  xi.  37).  In  2  Sam.  iii.  3  the  LXX.  must 


have  read  n^O")3,  "  Carmelitess." 

CAR'MELITESS  (rV^p-13:  Ka/j/^Atos,  Ka/>- 

IJ.T}\IO.  :  Carmeli,  Carmelitis).  '  A  woman  of  Carmel 
in  Judah :  used  only  of  Abigail,  the  favourite  wife 
of  David  (I  Sam.  xxvii.  3  ;  1  Chr.  iii.  1).  In  the 
former  passage  both  LXX.  and  Vulg.  appear  to 
have  read  ^D")3,  "  Carmelite." 

CAR'MITES,  THE('!D-]2n:  dXapul;  Alex. 
&  Xap/j.ei :  Charmitae}.  A  branch  of  the  tribe  of 
Reuben,  descended  from  CARMI  2  (Num.  xxvi.  6). 

CASEMENT.     [LATTICE.] 

CAULS  (D^D'Ofe?:  fyir\6Kia:  torques').  The 
margin  of  the  A.  V.'gives  "  networks"  The  Old 
English  word  "  caul"  denoted  a  netted  cap  worn  by 
women.  Compare  Chaucer  (  Wyf  of  Bathes  Tale, 
C.T.I.  6599): 

"  Let  se,  which  is  the  proudest  of  hem  alle, 
That  werith  on  a  coverchief  or  a  calle." 

The  Hebrew  word  shSbisim  thus  lendered  in  Is.  iii. 
18,  is,  like  many  others  which  occur  in  the  same 
passage,  the  subject  of  much  dispute.  It  occurs 
but  once,  and  its  root  is  not  elsewhere  found  in 
Hebrew.  ^The  Rabbinical  commentators  connect  it 
with  Y^>  shibbets,  rendered  "  embroider"  in  Ex. 
xxviii.  39,  but  properly  "  to  work  in  squares, 
make  checker-work."  So  Kimchi  (Lex.  s.  v.)  ex 
plains  shgbisim  as  "  the  name  of  garments  wrought 
in  checker-work."  Rashi  says  they  are  "  a  kind  of 
network  to  adorn  the  head."  Abarbanel  is  more 
full:  he  describes  them  as  "headdresses,  made  of 
silk  or  gold  thread,  with  which  the  women  bound 
their  heads  about,  and  they  were  of  checker- work." 
The  word  occurs  again  in  the  Mishna  (Celim,  xxviii. 
10),  but  nothing  can  possibly  be  inferred  from  the 
passage  itself,  and  the  explanations  of  the  commen 
tators  do  not  throw  much  light  upon  it.  It  there 
appears  to  be  used  as  part  of  a  network  worn  as  a 
headdress  by  women.  Bartenora  says  it  was  "  a 
figure  which  they  made  upon  the  network  for  orna 
ment,  standing  in  front  of  it  and  going  round  from 
one  ear  to  the  other."  Beyond  the  fact  that  the 
shgbisim  were  headdresses  or  ornaments  of  the  head 
dress  of  Hebrew  ladies,  nothing  can  be  said  to  be 
known  about  them. 

Schroeder  (De  Vest.  MuL,  cap.  ii.)  conjectured 
that  they  were  medallions  worn  on  the  necklace, 

s  -o^  j 
and  identified  shebisim  with   the  Arab,   x 


the  diminutive  of 


shams,  the 


CHAMBERLAIN  xcix 

But  to  this  Geseniusvery  properly  object*  'Jet.  i, 
p.  209),   as  well  as   to  the  explanation   tf  Julc 


W 

sun,  which  is   applied   to   denote   the  sun-shaped 
ornaments  worn  by  Arab  wom?n  about  their  necks. 


The  Versions  give  but  little  assistance.  The 
LXA.  render  ^rAo/cta  "  plaited  work,"  to  which 
KOVV/A&OVS,  "  fringes,"  appears  to  have  been  added 
originally  as  a  gloss,  and  afterwards  to  have  crept 
into  the  text.  Aquila  has  reAa^as,  "  belts." 
The  Targum  merely  adopts  the  Hebrew  word  with- 
out  translating  it,  and  the  Syriac  and  Arabic 
vaguely  render  it  "  their  ornaments." 

CHAMBERLAIN  (olKov6/j.os  :  arcarius). 
Erastus,  "  the  chamberlain"  of  the  city  of  Corinth, 
was  one  of  those  whose  salutations  to  the  Roman 
Christians  are  given  at  the  end  of  the  Ep.  ad- 
dressed  to  them  (Rom.  xvi.  23).  The  office  which 
he  held  was  apparently  that  of  public  treasurer,  or 
arcarius,  as  the  Vulgate  renders  his  title.  These 
arcarii  were  inferior  magistrates,  who  had  the 
charge  of  the  public  chest  (area  publica],  and  were 
under  the  authority  of  the  senate.  They  kept  the 
accounts  of  the  public  revenues.  In  the  Glossary 
of  Philoxenus  the  word  olKov6fJios  is  explained  6  M 
TT/S  Srtfjioffias  rpairffo,  and  in  the  Pandects  the 
term  arcarius  is  applied  to  any  one  who  attends  to 
public  or  private  money.  It  is,  asGrotius  remarks, 
one  of  those  words  which  have  been  transferred  from 
the  house  to  the  state.  In  old  glosses  quoted  by 
cer  (Thesaur.}  we  find  arcarius  explained  by 
ScKT^s  xPvff°v>  an<l  in  accordance  with  this 
the  translators  of  the  Geneva  Version  have  placed 
"  receiver  "  in  the  margin.  Erasmus  interpreted 
the  word  quaestor  aerarii.  St.  Ambrose  thought 
that  the  office  of  the  oeconomus  principally  con 
sisted  in  regulating  the  prices  of  the  markets,  and 
lence  Pancirollus  was  erroneously  led  to  interpret 
ihe  term  of  the  aedile.  Theophylact  rendered  it 
6  StoiKTfT^s,  6  irpovoijT^s  TTJS  ir6\e(os  KopivQov, 

and  is  followed  by  Beza,  who  gives  procurat  or. 

In  an  inscription  in  the  Harm.  Oxon.  (p.  85,  ed. 
1732)  we  find  NeiA?  ojW^up  'Aortas  ;  and  in 

another,  mention   is  made   of  Miletus,   who  was 

oeconomus  of  Smyrna  (Ins.  xxx.  p.  26  ;  see  Pri- 

deaux's  note,  p.  477).     Anothei  in  Gruter  (p.  mxci. 

,  ed.  Scaliger,  1616)  contains  the  name  of  "Se- 

;undus  Arkarius   Reipublicae  Amerinorum  ;"   but 

;he  one  which  bears  most  upon  our  point  is  given 

by  Orellius  (No.  2821),  and  mentions  the  "  arca 

rius  provinciae  Achaiae." 

For  further  information  see  Reinesius,  Syntagm. 

Inscr.  p.  431,  La  Cerda,  Advers.  Sacr.  cap.  56, 
Ulsner,  Obs.  Sacr.  ii.  p.  68,  and  a  note  by  Reinesius 

to  the  Marmora  Oxoniensia,  p.  515,  ed.  1732. 

Our  translators  had  good  reason  for  rendering 

oi^6fjLos  by  "chamberlain."    In  Stow's  Survey 

>f  London  (b.  v.  p.  162,  ed.  Strype)  it  is  said  of 

he  Chamberlain  of  the  city  of  London  :  "  His  office 

may  be  termed  a  publick  treasury,  collecting  the 
ustoms,  monies,  and  yearly  revenues,  and  all  other 
)ayments  belonging  to  the  corporation  of  the  city." 
The  office  held  by  Blastus,  "  the  king's  chamber- 
ain  (rbv  eirl  TOV  KOIT&VOS  TOV  jSav'iAe'ws)  ,"  was 
ntirely  different  from  that  above  mentioned  (Acts 
:ii.  20).  It  was  a  post  of  honour  which  involved 

great  r.timacy  and  influence  with  the  king.  The 
nargin  o?  our  version  gives  "  that  was  over  the 
Jng's  btdchamber,"  the  office  thus  con-esponding  to 

that  of  the  praefectus  cubiculo  (Suet.  JDorn.  16). 
For  CHAMBERLAIN  as  used  in  the  O.  T.,  see 

EUNUCH,  p.  590  b. 

H2 


c  CHELCIAS 

CHELOI'AS  (XeA/cios:  Helcias).  1. 
DfBaruch  (Bar.  i.  1). 

2.  Hilkiah  the  high  priest  in  the  time  of  Isaiah 
(Bar.  i.  7). 


CHEM'ARIMS,    THE 


:    of  Xo>- 


.  ;  Alex,  ot  Xo/j.apeifj.  :  aruspices,  aeditui). 
This  word  only  occurs  in  the  text  of  the  A.  V.  in 
Zeph.  i.  4.  In  2  K.  xxiii.  5  it  is  rendered  "  idola 
trous  priests,"  and  in  Hos.  x.  5  "  priests,"  and  in 
both  cases  "  chemarim  "  is  given  in  the  margin. 
So  far  as  regards  the  Hebrew  usage  of  the  word  it 
is  exclusively  applied  to  the  priests  of  the  false 
worship,  and  was  in  all  probability  a  term  of  foreign 


origin.     In  Syriac  the  word 


,  cumro,  is 


found  without  the  same  restriction  of  meaning, 
being  used  in  Judg.  xvii.  5,  12,  of  the  priest  of  Micah, 
while  in  Is.  Ixi.  6  it  denotes  the  priests  of  the  true 
God,  and  in  Heb.  ii.  17  is  applied  to  Christ  himself. 
The  root  in  Syriac  signifies  "  to  be  sad,"  and  hence 
cumro  is  supposed  to  denote  a  mournful,  ascetic 
pei  son,  and  hence  a  priest  or  monk  (compare  Arab. 

JuyJ,  abil,  and  Syr.  P«*^J,  abito,    in    the  same 

sense).  Kimchi  derived  it  from  a  root  signifying  "  to 
be  black,"  because  the  idolatrous  priests  wore  black 
garments  ;  but  this  is  without  foundation.  [IDOL 
ATRY,  p.  858.]  In  the  Peshito-Syriac  of  Acts  xix. 
35  the  feminine  form  of  the  word  is  used  to  render 
the  Greek  vewKSpov,  "  a  temple  keeper."  Compare 
the  Vulg.  aeditui,  which  is  the  translation  of  Chem 
arim  in  two  passages. 


CHET'TIIM    (XeTTctef/i;    Alex. 
Cethim},  1  Mace.  i.  1.   [CHITTIM.] 


CHIN'NEROTH 

Xer6pe'0;  Alex.  XwepeOei,  Xej/j/epe'0  :   Ceneroth\ 
Josh.  xi.  2,  xii.  3.  [CHINNERETH.] 

CHRISTIAN  (Xpiffnavos  :  Christianus).  The 
disciples,  we  are  told  (Acts  xi.  26),  were  first  called 
Christians  at  Antioch  on  the  Orontes,  somewhere 
about  A.D.  43.  The  name,  and  the  place  where  it 
was  conferred,  are  both  significant.  It  is  clear  that 
the  appellation  "  Christian  "  was  one  which,  though 
eagerly  adopted  and  gloried  in  by  the  early  followers 
of  Christ,  could  not  have  been  imposed  by  them 
selves.  They  were  known  to  each  other  as  brethren 
of  one  family,  as  disciples  of  the  same  Master,  as 
believers  in  the  same  faith,  and  as  distinguished  by 
the  same  endeavours  after  holiness  and  consecration 
of  life;  and  so  were  called  brethren  (Acts  xv.  1, 
23  ;  1  Cor.  vii.  12),  disciples  (Acts  ix.  26,  xi.  29), 
believers  (Acts  v.  14),  saints  (Rom.  viii.  27,  xv.  25). 
But  the  outer  world  could  know  nothing  of  the 
true  force  and  significance  of  these  terms,  which 
were  in  a  manner  esoteric  ;  it  was  necessary  there 
fore  that  the  followers  of  the  new  religion  should 
have  some  distinctive  title.  To  the  contemptuous 
Jew  they  were  Nazarenes  and  Galilaeans,  names 
'vhich  carried  with  them  the  infamy  and  turbulence 
<_£  the  places  whence  they  sprung,  and  from  whence 
nothing  good  and  no  prophet  might  come.  The 
Jews  could  add  nothing  to  the  scorn  which  these 
Dames  expressed,  and  had  thev  endeavoured  to  do 
so  they  would  net  have  defiled  the  glory  of  their 
Messiah  by  applying  his  title  to  those  whom  they 
oould  not  but  regard  as  the  followers  of  a  pretender. 
The  name  "  Christian,1  '  then,  which,  in  the  only 


CHURCH 

other  cases  where  it  appears  in  the  N.  T.  (Act 
xxvi.  28  ;  1  Pet.  iv.  16  :  comp.  Tac.  Ann.  sv. 
44),  is  used  contemptuously,  could  not  have  been 
applied  by  the  early  disciples  to  themselves,  nor 
could  it  have  come  to  them  from  their  own  nation 
the  Jews  ;  it  must,  therefore,  have  been  imposed 
upon  them  by  the  Gentile  world,  and  no  place  could 
have  so  appropriately  given  rise  to  it  as  Antioch, 
where  the  first  Church  was  planted  among  the  hea 
then.  It  was  manifest  by  the  preaching  of  thfe. 
new  teachers  that  they  were  distinct  from  the  Jews, 
so  distinct  as  to  be  remarked  by  the  heathen  them 
selves  ;  and  as  no  name  was  so  frequently  in  their 
mouths  as  that  of  Christ,8  the  Messiah,  the  An 
ointed,  the  people  of  Antioch,  ever  on  the  alert  for 
a  gibe  or  mocking  taunt,  and  taking  Christ  to  be  a 
proper  name  and  not  a  title  of  honour,  called  his 
followers  XpHrriavoi,  Christians,  the  partisans  ot 
Christ,  just  as  in  the  early  struggles  for  the  Empire 
we  meet  with  the  Caesariani,  Pompeiani,  and  Oc- 
taviani.  The  Latin  form  of  the  name  is  what 
would  be  expected,  for  Antioch  had  long  been  a 
Roman  city.  Its  inhabitants  were  celebrated  for 
their  wit  and  a  propensity  for  conferring  nicknames 
(Procop.  Pers.  ii.  8,  p.  105).  The  Emperor  Julian 
himself  was  not  secure  from  their  jests  (Amm. 
Marc.  xxii.  14).  Apollonius  of  Tyana  was  driven 
from  the  city  by  the  insults  of  the  inhabitants 
(Philostr.  Vit.  Apoll.  iii.  16).  Their  wit,  how 
ever,  was  often  harmless  enough  (Lucian,  De  Saltat. 
76).  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
name  "Christian"  of  itself  was  intended  as  a  term 
of  scurrility  or  abn^e,  though  it  would  naturally  ba 
used  with  contempt. 

Suidas  (s.  v.  XpiffriavoC)  says  the  name  was 
given  in  the  reign  of  Claudius,  when  Peter  ap 
pointed  Evodius  bishop  of  Antioch,  and  they  who 
were  formerly  called  Nazarenes  and  Galilaeans  had 
tneir  name  changed  to  Christians.  According  to 
Malalas  (Chronog.  x.)  it  was  changed  by  Evodius 
himself,  and  William  of  Tyre  (iv.  9)  has  a  stoiy 
that  a  synod  was  held  at  Antioch  for  the  purpose. 
Ignatius,  or  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Mag- 
nesians  (c.  x.),  regards  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah 
(Ixii.  2,  12)  as  first  fulfilled  in  Syria,  when  Peter 
and  Paul  founded  the  Church  at  Antioch.  But 
i-easons  have  already  been  given  why  the  name  did 
not  originate  within  the  Church. 

Another  form  of  the  name  is  XpyffTiavoi,  arising 
from  a  false  etymology  (Lact.  iv.  7  ;  Tertullian, 
ApoL  c.'  3  ;  Suet.  Claud.  25),  by  which  it  was 
derived  from 


CHURCH  ('EiwtXi|<rfa).—  (I.)  The  derivation 
of  the  word  Church  is  uncertain.  It  is  found  in  the 
Teutonic  and  Slavonian  languages  (Anglo-Saxon, 
Circ,  Circe,  Cyric,  Cyricea  ;  English,  Church  ; 
Scottish,  Kirk  ;  German,  Kirche',  Swedish,  Kyrka  ; 
Danish,  Kyrke  ;  Dutch,  Karke;  Swiss,  Kitehe\ 
Frisian,  Tzierk  ;  Bohemian,  Cyrkew  ;  Polish, 
Cerkiew  ;  Russian,  Zerkwo\  and  answers  to  the  de 
rivatives  of  €KK\ri(ria,  which  are  naturally  found  in 
the  Romance  languages  (French,  Eglise  ;  Italian, 
Chiesa  ;  old  Vaudois,  Gleisa  ;  Spanish,  Iglesia), 
and  by  foreign  importation  elsewhere  (Gothic, 
Aik-klesjo  ;  Gaelic,  Eaglais  ;  Welsh,  Eglwys  ; 
Cornish,  Eglos}.  The  word  is  generally  said  to  be 
derived  from  the  Greek  Kvpia.K6v  (Walafrid  Strabo, 
De  Rebus  Ecclesiast.  c.  7;  Suicer,  s.  v.  /cvptcweoVj 
Glossarium,  s.  v.  "  Dominicum  ;"  Casaubon,  Exercit. 


a  "  Christ,"  and  not "  Jesus,"  is  the  term  most  common]? 
Applied  to  our  Lord  in  the  Epistles. 


CHURCH 

Baron. xiii.  §  xviii.;  Hooker,  Eccl.  PoLv.  xiii.  1  ; 

Pearson,  On  ilte  Creed,  Art.  ix. ;  Beveridge,  On  the 

Thirty-Nine    Articles,    Art.    xix. ;    Wordsworth, 

TheopMlus   Anglicanus,    c.    1  ;    Gieseler,   Eccles. 

History,  c.   1 ;  Trench,  Study  of  Words,  p.  75). 

But  the  derivation  has  been  too  hastily  assumed. 

The  arguments  in  its  favour  are  the  following :  (1.) 

a  similarity  of  sound  ;   (2.)  the  statement  of  Walafrid 

Strabo ;  (3.)  the  fact  that  the  word  Kvpiait6v  was 

undoubtedly  used  by  Greek  ecclesiastics  in  the  sense 

of  "a  Church,"  as  proved  by  a  reference  to  the 

Canons  of  the  Council  of  Ancyra  (Can.  xiv.),  of 

Neocaesarea   (Can.    v.,   xiii.),   of  Laodicea    (Can. 

xxviii.),  and  of  the  Council  in  Trullo  (Can.  Ixxiv.), 

to  Maximin's   Edict  (in  Euseb.  H.  E.  ix.  10),  to 

Eusebius'   Oration    in    praise    of  Constantine   (c. 

xviii.),  to  the  Apostolical  Constitutions  (ii.  59),  to 

Cyril  of  Jerusalem  (Catech.  xviii.),  and  to  a  similar 

use  of  "  Dominicum  "  by  Cypiian,  Jerome,  Kuffi- 

nus,  &c.     (4.)  The  possibility  of  its  having  passed 

as  a  theological  term  from  the  Greek  into  the  Teu 
tonic  and  Slavonian  languages.  (5.)  The  analogous 

meaning  and  derivation  of  the  Ethiopia  word  for 

Church,  which   signifies   "  the  house  of  Christ." 

On  the  other  hand  it  requires  little  acquaintance 

with   philology  to   know  that    (1.)   similarity  of 

sound   proves   nothing,  and  is  capable  of  raising 

only   the  barest  presumption.      (2.)  A  mediaeval 

writer's  guess  at  an  etymology  is  probably  founded 

wholly  on  similarity  of  sound,  and  is  as  worth 
less  as  the  derivations  with  which  St.  Augus 
tine's  works  are  disfigured  (Moroni  derives  Chiesa 

from  KvpictKov  in  his  Dizionario  Storico  ecclesi- 

astico,    and   Walafrid   Strabo   derives    the    words 

vater,  mutter,  from  the  Greek  through  the  Latin, 

herr  from  heros,  moner  and  monatli  from  n^vi], 

in   the   same   breath    as    kirche   from    K'jpiaic6v). 

(3.)  Although  KvpioMtv   is   found,  signifying   "a 

church,"  it  is  no  more  the  common  term  used  by 

Greeks,  than  Dominicum  is  the  common  term  used 

by  Latins.     It  is  therefore  very  unlikely  that  it 

should  have  been  adopted  by  the  Greek  missionaries 

and  teachers,  and  adopted  by  them  so  decidedly  as 

to  be  thrust  into  a  foreign  language.     (4.)  Nor  is 

there  any  probable  way  pointed  out  by  which  the 

importation  was  effected.     Walafrid  Strabo,  indeed 

\loc.  cit.},  attributes  it,  not  obscurely,  so  far  as 

the  Teutonic  tongues  are  concerned,  to  Ulfilas ;  and 

following   him,   Trench   says   (loc.   cit.},    "  These 

Goths,  the  first  converted  to  the  Christian  faith,  the 

first   therefore   that   had  a  Christian  vocabulary, 

lent  the  word  in  their  turn  to  the  other  German 

tribes,  among  others  to  our  Anglo-Saxon  forefathers." 

Had  it  been  so  introduced,  Ulfilas'  "  peaceful  and 

populous  colony  of  shepherds  and  herdsmen  on  the 

pastures  below  Mount  Haemus  "  (Milman,  i.  272) 

could  never  have  affected  the  language  of  the  whole  . .  _ 

Teutonic  race  in  all  its  dialects.     But  in  matter  of  I  sembly,  while  the  first  signification  of  "church 

fact  we  find  that  the  word  employed  by  Ulfilas  in    was  the   place   of  assembly,    which    imparted  ita 

'  name  to  the  body  of  worshippers. 

III.  the  Church  as  described  in  the  Gospels. — 
The  word  occurs  only  twice.  Each  time  in  St. 
Matthew  (Matt.  xvi.  18,  "On  this  rock  will  I 
build  my  Church ;"  xviii.  17,  "  Tell  it  unto  the 


CHURCH  d 

amongst  themselves.  (5.)  Furthw,  theie  b  tw 
reason  why  the  word  should  have  passed  into  thcw 
two  languages  rather  than  into  Latin.  The  Roman 
Church  was  in  its  origin  a  Greek  commuaAy,  and 
it  introduced  the  Greek  word  for  Church  into  tJu- 
Latin  tongue ;  but  this  word  was  not  cyriacum, ; 
it  was  ecclesia ;  and  the  same  influence  would  no 
doubt  have  introduced  the  same  word  into  the 
northern  languages,  had  it  introduced  any  word  at  all, 
(6.)  Finally,  it  is  hard  to  find  examples  of  a  Greek 
word  being  adopted  into  the  Teutonic  dialects, 
except  through  the  medium  of  Latin.  On  the  whole, 
this  etymology  must  be  abandoned.  It  is  strange 
that  Strabo  should  have  imposed  it  on  the  world  so 
long.  It  is  difficult  to  say  what  is  to  be  substi 
tuted.  There  was  probably  some  word  which,  in 
the  language  from  which  the  Teutonic  and  Slavonic 
are  descended,  designated  the  old  heathen  places  ol 
religious  assembly,  and  this  word,  having  taken 
different  forms  in  different  dialects,  was  adopted  by  ths 
Christian  missionaries.  It  was  probably  connected 
with  the  Latin  circus,  circulus,  and  with  the  Greek 
KVK\OS,  possibly  also  with  the  Welsh  cylch,  oyl, 
cynchle,  or  caer.  Lipsius,  who  was  the  first  to 
reject  the  received  tradition,  was  probably  right 
in  his  suggestion,  "  Credo  et  a  circo  Kirck  nostrum 
esse,  quia  veterum  templa  instar  Circi  rotunda" 
{Epist.  ad  Belgas,  Cent.  iii.  Ep.  44). 

II.  The  word  fKK\r)<ria  is  no  doubt  derived  from 
eK/faXf?!/,  and  in  accordance  with  its  derivation  it 
originally  meant  an  assembly  called  out  by  the  ma 
gistrate,  or  by  legitimate  authority.  This  is  the  or 
dinary  classical  sense  of  the  word.  But  it  throws  no 
light  on  the  nature  of  the  institution  so  designated  in 
the  New  Testament.  For  to  the  writers  of  the  N.  T. 
the  word  had  now  lost  its  primary  signification,  and 
was  either  used  generally  for  any  meeting  (Acts 
xix.  32),  or  more  particularly,  it  denoted  (1)  the 
religious  assemblies  of  the  Jews  (Deut4  iv.  10,  xviii. 
16,  ap.  LXX.) ;  (2)  the  whole  assembly  or  congre 
gation  of  the  Israelitish  people  (Acts  vii.  38  ;  Heb. 
ii.  12;  Ps.  xxii.  22;  Dent.  xxxi.  30,  ap.  LXX.). 
It  was  in  this  last  sense,  in  which  it  answered  to 

76OB^  pj"lj?,"that  the  word  was  adopted  and  applied 
by  the  writers  of  the  N.  T.  to  the  Christian  congre 
gation.  The  word  £itit\i)(ria,  therefbrej  does  not 
carry  us  back  further  than  the  Jewish  Church.  It 
implies  a  resemblance  and  correspondence  between 
the  old  Jewish  Church  and  the  recently  established 
Christian  Church,  but  nothing  more.  Its  etymo 
logical  sense  having  been  already  lost  when  adopted 
by  and  for  Christians,  is  only  misleading  if  pressed 
too  far.  The  chief  difference  between  the  words 
"ecclesia"  and  "  church,"  would  probably  consist 
in  this,  that  "ecclesia"  primarily  signified  the 
Christian  body,  and  secondarily  the  place  of  as- 


his  version  of  the  Scriptures  is  not  any  derivative 
of  Kvpiaic6v ;  but,  as  we  should  have  expected, 
cikklesjo  (Rom.  xvi.  23;  1  Cor.  xvi.  19  et  passim). 
This  theory  therefore  falls  to  the  ground,  and  with 
it  any  attempt  at  showing  the  way  in 


which  the 


,„  „..  -™r &  --   .._,  -   

word  passed  across  into  the  Teutonic  languages.    No    Church  ").    In  every  other  case  it  is  spoken  of  as  the 


special  hypothesis  has  been  brought  forward  to  ac 
count  for'its  admission  into  the  Slavonic  tongues,  and 
it  is  enough  to  say  that,  unless  we  have  evidence  to 


kingdom  of  heaven  by  St.  Matthew,  and  as  the 
kingdom  of  God  by  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke.  St. 
Mark,  St.  Luke,  and  St.  John,  never  use  the  expres- 


the  contrary,  we  are  testified  in  assuming  that  the    sion  kingdom  of  heaven.     St.  John  once  uses  tho 

»7  _       V.  -i.  i  ,        T         .  i      1  •„ J-,™    *f  /~*  *A    /lit      Q\         C4-     Uat+HAnr   ruvxft_ 


Greek  missionaries  in  the  9th  century  did  not  adopt  |  phrase  kingdom  of  God  (iii.  3). 
a  term  in  their  intercourse  with  strangers,  which  sioually  speaks  of  the  kingdom 
tJbey  hardly,  if  at  all,  used  in  ordinary  conversation 


St.  Matthew  occa- 
33,  x;i, 
31,  43\  and  sometimes  simply  of  the  kingdom  (iv. 


cli 


CHURCH 


23,  xiii.  19,  xxiv.  14).  In  xiii.  41  and  xvi.  28,  it  is 
the  Son  of  Man's  kingdom.  In  xx.  21,  thy  kingdom, 
i.e.  Christ's.  In  the  one  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  the 
Church  is  spoken  of  no  less  than  thirty-six  times  as 
the  Kingdom.  Other  descriptions  or  titles  are  hardly 
found  in  the  Evangelists.  It  is  Christ's  household 
(Matt.  x.  25),  the  salt  and  light  of  the  world  (v.  13, 
15),  Christ's  flock  (Matt.  xxvi.  31  ;  John  x.  1),  its  | 
members  are  the  branches  growing  on  Christ  the  Vine 
(John  xv.) :  but  the  general  description  of  it,  not 
metaphorically  but  directly,  is,  that  it  is  a  kingdom. 
In  Matt.  xvi.  19,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  formally,  \ 
as  elsewhere  virtually,  identified  with  e/£/cArj(rto. 
From  the  Gospel  then,  we  learn  that  Christ  was 
about  to  establish  His  heavenly  kingdom  on  earth, 
which  was  to  be  the  substitute  for  the  Jewish 
Church  and  kingdom,  now  doomed  to  destruction 
(Matt.  xxi.  43).  Some  of  the  qualities  of  this  king 
dom  are  illustrated  by  the  parables  of  the  tares,  the 
mustard  seed,  the  leaven,  the  hid  treasure,  the  pearl, 
the  draw-net :  the  spiritual  laws  and  principles  by 
which  it  is  to  be  governed,  by  the  parables  of  the 
talents,  the  husbandmen,  the  wedding  feast,  and 
the  ten  virgins.  It  is  not  of  this  world  though  in 
it  (John  xviii.  36).  It  is  to  embrace  all  the  na 
tions  of  the  earth  (Matt,  xxviii.  19).  The  means 
of  entrance  into  it  is  Baptism  (Matt,  xxviii.  19). 
The  conditions  of  belonging  to  it  are  faith  (Mark 
xvi.  16)  and  obedience  (Matt,  xxviii.  20).  Partici 
pation  in  the  Holy  Supper  is  its  perpetual  token  of 
membership,  and  the  means  of  supporting  the  life 
of  its  members  (Matt.  xxvi.  26 ;  John  vi.  51 ; 
1  Cor.  xi.  26).  Its  members  are  given  to  Christ 
by  the  Father  out  of  the  world,  and  sent  by  Christ 
into  the  world;  they  are  sanctified  by  the  truth 
(John  xvii.  19)  ;  and  they  are  to  live  in  love  and 
unity,  cognizable  by  the  external  world  (John  xiii. 
34,  xvii.  23).  It  is  to  be  established  on  the  Rock 
of  Christ's  Divinity,  as  confessed  by  Peter,  the  re 
presentative  (for  the  moment)  of  the  Apostles  (Matt. 
xvi.  18).  It  is  to  have  authority  in  spiritual  cases 
(Matt,  xviii.  17).  It  is  to  be  never  deprived  of 
Christ's  presence  and  protection  (xxviii.  20),  and  to  be 
never  overthrown  by  the  power  of  hell  (xviii.  19). 

IV.  The  Church  as  described  in  the  Acts  and  in 
the  Epistles — its  Origin,  Nature,  Constitution,  and 
Growth. — From  the  Gospels  we  learn  little  in  the 
way  of  detail  as  to  the  kingdom  which  was  to  be 
established.  It  was  in  the  great  forty  days  which 
intervened  between  the  Resurrection  and  the  Ascen 
sion  that  our  Lord  explained  specifically  to  His 
Apostles  "  the  things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom  of 
God"  (Acts  i.  3),  that  is,  his  future  Church. 

Its  Origin. — The  removal  of  Christ  from  the  earth 
had  left  his  followers  a  shattered  company  with  no 
bond  of  external  or  internal  cohesion,  except  the 
memory  of  the  Master  whom  they  had  lost,and  the  re 
collection  of  his  injunctions  to  unity  and  love,  together 
with  the  occasional  glimpses  of  His  presence  which 
were  vouchsafed  them.  They  continued  together, 
meeting  for  prayer  and  supplication,  and  waiting  for 
Christ's  promise  of  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
They  numbered  in  all  some  140  persons,  namely, 
the  eleven,  the  faithful  women,  the  Lord's  mother, 
his  brethren,  and  120  disciples.  They  had  faith  to 
believe  that  there  was  a  work  before  them  which 
they  were  about  to  be  called  to  perform  ;  and  that 
they  might  be  ready  to  do  it,  they  filled  up  the 
number  of  the  Twelve  by  the  appointment  of 
Matthias  "to  be  a  true  witness"  with  the  eleven 
"  of  the  Resurrection."  The  Day  of  Pentecost  is 
Uie  birth-day  of  the  Christ ias:  Church,  The  Spirit, 


CHURCH 

who  was  then  sent  by  the  Son  from  the  Father, 
and  rested  on  each  of  the  Disciples,  combined  thea 
once  more  into  a  whole — combined  them  as  thej 
never  had  before  been  combined,  by  an  internal  and 
spiritual  bond  of  cohesion.  Before  they  had  been 
individual  followers  of  Jesus,  now  they  became  his 
mystical  body,  animated  by  His  Spirit.  The  :iu> 
cleus  was  formed.  Agglonwation  and  development 
would  do  the  rest. 

Its  Nature. — St.  ij-.Ke  explains  its  nature  by 
describing  in  narrative  form  the  characteristics  of 
the  society  formed  by  the  union  of  the  original  140 
Disciples  with  the  3000  souls  who  were  converted 
on  the  Day  of  Pentecost.  "  Then  they  that  gladly 
received  his  word  were  baptized. . .  .and  they  con 
tinued  stedfastly  in  the  Apostles'  doctrine  and  fel 
lowship,  and  in  breaking  of  bread  and  in  prayers  " 
(Acts  ii.  41).  Here  we  have  indirectly  exhibited 
the  essentia4  conditions  of  Church  Communion. 
They  are  (1)  Baptism,  Baptism  implying  on  the 
part  of  the  recipient  repentance  and  faith  ;  (2)  Apos 
tolic  Doctrine;  (3)  Fellowship  with  the  Apostles; 
(4)  the  Lord's  Supper  ;  (5)  Public  Worship.  Every 
requisite  for  church-membership  is  here  enumerated 
not  only  for  the  Apostolic  days,  but  for  future 
ages.  The  conditions  are  exclusive  as  well  as  inclu 
sive,  negative  as  well  as  positive.  St.  Luke's  defi 
nition  of  the  Church,  then,  would  be  the  congrega 
tion  of  the  baptized,  in  which  the  faith  of  the 
Apostles  is  maintained,  connexion  with  the  Apostles 
is  preserved,  the  Sacraments  are  duly  administered, 
and  public  worship  is  kept  up.  The  earliest  defi 
nition  (virtually)  given  of  the  Church  is  likewise 
the  best.  To  this  body  St.  Luke  applies  the  name 
of  "  The  Church  "  (the  first  time  that  the  word  is 
used  as  denoting  an  existing  thing)  and  to  it,  consti 
tuted  as  it  was,  he  states  that  there  were  daily 
added  of  rrco£o/xevoi  (ii.  47).  By  this  expression 
he  probably  means  those  who  were  "  saving  them 
selves  from  their  untoward  generation "  (ii.  40), 
"  added,"  however,  "  to  the  Church  "  not  by  their 
own  mere  volition,  but  "  by  the  Lord,"  and  so 
become  the  elect  people  of  God,  sanctified  by  His 
Spirit,  and  described  by  St.  Paul  as  "delivered 
from  the  power  of  darkness  and  translated  into 
the  kingdom  of  His  dear  Son"  (Col.  i.  13).  St. 
Luke's  treatise  being  historical,  not  dogmatical,  he 
does  not  directly  enter  further  into  the  essentia] 
nature  of  the  Church.  The  community  of  goods, 
which  he  describes  as  being  universal  amongst  th« 
members  of  the  infant  society  (ii.  44,  iv.  32),  is 
specially  declared  to  be  a  voluntary  practice  (v.  4), 
not  a  necessary  duty  of  Christians  as  such  (comp. 
Acts  ix.  36,  39,  xi.  29). 

From  the  illustrations  adopted  by  St.  Paul  in  hit 
Epistles,  we  have  additional  light  thrown  upon 
nature  of  the  Church.  Thus  (Rom.  xi.  17), 
Christian  Church  is  described  as  being  a  branch 
grafted  on  the  already  existing  olive-tree,  showing 
that  it  was  no  new  creation,  but  a  dcvelopmer 
of  that  spiritual  life  which  had  flourished  in 
Patriarchal  and  in  the  Jewish  Church.  It  is 
scribed  (Rom.  xii.  4;  1  Cor.  xii.  12)  as  one  body 
made  up  of  many  members  with  different  offices, 
exhibit  the  close  cohesion  which  ought  to  exist 
between  Christian  and  Christian ;  still  more  it 
described  as  the  body,  of  which  Christ  is  the  He 
(Eph.  i.  22),  so  that  members  of  His  Church  are 
members  of  Christ's  body,  of  His  flesh,  of  His  bones 
(Eph.  v.  23,  30 ;  Col.  i.  18,  ii.  19),  to  show  the 
close  union  between  Christ  and  His  people.  Again, 
as  the  temple  of  God  built  upon  the  foun  tation 


OHLECH 

stone  of  Jesus  Christ  (1  Cor.  iii.  11),  and,  by  a 
slight  change  cf  metaphor,  as  the  temple  in  which 
3od  dwells  by  His  Spirit,  the  Apostles  and  pro 
phets  forming  the  foundation,  and  Jesus  Christ  the 
chief  corner-stone,  t.  e.  probably  the  foundation 
corner-stone  (Eph.  ii.  22).  It  is  also  the  city  of 
the  saints  and  the  household  of  God  (Eph.  ii.  19). 
But  the  passage  which  is  most  illustrative  of  our 
subject  in  the  Epistles  is  Eph.  iv.  3,  6.  "  Endea 
vouring  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond 
of  peace.  There  is  one  body  and  one  Spirit  even 
as  ye  are  called  in  one  hope  of  your  calling;  one 
Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God,  and  Father 
of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all,  and 
in  you  all."  Here  we  see  what  it  is  that  con 
stitutes  the  unity  of  the  Church  in  the  mind  of  the 
Apostle:  (1)  unity  of  Headship,  "  one  Lord;"  (2) 
unity  of  belief,  "  one  faith ;"  (3)  unity  of  Sacra 
ments,  "  one  baptism  ;"  (4)  unity  of  hope  of  eter 
nal  life,  "  one  hope  of  your  calling  "  (comp.  Tit.  i. 
2)  ;  (5)  unity  of  love,  "unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the 
bond  of  peace ;"  (6)  unity  of  organisation,  "  one 
body."  The  Church,  then,  at  this  period  was  a 
body  of  baptized  men  and  women  who  believed  in 
Jesus  as  the  Christ,  and  in  the  revelation  made  by 
Him,  who  were  united  by  having  the  same  faith, 
hope,  and  animating  Spirit  of  love,  the  same  Sacra 
ments,  and  the  same  spiritual  invisible  Head. 

What  was  the  Constitution  of  this  body?  — 
On  the  evening  of  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  the  3140 
members  of  which  it  consisted  were  (1)  Apostles, 
(2)  previous  Disciples,  (3)  converts.  We  never 
afterwards  find  any  distinction  drawn  between  the 
previous  disciples  and  the  later  converts ;  but  the 
Apostles  throughout  stand  apart.  Here,  then,  we 
find  two  classes,  Apostles  and  converts — Teachers 
and  taught.  At  this  time  the  Church  was  not 
only  morally  but  actually  one  congregation.  Soon, 
however,  its  numbers  grew  so  considerably  that 
it  was  a  physical  impossibility  that  all  its  mem 
bers  should  come  together  in  one  spot.  It 
became,  therefore,  an  aggregate  of  congregations. 
But  its  essential  unity  was  not  affected  by  the  acci 
dental  necessity  of  meeting  in  separate  rooms  for 
public  worship  ;  the  bond  of  cohesion  was  still  the 
same.  The  Apostles,  who  had  been  closest  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  in  his  life  on  earth  would  doubtless  have 
formed  the  centres  of  the  several  congregations  of 
listening  believers,  and  besides  attending  at  the 
Temple  for  the  national  Jewish  prayer  (Acts  iii.  IV 
and  for  the  purpose  of  preaching  Christ  (ii.  42), 
they  would  have  gone  round  to  "  every  house  " 
where  their  converts  assembled  "  teaching  and 
preaching,"  and  "  breaking  bread,"  and  "  distribut 
ing  "  the  common  goods  "  as  each  had  need  "  (ii. 
46,  iv.  35,  v.  42).  Thus  the  Church  continued  for 
apparently  some  seven  years,  but  at  the  end  of  that 
time  "  the  number  of  disciples  was  "  so  greatly 
"multiplied"  (Acts  vi.  1)  that  the  Twelve  Apos 
tles  found  themselves  to  be  too  few  to  carry  out 
these  works  unaided.  They  thereupon  for  the  first 
time  exercised  the  powers  of  mission  intrusted  to 
them  (John  xx.  21),  and  by  laying  their  hands  on 
the  Seven  who  were  recommended  to  them  by  the 
general  body  of  Christians,  they  appointed  them  to 
fulfn  the  secular  task  of  distributing  the  common 
stock,  which  they  had  themselves  hitherto  per 
formed,  retain^!  the  functions  of  praying,  and 
preaching,  and  administering  the  sacraments  in  their 
owa  hands.  It  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  cer- 
tttluiy  answered  whether  the  office  of  these  Seven  is 
to  be  identified  with  that  of  the  SI&KOVOL  elsewhere 


UHU11CH  cjn 

found  They  are  not  called  deacons  in  Scripture,  an \ 
it  has  been  supposed  by  some  that  they  were  extra- 
ordinary  officers  appointed  for  the  occasion  to  see 
that  the  Hellenistic  widows  had  their  fair  share  of 
the  goods  di^'-buted  arec^gst  the  poor  believers, 
and  that  they  had  no  successors  in  thei  r  office.  1  f  th  is 
be  so,  we  have  no  account  given  us  of  the  institu 
tion  of  the  Diaconate :  the  Deacons,  like  the  Pres 
byters,  are  found  existing,  but  the  circumstances 
under  which  they  were  brought  into  existence  are 
not  related.  We  incline,  however,  to  the  other 
hypothesis  which  makes  the  Seven  the  originals  of 
the  Deacons.  Being  found  apt  to  teach,  they  wei-e 
likewise  invested,  almost  immediately  after  their 
appointment,  with  the  power  of  preaching  to  the 
unconverted  (vi.  10)  and  of  baptizing  (viii.  38). 
From  this  time  therefore,  or  from  about  this  time, 
there  existed  in  the  Church — (1)  the  Apostles  ;  (2) 
the  Deacons  and  Evangelists ;  (3)  the  multitude  of 
the  faithful.  We  hear  of  no  other  Church-officer 
till  the  year  44,  seven  years  after  the  appointment 
of  the  deacons.  We  find  that  there  were  then  in 
the  Church  of  Jerusalem  officers  named  Presbyters 
(xi.  30)  who  were  the  assistants  of  James,  the  chief 
administrator  of  that  Church  (xii.  17).  The  cir 
cumstances  of  their  first  appointment  are  not  re 
counted.  No  doubt  they  were  similai  to  those  under 
which  the  Deacons  were  appointed.  As  in  the  year 
37  the  Apostles  found  that  the  whole  work  of  the 
ministry  was  too  great  for  them,  and  they  therefore 
placed  a  portion  of  it,  viz.  distributing  alms  to  the 
brethren  and  preaching  Christ  to  the  heathen,  on  the 
deacons,  so  a  few  years  later  they  would  have  found 
that  what  they  still  retained  was  yet  growing  too 
burdensome,  and  consequently  they  devolved  another 
portion  of  their  ministerial  authority  on  another 
order  of  men.  The  name  of  Presbyter  or  Elder 
implies  that  the  men  selected  were  of  mature  age. 
We  gather  incidentally  that  they  were  ordained  bv 
Apostolic  or  other  authority  (xiv.  23,  Tit.  i.  5 j, 
We  find  them  associated  with  the  Apostles  as  dis 
tinguished  from  the  main  body  of  the  Church 
(Acts  xv.  2,  4),  and  again  as  standing  between  the 
Apostles  and  the  brethren  (xv.  23).  Their  office 
was  to  pasture  the  Church  of  God  (xx.  28),  to  nili 
1  Tim.  v.  17)  the  flocks  over  which  the  Holy  Ghost 
bad  made  them  overseers  or  bishops  (Acts  xx.  28 , 
Phil.  i.  1 ;  1  Tim.  iii.  1,2;  Tit.  i.  7),  and  to  pray 
with  and  for  the  members  of  their  congregations 
(Jam.  v.  14).  Thus  the  Apostles  would  seem  to 
have  invested  these  Presbyters  with  the  full  powers 
which  they  themselves  exercised,  excepting  only  in 
respect  to  those  functions  which  they  discharged 
in  relation  to  the  general  regimen  of  the  whole 
Church  as  distinct  from  the  several  congregation* 
which  formed  the  whole  body.  These  functions 
they  still  reserved  to  themselves.  By  the  year  44, 
therefore,  there  were  in  the  Church  of  Jerusa- 
em — (i)  the  Apostles  holding  the  government  of 
the  whole  body  in  their  own  hands;  (2)  Presbyters 
invested  by  the  Apostles  with  authority  for  con 
ducting  public  worship  in  each  congregation ;  (3) 
Deacons  or  Evangelists  similarly  invested  with  the 
lesser  power  of  preaching  and  of  baptizing  unbe 
lievers,  and  of  distributing  the  common  goods  among 
the  brethren.  The  same  order  was  established  in  the 
Gentile  Churches  founded  hy  St.  Paul,  the  only  dif 
ference  teing  that  those  who  were  called  Presbyters 
n  Jerusalem  bore  indifferently  the  name  of  Bishops 
Phil.  i.  1  ;  1  Tim.  iii.  1,  2;  Tit.  i.  7)  or  of 
Presbyters  (1  Tim.  v.  17  ;  Tit.  i.  5)  elsewhere. 
It  was  in  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  that  anothei 


dv  CHUBCll 

order  of  the  ministry  found  its  exemplar.  The 
Apostles,  we  find,  remained  in  Jerusalem  (Acts  viii. 
1)  or  in  the  neighbourhood  (viii.  14)  till  the  perse 
cution  of  Herod  Agrippa  in  the  year  44.  The 
death  of  James  the  son  of  Zebedee,  and  the  impri 
sonment  and  flight  of  Peter,  were  the  signal  for  the 
dispersion  of  the  Apostles.  One  remained  behind — 
James  the  brother  of  the  Lord,  whom  we  identify 
with  the  Apostle,  James  the  son  of  Alphaeus 
[JAMES].  He  had  not  the  same  cause  of  dread  as 
the  rest.  His  Judaical  asceticism  and  general  cha 
racter  would  have  made  him  an  object  of  popu 
larity  with  his  countrymen,  and  even  with  the 
Pharisaical  Herod.  He  remained  unmolested,  and 
from  this  time  he  is  the  acknowledged  head  of  the 
Church  of  Jerusalem.  A  consideration  of  Acts  xii. 
17  ;  xv.  13, 19  ;  Gal.  ii.  2,  9, 12  ;  Actsxxi.  18,  will 
remove  all  doubt  on  this  head.  Indeed,  four  years 
before  Herod's  persecution  he  had  stood,  it  would 
seem,  on  a  level  with  Peter  (Gal.  i.  18,  19  ;  Acts 
ix.  27),  and  it  has  been  thought  that  he  received 
special  instructions  for  the  functions  which  he  had 
to  fulfil  from  the  Lord  Himself  (1  Cor.  xv.  7  ; 
Acts  i.  3).  Whatever  his  pre-eminence  was,  he 
appears  to  have  borne  no  special  title  indicating  it. 
The  example  of  the  Mother  Church  of  Jerusalem 
was  again  followed  by  the  Pauline  Churches.  Ti 
mothy  and  Titus  had  probably  no  distinctive  title, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  read  the  Epistles  addressed 
to  them  without  seeing  that  they  had  an  authority 
superior  to  that  of  the  ordinaiy  bishops  or  priests 
with  regard  to  whose  conduct  and  ordination  St. 
Paul  gives  them  instruction  (1  Tim.  iii. ;  v.  17, 
19 ;  Tit.  i.  5).  Thus,  then,  we  see  that  where  the 
Apostles  were  themselves  able  to  superintend  the 
Churches  that  they  had  founded,  the  Church-officers 
consisted  of— (1)  Apostles;  (2)  Bishops  or  Priests; 
(3)  Deacons  and  Evangelists.  When  the  Apostles 
were  unable  to  give  personal  superintendence,  they 
delegated  that  power  which  they  had  in  common  to 
one  of  themselves,  as  in  Jerusalem,  or  to  one  in 
whom  they  had  confidence,  as  at  Ephesus  and  in 
Crete.  As  the  Apostles  died  off,  these  Apostolic 
Delegates  necessarily  multiplied.  By  the  end  of 
the  first  century,  when  St.  John  was  the  only 
Apostle  that  now  survived,  they  would  have  been 
established  in  every  country,  as  Crete,  and  in  every 
large  town  where  there  were  several  bishops  or 
priests,  such  as  the  seven  towns  of  Asia  mentioned 
in  the  Book  of  Revelation.  These  superintendents 
appear  to  be  addressed  by  St.  John  under  the  name 
of  Angels.  With  St.  John's  death  the  Apostolic 
College  was  extinguished,  and  the  Apostolic  Dele 
gates  or  Angels  were  left  to  fill  their  places  in  the 
government  of  the  Church,  not  with  the  full  unre 
stricted  power  of  the  Apostles,  but  with  authority 
only  to  be  exercised  in  limited  districts.  In  the 
next  century  we  find  that  these  officers  bore  the 
name  of  Bishops,  while  those  who  in  the  first  cen 
tury  were  called  indifferently  Presbyters  or  Bishops 
had  now  only  the  title  of  Presbyters.  We  con 
clude,  therefore,  that  the  title  bishop  was  gradually 
dropped  by  the  second  order  of  the  ministry,  and 
applied  specifically  to  those  who  represented  what 
James,  Timothy,  and  Titus  had  been  in  the  Apostolic 
age.  Theodoret  says  expressly,  "  The  same  persons 
were  anciently  called  promiscuously  both  bishops 
and  presbyters,  whilst  those  who  are  now  called 
bishops  were  called  apostles,  but  shortly  after,  the 
name  of  apostle  was  appropriated  to  such  as  were 
apostles  indeed,  and  then  the  name  bishop  was  given  to 
those  before  called  apostles"  (Com.  in,  I.  Tim.  iii.  1). 


CHURCH 

There  are  other  names  found  in  the  Acts  and 
in  the  Epistles  which  the  light  thrown  backward 
by  early  ecclesiastical  history  shows  us  to  have  been 
the  titles  of  those  who  exercised  functions  which 
were  not  destined  to  continue  in  the  Church,  but 
only  belonging  to  it  while  it  was  being  brought 
into  being  by  help  of  miraculous  agency.  Such 
are  prophets  (Acts  xiii.  1 ;  Rom.  xii.  6;  1  Cor.  xii. 
28;  Eph.  iv.  11),  whose  function  was  to  proclaim 
and  expound  the  Christian  revelation,  and  to  inter 
pret  God's  will,  especially  as  veiled  in  the  Old  Tes 
tament  ;  teachers  (Acts  xiii.  1 ;  Rom.  xii.  7 ;  1 
<~!or.  xii.  28  ;  Eph.  iv.  11)  and  pastors  (Eph.  iv.  11) 
whose  special  work  was  to  instruct  those  already 
admitted  into  the  fold,  as  contrasted  with  the 
evangelists  (ibid.)  who  had  primarily  to  instruct 
the  heathen.  Prophecy  is  one  of  the  extraordinary 
Xapifffjiara  which  were  vouchsafed,  and  is  to  be 
classed  with  the  gifts  of  healing,  of  speaking  ecsta 
tically  with  tongues,  of  interpretation  of  tongues, 
i.  e.  explanation  of  those  ecstatic  utterances,  and  dis 
cernment  of  spirits,  i.  e.  a  power  of  distinguishing 
between  the  real  and  supposed  possessors  of  spiritual 
gifts  (1  Cor.  xii.).  Teaching  (xapto>o  8i&a<r«aAias, 
Rom.  xii.  6  ;  1  Cor.  xii.  28)  is  one  of  the  ordinary 
gifts,  and  is  to  be  classed  with  the  word  of  wisdom 
and  the  word  of  knowledge  (1  Cor.  xii.  8),  perhaps 
with  "  faith  "  (ib.  9),  with  the  gift  of  government 
(xdpifffj-a  Kvpcpv-fiffws,  ib.  28),  and  with  the 
gift  of  ministration  (^6.piff^.a  fiiaicovias  or  avn- 
\tyews,  Rom.  xii.  6;  1  Cor.  xii.  28).  These 
Xapio-fJiaTa,  whether  extraordinary  or  ordinary, 
were  "  divided  to  every  man  as  the  Spirit  willed," 
according  to  the  individual  character  of  each,  and 
not  officially.  Those  to  whom  the  gifts  of  pro 
phecy,  teaching,  and  government  were  vouchsafed 
were  doubtless  selected  for  the  office  of  Presbyter, 
those  who  had  the  gift  of  ministration  for  the 
office  of  Deacon.  In  the  Apostles  they  all  alike 
resided. 

Its  external  Growth. — The  3000  souls  that  were 
added  to  the  Apostles  and  to  the  120  brethren  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost  were  increased  daily  by  new 
converts  (Acts  ii.  47,  v.  14).  These  converts  were 
without  exception  Jews  residing  in  Jerusalem, 
whether  speaking  Greek  or  Hebrew  (vi.  1).  After 
seven  or  eight  years  a  step  was  made  outwards. 
The  persecution  which  followed  the  martyrdom  of 
Stephen  drove  away  the  adherents  of  the  new 
doctrines,  with  the  exception  of  the  Apostles,  and 
"  they  that  were  scattered  abroad  went  everywhere 
preaching  the  word  "  to  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion. 
Philip,  in  his  capacity  of  Evangelist,  preached 
Christ  to  the  Samaritans,  and  admitted  them  into 
the  Church  by  baptism.  In  Philistia  he  made  the 
first  Gentile  convert,  but  this  act  did  not  raise  the 
question  of  the  admission  of  the  Gentiles,  because 
the  Ethiopian  eunuch  was  already  a  proselyte  (viii. 
27),  and  probably  a  proselyte  of  Righteousness. 
Cornelius  was  a  proselyte  of  the  Gate  (x.  2).  The 
first  purely  Gentile  convert  that  we  hear  of  by 
name  is  Sergius  Paulus  (xiii.  7),  but  we  are  told 
that  Cornelius'  companions  were  Gentiles,  and  by 
their  baptism  the  admission  of  the  Gentiles  was  de 
cided  by  tha  agency  of  St.  Peter,  approved  by  the 
Apostles  and  Jewish  Church  (xi.  18),  not,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  by  the  agency  of  St.  Paul.  This 
great  event  took  place  after  the  peace  caused  by 
Caligula's  persecution  of  the  Jews,  which  occurred 
A.D.  40  (ix.  31),  and  more  than  a  year  before  the 
famine,  in  the  time  of  Claudius,  A.D.  44  (xi.  26» 
29).  Galilee  had  already  been  evangelized  as  well 


CHUKCH 

.is  Judaea  and  Samaria,  though  the  special  agent  in 
the  work  is  not  declared  (ix.  31). 

The  history  of  the  growth  of  the  Gentile  Church, 
so  far  as  we  know  it,  is  identical  with  the  history 
of  St.  Paul.  In  his  three  journeys  he  carried 
Christianity  through  the  chief  cMes  of  Asia  Minor 
and  Greece.  His  method  appears  almost  invari 
ably  to  have  been  this :  he  presented  himself  on  the 
Sabbath  at  the  Jewish  synagogue,  and  having  first 
preached  the  doctrine  of  a  suffering  Messiah,  he 
next  identified  Jesus  with  the  Messiah  (xvii.  3). 
His  arguments  on  the  first  head  were  listened  to 
with  patience  by  all,  those  on  the  second  point 
wrought  conviction  in  some  (xvii.  4),  but  roused 
the  rest  to  persecute  him  (xvii.  5).  On  finding  his 
words  rejected  by  the  Jews  he  turned  from  them  to 
the  Gentiles  (xviii.  6,  xxviii.  28).  His  captivity  in 
Rome,  A.D.  63-65,  had  the  effect  of  forming  a  Church 
out  of  the  Jewish  and  Greek  residents  in  the  impe 
rial  city,  who  seem  to  have  been  joined  by  a  few 
Italians.  His  last  journey  may  have  spread  the 
Gospel  westward  as  far  as  Spain  (Rom.  xv.  28  ; 
Clemens,  Eusebius,  Jerome,  Chrysostom).  The  death 
of  James  at  Jerusalem  and  of  Peter  and  Paul  at 
Rome,  A.  D.  67,  leaves  one  only  of  the  Apostles 
presented  distinctly  to  our  view.  In  the  year  70 
Jerusalem  was  captured,  and  before  St.  John  fell 
asleep,  in  98,  the  Petrine  and  Pauline  converts,  the 
Churches  of  the  circumcision  and  of  the  uncircum- 
cision,  had  melted  into  one  harmonious  and  accord 
ant  body,  spreading  in  scattered  congregations  at 
the  least  from  Babylon  to  Spain,  and  from  Macedonia 
to  Africa.  How  far  Christian  doctrine  may  have 
penetrated  beyond  these  limits  we  do  not  know. 

Itsfwther  Growth. — As  this  is  not  an  ecclesias 
tical  history,  we  can  but  glance  at  it.  There  were 
three  great  impulses  which  enlarged  the  borders  of 
the  Church.  The  first  is  that  which  began  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost,  and  continued  down  to  the 
conversion  of  Constantine.  By  this  the  Roman 
Empire  was  converted  to  Christ,  and  the  Church 
was,  speaking  roughly,  made  conterminous  with 
the  civilized  world.  The  second  impulse  gathered 
within  her  borders  the  hitherto  barbarous  nations 
formed  by  the  Teutonic  and  Celtic  tribes,  thus  win 
ning,  or  in  spite  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Empire, 
retaining  the  countries  of  France,  Scotland,  Ireland, 
England,  Lombardy,  Germany,  Denmark,  Sweden, 
Norway.  The  third  impulse  gathered  in  the  Sla 
vonian  nations.  The  first  of  these  impulses  lasted 
to  the  fourth  century — the  second  to  the  ninth 
century — the  third  (beginning  before  the  second 
had  ceased)  to  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries. 
We  do  not  reckon  the  Nestorian  missionary  efforts 
in  the  seventh  century  in  Syria,  Persia,  India,  and 
China,  nor  the  post-Reformation  exertions  of  the 
Jesuits  in  the  East  and  West  Indies,  for  these 
attempts  have  produced  no  permanent  results.  Nor 
again  do  we  speak  of  the  efforts  now  being  made 
in  Africa,  India,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  because 
it  has  not  yet  been  proved,  except  perhaps  in  the 
cast  of  New  Zealand,  whether  they  will  be  suc 
cessful  in  bringing  these  countries  within  the  fold 
of  Christ. 

V.  Alterations  in  its  Constitution. — We  have 
said  that  ecclesiastical  authority  resided  (1)  in 
the  Apostles;  (2)  in  the  Apostles  and  the  Deacons; 
(3)  in  the  Apostles,  the  Presbyters,  and  the 


»  An  attempt  was  made  to  resuscitate  this  class  in 
England,  under  the  title  of  suffragan  bishops,  by  the  »ull 
unrepealcd  26th  Henry  Vlil  Q  14  by  which  twenty-six 


CHUKCH  cv 

Deacons ;  (4)  in  the  Apostolic  Delegates,  the  Pres 
byters,  and  the  Deacons ;  (5)  in  those  who  suc 
ceeded  the  Apostolic  Delegates,  the  Presbyters,  and 
the  Deacons.  And  to  these  successors  of  the  Apos 
tolic  Delegates  came  to  be  appropriated  the  title  of 
Bishop,  which  was  originally  applied  to  Presbyters. 
At  the  commencement  of  the  second  century  and 
thenceforwards  Bishops,  Presbyters,  and  Deacons  are 
the  officers  of  the  Church  wherever  the  Church 
existed.  Ignatius'  Epistles  (in  their  unadulterated 
form)  and  the  other  records  which  are  preserved  to 
us  are  on  this  point  decisive.  (See  Pearson's  Vindiciae 
Ignatianae,  part  ii.  c.  xiii.  p.  534,  ed.  Churton.) 
Bishops  were  looked  on  as  Christ's  Vicegerents 
(Cyprian,  Ep.  55  (or  59)  with  Rigaltius'  notes), 
and  as  having  succeeded  to  the  Apostles  (Id.  Ep. 
69  (or  66)  and  42  (or  45)  Firmilian,  Jerome), 
every  bishop's  see  being  entitled  a  "  sedes  aposto- 
lica."  They  retained  in  their  own  hands  authority 
over  presbyters  and  the  function  of  ordination,  but 
with  respect  to  each  other  they  were  equals  whether 
their  see  was  "  at  Rome  or  at  Eugubium." 

Within  this  equal  college  of  bishops  there  soon 
arose  difference  of  rank  though  not  of  order.  Below 
the  city-bishops  there  sprang  up  a  class  of  country- 
bishops  (chorepiscopi)  answering  to  the  archdeacons 
of  the  English  Church,  except  that  they  had  re 
ceived  episcopal  consecration  (Hammond,  Beveridge, 
Cave,  Bingham),  and  were  enabled  to  perform  some 
episcopal  acts  with  the  sanction  of  the  city-bishops. 
Their  position  was  ambiguous,  and  in  the  fifth  cen 
tury  they  began  to  decay  and  gradually  died  out.* 
Above  the  city-bishops  there  were,  in  the  second 
century  apparently,  Metropolitans,  and  in  the  third, 
Patriarchs  or  Exarchs.  The  metropolitan  was  the 
chief  bishop  in  the  civil  division  of  the  empire 
which  was  called  a  province  (lirapxia).  His  see 
was  at  the  metropolis  of  the  province,  and  he  pre 
sided  over  his  suffragans  with  authority  similar 
to,  but  greater  than,  that  which  is  exercised  in 
their  respective  provinces  by  the  two  archbishops 
in  England.  The  authority  of  the  patriarch  or 
exarch  extended  over  the  still  larger  division  of  the 
civil  empire  wbich  was  called  a  dioecese.  The  eccle 
siastical  was  framed  in  accordance  with  the  exi 
gencies  and  after  the  model  of  the  civil  polity. 
When  Constantine,  therefore,  divided  the  empire 
into  13  dioeceses,  "  each  of  which  equalled  the  just 
measure  of  a  powerful  kingdom  "  (Gibbon,  c.  xviii.), 
the  Church  came  to  be  distributed  into  13  (includ 
ing  the  city  and  neighbouihood  of  Rome,  14)  dioe- 
cesan,  or,  as  we  should  say,  national  churches. 
There  was  no  external  bond  of  government  to  hold 
these  churches  together.  They  were  independent 
self-ruled  wholes,  combined  together  into  one  greater 
whole  by  having  one  invisible  Head  and  one  ani 
mating  Spirit,  by  maintaining  each  the  same  faith 
and  exercising  each  the  same  discipline.  The  only 
authority  which  they  recognised  as  capable  of 
controlling  their  separate  action,  was  that  of  an 
Oecumenital  Council  composed  of  delegates  from 
each  ;  and  these  Councils  passed  canon  after  canon 
forbidding  the  interference  of  the  bishop  of  any  one 
dioecese,  that  is,  district,  or  country,  with  the  bishop 
of  any  other  dioecese.  "  Bishops  outside  a  '  dioe- 
eese '  are  not  to  invade  the  Churches  across  the 
borders,  nor  bring  confusion  into  the  Churches," 
says  the  second  canon  of  the  Council  of  Constan- 


towns  were  named  as  the  seats  of  bishops,  who  were  to 
»ct  under  the  bisnops  of  the  diocese  In  which  they  were 
situated. 


2Vl 


CHURCH 


tinople,  "lest,"  says  the  eighth  canon  of  the 
Council  of  Ephesus,  "  the  pride  of  worldly  power 
be  introduced  under  cover  of  the  priestly  function, 
and  by  little  and  little  we  be  deprived  of  the  liberty 
which  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  deliverer  of  all  men, 
has  given  us  by  his  own  blood." b  But  there  was 
a  stronger  power  at  work  than  any  which  could  be 
controlled  by  canons.  Rome  and  Constantinople 
were  each  the  seats  of  imperial  power,  and  symp 
toms  soon  began  to  appear  that  the  patriarchs  of 
the  imperial  cities  were  rival  claimants  of  imperial 
power  in  the  Church.  Rome  was  in  a  better  po 
sition  for  the  struggle  than  Constantinople,  for, 
besides  having  the  prestige  of  being  Old  Rome,  she 
was  also  of  Apostolic  foundation.  Constantinople 
could  not  boast  an  Apostle  as  her  founder,  and  she 
was  but  New  Rome.  Still  the  imperial  power  was 
strong  iu  the  East  when  it  had  fallen  in  the  West, 
and  furthermore  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  had  so 
far  dispensed  with  the  canons  and  with  precedent 
in  respect  to  Constantinople  as  to  grant  the  patri 
arch  jurisdiction  over  three  dioeceses,  to  establish  a 
right  of  appeal  to  Constantinople  from  any  part  of 
the  Church,  and  to  confirm  the  decree  of  the  second 
Council,  which  elevated  the  see  of  Constantinople 
above  that  of  Alexandria  and  of  Antioch.  It  was 
by  the  Pope  of  Constantinople  that  the  first  overt 
attempt  at  erecting  a  Papal  Monarchy  was  made ; 
and  by  the  Pope  of  Rome,  in  consequence,  it  was 
fiercely  and  indignantly  denounced.  John  of  Con 
stantinople,  said  Gregory  the  Great,  was  destroying 
the  patriarchal  system  of  government  (lib.  v.  43  ; 
ix.  68) ;  by  assuming  the  profane  appellation  of 
Universal  Bishop  he  was  anticipating  Antichrist 
(lib.  vii.  27,  33),  invading  the  rights  of  Chri&t, 
and  imitating  the  devil  (lib.  v.  18).  John  of 
Constantinople  failed.  The  successors  of  Gregory 
adopted  as  their  own  the  claims  which  John  had 
not  been  able  to  assert,  and  on  the  basis  of  the 
False  Decretals  of  Isidore,  and  of  Gratian's  Decre- 
tum,  Nicholas  I.,  Gregory  VII.,  and  Innocent  III. 
reared  the  structure  of  the  Roman  in  place  of*  the 
Coustantinopolitan  Papal  Monarchy.  From  this 
time  the  federal  character  of  the  constitution  of  the 
Church  was  overthrown.  In  the  West  it  became 
wholly  despotic,  and  in  the  East,  though  the  theory 
of  aristocratical  government  was  and  is  maintained, 
the  still-cherished  title  o|  Oecumenical  Patriarch  in 
dicates  that  it  is  weakness  which  has  prevented  Con 
stantinople  from  erecting  at  least  an  Eastern  if  she 
could  not  an  Universal  Monarchy.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  a  further  change  of  constitution  occurred. 
A  great  part  of  Europe  revolted  from  the  Western 
despotism.  The  Churches  of  England  and  Sweden 
returned  to,  or  rather  retained,  the  episcopal  form 
of  government  after  the  model  of  the  first  centuries. 
In  parts  of  Germany,  of  France,  of  Switzerland,  and 
of  Great  Britain  a  Presbyterian,  or  still  less  defined, 
form  was  adopted,  while  Rome  tightened  her  hold 
on  her  yet  remaining  subjects,  and  by  destroying  all 
peculiarities  of  national  liturgy  and  custom,  and, 
by  depressing  the  order  of  bishops  except  as  inter 
preters  of  her  decrees,  converted  that  part  of  the 
Churcl  over  which  she  had  sway  into  a  jealous 
centralized  absolutism. 

VI.  The  existing  Church. — Its  members  fall  into 
three  broadly-marked  groups,  the  Greek  Churches, 
the  Latin  Churches,  the  Teutonic  Churches.  The 
orthodox  Greek  Church  consists  of  the  Patriarchate 

•»  See  Canons  v.,  vi.  of  Nicaea ;  ii.,  iii.,  vi.  of  Constan 
tinople;  i.,  viii,  of  Ephesus;  ix.,  xvii.,  xxvii.,  xxx.,  of 

Chalcedon. 


CHURCH 

of  Constantinople  with  135  sees,  of  Alexandria  with 
4  sees,  of  Antioch  with  16  sees,  of  Jerusalem  with 
13  sees,  of  the  Russian  Church  with  65  sees ;  besidet 
which,  there  are  in  Cyprus  4  sees,  in  Austria  11 
sees,  in  Mount  Sinai  1  see,  in  Montenegro  1  see,  in 
Greece  24  sees.  To  these  must  be  added— (1.)  th« 
Nestorian  or  Chaldaean  Church,  once  spread  from 
China  to  the  Tigris,  and  from  Lake  Baikal  to  Cape 
Comorin,  and  ruled  by  twenty-five  Metropolitans  and 
a  Patriarch  possessing  a  plenitude  of  power  equal 
to  that  of  Innocent  III.  (Neale,  Eastern  Church,  i. 
143),  but  now-  shrunk  to  16  sees.  (2.)  The  Chrb- 
tians  of  St.  Thomas  under  the  Bishop  of  Malabar. 
(3.)  The  Syrian  Jacobites  under  the  Patriarch  of 
Antioch  resident  at  Caramit  or  Diarb»>kir.  (4.)  The 
Maronites  with  9  sees.  (5.)  The  Copts  with  1- 
sees.  (6.)  The  savage,  but  yet  Christian  Abyso.- 
nians,  and  (7.)  the  Armenians,  the  most  intelligent 
and  active  minded,  but  at  the  same  time  the  most 
distracted  body  of  Eastern  believers. 

The  Latin  Churches  are  those  of  Italy  with  262 
sees,  of  Spain  with  54,  of  France  with  81,  of  Por 
tugal  with  17,  of  Belgium  and  Holland  with  11,  of 
Austria  with  64,  of  Germany  with  24,  of  Switzerland 
with  5.  Besides  these,  the  authority  of  the  Roman 
See  is  acknowledged  by  63  Asiatic  bishops,  10 
African,  136  American,  43  British,  and  36  Pre 
lates  scattered  through  the  countries  where  the 
Church  of  Greece  is  predominant. 

The  Teutonic  Churches  consist  of  the  Anglican 
communion  with  48  sees  in  Europe,  51  in  Canada, 
America,  and  the  West  Indies,  8  in  Asia,  8  in  Africa, 
and  15  in  Australia  and  Oceanica;  of  the  Church 
of  Norway  and  Sweden,  with  17  sees ;  of  the  Churches 
of  Denmark,  Prussia,  Holland,  Scotland,  and  scat 
tered  congregations  elsewhere.  The  members  of  the 
Greek  Churches  are  supposed  to  number  80,000,000, 
of  the  Teutonic  and  Protestant  Churches  90,000,000, 
of  the  Latin  Churches  170,000,000,  making  a  total 
of  25  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  globe. 

VII.  Definitions  of  the  Church.— The  Greek 
Church  gives  the  following:  "The  Church  is  a 
divinely  instituted  community  of  men,  united  by 
the  orthodox  faith,  the  law  of  God,  the  hierarchy, 
and  the  Sacraments"  (Full  Catechism  of  the  Ortho 
dox,  Catholic,  Eastern  Church,  Moscow,  1839). 
The  Latin  Church  defines  it  "  the  company  of 
Christians  knit  together  by  the  profession  of  the 
same  faith  and  the  communion  of  the  same  sacra 
ments,  under  the  government  of  lawful  pastors,  and 
especially  of  the  Roman  bishop  as  the  only  Vicar  of 
Christ  upon  earth  "  (Bellarm.  De  Eccl.  Mil.  iii.  2  J 
see  also  Devoti  Inst.  Canon.  1,  §iv.  Romae,  1818). 
The  Church  of  England,  "  a  congregation  of  faithful 
men  in  which  the  pure  word  of  God  is  preached,  and 
the  Sacraments  be  duly  ministered  according  to 
Christ's  ordinance  in  all  those  things  that  of  necessity 
are  requisite  to  the  same  "  (Art.  xix.).  The  Lutheran 
Church,  "  a  congregation  of  saints  in  which  the 
Gospel  is  rightly  taught  and  the  sacraments  rightly 
administered"  (Confessio  Augustana,  1631,  Art. 
vii.).  The  Confessio  Helvetica,  "  a  congregation  oJ 
faithful  men  called,  or  collected  out  of  the  world, 
the  communion  of  all  saints "  (Art.  xvii.).  The 
Confessio  Saxonica,  "  a  congregation  of  men  em 
bracing  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  rightly  using  the 
Sacraments"  (Art.  xii.).  The  Confessio  Belgica, 
a  true  congregation,  or  assembly  of  all  faithful 
Christians  who  look  for  the  whole  of  their  salvation 
from  Jesus  Christ  alone,  as  being  washed  by  His 
blood,  and  sanctified  and  sealed  by  His  SpLi*' 
(Ait.  xxvii.). 


CHURCH 

These  definitions  show  the  difficulty  in  which  the 
different  sections  of  the  divided  Church  find  them 
selves  in  framing  a  definition  which  will  at  once 
accord  with  the  statements  of  Holy  Scripture,  and 
be  applicable  to  the  present  state  of  the  Christian 
world.  We  have  seen  that  according  to  the  Scrip 
tural  view  the  Church  is  a  holy  kingdom,  esta 
blished  by  God  on  earth,  of  which  Christ  is  the 
invisible  King — it  is  a  divinely  organized  body,  the 
members  of  which  are  knit  together  amongst  them 
selves,  and  joined  to  Christ  their  Head,  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who  dwells  in  and  animates  it ;  it  is  a  spi 
ritual  but  visible  society  of  men  united  by  constant 
succession  to  those  who  were  personally  united  to 
the  Apostles,  holding  the  same  faith  that  the  Apostles 
held,  administering  the  same  sacraments,  and  like 
them  forming  separate,  but  only  locally  separate, 
assemblies,  for  the  public  worship  of  God.  This  is 
the  Church  according  to  the  Divine  intention.  But 
as  God  permits  men  to  mar  the  perfection  of  His 
designs  in  their  behalf,  and  as  men  have  both  cor 
rupted  the  doctrines  and  broken  the  unity  of  the 
Church,  we  must  not  expect  to  see  the  Church  of 
Holy  Scripture  actually  existing  in  its  perfection  on 
oarth.  It  is  not  to  be  found,  thus  perfect,  either  in 
.he  collected  fragments  of  Christendom,  or  still  less 
in  any  one  of  these  fragments ;  though  it  is  possible 
that  one  of  those  fragments  more  than  another  may 
approach  the  Scriptural  and  Apostolic  ideal  which 
existed  only  until  sin,  heresy,  and  schism,  had  time 
sufficiently  to  develop  themselves  to  do  their  work. 
It  has  been  questioned  by  some  whether  Hooker, 
in  his  anxious  desire  after  charity  and  liberality,  has 
not  founded  his  definition  of  the  Church  upon  too 
wide  a  basis ;  but  it  is  certain  that  he  has  pointed 
out  the  true  principle  on  which  the  definition  must 
be  framed  (Eccl.  Pol.  v.  68,  6).  As  in  defining  a 
man,  he  says,  we  pass  by  those  qualities  wherein 
one  man  excels  another,  and  take  only  those  essen 
tial  properties  wliereby  a  man  differs  from  creatures 
of  other  kinds,  so  in  defining  the  Church,  which  is 
a  technical  name  for  the  professors  of  the  Christian 
religion,  we  must  fix  our  attention  solely  on  that 
which  makes  the  Christian  religion  differ  from  the 
religions  which  are  not  Christian.  This  difference 
is  constituted  by  the  Christian  religion  having  Jesus 
Chiist,  his  revelation,  and  his  precepts  for  the  object 
of  its  contemplations  and  the  motive  of  its  actions. 
The  Church,  therefore,  consists  of  all  who  acknow 
ledge  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  the  blessed  Saviour  of 
mankind,  who  give  credit  to  His  Gospel,  and  who 
hold  His  sacraments,  the  seals  of  eternal  life,  in 
honour.  To  go  further,  would  be  not  to  define  the 
Church  by  that  which  makes  it  to  be  what  it  is, 
»'.  e.  to  declare  the  being  of  the  Church,  but  to 
define  it  by  accidents,  which  may  conduce  to  its 
well  being,  but  do  not  touch  its  innermost  nature. 
From  this  view  of  the  Church  the  important  conse 
quence  follows,  that  all  the  baptized  belong  to  the 
visible  Church,  whatever  be  their  divisions,  crimes, 
misbeliefs,  provided  only  they  are  not  plain  apostates, 
and  directly  deny  and  utterly  reject  the  Christian 
faith,  as  far  as  the  same  is  professedly  different  from 
infidelity.  "  Heretics  as  touching  those  points  of  doc 
trine  in  which  they  fail ;  schismatics  as  touching  the 
quarrels  for  which  or  the  duties  in  which  they  divide 
themselves  from  their  brethren;  loose,  licentious, 
and  wicked  persons,  as  touching  their  several  offences 
or  crimes,  have  all  forsaken  the  true  Church  of 
God — the  Church  which  is  sound  and  sincere  in  the 
doctrine  which  they  corrupt,  the  Church  that 
h*>cpet>  i.he  bond  of  unity  which  tney  vio.'ate.  the 


CHURCH 


evil 


Church  that  walketh  in  the  laws  of  righteousness 
which  they  transgress,  this  very  true  Church  ot 
Christ  they  have  left— howbeit,  not  altogether  left 
nor  forsaken  simply  the  Church,  upon  the  founda 
tion  of  which  they  continue  built  notwithstanding 
these  breaches  whereby  they  are  rent  at  the  top 
asunder"  (v.  68,  7). 

VIII.  7'^  Faith,  Attributes,  and  Notes  of  th* 
Church. — The   Nicene   Creed   is  the   especial   and 
authoritative  exponent  of  the  Church's  faith,  having 
been  adopted  as  such  by  the  Oecumenical  Councils 
of  Nicaea  and  Constantinople,  and  ever  afterwards 
regarded  as  the  sacred  summary  of  Christian  doc 
trine.    We  have  the  Western  form  of  the  same  Creed 
in  that  which  is  called  the  Creed  of  the  Apostles — 
a  name  probably  derived  from  its  having  been  the 
local  Creed  of  Rome,  which  was  the  chief  Apostolif. 
see  of  the  West.     An  expansion  of  the  same  Creed, 
made  in  order  to  meet  the  Arian  errors,  is  found  in 
the  Creed  of  St.  Athanasius.      The  Confessions  of 
Faith  of  the  Synod  of  Bethlehem  (A.D.  1672),  of 
the  Council  of  Trent  (commonly  known  as  Pope 
Pius'  Creed,  A.D.  1564),  of  the  Synod  of  London 
(A.D.  1562),  of  Augsburg,  Switzerland,  Saxony,  &c., 
stand  on  a  lower  level,  as  binding  on  the  members 
of  certain  portions  of  the  Church,  but  not  being  the 
Church's  Creeds.     The  attributes  of  the  Church  are 
drawn  from  the  expressions  of  the  Creeds.     The 
Church  is  described  as  One,  Holy,  Catholic,  Apostolic. 
Its  Unity  consists  'n  having  one  object  of  worship 
(Eph.  iv.  6),  one  Head  (Eph.  iv.  15),  one  body 
(Rom.  xii.  5),  one  Spirit  (Eph.  iv.  4),  one  faith 
(ib.  13),  hope  (ib.  12),  love  (1  Cor.  xiii.  13),  the  same 
sacraments  (ib.  x.  17),  discipline  and  worship  (Acts 
ii.  42).   Its  Holiness  depends  on  its  Head  and  Spirit, 
the  means  of  grace  which  it  offers,  and  the  holiness 
that  it  demands  of  its  members  (Eph.  iv.  24).     Its 
Catholicity  consists  in  its  being  composed  of  many 
national  Churches,  not  confined  as  the  Jewish  Church 
to  one  country  (Mark  xvi.  15) ;  in  its  enduring  to  the 
end  of  time  (Matt,  xxviii.  20)  ;  in  its  teaching  the 
whole  truth,  and  having  at  its  disposal  all  the  means 
of  grace  vouchsafed  to  man.     Its  Apostolicity  in 
being  built  on  the  foundation  of  the  Apostles  (Eph. 
ii.  20),  and  continuing  in  their  doctrine  and  fellow 
ship  (Acts  ii.  42).     The  notes  of  the  Church  are 
given  by  Bellarmine  and  theologians  of  his  school, 
as  being  the  title  "  Catholic,"  antiquity,  succession, 
extent,  papal  succession,  primitive  doctrine,  unity, 
sanctity,  efficacy  of  doctrine,  holiness  of  its  authors, 
miracles,  prophecy,  confession  of  foes,  unhappy  end 
of   opponents,    temporal    good-fortune    (Bellarm. 
Contr.  torn.  ii.  lib.  iv.  p.  1293,  Ingoldst.  1580): 
by  Dean  Field  as  (1)  the  complete  profession  of  the 
Christian  faith ;  (2)  the  use  of  certain  appointed 
ceremonies  and  sacraments;   (3)  the  union  of  men 
in  their  profession  and  in  the  use  of  these  sacraments 
under  lawful  pastors  (Of  the  Church,  bk.  ii.  c.  ii. 
p.  65).     It  is  evident  that  the  notes  by  which  the 
Church  is'  supposed  to  be  distinguished  must  differ 
according  to  the  definition  of  the  Church  accepted 
by  the  theologian  who  assigns  them,  because  the  tru« 
notes  of  a  thing  must  necessarily  be  the  essential 
properties  of  that  thing.     But  each  theologian  is 
likely  to  assume   those  particulars   in   which   he 
believes  his  own  branch  or  part  of  the  Church  to 
excel  others  as  the  notes  of  the  Church  Universal. 

IX.  Distinctions. — "  For  lack  of  diligent  observ 
ing  the  differences  first  between  the  Church  of  God 
mystical   and   visible,    then    between    the    visiblc 
sound   and  corrupted,  sometimes   more  sometime? 
less,  the  oversights  are  neither  few  nor  light  th  it 


oviii 


CHURCH 


have  been  committed"  (Hooker,  Eccl.  Pol.  iii.  1,  9). 
The  word  Church  is  employed  to  designate  (1)  the 
place  in  which  Christians  assemble  to  worship  (pos 
sibly  1  Cor.  xiv.  19) ;  (2)  a  household  of  Christians 
(Col.  iv.  15) ;  (3)  a  congregation  of  Christians  as 
sembling  from  time  to  time  for  worship,  but  gene 
rally  living  apart  from  each  other  (Rom.  xvi.  1) ; 
(4)  a  body  of  Christians  living  in  one  city  as 
sembling  for  worship  in  different  congregations  and 
at  different  times  (1  Cor.  i.  1) ;  (5)  a  body  of 
Christians  residing  in  a  district  or  country  (1  Cor. 
xiii.) ;  (6)  the  whole  visible  Church,  including 
sound  and  unsound  members,  that  is,  all  the  bap 
tised  professors  of  Christianity,  orthodox,  heretical, 
and  schismatical,  moral  or  immoral ;  (7)  the  visible 
Church  exclusive  of  the  manifestly  unsound  mem 
bers,  that  is,  consisting  of  those  who  appear  to  be 
orthodox  and  pious ;  (8)  the  mystical  or  invisible 
Church,  that  is,  the  body  of  the  elect  known  to 
God  alone  who  are  in  very  deed  justified  and  sancti 
fied,  and  never  to  be  plucked  out  of  their  Saviour's 
hands,  composed  of  the  Church  Triumphant  and  of 
some  members  of  the  Church  Militant  (John  x.  28 ; 
Heb.  xii.  22) ;  (9)  the  Church  Militant,  that  is,  the 
Church  in  its  warfare  on  earth — identical  therefore 
with  the  Church  visible;  (10)  the  Church  Tri 
umphant,  consisting  of  those  who  have  passed  from 
this  world,  expectant  of  glory  now  in  Paradise,  and 
to  be  glorified  hereafter  in  heaven.  The  word  may 
be  fairly  used  in  any  of  these  senses,  but  it  is  plain 
that  if  it  is  employed  by  controversialists  without  a 
clear  understanding  in  which  sense  it  is  used,  inex 
tricable  confusion  must  arise.  And  such  in  fact  has 
been  the  case. 

X.  Literature.— On.  the  Nature  of  the  Church 
the  following  books  may  be  consulted : — Cyprian, 
De  Unitate  Ecclesiae,  Op.  p.  75,  Amst.  1700. 
Vincentius  Lirinensis,  Commonitorium,  Vien.  1809; 
in  English,  Oxf.  1841.  Cranmer,  Works,  i.  376, 
ii.  11,  Cambr.  1843.  Ridley,  Conference  with 
Latimer,  p.  122,  Cambr.  1843."  Hooper,  Works ^  ii. 
41,  Cambr.  1852.  Becon,  Works,  i.  293,  ii.  41, 
Cambr.  1843.  Hooker.  Eccles.  Polity,  iii.  1,  v.  68, 
§6  and  78,  Oxf.  1863.  Beliarmme,  De  Conciliis 
et  Ecclesia  Disputat.  i.  1084,  Ingolds.  1580. 
Andrewes,  Works,  viii.  Oxf.  1854.  Field,  Of  the 
Church,  Cambr.  1847.  Laud,  Conference  with 
Fisher,  Oxf.  1849.  Jeremy  Taylor,  Works,  v. 
Lond.  1849.  Bramhall,  Works,  i.  ii.  iii.  Oxf. 
1842.  Thorndike,  Works,  i.-vi.  Oxf.  1844.  Be- 
veridge,  On  Art.  XIX.,  Works,  vii.  357,  and  De 
Metropolitans,  xii.  38,  Oxf.  1848.  Hammond, 
Works,  ii.  Oxf.  1849.  Pearson,  Exposition  of  the 
Creed,  Art.  IX.  Oxf.  1833.  Bingham,  Antiqui 
ties  of  the  Christian  Church,  Lond.  1856  ;  and  in 
Latin,  Halae,  1751.  De  Marca,  De  Concordia 
Sacerdotii  et  Imperil,  Paris,  1663.  Thomassini, 
Veins  et  Nova  Ecclesiae  Disciplina,  Lucae,  1728. 
Palmer,  Treatise  on  the  Church,  Lond.  1842. 
Gladstone,  The  State  in  its  relations  with  the 
Church,  Lond.  1839  ;  Church  Principles  considered 
in  their  results,  Lond.  1840.  Wordsworth,  Theo- 
philus  Anglicanus,  Lond,  1857,  and  in  French, 
1861.  Harold  Browne ,  Exposition  of  the  XXXIX. 
Articles,  On  Art.  XIX.  Lond.  1862.  Bates, 
Lectures  on  Christian  Antiquities,  Lond.  1845. 
Hook,  Church  Dictionary,  Lond.  1852.  Coxe, 
Calendar  of  the  Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic 
Church,  New  York,  1863. 

On  the  History  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Euse- 
bius,  Historia  Ecclesiast  lea,  Oxon.  1838,  and  (to 
gether  with  his  coutinuators,  Socrates,  Sozomeu, 


COLLEGE 

Theodoret,  Evagrius,  Philostorgius,  and  Theodoras 
Lector)  Cantab.  1720.  Mansi,  Conciliorum  Ccl- 
lectio,  Florence,  1759  ;  Centuriae  Magdeburgenses, 
Basil,  1559.  Baronius,  Annales  Ecclesiastici, 
Lucae,  1738.  Gibbon,  Roman  Empire,  c,  xv. 
Fleury,  Histoire  Ecclesiastique,  Brux.  1713.  Ti  lle- 
mont,  Memoir-espourservir  a  I'histoire  eccl&iastique 
des  six  premiers  siecles,  Paris,  1701.  Mosheim, 
Inst.  Histor.  Ecclesiast.  Helmst.  1755,  and  in  re 
vised  translation  by  Stubbs,  Lond.  1863.  Neander, 
Allgem.  Geschichte  der  Christl.  Eelig.  u.  Kirche, 
Hamb.  1825;  and  in  T.  T.  Clark's  translation, 
Edinb.  1854.  Dollinger,  Geschichte  der  Christl. 
Kirche,  1833,  and  in  Cox's  translation,  Lond.  1840. 
Gieseler,  Compendium  of  Ecclesiastical  History, 
Kurtz,  History  of  tlw  Christian  Church  ;  Baum- 
garten,  Apostolic  History,  all  in  T.  T.  Clark's 
series,  Edinb.  1854-1860.  Cave,  Lives  of  the 
Fathers,  Oxf.  1840;  and  Scriptorum  Ecclesiasti- 
corum  Historia  Literaria,  Oxf.  1740  ;  D'Aubigne, 
History  of  the  Reformation,  London,  1838.  Bates, 
Lectures  on  Ecclesiastical  History,  Lond.  1852. 
Blunt,  Church  in  the  Three  first  Centuries,  Lond, 
1856.  Hardwick,  History  of  the  Christian  Church^ 
Cambr.  1853-1856.  Robertson,  History  of  the 
Christian  Church,  Lond.  1854.  Bright,  History  of 
the  Church,  Oxf.  1860.  De  Pressens(5,  Histoire 
Ecclesiastique,  Paris,  1858. 

On  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Church.  —  Le 
Quien,  Oriens  Christianus,  Paris,  1732.  Assemani. 
Bibliotheca  Orientalis,  Rome,  1765.  Renaudot, 
Liturgiarum  Orientalium  Collectio,  Paris,  1720. 
Mouravieff,  Church  of  Russia,  Oxf.  1842.  Neaie, 
Holy  Eastern  Church,  Lond.  1847,  and  1850. 
Badger,  The  Nestorians  and  their  Ritual,  Lond. 
1852.  Palmer,  Dissertations  on  the  Orthodox 
Communion,  Lond.  1853.  Stanley,  Lectwes  on 
the  Eastern  Church,  Lond.  1862. 

On  the  History  of  the  Latin  Church.  —  Milman, 
Latin  Christianity,  Lond.  1854.  Greenwood, 
Cathedra  Petri,  Lond.  1858.  Ranke,  History  of 
the  Popes,  translated  by  Sarah  Austin,  Lond.  1851. 

On  the  History  of  the  Church  of  England.  —  Bede, 
Histor.  Ecclesiast.  Gentis  Anglorum,  Oxf.  1846. 
Ussher.  Britannicarum  Ecclesiarum  Antiquitates, 
Works,  v.  vi.  Collier  Ecclesiastical  History  of 
Great  Britain,  Lond.  1845.  Burnet,  History  of 
the  Reformation  of  the  Church  of  England,  Oxi. 
1829.  Southey,  Book  of  the  Church,  Lond.  1837. 
Wordsworth,  Ecclesiastical  Biography,  Lond. 
1839.  Short,  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the  Church 
of  England,  Lond.  1840.  Churton,  Early  Eng 
lish  Church,  Lond.  1841.  Massingberd,  History 
of  the  English  Reformation,  Lond.  1842;  and  in 
French,  1861.  Stubbs,  Registrum  Sacrum  Angli- 
canum,  Oxf.  1858.  Hook,  Lives  of  the  Arch 
bishops  of  Canterbury,  Lond.  1860.  Debary,  His 
tory  of  the  Church  of  England,  from  1635  to  1717, 
Lond.  1860.  Wilkins,  Concilia  Magnae  Britan- 
niae  (a  new  edition  is  in  preparation  by  the  Ox 
ford  University  Press)  .  Skinner,  Ecclesiastical  His 
tory  of  Scotland,  Lond.  1788.  Russell,  History  of 
the  Church  in  Scotland,  Lond.  1834.  Mant,  His 
tory  of  the  Church  of  Ireland,  Lond.  1841.  King, 
Church  History  of  Ireland,  Dublin,  1845.  Ander 
son,  History  of  the  Colonial  Church,  Lond.  1845. 
Wilberforce,  History  of  the.  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  America,  Lond.  1844.  [F.  M.J 


COLLEGE,     THE 

rttwcfa).     In  2  K.  xxii.  14  it  is  said  in  the  A.  V. 
that  Huldah  the  prophetess  '  dwelt  in  Jerusalem 


CYl'ltlANS 

in  the  cdlege"  or,  as  the  margin  has  it,  "  in  the 
second  part."  The  same  part  of  the  city  is  un 
doubtedly  alluded  to  in  Zeph.  i.  10  (A.  V.  "  the 
second  ").  Our  translators  derived  their  rendering 
"  the  college  "  from  the  Targum  of  Jonathan,  which 
has  "house  of  instruction,"  a  schoolhouse  supposed 
to  have  been  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Temple. 
This  translation  must  have  been  based  upon  the 
meaning  of  the  Hebrew  mishneh,  "  repetition," 
which  has  been  adopted  by  the  Peshito-Syriac,  and 
the  word  was  thus  taken  to  denote  a  place  for  the 
repetition  of  the  law,  or  perhaps  a  place  where 
copies  of  the  law  were  made  (comp.  Deut.  xvii.  18  ; 
Josh.  viii.  32).  Rashi,  after  quoting  the  render- 
ing  of  the  Targum,  says,  "  there  is  a  gate  in  the 
Temple]  court,  the  name  of  which  is  the  gate  of 
Huldah  in  the  treatise  Middoth  [i.  3],  and  some 
translate  n^D2  without  the  wall,  between  the 


'  two  walls,  which  was  a  second  part  (mishneh}  to 
the  city."  The  latter  is  substantially  the  opinion 
of  the  author  of  Quaest.  in  Libr.  Reg.  attributed 

i  to  Jerome.  Keil's  explanation  (Comm.  in  loc.)  is 
probably  the  true  one,  that  the  Mishneh  was  the 
"  lower  city,"  called  by  Josephus  ^  &\Arj  ir6\is 
(Ant.  xv.  11,  §5),  and  built  on  the  hill  Akra. 
Ewald  (on  Zeph.  i.  10)  renders  it  Neustadt,  that 

;     is,  Bezetha,  or  New  Town. 

Others  have  explained  the  word  as  denoting  the 
quarter  of  the  city  allotted  to  the  Levites,  who 
were  a  second  or  inferior  order  as  compared  with 
the  priests,  or  to  the  priests  who  were  second  in 
rank  as  compared  with  the  high-priest.  Junius 
and  Tremellius  render  "  in  parte  secunda  ab  eo," 
that  is,  from  the  king,  the  position  of  Huldah's 
house,  next  the  king's  palace,  accounting  for  the 
fact  that  she  was  first  appealed  to.  Of  conjectures 
like  these  there  is  no  end. 

CYPRIANS  (Kvirploi:  Cyprii}.  Inhabitants 
of  the  island  of  Cyprus  (2  Mace.  iv.  29).  At  the 
time  alluded  to  (that  is  during  the  reign  of  Antio- 
chus  Epiphanes),  they  wVe  under  the  dominion  of 
Egypt,  and  were  governed  by  a  viceroy  who  was 
possessed  of  ample  powers,  and  is  called  in  the  in 
scriptions  ffTparriybs  /col  vatapxos  Kal  apx^pev 
6  nark  i-V  vyffov  (comp.  Boeckh,  Corp.  Insc.  No 
2624).  Crates,  one  of  these  viceroys,  was  left  bj 
Sostratus  in  command  of  the  castle,  or  acropolis 
of  Jerusalem  while  he  was  summoned  before  the 
king. 


DAN    (1*5 :  om.    in    LXX.:    Dan}.      Appar 
ently  the  name  of  a  city,  associated  with  Jason,  a. 
one  of  the  places  in  Southern  Arabia-  from  which 
the  Phoenicians  obtained  wrought  iron,  cassia,  an 
calamus   (Ez.  xxvii.  19).     Ewald  conjectures  tha 
it  is  the  same  as  the  Keturahite  Dedan  m  Gen.  xxv 
3,  but  his  coniecture  is  without  support,  though  i 
is  adopted  bv"Furst  (Handw.}.     Others  refer  it  t 
the  tribe  of  Dan,  for  the  Danites  were  skilful  work 
men,  and  both  Aholiab  (Ex.  xxxv.  34)  and  Huram 
(2  Chr.  ii.  13)  belonged  to  this  tribe.    But  for  th' 
view  also  there  appears  to  be  as  little  foundation, 
we  consider  the  connexion  in  which  the  name  o< 

DAN'ITES,  THE  (OTI  :  &  Aa^,  Aa> 
&  Atfr,  ol  Aavn-ai ,  Alex.  I  A^,  ol  Aavirai 
Dan].  The  descendants  of  Dan,  and  members^ 
his  tribe.  >dg.  xiii.  2,  xviii.  1, 11 ;  1  Chr.  xii.  3o 


EGYPTIAN  en 

DARI'US.     4.      (Aopefovi      Alex.   Aapiot 
Ln'ws).      Areus,    king   of  the   Lacedaemonians  (\ 
Mace.  xii.  7).    [AREUS.] 

DEDANIM  (D^Tj:  AoiSdV:  Dedanim,< 
s.  xxi.  13.  [DEDAN.] 

DEPUTY.  The  uniform  rendering  in  the  A.  V. 
f  avBinraros,  "  proconsul "  (Acts  xiii.  7,  8,  12, 
ix.  38).  The  English  word  is  curious  in  itself, 
nd  to  a  certain  extent  appropriate,  having  been 
pplied  formerly  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
"bus  Shaks.  Hen.  VIII.  iii.  2  : 

"  Plague  of  your  policy, 
You  sent  me  deputy  for  Ireland." 

DORA  (Awpa:  Dora}.  1  Mace.  xv.  11,  13, 
5.  [DOR.] 

DOSITH'EUS  (Aa>(H0eoy:  Dositheus^  Dosi- 
haeus}.  1.  One  of  the  captains  of  Judas  Macca- 
>eus  in  the  battle  against  Timotheus  (2  Mace.  xii. 
9,  24). 

2.  A  horse-soldier  of  Bacenor's  company,  a  man 
>f  prodigious  strength,  who,  in  attempting  to  cap* 
,ure  Gorgias,  was  cut  down  by  a  Thracian  (2  Mace. 

xii.  35). 

3.  The  eon  of  Drimylus,  a  Jew,  who  had  re 
nounced   the   law   of  his  fathers,  and  was  in  the 
camp  of  Ptolemy  Philopater  at  Raphia  (3  Mace.  i. 
3).     He  appears  to  have  frustrated  the  attempt  ol 
Theodotus  to  assassinate  the  king.     According  to 

the  Syriac  Version  he  put  in  the  king's  tent  a  man 
of  low  rank  (&<rim6v  nva},  who  was  slain  instead 
of  his  master.  Polybius  (v.  81)  tells  us  it  was 
the  king's  physician  who  thus  perished.  Dositheus 
was  perhaps  a  chamberlain. 


E 


E'BAL  (/Qty  :  Tai$-fi\,  Tat^A ;  Alex. 
*  aoj8^)\  in  1  Chr. :  Ebal).  1.  One  of  the  sons  ot 
Shobal  the  son  of  Seir  (Gen.  xxxvi.  23  ;  1  Chr.  i.  40). 

2.  (om.  in  Vat.  MS. ;  Alex.  Te/xidj/ :  ffebal}. 
OBAL  the  son  of  Joktan  (1  Chr.  i.  22  ;  comp.  .Gen. 
x.  28).  Eleven  of  Kennicott's  MSS.  read  72>J> 
in  1  Chr.  as  in  Gen. 

E'BER  ( "QSJ  :  'n/3^8  :  ffeber}.  1.  Son  of 
Elpaal  and  descendant  of  Shaharaim  of  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin  (1  Chr.  viii.  12).  He  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  Ono  and  Lod  with  their  surrounding 
/•illages. 

2.  ('AjSc'S).  A  priest,  who  represented  the 
family  of  Amok,  in  the  days  of  Joiakim  the  son 
of  Jeshua  (Neh.  xii.  20). 

E'DEN  (HV  :  'Iwa8<£fi ;  Alex.  'laa&dv  : 
Eden}.  1.  A  Gershonite  Levite,  son  of  Joah,  in 
the  days  of  Hezekiah  (2  Chr.  xxix.  12).  He  was 
one  of  the  two  representatives  of  his  family  who 
took  part  in  the  purification  of  the  Temple. 

„  r/>^*ji..\     Aiso  a   Levite,   contemporary  and 


. 

probably  identical  with  the  preceding,  who  under 
Kore  the  son  of  Imnah  was  over  the  freewill  oner- 
ings  of  God  (2  Chr.  xxxi.  15). 
EGYPTIAN  OIVP.  niasc.;   nny^   fem-: 
ia,'  '  Aegyptius],  EGYPTIANS 


Alyvirrov  :   Aegyptii,  AegyptiM 
Natives   of  Egypt.     The  word  most 


ex  EKBONITES 

commonly  -endered  Egyptians  (Mitsraim)  is  the 
name  of  the  country,  and  might  be  appropriately  so 
translated  iix  mary  cases. 

EK'BOKITES,  THE  (tfnpjfn,  D'ripjm  : 
6  'A/e/capowTTjy,  ot  'AffKaXcav'iTai :  Accaronitne*). 
The  inhabitants  of  Ekron  (Josh.  xiii.  3  ;  1  Sam. 
r.  10).  In  the  latter  passage  the  LXX.  read  "  Esh- 
kalonites." 

EL-PA'RAN  (j^NS  ^K :  ij  T€p€j8iV0os  TTJS 
Qapav ;  Alex.  ^  repepivdos  r.  * :  campestria 
Pharan).  Literally  "  the  terebinth  of  Paran" 
^Gen.  xiv.  6).  [PARAN.] 

E'NOS  (BH3K:  'Evcfo:  #nos).  The  son  of 
Seth ;  properly  called  Enosh,  as  in  1  Chr.  i.  1 
(Gen.  iv.  26,  v.  6,  7,  9,  10,  11  ;  Luke  iii.  38). 

E'NOSH.  The  same  as  the  preceding  (1  Chr. 
i.  1). 

EPH'KAIMITE  (WBK  :  'E^paBir^s  ;  Alex. 
CK  rov  'Etppaifi :  Ephrathde'us).  Of  the  tribe  of 
Ephraim ;  elsewhere  called  "  Ephrathite "  (Judg. 
xii.  5).  FEPHRAIM,  p.  566,  note  c.] 

ERAS'TUS  ("Epaffros :  Erastus}.  1.  One  of 
the  attendants  or  deacons  of  St.  Paul  at  Ephesus, 
who  with  Timothy  was  sent  forward  into  Mace 
donia  while  the  Apostle  himself  remained  in  Asia 
(Acts  xix.  22).  He  is  probably  the  same  with 
Erastus  who  is  again  mentioned  in  the  salutations 
to  Timothy  (2  Tim.  iii.  20),  though  not,  as  Meyer 
maintains,  the  same  with  Erastus  the  chamberlain 
of  Corinth  (Rom.  xvi.  23). 

2.  Erastus  the  chamberlain,  or  rather  the  public 
treasurer  (olKov6^.os,  arcarius]  of  Corinth,  who  was 
one  of  the  early  converts  to  Christianity  (Rom.  xvi. 
23).  According  to  the  traditions  of  the  Greek 
Church  (Menol.  Graecum,  i.  p.  179),  he  was  first 
oeconomus  to  the  Church  at  Jerusalem,  and  after 
wards  Bishop  of  Paneas.  He  is  probably  not  the 
same  with  Erastus  who  was  with  St.  Paul  at 
Ephesus,  for  in  this  case  we  should  be  compelled  »to 
assume  that  he  is  mentioned  in  the  Ep.  to  the 
Romans  by  the  title  of  an  office  which  he  had  once 
held  and  afterwards  resigned. 

E'EI  (njj:  'ArjSefe,  'ASSi;  Alex.  'A?)8fc  in 
Gen.:  Heri,  H«r\  Son  of  Gad  (Gen.  xlvi.  16; 
Num.  xxvi.  16). 

E'EITES,  THE  (V$jJ :  6  'A5Sf,  ffentoe). 
A  branch  of  the  tribe  of  Gad,  descended  from  Eri 
CNum.  xxvi.  16). 

ETHIO'PIAN  (WD:  Aieioty :  Aethiops}. 
Properly  "  Cushite  "  (Jer.  xiii.  23)  ;  dsed  of  Zerah 
(2  Chr.  xiv.  9  [8]  ),  and  Ebedmelech  (Jer.  xxxviii. 
7,  10,  12,  xxxix.  16). 

ETHIO'PIAN  WOMAN  (JV6P3:  A&w- 
iriffffa :  Aethiopissa).  Zipporah,  the  wife  of 
Moses,  is  so  described  in  Num.  xii.  1.  She  is  else 
where  said  to  have  been  the  daughter  of  a  Midianite, 
and  in  consequence  of  this  Ewald  and  others  have 
suppossd  that  the  allusion  is  to  another  wife  whom 
Mosts  married  after  the  death  of  Zipporah. 

ETHIO'PIANS  (B«D,  Is.  xx.  4,  Jer.  xlvi.  9, 
^•13  :  Aldioires :  Aethiopia,  Aethiopes}.  Properly 
"  Cush"  or  "  Ethiopia"  in  two  passages  (Is.  xx.  4  ; 
Jer.  xlvi.  9).  Elsewhere  "  Cushites,"  or  inhabitants 
of  Ethiopia  (2  Chr.  xii.  3,  xiv.  12  [11],  13 
[12].  xvi.  8,  xxi.  16;  Dan.  xi.  43;  Aiu.  ix.  7; 
Zeph.  ii,  12).  ("ETHIOPIA.] 


EXCOMMUNICATION 


EXCOMMUNICATION  ('A<j>opicr/t(fc ;  E» 
wmmunicatio).  Excommunication  is  a  power 
bunded  upon  a  right  inherent  in  all  religious  so 
cieties,  and  is  analogous  to  the  powers  of  capital 
)unishment,  banishment,  and  exclusion  from  mem* 
>ership,  which  are  exercised  by  political  and  munici 
pal  bodies.  If  Christianity  is  merely  a  philosophical 
dea  thrown  into  the  world  to  do  battle  with  other 
;heories,  and  to  be  valued  according  as  it  maintains 
ts  ground  or  not  in  the  conflict  of  opinions,  ex 
communication,  and  ecclesiastical  punishments,  and 
penitential  discipline  are  unreasonable.  If  a  society 
las  been  instituted  for  maintaining  any  body  of 
doctrine,  and  any  code  of  morals,  they  are  necessary 
;o  the  existence  of  that  society.  That  the  Christian. 
hurch  is  an  organized  polity,  a  spiritual  "  King 
dom  of  God  "  on  earth,  is  the  declaration  of  the 
Bible  [CHURCH]  ;  and  that  the  Jewish  Church  was 
t  once  a  spiritual  and  a  temporal  organization  is 
clear. 

I.  Jewish  Excommunication. — The  Jewish  sys 
tem  of  excommunication  was  threefold.  For  a  first 
offence  a  delinquent  was  subjected  to  the  penalty  of 

3  (Niddui).  Kambam  (quoted  by  Lightfoot, 
Horae  Hebraicae,  on  1  Cor.  v.  5),  Monnus  (De 
Poenitentia,  iv.  27),  and  Buxtorf  (Lexicon,  s.  v, 
•HJ)  enumerate  the  twenty-four  offences  for  which 
t  was  inflicted.  They  are  various,  and  range  in 
heinousness  from  the  offence  of  keeping  a  fierce  dog 
to  that  of  taking  God's  name  in  vain.  Elsewhere 
(Bab.  Moed  Katon,  fol.  16, 1)  the  causes  of  its  inflic 
tion  are  reduced  to  two,  termed  money  and  epicurism, 
by  which  is  meant  debt  and  wanton  insolence.  The 
offender  was  first  cited  to  appear  in  court,  and  if  he 
refused  to  appear  or  to  make  amends,  his  sentence 
was  pronounced — "  Let  M.,  or  N.,  be  under  excom 
munication."  The  excommunicated  person  was 
prohibited  the  use  of  the  bath,  or  of  the  razor,  or 
of  the  convivial  table ;  and  all  who  had  to  do 
with  him  were  commanded  to  keep  him  at  four 
cubits'  distance.  He  was  allowed  to  go  to  the 
Temple,  but  not  to  make  the  circuit  in  the  or 
dinary  manner.  The  term  of  this  punishment  was 
thirty  days ;  and  it  was  extended  to  a  second,  and 
to  a  third  thirty  days  when  necessary.  If  at  the  end 
of  that  time  the  offender  was  still  contumacious,  he 
was  subjected  to  the  second  excommunication  termed 
D^in  (cherem),  a  word  meaning  something  devoted 

to'  God  (Lev.  xxvii.  21,  28 ;  Ex.  xxii.  20  [19] ; 
Num.  xviii.  14).  Severer  penalties  were  now  attached. 
The  offender  was  not  allowed  to  teuch  or  to  be 
taught  in  company  with  others,  to  hire  or  to  be 
hired-,  nor  to  perform  any  commercial  transactions 
beyond  purchasing  the  necessaries  of  life.  The 
sentence  was  delivered  by  a  court  of  ten,  and  was 
accompanied  by  a  solemn  malediction,  for  which 
authority  was  supposed  to  be  found  in  the  "  Curse  ye 
Meroz"  of  Judg.  v.  23.  Lastly  followed  NflD^ 
(Shammdtha),  which  was  an  entire  cutting  off  from 
the  congregation.  It  has  been  supposed  by  some 
that  these  two  latter  forms  of  excommunication 
were  undistinguishable  from  each  other. 

The  punishment  of  excommunication  is  not  ap 
pointed  by  the  Law  of  Moses.  It  is  founded  on  the 
natural  right  of  self-protection  which  all  societies 
enjoy.  The  case  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram 
(Num.  xvi.),  the  curse  denounced  on  Meroz  (Judg. 
v.  23),  the  commission  and  proclamation  of  Ezra 
(vii.  26,  x.  8),  and  the  reformation  of  Nehemiah 
(xiii.  25),  are  appealed  to  by  the  Talmudists  as 


EXCOMMUNICATION 

precedents  by  which  their  proceedings  are  regul 
ated.  In  respect  to  the  principle  involved,  the  "  cut 
ting  off  from  the  people"  commanded  for  certain 
gins  (Ex.  xxx.  33,  38,  xxxi.  14;  Lev.  xvii.  4),  and  the 
exclusion  from  the  camp  denounced  on  the  leprous 
(Lev.  xiii.  46  ;  Num.  xii.  14)  are  more  apposite. 

In  the  New  Testament,  Jewish  extommunication 
is  brought  prominently  before  us  in  the  case  of  the 
man  that  was  born  blind  and  restored  to  sight  (John 
ix.).  "  The  Jews  had  agreed  already  that  if  any 
man  did  confess  that  He  was  Christ,  he  should  be 
put  out  of  the  synagogue.  Therefore  said  his  pa 
rents,  He  is  of  age,  ask  him"  (22,  23).  "And 
they  cast  him  out.  Jesus  heard  that  they  had  cast 
him  out"  (34,  35).  The  expressions  here  used, 
airoffvvdywyos  yevijTai — f£cpa\ov  avrbv  e£o>,  re 
fer,  no  doubt,  to  the  first  form  of  excommunication 
or  Niddui.  Our  Lord  warns  his  disciples  that 
they  will  have  to  suffer  excommunication  at  the 
hands  of  their  countrymen  (John  xvi.  2)  ;  and  the 
fear  of  it  is  described  as  sufficient  to  prevent  persons 
in  a  respectable  position  from  acknowledging  their 
belief  in  Christ  (John  xii.  42).  In  Luke  vi.  22,  it 
has  been  thought  that  our  Lord  referred  specifically 
to  the  three  forms  of  Jewish  excommunication — 
"Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  hate  you,  and 
when  they  shall  separate  you  from  their  compan 
[a.(f>opi(r(0ffiv~],and  shall  reproach  you 
and  cast  out  your  name  as  evil 
for  the  Son  of  Man's  sake."  The  three  words 
very  accurately  express  the  simple  separation,  the 
additional  malediction,  and  the  final  exclusion  of 
niddui,  cherem,  and  shammdthd.  This  verse  makes 
it  probable  that  the  three  stages  were  already  formally 
distinguished  from  each  other,  though,  no  doubt,  the 
words  appropriate  to  each  are  occasionally  used  in 
accurately. 

II.  Christian  Excommunication. — Excommuni 
cation,  as  exercised  by  the  Christian  Church,  is  not 
merely  founded  on  the  natural  right  possessed  by  all 
societies,  nor  merely  on  the  example  of  the  Jewish 
Church  and  nation.  It  was  instituted  by  our 
Lord  (Matt,  xviii.  15,  18),  and  it  was  practised  by 
and  commanded  by  St.  Paul  (1  Tim.  i.  20 ;  1  Cor. 
v.  11;  Tit.  iii.  10). 

Its  Institution. — The  passage  in  St.  Matthew 
has  led  to  much  controversy,  into  which  we  do  not 
enter.  It  runs  as  follows  : — "  If  thy  brother  shall 
trespass  against  thee,  go  and  tell  him  his  fault 
between  thee  and  him  alone  ;  if  he  shall  hear  thce, 
thou  hast  gained  thy  brother.  But  if  he  will  not 
hear  thee,  then  take  with  thee  one  or  two  more,  that 
in  the  mouth  of  two  or  three  witnesses  every  word 
may  be  established.  And  if  he  shall  neglect  to 
hear  them,  tell  it  unto  the  Church;  but  if  he 
neglect  to  hear  the  Church,  let  him  be  unto  the?  as 
a  heathen  man  and  a  publican.  Verily  I  say  uuto 
you,  Whatsoever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be 
bound  in  heaven,  and  whatsoever  ye  shall  loose  on 
earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven."  Our  Lord  here 
recognizes  and  appoints  a  way  in  which  a  member 
of  his  Church  is  to  become  to  his  brethren  as  a 
heathen  man  and  a  publican — i,  e.  be  reduced  to  a 
state  analogous  to  that  of  the  Jew  suffering  the 
penalty  ef  the  third  form  of  excommunication.  It 
is  to  follow  on  his  contempt  of  the  censure  of  the 
Church  passed  on  him  for  a  trespass  which  he  has 
committed.  The  final  excision  is  to  be  preceded,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  Jew,  by  two  warnings. 

Apostolic  Example. — In  the  Epistles  we  find  St. 
Paul  frequently  claiming  the  right  to  exercise  dis 
cipline  over  his  converts  (comp.  2  Cor.i.  23,  xiii.  10). 


EXCOMMUNICATION  3ii 

In  two  Okaes  we  find  him  exercising  this  authority  tc 
the  extent  of  cutting  ofl  offenders  from  the  Church, 
One  of  these  is  the  case  of  the  incestuous  Corin 
thian:— "Ye  are  puffed  up,  and  have  not  rather 
mourned,  that  he  that  hath  done  this  deed  might  be 
taken  away  from  among  you.  For  I  verily,  as  absent 
in  body,  but  present  in  spirit,  have  judged  already, 
as  thougli  I  were  present,  concerning  him  that  hath 
so  done  this  deed,  in  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesim 
Christ,  when  ye  are  gathered  together,  and  my  spirit, 
with  the  power  of  oui  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  to  deliver 
such  an  one  unto  Satan  for  the  destruction  of  the 
flesh,  that  the  spirit  may  be  saved  in  the  day  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  "  (1  Cor.  v.  2-5).  The  other  case  is  that 
of  Hymenaeus  and  Alexander :— "  Holding  faith, 
and  a  good  conscience ;  which  some  having  put  away 
concerning  faith  have  made  shipwreck :  of  whom  is 
Hymenaeus  and  Alexander  ;  whom  1  have  delivered 
unto  Satan,  that  they  may  learn  not  to  blaspheme" 
(1  Tim.  i.  19,  20).  It  seems  certain  that  these 
persons  were  excommunicated,  the  first  for  immo 
rality,  the  others  for  heresy.  What  is  the  full 
meaning  of  the  expression,  "  deliver  unto  Satan," 
is  doubtful.  All  agree  that  excommunication  is 
contained  in  it,  but  whether  it  implies  any  further 
punishment,  inflicted  by  the  extraordinary  powers 
committed  specially  to  the  Apostles,  has  been  ques 
tioned.  The  strongest  argument  for  the  phrase 
meaning  no  more  than  excommunication  may  be 
drawn  from  a  comparison  of  Col.  i.  13.  Addressing 
himself  to  the  "  saints  and  faithful  brethren  in 
Christ  which  are  at  Colosse,"  St.  Paul  exhorts  them 
to  "  give  thanks  unto  the  Father  which  hath  made 
us  meet  to  be  partakers  of  the  inheritance  of  the 
saints  in  light:  who  hath  delivered  us  from  the 
power  of  darkness,  and  hath  translated  us  into  the 
kingdom  of  his  dear  Son :  in  whom  we  have  re 
demption  through  his  blood,  even  the  forgiveness 
of  sins."  The  conception  of  the  Apostle  here  is  of 
men  lying  in  the  realm  of  darkness,  and  transported 
from  thence  into  the  kingdom  of  the  Son  of  God, 
which  is  the  inheritance  of  the  saints  in  light,  by 
admission  into  the  Church.  What  he  means  by  the 
power  of  darkness  is  abundantly  clear  from  many 
other  passages  in  his  writings,  of  which  it  will  be 
sufficient  to  quote  Eph.  vi.  12 :— "  Put  on  the 
whole  armour  of  God,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  stand 
against  the  wiles  of  the  devil ;  for  we  wrestle  not 
against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  principalities, 
against  powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness 
of  this  world,  against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high 
places."  Introduction  into  the  Church  is  therefore, 
in  St.  Paul's  mind,  a  translation  from  the  kingdom 
and  power  of  Satan  to  the  kingdom  and  government 
of  Christ.  This  being  so,  he  could  hardly  more 
naturally  describe  the  effect  of  excluding  a  man 
from  the  Church  than  by  the  words,  "  deliver  him 
unto  Satan,"  the  idea  being,  that  the  man  ceasing 
to  be  a  subject  of  Christ's  kingdom  of  light,  was  at 
once  transported  back  to  the  kingdom  of  darkness, 
and  delivered  therefore  into  the  power  of  its  ruler 
Satan.  This  interpretation  is  strongly  confirmed  by 
the  terms  in  which  St.  Paul  describes  the  commis 
sion  which  he  received  from  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
when  he  was  sent  to  the  Gentiles : — "  To  open  their 
eyes,  and  to  turn  them  from  darkness  to  light,  and 
from  the  power  of  Satan  unto  God,  that  they  may 
receive  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  inheritance  among 
them  which  are  sanctified  by  faith  that  is  in  Me 
(Acts  xxvi.  18).  Here  again  the  act  of  being  placed 
in  Christ's  kingdom,  the  Church,  is  pronounced  to 
be  a  translation  from  darkness  to  light,  from  tJw 


cxu 


EXCOMMUNICATION 


j>owcr  of  Satan  unto  God.  Conversely,  to  be  cas 
out  of  the  Church  would  be  to  be  removed  fron 
light  to  darkness,  to  be  withdrawn  from  God' 
government,  and  delivered  into  thp  power  of  Satai 
(so  Balsamon  and  Zonaras,  in  Basil.  Can.  7 
Estius,  in  I.  Cor.  v. ;  Beveridge,  in  Can.  Apost.  x.) 
If,  however,  the  .expression  means  more  than  ex 
communication,  it  would  imply  the  additional  exer 
else  of  a  special  Apostolical  power,  similar  to  tha 
exerted  on  Ananias  and  Sapphira  (Acts  v.  1),  Simon 
Magus  (viii.  20),  and  Elymas  (xiii.  10).  .  (SoChry 
sostom,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  Hammond,  Grotius 
Lightfoot.) 

Apostolic  Precept. — In  addition  to  the  claim  tc 
exercise  discipline,  and  its  actual  exercise  in  the  form 
of  excommunication,  by  the  Apostles,  we  find  Apos 
tolic  precepts  directing  that   discipline  should  be 
exercised  by  the  rulers  of  the  Church,  and  that  ii 
some  cases  excommunication  should  be  resorted  to 
— "  If  any  man  obey  not  our  word  by  this  epistle 
note  that  man,  and  have  no  company  with  him, 
that   he  may   be   ashamed.     Yet   count  him   noi 
as  an   enemy,  but  admonish  him   as  a  brother,' 
writes  St.  Paul  to   the  Thessalonians  (2  Thess.  lii 
14).     To  the  Romans  :  "  Mark  them  which  cause 
divisions  and  offences  contrary  to  the  doctrine  which 
ye  have  heard,  and  avoid  them"  (Rom.  xvi.  17). 
To  the  Galatians  :  "  I  would  they  were  even  cut 
off  that  trouble  you"  (Gal.  v.  12).      To  Tirrothy  : 
"  If  any  man  teach  otherwise,  ....  from   such 
withdraw   thyself "  (1  Tim.  vi.  3).      To  Titus  he 
uses  a  still  stronger  expression  :  "  A  man  that  is 
an  heretic,  after  the  first  and  second  admonition,  re 
ject"  (Tit.  iii.  10).     St.  John  instructs  the  lady  to 
whom  he  addresses  his  Second  Epistle,  not  to  receive 
into  her  house,  nor  bid  God  speed  to  any  who  did 
not  believe  in  Christ  (2  John  10)  ;  and  we' read  that 
in  the  case  of  Cerinthus  he  acted  himself  on  the 
precept  that  he  had  given  (Euseb.  H.  E.  iii.  28). 
In  his  Third  Epistle  he  describes  Diotrephes,  appa 
rently  a  Judaizing  presbyter,  "  who  loved  to  have 
the  pre-eminence,"  as  "  casting  out  of  the  Church," 
».  e.  refusing  Church  communion  to  the  stranger 
brethren  who  were  travelling  about  preaching  to 
the  Gentiles  (3   John  10).      In   the    addresses  to 
the  Seven  Churches   the  angels  or  rulers  of  the 
Church  of  Pergamos  and  of  Thyatira  are  rebuked 
for  "  suffering"  the  Nicolaitans  and  Balaamites  "  to 
teach  and  to  seduce  my  servants  to  commit  forni 
cation,  and  to  eat   things   sacrificed  unto   idols" 
(Rev.  ii.  20).     There  are  two  passages  still  more 
important  to  our  subject.     In  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians,  St.  Paul  denounces,  "  Though  we,  or  an 
angel  from  heaven,  preach  any  other  gospel  unto 
you  than  that  which  we  have  preached  unto  you, 
let  him  be  accursed  [<W0e/ia  eo-rw].     As  I  said 
before,  so  say  I  now  again,  If  any  man  preach  any 
other  gospel  unto  you  than  that  ye  have  received, 
let  him  be  accursed"  (avdde/j.n  CO-TOJ,  Gal.  i.  8,  9). 
And  in  the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians :  "  If 
any  man  love  not  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  let  him 
be  Anathema  Maran-atha  "  (1  Cor.  xvi.  22).    It  has 
been  supposed  that  these  two  expressions,  "  let  him 
be  Anathema,"    "  let  him   be  Anathema   Maran- 
atha,"   refer   respectively  to  the  two  later  stages 
of  Jewish  excommunication — the  cherem  and  the 
shmnmdthd.    This  requires  consideration. 

The  words  avaQefjia  and  dj/d07j/ia  have  evidently 
the  same  derivation,  and  originally  they  bore  the 
same  meaning.  They  express  a  person  or  thing  set 
apart,  laid  up,  or  devoted.  But  whereas  a  thing 
May  be  set  apart  by  way  of  honour  or  for  destruc- 


EXCOMMUNICATION. 

tion,  the  words,  like  the  Latin  "sneer"  and  the, 
English  "  devoted,"  came  to  have  opposite  senses — 
T&  ain]\\oTpi(i)/Jifvov  ©eoO,  and  rb  a.<f>a>pi(r/j.fvti 
Qetf.  The  LXX.  and  several  ecclesiastical  writers 
use  the  two  words  almost  indiscriminately,  but  in 
general  the  form  avd6rnj.a  is  applied  to  the  votive 
offering  (see  2  Mace.  ix.  16  ;  Luke  xxi.  5  ;  and  Chrys. 
Horn.  xvi.  in  Ep.  ad  Rom.},  and  the  form  avdQf/jia. 
to  that  which  is  devoted  to  evil  (see  Deut.  vii. 
26  ;  Josh.  vi.  17,  vii.  13).  Thus  St.  Paul  declares 
that  he  could  wish  himself  an  dj/afle^o  from  Christ 
if  he  could  thereby  save  the  Jews  (Rom.  ix.  3). 
His  meaning  is  that  he  would  be  willing  to  be  set 
apart  as  a  vile  thing,  to  be  cast  aside  and  destroyed, 
if  only  it  could  bring  about  the  salvation  of  his 
brethren.  Hence  we  see  the  force  of  avdOtfjia, 
fo-Tw  in  Gal.  i.  8.  "  Have  nothing  to  do  with 
him,"  would  be  the  Apostle's  injunction,  "  but  let 
him  be  set  apart  as  an  evil  thing,  for  God  to  deal 
with  him  as  he  thinks  fit."  Hammond  (in  foe.) 
paraphrases  it  as  follows  : — "  You  are  to  disclaim 
and  renounce  all  communion  with  him,  to  look  ou 
him  as  on  an  excommunicated  person,  under  the 
second  degree  of  excommunication,  that  none  is  to 
have  any  commerce  with  in  sacred  things."  Hence 
it  is  that  dvafle/xa  eo"TO)  came  to  be  the  common 
expression  employed  by  Councils  at  the  termination 
of  each  Canon  which  they  enacted,  meaning  that 
whoever  was.  disobedient  to  the  Canon  was  to  be 
separated  from  the  communion  of  the  Church  and 
its  privileges,  and  from  the  favour  of  God,  until  he 
repented  (see  Bingham,  Ant.  xvi.  2, 16). 

The  expression  'Apctfle/io  /iapcwafla,  as  it  stands 
by  itself  without  explanation  in  1  Cor.  xyi.  22,  is 
so  peculiar,  that  it  has  tempted  a  number  of  inge 
nious  expositions.  Parkhurst  hesitatingly  derives 
t  from  nflK  &n,  "  Cursed  be  thou."  But 


this  derivation  is  not  tenable.  Buxtorf,  Morinus, 
Hammond,  Bingham,  and  others  identify  it  with 
the  Jewish  shammdthd.  They  do  so  by  translating 
shammdthd,  "  The  Lord  comes."  But  shammdthd 
cannot  be  made  to  mean  "  The  Lord  comes"  (See 
Lightfoot,  in  loc.).  Several  fanciful  derivations  are 
given  by  Rabbinical  writers,  as  "  There  is  death," 
'  There  is  desolation  ;"  but  there  is  no  mention  by 
;hem  of  such  a  signification  as  "The  Lord  comes." 
Lightfoot  derives  it  from  DSfc^,  and  it  probably 

means  a  thing  excluded  or  shut  out.  Maranatha, 
lowever  peculiar  its  use  in  the  text  may  seem  to  us, 
s  a  Syro-Chaldaic  expression,  signifying  "The  Lord 
s  come  "  (Chrysostom,  Jerome,  Estius,  Lightfoot),  or 
The  Lord  cometh."  If  we  take  the  former  mean- 
ng,-  we  may  regard  it  as  giving  the  reason  why  the 
ffender  was  to  be  anathematized ;  if  the  latter,  it 
vould  either  imply  that  the  separation  was  to  be 
perpetuity,  "donee  Dominus  redeat"  (Augus- 
ine),  or,  more  properly,  it  would  be  a  form  of 
olemn  appeal  to  the  day  on  which  the  judgment 
hould  be  ratified  by  the  Lord  (comp.  Jude,  14).  In 
ny  case,  it  is  a  strengthened  form  of  the  simple 
,vdQf/j.a  e<TTco.  And  thus  it  may  be  regarded  as 
olding  towards  it  a  similar  relation  to  that  which 
xisted  between  the  shammdthd  and  the  cherem, 
ut  not  on  any  supposed  ground  of  etymological 
dentity  between  the  two  words  shammdthd  and 
varan-atha.  Perhaps  we  ought  to  interpunctuate 
more  strongly  between  avdQf/j.0,  and  papavaQd,  and 
ead  tfToo  avdOe/jia'  jj.apa.va8d,  i.  e.  "  Let  him  be 
nathema.  The  Lord  will  come."  The  anathema 
nd  the  cherem  answer  very  exactly  to  each  ethei 
see  Lev.  xxvii.  28  ;  Num.  xxi.  3 ;  Is.  xliii.  28). 


EXCOMMUNICATION 

Restoration  to  Communion. — Two  cases  of  ex 
communication  are  related  in  Holy  Scripture  ;  and 
in  one  of  them  the  restitution  of  the  offender  is 
specially  recounted.  The  incestuous  Corinthian 
had  been  excommunicated  by  the  authority  of 
St.  Paul,  who  had  issued  his  sentence  from  a  dis 
tance  without  any  consultation  with  the  Corin 
thians.  He  had  required  them  publicly  to  promul 
gate  it  and  to  act  upon  it.  They  had  done  so.  The 
offender  had  been  brought  to  repentance,  and  was 
overwhelmed  with  grief.  Hereupon  St.  Paul,  still 
absent  as  before,  forbids  the  further  infliction  of  the 
punishment,  pronounces  the  forgiveness  of  the 
penitent,  and  exhorts  the  Corinthians  to  receive  him 
back  to  communion,  and  to  confirm  their  love 
towards  him. 

The  Nature  of  Excommunication  is  made  more 
evident  by  these  acts  of  St.  Paul  than  by  any  inves 
tigation  of  Jewish  practice  or  of  the  etymology  of 
words.  We  thus  find,  (1)  that  it  is  a  spiritual 
penalty,  involving  no  temporal  punishment,  except 
accidentally  ;  (2)  that  it  consists  in  separation 
from  the  communion  of  the  Church ;  (3)  that  its 
object  is  the  good  of  the  sufferer  (1  Cor.  v.  5),  and 
the  protection  of  the  sound  members  of  the  Church 
(2  Tim.  iii.  17);  (4)  that  its  subjects  are  those 
who  are  guilty  of  heresy  (1  Tim.  i.  20),  or  gross 
immorality  (1  Cor.  v.  1)  ;  (5)  that  it  is  inflicted  by 
the  authority  of  the  Church  at  large  (Matt,  xviii. 
18),  wielded  by  the  highest  ecclesiastical  officer 
(1  Cor.  v.  3 ;  Tit.  iii.  10) ;  (6)  that  this  officer's 
sentence  is  promulgated  by  the  congregation  to 
which  the  offender  belongs  (1  Cor.  v.  4),  in  defer 
ence  to  his  superior  judgment  and  command  (2  Cor. 
ii.  9),  and  in  spite  of  any  opposition  on  the  part  of 
a  minority  (76.  6);  (7)  that  the  exclusion  may  be 
of  indefinite  duration,  or  for  a  period  ;  ('8)  that  its 
duration  may  be  abridged  at  the  discretion  and  by 
the  indulgence  of  the  person  who  has  imposed  the 
penalty  (76.  8);  (9)  that  penitence  is  the  con 
dition  on  which  restoration  to  communion  is  granted 
(76.  7);  (10)  that  the  sentence  is  to  be  publicly 
reversed  as  it  was  publicly  promulgated  (76.  10) 

Practice  of  Excommunication  in  the  Post- 
Apostolic  Church. — The  first  step  was  an  admo 
nition  to  the  offender,  repeated  once,  or  even  more 
than  once,  in  accordance  with  St.  Paul's  precept 
(Tit.  iii.  10).  (See  S.  Ambr.  De  Offic.  ii.  27; 
Prosper,  De  Vit.  Contempl.  ii.  7 ;  Synesius,  Ep, 
Iviii.)  If  this  did  not  reclaim  him,  it  was  suc 
ceeded  by  the  Lesser  Excommunication  (o^opioyto's). 
by  which  he  was  excluded  from  the  participation  oi 
the  Eucharist,  and  was  shut  out  from  the  Commu 
nion-service,  although  admitted  to  what  was  callec 
the  Service  of  the  Catechumens  (see  Theodoret,  Ep 
havi!.  ad  Eulal.}.  Thirdly  followed  the  Greater 
Excommunication  or  Anathema  (iravreX^s  acpo 
pt<r/j.6s,  oj/006/ia),  by  which  the  offender  was 
debarred,  not  only  from  the  Eucharist,  but  front 
taking  part  in  all  religious  acts  in  any  assembly  o 
the  Church,  and  from  the  company  of  the  faithfu 
in  the  ordinary  concerns  of  life.  In  case  of  sub 
mission,  offenders  were  received  back  to  commu 
nion  by  going  through  the  four  stages  of  publi< 
penance,  in  which  they  were  termed,  (1)  irpoff 
K\a(ovres,  flentes,  or  weepers ;  (2)  a.icpo<i>fj.€voi 
audientes,  or  hearers ;  (3)  viroiriirrovres,  sub- 
strati,  or  kneelers ;  (4)  owctrr&rcr,  consistentes 
or  co-standers.;  after  which  they  were  restored 
communion  by  absolution,  accompanied  by  impo 
sition  of  hands.  To  trace  out  this  branch  of  th 
subject  more  minutely  would  carry  us  beyond  our 
[APPENDIX.] 


GAD 


cxiii 


egitimate  sphere.  Reference  may  be  made  to 
uicer's  Thesaurus  Ecclesiasticus,  a.  w.  irp6<rK\etv~ 
'is,  aKpAcurts,  vTr6wr(affis,  (r^ffraffis. 
References.— Tertullian,  De  Poenitentia.  Op.  I. 
39,  Lutet.  1634;  S.  Ambrose,  De  Poenitentia. 
'aris,  1686;  Morinus,  De  Poenitentia.  Antv., 
682  ;  Hammond,  Power  of  the  Keys.  Works  I. 
06.  Lond.  1684;  Selden,  De  jure  Naturali  et 

Gentium  juxta  Disciplinam  Hebraeorum.  Lips. 
695;  Lightfoot,  Horae  Hebraicae.  On  I.  Cor. 
:  5.  Works  II.,  746.  Lond.  1634;  Bingham, 

Antiquities  of  the  Christian  Church.  Books  xvi., 
:viii.  Lond.  1862;  Marshall,  Penitential  Dis- 
ipline  of  the  Primitive  Church.  Oxf.  1844; 
^homdike,  The  Church's  Power  of  Excommunica- 
ion,  as  found  in  Scripture.  Works,  vi.  21  (see 
.Iso  i.  55,  ii.  157).  Oxf.  1856  ;  Waterland,  No 

Communion  with  Impugners  of  Fundamentals. 
iVorks,  iii.  456.  Oxf.  1843  ;  Hey,  Lectures  in 

Divinity.     On  Art.  xxxiii.  Camb.  1822  ;  Palmer, 

Treatise  on  the  Church,  ii.  224.  Lond.  1842  ; 
Jrowne,  Exposition  of  the  Articles.  On  Art.  xxxiii. 

Lond.  1863.  [F.  M.] 

EZ'RA.  3.  (rnjj; ;  'E<rpi ;  Ezra}.  A  name 
which  occurs  in  the  obscure  genealogy  of  1  Chr.  iv. 
17.  According  to  the  author  of  the  Quaestiones  in 
Paral.  Ezra  is  the  same  as  Amram,  and  his  sous 
Jether  and  Mered  are  Aaron  and  Moses. 


FLUTE  (Wll  :  xoods  :  tibia).     1  K. 
marg.   [PIPE.] 


G 


GAD  (12  :  Sai^viov  ;  Cod.  Sin. 
Fortuna).  Properly  "  the  Gad,"  with  the  articla 
In  the  A.  V.  of  Is.  Ixv.  11  the  clause  "that  pre 
pare  a  table  for  that  troop  "  has  in  the  margin  in 
stead  of  the  last  word  the  proper  name  "  Gad," 
which  evidently  denotes  some  idol  worshipped  by 
the  Jews  in  Babylon,  though  it  is  impossible  posi 
tively  to  identify  it.  Huetius  would  understand 
by  it  Fortune  as  symbolized  by  the  Moon,  but 
Vitringa,  on  the  contrary,  considers  it  to  be  the 
Sun.  Millius  (Diss.  de  Gad  et  Meni)  regards 
both  Gad  and  Meni  as  names  of  the  Moon.  That 
Gad  was  the  deity  Fortune,  under  whatever  out 
ward  form  it  was  worshipped,  is  supported  by  the 
etymology,  and  by  the  common  assent  of  com 
mentators.  It  is  evidently  connected  with  the 
Syriac  }*-^gddd,  "fortune,  luck,"  and  with  the 
Arabic  Jca.,  M  "good  fortune,"  and  Gesenius 
is  probably"  right  in  his  conjecture  that  Gad  was 
the  planet  Jupiter,  which  was  regarded  by  the 
astrologers  of  the  East  (Pococke,  Spec.  Hist  Ar. 
p.  130)  as  the  star  of  greater  good  fortune.  Movers 
(Phoen.  i.  «50)  is  in  favour  of  the  planet  Venus. 
Some  have  supposed  that  a  trace  of  the  Syrian 
worship  of  Gad  is  to  be  found  in  the  exclamation 
of  Leah,  when  Zilpah  bare  a  son  (Gen  xxx  .11), 
"W3,  bdgdd,  or  as  the  Keri  has  it  13  N3,  "  Gad,  or 
sood  fortune  cometh."  The  Targum  of  Pseudo- 
Jonathan  and  the  Jerusalem  Targum  both  give 
lucky  planet  cometh,"  but  it  is  most  probable  that 


cxiv  GADITES 

this  is  an  interpretation  which  grew  out  of  the 
astrological  beliefs  of  a  later  time;  and  we  can 
infer  nothing  from  it  with  respect  to  the  idolatry 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Padan  Aram  in  the  age  of 
Jacob.  That  this  later  belief  in  a  deity  Fortune 
existed,  there  are  many  things  to  prove.  Buxtorf 
(Lex.  Talm.  s.  v.)  says  that  anciently  it  was  a 
custom  for  each  man  to  have  in  his  house  a 
splendid  couch,  which  was  not  used,  but  was  set 
apart  for  "  the  prince  of  the  house,"  that  is,  for 
the  star,  or  constellation  Fortune,  to  render  it  more 
propitious.  This  couch  was  called  the  couch  of 
Gada,  or  good-luck  (Talm.  Babl.  Sanhed.  f.  20  a, 
Nedarim,  f.  56  a).  Again  in  Bereshith  Rabba,  sect. 
65,  the  words  >3K  D-1p»,  in  Gen.  xxvii.  31  are 
explained  as  an  invocation  to  Gada  or  Fortune. 
Rabbi  Moses  the  Priest,  quoted  by  Aben  Ezra  (on 

Gen.  xxx.  11)  says  "that  131?  (Is.  Ixv.  11)  sig 
nifies  the  star  of  luck,  which  points  to  everything 
that  is  good  ;  for  thus  is  the  language  of  Kedar 
(Arabic)  :  but  he  says  that  13  Nl  (Gen.  xxx. 
11)  is  not  used  in  the  same  sense." 

Illustrations  of  the  ancient  custom  of  placing  a 
banqueting  table  in  honour  of  idols  will  be  found 
in  the  table  spread  for  the  sun  among  the  Ethi 
opians  (Her.  iii.  17,  18),  and  in  the  feast  made  by 
the  Babylonians  for  their  god  Bel,  which  is  de 
scribed  in  the  Apocryphal  history  of  Bel  and  the 
Dragon  (comp.  also  Her.  i.  181,  &c.).  The  table 
in  the  temple  of  Belus  is  described  by  Diodorus 
Siculus  (ii.  9)  as  being  of  beaten  gold,  40  feet  long, 
15  wide,  and  weighing  500  talents.  On  it  were 
placed  two  drinking  cups  (  Kap-xfyffict)  weighing 
30  talents,  two  censers  of  300  talents  each,  and 
three  golden  goblets,  that  of  Jupiter  or  Bel  weigh 
ing  1  200  Babylonian  talents.  The  couch  and  table 
of  the  god  in  the  temple  of  Zeus  Triphylius  at 
Patara  in  the  island  of  Panchaea  are  mentioned 
by  Diodorus  (v.  46).  Compare  also  Virg.  Aen. 
ii.  763  : 

"  Hue  tindique  Trola  gaza 
Incensis  erepta  adytis,  mensaeque  deorum 
Crateresque  auro  solidi,  captivaque  vestis 
Congeritur." 

In  addition  to  the  opinions  which  have  been  referred 
to  above  may  be  quoted  that  of  Stephen  Le  Moyne 
(Far.  Sacr.  p.  363)  who  says  that  Gad  is  the  goat 
of  Mendes,  worshipped  by  the  Egyptians  as  an 
emblem  of  the  sun  ;  and  of  Le  Clerc  (Comm.  in  /s.) 
and  Lakemacher  (Obs.  Phil.  iv.  18,  &c.)  who 
identify  Gad  with  Hecate.  Macrobius  (Sat.  i.  19) 
tells  us  that  in  the  later  Egyptian  mythology  Tu%?j 
was  worshipped  as  one  of  the  four  deities  who  pre 
sided  over  birth,  and  was  represented  by  the  Moon. 
This  will  perhaps  throw  some  light  upon  the  ren 
dering  of  the  LXX.  as  given  by  Jerome.  [MENI, 
note  a.] 

Traces  of  the  worship  of  Gad  remain  in  the 
proper  names  Baal  Gad  and  Giddeneme  (Plaut.  Poen. 
v.  3),  the  latter  of  which  Gesenius  (Mon.  Phoen. 
p.  407)  renders  HtDVJ  "13,  "  favouring  fortune." 


GAD'ITES,  THE  (v-jan:  6  Td5,  6 
ol  viol  r<£8:  Gad,  Gaditae,  Gaddi}.  The  de 
scendants  of  Gad  and  members  of  his  tribe.  Their 
character  is  described  under  GAD,  p.  648  6.  In  2 
Sam.  xxiii.  36  for  "the  Gadite"  the  LXX.  hav« 
Ta\aa8$i,  and  the  Vulg.  de  Gadi. 

GENNE'SARET,  LAND  OF  (^  77) 

vapsr  :  terra  Genesar,  terra  GenesaretK).     After 
'.he  miracle  of  feeding  the  five  thousand,  our  Lord 


GENNESAKET,  LAND  OF 

and  His  disciples  crossed  the  Lake  of  Gennesaret  and 
came  to  the  othe:-  side,  at  a  place  which  is  called 

the  land  01  Gennesaret"  (Matt.  xiv.  34;  Mark 
vi.  54).  It  is  generally  believed  that  this  term 
was  applied  to  the  fertile  crescent-shape'd  plain  on 
the  western  shore  of  the  lake,  extending  from  Khan 
Minyeh  on  the  north  to  the  steep  hill  behind  Mejdel 
on  the  south,  and  called  by  the  Arabs  el-Ghuweir, 

the  little  Ghor."  The  description  given  by  Jo- 
sephus  (B.  J.  iii.  10,  §8)  would  apply  admirably 
to  this  plain.  He  says  that  along  the  lake  of  Gen 
nesaret  there  extends  a  region  oif  the  same  name, 
of  marvellous  nature  and  beauty.  The  soil  was  so 
rich  that  every  plant  flourished,  and  the  air  so 
temperate  that  trees  of  the  most  opposite  natures 
grew  side  by  side.  The  hardy  walnut,  which  de 
lighted  in  cold,  grew  there  luxuriantly  ;  there  were 
the  palm-trees  that  were  nourished  by  heat,  and 
fig-trees  and  olives  beside  them,  that  required  a 
more  temperate  climate.  Grapes  and  figs  were 
found  during  ten  months  of  the  year.  The  plain 
was  watered  by  a  most  excellent  spring  called  by 
the  natives  Capharnaum,  which  was  thought  by 
some  to  be  a  vein  of  the  Nile,  because  a  fish  was 
found  there  closely  resembling  the  coracinus  of  the 
lake  of  Alexandria.  The  length  of  the  plain  along 
the  shore  of  the  lake  was  thirty  stadia,  and  its 
breadth  twenty.  Making  every  allowance  for  the 
colouring  given  by  the  historian  to  his  description, 
and  for  the  neglected  condition  of  el-Ghuweir  at 
the  present  day,  there  are  still  left  sufficient  points 
of  resemblance  between  the  two  to  justify  their 
being  identified.  The  dimensions  given  by  Josephus 
are  sufficiently  correct,  though,  as  Dr.  Thomson 
remarks  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  348),  the 
plain  "  is  a  little  longer  than  thirty,  and  not  quite 
twenty  furlongs  in  breadth."  Mr.  Porter  (Handb. 
p.  429)  gives  the  length  as  three  miles,  and  the 
greatest  breadth  as  about  one  mile.  It  appears  that 
Professor  Stanley  either  assigns  to  "  the  land  of 
Gennesaret"  a  wider  signification,  or  his  description 
of  its  extent  must  be  inaccurate,  for,  after  calling 
attention  to  the  tropical  vegetation  and  climate  of 
the  western  shores  of  the  lake,  he  says :  "  This 
fertility  .  .  .  reaches  its  highest  pitch  in  the  one 
spot  on  the  western  shore  where  the  mountains, 
suddenly  receding  inland,  leave  a  level  plain  of  five 
miles  wide,  and  six  or  seven  miles  long.  This  plain 
is  <  the  land  of  Gennesareth ' "  (S.  $  P.  p.  374). 
Still  his  description  goes  far  to  confirm  in  othel 
respects  the  almost  exaggerated  language  in  which 
Josephus  depicts  the  prodigality  of  nature  in  this 
region.  "  No  less  than  four  springs  pour  forth 
their  almost  full-grown  rivers  through  the  plain , 
the  richness  of  the  soil  displays  itself  in  magnificent 
corn-fields ;  whilst  along  the  shore  rises  a  thick 
jungle  of  thorn  and  oleander,  abounding  in  bird:> 
of  brilliant  colours  and  various  forms."  Burck- 
hardt  tells  us  that  even  now  the  pastures  of  Khan 
Minyeh  are  proverbial  for  their  richness  (Syria, 
p.  319). 

In  the  Journal  of  Classical  and  Sacred  Philology 
(ii.  290-308)  Mr.  Thrupp  has  endeavoured  to  show 
that  the  land  of  Gennesaret  was  not  el-Ghuweir, 
but  the  fertile  plain  el-Batlhah  on  the  north-eastem 
side  of  the  lake.  The  dimensions  of  this  plain  and 
the  character  of  its  soil  and  productions  correspond 
so  far  with  the  description  given  by  Josephus  of 
the  land  of  Gennesaret  as  to  afibrd  reasonable  ground 
for  such  an  identification.  But  it  appeal's  from  ac 
examination  of  the  narrative  in  the  Gospels,  that, 
for  other  reasons,  the  plain  el-Batihtih  is  not  tht 


GEZEITES,  THE 

land  of  Gennesaret,  but  more  probably  the  scene 
of  the  miracle  of  feeding  the  five  thousand.  After 
delivering  the  parable  of  the  Sower,  our  Lord  and 
His  disciples  left  Capernaum,  near  which  was  the 
scene  of  the  parable,  and  went  to  Nazareth  (Matt, 
xiii.  54 ;  Mark  vi.  1).  It  was  while  He  was  here, 
apparently,  that  the  news  was  brought  Him  by  the 
Apostles  of  the  death  of  John  the  Baptist  (Matt. 
xiv.  13  ;  Mark  vi.  30).  He  was  still,  at  any  rate, 
on  the  western  side  of  the  lake  of  Tiberias.  On 
hearing  the  intelligence  "  He  departed  thence  by 
ship  into  a  desert  place  apart"  (Matt.  xiv.  13; 
Mark  vi.  32),  the  "desert  place"  being  the  scene 
of  the  miraculous  feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  and 
"  belonging  to  the  city  called  Bethsaida  "  (Luke  ix. 
10).  St.  John  (vi.  1)  begins  his  account  of  the 
miracle  by  saying  that  "  Jesus  went  over  the  sea 
of  Galilee :"  an  expression  which  he  could  not  have 
used  had  the  scene  of  the  miracle  lain  on  the 
western  shore  of  the  lake,  as  Mr.  Thrupp  supposes, 
at  el-Ghuweir.  It  seems  much  more  probable  that 
it  was  on  the  eastern  or  north-eastern  side.  After 
the  miracle  Jesus  sent  His  disciples  in  the  boat  to 
the  other  side  (Matt.  xiv.  22)  towards  Bethsaida 
(Mark  vi.  45),  in  order  to  go  to  Capernaum  (John 
vi.  17),  where  He  is  found  next  day  by  the  multi 
tudes  whom  He  had  fed  (John  vi.  24,  25).  The 
boat  came  to  shore  in  the  land  of  Gennesaret.  It 
seems  therefore  perfectly  clear,  whatever  be  the 
actual  positions  of  Capernaum  and  the  scene  of  the 
miracle,  that  they  were  on  opposite  sides  of  the  lake, 
and  that  Capernaum  and  the  land  of  Gennesaret 
were  close  together  on  the  same  side. 

Additional  interest  is  given  to  the  land  of  Gen 
nesaret,  or  el-Ghuweir,  by  the  probability  that  its 
scenery  suggested  the  parable  of  the  Sower.  It  is 
admirably  described  by  Professor  Stanley.  "  There 
was  the  undulating  corn-field  descending  to  the 
water's  edge.  There  was  the  trodden  pathway 
running  through  the  midst  of  it,  with  no  fence  or 
hedge  to  prevent  the  seed  from  falling  here  and 
there  on  either  side  of  it,  or  upon  it ;  itself  hard 
with  the  constant  tramp  of  horse  and  mule  and 
human  feet.  There  was  the  '  good '  rich  soil,  which 
distinguishes  the  whole  of  that  plain  and  its  neigh 
bourhood  from  the  bare  hills  elsewhere  descending 
into  the  lake,  and  which,  where  there  is  no  inter 
ruption,  produces  one  vast  mass  of  corn.  There 
was  the  rocky  ground  of  the  hillside  protruding 
here  and  there  through  the  corn-fields,  as  elsewhere 
through  the  grassy  slopes.  There  were  the  large 
bushes  of  thorn — the  '  Nabk,'  that  kind  of  which 
tradition  says  that  the  Crown  of  Thorns  was  woven 
— springing  up,  like  the  fruit-trees  of  the  more 
inland  parts,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  waving 
wheat "  (S.  $  P.  p.  426). 

GEZ'KITES,  THE  ('pail,  Keri  n^il:  6 
Teo-epi ;  Alex.  6  rescues:  Gerzi).  1  Sam.  xxvii.  3. 
[GERZITES.] 

GIL'EADITES,  THE  OJ&f  Judg.  xii. 
4,  5,  Hy^n :  ro\oc£5,  Judg.'  xii.  4,  5,  6 
TaAaaSt,  Num.  xxvi.  29,  6  Ta\aa5,  Judg.  x.  3, 
6  TaXaaSirris ;  Alex.  &  raAaaSmy,  6  Ta\aa- 
8e^T?jy  :  Galaaditae,  Galaadites,  viri  GalaacT).  A 
branch  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh,  descended  from 
Gilead.  There  appears  to  have  been  an  old  stand 
ing  feud  between  them  and  the  Ephraimites,  who 
taunted  them  with  being  deserters.  See  Judg.  xii. 
4,  which  may  be  reudsred,  "  And  the  mer  of 


HEZKONITES,  THE  cxv 

Gilead  smote  Ephraim,  because  they  said,  Runagates 
of  Ephraim  are  ye  (Gilead  is  between  Ephraim  and 
Manasseh)  ;"  the  last  clause  being  added  parentheti 
cally.  In  2K.  xv.  25  for  «  of  the  Gileadites  "  the 
LXX.  have  avb 


H 

HALLELU'JAH.  [Appendix,  p.  Ixvi.] 
HAR'EL  (with  the  def.  art.  ^tpnfj  :  -r& 
:  Ariel).  In  the  margin  of  Ez.  xliii.  15  the 
word  rendered  "  altar  "  in  the  text  is  given  "  Harel, 
i.  e.  the  mountain  of  God."  The  LXX.,  Vulg., 
and  Arab,  evidently  regarded  it  as  the  same  with 
"  Ariel  "  in  the  same  verse.  Our  translators  fol 
lowed  the  Targum  of  Jonathan  in  translating  it 
"  altar."  Junius  explains  it  of  the  t<rxdpa  or 
hearth  of  the  altar  of  burnt  offering,  covered  by 
the  network  on  which  the  sacrifices  were  placed 
over  the  burning  wood.  This  explanation  Gesenins 
adopts,  and  brings  forward  as  a  parallel  the  Arab. 

Ss^i,  ireh,  "  a  hearth  or  fireplace,"  akin  to  the  Heb. 
"V1X,  ur,  «  light,  flame."  Fiirst  (ffandw.  s.  v.) 
derives  it  from  an  unused  root  Kin  hard,  "  to 
glow,  burn,"  with  the  termination  -el\  but  the 
only  authority  for  the  root  is  its  presumed  existence 
in  the  word  Harel.  Ewald  (Die  Propheten  des  A.  B. 
ii.  373)  identifies  Harel  and  Ariel,  and  refers  them 
both  to  a  root  mtf,  drdh,  akin  to  TIN,  ur. 

HAT.  [HEADDRESS,  p.  767  a.] 

HAZ'AZON-TA'MAE.  2Chr.xx.2.  [HA- 
ZEZON  TAMAR.] 

HE'BERITES,  THE  (ninn  :  &  Xofcpl  : 

Heberitae}.  Descendants  of  Heber  j  a  branch  of  the 
tribe  of  Asher  (Num.  xxvi.  45). 

HE'BREWESS  (flj"py  :  'Efyala:  Hebraea). 
A  Hebrew  woman  (Jer.  xxxiv.  9). 

HEB'RONITES,  THE  (^Yl^n  :  6  Xefydv, 
6  Xe/Spwvi:  Hebronitae,  Hebroni).  A  family  of 
Kohathite  Levites,  descendants  of  Hebron  the  son 
of  Kohath  (Num.  iii.  27,  xxvi.  58  ;  1  Chr.  xxvi.  23,. 
In  the  reign  of  David  the  chief  of  the  family  west 
of  the  Jordan  was  Hashabiah  ;  while  on  the  east  in 
the  land  of  Gilead  were  Jerijah  and  his  brethren, 
"men  of  valour,"  over  the  Reubenites,  the  Gadites, 
and  the  half-tribe  of  Manasseh  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  30, 
31,  32). 

HEK'MONITES,  THE  (D^i»nn  :  'Ep- 
yuwi/ieiju:  Hermoniim).  Properly  "  the  Hermons," 
with  reference  to  the  three  summits  of  Mount 
Hermon  (Ps.  xlii.  6  [7]).  [HERMON,  p.  7906.] 

HES'RON  (PXn:  'Aer/Jcfo;  Alex.  'A<rp<fyt  ; 
ffesron).'  HEZRON,'  the  son  of  Reuben  (Num. 
xxvi.  6).  Our  translators  followed  the  Vulg.  in 
adopting  this  form  of  the  name. 

HES'EONITES,  THE  (^Htfrin  :  6  'Ao-pww  ; 
Alex.  6  'Affpwvei  :  Hesronttae).  Descendant*  of 
Hesron,  or  Hezron,  the  son  of  Reuben  (Num. 
xxvi.  6). 

HEZ'KONITES,  THEprwnn  :  6'Affpwl: 
Hesronitae).  A  branch  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  de 
scendants  of  Hezron,  the  son  of  Pharez  (Num. 
xxvi.  21). 


cxvi 


HUPHAMITES,  THE 


HU'PHAMITES,  THE  ('Da-inn:  om.  in 
LXX. :  Hu,phamitae\  Descendants  of  Huphara  of 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin  (Num.  xxvi.  39). 


I,  J 


ISH'MAELITE.  [ISHMAEL,  p.  893  6.] 
IS'RAELITE  (^MT|^:  'IfCpa-nXir-ns ;  Alex. 
'lffp.a.t)\e(TT\s  :  de  Jesraeli).  In  2  Sam.  xvii.  25, 
Ithra,  the  father  of  Amasa,  is  enlled  "  an  Israelite," 
or  more  correctly  "  the  Israelite,"  while  in  1  Chr. 
ii.  17  he  appears  as  "  Jether  the  Ishmeelite."  The 
latter  is  undoubtedly  the  true  reading,  for  unless 
Ithra  had  been  a  foreigner  thero  would  have  been 
no  need  to  express  his  nationality.  The  LXX.  and 

Vulg.  appear  to  have  read  ^NjntS  "  Jezreelite." 
IZ'EHABITES,  THE  0")Wn  :  6  'Iwadp ; 

Alex.  6  2actp  :  Jesaaritae).  A  family  of  Kohathite 
Levites,  descended  from  Izhar  the  son  of  Kohath 
(Num.  iii.  27)  :  called  also  in  the  A.  V.  "  Izharites." 

IZ'HARITES,  THE  (nwn :  6  'Ivaapi, 
Iffffadp,  6  'Icrffaapi ;  Alex.  6  'iffvaapl,  'iffffapl,  6 
'Itcaapi :  Isaari,  Isaaritae}.  The  same  as  the  pre 
ceding.  In  the  reign  of  David  Shelomith  was  the 
chief  of  the  family  (1  Chr.  xxiv.  22),  and  with  his 
brethren  had  charge  of  the  treasure  dedicated  for 
the  Temple  (1  Chr.  xxvi.  23,  30). 

JAH  (H11 :  Ktpios :  Dominus).  The  abbre 
viated  form  of  "  Jehovah,"  used  only  in  poetry. 
It  occurs  frequently  in  the  Hebrew,  but  with  a  single 
exception  (Ps.  Ixviii.  4)  is  rendered  "Lord"  in 
the  A.  V.  The  identity  of  Jah  and  Jehovah  is 
strongly  marked  in  two  passages  of  Isaiah  (xii.  2, 
xxvi.  4),  the  force  of  which  is  greatly  weakened  by 
the  English  rendering  "  the  Lord."  The  former  of 
these  should  be  translated  "  for  my  strength  and 
song  is  JAH  JEHOVAH"  (comp.  Ex.  xv.  2) ;  auct 
the  latter,  "  trust  ye  in  Jehovah  for  ever,  for  in 
JAH  JEHOVAH  is  the  rock  of  ages."  "  Praise  ye 
the  Lord,"  or  Hallelujah,  should  be  in  all  cases 
"  praise  ye  Jah."  In  Ps.  Ixxxix.  8  [9]  Jah  stands 
in  parallelism  with  "  Jehovah  the  God  of  hosts  " 
in  a  passage  which  is  wrongly  translated  in  our 
version.  It  should  be  "  0  Jehovah,  God  of  hosts, 
who  like  thee  is  strong,  0  Jah  ! " 

JAH'LEELITES,  THE  (^&6n»n:  6  'A\- 
\ij\i :  Jalelitae).  A  branch  of  the  tribe'  of  Zebulon, 
descendants  of  Jahleel  (Num.  xxvi.  26). 

JAH'ZEELITES,  THE  (^«yn»n  :  6 
'Affn]\i :  Jetielitae}.  A  branch  of  the  Naph- 
talites,  descended  from  Jahzeel  (Num.  xxvi.  48). 

JES'UITES,  THE  (W]:  6  'lecrou?:  Jes- 
fuitae).  A  family  of  the  tribe  of  Asher  (Num. 
xxvi.  44). 

JES'URUN.  [JESHURUN.] 

JEW  (n-irp),  JEWS  (Dn-i.T,  ch.  pan-iiT 

in  Ezr.  and  Dan.).  Originally  "man,  or  men  of 
Judah."  The  term  first  makes  its  appearance 
just  before  the  Captivity  of  the  ten  tribes,  and 


JOSEDECH 

then  is  used  to  denote  the  men  of  Judah  who 
held  Elath,  and  were  driven  out  by  Reziu  king 
of  Syria  (2  K".  xvi.  6).  Elath  had  been  token  by 
Azariah  or  Uzziah,  and  made  a  colony  of  Judah 
(2  K.  xiv.  22).  The  men  of  Judah  in  prison  with 
Jeremiah  (Jer.  xxxii.  1 2)  are  called  "  Jews  "  in 
our  A.  V.,  as  are  those  who  deserted  to  the  Chal 
deans  (Jer.  xxxviii.  19),  and  the  fragments  of  the 
tribe  which  were  dispersed  in  Moab,  Edom,  and 
among  the  Ammonites  (Jer.  xl.  11).  Of  these 
latter  were  the  confederates  of  Ishmael  the  son  of 
Nethaniah,  who  were  of  the  blood-royal  of  Judah 
(Jer.  xli.  3).  The  fugitives  in  Egypt  (Jer.  xliv.  1) 
belonged  to  the  two  tribes,  and  were  distinguished 
by  the  name  of  the  more  important ;  and  the  same 
general  term  is  applied  to  those  who  were  carried 
captive  by  Nebuchadnezzar  (Jer.  Iii.  28,  30)  as 
well  as  to  the  remnant  which  was  left  in  the  land 
(2  K.  xxv.  25 ;  Neh.  i.  2,  ii.  16,  &c.).  That  the 
term  Yghudi  or  "  Jew  "  was  in  the  latter  history 
used  of  the  members  of  the  tribes  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin  without  distinction  is  evident  from 
the  case  of  Mordecai,  who,  though  of  the  tribe  of 
Benjamin,  is  called  a  Jew  (Esth.  ii.  5,  &c.),  while 
the  people  of  the  Captivity  are  called  "  the  people 
of  Mordecai  "  (Esth.  iii.  6).  After  the  Captivity 
the  appellation  was  universally  given  to  those  who 
returned  from  Babylon. 

JEWS'  LANGUAGE,  IN  THE  (HH-irV). 
Literally  "  Jewishly :"  for  the  Hebrew  must  be 
taken  adverbially,  as  in  the  LXX.  ('Iou8ai'(rri)  and 
Vulgate  (Judaice}.  The  term  is  only  used  of  the 
language  of  the  two  southern  tribes  after  the  Cap 
tivity  of  the  northern  kingdom  (2  K.  xviii.  26, 
28  ;  2  Chr.  xxxii.  18;  Is.  xxxvi.  11,  13),  and  of 
that  spoken  by  the  captives  who  returned  (Neh. 
xiii.  24).  It  therefore  denotes  as  well  .the  pure 
Hebrew  as  the  dialect  acquired  during  the  Cap 
tivity,  which  was  characterized  by  Aramaic  forms 
and  idioms.  Elsewhere  (Is.  xix.  18)  in  the  poetical 
language  of  Isaiah  it  is  called  "  the  lip  of  Canaan." 

JEZ'ERITES,  THE  (n^»n  :  6  'leo-epf; 
Alex.  6  'lea-pi ;  Jeseritae).  A  family  of  the  *,ribe 
of  Naphtali,  descendants  of  Jezer  (Num.  xxvi.  49). 

JEZ'REEL.  3.  (fojnt*:  'leCpaeA:  Jez- 
rahel).  The  eldest  son  of  "the  prophet  Hosea 
(Hos.  i.  4),  significantly  so  called  because  Jehovah 
said  to  the  prophet,  "  Yet  a  little  while  and  I  will 
avenge  the  blood  of  Jezreel  upon  the  house  oi 
Jehu,"  and  "  I  will  break  the  bow  of  Israel  in  the 
valley  of  Jezreel." 

JEZ'REELITE 

Alex.  'ItrparjXfTTjs,  once  2  K.  ix.  21  'l£pcw?AiT7js  '• 
Jezrahelita).  An  inhabitant  of  Jezreel  (1  K.  xxi. 
1,  4,  6,  7,  15,  16;  2  K.  ix.  21,  25).  . 

JEZREELI'TESS 

Alex.  Elfya.TrjXf'iTLS,  ' 
Jezrahelitis,  Jezrddites,  Jezraelitis).  A  woman 
of  Jezreel  (1  Sam.  xxvii.  3,  xxx.  5  ;  2  Sam.  ii.  2. 
iii.  2  ;  1  Chr.  iii.  1). 

JO'SEDECH  (p"pfin>:  'loxreSe'/c:  Josedec). 
JEHOZADAK  the  son  of  Seraiah  (Hagg.  i.  12,  14 
ii.  2,4;  Zech.  vi.  11). 


END  OF  APPENDIX. 


LONDON:  WM.  CLOWES  AND  SONS,  LIMITED,  STAMFOKD  STKEET  AND  CHAIUNG  ciioss. 


m 

HI 


BS 


A  Dictionary  of  the  Bibl< 


.S68 
186.2 
vol.  3 


A2365